From sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 1 00:03:02 2007 From: sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in (sayandeb mukherjee) Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:33:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] THE SPACE INTERLUDE/5TH POSTING Message-ID: <953135.15398.qm@web7710.mail.in.yahoo.com> VTH POSTING THE MAINFRAME In the following years ‘apartment’ became the basic structure of most of the residential buildings and whatever architectural improvisations were attempted was executed with this configuration in mind. Single/Double storied independent family houses rarefied whereas apartments or like buildings clouded the cityscape generating a new look altogether. In some cities like Kolkata, Hyderabad, it also happened that these houses (as mentioned above) were destructed and above the recreated space raised huge multi-storied apartments giving accommodation to considerable number of families. The families were put into units, as mentioned before as ‘flats’ and this multiple existence of different families (with no inter-relationship in most cases) under one roof generated a new sociological structure of neighborhood, a new lifestyle with spatially adjustable qualities imposed in the dwellers’ mind, a new philosophy of life. The space of my interest is the passage between these flats that exist in the fashion of rows. We can say it is a kind of re-incarnated space that got extinct with the death of big mansions, palaces, and havelis and with the rising of small houses, then again took rebirth with the rising of these apartments. It is the ‘corridor space’ apparently looks like a ‘tube’ with openings at regular intervals which are actually the interface of different flats. These spaces are the unavoidably emerged caves of modern civilization. The space has undergone more of a functional displacement than the structural one. In the earlier establishments, the corridor space was integrated inside the palace or haveli and was used by the members of the same big family. But today’s apartment corridors are not entirely private and are instantly accessible to the flat owners who’re not necessarily inter-related to each other. For the configuration of today’s residential corridor spaces and for the sociological state (that it provides instantaneous interference to unfamiliar territories with the immediate opening of my flat’s main door) it imbibes conventional similarities with hospitals, educational institutions and many other public spaces. For this reason, when I come out of my flat subconsciously I bear a feeling of walking in a hospital or a college corridor. Also it is a common space accessible to other flat owners. It is therefore, appears as a grey zone possessing the duality of personal space (for having proximity with the familial space) and a historically intertwined space that has got invisible visual similitude with outwardly public (unprivatized) space. The deduction of these subconscious trajectories leads to the fact that these spaces are not psychologically homogenous since it possesses multiple crossfades of social conditioning. On every step in the corridor one undergoes the dwindling away of the secured familial space and the introduction of the social space when one has to mould/condition his self with the mannerisms or interactive fashions of the society. The corridor spaces will characteristically differ not necessarily due to architectural dissimilarities but the relation that it inherits with the SUPER-SPACE where it is integrated. If the corridor is included in a hospital his psychological state alters from that when he is in his apartment corridor. Another important aspect is the intersection of time that cannot he disregarded since because the thought pattern changes along the length of the corridor. An extended length of such a space will contribute to the increasing curiosity of the intruder or will render a memoryscape that could possess associative elements of the user with the ‘home’ he is moving onto. These shades of emotions corresponding to the situatedness of the corridor space and the temporal factor will be discussed later. Bringing the context of the apartment corridor once again I will construct a situation where a person is retreating from his working space and has reached the apartment where he lives in a small flat with his wife and a kid. He takes the lift that brings him to a long corridor _ the space that he has to walk down to reach his flat which is the HOME of today. In this transitory phase he will be majorly pre-occupied with the thought that he’s going to meet the kid after a subsequent time. Along with, he might be recollecting the happenings at the working space or how he spent chatting with his friend during a break or he was humiliated by his higher official or how his boss elated at his performance or /and might as well think his future schedules. To summarize, an user while transposing through this space makes a conscious walk pre-occupied by the thought of anticipation (>what he is going to do next when he reaches the terminal of the space or what could be the happenings that he is going to face as he arrives here) or recollection of the diurnal past (>what are the events that happened on the very day, what were the situations that he faced.. etc). What makes this space characteristically dissimilar is this self-consciousness (>certain layers of consciousness that essentially involves self only) that evaporates away in a social space – working or living. Another viewpoint that entails with a derivative of self-consciousness is the phenomenon of perceptions. Karl Kupfmuller, a scientist, while making a quantitative analysis of the neurological synapses to the brain has found that vision has long been to be our dominant input. However, his study suggested that simulation of even our conscious mind is almost equally well achieved from visual compared to auditive inputs. So the derivative is that, we‘re mostly visually pre-occupied; most of the time we’re instinctively engrossed by the visual extravaganza, thereby suppressing/overpowering the auditive attributes of the space. Therefore, most of the time, when we talk about certain psychological phenomenon or anomalies there remains a pre-consideration of the visual perception. For example, while we speak about ‘VERTIGO’, we try to comprise it by saying it is a psychological weakness that happens to the victim when he/she reaches a certain height, he/she suffers from a tendency of falling down from there. This ‘height’ is a measure derived from vision and its acquaintance has nothing to do with other sensations. But, for finding thoroughly the cause of such an anomaly, one might consider other perceptual attributes. As we go higher, there happens a severe fall of the intelligibility of sound, the details with which we perceive certain sounds, gets attenuated as we reach a height. What surmounts is an accumulation of sounds from other distant sources; in other words AUDIO-HORIZON continuously expands with the height. Finally, as we reach a considerable height, brightness of the sounds sourced from the surface [- the ground level] is muted, the circumference of audibility has expanded. But importantly, a new frequency content in the air is introduced that results in a sonic-boom/boominess. This particular sonic property – boominess which deeply engulfs the listener/observer is very unnatural and is not being encountered in our everyday life. The lack of acquaintance with such a sonic-scape will be very annoying for the victim and could be an attribute for such dizziness. But we don’t generally realize the auditory differentiations because of the overpowering visionary properties. It is therefore, interesting to note the state of perception and its psychological manifestation as this visionary world is exterminated like it happens in a double-loaded (-to be discussed later) corridor space. As discussed earlier, in terms of synapses, the second strong receptor of perception is audio. So, we’re more acoustically aware/conscious as we enter these spaces .. to be continued. SAYANDEB MUKHERJEE FT#308, SUBBARAJU TOWERS, ROAD NO.4, VIJAYAPURI COLONY, KOTHAPET, HYDERABAD PIN: 500 035 PH#9849383863 Get the freedom to save as many mails as you wish. To know how, go to http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html From yasir.media at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 00:56:22 2007 From: yasir.media at gmail.com (yasir ~) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 00:26:22 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Police stops screening of Jashn-e-Azadi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5af37bb0707311226x67a624ceha574d1678f6a84a2@mail.gmail.com> On 7/31/07, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > > india must be the only country on this earth where 'nationalism' and 'patriotism' are ridiculed ....i think this must be the reason > why we had to suffer at the hands of muslim & christian invaders for more than thousand years, moreover why this country was partitioned in 1947 ! > dear vedavati, *It* looks pretty partitioned in 400AD - years before Muhammad was born - and strangely it looks a lot like today. http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCINDIA/GUPTAMAP.HTM http://www.geocities.com/narenp/history/maps.htm 625AD http://www.geocities.com/narenp/history/maps.htm or even 1050 AD http://www.geocities.com/narenp/history/maps.htm but may be you are living in 200 BC http://www.geocities.com/narenp/history/maps.htm best From pkray11 at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 11:41:13 2007 From: pkray11 at gmail.com (prakash ray) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:41:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Andhra killing.. Message-ID: <98f331e00707312311m9b6e06ufa858d54e2403b6c@mail.gmail.com> We are herewith releasing a letter addressed to AICC General Secretary, Shri Digvijay Singh, by Shri Srinivasa Rao, Member of the Central Secretariat of the CPI(M), in response to Shri Digvijay's statement on the police firing in Mudigonda in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh which killed six people. July 30, 2007 Dear Shri Digvijay Singhji, What you have stated about the brutal police firing in Mudigonda in Khammam district in the media amounts to nothing but misinformation. Maybe you have been misled by your party's state leadership. We hope that you will ascertain the real facts about the incident and verify them. Here are a few facts and issues we wish to bring to your notice: The agitators were peacefully conducting rasta roko in Mudigonda on July 28. There was no attack on the police station. No police vehicle was torched as being alleged. If any such thing has happened why don't you ask the authorities to exhibit the vehicle. It is being alleged that Maoists have sneaked into the land movement and are responsible for the violence. Bandi Ramesh is not a Maoist as your state leaders are alleging him to be. He had earlier worked in the CPI(ML) New Democracy party openly. He had differences with his party and joined the CPI(M). His wife Bandi Padma has been the elected sarpanch of Cherumari village for the last 10 years. Even today she is the sarpanch of that village. So, they are neither extremists nor were they underground at any point of time. Verify this aspect. The police lathicharged the peaceful protestors who were holding a rasta roko. They targeted Bandi Ramesh specifically, dragging him out of the camp and brutally beating him up. The people, aghast at such behaviour by the police, tried to extricate their leader from the police. Meanwhile the Additional SP, in an unusual move, reached the area with the anti-naxalite squad who were armed with AK-47s and LMGs. Even as the lathicharge was going on, the police began firing on the protestors without any warning, killing 6 people. While these are the facts of the incident, your state leadership has embarked on a disinformation campaign. When the CPI(M) had conducted a siege of Khammam collectorate office last January, it passed off absolutely peacefully. The police were also quite restrained then. Later the Chief Minister pulled up the police saying they were not firm enough. This was reported in the media. Since then the police violence on agitators increased. Bhadrachalam, in the same district, witnessed police firing on tribals. The police badly misbehaved with the local MP, Dr M. Babu Rao, and MLA S. Rajaiah. It is now clear that the latest firing in Mudigonda is also a result of the Chief Minister's instigation of the police. I am writing this letter to you with the hope that you will examine these facts and take necessary action. Yours sincerely Sd/- (V. Srinivasa Rao) Member, Central Secretariat, CPI(M) From amitabh at sarai.net Wed Aug 1 11:55:11 2007 From: amitabh at sarai.net (Amitabh Kumar) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:55:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police stops screening of Jashn-e-Azadi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33422EE6-3E89-456F-98C7-5936B8E4562E@sarai.net> The way I understand it.. 'nationalism and patriotism' are not so bankrupt a phenomenon so as to be divorced of 'secularism & liberalism'. However, the figure of 'we' the 'suffer'ers in your argument is interesting. Is it geographically bound or otherwise? Whats the imagination of 'we'? Is it 'We' the Indians? Or 'We- The Hindu's"? Or ' We- Who hate all religions but our own' or 'We- who only hate Muslims and Christians' or ' We - who hate' or ' We- In a bad mood today'? On 31-Jul-07, at 11:33 PM, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > india must be the only country on this earth where 'nationalism' > and 'patriotism' are ridiculed ....i think this must be the reason > why we had to suffer at the hands of muslim & christian invaders > for more than thousand years, moreover why this country was > partitioned in 1947 ! > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Sign in and get updated with all the action! > http://content.msn.co.in/Sports/FormulaOne/Default > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: > > > > From mail at shivamvij.com Wed Aug 1 13:04:22 2007 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 13:04:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Dalit Indian American donates $20m to native village Message-ID: <9c06aab30708010034u52f39144h694de85e3ed8514@mail.gmail.com> Indian American donates $20m to native village IANS Published: July 31, 2007, 23:12 http://www.gulfnews.com/world/India/10143367.html New York: An Indian American, who made millions as a neurosurgeon and lived a lavish life - once owning a Rolls-Royce - five Mercedes-Benzes and an airplane has donated $20 million (Dh75.2 million) to his native village in Kerala. Dr Kumar Bahuleyan, 81, who was born to a Dalit familly in India, decided to donate his personal fortune as a gratitude to his village, to establish a neurosurgery hospital, a health clinic and a spa resort in Chemmanakary, in Kottayam district of Kerala. "I was born with nothing; I was educated by the people of that village, and this is what I owe to them," Bahuleyan said in Buffalo where he has lived since 1973. "I'm in a state of nirvana, eternal nirvana," he said. "I have nothing else to achieve in life. This was my goal, to help my people. I can die any time, as a happy man." The urge to do something for his village arose some 20 to 25 years ago, when Bahuleyan returned to Chemmanakary and was struck by how little it had changed. From ysikand at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 13:20:51 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 13:20:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Maulanas in the News Message-ID: <48097acc0708010050w39a55ee7i8d10834f197c4c60@mail.gmail.com> Maulanas in the News Yoginder Sikand A maze of pot-holed lanes winds its way through a squalid slum at the far end of the sprawling Muslim locality of Zakir Nagar in South Delhi. The lanes are lined with open drains, clogged with garbage and blanketed with clouds of mosquitoes. Tiny hutments and half-constructed buildings cluster together haphazardly. A muddy by-lane, rendered almost unusable due to the recent rains, leads off towards the Jamuna beyond. Half way along, a tin board nailed on to an unpainted brick wall announces the Rabita Islamic News Agency (RINA). The brainchild of Maulana Muzzammil al-Haq al-Husaini, a graduate of the Deoband madrasa, and former editor of al-Kifah, the Arabic organ of the Jamiat ul-Ulama-e Hind, RINA was set up in 1987. For more than a decade it functioned in a somewhat perfunctory manner, the amiable middle-aged Maulana tells me, but for the last two years it has been working in a more organized way. Maulana Muzzammil explains the aims of RINA and the way it functions. 