From shivamvij at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 12:31:49 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2004 12:31:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Corporal Punishment Message-ID: "The greatest chance we have to prevent violence in society is to raise children who reject violence as a method of problem-solving, who believe in the right of the individual to grow in a safe environment." Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children http://endcorporalpunishment.org/ -- I poured reason in two wine glasses Raised one above my head And poured it into my life From definetime at rediffmail.com Sun Aug 1 17:17:38 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 1 Aug 2004 11:47:38 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (fwd) Book Review Message-ID: <20040801114738.505.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040801/d0016610/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   House of Bush, House of Saud: The Hidden Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger 355pp, Gibson Square, £17.99 Since 9/11, the world has taken a very different turn. The reason is the United States, the key player the Bush administration. This book seeks to throw light on the nature of that administration and, above all, its relationship with Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter in the world, possessing an estimated 25% of all known oil reserves. House of Bush, House of Saud is a title that suggests a conspiracy, but this book does not belong to the conspiracy genre. Rather, it meticulously seeks to plot the relationship between Bushes senior and junior - together with their associates - and the elite Saudi families. Sometimes the link seems a little tenuous, resting on a narrative connection, but for the most part this is a very powerful, well-researched and sober book that leaves the reader both enlightened and more than a little disturbed. You will certainly view the Bush administration - and, indeed, American policy-making - through a rather different prism in future. The close relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia goes back 60 years, but what engendered its special intimacy was the oil crisis of 1973. From 1970, American oil production began to fall and the country was increasingly dependent on foreign supplies: Saudi Arabia became critical to the maintenance of the American way of life. A large proportion of the petrodollars that flowed into the coffers of the Saudi royal family as a result of the oil price hike were invested in the US. Unger estimates that, since the mid-70s, 85,000 super-rich Saudis have invested the staggering sum of $860bn in American companies. Houston, the oil capital of the United States, has benefited more than any other city and now has a significant Saudi presence. The Bush family has enjoyed a long connection with oil: George Bush bought an oil company in the 1950s and sold it, at a handsome profit, a decade later. His confidante and lifetime collaborator, James Baker, was similarly connected with oil, being a partner in Baker Botts, a big Houston law firm that represented oil-industry interests. When Bush began to put together his presidential team in 1978, it was based on a new political network in Houston, that of Big Oil (his son's administration has taken this much further, nakedly representing the oil industry like never before). Not surprisingly, this slowly became enmeshed with Saudi interests, which, especially in the figure of Prince Bandar, a member of the royal family and for many years the Saudi ambassador to the US, slowly and painstakingly sought access to the American political elite - most successfully of all with the House of Bush. Prince Bandar, for long the central Saudi figure in the US, hugely rich on his own account, has been a close confidante of George Sr for two decades. George Jr trod a not dissimilar path, establishing his own - albeit not too successful - oil company in the late 70s, until bought out by Harken Oil, of which he became a director; when Harken, too, was saved from extinction by a very wealthy Saudi investor, George Jr was one of the beneficiaries. The same wheels within wheels were turning. Unger is interesting on the differences between father and son. George Sr was a product of the East Coast establishment and later adopted Texas as his home. In contrast, George Jr was unashamedly, brazenly even, a Texan, born and brought up in American's oil state. The misperception of what he would be like as a president had much to do with his father's reputation and experience, which was largely to prove a false lead. The US-Saudi relationship blossomed in the context of two crucial wars, both of which the US fought by proxy: the Iran-Iraq war and the Afghan war. The American administration was deeply concerned about the impact of Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran - previously the US's most powerful ally, Israel apart, in the Middle East. It used Saddam, in strategy well detailed by Unger, as a means by which to counter the Iranian regime, secretly supplying him, for a decade or more, with weapons and cash. The Saudis - who effectively replaced Iran as America's regional ally - were intimately involved in the intricacies of American policy, even coming to the aid of the Americans by secretly funding - at the Reagan administration's request - the Contras in Nicaragua after Congress had blocked presidential support. Unlikely as the American-Saudi alliance might seem, during the cold war there was a mutual sympathy. Of course, the central component was, and remains, one of raw, elemental interest. The US depended on a reliable supply of cheap oil - for which the Saudis were utterly crucial - while the Saudi regime needed a military guarantor for what was a deeply insecure regime in a profoundly unstable region. Both regarded the Soviet Union as the infidel: albeit for the Americans a secular one, and for the Saudis religious. These interests coincided most closely in Afghanistan. The Saudis became enthusiastically involved in the American-inspired covert funding of, and support for, the mujahideen war against the newly installed Soviet-backed government. Strangely, 10 years before the end of the cold war, the conflict was to prefigure the future course of events, on the one hand the collapse of the Soviet Union and on the other hand the emergence of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. The Afghan war was to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam while for Bin Laden, a member of one of Saudi Arabia's elite families, who were intimately connected with the House of Saud, Afghanistan became the Islamic equivalent of the Spanish civil war, a mobilising cause across the Muslim world, especially the fundamentalist part, and above all in Saudi Arabia: indeed, the House of Saud found the mujahideen crusade a useful way of asserting its own militant Islamic credentials and appeasing domestic opinion. So al-Qaida was forged in the crucible of the Afghan war. Bin Laden was an authentic product of Saudi Arabia, not simply a rogue child. His family was one of the most powerful in the country. The House of Saud owed its very existence, and perpetuation, to Wahhabism, a fundamentalist school of Islam. He was not an aberration. But now, propelled by his experiences in the Afghan war, he became increasingly disenchanted with the corruption and westernisation of the House of Saud. The breach came in 1990 when, in the first Gulf war, the Saudi regime agreed to allow American troops to be stationed on its soil. Having defeated one infidel, the Soviet Union, Bin Laden now turned on another, the United States. He resolved on the removal of American troops - in which he eventually succeeded - and the overthrow of the House of Saud, now weaker and more vulnerable than ever before. The Saudis never enjoyed the same kind of intimacy and ease with the Clinton administration as they did with the Bush administrations. The connections, cultivated over a quarter of a century, are complex and multifarious, emanating outwards from Houston, centred on oil, embracing both the public and private sector activities of the House of Bush, lubricated and driven by money and power. Unger estimates that $1.476bn has made its way over time from the Saudis to the House of Bush, and its allied companies and institutions. He writes: "It could safely be said that never before in history had a presidential candidate - much less a presidential candidate and his father, a former president - been so closely tied financially and personally to the ruling family of another foreign power. Never before had a president's fortunes and public policies been so deeply entwined with another nation." September 11 placed the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US under extreme pressure. Unger catalogues the tensions in intimate detail. He describes how the Bush administration has sought to soothe and safeguard the intimacy, failing to ask or pursue crucial questions about the involvement of leading Saudi figures in 9/11. But the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia - one of the cornerstones of American policy since 1973, and earlier - is now closer to breaking point than ever before. Can the Bush administration continue to turn a blind eye? Will the House of Saud survive? What will the Americans do in response to its likely successor, an aggressively anti-American, fundamentalist regime? What price an American occupation of the world's most important oilfields? The future is, indeed, uncertain. · Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. Saturday July 31, 2004 The Guardian From info at arealartist.com Sun Aug 1 09:19:26 2004 From: info at arealartist.com (Angeliki Avgitidou) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 20:49:26 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] call for contributions Message-ID: <200407312049.AA277020922@arealartist.com> CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS Angeliki Avgitidou has been commissioned to present a piece for the KODRA 04 exhibition in Thessaloniki, Greece. She will be presenting an installation and performance piece titled L.E.S. (Little Embarrassing Secrets). L.E.S. will build on actual little embarrassing secrets, fragments of life history, "unimportant" events we can't seem to forget and are glad no-one has found out about them. In the work these secrets will be revealed and finally disappear thus providing catharsis for the bearer. If you would like to contribute to L.E.S. with your own story send a description of 100-200 words by sending an e-mail to info at arealartist.com. Angeliki studied architecture in Greece and fine art in London. She holds a PhD from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Angeliki's work encompasses video, digital media and performed photography and explores notions of the self,the process of art and the everyday experience. She is preoccupied with the unsaid, what goes unnoticed or is considered not interesting. She has mainly exhibited in Europe and published theoretical texts in international journals. She is at the moment living in Greece and teaches History of European Art and New Media Art at Higher Education. http://www.arealartist.com ________________________________________________________________ $0 Web Hosting with up to 120MB web space, 1000 MB Data Transfer 10 Personalized POP and Web E-mail Accounts, and much more. Get It Now At www.doteasy.com From amanmalik000 at hotmail.com Tue Aug 3 00:33:15 2004 From: amanmalik000 at hotmail.com (Aman Malik) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 00:33:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] SURVEY QUESTIONS Message-ID: Hi all, The following are the questions that I wish to put forth to Internet users as part of my ongoing study on parallel lives that people lead on and off the Internet I'd be obliged if you could kindly turn in the answers by the 7th Aug (latest). Pleaes do let me have a short bio of yourself as I might have to quote you in my final study. Also please be as descriptive in answering the questions as you possibly can be. Thanks & Regards, Aman Malik New Delhi How much time do you usually spend on the Internet each day on an average? If you think you spend more time online than an average person in your peer group, what reasons do you attribute to this? What are your activities on the Internet? (Activities that have no direct bearing on your work) Have your activities online been cathartic? Do you get a sense of relief in some manner, after you have spent sometime online? Are you addicted to the Internet? Do you miss the Net if on a certain day you cannot manage to get onto it? If you engage in commercial activities online (buying books, CD's and other such stuff) what is your usual mode of payment? In your opinion, is your mode of payment a safe option? What is the most 'weird' thing that you have done on the Internet? What do you think of the following activities on the internet. a) Internet chat b) Blogging c) Cyber Activism d) Cyber Dating e) Pornography How often do you indulge in such activities, if at all? How democratic a medium do you really think Cyberspace is? Can it ever become an effective alternative to the real world? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040803/b1e21616/attachment.html From anya at bgl.vsnl.net.in Mon Aug 2 12:12:10 2004 From: anya at bgl.vsnl.net.in (Ananya Vajpeyi) Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2004 12:12:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] ISIS : Indian Scripts Input System Message-ID: <14AC3FC2-E44F-11D8-8D6B-000A95B44366@bgl.vsnl.net.in> Begin forwarded message: > From: Gautam Sengupta > Date: August 1, 2004 12:12:18 AM GMT+05:30 > During the last few months I have developed a bunch of software > keyboards (ISIS). They are freely downloadable from: >   > http://geocities.com/indian_scripts > and > http://bangla.name >   > The websites were put up by one of my students. The content and > documentation are still somewhat unsatisfactory. But I think the > software is the best available input system for Indic scripts. It > covers almost all major Indian scripts, with the notable exception of > Urdu, on a single mnemonic keyboard layout. >   > Gautam Sengupta > Centre for Applied Linguistics & Translation Studies > University of Hyderabad > India > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 896 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040802/52a84dbe/attachment.bin From dak at sarai.net Mon Aug 2 18:30:12 2004 From: dak at sarai.net (The Sarai Programme) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 18:30:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Call for Papers: Urban Environments Workshop Message-ID: <200408021830.13006.dak@sarai.net> Urban Environments Workshop November 3 - 4, 2004 Sarai-CSDS, Delhi The Sarai programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi is organizing a workshop on Urban Environments on 3rd and 4th November, 2004. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together ideas and engagements regarding the issue of environment in the cities of South Asia. We hope to generate discussions regarding the conceptual tools through which to address urban environments and also concerns around specific issues such as water, waste, pollution etc. In the recent past, environment has emerged as a major issue in urban politics in the cities of South Asia that has elicited a fair bit of response in the media, and a more limited one within the academia. In this workshop we expect to sharpen these debates through a more historically situated engagement with the notion of 'urban environment'. In our reckoning, there are a wide variety of issues that are covered under this rubric - from slums, waste and nuisance to sanitation, parks, pollution etc. The analytical frames through which the various issues have been understood and acted upon - politically, socially, aesthetically etc. - have changed over time. Similarly, the institutional arrangements for addressing environmental issues in the urban context been radically transformed over the last century. In this workshop we hope to examine both the early environmental legacies - from the ideas of Patrick Geddes to the world-view of public health officials and planners - and the more contemporary environmental concerns that are addressed through law and science, to examine both the continuities and departures in the way cities have dealt with environmental issues in modern South Asia. Those interested in presenting a paper at the workshop are requested to send in an abstract by 30th August. We expect the final papers to be submitted by 15th October. The Sarai programme will be able to meet all costs of scholars from India/ South Asia. For further inquiries you may contact Awadhendra Sharan (sharan at sarai.net) or Ritika Shrimali (ritika at sarai.net). -------- The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 Tel: (+91) 11 23960040 (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307 Fax: (+91) 11 23943450 www.sarai.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From definetime at rediffmail.com Mon Aug 2 13:05:14 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 2 Aug 2004 07:35:14 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Digital Archiving of Hindusthani Classical Music ... Message-ID: <20040802073514.2839.qmail@webmail27.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040802/9be1d04e/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   Digital Archiving of Hindusthani Classical Music ... Four months ago on the request of a JNU professor, I digitised the proceedings of a seminar on 'River-Linking'. As the session advanced the speakers' alloted time got constricted. Towards the end one expert asked the restless audience (the lunch-break was around the corner) to 'fasten their seat belts' and emarked on a whirl-wind discourse in an animated high-pitched voice. Fearing something similar in the 15 min. presentation, I embark on a overview which may ease a possible 'crash landing'. When one considers the body of recorded Hindustani Classical music some patterns become clear. The emphasis has broadly shifted away from the drupad-dhamar based presentation. Drupad has become a niche specialisation with diminishing practitioners and khayal gayaki degenerating into what an elderly practioner describes as 'Aajkal sab hawa main gate hai'. Meanwhile some Ragas have fallen by the wayside, no longer a part of concert repertoire. The pattern of patronage shifted to corrupt bureaucracy from skewed princely support. Private initiative often expects gymnastics from musicians, the music itself receding into the background. Another crucial aspect is the hardening of religious demarcation on the musical content. An enormous number of 'cheez' are being neglected for their religious flavour. The era of Ustad Faiyaz Khan doing Vande Nandkumaram seems almost over. We are still to see among contemporary indian musicians, the gratitude quite lot of musicians in the west show to their past masters. When in 1999 the Detroit band, White Stripes did a cover of St. James Infirmary Blues (made famous by Louis Armstrong's 1928 recording) they tied the entire body of western recorded music together and opened the past to the teenagers who has just arrived on the scene. White Stripes continued this trend in their follow up albums, so too did Bob Dylan (with his tribute to Charley Patton, the 'father' of the Delta Blues). In the absence of publicity 'user friendly' distribution doesn't seem to pick up. Maybe a centralised server has to jumpstart the proceedings before P2P networks can pick up the material. The fashionable trend today is to promote one's kin. In any other field it would be called nepotism. The media too is throwing a disproportionate weight behind this trend. With record companies' preoccupation with profitability, the government down-sizing - archiving is increasingly becoming an amateur sport. While technology seems to hold out promise of better times, society as a whole is shaping up in strange ways. As we embrace 48 hour working weeks and such, the audience for the music is dwindling. Today it's background music, tomorrow the memory of a forgotten era. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Michael Kinnear's article detailing the history musical recording/labels in India is available at : http://www.bajakhana.com.au/Sound-rec-Ind-3D.htm From info at txtmob.com Mon Aug 2 19:13:18 2004 From: info at txtmob.com (info at txtmob.com) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 09:43:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Reader-list] txt messaging meets political protest Message-ID: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 1, 2004 PROTESTORS AT DNC RELIED ON NEW TXT MESSAGING SERVICE; BIG PLANS FOR RNC IN AUGUST Protestors at last week's Democratic National Convention had a new tool in their arsenal - a text messaging service designed just for them. "TXTMob," as the service is called, allows users to quickly and easily broadcast text messages to groups of cellphones. The system works much like an electronic b-board: users subscribe to various lists, and receive messages directly on their phones. During the DNC, protest organizers used TXTMob to provide activists with up-to-the minute information about police movements and direct actions. Medical and legal support groups also used TXTMob to dispatch personnel and resources as the situation demanded. According to TXTMob developer John Henry, over 200 protestors used the service during the DNC. "Obviously, we would have loved to announce TXTMob before the convention began, but were concerned that the police might try to block our communications," said Henry. "Frankly, it's a little ridiculous that we have to go to such lengths to help people exercise their first amendment rights , but I guess these are the times we live in." TXTMob was produced by the Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA), an art and engineering collective that develops technologies for political dissent. The IAA worked closely with the Black Tea Society, an ad-hoc coalition that organized much of the protest activity during the DNC, to design the system. According to a Black Tea member who chose to remain anonymous, "TXTMob was great! When the cops tried to arrest one of our people, we were able to get hundreds of folks to the scene within minutes." IAA spokespersons refused to comment directly on future plans for the service, saying only that they are now working with activists in preparation for the upcoming Republican National Convention in New York City. "We're making several improvements based on our experience in Boston," said Henry. "New York is going to be off the hook!" The current implementation of TXTMob is available for public use at www.txtmob.com. Contacts: TXTMob: info at txtmob.com IAA: iaa at appliedautonomy.com ### From madhuja_m at yahoo.co.in Mon Aug 2 12:36:25 2004 From: madhuja_m at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?madhuja=20mukherjee?=) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 08:06:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: abstract : madhuja mukherjee In-Reply-To: <20040801100004.E1ABD28E338@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20040802070625.39750.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> LOOKING AT THE GLASSES DARKLY: IMAGE, TEXT AND PUBLICITY MATERIAL. A project that proposed to retrieve some hundreds of ‘lost’ Glass Negatives of the Studio Era (of Bengali Cinema) and map histories of cinematic practices through the reading of photographs and interrogating the use glass negatives in mid twentieth century has been able to ‘reclaim’ about 600 negatives and catalogue the material. THE PROJECT: The glass negatives that at the outset seemed like symbolic ‘dark holes’ in the memory of Calcutta studios were first scanned then through a reverse mode – or rather by reverting a historical process as it were – were turned to ‘positives’ (digitally). The presumption that the dark shadows and the inscriptions on the negatives were of brochures and lobby cards did bear out to be accurate. What come into view now, is a bulk of publicity material of diverse films, which are largely in Hindi and that of late 1940s and 1950s. These findings produce multiple techniques of reading cinema as an institution and the Bengali cinematic practices in relation to it. Our area of interest shifted from the research of production procedures and studying film texts to understanding the distribution modus operandi and the culture of film viewing – though the project is not exactly about theories of speactorship. The retrieved resources show that a variety of what may be loosely referred to as ‘Bollywood B –Movies’ (or what B.N. Sircar of New Theatres Ltd., described as “Bhadur-di-khel”) were regularly exhibited in the Bengali film circuit, and despite the claim to ‘Bhadralok’ cinema the audiences (of New Theatres Ltd. ‘type’) were familiar with multifarious cinematic forms, languages, aesthetics that constitute the conventional popular Indian cinema. To substantiate the point, one may analyse the choice of shots in the brochures that may be categorised as moments of violence, physical intimacy, (family) reunion within institutionalised spaces, the face of the star (actress), spectacles (that include dances, architectural wonders, shots lit in high-key etc.), et al. The material also illustrates the actual methods of positing the text along with the images. And, in a most intriguing way the entire corpus of this data (of ‘Bollywood-B Movies’ in Bengali cinema houses) project an ethos that has been rarely discussed earlier. In our effort to chalk out narratives of cinematic practices, the purpose was not only to examine the images but also to identify the technology and technique of glass negatives .The nagging question ‘why glass’ in as late as 1950s acted as a connecting thread. It did seem to find few answers as we interviewed photographers, cinematographers, studio owners and ‘amateur’ photographers of the period, who suggest that the fine high contrast images produced by the emulsions on the glass did function well for publicity purposes and its one of prime reasons for choice of glass in even 1960s. In conclusion, the project hopes to comment on the cultural modes of the era and the ways in which cinema negotiated within city spaces (which may not be adequately appreciated simply through our notions of the Bengali Bhadralok way of life), and since the definition of cinema is manifold an exploration of the ‘culture-industry’ interface becomes necessary as such materials demonstrate varying aesthetic possibilities and continue to reframe the elite/popular divisions. STRUCTURE OF THE PRESENTATION: The paper shall include a short overview of the history and technology of Glass Negatives, the culture and technique of the use of Glass Negatives (in Bengal particularly), interpretations of the publicity material and comments on such cinematic practices. Finally, about 250 scanned images (adding to the list of about 300 catalogued images already submitted to SARAI earlier) shall be presented. (And , the final / 6th posting shall be send in a week's time ). Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040802/4c36a7e4/attachment.html From paulinegomes at indiatimes.com Mon Aug 2 14:14:27 2004 From: paulinegomes at indiatimes.com (paulinegomes) Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2004 14:14:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [announcements] Talk by Prof. Arjun Appadurai:: Saturday, 7th August 2004 Message-ID: <200408020823.NAA24584@WS0005.indiatimes.com> "=?iso-8859-1?q?PUKAR=20Mumbai?=" wrote: PUKAR cordially invites you to a talk by Prof. Arjun Appadurai on Mumbai�s Cosmopolitan Past: Does It Have A Future? Date: Saturday, 7th August 2004 Time: 6:00 p.m. (The talk will be preceded by tea & snacks at 5:30 p.m.) Venue: The Little Theatre, NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) Nariman Point Mumbai Prof. Appadurai is the President of the Board of Trustees of PUKAR. He is the John Dewey Professor in the Social Sciences at New School University in New York City, where he is also the Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs. He was born in Mumbai and continues to conduct a variety of research projects on this city and its relationship to globalization. Introduction by Sheela Patel, Director, SPARC (Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres), Mumbai. See you there! Warm regards, The PUKAR team PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) Mumbai. Phone +91 (022) 2207 7779, +91 98204 04010 Web Site http://www.pukar.org.in Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online. Indiatimes Email now powered by APIC Advantage. Help! HelpClick on the image to chat with me -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040802/44a83cfa/attachment.html From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Aug 3 20:13:46 2004 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2004 20:13:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Call for Student Stipends for Research on Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property Message-ID: <410FA4A2.6070109@sarai.net> Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics :: A Conference on Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property 6th - 8th January 2005 in New Delhi Call for Student Stipends for Research on Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property The Sarai Programme of the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi and Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore invite students of all disciplines (e.g. law, history, literature, media, anthropology, sociology, politics, philosophy, economics) to participate in the student workshop which precedes the conference and act as public rapporteurs to the conference. To apply, you must submit your CV and a 600 word note exploring any one of the themes of the conference and displaying a keen understanding of the contemporary conflicts surrounding intellectual property, in the context of social inequality. We encourage students to write inter-disciplinary essays which display a careful attention to the thematics of the conference rather than academic essays such as submitted at your University. The conference brief The past three years have seen conflicts over the regulation of information, knowledge and cultural materials increase in intensity and scope. This conflict has widened to include new geographical spaces, particularly China, India, South Africa and Brazil. Moreover, a range of new problems, including the expansion of intellectual property protection to almost all spheres of our social life, has intensified the nature of the conflict. Here it is important to recognize that the nature of the conflict gets configured differently as we move from the United States and Europe to social landscapes marked by sharp inequalities in Asia, Latin America and Africa. In the light of these transformations, we would like to revisit earlier discussions on creativity, innovation, authorship, and the making of property. Is it possible to draw comparative registers between earlier histories of violence and dispossession that accompanied the making of property, and the current turbulence around intellectual property on world scale? In this conference, we would like to push comparative discussions between earlier and contemporary moments of dispossession and criminalisation, between the open source movement and discussions on traditional knowledge and bio-diversity. We would also like to build a dialogue between different moments in media history: print, film, music and the new media, so as to prise open questions around culture, circulation and property. The submission process All submissions should be emailed to by September 30th 2004. We will select 20 students who will be informed by 1st November 2004. Travel expenses, board and lodge, as well as a modest per diem, will be provided to the candidates for attending the workshops and the Conference. Selected students will participate in the student workshop prior to the Conference on 4th January 2004 and act as public rapporteurs to the Conference. We will encourage students to be experimental in using varied strategies to disseminate the conference proceedings. -------------- Conference Editors: >From Sarai/CSDS: Jeebesh Bagchi, Ravi Sundaram >From ALF: Lawrence Liang, Sudhir Krishnaswamy -------------------------- Sarai Center for Study of Developing Studies (CSDS) 29, Rajpur Road Delhi 110054, India Ph: 91 11 23960040 Fax: 91 11 23943450 Email: Alternative Law Forum (ALF) 122/4 Infantry Road, Bangalore 560 001, Karnataka Phone: 91 80 22865757 Email: --------------------------- From AGBeckmann at web.de Wed Aug 4 00:32:00 2004 From: AGBeckmann at web.de (Albert Georg Beckmann) Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2004 21:02:00 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Call for entries First International Video Reporting Award Message-ID: <1389859344@web.de> (deutsche Version unterhalb) +++ Call for entries +++ please forward +++ Deadline 15th of September, 2004 +++ +++ We will be glad to receive your entries and we would be pleased if you could offer this information to interested filmmakers. +++ International Video Reporting Award The "International Video Reporting Award" is an international competition for short, innovative, non-fiction digital filmmaking. The films must be helmed by a single person who is solely responsible for content, direction, camera, sound and editing, and who fully explores the creative dimensions of digital technology. The filmmaker should also be taking on the challenge of autonomous production and distribution. The award jury will be looking for excellence in story content, as well as for imaginative use of filmmaking techniques. The film screenings for the "International Video Reporting Award" will provide an overview of international trends and standards. The screenings will encompass work from the USA, Great Britain, and also the beginnings of video reporting in Germany. The Top Prize carries an award of 1000 Euros. The award cermony will take place during the 6.backup_festival in Weimar/Germany Oktober, 7. - 10. 2004. Applications for the "International Video Reporting Award" may be registered online at http://www.backup-festival.com under "Call for Entries", and all current registration forms can be downloaded as a pdf. Send Entries to: backup_festival Bauhaus-University Weimar Faculty of Media Bauhausstr. 11 D-99423 Weimar/Germany Entry Deadline: September 15, 2004. Each entry submission should not be longer than 15 minutes. The independent jury for the "International Video Reporting Award" consists established television producers, VR-Coaches and University/Film school teachers. The jury members for 2004 are Sabine Streich, Michael Rosenblum, Wolfgang Kissel. (english version above) +++ Ausschreibung +++ bitte weiterleiten/veröffentlichen/aushängen +++ Deadline 15. September, 2004 +++ +++ Wir laden Sie herzlich zur Beteiligung an dieser Ausschreibung ein und bitten Sie, die mitgelieferten Informationen weiterzuleiten/zu veröffentlichen/auszuhängen. +++ Video Reporting Award "International Video Reporting Award" ist ein internationaler Wettbewerb für innovative dokumentarische Kurzfilme und Beiträge einzeln arbeitender Autoren. Regie, Kamera, Ton und Schnitt liegen in einer Hand. Die Filmschaffenden nutzen das Gestaltungspotenzial der Digitaltechnik und begreifen die autonomen Produktions- und Distributionsmöglichkeiten als Herausforderung. Vorauswahlkommission und Jury bewerten neben Idee und Konzeption die schöpferische Auseinandersetzung mit dem digitalen Autorenprinzip. Mit der Vergabe des "International Video Reporting Award" möchten wir einen Überblick über aktuelle internationale Entwicklungen, insbesondere der US-amerikanischen und britischen Szene bieten, und die noch junge deutsche Entwicklung von Anfang an mit begleiten. Der Hauptpreis ist mit 1.000 Euro dotiert. Die Preisverleihung findet innerhalb des 6. backup_festivals in Weimar/Thür. vom 7.-10. Oktober 2004 statt. Die Anmeldungen für den "Internationalen Video Reporting Award" sind ausschließlich über das Internet unter http://www.backup-festival.de in der Rubrik "Ausschreibungen" möglich, und es gibt alle aktuellen Anmeldeformulare zum Download als pdf. Bitte senden sie ihre Beiträge an: backup_weimar Bauhaus-Universität Weimar Fakultät Medien Bauhausstr. 11 D-99423 Weimar Die eingereichten Beiträge sollten eine Gesamtlänge von 15 Minuten nicht überschreiten. Einsendeschluss ist der 15. September 2004. Die unabhängige Fachjury des "International Video Reporting Award" besteht aus Fernsehmachern, VR Coaches, Hochschullehrern. Die Jury-Mitglieder des Jahres 2004 sind Sabine Streich, Michael Rosenblum, Wolfgang Kissel. ____________________________________________________ Aufnehmen, abschicken, nah sein - So einfach ist WEB.DE Video-Mail: http://freemail.web.de/?mc=021200 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From abshi at vsnl.com Wed Aug 4 13:09:24 2004 From: abshi at vsnl.com (abshi at vsnl.com) Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 12:39:24 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Screening of film on 6th Aug 'Freedom Before 11' Message-ID: <2a18b42a58b1.2a58b12a18b4@vsnl.net> PUKAR presents A Gender & Space Project film ‘Freedom Before 11’ Date: Friday, August 6, 2004 Time: 6 pm Venue: Max Mueller Bhavan Auditorium Kala Ghoda Next to Jehangir Art Gallery Mumbai The film focuses on the ways in which women who live in hostels are perceived and the ways in which women negotiate hostel life in the city. The film aims to engage ideas about women’s ‘place’ in the city and the ‘protection’ of ‘reputations of both ‘good’ women and ‘good’ women’s hostels. The film is located in the broader context of the Gender & Space project which seeks to explore the ways by which women experience public spaces, accessing them against all odds, transforming the very nature of urban life in the process. The film will be followed by a discussion led by Arundhathi Subramanium, poet and co-ordinator of Chauraha, NCPA. Freedom Before 11 A 25 minute digital-video film Directed by: Radhika Menon & Roseanne Lobo Edited by: Gouri Patwardhan Conceived by: Shilpa Phadke Funded by: The Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternative Development See you there! The Gender & Space team. PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research) Mumbai. Phone +91 (022) 2207 7779, +91 98204 04010 Web Site http://www.pukar.org.in Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online. From borcila at arts.usf.edu Thu Aug 5 10:31:13 2004 From: borcila at arts.usf.edu (Rozalinda) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 10:31:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] archive announcement Message-ID: ** Dear friends If you are engaged in collective practice, we would love to hear from you!!! Open Call for a traveling archive and nomadic meeting-place on collectivity and critical collective/cooperative cultural action. We need your contributions ! First stop: Oliver Gallery, Tampa FL November 2004 *** a staging area for local action during US elections! *** traveling to Chicago, Nashville, looking for more temporary hosts Description: We are gathering materials on collective and cooperative forms of creativity, critique, resistance, intervention, scholarship and artistic production. In November, the archive will be available to the public in its first phase as a room/public space/lounge/resource center/production space/meeting place at the Oliver Gallery in Tampa FL. We do not limit the ways in which the archive, and the space temporarily housing it, may be used or may serve as resources. Our multi-purpose room will be open 24 hours a day, we have available internet-linked computers, VHS and DVD players (NTSC and PAL), a growing collection of paper resources and reference material, books, pamphlets, print-outs, Xerox copies, photos, postersÖand free water and coffee. We will have viewing, seating, lounging, napping and play areas. We also hope to provide a free Xerox machine and free CDís for copying information. The room will be available to local teachers and community organizations with no space of their own, collaborative projects in need of production space and local bands in need of rehearsal space. Our archive will travel to other spaces willing to host it and be open for public use. Information/materials will continuously be solicited and added. If you are engaged in collective practice, we would love to hear from you. Please share with us any material that speaks to your work: from documentation of projects to reflections on the dynamics of cooperation Any of the following can be extremely useful sources of information or reference for your work: o urlís o digital material: CDís, DVDís, digital files (text, video , image, sound; we can arrange for uploading and downloading to our server) o printed materials (books, catalogs, magazines, pamphlets, posters, coasters, zinesÖ) o reproductions (Xerox copies, photographs, slides, computer print-outs..) o documentation of your work in any format, from text to audio recordings of phone interviews with us o letters, emails, postcards o objects Please send materials to: Rozalinda Borcila Visual and Performing Arts, FAH 110 University of South Florida Tampa, FL 33620, USA Postmark deadline: September 15th We are looking for ways to help collectives outside the US for whom mailing costs are prohibitive. Please email us: we are trying to organize collection points around the world to help with mailing expenses. If you would like to help by serving as a local collection center, please let us know. Questions, comments, suggestions? please contact Rozalinda Borcila borcila at arts.usf.edu . This project is only part of the larger, on-going effort to learn about, historicize, understand and make public different forms of critical collective intelligence. We are also soliciting materials on the various attempts to theorize collectivity. For each installment, our growing collection will be restructured and recategorized.. We seek to connect with related initiatives to share information, resources, experience and energy. From mailbox at typedown.com Thu Aug 5 14:46:08 2004 From: mailbox at typedown.com (Benjamin Fischer) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 11:16:08 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] MUEDIGKEIT UND MUENDIGKEIT - 18. Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Message-ID: english version see below... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MUEDIGKEIT UND MUENDIGKEIT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18. Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Film | Video | Neue Medien | Installation | Performance | Theorie Festival 13.-16. Januar 2005 Warm Up 6.-12. Januar 2005 www.filmwinter.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Endlich 18! Der Stuttgarter Filmwinter wird volljaehrig. Stets und eifrig auf der Suche nach Innovativem, Kritischem und Unbekanntem in der Medienkunst und Filmkultur, nach den Zwischenzonen und Freiraeumen im Medienbetrieb. Nach dem Rekord von ueber 1700 Einreichungen beim letzten Festival sind alle Film-, Medien- und Kunstschaffende herzlich eingeladen, ihre Arbeiten in den Bereichen Film, Video, Online/Offline Internet, Installation und Performance fuer den kommenden Filmwinter einzusenden. EINREICHUNG Online-Projekte koennen direkt ueber die Festival Website www.filmwinter eingereicht werden. Anmeldeformulare fuer Film, Video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline), Installation und Performance koennen im PDF-Format heruntergeladen werden. Deadline fuer Einreichungen: 1. September 2004 PREISE In den Sektionen Film/Video und Neue Medien werden Preise in Hoehe von ueber 14.500 Euro vom Publikum und unterschiedlichen Jurykommissionen vergeben. Team-Work-Award Die Marli-Hoppe-Ritter-Kunststiftung stiftet Euro 2.000,- fuer eine Film- oder Videoproduktion, die von einem Team realisiert wurde. Norman 2005 Preis der Jury fuer Film und Video in Hoehe von Euro 4.000,- - gestiftet von der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart IBM Preis fuer Neue Medien Zwei Preise in Hoehe von insg. Euro 4.000,- gehen an Arbeiten aus den Bereichen Online und Offline. Ermoeglicht durch die IBM Deutschland GmbH. Milla und Partner Preis Preis fuer Medien im Raum (Installationen) in Hoehe von Euro 2.500,- DASDING-Publikumspreis Publikumspreise in den Bereichen Film/Video und Internet in Hoehe von jeweils Euro 1.000,- Sowie weitere Preise und die heissbegehrte Wand 5-Ehrenauszeichnung Neben den beiden Wettbewerben fuer Film/Video und Neue Medien wird das Festivalprogramm mit Spezialreihen, Panels, Praesentationen und Musikevents ergaenzt. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Weitere Informationen: Wand 5 e.V. im Filmhaus Friedrichstr. 23 A D - 70174 Stuttgart Germany Tel: +49-711-99 33 98-0 Fax: +49-711-99 33 98-10 Mail: wanda at wand5.de www.wand5.de www.filmwinter.de english version: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SLEEPINESS AND MATURITY ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 18th Stuttgart Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Film | Video | New Media | Installation | Performance | Theory Festival, January 13-16, 2005 Warm Up, January 6-12, 2005 www.filmwinter.