Electives form a vital component of the ACJ’s academic programme. Over the year, all students take three elective courses chosen from a wide variety of offerings. In the first semester, all students are expected to submit a list of seven electives, in descending order of preference. Ideally, students will have two electives in semester one and the remaining one in the other. Students may not get all the electives of their choice. These courses, which may be conducted in the form of lectures, seminars, or workshops, are taught by adjunct or full-time faculty members who are experts in their fields and are drawn from both academia and the media. The electives provide students an opportunity to study some of the subject areas introduced earlier in greater depth and to learn certain specialised kinds of reporting.
The list of electives varies from year to year, and subjects may be added if there is sufficient student demand. The following electives are offered for the year 2024-2025.
Critical International Issues
Sudha Ramachandran, an independent analyst, who writes on South Asian political and security issues
Stanly Johny, International Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
Part I of the Critical International Issues (CII) course focuses on peace and conflict issues. In addition to analysing the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, the Sino-Indian border dispute and the Sri Lankan civil war, the course explores China’s Belt and Road Initiative, India’s refugee policy and South Asia’s handling of the terrorism problem.
Part II of Critical International Issues focuses on geopolitics and international relations. The course explores the evolution of the international system from the Peace of Westphalia, looks at the major IR theories and discusses the pressing geopolitical issues, from the U.S. role in West Asia, the Israel Palestine conflict, Russia’s resurgent foreign policy to the wars in Afghanistan and the emerging new Cold War.
A.S. Paneerselvan, Fellow, Centre for Study in Public Sphere, Roja Muthiah Research Library; Former Readers’ Editor, The Hindu
The party politics of India is a brilliant polyphony. It is not like the cola-choice of the United States and other major western democracies, where the choice is binary between Republicans Vs Democrats or Conservatives Vs Labour or Christian Democrats Vs Social Democrats. Indian political reality is truly multi-party in its construct.
It has multiple representational characters as well as many intrinsic democratic deficits within like lack of inner party democracy and entrenched glass ceilings. The centrality of politics keeps democratic heritage on track and does not permit the army or the judiciary or the executive to trample on the supreme will of the people. Comprehension of the current politics is central to understanding the dynamics of our own growth and developmental models.
The course will explain the broad trajectories of three political strands of modern India: the nationalist, the Left and the reformist. It will explain the salient feature of four phases that define Indian politics: the postindependence euphoria that lasts till the split in Indian National Congress (1947-1969), the distortions and subversions of the institutions between 1969 and 1977, the period of flux between 1977 and 1991, and the contemporary phase of post-Mandal, post-Babri Masjid desecration, post-liberalisation coalition era (1991 to the present).
It will elaborate on the delicate division of powers between the Union and the States that provide the federal balance. It will focus on how the finer elements of an asymmetric devolution that is inherent in the Constitution to address the political aspirations of the people from different regions, for example Article 370 which conferred a special status on Jammu and Kashmir, are undermined by the desire to have an explicitly powerful centre. The course will help students to understand the functioning of the democratic institutions like parliament, state assemblies and local bodies and their relationship with the other arms like the executive and the judiciary. By explaining the existing checks and balances framework, the course will enable young journalists to understand the success and the failures of our political class.
Jayalakshmi Shreedhar, Medical Doctor and Health Consultant
This elective offers an overview of health journalism and trains students to make sense of research reports and clinical studies, examines the pros and cons of public and private health, discusses the coverage of outbreaks and epidemics, explores the recent promotion of ‘packaged’ healthcare and contextualizes the rise of lifestyle diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. At the same time, poverty-related diseases like malaria, malnutrition, TB, gastroenteritis, and occupational diseases will be covered, along with social issues related to organs’ trade, infanticide, sex selection and HIV/AIDS. The students will learn about the controversies surrounding patent protection and human protection, new developments in medical technology, patients’ rights and government health policies. In addition, there will be information on traditional medicine and on mental health. As part of the course work, there will be article reviews, group exercises, student presentations and written exams.