'We want international news, especially about Muslims and Islam in the other countries, to reach Urdu newspapers. We also want Indian Muslim news to reach papers abroad'. For the former purpose, RINA culls information from a host of Arabic and English websites, newspapers and magazines, translates this into Urdu, and sends it in the form of summarized reports to more than 150 Urdu publications across India. 'It is otherwise very difficult for many of these papers to access this material. It also saves them the trouble of having to arrange for this material to be translated into Urdu', he says. These reports are sent through email to some papers, and in the form of a weekly news bulletin, titled 'Alam-e Islam Ki Khabrein' ('News From the Islamic World'), which is sent by post to papers that do not have access to the Internet. The other major service that RINA provides is news about Indian Muslim affairs to Arabic and English publications, the latter both in India and abroad. 'Despite the fact that India has such a large Muslim population, people in the Arab world have little or no knowledge of the Indian Muslims', the Maulana points out. 'I traveled to the Arab world and I came across people who asked me, in all seriousness, if Muslims are allowed to build mosques in India! Considering the fact that Muslims, as well as others, enjoy considerably more religious freedom in India than in many Arab countries, such lack of knowledge of Indian Muslims in the Arab world is really distressing', he continues. 'This is both because the Arab press gives very little coverage to Indian Muslim issues and also because we have done little to tell others about ourselves'. 'Many Arabs', he adds, 'have this very distorted understanding of the conditions of the Indian Muslims. They think that we are all very poor and deprived. Many people go to the Gulf and paint a very sordid picture of the Muslims here in order to seek to garner funds in the name of the community. It is thus important for us to present the facts about ourselves as they are'. To get the Indian Muslim viewpoint across to an Arabic- and English- knowing readership, RINA has recently launched a features and news service in both languages. It selects material from Indian Urdu papers and gathers reports from its correspondents in different parts of the country and translates them into Arabic and English. This material will shortly be made available on RINA's website, which is presently under construction, and in the form of printed weekly newsletters. 'We want to focus on news about Indian Muslims that receive little or no coverage in the English and Arabic press', the Maulana explains. RINA is one of the few news agencies that focus solely or largely on Indian Muslim issues. It might have more room for improvement, though, particularly in the quality of the news that it sends out. The absence of feature stories is also something that could be addressed. But that said, the Maulana and his enterprising team of four young colleagues—three being graduates of the Deoband madrasa and one from the Nadwat ul-Ulama, Lucknow—exemplify what difference even a small group of dedicated activists, operating from a single room in a squalid slum, with just a fax machine and a computer at their disposal, can make. ======================================================== For more details about RINA, contact Maulana Muzzammil al-Haq al-Husaini on rinaislamicnewsagency at yahoo.co.in / Tel: (0091-11) 26984980 -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping From aman.am at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 16:44:07 2007 From: aman.am at gmail.com (Aman Sethi) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:44:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police stops screening of Jashn-e-Azadi In-Reply-To: <33422EE6-3E89-456F-98C7-5936B8E4562E@sarai.net> References: <33422EE6-3E89-456F-98C7-5936B8E4562E@sarai.net> Message-ID: <995a19920708010414q3d2c12a7kc689c1905d254ce0@mail.gmail.com> It is rather interesting that most the threads that usually sustain beyond 2 or three desultory mails, are those that deal with the "hindu-mussalman" question. Even arguments that on the face of it dont seem to have much to do with the "Hindu-Mussalman" question, inevitably come down to it. From there on, its a quick jump to "pseduo-secularists" vs hindutva wallahs. Kashmir, i suppose, tends to elicit reactions such as these - where every conversation about kashmir never remains "about kashmir" for particularly long. It lends itself to "larger questions" about "patriotism", "secularism and pseudo-secularism", "narender modi", "jhola wallahs", and of course, "the search for meaning" and "the nature of the state". Perhaps Sanjay Kak is trying to do just that - to make a film that is about kashmir, and stays about kashmir. And perhaps thats what the kashmiris refer to when they use that tragically over-used cliche, "all agreements should take into account the will of the kashmiri people." A conversation, a film, a dialogue, a protest, that is not abt "tips of icebergs", and "symptoms of larger malaises". Ever freedom of speech/expression makes the same mistake- "This is not just abt the arrest of an art student in gujarat, this is about the larger issue of freedom of speech in this country." "This is not just about Sanjay Kak's film on kashmir, this is about the larger issue of freedom of speech." No its not. It IS abt the arrest, and it IS about Kashmir. If every act of censorship succeeds in diverting attention from the censored object/subject/article/film towards a big picture analysis of censorship, freedom of expression and the nature of the state, then censorship has accomplished its task. We are then left free to plumb the depths of our limitless imaginations in search of We's , "Us's, Them's, and Thoses. A. ps: The police ARE buffoons. Really. On 8/1/07, Amitabh Kumar wrote: > The way I understand it.. 'nationalism and patriotism' are not so > bankrupt a phenomenon so as to be divorced of 'secularism & > liberalism'. > However, the figure of 'we' the 'suffer'ers in your argument is > interesting. Is it geographically bound or otherwise? Whats the > imagination of 'we'? > Is it 'We' the Indians? Or 'We- The Hindu's"? Or ' We- Who hate all > religions but our own' or 'We- who only hate Muslims and Christians' > or ' We - who hate' or ' We- In a bad mood today'? > > On 31-Jul-07, at 11:33 PM, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > > > india must be the only country on this earth where 'nationalism' > > and 'patriotism' are ridiculed ....i think this must be the reason > > why we had to suffer at the hands of muslim & christian invaders > > for more than thousand years, moreover why this country was > > partitioned in 1947 ! > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Sign in and get updated with all the action! > > http://content.msn.co.in/Sports/FormulaOne/Default > > _________________________________________ > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > > Critiques & Collaborations > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > > subscribe in the subject header. > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > List archive: > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> From rashneek at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 16:57:27 2007 From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:57:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police stops screening of Jashn-e-Azadi In-Reply-To: <995a19920708010414q3d2c12a7kc689c1905d254ce0@mail.gmail.com> References: <33422EE6-3E89-456F-98C7-5936B8E4562E@sarai.net> <995a19920708010414q3d2c12a7kc689c1905d254ce0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <13df7c120708010427hff5fa59o75414f22d1f8ee6a@mail.gmail.com> Dear Aman, I wonder if you have seen the movie.You are grossly mistaken that the movie is about Kashmir.If it was it would talked about Kashmiris(all of them-gujjars,pandits,sikhs,shias,bakerwals and others)...go see it again...among separatists also..it talks about just one fringe...the yasin malik one... if it is about freedom of speech,why did they disallow a section of people from entering the hall when it was screened in delhi(IHC).. Ponder again..see again..then write again.. Rashneek ps;Anyone who thinks the other guy is a bufoon personfies his own insecurity as one. On 8/1/07, Aman Sethi wrote: > > It is rather interesting that most the threads that usually sustain > beyond 2 or three desultory mails, are those that deal with the > "hindu-mussalman" question. Even arguments that on the face of it dont > seem to have much to do with the "Hindu-Mussalman" question, > inevitably come down to it. From there on, its a quick jump to > "pseduo-secularists" vs hindutva wallahs. > > Kashmir, i suppose, tends to elicit reactions such as these - where > every conversation about kashmir never remains "about kashmir" for > particularly long. It lends itself to "larger questions" about > "patriotism", "secularism and pseudo-secularism", "narender modi", > "jhola wallahs", and of course, "the search for meaning" and "the > nature of the state". > > Perhaps Sanjay Kak is trying to do just that - to make a film that is > about kashmir, and stays about kashmir. And perhaps thats what the > kashmiris refer to when they use that tragically over-used cliche, > "all agreements should take into account the will of the kashmiri > people." A conversation, a film, a dialogue, a protest, that is not > abt "tips of icebergs", and "symptoms of larger malaises". > > Ever freedom of speech/expression makes the same mistake- > "This is not just abt the arrest of an art student in gujarat, this is > about the larger issue of freedom of speech in this country." > "This is not just about Sanjay Kak's film on kashmir, this is about > the larger issue of freedom of speech." > > No its not. > > It IS abt the arrest, and it IS about Kashmir. If every act of > censorship succeeds in diverting attention from the censored > object/subject/article/film towards a big picture analysis of > censorship, freedom of expression and the nature of the state, then > censorship has accomplished its task. > > We are then left free to plumb the depths of our limitless > imaginations in search of We's , "Us's, Them's, and Thoses. > A. > ps: The police ARE buffoons. Really. > > > > On 8/1/07, Amitabh Kumar wrote: > > The way I understand it.. 'nationalism and patriotism' are not so > > bankrupt a phenomenon so as to be divorced of 'secularism & > > liberalism'. > > However, the figure of 'we' the 'suffer'ers in your argument is > > interesting. Is it geographically bound or otherwise? Whats the > > imagination of 'we'? > > Is it 'We' the Indians? Or 'We- The Hindu's"? Or ' We- Who hate all > > religions but our own' or 'We- who only hate Muslims and Christians' > > or ' We - who hate' or ' We- In a bad mood today'? > > > > On 31-Jul-07, at 11:33 PM, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > > > > > india must be the only country on this earth where 'nationalism' > > > and 'patriotism' are ridiculed ....i think this must be the reason > > > why we had to suffer at the hands of muslim & christian invaders > > > for more than thousand years, moreover why this country was > > > partitioned in 1947 ! > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > Sign in and get updated with all the action! > > > http://content.msn.co.in/Sports/FormulaOne/Default > > > _________________________________________ > > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > > > Critiques & Collaborations > > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > > > subscribe in the subject header. > > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > List archive: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________ > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > > Critiques & Collaborations > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > subscribe in the subject header. > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> -- Rashneek Kher http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com From bawree at yahoo.com Wed Aug 1 21:09:35 2007 From: bawree at yahoo.com (mamta mantri) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 08:39:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] of blueline in delhi Message-ID: <298336.46268.qm@web33115.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Delhi govt is all set to remove the blueline buses from the roads of delhi. I dont want to write about the goods and bads of the issue, but write about my experiences with a particular bus route. Have been in delhi for a year now and been travelling by BUS no 534, that runs from Anand Vihar to Mehrauli. These buses come as a contrast to the BEST buses in Mumbai, in terms of punctuality, discipline, ticketing. First thing that one notices is the decor of these buses. These buses are decked to the core with bangles, danglers, pictures of gods, wind chimes and most importantly a deck system. This deck system is a nuisance to most passengers, who want to catch a wink in the bus, provided they get a seat. Getting a seat in the bus was no big deal for me as a woman, thanks to the reserved seats for women. I dont remember any single day travelling standing right upto Mehrauli. Instead, the whole journey has always been a pleasurable one for me, because i could listen to some interesting Haryanvi music, or old melodies of the 80s and 90s, or FM radio, given my leaning for popular music. By the virtue of travelling very frequently on that route, the conductors and helpers and bus drivers began to recognise me, and exchange hellos. I talked with a couple of staff people. Every bus has 5 to 7 staff members. There are about 450-500 buses on the route, of which about 50 are off road for some repair or the other. The time gap between two buses is 5-7 minutes barely. A bus on every trip makes about 1000-1100 bucks, which appears very minimal, given the gas, maintanence and other expenses. No wonder they keep waiting at all important bus stands to fill in as many passengers as possible. The primary reason is also because of low fares, two or three rupees as minimum fare, as compared to Mumbai, 4-5 rupees. No more facts!!! The staff on the bus is very closely knit to each other, in a very feudal- brotherhood kind of manner. The senior memebers keep a strong vigil on the new members. The junior members will buy cigarettes and tobacco for the senior ones, and do all dog work. But when the journey ends, the senior members, like elder brothers, will pay for the breakfast and other expenses(though it might be a protocol). The gesture doesnt look like an employer-employee one, but an elder brotherly one. Professionalism does exist, but not really. Passengers can cheat the staff, the staff does cheat the passengers, new and old. The bus driver can stop the bus on the road and refuse to go ahead, in which case the passengers wait for the next bus to get into and catch a seat. Of course, they are lucky that the bus driver has the mobile number of the next bus driver, and he will inform him. The next bus will take all the passengers and dues will be settled later. Those are lucky days when the passengers reach their destination in one go. How can i forget the speed of these buses? reaching Mehrauli from Greater Kailas in 20 minutes, leaving behind all auotos, zens, accords and santros. I HAVE WON THE RACE. HO HO HO!!! But i have been fascinated by the whole mechanism. For me, it has been this whole ride of adventure and speed, breaking all traffic rules, not bothering to allow the passenger to get in or out, seating on the bonnet(only in winters!!!), and this 'immense respect for womankind', and brotherhood in feudal haryanvi style. no judgments please, but apologies for stereotypes, if at all. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting From tasveerghar at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 10:52:57 2007 From: tasveerghar at gmail.com (Tasveer Ghar) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 10:52:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Newsletter August 2007 Message-ID: <484c1050708012222w190db4f6q2e137f17418921bf@mail.gmail.com> Tasveer Ghar (The House of Pictures) Newsletter August 2007 www.tasveerghar.net Dear friends, As you may be aware, Tasveer Ghar is a digital network of South Asian popular visual culture, launched earlier this year for collecting, digitizing, and documenting various materials produced by South Asia's exciting popular visual sphere. These include posters, calendar art, pilgrimage maps and paraphernalia, cinema hoardings, advertisements, and other forms of street and bazaar art. Tasveer Ghar is supported by a three-year gift from Adarsh and Ranvir Trehan of the Trehan Foundation to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. With these start-up funds we have planned several exciting events over the course of the next three years. These activities are currently limited to Indian popular visual culture, but as and when we raise more funds, we hope to expand our reach to cover the other countries of the South Asian subcontinent. While much of the activities of digital archiving would take place in New Delhi, India, Tasveer Ghar currently has two other institutional nodes: 1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A. 2. South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany Tasveer Ghar Fellowships 2007: Tasveer Ghar is delighted to announce the selection of 3 fellows for our short fellowship on "Gender, Nation and Spaces for the Everyday" in popular visual arts of India for the year 2007: 1. Sujithkumar Parayil (Kerala) Topic: Icons of the reformist period and 're-formed' icons of the present 2. Kamal Kumar Mishra (Delhi) Topic: The changing dynamics of book illustrations from late 19th century to 1960's: A case study of commercial Hindustani popular literature 3. Vishal Rawlley (Mumbai) Topic: Bhojpuri raunchy album covers The period of their research/documentation starts in July 2007 and ends in December 2007, and their findings will result in virtual galleries on the Tasveer Ghar website - likely to be inaugurated in January 2008. In addition to the above fellowships, Tasveer Ghar has also granted shorter fellowships for the writing of virtual gallery visual essays to the following researchers. These grants will result in the collection of images to be used in a virtual gallery on the site. 1. Atma Ram (Chandigarh) Topic: Commodification and objectification of woman on the titles of popular Hindi detective novels 2. Javed Masood (Delhi) Topic: Magazine ads from 1960s and 70s: Setting gender roles on the way to modernity 3. Inder Salim (Kashmir/Delhi) Topic: Popular image culture of India-administered-Kashmir 4. Madhuja Mukherjee (Kolkata) Topic: Cinematic re-presentations through other popular forms: Icons and Mediated Spaces 5. Peerzada Arshad Hamid (Kashmir) Topic: Changing forms of art in the public spaces of Kashmir 6. Annapurna Garimella & Arun Kumar (Bangalore) Topic: Miniature Societies (Narratives in traditional dolls) Detailed synopsis and the progress of their work will soon be available on our website. Announcement: We are pleased to announce that Manishita Dass has joined our collective as a new member. Manishita is Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA). Another member of our team, Sumathi Ramaswamy, who was Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has now joined Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA, as Professor of History. Sumathi continues to be a part of Tasveer Ghar. Invitation: Tasveer Ghar invites artists, art collectors, photographers, students and others to contribute exciting images representing unique examples of popular visual culture of India/South Asia. You can send us photo prints, old photographs, old printed material, photo negatives, transparencies, digital photographs, high-resolution scans, posters, calendar, old advertisements, printed packing material, wall graffiti, hoardings, road-side banners, or any other medium, preferably mass-produced or truly archival and rare, but representing certain popular trends of our society. You can get a sense of the kinds of materials we are looking for in our Call for Proposals on our website. Your contributions, if accepted by us, would be compensated with a basic honorarium. We can also sign a contract with you about the use of such images. Kindly send us samples of such art work, so that we can respond. Your contribution to Tasveer Ghar could either be one or two interesting images, or a series of related images that we can use for a thematic virtual gallery. A virtual gallery is basically a compilation of images (say between 8 and 15, or even more, if necessary) depicting a unique aspect of popular visual culture. Such images are generally accompanied by a text introduction and detailed captions that weave all the images into one coherent presentation spread over several interactive pages on the website. The individual images could either be scans of authentic artwork or photographs of scenarios (streets or homes) where such public art is displayed. A contributor can either send us hard copies of images or electronic versions (scanned in the prescribed format). Tasveer Ghar will not buy or own the image contributed by you. If you submit hard copies of any art work, we will return the same to you after digitizing it. The contributor does not have to design the gallery: this will be done by our website designer. But the contributor would have to provide the text and captions for the images (or any other details that may be necessary for the gallery). You can already see some featured virtual galleries on our website: 1. Welcome - Swagatam - Good Morning: Welcome posters of India, Written and curated by Patricia Uberoi http://www.tasveerghar.net/welcome 2. New Year Greeting Cards with a Hindu Nationalist perspective, Written and curated by Christiane Brosius http://www.tasveerghar.net/hgreet Our goal in publishing such virtual image essays is to promote conversation and scholarship around visual matters through the digital media, and to encourage discussion around images both well known and little recognized. As a small gift for welcoming you to our archive, we offer an interesting image from our popular art archive for your computer desktop. The image is not being attached here since some recipients may not like attachments, but it can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.tasveerghar.net/desktop Looking forward to your participation in the building of the House of Pictures. Christiane Brosius Manishita Dass Sumathi Ramaswamy Yousuf Saeed Shuddhabrata Sengupta -- http://www.tasveerghar.net If you wish to unsubscribe from this mailing list, kindly write to tasveerghar at gmail.com From pkray11 at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 12:00:49 2007 From: pkray11 at gmail.com (prakash ray) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 12:00:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police firing in Andhra Pradesh Message-ID: <98f331e00708012330o9c0041esd425136fc44b1e3@mail.gmail.com> You all are aware about the police firing in Mudigonda in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh which killed six people. I am surprised on the silence on the reader list which had series of debates and discussions and informations about the Nandigram incident (though the entire episode was totally overlooked by many on the list). I don't doubt the emotional and political levels of the people around, but it is certainly disappointing to see such silence. I hope we will be able to respond to the happenings around us in more responsible manner and without being selective about the victims. From chiarapassa at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 12:26:32 2007 From: chiarapassa at gmail.com (Chiara Passa) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 08:56:32 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] =?windows-1252?q?Aphorisms_on_=93Digital_Art=94?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dears, Even if in summer time, Jogador, is happy to announce he starts writing aphorisms on "Digital Art" trough twitter at http://twitter.com/jogador All the best, Jogador. From patrice at xs4all.nl Thu Aug 2 12:42:16 2007 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 09:12:16 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Police firing in Andhra Pradesh In-Reply-To: <98f331e00708012330o9c0041esd425136fc44b1e3@mail.gmail.com> References: <98f331e00708012330o9c0041esd425136fc44b1e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070802071216.GA20141@xs4all.nl> Daer Prakash Ray, It would be difficult for me to participate in this discussion, since I am a bit far, geographically speaking, from it. But if it can gives you any kind of satisafction (not really the good word, but OK...), know that the police firing you refer too has been world news, also in our, fairly provincial, press. My only hope would be that police firings in India, which used to be daily stapple of the newspapers when I was student at DSE, will happen even less often (and get massive exposure when they do), so as to get in the same situation as in the 'West', where there incidence would herald the end of the system as we know it (do not be mistaken, p.f. were not uncommon over here till after World War II, and in Southern Europe till into the '70s...). cheers from Groningen (NL), patrizio & Diiiinooos! On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 12:00:49PM +0530, prakash ray wrote: > You all are aware about the police firing in Mudigonda in Khammam district > of Andhra Pradesh which killed six people. I am surprised on the silence on > the reader list which had series of debates and discussions and informations > about the Nandigram incident (though the entire episode was totally > overlooked by many on the list). I don't doubt the emotional and political > levels of the people around, but it is certainly disappointing to see such > silence. > > I hope we will be able to respond to the happenings around us in more > responsible manner and without being selective about the victims. > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> > From amitabh at sarai.net Thu Aug 2 13:12:14 2007 From: amitabh at sarai.net (Amitabh Kumar) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 13:12:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police stops screening of Jashn-e-Azadi In-Reply-To: <13df7c120708010427hff5fa59o75414f22d1f8ee6a@mail.gmail.com> References: <33422EE6-3E89-456F-98C7-5936B8E4562E@sarai.net> <995a19920708010414q3d2c12a7kc689c1905d254ce0@mail.gmail.com> <13df7c120708010427hff5fa59o75414f22d1f8ee6a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Aman , Rashneek, If every act of censorship succeeds in diverting attention from the censored object/subject/article/film towards a big picture analysis of censorship, freedom of expression and the nature of the state, then censorship has accomplished its task.' I agree with the basic premise of your argument. However, I don't think there is a diversion of attention taking place when I ( 'we' is a risky proposition to make) try and sift through events like the Baroda fiasco or the recent incident of Sanjay Kak's film being banned... it' s more like WIDENING your area of attention. Don't you think that the event should ideally stimulate you to question the space and circumstances within which it takes place.. About the why's and the how's that constructed it? And since you have so accurately traced how the 'the threads' seem to be formed, let me remind you that the discussion began with the Sanjay Kak's film being banned and is NOT a critique on the film ( which we might reserve for another time and space or continue. Depends on how many threads make a carpet). P.S Anyone who thinks the other guy is personifying his own insecurity by calling someone else a buffoon is spending too much time playing snakes on his/her cellphone (or is a cop) On 8/1/07, rashneek kher wrote: > > Dear Aman, > > I wonder if you have seen the movie.You are grossly mistaken that the > movie > is about Kashmir.If it was it would talked about Kashmiris(all of > them-gujjars,pandits,sikhs,shias,bakerwals and others)...go see it > again...among separatists also..it talks about just one fringe...the yasin > malik one... > if it is about freedom of speech,why did they disallow a section of people > from entering the hall when it was screened in delhi(IHC).. > Ponder again..see again..then write again.. > > Rashneek > ps;Anyone who thinks the other guy is a bufoon personfies his own > insecurity > as one. > > > > On 8/1/07, Aman Sethi wrote: > > > > It is rather interesting that most the threads that usually sustain > > beyond 2 or three desultory mails, are those that deal with the > > "hindu-mussalman" question. Even arguments that on the face of it dont > > seem to have much to do with the "Hindu-Mussalman" question, > > inevitably come down to it. From there on, its a quick jump to > > "pseduo-secularists" vs hindutva wallahs. > > > > Kashmir, i suppose, tends to elicit reactions such as these - where > > every conversation about kashmir never remains "about kashmir" for > > particularly long. It lends itself to "larger questions" about > > "patriotism", "secularism and pseudo-secularism", "narender modi", > > "jhola wallahs", and of course, "the search for meaning" and "the > > nature of the state". > > > > Perhaps Sanjay Kak is trying to do just that - to make a film that is > > about kashmir, and stays about kashmir. And perhaps thats what the > > kashmiris refer to when they use that tragically over-used cliche, > > "all agreements should take into account the will of the kashmiri > > people." A conversation, a film, a dialogue, a protest, that is not > > abt "tips of icebergs", and "symptoms of larger malaises". > > > > Ever freedom of speech/expression makes the same mistake- > > "This is not just abt the arrest of an art student in gujarat, this is > > about the larger issue of freedom of speech in this country." > > "This is not just about Sanjay Kak's film on kashmir, this is about > > the larger issue of freedom of speech." > > > > No its not. > > > > It IS abt the arrest, and it IS about Kashmir. If every act of > > censorship succeeds in diverting attention from the censored > > object/subject/article/film towards a big picture analysis of > > censorship, freedom of expression and the nature of the state, then > > censorship has accomplished its task. > > > > We are then left free to plumb the depths of our limitless > > imaginations in search of We's , "Us's, Them's, and Thoses. > > A. > > ps: The police ARE buffoons. Really. > > > > > > > > On 8/1/07, Amitabh Kumar wrote: > > > The way I understand it.. 