From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 20 14:12:43 2010 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:42:43 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: at Twente University in Enschede, Holland for the HAL2001 conference this year. The HAL2001 convention is the fourth in a series that has been running every four years since 1989. Pankaj Kaushal and Supreet Sethi, programmers with Sarai, were excited participants in the conference this year. The Sarai team lived with the ASCII guys, and along with laying plastic pipes for the optical fiber and volunteering for the security team they , they attended lectures on issues as diverse (or similar!) as cybercrime, biometrics, BSD kernals, designing and maintaining high security linuxserver appliances to digital banking, and how the Amsterdam Internet exchange runs. HAL2001 was not just about a celebration of the Internet and new technologies. Rather this enthusiasm was moderated with the knowledge that all these wonderful new technologies come with new risks to the individual and to society as a whole. To know more about HAL 2001, go to http://www.hal2001.org/hal/01Home ------------------------------------------- 3. Tech _2 Conference Report http://tech2.southspace.org Monica Narula and Supreet Sethi participated in the Tech_2 event at Bristol from 17-25 of August. Originally meant to be held at the Cube, the only independently run cinema space in the city of Bristol, the event had to be relocated to the Windmill Hill City Farm due to a fire at the Cube. No one was hurt... "Tech_2, Bristol, was a series of events, workshops, seminars and discussions, involving people using digital technologies for building independent media structures, developing and exposing their own forms of expression, and supporting interventions into social and cultural spaces. Tech_2 emphasized skills and knowledge sharing and developing networks, as well as an exploration of the social and political aspects of digital technology. Tech_2 participants were: digital artists, musicians, technical experts, independent journalists, radio and video makers, researchers, dancers, DJs, writers, poets,organizers...and many people who cross over these categories and many people who don't fit into any." Monica Narula made a presentation on "Software from Below?", which stressed the need for understanding the social context in which software is produced and used and the role - or lack of it - of marginal voices in technical innovation, with references to he ongoing Cybermohalla project at Sarai. The presentation is available at http://tronic.southspace.net The documentation on other sessions such as SQUID, IPSEC, etc) is also available here. Supreet Sethi was troubleshooter at large besides configuring servers and writing shell scripts. Monica Narula also presented an evening of films from India @ the Hatchet Pub, including "In the Eye of the Fish" ( a film by Raqs Media Collective), and "Satya" (a film by Ram Gopal Varma). ------------------------------------------------------ 4. New Media Art Practice Workshop Mouseclicks in the Consciousness:Orientation Workshop on New Media Art Practice @ Sarai A four day workshop on New Media Art Practice at Sarai was held recently at the Interface Zone at Sarai. The workshop was held in collaboration with the British Council and the Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi. It was accompanied by an exhibition of contemporary new media art practice from the UK, at the Queens Gallery of the British Council, New Delhi. The exhibition was curated by the Raqs Media Collective and the workshop was co-ordinated by the Sarai Media Lab. The exhibition featured works by Graham Harwood (Rehearsals of Memory), Mongrel (The Mongrel Tate Project) I/O/D (Web Stalker) Audio Rom Collective (Audio Rom), Heath Bunting & Rachel Baker (Irational), Hugo Glendenning & Time Etchells (Nightwalks), c6.org, backspace.org and Manu Luksch/Ambient TV (Broadbandit Highway). Regular participants at the workshop included Subba Ghosh, Shukla Sawant, Sheila Makhijani, Arun and Bharati Chaturvedi. Uma Shankar did a session on sound for multimedia practice, and Inke Arns, visiting German curator and new media artist and member of the Mikro collective in Germany, made presentations about contemporary new media practice in Germany. From the Sarai Media Lab, Mrityunjoy Chatterjee took sessions on basic HTML and free software tools for artists, Jeebesh Bagchi introduced the ideas behind free software culture, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta made presentations on the conceptual foundations of new media and net art. Supreet Sethi made a presentation on the mechanisms of the Internet. The Media Lab prepared a selection of texts on new media art practice and net art into a small Reader which was given to the participants and to visitors at the exhibition venue. This being an introductory workshop, there was more emphasis on the conceptual foundations of new media art practice. Amongst the issues that were discussed were the interactive, hybrid and transformative properties of digital objects, the creative possibilities of collaborative practice, the ethic and aesthetic of free software and social/political interventions through art practice on the Internet. It was particularly interesting to note that one of the afternoon discussions, initiated by Inke Arns, soon became focused on the role of art practice in a climate of surveillance. The participants initiated personal projects, which they hope to pursue at the Interface Zone and familiarized themselves with Gimp, Star Office and other free software tools. Simultaneously, the Media Lab had also arranged for screenings of a selection of new media projects, CDs and websites. Inke Arns also showed a selection of recent new media projects from Germany. The workshop ended (3:30 pm, 15 September) with an Open Public Discussion at the Queen's gallery at the British Council. This session was well attended and included several students form the Delhi College of Art, the Fine Arts Department of Jamia Millia Islamia and individual Artists. It was informal, animated and lively. Some of the workshop participants (Subba Ghosh, Shukla Sawant and Sheila Makhijani) also discussed a spectrum of issues, ranging from masquerade, hybridity, and the search for a new language, to collaboration and the difference between art "in, of and for the public domain" (Shukla Sawant). Inke Arns spoke about the continuities between media practices and the importance of the notion of "minor media". Jeebesh Bagchi spoke about free software, the free art license and the cultural implications of open and modifiable art practices. Geeta Kapur, noted art critic and historian, raised very significant questions about the specific phenomenology of being located online. This led to an animated discussion about connectivity and technology, emancipation and entropy, fear and intimacy as being key terms by which we can begin to speak of an online aesthetic experience. The discussion was moderated by Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Monica Narula introduced the selection of British new media projects on display, and showed video interviews with Heath Bunting and Rachel Baker which she had recorded during her recent visit to Bristol UK, to participate in the Tech_2 Workshop. The combination of discussion, critical input, exploration of software, presentations, screenings, training and hands on activity - that the workshop brought together - made for an atmosphere that was both intellectually stimulating and creatively productive. -------------------------------------------------------- 5. New @ Sarai Website A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons: Raqs Media Collective http://www.sarai.net/compositions/texts/works/lexicon.htm --------------------------------------------------------- 6. Forthcoming Events i). Writing the City: Electronic Workshop on Hypertextual Writing on the City October 1-5 2001 Interface Zone, Sarai, in collaboration with Nungu.Com Writing the City Electronic is a workshop on experimental electronic writing practices. Participants will render urban experience into bodies of online text through collaborative writing sessions, derives in the city and learn basic html based writing techniques. the workshop will be conducted by Beatrice Gibson and Vishal Rawlley from www.nungu.com (an online space for artists and writers, Mumbai). Workshop animator from Sarai - Monica Narula. Participation is by invitation. For more details contact monica at sarai.net ii) Curated Film Series III St. Stephens College Cine Club is curating a festival of films from October 17th to 19th 2001. A total of five films will be screened, two each on the 17th and the 18th of October, and one on the 19th of October. There will be a discussion after the screening on the 19th, coordinated by Ravi Vasudevan. However the audience is welcome to initiate discussions on the first two days of the festival. The screening will be held at the Seminar Room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 54. The Films in the order of screening are listed below. Please note that not all the films are screened at the usual time of 4:30. 1. October 17, 2001 i)Time: 2:00 pm Amarcord, 1974, 124 minutes Director: Federico Fellini ii)Time: 4:30 pm La Chinoise, 1967, 15 minutes Director: Jean-Luc Godard 2. October 18th 2001 i)Time: 2:00 pm The 400 Blows, 1959, 95 minutes Director: Francois Truffaut ii)Time: 4:30 pm Trainspotting, 1995, 94 minutes Director: Danny Boyle 3. October 19th , 2001 Time: 4:30 pm Hate, 1995, 95 minutes Director: Mathieu Kassovitz Saumya Gupta Coordinator, Research and Programmes Sarai: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054 Phone: 3960040, 3951190 Fax: 2943450 www.sarai.net --=====================_7841071==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" 1.Search for Programme Coordinator
2.HAL 2001 Report
3.Tech _2 Conference Report
4.New Media Art Practice Workshop
5.New @ Sarai Website
6.Forthcoming Events @ Sarai
------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Search for Programme Coordinator

Sarai, an interdisciplinary programme with interests in cinema, urban
cultures,  digital media and free software, requires a Programme Coordinator. You are expected to administer and coordinate the different public programmes at Sarai - screenings, workshops,conferences and outreach activities - and build networks.

