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1. Description of Our Team
If we listen attentively, we shall hear amid the uproar of empires and nations, the faint fluttering of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. Some say this hope lies in a nation, others in a man. I believe, rather, that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of solitary individuals whose deeds and words every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history. Albert Camus
A chilling wind is blowing. As I write it is sending shivers of fear through my body. These shivers make me profoundly aware of the terror our founding fathers had suffered, and why they held freedom of expression as bedrock for the democratic union they conceived.
The world is changing…and so are the people. But are we equipped enough for this change? Are we ready to face the consequences of development? Who are these ‘characters’ who have so ironically become a part of our life and who cause havoc in this ever-changing world? Why are we sitting and letting these people take over our lives??
And so the team for ‘FIGHT IS ON’ was formed and we set out to show this world that it is in our hands to remove the tyranny of terrorism and make this world a better place to live in.
Aritra Roy- the writer of the group; He was responsible for writing all the articles and compiling all the information into descriptions and essays.
Yagnik Khanna- the creative head of the group; He was responsible for finding all the information and for primary planning about the structure of the website. He also worked tirelessly for fine-tuning all the elements of the website along with the visual inputs.
Abhishek Kanther- the computer genius of the group; He was responsible for final preparation of the website, including programming and creating WebPages to showcase all the writing material and other aesthetic elements.
2. Summary of Our Project
Politics are among the most ancient, enduring, and consequential sources of conflict, as they determine how power will be distributed among people, including over life and death, wealth and poverty, independence and obedience. Conflicts concerning these issues have shaped the ways we have interacted as a species over the course of centuries. At there core, as Hannah Arendt wrote, is the conflict that, 'from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics: the cause of freedom versus tyranny.' Freedom and tyranny are factors not only in conflicts between minorities and nation states, but in small, everyday conflicts between parents and teenagers, managers and employees, governments and citizens, and wherever power is distributed unequally. If we define political conflicts as those arising out of or challenging an uneven distribution of power, including relational, religious, and cultural power, it is clear that politics happens everywhere. In this sense, “the personal is political,” yet the political is also personal, due to globalization, the reach and speed of communication, reduced travel barriers, and increasing environmental interdependency. We can even identify an ecology of conflict, in which rapidly evolving international conflicts have the ability to overwhelm safety and security everywhere. Conflicts in Afghanistan, Sudan, Brazil, and East Timor can no longer be ignored, as they touch our lives in increasingly significant ways. We therefore require improved understanding, not only of the conflict in politics, but the politics in conflict. As our world shrinks and our problems can no longer be solved except internationally, we need ways of revealing, even in seemingly ordinary, interpersonal conflicts, the larger issues that connect us across boundaries, and methods for resolving political conflicts that are sweeping, strategic, interest-based, and transformational. A clear, unambiguous reason for doing so occurred on September 11, 2001. Our project visualizes the need of the hour: A COMPLETE REORIENTATION, the time has come and as Swami Vivekanada so rightly said, “ARISE, AWAKE AND STOP NOT UNTILL THE GOAL IS REACHED”…and so we set on the path to continue curb this war and to wage PEACE. It is our firm belief that if we join hands and overcome all strife…then victory is ours!
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:more than 6
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:2-3
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
Our school has long since been technology oriented with the prime objective being the amalgamation of technology with regular coursework. We have more than 80 computers and workstations in the campus and this has been the prime reason for us meeting the deadline. Although all of the team members had personal computers, we could work together in our school and also could take the help of our teachers who provided valuable information.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
The major problem that we had to overcome was that all of the team members being senior students, we all had our final exams and our weekly exams. This was a big hindrance as it led to lack of communication among the members of the team.
Technical: As we were short of time due to our exams, we also faced the problem of co-ordination. We worked on three different computers in our homes and thus, all the information about the website was scattered into three.
As the subject of our project is very sensitive, we also had to make do with diverse opinions and sometimes even conflicting ones. All these problems were solved due to our enthusiasm to show the world the importance of fighting terror and as India is a country, which has a long relation with Non-Violence, we had to keep in mind our eternal values. Also, We sought the help of eminent personalities who have been fighting for this cause for a long time. All the interviews and the appointments had to be co-ordinated so that it didn’t conflict with our examination dates.
But in the end…we met all needs and emerged victorious in our fight to meet all the deadlines and other miscellaneous hurdles that we had to overcome.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Violence, terrorism, wars– threaten the security and sustainability of our world; and we are the biggest stakeholders in its consequences. It is imperative to free ourselves from the shackles of slumber and embrace the future in all its glory and splendour. When millions lack the essentials of life, peace becomes a sanction for continued suffering, and compromise a front for capitulation, passivity, and acceptance of injustice. This led anthropologist Laura Nader to criticize mediation for its willingness to “trade justice for harmony.” True peace requires justice and a dedication to satisfying basic human needs; otherwise it is merely the self-interest of the satisfied, the ruling clique, the oppressors, the victors in search of further spoils.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
From the beginning, we fully divided up all our work, so that the each member could work in his own specialization. We carefully organized all the topics that we needed to cover and discussed this with our school social studies teachers. They gave us valuable input and we were able to come up with the basic requirements of our website within the first week of brainstorming. Our objective was to create a website which could be both informative as well as interactive and for this we consulted several eminent web designers and took their input. We were able to come up with an interactive format that promoted user involvement.
We constantly consulted the books on sociology, history, political science and Psychology. They provided an insight and also proved to be an initiation point for us to begin our research. As all the topics covered in our project are vital they belong to a large portion of our state curriculum. Especially, the topic of ‘TERRORISM’ has been widely discussed. All the teachers of the above mentioned subjects helped us in our search for information. We conducted extensive research by visiting libraries, interviewing experts; contacting NGO's and net browsing. As we broadened our scope, we learnt about the magnitude of the problem that we have tried to highlight in our website and this is the point where we came up with a name which effectively tells the world what our current status should be towards all the unruly elements which hinder the development of humanity and thus FIGHT IS ON was born. It was our endeavour to make all our vies bias free and we feel that we have met this objective as we have come to know that this is a universal problem and can only be erased if we join our hands and shape A NEW MORNING…a new era where people wage peace…and wars become a thing of the past!
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