An Interview with the Technical Secretary
Written on January 17th, 2023 by {"login"=>"jcbphc21", "email"=>"f20181005@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"Journal Club", "last_name"=>"BPHC"}Divyesh Agrawal: Alright, we have the Technical Secretary - Bhavya Jain - with us. I'm Divyesh Agrawal and I'm joined by Shounak Acharya for the interview. So the first question we would like to ask is that with ATMOS concluded, how do you feel like your tenure as Technical Secretary is proceeding? Could you give us a general overview?
Bhavya Jain: So, our tenure started around July, and as everyone was home, we started preparing for ATMOS online while holding multiple meets. The preparation continued from the Technical Senate side even when we came on campus which included discussing the finances, etc, and other logistics like publicity, sponsorship, graphic designing, poster design, etc.
Talks were on with the SUC. But as you know, there were a lot of delays and bottlenecks in between. From the Tech Senate side things were ready, like 1.5 to two months prior. This included the fest events and their procedures and the entire event timeline.
Coming to ATMOS itself, I felt we took it to another level. You could see there was a Formula E electric car display, there were bike stunts, and Robowars for the first time on our campus. In fact, IITB's tech fest got the Formula E car only in December - we managed to get it before them. The ATMOS activities and events were previously only held in the acad block, this time we made efficient use of the whole football and hockey field to surround the campus with technical activities.
I feel it was much better than the technical activities that happened in Orbe Novo. Post-COVID, we were just trying to scale up and introduce new things. Even if many of these new things weren’t as successful or did not go as planned, I feel like it was necessary for us to introduce them and allow the next batches to improve upon them.
Apart from that, I had a lot of plans in my manifesto, like having Tech weeks which include technical plus recreational activities to make tech fun. Then there was also SUTC, which is the Students’ Union Technical Challenge. Currently, the problem is that we’re short on funds. The amendments were passed allowing the tech, cultural and sports senate to each get a 25% cut of the SUF with the remaining money staying with the SUC. But last year, these funds were unprocessed and neither were Orbe Novo workshop profits processed in 2022. The ATMOS profits haven’t been given yet because of lack of closure of accounts. Right now, individual clubs are able to get by and conduct their activities but monetary support is needed for multiple clubs to come together and organize events. We also wanted to start SMP - Student Mentorship Program - where instead of workshops for two or three days we have larger sessions like a small course, maybe twice a week in a month, i.e., around eight sessions on some particular topic taught by a senior. It is something in between a workshop and a course which takes you deeper into a topic.
But these activities might take some time or delay because of the funding and money we have. But we are trying to sort out things with CRC so that all the monetary bottlenecks get resolved.
Divyesh Agrawal: So one thing I wanted to focus on was the Tech Senate and its relationship with the SU. Many people don't know that the Tech Senate doesn't come under the SU. Could you just elaborate on that?
Bhavya Jain: Previously, there used to be a Technical Convener, not a Technical Secretary. Their part was only to help the President and SUC during ATMOS and to manage the activities done by multiple collaborating tech clubs. The Technical Convener was only elected by the Technical Senate - all the Club and Associations Presidents were involved in their selection.
After the new amendments last year, the Tech Senate got allotted 25% of the SUF. Now since the Senate was using the GB’s money It was reasoned that they should have a say to decide who the Technical Secretary will be. But in this scenario, it is possible for a technically unsound individual to get elected by the GB based solely on his popularity. To prevent such politics from negatively affecting the Technical Culture, a screening round was conducted where the Senate would decide whether the candidates are good enough for the post. If multiple candidates were shortlisted then there would be normal voting like for the President and the Secretary. Therefore, before the amendments, the Technical Senate wasn't a part of the SUC because there wasn't an elected post which has changed because of the Technical Secretary. However, still the Tech Sec is not a part of the SUC, because internal politics shouldn't affect the Technical Senate.
