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CARPE DIEM.
The much awaited SISMUN 2014 has nally begun! Delegates began bustling in the campus for registration, some like Men in Black parodies and others wobbling on spindly heels. The campus became vibrant with all delegates discussing their committees and forming their small group to discuss their country's stance. All the delegates seemed very excited for the 2 days of debating endeavor to voice their respective nations. Since every MUN is incomplete without an opening ceremony, SISMUN too began with one where in the Executive Board of all the eight committees were introduced to all the delegates. The Secretary General, Shankhini Saha and her core team of Executive Boards were introduced by the Deputy Secretary General, Sahil Rai. This was followed by an encouraging and a welcoming speech by the Head of School- Ms. Sharonee Mullick to all the delegates. She welcomed all the delegates to join as global citizens. Her words enlightened us on how the youth of today can share their vision of global issues and challenges. Go for the stars and change the world! The Chief Guest for the opening ceremony was Ms.Manju Nichani who is the principal of K.C College and is an educationalist and a feminist too. She truly believes that the students of today are going to make the change and take over the world but she also reminded the delegates that they should think Global but be Indian at heart. She concluded her speech by urging the delegates to be grounded and to think everything is possible. Rishabh Shah, the president and founder of Indian International Model United Nations who is also the chair of the United Nations Security Council for SISMUN addressed the audience to welcome them to debate through the procedure introduced by him. The opening ceremony was also enlightened by performances from the young talent of Singapore International School and this ceremony ended with the Secretary General declaring SISMUN 2014 open.
SISMUN GLOBAL
UNGA
United Nations General Assembly
World Water Resources Exploited Full Membership of Palestine & Somaliland Questioned
The chair, Siddhanth Prasad and the Vice- chairs, Jeevesh Garg and Shashank Karnik, managed to provide a platform for a pragmatic debate. It was overwhelming to see all the delegates taking active part in the committee. Numerous delegates such as the delegates of Pakistan, France and Sudan raised interesting points such as the pros and cons of handing over of the worlds water resources to private rms. Since the chairwas approachable, lenient and rather friendly, it allowed the new delegates to showcase their debating skills to their maximum potential.
According to the vice-chair, Jeevesh Garg,The committee progressed slowly but after a while hesitation was replaced by condence and several delegates such as the delegate of Canada brought out amazing points to the oor. Altogether the committee's progress was impressive. On interviewing the Chair,he stated that the delegates have been outspoken and since the beginning the committee has been moving in a progressive direction. He further stated that he is hoping that a comprehensive resolution would soon be passed. Overall, the chair and the vice chairs were very pleased with their committee. - Roshnit Bhumra , ke
UNU
United Nations University
i s l trong i on y, s n." i t olu shin ome s re en; s w s i ll ect h u T " d C rot ar it p w Ed and
United Nations University is an academy supported by the United Nations with a mission to contribute through collaborative research and education. It resolves pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare that are the concern of the United Nations, its Peoples and Member States. Though not a very popular committee in the MUN circuit, it still held a challenge for the delegates. Whilst chair, Jai Goradia was absent during the session, the Vice Chair, Advik Sanyalvery efciently led the committee through fruitful discussions, resulting in varied ideologies. Despite a clueless start, the committee did manage to raise important issues such as the franchising of simulated United Nations procedures to prot making agencies. On interviewing the chair, he stated that no crisis has risen in committee yet and that the delegates were not threatening one another. However, the chair further added that no resolution had been formed either and that a crisis would hopefully stir productive discussions. Pratha Bhatia
Press Team SISMUN 2014 Head Of Press Riya Awtaney Editor-In-Chief Megha Thakker Vrishank Menon Head Of Photography Dhruv Thakker Raya Mohan
It's ne, I have Togo anyway. of hand. I'm Ghana get a Cuba sugar t u o g n i t t e ia-sly g for my Papua. This is Syr who cares if you are not paying attention to the speech , you can always raise a point of personal privilege when st n u j ou estio you hear a reference to your country. y ve 't qu e i l be uldn ze. Everyone calm down. How about some music? t ' n o Beli a h c s I can Singapore rendition of Queen n, I . You ple's a Om here peo nt t other e w
SISMUN GLOBAL
UNSC
World Water Resources Exploited Full Membership of Palestine & Somaliland Questioned
ILO
Labour norms in radiation areas Employment opportunities in refugee camps International Labour Organisation
The International labour Organisation, chaired by SimranJehani and vice chaired by Stavan Shah, worked towards dening of labour norms in radiated areas and the construction of frameworks for employment facilities in refugee countries/areas or countries/area affected by war. For a committee with rst time MUNners, the delegates gave rise to new ideas and rational discussion. They gave suggestions of possible precautions that could be taken to prevent diseases caused by radiation. While the delegate of Argentina took a more realistic, diplomatic approach towards the committee, the delegate of Germany maintained an aggressive outlook, moreover towards to the delegate of Bangladesh. Almost unexpectedly, arguements broke out between the delegates of the United States of America and the Russian Federation. Eventually, the committee settled down to work on and introduce a working paper, only after looking back on past events regarding radiation fallout, such as the events that unfolded in Fukushima. The committee succeeded in making signicant progress and debate and succeeded in impressing an executive board with high expectations. Stavan Shah, Vice chair of ILO had a lot to say about this committee. He mentioned that the debate was better than he expected and that the delegates improved their work and became more condent through the day (90% of the committee actually spoke), especially since they were rst time MUNners. Will this committee pass their working paper for dening of labour norms in radiated areas?
