Yeh Yugantar Kya Hai?

The students of SIS (School of International Studies), Jawaharlal Nehru University hit upon the idea of organizing a festival with several goals in mind. These goals can be elucidated thus:

1. Exhibition and promotion of the intellectual diversity which is the hallmark of JNU in general and SIS in particular.
2. To organize an event which is different from the usual run of the mill programs that we see often in Delhi. This festival aims at staging events that combine the intellectual and leadership skills that are taught in the classroom with the inherent creativity that comes from being a campus that is the microcosm of India.
3. Another one of our goals is to have a quality festival for post-graduates in Delhi. While there are a number of festivals organized at the undergraduate level, we hardly see festivals that cater to the more mature postgraduate audiences. Thus, Yugantar hopes to be a forum for diversity and creativity for postgraduate students in Delhi, as well as serve as a centre of interaction between the various post-graduate institutes in the city. Having said that, it must be made clear that we aim at spreading this intellectual maturity to undergraduate students and hope for their active participation.
4. Last and the most important of our aims is to inculcate awareness about international issues and globalization, which are especially relevant in a world where nobody is isolated from the effects of the shifting sands of global events. Our aim will be to reach out to both postgraduate as well as undergraduate audiences and bring forth ideas on the vast array of political, economic and environmental dilemmas confronting our generation.

We have thought of seven main events for this festival, they are;

1. Quiz- The focus of this quiz will, in keeping with SIS tradition, will be on international issues that have become particularly relevant in our globalised world
2. Debate- The debate hopes to bring out the best in oratory skills and knowledge of international issues, and will, like the quiz, focus on the shifting sands of current international issues.
3. Macro-Solutions- This event hopes to channelize student creativity and their potential as leaders of tomorrow. This event will present the participants with economic, political and environmental problems challenging the global community today and ask them to come up with solutions for them.
4. UN Mock- This event, in keeping with the idea of spreading awareness of international issues, hopes the create a simulation of the UN General Assembly to discuss topics of present international relevance.
5. Situations- This event is purely fun and games, though it is an attempt to highlight the wit and presence of mind of the participants. The participating teams will be presented a highly incongruous situation and asked to perform a skit based on that.
6. One-act play- This event is an attempt to let students present their vision of the future world, and the problems it faces, particularly in the Indian context, through the creative medium of a one act play, not longer than 15 minutes in duration.
7. Classical music- No event is complete without having some outlet for musical creativity, and Yugantar wants to showcase the diversity of talent in the field of classical music and dispel popular notions about today's youth, and show that globalization can coexist with tradition.

Yugantar hopes to celebrate the great diversity that exists among the student population in Delhi, who come to this city from each and every corner of the subcontinent and indeed the whole world. We invite you to Yugantar.