We are looking for a young, energetic and dynamic professional, with a
commitment to the idea of an active public culture and the freedom of
expression, a high degree of people skills, a desire to animate public
spaces with intellectually challenging content, and an interest in the
emerging alternatives in media cultures & politics.

Familiarity with computers, ability to administer newsletters &
databases and fluency in English & Hindi are necessary. The applicant
should be in the age range 25-35 with prior work experience involving
similar responsibilities. Competitive salaries will be offered. Apply
with a CV and a short statement (500 words) about how you see your
role in Sarai. For more details about us, visit our website www.sarai.net

Apply Immediately, last date for receipt of application: 15th October,
2001.

Contact - Ravi Vasudevan, Sarai, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054.
Tel: (011) 395 -1190,  396- 0040
E mail : raviv at sarai.net
------------------------------------------

2. HAL 2001 Report

From August 10-12, almost 3000 hackers from around the world gathered
at Twente University in Enschede, Holland for the HAL2001 conference this year. The HAL2001 convention is the fourth in a series that has been running every four years since 1989. Pankaj Kaushal and Supreet Sethi,
programmers with Sarai, were excited participants in the conference
this year.

The Sarai team lived with the ASCII guys, and along with laying
plastic pipes for the optical fiber and volunteering for the security
team they , they attended lectures on issues as diverse (or similar!)
as cybercrime,  biometrics, BSD kernals, designing and maintaining
high security linuxserver appliances to digital banking, and how the
Amsterdam Internet exchange runs. HAL2001 was not just about a
celebration of the Internet and new technologies. Rather this
enthusiasm was moderated with the knowledge that all these wonderful
new technologies come with new risks to the individual and to society
as a whole.

To know more about HAL 2001, go to http://www.hal2001.org/hal/01Home
-------------------------------------------

3. Tech _2 Conference Report
http://tech2.southspace.org

Monica Narula and Supreet Sethi participated in the Tech_2 event at Bristol from 17-25 of August. Originally meant to be held at the Cube,
the only independently run cinema space in the city of Bristol, the
event had to be relocated to the Windmill Hill City Farm due to a fire
at the Cube. No one was hurt...

"Tech_2, Bristol, was a series of events, workshops, seminars and discussions, involving people using digital technologies for building
independent media structures, developing and exposing their own forms
of expression, and supporting interventions into social and cultural spaces. Tech_2 emphasized skills and knowledge sharing and developing
networks, as well as an exploration of the social and political aspects of digital technology.

Tech_2 participants were: digital artists, musicians, technical
experts, independent journalists, radio and video makers, researchers,
dancers, DJs, writers, poets,organizers...and many people who cross over these categories and many people who
don't fit into any."

Monica Narula made a presentation on "Software from Below?", which
stressed the need for understanding the social context in which
software is produced and used and the role - or lack of it - of
marginal voices in technical innovation, with references to he ongoing
Cybermohalla project at Sarai.
The presentation is available at http://tronic.southspace.net

The documentation on other sessions such as SQUID, IPSEC, etc) is also
available here. Supreet Sethi was troubleshooter at large besides
configuring servers and writing shell scripts.

Monica Narula also presented an evening of films  from India @ the
Hatchet Pub, including "In the Eye of the Fish" ( a film by Raqs Media
Collective), and "Satya" (a film by Ram Gopal Varma).
------------------------------------------------------

4. New Media Art Practice Workshop

Mouseclicks in the Consciousness:Orientation Workshop on New Media Art
Practice @ Sarai

A four day workshop on New Media Art Practice at Sarai was held recently at the Interface Zone at Sarai. The workshop was held in collaboration with the British Council and the Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi.

It was accompanied by an exhibition of contemporary new media art practice from the UK, at the Queens Gallery of the British Council, New Delhi. The exhibition was curated by the Raqs Media Collective and the workshop was co-ordinated by the Sarai Media Lab. The exhibition featured works by Graham Harwood (Rehearsals of Memory), Mongrel (The Mongrel Tate Project) I/O/D (Web Stalker) Audio Rom Collective (Audio Rom), Heath Bunting & Rachel Baker (Irational), Hugo Glendenning & Time Etchells (Nightwalks),
c6.org, backspace.org  and Manu Luksch/Ambient TV (Broadbandit Highway).

Regular participants at the workshop included Subba Ghosh, Shukla Sawant, Sheila Makhijani, Arun and Bharati Chaturvedi. Uma Shankar did a session on sound for multimedia practice, and Inke Arns, visiting German curator and new media artist and member of the Mikro collective in Germany, made presentations about contemporary new media practice in Germany. From the Sarai Media Lab, Mrityunjoy Chatterjee took sessions on basic HTML and free software tools for artists, Jeebesh Bagchi  introduced the ideas behind free software culture, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta made presentations on the conceptual foundations of new media and net art. Supreet Sethi made a presentation on the mechanisms of the Internet. The Media Lab prepared a selection of texts on new media art practice and net art into a small Reader which was given to the participants and to visitors at the exhibition venue.

This being an introductory workshop, there was more emphasis on the conceptual foundations of new media art practice. Amongst the issues that were discussed were the interactive, hybrid and transformative properties of digital objects, the creative possibilities of collaborative practice, the ethic and aesthetic of free software and social/political interventions through art practice on the Internet.

It was particularly interesting to note that one of the afternoon discussions, initiated by Inke Arns, soon became focused on the role
of art practice in a climate of surveillance. The participants initiated personal projects, which they hope to pursue at the Interface Zone and familiarized themselves with Gimp, Star Office and other free software tools.

Simultaneously, the Media Lab had also arranged for screenings of a
selection of new media projects, CDs and websites. Inke Arns also showed a selection of recent new media projects from Germany.

The workshop ended (3:30 pm, 15 September) with an Open Public Discussion at the Queen's gallery at the British Council. This session was  well attended and included several students form the Delhi College of Art, the Fine Arts Department of Jamia Millia Islamia and individual Artists. It was informal, animated and lively. Some of the workshop participants (Subba Ghosh, Shukla Sawant and Sheila Makhijani) also discussed a spectrum of issues, ranging from masquerade, hybridity, and the search for a new language, to collaboration and the difference between art "in, of and for the public domain" (Shukla Sawant).

Inke Arns spoke about the continuities between media practices and the
importance of the notion of "minor media". Jeebesh Bagchi spoke about free software, the free art license and the cultural implications of open and modifiable art practices. Geeta Kapur, noted art critic and historian, raised very significant questions about the specific phenomenology of being located online. This led to an animated discussion about connectivity and technology, emancipation and entropy, fear and intimacy as being key terms by which we can begin to speak of an online aesthetic experience. The discussion was moderated by Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Monica Narula introduced the selection of British new media projects on display, and showed video interviews with Heath Bunting and Rachel Baker which she had recorded during her recent visit to Bristol UK, to participate in the Tech_2 Workshop.

The combination of discussion, critical input, exploration of software, presentations, screenings, training and hands on activity - that the workshop brought together - made for an atmosphere that was both intellectually stimulating and creatively productive.
--------------------------------------------------------

5. New @ Sarai Website

A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons: Raqs Media Collective
http://www.sarai.net/compositions/texts/works/lexicon.htm
---------------------------------------------------------

6. Forthcoming Events

i). Writing the City: Electronic Workshop on Hypertextual Writing on
the City
October 1-5 2001
Interface Zone, Sarai, in collaboration with Nungu.Com

Writing the City Electronic is a workshop on experimental electronic writing practices. Participants will render urban experience into bodies of online text through collaborative writing sessions, derives in the
city and learn basic html based writing techniques. the workshop will be
conducted by Beatrice Gibson and Vishal Rawlley from www.nungu.com (an online space for artists and writers, Mumbai). Workshop animator from Sarai - Monica Narula. Participation is by invitation. For more details contact monica at sarai.net


ii) Curated Film Series III
St. Stephens College Cine Club is curating a festival of films from October 17th to 19th 2001. A total of five films will be screened, two each on the 17th and the 18th of October, and one on the 19th of October. There will be a discussion after the screening on the 19th,  coordinated by Ravi Vasudevan. However the audience is welcome to initiate discussions on the first two days of the festival. The screening will be held at the Seminar Room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 54.

The Films in the order of screening are listed below. Please note that
not all the films are screened at the usual time of 4:30.

