From coolzanny at hotmail.com Sun Feb 1 20:21:19 2004 From: coolzanny at hotmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 20:21:19 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Singer and The Acrobat Message-ID: 29/12/2003 >From VT to Byculla Time: 5:30 PM The Singer and the Acrobat Today�s was a difficult journey, difficult because my mind was mostly preoccupied with fact of whether I would be able to get off at Byculla station with relative ease or not! I stepped into the train at 5:30 PM in the evening. It was a Monday evening. The train was bound for Ambernath; it was a fast train which meant that it would not stop at the in-between stations and would only halt at junctions like Byculla, Dadar, Ghatkopar, etc. Evening travel time by trains is popularly known as �peak hours� or �rush hours�. I am not at all a seasoned train traveler and am definitely not the long distance traveler. So, I have no clue how to juggle around and deal with the crowds during the rush hours! By the time I got into the train, it was already �packed to the teeth� (what does this phrase mean? I have quite a few gaps between my teeth!). The ladies compartment was full of women who were returning home from office. Here is when one gets the chance and the flavour of the concept of �Saheli� among women. In Marathi, a female friend is called �Maitreen�. During the evening rush hour (which means that there is also a morning rush hour), workingwomen normally travel in groups with their Sahelis or Maitreens. These female companions are either office mates or co-passengers whose journey timing and destinations is the same everyday. Seasoned travelers are well aware of the train timings and destinations in the evening. The Sahelis and Maitreens chat along all their way back home. The conversations and discussions are usually about the day�s happenings. If the Sahelis are office mates, you can imagine the amount of �bitching� (such an appropriate word nah??) that takes place � �usne aisa kiya aur usne waisa kiya!�� It�s great fun listening to who did what and all the twists and turns the bitching takes. When I stepped into the train, I simply stood guard near the door. I was among the rare passengers in that compartment who wanted to get off at such a short distance. Most of the women were long distance travelers. In the compartment, an old woman was singing and dancing. She was not what we would think of as a �typical old woman�. She might have been in her mid-forties. Her hair was dark and she had freckles on her face and on her slim waist. She was singing a Hindi song and dancing on that song. The song she sang was: �Kya karte the saajana, tum humse door rehke? Hum to judaai mein, chup, chup ke roya karte the!� [What were you doing or beloved when we were away from each other? During the period of our separation, I would hide and sob!] This old woman had a peculiar way of dancing. She was not exactly dancing. She was acting out the song, as little children do when they recite poetry for a recitation exam or competition. She was moving various portions of her body while acting out. She sang the entire song. There was no sense of shame while she performed. She was singing and dancing and this was her routine way of earning for her daily meals. She kept saying how she hoped to make at least twenty rupees in this train journey. She said she was confident of eking out this amount today because the compartment was packed and her goddess was showering her blessings on her. While she was singing and dancing, two women standing by the door were watching her. One of them was a middle class Maharashtrian workingwoman. She kept scorning at the lady. She hated the lady�s movements and she kept making faces which suggested that to her, this singer�s dance movements were nothing less than vulgar. From her facial expressions, I could make out that this lady seemed to be saying to herself, �What a shameless old woman! She should just get lost from here!� When I look at someone like this old lady who was singing and dancing without any sense of hesitation, I feel that here is someone who is unpretentious and who does not have shame in doing something like this to earn a living. I did not think of this lady as shameless; in fact, I found that I did not have the guts to look at this lady all the time. I thought this old lady had her sense of dignity. At least, she was not begging. I did not look at this old lady myself because her presence was very confronting to me. I felt that here is someone who has enormous courage. She is courageous because she can sing and dance in front of so many people with the least inhibitions. She did not have a great voice, neither was she a very good dancer. Her accent was wonky! One could just about manage to understand her Hindi. To many, she would have been a nuisance because she was mirroring every woman�s image in each one�s own eyes. She was a mirror for all our pretensions that we wear on ourselves in order to survive in this city! She made a lot of us appear naked in our own eyes. And yet, she really didn�t mean to do all this. She was just being herself!!! After she finished singing her Hindi song, a young playful lady, standing next to me, gave her a rupee and complimented her. She truly seemed to have enjoyed this old lady�s performance. The old lady took the coin, looked up (there was no sky! Only the ceiling of the train compartment could be seen!), thanked her goddess, and announced, �Now, I will sing a classic Asha Bhonsale song in Marathi!� The playful lady standing next to me squealed in delight and said to her Maitreen standing next to her, �Aiyaa! This is a classic! It will be so much fun!� I felt that this lady provided a breathing space, a space to unwind in the midst of enormous crowd. She was not really an artist (I failed to fit her into my conventional mindset of artists!). Mumbai City does not exactly have an artist square, except the one outside Jehangir Art Gallery at Colaba where three to four artists sit down and make portraits and several crowds stand there, watching the sketch and the people posing. Each one among the crowd likes to give their own comments, as if knowing a lot. Yet, it is such a unique space where people just come and stand; they stop running and they just get awed and they stand still and they watch! An artist square gives a sense of leisure and space in the midst of the speed and blind traffic! An artist square is a sort of breathing space, a reminder that life need not always be a rushed business, that success does not only mean running with the time and trying to compete against it! I wish Mumbai City had artist squares, several of them, without specialized artists, with just everyday, simple, experimenting, ordinary people who are being themselves! Anyway, coming back to the train journey. It was time for me to get off. I moved closer to the door. Two ladies were standing there. I asked them, �Where do you want to get off?� One of them said, �Vikhroli!� I said, �Then move aside and let me get off at Byculla.� The other young girl standing there realized that was a novice. She said to me, �Don�t worry, we will let you get off when Byculla comes.� She smiled at me. I realized that some system of unspoken understanding exists about getting off at various stations which I am not aware of. As Byculla approached, this young girl dexterously swung around the pole to make space for me to get off (and the train was in motion before it stopped completely!). When I got off the train, I found her hanging outside the train, by the pole! I was a bit horrified and worried for her, but then, in my heart of hearts, I knew that she must be used to such acrobatics, everyday! They are now a part of her system by which she lives and survives in this city. This is her adjustment mechanism to the trains. I wonder whether death scares her at all? - Zainab Bawa - For communication, email zainabbawa at yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________ Contact brides & grooms FREE! http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag Only on www.shaadi.com. Register now! From nilanjanb at 123india.com Mon Feb 2 01:08:02 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 11:38:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] khetro Broad Sheet 01 Message-ID: <20040201113804.4958.h013.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Dear Friends, Khetro, is an open space for interaction innovation and implementation in the domain of community culture, old and new media, and ecological existence. Khetro has come up with publication of a Broad Sheet, which discusses the issues like ecological existence, poetics & politics of free code, intellectual property law, net culture, media & the city. The intention is to generate open-ended interactions and exchange of thoughts. The Broad Sheet will be available in Calcutta Book Fair(28th Feb.04 to 8th Feb.04) at Camp publication, stall no: 243, Seagull Publications, Seriban, stall no:131, Earth Care Books, stall no:176 and Nandimukh. The Broad Sheet will also be available at Sarai, Centre for the study of Developing Socities, 29, rajpur Road, Delhi-110054, Tel: 011 396 0040. We hope that you will be interested to pick up one and then to get back to us once you go through the pages. You can contact us in these Numbers : Tel: 033-24169568(Calcutta), 011-23960040(Delhi) E-mail nos.: khetro3i at yahoo.co.in , >joy at sarai.net for the copies of Broad Sheet and also for your feed back. Hope to get a chance to interact with you. Best wishes, Nilanjan Bhattacharya Mrityunjoy Chatterjee Calcutta 31st January 2004 From horrorkatze at modukit.com Mon Feb 2 10:33:29 2004 From: horrorkatze at modukit.com (horrorkatze) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 10:33:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Realisation of the situationist projections Message-ID: many greetings and enjoy the text! #rena+vladan even better with explaining illustrations at : http://www.modukit.com/horrorkatze/tekstovi HoRRorKatze Realisation of the situationist projections The movement of the Situationist International is defined as speech, thought and engagement through critical strategy, publication of anarcho-marxistic truth, falsification of repressive behaviour and terrorism of different sociocultural significations. The representants of this movement, known and unknown, right and left, were working with synchronical treatment and affirmation of parallelity in time until to their proclaimed self-dissolution in 1972. In the beginning of nineties the Situationist International enters the museum archives of the unstable market space. With this act situationism is decorating the armour of management knowledge and becomes quasi contra-criticism. On the marketplace of the social field such contra-criticism is only weapon of cultural management or similar mediators, that are responsible for building the image of the superconsumer. In this analysis we rely on existing archives and resources containing material and relations referring to the situationists. Of central importance for understanding the realisation of the situationistic projections is their application on the social field and beyond it and the general spreading of meanings. Socio-field can be defined as first field of projection/fiction, on which is imposed totalitarian homogenity after the annihilation of the economical, political, cultural or ideological frame. Information and communication processes are groups that project themselves into the frame of this field and other integration systems like it is the system of market. Management is defined as global acting in the sense of organisation of information- and communication-processes on the first field of projection. Passwords or slogans show up like keys on the surface of the first field of socio-projection/fiction. On their link-relations we read the instruments for the administration of cultural politics and ideological sharing of power. Anarchistic background, dadaism, lettrism, situationism, communication guerilla, neoism and all kinds of terrorism leave us back in a simple mode of dialectical definition and create a climate of power that constructs the cultural product for the constitution of terrorist models of market. (We can explain this on the example of neoism: The neoist is like a maniristic rest of situationism, knocked out by the economies he was following. He does not offer a way out of the project's multilayers, which situate themselves like unstable criticism inside of the parodistic contra-cultural worshipping of all subfields and models of marketing economy.) This climate is able to connect and to penetrate all levels of the hierarchical patriarchal materialist heritage with a legal product of terrorism, that is a terminology manipulated according to market- and political engagement in the name of a totalitar bureaucratic model with polyimperialist intension. An example for this process can be seen at the term of culture. What remains from the cultural engagement like an evidence of mediation and management terror is only economical political cultural ware, i.e. product. This "cultural acting" will be transformed into the password "artistic work", in relation with the managemental-economical-ideological act. This new "password" will have the right to enter specific architectures and to applicate on this fundament. (Cultural management corrects the romantic tails of art according to the current ideological political reality.) Passwords for entering a special cultural field show up like keys i.e. "key words" or parameters that can be measured through statistic methods of advertising strategies. The intention of profit groups in ideology and politics is calculating with the frequency of their occurance. The real arrangement of moving or statical values can be seen through slogans of discoursive groups, their outcomes, the size of archive, the way of movement and the transformation of the term itself. The password "situationism" can be expressed in relation to other statistical keys. In september 2003 it was around 2,38%, whereas "fluxus" could reach only 0,02 percent points. That means in relation with other pop slogans inside the discours of cultural politics "SI" is very high rated. Representation and functioning of this password and also its application on the extension of the cultural subfield is a factor for the predatory act of management strategy. A row of parameter like the velocity of changes of links, new archives and repetition through quotation give measureable values which determinate further strategies. Speaking about the Situationist International is a problem of language itself and turns into megainterpretation. The question, if Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" can be understood like a didactical material about polydialectical systems of pop guerilla, piercing, games, neo punk and tatoo culture packed inside of the situationistic lowbudget frame of interpretation.... it seems like this attempt is not possible. The antagonisms of the fragmental field of projection show the following applications: Situationism realized itself in two aspects: 1. market (extends to the first field of projection, might correspond with the idea of the "intergrated spectacle") 2. subjective personal plan (in this direction situationistic idea about realisation of the world revolution might be possible) 1. According to the first application: The Idea of the Situationist International is absorbed by manager's activism. In fact the situationist activist is the ideal manager. He is playing with value ranges, provokes conflicts on the scene of the projected media field, profiles