Department of Political Science

BA(Political Science)

Political science entails understanding political ideas, ideologies, institutions, policies, processes & behaviour and  is almost an essential prerequisite for, not only understanding the changing landscape of politics across the world, but even in our daily sphere of work and play. As such, the subject has always been a popular choice among students at the undergraduate level, both in Honours & in General.

Right from the outset, the Department of Political Science, New Alipore College has been one of the premier Departments of the institution. Initially, the Department offered courses at the 10+2 and General levels; Honours’ teaching was introduced in the subject only in 1967. Prof. Birendranath Goswami, who himself was a brilliant scholar, as well as a teacher extraordinaire, played a pivotal role in moulding and guiding the department in its formative years. Thereafter, the responsibilities of the Department were successfully carried on by Prof. Susanta Roy, Prof. N.B. Rakshit, Prof. A.S Brahmachari and Prof. Siddhartha Mitra. At present, the departmental activities are being successfully conducted by Dr. Madhuparna Dutta (HOD), Dr. Somdatta Banerjee, Prof. Devarati Mandal, Dr. Pema Lama and Prof. Sucharita Bhattacharya.

Fortunately, the Department has been able to carve out a separate niche for itself, not only, because of its huge student strength, but also, because of its excellent student-teacher relationship. The Departmental faculty strive to equip the incoming students with a basic understanding of political institutions and laws that govern all business’ functions and also to hone their writing, communication and statistical skills. Besides regular classroom teaching, the Department organizes seminars & special lectures by eminent political stalwarts; arranges field trips for the students to allow for hands-on learning and focuses on interactive teaching by arranging Quizzes and Mock Parliaments.

Awareness drives focussing on literacy and health have been an added dimension of the Department. The students are encouraged to take part in Community Outreach activities so as to enable them to grow into responsible citizens of the future. The Department is indeed fortunate to have a very energetic student body, who actively participate in academics and extracurricular activities of the college and have made the Department proud by winning in various intra- college events like Avensis Exhibition and Debates, both in 2018 & 2019.

The Department follows the syllabus of the University of Calcutta. At present the department teaches both honours and general courses both under 1+1+1 (2017 Revised Syllabus) system and the CBCS system.

The faculty members are engaged in constant research activities like attending and presenting papers in seminars, workshops, conferences at State, National and International Level. Two of the faculty Dr.Madhuparna Dutta and Dr.Somdatta Banerjee have already been awarded with their doctoral degrees.  Prof. Devarati Mandal is pursuing her Ph.D from Jadavpur University and Dr. Pema Lama is engaged in research projects funded by NCERT, New Delhi.

The Department is working on a project titled Swach Bharat SwachVidyalaya in Schools of West Bengal: an Enquiry. The research project is being funded by the College itself under the auspices of the Research Cell, IQAC.

The Department has an Ed Tech upgraded classroom with traditional black board facilities as well as white board facilities. For the General Course (where the number of students is very high), the college provides galleries to deliver lectures to the students. For the Honours Course, the department is provided with a range of teaching and learning tools to make teaching fun and engaging. Besides, the department has separate computer with internet facility which can be availed by the departmental teachers. The completely digitised library with a proper reading room along with computers with internet access is an added boon for the department. Students are provided regular access to library books as well as online journals to help them in their studies. The college has state-of-art conference room which is availed by the department while organising state-level seminars as well as students’ seminars.

Mentoring -The entire 1st year batch of session 2018-2019 was divided into 6 groups with 5 students in each groups to study Indian foreign policy with special emphasis on India’s relations with USA, Pakistan and China.           

Field trips- The department makes special efforts to arrange field trips for the students to allow for hands-on learning. Our students were taken to visit the Satgachia Gram Panchayat, Block 2, Budgebudge this year to study the working of the local administration at the ground level. Students were also taken to the USIS on 28^th September, 2018 to attend a short film festival on ‘Gender Violence’; the latter being very much a part of our syllabus. Previously, the Department also took the students to visit the West Bengal BidhanSabha to make them aware of the various legislative proceedings which are again part of their syllabus.