'nationalism and patriotism' are not so > > > bankrupt a phenomenon so as to be divorced of 'secularism & > > > liberalism'. > > > However, the figure of 'we' the 'suffer'ers in your argument is > > > interesting. Is it geographically bound or otherwise? Whats the > > > imagination of 'we'? > > > Is it 'We' the Indians? Or 'We- The Hindu's"? Or ' We- Who hate all > > > religions but our own' or 'We- who only hate Muslims and Christians' > > > or ' We - who hate' or ' We- In a bad mood today'? > > > > > > On 31-Jul-07, at 11:33 PM, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > > > > > > > india must be the only country on this earth where 'nationalism' > > > > and 'patriotism' are ridiculed ....i think this must be the reason > > > > why we had to suffer at the hands of muslim & christian invaders > > > > for more than thousand years, moreover why this country was > > > > partitioned in 1947 ! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > Sign in and get updated with all the action! > > > > http://content.msn.co.in/Sports/FormulaOne/Default > > > > _________________________________________ > > > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > > > > Critiques & Collaborations > > > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > > > > subscribe in the subject header. > > > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > > List archive: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________ > > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > > > Critiques & Collaborations > > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > > subscribe in the subject header. > > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> > > _________________________________________ > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > > Critiques & Collaborations > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > > subscribe in the subject header. > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> > > > > > -- > Rashneek Kher > http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com > -- www.amitabhkumar.blogspot.com From rashneek at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 14:17:05 2007 From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 14:17:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Living under the shadow of death-Kavita Suri Message-ID: <13df7c120708020147h706d8309y91f4af237f3f4a45@mail.gmail.com> *Living under the shadow of death* The 5th of January 1996 is a day that none in Barshalla, a village situated on the left bank of of the Chenab river in Thathri tehsil of Doda, the home district of the state chief minister, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, can forget. That cold and windy night eleven years ago, when the villagers were about to go to sleep, a knock at the door of one of the villagers, changed their lives. Dressed in army fatigues, few men posing as army officers and equipped with highly sophisticated automatic weapons, knocked at the door of a villager asking him to tell a few other young men of the village to gather near the historic Lakshmi Narayan Temple (constructed by the great Dogra warrior General Zorawar Singh around 1840), as their officer wanted to talk to them about something urgent. Though militancy had already erupted in the Kashmir valley, it was slow to spread to the districts of Jammu. The only militancy-related incident having occurred in Doda till then was the killing of minority community passengers traveling in a bus near Sarthal in Doda two years ago (1994). Hence none of the Barshalla villagers could think of terrorists swooping on their village in the guise of army officers. Many young men of the village got up and gathered near the temple, only to find out death waiting for them. The stillness of that night was broken by the clutter of automatic guns. Doda, for the first time, hit national and international headlines as Barshalla lost 15 men, most of them youngsters, in the first massacre of minority community members in the entire district. Words fail Kanan Chand Sharma, a former employee of the state information department when he starts talking about that fateful night which swallowed a total of ten members of his clan including his grandson, his brother who was a retired havaldar, his three sons and other relatives. "We had read in the Mahabharata only that they would burn many bodies together at the end of battle each day as they were short on fuel. We did the same that day when we burnt many bodies on one single pyre," says Sharma terming that night as one of the nightmares of his life. As the entire village was shell-shocked, women and children were wailing and the entire village was ready for the exodus, nobody from the state administration visited them. Shrieks and cries rented the air the whole night piercing through its once serene settings. Today, even after 11 years, Barshalla doesn't go to sleep. The whole night, the men of the village keep vigil by rotation. After the massacre, the first village defence committee (VDC) to be set up in Doda was in this minority village. The concept was to give arms to the villagers and train them so they could defend themselves against terrorist attacks till reinforcements could reach them. Some weapons were given to the Barshalla villagers, but it hasn't helped them much. "The obsolete .303 guns that have been given to us don't work properly. Not only are our arms no match for the sophisticated weapons of the militants, the 150 rounds of ammunition that is given to each member of the VDC is also accounted for," says Naveen Kumar, a special police officer (SPO) attached to the VDC here. Every VDC has 7-8 members with three special police officers. Since that fateful night, the village has come under terrorist fire 17 times, but retaliation by the villagers with their outdated guns has forced them to retreat. Though the VDC was set up to defend the village, problems associated with it are manifold. If the militants attack the village and the VDC members retaliate, each one of them has to collect the empty cartridges after the firing as these have to be submitted to the district SSP as proof of having actually fired the rounds. Besides, after every such incident when they take on the militants, the VDC members have to go to Doda city to give details to the police who "interrogate them like culprits and not protectors of the village". What is more complicated is the fact that if the bullets do not hit the terrorists, the villagers are scolded by the police "as they wasted the fire". "Does it mean that we should wait for the militant to come near us and target us instead of stopping him on the outskirts of the village by firing," asks Suresh Kumar, a villager. Apathy on the part of the district administration could well be gauged from the fact that the villagers who exhausted their ammunition retaliating against militants in the past few months, have not been given fresh ammunition by the police. At times, for lack of ammunition the Barshalla villagers burst crackers to keep the militants away, but it seems that sound hasn't reached the ears of the administration. Villagers here smell a deep-rooted conspiracy for the exodus of minorities from the hills to plains. Also, the construction of the 2.5 km long Barshalla-Thathri road which was sanctioned 15 years ago, hasn't seen the light of day, while the 7 km long neighbouring Jangalwar-Thathri road, which was cleared a couple of years ago, has been constructed. This, the villagers allege, is because their village is a Hindu village while Jangalwar is Muslim-dominated. Ask the Doda deputy commissioner, Mr Saurav Bhagat, about it and he says that the delay is because this road will be constructed with Central funds. "It will be taken up soon," he adds. Barshalla villagers are so irritated that they now threaten to pick up the gun and join militant ranks. At least then, they say, they will not have to beg to the government for their safety. Is anybody listening? Perhaps you Mr Azad, the son of the soil? (The author is a Special Representative of The Statesman based in Jammu) * * -- Rashneek Kher http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com From tapasrayx at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 16:36:03 2007 From: tapasrayx at gmail.com (Tapas Ray) Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:36:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police firing in Andhra Pradesh In-Reply-To: <98f331e00708012330o9c0041esd425136fc44b1e3@mail.gmail.com> References: <98f331e00708012330o9c0041esd425136fc44b1e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <46B1BA9B.8010509@gmail.com> One is yet to hear what Prakash Ray himself has to say about the Khammam firing. TR prakash ray wrote: > You all are aware about the police firing in Mudigonda in Khammam district > of Andhra Pradesh which killed six people. I am surprised on the silence on > the reader list which had series of debates and discussions and informations > about the Nandigram incident (though the entire episode was totally > overlooked by many on the list). I don't doubt the emotional and political > levels of the people around, but it is certainly disappointing to see such > silence. > > I hope we will be able to respond to the happenings around us in more > responsible manner and without being selective about the victims. From ysikand at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 05:11:13 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 05:11:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Sign Petition: Punish the Guilty of the Anti Muslim Pogrom of 1992-1992 In-Reply-To: <48097acc0708011640n7e3cd274o110bfc008e1ca933@mail.gmail.com> References: <48097acc0708011640n7e3cd274o110bfc008e1ca933@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <48097acc0708011641y44ef6affyb64f654e4bda28e2@mail.gmail.com> To: citizens of Mumbai, India and the world Punish the Guilty of the Anti Muslim Pogrom of 1992-1993 Justice for All The convictions of the accused in the 1993 Bombay blasts case are intended to be a form of redress for the 250 families who lost dear ones in the serial blasts and aim to send the message that the Indian system delivers justice for all crimes, especially mass crimes of unspeakable brutality. But the bomb blasts of March 12, 1993 were only the external symptoms of a cancer that had gnawed away at Mumbai's vital organs with the abject failure of the state machinery to protect the city's Muslim population during the horrendous communal riots of December 1992 and January 1993. More than three times as many Mumbaikars were killed in the riots that preceded the bomb blasts but the lack of action against the perpetrators of the riots � who are named in the Srikrishna report � is clear evidence of the operation of a double standard of justice, one for the majority community and the other for the minorities. India and it systems of democracy, executive, judiciary and legislature, need to reflect. The bomb terror of March 12, 1993 must be recalled with the same horror as the mob terror of December 6, 1992, in Ayodhya, resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives all over the country. The causes of the blasts, too, must be revived in public memory. As the Srikrishna report observed: "The serial bomb blasts were a reaction to the totality of events at Ayodhya and Bombay in December 1992 and January 1993� The common link between the riots and the blasts was that of cause and effect." Information obtained under the Right to Information Act makes it clear that successive state governments, no matter what their political persuasion, have decided to shield the guilty. The motivations of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena parties in refusing to implement the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission are obvious: among the individuals named in the report are several of their leaders and cadres, including Bal Thackeray, Manohar Joshi, Gopinath Munde and Madhukar Sarpotdar. What is more shocking is the role of the so-called secular parties. Though the manifestos of both the Congress Party and the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999 and 2004 promised to implement the recommendations of the report, these promises remain unfulfilled. The report also lays bare the biased role played by 31 police officers, including RD Tyagi, who as then joint commissioner, shot dead nine persons at the Suleiman Usman Bakery labelling them "Kashmiri terrorists". Another senior police officer, NK Kapse was promoted after a departmental inquiry exonerated him of any guilt in shooting down seven persons at the Hari Masjid located at Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Marg. Save one policeman who was dismissed from service, all others have escaped lightly despite being found guilty of complicity in acts of murder and arson. The RTI findings also demonstrate a complete absence of vigour in pursuing riot-related cases through the judicial system. Cases have been closed in a seemingly arbitrary fashion and appeals have not been filed against acquittals in the lower courts. If a genuine peace is to return to Mumbai, there must be justice. Continued injustices cause schisms to widen, wounds to fester. Justice can only be truly served by implementing the recommendations of the Srikrishna Commission report. We urge the state government to do so immediately. It must devote as much energy and resources to obtaining justice for the victims of the Mumbai riots as it mustered up for the victims of the Mumbai bomb blasts. We also believe that the process must be visible and transparent. Only then will the deep wounds caused by the targeted violence of 1992-1993 heal, bringing enduring peace. Public Release of the Statement/Signature Campaign Indian Merchants Chamber, Churchgate August 9, 2007; 5.30 p.m. Contact: Justice For All Campaign, Telephone: 022-26602288/26603927 Email: sabrang at sabrang.com SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN: Vijay Tendulkar Anil Dharker Naresh Fernandes Ram Rehman Teesta Setalvad Nandan Maluste Arvind Krishnaswamy Javed Anand Sincerely, To sing the petition, click on http://www.PetitionOnline.com/jus4all/petition.html -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping From adityarajkaul at gmail.com Thu Aug 2 18:59:01 2007 From: adityarajkaul at gmail.com (Aditya Raj Kaul) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 18:59:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Ban Kashmir docu: Pandit Message-ID: *Ban Kashmir docu: Pandit* *TIMES NEWS NETWORK* *Mumbai:* Five days after the Mumbai police seized DVDs of Sanjay Kak's documentary on Kashmir, Jashn-e-Azadi, the film continued to be shrouded in uncertainty as no explanation came from the department. There was, though, no let-up in strong reactions from civil society. While most film-makers, art critics and students have criticised the decision to stall the screening, others like director Ashok Pandit, a Kashmiri pandit, said showing 'an uncensored film in public' was against the law. "It was not being screened in someone's house, it was being screened in a public place,'' said Pandit, adding that he had seen the documentary when it was screened in Delhi. "The film should be banned as it speaks only from the terrorist's point of view. It shows nothing about the carnage and exodus of Kashmiri pandits. If the talk is about freedom of expression, then it should be understood that the country and its security come first,'' Pandit said. The private screening organised by Vikalp, a group of independent film-makers, was disrupted last Friday after a team from the Dadar police stormed Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan in Prabhadevi and seized the DVDs. Jashn deals with the experience of Kashmiris during the long period of strife in the Valley. Reacting to the silence of the police, Kak said, "They (police) reacted with alacrity on the basis of an email and seized the DVDs. But now, five days have passed and they are yet to make a statement on the matter,'' said Kak. "The screening was private, like those organised in other cities of the country.'' Around 40 people had gathered for the screening, and they waited patiently for an hour, but had to leave without getting to experience the film. It was the first screening of Jashn in Mumbai. and was recently shown in Delhi as part of Osian's Cinefan, the ninth festival of Arab and Asian cinema. TOUGH TALK: The director feels the film has been made from a terrorist's point of view alone *-- Aditya Raj Kaul Blog: www.kauladityaraj.blogspot.com Website: www.adityarajkaul.tk* From patrice at xs4all.nl Thu Aug 2 20:46:49 2007 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 17:16:49 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] Kai Friese: Slow Speed - The long afternoon of underdevelopment Message-ID: <15410.82.73.9.6.1186067809.