From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Sun Dec 1 00:16:38 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 18:46:38 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] alternative Software Message-ID: <20021130184637.GA2092@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Probably what I am understanding of your article or essay is wrong so I need clarification on certain words and constructs 1) What does Alternative mean here 2) How does it offer a critique of universal principles laid down by hardware 3) Is this essay making a claim that the mathematical model on which computeres and many electronic devices is wrong. Finite autmata as a model has been used over and over again and is considered a thoroughly understood subject Is there any sort of study on which problems/solution scenerios are beyond computational margins. Could you point me to the texts which cover this topic well. It would be even better if you could point to a live problem/solution sceneario where hardware/software constraints could be made glaringly visible. As you have already stated in your easy about neural network, I would like to push the discussion around that topic. Neural network approach to computing does not base its treatment of data not on the basis of preset algorithm but rely on a learning of certain types of data and computing on basis of shift of synaptic weights. Minsky wrote a doctorate thesis at princeton which sort of dealt with topic of neural networks. In 1967 Minsky wrote a book called Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines which put "neural networks" in context of automata theory and the theory of computation Would like hear more on this -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From kshekhar at bol.net.in Sun Dec 1 01:11:20 2002 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 01:11:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Toward an Ideal Antiwar Movement: Mature, Legitimate, and Popular Message-ID: Toward an Ideal Antiwar Movement: Mature, Legitimate, and Popular Michael Berube The Chronicle of Higher Education November 29, 2002 http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i14/14b01201.htm Toward an Ideal Antiwar Movement: Mature, Legitimate, and Popular By MICHAEL BERUBE Now that Iraq has agreed to allow weapons inspectors back into the country, opponents of war with Iraq will have to begin fine-tuning their arguments against invasion. Do we approve of the United Nations Security Council resolution that is sending inspectors in, or do we dismiss the U.N. vote as a mere fig leaf for American hegemony? If we agree that the viability of the United Nations depends in part on its willingness to enforce its own resolutions, do we continue to oppose a war if Saddam does not disarm by February? Beneath those questions simmers a debate that has been nagging leftist and liberal intellectuals in recent months: What should we make of recent charges that our largest rallies and demonstrations to date have been led by unreconstructed Communist-front groups? It's an important debate, even if the politics are arcane and the accusations overdrawn; the legitimacy and the direction of the antiwar movement are at stake. To answer the questions is to define what the antiwar movement is for. The charges of Communist infiltration give me a poignant sense of deja vu. One fine day in June of 1982, I was sitting with nearly a million people in New York City's Central Park, demonstrating in favor of a "freeze" on nuclear weapons. Although I was only 21 at the time, I had a somewhat elaborate position on nuclear policy for my age cohort: I agreed with most antinuclear activists that the MX missile was expensive and useless except as a first-strike weapon, but I departed from antinuke orthodoxy in believing that nuclear weapons launched from submarines were a good deterrent. A Soviet strike could knock out land-based missiles in their silos, I reasoned, and Reagan's plan to deploy Pershing missiles in West Germany would give Moscow only minutes to respond to an attack -- or to determine that their launch-detection systems were in error. The MX and Pershing missiles, therefore, seemed to me to be destabilizing weapons systems. By contrast, submarine-based weapons were a good deterrent force: too inaccurate to be reliable first-strike weapons, but impossible to locate and pre-empt, and, therefore, perfect as retaliatory weapons. If the United States would vow not to initiate a first strike and would maintain a credible submarine deterrent, I thought, that would be good enough for me. Needless to say, that position put me at odds with many of my fellow demonstrators, who were carrying signs like "One Nuclear Bomb Can Ruin Your Entire Day" and "Arms Are for Hugging." Young thing that I was, I was fairly proud of the fact that my position on nuclear arms couldn't fit on a placard. At the time, however, there was no need to rehearse my differences with anyone on the antinuclear left. The previous year, the Reagan administration had announced that it would consider launching a "warning" nuclear strike from Europe if the U.S.S.R. invaded West Germany, and defense hawks were arguing that we should embark on an aggressive anti-satellite program, even though the United States relied more heavily on satellite information than did the Soviets. The times were urgent, so my friends and I went to Central Park to demonstrate, and we didn't think too much about who was organizing the rally. Of course, we had read in The New York Times that Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger had dismissed the demonstration before it had even begun on the grounds that the nuclear-freeze moment was led by Soviet agents and sympathizers. But that dismissal was a source of much amusement in my crowd, which did not, in fact, contain a single Soviet agent or sympathizer. "Caspar, dude," said one of my friends, taking an imaginary hit from an imaginary joint and talking like a stoner trying not to exhale, "like, we're just listening to some Jackson Browne, man." Twenty years later, the left has begun organizing mass demonstrations against a war in Iraq. But who's doing the organizing? For the October 6 rally in New York, a group called Not in Our Name, behind which one can find Refuse and Resist!, which in turn has ties to the Revolutionary Communist Party. For the October 26 rally in Washington, a group called Act Now to Stop War & End Racism (ANSWER), run out of Ramsey Clark's International Action Center, itself a front for the Workers World Party. The groups involved in the demonstrations thus carry some heavy far-left baggage. The Workers World Party was formed in 1959 to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary and protest Khrushchev's revelations of Stalin's crimes. The Revolutionary Communist Party is known for its support of Peru's Shining Path and of the Chinese Communist Party's 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Ramsey Clark himself, of course, has become notable in recent years for being co-chairman of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, and his International Action Center is a strenuous supporter of North Korea. Suffice it to say that these people aren't just sitting around listening to Jackson Browne. But does that mean that the anti-war-in-Iraq rallies themselves are tainted by association with groups so bizarrely far left as to be friendly to far-right mass murderers? Most antiwar protesters say that only far-right hawks like David Horowitz would think so. All the same, many liberals and progressives I know have refused to have anything to do with any event organized by ANSWER or Not in Our Name; many other liberals, and many people farther left, have decried the politics of such organizations but have argued either that (a) extremist groups naturally leap to the fore at the outset and then are superseded by more-mainstream forces; or that (b) it doesn't matter who organizes a rally so much as who attends it. Surely, they say, the 100,000 people who thronged the National Mall in Washington on October 26 were a more powerful voice against war than the two or three dozen Milosevic/Shining Path fans in their midst. And who else is doing the labor to get 100,000 people in one place? Personally, I find it disingenuous to argue that the politics of a sponsoring organization are immaterial to the nature of the event. Quite apart from the tactical questions of whether a group like the International Action Center or Refuse and Resist! will alienate mainstream Americans who are skeptical about a war in Iraq, and whether the antiwar movement will lack credibility as a result, it is hard to imagine that serious leftists and liberals would make that kind of argument if, say, a group called Nudists Against War were sponsoring major rallies (you know, with slogans like "Say NAW to Bush"). Certainly any antiwar demonstration headed by NAW would lack a certain, how shall I say, gravitas -- and yet the major difference between the nudists and the Workers World Party, I think, is that the nudists would be rather more benign and, of course, would carry far less baggage. Then again, antiwar activists don't always have the luxury of waiting around until the right organizing committee comes along. On college campuses, especially, groups like ANSWER are sometimes the only antiwar game in town, and it's hard to convince 21-year-old leftists -- versions of my younger self -- that they should shun their local antiwar organizers because cousins of the great-uncles of the organizers' ancestors supported the Soviet crackdown on Hungary in 1956. Campus leftists thus find themselves caught between two competing and compelling injunctions. On one hand, antiwar veterans like the sociologist Todd Gitlin have argued persuasively that alliances with ANSWER and Not in Our Name will only damage the antiwar cause beyond repair. On the other hand, hardcore leftists like the writer Ron Jacobs, in an article in CounterPunch, have argued that "Mr. Gitlin and his compatriots, who, whether they like it or not, are today's liberal establishment, are replicating the sins of their fathers in their rebuke of any group with a red tinge in the antiwar movement." Most of the antiwar advocates I know are patriots who sincerely believe that unilateral war with Iraq is deeply inimical to the United States' short-term economic interests and long-term national security, and none of us want to relive the fate of the fence-sitting social democrats of the 1960s, who divided their time between denouncing the war in Vietnam and denouncing the denouncers of the war in Vietnam. Like Kafka's hunger artist, the anti-antiwar left of the 1960s never did find a food it would deign to eat. We do not want to make the same mistake. And yet I find that, even as I have deep respect for all the tens of thousands of people who have signed a September "Statement of Conscience," put out by Not in Our Name to oppose war in Iraq, I cannot quite join them, even though I, too, oppose the war (and endorse most of the statement). Partly that's because the statement condemns the U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, which (yes, I know) killed civilians and failed to capture Osama bin Laden, but which also destroyed the Al Qaeda terror camps, brought down the Taliban, and (even more important) slowed down the growing radicalization of Pakistan -- a radicalization that, ideally, should be opposed by all secular democrats. It's on the latter grounds that I supported the war in Afghanistan. But mostly I cannot sign Not in Our Name's statement because it declares, in its third sentence, "We believe that peoples and nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers." It's a euphonious phrase, to some ears, but what happens, may I ask, when a "nation" decides that its "destiny" lies in the extermination of a "people"? The sentence reads like a leftover shibboleth from Kosovo, when one wing of the antiwar left devised the argument that the United States and NATO had no business intervening in a matter internal to Serbian affairs. That antiwar faction crafted a new "sovereignty" rationale that, in my opinion, turned its back on decades of left internationalism in order to oppose U.S. military action in Kosovo in whatever terms came most readily to hand. The appeal to "sovereignty" sounds fine to many leftists when it's a question of defending developing nations from the United States (nations that should be "free from military coercion by great powers"). But should that principle be applied when Saddam Hussein kills Iraqi Kurds? Or when Milosevic kills Kosovar Albanians? Or when Suharto kills the East Timorese, or Rioss Montt the indigenous Guatemalan Indians, or Hitler the Jews? Nazi Germany saw the killing of Jews as absolutely central to its "destiny," but one would not want to have seen a sane and serious left defending the enterprise on those grounds. I would prefer to see great powers exercising military coercion to prevent such nations from determining their own destiny (especially in cases like Suharto and Montt, whose regimes the United States had supported), and I would be all the happier if the great powers did so in my name. I have dear and trusted friends who tell me that I'm reading the Not in Our Name statement far too closely, that I'm turning into a caricature of a literary theorist parsing the textual resonances and antecedents of a document whose primary purpose is simply to rouse people to action. The charge hits home: Perhaps I am just an armchair activist, sitting at home in my study, jawing over the fine points of texts, when I should be organizing teach-ins and rallies. After all, I know the antiwar movement in the Vietnam era began with a handful of loopy Maoists and did not win the hearts and minds of most Americans until the early 1970s. And we forget all too easily just how courageous it was for Martin Luther King Jr. to declare that he wasn't gonna study war no more at a time when the declaration placed him far to the left of establishment opinion. But sometimes even armchair activists have their place. I believe the legitimacy of the leading antiwar groups is a real issue, for two crucial reasons. The first is pragmatic: The antiwar movement is never going to be a mass movement if it is led by defenders of Milosevic and the Shining Path. The second is moral: It would be a terrible dereliction of duty if American intellectuals, whether in their studies or on the streets, failed to ask about Americans' rationale for opposing this war. It is true that, if we set forth everyone's last scruple and caveat about Iraq (just as if we had laid out our positions on nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, nuclear power, and nuclear subs 20 years ago), the left would find itself demonstrating in groups of two or three. And it is true that, at the moment, there are powerful temptations to finer and finer parsings of differences internal to the left, whereby some leftists can craft "pure" and/or "pragmatic" positions by criticizing other leftists' excessively "pure" and/or "pragmatic" positions. That seems an especially pointless enterprise today, when the truly significant danger, for any antiwar advocate, isn't the Workers World Party or Revolutionary Communist Party: It's the fact that the Republican Party controls the White House and Congress, while the Democratic Party is rudderless and leaderless -- "in its worst shape since 1928," as the historian Sean Wilentz wrote recently in Salon, "and there's no FDR even remotely in sight." But there is also a powerful temptation for left-liberal intellectuals and activists, when they are as marginalized as they are today, to become indiscriminate about whom they hang out with. So while there is a crying need for a broad-based antiwar movement that mobilizes against the Bush plan for unilateral pre-emptive action anywhere in the world, there is also a crying need for a principled, rigorous antiwar rationale that pays Iraqi dissidents-in-exile the respect of taking seriously their longstanding desire for "regime change," and, likewise, takes seriously the possibility that Saddam Hussein will not really cooperate with United Nations inspections and will seek to develop and deploy weapons of mass destruction. Such an antiwar movement would argue against an arrogant and counterproductive U.S. unilateralism. It would distrust U.S. claims to be acting on behalf of oppressed Iraqis, on the grounds that the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Perle axis showed no interest in oppressed Iraqis before now and has already demonstrated its remarkable indifference to nation building on behalf of oppressed Afghans in Afghanistan. But the movement would base those arguments on an appeal to internationalism, rather than on appeals to national sovereignty. Thereby, it would insist that the best alternative to war, an alternative that would accurately and appropriately express international opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime, would consist of the "smart sanctions" that Colin Powell had championed -- to little fanfare and less avail -- in the early months of the Bush administration. As for those pro-war advocates who claim that Saddam cannot be effectively "contained" because he is so much more irrational than Stalin and Mao, my sense is that those critics have far too high an opinion of Stalin and Mao. Clearly, the Persian Gulf war sanctions against Saddam have failed on every count, since they have hardened Arab opinion against the United States even as they have allowed the dictator to starve his people and smuggle in military equipment. Just as clearly, the "no war, no sanctions" faction of the antiwar left is operating under the delusion that all of Saddam's past crimes can somehow be laid at the feet of the United States. The ideal antiwar movement, for me, would be one that could answer both the claims of ANSWER (by offering a principled opposition to U.S. hegemony) and the demands of pro-war liberals (by insisting that Iraqis would benefit more from peaceful "regime change" than from invasion and bombing). The movement would consist of people who oppose U.S. unilateralism strongly enough to denounce it, and those who oppose Saddam Hussein strongly enough to want to depose him by nonmilitary means. Such an antiwar movement would be, I believe, mature, legitimate, and defensible. And it might just be broadly popular as well. Michael Berube is a professor of English at Pennsylvania State University at University Park. _____ Shekhar Krishnan 9, Supriya, 2nd Floor Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road No.4 Dadar, Bombay 400014 India From areflagan at artpanorama.com Mon Dec 2 03:03:57 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 16:33:57 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: <20021129235350.GB568@localhost> Message-ID: On 11/29/02 18:53, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > ***Sorry fellow earthlings I give in to the troll*** > > Dear Are, > Sorry for the interruption but as a student of Theory of > computation, I am sorry to say neither I or Turing will > agree to the first paragraph of your mail > Of course he would not agree. See the notes again, especially his sixth objection on Lovelace. Then again, I do not agree with Turing (nor do I think he agreed with his earlier self in the end). > > First of all the question is not about either hardware or software > or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an > assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont understand > computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and > if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable > and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware dependent > software or hardware independent but software dependent software. > What you are missing is the Turing breakthrough in modern computing -- the interplay between the problem, the algorithm, the Turing machine, software/hardware and the Universal. This can of course be configured in any of the ways you mention, but this discussion, along with the essay, was aimed at an elucidation of software, that is to say primarily one configuration of the set up. Turing never really made a distinction between hardware and software, except by adding the prefix Universal -- Turing Machines within a Universal Turing Machine -- suggesting that they are of a similar order, but stacked like Russian dolls. This point is reiterated in the essay by making some reference to the hazy distinction between software and hardware, while focusing on their limits and the operative desires and effects, so to speak, of software. Or, if you like, the function of your tautology -- "if a Turing Machine can solve a problem then it is logically solvable." To which my essay incredulously attempts to ask: because the Turing Machine (software/hardware) told you so? > There are certain problems which considered undecidable thus, unsolvable by > computers for example the problem that the set of all functions f:N->N is > unsolvable by turing machine. > > Again it is foolish to assume that software is dependent on hardware or that > the universal principles of computation are laid down by hardware, hardware > design or limitaitons of hardware components. > > There is a concept called nondeterministic turing machine just as > finite automata is allowed to act nondeterministcally. a nondeterministic > turing machin can produce two different outputs to the same input. > > do you have any clue to what you are writing interpreting > imssinterprating. > No clue (so let's ignore that angle). There are many more problems unsolvable by a computer, such as chewing gum and walking at the same time (but it is nicely simulated in multitasking). The prospects of understanding computing (or software or hardware) cannot belong to math and logic alone, unless these are also recast within their own social and cultural and philosophical histories. If computing is only understood as a successful program -- invoked here in the widest sense but with reference to its application -- that relies upon certain solutions (arrived at through math and logic), understanding then resides solely with the machine that _runs_ them, brings them to life. Post Heisenberg, the Russian attempts at building trinary computers, and the speedy benchmarks of photons rather than electrons, one could indeed say that it is foolish to suggest that there is any consistency or limitations to hardware or software, or any set dependency to their relations. However, anyone who has ever pointed at a stack to set either a true or false value/voltage would acknowledge that there is a dependency, and I have yet to run an algorithm that does not resolve its truth table, speaking here of limitations (my computer has crashed on occasion, though). What I vehemently seek to contest is the built-in arrogance that seeks refuge in the operations of the machine, in its concepts and functions, to render any other interpretations than those proffered by its devoted students foolish and clueless. -af From areflagan at artpanorama.com Mon Dec 2 03:12:40 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 16:42:40 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software In-Reply-To: <20021130215536.32662.qmail@web14205.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: [The below is a response from Mark Crosby. -af] + + + + + It was interesting to read Are Flagan's "The Forbidden Fruits of Computing" just after having read Kevin Kelly's latest article, "God is Machine", in the Dec.2002 _Wired_ (10.12) at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/holytech_pr.html --- Are Flagan wrote: > The relations Turing desired in computing ... > spoke of a sexual difference--subtly restated in his > choice of sex to determine human intelligence in the > Turing Test--that cautiously countered the machine's > universality. [cut] > When Turing took a bite of the cyanide-laced apple, > he chewed a chunk of that encounter in the Garden of > Eden, which punished curiosity when it interfered > with commands; he tarnished the purity of Snow White > and the gravity of Newton's eureka that found > enlightenment through reason. In computing, there > should always be a lingering aftertaste--a protracted > mortality--that recalls the tang of sweet and bitter > juices Turing must have savored as he pondered the > fruits of his work, in that final system failure. [7] > NOTES [CUT] Are, this is a great 'punch-line' and deserves to be developed, but it didn't seem to me that your discussion of Turing's AI work really supported this. I see no reason why you come to "The troubling conclusion" that a universal system "subsists ... under the umbrella of a mastermind". The controls are rather 'immanent', built-in, distributed throughout.. Of course Capitalism is TRYING to build a "universalized norm ... representing a common denominative being that does not depart from the average buit rather adheres to it in every respect". BUT, transcendentalists have been trying this ever since the Tower of Babel and Plato's Republic, without ever being successful - because the world doesnt work this way or resists.. And to say that "proprietary software mirrors this state", seems to confuse proprietary with monopolistic and monolithic (before MicroSoft there were MULTITUDES of proprietary languages, each babbling in their own idioms ;) You say that the virtual machines "all adhere to the same universalized principles of an absolute decidability". Kevin Kelly's references to leading computationalists Ed Fredkin and David Deutsch also make similar claims, that "All computation is one". Kelly's "God is the Machine" zooms in first on Ed Fredkin's cellular automata universe and questions of 'implementation': "Fredkin says that all this work happens on the 'Other'. The Other, he says, could be another universe ... It's just not in this universe, and so he doesn't care too much about it". David Deutsch, Kelly reports, "has a different theory... Since computation is absolutely independent of the 'hardware' it runs on, studying it can tell us nothing about the nature or existence of that platform. Deutsch concludes it does not exist: 'The universe is not a program running somewhere else. It is a universal computer, and there is nothing outside of it". This was Spinoza's heresy.. But Kelly seems to be garbling something here: if there is "nothing outside of it" then how could "computation [be] absolutely independent of the 'hardware'"? Tommaso Toffoli, "a quantum computer researcher", gushes that "all we can do is 'hitch a ride' on this huge, ongoing Great Computation". With Modernism, the world was passive under our great conquering egos; now, in this post-modern reversal, we just lay back and let the machines 'take care' of us! So we might be tempted to say that Kevin Kelly's "God is the Machine" is a bit hyped over "the mystical doctrine of universal computation" when increasingly research notes that instantiation DOES matter, especially if 'there is no outside'. A much better understanding of the issues coming to dominate computationalism can be obtained from a volume called _Computationalism: New Directions_, edited by Matthias Scheutz, much of which can be scavenged online (see below). Aaron Sloman's chapter in this volume goes so far as to assert, "The Irrelevance of Turing Machines to Artificial Intelligence". While Sloman deals with NEED in AI (utilitarian affect), there's also DESIRE in AI (cf, Sherry Turkle's 2002 Freud Lecture, "Whether Psychoanalysis in a Computer Culture?" at http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0529.html?printable=1 or Mark Pesce's Playful Worlds http://www.playfulworld.com/ ;) Turkle's article (on "evocative objects" and "possibilities for narcissistic experience with machines") might be especially useful for your "Forbidden Fruits" theme! But Kevin Kelly's "God is the Machine" exhibits many of the "dissociations" discussed by Phil Agre's chapter, "The Practical Logic of Computer Work" where he concludes: "Running through all of the dissociations I mentioned is a recurring theme, a kind of transcendentalism that attempts to hold something apart from and above material reality... The dissociations portray the world as a negative, chaotic principle and the mind as a positive ordering principle... it doesn't work that way. If not for the positive ordering principles inherent in the world itself, life would be impossible". - Mark ===== _Computationalism: New Directions_ edited by Matthias Scheutz http://www.nd.edu/~mscheutz/publications/scheutz02mitbook.html Chapter 1. MATTHIAS SCHEUTZ - Computationalism: The Next Generation http://www.nd.edu/~mscheutz/publications/scheutz02mitbookch1.pdf Chapter 2. BRIAN CANTWELL SMITH - The Foundations of Computing http://www.ageofsig.org/people/bcsmith/print/smith-foundtns.pdf Chapter 3. B. JACK COPELAND - Narrow Versus Wide Mechanism http://www.phil.canterbury.ac.nz/jack_copeland/ Chapter 4. AARON SLOMAN - The Irrelevance of Turing Machines to Artificial Intelligence http://www.nd.edu/%7Emscheutz/publications/slomanscheutz01ijcaitut.pdf Chapter 5. PHILIP E. AGRE - The Practical Logic of Computer Work http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/practical.html Chapter 6. STEVAN HARNAD - Symbol Grounding and the Origin of Language http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002133/00/harnad02.symlang.htm Chapter 7. JOHN HAUGELAND - Authentic Intentionality http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/intentio.htm Epilog. MATTHIAS SCHEUTZ http://www.nd.edu/~mscheutz/publications/scheutz02mitbookepilog.pdf Note: Only the URLs for ch.s 3, 4, 7 are not the actual text being referred to. However, the PDF slide show listed under ch.4 is actually by Sloman and Scheutz, but provides a nice history of the evolution of "virtual machine functionalism".. From areflagan at artpanorama.com Mon Dec 2 04:25:59 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 17:55:59 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] alternative Software In-Reply-To: <20021130184637.GA2092@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Message-ID: On 11/30/02 13:46, "Supreet Sethi" wrote: > Probably what I am understanding of your article or essay is wrong so I > need clarification on certain words and constructs > 1) What does Alternative mean here I guess that's what I am partly trying to figure out. If we are so keen on open source and the development of independent standards, surely these would by definition be approaching this "alternative," at least in their intent. The essay asks a tentative "what if..." > 2) How does it offer a critique of universal principles laid down by > hardware I would say that it only points to a critique of universality (and hints at its effects). > 3) Is this essay making a claim that the mathematical model on which > computeres and many electronic devices is wrong. Finite autmata as a model > has been used over and over again and is considered a thoroughly > understood subject It is not really making a binary value judgment explicitly (it is not a computer, in other words). One could perhaps also say, with reference to how software/hardware (finite automata) is used and distributed, and what economies it participates in, that it is equally misunderstood. > Is there any sort of study on which problems/solution scenerios are beyond > computational margins. > Could you point me to the texts which cover this topic well. > The straight answer would be that anything that is not either true or false and can be processed according to the operators AND, OR, NOT would easily fall beyond the present computational margins. The links in Mark Crosby's post contain, at first glance, some interesting overviews of various questions posed... > It would be even better if you could point to a live problem/solution > sceneario where hardware/software constraints could be made glaringly > visible. > This is the crux and contention: the conjuncture of hardware/software/logic/math and language/culture/society effectively seek to preclude such visibility. It seamlessly integrates its program into a machine operation and thereby mechanizes and naturalizes its appearance. > > As you have already stated in your easy about neural network, I would like > to push the discussion around that topic. Neural network approach to > computing does not base its treatment of data not on the basis of preset > algorithm but rely on a learning of certain types of data and computing on > basis of shift of synaptic weights. > > Minsky wrote a doctorate thesis at princeton which sort of dealt with > topic of neural networks. > In 1967 Minsky wrote a book called Computation: Finite and Infinite > Machines which put "neural networks" in context of automata theory and the > theory of computation > > Would like hear more on this I see it as a super vast field with many angles and possibilities. If software/hardware is indeed an incarnation, an embodiment, of mind, is it possible for it to think for itself? Immediately we return to the core split in the philosophy of mind (reflected in the Cartesian subject): are these thoughts really mine or do they belong to discursive differences, outside me? Can a neural net be other than the learning mechanisms imposed upon it, the instructions already given? Ada Lovelace remarked about the very first "computer" that it could do nothing but what we told it. Turing seemed to believe that his machines could inhabit their own intelligence, a character specific to its algebraic make up. Our understanding and application of "software" may ultimately be contingent upon exactly how such epic conundrums are resolved and/or resisted. -af From human at electronetwork.org Mon Dec 2 04:47:19 2002 From: human at electronetwork.org (human being) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 17:17:19 -0600 Subject: [Reader-list] alternative Software In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <09B26D57-0583-11D7-93BB-0003936C456C@electronetwork.org> related to: >> Is there any sort of study on which problems/solution scenerios are >> beyond >> computational margins. >> Could you point me to the texts which cover this topic well. >> > > The straight answer would be that anything that is not either true or > false > and can be processed according to the operators AND, OR, NOT would > easily > fall beyond the present computational margins. The links in Mark > Crosby's > post contain, at first glance, some interesting overviews of various > questions posed... // this article is an interesting overview of quantum principles, // most graphics in the article link to additional information... Rules for a Complex Quantum World An exciting new fundamental discipline of research combines information science and quantum mechanics By Michael A. Nielsen http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=0005C8BF-1B88- 1D9B-815A809EC5880000 From broadcaster at syhlleti.org Sun Dec 1 00:03:44 2002 From: broadcaster at syhlleti.org (broadcaster at syhlleti.org) Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 00:03:44 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] Interview of the Month - Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl (courtesy - www.tripurainfo.com ) Message-ID: <1238.219.65.254.16.1038681224.squirrel@smtp.spectrum.in> INTERVIEW OF THE MONTH Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl President INPT INPT supremo Bijay Kumar Hrangkhawal has always been in media headlines over the past two decades of Tripura’s eventful history. His decadelong (1978-88) stint as supreme leader of erstwhile TNV rebel outfit made Hrangkhawal a familiar name in media at home and abroad. Having bidden ‘farewell to arms’ in August 1988 by signing a peace accord Bijay Hrangkhawal became leader of TNV,turned into an overground political party and then MLA from Kulai constituency in Dhalai district in 1998. But controversy continues to dog Hrangkhawal even now as evident from the reaction of the state government to his speech delivered in an international convention of Working Group of Indigenous Population (WGIP) at Geneva in the last week of July. Even though he confronts a host of charges from state police Hrangkhawal’s interpretation of his speech makes it look positive and devoid of any controversial content. Despite his preoccupation with organizational work in the context of upcoming assembly election Mr Hragkhawal took time off his hectic schedule to reply to the questionnaire furnished by www.tripurainfo.com. Q.No.1. Your recent speech in Geneva created commotion in the state. The particular points that relate to Right to Self determination for the tribal people and terming the terrorist acts not secessionist at all are being questioned. How do you explain that terrorist outfits, who are demanding “independence from Indian Colonial rule”, are not ‘secessionist’ and how do you relate their demand for ‘sovereign Tripura’ as right to Self determination as mentioned by you? Hrangkhawl : First of all, I want to clarify that, my written speech delivered at Geneva is nothing personal. The text was drafted and approved by the party. Thus the entire views are of my party, the INPT. Right to self determination does not necessarily mean independence. It means over all development. In other words of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru ‘People should develop along the lines of their own genius’ . ‘Gram Swaraj’ the popular demand of Mahatma Gandhi was also to provide right to self determination to village masses. The constitution safe guards for the SC and ST under Article 16(4), 224, 224A, 330-342 and 343 recently incorporated in the Constitution of India vide 73rd and 74th Amendment are aimed to ensure right to self determination. Q.No.2: In your Geneva speech you gave details of the census reports in Tripura but skipped the census reports from 1901 to 1941. Why is it so? Hrangkhawl: Census report of 1901 was incorporated with a view to review demographic pattern of Tripura hundred years ago. The party did not feel necessary to incorporate decadal Census Reports of subsequent period Q.No.3: You said that Bengali employees and Intelligentsia pressurized Maharani Kanchanprava to merge with Indian Union. But the fact is that Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya had sent his representative Girija Shankar Guha to Constituent assembly a month before his death. Besides, Maharani Kanchanrava Debi signed the instrument of accession on 13.08.1947 making Tripura a part of the Indian union and the regency council comprised only one Bengali Hindu S.B.Mukhapadhyaya as advisor and the Maharani became the sole regent from January 12 1948, long 22 months before Tripura merged with India . Do not these facts prove your statement wrong? Hrangkhawl : It is the view of my party, the INPT. Q.No.4: During the past decade insurgency has emerged as the scourge of Tripura, retarding the state's development and further decimation of the tribals. Do you accept this fact and how can this be resolved? Hrangkhawl : By way of assuring right to self determination to the indigenous people in letter and spirit Q.No.5: There is no doubt peace talks alone can lead to a solution of the problem but it is also obvious that centre is not going to accept any demand of the militant outfits beyond the constitutional barriers. What can then be the basis of peace talks? Hrangkhawl : There is no question of accepting any proposal out of Constitutional framework. Right to self determination of the citizens of India is very much constitutional and within the framework of the Constitution . Q.No.6: Don't you think that an easier way to solution to the insurgency problem lies in a combined initiative by all the political parties? The consensus at the political level can persuade the militants to think positively and finally lead to a solution ? Hrangkhawl : It requires political goodwill. The INPT is ready to co- operate to state and Central government if sought for. Q.No.7: Mr Hrangkhawl the assembly election is barely four months away. How do you view the prospects of Congress-INPT combine in the election? Hrangkhawl : The historic gathering of the 8th September, 2002 at state capital, Agartala is a clear dictum for the coming days. The prospect of the INC-INPT is bright. Q.No.8: There is reportedly difference of opinion on the number of seats the alliance partners will share. How many seats does your party demand and how can it be reconciled with the congress position? Hrangkhawl : Differences of idea is there, even in the Left Front, NDA etc, regarding seat sharing and other aspects. It is always solved sitting across the table. Number of assembly seats required shall be determined by my party. Q.No.9: With the state government filing an FIR against you under section 157 IPC, and an agitation in the state , what is your comment on this ? Hrangkhawl : The FIR is purely politically motivated action. Road blockade movement and its grand success organized by INPT and INC collectively was the right answer of such steps. Q.No.10: If you are elected in the next assembly election and become the Chief minister, What would be your first task ? Hrangkhawl : It is quite premature to offer any comment on this at the moment . Copyright 2001. www.tripurainfo.com, HGB Road, Post Office Choumohoni, Agartala, Tripura(west),INDIA. From twsherma at mailbox.syr.edu Sun Dec 1 06:59:30 2002 From: twsherma at mailbox.syr.edu (twsherma at mailbox.syr.edu) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 20:29:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Reader-list] Tom Sherman's I-Bomb book available via the Web In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Tom Sherman's book, "Before and After the I-Bomb: An Artist in the Information Environment," is available through Printed Matter, Inc.; or directly from the Banff Centre Press. Individuals can order via the WWW from Printed Matter, Inc.: http://www.printedmatter.org/ To order directly from the Banff Centre Press, send an e-mail to: press at banffcentre.ca -- or call 403-762-7532 Bookstores or libraries should contact: LPG Distribution c/o 100 Armstrong Ave Georgetown, ON L7G 5S4 Tel: 905-877-4411 toll-free 800-591-6250 Fax: 905-877-4410 toll-free 800-591-6251 Email: orders at lpg.ca [note: bookstores in the U.S. can order through Ingram and Baker & Taylor] "Before and After the I-Bomb: an artist in the information environment" by Tom Sherman, edited by Peggy Gale, Banff Centre Press 2002, ISBN 0-920159-94-X; 6.5 x 8.25, 384 pages, paper: $29.95 CDN / $20.50 US Here's a review of Tom Sherman's "Before and After the I-Bomb...," by David A. Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and San Francisco's MoMA: There are aspects of contemporary art that seem alien to many who had hoped to find in art, something simple, soothing and satisfying. Trained to respond quickly, rather than to reflect, these people find it hard to accept that what an artist does in the course of making art involves more than the construction of likenesses. These people may have a difficult time with Tom Sherman. For most of the century just past, artists have been called upon to absorb and integrate enormous amounts of knowledge in order to perform tasks that seem inversely related to the production of likenesses. Artists of the last third of the past century approached the task by exploring complex ontological and social problems within the context of an aesthetic discourse, and this conflation of art and philosophy has as profoundly as the invention of photography altered how we define art and the task of the artist. Few artists have approached this evolving set of concerns with the rigor, insight and wit as Tom Sherman. Few have recognized that the profound relationship of artistic practice to social and natural history is as significant as its relationship to art's insulated histories. And fewer still have expressed the deep and abiding faith in the power of the idea, even as we have moved into an era that can be seen clearly as post-conceptual. Few understand as fully the impact of the explosion of information technologies, and how they have forever altered not only how we see, but how we think. In his writings (as well as his video and performance works) Sherman has explored our era in a ruminative self-conscious fashion that seeks to integrate a deeply critical outsider's perspective on modern life with an understanding and sense of hopefulness that denies cynicism as it defies easy ideological categorization. His essays make for enormously pleasurable reading. Yet, in the range of Sherman's thinking, one is drawn to the work of Joseph Beuys, who insisted on the erasure of the boundaries separating natural and art history, social and aesthetic discourse, ecology, politics and art, and to Bertoldt Brecht who understood and predicted the pernicious influence of advanced mass media on our everyday lives. Read Sherman slowly and then re-read him again. You will find his to be one of the most original and powerful voices of a generation. --David A. Ross, 2002 And here is a review of "Before and After the I-Bomb..." written by Catherine Elwes, the British video artist and writer, for Contemporary magazine, London: Media artists are well placed to reflect on their times and speculate on where the digital information age is leading poised as they are between creative resistance and enthusiastic exploitation of contemporary technologies. The North American video, installation, audio and internet artist Tom Sherman is one of our more astute observers. Himself a pioneer, Sherman has made a substantial contribution to the time-based arts that developed alongside and in opposition to commercial television and proliferated when the 'Information Bomb' hit our lives. Sherman, in common with poets and visionaries, can often see two sides of the same coin and oscillates between a celebration of global communication and acerbic critiques of the passivity that the digital age engenders. The impact, both good and bad, that television and the digital age have had on our creative autonomy is elucidated in Before and after the I-Bomb, Tom Sherman's challenging and highly engaging collection of essays and video scripts spanning three decades. Contrary to many structuralist thinkers in the '70s on this side of the Atlantic, Sherman believes that viewers maintain a core resistance to the tidal wave of ideological information that emanates from their televisions and computers. And it is this small inner voice of dissent that he has tried to stimulate in his own video and audio work as well as in his writings; but Sherman is aware that countering the 'monoculture' is a Herculean task. Many of the pieces in this book analyse our inability to respond, the 'blanking' that results from information overload and the dysfunctional relationships we have developed with our computers and technological toys. Sherman predicts that in an increasingly technological future, they will take over from flesh and blood companions to become our principal 'significant others'. Cut off from the real world we compulsively surf the internet deluding ourselves that we are making committed social connections. As artists we cast our works into cyberspace in the belief that a vibrant counter-cultural audience is poised to receive in all four corners of the earth. And then comes 'the agony of silence', no new messages in the inbox, no hits on the website and the artist sinks into anonymity nursing her 'stillborn' offerings. Sherman is sharply critical of the psycho-social pitfalls of our information age and shrewdly aware of the problems that artists face when they attempt to appropriate the tools of mass entertainment, but he is never devoid of hope and believes in the restorative effects of irony. Even as he decries our progressive disconnection from nature through urbanisation, he advocates the redemptive powers of landscape and in his many stories about animals and almost-wild places, he finds analogies and congruences with the workings of his own mind. But ever the realist, Sherman emphasises nature's indifference to our attentions and our tendency to regard it as "a museum where we can investigate the nature of our animal past." To him, nature also represents poverty and the tyranny of insects. In England we might view a reconnection with nature as a marker of affluence, part of the retirement package that includes large gardens, travel to foreign landscapes and holiday homes in beauty spots that were unspoiled until armies of city buyers polluted the landscape with bungalows. Before and after the I-Bomb is replete with performative texts, texts to be read aloud, texts to be argued with. They demonstrate the power of language and the individual imagination "to offer alternative models of human identity" in the pervasive sameness of our techno-culture. Whether describing the iniquities of state funding for the arts, the acceptable levels of 'Raw Personal Material' on television or the eclipse of non-conformity that signals the end of childhood, Sherman is the best advertisement for his own vision of the artist's role: to remind us "that human beings not their managerial systems are the authors of the human condition" and more significantly, "to answer the questions that haven't yet been asked." --Catherine Elwes, 2002 From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Mon Dec 2 12:03:06 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 06:33:06 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: References: <20021129235350.GB568@localhost> Message-ID: <20021202063306.GA1718@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 04:33:57PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: > On 11/29/02 18:53, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > > > ***Sorry fellow earthlings I give in to the troll*** > > > > Dear Are, > > Sorry for the interruption but as a student of Theory of > > computation, I am sorry to say neither I or Turing will > > agree to the first paragraph of your mail > > > > Of course he would not agree. See the notes again, especially his sixth > objection on Lovelace. Then again, I do not agree with Turing (nor do I > think he agreed with his earlier self in the end). First of all what turing thought of himself, his brother his sisterhis wife or his work is not the subject. It does not contribute to qualitative analysis of computer science wheather he was gay or hetrosexual. > > > > > First of all the question is not about either hardware or software > > or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an > > assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont understand > > computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and > > if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable > > and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware dependent > > software or hardware independent but software dependent software. > > > > What you are missing is the Turing breakthrough in modern computing -- the > interplay between the problem, the algorithm, the Turing machine, > software/hardware and the Universal. This can of course be configured in any > of the ways you mention, but this discussion, along with the essay, was > aimed at an elucidation of software, that is to say primarily one > configuration of the set up. Turing never really made a distinction between > hardware and software, except by adding the prefix Universal -- Turing > Machines within a Universal Turing Machine -- suggesting that they are of a > similar order, but stacked like Russian dolls. This point is reiterated in > the essay by making some reference to the hazy distinction between software > and hardware, while focusing on their limits and the operative desires and > effects, so to speak, of software. Or, if you like, the function of your > tautology -- "if a Turing Machine can solve a problem then it is logically > solvable." To which my essay incredulously attempts to ask: because the > Turing Machine (software/hardware) told you so? The universality of turing machine does not mean "a" turing mahcine could solve all the problems. Turing mahcine is a simplistic model on super-scalar structure called computing is based. Just looking at one neuron in human brain you can't figure out how many things human brain can do, similarly you cannot just assume that this simplistic model, yet proven model cannot deal with complicated scenearios. A neuron also performs almost the same function as a regular transistor would. It switches on/off. > > > There are certain problems which considered undecidable thus, unsolvable by > > computers for example the problem that the set of all functions f:N->N is > > unsolvable by turing machine. > > > > Again it is foolish to assume that software is dependent on hardware or that > > the universal principles of computation are laid down by hardware, hardware > > design or limitaitons of hardware components. > > > > There is a concept called nondeterministic turing machine just as > > finite automata is allowed to act nondeterministcally. a nondeterministic > > turing machin can produce two different outputs to the same input. > > > > do you have any clue to what you are writing interpreting > > imssinterprating. > > > what you missed is that any non-deterministic automata can be reduced into a deterministic automata. > No clue (so let's ignore that angle). There are many more problems > unsolvable by a computer, such as chewing gum and walking at the same time > (but it is nicely simulated in multitasking). It could be just that simulated multitasking, how do you know that human brain is not using the same algorithm of time-shared multitaksing in its various sub-"computers". The prospects of understanding > computing (or software or hardware) cannot belong to math and logic alone, > unless these are also recast within their own social and cultural and > philosophical histories. If computing is only understood as a successful > program -- invoked here in the widest sense but with reference to its > application -- that relies upon certain solutions (arrived at through math > and logic), understanding then resides solely with the machine that _runs_ > them, brings them to life. Math and logic if you notcie tend to be very dependable. A cartesian product of two sets would be same. Same euclidian geometry forms the basis of any new discovery. Socail /cultural/philosophical histories are subjective. Every next guy would interepret it diffrenetly. Besides I think human brain underneath all its complexities relies on same math and logic. In macro terms may be nobut at micro level for synaptic shifts same AND OR NOT XOR logics form the basis of information storage and retireveal system. Post Heisenberg, the Russian attempts at building > trinary computers, and the speedy benchmarks of photons rather than > electrons, one could indeed say that it is foolish to suggest that there is > any consistency or limitations to hardware or software, or any set > dependency to their relations. However, anyone who has ever pointed at a > stack to set either a true or false value/voltage would acknowledge that > there is a dependency, and I have yet to run an algorithm that does not > resolve its truth table, speaking here of limitations (my computer has > crashed on occasion, though). What I vehemently seek to contest is the > built-in arrogance that seeks refuge in the operations of the machine, in > its concepts and functions, to render any other interpretations than those > proffered by its devoted Unversality of turing machine BTW was never asserted by turing himself. Its something called church's thesis which asserts that turing machine can solve any algorithm solvable by a real computing machines. Which I think is a right assertion. What i understand of a turing machine is the fact that any computation job can be reduced to a model where a left to right tape is moving and a reading head can interprete and take action on the basis of it. If you look at this model closely it looks where similar to a neuron in a human brain. if you see carefully there is arrogance every where. you have to prove what you are saying by building an alternative model. If you coul build a model which supercedes turing machine as a mathematical model for a computer, I would probably be the first one to write a compiler based on it. BTW is'nt there a arrogance in you when you say Free Software should be doing this , not that or the other. Evolution follows a very organic pattern, see turing machine as a species of computers, it is a proven model of doing things. Its on the top of the food chain. That does not mean there is no other model. There is already a quantum compuetr build by IBM. If it proves to be a better way of doing things it would becomes part of everyday household . Who know a million year from now a computer would be telling another computer that his human slave is lazy and consumes to much energy. That would be sweet revenge I think. > > -af > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From pankaj at sarai.net Mon Dec 2 20:19:59 2002 From: pankaj at sarai.net (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 20:19:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20021202144315.GA459@localhost> On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 04:33:57PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: > On 11/29/02 18:53, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > > > > First of all the question is not about either hardware or software > > or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an > > assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont understand > > computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and > > if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable > > and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware dependent > > software or hardware independent but software dependent software. > > > > What you are missing is the Turing breakthrough in modern computing -- the > interplay between the problem, the algorithm, the Turing machine, > software/hardware and the Universal. This can of course be configured in any > of the ways you mention, but this discussion, along with the essay, was > aimed at an elucidation of software, that is to say primarily one > configuration of the set up. Turing never really made a distinction between > hardware and software, except by adding the prefix Universal -- Turing > Machines within a Universal Turing Machine -- suggesting that they are of a > similar order, but stacked like Russian dolls. This point is reiterated in > the essay by making some reference to the hazy distinction between software > and hardware, while focusing on their limits and the operative desires and > effects, so to speak, of software. Or, if you like, the function of your > tautology -- "if a Turing Machine can solve a problem then it is logically > solvable." To which my essay incredulously attempts to ask: because the > Turing Machine (software/hardware) told you so? Logically there is no difference in hardware/software not even a hazy one. If we are doing any computation there has to be a non empty universal set, because there is no direct way to talk about individual objects and therefore no way to assert that objects stand in certain relations to each other we can make general statements about all objects in a "fixed" state called the universe. > No clue (so let's ignore that angle). There are many more problems > unsolvable by a computer, such as chewing gum and walking at the same time > (but it is nicely simulated in multitasking). The prospects of understanding > computing (or software or hardware) cannot belong to math and logic alone, > unless these are also recast within their own social and cultural and > philosophical histories. I disagree, social, cultural and philosophical histories are subjective matters and every one has a different interepretation of it. different historians can argue on different histories of a culture. math and logic is different because its all imagined and delivered, mass hypnosis in a very orthodox form called education. 1+1=2 can i question that? ok that was a joke. consider a non empty set X which has two sets A and B 1. A x B the cartesian product of two sets would be same. 2. it will be a subset of X Similarly for many turing machines inside a Turing machine that machine is their universe. That does not mean there is no other universe. universality of turing machine is not a concept by Turing but is church's thesis. because the turing machines can carry out any computation that can be carried out by any similar type of automata and because automata seem to capture the essential features of a computing machine we take the turing machine to be the precise formal equivalant of the intutive notion of a algorithm. nothing will be considered an algorithm if a turing machine can not render it. church's thesis can be overthrown any day when someone finds out an alternative method to computing which would have to be acceptable by fulfilling the requirement "finite labour at each step" and yet would carry out computations that cannot be done by turing machines. > there is a dependency, and I have yet to run an algorithm that does not > resolve its truth table, speaking here of limitations (my computer has > crashed on occasion, though). What I vehemently seek to contest is the > built-in arrogance that seeks refuge in the operations of the machine, in > its concepts and functions, to render any other interpretations than those > proffered by its devoted students foolish and clueless. > There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the universe is for it will disappear and be replaced by something more bazaarly inexplicable." There is another theory that states: "This has already happened...." -HHGTTG -- Pankaj From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Mon Dec 2 15:24:20 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 09:54:20 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: References: <20021129235350.GB568@localhost> <20021202063306.GA1718@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Message-ID: <20021202095420.GA7474@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 01:11:05PM +0530, renu wrote: > >Evolution follows a very organic pattern, see turing machine as a species > >of computers, it is a proven model of doing things. Its on the top of the > >food chain. That does not mean there is no other model. There is already a > >quantum compuetr build by IBM. If it proves to be a better way of doing > >things it would becomes part of everyday household . Who know a million > >year from now a computer would be telling another computer that his human > >slave is lazy and consumes to much energy. That would be sweet revenge I > think. > > now, thats a bunch of bullshit!!, huh!! Well I would say at this point, yes it is bullshit. But so is everything else. What would be interesting to know is what so bullshit about it? and on bullshit scale of one to ten where is it rated. > > > >On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 04:33:57PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: > >> On 11/29/02 18:53, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > >> > >> > ***Sorry fellow earthlings I give in to the troll*** > >> > > >> > Dear Are, > >> > Sorry for the interruption but as a student of Theory of > >> > computation, I am sorry to say neither I or Turing will > >> > agree to the first paragraph of your mail > >> > > >> > >> Of course he would not agree. See the notes again, especially his sixth > >> objection on Lovelace. Then again, I do not agree with Turing (nor do I > >> think he agreed with his earlier self in the end). > > > >First of all what turing thought of himself, his brother his sisterhis > >wife or his work is not the subject. It does not contribute to qualitative > >analysis of computer science wheather he was gay or hetrosexual. > > > > > > > > > >> > >> > > >> > First of all the question is not about either hardware or software > >> > or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an > >> > assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont > >> understand > >> > computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and > >> > if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable > >> > and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware > >> dependent > >> > software or hardware independent but software dependent software. > >> > > >> > >> What you are missing is the Turing breakthrough in modern computing -- > >> the > >> interplay between the problem, the algorithm, the Turing machine, > >> software/hardware and the Universal. This can of course be configured in > >> any > >> of the ways you mention, but this discussion, along with the essay, was > >> aimed at an elucidation of software, that is to say primarily one > >> configuration of the set up. Turing never really made a distinction > >> between > >> hardware and software, except by adding the prefix Universal -- Turing > >> Machines within a Universal Turing Machine -- suggesting that they are > >> of a > >> similar order, but stacked like Russian dolls. This point is reiterated > >> in > >> the essay by making some reference to the hazy distinction between > >> software > >> and hardware, while focusing on their limits and the operative desires > >> and > >> effects, so to speak, of software. Or, if you like, the function of your > >> tautology -- "if a Turing Machine can solve a problem then it is > >> logically > >> solvable." To which my essay incredulously attempts to ask: because the > >> Turing Machine (software/hardware) told you so? > > > > > > > >The universality of turing machine does not mean "a" turing mahcine could > >solve all the problems. Turing mahcine is a simplistic model on > >super-scalar structure called computing is based. Just looking at one > >neuron in human brain you can't figure out how many things human brain can > >do, similarly you cannot just assume that this simplistic model, yet > >proven model cannot deal with complicated scenearios. > > > >A neuron also performs almost the same function as a regular transistor > >would. It switches on/off. > > > > > > > > > >> > >> > There are certain problems which considered undecidable thus, > >>unsolvable by > >> > computers for example the problem that the set of all functions f:N->N > >> is > >> > unsolvable by turing machine. > >> > > >> > Again it is foolish to assume that software is dependent on > >>hardware or that > >> > the universal principles of computation are laid down by > >>hardware, hardware > > > > design or limitaitons of hardware components. > >> > > >> > There is a concept called nondeterministic turing machine just as > > > > finite automata is allowed to act nondeterministcally. a > > nondeterministic > >> > turing machin can produce two different outputs to the same input. > >> > > >> > do you have any clue to what you are writing interpreting > >> > imssinterprating. > >> > > >> > > > > > >what you missed is that any non-deterministic automata can be reduced into > >a deterministic automata. > > > > > > > > > > > > > >> No clue (so let's ignore that angle). There are many more problems > >> unsolvable by a computer, such as chewing gum and walking at the same > >> time > >> (but it is nicely simulated in multitasking). > > > >It could be just that simulated multitasking, how do you know that human > >brain is not using the same algorithm of time-shared multitaksing in its > >various sub-"computers". > > > > > > > > > > > >The prospects of understanding > >> computing (or software or hardware) cannot belong to math and logic > >> alone, > >> unless these are also recast within their own social and cultural and > >> philosophical histories. If computing is only understood as a successful > >> program -- invoked here in the widest sense but with reference to its > >> application -- that relies upon certain solutions (arrived at through > >> math > >> and logic), understanding then resides solely with the machine that > >> _runs_ > >> them, brings them to life. > > > >Math and logic if you notcie tend to be very dependable. A cartesian > >product of two sets would be same. Same euclidian geometry forms the basis > >of any new discovery. Socail /cultural/philosophical histories are > >subjective. Every next guy would interepret it diffrenetly. Besides I > >think human brain underneath all its complexities relies on same math and > >logic. In macro terms may be nobut at micro level for synaptic shifts same > >AND OR NOT XOR logics form the basis of information storage and retireveal > >system. > > > > > > > > > > Post Heisenberg, the Russian attempts at building > >> trinary computers, and the speedy benchmarks of photons rather than > >> electrons, one could indeed say that it is foolish to suggest that there > >> is > >> any consistency or limitations to hardware or software, or any set > >> dependency to their relations. However, anyone who has ever pointed at a > >> stack to set either a true or false value/voltage would acknowledge that > >> there is a dependency, and I have yet to run an algorithm that does not > >> resolve its truth table, speaking here of limitations (my computer has > >> crashed on occasion, though). What I vehemently seek to contest is the > >> built-in arrogance that seeks refuge in the operations of the machine, in > >> its concepts and functions, to render any other interpretations than > >> those > >> proffered by its devoted > > > >Unversality of turing machine BTW was never asserted by turing himself. > >Its something called church's thesis which asserts that turing machine can > >solve any algorithm solvable by a real computing machines. Which I think > >is a right assertion. > > > >What i understand of a turing machine is the fact that any computation job > >can be reduced to a model where a left to right tape is moving and a > >reading head can interprete and take action on the basis of it. If you > >look at this model closely it looks where similar to a neuron in a human > >brain. > > > > > > > > > >if you see carefully there is arrogance every where. you have to prove > >what you are saying by building an alternative model. If you coul > >build a model > >which supercedes turing machine as a mathematical model for a computer, I > >would probably be the first one to write a compiler based on it. > > > >BTW is'nt there a arrogance in you when you say Free Software should be > >doing this , not that or the other. > > > >Evolution follows a very organic pattern, see turing machine as a species > >of computers, it is a proven model of doing things. Its on the top of the > >food chain. That does not mean there is no other model. There is already a > >quantum compuetr build by IBM. If it proves to be a better way of doing > >things it would becomes part of everyday household . Who know a million > >year from now a computer would be telling another computer that his human > >slave is lazy and consumes to much energy. That would be sweet revenge I > >think. > > > > > >> > >> -af > >> > >> _________________________________________ > >> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > > > Critiques & Collaborations > >> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > >>subscribe in the subject header. > >> List archive: > > > >-- > >supreet at sdf.lonestar.org > >SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org > >_________________________________________ > >reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > >Critiques & Collaborations > >To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > >subscribe in the subject header. > >List archive: > -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Mon Dec 2 15:33:13 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 10:03:13 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: <20021202144315.GA459@localhost> References: <20021202144315.GA459@localhost> Message-ID: <20021202100313.GB7474@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 08:19:59PM +0530, Pankaj Kaushal wrote: > On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 04:33:57PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: > > On 11/29/02 18:53, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > > > > > > First of all the question is not about either hardware or software > > > or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an > > > assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont understand > > > computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and > > > if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable > > > and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware dependent > > > software or hardware independent but software dependent software. > > > > > > > What you are missing is the Turing breakthrough in modern computing -- the > > interplay between the problem, the algorithm, the Turing machine, > > software/hardware and the Universal. This can of course be configured in any > > of the ways you mention, but this discussion, along with the essay, was > > aimed at an elucidation of software, that is to say primarily one > > configuration of the set up. Turing never really made a distinction between > > hardware and software, except by adding the prefix Universal -- Turing > > Machines within a Universal Turing Machine -- suggesting that they are of a > > similar order, but stacked like Russian dolls. This point is reiterated in > > the essay by making some reference to the hazy distinction between software > > and hardware, while focusing on their limits and the operative desires and > > effects, so to speak, of software. Or, if you like, the function of your > > tautology -- "if a Turing Machine can solve a problem then it is logically > > solvable." To which my essay incredulously attempts to ask: because the > > Turing Machine (software/hardware) told you so? > > Logically there is no difference in hardware/software not even a hazy one. > > If we are doing any computation there has to be a non empty universal set, > because there is no direct way to talk about individual objects and therefore > no way to assert that objects stand in certain relations to each other > we can make general statements about all objects in a "fixed" state called > the universe. > > > No clue (so let's ignore that angle). There are many more problems > > unsolvable by a computer, such as chewing gum and walking at the same time > > (but it is nicely simulated in multitasking). The prospects of understanding > > computing (or software or hardware) cannot belong to math and logic alone, > > unless these are also recast within their own social and cultural and > > philosophical histories. > > I disagree, social, cultural and philosophical histories are subjective > matters and every one has a different interepretation of it. different > historians can argue on different histories of a culture. math and logic > is different because its all imagined and delivered, mass hypnosis in > a very orthodox form called education. 1+1=2 can i question that? ok > that was a joke. consider a non empty set X which has two sets A and B > > 1. A x B the cartesian product of two sets would be same. > 2. it will be a subset of X > > Similarly for many turing machines inside a Turing machine that > machine is their universe. That does not mean there is no other > universe. > > universality of turing machine is not a concept by Turing but > is church's thesis. because the turing machines can carry out > any computation that can be carried out by any similar type of > automata and because automata seem to capture the essential features > of a computing machine we take the turing machine to be the > precise formal equivalant of the intutive notion of a algorithm. > nothing will be considered an algorithm if a turing machine > can not render it. church's thesis can be overthrown any day > when someone finds out an alternative method to computing which > would have to be acceptable by fulfilling the requirement > "finite labour at each step" and yet would carry out computations > that cannot be done by turing machines. quantum computers would break this notion of finite labour at each step because there could be 30 quantum universes in our little quantum machine exists. Thus it could compute 30 enitites in single step (offcourse in theory). What I would like to is how many of these 30 computes this little machine would bring back to our universe. Which one of it would be put in the result register I wonder. (and you thought multithreading was tough) > > > there is a dependency, and I have yet to run an algorithm that does not > > resolve its truth table, speaking here of limitations (my computer has > > crashed on occasion, though). What I vehemently seek to contest is the > > built-in arrogance that seeks refuge in the operations of the machine, in > > its concepts and functions, to render any other interpretations than those > > proffered by its devoted students foolish and clueless. > > > > There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the universe > is for it will disappear and be replaced by something more bazaarly > inexplicable." > There is another theory that states: "This has already happened...." > -HHGTTG > -- > Pankaj > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Mon Dec 2 18:36:42 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 13:06:42 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] alternative Software In-Reply-To: References: <20021130184637.GA2092@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Message-ID: <20021202130642.GA25749@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 05:55:59PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: > On 11/30/02 13:46, "Supreet Sethi" wrote: > > > Probably what I am understanding of your article or essay is wrong so I > > need clarification on certain words and constructs > > 1) What does Alternative mean here > > I guess that's what I am partly trying to figure out. If we are so keen on > open source and the development of independent standards, surely these would > by definition be approaching this "alternative," at least in their intent. > The essay asks a tentative "what if..." independent standrad of what computing ...... > > > > 2) How does it offer a critique of universal principles laid down by > > hardware > > I would say that it only points to a critique of universality (and hints at > its effects). > > > 3) Is this essay making a claim that the mathematical model on which > > computeres and many electronic devices is wrong. Finite autmata as a model > > has been used over and over again and is considered a thoroughly > > understood subject > > It is not really making a binary value judgment explicitly (it is not a > computer, in other words). One could perhaps also say, with reference to how > software/hardware (finite automata) is used and distributed, and what > economies it participates in, that it is equally misunderstood. > do'nt understand what you say when you refer to (what economies it participates in). Its like asking how much of GDP of world economy is contributed by pythagorus theorum. > > > Is there any sort of study on which problems/solution scenerios are beyond > > computational margins. > > Could you point me to the texts which cover this topic well. > > > > The straight answer would be that anything that is not either true or false > and can be processed according to the operators AND, OR, NOT would easily > fall beyond the present computational margins. The links in Mark Crosby's > post contain, at first glance, some interesting overviews of various > questions posed... Most of the problems posed outside AND,OR,NOT sceneario are very subjectiv. Computer would need a big dataset even to make assumption on probable answer, that to in theory. Example would lets say predicte last world war or would I sleep south wards or northwards today. But any kind of speculative logic would at micor level dependent on AND,OR,NOT > > > It would be even better if you could point to a live problem/solution > > sceneario where hardware/software constraints could be made glaringly > > visible. > > > > This is the crux and contention: the conjuncture of > hardware/software/logic/math and language/culture/society effectively seek > to preclude such visibility. It seamlessly integrates its program into a > machine operation and thereby mechanizes and naturalizes its appearance. > > > > As you have already stated in your easy about neural network, I would like > > to push the discussion around that topic. Neural network approach to > > computing does not base its treatment of data not on the basis of preset > > algorithm but rely on a learning of certain types of data and computing on > > basis of shift of synaptic weights. > > > > Minsky wrote a doctorate thesis at princeton which sort of dealt with > > topic of neural networks. > > In 1967 Minsky wrote a book called Computation: Finite and Infinite > > Machines which put "neural networks" in context of automata theory and the > > theory of computation > > > > Would like hear more on this > > I see it as a super vast field with many angles and possibilities. If > software/hardware is indeed an incarnation, an embodiment, of mind, is it > possible for it to think for itself? Immediately we return to the core split > in the philosophy of mind (reflected in the Cartesian subject): are these > thoughts really mine or do they belong to discursive differences, outside > me? Can a neural net be other than the learning mechanisms imposed upon it, > the instructions already given? Ada Lovelace remarked about the very first > "computer" that it could do nothing but what we told it. Turing seemed to > believe that his machines could inhabit their own intelligence, a character > specific to its algebraic make up. Our understanding and application of > "software" may ultimately be contingent upon exactly how such epic > conundrums are resolved and/or resisted. > > -af Given computewith suffcient storage mechenism, processing power, enough stimulus to build intelligence dataset, we would see intellligence. Human beings are not special. > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From areflagan at artpanorama.com Tue Dec 3 00:05:39 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 13:35:39 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: <20021202144315.GA459@localhost> Message-ID: On 12/2/02 9:49, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > 1+1=2 can i question that? On enterQuestion Global ganswer If 1+1=2 then ganswer = FALSE Else if 1+1=1 then gvanswer = TRUE End if updateStage End enterQuestion From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Tue Dec 3 00:48:12 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 19:18:12 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: References: <20021202144315.GA459@localhost> Message-ID: <20021202191812.GA22363@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Oh I like this code snippet this here are two turing machines combined. One is a hardwired to do "not" operation on the available input and other does the logical if then else test. On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 01:35:39PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: > On 12/2/02 9:49, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > > > 1+1=2 can i question that? > > On enterQuestion > Global ganswer > If 1+1=2 then ganswer = FALSE > Else if 1+1=1 then gvanswer = TRUE > End if > updateStage > End enterQuestion > > > > > > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Mon Dec 2 20:13:15 2002 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 20:13:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: References: <20021129235350.GB568@localhost> Message-ID: <20021202144315.GA459@localhost> On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 04:33:57PM -0500, Are Flagan wrote: > On 11/29/02 18:53, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > > > > First of all the question is not about either hardware or software > > or that software is dependent on hardware. the later is just an > > assumption people make or are taught by other people who dont understand > > computing very well. The mail motive is to solve a problem and > > if a turing machine can solve that problem then it is logicaly solvable > > and then the implementation of it can be in hardware or hardware dependent > > software or hardware independent but software dependent software. > > > > What you are missing is the Turing breakthrough in modern computing -- the > interplay between the problem, the algorithm, the Turing machine, > software/hardware and the Universal. This can of course be configured in any > of the ways you mention, but this discussion, along with the essay, was > aimed at an elucidation of software, that is to say primarily one > configuration of the set up. Turing never really made a distinction between > hardware and software, except by adding the prefix Universal -- Turing > Machines within a Universal Turing Machine -- suggesting that they are of a > similar order, but stacked like Russian dolls. This point is reiterated in > the essay by making some reference to the hazy distinction between software > and hardware, while focusing on their limits and the operative desires and > effects, so to speak, of software. Or, if you like, the function of your > tautology -- "if a Turing Machine can solve a problem then it is logically > solvable." To which my essay incredulously attempts to ask: because the > Turing Machine (software/hardware) told you so? Logically there is no difference in hardware/software not even a hazy one. If we are doing any computation there has to be a non empty universal set, because there is no direct way to talk about individual objects and therefore no way to assert that objects stand in certain relations to each other we can make general statements about all objects in a "fixed" state called the universe. > No clue (so let's ignore that angle). There are many more problems > unsolvable by a computer, such as chewing gum and walking at the same time > (but it is nicely simulated in multitasking). The prospects of understanding > computing (or software or hardware) cannot belong to math and logic alone, > unless these are also recast within their own social and cultural and > philosophical histories. I disagree, social, cultural and philosophical histories are subjective matters and every one has a different interepretation of it. different historians can argue on different histories of a culture. math and logic is different because its all imagined and delivered, mass hypnosis in a very orthodox form called education. 1+1=2 can i question that? ok that was a joke. consider a non empty set X which has two sets A and B 1. A x B the cartesian product of two sets would be same. 2. it will be a subset of X Similarly for many turing machines inside a Turing machine that machine is their universe. That does not mean there is no other universe. universality of turing machine is not a concept by Turing but is church's thesis. because the turing machines can carry out any computation that can be carried out by any similar type of automata and because automata seem to capture the essential features of a computing machine we take the turing machine to be the precise formal equivalant of the intutive notion of a algorithm. nothing will be considered an algorithm if a turing machine can not render it. church's thesis can be overthrown any day when someone finds out an alternative method to computing which would have to be acceptable by fulfilling the requirement "finite labour at each step" and yet would carry out computations that cannot be done by turing machines. > there is a dependency, and I have yet to run an algorithm that does not > resolve its truth table, speaking here of limitations (my computer has > crashed on occasion, though). What I vehemently seek to contest is the > built-in arrogance that seeks refuge in the operations of the machine, in > its concepts and functions, to render any other interpretations than those > proffered by its devoted students foolish and clueless. > There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the universe is for it will disappear and be replaced by something more bazaarly inexplicable." There is another theory that states: "This has already happened...." From bbrace at eskimo.com Mon Dec 2 19:47:56 2002 From: bbrace at eskimo.com ({ brad brace }) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 06:17:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] 12hr since 1994 Message-ID: Here's a review of brad brace's "The 12hr ISBN-JPEG Project," by David A. Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and San Francisco's MoMA: "When I grow-up I hope to be as great an artist as { brad brace }." --David A. Ross, 2000 _______ _ __ ___ _ _ |__ __| | /_ |__ \| | | __| | | | (_) | | __/ (__| |_ __ | | | | | | __/ | |/ /_| | | | | _ | | | '_ \ / _ \ | | / /| '_ \| '__| |__| |_| |_|\___| |_|____|_| |_|_| | __| | | | (_) | | __/ (__| |_ _ | | | '_ \ / _ \ | | / /| '_ \| '__| -_ | | | |__ ___ | | ) | |__ _ __ | __| | | | (_) | | __/ (__| |_ _ | | | '_ \ / _ \ | | / /| '_ \| '__| -_ | | | |__ ___ | | ) | |__ _ __ _ | __ \ (_) | | | __| | | | (_) | | __/ (__| |_ _ | | | '_ \ / _ \ | | / /| '_ \| '__| _| |__) | __ ___ _ ___ ___| |_ |_ ___/ '__/ _ \| |/ _ \/ __| __| -_ | | | |__ ___ | | ) | |__ _ __ _ | | | '_ \ / _ \ | | / /| '_ \| '__| |_| _ |_| \___/| |\___|\___|\__| _ _/ | _ |__/ > > > > Synopsis: The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project began December 30, 1994. A `round-the-clock posting of sequenced hypermodern imagery from Brad Brace. The hypermodern minimizes the familiar, the known, the recognizable; it suspends identity, relations and history. This discourse, far from determining the locus in which it speaks, is avoiding the ground on which it could find support. It is trying to operate a decentering that leaves no privilege to any center. The 12-hour ISBN JPEG Project ----------------------------- began December 30, 1994 Pointless Hypermodern Imagery... posted/mailed every 12 hours... a spectral, trajective alignment for the 00`s! A continuum of minimalist masks in the face of catastrophe; conjuring up transformative metaphors for the everyday... A poetic reversibility of exclusive events... A post-rhetorical, continuous, apparently random sequence of imagery... genuine gritty, greyscale... corruptable, compact, collectable and compelling convergence. The voluptuousness of the grey imminence: the art of making the other disappear. Continual visual impact; an optical drumming, sculpted in duration, on the endless present of the Net. An extension of the printed ISBN-Book (0-9690745) series... critically unassimilable... imagery is gradually acquired, selected and re-sequenced over time... ineluctable, vertiginous connections. The 12hr dialtone... [ see ftp.idiom.com/users/bbrace/netcom/books.txt ] KEYWORDS: >> Disconnected, disjunctive, distended, de-centered, de-composed, ambiguous, augmented, ambilavent, homogeneous, reckless... >> Multi-faceted, oblique, obsessive, obscure, obdurate... >> Promulgated, personal, permeable, prolonged, polymorphous, provocative, poetic, plural, perverse, potent, prophetic, pathological, pointless... >> Emergent, evolving, eccentric, eclectic, egregious, exciting, entertaining, evasive, entropic, erotic, entrancing, enduring, expansive... Every 12 hours, another!... view them, re-post `em, save `em, trade `em, print `em, even publish them... Here`s how: ~ Set www-links to -> http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/12hr.html -> http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/12hr.html -> http://bbrace.net/12hr.html Look for the 12-hr-icon. Heavy traffic may require you to specify files more than once! Anarchie, Fetch, CuteFTP, TurboGopher... ~ Download from -> ftp.pacifier.com /pub/users/bbrace Download from -> ftp.idiom.com /users/bbrace Download from -> ftp.rdrop.com /pub/users/bbrace Download from -> ftp.eskimo.com /u/b/bbrace Download from -> hotline://artlyin.ftr.va.com.au * Remember to set tenex or binary. Get 12hr.jpeg ~ E-mail -> If you only have access to email, then you can use FTPmail to do essentially the same thing. Send a message with a body of 'help' to the server address nearest you: * ftpmail at ccc.uba.ar ftpmail at cs.uow.edu.au ftpmail at ftp.uni-stuttgart.de ftpmail at ftp.Dartmouth.edu ftpmail at ieunet.ie ftpmail at src.doc.ic.ac.uk ftpmail at archie.inesc.pt ftpmail at ftp.sun.ac.za ftpmail at ftp.sunet.se ftpmail at ftp.luth.se ftpmail at NCTUCCCA.edu.tw ftpmail at oak.oakland.edu ftpmail at sunsite.unc.edu ftpmail at decwrl.dec.com ftpmail at census.gov bitftp at plearn.bitnet bitftp at dearn.bitnet bitftp at vm.gmd.de bitftp at plearn.edu.pl bitftp at pucc.princeton.edu bitftp at pucc.bitnet * * ~ Mirror-sites requested! Archives too! The latest new jpeg will always be named, 12hr.jpeg Average size of images is only 45K. * Perl program to mirror ftp-sites/sub-directories: src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/packages/mirror * ~ Postings to usenet newsgroups: alt.