1. October 17, 2001
i)Time: 2:00 pm
Amarcord, 1974, 124 minutes
Director: Federico Fellini

ii)Time: 4:30 pm
La Chinoise, 1967, 15 minutes
Director:  Jean-Luc Godard

2. October 18th 2001
i)Time: 2:00 pm
The 400 Blows, 1959, 95 minutes
Director: Francois Truffaut

ii)Time: 4:30 pm
Trainspotting, 1995, 94 minutes
Director: Danny Boyle

3. October 19th , 2001
Time: 4:30 pm
Hate, 1995, 95 minutes
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz

Saumya Gupta
Coordinator, Research and Programmes
Sarai: The New Media Initiative
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054
Phone: 3960040, 3951190
Fax: 2943450
www.sarai.net --=====================_7841071==_.ALT-- From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 20 14:12:43 2010 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:42:43 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Discussion List: Community Radio-India. This is a mailing list to campaign for the opening up of community-radio stations in India. It is aimed at supporting a campaign by development workers, NGOs, academics and media persons interested in unleashing the potential of low-powered, local radio for the benefit of development in the country. This list was set up following a national conference on community radio, held in mid-2000 in Hyderabad. It is open to all who believe that India too should harness the power of community radio. To subscribe write to cr-india-request at sarai.net with "subscribe" in the subject field, or in the body of the message. You could also ask to be subscribed by mailing either Subramaniam Vincent subbuvincent at yahoo.com or Fredrick Noronha fred at vsnl.com. V. Films @Sarai Remembering Subrata Mitra We start the new year with a set of screenings of films shot by the distinguished cinematographer, Subrata Mitra who passed away in Calcutta in December 2001. Subrata Mitra was the cinematographer for the first 10 films of Satyajit Ray, including the Apu Trilogy and Charulata. He also shot some of the earlier work of Merchant Ivory Productions. He was awarded the Kodak Award for Excellence in Cinematography. Mitra revolutionized prevailing aesthetics in Indian cinematography with innovations designed to make light in film both more realistic and poetic. The screenings, at 4:30 pm in the Seminar Room, CSDS will be followed by discussions on the role of the cinematographer. The films are listed in the order of screening. 1. January 4, 2002 Aparajito 1956, 127 minutes Director: Satyajit Ray This second film of the Apu trilogy marks Mitra's first technical innovation. Thanks to monsoon rain art scenes in the Benaras house had to be shot on studio sets. Mitra realised that he could never recreate the diffused lighting of typical Benaras courtyards with the conventional studio lights. Thus was born the bounce light - that he later considered to be one of his most important tools. 2. January 11, 2002 Charulata 1964, 117 minutes Director: Satyajit Ray Charulata, or The Lonely Wife, has been widely acclaimed as the highlight of Mitra's cinematography. Beautifully rendered sequences of Charulata daydreaming in the garden,or observing a set of 19th century Bengali stereotypes with her opera glasses through her windows remain etched in audience memory. While shooting Charulata, Mitra invented the 'dabba' - as source of soft diffused light - a breakthrough in international cinema. 3. January 18, 2002 Teesri Kasam 1966, 159 minutes Director: Basu Bhattacharya Teesri Kasam marks Mitra's only foray into mainstream cinema. Mitra's passion for beautiful frames comes out in the film's seamless lyrical imagery. This was the only time Mitra got an opportunity to film song and dance sequences extensively - something that he always wanted to do. --------- This is also the time when i bid a goodbye to this list. Ranita Chatterjee, who joins Sarai as the new Programme Coordinator, will administer this list henceforth. Any queries may please therefore be directed to ranita at sarai.net. Signing off, I wish to say that it has been an enjoyable experience to administer this list. In little more than six months this list has grown to more than a thousand members. I hope this community friends of Sarai continues to grow. I wish all of you a very happy new year again. Saumya Saumya Gupta Coordinator, Research and Programmes Sarai: The New Media Initiative Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054 Phone: 3960040, 3951190 Fax: 2943450 www.sarai.net --=====================_3574892==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Table of Contents

Talks @Sarai
Installations @Sarai
Workshop @Sarai: Introduction to Cyberculture
New Discussion Lists: Community Radio and Solaris
Films @Sarai: Remembering Subrata Mitra
---------------------------------

Sarai wishes all of you a very happy new year.

I. Talks @ Sarai

We start the New Year with a series of lectures and presentations  - grouped thematically under our three Occasional Seminar Series. All talks and paper presentations will take place at 3:30 pm, in the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054

1.Media Publics and Practices Seminar

i.    January 2, 2002, Wednesday
Politics of Information in Bio-technology
Mike Fischer
MIT Program on Science, Technology, and Society   

ii.   January 8,  2002, Tuesday
Technology, the Turing Test & Artificial Intelligence
Sanmay Das,
MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, Boston

iii. January 16,  2002, Wednesday
Politics of Global Circulation of Human Genetic Materials
Kaushik Sunderajan
MIT Program on Science, Technology and Society, USA



2. Language beyond Literature Seminar
January 10, 2002,  Thursday

Hindi Commercial Press & the Urban Publics: The Case of Late Colonial
U.P.    
Charu Gupta
Department of History, Motilal Nehru College (E), University of Delhi



3. Urban Cultures and Politics Seminar
January 30, 2002, Wednesday

The Idea of Bombay
Gyan Prakash
Department of History, Princeton University, USA
    





II.Installations @ Sarai
The Sarai Interface Zone will host three installations by artists and media practitioners through the month of January. Unless otherwise specified, the artists will be available for discussions.
All installations and exhibitions will be located in the Interface Zone at Sarai.
i). January 2nd  - 4th 2002

Dilliwale Kaun? Baharwale Kaun?
A photographic exhibition on a digital platform by Syeda Farhana 

Dilliwale Kaun? Baharwale Kaun? is an exhibition of Syeda Farhana's photographic & textual narratives on the theme of "The Outsider". Focussing on Bangladeshi migrants, the exhibition is a product of her part - residency at the Interface Zone at Sarai. This residency is a
collaboration between Sarai and the Khoj International Artists Residency Programme.

Syeda Farhana is a photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She will be present through the exhibition at the Interface Zone.

ii)January 11th - 18th  2002

The Wrong City : Paris at Delhi
An Installation by Olga Kisseleva

This Installation explores what happens when the reality of one city enters the imagination of another. The installation is paired with another Wrong City Installation - Delhi at Paris that will occur concurrently in Paris. The url for the Paris event is www.mainsdoeuvres.org

Olga Kisseleva is a digital artist with special interest in cities - Some of her earlier work has been on New York, St Petersburg and Paris.

iii. January 24 and 25, 2002

Initializing History
An Exhibition of the Video Art of Peter Callas

Peter Callas will present his work in the form of an illustrated lecture on January 25, 2002. The Screening-Lecture will be followed by a discussion. (A version of) This work is also available at http://www.anu.edu.au/ITA/CSA/callas/CAN_+main_I.html

Peter Callas, based in Sydney, Australia, is one of the internationally recognised exponents of Video Art. He is currently visiting India on an Asialink Artists Fellowship.


III. Workshop @ Sarai
January 31 - February 1, 2002
10:30 am - 4:30 pm, Interface Zone, Sarai
Introduction to Cyberculture
with Patrice Riemens

The workshop on Cyberculture will focus on:

i.Digital Divide and how to address it
ii.Hackers & 'Hackerism'
iii.From Proprietary Knowledge to Intellectual Property
iv.Networked Communities

Patrice Riemens is an independent theorist and cyber activist , and a geographer at the University of Amsterdam. He is in India as a part of the exchange programme between Sarai and the Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam - www.waag.org


IV.New Discussion Lists

From the 1st of January, 2002, Sarai will start hosting a new
Discussion List:

Community Radio-India.
This is a mailing list to campaign for the opening up of community-radio stations in India. It is aimed at supporting a campaign by development workers, NGOs, academics and media persons
interested in unleashing the potential of low-powered, local radio for the benefit of development in the country. This list was set up following a national conference on community radio, held in mid-2000 in Hyderabad. It is open to all who believe that India too should
harness the power of community radio.

To subscribe write to cr-india-request at sarai.net   with "subscribe" in the subject field, or in the body of the message. You could also ask to be subscribed by mailing either Subramaniam Vincent subbuvincent at yahoo.com  or Fredrick Noronha fred at vsnl.com.


V. Films @Sarai

Remembering Subrata Mitra
We start the new year with a set of screenings of films shot by the distinguished cinematographer, Subrata Mitra who passed away in Calcutta in December 2001.

Subrata Mitra was the cinematographer for the first 10 films of Satyajit Ray, including the Apu Trilogy and Charulata. He also shot some of the earlier work of Merchant Ivory Productions. He was awarded the Kodak Award for Excellence in Cinematography.

Mitra revolutionized prevailing aesthetics in Indian cinematography with innovations designed to make light in film both more realistic and poetic.

The screenings, at 4:30 pm in the Seminar Room, CSDS will be followed by discussions on the role of the cinematographer.

