Ghazala Yasmin, PhD
Ghazala Yasmin works as an Assistant Professor and Former Head (Officiating), at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Aliah University, Kolkata. A post graduate from A.J.K. Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, I am pursuing my PhD on the portrayal of Muslim women in partition based literature and cinema to examine the complex intermediaries of sexuality, victimhood and agency.
She recently visited the Yunnan Province of the People’s Republic of China as a member of an extremely prestigious and one of a kind All Women’s International Delegation, entitled, “Women Change-makers: Harbouring Hope. Fostering Growth, hosted by the Consulate of the Peoples Republic of China. The Women Leadership Exchange focussed on Women Empowerment, Poverty Alleviation, Indo-China Cultural ties and shared Educational and Economic opportunities as its primary agenda. The Delegation exchanged notes with Women leaders, Provincial Heads, Social Entrepreneurs, Academicians, Scientists and Research Scholars and Government Officials from the Office of foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China. She was privileged to deliver a keynote address at the Yunnan Minzu International University on the Changing role of Media in the post-truth scenario.
She is an alumna of the extremely prestigious “International Visitors Leadership Program on Education and Activism for Young Women”- sponsored by the U.S Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The IVLP marked her rendezvous with international leaders and heads of states, global educators and gender rights activists from twenty four different countries. She also visited many universities of the U.S.A. including Harvard University, UC Berkeley and Georgetown University where she participated in various lectures. The IVLP project involved volunteer activities, professional networking and opportunities for participants to share empowerment strategies for potential women leaders, across the globe. The exposure to various Girls’ focused institutions in the United States has motivated her to expand the program of my organization to include Leadership and Politics. She is already working with some IVLP Alumni on how to expand the impact of my work, how to mentor younger girls, next generation of change-makers and solution developers. She is a Google Certified Trainer for fact checking and debunking fake news across online platforms, a niche consortium of the Google News Network , Data Leads, Boomlive, Alt News and Storyful International. In the past one year, she has trained more than two hundred senior journalists, editors, media professionals and media students in fake news identification techniques, across the country.
Empanelled with the Ministry of Information and Cultural Affairs, Government of West Bengal, she has produced and directed various documentary film projects for national and international NGOs, like Action Aid, Azionne Donna Foundation, UNICEF on issues of gender and minority representations, human trafficking, sex collectives, and alternative livelihood options for women immigrants in Kolkata. She has been a Western Music Presenter with All India Radio’s FM Rainbow and Gold since the past eighteen years. She has worked with almost all genres of Media from Print to broadcast and documentary film-making, is currently engaging in constructive pedagogy to instill great educational and humanitarian values in her students at Aliah University
She has also been actively engaged as a guest lecturer for Mass Communication at Rani Birla Girl’s College and the West Bengal Urban Development Academy, Kolkata. She has worked as a Senior Sub Editor, at Bhraman Traveller (English monthly magazine), a publication of Swarnakshar Publications Private Limited, Kolkata and as a Project Manager, Social Communications for Black Magic Motion Pictures, she has worked on several media related projects and documentaries for various national and international NGOS.
She has extensively researched, participated and presented and published papers at various International Conference proceedings and edited book volumes on Feminist Research Methodologies, Cultural Politics and Media Identities. She has been appointed Co-Editor, for the reputed ‘International Journal for Cyber Literature’. She recently convened an International Seminar on “Media and Marginality: Situating the Minorities in Popular Narratives” with a special focus on women as minority. The Seminar was attended by more than two hundred delegates and received a huge response from academicians, from national and international universities, political commentators, lawyers, activists and luminaries from civil society. It received extensive media coverage in leading national dailies, news portals and international news network, Al Jazeera. In her role as an academician and gender rights activist, she has taken initiatives to lead independent research and policy discussions, develop agendas, engage experts with students and prepare reports for future academic trainings towards gender equality and sensitization. She is the coordinator for the Aliah University Film Club and have curated the Student Documentary Festival at Aliah University; a platform for young, student filmmakers to showcase their cinematic potential to address issues of gender and rights.
A regular panelist and an invited speaker for international and national level debates, discussions, workshops, conferences and symposiums, she addresses gender inequality and its representations in Media and ally with progressive movements, combatting gender based violence. She was an invited speaker on Democracy and Dialogue, organized by the British Deputy High Commission on the occasion of the International Democracy Day and Her Voice, Her Story, an international media experiences sharing session of women media professionals, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, organised by the American Consulate in Kolkata
She has written for Times of India (the largest selling Indian English Daily) and Indian Express (winner of Vienna-based International Press Institute’s India Award) and popular news websites such as www.twocircles.net and www.enewsroom.in. She is a regular Political commentator with the Hindi news channel Taaza TV on issues of ‘Triple Talaq’, Women Empowerment, the Kashmir crisis and more. She has been featured in their prime time program “Pehchan” as a role model for leadership and empowerment. She has personally taken the lead to promote women’s education in the university, particularly of the minority communities. Being a member of the academic council of the university, she counsels women students and their parents on higher education and research. She also provides free tutorials to women students from under privileged sections of society to prepare them for competitive university entrance examinations.