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.misc * * Ask your system's news-administrator to carry these groups! (There are also usenet image browsers: TIFNY, PluckIt, Picture Agent, PictureView, Extractor97, NewsRover, Binary News Assistant, EasyNews) ~ This interminable, relentless sequence of imagery began in earnest on December 30, 1994. The basic structure of the project has been over twenty-four years in the making. While the specific sequence of photographs has been presently orchestrated for more than 12 years` worth of 12-hour postings, I will undoubtedly be tempted to tweak the ongoing publication with additional new interjected imagery. Each 12-hour posting is like the turning of a page; providing ample time for reflection, interruption, and assimilation. ~ The sites listed above also contain information on other cultural projects and sources. ~ A very low-volume, moderated mailing list for announcements and occasional commentary related to this project has been established at topica.com /subscribe 12hr-isbn-jpeg -- This project has not received government art-subsidies. Some opportunities still exist for financially assisting the publication of editions of large (33x46") prints; perhaps (Iris giclees) inkjet duotones or extended-black quadtones. Other supporters receive rare copies of the first three web-offset printed ISBN-Books. Contributions and requests for 12hr-email-subscriptions, can also be made at http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/buy-into.html, or by mailed cheque/check: $50/mo $500/yr. -- ISBN is International Standard Book Number. JPEG and GIF are types of image files. Get the text-file, 'pictures-faq' to learn how to view or translate these images. [ftp ftp.idiom.com/users/bbrace/netcom/] -- (c) Credit appreciated. Copyleft 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Tue Dec 3 11:57:05 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 06:27:05 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Alternative software??? In-Reply-To: References: <20021202144315.GA459@localhost> Message-ID: <20021203062705.GA17212@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> It just struck me that to implement this code you would need to modify the mathematics, that is basic operators to your choice of language, that is 1+1 should'nt evaluate to 2. Lets make a assumption that there is this clan or a tribe which uses alternate form of mathematics. This kind of alternate mathematics could be implemented like this. #include using namespace std; class alternativeMathematics { private: int almv; public: alternativeMathematics(int val) { almv=val; } friend int operator+( alternativeMathematics &t1, alternativeMathematics &t2) { return t1.val(); } friend int operator-( alternativeMathematics &t1, alternativeMathematics &t2) { return t1.val()+t2.val(); } int val() { return almv; } }; int main() { alternativeMathematics a(1),b(1),c(0); cout << a-b< On 12/2/02 9:49, "Pankaj Kaushal" wrote: > > > 1+1=2 can i question that? > > On enterQuestion > Global ganswer > If 1+1=2 then ganswer = FALSE > Else if 1+1=1 then gvanswer = TRUE > End if > updateStage > End enterQuestion > > > > > > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From dak at sarai.net Mon Dec 2 22:44:36 2002 From: dak at sarai.net (dak at sarai.net) Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 17:14:36 GMT Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [Sarai Newsletter] Sarai/CSDS Independent Fellowship Message-ID: <20021202.17143600@saumya.sarai.kit> Sarai/CSDS Independent Fellowship (December 2002-May 2003) We are happy to announce the list of Sarai/CSDS Short Term Independent Fellowships for the year 2002-03. We received more than one hundred and fifty proposals in English and Hindi from all over India, in response to the call for proposals that went out in September 2002. We were delighted by the number of high quality proposals that came in response to our advertisement. Sixty seven proposals were shortlisted and thirty six proposals were finally selected for support. Given the large number of good proposals and our desire to encourage younger scholars and practitioners we have decided to maximize the awardees by distributing the total grant outlay amongst a larger number of candidates. This has resulted in the awarding of some partial grants, which we hope will encourage an interesting and diverse body of research and practice. We congratulate all the awardees and thank all those who responded so enthusiastically to the call for proposals. The awardees (in alphabetical order) are - 1) Abhay Dube (Hindi) 'Naya' Shahar/Nayi Sexuality ('New' City/ New Sexuality) To focus on sexual assertitions in city/towns in the face of moral and organisational opposition. Print publications, video parlours and their subscribers as well as love spots in the city will form the basis of the study. It will also interrogate sex as commodity and how it has acquired a middle class respectability, and critique, in the form of court cases, organisational oppositions, etc.   2) A.R.Basu Mediation of a Marginal Science in a Colonial City: Reading Psychiatry in Colonial Bengali Periodicals To look at how psychiatry and categories such as insanity were deployed in Bengali periodicals, both popular and scientific, in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. 3) Arvind Narrain, C.S. Balachandran and Vinay Chandran Outing Bangalore : Intesections of Geographies, Law and Sexualites To embrace an ethnography of what it is to be homosexual in urban space, reflect on online homosexual spaces, construct everyday psycho-geographies of being gay and also look at the legal regimes and repressions that mark out the everyday experience of homosexuals in city spaces, specifically Bangalore. 4) Avinash Kumar (Hindi) Des-Pardes ka Dvand aur Dilli (The Dilemma of the Insider/Outsider and Delhi) To explore the writerly dilemma of belonging and alienation in a city of migrants, a city where the Hindi/Urdu dichotomy has greatly affected the writer. An entire range of  poetry and fiction will be looked at along with interviews conducted with all surviving writers to explore how their work reflects the everyday contradiction of living in a city they do not love. 5) Ayisha Abraham Deteriorating Memories: Blurring Fact and Fiction in Home Movies in India: Research, combined with work towards a media art project based on 8mm Home Movies in Bangalore. This project combines old and new media in very interesting ways. She has been collecting and researching the little known area of the domestic usage of 8mm, super 8 mm and 16 mm celluloid film, and has found remarkable collections, including those made by middle class housewives, a post office worker and other people who worked with these film formats as a hobby. She intends to work further with these materials, recycling them in a digital format and presenting them for an installation, or a series of installations, in spaces that are not mainstream art venues. She also intends to research and experiment with appropriate technological and aesthetic forms towards the public rendition of this material. 6) Bharti Chaturvedi The City of Bins : Narratives from the informal waste recycling sector in Delhi To work with personal narratives of people who work in the waste recycling sector in Delhi. This will work towards a wall newspaper with, and for, the waste recycling workers. 7) Bharti Kher Love -an absence of assignable cause: Research towards the realization of a media based art project To interrogate the delicate politics of status, gender and caste that lie at the heart of the three-line matrimonial ad. She will be researching into the appropriate digital interface with which to realize this project which will ultimately take the form of a video and sound installation. 8) Frederick Noronha GNU/Linux in India: Research and Reportage on the Free Software/Open Source Movement in India. Continuing last year's efforts at networking all the Linux Users Groups (LUGs) and other campaign groups across South Asia, Noronha also hopes to focus the research on Indic Computing and complete a book on FLOSS. 9) Gayatri Chatterjee Researching the Mehboob Papers To research a previously unexplored body of archival material, preserved in fourteen steel cupboards at the Mehboob studios in Mumbai. This will help to throw light on the story of the early years of Hindi cinema including foreign distribution, government decisions and policies regarding foreign quota, ways of amassing finance from various official and unofficial sources and the various situations filmmakers in India faced in the decades after independence. The papers will also allow for the tracing of the history of a great studio. 10) Hari Roka The Condition of Nepali Migrants in Delhi To work out a detailed ethnography of Nepali migrant workers in Delhi. It seeks to examine their everyday lives, their social networks and cultural practices in the city, the kind of films they see, their forms of political involvement (especially against the context of the insurgency in Nepal) and the way they see Delhi and other people in Delhi. 11) Khadeeja Arif and Ambareen Al Qadar Lives of Women in Zakir Nagar, Delhi. To interrogate issues of clothing, gestures, habitation, entertainment, physical movement and the very texture of the daily lived experiences of the women as something that is intrinsically linked to the peculiar formation of Zakir Nagar, Okhla, Delhi.” 12) Kundan Kaushav Upanyason Ka Shahar: The World of Hindi Popular Fictions, its Economy & its Images To examine the world of pulp literature in Hindi, especially centred around Meerut and Delhi, as sites of production. It wants to look at the network which is created around the production and distribution of the 'pulp novel' - small printing set ups and stalls on footpaths and railway stations, as well as examine the world views of both readers and writers through interviews, and collections of fan material. 13) Kurnal Rawat and Vishal Rawlley Typocity: Documentation and Interpretation of the Typographic forms in Public Signage in Mumbai To do a documentation and analysis of interesting and rare instances of typography throughout the city of Bombay from the point of view of graphic design, production techniques and social significance including painted film posters, hand painted restaurant menu boards, hand crafted shop signs and calligraphic taxi number plates. 14) Manju Singh (Hindi) Pregnancy Wards se kahaniya (Narratives from Pregnancy Wards in Delhi) To collect and illustrate narratives of pregnant women, their visitors and the workers in public and private hospitals in Delhi. 15) Meenu Gaur Camp People : The Refugees From Kashmir in Delhi To look at the way in which Kashmiri refugees have become part of the rhetorical arsenal of the Hindu right, even as their very real human needs and deprivations are completely neglected, and the violence that they have suffered is not addressed in any real sense. This project will be a documentation of the everyday lives, struggles and experiences of these refugees through recorded testimonies and photographs. It will also be an interrogation of the ambivalent and multiple meanings that the word 'home' conjures in the context of camp life, and the memories that the refugees have of the 'home' that they have left behind. 16) Nandini Chandra The Child's Experience of the City in Hindi Cinema To interrogate the narrative of the child in the city in Hindi Cinema, which is used as narrative justification for much that goes on in the course of a film. Interviews with famous child artists of the fifties and sixties, especially Daisy Irani and Master Raju, will help explore the performative trope of 'cuteness' that was mastered by them, and how they saw their own status as glorified child workers within the ambience of a bourgeoise cuteness that they had to affect. An interesting list of 33 films will form the basis of this study. 17) Narender Thakur Chowk : Study of the Daily Labour Market (Labour Chowk) in Delhi To document the world of the daily wage worker who sells, or attempts, to sell his labour in three sites of daily labour markets in North, East and South Delhi. A questionnaire, which encompasses a range of areas from communication networks within daily wage workers, to expenditure decisions, links with the village and many other specific inquiries, has been devised for detailed interviews. 18) Naresh Goswami (Hindi) Yamuna Paar ke Saptahik Bazaar: Paridhi par jeevan (The Weekly Markets of Trans-Yamuna: Life in the margins) To take a close look at the weekly haats (markets) that are held in different parts of the Trans-Yamuna area of Delhi on a particular day of the week. The network that is involved in the creation and dismantling of these  markets will be explored through a mix of text, sound, image and video by interacting with vendors, buyers and all those who involved. 19) Naunidhi Kaur Examination of everyday life in localities in Mumbai that were hit by the 1992-93 riots To explore how people in these locations view solidarity as well as tensions of everyday existence in the family and neighbourhood contexts, the cycles of festivals and ceremonies in public spaces and the routines, stratagems and factional battles deployed in mass politics.” 20) Navaneetha and Shefali The Space Between: Women's Hostels as Urban Spaces This study of women's hostels in Hyderabad wants to see the city through the eyes of young women, students and professionals who live in hostels, and also see how they reclaim the hostel as a common space. 21) Naveen Chander (Hindi) Suniyojit Visthapan - Aniyojit Punarvas: Kaamgaron ka shahari mukam ke liye jaddyojahad (Planned Displacement - Unplanned Rehabilitation : Struggles of Working People for Habitation in Delhi) Continuation of last year's research project interrogating the displacements and proposed rehabilitation of Metro workers in Delhi. The project interrogates issues of public space, urbanisation, the process of modernisation as effected by the Delhi Metro Project and the dynamics of labour behaviour. 22) Navin Thomas Street Musicians in Mumbai To document the lives and music of itinerant street musicians in Mumbai, and focus at the way in which they respond to the music generated by the Hindi film industry. This will involve creating a photographic profile of the spaces in which they perform together with visual and audio portraits of them through still photos and sound recordings. 23) Prabhas Ranjan (with Sadan Jha) Sheher Ke Nishan II This proposal is for the renewal of Sheher Ke Nishan. This time, it aims to concentrate on the 'production' of signs, through interviews with sign painters, sticker designers, and also to observe the economy of the circulation of signs. It will also be a continuation of the process of observing found signs, now concentrating on sites like trains and public toilets. 24) Rahaab Allana Of Urban Localities & Bazaar(s) Photography To investigate the practice, form and experience of photography within Delhi Bazaars. This will help to build a serious body of work examples of Bazaar Photography including interviews with practitioners. 25) Raheema B & Namita Shivaji Nagar Signs To develop a series of strategies for public interventions in Bangalore as a response to the communalization and parceling out of public space, using storytelling, street installations, bioscopes, sound recordings, graffiti, stickers and photography. 26) Rajaram Bhadu (Hindi) Jaipur ki Kacchi Bastiyon ka Sanskritik Adhayan (A Cultural Study of Slums in Jaipur) To study the process of cultural transition in mixed communities of Jaipur slums  through memories and identities. It wants to go beyond established parameters, by looking at cultural changes and lifestyles of  predominantly dalit bastis. 27) Rajivan S.A Subsequent Hearing: A project using sounds from the urban landscape The Project aims to record a set of sound events from the city space and recompose these events through interplay between the sound recording and subsequent hearing. The idea is to make the subsequent hearing of the recording into a fictional space that allows an indirect, and layered experience. This will thus create a soundscape of a city by recording sound events through different media to give a sense of a dispersed spatial dynamic. 28) Ravi Aggarwal and Anita Soni Jan Dedenge, Ghar Nahin: Photographic documentation of the movement against eviction by communities in the Bhatti Mines area of Delhi To focus on the Oudh and Kumhar communities settled in the Asola Bhatti Mines region of south-east Delhi, which is slated to become the Asola Sanctuary and Reserve Forest. The body of photographic materials will form an archive, and will be presented in court as evidence that the communities are not encroachers who must be evicted for environmental reasons in the course of a Public Interest Litigation. 29) Rumman Hameed Old Delhi - An Exploration of Connected Spaces To map the unique forms of communication and interaction that occur in old Delhi between the vertical levels of the different floors and of built forms, and the horizontal levels, between gallis and across mohallas. 30) Sayantoni Datta Amorphous - Kaleidoscope Images: Discovering lesbian sexualities in the media in India To look at the representation of women in popular culture, films, tele-films, soaps and internet spaces through a Lesbian sensibility, in order to claim a representative and interpretative agency for young lesbians in India. 31) Shahid Datawalla Photographic Documentation of Cinema Halls and Cinema Going Subcultures in Delhi To build a collection of photographic records and interpretations of the exterior and interior ambiences of cinema halls in Delhi including those that are closed, abandoned or transformed into markets or offices. 32) Sharmila Rege Speaking From the Margins and Across Cultures: Documenting and translating the narratives of Dalit and Black Women To translate key documents and texts of the Black Feminist movement in the United States into Marathi, and to translate key Marathi texts of Dalit Feminism into English. 33) Sougata Bhattacharya A History of the Aurora Film Corporation, Calcutta (1908 - 2002) To write a detailed history of one of the longest surviving film distribution, exhibition and production equipment hiring companies in the Bengali film industry, to detail the industrial and business history of the company, especially its decision to diversify into distribution, and not be caught in the trap of the star system. It will examine the company's correspondence, its production, its major films and all other associated activities in order to draw out what is, without doubt, a major episode in the history of cinema in Calcutta. 34) Souvik Mukherjee and Riddhi Shankar Ray Reading Books with Joysticks: Computer games and the history of reading To examine the sub-culture around gaming and the playing of various kinds of first person computer games as a variant of reading and writing. 35) Subhajit Chatterjee Romancing the Post Colonial City: Problematic of the desire to 'Settle Down'’ in urban Bengal To explore cinematic representations of public spaces in the city as the sites of romantic encounters in popular Bengali cinema and investigate the relationship with similar real-life encounters. 36) Vishwajyoti Ghosh Once Upon a Time...' - Migration, Memories & Personal Mappings A mixed media Graphic Novel in black & white combining family memoirs and history about the resettlement of post partition refugees from East Pakistan in CR Park in Delhi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021202/9f671624/attachment.html From dak at sarai.net Mon Dec 2 22:56:57 2002 From: dak at sarai.net (dak at sarai.net) Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 17:26:57 GMT Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [Sarai Newsletter] New Media Art Exhibition, Lecture and Workshop Message-ID: <20021202.17265700@saumya.sarai.kit> @rt.net.uk/now : An Exhibition, Lecture and Workshop Programme, presenting facets of contemporary Internet Based Art Practice in Britain Organised by the British Council in collaboration with Sarai : The New Media Initiative, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. 2nd to the 5th December, 2002, Exhibition at the British Council, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi. Curated by Honor Harger (Curator, webcasting, Tate Modern, London) and Pauline van Mourek Broekman (Editor, Mute - A Journal of New Media Arts, London) 4th December Presentation and Interaction with the Curators at Sarai 5th December Net Art Now - Presentation by the Curators at the British Council, followed by a public conversation, moderated by Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Sarai. This will be subsequently presented in Bangalore and Kolkata. About the Exhibition: @rt.net.uk/now is an exhibition that brings to the fore key issues in critical internet based art practice. Issues of borders and borderlessness, mapping and territories, the relationships between 'old' and 'new' media, access and control, critical reflections on the experiences of the 'thinning' of time and the thickening of the data cloud around us. Internet based art is often mistakenly regarded as art 'showcased' on the internet. This programme seeks to challenge this notion by offering instead a foregrounding of the intrinsic properties of the net as the material of a new form of art practice. This is a sensibility that is conceptual, interactive, time based and that often plays with the difficulties of access, unstable connectivity and crashing software - features that are so much part of everyday online experience. Pauline Van Moerek Broekman and Honor Harger deliberately eschew the 'flashy' and spectacular effect-laden world of mainstream web content to curate a series of online experiences that are designed to be thoughtful, and at times sharply political, in the way in which they treat the questions of online and offline territoriality and the 'fragmented public sphere' of the internet. The works presented by them represent the critical cutting edge of online art practice and include projects by leading contemporary British net artists such as Heath Bunting, Rachel Baker, Tim Knowles, Richard Wright, Andy Deck, Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie. The exhibition will chart an eclectic mini-journey through new media projects from the past few years, culminating in some of the latest and most contemporary examples in this context, based on the premise that the quasi-historical purview will give an opportunity to look at some of the questions that may have lingered in context. About the Curators Honor Harger is a new media artist who is currently working as an education and online projects officer of the new Tate Modern Gallery. Honor has been working on developing new techniques of audio streaming for quite some time as a part of a group called Radio Qualia. Van mourik Broekman is co-publisher and editor of the London based technoculture magazine Mute, whcih she co-founded with Simon Worthington as 'The Art and Technology Newspaper' in late 1994. As well as editing Mute, she writes regularly on art, media and technology for journals and books.The editors, especially Pauline van Mourik Broekmann,have created a very active and dynamic netowrk of contributors, artists, writers and critics who represent the best in  the British avant garde new media scene. Mute Magazine has been presenting public forums on new media culture at the Tate Modern. Honor and Pauline will be travelling to Kolkata and Bangalore to make presentations and conduct workshops as a forerunner to the exhibition between 6 and 15 December, 2002. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021202/e1fd6373/attachment.html From tripta at sarai.net Tue Dec 3 18:10:39 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 12:40:39 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Resistance is futile (peer-to-peer) Message-ID: <200212031240.39229.tripta@sarai.net> Interesting. cheers tripta ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Resistance is futile (peer-to-peer) Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 03:22:16 -0800 From: Steve Cisler To: nettime Resistance is Futile How Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Is Likely to Change Big Media By Robert X. Cringely Maybe you saw the story this week about a paper from Microsoft Research analyzing peer-to-peer file sharing networks with the conclusion that they can't be stopped -- not by the law, not by the movie studios and record companies, not even by mighty Microsoft and its Palladium initiative for trusted computing. Swapping songs and maybe movies is about to reach some critical mass beyond which it simply can't be stopped, or so the kids in Redmond think. The story is interesting, that it came from Microsoft is even more interesting, though the authors carefully disassociated themselves from their employer in the paper. But this all pales in comparison to the implications of their conclusions. These are smart folks, taking a stand that is surely not popular with their company, so I think there is a pretty strong reason to believe they are correct. If so, then what does it mean? Are record companies and movie studios doomed? Am I doomed, as a guy whose work is regularly ripped-off, too? And will the print publishers go away, leaving us with only weblogs to keep us warm? I don't think so, but the world is likely to change some as a result. Maybe it would help to deconstruct what publishers and broadcasters and movie moguls do that makes them significant contributors to our culture. They take financial risks by backing talented people in the hope of making money. Publishers and broadcasters and film makers and record executives have taken the time and spent the money to build both a commercial infrastructure and a brand identity. The most extreme version of such financial risk-taking is spending tens of millions -- sometimes hundreds of millions -- to make a movie. Forgetting for the moment that some of these media people are greedy pond dwellers, let's ask the important question -- how are peer-to-peer file sharing systems going to replace $100 million movies? Peer-to-peer systems can share such movies, but since there is no real peer-to-peer business model that can generate enough zeroes, such systems are unlikely to finance any epic films. Well, right there we have a problem. People LIKE epic films, but even with the best editing and animation software, there is no way some kid with a hopped-up Mac or PC is going to make "Terminator 4." One can only guess, then, that people will continue to go to movies and eat popcorn and watch on the big screen despite how many copies of Divx there are in the world. Peer-to-peer movie piracy is practical only in the manner that any organized crime is practical: it works only as long as the host remains strong enough to support the parasite. Tony Soprano can't run New Jersey because then everyone would be a crook and there would be nobody to steal from except other crooks. No more innocent victims. Same with movie piracy, which needs a strong movie industry from which to steal. If the industry is weakened too much by piracy, the pirates begin to hurt themselves by drying-up their source of material. It is very doubtful that this will happen simply because the pirates, too, want to go to movies. But the same is not true for records. This is simply because technology has reached the point where amateurs can make as good a recording as the professionals. The next Christina Aguilera CD could be as easily recorded at her house (or mine) as at some big recording complex out on Abbey Road. And text, well, text is even worse because it is easiest of all to steal. My columns are published in newspapers and websites and handed-in as college essays all over the world and there is almost nothing I can do about it because tracking down the perps costs me more than does their crime. From the perspective of the established publishers, there is also the horrible possibility that people might actually come to prefer material they find for free on the Internet -- not just pirated material but even original material. This column, after all, is free, and my Mother claims to find some value in it from time to time. So movies, while they may be hurt by peer-to-peer, won't be killed by it. But print publishing and music recording could be seriously hurt. Maybe this is good, maybe it is bad, but probably, it is inevitable. Of course, the recording and publishing executives, who often work for the same parent company, aren't going to go without a fight. We are approaching the end of the first stage of that fight, the stage where they try to have their enemy made illegal. But the folks at Microsoft Research now say quite definitively that legal action probably won't be enough. That's when we enter stage two, which begins with guerrilla tactics in which copyright owners use the very hacking techniques they rail against to hurt the peer-to-peer systems. This too shall pass when bad PR gets to the guerrillas. The trick to guerrilla or terrorist campaigns is to not care what people think, but in the end, Sony (just one example) cares what people think. That's when the record companies and publishers will appear to actually embrace peer-to-peer and try to make it their own. This will be a ruse, of course, the next step in the death of a corrupt and abusive cultural monopoly. They'll say they will do it for us. They'll say they are building the best peer-to-peer system of all, only this one will cost money and it won't even work that well. There is plenty of precedent for this behavior in other industries. My favorite historical example of this phenomenon comes from the oil business. In the 1920s, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company had a monopoly on oil production in the Middle East, which they generally protected through the use of diplomatic -- and occasionally military -- force against the local monarchies. Then the Gulf Oil Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, literally sneaked into Kuwait and obtained from the Al-Sabah family (who still run the place) a license to search for oil. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company did not like Gulf's actions, but they were even more dismayed to learn that Gulf couldn't be told to just go to hell. Andrew Mellon, of the Pittsburgh Mellons, was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and he wasn't about to let his oil company be pushed around by the British Foreign Office. So Anglo-Persian and the Foreign Office did their best to delay Gulf, which worked for several years. They lied a little, lost a few maps, failed to read a telegram or two, and when Gulf still didn't go away, they turned to acting stupid. As the absolute regional experts on oil exploration, they offered to do Gulf's job, to save the Americans the bother if searching for oil in Kuwait by searching for them. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company searched for oil in Kuwait for 22 years without finding a single drop. Remember that Kuwait is smaller than Rhode Island, and not only is it sitting atop more than 60 billion barrels of oil, it has places where oil has been known for more than 3,000 years to seep all the way to the surface. Yet Anglo-Persian was able to fulfill its contract with Gulf and keep two oil rigs continually drilling in Kuwait for 22 years without finding oil. To drill this many dry wells required intense concentration on the part of the British drillers. They had to not only be NOT looking for oil, they had to very actively be NOT LOOKING for oil, which is even harder. Back to music and text publishing. Expect both industries to offer peer-to-peer systems that won't work very well, and will cost us something instead of nothing. In the long run, though, these systems will probably die, too, at which point, the music and the print folks will have to find another way to make their livings. This will not be because of piracy, but because of the origination of material within the peer-to-peer culture, itself. We're not that far from a time when artists and writers can distribute their own work and make a living doing so, which makes the current literary and music establishments a lot less necessary. But they won't die altogether because of the record company back lists of music, because peer-to-peer doesn't do a very good job of self-organizing, and indicating what is important, and because people won't take tablet computers with them to the bathroom. So we will have little movies and little records and little magazines on the Internet because the Internet is made up of so many different interest groups. For the larger population, there will still be Brittany Spears and Stephen King singing and writing for big labels. And that will only start to change when the first really big artists jumps from old media to new, trading 15 percent of $30 times 100,000 copies for 100 percent of $0.50 times 1 million copies. The Grateful Dead showed that it is possible to make a great living even in competition with some of their audience. This is a lesson all old media must learn in time. Either that, or die. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From tripta at sarai.net Tue Dec 3 19:32:06 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 14:02:06 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] tml-list@sarai.net invite Message-ID: <200212031402.06522.tripta@sarai.net> Sarai (www.sarai.net) hosted the first Tactical Media Lab. It was an event that brought together, practitioners, programmers, activists, artists and others from Delhi, Dehradun, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Mumbai and Tehran. We had the opportunity to listen to presentations about a number of different projects, that ranged from Indymedia Mumbai, to Linux Iran and Farsi KDE, to the Sarai Ankur Cybermohalla project, and the Open Circle projects. A group of us also participated in a three day 'Print and Web' for campaigns workshop. Also, a large number of questions, ranging from the importance of free speech, to the social implications of free software culture, the issues facing localization of software in various languages, to the limitations of the language of 'ICT for Development' were debated threadbare. We came away with the desire to sustain and deepn these conversations, and to carry forward possibilities of collaboration, that we hope will eventually lead to the holding of such Tactical Media Labs in different locations in Asia, and towards the formation of a coalition or network of Tactical Media Initiatives in the Asian Region. We also feel the need to ask and reflect on the different modalities of tacticla media, what do we mean by the term even, and work out mechanisms of support, feedback and networking for all the work that we are doing in our specific locations. With this in view, we have decided to constitute a discussion list for to be called, tml-list at sarai.net. We invite all of you to join this list and carry forward our conversations. Looking forward to interesting postings, animated discussion, and concrete collaborations. cheers Shekhar and Tripta From tripta at sarai.net Tue Dec 3 19:48:20 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 14:18:20 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] tml-list@mail.sarai.net invite Message-ID: <200212031418.20724.tripta@sarai.net> Sarai (www.sarai.net) hosted the first Tactical Media Lab. It was an event that brought together, practitioners, programmers, activists, artists and others from Delhi, Dehradun, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Mumbai and Tehran. We had the opportunity to listen to presentations about a number of different projects, that ranged from Indymedia Mumbai, to Linux Iran and Farsi KDE, to the Sarai Ankur Cybermohalla project, and the Open Circle projects. A group of us also participated in a three day 'Print and Web' for campaigns workshop. Also, a large number of questions, ranging from the importance of free speech, to the social implications of free software culture, the issues facing localization of software in various languages, to the limitations of the language of 'ICT for Development' were debated threadbare. We came away with the desire to sustain and deepn these conversations, and to carry forward possibilities of collaboration, that we hope will eventually lead to the holding of such Tactical Media Labs in different locations in Asia, and towards the formation of a coalition or network of Tactical Media Initiatives in the Asian Region. We also feel the need to ask and reflect on the different modalities of tacticla media, what do we mean by the term even, and work out mechanisms of support, feedback and networking for all the work that we are doing in our specific locations. With this in view, we have decided to constitute a discussion list for to be called, tml-list at sarai.net. We invite all of you to join this list and carry forward our conversations. Looking forward to interesting postings, animated discussion, and concrete collaborations. Please follow the given to link to subscribe to the list. http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/tml-list cheers Shekhar and Tripta ------------------------------------------------------- From kshekhar at bol.net.in Tue Dec 3 20:39:20 2002 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 20:39:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: tml-list@sarai.net invite In-Reply-To: <200212031402.06522.tripta@sarai.net> References: <200212031402.06522.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: Dear Reader List and TML List: Though I was asked to moderate this list during the Tactical Media Lab, I request that my name be removed from this invitation message as it was written entirely without my knowledge or participation, and is bad form on the part of whoever decided to sign my name without asking me (unless there is another Shekhar who is also moderating the list whom I don't know!). Best Shekhar >Sarai (www.sarai.net) hosted the first Tactical Media Lab. It was an event >that brought together, practitioners, programmers, activists, artists and >others from Delhi, Dehradun, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Mumbai and Tehran. We had >the opportunity to listen to presentations about a number of different >projects, that ranged from Indymedia Mumbai, to Linux Iran and Farsi KDE, to >the Sarai Ankur Cybermohalla project, and the Open Circle projects. > >A group of us also participated in a three day 'Print and Web' for campaigns >workshop. > >Also, a large number of questions, ranging from the importance of free >speech, to the social implications of free software culture, the issues >facing localization of software in various languages, to the limitations of >the language of 'ICT for Development' were debated threadbare. > >We came away with the desire to sustain and deepn these conversations, and to >carry forward possibilities of collaboration, that we hope will eventually >lead to the holding of such Tactical Media Labs in different locations in >Asia, and towards the formation of a coalition or network of Tactical Media >Initiatives in the Asian Region. > >We also feel the need to ask and reflect on the different modalities of >tacticla media, what do we mean by the term even, and work out mechanisms of >support, feedback and networking for all the work that we are doing in our >specific locations. > >With this in view, we have decided to constitute a discussion list for to be >called, tml-list at sarai.net. > >We invite all of you to join this list and carry forward our conversations. > >Looking forward to interesting postings, animated discussion, and concrete >collaborations. > >cheers > >Shekhar and Tripta >_________________________________________ >reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. >Critiques & Collaborations >To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with >subscribe in the subject header. >List archive: _____ PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) P.O. Box 5627 Dadar, Mumbai 400014, India E-Mail Phone +91 (022) 2077779, +91 98200.45529, +91 98204.04010 Web Site http://www.pukar.org.in From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Wed Dec 4 01:03:35 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 11:33:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Whatever happened to those good old freedom fighters? In-Reply-To: <200212031240.39229.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: <20021203193335.62554.qmail@web20908.mail.yahoo.com> makes you chuckle .. and THINK. ( from the ol' aussie daily..) Whatever happened to those good old freedom fighters? By Gwynne Dyer The Age: October 29 2002 http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/28/1035683358581.html The media have rewritten the rules on the coverage of so-called terrorism, writes Gwynne Dyer. Rule one: When covering terrorist attacks, do not discuss the political context of the attacks or the terrorists' motives and strategy. Two generations of comic books and cartoons have accustomed the general audience to villains who are evil just for the sake of being evil - so, calling the terrorists "evildoers" will suffice as an explanation for most people. Rule two: All terrorist actions are part of the same problem. Thus you may treat this month's Bali bombing, the sniper attacks in Washington, and the hostage-taking in a Moscow theatre as all related to each other in some (unspecified) way, and write scare-mongering think-pieces about "The October Crisis". Rule three: All terrorists are Islamic fanatics. On some occasions, as when Basque terrorists blow somebody up, it will be necessary to relax this rule slightly, but at the very least any terrorists with Muslim names should be treated as Islamist fanatics. No journalism school in the world teaches these rules, and they didn't exist two years ago. Yet most of the Western media now know them by heart. Consider, for example, the terrorist seizure of the theatre in Moscow last week that ended with the death of about 50 Chechen hostage-takers and more than 100 hostages. Two years ago, the media coverage of these events, even in Russia itself, would have given us a lot of background on why some Chechens have turned to such savage methods. Didn't see much of that last week, did we? Nothing about the long guerrilla struggle that Chechens waged against Russian imperial conquest 150 years ago. Nothing about the fact that Stalin deported the entire Chechen nation to Central Asia (where about half of them died) during World War II. Nothing about the fact that Chechnya declared independence peacefully in 1991 and that both the Chechen-Russian wars, in 1994 and 1999, began with a Russian attack. In fact, nothing to suggest that this conflict has specific local roots, or a history that goes back past last week. Instead, the terrorists were presented as pure evil, as free of logical motivation as the Penguin or the Joker in the Batman movies. Hardly anybody mentioned the fact that more than 4000 Russian soldiers and at least 12,000 Chechen "terrorists" (anybody resisting Russian occupation) have been killed since President Vladimir Putin sent the army back in to the Chechen republic in 1999. The Chechen men and women who seized the theatre have Muslim names, so they must be part of the worldwide network of Islamist fanatics who are driven by blind hatred to commit senseless massacres (or so it says in the script here). If you like being treated like an idiot child by your leaders and your media, you are living at the right time. The number of people hurt in terrorist attacks is far lower than in the '50s and '60s, when national liberation wars in countries from Algeria to Vietnam took a huge toll of civilian lives. It's not even as high as in the '70s and '80s, when a new wave of "international" terrorists bombed aircraft and even attacked the Olympics. But the world's leading media see the world through American eyes, so the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, have utterly distorted people's perceptions of the dangers of terrorism. In fact, the way terrorism is now being covered closely resembles domestic TV coverage of violent crime in the US, which has gone up 600 per cent in the past 15 years while the actual crime rate fell by 10 to 15 per cent (depending on the crime). It has enabled the Russian Government to smear the entire liberation struggle of the Chechens as terrorism, and Israel to do the same to the Palestinians. But the truth is that most of the struggles we (retrospectively) see as justified involved a good deal of terrorism at the time. The controversy that is now starting up about the tactics the Russian authorities used in freeing the Moscow hostages is just the media barking up the wrong tree as usual. The real question is whether Russia should be occupying Chechnya. But, in the present media environment, we will not hear much about that. So just to check out your sympathies, here is a list of conflicts in which the eventual victors made extensive use of terror (high-tech or low-tech): o RAF Bomber Command's campaign against German cities. o US nuclear weapons on Japanese cities. o The Zionist campaign to drive the British out of Palestine, 1946-48. o Algeria's independence struggle against France. o The Mau Mau rebellion against British rule in Kenya. o Vietnam's independence war against French and US forces. o Zimbabwe's liberation war against white minority rule. If you approved of more than two, you are obviously a terrorist sympathiser. Turn yourself in to the nearest police station. Gwynne Dyer is a London-based journalist, author and film maker. A Cowboy, Indian, and Muslim joke By Unknown. At a small terminal in the Texas Panhandle, three strangers are awaiting their shuttle flight. One is a Native American passing through from Oklahoma. Another, a local ranch hand on his way to Ft. Worth for a stock show. The third passenger is an Arab student, newly arrived at the Texas oil patch from the Middle East. To pass the time they strike up a conversation on recent events, and the discussion drifts to their diverse cultures. Soon the Westerners learn that the Arab is a devout Muslim. The conversation falls into an uneasy lull. The cowpoke leans back in his chair, crosses his boots on a magazine table, tips his big sweat-stained hat forward over his face. The wind outside blows tumbleweeds and the old windsock flaps, but no plane comes. Finally, the Native American clears his throat and softly, he speaks: "Once my people were many, Now we are few." The Muslim raises an eyebrow and leans forward, "Once my people were few," he sneers, "and now we are many. Why do you suppose that is?" The Texan shifts the toothpick to one side of his mouth and from the darkness beneath his Stetson says, "That's 'cause we ain't played Cowboys and Muslims yet." __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Wed Dec 4 01:07:43 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 11:37:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Polite fanatics..the backbones of fascism Message-ID: <20021203193743.83688.qmail@web20903.mail.yahoo.com> Polite fanatics..the backbones of fascism Lehar. O Judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their Reason.. Yet, Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all.. All honourable men. - William Shakespeare Today my own aunt had an experience with a jehadi/ fundamentalist in a Delhi Univ. office.. You wonder what such a person be doing in such a hallowed place..? Didn�t they lock him up..? The man harassed her for 3 weeks.. driving her, a lady in her 50s to the point of distraction and refusing budge from his stubborn unrelenting hostility .. without any reason whatsoever.. He was a respectable clerk in the admin dept of Delhi college..and she was there to collect copies of her daughter�s papers - an ex topping student.. passing with honors from that college more than 5 yr. ago. He was rude, angry and unrelenting in his hostility to not help her.. and didn�t care if she begged and pleaded for just the copy of old marksheets..knowing her deadline told her to come after 1 month to collect them! He simply refused to speak with her..and shouted each time she went to his desk..! For she said, he beat all the jehadi and ..in his sheer harassment and unrelenting threatening postures.. When at the end of her tether, my aunt finally told him that she too was a Delhi Univ. Professor.. teaching in one of its oldest colleges, he hissed..�so they started hiring musalmans there..! My aunt sat stunned. She had no idea this was a communal jehad being waged against her..for the last 3 weeks.. driving her to distraction.. �I am not a Muslim' �Then what is this..� he flung a sheet in front of her..hissing with hate..showing her half-Hindu half-Muslim surname.. the pride of her Indian identity. My aunt .. a firebrand secular Hindu.. ..who had insisted on wearing bindis in 'sensitive' areas during the Babri riots and known to shut up both Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists alike, said politely, �But what makes you think I am Muslim.and even if I was .� �All of Them are intolerant..We are only more tolerant..� My aunt politely told him,�that there were good and bad people in all religions etc. and so forth.. and but he was adamant and still refused to help her in anyway. �We are more tolerant.. and peaceful..� My aunt picked up her things quietly.. � I can see that� and walked out. -- I am sure Mr. Admin is an honourable/ respectable man.. he has a nice house, not blown up with mortars and has never fallen into the hands of psychopath terrorists � to be brainwashed with opium, jehad and CIA dollars.. he is not in refugee camp or a victim of police atrocities.. to unsuspectingly fall into the �wrong�/ moronic terrorist�s hands� he is what he is. A respectable married man.. with two grown up daughters and respectable dowry of fridge and TV and a wife who gives him chai and kachori everyday after he returns home from his 30 yr old secure govt. job..and yet He- is more dangerous than the trained drugged terrorist/suicide squads. For you can identify them..smoke em out..jail them.. send them to vipassana camps.. convert them( the now well tried and successful �convicts converting� adage)..But what can you do about Mr. Admin..? This group of �respectable fanatics� is rampant..they will be dressed in babu clothes.. (read T-shirt) Pant shirt,. Jeans.. speak impeccable English.. praise America and have tea at the right time..some of them are IIM graduates wearing designer labels and discussing the �Expediency of creating Value�.. but talk to them abt harmony..and they start on anti Sikh jokes/ why 84 was good for �em.. and circumcision..or get vehement,, and say that we should nuke �em all.. You know who I am talking abt.. Some even have the WTC in front of their computers..screensavers..( on asking they tell you that they never been to the States and don�t have anyone there..) My own cousin.. a �respectable� married NRI sent me emails on toilet habits of Muslims.. and their �suicidal� �tendencies� ..having grown up and studied medicine in some of the �best� schools in India.. and now a married to a Harvard educated Indian. That�s when I realized that jehadis are not just bred in terrorist camps on mountain borders..and they necessarily carry guns and ak47s.. These/there are jehadis who .. are more dangerous than the armed ones.. for you cannot pinpoint them..make no mistake.. You Can�t..! They are the people who raped their neighbors in Gujarat and then went out for a party to Mcdonalds..they Love America (their version of it.. a place which grows dollars..and not the place which still has a degree of openness and tolerance.. and a public who�s not been been brainwashed by propaganda into shooting every immigrant.. black, Indian or Chinese..dead. it�s a place where even Dubyaman declared within hours of 9/11 that all immigrants would be safe..including our honourable men..and made sure they were.. unlike his counterparts on our side of the planet..).. and can burn a few Indians � Hindus and Muslims for it. It is these who drove in their cars peacefully..while Jews where being boiled alive a few kms away in Auschwitz/concentration camps.. They are civilised people of this world.. who do not take stands and just know how to indulge in respectable hate..(but hatred is never respectable..) They are the ones who fund hatred with �respectably� earned foreign exchange and no CIA goes after them..they are the Al Qaeda of incognito. And no one knows how many assets they own or fund. Recent reports exposed the key role expat dollars played in destabilising India.. and riots made with misdirected NRI money..( as the poem goes: they are Indians to the core..but will not live on Indian soil- they love the dollar more.. ) but they will fund temples/ mosques of hate and genocide.. living away from Indian borders and being subservient to the �Western� way.. and even insulting their own freedom struggle to maintain that �green card� friendly image in front of their bosses.. they don�t like Gandhi anyway..(and thank god they weren�t so many of them during the freedom struggle, we couldn�t possibly have been freed with such a mindset..) but don�t Even seem to care about our freedom ( as the poem goes again: they live in Christian land.. but why Christians in Indian soil maybe bashed, they thoroughly understand).. perhaps it was better the Brits were ruling us..at least you could get imported goods cheaper.. and go to London more easily..( than under that Gandhi raj..) Talk to them about Parsis and Jews and they are like..who cares about them..? They aren�t even enough in number..! So there you are..! You see, if they.. Jews and Parsis were more..they would probably be the �baddies�.! What matters is that� the other;� has to be �large� enough.. to hate..to decimate..as they know very well now in India post Feb 27. Otherwise he or she is just a small fry.. what�s the point of genocide anyway..? When there are not enough of �them�..they have to be in large populations..hence the myths which float around. Never mind if all available data contradicts the hate propaganda/population myths. Hitler did this for 10yrs till people stared believing everything he said..�Everything is the Fault of the Jews..� His minister of propaganda Goebells (hence the phrase Goebellisian lie) made it their party�s dharma and creed.. � Repeat a lie long enough..and it becomes the truth� But you talk about listening to Reason. Reason is the tool of pseudo secularists and commies..Reason that�s fled to brutish beasts. As Mark Antony said 3000 yrs ago in a fanatically charged Rome- its democracy usurped by �nationalists� acting in the �Public Interest�. Beware.. the Ides of March says the soothsayer..! Never mind that sati temples and the kitchen, children (kuche, kinder) philosophy of the Fuherer/ Herr Hitler is being applied with increasing ferocity in India..see the desperate dying bahus in TV serials and the molested medical students on Delhi�s streets..a (consolidated) attempt to drive women back to their � original/real place� is in tow.. No more Udaans of IPS officers for us, Gentlemen (boring old DD ishtyle)..We will only be good bahus- kyunki, saas bhi..and good cabaret dancers, as 24 hour- 7 day TV channels tell us to be. In this cool, Miss World gadgeted.. techno savvy age. (Teach these babes a lesson, the �desi� educated men say.. 80% of molesters are �educated middle class men� scream the polls) My corporate colleague who sexually harassed dozens of colleagues and got away with 2 extramarital affairs proudly boasted ..�My wife is a real bhartiya nari..�and openly brought his Mein Kampf to office. He was a keen basher of all psuedo-secularists who dared contradict him..and endorsed nuking �em all../ am old guard of the nuke em all school.(along with a bunch of underhand deals..) and yes..he is an honorable man. Yes Brutus, as They are all honourable men. With all their civilised vehemence..one has no hopes from them when the fascists ride.. they will politely turn away their coifured noses.. and carry on fund raising for their electronic/online prayers or latest weddings..mercedes..( yikes..That German car..!) (Green card) in tow. We were the poor Indian relatives anyway.. dispensable as the Gillette shavers.. which are so cheap to buy now. You cannot wage a war again them..you cannot prosecute them..no peacefully negotiations work with them.. and no arms talks. They are polite .. They are the backbone of fascism. One thinks of that immortal speech . more relevant 500 yrs after it was written:: I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.. The villany you teach me, I will execute..' This is not a speech. This is a warning from history. A history which is coming true as we speak. A history..prejudice.. which is the root of all the upheaval in the world today.. Hiroshima was an expression of it and it destroyed the same Nazis who perpetrated it. A prejudice.. which cries out to be dispensed with.. before it too late..Hindus, Germans, Muslims, Jews alike..for all of us.. Let us not yield to it. The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: - Shakepeare anf finally.. Love's Creed is separate from all religions. The Creed and Denomination of Lovers is God. Multiplicity exists in the separate grapes, But it cannot be found in the juice that comes from the grape! -Rumi *** Lehar..December 2002. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From ektenel at hotmail.com Wed Dec 4 04:37:47 2002 From: ektenel at hotmail.com (Ah_Ek Ferrera_Balanquet) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 23:07:47 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] markszine.com Message-ID: mark(s) v3.03 features poetry by Ted Greenwald and Bhanu Kapil Rider, the visual art of Gina Ferrari and Matthew Hanna, a memoir by Barbara Henning, and a net.work by Raul Ferrara-Balanquet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Visit mark(s) at http://www.markszine.com. Come back often to view new work, revisit our archives or connect to the growing list of links to metro Detroit's online cultural communities. this site requires a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 for viewing If links in this message do not work in your email browser, please paste http://www.markszine.com into the location bar of your browser to view mark(s). mark(s) v3.03 presenta la poes�de Ted Greenwald y Bhanu Kapil, el arte de Gina Ferrari y Matthew Hanna, una memoir de Barbara Henning, y una pieza de net.art de Ra�rrara-Balanquet. Visite mark(s) at http://www.markszine.com. Regrese a menudo para que ver nuevas obras, revisar nuestros archivos o para conectarse a nuestra lista de enlace con la comunidad cultura del �a metropolitana de Detroit. Este sitio requiere una minima resoluci�e pantalla de 800x600 para que pueda ser vista en su totalidad. Si no funciona este enlace, por favor, pegue la direcci�http://www.markszine.com en la barra de su navegador para ver mark(s). Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet,MFA Artists/Writer/Curator krosrods at cartodigital.org ektenel at hotmail.com http://www.cartodigital.org/krosrods _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From kshekhar at bol.net.in Wed Dec 4 02:01:01 2002 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 02:01:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION Message-ID: >Subject: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION >Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 06:18:24 -0500 >From: Dow Chemical Corporation >To: "ben-beroul.uklinux.net" > >December 3, 2002 >FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > Contact: mailto:press at dow-chemical.com > >DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION >Company responds to activist concerns with concrete action points > >In response to growing public outrage over its handling of the Bhopal >disaster's legacy, Dow Chemical (http://www.dow-chemical.com) has >issued a statement explaining why it is unable to more actively >address the problem. > >"We are being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about >the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years," said Dow >President and CEO Michael D. Parker. "But this just isn't true. Many >individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about the Bhopal >disaster, and many individuals within Dow would like the corporation >to admit its responsibility, so that the public can then decide on the >best course of action, as is appropriate in any democracy. > >"Unfortunately, we have responsibilities to our shareholders and our >industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being >clear about this has been a very big step." > >On December 3, 1984, Union Carbide--now part of Dow--accidentally >killed 5,000 residents of Bhopal, India, when its pesticide plant >sprung a leak. It abandoned the plant without cleaning it up, and >since then, an estimated 15,000 more people have died from >complications, most resulting from chemicals released into the >groundwater. > >Although legal investigations have consistently pinpointed Union >Carbide as culprit, both Union Carbide and Dow have had to publicly >deny these findings. After the accident, Union Carbide compensated >victims' families between US$300 and US$500 per victim. > >"We understand the anger and hurt," said Dow Spokesperson Bob Questra. >"But Dow does not and cannot acknowledge responsibility. If we did, >not only would we be required to expend many billions of dollars on >cleanup and compensation--much worse, the public could then point to >Dow as a precedent in other big cases. 'They took responsibility; why >can't you?' Amoco, BP, Shell, and Exxon all have ongoing problems that >would just get much worse. We are unable to set this precedent for >ourselves and the industry, much as we would like to see the issue >resolved in a humane and satisfying way." > >Shareholders reacted to the Dow statement with enthusiasm. "I'm happy >that Dow is being clear about its aims," said Panaline Boneril, who >owns 10,000 shares, "because Bhopal is a recurrent problem that's >clogging our value chain and ultimately keeping the share price from >expressing its full potential. Although a real solution is not >immediately possible because of Dow's commitments to the larger >industry issues, there is new hope in management's exceptional new >clarity on the matter." > >"It's a slow process," said Questra. "We must learn bit by bit to meet >this challenge head-on. For now, this means acknowledging that much as >it pains us, our prime responsibilities are to the people who own Dow >shares, and to the industry as a whole. We simply cannot do anything >at this moment for the people of Bhopal." > > >Dow Chemical is a chemical products and services company devoted to >bringing its customers a wide range of chemicals. It furnishes >solutions for the agriculture, electronics, manufacturing, and oil and >gas industries, including well-known products like Styrofoam, DDT, and >Agent Orange, as well as lesser-known brands like Inspire, Retain, >Eliminator, Quash, and Woodstalk. For more on the Bhopal catastrophe, >please visit Dow at http://www.dow-chemical.com/. > > # 30 # > > To no longer receive mail from Dow, please write > mailto:offlist at dow-chemical.com?subject=ben at beroul.uklinux.net. > >------------------------------------------------------- _____ Shekhar Krishnan 9, Supriya, 2nd Floor Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road No.4 Dadar, Bombay 400014 India From krishnanrr at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 4 11:09:46 2002 From: krishnanrr at rediffmail.com (Radha Krishnan) Date: 4 Dec 2002 05:39:46 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: reader-list digest, Vol 1 #26 - 2 msgs Message-ID: <20021204053946.14997.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021204/6ad6d0ae/attachment.pl From krishnanrr at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 4 11:10:04 2002 From: krishnanrr at rediffmail.com (Radha Krishnan) Date: 4 Dec 2002 05:40:04 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: reader-list digest,-response Message-ID: <20021204054004.31484.qmail@webmail18.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021204/3f527b42/attachment.pl From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Wed Dec 4 14:24:07 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 00:54:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: BAY AREA Premiere: FILM ON RSS YOUTH BY FILMMAKER LALIT VACHANI (IN-PERSON)- DEC 6TH + 7TH! Message-ID: <20021204085407.55125.qmail@web20905.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Lehar sethi zaidi" Subject: Fwd: [EKTA] FILM ON RSS YOUTH BY FILMMAKER LALIT VACHANI (IN-PERSON)- DEC 6TH + 7TH! Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 14:18:31 +0530 Size: 4694 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021204/2a719631/attachment.mht From monica at sarai.net Wed Dec 4 20:12:27 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 20:12:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Arrest of journalists in Bangladesh Message-ID: Dear All This has been forwarded to us by a friend who is a photographer from France, and has worked in Bangladesh for years. He is in touch with many media practitioners and journalists from there. best M ------------------------------------------------- Bonjour, Our good friend of us the journalist saleem Samad has been jailed with two british journalist working for channel 4. If you have three minutes left please sign the petition to ask for their release at www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=4426 Thanking you in advance Warm regards Gilles & Isabelle URGENT Saleem Samad Bangladesh Journalist Saleem Samad, the Bangladesh correspondent of Reporters Without Borders, was arrested on the night of 29 November 2002 and accused of helping two reporters from the British TV station Channel 4. Samad's family, whose home was searched, have been forced into hiding after receiving many threats. A policeman warned that Samad's son might be arrested. A Channel 4 reporter, Zaiba Malik, and cameraman Bruno Sorrentino, as well as their translator Priscilla Raj and driver Mujib, were arrested on 25 November as they were about to cross the border into India near the eastern town of Benapole. Since then, police have obstructed legal procedures. The journalists are accused of sedition and risk the death penalty. -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From tripta at sarai.net Thu Dec 5 01:23:22 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 19:53:22 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] halfbakery/open source movie/conversations Message-ID: <200212041953.22426.tripta@sarai.net> Dear all, half bakery is a forum which also users to intiate discussions around Ideas. The following discussion on Open source movies is very interesting. Though it seems like a frivilous conversation at a superficial glance...it reflects on the understandings, sensibilities and entry of `Open Source' ideas into other social, cultural, artistic practices: the resistance posed, the arguements made and the future projections. cheers tripta _________________________________________________________________________________ http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/The_20Open_20Source_20Movie_20Project#1023483689 h a l f b a k e r y You could have thought of that. The Open Source Movie Project The Open Source Movie Project (-1, +5) [vote for, against] A movie where the script is public domain, and anybody can work on it (until it's filmed, of course). All contributions are considered public domain, and anybody can build on anybody else's ideas. Eventually, the best of everybody's contributions will be pieced together into a single, spectacular script. Of course, the acting will probably suck... ravenswood, Apr 26 2001 Planet Quake http://www.planetquake.com This site is a shining example of the wierd things people do when given enough open source style rights. [Aristotle] Because it says so in the script http://www.halfbake...n_20the_20script_22 [ravenswood] Have you heard of the Quake movie communities? They exist in much the same way as the Quake modelling communities but for movies. They could work like this just as people openly contribute models, skins, sounds and animations for Quake models. Aristotle, Apr 26 2001 I don't understand how open source works best, but it seems like it's really kicking when people choose to take and leave which features they want or invent entirely new ones. So, you end up with thousands of individualized programs cut, ostensibly, from the same cloth. "Open-sourcing" a movie seems like it would miss the point of the whole process, since you end up with one product to which everyone has contributed, but which no one likes. Or, perhaps, I'm missing the point. centauri, Apr 26 2001 Is this like a camel (A horse designed by a committee)? UnaBubba, Apr 26 2001 More like an elephant (a mouse designed by committee). sirrobin, Apr 26 2001 Great idea! It could be called "It's a Half-Baked Baked Baked World," and ... hey ... anybody else just get a chill down their spine? Dog Ed, Apr 26 2001 Yeah, I'm freezing and I think it would be called "It's a Half, Half, Half-baked World." The result would be something like the median of all the contributors. Reminding me of that stoopid show, Family Feud, wherein the contestants had to guess what an earlier polling of the audience showed to be the most average answer. Another analogy would be anyplace without zoning laws (think Houston). Sheesh. noggins, Apr 26 2001 I think this is a great idea! It would have to be a full fledged program in order to work... ... or it would make an interesting premiere plugin- I'm game, this would be hot-! wingo, May 22 2001 ((was mfd - mfd tag removed)) This is similar to Rods's idea (see link), but his is better, so I'm going to kill this one. I don't know if Rods had this in mind when he created his, but, if he did, then I'm glad that he was able to build upon the foundation I laid. If not, then I guess he's Leibnitz to my Newton (or something). This idea will be pruned by me on Monday. ravenswood, Jan 25 2002 Well hang on not so fast there sunny (with showers later and it'll be getting dark tonight). I think there's an important distinction between yours and mine, as it were. Yours sort of serves to highlight the chaos and free-for-all that true open source would offer, but it would also be a lot more variable than mine. It'd also be a movie, whereas mine's a tv series. What I really had in mind was an intentional 'process' that a participant would have to work through in order to participate, whereas yours offers solid gold easy access, in an almost direct manner. Mine's turned into an emphasis on the script being the end result medium - yours would (I'm confident) go that small step further and actually become a movie. I reckon they're discrete. Don't delete just because people see more of a similarity than I think there actually is. Rods Tiger, Jan 25 2002 I second that, I would like time to absorb both and see them develop. They may actually influence each other but what do I know? po, Jan 25 2002 OK, instead of mfd, I'll mark this one "gasping". ravenswood, Jan 25 2002 kiss of life, ravenswood..... po, Jan 25 2002 centauri, opensource isnt all the same. you could license something in such a way that new products could not be based on the existing one. ironfroggy, Apr 01 2002 An open source movie wouldn't have to only be a collaborative project. One could take the script, re-write it and shoot it themselves. The filming could even be open sourced. People could supply the source tapes of their film to anyone who wanted to edit all or part of the movie. There could be many different versions of the movie around. People could even take parts of each version they liked and make their own version. This could be possible since editing software and video equipment has gotten so much cheaper and simpler than it used to be. It would be like a fan film based on a movie or show, except it would be legal and neither the original or the derivitive work would be considered canon. It could be very messy but also very interesting. Jeremy S, Jun 07 2002 From tripta at sarai.net Thu Dec 5 12:40:40 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 07:10:40 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] TML issues on Sarai Reader List Message-ID: <200212050710.40857.tripta@sarai.net> Dear all, It is a very unfortunate event that misunderstandings created due to technical issues and lack of communication have been brought out on a platform (such as the Reader List) meant for discussions and conversations in the public domain. I am referring here to Shekhar Krishnan's posting in response to my welcome message to people who have been subscribed on to the TML (Tactical Media Lab) list on sarai.net I would like to express my personal regret and apologies for having played a part (in good faith) in all of this, and I hope that they will be accepted. I also hope that all those who have expressed their displeasure, to having their names appended to statements will also display an adequate generousity of the spirit, and return to the task at hand, which is the initiation of the TML list. The Tactical Media Lab was hosted at Sarai recently and this event witnessed the coming together of issues, imaginations, informations and technologies from diverse groups, sections and experiences. The conversations were potent, with ideas which everyone felt should be carried on further so as to give them a tangible shape. And hence, the consenus in an open panel at the end of the three days was to start a mailing list which will not only discuss the issues that came up at the TML at Sarai but also discuss the future possibilities of Tactical Media in our region. Sarai offered to host the mailing list on it's server and Shekhar Krishnan offerred to moderate the list. I was given the task of the technical administration of the list at Sarai. However due to some technical problems with the Sarai mail server, the list did not take off immediately, as was originally intended. Once the problems with the mail server, the archives and the management of the various lists were sorted I wrote to the designated list moderator more than once, mentioning the need for a welcome message. Since none was forthcoming, even after a fortnight after the TML event, I took the step (which I now regret) of writing a brief welcome message, which by no means was intended to spell out the 'editorial' agenda of the list. I apologize for my sending off this message, which I agree, was done in haste, (though fifteen days is a long time). Shekhar and I were both listed as signatories to this statement. Shekhar's name was mentioned as he retains all the content and editorial rights as the list-moderator. In my understanding this continues to be the case, and I am co-administering the list, and looking after its technical management on the Sarai server. This step was undertaken in good faith to keep the momentum of what we had all enjoyed being a part of at the TML going, and to continue the conversations. Hopefully, we can put this initial hiccup behind us and continue doing what we had all agreed to do on the TML list. I look forward to everyone's active participation on the TML list, and apologize once again to the Reader List for having to witness something that is not germane to the Reader List. cheers Tripta From cityone at sarai.net Wed Dec 4 14:11:32 2002 From: cityone at sarai.net (City One) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 14:11:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [Sarai Newsletter] January City Conference Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20021204141043.00a6d588@mail.sarai.net> City One , a cross-disciplinary conference on the urban experience in South Asia will take place between the 9th and 11th of January, 2003. This will be a significant gathering of scholars and practitioners from different fields and we hope it will open up new agendas for urban research on South Asian cities. The conference is organized by the Sarai programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. The response to the conference has been tremendous. We now have 6 plenary sessions and 18 panels spread across three days. Check the web link which will be regularly updated at: http://www.sarai.net/cityone/cityone.htm If you wish to attend the conference be sure to pre-register with us. We have very few slots left for those registering, and there is limited space. The costs are Rs 300 for the general public and Rs 100 for students. You may pay the amount on the morning of the 9th . For pre-registration write to cityone at sarai.net Ravi Sundaram City One Conference Sarai Programme, CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India Fax: 91-11-3943450 http://www.sarai.net/cityone/cityone.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021204/2db08f2a/attachment.html From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 4 20:47:40 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 4 Dec 2002 15:17:40 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Film Screening Message-ID: <20021204151740.10584.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> Paradise on a River of Hell a film by Meenu Gaur & Abir Bazaz The violence Kashmir witnessed in the 1990s shattered human dignity and changed everyday life beyond recognition. Years of insurgency and counterinsurgency not only interrupted the continuity of Kashmiri lives but forced Kashmiris into roles in which they no longer recognize themselves. Not attempting to situate the 1990s in this or that event, person, space or time, the film’s mappings of personal and collective memories bears witness to Kashmir’s historical solitude. We invite you to the screening of our film, Paradise on a River of Hell at THE AUDITORIUM, INDIA HABITAT CENTRE on SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7TH at 7:00 PM. There’d be readings from Kashmiri poetry before the screening. Please forward the invitation to those of your friends in Delhi who might be interested in the film. Thanks. Warmly, Meenu Gaur Abir Bazaz _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From dak at sarai.net Wed Dec 4 21:30:35 2002 From: dak at sarai.net (dak at sarai.net) Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 16:00:35 GMT Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [Sarai Newsletter] December 2002 Message-ID: <20021204.16003500@saumya.sarai.kit> Contents: I @rt.net.uk/now II Workshop @ Sarai: Writers Unblock - Fiction Writing & The Daily Life of Intellectual Property Law III Films @ Sarai: Focus on the Documentary IV Tactical Media Lab @ Sarai V Launch of Deewan-e-Sarai, the Sarai Hindi Reader VI New @ Sarai Interface I @rt.net.uk/now An Exhibition, Lecture and Workshop Programme, presenting facets of contemporary Internet Based Art Practice in Britain Curated by Honor Harger (curator, webcasting, Tate Modern, London) and Pauline van Mourek Broekman (editor, Mute - A Journal of New Media Arts, London) Organised by the British Council in collaboration with Sarai: The New Media Initiative, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. December 2 - 5, 2002 Exhibition  at the British Council, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi. December 4 Presentation and interaction with Sarai December 5 Net Art Now Presentation by the Curators at the British Council, followed by a public conversation, moderated by Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Sarai. About the Exhibition @rt.net.uk/now is an exhibition that brings to the fore key issues in critical internet-based art practice. Issues of borders and borderlessness, mapping and territories, the relationships between 'old' and 'new' media, access and control, critical reflections on the experiences of the 'thinning' of time and the thickening of the data cloud around us. Internet based art is often mistakenly regarded as art 'showcased' on the internet. This programme seeks to challenge this notion by offering instead a foregrounding of the intrinsic properties of the net as the material of a new form of art practice. This is a sensibility that is conceptual, interactive, time based and that often plays with the difficulties of access, unstable connectivity and crashing software - features that are so much part of everyday online experience. Pauline Van Moerik Broekman and Honor Harger deliberately eschew the 'flashy' and spectacular effect-laden world of mainstream web content to curate a series of online experiences that are designed to be thoughtful, and at times, sharply political in the way in which they treat the questions of online and offline territoriality and the 'fragmented public sphere' of the internet. The works presented by them represent the critical cutting edge of online art practice and include projects by leading contemporary British net artists such as Heath Bunting, Rachel Baker, Tim Knowles, Richard Wright, Andy Deck, Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie. The exhibition will chart an eclectic mini-journey through new media projects from the past few years, culminating in some of the absolute latest and most contemporary examples in this context, based on the premise that the quasi-historical purview will give an opportunity to look at some of the questions that may have lingered in context. About the Curators Honor Harger is a new media artist who is currently working as an education and online projects officer of the new Tate Modern Gallery. Honor has been working on developing new techniques of audio streaming for quite some time as a part of a group called Radio Qualia. Van Mourik Broekman is co-publisher and editor of the London based technoculture magazine Mute, which she co-founded with Simon Worthington as 'the Art and Technology Newspaper' in late 1994. As well as editing Mute, she writes regularly on art, media and technology for journals and books. The editors, especially Pauline van Mourik Broekmann, have created a very active and dynamic network of contributors, artists, writers and critics who represent the best in  the British avant garde new media scene. Mute Magazine has been presenting public forums on new media culture at the Tate Modern. Honor and Pauline will be travelling to Kolkata and Bangalore Indian cities to make presentations and conduct workshops as a forerunner to the exhibition between December 6 and 15, 2002. II Workshops at Sarai 1. December 11-12, 2002 11 am -5 pm, Sarai Interface Zone Writers Unblock with Meaghan Delahunt What is the work of a writer? How do ideas for fiction crystallize and grow into short stories... and novels? What is the daily regimen, and what are the exercises and observational practices that an aspiring writer needs to work out? How to make the "writer's block" into a piece of living textual sculpture? Meaghan Delahunt, Asialink Fellow and writer-in-residence at Sarai, will conduct a workshop on writing fiction through a series of imaginative and fun excercises that grapple with these questions. She will also share aspects of her own creative process, as it was deployed in the writing of her first novel 'In the Blue House', and offer advice and insight into working with agents, publishing houses and other practical aspects of the writer's trade. To pre-register email dak at sarai.net or call 3960040. 'In the Blue House' won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, in the Best Book category in SE Asia and South Pacific, and the Saltire Society Award in Scotland. 2. December 20-21, 2002 10 am -5 pm, Seminar Room, CSDS The Daily Life of Intellectual Property Law In the context of the global economy Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) has emerged as one of the important modes of ensuring that cultural and economic flows  occur within a given set of rules and regulations. This necessitates the  disciplining of the activities of those who operate beyond the boundaries of  the regulated formal economy. Thus IPR unfolds itself in the lives of  people on a day to day basis, determining what economic activities they may  or may not engage in. These boundaries are also backed by an omnipotent  threat of coercive violence through the use of the police force as agents enforcing IPR. At the conceptual level there have been a number of challenges posed to the philosophical and the material basis of IPR.  These range from the open source movement in software to the open  revolution in content, music and publishing. This broad movement can  be called the movement of the creative commons. What clearly inspires  the open revolution is a dissatisfaction with the philosophical premises of  IPR (romantic authorship, incentive theory, monopoly rights etc.) as well as  a recognition that, given the distribution of inequality implicit in the  global economy, there is a need to articulate a praxis that allows for more  democratic modes of participation within the global economy. Legal scholars, lawyers, researchers, media practitioners and law students from across the country will discuss these and other issues at this workshop. We will also screen The Code - Story of Linux, a film that brings many of these issues to the forefront and Arjun Raina, actor and playwright, will perform A Terrible Beauty is Born, his play on work, distance and Call Centres. III Films @ Sarai: Focus on the Documentary All screenings are at the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054. 1. Friday, December 13, 2002, 4:30 pm Mat / The Vote Directed by Pankaj Rishi Kumar, (2002), 80 minutes Mat/ The Vote is a filmic deconstruction of the electoral process in India. It closely examines the interests and issues that guide the performance of different players - political parties, candidates, party workers and voters - in a competition for power. The film follows Imtiaz Khan, BJP candidate, in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections held in February, 2002, and Hemraj Saathi, a BJP worker. The overall election process in Siyana, UP, forms the matrix of the film. The crucial subjects here are the voters, divided and categorized according to caste and community. The production of Mat/ The Vote has been motivated by a need to bring the vital issues in Indian democracy to the fore, by revealing in a comprehensive and articulate manner, the failure of our society to meet even the most basic challenges of such a social and political system. 2. Friday, December 20, 2002, 4:30 pm The Code - Story of Linux Directed by Hannu Puttonen, (2001), 59 minutes The Code presents the first decade of Linux from 1991 to 2001. The film tries to tell one of the key stories of the digital age, a symbolic saga of capitalism during the last fin de siecle of the second millenium and during the early steps of the third one. It features Linux Torvalds and many of his closest allies in the development process of Linux, along with Richard Stallman. IV Tactical Media Lab @ Sarai On November 14 -16, 2002, Sarai hosted the South Asian Tactical Media Lab (TML), one of a chain of such events, that are taking place in different parts of the world (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Cluj, New York, Delhi and Sydney) as a run-up to the fourth Next 5 Minutes Conference (N5M4) in Amsterdam in 2003. Over the three days free software enthusiasts, programmers, graphic designers, filmmakers, artists, activists, members of NGOs, telecommunications experts, students and media practitioners from Mumbai, Dehradun, Kolkata, Dacca, Kathmandu, Tehran & Delhi shared ideas, experiences, problems and grievances, explored varied uses of tactical media, discussed strategies, designed posters and websites, disbanded opinions and formed new ones through panel discussions, presentations, installations, workshops and a film screening. The TML started with a very well attended public conversation between Shuddhabrata Sengupta from Sarai and David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio, an independent, award-winning, weekly radio program produced in Boulder, Colorado. David Barsamiyan is well known in Delhi through the publications of his interviews with Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Eqbal Ahmed. This was followed by discussions and presentations on different approaches to Tactical Media. Discussions on subsequest days focussed on language and localization issues in Free Software, freedom and programming culture, ICT and its ability to look beyond the development paradigm and on the need for collaboration of new media networks in Asia. A print and web designing workshop conducted by Pradeep Saha, Managing Editor, Down to Earth, and Mrityunjoy Chatterjee, Sarai Media Lab, formed part of the TML and audio-visual and web installations were playing in the Sarai Interface Zone on all three days. The event lent itself naturally to the crystallization of a loose coalition of tactical media enthusiasts in the Asian region. The participants from Iran, Bangladesh, Nepal and various parts of India, spoke of the need to carry the energies that they had discovered through their meetings into the future. Plans were made to set up a Tactical Media Asia discussion list hosted by Sarai, and everyone was in agreement on initiating a cluster of collaborative processes, like a free software desktop in the Urdu language as a concrete instance of collaboration between people at Sarai and the LinuxIran group. For more details click on http://www.sarai.net/community/announce.htm V Launch of Deewan-e-Sarai, The Sarai Hindi Reader Sarai launched the first Hindi Reader Deewan-e-Sarai 01: Media Vimarsh://Hindi Janpad (Media Discourses:// Hindi Public Domain) on Saturday November 30. Prof. VB Singh, Director, CSDS, welcomed the guests and speakers while Prof. DL Sheth moderated the presentations. Ravikant, co-editor, Deewan 01, gave a brief introduction to the series that is designed to cover a whole range of issues from the history and practice of technology (Electricity, Railways, Computer, Internet) to city, films, legal debates around copyright, surveillance and information politics, history of labour and historiography. Sanjay Sharma, co-editor, Deewan 01, presented an overview of the volume. This was followed by readings from Deewan 01. Ruchika read a poem, 'Internet par Shaadi', and 'Aag ka Copyright', Ravikant read out his translation of Bapsi Sidhwa's 'Television Satyagraha ke woh Din', an essay on the day in the 1970s when the Indian film, Pakeeza, was broadcast on Amritsar TV and how Lahore went berserk. David Lelyweld who was a witness to the Pakeeza screening shared his memories of the day in private conversations later. Sanjay Sharma then read out extracts from his rather funny memoir on the BBC Hindi service. After the readings invited speakers commented on the book. Much of the interactions revolved around the use of language by Hindi writers and publishers. Historian Sudheer Chandra praised the prose and supported the Deewan's practice of going against the dominant notions of shabd-maitri, whereby people do not allow so-called Hindi words to mingle with so-called Urdu ones,  but he also pointed out a couple of factual inaccuracies. Sanjeev Kumar, lecturer of Hindi at Delhi University, liked the name Deewan but was critical of the Deewan's assumptions about the Hindi Public, especially its literary publics, and pointed out the overwhemingly secular mood of high Hindi literature. He sought to nuance the notion of tadbhavaization, or corruption, by appealing for the acceptance of tadbhavised or apbhramshised Urdu as well. He also talked of the inherent lack in training that allows most writers the competence to play around with words derived from Sanskrit rather than with Perso-Arabic derivations. By referring to current trends in the Hindi print media he pointed out the disappearance of not only the nuqta but other diacritical marks like the chandrabindu,and the halant, in an effort of simplifying Hindi typography and moulding it for computer screens. Aditya Nigam, Fellow, CSDS, distinguished these two kinds of disappearance and celebrated the kind of language Deewan seems to have inaugurated. He also praised the hard work put in by the Translation Unit at Sarai. Language debates brought forth passionate interventions from the floor and Rana Behl, Delhi University, Yogendra Yadav, CSDS, and Vijay Pratap, Lokayan, presented their own insights as language practitioners. This interactive 'lokarpan' went down well with the gathering and we are sure to hear more on this for some time. VI New @ Sarai Interface The Sarai Digital Interface, available on the terminals in the Sarai Interface Zone, is an in-depth presentation of Sarai's activities and concerns that also contains areas of interactivity. The Interface is designed to let the visitor to Sarai have a hands-on feel of the kind of work we do, the issues that we are interested in and to allow for an interaction with Sarai projects in various stages of development. It contains a digital gallery and also acts as a public platform for the sharing of ideas, knowledge and creativity, a digital bulletin board for posting messages about public concerns as well as an evolving resource that is built and sustained by the community that grows around Sarai. The Interface can be used as a space to register subjective experiences of living in urban spaces. The recent additions to the digital gallery in the Interface are: Cold Glory at Ground Zero Photographs by Monica Narula Exactly a year after September 11, 2001, New York city, under a clear sky. A nervous flutter of US flags at every block are signs of remembrance, and foreboding. And talk of war brings alive a cold glory in early autumn. Monica Narula follows the flag and its strange appearances, on pavements, walls, alleyways, and the outer perimeter of Ground Zero. Graffiti and Signage in the City Photo-essays by Sadan Jha and Prabhas Ranjan. 2 HTML photoessays documenting the pictorial modes of visual representation through graffiti and signage ranging from the religious, the superstitious and the occult to everyday announcements in the city of Delhi. ------------- That's all this month. We hope to see you at the screenings and the workshops. Cheers, Ranita -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021204/38288f93/attachment.html From tripta at sarai.net Thu Dec 5 17:06:23 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (Tripta) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 11:36:23 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: law and theft Message-ID: <200212051136.23649.tripta@sarai.net> More on Law and it's theft... ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: law and theft Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 15:22:14 -0500 From: "McKenzie Wark" To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net Richard writes that >Passing laws is not the same thing as making people obey them. The DCMA or >the EU Copyright Directive haven't stopped the sharing of information among >Net users. Just as privatising land and the means of production did not stop cattle rustling or hijacking trucks of cigarettes on the interstate. Not to mention the fabulous history of coastal smuggling.... The important thing is that until quite recently, this kind of info-sharing was not theft, for what was appropriated was not really property. In 19th century America, foreign authors had no protection at all. The idea that translations are copyrightable is also very recent. >As even the simplest versions of historical materialism point >out, the legal superstructure can - at best - only slow down the evolution >of the socio-economic base... I think this seriously underestimates law, and Marx's appreciation of law. What drives *changes* in the law is outside its provenance, and clearly comes in a large measure from "the evolution of the socio-economic base". That will do as a preliminary formulation. But law is much more than that. It creates a world of distinct objects that can be assigned criteria of owership and responsiblity. Without which there is no developed commodity economy. What is significant for our purposes is the creation of law that assigns rights to 'information'. On the basis of those rights, you can take your 'information' to market much as you would any other legally recognisable asset. This law, in its strict form, is very recent. It may be driven by technical-economic-social forces, but it legitimates the claims of those forces to a private right, and creates a much stronger basis for the commodification of new realms. As Jameson usefully points out, when Marx speaks of 'base' and 'superstructure', he is using railway terminology, for the tracks and the rolling stock. Its a much more useful -- and less dogmatic -- concept when undestood in those terms. