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.

SFIH India Quiz: on September 12th

Hi ppl,

Our flagship event, the India Quiz is scheduled to be held on September 12th, 2008 at Raman Auditorium (of course IIT Kharagpur, where else?!). The registration starts at 5.30P.M. Each team can have a maximum of 3 students. The event is dedicated to Teacher's Day, so junta , expect quite a few questions on teachers. For queries, mails may be sent to sfih.iitkgp@gmail.com.

History and Our Continued Phlegmatic Attitude

2 weeks ago, on a Friday, when we usually have our team discussions, I mooted a discussion on parts of Indian history being dubbed as mythology with most sections of the media rubbishing any attempts at rationalizing that part of our history. As usual, we had people on both sides of the fence and in some cases on the same side yet differing on more, if I may say so, “procedural” issues. In other words, they differed on how to go about sensitising the “me-generation” about our history and its relevance to our present and the future. However, the flow of the discussion was radically diverted to altogether another aspect of the issue when one member felt that the topic wasn’t even worth discussing and this made my day. Why? Because the idea behind the topic was to project history as a source of nationalistic pride, from which one could draw inspiration so long as it remains factually true. More importantly, i wanted the team to discourage a total stolidity to our past. So when this team member questioned the relevance of the topic to her life, it got all my argumentative juices flowing and that is when I started enjoying the discussion. What was even more encouraging was the fact that most of the team too felt that history could never be ignored but one could not remain tied to the past to the extent of deifying it. In short, it appeared as if all of us had ganged up against the dissenting member and yet she held her fort. I realised I had my task cut out for the rest of my stay in IIT which was to go all out against this vapid indifference to our social evolution.

Samskrit Workshop

Samskritsambhashamnam has been reasonably successful with 25 students showing keen interest in understanding the language of god also considered as "DEVBHASHA".The success of this the workshop indicates the existence of people who have deep respect for "Bharatiya samskriti"
Feedback from the participants ensures the quality delivered during the course of the week long workshop.SFIH also thank Sh. Pranav ji for accepting out invitation and helping us to make a good beginning.
Thanks to all the participants for making this program a successful.

Tibet Crisis : India's role and its Implications

Is Tibet no longer a issue for India worth fighting for ?

India has studiously kept away from commenting on the Tibet situation.India is distressed on violence and the killing of innocent people in Lhasa.India's has also received appreciation from China on its stand over the issue.India has also announced not to allow any anti-china activity on the Indian soil.

SFIH & Samskrita Bharti Presents A Workshop on Samskrit

SFIH & Samskrit Bharti

Proudly Presents
SAMSKRITASAMBHASANAVARG

a shorterm course on samskrit

The course is organized by Samskrit Bharti - the world's largest organization in field of Samskrit.

• Duration :-15 hrs
• Dates:-7th March - 13th March
• Timings :-6pm to 8 pm
• Registration Fees :- 100/- Only
• Contact :-sift.iitkgp@gmail.com

for more information log on to :- www.samskrita-bharti.org

STUDENTS' FORUM FOR INDIA'S HERITAGE

The Students' Forum for India’s Heritage (SFIH), is an initiative which has been inspired largely by the International Forum for India's Heritage (IFIH, www.ifih.org) - an international body of eminent scholars and intellectual on Indian culture & heritage. Therefore the SFIH charter draws heavily from the charter of IFIH.