Seminar Hall

National Level Seminar

N. G. Acharya & D. K. Marathe College, Chembur, Mumbai organized a UGC & ICSSR sponsored two day National Seminar on "the Dynamics of the Caste System and Anti Caste Movements in the Twentieth Century on 27th and 28th January, 2012.

The Seminar was organized in association with the "Centre for International Strategic Development Studies", Mumbai as a tribute to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia who was a passionate crusader against the Caste System. The objective of the Seminar was to initiate a dialogue amongst academicians, social activist and the youth to understand the ?ner nuances of the resilient caste system.

The two day Seminar was attended by about 100 participants comprising of 12 Resource Persons from various parts of the country, College teachers from different colleges in Mumbai and other cities of Maharashtra, Social Activists, Journalists and college students.

The Seminar was inaugurated by Dr. J. V. Naik, Former Head, Dept. of History, University of Mumbai. In his inaugural address, Dr. Naik spoke about the baneful effects of the caste system on the Indian Society. He traced the efforts made by Dadoba Pandurang Tarkhadkar, pioneer of the movement for the annihilation of caste. According to Dr. Naik, Dadoba"s treatise "Dharmavivachan" written in Marathi in I843, enunciates seven tenets which provide a rational ideology nascent social reform movement in Western India.

Dr. Anand Kumar, Professor of Sociology JNU delivered the keynote address. He congratulated the college for choosing this topic for the seminar particularly because Dr. Lohia, a selfless, uncompromising patriot was educated in Mumbai. He had made this city his launching pad to ?ght against the caste system. Dr. Anand Kumar said that Lohia dreamt of India becoming a Universal society but he expressed concern that the rural-urban face of caste is not connecting. With reservation and more reservation, the capacity of the state is going down. He also emphasized on gender equality, inter-caste marriages and a caste based census.

Dr. P. G. Jogdand, Dean of Arts faculty and Head Dept. of Sociology, University of Mumbai chaired the Inaugural session. Addressing the audience he made some observations about the Dynamics of the caste system. According to him an interesting phenomenon about caste is that as a system its is dying, but sub caste has become a reality. Endogamy is the essence of the caste system which has helped the caste system to survive. According to Prof. Jogdand, Caste can be demolished only where is a change in the state of mind.

The two day seminar was structured around six sessions in all. On the first day the Inaugural session was followed by two technical sessions.

The theme of the first session was "Historical Review". Resource persons and paper presenters spoke on Anti Caste Movements in ancient and medieval India, Anti Caste struggle in Maharashtra and Conceptual and Comparative perspective of Jains and the Caste System.

On the second day of the seminar, the ?rst technical session centered around "Caste System - Perspectives and Relevance" as its themes. It was chaired by Dr. R. M. Pal, Editor PUCL Bulletin, paper presentations in this session included Caste and Politics in Bengal, Enterprise : A step to uplift the Dalit, "Casteless Society - A dream or reality". Possibility of a casteless egalitarian society in India Constitutional Perspective.

The second session was on "A Casteless Egalitarian Society". Papers presented in this session included Lohia"s views of Casteism and their relevance and many papers reflecting caste in Indian Literature and Dr. Ambedkar"s vision for Anti Caste Movement in India.

At the Valedictory session, Dr. V. L. Dharurkar, Professor and Head, Dept. of Journalism, Dr. B.A.M.U., Aurangabad spoke about the Dynamics of caste in Modern Indian Politics, Dr. Dharurkar said that caste based politics has become a vital phenomenon in Indian society. Politics exploits al kinds of loyalties in society to gain and consolidate Political Positions Caste is one organization with which people are associated. Democracy in India can be a way of life only when we rebuild India based on free and fair values. There is need for a fresh review of the caste system to make democracy in India more viable.

The Chief Guest for the valedictory session was Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Dean of Faculty of Science and Professor Department of Defence - Strategic Studies, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. He spoke of Ram Manohar Lohia"s views on National Security. He also emphasized the need to eliminate the feeling of social insecurity among the socially and economically downtrodden.

At the end of the valedictory session, a trophy was presented for the best Paper Presentation to Prof. Lalitha Dhara of Ambedkar College, Mumbai.

The college acknowledges its gratitude to the U.G.C. and I.C.S.S.R. for its ?nancial assistance, to the CISDS for technical support and guidance and to all participants for their involvement in making the Seminar success.

One Day National Seminar Cum Workshop

Role of Computer Mediated Communication in Higher Education with Special Reference To Blogging Since 1990 there has been a revolution in the area of Information Technology in India. Computers and use of internet have become common in all strata of society, both in urban as well as in rural areas.