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Thu Dec 5 17:30:21 2002 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 04:00:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Calcutta photos 1947 Message-ID: <20021205120021.860.qmail@web41105.mail.yahoo.com> A collection of photos taken by American GIs of Calcutta in 1947. from U of Pennsylvania library. http://www.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/ R __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From info at nmartproject.net Thu Dec 5 15:52:16 2002 From: info at nmartproject.net (NewMediaArtProjectNetwork) Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 11:22:16 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Call for submissions Message-ID: <009d01c29c48$38401f60$0600a8c0@NMARTPROJECTNET> Call for submissions Deadline 25 December 2002 Who are the pioneers? A Virtual Memorial www.a-virtual-memorial.org is looking for the pioneers in the January edition of "Features of the month", subject: "Voices of a new age". Why and in which concern do you think, you, a family member, one of your friends or people you heard of are pioneers? (in any concern: human, inventional, social, scientific, technical, technological, etc). Please send your submission as plain email text, .txt or.doc file not longer than 300 words in English language. It my be accompanied by still or moving images in the formats .jpg, .gif, .png, .swf, .dcr. (size not larger than 1Mb) *************************************** Please use this form for submitting: 1. name/first name 2. email 3. URL 4. Who are the pioneers? Your answer/statement please send your submission exclusively to pioneers at a-virtual-memorial.org Deadline 25 December 2002. ***************************************** All serious answers/submissions will be added and will form the project of the month "January 2003". A Virtual Memorial, Memorial project against the Forgetting and for Humanity www.a-virtual-memorial.org info at a-virtual-memorial.org _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From monica at sarai.net Fri Dec 6 14:53:49 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 14:53:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Report on the TML@Sarai Message-ID: Dear All Below is a report of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai which was held on the 14, 15 16 of November. Feedback welcome. Also available online at www.sarai.net/events.htm best M Tactical Media Lab @ Sarai On November 14 - 16, 2002, Sarai hosted the South Asian Tactical Media Lab (TML), one of a chain of such events, that are taking place in different parts of the world (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Cluj, New York, Delhi and Sydney) as a run-up to the fourth Next 5 Minutes Conference (N5M4) in Amsterdam in 2003. Over three hectic days free software enthusiasts, programmers, graphic designers, filmmakers, artists, activists, members of NGOs, telecommunications experts, students and media practitioners from Mumbai, Dehradun, Kolkata, Dacca, Kathmandu, Tehran & Delhi shared ideas, experiences, problems and grievances, explored varied uses of tactical media, discussed strategies, designed posters and websites, disbanded opinions and formed new ones through panel discussions, presentations, installations, workshops and a film screening. The event lent itself naturally to the crystallization of a loose coalition of tactical media enthusiasts in the Asian region. From the very begining it was positioned as being a 'process' in the course of which the participants would uncover the energies of a network ... after three days this network was brimming with ideas of many possible collaborations to counter everyday local situations. We hope to sustain these energies in the months to come. Day 1 of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai, November 14, 2002 The first day began with a very well attended public conversation between Shuddhabrata Sengupta from Sarai and the TML's "Mystery Guest" - David Barsamian. David Barsamian , the founder and director of Alternative Radio, an independent, award-winning, weekly radio program produced in Boulder, Colorado, is well known in Delhi through the publications of his interviews with Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Eqbal Ahmed. Barsamian, who happened to be visiting Delhi at the time was invited by Sarai to open the Tactical Media Lab, which he did with a very inspiring invocation to media activists to be positive, energetic, creative and humorous and not turn into moaners with dwindling audiences! The conversation with him led to a very lively discussion in which the question of "free speech", particularly in conflict ridden societies like South Asia's was actively discussed. The TML got off to a very active and lively start as a result of this and through the next few days the importance of free expression, new ways of reaching the public domain and the necessity to be inventive and creative recurred several times in the conversations and presentations. The afternoon of the first day featured presentations by the people at Sarai working on the Cybermohalla (Cyber Neighbourhood) Project. Shveta Sarda, Ruchika Negi, Joy Chatterjee and Ashish Mahajan from Sarai, with Azra Tabassum from the LNJP colony Cybermohalla Compughar, talked about the processes involved in setting up digital media labs using free software in the LNJP squatter settlement and the Ambedkar Nagar Resettlement Colony in Delhi. Issues of access, technological flexibility, creativity and different ways of looking at the city were discussed. Shveta presented some of the work done by the Cybermohalla project, Joy and Ashish spoke of the software and hardware configurations involved in operationalizing each lab, Ruchika read from the journal that she is keeping of her interactions with people on the street, and Azra spoke of how the process works to steadily remove layers of fear in terms of her engagement with the urban environment. Following this, Pradip Saha, Managing Editor Down to Earth magazine, spoke briefly about using humour and subversive fun as an essential element in designing an effective communication strategy by activists This intervention was followed by a panel composed of Shekhar Krishan, PUKAR , along with Sanjay Bhangar from Indymedia, Mumbai; Arun Mehta, telecommunications engineer and Internet activist; Partha Sarkar of the Bytesforall Network, from Dhaka, and Shilpa Gupta, from the Open Circle Artists' Collective in Mumbai. Each presentation featured candid discussions on the possibilities and limitations of media activism in South Asia. While the panelists were often of the opinion that, barring very specialist fora, online discussion lists have not taken off as expected in South Asia, they emphasized the need to develop effective communication strategies that engaged with public concerns in a demonstrably public manner. The Indymedia Mumbai group spoke of their efforts to involve communication students in the university to develop an effective web presence, especially in the context of online actions commemorating the anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster of 1984, in tandem with the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, earlier this year. Arun Mehta spoke of the feasibility of low-cost and low-tech strategies for radio as a tool for building sustainable, community controlled communications networks in the rural areas of Orissa in Eastern India. Gaurab Upadhyay from Bytesforall, Kathmandu, intervened with his experience of alternate radio networks in Nepal and discussions revolved around how to use the technology, and available networks, to suit urban conditions. Partha Sarkar spoke about the experience of building the Bytesforall network, which he initiated from Dhaka, together with Fredrick Noronha, who is based in India. Bytesforall has now grown into a pro-active South Asia wide network for people interested in the social usage of information and communication technologies. He led us through the evolution of Bytesforall as an online forum where technicians, activists, and people interested in the issues of development network and brainstorm together. He also pointed out how discussions on Bytesforall have, by being focused on concrete and practical issues, and by discussing all matters in a spirit of knowledge-sharing as peers, have so far managed to transcend the fractious 'political' barriers that exist in South Asia. Shilpa Gupta from the Open Circle collective talked of public art intervention experiments that she and some members of her group have been involved in, especially the Aar Paar Projects that brought together artists from India and Pakistan for exchanges of portable art objects and posters which were then exhibited in tea stalls, grocery stores, and other public spaces. She also spoke about the another artist-led initiative called "The Reclaim Your Freedom Week" earlier this year in response to, and in protest against, the violence in Gujarat in March 2002. The discussions that followed the presentations focused on the need for creating an active discursive community of artists, practitioners and others that could step out of the "responding to events" syndrome that seems to characterize much of artist/practitioner inspired activism, in order to move towards more sustained forms of public-practitioner interfaces that draw on the energies of everyday forms of resistance and communication. Event-centred protests, often take on a "token" character, even as they sap the energies of the artists/practitioners/activists who get involved, and also lead to hierarchies of people who "deliver a message" as opposed to people who passively "receive a message". Day 2 of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai, November 15, 2002 The second day was devoted to Free Software. The morning session started with a general presentation on Linux, its ideas and practices by Kishore Bhargava from Linux Users Group, Delhi. This was followed by a presentation of Knopik and LAP (Linux Access Project) by Supreet Sethi from Sarai. A lot of pertinent issues and queries were raised on the implementation, usage and the philosophy of the projects. Arun Mehta from www.radiophony.com demonstrated the software that has been developed for Stephen Hawkings (http://indataportal.com/software/hawking.htm)which was written in visual basic and he made a public request to the audience to render the same on a Free Software platform. The second half of the day concentrated on the localization efforts within the Free Software /Open Source platform. Ravikant, from the language programme of Sarai, briefed the audience about the problems non-English users face - related to fonts, encoding standards, keyboards and web design. Gaurab Upadhyay (bytesforall, Kathmandu) and Arash Zaini from Linux Iran, talked of the progress being made in localising Nepali and Persian respectively. Gaurab discussed the differences between Nepali Devanagari and Hindi Devanagari and was of the opinion that Unicode is so far the best available solution. From the audience Niyam Bhushan clarified certain basic issue about fonts, glyphs and typefaces. But the presentation that truly inspired everyone was Arash Zaini's who has recently translated the KDE desktop in Persian. (KDE is a Linux-based-programme package that provides efficient mail handler, calendars and organisers apart from the usual functions for browsing, editing, word processing, graphics and games). After interactions we realised that with only slight modifications the same desktop can be used for writing in Urdu as well. Arash then took us inside KDE and showed how effortlessly and flawlessly each of the applications worked. It was a revelation to learn that only four people could create this in just four months. He also fielded questions on the whole idea and process of translation and the public reception of the package. The concluding panel of the day was an open discussion on 'Collaborations and Contributions: Practitioners and Users in the Free Software Movement - the making of a creative community'. This discussion, attended by Raju Mathur, Leo Fernandes, Kishore Bhargava and others from the Linux Users Group, Delhi; Sharad Kukreti from Dehradun, Trevor Warren from Media Lab Asia, Mumbai, and other participants, focused on issues of freedom and programming culture and aroused strong reactions from both Free Software practitioners and others in the audience. Critical debates in the international Free Software/Open Source community were reiterated in local contexts.. debates that were mirrored in the film, 'The Code: Story of Linux', that was screened at the end of the day. Day 3 of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai, November 16, 2002 The third day of the Tactical Media Lab began with a session moderated by Ravi Sundaram from Sarai on "ICT and Civil Society: Can we think beyond the Development Paradigm". The participants in this discussion were Leo Fernandes of the Free Software Foundation (India), Trevor Warren (MIT Media Lab, Asia), Gaurab Upadhyay (Telecom activist, Kathmandu), Arun Mehta (Telecom Activist, Delhi), Jeebesh Bagchi (Sarai) and Shekhar Krishnan (PUKAR, Bombay) The discussion focused on the problems of limiting software interventions within a social frame strictly of "instrumental" and "developmental" paradigms. This was based on a critique of the notion of "development" itself, and how it often perpetuated top-down models of social processes. The second session of the day was a presentation by Shaina Anand of her Tellavision Project and the allied Chitrakarkhana.net website. This project aims to document social and political processes in Bombay, post September 11. She showed footage from her film in progress and made a presentation of the website and hopes to tie in responses from the film viewing process on to the interactive parts of her website. The discussion focused on what needs to be done to create a language of image-making and viewing that ties into everyday concerns of young people in a way that reflects their lives and conditions, rather than reproduce a "political" rhetoric that might serve also to alienate and distance large numbers of people, while speaking only to the converted. The final session of the day was a round table on the need for a network of new media networks in Asia. The participants from Iran, Bangladesh, Nepal and various parts of India, spoke of the need to carry the energies that they had discovered through their meetings into the future. Plans were made to set up a Tactical Media Asia discussion list hosted by Sarai, and everyone was keen to initiate a cluster of collaborative processes, like for instance a free software desktop in the Urdu language as a concrete instance of collaboration between people at Sarai and the LinuxIran group. The TML ended on a very positive note, with people taking away many ideas for future collaborations, and everyone agreed on making a strong Asian representation and platform at the next Next 5 Minutes ! WORKSHOPS: Cybermohalla Workshops: Leading up to the TML a series of workshops were conducted at the Cybermohalla labs in the working class settlements of LNJP basti, Central Delhi and at Dakshinpuri, South Delhi). Workshop 01 November 1 & 2, 2002 Furthering the Cybermohalla experience of writing the city, this workshop explored the insider/outsider binary, problematising it through the sharing of daily encounters within the neighbourhood and outside it, through life stories, stories about migration, work and labour in the city, narratives of meeting spaces within the basti, of contested spaces, the production of criminality. The primary forms were writing and conversation. Workshop 02 November 8 & 9, 2002 This was a fun, hands-on workshop with reels of paper, transparency sheets, colour pens, crayons, scissors, pictures and glue, to produce a wall magazine. Over twenty enthusiastic participants spent two days writing, cutting and pasting material, working on their own and each others' work. The theme for the wall magazine was 'water' - daily routine around it, the material objects, related with it and conversations around community taps. The idea was to explore forms that would allow for a playful text-image relation and collaborative work to create content for a common output, through the concepts of hypertext and hyperlinking employed in print publications. Emphasis was also on the design elements used to produce a publication that would be reproducible through photocopying. The content generated in the two workshops, along with other forms that have been explored in Cybermohalla (mails, diary entries, ethnographic notes, notes on conversations at the labs) was compiled and circulated among visitors at the TML as a photocopied publication, Cybermohalla Notebook 01. Print & Web Design Workshop November 14-16, 2002 The workshop, held on all three days of the TML, was conducted by Pradeep Saha, Managing Editor Down to Earth magazine and Mrityunjoy Chatterjee from the Sarai Media Lab. It was held at Sarai Public Access Zone using free software tools like Open Office [text, vector image design & HTML editor], Gimp [raster image editor] & Scribus [publishing layout software]. The workshop started with an introduction to Tactical Media and different approaches to it. The fourteen participants - students, filmmakers and activists - were shown flyers and broadsheets as examples of tactical media and were introduced to varied print design strategies and to web technology. After this the participants were split into two groups and asked to design a campaign that could be put to use outside the workshop area. As most of them were from the Delhi University they chose to work on issues that are of immediate concern to the student community - Sexual Harrassment & Communal Violence. Throughout the workshop participants discussed ideas and strategies and on the final day Shuddhabrata Sengupta talked briefly on visual rhetoric and other tactical principles. At the end of three days each group designed a website and a print campaign. People from both groups presented their work, describing them and their experience in detail to all those who had assembled for the TML. The first group designed a poster campaign on 'Sexual Harrassment in the City' while the second adopted a satirical position on communal violence - 'How to Orchestrate Riots'. The websites were extensions of the same ideas with more links and images. The works were warmly appreciated. The participants too enjoyed the process of making creative use of low-cost, easily available materials and designing tools. Many of them were already making posters for their campaigns, and the workshop opened up a wide range of ideas and strategies and helped them to put these in perspective. INSTALLATIONS AT THE INTERFACE ZONE There were three installations(Video/sound, Flash/sound, HTML) playing all through the Tactical Media Lab at the Sarai Interface Zone giving visitors a virtual spatial sense of the city. The works originated from the idea of quintessentially focussing on a sound piece, i.e to make a psycho-geographic scape of various kinds of urban networks, right from electronic communication portals like the telephony networks, internet cafes and call centers to more physical networks like transport portals in Delhi, which would include public transport portals like the Inter State Bus Terminus and the railway station. The idea was to make textural sound recordings at these sites and then develop a panoramic navigational sound scape of several of these co-ordinates in a non-linear pattern. Installation 1. Traffic media: Modem Telephone Line Parenthesis by Dylan Volkhardt, independent media artist in residence at the Sarai Media Lab The installation was an attempt to look at the (dis)location between the liquid architecture (the sound scape) of the telephone communication network and the physical aspects of labour and cabling. The video was shot just outside the CSDS where some cable work was in progress. The installation, work on which finished just the day before the TML, consisted of three 15" TV screens playing a video loop at different speeds. The sound track was a long loop playing in the background all through the day, of locational sounds recorded at PCO booths and call centres and worked on in the Sarai Media Lab. Installation 2. Traffic media: Platform no 12 by Renu Iyer, Sarai Media Lab This was a 2 minute audio/video scape playing as a continuous loop on a computer screen. The video was a 4 box per frame flash movie, shot at the New Delhi Railway Station. The idea was to look at the Railway Station as an urban navigational spatial network, and attempted to highlight our collective memories of our fragmented everyday recordings of these sites. The soundscape was a layered piece of recordings made at the Station, with ambient sounds and conversations with travellers. Visitors could listen to the soundtrack with headphones. Regulars at the Sarai café, cast curious, at times even perplexed, glances at the screen playing in the background and then went over to engage with the works. Installation 3. Dilliwale Kaun? Baharwale Kaun? A web installation by Syeda Farhana Zaman and Mrityunjoy Chatterjee This is an HTML web installation of hyper-linked images and texts, looking at the migrant communities in Delhi. The work is based on photographic documentation and conversations with emigrants living in slums and in shrines in Delhi. It explores issues of citizenship, of migration and of related harrassments and hardships faced by the many Bangladeshi migrants on the streets of Delhi. Mrityunjoy Chatterjee, from the Sarai Media Lab, helped Farhana convert photographs and texts to build web-based narratives of the experience of being an outsider. The installation was available on a computer screen, as was the Sarai digital Interface which is always available on the local network at the Sarai Interface Zone. Posters were also put up - made from photographs taken at the Delhi Metro construction sites and cyber cafes. Installation 4. Weather Report by Rustam Vania, Centre for Science & Environment, Delhi The installation which takes a satirical look at the politics of Climate Change was made for the World Climate Change Conference held in Delhi in October 2002. The panels were put up all over Sarai and the CSDS. -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From svetlana at ncac.org Sat Dec 7 03:19:43 2002 From: svetlana at ncac.org (Svetlana Mintcheva) Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 16:49:43 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] The File Room: an interactive web-based archive of censorship incidents Message-ID: <019901c29d71$65445ec0$01fea8c0@svetlana> Please join this forum! www.thefileroom.org www.thefileroom.org www.thefileroom.org Aristophanes' plays were banned in the 5th century B.C. because of obscenity and anti-war themes; Confucius' writings were incinerated around 250 BC after a change of dynasty made them politically incorrect; in 1933, a New York court declared a set of pictures of Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel obscene; in 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against the life of Salman Rushdie for the publication of the novel Satanic Verses; in 1999, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatened to cut off funding to the Brooklyn Museum of Art and evict it from the building because the Museum refused to remove one work from an art show; in 2001, books from the popular Harry Potter series were banned from schools and burned in churchyards in the United States. Manifestations of the control of expression are historically and culturally specific. Nevertheless, close investigation reveals recurring themes and issues. The File Room - an Open Forum The File Room, a web-based interactive archive of censorship cases, is open to submissions by organizations and individuals locally, nationally, and internationally. The project was initiated by artist Antoni Muntadas and originally produced by the Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago in 1994. It then went on the Internet as an open submissions archive. In 2002, the National Coalition Against Censorship* re-programmed and updated the archive and is currently maintaining it. The File Room already contains information on hundreds of incidents dating from the 5th century BC to the present. More cases from around the world are added every day. Our Goals: Documentation and Resistance The File Room locates acts of censorship in relation to social settings, political movements, religious beliefs, and economic conditions. The wider understanding of censorship adopted by The File Room allows it to record instances of censorship through market mechanisms, the censorship of private galleries or that of schools and colleges, institutional self-censorship, as well as suppression of work by limiting its distribution or refusing it publicity. The File Room is not only a database or a tool for facilitating critical discourse on the subject of censorship; it is also a tool of resistance, i.e. a tactical medium. It makes public those actions of governmental and private institutions (as well as individuals), which are usually intended to remain out of sight. To resist the suppression of symbolic speech, we have to acknowledge how pervasive and interconnected censorship incidents are by recording the many cases of deletion, exclusion, or suppression of speech. To submit a case or search the archive, go to www.thefileroom.org For more information contact Svetlana Mintcheva at 212-807-6222 ext. 23/ Svetlana at ncac.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The National Coalition Against Censorship (www.ncac.org), founded in 1974, is an alliance of 50 U.S. non-profit organizations, including literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups. United by a conviction that freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression must be defended, NCAC works to educate our own members and the public at large about the dangers of censorship and how to oppose them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021206/332acee6/attachment.html From avishek_ganguly at yahoo.co.in Mon Dec 9 08:59:45 2002 From: avishek_ganguly at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Avishek=20Ganguly?=) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 03:29:45 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] RALLY - 'SEXUALITY MINORITIES' RIGHTS Message-ID: <20021209032945.98064.qmail@web8001.mail.in.yahoo.com> It's a little late now...but nevertheless: PUBLIC RALLY - 'SEXUALITY MINORITIES' RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS' DATE : 8TH DECEMBER 2002 (SUNDAY) TIME : BEGINS AT 4:00 PM BEGINS FROM : TOWN HALL END POINT : MAHATMA GANDHI STATUE, M.G ROAD [Bangalore] Vividha is an autonomous, non-funded collective of sexuality minorities (hijras, kothis, double-deckers, lesbians, bisexuals, gays, homosexuals, transgenders and others who are oppressed due to their gender identity/sexual orientation), and their supporters. We are 10 months old. This December 8th 2002 (Friday) we have decided to observe the 'International Human Rights Day' by coming out publicly in Bangalore to demand our rights and to highlight human rights violations that are committed against us. One of the demands is also for an unbiased enquiry into the death of Chandini, a hijra/transgender woman (details in leaflet attached below). A PUBLIC MEETING will be held at the end of the rally in front of Mahatma Gandhi Statue, M.G Road at 5:30 PM and will be addressed by Sexuality Minority Activists and other Human Rights Activists. Contents of leaflet attached below. In Solidarity, Venkatesh, Kajol, Srinivas, Ranjitha and Famila for Vividha _____________________________________________ Contents of Leaflet to be distributed at the rally Sexuality Minorities' Rights are Human Rights Vividha is an autonomous, non-funded collective of sexuality minorities (hijras, kothis, double-deckers, lesbians, bisexuals, gays, homosexuals, transgenders and others who are oppressed due to their gender identity/sexual orientation), and their supporters. We are 10 months old. This is the first time we are coming out publicly in Bangalore, as a community. Every year December 10th is observed as Human Rights Day all over the world. Despite the fact that human rights are guaranteed for every human being irrespective of their class, caste, religion, gender, sexuality, race, language, nationality, ethnicity or political beliefs, human rights of sexuality minorities are blatantly violated everywhere in India, forcing many of us to lead a sub-human existence. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) criminalises sexual interaction between people of the same gender. This law was introduced in India in 1860 by British rulers. Although Britain repealed it a long time ago, India still continues to carry this notorious colonial legacy. This law is extensively used by police to harass, extort money, blackmail and abuse (verbally, physically and sexually) homosexual/bisexual men, double-deckers, kothis, hijras in public parks and areas. Many goondas take advantage of this situation and harass, abuse and extort money from sexuality minorities. IPC 377 is also used to separate lesbian couples. The prevailing civil laws for marriage, adoption, inheritance, property, insurance, pension, gratuity, housing etc. deny space for sexuality minorities, as they recognise only heterosexual marriages and families as legitimate. The Indian constitution recognises only two genders: male and female. Hijras have no space in it. Non-recognition of gender (after sex change) makes it impossible for hijras to avail employment opportunities, education, housing, health facilities, property rights, marriage rights, ration cards/passports/voter identity cards etc. Most kothis face sexual harassment at workplace from male colleagues. These situations leave hijras/kothis with very few choices, and many choose sex-work for a living. Living is hell for all sex workers (including hijras, kothis, men and women) as the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) criminalises sex-work and gives enormous powers to the police to harass, abuse, rape, torture, and extort money from sex-workers. Very often sexuality minorities face physical violence, verbal abuse, emotional blackmail, and rejection from families too. Many are thrown out of their homes and denied a share of the property. Some times sexuality minorities are forced into unhappy 'heterosexual marriages' by their families where, not only sexuality minorities, but also their spouses and children face oppression. Some families opt for unethical, unscientific, misinformed and outdated psychiatric treatments to 'cure' their children of their 'sexual orientation/gender expression' and subject them to dangerous drugs, electric shocks, and aversion therapies. These methods cause enormous harm and destroy sexuality minorities, physically and psychologically. What needs to be cured is not our 'sexual/gender expression' but society's ignorance, prejudice, bias and intolerance towards sexuality minorities. In our patriarchal society, lesbian/bisexual women are doubly oppressed as sexuality minorities and as women, having very little access to any public space. Homes become prisons for them. Families often separate lesbian couples and force lesbian/bisexual women into heterosexual marriages. More than 30 lesbian/bisexual women have committed suicide in India in the past 5 years. Sexuality minorities face harassment, abuse, ridicule, discrimination everywhere: in the streets, at work places, schools/colleges, hospitals etc. Physical/sexual/verbal abuse, emotional and social alienation, and psychological trauma become the everyday lived realities for most of us. This society destroys our self-confidence, makes us ashamed, lonely and fills us with low-self esteem and feelings of depression. Some of us are forced to end our lives. We are no longer silent victims of this hetero-patriarchal society. We are getting united and have started help-lines, support groups, health interventions, and groups to protect our human rights, all over India. We are also extending support to many other people and groups who are oppressed due to their class, caste, gender, religion, etc. We have learned to articulate, and fight for our rights. Our journey will not stop until we achieve justice and dignity. We appeal to families to stop harassing sexuality minorities and demand love and acceptance. We also appeal to the media and all progressive and secular groups to support our struggles and help in fighting all hatred, be it hatred of homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals, or hatred based on religion, caste, race, sex and disability. JUSTICE FOR CHANDINI Chandini alias Nazir, a 22 year old hijra (transgender woman) died in mysterious circumstances on the night of December 1, 2002, Sunday in Bangalore. On December 4th all English and Kannada newspapers sensationalised the death of a hijra/transgender woman called Chandini. Her death was reported as a suicide. The reason given was that she killed herself because her husband discovered her hijra identity and threatened to reveal it to his parents. They reported that Chandini deceived Gnanaprakash by lying that she was a genetic (biological) woman at the time of marriage. This sensational and hijra phobic report is filled with misinformation and uses the most ignorant and derogatory words such as Gandu, Khojja, transvestite etc to describe Chandini. Members of Vividha along with representatives of Peoples' Union for Civil Liberties- Bangalore, Sangama (a sexuality minorities' rights group) and Alternative Law Forum met with a few people who have known Chandini and her husband Gnanaprakash. It has become evident to us in this process of enquiry that the version given by the police and unquestioningly carried by the media is false. The nature of reportage only reveals the media's prejudices against these marginalized communities. The following facts can be ascertained by a simple enquiry and is backed by photographic and videographic evidence. Chandini hails from Arsikere, Hasan and has been living in Bangalore for the past 5-6 years. Gnanaprakash initially met her in a hamam (bath houses where hijras live). After a six-month relationship (sexual too) and after much persuasion Chandini, who had not decided to undergo Nirvan (Castration experienced as a sex-change operation) agreed to marry him. They married 16 months ago. A week after the marriage, Gnanaprakash accompanied Chandini when she decided to go for Nirvan (Castration) in a hospital in Cuddapah, Andhra Pradesh. After the operation Chandini and her newly wed husband lived at Chandini's guru (Hijra mother in the hijra community) Prema's house, for about a month. Later they rented a house in Amrutha Halli, on the outskirts of Bangalore and lived together as husband and wife, for 5 months. He was often violent towards her and began to harass, beat her and took away all the money that she was earning through sex-work. His parents too were very aware of the fact that Chandini was a hijra. Chandini has twice ran in fear to her Guru when he tried to kill her by pouring Kerosene on her. After six months of living together unable to bear his constant demands for money and to escape his torture, she left for Pune. She returned to Bangalore on November 7, 2002 and began living with her Guru in Amrutha Halli. Just 12 days ago, Gnanaprakash learnt of her return to Bangalore and came to her Guru's house. In the absence of her Guru he forced her to leave with him. She had on her person 60 grams of gold jewellery and Rs. 50,000 in cash when she left. Gnanaprakash took her to a rented house in Ramaswami Palya (Banaswadi Police Station Limit) in Bangalore. Gnanaprakash deliberately isolated Chandini from her only support, the hijra community. These facts expose the lies of Gnanaprakash and his family. In the light of the above mentioned facts we fear that she was brutally murdered by him for her money and jewellery. Local police in Banaswadi Police Station initially refused to register the complaint of Prema (Chandini's hijra mother). They in fact said that they do not recognise the hijra community or its relationships. They said they would act only if Chandini's biological parents issued a complaint. Chandini might or might not have been killed by her husband but her dignity and her selfhood have been brutally murdered by the media and the Police. While the proper course of action would have been a basic enquiry the Police have not found a hijras life worth any such effort. This denial of hijra and transgender peoples' lives is what continues to propagate myths that portray them as deceivers and criminals. Hijras are accorded little dignity when alive. This incident shows how their dignity gets outraged even after their death. WE DEMAND: 1. Impartial and speedy enquiry into Chandini's death and punishment to the guilty 2. Immediate repeal of IPC 377, ITPA Act and all legislations that discriminate against sexuality minorities 3. Govt. to appoint a committee of human rights activists to look into the human rights violations committed by all state institutions (Police, medical establishment, educational institutions) and to remedy these violations 4. Recognise hijras as women with equal opportunities 5. Employment, housing, rail travel concession, education opportunities for hijras and kothis CONTACT US AT: Vividha, Flat 13, 3rd Floor, 'Royal Park' Apartments, 34 Park Road, Tasker Town, Bangalore - 560051, Phone: 2868680/2868121, Email: vividhabangalore at hotmail.com ________________________________________________________________________ Missed your favourite TV serial last night? Try the new, Yahoo! TV. visit http://in.tv.yahoo.com From nisar at keshvani.com Sat Dec 7 21:06:57 2002 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 23:36:57 +0800 Subject: [Reader-list] Open Call for papers - Leonardo Electronic Almanac 2003 Message-ID: ** Sincere apologies for cross-posting ** Please feel free to spread the word widely: The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is inviting an open call for papers to be published in 2003. LEA is an online peer reviewed journal published under the auspices of MIT Press since 1993 (see details below). The LEA Editorial Board seeks proposals for: * Theoretical Discussions: *Original* essays documenting research, critical commentary in areas of discussion such as nanotechnology, cyberart, cyberfeminism, hypertext, robotics, bio-art, artifical life, genetics. This list is by no means exhaustive, and proposals need not be limited to these areas. * Artists Statements / Gallery Commissions: International artists are encouraged to submit statements or proposals for *original* for exhibiting new media artwork. Curators are welcome to propose thematic exhibitions. LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers / students to submit their proposal for consideration. We particularly encourage authors outside north america and europe to send proposals for articles. Proposals should include:- - a 150 - 300 word abstract / synopsis detailing subject matter - a brief bio (and prior works for reference). - names of collaborators (if suggesting a thematic issue / curated gallery) - any related URLs - contact details Please send proposals or queries to: Nisar Keshvani Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Electronic Almanac http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA lea at mitpress.mit.edu by 15 January 2003. (Pls note - Response to proposals may take upto 4 weeks). ******************************************************************************** What is LEA? ------------- Established in 1993, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is the electronic arm of the world's most prestigious art journal, Leonardo - Journal of Art, Science & Technology. LEA is jointly produced by Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) and published under the auspices of MIT Press. Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), is Leonardo/ISAST and MIT Press' electronic journal dedicated to providing a forum for those who are interested in the realm of where art, science & technology converge. Content ------- This peer reviewed e-journal includes Profiles of Media Arts facilities and Projects, Profiles of artists using new media, Feature Articles comprised of theoretical and technical perspectives; the LEA Gallery exhibiting new media artwork by international artists; detailed information about new publications in various media; reviews of publications. events and exhibitions. Material is contributed by artists, scientists, educators and developers of new technological resources in the media arts. Mission ------- From 2002, LEA formed a strategic alliance with fineArt forum - the Internet's longest running arts magazine. Through this partnership, LEA concentrates on adding new scholarship and critical commentary to the art, science and technology field, with LEA subscribers benefiting from the latest news, announcements, events, and job/educational opportunities through fAf's online news service. LEA's mission is to maintain and consolidate its position as a leading online news and trusted information filter whilst critically examining arts/science & technological works catering to the international CAST (Community of Artists, Scientist & Technologists) ******************************************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021207/4a1f0ce9/attachment.html From tripta at sarai.net Mon Dec 9 18:50:21 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (tripta) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 18:50:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] google: zeitgeist Message-ID: <200212091850.21730.tripta@sarai.net> interesting! _________________________________________________________________ For both breaking news and obscure information alike, people around the world search on Google at www.google.com. With a bit of analysis, this flurry of searches often exposes interesting trends, patterns, and surprises. On a monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily basis, this Google Zeitgeist page will be updated to reflect lists, graphs, and other tidbits of information related to Google user search behavior. http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Wed Dec 11 14:56:06 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 09:26:06 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] mail stat Message-ID: <20021211092606.GA17215@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> I have a small set of stats for month of november. They are laid out in form of top poster in terms of number of lines. 5 parameters are used number of lines in mail body number of original lines number of qouted lines number of possible mistakes number of urls quoted in the mail areflagan at artpanorama.com 988 766 222 117 14 tripta at sarai.net 413 411 2 89 6 pnanpin at yahoo.co.in 370 370 0 80 16 fred at bytesforall.org 287 287 0 129 0 mimeticus at yahoo.com 205 205 0 8 3 -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From tripta at sarai.net Wed Dec 11 16:12:47 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (tripta) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 16:12:47 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [fscp] Introduction(s) Message-ID: <200212111612.47286.tripta@sarai.net> Dear all, Free software in cultural practices is a list intiated by Biella Coleman who is an anthropologist studying the cultivation of ethics among free software developers (with a special focus on Debian) and how ethical imperatives are being politicized among free software hackers (and beyond) in a hacker "public sphere". Below is the introduction to the list. looking forward to participation, conversations and discussions to enrich the understanding. Cheers tripta p.s please send a mail to Biella if you want to subscribe to the list. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: [fscp] Introduction(s) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 11:37:52 -0800 From: Biella Coleman To: fscp at groups.onlinepolicy.net Hi, I thought that I would write a small introduction for the free software culture and politics list especially in the hopes of getting people to introduces themselves and their work to everyone else. I decided to create this list as I kept meeting all sorts of people working on free software and open source looking at issues from a socio-cultural, political, and activist perspective and thought that it would be nice to give people a chance to potentially dialogue with each other, share resources, and meet in person when possible. One of the nice things about the people on the list is that everyone is doing research in very distinct places and on unique subjects: from FS in Tibet, to France and India, as well as looking at it from the question of human rights, ethics, and governmental policies. Others have coded really amazing software to help manage Open Source mailing list discussion while others wear hats as FS developers and activists. I think that we all have a chance to refine and specify the social dimensions of free software as we are looking at FS/OS from the ground up and from the perspective of local conditions. By hinging the free and open source world onto other questions, I think we bring into relief the uniqueness (or not) of FS/OS and how it has been transformative of local-trans local conditions and vice-versa. Thus, the list can be a meeting ground, a resource center, a list which intends to look at different aspects of free software, and that might integrate a unique set of issues and questions into this domain. The culture of the "fscp" might have more inward focus while the "politics" emerges out of the this domain to look at any of the larger political questions that free software speaks of and makes so visibly present. There are many political questions peppered throughout but some of the most pressing and obvious are those of information freedom especially given the current political climate here in the US in which access to information is being seriously curtailed by legislation, new governmental agencies and programs, all heavily fortified by a general culture of fear and mistrust. Free software, along with other domains like the Indymedia Centers have acted as important buffers, making sure that the question of freedom and access is not buried under the name of corporate fear and security and they are domains that not only purport to uphold in certain values but allow people to cultivate them through practical and political engagement. There are many issues that spill out from the practices of free software and how it is situated in a larger social sphere especially the relationship and terms of engagement with information, knowledge and authorship? Amidst all of this what are the grounds for a politics of information and what are different means to achieve this? Anyway, I wanted to lay some introductory comments and issues (and thanks Tripta for helping me with this!) but I think it would be really, and I mean, really nice if people could write a small paragraph on their interests/work and/or provide a link where all that information can be found. In this way we can enlarge the scope of introductory thoughts and question. I think that might be the best way to get this list started! I know that this is not the best time of year to get people to do anything on the side, but like I said, a link or a couple of sentences would really add a lot. Also, please please use this as a handy resources, posting links to papers, blogs, and conferences of relevance. Please pass on the list info to people you think might be interested in participating too. Best, Biella --------------------------------------------------------------------- Biella Coleman: http://www.healthhacker.com/satoroams --------------------------------------------------------------------- From mithi at silchar.com Thu Dec 12 00:27:07 2002 From: mithi at silchar.com (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 10:57:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Tipaimukh Dam Project - A Bane for the Displaced Oustees Message-ID: <20021211185708.D627E3DB0@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021211/86cc4484/attachment.pl From mithi at silchar.com Thu Dec 12 00:36:19 2002 From: mithi at silchar.com (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:06:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] TIPAIMUKH DAM PROJECT - A BANE FOR THE DISPLACED OUSTEES Message-ID: <20021211190619.ACC664700@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021211/edf9c024/attachment.pl From fls at kein.org Thu Dec 12 06:41:46 2002 From: fls at kein.org (Florian Schneider) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 02:11:46 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Open letter and call for papers from the Italian magazine DeriveApprodi Message-ID: Open letter and call for papers from the Italian magazine DeriveApprodi to social movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia Who we are This letter is from the editorial collective of the Italian magazine DeriveApprodi, a publication of the radical left. DeriveApprodi was first published about ten years ago and since then has appeared at irregular intervals. It was founded at the beginning of the 1990s with a view to continuing the project of critical thought and practical politics initiated by the autonomist Marxist and revolutionary “workerist” movements. In the 1960s and 1970s, these movements were active in interpreting and orienting the worker, proletarian, and student struggles that had made Italy into an extraordinary laboratory of revolution in the West, truly the “weak link” in the chain of imperialist command. During the 1980s, however, the continuity of these struggles was violently disrupted: thousands of militants from the radical left were imprisoned, aggressive capitalist restructuring completely redefined the geography and forms of production, large working class concentrations disappeared, and the power of trade unions was gradually weakened. Individualism, cynicism, and careerism triumphed within institutional politics and throughout society at large. The great planetary upheavals symbolically identified with the year 1989 provide the general framework in which our magazine was established (along with other factors connected in various ways to the theoretical and political legacy discussed above). The following years saw the birth of a new movement within the universities, the diffusion in the main Italian cities of centri sociali occupati e autogestiti (occupied, self-managed social centers) as vehicles of political activism and embryos of alternative life forms, and the development of new forms of grassroots unionism in service and manufacturing industries. All this seemed to confirm our conviction that new political spaces were opening up, whereby the radical criticism of the present could be linked to a project of social change appropriate to the times. During the 1990s, DeriveApprodi became one of the theoretical-political laboratories that developed an attempt to examine the potential for social conflict inherent within new societal forms and in the productive regime established upon the ruins of “Fordism.” Topics dealt with in the past by our magazine have included: the metamorphosis of labor and new migrations, techniques of social control in relation to transformations in the form of citizenship and in the political constitution, forms of “exodus,” disobedience and the critique of institutional politics, the crises of representative democracy and the welfare state. All this was done without adhering to a prescribed formula, drawing on some of the most original theoretical and political innovations that have emerged from Italy in recent years. Our proposal The first twenty-one issues of the magazine have been mostly concerned with Italy and more generally with the capitalist “West.” The logic here was that any attempt to build solidarity with social movements in the global South would be shortsighted until we had managed to expose the fault lines and internal crises within what many of us still call the “metropolis.” But things changed when, following a path somewhat different to the one we had predicted, a huge social and political explosion took place in our country. We are referring to the vast movement that expressed itself for the first time in the protests against the G8 summit in Genoa in July last year. Since then, the movement has not stopped growing, giving expression to huge campaigns against the “permanent global war,” for migrant rights, and against the neoliberal reform of the labor market. After the momentous and tragic events in Genoa, we held a discussion among ourselves, which resulted in the decision to partly modify the editorial agenda of DeriveApprodi and to launch a new series. Below are listed, in a highly synthetic and necessarily schematic way, some of the points on which we reached a consensus within our editorial collective. 1. We have been deeply impressed by the feature of a true eruption that the movement has assumed for the first time last year in Genoa. In a truly surprising way, very heterogeneous individual and collective subjects met in the streets and squares of that city. These subjects had followed different paths of political development, often difficult to detect from the standpoint of official politics, but they had found a common political voice in a radical critique of the new order of capitalism. In Genoa, and the many demonstrations that followed, this became apparent above all in a level of participation that exceeded by far the rosiest expectations of the organizers. Subsequently, questions arose concerning the emergence of a new type of political agency that could not be reduced to the traditional geometry of belonging and solidarity characteristic of the radical or institutional left. We suggested that it is possible to interpret the new composition of the movement by using the concept of the multitude, which was very present in our discussions during the 1990s. By deploying this concept, we wanted to emphasize the internal richness of the movement (its competencies, experiences, knowledges, individual and collective demands), a richness that cannot be easily reduced to a unity. While highlighting the movement’s extraordinary potential, we carefully avoided falling into an ecstatic contemplation of its multitudinous composition, insisting rather on the difficulty and unprecedented challenge that this multiplicity poses for political thought and action. In particular we maintained, often in disagreement with other uses of the concept of the multitude, that this concept should not be opposed to that of class. To the contrary, we asserted that the concept of the multitude acquires its fullest and most proper significance only when it refers to a work force dominated by capital (living labor). Furthermore, we recognized that such living labor has incorporated mobility into its most ingrained habits (from this derives our special interest in migratory movements) and finds in its heterogeneity one of the crucial elements of its contemporary existence. 2. The new and largely unforeseen characteristics of the movement attested the need to devise innovative practices of interpretation and analysis. We affirmed that the movement represents a new principle of reality, and it is upon this principle, we suggested, that political propositions and interpretative hypotheses concerning contemporary capitalist reality should be tested. It seemed to us that the existence of a strong and radical movement required not a suspension of theoretical inquiry for an immersion in everyday politics but an additional effort of research and reflection that would accompany political militancy and meticulously register its limits and problems. Far from renouncing the research and investigations carried out in the magazine over the past ten years, we decided to renew, test, and update our working principles under new conditions. Thus the decision to launch a new series of DeriveApprodi, whose intention is to be fully internal to the development of the movement without advocating any political line. 3. In planning this new series we also took account of another matter that appeared important to us in the wake of Genoa; that is, the pressing need for the Italian movement to open itself to global dynamics. In fact, one of the most innovative characteristics of the wave of mobilizations that began in Seattle was the attempt to establish a global movement. Rather than being against globalization, such a movement would recognize globalization as the horizon of capitalist development, fashioning itself as the agent of another globalization, a globalization of struggles and resistance. Integral to this realization was an explicit polemic against those, both within and outside the movement, who were privileging (and continue to privilege) national spaces and the classical mechanisms of the 20th-century welfare state as a means of “channeling”, attenuating or blocking the processes of “neoliberal” globalization. It is important to understand that for us the point is not to declare the unfeasibility of political projects that mobilize on the local and/or national levels to organize struggles and resistance against global capital. However we do maintain that every political project, regardless of the territorial scale upon which it operates, should open itself to the global dimension. We contend that the global networks that straddle the contemporary world were materially constructed not only by capitalist development but also by experiences of struggle, from those of workers to those directed against colonial powers. Notwithstanding its limits, its ambiguities, and the difficulty it has faced in freeing itself from the eurocentric nature of many of its concepts and languages, we believe that the movement born in Seattle potentially embodies this global dimension of resistance. As such, it offers an extraordinary opportunity to establish stable channels for the political communication of struggles, experiences, and knowledge at the planetary level. We also remain convinced, as we wrote in October last year, that the global movement “finds a substantial anticipation of its themes, subjects, and practices in the globalized workplaces of Asia and Africa during the 1980s. While we were experiencing the triumph of cynicism, opportunism, and fear, new hopes were being kindled outside the Western metropolis. New movements were arising against the principle of enclosures and the ferocity of the new forms of primitive accumulation: the student struggles against the structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund, the prolonged workers’ insurrection that has accompanied the expansive rhythm of the Korean economy, the struggles against the South African apartheid and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the huge democratic movement that repeatedly challenged the dictatorship of Suharto in Indonesia, the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. It would be difficult to speak of a global movement today if it did not carry the marks of this genealogy in its material constitution.” It is better to be clear about this: to speak of a global movement is neither to deny the need to respect the specificity of local struggles nor to ignore the limits that have marked the work of activists and organizers in the global north. A certain paternalism on the part of the latter has tended to represent the global movement as a series of interactions between activist cadres and elites. We believe, to the contrary, that the construction of relationships from below should be valorized as the most immediate and direct contribution to practices of struggle and resistance. In any case, the affirmation of the global character of the movement is much more urgent today in the climate created by the “permanent global war” and the new “Bush doctrine” in foreign affairs. This is why we decided to launch the new series of DeriveApprodi by asking whether the concept of a “global movement” bears weight, by initiating an investigation into the current state of the world’s movements. We began with an issue dedicated entirely to European movements, made of about twenty articles, launched at the European Social Forum in Florence at the beginning of November (if you ask we can send this to you in Italian, or you can download the materials in their original languages from www.deriveapprodi.org). Now we want to follow that up with an issue covering the movements in the three continents that once formed what was known as the “third world,” and then to complete the first phase of the project with an issue dedicated to North America, Oceania, and Japan. Our aim is not only to gather informative materials about situations that are often under recognized in Italy, but also to construct a web of connections in which to subsequently position the magazine DeriveApprodi in a transnational context. Not accidentally have we used the word investigation, since it recalls a method of theoretical-political inquiry that is undoubtedly one of the most important legacies of the Italian “workerist” tradition that we mentioned at the beginning of this letter and in which many of us find our intellectual and political roots. By our understanding, an investigation is an open cognitive process that produces transformation. It can begin with a series of hypotheses but it must continually test and problematize these over the course of the inquiry. An investigation also presupposes a continuous exchange of ideas and experiences between all the different subjectivities involved. In this sense, we invite you not simply to tell us “what you think about the world”, but to conduct an analysis of the reality that surrounds you, putting certainties aside, if only for an instant, to search for new potentialities of transformation of what exists. More specifically, we ask you for an article of between 4,000 and 6,000 words that describes the “state of the social movements” in the context in which you operate. The article should steer a middle line between the “narration” of political experiences and theoretical reflection. Obviously you are free to choose the context you refer to (a community, a city, a country, a continent, a specific field of political activity, and so on), starting from the specificities of your experience. Considering that the magazine should be published at the beginning of May, we ask that you send the article to us by 28 February. It would be best, however, if you could send us an abstract or a draft beforehand, so that we might have a chance to discuss it. Some working hypotheses We would like to add a few more lines about the hypotheses upon which this investigation is founded. It may be that many of you find the receiver of this open letter as the “social movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia” unsatisfactory. It is certainly not our intention to suggest that these three continents are in any way homogeneous. To the contrary, when it was the norm for both capitalists and revolutionary movements to speak of the “third world” as a general category that included the “three continents,” it was perfectly clear that the realities in which they were taking part were extremely heterogeneous (from historical, cultural, social, economic, and political points of view). But the “third world” did have a specific reality, which for the capitalists consisted in the fact that it referred to territories open to the “neocolonial” conquest of markets and raw materials, and from a revolutionary standpoint it referred to the potential convergence of struggles and revolutionary processes that displayed a common anti-imperialist perspective. It is our conviction that today things are noticeably different. For sure, discourses about the so-called end of the third world have a tone that is merely and cynically celebratory in the mouth of neoliberal theorists. But we believe that such discourses can also have a critical dimension, which emphasizes the persistence of huge inequalities in the global distribution of wealth and the ongoing unevenness of the relations of dependency and hierarchies upon which global capitalism is built. At the same time, we hold that these relations are no longer organized along simple lines such as those referred to by concepts like first, second, and third worlds, but also north and south, or center and periphery. When we speak of the “end of the third world,” we refer to a situation in which there is a gradual convergence between the “metropolis” and the “periphery.” In other words, one finds in both these sites (although clearly in a fundamentally unequal way), the entire span of forms of production, work, and social life that coexist under global capitalism. Within global capitalism there seems to exist a determined economic sector, the so-called “global economy,” which plays a leading role in processes of production and reproduction that are at once processes of domination and exploitation. This sector comprises a combination of segments of industries, national and regional economies that have ramifications, in varying proportions, throughout the world. It conditions directly or indirectly the life of a growing multitude of men and women, in prospect the entire world population. It is extremely dynamic but also highly selective and exclusive. In addition, its boundaries are profoundly unstable: the majority of the planet’s inhabitants, again in accordance with factors that vary widely between countries and regions, live outside the “global economy.” Nonetheless they must come to terms daily, often with extraordinary creativity, with its effects. We have sketched out this hypothesis only very roughly, and we would like to test and develop it over the course of the investigation. What we want to emphasize is that these developments carry great potential for the communication and circulation of political struggles and experiences. At a time when powerful warlords, be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Hindus, carry on about the “clash of civilizations,” it is surprising to note how often social movements use an extraordinarily similar language among themselves: how the zapatista struggle are echoed in the practices of movements in the United States and Germany, how Indian peasants and African rural communities are rewriting the grammar of environmentalism in ways analogous to the green movements in Western Europe, or how the dramatic Argentine revolt of December 2001 seemed to impart fundamental lessons to the Italian movement. One could continue to expand this list, without forgetting the way in which the European radical and reformist left looked at the victory of Lulu in Brazil as if it were something that concerned them directly, and not in terms of dated schemes of “internationalist solidarity.” In our judgment, one of the most pressing tasks of the present time is to reconstruct internationalism under changed conditions. We would phrase it this way: to develop through global communication between movements the intuition of world unity that lives in the everyday dynamics of struggles. On this basis, then, we would like to conduct the investigation in which we invite you to participate. Below we indicate, in a schematic and absolutely nonexclusive way, a series of problems on which we think it is appropriate to develop a work of inquiry, and upon which we invite you to elaborate. In any case, it goes without saying that you are free to follow this scheme only in part or not at all. 1) First we would like to understand what type of resonance the great initiatives of the global movement from Seattle to Genoa, from Johannesburg to Durban, have had in the environment in which you live. In the issue of DeriveApprodi dedicated to European movements we published an interview with an Algerian comrade who emphasized the eurocentric and merely spectacular character of these initiatives. Do you share this opinion, or do you think that, regardless of its limits, the message of a radical revolt against global capital can circulate at the planetary level? 2) After two meetings in Porto Alegre in Brazil, the World Social Forum attempted to organize itself on a territorial basis, planning continental meetings in Asia, Africa, and Latin America? How do you judge this effort? 3) Apart from the initiatives that we have described as the “global movement,” is there a single experience of struggle (for example, the zapatista movement in Latin America, the Palestinian Intifada, or the struggle of the landless in Brazil) that has provided you with a reference point for a new wave of struggles and social mobilizations? 4) What are the main issues of mobilization in the context in which you operate? What relations exist between mobilizations concerned with labor issues, trade unions, those concerned with social groups that live under harsh conditions of exclusion, and those concerned with issues like the condition of minorities? 5) How would you describe the composition of the social movements in your context? How are the relations between militants and social groups structured? What relations exist between militants of different generations and of the different genders? What are the most active social groups, and what role do women play within them? How do different social groups communicate and converge in acts of mobilization? 6) How has the concept of militancy changed in recent years? What is the impact of militancy on the everyday life of activists? What is the relation between communities and organizations in the construction of your political practices? 7) We would be interested to know, when the question is relevant, how the politicization of cultural and religious identities interacts with the development of social struggles, both in organizational terms and in terms of the mobilization of specific groups. 8) What are the forms of expression, within your specific situation, of the demands and needs of those groups (women, migrants, indigenous populations, rural populations) whose historical vulnerability and marginalization have been aggravated by the processes of neoliberal globalization? 9) What type of relation exists between social movements and institutions? How have institutions (and the political and social classes that sustain them) changed in the context of the neoliberal politics characterized by the total commodification of the lifeworld, the privatization of public services, and the attack on the living standards of the working classes? Let us repeat that these questions are only a list of issues that seem relevant to us. It is possible that some of them will have no relevance in your situation. If this is the case, ignore them … and write about something else! In the hope that our initiative raises your interest, we send you a hug from Italy … The editorial collective of DeriveApprodi magazine. From rmazumdar at vsnl.net Thu Dec 12 08:03:03 2002 From: rmazumdar at vsnl.net (Ranjani Mazumdar) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 08:03:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Palestinian film debarred Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20021212080230.02d4a5e0@mail.vsnl.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021212/d68176aa/attachment.html From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Fri Dec 13 18:21:20 2002 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 18:21:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] (Fwd) FC: Hurrah for Total Information Awareness! In-Reply-To: <20021213011731.GA5293@planetneptune.home> References: <20021213011731.GA5293@planetneptune.home> Message-ID: <20021213125120.GB714@localhost> > ----- Forwarded message from Nomen Nescio ----- > > From: Nomen Nescio > Subject: Hooray for TIA > Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 21:20:11 +0100 (CET) > > For years we cypherpunks have been telling you people that you are > responsible for protecting your own privacy. Use cash for purchases, look > into offshore accounts, protect your online privacy with cryptography > and anonymizing proxies. But did you listen? No. You thought to > trust the government. You believed in transparency. You passed laws, > for Freedom of Information, and Protection of Privacy, and Insurance > Accountability, and Fair Lending Practices. > > And now the government has turned against you. It's Total Information > Awareness program is being set up to collect data from every database > possible. Medical records, financial data, favorite web sites and email > addresses, all will be brought together into a centralized office where > every detail can be studied in order to build a profile about you. > All those laws you passed, those government regulations, are being > bypassed, ignored, flushed away, all in the name of National Security. > > Well, we fucking told you so. > > And don't try blaming the people in charge. You liberals are cursing > Bush, and Ashcroft, and Poindexter. These laws were passed by the entire > U.S. Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike. Representatives have > the full support of the American people; most were re-elected with > large margins. It's not Bush and company who are at fault, it's the > whole idea that you can trust government to protect your privacy. > > All that data out there has been begging to be used. It was only a > matter of time. > > And you know what? It's good that this has happened. Not only has > it shown the intellectual bankruptcy of trust-the-government privacy > advocates, it proves what cypherpunks have been saying all along, that > people must protect their own privacy. The only way to keep your privacy > safe is to keep the data from getting out there in the first place. > > Cypherpunks have consistently promoted two seemingly contradictory > ideas. The first is that people should protect data about themselves. > The second is that they should have full access and usability for > data they acquire about others. Cypherpunks have supported ideas like > Blacknet, and offshore data havens, places where data could be collected, > consolidated and sold irrespective of government regulations. The same > encryption technologies which help people protect their privacy can be > used to bypass attempts by government to control the flow of data. > > This two-pronged approach to the problem produces a sort of Darwinian > competition between privacy protectors and data collectors. It's not > unlike the competition between code makers and code breakers, which has > led to amazing enhancements in cryptography technology over the past > few decades. There is every reason to expect that a similar level of > improvement and innovation can and will eventually develop in privacy > protection and data management as these technologies continue to be > deployed. > > But in the mean time, three cheers for TIA. It's too bad that it's the > government doing it rather than a shadowy offshore agency with virtual > tentacles into the net, but the point is being made all the same. > Now more than ever, people need privacy technology. Government is not > the answer. It's time to start protecting ourselves, because nobody > else is going to do it for us. > > ----- End forwarded message ----- -- $you = new YOU; honk() if $you->love(perl); From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Fri Dec 13 20:15:33 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 06:45:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Rumi and the Fire of Truth Message-ID: <20021213144533.58236.qmail@web20904.mail.yahoo.com> some of the world's greatest poetry. (And the USA's largest selling poet of all Time..!!:) A message for our age.. The Immortal Rumi. --- For the love of God, no other love seek In the abode of Soul, no other task seek Other than the Beloved, never seek another mate Seek not to doubt, trivia make you weak. Another love, another task, is an impossible fate In thy Godly faith, seek not doubt�s stench & reek In soul�s territory, heart�s courage is great With such courage turn from strangers and paths oblique. .. AND MORE IMPORTANTLY.. Don�t make a leader from every lost freak. Trust not the one who turns from love to hate Secrets of your heart with such do not speak. If the Light of Shams(the Sun) shone upon you of late Concern not yourself with this passing garden�s state. http://www.rumionfire.com/shams/rumi083.htm complete Diwan e Shams( Diwan of the Sun) on http://www.rumionfire.com/shams/index.htm __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From areflagan at artpanorama.com Fri Dec 13 23:34:59 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:04:59 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Now you see it; now you don't -- MS magic In-Reply-To: <20021213125120.GB714@localhost> Message-ID: Some readers of the list may be quite interested in this article from the Economic Times of India, on the "revelation" that MS will give the Indian Government access to the Windows source code (in return for a lucrative contract, of course): http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=31 102968 Slashdot runs a follow-up discussion at: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/12/2046255 MS is already allowing insight into the source code to major clients, under the threat of a non disclosure agreement (see slashdot discussion for how one client is allowed to view the source), and the end all and be all of law suits that may result when/if it is proved that the source has been leaked. Effectively, the source code would be quite "useless" to anyone under these circumstances (this is NOT "open source"), except, perhaps, to settle government security concerns with regards to backdoor spying etc. Of course, there is no guarantee that the source code revealed will even be the one running Windows, as it will, most likely, be restricted to piecemeal viewing and not execution. Furthermore, when the US Department of Justice asked MS to open up the source for viewing, it was huh and hah and that's quite impossible. Of course, there was and is NO talk of Linux among US officials; there was no need to negotiate any insight (and we know the outcome of that bogus trial). Here's the funny version of the MS source code, already released (and readable as plain English), as a tickling antidote to how depressing this charade of "open" is: /* Source Code Windows XP */ #include "win31.h" #include "win95.h" #include "win98.h" #include "workst~1.h" #include "evenmore.h" #include "oldstuff.h" #include "billrulz.h" #include "monopoly.h" #include "backdoor.h" #define INSTALL = HARD char make_prog_look_big(16000000); void main() {     while(!CRASHED)     {         display_copyright_message();         display_bill_rules_message();         do_nothing_loop();         if (first_time_installation)             {             make_100_megabyte_swapfile();             do_nothing_loop();             totally_screw_up_HPFS_file_system();             search_and_destroy_the_rest_of-OS2();             make_futile_attempt_to_damage_Linux();             disable_Netscape();             disable_RealPlayer();             disable_Lotus_Products();             hang_system();             } //if         write_something(anything);         display_copyright_message();         do_nothing_loop();         do_some_stuff();         if (still_not_crashed)         {         display_copyright_message();         do_nothing_loop();         basically_run_windows_31();         do_nothing_loop();         } // if     } //while     if (detect_cache())         disable_cache();     if (fast_cpu())         {         set_wait_states(lots);         set_mouse(speed,very_slow);         set_mouse(action,jumpy);         set_mouse(reaction,sometimes);         } //if /* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.1"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.11"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows 95"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows NT 3.0"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows 98"); */ /* printf("Welcome to Windows NT 4.0"); */     printf("Welcome to Windows 2000");     if (system_ok())         crash(to_dos_prompt)     else         system_memory = open("a:\swp0001.swp",O_CREATE);     while(something)         {         sleep(5);         get_user_input();         sleep(5);         act_on_user_input();         sleep(5);         } // while     create_general_protection_fault(); } // main From human at electronetwork.org Sat Dec 14 11:59:34 2002 From: human at electronetwork.org (human being) Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 00:29:34 -0600 Subject: [Reader-list] modeling reason & simulating sociology Message-ID: <6987A4E6-0F2D-11D7-ABB3-0003936C456C@electronetwork.org> // these are what i consider to interesting articles // on computing and culture. the second url is more // literally this way. the first, may signal a type // of inbetween state also noticed between what might // be called 'closed-loop' chips/embedded processors. // this because there seems to be a funny area in- // between full artificial intelligence (consciousness, // if defined that way) and a type of modeled reasoning // that is intelligent. as the first article mentions, // and has always been a mystery to me, is how a fault // in a space craft or probe or satellite, however large // and complex, can often be 'worked around' through some // magical process (done by programmers and engineers, i'm // assuming) to fix the problem, or at least find some // way to work through the error. how such systems might // effect culture is interesting to consider, and as is // mentioned in the article, this may become an issue at // work, with autonomous systems doing the thinking/reasoning // and people providing the checks and balances. (though, // even this does not seem to occur between people and their // computers (and computer companies) today, so i am not sure // if it is something to expect, or hope for. in any case... immobotic = immobile robots model-based software and model-based reasoning "Once programmed with immobotic software, Williams explains, these systems "have a commonsense model of the physics of their internal components and can reason from that model to determine what is wrong and to know how to act." Such systems are more self-reliant than typical computers, which are very good at executing mindless, step-by-step instructions laid out for them by software engineers. However, computers are still amateurs when it comes to thinking their way through unforeseen crises such as component failures." Immobots Take Control by Wade Roush From photocopiers to space probes, machines injected with robotic self-awareness are reliable problem solvers. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/roush1202.asp?p=0 also: i read this article from a few weeks back and wonder if SIMs (simulation game) software could be used as a sociological device, for testing 'fuzzy' theories about human behavior, even political-economic models and alternative visions, and basic models in contexts of communities of people in certain situations, such as Hardt and Negri's Empire and Multitudes dynamics... Oversimulated Suburbia By DAVID BROOKS http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/magazine/24SIMS.html bc From tripta at sarai.net Fri Dec 13 14:08:18 2002 From: tripta at sarai.net (tripta) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 14:08:18 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] iludg_meeting details Message-ID: <200212131408.18935.tripta@sarai.net> Dear all, From pukar at bol.net.in Fri Dec 13 15:29:53 2002 From: pukar at bol.net.in (PUKAR @ The Paperie) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 15:29:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] The Urban Turn Message-ID: Dear Friends: PUKAR cordially invites its Associates, Advisors, and friends to a panel discussion on "The Urban Turn". Three distinguished sociologists and historians will speak about Bombay/Mumbai, and the increasing importance of urban studies to understandings of the history and culture of modernity. The programme includes short talks by: JAIRUS BANAJI worked with the unions in Bombay through the eighties, when he published Beyond Multinationalism: Management Policy and Bargaining Relationships in International Companies. His most recent book is Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labour, and Aristocratic Dominance (Oxford, 2002). SUJATA PATEL is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at University of Pune. She is the co-editor, with Alice Thorner, of Bombay: Metaphor for Modern Culture and Bombay: Mosaic of Modern India (both Oxford India, 1995), of which the next volume, co-edited with Jim Masselos, is currently in press. She is an Advisor to PUKAR. GYAN PRAKASH is Professor of History at Princeton University, U.S.A. and a member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective. He is the author of Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labour Servitude in Colonial India (Cambridge, 1990), Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton, 1999), as well as several articles on colonialism and historiography, and has edited several volumes on colonial history. (RAJ CHANDAVARKAR, Professor of History, Cambridge University, U.K. will also join the discussion). Date: SATURDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2002 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. At: The BOMBAY PAPERIE Mezzanine Floor, Soonawalla Building 59, Bombay Samachar Marg Opposite the Stock Exchange Fort, Bombay 400001 R.S.V.P. Phone Shekhar Krishnan or Rahul Srivastava at 2077779 E-Mail About PUKAR @ The Paperie: This discussion, and future gatherings focused on discussing issues of common interest and concern to the PUKAR Associates, is part of a monthly programme organised by PUKAR for invited friends and guests at The Bombay Paperie, Fort. These gatherings are usually held on the third or fourth Saturday of every month at 6.00 p.m. PUKAR thanks the Manager of The Bombay Paperie, Neeta Premchand, for hosting PUKAR @ The Bombay Paperie, as well as Navaz . We look forward to your attendance and participation, and suggesting names of people and organisations to add to our mailing list. For more information, call PUKAR at 22077779. Regards, Rahul Srivastava, Shekhar Krishnan and Vyjayanthi Rao Coordinators _____ PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) P.O. Box 5627 Dadar, Mumbai 400014, India E-Mail Phone +91 (022) 2077779, +91 98200.45529, +91 98204.04010 Web Site http://www.pukar.org.in _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From pukar at bol.net.in Sat Dec 14 00:16:09 2002 From: pukar at bol.net.in (PUKAR @ The Paperie) Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 00:16:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] CORRECTION: The Urban Turn Message-ID: Dear Friends: (The last e-mail incorrectly contained the wrong date for the event. It is Saturday 21 December, not November. Our apologies for the confusion!) PUKAR cordially invites its Associates, Advisors, and friends to a panel discussion on "The Urban Turn". Three distinguished sociologists and historians will speak about Bombay/Mumbai, and the increasing importance of urban studies to understandings of the history and culture of modernity. The programme includes short talks by: JAIRUS BANAJI worked with the unions in Bombay through the eighties, when he published Beyond Multinationalism: Management Policy and Bargaining Relationships in International Companies (Delhi: Sage, 1990). His most recent book is Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labour, and Aristocratic Dominance (Oxford, 2002). SUJATA PATEL is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at University of Pune. She is the co-editor, with Alice Thorner, of Bombay: Metaphor for Modern Culture and Bombay: Mosaic of Modern India (both Delhi: Oxford India, 1995), of which the next volume, co-edited with Jim Masselos, is currently in press. She is an Advisor to PUKAR. GYAN PRAKASH is Professor of History at Princeton University, U.S.A. and a member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective. He is the author of Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labour Servitude in Colonial India (Cambridge, 1990), Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton, 1999), as well as several articles on colonialism and historiography, and has edited several volumes on colonial history. (RAJ CHANDAVARKAR, Professor of History, Cambridge University, U.K. will also join the discussion). Date: SATURDAY 21 DECEMBER 2002 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. At: The BOMBAY PAPERIE Mezzanine Floor, Soonawalla Building 59, Bombay Samachar Marg Opposite the Stock Exchange Fort, Bombay 400001 R.S.V.P. Phone Shekhar Krishnan or Rahul Srivastava at 2077779 E-Mail About PUKAR @ The Paperie: This discussion, and future gatherings focused on discussing issues of common interest and concern to the PUKAR Associates, is part of a monthly programme organised by PUKAR for invited friends and guests at The Bombay Paperie, Fort. These gatherings are usually held on the third or fourth Saturday of every month at 6.00 p.m. PUKAR thanks the Manager of The Bombay Paperie, Neeta Premchand, for hosting PUKAR @ The Bombay Paperie, as well as Navaz . We look forward to your attendance and participation, and suggesting names of people and organisations to add to our mailing list. For more information, call PUKAR at 22077779. Regards, Rahul Srivastava, Shekhar Krishnan and Vyjayanthi Rao Coordinators _____ PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) P.O. Box 5627 Dadar, Mumbai 400014, India E-Mail Phone +91 (022) 2077779, +91 98200.45529, +91 98204.04010 Web Site http://www.pukar.org.in _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From kshekhar at bol.net.in Mon Dec 16 00:57:49 2002 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 00:57:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Anti-Fascist Seminar Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021216/6faa8e90/attachment.html From anjalisaga at blueyonder.co.uk Sun Dec 15 00:51:08 2002 From: anjalisaga at blueyonder.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 19:21:08 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Questions from a fascist In-Reply-To: <20021214185516.91506.qmail@web40205.