General Body Meeting 17 March 2019

MINUTES OF THE GENERAL BODY MEETING HELD IN JAMIA ON 17 MARCH 2019

After the Valedictory session of the 18th MELOW Conference, a General Body Meeting of MELOW members was held on 17 March 2019 at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.

The following suggestions made by the Executive Committee were discussed, accepted and passed.

i.                    In an attempt to streamline and simplify conference preparations in future delegates would make their own arrangements for stay. MELOW organizers would, however, help identify suitable hotels and try and get discounted rates.

ii.                  The venue for the next conference would be Chandigarh and the dates would be sometime in February 2020. The topic would be decided after considering suggestions put forward by the members. Themes suggested were (i) Travel Writing and (ii) Looking Forward / Looking Back (changes that have taken place in literature through time). Other suggestions are invited.

iii.                While planning the next conference there will be committees formed for the various jobs related to the event so that responsibility is divided.

iv.                 At every conference the endeavour would be to get one or two invited keynoters, including one creative writer. In addition there will also be an invited ISM speaker. Efforts would be made to identify suitable names of senior professors for the keynote/ISM. Executive members are requested to nominate outstanding academicians and get their CVs for scrutiny.

v.                   Regarding membership: 10-year membership will no longer be offered. Instead fresh enrolments will be for one year (Rs 500) and 5 years (Rs 2000).

vi.                 Membership will be extended to foreign delegates, too at the rate of $50 for five years. For members from SAARC countries, however, a membership of $30 will be charged for five years.

vii.               Membership fee will not include delegate fee which will be taken whenever the member wishes to attend a conference.

viii.             Regarding Office bearers it was decided that Manju Jaidka would take over as President of MELOW, Vijay Sharma would continue as Vice-President, Manpreet Kang would be Secretary and Roshan Sharma would be Jt. Secretary. Anil Raina would formally take over the responsibilities of the Treasurer, a task that he has been doing efficiently since the inception of MELOW. Sachidananda Mohanty will be on the advisory committee of the society.

ix.                 MEJO, the MELOW Journal, will be taken care of by Manpreet Kang assisted by Neela Sarkar. In addition to conference papers MEJO will also consider for publication special invited essays. Journal issues would come out in February every year. Those who would like their papers presented in this conference should email soft copies of their papers to Manpreet at roohipannu@yahoo.co.uk with a copy to melusmelow@gmail.com

Anil Raina spoke of the financial health of the society, pointing out that MELOW is self-dependant and does not need to ask for monetary assistance. Membership and delegate fees ensure that all our activities are self-funded.

The General Body Meeting ended with a vote of thanks from the local organizers and MELOW officials.

BRIEF REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE, 15-17 March 2019

The Local Organizing Committee of Jamia Millia Islamia comprised Prof Nishat Zaidi, Prof Mukesh Ranjan, Dr Shimi Doley, Dr Adeel Mehdi, and Dr Asmat Jahan. They were efficiently assisted by student volunteers who ensured that the conference went off smoothly.

The Keynote Address was given by Prof M.L. Raina and the Special Isaac Sequeira Memorial Lecture was delivered by Prof Sachidananda Mohanty, former VC of Central University of Koraput.

Altogether approx. 100 papers were presented.

The ISM Award was given to Ms Nishtha Pandey of Jamia Millia.

The following were appointed Office Bearers of MELOW w.e.f. 1^st April 2019:

President: Prof Manju Jaidka (Chandigarh)

Vice-President: Dr Vijay Sharma (Delhi)

Secretary: Prof Manpreet Kaur (Delhi)

Jt. Secretary: Prof Roshan Sharma (Dharamshala)

Treasurer: Prof Anil Raina (Chandigarh)

Executive Members: 

Prof Sushila Singh (Varanasi)

Prof Dipankar Purkayastha (Silchar)

Prof Debarati Bandopadhyay (Santiniketan)

Prof Ravichandran (Kanpur)

Dr Seema Bhupendra (Udaipur)

Dr Neela Sarkar (Kolkata)

Dr Jyoti Mishra (Chattisgarh)

Dr Vandhana Sharma (Jammu)

Dr Suneeta Patnayak (Chandigarh)

Dr Radha Gautam (Surat)

Dr Neepa Sarkar (Bangalore)

International Advisory Board

Prof Giorgio Mariani (U of Rome, Italy)

Prof Shirley Geok Lim (UCSB, USA)

Prof Rajeshwari Pandharipande (U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA)

Prof Mukesh Williams (Soka University, Japan)

Prof Pawel Jędrzejko (U of Silesia, Katowice, Poland)

Prof Sachidananda Mohanty (Orissa, India)