Current Affairs Class 1 MAIS

Department of International Studies and History

Christ University

1. Rationale:

The main objective of Current Affairs class is to encourage students to keep abreast of the
current events and to develop a habit of following the news of a particular country or a
region. Reading and discussing news with peers will aid in getting best out of the sources. It
will aid in getting to know the current issues in different areas of the world which is very
necessary for the area studies and International Studies as a whole.

2. Periodicity of Meeting:

Once a Week (Wednesday 3-4 pm). Students have to upload the report on LMS by Saturday.

3. Group division, Assignment and Presentation:

3.1. Group division:-

The class is divided in to two groups and each group will be under one faculty. Each group is
further divided in to 5 groups of 5-6 students and assigned a region of the world. The groups
are:
South Asia,
South East Asia,
Central Asia and Russia,
West Asia,
East Asia,
Europe,
Africa,
South America,
North America and Canada, and
International Economic News

3.2. Assignment:-

The group will have to monitor the region during the week to collect as much news on
different issues as possible through both print and digital media. Regional news material can
be accessed online through the data base Lexis Nexis or google alerts. Students can divide
themselves further within the group to follow any issue or county as they wish. Once they
collect the news, they summarize and write a report.
3.3 Review: Write-up and Presentation:-

Each group will present their collected information in the in the class during the CA hour.
Every student in the group will need to participate. Open discussion will follow the
presentation. Total time allotted for each presentation (including discussion is 10 mins). Both
written and presentation versions are evaluated as per the rubrics provided at Appendix-II.

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All the summaries need to be in written by the students and uploaded on LMS by Saturday.
Students need to assure that the writing is their own and not copied from sources. Sources
also need to be cited for each news.

APPENDIX - I
SUGGESTED NEWSPAPAERS AND MAGAZINES

Hard copies available at the Knowledge 8. Digital Sources

Centre: 1. Lexis Nexis
2. BBC
1. The Hindu 3. WION
2. Times Of India 4. CNN
3. Economic and Political Weekly 5. Al Jazeera
4. Economist 6. blogs and websites
5. Economic Times
6. Deccan Herald
7. India Today

APPENDIX - II

(CURRENT AFFAIRS RUBRICS)

Criteria Marks

Factual Presentation 10

Relevance to international affairs 10

Presentation 15

Punctuality 05

Individual opinion and participation in discussion 10

Total 50

Marks for each presentation will be cumulated and graded at the end of the semester. All the
participants of the group have to contribute and present the news. The group that performs the
best in the whole semester will be awarded certificates.