Convocation Brochure 2022, Ashoka University

Convocation Class of 2022 2nd July, 2022

About the Convocation The Convocation Ceremony for the Young India Fellowship (Postgraduate Diploma in Liberal Studies) Class of 2022, is a celebration of the academic and nonacademic achievements of Fellows. This day indicates that those collecting their diplomas have completed their graduation requirements, and also marks the end of their year-long engagement with the multi-disciplinary, experiential and multi-dimensional programme.

Hereafter, Fellows commence their life-long journeys as alumni of Ashoka University, while belonging to a global and diverse community of socially-conscious leaders and changemakers.

Convocation Programme

2nd July, 2022 | 3.30 pm to 6.00 pm The Academic Procession Arrives Welcome Address by the Chancellor Prof. Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Opening Address by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Malabika Sarkar

Keynote Address by the Distinguished Chief Guest Prof. K. VijayRaghavan Former Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India

Dean’s Report on the Academic Year Aniha Brar

Awarding of Diplomas and Special Awards The Conferment and University Oath Film by Fellows Vote of Thanks by the Pro Vice Chancellor Eshwara Venkatesam

National Anthem The Academic Procession Departs High Tea

Distinguished Chief Guest of the YIF Convocation Ceremony

Prof. K. VijayRaghavan K. VijayRaghavan is a distinguished professor in the field of developmental genetics. He is the former Director, National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), an institution that he was instrumental in setting up. He is also the former Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, a role that he moved on from in April, 2022.

VijayRaghavan graduated with a Bachelor of Technology degree in 1975 and completed a Master’s in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1977. He was recognised as a Distinguished Alumnus by IIT Kanpur in 2003. He undertook doctoral research from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in 1983, in the field of molecular biology. During his postdoctoral work from 1984 to 1988, he was a Research Fellow and a Senior Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

Among his many laurels, VijayRaghavan is a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1998) and the Infosys Prize in the Life Sciences (2009). He is a Fellow of The Indian National Science Academy (1999), the World Academy of Sciences (2010), the Royal Society (2012) and the American Philosophical Society (2022). He was conferred the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India, on 26 January 2013. In 2014, he was elected as a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Convocation Traditions The Processional Music – “Full Circle” “Full Circle” reflects the various stages in the journey that Fellows undertake at the Young India Fellowship. Beginning with confusion, moving on to acceptance and even ennui, and finally ending at selfreflection, this journey is a metaphor for life and how it comes full circle. The year, and this piece, ends on a note of individual growth and greater self-awareness. This piece was composed collectively by several musicians of the YIF Class of 2018, and has been played during the academic processions of all YIF convocation ceremonies ever since.

The Embroidered Graduation Robes Every graduating Fellow since the YIF’s inception has worn the green and red embroidered robes as a marker of tradition. The embroidery was conceived of by Tulasi Chaudhary from the Founding Class of 2012, to represent the plurality of the world in which we live, where Fellows work to build a better tomorrow. The embroidery is a symbol of the ties of continuity and community across all cohorts, and best represents its spirit - exuberant, progressive, dialogue-oriented, sophisticated and international, while being rooted to its Indian context.

The University Oath The ancient Indian king after whom this University is named asked the question: What is Dhamma?

He answered: It is having few faults and many good deeds; mercy, charity, truthfulness and integrity.

I commit myself to these values, and through them, move from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light and from death to immortality.

DIPLOMA AWARDEES

Diploma Awardees Aaditya Yogesh Yawalkar Aaliyah Ali Khan Aanchal Jain Aarushi Saini Abhijit Victor Gaba Adithya S. Menon Aditya Mukherjee Behera Adwitia Dey Adwityaa Jha Aindrila Sinha Akanksha Nathany Akshita Iyer Alankrita Mishra Ali Al Jamal Amandeep Singh Bamrah Amartya Raj Amit Amitoj Singh Kalsi Amrita K. Ananya Jain Ananya Srivastava Anasuith P. Pridhvish Anirudh G. Iyer Ankit Sahu Annet Mary Thankachan Annly Anna Kurian Anukul Tripathi This list is provisional as on 28 June 2022