New technology is more intrinsically engaging in today"s college students because they are using many of it daily and internet is highly integrated into their daily lives. In such a scenario it is imperative for teachers to ponder over how to use this new technology for higher education.

There is also a possibility to make a career in social media and students" need to be given guidance to prepare for it. Keeping this goal in mind the Department of Psychology organized a one day National Seminar on "Role of Computer Mediated Communication in Higher Education with special reference to Blogging" on 8th December 2011.

Mr.Sanjay Mehta, a social media entrepreneur, COO of social waves, was invited as the chief guest.

Prof. Mangesh Karandikar, Asst. Professor in the Dept. of Communication and Journalism, University of Mumbai came as chief guest for the valedictory function.

Apart from them Mr. Shailesh Bharatwasi, an online journalist and the owner of Hindugm, a web magazine, came from Delhi to teach out students how to make blogs.

Mr. Kanchan Karai, a well known Marathi blogger was invited to give an overview of the Marathi blog world. Prof. Shashi Mishra, HOD of Dept. of Hindi from M. D. College, Parel and Retd. Prof. Sangeeta Sahajwani from National College were invited to speak about the uses of blogging in Higher Education.

Besides these resource persons, many teachers, students from our college as well as from other colleges enthusiastically participated in the seminar. Both teachers and students presented papers on the following sub-themes of the seminar-

Role of blogging in Politics
Role of internet in Social Activities
Psychosocial impact of internet on youth
 

Eight teachers and 14 students presented papers and approximately 100 students attended the seminar.

Prof. Maniusha Patwardhan and Prof. Rina Dhonde from Bhavans College won the best paper"s trophy and among students Mr. Akash Wankhede from F. Y. B. A. won the best paper"s trophy.

Book Exhibition : Books on IT, Social Media and Psychology were displayed in the seminar hall on the day of the seminar.

The seminar enthused students to make follow up queries about social media and blogging.

Seminar on "Challenges in Mathemathics Education"

Mathematics Department organized a one day university level seminar on "Challenges in Mathematics" on 18th Sept. 2011. This seminar was sponsored by the UGC.

Research in Mathematics education has developed into an extensive field of study with its own concepts, theories and methods. There is a need for teachers of Mathematics to keep themselves abreast with the latest developments in the field of education & so we thought of having a seminar on this topic.

Dr. Hemchandra Pradhan, Director of Homi Bhaba Centre for Science Education inaugurated the seminar & delivered a keynote address. He explained the strength, beauty & usefulness of Mathematics. He said "Mathematics is an art, Mathematics is a language of all sciences, Mathematics is major tool in the hands of all engineers. Mathematics is the key for success to any business man, Mathematics is needed for estimation, it is also needed for prediction. Mathematics is universal truth, it does not change with time & place. It was one of the most beautiful & effective keynote address."

Keynote address was followed by Dr. Subramanium"s presentation. His topic was "Mathematics Education at School Level". Dr. Subramanium is from HBSC & he has done many projects on school level education. He explained how minutely a teacher should observe & study the "Common mistakes" of students. These mistakes should be classi?ed & only then a teacher can locate the weakness of a student & help him. He also explained how a concept of Fractions can be made easy. Among the participants there were few school teachers & they highly appreciated this session.

IIIrd session was conducted by Dr. Anil Vaidya from Vaze College. The topic was "Constructivism in Mathematics Teaching", It is one of the effective tool for teaching maths,  developed by educationist. It says that don"t state the results but develop the results, construct the proof by asking questions, encourage students to find the concept on their own. He explained the concept with examples. He also discussed the strength & shortcomings of this technique.

IVth session was conducted by Dr. Mangala Manohar from Dept. of Mathematics. Her topic was "Challenges in Mathematics education in the fast changing world."

Technological advances & commercialization is having it"s own effect on education. On one hand it is Youtube, Mathematical software"s to make mathematics teaching effective & on the other hand demand for "Pure Mathematics" is decreasing.

Subjects like "Numerical Analysis, Graph Theory, Combinatories, differential Equitation"s" have increasing demand since they have lot of applications in the commercial world but the most beautiful breaches of pure Mathematics like Topology, Algebra Number Theory are becoming less popular which is not a good sign. She said these beautiful & important branches of Mathematics should be given heritage status &we must preserve these theories.

Prof. Dr. Limaye from I.I.T. was chief guest for the validictory function. He summarized all the session in his speech. He also shared some of his experiences in teaching maths for I.I.T. students.

For this seminar along with college teachers we had invited some school teachers from nearby area since the topic of the seminar was useful for them. All the participants enthusiastically participated in discussion & question-answer session. Many of them have expressed their wish to have more programmes of this type. School teachers expressed their wish to have a special programme for school level Mathematics teaching.