Magma Fincorp Ltd. announced the names of 100 students who have been selected this year for the M Scholar scholarships. The number of students to attain the scholarship has been increased from 50 to 100.

The scholarship was launched in 2015 to provide opportunity to students coming from underprivileged families, to pursue higher education after +2. It offers an amount of 50,000 that can be paid in four month installments.

Applicants from around 16 states are given scholarships each year. Students coming from families with an annual income of below 10,000 are required to score at least 80 per cent in order to qualify for the scholarship. This year, from Eastern India, a total of 47 students have received the scholarship.                                                                                                                                                                    

Book launch

Oxford Bookstore, Kolkata hosted the launch of Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant written by author and journalist Shrabani Basu. It was launched by Bruce Bucknell, the British deputy high commissioner.

The book is about the friendship between Queen Victoria and her Indian servant named Abdul Karim. The author showed pictures of Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim and narrated a gist of the story. “As I started my research, I heard the letters had been burnt. So, I went to the British Archives in search of Queen Victoria’s journals where the archivist had brought in 13 volumes of Urdu journals,” said Basu.

The book has been adapted into a film titled Victoria and Abdul wherein the author worked as a consultant in tandem with renowned screenplay writer Lee Hall. She looked after the costumes, procured photographs from the British Library, played a role in the production design and was heavily involved with the screenplay and characterisation. She revealed how the filmmaker took the artistic liberty to fictionalise the character of Bakshi—the other servant who accompanied Abdul—in the film.

Cake mixing

Subhas Bose Institute of Hotel Management celebrated their annual cake mixing ceremony in the presence of renowned Tollywood actor Arjun Chakraborty and eminent chef Manjit Singh Gill at their New Town campus. It was the largest cake mixing ceremony in the city involving students. Bidisha Sarkar, director of the institute, was present to address the media.

The cake mixing ceremony is a tradition that dates to 17th century Europe and is now celebrated worldwide. Heaps of dry cherries, dates, plums, assorted dry fruits, black currants, dried figs and glace cherries were placed on a mixing tray and liquor was poured over them.

Research oriented

Sathyanarayanan, president, SRM University, AP-Amaravati, announced the setting up of School of Liberal Arts and Basic Sciences at its university in the presence of Nicholas Dirks, pro chancellor and D Narayana Rao, pro vice chancellor of the university.

Slabs will encourage fundamental research, where free, open and critical inquiry is pursued across disciplines, finding answers and solutions to world’s most challenging problems and daunting issues. It will have its first intake of students in 2018 and will offer BA, BBA, BCom and BSc programmes across 12 departments.