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Dear all , Sorry for sending this bad language but I received these mails from this guy Sanjay Bhatia and I have no idea how he got my email , or how he started receiving my mails from another list I have called Multitudes. I found his initial tone offensive and therefore probably responded childishly -however it just proves the racism within the American Indian Diaspora is at large . The below is the last email this idiot sent and following are the previous mails and my responses. Best Anjalika Sagar LAST EMAIL Wow - I thought left wing trash was too touchy feely to get pissed off like this. Fuck off? I've heard your mom use that word while asking me to fuck her brains out. But you?? Perhaps you're not getting enough muslim cock in your diseased cunt you fucking whore! You fucking beggar from the streets of India.. you'll never improve. Now go fuck yourself. sb > on 14/12/02 4:12 am, Sanjay Bhatia at sbix at yahoo.com wrote: > > > And I'm an American Indian living in the US. > > Good for you > > > > Did you hear of any brutality of the Muslims in Pakistan against the > Hindus? > > The problem I have with your approach is that it is racist in itself! > Hindus > > commit brutal acts against Muslims (or other Minorities) and it must make > the > > headlines. Muslims do the same, but that's ok because Hindus are a > majority > > in > > the Indian sub-continent! Brilliant! - Grow up > > > >> Prejudice comes from all sides - India's social structure is dependent > >> prejudice. Prejudice has often been acquired by those who are angry and > have > >> been racially abused - is that such a shock to you - study Malcolm X in > his > >> early years. Also where were you guys when whites started throwing petrol > >> bombs into British Asians homes in the 1960's? > >> Silly to blame don't you think > > > > For all your phoney interlectualism -you can't spell intellectual about > this > matter - I just wish you at > > least tried to be unbiased. White guys bombing British Asians - I wasn't > born > > in the 60s. But I would condemn it just as much as brutal acts by any > group > > against another. > > > > Also, you may be interested in knowing this - I was in England for about 6 > > weeks in 1999 watching the Cricket world cup games. At the India Pakistan > > game, we saw Indian fans with split skulls (no doubt inflicted upon > themselves > > or by the Pakistani fans upon request). We saw Indian fans being pushed > > around > > for no reason after the game. Every game that Pakistan played required > horse > > mounted police personel riding to keep calm (I mean every single game). No > > doubt it must have skipped your attention. But why is it that you don't > write > > about such events? Why don't you write about such events from your racist > perspective and hand it around to your equally racist Hindu American friends > - also I am not interested in Cricket. I'm sure the Zimbabwean and South > African fans would > > appreciate it tremendously! > > > > Finally - you have the liberty to think the way you do because of your > Hindu > > upbringing. As bad as the Hindus are, they believe in the freedom of > > expression. I'd love to meet a Muslim hatemonger doing some of the stuff > > you're doing. > > I was never brought up as a Hindu - don't email me again you are too stupid > to > deal with - also I don't watch cricket - just go away- A > > sb 2ND EMAIL Dear Sanjay, I am against all forms of fascism. I am a British Asian living in London. I work within the arts and racism is part of the fabric of the cultural industries. I cannot always keep up with all the issues in India and Pakistan - I do my best. The effort I make to distribute political information , is not only limited to to South Asia - as I live within a multicultural community in London and feel the global tensions around me all the time. I understand that Islamic fundamentalism is as present as Hindu, however Hindu's occupy the majority in the sub continent - and we have witnessed the madness and the brutality waged against Muslims by the majority in recent years. Resistance as informed by terrorism, whether we like it or not has a force to empower, and has been interpreted as a fight for freedom and tolerance historically, and has led to change in countries all over the world: Algeria, South Africa etc. Prejudice comes from all sides - India's social structure is dependent on prejudice. Prejudice has often been acquired by those who are angry and have been racially abused - is that such a shock to you - study Malcolm X in his early years. Also where were you guys when whites started throwing petrol bombs into British Asians homes in the 1960's? Silly to blame don't you think Anjali 1st email > > Hi Anjali You seem to be committed to raising awareness against fascism in south Asia and I have a couple questions for you. I think your work is very important and I respect it. My question for you is - are you against just Hindoo fascism or even Islamic fascism? Reason I ask is - my family (and other Hindu Sindhis) were driven out of it's place of work in Bombay recently by Muslims who did not want Hindus doing business in "their" area. Not that these Hindus moved there recently - they have been there for over 50 years now. Where were you guys then? And how about Godhra? I never heard any opinion from you about what started the Gujrat violence (which is a massive shame getting an incredible ammount of coverage). So, I think your credibility would be much higher if you weren't so biased. That's my point. sb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021214/8f836289/attachment.html From yazadjal at vsnl.net Mon Dec 16 13:26:08 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 13:26:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Questions from a fascist References: Message-ID: <015801c2a4da$402fdea0$c90741db@vsnl.net.in> Questions from a fascistI'm a member of various lists as well and the debates can get quite heated and abusive at times. (it's happened here at Sarai as well). For issues that concern me, I reply politely, but firmly, regarding my views. If a civil response comes thru, I continue. If I get abuse, I ignore (and press delete). I find it a waste of time and energy responding to abusive people. Anjali, you sent back a polite reply to the first email from Bhatia. He responded with abuse. Why waste time on him anymore? They're more intersting battles to pick! Best wishes, -yazad PS: In his original mail, Bhatia wrote Reason I ask is - my family (and other Hindu Sindhis) were driven out of it's place of work in Bombay recently by Muslims who did not want Hindus doing business in "their" area. ??? I live in Bombay and I'm quite sure he's bluffing. Just think -- if true, the Shiv Sena would take this issue to town! I don't seem to have heard from Thackeray or Advani (he's a "Hindu Sindi" too) yet ;-) From: Anjali Sagar To: undercurrents at bbs.thing.net ; Monica Narula ; reader-list at sarai.net Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:51 AM Subject: [Reader-list] Questions from a fascist Dear all , Sorry for sending this bad language but I received these mails from this guy Sanjay Bhatia and I have no idea how he got my email , or how he started receiving my mails from another list I have called Multitudes. I found his initial tone offensive and therefore probably responded childishly -however it just proves the racism within the American Indian Diaspora is at large . The below is the last email this idiot sent and following are the previous mails and my responses. Best Anjalika Sagar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021216/5723bfa2/attachment.html From info at nmartproject.net Mon Dec 16 13:45:10 2002 From: info at nmartproject.net (NewMediaArtProjectNetwork) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:15:10 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] French Netart - 1st update Message-ID: <009501c2a4db$40d9bdc0$0600a8c0@NMARTPROJECTNET> 1st update online of "Current Positions of French Netart" the new exhibition on Javamuseum - Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art www.javamuseum.org (Java = Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs) These 10 artists are new in the show: Annie Abrahams, Cathblue, Oliver Auber Gérard Dalmon, Philippe Bruneau Les Riches Douaniers, Amande In Vincent Makowski, Xavier Makowski, Aurélie Peyront Introduction: When art is defined as world art, as a form of intercultural communication without national boarders, when art uses the World Wide Web as a medium and environment in a global context, is it allowed then to connect art or this exhibition, in particular, to the aspect of nationality? Netart coming from France is widely unknown, yet. This has different reasons. Like in some other countries, this new form of contemporary art seems also in this country not well accepted yet, which is also underlined by the fact that only a few institutions of art and higher education exist mainly focussed on art and New Media, but most relevant seems to be that different from other forms of contemporary art, language and its various forms plays an essential role in Netart. The most accepted and dominating language for global communication, the New Media and the Internet, represents, however, English. In this global context, language changed its meaning, its function goes far beyond of expressing merely national identity, even if is it did not loose this aspect on a local level. Under these conditions one might ask: can Netart using language as a tool for expressing national identity be defined as art or Netart, at all, or does rather particularly this use probably enable new forms of expressing which can be understood on a non-verbal level also by people who do not speak the respective national language? The show "Actual Positions of French Netart" makes it evident, there are a lot of talented artists who take the challenges and chances the Internet offers by creating art works which include strong conceptual components manifested in most individual ways. Some of them use exclusively their native language, others try a bi-lingual way, and a third group takes the global aspect of the Internet and expresses itself in English. Even if not all works can be understood by a non-francophone, the original and individual multimedia approach will impress by offering new aspects and perspectives. As an ongoing project the show is based on an open call in Internet. It will accept also in future at any time submissions of new artists which are not yet presented in the exhibition, in order to stay most actual and updated. Following 25 artists are participating currently: Gregory Chatonsky, Cendres Lavy, Christophe Bruno, PATRICK-HENRI BURGAUD, Tamara Lai, Erational, Antoine Schmitt Xavier Malbreil, Thierry Vendé, jimpunk, Xavier Cahen, Pacale Gustin Emilie Pitoiset, Fred Fenollabbate, Cecile Babiole Xavier Leton, Christoph Bruno/Jimpunk, Isabel Saij, Ulrich Mathon, Hughes Rochette Michael Sellam, Pascal Bruandet, Blue Screen, Pauline Desormière, Nicolas Clauss, Annie Abrahams, Cathblue, Oliver Auber Gérard Dalmon, Philippe Bruneau Les Riches Douaniers, Amande In Vincent Makowski, Xavier Makowski, Aurélie Peyront "Current Positions of French Netart" www.javamuseum.org ou www.javamuseum.org/2002/2nd/frenchfeature is an online show realized and curated by Agricola de Cologne. Copyright © 2002. All rights reserved. ****************************************** JavaMuseum Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art (JAVA= Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs) www.javamuseum.org info at javamuseum.org Press press at javamuseum.org From rmazumdar at vsnl.net Tue Dec 17 08:45:06 2002 From: rmazumdar at vsnl.net (Ranjani Mazumdar) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 08:45:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20021217083917.02d0c800@mail.vsnl.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021217/198b500e/attachment.html From renu at mail.sarai.net Tue Dec 17 11:38:24 2002 From: renu at mail.sarai.net (renu) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 11:38:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Styles of radical will Message-ID: Styles of Radical Will http://www.susansontag.com/stylesofradicalwill.htm Styles of Radical Will, Susan Sontag's second collection of essays, extends the investigations she undertook in Against Interpretation with essays on film, literature, politics and a ground-breaking study of pornography. Her first essay, 'The Aesthetics of Silence,' is a brilliant and important account of the Western tradition of artistic revolt against language, against thinking, against consciousness. The Aesthetics of Silence Excerpt 1 Every era has to reinvent the project of "spirituality" for itself. (Spirituality = plans, terminologies, ideas of deportment aimed at resolving the painful structural contradictions inherent in the human situation, at the completion of human consciousness, at transcendence.) In the modern era, one of the most active metaphors for the spiritual project is "art." The activities of the painter, the musician, the poet, the dancer, once they were grouped together under that generic name (a relatively recent move), have proved a particularly adaptable site on which to stage the formal dramas besetting consciousness, each individual work of art being a more or less astute paradigm for regulating or reconciling these contradictions. Of course, the site needs continual refurbishing. Whatever goal is set for art eventually proves restrictive, matched against the widest goals of consciousness. Art, itself a form of mystification, endures a succession of crises of demystification; older artistic goals are assailed and, ostensibly, replaced; outworn maps of consciousness are redrawn. But what supplies all these crises with their energy -- an energy held in common, so to speak -- is the very unification of numerous, quite disparate activities into a single genus. At the moment when "art" comes into being, the modem period of art begins. From then on, any of the activities therein subsumed becomes a profoundly problematic activity, all of whose procedures and, ultimately, whose very right to exist can be called into question. From the promotion of the arts into "art" comes the leading myth about art, that of the absoluteness of the artist's activity. In its first, more unreflective version, the myth treated art as an expression of human consciousness, consciousness seeking to know itself. (The evaluative standards generated by this version of the myth were fairly easily arrived at: some expressions were more complete, more ennobling, more informative, richer than others.) The later version of the myth posits a more complex, tragic relation of art to consciousness. Denying that art is mere expression, the later myth rather relates art to the mind's need or capacity for self-estrangement. Art is no longer understood as consciousness expressing and therefore, implicitly, affirming itself. Art is not consciousness per se, but rather its antidote -- evolved from within consciousness itself. (The evaluative standards generated by this version of the myth proved much harder to get at.) The newer myth, derived from a post-psychological conception of consciousness, installs within the activity of art many of the paradoxes involved in attaining an absolute state of being described by the great religious mystics. As the activity of the mystic must end in a via negativa, a theology of God's absence, a craving for the cloud of unknowing beyond knowledge and for the silence beyond speech, so art must tend toward anti-art, the elimination of the "subject" (the "object," the "image"), the substitution of chance for intention, and the pursuit of silence. In the early, linear version of art's relation to consciousness, a struggle was discerned between the "spiritual" integrity of the creative impulses and the distracting "materiality" of ordinary life, which throws up so many obstacles in the path of authentic sublimation. But the newer version, in which art is part of a dialectical transaction with consciousness, poses a deeper, more frustrating conflict. The "spirit" seeking embodiment in art clashes with the "material" character of art itself. Art is unmasked as gratuitous, and the very concreteness of the artist's tools (and, particularly in the case of language, their historicity) appears as a trap. Practiced in a world furnished with second-hand perceptions, and specifically confounded by the treachery of words, the artist's activity is cursed with mediacy. Art becomes the enemy of the artist, for it denies him the realization -- the transcendence -- he desires. Therefore, art comes to be considered something to be overthrown. A new element enters the individual artwork and becomes constitutive of it: the appeal (tacit or overt) for its own abolition -- and, ultimately, for the abolition of art itself. 2 The scene changes to an empty room. Rimbaud has gone to Abyssinia to make his fortune in the slave trade. Wittgenstein, after a period as a village school-teacher, has chosen menial work as a hospital orderly. Duchamp has turned to chess. Accompanying these exemplary renunciations of a vocation, each man has declared that he regards his previous achievements in poetry, philosophy, or art as trifling, of no importance. But the choice of permanent silence doesn't negate their work. On the contrary, it imparts retroactively an added power and authority to what was broken off -- disavowal of the work becoming a new source of its validity, a certificate of unchallengeable seriousness. That seriousness consists in not regarding art (or philosophy practiced as an art form: Wittgenstein) as something whose seriousness lasts forever, an "end," a permanent vehicle for spiritual ambition. The truly serious attitude is one that regards art as a "means" to something that can perhaps be achieved only by abandoning art; judged more impatiently, art is a false way or (the word of the Dada artist Jacques Vaché) a stupidity. Though no longer a confession, art is more than ever a deliverance, an exercise in asceticism. Through it, the artist becomes purified -- of himself and, eventually, of his art. The artist (if not art itself) is still engaged in a progress toward "the good." But whereas formerly the artist's good was mastery of and fulfillment in his art, now the highest good for the artist is to reach the point where those goals of excellence become insignificant to him, emotionally and ethically, and he is more satisfied by being silent than by finding a voice in art. Silence in this sense, as termination, proposes a mood of ultimacy antithetical to the mood informing the self-conscious artist's traditional serious use of silence (beautifully described by Valéry and Rilke): as a zone of meditation, preparation for spiritual ripening, an ordeal that ends in gaining the right to speak. So far as he is serious, the artist is continually tempted to sever the dialogue he has with an audience. Silence is the furthest extension of that reluctance to communicate, that ambivalence about making contact with the audience which is a leading motif of modern art, with its tireless commitment to the "new" and/or the "esoteric." Silence is the artist's ultimate other-worldly gesture: by silence, he frees himself from servile bondage to the world, which appears as patron, client, consumer, antagonist, arbiter, and distorter of his work. Still, one cannot fail to perceive in this renunciation of "society" a highly social gesture. The cues for the artist's eventual liberation from the need to practice his vocation come from observing his fellow artists and measuring himself against them. An exemplary decision of this sort can be made only after the artist has demonstrated that he possesses genius and exercised that genius authoritatively. Once he has surpassed his peers by the standards which he acknowledges, his pride has only one place left to go. For, to be a victim of the craving for silence is to be, in still a further sense, superior to everyone else. It suggests that the artist has had the wit to ask more questions than other people, and that he possesses stronger nerves and higher standards of excellence. (That the artist can persevere in the interrogation of his art until he or it is exhausted scarcely needs proving. As René Char has written, "No bird has the heart to sing in a thicket of questions.") -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021217/91c881ec/attachment.html From krishnanrr at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 17 14:52:31 2002 From: krishnanrr at rediffmail.com (Radha Krishnan) Date: 17 Dec 2002 09:22:31 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Response to Ms.Anjali: Message-ID: <20021217092231.17978.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021217/dea52826/attachment.pl From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Tue Dec 17 20:56:36 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 07:26:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Invitation for Public Meeting on Women: 20th Dec. Message-ID: <20021217152637.6976.qmail@web20906.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Aman Ekta Manch" Subject: Invitation for Public Meeting: 20th Dec. Date: 16 Dec 2002 10:32:30 -0000 Size: 5354 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021217/5fa07cd2/attachment.mht From newsgroup at cyrilgupta.com Wed Dec 18 14:00:22 2002 From: newsgroup at cyrilgupta.com (Cyril Gupta) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:30:22 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] God doesn't want us Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20021217234842.00a05a40@mail.cyrilgupta.com> Some Free Speech Knowledge, Freedom, Progress. (Is all we need). Instead of talking about more relevant issues like literacy, security, social and political issues, I see people wasting their breath on petty stuff like religion. The politicians, journalists, intellectuals, artists, don't we all have a weird lemming like obsession with religious issues. Don't you think we are giving this relic of the fears of ancient man much more attention than it deserves. Religion maybe was of significance in the era when Man (Humanity for those bent on political correctness) still hadn't cracked the enigmas of this world and was constantly threatened by forces of nature. God was his solace, a fatalistic sort of escape on which he could blame anything good or bad that happened to him, and absolve himself from responsibility. Religion in my opinion was not borne of enlightenment, but of lack of knowledge. As we progress further and further towards new knowledge religious theories become more and more ridiculous. In contemporary times specially, religion has no significance. The new world is about pursuance of knowledge. Spiritualism is not among one of its goals. Born a Hindu, I have been to a temple about thrice in my lifetime, and not out of any love for God. I am not an atheist, but I am sure God doesn't need my attention. I'd rather work, or read. I have had the occasion of reading texts like ramcharitmanas, geeta, bible and koran. I read them out of curiosity (without being blinded by reverence), and they all bored me. If you don't mind the expression, all of these books are full of nonsense and its hard to extract an ounce of logic from their pages. Oddly enough, our wise-men detect reams and reams of spiritual subtext that they so eagerly spoon feed us. All of these texts were written in the dark ages of man, when there was a general absence of personal security and the world was still rife with the presence of demons, witches, mages and mystical beings. Maybe they represent an early undeveloped sort of philosophical thinking, when man tried to explain all that he found un-explainable. Maybe they're manuals for obscure little cults that later grew into full-fledged religions. I won't be surprised if the Brahmakumari movement of today for example, becomes a separate religion of its own with lakhs of followers. (Visit them and they'll tell you that the end of the world is near, they've predicted the end of the world thrice times already, in 1960, 1980 and 2000, God save our world from the next date they set for us. Today they have over 6 lakh members.) Men are what the society makes them. Freedom of thought is an illusion. Our thoughts are shaped by what we observe and by what our mentors think. I am sure many of us 'free-thinker's would have happily burnt witches on stakes were we born in medieval Europe. Its only the access to more knowledge that has given us a mind broad enough to break the boundaries of tradition. Some issues deserved to be ignored. If we don't give religion attention, it will wither and fall off like the tail that humans dropped when they evolved from apes to humans. Let's not let religion become an appendix that's quite useless and surfaces only to give us pain, instead let's drop it like the monkey's tail. God doesn't need us and we don't need him. Humanity my friends... is very much on its own. And This I believe. This I Believe by Robert A. Heinlein "I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. "Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and lovingkindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him." "My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee -- no prospect of a fee -- I believe in Doc. "I believe in my townspeople. You can know on any door in our town saying, 'I'm hungry,' and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says, 'To heck with you -- I got mine,' there are a hundred, a thousand who will say, "Sure, pal, sit down." "I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step up to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, 'Climb in Mac -- how far you going?' "I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallentry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. "I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones. "I believe that almost all politicians are honest...there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the 13 colonies. "I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in -- I am proud to belong to -- the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history. "And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure longer than his home planet -- will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency. "This I believe with all my heart." Robert A. Heinlein wrote this item in 1952. His wife, Virginia Heinlein, chose to read it when she accepted NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal on October 6, 1988, on the Grand Master's behalf (it was a posthumous award). Mrs. Heinlein received a standing ovation. From newsgroup at cyrilgupta.com Wed Dec 18 21:54:14 2002 From: newsgroup at cyrilgupta.com (Cyril Gupta) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 08:24:14 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] God still doesn't want us. Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20021218081536.00a01bb0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> More Free Speech. You said... Yeah we all need that, BUT freedom to do what, deicide yourself If you were alllowed kill, etc... question you may ask, why would you kill, Say you dont' have food to eat and the other person is eating like helll What will you do, snatch, may require what you didnt' wanted to do... My view... The word 'Freedom' does not imply lawlessness. Don't be mistaken, 'Freedom' actually means that you are not oppressed by un-just rules and regulations that hurt your basic rights and you have the basic resources needed to live your life your way (Someone living below the poverty line is hardly free). When I said 'Freedom', I definitely didn't mean lawlessness. That should have been obvious. You said... BTW there was a research conducted around 60's in Europe why the crime rate is HIGH, every one presented there views scientists concluded that illiteracy is the reason, So most of the governtments deicided to educate people, increase the literacy rate After 10-20 yrs what happened with literacy over 200% increase in CRime rate.. My view... First, literacy may not be the only of the rise in crime rate. There might be some other social or economical factors responsible for this. What you have presented is just a stat, it doesn't prove that Literacy caused the rise in crime rate. In fact it isn't even successful in establishing any sort of relationship. It's just a stat. I might as well say that in 60s the people were good, and now people are twice as bad, it's the hole in the ozone layer. Secondly, literacy is the capability to read & write. I'd to like to emphasize on education in which the person is also taught social skills, responsibility and vocational skills. Thirdly, Spiritualism is not going to help prevent crime. Had it helped there would have been no crimes in medieval India when we had a sort of spiritual revolution. Crimes can be prevented 1) By curbing crime-prone individuals 2) By removing the need to commit the crime 3) By ensuring speedy justice. You said... Not at all, rather we are devoting it a lot less than it requires. We are doing it alll wrong, we are reading it, Instead listen to what it means, rather than listening to what it reads. My view... I do not know what you mean by 'listen to what it means, rather than listen to what it reads.' I have heard enough religious people on TV and in person, and they all mouth the same 10-20 cliches. A giant load of bull if you ask me. Why don't we concentrate on the progress of our families and our country instead? You said... What is GOD? , trying to answere that ques. is not easy. No comments in here, my views differ drastically from everyone here, If believer or not... My view... What is God? Or is there a God? Try to find answers now and you will end up answering the question the same way that the ancients answered 'Why do we have day & night' and come up with gems like 'The sun revolves around the Earth', 'The Earth is flat' etc. And if you are fanatically obsessed with your beliefs, you will want to burn the heretics. Instead, work towards true knowledge. The fact is, there are no answers embedded in your heart. At least they're not the right answers. You said... Religion is there for the people without knowledge, to give them what they lack, Completely wrong you are, as more knowledge means more relevance of religion..., as an eXample from "Guru Granth Sahib Ji" if you are familier with is the HOly book of Sikhs.. Around 450 yrs ago, it was written(started though), says "Patala Paataal lakh akaasa akaash" means there are uncountable more Earth's and sky's What has science just proved lately. there are numerous more examples that if you try to go through the book will know, and not even a single phrase is there which has been said it is wrong. My view... I don't intend to talk about any particular religion, but religion as a whole. We should attempt to make sure that this discussion does not center about any particular religions. Anyway, like I said earlier, our wise-men interpret fantastic things from the pages of our religious texts. Sometimes, those things may not even be what the author wrote. And yeah, science has not proved that there are lakhs of Earths and Skies. There are 'Planets'. 'Eaths and Skies' is very inaccurate as many of them don't even have an atmosphere, and no other planet has known to contain life . Why didn't the religious text use the correct word if the author was all knowing? Most religious texts are stories, and poetry. You said... Again wrong, Spiritualism is not one of there goals..... without religion there is no Spiritualism without Spiritualism there is no knowledge, Without knowledge there is no life, My view... Why is spiritualism a Goal? Who made it a Goal? What benefits do we get by moving towards Spiritualism? Why isn't a better life a goal? Why isn't social growth a goal? Can you please DEFINE Spiritualism? You said... It is raining you need water to drink, you have an empty bowl But what if you keep bowl upside down rain wont' fall in it same is the case of mind, if you keep your mind closed, letting nothing in. My view... This an example of what a religious leader would say in this situation. Why is that, that most of us are so easily impressed by the clever use of language. Why do we find crafty adages, metaphors and comparisons somehow enlightening? The mind is not a Bowl, and religion is not rain. These are just fancy words. Why can't the issue be discussed in all honesty? The fact is, I have kept my mind open. My mind would have been closed, had I believed that God is the reason and solution for all things, like my grandma did (She prayed for 2 hours everyday during her entire life). My mind would have been closed had I blindly believed what the religious texts and religious leaders told me. My mind would have been closed had I not dared to challenge the authority of God on our lives, accepting just like everybody else that we are puppets in his game. Open mind is about accepting new ideas, challenging rotting beliefs. My bowl my friend, is right side up. You said... Don't expect to see the light at end of the tunnel, until the other end is a straight line. You need to read, learn deep to admire religion.. My view... I have read, and I have seen and my disdain for religion grows with time. You said... I believe in myself, my quantum self, in my molecules, in my atoms But DAMN where did they come from. Philosophy is not way of life, it is life.... My view... How do you know that GOD is the right answer to your question? Just because a religious text says so? And you'd probably believe that religious texts are written by divinity. Have you ever, ever thought of questioning your beliefs. If you have not, how can you say your viewpoint is balanced/accurate. Most of us are like that, born in a particular religion and led by the religious texts and gurus of that religion into un-questioning belief, and when somebody tries to question the beliefs, he's ostracized or worse, stoned. If you can believe that science has proved that there are 'countless skies and Earths', why can't you believe in the Big Bang theory? Why don't you try looking for the answer in physics books instead of religious texts? Try and go beyond the religious texts, try writing one yourself. You could be our next messiah. From vidyashah at hotmail.com Wed Dec 18 11:41:36 2002 From: vidyashah at hotmail.com (vidya shah) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 06:11:36 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Haman Hai Ishq/Concert, exhibition Message-ID: CMAC and Breakthrough Present Haman Hai Ishq Evoking Our Pluralistic Tradition in a Confluence of the Image and Song A Haku Shah and Shubha Mudgal Collaboration Renowned painter, Haku Shah and well-known musician Shubha Mudgal have come together in a unique collaboration, Haman Hai Ishq, where they delve into our cultural roots of religious pluralism through art and medieval devotional poetry. Haku Shah, a painter, cultural anthropologist and author of international repute, has created a vibrant kaleidoscope of work based on poetry by well-known medieval Bhakti and Sufi poets like Kabir, Meera, Rabea, Pemi and others. He has, for the first time, created digital works along with his paintings, bringing together different elements and material into the visual interpretation of the abstract. Well known musician and composer, Shubha Mudgal has brought together an exciting body of work based on medieval poetry (which has inspired Haku's Shah's art), and is rendering this poetry to music. This collaboration will result in a series of exhibition concerts, a catalog with art and essays on religious pluralism and a music album. The Event opens with the exhibition of Haku Shah's paintings and digital works and a Concert By Shubha Mudgal Date of the Opening: 22nd December 2002 Time: 6.15 PM Venue: Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Center, Lodi Road, New Delhi Exhibition on view till the 28th of December Phone Numbers: CMAC: 26498977,26498106 Breakthrough: 26012070, 26012080 Art Indus: 26883738 _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 18 17:52:32 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 18 Dec 2002 12:22:32 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Justice...at last. Message-ID: <20021218122232.18462.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021218/be3459bf/attachment.pl From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 18 18:05:02 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 18 Dec 2002 12:35:02 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Socrates on the death sentence Message-ID: <20021218123502.29747.qmail@webmail7.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021218/f3ea5512/attachment.pl From hansathap1 at hotmail.com Wed Dec 18 18:47:28 2002 From: hansathap1 at hotmail.com (hansa thapliyal) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 13:17:28 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Fwd: [EKTA] IMPORTANT - PLEASE SIGN AND FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS !!! Message-ID: a petition against fund raising from corporations to fund hindutva >From: "kalindi badola" >Reply-To: "kalindi badola" >To: guptaashi at hotmail.com >CC: guptaat at now-india.com, anand.venkatachalam at motorola.com, >balu at nde.vsnl.net.in, Srinath.iyer at team.indiainfo.com, >vineetdhyani at hotmail.com, bissu1 at rediffmail.com, sucharitad at rediffmail.com, > chety at asu.edu, deeps11in at yahoo.co.in, KC_amit at hotmail.com, >fizza_khan at rediffmail.com >Subject: Fwd: Fwd: [EKTA] IMPORTANT - PLEASE SIGN AND FORWARD TO YOUR >FRIENDS !!! >Date: 14 Dec 2002 11:51:57 -0000 > > > >Note: Forwarded message attached > >-- Orignal Message -- > >From: Rupsa Mallik >To: pnanda at genderhealth.org, aamin at genderhealth.org, >salbrecht at genderhealth.org, sheaton at genderhealth.org, usma_khan at yahoo.com, >kavi_sreeharsha at yahoo.com, neetha_rao at excite.com, nandini.sharma at ge.com, >sarju at hotmail.com, bsn at vsnl.com, deeps11in at yahoo.co.in, >kalindibadola at rediffmail.com, m_sudipta1 at rediffmail.com, >anand.venkatachalam at motorola.com, vijaya at pcindia.org, v_b_india at hotmail.com >Subject: Fwd: [EKTA] IMPORTANT - PLEASE SIGN AND FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS >!!! > > _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail -------------- next part -------------- From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Dec 19 04:24:20 2002 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 04:24:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Worst is Always Precise Message-ID: <02121904242000.07238@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear friends, I am prompted to write this somewhat inordinately long posting by Abir Bazaz's oblique and apposite homage to the sentiments expressed by Socrates, on hearing of his death sentence, which was posted on the Reader List yesterday. It followed his posting of the news of the sentencing of SAR Gilani, and two others, to death in the trial pertaining to the attack on the Indian Parliament of December 13, last year. The one other time, when the 'management' of the fall out of an attack on a parliament yielded such positive fruit to people in power was when on the 27th of February, 1933, (exactly 70 years to the day, before the killings started in Gujarat last year),that the Reichstag (parliament) caught fire in Berlin. The consequences of that event, the trials and the laws that followed it, are too well known for me to go into in detail. A few days ago, the beneficiaries of the events of Gujarat could be seen celebrating the fruits of electoral success. The Reichstag Fire, the fall out of the attack on the Parliament, the events in Gujarat last week, and yesterday's court verdict in New Delhi seem to have set off a strange game of ricocheting, and oddly connected realities. It is in an effort to understand the ground rules of this game, that I began thinking of writing what I would like to share with you today. I hope that it can lead to some fruitful discussion. Every event and quotation cited in this posting is taken from a news item in a mainstream newspaper, usually the Hindu. The extracts from depositions before the court in the course of SAR Gilani's trial are taken from the website of the All India Defence Committee for Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, of which Rajni Kothari is the chairman. The url for this excellent website, which I would urge everyone on this list to visit, is www20.brinkster.com/sargeelani I am appending a brief selection of relevant links at the end of this posting and I offer apologies in advance for the length of this posting. in solidarity with SAR Gilani and his family Shuddha ___________________________________________________ The Worst is Always Precise - Reflections on the Death Sentence Awarded to SAR Gilani in the special POTA court by S N Dhingra, on the 18th of December, 2002 Shuddhabrata Sengupta _____________________ "The city from which no news can come is now so visible in its curfewed night that the worst is precise. From Zero Bridge a shadow chased by searchlight is running away to find its body. On the edge of the Cantonment, where Gupkar Road ends, it shrinks almost into nothing, is nothing, by Interrogation gates, so it can slip, unseen, into the cells: Drippings from a suspended burning tyre are falling on the back of a prisoner the naked boy screaming, 'I know nothing.'" from "I see Kashmir from New Delhi by Midnight" by Agha Shahid Ali The worst is always precise. Nothing can be more precise than a sentence of death, specifically by hanging, until the brain ceases to function, the heart ceases to beat, the lungs cease to breathe, even as it carries the additional burden of a fine of Rs. 500, 000. (How can a body hanging from the gallows pay five hundred thousand rupees?). Or is this the money that a shattered widow, or a grieving father must now collect from friends and relatives to pay up to the state? Who will collect it? A district collector? Will it be delivered in cash, in a cheque, as a money order, paid up by the bereaved to the executioner? Will a receipt be issued by the hangman state? That does not matter, what matters is that the sentence has been read. The cost price of 'waging war against the state' has been calculated. We have been told that evidence has been gathered, precisely, that the due process of the law has been followed, precisely, and a precise figure of blood money has been arrived at after deliberations. Death, and five hundred thousand rupees, precisely. No more, no less. Except, that unlike Srinagar, the "city from which no news came", in the late Agha Shahid Ali's elegy to the "encountered dead", the 'precise' did not become visible in a 'curfewed night'. The sentence was read instead in New Delhi, the city, where all news is fattenned, killed, eaten and shat out, by a gaggle of news channels, papers, informers, and disinformers, and not at mignight, but at 11 am on a slightly hazy December morning, in the premises of a special court. Many of us have heard reports of +its precise words, its precise tones, on the news programmes on television, all day today since 11 am If Agha Shahid Ali were alive today, perhaps he could have written another elegy, for a year long encounter killing between truth and precision that entered its final act today. Would he have called it "I see New Delhi from Kashmir by Midday"? _____________________________________ Time and space would have changed, New Delhi would have become Srinagar, the same shadow war would have found a different landscape, dates on the calendar and the hands on the clock face would have changed places. The 'worst', however, would have remained just as 'precise'. Nowadays, at midnight, when a policeman shines a torch in your face at midnight, or at midday, when a phone you are talking into becomes an informer, or when five policement in civilian clothes come into your house, seize your children and threaten to kill them, and then ask you to accompany them to a suburban farmhouse, to witness your husband, naked and being tortured, it may sometimes be difficult to distinguish between New Delhi and Kashmir. The difference, is one of degree. Of degrees of surveillance, degrees of power, degrees of violence, degrees of torture. First degree, second degree, and often, third degree. We have become the inhabitants of a New Srinagar, every bridge in New Delhi is now Zero Bridge. We are all suspects now. The encounter is at our doorstep, the hangman is biding his time inside our heads. Our shadows, chased by searchlights, are running to find their bodies. Anyone, (provided he or she had a certain kind of name, or spoke a certain language to his family on the phone, or sometimes participated in certain public meetings and protests) could have stood, precisely, where S A R Gilani, sometime lecturer in Arabic at the Zakir Husain College, stood yesterday morning. At 11: 00 am, on yesterday morning, the 18th of December, a year and four days after SAR Gilani was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (later Act), for complicity in the attack on the Indian parliament on the 13th of December, 2001, S N Dhingra, judge of the Special Court pronounced his sentence on the accused. What follows is an excerpt from the front page story, reporting the verdict, in the Hindu of today, the 19th of December, 2002 http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002121905170100.htm _______________________________________________ "In his 296-page judgment, Mr. Dhingra said the attack on Parliament was the handiwork of forces which wanted to "destroy the country and cripple it by killing or capturing its entire political executive, including the Prime Minister and the Home Minister...captivate entire legislature and the Vice-President, who were in Parliament.'' Commenting on issues of evidence, the judge said that the single-judge order of the Delhi High Court, declaring the telephone interception by police as inadmissible in evidence, was non-est as the "single judge is not authorised'' to hear the appeal against the order of the designated judge. Commending the investigating agencies, he said that they "perform a tough job.'' On the question of discrepancies in the police evidence and instances of evidence being tampered with, raised by defence counsel, he said it was the "usual practice nowadays to flog the investigating agencies.'' Defence counsel, Nitya Ramakrishnan, commenting on the judgment, said, "from several assumptions and conjectures in the judgment, which even prosecution did not care to assert in court, it appears that the learned designated court has added to the fund of prosecution material and the defence laments that it was not awarded the privilege of cross-examining the source.'' Sima Gulati, counsel for S. A. R. Geelani, declined to comment on the judgment as she had not fully read it. "We will appeal against this verdict. This order is not sustainable in law. There is simply not enough evidence to convict Geelani,'' she said. " _______________________________________________ We have all had the sentence read to us. Only one of us, however, is going to face the gallows, as of now, and he seems calm, perversely stoic, still insisting, as he must have in the interrogation cell, that he "knew nothing". All he said yesterday, when the special court found him guilty was, "It is a sad day for democracy in India". Coming a few days after a provincial election that crowned the organizers of pogroms as the elected representatives of the people, this sentence was just as modest, as it was precise. These are sad days. Today, after he heard the sentence, Gilani said "By convicting innocents, you cannot suppress emotion. Peace comes with justice. Without justice there will be no democracy, it is Indian democracy that is under threat.'' What kind of man is Syed Abdul Rehman Gilani ? In a note entitled "My Friend Abdul Rehman" in the website of the SAR Gilani Defence Committee, a friend of SAR Gilani, who wishes to remain un-named, writes, "A shy soft-spoken kashmiri youth met us in the Mansarovar Hostel, a post graduate hostel of the University of Delhi, in the mid nineties. On getting to know him better he came through as a deeply compassionate man with a great love for fine arts. He was passionately in love with the great secular poets of urdu such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Moin ud din Maqudum, Majaz etc, and spent hours discussing the finer points of their poetry and the earthy humanity of their message. Being a sensitive man he felt deeply for the sufferings of the Kashmiris; but his compassion was not bound by sectarian concerns. He was equally moved by the sufferings of the quake victims of Latur and Gujarat, and he worked with the teachers and students of Delhi University to collect relief material. To register his disagreement with religious and sectarian fanaticism and to express his solidarity with the long cherished ideals of equality and secularism he used to unfailingly participate in secular rallies. We still remember him carrying a lit candle during the peace marches organized to remember the innocent lives lost in the riots that swept the country in the aftermath of the demolition of the babri mosque. Now that person stands accused for perpetrating terrorism?. Knowing him I find it very difficult to believe the charges." The man we see in pictures on this site, with his family, with his wife, playing cricket, with his children, seems affable, shy, smiling. His life is perhaps one of modest hopes, a commitment to scholarship, and the intersection of vague unspoken fears, with a desire for justice and freedom. Since the afternoon of the 14th of December, this ordinary life, one very much like the lives of many of us in Delhi has been overturned with great care and precision. First the arrest, then the efforts to stain his reputation, stories of sinister 'Arab' acquaintainces, insinuations about phone calls from STD booths to undisclosed foreign locations, and the amassing of wealth, each of which was systematically planted by the special cell in the media, and which now stand challenged by a defamation suit, bear witness to a precise campaign to damage every aspect of Gilani's personal and professional life. (for details of which, see - Geelani issues notice to Hindustan Times, Delhi police http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01072002/0107200281.htm) It was precise. The worst is always precise. A long trial, a vilification campaign, a sentence of Death, and a fine of Rs. 500, 000 for waging a war against the Republic of India by conspiring with five "terrorists" who had attacked the Parliament in New Delhi on Decmber 13, 2001. Gilani, and his two co accused Mohammad Afzal and Shaukat Guru were awarded the death sentence for offences under Section 3(2) of POTA (indulging in terrorist acts leading to deaths) and Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (murder). Afsan Guru, wife of Shaukat, also known as Navjot Sandhu who was convicted under Section 123 of the Indian Penal Code for concealing the plot, was sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 10,000. The designated judge, S. N. Dhingra, pronouncing the sentence, said that he "considers that she deserves no leniency.'' Making no mention of her pregnant condition at the time of the conspiracy, the judge said that "there is no doubt that she was having a difficult choice of going against her husband'' but that "she had to give priority to the nation and society.'' Geelani, Guru and Afzal have also been sentenced to life imprisonment on seven counts. One each under IPC Sections 121-A (conspiracy to wage war against state) and Section 122 (collecting arms with the intention to wage war against state); under POTA, for abetting terrorist acts, Section 3 (3) and harbouring terrorists, Section 3 (4); and membership of a terrorist gang, Section 3 (5) and possession of unauthorised arms etc. under Section 4 (b); and under Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act. They have also been awarded a cumulative 30 years' rigorous imprisonment, for charges under Section 4 of the Explosive Substances Act and Section 307 of IPC (attempt to murder), and fines. _______________________ Interrogations never end when the suspect says "I know nothing". Usually, that's when they begin. Then, it is just the matter of a a game played out between what the suspect knows about himself/herself, and what the interrogators know about him, or her, or what they tell the world they know. Crucially, in order to tell the world what they know, they need to have the suspect "betrayed" by his co-accused. Here, what is often set in motion is a chain of willing and unwilling "betrayals", extracted either by coercion or torture, or by snooping on what the suspects may be saying to themselves, or to others. In the case against S A R Gilani, a minor sub-plot in the greater drama of the so called conspiracy behind the attack on the parliament, what was most important for the prosecution was the capacity to establish a wider network, a de-facto conspiracy, with nodes in Kashmir, and across the border. It was this "wider conspiracy theory" that could give the spectacular nature of the attack itself a substantive context> What was this substantive context and unraveling pattern - among other things, it was the need to the converst the highly unpopular, Prevention of the Terrorism Ordinance, into the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the necessity to achieve the largest military build up since the second world war on the India Pakistan Border, and the usage of the threat of possible nuclear war against Pakistan by the Indian State as leverage against any adverse international reaction to the March massacres in Gujarat, (arguably, themselves designed to create a 'crisis' situation which would both strengthen the state and consolidate Hindu fundamentalist opinion into concerted action to rescue an at that time vulnerable BJP led dispensation). A wider 'conspiracy' was absolutely necessary to establish in order to spin doctor the above configuration of circumstances into being. The stakes related directly to "reasons of state", in other words, the stakes were far too high. Imprecision enters the most precise of plans. Well orchestrated maneuvers too suddenly betray loopholes that need to be plugged. None of the mobile phones yielded anything other than a few numbers called in Pakistan, in Dubai, and a satellite phone (purportedly belonging to a terrorist mastermind called 'Ghazi Baba'). Millions of Indian citizens could have relatives or friends in Pakistan and Dubai, and in themselves, the records o f numbers calls establishes nothing, not even the fact that the slain terrorists were 'Pakistanis'. The slain "terrorists" who, were said to have 'looked' like Pakistanis were identified as such, only on the basis of confessions recorded by the police from amongst the accused, specifically from Mohd. Afzal, and it is well known that confessions in police custody are not admissible as evidence. All that the entire case for the prosecution could stand on, and ergo, all that the Indian State could stand on to substantiate the reality of a 'wider conspiracy' was a single moblie phone interception of a conversation between S A R Gilani and his half brother, who lives in Srinagar, which took place on the 14th of December 2001. One day after the attack. It needs to be noted here, that the defence was able to prove that not even this interception was done as per the rules laid down in the already stringent Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance. The attack took place on the day of the 13th, the interception, its translation, and the arrest of the accused, had been successfully completed by the late afternoon of the 14th, without any of the procedures necessary to authorize such interception being followed. Undue haste for reasons of state might go down well with newspapers hungry for headlines, but, they are not shining examples of the rigorous attention to the due process of the law. The transcript of the charge sheet (FIR No.417/2001, Date 13/12/2001) , submitted by the ACP Special Cell, Delhi Police on 12.05.2002 makes for fascinating reading. You can find it along with other documents from the court records at http://www20.brinkster.com/sargeelani/Court Records.htm It may well be seen as a prime example of the imaginative and narrative talents that lie hidden in the ranks of the special cell of the police department. Among other things it shows how, within minutes of 'seeing the news on TV', one Harpal Singh, proprietor of "Lucky Motors" in Karol Bagh, voluntarily identified one of the slain "terrorists", as the person who had purchased the 'attack vehicle' a white ambassador car from him. This is the first piece of evidence that establishes a 'history' to the attack. The charge sheet also goes on to say that - "Three mobile phones, six SIM cards and a number of 'fake' identity cards of "Xansa Web City" - a computer training institute, were found on the bodies of the slain terrorists. ..The mobile phone number of one of the accused conspirators, Mohd. Afzal was found inscribed as the contact number on the "Xansa Web City" identity card. Mohd. Afzal's mobile phone number was seen to be (from transcripts obtained from Mobile Phone Companies) in constant contact with several mobile phone numbers, one of which, number 98100-81228 was found to have belonged to S A R Gilani. The location parameter (Cell ID) of all the mobile numbers recovered from the deceased  terrorists and that  of all the other mobile numbers (including 98100-81228 ) was found to be that of Mukherjee Nagar for most of the time. Out of all the prominent numbers only one mobile  number 98100-81228 was found  to be a regular mobile card of AIRTEL, which  stood in the name of Sayed Abdul Rehman Geelani r/o H No. 535. Mukherjee Nagar, Delhi. The subscriber was also found to have made the payments to the Mobile Company through his SBI (State Bank of India) card, which also had the same address as revealed from the report received from the SBI. On 14.12.2001 an incoming call from Srinagar was intercepted on mobile No.98100-81228 and during the conversation the user of this mobile (the accused S.A.R. Geelani) spoke in the Kashmiri language." The translation of this conversation was the sole piece of so called 'incontrovertible' evidence that the prosecution could produce in court. The rest was built on custodial confessions, a roster of numbers, that in themselves proved nothing, and hearsay. The entire case against SAR Gilani, and by implication, substantive sections of the 'wider conspiracy' theory which was used by the Indian state to justify its subsequent actions, (including the threat of Nuclear war) rested on the fragile substance of this supposed piece of evidence. It is to this piece of 'evidence' that we now turn. The police's case rests on its version of this telephone conversation. The police version of the Hindi translation of this (unauthorized) interception, inscribed by Sub Inspector Harinder, from the verbatim translation from Kashmiri done by one Rashid, son of Mohd. Ramzan, a 34 year old transport worker, who has studied up to the 5th/6th grade who cannot write Hindi, and who had not signed the translation, contains the following crucial sentences. Gilani's brother asks him, (according to the police Hindi version) "YEH DILLI MEH KAYA KIYA HAI" ("What has happenned in Delhi") to which Gilani responds, laughing, with          "YEH JAROORI HOTA HAI" ("These things/This Thing is Necessary")which in Kashmiri is said as "E CHE ZAROORI" After this, the police version goes on to say that Gilani's brother instructs him "ABHI AAP CHUP KARKE BATHO". ("Now you sit quietly") This exchange, especially the bit about "What has happenned in Delhi?", and, "These things/This Thing is Necessary" - are sought to be established as proof of Gilani's complicity in the conspiracy to attack the Parliament in Delhi. Flimsy as this is, in and of itself. The prosecution's case was further weakened by the fact that the so called 'translation' was in itself a rather vague and inaccurate rendition of the actual contents of the conversation. S A R Gilanis' defence lawyears, in the course of the proceedings, produced two independent witnesses, both native Kashmiri speakers, wjp deposed, giving markedly different and accurate translations of the same conversation. These two witnesses were - Mr. Sampat Prakash, a trade union leader from Kashmir and Mr. Sanjay Kak, a documentary film maker.  Both appeared on Oct. 09, 02 at the request of the SAR Gilani Defence Committee to translate the intercepted conversation.  What follows is an excerpt of the relevant portions (segments 24-28 of the recording of the conversation, as given by Mr. Sampat Prakash, in Kashmiri, and then in English and Hindi) 24. Caller : Ye kyah korva? What has happened? Ye kya hua? 25. Receiver : Kya? Dilli-Ha? What, in Delhi?  Kya Dilli mein? 26. Caller : Dilli, Kya korva? What has happened in Delhi?Dilli mein kya hua? 27. Receiver : Ha! Ha! Ha! (Asaan)  Ha! Ha! Ha! (Laughing)Ha! Ha! Ha! (hansna) 28. Caller : Vuni bihizyava sokha saan.  Relax now.  Ab sakun se rahna.  Let us now turn to Sanjay Kak's deposition, made in court on the 9th of October, 2002. " There were no words 'Ei Chhey Zaroori' (This was/is necessary) in the tape given to me. At S.No. 22 on page 3 of my translation and transcripting, words 'Yeh kaya Korwa' means 'Yeh Kaya hua'.       (What has happenned) Q: Would this above phrase 'Yeh Keya Korwa' be used, when a younger brother inquires from his elder brother about some dispute arisen between the elder brother and his wife, about which younger brother got knowledge from some other source? KAK: It is entirely possible." Note: The above statement is as it is recorded by the court. Now., let us see what S AR Gilani said in court in his own defence. SAR Gilani was arrested on the 14th of December 2001. What follows is his statement in court about the circumstances of his arrest. ___________________________________________________ Statement of SAR Gilani to the Court under  Section 313 CrPC, as recorded on                                                                                                                17.09.02, an Extract Q: Why this case against you? Ans: After I was picked up I was tortured by A.C.P. Rajbir Singh and other police officials in presence of D.C.P. Ashok Chand and I told them that I shall proceed against them in N.H.R.C. (National Human Rights Commission) and I also told that they have caught a wrong person and I was innocent. Then I was told by them that they were framing me in this case. So I have been falsely implicated in this case. Q: Why the witnesses deposed against you? Ans: The witnesses have deposed against me due to fear of the police. Q: Do you have anything else to say? Ans: On 14th Dec. 2001 after I was arrested as already told by me I was blind folded and taken to some place which was like farm house. At that farm house tea was ordered by the police officials and on the sugar sachles Ashoka Countryside was written. At the farm house I was made naked and tortured and I was hanged upside down. I was forced to make confessional statement but I made no confessional statement as I was not involved. Thereafter I was threatened if I made no confessional statement my family members would be eliminated. On 14th Night I was brought to special cell Lodhi Colony where I found my wife, my two children, my brother, my brother in law and one another relative at the special cell. They had already been arrested. I saw Afasan Guru also at special cell at that time. Afzal in his interview given to Media has categorically stated that I have no involvement.              My conversation with my half brother on telephone was tampered. In the conversation where my brother had asked "Ya Kaya Keya" . This question he asked about family matter as I was having some programme to go to Kashmir on Id. However due to busy-ness in the college I could not make programme for going to Kashmir and due to this, dispute arose between me and my wife also, who was insisting for going to Kashmir. My wife talked to my mother and my mother then inquired, as to why we were not going to Kashmir, then my wife told my mother that she should ask her son (me). It was for this reason that my half brother felt that there was some "Garbar" and he might have asked that "Yeh Kaya Kiya". I did not say "Yeh Jaroori Hota Hai". My relationship with Shaukat and Afzal were of mere aquaintance. Note: The above extract is as it is recorded by the court." _________________________________________________________ The circumstances surrounding Gilani's arrest become clearer when we read his wife's testimony, made to the court, 1.1o.2002. What follows, is an extract  Statement by Qurat-ul-am-Arifa wife of Shri S. A. R. Geelani aged about 30 yrs. r/o H. No. 568 Lane No.22 Zakir Nagar, New Delhi, House Wife. (From page2, para 2---) " On 14th Dec. 2001 my husband started from house at Mukherjee Nagar at about 1 p.m. for going to Mall Road Masjid (Mosque) for performing Jumma Namaj (Friday Prayers), and he told me that he would be coming back by 4 p.m. He was to send hearing-aid for his mother through my brother who was about to go to Kashmir and my brother was to meet him at J&K Bus Stand opposite Tis Hazari. My husband did not come back by 4 p.m. or 4.30 p.m., which was the time for opening Roza (breaking ramzan fast) and brother of my husband also did not come by 4-4.30 p.m. My husband's brother was to take my brother to J&K Bus stop, opposite Tis Hazari. When my husband did not come back by 4.30 p.m. on 14th Dec. I tried to talk to him on telephone. On dialing cell phone of my husband I was repeatedly getting message "enter your phone number". I then stop dialing the phone. I thought that my husband's bus had come late or the bus which was to go to J&K got late, I therefore opened Roza myself.              At about 9.30 p.m. I and my two children were at home. 5-6 persons who were in civil dress entered my house. I started making noise. They caught hold of my two children and threatened me that I should shout up and keep silence otherwise they would kill my children. I kept mum out of fear that my children may not be killed. They told me that they were police person and they also told me that I could pack up some cloths of children and accompany them. I told them that my husband would be about to come from the college and I cannot accompany them but they told me that they know where my husband was, and told me that I would have to accompany them and they forcible took me with them and forced me and children to sit in the car.  .. [discontinued at page 3, para 2, line13] [Continued from page 4, line 22]             --- On 15th Dec. Police again came to my room and I was blind folded and we were made to sit in a car and removed some where else. In the lunch time when we were served food, on the food plate it was written B.S.F. (Border Security Force) Bhaswa Camp we then learnt that we were in a B.S.F. camp and I got frightened. There again my husband was tortured by the police in my presence and had been threatened my husband that in case he did not say whatever they like they would kill him and the entire family and nobody even come to know about it. My husband kept on denying his involvement in the attack. There after my husband was taken into second other room. Then police came to my room, they were 5-6 persons. Then they told me that I should advised my husband to say whatever they like and if my husband did not agree then they would keep me for through out my life in the jail, in this case. Thereafter I went to the room of my husband and weepingly told him to agree to sign whatever the police people say as it was a question of life of children and our own life. Then I was brought back to my room. On the same day I do not know at what time we were brought back to Lodhi Colony blind folded. The police had been pressuring on the night of 15th Dec. also to say whatever police likes. I and my children got frightened. I remained at police station Lodhi Colony on 16th Dec. also in the same condition throughout the day. Police was coming on that day to us repeatedly at the instance of A.C.P. Rajbir and pressuring us even on that day for making statement. On the evening of 16th Dec. 2001 again my husband was brought to my room and 15-16 papers, which were blank, were placed before him and he was asked to sign those papers. My husband refused and then he was pressurised in my presence. We were again threatened and there after my husband under, threat signed those blank papers. Thereafter police allowed me to go home along with children.... "  Note: The above extract is as it is recorded by the court. _______________________________________________________________ Little needs to be said about the invesitgative procedures followed in this case - the tools were the ones that are used as a matter of course, torture, and the threat of death, or pain inflicted on loved ones. Crucially, none of these tactics worked, and S A R Gilani steadfastly refused to sign any confessional statement, implicating either himself, or any others. In a classic conundrum called the "Prisoners Dilemma" - a non-zero-sum game used in Game Theory to analyse reasons for altruism and co-operation, two hypothetical suspects are arrested on charges of conspiring to commit a crime together. However, the police lacks sufficient evidence to convict them The two prisoners are isolated from each other, and the police visit each of them and offer a deal: the one who offers evidence against the other one will be freed. If none of them accepts the offer, they are in fact cooperating against the police, and both of them will get only a small punishment because of lack of proof. They both gain. However, if one of them betrays the other one, by confessing to the police, the defector will gain more, since he is freed; the one who remained silent, on the other hand, will receive the full punishment, since he did not help the police, and there is sufficient proof. If both betray, both will be punished, but less severely than if they had refused to talk. The dilemma resides in the fact that each prisoner has a choice between only two options, but cannot make a good decision without knowing what the other one will do. Such a distribution of losses and gains seems natural for many situations, since the cooperator whose action is not returned will lose resources to the defector, without either of them being able to collect the additional gain coming from the "synergy" of their cooperation. For simplicity we might consider the Prisoner's dilemma as zero-sum insofar as there is no mutual cooperation: either each gets 0 when both defect, or when one of them cooperates, the defector gets + 10, and the cooperator - 10, in total 0. On the other hand, if both cooperate the resulting synergy creates an additional gain that makes the sum positive: each of them gets 5, in total 10. The gain for mutual cooperation (5) in the prisoner's dilemma is kept smaller than the gain for one-sided defection (10), so that there would always be a "temptation" to defect. The problem with the prisoner's dilemma is that if both decision-makers were purely rational, they would never cooperate. Indeed, rational decision-making means that you make the decision which is best for you whatever the other actor chooses. Suppose the other one would defect, then it is rational to defect yourself: you won't gain anything, but if you do not defect you will be stuck with a -10 loss. Suppose the other one would cooperate, then you will gain anyway, but you will gain more if you do not cooperate, so here too the rational choice is to defect. The problem is that if both actors are rational, both will decide to defect, and none of them will gain anything. However, if both would "irrationally" decide to cooperate, both would gain 5 points. S A R Gilani decided to do the right, and irrational thing, as an answer to his 'Prisoners Dilemma'. He decided not to support the attempts to construct a 'wider conspiracy' the need for which had become so urgent. It may be noted that even his co accused in the case, Mohd. Afzal, who had furnished the most crucial confessional statement, in a video recorded interview given to Aaj Tak, and NDTV at the special police cell in Lodhi Road, explicitly stated that SAR Gilani was not involved. He too, decided to seek an irrational, and morally upright solution to his 'Prisoners Dilemma' Subsequent to this, ACP (Special Cell) Rajbir, who was present at the time of the recording of the interview explicitly told the news crews present to edit this statement our of their reports. The TV channels complied with this directive, but, in a re-broadcast of portions of the interview in a special programme to commemorate 100 days after the attack, Aaj Tak Channel did carry the statement that had been sought to be edited out. The Hindu of October 11 carried a story titled `Press, police suppressed information in Dec. 13 case' , which bears quoting at length "The press and the police `connived' to suppress information that could have given the investigation into the December 13 attack on Parliament a different complexion, a special court was told today. An interview of the main accused, Mohammed Afzal, by the Hindi news channel Aaj Tak was edited "at the request of the ACP, Rajbir Singh,'' to exclude the section in which Mr. Afzal stated that another of the accused, S.A.R. Geelani, had nothing to do with the attack and had no knowledge of it. In the written confessional statement to the police, which Mr. Afzal denies making, he is supposed to have said that Mr. Geelani, a University of Delhi lecturer, was present at the meeting where the attack was planned. The video-taped interview was played in the court today and showed Mr. Afzal categorically stating that Mr. Geelani was "a professor ... I have never shared any of this information with him.'' He said in the interview that on one occasion, Mr. Geelani had said to him "you are up to something.'' "To stop him from asking questions, I told him that there were two Pakistanis staying with me who were trying to go to the UAE.'' The Aaj Tak correspondent, Shams Tahir Khan, giving evidence in court said that the ACP, who was present during the interview, had shouted at Mr. Afzal, saying he had instructed him not to say anything about Mr. Geelani. He also confirmed that other journalists, from NDTV/StarNews and Zee News, were present at the time. Mr. Khan then added: "Mr. Rajbir had requested that I should remove the lines stated by Mr. Afzal about Geelani ... So, when this interview was telecast on December 20 at 5 p.m. that line was removed.'' The complete version was telecast on a programme `100 days after December 13.' Mr. Khan told The Hindu that his decision to edit out Mr. Afzal's comment about Mr. Geelani was made "because we are dependent on the police for information... Mr. Rajbir Singh is a very good source in the Delhi police's Special Cell.'' He added that he had not realised what impact his decision would have." ___________________________________________________________ When the unfolding of the Prisoners Dilemma goes against the interests of the jailers, one solution is to get rid of the prisoners who do not snitch, who do not sing the songs that power wants them too. On the 17th of August, 2002, there was an attempt on the life of S AR Gilani in Tihar Prison, by one Sohan Singh, also a prisoner in Tihar Prison. While this was the only instance of an actual attack, Gilani had been receiving threats to his personal safety from other co prisoners from time to time. Complaints against this act were not acted upon immediately by the Assistant Superintendent, and the Head Warder, who were both present in the vicinity of the attack. It could well be said that it was beginning to seem as if Gilani's remaining alive was an embarrassment and a thorn in the side of some powerful interests. Sensing the weakening of the prosecution's case against them, Gilani, together with Shaukat Husain and his wife Afsan Guru went on appeal in the Delhi High court against an order by the Special Judge who had disallowed their plea that the intercepts could not be taken on record as admissible evidence as they had been recorded without following the procedures laid down under POTA. The Hindu of the 31st of October, 2002 - reported on this as follows, http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/31/stories/2002103106690100.htm "The High Court set aside the lower court order when the Special Branch of the Delhi police failed to produce a copy of the request letter, which it had sent to the competent authority under POTA seeking permission to intercept the conversations between the accused on mobiles. In the lower court as well, the Special Branch had failed to supply a copy of the request letter when counsel for Geelani asked for it. Section 45 of POTA bars admissibility of intercepts of telephonic conversations as evidence during trial unless the accused is furnished with a copy of the order of the competent authority accompanied with a copy of the application under which the interception is authorised or approved. Referring to the provisions of the Act, Justice M.A. Khan said: "Evidence which is illegally procured will not be admitted if the admissibility is prohibited by law." The Special Branch had intercepted conversations between the accused under the provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, not in accordance with the provisions under POTA. "The prosecution cannot fall back upon the general law of evidence for the offence under POTA on the strength of evidence, admissibility of which is forbidden by Section 45 of POTA," Justice Khan said. " It is this ruling that has been treated with disdain in today's verdict given by the special judge S N Dhingra. Commenting on issues of evidence, the judge said that the single-judge order of the Delhi High Court, delivered by Justice M A Khan, declaring the telephone interception by police as inadmissible in evidence, was non-est as the "single judge is not authorised'' to hear the appeal against the order of the designated judge. Commending the investigating agencies, he said that they "perform a tough job.'' On the question of discrepancies in the police evidence and instances of evidence being tampered with, raised by defence counsel, he said it was the "usual practice nowadays to flog the investigating agencies.'' It may be remembered, that shortly after the October 31 ruling that declared the special cells methods to be inadmissible, the people of Delhi were made witness, on Diwali eve, to a spectacular encounter killing of two alleged 'armed terrorists' at the Ansal Plaza shopping complex by the same special cell that had been so active in the December 13 case. The media lapped up the special cell's version of the story, until, an eyewitness, Dr. Hari Krishna, came forward with a testimony to the effect that he had seen two unarmed men who seemed either sedated, or badly beaten, being taken out of a car in the underground parking lot of Ansal Plaza and being shot in cold blood. The National Human Rights Commission has called for a thorough investigation, and the special cell of the Delhi Police has denied all reports that the "encounter" was in fact staged. But, the one thing that this "encounter" did achieve was a significant improvement in the public image of the special cell, which had taken such a battering in the course of the Gilani trial. Suddenly, the very police officers who were being reprimanded in the high court for producing inadmissible evidence, were feted as being 'saviours of Delhi'. The Shiv Sena, not an organization prone to hold demonstrations in support of anyone or anybody, apart form itself, conducted noisy public demonstrations, and an active leaflet campaign in support of the officers of the special cell of the Delhi police. And the management of the Ansals group, against whom proceedings for criminal negligence that resulted in the tragic deaths of many hundreds of people some years ago in a New Delhi cinema, found an occasion to grace the public, the police and themselves, with a function to honor the heroes of Ansal Plaza. Incidentally, Shiv Sena activists were present in court yesterday, when the verdict in the December 13 case was read out. As information about the sentence spread, Shiv Sena members, flanked by police vehicles, burst crackers outside the court. And inside the court, as the judge got up to leave after pronouncing the sentence, lawyers from the Patiala House courts, who had filled the courtroom, shouted "kill them, they are terrorists.'' ______________________________________________ Nothing can be more precise than the meticulous keeping of records, the careful maintenance of a fragile body of manufactured evidence, the spin doctoring of stories, of events, of everything that spins out of the vortex of the cell in which the accused sits, knowing the precise rise and fall of the sentences that bind their fates. Some of the most precise biographies of condemned prisoners are those written in interrogation cells. They are written by the literary geniuses of the special cells of the police department. Their authors begin work long before the interrogations, researching the contents of diaries that are always already found on the bodies of slain "terrorists". They are helped in their research by literary minded medical professionals who write pieces of forensic creative writing called post mortem reports, by the record keepers of mobile telephone companies who provide them with numbers, transcripts and recordings. There are trained bet semi literate translators who translate telephone conversations between brothers. There are critics and literary theorists called media professionals who interpret all these to the reading and viewing public. The police school of literature is alive and flourishing, and our city is its leading centre. This is the news where all news comes from. This is the city where the news is manufactured, processed, packaged and refined. Even if your memory of what you did, whom you met, or what you wrote - in a moment of anger, in confusion, or with conviction and candour - is vague and imprecise, then it is the task of the literary apparatus of the state to make you known. The searchlight will reveal you, even to your own shadow. You may say, on a 'visible curfewed night', that you "know nothing", but those who watch and monitor you have little to gain from information that is not categorized, calibrated and classified. They, know everything. And what they don't know, they can invent. And their function is to demonstrate to you how much they know, or can make known about you. The predicament of SAR Gilani is an early warning, of what can happen to ordinary people, caught in the vortex of a sad time, when the cynicism of power, backed by the emerging shadow of the surveillance state, threatens to overwhelm the remaining shards of dignity and decency in our lives. I hope that all those who value liberty will make their disagreement known, loud and clear. Let us not be defeated by the precision of all that is the worst in our times. _____________________________________ Selected Links that are relevant to this Posting ______________________________________ Three sentenced to death in Parliament attack case By Anjali Mody http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2002121905170100.htm All India Defence Committee for Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani www20.brinkster.com/sargeelani 'Police misinterpreted phone conversation' http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/12/stories/2002101200711300.htm Phone intercepts not admissible evidence under POTA: HC By Nirnimesh Kumar http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/31/stories/2002103106690100.htm Rediff.com Timeline of Attack on the Parliament http://www.rediff.com/news/pattack.htm Geelani issues notice to Hindustan Times, Delhi police http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01072002/0107200281.htm Geelani challenges trial court order on handcuffing http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/02aug06/national.htm#6 Remember December 13? (A Profile of the lawyears defending Geelani) Sankarshan Thakur http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=7818 [india-gii] NEWS: Parliament attackers want phone talks discounted as evidence [india-gii] NEWS: Parliament attackers want phone talks discounted as evidence https://ssl.cpsr.org/pipermail/india-gii/2002-July/001694.html Committee for Fair Trial of the POTA Accused gautam navlakha/ kumar sanjay singh/ tripta wahi/ vijay singh http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=1955&group=webcast 200 University Teachers Seek Fair Trial for Kashmiri Professor http://islamonline.net/English/news/2002-09/24/article36.shtml Human rights body seeks fair trail for Professor Geelani http://bangladesh-web.com/news/aug/31/i31082002.htm The Prisoners Dilemma http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PRISDIL.html From rakesh at sarai.net Wed Dec 18 23:25:13 2002 From: rakesh at sarai.net (Rakesh) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 23:25:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Stree samman Diwas Message-ID: <200212182325.13548.rakesh@sarai.net> Friends Stree Adhikar Sangathan, a women's oganisation is going to celeberate the the 75th anniversary of Mahad Satyagraha led by Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The significance of the mahad Satyagraha can be seen the context of the burning of the MANUSMRITI, which is the only guiding principle of Hinduism to justify its all misdeeds againsts the dalits and women in this country. So that is why the Stree Adhikar Sangathan has decided to celeberate the 75th anniversary of the Manusmriti dahan as the STREE SAMMAN DIWAS on 23th December. In which Bhawari Devi will be awarded for her on going struggle against the patriarchal social order. Time and venue 2pm, 23/12/02 Tagore hall, Delhi Univ. for detail contact at subhanjali at rediffmail.com salam rakesh From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Dec 19 14:15:48 2002 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:15:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Worst is Always Precise In-Reply-To: <02121904242000.07238@sweety.sarai.kit> References: <02121904242000.07238@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <02121914154807.01098@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear Friends, A few clarifications and corrections, subsequent to the posting titled "The Worst is Always Precise" that I made earlier today, on the death sentence awarded yesterday to SAR Gilani. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the invaluable research assistance given to me in the writing of this text by my colleague, Parvati Sharma. Further, there is a small but significant ommission in the text that I posted that i would like to correct. I had said, - "...it is well known that confessions in police custody (generally, aided and abetted by coercion) are generally not admissible as evidence in a court of law. " this fragment should read as follows - "it is well known that confessions in police custody (generally, aided and abetted by coercion) are generally not admissible as evidence in a court of law. (This is of course not true for anything that falls under POTA, but then, that is precisely one of the juridical innovations that makes POTA the lethal instrument that it is)." Finally, for those who might be interested in going back to earlier discussions of the events of December 13 on this list, I would like to refer them to urls for three postings made by me in December 2001, and they are - The Eyes of Dr. Mabuse in Delhi https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2001-December/000967.html 9/11 versus 12/13, https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2001-December/000973.html Attack on Indian Parliament https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2001-December/000936.html regards Shuddha From l_murthy at yahoo.com Thu Dec 19 20:25:45 2002 From: l_murthy at yahoo.com (Laxmi Murthy) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 06:55:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR JUSTICE On Gujarat - Public Meeting In-Reply-To: <200212182325.13548.rakesh@sarai.net> Message-ID: <20021219145545.73947.qmail@web40606.mail.yahoo.com> PUBLIC MEETING INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR JUSTICE Redressing Violence against Women Committed by State and Non-state Actors in Gujarat, 2002 At 3.00 PM Friday, 20 December 2002 Rajendra Bhavan, ITO 210 Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg New Delhi (Opp Gandhi Peace Foundation) Phone: 23231033 The International Initiative for Justice committee is presenting its findings from its four-day visit to Gujarat. The committee visited Baroda, Ahmedabad and Panchmahals-Dahod. The committee�s mandate included investigations into the extent, nature, causes and consequences of the violence � physical as well as sexual � suffered by women between 27 February and the end of March, 2002, in Gujarat, India. They will also address the role of State authorities, including that of the ruling party and the police, and the role of various organisations, particularly fundamentalist religious organisations, with respect to the above events. The panelists are: Rhonda Copelon (Prof. of Law, City University of New School of Law & Director International Human Rights Clinic) Nira Yuval-Davis (Prof. of Gender and Ethnic Studies, University of East London) Sunila Abeysekara (Director, Inform Sri Lanka) Anissa Helie (Co-ordinator Women Living under Muslim Law, UK), Vahida Nainar (Development Director, Women�s Caucus for Gender Justice, India) Meera Vellayudan (Historian, Institute for Environmental and Social Concerns, Kutch) Farah Naqvi (Independent writer and women�s rights activist, New Delhi) Uma Chakravoarty (Historian, Delhi University and member PUDR) Gabriela Mischowski (Historian and co-founder Medico-Mondiale, Germany). Please do come and attend this meeting and spread the word among as many individuals/ organisations as possible. Citizen�s Initiative (Ahmedabad), People�s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Shanti Abhiyan (Vadodara), Communalism Combat (Mumbai), Lawyers Collective (Mumbai), Awaaz-E-Niswaan (Mumbai), Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW, Mumbai), Saheli (Delhi), Jagori (Delhi), Sama (Delhi), Nirantar (Delhi), Organised Lesbian Alliance for Visibility and Action (OLAVA), Pune), and other women�s organisations in India --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021219/aecd1320/attachment.html From fred at bytesforall.org Thu Dec 19 23:20:24 2002 From: fred at bytesforall.org (Frederick Noronha) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 23:20:24 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] NEWS: Int'l women's body to seek genocidal alert in Gujarat Message-ID: International women's body to seek genocidal alert in Gujarat >From Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi, Dec 19 (IANS) A body of women belonging to national and international organisations has called for a "genocidal alert" in Gujarat, describing the violence that was perpetrated in the state earlier this year as "crimes against humanity". At a press conference here Thursday, the International Initiative for Justice, an organisation formed by over a dozen Indian women's groups, asked the international community and the Indian government to, among other things, take urgent steps to try those responsible for the violence and restore to Muslims their right to life, security and survival. The organization had invited Rhonda Copelon, a well known legal expert and professor of law at the City University of New York School of Law, and others to visit the riot-affected areas of Gujarat to investigate the violence, particularly physical and sexual, inflicted upon women since trouble erupted on February 27 with the train torching at Godhra. The Initiative additionally invited a panel of international women activists from the U.S. Sri Lanka, Britain and Germany to visit the riot-torn state where at least a 1,000 people had died in the February-May violence. The group, which visited the state along with Indian women activists this month after the December 12 elections, came out with hard-hitting recommendations, which included what the group called "a genocidal alert". Copelon said the international community, organisations and the U.N. bodies should declare a genocidal alert in Gujarat "to put international pressure on India to avoid a repeat" of the anti-Muslim violence that took place in Gujarat. Among the group's other recommendations are: * Utilise universal jurisdiction to fulfil the obligation to try genocide and crimes against humanity under international law; * Challenge the charitable and tax exempt status of organisations that support, directly or indirectly, the Hindutva agenda; and * Investigate and prevent the sending of funds to organisations participating in the instigation and implementation of genocide and crimes against humanity against the minority communities. Copelon said Gujarat Muslims should be restored their rights to life, security and survival, as guaranteed to others in India. "We fear that there could be a repeat of such of acts of violence in other Indian states." Copelon, who is also director of the International Women's Human Rights Clinic, said "legitimate investigation and prosecution" should be carried out against police and other officials and investigation and prosecution of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Swayamsevek Sangh (RSS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena. --Indo-Asian News Service From monica at sarai.net Wed Dec 18 12:08:02 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 12:08:02 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Screening of Words on Water Message-ID: Words on Water a film by Sanjay Kak Dec 26, 2002 Thu / 7 pm / Main Auditorium Habitat Centre, Lodi Road, New Delhi Documentary / 2002 / 85 mins / Video / English (with subtitles) Synopsis Shasan valo, sun lo aaj! Hamare gaon mein hamaara raaj (Listen to us, you who rule! Our villages, we control) A boat carrying that cargo of defiance begins an urgent journey through the Narmada Valley. For more than 15 years people of this valley have resisted a series of massive dams on the river, and in their struggle have gradually exposed the deceptive heart of India's development politics. But this is 1999, and the Supreme Court of India has just lifted its six-year long legal stay on the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam. The resistance finds itself pushed to its most critical phase Š This is a struggle that has forged unusual alliances. Adivasis in the hills, farmers from the Nimad plain, sand quarriers and fishermen on the river, and middle-class activists. They are ranged against the powerful apparatus of this chosen model of development - Magistrates, Police Commissioners, Ministers, the World Bank, and in this era of privatization, even Multinational Corporations. This is a dialogue with authority that is usually conducted across barricades. But through the tumult and slogans, we make our way to the transactions between power and powerlessness, between truth and untruth. Shot and edited over a period of three years, Words on Water is a film about sustained non-violent resistance, in a world where the use of violence has become the arbiter of political debate. It's about the satyagraha, the assertion of truth, that almost joyous defiance, which empowers the people as they struggle for their rights, yet saves them from the ultimate humiliation of violence Credits Director : Sanjay Kak / Edited by : Sameera Jain & Reena Mohan / Photography : Ranjan Palit & Sanjay Kak / Location Sound : Samina Mishra / Music : Rahul Ram Amit Kilam Asheem Chakravarty -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From amitbasu55 at hotmail.com Fri Dec 20 12:20:30 2002 From: amitbasu55 at hotmail.com (Amit R Basu) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 06:50:30 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] My proposal Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021220/41e076ee/attachment.html From jhasadan at hotmail.com Fri Dec 20 13:19:53 2002 From: jhasadan at hotmail.com (jha sadan) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 13:19:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On technology(ies) and ...violence Message-ID: On technoloy(ies) and...violence Let me pose some of the most primitive questions related to technology(ies)---'technologies for whom' and 'technologies for what'? I am skeeping one obvious question--what is technology? These questions are for beginners and I expect you not to pay any heed to them. One raise an eyebrow over these questions only at the time of ones entry into 'the field'. One gets satisfied with an answer or a set of answers and move to another level. The tension acquires a different form. There is another dimension to the problem. This line of thinking suggests that one does not get satisfied with her/his answers but allows herself/himself to think that the question is itself a futile one and questionning of this kind does not lead to anywhere...And, one moves to another plain. These two approaches obviously do not cover the range of possibilities for not paying attention to primitive questions. The range is so wide and terrain is so rough that it can even go upto responses such as, 'I do not care' or 'damn care!'. 