categories and instruments, distributes skandals and boomerang collages in the discourses of expectation, he is constituing fake identities, performances PR and para-advertizing. The manager is the flower of the situationist tradition, but also its bastard. The failed megadreams of situationists transformed into bureaucratic agencies, which are selling the last pieces of neo-avantgarde. Techno-romantism, décor management, politics of the corporational investitions and power, 5th observation field, multilevel marketing of copy left and unformal economies of the flee markets, NGO-re-watch experiments, copies of dead presentation, anti-globalist movements, para-economies of agencies, peasant's neo-anarchism, open source, disgusting architectural transparence of signification are victims, who are neither accepting the modesty of economical materialism nor the death like outsiders. Actions on the street, sixtyeight-contra-paroles, RAF underground, unbelievable strategies of political parties in postcommunistic systems, students parodical nonprotests, neo-nazism of populist leaders that are hunting unstable identities to stick nationalist quotations on them, bombing and terrorist performances with non-existing fundamentalist expression, quasi dictatorship practice, police violence - attempt to control body and informations, all together is contra-situationistic practice and overtakes the public sphere in desinformative manner. picture A. in the dark zone of the first socio-economical projection field Situationist International (SI) was sucked from manager's side (M). picture B. Mutant manager activist, good armoured, using many techniques and strategies produced by situationist actionism (SI) together with the following "pro-situ" phenomenon. To criticize the SI phenomenon is affirmation through the practice of quantity, which situationists are suggesting themselves. This is almost didactic method. With repetition and quotating of this name itself we are building a fundament of value that stands undisputed in the floating systems of para-advertising. In this space of accumulation context really does not exist. With quotating and mentioning this name we are filling archives already full of confirmations, opinions and recipies about the Situationist International. These archives can be used with any purpose, and this pure quantity is showing the nature of term itself. It is erased, transformed and emerges again like a password. Incredible lists of quotations are expanding from disappeared authorships to custom values of the tribal urban elite. From the very beginning dealing with SI heritage should have been transformed into nothing. This means not to mention and not to write it. We beg for euthanasia of the name and to exile SI from language and text. 2. But what is happening on the personal projective plan, on which we can build defence and where management terror can not harm us? There is a moment when the integrating performance is not enough equvivalent and valid, then only subjective truth released from utilitaristic fundaments can give this kind of solution. To be recognized by the group of expectators, you have to sacrifice your subject like a first step into the field of market. You become a victim of the economical strategies. The biggest problem is inside of the repetitive affirmation system. The main characteristic for every unstabile subject surrounded by knowledge inside the space of the first field of projection is repetition. The reference of the matrix is the presentation of repetition. Affirmation through sedimented repetitive practices like breathing air, eating and drinking, perform a strong factor to keep the cult of progenitors. Language and text are the most scary products of this repetitive practice. Without repetitive affirmation communication is not possible. The recipe is simple. Stay in your own personal-subjective space and don't let any information interrupt your personal power. Do not receive information! To be in uninformative modus means not to absorb meta-economical strategies from the space of market. Not to have answer about things and aspects from the socio-political reality. Not to participate. The space of uncommunication is space of revolutionary idea. Sabotage of the communicational channels can offer a real chance to leave the totalitar homogene situation. According to the algorithm of language we don't have rhetorical ability to name this uncommunicative saboteurs. This recipe can be considered like a simple solution: Our algorithm is catastrophy! Rejection of repetitive affirmation demolishes the basic matrix of thinking inside the materialistic spectrum of projections. This act calls upon to the brutal act of erasing the everyday life. It disqualifies representation and it is based on the idea that the first field of projection is built like a construction of reality. This reality is constantly dissolving and can be seriously disturbed in its fundament of practices and wishes. This kind of unsystematical acting can be realized in: Creating an absolutely personal space without legimation through context and repetitive affirmation. Not to participate in any kind of "creative or uncreative" animation. Not to base criticism on spatial relations and not to criticize the first field of projection. Not to transform communicational information, not to spread information, not to use or share information or "desinformation". To work under the "OUT" amateur quasi regime. OUTpraxa is Sendipraxa, Lipstic Collectors, Subjective Totalitarism, Belgrade Zeros, Displaced Dilemma. archive and material: http://modukit.com/horrorkatze http://modukit.com/3dsf3/sendi http://zampa.various-euro.com http://various-euro.com http://n0name.de http://217.160.178.83/~modukit/displaced-dilemma/ polygonal theory: http://modukit.com/horrorkatze/tekstovi/ Documentary of the lecture "Situacionisti I pop kultura" D. Ambrozich, 2002 center for new media_kuda.org, Novi Sad, Serbia. http://kuda.org http://neoist.org "Demanding of the Impossible", Peter Marshall, Fontana Press, 1992 "La Veritable Scission dans l'Internationale", Guy Debord & Gianfranco Sanguinetti, 1972, from http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/sistime.html "Society of the Spectacle", Guy Debord, Black&Red, Detroit, 1970 http://nothingness.org Thanks to: various euro Sezgin Boynik Stephan Kurr Susanne Bosch From monica at sarai.net Mon Feb 2 10:40:37 2004 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 10:40:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] cyber cafe controls in mumbai? Message-ID: Bombay plans cyber cafe controls By Zubair Ahmed BBC correspondent in Bombay Internet cafe owners in India's commercial and entertainment capital, Bombay, are angry at plans to regulate the city's cyber centres. They object to plans which would force them to keep records of people using their internet facilities. The proposals will be put to the state legislature next month. Police say they need new powers to prevent the misuse of the web by what they call terrorists, hackers, paedophiles and users of adult sites. If the proposals are adopted by the state of Maharashtra, cyber cafe owners will need to buy a license to set up shop. They will be legally required to install software filters to screen out pornography and unsuitable content. They will crucially have to ask potential surfers to fill out lengthy forms listing addresses, telephone numbers and other details. All of these would legally have to be made available to the police, if required. Cyber cafe customers would need to display photo identity cards. Only then could they go online. 'Irrelevant regulations' On the one hand we are opening up our economy, on the other hand we are introducing irrelevant regulations Dilip Chitalia, Asiatic Cyber Cafe Bombay's several thousand cyber cafe owners are furious at the plans. They say it is important to prevent increasingly internet-savvy India from going down the China route of regulation and control. If passed, the new law would come just weeks after Cuba controversially tightened its grip over internet access by making it impossible for many Cubans to dial up the internet from their home telephone lines. Bombay's plans could set a precedent for other Indian cities, such as Calcutta and Delhi. They are known to be watching closely to see if the tough cyber policing works. "On the one hand we are opening up our economy, on the other hand we are introducing irrelevant regulations," said Dilip Chitalia of Asiatic Cyber Cafe. "We have no problem with taking down names and addresses of our patrons, but who's to check if the names and addresses are genuine. Who'll be responsible?" Net boom Until now, Indian cyber cafes have been relatively simple to use. They are increasingly easy to find as well, even in small-town India. And they have been relatively inexpensive. According to a recent industry estimate, 60% of India's internet users access the web through a cyber cafe. Gone are the days when the customs men would seize your Playboy edition, so why are the police trying to curb our freedom? Ashish Saboo, Association of Public Internet Access Providers Experts say the cyber cafe has contributed to the boom in internet usage in India, now estimated at four million subscribers and 18 million users. But many like Chitalia believe it could all go badly wrong if the police start the crackdown on cyber cafes. In a sign they are ready to do battle, Bombay's cyber cafe owners have set up the Association of Public Internet Access Providers. Its president, Ashish Saboo says the plans would be an invasion of the individual's right to privacy. He believes the police plans come from "a lack of awareness about how the business operates and over-hyped apprehensions of security hazards". The police have refused to comment. Seeking permission In recent months, police are reported to have increasingly found hackers and credit card fraudsters using cyber cafes. Mr Saboo admits cyber cafes could be used by criminals, paedophiles, those who surf adult websites. But he rejects police plans to, as he puts it, penalise, all cyber cafes. If regulated, cyber cafe owners would need permission from no fewer than 13 separate government agencies in order to set up shop and do business. 60% of India's net users access it through cyber cafes "The internet has challenged all the close societies, because of the free flow of operations," said Mr Saboo. "Gone are the days when the customs men would seize your Playboy edition, so why are the police trying to curb our freedom?" Cyber cafe owners fear their patrons might resent handing over personal details and it could lead to a sharp drop in business. But interestingly, many younger users seem not to mind handing over personal information. "I would like to give my personal details, because I believe it would reduce the crime," said Vaishali, a regular cyber cafe user. Another visitor, Dennis Abraham, added: "There's nothing wrong with giving your name and address. "It's like going to a residential complex in Bombay, where a watchman is standing guard. You have to write your name and address before you enter the building. "Why can't we do the same when we visit a cyber cafe?" PC penetration is low in India. There are just seven million PCs in a country of one billion people. That is why the internet cafe is considered the driving force of internet usage with most Indians relying on them to send e-mails and do research. There are no official figures but the cyber cafe owners' association believes there are at least 200,000 across the country. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3431645.stm -- Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From shveta at sarai.net Mon Feb 2 09:19:24 2004 From: shveta at sarai.net (shveta) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 03:49:24 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: The Singer and The Acrobat In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200402020349.24311.shveta@sarai.net> Dear Zainab, Thanks for the beautiful diary entry from your daily travels and the special human contact and warmth, rhythms and eccentricities they hold. I am sending here a text written by a friend and colleague who lives in Delhi. best shveta *** Dilli Gate Yashoda ---------------------------------------------------------------- Dilli Gate, which is a well known landmark in Delhi. Where there is always too much traffic. A pigeon cote which separates two roads stands here. It has become well known because of people who, despite leading busy lives, try to do some good work and earn some goodwill. Today when I passed by here, I witnessed a strange relationship between these people who are related with the place, and which I had not noticed before. I had stepped out just after a bath, so I was feeling slightly cold. And the sun here seemed very warm. I sat down on a low, broad coping. Inspite of all the noise, an unknown calm was making its way inside me. Silently, I was turning my eyes about, examining the place. I could see the Emergency Ward in front of me. Outside it were a number of fruit vendors with their carts. Amidst the coming and going of the patients were also the groups of healthy people, passing by in either direction. Behind me were buildings of big companies. Sunlight was falling directly on them, so their names could be read clearly. The rally of people passing by this road is never-ending. Looking at the crowds passing by, I remembered a friend who had asked a question, "If we were to stand in a crowd and look at one another, what would the eyes of the crowd say to us? Move! Get out of the way!" The question hammered in my brain. I began to look at the people on the road in front of me under the pressure of the question. I saw a woman. Her face was dark complexioned and experienced. She was trying to cross the road, and was coming in my direction. Four to five men were passing from in front of her. I wasn't looking at them, I could see only the woman. My eyes were fixed on the woman's eyes, to see how she reacts while passing through these people. But it wasn't just her eyes that were reacting. The expressions on her whole face were changing. A face that had looked normal till then, now had an expression of distress. Her hands, fixing the dupatta, were playing on her body. Her eyes were raised towards those people, and mine towards her. In her eyes I could see the need to hurry past. She passed by those people in one second. But in that second, how many expressions had adorned her. She walked on, past me. But what the eyes of those people said to her was not revealed to me. I still didn't have an answer to that question. My mind felt tired. And I started looking at the pigeons, pecking on their feed in front of me. I had decided I was not going to turn to look at this question again. I was looking affectionately at the pigeons. And also at an elderly man who was short and wearing a kurta-pyjama, with plastic shoes on his feet which were quite worn out. His hair were white with age, and his skin looked like it had burnt in the sun. His features were alright. He was filling water in earthen bowls. The bowls were half-filled with water, and so their top half was dry. When the man would pour water into them, the smell of wet earth would pass through me. It was a beautiful sight. And around it was spread a web of soft emotions. There was no room for anyone in these feelings - not friends, not dear ones, not strangers, and not for the past, which I had left behind for some moments after so many years. I didn't know what unknown calm this was that flowed out from my body like soft light, and spread out. My eyes wouldn't leave the