The films are listed in the order of screening.


1. January 4, 2002
Aparajito
1956, 127 minutes
Director: Satyajit Ray

This second film of the Apu trilogy marks Mitra's first technical innovation. Thanks to monsoon rain art scenes in the Benaras house had to be shot on studio sets. Mitra realised that he could never recreate the diffused lighting of typical Benaras courtyards with the
conventional studio lights.  Thus was born the bounce light - that he later considered to be one of his most important tools.  


2. January 11, 2002
Charulata
1964, 117 minutes
Director: Satyajit Ray

Charulata, or The Lonely Wife, has been widely acclaimed as the highlight of Mitra's cinematography. Beautifully rendered sequences of Charulata daydreaming in the garden,or observing a set of 19th century Bengali stereotypes with her opera glasses through her windows remain etched in audience memory.

While shooting Charulata, Mitra invented the 'dabba' - as source of soft diffused light - a breakthrough in international cinema.


3. January 18, 2002
Teesri Kasam
1966, 159 minutes
Director: Basu Bhattacharya

Teesri Kasam marks Mitra's only foray into mainstream cinema. Mitra's passion for beautiful frames comes out in the film's seamless lyrical imagery. This was the only time Mitra got an opportunity to film song and dance sequences extensively - something that he always wanted to
do.

---------

This is also the time when i bid a goodbye to this list. Ranita Chatterjee, who joins Sarai as the new Programme Coordinator, will administer this list henceforth. Any queries may please therefore be directed to ranita at sarai.net.

Signing off, I wish to say that it has been an enjoyable experience to administer this list. In little more than six months this list has grown to more than a thousand members. I hope this community  friends of Sarai  continues to grow. I wish all of you a very happy new year again.


Saumya









Saumya Gupta
Coordinator, Research and Programmes
Sarai: The New Media Initiative
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054
Phone: 3960040, 3951190
Fax: 2943450
www.sarai.net --=====================_3574892==_.ALT-- From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 20 14:12:43 2010 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:42:43 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: in its portrayal to capture the sensibilities of pop art in flaunting=20 the unreal and surreal world of the characters in the film. Even the=20 clothes each gangster wears extends their personality in a more comic=20 and flamboyant fashion.=20 The packaging is clearly designed to target the growing American=20 audience primed for Japanese and Hong Kong cinema, thanks to the=20 efforts of directors like John Woo and Quentin Tarantino. However,=20 viewers expecting a slam bang visceral ballet of nonstop gunplay and=20 sex are bound to be disappointed - while Suzuki's film does contain=20 these elements in fits and starts, it is generally a static visual=20 study of alienation in a candy-colored Tokyo gone mad.=20 August 9, 2002 Stray Dog (Nora Inu), 1949, 122 mins=20 Director: Akira Kurosawa. Black and White, VHS, English subtitles Stray Dog was Kurosawa's tenth film and showcases his ability to=20 orchestrate a complex story without losing the viewer. Here, as=20 elsewhere in Kurosawa's work, the war, only four years past, casts a=20 long shadow over the film.=20 Stray Dog, is based on a real-life, seemingly insignificant, incident:=20 a thief steals a rookie policeman's gun, and the policeman spends the=20 entire film trying to recover it.=20 He takes the help of an experienced cop to search all over the sleazy=20 underbelly of Tokyo for the lost gun. The film has a well knit plot=20 and is imbued with a tense, apprehensive atmosphere - enhanced by=20 Kurosawa's deft use of the oppressive heat wave under which this=20 desperate urban chase takes place. The increase in temperature=20 reflects the frustration of the detectives' investigation. Kurosawa=20 would return to this sweltering mode later again in another police=20 thriller, High and Low. Kurosawa, who always spoke of Stray Dog as something of a failure -=20 'It's just too technical. All that technique and not one real thought=20 in it' - felt however that the killer was the one character whom he=20 portrayed in real depth. In this respect the film anticipates another=20 element of High and Low - Kurosawa's ability to sympathise with a=20 killer, yet never disguising the destructive effect of his actions.=20 August 16, 2002 High and Low (Tengoku To-Jigoku), 1963, 143 mins=20 Director: Akira Kurosawa Black and White, VHS, English subtitles=20 Based on 'King's Ransom', a novel written by Englishman Ed McBain,=20 High and Low has been considered by many to be Japan's "best ever=20 filmed"detective story. Kurosawa again cast Toshiro Mifune as Gondo a wealthy industrialist=20 whose son has been kidnapped. Gondo has to pay off a huge ransom for=20 the boy's return. But this is a ransom demand with a twist -as the=20 harried businessman prepares to pay the ransom, he discovers that his=20 son is safe at home: the kidnappers have accidentally snatched the son=20 of his chauffeur. Does Gondo drop his payoff plans, or does he do the=20 honorable thing and rescue his employee's son? This dilemma is but one=20 aspect of the multilayered character study seen in this film.=20 Akira Kurosawa weaves together character study, social commentary and=20 police procedure. As Gondo grapples with his choice, the movie=20 acquires a mythic depth - it's not unlike the story of Abraham, as=20 Gondo is forced to decide between the life of an innocent and loyalty=20 to an abstract code. At the same time Kurosawa alludes to the more=20 general dilemma of modern Japanese life - the conflict between humane=20 values and the rigid loyalties that have made for its commercial=20 success. One aspect of Kurosawa's genius is the way he composes his tableaux to=20 dramatic purpose. =A0If Gondo's high rise represents Heaven, with its=20 amazing, expansive view and feel at nighttime of being among the=20 stars, the police end up in Hell chasing their suspect:=A0 a hot,=20 sweltering ground level world where loud music blares and the drug=20 addicts cluster like lost souls in the river Styx. It is a=20 fascinating, intricate look at the execution and solving of a=20 masterfully conceived crime, a moral dilemma that keeps the story=20 driving forward and a stark social commentary.=20 August 23, 2002 Tokyo Drifter, 1965, 83 mins Director: Suzuki Seijun Colour, VHS, English subtitles=20 "Phoenix" Tetsu, a killer for hire, decides to go straight and follow=20 the example set by his seemingly conscience-stricken boss. The film=20 follows the travails of Tetsu as he tries to go straight, drifting=20 around the deserted areas of Tokyo, risking death at every turn out of=20 loyalty to his boss.=20 In the hands of director Suzuki Seijun, however, this is anything but=20 a straightforward journey. A plethora of visual colorization effects,=20 nonstop action, and the ever-present "Song of the Tokyo Drifter" mark=20 this film as both a psychedelic thriller and a deconstruction of the=20 yakuza genre.=20 Like all his films Tokyo Drifter is violent, funny, over-stylized and=20 self deprecating. The gunfights are staged with detached elegance and=20 precise editing that foreshadows many of the ironic showdowns=20 popularized in modern action cinema. The violence is constant but=20 surficial (no slow motion bullets through the head) and the fun is in=20 trying to understand all the ways the film makes fun of itself.=20 ------- That's the set of films for the month. We look forward to meeting you=20 during the screenings.=20 Many of you have been enquiring about grant possibilities at Sarai. We=20 shall be inviting proposals for Independent Research Fellowships soon.=20 Do keep a lookout. Cheers, Ranita=20 The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054. Tel: (+91) 11 3960040 (+91) 11 3951190 Fax: 3928391, 3943450 www.sarai.net --------------=_4D4800E5D2600850E340 Content-Description: filename="text1.html" Content-Type: text/html Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable August 2002

Contents:

I Seed Grant Fellowship Presentations=

II Films @ Sarai: Focus on the Documentary &

Asian Film Cultures: Japanese Cinema

-------------------------------------= --------------------------------------------------------------------=

I Independent Research Fellowship Presentations

Inde= pendent researchers have continued to present their works at Sarai over the past two months. The June newsletter carried brief reports of some of their work. Below is a glimpse into a few more.

1. GNU/Linux in= India

Reportage on the Free Software/Open Source Movement in India

Frederick Noronha

Frederick Noronha i= s trying to explore the concept of Free Software and its implications, specifically in a South Asian or Third World context. He has started to document the contributions that are being made by Indians to GNU/Linux, including software innovations based on GNU/Linux. Noronha finds that contrary to the earlier pessimism the contribution is actually quite interesting...and growing. He has also been actively trying to forge communication links between Free Software or Open Source proponents, the ICT-for-development campaigners in South Asia and the development sector all of which, he says, "have strengths that could gain in a major way from one another." =20

2. Visthapito= n Ka Shahar (The City of the Dislocated)

A study of urban transformations related to the Metro in Delhi

Naveen Chander

Naveen Chander has been exploring issues= of public space, urbanisation and displacement with the process of modernisation in the dreamed"beautiful city" - as effected by the Delhi Metro Project. He has also enquired into the dynamics of labour behaviour. Through audio interviews and photographs of bottom level workers and of people displaced due to the project, he has tried to draw different perceptions of the city and development. Naveen also travelled to Calcutta to be able to draw a comparative analysis with the Calcutta Metro project.

