May 5, 2025e-Paper
The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective.
Karnataka Today Your daily dose of news highlights from Karnataka
First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming.
Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day.
Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in!
Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers
Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there
The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features.
May 5, 2025e-Paper
Updated – May 05, 2025 06:39 pm IST – CHENNAI
The Hindu Huddle on Campus at VIT Chennai | The first panel discussion was led by students from the engineering and law streams, who debated the topic ‘Science or the Arts: What does the world need today?’ The discussion was moderated by R. Sujatha, Deputy Editor at The Hindu. | Photo Credit: B. Velankanni Raj
The Hindu Huddle on Campus: India in Dialogue, held at the VIT Chennai campus on Monday (May 5, 2025) began on a robust note, with the first of two panel discussions led by students from engineering and law streams, debating ‘Science or the Arts: What does the world need today?’
Moderated by Deputy Editor, The Hindu, R. Sujatha, the discussion began with students Pratibha V.B. and Vaishnvi M. giving their views on what both fields contribute to humanity and its development. Both are pillars of human civilisation, and both shape the world, the students pointed out, but in different ways — while art was an inspiration and a motivator, science was the inventor and implementer. While science was the path to progress, without art, there would be no purpose to that progress, they pointed out.
R. Aditya, however, had a different point of view, stating that the arts, more than ever, were important in today’s world, as they could potentially help save science. Using the example of vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy, now the United States’ health secretary, and the fraudulent products brought out during the COVID-19 pandemic purporting to cure the viral disease, he pointed out that scientific communication was in danger and it was the arts that could help; it was the arts that promoted critical thinking, teaching people to question.
Another student Roshan Daniel Raj argued that the problems that we had now, such as climate change and geopolitical troubles, however, were more technical than philosophical and required scientific solutions, sparking another debate, with members of the audience too, pitching in with their views.
Pro Vice-Chancellor T. Thyagarajan, who had earlier welcomed the gathering, said this was a unique programme, aligning with the college’s philosophy of holistic development of students.
Published – May 05, 2025 06:15 pm IST
education / science (general) / arts, culture and entertainment / Tamil Nadu / Chennai / The Huddle
Copyright© 2025, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
BACK TO TOP
Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.