AnantU bags ET Now MODI Award

Anant National University's received the ET Now- Making Of Developed India (MODI) Award for its innovative pedagogy and curriculum. The award was in recognition of the innovative structure and implementation of its flagship programme, the Anant Fellowship. Launched in 2017, Anant Fellowship is a one-year full-time post-graduate programme designed as a multi-disciplinary immersion to introduce young practitioners and students to new ideas, knowledge, and skills to question, evaluate, invent, and redefine the Built Environment.

The MODI Award for Excellence in Education, EduTech, LearnTech & B-Schools was received by Nidhi Goyal, Associate Dean- External Engagement, Anant National University, on 17th February, 2018, at Taj Lands End, Mumbai.

Dr Sonam Mansukhani's paper gets published

AnantU faculty, Dr Sonam Mansukhani, presented a paper titled Children in Television and Films in India: 'Artists' or 'Labour', at the International Conference on Media, Culture and Ethics, in BITS Pilani on 9th -10th February, 2018.

The paper has been published in an edited volume on Media, Culture and Ethics by Macmillan Education (ISBN 938768719-8).

Home

The black trunks freshly painted: the smell overpowering the emotions of sadness which run through my body while leaving a small town only to be somewhere new and unknown.

I won't be walking through familiar streets, the ones I could walk blindfolded and still find home, home is never going to be here again, where it was for the past two years.

My 18 dolls, books, my brothers G.I-Joes, being tucked into the trunk and they fit so perfectly as if they were meant to be there and not in my rickety bookshelf anymore, the black freshly painted trunk is their home.

I cry leaving my friends behind only to hear my mother saying the new place has a better school, hills all around and one could actually feel a cloud passing right through you.

The journey to my new home was long and had broad winding roads which never seemed to end.

Stuck in that damp smell of the freshly whitewashed house, I could only feel my 10-year-old heart sink so deep that it almost reached my toes.

The TV is not where it is supposed to be, my books are here and there, some of them not found and I feel like they ran away, just like I wanted to.

Asking with great courage those kids I hear down the street if I could join them and play, we played the same games I use to in my previous home, only now the rules changed. I still played and played because now home was here.

12 years gone and 6 homes changed and now I know.

Home is moving from here to there with those 60 black trunks.

Home is those train rides we took crossing the green fields and the deep river waters to the plane journeys of trying to expect, to accept the unknown and call it home.

Home is in those black trunks, the curtains, the books, the bed sheets, those cassettes, the clothes they all smell of home.

Home isn't a state or a city or a house for me, it's where mumma would play Abba and carpenters and dance to it. Where baba would listen to Dylan while reading Nevil Shute.

Home is where my brother would laugh over how annoying and irritable I am or how my taste in men sucks.

Home is where my music plays loud even if it's the saddest playlist ever and my voice however low it might get, but it'll always be heard.

Home is where we would fight and sneak out at night to have tea. Home is not Leh, Calcutta or Lucknow.

Home is the smell of those freshly painted trunks which carry mamma's scented clothes and baba's polished shoes.

Home is where old photos all have new frames because the old ones broke while they were in the trunk which was in the truck while reaching home.

Home is where there will still be trunks not opened with treasures hidden and forgotten.

Home is the memories of yesterday and the ones we are building today.

Home is those late evenings spent in army clubs with Uncles and Aunty's and laughter which will soon be over but always cherished.

Home is the never-ending bickering and laughter of Mumma to ever cribbing and love of Baba.



- Ragini Bhowmik

Dr. Sonam on her experience at AnantU

Dr. Sonam Mansukhani is an associate professor at Anant National University. In her interview with the editor of ANUvacha, she talked about the exhilarating experience she has had at AnantU.

She says, "In my academic career, I have meandered through various paths in teaching and learning. There have been prescribed courses, some also coupled with prescribed content. I took them up and taught them in a format which constrained me and my sensibilities. The academic discussions questioned the intermingling of sociology, psychology, management and communication, all of them being my forte. My attempts at reasoning were met with dissent or stoic silence. However, I delivered out of compulsion and not out of choice. I often wondered where I was heading, if I should have a mere 'specialisation' approach, and if my so-called 'specialisation' could incorporate elements from other spheres, did that make me a lesser academician. I had no answers till I came across the Anant Fellowship Programme.

This programme offered me the freedom to come up with and frame a course that would prepare solutionaries to design, build and preserve a sustainable India. I thought to myself, that if the freedom had been given to conceive and conceptualize something, then perhaps I could fuse my core areas and devise skill-based modules to engage students. Bearing this in mind, I gave birth to 'Social Dynamics of organisations' to enable students to comprehend the internal and external dynamics of organisations. I wondered that I had so much to say in a limited span of five days. Thus, I tried making it as compact as possible. The course covered an understanding of organisations from a micro to a macro approach, focusing mainly on processes."

When asked how different was her experience with Fellows as compared to other students she has taught so far;

Dr. Sonam says, "My mind was full of apprehensions about Fellows' receptivity to the course. As this group had people from diverse education and work experience, my focus lay on the acceptance of the rationale behind the course and, of course, the execution as well. Contrary to my own expectations, my initial apprehensions receded into the background as I had an extremely responsive class with discussions and debates filling the classroom atmosphere in every session. I have loved reciprocal exchanges but this was on a completely different level. With them questioning me and me counter-questioning them, we explored a whole variety of processes. In their take-away session, every student had something to say about what he/she was taking away from the class. And they had a lot to say! The only challenge that I faced was to reiterate the overarching goal of my course so they could remain focused."

She concludes her journey so far at AnantU saying, "If this is not exhilarating, exciting or elevating for an academician, what is? The joy of exploring the linkages between disciplines, the passion of delivery and an equally passionate, if not more, sense of responsiveness from students, indeed have made my journey a memorable one."