3. Rickshaw wale ki jeevan yatra: shahar tak, shahar mein

Study of the specific migrant experience of rickshaw pullers in Delhi

Rajendra Ravi

Rajendra Ravi's study tries to document the everyday in the lives of rickshaw pullers in Delhi. He has looked into a number of issues relating to the nature of migrant labour; the process of initiation into the trade; restrictive policies with respect to ownership and their implications for the lives of rickshaw pullers; police violence; spatial issues including the absence of designated parking spaces and the need to see the relationship between owners and pullers of the rickshaw in complimentary terms rather than in an antagonistic one. =20

4. Neighbourhood Research Project

Mapping the vicinity of the Jamia Millia Islamia Campus

Students of the Jamia Sociology Department (Biswajit Das)

In a= n effort to map the neighbourhood of their institution, the Jamia Millia Islamia University, the students focussed on two areas: a study of organisations located in the area and a study of the locality itself. Four papers were presented. The organisations studied were Spectramind, a call centre that employs hundreds of young English-speaking people in Delhi and the Software Technology Park located in the Okhla Industrial Area. Studies of the area focussed on the emergence of cybercafes and the changing physical and cultural landscapes.

5. Changing Face= of Chiragh Delhi

A study of the morphology of an urba= n village

Ranjana Sengupta

Ranjana Sengupta has been= enquiring into the the process of urbanisation in Chiragh Delhi, an urban village situated in the heart of Delhi which has now changed over from generations of agricultural activities to different professions. She has delved into

the relationship of the village to the dargah, community relations within the village and how the residents of Chiragh Delhi (themselves quite heterogenous) interpret and resolve varying aspects of their history.

6. <= B>Whose City is It Anyway?

Reportage on Education, Law and Transport in select localities in Delhi

Anjali Mody

Anjali Mody has concentrated her researc= h in the Jamianagar area of Delhi - an area which houses a cross-section of people from different communities, classes, professions and also houses a large number of students. She looked into local print cultures and the relationship of the neighbourhood with the charismatic local MLA now in prison under POTA. Part of her presentation also discussed the status of urban reporting in newspapers. She plans to publish a series of articles based on her research in the near future. =20

7. Built Environment and Women

Study of the gendered logic of housing structures, work and public spaces

Vandana Khare

Women often encounter difficulties in dealing with urban spaces - both within the home and outside. Vandana Khare argues for the need of a gendered designing of city spaces. She is studying work spaces, public transport and housing facilities in Mumbai to enable viable solutions, especially for working class women,

8. Slums in Delh= i - Demolitions & Relocation

Housing policy and land relations in= Delhi

Harini Narayanan

Harini Narayanan presented her findings from an ongoing research on slum policies and demolitions in Delhi. Two aspects were highlighted in her presentation. First, the act of demolition is a process, as much as an 'event' so that to live with violence and housing uncertainty is the 'normal' way of life for most poor inhabitants of the city. =20 Second, she stressed on the general silence on the issues involved in slum housing, with the exception of the depiction of the 'act' of demolition. She pointed out the marked differences in representation, depending on the kind of structures being demolished. =20


<= B>II Films @ Sarai

All screenings are on Fridays, 4:30 pm, at the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054.

The films are listed in the order of screening.

<= U>Focus on the Documentary

August 2, 2002

Apoornathakal (The Incomplete), 2001, 23 mins

Dir= ected by Salil R. Aluvila

Colour, VHS, English subtitles

What= is friendship? And how do you deal with the loss of a loved one, especially when there are indications that the death may not have occurred under natural circumstances? Apoornathakal is the story of a young man trying to come to terms with the death of his childhood friend - a friend with whom he shared intense love. It is the memory of moments spent together, of shared conversations and hints of intrigue surrounding the death that continue to haunt the living. Apoornathaka= l is based on a true story.

Asian Film Cultures: Japanese Cinema

We return to Asian Film Cultures Series this month with three films from Japan that engage with the post-war Japanese city, a city that is invariably connected with crime and a quest for criminals.

Critics have often remarked on Kurosawa'= s films as quests, and much of Stray Dog is taken up with the desperate attempts by Detective Murakami (Kurosawa stalwart Toshiro Mifune) to retrieve his gun, which is being used to commit murder. Murakami spends much of his time in literal frantic pursuit, chasing his quarry and accomplices through the ragged streets of heat-drenched, occupied Tokyo.=20

Like many a noir hero, Murakami is a goo= d man drawn into a criminal demimonde, here the squalid world of postwar profiteering, corruption and murder. And like these heroes he has an unsettling link to that world in the form of his gun, which makes it impossible for him to return to normal life. Kurosawa uses his quest to explore a series of seedy tableaux, from opium dens to western-style grindhouses, and the social casualties that populate them. The montage sequence, where Murakami takes to the streets to find the pickpocket, is remarkable for the neo-realist recording of life on the teeming city streets, whilst maintaining the pace of Murakami's desperate search. Kurosawa even provides a classic doppelganger for Murakami in the form of the thief: much is made of their similar backgrounds and very different, but inextricably joined, fates.=20

Kuro= sawa returns to the police procedural thriller again in High and Low. Using big-city slums (low/hell) in direct contrast to the privileged world of a powerful businessman (high/heaven), High and Low is the very human story of a misfired kidnapping and its consequences on all concerned. Bit by bit the shattering impact the crime has on the victim, his family, the police, and the kidnapper are slowly revealed as the police doggedly pursue every scrap of evidence. Kurosawa presents his characters' ’struggles as not only a suspenseful and clever detective story, but also a moral battleground where "good" has to pay a heavy price to win out over "ev= il" if in fact it is possible at all.=20

The film is at once a procedural crime story, a social commentary on the casualties of industrialization and the redemption of a man's soul. The low lying squatter hovels, addict-infested Dope Alley, and red light district basement bar provide an incongruous foil to the prosperity and seeming order of modern Japan. While not one of Kurosawa's master works, the film, with its grim reality and moral ambiguity stands as a superb example of film noir at its best.=20

Tokyo Drifter has free for all neon jazz characters jiving to the boogie woogie backdrop of 1960's industrial Tokyo. A yakuza film of the purist form, Seijun Suzuki presents us characters of extreme brightness and colors that match the environments around them. Suzuki uses a lot of incongruous jump cuts, like the beautiful shot of Yoyogi stadium that comes up, to create a kind of travelogue view of Tokyo that is used under the credits.

From the dance hall= to the western style bar, the set design is unique in its portrayal to capture the sensibilities of pop art in flaunting the unreal and surreal world of the characters in the film. Even the clothes each gangster wears extends their personality in a more comic and flamboyant fashion.=20

The packaging is clearly designed to target the growing American audience primed for Japanese and Hong Kong cinema, thanks to the efforts of directors like John Woo and Quentin Tarantino. However, viewers expecting a slam bang visceral ballet of nonstop gunplay and sex are bound to be disappointed - while Suzuki's film does contain these elements in fits and starts, it is generally a static visual study of alienation in a candy-colored Tokyo gone mad.=20

August 9, 2002<= /B>

Stray Dog (Nora= Inu), 1949, 122 mins=20

Director: Akira Kurosawa.

Black and White, VHS, English subtitles=

Stray Dog was Kurosawa's tenth film and showcases his ability to orchestrate a complex story without losing the viewer. Here, as elsewhere in Kurosawa's work, the war, only four years past, casts a long shadow over the film.=20

Stray Dog, is based on a real-life, seemingly insignificant, incident: a thief steals a rookie policeman's gun, and the policeman spends the entire film trying to recover it.=20

He takes the help of an experienced cop to search all over the sleazy underbelly of Tokyo for the lost gun. The film has a well knit plot and is imbued with a tense, apprehensive atmosphere - enhanced by Kurosawa's deft use of the oppressive heat wave under which this desperate urban chase takes place. The increase in temperature reflects the frustration of the detectives' investigation. Kurosawa would return to this sweltering mode later again in another police thriller, High and Low.