'Are you a social activist/socialist/hypocrat?' Laughter is the best way to unarm, to disorient or to simply destry an urchin who ask these primitive questions. 'It reflects anxiety of a new comer who has not been indoctrinated in/by the field', one argues politically.Phases of continious projection and negation can be stretched on this line of denial. 'What(the hell)do you want to unearth? What the hell do wish to prove? For whom ? For what purpose do you ask...(at all)?' The anxiety to fix the location of the question and to fix the 'author'. Fixed--Bracketed--Destroyed--Mission accomplished--Security Imagined--Security Achieved--Violence negated. I wish to listen first. My background motivates me listening. Tales of violnce and technologies have been told and retold. Each generation has its own story, its own lullabies. These lullabies are neccessary. They give ways to selective amnesia. You forget the violence or locate it in lullabies so that you can sleep well and can dream.Dreams not to remember but for goody goody feelings in the morning. Listening is also a kind of lullaby. I am listening because I have not resolved the anxiety. I have not found any answer to these primitive questions. I have not moved to another plain. Some people are condemned to remain attached. They are stuck and can not move further, can not move ahead. But moving ahead in what direction? Development paradigms come into my mind and I remember Gandhi and modernism and all those ('complex')words with a constently inconsistent prefix, 'post'. I choose Gandhi. He has a lot to offer on technology and violence. This is also due to my ignorance as I have not come accross much on the technology and violence. The ignorance is a bliss too. It helps in listening. It opens up this epistemological landscape. The charm of the landscape keeps one involved with primitiveness(of the question...violence...technology(ies). Sadan Jha. _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_stopmorespam_3mf From jskohli at fig.org Fri Dec 20 14:31:21 2002 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 14:31:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] God still doesn't want us. References: <5.1.1.6.0.20021218081536.00a01bb0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> Message-ID: <3E02DC61.75E9918A@fig.org> Cyril Gupta wrote: > More Free Speech. > > You said... > Yeah we all need that, BUT freedom to do what, deicide yourself > If you were alllowed kill, etc... > question you may ask, why would you kill, > Say you dont' have food to eat and the other person is eating like helll > What will you do, snatch, may require what you didnt' wanted to do... > > My view... > The word 'Freedom' does not imply lawlessness. Don't be mistaken, 'Freedom' > actually means that you are not oppressed by un-just rules and regulations > that hurt your basic rights and you have the basic resources needed to live > your life your way (Someone living below the poverty line is hardly free). > When I said 'Freedom', I definitely didn't mean lawlessness. That should > have been obvious Law (what it is iz again, constraints), are you really free It should have been not freedom then, something more appropriate called restricted independence, unbounded bounds. What is just and unjust, as the defination will be completely diff. for two diff. persons, What may be unjust for you, may be just for me, background, thinking and knowledge is the limiting factor take an example of Stephen Hawking, when he gave lecture about the big bang and his theories on BlackHole in some country i dont' remember, after he ended POP John Paul, said in the speech, WE SHOULD NOT TRY TO INVESTIGATE THE STARTING, OK A BIT AFTER START OF UNIVERSE IS FINE TO DEAL WITH. So as you can see the, different views of two people > > You said... > BTW there was a research conducted around 60's in Europe > why the crime rate is HIGH, every one presented there views > scientists concluded that illiteracy is the reason, So most of the > governtments deicided to educate people, increase the literacy rate > > After 10-20 yrs what happened with literacy over 200% increase in > CRime rate.. > > My view... > First, literacy may not be the only of the rise in crime rate. There might > be some other social or economical factors responsible for this. What you > have presented is just a stat, it doesn't prove that Literacy caused the > rise in crime rate. In fact it isn't even successful in establishing any > sort of relationship. It's just a stat. I might as well say that in 60s the > people were good, and now people are twice as bad, it's the hole in the > ozone layer. > Yeah, it is just a stat, but when did in say that literacy caused the crime rate increase, But it was the way it was imparted. BTW just think how literacy increased crime rate...... A person if he tried to steal something , got caught because of fingeprints, DNA, etc...... many possibilities, But when you are intelligent and logical enough, you can by pass alll thses measures. This is what mostly happened, prev. they did soemthing wrong they got caught and now intelligent enough, lets do it again.... So teaching should be controlled, besides imparting just writing, reading thinking, Philosophy should be part of course > > Secondly, literacy is the capability to read & write. I'd to like to > emphasize on education in which the person is also taught social skills, > responsibility and vocational skills. You taught a guy everything , social skills, responsibility, and vocational skills, now he knows a lot, BUT what social skills, responsibility, vocational skills mean toi that guy if he is unemplyed youth, Why should he refrain himself from doing anything Good or Bad, because his thinking may be different, as when thinking is differernt, difference in opinions, what does differnce in opinions lead to All this social, vocational, etc... stuff loooks good in a economy which can satiisfy all. Everyone has means to stand by, if you are not able to get food why would you even bother to think about being social, when becoming anti-social will help you get foood > > Thirdly, Spiritualism is not going to help prevent crime. Had it helped > there would have been no crimes in medieval India when we had a sort of > spiritual revolution. Crimes can be prevented 1) By curbing crime-prone > individuals 2) By removing the need to commit the crime 3) By ensuring > speedy justice. > What about ancient India, it is due to wronf interpretations, difference in opinions If the teaching is not right, and complete crime can never be prevented. You may know this, "Neem Hakeem Khatraye Jaan" Curbing Crime prone indviduals, why letting them become crime prone at the first place, wont' spiritualism help here... > > You said... > Not at all, rather we are devoting it a lot less than it requires. > We are doing it alll wrong, we are reading it, Instead > listen to what it means, rather than listening to what it reads. > > My view... > I do not know what you mean by 'listen to what it means, rather than listen > to what it reads.' I have heard enough religious people on TV and in > person, and they all mouth the same 10-20 cliches. A giant load of bull if > you ask me. Why don't we concentrate on the progress of our families and > our country instead? > You should learn to get deep into the words, get thier meaning instead of just reading em'. People on TV, great going in completely wrong direction. I can't say anything in here , because all that i say will be limited to my own religion because i have never looked beyond, feel there there is more than enough in there to be searched for by me, if ever i do that. > > You said... > What is GOD? , trying to answere that ques. is not easy. > No comments in here, my views differ drastically from everyone > here, If believer or not... > > My view... > What is God? Or is there a God? Try to find answers now and you will end up > answering the question the same way that the ancients answered 'Why do we > have day & night' and come up with gems like 'The sun revolves around the > Earth', 'The Earth is flat' etc. And if you are fanatically obsessed with > your beliefs, you will want to burn the heretics. Instead, work towards > true knowledge. The fact is, there are no answers embedded in your heart. > At least they're not the right answers. > That is itself my point, i dont treat God as any being that need to be worshiped or whatever, it is pure and true knowledge, nothing less nothing more, that is what is left for people to find out. that is what i believe, God is there because knowledge is here, to be more techy[ B-) ] God is encrypted knoledge with the key inside every Human, but they just ignore it and try Brute Forcing, ignoring the fact that the encryption is "infinte bit". > > You said... > Religion is there for the people without knowledge, to give them what > they lack, > Completely wrong you are, as more knowledge means more relevance of > religion..., as an eXample from "Guru Granth Sahib Ji" if you are familier with > is the HOly book of Sikhs.. > Around 450 yrs ago, it was written(started though), says > "Patala Paataal lakh akaasa akaash" > > means there are uncountable more Earth's and sky's > What has science just proved lately. > there are numerous more examples that if you try to go through the > book will know, and not even a single phrase is there which has been > said it is wrong. > > My view... > I don't intend to talk about any particular religion, but religion as a > whole. We should attempt to make sure that this discussion does not center > about any particular religions. > > Anyway, like I said earlier, our wise-men interpret fantastic things from > the pages of our religious texts. Sometimes, those things may not even be > what the author wrote. And yeah, science has not proved that there are > lakhs of Earths and Skies. There are 'Planets'. 'Eaths and Skies' is very > inaccurate as many of them don't even have an atmosphere, and no other > planet has known to contain life . Why didn't the religious text use the > correct word if the author was all knowing? Most religious texts are > stories, and poetry. Atmosphere, what do you mean by atmosphere Jupiter has an atmosphere, what methane, Suphurc acid clouds every planet has one, Science primer is what you need. Earths' atmosphere is suited tfor Human Beings, may be Jupiters' atm. may be suited for diff, kind of bacteria, (again living creatures) Now here is where i call, incomplete knowledge is usually wrong. and what making it worse is you are limited the possibilities that may arise out of it. Now every now and then, you hear(may be not if you dont' care a darn about science). That they found a abacteraia living in 10 Kms' under water no oxygen, ontly methane etc... The bacterias' atmosphere is what, water, darkness(not light there) methane, heat(1000's of degreees), heavy pressure (1000 times on earth surphace), What do you expect yourself you live there, Now you see change your defination of Atmospehere. Correct word, aah, now you want everything done for you, you want the food to placed in your mouth while you are sleeping and pushed inside stomach with a rod [ :)) ] for digestion. Find the key to encryptions that is what it means..... Key is what you have to find. > You said... > Again wrong, Spiritualism is not one of there goals..... > > without religion there is no Spiritualism > without Spiritualism there is no knowledge, > Without knowledge there is no life, > > My view... > Why is spiritualism a Goal? Who made it a Goal? What benefits do we get by > moving towards Spiritualism? Why isn't a better life a goal? Why isn't > social growth a goal? Can you please DEFINE Spiritualism? > Spiritualism is not a goal, it was never a goal, Spiritualism is just a stop in between the goal of knowledge and life, that stop you shouldn't stop at but shouldn't ignore either. Social Growth comes into question when you have attained life, knowledge, when you don't have both, Social life without life doesnot exist Defining that is posssibly most difficult for me, i just can;t find the words. > > You said... > It is raining you need water to drink, you have an empty bowl > But what if you keep bowl upside down rain wont' fall in it > same is the case of mind, if you keep your mind closed, > letting nothing in. > > My view... > This an example of what a religious leader would say in this situation. Why > is that, that most of us are so easily impressed by the clever use of > language. Why do we find crafty adages, metaphors and comparisons somehow > enlightening? The mind is not a Bowl, and religion is not rain. These are > just fancy words. Why can't the issue be discussed in all honesty? > > The fact is, I have kept my mind open. My mind would have been closed, had > I believed that God is the reason and solution for all things, like my > grandma did (She prayed for 2 hours everyday during her entire life). My > mind would have been closed had I blindly believed what the religious texts > and religious leaders told me. My mind would have been closed had I not > dared to challenge the authority of God on our lives, accepting just like > everybody else that we are puppets in his game. > > Open mind is about accepting new ideas, challenging rotting beliefs. > That's quite right , i tooo try to question every belief i have, i atleast donot folllow them with my eyes wide shut. Again same problem comes, that whatever i say, will be limited to my religion. Why would you want to challenge the authorty of God, Just question what the people say, what has God told you that you dont' liked or believed, whatever religious stuff comes around mee, i just don't take it, think about it, and then accept it , trying doing the same. Open Mind is not accepting every new idea, challenging rotting beliefs But what if those beliefs are not rotting but are smelling great, but are put near a rotting people, The people are smelling bad, who may be imparting those beleifs;' but may be not the religion, may be not the God. > > My bowl my friend, is right side up. > May be mine is too. > You said... > Don't expect to see the light at end of the tunnel, until > the other end is a straight line. You need to read, learn deep > to admire religion.. > > My view... > I have read, and I have seen and my disdain for religion grows with time That is what i said, the pain will grow if you want it tooo, if you try too you can change back to love if you try to question the religion, All your answere within yourslef, just try to find them, searching and thinking is the key, > > You said... > I believe in myself, my quantum self, in my molecules, in my atoms > But DAMN where did they come from. > > Philosophy is not way of life, it is life.... > > My view... > How do you know that GOD is the right answer to your question? Just because > a religious text says so? And you'd probably believe that religious texts > are written by divinity. Have you ever, ever thought of questioning your > beliefs. If you have not, how can you say your viewpoint is > balanced/accurate. Most of us are like that, born in a particular religion > and led by the religious texts and gurus of that religion into > un-questioning belief, and when somebody tries to question the beliefs, > he's ostracized or worse, stoned. > GOD is THE right answere (what is good knowledge as i said above) Question my beleifs, yeah i have done that, every thing have learnt from therer is so accrurate and fine tuned, i just can't find a flaw to go and look outside that world for real truth, what seee, hear, learn, is truth. I don't care if my viewpoint is balanced or not, but from the angle i'm watching it is perfectly balanced, Yeah,i agreee with atleat that, i have seen people questioning the beliefs, what people also question science and get ostracized. Copernicus was tooo, But, Questioning religion doesn't mean you should go and question it without any strong belief of yours, no or false ground to sustain your beliefs. > > If you can believe that science has proved that there are 'countless skies > and Earths', why can't you believe in the Big Bang theory? Why don't you > try looking for the answer in physics books instead of religious texts? > I don't believe in Big Bang theory, who said that, i didn't But the point is what before big bang, big bang happened the mass was so hot and compressed, so unstable, why didn't it happened a little earlier, say 5 billion years, what was before that, Man o Man o Man when physics comes into play, i just love talking about it, as i follow the physics quite closely, esp. astro Physics As more and more powerful telescopes are being made we can may beee seee beyon the big bang, right now we are able to see the flash of Big Bang, As we shalll seeee If it is physics i will go on and on and on, tom is my paper and darn what a the hell i am doin, > > Try and go beyond the religious texts, try writing one yourself. You could > be our next messiah. > I dont' want to be one..., i already have many people i admire so no way Last Lines.... Turn to the light, dont' be frightened by the shadows it casts. > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. -=- When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinde, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-American From jskohli at fig.org Fri Dec 20 14:32:16 2002 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 14:32:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] God still doesn't want us. References: <5.1.1.6.0.20021218081536.00a01bb0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> <5.1.1.6.0.20021220120310.009f91c0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> Message-ID: <3E02DC98.B2B42302@fig.org> Cyril Gupta wrote: > If you are interested in science and astro-physics yeah i am , esp, astro physics, and theoritical physics > > You might want to read some of my science fiction stories. Visit > www.cyrilgupta.com > > If you are interested in religion... You may want to read 'The Divine > Comedy', a story on my site. > after papers i will > > I do have a scientific education you know, incidentally astro-physics is > one of my favourite subjects too. > mine tooooo, just love it > > I may not believe in God, but I still believe in Aliens ;) > > Maybe God is the highest form of life. > You are so right, you hold same view as i do Have you read the book called, Mysterious Unknown by Robbert Charroux While reading that, (it may be little weird), i deduced same thing. and i believe it.... > > regz > Cyril -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. -=- When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinde, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-American From jskohli at fig.org Fri Dec 20 14:28:54 2002 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 14:28:54 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] God still doesn't want us. References: <5.1.1.6.0.20021218081536.00a01bb0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> <5.1.1.6.0.20021220120310.009f91c0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> Message-ID: <3E02DBCE.2BEAE087@fig.org> Cyril Gupta wrote: > If you are interested in science and astro-physics yeah i am , esp, astro physics, and theoritical physics > > You might want to read some of my science fiction stories. Visit > www.cyrilgupta.com > > If you are interested in religion... You may want to read 'The Divine > Comedy', a story on my site. > after papers i will > > I do have a scientific education you know, incidentally astro-physics is > one of my favourite subjects too. > mine tooooo, just love it > > I may not believe in God, but I still believe in Aliens ;) > > Maybe God is the highest form of life. > You are so right, you hold same view as i do Have you read the book called, Mysterious Unknown by Robbert Charroux While reading that, (it may be little weird), i deduced same thing. and i believe it.... > > regz > Cyril -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. -=- When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinde, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-American From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Fri Dec 20 14:46:01 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 09:16:01 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] On technology(ies) and ...violence In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20021220091601.GA8075@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> But first and obvious question before asking any of those questions is what is \technology? Where does it exist and how does it help. Because I tend to define \technology as a sort of adaptation which allows and species a advantage in surv\ival(short term / long term). An interesting example would be multiple marriage system in muslims, its a sort\ of social change brought about due to low male population after holy wars with\ christian. It is also a technique to balance out male/female ratio. You see techenology every where in animal kingdom. Having built high quality st\ealth, chemical warfare and camaflauge techeniques long before human being came\ along. Rats and snakes have never signed a peace treaty. Snakes have one of the most l\ethal chemicals under their hood coupled with infra red heat sensing system. Bu\t rats never complained they developed there own ways to survive that is to rep\roduce quickly and to have high matabolic rate. It also exists at cellular and genetic level. HIV is case in point. Technology bringing long term changes in a species would be probably be called \adaption. You and me have been using soap for so long that skin cells would have lost its\ ability to resist against microbes penetration. Lets say one day all the soap \producing factories go dead. Guess who would survive, maybe tribals from santha\l parganas or pygmeys of congo and probably americans as a week branch would b\e enslaved by them. Trying to look at technology the way Darwin saw Galapagos etc and supreet PS: If you are not able to make head or tail of what I wrote, do'nt worry you are not the only one. -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From pukar at bol.net.in Thu Dec 19 19:47:33 2002 From: pukar at bol.net.in (PUKAR @ The Paperie) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 19:47:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] The Urban Turn on SATURDAY Message-ID: Dear Friends: PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) cordially invites you to a panel discussion on "The Urban Turn" this coming Saturday. Four distinguished sociologists and historians will speak about the increasing importance of studies of the urban experience to wider understandings of the history and culture of modernity in India. This will be followed by a moderated discussion with the audience. Speakers: SUJATA PATEL is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at University of Pune. She is the co-editor, with Alice Thorner, of Bombay: Metaphor for Modern Culture and Bombay: Mosaic of Modern India (both Delhi: Oxford India, 1995), of which the next volume, co-edited with Jim Masselos, is currently in press. She is an Advisor to PUKAR. JAIRUS BANAJI worked with the unions in Bombay through the eighties, when he published Beyond Multinationalism: Management Policy and Bargaining Relationships in International Companies (Delhi: Sage, 1990). His most recent book is Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labour, and Aristocratic Dominance (Oxford, 2002). GYAN PRAKASH is Professor of History at Princeton University, U.S.A. and a member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective. He is the author of Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labour Servitude in Colonial India (Cambridge, 1990), Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton, 1999), and has written several articles and edited several volumes on colonial history and historiography. Discussant: RAJ CHANDAVARKAR is a historian and is Director, Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge University, U.K., where he is a Fellow of Trinity College. He is the author of The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Class in Bombay 1900-1940 (Cambridge, 1994) and Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India 1850-1890 (Cambridge, 1998). Date: SATURDAY 21 DECEMBER 2002 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. At: The BOMBAY PAPERIE Mezzanine Floor, Soonawalla Building 59, Bombay Samachar Marg Opposite the Stock Exchange Fort, Bombay 400001 R.S.V.P. Phone Shekhar Krishnan or Rahul Srivastava at 2077779 E-Mail About PUKAR @ The Paperie: These discussions is part of a monthly programme organised by PUKAR for friends and guests at The Bombay Paperie, Fort. These gatherings are usually held on the third or fourth Saturday of every month at 6.00 p.m. PUKAR thanks Neeta Premchand and Navaz Kotwal of The Bombay Paperie, for hosting this monthly public discussion. We look forward to your attendance and participation, and suggesting names of people and organisations to add to our mailing list. For more information, call PUKAR at 22077779. Regards, Rahul Srivastava, Shekhar Krishnan and Vyjayanthi Rao Coordinators _____ PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) P.O. Box 5627 Dadar, Mumbai 400014, India E-Mail Phone +91 (022) 2077779, +91 98200.45529, +91 98204.04010 Web Site http://www.pukar.org.in _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From cyril at cyrilgupta.com Sat Dec 21 04:46:56 2002 From: cyril at cyrilgupta.com (Cyril Gupta) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 15:16:56 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] Some difference in viewpoints Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20021220150851.009f3d30@mail.cyrilgupta.com> Hi... I don't share exactly your views.. There are several important differences. God as a higher form of life (not an omnipotent super-being). Maybe an alien life form that played a role in our existence and we regard that as god. (x. Robots if intelligent enough or if programmed to might consider their creators as god). I don't think God governs our life, or believe in things like heaven and hell. I don't believe that God punishes the sinners or rewards the pious people. (corollary of the earlier point.) I don't believe God is listening to our prayers. I don't believe in prophets or that God has outlined a code of conduct for us as provided in the scriptures. I don't believe in religion. In other words, strip all Godlike powers from God. What you have left is my interpretation of God. It is possible that God is dead. God might as well be a human invention. To understand what I am suggesting, please try and read Arthur C Clarke's 2001 a Space Odyssey, and look for the aliens who arrive on Earth in the beginning of time, they might as well be our Gods. regz Cyril From kanti.kumar at oneworld.net Fri Dec 20 16:15:25 2002 From: kanti.kumar at oneworld.net (Kanti Kumar) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 16:15:25 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] OKN looking for Software Solutions Architect Message-ID: Hi Friends, Open Knowledge Network is looking for a Software Solutions Architect. This is a unique one-year opportunity for a leading software specialist to take the lead on developing a global open source system with a potentially high impact in the South. The full advertisement is available online at http://jobs.oneworld.net/ads/index.cfm?job_id=1892, but I have also posted the job description below. Please do circulate this message to anyone you think might be interested. We would of course welcome applications from any members of this list with the right experience and qualifications. The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday 10th January and interviews will be held at the end of January. Please note that we will not accept CVs for this position. For an application pack email jobs at oneworld.net. Find out more about OKN at http://www.openknowledge.net/. Kanti Kumar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021220/6cf14eda/attachment.html From shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Thu Dec 19 22:20:45 2002 From: shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (shohini) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 22:20:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Amnesty Against Death Penalty Message-ID: <000001c2a7bc$7d165120$fde941db@shohini> AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE AI Index: ASA 20/024/2002 (Public) News Service No: 238 19 December 2002 India: The cause of justice is not served by judicial murder Amnesty International is dismayed at the death sentences handed down to three people accused of the 13 December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. "The death penalty is a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment," Amnesty International said today. "We oppose the death penalty unconditionally, whether it is imposed on alleged criminals or on so-called terrorists," the international human rights organization added. The death penalty is a harsh punishment, but is not harsh on crime. A survey conducted for the United Nations, concluded: "...research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment. Such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. The evidence as a whole still gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis". A former Chief Justice of India, P.N. Bhagwati observed: "There are no objective standards regulating the imposition of the death penalty. Life is too precious a thing to be submitted to the subjective decision of a judge." "The risk of executing innocent people is increased when international fair trial standards have not been implemented. In the present case, we are concerned that the trial of Abdul Rehman Geelani and two other men may have failed to meet international standards for fair trial," Amnesty International said. The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) -- the legislation under which the three men were charged and tried for conspiracy and waging war against India -- falls considerably short of international fair trial standards. Amnesty International acknowledges that the Indian government has the right and the obligation to ensure law and order and to protect citizens from violent crime. However, in the attempt to curb "terrorism", governments must not relegate human rights protection to second place. Security concerns must not override respect for human rights. Media coverage of the trial has abused the defendants' right to a fair trial, as it has been extremely prejudicial. On the anniversary of the attack, and only three days before the designated POTA trial court announced its verdict, a private television channel screened a film which was exclusively based on the premise that the defendants were guilty of the charges made against them. Amnesty International believes that the government of India took insufficient care in ensuring that the defendants' right to be presumed innocent, the most basic aspect of the right to a fair trial, was respected. Background In a suicide attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001, nine people were killed and 16 injured. Four people, Mohammad Afzal, Shaukat Hussain, his wife Najot Sandhu, and Abdul Rehman Geelani were arrested and tried for various offences under the Indian Penal Code, POTA, the Arms Act and the Explosive Substances Act. On 16 December the three men were convicted of waging war against India and attempting to kill politicians in the parliament building. On 18 December they were sentenced to death. Najor Sandhu was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for concealing the plot. Before the trial started, Amnesty International expressed concern regarding the right to fair trial of the four accused in an Open Letter to the Union Law Minister. More than half the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty in law and many others have abolished it in practice. This worldwide trend is reflected in the statutes of the International Criminal Court, the Yugoslavia and the Rwanda Criminal Tribunals, which completely reject the death penalty including for crimes against humanity and genocide. The right to life is an inalienable human right--accorded equally to every individual regardless of their identity or actions. Public Document **************************************** For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566 Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org (Embedded image moved to file: pic05967.pcx) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021219/0c614636/attachment.html From jskohli at fig.org Fri Dec 20 17:54:14 2002 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 17:54:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] God still doesn't want us. References: <5.1.1.6.0.20021218081536.00a01bb0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> <5.1.1.6.0.20021220120310.009f91c0@mail.cyrilgupta.com> <3E02DC98.B2B42302@fig.org> Message-ID: <3E030BEE.BBB6A0A3@fig.org> Darn , my mail server gone nuts, hehe, :D Jaswinder Singh Kohli wrote: > Cyril Gupta wrote: > > > If you are interested in science and astro-physics > > yeah i am , esp, astro physics, and theoritical physics > > > > > You might want to read some of my science fiction stories. Visit > > www.cyrilgupta.com > > > > If you are interested in religion... You may want to read 'The Divine > > Comedy', a story on my site. > > > > after papers i will > > > > > I do have a scientific education you know, incidentally astro-physics is > > one of my favourite subjects too. > > > > mine tooooo, just love it > > > > > I may not believe in God, but I still believe in Aliens ;) > > > > Maybe God is the highest form of life. > > > > You are so right, you hold same view as i do > Have you read the book called, Mysterious Unknown by Robbert Charroux > > While reading that, (it may be little weird), i deduced same thing. > and i believe it.... > > > > > regz > > Cyril > > -- > > Regards > Jaswinder Singh Kohli > jskohli at fig.org > :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: > The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. > -=- > When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. > When you sit on a red-hot cinde, a second seems like an hour. > That's relativity. > Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-American > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. -=- When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinde, a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-American From pankaj at sarai.net Sat Dec 21 00:48:51 2002 From: pankaj at sarai.net (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 00:48:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Palladium/TCPA Consequences Message-ID: <20021220191851.GA715@localhost> Palladium/TCPA. --------------- In June 2002, Microsoft released information regarding its new "Palladium" initiative. Palladium is a system that combines software and hardware controls to create a "trusted" computing platform. TCPA stands for the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance. it is an initiative led by Intel teaming up with fellow founders Microsoft, Compaq, HP and IBM. Now there are 180 member companies of the TCPA, including AMD, Novell, Nvidia, Infineon, and just about every significant IT security vendor. The main points here are security and DRM. lets take them one by one. Palladium OS will stop viruses by preventing the running of malicious programs, will store personal data within an encrypted folder, will depend on hardware that has either a digital signature or a tracking number, will filter spam. just what everyone wanted but all these features are already avaliable as third party tools. We have had most of these capabilities in software for years, but haven't bothered to exercise them. The system will incorporate Digital Rights Management technologies for media files of all types (music, documents, e-mail communications). Additionally, the system purports to transmit data within the computer via encrypted paths. This is the more intresting part, what this means is that it is up to an application to set the security policy for its files, using an "online policy server." So Media Player will determine what sort of conditions get attached to protected titles, Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will decrypt and run on a Palladium platform, but which you won't be able to copy. The music industry will be able to sell you music downloads that you won't be able to swap. They will be able to sell you CDs that you'll only be able to play three times, or only on your birthday. All sorts of new marketing possibilities will open up. TCPA / Palladium will also make it much harder for you to run unlicensed software. Pirate software can be detected and deleted remotely. There are many other possibilities. Governments will be able to arrange things so that all Word documents created on civil servants' PCs are `born classified' and can't be leaked electronically to journalists. There will be remote censorship: the mechanisms designed to delete pirated music under remote control may be used to delete documents that a court (or a software company) has decided are offensive - this could be anything from pornography to writings that criticise political leaders. Software companies can also make it harder for you to switch to their competitors' products; for example, Word could encrypt all your documents using keys that only Microsoft products have access to; this would mean that you could only read them using Microsoft products, not with any competing word processor like OpenOffice. The known elements of the Microsoft DRM system will control users and limit the abilities of computers. Microsoft has obtained approval for two patents in December 2001 that contained many of the basic elements of a trusted operating system. Lets see how this works. TCPA provides for a monitoring and reporting component to be mounted in future PCs. The preferred implementation in the first phase of TCPA is a `Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. The early versions might be vulnerable to anyone with the tools and patience to crack the hardware e.g., get data on the bus between the CPU and the Fritz chip. However, from phase 2, the Fritz chip will disappear inside the main processor and things will get a lot harder. When you boot up your PC, Fritz takes charge. checks that the boot ROM is as expected, executes it, measures the state of the machine; then checks the first part of the operating system, loads and executes it, checks the state of the machine; and so on. The trust boundary, of hardware and software considered to be known and verified, is steadily expanded. A table is maintained of the hardware (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc); Fritz checks that the hardware components are on the TCPA approved list, that the software components have been signed, and that none of them has a serial number that has been revoked. If there are significant changes to the PC's configuration, the machine must go online to be re-certified. The result is a PC booted into a known state with an approved combination of hardware and software (whose licences have not expired). Control is then handed over to enforcement software in the o perating system - this will be Palladium if your operating system is Windows. There is another problem TCPA will undermine the General Public License (GPL), At least two companies have started work on a TCPA-enhanced version of GNU/linux. This will involve tidying up the code and removing a number of features. To get a certificate from the TCPA corsortium, the sponsor will then have to submit the pruned code to an evaluation lab, together with a mass of documentation showing why various known attacks on the code don't work. (The evaluation is at level E3 - expensive enough to keep out the free software community, yet lax enough for most commercial software vendors to have a chance to get their lousy code through. Although the modified program will be covered by the GPL, and the source code will be free to everyone, it will not make full use of the TCPA features unless you have a certificate for it that is specific to the Fritz chip on your own machine. That is what will cost you money (if not at first, then eventually). TCPA appears designed to maximise the effect, and thus the economic power, of such behaviour. Given Microsoft's record of competitive strategic plays, I expect that Palladium will support them. So if you control a TCPA-enabled application, then your policy server can enforce your choice of rules about which other applications will be allowed to use the files your code creates. These files can be protected using strong cryptography, with keys controlled by the Fritz chips on everybody's machines. What this means is that a successful TCPA-enabled application will be worth much more money to the software company that controls it, as they can rent out access to their interfaces for whatever the market will bear. So there will be huge pressures on software developers to enable their applications for TCPA; and if Palladium is the first operating system to support TCPA, this will give it a competitive advantage over GNU/Linux and MacOS with the developer community. On a TCPA-enhanced Linux system you will still be free to make modifications to the modified code, but you won't be able to get a certificate that gets you into the TCPA system. Something similar happens with the linux supplied by Sony for the Playstation 2; the console's copy protection mechanisms prevent you from running an altered binary, and from using a number of the hardware features. Once the majority of PCs on the market are TCPA-enabled, the GPL won't work as intended. The benefit for Microsoft is not that this will destroy free software directly. The point is this: once people realise that even GPL'led software can be hijacked for commercial purposes, idealistic young programmers will be much less motivated to write free software. More Reading. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,53805,00.html http://www.trustedcomputing.org/tcpaasp4/white_papers.asp -- $you = new YOU; honk() if $you->love(perl); From jamie.dow at pobox.com Fri Dec 20 19:12:50 2002 From: jamie.dow at pobox.com (Jamie Dow) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 13:42:50 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Some difference in viewpoints In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20021220150851.009f3d30@mail.cyrilgupta.com> Message-ID: Hmmmm. There is something fundamentally right about this questionning approach to religion. I fully endorse it. It seems to me to spring from the very same roots as produces good science. What is more surprising to me is how satisfied contributors seem to be with mere assertion "I believe x", "I don't believe y". If the instinct is correct that drives us to inquire and seek out reliable ways of getting knowledge, then we would perhaps expect some appeal to evidence underpinning both assertions and denials within the religious (as any other) arena. If religious claims are to be assessed as true or false, then we need to look specifically at what their truth claims are. And then at what evidence there is that they are true. If religious claims are to be treated as ways of life, nothing more than ethics, then we will need to determine whether they are desireable or not, i.e. would it be good to adopt this way or life & behaviour? In order to do this, we will need some independent desires, or measures of desireability, and measure the claims against them. A number of candidates have proved popular here! In both types of assessment, there will be found to be radical differences between the claims of different religions. The kind of blanket assessment of "spirituality" characteristic of the debate so far runs the risk of producing results and assessments that don't apply to any actual religion. It is interesting to see how different these issues look depending on one's background. Certainly in the view from my own eyes, UK based and Christian, I see Christians flocking into the natural sciences (I rather wish there was greater interest in the Arts sometimes, but I suppose perhaps that viewed historically there's been enough!), some becoming very eminent, and some very eminent scientists becoming Christians. This doesn't seem to require the excising of all but rational elements from the Christian worldview, but it does seem to require at least that the Christian worldview be justifiable in the way that any worldview may be by appeal to evidence. If this is in place, then less calculating aspects can have their place, just as they do within the security of relationships with family and friends. Perhaps a different schema of evaluation is required, where truth-claims take a less central place. There might be such thing as a mystical epistemology, a spiritual heuristic .... I'm not sure what they would look like, but perhaps others might care to venture suggestions. -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-admin at mail.sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at mail.sarai.net]On Behalf Of Cyril Gupta Sent: 20 December 2002 23:17 To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: [Reader-list] Some difference in viewpoints Hi... I don't share exactly your views.. There are several important differences. God as a higher form of life (not an omnipotent super-being). Maybe an alien life form that played a role in our existence and we regard that as god. (x. Robots if intelligent enough or if programmed to might consider their creators as god). I don't think God governs our life, or believe in things like heaven and hell. I don't believe that God punishes the sinners or rewards the pious people. (corollary of the earlier point.) I don't believe God is listening to our prayers. I don't believe in prophets or that God has outlined a code of conduct for us as provided in the scriptures. I don't believe in religion. In other words, strip all Godlike powers from God. What you have left is my interpretation of God. It is possible that God is dead. God might as well be a human invention. To understand what I am suggesting, please try and read Arthur C Clarke's 2001 a Space Odyssey, and look for the aliens who arrive on Earth in the beginning of time, they might as well be our Gods. regz Cyril _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Fri Dec 20 19:21:05 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 13:51:05 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Palladium/TCPA Consequences In-Reply-To: <20021220191851.GA715@localhost> References: <20021220191851.GA715@localhost> Message-ID: <20021220135105.GA10651@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> One thing I know about TCPA is that it is flawed. In fact full of them. Will post the authentication and encryption mechenism of TCPA and plaladium. BTW TCPA and palladium are not the same. They are definately realted but but not same. So you can't write it as Palladium/TCPA or use it as interchangeble terms. etc and supreet On Sat, Dec 21, 2002 at 12:48:51AM +0530, Pankaj Kaushal wrote: > Palladium/TCPA. > --------------- > > In June 2002, Microsoft released information regarding its new > "Palladium" initiative. Palladium is a system that combines > software and hardware controls to create a "trusted" computing > platform. > > TCPA stands for the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance. it is > an initiative led by Intel teaming up with fellow founders > Microsoft, Compaq, HP and IBM. Now there are 180 member companies > of the TCPA, including AMD, Novell, Nvidia, Infineon, and just > about every significant IT security vendor. > > The main points here are security and DRM. lets take them one by > one. > > Palladium OS will stop viruses by preventing the running of > malicious programs, will store personal data within an encrypted > folder, will depend on hardware that has either a digital signature > or a tracking number, will filter spam. just what everyone wanted > but all these features are already avaliable as third party tools. > > We have had most of these capabilities in software for years, but > haven't bothered to exercise them. > > The system will incorporate Digital Rights Management technologies > for media files of all types (music, documents, e-mail communications). > Additionally, the system purports to transmit data within the computer > via encrypted paths. > > This is the more intresting part, what this means is that it is up to an > application to set the security policy for its files, using an "online > policy server." So Media Player will determine what sort of conditions get > attached to protected titles, Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will > decrypt and run on a Palladium platform, but which you won't be able to copy. > The music industry will be able to sell you music downloads that you won't > be able to swap. They will be able to sell you CDs that you'll only be able > to play three times, or only on your birthday. All sorts of new marketing > possibilities will open up. > > TCPA / Palladium will also make it much harder for you to run unlicensed > software. Pirate software can be detected and deleted remotely. > > There are many other possibilities. Governments will be able to arrange things > so that all Word documents created on civil servants' PCs are `born classified' > and can't be leaked electronically to journalists. > > There will be remote censorship: the mechanisms designed to delete pirated > music under remote control may be used to delete documents that a court (or > a software company) has decided are offensive - this could be anything from > pornography to writings that criticise political leaders. > > Software companies can also make it harder for you to switch to their competitors' > products; for example, Word could encrypt all your documents using keys that only > Microsoft products have access to; this would mean that you could only read them > using Microsoft products, not with any competing word processor like OpenOffice. > > The known elements of the Microsoft DRM system will control users and limit > the abilities of computers. Microsoft has obtained approval for two patents > in December 2001 that contained many of the basic elements of a trusted > operating system. > > Lets see how this works. TCPA provides for a monitoring and reporting component > to be mounted in future PCs. The preferred implementation in the first phase of > TCPA is a `Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. > The early versions might be vulnerable to anyone with the tools and patience to > crack the hardware e.g., get data on the bus between the CPU and the Fritz chip. > However, from phase 2, the Fritz chip will disappear inside the main processor > and things will get a lot harder. > > When you boot up your PC, Fritz takes charge. checks that the boot ROM is as > expected, executes it, measures the state of the machine; then checks the first > part of the operating system, loads and executes it, checks the state of the > machine; and so on. The trust boundary, of hardware and software considered to > be known and verified, is steadily expanded. A table is maintained of the hardware > (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc); Fritz checks > that the hardware components are on the TCPA approved list, that the software > components have been signed, and that none of them has a serial number that has > been revoked. If there are significant changes to the PC's configuration, > the machine must go online to be re-certified. The result is a PC booted into a > known state with an approved combination of hardware and software (whose licences > have not expired). Control is then handed over to enforcement software in the o > perating system - this will be Palladium if your operating system is Windows. > > There is another problem TCPA will undermine the General Public License (GPL), > At least two companies have started work on a TCPA-enhanced version of GNU/linux. > This will involve tidying up the code and removing a number of features. To get > a certificate from the TCPA corsortium, the sponsor will then have to submit the > pruned code to an evaluation lab, together with a mass of documentation showing > why various known attacks on the code don't work. (The evaluation is at level E3 > - expensive enough to keep out the free software community, yet lax enough for > most commercial software vendors to have a chance to get their lousy code through. > Although the modified program will be covered by the GPL, and the source code will > be free to everyone, it will not make full use of the TCPA features unless you have > a certificate for it that is specific to the Fritz chip on your own machine. That > is what will cost you money (if not at first, then eventually). > > TCPA appears designed to maximise the effect, and thus the economic power, of such > behaviour. Given Microsoft's record of competitive strategic plays, I expect that > Palladium will support them. So if you control a TCPA-enabled application, then > your policy server can enforce your choice of rules about which other applications > will be allowed to use the files your code creates. These files can be protected > using strong cryptography, with keys controlled by the Fritz chips on everybody's > machines. What this means is that a successful TCPA-enabled application will be > worth much more money to the software company that controls it, as they can rent > out access to their interfaces for whatever the market will bear. So there will be > huge pressures on software developers to enable their applications for TCPA; and if > Palladium is the first operating system to support TCPA, this will give it a > competitive advantage over GNU/Linux and MacOS with the developer community. > > On a TCPA-enhanced Linux system you will still be free to make modifications to > the modified code, but you won't be able to get a certificate that gets you into > the TCPA system. Something similar happens with the linux supplied by Sony for > the Playstation 2; the console's copy protection mechanisms prevent you from > running an altered binary, and from using a number of the hardware features. > > Once the majority of PCs on the market are TCPA-enabled, the GPL won't work > as intended. The benefit for Microsoft is not that this will destroy free software > directly. The point is this: once people realise that even GPL'led software can be > hijacked for commercial purposes, idealistic young programmers will be much less > motivated to write free software. > > More Reading. > > http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html > http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,53805,00.html > http://www.trustedcomputing.org/tcpaasp4/white_papers.asp > > > > > -- > $you = new YOU; > honk() if $you->love(perl); > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From pollyhazarika at rediffmail.com Fri Dec 20 23:36:31 2002 From: pollyhazarika at rediffmail.com (polly hazarika) Date: 20 Dec 2002 18:06:31 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: <20021220180631.12447.qmail@webmail32.rediffmail.com> In response to shuddha's - the worst is always precise It is at moments like these and of late there have been so many such moments, when blatant injustice is dished out as the morning news it is at moments like these that helplessness sets in. Full color pictures of seventeen-year-old boys somebody's terrorist, somebody else's son blood spattered on the ground with ammunition and dry fruits scattered indiscriminately around the body. Or maybe an almost smiling captive who you know has been tortured just under the neatly ironed shirt and trousers. At moments like these it is hard to remember that the uniformed face smiling over the body, or around the captive, is just another guy, doing his job, in the way he knows best trying grab his moment of fame, and it is even harder to answer the question in his place, with his life would I be any different. It is hard to avoid the binaries of good and evil. Of sympathy for the dead of hatred for the ones who are alive. But of the tears that are shed perhaps some are for the oppressed and some for the oppressor. Things never really do boil down to easy choices the all consuming power of the state,is projected in the uniform, which, when stripped off reveals a person naked, vulnerable, and looking just like me. The 'pawn in the game', the cog in the wheels. Where is the Person behind it all? Who can I hold Responsible? To whom shall I say 'you made this mess fix it immediately and give me back a world that is worth inheriting.'? Wherever I look, the individual people look just like me, vulnerable afraid, trying to protect what they think is worthwhile sometimes it is power, sometimes it is dignity, sometimes it is a family sometimes it is just sanity they protect it fiercely in the manner they think is best. And me? Where do I fit in ...into this routine of bad news, this cycle of tears and anger what do I do when this happens to me (Happens to you? What happens to you? These things never happen to you. You are a part of the police protected, money spending,luxury loving, intellectually comatose upper class you are the problem you will never solve it) but something happens to me. When a life is lost, something does happen to me, the tears are for potential which is lost, for the suffering at the moment of death, for the courage to die, for the fear of death, for the lies that will be built around the death, for the many many more who will be enabled to follow who will be enabled to keep the cycle going. But what of these tears? When the tears have dried and the anger subsides at which moment exactly does life slip back into a routine of days and nights, of house rent, and bus tickets, tomorrows classes and tonight's dinner ? Here I stand with no faith in the State. In its system of justice in its democracy in its promise of freedom, in its guarantee of life. And here I stand with no faith in Protest. In its signature campaigns, in its demonstrations and marches, in its ineffectual slogans, yelled out at uncaring policemen. And here I stand with no alternative plan. Everytime this moment repeats itself I stand accused of doing nothing. From areflagan at artpanorama.com Sat Dec 21 00:19:26 2002 From: areflagan at artpanorama.com (Are Flagan) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 13:49:26 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Palladium/TCPA Consequences In-Reply-To: <20021220135105.GA10651@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Message-ID: On 12/20/02 8:51, "Supreet Sethi" wrote: > One thing I know about TCPA is that it is flawed. In fact full of them. > Will post the authentication and encryption mechenism of TCPA and > plaladium. This was the refrain at H2K2 this summer, too. But those unfamiliar with keyboard sniffers and various other tricks will be running Palladium and very little else. The impact on computing as a whole will be immense. Some voiced the hope that people at large will get so pissed off at watching TV with someone else handling the remote control (try it and see how annoyed you can get), which Palladium by some simplistic measure adds up to, that the population at large will turn to hacking and cracking to reclaim their machine. As for the actual computer science of Palladium, it was, as Supreet points out, described as retarded. However, looks like the DMCA kept people complaining about it long enough for the Palladium set up to work out the "problems" it addressed. -af From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Sat Dec 21 00:46:49 2002 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 00:46:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Palladium/TCPA Consequences Message-ID: <20021220191649.GA531@localhost> Palladium/TCPA. --------------- In June 2002, Microsoft released information regarding its new "Palladium" initiative. Palladium is a system that combines software and hardware controls to create a "trusted" computing platform. TCPA stands for the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance. it is an initiative led by Intel teaming up with fellow founders Microsoft, Compaq, HP and IBM. Now there are 180 member companies of the TCPA, including AMD, Novell, Nvidia, Infineon, and just about every significant IT security vendor. The main points here are security and DRM. lets take them one by one. Palladium OS will stop viruses by preventing the running of malicious programs, will store personal data within an encrypted folder, will depend on hardware that has either a digital signature or a tracking number, will filter spam. just what everyone wanted but all these features are already avaliable as third party tools. We have had most of these capabilities in software for years, but haven't bothered to exercise them. The system will incorporate Digital Rights Management technologies for media files of all types (music, documents, e-mail communications). Additionally, the system purports to transmit data within the computer via encrypted paths. This is the more intresting part, what this means is that it is up to an application to set the security policy for its files, using an "online policy server." So Media Player will determine what sort of conditions get attached to protected titles, Disney will be able to sell you DVDs that will decrypt and run on a Palladium platform, but which you won't be able to copy. The music industry will be able to sell you music downloads that you won't be able to swap. They will be able to sell you CDs that you'll only be able to play three times, or only on your birthday. All sorts of new marketing possibilities will open up. TCPA / Palladium will also make it much harder for you to run unlicensed software. Pirate software can be detected and deleted remotely. There are many other possibilities. Governments will be able to arrange things so that all Word documents created on civil servants' PCs are `born classified' and can't be leaked electronically to journalists. There will be remote censorship: the mechanisms designed to delete pirated music under remote control may be used to delete documents that a court (or a software company) has decided are offensive - this could be anything from pornography to writings that criticise political leaders. Software companies can also make it harder for you to switch to their competitors' products; for example, Word could encrypt all your documents using keys that only Microsoft products have access to; this would mean that you could only read them using Microsoft products, not with any competing word processor like OpenOffice. The known elements of the Microsoft DRM system will control users and limit the abilities of computers. Microsoft has obtained approval for two patents in December 2001 that contained many of the basic elements of a trusted operating system. Lets see how this works. TCPA provides for a monitoring and reporting component to be mounted in future PCs. The preferred implementation in the first phase of TCPA is a `Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. The early versions might be vulnerable to anyone with the tools and patience to crack the hardware e.g., get data on the bus between the CPU and the Fritz chip. However, from phase 2, the Fritz chip will disappear inside the main processor and things will get a lot harder. When you boot up your PC, Fritz takes charge. checks that the boot ROM is as expected, executes it, measures the state of the machine; then checks the first part of the operating system, loads and executes it, checks the state of the machine; and so on. The trust boundary, of hardware and software considered to be known and verified, is steadily expanded. A table is maintained of the hardware (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc); Fritz checks that the hardware components are on the TCPA approved list, that the software components have been signed, and that none of them has a serial number that has been revoked. If there are significant changes to the PC's configuration, the machine must go online to be re-certified. The result is a PC booted into a known state with an approved combination of hardware and software (whose licences have not expired). Control is then handed over to enforcement software in the o perating system - this will be Palladium if your operating system is Windows. There is another problem TCPA will undermine the General Public License (GPL), At least two companies have started work on a TCPA-enhanced version of GNU/linux. This will involve tidying up the code and removing a number of features. To get a certificate from the TCPA corsortium, the sponsor will then have to submit the pruned code to an evaluation lab, together with a mass of documentation showing why various known attacks on the code don't work. (The evaluation is at level E3 - expensive enough to keep out the free software community, yet lax enough for most commercial software vendors to have a chance to get their lousy code through. Although the modified program will be covered by the GPL, and the source code will be free to everyone, it will not make full use of the TCPA features unless you have a certificate for it that is specific to the Fritz chip on your own machine. That is what will cost you money (if not at first, then eventually). TCPA appears designed to maximise the effect, and thus the economic power, of such behaviour. Given Microsoft's record of competitive strategic plays, I expect that Palladium will support them. So if you control a TCPA-enabled application, then your policy server can enforce your choice of rules about which other applications will be allowed to use the files your code creates. These files can be protected using strong cryptography, with keys controlled by the Fritz chips on everybody's machines. What this means is that a successful TCPA-enabled application will be worth much more money to the software company that controls it, as they can rent out access to their interfaces for whatever the market will bear. So there will be huge pressures on software developers to enable their applications for TCPA; and if Palladium is the first operating system to support TCPA, this will give it a competitive advantage over GNU/Linux and MacOS with the developer community. On a TCPA-enhanced Linux system you will still be free to make modifications to the modified code, but you won't be able to get a certificate that gets you into the TCPA system. Something similar happens with the linux supplied by Sony for the Playstation 2; the console's copy protection mechanisms prevent you from running an altered binary, and from using a number of the hardware features. Once the majority of PCs on the market are TCPA-enabled, the GPL won't work as intended. The benefit for Microsoft is not that this will destroy free software directly. The point is this: once people realise that even GPL'led software can be hijacked for commercial purposes, idealistic young programmers will be much less motivated to write free software. More Reading. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,53805,00.html http://www.trustedcomputing.org/tcpaasp4/white_papers.asp -- $you = new YOU; honk() if $you->love(perl); From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Sat Dec 21 03:12:05 2002 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2002 03:12:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Palladium/TCPA Consequences In-Reply-To: <20021220135105.GA10651@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Message-ID: <20021220214050.GA1528@localhost> On Fri, Dec 20, 2002 at 01:51:05PM +0000, Supreet Sethi wrote: Supreet Sethi> One thing I know about TCPA is that it is flawed. In fact full of them. Supreet Sethi> Will post the authentication and encryption mechenism of TCPA and Supreet Sethi> plaladium. Supreet Sethi> Supreet Sethi> Supreet Sethi> BTW TCPA and palladium are not the same. They are definately realted but Supreet Sethi> but not same. So you can't write it as Palladium/TCPA or use it as Supreet Sethi> interchangeble terms. I think I explained both of them. writing Palladium/TCPA dsnt mean i am using them interchangebly if this is a english grammer rule I dont know of please enlighten. -- $you = new YOU; honk() if $you->love(perl); From subhajitc at rediffmail.com Sun Dec 22 20:23:27 2002 From: subhajitc at rediffmail.com (Subhajit Chatterjee) Date: 22 Dec 2002 14:53:27 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021222145327.1895.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021222/eda29177/attachment.pl From japna8 at hotmail.com Sun Dec 22 23:25:49 2002 From: japna8 at hotmail.com (Japna Tulsi) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 17:55:49 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] TIPAIMUKH DAM PROJECT - A BANE FOR THE DISPLACED OUSTEES Message-ID: Isn't flood control one of the functions the Tipaimukh dam is meant to serve? Although flood-control and power generation from the same dam are usually incompatible objectives. >From: SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY >Reply-To: mithi at silchar.com >To: reader-list at sarai.net, bhochka at yahoo.co.uk >CC: parna71 at rediffmail.com, shaonli_c at hotmail.com >Subject: [Reader-list] TIPAIMUKH DAM PROJECT - A BANE FOR THE DISPLACED >OUSTEES >Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:06:19 -0800 (PST) >MIME-Version: 1.0 >X-Originating-IP: [219.65.255.91] >Received: from mc7-f13.law1.hotmail.com ([65.54.253.20]) by >mc7-s1.law1.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Wed, 11 Dec >2002 11:10:24 -0800 >Received: from mail.sarai.net ([195.169.149.102]) by >mc7-f13.law1.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Wed, 11 Dec >2002 11:10:17 -0800 >Received: from mail (list at mail [127.0.0.1])by mail.sarai.net >(8.12.3/8.12.3/Debian -4) with ESMTP id gBC366W4022308;Thu, 12 Dec 2002 >04:06:06 +0100 >Received: from omta01.mta.everyone.net (sitemail3.everyone.net >[216.200.145.37])by mail.sarai.net (8.12.3/8.12.3/Debian -4) with ESMTP id >gBC35hW4022295for ; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 04:05:43 +0100 >Received: from sitemail.everyone.net (dsnat [216.200.145.62])by >omta01.mta.everyone.net (Postfix) with ESMTPid 08DDF1C40B5; Wed, 11 Dec >2002 11:06:20 -0800 (PST) >Received: by sitemail.everyone.net (Postfix, from userid 99)id ACC664700; >Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:06:19 -0800 (PST) >X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.41 (Entity 5.404) >Message-Id: <20021211190619.ACC664700 at sitemail.everyone.net> >Sender: reader-list-admin at mail.sarai.net >Errors-To: reader-list-admin at mail.sarai.net >X-BeenThere: reader-list at mail.sarai.net >X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 >Precedence: bulk >List-Help: >List-Post: >List-Subscribe: >, >List-Id: A list on Media and the City,Information Politics and Contemporary >Culture >List-Unsubscribe: >, >List-Archive: >Return-Path: reader-list-admin at mail.sarai.net >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 11 Dec 2002 19:10:17.0966 (UTC) >FILETIME=[F16858E0:01C2A148] > >Dear Sarai Readers, >It is true that the completion of the much awaited Tipaimukh Project will >meet the ever-growing requirements of power for the city-dwellers of the >Barak Valley. But on the other hand, it would displace thousands of rural >folk, who would loose their land in the catchment area of the dam. This >would create havoc for them. Will they get adequate rehabilitation ? >As the dam site is located on the trijunction of the three states - >Manipur, Assam and Mizoram, it would involve rehabilitation of the dam >oustees of the three states. >I hope the Central Govt. will take a macro view while going ahead with the >construction work of the Tipaimukh Dam. >Thousands of forested and agro land will come under the dam area thereby >such a valuable source will be lost. >One tends to think- for whose development the rural folk are going to >sacrifice their land. It is for the development of urbanism that the >Tipaimukh Dam will be built. This would ensure uninterrupted power supply >for the city dwellers of silchar and adjoining areas so that the >syhlleti/cachari/dimasa/bishnupriya manipuri urban families can sleep in >peace and reap the benefits accruing from the construction of the dam. But >what about the tribes inhabiting Tipaimukh ? They would loose their land >and also their rich culture. >One solution is there- >Why not we built small micro dams which would benefit both rural and urban >folk and not create a conflict between the two? This is the alternative >suggested by Medha Patkar's Narmada Bachao andolon. Other alternatives- >Rain Water harvesting, traditional check dams to tap power. Solar energy >should be encouraged instead. >Please feel free to write on this contagious issue. >Bye- >Cheers >Sagnik Chakravartty >(M A student of Broadcast Journalism)IIIrd Sem >Makhanlal Chaturvedi Rashtriya Patrakarita Vishwavidyalaya >Madhyam Noida Campus >----------------------------- >Contact Number- 011-26967201 >Mail- broadcaster at syhlleti.org > > >_____________________________________________________________ >Earn upto Rs.18000/- per month !! Check out details at >http://www.silchar.com/ads/sams > >_____________________________________________________________ >Select your own custom email address for FREE! Get you at yourchoice.com w/No >Ads, 6MB, POP & more! http://www.everyone.net/selectmail?campaign=tag >_________________________________________ >reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. >Critiques & Collaborations >To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe >in the subject header. >List archive: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Mon Dec 23 00:11:53 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 10:41:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] river of fire..transcreated Message-ID: <20021222184153.20809.qmail@web20906.mail.yahoo.com> On requests from many friends.. who believe as many of us do, that this one book encompasses and reveals India in its true ethos from Mauryan past to its present post partition predicament, the story of the reincarnation of its 3 main charecters.. Gautam, Champa and HAri..from the fourth century B.C. to the 1940s a kaleidiscope into India's soul..with little details like the beerbahutis of Shravasti's buddhist gurukuls and the Tantra- Sufi marriage in Bengal..and the the use of the word 'abbe' being a term of the 'uncouth' turkish traders..! River of Fire is to Indian fiction what A Hundred Years of Solitude is to Hispanic literature. Qurratulain Hyder has a place alongside her exact contemporaries. Milan Kundera and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as one of the world's major living writers"-- The London Times Literary Supplement Synopsis: This novel, set in India, spans the period from the fourth century B.C. to the 1940s http://www.kalibooks.com/titles/fiction/fict-title01.htm http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookSearch/isbnInquiry.asp?srefer=&isbn=0811214184 An interesting review..A tribute to India's Sanjhi VIrasat..for those who want an exicting and un put-downable crash course into India's soul.. dont miss this.. synopsis: It was the season of beerbahutis and rainclouds, sometime in the 4th century B.C. In a cool grotto, Gautam Nilambar, a final year student of the Forest University of Shravasti, chances upon Hari Shankar, a princeling yearning to be a Buddhist monk. He falls in love with the beautiful, sharp-witted Champak. And thus begins a magnificent tale that flows through Time, through Maghadan Patliputra, the Kingdom of Oudh, the British Raj and into a Time of Independence. This fiery river of time flows along the banks of their lives in a continuum of history, keeping them together, keeping them apart. The story comes full circle in post-Partition India when the pro-tagonists meet again and mourn the passing of their lives into meaninglessness, of their friends who have left for Pakistan and what remains of their country. I came away marveling at the novelist�s ability to encompass, even in a brief excerpt, the great historical narratives of our tradition: Buddhism, Hinduism; the coming of Islam, the age of the great Mughals, the arrival of the British, the 1857 War of Independence, the two World Wars, the horror of partition and so much that followed in the post-Independence India and Pakistan Set during four Indian epochs (the classical, the medieval, the colonial, and the modern post-national), the novel is a meditation on history and human nature, tracing four souls through time. Each section is linked by characters who bear, in every period, the same names: Gautam, Champa, Kamal, and Cyril. Gautam (appearing first as a student of mysticism at the Forest University of Shravasti in the 4th century B.C.E.) and Champa (throughout embodying the enigmatic experience of Indian women) begin and end the novel; Muslim Kamal appears mid-way through, as the Muslims did, and loses himself in the Indian landscape; and Cyril, the Englishman, appears later still As the novel opens, we see Gautam Nilambar come out of the Forest University of Shravasti in the Fourth Century B.C. Very quickly Gautam emerges as the central character. The young man�s artistic sensibility is self-evident. He gathers friends and lovers and admirers around him even as the Chanakyanian political forces trap everyone, but Gautam gets to be the last man standing, grieving for the dead. Literally, this thread runs unruptured throughout the novel, and the same story is repeated with a different setting and different historical context, not unlike a massive reincarnation story in which all the characters come back to life eager to start acting out the same drama from their previous lives and previous chapters. I think of this bold plot structure as the most remarkable achievement of this novel, and for obvious reasons, the element of fictional incarnations makes the novel uniquely Indian. In the first episode, Gautam comes across two bathing beauties in the river and he feels love for one of them. Soon he meets Hari Shankar, a prince who yearns to be a monk, but he appears masqueraded as a Yavana. It was to avoid waging wars that Hari Shankar was now taking up the saffron robe. Gautam, sophomoric philosopher, artist, lover of beauty, is only too willing to take away Hari�s burden and marry Champa. Next, we see Gautam at work in the studio, trying to dance, to paint. His desire is to create beauty and �to capture in clay and stone the mystery of human form.� He names his creation �Sudarshan Yakshini--Tree Spirit, Good to Behold�, but his dreams for life and art are to be rudely interrupted by an invasion of Shravasti by an upstart named Chandragupta Maurya. As Gautam remains in denial of the political forces that were about to wipe away his beloved kingdom, he asks his artist friends: �Why must they drag me into their conflict?� Gautam�s question is in fact the central question of this novel. �Why must they drag me into their conflict?� Throughout the novel we will hear echoes of this anguished cry of the innocent bystander, although in later episodes few have the clear understanding to ask the question. Many years after Chandragupta�s invasion, Gautam, his fingers crushed in battle, no longer able to sculpt or paint, becomes a wandering performer who curses all those who makes swords and arrows. Once, during a performance Gautam and Champa meet. The beauty who was the model and inspiration for his �Sudarshan Yakshini� had become a matronly old mistress of a minister after she was captured by the invading army. Princess Nirmala also met with a similar fate, but she became a Buddhist nun. If it weren�t for the spiritual path he chose, Prince Hari himself would not have died in peace as Brother Hari Ananda of Jetvan Vihar. This beautifully written first episode ends when Gautam swims across Saryu and in effect drowns. Truly, he becomes part of the great flux, emerging down river, nearly two millennia later, in the name of Syed Abdul Mansur Kamaluddin, a vilayati, a foreigner, from Persia. Not unlike Gautam, Kamaluddin is a thinker and a writer. The only difference is that he doesn�t mess around with clay or stone. In fact, we read a sizable chunk of his personal memoirs that captures the nostalgic longing he was bringing with him to India from the heart of the Islamic culture. Kamaluddin finds employment and patronage and affection from princess Bano and love from Champavati who is fated to elude him. About Champa, he writes in his journal in a unique, highly cultured vilayati perspective: These Hindu women have a charm of their own. They are faithful, shy, docile. They worship their husbands as demigods and touch their feet in obeisance every morning. They put the man on a pedestal and sing songs in his praise. That�s how it ought to be. We developed this Cult of the Lady in Hispania and introduced the concept of romance and chivalry into the rest of Europe--gallant knights fighting in honor of their ladies and young poets singing lutes on moonlit nights while the lady sat on trellised balcony. Here the roles are reversed--man is the beloved, the woman pines for him and is forever waiting for him.� Against the backdrop of Kamaluddin�s Indianization, the novelist cheerfully outlines the story of the rise of various Islamic rulers, particularly of Sikander Lodi whose rise to power in 1489 causes Kamaluddin�s flight into a private life of loss and nostalgia, triggering deep within him a new search for meaning, an essential motif in the novel. He says, �I have seen the passing of a great and liberal civilization in my own lifetime, here in India.� In his private life, Kamaluddin marries a shudra woman who is renamed Amina Bibi, and they live happily bringing up their children until history catches up with Kamaluddin in the year 1525 when Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi and establishes the Mughal Empire. Inevitably, Kamaluddin gets caught in the crossfire of this power struggle because his son happened to be working as an architect for the Mughal. The story makes its final shift from the 19th to the 20th century rather too abruptly, and again, we see for the last time, a whole new configuration of characters, as always united by leftist politics, intellectual kinship, art, music, poetry, theater, not to mention their fuedal or upper class origins. Again, Gautam, Hari Shankar, Nirmala, and Champa come together as friends at college. Also on the scene are Kamal, Amir, Tehmina, and several other young Muslims and Hindus. As expected, once again, Champa emerges as a beautiful young woman ahead of her times. Gradually, the possibility of partition becomes obvious. The narrator says, �There was yet another aspect of the new nationalist movement that was making its presence felt--some people had openly begun talking of Ancient Hindu Culture and the Glory-that-was Islam. How was Indian culture to be defined? Was it a ruse for Hindus to enslave the Muslims? Could �real� Indians only be Hindus? Were Muslims unholy intruders who should be treated as such?� The fact that Kamal Reza, very likely a descendant of Syed Abdul Mansur Kamaluddin of Persia and a shudra woman, turns out to be the most emotionally Indian of all characters makes the dilemma of Partition truly complex. So is the bewilderment Gautam and Hari have about the breakdown of their friendship with Kamal, which embodies the cultural ambivalence prevalent in the post-Partition subcontinent. At the very end, we are once again brought near �Sudarshan Yakshini,� in the company of scholars from Europe and America. Gautam and Hari are also reunited after so many years of globe-trotting, but Kamal passes up the chance to meet with them. All Gautam and Hari can say about the rupture of such a great friendship is this: �Kamal was oversensitive, an incorrigible, fanatical idealist. He was let down by a relentless world. Something within him has died.. embodying the dillemma of many post Independence Indians.. contd on http://www.shelterbelt.com/RELIT/URDU/riverfire.html And Amitava Kumar refers brilliantly to the book while commenting on the failed Agra summit: I want to conclude with a passage that I like very much, in Quarratulain Hyder�s novel River of Fire. In those pages, as in the rest of the book, a different kind of complexity of culture is announced. This is a long passage, but I think it deserves to be quoted it in full: India was moving from crisis to crisis. As if the Bengal famine were not enough, communal politics had snowballed. One Sunday afternoon the students� gathering was larger than usual. That day all the newspapers had published Mr Jinnah�s two-nation theory in detail. Kamal turned towards Champa. �I hear, Champa Baji, that you have also become a follower of Mr. Jinnah?� �No,� Champa replied coolly, �when I was a student in Banaras, I heard of Vir Savarkar and Mr. Jinnah. I was once told that I had no claim on Kashi because I did not put the caste mark on my forehead and my mother said her prayers to Allah in Arabic instead of worshipping Lord Shiva. And therefore it followed that my culture and my loyalties were different. I countered by asking, �Have you read Ghalib�s Persian Ode to Banaras?� I was told that Persian was a foreign language. This was very heart-breaking. So I could have said to myself, why not Pakistan...? But I didn�t. Frankly, I am quite confused by all this. �I used to sing Jana Gana Mana under the tricolour at Besant College, and I often felt that I was considered an outsider under that flag.� �Have you ever realised,� Professor Banerjee mused as he watched a little sparrow sitting on a branch of the seemal, �that Hindu-Muslim riots were unknown before the arrival of the English? There used to be big, full-dress wars, but they were waged by rival political powers who happened to be either Hindu or Muslim. Of all the Mughal Emperors, Aurangzeb had the largest number of Hindu generals in his army.� �Sir, in my district the peasants still sing the ballad of Rana Beni Madho Singh, who died fighting for his queen and country. The queen in this case was Begum Hazrat Mahal. As a child, I remember seeing his great-grandson who came riding on an elephant from his garhi to ours. He always spoke in dialect and was a quaint relic of the past. Special food was cooked by a Brahmin rasoia and he ate separately in our mardan-khana. All that was a part of peaceful co-existence,� Kamal said sombrely. Here in Hyder�s prose, we get a history of mixing and mutual engagement. This understanding escapes a cardboard cutout sense of culture. I like the passage not only for its passion, but also for its clarity: when we reach the last line of the extract I have quoted here, we are being informed not only of an existence that is well-imbricated, but also shaded in with violence and discrimination. I like the passage not only for its passion but also for its clarity: when we reach the last line of the extract I have quoted here, we are being informed not only of an existence that is well-imbricated, but also shaded in with violence and discrimination. If there is a recognition here of the material history of the British in India, there is also an honest and cutting appraisal of our more homegrown injustices. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - I have learned so much from God That I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me That I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel.. Love has befriended me. It has turned to ash and freed me Of every concept and image my mind has ever known. - Hafiz, Persian Sufi Organised religion is the prop of a man who has not found his Self/ God within. - Shaheed Bhagat Singh __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Mon Dec 23 01:53:15 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 12:23:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] A Promise Kept: An Ode to Raj and Dilip.. Message-ID: <20021222202315.52950.qmail@web20908.mail.yahoo.com> Dear freinds, A piece which was written spontaneusly.. aand later one found that it WAS indeed the time of the BDays of the two great ones.. Dilip Kumar, Dec 11 and Raj Kapoor Dec 14.. Here is to them.. Peace A Promise Kept: An Ode to Raj and Dilip..and the Nargis Tu kahe agar..Jivan bhar.. main geet sunata jaaon.. If you but say, I will sing on..forever.. One couldn�t help but reminisce to a better time, when heroes were gentlemen..and declared their love in almost spiritual tones.. like the cry of a quest..or a peacock.. Tu kahe agar..Jivan bhar.. main geet sunata jaaon.. With the brooding Dilip Kumar.. his hand resting on the piano in his tweed coat and chequered shirt..beholding the dancing laughter faced Nargis..who looks on..oblivious..to the other side.. at the handsome Raj Kapoor.. Who will the flower bestow..? This song shows a glimpse of that light..and the hope of that era..and the fire which burnt within him. Inspiring us too.. healing all who come in its way-..with his voice.. When it was enough to be an Indian and the idea of heroism was how many times you were jailed for freedom and peace..and not how many innocent civilians you had raped and murdered in broad daylight..or how many houses bombed at the LOC..a la real �mards� of today..muscles and AK47 intact.. When the evening were still with the sounds of horse riding boots or the walks by the narrow road near your verandah..when the voice of freedom was the only ringing.. loud and clear..and the only hate was against hate.. Andaz, A love triangle starring Raj Kapoor, Dilip kumar and Nargis which mesmerised the nation with an uncomparable musical score songs like " tu kahe agar jeewan bhar�.. -upperstall review When dignity and the way you spoke ensured your survival.. and not who you bribed or how many you killed.. When even Prime Minister�s were writers and women, the pictures of grace.. like Nargis in front of the piano.. In front of Dilip�s worshipping/adoring eyes..singing 'Tu kahe agar'..Then laughing gently..as she runs out into the lawns..and Dilip but follows.. The men did not stay after dusk-fall.. and wore kerchiefs in their coat pockets..Holding doors open.. and they didn�t need to see channel V sirens.. The way you loved was- Either you lived.. or died for it. Gentleman never compromise ladies..though Raj and Dilip may have a duel..while She looks on..and prays.. they both live.. The idea of a good profession was a dak bungalow in the hills..where you could sit by the fire in quiet peace..married for 40 years to the Lady..wooed by the pianos..and read old precious books.. scholar glowing with light/ knowledge..Perhaps write one of your own-most people did.. And then as we said- even the PM was a writer.. propagating gentleness..like rain.. Values which sought harmony, compassion.. dignity.. At the stroke of the midnight hour..She Awakes.. to Life and freedom..and one more worshipper writes a paen to her..swaying in front of the piano.. The time came to redeem our pledge.. not wholly but very substantially.. (So what if she is broken into two..the suitors breaks each others heads..breaking her heart. But she sings on..Ab bhi dilkash hai tera husn..Still..is Your Beauty radiant .. sighs one of her worshippers, Faiz..) He seems to keep loosing his love to someone else. He lost her in film #8. He is loosing her again. A piano song. Someone has won and someone has lost. The ocassion still calls to sing happy songs. He lost her to none other but Raj Kapoor whom she always loved, just did not tell him. All three are in this party scene. - Andaz review You did not abuse.. even your rival in love. Like I said, if Dilip and Raj want to marry the same lady..(the Nargis) they will fight the honorable battle ..or die singing. Not a hair out of place- collar up..head high..dignity intact� in front of that piano. That piano..has seen so many burn.. without a fire..or a bullet fired.. It could have been Jawaharlal and Mohammed Ali..who would She choose..?And who would win and who would lose..? and how in the end.. it would break her heart.. You did not love to shout or hate to kill.. Hitler had tried..and you went to battle against fascism in tweed coats and collars.. Your lady loves, in high necked blouses and sarees like envelopes of fairies..women were fairies.. unattainable..or to die for.. Now they are available for free.. like the scotch whiskey ads in television.. Then you had to woo and wed.. and spend your life becoming a member of the gentlemen�s club.. before you even had a glimpse.. Women could also ride horses..and often went to jail -even the partying sorts.Their beloveds were sitting and writing memoirs in jails anyway. Handsome jacketed men.. writing poetry in jail..which one of you was Hindu or Muslim..? You were all parwanas.. and the moths don�t have a creed..