The complete technical senate is independent of the SU and works autonomously consisting of the Technical Secretary, all the clubs and association presidents and members. SU should work for the betterment of the campus. The Technical Senate should also work for the betterment of the campus, but should focus more on the technical part. And hence, both of them need to collaborate and work to improve campus culture.
Divyesh Agrawal: So do you think that the technical Senate and SU have been working harmoniously lately, and has the SU been backing the Technical Senate financially? Have they been supportive of your ideas and your projects?
Bhavya Jain: See, supporting and helping out are two different things. Like saying I support JC and doing something to help you out are separate scenarios.
Verbal agreements are good but they should be implemented as well. The SU never said no to the 40/60 profit for our workshop profit percentage or the 25% SUF etc. Take for example, the backlash after CSA released their merch. Before COVID, the president's permission was never taken for something like that. But the resulting chaos was created because the President wanted to release the SU mech first and yet till now we haven’t heard a breath about the SU or even the ATMOS merch.
So basically, the President says he's supporting but there has been very little help on campus. Even during ATMOS there were overshoots in the budget, less revenue from registrations, overshoots in production etc. From Tech Senate’s point of view, we got enough profits from workshops and we were up to the mark wherever needed.
Shounak Acharya: Okay, so while we are still talking about funds, can you elaborate on the financial status of the Tech Senate right now, and the situation regarding the profit sharing between the SU and the Tech Senate? Also, while you're at that, can you tell us exactly how the revenue split works?
Bhavya Jain: When the amendments had been implemented, a different bank account should have been made for the Tech Senate, joint with SWD Dean - Prof Kannan Ramaswamy. The 25% of the Tech Senate should have been transferred and all the transactions carried out from that account only.
It wasn’t possible due to the online nature of the first semester. This year, we started the process of creating the account but SBI required multiple documents to prove that the Senate is a nonprofit organization because there shouldn't be any taxes involved. At first they required SWD ledgers which we provided but then they asked us for more documents of proof and those were difficult to acquire because no one knew what type of documents they were exactly and how they should be created.
So after this, in consultation with CRC, we decided that we can have a different independent ledger for the Technical Senate apart from the SU ledger. How this works is that if there's a loss of 10 lakhs in the SU ledger and in the Tech Senate ledger there is a 5 lakh profit. So the profits of one should not be used to compensate the other.
We had started the procedure for this but after that ATMOS came and immediately after that were compres and now holidays. As soon as we go to campus, we’ll pressurize SWD to do it.
How the profit sharing works is that the profit of the workshops and activities of the Tech Senate in a fest need to be shared between the Tech Senate and the SU. For the percentage of this split, there's internal voting in the tech senate. This is done by taking into account the situation of the campus, the work done during the fest and the finances of the fest. The majority percentage that wins will be presented to CRC. CRC either ratifies it and can ask us for justification. After the ATMOS review meet, there would be a GBM where the Technical Secretary would display all accounts, and how the amount would be used by the Technical Senate.
But now the problem is, as you know, the finances of the SU are in a deplorable state. Even if they wish to transfer the funds, no account or ledger has been created yet. The logistics have not been set up properly. But once the ledger is made, then things can go on smoothly. We have laid the groundwork, maybe not for this tenure, but for the next one.
Once that amount has been transferred then the technical senate can use these funds for their activities like tech week, SUTC, hackathons, and competitions which we plan out. Teams like Vulcan, SEDS, ARC, and other clubs can make use of them.
Shounak Acharya: So when do you expect to create this account?
Bhavya Jain: It's not up to us. If we want to make an account, it depends on SBI's speed and what documents they want, etc. And if they want to create a ledger, it depends on SWD and account division to figure that out. If the ledger is made, how will we carry out the transactions? How transparent should the transactions be? How should the invoices be given? All those decisions are up to them, the higher authority. So there cannot be a specific timeline exactly, but we are trying hard to do it as soon as possible because we are in sheer need of funds.
