From dak at sarai.net Fri Feb 3 23:59:38 2006 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 23:59:38 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] FEBRUARY 2006 Message-ID: <43E3A112.10609@sarai.net> ************************************************************************************************************ ***************************************** SARAI NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2006 *********************************** ************************************************************************************************************ Dear All, This month we feature seminars, discussions and the ongoing ‘evenings @ sarai’ events. Listening Lounges by Sophea Lerner and Lex Bhagat, a seminar on Delhi in collaboration with the Department of History, Delhi University and a symposium on Censorship and Culture with the CAC, Delhi Film Archives and the Max Mueller Bhavan, are events to look out for. Plus, we look forward to seeing you at the round table and discussion around Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts at the U-Special bookstore, Delhi University. Looking forward to your participation. Warmly, Aarti Sethi [Outreach] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[CONTENTS]] *EVENTS * 1. Seminar/Workshop @ Sarai-CSDS + Department of History, Delhi University: "Dilli - Jo Ek Tha, Aur Hoga: Delhi - That Once Was, and Will Be" 2. Symposium @ Sarai-CSDS + Delhi Film Archive + Campaign Against Censorship + Max Mueller Bhavan: "Censorship and Culture" 3. Listening Lounge @ Sarai/Khoj: Sophea Lerner + Lex Bhagat 4. Panel/Exhibition @ Sarai: "Talking Blogs" - Samit Basu, Nilanjana Roy, Anand Taneja, Shivam Vij, Jai Arjan Singh (TBC) + Vishwajyoti Ghosh 5. Bare Acts Reading & Discussion @ Sarai: U-Special Bookstore, Delhi University *WORKSHOPS* 6. Blogs/Zines/Comix: Anand V. Taneja, Samit Basu + Sarai.txt Editorial Collective + Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Sarnath Bannerjee, Jacob Weinstein and Lakshmi Indrasimhan *FILM* 7. Film @ Sarai: Anime *FELLOWSHIPS* 8. Sarai-CSDS FLOSS Fellowships: Announcement of Selected Applicants *FORTHCOMING* 9. Open Mic/Open Screen: An Evening of Experimental Video, Film, Poetry, Prose, Spoken Word, Photographs, Audio & Sonic Work and Performance +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[EVENTS]] ========================================================================== Seminar/Workshop: Sarai-CSDS & Department of History, University of Delhi ========================================================================== *Dilli - Jo Ek Tha, Aur Hoga: Delhi - That Once Was, and Will Be* Thinking and Researching Delhi: Seminar/Workshop in collaboration with Department of History, Delhi University, 27 and 28 February 2006 Venue: Conference Centre, Delhi University 27 February - Presentations on Delhi's Past and Contemporary Realities Young researchers from Delhi University and Sarai-CSDS 28 February Morning Session: Presentations by Upinder Singh, Nayanjot Lahiri, Sunil Kumar, Dilip Menon, and Shahid Amin. Session chaired by Awadhendra Sharan (Sarai-CSDS) 28 February Afternoon Session: Featuring conversations between Ravi Sundaram, Awadhendra Sharan, Shuddhabrata Sengupta and Scholars from Delhi University, Department of History Session chaired by Shahid Amin (Department. of History, Delhi University) The event will also feature screenings of a 'lecture-performance' by Solomon Benjamin, Centre for Emerging Urbanism, Bangalore, produced in collaboration with the Sarai Media Lab and an exhibition of the Sarai.txt Broadhsheet. ========================================= Symposium @ Sarai: Censorship and Culture ========================================= *Symposium on Censorship and Culture* Sarai-CSDS in collaboration with the Delhi Film Archive, Campaign Against Censorship and Max Mueller Bhavan 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 February 2006 Featuring presentations by, and discussions with, filmmakers, writers, and activists from different parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, and with Andreas Veiel from Germany *Inaugural Conversation* 3:00 P.M., 21 February 2006 Seminar Room Sarai-CSDS Featuring Lawrence Liang (ALF, Bangalore), Andreas Veiel (Filmmaker, Germany), Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Sarai-CSDS), Malathi Maithri (Poet and Writer, Pondicherry), Sudhir Pattnaik (Journalist, Orissa) and Ashis Nandy (Fellow, CSDS) and others. Subsequent events @ Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi. A detailed programme schedule will be posted soon. ================================ Listening Lounges @ Sarai & Khoj ================================ *Listening Lounge 2 @ Sarai: Radio Lounge... Transmission Arts and Spectrum Ecologies* Sophea Lerner + Lex Bhagat 6:00 P.M, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 Interface Zone From the interplanetary sounds of radio astronomy, to micro radio practices broadcasting a few metres, to creative uses of the internet and telephone networks...Turn your dial to Sarai to sample some of the ways radio can be interpreted as a medium and a practice. The evening will include work by Radioqualia, Emmanuel Madan, Neurotransmitter, Gregory Whitehead and more... *Listening Lounge 3 @ Khoj: Sound Art in New York *Lex Bhagat 5:30 P.M.,Thursday, 16 February 2006 Khoj Studios, S-17 Khirki Extension, New Delhi-17 The "Sound Art in New York" Listening Lounge will examine the history of experimental audio practices in one particular place on Earth i.e. New York City, in order to reflect on how experimental audio art may unfold in any place on Earth e.g. Delhi. Audio works by Max Neuhaus, John Giorno, Pauline Oliveros, Neurotransmitter and others will be presented, with discussion to follow. [Lex Bhagat is editor of the zine, Tactical Sound and is co-editor, with Gregory Gangemi and Jason Quarles of Sound Generation: Recording - Tradition - Politics, a collection of interviews with 21 contemporary sound artists. (Forthcoming from Autonomedia.) He speaks and writes on anarchism, prisons and sound art, and is a founding