Pooja Tomar, Ph.D. Scholar in the School of Philosophy & Culture in Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, has been awarded Savitribai Jyotirao Phule Single Girl Child Fellowship (SJSGC) 2022-23 by UGC on 07 February 2023. She is pursuing her Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Anil Kumar Tewari, and working in the field of Indian Philosophy of Language. The Savitribai Jyotirao Phule Single Girl Child Fellowship (SJSGC) is one among the many fellowships that UGC provide to Single Girl Child for helping in their higher studies. PG Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child is also such scholarship that is available for the single girl child. UGC has always been encouraging female students to pursue higher education.

SMVDU Katra, May 2019. Mr. Sumanta Sarathi Sharma, a senior faculty member, in the School of Philosophy and Culture (SoPC) at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU), Katra, presented a research paper, entitled, “Applying Ockham’s Razor to (In)valid syllogisms using Venn-Peirce framework” in the 2nd International Workshop on the Philosophy of Notation, held at the University of Bologna, Italy, from 22-24 May 2019. The session was chaired by Prof. Atsushi Shimojima from Doshisha University, Japan, and the workshop was jointly organized by the University of Bologna (Italy) and University of Brighton (UK). The theme of the workshop is operational iconicity and observational advantages. These properties of logical notations seem to be inextricably linked and have been closely studied, but are still difficult to understand. Mr. Sharma’s research article, which had innumerable and priceless inputs from his supervisors, Dr. A.K. Tewari and Dr. M.M. Chaturvedi, was deeply rooted in diagrammatic reasoning and presented a fresh overview on the theory of syllogisms. It was the only Indian contribution to the conference and was appreciated by the Congress for its rigor and novelty. Prof. D. Mukhopadhyay (Vice Chancellor, SMVDU) congratulated the team for its unstinting efforts to achieve excellence.

Mr. Sumanta Sarathi Sharma, Head, School of Philosophy & Culture from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU) Katra, delivered an expert lecture on “Critical Thinking and Correct Reasoning" for a workshop on ‘Logic and Language’ at the Bhopal School of Social Sciences (BSSS).The invited lecture was conducted in hybrid mode where participants could choose to join online as well as in physical mode. In his talk, Mr. Sharma outlined the meaning of thinking critically, discussing the benefits of developing, asking questions, and seeking their answers. Various approaches were discussed, like the sponge and the panning for Gold. The sponge approach emphasizes knowledge acquisition; the panning for gold method stresses active interaction with knowledge as it is being acquired, which makes the two methods complement each other.The talk concluded with a question-and-answer session followed by a vote of thanks to the speaker.

aaSMVDU Katra: Mr. Ravi Kumar S/O Yash Paul, a resident of Janipur, Jammu, and a Ph.D. student of the School of Philosophy & Culture, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University has been awarded with prestigious Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) of Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) New Delhi. As communicated through the letter F.No.1-1/2017-18/P&R/ICPR dated 20 Nov. 2017, from Dr. Mercy Helen, Director (P&R) of ICPR, the fellowship will be for the period of 2 years and Mr. Ravi Kumar will be entitled for monthly fellowship amount of Rs. 17,600 and annual contingency grant of Rs. 16,500. He will be working on the topic “Language and Social Reality: A Critical Study of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle” under the supervision of Dr. V.K. Tripathi, Head School of Philosophy & Culture and under co-supervision of Dr. Ashoka Kumar Tarai, Asst. Professor in the same School. Mr. Ravi Kumar has done his MA in Philosophy from the same School in 2012-14 batch with a CGPA of 7.9. Vice Chancellor Dr. Sanjeev Jain congratulated Mr. Ravi Kumar and conveyed his wishes for his successful pursuance of research.

SMVD University Faculty Members of the School of Philosophy,, Dr. Madhu Mangal Chaturvedi, Dr. Anil Kumar Tewari and Mr. Sumanta Sarathi Sharma, delivered invited lectures on ‘Soft Skills’ at Sher-E-Kashmir Police Academy Udhampur held from 26-07-2021 to 30-07-2021. Dr. Chaturvedi, Coordinator, University Social Responsibility, SMVD University, gave a talk on ‘Leadership & Ethical Professional Values’ which was well received and appreciated by participants. Dr. Tewari, Coordinator, Hindi Cell, apprised partakers of ‘Problem-solving and decisiveness to facilitate community interaction’ through exemplars and real-life situations. This helped them immensely to cope up with paradoxical situations.

Mr. Sharma, Head, School of Philosophy, discussed ‘Psychological mapping for understanding self and others and compassion – an important attribute for modern police in their daily interactions’ using the framework of human values and education. Prof. V.K. Bhat, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, appreciated the efforts of the faculty colleagues of the School of Philosophy & Culture.

The Vice-Chancellor of SMVD University, Prof. (Dr.) Ravindra Kumar Sinha (Padma Shri) acknowledged the efforts of the School of Philosophy & Culture for inculcating human values to different sections of society.

SMVDU Katra: Ms. Ruby Bharti, a research scholar of the Department of Philosophy & Culture, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University Katra has cleared UGC-NET examination conducted by University Grants Commission, New Delhi on 22nd January 2017. The results were declared on 29th May 2017.

Ms. Bharti has pursued her M.A. in Philosophy from the Department of Philosophy & Culture, SMVDU from August 2011 – May 2013 with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 7.5 in a 10 point scale. She is enrolled in the PhD programme offered by the Department of Philosophy and Culture from August 2014. Her topic of research is “Irreducibility of Sabda-Pramana into Anumana with special reference of Nyaya Philosophy” and she has already cleared her mandatory Course work and Comprehensive Examination and her Research Proposal has been approved by the Department Research Committee. In addition to this, she has also cleared SET conducted by University of Kashmir in December 2016.