Before the amendments, SU used to fund us because that was their role. But after the amendments, when we became autonomous, we should have gotten 25% of the SUF and the 60% profit split. With neither of these things, we have no source of funding except for the external sponsorship that particular teams get for their competition.
So we are pushing hard to do it as soon as possible so that we can use that amount for improving the technical budget.
Shounak Acharya: Can you talk about the role that EC is playing in ensuring that the Tech Senate gets its share of profits?
Bhavya Jain: We have been putting pressure on EC as well. Whenever any sort of voting is done on campus someone from the EC should be there to moderate or observe it. When it was being decided how much percentage of the profits the tech senate would retain, there was a Google Form floated to the Tech Senate to fill the amount of the percentage they wanted to choose.
So I relayed to the EC that I'll let them know the statistics and majority about what percentage we need to retain. During that time the EC was completely fine with it. After the results came, I shared the form with the EC and told them to proceed with it.
But suddenly the EC brought their own interpretation of the Constitution, and had multiple doubts about how the amount should be transferred to us. As per the Constitution, the ATMOS review meet has to happen before the transferring of the funds. More than 40 days have passed after the fest but the meeting hasn't been done yet.
So even if we want to transfer the funds, the EC says we cannot. Another interpretation that they have put forward is that, according to the EC, CRC can negotiate with us on what percentage of the profits we can take. To my understanding, this is not the correct interpretation, CRC can only advise us how we use our share. They cannot dictate the size of our share. Like if I say, I'll give some particular X amount to some club, Y amount to some other club, and Z amount I'll use for some other events. Now CRC can question why X amount is being given to this club. Why can't it be something less than X or something more than X etc.?
So CRC can negotiate with me on how the funds are used. But how much percentage of work in profit should be retained for the tech senate should be decided by the Tech Senate as per the constitution. So there was a lot of discussion between me and EC about this procedure. And the complete Tech Senate was CC-ed in this mail thread for transparency.
Currently, EC is clearing our doubts but there's a lot of friction on the interpretation of the Constitution. In my opinion, their interpretation should have been more clear and whatever is stated in the Constitution should be simply followed as it is.
Shounak Acharya: Also, we heard that an MOU was supposedly signed before the fest compelling SU to share that split of the profits generated. So could you elaborate on that?
Bhavya Jain: Okay. So basically, during the ATMOS FOB meet that was called either by the CRC or the Tech Secretary, there was a discussion of overshoot of the budget. So basically, most of the people in the FOB didn't want overshoots to happen. Since even during Orbe Novo, the fest finances were not good enough to display. And thus giving out the technical senate their share of profit was difficult because of poor financial situations. As a result we couldn’t have a profit distribution then. The technical senate apprehended a similar result to this as well, and was thus resilient to overshoot. We feared that if the fest goes into loss, the admin side (SWD Account Division) can question the low finances and may not allow the transfer of funds even if the SUC or the President approves. The President then assured us that he will personally ensure that the technical senate receives its share of profits and as assurance, he agreed to sign a MoU as well. However, the President was not happy with the MoU which was sent by the technical senate and wanted a few changes in that. The President said that he can only acknowledge the profit division demanded by the Technical Senate and send his approval to the CRC. It would be upto CRC and the Accounts Division on how they want to proceed from there. A common ground could not be reached and the proposed MoU was never signed. The Technical Senate did understand that the President cannot push the Accounts Division for transferring the funds if the fest was in loss. However, it is the President’s responsibility to ensure that the fest goes into profit and he should be made liable for that. However, the Technical Senate conducted all its workshops and events even without the MoU and cooperated with the SUC wherever we could.
Divyesh Agrawal: A lot of talk is being circulated about that the fact that ATMOS has gone into a huge debt this time. Instead of making a profit, it actually made a loss. So, could you talk about the validity of these rumours? ATMOS has traditionally been a fest that has always made a profit and so it's a bit difficult to digest. Could you talk about why it has possibly gone into loss? And could you give us numbers for the losses?