Anjana Krishnan, Research Associate, ACJ
The elective aims to introduce students to the concept of child rights, expose and sensitise them to the broad range of issues affecting children in South Asia, with a specific emphasis on India, and help them understand how to report on children’s issues responsibly and sensitively.
The course will introduce child rights in a larger human rights context, explore the notion of the child as a potential individual with rights, and examine some of the barriers to the realisation of these rights. It will also explore the various dimensions of child rights issues plaguing children and the exploitation and deprivation children face. With emphasis on both ground realities as well as policy angles, the elective will examine in detail some of the pressing problems in society today, including child labour, unequal and gendered access to adequate education and health care, rising malnutrition, violence and exploitation, and female foeticide and infanticide.
Media coverage tends to focus on the sensational, is often replete with stereotypes, and ignores the array of real problems affecting the young the world over. More importantly, issues are reported with little regard for confidentiality. The elective will emphasise reportage with a human rights approach, and discuss the guidelines for sensitive reporting by professional journalists, as well as the need for accurate representation of children in the media.
V. Ramnarayan, Journalist and Writer
This elective aims to provide prospective cricket writers with an understanding of the historical moorings of the game and its practitioners and also take them on a tour of some of the finest writing on the game through the major part of its history right up to the present. There will be anecdotes galore. They will make you laugh sometimes, move you to tears at other times. They will make you think about the way the game has evolved over the last couple of centuries, its commercialization, its troubled present, and the decisions it must make to achieve a smooth transition into the future, satisfying all its stakeholders.
The challenges of cricket writing are many. To start with, it is perhaps the only outdoor sport played in three different formats. And within each genre of the game, seemingly infinite variations are possible, in terms not only of the wide scope for specialisation among batsmen, bowlers and fielders, but also the playing conditions that can change from continent to continent, city to city, and turn a game upside down when the weather changes. Traditionally fought among national sides—mostly England and the former British colonies, to be precise—the game has been reinvented to offer a brand new form of entertainment through the high-octane, hyperbole-driven Indian Professional League. With 24×7 television bringing the game into your drawing room or I-Phone, with expert commentary by some of the greatest cricketers around, writing on cricket after the event has never been a more daunting task. Though recent revelations of skulduggery may indicate that the game is ethically at its lowest ebb, controversies have always dogged the ‘gentleman’s game’. Covering their ramifications as a journalist will need honesty, courage and skill.
Padma Venkataraman (Mangai), Theatre Person and Academician
The course combines practical exposure to the training of theatre, the basic components of theatre and the theoretical concepts of theatre making and practice around the world. The thrust of the course would be to unpack the matrix of aesthetics, politics and performance. It would also posit the emerging trends in inter-culturalism and multiculturalism in the context of globalization, commodification and homogenization. Finally, it would focus on cultural nationalism and the way it appropriates the performative codes prevalent over centuries. Body politics and spatiality would be the realms in which performativity would be elaborated. The linkages with gender, caste, religion and class would be studied. Alternate ways of looking at evolving ‘glocal’ paradigms would form the primary objective of the study. The students are expected to bring to the course their own exposure and responses to the cultural context of their specific region and context.
R. Nagendran, Professor of Environmental Science & Engineering and Enviro-legal consultant
Environment and Development are often mistaken as entities opposing the tenets and sub sects of each other; in reality, they are complementary to each other. The course brings out this feature and highlights the need to incorporate the same in environmental journalism. While elaborating this aspect and thinning the line of separation between the two, the course demonstrates the usefulness of select Ecological, Environmental and Sustainability concepts and principles [e.g., Ecodynamics, Environmental due diligence, Environmental Audit, EIA, EIS, Environmental Economics, Sustainability indices] in strengthening and adding scientific value to reporting.
The societal and administrative reactions and responses to ‘reported‘ stories on environmental matters and issues more often than not lead to knocking of the doors of Courts seeking justice and streamlining processes and procedures. In this context, the establishment of the National Green Tribunal has played a major role in developing Environmental Jurisprudence in India. Keeping this as the nucleus, the course outlines the salient features of Environmental laws [e.g., laws pertaining to industrial citing, infrastructure development, utilization of natural resources, waste management, biodiversity and wildlife protection, forest and coastal management] in vogue and the contribution of judiciary in upholding the environmental integrity in India.