Mr. Sumanta Sarathi Sharma, a senior faculty member from the School of Philosophy & Culture, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, delivered an invited talk on the topic, “Can there be an Inverted Square?” on the occasion of 3rd World Logic Day, which is celebrated on 14th ofJanuary every year. This year, the event was organized by Jean-Yves Beziau from Brazilian Academy of Philosophy and Alessio Moretti from eCampus University, Italy, in an online mode using JITSI.

The other speakers of the meet were Oksana Cherkashina from Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University, Russia, François Lepage from the Department of Philosophy, Université de Montréal, Canada, Gianluigi Segalerba from the University of Vienna, Austria, and John Martin from the Department of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati, USA. The first World Logic Day tookplace on January 14, 2019, with celebrations in about 60 locations around the world.

The Executive Council of UNESCO has officially proclaimed January 14 as the World Logic Day. The date was chosen as it corresponds to the date of death of Kurt Gödel, and the date of birth of Alfred Tarski, two of the most prominent logicians of the twentieth century.

SMVDU Katra: Prof. Alex Watson, a D.Phil. from Harvard University and presently a Professor of Indian Philosophy at Ashoka University India, concludes a lecture series at the Dept. of Philosophy & Culture, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University yesterday. He spoke on ‘Contrasting Nyaya-Vaisesika and Buddhist explanations of attention’, in which he analyzed whether there is necessary role of mind in attention, or attention can be explained without imagining mind as arbitrator. This question has been long debated in history of Indian philosophy, particularly between Nyaya and Buddhist traditions, if awareness and attention can be explained through the momentary flow of conscious episodes. It is pertinent to note that Prof. Watson specializes in Indian Philosophy, Kashmir Shaivism, Nyaya Philosophy and is an outright scholar of Sanskrit.

Prior to that he had spoken on the topic ‘Can Jayanta Bhaṭṭa respond effectively to the charge that the inference of God's existence is un-established and inconclusive’, in which he had analyzed specific arguments given by Nyaya tradition to prove the existence of God. He also interacted with Vice Chancellor Dr. Sanjeev Jain about the best and innovative practices in academic institutions and he thoroughly appreciated the academic freedom that faculty of SMVDU are provided. He also interacted with Dr. Vandana Sharma Dean Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Dr. V. K. Tripathi Head Dept. of Philosophy and Culture, Dr. Anil K. Tewari, Mr. Sumanta S. Sharma, Dr. Madhu M. Chaturvedi, Dr. Ashoka Tarai from Dept. of Philosophy thanked Prof. Watson.

SMVDU Katra, December 2019. Mr. Sumanta Sarathi Sharma, a senior faculty at School of Philosophy & Culture, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU), Katra, delivered an invited talk in the recently concluded workshop on “Mind and Ethics”, held from 01-03 December 2019 at IIT Jammu. The topic of his presentation was “On Ethics and Mind: A Philosophical Enquiry”. In this, he deliberated upon various ethical theories, case studies, situation reaction scenarios and their findings. An explanation of the disciplined mind, synthesizing mind, creating mind, respectful mind and an ethical mind was first given and then their differences were elaborated. The presentation concluded with the Heinz Dilemma and stages of moral development. The workshop was coordinated by Dr. S. Ray (IIT Jammu) and the session was chaired by Dr. Bhumika R. (IIT Jammu). Dr. Abhiruchi Chatterjee and Dr. Bhaskar Mukherjee, who is both consultant psychiatrists were also present on the occasion along with Prof. Renuka Devi from IIM Jammu. The lecture was applauded for his veracity and rigor. The Vice Chancellor of SMVD Univesity, Prof. Dr. R.K. Sinha (Padma Shri) has congratulated the faculty member for his unstinting efforts and praised the School of Philosophy and Culture for its outreach activities.

SMVDU Katra: As the Dept. of Philosophy and Culture SMVDU organizes extensional lectures for faculty and research scholars, Prof. Alex Watson delivers three talks on different themes on Indian Philosophy. Prof. Watson is a D.Phil. from Oxford University and had been Fellow at Kyushu University Japan and University of Vienna. He specializes in Indian Philosophy, Kashmir Shaivism, Nyaya Philosophy and is an outright scholar of Sanskrit. Presently, he is a Professor of Indian Philosophy at Ashoka University, Sonipat and has also taught at Harvard and received a University Certificate of Teaching Excellence. He has authored two books namely ‘Self’s Awareness of Itself’ and ‘An Enquiry into the Nature of Liberation’.

He delivered a talk on ‘Four Mimaṃsa views concerning how the self is perceived by itself’ in which he highlighted upon the various views on ‘self’ in Indian philosophy and gave special emphasis on the views of Jayanta Bhatta - a great Indian Philosopher of 9th century hailing from Kashmir. During the following two days he will be speaking on ‘Can Jayanta Bhaṭṭa respond effectively to the charge that the inference of God's existence’ and ‘Contrasting Nyaya-Vaiseṣika and Buddhist explanations of attention’. Dr. V. K. Tripathi Head Dept. of Philosophy and Culture extended a cordial welcome to Prof. Watson. Dr. Anil K. Tewari, Dr. Madhu M. Chaturvedi, Dr. Ashoka Tarai, Dr. Amitabh Dwivedi, Mr. Sumanta S. Sharma, Dr. Anurag Kumar, Dr. Kirti, Ms. Simranpreet Kaur and research scholars were present. The talk was followed by extensive discussion.