Bhavya Jain: All these numbers cannot be disclosed from my side. It's CRC’s job to disclose the numbers and they are yet to finish their calculations to account expenditure and revenues. They will release the numbers once the calculations are done. However, according to my understanding, the basic revenue we had were the food stalls, the workshops, registration and accommodation, and proshow entry fees; and the majority expenses were the travel and accommodation of speakers, artists, etc. for the proshows and the prize money for competitions. The prize money for competitions was constant, but the prices for the pro show and travel and accommodation kept fluctuating. There were no food coupons from the inauguration night till lunch time on 25th. So, there was a bit of less profit over there. Apart from that CRC can explain the finances better.
Divyesh Agrawal: You had earlier mentioned that in the FOB meet, the possibility of an overshoot was discussed, and even when everyone was mostly agreeing that the overshoot should not come into place the SU disregarded everyone. So, is that normal? Is that supposed to happen?
Bhavya Jain: No, the opinions of the FOB were taken into consideration. At first there was a huge amount of overshoot due to more amount being allocated for proshows which everyone resisted. Consequently, the SU changed that decision and the amount was brought down. And finally, it was somewhere around the values presented in the budget. However, there were a few differences and that is usually expected in a fest as a lot depends on the market conditions. If a majority of the FOB opposes anything, the SUC cannot disregard that fact and move on as there would be retaliation at some point. Hence, those pieces of advice were taken into consideration.
Divyesh Agrawal: There was also talk about how ATMOS didn't get enough footfall from outside colleges in Hyderabad as expected. That could have been a reason for a lack of profits. What would you say about that?
Bhavya Jain: Unfortunately, it is true that we couldn’t get the expected footfall from outside colleges. As per the rules by the books, no MOU can be signed before the budget is presented in the GBM and the deduction amount is decided out of the three options. None of the MOUs can be signed before that. ATMOS being the technical fest, the competitions, the workshops and other things which are involved need an MOU to be signed; sponsorships need a MOU to be signed, the workshops if they are conducted by some mentor need a MOU to be signed. And all these things cannot be done before the GBM. Since there was a delay in the budget presentation this time, we had only around 27 to 28 days before the fest to get all the MoUs signed and get the work in place. Workshop registrations cannot be started without the MOUs being signed. After the GBM, the MOUs were signed and the registrations were started. The publicity was started later than what we would have ideally wanted. This resulted in less than expected footfall.
This wasn’t completely the SUC’s fault as well. When our tenure started, the SUC didn't have the finances and didn’t know its status as there was auditing going on from the admin’s side. When the finances were given, the situation wasn’t pleasing. So planning was needed. However, since ATMOS doesn't use SUF or director funds, those things could have been neglected and the preparation should have been started, but there were delays there.
Divyesh Agrawal: But can't publicity for workshops start before MOUs as you don't need concrete details about the event or the scale of the event to do publicity, right?
Bhavya Jain: For competitions, the publicity could have been done. But still the prize money should be decided. In three different potential ATMOS budgets, the total prize money was different. Thus, the final prize money for all the events could have been finalized only after the budget was finalized. Now, we want the prize money to be finalized without which we cannot start the publicity. For example, if we initially decided the prize money for an event to be 50,000, and after the GBM it is reduced to 35,000. So, the people will retaliate and it's not right to create such a situation.
For some workshops, a mentor is coming and teaching. We will need to sign an MOU with the mentor stating all the details of the workshop. If we start the publicity without the MoU and differences arise between the mentor and the organizing body which will put us in an uncomfortable position which we do not want. It will only put us in a situation of more chaos.
Divyesh Agrawal: Okay, but as you can see, the GBM for Arena has not happened yet. But they've also started registrations. So, isn’t that contradictory?