Kurosawa, who always spoke of Stray Dog as something of a failure - 'It's just too technical. All that technique and not one real thought in it' - felt however that the killer was the one character whom he portrayed in real depth. In this respect the film anticipates another element of High and Low - Kurosawa's ability to sympathise with a killer, yet never disguising the destructive effect of his actions.=20

August 16, 2002=

High and Low (Tengoku To-Jigoku)= , 1963, 143 mins=20

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Black and White, VHS, English subtitles= =20

Base= d on 'King's Ransom', a novel written by Englishman Ed McBain, High and Low has been considered by many to be Japan's "best ever filmed"detective story.

Kurosawa again cast Toshiro Mifune as Gondo a wealthy industrialist whose son has been kidnapped. Gondo has to pay off a huge ransom for the boy's return. But this is a ransom demand with a twist -as the harried businessman prepares to pay the ransom, he discovers that his son is safe at home: the kidnappers have accidentally snatched the son of his chauffeur. Does Gondo drop his payoff plans, or does he do the honorable thing and rescue his employee's son? This dilemma is but one aspect of the multilayered character study seen in this film.=20

Akira Kurosawa weaves together character study, social commentary and police procedure. As Gondo grapples with his choice, the movie acquires a mythic depth - it's not unlike the story of Abraham, as Gondo is forced to decide between the life of an innocent and loyalty to an abstract code. At the same time Kurosawa alludes to the more general dilemma of modern Japanese life - the conflict between humane values and the rigid loyalties that have made for its commercial success.

One aspect of Kurosawa's genius is the way he composes his tableaux to dramatic purpose.  If Gondo's high rise represents Heaven, with its amazing, expansive view and feel at nighttime of being among the stars, the police end up in Hell chasing their suspect:  a hot, sweltering ground level world where loud music blares and the drug addicts cluster like lost souls in the river Styx. It is a fascinating, intricate look at the execution and solving of a masterfully conceived crime, a moral dilemma that keeps the story driving forward and a stark social commentary.

August 23, 2002=

Tokyo Drifter, 1965, 83 mins

Director: Suzuki Seijun

Colour, VHS, English subtitles=20

"Phoenix"= Tetsu, a killer for hire, decides to go straight and follow the example set by his seemingly conscience-stricken boss. The film follows the travails of Tetsu as he tries to go straight, drifting around the deserted areas of Tokyo, risking death at every turn out of loyalty to his boss.=20

In the hands of director Suzuki Seijun, however, this is anything but a straightforward journey. A plethora of visual colorization effects, nonstop action, and the ever-present "Song of the Tokyo Drifter" mark this film as both a psychedelic thriller and a deconstruction of the yakuza genre.=20

Like all his films Tokyo Drifter is violent, funny, over-stylized and self deprecating. The gunfights are staged with detached elegance and precise editing that foreshadows many of the ironic showdowns popularized in modern action cinema. The violence is constant but surficial (no slow motion bullets through the head) and the fun is in trying to understand all the ways the film makes fun of itself.=20

-------

That's the set of films for the month. We look forward to meeting you during the screenings.=20

Many of you have been enquiring about grant possibilities at Sarai. We shall be inviting proposals for Independent Research Fellowships soon. Do keep a lookout.<= /P>

Cheers,

Ranita=20

The Sarai Programme=

Centre for the Stud= y of Developing Societies

29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054.