Linking the facts, science and relevant provisions of law adds credibility and authenticity to environmental reporting. The course covers this aspect based on contemporary environmental issues.
Post the course, the reporting will be ‘different’ in the sense that it is muscled with techno-scientific analysis as against arraying facts alone, and open for techno-legal scrutiny to a great extent.
The objective of the course as elaboratred will be achieved through lecture sessions, group discussion, team-research, seminars and physical attendance in the National Green Tribunal during the case hearing followed by group learning exercises based on this experience.
Uma Vangal Shivakumar, Filmmaker & Fulbright Research Scholar, Kenyon College, Ohio
The course is an introduction to film and its understanding. It attempts to provide an insight into the key aspects of film, the ideation, scripting, film language, film grammar, the mise en scene, film technology and film making process. The study of film form in terms of genres, treatments and film craft will enable students to become discerning as ideators, writers, mediawatchers, filmmakers and film aficionados. The study of films via screening, discussion and theoretical inputs will aim at seeing films in all its dimensions – as a business, as a performance art, as a media text and as a popular cultural artefact. At the end of the course, students would be able to read the film text, perceive the nuances of its subtext and perceive the narratives within a global as well as specific cultural contexts within which it is made. From a cultural studies perspective, film is a reflection of its collaborative nature that reflects the society it is made in with specific motifs and themes and it appeals to audiences at various levels.
Gowhar Geelani, Author-journalist, political commentator
This media elective focuses on the 156-year-old history of the press and probes media’s evolutionary stages, pulls and pressures, triumphs and tragedies, surveillance and censorship, the role of women journalists, and many other challenges faced by journalists in the conflict-torn region since 1867. Besides, it analyses the revenue models of over 600 newspapers, periodicals, and magazines published in Jammu and Kashmir. The course is divided into major elements as follows:
The elective covers in detail the tumultuous history and evolution of media in Jammu and Kashmir since the 1860s; censorship, and how it is hierarchical and event-driven, and peaks when political tensions are heightened or big events take place on the political chessboard of the troubled region; the pulls and pressures of the 1990s, the role of state and non-state actors; the role of women journalists and how it evolved after the mid-1980s; storytelling in the English language from native writers, novelists, filmmakers, journalists, authors, cartoonists, etc; how Kashmir has been reported by the Indian State, the Pakistani State, native Kashmiris, and foreign authors; traditional forms of storytelling including folktales, Ladishah and theatre, and other creative narrative devices; short story writings; and the altered media landscape in post-August 5, 2019 Kashmir in the context of the New Media Policy.
This elective includes an exhaustive essential reading list as well. The ACJ students interested in Kashmir media studies are expected to read Noam Chomsky’s Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda (New York, Seven Stories Press, 1991), Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks (Volume 1, 1975), As Long As Sarajevo Exists by Kemal Kurspahic, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, Elie Wiesel’s Night, Vinod Mehta’s Lucknow Boy, A Woman in Berlin, and other important books. During the 22 classes, the students are expected to read and passionately engage in group discussions, content analysis, book reviews, and writings while covering themes related to J&K’s Media Landscape. The students are also exposed to Holocaust Literature.
Background: In 1904, Munshi Muhammad Din Fauq sought permission to start a newspaper from Srinagar. The region’s then (Dogra) ruler Maharaja Pratap Singh had declined permission to Fauq. The Maharaja framed rules in such a manner that even consideration of such a request was disallowed.
T. S. Subramanian, Independent Journalist, Former Associate Edior, Frontline/The Hindu
The elective course will emphasise that archaeology does not mean excavation of artefacts alone but includes decipherment of scripts such as the Indus, the Asokan-Brahmi, the Tamil-Brahmi, the Pallava Grantha, the Tamil Vattellutu, the Sumerian script, sculptures, carvings, pre-historic rock art in caves, murals in temples and palaces, copper-plate charters, exquisite bronzes and so on. (Despite attempts by scholars from different parts of the world, the Indus script has not been deciphered so far).