member of the August Sound Coalition. He is a contributor to Sarai Reader 03: Shaping Technologies in which he has an interesting text on He lives in New York.] [Sonic media artist and radiomaker Sophea Lerner is currently artist in residence at Sarai-CSDS as part of "Towards a Culture of Open Networks", a cross-cultural collaborative intiative supported by the EU-India Economic and Cross-Cultural Programme, enabling her to give workshops on sound and radio, coordinate Listening Lounges and play with traffic sounds. She lives in Finland where she lectures at the centre for music and technology and has recently been responsible for temporary experimental open content FM broadcasts, large scale participatory networked radio performances, and a festival of hybrid radio practice.] ======================================== Panel/Exhibition @ Sarai: Talking Blogs ======================================== *Talking Blogs* Samit Basu, Nilanjana Roy, Anand Taneja, Shivam Vij, Jai Arjan Singh (TBC) + Vishwajyoti Ghosh 3:30 P.M., Thursday, 16 February 2006 Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS "Talking Blogs" is the opening panel of the Blogs/Zines/Comix workshop. An exhibition by Comic book writer and artist Vishwajyoti Ghosh will also be on display in the Interface Zone, Sarai. ==================== Book-reading @ Sarai ==================== *Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts* A Roundtable and Discussion 2:30 P.M., Tuesday, 14 February 2006 U-Special Bookstore Student's Centre, Faculty of Arts, Delhi University We invite you for a round table and discussion around Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts. The evening will feature a round table with young researchers/authors discussing the making of their texts, and another panel featuring authors from the book. More details will be forthcoming in a special announcement, but do slot it into your diaries! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[WORKSHOPS]] *Call For Applications:* BLOGS/ZINES/COMIX* 16 + 17, 18, 19 February 2006 Facilitated by: Anand V. Taneja, Samit Basu + Sarai.txt Editorial Collective + Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Sarnath Bannerjee Blogs/Zines/Comix is a workshop designed to introduce you to the discussion and production of three exciting media forms. If you ever wanted to make and design your own blog, edit your own zine or draw your own comics, then this workshop is for you. Interact with leading comic book writers based in Delhi such as former Sarai Independent Fellows Sarnath Bannerjee and Vishwajyoti Ghosh and current Sarai Fellows Jacob Weinstein and Lakshmi Indrasimhan. Find out what keeps the blogosphere active by talking to hot bloggers Samit Basu, Anand Taneja, Jai Arjan Singh (also known as Jabberwock), Nilanjana Roy and Shivam Vij, and have a hands on experience in designing and editing different print media forms like broadsheets, stickers, pamphlets and more with the Sarai.txt team and Joseph Weinstein. The workshop begins with an open panel called "Talking Blogs" on the afternoon of 16 February. The next day i.e 17th will consist of practitioner presentations in which facilitators will introduce the forms. Participants will then choose to work on and produce one form in a group over the next two days. Sessions will focus on both the conceptual and practical aspects of media work. An exhibition by Vishwajyoti Ghosh will be on display in the Sarai Interface Zone during the course of the workshop. A detailed programme will be made available to participants on registration. Last date for registration is 5 February 2005. The workshop is free but seats are almost filled. If you still wish to register, please do so quickly! Send a short bio and why you wish to attend the workshop to: aarti at sarai.net +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[FILM]] We are happy to announce that film screenings curated by the Sarai programme will also be screened at the Khoj artists collective. This marks a collaborative initiative between Sarai and Khoj. This new series of screenings will run on Thursdays at Khoj at 6:00 pm and on Fridays at Sarai-CSDS at the usual time, 4:30 pm. These screenings have been an integral part of Sarai's programming and public profile for five years. The screenings have been a space for people from diverse backgrounds - academics and students, practitioners, artists and researchers – to converse with each other about the way in which films speak to the times that they were made in, and to the times we live in. We hope that with this initiative a new public will find the Sarai screenings, and that Sarai will find a new public, bringing new energies and approaches into talking and thinking about films. Hoping to see many of you, and many good films. films @ khoj – Thursdays, 5.340 pm Khoj Studios S-17 . Khirki Extension. (Near Sai Baba Temple) New Delhi-17 Call:91-11-55655874\73 www.khojworkshop.org khojinteract at gmail.com films @ Sarai – Fridays, 4.30 pm ===================================== Film @ Sarai: February – March 2005 ===================================== *ANIME* Setting the scene, as it were, for the Blogs/Zines/Comix workshop at Sarai this month, we have put together a series of Anime Films – films which are often inspired by and run parallel to the Manga tradition of Japanese comic book art. Films which take animation films out of the cuddly realms of Disney into an aesthetic of fantastic hyper-realism, which ask ‘adult’ questions about life and death and what it means to be human… The films in this series include futuristic science fiction, a remembrance of post-war Japan, and re-tellings of traditional Japanese myths. *||Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka)||* Directed by Isao Takahata 1988, 93 minutes 9^ February, 5.30 pm, Khoj 10^ February, 4.30 pm, Sarai Consistently voted as one of the best animation films ever made, Grave of the Fireflies portrays a story of loss, heartbreak and the effect of war on civilians in a manner that is more effective and more firmly based in reality than many live action films about the same subject are. Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, in this anime film we follow Seita and Setsuko, a brother and sister that have lost their parents in the firebombing of Japan during World War 2, and are forced to fend for themselves in the war torn country... *||Ghost in the Shell (Kokaku Kidotai)||* Directed by Mamoru Oshii 1995, 82 minutes (There will be no screening at Khoj on the 16 as Sophia Lerner’s Listening Lounge will be on at the time) 17^ February, 4.30pm, Sarai /Ghost in the Shell/ is based on the manga by the famous Masamune Shirow . In the future, the world is dominated by advanced computers and cybernetic technology. The vast information net provides a breeding ground for a new generation of criminals and offers the promise of a new existence to intrepid pioneers. In this world, what separates man from machine is the presence of the /ghost/, the very essence of a human soul. But what would happen if a computer AI could breech that gap, and attain its own ghost? Motoko Kusanagi is a top operative in Section 9, a special anti-cybernetic terrorism unit of the Japanese government. The many hard missions have begun to take their toll on her, and she is beginning to wonder whether she is more machine than human now… *||Princess Mononoke||* Directed by Hiyao Miyazaki 1997, 134 minutes 23^ February, 5.30 pm, Khoj 24^ February, 4.30 pm, Sarai While protecting his village from a rampaging boar-god, the young warrior Ashitaka becomes afflicted with a deadly curse. To find the cure that will save his life, he journeys deep into the sacred depths of the Great Forest Spirit's realm where he meets San (Princess Mononoke), a girl raised by wolves. It's not long before Ashitaka is caught in the middle of a battle between iron-ore prospecting humans and the forest dwellers. He must summon the spirit-powers and all his courage to stop man and nature from destroying each other. **** All screenings at Khoj at 5.30 pm, Thursdays All screenings at Sarai at 4.30 pm, Fridays The programme is subject to last minute changes. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[FELLOWSHIPS]] ================================================== Sarai-CSDS Independent FLOSS Fellowship Programme ================================================== The Sarai_CSDS Independent FLOSS Fellowships enable programmers to research and develop different kinds of open source software-based applications. Typically, these are projects of concrete and practical value, especially for social and educational ends. They are also the kinds of projects that would not usually find support in formal, institutional or market-driven settings, either because of the intent/ nature of the goal or because of the 'open' nature of the knowledge thus produced/created. The FLOSS Fellowships seek to tie software developments into existing requirements for software within the social sector, and support the writing and dissemination of well-researched technical papers in key areas of research. This year we had a score of proposals with very good ideas. The final set of selected fellows, and their projects, for this year are: *The Sarai- CSDS FLOSS Fellows 2006 * 1. Abhishek Choudhary - Kolkata Implementing/ Porting Hindawi, Romenagri, APCISR etc. to Linux / FLOSS environments 2. Baishampyan Ghose - Kohlapur(Maharashtra) / Kenneth Gonsalves - Udagamandalam(Tamilnadu) Panini - Integrated Translation Management System. 3. Ravishankar Srivastava - Ratlam (M.P.) Hindi Localization of OpenOffice.Org2.2 Help Contents 4. Sharad Maloo - Mumbai Open Source Parallel Database. 5. Subramanya Sastry - Bangalore Newsrack - Automating News Gathering and Classification 6. Supreet Sethi / Amit Sethi - Delhi Search Interface Driven Archive 7. Surekha Sastry/ Srinivasa Raghavan - Bangalore "Indic B2B" Localization Modules +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [[FORTHCOMING]] =============================================== Open Mic/Open Screen: An Evening of Mixed Forms =============================================== *Open Mic/Open SCreen: An Evening of Experimental Video, Film, Poetry, Prose, Spoken Word, Photographs, Audio & Sonic Work and Performance* 6:00 P.M., Friday, 10 March 2006 At the last Open Screen/Open Mic on the 31st of January at Sarai, about 30 people came together to listen, watch and experience mixed media forms over a period of about three hours. The open invitation had asked people to bring as diverse a range of works as they wished, and the selection was truly varied. Works included a short film on dance, a video loop called "Gurgaon Giraffe" which was a mesmerising meditation on a bulldozer, a student film on 9/11, a video project on love and longing in Bombay, travels in abandoned landscapes in Latvia, a short photo-essay (?) on demolitions in Delhi, a exuberant film on popular Islamic devotional music and iconography. Highlights of the evening included a selection of Bhojpuri song recordings from the 1960s, and a poetry-performance by Harlow. Some people showed completed works, some culls from works-in-progress, and some shared photographs. We wish to continue these sessions as a way for people working across a diversity of forms to come and share their work in an open, fun and relaxed context. We like the dynamic that is produced when all kinds of forms are brought together in the same space, a feast with many dishes to choose from, so to speak. The next Open Screen/Open Mic will be in March. However I am announcing it now so that friends know it is happening and have time to prepare. Perhaps you might want to create a small work for it, or transfer some older footage onto DVD/VCD format, or forage through photographs and select some you would like to share, or choose a piece to read/perform aloud :) How it works is, everyone gets 5-7 minutes to screen/play video/audio works, and read/perform text based work. You can share video, audio, poetry, spoken word, a short prose piece, a performance, singly or in groups, in any language (though do be prepared to translate for those uninitiated :) The screening/performance is decided on a first-come-first-serve basis. Films, Video and Audio pieces should be between 1-7 minutes long, and on DVD/VCD format only. Alternatively you can also pipe from a laptop. You can share a complete work, parts of a work, a work in progress, even stills, in B/W and or colour. Do come, tell your friends and share an evening with us! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ END OF NEWSLETTER 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. You can also take the Metro - get off at Civil Lines station. From dak at sarai.net Mon Feb 13 13:47:39 2006 From: dak at sarai.net (dak at sarai.net) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:17:39 +0100 (CET) Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Bare Acts @ U - Special Message-ID: <1048.61.246.29.180.1139818659.squirrel@mail.sarai.net> *Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts @ U-Special* Sarai-CSDS and the U-Special Bookstore invite you to a conversation on acts, legality, illegality, society, culture February 14, 2006, 2:30 P.M. ”...a relentless questioning of notions of borders, ownership, legibility and propriety...” The Idea of Illegality Economic and Political Weekly, November 2005 Bare Acts @ U Special features a panel of writers of Reader 05: *Tripta Wahi (Reader, Department of History, Hindu College), A. Bimol Akoijam (Associate Fellow, CSDS), Anand V. Taneja (Researcher, Sarai-CSDS), Taha Mahmood (Researcher Sarai-CSDS)* in conversation with Sonalini Kumar (Faculty, Department of Political Science, Lady Sri Ram College), Aarti Sethi and Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Sarai-CSDS) All are invited! Reading Room, U-Special Bookstore University Students Center opp. Faculty of Arts Delhi University From dak at sarai.net Mon Feb 20 15:18:26 2006 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 15:18:26 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Free Speech & Fearless Listening: The Encounter with Censorship in South Asia Message-ID: <43F9906A.8020500@sarai.net> Dear Friend The Delhi Film Archive and Films for Freedom, in association with Max Mueller Bhavan and the Sarai Programme at CSDS, Delhi take pleasure in inviting you to "Free Speech & Fearless Listening: The Encounter with Censorship in South Asia". The three day roundtable to discuss the challenges confronting cultural producers in the South Asia region will be held at the Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe Institute), Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi from February 22-24, 2006. This will be preceded by a 'curtain raiser' called "Interrogating Censorship" on February 21 at 4 :00 pm at Sarai. Independent documentary filmmakers, journalists, writers and other professionals have struggled to create spaces for images, words and ideas that find little support with governments or market-driven corporations. Meanwhile the transformed nature of information flows at the cusp of the late 20th and early 21st Century has rendered inadequate national territories as exclusive sites of study or debate. As newer technologies of production and dissemination generate an unprecedented amount of information, there are simultaneously greater demands for restrictions on speech from state, non-state and corporate players. The proposed 'roundtable' is an attempt to acknowledge and understand the circulation and curtailment of speech in the South Asia region and will attempt to engage with the transformed mediascape to understand how images and information are being created or erased. We look forward to your participation and contribution in what we hope will be an on-going conversation. Please find attached the Proposed Schedule and List of Participants. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at For the Delhi Film Archive - Amar Kanwar / Anupama Srinivasan / Atul Gupta / Gargi Sen / Gurvinder Singh/ Kavita Joshi/ Nakul Sood / Rahul Roy / Raj Baruah/ Ranjani Mazumdar/ Saba Dewan / Samina Mishra / Sanjay Kak / Sanjay Maharishi / Sabeena Gadihoke / Sameera Jain/ Sherna Dastur/ Shikha Jhingan/ Shuddhabrata Sengupta / Shohini Ghosh / Shubhradeep Chakravorty / Uma Devi) Feb 22-24 Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi / tel 23332 9506 Feb 21 Sarai Programme / CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi / tel 2396 0040 Information: delhifilmarchive at yahoo.com --------------------------------- Schedule of Events Day 1 : 21 February 2006 Tuesday Sarai CSDS, Rajpur Road 4:00 ­ - 7:00 P.M. : Interrogating Censorship Andres Veiel (Berlin) Jitman Basnet (Kathmandu/ Delhi) Malathi Maithri (Pondicherry) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar) Vinod Jose (New Delhi) Chair Shuddhabrata Sengupta ************** Day 2 : 22 February 2006 Wednesday Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg 9:30 - 10:00 A.M. : Opening Remarks Rahul Roy / Delhi Film Archive 10:00 - 11:30 A.M. : Reports from the Region Hassan Zaidi (Karachi) Jitman Basnet (Kathmandu/ Delhi) Prasanna Vithanage (Colombo) Tanvir Mokammel (Dhaka) Tenzin Tsundoe (Dharamsala) Video Intervention: May Nyein (Burma) presented by Nem Davies Chair Amar Kanwar 12:00 - 1:30 P.M. : Framed by The Law Lawrence Liang (Bangalore) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Discussants: Jitman Basnet / Prasanna Vithanage / Hassan Zaidi Intervention: Shahid Amin (Delhi) Chair TBA 2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Court Encounters PA Sebastian (Mumbai) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Discussants: Lawrence Liang / Prasanna Vithanage Chair Prashant Bhushan 4:30 - 6:00 P.M. : Silences from Srinagar & Shillong Aijaz Hussain (Srinagar) P G Rasul (Srinagar) Robin S Ngangom (Shillong) Tarun Bhartiya (Shillong) Intervention: Parvaiz Bukhari (Srinagar) Chair Sanjay Kak 6:00 P.M. : Screening Black Box Germany (102 min) dir: Andres Veiel (director present) discussant: Shuddhabrata Sengupta ************** Day 3 : 23 February 2006 Thursday Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg 10:00 - 11:00 A.M. : "Private" Censorship Andres Veiel (Berlin) Chair Shuddhabrata Sengupta 