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Eventually 18! Filmwinter is of age. The 18th edition of the Stuttgart Filmwinter is still looking for innovative, critical, and unknown posititions in media art and film culture. After the record of 1700 submissions at the last festival the organizer Wand 5 cordially invites filmmakers, media producers, and artists to submit their work. Productions in the field of film, video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline), internet (online), installation, and performance are very welcome. SUBMISSION Internet projects and websites may be submitted online on the festival's website www.filmwinter.de. Entry forms and regulations for submissions in the field of film, video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline), installation, and performance can be downloaded as PDF-file. Deadline for submission: September 1, 2004 AWARDS In the sections film/video and new media prizes amounting more than 14.500 Euro will be awarded by the audience and various jury commissions. Team-Work-Award The Marli-Hoppe-Ritter Art Foundation endows an award of Euro 2.000 for a team production in the field of film and video. Norman 2005 Award of the Jury for film and video of Euro 4.000 - donated by the city of Stuttgart IBM Awards for New Media These awards of Euro 4.000 go to an independently produced work on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline) or to a project published on the internet (online). Milla and Partner Award Award for media in space (installations) of Euro 2.500 DASDING-Audience Award Audience award for film/video and internet of respectively Euro 1.000 as well as further prizes and the popular honourable mention by Wand 5 Besides the competitions for film/video and new media a wide range of special programmes, panels, presentations and music events will be offered. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Further information: Wand 5 e.V./Filmhaus Friedrichstr. 23 A D - 70174 Stuttgart Germany Tel: +49-711-99 33 98-0 Fax: +49-711-99 33 98-10 Mail: wanda at wand5.de www.wand5.de www.filmwinter.de -- Benjamin Fischer | http://www.typedown.com/?RDCT=31fdfb30dd811702ba19 From coolzanny at hotmail.com Thu Aug 5 15:14:14 2004 From: coolzanny at hotmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 15:14:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] How to identify a city? Message-ID: How to identify the city you are in by observing a street brawl. Scenario 1 Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes along, then a fourth and they start arguing about who's right. You are in Kolkatta. Scenario 2 Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes along, sees them and walks on. That's Mumbai. Scenario 3 Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes along & tries to make peace. The first two get together & beat him up. That's Delhi. Scenario 4 Two guys are fighting. A crowd gathers to watch. A guy comes along and quietly opens a chai stall. That's Ahmedabad. Scenario 5 Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes he writes a software program to stop the fight .. but the fight doesn't stop because of a bug in the program. That's Bangalore !!!! Scenario 6 Two guys are fighting. A crowd gathers to watch. A guy comes along and quietly says that "ANA" doesn't like all this non sense --- Peace comes in. That's Chennai. Scenario 7 Two guys are fighting. Both of them take time out and call their friends on mobile. Now 50 guys are fighting. You are in Chandigarh. _________________________________________________________________ The all new MSN Messenger! Chat with any e-mail ID! http://server1.msn.co.in/sp04/messenger/ Change the way you communicate! From shivamvij at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 16:25:58 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 16:25:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] How to identify a city? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Scenario 8: Two guys are fighting and a third one comes along and remids them that fighting is a waste of time. All 3 go back to their life of doing nothing. That's Lucknow. Shivam On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 15:14:14 +0530, Zainab Bawa wrote: > > How to identify the city you are in by observing a street brawl. > > Scenario 1 > Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes along, then a fourth and they > start arguing about who's right. > You are in Kolkatta. > > Scenario 2 > Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes along, sees them and walks on. > That's Mumbai. > > Scenario 3 > Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes along & tries to make peace. The > first two get together & beat him up. > That's Delhi. > > Scenario 4 > Two guys are fighting. A crowd gathers to watch. A guy comes along and > quietly opens a chai stall. > That's Ahmedabad. > > Scenario 5 > Two guys are fighting and a third guy comes he writes a software program to > stop the fight .. but the fight doesn't stop because of a bug in the > program. > That's Bangalore !!!! > > Scenario 6 > Two guys are fighting. A crowd gathers to watch. > A guy comes along and quietly says that "ANA" doesn't like all this non > sense --- Peace comes in. > > That's Chennai. > > Scenario 7 > Two guys are fighting. Both of them take time out and call their friends on > mobile. Now 50 guys are fighting. > You are in Chandigarh. > > _________________________________________________________________ > The all new MSN Messenger! Chat with any e-mail ID! > http://server1.msn.co.in/sp04/messenger/ Change the way you communicate! > > _________________________________________ > 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: > -- I poured reason in two wine glasses Raised one above my head And poured it into my life From aparajita_de at rediffmail.com Thu Aug 5 12:38:52 2004 From: aparajita_de at rediffmail.com (Aparajita De) Date: 5 Aug 2004 07:08:52 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Posting V - Sarai Independent Fellowship Message-ID: <20040805070852.22401.qmail@webmail27.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040805/7507e480/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- IMAGINED GEOGRAPHIES: GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE OF SELF AND OTHERS IN EVERDAY LIFE.THE CASE OF AHMEDABAD The final theoretical question that remains is how is space conceptualized? Theoretically my effort has been to go beyond monocausal explanatory models of self and other understanding and in favour of a dialectical relationship between space and society. How does the social consciousness of self merge with the spatial consciousness of self and vice-versa; and that of the social other with the spatial other? Levinson (1996) contends that human beings think spatially but not exclusively and ‘casting non-spatial problems into spatial thinking gives us literacy, geometry, diagrams, mandala, dream-time landscapes, measures of close and distant relatives and of high and low social groups and much more’. Extending his logic, I can say that space and spatial arrangements in particular can become an extension of self and also symbolically represent the other. Thus space is conceptualized not as an allocentric, abstract and absolute concept but as an egocentric, anthropomorphic and relative concept. Spaces used, assigned to and occupied or acquired by self or other not only reflects their respective understandings of themselves but also the underlying power relations. Space emerges as an idea, an ideological discourse and an assemblage of text/texts which is being constantly created/recreated and creating/recreating understanding self of and others. Thus not only social meanings and are embedded in spatial concepts and meanings but spatial concepts and meanings are also rooted in social meanings and concepts.   APARAJITA DE Research Associate Centre for Social Studies South Gujarat University Campus Udhna Magdalla Road Surat 395007 Phone: 0261 2227173/74 0 9825808100(m) Fax:0261 2223851 email: css_surat at satyam.net.in From aparajita_de at rediffmail.com Thu Aug 5 12:39:45 2004 From: aparajita_de at rediffmail.com (Aparajita De) Date: 5 Aug 2004 07:09:45 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Final Posting Message-ID: <20040805070945.13351.qmail@webmail28.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040805/fe565f0e/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------  IMAGINED GEOGRAPHIES: GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE OF SELF AND OTHERS IN EVERDAY LIFE.THE CASE OF AHMEDABAD For the final posting I thought that I would conclude. Perhaps the most difficult part of any research is drawing any conclusive conclusions. Many of you may have already guessed - through my maze of theoretical ramblings – that my attempt has been to develop a different way of thinking about space and the inherent spatiality of human life. I myself have tried to think differently about the familiar notions of space, place, and territory and hopefully others as well. I have tried in essence to incorporate an ontological shift in understanding the world around us. It has mostly been a historical and social project. The challenge has been to interweave the spatial into the socio-historical dialectical project and to bring out its inseparability and the problematic interdependence of the three – the social, the temporal and the spatial. APARAJITA DE Research Associate Centre for Social Studies South Gujarat University Campus Udhna Magdalla Road Surat 395007 Phone: 0261 2227173/74 0 9825808100(m) Fax:0261 2223851 email: css_surat at satyam.net.in From definetime at rediffmail.com Thu Aug 5 11:46:51 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 5 Aug 2004 06:16:51 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (fwd) Abusive tirades against Muslims Message-ID: <20040805061651.29201.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040805/2dfe5d9d/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   No, we don't want to conquer the world The abusive tirades against Muslims and Islam in the mainstream media are not only wrong, but also profoundly dangerous Anas Altikriti Thursday August 5, 2004 The Guardian The ferocity of recent attacks on Muslims and Islam in the mainstream British media has led many to question what is driving these attempts to incite hatred and fear of our community. Anyone reading the British press over the past few weeks might be excused for imagining that the country is threatened by hoards of Muslims living within its borders, determined to subvert British values and convert its people to Islam, by hook or by crook. Take the Sunday Telegraph, whose newly discovered columnist Will Cummins warned of Islam's "black heart", which he said should be the focus of our fear, rather than its "black face". He also claimed that "all Muslims, like all dogs, share certain characteristics" - among which is the desire to eradicate, one way or another, all those who do not share their faith. Substitute any other religion and ethnic or religious minority for "Muslims" and "Islam" to get a sense of the full implications of what the Sunday Telegraph has seen fit to publish. The Guardian Diary has, meanwhile, been told that Will Cummins and the British Council press officer Harry Cummins are the same person. Harry - who so far denies being Will - has been suspended on full pay while his employers investigate the evidence. It would be doubly disturbing if the man who likes to compare Muslims to dogs is indeed the press officer, considering the British Council's job of promoting Britain as a country, culture and heritage to the world, particularly Arab and Muslim countries. Elsewhere, Anthony Browne broke new Islamophobic ground in last week's Spectator under the cover line: "The Muslims are Coming". Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews in the last century by claiming they had a plot to take over the world, he wrote. But while this was based on lies, Muslims really do now have a plot to conquer the west. One cannot help but wonder where Browne and those who think like him are heading with his line of argument and what some might think justified by it: pogroms against the Muslim community, maybe? In a flagrantly misleading and tendentious report last week, the Times launched a front-page attack on two of Britain's most respected Islamic educational institutes, attempting to link them with terrorism. Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday carried the absurd allegation, again splashed across its front page, that some Muslim doctors were refusing to treat patients with sexually transmitted diseases because they believed they were a "punishment from God". What has baffled many of us is that all these slurs and attacks on our community are made under the banner of defending freedom of speech, expression and choice. Evidently, the argument that it is necessary to kill to save lives, imprison to protect freedoms and wage war to achieve peace, is gaining ground. British Muslims have always welcomed open debate in an attempt to defeat the fatalist notion of an inevitable "clash of civilisations". Sheikh al-Qaradawi's recent visit to Britain would have been a useful chance to discuss how to promote common understanding. More importantly, such an effort would have offered a more favourable image of Britain to the 1.3 billion Arabs and Muslims around the world, who now think of our country more for its aggression and blunders in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, the right within politics and the media worked tirelessly to scupper this opportunity and to demonise hundreds of thousands of British Muslims who adhere to their faith and hold the likes of al-Qaradawi in high regard. The attempt to force the overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims into the tiny space occupied by the minority extremist element is nothing short of wicked. These latest media attacks appear to be part of a concerted attempt not only to do that, but also to tarnish the remarkable history of Muslims in this country and the role they have played in the shaping of our nation. Muslims do not want to conquer the world - on the contrary, it is their lands that are being conquered bit by bit at the hands of western forces. Of course we believe that we have a set of values and ideas which could bring peace, prosperity and justice to the world - as do followers of other faiths and ideologies - and we will continue to advocate and promote those in pursuit of what we believe is best. Muslims in Britain have the added responsibility of acting as a bridge between the Muslim world and the west. The active participation of British Muslims in the anti-war movement and the key role of Muslim voters in the European elections and recent byelections have demonstrated their capability and potential influence. These developments perhaps help to provide a clue to the timing of the spate of Islamophobic tirades that have been directed against Muslims in the weeks since. There exist two trends within "active" or "political" Islam. One, widely acknowledged to represent mainstream Muslims, urges and embraces open dialogue with the rest of humanity on an equal basis and sees the prosperity of our world as a shared responsibility of those who inhabit it, based on justice. There is no alternative but to initiate a serious dialogue with this trend if relations between the west and Islam are to move in the right direction. The other trend, albeit still a minority, has emerged as a product of despotic regimes, oppressive and unethical policies and a cocktail of socio-economic factors. It sees no other option but for Islam to fight back physically, and sees no hope in debate, peaceful dialogue or integration. Islam and Muslims will not disappear into thin air. The right's attempts to smear and demonise those who strive for justice, openness and the building of bridges of friendship is foolish, to say the very least - and could be of catastrophic consequence for us all. · Anas Altikriti is a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain anas at mabomline.net From shivamvij at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 17:21:11 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 17:21:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] International Public Opinion Message-ID: oupjournals-mailer at liontamer.stanford.edu to jnlcom-l More options Aug 4 (1 day ago) *************************Announcement********************** ---------------------------------------------------- International Public Opinion and Iraq A special issue of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research Before the war in Iraq, or after it, public opinion surveys were conducted in over forty countries - more countries than for any other war. The Fall 2004 issue of IJPOR (volume 16, issue 3) features a review of the cross-national surveys, as well as articles on polled opinion in the USA, Britain, Germany, the Philippines and Mexico. For further details visit: http://www.ijpor.oupjournals.org ---------------------------------------------------- *************************Announcement********************** JOC -- Table of Contents Alert A new issue of Journal of Communication has been made available: September 2004; Vol. 54, No. 3 URL: http://joc.oupjournals.org/content/vol54/issue3/index.shtml?etoc ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2003 ICA Presidential Address ----------------------------------------------------------------- Critical Communication Challenges For the New Century Jennings Bryant J Commun 2004 54: 389-401. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/389?etoc ----------------------------------------------------------------- Research Articles ----------------------------------------------------------------- Evaluating the Effectiveness of Distance Learning: A Comparison Using Meta-Analysis Mike Allen, Edward Mabry, Michelle Mattrey, John Bourhis, Scott Titsworth, and Nancy Burrell J Commun 2004 54: 402-420. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/402?etoc The Efficacy of Inoculation in Televised Political Debates Chasu An and Michael Pfau J Commun 2004 54: 421-436. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/421?etoc Managing the Public Sphere: Journalistic Construction of the Great Globalization Debate W. Lance Bennett, Victor W. Pickard, David P. Iozzi, Carl L. Schroeder, Taso Lagos, and C. Evans Caswell J Commun 2004 54: 437-455. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/437?etoc Visual Elements in Public Journalism Newspapers in an Election: A Content Analysis of the Photographs and Graphics in Campaign 2000 Renita Coleman and Ben Wasike J Commun 2004 54: 456-473. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/456?etoc How Verbalizers and Visualizers Process the Newspaper Environment Andrew L. Mendelson and Esther Thorson J Commun 2004 54: 474-491. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/474?etoc Voices of the Marginalized on the Internet: Examples From a Website for Women of South Asia Ananda Mitra J Commun 2004 54: 492-510. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/492?etoc The Role of the Global Telecommunications Network in Bridging Economic and Political Divides, 1989 to 1999 Peter Monge and Sorin Adam Matei J Commun 2004 54: 511-531. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/511?etoc Political Correlates of Local News Media Use Patricia Moy, Michael R. McCluskey, Kelley McCoy, and Margaret A. Spratt J Commun 2004 54: 532-546. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/532?etoc How Not to Found a Field: New Evidence on the Origins of Mass Communication Research Karin Wahl-Jorgensen J Commun 2004 54: 547-564. http://joc.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/54/3/547?etoc ----------------------------------------------------------------- Review and Criticism ----------------------------------------------------------------- Seeking and Resisting Compliance: Why People Say What They Do When Trying to Influence Others. By Steven R. Wilson. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002. 391 pp. $86.95 (hard), 43.95 (soft). William R. Cupach J Commun 2004 54: 566-567. Say It Loud! African-American Audiences, Media, and Identity. Edited by Robin R. Means Coleman. New York: Routledge, 2002. x + 306 pp. $85.00 (hard), $25.95 (soft). Michael Giardina, Susan J. Harewood, Jin-Kyung Park, and Cameron McCarthy J Commun 2004 54: 567-570. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting. By Christopher H. Sterling and John Michael Kittross. 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. 975 pp + 139 illus. $69.95 (hard). James R. Walker J Commun 2004 54: 570-571. The Internet in Everyday Life. Edited by Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2002. 624 pp. + 31 illus. $66.95 (hard), $29.95 (soft). Dennis L. Wignall J Commun 2004 54: 571-574. The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows. By Laura Grindstaff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. 318 pp. + 12 illus. $55.00 (hard), $20.00 (soft). Janice Peck J Commun 2004 54: 574-576. Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio. Edited by Michele Hilmes and Jason Loviglio. New York: Routledge, 2002. xv + 569 pp. + 25 illus. $100.00 (hard), $29.95 (soft). Joy Elizabeth Hayes J Commun 2004 54: 576-578. Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865-1920. By Richard L. Kaplan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 224 pp. $65.00 (hard), $23.00 (soft). David Michael Ryfe J Commun 2004 54: 578-581. The Moral Foundations of Trust. By Eric M. Uslaner. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 312 pp. + 19 illus. $65.00 (hard), $23.00 (soft). Yariv Tsfati J Commun 2004 54: 581-583. To unsubscribe from or edit your subscriptions to this service, go to http://joc.oupjournals.org/subscriptions/etoc.shtml _______________________________________________________________________ Copyright (c) 2004 by the International Communication Association. Written requests to unsubscribe may be sent to: Customer Service 1454 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 U.S.A. