The Cultural Secretary (Girls), Shivanee Sharma, built her campaign around the vision of a more inclusive campus culture enabling the General Body to unlock its full potential. Her campaign stressed the importance of the cultural senate providing a platform to strengthen life skills and promote creativity.
She, however, only managed to fulfil a disappointing 1/8 of her promises, with 1/8 being in progress and an even more disappointing 6/8 being unfulfilled.
You can find her manifesto here.
- Manifestation Boards (Not Fulfilled)
The Cultural Secretary promised to set up a Desire Board and a Star Board in front of the messes, which aimed to encourage the General Body to accomplish goals that would usually succumb to procrastination. Although efforts were made and both messes were approached with the idea, it failed to be implemented due to needing permission.
- Budget Trips (Not Fulfilled)
Following an online semester, the Cultural Secretary wanted to plan budget-friendly trips to account for all the missed college trips that the General Body awaited eagerly for. She aimed to prepare for these trips by surveying the General Body to find favourable destinations. However, these surveys were not taken, and the cultural senate did not plan these trips. Independent efforts have also yet to be made on a large scale.
- Month to Month Cultural Nights (Fulfilled)
The Cultural Secretary planned to arrange cultural nights in collaboration with regional associations, which she claimed would celebrate the cultural diversity of our campus and make the General Body aware of different cultures.
Cultural Nights were arranged throughout the semester every other week, collaborating with several regional associations, including Baithak for Baisakhi.
- Weekly Refreshments (Unfulfilled)
Many among the General Body are held back by time constraints and the need for more time to devote to clubs while still wishing to participate in activities held by clubs of their interest. The Cultural Secretary planned to set up weekly refreshments to account for this, wherein clubs would host engaging events which would take the form of competitions every weekend, in which anyone amongst the General Body could participate. Due to several reasons, such as budget constraints and lack of time and organisation, this idea failed to come to fruition.
- People of BPHC (In Progress)
The Cultural Secretary planned to set up a platform, namely the People of BPHC, where the General Body would get an opportunity to showcase their skills and talents. She hoped this would motivate the General Body to resume their hobbies following a gruelling two-year period of competitive examinations. However, this particular platform still needs to be set up, but similar platforms where the General Body can express them have been. The Cultural Secretary says there are plans to set up such a platform shortly.
- Blending in with the city (Unfulfilled)
The city of Hyderabad, with its rich history and buzzing city life, holds many unique places to explore. However, much of what the city offers seems challenging to access, owing to our campus’s location and a college student’s budgetary constraints. The Cultural Secretary aimed to help students access these places easily by setting up exclusive partnerships with restaurants, adventure parks, and fun zones to get discounted prices for the BITS community. Although such discounts have been made occasionally, they have been limited to a one-time basis, and long-standing partnerships with establishments are yet to be made. A platform for such discounts and offers has also yet to be made.
- Pearl (2022-2023) ā (Unfulfilled)
Following the very successful Orbe Novo, the Cultural Secretary planned to bring back our much-awaited cultural fest in its whole, Pearl, following a rather untimely hiatus owing to the pandemic. She planned to revamp the Pearl Ball as a Masquerade Ball, which she hoped would bring a new experience for the incoming batch.
Unfortunately, this idea was not green-lit. The low budget for Pearl also proved to be an obstacle and essentially made the idea unfeasible.
She also planned to bring the campus back to life by decorating lanes throughout the campus. Unfortunately, the Department of Arts and Decoration had to do this on a low budget. Although the idea introduced was familiar enough, it has been customary for Arts & Deco to take up this task every fest. Due to budget allocations not favouring the department, it proved difficult for Arts & Deco to execute their ideas, and an emphasis on decoration needed to be placed.
She further planned to introduce flash mobs on the inauguration day to encourage spontaneity amongst the General Body. The plan was not executed this Pearl but intends to organise flash mobs for upcoming fests made independently and by the cultural senate.
- Infrastructure (Unfulfilled)
The Cultural Secretary proposed a few changes to account for more space and rooms allotted to clubs and departments.
She planned to allot one room to more than one club based on convenience and population. This was done, both independently and otherwise. However, this did not resolve the lack of space for clubs and has worsened the situation to some extent due to conflicting schedules.
She also planned to allot specific academic block rooms for particular days a week to clubs or departments. While this was done to some extent, it was not done weekly, and most clubs and departments needed a designated room to access at convenient times, apart from when fests were approaching.
She also planned to build a second floor in SAC to provide extra rooms. Although this proposal was taken to higher authorities, it needed to be greenlit, and any future plans seemed very unlikely.
The Journal Club 
Leave a comment