International Seminar on Cities in History

 The Department if History is organising an International Seminar on Cities in History on 16th and 17th December, 2014. The distinguished scholars who are presenting papers include Prof Jim Masselos, Prof Miki Desai, Prof.Parween Hassan,Prof Ishrat Alam,Radhika Sesan,Dr.Sajjad Shahid,Prof Stephen Blake,Prof Lalit Joshi, Shireen Moosvi and many more.The first day was an interesting day with papers from all over.

The first Ph.d Degree of Women's Studies at the University of Hyderabad

 Today, the 12th December, 2014, was a very important day for me. We had the viva for the first Ph.d degree in Women's Studies. This was a dream come true. Since 1984 we were hoping to have a Centre for Women's. Studies in our University and we had only a Cell.Inspite of various attempts to upgrade it to a Centre we could never do it.Finally in 2008 this Centre was started and now officially we could teach an M.Phil and Ph.d programme. I had three students who had submitted their thesis together and it was just a matter of luck whose reports could come in first and this was of a Chinese student Han who worked on a comparative study of career women in India and China.She became the first student to get a Ph.d in this Centre.

As a Chairperson of the History committee there was another viva today for a History student and we had a lunch together to commemorate this with our students Han from Women' s Studies and Sabita kumar from history along with the two experts Prof Kiran kumari from Tirupati and Prof.Vibha Tirpathi from Benaras Hindu University and Prof.K.P.Rao and Rajesh our History faculty.

Meeting an old School friend

 Thanks to face book I could meet an old school friend Sarala who has now settled in U.K. We had studied together in school and after ninth class drifted away. Luckily she had come to Hyderabad for a wedding and we could meet at home on 3rd December, 2014 and revive so many memories of the earlier days. After she left, I spent the whole evening looking for old photographs and searching for her photo and could locate one in which we were in Girls Guides dress. We were all so passionate about being Guides. We took active part in it and also went on Camping and participated in a number of activities. Prior to 1909, Scouting was only for boys but when  Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting,  found that a large number of girls were also interested in  Scouting, he  decided that girls should have their own separate movement, and the Girl Guides were founded in the UK in 1910. Hence we got the benefit of this and could become a part of this movement through our school. We wore our dress with such pride, along with the shoulder knot, of the Group colour on the left shoulder and the  Badges, same as the Boy Scouts. The girls were often adorned with badges indicating a Guide's achievements and responsibilities. Both Sarala and I were just the beginners and Saroj Bala was the one who had the maximum number of badges. I hope we are able to locate her also one of these days. Sarala thanks for finding the time to come over.

Orange the world in 16 days campaign

 All around the world from 25th Nov, the International day for the Elimination of Violence to 10th December, the Human Rights day we celebrate16 days of activism against Gender based violence.

I was invited as a key note speaker in a programe on How safe are young girls in Telangana on 3rd DECEMBER, 2014, organised by Shaheen and Action Aid at Woodbridge hotel.The other participants included Tripurana Venkataratnam the Chairperson of the State Commission for women, Ameena Tahseen faculty of Women' s Studies at Maulana Azad National University and Mrs.Ruchika Sharma the Mrs.South Asia International, 2014 and od course Jameela Nishat of Shaheen. There was also a lovely Kawwali on Violence against women.In all a day well spent.