Bhavya Jain: During ATMOS, it was my decision how my workshops and competitions should work. Since our reputation was at stake, the technical senate decided to wait for a few days rather than take a risk. For Arena, it's up to the Sports secretaries and the SUC. According to me, they are also right because there is so much delay and they had no options but to start the publicity now. It's up to their point of view, how they see the situation. And whatever they are doing, they would be doing best for their senates and campus. And they also think of betterment of the campus, and they will be doing whatever is best for the situation.
Divyesh Agrawal: Also, coming back to ATMOS, there were a ton of logistical issues and that's at least my personal opinion, in the fest. Typically, more than what a fest should have. What do you think about that?
Bhavya Jain: Logistical issues, yes, there were a few of them. For a fest of this scale logistics plays an important role. And no large-scale fest has been conducted after 2019. So, none of the batches in our campus had conducted an fest open to outsiders. We learned things from our seniors, we asked them how things should work, and we tried implementing those things. But we had never seen how those things happen, just heard about it. And we were trying to implement it. But it takes time to learn those things and actually do them. Normally in our first year, we would have attended all the three fests, and in the second year, we would have helped a good amount for conducting the three fests by being a part of different clubs and departments. And then in the third year when we became PORs, we would have conducted it much better. But since our first year was online, we weren't a part of any fest. During our second year there was only one fest (Orbenovo), and everyone in our batch helped in conducting it. We learnt a bit about how the fest works, the finances, logistics, etc. But it was still an inhouse fest. So, a lot of things such as sponsorship pitches and technical competitions were different, including their registration processes. All of these things need to be taken into consideration for an open fest. But now that ATMOS is done, the logistics of Arena and Pearl should be much better than this. Because all the departments know how things work. The organizers, the SUC, they know how and things can go wrong, so they can improve on those errors in the upcoming fest.
Divyesh Agrawal: Okay. Talking about one of these logistical issues, we can talk about coupons again. So, as we know that there was a huge coupon debacle during the fest, and there were no coupons for more than an hour at peak intervals of time. Who or what do you attribute that to?
Bhavya Jain: Okay. So basically, the Coupons aren't just given. For example, if CRC gave 2 Lakhs worth of coupons to DOSM and they run out of them, would you ask for more amount of coupons, say 5 lakhs, or 10? But that cannot be done. The coupons allotted to DOSM hence must be exhausted before new ones can be printed, so that there’s no wastage of financial resources. The coupons are distributed in different blocks. So that a tally is maintained. But these logistical things could have been solved if proper division of people was done, or multiple stalls were placed at multiple locations. So that would have reduced the pressure. But now we have an understanding how things work. Now if the situation is there in an upcoming fest, it can be improved.
Divyesh Agrawal: Did you do anything to prevent these issues from happening? There was a lot of mismanagement, take comedy night, for example. So did you do anything to make sure or like to improve as the fest went on?
Bhavya Jain: During the fest, SUC, CRC, and all the other stakeholders who are involved were deciding what to be done immediately to at least make things faster or improve the current situation. But then as you know, actions that could be taken were very limited. But for example, for comedy night lines were being made. But then later on, there were a lot of people, who had already entered the venue. Now, we cannot go inside and remove them. So, while we couldn’t change that, we implemented those learnings to make sure that the Sunday’s proshow went as smoothly as possible.
Divyesh Agrawal: But what did YOU do? Can you say anything concrete?
Bhavya Jain: If you see workshop registrations, they were being done on D2C. So, on the spot registrations were also being done on D2C because D2C is an online platform. So, we tried to minimize the cash transactions, like if people want to register on the spot as well controllz used to tell them to scan this QR and register yourself on D2C, and you can attend a workshop right now. And hence, people didn't need to wait in long queues to do offline transactions. So it was much smoother.
Divyesh Agrawal: I would just like to ask a final question. At the end of the day, it was a tech fest, who do you think should be held responsible? If put more crudely, who should be blamed for the general state of the fest?
