INDEPENDENTS Expanding beyond our two
parties allows for greater democratic representation
SEE OPINIONS, PAGE 6
KARL LAGERFELD Taking a look back at the
SWIMMING AND DIVING Vera Koprivova
SEE SPORTS, BACK
Chanel designer’s lasting legacy
SEE INSIDE BEAT, PAGE 8
and Francesca Stoppa win bronze in Indiana
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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY—NEW BRUNSWICK
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 26, 2019
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TEDxRutgers conference highlights student, faculty life experiences CATHERINE NGUYEN & JAIMIN GANDHI NEWS EDITOR & CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Mason Ameri, an assistant professor at Rutgers Business School, said during his talk that he changed his name in order to avoid bias and get a job. COURTESY OF THOMAS BONIELLO
Last Saturday, TEDxRutgers held its annual conference in the auditorium of the Livingston Student Center, with this year’s theme being “Pale Blue Dot.” Hersh Patel, a School of Arts and Sciences senior, as well as one of the co-presidents of TEDxRutgers, said
“Pale Blue Dot” was in reference to a photo taken by the Voyager 1 in 1990. The image included a small speck, which represented Planet Earth. Thus, the idea behind the central theme was that people are so focused on what is going on in their lives that they feel the world is a huge place. In reality though, Patel said the universe is much larger than one planet, so the theme was a reminder for people to step back and look at the big picture.
“The purpose of the event is to help attendees find meaning in ‘Pale Blue Dot,’” he said. There were seven speakers at the conference, two of them students from the University. The first speaker was Brooke Getter, a School of Engineering sophomore, who told the story of her upbringing in a religious, technology-deprived SEE EXPERIENCES ON PAGE 4
Gloria Steinem chair teaches course on corporate data mining BRENDAN BRIGHTMAN NEWS EDITOR
Naomi Klein, a journalist who published books such as “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate” and “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” is serving as Rutgers’ first Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies. Starting this year, and for the next two years, she will be teaching courses and organizing events here at the University. Klein said she designed her first course herself. It is entitled “The
Corporate Self,” which looks at the integration between the corporation and the self. The self is a new frontier for capitalism, in relation to mining personal data online and influencing personal behavior. “I had a learning curve,” she said. “I got up to speed about what new technologies and this particular business model is doing to the very idea of self.” A survey given to students at the start of her course this semester revealed that constant surveillance has become normalized, Klein said. People assume they are always
being tracked and consider the stakes to be low. The normalization of constant surveillance can be better understood through historical arcs of previous enclosures of public space, starting with the enclosure of British lands in the 17th and 18th centuries. Like past experiences, our personal data is being enclosed and made into a commodity, Klein said. Some students responded that they like the surveillance SEE MINING ON PAGE 5
Naomi Klein, who is serving as Rutgers’ first Gloria Steinem chair, is teaching her first course this semester, The Corporate Self, which she designed herself. HENRY STREHLO / VIDEO EDITOR
U. holds conference on democracy in India along with Consulate General SAMARTH THAKKER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
On Feb. 22, Rutgers, along with the Consulate General of India and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), co-sponsored a conference concerning democracy in India. This conference, held on the College Avenue campus and titled “Delivering Democracy: The Indian Experience,” featured “eminent scholars, diplomats and business and think tank leaders who were invited to discuss India’s democratic, economic and social achievements,” according to the Rutgers Global website. The welcoming remarks, which started off the program, were presented by Mohini Mukherjee, the associate director of International Student Services at Rutgers. In her speech, Mukherjee highlighted the strong connection and engagement that Rutgers has maintained with India and its universities.
The conference brought together experts to discuss governance, society, the economy and how these forces interact in India. These topics were divided and discussed by three different panels, with each panel comprised of several experts in the respective field. In the first panel, which focused on democracy and the economy, Ashwini Kumar Tewari, the country head (US Operations) for the State Bank of India, was the first to speak. Tewari brought up the issue of poverty in India, along with the steps that the Indian government and India have taken and plan on taking to combat poverty. During his talk, he said one major factor that fueled systematic poverty is the lack of economic freedom and that 42 percent of people did not have access to banks in the past. Without access to banks, people were unable to save, which led to a decrease in investments, overall reducing the amount of loans given out.
Tewari said the most important way to fight the issue was to increase financial inclusion, which several governments have established through various programs. He cited the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, which was a national mission created in 2014 that aimed to bring about more financial inclusion of households in India. “The plan envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household, financial literacy, access to credit, insurance and pension facility,” he said. Two other experts who spoke on the first panel were Syed Zafar Islam, the independent director of Air India and Hirsh Vardhan Singh, the senior director for the company Hi-Tec Systems. Islam discussed the efforts of the Bharatiya Janata Party, one of the political parties in power in India, to achieve social SEE DEMOCRACY ON PAGE 5
Sandeep Chakravorty, the consul general of India, spoke in the third panel of the conference, which was about governance and democracy in India. TWITTER
VOLUME 151, ISSUE 17 • UNIVERSITY ... 3 • OPINIONS ... 6 • INSIDE BEAT... 8• DIVERSIONS ... 9 • SPORTS ... BACK