Ashoka Alumni Association Election Briefing
Here are the 6 visions that are standing for presidency in the 2nd ever AAA Elections.
On Saturday, a fresh set of elections are going to take place to the now reformed and restructured Alumni Association of Ashoka University; only the second ever. This also marks the first time the Undergraduates will be going to polls, with many of them also running for Batch Representative and Director.
The AAA is still a body in its nascent stages, many of our readers might not have even known about its existence. It is the concretization of this association which has become one of the central tenets of this elections. While it is still vacation mode for most of the University, it is important to take cognizance of the candidates, their policies and backgrounds. The post of President of a body that is soon going to become rather influential in lobbying for interests of the students within Ashoka and University objectives without becomes very important as Ashoka moves forward.
The ‘Prince of Ancient Comedy’, the comic playwright of Ancient Athens, Aristophanes, in his book ‘The Knights’ proclaimed that: “To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them.” Elections are fought on visions and promises. As the Saturday approaches, The Edict has surveyed the manifestos of each of the six candidates standing for the Presidency, and here is what they all have to say.
Parushya
Graduating from the YIF ’15 batch after studying engineering, going by a single name, Mr. Parushya is a Research Consultant with the University of Chicago’s Urban Poverty Study. Many have also been in classes TA’ed by Mr. Parushya (Water & Sanitation, Principles of Science FC and Urbanization). He has also been involved with various different ventures of the University which include the Trivedi Political Data Centre, the Chief Minister’s Good Governance Project and the YIF Marketing Team.
Mr. Parushya’s vision for the Association is “Engagement, Transparency and Accountability.” Two of the most important plans that are envisaged by Mr Parushya include a ‘Mentorship Yatra’ and self sufficiency. The former includes providing mentors for life and professional skills whereas the latter includes the creation of a corpus fund for the Association that can drive it towards self sufficiency going up to the local chapter level, the ability to manage their own events and provide scholarship help to students.
In his pitch of himself, Mr. Parushya highlights an adage credited to Jeff Bezos: “In the end, we are our choices.”
Ms. Rana is part of the same cohort as Mr. Parushya, graduating in 2015. She has been associated with a aasaanjobs.com, a recruitment based startup and is now an associate at the Swaniti Initiative which provides public policy advice to MPs. She has herself worked with one such parliamentarian doing work in Assam.
Ms. Rana aims to connect the alumni into a close knit community through an app and a website, hold monthly sessions for the students on campus make the chapters of the Association in various cities more active. The idea that has caught everyone’s attention however, is her proposal to create a formal way by which the Association could help graduates settle into new locations where they might move to, for higher education or professional purposes. Such a policy if implemented could make the AAA a very important part of the post-Ashoka experience for students.
Part of the 2013 YIF batch, Ms. Luthra is an economist from SRCC. Having formerly worked as legislative aide to MP Mr. Jay Panda (who is currently organizing the ‘Clean Air Policy Challenge’ as your mailboxes might have informed you), and as a consultant with the Ministry of Finance, she is now working in the Office of the Chairman at the Quality Council of India. Ms. Luthra delightfully highlights how she was part of the team that found the AAA, also having been a part of the Interim Council.
Ms. Luthra has offered to us the longest manifesto. She promises to stand for Continuity and Growth. Her manifesto indicates the importance she realizes local chapters to espouse, planning to increase their number and formalize their structure, investigate and ideate the problem of integration and representation for the various groups of alums (YIF, MLS, UG), create opportunities for interacting with alumni of others Universities and most importantly “find the sweet spot between spam and keeping everyone in the loop.” She has been a part of the Association from its inception having worked as a volunteer and now gunning for the top post.
Another Batch of 2015, Mr. Kanoi’s experience spreads across fields having been involved in corporate consultancy with the Boston Consultancy Group, governmental policy with the Himachal Pradesh government and teaching & research at Jadavpur and Ashoka Universities. Currently he is Senior Research Associate to our Vice Chancellor and is also teaching a self designed course on ‘Tragedy and Ethics’ as part of the Critical Thinking Seminars.
Having previously chaired the Delhi NCR chapter of the Association, Mr. Kanoi, promises to provide a structures writing support to students for their CVs and SOPs (a surest success with the Undergraduates), create a global alumni calendar for meet ups while traveling. While the app is something that seems to be quite a popular promise, the striking aspect about Mr. Kanoi’s manifesto is his commitment to begin online Ashoka certified courses for expanded learning. Mr. Kanoi sums up his own vision in a simple phrase: “I want our Family to thrive.”
Coming from the 2013 cohort, Ms. Shetty has been running a nonprofit by the name of Bodhi Tree Foundation to empower the rural youth, while simultaneously also working as TA for the leadership course. She is an Acumen and MTF Fellow, Changeloomer and Ashoka Youth Venturer.
Ms. Shetty displays more than any other candidate a commitment to transparency which is evident of her promise to record and share all meetings as well as financials. She aims to provide inclusivity to alums for voicing opinions as well as ensuring their representation and espouse diversity within her team if elected. An important promise that her candidacy makes is to bring together alums over weekends to raise funds.
Mr. Mohta is the only person standing for President from the Founding Batch of the YIF Programme. Currently he is Head of Product Management and Marketing at Lybrate, a healthcare-technology startup based out of the Delhi NCR region. Previously he has helped in the creation of the ‘YIF Entrepreneurs’ and the Alumni Fund for which he helped raise over 4 lacs from the first 2 batches, which was ultimately used to sponsor someone from the 2017 YIF cohort.
As Mr. Mohta markets himself instead of his products for a change, he promises to engage with the administration in a formal manner, move towards self financing, and publish a quarterly activity journal. The most ambitious of his proposals though involve the raising of Rs. 1 crore in funds by 2020, start an ‘Ashoka Global Day of Service’ and establish support groups towards Higher Studies/ Career (Ashoka2Consulting, Ashoka2BSchool, Ashoka2Technology).
Mr. Mohta reminds us of words by Former US President John Quincy Adams in his manifesto: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
There you have it. These are the men and women of unborrowed vision, who promise to take the Ashoka Alumni Association to great heights. As they step foot on a road that is still quite kachha it is important to reprint the disclaimer that is provided by Nietzsche — “The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.”
Sparsh Agarwal is a Gatsby stuck in a wrong age. Moving to his own melody, he is in search of Atlantis. He is currently studying PPE and judging humans at Ashoka University.