Tel: (+91) 11 3960040

(+91) 11 3951190

Fax: 3928391, 3943450

www.sarai.net



--------------=_4D4800E5D2600850E340-- From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 20 14:12:43 2010 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:42:43 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: into the camera (which pulls back to reveal him drinking a glass of milk), Stanley Kubrick's Clockork Orange announces itself as a completely new kind of viewing experience. Set in an unidentified future, the film overwhelms the senses with its almost comic depictions of violence set to an upbeat classical and pop music score; its magnificent, colorful, futuristic set designs; and its utter determination to shock, frighten and thoroughly entertain its audience. Kubrick based his chilling masterpiece on Anthony Burgess's culture-shaking novel about a young man, growing into adulthood, who has a bit of a problem with authority figures. When Alex (a career-defining performance by McDowell) and his droogs go out for a little bit of the old ultraviolence, he is caught and forced to undergo controversial treatment that will make it impossible for him to commit violent acts - but has severe side effects. Kubrick's film purposely confuses crime and punishment, cause and effect, hero and villain, irony and satire, filled with oxymoron and paradox, taking on science, politics, societal mores, education, sexual awakening, and parental responsibility all in a new language (both verbal and visual) that would change the cinema forever. No one who has seen it has ever been able to hear "Singin' in the Rain" or Ludwig van again in quite the same way. February 21, 2003 eXistenZ (1999), 97 minutes Directed by David Cronenberg Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) creates a new game called eXistenZ, one that connects with a 'bioport' installed in the spine. When something goes terribly wrong during the first public testing of the game, Allegra and public relations trainee Ted Pikul (Jude Law) go on the run. Out in the countryside they expect things to be safer, and Allegra takes the opportunity to check and see if all is well with her game. Naturally, she needs a friendly playmate to come along, so Ted, a virtual reality virgin, is called into service. From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 20 14:12:43 2010 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:42:43 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: 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 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 20 14:12:43 2010 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:42:43 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: the Sarai Readers. We on our part were delighted to know that a scholar we admired but had never met felt that our interests and concerns echoed his. We had looked forward eagerly to a close association with him. This year's Sarai Reader is dedicated in part to his memory. For us at Sarai, Siddhartha Ghosh epitomizes the ideal of the independent practitioner-scholar, curious, committed, creative and uncompromising in his dedication to detail, and unceasing in his delight in the improvisatory genius of a subaltern modernity. In inviting Sabina Gadihoke to present the inaugural lecture of this series, we are seeking to recognize, both her close intellectual association and friendship with Siddhartha, as well as the new ground that she is breaking with her research on the history and practice of photography by women in India. This research project enjoys the support of the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore. The material that Sabina is going to discuss in her lecture also forms the basis of her essay in this year's Sarai Reader. II FRIDAY FILM @ SARAI All screenings are on Fridays at 4:30 pm at the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054. The films are listed in the order of screening. ASIAN FILM CULTURES: JAPANIME Curated by Diya Mehra The graphic form has a long and significant history in Japanese visual and textual culture. Since the 1940's and 50's it has emerged in comic book form as 'Manga' which has subsequently developed into the most highly read medium in the country and has increasingly been used as the basis of animated films and television series - some examples of which Sarai presents in its Japanime series. Manga are akin to graphic novels, wherein stories are lengthy and serialized, characters and plot lines complex yet discrete making the volume of Manga produced extremely large. In its visual style, Manga is drawn in elongated narrow cells, proliferating detail, visual vantage points and imaginative and thematic possibilities only open to animation. Many genres of Manga have emerged - from the pornograhic to Pokeman. In the complex and abundant world of Japanese popular culture, genres have come to be associated with particular niche markets. They are drawn by gender and age and use specific tropes and milieus to address fundamental questions on technology, the media, the environment and popular culture in Japanese contemporary society. The three films included in this series represent three specific sub-genres of Manga. 'Ghost in the Shell' (screened on February 28) is "mecha" anime concerned with technology in the form of robots, transformative armor, cyborgs and more recently artificial intelligence. 'Perfect Blue' is a psychological thriller about a pop star, her fans and the multi-mediated world. 'My Neighbor Totoro', a children's film directed by Hayao Miyazaki , emerges from an anime studio that is unique in its production - producing mythical and allegorical tales that often draw on Japanese folklore. March 21, 2003, 4:30 pm MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO (1988), 87 minutes Directed by Hayao Miyazaki Set in the 1950's 'My Neighbour Totoro' tells the story of Satsuki, aged ten, and Mei, aged four, and their father who move to the Japanese countryside to provide a healthy environment for their mother when she is able to leave the hospital. The children spend their days exploring their new home and neighbourhood, which is when Mei discovers the existence of Totoros - magical forest spirits which only children can see. What follows are a series of delightful and often surreal adventures set among Miyazaki's sublime summary landscape. Totoro is not based on any exact Japanese mythological or folk character, but does spring from the idea of nature spirits in Japanese culture. Miyazaki's vision encompasses both a nostalgia for a lost lifestyle, since most of these rural areas near Tokyo have been converted into crowded suburbs by now, and also an exploration of the natural world that is central to his work. While his later works grapple more directly with questions of ecology, in 'My Neighbor Totoro' Miyazaki reveals, through the enormous detail and perceptive quality of his work, a seamless interaction that appears to him to be crucial to it. March 28, 2003, 4:30 pm PERFECT BLUE (1999), 80 minutes Directed by Satoshi Kon Mima abandons her pop star career to opt for a career in television soaps, alienating the male fans of her sugar-candy past. When she accepts a part that involves her being raped, her life begins to fall apart. She discovers internet sites describing every detail of her life. Helpless and afraid, she watches as her associates are threatened and killed by a mysterious stalker, who she sees everywhere. When Mima's TV drama begins mimicking her everyday life, she can no longer tell the difference between television, hallucination and real life. The film develops a complex structure for Mima's psychosis, exaggerating elements of pop and Manga as product and form, and interweaving elements from her different realities to consider the relationships between media, celebrity and technology. III ANNOUNCEMENTS 1) City One Audio CD We have documented the entire City One conference for the public domain. The audio archive of the conference is available on the conference web site (http://www.sarai.net/cityone/cityone.htm). An audio CD which contains the City One audio archive is also available for people in India. If you want a copy please write to diya at sarai.net with your complete mailing address. 2) Arundhati Roy Supports Sarai Arundhati Roy, writer and activist, recently distributed the prize money that she won from the United States-based Lannan Foundation among fifty people's movements, publications, educational institutions, theatre groups and individuals in India, including Sarai. She says, "... I am more than delighted to announce that the money will be shared by at least a few of those who are engaged in the struggle of making India a real democracy instead of just a notional one." Sarai is happy to accept her contribution and thanks her for her support. 3) Film Studies @ Sarai The Sarai programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies proposes to run a ten day introduction to film studies course in May 2003. The course will be composed of lectures, discussions and film screenings. There will be two lectures per day, and an evening film screening. Amongst the topics covered will be film language, history, genre, international film movements, the idea of national cinema etc. Students will receive a reader with basic readings for the course, and will be required to write a short paper as part of the course requirements. The course is coordinated by Ravi Vasudevan of Sarai. A more detailed programme, including information about application procedure and course fees will be made available shortly. The course is scheduled from May 9-19, 2003. For queries please write in to ranita at sarai.net. 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 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 20 14:12:43 2010 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:42:43 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: nightmare, including the difficult keeping of a secret, and a magical journey to safety - all told from a child's point of view. It also accentuates the contrasting, elemental dualities within the film: heaven and earth (or under-the-earth), male and female, light and dark, good and evil, knowingness and innocence, and other polarizations including equating the Preacher with the devil. Told with inventive, stylized and dark film noirish images, symbolism and visual poetry, it blends both a pastoral setting with dream-like creatures and fanatical characters. In Laughton's words, it was "a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale." A commercial, if not a critical failure, the film got such a poor public reception that Laughton was never asked to direct again. Monday May 19, 2003, 5:30 pm Sansho the Bailiff (1954), 125 minutes Directed by Kenzi Mizoguchi, Japan This visually-stunning epic filled with tragic loss and chilling cruelty is one of Mizoguchi's most heart-wrenching films. Set in 11th century Japan, the film focuses on a mother who sets off with her two children to find her husband, a former deputy governor, who has been in exile. The family is broken up by a priestess who sells all three to kidnappers: the mother is sold as a courtesan, and the children are sent to a remote province as slaves. When the son reaches maturity, he manages to assume his rightful post as a provincial governor and sets about avenging his family's suffering. Mizoguchi has created a powerful work with strong humanistic overtones. Focusing on the influence the two women in the story have on the hero, the film alternates the idyllic atmosphere of some scenes with the violent cruelty of others. The sense of secret treachery revealed when the camera suddenly and unexpectedly begins to move is one of the most frightening moments in cinema. Kazu Miyagawa's cinematography, with its long takes and complex use of background and off-screen space, lends even the most harrowing sequences an extraordinary elegance. Tuesday May 20, 2003, 5:30 pm Imitation of Life (1959), 125 minutes Directed by Douglas Sirk, USA In Douglas Sirk's emotionally and visually extravagant final film 'Imitation of Life', subverted melodrama and razor-sharp social commentary are brought to a resounding and baroque climax. Lora Meredith, an aspiring actress and single mother meets Annie Johnson, a black and similarly single and struggling mother. When they move in together, Annie assumes the role of domestic servant and the two women struggle together to raise their two daughters. Annie's daughter, Sarah Jane, favors her father whose skin tone resembles her own extremely light skin, and she slowly comes to resent her mother's black identity. Vulnerable to feminist critique for its prescription of female happiness, the film freely mixes Meredith's rags to riches (with a hefty moral price tag) tale with Annie's scarring struggles to teach her daughter to accept her identity. As Meredith climbs higher and higher in her glamorous rise to stage and screen stardom, she ignores her vulnerable daughter Susie and creates a devastating contrast for the racial and social tragedy that transpires in her own household. With a mixture of icy detachment and morose sentimentality Sirk leads the film onto a crescendo of highly adorned emotion and tragedy. Thursday May 22, 2003, 5:30 pm Vivre Sa Vie (1962), 85 minutes Directed by Jean Luc Godard, France 'Dedicated to B-movies', the film shows, in 12 episodes, how Nana goes from shop-girl to prostitute, finally ending up caught in a B-movie shootout. When she separates from her husband, Nana finds herself unable to make ends meet and slips into prostitution in order to pay her rent. After being taken on by the pimp, Raoul, she falls in love with a young man and hopes to start a new life with him, but Raoul has other plans for her... Filmed in the streets, hotel rooms and cafés of Paris and suburbs, 'Vivre sa Vie' is a portrait of the city and a case-study of the life of a prostitute, using contemporary documentation and statistics. But the film is not a dry sociological analysis. Cinematographer Raoul Coutard produces a stark, flat image that pastiches the styles of Rossellini and Bresson, while remaining entirely original. Michel Legrand's minimal soundtrack achieves in one simple phrase all the pathos of the most elaborate orchestration. Godard's script and direction result in an innovative and intensely moving narrative, which takes the informal liberties of the New Wave and produces a formal manifesto of unique visual style. Friday May 23, 2003, 5:30 pm Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989), 75 mins Directed by Harun Farocki, Germany A meditation on vision and power inspired by photos of Auschwitz taken by American bomber pilots during World War II, this film is a powerful assemblage of images that connect in a striking, deeply meaningful manner. "I've never seen a movie exactly like 'Images of the World...'