Under the wings of K.T.S. Tulsi, I learned flight: Nimish Arjaria, student of BBA LLB (Hons), Jagran Lakecity University

23^rd October 2016 was the day that I can consider as life changing, being awarded the best adjudicator at Lex Bonanza Festival, Indore Institute of Law by none other than the legend of law, Shri. K.T.S. Tulsi was a turn that shot me miles up in one go.

Shri. K.T.S. Tulsi is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha and former Additional Solicitor General of India. He is counted amongst the top five lawyers in India and often praised for his concern regarding the environment. At the age of 76 he rides his bicycle to the parliament sessions and has the highest attendance.

I applied for my internship in the month of April and without much waiting, the application was approved on 21^stApril 2017. I joined the chamber on 1^st June 2017 along with eight other interns and was awestruck with the kind of complex cases that Shri. K.T.S. Tulsi handled with utmost patience and ease.

After researching a case thoroughly, we got the opportunity to be a part of the court hearings. Being under the wings of a legend and listening to his seamless arguments was a lesson that no amount of books could teach me. We also met clients and became a part of the case research. However, the best part of my internship was lunch with Shri. K.T.S. Tulsi during which, he talked about his unique angles of looking at a case and research facts. He also kept us updated on news from around the world as a way of teaching the importance of knowing your surroundings well.

As an additional privilege of interning under a lawyer who is also a Rajya Sabha member, we had the opportunity to visit the parliament and meet the Joint Secretary, Shri. J. Sundriyal. We witnessed discussions regarding parliamentary affairs and questions, committee meetings on various issues, government programmes and schemes and a lot more.

The internship taught me more than I had assumed it would. Being under the constant presence of Shri. K.T.S. Tulsi passively taught me the minutiae of being a world class lawyer. I owe a sincere gratitude to the Jagran Lakecity University for granting me this opportunity. A special thanks to the Director, Shri. Yogendra Shrivastava and all the faculties, School of Law for showing unwavering faith in my capabilities. A huge thanks to the person who made it possible, our CEO Mr. Abhishek Mohan Gupta. Without his untiring efforts, this internship would have been a dream for me.

A home away from home: Thrue-Bab, a Bhutanese festival celebration at Jagran Lakecity University

Blessed rainy day, locally known as Thrue-Bab, is an indigenous Bhutanese festival, celebrated in no other place in the world. It is believed that on the day of Thrue-Bab, the rain is sanctified by the cosmic Buddha Mahāvairocana. Taking a cleansing bath from the divine rainwater collected overnight is therefore thought to purify all defilement and bad karma of a person. The festival, marking the end of farming season and start of harvest season is also called the gateway to other festivals in the Bhutanese calendar.

The essence of this festival is derived from Buddhism, where the belief that sacred rainfall happens when planet Rikhi coincides with the crown of the Buddha statue at Rirab Lhuenpo. The planet in its orbit takes seven days to pass the Buddha statue, hence the celebration of ‘Blessed Rainy Day.’

On the eve of Thrue-Bab, buckets are kept on rooftops to collect the sacred rainwater which is later on used by the whole family to bathe. Other attractions such as camp fire and delicacies such as suja and thukpa are enjoyed by the families to honor the final rains.

Miles away from their homes, our students celebrated the ‘Blessed Rainy Day’ at Jagran Lakecity University. The event was highlighted with an authentic Bhutanese platter, prepared by the students, courtesy of the University’s mess. It was a great opportunity for the students of JLU Bhopal to witness one of the national festivals of Bhutan while also tasting their colorful cuisine The main ingredient of which is Emaa Kamm (dry chilli). Other delicacies on menu included; Emadatsee (national dish of Bhutan), Kewaa Datsee (potatoes with cheese), and Thupp (porridge). 

Having students from different cultural backgrounds as classmates is always a learning experience that makes one grow intellectually. Jagran Lakecity University is a home to an amazing ethnic diversity, where culture forms a bridge rather than a barrier between students.

Our students learn values of life that travel beyond boundaries and help them build a character that is appreciated worldwide.

"Your fiction is someone's reality": Novoneel Chakraborty at Jagran Lakecity University

Dropping out of college to follow his dream, earning the tag of a bestselling author just within the first few months of the release of his first novel ‘A thing beyond forever’, and writing the bestselling ‘Stranger Trilogy’ are all accolades bagged by Mr. Novoneel Chakraborty.