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: publication September 2004. Special pre-publication offer - save �1000! Click here for more information http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/order/ _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shivamvij at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 17:24:13 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 17:24:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Northeast Vigil Message-ID: Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 09:23:25 +0530 From: "Northeast Vigil" Subject: 5 years Dear friends, Northeast Vigil has completed five years of online existence. The site has seen both the Dotcom Boom and the Dotcom Doom. It is not exactly kicking, but it certainly is still alive. On the ocasion of this fifth anniversary, we bring to you a new microsite on the issue of large dams in the Northeast. Please check out: http://www.northeastvigil.com/ecology/dams/index.html. This microsite has been possible only because of Ashsih Fernandes, Manju Menon and Neeraj Vagholikar, without whose inputs and encouragement, it (this microsite) would not have seen the light of day. I look forward to your suggestions and help on microsites on other issues. Thanks for sticking around with Northeast Vigil for five long years. Regards. Subir Ghosh PS: Apologies for any cross-posting. _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From siriyavan at outlookindia.com Thu Aug 5 10:47:13 2004 From: siriyavan at outlookindia.com (Anand) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 10:47:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Launch of Dalit Diary in Chennai and Hyd References: <20040716100005.D42C528E344@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <000f01c47aab$77e96fc0$b304a8c0@anand> Please consider featuring this announcement. Anand 9 Aug 2004: Launch in Chennai Navayana invites you to join CHANDRA BHAN PRASAD in reflecting upon APARTHEID at the launch of "DALIT DIARY: 1999-2003. REFLECTIONS ON APARTHEID IN INDIA" at the Asian College of Journalism Kasturi Centre, 124, Wallajah Road Chennai 600 002 (near Anna Statue flyover) on Monday 9 August 2004, 6.15 p.m. M. JEYARANI, reporter, Ananda Vikatan, will receive the first copy of the book from RICHARD HAYNES, Consul-General, US Consulate. RICHARD HAYNES, SASHI KUMAR of Asian College of Journalism, and VASANTHI DEVI, Chairperson, State Women's Commission will speak about the book. Author CHANDRA BHAN PRASAD will respond. For further details contact Navayana in Chennai at 094440-61256. visit www.navayana.org ----------------------- 11 Aug 2004: Launch in Hyderabad Navayana invites you to join CHANDRA BHAN PRASAD in reflecting upon APARTHEID at the launch of "DALIT DIARY: 1999-2003. REFLECTIONS ON APARTHEID IN INDIA" at the Odyssey bookstore, Amrutha Hills, Panjagutta, Hyderabad Ph: 23414801 on Wednesday 11 August 2004, 6.15 p.m. K. RAMSWAMY, Retd. Judge, Supreme Court of India will be the Chief Guest. T. ASHOK, Editor, Vaarttha, and R. AKHILESHWARI, Special Correspondent, Deccan Herald, will speak about the book. Author CHANDRA BHAN PRASAD will respond. For further details contact Navayana: 094440-61256; in Hyderabad, K. Satyanarayana: 040-27091753 visit www.navayana.org _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From indradg at icbic.com Sat Aug 7 10:26:47 2004 From: indradg at icbic.com (Indranil Das Gupta) Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 10:26:47 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A walk across The Digital Divide - An experience Message-ID: <1091854607.2665.51.camel@enforcer.banglamafia.org> Hi, Over the last one and half years, I have been experimenting with the idea of Localized Low Cost Computing and interacting with end-users to see if and how The Digital Divide can be crossed. During this time I have often been pleasantly surprised by the adaptive capability of our people living on the wrong side of the Divide. Day before yesterday was something special that I will remember for very long time. Here's that story [1] from my blog. Today I reached WBUT at 12 O'Clock. Palashendu and the rest of the Redhat Team was supposed to come down for a meeting with "The Boss". On my way over, I was worried that without Sayamindu, Soumyadip or me being around to switch on the LTSP server, our Santhali L10N colleagues may be sitting in the lab without being able to get any work done. Boy! was I surprised when I reached there... they were busy, with fingers flying at their designated terminal! Intrigued as to who may have set them up, I asked them only to find that the younger one among our volunteers - Ajay Hembrom had done it! Seems that by watching us go over our daily business at the lab, they had quietly picked have out what all they needed to switch on and in which order. Quite a few things actually - the main switch board -> the power up LTSP server -> switch on another switch board -> switch on the power strip supplying the 100MB/s switch connecting our LTSP terminals -> switch on their terminal and bootup into their localized desktop. Some may wonder what is really so extraordinary... well for one, they are using computers for the first time in this lab. It took me a lot of patience and nearly 10 days to get them to understand that they really needed to press the key after entering their login ID and then again after entering their password. From their perspective it was the computer which was being stupid... asking them for their login and password, which they were entering and still the darned beast would foolishly sit idling waiting for who knows what! Make no mistakes, they are intelligent people, only that being on the other side of the Digital Divide, computers and IT happened to have largely passed them by. This last one month has been their first up-close and personal interaction with computers. Once more, I found myself wondering over the innate intelligence and adaptive vitality of our people. I wish some of the armchair-preachers of "technology to the masses" who banter endlessly about the user-friendliness of technological interfaces, had been with me at that moment. cheers, --indra. References: [1] http://blogs.randomink.org/node/view/106 From jeebesh at sarai.net Sun Aug 8 14:27:30 2004 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 14:27:30 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Censor Board bans documentary Message-ID: <4115EAFA.8010101@sarai.net> From: As you know, the Censor Board of India recently banned Rakesh Sharma's internationally-acclaimed documentary - Final Solution. An online petition has been created by Anand Patwardhan to protest against the ban. The petition asks Central Government to intervene and revoke the ban immediately. As you may already know, under clause 6 and 9 of the Cinematograph Act, the Central Government is empowered to overturn any decision/ recommendation by the Censor Board. People who have already signed the petition include Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Javed Akhtar, Aparna Sen, Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Farhan Akhtar, Rahul Bose, Vishal Bhardwaj, Arundhati Nag, Sanjana Kapoor, MS Sathyu, Lekh Tandon, Yogendra Yadav and Teesta Setalvad among others. Please extend your support by signing the petition online by clicking the following link: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FilmBan/petition.html Please forward the petition details to people in your mailing list asking them to sign and circulate the petition widely. Final Solution ( India; 2004; Digital Video format - miniDV; 209/148 minutes). Final Solution is a study of the politics of hate. Set in Gujarat during the period Feb/March 2002 - July 2003, the film graphically documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through a study of the 2002 genocide of Moslems in Gujarat. The film documents the Assembly elections held in Gujarat in late 2002 and records in detail the exploitation of the Godhra incident (in which 58 Hindus were burnt alive) by the right-wing propaganda machinery for electoral gains. It studies the situation after the storm and its impact on Hindus and Moslems - ghettoisation in cities and villages, segregation in schools, the call for economic boycott of Moslems and continuing acts of violence more than a year after the carnage. Final Solution is anti-hate/ violence as "those who forget history are condemned to relive it". Awards : Wolfgang Staudte award and Special Jury Award (Netpac), Berlin International film festival. Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary, HongKong International film festival. Silver Dhow ( Best Doc category), Zanzibar International film festival Special Jury Mention, Munich Dokfest. Special Award instituted and given by NRIs for a Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI), NY-NJ, USA. Festivals : Berlinale ( International premiere; Feb 2004), HongKong, Fribourg, 3 continents filmfest (South Africa), Hot Docs (Canada), Vancouver, Zanzibar, Durban, Commonwealth film festival (UK), One world filmfest (Prague), Voces Contra el Silencio (Mexico), Istanbul 1001fest, Singapore, Flanders (Belgium), World Social Forum (Mumbai; Indian premiere), Vikalp (Mumbai filmfest organised by Campaign against Censorship), Films for Freedom, Bangalore and several other filmfests [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From jeebesh at sarai.net Sun Aug 8 15:58:45 2004 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 15:58:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Democide data Message-ID: <4116005D.9080803@sarai.net> "Collecting data on democide was an horrendous task. I soon was overwhelmed by the unbelievable repetitiveness of regime after regime, ruler after ruler, murdering people under their control or rule by shooting, burial alive, burning, hanging, knifing, starvation, flaying, beating, torture, and so on and on. Year after year. Not hundreds, not thousands, not tens of thousands of these people, but millions and millions. Almost 170,000,000 of them, and this is only what appears a reasonable middle estimate. The awful toll may even reach above 300,000,000, the equivalent in dead of a nuclear war stretched out over decades." - R.J. Rummel http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM From shivamvij at gmail.com Sun Aug 8 21:53:41 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 21:53:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Censor Board bans documentary In-Reply-To: <4115EAFA.8010101@sarai.net> References: <4115EAFA.8010101@sarai.net> Message-ID: Cool, but we need much more. Litigation, protest, activism - why are we all taking this lying down? Is this the 21st century? Shivam On Sun, 08 Aug 2004 14:27:30 +0530, Jeebesh Bagchi wrote: > From: > > As you know, the Censor Board of India recently banned Rakesh Sharma's > internationally-acclaimed documentary - Final Solution. An online > petition has been created by Anand Patwardhan to protest against the > ban. The petition asks Central Government to intervene and revoke the > ban immediately. As you may already know, under clause 6 and 9 of the > Cinematograph Act, the Central Government is empowered to overturn any > decision/ recommendation by the Censor Board. > > People who have already signed the petition include Shabana Azmi, > Nandita Das, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Javed Akhtar, Aparna Sen, > Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Farhan Akhtar, Rahul Bose, Vishal > Bhardwaj, Arundhati Nag, Sanjana Kapoor, MS Sathyu, Lekh Tandon, > Yogendra Yadav and Teesta Setalvad among others. > > Please extend your support by signing the petition online by clicking > the following link: > http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FilmBan/petition.html > Please forward the petition details to people in your mailing list > asking them to sign and circulate the petition widely. > > Final Solution ( India; 2004; Digital Video format - miniDV; 209/148 > minutes). > > Final Solution is a study of the politics of hate. Set in Gujarat > during the period Feb/March 2002 - July 2003, the film graphically > documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through a > study of the 2002 genocide of Moslems in Gujarat. The film documents > the Assembly elections held in Gujarat in late 2002 and records in > detail the exploitation of the Godhra incident (in which 58 Hindus > were burnt alive) by the right-wing propaganda machinery for electoral > gains. It studies the situation after the storm and its impact on > Hindus and Moslems - ghettoisation in cities and villages, segregation > in schools, the call for economic boycott of Moslems and continuing > acts of violence more than a year after the carnage. > > Final Solution is anti-hate/ violence as "those who forget history are > condemned to relive it". > > Awards : > > Wolfgang Staudte award and Special Jury Award (Netpac), Berlin > International film festival. > > Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary, HongKong International > film festival. > > Silver Dhow ( Best Doc category), Zanzibar International film festival > > Special Jury Mention, Munich Dokfest. > > Special Award instituted and given by NRIs for a Secular and Harmonious > India (NRI-SAHI), NY-NJ, USA. > > Festivals : Berlinale ( International premiere; Feb 2004), HongKong, > Fribourg, 3 continents filmfest (South Africa), Hot Docs (Canada), > Vancouver, Zanzibar, Durban, Commonwealth film festival (UK), One > world filmfest (Prague), Voces Contra el Silencio (Mexico), Istanbul > 1001fest, Singapore, Flanders (Belgium), World Social Forum (Mumbai; > Indian premiere), Vikalp (Mumbai filmfest organised by Campaign > against Censorship), Films for Freedom, Bangalore and several other > filmfests > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > _________________________________________ > 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: > -- I poured reason in two wine glasses Raised one above my head And poured it into my life From mailbox at typedown.com Mon Aug 9 02:49:06 2004 From: mailbox at typedown.com (Wand 5 e.V.) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 23:19:06 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Call for Entries: 18th Stuttgart Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media > SLEEPINESS AND MATURITY Message-ID: <85dd2eeb8e439d1c62cce15ba27f51c6@domain.tld> Call for Entries: 18th Stuttgart Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Deadline for submissions: September 1, 2004 German Version see below... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SLEEPINESS AND MATURITY ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18th Stuttgart Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Film | Video | New Media | Installation | Performance | Theory Festival, January 13-16, 2005 Warm Up, January 6-12, 2005 www.filmwinter.de ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eventually 18! Filmwinter is of age. The 18th edition of the Stuttgart Filmwinter is still looking for innovative, critical, and unknown posititions in media art and film culture. After the record of 1700 submissions at the last festival the organizer Wand 5 cordially invites filmmakers, media producers, and artists to submit their work. Productions in the field of film, video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline), internet (online), installation, and performance are very welcome. SUBMISSION Internet projects and websites may be submitted online on the festival's website www.filmwinter.de. Entry forms and regulations for submissions in the field of film, video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline), installation, and performance can be downloaded as PDF-file. Deadline for submission: September 1, 2004 AWARDS In the sections film/video and new media prizes amounting more than 14.500 Euro will be awarded by the audience and various jury commissions. Team-Work-Award The Marli-Hoppe-Ritter Art Foundation endows an award of Euro 2.000 for a team production in the field of film and video. Norman 2005 Award of the Jury for film and video of Euro 4.000 - donated by the city of Stuttgart IBM Awards for New Media These awards of Euro 4.000 go to an independently produced work on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline) or to a project published on the internet (online). Milla and Partner Award Award for media in space (installations) of Euro 2.500 DASDING-Audience Award Audience award for film/video and internet of respectively Euro 1.000 as well as further prizes and the popular honourable mention by Wand 5 Besides the competitions for film/video and new media a wide range of special programmes, panels, presentations and music events will be offered. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Further information: Wand 5 e.V./Filmhaus Friedrichstr. 23 A D - 70174 Stuttgart Germany Tel: +49-711-99 33 98-0 Fax: +49-711-99 33 98-10 Mail: wanda at wand5.de www.wand5.de www.filmwinter.de ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MUEDIGKEIT UND MUENDIGKEIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18. Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Film | Video | Neue Medien | Installation | Performance | Theorie Festival 13.-16. Januar 2005 Warm Up 6.-12. Januar 2005 www.filmwinter.de ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endlich 18! Der Stuttgarter Filmwinter wird volljaehrig. Stets und eifrig auf der Suche nach Innovativem, Kritischem und Unbekanntem in der Medienkunst und Filmkultur, nach den Zwischenzonen und Freiraeumen im Medienbetrieb. Nach dem Rekord von ueber 1700 Einreichungen beim letzten Festival sind alle Film-, Medien- und Kunstschaffende herzlich eingeladen, ihre Arbeiten in den Bereichen Film, Video, Online/Offline Internet, Installation und Performance fuer den kommenden Filmwinter einzusenden. EINREICHUNG Online-Projekte koennen direkt ueber die Festival Website www.filmwinter eingereicht werden. Anmeldeformulare fuer Film, Video, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM (offline), Installation und Performance koennen im PDF-Format heruntergeladen werden. Deadline fuer Einreichungen: 1. September 2004 PREISE In den Sektionen Film/Video und Neue Medien werden Preise in Hoehe von ueber 14.500 Euro vom Publikum und unterschiedlichen Jurykommissionen vergeben. Team-Work-Award Die Marli-Hoppe-Ritter-Kunststiftung stiftet Euro 2.000,- fuer eine Film- oder Videoproduktion, die von einem Team realisiert wurde. Norman 2005 Preis der Jury fuer Film und Video in Hoehe von Euro 4.000,- - gestiftet von der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart IBM Preis fuer Neue Medien Zwei Preise in Hoehe von insg. Euro 4.000,- gehen an Arbeiten aus den Bereichen Online und Offline. Ermoeglicht durch die IBM Deutschland GmbH. Milla und Partner Preis Preis fuer Medien im Raum (Installationen) in Hoehe von Euro 2.500,- DASDING-Publikumspreis Publikumspreise in den Bereichen Film/Video und Internet in Hoehe von jeweils Euro 1.000,- Sowie weitere Preise und die heissbegehrte Wand 5-Ehrenauszeichnung Neben den beiden Wettbewerben fuer Film/Video und Neue Medien wird das Festivalprogramm mit Spezialreihen, Panels, Praesentationen und Musikevents ergaenzt. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weitere Informationen: Wand 5 e.V. im Filmhaus Friedrichstr. 23 A D - 70174 Stuttgart Germany Tel: +49-711-99 33 98-0 Fax: +49-711-99 33 98-10 Mail: wanda at wand5.de www.wand5.de www.filmwinter.de -- Benjamin Fischer | http://www.typedown.com/?RDCT=9706d95a161a24adcc07 From definetime at rediffmail.com Mon Aug 9 14:24:40 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 9 Aug 2004 08:54:40 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (fwd) Beware the monster mall's curse Message-ID: <20040809085440.27697.qmail@webmail27.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040809/c033612c/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   Beware the monster mall's curse Neon shopping sprawls are ripping the heart out of our cities Peter Preston Monday August 9, 2004 The Guardian The nice lady who runs the little Radio Shack in Jena, Louisiana, turned suddenly acid. "You're from London?" she said, out of the blue. "What about your damned congestion charge - it cost me $160, and that's a hell of a lot of money." Indeed it is, especially in Jena, where spare dollars seem in rather short supply. And all, it turned out, because - visiting a son in Lewisham - she'd strayed into Mayor Ken's sacred central zone for four minutes without quite realising the gravity of the offence. Pay to drive into the city? Sacrilege. And here I am today, 1,600 miles north of Louisiana, in the world's greatest (or, at least, biggest) temple to the motor car: the mighty Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Twelve years old this week, 400-plus shops, stores and restaurants clustered three floors high (around a full-scale Camp Snoopy funfair) in a hulk of a building which seems like an aircraft carrier plonked in a sea of Dodges and Buicks. Its owners aren't satisfied yet. They have plans to more than double their monster mall - to 9m sq ft. They dream of "realising our original vision as the eighth wonder of the world". They strive still to create the ultimate cathedral of capitalism, the most conspicuous home of conspicuous consumption. But, symbolically, it is also becoming much more than that. Almost everywhere you go in America these days, the cities are struggling for life. They have their astonishing glories, to be sure. The Guardian's architecture critic, Jonathan Glancey, is dead right, for instance, about the new Nasher sculpture gallery in Dallas, a cool astonishment of architectural wizardry. But once the galleries and skyscrapers and refurbished warehouses are put to one side, what have you got in downtown Dallas on a hot Saturday morning? Sweet nothing. It feels like the scene of a chemical attack. This is where Neiman Marcus opened its first department store - a flagship that somehow survives - yet it can only be kept going as soft-hearted obeisance to corporate history. Ten-thirty in the morning and nobody's home. You could, for that matter, equally be in downtown Atlanta, downtown Los Angeles (if you can find it) or much of downtown Buffalo. Downtowns are mostly down and out. Some cities make gallant attempts at resuscitation. Memphis has piled blues nostalgia and resources into a few blocks around Beale Street. St Louis has its soaring arch and parks. Minneapolis is knocking down its "old" (1960s) Guthrie Theatre and building a three-stage replacement. But still, most of the time in most places, America's cities tick over minus a heart. Their centres are where people used to live before the migration to the suburbs. They are anxious office blocks enclosed in concentric circles of crumbling concrete and desolation. Battling mayors do their best. The city fathers in St Paul pay the local bookshop to keep its doors open. Minneapolis paid to get the old Federal Reserve building wonderfully refurbished, failed to let it commercially, and is now putting the municipal library in there (the library itself is being rebuilt from scratch). Keep pumping, keep striving. If the big cities are struggle zones, though, many smaller places - towns of 20,000 or more - have given up the ghost. Their main streets are often decaying memories, boarded store fronts, empty factories, clapboard houses left to rot. Their life depends on the strips and malls outside town. They aren't communities in any true sense, but isolated economic groupings defined by where they shop, where they worship and what car they drive. Does it matter how we organise our patterns of relationship? It matters hugely. America isn't the only sufferer from urban blight and mall mange, of course. Liverpool caught the same sickness 20 years ago. Manchester increasingly turns away from Deansgate and heads for the Trafford Centre. Milton Keynes is the mall reincarnated as ersatz township. Anyone for a slog round the M25 and coffee latte at Lakeside? The tide only flows one way. Cities are under siege. Yet the city, coolly considered, is the seminal achievement of mankind. It is inter-reaction, fusion, ambition and energy. It is our history and our future. It is individual effort pooled for the greater good. It is what we are. It defines us. It is London and Paris and New York. But it is also Barcelona, restlessly expanding, dreaming ever bigger dreams. It is Berlin, reunited and, miraculously, transforming itself into a capital that takes your breath away. It is Prague and Budapest, shaking off the grime of communism and blossoming in a single decade. It is Athens, summoning up the will and the blood to succeed. Art doesn't grow in the suburbs or in motorway service stations. Humanity dies in a parking lot. The damnable, dreary thing about this Mall of America, this eighth wonder of the retailing world, is that it is just more of the same: the same chains, the same sales, the same goods, services and have-a-nice-days. Nine million prospective reasons for stultification. Malls run on mediocrity and muzak. Only cities make a difference. It's on such a difference - for all our economic gloom - that Europe is ahead of the race. From Warsaw to Ljubljana, Europe crackles with excitement while America moans about gas prices. Maybe it can't escape its fate, the curse of neon sprawl and identikit strips. Maybe we're all fated to slide that way, too - making my Louisiana lady still more unhappy as congestion charges drain people and prosperity out of our city hearts. No easy answers. But at least let us realise what we're doing - and risking. This is the way man has lived and grown through millennia, this is our hope, our essential way and our most profound test. It's that, or Camp Snoopy. p.preston at guardian.co.uk From arthistindia at yahoo.co.in Sat Aug 7 16:04:21 2004 From: arthistindia at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?A.R.T.,=20Bangalore?=) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 11:34:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] The Regulation of Prostitution in 19th Century India - A Talk organized by A.R.T. Message-ID: <20040807103421.45252.qmail@web8304.mail.in.yahoo.com> Art, Resources and Teaching (A.R.T.) Invites you all For a talk on The Regulation of Prostitution in 19th Century India by Dr Satish Kumar School of Geography, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland at Venue: No.1, Shanti Road, Shantinagar, Bangalore 560 027 Date & Time: Wednesday 11th August, 2004 at 5:30 pm Directions: The venue is near Richmond Circle. Turn at Shiv Shakti Sweets and Hotel on the west side of Double Road (K.H. Road). The building is located at the first right corner. The talk will be held upstairs in Suresh Jayaram’s space, One Shantinagar. ________________________________________________________________________ For Further Details contact: Annapurna Garimella or Malini Ghanathe Art, Resources and Teaching (A.R.T.) 55, 6th B Cross, Hutchins Road St Thomas Town, Bangalore 560 084 Ph:+91 80 2580 0733/ Email: arthistindia at yahoo.co.in Art, Resources and Teaching (A.R.T.) is an organization which gathers resources and promotes research in art and architectural history, archaeology, craft, design and other related disciplines. A.R.T. seeks to bring art historical knowledge into domains outside academia including private, corporate and non-governmental sectors. We also work with artists, craftspeople and designers to develop and expand audiences for their work. Art, Resources & Teaching (A.R.T.) 55 6th B Cross, Hutchins Road St Thomas Town, Bangalore 560 084 India +91.80.2580.0733 Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040807/3705a6eb/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From tellsachin at yahoo.com Mon Aug 9 16:09:36 2004 From: tellsachin at yahoo.com (Sachin Agarwal) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 03:39:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] re: censor bans documentary In-Reply-To: <20040808100004.3E44628E414@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20040809103936.63491.qmail@web41502.mail.yahoo.com> Hi! can anyone provide a copy of this documentary to me. i have heard about it but not seen it as on date. regards, sachin agarwal reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote: Send reader-list mailing list submissions to reader-list at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to reader-list-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at reader-list-owner at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of reader-list digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Censor Board bans documentary (Jeebesh Bagchi) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 14:27:30 +0530 From: Jeebesh Bagchi Subject: [Reader-list] Censor Board bans documentary To: reader-list at sarai.net Message-ID: <4115EAFA.8010101 at sarai.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: As you know, the Censor Board of India recently banned Rakesh Sharma's internationally-acclaimed documentary - Final Solution. An online petition has been created by Anand Patwardhan to protest against the ban. The petition asks Central Government to intervene and revoke the ban immediately. As you may already know, under clause 6 and 9 of the Cinematograph Act, the Central Government is empowered to overturn any decision/ recommendation by the Censor Board. People who have already signed the petition include Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Javed Akhtar, Aparna Sen, Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Farhan Akhtar, Rahul Bose, Vishal Bhardwaj, Arundhati Nag, Sanjana Kapoor, MS Sathyu, Lekh Tandon, Yogendra Yadav and Teesta Setalvad among others. Please extend your support by signing the petition online by clicking the following link: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FilmBan/petition.html Please forward the petition details to people in your mailing list asking them to sign and circulate the petition widely. Final Solution ( India; 2004; Digital Video format - miniDV; 209/148 minutes). Final Solution is a study of the politics of hate. Set in Gujarat during the period Feb/March 2002 - July 2003, the film graphically documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through a study of the 2002 genocide of Moslems in Gujarat. The film documents the Assembly elections held in Gujarat in late 2002 and records in detail the exploitation of the Godhra incident (in which 58 Hindus were burnt alive) by the right-wing propaganda machinery for electoral gains. It studies the situation after the storm and its impact on Hindus and Moslems - ghettoisation in cities and villages, segregation in schools, the call for economic boycott of Moslems and continuing acts of violence more than a year after the carnage. Final Solution is anti-hate/ violence as "those who forget history are condemned to relive it". Awards : Wolfgang Staudte award and Special Jury Award (Netpac), Berlin International film festival. Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary, HongKong International film festival. Silver Dhow ( Best Doc category), Zanzibar International film festival Special Jury Mention, Munich Dokfest. Special Award instituted and given by NRIs for a Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI), NY-NJ, USA. Festivals : Berlinale ( International premiere; Feb 2004), HongKong, Fribourg, 3 continents filmfest (South Africa), Hot Docs (Canada), Vancouver, Zanzibar, Durban, Commonwealth film festival (UK), One world filmfest (Prague), Voces Contra el Silencio (Mexico), Istanbul 1001fest, Singapore, Flanders (Belgium), World Social Forum (Mumbai; Indian premiere), Vikalp (Mumbai filmfest organised by Campaign against Censorship), Films for Freedom, Bangalore and several other filmfests [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ reader-list mailing list reader-list at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list End of reader-list Digest, Vol 13, Issue 10 ******************************************* --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040809/d87746a0/attachment.html From raviv at sarai.net Mon Aug 9 16:42:08 2004 From: raviv at sarai.net (Ravi S. Vasudevan) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 16:42:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] CSCS Bangalore, MA Cultural Studies Online Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20040809164125.024e0140@mail.sarai.net> C:/DOCUME~1/Ravi/LOCALS~1/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_image001.gif M.A. CULTURAL STUDIES (Online) Center for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, a recognised study and research centre of Kuvempu University, for the first time in India announces an online post-graduate programme in Cultural Studies. The online MA is a two-year course with four papers per year, including one project-based paper. Papers include: Theories of Culture Law and Culture Politics, Culture and the State in Post Colonial India Debates in Cultural Studies Cinema and the Media Structure of Representation: Market and Politics Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary area which lies at the intersection of existing social science and humanities disciplines such as Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Philosophy, Film Studies, Literature and History. The MA Cultural Studies offers critical tools and methodologies to understand contemporary Indian society and cultural practices. The team of instructors includes well-known scholars from film studies, popular culture, feminist theory, political theory and law. Qualifications: Students are required to have a Bachelor’s degree in any discipline. The minimum age for enrollment is 21 years. Application Procedure: Ø Application forms can be downloaded from the CSCS website: www.cscsban.org or will be made available on receipt of a self addressed stamped envelope marked- Application Form for MA cultural Studies Programme to: The Administrative Officer Centre for the Study of Culture and Society 466, 9th Cross, First Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore 560011, India Tel: +91-80-26562986 Fax: +91-80-26562991 Ø Completed application forms should be sent along with an application fee of Rs.200/- (Demand Draft drawn in favour of CSCS, Bangalore) to the above address. Ø Last date for receipt of completed application forms 15th September 2004 Ø Selected candidates will be informed by 30th September 2004 Ø Admission procedures are to be completed by 15th –30th October 2004 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040809/036be65d/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: C__DOCUME~1_Ravi_LOCALS~1_Temp_msoclip1_01_clip_image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 3390 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040809/036be65d/attachment.gif -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Aug 9 19:40:36 2004 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:40:36 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Bibliographical resource Message-ID: <411785DC.1080309@sarai.net> An amazing bibliographical resource on violence, democide etc. It has been set up by a student in a design school (Piet Zwart Institute) in Rotterdam. http://imaginarymuseum.org/MHV/PZImhv/PZImhvFS.html (for low bandwidth users, please be patient, it will load slowly) From madhuja_m at yahoo.co.in Mon Aug 9 21:15:25 2004 From: madhuja_m at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?madhuja=20mukherjee?=) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 16:45:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] final posting , madhuja mukherjee In-Reply-To: <20040809100003.E048F28E618@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20040809154525.82992.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> 6 (final )POSTING: TALKING TO AHMED ALI, VETERAN PHOTOGRAPHER (Ahmed Ali is famous for his Industrial photographs, photographs of the people of Bastar region and publicity photographs for Advertisements). Madhuja: We are here to seek your help as it were, to shed some light on the ambiguity around the use of glass negatives in as late as 1950s and also hope you shall share with us some of your work experiences. A.Ali: Yes, but firstly, the use of glass negatives were definitely out and over by 1940s, though there was a period of overlap when some were still using glass as others moved on to ‘celluloid’. This is prior to the Second World War, by then, Kodak and Dupont in America had introduced celluloid type material produced from plastic. And, after the war materials were surely available much more easily. So, in 1940s or even in1950s people would use both glass plates and sheet films. I got pre-coated glass plates from Kodak. Since, people wanted big photographs of themselves or group photographs thus, there were these big studio cameras and huge glass negatives. One would load the glass negatives into a slide and afterwards all you had to do was to take contact prints. Nevertheless, just as we moved from paper to glass and then to wet plates, we also shifted from glass to plastic while the cameras became smaller and ‘better’. Glass had several difficulties- the negatives would break, enlargement was a problem as it created too many grains, then for fieldwork people would have carry portable dark rooms since the negatives had to be developed immediately. And yet, some adventurous people did travel all over India and to the frontiers to take photographs. One the other hand, celluloid had invisible grains and when you did enlargements the images would remain just as sharp and clear. Madhuja: That’s precisely what is so intriguing, how is it then that we found about 600 Glass Negatives that are certainly publicity material of 1950s- in fact- of as late as 1956-7? A.Ali: Yes, yes, but that may be called the ‘tail-end’ of an older practice. Some people had old cameras and they were still using it. I have been working as a photographer for about 70s years now. I started professionally after the war and before our Independence. I was about 20 then. You see, after the war effort was over, what would the British do with the ‘left-over’ machines and equipments? They started exporting all sorts of things. That’s also true for America. America particularly- because they themselves didn’t suffer from the war as Europe did. There was no bombing there, the industries didn’t suffer. So they manufactured very fast and they were ahead in publicity too. Madhuja: That’s how Hollywood took over the world market . A.Ali: Yes, Yes, they didn’t have to bear the wounds of the war, so they progressed faster. But India also had to cope with situation. Publicity material- leaflets, brochures etc were required. However, at that point of time our photographers were chiefly trained for studio portraits. The long exposures of the studio cameras produced very self-conscious, rigid images. Most photographers lacked experiences beyond the studios. Even the positioning/angles of the characters were not always interesting. As far as I am concerned, I began in school and later did photography on my own. Fortunately for me, the Advertising Manager of the Bombay based journal ‘Onlooker’ saw my photographs and recommended me to J. Walter Thompson, which became India Thompson afterwards. I took photographs of the Union Carbide Factory at Cassipore, for Walter Thompson. As a young aspiring photographer, I took great care to create highlights and contrast. I put the background in shadows, made it dark so that I could isolate the man and his machine in the foreground. I was using an American camera named Speed Graphic. This was around 1945. They liked my photographs. Later, I worked for other advertising agencies. These were mostly European and American companies. In 1948, I started here on my own [Palace Court, Calcutta]. Do you see that photograph [showing a photograph of Amitabh Bachchan]? He came here to be a model. I told him to go to Bombay, because advertisements of male products like suits etc were done in Bombay. He took leave from his job and went to Bombay and after a while his career started. That’s how it is . Madhuja: Did he seem to have potential at that time?[!] A.Ali: Oh, yes. Anyway, in the process of my work, I have photographed several the factories that mushroomed in India. I have about 3 lakhs negatives. You see, I had a busy time. Nonetheless, a project with Tata Steel Plant [for J. Walter Thompson] around 1946 was one the most interesting assignments I got. It tickled my imagination. I took artistic photographs of the workers and by keeping the steel plant in background I took photographs of ‘advasi’ women bathing in the foreground. It was so beautiful and it was such contrast. It was much appreciated. The Managing Director of Tata Steel saw the photographs and he was so happy. Later, I got an assignment with the Tata Steel. I even photographed their photographic department! Madhuja: What emerges from your accounts on advertisement/publicity photography is the question of contrast. High contrast imaging seems to be the keynote. Would you say glass was preferred for its high contrast resolutions? A.Ali: No no, what happened was that high contrast was necessary for blocks, typesetting, titles, logos, designs and other art works. You would get complete black and white letters. One could cut those out, stick those. It would also be required for half tone images. That kind of absolute contrast didn’t work well with other kinds of professional photography for we preferred the soft, grey tones. Madhuja: I see. Nonetheless, we also wanted to ask you about the nature of publicity or the demands of publicity and the ways in which images would be altered. The images and the characters /faces/ spaces inevitably appear very typified, either bright or dark and sharp. Could you tell us about the rules of layout and the entire culture of publicity? A.Ali: It’s a world of manipulation open to the artist. Similar tones tend to look dull and drab, so we often increased the contrast, retouched the details, change the background. A good advertisement layout should be eye-catching. That’s the bottom line. Too much detailing is dispensable, in fact, we should put in minimum information. Finally, one has to make an impact. Madhuja: So I guess, in our case the moot point is the problem of block printing and publicity. Perhaps they were attaching photographs to the blocks or to the titles of the films. There are few images with us that reveal this process. First we have the titles then the entire poster/brochure cover that has both the images and the titles. A.Ali: That’s right. Perhaps some of the old block –printers are still using glass negatives and the antique cameras for publicity purposes. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040809/9af8986b/attachment.html From jo at turbulence.org Mon Aug 9 23:58:36 2004 From: jo at turbulence.org (Jo-Anne Green) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 11:28:36 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Networked_Performance Guest Blogger: nathaniel stern Message-ID: <4117C254.5080008@turbulence.org> August 9, 2004 Networked_Performance Guest Blogger: nathaniel stern http://turbulence.org/blog Our first Guest Blogger, nathaniel stern, is a New York artist currently residing in Johannesburg, South Africa (if you're interested in the South African art scene, his own blog is a must!). He will periodically make posts on behalf of other South Africans interested in the developing field of networked performance. nathaniel is an internationally exhibited installation artist, net.artist and performance poet. His collaborative physical theatre and multimedia performance work has won three FNB Vita Awards - including Best Presentation of a New Contemporary Work - and has been featured on the main stage at the Grahamstown Festival (South Africa). His poetry repertoire includes the US National Poetry Slam competition and the HIV/AIDS Arts, Media & Film Festival (South Africa). His interactive installations have also won awards in New York, and Australia, and his net.art has been featured in festivals all over Europe, Asia and the US. nathaniel received his BS in Textiles and Apparel Design from Cornell University, and his Masters from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, in Interactive Telecommunications. He currently works both in and from Johannesburg, as an adjunct (distance teaching) faculty member of the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, external lecturer and supervisor at the Wits School of Arts' Digital Arts MA, and freelance lecturer at Newtown's Anti-Retroviral Theatre program and The South African School Of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance. -- Jo-Anne Green, Associate Director New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856 Turbulence: http://turbulence.org New American Radio: http://somewhere.org Networked_Performance Blog and Conference: http://turbulence.org/blog -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040809/2168f6c3/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From psaha at cseindia.org Mon Aug 9 18:56:40 2004 From: psaha at cseindia.org (Pradip Saha) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 18:56:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] FW: [Fwd: PANOS-GKP JOURNALISM AWARDS 2004] Message-ID: <200408091856.40917.psaha@cseindia.org> > Subject: PANOS-GKP JOURNALISM AWARDS 2004 > From: "Shahjahan Siraj" > Date: Mon, August 9, 2004 4:01 pm > To: unnayan-news at yahoogroups.com > ---------------------------------------------------------- > > > PANOS-GKP JOURNALISM AWARDS 2004 > > TRANSPARENCY, GOOD GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: DO ICTs INCREASE > ACCOUNTABILITY? > > Panos and GKP are pleased to call for submissions for the > 2004 > "Reporting on the Information Society" awards. The topic > for this year is "Transparency, good governance and > democracy: Do Information and Communication Technologies > increase accountability?" > > Four awards of $1,000 each will be made for the best > journalism on this topic produced by journalists in > developing and transition countries. > > These awards, which were launched by Panos and GKP in > 2003, aim to encourage and bring to international > recognition thoughtful and incisive reporting that goes > beyond describing information projects or new > investment initiatives to analyse their social and > political impacts and policy implications. > > Print, radio, TV and web journalism are all eligible. > > To submit a piece of work for consideration, send a > clipping, audio or video tape, transcript or web reference > by email > mailto:award2004 at panos.org.uk or by post to: Murali > Shanmugavelan, Panos Institute, 9 White Lion St, London N1 > 9PD, UK > > The work submitted must have been published/broadcast > between 1 January and 15 October 2004. > > Deadline for submissions: 15 October 2004. > > ****************************************** > This year's theme:- > > TRANSPARENCY, GOOD GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: DO ICTs INCREASE > ACCOUNTABILITY? > > It is generally accepted by governments, communication > specialists and the development community that information > and communication