Mock Tests- The Department conducted constant mock tests for the students before their semester exams (even during the summer recess) to ensure an improvement in their academic results. (Complete data can be provided if required) The department sincerely hopes that such sincere efforts will definitely bear fruit as the results are still due.

Youth Parliament and Quiz – The Department also regularly conducts Youth parliament to allow the students to understand the legislative procedures. This is generally an in-house effort but, in previous years, we have also publicly staged such Mock Parliament sessions and also participated in the annual competitions conducted by the West Bengal Government.

E-learning facilities - The Departmental teachers regularly use ICT teaching methods for students’ benefit.

Exhibition:  The entire Department participated in the exhibition competition in

Avensis-2017 and Avensis-2019’, both times winning awards for its

exhibits.

Alumni Meet- The Department successfully organized an Alumni Meet on 23^rd Sept 2019. A large number of students attended the meet.

Organizing Seminars: The Department has organized 3 seminars in the last academic session 2018-2019.

1. Citizenship and its Various Aspects on 27.03.2018 (Speakers: Dr.LipiGhosh, Prof.BimalSankar Nanda and Prof. Swadhin De)

2. India-Pakistan Relations: Recent Trends on 26.04.2019 (Speaker: Dr.ParthaPratimBasu)

3. Students’  Seminar on 26.04.2019 (Afternoon session)

Educational Tours- are regularly conducted by the Department. In the last academic session, the Department took the students to Chandennagore Museum, Hooghly Immambara and Bandel Church. Students have also been taken to other places like Santiniketan, Darjeeling, Barrackpore, in earlier years. Though educational excursions do not form part of our academic curriculum, yet the department has always organized such educational trips to provide the students with a broader perspective of life and social values. 

Social Outreach Programme- Awareness drives focussing on literacy and health have been an added dimension of the Department of Political Science, New Alipore College. The idea is to return to the society in some form for the immeasurable blessing of the almighty upon our lives. We cannot change the world in a day, but we seek to cast a stone across the waters to create ripples, as Mother Teresa said.

This time the drive, in association with the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy, Kolkata, essentially focussed on breaking rigid stereo-type mind sets regarding this congenital disorder of muscle movement and coordination. It sought to highlight the challenges faced by the children diagnosed with this disorder and, in doing so, contribute towards the community and the country as a whole.

It all started off before 14^th Nov 2018, Children’s Day when students and teachers of the Department visited the institute and became aware of theirvarious instruction, income generation and vocational units. The Department decided to volunteer in their various activities of income generation of which baking was an important one. Ten students participated over a period of three weeks along with the teachers by helping them out in their bakery and kitchen. In response to our willingness to interact with them the IICP Advocacy team volunteered to come to this college and shared their experiences with us. It was a very emotional narrative which came across; stories of stigmatization for being ‘differently abled’, stories of arrogance, impatience and callousness which they face from the general public on the streets, in schools and colleges, in their work places  and so on. These experiences were narrated in form of a puppet show staged by the team. Students of the IICP and Department of Political Science, New Alipore College exchanged their views on the occasion and vowed to overcome such barriers in the future. The social endeavour by the Department has been appreciated and applauded by one and all.In continuation of this awareness drive, this year, the department was invited by the IICP to be a part of their Children’s Day celebrations. A team of 20 students and 4 teachers interacted with over 250 students of the IICP in an endeavour to bring a smile on the faces of these kids with special needs. Thereafter, the Departmental students regularly visited their premises over the entire week as volunteers assisting them in putting up a very successful ‘Exhibition on Food ‘. Our students also acted as ‘GolpoBondhus’ for a puppet show that they had put up for their Foundation Day Celebrations.

Email : nacpolsc@gmail.com