(but One..) ( Aruna Ganguly�s fianc�Asaf Ali, the �handsome Congress lawyer�.. And Amrita Pritam�s fiery poet Sahir �Ludhianvi�..Durga Bhabi and her fiery Lahori revolutionary.. Geeta Roy and her pipe smoking, eyes filled with cameras..Guru Dutt..and even Ruttie Bai Petit defied Parsee authorities to marry one lawyer, Ali Jinnah..who swore on the Creed of oneness at the time..many say her premature death in her 20s.. broke him completely..and the rest is history.. Interestingly it was Rutties� lawyer husband who pushed for the Mixed Marriage Act in India.. which made it possible for Indian men and women to marry- without either converting to the man�s religion..Jinnah couldn�t stand the fact that his beloved Ruttie would have to convert to his faith under British law to marry him..and campaigned against it vociferously till the 1940s ....history IS ironic..!) Now there is no poetry and no jail..the only jail is for the poor and those who can't afford a lawyer. And no moths..only creeds..and sub creeds..and sub sub creeds..and no religions.. Then.. you went to jail for a cause..and the motherland was the Lady.. and the Lady was the motherland.. Radio bulletins running underground by college girls in chiffon sarees..and khadi ones too.. crackling before the sound of gun shots- as the Raj police comes looking for them.. and you pretend you are reading a novel, in your chiffon saree by the fireplace..while your heroes lurk underground..their wealth..their lands.. all sacrificed.. You don�t even know if you�ll ever see them again� but you read- your novel, in the fireplace light..while the police come and go.. and more and more poetry in jail.. Gets written.. A young punjabi was writing it in a jail in Lahore..Faiz: sab qatl hoke..tere muqabi se aayen hain.. All of us have returned..beheaded.. from Your door.. Dukh dard mita jaaon.. The strains of your voice fill the air like smoke.. and rise and spread all over the land..Like the walking men in collared shirts and achakans and pagdis.on empty roads..a black and white picture of quietude.. Each evening it rises in the air with the smoke of the chulhas..and the stoking of the fireplace..voices coming from far away..hearts in unrequited love..sighing quietly.. and embracing death..without a sound. Like that other dashing cavalier from Lahore..hero of Faiz Ahmed faiz..the Sikh with the Sufi heart..Bhagat Singh.. who embraced his beloved too..in tweed hat and collar high..without a sigh..while the record plays..and the needle crackles.. We will not forget you..Dilip and Raj. And your wooing of the Beloved. In dusky town with gowdhuli dust and piano keys mingled with the beat of the ghadas/clay pots.. Your adoring song..at the feet of the Nargis flower.. lighting up the teak room as she sways to your song... Where are those men.. ? The women cry.. tired of seeing rapists and body builders on their screens.. tired of giving dowry to men..less educated than they are..with no tweed jackets..and coats with kerchief in their pockets..only blue jeans and disco songs. And no doors to open..singing no songs and going to no jail. Only to America..or the odd farmhouse..which sells free alcohol. Where are they?? They ask..and you wonder why Indian women are choosing to marry older now..as the polls scream- career women..single mothers..marrying late.. Your brooding melancholy in the dusky tweed coat.. and the hand resting on chin.. as you loose your all..in a single instance..and sing on.. Here is to you. She will never be yours..and yet you sing on. Promising to sing forever..lighting fires with your voice..in all hearts..Removing the aches from all. Your promise.. dukh dard mita jaoon.. And in it are her afsanas..inme hain tere afsane.. (She sings too..Afasana Likh raheen hoon.. beauteous Suraiya in her balcony..feathered pen in hand..writing afsanas to an unkown one..mocking spring..crinkling up her elegant nose..for the Beloved hasn�t yet come..) And You raise the note of worship.. You promise.. to awaken dreams..to keep them alive.. sapnon ko jagata jaaon..akash pe chhata jaoon. Gentlemen never sigh..they only sing. In your tweed coat.. hand resting on chin..black eyes ..embers.into the fire..as she sways..and doesn�t even know. We will never see the likes of that dignity again..when women were flowers/ worshipped by gentlemen in tweed coats.. kerchiefs in their coat pockets..In front of the piano. You did manage to free her....though you lost Her..and she was too was split into two. Yet, You freed her..and paid the price of worship.. and she somehow goes on..with that gift of freedom.. however dark the night as we speak..the memory of your promise relivens our darkest nights..as we.. limping..with her sacred freedom..snuffed.. under our embered hearts..strive to keep it alive.. Only their voices..as the record plays.. and the needles crackles on. The black and white song..revolving in the black vinyl.. the fire burning.. lighting up hearts..healing on.. The promise kept... pledge redeemed..for it�s a gentleman�s word. And a gentleman word is his life. ---- An anecdote about Andaz. When Dilip heard the Mukesh�s solos of "Tu kahe agar..",, he was not all happy What followed made history - the film and the songs were such a hit that they firmly established Dilip as the Tragedy King. And that at the age of just 24! - which is a terrible thing to happen to someone... 'Just wait and watch the effect,'they said. And the whole nation came to sing with Mukesh what I sang on that piano on 'Andaz'." --- Lehar, December 2002. If you But say.. I'll sing on.. All my Life.. Light all the hearts I come across.. with fire in mine.. spread across the sky.. tuu kahe agar, tuu kahe agar tuu kahe agar jiivan bhar mai.n giit sunaataa jaaU.n man biin bajaataa jaaU.n tuu kahe agar aur aag main apne dil har dil mein lagata jaoon.. dukh dard mitata jaaon mai.n saaz huu.N tuu saragam hai - 2 detii jaa sahaare mujhako - 2 mai.n raag huu.N tU bINaa hai - 2 jis dam tu pukaare mujhako aavaaz mein terI har dam aavaaz milaataa jaauu.n aakaash pe chhaataa jaauu.n tU kahe agar... in bolo.n me.n, tuu hii tuu hai mai.n samajhuu.n yaa tuu jaane, ho jaane in men hai kahaanii terii, iname.n hai tere afasaane iname.n hai tere afasaane tU saaz uThaa ulfat kaa mai.n jhuum ke gaataa jaauu.n sapano.n ko jagaataa jaauu.n tuu kahe agar... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - I have learned so much from God That I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me That I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel.. Love has befriended me. It has turned to ash and freed me Of every concept and image my mind has ever known. - Hafiz, Persian Sufi Organised religion is the prop of a man who has not found his Self/ God within. - Shaheed Bhagat Singh __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From souvikmukherjee at vsnl.net Mon Dec 23 09:33:23 2002 From: souvikmukherjee at vsnl.net (Souvik Mukherjee) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 09:33:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Computer games and the history of reading Message-ID: <000201c2aa38$67504700$7eb341db@o8o8c7> Proposal for SARAI Short-term research fellowship Reading books with Joysticks: The Computer Game and the history of reading - Souvik Mukherjee and Riddhi Sankar Ray Introduction Computer games are fast becoming popular in our everyday life. Very often, these have been touted as a replacement for intelligent entertainment of any kind. We would argue, however, that game playing is simply another way of reading or storytelling. But if so, then it is reading with a difference: a computer-game consists of infinite levels of narrative and the story that is told, is different each time. This is quite unlike reading a book, or is it? How does a story contained in the book compare with the multiple levels of plot in the game? Often, unknown to us, some stories too have other potential possibilities latent in their narrative structure. On examination of the intrinsic similarities between these, two things can be inferred: 1. That certain stories are like proto-computer-games, and 2. On looking at game playing as a novel and different kind of reading experience, one can explain the popularity of computer-games amongst a large section of modern urban society, as their major source of entertainment. We have hitherto applied our hypothesis to a very limited set of examples. Taking fantasies written for children as our point of departure, we have tried to show how akin these are to computer-games. For this purpose, we have compared the Alice books by Lewis Carroll and the Harry Potter series by J.K.Rowling with eponymous computer-games. The same could be done, we feel, with more serious forms of literature and the scope of this idea could be broadened. This study could also, in its own way, contribute to the history of reading and the changing attitudes of society. Objectives The main characteristics of a computer-game, according to game designer Chris Crawford [Chris Crawford: The Art of Computer Game Design. 1982, electronic version] are the subjective representation of reality, interactivity, conflict and safety. To these we might also add that the computer game also keeps constructing its narrative. In our study we might focus on the interactivity of games and narratives and illustrate their similarities and differences through such a comparison. This will definitely help explain the popularity and the relevance of the computer-game in modern life. The cultural changes effected by the spread of information technology in the sphere of public entertainment can also be looked at from this point of view. The primary objective would be to look at the peculiar nature of the computer-game, which allows the player both to create and to read his own story. The next thing would be to apply this hypothesis to different cases. For example, not all computer-games willingly lend themselves to such an explanation. The games we have hitherto dealt with were either FPS (First person shooters) or strategy games. There are other types of computer-games on which such a hypothesis might not work. The same is true for texts. Thirdly, a comparison between texts and computer-games may be made to show that many texts have a game-like nature and can be seen as potential computer-games. Method of research and expected problems The basic idea was conceived of at a student's seminar on Children's literature at Jadavpur University, Calcutta. [The seminar paper has been attached to this proposal as a writing sample]. The initial study therefore was a rather limited one, suitable for a short presentation. Two texts were taken up for consideration and only single-player games were discussed. For a wider scope, however, more books both on literary theory and even certain mathematical texts should be considered. The latter would be useful in dealing with the question of multi-player games which are usually explained in terms of game-theory. In my earlier presentation, we have compared two eponymous games with stories. More similar examples might help in strengthening the comparison. Interviews with certain Indian computer-gaming clubs or with people who like playing computer games, could also be useful. Last but definitely not least, a thorough awareness of parallel research going on in similar areas, worldwide, is vital. The problems, which might be faced, are many. The scope for research facilities or recognition in India is limited. SARAI would probably be the only organization supporting such research in the country. Then again, as for any software related research, funds would be an important factor. Subscription to certain journals, both online and offline, would prove useful. In case a rudimentary technical knowledge of game-making is required, certain necessary software would have to be procured. Access to computer-games is also important. It might in some cases be difficult to access very recent software in India. Conclusion Having said that, we would like to reiterate that this is an important yet much neglected area in the history of reading and cultural studies. Given the popularity of computer-games in India, we feel that it is high time that they were brought within the corpus of mainstream cultural studies and that their influence on modern society was sufficiently studied. We are confident that a great deal can be done regarding this, given the proper infrastructure and support. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/004acbc5/attachment.html From sougata_28 at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:44:22 2002 From: sougata_28 at rediffmail.com (sougata bhattacharya) Date: 23 Dec 2002 09:14:22 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021223091422.8706.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/d07eea8b/attachment.pl From sougata_28 at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:49:44 2002 From: sougata_28 at rediffmail.com (sougata bhattacharya) Date: 23 Dec 2002 09:19:44 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021223091944.27675.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/be3c7a8a/attachment.pl From sougata_28 at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:49:44 2002 From: sougata_28 at rediffmail.com (sougata bhattacharya) Date: 23 Dec 2002 09:19:44 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021223091944.27675.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/be3c7a8a/attachment-0001.pl From sougata_28 at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:51:37 2002 From: sougata_28 at rediffmail.com (sougata bhattacharya) Date: 23 Dec 2002 09:21:37 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021223092137.22428.qmail@mailweb34.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/85991f09/attachment.pl From sougata_28 at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:51:37 2002 From: sougata_28 at rediffmail.com (sougata bhattacharya) Date: 23 Dec 2002 09:21:37 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021223092137.22428.qmail@mailweb34.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/85991f09/attachment-0001.pl From sougata_28 at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:54:23 2002 From: sougata_28 at rediffmail.com (sougata bhattacharya) Date: 23 Dec 2002 09:24:23 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021223092423.26837.qmail@mailweb34.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/c8a2e731/attachment.pl From sougata_28 at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:54:23 2002 From: sougata_28 at rediffmail.com (sougata bhattacharya) Date: 23 Dec 2002 09:24:23 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research Proposal Message-ID: <20021223092423.26837.qmail@mailweb34.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/c8a2e731/attachment-0001.pl From manjupannu at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 14:45:44 2002 From: manjupannu at rediffmail.com (manju singh bhati) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 14:45:44 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Research as part of Sarai Independent Fellowships - Hindi Message-ID: India is one of the most populated countries. This means the population of pregnant women is also very high. This is one of the reasons that we take pregnancy for granted .We feel pregnancy is a normal thing that happens to every other woman. There is novel in saying that pregnant woman should take care of herself in terms of health, nutrition, rest etc. or being a mother is a boon; new born gives happiness to everyone in family blah blah. Sometime ago, I myself had the same feeling but now when it has happened to me. I know, only too well that it is altogether a different experience. It is a life where you loose control over your senses. You enter into a different world where hormones rule the roost. The day I conceived, I entered into a world of different feelings, tastes and experiences. I could feel amalgamating agony and ecstasy together inside me. A confused feeling of knowing that someone inside me is feeding on my blood and extracting calcium from my bones, indifferent to my health, engulfed me. The experience created a reality beyond normal. A reality that was repugnant, repulsive and constricting. It brought all the worldly cravings to the fore. A desire for the normal and routine, far removed from the divinity of motherhood and its collateral damage. I realized that it was somewhere in between those banal experiences that we read, hear, or think. In my opinion, other women have also gone through same experiences during their pregnancy. In the month of July I had to spend couple of days in the private ward of LNJP hospital where I met a few pregnant women everyday and shared our experiences with each other. I realized that seemingly the most trivial of things have far reaching effects on their lives as well as their minds. Most fascinating thing was the exclusiveness and vividness of these explanations. My plan is to meet some more such women by going to the private wards of some hospitals and nursing homes. By chatting with them informally we can get information on every aspect of pregnancy such as tragedy, comedy, physical, emotional changes and their impact on their personality, reactions of people around among others. Appearances and incidents of pregnant life have given me various ideas about making cartoons and illustrations. I have started enlisting ideas for illustrations. Trying access to hospitals, although I have been to a few private nursing homes these days and taken interviews but that is very little information to write an article. Apart from that I am trying to recall my own experiences to write. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: proposal.doc Type: application/msword Size: 24064 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/8c887144/attachment.doc From Rahul_J at infosys.com Mon Dec 23 19:32:30 2002 From: Rahul_J at infosys.com (Rahul Jindal) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 19:32:30 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Amnesty Against Death Penalty Message-ID: <426C1E9EBA27D411839000D0B74752F808C1D276@punmsg02.ad.infosys.com> What about the thousands the USAF bombed, killed and mauled in the "Truncation of Taliban"? Or is it that Amnesty wakes up when a non-US entity does something? -- Wer nicht mit der Zeit geht - geht mit der Zeit -----Original Message----- From: shohini [mailto:shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in] Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 10:21 PM To: Sarai Reader List Subject: [Reader-list] Amnesty Against Death Penalty AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE AI Index: ASA 20/024/2002 (Public) News Service No: 238 19 December 2002 India: The cause of justice is not served by judicial murder Amnesty International is dismayed at the death sentences handed down to three people accused of the 13 December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. [SNIP] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/18df4e57/attachment.html From sayantoni at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 22:20:39 2002 From: sayantoni at rediffmail.com (sayantoni datta) Date: 23 Dec 2002 16:50:39 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research proposal Message-ID: <20021223165039.13149.qmail@webmail28.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/d37de2c8/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- The following is my research proposal for the reader-list: Discovering sexuality in the media:Amorphous Kaleidoscopic Images Most often when we speak of sexual identities we look at different groups in the same, these being the heterosexuals, the homosexuals, the lesbians, the gays, the bisexuals, the transsexuals, the transvestites, the queer, the straight, the "chhakka" the "hijra"....the list is endless, the labels many. The most difficult and yet the easiest way to understand diversity and put it in a universal framework is the use of labels and language and definitions. Understanding this diversity is even more difficult when each label we use or word we coin helps to identify a difference. Do these differences help us to differentiate a YOU/US as against THEM and create parallel worlds, or do these differences help bridge a gap in understanding various identities in a universal world? The research looks at shared spaces like the media where different individuals and groups come together, where both social and personal thoughts find expression in a larger domain. In some domains like the internet the actors in the media are much larger consisting of a wider and active public, in others like the newspapers or cinema the audience is larger in terms of numbers than the actor. Mediums like legends and stories of a defined period throw light on context specific and time bound notions. Keeping in mind the history of several movements and efforts made by different groups propagating different identities, and keeping in mind historical approaches and efforts made towards the understanding of sexual freedom, and the use of media to express the same, the researcher has proposed to relook at these labels. Are they an easy coinage for inexplicable relationships, or terms opposed to what one may consider the norm ("natural versus unnatural" or "normal versus abnormal"), are they what they were yesterday, are they still evolving or are they being rejected or adopted with certain reservations in mind? How have these labels at the end of the day been perceived in the media, who are the main actors behind these perceptions and what are the current debates on the same? Have these labels helped in understanding the diversity that we live in or are they one of mere labelling alone? What are the conceptions and misconceptions that find voice in the media, what are the stereotypes and notions on the same, what do these different voices choose to say in the forums that are provided in media? The following research tries to break down these labels and look at the different perceptions that are constructed as a result of the various ways in which media has been used (or not been used) to reflect different realities. It thus tries to look at the amorphosity of sexual identities currently at a critical phase of crystallisation. The research will look largely at perceptions that are projected in the media, capture these trends and opinions and try and document them in the light of the progress we have made in understanding (or not understanding) sexual freedom. The effort would be to build a collage of perceptions, focussing and assuming on the fact that there are many identities involved here. In the current effort there will be two areas where one could be specific, but which would lay stress on the fact that maybe the same approach of understanding perceptions could be used across different contextual bases and individuals. In my research I am trying to look specifically at India and place the above concerns with special respect to the debates on sexuality of women in India, not forgetting that this exists in a much larger framework with many other identities in play and the fight for negotiation on the same in a shared world. Further in the light of the above concerns a special focus will be given to only one of the identities (or term or label)-of the “lesbian”. The research will be looking at the Internet, with an emphasis on search engines and debates currently being voiced on the Internet and search for a pattern or trend, if any. Further there will be an attempt to compare the above with documentation from other popular media like songs, stories, legends and telefilms in India. Regards Sayantoni. From sayantoni at rediffmail.com Mon Dec 23 22:20:49 2002 From: sayantoni at rediffmail.com (sayantoni datta) Date: 23 Dec 2002 16:50:49 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research proposal Message-ID: <20021223165049.24051.qmail@webmail16.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/45083377/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- The following is a public listing on my research proposal to the reader list Discovering sexuality in the media:Amorphous Kaleidoscopic Images Most often when we speak of sexual identities we look at different groups in the same, these being the heterosexuals, the homosexuals, the lesbians, the gays, the bisexuals, the transsexuals, the transvestites, the queer, the straight, the "chhakka" the "hijra"....the list is endless, the labels many. The most difficult and yet the easiest way to understand diversity and put it in a universal framework is the use of labels and language and definitions. Understanding this diversity is even more difficult when each label we use or word we coin helps to identify a difference. Do these differences help us to differentiate a YOU/US as against THEM and create parallel worlds, or do these differences help bridge a gap in understanding various identities in a universal world? The research looks at shared spaces like the media where different individuals and groups come together, where both social and personal thoughts find expression in a larger domain. In some domains like the internet the actors in the media are much larger consisting of a wider and active public, in others like the newspapers or cinema the audience is larger in terms of numbers than the actor. Mediums like legends and stories of a defined period throw light on context specific and time bound notions. Keeping in mind the history of several movements and efforts made by different groups propagating different identities, and keeping in mind historical approaches and efforts made towards the understanding of sexual freedom, and the use of media to express the same, the researcher has proposed to relook at these labels. Are they an easy coinage for inexplicable relationships, or terms opposed to what one may consider the norm ("natural versus unnatural" or "normal versus abnormal"), are they what they were yesterday, are they still evolving or are they being rejected or adopted with certain reservations in mind? How have these labels at the end of the day been perceived in the media, who are the main actors behind these perceptions and what are the current debates on the same? Have these labels helped in understanding the diversity that we live in or are they one of mere labelling alone? What are the conceptions and misconceptions that find voice in the media, what are the stereotypes and notions on the same, what do these different voices choose to say in the forums that are provided in media? The following research tries to break down these labels and look at the different perceptions that are constructed as a result of the various ways in which media has been used (or not been used) to reflect different realities. It thus tries to look at the amorphosity of sexual identities currently at a critical phase of crystallisation. The research will look largely at perceptions that are projected in the media, capture these trends and opinions and try and document them in the light of the progress we have made in understanding (or not understanding) sexual freedom. The effort would be to build a collage of perceptions, focussing and assuming on the fact that there are many identities involved here. In the current effort there will be two areas where one could be specific, but which would lay stress on the fact that maybe the same approach of understanding perceptions could be used across different contextual bases and individuals. In my research I am trying to look specifically at India and place the above concerns with special respect to the debates on sexuality of women in India, not forgetting that this exists in a much larger framework with many other identities in play and the fight for negotiation on the same in a shared world. Further in the light of the above concerns a special focus will be given to only one of the identities (or term or label)-of the “lesbian”. The research will be looking at the Internet, with an emphasis on search engines and debates currently being voiced on the Internet and search for a pattern or trend, if any. Further there will be an attempt to compare the above with documentation from other popular media like songs, stories, legends and telefilms in India. Regards Sayantoni. From meenugaur at hotmail.com Mon Dec 23 23:03:14 2002 From: meenugaur at hotmail.com (meenu gaur) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 17:33:14 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Proposal for Sarai Independent Fellowship Message-ID: This is a posting of my proposal for the Sarai Independent Fellowship. Looking forward to your suggestions and comments. Meenu Proposal for a Research Project,�Camp People: The Refugees from Kashmir� �I heard you in the other room asking your mother: �Mama am I a Palestinian?� When she answered �Yes,� a heavy silence fell on the whole house. It was as if something hanging over our heads had fallen, its noise exploding, then silence� Afterwards...I heard you crying I could not move. There was something bigger than my awareness being born in the other room through your bewildered sobbing. It was as if a blessed scalpel was cutting up your chest and putting there the heart that belongs to you...I was unable to move to see what was happening in the other room. I knew, however, that a distant homeland was being born again; hills, plains, olive groves, dead people, torn banners and folded ones, all cutting their way into a future of flesh and blood and being born in the heart of another child... - Ghassan Kanafani, Men in the Sun. Be it the Tibetan, the displaced �East Pakistani�, the Afghan or the Kashmiri Pandit, the refugee has been inalienable from Delhi. With the refugees comes a whole culture, which helps constitute the urban experience in Delhi. It is at Majnu Ka Tilla, Tibetan Market, Lajpat Nagar, Old Delhi and other such familiar spaces that one usually encounters the refugee in Delhi. But if one were to just enquire, we would be surprised to discover a refugee settlement or �colony� just near where we live. I live in one such �colony� in Malviya Nagar where all the land originally belonged to West Pakistan Displaced People or refugees from West Pakistan. Not too far from where I live is a small Afghan settlement. And such settlements dot the entire cityscape of Delhi. There are about hundreds and thousands of refugees living all over India -people from Sri Lanka, Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The Dalai Lama, spiritual & political leader of the Tibetans, led his community into India after the Chinese invasion in 1950 and about 1, 00,000 Tibetans have since settled in 30 or more camps, all over India. Thousands of Afghan refugees had taken shelter in Delhi from the civil war in Afghanistan. And so did the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. Many of these refugees are settled in Delhi. Though migrations of all kind have happened through space and time and are usual to any society or culture but most of these migrations were forced migrations and often the result of political violence. The refugees haven�t always come from neighboring countries. In early 1990s, more than 3,00,000 Pandits (or Kashmiri Hindus) left Kashmir out of fear for their lives, as insurgent violence spiraled out of control. This unprecedented mass migration has been the result of the conflict over Kashmir. Most of the Pandit refugees are called "migrants" in the government parlance as if the community had chosen to leave (�migrate�) on its own. Thus the crucial issue of forced migration has often been ignored. The Government of India does not officially recognize them as internally displaced persons. As such they remain debarred from many assistance programmes funded by international bodies such as the UNHCR. Of the over three hundred thousand Pandits, most have got relocated in camps and rented accommodation in and around the Jammu. But many of these refugees had come to Delhi. Neglected by the State, they live in virtually inhuman conditions in the refugee camps in Delhi. Most of these people changed their businesses and their roles in their traditional communities were ruptured. They are alienated from the urban experience, with which they don�t seem to fully be able to identify. Everything in these camps is in short supply, except of course the indignities of such squalor. Things haven�t changed much over the years and most people are suffering in silence. Most of the times the Camps have proved to be bad solutions for the complex problems of internal displacement. Palestinian refugee Camps in Beirut, for instance. The Camps for Kashmiri Pandits in Delhi are no exception. If in Jammu, the Camps mean tented cities, in Delhi they are Community Halls. This interaction between the urban space and encampment is significant. Interestingly despite the hardships, the Kashmiri Pandit refugees have taken steps to preserve their culture and language, much like the Tibetans. This is often reflected in the Camp life. Imagining home and preserving the past are the central preoccupations in the Camp community. My attempt in this research project is to document the everyday lives, struggles and experiences of the Kashmiri �migrants� living in camps through photographs and recorded testimonies. I hope to witness the dreams of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits; interacting with the urban, imagining their homelands. These homelands are also the Other of the city they live in, as refugees in refugee camps. For those displaced there is poverty and the loss of family and community, and little help to deal with the extensive material and psychological impacts of displacement. The Indian government has only provided basic assistance not because of a lack of resources but due to political expedience. The children have suffered terribly as their most basic needs such as education and health are neglected in the camps. Most children suffer from emotional distress. The need to reconstruct Kashmiri cultural patterns in Delhi hasn�t been extended to the children of the Camps who remain deprived of a sense of identity. They only have a virtual social identity as �migrant� children. Many children were also born into these camps and have lived with the stories of a lost homeland, countless memories as narrated to them by the elders of their family. How do they invoke this land in their imaginary, what constitutes their images of the homeland, is there any lure to this land, and if yes then what? These are only some of the questions that I�d like to investigate in my research on the Camps. Reconciliation and normalization in Kashmir is more likely to be achieved through reintegration of shattered Kashmiri communities, both inside and outside Kashmir, than by religious division and separation. The people of the Camps have a vital role to play in any real reconciliation. The idea of pursuing this project first occurred to me while shooting for my student film in the Kashmiri Pandit refugee camp at Baljit Nagar in West Delhi�a young girl, had woken up in the middle of the night and started furiously painting�hills, a lake, the Valley�she had never been to Kashmir but feverish didn�t stop painting all night. My conversations with the girl and other children of this Camp revealed to me that these children in their everyday life negotiate with complex questions of identity and politics in a predominantly urban milieu. Their parents had mostly grown up in rural Kashmir, or at best in Srinagar, and are alienated from their new surroundings. Living in these matchbox spaces, the children and the adults imagine a lost homeland, alternately as idyllic and terrible. The �Camp people� seem to belong to Delhi but dream of Kashmir. Their imaginary homelands, Delhi-Kashmirs, interact in complex ways with the grim reality of an urban Delhi�they become sites of fantasy and also a weapon of resistance in a hostile urban environment. The South Extension Kashmiri Pandit refugee Camp is an example of a situation where somebody uprooted from rural Kashmir, living in a large Community Hall weakly partitioned by bed sheets to accommodate many families- is assaulted by the most fashionable commercial markets of New Delhi the moment he walks out of the Camp. These contradictions have in interesting ways shaped the politics of the Hindu Right in Delhi. Many of the young men in these Camps, though harbouring little ill feeling for the fellow Muslim Kashmiris, have nevertheless joined the revivalist Hindu organizations such as the RSS. The Sangh Parivar has manipulated these displaced/migrant communities in political agitations. It has been observed that displaced people constitute an easy target for political manipulation and propaganda. Hostility towards the dominant Kashmiri Muslim community has been drummed up by hyper nationalist politicians. Post � Gujrat, we have been fed with a constant rhetoric on the Kashmiri Pandits by the Hindu Right. The people in the camps themselves are aware that they have been used as vote banks or to put in the words of one of the camp residents, as �playing cards� by the Right. However, the Kashmiri Pandits in the camps remain frustrated by the antagonism and the indifference they witnessed around them in 1990s and thereafter and this only helped in their mobilization by the Hindu Right. However what was obvious from my meetings with people in the camps was that these people have similar cultural aspirations as do the Kashmiris in the valley and that their daily lives have changed forever as have the lives of the Kashmiris in the valley and that there can be no solution to what is proclaimed as the �Kashmir problem� without a reconciliation between the two communities. Any engagement with Kashmir requires of us an engagement with the people exiled from the valley and from their homeland. I would also like to explore the ways in which these changing political realities affect the life and imagination in the Camps. I also hope the project contributes to our understanding of the consequences of forced migration. I plan to work in the Kashmiri Pandit refugee camps at Lajpat Nagar, South Extension, Baljit Nagar, Sultanpuri and so on. I would like to explore the spaces that surround the Camps (work spaces, schools of Camp children, markets etc.). In addition, I'd like to focus on the multiple meanings, which an idea of the home and homeland acquires in a Camp. The most important aspect of the project is to work with memory. To create a reservoir of �good memory� that deals with the historical amnesia that has turned the Kashmiris in these Camps into people without pasts- severed from a shared life with the Muslims of the valley. My research method in the beginning will involve a survey of the Camps. In-depth documentation - visual and written - will then follow. I would like to use photography to record the images of the Camp life. The idea is to try and photograph without the intrusion of the need to create �great pictures� but to document an archive of loss and pain. The project focuses on the experiences of Kashmiri Pandits as the Internally Displaced and will also involve visual documentation [using digital video (if necessary)] the multiple experiences of and responses to the violence in Kashmir. I�d like to add though that the idea is not to represent the Kashmiri Pandits as mere victims but to document the way the violence in Kashmir has ruptured Kashmiri lives, regardless of which religious community they come from. _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_stopmorespam_3mf From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Tue Dec 24 11:32:39 2002 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 22:02:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Vampire rumours in Malawi Message-ID: <20021224060239.43474.qmail@web41110.mail.yahoo.com> follows on from monkey man rumours in Delhi and from an earlier posting on rumours of body part theft in Latin America - especially the second since this made explicit the relationship between these rumours and other, more naturalised but equally brutal, assaults on working-class bodies. R http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2602461.stm 'Vampires' strike Malawi villages There are fears that crops are being left untended "No government can go about sucking blood of its own people - that's thuggery" - President Bakili Muluzi By Raphael Tenthani BBC correspondent in Blantyre Rumours of people being attacked for their blood have swept southern areas of Malawi. Terrified villagers have left their fields untended, too scared of becoming the next victims of the mysterious blood-suckers. President Bakili Muluzi has joined other officials in trying to calm fears and has said the rumours are unfounded and a plot to undermine the government. But residents have been taking the law into their own hands, killing one man thought to be a human vampire and badly injuring three others. Some people - mainly women and children - have come forward to say they have been victims of the blood-thieves. One woman showed journalists a mark on her arm where she said a needle was inserted to draw her blood. The alleged attacks have taken place over the last three weeks in Blantyre as well as the districts of Thyolo, Mulanje and Chiradzulu. Strangers are becoming victims of vigilantes as villagers are wary of anyone who is not known in their area. One man was stoned to death after being suspected of working with the vampires. In Thyolo, villagers attacked three Roman Catholic priests who were strangers to the area. They were beaten and detained overnight before a woman recognised one of them as a priest. 'Malicious stories' Police and government officials have visited the areas hit by the stories to try to calm fears. Mr Muluzi, back from a private visit to Britain, has now joined that campaign. He said he had been told the rumours had been spread by "malicious and irresponsible" members of the opposition. He had learnt the stories included claims that his government was colluding with international aid agencies to supply them with human blood in exchange for food aid. "No government can go about sucking blood of its own people," said the president. "That's thuggery." He said there would be severe punishment for the unnamed opposition politicians once they were caught. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From sayantoni at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 24 12:57:02 2002 From: sayantoni at rediffmail.com (sayantoni datta) Date: 24 Dec 2002 07:27:02 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Rsearch Proposal Message-ID: <20021224072702.1829.qmail@webmail28.rediffmail.com> To the Sarai Reader List Sending in the listing on my research proposal for Independent Research fellowship for the reader list again,in case you haven't received it. Sorry for the inconvenience ********* "Discovering Sexuality in the media:Amorphous Kaleidoscopic Images" Most often when we speak of sexual identities we look at different groups in the same, these being the heterosexuals, the homosexuals, the lesbians, the gays, the bisexuals, the transsexuals, the transvestites, the queer, the straight, the "chhakka" the "hijra"....the list is endless, the labels many. The most difficult and yet the easiest way to understand diversity and put it in a universal framework is the use of labels and language and definitions. Understanding this diversity is even more difficult when each label we use or word we coin helps to identify a difference. Do these differences help us to differentiate a YOU/US as against THEM and create parallel worlds, or do these differences help bridge a gap in understanding various identities in a universal world? The research looks at shared spaces like the media where different individuals and groups come together, where both social and personal thoughts find expression in a larger domain. In some domains like the internet the actors in the media are much larger consisting of a wider and active public, in others like the newspapers or cinema the audience is larger in terms of numbers than the actor. Mediums like legends and stories of a defined period throw light on context specific and time bound notions. Keeping in mind the history of several movements and efforts made by different groups propagating different identities, and keeping in mind historical approaches and efforts made towards the understanding of sexual freedom, and the use of media to express the same, the researcher has proposed to relook at these labels. Are they an easy coinage for inexplicable relationships, or terms opposed to what one may consider the norm ("natural versus unnatural" or "normal versus abnormal"), are they what they were yesterday, are they still evolving or are they being rejected or adopted with certain reservations in mind? How have these labels at the end of the day been perceived in the media, who are the main actors behind these perceptions and what are the current debates on the same? Have these labels helped in understanding the diversity that we live in or are they one of mere labelling alone? What are the conceptions and misconceptions that find voice in the media, what are the stereotypes and notions on the same, what do these different voices choose to say in the forums that are provided in media? The following research tries to break down these labels and look at the different perceptions that are constructed as a result of the various ways in which media has been used (or not been used) to reflect different realities. It thus tries to look at the amorphosity of sexual identities currently at a critical phase of crystallisation. The research will look largely at perceptions that are projected in the media, capture these trends and opinions and try and document them in the light of the progress we have made in understanding (or not understanding) sexual freedom. The effort would be to build a collage of perceptions, focussing and assuming on the fact that there are many identities involved here. In the current effort there will be two areas where one could be specific, but which would lay stress on the fact that maybe the same approach of understanding perceptions could be used across different contextual bases and individuals. In my research I am trying to look specifically at India and place the above concerns with special respect to the debates on sexuality of women in India, not forgetting that this exists in a much larger framework with many other identities in play and the fight for negotiation on the same in a shared world. Further in the light of the above concerns a special focus will be given to only one of the identities (or term or label)-of the “lesbian”. The research will be looking at the Internet, with an emphasis on search engines and debates currently being voiced on the Internet and search for a pattern or trend, if any. Further there will be an attempt to compare the above with documentation from other popular media like songs, stories, legends and telefilms in India. From ravig at del6.vsnl.net.in Tue Dec 24 14:47:11 2002 From: ravig at del6.vsnl.net.in (ravi) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 14:47:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: Sarai Research Fellowhip: Photo documentation of Bhatti Mines Community Message-ID: <020b01c2ab2d$40af3f20$0300a8c0@RAVI> Marginalizing Communities: People, Environment and Urban Space - The Relocation of People living at Bhatti Mines, Delhi The Bhatti Mines community in Delhi is facing eviction from their current home for over 25 years. The relocation has been ordered since their settlement falls under the notified Reserve Forest of the Delhi Ridge since 1995. Ravi Agarwal and Anita Soni will photographically explore and narrate the story of the Bhatti mines people, both as see from within the community, as well as their linkages to the city. The proposal is to research and document photographically the people, their environment, livelihoods, struggle, the process of their relocation, the site of their shifting, their relationship with the forest within a context of the ongoing related political and judicial dynamics. The document will also emerge with events. Backgound: History of Protection of the Delhi Ridge: The Delhi Ridge Forest found various degrees of legal protection in Independent India since 1989, even though the Moguls and the British had earlier passed various laws to protect it. The attempt, mainly by environmental NGOs, was to wrench it out of the clutches of various land development agencies in order to protect the ancient, 15 million year old forest. Amongst the most significant of these was the decision to declare the Asola Bhatti Mines area in southeast Delhi, bordering Haryana, as a sanctuary (almost 6200 ha) in 1991 and later to declare four separate sections of the Ridge forest, totaling 7777 ha, including the Asola Sanctuary as Reserve Forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Unfortunately, the boundaries of the area in Asola also included a post - independence settlement of communities who had migrated from across the border, being mostly Oudhs and Kumhars. The notification made on the basis of the land boundaries presented by the Delhi Development Agency did not exclude these people. In 1996, when the Supreme Court of India was seized of the matter, it directed that the 10,000 odd citizens here be relocated into non-Ridge areas, on the basis of Government affidavits, which termed the settlement as a "slum" and not a village. The Communities Within: Both traditional communities, Oudhs and Kumhars, were hereditary mud workers. The Oudhs were nomadic, specializing in earthen masonry including for making rural rain harvesting systems. The Kumhars were an artisan caste of clay molders. Their skills were utilized in the now closed Bhatti 'badarpur' mines, which provided employment through their mud working expertise, and gave them life as well as livelihood. With a deep respect for nature they planted trees amongst their abodes and compounds, (some of which have now grown to be large and shady), built temples, and as per their tradition buried their dead. Subsequently, as part of vote-bank politics, various politicians paid lip service to them and had their colonies named Sanjay Nagar, Indira Nagar and Balbir Nagar. They were issued ration cards, presented with a primary health center and even government run primary and secondary schools, which today educate over 700 local children. Over the decades, the original community and traditional livelihoods underwent a change. Their traditional mud houses were infiltrated with pucca housing, hand pumps and even a few garbage dumps. It is this condition, and not their tradition, which the State presented in Court when classifying them as a 'slum' and not an urban village. Village life still exists amongst them, as they struggle to cope with their encounters with modern influences, and the impact of the huge cosmopolis they constitute the southeast boundary of. Today, at least the core part of the settlement has all the settings of a small village. Work includes weaving rope baskets for carrying mud on donkeys, pottery - even though with shrinking markets- local shops, as well a keeping livestock. Their livelihoods are increasingly dependent on manual daily wage work nearby, breaking stones, digging trenches or even selling their wares. Displacement and Relocation: The threat to all this being destroyed is real, even as the people pray and hope, unbelieving of the notices being served to them by the Delhi Slum department. The house walls on the main streets are replete with slogans like " we will die but not leave our homes," and " why are farmhouses not part of the Ridge, while our village is?" The Supreme Court is holding hearings on a regular basis to take the government to task for not keeping to the relocation schedules since 1998.The site of their relocation itself has been a bane of contention. In 1997, the slum department of the Delhi Govt spent over Rs 27 crores at a site nearby, Jaunapur, but abandoned it evidently under pressure from farmhouse owners. Instead a distant site, 40 km away has now been chosen. The 12 sq. meters of undeveloped land slotted for the entire family, relocated from their current open green spaces, will ring a virtual death knell for the community. The Environment and People Divide: This is a community, which in all probability will cease to exist as one, in a few months from now. Questions of "whose city," "whose urban space," "whose forest," and "whose environment,' come to the fore. The historic framing of the issue, in terms of environment vs. people, leads to conflict instead of resolution. The State, with its understanding of the forest based on laws with imperial roots, has no provision to examine the issue from the perspective of the Rights of the communities themselves. The debate, being played out at various levels nationally, at the grassroots as well as at policy, has led to deep nation-wide divisions between conservationists and human right proponents. It is increasingly agreed upon now that there needs to be a consensus on a conceptual framework of approach, which examines the actual interface of the communities with the forest. In this particular case the issue at hand is about urban land use and the nature of participation by affected people in city planning. It is our understanding that there is an urgent need to project this and such cases into the larger public sphere to be able to influence understandings of people as well as policy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021224/53cc490e/attachment.html From rummanhameed at yahoo.com Tue Dec 24 17:42:18 2002 From: rummanhameed at yahoo.com (Rumman Hameed) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 04:12:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Research proposal Message-ID: <20021224121218.17276.qmail@web21103.mail.yahoo.com> Here's my research proposal. Looking forward to comments and suggestions, if any. And wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Best wishes, Rumman Hameed ***************************** REASEARCH PROPOSAL A casual walk through Old Delhi reveals hardly anything but congestion and chaos. A major reason for this is that the residential areas are interspersed with commercial areas. But as one moves away from the congested roads and steps into the quieter lanes and by-lanes, one is struck by a conspicuous connectedness, which is often invisible, between the houses that apparently seem clustered together, but are spatially apart. One notices a convergence of buildings, architecturally as well as symbolically. During the day, one notices domestic-helps carrying bowls of food, neatly covered, from one house to the other. One also sees huge trunks and cartons of different sizes moving between the houses, which sometimes are across mohallas, and is surprised to find that these trunks contain the trousseau of a bride-to-be because her own house is small which can not contain all this. I intend to map this symbolic communication and connect architectural (or physical) convergence with vertical interactions. I am interested in exploring the communication trajectories in an urban complex, the Walled City in this case, as a way of dealing with spatialities. My study would primarily explore the unique forms of communication and different levels of interactions among these structures. I would focus on the vertical and horizontal interactions within a mohalla and also between mohallas. Interactions at the street-level, which I refer to as horizontal, spread over a wider area, stemming out in different directions across mohallas. This seems distinct from the interaction at floor level, which I call vertical. Vertical interaction apparently seems to be narrower, confined to a particular street / lane. For instance, direct communication between the fourth floor of one house and the ground floor of the other house. These different levels of communication also bring into focus segregation and differentiation of space and the simultaneous marginalization of one of the genders in particular spaces. I aim to understand this constant negotiation of space. I would also enumerate the critical nature of such interactions. I would look into the manner in which these interactions, on the one hand, bridge the social differences and at the same time they create and reinforce the feeling of �the other�. People inhabiting Old Delhi for approximately 350-400 years call themselves �old� and �true� Dilliwallahs, with an air of arrogance. Today, the population of Old Delhi has a large percentage of non-Delhiites or �baahar-waale / baahar ke� (people from outside Delhi) as they are referred to by Dilliwallahs. In this context, it is interesting to note that food seems to be an important medium of perceiving a person differently, as an outsider. The old Purani Dilliwallahs distinguish themselves from people belonging to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab, who are now their neighbours, through food. This research would also help in understanding the nature of neighbourhood, what constitutes a neighbourhood in the context of Old Delhi, a different sense of boundaries, whether it is confined to the popular conceptions in urban literature or is it delimited to a larger space. METHODOLOGY I would be covering mohallas that are completely residential like Ahata Kaley Sahab as well as those which are interspersed with commercial areas such as Kucha Ustad Dagh. I would primarily be studying families that are still living in Old Delhi, and a few of those which have shifted residence to other parts of Delhi over the past two-three years. I will use a combination of participant observation and informal interviews for this study. I would, primarily, be �hanging out� in the streets, a visibly male domain, in order to observe the activities of the people and the various forms of communication. Streets offer a strategic position, which allow a close observation of the vertical as well as the horizontal interactions. I would also be relying on secondary data and archival research. The available information on and about Old Delhi is limited. Though there have been a substantial number of studies on the area but hardly any by the inhabitants of Old Delhi themselves. I aim to enrich the existing information and data on Old Delhi by generating materials such as photographs and slides, short video clips (if possible), taped interviews or simply the casual conversations of people among themselves or with me, and maps of the mohallas I would be covering. I would be documenting minute details about the life of people and their urban experiences in Old Delhi. *********************** --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021224/cf052072/attachment.html From vipinbhati at yahoo.com Mon Dec 23 12:19:29 2002 From: vipinbhati at yahoo.com (Vipin Bhati) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 12:19:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] hello some notes from the trip Message-ID: Hello everyone I am writing this from the holiest of the hindu cities Kashi or benares.It has been exactly six weeks of this long and arduous trip that we have undertaken.I am on a nationwide shooting spree for a documentary.The director is Saeed Mirza of NUkkad fame.He is an intractable old man.Garrulous , verbose , a master of platitudes.If i had met him for a day , i would have thought he is a tolerable , possibly intelligent man but as it happens i have to spend three months with him and it being a small crew , have to engage in the laborious discussions that border on the fringes of intellectual bankruptcy and the obvious.Rarely does it rise to the a level that behoves such an eminent and erudite personality.The trip so far has been extremely hectic and barrring a few exceptions , very tiring.WE have covered Gujarat, Rajasthan , Delhi ,Punjab ,Haryana, Jammu , Kashmir, Laddhakh, leh, Himachal, Uttaranchal and U.P. We have had only a day's break at Lucknow and that too because our two zeeps had to be serviced.We have been given two Armada grands by MAHINDRA and MAHINDRA as a gesture of goodwill for a cause.Thankfully the AC works but we have the gargantuan figure of Saeed Mirza in the front seat trying his very best to prevent us from getting the cold breeze.We keep on devising ways and means to keep him at bay. Also we have to keep on conjuring new strategies to counter his hackneyed and banal phrases eg "what have we done to this country" "Oh my god did you see that stupid cow in the middle of the road with her son.She is a bad mother....... repeat ......repeat.I wont get into the gory details of his verbal diarrhoea.I am a bit surprised at his fame all across the country.People have loved his serials and they recognise him everywhere specially villages where only doordarshan exists. The good part of the trip is that we are staying in relatively lesser known places and meeting people one would never come across.The trip has not sprung any surprises in as far as people are concerned.The country has multitudes of poor, homeless, destitutes , unemployed and underemployed.People betrayed by successive govts, , middle and upper classes and a compassionless establishment.People for whom economists' proclamations mean a naught.There are no eyeopeners here.We are an ocean of starving people being driven to the wall slowly but ever so decidedly.The hegemony of the affluent and influential has stamped its authority on every nook and corner of the country.On top of that we have the horror of gujrat..We went to a village sardarpur where 33 muslims were burnt alive.The local hindu population had the audacity to say that nothing happened.They even dissuaded us to go there.We managed to reach the spot.There were a few speechless children around the charred remains of what were once muslim houses.the terror in the eyes of the muslim kids was to be seen to be beleived.You could sense that they were living on leased life. In gujrat as well as else where we have met the most marginalised sections of our society and one is alarmed at the presence of many muslims amongst these.They , along with the dalits and adivasis emerge as the most oppressed , victimised and systematically neglected groups. And yet they have the magnanimity of heart and generosity of spirit that is hard to fathom.I have been overwhelmed by their modest dreams and clear aticulation of what they perceive as the betrayal of the poor and helpless. The hardest part of the journey was Jammu and kashmir , where we faced triple threats of militancy , army and the landslide.When we reached jammu , a bomb exploded in a bus 1 km ahead of us.On the srinagar road there was a gun pointing at you every 100 yards.A single wrong move and you could be fired at.Once approaching srinagar we tried putting our camera on a tripod inside the car, the army javan in a vehicle ahead of us aimed his Ak47 at us and almost fired.We had to fold our arms and quickly remove our camera to show him. Luckily he realised fast that we were a film crew.There was a land mine explosion in banihal (Doda) just after we passed it.Dras , the second coldest place in the world after siberia , where we stayed a night was bombed by pakistan after we left.we reached Kargil only to realise it had been shelled last night. And yet people go on with their lives.The army and state repression is very conspicuous.People of kashmir are peace loving and very benevolent.They hate the army the most then Bsf and then Militants.There is no sympathy for militancy but they dont mince words in their criticism of the governmnts that have donned the mantle of power in the state as well as they are eloquent in their disregard for pakistani intervention.Indian army has commited some of the worst crimes known to humanity.I will leave the rest for you to surmise. The srinagar leh road is the most beautiful road in the world.It is exclusively used by the army.On that road you get a feeling that you are in an occupied territory a la paris by Hitler.The valley of Sonamarg was incredibly picturesque.It is a pity it is totally a domain of Indian army.Laddakh is truly the roof of the world.You see long stretches of nothingness , no vegetation , no signs of life.You se e snow peaks that are below your eye level.The overididng emotion is that you are on an unknown planet a la star trek.Just before Leh there was a point called the magnetic hill where if you keep your zeep in neutral the zeep starts going up the slope.It was surreal and mind you the slope must have a gradient of at least 30 degrees.Leh Manali road is the highest motorable road in the world and probabaly the most dangerous.The highest point in the world is at Khardungla pass at a whopping 18328 feet.You are hard pressed to breathe.if you walk a bit you are breathless.I was wearing two sweaters , a thick woolen jacket , legwarmers , two pairs of gloves etc and still shivering and i had a hard time holding the mike.We were interviewing labourers from bihar who were ironically wearing hawai chappals and pant and shirt.They were building the roads we even feared to tread.Bihari labourer rushes in where angels fear to tread.The bihari labourer is the most ubiquitous human species.You find them everywhere toiling hard , on the highest roads in the world , on tiger hill in kargil carrying army supplies, in dense forests of Corbett cutting river stones.They are the most hardworking , sceptical often cynical and very largehaerted.They know exactly what they have been subjected to.They explode the myth of silent , ignorant majority of poor.They are laconic , curt , polite and incisive and informed.I am amazed that they are not on the streets creating the largest revolution in human history. I must confess i am surprised at coming out alive of the LEh Manali stretch.472 kms of the most breathtaking scenery and scary roads. Sometimes there was just no road.After a while you realise the road along with the mountain has plummeted into the INDUS, one of the most beautiful rivers in the world.WE came across a small village near Lamayuru in Laddakh on the banks of the river Indus.The tribe there is believed to be the original Aryans.They are blue eyed blonde people , extremely poor nowadays.Many german women came here earlier to get impregnated with what they beleived was pure aryan blood.so much for fanaticism. rest later .the voyage continues. vipin __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From idy010 at coventry.ac.uk Mon Dec 23 23:38:15 2002 From: idy010 at coventry.ac.uk (sreejata roy) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 18:08:15 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] greetings! Message-ID: <3E07510F.150E7EF1@coventry.ac.uk> Wishingyou Merry Christmas and HappyNewyear Sreejata VIDe Research Centre Coventry School of Art and Design Coventry University Priory Street CV1 5FB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021223/8fc719be/attachment.html From bulle_shah at hotmail.com Wed Dec 25 02:12:26 2002 From: bulle_shah at hotmail.com (Anand Vivek Taneja) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 21:42:26 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] The Christmas Mail Message-ID: There is no Christmas tree in the central square of Bethlehem this year. Just heard the news on CNN. ...And so? ... So, well, nothing. Christmas Eve without a public, non-denominational celebration in the town of Christ's birth. Tanks and guns and bombs instead of Christmas trees. A Christmas under siege - In Palestine, in India, wherever you care to look. One can't help feeling that Jesus would be more familiar with Christmas of this sort, rather than the imported, pagan, European idea of yuletide. Armoured Roman patrols in the streets of Bethlehem and Jerusalem would be more up his alley. And Jesus and his crucifixion seems all to familiar at the end of this year. The innocent, the weak, and the conscientious objectors are either already crucified or getting there. Forgive them, they know not what they do... So they/we bear the crown of thorns, as they/we wash our hands in despair, as us/them nail us to the cross with the most painfully contrived of accusations. Like being guilty for being Muslim, for talking on the phone in Kashmiri, for teaching Arabic. Yet another bearded man has been sentenced to death on accusations baseless. They say Jesus went to Kashmir after the resurrection... ... And messing with myths is a dangerous buiness... But then the Jesus crucified, turning the other cheek, as Longinus thruts his spear in, is too familiar to miss. This Christmas I wish for the other Jesus. The Jesus who stormed into the temple and threw the moneylenders out. The Jesus who raged in righteous wrath. The Jesus who railed against those who turn God/religion into a profitable business. The Jesus who was hung up along with common criminals for his pains, as the law of the land was circumvented. Let's remember him, the Jesus who raged against the dying of the light, not the Jesus who forgave as he was killed. For there is nothing much left to forgive. And they know exactly what they're doing. And Atal Behari Vajpayee shares his birthday with Jesus... And it's all so complicated, and yet so terrifyingly simple... That Hitler worshipped the spear of Longinus, the spear that pierced the side of Jesus. That the RSS and its guru Golwalkar worshipped Hitler and his extermination of the Jews. That Atal Behari Vajpayee has publicly admitted to belonging to the RSS first, and being the Prime Minister of the country second. That in the name of Jesus, Jews and Muslims got kicked around Europe. That now the Jews kick around Muslims and Christians in the Palestine of Jesus. Oh, Jesus... Jesus won't you take the time To throw a drowning man a line Peace on earth... In the hope of the Jesus who threw the moneylenders out of the temple. In the hope of a Happy New Year. Anand Come, let us weave a dream tonight Otherwise the darkness of this hard age... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021224/7b78925b/attachment.html From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Tue Dec 24 22:54:13 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 17:24:13 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Christmas Mail In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20021224172413.GA19943@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> Over-simplification and generalization are two tools which are used to sway public opinion all two often, be it RSS, Hitler or anybody. But reality is usually much more complicated then one-one entity relationship. etc and supreet On Tue, Dec 24, 2002 at 09:42:26PM +0100, Anand Vivek Taneja wrote: > There is no Christmas tree in the central square of Bethlehem this year. > Just heard the news on CNN. > > ...And so? > > ... So, well, nothing. Christmas Eve without a public, non-denominational celebration in the town of Christ's birth. > Tanks and guns and bombs instead of Christmas trees. > > A Christmas under siege - In Palestine, in India, wherever you care to look. > > One can't help feeling that Jesus would be more familiar with Christmas of this sort, rather than the imported, pagan, European idea of yuletide. > Armoured Roman patrols in the streets of Bethlehem and Jerusalem would be more up his alley. > > And Jesus and his crucifixion seems all to familiar at the end of this year. > The innocent, the weak, and the conscientious objectors are either already crucified or getting there. > Forgive them, they know not what they do... > So they/we bear the crown of thorns, as they/we wash our hands in despair, as us/them nail us to the cross with the most painfully contrived of accusations. > Like being guilty for being Muslim, for talking on the phone in Kashmiri, for teaching Arabic. > > Yet another bearded man has been sentenced to death on accusations baseless. > They say Jesus went to Kashmir after the resurrection... > ... And messing with myths is a dangerous buiness... > > But then the Jesus crucified, turning the other cheek, as Longinus thruts his spear in, is too familiar to miss. > This Christmas I wish for the other Jesus. > > The Jesus who stormed into the temple and threw the moneylenders out. > The Jesus who raged in righteous wrath. > The Jesus who railed against those who turn God/religion into a profitable business. > > The Jesus who was hung up along with common criminals for his pains, as the law of the land was circumvented. > > Let's remember him, the Jesus who raged against the dying of the light, not the Jesus who forgave as he was killed. > For there is nothing much left to forgive. And they know exactly what they're doing. > And Atal Behari Vajpayee shares his birthday with Jesus... > > And it's all so complicated, and yet so terrifyingly simple... > > That Hitler worshipped the spear of Longinus, the spear that pierced the side of Jesus. > That the RSS and its guru Golwalkar worshipped Hitler and his extermination of the Jews. > That Atal Behari Vajpayee has publicly admitted to belonging to the RSS first, and being the Prime Minister of the country second. > > That in the name of Jesus, Jews and Muslims got kicked around Europe. > That now the Jews kick around Muslims and Christians in the Palestine of Jesus. > > Oh, Jesus... > > Jesus won't you take the time > To throw a drowning man a line > Peace on earth... > > In the hope of the Jesus who threw the moneylenders out of the temple. > In the hope of a Happy New Year. > > Anand > > > Come, let us weave a dream tonight > Otherwise the darkness of this hard age... -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From nanhi_kali at yahoo.com Wed Dec 25 02:23:40 2002 From: nanhi_kali at yahoo.com (Nandini Chandra) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 12:53:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] The Child's Experience of the City in the Bombay film Message-ID: <20021224205340.55212.qmail@web41203.mail.yahoo.com> __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Child, City.doc Type: application/msword Size: 73728 bytes Desc: Child, City.doc Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021224/ac0d5f59/attachment.doc From kanabu at yahoo.com Wed Dec 25 08:59:18 2002 From: kanabu at yahoo.com (navin) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 19:29:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] street musicians in mumbai (project) Message-ID: <20021225032918.26835.qmail@web10702.mail.yahoo.com> STREET MUSICIANS IN MUMBAI CITY (navin Thomas) While travelling through various parts of the country, I was exposed to a lot of rural folk as well as urban street music. I noticed that the amorphous nature of music had given rise to a unique marriage of folk music coupled with popular �Bollywood� cinema sounds, being performed by musicians in stages and arenas which intensify and interact with the cultural experience of urban life - the streets. There is an evident cross fertilisation between the two musical forms, with both taking from and responding to, the other. The Indian �filmi� music industry has a strong influence on popular Indian culture and while it has shaped public preferences, it has also borrowed from classical music forms. For example, the �shair-e�, a musical form performed in public where two people interact with each other through poetry and song is evident in popular cinema, where the hero and heroine play out a more stylised version of the former. One popular image of street musicians is of them being too lazy to get a real job, harassing people on the streets with �inferior� or �crude acts� to solicit money to support a degenerate lifestyle. This perception is not confined to this part of the world. As late as the end of the 1970�s, street artists everywhere were arrested and charged with begging and obstruction. Even today street musicians at the Gateway of India are usually whisked away or fined. Street music is perceived as a �baser� performing art � an illegitimate art form. However, it continues to endure this viewpoint, surviving elitist ideas of �high� art. Moreover, street music is being increasingly absorbed into mainstream musical forms without recognition. This resonates with implications with respect to the ethics in art, wherein the art form and its practitioners are ignored. Besides the obvious ethical violations of this practice, it puts in question the future of street music and the way it is practised. Lack of recognition of the agents of the art form; deprive the artists of social and economic benefits that are rightfully theirs. Street music is fast becoming an endangered resource. The purpose of this documentation is to study how street music, with its influences of popular and folk music forms embodies the developing times, attitudes and the temperament of people in ever-changing conditions. Taking into consideration that the streets are a stage used by artists and performers alike, part of the research work would also go towards studying musical performances, the corresponding public spaces where they are enacted and the kind of audience and response it receives. The streets are one such setting and it would be hard to ignore the influence of street culture on this particular art form. One cannot delineate street music from the multi-dimensions of street culture. The study would therefore be incomplete if the cultural settings of these performances are not considered and researched. In the course of fieldwork, photographs of musicians and their musical instruments, sound recordings and field notes will be compiled together to fully represent the performances. The value of this multi-faceted collection is that one is invited to hear the voices, see the faces, and sample the cultural context of the performances being recorded. The notes will be of an ethnographic nature, studying the individual performer, pertaining to his economic, social and cultural conditions. The homespun, creative and intelligent construction of musical instruments made by the artist�s themselves, will constitute an undiminished part of the documentation. These instruments mirror the many dimensions of the artist, helping us gain a further insight into the realities that exist, in this particular form of music. Streets and their culture lie at the heart of public life in contemporary India, especially in cities where urban housing is crowded and uncomfortable and its streets act as thoroughfares, bazaars, theatres and most of all a setting whose culture is constantly changing and where much of life is lived on the streets. I will be exploring street musical performances in and around Mumbai City. This is an ideal location for this study as the City is a large metropolis with a multi-cultural population consisting of diverse cultures from all over the country. Specific areas appropriate to this study would include the Hajee Ali area, Grant road, Churchgate, the Flora Fountain vicinity (including Pherozshah Mehta road) Chowpathy beach and most of all the various bustling train stations in the city. Although each item in the field collection will have an individual value, it will gain added significance when viewed in the context of the other materials gathered during interaction with the people and activities being documented. At the end of this project, the entire collection of recordings, photographs and research notes will singularly as well as collectively be important. Each work will have merit as an individual piece as well as when viewed as a part of the whole collection. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From khadeejaarif1 at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 25 11:26:41 2002 From: khadeejaarif1 at rediffmail.com (khadeeja arif) Date: 25 Dec 2002 05:56:41 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] proposal -indpendent fellowship Message-ID: <20021225055641.15874.qmail@webmail35.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... 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Name: Zakir_Nagar.doc Type: application/msword Size: 34816 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021225/54bf9c87/attachment.doc From monica at sarai.net Tue Dec 24 18:47:23 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 18:47:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] To all the researchers posting on the reader-list Message-ID: Dear researchers, This list is a public list. There are many subscribers - approx. 600 members - to this list and we value their online time and mailboxes. Your postings are obviously to invite everyone to comment and engage with your research. The postings on your research can not be a posting of proposals (since there is no one on the list you are proposing to :-)) but working ideas and concepts which are accessible and interesting to a wider public. Further there are some important posting guidelines: 1. Please post in simple text. (Use the Notepad application in Windows as a via media for all text) 2. Please do not send attachments. 3. Please write a clear and short description in the subject line. This is an archived list (http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/pipermail/reader-list), so please understand that what you write under the subject is all that people will have to access the ideas of anything you have written. 4. Please wait and see that your posting has reached, before hitting the send button again and again. best Monica List admin -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From spike_h at mail.com Wed Dec 25 12:32:56 2002 From: spike_h at mail.com (spike hibberd) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 02:02:56 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] unsubcribe sarai - spike_h@mail.com Message-ID: <20021225070256.55495.qmail@mail.com> -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup Meet Singles http://corp.mail.com/lavalife From khadeejaarif1 at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 25 13:14:47 2002 From: khadeejaarif1 at rediffmail.com (khadeeja arif) Date: 25 Dec 2002 07:44:47 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] independent fellowship-proposal Message-ID: <20021225074447.12427.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com> To the reader list: Dear Readers This is the first posting of our proposal to Sarai on which we are working under the Sarai’s Independent Research Fellowships. This study would be spread over a period of six months. It seeks to explore the daily lived experiences of women living in our neighbourhood – Zakir Nagar. We would be very interested in getting your feedback and suggestions. Personal Narratives It was the spring of 1993 when my (Khadeeja) family moved from a small town in U.P.(Sahaspur) to Delhi. This was a part of our larger collective efforts to realize our dreams. I wanted to take up studies after tenth std. our town did not have school beyond tenth. A part of our family settled in Sujan Singh Park and the rest bought a flat in Paschim Vihar. We were a huge family happy with our environment and the strong sense of ‘city’ life. In retrospect, I feel that this encounter with the city was the first instance of my family being split geographically. Paschim Vihar was more like the city stuff we watched on television. The family switched over to jeans and sarees the women in the family got their hair done at the local beauty parlors. We were one with the city life. But it all changed one night. We were all asleep at around 12:30 at night. A group of men came up to my flat; all of them were heavily drunk. We were abused as musalmaans. We were the badtameez creatures of the planet. On peeping through the window, we saw that they were 8-10 sardaars. The immense fear and anxiety made us sell our property at Sujan Singh Park and Paschim Vihar. We came to Zakir Nagar. I (Ambarien) was a girl of four years’ when my family moved from Libya to Aligarh. My parents sought the security of their larger family once in India. In 1984 we moved to Delhi. My father had lost his job in Aligarh. Communal tension in the city made his concerns for ‘security’ all the more pronounced. In Delhi, we settled in Zakir Nagar. My school was located in Greater Kailash-an obviously posh and elite locality of South Delhi. Though Tiny Tots had a lot of children coming in from my larger locality. I never felt very comfortable disclosing the fact that I lived in Zakir Nagar. As a child reading about civic amenities and cleanliness in textbooks, I felt that a place like Zakir Nagar is totally ‘unimaginable’ to my classmates. This is the reason I never had friends at school. I never wanted them to come to my place. My address at school was always accompanied by opp. New Friends Colony. I went to college at Jamia Millia Islamia that was in the vicinity of Zakir Nagar. For my larger family a Muslim from a ‘Muslim’ university was good for nothing. But for me this meant resolving an ongoing conflict with my identity. I went to Jamia in spite of having a choice between Miranda House and Lady Shri Ram College. The Idea. The proposed study is an effort to seek the details of everyday existence of women in a resettlement colony like Zakir Nagar, and the contradictions in the lives of the individuals as a result of the constant movement between the world as seen from outside and inside (Zakir Nagar.). The study will be structured as an urban ethnographic project that will combine oral narratives of a cross section of women along with detailed explorations of the different ways in which notions of public and private space work within the myriad definitions of what constitutes the ‘culture’ of Zakir Nagar. Zakir Nagar is geographically situated between two pulias. It is located on the outskirts of the posh South Delhi. The neighboring New Friends Colony people call it a village/ dustbin. It never gets mentioned in the mainstream media unless there is the banning of an organization like SIMI, or encounters with so-called ‘terrorists’. In such cases it gets front-page coverage. Zakir Nagar continues to be a space of paradoxes. Its present geography is defined by the constant movement of people from small villages to posh colonies like khan market. It has no fixed, defined identity. Over the years it has stretched from the main road into the countless by lanes running into each other. It has become a site of encounter between the traditional and the modern. It has both- the kebab-paratha culture of the walled city and the popping boards of cyber cafés in the by lanes. The need to live together as a huddled up and secure community, has given rise to an assertion of a collective identity. This identity is a visibly masculine interpretation of Islam. There is the Friday Khudba where men are given the guidelines for being ‘real’ Muslim men. This is supplemented by the distribution of local pamphlets outside the mosque. Once the office hours are over, the main road is full of men eating Kebabs and tikkas drinking karahi milk. The local press (Ifkaar Milli and Kaumi Media) stresses the need for the assertion of an ‘Islamic’ identity. To an outsider, this is the only ‘real’ Zakir Nagar and the ‘real’ Islam. The proposed study seeks to destabilize this conceived perception of a monolithic ‘Islamic Zakir Nagar’ by foregrounding, uncovering and excavating the contradictory and fascinating space occupied by women in this area. Driven by our personal circumstances, we have felt that women are constantly engaged in a struggle between cosmopolitan and local identities. They assume cosmopolitan/ secular identities when they move out of Zakir Nagar and return to a culture of dual identities as soon as they re-enter the space of Zakir Nagar. For two of the characters of this study, Huma (23) and Rani (37), movement between the inside and outside has resulted in ‘double’ identities. At home, Huma performs namaz 5 times a day, covers her hair; preaches anecdotes she claims as Islamic (“If you wear a bindi your forehead will be burnt on the day of judgment”).Huma has a circle of friends she made at Jamia and at school (Frank Anthony.) With them she goes out to PVR, M Block, Def. Col. She loves wearing stylish western outfits. While passing through Zakir Nagar she covers herself with a Chadar. Once outside, she takes it off. Rani came to Zakir Nagar 10 years back. Her husband runs a saloon at GK. Rani has friends in GK and New friends colony. Before coming to Zakir Ngar Rani used to only wear Western outfits, but now she has stopped wearing them so often. Rani never tells her friends that she actually stays in Zakir Nagr. She never calls her friends to her residence. If she has to treat them, she takes them out to some posh restaurant. Rani while passing through Zakir Nagar covers her head but outside Zakir Nagar she loves to be free. The only reason Rani does not want to shift to some other place is that Zakir Nagar keeps her aware of her religion. She associates the spatial identity of the place with religion. Rani goes for morning walks to the nearby park and interacts with women of New Friends colony. She has also joined a gym (men women combined). Rani hates going to a women gym. She hardly interacts with the people of Zakir Nagr. She does not go to any of the beauty parlors in Zakir Nagar. Despite these contradictions, Rani never wants to leave the place, though she comes to Zakir Nagar just to spend the night. Rani and Huma’s stories provide us with a glimpse into the different ways in which women’s desires, aspirations and dreams work within the spatial politics and culture of Zakir Nagar. During our interactions with our characters and our own circumstances, we have realized that simple stories of women’s repression within ‘Islamic culture’ does little to explain the contradictions and complexities of their existence within particular urban spaces. There are women who never interact with the world outside as often as Rani and Huma do, and yet they are comfortable with their identities. Two of the characters of the proposed study, Dilli wali Amma and Shabnam, wear the burqa and do all the work, from arranging the Plummer and carpenter for their neighborhood to the daily chores at home. For them, the Burqa has almost become a daily ritual sometimes liberating, for the anonymity it provides. We as women studying at MCRC Jamia, most expectedly a place of liberal interaction between ‘secular’ minds, have suffered from a presumption about our lives as Muslim middle class women. People come to us and ask questions like “what do we eat”? Why do we not wear western clothes so often? In the process we have seen how individual identities are assumed in relation to a place. Our study is an attempt to move against the grain of dominant scholarship on Muslim women where religion, family, marriage laws (civil code) and customs have been the primary focus. While these are all important issues, the proposed study seeks to interrogate all these issues by using the cultural and social space of Zakir Nagar, its routines, habits and daily life patterns as the context for our exploration. We will focus on issues of clothing, gestures, habitation, entertainment, physical movement, the very texture of the daily-lived experiences of the women as something that is intrinsically linked to the peculiar formation of Zakir Nagar. As a space, Zakir Nagar is seen as a ‘cohesive inner space’, secure from the communal culture of the city/country. At the same time it is a space that necessarily exists both in relation to its internal dynamics as well as the city of Delhi at large. The movement from the ‘inner’ to the ‘outer’ and back has led to the emergence of a fascinating space of tension, contradiction, and cultural identity. By focusing on the gendered nature of this contradictory space, this study attempts to draw attention to the complexities of women’s existence in urban/city spaces Research methodology Our research seeks to explore the daily texture of the lives of women in Zakir Nagar.Zakir Nagar as a resettlement colony has witnessed a massive transformation in its geographical outlook due to the huge migration of people from different parts of the city. The migration has been a repercussion of communal strife within the country. Whether the communal tension is outside country or within the country it has generated a great sense of insecurity within the Muslims in India. In places like zakir Nagar we get to see a hybrid test for life, which, time to time, has been tried to put under the garb of monolithic ‘Isalm’ and its direct implementation is imposed on the women of the community. Our study tries to explore the contradictions in the existence in the lives of women in zakir Nagar. This conflict has arisen out of a sheer sense of individuality of its women and regressive, masculine Islamic ways of life guided by some self-proclaimed authorities of Isalm. In the course of our study we would look for an alternative definition of also the men of our community, who are much more diverse than the Lungi and the beard clad stereotype of the mainstream. Our research method would include the documentation of lives of our characters in the form of photographs, recorded interviews followed by a write up. In order to contextualise our characters we would try to get a historical overview of the place both in written as well as oral form .we would also try to incorporate the alternative histories of the place-the history as perceived by the historians and the history as narrated by the people who actually live here and those who moved out. In our study ‘memory’ plays an important role in imaging the place according to the individual ways of seeing and perceiving reality. The role of local media is phenomenal in projecting a contrast between the guidelines provided to an ‘Ideal’ Muslim woman and the actual life that our characters are leading. We would also use the photographs and the content of local newspapers and magazines to support our study. Khadeeja Arif Ambarien Al Qadar From naunidhi at hotmail.com Wed Dec 25 13:54:40 2002 From: naunidhi at hotmail.com (Naunidhi Kaur) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 13:54:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Mumbai as a post riot city Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021225/59e9ead3/attachment.html From ustadv at hotmail.com Wed Dec 25 16:11:39 2002 From: ustadv at hotmail.com (Vishal Rawlley) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 16:11:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] TYPOCITY: examinig typographic forms in a city Message-ID: TYPOCITY Cities are littered with letters: typographic forms on posters, billboards, signboards, shop signs, street signs, name plates, number plates, bus timetables, train graffiti etc. cover the city communicating urgently, announcing pompously, informing mundanely, declaring hopelessly� The typographic styles employed in these communications convey beyond the literal meaning of the texts, revealing the traditions and aspirations of the culture they emerge from. The city of Bombay has a diverse range of signage styles and typographic forms arising from its varied social and cultural fabric. The influences of the film industry, the demands of commerce, the changes in political power etc, are all constantly reflected in the signage and typographic styles employed in various communication media around the city. TYPOCITY is a project that aims to document and analyze interesting and rare instances of typography throughout the city of Bombay from the point of view of graphic design, production technique and social significance. The scope of research will include rare and interesting forms of typographic display such as painted film posters, hand painted restaurant menu boards, hand crafted shop signs, calligraphic taxi number plates, archaic electronic displays etc. This research shall be sorted, annotated and archived. The best of these lettering styles will be typographically examined and converted into digital fonts (true type fonts). In recent years, the influx of globalization has led to a rapid replacement of many locally evolved styles of signage in Bombay. Backlit vinyl boards, digital printouts and stickers are replacing hand painted posters, signboards and graffiti. However, some old forms still survive and it is important that they be urgently documented. There are still a handful of film poster painters, the shops on Muhammad Ali road still retain the hand crafted signboards, some old textile mills still have the old embossed lettering above the arched gateway... The team of Kurnal Rawat and Vishal Rawlley will combine their specializations in typography and communication media respectively, in the execution of this project. Scouting the city, area by area, they shall photograph all interesting and rare typographic instances. These typographic forms shall be contextually sorted and archived under cross-linked categories such as language, period, style, technique, medium, area etc. The entire catalogue that thus emerges shall be archived on a website and made freely accessible. The best of these lettering styles shall be typographically examined and using appropriate computer software converted into true type fonts with the possibility to download these from the project website. This exercise will help in studying the social fabric of Bombay form a typographic lens. The documentation of this aspect of the visual culture of the city will also help in tracing the cultural history of the city. The reintroduction of vernacular styles in a digital form will help in preserving the cultural link between contemporary graphic-design with the traditional design practices. WORKPLAN Research Work We shall scout the entire city, photographing unique, rare and interesting typefaces. We shall also visit the workshops and meet the craftsmen involved in the production of these type forms as part of our research. Cataloguing and Archiving The research material will be sorted according to various contextual categories such as language, period, style, technique, medium, area etc and archived on a website. Creating True Type Fonts We shall make a typographic study of the ten most interesting typefaces emerging from the research. Examining the available alphabets and numbers of the particular font, the entire range of alphabets and numbers of the typeface shall be evolved. This will then be converted into a true type font using appropriate computer software. These fonts will also be made available for download from the project website. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_smartspamprotection_3mf From namitaa at rediffmail.com Wed Dec 25 18:40:33 2002 From: namitaa at rediffmail.com (Namita M) Date: 25 Dec 2002 13:10:33 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] proposal on signage &public art Message-ID: <20021225131033.31405.qmail@webmail28.rediffmail.com> DOCUMENTING SIGNAGE IN SHIVAJINAGAR Raheema and Namita Shivajinagar in Bangalore, inspite of its name is not predominantly Hindu, but a high density area with a sizable population of Muslims, Christians and Hindus. Shivajinagar displays a diversity of phenomenon in a small geographical space almost easily covered by foot – it is a bazaar, a residential area, a place for religious processions, for pirated goods and also for fish and crab. It has several intricately carved temples dotting the entire area including the market place, a large church which is the focus of many religious processions including St. Mary’s Feast, old mosques and new brightly painted ones, dargahs and also a huge Russell market for vegetables, fruit and meat which is frequented by all classes and sections of society in Bangalore. Here symbols jostle in a limited geographical space with each other, including commercial signs, political messages, government dictates, messages about love, pimps. The question almost is how do these symbols communicate with each other, and what varied meanings do these symbols have for the people. Religious and cultural symbols of different communities almost crowd each other out including a mural of Mother and Child on a wall owned by a madrassa. In the many layers of urban experience, we want to see if there exist symbols, messages, murals or any other material in the public sphere that people engage with, and which inspires and involves them in the course of their daily existence. Material which plays a role in giving an insight into the person they are, into their society and the relations between people. Our purpose is to find, document and in the end to contribute to the formation of visual, audio and any other engaging material in the public sphere, that people will believe is owned by them and they can change its form as easily as the meanings of various symbols change in the day-to-day lives of people. Some of the concerns because of which both of us through different journeys reached a point of actually writing a proposal for an idea like this is because of how social movements and popular mobilizations chose to engage with people. The use of predominantly textual material, and the process by which expereinces of people are translated through the use of langague of human rights and liberal values, emphasizing cruelty of violations. Here personal accounts are for campaigns, and histories are lost, other connected stories lose their relevance. Our concerns are also related to the growing domination of Hindutva imagery in the public sphere, and the discomfort that even seemingly innocent images of Hinduism and Hindu nationalism are shrinking spaces for anonymity and/or belonging for Muslims, Christians and other groups. PUBLIC ART AS PUBLIC SPHERE “The world is full of screens, the artist’s job is to pull them down” Jean Renoir “Art must take reality by surprise” Francoise Sagan “In jazz, there are no wrong notes” Miles Davis “We’re not confirmed anythings” Raheema and Namita Public art is a form of art that participates in or creates a space for politics, it is art that operates as or in public sphere. And here public art as public sphere will be where we can have interactions and use public art to communicate, inspire discussions and ideas. Researching the contemporary signage in an area, will familiarize us with the possibilities of public art there, the spaces available and what people find communicates and appeals to them. Through this process the meaning of various symbols, the daily lives of the community, the distribution of commercial, private and public spaces will be imbibed and then in turn help in the process of creating public art that plays an intimate role and shocks and surprises with insights that it gives into the person and society. Its easier to get people to look at something than to come to a protest or read a pamphlet. Yet somehow the uses of public art as a discursive practice in the public sphere have so far been limited. Good art has the ability to engage in a way that is almost insidious and at an unconscious level. It allows for a diversity of meanings for different people, and also for changing of meanings. Some of the ideas that that we want to include are the following: Public storytelling is a practice that we employed before in Ahmedabad with children and adults ranging from stories by Manto, Parsai and also fairytales like Ali Baba aur Chalis Chor. Here we want to do storytelling either through murals and by a person simply telling a story. These stories would deal with politics, corruption, love and other issues. Audio String- Recording the sounds of an area, things people say, songs on radio, car sirens, azaan, chanting, puja bells, calls for selling goods and then making an audio string or piece of music out of it. The juxtaposition of various sounds, the seeming conversation between them, and one sound as a background to another is what we want to bring out. To this a person can add a line, sound, chuckle or anything to strings of previous recordings of other people in Shivajinagar. Using a bioscope to show old, new, tinted and redone images found within Shivajinagar, inter-cultural marriages, images of a bazaar in Pakistan etc.; Egyptian photography or paradigm shift will involve taking photographs or portraits of people, changing a few details like background, hair, jewelry and thus transporting them to another time and place, allowing people to experience different belongings; encouraging graffitti on walls or screens that we put up; using traditional Rangoli designs juxtaposing a surprising image within them; murals of imagery that is similar in the Koran, Upanishads, Vedas, Bible, Gita and any other religious text; using commonly seen images at the back of autos or other popular images from cinema. The idea is to engage with people during the making of such murals, and allowing them to communicate with the work by adding to it later. An interactive Mural would be a comic strip using Mughal miniature style or various other styles of painting like kitsch, bringing out social, political issues that are relevant to the area in a quixotic, humourous way. This will born out of familiarity with the area and growing interactions that will then give us ideas as to what issues should be illustrated. If a daily or weekly event then it could become something that the community becomes familiar with and expects, much as we expect Amul advertisements to take pot-shots regardless of whether we consume Amul butter or not. What we want to do is to create art that questions. Art, especially that whose creators interact with you, and art that is mutable because of you, will be an exciting difference on the urban landscape. The people in their interactions with the makers and the installation or art become part of it. While the structure is being put up they are drawn into a discussion as to how they would like their society to be, and how that or various other visions and ideas they have can be made part of the installation or work of art as one of the many voices speaking out. Once the installation is up they can still contribute in various ways – by speech, by writing, drawing, being taped and played back becoming part of the public art that then replays to everyone else what their individual and collective ideas are. From lonequest_2k at yahoo.com Wed Dec 25 21:02:39 2002 From: lonequest_2k at yahoo.com (Rahaab Allana) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 07:32:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Of Urban Localities and Bazaar(s) Photography Message-ID: <20021225153239.58384.qmail@web40903.mail.yahoo.com> Dear All, My proposal. Feel free to comment. Of Urban Localities and Bazaar(s) Photography 1) As opposed to the established, tangible and conceivably ?static? cosmopolitan city, Bazaar (kinetic) complexes exhibit a tendency to change with the passage of time, an element through which they are able to incorporate space, people, behaviors and therefore even traditions (of art in particular, but of any saleable object or practice in general). One of my intentions is to investigate their organic nature, their enmeshed rural and commercial strains; a place where things are bought and sold, used and supplied. Are there clear divisions in a city or do its portions and localities fuse unhindered by people, production, walls (concrete)? Are there divisions within urban complexes which can be realised at the visual level when considering the position or (dis)placement of the Bazaar in a state such as Delhi? These are perhaps some of the questions the project seeks to address and illustrate with slides. The aim is not to find a conclusive answer but utilize and discuss visible differences or points of interrelation between ways of ?seeing? (viewer oriented), ?showing? (the image) and ?telling? (the photographer). 2) There are photographs of people(s) and place(s) and inversely, those who take photographs in these areas for/of the public, who adumbrate their own lineage to history, to a dynamic that exists in the history of photography. For instance, colour tinting on photographs (still practiced in Mahatta Studios among others in Old Delhi), seen in the development of photography as an art-form rather than a mere mode of documentation, illustrates a similar capacity (as do market complexes) to expand and overcome the boundaries of the medium (circumscribed zones). They are touched up, virtually like the Bazaars which contain an internal mutability whereby things are re-arranged making them less and less known, but ever available for the visitor/viewer. Therefore, in part, to show how photography gives meaning to facts (about subject and object) and the nature of those inferences. 2b) To diagnose, with a fresh set of images, the practice of dated forms in photography and how, and possibly why, they survive today in particular localities. Those images that withstand the current of time, such as portraiture and scenery are relevant here. This would involve the relations between producers and consumers, hierarchies in society, the process of ?making? an image rather than simply replicating a pre-given reality, i.e. of all that one sees through the view finder. Accessing the niche in history pertaining to the application of the camera with shifting tendencies between the photographer and ?patron? (consumer) and discerning what kind of a dialog exists today. 3) Photography, I should mention here, personifies a downward filtration, from the upper strains of society, evident in the colonial era, to commonplace events and the common man. Similarly, the kinds of images shot and developed still maintain certain link to the past. I will attempt to highlight some of those features within their present context, trying to, at the visual level, supply some kind of an Iconological explanation i.e. its cultural implications. The overall intention is not only to speak of the experience of photography within Delhi and particularly the Bazaars, but to create an appendix of images that stand on their own, creating a language of signifiers for which they are the signified, i.e. as images of a symptom, which Bazaars are when imagined within the context of urban India. Finally, I seek to return to the initial subject, that is, the experiences of and in the Bazaar at the visual level with the aid of individuals from the Bazaars that will, for a particular ?episteme? of photography, try to exemplify their structure and scope in the city. A hypothetical schedule for the specified duration (6 Months) is as follows: a) Field work and analysis of the structural and spatial dimensions of Bazaar complexes (adding to those mentioned earlier, Malvia Nagar, Sarojini Nagar Market, Pottery Lane in Saket, as opposed to those that are more like malls; Nehru Place, Ansal Plaza and even C.P.) b) Interaction with store holders and individuals who display their wares about the pursuit of their particular services or goods, especially photographers and developers, in order to illustrate popular taste and the pursuit of particular genres and techniques. c) A more comprehensive research based on the construction and institutionalization of Delhi during the early part of the 20th Century, juxtaposed with the ratio of organized/unorganized sectors with a comparative study based on 1 or more metropolitan cities, eg. Mumbai, Calcutta. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From avishek_ganguly at yahoo.co.in Thu Dec 26 04:42:11 2002 From: avishek_ganguly at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Avishek=20Ganguly?=) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 23:12:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] The Patriot Act ... Message-ID: <20021225231211.76170.qmail@web8004.mail.in.yahoo.com> The "Patriot Act" and other trivia from the land of liberty... http://telegraphindia.com/1021226/asp/foreign/story_1515974.asp# Foreign students under FBI scanner DAN EGGEN Washington, Dec. 25: The FBI is asking colleges and universities around the country to provide the government with personal information about all foreign students and faculty, prompting objections from some schools and higher education groups that view the request as illegal. The FBI says it needs the information to determine whether foreign students or teachers have ties to known or suspected terrorists. FBI and justice department officials say recent anti-terrorism language in the USA Patriot Act allows schools to provide the data without notifying those involved. But one prominent higher education group has told its members that providing the information would violate federal law. The US department of education also indicated in a general advisory this year that some of the information now sought by the FBI cannot be provided without a court order or subpoena. The conflict has attracted the attention of senators Patrick Leahy and Edward Kennedy, who complained in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft last week that the “legality of this request is not so clear”. The two, who are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Patriot Act approved after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks was specifically designed to limit government access to student records. “This law requires both a court order and a showing that the request is specifically tailored to a terrorism investigation,” the senators wrote to Ashcroft on December 18. “The FBI request does not appear to fulfill either of these requirements.” The controversy serves as the latest example of tension between law enforcement and academia since the September 11 attacks, carried out by hijackers who were trained at US flight schools and took advantage of lax oversight given to foreign students in the country. The FBI’s request comes as schools are scrambling to provide similar information to another agency, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, which is building a database to track the more than 200,000 foreign students who enroll in US schools each year. But unlike the INS, which is entitled to personal student information under immigration law, the ability of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to obtain such information is limited, legal and education experts said. In the weeks following the September 11 attacks, about 200 colleges acknowledged in a national survey that they had turned over information about foreign students to the FBI, most of the time without a subpoena or court order. But most of those requests were about specific students, and compliance was allowed under emergency provisions of federal privacy laws, officials said. The new letters, sent from FBI field offices beginning last month, request that schools provide the “names, addresses, telephone numbers, citizenship information, places of birth, dates of birth and any foreign contact information” for teachers and students who are foreign nationals, according to a sample copy provided to The Washington Post. The FBI declined to say how many schools have been asked for the information, or how many have complied. But officials characterised the request as voluntary. “There’s no requirement on the part of the colleges to provide this information,” FBI spokesman Bill Carter said. “We can request it, and they can provide the information. They don’t have to comply.” Before the Patriot Act took effect, the law governing the privacy of student records, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, allowed schools to provide only “directory information”, such as names, ages and birthdates, to law enforcement officers. Even then, the law required schools to obtain students’ consent for providing such information without a court order, legal experts said. The FBI’s stance, as outlined in its letter to universities, is that amendments included in the Patriot Act allow schools to “release information to the federal government for use in combating terrorism”, including a student’s citizenship and addresses. But LeRoy S. Rooker, director of the family policy compliance office at the US department of education, said in an interview yesterday that federal education officials have determined that, even with the changes made by the Patriot Act, citizenship and foreign address information cannot generally be provided to law enforcement agencies without a court order. Rooker outlined the limitations in a guidance document last April. After the FBI began sending letters to colleges and universities, the Association of American College Registrars and Admissions Officers issued a report saying that “a subpoena or court order must accompany all law enforcement requests for nonconsensual releases” of citizenship and similar information. LOS ANGELES TIMES-WASHINGTON POST NEWS SERVICE ________________________________________________________________________ Missed your favourite TV serial last night? Try the new, Yahoo! TV. visit http://in.tv.yahoo.com From jhasadan at hotmail.com Thu Dec 26 10:39:10 2002 From: jhasadan at hotmail.com (jha sadan) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 10:39:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] shahar ke NissanII Message-ID: Dear Friends, For some time, We have been working on the issue of visual representations that a city produces and which in tern construct the images of city. As a part of Sarai independent fellowship programme we did a small study on this subject last year. we have taken some pictures (now part of sarai archive). On the other hand, we tried to analyse the politics that go into the making of this visual city. Our aim was not just to collect photos of ordinary looking visual representations(signs, graffiti, advertisements etc) but the field work was primarily oriented towards getting an understanding of the public sphere of Delhi. In the context of Delhi, this exercise, we felt is more crucial as we do not have much to read on the subject. In the context of the wider arena of acedemic writings on public sphere, the intervention of our exercise wishes to open up the issue of visual public and the subject of gaze for a debate that has largely been ignored by the scholars working in the framework of Habermass. In recent decades, we have seen a sudden outburst on the subject of gaze, especially coming from scholars working in different aspects of gender politcis. However, because most of these studies are coming from the corner of gender studies, the general tendency has been to reduce the location of public sphere as a site primarily oriented towards the politics of gendered gaze. Gender, is no doubt a central strategy in the construction of public sphere but it is certainly not the only one. Recent writings on the gaze and public sphere sadly do not address other dimensions of the gaze and public sphere. In brief, we tried to locate the question of gaze by bringing into account of themes like, city's 'other', claims of state aand their resistence, the fuzzy geography of city etc.that go into the making of city in the eyes and imagination of citizens. However, i must make it clear that at this stage, all these issues have not been analysed in exhaustive fashion and the study merely provides an entry into field of visual public sphere. Now our work is in second stage and we are working on the economy of this visual city. A brief proposal is given below(as attachment file). We would like to have your comments and observations. Thanking You Sadan Jha Prabhas Ranjan. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 limited-time offer: Join now and get 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_newmsn8ishere_3mf -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: shaharII Type: application/octet-stream Size: 4333 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021226/3461c9bb/attachment.obj From sadan at sarai.net Thu Dec 26 17:45:32 2002 From: sadan at sarai.net (sadan) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 17:45:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] shahr Ke Nissan Message-ID: <20021226160745.3B12615DE@mail.sarai.kit> Dear Friends, For some time, We have been working on the issue of visual representations that a city produces and which in tern construct the images of city. As a part of Sarai independent fellowship programme we did a small study on this subject last year. we have taken some pictures (now part of sarai archive). On the other hand, we tried to analyse the politics that go into the making of this visual city. Our aim was not just to collect photos of ordinary looking visual representations(signs, graffiti, advertisements etc) but the field work was primarily oriented towards getting an understanding of the public sphere of Delhi. In the context of Delhi, this exercise, we felt is more crucial as we do not have much to read on the subject. In the context of the wider arena of acedemic writings on public sphere, the intervention of our exercise wishes to open up the issue of visual public and the subject of gaze for a debate that has largely been ignored by the scholars working in the framework of Habermass. In recent decades, we have seen a sudden outburst on the subject of gaze, especially coming from scholars working in different aspects of gender politcis. However, because most of these studies are coming from the corner of gender studies, the general tendency has been to reduce the location of public sphere as a site primarily oriented towards the politics of gendered gaze. Gender, is no doubt a central strategy in the construction of public sphere but it is certainly not the only one. Recent writings on the gaze and public sphere sadly do not address other dimensions of the gaze and public sphere. In brief, we tried to locate the question of gaze by bringing into account of themes like, city's 'other', claims of state aand their resistence, the fuzzy geography of city etc.that go into the making of city in the eyes and imagination of citizens. However, i must make it clear that at this stage, all these issues have not been analysed in exhaustive fashion and the study merely provides an entry into field of visual public sphere. Now our work is in second stage and we are working on the economy of this visual city. A brief proposal is given below(as attachment file). We would like to have your comments and observations. Shahar Ke Nissan: The Politics and Poetics of the Visual Symbolic Spaces of Delhi Phase II: Looking at Sites of Production ---Prabhas Ranjan and Sadan Jha Introduction Visual representational spaces play a crucial role in shaping the public culture of a city. These representations constitute a field consisted of wall writings, advertisements, posters with political and social messages, bathroom graffiti etc. These visual symbolic spaces act both as entry points as well as locations where the meanings, images and belongingness to/of the city and its culture are contested upon. The claims made over the urban visual spaces can also be analysed as the play of power over citizen's gaze. In this way, the field of inquiry remains not just the urban landscape but this landscape itself gets transformed into the body. This is the body with all sorts of inscriptions of power (gender, class, caste etc.) written densely all over its vast and uneven terrain. The problem is how to read this landscape, this body and this eye? The background/ current engagements For some times, we have been involved in the task of understanding the ways in which city expresses its images and its culture in and through the network of symbolic visual spaces. Focused primarily on the city of Delhi, we have also made an attempt to read visual symbolic images of two other Indian cities?Jammu(J&K) and Hazipur(Bihar). Seed grant scheme of Sarai, provided an opportunity to map this field of visual symbolic spaces and build an archive of city images. We are also involved in the reading of this text at its few selective locations. With the help of camera, we have made an attempt to ethnographically study non-bourgeois city. Locations selected, for the study of visual culture of the non-bourgeois city of Delhi, are those that constitute an open, vast and scattered domain of city life. These are non-fantastic, non-charismatic images of city. An attempt has also been made to present a. personal experiences of doing field work on the visual symbolic cultures of Delhi; b. a reading of the politics that go into the making of this field of visual culture of Delhi and c. to build an archive of collected images. The Plan of the Work After charting out broader contours of the area of study and problematizing the subject we now intend to study the economics of the production of these city spaces. Advertisements of ordinary characters, posters and other symbolic spaces that circulate in the mass production sectors of the bazaar economy (i.e. stickers and small rectangular tin plates) as very locations of this economy shall be studied at the physical sites of their production. It will be an attempt to understand the ways in which painters, copywriters and workers who are involved in the production of these visual spaces conceptualise and visualise this arena of urban semiotics. An attempt will also be made to understand the ways in which these people look at the market of these symbolic spaces. It is like exploring the city of images where they are physically take shape and by whom they acquire their forms. It is an attempt to trace the genealogy of this city. However, this process must not be seen from positivist vantage points of the word ?genealogy'. Secondly, moving upward in the economic discourse of the symbolic spaces, we shall be working to get a detail account of the visual culture of the local market. Visual symbolic language of the bazaar will be studied in the course of work. Our hypothesis is that visual language of advertisements circulates not just as reference points or the advertisements in the processes of commercial exchanges. These advertising spaces, these visual languages move as commodities and services in themselves that in turn produce complicated economic web. The manner in which the language of local market respond the forces of globalisation in and through commercial hoardings, sign boards of shops and wall writings will be analysed. Thirdly, we shall continue to map the field of urban visual symbolic spaces. Some of the interesting spaces like bathroom graffiti and the space of train will be studied and the documentation of the field will continue. Both these spaces are crucial as they problematise the relationship of city, body and construction of city's 'other'. Thanking You Sadan Jha Prabhas Ranjan. From amc at autonomous.org Thu Dec 26 13:19:08 2002 From: amc at autonomous.org (Amanda McDonald Crowley) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 13:19:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] FW: GILC Alert In-Reply-To: <6E73BE89626B004790F0CAFA57284BE00174A530@exch1.aclu.org> Message-ID: Thought this might be of interest for some on the list. Regards -- Amanda McDonald Crowley Freelance cultural worker, facilitator, researcher, curator Dec 2002 - Mar 2003: artsworker in residence, Sarai New Media Initiative. http://www.sarai.net (supported by Asialink) ------ Forwarded Message From: Chris Chiu Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 16:46:20 -0500 To: gilc-announce at gilc.org Subject: GILC Alert GILC Alert Volume 6, Issue 8 20 December 2002 Welcome to the Global Internet Liberty Campaign Newsletter. Welcome to GILC Alert, the newsletter of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign. We are an international organization of groups working for cyber-liberties, who are determined to preserve civil liberties and human rights on the Internet. We hope you find this newsletter interesting, and we very much hope that you will avail yourselves of the action items in future issues. If you are a part of an organization that would be interested in joining GILC, please contact us at . If you are aware of threats to cyber-liberties that we may not know about, please contact the GILC members in your country, or contact GILC as a whole. Please feel free to redistribute this newsletter to appropriate forums. =============================================== Free expression [1] Chinese Net users face enhanced censorware, arrests [2] Russian firm cleared in eBook copyright case [3] Australian high court ruling endangers Net speech [4] Teen Norwegian DVD programmer faces criminal charges [5] ICANN shuns public elections in new bylaws [6] Finnish bill may curb Net chatboard comments [7] Net blockers deny access to important health info [8] Vietnamese Net dissident gets 4 year jail sentence [9] Australian gov't ponders blocking of protest websites [10] Google censors German & French search results [11] Panama tries to block Internet ports [12] Council of Europe adopts Net censorship protocol Privacy [13] US gov't plans Total Informational Awareness spy system [14] Regulators warn Verichip tracking implant maker [15] US appeals court allows easier wiretapping rules [16] Finland gov't data retention stance draws fire [17] Study: British workplace Net monitoring on the rise [18] New rules unveiled for webbug trackers [19] TiVo digital recorder makes mistakes, stereotypes users [20] Court strikes down US gov't virus spy attack [21] US court allow blind police Net searches [22] Swiss Big Brother Awards ceremony held [23] New GILC member: AEL & EFFI =============================================================== [1] Chinese Net users face enhanced censorware, arrests =============================================================== Life is not getting any easier for Mainland Chinese Internet users. Chinese officials have reportedly arrested Liu Di, Ouyang Yi, Liao Yiwu and Li Yibin, who each posted articles online that criticized their government. Among other things, Liu, a Beijing University student, expressed support for Huang Qi, the proprietor of the "Tianwing Missing Persons Website" who was detained on charges of "instigation to subvert state power" after he republished essays written by other people about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the Falun Gong spiritual movement and other topics deemed taboo by the government. She also lashed out at China's rulers for their crackdown on cybercafes over the past several months. Ouyang, a member of the banned Chinese Democratic Party, allegedly also wrote about the 1989 Tienanmen protests, disparaged Beijing's economic strategies and advocated structural reforms. Liao Yiwu had previously created materials concerning various socio-political issues, including the Tiananmen tragedy and China's underclasses; some of these materials have apparently been made available through several overseas webpages. Li Yibin ran a pro-reform Internet site entitled "Democracy and Freedom." The precise whereabouts of Liu, Ouyang, Liao and Li are not clear at this time. Several free speech groups have protested these arrests. For example, Ann Cooper from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ-a GILC member) complained that "Liu Di has done nothing more than use the Internet to express her views." Similarly, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF-a GILC member) issued a statement that "called on the country's new president, Hu Jintao, to end her detention in secret, which contravenes the article 19 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights signed by China." Meanwhile, several new reports indicate Chinese government technologies to stifle online free speech are increasing in sophistication. One study, performed by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, indicates at least 19 000 websites have apparently been blocked at the behest of Chinese officials. The list of barred materials includes "thousands of sites offering information about news, health, education, and entertainment, as well as some 3,284 sites from Taiwan." Another report by Amnesty International documents how Chinese authorities have managed to build what one observer called "the largest and most sophisticated IP [Internet Protocol] blocking and content filtering system in the world" with the help of Western companies such as Cisco Systems, and Sun Microsystems and Nortel Networks. Some of these concerns were also aired during a panel discussion in Washington D.C., where several speakers called for additional research into technical countermeasures against such Chinese Internet blocking systems. For more information on the Liu Di case, visit the Digital Freedom Network (DFN-a GILC member) website under http://dfn.org/news/china/liudi.htm To read the RSF statement on Liu Di, click http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=4488 For more of Ann Cooper's remarks, see http://www.cpj.org/news/2002/China10dec02na.html An RSF statement on the Ouyang Yi case is posted at http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=4534 An RSF press release concerning Liao Yiwu is available under http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=4583 Read Alistair Alexander, "Three arrested in Chinese net clampdown," Guardian Unlimited, 19 December 2002 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,862881,00.html The Berkman Center report is posted at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/ For press coverage of this report, see "China's Internet Censorship," Associated Press, 3 December 2002 at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/03/tech/main531567.shtml For further details in German (Deutsch), read Florian Rotzer, "Gefiltertes Internet fur China," Heise Telepolis, 4 December 2002 at http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/13729/1.html Read Jim Hu, "Rights group looks at China and techs," CNet News, 27 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-975517.html See also Jane Perrone, "China called on to free net activists," Guardian Unlimited, 27 November 2002 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,848904,00.html For German (Deutsch) language coverage, read "Forderung an China: Laast die Internet-Haftlinge frei!" Spiegel Online, 27 November 2002 at http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,224545,00.html For more details on the aforementioned panel discussion, click http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/110402/index.php?PHPSESSID=ee3760871de da998c4a23a6f696e0281 For background information regarding various Chinese cybercafe restrictions, read "Chinese province launches ID requirement for web users," Associated Press, 5 November 2002 at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-11-05-china-crackdown_x.htm For details in German (Deutsch), see "China Mauert Sich Zu: Lizenz zum Surfen," Spiegel Online, 6 November 2002 at http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,221544,00.html ======================================================== [2] Russian firm cleared in eBook copyright case ======================================================== A Russian company has been exonerated in a highly watched legal dispute over Ebook copy protection codes. The dispute revolves around the work of Dmitry Sklyarov, who developed a program for his employer, Elcomsoft. The program circumvents the copy protection scheme contained on Adobe Systems electronic books. Sklyarov created the software as part of an effort to allow Ebook readers to view such products on whatever computers they like. After writing a paper on the subject and presenting it to the public at a Las Vegas computer convention, United States government agents arrested him on charges of violating the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which restricts the right of computer users to circumvent any program that "effectively controls access" to copyrighted works. In early December, U.S. prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against Sklyarov, allowing him to visit his home country in time to ring in the New Year, however, as part of this deal, he was supposed to testify against his former employer. However, during the trial, the Federal officials were unable to persuade the jury that to convict Elcomsoft. One blow to the prosecution's case came from an Adobe Systems employee who admitted during testimony that he had yet to hear of any instances where Elcomsoft's products were used to pirate eBooks. In addition, as the trial progressed, government attorneys did not actually call Sklyarov to the witness stand. Curiously, they instead replayed his videotaped statements from a December 2001 pre-trial deposition, in which Sklyarov mentioned that he did not merely create his program for profit, but as part of his doctoral research "to show the weaknesses of protections of PDF formats [used in electronic books]." See Carrie Kirby, "Russian company acquitted in Adobe EBook Copyright Case," San Francisco Chronicle, 18 December 2002, page B1 at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/12/18/BU71052.DTL Read Lisa M. Bowman, "ElcomSoft verdict: Not guilty," CNet News, 17 December 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-978176.html To read a translation of this article in French (Francais), click http://news.zdnet.fr/story/0,,t118-s2127745,00.html See "Copyright trial clears software firm," BBC News Online, 18 December 2002 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2585661.stm Read Declan McCullagh, "DMCA critics say reform still needed," CNet News, 17 December 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-978296.html See also Lisa M. Bowman, "Skylarov reflects on DMCA travails," CNet News, 20 December 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-978497.html For further information in German (Deutsch), read "Geschworene befinden Elcomsoft fur nicht schuldig," Heise Online, 18 December 2002 at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/wst-18.12.02-000/ =============================================================== [3] Australian high court ruling endangers Net speech =============================================================== Many experts warn that a decision by the Australian High Court may intimidate journalists from publishing their works online, for fear of breaking speech restrictions around the world. The case centers on the United States business magazine Barron's, which published an article accusing an Australian citizen of "a series of offences, stock manipulations, classic stock scams and frauds and connection with money laundering." That person, multimillionaire Joseph Gutnick, sued Barron's parent company Dow Jones, claiming that the online publication of the article made the corporation liable under Australian defamation laws, which are less protective of free speech than its U.S. counterparts. The Australian High Court has since upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Gutnick, and said that the case could be heard Down Under, rather than in the United States. Many observers are concerned that the decision, which is considered to be the first of its kind from a nation's highest court, will have a severely damaging impact on Internet expression. In a statement, Reporters Sans Frontieres warned that the ruling "sets a dangerous legal precedent that exposes online media to prosecution anywhere in the world where the Internet is present and a lawsuit can be filed for libel." RSF, according to the organization's secretary-general Robert Menard, "believes that lawsuits against online media must be handled by the courts in the country where the website is hosted. This is the only solution to avoid judicial harassment of the press and self-censorship of political, social and economic news published on websites." Ian Brown of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR-a GILC member) fears that this "type of ruling will simply result in many US websites blocking access to non-American readers, destroying a rich resource for the rest of the world." Indeed, after the decision was announced, Gutnick himself ominously warned: "[Y]ou have to be careful what you write and if you offend somebody or write malicious statements about people... then you can be subject to being prosecuted." The text of the decision is available at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/2002/56.html For RSF's comments on this decisions, click http://www.rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=4504 See James Pearce, "Aust High Court ruling hits Internet worldwide," ZDNet Australia, 10 December 2002 at http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story/0,2000024981,20270565,00.ht m Read David Fickling and Stuart Millar, "How Diamond Joe's libel case could change the future of the Internet," The Guardian, 11 December 2002 at http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/netnews/story/0,12582,857749,00.html See Jonathan Krim, "Internet Libel Fence Falls," Washington Post, 11 December 2002, page A10 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37437-2002Dec10.html Read "Landmark Ruling In Internet Case," CBSNews.com, 10 December 2002 at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/10/tech/main532459.shtml See also "Australian court to hear Net case," Reuters, 9 December 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-976630.html =============================================================== [4] Teen Norwegian DVD programmer faces criminal charges =============================================================== A Norwegian teenager insists he did not break any laws when he wrote a controversial DVD program nearly 4 years ago. In 1999, Jon Johansen created DeCSS--a primitive computer program that was meant to aid users of the Linux operating system watch DVDs on their machines. In January 2000, Norwegian authorities briefly detained him for his activities but soon released him. However, earlier this year, he was arrested once more on the premise that by developing DeCSS, he violated a Norwegian law against break-ins. These claims were bitterly contested by the Johansen's attorney, Halvor Manshaus, who noted that the teenager could hardly be said to have broken into a DVD that he legally bought and owned. Johansen himself charged that he is the victim of the "economic crime police and the film industry." A verdict is expected by early 2003. The release of DeCSS has led to a flurry of protracted court battles in several countries. Last year, a United States Federal appeals court upheld a ruling against 2600 magazine that, among other things, bars the publication from even linking to other websites that contain DeCSS-a decision that was heavily criticized by free speech advocates. For an archive of documents regarding the Johansen case, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF-a GILC member) website under http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/DeCSS_prosecutions/Johansen_DeCSS_case/ See "DVD piracy trial nears climax," BBC News Online, 17 December 2002 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2583227.stm See Doug Mellgren, "Hacker Hero And Hollywood Nemesis," Associated Press, 9 December 2002 at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/09/tech/main532369.shtml For German (Deutsch) press coverage, read "DVD-Hacker Johansen pladiert auf unschuldig," Heise Online, 10 December 2002 at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-10.12.02-000/ For further information in French (Francais), see Christophe Guillemin, "Protection des DVD: un jeune Norvegien en process contre les studios d'Hollywood," ZDNet France, 17 December 2002 at http://news.zdnet.fr/story/0,,t118-s2127690,00.html ======================================================== [5] ICANN shuns public elections in new bylaws ======================================================== The organization tasked with running the Internet domain name system has formally decided to eliminate public elections from its governance structure. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' Board of Directors has approved controversial new bylaws in a 15-3 vote. Under this revised system, ICANN will no longer hold direct public elections for Board seats, but instead will have an official Nominating Committee and several Supporting Organizations each select Directors. The new bylaws also included several Governmental Advisory Committee recommendations, including a requirement that the "advice of the GAC on public policy matters ... be duly taken into account both at the policy-drafting and at the decision-making stage." ICANN's restructuring committee has since called for still more changes to newly approved Bylaws; these changes would, among other things, make it easier for the organization to reject requests for reconsideration. Since then, ICANN has made additional revisions to these Bylaws. Among other things, these revisions will make it easier for the organization to reject requests for reconsideration. Not surprisingly, these actions have been severely criticized by a number of observers, including one of ICANN's own Board members. Karl Auerbach, one of ICANN's few publicly elected Directors, disputed the claims of ICANN President M. Stuart Lynn that the group had to get rid of public elections for the sake of efficiency, going so far as to label the organization "the most inefficient organization in the world," especially since "it's only created seven top-level domains in its four years of existence." He also admonished the group for its lack of transparency and questioned its accounting practices: "In terms of corporate governance, ICANN makes Enron look like a saint." The Board also has adopted a resolution calling on the organization's President, M. Stuart Lynn, "to develop a draft Request for Proposals ... for the purpose of soliciting proposals for a limited number of new sponsored gTLDs [generic Top-Level Domains]," such as .health. The decision comes amidst of long-standing complaints that ICANN has moved too slowly in approving new TLDs. ICANN's resolution regarding new sponsored gTLDs is available at http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-15dec02.htm#gTLDActionPlan See "Internet to get new domain names," BBC News Online, 16 December 2002 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2578549.stm Read "ICANN to approve new domains," Reuters, 15 December 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-977921.html The text of the new bylaws (as approved in October 2002) is posted under http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-appa-31oct02.htm The December 2002 revisions to the bylaws are available at http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-appa-15dec02.htm See also Richard Koman, "Karl Auerbach: ICANN 'Out of Control'," O'Reilly Network, 5 December 2002 at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/12/05/karl.html ============================================================== [6] Finnish bill may curb Net chatboard comments ============================================================== A Finnish proposal regarding public communications may have a seriously detrimental impact on Internet expression. The bill would expand the legal liability of Internet publications. Under the scheme, the hosts of online fora (such as digital chatboards) could be held responsible not only for their writings, but those of each and every participant. The proprietors of such discussion groups would have to have an editor-in-chief could be criminally prosecuted for any posted material. Moreover, all published items must be archived for 2-3 months; hosts and service providers would be essentially be required to log all Internet traffic, presumably to provide evidence for possible subsequent action by law enforcement agents. The bill has already received a fair amount of criticism from several groups. In a detailed critique of the legislation, Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI-a GILC member) explained that the "proposal does not take the realities of the Internet into account. The criminal responsibility for the material written by others, technically unrealistic archival and logging requirements, combined with the vague definitions, would probably be a death blow to many forms of Internet publications." To read EFFI's analysis of the bill, click http://www.effi.org/sananvapaus.en.html See "Proposed law raises controversy over freedom of expression on internet message boards," Helsingin Sanomat, 16 December 2002 at http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20021216IE5 ====================================================== [7] Net blockers deny access to important health info ====================================================== A recent study suggests that Internet blocking software is still far from perfect. The study, which was commissioned by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, found that in many instances, such software denied people access to information on such health topics as diabetes, depression, sexually transmitted diseases and suicide. The document went on to warn that this denial of data could have a particularly harmful effect on young people, who may be reluctant to otherwise seek details on such subjects from adults. The results of the study have fueled concern over laws such as the United States Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires Federally-funded libraries and schools to install "technology protection measures" such as blocking software. Emily Sheketoff from the American Library Association (ALA) reiterated: "Most parents would not trust their children to a baby sitter who only does the job some of the time - and they shouldn't trust a mechanical device to keep their children safe. Filters provide a false sense of security that children are protected when they are not." Numerous groups, including the ALA and GILC members the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have challenged CIPA, saying the law is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. A trial court agreed with these arguments and struck down the law; an appeal of that ruling will soon be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Kaiser Foundation report, entitled "See No Evil: How Internet Filters Affect the Search for Online Health Information," is available online via http://www.kff.org/content/2002/20021210a/ For more of Sheketoff's remarks, click http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/kaiserstudy.html Read Ellen Edwards, "Study: Web Filters Block Health Information," Washington Post, 11 December 2002, page A2 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37370-2002Dec10.html For coverage in German (Deutsch), see "Internet-Filter blockieren Aufklarungs-Websites," Heise Online, 11 December 2002 at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/wst-11.12.02-000/ For more on the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court CIPA hearing, click http://www.ala.org/cipa/ http://archive.aclu.org/features/f032001a.html Read Declan McCullagh, "Supreme Court to hear filtering case," CNet News, 12 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-965434.html See "Guns and Porn Top Court Agenda," CBSNews.com, 12 November 2002 at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/12/supremecourt/main529024.shtml For details in German (Deutsch), see "Oberster Gerichtshof der USA entscheidet uber Internet-Zwangsfilter für Bibliotheken," Heise Online, 12 November 2002 at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/pmz-12.11.02-002/ =============================================================== [8] Vietnamese Net dissident gets 4 year jail sentence =============================================================== Hanoi has made several moves to tighten its grip on Internet speech. The Vietnamese government has sentenced Le Chi Quang to four years in prison for allegedly committing "acts of propaganda" against the government. His arrest came soon after the online appearance of an essay he wrote that described the political environment in which the various Chinese-Vietnamese treaties were signed. His trial lasted only one day, and foreign reporters were banned from the proceedings. In addition, Vietnamese authorities have arrested another man, Nguyen Vu Binh, for writing his own critiques of the very same treaties that were the subject of Le's article. Meanwhile, government agents have stepped up efforts to block access to various webpages along the Information Superhighway. At least two of the country's Internet service providers (ISPs) have confirmed that Vietnamese netizens are no longer are barred from accessing the Vietnamese language section of the BBC's website; users who attempt to visit the site receive error messages telling them to notify their ISP or false requests for passwords. Hanoi has refused to say anything about this new censorship measure. For further information, visit the Digital Freedom Network (DFN-a GILC member) website under http://dfn.org/news/vietnam/quang.htm See Owen Gibson, "Vietnam blocks BBC website," Guardian Unlimited, 12 November 2002 at http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,838547,00.html Read "Vietnam jails internet dissident," BBC News Online, 8 November 2002 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2418791.stm ========================================================== [9] Australian gov't ponders blocking of protest websites ========================================================== The Australian government has sent mixed signals as to whether it will expand its controversial Internet censorship system to cover protest websites. Government officials Down Under are apparently considering possible changes in the law that may make it more difficult for people to protest online. Australian Justice Minister Chris Ellison is exploring ways for the Federal government to block various webpages--a decision that was reportedly prompted by pressure from one local police minister, who expressed concern specifically about several websites that called for protests against the World Trade Organization. Indeed, a number of local police officials meeting in Darwin charged that it was "unacceptable" that "websites advocating or facilitating violent protest action be accessible from Australia." While precise details have yet to be released, Ellison's initiative apparently will focus on toughening the nation's criminal laws regarding telecommunications. The discussion comes shortly after Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA-a GILC member) published an extensive analysis of Australian government reports on a complaint-based Internet censorship regime. Under the regime, which was created some 3 years ago, certain websites are supposed to be screened out or taken down based on guidelines that had previously been applied to films. The EFA analysis project was launched after Australian information technology Minister Richard Alston admitted to the Australian Senate that official government reports contain statistical errors exaggerating the alleged effectiveness of the scheme. EFA's researchers discovered among other things, that the "Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) spent 83% of its Internet censorship efforts investigating content on overseas-hosted websites over which it has no control," and noted that the "ABA's refusal to provide the URLs or titles of taken-down Australian-hosted web pages, on the ground that such information would enable a person to access prohibited content on the Internet, indicates the ABA believes such content has not been taken down from the Internet." The report concludes that there is simply "no evidence or indication to support the Minister's claim that the Internet has been made safer," and recommends that the law enabling this scheme "be repealed and the costly and failed Internet regulatory apparatus be dismantled." The EFA study is posted under http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/efasubm_bsa2002.html Read Sean Parnell and Matthew Fynes-Clinton, "Ellison to pull plug on protest websites," The Courier-Mail, 7 November 2002 at http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,5437553,00.html =================================================== [10] Google censors German & French search results =================================================== The world's most popular Internet search engine is preventing users of its German and French editions from seeing certain listings. Google officials have confirmed that many sites are displayed when searching through its main page (Google.com) are not made available via Google.fr or Google.de. A company spokesperson explained, "To avoid legal liability, we remove sites from Google.de search results pages that may conflict with German law." However, the company declined to provide further information, including what sites were blocked: "As a matter of company policy we do not provide specific details about why or when we removed any one particular site from our index. We occasionally receive notices from partners, users, government agencies and the like about sites in our index. We carefully consider any credible complaint on a case-by-case basis and take necessary action when needed. This is not pre-emptive--we only react to requests that come to us...to avoid legal liability, we remove sites from Google search results pages that may conflict with local laws." This practice was discovered Ben Edelman and Jonathan Zittrain from the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School. Cyber-rights experts warn that this delisting of search results is part of a growing trend where censorship laws in various countries may curb Internet speech on a multinational basis. For further information, visit the Berkman Center website under http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/google/ ======================================================== [11] Panama gov't tries to block Internet ports ======================================================== The Panamanian government's attempts to stop telephone calls through the Internet have come to a screeching halt. Nearly two months ago, authorities in the Central American nation ordered local Internet service providers (ISPs) to block certain communications ports that were oftentimes used to carry Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) transmissions. Such transmissions are banned in a number of countries around the world, including Panama. Observers have suggested that the plan is really designed to help Cable & Wireless, which holds a monopoly over phone service throughout the country through a joint venture with the Panamanian government. The decision was met with scorn from a variety of quarters. The National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation (La Secretaría Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación or Senacyt) charged that the order "constituted an unusual form of censorship." Subsequently, pursuant to the legal challenge launched by one affected ISP, Net2Net, the country's Supreme Court immediately suspended the port-blocking scheme, and instructed telephone industry regulators to issue a special report to provide additional information on this subject. The text of the original Panamanian government edict is posted under http://www.ersp.gob.pa/busqueda/show_resol.asp?id=JD-3576&idsector=1 Read Mario A. Munoz, "Corte suspende decision de bloquear internet," La Prensa, 26 November 2002 at http://mensual.prensa.com/mensual/contenido/2002/11/26/hoy/negocios/791516.h tml For further information in English, see Evan Hansen, "Panama suspends Net-phoning order," CNet News, 26 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-975408.html For further information in German (Deutsch), read "Oberster Gerichtshof hebt VoIP-Blockade in Panama auf," Heise Online, 27 November 2002 at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/pmz-27.11.02-000/ ============================================================= [12] Council of Europe adopts Net censorship protocol ============================================================= The Council of Europe (CoE) has adopted a protocol for free speech online. But at least one country has already announced it will not go along with the plan. The protocol was considered in connection with the CoE's Cybercrime Convention. The proposal generally requires signatory nations to bar people from "making available" or "distributing ... racist and xenophobic material ... through a computer system." Among other things, the plan also will require signatories to criminalize the use of computer networks to conduct various "racist and xenophobic" activities. Having been approved by the CoE's Council of Ministers, the scheme will be open to signatures during the Council's next Parliamentary Assembly session in late January 2003. However, the United States government, which supported the underlying Convention, has signaled that it will not sign the protocol. Drew Wade, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, explained: "The important thing to realize is that the U.S. can't be a party to any convention that abridges a constitutional protection." Wade was apparently referring to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech. This stance has drawn support from freedom of expression of advocates, such as Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU-a GILC member), who said he would be "stunned" and felt "mislead if the U.S. government were now to sign" the protocol. A CoE press release regarding the protocol is posted under http://press.coe.int/cp/2002/554a(2002).htm Read Declan McCullagh, "U.S. won't support Net 'hate speech' ban," CNet News, 15 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-965983.html For a French (Francais) translation of this article, click http://news.zdnet.fr/story/0,,t118-s2126090,00.html See also Julie Scheeres, "Europeans Outlaw Net Hate Speech", Wired News, 9 November 2002 at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56294,00.html ============================================================== [13] US gov't plans Total Informational Awareness spy system ============================================================== Public criticism is mounting against a highly secretive United States government program to collect massive amounts of personal information about everyone in America. Total Informational Awareness is a project of the U.S. Department of Defense. It is supposed to gather personal data on a grand scale, including emails, phone calls, financial records, transportation habits, and medical information. Its backers hope that by scanning and analyzing this mountain of data, it will be possible government agents to predict and prevent crime. Many details concerning this plan have still not been fleshed out; indeed, the official TIA system description reveals that a number of key segments have yet to be developed, including methods to protect the security of the warehoused information and other prevent unauthorized access. There is speculation that TIA will be used by the newly-created U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Serious questions have been raised as to whether the system will actually work, as well as its potentially disastrous impact on individual privacy. Indeed, the entire program has been compared to the flawed crime-prediction system portrayed in the recent science fiction movie "Minority Report," where an innocent man is harassed after the system mistakenly accuses him of a crime that has yet to be committed. Revelations about the program have already led to several mass email and phone campaigns by private citizens against TIA. To read a dossier on TIA compiled by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC-a GILC member), click http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/ For video and text coverage, see "US eyes Big Brother plan," BBC News, 12 December 2002 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2563249.stm For more on web protests against TIA, read "The web bites back," BBC News Online, 16 December 2002 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2580089.stm See Paul Boutin, "Keeping Track of John Poindexter," Wired News, 14 December 2002 at http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56860,00.html Read Robert O'Harrow Jr., "U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally," Washington Post, 12 November 2002, page A4 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40942-2002Nov11.html For coverage in German (Deutsch), read "US-Verteidigungsministerium plant weltweite Überwachung des Internet," Heise Online, 12 November 2002 at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-12.11.02-008/ ============================================================== [14] Regulators warn Verichip tracking implant maker ============================================================== The United States government officials have issued a stern warning to makers of a controversial tracking implant. Verichip can hold individualized data (such as a person's name, current condition, medical records and unique identification number) and is meant to be inserted under a person's skin. When a special external scanner is pointed at a Verichip, it displays a number and the stored information is transmitted "via telephone or Internet." Verichip's maker, Applied Digital Systems (ADS), is marketing its product for applications such as "identification, various law enforcement and defense uses and search and rescue." Company officials have been working for some time to incorporate Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to allow Verichip recipients to be tracked via the Information Superhighway. Besides arousing strong concern from privacy advocates, these developments have drawn serious scrutiny from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which started investigating ADS months ago. In a recent letter, the FDA blasted ADS, saying the company's "conduct flagrantly disregards FDA's prior comprehensive advice. ... As a medical device, the VeriChip is subject to many legal and regulatory requirements, one of which is a requirement that products receive clearance or approval from FDA prior to marketing. You have not obtained such clearance or approval." The letter went on to suggest that VeriChip and ADS may have violated various Federal laws, and warned, "If ADS continues to market the VeriChip for medical applications, FDA is entitled to initiate enforcement action without further informal notice. Such action could include, for example, seizure of product inventory, injunctive relief preventing ADS from further marketing the VeriChip, and civil money penalties. Violations of the FD&C Act are also punishable by criminal penalties." The FDA letter is posted under http://www.fda.gov/foi/warning_letters/g3668d.htm http://www.fda.gov/foi/warning_letters/g3668d.pdf ============================================================== [15] US appeals court allows easier wiretapping rules ============================================================== Experts worry that a new ruling by a little known intelligence tribunal will greatly erode privacy online. The decision came in regards to foreign intelligence gathering guidelines for Federal officials. The United States Justice Department had argued in favor of rules changes that would allow investigators to conduct surveillance operations and get search warrants under looser standards of FISA, even if the primary purpose of the wiretapping or search is not to collect foreign intelligence. Under this theory, law enforcement agents could make use of such standards so long as foreign intelligence gathering was merely a "significant" purpose. A Federal trial court disagreed and ordered Federal officials, among other things, to "ensure that law enforcement officials do not direct or control the use of the FISA procedures to enhance criminal prosecution." However, in its first-ever decision, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review essentially rejected with the lower court's reasoning and decided in favor of the government. The 3-judge appeals panel held that FISA, even as originally enacted, "did not preclude or limit the government's use or proposed use of foreign intelligence information, which included evidence of certain kinds of criminal activity, in a criminal prosecution." Among other things, the panel also went on to say that the trial court did not have the power under the U.S. Constitution to take prior restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering operations and impose "them generically as minimization procedures." The Court of Review's ruling was met with derision from many privacy advocates. Ann Beeson from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU-a GILC member) said her organization was "deeply disappointed with the decision, which suggests that this special court exists only to rubberstamp government applications for intrusive surveillance warrants." The ACLU, along with several organizations (including GILC members the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Open Society Institute), had previously filed legal papers urging the appeals panel to uphold the lower court's ruling. The text of the appeals court ruling (in PDF format) is posted at http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/surveillance_111802.pdf An ACLU press release regarding the ruling is available under http://www.aclu.org/Cyber-Liberties/Cyber-Liberties.cfm?ID=11332&c=58 Read "Feds Get Wide Wiretap Authority," CBSNews.com, 18 November 2002 at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/23/attack/main519606.shtml See Declan McCullagh, "Secret U.S. court OKs electronic spying," CNet News, 18 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-966311.html For further information in German (Deutsch), read Florian Rotzer, "USA: Freier Informationsfluss zwischen Geheimdiensten und FBI," Heise Telepolis, 19 November 2002 at http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/13634/1.html ============================================================== [16] Finland gov't data retention stance draws fire ============================================================== The government of Finland is in hot water over its support of efforts to retain data about telecommunications customers. Finnish officials are arguing for a system by which telecommunications traffic data inside the European Union should be retained for two years. This stance was revealed in an official response to a Council of the European Union questionnaire on the issue. While many details have yet to be worked out, the data that could be collected under such a scheme might include web surfing habits, email header information, callers' and recipients' names, and the geographic locations of individual mobile phones. Ironically, these suggestions have come while the Scandinavian country's biggest telecommunications provider, Sonera, is under intense scrutiny over alleged data privacy violations. There are already fears that data retention systems, if implemented, will lead to unnecessary governmental intrusions without actually deterring crime. As Kai Puolamäki of Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI-a GILC member) explained, "A comprehensive obligatory data retention, like the one proposed now, increases the risk of misuse considerably. I would say the possible advantages of data retention are questionable - especially since skilled criminals can easily avoid this kind of surveillance." EFFI chairman Mikko Valimaki added: "You might think that the Sonera-case would have been a wake-up call for politicians: if data is available, it will be misused sooner or later. But no. Finland seems to push forward with exceptional Big Brother optimism." An EFFI press release on this subject is posted under http://www.effi.org/pressrelease-2002-11-25.html Read John Leyden, "More arrests in Sonera snooping probe," The Register (UK), 14 December 2002 at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28295.html For further information in German (Deutsch), see "Vorratsdatenspeicherung in der Europaishchen Union," Heise Online, 27 November 2002 at http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anm-27.11.02-000/ To read responses to the EU questionnaire, click http://blubb.at/kuhm/temp/20112002tidy.html Background information regarding data retention issues is available from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC-a GILC member) website under http://www.epic.org/privacy/intl/data_retention.html ============================================================== [17] New British regulations may enhance workplace Net privacy ============================================================== The British government has issued rules that may enhance Internet privacy rights in the workplace. The British Information Commissioner has issued Employment Practices Data Protection Code regarding employer workplace monitoring powers. Among other things, the Code generally cautions that interception of communications "without the consent of sender and recipient ... is against the law unless authorized by the Lawful Business Practice Regulations." The new rules also warn that consent "must be freely given," and that employers generally should not open "messages that are both personal and private." The document advises companies to make impact assessments "to determine whether internet access monitoring is justified and if so to determine its nature and scope." Some observers see the promulgation of these rules as part of a trend towards greater workplace privacy protections in European Union member countries. For example, the Supreme Court of France recently held that the Nikon camera company did not have an automatic right to read every message in their employees' email accounts. The Codes of Practice (in PDF format) are posted online at http://www.dataprotection.gov.uk/dpr/dpdoc.nsf/ed1e7ff5aa6def30802566360045b f4d/024aaa3a87d81c1f80256bf000526286/$FILE/3+monitoring.pdf Read Mark Ward, "Tighter rules on workplace snooping," BBC News Online, 18 November 2002 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2461423.stm ======================================================== [18] New rules unveiled for webbug trackers ======================================================== Questions remain whether a self-regulatory scheme will prevent violations of tracking technology that uses tiny Internet pictures. The rules would be applied to "webbugs"-miniscule image files embedded in webpages. Also known as "pixel tags," they are used to identify and track computer users. Because their nature, they can be rather difficult to detect and block. These webbugs are often located on Internet search engines, thereby allowing users to be identified by their Internet protocol numbers and search queries. These tags can also be used in conjunction with text tracking files or "cookies." Under the proposed rules, webbug adherents would have to notify website visitors of the tags as well as how the webbugs are being used. Sites with webbugs would have to get consumers' consent before collecting and sharing personally identifiable information. However, the rules are voluntary, and it is not completely clear what penalties would be imposed on violators. Indeed, these standards were not created by privacy advocates, but by a trade organization composed of advertising companies, including DoubleClick, a company that has been heavily criticized in the past over its lack of sensitivity to privacy concerns. Read Stefanie Olsen, "Ad firms set rules for Web tracking bugs," CNet News, 26 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-975385.html ============================================================= [19] TiVo digital recorder makes mistakes, stereotypes users ============================================================= Mistakes made by a highly touted interactive television device have fueled concerns as to how personal information can be abused. TiVo is a personal video recorder with Internet connections. It provides such features as replays of television broadcasts within seconds and advanced programming options. However, researchers have determined that the device collects detailed information about users' viewing habits and sends this data back to the manufacturer through the Information Superhighway. While the manufacturer claims that these profiles were anonymized, a report from the Privacy Foundation indicates that the data collected did in fact contain identifying information (including the serial number of the individual user's machine). Meanwhile, as the number of subscribers continues the climb, the number of complaints regarding TiVo's flaws has also grown. These flaws have arisen because TiVo's personalization algorithm has a tendency to stereotype their users and automatically record programs based on those misperceptions. In one case, a TiVo began recording a multitude of Korean news programs for a non-Asian user; after he complained, the machine for whatever reason started saving Chinese news programs instead. Another TiVo deluged its heterosexual user with gay oriented programming after he had recorded a single movie about a man who had a bisexual spouse. Read Jeffrey Zaslow, "If TiVo Thinks You Are Gay, Here's How to Set It Straight," Wall Street Journal, 26 November 2002 at http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1038261936872356908,00.html The Privacy Foundation report on TiVo is posted under http://www.privacyfoundation.org/privacywatch/report.asp?id=62&action=0 ==================================================== [20] Court strikes down US gov't virus spy attack ==================================================== A recent court ruling may restrict government investigators in the United States from using a relatively new surveillance tool-computer viruses. The case involves a computer specialist who planted a SubSeven computer virus in a file located on an Internet newsgroup. The virus was then used to break into and search the computers of people who downloaded the file. The specialist then sent the collected information to law enforcement agents. In one such instance, Federal officials encouraged the specialist send still more information, which led to criminal prosecution. The entire operation was done without a court's permission. In the criminal case, the presiding judge suppressed the evidence, saying that computer surveillance virus tactic violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bans the government from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures. Although the specialist may have begun the operation on his own, the judge ruled, "By requesting that (the hacker) send the information, the FBI indicated its approval of whatever methods (the hacker) had used to obtain the information." Law professor Orin Kerr explained that the decision "makes it clear that law enforcement needs a search warrant" in order to carry out such activities. Read Lisa M. Bowman, "Judge rules cops' hacker went too far," CNet News, 14 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-965926.html ==================================================== [21] US court allow blind police Net searches ==================================================== A Federal appeals court in the United States has held that the government goes to an Internet service provider (ISP) to search a customer's email account, police officers don't have be present. The case centers on a police-initiated search of a Yahoo email account, where the relevant law enforcement agents did not actually go to the provider's premises, but faxed a search warrant to the company from several thousands of kilometers away. Despite this absence of police, the Yahoo technicians performed the search on the government's behalf. At trial, the presiding judge held that, since the police failed to physically appear at Yahoo's offices at the time of the warrant was served, the search was illegal. However, the appeals court reversed, holding that, among other things, the U.S. Constitution "does not explicitly require official presence during a warrant's execution." The dispute had drawn interest from a number of privacy experts. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC-a GILC member) had previously filed legal papers with the appeals court, noting that requiring "an officer's presence at the service of a search warrant" was a procedural safeguard that had been in place "since the 1700s to safeguard individuals from unwarranted intrusion upon their privacy by government officials, and to discourage governmental abuse of power by ensuring guarantees of trustworthiness and accountability." EPIC counseled that this procedural safeguard should be retained, particularly since "emerging technological innovations pose new challenges to personal privacy. ... [T]he characteristics of the Internet do not negate the requirement of an officer's presence for the service of a warrant." EPIC has since filed additional papers in support of a request for the appeals court to reconsider its ruling, saying that the decision "essentially creates a regime in which a police officer presence has been eliminated from the warrant process can be invaded simply by turning on a fax machine." Background materials on the case are available via http://www.epic.org/privacy/bach/ Read Lisa M. Bowman, "Court OKs faxed warrants," CNet News, 18 November 2002 at http://news.com.com/2102-1023-966267.html =========================================================== [22] Swiss Big Brother Awards ceremony held =========================================================== In Switzerland, a host of reputed menaces to individual privacy have become the newest recipients of Big Brother Awards. These prizes are given out by Privacy International (a GILC member) and affiliated groups in several nations. "Orwells" are given out to government agencies, companies and initiatives that have done most to invade personal privacy. Special awards are also given to individuals and organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to the protection of privacy. Winners included the Zurich Cantonal Police for its Joufara II tracing and journaling database; Q-Sys St Gall for subjecting nursing home residents to a battery of some 250 questions regarding their personalities and altering nursing levels based on the responses; Adrien de Werra, head of the Special Affairs unit of the national Ministry of Environment, Traffic, Energy and Communication, who has demanded expansion of "Federal law concerning the monitoring of postal and telecommunication traffic" and Club de Berne, a secretive association which reportedly includes representatives from intelligence services of some 15 countries. Bert Setzer received a Winkelried Award for protecting privacy through his development of a customer rebate card that includes special anonymizing features. The event was sponsored by the Swiss Internet User Group (a GILC member) and Archiv Schnüffelstaat Schweiz. For more on the Swiss Big Brother Awards, click http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2002/presse/pressemitteilungen/bba.pressemitt eilung.20021029.6e.html For further information regarding Big Brother Awards around the world, visit the Privacy International (a GILC member) website under http://www.bigbrotherawards.org/ ================================= [23] New GILC member: AEL & EFFI ================================= The Global Internet Liberty Campaign recently added two new members: Electronic Frontier Finland and Association Electronique Libre (Belgium). EFFI has made numerous efforts to protect computer users' civil liberties; among other things, the group organized the Finnish Big Brother Awards to spotlight some of the country's greatest threats to individual privacy. AEL is dedicated to promoting fundamental rights in the information society and cyberspace; towards that end, it has campaigned heavily against various government data retention proposals. EFFI's official home page is located at http://www.effi.org For more information about AEL, click http://www.ael.be ========================================================= ABOUT THE GILC NEWS ALERT: ========================================================= The GILC News Alert is the newsletter of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, an international coalition of organizations working to protect and enhance online civil liberties and human rights. Organizations are invited to join GILC by contacting us at gilc at gilc.org. To alert members about threats to cyber liberties, please contact members from your country or send a message to the general GILC address. To submit information about upcoming events, new activist tools and news stories, contact: Christopher Chiu GILC Coordinator American Civil Liberties Union 125 Broad Street, 17th Floor New York, New York 10004 USA Or email: cchiu at aclu.org More information about GILC members and news is available at http://www.gilc.org You may re-print or redistribute the GILC NEWS ALERT freely. To subscribe to the alert, please send e-mail to gilc-announce at gilc.org with the following message in the body: subscribe gilc-announce ======================================================== PUBLICATION OF THIS NEWSLETTER IS MADE POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM THE OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE (OSI) ======================================================== ------ End of Forwarded Message From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Fri Dec 27 00:40:09 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 11:10:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] hello some notes from the trip In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20021226191009.33725.qmail@web20904.mail.yahoo.com> this is soo briallint and shines with humanity.. Btw, we are running a yahoogroup of concerned indians called sanjhi virasat..has filmakers, dancers, poets, assorted sorts on it.. also..coming out with a newsletter called Sanjhi Qalam.. the first issue has the Ode to Benaras by GHalib and Amrita Pritam's story Sahiban in Exile. next issue will feature Guru Gobind Singh's Persian hymns and Manto's TOba Tek SIngh or/ Q. Hyder's Aag ka Dariya extracts... for those interested in receiving please reply to this id or access online at www.ektaramusic.com/sqalam The site will be finally up and running tommorow.. INthe meanwhile, here is an initial glimpse of the newslettr.. translators are needed since we hope to make this a regional languge newsltter..accesible to remote parts.. Gujarati, Urdu, HIndi, Bengali, Punjabi andTamil transaltors are needed.. much appreciated.. Best Lehar. Sanjhi Kalam The rediscovery of India.. Welcome to Sanjhi Kalam. We invite you to rediscover the Indian subcontinent.. In her own words. In her own languages. In her own ink. Stained with her own vision. Written with her own blood. A testament to her indomitable Sanjhi Spirit. Some of her greatest sons and daughters.. Speak of her - in her own voice. And pay tribute to her Centuries moulded Sanjhi Virasat. *Sanjhi- syncretic/shared Kalam- pen, quill. Virasat- Heritage/Legacy This week The Rediscovery Begins.. Introducing two of the greatest voices from her myriad orchestra.. of many cultures and harmony.  Ghalib�s Ode to Benaras  Amrita Pritam�s Sahiban in Exile Next Week  Featuring Guru Gobind Singh�s Persian-Sanskrit hymns to the One Truth- the Ek Omkar.  Aag ka Dariya - The River of Fire by Q. Hyder (India�s Gabriel Marquez)* A brilliant river-rafting crash course into 4000 years of India, through the rebirth of its protagonists from Buddha�s Magadha to post-partition India. *The Times Come, start the Journey Ode to Benaras Chiragh e- Dair, The Light of the World By Mirza Ghalib May Heaven keep the grandeur of Benaras Grove of this meadow of joy; For oft returning souls -their journey�s end. In this weary Temple land of the world, Safe from the whirlwind of Time, Benaras is forever Spring. Where autumn turns into the touch of sandal on fair foreheads, Springtide wears the sacred thread of flower waves, And the splash of twilight is the crimson mark of Kashi�s dust on heaven�s brow. The Kaaba of Hind! This conch blowers dell; Its icons and idols are made of the Light, That once flashed on Mount Sinai. These radiant idolations� spirits, Set the pious Brahmins afire, when their faces glow Like moving lamps..on the Ganges banks. Morning and Moonrise, My lady Kashi, Picks up the Ganga mirror To see her gracious beauty, Glimmer and shine. Said I one night to a pristine seer (who knew the secrets of whirling time) �Sir, you will perceive That goodness and faith, fidelity and love Have all departed from the sorry land. Father and son are at each other�s throat; Brother fights brother. Unity and federation are undermined. Despite these ominous signs Why has doomsday not come? Why does the Last trumpet not sound? Who holds the reigns of the final catastrophe?� The hoary old man of lucent ken Pointed towards Kashi and gently smiled. �The Architect�, he said, is fond of this edifice Because of which there is colour in life. He would not like it to perish and fall.� Hearing this, the pride of Benaras soared to an eminence, untouched by the wings of thought. - Mirza Ghalib (Translated by Pavan Verma Ghalib: The Man and the Times; Published by Penguin India) Translator�s Comments Ghalib actually contemplated settling down in Benaras. He wrote: �I wish I had taken a rosary in my hand, put a sectarian mark on my forehead, tied a sacred thread around my waist and seated myself on the banks of the Ganges so that I could wash the contamination of existence away from myself and like a drop, be one with the river.