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> >From Bidoun , the _fantastic_ art & culture magazine based in Beyrouth http://www.bidoun.com Subscribe! Slow Speed The long afternoon of underdevelopment By Kai Friese (http://www.bidoun.com/issues/issue_11/04_all.html#article) Illustration by Jon Santos (check that one - it's pure Ravi Sundaram! ;-) In 1973, I was ten years old, my best friend was Ashish Deshpande, and our favorite activity was dreaming. In our favorite dream, we would acquire a large airplane and fly away in it. We researched our dream-scripts in the pages of Hamlyn's Pocket Guide to Aircraft. For some inexplicable reason, we selected the Fairey Gannet, a spectacularly dowdy machine, as our transport of choice. It was an odd plane, with two counter-rotating propellers on its nose. And it is odd, now, to remember such nuggets of childhood memory so clearly. But what seems really odd is that we actually used to do this, settle down to spend an afternoon dreaming. Ashish and I shared another daydream, which later became a wager: that our fathers would become Brain Drains. We wanted them to get jobs in the West and take us away from Delhi, from India, forever. I still have the sketchbook on the back of which we both signed the deal: "If you go first, I pay Rs 100." Neither of us had a hundred rupees. But I never stood a chance. Ashish's father, Sharad Uncle, was an underpaid research scientist who did unspeakable things to cats at the Patel Chest Institute. But he had prospects. Whereas my father had already flown away-to India. He was a peculiar German, who had come to study at the Delhi School of Economics and stayed on to earn a comfortable living in the Press Department of the West German Embassy, fighting Communism (or at least, the Press Department of the East German Embassy). What really killed me was that, before I was born, he had worked for Lufthansa in New York City. So why in the third world were we stuck in Delhi? Sharad Uncle and Baba were like counter-rotating propellers. I still owe Ashish a hundred bucks. After Sharad Uncle got a job at Johns Hopkins, I didn't see Ashish again for ten years. Then, in my twenties, on my own way to an American university, I went to spend a weekend in Baltimore with the Deshpandes. Ashish and I chatted away, even after the lights were out and we were in our beds, catching up with the slight reserve that comes from knowing too little and too much about one another-until we started talking about girls. And Ashish shouted, "I love sex!" with such enthusiasm that we both dissolved in laughter. It was good to have something new in common. Maybe we dreamed so much back then because we didn't have TVs. When my cable connection died earlier this year, I decided I couldn't be bothered to replace it. Lately, I've been spending a lot more time in my head. Not dreaming so much as remembering. I realize that many of my childhood memories are preserved in the sharp vinegar of embarrassment. I'm still embarrassed. I'm embarrassed at how viscerally I craved the provisions of the first world. I knew this world existed because in 1969, we had gone to visit my grandparents in Germany and my aunt in America. I can still remember the shock of seeing a car on display in the concourse of Frankfurt airport. A whole car! In a building! It was just a lottery prize. We came back with fat catalogs from German department stores-Kaufhof, Quelle, and Karstadt-and I spent many hours poring over those encyclopedias of the unattainable. That same year I was sent to the British School in Delhi, where many of my classmates were the children of diplomats. They came and went in a convoy of exotic automobiles: Mercs and Toyotas, Peugeots and Holdens, Fords and Vauxhalls. And they smelled different. They were perfumed with wealth. These kids washed with foreign soaps, used imported detergents on their imported clothes, wiped their bums on Andrex toilet tissue. They ate Danish ham and Tiptree's jam. They wore braces gummy with Marmite, Nutella, and Kraft cheese. At home, we had a small larder, kept under lock and key, which contained an assortment of these goods and an indescribably luxurious aroma of its own. But my father was a local employee at the embassy, and our quotidian consumer goods were Indian, the classic products of those days of import substitution industrialization. They had their own hierarchy. Soap, for example, ran from the yellow ochre sticks purchased by the inch for the kitchen sink, to the dull-red Lifebuoy, which smelled of servants, to the indigenous opulence of Moti sandalwood soap. But mostly we used sickly green bricks of Hamam and Cinthol. Even our toothpaste was green-Binaca Green. In the mid-70s, I went to see a film at Archana Cinema and came away feeling utterly repulsed. It was Soylent Green with Charlton Heston, set in a Malthusian post-consumerist dystopia where even jam has become a luxury item. The masses subsist on green biscuits-the Soylent Green of the title-which the Soylent Corporation maintains are made of kelp and plankton. Heston's character, a detective, finds himself investigating the "euthanasia centers" where the poor and the elderly go to die. At the end of the film, he screams aloud his harrowing discovery: "Soylent Green is people!" What made me sick was that it looked suspiciously like Hamam. It's true, we are what we eat. Import substitution is people too. I'm one of them. I remember things past. Things like biscuits (Britannia Nice and Bourbon), soap and detergent (Tinopal, Tinopal, Tinopal!), and cars (the Standard Gazelle-based on the rakish Triumph Herald but indigenized to the point that it became dowdier than a Fairey Gannet). And telephones (trunk calls and lightning calls, and our first telephone connection-40537, a number I will never forget). The elastic belts from my sister's Carefree sanitary napkins, which I used as slingshots. The ersatz colas: Pepino, Double Seven, and Campa. RimZim and Gold Spot ("Jee bharke jiyo, Gold Spot piyo"). Canvas jeans from Jeans Junction. Nativist burgers (spicy patties, fried buns, and thick slices of onion). The buxom, bouffanted plaster mannequins in their silk saris at Handloom House. The comic books: the Phantom. More than anything else, I remember the ritual of listening to the radio with Baba. The sense of urgency at tuning in to the BBC World Service in the evenings, the trilling pipes of "Lily Bolero" followed by tantalizing time pips-and then the news, which washed in like cargo on the surging crests of short wave, our tenuous link to the distant West. But the program that really defines this era for me was the weird and poetic News Read at Slow Speed on All India Radio. This was an afternoon service-almost a liturgy-that we would often catch at the table, when Baba came home for lunch and a siesta. The grey Grundig would buzz and hum with importance as it pronounced: "This... is... All... India... Radio Bzzzz The... News Hmmm Read... at... Slow... Speed Bzzzz by... Surojit... Sen." The portentous pauses were intended to help provincial correspondents take notes. But the news was never news. We would hear instead that the procurement target of twenty million quintals of rice from the kharif crop had been met. Or that the Romanian minister for culture and cooperation had arrived on a state visit. And yet it crackled with significance, like it was intended for news of an assassination. Which did come, eventually. Usually my father would give me a sideways glance at the end of the news, and a complicit smile would wrinkle the thin crescent etched on his cheek. Jawaharlal Nehru had the same crease. It is a line I hope I'm beginning to acquire, too. It was a smile that said: this is silly, but it's not so bad, this life lived at slow speed. Baba was fiercely proud of his degree from the Delhi School of Economics. As a child, I struggled to comprehend how he could be so dismissive of the lecture halls of Hamburg University, which he had abandoned for this new Valhalla, peopled by Indians with names like Jagdish Bhagwati, Amartya Sen, and Manmohan Singh. His particular favorite was Professor KN Raj. In later years, he made regular pilgrimages to visit his old tutor. This was troubling. Baba was a gentle but committed cold warrior. He was ten when World War II ended in his country's liberation, and like many of his generation, he was not just pro-America, he was madly in love with it. With jazz and movies and moonrockets and the Kennedys. Yet as far as I could tell, the old professor was a Communist. It's still a puzzle. I know now, as my father must have known then, that Surojit Sen was only speaking his lines. It was KN Raj who wrote the script of the News Read at Slow Speed. He was the man who first advised Nehru to "hasten slowly." I know that KN Raj was at least half in love with the Soviet Union. And I know he was an honorable man. I fantasized that my father was a spy for one side or another. When we heard on the news that the minister for railways had been mortally wounded by a mysterious bomb, I knew something was up. That was in January 1975. Five months later, I followed my father, now a foreign correspondent for German newspapers, to attend a rally at the roundabout outside the prime minister's bungalow. He wanted me to translate. "Conspiracy," she said. And, "Foreign hand." I remember the eighteen months of Indira Gandhi's Emergency as a time of danger and excitement. There was the cult of personality that surrounded Indira and her thuggish heir apparent, Sanjay, the shuttered newspapers, the locked-up parliamentarians. At last the secret was out: the government was bad, everyone good was underground or in jail, and Baba was a spy, or something similar, smuggling reports out through strangers at the airport and writing under the code name Jens Nielssen. My daydreams became increasingly complex. Without Ashish, they were more solipsistic, even a little sinister. There were only two of them. In the sweeter one, I found myself alone in the world with Helen, a Dutch classmate I had fancied for years. We traveled around the desolate, abandoned country for a while, taking what we wanted from shops and diplomats' houses. Then we flew out of Palam Airport in a 707 to live off the supermarkets of the West. In the other, more disturbing dream, I worked out that everything in the world-or rather worlds, first, second, and third-was a fiction, an elaborate psycho-theatrical experiment with me as its subject. Nothing was as it seemed. It was Surojit Sen who finally broke the news to me. He took his time. That daymare came back to me years later, watching The Truman Show and The Matrix. But by that time India was a very different country. I had returned from my American college in 1990, a failed Brain Drain, having taken four years to complete a one-year MA. Just before I left New York, I watched the world change on TV, as the Berlin Wall fell and the Iron Curtain parted. At the same time, a friend of mine, a successful Brain Drain who works as an oceanographer in Kiel, was on a polar voyage. He returned with tales of partying with colleagues at Dakshin Gangotri, India's Antarctic station. Afterward they ferried glum scientists from the East German outpost back to a country that no longer existed. In India it seemed that our homespun khadi curtains were fluttering. My worried parents pushed me into a job in what was then Bombay-at a venerable magazine that survived, sleepily, on handouts from the equally venerable Tata Corporation. I was hectored by a lovely old Parsi bird called Lulu Mehta who threw the colonial canon of copyediting ("Fowler, Partridge, and Quiller-Couch!") at me every chance she got. One afternoon the entire office assembled in the garret of the Army and Navy Building to listen dutifully to a tape-recorded address, "On Excellence," from the chairman himself, JRD Tata. Then we applauded. But Bombay was too glamorous and energetic for me. There was an unsettling entrepreneurial buzz about it, and a careerist chatter that made me nervous. Longing for the old torpor of Delhi, I quit my job and came home. I struggled as a freelancer quite happily until one day it was 1993, I was married, my father was about to retire, and the quiet D-School professor Manmohan Singh was India's finance minister. None of this troubled me, actually, but Baba seemed to know something I didn't. He nagged and nagged and pushed me into another job, a proper job, at a newsmagazine. At thirty, my long afternoon of underdevelopment was over. I had a career. A terminal condition, it seems. Just before I quit the newsmagazine to move on and double my salary, I had my first presentiment that the country was changing again. I set out to write a satirical essay on the dinosaurs of bureaucracy that had survived Manmohan Singh's first wave of economic liberalization. I was quite pleased with the title-"Bureaucratic Park"-though it never saw the light of day. But the real thrill was finding myself back on very familiar turf. Grimy corridors, supplicant citizens, and the "concerned officer" enthroned on his swivel chair. I loved the scenery-the towel on the backrest, the psychedelic paperweights... the papers beneath them. There was the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology, an Orwellian outfit that produced a Comprehensive Glossary of Administrative Terms in English and the vernacular. "Hindi is very poor in terms," a commissioner told me. Another office nurtured the remains of Indira Gandhi's 20-Point Program from the Emergency days. "We look after points 1, 5, 8, 11, 14, 15, and 16," a man told me. "The other thirteen have been dropped." My favorite was the Office of Stationery. "Please apply in writing. In triplicate," they told me. I went to visit them instead, and found the assembled staff standing hushed and yes, stationary, at their desks. It was a moment of silence for a fallen colleague, a bureaucratic wake. Today Manmohan Singh is our prime minister, and my home is cluttered with pre-liberalization memorabilia. I have two black rotary-dial phones with trilling electromechanical bells and a bakelite radio that buzzes and hums. I have assorted Nehruviana, including a Publications Division comic on Nehru and the new temples of India, and another book called Rhymes on Nehru. I have World's Wisest Wizard: Sanjay Gandhi. I have a bust and three statues of Ambedkar. (If I could find one of Indiraji, I'd buy it in an instant.) One lucky day, I found a copy of Following Lenin's Course, The Speeches and Articles of LI Brezhnev. The speeches are peppered with four kinds of applause: "applause," "prolonged applause," "stormy applause," and "stormy prolonged applause." In his speech to the Eighth Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in June 1971, the floodgates burst: "'Stormy, prolonged applause.' All rise. The Congress delegates and guests remain standing till the end of the speech... 