are > essential for development. The World Summit on the > Information Society (2003), for example, was convened "to > harness the potential of > information and communication technology to promote the > development goals of the Millennium Declaration". > > Among the most important ways information and > communication technologies (ICTs) can contribute to > development are considered to be encouraging information > openness, speeding up processes of exchange of > information, and reducing opportunities for corruption. > Good governance, said the United Nations Human Development > Report in 2001, depends on effective information systems, > and is crucial to achieving the Millennium > Development Goals. > > ICTs may contribute to good governance in different ways. > There are many formal "e-governance" projects, such as > digitising land records or voting procedures, which aim to > facilitate citizens' access to > officialdom and reduce opportunities for corruption. > Citizens may gain new opportunities for engaging in > political processes, or for holding public and commercial > bodies accountable. On a more general level, internet and > email may facilitate civil society networking and action. > More broadly still, there is a global movement for freedom > of > information, and many governments and businesses are > having to redefine their policies on transparency. > > But ICTs alone may not be enough to end deep-rooted habits > or political cultures of excluding citizens from access to > information. In some countries, governments are proving > resistant to change, or projects to improve access to > information are reaching fewer people than expected. > > These are important issues for journalists to investigate > and analyse. > > Panos and GKP invite journalists from developing and > transition > countries to submit work that has been or will be > published this year in their own country or > internationally, on aspects of communication, transparency > and good governance. The work may focus on the role of any > technology-assisted communication medium - internet and > web, telephones, press, radio or TV. It can be any form > of journalism and in any medium. > > > > ABOUT US: > > Panos London is an NGO which exists to stimulate debate on > global > development issues, including media and communication > issues. Panos works with journalists in developing > countries to produce news, features and analysis about the > most critical global issues of today. Panos London is part > of a network of Panos offices in fifteen countries. > > The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) is a worldwide > network of > organizations committed to harnessing the potentials of > information and communication technologies (ICT) for > sustainable development. GKP is the world's first > multi-stakeholder ICT for Development (ICT4D) > partnership at the global level, with members comprising > governments, donor agencies, private sector companies, > civil society, networks and international institutions. > > SUBMISSION CRITERIA AND INSTRUCTIONS > > § Only journalists who are citizens of or living in > developing or transition countries may apply. > § The work submitted can be a piece of print, radio, > TV or online journalism. > § A journalist can submit as many pieces as s/he likes. > § Types of print/web article that will be considered > include news reports, features, analysis, interviews, > opinion/think pieces, and editorials. Broadcast pieces can > also include debates and phone-in programmes. > § There is no maximum or minimum length > § Submitted works should be stories or features > relating to the question of whether or how information and > communication contribute totransparency, good governance, > democracy and accountability. The story can focus on any > technology-assisted communication medium, but it will > extend beyond merely reporting an event to analysing its > significance in the light of the wider development issues > and the concept of the > information society. > § We are interested in stories that take account of > gender aspects. § The work must have been published or > broadcast between January 1st and October 15th 2004 (or > publication/broadcast must be confirmed to take > place before October 15th 2004) and you must provide > evidence of this - a > newspaper clipping, web reference or broadcasting schedule > (or details of broadcasting - station, time, date, name of > programme). > § Video material should be submitted in PAL format. > Audio material can > be submitted on cassette, or as MP3 files. > § Print or online submissions can be in English, > French, Spanish or Portuguese. Radio or audiovisual > submissions in languages other than English must be > accompanied by a full transcript in English. > > Please give the following information with your submission: > > Name > Sex > Employment (eg "Business reporter with the Zambia Daily > News") > Postal address > Email address > Telephone number > > Your covering letter (in English, French, Spanish or > Portuguese) should give some information about the medium > in which your submission was published eg national or > local newspaper, national or community radio. > > If your submission was originally in a non-European > language, please state what language it is in, and give > some information about the status and users of this > language (eg "It is the language of the xx people, who > live in xxxx. This language is not the main language of > the state, but there is one newspaper and two radio > stations that use it.") > Please indicate briefly some other stories about > communication issues that you would like to research and > report on, for which you might use the award if you > received it. > Reports that were commissioned by Panos are not eligible > for this award. > > > Panos will auto-acknowledge email entry/ies from each > contestant. If you do not receive one within 48 hours, > please send your entries again. > > SELECTION CRITERIA > > We will seek to make one award to a journalist from > Africa, one to a journalist from Asia and one from another > region; we will seek to award at least one to a woman > journalist. > > We are looking for journalism that builds understanding of > the > importance of communication for development; and that > stimulates > awareness of the impact of national and global > communication policies on development. > > FOR MORE ABOUT THE AWARDS AND PANOS CLICK ON > http://www.panos.org.uk/global/Rprojectdetails.asp?ProjectID=1045 > 02&RP> &ID=1002&RP > rojectID=1061 ------ End of Forwarded Message _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From ashishjaipuri at yahoo.co.in Tue Aug 10 00:12:52 2004 From: ashishjaipuri at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Ashish=20Maharish?=) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 19:42:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Sati in Rajasthan Message-ID: <20040809184252.9964.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> Jaipur, 6th August, 2004 PRESS NOTE The Rajasthan High Court bench of Justices SK Keshote and AC Goyal today admitted four public interest writ petitions relating to the 1987 cases of Glorification of Sati filed by women and social organisations of Rajasthan. The court also issued notices to the accused which include Rajendra Singh Rathore, minister of PWD in the present Government, Narendra Singh Rathore, President of the Rajput Maha Sabha, Pratap Singh Kachriyawas nephew of the VP of India, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and thirteen others along with the Rajasthan Government. On the 31st of January after 16 years the Special Sati court Additional District Judge Shiv Singh Chauhan had acquitted all the accused in four out of twenty two cases that were under going trial in the Sati glorification matters that were filed after the immolation of Roop Kanwar of Deorala in 1987. After the acquittal the Government of Rajasthan did not file an appeal in the High Court which is the normal course in criminal cases. Women’s groups raised their voice and tried to put pressure on the Government but it refused to go in for appeal. After the limitation period of appeal had lapsed women’s groups were left with no other course but to file writ petitions and ask the High Court to intervene. In the four writ petitions the women’s groups have prayed that the court a) By an appropriate writ/order or directions quash and set aside the judgment of acquittal passed by the learned trial court on 31/01/2004 in the four cases b) By an appropriate order or directions order retrial of the case and; c) By an appropriate order or directions direct the state government to appoint special prosecutor in consultation with the petitioners and; d) By an appropriate writ order or directions direct the state government to take action against the officials and police personnel who either turned hostile or retracted their earlier statements and thus committed gross abuse of the process of law. The 12 petitioner organisations are : All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), Women’s Rehabilitation Group (WRG), Rajasthan University Women’s Association (RUWA), National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), Vividha: Women’s Documentation and Resource Center, National Muslim Women’s Welfare Society (NMWS), Women’s Cell, All India State Employees Federation, All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), Vishakha: Women’s Education and Resource Group (VWERG), Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti, Rajasthan (BGVS), Academy of Socio Legal Studies, Jaipur (ASLS), People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Rajasthan (PUCL). The lawyers for the case were Prem Krishna Sharma and Snehlata. Kavita Srivastava, Laad kumari Jain, Nisha Sidhu, Manju Sharma, Mamta Jaitly, Sumitra Chopra, Asha Kalra, Komal Srivastava, Bharat, Nishat Hussein, Mewa Bharti and others. The respondents in each of the petitions are the Government of Rajasthan and the Special Sati court ADJ. The others are Writ no 1 1. The State of Rajasthan through Mr. Surendra Kumar, Home Secretary Government of Rajasthan 2. Pratap Singh Kachariyawaas, s/o Laxman Singh Rajput, resident of 13, Civil Lines, Jaipur, presently residing in ---------------------- 3. Anand Sharma, s/o Ram Kishore Brahmin, resident of 645, Kishore Punj, Kishanpole Bazaar, Jaipur. 4. Gopal Singh Rathore, s/o Bal Singh Rajput, 153, Saket Colony, Adarsh Nagar, Jaipur. 5. Special Judge (Sati Prevention Court) Rajasthan and Additional Sessions Judge (Jaipur City) Writ No.2 2. Narendra Singh Rajawat son of Raghuvir Singh Rajput, house no. 15, shivaji marg, Diggi House, Jaipur. 3. Onkar Singh son of Dhool Singh Rajput, r/o 9 Gopalwari, Jaipur. 4. Anand Sharma son of Shri Ramkishore Sharma, r/o House No. 645 Kishore Kunj, Kishanpol Bajar, Jaipur. 5. Pratap Singh Khachariyawas son of Laxman Singh Rajput, r/o Khachariyawas, district Sikar, presently residing at ------------------- 6. Ram Singh Manohar, Advocate son of Sawaisingh Rajput, resident of B-42 Jyoti Marg, Bapu Nagar, Jaipur. 7. Rajendra Singh Rathore son of Uttam Singh Rajput, resident of Sardarsahar, district Churu, presently residing at ---------------------------------- Writ No.3 2. Jai Mal Singh Yadav s/o Mool Chand Yadav, age 48 years resident of village Mohanpura. 3. Rajendra Singh s/o Uttam Singh Rajput, age 48 years, resident of Harpalsar, PS Sardar Shahar, Churu. 4. Bajrang Singh s/o Shrimal Singh Rajput, age? Resident of village of Mamda Kala, police station Neem-ka-thana, Sikar. Writ No. 8 The State of Rajasthan through Mr. Surendra Kumar, Home Secretary Government of Rajasthan, Jaipur 2. Bajrang Singh s/o Shrimal Singh Rajput, age? Resident of village Mamda Kala, police station Neem-ka-thana, Sikar. 3. Sumer Singh s/o Jagpal Singh Rajput, age 50, resident of village Dabla, tehsil Neem-ka-thana, District Sikar. 4. Prahalad Singh s/o Guman Singh, age 44 years, resident of Mahava, Neem-ka-thana, District Sikar 5. Rajendra Singh, s/o Uttam Singh Rajput, age 46 years, resident of Sardarshahar, District Churu, at present residing in Bungalow no: Civil Lines, Jaipur Ashish Maharishi 119/174,Agarwal Farm Mansarovar,Jaipur Phone no.9828262785 Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040809/d96e9e29/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From mody_monica at hotmail.com Tue Aug 10 17:37:53 2004 From: mody_monica at hotmail.com (Monica Mody) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:37:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] jagah: the gender and sexuality exhibition Message-ID: Dear all, The Nigah Media Collective is organizing a gender and sexuality exhibition at Delhi in September, in collaboration with the Campaign Against Censorship (Films for Freedom). I'm attaching the call for entries fyi. Thanks, Monica JAGAH: IN SEARCH OF SPACES THE GENDER AND SEXUALITY EXHIBITION Arpana Fine Arts Gallery, Academy of Fine Arts & Literature, New Delhi 25-27 September 2004 Presented by the Nigah Media Collective THE MONTH OF FREE SPEECH: CAMPAIGN AGAINST CENSORSHIP Jagah is a space where one can hang out, meet people, talk and share experiences, without having to struggle to fit. A jagah for expression and mediations on gender and sexuality, on our bodies and our desires, our silences � both chosen and imposed. A space one can claim as one�s own, one without judgments, one that is not just about �art�, but about creativity, expression, and resistance. In mounting this multimedia exhibition, our aim is to bring to the center expressions of gender and sexuality that are forced to live at the margins. What does our gender mean to us? What does our sexuality mean to us? How do we choose to express them/share them? Where are the hidden spaces within and between the labels of �gay�, �straight�, �lesbian�, �bisexual�, �transgender�, �man� and �woman�? What do these names give us and what do they take away? We seek to question the assumptions of desire and identity � conceptions of normality, compulsory heterosexuality, the binaries of �man� and �woman�, inevitable and morally superior monogamy, notions of which sex goes with which gender which goes with which body � that try to impose ways of thinking about sexuality on all of us. Jagah is where we break the silence(s) around our bodies and our sexualities, both as an act of conscious resistance and as a means of exploration and expression. How you can contribute This exhibition is about our personal experiences, no matter how little (we think) they resemble �art�. The exhibition space itself, more than a space to �see� the exhibits, is where we speak out and start some good conversations. - photographs - paintings - line drawings - posters - t-shirts - sculpture - film/video - audio streams - performances (poetry, music, theatre, dance) - other media - ideas Deadline Send in submissions by the 5th of September, 2004. And whenever or however, join us to help put together the exhibition. Jagah can work only if it is a communal effort. Who we are Nigah is a group of people committed to opening up spaces for discussions around gender and sexuality by using different forms of media. The exhibition is part of a broader movement against censorship that includes artists, activists, filmmakers, writers, poets, cartoonists, lawyers, teachers and students. Campaign Against Censorship seeks to draw linkages between people and movements that have faced censorship, and to explore the dynamics of similarity and dissonance between censorship of films and other forms of expression including theatre, art, literature, popular culture, press and reports by NGOs. Contact Email: nigahmedia at yahoo.com Phone: 9811269257/ 9810253342 Website: http://www.geocities.com/nigahmedia _________________________________________________________________ Marriage? http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/cgi-bin/bmclicks1.cgi?74 Join BharatMatrimony.com for free. _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From nisar at keshvani.com Tue Aug 10 06:04:10 2004 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 19:34:10 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] LEA Aug '04: Network Leaps, Bounds and Misses/Global Crossings/New Media Poetics Message-ID: <200408091934.AA65274126@keshvani.com> *sincere apologies for cross-posting* Leonardo Electronic Almanac: August 2004 ISSN#1071-4391 art | science | technology - a definitive voice since 1993 http://lea.mit.edu Subject: LEA's August 'Network Leaps, Bounds and Misses' issue emerges from ideas and research discussed at the 2003 "Old Pathways/New Travelers" meeting, in New Delhi. Guest editor Fátima Lasay describes it as, “meditation on the goals of that meeting." Tereza Wagner discusses the UNESCO DigiArts portal, designed to "promote creativity in the field of digital arts," especially in the context of developing countries. New Zealander Ian Whalley discusses the role of the Sonic Art CD series in the documentation of New Zealand electroacoustic music. Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui explores the various permutations of globalization in the context of Latin American media art. Malaysians Hasnul Jamal Saidon and Roopesh Sitharan, describe an experimental online project based on a collaboration between students based in Japan and Malaysia, using it as a basis for discussing notions of "self, identity, nationality and cross-cultural encounters in today's age of global telecommunication." In Leonardo Reviews, Yvonne Spielmann reviews *The Cinema Effect*, by Sean Cubitt, George Gessert reviews *The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age* and Jan Baetens reviews Roy Ascott's *Telematic Embrace*. Latest Calls for Papers ----------------------- * Gallery Special: Global Crossings * The LEA Gallery is looking to make visible the work of international artists, professionals and scholars who live and work in a wide variety of situations where access to established venues for exhibition, display and publication is limited. Difficulty of access may be attributed to cultural, geographic, ethnic, institutional or disciplinary diversity, or issues related to the North/South divide, age, gender, etc. More info: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2004/authors.htm#gx * Special Issue: New Media Poetry and Poetics * LEA is inviting papers and artworks that deal with New Media Poetry and Poetics. This category includes multimedia digital works (image/text/sound) as examined through the lens of "writing," specifically any of those concerns central to poetry rather than narrative or prose: reader as active participant in the "ergodic" sense, the use of stochastic methods and chance procedures, and the complex relations between the author, reader, and computer-as-writer/reader which evolve from that interaction. More info: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2004/authors.htm#poetics Editorial ideas / proposals: lea at mitpress.mit.edu ************************************************************************ LEA Information and URLs ------------------------ Receive your FREE subscription to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac e-mail digest at http://mitpress.mit.edu/lea/e-mail -- just provide your email address, name, and password, and check off that you'd like to be added to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac monthly e-mail list to keep on top of the latest news in the Leonardo community. How to advertise in LEA? http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/placeads.html#LEAads For a paid subscription (to become an ISAST member and access archives dating back to 1993): http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=4&tid=27&mode=p The Leonardo Educators Initiative --------------------------------- The Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) is a listing of Masters and Ph.D. theses in the art/science/technology field, for the benefit of scholars and practitioners. LEA also maintains a discussion list open only to faculty in the field. Students interested in contributing and faculty wishing to join this list should contact lea at mitpress.mit.edu What is LEA? ------------ For over a decade, Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) has thrived as an international peer-reviewed electronic journal and web archive, covering the interaction of the arts, sciences and technology. LEA emphasizes rapid publication of recent work and critical discussion on topics of current excitement. Many contributors are younger scholars and artists, and there is a slant towards shorter, less academic texts. Contents include Leonardo Reviews, edited by Michael Punt, Leonardo Research Abstracts of recent Ph.D. and Masters theses, curated Galleries of current new media artwork, and special issues on topics ranging from Artists and Scientists in times of War, to Zero Gravity Art, to the History of New Media. Copyright© 1993 - 2004: The Leonardo Electronic Almanac is published by Leonardo / International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) in association with the MIT Press. All rights reserved. From shivamvij at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 15:16:29 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:16:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] "Reporting on the Information Society" awards Message-ID: TRANSPARENCY, GOOD GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: DO ICTs INCREASE ACCOUNTABILITY? Panos and GKP are pleased to call for submissions for the 2004 "Reporting on the Information Society" awards. The topic for this year is "Transparency, good governance and democracy: Do Information and Communication Technologies increase accountability?" Four awards of $1,000 each will be made for the best journalism on this topic produced by journalists in developing and transition countries. These awards, which were launched by Panos and GKP in 2003, aim to encourage and bring to international recognition thoughtful and incisive reporting that goes beyond describing information projects or new investment initiatives to analyse their social and political impacts and policy implications. Print, radio, TV and web journalism are all eligible. To submit a piece of work for consideration, send a clipping, audio or video tape, transcript or web reference by email mailto:award2004 at panos.org.uk or by post to: Murali Shanmugavelan, Panos Institute, 9 White Lion St, London N1 9PD, UK The work submitted must have been published/broadcast between 1 January and 15 October 2004. Deadline for submissions: 15 October 2004. ****************************************** This year's theme:- TRANSPARENCY, GOOD GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY: DO ICTs INCREASE ACCOUNTABILITY? It is generally accepted by governments, communication specialists and the development community that information and communication are essential for development. The World Summit on the Information Society (2003), for example, was convened "to harness the potential of information