Last Friday’s Undergraduate Students Association Council candidates debate was meant to be an important platform for uninformed voters to learn about the election. Instead, it turned out be a mutual-admiration society between overexcited supporters and their deities. Although that might seem very similar to the crowds at U.S. presidential debates, the USAC candidate debates were […]
Author Archives: Abhishek Shetty
Abishek Shetty: Panama Papers shed light on problems of tax evasion within the US
Mention tax evasion and immediately a number of small countries spring to mind – Panama, Switzerland, Bermuda and other island countries. You’d be forgiven for not including locations closer to home, such as Delaware and Wyoming, in that list. In the largest leak of all time, the Panama Papers consist of 11.5 million documents on […]
Abhishek Shetty: Ending the embargo in Cuba ineffective until end of regime
Any chances of the Cuban people benefiting from the current course of the U.S.-Cuba thaw appear limper than President Barack Obama’s hand propped up by a gleeful Raul Castro. In his 2015 State of the Union Address, Obama resolutely declared, “When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.” […]
Abhishek Shetty: GSA president hiring a lawyer shows unwillingness to cooperate
When you’ve been accused of restricting free speech, there’s a list of actions you can take. Hiring lawyers in an attempt to further restrict free speech should rank very low on that list. And yet, that’s exactly what Milan Chatterjee, president of the Graduate Students Association, did. In October, Chatterjee told organizers of the Diversity […]
Abhishek Shetty: EVP Zach Helder needs to align efforts with UC Student Association
Zach Helder thinks he can single-handedly revolutionize America’s college system in the vein of Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately, he lacks that kind of ability. Helder’s job, as Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president, is to advocate for measures that benefit the UCLA undergraduate body and meet with legislators to discuss such measures. The EVP office […]
Abhishek Shetty: UC should centralize its process for handling sexual violence cases
While it is unarguable that the University of California’s measures over the past 18 months to improve the handling of cases of sexual misconduct and assault are comprehensive, the process could easily benefit by further centralization of procedures across every UC campus. Currently, every UC campus has a case management team that ensures the institution […]
USAC recap – Jan. 5
The Undergraduate Students Association Council is the official student government representing the undergraduate student body at UCLA. Council meetings take place every week on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Kerckhoff 417 and are open to all students. Watch a live stream of the meetings on the USAC Live! YouTube channel. Special presentations Finance Committee Chair […]