11:30 - 1:30 P.M. : Locating Hate & Censorship Deepak Mehta (Delhi) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Shohini Ghosh (Delhi) Intervention: Arundhati Roy (Delhi) Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Delhi) Jawed Naqvi (Delhi) Chair Dilip Simeon 2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Writing The Body and Mind Malathi Maithri (Pondicherry) Sanjay Srivastava (Delhi) In Conversation: Shuddhabrata Sengupta & Shohini Ghosh Chair TBA 4:30 - 6:00 P.M. : Fiction in The Censor's Web Anurag Kashyap (Mumbai) Prasanna Vithanage (Colombo) Tanvir Mokammel (Dhaka) Vimukthi Jayasundara (Colombo/Paris) Chair Ranjani Mazumdar 6:00 P.M. : Screening Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) dir: Vimukthi Jayasundara (director present) ************** Day 4 : 24 February 2006 Friday Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg 10:00 - 11:30 A.M. : Voices made invisible Anil Chamadia (Delhi) Ravi Kumar (Chennai) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar) Intervention: Vimal Thorat Chair Gargi Sen 12:00 - 1:30 P.M. : The Business of Censorship CP Chandrashekhar (Delhi) Jawed Naqvi (Delhi) Najam Sethi (Lahore) Paranjoy Guhathakurta (Delhi) Chair TBA 2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Towards a "Counter Culture" Amar Kanwar (Delhi) Hassan Zaidi (Karachi) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar) Mukul Mangalik (Delhi) Chair Saba Dewan 4:30 - 6:00 pm : Open Space 6:00 P.M. : Screening Purahanda Kaluwara (Death on a Full Moon Day) dir: Prasanna Vithanage (director present) ------------------------------------------------ List of Speakers and Panelists Aijaz Hussain, Srinagar currently writes on politics and business for India Today and Business Standard from Srinagar. Before this, he wrote for about four years for the Daily Excelsior, a regional newspaper published from Jammu. He has also worked briefly for CNBC-TV18 television network. Besides these he has been reporting on assignment for Associated Press. Aijaz Hussain has an MA in Mass Communication & Journalism (1999). Andres Veiel, Berlin is one of Germany´s most important documentary filmmakers. His breakthrough documentary Balagan (1993), was a portrait of a controversial Israeli theatre group. His subsequent film, The Survivors (1996) investigates the suicides of three young men. His highly acclaimed Black Box Germany (2001) received the European Film Award for best Documentary, and was released in numerous German movie halls. His latest film Addicted to Acting (2004) won the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Anil Chamadia, New Delhi is a writer and columnist, who has been a commentator on political and social issues for almost all the major Hindi dailies - Jansatta, Navbharat Times, Hindustan, Amar Ujala and Dainik Bhaskar. He also writes a column on the electronic media for the literary magazine Kathadesh. As a Special Correspondent/Writer with Business India Television's TVI channel, he has also produced more than 1000 news bulletins for prime-time news. Anurag Kashyap, Mumbai is a writer turned director and his writing credits include several Hindi films like Paisa Vasool (2004), Jung (2000), Kaun (1999) and Satya (1998). He has written dialogues for Main Aisa Hi Hoon, (2005), Yuva (2004), Nayak : The Real Hero (2001) and Shool (1999). Anurag Kashyap¹s directorial debut Paanch (Five) (2003) has been twice refused a clearance certificate by the censor board. His film Black Friday (2004) on the Mumbai blasts has also run into censor problems. Arundhati Roy, New Delhi is a writer, and the author of the novel, The God of Small Things. Collections of her political essays have been published in India as The Algebra of Infinite Justice and The Ordinary Person¹s Guide to Empire. C.P.Chandrashekhar, New Delhi is Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. He has taught at the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is an economic columnist for Frontline and Business Line. His publications include Crisis as Conquest: Learning from East Asia (Tracts for Our Times 12, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2001) and The Market the Failed: Neoliberal Economic Reforms in India, (Leftword Books, New Delhi, 2002/2004) both co-authored with Jayati Ghosh. Deepak Mehta, Delhi is a Reader in the Department of Sociology, University of Delhi. He is the author of Work, Ritual, Biography: A Muslim Community in North India (OUP 1977). Since 1994 he has been researching on violence between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay. Dilip Simeon, Delhi taught at the History Department of Ramjas College, Delhi from 1974 till1994. His work on the labour movement of southern Bihar was published as The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism (1995). As part of the Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan (Movement Against Communalism) he participated in a campaign for communal harmony and justice for the victims of the 1984 carnage in Delhi. Dilip has been a visiting scholar at the universities of Surat, Sussex, Chicago, Leiden and Princeton. From 1998 till 2003 he worked as senior research fellow on conflict issues with Oxfam (India) Trust in Delhi, and is now chairperson of the Aman Trust, which works to understand and reduce violent social conflict. Hassan Zaidi, Karachi is an award winning journalist and filmmaker, who has been associated with the Pakistani monthly Herald, Geo TV, Singapore's Channel News Asia, and Star News. He currently works as a producer-correspondent for NBC News and writes for a number of international papers (including India Today) and has produced radio packages for the BBC's Urdu service. He has directed a number of documentaries, music videos and shorts, and the feature film Raat Chali Hai Jhoom Ke. He is currently Director of the KaraFilm ­ Karachi International Film Festival. Jawed Naqvi, New Delhi is a former Chief Reporter of Gulf News and News Editor of Khaleej Times, and a veteran journalist who has also worked for many years with Reuters in Delhi. He has covered wars from