LSE and India

This week, as LSE's Director visits India, the School has announced 50 new scholarships for postgraduate Indian students, and a major collaborative research programme on gender equality in India.

Launch of the PDAM

LSE has launched the Personal Development Aide Memoire, a new online function for all undergraduates which helps you recognise and record the activities you have undertaken in addition to your academic studies.

Dr Debin Ma

Dr Ma, Department of Economic History, loves to go to a Chinese restaurant called 'Leong’s Legend' in Chinatown: 'It has a nice, cosy and casual atmosphere. My favourite dish is steam dumpling'.

LSE has announced 50 new scholarships for postgraduate Indian students.

The LSE India Scholarships will enable students from India to study for a Master’s degree at LSE starting in 2013. The awards will range from £3,000 to £32,000, depending on financial need, and are open to all Indian students who hold an offer of a place on an LSE Master’s programme by 30 April 2013.

LSE is to develop its highly regarded relationship with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai to establish a major research programme on gender equality.

LSE's relationship with TISS, established in 2007, has been supported by the Jamsetji Tata Trust, which has provided £1.8 million to fund joint research projects and the exchange of faculty members and PhD students between TISS and LSE's India Observatory. LSE and TISS are working towards building on this collaboration with a focus on women's issues.

Whilst travelling with prime minister David Cameron as part of the largest delegation a British prime minister has ever taken anywhere in the world, LSE's Director Professor Craig Calhoun (pictured) reflects on the School’s historic ties with India and looks forward to expanding these links.

In his blog post entitled 'India, the world and LSE', Professor Calhoun finds that the world looks different from India’s vantage point, and explains why that matters for the School.

Latefa Guemar (pictured), visiting fellow in LSE’s Gender Institute and a fellow of the Scholars at Risk Scheme at LSE, has been shortlisted in the online category of the Migrant and Refugee Women of the Year Awards.

Latefa was shortlisted for her article Academic refugees: ‘My hope is to contribute to this country - if I’m given the opportunity’ which was published on the Guardian Online and tells of Latefa’s experience of being a refugee scholar.

Latefa joined LSE in 2012 as a participant on the Reconnect with Research course, which provides unique language and research skills support to refugee scholars. The Reconnect with Research programme is part of the LSE Scholars at Risk Scheme, which supports persecuted and displaced scholars.

Latefa said: ‘I was first very surprised but completely delighted to hear that my article has been shortlisted. When looking at the high profile of the jury members, I also felt very honoured. I am pleased that my article highlighted the situation of so many women academic refugees who have to struggle to re-build their life in a new and sometimes, hostile environment. I am very proud to represent their plights, and also their successes. So many of us have much to contribute to British society, if the opportunity is given.’

As part of LSESU’s Go Green Week, the Sustainability Team put a day’s worth of LSE’s waste on Houghton Street. The stunt aimed to draw attention to the amount of waste produced by LSE’s students and staff on a daily basis and to encourage individuals to think about how they can reduce the amount of waste produced.

LSE produced 1,920 tonnes of waste in 2011-12, a figure the Sustainability Team is keen to see fall. The waste also showed clear evidence of poor recycling skills.

Students and staff are reminded to empty coffee cups before recycling and to put left over food in the compost bin. An entire bag of recycling with any food or liquid in it can no longer be recycled, so please think before you bin to help increase LSE’s recycling rates.

LSE has launched the Personal Development Aide Memoire (PDAM), a new online function for all undergraduates which helps you recognise and record the activities you have undertaken in addition to your academic studies. It is located on LSE for You.

The purpose of the PDAM is to enable you to record your extra-curricular achievements whilst at LSE. This is additional to the academic transcript the School produces at the end of your studies.

Information in the PDAM is pre-populated from a variety of School systems; and you can add to it manually yourself. It gathers the content together, under a set of core skills, which will then help you when writing your CV, applying for jobs or further study, and identifying areas for personal development.

For more information and guidance, click here.

Training and development opportunities for students

Courses scheduled for next week include:

• Exams One: planning and preparation

• Introduction to Financial, Market and Company Data

• Sleep Well Workshop

• Mindfulness and Stress Management Workshop

These are just some of the events running next week. To receive a monthly list of all events, subscribe to the student training and development email by clicking here. To find out more about training and development across the School and for links to booking pages, see lse.ac.uk/training.
 

Tell us what you think - Student News feedback survey 2013

The Press Office has put together a short survey for you to let us know how you feel about Student News. It will be an important way for us to find out how we can improve the newsletter for you.

The survey is open to all students and should take no more than five minutes to complete. To take part, visit www.survey.bris.ac.uk/lsewebsite/student_news_2013.

The Bean Counter, LSE Catering’s new café is delighted to announce that it has now extended its menu.

As well as the high quality barista coffees, speciality teas, freshly squeezed juices, smoothies, cookies and cakes initially on sale, we can now offer:

• handmade sandwiches on home baked artisan breads - plain or toasted
• freshly made plated salads
• main course soup with rustic bread
• hot savoury and sweet pastries
• yoghurts and fresh fruit salad

As part of Fairtrade Fortnight, LSE Catering will be actively promoting LSE’s Fairtrade status in all of its restaurants and cafés from Monday 25 February to Sunday 10 March.

LSE Catering will be promoting existing Fairtrade products, introducing new products, and arranging free tastings and giveaways of Fairtrade products.

Fairtrade is a simple way you can make a difference through everyday choices. It’s about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. Fairtrade aims to enable the poorest farmers and workers to improve their position and have more control over their lives.