Apala Mandal Apurva Aggarwal Aradhana Varma Archana Rath Arindam Kabir Arjun Gupta Arnaz Shaik Asambhava Shubha Ashok Birendra Yadav Asmita Banerjee Asmita Sethi Ayush Rawat Ayushi Ghai Baidehi Ghosh Bartika Banerjee Bhavana Paladi Bhavika Goel Bhuvaneshwari Ramaswamy Chhavi Kumar Deepakshi Arora Deepika D. V. S. S. D. Devica Sud Devika Mahapatra Dibyangee Saha

Dipsikha Mukhopadhyay Divya Baweja Drishti J. Verma Driti Girrish Wadwa

Gautam Gambhir Gayatri Ahuja Geetha Rukmini Thatikonda Gyan Bhaskar Maithani Hannan Nabi Harika Srinivasan Hari Varshini Murugesan Harsha Bharat Vade Harshita Sharma Hiteshree Das Honey Madhusudan Gairola Isha Sachin Samant Jamuna N. Jasmin Tripathy Jhanvi Shah

This list is provisional as on 28 June 2022

Lakshita Arora Lasya Kalidindi Lekha Donur Malavika Menon Mallika Anand Manasi Rathore Manaswini N. C. Mishie Singhal Mobasher Alam Mruganayani Basavaraj Nagur Mruthyunjay Rao Khumbumattu Muskaan Gahlawat Muskan Garg

DIPLOMA AWARDEES

Emirilda Thabah Eureka Selvaraj

Kaavya Kumar Kalyani Kholia Kanchi Malhotra Kanishk Munshi Kashvi Juneja Katha Ray Kewal Singh Komal Bhadana Kritika Nigam

DIPLOMA AWARDEES

Nabiha Naaz Naeem Mohammed Panakat Namya Meshram Nandana Bhattacharjee Nandini Jha Neha Gupta Neha Mishra Neil Khopkar Nihaarika Singh Niharika Suresh Nikita Bharat Sachanandani Nikita Narendra Aage Nona Uppal Padma Rigzin Pallab Kumar Doley Paridhi Kapil Peeyush Nepal Poorvi Gupta Pragya Pal Pranav Annur Pratyush Bhanja Pulkit Goyal Radhika Chhabra Raunak Chaudhury Revathy K. J. Ridhi Kapoor Rishika Rastogi Rishika Saria This list is provisional as on 28 June 2022

Riya Ramakant Baheti Riya Sachin Arolkar Rose Chaudhary Sabahat Sahana Nag H. N. Sahil Mittal Sahil Philip Sai Harshita Vaddadi Sai Venkat Nihith Bodepudi Saloni Dhadwal Saman Waheed Samyuktha Vibhu Saniya Aniruddha Deshpande Sara Rathore Sarandeep Singh Khurana Sathiyan S. Sehar Abdullah Sejal Pradeep Chandrafari Shabdita Tiwari Shaifali Singh Shankar Keshav Prasad Sharon Joslin C. Shashank B. S. Shefali Mehra Shiv Aditya Kashyap Shiva Rajora Shivangi Shanker K. Shivani Chhabra Shivanshi Khanna

Udayan Singh

Tabish Haider Gazi Tanushree Tarush Rajesh Dhume Thareek Ahmed

Zubin Hemant Parikh

This list is provisional as on 28 June 2022

Vagisha Bhatia Vaibhavi Prashanth Vaishnavi Gupta Varun Santosh Dani Varun Srikanth Vibhor Batra Vighnesh P. Vishesh Wadhwa Vishwajeet Mishra Vrinda Goel Vrushali Mohan Ghatpande Wangchok Namgail Yash Manish Annadate Yashika Mandhana Yokitha Sivasamy Yusra Khan

DIPLOMA AWARDEES

Shome Kabir Advani Shreya D. Shruti Shaileshbhai Palan Shubham Rathore Siddarth M. Siddharth Das Sivakami Prasanna Sloka Chandra Kasapuram Sohom Roy Soumil Gupta Sreethi Musunuru Srishti Agrawal Steven Thomas Subhash Bhambhu Sujay Sunil Aiyer Surabhi Shirish Kulkarni Swarnima Pathak Swati Viswajit Swayanka Sahoo Sweja Ramachandran

Photo by Rakesh Meitei

Special Awards at the YIF Convocation Ceremony There are four kinds of special awards given to Fellows at the time of graduation. All but the Scholar Award are nomination-based, where the strength of a nomination matters more than the number of nominations received.