pigeons and the man. The man would go among the pigeons again and again, and fill water in the bowls, and collect the seeds with a broom. He was very close to the pigeons, but they were not frightened of him. Because between him and the pigeons flowed the understanding of the seeds, and it secured their relationship. The man finished his work and went and sat with the millet seller. I was also getting up to leave, when my eyes fell on a pigeon which was pecking at another pigeon for seeds. There were many seeds scattered around him, but he was still trying to snatch away seeds from the other pigoen. Seeing this, my look on the pigeons became more intense, and many words started circling in my head. In the middle of all of this, the loud pi-pi sound of a two-wheeler from behind me broke my concentration. I turned my neck, and saw a young man who was wearing black pants and a parrot coloured shirt. He was light-skinned, his eyes were brown. He was looking at me. Casting a wary glance at him, I turned my neck and looked at my watch. It was 11:30. Then the pi-pi sound came again. Brushing my hands through my hair, I turned again to see the boy was still standing there, looking at me. I looked at him carefully. There was anger in my eyes, but there was mischief in his. He looked at me for two minutes, and then moved on, smiling. I turned my neck, and started looking at my nails. And I started thinking I have so many encounters, which I remember for a long time. Then instead of peeping inside the mould of my own mind, why am I pecking here and there, trying to look for feed. When I pass through the crowds of a market, of a bus, of a street, so many eyes meet, clash with mine. And in that crowd, in those eyes, somewhere I see lust, somewhere a compelling need to quickly pass, somewhere shyness, somewhere the lines of distress, and somewhere an emptiness - where there is no interest in either the self, or in those around them. A crowd's eyes don't just tell us to get out of the way. Because they are not comprised of just one person with a single thought. There are kinds and kinds of people in a crowd. In a crowd one doesn't necessarily always see only goons, brothers or friends. It depends on our mood - our eyes change with our mood. This could be said about the eyes of a crowd. Eyes that are unfamiliar, which depend on their mood. But what can be said of the looks that are not from strangers, but well-wishers? They seem unfamiliar sometimes. What are these looks? They leave a trace of suffocation in my life which otherwise seems to be going on just right. Even if I want to tell others about these looks, I can't. Because I don't understand them myself. Because in the court house of glances, there are no eyewitnesses. Yashoda Singh http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/book02/pages/pdfs/beforecoming.pdf From sallykenin at yahoo.com Mon Feb 2 19:29:04 2004 From: sallykenin at yahoo.com (sallykenin at yahoo.com) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 05:59:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] first report, Madarsa's of Delhi, A Study about the instiutes of Taliban. Message-ID: <20040202135904.1194.qmail@web10707.mail.yahoo.com> Hi and Hello dear friends, I am a new and proud member of this prestigious readers list My name is ������Salahuddin. I have been working as freelance journalist in New Delhi, India, Presently working on a research proposal supported by Sarai, which is about the Madarsa�s of Delhi. The name of the proposal is Delhi Ke Madarson Ki Ek Jhalak[ a glimps of Delhi�s Madarsas]. I am a graduate in Arabic literature and there after have completed my masters in Mass communication from MCRC Jamia, New Delhi 25. DELHI KE MADARSON KI EK JHALK. As the name suggest the research is ;basically, about the Madarsas of Delhi, Madarsa is an Arabic world which means school. They are generally minority institute where religious education is provided. The students of these institute are generally called Taliban. Madarasa allover the subcontinent are functioning almost the same way, so discovery about Delhi Madarsas will present a broad picture of these particular minority institute spread all over the country, but we will mainly focus on Delhi. In Indian context its really interesting to know that Delhi was the first place where a Madarsa took place first time in Sultanait dynasty. After the 11 September attack on Twins tower in the U.S.A. the discussions and dialogue about terrorism Taliban, fundamentalism and Madarsas are getting more and more space day by day among the world community, there are many notions about these religious institutes. In India there are three common school of thought about these institutes, one is totally against of these institutes, and says there is no use of these Madarsas in the modern society, the other group says no, they are useful but need to be reformed, but the last group of Ulamas and Maulana�s consider any kind intervention in Madarsas unnecessary and reject any kind of modernizations of Madarsas . Apart from these discourses there r so many other things related to madarsas which need to be come out openly before the common people. All over the subcontinent Muslims are very much influence by the Madarsa culture ,weather consciously our unconsciously, but most of them are also actually unaware of the whole Madarsa business. Now there are so many things to be discovered like, What is teaching methods of Madarsa education? Who are the student[ Talibans]?What they gain from Madasas? Highlights of their particular culture[Madarsa culture?] how they live and what are the restriction impose on the Taliban? How are these talibans? How they function? What is the purpose of these institutes? Weather they contribute any thing to the modern culture and life? There is growing concern among the Malouna and Muslim community and they feel afraid of these day today developments regarding there religious intitutes. We all know what is happening around the world today regarding Madarsa, Islam and fundamentalism, in this scenario research about Madarsas is really full of interest. These and these kind of many other questions will be explored through our research. . To accomplish our research we have to visit the Madras�s again and again and talk widely to the people around, students [Tailbanes] teachers, and the principal of the various Madras�s situated all over the Delhi. Apart from this we have to interview the people of different organization who have already done lots of work in Madras�s, and have done their own services etc. In this regard we have been visiting the famous and large Madras�s of Delhi for last two weeks and have gathered lots of information which has its own dimensions, we have also met few scholars who have done lots of work to reform Madras�s education and few of those who are totally against of any reform. But all this is not enough .We have to do a lot to collect comprehensive information and for that lots of time is required, how they live and how they behave? what is their living stander and discipline standers? These are few important aspects for which we have to be there for some time to observe the reality. Right now instead of visiting the Madarsas we are concentrating on the literature of Madarsa history and its ethos. When Madarsas are full of students [Talibans] teachers [molavyees and maolanas] then it creates totally different atmosphere, which will be good to click their pictures too, so day by day we are our level best to get all kind material which could provide a good and well information about the Madarsas. No doubt till now whatever we have done has been successful and there is so much to discover ahead so we will keep that process up an what ever we will get keep u mailing with the progress report . I request to my dear friends that if u have any query, doubt , or confusion please ask me, I will try to come with the requirement ,at the same time I request u please let me know if any of u have any information or any thing u can contribute to the research. All my friend are invited for open discussion on the same topic too. Thanks Salahuddin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Feb 3 01:45:56 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 12:15:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] khetro Broad Sheet 01 Message-ID: <20040202121556.26130.h002.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Dear Friends, Khetro, is an open space for interaction innovation and implementation in the domain of community culture, old and new media, and ecological existence. Khetro has come up with publication of a Broad Sheet, which discusses the issues like ecological existence, poetics & politics of free code, intellectual property law, net culture, media & the city. The intention is to generate open-ended interactions and exchange of thoughts. The Broad Sheet will be available in Calcutta Book Fair(28th Feb.04 to 8th Feb.04) at Camp publication, stall no: 243, Seagull Publications, Seriban, stall no:131, Earth Care Books, stall no:176 and Nandimukh. The Broad Sheet will also be available at Sarai, Centre for the study of Developing Socities, 29, rajpur Road, Delhi-110054, Tel: 011 396 0040. We hope that you will be interested to pick up one and then to get back to us once you go through the pages. You can contact us in these Numbers : Tel: 033-24169568(Calcutta), 011-23960040(Delhi) E-mail nos.: khetro3i at yahoo.co.in , >joy at sarai.net for the copies of Broad Sheet and also for your feed back. Hope to get a chance to interact with you. Best wishes, Nilanjan Bhattacharya Mrityunjoy Chatterjee Calcutta 31st January 2004 From db at dannybutt.net Tue Feb 3 07:18:34 2004 From: db at dannybutt.net (Danny Butt) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 14:48:34 +1300 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Understanding the Patenting of Traditional Knowledge-In response In-Reply-To: <200401310521.31800.jeebesh@sarai.net> Message-ID: Greetings Jeebesh/all Thanks for this thoughtful response. Firstly, my apologies if in my haste I suggested that you were translating open source ideas into traditional knowledge practices. You were of course very careful to outline your notes as an intervention into a property discourse, which as you clearly point out is not a traditional form of knowledge. I agree with you strongly on this. I guess my question then becomes about the perspective from which we engage in cross-cultural dialogue about the political dynamics of traditional knowledge, when custodians of traditional knowledge identify 'property' as the most useful framework to protect their control, when it is under threat from neocolonial interests. The first question which comes to mind immediately is our desire to have a conversation about traditional knowledge and its implications. That is a whole new discussion in itself and I won't pursue it except to say that I have conversations with owners of traditional knowledge and this does come up. I also think the dialogue holds great potential for disrupting some pernicious aspects of transnational capitalism, though I am still unsure about the ethics of my role in trafficking between those particular discussions about traditional knowledge and a broader political project. But an implication is this: we acknowledge indigenous self-determination as a significant part of international anti-capitalist protest activity, and an important social movement. But what if, as a strategy, indigenous groups claim ownership of their traditional knowledge as 'property' (whether or not we think it equates to what we understand to be property). If we take a resolutely 'anti-property' stance affect our ability to affiliate with those struggles? Or, to put it differently, we can look at colonial histories in this part of the world as including successive demands upon traditional knowledge owners to "open up" access to their traditional knowledge, under claims that 'unnecessarily protective' measures will have a negative effect on the communities which produce this knowledge. Can we be confident in our denial of 'property' we are not asking the same thing? The logic of unintended consequences suggests to me that it is an area we tread softly in, despite the urgency of capitalist encroachments on traditional knowledge forms. I'm not sure if this is still on track, but in any case these are the questions your response raised - I look forward to more dialogue around these issues! Cheers Danny Jeebesh Bagchi wrote on 31/1/04 12:51 PM: > Thanks Danny for opening up the question of `freedom` in open source. I would > agree with you that the open source idea of `freedom` would be difficult to > apply in areas of `embodied knowledge practices`. (1) > > My response was not so much about how traditional knowledge will be or can be > or is `protected` by it's practitioners but how IP regimes intervenes within > these knowledge practices and the story then on. > > After IP intervention, a new `disembodied-mobile` knowledge form would emerge > and would be protected through `no end user rights to reproduce or modify`. > It is within this context that user/producer models can help challenge this > dominant form. > > I would never propogate (would shudder) the translation of `open source` ideas > as an intervention into `traditional` forms of knowledge production, > circulation or sustanance. Similarly it is IP regime i refer to when i talk > about end user being an frozen concept within it. > > On the other hand I am not so sure whether we can extrapolate the conceptual > and legal framework of `property` into earlier practices. There is a danger > there. It makes `property` a cultural-legal universal outside the social > arrangement within which it emerged. This is one area i am at present very > cautious and unsure about. > > Though i agree that there are various complicated arrangements and protocols > within which knowledge is sustained, practiced and transmitted. And these > protocols are also about `custodianship` and `withholding`. And these can be > harsh in its `exclusionary` frameworks. But to call these arrangements > property would be difficult. If we take the example of `classical music` in > South Asia, we do see complex social arrangements, codes and protocols that > helped it survive, elaborate and grow. You have to learn through practice > under guidance and then only you will be able to belong to it. But i would > not think it ever articulated a conceptual framework called `property`. > > But, Danny let me add a caveat to your arguments. I think that the problem > with IP regimes along with one of artificial construction of scarcity is one > of what Shuddha calls the `unauthorised interlocutors`. This `unauthorised > interlocutors` could be a problem in other forms of knowledge practices. In > Mahabharata a brilliant archer called Ekalavya had to give us his thumb for > the story to continue. He could not prove his authentication in front of the > `authenticators`. (more of that Sarai reader 04 ....to be out next > month...(..).... > > best and thanks for your lovely response...looking forward to carrying forward > our collective thinking... > > Salaam > Jeebesh > > 1) We would also have to think harder on the american constitutionalism basis > of lot of the arguments to ground open source ideas of freedom. Martin Hardie > has written about this in the forthcoming Sarai Reader 04. (forthcoming) -- http://www.dannybutt.net From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 3 12:36:56 2004 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 23:06:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Madarsa's of Delhi, A Study about the instiutes of Taliban. In-Reply-To: <20040202135904.1194.qmail@web10707.