frontlines in Iran, Iraq, Western Sahara, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Jaffna. After the nuclear tests of 1998, he embarked on a mission of cross-border journalism, campaigning against nuclear madness and human rights abuses. He writes as a freelance journalist for the Karachi Dawn and the Dhaka New Age. Occasionally writes for Tehelka and appears as an analyst for TV channels Jitman Basnet, Kathmandu is a lawyer and journalist by profession, and has been editor and publisher of Sagarmatha Times a national monthly magazine published from Kathmandu, and Cine Hotline. In Sep 2002, he was arrested by the Maoists but eventually released. In Feb 2004 Jitman Basnet was arrested by the Royal Nepal Army and was in detention for about 10 months. The reason for his arrest was an article that he had written about the army¹s violation of human rights. Subsequent to his release he was forced to escape from Nepal, and at present lives in exile in Delhi. Lawrence Liang, Bangalore is a researcher at the Alternative Law Forum a collective of lawyers who work on various aspects of law, legality and power. Lawrence has been working on a research project on the politics of intellectual property in collaboration with Sarai/CSDS, and is also very interested in the intersection of law and culture. He has recently completed a monograph on censorship and cinema in India called The Public is watching (for PSBT). Malathi Maithri, Pondicherry is a Tamil poet (and activist) whose poems are considered highly inventive in the Tamil context. Her published collections include Sankaraabarani 2002, Neerindri Amaiyaathu Ulagu 2003, and Neeli 2005. Her articles, serialized in the magazine Theranathi, encouraged many young woman writers to identify and articulate their silenced voices and are published as Viduthalai Ezhuthuthal (Writing the Freedom) 2004. With her fellow poet Kirushangini she published an anthology of modern women¹s poems Paratthal Athan Suthanthiram. She is the founder secretary of Ananku, a forum for feminist activities. Najam Sethi, Lahore is an eminent Pakistani journalist, editor, and news media personality and Editor-in-Chief of The Friday Times and The Daily Times. An aggressively independent journalist, Najam Sethi and his publications are often in trouble with Pakistani governments. He was imprisoned by then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a case that evoked an international outcry that eventually pressured the government to release him. P.A.Sebastian, Mumbai is a lawyer working in the field of civil liberties and democratic rights of the people since 1977. In the Bombay textile strike he filed 28 writs of Habeas Corpus to secure the release of trade union workers. He has also fought a celebrated case of illegal land allotment to Judges of the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. He has written articles for several journals including the Economic & Political Weekly. Prashant Bhushan, Delhi is a public interest lawyer and activist who has been involved in Public Interest Law and activism involving issues of corruption and accountability, the environment, and human rights. He has been on the governing bodies of several public interest organisations including the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, the People's Union for Civil Liberties, the Committee on Judicial Accountability, and the Citizen's Forum against Corruption. He has also authored The case that shook India Bofors: the selling of a nation, and writes in various publications on issues of public interest. P.G.Rasool, Srinagar has been writing in Urdu for the past fourteen years, in a weekly column on current affairs in Kashmir Uzma (Greater Kashmir) the Urdu weekly published from Srinagar. He has also authored a book titled Kashmir 1947 (Urdu). The book looks at the events of 1947 and the origins of the Kashmir issue. Rasool is widely respected for his probing and dispassionate analysis of events and political commentary. P G Rasool is a postgraduate in Mass Communication & Journalism from the University of Kashmir. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Delhi started his career as a journalist in June 1977 and has worked with Business India, BusinessWorld, The Telegraph, India Today and The Pioneer. And with TV18 for almost six years where he anchored a daily interview and discussion programme called ³India Talks² on the CNBC channel. He has also directed a number of documentary films including Idiot Box or Window of Hope and University of Delhi: A Haven of Learning. He is co-author (with Shankar Raghuraman) of A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand, (Sage India 2004). He is currently Director of the School of Convergence. Prasanna Vithanage, Srilanka directed his first film Sisila Gini Gani (Ice on Fire) 1992 won nine OCIC (Sri Lanka) Awards including Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress. His second feature Anantha Rathriya (Dark Night of the Soul), 1996 won a Jury's Special Mention at the First Pusan International Film festival. Pawuru Walalu (Walls Within) 1997 won the Best Actress Award at the Singapore International Film Festival 1998. His feature Purahanda Kaluwara (Death on A Full Moon Day) 1997, won the Grand Prix at the Amiens Film Festival. Initially banned by the government of Sri Lanka, it has since become the most successful film in the half century long history of cinema in Sri Lanka. Prasanna has just completed his fifth film ŒIra Madiyama¹. Ravi Kumar, Pondicherry is a writer, essayist and translator, who started the critical magazines Nirapirikai (The Spectrum) and Dalit, which does not limit itself to dalit literature or dalit issues, but focuses on other writings/cultures. He is the editor of Bodhi, the Tamil dalit history quarterly. He also wrote the life of Malcolm X in a serialized form for Dalit Murasu (run by the Dalit Media Network) and the revived history of the so-called untouchable poet, Nandanar, which is carried in serialised form in Thai Mann (run by Dalit Panthers of India). In association with the journalist S.Anand, he