Bhavya Jain: Collective efforts decide whether the fest is going to be good or bad, given the fact that everyone is involved. There are some problems and some mishaps that happen by different people. Those are mistakes that happen. You learn from that you improve in future fests. Blame game shouldn’t be played. If you want to blame, the complete FOB is involved.
An improvement, which I would want in future is like how the other campuses work. For example, Pilani or Goa campuses, basically they have coordinators for individual fests. So, for us, ATMOS would be given to the Technical Secretary, Pearl would be given to Cultural Secretary and Arena would be given to the Sports Secretary. So, they should be solely responsible with COSTAAN for ATMOS, STUCAAN and COSAACN body. So, the coordinators and with their departmental bodies should be responsible for how the fests does. The President and the General Secretary for all the three fests are usually like for ATMOS, the President is the financial COSTAAN, the General Secretary is the inventory COSTAAN so they should be just involved in the finances, how things should go, all the other logistics should be decided by the coordinators and the COOSTAAN of the respective departmental bodies. But in our case that hasn't been implemented yet, because our Constitution and our charters are a bit different than our other campuses. And hence all the three fests are run by the President and the General Secretary. If you saw ATMOS, the Technical Secretary isn't a part of the SUC, so officially, he shouldn't be liable to things. I mean, my part should be to conduct competitionsand workshops, accumulate the Tech Senate, and help with the fest.Hence basically, whether they are a part of the SUC not, the respective secretaries, the SUC, the President and General Secretary should be responsible for the fest. Adding to that, conducting three fests and managing all other duties is extremely difficult for the President and the General Secretary as well as managing academics simultaneously. So, this load can be relieved by implementing a system which our other sister campuses are having. So, you cannot blame one or two people for good or bad functioning of the fest. It’s everyone, the Organising Committee involved in how the fest runs.
Shounak Acharya: Also we heard about being blacklisted on D2C by some vendors so what is the status for prize money and reimbursements?
Bhavya Jain: These are just rumors which started after Orbe Novo but this year, there is no such thing like that. If D2C blacklisted us, they wouldn’t have hosted our competition and workshop but they did for the fest and everything ran smoothly. Coming to the prize money, if you ask the respective bodies about the prize money, they are in process. The Robowars and Drone Racing prize money has already been given. Prize money for other events are also in process. For non BITSians, their prize money would directly be sent to their bank account. For BITSians, their prize money will be sent to them via a cheque issued by the CRC or directly to their bank accounts as per the situation. Vendor payments are also in process.
Shounak Acharya: Moving on, we know that the ATMOS review meet hasn't taken place so can you shed some light on it as there has been no communication regarding this from the SU or the EC.
Bhavya Jain: See, neither the SU nor the EC has communicated with the FOB about when the review meet will be held. I’ve sent a mail to the EC regarding the review meet and preferred an offline review meet so things could be discussed and charters could be updated well after working out with all the things that happened during the fest. Usually after the review meet, based on the problems discussed, charters are prepared so the next fest can be run more efficiently. But the EC responded that the offline review meet might not be possible due to the delay of the review meet by 12 to 14 days but so far, there is no communication from the SU’s side.
Shounak Acharya: As you've mentioned that EC said online review meet is better, why do you think it has not been conducted till now?
Bhavya Jain: As per the charter, the president of CRC needs to call the review meet and the press finances are yet to be tallied so it is up to their discretion as to when it needs to be done but according to the charter, it should've been done within 30 days after the fest.
Shounak Acharya: Also, apart from the mail, is there anything else that you have tried to get the meet?
Bhavya Jain: What do you suggest i do apart from asking the EC? Besides that, on the FOB group, multiple people have asked about when and where the meet would take place. In my opinion as a Technical Secretary, it is our duty to ask EC when it would happen and we have but the EC told us that the review meet would be conducted so now we wait. Once we’re back on campus, if the review meet is not yet done, we will question again.
Shounak Acharya: So since the review meet hasn't happened within 30 days after the fest- which is a clear violation of the charter, can there be any action taken against the president on these grounds?
