Plenary Talk

 International Women's Day celebrations continues with a two day National Seminar on, ICT innovations for quality enhancement in Higher education organised by the Raj Bahadur Venkat Ram Reddy College in Hyderabad. This College was established in 1954,by Raja Bahadur and today has about 2500  girls in different courses mostly in the Sciences. It has it's own hostels. The second day I gave a plenary talk and participated in the discussion on Emerging trends in the use of  ICT in Higher Education. Along with me Prof Ajit Kumar Reddy, from the Department of Chemistry at National Institute of Technology, Warangal and Prof. P. V. Sudha, the Head of the Computer Science and Engineering, Osmania University participated. Being the only Social Science person, I spoke about my experiences with developing web pages on Historical themes at IIIT in Hyderabad back in 2004 and how ICT can help in improving the quality of education and be useful both to the teacher and taught.

Lecture, Ladies Club Hyderabad

 Today, I had a lecture in the Wednesday club a ladies club on Women's Status in India and there were about forty to forty five women from Hyderabad, who had retired from various jobs or who were home makers attending this. It was a very interesting experience for all these members, the number going to above one fifty in membership and they meet in some ones house and invite a speaker to discuss an issue. I met many elite women of Hyderabad. Met retired IAS officers who presented me her book and others came from different walks of life. I was told that this club was started by Ladies in ICRISAT and since Suresh worked here for thirty eight years, I had met many of them Mrs. Swindale, Mrs. Virmani .Mrs.Reddy in the early 1980's. Also met Ms.Asha Reddy with whom I had interacted at the Telengana History Congress and she and her husband Santosh Reddy, have donated their family home, the Mungala fort at Kodad near Surya pet for a Cultural Centre of Telangana with a focus on research in History. What I really liked about the programme was that at the end of it, I was felicitated with a bag. When, I opened it at home, I found a packet of Almonds and Cashew nuts in it. I thought to my self, only women can think like this. What a beautiful gesture and one that is so useful. We get hundreds of Momentoes at different places where we go, made of wood and all kind of material. Our drawing rooms are already so crowded and so are our offices that there is no space to keep these and yet we keep collecting these and accepting them for it would not be very polite to refuse these gestures of love by the organisers.  Here was such a reasonable gift for saying  thankyou. Indeed only a women's group can think of a gift like this one which will not be adding to the already crowded space.

The International Women's Day celebrations , 2020

 Maulan Azad National Urdu University is organising a series of lectures on Gender in collaboration with the Internal Complaints Committee(ICC). The International Women's Day celebrations were ushered in by the Department of Women's Education, Centre for Women's Studies and the ICC and my talk. I gave a talk on the International Women's day and issues related to Gender. The ERASMUS Scholar Garcia Peter Sabina who is a faculty in the Department of Gender Studies in Bonn, Germany and is attached to our Centre for a week al

so attended and shared her   experiences if Gender issue in Germany.

8th March, 2020

 On this 8th of March, a very happy International Women's Day to my family, extended family, students, friends and Colleagues. Let us hope we are able to create a violence free world where there is equality, equity and respect. I am very proud of the fact that nine of my students,who have done their M. Phil and Ph. D with me are working in different Central and State Universities in India, besides many in different colleges and NGO's and three abroad with NGO's and Publishing Companies. Be it my history students or my Women's Studies students they have carried forward the flag of equality and gender justice in their own ways in teaching, in research, in interacting and encouraging other students to be gender sensitive. I am indebted to you all and those other thousands of men and women who for ages have championed the cause of women. All this makes me belive that there is indeed light after the tunnel.

The Erasmus Scholar

 The Erasmus Scholar from Freier University and  Margherita von Brentano Center for Gender StudiesBerlin, Germany, Dr.Garcia Peter Sabina came to the Centre for Women's Studies and interacted with the students and various research scholars.This was her first visit to our University and India.She attended a class room  lecture of mine in the History Department and also discussed her experience of India and Germany with our students. I have sixty four students in a compulsory history course on, Medieval India that I am teaching this semester  to the second years and this batch of students are very bright, enthusiastic, noisy, and they ask a number of questions in between my lecture and at the end of it. I have to keep telling them in between please be quiet for suddenly if they want to share something with their friend next to them, they cannot wait for the class of an hour to end and they have to share it immediately. If one student is asking a question the others start talking amonst themselves and think this is their 'me time', and the conversation is between me and that individual student and it does not concern them and I have to remind them to pay attention to what is being duscussed. I think of them as school kids and have to keep repeating please be quiet and pay attention to what is happening at this moment. Sabina found this very interesting and said their students were far less in number and very quiet compared to our students. I told her that our optional courses had less number of students and they are more mature. This was our compulsory course and a second semester class and the students a  little immature but much too enthusiastic and eager to know many new things, get their many doubts cleared and very much involved in the course and I kind of like it. There will always be a group of students following me to my room after their class still discussing and talking and only rushing back when told that the next class has begun.

The International Women's day celebration in the Centre for Women's Studies

 The International Women's day celebration in the Centre for Women's Studies in the University of Hyderabad ended with the Validectory function of the second International Conference, organised in collaboration with Centre for Social Exclusion and Dean Student welfare. Prof. Afroz Alam from the Media Studies in MANUU gave the Validectory address and spoke of a Project where they were examining the voting behaviors of men and women and what they found about the different behaviors of the two sexes. Prof. Devi Prasad Juvvadi, the Director of the Centre for good governance shared his view on Agriculture in the rural areas and empowerment. This was followed by talks from Prof. Jyoti, Dean School of Management and Prof. Sarad Jyotsana Rani, Dean Humanities. Prof. Ajailu shared her experience on Trafficking and I shared my experience with the Mahila Samakya, the Government of India Programme in which I was nominated to the core team as a member for two terms and was about to see, guide and work with this programme in six states. This programme showed how women in the rural areas excercised their agency there. Though we are involved in so many activities and programmes and we get worried if we can take in any thing further, these kind of activities give us a high and we feel happy to have made a small contribution. I am hoping we are able to bring out a publication out of this.

CWS, International Conference

 The Centre for Women's Studies, ushered in the International Women's month/day by organising the second International Conference on Rural Development, Social Dynamics and women welfare .This Conference will take place on  4 th and 5 th of March. This programme is done in collaboration with the Centre for the study of Social Exclusion and Inclusion and Dean Students welfare and Ending Conferences. The first day saw the inauguration where there was a lot of discussion on the concept of welfare.Our Dean, Prof Arun Kumar Patnaik gave a scholarly address on looking at welfare from different perspectives. Prof. Raj Mohan Rao the Head of CSSEIP looked at  rural dynamics and linked it to sustainable development.I also looked at the History of the International Women's Day and the long journey from welfare to development and empowerment and the three G's that are impediments for the empowerment of women, the attitude towards girl child, Gender violence and impact of Globalisation. After the tea break there were papers on minority status and I discussed the work and exploitation of the Beedi making women and girls and their impact on health. A fruitful day with a lot of activity and looking forward to tomorrow. A lot of efforts were put in by Rani Ratna Prabha a faculty at CSSEIP and Padmaja the Deputy Dean Student welfare for making this Conference a reality.