Journalism of Courage
For the first time ever the student representatives from professional colleges from across the city came together on a common platform to discuss and mull over the possibility of setting up a united Pune Student Council.
An initiative of the students of the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) the meeting was held at the college premises on Saturday and witnessed the presence of general secretaries of many reputed colleges in the city. The aim of the move is to unite all the students for academic,cultural and intellectual sharing of resources.
Pune is undoubtedly the educational hub of our country,but no network at the student level exists. An effort like this would go a long way in benefiting everyone, said Mustafa Rangoonwala,general secretary (GS) of MITSOM.
The meeting had students coming from as far as Pimpri-Chinchwad. Ravindra Karande,the GS of PCCOE said Being on the periphery of the city,our college students miss opportunities of participating in the various fests taking place in different colleges across the city. This network would keep us informed and provide opportunities to grow.
The proposal laid out by the students covered every facets- technical,cultural,sports and social. This platform can be used for managing events,provide mutual cooperation for festivals,encourage knowledge sharing and also host collaborative research projects, said Akshay Deshpande,GS of CoEP.
These students are also actively involved in their forthcoming technical festival MindSpark. In the early stages of organising the event we realised the dearth of a student-level network across the city. said Alok Mehta,Technical Championship Head for MindSpark. Our event has a motive of bringing not just individuals,but colleges together, he added.
The students plan to meet again very soon,albeit informally,with a larger number of participating colleges. Till then,they hope to enhance their outreach and boost interaction through social networking sites like Orkut. “We have had enough of rivalry during various cultural,technical and social festivals. Now we wanted to unite students from all over Pune to form a formidable force, said Gantavya Sharma,a third year CoEP student. The meetng was attended by representatives from colleges like the DES Law College,VIT,MIT,Bhartiya Vidyapeth,PICT Modern College and Fergusson College amongst others.