Bhavya Jain: It is upto the EC’s interpretation of the charter for them to take a suitable action based on the circumstance. There is violation of charter but there is no proper statement in the constitution of how a violation should be handled. So it is dependant on the EC over what actions should be taken upon their interpretation as they need to verify the situation and do what’s best. Regarding the review meet, they should ask the president why it has not been done and re consult CRC and then take an action.
Shounak Acharya: What role has Kanan sir played in all of this? Did he push the president for the review meet or anything like that?
Bhavya Jain: According to the constitution, if there is a discrepancy, we can complain to election committee. if there is a violation , we can go to JRC. If there is a complaint on EC not, you can complain to crc and vice versa. Even after this, if the situation persists, then you can go to a higher authority like Kanan sir. And such a situation has arised as we approached ec, and an action will be taken. Once the highest authority of the student body doesn’t take an action, then we would reach to a higher authority like Kanan sir.
Shounak Acharya: How is the current state of funds in the tech senate? How will it, or has it already, impacted projects and future events?
Bhavya Jain: Yes it has already impacted some of the things and it will impact future things as well. The Pilani campus has a robo team and is building cars, Goa has Team Kratos and other colleges like Manipal have SAE competitions and in all three of their campuses, so they get a good amount of funding. Now, if we have projects that need 1 lakh+ funding or an event which needs a certain amount of money, that's a problem as you cannot put money from your own pocket or from the tech clubs as they have inadequate funds. In order to conduct tech week, where anyone from campus can pitch their project and funds are distributed accordingly, the budget has to be around 1-2 lakh but where will the money come from? We have plans of conducting hackathons, hosting external speakers but these need money for expenses like travel, stay, and prize money. We are open to events like online talks or hosting speakers for free and it is being done by clubs. What I want to do in my tenure is set a ground rule so future tech sec can work and build upon that but due to funds and internal politics, setting ground rules is becoming difficult and introducing new things is difficult. We have future plans to introduce a tech senate website with details about the senate, the associated clubs, associations, their project. If we get money, their finances would be made public too. To host this website, we need money which I can put from my own pocket or use funds but after Orbe Novo, people are reluctant to put their own money because reimbursements are difficult.
Divyesh Agrawal: Since all of this directly impacts tech culture on campus, have you had any talks with the presidents or SU regarding where to go about all this? And have those talks amounted to anything?
Bhavya Jain: I have had talks with SU, CRC. I’ve told Kannan sir that we had no space to work in Tinkerer’s Lab and Sandbox belonged to ICELL although several clubs do use it. For Robowars, usually we rent an arena but this time we fully built it in-house. We quoted it’s expenditure at 2 lakhs although we saved some amount by building it for around 1 lakh 80 thousand. Every year, we can allot a very small amount for the arena to simply spend on improving the existing one. However, we don't have the place to store the arena, currently it’s being stored in a ditch behind a hostel. After informing Kanan sir, he told to make a proposal with details and he would communicate with higher authorities.
Divyesh Agrawal: Now that we’re near the end, is there anything else you want to say?
As a Technical Secretary, I also want sports and culture to happen and improve every year. When we start tenure, we see how last tenure was and improve upon that. Our only aim should be to improve campus culture and leave better guidance for our juniors who can look upto us be it in acad, tech, campus culture or placements.
Shounak Acharya: What message would you like to share to the GB, especially juniors?
Bhavya Jain: Politics can be good as it promotes healthy competition but this shouldn't affect relationships, activities, clubs, or departments. Everyone is working for the improvement of campus and personal academics, so we can't blame one person like the President. As a person holding the post, it is their responsibility, but it is not only their responsibility to take care. The GB should also be involved and take responsibility. If the GB is uninterested, what would motivate the position holders to work for them? Let's work on it together rather than blaming someone. My advice to juniors would be to get to know how things work, focus on academics, give your best in clubs / departments and focus on how to improve things rather than what someone is not doing.