After an extremely long break in updating this site (over a year!) the Tata-Dhan Academy is happy to resume publishing with this video produced by the eight batch of PDM students titled “The Beginning…”
The video was produced as part of the “Audio-Visual Communication for Development” elective course offered with the support of DHAN Foundation’s Centre for Development Communication. Our sincere thanks go to P Krishnamurthi and his team who were able to put the polishing touches on this video.
By Mohd. Rashid
In my college days, going to sleep late and getting up late was the general schedule for me. One Sunday, though, I got up early and was busy getting ready to go to the book market at Daryaganj, New Delhi.
I asked Ahmed, my roommate, if he was coming with me. He replied, “Do not go today. I have had a bad dream about you.”
As I mentioned in a comment in the last post, one of the classes offered this term for PDM 8 students is Specialized Writing. In this class, we try to go beyond simply writing term papers and reports, and explore different types of writing. One type of writing we were exploring was journalistic writing—in particular, writing a press release. Here are three press releases offered by the students in this class. (There were a few creative liberties taken, particularly in terms of quotations, since this was done as an in-class assignment, but I think they still manage to capture the spirit of the events).
By Lim Mate
In TDA hostel.
Nobody knows about the existence of the wonder table which was hidden in the closet in a tight unserious garage-like room behind the library. Nobody was truly enthralled to get a hand with the flat red-black bat, hitting the feathery light golden ball bouncing on the table. In fact, it’s different from volleyball and cricket. Then the sports fortnight was about to begin.
I started teaching at the Tata-Dhan Academy in the third term of the seventh batch of students undergoing the PDM—the Programme in Development Management. During that term, I taught a class in writing and another course in spoken communication, and it was very exciting for me to be back in the classroom again after more than a year without teaching. I knew, of course, that this classroom experience was only a fraction of what makes learning at the Academy interesting, but had not yet had much of a chance to see what the students really did in the field. I also knew that although I could teach English well, I did not really know much about what happened in the field beyond what I had read in a handful of student reports or heard about in student presentations. So, at the end of August in 2007, with my knowledgeable mentor and guide, Sangeetha, I got my first real chance to let the roles of student and teacher change, and have my students teach me about their field locations during my visits to them in the field.
Continue reading “Student Lenses”
Students of Tata-Dhan Academy follow a unique tradition of organizing ethnic dinners themed to represent one of the states represented by any of the participants in the batch. This time, it was the turn of state Bihar, and students of PDM 8 organized a cultural event in which students from Bihar shared information about their cultural, religious, and social practices; of course, regional food was also provided. It is the only event organized at the Academy where the students are the hosts and faculties and other staff members enjoy the supper.
Here are a few photos from BUD Lab 2, PDM 8, Term 3. More coverage of the two-day lab—and possibly more photos—to come later.
By Sumit Vij
The cultural difference between people makes them behave differently, and analyzing this difference can sometimes be useful. The people sometimes like other’s behavior and sometimes it is a taboo for them and their society. My room partner really enjoys eating beef, and I readily accept his behavior; but when it comes to my other classmates, they are against eating of beef, as it is a taboo in Hindu religion. Cows in the Hindu religion are symbols of piety and they are treated as dieties. This difference, a result of culture, differs from country to country. V. Raghunathan, in his book Games Indian Play: Why we are the way we are has brought this difference in a different perspective—different in the sense of how an Indian behaves when it comes to their own personal interest and how much they co-operate in the name of philanthropy and humanity. It is a brilliant attempt to understand the Indianess of an Indian using the properties of game theory and behavioral economics to provide an insight into the difficult conundrum of why we are behaving in this way. The author clearly explains the attitude Indians have, giving appropriate examples of their rationality and characteristics like co-operation and collaboration. The other impressive component of the book is that the examples are taken from everyday Indian life and retold in a way to relate to the behavior of Indians.
To do this, I have been using Moodle, a web-based course management system, to host online discussions and facilitate assignment submissions and exams. I have been using it for three of my courses this term—Managerial Oral Communication, Written Analysis and Communication, and Academic and Professional Writing—and I really have to say thanks to the PDM 8 students who have been very flexible in adapting to the new system. They have been so accommodating, in fact, that when I informally polled them to find out if they preferred a paper-based midterm or a computer-based midterm, the majority of the batch opted for the computer-based exam.
Continue reading “PDM 8: Building People’s Organisations for Development, Natarampalli”
The DHAN Academy 