Study Circle at CUSB

Days: Wednesday and Saturday

Principles: 1.) Equality among all the participants.

2.) Informal and friendly atmosphere.

3.) No competition among participants.

4.) Cooperation among the participants to share knowledge and information.

5.) Nobody to lead the study circle though it may have a facilitator.

Generally the study circles have defined aims but in our case we will first make ourselves
aware of the idea of study circle and how to conduct it. Therefore, our objectives, in the
preliminary stage would be to enhance ourselves.

Objectives: 1.) Increase the level of awareness.

2.)Gather information on the happenings and events on national, international

and local issues.

3.) Participants should be able to make an informed opinion about things.

4.) Enhancement of the power of expression of the participants.

Methodology: Before any meet the topic to be discussed would be informed to the
participants in advance, who would be expected to read about the topic during such period.
During the meeting efforts should be made to make the meeting as participative as possible
and each and every participant would be allotted a specified time of usually 2-3 minutes to
share the information gathered and their opinion upon the issue.

Thereafter, the floor will be opened for asking questions upon the issue.

However, the facilitator may, if so required, give a brief presentation upon the topic before
the participants begin with their presentations.

On all days a news session will take place wherein a selected group of students, who would
be decided by the participants themselves, from all semesters would be required to simply
present the news on various important issues. They may range from local to international.
Category of news

1.) Local:- Gaya in particular and Bihar. [sources:- Local newspapers]

2.) National news –covering all important news from Kashmir to Kerala, North-East etc,
[sources The Indian Express, The Hindu, Frontline Magazine, the Times of India]
{News Portals:- The Wire, Scroll, The Caravan, The Print, Alt News etc.}]
Note: national news may include the following:-
 News related to politics
 News related to social issues like caste, honour killings, manual scavenging
etc. (Articles by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Shiv Vishwanathan etc may be
referred)
 News which affect democracy like inequality of all kinds etc. (Articles by
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Shiv Vishwanathan etc may be referred)
 News related to economy (articles by Prabat Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, Prof Arun
Kumar may be referred to)
 News related to India’s foreign policy and defence (Articles by Praveen
Swami maybe referred to.)
3.) International News- Geopolitical news, terrorism, important political events in other
nations etc [Sources- The Guardian, Al Jazeera, NYT, BBC, Foreign policy Magazine,
The Diplomat etc]( Articles by Vijay Prashad for understanding middle east may
come handy)
4.) News related to enviroment and agriculture- Water crisis, Agrarian Crisis, farmer
issues etc. [sources- www.downtoearth.org., www.ruralindiaonline.org , Frontline
Magazine]- Articles by P. Sainath and Ashok Gulati may be referred to.
5.) Participants may even present a book review, only if they have read the book.

NOTE: All the references to news sources are only suggestive, participants may refer to
other but sources but efforts should be made to collect news from authentic and reliable
sources.