'Friendship!' 'Long live the CPSU!' 'Hurrah!'" Outside my house, a consumer revolution is turning my country upside down. The revolution is televised. In fact, to a large extent, it is television. But I don't watch TV anymore. Sometimes I watch DVDs. Just days ago, I saw Good Bye Lenin!, which belongs to a genre the Germans call "Ostalgie." (Germans are wittier than you think.) It follows a young East German man who tries to shield his dying mother from the reality of reunification by constructing an elaborate televisual Truman Show around her. But it's really about respecting the past you share with the ones you love. I never cry at movies, but this one nearly got me. It ends with this monologue from the hero, Daniel Brühl: Das Land das meine Mutter verließ, war ein Land an das sie geglaubt hatte... Ein Land das es in Wirklichkeit nie so gegeben hat. Ein Land das in meiner Erinnerung immer mit meiner Mutter verbunden sein wird. The country that my mother left was a land that she believed in...A country that was never quite what it seemed. A country that in my memory will always be bound to my mother. My mother, God bless her, is still with me. It's my father he's talking about. I've lost some of my childhood enthusiasm for air travel, but these days it seems I go to the airport every other month. To pick up my wife, or a relative, or a friend. And nowadays it's not the cargo I look forward to so much as the people. Maybe one day I'll meet Ashish here. Standing in the crowd behind the fence in the international arrivals lounge, we all stare expectantly down the long passage toward the doors of the baggage claim hall. There's a TV monitor where we can see the apparition of long-lost loved ones materialize for an instant on an escalator. They pass like newly molded foreign goods into the hands of customs and immigration. But I keep my eyes on the doorway where they emerge, stamped and certified. They walk slowly into focus, looking more and more familiar, until they find the face they're looking for and we're strangers once again. More than once I've caught my breath at the sight of Baba walking toward me. But he never arrives. It's just a dream. From sanjeev.rgtu at gmail.com Fri Aug 3 01:00:10 2007 From: sanjeev.rgtu at gmail.com (Sanjeev Sharma) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 01:00:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Second Call for Paper - Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan, BVS 2007, Bhopal MP Message-ID: <311151090708021230l71d71f2fw6ead24fda048c70a@mail.gmail.com> Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan, 23-25 November, 2007 http://www.bvsindia.org The focal theme of the conference is - *Integral Scientific Management of Natural Resources For Sustainable Development with special focus on Best Traditional and Current Practices in Agri-Forestry and Rural Technology in India and Abroad. * In addition to individual delegates and representatives from institutions, the conference will also have associate delegates comprising of Post-graduates and Research Scholars as observers, selected from R&D institutions, Colleges and Universities. We invite all Scientists, Technocrats, Academicians, Policy Makers, Research Scholars, Students and common people who have an affinity towards Science and Technology to participate and contribute to this conference. Science and Technology, forms the thrust engine of development for any society. An overwhelmingly large number of over 6 lac villages still await infrastructure facilities and basic amenities. There is a growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. It is becoming increasingly imperative that inclusive growth becomes a reality and not just a slogan. We have a gigantic task at hand. Effective intervention through appropriate technologies can play an important role in providing urban amenities in rural areas. These interventions will be able to control the ever-growing problems of urbanization, rural poverty, environmental degradation and unequal growth. Language plays a very significant role in the 'lab to land' concept. In our country, with 23 recognized official national languages including Hindi and English, language plays a key role in science and technology dissemination among the masses.India, a nation of a billion people, cradle of the oldest civilization of mankind, is marching ahead with indomitable power and incorrigible confidence. Home to the 2nd largest population of the world, we have to fulfill a billion dreams as well as our global responsibilities The conference shall comprise of invited talks from eminent personalities in the area of interest and contributed papers for oral/poster presentations. Scientists, Technologists, Research Scholars, Policy makers and Stake Holders in S & T are invited to send two page Extended Abstracts (in Hindi or English or both) of their papers before 15th August, 2007. The Abstracts should be accompanied with Registration form for attending the conference. The Abstracts and full paper may be sent as MS-Word files to :\ bvs at rgtu.net The Abstracts can also be sent as hard copies to * Executive Chairman, Bhartiya Vigyan Sammelan, Samanvay Karyalaya, B-44, 45 Banglow, Professors Colony, Opp Mulla Ramuzi Bhawan, Bhopal, MP* * Conference Theme:* 1. Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences 2. Forestry and Environmental Sciences 3. Water Management 4. Energy Management 5. Mineral Resources and Materials Science/Technology 6. Meteorology and Climate 7. Health and Medical Sciences including AYUSH and Nutraceuticals 8. Housing, Habitat and Architecture 9. Basic Sciences : Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, Life Sciences. 10. Cutting Edge Technologies (BIO, IT, NANO - Status and Possibilities) 11. Science Communication through Regional Languages 12. Engineering and Technological Sciences 13 Marine and Aquaculture Sciences Last date for : Abstract Submission :30th August, 2007 Notification for Acceptance : 30th September, 2007 Submission of Full Text of paper :15th October, 2007 Registration:15th October, 2007 *The Registration fee,* for the conference, which shall include the conference material and working lunch during the conference period, is as follows : Institutional Delegates : Rs. 5,000/- (upto 3 delegates) Individual Delegates : Rs. 1,000/- Research Scholars and Members of Organizing Institutions: Rs. 500/- Student Observers and Persons accompanying delegates : Rs. 500/- email : bvs at rgtu.net url: http://www.bvsindia.org Conference Dates : November 23-25, 2007 Venue: Ravindra Bhawan, Bhopal Our mailing address is: Samanvay Karyalaya, B-44, 45 Banglow Opposite Mulla Ramuzi Bhawan, Professors Colony, Bhopal, MP Our Contect: bvs at rgtu.net -- Sanjeev Sharma Faculty. School of Information Technology Rajiv Gandhi Technological University, Air Port By Pass Road, Bhopal (M.P.) India 462 036 PH: +917552678825 Fax : +917552678834 From taraprakash at gmail.com Fri Aug 3 01:18:59 2007 From: taraprakash at gmail.com (Taraprakash) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 01:18:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police firing in Andhra Pradesh References: <98f331e00708012330o9c0041esd425136fc44b1e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <023b01c7d53e$2df1abd0$0201a8c0@IBM61525879EE4> There wasn't much to say on that. Some people are considering it as a family affair to be sorted out with in the family, there are some who are calling it as a "friendly fire". I know what happened here was as bad as Nandi Gram. But the list was completely silent is not a fact. there were some mails on the issue, including yours. I am pasting the contents of one of them. Yet another example of state sponsored terrorism. But interestingly, may be ironically, Renuka Chaudhary, the MP from Khammam said the same thing as did CPIM about incidents in Singur and Nandi Gram. According to her there were Nuxalites present on the site and they were responsible for the violence. I don't think the life of 5 6 activists matters to CPIM high command when some positive action might lead to the loss of power in the center. all said and done, what happened was really unfortunate and inexcusable. Reader list may appear to be silent, it is not that CPIM is making much noise. ----- Original Message ----- From: "prakash ray" To: Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 12:00 PM Subject: [Reader-list] Police firing in Andhra Pradesh > You all are aware about the police firing in Mudigonda in Khammam district > of Andhra Pradesh which killed six people. I am surprised on the silence > on > the reader list which had series of debates and discussions and > informations > about the Nandigram incident (though the entire episode was totally > overlooked by many on the list). I don't doubt the emotional and political > levels of the people around, but it is certainly disappointing to see such > silence. > > I hope we will be able to respond to the happenings around us in more > responsible manner and without being selective about the victims. > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> From pnnhindi at gmail.com Wed Aug 1 22:17:57 2007 From: pnnhindi at gmail.com (pnn hindi) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 22:17:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Invitation for Press Conference on August 3, 2007, 4 PM, Press Club Message-ID: <2E145D07-4661-4A4C-840F-B7CD9BD135E6@gmail.com> Subject: Invitation for Press Conference on August 3, 2007, 4 PM, Press Club Dear , The Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms is holding a Press Conference on August 3, 2007 at the Press Club of India, Raisina Road, New Delhi at 4 PM to highlight a grave case of Judicial Misconduct at the Apex of the Indian Judiciary. At the press conference we will disclose how the then Chief Justice of India who had spearheaded the sealing drive was mired in serious conflict of interest in as much as his sons were deeply involved in the business of shopping malls and commercial complexes who stood to benefit from this sealing drive. Very important revelations will be made and documents released about this case. Where The Press Conference will be addressed by Shri Shanti Bhushan, former Union Law Minister, Mr. Bhaskar Rao, Chairman, Centre for Media Studies, Ms. Kamini Jaiswal, advocate, Supreme Court and Mr. Prashant Bhushan among others. Kindly send a reporter to cover the Press Conference. Thanking you, (PRASHANT BHUSHAN) PS: incase you are unable to attend please send a colleague to cover the conference Please feel free to call: Devvrat (981181730) or Leena (9811137421) -- Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Judicial Reforms 14, Tower 2, Supreme Enclave, Mayur Vihar Phase- INew Delhi- 110 091 Tel: 9811137421, 9811818730; E-mail:judicialreforms at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From pkray11 at gmail.com Fri Aug 3 12:25:51 2007 From: pkray11 at gmail.com (prakash ray) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 12:25:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] SAHMAT clarifications on recent reports in a section of media Message-ID: <98f331e00708022355m7a0b38bx153024ee6d75c823@mail.gmail.com> Dear friend, A letter dated 16.07.2007 with the subject title 'Reply to Legal Notice dated 04.07.2007', written by advocate Jai Singh Sheikhupura on behalf of his client Gauhar Raza, and addressed to Nandita Rao, advocate for SAHMAT, has been circulated to the press and on the internet. SAHMAT believes that the following clarifications are in order, as the above-mentioned letter has led to a number of misconceptions. 1. The Legal Notice referred to was sent on behalf of SAHMAT by SAHMAT's advocate Nandita Rao, to Shakeel Ahmed Khan of the Nehru Yuvak Kendra Sangthan (NYKS), and Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports. 2. The Legal Notice was with regard to the mass circulation by the NYKS of a video-CD of the film 'Jung-E-Azadi', which had been made by SAHMAT in 1997 during our year-long commemoration of the 140th anniversary of the 1857 rebellion. It had come to our notice that in the copy of the film which was being circulated to all its centres by the NYKS recently, the credits at the beginning and end – A SAHMAT and TVI Presentation – had been removed.Inother words, all mention of SAHMAT was obliterated. 3. The film 'Jung-e-Azadi' was the culmination of a large, collective effort involving many collaborators, which began with a public event organised by SAHMAT at the Red Fort lawns on May 11th, 1997, to commemorate the 140th anniversary of 1857. At that event, there were presentations of plays, music by Shubha Mudgal and Indian Ocean, and folk artists from Haryana singing songs of the revolt. Zohra Sehgal performed a scripted dramatic recitation which accompanied projected video clips of photographs, maps, lithographs and clips from films on 1857. There was also a large exhibition mounted on the lawns. The research for the exhibition, which was the basis for Zohra Sehgal's recitation, the video clips and the subsequently published book, Red the Earth, both textual and visual, was done by Professor Irfan Habib, The Aligarh Historians Society, Professor Ravinder Kumar(then Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library), Professor Narayani Gupta, Professor Jim Masselos with additional photographic research by Ram Rahman, amongst many others. 4. The video 'Jung-e-Azadi' was subsequently filmed in the BITV studios as a recreation of the Red Fort performance. This was broadcast by BITV then, and has continued to be widely screened and circulated for the last ten years. 