Novoneel is an Indian author and script writer who specializes in ‘Romantic Thrillers.’ To his credit he has numerous works including the novels ‘That Kiss in the Rain’, ‘How about a SIN tonight’, ‘The Stranger Trilogy’, ‘Black suits you’, and television series ‘Million Dollar Girl’, ‘Secret Diaries’, ‘Twist Waala Love’ and many more.

15^th September, Friday saw Novoneel at Jagran Lakecity University Bhopal. The occasion was the launch of ‘Kaun ho tum ajnabee’, the Hindi translation of ‘Marry me stranger’ originally written by Novoneel Chakraborty. The event was organized by the ‘Reader’s and Writer’s Community’ of the University.’

‘Marry me stranger’ is the story of a 22 year old girl from Kolkata named Rivanah Banerjee. Just after completing her engineering, Rivanah lands up a job in Mumbai. Everything from her job to her love life is perfect until she starts receiving anonymous texts, often threatening, from a stranger who frequently repeats three words, “know your worth.” The journey ahead for Rivanah is the journey of discovering her true self while destroying the notions of ‘what is important.’

Novoneel also engaged the students in an interactive session while answering their questions about the story. Writing as a profession is very unconventional especially story-telling, “It is WE who put a limit to our imagination, deciding what reality is and where in lays fiction. Your fiction however can be someone’s reality, it is only that you are unaware about it. Whatever your mind can create, is possible somewhere in the world.” were the closing words by him.

Having written eight popular books at the age of 29, Novoneel Chakraborty is a youth sensation and hence the book launch proved to be an inspiring session for the students of Jagran Lakecity University where his insights on ‘success’ and ‘the power to influence’ were key topics of discussion.

Success changes the chemistry of the brain: Intra University Indoor Games 2017 at Jagran Lakecity University

Running alone in a marathon is no fun; it is a competition that takes us farther than practice ever will. In the spirit of competition, Intra University Indoor Games were organized at Jagran Lakecity University. The Houses - Lakecity Lions, Lakecity Sharks, and Lakecity Hawks competed against each other for the prestigious House Trophy in a three-day event.

Inter-House Chess Competition - Men

Sagar Chaudhary (Hawks) – Gold

Akshat Nehra (Sharks) – Silver

Sachin Pandey (Hawks) – Bronze

Inter-House Chess Competition - Women

Nisha Khan (Sharks) – Gold

Vithika Chaudhary (Hawks) – Silver

Shambhavi (Lions) – Bronze

Inter-House TableTennis Competition - Men

Vivek Endela (Lions) – Gold

Parth Singh (Hawks) – Silver

Abhinandan Shukla (Sharks) –Bronze

Inter-House TableTennis Competition - Women

Chetna Dagar (Lions) – Gold

Nisha Khan (Sharks) – Silver

Muskan Wadhwani (Hawks) – Bronze

Inter-House Carrom Competition - Men

Rajat Patwari (Lions) – Gold

Shayamal Patro (Hawks) – Silver

Vijay Kumar (Sharks) – Bronze

The 'House Trophy' was bagged by Lakecity Lions

Teachers: Reforming the world, one student at a time

*Whatsapp Conversation*
Hey, what does your mom do?
She is a 'selfless'
Selfless?
Teacher** 
sorry, auto correct.

From crawling on all four to standing on our own two feet, from learning our first word to narrating epics, we are all learners. We are students' for life, and teaching is the only profession that involves the selfless grant of knowledge without any benefit to self.

Out of all the metaphors used to explain teaching, a Potter’s is the aptest. A potter starts with formless clay just like a teacher starts with innocent minds. Once onto the spinning wheel, the potter creates light pressure to smooth out the clay and moves on to increase the stress gradually as the pot starts taking shape. He knows exactly when and how to apply the pressure so as to obtain the best result, adding water in between to decrease friction. The pot is then subjected to high heat in order to permanently bolt the effect of hours of shaping.

A student’s mind is gullible like wet clay; any impression can be easily transferred onto it. It is a great responsibility to contour it in a way that molds a beautiful character out of it. The stress applied by a teacher might take a student out of his comfort zone, but like the potter, the teacher knows what that pressure does. The hardships faced during lessons are all parallels to the heat which a pot is subjected to; they prepare a student for the battle called 'life', where there are no erasers and no re-tests.