SISMUN GLOBAL
UNESCO
AU
African Union
Piracy in the Somali Waters Right to free education to rehabilitated child soldier
ion. n o n a is like n o i t u l ry. so This re t makes me c I Well, what Uganda do about it?
The Chair, Ali Azghar Bootwala of the African Union refused to smile upon any motion for an un-moderated caucus. However his approachable candor made the rst time MUNners feel at ease. Though only thirty-ve minutes of the session had lapsed, it did not stop the delegates from candidly asking for a motion of entertainment! Although the session started on a monotonous note, the excitement of the delegates and the constant urging by the chair, resulted in a fruitful discussion on pressing issues such as curbing maritime piracy in Somali waters. There were only a few who were still shy but otherwise most of them opened up and stepped out of their comfort zone and spoke with poise. This obvious progress in the discussion pleased the chair who eventually relented into passing a motion of entertainment! The vice-chair, Sara Shirodkar seemed quite pleased with the progress of her committee as they were discussing on passing two directives. A crisis about the independence of Somalia and the Sharia law in the committee further fueled debate. The delegates of Uganda, Rwanda and Angola were few of the most outspoken delegates in the African Union. - Avisha Goyal
ion, t u l o Iran home and cried s re "This s and t is a when you said I ladie . p i h that sas i , his n t e d m n e A l hip. gent s g i b , great hip, is the There's Norway I could s like you back t. It. e L . . . c i n Tita Sink."
SISMUN GLOBAL
NHRC
National Human Rights Commission
The discussion started with the delegate, Shree M Shivanna, who stated that the juvenile age should be lowered and more time should be put into helping the juveniles who have committed crimes. Furthermore, he suggested that the age limit for juveniles across India should be set to fourteen years. Judge Yoshi Khanna collaborated with him and raised the urgency of the situation by displaying mind-blowing statistics, where in 2008 there were 17427 teenagers committing crimes and in 2012 the number had reached to 26473 people.This partnership intrigued the chairs of the committee. However, the level of maturity of the juveniles needs to be questioned. Can they really be mature enough to comprehend the consequences of their performed crimes? Not only that, but studies have proved that juveniles have recently been coming into adulthood earlier and hence questioning their physiological level is important- Samit Godhania
JCC
SISMUN GLOBAL
Why do I MUN? Really, why do I? By Mukherjee. P I MUN because I want to understand the mechanics of the real change that is taking place, to look at the world from the in-between zone of dread and delight. To learn the nuts, bolts and levers of how to proceed towards building a sense of consensus in a world that is increasingly becoming unilateral, unipolar and stridently singular.
Have you ever witnessed how The spring descends in an empty bowl? This city unfolds this way Thus it lls and Then it empties out...Kedarnath Singh anniversary This is 2014.Should I remember the 50th year of the African Union at a time when Mali is sorting its own ghosts? Which 25 do I remember this year? The 25th year of SafdarHashmi'sassassination or the 25th year of withdrawal of troops by Soviet Union from Afghanistan or 25 years of Amitav Ghosh's book Shadow Lines. Or for that matter which 30? Three decades of Bhopal Gas tragedy or three decades of the violence that ravaged the Sikh community? Or 100 years of World War I, of Ocativio Paz, of musical maestros Gyanprakash Ghosh, C.S. Muruga boopathy and the late Polish composer AndrzejPanufnik, who spent more than half of his life in Britain, of Dylan Thomas and H.L Nagegowda, of Lakshminath Bezbaruah, painter K.H. Ara and AdvaitaMallabarman or Gandhiji's return from South Africa or Srinivas Ramanujan's trip to England or Tagore becoming the rst Asian to win Nobel prize in any category? Or 200 years of the brilliant James Long or 150 years of Kamini Roy, Ramendrasunder Trivedi, Brajendranath Seal and Ashutosh Mukherjee? And it was exactly 100 years before since Charlie Chaplin appeared in his rst lm and a new country burst into the global landscape of ideas, identity and idioms: Nigeria. The season of political upheaval, socio-cultural churning, elections, emotions of real and enforced spring, notions of occupy, occupied, occupier and occupation is playing itself out in diverse humans capes ranging from Central African Republic to Cairo to Dhaka, Tahrir square, Lebanon, Baharin, Liberia, Tunisia, Libya, Ai Weiwei-the Chinese dissident artist being taken to prison and then released with his lips sewn and shut..all these points to a churning that the world is currently facing and will face in a far more complicated nature of thingsthese repeated questionsthose repeated acts of washing imaginary blood by Lady Macbeth from her hands...Very recently, while shaping a note for a summit of the youth, I wrote about the changemaker. The answer lies in understanding diversity. Who, then, is a change maker ?The change-making force has to be dened by a newness of thinking, the ability to dare and to look the odds into the eye. A change maker can be a political activist theatre director, sportsman, a peacenik, a labourer, a human rights activist, a sportsman, a painter, a lawyer, a bunch of activists or even a group or collective that gives birth to an idea whose time has come or which is far ahead of times. But the change maker has to be in active change and not some passive theoretical change that is chained by academics. He/She has to take part and be a eld observer and at the same time also be a footsolider for change. But let me take this article a little further than my previous piece. Can I identify a change maker? I was discussing about this man in a bookfest in Gujarat a few years back. His name: Frontier Gandhi. Here is a story, I am never tired of writing, rewriting and rewinding again. Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born in a wealthy family of Utmanzai, Hasht-nagar, in 1890 and his only trust with education was one year at Mayo College, Aligarh. From a family steeped in feudal tradition of large land holding, he shocked his family by wanting to become a peace-worker. He was the second and last son of Bahram Khan (the Mashar Khan-great Khan or the Khan of Khans).It isn't very often that you stop the war to allow mourners to walk from Khyber Pass to Jalalabad to attend a funeral. He was also called Sarhaddi Gandhi and Fakr-e-Afgan. In 1987, he became the rst non-Indian to be decorated with the Bharat Ratna. He passed away under house arrest in Peshawar the next year, but was buried across the Khyber in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, with every warring faction holding re to pay their respects to the great leader. The only such instance in landscape scarred by re and crossre. President Hamid Karzai, inaugurated the renovation work on the mausoleum of Badshah Khan in Jalalabad on April 15, 2010.It also isn't very often that you share reading glasses with Gandhi. It isn't very often that 6ft 3 inches, you prefer to walk gently yet rmly and abhor the word "military-solution." It isn't very often you realise that passive resistance is a more meaningful form of constructive workshop For the better part of 1987, Badshah Khan was almost unconscious in bed. He was in India for a period of time and then at Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar where he left his body. At the age of 98 on the 20th of January, 1988, Frontier Gandhi died ghting his own pitched battle with peace, He was buried in Jalalabad on the 22nd of January. He had spent 30 years of his life in all kinds of prison. And the "prison" that we are discussing is not a metaphor but a hard, cold cell that can play havoc with one's mind. It is not very often that your Red Shirt has been dyed with a colour from the red bricks. The power of Surkh Posh! It also isn't very often that the colonial imperialists jail you, your country jails you, your former undivided country awards you but hardly makes any internatonal clamour for your release and you still remain non-violent. As always.Diversity needs to be re-discovered. Discussed threadbare.Discussed inside the classrooms.Discussed with the Avarna of Ambedkar and Ahimsa of Gandhi. How else will be distinguish change makers from the headline-grabbers? The idea of SISMUN needs to be lauded. It takes praxis to student's not idle words of imagined pedagogy. All power to your collective voice. And all power to all those voices that shape their own idea of looking at procedures and not merely taking derivate MUN booklets following them to the T. Or even the photo-journalism competition in the true spirit of Cartier Bresson: Camera-it can be a machine gun, it can be a psycho-analytical couch, it can be a warm kiss, it can be a sketch book. The idea of MUN is to identify the traits of a changemaker. And then walk the path. The path in itself is littered with landmines. But then, how do you change the process if the process does not change you. How do you heal if you have never undergone the power of healing? Let me end with an extract culled from the Constituent Assembly of India Debates Volume I and delivered by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan on Wednesday, the 11th December, 1946.... I admit that the people of the North-West Frontier' Province are much behind you in literacy and in wealth. Our Province is a small one while yours are larger but I can say that the people of the North-West Frontier Province, if not ahead, are in no way behind you in many things....Let us see what violence is and what non-violence is. I tell you that whether we are Hindus or Muslims we can win the people only by being non-violent because violence breeds hate and non-violence creates love. You cannot bring peace to the worked by violence. One war' will compel us to ght a second war more disastrous than the rst. Violence begets hate in the minds of people... Years later these eternally relevant extracts convince me as to why I do and why we should MUN. It is never about what is new. It is always about what seeking the tested values of tolerance against st-pumping, air salute machismo. And that is an old ght. And a ght that tolerance has to win. And win it soon. (Mr Mukherjee. P is one of the important alternative theatre directors of the country and has developed projects for different arms of UN and other international agencies).