SPECIAL AWARDS

The Torchbearer Award Given to the Fellow(s) who best embodies/ embody the spirit and ideals of the YIF, as seen by their conduct in all aspects of academic and extra-curricular life at the YIF. Awardee: Shankar Keshav Prasad

The Spirit Award Given to the Fellow(s) who has/have gone beyond the call of duty to contribute to different aspects of life at the YIF, through their creativity, energy and unrelenting pursuit to improve the experience of all involved in the programme.

Awardees: Anirudh G. Iyer and Shivanshi Khanna

The Scholar Award Given to the Fellow(s) who has/have achieved the highest academic rank in the class and shown exceptional commitment to learning.

Awardee: Apala Mandal

This list is provisional as on 28 June 2022

Award for Outstanding Performance in the Experiential Learning Module Given to the team(s) of Fellows which has/have overcome challenges and exceeded client expectations to achieve extraordinary results in their project work.

Awardees: ELM Team 7 | Ananya Srivastava, Apala Mandal, Nihaarika Singh, Saman Waheed and Sivakami Prasanna Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality, Ashoka University | Anthology of Trans Narratives ELM Team 15 | Hari Varshini Murugesan, Katha Ray, Riya Ramkant Baheti, Vaishnavi Gupta and Wangchok Namgail Kaivalya Education Foundation | Content Design and Development for 21st CC Education Leadership

Photo by Rakesh Meitei

Photo by Rakesh Meitei

FACULTY AND COURSES

Faculty and Courses A.K. Shivakumar

Debayan Gupta

Economics and Public Policy: An Introduction to Applied Microeconomics

The New Geography of the Information Age

Ananth Padmanabhan

Crowds of Protest, Crowds of Occupation

Law and Policy in India: Foundations and Transitions

Deepak Mehta

Dev Tayde

Anirban Datta

Grassroots Community Service

Cinema and Communication: Through the Practitioner’s Gaze

Dilip Simeon

Anuj Bhuwania

Federalism in India Anunaya Chaubey

Art Appreciation

Totalitarian Century? / The Ideology Seminar Dwight L. Jaggard

Foundations of Leadership Gilles Verniers

Arun Kumar Singh

Who Governs India?

Deconstructing Select Indian Foreign Policy Challenges and Responses: A Practitioner’s Perspective

Jonathan Gil Harris

Aseem Shrivastava

K. P. Krishnan

Shakespeare and the World

Bhismadev Chakrabarti

An Overview of Public Policy and Regulation in India with Indian Finance as a Case Study

Science of Emotions and Empathy: A Toolkit of Concepts and Techniques

Kenwyn Smith

Introduction to Ecosophy

Debal Deb

Ecological Economics

Leadership and Group Dynamics Madhavi Menon

Shakespeare and the World

Ranjan Banerjee

John Keats, Poetry and Intensity

Design Thinking and Innovation

Meenu Gaur

Ritwik Agrawal

Visual Storytelling and Cinematic Techniques

Philosophy and Cognitive Science

Mekhala Krishnamurthy

Anthropology Today

JM Financial Lectures on Reason and the Making of Modern India

Narendra Jadhav

Sanjay Kathuria

Issues in Social Democracy and Social Justice in India

Trade, Trust and Peace in South Asia

Neilesh Bose

Problem Solving and Statistical Thinking in Modern Life

Religion and Secularism in Global Perspective

Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Santosh Venkatesh

Shahid Jameel

Omkar Goswami

Understanding Pandemics

India’s Economy: Past, Present and Near Future

Stephanie Balme

Pooja Haldea

Applied Behaviour Science: From Theory to Practice Pramath Raj Sinha

Building Habits, Careers and Institutions Purushottam Agrawal

Kabir: The Poet of Vernacular Modernity

STI as Power: The Case of China Surinder Singh Jodhka

Indian Society: Imaginations, Structures and Identities Urvashi Butalia

Women, Society and Changing India

FACULTY AND COURSES

Malabika Sarkar

Experiential Learning Module (ELM) Supervising Faculty

ELM FACULTY AND CLIENTS

Srikant Sastri Client Organisations Aaroogya International

Loopworm

Breakthrough

MADIEE Games

Bunavat Retail Pvt. Ltd.