The course will deal with how archaeologists identify a particular site for excavation, what are the indications available on the surface of a site, how they excavate a site, how they analyse it stratigraphically, how they date the artefacts if they find them and so on. The course will deal with the discovery of stone tools used by hunter-gatherers, dated to several lakh years before the present, the paleolithic tools, the neolithic tools, dolmens, cairn circles, menhirs belonging to the Megalithic Age, how the Indus sites were discovered, the history of the Indus civilisation, how vast it was, why it collapsed and attempts at deciphering the Indus script.
There will be focus on Jainism, Buddhism, how the Jaina and the Buddhist sites were excavated in India, the spread of Buddhism to Sri Lanka, Burma and other countries, the artefacts including the Yakshi and Yaksha artefacts belonging to Jainism, the Asokan period, the Nagarjunakonda and the Amaravathi sites, the Pallava age (Mamallapuram), the Chola dynasty, the Pandian and the Chera rulers, the Satavahanas and so on. There will be classes on Angkor Wat and the Hindu temples in Laos and Vietnam.
Nalini Rajan, Dean of Studies, ACJ
The idea of what constitutes an “Indian identity” is of crucial importance to Indian journalists. In a country of such bewildering diversity and pluralism, it is important to analyse the social construction of identities. This course comprises discussions around colonial and postcolonial gender constructions, Dumont’s structuralist architecture of caste, Dirks’s colonial construction, and the Dalit backlash, the story of secularism from the 15th to the 21st century, multicultural theory, and finally, Edward Said’s homage to the intellectual identity. This course is designed to give the student an understanding of the dynamics of a pluralist society through the study of texts and lively conversation.
Venkatesh Athreya, Professor of Economics (Retd.), Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli
The major objectives of this course are (a) to familiarise participants with the basic features of India’s economy and its key economic institutions as they have evolved since independence; (b) to introduce the students to contemporary issues in India’s development in an analytical-historical perspective; and (c) to discuss the policies of “economic reform” in India in a critical framework.
The broad outline of the topics to be covered in the course is given below:
K.C. Vijaya Kumar, Sports Editor, The Hindu
There is a great demand for good sports writing in India. In addition to theoretical issues concerning the nature of sport and its function in society, this course leans heavily on practical work. A good sports writer has to be, above all, a good writer.
While knowledge of particular sports and games is essential, it is not sufficient to ensure high quality sports journalism. The exercises teach the
do’s and don’ts of good sports writing. Students learn how to read a game, profile famous and little known players, and write on mainstream and marginal sports. They learn interviewing skills through class work and practicals, develop the visual sense to select and crop action-pictures, and prepare material for publication. Sports appreciation is also part of the course. What do they know of sport who only sport know? The course lays emphasis on context, and on both depth and breadth in good sports coverage.
The course also considers the market for sports writing — what story to do, and where to place it. It introduces students to the special requirements of sports reporting for various media. Students read outstanding sports writers, including‘non-specialists’ who have written with passion on the sport they love: C.L.R. James, Mike Marqusee, Norman Mailer, and Joyce Carol Oates, among others.
Gowri Ramnarayan, Musician, Playwright and Journalist
This elective looks at three kinds of music – art music, music as communitarian/cultural expression and bonding, and entertainment music. Distinct as these categories are, the lines have sometimes crossed or got blurred. All three have come under fire at sometime or other in human history.
While music is possibly the first art form practiced by humanity, moralists in many cultures have damned music as pandering to the senses and therefore debilitating or downright dangerous. Starting with Plato who excluded music and all other arts in his republic, totalitarian regimes past and present have banned certain kinds of music, fined, jailed and killed songsters and music makers.
This elective will look at the reasons for this antagonism and also devote some classes to understanding art music – specifically Carnatic and Hindustani genres, its role in society, particularly some gender issues about the confinement of women artistes to a certain social class, limited by convention to making only certain kinds of “feminine music”.