has recently started the alternative publishing house, Navayana. He is a former President of the People¹s Union for Civil Liberties, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu. Robin S Ngangom, Shillong is a Manipuri English poet and a translator of Manipuri writing. He has published two volumes of poetry, and edited Anthology of Contemporary poetry from North East. His latest collection of poems is being published by Chandrabhaga Press. He currently teaches in Shillong Sanjay Srivastava, Delhi is a social anthropologist, currently on leave from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. His key publications include 'Constructing Post-colonial India. National Character and the Doon School' (1998), 'Asia. Cultural Politics in the Global World' (2001, co-author), 'Sexual Sites, Seminal Attitudes' (2004, contributing editor), and, 'An Education of the Passions. Sexuality, Consumption and Class in India' (In Press). Sara Hossain, Dhaka is a lawyer practicing in the high court division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She is actively involved with Ain o Salish Kendra [law and mediation centre], and the Bangladesh Legal Aid & Services Trust, a national legal services organisation. She earlier worked with Interights, and International Human Rights Law Centre, London. Her publications include Honour Crimes, Paradigms and Violence against Women (co-edited with Lynn Welchman), Zed Press, London 1995. She has acted in a number of cases involving the censorship of films, or banning of publications Shahid Amin, Delhi received his D.Phil. from Oxford University and is currently Professor of History at the University of Delhi. Among his publications are Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (1995) and Writing Alternative Histories: A View from India (2002) as well as several seminal essays in Subaltern Studies - of which project he is one of the founding editors. He is the editor of A Concise Encyclopaedia of North Indian Peasant Life (2005), the co-editor, with Gyan Pandey, of Nimnvargiya Itihas, Bhag Ek, Bhag Do (1994, 2001), and has also written the Hindustani dialogues of the feature film Karvan directed by Pankaj Butalia. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Stanford, Princeton, and Berlin. Sudhir Pattnaik, Bhuvaneshwar, is Editor of Samadristi an Oriya fortnightly news magazine and is Chairman of Independent Media - an alternative media group consisting of filmmakers, writers and journalists who work for developing alternative media initiatives in Orissa. Tenzin Tsundoe, Dharamshala is a writer-activist born to a Tibetan refugee family in India. After graduating from Chennai, he crossed the Himalayas on foot to enter Tibet, where he was arrested by the Chinese border police, and after three months in prison in Lhasa, was pushed back to India. He has been widely published in a range of Indian and foreign publications and has won the first-ever Outlook-Picador Award for Non-Fiction in 2001. Since 1999 Tsundue has worked with Friends of Tibet (India) in 1999 as its general secretary. In January 2002 he scaled the scaffolding to the 14th floor of the Oberoi Towers in Mumbai to unfurl a Tibetan national flag and a banner which read "Free Tibet" down the hotel's façade while China's Premier Zhu Rongji was inside addressing a conference of Indian business tycoons. In April 2005, he repeated this feat during the Bangalore visit of the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jia Bao. Tarun Bhartiya, Shillong is an activist with the freedom project Shillong. A Hindi poet with published work in Samkalin Bhartiya Sahitya, Pahel, Hans, Akshar Parv, and the Sarai Reader. Tarun is also a filmmaker whose work in progress is called Tourist Information for Shillong (four parts done - fifth being thought about). He has worked for NDTV and Campkins Camera Centre (a camera shop). Currently Tarun Bhartiya is founding-member of alt-space, an open space for culture and politics in Shillong. Tanvir Mokammel, Dhaka is a filmmaker with several award winning documentaries and feature films to his credit. His features include Nadir Nam Modhumat (The River named Modhumati) 1995 which received three national awards and Chitra Nadir Pare (Quiet Flows the river Chitra) 1998 a feature film on the destiny of a Hindu family in East Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. It received seven national awards including best film, best story, best script writing, best art direction and best director of the year. Lalsalu (A tree without roots) 2001 centers on the life of a Mullah who establishes a false shrine in a remote village in Bangladesh and received eight national awards including the best film, best script writing, best cinematography, best sound and best director of the year. His latest feature Lalon 2004 is based on the life and persona of the mystic song-composer Lalon Fakir. His documentaries include Hooliya (Wanted), Smriti Ekattor (Remembrance), Achin Pakhi (The unknown bard) and Karnaphulir Kanna, (Teardrops Of Karnaphuli), a documentary on the plight of the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a film that has been banned by the Government of Bangladesh. Tanvir Mokammel is a prolific writer who has taught film and film appreciation at the Viswa Sahitya Kendro and Standford University. He is the Director, Bangladesh Film Institute. Vimal Thorat, Delhi is a well-known writer in Hindi who teaches the language at the Indira Gandhi National Open University. She is deeply concerned with issues of marginalisation, and deprivation of the dalit people and her pioneering work has brought to the forefront the special deprivation and status of Dalit women . She was the President of the Dalit Writer's Association and gave the fledgling group a dynamic direction. She is associated with many national and international human rights organisations. Vimukthi Jayasundara, Srilanka As a 28-year-old Vimukthi became only the second filmmaker from Sri Lanka to compete for an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. Jayasundara¹s film Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land) competed in the Un Certain Regard section and received the Caméra d¹Or, Cannes¹s award for first-time filmmakers. Jayasundara worked in the advertising industry and wrote film reviews before studying at the Film and Television Institute of India from 1998 to 2001. Returning to Sri Lanka, he joined the Government Film Unit and made The Land of Silence, a black-and-white documentary about the victims of Sri Lanka¹s civil war. In 2001, he received a grant to continue his film studies in France at Le Fresnoy. As a student there Jayasundara made Empty for Love (2002), a short film that was selected for Cinéfondation, the student category at Cannes. Amar Kanwar Rahul Roy Ranjani Mazumdar Saba Dewan Sanjay Kak Shohini Ghosh Shudhabhrata Sengupta are film-makers and members of the Delhi Film Archive From dak at sarai.net Thu Feb 23 18:52:30 2006 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:52:30 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Internet and The Culture of Openness Message-ID: <43FDB716.4060502@sarai.net> ######################################################################## CACIM and Sarai/CSDS invites you to a discussion on * "Internet and The Culture of Openness" * Date : March 2, 2006, Thursday Time : 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm Venue: Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, New Delhi 110054 ######################################################################### In recent years, the idea and practices of openness seem to have become very popular, especially on the Internet. That this is not restricted to the electronic realm is evident from one of the popular concepts of the World Social Forum (WSF) -- while the WSF means many things to many people, one of the more prominent conceptions of the WSF is as an 'open space' where individuals, organizations, and movements come together, share, exchange, build bridges, relationships, strategize, etc. Today, various trends and practices of "openness" are prevalent on the Internet -- the free/open-source movement has in turn spurred various other endeavours from open access journals, open maps, open knowledge, open content, open design, open publishing, open encyclopedias (wikipedia), open politics, open democracy, and so on. Clearly, most of these endeavours in "openness" appear rooted in the potential and promise of the Internet -- as an interactive communication medium where everyone can potentially reach out to anyone in the wide open world. Yet, in the course of the last year or so, there have been developments that raise several questions about how true this really is, and how long will it reamin to be true. There was the struggle over control of Internet's root servers, then the case of Yahoo! enabling the Chinese Government to convict a journalist, and recently, Google's capitulation to Chinese demands for content censorship. The question here is more about the robustness of openness of the Internet rather than about Yahoo or Google. With this extremely brief background and context, we invite you to a discussion to take a critical look on the theme "Internet and the culture of openness", the promise, potential, and practicality of it. Theme: Internet and the culture of openness Date : March 2, 2006, Thursday Time : 2:00 pm Venue: Sarai, CSDS, 29, Rajpur Road, New Delhi 110 054 We encourage submissions from you before the meeting (at least an idea or a question that you would like to bring up during the meeting) so that it can help us facilitate a logical flow during the discussion. Even if you are not from Delhi, and/or cannot be part of the discussion, we encourage you to write in -- your contribution will be shared with the group. We also hope to put up some of this material on a website (open to, participation of course!). Here are some questions to consider: - Is the underlying idea of openness particularly new to the Internet era? Or, what is the history of this value of openness? What can we say of its appeal in the future? - Are we now entering a world losing control over our commons in the real world and getting enraptured by the commons of the electronic world? - How much of this practice of "openness", so prevalent in the domain of the Internet, carries over to the domain of interactions in the world of flesh-and-blood? Seen another way, if found desirable, how does one translate the practice and culture of openness from the electronic world to the "real" world? - How stable and robust are these practices of openness in the electronic world, dependent as strongly as they are on technological enablers that, atleast on the surface, seem easily subverted? Seen another way, what are the weaknesses of the Internet-driven cultures of openness? Write to Subbu (sastry at cs.wisc.edu), Seby (sebydesiolim at cacim.net), Madhuresh (cacim at cacim.net), Shuddhabrata (shuddha at sarai.net), or Gora (gora_mohanty at rediffmail.com). Note on CACIM ------------- *CACIM*, the India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in Movement, aims to create spaces for cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural reflection and action in relation to movement in its broader sense, of motion, _expression, and change as a fundamental fact of life and society. Our goal is to support and encourage all those involved in different ways with 'movement' - activists, researchers, professionals, artistes, and thinkers, both the more mature and young, and both from 'civil' and 'incivil' worlds - in our respective work as individuals and organisations and also in networks. Our present focus is on cultures of politics in movement, the exploration of open space as a political-cultural concept, and exploring through actions, cyberspace as open space. CACIM sees itself not as an independent organisation but interlinked and interdependent, plugged into and learning from the world around us. With this vision, we presently conceive CACIM as evolving into a hub within networks among individuals and organisations located in different parts of India and the world. info at cacim.net