5. The current circulation of the film by NYKS after removing all references to SAHMAT is thus an attempt to alter the historical record in the public sphere, and we regard the mutilation as a criminal offence. SAHMAT has not received any reply to its Legal Notice from the NYKS or the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Instead, there is the above-cited letter issued by Gauhar Raza's advocate. This has come as a surprise to us, and we would like to clarify that SAHMAT has not issued a legal notice to either Gauhar Raza or Shabnam Hashmi. Nor do their names feature in our Legal Notice to the NYKS and the Ministry. We would also like to make very clear that we have never made any allegations of financial impropriety against any individuals. We sincerely hope this clarifies SAHMAT's stand while we await a reply from the NYKS and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. From fsrnkashmir at gmail.com Fri Aug 3 16:59:30 2007 From: fsrnkashmir at gmail.com (Shahnawaz Khan) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 16:59:30 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 5th posting: Kashmir's only poster boy Message-ID: <2ad82fd30708030429q4dc482fex8a09c5d17efe66a9@mail.gmail.com> *Kashmir's only poster boy* Not only in Srinagar but in whole of Kashmir Valley with a population of six million, Neelam is the only functional Cinema hall. With people having lost interest in cinema halls and there has been a considerable fall in the number of cine-goers since 1990, the management of Neelam is struggling hard to make their presence felt within the city limits. Putting up posters of the coming film is a small task in other places, but it is a daunting job in Srinagar. The cinema is unable to pay for advertisements in the local papers. In order to boost their business and to announce about the latest shows or new releases of Bollywood films, pasting film posters in the city's space is really a challenging task. Prior to insurgency each cinema hall used to have few people on the payrolls for the job of pasting posters in and outside the city. For Neelam Cinema today Ashraf is the only poster boy. A man in late twenties, Ashraf was employed as a sweeper in the Cinema hall after it was thrown open in 1997. However, Ashraf is not comfortable with the job of pasting the film posters on the city's walls and intersections. Since there is a ban on cinema halls, he fears the backlash from the people who ordered the ban. "See ours is the only cinema hall functional in the city. That way we have defied the diktat. It is really a challenging job to paste a poster in the old town or locality. Anyone can create trouble anytime," said Ashraf. Though Ashraf is reluctant to talk about his job of pasting the posters and feels that it would land him up in trouble. "See I am a poor man and do this for making two ends of my family meet. While pasting posters, my effort remains that no one should see me," he said. There have been instances when he was rebuked by some youth for pasting posters. Even some posters were torn from the walls the moment he pasted it. "I don't want to indulge in any fight with anyone. One day some guys told me that I am promoting obscenity and Allah will not spare me," recalls Ashraf. The management hires an auto rickshaw and always sends another person with Ashraf, while he pastes the posters. Most of the posters are being pasted in high security zones, where there is constant presence of army and para-military forces. "Mostly I paste the posters in Badmibagh cantonment area and outside our own Cinema hall, where there is lesser movement of people," Ashraf said. After the opening of cinema hall the biggest challenge with the owners was how to advertise about the show and timings. Initially they used to buy the space in the newspapers for advertising new releases and show timings but poor response from the people forced them to change their modus operendi. "We could not afford to buy the space in newspapers, therefore we were forced to sent our guys to paste the posters on the street walls," said Mohammed Ayub, the project operator at Neelam cinema hall. Pasting of film posters undergo a censorship when it comes to Kashmir and the censorship lies with the poster boy. Ashraf in consultation with the cinema management often artfully blacken the bold exposures by women celebrities on these posters. The glaring example of censorship was evident in the month of June from a bold exposure of celebrity showcasing the film, "LOU- Ek Ehsaas". "I remember when I was asked to paste the posters of Ahsaas, I thought that it will not go well with the people over here. I bought a black ink marker from the stationary shop and artfully tried to hide the breasts and naked legs of the star by drawing lines on her body. After that it looked as if she was wearing a net," said Ashraf. "You have to do it, it you want to continue with it," he adds. In the Srinagar city today you won't come across bigger than life size images of celebrities on the film posters nor would find any full size poster pasted on the wall. What usually is seen the torn away posters on the walls. Noor Mohammed, the ticket seller and the oldest employee of the Neelam cinema says that in past tongas (horse driven carts) were hired and then decorated with the film posters so as to sent it inside the Srinagar city and outskirts for announcing the show and timings. He misses the fervour and the presences of large film size posters in every nook and corner of the city. Are you a publisher interested in indepth news features from Kashmir? Visit www.kashmirnewz.com From vivek at sarai.net Fri Aug 3 17:23:28 2007 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:23:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] New Indian Online Journals Message-ID: <46B31738.4050702@sarai.net> Phalanx is a new journal out of Bangalore, edited by M.K. Raghavendra-- it's quirky, eclectic, searching, "a forum for continuing debate": http://www.phalanx.in/ ...and 'New Quest', the famous old journal, now edited by Dilip Chitre, is finally online: http://www.newquestindia.com/ More and more to come... Enjoy, Vivek -- www.sarai.net Vivek Narayanan The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29,Rajpur Road, Civil Lines Delhi 110 054. From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Aug 3 20:06:56 2007 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:06:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Police stops screening of Jashn-e-Azadi In-Reply-To: <102065.38042.qm@web27904.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <102065.38042.qm@web27904.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <46B33D88.40709@sarai.net> Dear All, I have been following with interest the thread on the Reader List regarding the interrupted (or should I say prevented) screening of Jashn-e-Azadi in Mumbai, courtesy the Mumbai Police. It appears from the actions of the Mumbai Police that that the citizens of Mumbai are more in need of protection from various kinds of stimuli than those of us who have happily sat through more than one screening of the said film in Delhi, and in Srinagar without any harm being done to our minds or bodies. I am not writing to defend the film here, because I think a film, or any work of art does not need a 'defence'. A film, or a work of art, or any instance of communication is not an accused in a criminal court, we are not attorneys, advocates and lawyers, a mailing list is not a court. I am more interested in trying to think through some of the issues that have been addressed in various postings. Those who have called for a ban on the film, or have endorsed the Mumabai Police's actions, or have written angry mails protesting about its screening basically have the following arguments, and I will list them all. Do correct me if I miss any. 1. The film is one sided, it does not (adquately) represent the point of views of displaced Kashmiri Pandits. 2. The film gives space to people that some of the correspondents on this list consider to be 'terrorists'. 3. The film is not patriotic or nationalistic. I do not disagree with any of the above points. (though I have a qualified disagreement on point 3, to which I will come later). But even if all three points are agreed to, I still see no reason why the automatic response to them has to be a call for a ban. Or for a vilification of the filmmaker. Since it appears (or at least that is what I have been given to understand) that we live in a nominally free and open cultural space, there should be no problem at all for anyone to make films that they think best represents the position that they hold. Either we agree that this is the case, or we agree that your 'freedom of expression' has to stay within the narrow limits of what is permissible under the world view of Indian nationalism. In which event it does not remain freedom of expression any longer, rather it (the capacity to be expressive) turns automatically into a monopoly that only Indian nationalists can enjoy. In any case, nothing stops, or has stopped till now, anyone from making any film that - a). adequately represents the points of view and experiences of the Kashmiri Pandit community b) gives adequate space and consideration to those gentlemen in and out of uniform who unleash terror on the majority of the population of the Kashmir valley c) that oozes patriotism or nationalism from every frame (On this point I have a slight qualification to make, it seems to me, that there would be some, though not by any means all, perhaps mainly Kashmiri nationalists and patriots, who would not be disturbed by 'Jashn-e-Azadi'. So it is inaccurate to say that the film has to be rejected if you are a nationalist or a patriot. It all depends on which kind of patriot or nationalist you are.) Since I am neither an Indian nationalist or patriot nor a Kashmiri nationalist or a patriot, I find it difficult to say which variety of nationalims and patriotism should be given more importance. Both seem to be sentiments that attach to different configurations of territory. I have tried for many years to work out a set of evaluative criteria by which sentiments that attach to one configuration of territory can be judged against sentiments that attach to another configuration of territory. If you give value to any sentiments that attach themselves to any bits of territory, I cannot quite understand why or how you would deny other people their sentiments to the bits of territory that they lay claim to. How can we call one more valid than the other? I do not have an answer to this question. Does anyone else on this list have a satisfactory answer? Does anyone even know if a satisfactory answer lies within the realm of a theorectial or a practical possibility. But this is a debate that we can continue on some other occasion, at least for now, let us return to the film that is exercising everyone so. So, those who are so disturbed by 'Jashn-e-Azaadi', might think about how they can make their own film instead of trying to ensure that one that exists is canned. Similarly, those people in Kashmir, Iran, the UK, Indonesia, India, Egypt and Syria who stage spectacles calling for the assasination of Salman Rushdie, or Taslima Nasrin, or the authors of a batch of cartoons drawn in bad taste, might consider writing their own books, or drawing their own cartoons. Killing an author or banning a film or a book results in a net diminishing of cultural material. Writing a book to argue against one that exists, or making a film to counter another point of view, (even if jejunely) at least results in an incremental addition to the body of cultural material available in society at any given time. After all, Sanjay Kak, the maker of 'Jashn-e-Azadi', did not, as far as I recall, call for bans on documentary films that were considered to give an 'adequate' representation of Kashmiri Pandit experiences - like 'Tell them the tree they have planted has now grown' or 'And the world remained silent' . (In fact I do not remember any discussion of whether such films should be banned.) I also do not remember any obstructions by angry slogan shouting young men of films that have given more than adequate representation to the foot-soldiers (formal and informal)of the Indian state, engaged in fighting terror (and non-terrorist civic action) with terror in the Kashmir valley. Nor has anyone, to my knowledge, asked for feature films like 'Roja', 'Dil Se', 'Mission Kashmir'. '16 December', 'Fanaa', 'Sheen', 'Maa tujhey Salaam' (and I could go on, because there is an emerging sub-genre of the 'Kashmir' film in the Bombay film industry) to be banned - all of which are set in Kashmir, more or less all of which are explicitly sympathetic to the Kashmiri Pandit point of view, all of which ensure that 'militants' are portrayed in a purely negative light, and all of which are more than adequate exemplars of Indian nationalism and patriotism. Needless to say, several of these films were critically well received, granted 'entertainment tax exemptions', awarded with state honours and applauded in the media. The chances of your film doing well if you toe the Indian state's line on Kashmir are quite high, so it would be some amount of dissimulation to suggest that films sympathetic to the predicament of Kashmiri Pandits, or generally supportive to the Indian state's claim on the territory of Jammu & Kashmir, are somehow marginal, silenced, censored, obscured expressions. An objective assessment and audit of the kind of films that have been made on Jammu and Kashmir over the last twenty odd years would show evidence quite to the contrary. If the culture we all participate in (as partisans, protagonists, spectators, producers and bystangers) is so willing to accept the presence, circulation and adulation of one point of view, (the Indian nationalist, explicitly pro Kashmiri Pandit position on J&K) which in fact has a dominance, a near monopoly on the representation of the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, at least as far as the moving image in India is concerned, why then, is it so difficult for this cultural milieu to tolerate the presence of one or two or maybe three films that try to do something else? A film is not a bomb. A film is not an unsheathed sword. A film is an argument in words and images. If the dominant argument in words and images have the lion's share of attention, then what is wrong in another kind of argument in words and images making itself known. Or is there an actual anxiety that the case of the dominant argument is so flimsy that the mere presence of one or two films that act otherwise will blow their cover? Remember, the post 1947 history of Jammu and Kashmir is taught neither in India, nor in Pakistan, nor in Kashmir. In such a climate, it is very easy for flimsy arguments to rule the roost. In such a climate it also becomes necessary for those who live by those flimsy arguments to try and stop anything else that happens, by any means necessary. Such as calling the Mumbai Police to stop the screening of a film. I know that similar things happen in Bangladesh or Pakistan when documentary films about the fate of the Ahmediya community are sought to be screened. I remember having been present at more than one screening of a film such as 'Tell them the tree they have planted has now grown' or having sat through film after Bollywood film that bedecked itself with the fake blood of fake Kashmiris. I saw no reason to call the police. I saw no reason to raise slogans in or outside the auditorium, or to try and obstruct the possibility of a reasonable discussion. Did anyone on the list try and call the police, genuflect to the censor board, or make a noise, or try and obstruct a screening when any of these films were shown? If those of you on this list who are endorsing obstructions to the screening of 'Jashn-e-Azaadi' did not object to the screening of all those films that have entertained us with the agenda of the Indian state, then I think that it is only fair, reasonable and decent that you either let films like "Jashn-e-Azaadi' be screened, without interruption or obstruction or, as a logical corollary to your concern for the sentiments of those affected by the conflict in Kashmir, call for a moratorium on any form of expression, including your own, that takes any stance (or even no stance at all) on the issue of Kashmir. It may be possible that different kinds of people can find different nuances of an impoverished and pared down dignity in the ensuing silence. It will be more respectful than the clamour of your words today. with regards, Shuddha Nishant wrote: > Police stops radical film on Kashmir > > Disrupt screening of Jashn-e-Azadi at Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan on suspicion that the documentary may be provocative and inflammatory > > Mumbai police on Friday disrupted the screening a radical film on Kashmir called Jashn-e-Azadi on the suspicion that the feature-length documentary could be "inflammatory and provocative." The 2-hour, 18-minute long documentary, directed by Sanjay Kak, was just about to begin when cops barged into the Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan at Prabhadevi and seized all the dvds. > > "We were told that the documentary is provocative and inflammatory. Therefore we requested the organisers to let us watch the movie before it was screened", Deputy Commissioner of Police, D N Phadtare, told Mumbai Mirror. But getting the cops to play censor was not acceptable to the show's organisers, Vikalp. "We told them in that case it would not be possible to allow them to screen the film and confiscated