S. Anandhi, Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies
Students studying to work in the media are engaged in the business of looking and reporting, seeing and understanding. But one rarely looks and sees innocently. There are ways of seeing which we have inherited from the past and which define vision itself. The gender lens is primary in this context — it frames and naturalises inequality, deprivation, violence, and injustice.
The course argues therefore that gender — as a way of seeing, living and understanding — has to be both unlearnt and re-Iearned, in the interests of equality and justice. To do this, the learner has to implicate herself in what she wishes to analyse, put herself in the middle of her subject of study. This does not mean that the classroom turns into a confessional, but it does mean that the everyday we take for granted be stood on its head and examined critically.
The course demonstrates how we may do this, both conceptually and practically. It begins with an examination of the circumstances in which gender emerged as a category of analysis. It suggests that gender relationships are historically contingent and goes on to demonstrate why and how we might want to deploy gender as a critical category.
The units that follow examine critically those personal, social and public sites where gender routinely ‘happens’: family, kinship, community, work, sexuality, art, and culture. The last set of units is titled ‘Issues in Focus’. This section looks at contemporary concerns using the gender lens: caste and community, political power, poverty, and survival.
Nilita Vachani, a documentary filmmaker, writer and educator who divides her time between India and New York
With the enhancement of digital technologies, visual documentation is an indispensable part of journalistic practice. The power of the documentary comes from its engagement with the world around us, its social, political and ethical concerns, its exploration of urgent and compelling stories, and the many ways of telling them. Since the birth of cinema, non-fiction film has evolved a diverse range of forms and styles, resisting any simple genre classification.
Through a series of lectures and screenings drawn from world cinema, this course will provide students with a firm understanding and appreciation of the genre’s wide-ranging possibilities, whether realist, political, poetic, ethnographic, cinema verité, observational, essayist, personal, reflexiveor archival. Any documentation is equally about the form as it is about the content. This course will teach students how to look anew and inspire them to think deeply about every representation of ‘Reality’. The aim is to make responsible, reflective, and creative practitioners.
Each student will have the opportunity to research an original story/subject and make a short 1-2 minute single shot film. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that the student have a DSLR or Video camera with a shotgun microphone. REQUISITE: High Speed Broadband if the course is being taken online.
Desikan Krishnan, former photo editor, The Hindu
The course has been redesigned for online learning.
In this course, the controls of the digital camera, and the terms used to describe them, are explained with visuals.
Besides teaching students how to shoot for news reports, the course will have sessions on picture selection, cropping, and caption writing.
News room discussions on selection and publishing of sensitive photographs form an important part of the course.
Identifying themes and subjects for photo features , standalone photographs, sports, macros, portraits, documentation photography, the development and history of photojournalism — all form part of the lectures.
Photojournalists, expert wildlife, nature, and environmental photographers share their experiences in guest lectures.
The elective emphasises the role of visuals as a powerful communication tool in journalism and its effective display and use.
Shubashree Desikan, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu Editorial
R. Ramanujam, Visiting Professor at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru
When you start thinking about writing ‘something’ on science, you are usually stumped for an idea. It is when you get into the practice of writing that you realize that ideas abound – and what you experienced earlier was merely a bottleneck of sorts. There is no dearth of demand on your part! On the other hand, science itself offers a close-to-infinite supply of material. A science journalist sits in a finite space, resulting from the intersection of several such infinities. In this elective, we will define and tap this finite space, bearing in mind that there is lot to build on, over and above this. We will also attempt to provide students with a flavour of what it means to be a science journalist in the present time.
The topics we will touch upon in the course will include:
Practice: relevance of science journalism (SJ); figuring out the simple and the complex in SJ; Finding “your” stories; How to talk to experts; handling uncertainty in the topic you are writing about (covering your back); The role of expertise; towards critical SJ; what is “balance” in SJ?
Philosophy: Aspects of 21 century science and the journalist’s opportunities and predicaments; Where do we come from – a bit of history of science; Indian science – does science have borders? Society and science
All topics will have suggested reading material.