She is recently working on a documentary Film project with the inmates of the Dumdum Central Correctional Home, Presidency Correctional home and the alipore correctional Home, exploring alternative livelihood opportunities for the incarcerated in an effort to rehabilitate them into the mainstream society. The film is funded by the rakshak foundation in collaboration with the directorate of Correctional Homes, Government of West Bengal.
Her student film “Who can speak of Men?” which explores cross dressing amongst middle class Muslim women has been screened at multiple national and international forums and received tremendous critical appraisal for its unconventional narrative. Her film ‘Action Aid: Partnering Marginalised Women’, on the DMSC sex collective and issues of human trafficking, has won accolades at various screenings including the First India International Women’s Film Festival. A presiding thematic of much of my filmic work has been problematising notions of self and the other, of normality and deviance, of the local and the global, through the exploration of diverse narratives. The film making process has connected me to Media-Storm, an independent women’s filmmaking collective formed in Delhi, with a mission to strengthen initiatives ensuring women’s views and values as an integral part of programming and to advance the impact of women in media.
She mentors the Film Production workshop in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Aliah University, helping students to complete various documentaries and short films on issues of women in sports, issues of dwindling minority communities like the Parsis, water crisis, and unexplored cultural heritage of Kolkata to name a few. She is an active participant and a highly valued resource person in Higher Education workshops of National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India, New Delhi. She has delivered lectures across the country at Faculty Development Programs including Refresher Courses and Orientation Programs in various UGC-HRDCs throughout the country on various aspects of Media Education, Gender Studies, Media and Environmental Education, Digital Resources, ICT in Higher Education and other related topics in addition to my areas of subject specialization.She regularly conducts teacher training, media education and soft skills development workshops across the country.
She has played a key role in designing the UGC‘s postulated Choice Based Credit System Syllabi for the postgraduate course in Journalism and mass Communication at Aliah University. As the Head (Officiating) of the Department of Journalism and Mass communication, She has taken the lead to establish a fully equipped state of art Audio Visual studio and Multi media Lab with Smart Classrooms for lectures and tutorials. She also initiated the Department’s own Youtube channel equipped with the contents produced by its students over the years as well as a Podcast channel in its webpage in the Aliah University Website laden with Radio production contents of its students.She has been appointed on the Board of Curriculum Development, Academic Moderation and External Examination, at various state and central universities. This profile provides her with an opportunity to constantly monitor and evaluate the current higher education system in India, in the field of Mass Communication and Journalism, and contribute new strains of research and interdisciplinary perspectives to my own field of study.
As a resource person of the first of its kind Online Refresher Course in Gender Studies and Arts, Literature and Media: Gender and Representation under MHRD National Resource Centre of UGC-HRDC, Jamia Millia Islamia, she has successfully prepared 4 academic modules and the same lectures are available as MOOCs on SWAYAM. In this pioneering effort in digital online educational training called ARPIT by the Government of India about 1700 professors from across the globe have registered for the course.
She has also transcribed and translated works and reviewed several books. She has made extensive scholarly contributions to national and international T.V., Radio, Satellite Programs, e-journals, websites and academic journals. She has received the DISRUPPT Women Leadership Award in 2017 at the National Women’s Summit held in Kolkata on the occasion of International Women’s Day. In the coming years, she sees herself as a leading academician, heading her own School of Media and Communication, converging her media expertise with her Leadership Experiences to fine tune students as not just successful professionals but better leaders of tomorrow. She also sees her job as an opportunity, to reciprocate to her community a sense of empowerment, by bringing them out from the marginalized corners, into the mainstream and act as catalysts of development, symbiotically with other sections of society. Her vision is to disseminate knowledge through innovative pedagogy, premised on an interactive and participatory art of teaching and learning that would instill the value of a humane, sensitive and aware person and foster a diverse environment which promotes pluralism and equal opportunity and is committed to diversity, free of discriminatory employment practices.
She shall utilize the power of multi layered and multi-generational knowledge and learning resources to create information and analysis about relatively invisible and under researched issues, amplify the voices and perspectives of those most marginalized by the mainstream media, build the leadership capacity of young feminist activists, facilitate dialogues and learning between her priority constituencies and broader women’s and social justice movements and build a media theory from practice from a Global South perspective.