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040203070656.56193.qmail@web41302.mail.yahoo.com> Dear Salahuddin I am a bit perturbed by your repeated use of the word �taliban� to refer to the students of the madrasas. If you are using the word sarcastically, you don�t have to hammer it so much, especially at a forum like Sarai. Of course you have been a student of Arabic and would know it better, but as far as I know, the generally acceptable word is �talaba� or �tolaba� for students. Although taliban is not incorrect, since it is the plural of talib (seeker), but we all know the present day connotation of this word. And I don�t think even the Madrasa folks themselves use this word in south Asia. (I was especially amused at one of your typo spellings: tailbans!) For your information, a lot of work has been, or is being done on the Indian Madrasas. I would especially recommend you to interact with a scholar friend Yogi Sikand who must not have missed visiting a single Madrasa in India, and is writing a book on it. Also, my friends Amirullah Khan and Zafar Anjum have compiled and presented an exhaustive report on Indian Madrasas recently. (Zafar: zafaranjum at hotmail.com, Yogi Sikand: ysikand at yahoo.com). Some people are even doing documentary films on the subject. Good luck on the project. Yousuf Saeed --- sallykenin at yahoo.com wrote: > Hi and Hello dear friends, > I am a new and proud member of this prestigious > readers list > > My name is ������Salahuddin. > I have been working as freelance journalist in > New Delhi, India, > > Presently working on a research proposal supported > by > Sarai, which is about the Madarsa�s of Delhi. The > name of the proposal is Delhi Ke Madarson Ki Ek > Jhalak[ a glimps of Delhi�s Madarsas]. > > I am a graduate in Arabic literature and there > after > have completed my masters in Mass communication from > > MCRC Jamia, New Delhi 25. > > > > > DELHI KE MADARSON KI EK JHALK. > As the name suggest the research is ;basically, > about > the Madarsas of Delhi, Madarsa is an Arabic world > which means school. They are generally minority > institute where religious education is provided. The > students of these institute are generally called > Taliban. Madarasa allover the subcontinent are > functioning almost the same way, so discovery about > Delhi Madarsas will present a broad picture of these > particular minority institute spread all over the > country, but we will mainly focus on Delhi. In > Indian > context its really interesting to know that Delhi > was > the first place where a Madarsa took place first > time > in Sultanait dynasty. > > After the 11 September attack on Twins tower in the > U.S.A. the discussions and dialogue about terrorism > Taliban, fundamentalism and Madarsas are getting > more > and more space day by day among the world > community, > there are many notions about these religious > institutes. > In India there are three common school of thought > about these institutes, one is totally against of > these institutes, and says there is no use of these > Madarsas in the modern society, the other group says > no, they are useful but need to be reformed, but > the > last group of Ulamas and Maulana�s consider any > kind > intervention in Madarsas unnecessary and reject any > kind of modernizations of Madarsas . > Apart from these discourses there r so many other > things related to madarsas which need to be come out > openly before the common people. > > > > All over the subcontinent Muslims are very much > influence by the Madarsa culture ,weather > consciously > our unconsciously, but most of them are also > actually > unaware of the whole Madarsa business. > > > Now there are so many things to be discovered > like, > What is teaching methods of Madarsa education? Who > are the student[ Talibans]?What they gain from > Madasas? Highlights of their particular > culture[Madarsa culture?] how they live and what are > the restriction impose on the Taliban? How are > these > talibans? > > > How they function? What is the purpose of these > institutes? Weather they contribute any thing to the > modern culture and life? > There is growing concern among the Malouna and > Muslim > community and they feel afraid of these day today > developments regarding there religious intitutes. > We all know what is happening around the world > today > regarding Madarsa, Islam and fundamentalism, in this > scenario research about Madarsas is really full of > interest. > > > > These and these kind of many other questions will be > explored through our research. . > To accomplish our research we have to visit the > Madras�s again and again and talk widely to the > people > around, students [Tailbanes] teachers, and the > principal of the various Madras�s situated all over > the Delhi. Apart from this we have to interview the > people of different organization who have already > done > lots of work in Madras�s, and have done their own > services etc. > > In this regard we have been visiting the famous and > large Madras�s of Delhi for last two weeks and have > gathered lots of information which has its own > dimensions, we have also met few scholars who have > done lots of work to reform Madras�s education and > few > of those who are totally against of any reform. > > But all this is not enough .We have to do a lot to > collect comprehensive information and for that lots > of > time is required, how they live and how they behave? > what is their living stander and discipline > standers? > These are few important aspects for which we have > to > be there for some time to observe the reality. > Right > now instead of visiting the Madarsas we are > concentrating on the literature of Madarsa history > and its ethos. > > > When Madarsas are full of students [Talibans] > teachers [molavyees and maolanas] then it creates > totally different atmosphere, which will be good to > click their pictures too, so day by day we are our > level best to get all kind material which could > provide a good and well information about the > Madarsas. > > > No doubt till now whatever we have done has been > successful and there is so much to discover ahead > so > we will keep that process up an what ever we will > get > keep u mailing with the progress report . > I request to my dear friends that if u have any > query, doubt , or confusion please ask me, I will > try to come with the requirement ,at the same time > I > request u please let me know if any of u have any > information or any thing u can contribute to the > research. > > All my friend are invited for open discussion on > the > same topic too. > > > Thanks > > Salahuddin > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 4 10:47:51 2004 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 21:17:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] RE: Madarsa's of Delhi, A Study about the instiutes of Taliban. In-Reply-To: <3EEFA0C899D34F459FC7FD4C16A6A64D19D272@mail.rcis.org> Message-ID: <20040204051751.24084.qmail@web41312.mail.yahoo.com> No, but my guess is that this project really aims to break the myth about Indian madrasas being the breeding grounds for 'Taliban'. He is probably using the word Taliban sarcastically to highlight its misplaced connotations in the world today. But I guess in a formal research project you could do with a more rational/professional language. Someone with no background of the situation reading this abstract would actually assume that all madrasa students are called Taliban (or behave like them). This is my reading, and I hope I am correct. If this is not the case (and if Taliban in this abstract really means what it means) then I would have my doubts. Any comments, dear salahuddin. Yousuf --- Roohi Iqbal wrote: > > Dear Yousuf, > > Thank you for replying to your e-mail to Salahuddin. > I too was really upset at both the use of the world > 'taliban' in that context and also at the assumed > connection of madrasas with terrorism. The study > title is also misleading, as you mentioned, the word > 'taliban' is not used in the context of the children > learning at madrasas but with Taliban in > Afghanistan. I think a rewording of the title and an > honest and open look (without biases) would do the > study much more justice. > > sincerely, > Roohi > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Yousuf [mailto:ysaeed7 at yahoo.com] > Sent: Tue 2/3/2004 2:06 AM > To: sallykenin at yahoo.com; reader-list at sarai.net > Cc: > Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Madarsa's of Delhi,A > Study about the instiutes of Taliban. > > Dear Salahuddin > I am a bit perturbed by your repeated use of the > word > �taliban� to refer to the students of the madrasas. > If > you are using the word sarcastically, you don�t have > to hammer it so much, especially at a forum like > Sarai. Of course you have been a student of Arabic > and > would know it better, but as far as I know, the > generally acceptable word is �talaba� or �tolaba� > for > students. Although taliban is not incorrect, since > it > is the plural of talib (seeker), but we all know the > present day connotation of this word. And I don�t > think even the Madrasa folks themselves use this > word > in south Asia. (I was especially amused at one of > your > typo spellings: tailbans!) > > For your information, a lot of work has been, or is > being done on the Indian Madrasas. I would > especially > recommend you to interact with a scholar friend Yogi > Sikand who must not have missed visiting a single > Madrasa in India, and is writing a book on it. Also, > my friends Amirullah Khan and Zafar Anjum have > compiled and presented an exhaustive report on > Indian > Madrasas recently. (Zafar: zafaranjum at hotmail.com, > Yogi Sikand: ysikand at yahoo.com). Some people are > even > doing documentary films on the subject. > Good luck on the project. > > Yousuf Saeed > > --- sallykenin at yahoo.com wrote: > > Hi and Hello dear friends, > > I am a new and proud member of this prestigious > > readers list > > > > My name is ������Salahuddin. > > I have been working as freelance journalist > in > > New Delhi, India, > > > > Presently working on a research proposal > supported > > by > > Sarai, which is about the Madarsa�s of Delhi. > The > > name of the proposal is Delhi Ke Madarson Ki Ek > > Jhalak[ a glimps of Delhi�s Madarsas]. > > > > I am a graduate in Arabic literature and there > > after > > have completed my masters in Mass communication > from > > > > MCRC Jamia, New Delhi 25. > > > > > > > > > > DELHI KE MADARSON KI EK JHALK. > > As the name suggest the research is ;basically, > > about > > the Madarsas of Delhi, Madarsa is an Arabic world > > which means school. They are generally minority > > institute where religious education is provided. > The > > students of these institute are generally called > > Taliban. Madarasa allover the subcontinent are > > functioning almost the same way, so discovery > about > > Delhi Madarsas will present a broad picture of > these > > particular minority institute spread all over the > > country, but we will mainly focus on Delhi. In > > Indian > > context its really interesting to know that Delhi > > was > > the first place where a Madarsa took place first > > time > > in Sultanait dynasty. > > > > After the 11 September attack on Twins tower in > the > > U.S.A. the discussions and dialogue about > terrorism > > Taliban, fundamentalism and Madarsas are getting > > more > > and more space day by day among the world > > community, > > there are many notions about these religious > > institutes. > > In India there are three common school of thought > > about these institutes, one is totally against of > > these institutes, and says there is no use of > these > > Madarsas in the modern society, the other group > says > > no, they are useful but need to be reformed, but > > the > > last group of Ulamas and Maulana�s consider any > > kind > > intervention in Madarsas unnecessary and reject > any > > kind of modernizations of Madarsas . > > Apart from these discourses there r so many other > > things related to madarsas which need to be come > out > > openly before the common people. > > > > > > > > All over the subcontinent Muslims are very much > > influence by the Madarsa culture ,weather > > consciously > > our unconsciously, but most of them are also > > actually > > unaware of the whole Madarsa business. > > > > > > Now there are so many things to be discovered > > like, > > What is teaching methods of Madarsa education? > Who > > are the student[ Talibans]?What they gain from > > Madasas? Highlights of their particular > > culture[Madarsa culture?] how they live and what > are > > the restriction impose on the Taliban? How are > > these > > talibans? > > > > > > How they function? What is the purpose of these > > institutes? Weather they contribute any thing to > the > > modern culture and life? > > There is growing concern among the Malouna and > > Muslim > > community and they feel afraid of these day today > > developments regarding there religious intitutes. > > We all know what is happening around the world > > today > > regarding Madarsa, Islam and fundamentalism, in > this > > scenario research about Madarsas is really full > of > > interest. > > > > > > > > These and these kind of many other questions will > be > > explored through our research. . > > To accomplish our research we have to visit the > > Madras�s again and again and talk widely to the > > people > > around, students [Tailbanes] teachers, and the > > principal of the various Madras�s situated all > over > > the Delhi. Apart from this we have to interview > the > > people of different organization who have already > > done > > lots of work in Madras�s, and have done their own > > services etc. > > > === message truncated === __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From sahanirmal at yahoo.co.in Wed Feb 4 14:37:20 2004 From: sahanirmal at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?nirmal=20saha?=) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:07:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] from Nirmal Kanti saha Message-ID: <20040204090720.67863.qmail@web8005.mail.in.yahoo.com> Economy of Meaning and Meaning of Economy: A re-invocation of a Calcutta based Journal Anya Artha. If Anya Artha, a Calcutta based journal in Bengali constitutes the material, a face to face interview with its members form the method and an analysis of various socio-economic-political-cultural factors responsible for the making and unmaking of the urban space constitute the process. Presently a large-scale displacement is being observed in Calcutta, one of the urban centers in eastern India in the name of development. It is happening in the form of hawker eviction and eviction from the area adjoining the 'canals' without any proper rehabilitation of the displaced population. The public rhetoric are in favor of it and the left front government, the so-called 'champion of the poor' are planning and executing the same. The 'other voices' are rarely attaining audible decibel. A complex process of re-formation is undergoing in the production of this urban space both in its psychic as well as in its physical dimensions. If one important moment in this process is marked by the intellectual life of the city, the richness of it perhaps lies in multiplicity. In Calcutta an important part of its urban life grew out of its rich 'little magazine tradition' that bloomed in and around the various strands of left movements. In the early seventies we find a moment, which is also characterized by large-scale displacement, economic unrest and a rapid erosion of faith in left movements. A part of the population had given up hope and had moved towards other spaces, other activities whereas another more sensitive part would cling onto a more dogmatic rendition of their ideologies. Very few took the pain to travel through the terrain of self-reflexivity in order to organize themselves into a group; they were as if trying to scrutinize wholeheartedly the problems of existing theory and practice. Anya Artha is a production of such rare effort. Started by a few students of economics initially, the group developed into a vibrant space for rigorous discussions on various social issues. People from different arena of the social sciences started contributing in the space of this journal. In the process the trajectories of both theory and practice keeps moving. A journal of social economy gets transformed into a journal of social sciences. The project aims to analyse the socio-economic-political-cultural agents responsible in the re-structuring of urban consciousness through the lens of this journal. A face-to-face interview with the help of a non-structured questionnaire to map the contours and terrain of a growing urban radicalism has been planned with the editorial members and contributors in the journal, most of them, now in their late fifties or early sixties, most of them intellectuals of repute in the national as well as the international arena. Apart from the making of the journal we would like to scan the texts reflecting the then existing socio-economic structures at the face of large scale displacement arising out of the war in neighbouring Bangladesh, emergency in India, and the coming to power by the left in Bengal. Also we have a plan to preserve all the issues of this journal in an electronic format in order to make it accessible to the general reader. ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Mobile: Download the latest polyphonic ringtones. Go to http://in.mobile.yahoo.com From khel at vsnl.com Wed Feb 4 14:55:27 2004 From: khel at vsnl.com (MIFF CAMPAIGN) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:55:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Vikalp - Schedule Message-ID: CAMPAIGN AGAINST CENSORSHIP 2/04/04 Dear Friends, Vikalp begins its screenings from February 4, 2004. With over 50 entries the festival will offer some of the best documentaries that have been made in the the past few years in the country. Please find below more information and the schedule for the first 2 days of Vikalp. Messages too are coming in from members about the festival : Dev Benegal, Mumbai : I was asked by a Mumbai newspaper conducting a poll, whether I'd be attending MIFF or VIKALP. My reply: VIKALP definitely! As it was FREE, FAIR and OPEN. More strength to all of us. R.V. Ramani, Chennai: I have decided, to attend only vikalp festival. miff doesnt interest me anymore, as far as this edition goes. its future lies with FD. Let us celebrate this festival, vikalp, with confidence, resilence, with fun and lets enjoy ourselves. Vikalp, is an independent festival, by the filmmakers, of the filmmakers, for the filmmakers and towards documentary filmmaking. Information and schedule : Dear Friends, Please find below the schedules for the first two days of Vikalp. the schedules for the subsequent days will be released soon. Please see the website: http://fillmsforfreedom.cjb.net too for details. Please collect your invitation to the screenings from 2nd Floor, Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan, 85, Sayani Road Prabhadevi, Diagonally opposite the MIFF Venue, between 3.00 PM and 7.00 PM on Feb, 2 and 10 AM and 7.00 PM on Feb 3, 2004. We look forward to seeing you at the inauguration and screenings. In solidarity Organising Committee, Vikalp, Mumbai Vikalp: Films for Freedom 10 AM, 4th February 2004, Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan Inauguration of Vikalp: Films for Freedom A 25 minute monologue excerpted from 'Kali Shalwar, Safed Jhoot' will be performed by Jameel ur Rehman, directed by Naseeruddin Shah and produced by Motley Productions. Ratna Pathak Shah will introduce the piece. About Saadat Hasan Manto's Safed Jhoot Written about half a century ago, Safed Jhoot by Saadat Hasan Manto is a direct defence of the freedom of expression. This is Manto's response to allegations of obscenity which were aimed at him; allegations which centred around his choice of subjects and his choice of language. The daily 'Prabhat' and the Weekly 'Khayyam,' both from Lahore, published strident editorials condemning Manto and calling for a ban on his writings. They even demanded that he be arrested and punished for arousing the baser feelings of his young readers. According to them, he merited the same treatment as writers of objectionable religious articles, who were prosecuted by the powers that be. This was not new for Manto. During his brief but prolific career, he had been accused of obscenity several times and tried for it thrice. Till he died in 1954 he continued to write just what he wanted to, and almost half a century later, his writings still have the power to sway, move, and offend ! Schedule of Screenings DAY I: FEBRUARY 4 10 AM Inauguration 11.30 Break 12 noon Aamakaar (76 minutes) DISCUSSION/LUNCH 2.30 Ladies Special ( 31 minutes) 3.10 Girl Song (28 minutes) 3.45 The Vote ( 62 minutes) DISCUSSION / BREAK 6.00 Naata (45 minutes) 6.50 Words on Water (85 minutes) 8.30 Taliban Years and Beyond (52 minutes) DAY II : FEBRUARY 5 10.00 All Roads Lead to Cinema (30 minutes) 10.35 Manjuben Truckdriver (52 minutes) BREAK / DISCUSSION 12.00 The City Beautiful (78 minutes) DISCUSSION / LUNCH 2.30 Made in India (38 minutes) 3.15 Bakkarwals (38 minutes) 4.10 Anjawa is Me, I am Anjawa ( 71 minutes) 5.30 DISCUSSION /BREAK 6.00 Narayan Gangaram Surve (45 minutes) 6.50 Hunting Down Water (32 minutes) 7.30 Bitter Drink (27 minutes) 8.00 Unlimited Girls (94 minutes) _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From info at nmartproject.net Wed Feb 4 14:36:24 2004 From: info at nmartproject.net (JavaMuseum) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 10:06:24 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Call: Netart from all Asia/Pacific area - extended deadline Message-ID: <018b01c3eafe$2a405dc0$0300a8c0@NewMediaArtNet> Call -->Extended deadline -->10 March 2004 ******************************* JavaMuseum - Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art (Java=Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs) www.javamuseum.org Call for entries: Netart from all Asia & Pacific area New deadline 10 March 2004 The project will be launched on occasion of New Media Art Festival Bangkok/Thailand (20-28 March 2004) Currently, JavaMuseum is planning new features for the "3rd of Java series" 2003/2004, focussing on netart from particular cultural regions on the globe. The feature will be prepared unter the´working title, "Netart from all Asia - Pacific area", in order to pay more attention to this globally emerging cultural region, which is related to netart widely unknow in the Western countries. All artists, who work netbased and are born or have their residency in one of the countries of these areas are invited to submit and participate. All serious submissions will be included. New deadline Monday, 10 March 2004. Please use following entry form for submitting: 1. firstname/name of artist, email, URL 2. a brief bio/CV (not more than 300 words only in English, please) 3. title and URL of the max 3 projects/works, 4. a short work description for each work (not more than 300 words only in English, please), 5. a screen shot for each submitted work (max 800x600 pixels, .jpg) Please send your submission to asianfeature at javamuseum.org ************************ JavaMuseum is the premier Art Space for net based art. Visit the show cases of 1. "I -Islands" - netart from Great Britain and Ireland on www.javamuseum.org/2003/englishfeature/index.html 2. "Perspectives'03" - competition and show 2003 and the winners of JavaArtist of the Year Award 2003 on www.javamuseum.org/2003/perspectives03/index.html 3. "I-Highway - Netart from Canada"on www.javamuseum.org/2003/canadafeature/index.html 4. "I-rivers" - netart form German speaking countries on www.javamuseum.org/2003/germanfeature/index.html 5. "Current positions of French Netart" on www.javamuseum.org/2002/2nd/frenchfeature/index.html 6. "Current positions of Italian Netart" on www.javamuseum.org/2002/2nd/italyfeature/index.html 7. "Latinonetarte.net" - Netart from Latin American countries, Spain and Portugal on www.javamuseum.org/2003/latinofeature/index.html and much more on www.javamuseum.org ********************************************* JavaMuseum - Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art (Java=Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs) www.javamuseum.org info at javamuseum.org corporate member of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork] - the experimental platform for netbased art - operating from Cologne/Germany. _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From joy at sarai.net Wed Feb 4 04:32:43 2004 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 04:32:43 +0530 Subject: Fw: [Reader-list] khetro Broad Sheet 01 In-Reply-To: <002101c3e919$c2f50e80$22023c0a@Dias> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20040204042825.00a83a10@mail.sarai.net> Dear Sankarshan, I am sure Nilanjan will discuss with Camp people regarding your complain. But I hope you got copies from other stalls which Nilanjan had mentioned. Best Joy At 04:48 AM 2/2/2004 +0530, you wrote: >hi, > > > The Broad Sheet will be available in Calcutta Book > > Fair(28th Feb.04 to 8th Feb.04) at Camp publication, > > stall no: 243, Seagull Publications, Seriban, stall > > no:131, Earth Care Books, stall no:176 and Nandimukh. > > The Broad Sheet will also be available at Sarai, Centre > > for the study of Developing Socities, 29, rajpur Road, > > Delhi-110054, Tel: 011 396 0040. > >as on Sunday 01.02.04 no one at Camp was able to tell me whether they >do have a copy or not. this after i spent sometime looking through the >old books they were selling. so where else can i get a copy ? > >regards >SM From shuddha at sarai.net Wed Feb 4 19:26:26 2004 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 19:26:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] VIKALP OPENS! - A Report by Saba Dewan Message-ID: <04020419262600.01110@sweety.sarai.kit> This is to follow up on the announcement on the Reader List of Vikalp, the film festival organized by CAC, the Campaign Against Censorship, in protest against censorship at the MIFF (Mumbai International Film Festival). Here is a report posted by Saba Dewan, of the CAC, of the first day of Vikalp. Cheers, and in the hope that every protest from now on, is also a celebration, and a festival Shuddha ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: VIKALP OPENS! Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 18:55:22 +0500 From: khel at vsnl.com CAMPAIGN AGAINST CENSORSHIP 4/02/04 Dear Friends, The Campaign Against Censorship (CAC) transformed its ongoing protest against the Mumbai International Film Festival into a celebration of diversity, engaged filmmaking, and a refusal to submit before censorship. Starting today Vikalp: Films for Freedom will screen 58 films that deal with a wide range of issues including the Gujarat carnage, communal politics, caste and gender discrimination, sexuality and the politics of development. Many of these films have been widely recognized for their political rigour, integrity and creative excellence. While a large number of these films were `rejected’ by MIFF, the package includes at least 13 documentaries withdrawn from MIFF by their filmmakers in solidarity with the campaign. Vikalp has been put together in less than three weeks, entirely through the voluntary efforts and resources of Campaign members and supporters of the right to freedom of expression The celebration was inaugurated this morning with a theatrical performance based on Saadat Hasan Manto’s, `Safed Jhoot’, performed by Jameel Khan, and directed by Naseeruddin Shah for Motley Productions. Immediately after this, a packed auditorium at the Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan, in Prabhadevi, Mumbai watched the opening screening of the festival, the film Aamakaar (The Turtle People) directed by Surabhi Sharma, and withdrawn from MIFF in protest against the flaws in its selection procedures. Other films followed, including Ladies Special by Nidhi Tuli, a joyous description of life on the Mumbai suburban train; Girl Song by Vasudha Joshi, about Anjum Katyal, singer and poet from Calcutta; and The Vote by Pankaj Rishi Kumar, which watches an election unfold in Uttar Pradesh. The films were screened to a large and enthusiastic audience and by 3pm a `house full’ board had to be put up outside the auditorium. Yesterday, on 3rd February 2004, a large number of filmmakers from the Campaign Against Censorship (CAC), wore black bands and staged a silent protest at the inaugural of the Mumbai International Film Festival, 2004. In the coming days we will keep you posted about the screening schedules and other news from Vikalp. In Solidarity, Saba Dewan On behalf of Campaign Against Censorship ------------------------------------------------------- -- Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective) Sarai Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Phone : 91 11 23942199 Ext 305 www.sarai.net From mainakray at yahoo.com Wed Feb 4 21:12:33 2004 From: mainakray at yahoo.com (Mainak Ray) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 07:42:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Calictionary Message-ID: <20040204154233.19041.qmail@web60709.mail.yahoo.com> > MIND YOUR LANGUAGE By Barry O' Brien > There were no charpokas, peepreys or haatis on the > streets Wednesday before > last. Except for a few mamas and mastaans, almost > everybody stayed home > because it was a hartal. Bouncy break-dancers and > slow-moving langras also > had a rest day. Near Howrah and other vantage entry > points, CITU sergeants > saw to it that local trains could get no further. > Decibel levels fell > drastically, due to the absence of the rattle of > Calcutta's bone-shakers and > the barking of minibus conductors. There were no > cries of "Aastey ladies", > "Hilakey Chalo" and "Electrikey Chalao". If you've > lost me and you're > reaching for a Calictionary, stay right where you > are, you'll find it on > this page. Calcuttans on the street, more than any > other city, have a term > or a phrase of their own for everything under its > scorching sun. No city can > match it for orginality and spontaneity when you > talk of a roadside lexicon. > No other citizen in the world has the entensity, the > assion and the sense of > humour that the Calcuttan has. With his turn of > phrase he is an Oscar Wilde, > Bernard Shaw and Sukumar Ray rolled into one ? > Expressive, Explosive and alway Exclusive. For the > uninitiated Calcuttan, > here's a handy thesaurus of innovative street > jargon; for the hardcore > Calcuttan, it could serve as a ready reckoner. > Mama policeman. Now you know why you need to stay > away from your > "Mamr-bari"! > Peepreys: auto-rickshaws who are multiplying in > hundreds and bugging one and > all > Charpokas: Maruti 800s > Matchbox: Calcutta's first generation mini-buses > that left you hunchbacked > and stiff-necked. > Haati: double-decker buses with a 'trunk' in which > the driver sits; an > almost extinct species > Langras: three-legged tempos that limp along and > handicap other drivers. > Shahi Minars: speedbreakers. Erecting them has > become