� Here is the Sufi idea of fana and the unity of Vedanta. There is a conviction and intellectual integrity, which made it possible for Ghalib to exclaim: In the Kaaba I will play the shankh (conch shell) In the temple I have draped the ahram* *(Unstitched cloth worn by Muslims during Haj) It can be argued that Ghalib�s radical views were not fully mirrored by the man on the street. But it would not have been possible for him to openly declare his views and practise them or achieve the tremendous following he had, except in an age somewhat in tune with his beliefs. In a time of fundamental discordance with his views, it may not have been possible for a Hindu, Munshi Hargopal Tufta to become Ghalib�s foremost Shagird and closest friend. Not would it have been possible for Ghalib to declare another Hindu- Shivji Ram Brahman- to be like a son to him; or for the Mughal emperor of his age, Bahadur Shah Zafar to appoint a Hindu convert to Christianity- Dr. Chaman Lal as his personal physician. (Courtesy: Penguin Books, India Pavan Verma, Ghalib, the Man and the Times) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From aizura at onlinecide.org Fri Dec 27 12:08:38 2002 From: aizura at onlinecide.org (::az::) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 17:38:38 +1100 Subject: [Reader-list] attn monica, unsubscribe request References: <200212051136.23649.tripta@sarai.net> Message-ID: <001801c2ad73$18cb0dc0$aee33ecb@j7t0j6> hi monica, i've tried to unsubscribe from the readerlist by emailing the majordomo system but the email bounced a few times -- also, the web-page for administrating my membership doesn't seem to work... could you unsibscribe me please? thanks. aizura From kundankaushav at indiatimes.com Thu Dec 26 14:04:15 2002 From: kundankaushav at indiatimes.com (kundankaushav) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 14:04:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] upanyason ka shahar Message-ID: <200212260839.OAA17341@WS0005.indiatimes.com> Hi friends, My name is Kundan Kaushav and I am working on the world of Hindi popular fictions. The topic of my proposal is "Upanyason ka shahar: the world of Hindi popular fiction, its economy and its images". WHAT AM I SUPPOSE TO DO: IN THE PROPOSED PROJECT AN ATTEMPT WOULD BE MADE TO UNDERSTAND THE ECONOMIC NETWORKS IN AND THROUGH WHICH THE BAZAAR OF HINDI POPULAR FICTOIN(HPF) OPERATE(NETWORKS) UNDERSTAND THE WAYS IN WHICH PEOPLE WHO ARE ENGAGED IN THE PRODUCTION 0F HPF AT DIFFERENT LEVELS(i.e. READERS, SELLERS, WRITERS, AND PUBLISHERS) IMAGINE THIS FIELD OF LITERARY PRODUCTION(SELF-IMAGE) STUDY IMAGES OF CRIME AND CITY- TWO VERY SIGNIFICANT THEMES OF THESE FICTIONS(HOW ONE KIND OF UNDERBELLY IMAGINES THE OTHER) BUILD A SMALL ARCHIVE OF DATA COLLECTED FROM THE FIELD ON THIS SUBJECT. PLAN OF WORK: The proposed project is divided into three stages: 1. field study mapping of the distribution network interview with writers , publishers, distributors, sellers and readers collection of book titles, business documents etc 2. documentation and building an archive of interviews and other collected material 3.close textual analysis on crime and city in the texts of two writers- Surendra Mohan Pathak and Ved Prakash Sharma. The presentation and write ups will be done ibn both hindi as well as english. WHY TO WORK ON HPF: A reading of the world of hpf provides not just an entry point into the discourse of popular reading practices but it forces us to rethink the relationship between aesthetics and literature. The excitement and entertainment that accompany the pulp fiction, the emotional attachment that a reader experiences with these productions and the centrality of bazaar forces in making of this field of literary preoduction make this an interesting field of study. The study of popular reading practices demands to locate the subject in the wider field of bazaar economy that shapes this field. At the same time, reading practices enjoy certain kind of autonomy which can not be allowed to be consumed by the demands of economics. To understand the zone of interaction between popular reading cultures and the economics of the bazaar, a framework of ethnographic field study of people involved in this world of reading and the process of their interaction is needed. Thanking You Kundan. Get Your Private, Free E-mail from Indiatimes at http://email.indiatimes.com Buy the best in Movies at http://www.videos.indiatimes.com Now bid just 7 Days in Advance and get Huge Discounts on Indian Airlines Flights. So log on to http://indianairlines.indiatimes.com and Bid Now ! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021226/7bbe2d8a/attachment.html From rachel at sarai.net Sat Dec 28 01:30:06 2002 From: rachel at sarai.net (rachel magnusson) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 20:00:06 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Crisis/Media Workshop Message-ID: <200212272000.gBRK06W4024241@mail.sarai.net> Crisis/Media: The Uncertain States of Reportage Sarai-Waag Workshop at Sarai-CSDS, Delhi March 3-5, 2003 "The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who tried to stay neutral in times of crisis..." The Inferno, Dante Alighieri Crisis/Media, is a conference that will bring together media professionals, activists, and scholars to discuss crisis in the media, and the crisis of the media today. Since September 11, crises in the media have become everyday events and have taken on global dimensions. But what happens when crisis becomes commonplace? How can media tell the stories behind/beneath the crisis? How are the tensions between local/global, mainstream /alternative, event/representation unfolding? In thinking about these and other questions, the conference will try to focus on both the ways in which media cover/create/manage spectacular crisis events, and on the crisis that this reportage has produced for media itself. Key Issues: * Are the Crises in the Media, the Crises of the Media? Where do the lines between reporting in the mainstream and the alternative media harden, and where do they blur? * Has the "broadcast" model, which was the mainstay of the big media business, proved to be too bulky and too conservative in a world in which things change by the minute? * Has the internet really made it possible for correspondents to be co-respondents to the realties of a changing world? Panels on: * South Asia : Bearing Witness to the Truth in Difficult Times * Correspondents in the Crossfire : Reporting Situations of Conflict * The Crisis of Everyday Life : Dispatches from Global Cities * Stories of Earth and Water : Reporting Ecological Crises * The Future of Global Independent Media Activism Special focuses and reports from: South Asia, Argentina, Australia, the Balkans Activities: Plenaries, Discussions, Open Sessions, Screenings Pre-Registration: If you are not presenting a paper but wish to attend the conference, you can pre-register by sending an email to crisis-media at sarai.net. For details contact rachel at sarai.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shivkumargandhi at yahoo.com Sat Dec 28 00:05:09 2002 From: shivkumargandhi at yahoo.com (shiv gandhi) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 10:35:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] invitation Message-ID: <20021227183509.96141.qmail@web9801.mail.yahoo.com> Dear friends, I invite you all to see my drawing and paintings at skgandhi.com This is a mini representation of my works done between 1996 to 2002. In this site there are 30 drawings and paintings, two articals about my works and a statement of myself. Hope you would like visiting this sight and would not mind forwarding this mail to your friends. Happy new year. Shiv kumar gandhi gandhishivk at yahoo.co.in shivkumargandhi at yahoo.com Ph. 0141-2707462 Postal add� 1199, Kisan marg, Barkat nagar, tonk phatak, Jaipur (India) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From eastman at bentonrea.com Sun Dec 29 01:44:56 2002 From: eastman at bentonrea.com (Dick Eastman) Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 12:14:56 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] Mr. Thomas: Re: 9-11 Pentagon attack May I share these conclusions with you? Message-ID: <008b01c2aead$ce12a9a0$053107d8@user> Here is why I am certain that Flight 77 was not the plane that hit the Pentagon by Dick Eastman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In March of 2002 the French came out claiming that the hole in the Pentagon wall was too small for a Boeing 757 to have fit through. Shortly afterwards the Pentagon issued five frames of the Pentagon security camera video to prove a plane was involved in the attack. And shortly after (still early March) David Bosanko enlarged the security camera video and ran the frames in "animated" sequence -- a better view that convinced many people (me included) that the plane shown was much too short to be Flight 77 Boeing -- if it were a Boeing 757 its shiny aluminum fuselage, trimmed with red and blue, would be extending far beyond the yellow driveway pillar etc. In addition to this there were many unusual events that raised the suspicion of some-- the breakdown of air defenses, the failure of intelligence, indications that this crisis and the war on terror were anticipated by the military and the state department. etc. Here are my conclusions: 1. Attack plane in the video is too short given the size of the image of the tail fin visible above the pillar. 2. The missile plume in the video matches that of air-to-ground missile. 3. The explosion shown in frame #1 is consistent with missile warhead, not with an airliner crash. 4. Witnesses who saw only one plane fall into two distinct groups, each seeing a different plane, on a different path, at different altitude, with different sound, at different speeds. 5. A third set of witnesses saw two planes approach the Pentagon and one of these veer away. 6. The famous piece of "evidence" found on the lawn is from the starboard side, not the port side -- but it was found on the south side of the lawn 200 feet from the crash ON THE PORT SIDE OF THE ATTACK PLANE AS IT APPROACHED, and the aerodynamics of this light bent and torn sheet of aluminum would make it impossible for it to have flown this distance 7. Only one engine broke through the C-ring; only one engine was photographed. The one engine is on a line from the downed lamp posts to the entry hole to the last exit hole -- indicating a single engine jet. 8. All evidence provided by a persistent band of debunkers is portable and appears in photos taken by FEMA days after the event. 9. Mike Rivero's "conclusive" debris evidence, turns out to be from the Pentagon offices, not from an aircraft. (as a closeup reveals very "uncrashed" and un-airplane debris. 10. Joe Viall's BBC picture of "Flight 77 diving into the Pentagon" has too short a fuselage in front of the wings and wings that are too swept back to have been a 757. 11. Many heard a jet. Others heard a missile. (All military men.) Those near Flight 77 as it came over the cemetery, saw it and heard it pass silently (no engine); whereas those near the killer jet which came by the freeway and knocked down the lamp posts heard its loud scream as it put on speed to reach the wall as the airliner flew over it. 12. Star witness Riskus saw the Boeing, but was tricked when the killer jet, flying low with background visual noise -- hit the building. The Boeing was instantly lost behind the explosion and smoke. 13. Reagan National Airport is only one mile away in the direction Flight 77 was going when it flew over the crashing killer jet. After passing over the crashing killer jet -- FLight 77 was able to blend into normal Reagan National air traffic almost immediately (i.e. before the sound of the explosion could reach the White House or Capitol Building). 14. There were foreigners at both Dulles (where Flight 77 took off) and Reagan National (where Flight 77 landed after the crash) who each had an illegally gotten top security badge that enabled them to gain access anywhere in those airports -- tower, security, baggage, hangers, surveillence, loading docks, boarding, etc. They were deported by Ashcroft a few months after the crash. (Since they were not held it is reasonable to assume that they were British subjects or Isreali citizens. A British firm was subcontracting many services at the airport at the time. DIAGRAMATIC STATEMENT OF THE THESIS : EAST ABOVE NORTH ON LEFT SOUTH ON RIGHT NW WEST BELOW SW CENTER OF PENTAGON -------------X---C-ring engine exit-------------------------------- (Pentagon West Walls inside rings) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- wall ---------------------------------------------------------------------------wall ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- wall ------------------------------------X--crash entry----------------- Pentagon West Wall (exteriror) heliport [ ] tree x x x downed lamp posts X Riskus x point 100 feet from Riskus x x southwest of crash northwest of crash ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY x Arlington Cemetary Gardener t \ FLIGHT 77 PAST OVER HERE KILLER JET CAME FROM HERE II. VERIFICATION OF THE SPATIAL FEATURES OF THIS THESIS: 1. Locating Riskus, lamp posts, and the Pentagon on the Big Map To locate both the lamp posts and the approximate location where Riskus snapped his first Pentagon photo, see the following very detailed aerial map of the entire crime sceen. This enlarged aerial map is an essential tool in verifying all of the features of this unifying account of the Pentagon attack. http://www.ceo.ncsu.edu/attack/nyc-images/Pentagon_after.jpg Riskus, southwest of the accident -- about where that lone white truck is on the rightmost lane -- he was three or four plane lengths from the crash -- and maybe seven plane lengths from the clover-leaf where the killer jet knocked down the polls. Whatever reasonable margin of error one gives to these estimates of mine -- there is no feisable path by which the killer jet could have hit those lamp posts, flown to within 100 feet of Riskus and then returned to the northwest to be able to enter at the crash point at an angle that would enable it to rendevous with the exit hole in the C-ring. No jet could do it, and especially no Boeing 757 airliner could do it. (One investigator, Sarah Roberts, made a heroic attempt to both have Flight 77 over Alrington Cemetary and then fly to those lamp posts and then to the crash point -- but this feat required the low flying aircraft to have turned 10 degrees just while it was over the cloverleaf interchange -- an impossibility that Roberts later acknowledged and retracted.) 2. WITNESS ACCOUNTS REPORTING ONLY ONE PLANE DIVIDE INTO TWO MUTUALLY CONTRADICTING GROUPS Witnesses who claim to have seen only one plane break into two groups. Those who describe 1) an airliner, shiny, red and blue markings, with two engines, in a dive, and flying "low" in terms of one or two hundred feet, and silent (engines idle); and 2) a plane that came in at tree-top level, at "20 feet" all the way, hitting lamp posts in perfect low level flight that must have been established and stabilized well before the lamp posts were reached; engines roaring; pouring on speed; smaller than a mid-sized airliner. Here are some who saw only Flight 77: Anon: ... the large silver cylinder of an aircraft appeared in my window, coming over my right shoulder as I faced the Westside of the Pentagon directly towards the heliport. The aircraft, looking to be either a 757 or Airbus, seemed to come directly over the annex, as if it had been following Columbia Pike - an Arlington road leading to Pentagon. The aircraft was moving fast, at what I could only be estimate as between 250 to 300 knots. All in all, I probably only had the aircraft in my field of view for approximately 3 seconds. The aircraft was at a sharp downward angle of attack, on a direct course for the Pentagon. It was "clean", in as much as, there were no flaps applied and no apparent landing gear deployed. He was slightly left wing down as he appeared in my line of sight, as if he'd just "jinked" to avoid something. As he crossed Route 110 he appeared to level his wings, making a slight right wing slow adjustment... Comment: The Annex is on the side of the hill shared with Arlington Cemetery. The sharp downward angle and the positive identification of a 757 establish that this witness was looking at Flight 77. Timmerman: ...being next to National Airport, I hear jets all the time, but this jet engine was way too loud. I looked out to the southwest, and it came right down 395, right over Colombia Pike, and as it went by the Sheraton Hotel, the pilot added power to the engines. I heard it pull up a little bit more, and then I lost it behind a building. And then it came out, and I saw it hit right in front of -- it didn't appear to crash into the building ... Comment: This witness was north of the crash. He heard a jet louder than the normal air traffic at nearby Reagan National (which includes routine Boeing 757 landings.) When he looked out his window, however, he saw Flight 77 to the southwest, and most significantly, he actually states that the plane he was watching "didn't appear to crash into the building"!!!! Here is a CNN reporter questioning another witness: CNN: You got a close-up look at the damage, didn't you? Wit: Yes, I was right next to the building. CNN: And what did you see? Wit: I saw a big, gaping hole and I could see pieces of the plane inside. CNN: Earlier, an eye-witness told us the plane didn't crash into the building. Wit: Well, I don't know what it looked like from where he was, but I looked right inside the hole and I know it crashed into the building. Comment: The man being interviewed by CNN above was also a CNN reporter. No one else reports having seen in the hole pieces of aircraft, and of course the absence of debris commensurate with a mid-sized airliner crash is a topic that continues to be much discussed. Yet here again we have mention of a man who says the plane he observed did not hit the Pentagon. O’Keefe: saw or heard it first -- this silver plane; I immediately recognized it as an American Airlines jet It came swooping in over the highway, over my left shoulder, straight across where my car was heading. Comment: In a car it is hard to tell the direction of the sound of a jet. The jet must have been loud to be heard in his car. He heard the loud killer jet, but saw the Boeing "swooping," i.e., leveling out from a dive. He does not say whether he was in view of the actual crash event. Sucherman: It was highly unusual. The large plane was 20 feet off the ground and a mere 50 to 75 yards from his windshield. Two seconds later and before he could see if the landing gear was down or any of the horror- struck faces inside, the plane slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon 100 yards away. "My first thought was he's not going to make it across the river to National Airport. But whoever was flying the plane made no attempt to change direction. It was coming in at a high rate of speed, but not at a steep angle--almost like a heat-seeking missile was locked onto its target and staying dead on course." Comment: Here is the classic killer jet observation. No mention of a dive, in fact he goes out of his way to say it was not coming in a steep angle. The killer jet was coming fast, unlike the coasting 757. Anon2: "I did not see the engines, I saw the body and the tail; it was a silver jet with the markings along the windows that spoke to me as an American Airlines jet, it was not a commercial, excuse me, a business jet, it was not a lear jet, it was a bigger plane than that.". Comment: Obviously this witness falls between the two categories. Not seeing engines would put the plane in the killer jet category. But a larger than Lear jet size is indicated as well as American Airlines markings. Taking it literally, he saw Flight 77 but just did not pay attention to the engines. (Alternatively, the killer jet was bigger than an F-16 and outfitted in American Airlines "drag.") Campo: It was a passenger plane. I think an American Airways plane. I was cutting the grass and it came in screaming over my head. Comment: This is the Arlington National Cemetary gardener. Like Riskus, his testimony puts the real Flight 77 over the cemetary, from where it would have been impossible for any plane to have rendezvoused with the five lamp posts northeast of the cemetery and then bent its path around sufficiently to reach the crash point at the proper angle to also exit the c-ring hole. Vaughn: There wasn't anything in the air, except for one airplane, and it looked like it was loitering over Georgetown, in a high, left-hand bank. That may have been the plane. I have never seen one on that pattern. Comment: General Vaugh was not alone in what he saw. Many other witnesses saw Flight 77 putting on an attention- getting exhibition over D.C. as if to draw all eyes to itself and away from the true appraoching killer. Liebner: I saw this large American Airlines passenger jet coming in fast and low. My first thought was I've never seen one that high. Before it hit I realised what was happening. Comment: Captain Liebner does not tell us what he means by "low." Was it 100 feet or 20 feet? But the term "coming in" indicates a descent. Here are more witness accounts: Kelly Knowles from an Arlington apartment two miles away saw a two planes moving toward the Pentagon, one veering away as the other crashed. Tom Seibert, in the Pentagon, listened to " what sounded like a missile" followed by a "loud boom." Keith Wheelhouse and his sister, Pam Young were preparing to leave a funeral at Arlington Naitonal Cemetary when they watched "the jet" approach and hit the Pentagon. Both saw another plane flying near the jet that crashed. When asked if the other plane could have been an airliner performing a normal landing at Reagan National Airport, Wheelhouse stated that he was not confused by normal airport traffic. Alfred S. Regnery, on the freeway with the Pentagon not yet in view, heard a jetliner "not more than 200 yards above the ground" passed overhead, disappearing "behind black cloud of smoke" was pouring from a "gaping hole." Comment: Another witness hearing the loud sound and seeing the jet liner and assuming that sound source and object sited are one and the same. But note that he saw an airliner and that it was 200 yards above the ground, not 20 feet. Terry Scanlon interviewed a Hampton Roads woman who saw a plane following the jet that hit the Pentagon. Christine Peterson, in her car in front of the heliport ( near Riskus) saw the airliner. As it flew over she could read numbers on its wing. "My mind could not comprehend what happened. Where did the plane go? ... But there was no plane visible, only huge billows of smoke and torrents of fire." Comment: It would certainly be jumping to conclusions to say that this witness saw that plane crash. Watching the Boeing she missed entirely the killer jet that came from another direction. James S. Robbins, from his west-facing office window, one and a half miles east of the Pentagon, saw "the 757" as it was "diving in at an unrecoverable angle." "I did not immediately comprehend what I was witnessing. There was a silvery flash, an explosion, and a dark, mushroom shaped cloud rose over the building." Comment: The plane was diving. But it must have recovered from the dive at the last second, because the pentagon was not hit by a plane at a downward angle. The killer jet travelled from the entrance hole to the C-ring exit hole without breaking above the floor of the third floor!!! Robbins saw the Boeing that did not crash and the explosion and smoke made by the killer plane that did. Christopher Munsey headed South on the Interstate saw "a silver, twin-engine American Airlines jetliner gliding almost noiselessly over the Navy Annex, fast, low and straight toward the Pentagon, just hundreds of yards away." Munsey saw the red and blue markings "as it appeared to hit the side of the Pentagon." Comment: A silver twin-engined plane had to have been Flight 77, seen "over the Annex", i.e., over Arlington Cemetary hill, it had American Airlines markings and it was "noiseless," but notice the indefinitness: "it appeared to hit the side of the Pentagon" -- there are usually psychologically definite reason why people qualify their speech, in this case, perhaps, pshycological reservations about what he really did see. Fred Gaskins was driving near the Pentagon as he saw the plane pass about 150 feet overhead. "It was flying very smoothly and calmly, without any hint that anything was wrong." Comment: Near the Pentagon, but still 150 feet in the air. How could it hit those poles? How could it come in for its below-the-third-floor crash through three rings of the Pentagon? Certainly this sample of witness testimony is more supportive of the two-plane thesis than the single Boeing thesis of the "official explanation." But if the witnesses testimony is inconclusive the actual video recording of the attack is not. The killer jet was not a Boeing and it did not dive. But that is not all. II. The Security Camera Proofs: For an enlargement of this photo go to: Security Camera Video Frame 1: The Killer Jet http://www.msnbc.com/news/720851.asp?cp1=1 http://amigaphil.planetinternet.be/PentagonCrash.html http://www.apfn.org/apfn/flight77. Observe: 1) the size of tail fin image in frame #1 requires that for the plane to be a Boeing 757, the front end of its shiny silver fuselage would have to be visible in the broad sunlight extending out to the left of the stone driveway pillar in the picture. Check: a) The 757 is over seven times the length of its own tail fin, i.e., it would take seven and a quarter tail fins to cover the back of a Boeing 757, Stegasaurus style, adding fins from the tail fin in the rear forward to the nose, however the width of the image of the driveway pillar that conceals the entire fuselage of the attacking plane is only five times as wide as the tail fin that appears sticking up above and behind it, so that regardless of angle of approach to the Pentagon wall or of distance of the aircraft from the camera, the plane simply cannot be aircraft of the length and form of a Boeing 757; b) A 757 is 155 feet long and the Pentagon is only 71 feet high, but by direct inspection, if you stood the aircraft behind the pillar on end against the wall, say half way to the far end of the wall from the impact point, it would reach no more than 70 percent of the wall's height, the method is rough, but the margin of error in your estimate can be nowhere near the 218 percent difference that would be needed to turn that attack jet into Flight 77. 2) The presence of the unmistakable white horizonal missile plume being launched by the plane to weaken the thick outer wall at the targeted point of impact so that the killer jet can easily invade the Pentagon interior without give-away fighter jet parts bouncing back on the grass and giving away the frameup; 3) In frame # 2 Frame 2 - Impact the tell-tale white-hot intitial explosion of the missile warhead is definitely neither a jet fuel kerosene fire, nor the result of aluminum, plastic and flesh crashing into brick, concrete and glass; 4) The blossom of white-hot explosion of the missile warhead spreads laterally, more so than the subsequent jet fuel flames that in frame #3 come from inside the Pentagon, suggesting that the warhead was designed to trigger at the split second of impact rather than after entry through the wall. a.. Frame 3 - - Blast a.. Frame 4 - - Blast a.. Frame 5 - - Blast WHAT ABOUT THE PHYSICAL WRECKAGE EVIDENCE SAID TO PROVE THAT FLIGHT 77 WAS THE AIRCRAFT THAT CRASHED? Actually such evidence is pitifully scant and suspiciously portable -- and some of it has been established as false planted evidence. The single piece of debris from a Boeing 757 that has been identified on the Pentagon lawn has been identified as a uniquely starboard piece, whereas it was found hundreds of feet away on the PORT side -- like finding a car's passenger-side door dozens of feet away on the driver's side following a head-on collision. THe peace is light and far from aerodynamic and would have had to push its way against the inward rush of wind as heat lifted the air around the crash, even if a ten mph wind was not blowing from the southwest against its progress. The first photographer to capture this specimen did not arrive at the scene until 10 minutes after the crash. An early picture shows an agent in white shirt carrying a piece of "debris" that looks very much like the "planted" piece of false evidence -- but he could be one of many preliminary cleanup workers among whom the real evidence planter was blending in. We also have a hole that is too small to accomodate a Boeing 757, but a perfect fit for an F-16. III. HOW DID FLIGHT 77 DISAPPEAR ONCE IT FLEW OVER THE PENTAGON DIRECTLY BELOW THE CRASHING KILLER JET? Here is the "Reagan National Airport Explanation" of the Dissappearing Act of Flight 77: With its engines off so that its silence was remarked by Riskus and other witnesses, Flight 77 approached the Pentagon's west wall at an angle much closer to 90 degrees than the 45-degree approach of the killer jet. That is, it came from the west rather than the northwest. And it never got lower than 100 feet while over the Pentagon. (The Pentagon is 71 feet high.) At a speed between a third and two-thirds that of sound and leveling from its necessarily accelerating dive, Flight 77 was over Reagan National Airport before the sound of the killer jet's crash reached the Capitol Building or Washington Monument -- --since the airport begins only one mile from the crash. Disappearing from the sight of turnpike observers, behind the explosion, and blending in with routine airport traffic was accomplished in less than 7 seconds -- the plane was closer to the airport than to the Pentagon in less than 3.5 seconds. Here is a view of Reagan Naitonal as it would look from Flight 77 after passing over the crash-in-progress, perhaps three or four hundred feet below. Surrounding the airport on this side are parks, parking lots filled with empty cars of at-work Pentagon employees, and two air bases. There would be few people to see Flight 77 come through, and those who did would doubtless assume that it was yet another routine flight over Reagan Naitonal. And even if they didn't, who would believe them when the world "knows otherwise." Now go to the following url for an enlargement of the picture below. The Pentagon is visible at the extreme right edge in the middle of the upper half of the picture. http://www.airliners.net/open.file/075484/M/ Any of the three runways of Reagan could have been used by Flight 77, which, by the way, did not have to land immediately for a successful getaway -- it could have disguised itself as a plane taking off as well as one landing in those critical few seconds of its disappearing act and its "blending in" operation. The killer jet, flying level about twenty feet above the ground, hit the Pentagon west wall (in shadow on the left of the picture on the left, above) )from the northwest as Flight 77 coming from the west over Arlington National Cemetary and the heads of gardener and burial parties, flew over the crash (from let to right in the picture on the right) and directly into the routine air space of Reagan Naitonal -- exactly one mile away. It is a fact reported in the major media, that for a period that included September 11, 2001 there were 87 foreigners working at Dulles Airport (where Flight 77 originated) and Reagan National (where I am saying it landed), each with an illegal and improperly authorized top airport security badge that gave them access and authority throughtout both airports, including ticketing, security, boarding, control tower, boarding, hangers, loading and transportation. A few months after the attacks there workers were "found out" and ordered deported to their countries of origin (Great Britain?, Israel? -- but presumably not Afganistan or Iraq or Saudi Arabia, one would think.) IV. THE KILLER JET Here is a profile of the remote-controlled killer jet, made from known existing special features that have actually been built into various "non-standard" General Dynamics F-16 aircraft. Span: 32 ft. 10 in. Length: 49 ft. 6 in. Height: 16 ft. 6 in. Weight: 29,896 lbs. loaded Armament: One air-to-ground missile and electronic countermeasure pods Ground Control: : Structural provisions and "power by wire" systems architecture expanding multirole performance to include precision strike, night attack and beyond-visual-range interception missions utilizing touch-sensitive remote virtualcockpit displays. Targeting: Remote targeting lasers and computers, and new autopilot and ground-avoidance systems allowing faster remote controlled flight while seeking and attacking targets. Maneuvering: digital flight controls, a voice-activated maneuvering system allowing the pilot to "point" the aircraft in unusual flight attitudes. Engine: One Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-200 of 23,830 lbs. thrust. Crew: None Maximum speed: 1,345 mph. Maximum Takeoff Weight: 37,500 pounds (16,875 kilograms) Cruising speed: 577 mph. Range: 1,407 miles ------------------- We see that the killer jet did not hit the ground before striking the building -- the white missile plume smoke in the first frame, the level trail of smoke still visible in the second frame all are at an even level above the ground. (Notice too the insert of an air-to-ground missile being fired by the F-16 in the tiny picture I have added below. It is the same plume of smoke. Scroll up to the animation of the Pentagon frames and look at the smoke plume in frame one -- clearly it is above the ground, between 5 and 10 feet. The witnesses who saw this smoke interpreted it as smoke from a crash on the lawn -- but since the plane then entered the building, then there must have been a bounce too!!! But no one who watched the Boeing reported a bounce. In all that long list of witnesses, not one remarked on a bounce -- not even Timmerman, if you re-read him. Timmerman: ...being next to National Airport, I hear jets all the time, but this jet engine was way too loud. I looked out to the southwest, and it came right down 395, right over Colombia Pike, and as it went by the Sheraton Hotel, the pilot added power to the engines. I heard it pull up a little bit more, and then I lost it behind a building. And then it came out, and I saw it hit right in front of -- it didn't appear to crash into the building ... But those who were nearest the Boeing said it was silent (e.g. Riskus)!!! The Boeing was coasting in silently -- to be sufficiently slow when it reached the airport. BUT THE F-16 "KILLER JET" WAS THE INTELLIGENT AIRCRAFT, THE AIRCRAFT THAT ADJUSTED ITS SPEED TO MAKE THE OPERATION COME OFF, TO MAKE SURE THAT THE MISSILE EXPLOSION AND CRASH OCCURED JUST AS FLIGHT 77 FLEW OVER THE TARGET POINT AT THE WEST WALL. MANY REPORT FROM THE SOUND THAT A JET WAS ADDING POWER IN ITS APPROACH -- THAT, THEN, WAS THE KILLER JET SPEEDING UP TO MEET ITS SCHEDULED RENDEVOUS 90 FEET BELOW FLIGHT 77 AS THE AIRLINER FLEW OVER THE WALL. Finally, on the matter of whether or not there was a "gouge". There definitely was not, as you can see. Any gouges that may have been photographed later were probably made by the wheels of fire trucks in the wet lawn. (ANd of course the French are suggesting that the sand was put down to cover the "gougeless" lawn. Now go to this site and see lots of clean lawn pictures: http://www.geocities.com/pentalawn2000/ Here is the actual hole made by the killer jet. The windows above indicate a width of no more than 10 feet. Enough for the F-16 to fit through, minus its thin wings, which carry no engines or fuel and which would do only negligible damage to the wall they hit. A Catholic priest who saw "a plane" and then an explosion afterwards reported reported that it appeared that all of the fire was coming out of just "two windows." More photos of crime scene can be found at this site: http://www.thepowerhour.com/pentgallery/FrameSet.htm This analysis is dedicated to my friend Dave Bosankoe who gave us all the clue, and to my utterly neglected family, four more victims of September 11. =============== CONCLUSION: All evidence and witness testimony presented in this paper are consistent with the thesis that a small killer plane, the F-16 is the most likely candidate, actually crashed into the Pentagon, while Flight 77, which also descended toward the target spot, in fact flew over the building, concealed immediately from most witnesses by fire and smoke rising to the rear and by the "blend-in" environment of Reagan National whose runway 16 it could reach in just 6 seconds from the onset of the crash explosion. Dick Eastman 223 S. 64th Ave. Yakima, Washington 98908 (509) 965-4893 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: application/octet-stream Size: 32814 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021228/2f6545c6/attachment-0010.obj From narender224 at rediffmail.com Sun Dec 29 19:05:30 2002 From: narender224 at rediffmail.com (narender kumar thakur) Date: 29 Dec 2002 13:35:30 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Vampire rumours in Malawi Message-ID: <20021229133530.1023.qmail@webmail6.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021229/1fafb079/attachment.pl From narender224 at rediffmail.com Sun Dec 29 19:06:33 2002 From: narender224 at rediffmail.com (narender kumar thakur) Date: 29 Dec 2002 13:36:33 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Research as part of Sarai Independent Fellowships - Hindi Message-ID: <20021229133633.2380.qmail@webmail6.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021229/becd1ea5/attachment.pl From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Sun Dec 29 19:14:06 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 05:44:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Thanks for Sanjhi Qalam Message-ID: <20021229134406.61965.qmail@web20901.mail.yahoo.com> Dear friends Many thanks to all of you who wrote in. we will definitely need help with the translations and will contact you individually soon.. as soon as we get the mag uploaded and running..! Please send a blank mail with 'subscribe' in header to sanjhiqalam at yahoo.co.in to subscribe. The id is working now. Also, we agree about the Sanjhi- Sanjha debate.. since we have had Sanjhi 'virasat'..'shahadat' and others.. we are debating if Sanjhi will suffice..:) best regards and please keep writing in In solidarity Lehar. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Sun Dec 29 19:15:49 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 05:45:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] India Current: Notes from the Reich: Pedagogy/Eductn. of hatred Message-ID: <20021229134549.54687.qmail@web20909.mail.yahoo.com> Friends Notes from the Reich Letters of the world-renowned Jorge Borges, who saw the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and world shaping events through the 20th century, This is part of an open letter to the current distortion of education debate in India. It is a brilliant engineered and pre planned exercise, as these notes from 60 years earlier demonstrate. They say practice makes prefect. India�s ruling party�s founders� meetings with the fascists and nazis in the 1930s were definitely useful.. and laid the base for this. Most of the events have uncanny parallels with the propaganda in India at the moment, including Germany�s war hysteria against England. much like the Indo-Pak and the Gujrat hysteria here. (And Bollywood portrayals too.) It is incredible! -- Notes from the Reich BY Jorge Borges. On the distortion of schoolbooks by the Nazis: Pedagogy of hatred Displays of hatred are more obscene and denigrating than exhibitionism. I defy pornographers to show me picture more evil than any of the twenty-two illustrations that accompany the children�s book: Don�t trust any Fox from a heath or any Jew on his oath. Whose fourth edition now infests Germany. It was first published a year ago in 1936 and has already sold 51,00 copies. Its goal is to instill in the children of the Third Reich a distrust and animosity toward Jews. Verse and color engravings collaborate in this veritable textbook of hatred. Take any example: page 5: here I find without justifiable bewilderment this didactic poem: �The German is a proud man who knows how to work and struggle. Jews detest him because he is so handsome and enterprising. � Followed by an equally informative and detestable quatrain: �Here is the Jew. Recognizable as the biggest scoundrel in the whole kingdom.� The engraving is more astute: The German is a Scandinavian 18 yr. old plainly portrayed as a worker. The Jew is a dark Turk obese and middle aged. The German is clean- and the Jew is hairy. It is well known that German Jews are copper haired Slavs..In this book they are represented as dark half-breeds so they�ll appear as exact opposites of blond beasts. These attributes also include the permanent use of fez cap, rolled cigar and ruby rings. Another engraving shows a lecherous dwarf trying to seduce a young German lady. What can one say about such a book? Personally I am outraged, less for Israel�s sake than Germany�s, less for the offended community than for the offensive nation. I don�t know if the world can do without German civilisation, but I do know that its corruption by the teaching of hatred is a crime. A disturbing exposition: Deletions in the history of German Literature Dr. Johannes Rohr of Berlin, an eminent academic has revised , rewritten and Germanized the very Germanic, Literature of the German people. In earlier editions, his work was decidedly mediocre, now it is alarming. This perverse catalogue included about 700 authors, but is silent on the name of some of the greatest ones of German history.. Heine. . Also obliterated are Arnold Zwieg, Erich Maria Remarque (all quite on the western front), Brecht, I do not want to list all the names, but I recall that omission of extraordinary writers like Kafka and others are ones which should not be excluded from the history of Germany literature. The (unreasonable) reasons for this manifold silence are evident: most of those eliminated are Jewish and none is a member of the ruling Nazi party/ a Nazi. As for the rest of it, let us examine page number 435. Written on that severe page is: � rivers of fire of a verbal potency previously unheard in German soil inundated the people: the great speeches of the Fuhrer, swelling with lofty thoughts, yet open wide to the simple understanding of the people, instantly revered.� Next we are regaled with a eulogy of the literary labors of Joseph Goebbels (Hitler�s propaganda minister) novel with its �chaste youth� and fiery language �is the book of the new youth and youths everywhere.� How immeasurable is Rohr's Anti-Semitism. As if that were not enough Goethe and Nietsche have been distorted and mutilated� there is not even a mention of Schopenhaur. Germany is one of the essential nations of the world. Hence we feel devastated by its chaotic descent into darkness, hence the symptomatic seriousness of books such as these. I find it normal for the Germans to reject the Versailles treaty. I find it normal to support anyone who defends their honour. I find it insane to sacrifice to that honour their culture, their past, their honesty to perfect criminal acts of barbarians. -- Notes on Germanophiles: �German patriotic nationalists� I have been na� enough to talk with many Germanophiles.. fervent supporter of Hitler�s cultural nationalism. Total ignorance of things German does not define our Germanophile/ patriotic German. I have tried to speak of Germany and German things that are imperishable. Luther and Schopenhauer.. I have discovered that my Germanophile interlocutor could barely identify those names.. He is only anti Semitic and wishes to expel from even Argentina a Slavo Germanic community where Hebrew names predominate. One might infer that a Gphile is actually an Anglophobe. He is perfectly ignorant of Germany and reserves his enthusiasm for his country at war with England. I always discover that my interlocutor idolizes Hitler, not inspite of bombs and rumbling invasions, machine guns and lies. but because of these instruments. He is delighted by evil and atrocity. The triumph of Germany does not matter to him. He wants the humiliation of England and satisfying burning of London. He admires Hitler as he once idolized his criminal precursors in the underworld of Chicago. The discussion with him becomes impossible because the offences and crimes I ascribe to Hitler are for him wonders and virtues..of cultural nationalism..! The apologist of other mass murders like Rosas and Amigas pardon or gloss over their crimes, the defender of Hitler derives a special pleasure from them. The Hitlerist is always a spiteful man and a secret and sometimes shaper of criminal vivacity and cruelty. He is thanks to a poverty of imagination a man, who believes that Germany, and the Nazis, now victorious, cannot lose. He is the cunning man who always longs to be on the winning side. It is not entirely impossible that there could be some justification for Adolf Hitler: I know there is none for the Germanophile. Note: remember Modiites..? - The unbelievable indisputable truth is that the directors of the third Reich are procuring a universal empire. I will not enumerate the countries they have already attacked and plundered. Yesterday Germanphiles/patriotic Germans swore that the maligned Hitler did not dream of attacking the continent. Now they justify and praise his latest hostility. They have applauded the invasion of Norway and Soviet Union. Who know what celebration they will unleash the day our shores and cities are razed? Hitler�s charity is ecumenical and if �traitors� and �Jews� don�t disrupt him, we will enjoy all the benefits of torture, sodomy, rape and mass executions. -- If I had the tragic honour of being a German, I would not resign myself to sacrificing mere military efficiency for the intelligence and integrity of my fatherland. It is possible that a German defeat might be the ruin of Germany. It is indisputable that its victory would debase and destroy the world. I am not referring to the imaginary danger of a South American colonial adventure. Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non fiction, Awards: The National Book Critics Circle Award Eliot Weinberger (editor and translator), Hardcover - 576 pages (September 1999), Viking - Review by Nathaniel Tarn The range of subjects touched on in this cornucopia..! I cannot resist, however, selecting out the "Notes on Germany and the War" in which Borges, a very conservative man - in addition to ravaging manifestations of fascism in the Argentine bourgeoisie of 1937-44 - suffers the matter of Germany: desperately trying to keep distinct his great love of German culture and his recognition of Germany's misery after Versailles from his absolute horror of Nazi racism and anti-Semitism. It is not surprising that such a man was humiliated by the likes of Peron. Available on: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670849472/ref=ase_thelibyrinth/002-0744346-8259247 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - I have learned so much from God That I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me That I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel.. Love has befriended me. It has turned to ash and freed me Of every concept and image my mind has ever known. - Hafiz, Persian Sufi Organised religion is the prop of a man who has not found his Self/ God within. - Shaheed Bhagat Singh __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From jean.piche at umontreal.ca Sun Dec 29 20:41:17 2002 From: jean.piche at umontreal.ca (Jean Piche) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 10:11:17 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] A Promise Kept: An Ode to Raj and Dilip.. References: <20021222202315.52950.qmail@web20908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3E0F1096.D4A00F48@umontreal.ca> Friends, I am not certian whether this list is moderated or not, but i just received a long graphics-laden and, if i may comment, completely off the wall article about the 9/11 crash on the Pentagon. Is this list also going to give credence to the "Jews were warned of the WTC attack" nonsense , as well? Not to mention that said message cranked in at 525k... I enjoy this list, please keep the nonsense out of it. Thank you Jean Piché From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Sun Dec 29 22:44:35 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 09:14:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] A Promise Kept: An Ode to Raj and Dilip.. In-Reply-To: <3E0F1096.D4A00F48@umontreal.ca> Message-ID: <20021229171435.71528.qmail@web20910.mail.yahoo.com> pardon.. but this article header has nothing to do with what you mention.. Please explain why this header was chosen since what you are talking about is totally unrelated to it. Best --- Jean Piche wrote: > > > Friends, > > I am not certian whether this list is moderated or > not, but i just > received a long graphics-laden and, if i may > comment, completely off the > wall article about the 9/11 crash on the Pentagon. > Is this list also > going to give credence to the "Jews were warned of > the WTC attack" > nonsense , as well? Not to mention that said message > cranked in at 525k... > > I enjoy this list, please keep the nonsense out of > it. > > Thank you > > Jean Pich� _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > subject header. > List archive: __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From jean.piche at umontreal.ca Mon Dec 30 02:13:00 2002 From: jean.piche at umontreal.ca (Jean Piche) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 15:43:00 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] wrong topic heading (apologies) References: <20021229171435.71528.qmail@web20910.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3E0F5E55.AD57F967@umontreal.ca> Apologies for the heading... the article i referred to is the follwing: [Reader-list] Mr. Thomas: Re: 9-11 Pentagon attack May I share these conclusions with yo I took the list mailing adress from Mr. Lehar's previous unrelated post and forgot to change the topic heading. JP "Lehar .." wrote: > > pardon.. > but this article header has nothing to do with what > you mention.. > Please explain why this header was chosen since what > you are talking about is totally unrelated to it. > Best > > --- Jean Piche wrote: > > > > > > Friends, > > > > I am not certian whether this list is moderated or > > not, but i just > > received a long graphics-laden and, if i may > > comment, completely off the > > wall article about the 9/11 crash on the Pentagon. > > Is this list also > > going to give credence to the "Jews were warned of > > the WTC attack" > > nonsense , as well? Not to mention that said message > > cranked in at 525k... > > > > I enjoy this list, please keep the nonsense out of > > it. > > > > Thank you > > > > Jean Piché > > _________________________________________ > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > > the city. > > Critiques & Collaborations > > To subscribe: send an email to > > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > > subject header. > > List archive: > > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. > http://mailplus.yahoo.com > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: From michael at world-action.co.uk Sun Dec 29 11:47:04 2002 From: michael at world-action.co.uk (World-Action) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 06:17:04 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] RE: Earthquakes S H I F T ! and Planetary Magnetometer Readings P E G ! In-Reply-To: <006a01c2aef0$f58f79c0$a3517642@chaiyah> Message-ID: <001001c2af01$e84a3280$eb09bd50@36> Is there a connection between EARTHQUAKES and HEADACHES? They are slightly similar words - and don't people get headaches when earthquakes are near? Is the connection Electromagnetic Fields? I have just heard of many people somewhere in America (I think these are Native American people) going to doctors with slight head and back troubles and they are being diagnosed with Lung Cancer (are Chemtrails involved in this?), and they are dying very, very quickly - within two weeks of diagnosis in some cases. Is this all being deliberately targeted with advanced EMF equipment from somewhere? (and connected with Chemtrail spraying?) Has anyone got graphs of: 1] General increases of Cancer worldwide, 1900-2000? 2] General increases of EMF pollution worldwide, 1900-2000? There may be a direct relationship. Then, I think you're talking about deliberate disruptive use of EMF, or Scalar, etc. - that's another area. I just wrote this reply - below - into the mail list for http://www.radarmatrix.com << Now see this animation and notice how that same area is hotter. Are those radars to blame? >> Radar was randomly (?) causing many spacecraft to crash across America fifty years ago - 1947 to 1954. If radar could do that then, what is radar capable of now? http://www.world-action.co.uk/plato.html A hunch has been coming to me for several months as I've collected information to fight the proposed installation of a powerful (500KW) radio antennae in our beautiful bay, that perhaps the great increase in the incidence of asthma over the past several decades may be directly related to the huge increase of EMF pollution worldwide, since around the 1940s. Radio 'Free Europe' in Germany is being shut down by the German government, because of the very high percentage of cancer in the population of the nearest town: Valley. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~michaeli/cancer.html http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~michaeli/emf.html I have just heard of a part of the USA where full-blood natives are going to their doctor with slight head and back aches - and they are being diagnosed with Lung Cancer, and they are dying within a very short period of time (i.e. two weeks) of being diagnosed. Michael ------------------------------------------------------------ -----Original Message----- From: q24046 [mailto:chaiyah at mountain.net] Sent: 29 December 2002 04:15 Subject: Earthquakes S H I F T ! and Planetary Magnetometer Readings P E G ! http://earthquake.usgs.gov//recenteqsUS/Maps/AK10/60.70.-160.-140.gif Yesterday there was 179 quakes on the chart; today there is 313. That's just central Alaska Notice, below, today's quake summary from USGS Next, let's look at a NORMAL PLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELD GRAPH--The way it's supposta be: OKAY NOW, LET'S PULL IN TODAY'S MAGNETOMETER READINGS Okay, now I'll leave interpretations up to you all From yazadjal at vsnl.net Mon Dec 30 16:14:31 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:14:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Bomb Iraq Message-ID: <032c01c2aff2$25a34a40$3a0841db@vsnl.net.in> Bomb Iraq: Sung to the tune of If You're Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands If we cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq. If the markets hurt your Mama, bomb Iraq. If the terrorists are Saudi And the bank takes back your Audi And the TV shows are bawdy, Bomb Iraq. If the corporate scandals growin', bomb Iraq. And your ties to them are showin', bomb Iraq. If the smoking gun ain't smokin' We don't care, and we're not jokin' That Saddam will soon be croakin', Bomb Iraq. Even if we have no allies, bomb Iraq. From rachel at sarai.net Tue Dec 31 02:47:18 2002 From: rachel at sarai.net (rachel magnusson) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 21:17:18 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] 4 Updates to Crisis/Media Workshop Message-ID: <200212302117.gBULHIW4020982@mail.sarai.net> Four Updates to Crisis/Media Workshop: *Webpage: For updates, notices, and schedules from now until the workshop, check www.sarai.net/events/crisis_media/crisis_media.htm Links to various interesting resources and readings are also available from this webpage. * Presentations: Apart from previously scheduled presentations, the workshop will feature some open sessions. If you are interested in making a presentation in one of the open sessions, please send a brief description of what you want to do to crisis-media at sarai.net *Support for Travel and Accommodation: In general, we will not be able to cover any transport or accommodation costs, for coming to Delhi for the workshop, or for staying in Delhi. If you need a letter of support from Sarai, in order to raise funding for a trip that you are planning, then we will be happy to send you one. Write to rachel at sarai.net asking for a letter of support. *Full Description: CRISIS/MEDIA : The Uncertain States of Reportage Workshop at Sarai New Media Centre, Delhi, March 3-5, 2003 "The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who tried to stay neutral in times of crisis..." The Inferno, Dante Alighieri Ever since the events of September 11, the image of a world in crisis is something that we have grown accustomed to. It is not as if crises have not had global dimensions before. Perhaps all that is different is the frequency, intensity and reiteration of the reportage of crises, an epidemic of images and data of a world out of sorts with itself, which marks and distinguishes the contemporary moment on a global scale. In times like this to attempt to be 'objective' or 'neutral' is to become a mercenary of power, a purveyor of platitudes. At the same time, we have little understanding of the complex professional and ethical dilemmas that bedevil the act of the media's bearing witness to our world. The crisis in the media are the crisis of the media. The rise of new information technologies has ensured that crises are reported and commented upon even as they unfold on our television screens, radio programmes, newspaper pages and computer monitors. The trailers advertising news programmes have made images of war, violence, terrorism and disaster the staple diet of the twenty first century's quotidian sense of the world. Each bulletin anticipates tomorrow's, or the next bulletin's crisis, the very next crisis. So that the breaking news may break even, all day, everyday. And yet, often, they are relinquished to the oblivion from which they emerged, as rapidly as they emerged. If the spectacle of the crisis becomes quotidian, banal and commonplace, does it make sense to speak of a "crisis" anymore, as a temporally distinct phenomenon, a time apart from the rhythms of normal time? Or does this overproduction of crises give us an opportunity to reflect on the making and unmaking of crises, their announcement and forgetting? Does it allow us to ask questions about media in crisis with themselves, about their offerings of uncertain truths to shadowy audiences. In what way do emerging alternative paradigms of reporting and commenting on crises, like the Indymedia Network, themselves become the raw material for mainstream news processing. Where do the lines between the mainstream and the alternative harden, and where do they blur? Has the "broadcast" model, which was the mainstay of the big media business, proved to be too bulky and too conservative in a world in which things change by the minute? Has the internet really made it possible for correspondents to be co-respondents to the realties of a changing world? To reflect on these and other related issues, Sarai : The New Media Initiative at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi and the Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam will be hosting a three day international seminar titled - "Crisis/Media : The Uncertain States of Reportage." This conference will deal with both the ways in which media cover/create/manage spectacular crisis events and also how they deal with the aftermath of crises. One of the aims of the conference is also to shift the focus of reflection away from simply looking at the 'event' of the crisis to looking at the structural processes that anchor what gets reported as 'the crisis', in everyday life. Typically, the media crews arrive instantly whenever a "Crisis" hits the surface of what is constructed as 'Global Consciousness'. Usually, by the time this happens, the locally available human, cultural and intellectual resources available in that society have been severely depleted. This means that the "crisis" is interpreted and made intelligible mainly by 'experts'. This also means that the global media fails very often to recognize the varied approaches to "living" the crisis that exists on the ground, it also makes the crisis a unique event, unrelated to what might be linking it to events and processes elsewhere. The "crisis" then gets reported away as an instance of that happens to 'other' people and 'other' spaces whose realities are fundamentally different form that of those who view the crisis from outside. Typically, the crisis is treated as something that no one, not even the people the media crews interview can make sense of, almost as if it had no history. Finally, the media brings in celebrity intellectuals and pop figures to ethically salvage the event for the viewers as a cathartic experience and offer redemption as a therapeutic act. Of course no one asks the question as to why no one was paying attention to the situation when there were people trying to make sense of it before journalists, cultural workers, intellectuals, activists, human rights groups and other interlocutors succumbed to the crisis that retrospectively seems unfathomable. The problem cannot of course be posed simply in terms of 'local voices' versus 'external reportage'. Local voices may be implicated in the crisis itself, and may be either acting to fuel it, or be silenced by it - just as the reporter who flies in from elsewhere may either seek to turn the crisis into a unique spectacle, bereft of context and history, or, be the 'necessary outsider', who can be trusted to listen and report in a manner that is true to the facts on the grounds without fear or prejudice . The imperative of critical, analytical reportage, that tries to weave together a complex pattern of voices, motivations, facts and processes is a function of sympathy, intelligence, curiosity and a commitment to the freedom of information that is neither reducible to 'local knowledge' nor to the 'universal' agendas of freedom and justice, but is in each case a unique combination of distance as well as intimacy. Each situation engenders its own vantage points which can be identified as the centres towards which the truth about the crisis tends to gravitate. The conference will seek to understand this dynamic of the shifting dynamic of truth and its relation to the tensions between closeness and distance, the local and the global, the mainstream and the alternative versions of the crisis and how it unfolds, as event and as representation. The conference will bring together media professionals, activists and scholars in order to create a dialogue between different kinds of approaches and spaces. We hope to learn from different crises about the processes that were similar. We will learn from Kosovo about Gujarat, and from Gujarat about Rwanda. We will examine structural similarities in the restrictions on civil liberties after 9/11 across the world, we will also assess how the media makes sense of the continuing economic crisis in Argentina. We will examine how popular culture and cinema 'memorialize' crisis situations, or, create the conditions for selective amnesia. We will view riots in relation to the degeneration of everyday life, and see unfolding unreported crises in realities that have to do with water, housing, health and the environment. Crisis Media will first of all recognize that there is a crisis in and of the media, and this cannot be addressed simply by calling for less reportage and more analysis. Instead we will argue for analysis in the reportage, and a disruption of the apparatus of centralized and centralizing information networks. We need to break down the same images that everyone sees, worldwide, in many different ways. And we need to find news ways to tell stories, and to distribute the untold story. The problem of critical media analysis of global crises so far has been to deconstruct the ownership of media and its ideological agenda, attempting to uncover a 'truth' of state and corporate control behind the news. The conference takes this for granted, and seeks instead to ask how we may go beyond it, and how alternative media too can stop looking and feeling like cheaply produced versions of mainstream media production. Crisis/Media will be taking place exactly one year after the events of Gujarat 2002, a crisis that was extensively reported and could be either memorialized or passed over in silence by the media as the years go by. It has become customary in situations of extreme violence to try and make sense of the terror in terms of atavistic and primordial passions, in terms well rehearsed in the Huntingtonian theses of the 'Clash of Civilizations'. In a peculiar sense, this 'normalizes' the crisis more than anything else, so the eruption of the crisis is seen in terms of irreconcilable differences, and the return to normality is seen in terms of generous 'cultural' accommodation and reconciliation. Both these explanatory moves, of the eruption and of the return to normality, offer a way out of a critical analysis of the situations that turn into crises. They also offer a way of returning to the 'business as usual' attitude that eventually papers over the crisis as preparations are made to unravel the 'next' crisis on the world stage. The conference will search for paradigms other than the vaguely cultural to understand situations of crisis, so that crises can be encountered intellectually on concrete and material terms. The conference will have keynote speakers, panels, public interviews, screenings, exhibitions. The event will be audio streamed and video fragments will be available after the event as streaming files on the website of the Society of Old and New Media. The conference will take place at Sarai, Delhi in the first week of March 2003, after the presentation of the third Sarai reader on February 28, 2003. A team at Sarai will document the proceedings of the conference and interview the presenters to create a log/journal of the conference. Transcripts will be made available on the Waag website. The aim is to edit the material into a publication that can become a benchmark in thinking about media practice _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From benjamin_lists at typedown.com Mon Dec 30 22:35:31 2002 From: benjamin_lists at typedown.com (Benjamin Fischer) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:05:31 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] 16. Stuttgarter Filmwinter - online Message-ID: English version see below ______________ Liebe FreundInnen des Filmwinters, schon bald steht die 16. Ausgabe des Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media - ins Haus. Ab dem 9. Januar geht es schon mit einigen Warm Up-Veranstaltungen los. Vom 16.-19. Januar 2003 findet dann das Festival im Filmhaus Stuttgart und im Ex-IKEA statt. Aus 1300 Einreichungen in den Bereichen Kurzfilm und -video, Medieninstallationen, CD-ROM und Internet haben die Vorauswahlkommissionen die spannendsten Arbeiten ausgewählt. Im Rahmenprogramm gibt eine Werkschau mit Videos von Erwin Wurm zu sehen. Unter dem Schlagwort "Erdung" haben wir uns mit dem "neuen Heimatgefühl in der Medienkunst" auseinandergesetzt. Gibt es ein Korrektiv auf Mobilisierung, Flexibilisierung und Globalisierung, ohne in das traditionelle Werteschema zurückzufallen, das mit Begriffen wie "Wurzel" oder "Heimat" verknüpft ist? Das Programm "Gegenspieler" beschäftigt sich mit "Machinimas" und subversiven Erzählformen in Computerspielen. Weitere Informationen zu Programm und Gästen, Eintrittspreisen und Veranstaltungsorten findet Ihr auf unserer Website http://www.filmwinter.de Cheers, Wanda +*+*+*+*+* Dear friends of the Stuttgart Filmwinter, I want to announce the upcoming 16th Stuttgart Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media. The event starts with a Warm Up from January 9 on with various exhibitions and programmes. The festival itself takes place from January 16-19 at the Stuttgart Filmhaus and the Ex-IKEA (former IKEA-building). From supreet at sdf.lonestar.org Mon Dec 30 23:01:11 2002 From: supreet at sdf.lonestar.org (Supreet Sethi) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:31:11 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Bomb Iraq In-Reply-To: <032c01c2aff2$25a34a40$3a0841db@vsnl.net.in> References: <032c01c2aff2$25a34a40$3a0841db@vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <20021230173111.GA9389@SDF.LONESTAR.ORG> By writing this I am not favouring USA or Israel. Its just that there has been such an uproar against US and the media blitz that it carries to the war. I want to quote Bath party slogan 'I and my brother against my cousin, I and my cousin against my neighbour, I and my neighbour against the world' What I mean to say is both parties are as much party to atrocities It has been well documented that Iraq is one of the few countries which has used chemical and biological weapons against its own population. And palestinians are no better. etc and supreet On Mon, Dec 30, 2002 at 04:14:31PM +0530, Yazad Jal wrote: > Bomb Iraq: Sung to the tune of If You're Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands > > If we cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq. > If the markets hurt your Mama, bomb Iraq. > If the terrorists are Saudi > And the bank takes back your Audi > And the TV shows are bawdy, > Bomb Iraq. > > If the corporate scandals growin', bomb Iraq. > And your ties to them are showin', bomb Iraq. > If the smoking gun ain't smokin' > We don't care, and we're not jokin' > That Saddam will soon be croakin', > Bomb Iraq. > > Even if we have no allies, bomb Iraq. > From the sand dunes to the valleys, bomb Iraq. > So to hell with the inspections > Let's look tough for the elections > Close your mind and take directions, > Bomb Iraq. > > While the globe is slowly warming, bomb Iraq. > Yay! the clouds of war are storming, bomb Iraq. > If the ozone hole is growing > Some things we prefer not knowing > (Though our ignorance is showing), > Bomb Iraq. > > So here's one for dear old daddy, bomb Iraq, > From his favorite little laddy, bomb Iraq. > Saying no would look like treason > It's the Hussein hunting season > Even if we have no reason, > Bomb Iraq. > > > http://www.karendecoster.com/2002_12_01_blog_archive.html#85602243 -- supreet at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Dec 31 01:12:54 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 20:42:54 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Hijacking India's History By KAI FRIESE Message-ID: New York Times December 30, 2002 Op-Ed http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/30/opinion/30FRIE.html Hijacking India's History By KAI FRIESE NEW DELHI While some of us lament the repetition of history, the men who run India are busy rewriting it. Their efforts, regrettably, will only be bolstered by the landslide victory earlier this month of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Western India state of Gujarat. The B.J.P. has led this country's coalition government since 1999. But India's Hindu nationalists have long had a quarrel with history. They are unhappy with the notion that the most ancient texts of Hinduism are associated with the arrival of the Vedic "Aryan" peoples from the Northwest. They don't like the dates of 1500 to 1000 B.C. ascribed by historians to the advent of the Vedic peoples, the forebears of Hinduism, or the idea that the Indus Valley civilization predates Vedic civilization. And they certainly can't stand the implication that Hinduism, like the other religious traditions of India, evolved through a mingling of cultures and peoples from different lands. Last month the National Council of Educational Research and Training, the central government body that sets the national curriculum and oversees education for students up to the 12th grade, released the first of its new school textbooks for social sciences and history. Teachers and academics protested loudly. The schoolbooks are notable for their elision of many awkward facts, like the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu nationalist in 1948. The authors of the textbook have promised to make revisions to the chapter about Gandhi. But what is more remarkable is how they have added several novel chapters to Indian history. Thus we have a new civilization, the "Indus-Saraswati civilization" in place of the well-known Indus Valley civilization, which is generally agreed to have appeared around 4600 B.C. and to have lasted for about 2,000 years. (The all-important addition of "Saraswati," an ancient river central to Hindu myth, is meant to show that Indus Valley civilization was actually part of Vedic civilization.) We have a chapter on "Vedic civilization" — the earliest recognizable "Hindu culture" in India and generally acknowledged not to have appeared before about 1700 B.C. — that appears without a single date. The council has also promised to test the "S.Q.," or "Spiritual Quotient," of gifted students in addition to their I.Q. Details of this plan are not elaborated upon; the council's National Curriculum Framework for School Education says only that "a suitable mechanism for locating the talented and the gifted will have to be devised." More recent history, of course, is not covered in school textbooks. So we will have to wait to see how such books might treat this month's elections in Gujarat. They were held in the wake of the brutal pogrom of last February and March, in which more than 1,000 Muslims were murdered and at least 100,000 more lost their homes and property. The chief minister of Gujarat, who is among the leading lights of the B.J.P., justified this atrocity as a "natural reaction" to an act of arson on a train in the Gujarati town of Godhra, in which 59 Hindu pilgrims lost their lives. The ruling party's subsequent election campaign was conducted against the rather literal backdrop of the Godhra incident: painted billboards of the burning railway carriage. The murdered Muslims were not accorded the same tragic status, although their pleas for justice created a backlash that played neatly into the campaign theme of Hindu Pride. It was, of course, a great success. The carefully nurtured sense of Hindu grievance has been nursed rather than sated by acts of mob violence: the destruction of the 15th-century mosque in Ayodhya, for instance, or the persecution of Christians in earlier pogroms in Gujarat's Dangs district. The B.J.P., along with its Hindu-supremacist cohorts, the R.S.S. (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the V.H.P. (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), has a seemingly irresistible will to power. (The R.S.S. and the V.H.P. are not political parties but "social service organizations" that have served as springboards to power for B.J.P. leaders like Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat.) In vanguard states like Gujarat, thousands of students follow the uncompromisingly chauvinistic R.S.S. textbooks. They will learn that "Aryan culture is the nucleus of Indian culture, and the Aryans were an indigenous race . . . and creators of the Vedas" and that "India itself was the original home of the Aryans." They will learn that Indian Christians and Muslims are "foreigners." But they still have much to learn. I once visited the bookshop at the R.S.S. headquarters in Nagpur. On sale were books that show humankind originated in the upper reaches of that mythical Indian river, the Saraswati, and pamphlets that explain the mysterious Indus Valley seals, with their indecipherable Harrapan script: they are of Vedic origin. After I visited the bookshop I stopped to talk to a group of young boys who live together in an R.S.S. hostel. They were a sweet bunch of kids, between 8 and 11 years old. They all wanted to grow up to be either doctors or pilots. Very good, I said. And what did they learn in school? Did they learn about religion? About Hinduism, Christianity? They were silent for a few seconds — until their teacher nodded. A bespectacled kid spoke up. "Christians burst into houses and make converts of Hindus by bribing them or beating them." He said it without malice, just a breathless eagerness, as if it were something he had learned in social science class. Perhaps it was. Kai Friese is a journalist and magazine editor in New Delhi. From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Tue Dec 31 08:11:02 2002 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 18:41:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Look Ahead In Terror Message-ID: <20021231024102.66899.qmail@web40109.mail.yahoo.com> Look ahead in terror � � �By: Rehan Ansari �December 19,2002 � ------------------------------------------------------www.mid-day.com Ashis Nandy, a psychologist, interviewed Narendra Modi 10 years ago and made the assessment that Modi is a clinical fascist. Nandy wrote that he never uses the term fascist as a term of abuse but as a diagnostic category. He goes on to say, in a short essay called �Obituary of a Culture,�: �Modi, it gives me no pleasure to tell the readers, met virtually all the criteria that psychiatrists, psycho-analysts and psychologists had set up after years of empirical work on the authoritarian personality. �He had the same mix of puritanical rigidity, narrowing of emotional life, massive use of the ego defense of projection, denial and fear of his own passion combined with fantasies of violence. �I still remember the cool, measured tone in which he elaborated a theory of cosmic conspiracy against India that painted every Muslim as a suspected traitor and a potential terrorist. �I came out of the interview shaken and (realised) I had met a textbook case of a fascist and a prospective killer, perhaps even a future mass murderer. �The very fact that he has wormed his way to the post of the chief minister tells you something about our political process and the trajectory our democracy has traversed in the last fifty years. I am afraid I cannot look at the future of the country with anything but great foreboding.� The only good thing about that assessment of Modi is that it shows the psychologist Ashis Nandy in a good light: he has not minced words as social scientists do. But what depressing news! Another reason to feel that Pakistan is not better than India! I say India and not Gujarat, because Gujarat may become the model for the whole country. Whenever I feel that public culture in India is as worse as Pakistan I feel that the desolate public culture of Pakistan that Faiz Ahmed Faiz shows in his poems has no border. All over Punjab and Karachi Sunni supremacist organisations assassinate Shias. Shias are less than 10 percent of the population. In Gujarat the number of Muslims are the same as Shias in Pakistan. The difference between Gujarat and Pakistan now becomes that Gujarat has free and fair elections, Modi can deliver his hate speech, whereas in Pakistan assassins let guns speak for them. Gujarat has a chief minister who does not say, after a train burned, that we should catch the criminals, but says we should punish Muslims. Sunni supremacists in Pakistan have guns speaking for them. ---- In college I decided that that I would learn Pakistani history through Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poems. Not that there really was an alternative as our libraries are full of third rate state historians (that�s a triple redundancy!). In any case, I thought a poet whose career spanned Partition and the advent of Zia ul Haq would provide a history of emotion, hope, virtue and resistance. I found all of that but I also found plenty of dismay. In Subh Azadi (1947) I heard him singing about the dawn that was like night falling, in Hum kay theray ajnabi (it is about 1971 but he wrote it in 1973, on a trip to Dacca), he wondered when there will be a harvest that will be unsullied and unbloodied. My favourite lament, which I have no idea when he wrote but I always associate with Zia and his 80s is called Loneliness (Tanhaai). In Tanhaai it is dawn breaking over a city and in every sign of the dawn there is despair. Stars are no longer visible, as if blotted out by dust , the streetlights of the city are staggering shut, people are waking up from dreamless sleep, and the poet has given up waiting for someone, or for a good idea. The poem ends with: Ab yahan koi nahin, koi nahin aay ga. (No one and nothing will come here anymore.) We wait and see how much of India is going to turn into Gujarat. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From neetha2000inin at yahoo.co.in Tue Dec 31 09:23:41 2002 From: neetha2000inin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?navaneetha=20m?=) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 03:53:41 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: <20021231035341.42951.qmail@web8201.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear everybody, This is our proposal for the Sarai Independent Fellowship. Any suggestions you might have are most welcome. ‘THE SPACE BETWEEN’ : WOMEN’S HOSTELS AS URBAN SPACES Late night parties, fights in the TV room, breaking leave rules, queuing up for a bath (or lunch), late night heart -to-hearts, stormy GBMs (general body meetings ) the story an under-graduate women’s hostel tells about itself, which seems to seamlessly merge with one’s expectations of a hostel narrative. A joyride which is fun while it lasts, but there is always an awareness that it is a transitory phase, a short escapade and that “life is elsewhere”. In our project we would like to focus on women’s hostels as urban spaces; in more specific terms, as political spaces in women’s lives. One of the ways in which we hope to focus on this under-explored realm is to concentrate on university hostels, which would entail engaging with students at the post-graduate and research level. In dealing with an older age group we hope to provide a new dimension to the “transitory-ness” of hostel spaces. Women’s hostels may be key spaces in the making/unmaking/remaking of women’s identities and enable them to make important choices which may restructure their lives. Far from being a short interlude it might be a defining moment. Since the case studies we propose to look at are of women who are situated in hostels which are located in the heart of the city, questions of migration, adjustment and the nature of the urban come to the forefront. Issues of exclusion/inclusion and women’s experiences of negotiating the city are mediated in important ways by hostels. The relationship between the city and the hostel is a complex, paradoxical one. Because of the fact of its location in the city there are ways in which the hostel itself is a microcosm of the city. But the microcosmic nature of the hostel space fosters the sense of a community which in one way pulls against the very concept of the urban, modern, individualized self. Its inclusiveness is manifested in the fact that it is amenable to collective intervention and this is reflected in the narratives of women who find it to be an enabling experience. But like every other space it is also shaped by what it excludes. Questions of caste, class, region – the exclusions of the ‘modern’ itself- surface in this context. One of the defining exclusions of Indian modernity is the unavailability of self-determining spaces for women, even given a ‘suitable’ cultural profile. The family is still privileged as the space for women to function in. Singlehood is still a difficult choice in the face of societal prejudice and increasing violence against women. Given these factors, a hostel gives women a ‘room of (their) own’ with the added support structure of a community. For the age-group we propose to look at, therefore, the hostel may provide a different kind of ‘interim’ space; one which facilitates the exploration of and deviation from normative life-scripts. It may allow the articulation and discussion of concerns and experiences that are usually outlawed in the realm of the social/ cultural. Thus, both through lighthearted banter and serious discussion women ‘speak’ their bodies/desires. We do not, however, propose a simplistic celebration of the emancipatory potential of hostel-life, recognizing the fact that this ‘freedom’ might fit too comfortably with the model of the consumer-citizen demanded by a late-capitalist free-market economy. Thus, this study will also enable us to cast a critical look at the ‘New Woman’ who might well be fashioned by the urban, liberal, non-familial space of the women’s hostel. Everything from the architecture of the hostels we propose to study, to the rules and regulations would help us look at the assumptions that structure the hostel as an institution. The protectionist agenda of the authorities, however benign, becomes a site for conflict and collective action. Indeed, the history of hostels which form part of our project shows that they have been central to political mobilization around issues of internal as well as external import. Reportage of ‘campus politics’ tends to be male-centered; to focus on women’s hostels would be to uncover, perhaps, the hidden history of female activism on campuses. The dialogue between the ‘city’ and the hostel is a two-way process; the women ‘make’ the city in as many ways as the city makes them, and central to this dialectics of making is the space of the women’s hostel. The women students of Osmania University in Hyderabad, for instance, have a history of active political intervention that has had a lasting impact on the culture of the city itself. As women who have experienced the city through hostels, we believe that a project like this is long overdue. As the song has it, this almost invisible ‘space between’ is one that can be read at various levels, each more complex than the other. Shefali Jha and Navaneetha.M CIEFL Hhyderabad. ________________________________________________________________________ Missed your favourite TV serial last night? Try the new, Yahoo! TV. visit http://in.tv.yahoo.com From lehar_hind at yahoo.com Tue Dec 31 13:35:26 2002 From: lehar_hind at yahoo.com (Lehar ..) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 00:05:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] India Current:Notes from the Reich Message-ID: <20021231080526.60512.qmail@web20909.mail.yahoo.com> Notes from the Reich Letters of the world-renowned Jorge Borges, who saw the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and world shaping events through the 20th century, This is part of an open letter to the current distortion of education debate in India. It is a brilliant engineered and pre planned exercise, as these notes from 60 years earlier demonstrate. They say practice makes prefect. India�s ruling party�s founders� meetings with the fascists and nazis in the 1930s were definitely useful.. and laid the base for this. Most of the events have uncanny parallels with the propaganda in India at the moment, including Germany�s war hysteria against England. much like the Indo-Pak and the Gujrat hysteria here. (And Bollywood portrayals too.) It is incredible! -- Notes from the Reich BY Jorge Borges. On the distortion of schoolbooks by the Nazis: Pedagogy of hatred Displays of hatred are more obscene and denigrating than exhibitionism. I defy pornographers to show me picture more evil than any of the twenty-two illustrations that accompany the children�s book: Don�t trust any Fox from a heath or any Jew on his oath. Whose fourth edition now infests Germany. It was first published a year ago in 1936 and has already sold 51,00 copies. Its goal is to instill in the children of the Third Reich a distrust and animosity toward Jews. Verse and color engravings collaborate in this veritable textbook of hatred. Take any example: page 5: here I find without justifiable bewilderment this didactic poem: �The German is a proud man who knows how to work and struggle. Jews detest him because he is so handsome and enterprising. � Followed by an equally informative and detestable quatrain: �Here is the Jew. Recognizable as the biggest scoundrel in the whole kingdom.� The engraving is more astute: The German is a Scandinavian 18 yr. old plainly portrayed as a worker. The Jew is a dark Turk obese and middle aged. The German is clean- and the Jew is hairy. It is well known that German Jews are copper haired Slavs..In this book they are represented as dark half-breeds so they�ll appear as exact opposites of blond beasts. These attributes also include the permanent use of fez cap, rolled cigar and ruby rings. Another engraving shows a lecherous dwarf trying to seduce a young German lady. What can one say about such a book? Personally I am outraged, less for Israel�s sake than Germany�s, less for the offended community than for the offensive nation. I don�t know if the world can do without German civilisation, but I do know that its corruption by the teaching of hatred is a crime. A disturbing exposition: Deletions in the history of German Literature Dr. Johannes Rohr of Berlin, an eminent academic has revised , rewritten and Germanized the very Germanic, Literature of the German people. In earlier editions, his work was decidedly mediocre, now it is alarming. This perverse catalogue included about 700 authors, but is silent on the name of some of the greatest ones of German history.. Heine. . Also obliterated are Arnold Zwieg, Erich Maria Remarque (all quite on the western front), Brecht, I do not want to list all the names, but I recall that omission of extraordinary writers like Kafka and others are ones which should not be excluded from the history of Germany literature. The (unreasonable) reasons for this manifold silence are evident: most of those eliminated are Jewish and none is a member of the ruling Nazi party/ a Nazi. As for the rest of it, let us examine page number 435. Written on that severe page is: � rivers of fire of a verbal potency previously unheard in German soil inundated the people: the great speeches of the Fuhrer, swelling with lofty thoughts, yet open wide to the simple understanding of the people, instantly revered.� Next we are regaled with a eulogy of the literary labors of Joseph Goebbels (Hitler�s propaganda minister) novel with its �chaste youth� and fiery language �is the book of the new youth and youths everywhere.� How immeasurable is Rohr's Anti-Semitism. As if that were not enough Goethe and Nietsche have been distorted and mutilated� there is not even a mention of Schopenhaur. Germany is one of the essential nations of the world. Hence we feel devastated by its chaotic descent into darkness, hence the symptomatic seriousness of books such as these. I find it normal for the Germans to reject the Versailles treaty. I find it normal to support anyone who defends their honour. I find it insane to sacrifice to that honour their culture, their past, their honesty to perfect criminal acts of barbarians. -- Notes on Germanophiles: �German patriotic nationalists� I have been na� enough to talk with many Germanophiles.. fervent supporter of Hitler�s cultural nationalism. Total ignorance of things German does not define our Germanophile/ patriotic German. I have tried to speak of Germany and German things that are imperishable. Luther and Schopenhauer.. I have discovered that my Germanophile interlocutor could barely identify those names.. He is only anti Semitic and wishes to expel from even Argentina a Slavo Germanic community where Hebrew names predominate. One might infer that a Gphile is actually an Anglophobe. He is perfectly ignorant of Germany and reserves his enthusiasm for his country at war with England. I always discover that my interlocutor idolizes Hitler, not inspite of bombs and rumbling invasions, machine guns and lies. but because of these instruments. He is delighted by evil and atrocity. The triumph of Germany does not matter to him. He wants the humiliation of England and satisfying burning of London. He admires Hitler as he once idolized his criminal precursors in the underworld of Chicago. The discussion with him becomes impossible because the offences and crimes I ascribe to Hitler are for him wonders and virtues..of cultural nationalism..! The apologist of other mass murders like Rosas and Amigas pardon or gloss over their crimes, the defender of Hitler derives a special pleasure from them. The Hitlerist is always a spiteful man and a secret and sometimes shaper of criminal vivacity and cruelty. He is thanks to a poverty of imagination a man, who believes that Germany, and the Nazis, now victorious, cannot lose. He is the cunning man who always longs to be on the winning side. It is not entirely impossible that there could be some justification for Adolf Hitler: I know there is none for the Germanophile. Note: remember Modiites..? - The unbelievable indisputable truth is that the directors of the third Reich are procuring a universal empire. I will not enumerate the countries they have already attacked and plundered. Yesterday Germanphiles/patriotic Germans swore that the maligned Hitler did not dream of attacking the continent. Now they justify and praise his latest hostility. They have applauded the invasion of Norway and Soviet Union. Who know what celebration they will unleash the day our shores and cities are razed? Hitler�s charity is ecumenical and if �traitors� and �Jews� don�t disrupt him, we will enjoy all the benefits of torture, sodomy, rape and mass executions. -- If I had the tragic honour of being a German, I would not resign myself to sacrificing mere military efficiency for the intelligence and integrity of my fatherland. It is possible that a German defeat might be the ruin of Germany. It is indisputable that its victory would debase and destroy the world. I am not referring to the imaginary danger of a South American colonial adventure. - Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non fiction, Awards: The National Book Critics Circle Award - Eliot Weinberger (editor and translator), Hardcover - 576 pages (September 1999), Viking - Review by Nathaniel Tarn The range of subjects touched on in this cornucopia..! I cannot resist, however, selecting out the "Notes on Germany and the War" in which Borges, a very conservative man - in addition to ravaging manifestations of fascism in the Argentine bourgeoisie of 1937-44 - suffers the matter of Germany: desperately trying to keep distinct his great love of German culture and his recognition of Germany's misery after Versailles from his absolute horror of Nazi racism and anti-Semitism. It is not surprising that such a man was humiliated by the likes of Peron. Available on: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670849472/ref=ase_thelibyrinth/002-0744346-8259247 __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com From avinash332 at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 31 15:00:11 2002 From: avinash332 at rediffmail.com (avinash kumar) Date: 31 Dec 2002 09:30:11 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] My research interest Message-ID: <20021231093011.2689.qmail@mailweb33.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20021231/720acad9/attachment.pl From pollyhazarika at rediffmail.com Tue Dec 31 15:25:23 2002 From: pollyhazarika at rediffmail.com (polly hazarika) Date: 31 Dec 2002 09:55:23 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] the education debate Message-ID: <20021231095523.26691.qmail@webmail27.rediffmail.com> The debate on education in India has been of late caught in a set of non-negotiable binaries. The instances of Germany and now Gujarat only point to the way in which the cycle, can be and is repeated. If today the B.J.P. is removed from power, there is no guarantee that the history of the country, or the world for that matter will not be ‘rewritten’ again by the powers that be. The much more troubling and important question is what is this 'education' that is so easy to manipulate politically? What notion do we have of our children that we have only a system of mass-production to deal with their emotional and intellectual needs? If these questions are asked seriously and any attempt is made to find answers, it is possible that the debate can go beyond right and left wing accusations and counteraccusations.