Comments from the 31st Social Science Congress

jivan

Hi all,
I was at the 31st Social Science Congress which took place from 27th-31st Deecmber 2007 at SNDT Womens University, Mumbai. http://sndt.digitaluniversity.ac/Con...Me nuID=25434 for the whole thing.

Some Comments & Observations of the same.

The Social Science Congress was a pretty exhausting thing with one thing after the other. The only sole high point was that everything has been recorded in video.


The low points of the Congress were :-

1. The Vice-Chancellor Mr. Mungekar who's also member, Planning Commission is convinced of the fact that Capitalist market-based economics (Big Business) is the only way to go forward & wouldn't let anyone speak who said otherwise.

2. There was also an interesting symposium on Nuclear Energy & the Agreement but the points raised by people for the same were brushed aside. Most of the answers for some of the more serious questions were given like a jalebi which was not really an answer.

3. Even though this was to talk about a classless society in some sense but there were people from the Naxalite Movement, leftist movement who were very political & tried to steer conversations to their outlook only rather than an overall picture of things.

4. There was also a group of highly frustrated, skeptical people who thought this was all useless & we are just going down a drain.

5. Last but not the least there was one guy who also unfortunately became my travel partner, who had the same rhetoric about many a things which I had seen all the 5 days.

Interestingly, most of the pros & cons people mentioned as arguments are there in wikipedia as well. So most of the arguments for some of the more controversial ones are already known to those who use wikipedia .

6. If the social science congress was a place to drive change for the better, drive alternatives in policy change they should have done this at some village where each person had to do 2 hrs. of shramdhan everyday. I have dug more than enough shit-pits, water-drains & done community cooking that it wouldn't have mattered much. It was like elites talking to elites.

7. If someone from really the class they were worried about wanted to come he/she certainly couldn't afford the 1450/- fees they had put up for 5 days 1450 / 5 290/- per day where most of the poor reside for less than Rs. 40/- per day. This is when they had all kinds of sponsorship from various banks & there were also a few stalls @ Rs. 25000/- per stall. I just have no idea what to feel about all that.