Completed Manifesto Points:
Journo/Techie of the month
Bi-yearly recruitments
Semester Schedule in the beginning
All year competitions
Integrating creative and technical segments
Less UG centric Inquirer
Full team meeting once a month
More interactive social media
Less time lag between real events and articles
Posting teasers for Inquirer Articles
Followup articles in Inquirer(eg: Fresher’s Survey)
Partially Done:
Workshops for journo/tech eds: I had initially thought of having the workshop in the first semester. But it became logistically difficult to handle during the first semester because of Literati. The workshop for Technical Editors was planned for March immediately after minor 2. Prof. Subir from the Design Department was supposed to be conducting the Workshop. However, the college shut down just before minor-2, so we couldn’t go ahead with the workshop as planned.
Palimpsest portal for creative writing: Palimpsest portal was partially made, but after the BSP website got hacked, we lost the portal, as well as the entire site, was taken down. And when the institute shut down in March, no one could access it for work to be done. So we made a GitHub webpage for hosting content for Palimpsest (http://bspiitd.github.io/).
Series by professors: We did not have a series "solely" written by profs. We instead had a collaborative arrangement between students and profs, where profs answered questions verbally and later edited the article after we consolidated it (ROTM). Nevertheless, the main idea about the manifesto point was for "newer perspectives to come in and integrate as a part of BSP and increase representation" and that was done very well through the student-prof collaborations.
Regular points system
Citizen journalists
Incomplete
Points for PG participation: This was not done because the participation of PG in BSP activities was not enough to assign points. There was definitely more involvement of the PG students this year, due to PG+BSP WhatsApp groups and also series like Scholar’s Avenue and issues BSP talked about this year (they were not UG centric). We had a much better mode of communication with the PG reps which definitely helped us establish ourselves amongst them. However, due to the very less outreach amongst the PG in the past few years, these efforts did not yield as fruitful results as expected. Hence, it would have been unfair to include points for PG participation in the BSP trophy.
Video content development team: The main reason this was not done was the dearth of candidates, even for the design team this year. We functioned with only 10 out of 12 PORs filled for the Tech team, hence the burden on techies was more than usual.
2 part Inquirer: Mainly because two-part inquirer would lead to more cost of publishing and since we were funding BSP stalls from the budget this year we decided not to.
Journalism Cafe: This time there were many changes to Literati dates because of multiple changes to the academic calendar during the summer vacations of 2019. Hence, we were left with less amount of time to prepare for the fest and have such pre-fest events.
Report analysis:
On the basis of the report submitted by the BSP GSec, the new initiatives taken up included new online series such as My Experiments of IITD, Humans of IITD, Alum Album, Scholars Blog, and a creative series aimed to provide people with a platform to share their stories of how they are spending their time in these difficult times.
There were also new competitions and events held such as a Story Writing Competitions in collaboration with the drama club, a Storytelling Competition in association with Stellar, Watchdog Journalism Workshop with Mr Syed Nazakarat and the Vernacular Creative Writing Event. There were also several initiatives taken to bridge the gaps between the student community and the administration. Furthermore, BSP stalls had been ordered but their installation was delayed due to the COVID pandemic.
End Term Report:
From the GSec’s Table:
Upcoming Challenges for the incoming GSec:
The issue of security for the BSP Website - In the last decade, this has been the first time that the BSP website has been hacked and that too two times in a year. So it is very crucial for the next GSec to ensure that the security of the website is enhanced. Hacking of the website puts a hold on too many BSP activities. I believe we need the GSec to be competent enough to enhance the security of the website, and also collaborate with other groups like Dev Club to use their expertise to build a more secure website.
There has been a lot of ambiguity regarding the ambit of BSP articles this year. Hence, it would be an important aspect that the next G.Sec would most likely formulate after negotiations with the admin. In such cases, the articles could be written and an agreement can be converged upon where the admin will keep the BSP team informed of what actions have been taken following the article.
Constitutional changes - there have been talks with the admin this year regarding supernumerary PORs for PG students from next year to enhance their involvement in BSP. In addition to this, there have also been talks with having extra dedicated positions for students belonging to different vernacular groups. The next G.Sec would be involved in taking decisions for these constitutional changes, which might be a challenge at first to implement keeping in mind the fact that we are targeting groups here which have not been previously involved to a very large extent with BSP. Discussions with different groups for formulating the mechanisms of filling these seats is something I would suggest.
Unforeseen Challenges:
We witnessed peaceful protests for the first time in IITD. We were not prepared for such a situation and hence there were many questions as to what BSP should report and what not, seeing the sensitivity of the situation. We were engaged in many discussions with the admin regarding this.
With the pandemic outbreak, we had a whole new set of responsibilities. First, students were worried when it was announced that classes will be held online. Second, students were also worried about the status of the semester when the lockdown period got extended. In such a situation, BSP had to ensure that the concerns of so many students reached the administration on time and any decision was taken keeping in mind all the problems that are being faced. BSP has not worked so closely with the admin before and ensuring timely reporting of all events and timely collection of surveys responses was a challenge.
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