the DVDs," said Phadtare. > > Ironically, Jashn-e-Azadi, which has already been screened in Bangalore and Delhi, without anybody getting inflamed or provoked, explores the implications of the struggle for Azadi in the Kashmir Valley. As the blog on documentary ( http://kashmirfilm.wordpress.com) says: In : In 2007 India celebrates the 60th anniversary of it's Independence, this provocative and quietly disturbing new film raises questions about freedom in Kashmir, and about the degrees of freedom in India. > > When contacted director Sanjay Kak said: "I've been holding a number of private screenings across the country for filmmakers and other interested viewers to start a conversation about the film and get feedback. The Osian film festival in Delhi was the first and only public screening we've had. The screening today was in a private property for a small group of invitees. Vikalp got a call in the morning from the police asking for a copy of the film. When we landed at the venue there was a battalion of cops and they asked us not to screen the film. When we told them to watch it with us they were not willing," said Kak, adding that the cops refused to tell them who had filed the complaint or what the problem was. "All they were willing to say was, 'hamare seniors ka order hai,' and till they had seen the film they could not allow us to go ahead," he said. > > (Source: Mumbai Mirror) > > > ___________________________________________________________ > Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it > now. > http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> From cubbykabi at yahoo.com Fri Aug 3 23:27:08 2007 From: cubbykabi at yahoo.com (kabi cubby sherman) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 10:57:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Bombay Taxi Project - Meter Down Podcast Message-ID: <13373.39101.qm@web34313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> As part of a larger project on Bombay taxi drivers ( kaali-peeli ki kahani), I have been recording conversations with cab drivers, with their permission of course, as we ride from one place to another in the city. I am now podcasting these conversations as episodes in a podcast called Meter Down. The language is Hindi. I consider this project an oral history, a verbal record, that explores the questions of migration and mulak, bombay and change, taxi-driving and life. The cabbies, of course, also tell some wonderful stories. You can listen to these conversations at http://meterdown.wordpress.com, a blog on which I also post photos of the drivers and their taxis. Outtakes of some of the wonderful bits of these conversations are also posted on the site for listener convenience. I am an ex-taxi driver myself and have been working on this Bombay taxi driver project for a year now. Taxi drivers write the city: they move through its streets and collect its stories. They track its changes while journeying with their passengers through its transformations and they experience the absence of the old. Yet they are also the subjects of these changes. Driver-owned old taxis are being forced out of service and their permits cancelled. New private taxi fleets with 'modern' vehicles are vying for these permits but refuse to hire most of the drivers. The drivers' futures are uncertain. A majority of the drivers are migrants, each with his own sense of home. I am interested in this internal migration, the movement of people from the villages to a city that looks away from these villages and outward into a globalising world. what did the taxi drivers leave behind? what dreams did they bring and what dreams remain? where is home now? The project also includes documenting and photographing the personal and creative designs that cab drivers employ to make each taxi a signifier of the self: words on the back windows that act like clues, rexine mudflaps, mirrored ceilings, patterened seat-covers, radium patterning and painted mechanical meters. I print these images to fabric and create textile pieces. I buy old steering wheels and wrap them using plastic flourescent rope, making patterns by putting radium underneath, as I learned to do from an old radiumwala. I use rearview mirrors and photos of drivers' eyes to make 'gaze pieces'. But it is these podcasts that are the ballast. Please give them a listen. I have currently posted two episodes on the blog and plan to post another conversation every 15-20 days. I appreciate feedback, suggestions, critiques, etc. There is a place on the blog for comments or you can email me at this ID. If you have Itunes, you can search for 'Meter Down' and subscribe to the podcast or download episodes from there, esp. if bandwidth is a problem. Meter Down is also listed in some podcast directories such as Podcast Alley, Odeo (tho only 1 episode showing) , podcastingnews, and Google using meter down podcast search terms. regards, kabi http://meterdown.wordpress.com --------------------------------- Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center. From skinnyghosh at gmail.com Sat Aug 4 00:51:34 2007 From: skinnyghosh at gmail.com (sukanya ghosh) Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:51:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] In search of animation Message-ID: <46B3803E.2030103@gmail.com> The grand old man of Indian animation, Ram Mohan celebrates 50 years of being in animation this year. He has a sort of parable to tell about animation in India. He tells of how not many know that Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian Cinema was also the first to try animation and hence is also the father of Indian animation. But as animation remained the much neglected Cinderella daughter, the other daughter (the ugly sister) grew by leaps and bounds. It is only after many years that this Cinderella finally got her prince. It is however another story that the prince turned out to be something she didn't quite expect. Ram Mohan is one of those who has lived through most of this history. He claims that despite early attempts by Phalke, Mandar Mallick and others, not much was known about animation and it certainly did not ever become any kind of industry. His career took off under the training programme under Clair Weeks. Why Clair Weeks and to what purpose I ask? Clair H. Weeks of Walt Disney Studios, came to India under the Indo-US Technical Aid program (1951). The fledgling Indian Government was readying up to deliver the first of The Five Year Plans. According to Ram Mohan the government felt the need for widespread communication in matters regarding public health, savings, education and other objectives that were envisaged as necessary for the growth of a healthy economy and country. Animation was felt to be the medium that could easily fulfill this vital role of visual communications. The pictorial nature of the communication could be used to impart knowledge. Here, we might take an aside to understand the 'nature' of the animated image. The vital difference from cinema can be attributed to the dual nature of deconstruction and the re-construction of reality. Being an overtly self conscious medium, the 'constructed' nature of its image is of prime importance. The set of assumptions that the animated image carries with it allow our levels of disbelief to be transcended far more than the cinematic image. For instance the phenomenon of 'anthropomorphism' -- we are happy to believe all manner of talking animals and otherwise inanimate objects. Or the manner in which the unseen becomes 'seen' or imagined. The flexibility of the canvas of animation where virtually (and I use the word in all its various connotations) everything is possible and everything can have a voice. This played a huge role in its selection as a medium of mass appeal and understanding. One that would cut across cultural, regional and language barriers by the sheer audacity of its images. The cartoon, specifically could be used to portray serious issues on a lighter note. This was perhaps the reason that the Army Cartoon Unit chose animation to produce various films which were to carry various kinds of messages to the people. This unit was the predecessor to the Films Divisions Cartoon Film Unit and subsequently most of its members went on to join the Films Division. When Clair Weeks was asked to come to India, the choice of choosing had a lot to do with the fact that Clair Weeks had been born in India and had some knowledge of the Hindi Language. The Films Division had installed its animation rostrum camera -- an Oxberry 16 mm camera -- under the directorship of Jehangir Bhownagary. The film /Radha and Krishna/ was created suing this camera. From here onwards the production of animation films remained pretty much within the territorial scope of the films division. One of the biggest reasons being the role that the films division occupies. The government saw this as the main agency for producing short features to meet the various requirements of the political and social agenda that they were plotting out. Thus -- "The Films Division of India has within its archives, a recorded legacy of our glorious past. With the infra-structure available, it is not merely a store-house of this legacy, but also an active participant in making it." The Hindi film Industry however never adopted animation as anything more than creative film titling. This perhaps played a crucial role in determining the directions that Indian animation took in those early years. World War II had begun the process of disintegration of the big studios. A peculiarity of the shortage of raw stock, among other kinds of rationing led to the beginnings of huge amounts of illegal trading and black money. Film financing now saw a different kind of pattern and the development of an established star system. Animation was not a proposition that seemed to fit this scenario as a suitably profitable medium. A labour and time intensive medium like animation did not really much of a niche in the mainstream of film production. Besides which, there was a simple lack of trained personnel. Ram Mohan reiterates how very few people were trained and how there was no platform where people could train because only the films division had a regular animation agenda. One wonders how and where the seeds of growth and development really lie. Can art flourish in the absence of an infrastructure? If so, then is art then dependent on the infrastructure provided by the kind of support that only a commercially driven industry can provide? Is art taken forward only under the aegis of a certain visionaries and philanthropists? One remembers that the most widely seen/remembered animation in the world is the one created by a maverick megalomaniacal empire builder who saw the potential of his certain skill. And that the other most highly regarded (though less seen and heard of) national film production board was led to its stature through the platform provided by one visionary iconic (and albeit iconoclastic) artist, filmmaker. In between the endless search through the twists and turn that animation in India takes here onwards, we have a huge repository of films on health, family planning, savings, the economy, the girl child, education, history, somewhere we let go of the essential artistic impulse that informs the medium. From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Sat Aug 4 12:24:00 2007 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 23:54:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Remembering Partition, 4 films & a lecture in Mumbai Message-ID: <960219.70006.qm@web51411.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Asia Society India Centre and Jnanapravaha, Mumbai invite you to "Remembering Partition" a Lecture, 4 Documentary Films, and a Panel Discussion Saturday, August 11, 6.00 pm - 9.30 pm Lecture by Ashis Nandy, ICSSR National Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi on Partition and Living with Oneself (45 minutes) followed by the Screening of Sarah Singh's The Sky Below * (75 minutes) Amar Kanwar's A Season Outside (30 minutes), and Sunday, August 12, 4.00 pm - 9.30 pm Screening of Yousuf Saeed's Khayal Darpan (A Mirror of Imagination) (100 minutes) and Ajay Bhardwaj's Rabba Hun Kee Kariye * (Thus Departed Our Neighbours) (65 minutes) followed by a Panel Discussion on Representing History (40 minutes) with Sarah Singh Yousuf Saeed Ajay Bhardwaj and Paromita Vohra, Filmmaker and Scriptwriter (moderator) Venue: Jnanapravaha Queens Mansion, A K Nayak Marg, Fort, Mumbai 400 001 Phone: 91 22 2207 2974/5 * First Public Preview Limited Seating. First Come, First Served. RSVP Avanti Bhati (Asia Society India Centre) 91 22 66100888; admin at asiasociety.org For Profiles of Speaker and filmmakers, and Synopsis of films please visit http://www.asiasociety.org/visit/mumbai/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos & more. http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC From navayana at gmail.com Sat Aug 4 12:31:59 2007 From: navayana at gmail.com (Navayana Publishing) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 12:31:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Job @ Navayana In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For circulation on notice boards use PDF attachment. navayana India's first and only publishing house to focus on caste from an anti-caste perspective invites *affirmative applications* from *dalits* for the post of *Assistant Editor* The job, based in New Delhi, involves copyediting, commissioning titles, liaising with designers, distributors, printers, marketing, and growing with and shaping a radical publishing programme Awareness of anti-caste issues and proficiency in the English language are mandatory. Postgraduates with research experience are encouraged to apply. Last date for applications: 25 August 2007 visit www.navayana.org and mail your CV to navayana at gmail.com M-100, First Floor, Saket, New Delhi – 110017 -- S.Anand Publisher Navayana Address for correspondence Navayana Publishing M-100 (First Floor) Saket, New Delhi--110017 Ph: +91-9971433117 Landline: 011-29561731 Regd address: 54, Ist Floor Savarirayalu Street Pondicherry 605001 Ph: 0413-2223337 Cell: +91-9443033305 www.navayana.org Join Navayana Book Club and avail free books and special discounts! http://www.navayana.org/content/bookclub.htm -- Navayana Publishing M-110 (First Floor) Saket New Delhi--110017 Ph: +91 9971433117 Registered address: Navayana Publishing 54, I Floor Savarirayalu Stree Pondicherry 605001 Ph: 91-413-2223337 Mobile: 91-94430-33305 www.navayana.org Join Navayana Book Club and avail free books and special discounts! http://www.navayana.org/content/bookclub.htm From pnnhindi at gmail.com Sat Aug 4 21:04:09 2007 From: pnnhindi at gmail.com (pnn hindi) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 21:04:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] NEWS- WITHER JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY? THE CASE OF JUSTICE SABHARWAL Message-ID: <430983AC-A814-4E75-8F5F-FB32FAA4EE45@gmail.com> Click Here To See The Documents, Concerning The Facts WITHER JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY? THE CASE OF JUSTICE SABHARWAL: DISQUIETING FACTS, DISTURBING IMPLICATIONS Minakshi PNN: 3, Aug. The issue of accountability of the higher judiciary has long been troubling all sections of society so at a press conference held in Press Club of India the former Law minister Shanti Bhushan and sr. advocate Supreme court Prashant Bhushan among others highlighted a grave case of judicial misconduct at the Apex of Indian Judiciary on behalf of campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms. Prashant Bhushan exposed that on 16'" February 2006, the then Chief Justice of India, Y.K. Sabharwal passed a detailed order setting into motion the process of se