a trend, generally > after someone has been killed on the spot. > Electikey Chalao: a bus conductor's coded jargon, > telling his driver to > speed-break-speed-break in order to jerk passengers > further in, since they > are all crowding near the entrance. > Hechkee tulchen kano: a passenger's retort to the > above. > Dada, Fevicol naa ordinary?: question asked by a > 'standing commuter'(usually > on a local train) to a 'sitting' one, wanting to > know how far he is going. > If the answer is 'ordinary', the 'standing' commuter > will stay right there > waiting to pounce on his seat; if the answer is > "fevicol", he will move away > to try his luck with another passenger. > Dada, kee khelchen? Test naa One day: The bus > equivalent of above. > Dada, istri korey dilen?: what you tell a passenger > who in his hurry to get > off, stamps hard on your toes. > Dada, je akebarey daak-ticket hoye shetey galen: > sarcastic comment targeting > Romeos who refuse to budge from the vicinity of the > ladies seats, invariably > getting 'stuck', just like a stamp on an envelope > Sandow maashi: a tongue-in-cheek conductor's term > describing a not-so-young > lady wearing a sleeveless blouse, a la Govinda. > Half-ladies : a skinny, boyish girl in jeans and > T-shirt; the conductor is > in a dilemma! > Dadar kee double ticket naa kee: a passenger's > caustic remark to a grossly > overweight fellow passenger who is hogging the seat. > Dada, kon ration-er chaal khaan: this is another > version of the rude comment > above. > Aierey, forsha korey dilo: a helpless pickpocket > victim's exasperated > exclamation. > Dada, engine-er tuning-ta thik karaan: > below-the-belt advice to a fellow > passenger who is snoring loud enough to drive the > pigs to market. > Kaar badi-tey aaj moolor char-chari ranna hoyechey, > dada: a subtle comment > directed to whom it may concern, in a crowded bus, > post a 'sudden whiff in > the air > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From coolzanny at hotmail.com Wed Feb 4 21:16:21 2004 From: coolzanny at hotmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 21:16:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Kashmir Session at WSF Message-ID: Dear Shuddha and everyone, I was very interested that while writing about WSF, you, Shuddha, mentioned about the Kashmir session which you had attended where Yasin Malik, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Karamat Ali and others were present. I also attended the session but came in half way, by which time Yasin had almost finished speaking. I sat right through to the end of the session. While the session was in motion, a man was constantly �interrupting�, desperately wanting to say something. He seemed to several important comments and questions, but he was constantly silenced and made to sit down. At one point, he was severely shouted down and overall, he became as much the focus of attention as Yasin and others sitting on the stage were. After all the speakers had finished speaking, a question-answer session ensued. There were too many people who were eager to speak and ask questions. Many were boiling from within and dying to ask their most wanted questions. Again, the same chap from the audience rose up to speak. He was getting agitated and impatient because he was just not being given a chance to speak. When he got up to speak, he was made to sit down again. On several occasions, like the classic �mischief monger, let�s-avoid-him� syndrome, he was insulted and made to sit down. I am sure that the more he was silenced, the more he wanted to speak out. At one point, two ladies sitting behind me said loudly, �Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else will he speak?� They made this statement twice, till ultimately, the man was given his opportunity to speak. He asked Yasin as to how someone who had killed several people could go the Gandhian way, when Gandhi himself had fought non-violently for India�s independence. Yasin responded to the question by saying that the British had supported Gandhi, but we Kashmiris are not even being given our space to speak out our aspirations by the Central Government. The man had many more questions to ask, but he was not allowed to continue. Similarly, at the beginning of the question-answer session, a Kashmiri Pandit lady spoke up, saying not a single lady was represented on the panel. I personally know this lady and she vented out some of her prejudices and anger against Muslims. Later, when she moved out of the pandal, she was shouted down by some woman activist for raising communal questions and making communal comments. One of the things which I have felt during sessions on �Kashmir� and sensitive issues pertaining to an emotionally charged topics like nationalism, Indo-Pak relations and communalism, is that there are always people in the audience who are seething from within and people having very strong nationalistic sentiments about India and that �Kashmir should remain a part of India� is their very strong conviction. Each one of them has their own very good and logical reasons for holding on to their convictions. The point is, are we ever going to enter a dialogue if we are constantly going to silence such people, insult them and shout them down to sit quiet? I am beginning to realize that there are umpteenth number of people today in India, who have their own biases and prejudices and strong belief (however right or wrong these may be!) against and towards people of �other communities�. For every one, there is always an other! The point is, for how long are we going exclude �such people�? Neither of us is holier than thou. At times, it is really an imperative to exclude such people, but I think there is never going to be a resolution to various conflicts if we are always going to exclude them! The walls will just continue to grow longer and stronger. And, I definitely don�t want this because then, we are furthering the very ideology that we claim to be against. How do you include �them� then? This is a tough question and there is no one-size-fits-all answer. I am trying, and experimenting, and most often, I can only go by my gut, gauging the sincerity of the �other� person. Similarly, there are questions about representation. When we put people up on a panel to speak on a certain issue, by what markers or standards have we decided that they are the ones who represent the issue the best? Again, I have no answer for this question, but it is very important that I continuously ask myself this question, particularly, when I am asked to speak for a group. I am personally quite decided against the conventional seminar/panel style discussion. It is furthering the schooled mentality of �here is an expert who knows best and we, the audience, will be educated by him/her.� In the case of an ultra-sensitive issue like Kashmir (which is what it has come to be), I am boycotting these seminars and panels because: A. Not everyone has a chance to speak B. We want to shut off people who we don�t want to listen to (irrespective of whichever side we may belong to!) C. There is no follow-up after the initial information giving and with the amount of inflamed passions that are aroused, different sides go back bitter and angry, with their biases reconfirmed and reinforced I remember when Gujarat riots were going on, I had, in this very e-group, asked a question, �What can we do?� I realize that the answer lies in being able to reflect on the processes which we want to employ in order to move forward. We do not always need hard-core projects and �action�, but, a constant journey of asking critical questions to ourselves and to others. I personally need to look for ways and means which are based on inclusion and listening, ways and means where silences are meaningful and not awkward and uncomfortable � - Zainab Bawa _________________________________________________________________ Easiest Money Transfer to India . Send Money To 6000 Indian Towns. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/42198.asp Easiest Way To Send Money Home! From shuddha at sarai.net Wed Feb 4 22:14:14 2004 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 22:14:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Kashmir Session at WSF In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <04020422141400.01417@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear Zainab and everyone, Many thanks, Zainab, for filling in a much more vivid and detailed picture of the Kashmir panel that I had mentioned at the WSF. I did not stay right till the end of the panel, and so was not aware of what transpired at the question and answer session. (and I must add that I was also not present at the juncure when a Kashmiri Pandit lady who was present, protested, and who you say was silenced). Of course, my report, was incomplete, and your testimony only points to the fact that there can never be a record of an event that is anything other than what the witness saw, or, more interestingly, perhaps chose to see. I saw, or chose to see, a certain slice of the event, and that is what i have written about, it needs to be qualified and seen in relation to what you saw, and what you reported, that is why this is a discussion list and not a seminar. So thanks for that ! After all, we did sit next to each other for a while when both of us were present. And what would be the point of both of us being on this list, if at least we could not enjoy the fact of complicating each other's narrative, in a Rashomonesque sort of way ! I did notice that while I was there and Yasin Malik was speaking, a gentleman did make some loud interjections, especially when Yasin Malik was speaking about Gandhi, and that the some from amongst the audience counter interjected, saying Yasin Malik should be allowed to speak. I do not think that there is anything wrong about that. However, if that same person, is not allowed their turn to speak at all during a question answer session where the audience is meant to be involved, then I think there is definitely something wrong going on. However, as you say, following the interjection of two ladies sitting in the audience who said "Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else will he speak?”" he did get his chance to say what he had been wanting to say. I think that this is a very interesting instance. When Yasin Malik (a voice that is not given much space in 'India') is speaking, someone interrupts, and then those who interrupt the interrupter, do so on grounds that are the same , that is - "Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else will he speak?”" And then, when the original interrupter asks for his turn to speak at the end, and is again himself interrupted, two other ladies interrupt again and say, "Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else will he speak?”" What is interesting about this episode is that both these people, Yasin Malik and the interrupter, could say what they wanted to say, in their own very different ways and voices, because people in the audience essentially said "Let him speak! If he does not get a chance to speak at WSF, where else will he speak?”" This brings me to a point that I am trying to think through a lot lately, about the authorised and the unauthorised interlocutor. Something that came up briefly in the Sarai panel at the WSF titled "Crisis/Media for the Millennium". The authorised interlocutor is someone who can jump into the fray of the discourse and speak his/her mind without anyone doubting what Arundhati Roy in the 'God of Small Things" called their 'Locusts Stand I' or, what in legalistic latin is "Locus Standi" and in filmi Hindi is called 'Aukaad' as in "saale, apni aukaad samajhke baat kar, nahin to kaan ke neeche yun bajaa dunga" - you get my drift. The authorised interlocuter, can become unauthorised, not necessarily because of the content of their statement, but the timing, manner, tone and style in which they say what they want to say. And surely, democratic and open forms of discourse are such which encourage a diversity of rhythms, manners, tones and styles, which is why the most 'free thinking' people can sometimes also come across as the most pugnaciously imperious and forbidding, not because of what they say, but because of the way in which they say or dont say things. Anyway, the point I am trying to arrive at is, of course, seminars and panels or anything that foregrounds the speaker as an 'Expert' automatically prefix the 'Authorised' tag on to some intorlocuters as opposed to thers. And of course, we should try and arrive at a variety of forms in which discourse can happen. A discussion list like this, is hopefully, precisely something that a seminar or an expert panel is. We do not interrupt each other here. We cannot. There are no experts, no panelists here, there cannot be. And no one can ask of another the question - "What gives you the authority to say this or that" because no one has given anyone any authority on this list. And I do hope that we all realize that this is precisely what makes list culture and list ettiquette so special. In fact, if a successful seminar is one in which some people say most things most of the time. Then a successful list is one in which something very different happens. Not 'no one saying hardly anything most of the time', but ' a lot of people, saying lots of things, a lot of the time' But, lets come back to Yasin Malik and the gentleman who interrupted. The interrupter who demands to know what right Yasin Malik, a person who has been a part of, and a votary of, armed struggle, has to invoke Gandhi, is also asking Yasin Malik, basically, the "Saale teri aukaad kya hai, tery yeh majaal" or "what is your 'locusts stand i' ", question. He too wants Yasin Malik to cease speech. Just as others want him to cease speaking. Just as many in this country who protest against the censorship of some books, or films, are in agreement with the decision to censor and ban other books and fllms. Perhaps they see themselves as 'Authorised Interlocutors' who consider themselves better placed to know what to ban, and what not to ban. I am not a Gandhian, in fact, I am someone who considers Gandhi wanting not because he foregrounds ethics, but because I think he foregrounds ethics not in a fundamental, but in a tactical sense. In the sense that he never opposed capital punishment, even though he opposed terrorism. He never opposed the right of the Indian state to send in its military into Kashmir, even though he opposed the right of any people to take up arms to defend themselves. I would think that non violence would imply an absolute rejection of the violence of the state (especially when the state is something that you have a hand in the making of) even as it implies a categorical rejection of the violence of the insurgent. No, I am not a Gandhian, and I do not respect Gandhi's philosophy, even if I do acknoweldge the creativity of Gandhi's practice of poltics. But what I do not understand, is why, someone like Yasin Malik should not have the right to invoke Gandhi, whenever he feels like it. Gandhi too, did serve in advancing the cause of the British military in South Africa, even as he was initiating his experiments with truth and non violence. In that sense Gandhi in the course of his life is as morally implicated in acts of war, as Yasin Malik may be in acts of insurgency. I may be wrong but I think Yasin Malik is younger now then what Gandhi was when he returned to India. If the Gandhi we know, who experimented with racism (he time and again said that Indians were better than Africans in South Africa, and supported a full on war in South Africa in a direct and activist