The Poor Indian Artisan

India's cultural heritage is unarguably an immensely rich and by all means intriguing to explore. A pinch of research work in this vast ocean of desi (traditional) art works has fittingly revealed not just the intricacy of the art pieces and the prowess of the artisans but also the threat of extinction these cultural pillars of India are up against.
Though these are generally region-centric, a keen observation evidently reveals the
common problems of these crafts which have undoubtedly doomed this potentially prosperous arena into a partial gloom.
The poor artisans are exquisitely camouflaged by insidious and deceitful middlemen who rake in their profits. These shortcomings have left the artisans in dire straits.

Poor market structure to uplift these treasures of our nation coupled with lack of awareness among the general public on these issues stands the foremost spoiler in this regard.


With the veils parting and truths being excavated, the stage is rightly set for a large scale awakening on this issue.The sanctity of these estimable artworks need to be preserved, the artisans ought to be encouraged in every possible way and most importantly, the money made must not be allowed to play up in the hands of the opportunistic people.


All these when carefully executed would unquestionably regenerate the
crafts to the pinnacle of success

This post was originally contributed by Raghav (a first year Member of SFIH, IIT Kharagpur)

Jigyasa - The India Quiz

The India Quiz was held on Friday, the 12th of September 2008 at Raman Auditorium. Though the registrations were to start by 5.30 pm, participants began pouring in by 5.00 pm itself, and soon we had a huge quizzing populace thronging our three desks. The team size had been kept limited to 3, and many 2-membered teams and individual contestants showed up as well, some of which were then paired off with one another for more efficient participation. Ultimately we registered around 70 teams, translating to around 160-180 contestants, and I doubt if any other quiz in IIT-Kgp has seen that kind of an attendance.

And then we began with the Prelims. There were 30 India-based questions, from a mixed bag of Mythology, Technology, Entertainment, Business and General, with a higher-than-average difficulty level. The prelims saw eight teams making the cut. They were subjected to four rounds of hard core quizzing...

The first round was based on Mythology, which, for a change,(with respect to quizzing at IIT-Kgp) did not refer to the Greek/Norse Panthenon, but Indian Mythology instead. 16 Questions later, we had our second round of General questions, based on India of course. This round saw a mixture of excitement and anxiety due to the eliminations due after the round.

The last two rounds were both mixed bags of India based questions. The top four teams gave a brilliant display of quizzing prowess, with intelligent guesses and calculated deductions. Many hi-fives and fist thumpings later, we had our winners. "Mostly Harmless", not very true to their name, comprising of Ankit Sethi, Neeraj Goswami and Aditya Mani Jha, had won Jigyasa. They were followed by Varun Singh, Aditya Sriram and Saurav Das,"The Iconoclasts". The 2nd runners up were "The Quizzards of Oz", Kapil Subramanian and Rahul Nanda.

So that was Jigyasa 2008. We hope to make the next edition of Jigyasa better.