Voicing it! IIMK students give 'Awaaz' to burning issues

KOCHI:They can be quirky, off-beat, humorous, thrilling or realistic and can hook you on to your digital devices for days.While web series on YouTube is attracting huge audience and binge-watchers are hungrily hunting for fresh episodes, a group of students from the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK) have come out with an interactive web series to discuss economic, political and social issues.

Titled ‘Awaaz’, the 20-minute long talk-show series has been launched by a team of seven students belonging to the Economics, Politics and Social Sciences (EPS) Interest group of IIMK. “We usually conduct debates, workshop and panel discussions as part of our EPS activities," said team leader and post-graduate programme student at IIMK, Krishna Karthik. “We felt creating a series of videos to discuss critical issues in economics and politics would be much more interactive and relevant in the present day as compared to preparing a blog or a detailed article on the same subjects. Hence we decided to come up with a web series,"  he said.

The first episode of ‘Awaaz’ was aired on YouTube on Monday and has already received over 520 views. The episode features IIMK economics professor Rudra Sensarma and gives a detailed analysis of the current situation of Non-Performing Assets in India. The students are planning to air the upcoming episodes once in every two weeks.

In the initial few episodes, professors and subject experts from within the institute will be interviewed following which activists and professors from outside IIMK would be roped into the show.
“We are yet to finalise the number of episodes that we will be airing this year. It will depend on the viewership and response of the audience, " added Krishna.

“It is a great initiative by the students and the venture is expected to help other students and researchers interested to know in detail about the three domains, " said IIMK professor Rudra Sensarma.