manner) can transform, or be transformed, or allow himself to be transformed into the Mahatma of non violence, then what's wrong with letting Yasin Malik figuring out which way he wants to go? And why should Yasin Malik not given the lattitude (to experiment with the ideas of tolerance, forgiveness and non violence) that we have so readily extended to M.K. Gandhi. This posting has gone astray, its gone far far away from being about what happenned at the Kashmir panel at the WSF. But then this is not a seminar, and I am not an expert. And I would like to thank Zainab with all the affection that I can muster, for the necessary corrections and amplifications she made in response to my testimony, and for the provocation to stray from the topic! And it somehow makes the excercise of being at the WSF, of being an incomplete, imperfect witness, just that little more worthwhile. Cheers Shuddha -- Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective) Sarai Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Phone : 91 11 23942199 Ext 305 www.sarai.net From simon at metamute.com Wed Feb 4 22:34:28 2004 From: simon at metamute.com (Simon Worthington) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 17:04:28 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [Mute News] OpenMute launches FREE web tools - OM1 Message-ID: <200402041704.28622.simon@metamute.com> Hi , If anyone needs some FREE web tools for their projects or if you want to get involved in Open Source development of customisations of our services, then please check out our project. cheers Simon Worthington Mute magazine -- FREE as in lunch! *OpenMute* create/collaborate/communicate http://www.openmute.org *Free web site and easy-to-use web tools* OpenMute announces the launch of its Open Source web tools services for cultural and community groups. OpenMute is a Mute project. Mute is a not-for-profit organisation. --- OpenMute offers a service called OM1 with which you can have a website built almost immediately, packed with tools for publishing and collaborative working. *HOW IT WORKS* 1. Log on to http://openmute.org 2. Request an account 'yourname.omweb.org' 3. You will then have a website with the following tools available: NEWS | WIKI | GALLERY | FORUM | CALENDAR | RSS FEEDS and more... OpenMute's services allow you to have a dynamic website where you can update content from any computer connected to the internet just using a browser. You can adapt the web tools to your own requirements making your OM1 site into a gallery, workspace, library, public feedback portal, event publicity site, archive and more. You can read more details about OpenMute's OM1 package at the bottom of this email. --- *SOME BACKGROUND TO THE OPENMUTE PROJECT* OpenMute is unique in that we have created a system that automates the replication of certain very powerful open source tools, not only making them available to those without the requisite technical skills to install and adapt independently, but also reducing the many associated costs. OpenMute aims to make such tools available to individuals and communities who were previously unable to use them. Additionally, we aim to provide enough supporting information, and channels of communication between users, technical staff, etc., to create a culture of self-education and collaboration around their use. OpenMute harnesses Mute magazine's decade-long experience of paper and internet publishing to accommodate a wide variety of internet users, from the one-woman band to the medium-sized organisation. 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If you need more space or functionality, you can upgrade to OM2 or OM2+ What you get with OM1 * Standard tools (see below) * Support: community support forum, documentation wiki, FAQ * Resources server space = 5MB * Domain yourname.omweb.org * Price Free Standard Tools * Publish with news, wiki, gallery * Work, discuss and announce with forum, event calendar * Network using partners, links, members, headlines (RSS/RDF/XML newsfeeds) * Organise content and files with downloads, sections and FAQ Support http://support.openmute.org OM Manual The OpenMute team have put together the OM Manual to get you started with your site, taking you through its basic setup and onto detailed tool and administration configurations. Community Support Forum All OpenMute services come with support. In the case of OM1 we provide a Community Support Forum where users and OpenMute workers can help one another with support issues. Documentation wiki In addition, there is extensive documentation on our support site wiki FAQ In OpenMute's FAQ you can view answers to commonly posed questions as well as post questions to the OpenMute -- END From shuddha at sarai.net Wed Feb 4 22:24:15 2004 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 22:24:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Kashmir Session at WSF In-Reply-To: <04020422141400.01417@sweety.sarai.kit> References: <04020422141400.01417@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <04020422241501.01417@sweety.sarai.kit> In my previous posting in this thread, a line that reads "A discussion list like this, is hopefully, precisely something that a seminar or an expert panel is." should read "A discussion list like this, is hopefully, precisely something that a seminar or an expert panel is not." The not is not there in the posting, which changes the meaning of what I am saying entirely. My fingers have been told off by my brain. apologies, and Cheers Shuddha On Wednesday 04 February 2004 10:14 pm, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > Dear Zainab and everyone, > > Many thanks, Zainab, for filling in a much more vivid and detailed picture > of the Kashmir panel that I had mentioned at the WSF. I did not stay right > till the end of the panel, and so was not aware of what transpired at the > question and answer session. (and I must add that I was also not present at > the juncure when a Kashmiri Pandit lady who was present, protested, and who > you say was silenced). Of course, my report, was incomplete, and your > testimony only points to the fact that there can never be a record of an > event that is anything other than what the witness saw, or, more > interestingly, perhaps chose to see. I saw, or chose to see, a certain > slice of the event, and that is what i have written about, it needs to be > qualified and seen in relation to what you saw, and what you reported, that > is why this is a discussion list and not a seminar. So thanks for that ! > After all, we did sit next to each other for a while when both of us were > present. And what would be the point of both of us being on this list, if > at least we could not enjoy the fact of complicating each other's > narrative, in a Rashomonesque sort of way ! > -- Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective) Sarai Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Phone : 91 11 23942199 Ext 305 www.sarai.net From marnoldm at du.edu Wed Feb 4 20:51:14 2004 From: marnoldm at du.edu (Michael Arnold Mages) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 08:21:14 -0700 (MST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] February on -empyre-: Geert Lovink and Trebor Scholz discuss networks, art and collaboration Message-ID: February on -empyre-: networks, art & collaboration With Geert Lovink and Trebor Scholz collaboration 1. United labour, co-operation; especially in literary, artistic, or scientific work. 2. specifically Traitorous cooperation with the enemy. --Oxford English Dictionary, Online Edition Rarely does a word contain within it such positive and negative connotations. The history of collaboration reflects this duality. Wordsworth and Coleridge, Fluxus, Wiki, Blogging, the organization of the WTO protests, the rise of Nazism in pre-WWII Germany and surrounding states, and the actions of the recent US-led "coalition" in Iraq demonstrate positive and negative aspects of collaborative effort. -empyre-, in cooperation with the conference on networks, art, & collaboration (http://www.freecooperation.org), welcomes Geert Lovink and Trebor Scholz, as they discuss the complexity, challenges and rewards of collaboration both off and on-line. Subscribe at: http://www.subtle.net/empyre ------------ Lovink and Scholz are both part of a collaborative team that created the collaborative weblog Discordia on arts, politics, and techno cultures. (http://discordia.us) ------------ Geert Lovink Geert Lovink is an Amsterdam-born media theorist and activist who co-founded the on-line group for media arts producers, nettime, and the Australian-based forum fibreculture.org. Lovink has lectured widely on media theory, and is a member and co-founder of Adilkno (Foundation for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge). http://www.laudanum.net/geert ------------ Trebor Scholz Born in East Berlin, Trebor Scholz is a media artist who, involved in ventures both collaborative and individual, addresses issues on the intersection of art, politics and the Internet. Dividing his time between Brooklyn and Buffalo he is professor at the Department of Media Study, SUNY at Buffalo. http://molodiez.org ------------ Subscribe at: http://www.subtle.net/empyre -- Michael Arnold Mages mailto:marnoldm at du.edu -- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From nilanjanb at 123india.com Fri Feb 6 00:11:06 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 10:41:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] khetro in response Message-ID: <20040205104107.2856.h013.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Dear Jeebesh & other friends at reader list, Khetro as an organisation is be very much enthused by getting exciting responses after the publication of Broadsheet01. Please pass on the information of this publication to your friends as well as other interested persons. We have started planning for the next one which will be published in the month of May. Thanks for your interest. Besh wishes to all. Nilanjan From dak at sarai.net Thu Feb 5 15:31:15 2004 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 15:31:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Reminder - Call for Abstracts: Language, Culture , Urban Publics Workshop Message-ID: <200402051531.15680.dak@sarai.net> Call for Abstracts: Workshop: Language, Culture and Urban Publics: April 1st -3rd, 2004. This workshop will engage in a dialogue between research into histories of print cultures and the new linguistic practices in contemporary media and urban spaces. The workshop is intended to revisit the debates on identity and politics together with attention to forms from magazines to cassettes to films and television as well as new performative spaces such as call centers discussion-lists and chat rooms. Our premise is that these dialogues would provide diverse critical vantage points from which to engage with issues of language and culture as they enable various strategies of dwelling in and imagining the city. Older forms of expression in print and speech have been under significant pressure in the contemporary with the emergence of electronic communication, leading to both innovation and anxiety. The workshop will focus on content, form, styles and circulation of linguistic cultures. The primary focus will be on South Asia, though we welcome proposals on other regions that provide a comparative perspective. While the focus of the workshop is the contemporary transformations, it would perhaps be useful to see the contemporary as the contested site of continuity as well discontinuity. Suggested Themes: Histories of urban print cultures - Popular print forms: pamphlets, 'pulp fiction', little magazines and small towns. Urban imaginaries in literary cultures. Radio and Broadcasting: 'National language' and local publics, contemporary FM cultures. Print and the challenge of contemporary media forms: television, mobile, SMS, hybrid forms, copy culture. Music: cassette cultures, regional and migrant music, parody. Styles of Engagement: Accents, idioms, slang, performative speech and identity: from the streets to chat rooms to Call Centres. Speech as Sales pitch: advertisement, propaganda, and bazaar language. Language as Politics Poetics of Adaptation Please send 200-300 word abstracts to language at sarai.net by February 15th, 2004.. We will cover travel and board of South Asian participants who are selected to present at the workshop. In the case of international presenters we will cover all local costs, in rare cases of people without institutional support we might support travel. _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From khel at vsnl.com Fri Feb 6 15:02:19 2004 From: khel at vsnl.com (by way of Monica Narula) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:02:19 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] VIKALP SCHEDULE: 6-9 FEB Message-ID: CAMPAIGN AGAINST CENSORSHIP 6.02/04 Dear Friends, The atmosphere at Vikalp for the past two days has been magical! Films, including the ones that were `rejected' by MIFF as well as those that rejected MIFF continue to draw huge audiences.The festival space is abuzz through the day with activity and lively discussions that follow the screenings of all films. Please find below the schedule of screenings from 6th -9th February. FEBRUARY 6 10.00 Trembling Before God (95 mins) DISCUSSION / BREAK 12.00 Anunad--Echoes Of The First Sound (28 min) 12:30 Some Roots Grow Upwards (52 min) DISCUSSION / LUNCH 2.30 Journeys (38 minutes) 3:15 Buzz Of Betrayal (1 minutes) 3.20 On My Own (28 minutes) 3.45 Pala (83 minutes) DISCUSSION / BREAK 6.00 Final Solution (214 minutes) FEBRUARY 7 10.00 My Own Home (42 min) 10.55 A Silent Killer (23 minutes) DISCUSSION / BREAK 12.00 Maan Dam (15 minutes) 12.20 Godhra Tak (60 minutes) DISCUSSION /LUNCH 2.30 For Whom the Jingle Bells Toll (29 minutes) 3. 05 Miles to Go (58 minutes) 4.10 Tales of the Night Fairies (74 minutes) DISCUSSION / BREAK 6.00 A Night of Prophecy (77 minutes) 7.30 The Men in the Tree (94 minutes) FEBRUARY 8 10.00 Colours of Earth (60 min) 11.10 Pyramid of Women (19 minutes) BREAK 12.00 Naga Story (62 minutes) 1:05 Jardhar Diary (27 minutes) LUNCH 2.30 Development Flows from the Barrel of the Gun (53 minutes) 3.30 Searching for Saraswati (62 minutes) 4.40 New Improved Delhi (6 min) 4:50 Parai (45 min) BREAK 6.00 A Million Steps ( 22 minutes) 6.30 On an Express Highway (34 minutes) 7.15 Sita's Family (60 minutes) 8.30 In the Flesh (52 minutes) 9:05 Rummaging For Pasts: Excavating Sicily, Digging Bombay(27min) 9:45 Hawa Mahal (58 minutes) FEBRUARY 9 10.00 - 1pm - Meeting of Campaign members to discuss and plan future activities of the Campaign 1 - 2 pm - Lunch 2:00 Kandal Pokkudan (29 minutes) 2:35 Hunger in the Time of Plenty (30 min) 3:10 Outburst (18 min) 3:35 Chords on the Richter Scale ( 45minutes) 4:30 Plug 'n Play (29 min) 5:00 Laden is Not my Friend (28 minutes) DISCUSSION/BREAK 6:00 Buru Sengal (57 min) 7:10 Bamboo Children (28 min) 7:45 Love Me You (92 min) 9:25 Iag Bari: Brass in Fire (98 min) From kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in Fri Feb 6 17:32:14 2004 From: kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?kalyan=20nayan?=) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 12:02:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] posting from kalyan Message-ID: <20040206120214.95663.qmail@web8104.in.yahoo.com> Internet is playing its wonderful part to confront oneself with the traffic of ideas around the world. And I am also trying to gain the historian’s perspective from it. Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowship has given me the opportunity and here I am writing to a host of intelligent minds that can offer comments on my area of interest and with whom I can interact with. My name is Kalyan and I am pursuing my M. Phil. in Modern Indian History from Jawaharlal Nehru University. My area of research from the tutorial writing days has revolved around city and its different manifestations. And I am greatly interested in looking at the dynamics that shapes the city and gives it a particular nature. No doubt with recent onslaught of technology, the city has started taking a new shape. It is equally contributing in making and sustaining a mindset. But being a historian I would beg to present a historical bent to it and in my regular postings I would be discussing things from that very perspective. Jamshedpur (at present I am working on the history of Jamshedpur titled; ‘The Idea of Jamshedpur’: Evolution of an Industrial Landscape 1907-1990) is the ‘city of sweat equity’ if I may borrow Peter Hall’s phrase. At the same time it is a ‘city of enterprise’. How does this city promote the potentialities of both? I would be writing about these and specifically about interaction of the labour and the capital that has given a peculiar face to the city and thereby providing us an interesting case study on the capitalism’s benevolence being sustained by the sweat of the labour. But readers are requested to bear with a fairly lengthy synoptical overview that is been attempted that would serve as a background. Central idea of the study would be the city as described in the economic sense of the term. Broadly the processes through which a city is born, would decide its contours and the exploratory theme. It is been observed that cities are invaded by industries and sometimes the opposite happens. In case of Jamshedpur, which came into existence in 1907 with the establishment of Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) the latter was true. It was one of the exceptional experiments been made and its gradual evolution into a successful industrial town witnesses the typicality of that experiment. The town has grown in an isolated and self-contained area and has become a property of a single big company. The other smaller companies run on a much smaller scale. TISCO acquired about 25 square miles of land and established there on, one of the largest iron and steel plants in the world and a modern town of about 1,00,000 inhabitants. In this way it exhibited all those features of urban experience that reflected the sense of the city living, with special kind of spatial boundaries, and a creation of a space where local society materially and culturally reproduced itself. What gave the city this kind of “graduating” experience? First it was a conglomeration of people being gathered around steel industry as a focal point. Second migration played a significant role in the building of this skilled and unskilled labour force in the city. Both of these aspects defied the immemorial existence of the city, contrary to the antiquated notions attached to the evolution of the colonial city in general. Third the company was the landlord and the administrator of the city. Fourth the company itself was doing the spatial division of the city based on residential differentiation. TISCO provided accommodation to 95 percent of the higher staff, but facilities for working people were hopelessly inadequate. The company’s attempt to provide help in the form of house loans had not proved much of a success due to absence of proper initiative by the company. As the reports of the time suggests that sanitary arrangements in the town were not adequate. Royal commission reported that in ‘busties’ it is a positive menace to develop well being of residence there, leaving aside the northern town or European quarters where a complete scientific system is provided. It was also noticed that, curiously enough in areas like Sakchi and Kasidih common sanitation arrangements were biggest abhorrence for the people”. Gradually all open spaces went into occupation with the pressure of population and created new problems of space management. Town did not have any municipal government for a long time. The committee of companies which was to be the governing body of the town formed a board of works and consisted of six representatives of the TISCO, three of other companies and two from the general public. To invest this committee with some powers, Government of India in 1924 made Jamshedpur a notified area under the municipal act and appointed a Notified Area Committee. However Jamshedpur came as a unique example of a town with the most modern and efficient services in India where the inhabitants paid no rates. It was hardly surprising that no objection was raised to the arrangement and to the undemocratic character of the local administration. Three Issues. Part I: Spatial evolution of the city in general. Who are the people that inhabit the city? Nature and quantum of the labour force that had its repercussion on the social and cultural built up of the city. How the worker is accommodating within the city space. Part II: Discourse of planning. Part III: Shaping of the modern worker through architecture and urban planning. Part IV: The factor of Paternalism being practiced by the Tatas an enjoyed by the workers. And this factor is exhibited through city most effectively which is managed and governed by the Tatas. Initially I would explore the origins of the city and its confining boundaries that have been developed around it. It would include the composition of the labour force and gradual evolution of the town area. Initial survey of the town struck me that it was a ‘planners paradise’. No less than five plans had been instituted to regulate the spatial and built environment of the city. My idea is to explore the discourse of the idea of planning that was giving shape to this industrial center and its varying impressions on other industrial centers in India. In fact the idea of the town planning can be emancipatory, carrying the possibility of people fashioning their own living environment with will and consciousness. As Jamshedpur represents itself, this seldom happened. The struggle remained to free the discourse from the shackles of economic, technological and ideological domination, to rediscover the ethical and moral questions in the creation of environments. Moreover it should be added at this juncture that planning is not inherently correct nor planners. They are the temporary manifestations of historical social processes, constrained by the interests that are dominant in the society at the time. I also wish to cross the boundary of 1947, which usually suggest a demarcation line for modern Indian history, and analyze the changes that occurred with the coming of the new state structure and governing policies. The second issue can be stretched to this aspect as well. Any decent perusal of the historiography on Jamshedpur would give an idea to a historian that it is an area, which is invoked ceremoniously in examining various trends in social sciences. City provided an easy froth for readymade explorations. But quite clearly it was not the ‘city’ that drew attention of historians and anthropologists but the voluminous industrial population that was working there. And not surprisingly the profusion of writing that exists revolves around this industrial workforce. I am trying to locate the town in the center of investigations and then attempt to weave a story around it. In this way the city becomes the entry point for exploring issues that were hitherto been looked from the perspective of ‘labour’ or the ‘company’. In the case of Jamshedpur Company was definitely the prime mover in the city. This approach has three justifications to be mentioned. First, this would be the history of the town that has not been given its due attention. Second, this allows us to explore the issue of urbanism and its relation with industrial capitalistic development in the Indian perspective more clearly and elaborately. Third, this will also allow me to present an untapped vein of data regarding town planning, its management and the efforts applied by a company to manage the city on its own. ===== hi received your mail.thank you for calling me.i will reply you soon.sorry for the tantrum.bye ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Mobile: Download the latest polyphonic ringtones. Go to http://in.mobile.yahoo.com From khel at vsnl.com Sat Feb 7 12:27:27 2004 From: khel at vsnl.com (by way of Monica Narula) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 12:27:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] NEWS FROM VIKALP: DAY 3 Message-ID: CAMPAIGN AGAINST CENSORSHIP Dear Friends, Please find below the following: - NEWS FROM THE THIRD DAY AT VIKALP - THE FIRST ISSUE OF VIKALP VICHAAR : A FOUR PAGE FESTIVAL BULLETIN - A DRAFT OF THE OPEN LETTER TO THE MINISTER (I&B) TO BE DISTRIBUTED AT VIKALP AND MIFF NEWS FROM VIKALP: DAY 3 On the third day of the Vikalp: Films for Freedom festival, the ongoing protest against censorship recorded more than 2000 registered delegates. As in the previous days, screenings were followed by lively discussions centered around the films and the issues they raise, as well as the art of documentary filmmaking. But the main news of the day came from across the street, at the controversy ridden Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF). Filmmakers from the Campaign Against Censorship attended the Press Conference organised by MIFF to present the Selection Committee's version of the controversy surrounding the selection process. The meeting took a revealing turn when Mr K Bikram Singh, Member, National Selection Committee began an argument with Mr Babu Ramaswamy, Co-ordinator MIFF about the legitimacy of removing a film that has been recommended by their panel. Media representatives and filmmakers witnessed a startling revelation by Mr. K.Bikram Singh: "We were not a selection committee, but only a recommending authority." He added that the committee neither had a chairperson, nor were they briefed about the number of films or screening hours; there was no single member who saw all the entries and hence, the committee was not aware of how the final list was compiled. Mr. Babu Ramaswamy, Co-ordinator MIFF however, chose to disagree and claimed that the members were adequately briefed and that there was no interference in their functioning. In response to a specific question about the film-Words on Water, he admitted that although it had been selected by the committee for the international competition section, the ex-director of MIFF had excluded this film. Mr.Ramasawamy defended this act of censorship as "fine tuning" and claimed that the festival director was only exercising the prerogative of his office. Mr. Bikram Singh chose to differ on this, and said that the Director of MIFF had no right to exclude films selected by the committee, and what was done in MIFF 2004 was unprecedented and unfair. The inconsistent and contradictory remarks on the selection process by the various actors involved firmly corroborate the contention of the CAC that the selection process was fundamentally flawed and involved backdoor censorship. This view was also expressed strongly by a wide spectrum of those present, ranging from IDPA representatives, organizing committee members, past selection and jury members, and representatives of the media. In the words of Mr. RV Ramani, organizing committee member, who resigned in protest against the flawed selection process: "This is not a selection committee but a farce!" He was amongst several others who demanded an urgent review of the entire selection process of MIFF 2004. ANNOUNCEMENT: Vikalp- Films for Freedom also announced a panel discussion titled: RESISTING CENSORSHIP. Scheduled for Feb 8th, 2004, the participants include Arundhati Roy, writer, Nikhil Wagle, Editor ?Mahanagar?, and Anand Patwardhan, filmmaker. The venue will be the Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan (3rd floor) 89 Sayani Road, Prabhadevi at 12:30 pm vikalp vichaar- The festival bulletin: Interview with Sanjay Kak Q. How did the Campaign Against Censorship (CAC) begin? Sanjay: The CAC has emerged as an action platform of over 275 documentary filmmakers from all over India. It was triggered off when MIFF introduced a dangerously discriminatory clause asking for Indian entries for the festival to submit censor certificates. In a matter of a few short weeks, more than 200 filmmakers had grouped together to express their outrage, and filmmakers from the world over joined in. But beyond the MIFF issue, the Campaign represents a spontaneous release of energy from the growing and vibrant documentary filmmaking community in India. Q. Though MIFF was forced to withdraw the censorship clause, the subsequent selection process sidelined most films that were remotely ?political? or critical of the establishment. Was Vikalp a reaction to this deliberate sidelining of alternative voices? Sanjay: Vikalp is not simply a reaction. MIFF is a small irritant around which a lot of mobilization has materialized. There are 30 rejected filmmakers with a wide range of subjects. Normally we don?t even show our films in the same places, but there?s enough common ground. Vikalp is a platform of people with shared concerns, a broad area of common understanding. It is provoked no doubt by what happened ? the censorship clause, etc. - but it is important to recognize the moment. Something like this would not have been possible even 10 years ago, simply because there were not enough people in documentary filmmaking then. But the development in production, in technology, and its impact on filmmaking practice, the growing self confident community of filmmakers, not just in cities like Delhi and Bombay, but in small towns all over the country, not to forget, the growing audience - all these have contributed to creating an envi! ronment where a protest like this is possible. But i f we recognize this flexibility, this proliferation of production and the audience, so does the sarkar. The state is taking note of it, is cracking down on newspapers, magazines and television channels that are critical of the establishment, so much so that even a magazine like The Outlook has been brought to heel. Today any large monolithic media structure is vulnerable. But we documentary filmmakers, to quote Arundhati Roy, are like machchars (mosquitoes) on the back of a big buffalo - how are they going to stop us? Q. There?s been some talk of taking this package to different educational institutes, of turning it into a traveling festival like Film South Asia. Sanjay: Yes, we could take the package to different institutes, or we could ask them to choose specific films that they would like to screen. The important thing is to preserve the independent character of the festival, to prevent it from becoming dependent on the State or on any one funding organisation. Because when that happens, you become vulnerable to pressure. So forming another IDPA or MIFF is useless. The trick is to let the big festivals be - MIFF can be revamped, cleaned up - but this impulse, this alternative space should not be tampered with. For every large institution, there must be a counter institution. I firmly believe that this kind of amorphous, loose, spirited and engaged mode of working, this attempt at a kind of democracy and transparency is very essential. We have proved that we can do it in 20 days. If we get 6 months, we can come up with something truly fantastic. VIKALP AS VIKALP Vikalp is alternative. It is a new! possibility. It is not just a festival that is staged as a protest to the MIFF. It is a movement of filmmakers. It is a collective that has t