LSE High Holborn Hall has a selection of newly refurbished rooms available from the end of March 2013 for short lets. There are also one or two other rooms available now.

Drop your commuting time and spend time in halls revising instead. Accommodation from £196.70 per week.

Engenderings is the popular and well-regarded blog of the LSE Gender Institute.

Engenderings needs submissions and the team wants to hear from you. Writing for Engenderings is a great way to engage in cutting edge debate as well as to get your work seen by thousands of readers around the world.

You can write about anything gender-related which you find engaging and important: think film, art or performance reviews; media analyses; political commentary; cultural critiques or observations; literary criticism; reports on current events; or policy reviews and recommendations. You can respond to recent controversy or explore something you’ve been thinking about for a while.

Publish your article in Catalyst

The LSESU Think Tank Society is calling for submissions for its first ever journal, Catalyst.

The journal will be published in print and online at the end of Lent term and will serve as a platform for students who want to voice their recommendations on contemporary policy issues. The Society aims to publish articles that represent a broad spectrum of ideas; every policy issue can be viewed from various lenses, and it encourages students to ‘think different’ and contribute their recommendations to the journal.

Missing the point?

This year's Acupuncture Awareness Week, which takes place from Monday 25 February to Sunday 3 March, aims to educate people about how traditional acupuncture can help improve sleep and aid relaxation.

Among the 82 per cent of us who admit to insomnia, many of us are missing the point when it comes to this ancient Chinese medicine. Traditional acupuncture is a natural system of healing that has been practised for over 2,500 years. It is a safe and effective treatment that involves inserting fine sterile needles, painlessly at specific points on the body.

Acupuncture is available at LSE on Wednesdays and Fridays. To book an appointment, visit www.lsetreatmentclinic.co.uk. If you would like to discuss the treatment beforehand, call Hanya on 07789 322 821.

For more information, visit www.introducingacupuncture.co.uk.

LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival: Branching Out

Tickets are now available for 2013 LSE Literary Festival. Highlights include:

Narrative, Memory and the Mind
On: Wednesday 27 February at 5.15pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Lisa Appignanesi OBE, prize-winning writer, novelist, broadcaster and cultural commentator, Professor Anne Applebaum, Philippe Roman Chair in history and international affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2012-13, and Charles Fernyhough, writer and psychologist.

My Mediterranean
On: Friday 1 March at 12pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Professor David Abulafia (pictured), professor of Mediterranean history at the University of Cambridge.

The Art of Parodies
On: Friday 1 March at 6.30pm in the Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Ewan Morrison, author, Martin Rowson, multi-award winning cartoonist and writer, and D.J. Taylor, author.

New LSE event....

India - Macroeconomic Challenges, Some Reserve Bank Perspectives
On: Wednesday 13 March from 2.30-4pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Dr Duvvuri Subbarao (pictured), governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Dr Subbarao will reflect on challenges from the Reserve Bank perspective and illustrate the dilemmas encountered in making policy choices.

This lecture is in honour of Dr Indraprastha Gordhanbhai (IG) Patel who was the ninth director of LSE from 1984 to 1990.

On: Thursday 21 February from 6:30-8pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Elhanan Helpman (pictured), Galen L Stone Professor of international trade at Harvard University and a fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

During the last decade the analysis of foreign trade and investment has been re-oriented toward the roles played by firms with different characteristics. This has been enabled by the emergence of rich data sets that provide new stylised facts on trade and investment.

In response, new theoretical models have been developed to explain these patterns and to re-examine a host of issues, such as the effects of trade policy on productivity and trade openness on inequality. The lecture will review these developments.

The next LSE Chill session will take place this Friday (22 February) from 5.30pm in the 4th Floor Café bar. The session is open to all and will feature some dynamic acts.

The line-up for the evening is as follows:

6-6.30pm Rupert Andrew
Singer and guitarist Rupert Andrew performs a mix of his own pieces and covers.

6.45-7.15pm Alex Dunn
A solo artist, Alex Dunn sings and plays acoustic and clean electric guitar and takes inspiration from acts like Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, REM, Mark Knopfler and Peter Gabriel.

7.30-8pm Not Dark Yet
Not Dark Yet is a three piece London based band. Daniel Fisher from the US sings lead and plays lead guitar, David Stokes plays bass, and the multitalented Ross Harper sings and plays the drums.

MRes, MPhil and PhD students: Come and join us at the Research Festival exhibition on Friday 1 March from 6-9pm in the New Academic Building.

Posters, films, photographs and apps will provide a brilliant showcase of research undertaken by PhD students, researchers and academics from LSE, University of Cambridge, UCL and SOAS.

TwentySomethings - An Original Play

On: Monday 4 March at 7pm, Tuesday 5 March at 8.30pm, and Wednesday 6 March at 7pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building.

Twentysomethings is a comedy about five twentysomethings and the way that they each deal with the inevitable quest for meaning, love and self-realisation that comes with being set adrift after university. Featuring a deadly secret, bad baby seal jokes, French underwear, infidelity, not so oblique Tom Stoppard riffs, and a personification of Despair who narrates this dramatic farce.

Starring Tanzima Chowdhury as Andrea, Charlotte Hussey as Brin, Susan Sebatindira as Cathy, Tom Speed as Daemon, Fionn Shiner as Jeremy, and Rach Williams as Erica/Despair.

Tickets cost £3 for general admission or £2 for LSESU Drama Club Society members, and will be on sale on Houghton Street during week seven.