National Institute of Urban Affairs

Carnegie India

Nymble Labs Pvt. Ltd.

Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, University of Arizona

Office of Lok Sabha MP Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu

Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality, Ashoka University

Pratham Education Foundation

Creative Dignity Creya Learning and Research Pvt. Ltd. eGov Foundation Environment Conservation Society (SwitchON Foundation) IIM Calcutta Innovation Park Image Foundry Indian School of Development Management

Pravda Media Foundation Pravesh Consulting Safe in India Foundation Spinning Wheel Leadership Foundation STENUM Asia Tata Steel Adventure Foundation Teach For India The/Nudge Foundation TiE Delhi-NCR

Kaivalya Education Foundation

TARA Foundation

LEAD (IFMR) at Krea University

ZeroPlast Labs

LetsEndorse Development Pvt. Ltd.

Mentors Giti Chandra

Sameer Shisodia

Aditya Yadav

Jaya Hangal

Sameer Mohan Gaokar

Amir Ullah Khan

Johannes Burgers

Samir Kuckreja

Anchal Kakkar

Krishan Dhawan

Sanjay Kukreja

Andrew Hoffland

Madhavi Menon

Sanjeev Aggarwal

Anil Nair

Maloo Natarajan

Satyam Vyas

Ankur Warikoo

Mandar Vaidya

Savyasaachi

Anoop Prakash

Meenakshi Ganguly

Sheena Gandhi

Anunaya Chaubey

Melanie Bowen

Shilpa Sharma

Aparna Sanyal

Nitin Mathur

Smarinita Shetty

Arjun Uppal

Piyush Mehra

Sonali Jha Chatterjee

Ashutosh Chadha

Rahul Ram

Sudheendra Hangal

Chandra Kant

Rahul Shidhaye

Suman Srivastava

Deepti Beri

Raja Natarajan

Sushil Jhangiani

Dev Tayde

Rajen Makhijani

Tejpavan Gandhok

Dharmesh Makwana

Rakesh Godhwani

Uma Chakravarti

Dhiraj Nayyar

Ravi Bhoothalingam

Unny Radhakrishnan

Dhruv Agarwala

Ravi Singh

Upinder Singh

Estelle Metayer

Ravi Sreedharan

Vinati Kastia

Gaurav Sangtani

RCM Reddy

Vivek Bhargava

Gautam Sen

Rizio Yohannan

Gilles Verniers

Ruchir Malik

Gitanjali Gandhiok

Saikat Majumdar

MENTORS

Abhijit Dasgupta

About the Young India Fellowship The Young India Fellowship (YIF) is a one year multidisciplinary postgraduate diploma programme in Liberal Studies. Started in 2011 as the precursor to and flagship programme of Ashoka University, the YIF brings together a group of bright young individuals who show exceptional intellectual ability and leadership potential, and trains them to become socially-conscious leaders and changemakers for the 21st century.

The YIF exposes them to a diverse set of subjects and perspectives, delivered by some of the finest teachers and practitioners from India and around the world. The aim is to help Fellows become wellrounded individuals who are able to think critically from multiple perspectives, communicate effectively and become leaders with a commitment to public service. Individuals from all academic, professional, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds are welcome to the YIF – and are mentored into reaching their full potential.

Photo by Utkarsh Budholiya

About Ashoka University Ashoka University is a pioneer in its focus on multidisciplinary education and research at par with the best in the world. It is named after Emperor Ashoka (c. 304 – 232 BC) who represents India’s highest values and ideals.

Drawing from Emperor Ashoka’s life of learning and transformation, Ashoka University provides a holistic education that is liberal, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary, offering a diverse and inclusive space for its students to think deeply and critically, learn across disciplinary boundaries, express themselves creatively, and communicate with meaning to cause impact and change.

Students are encouraged to explore ideas, engage in research, and focus on values and ideals of the highest order to experience selftransformation within the duration of their education and beyond. The 2500 plus students on campus, drawn from 30 states and over 243 cities in India and 27 other countries, receive a world-class interdisciplinary education through undergraduate and postgraduate programmes taught by internationally renowned faculty.

Photo by Rakesh Meitei

yif.ashoka.edu.in