No subject

mixed up with the real world and it's difficult to tell who's who and where 
eXistenZ begins and ends. It's a mystery packed with weirdness, intrigue and 
violence, and it's also an elaborate joke on the audience. Everything in 
eXistenZ seems real, but nothing actually is. The joke is delivered with a 
straight face, and viewers who are watching too intently might even miss it.

eXistenZ isn't so much about the dangerous situations Allegra and Ted get 
into, although there are plenty of those. It's more about the dangers of 
ringing fantasy too close to reality, not to mention the dangers of igh-tech 
industrial rivalries.


CITY ONE CONFERENCE
City One, the South Asian conference on the urban experience was held on 
January 9-11, 2003 at the CSDS- Sarai premises. With six plenary sessions and 
eighteen parallel sessions, the conference was an intense and intellectually 
charged event. The participants ranged from well known social scientists, 
activists and practitioners, as well as an emerging generation of researchers 
on urban issues. Also attending was a large section of the local community of 
scholars, students and practitioners, as well as those residing outside of 
Delhi and India who had pre-registered for the conference. There were an 
average of 300 people every day at the conference venue.

The Conference was supported by IDPAD (www.idpad.org) as part of the 
Megacities series.

We have documented the entire conference for the public domain. Initially the 
entire audio archive of the conference will be made public. It will be put up 
on the conference web site (http://www.sarai.net/cityone/cityone.htm) by the 
end of February. We will also be producing a CD which contains the City One 
audio archive for people in India. The CD is free of cost. If you want a copy 
please write to diya at sarai.net with your complete mailing address.

Watch the City One conference site for updates which will include reports on 
the conference in social science journals and a discussion list run by the 
student stipendaries who attended the conference.


SARAI AT ASIAN SOCIAL FORUM, HYDERABAD 
The Asian Social Forum was held on January 2-7, 2003 at Hyderabad. CSDS played 
a major role in the event which can be described best as an alternative 
mahakumbh. On the 4th Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Sarai, spoke about the serious 
and savvy dangers posed by censorship in the age of information in a workshop 
panel entitled "People's Communication Rights Against Neo-Liberal Regimes", 
organised by Toshimaru Ogura, JCA-NET/Association for Progressive 
Communications. 

On the 5th, Sarai hosted a workshop on Alternatives to Media Empires: 
Information Politics & Media. While Shuddhabrata Sengupta introduced the idea 
of tactical media, Aditya Nigam(CSDS) talked about the freshly launched site 
of Aman Ekta Manch (http://www.amanjunction.org) which is designed to act as 
a forum for information and campaign around sectarianism. Ravikant (Sarai) 
spoke about challenging the  language hegemony, emphasising on the efforts in 
Indic-computing, Arun Mehta (www.radiophony.com) spoke on radio as a tool of 
activism, Sunil Abraham (www.mahiti.org) showed how to make a website in a 
day, Sanjay Banagar and Shekhar Krishnan of Indymedia, Mumbai 
(http://mumbai.indymedia.org/) talked about the contents and experience of 
running the site. Sanjay Kak (independent filmmaker) shared his reflections 
on the role of creative filmmakers in the age of easy yet unequal access. 
Both the panels generated a lively discussion. It was decided 
that the participants would carry on the discussion on the Tactical Media 
Discussion List hosted by Sarai for which Shekhar has already made a 
directory and an introductory posting. 
http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/tml-list

For the statement adopted at the ASF and other details, please check:
http://www.wsfindia.org/event_description.php

FORTHCOMING EVENTS:
March 1, 2003
Urban Study Group Meet
Sarai/ CSDS
The group is a loose collective of about 15-20 people, who share an interest 
in urban studies. It meets once a month (usually on the last Saturday) to 
discuss both primary texts and secondary writings on South Asian cities. The 
readings for each meeting are decided collectively. One or two persons 
volunteer to introduce the readings, this is followed by a general 
discussion.

The group usually meets between 10.30 and 1.00. In two previous meetings the 
group has discussed issues of planning, labour and slum housing. The readings 
consisted of the Delhi Master Plan and extracts from such texts as the Birla 
Committee Report (1951) Slums of Old Delhi (1958), a 1936 memorandum on 
housing in Delhi; few essay-reports from Dinamaan etc.

In the next meeting, proposed for Saturday March 1, the group will be 
introduced to Kalpana Sharma's Rediscovering Dharavi and Gita Dewan's 
Slumming in India and have two short presentations from Devesh Vijay and 
Rashmi. These presentations are based on research work already conducted by 
the scholars.

At this point, the group aims to do no more than build a tradition of critical 
discussion on urban issues, so as to facilitate individual research. In the 
course of time, it may evolve into a more 'product oriented' workshop. 

Those of you who are interested in joining this group, may write to Sadan Jha 
(sadan at sarai.net) or Awadhendra Sharan (sharan at sarai.net)


That's all for the moment. Do keep a lookout for more news on the 
Launch of Sarai Reader 03: Shaping Technologies 
& the  
Crisis/Media: The Uncertain States of Reportage, Sarai-Waag Workshop on  
March 3-5, 2003

Cheers,

Ranita
The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
Tel:  (+91) 11 23960040
        (+91) 11 23951190
Fax: (+91) 11 23943450
www.sarai.net



The Newsletter of the Sarai Programme,
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054, www.sarai.net
Info: dak at sarai.net.To subscribe: send a blank email to 
newsletter-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
Directions to Sarai: We are ten minutes from Delhi University. Nearest bus 
stop: IP college or Exchange Stores

See Calendar and Newsletter online: 
http://www.sarai.net/calendar/newsletter.htm

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