In the end, it is the pot that is praised for its beauty, not the potter. Likewise, it is the student who is applauded, not the teacher. They stand somewhere in the middle of the crowd listening to the endless admiration for their student all the while containing enormous pride inside themselves. Dedicating their lives to making someone else’s better is what teaching is all about. They never get noticed, they never steal the limelight, they just change the world, one student at a time.

"My journey from Jagran Lakecity University to University of the Arts London, UK": Tanya Goyal (BAJMC III Semester), School of Media and Communication

The dream was no longer a dream when I actually boarded the flight from Delhi to London, everything seemed perfect. All I could think throughout was how thankful I am to Jagran Lakecity University for giving me this opportunity to go for this three weeks Public Relations and Advertising Summer School Programme at The London College of Communication (LCC), University of the Arts London.

The complete duration of the flight was spent in the thoughts of the city of dreams. 9 hours later, I landed at terminal 2 of the London Heathrow Airport, trust me when I say, “It’s a never-ending terminal.” I was shortly done with immigration and out of the airport in a black hybrid Toyota. It took me around 45 minutes to reach King’s cross from Heathrow, where my homestay with a British family was arranged. 
Everything was perfect, from the streets to houses to even the smallest of details. The lady of the house, Miss. Natalie was a sweetheart. She lived with her 8-year-old daughter, Isabelle. They welcomed me with a cup of coffee and showed me around in the evening.

Next morning was my first day at the London College of Communication, situated at Elephant and Castle, which was six stops away via tube from King’s cross. We were given a short orientation to the Summer Program which included an introduction to all students and an overview of LCC, followed by a tour of the college. I had already met a few girls before the orientation and luckily they all were from my course.

Soon, it was time for our first lecture. We were a total of five girls; Ana from Mexico, Shuwan from China, Valeria from Peru and Wad from Saudi Arabia along with me.

Our Advertising lecturer was Andy. He started his lecture by explaining about Agencies, and how to work with them. He also told us that it’s always efficient to work in agencies instead of working individually because reaching a conclusion with a team is easier than working alone. He divided the five of us into two agencies for giving us an insight into how an advertising agency works and its departments. My partner was Valeria and we named our agency, “Translation”. He navigated us through various aspects of advertising for the next three weeks. We designed a poster for a company, wrote a copy for it, designed content-based ads, designed a comedy Ad for a serious topic like Cancer or Dementia, and made a quick & short film on “Fake news”. We even designed a social media campaign for the brand “Corona”. We were taught about various advertising semiotics as well. Andy also took us for an Industrial visit to The JWT i.e. The J. Walter Thomson situated at South Kensington, where we were told about “Brand Ads” and how digital marketing has boomed over the recent years.

In the last week, we were taken for a Pink Floyd exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

It was the best exhibition I had ever seen. Being a Pink Floyd fan myself, I just couldn't stop being mesmerized by the exuberance. It was a beautiful experience!

Our Public Relations lectures were taken by Ruth. She was the best to learn Fashion PR from. The lecture started with an introduction to “Press Release”, post that we were instructed to write three press releases each. When compared to Andy, Ruth’s classes were serious. She told us all about Luxury fashion and High Street Fashion PR. Her guidelines on how to cover an event, making of a look-book, types of a press release, making a media list and designing an invite were a few of our major lessons. two group assignments given to us post lectures were sufficient to put our knowledge to test. Ruth organized two guest lectures for strategic planning, one with Mrs. Gaelle, Senior PR Manager, Chopard and another with Mr. Tanner, crisis management professional and Political PR for Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith from the UK Labor Party. During our last week, writing industry-standard curriculum vitae and cover letters were taught to us.

This was an outline of my experience at a Summer School Programme. I sincerely thank Jagran Lakecity University for giving me an opportunity to explore the details of my course internationally. Travelling globally isn’t just about knowledge, but also about the sense of independence that we feel being in an unknown continent all by ourselves. I highly recommend students to go for such programmes, they enhance you completely!

Tanya Goyal

BAJMC (III Semester),
School of Media and Communication,

Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal.

Glimpse of my journey and experiences in London during the Summer School Programme.... :-)