Nikhil Kanekal, Journalist and Lawyer
This course is intended to teach students how to report and present investigative news stories and features. Student journalists will be taught how to dig for information, analyze data, and flesh out the investigative edge in stories.The class will also learn about and discuss topics such as corruption, public accountability, terrorism, unethical business practices, environmental hazards, public health and conflicts of interest that key people face in their private or public lives.
The course will include hard interviewing techniques, learning to piece together documentary and digital evidence, and explanatory ways of writing or producing a complicated story – since most investigative stories are intricate webs of information. By examining a few investigative stories as case studies, the class shall attempt to take students through the process of forming a hypothesis, collecting evidence and then presenting it in a cogent, lucid narrative.
The course will be kept platform-neutral as best as possible – students from print, broadcast or digital media can take it – and teaching material will range from book readings, films, seminars on investigative journalism and guest lectures from investigative journalists in the field.
Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
The course will look at the issue of defence and strategic affairs from the point of view of a journalist. The emphasis will be on practical, rather than theoretical issues and the focus will be on India, even though we will discuss issues relating to regional and extra-regional countries. The perspective of the course will be that, for India, the primary goal is that of national construction, or to put it another way, the economic transformation of the country. To achieve this end, it is mandatory for the country to have a peaceful internal and external environment. Defence and strategic policy must follow this imperative. The goal of the country’s military and security services is to provide that peaceful space by their ability to deter those that seek to disrupt it. Government policy must be aimed at resolving contentious issues, if not, effectively managing them at the lowest level of violence and disruption.
The course will broadly look at
Kavita Chowdhury, Freelance Journalist writing on development, politics, women’s issues, and the visual arts
This elective will focus on actual reporting in the field, taking it beyond the realm of theory, to having a more informed approach when reporting on women’s issues in a developing economy like India.Through the duration of the course, students will be acquainted with a gamut of issues that they are likely to encounter as working journalists. To move away from episodic incident-based coverage requires a multi- pronged approach that is not necessarily confined to the conventional ‘beat system’ of newspaper and television reporting. Therefore, this elective highlights the need for a gender-sensitive outlook when reporting on any issue or story, by not overlooking the woman’s perspective.
The course will guide students on how to grapple with the realities of ground reporting, to steer clear of the usual blame-game narrative while reporting on incidents of violence against women, and to delve into the complex socio- economic dimensions implicit in such issues. The elective will explain how, for instance, women are often subjected to violations that are technically not classified as crimes under the IPC (Indian Penal Code), such as unequal pay and varying degrees of security for men and women in the labour force.
Since understanding of women’s rights and human rights cannot be conducted in isolation, this elective also looks at how women’s issues are framed and reported in the media in other countries. The course will explore topics that are currently being globally debated such as, “Does it make a difference to have women as decision makers in the news room?” Or “With more women engaging with social media, has it in any way overcome the confines imposed by a patriarchal society?”
By the end of the course, students will gain insights into their role as responsible journalists and how their reportage could work towards bringing about a positive change.
Uma Vangal Shivakumar, Filmmaker & Fulbright Research Scholar, Kenyon College, Ohio
ET Hall says : Culture is communication; communication culture. This is exemplified as we study the media ‘s role in creating mass cultures and niche sub-cultures in audiences as they target them for commercial and entertainment purposes. Increased negotiations with Co-cultures and Intercultural travel, relationships that are Cross-cultural, the media plays a crucial role in creating assumptions and breaking stereotypes. While exploring the ways in which media works in the Transnational, the global and the local media markets, audiences become intertwined today with the strands of media and news cultures. As audiences are increasingly drawn into the mediated worldview, shared symbols and socialisation permeates every aspect of their lives.
Culture dictates media and in turn the media encapsulates culture. Audiences across the globe are linked today by all forms of media in an increasingly connected world. Media makers and practitioners are no longer looking at specific audiences within borders. Every mode of communication is now mediated through various cultural prisms. Mediated cultures in transnational communication being consumed by a by glocalised audiences and a study of media formats fed by cultural notions will be the focus of this course and students will attempt to find ways to create meaning, make meaning and find new ways to navigate news and cultural scapes.