. It is half a revelation on the Auschwitz material, one you will not soon forget, and half a philosophical treatise on photography, vision, image, measurement...” New York Post Review Film scholar Thomas Elsaesser says, “After becoming every student film-club's favourite meditation on the media and modern warfare in the age of smart bombs and Operation Desert Storm, 'Images of the World...' quickly advanced to something of a classic: the reference film, the anchoring point for seminars on Paul Virilio, on the essay-film as a hybrid documentary but politically subversive film genre, on the 'limits of representation'... this needs to be rediscovered after September 11th the definitive film about terrorism.” Saturday May 24, 2003, 5:30 pm Jagte Raho (1957), 149 minutes Directed by Shombhu Mitra and Amit Maitra, India 'Jagte Raho' is an allegoric film about darkness and light, where darkness is the cloak of respectability under which a city supposedly sleeps but in effect thrashes around in the throes of crime and evil. Mohan is a simple villager who comes to the city one night, searching for water to drink. He is mistaken for a thief and stumbles into a building in his search for a hiding place. Running from one flat to another, he finds himself the unwitting witness to a number of crimes... It seems a night without end, but there is an end, the coming of a dawn at which Mohan discovers that the terrible darkness of the night is only half the truth... the other half is the beautiful day... 'Jagte Raho' became one of Raj Kapoor's best remembered films, and Nargis' last role with him. Sunday May 25, 2003, 5:30 pm Subarnarekha (1962), 125 minutes Directed by Ritwik Ghatak, India 'Subarnarekha', made in 1962 but released in 1965 is the last in a trilogy examining the socio-economic implications of partition, the other two being 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' (1960) and 'Komal Gandhar' (1961). Ghatak depicts the great economic and socio-political crisis eating up the very entrails of the existence of Bengal from 1948 – 1962. In 'Subarnarekha', Ghatak takes the stuff of melodrama and turns it into a piercing political cry. Set in Calcutta after the partition of Bengal, the film focuses on two Bengali refugees, Ishwar and his younger sister Seeta, who are reduced to living in dire poverty on the banks of the river Subarnarekha. Amidst a floating population of refugees building temporary homes, they are joined by many other uprooted Bengalis, including an abandoned boy they attempt to educate and an idealistic school teacher and his family. Ghatak's characters are emblematic of the trail of human debris left by colonialism in an increasingly industrialized, post-independence society. In the film, the problem of homelessness or rootlessness no more remains confined to the refugees from the partition. Ghatak extends it further as an important concept for the modern man, uprooted from his traditional moorings. The geographical sphere is thus merged into a wider generality. Monday May 26, 2003, 5:30 pm Amores Perros (2000), 153 minutes Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Innurita, Mexico Three interconnected stories about the different strata of life in Mexico City all resolve with a fatal car accident. Octavio is trying to raise enough money to run away with his sister-in-law, and decides to enter his dog Cofi into the world of dogfighting. After a dogfight goes bad, Octavio flees in his car, running a red light and causing the accident. Daniel and Valeria's new-found bliss is prematurely ended when she loses her leg in the accident. El Chivo an ex-revolutionary-turned-assassin who cares for stray dogs is there to witness the collision. These lives and the fates of two dogs get inextricably entangled in a triptych recounting the stories of a disparate group of Mexico City residents who deal with love, jealousy, revenge, regret, and the lust for money. 'Amores Perros' (Love's a Bitch) integrates the elements of sound, editing, camera movement and character development, and creates narrative techniques which address some of the most profoundly human conflicts that inhabit the largest and most populated city in the world. Central to the film's plots are the participation of dogs, particularly as shown in the dog fight scenes. Carefully edited, these shots create the illusion of animal brutality and become essential in establishing the cruel realism of 'Amores Perros'. FIRST NATIONAL INDIC FONT WORKSHOP March 28 – 30, 2003, Bangalore Ravikant and T. Meyarivan from Sarai participated in the First National Indic-Font workshop, organized by Indic-Computing Consortium, held on March 28 – 30, 2003, at PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore. The Indic-Computing Consortium is an initiative of software developers, businesses and academic institutions to evolve appropriate standards, resources and technologies for the Indic-Computing community. The Indic-Computing Consortium is designed as a national-level participatory organisation that serves as a common forum for discussion, information exchange and advocacy on behalf of all parties interested in the development of Indic Language Computing. (http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net) The workshop, second in the series, was attended by 36 participants from various languages & technology groups across India, Nepal & Bangladesh. This workshop was an outcome of discussions in the first Indic-Computing workshop held in September 2002 at Bangalore. One of the working groups formed at the first Indic-Computing workshop was for development of OTF (OpenType Fonts) & other font related issues, encoding, language standardization and representation in international consortium. One of the action points and agenda for the group was to Hold OTF training workshops for developing major Indic language OTF fonts. The idea was to get the community together for: i. Developing good look fonts ii. Development of open source tools for rendering and hinting of OTF fonts (currently OTF development uses proprietary tools) iii. Finding font developers for all Indian languages and coordinating group for each language iv. Making available fonts to be converted to OTF At the end of the workshop it was proposed to take up the issues that have emerged at depth through regional consultations on each language to allow focused attention and for local & regional groups to participate and discuss everyday issues. We propose to take up these Regional Language Workshops in future across different parts of India, Nepal & Bangladesh and other regions with languages of Indic origin. These workshops will be coordinated by regional language groups and include training programs, technology demonstration sessions and get the language community together. ------------------------------------------------------------ That's the news from Sarai this month. Before you go please note our new phone numbers: Sarai - 23960040 (Direct) CSDS - 23942199 and then dial the following extensions at Sarai: Programmes ext 307 Media Lab ext 305 Archive ext 306 Cheers, Ranita The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23942199 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net From dak at sarai.net Mon Oct 4 23:16:08 2010 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:16:08 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] After the Urban Event, Delhi and Shanghai 2010 Message-ID: <4CAA12E0.4080208@sarai.net> *The Delhi Urban Platform* invites you to: *After the Urban Event: Delhi and Shanghai, 2010* *Speakers* Ravi Sundaram Jeffrey Wasserstorm Rana Dasgupta *Location:* Seminar Room CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi (Metro: Civil Lines) *Date:* Monday, 18th October, 2010 *Time:* 6pm In a few weeks, two large urban events, the Shanghai Expo and the Commonwealth Games in Delhi will come to a close. Spectacular events such as these are occasions for local and national elites to mobilise vast resources around massive urban transformations, they also make a case for global citizenship and recognition. Examples include the Durbar of 1911, which proclaimed Delhi as the capital city of the British empire, to the recent Expo which sought to announce Shanghai's arrival in global capitalism. Urban events concentrate energies around the production of spectacular sites, hoping to mobilise city and national pride for a brief period of time. In turn, urban events also become sites for violent displacements of the poor, surveillance of migrant populations, and accumulation of local elites through massive infrastructure expansions. Equally events may produce images of chaos, greed and urban disasters like the Delhi Games, puncturing the spectacle before its commencement. A surplus of memories linger on in the city after the event, pride, shame, anger, laughter, pain. We will meet on 18th October to reflect on the urban event in today's Asia, placing the Shanghai and Delhi events in a long term comparative grid. *Speaker Bios* Jeffrey Wasserstorm is a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Global Shanghai, 1850-2010 (2009). most recently, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (2010). He is also the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. Rana Dasgupta is an author and essayist. His books include the recent Solo, and Tokyo Cancelled (2005). Solo won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Ravi Sundaram is one of the initiators of Sarai, and a Fellow at CSDS. He recently published Pirate Modernity, Delhi's Media Urbanism. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *[[END OF NEWSLETTER]]* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dak at sarai.net Tue Oct 12 20:07:38 2010 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:07:38 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Comparative Urbanisms Message-ID: <4CB472B2.7010006@sarai.net> University of Heidelberg's Cluster of Excellence Asia and Europe in a Global Context, Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi and the Max Mueller Bhavan, Delhi invite you to a roundtable on *Comparative Urbanisms* 20th October, 2010, 6 pm Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS The development of the humanities and social sciences has come with powerful specializations in terms of how space, time, and media can be studied and theorised. Yet, there are several issues that cross geographical, historical, and media borders, so that the classical concepts of culture based on territory, language, ethnicity and nation can no longer account for the intrinsic complexity of human groups and their relations. Indeed, today, these cultural flows and their entanglements have become even more evident and have been accelerated by new media and transport systems. China and India, Shanghai and New Delhi, allow us to address these issues, especially in terms of their ambiguous similarity and difference. This seems particularly productive if we look at media, certain events, such as the Expo in Shanghai and the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, as well as imaginaries and aspirations that tie people to, or distance them from, sites of urbanisation. In this context, we bring together several scholars who speak to the nature of the transcultural flows from the site of their respective intellectual engagements, Delhi and Shanghai. Invited speakers include Christian Henriot, Marie Sander, Tina Schilbach, Jeffrey Wasserstrom on Shanghai and Amita Baviskar, Melissa Butcher, Ravi Vasudevan and Ravi Sundaram, on Delhi. The roundtable will be followed by a reception, hosted by Sarai Programme, CSDS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *[[END OF NEWSLETTER]]* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dak at sarai.net Mon Oct 25 23:30:06 2010 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:30:06 +0530 Subject: [Sarai Newsletter] Dissent and Debate in Indian Cities Message-ID: <13c0eb4a2a90692a9dc2226af80b4b5f@localhost> The Delhi Urban Platform invites you to a panel discussion on: Dissent and Debate at a time of Rapid Change: Experiences from Indian Cities Friday, October 29th, 6 pm Centre De Sciences Humaines Lawns, 2 Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi In this panel we ask participants to consider the issues of debate and dissent in contemporary urban development particularly since economic liberalisation, based on their long-standing scholarly engagement with the rapid change that Indian cities have experienced in the last two decades. The panel comes in light of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi – both a process of city building and a focus for increasing censure. It will bring together scholars from Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai to share their perspectives. Traditionally and analytically, it has been suggested that the since economic liberalisation, a dichotomous urban form has emerged, usually imagined as the eviction of poorer city residents to make way for newer forms of globalised urban development. Given this, the panel seeks to ask: - Whether this global template for urban upgradation/urban renewal has succeeded, and in what ways? Is the model entirely global? - What is the role debate and dissent have played in its success and failure, and in the recent transformation of Indian cities? - At what sites and spaces has any dissent and debate taken place, (for example within and outside of government, through politics, in the media)? To what effect? - What are the forms and discourses that such debate and dissent are characterized by? Is there a model beyond debate and dissent that has emerged as an effective politics in the production of space? - Finally and most significantly, how have governance strategies and policies either accommodated, co-opted or resisted efforts at debate, and in response to what kinds of urban actors? Panel: 1. Solomon Benjamin, Associate Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies 2. Veronique Dupont, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Research for Development, Paris 3. Diya Mehra, Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi 4. Stephanie Tawa Lama-Rewal, Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of India and South Asia, Paris 5. Marie-Helene Zerah, Senior Research Fellow, Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi Hoping very much to see you all at the discussion! Delhi Urban Platform: http://delhiurbanplatform.org/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=304722899371