and communication technology to promote the development goals of the Millennium Declaration". Among the most important ways information and communication technologies (ICTs) can contribute to development are considered to be encouraging information openness, speeding up processes of exchange of information, and reducing opportunities for corruption. Good governance, said the United Nations Human Development Report in 2001, depends on effective information systems, and is crucial to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. ICTs may contribute to good governance in different ways. There are many formal "e-governance" projects, such as digitising land records or voting procedures, which aim to facilitate citizens' access to officialdom and reduce opportunities for corruption. Citizens may gain new opportunities for engaging in political processes, or for holding public and commercial bodies accountable. On a more general level, internet and email may facilitate civil society networking and action. More broadly still, there is a global movement for freedom of information, and many governments and businesses are having to redefine their policies on transparency. But ICTs alone may not be enough to end deep-rooted habits or political cultures of excluding citizens from access to information. In some countries, governments are proving resistant to change, or projects to improve access to information are reaching fewer people than expected. These are important issues for journalists to investigate and analyse. Panos and GKP invite journalists from developing and transition countries to submit work that has been or will be published this year in their own country or internationally, on aspects of communication, transparency and good governance. The work may focus on the role of any technology-assisted communication medium - internet and web, telephones, press, radio or TV. It can be any form of journalism and in any medium. ABOUT US: Panos London is an NGO which exists to stimulate debate on global development issues, including media and communication issues. Panos works with journalists in developing countries to produce news, features and analysis about the most critical global issues of today. Panos London is part of a network of Panos offices in fifteen countries. The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) is a worldwide network of organizations committed to harnessing the potentials of information and communication technologies (ICT) for sustainable development. GKP is the world's first multi-stakeholder ICT for Development (ICT4D) partnership at the global level, with members comprising governments, donor agencies, private sector companies, civil society, networks and international institutions. SUBMISSION CRITERIA AND INSTRUCTIONS § Only journalists who are citizens of or living in developing or transition countries may apply. § The work submitted can be a piece of print, radio, TV or online journalism. § A journalist can submit as many pieces as s/he likes. § Types of print/web article that will be considered include news reports, features, analysis, interviews, opinion/think pieces, and editorials. Broadcast pieces can also include debates and phone-in programmes. § There is no maximum or minimum length § Submitted works should be stories or features relating to the question of whether or how information and communication contribute to transparency, good governance, democracy and accountability. The story can focus on any technology-assisted communication medium, but it will extend beyond merely reporting an event to analysing its significance in the light of the wider development issues and the concept of the information society. § We are interested in stories that take account of gender aspects. § The work must have been published or broadcast between January 1st and October 15th 2004 (or publication/broadcast must be confirmed to take place before October 15th 2004) and you must provide evidence of this - a newspaper clipping, web reference or broadcasting schedule (or details of broadcasting - station, time, date, name of programme). § Video material should be submitted in PAL format. Audio material can be submitted on cassette, or as MP3 files. § Print or online submissions can be in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. Radio or audiovisual submissions in languages other than English must be accompanied by a full transcript in English. Please give the following information with your submission: Name Sex Employment (eg "Business reporter with the Zambia Daily News") Postal address Email address Telephone number Your covering letter (in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese) should give some information about the medium in which your submission was published eg national or local newspaper, national or community radio. If your submission was originally in a non-European language, please state what language it is in, and give some information about the status and users of this language (eg "It is the language of the xx people, who live in xxxx. This language is not the main language of the state, but there is one newspaper and two radio stations that use it.") Please indicate briefly some other stories about communication issues that you would like to research and report on, for which you might use the award if you received it. Reports that were commissioned by Panos are not eligible for this award. Panos will auto-acknowledge email entry/ies from each contestant. If you do not receive one within 48 hours, please send your entries again. SELECTION CRITERIA We will seek to make one award to a journalist from Africa, one to a journalist from Asia and one from another region; we will seek to award at least one to a woman journalist. We are looking for journalism that builds understanding of the importance of communication for development; and that stimulates awareness of the impact of national and global communication policies on development. FOR MORE ABOUT THE AWARDS AND PANOS CLICK ON _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From nilanjanb at 123india.com Wed Aug 11 13:28:38 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 00:58:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] censeless censors Message-ID: <20040811005844.2662.h005.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Friends, I think one article by Raju Raman from Calcutta is relevant to understand the background of censorship. Nilanjan CUTTING EDGE? SENSELESS CENSORS We claim to be living in an era of reforms. Yet, when it comes to questions of ‘morality’ or ‘criticism’, we prefer status quo. We exhibit a mindset that is anything but reform-friendly, a mindset that has stagnated through centuries in the swamp of colonized indoctrination. And the worst victim of this has been the magical art form of moving images, which has revolutionized every walk of life for over a century. Since not very long after Dhundiraj Govind Phalke’s offering Raja Harishchandra (1913) right up to the just released Hatath Neerar Jonnye (Suddenly, for Neera) by Subrata Sen, the censor’s scissors have been constantly haunting Indian cinema like Damocles’ sword, more often for the wrong or even irrelevant reasons. Ironically, a couple of years after D W Griffith had created waves with his Intolerance (1916) at the peak of the First World War, the then rulers of our subcontinent gave vent to their intolerance towards unbridled freedom of expression in cinema by promulgating the Cinematograph Act in the year 1918. At that time this Act had two parts. One part was meant to regulate the licensing of cinemas, while the other part made provisions for censorship. However, this censorship part was made a state subject, with the responsibility entrusted to the five centres at Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Rangoon and Lahore. In the year 1922, entertainment tax was introduced for the first time on cinema tickets. It started in the state of West Bengal as educational cess, a term that has been haunting us for other reasons since the Finance Minister P Chidambaram presented the budget in Parliament on 08 July 2004. The Cinematograph Act in its original avatar was however rather liberal in the censorship regulations, as one can see in the films made in the 1920s and 1930s. Historical developments led to the partition of the country, but also to the emergence of an independent India facing the challenges of self-governance and self-regulation. With the Nehruvian brand of socialism gaining momentum, several changes became necessary. Consequently, on 21 March 1952 the earlier Act gave way to its successor – The Cinematograph Act, 1952. The bitter truth is that despite some cosmetic revisions to the guidelines in 1983 and 1994, the original manual still continues to be the guiding bible for the mandarins who rule the roost in the Central Board of Film Certification. On paper though, the guidelines amended up to 07 May 1983 clearly laid down that the Board of Film Censors shall be guided by the following principles: The objectives of film censorship will be to ensure that – a) the medium of film remains responsible and sensitive to the values and standards of society ; b) artistic expression and creative freedom are not unduly curbed ; and c) censorship is responsive to social change. Incidentally, it was also the year 1952 that ushered in the first edition of the International Film Festival of India, giving our filmmakers and film buffs exposure to cinema from different parts of the world. The seeds for a countrywide film society movement had also already been sown in 1948 with the formation of the Calcutta Film Society through the initiative and under the stewardship of Satyajit Ray, Chidananda Dasgupta, R P Gupta and a few others. The subsequently founded apex body of film societies in the country, the Federation of Film Societies of India, with Satyajit Ray as the President and the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting Indira Gandhi as one of the Vice-Presidents, succeeded in extracting some privileges from the Central Government. For one, it could apply for and obtain exemption from censorship for films to be screened for its members, a privilege that it enjoys even today. Also, on par with other foreign films, Indian films being entered in the International Film Festival of India and other recognised festivals in the country were exempted from the mandatory censorship certificate otherwise required for public screening. All this received a severe jolt when the guidelines for entry to the Mumbai International Film Festival for shorts and documentaries scheduled for February this year made it mandatory for Indian entries to have a censor certificate. The reason was that the film War and Peace by Anand Patwardhan, which had won an award at the last edition of the festival, had subsequently run into problems with the censors, resulting in a long-drawn court battle, which Anand won, thanks to the judiciary. Following countrywide protests, signature campaigns and boycott threats the organisers relented and withdrew the stipulation, only to use dirty backdoor tactics to keep out specific films with the endorsement of a selection panel constituted, tutored and instructed by them. Which brings us to the basic question of the credentials, competence and integrity of persons who are appointed to such panels and committees. As we are more specifically addressing the issue of censorship here, let us restrict ourselves to this area. Having had the ‘privilege’ of serving as a ‘distinguished’ member of the Central Board of Film Censors at the regional level for two terms in the late eighties and early nineties, I could share a few thoughts with you. The task is certainly not an enviable one. One has to often sit through hours of mindless torture inflicted by the filmmakers. After a couple of such sessions, truly competent persons conclude that it is not worth their while. The ones who do go willingly and regularly are people with time in their hands – among others, senior citizens and retired academicians who take a nap while the film is running, only to wake up in time to side with anyone initiating some objections. These initiators are often ‘planted’ people catering to the vested interests of the powers that be. It is a vicious circle. Which is why I fervently believe that in today’s scenario in the 21st century, when almost anything and everything is only a few mouse-clicks away and easily accessible to young and old alike, it is high time we do away with institutions like censorship, which may or may not have served some purpose in the past, but is certainly redundant today. We have embraced globalisation, we talk of fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015, we nurture dreams of becoming a developed nation in the near future, we move around with an air of ‘Hum kisi se kam nahin’. Well, let us then shed our inhibitions and hypocrisy, let us not merely grow old but grow up, let us start believing in the capability and maturity of our new generation of filmmakers, who with their wide exposure in the global context will soon develop their own check-valves according to the needs of the day. Or else, the path of reforms we tread will be a treacherous and slippery one and progress would be like the monkey climbing up a greased pole – four feet up and then slide two feet down. S V Raman svraman at cal2.vsnl.net.in From rohinipatkar123 at rediffmail.com Tue Aug 10 18:26:23 2004 From: rohinipatkar123 at rediffmail.com (rohini patkar) Date: 10 Aug 2004 12:56:23 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] research posting Message-ID: <20040810125623.19992.qmail@webmail6.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040810/d05c479f/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- Channels and networks The channels and networks used by these women in getting work are more or less informal. Many of the women interviewed have never heard of agencies that can employ them and charge for it. Most of them have come to Delhi because they already know someone here. In most cases they have a relative in Delhi. When they come here for the first time it is this relative’s home that becomes her first house here. Over time after they start earning they are able to rent a place in a nearby area. In majority of the cases, these relatives do this favour only as an act of kindness and they do not expect any monetary return. These women have a strong sense of gratitude towards these relatives. They form a store -house of information, helping them practically with everything in this city. They help them find their bearings in the city, in finding work, helping initially with their work (for example, one woman who used to make Golgappas learnt making golgappas from her relative with whom she stayed in the beginning. These relative are the ones from whom they take loan in the beginning till they find work, help them with the roads and finding their ways, often go with them in finding work, help them negotiate wages, etc. Some times these are not even the relatives, they are just from the same village from which these women have migrated. Their decision to migrate is often determined by the information provided by them. They have been staying in Delhi for some time and on their trips back to the village, they pass on the information about city life which combined with hardships of the village life, motivates these women to go. This is not to state that such simple events determine the entire decision to migrate. Of course, it is a more complex one determined by a range of factors.   From souweine at hawaii.edu Wed Aug 11 18:58:24 2004 From: souweine at hawaii.edu (Isaac D W Souweine) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 18:28:24 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] The Olympics as Nationalist Theater Message-ID: <5995f5596d3a.596d3a5995f5@hawaii.edu> Dear Sarai Reader List: Having just joined the list today, I thought I might as well make what passes for a grand entrance. Below is an article that I have been working on, the title of which (same as the title of this post) should be self-explanatory. As the newest iteration of Olympic theater prepares to descend upon us, I hope that it provides a useful orientation from which to view the spectacle. If this post stimulates a hunger for more Olympic history tidbits, please let me know, as I've got a great collection. Yours, Isaac Souweine New Delhi - India ------------------------------------------------------------------ The Olympics as Nationalist Theater By Isaac Souweine The Olympics are a “celebration of humanity”, a realm of pure athletic competition insulated from the tarnished world of politics. The idea has a cheerful sort of mass appeal. Lost within the idealistic glow, however, is an understanding of the Olympics’ role in modern history. Far from being accidentally “marred” by politics, the Olympic Games were created and sustained by political forces – primarily nationalism in both liberal and socialist forms – which have habitually used the Olympic theater as a crucial arena for contesting the shape of the international order. The tradition of Olympic politics is a venerable one. In ancient Greece, city-states fought for control over the Olympic temples and used athletic victories in the Games to establish prestige. The first modern Olympic revivals, contested four times between 1859 and 1885 under the leadership of a Greek philanthropist named Evangelis Zappas, were crucial moments in the consolidation of a newly minted Greek state. Indeed, the history of modern organized sports – most of which took their present form in the mid nineteenth century – is inseparable from the politics of nineteenth century nationalism: gymnastics (now physical education) was pioneered in Germany and Sweden as a way of strengthening national armies, while the English aristocracy understood rugby and cricket as proper training for colonial service. As for the founder of the modern Olympics, a French aristocrat named Pierre de Coubertin, he thought that organized sport would be a boon to French soldiers, whom to his mind lacked vigor on the battlefield. Not content with developing French sporting culture, Coubertin envisioned a festival of international competition between nations. Though well aware that such a venue would serve mostly to strengthen national rivalries, Coubertin effectively packaged his Olympic brainchild (largely filched from Zappas sans attribution) in the internationalist rhetoric of the day: “Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally.”1 Coubertin is also famous for his vigorous defense of Olympic amateurism, a seemingly commendable ideal that, among other things, cleared the way for a nationalist monopoly over Olympic bodies and their symbolic power. CONSOLIDATION OF THE OLYMPICS AS NATIONALIST THEATER In their first forty years - from Athens (1896) to Munich (1936) - the Olympics solidified their identity as the pre-eminent international theater of nationalism. While predictable in retrospect, this development was not inevitable. In the inaugural Athens Games, athletes wore their club uniforms as opposed to their national uniforms, and a local capitalist footed the bill for the entire games, as the price tag was beyond the reach of the fledgling Greek state. The next two Olympics, in Paris (1900) and St. Louis (1904), were both overshadowed by the era’s pre-eminent sphere for the performance of the nation – The World’s Fair. After this shaky start, however, the Olympics soon found their nationalist stride. In the first London Games (1908), athletes marched into the stadium behind their respective flags; though not before the English and Russians tried to prevent the Irish and Finns from displaying their colors. The nationalist symbology of the Games would not be complete, however, until the first Los Angles Games (1932) introduced the now familiar victory ceremonies in which medal winners stand on a victory podium while flags fly and anthems play. The development of Olympic symbols demarcating a neutral sphere of peace, fellowship and international fraternity was slightly more regular - the Olympic Flag and Oath appearing at the Antwerp Games (1920); the Olympic Flame at the Amsterdam Games (1928) and the Olympic Torch Relay at the Berlin Games (1936). Presided over by Hitler and an ascendant Nazi party in full regalia, the Berlin Games provided a twisted culmination to this period of Olympic nationalist theater, a performance immortalized in Leni Riefensthal’s phenomenal and disturbing film Olympia. THE OLYMPICS AND THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER With the return to the Olympics of Russian athletes absent since 1912, the Helsinki Games (1952) represented a major shift in the character of the Olympics as nationalist theater. For the next thirty odd years, the Games would be waged as contests for international superiority between communism and capitalism. While communist countries achieved a more crushing monopoly over their athletes’ bodies, which became laboratories for testing the power of the socialist state, both sides used this ever more crucial venue for elaborate performances of national superiority and visceral identification of national enemies. Rather than an aberrant defiance of the Games’ essence then, the decision by Eastern Block athletes to eschew the hospitality of the Helsinki Olympic village is better understood as the first salvo in a contest that would culminate in the back-to-back Olympic boycotts in Moscow (1980) and Los Angeles (1984). While the battle between capitalism and communism was the main act in this period of Olympic theater, it was not the only one; the post-war Olympics also provided a space to affirm and define a new broader international community. In acknowledgement of the bigger, broader post-war world, the IOC began awarding the Games to sites outside the European-American nexus: Melbourne (1956), Tokyo (1964), Mexico City (1968). Meanwhile, dozens of newly created post-colonial nations, many of which had specious histories as unique cultural or political units, used the Olympics to assert and confirm their identities on a world stage. The nature of Olympic competition, in which a single athlete from a small nation could symbolically defeat the entire world, merely added to the symbolic effect, though medals for fledgling states remained scarce. The new international community also used the Olympics to dictate rules for membership, most famously in the exclusion of South Africa (1960-1992) and Rhodesia (1972), both for apartheid politics. More common than official sanction by the IOC, which after all remained an institution ‘above politics’, was the use of the Olympic boycott as a way of contesting the shape of the international community. A shockingly long list, the roll-call of Olympic refusniks in the post-war period includes: Arab nations protesting Israeli militarism (1956); African nations protesting New Zealand’s S. Africa rugby tour (1976); China for various reasons (1932-1984), and of course the massive boycotts in Moscow and Los Angeles. Such consistent use of the Olympics as a site to contest the nature of the international order stands in sharp contrast to the 1936 Games, where the world community left it to Jesse Owens’ memorable four-gold performance to register a silent protest against the Nazi regime. As a necessary correlate, the development of a fully realized Olympic national theater created a space for challenges to national hegemony. The Mexico City Games (1968) were most memorable in this regard, with American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos saluting their flag with black-gloved fists and Vera Caslavaska, gold medal winning Czech gymnast, lowering her head during the playing of her anthem only months after signing a manifesto against Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia. In staunch defense of its apolitical stage for nationalist politics, the IOC quickly expelled the American sprinters, chasing them with the ironic claim that “The basic principle of the Olympic Games is that politics plays no part whatsoever in them.”2 A more chilling and contemporarily relevant example of the Olympics as anti-national spectacle occurred at the Munich Games (1972), when PLO operatives kidnapped eleven Israeli athletes and officials, all of whom died during a bungled rescue attempt. THE OLYMPICS AS NATIONALIST MEDIA SPECTACLE While today’s Olympics still function as the great theater of nationalism, the meaning of the performance has shifted to revolve around global consumer capitalism’s appropriation of ‘national brands’. Though athletes are still clothed, draped and serenaded with their nation’s symbols, the significance of these performances now has as much to do with their marketing potential as their geo-political ramifications. Meanwhile, host nations use the Olympics to perform their unique national cultures for the world while simultaneously asserting their ability to participate in the international economic system. As for the inherent eroticism of Olympic bodies – once monopolized by the ideological needs of nation states, now the same toned and shapely forms are fodder for an intensely sexualized capitalist system that lays equal claim to professional Olympic athletes and their close cousins, amateurs-with-endorsement. First covered fully by television in Rome (1960), the Olympics’ transition to nationalist media spectacle began in earnest in 1984, when Peter Uberoth, of National Football League fame, secured the first Olympic corporate sponsors for the second Los Angeles Games. Four years later, the Seoul Olympics (1988) saw the first official appearance of professional athletes, as well as the first well-marketed Olympic mascot – a cute tiger perfect for mugs and t-shirts. By the time the Olympics arrived in Barcelona (1992), the transition was complete. Commencing with a fabulous opening ceremonies that brazenly presented Spain as the center of European culture, Barcelona offered a compelling theater for a new internationalist capitalism that saw nation states as just one cog in a larger system of globalizing profit. No longer sullied by apartheid or the Cold War, Barcelona was a boycott-free, ostensibly politics-free arena for the production of capitalist sporting spectacle. Twelve years later, the Athens Games will seek to raise the bar further. For the hosts, the Games will offer a chance to perform their uniquely Olympic national culture in an extended add for www.visitgreece.com, while hopefully debunking rumors of a small nation’s inability to stage such a massive event. Satellite television will beam the images of Athens 2004 to billions worldwide, with table tennis slated to be the most watched final, during which TV executives will be caught in candid shots drooling at the mere mention of Beijing 2008. During slow moments, readers of FHM magazine (and surely internet users around the globe) will be able to devour photos of America’s female Olympians. While the Olympics in Athens will remain a theater in which nations use the their athletes bodies to consolidate their national bodies, the best competitors will now be brands in their own right, even as the interpretation of citizenship for top athletes’ grows ever more flexible. As for once troublesome boycotts, they will be replaced by a worldwide obsession with the newest sub-national threat to the international status quo – terrorism. FROM ANALYSIS TO ASSESSMENT In many ways, the Olympics present the best that the international order had to offer. An aesthetically beautiful sublimation of nationalist competition, the Olympics can engender a commendably inclusive form of communalism, as in the planned appearance in Athens of two Afghani female athletes. At their best, the Olympics even foster a sense of fair play and universalism that exceed the exclusivism of nation states. As for the Olympic alliance with global capitalism, athletics is a far more wholesome product than most of what is available on the world market, both in terms of the actual product of spectator sports and the attendant increase in athletic participation at all levels. None of which is to say that we should mislead ourselves about the inherent limitations of Olympic theater. The Olympics’ seemingly innocuous performances of nationalist aggression indubitably pave the way for less benign reprisals outside of the stadium. Moreover, in allying ever more closely with global capitalism, the Olympics foster a particular sort of economic globalization that has little capacity for the creation of a just economic order. To put it another way, if the Olympics occasionally perform a better, more wholesome international order, they have little ability to think outside the boundaries in which that order is conceived. Nor does the Olympics’ disavowal of politics mitigate the problem; if anything, this formal neutrality merely increases the power of their implicit affirmation of the political status quo. To accept the notion that the Olympics are or should be somehow outside of politics is to engage in idealistic self-deception. Nationalism, in both liberal and socialist forms, has literally and symbolically created our Olympic athletes and the stage upon which they perform. While this fact does not erase the phenomenal sporting feats achieved by Olympic athletes, it nevertheless bears remembering as another version of the Olympic theater unfolds. From kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 11 19:05:29 2004 From: kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?kalyan=20nayan?=) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:35:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Third Posting:Kalyan:The Idea of Jamshedpur Message-ID: <20040811133529.90455.qmail@web8307.mail.in.yahoo.com> This posting would refer to the planning processes envisaged by J. N. Tata and others in Jamshedpur. It would also try to weave in it, the planning mechanisms that have been initiated by them. "Be sure to lay out wide streets planted with shady trees, every other one of a quick growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens. Reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks. Earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian churches". Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata Above remarks unmistakably advocates planning as a medium to initiate harmony in the physical as well as social resource complex of an urban phenomenon. The founder was contemplating a vision of an industrial city where maladies of urban growth can be done away with through pre-emptive planning. It was the acceptance of the responsibility on the part of the Tatas, the responsibility to plan Jamshedpur’s future. Unlike Bombay and other cities it had genuinely started with a dream to build a modern and efficient industrial city in the backdrop of Indian diversity. Moreover urban planning was also a pretext to deliberate upon the constitution of a modern nation. The successors of J. N. Tata might have thought that initiating plans every twenty years or so would give them a grasp over the impending future of the city but one could easily see, through these plans, that this was not the case. The texture of these plan documents compels one to break free from the constraint of looking at them merely as plan documents. It might be the case that the planners would have probably resisted the characterization of their careful marshalling of maps, graphs, and statistics as dreams, but there was something enormously suggestive about the way they looked at town plans and planning as a process. In the backdrop of these, we would look at different plans and planners of Jamshedpur. Detailed discussion would be initiated on the text and the context of both - the plans and the planners historically. In the second part there would be an attempt to see the legacy of these plans on the Jamshedpur city and the changes instituted by them. The idea of using town plans in the study of urban history is not new. In Europe, it goes back to seventeenth century when some publications combined historical information with town plans to look at the growth of the city space. Frequent compositeness of town plans can give a clue to distinct stages in town growth of which a historical record may give no hint. It could be said without doubt that the town plans can shed much light on the size and structure of different communities, the different phases of their growth, their institutions and the relation between them and the urban community, which they serve. It is imperative on us first of all to describe what a town plan is? Conzen has attempted to describe the term town plan as ‘the cartographic representation of a town’s physical layout reduced to a predetermined scale’. But more than this town plans are a complicated category because they represent changing functional requirements of the urban community. It would be our folly to regard these plans at their face value and dispense with them. When looked at their face value they represent themselves as a dry document of prospective physical lay out of town. However reading these plans in the backdrop of technological innovation, changes in industrial production, developments in the social structure and aspects such as public health and housing, it will provide us a comprehensive data on the evolution of physical and social scale of the town. Apart from the plans, planners are no less significant in the making of a landscape. Their worldview and their ideas creep into the plans even if they consciously attempt to be objective to the situation provided to them. One obvious question that comes to the mind before going any further is the primary concern of the planner regarding the objectives of the development of a plan. For Harvey the planner is concerned with ‘for the most part, to the task of defining and attempting to achieve a successful ordering of the built environment’. Similarly Planners are concerned with the ‘proper location’ i.e. the appropriate mix of activities in space of all the diverse elements that make up the totality of physical structures and constitute the built environment. These physical structures could be of a variety of mix, consisting of the houses, roads, factories, offices, water and sewage disposal facilities, hospitals and schools. Accordingly all the planners strive to attain this ideal. And their ideology, aesthetics and politics needs to be re-examined vis-à-vis the plans that they produce. In the case of Jamshedpur we would see that the first of the two plans by Kennedy and Temple are more in the nature of street plans rather than an elaborative attempt to affect an integrative analysis of population and spatial forms. With the increase in population and load over the town these plans had been introduced for a fuller and comprehensive account of the problems affecting Jamshedpur and attempted to suggest remedies accordingly. ===== hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 11 19:10:44 2004 From: kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?kalyan=20nayan?=) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:40:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fourth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur Message-ID: <20040811134044.86857.qmail@web8312.mail.in.yahoo.com> This posting would engage with the apparent failure of planning process in the Jamshedpur city. Constant engagement with planning could not prevent Jamshedpur from falling into the traps that other Indian cities have been subjected to. Raising the concerns of the typical middle class inhabitant of the city an article in one of the prominent dailies of the area declared: "Roads overflowing with traffic, bustees eating into the taxpayers’ prerogatives, inadequate power and clogged drains have raised questions about our planners’ foresight. Did they not look into the future or were their plans not implemented properly"? The concern raised in the quote above shows the disenchantment of a significant section of the population in Jamshedpur. It certainly reflects the critical scrutiny the Company planning policies have been subjected to by the general inhabitant of the city. Although it deals with the Jamshedpur of 90s and does not necessarily link with our period yet the tone of assessment over the years was never very favourable for the Company’s planning mechanisms. It might be the reflection of one of the prominent consideration that the planner is supposed to engage himself with in planning, i.e., to act as an arbiter or a corrective weight in negotiating with diversity of interest groups in an urban setting. Did the planners overlook this aspect? We have seen that the majority of the skilled workers were provided with one kind of housing or another. It was the unskilled labouring class who was mostly at the receiving end in terms of housing requirements. Quite naturally for this large section of the population every other engagement with the city was of secondary importance. Labour looked to the built environment as a means of consumption and a means for its own reproduction and, perhaps, expansion. It was also sensitive to both the cost and the spatial access of the various components in the built environment for example housing, educational and recreational facilities, and services of all kinds. It would have been naturally difficult for the planners to harmonize the immediate requirements of this class and carry on with the process of building a model industrial city. This predicament could be seen with every subsequent plan. Some genuinely tried to address this issue first and later on look into what respite the plan could provide the city’s infrastructure. Hence there was continuous emphasis on housing the labourer. Since the entire housing requirement was to be provided by the Company, those workers who were not directly employed by the Company were left unprovided for. One of the logical outcomes was the development of the bustee areas. Part of the problem lay in the formulation of the very ideology of planning. Michael Ames after a survey remarked three conditions that influenced the character of Jamshedpur: one was the non local origins of many of the workers; a second was the westernized orientation of the upper strata; and a third was a sense of economic scarcity and insecurity characteristic especially of the lower strata. It would be interesting to note Ames’s further observation about the westernised orientation of the Company elites. According to him, "While the Jamshedpur labour force as a whole is more cosmopolitan than the general population of Bihar, the senior Company officials in the city are even further removed from the masses in education and style of life. The Company elites always have been either Western or westernized people whose primary ties and interests were with Calcutta, Bombay, or the Steel cities of America, England, and Germany". This observation was true in many respects and this has been indicated in earlier sections. The Tata family and other factory owners never hesitated to copy Western models of industrial organisation, labour relations, social welfare, and community planning. They also never hesitated to import foreign experts, to design or evaluate industrial and residential areas, or to send their own experts abroad for advanced training. This had its obvious impact on the nature of housing strategies being adopted to tackle the problem of overcrowding. They assumed that certain social forms like single family dwellings and occupationally stratified residential areas could be easily accommodated into Jamshedpur setting. This is not to say that in an attempt to amalgamate these features, modifications suited to Indian conditions were not envisioned. But it was also true that in the quest for more economically rational transformation in the worker outlook the primacy has always been given to the former. We could see the reflection of it in the plans as well. In the words of J. R. D. Tata: "The first question one might ask is whether the problems involved in the Industrialisation of a country like India today are likely to be different from those experienced in the West in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. I think not. For the process, in both cases, will have been one of transforming the environment and the working and living habits of a large proportion of the people from life on the farm and in small artisan and trading communities to life in factories and urban areas. Human nature being fundamentally the same everywhere and at all time, it may be expected to react to such a change in generally the same way". >From the above message it is clear that boundaries defined by early modern Western standards played a significant part in the ‘idea of Jamshedpur’. The planners’ application of his ideas in these circumstances cannot be separated from this necessary ideological commitment. And planners were striving to affect reconciliation in conjunction with a rational socio-spatial ordering. We can analyse Temple’s idea of ‘hexagonal planning’ in this perspective where he tried to come to terms with aberrations in the surrounding of Jamshedpur. It was also the recognition of the fact that the efficiency of the labour might be enhanced by providing a compensatory sense of harmony with the nature in the living place. Hence to bring more and more nature into the city was every planner’s endeavour. ===== hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 11 19:15:26 2004 From: kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?kalyan=20nayan?=) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:45:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fifth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur Message-ID: <20040811134526.2304.qmail@web8310.mail.in.yahoo.com> This posting would focus on the aspect of paternalism in the city. We would try to explore its impact on the city. We would also see if this had any influence on the planning mechanisms that had been initiated in Jamshedpur. "We do not claim to be more unselfish, more generous or more philanthropic than other people. But we think we started on sound and straight forward business principles, considering the interests of shareholders our own, and the health and welfare of the employees, the sure foundation of our prosperity". Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata The above statement might not be a remarkable and original insight into the social philosophy that should endow a man of wealth but it would be of interest to contrast it with an equally frank statement ten years later. During a conference in London with Tata’s representatives in 1904-05 regarding concessions in freight rates for bulk conveyance of raw materials, iron and steel, the Managing Director of Bengal Nagpur Railway said: "It does not appeal to us at all if you can only show that in an indirect and remote way this would be for the benefit of India. The only appeal that can be made to us is that we can make money out of it. This Railway Company, you must always bear in mind, is a commercial undertaking, and must only be actuated by commercial motives. We must not consider the advantages to India and, must not be actuated by anything like patriotic or philanthropic motives we do not consider a snap of the fingers about the advantages to India". One could only guess the fundamental difference in opinion, which later on became the foundation stone of Indian industrial bourgeoisie at that point of time. To follow from the previous chapter we would be able to see as to how the values of the Tata Iron and Steel Company were reflected in the city plans and architecture, how human interactions have been influenced by the architecture and urban design and how people have reacted to the Company’s built environment. We have traced the lineage of the city in brief but here we will not only see the establishment of Jamshedpur but also the sustenance of it as the oldest and the largest existing Company town in the world. It was the prototype for post independent Indian industrial cities such as Bhilai, Rourkela and Durgapur, which were established in completely rural areas. Closely following J. N. Tata’s ideas we will also see that the objective of building the city was not considered only on the basis of philanthropic motives. There was a larger philosophy behind it. In fact, world over the experience has been that the Company towns are excellent examples of rational attempts by planners and architects to mould workers and manipulate social and economic interactions for the primary purpose of improving industrial production. I will like to build upon this idea and try to weave segments of Jamshedpur here for greater continuity and understanding. For the purpose of moulding the worker, planning served as a significant tool. We have traced the intention and scope of planning in Jamshedpur in great detail to demonstrate the desire on the part of the Company to constantly intervene in the built atmosphere of the city whenever it saw things escalating beyond control. It was true that one of the guiding factors of planners in doing so was their concurrence and inspiration from the European and American industrial conditions. But it was also true that these planning mechanisms became a tool in their hands to make regulation of space serve their need of controlling and disciplining the labour. For example, housing was one of the prime considerations of every planner. Efforts were made in every plan to negotiate with this impending requirement. But it was also a means to dissuade the worker from building whatever it liked. To quote Lefebvre: "In the extension and proliferation of cities, housing is the guarantee of reproductivity, be it biological, social or political. Society i.e. capitalist society no longer totalizes its elements nor seeks to achieve total integration through monuments. Instead it strives to distil its essence into buildings". In other words planning was also for the creation of a modern, industrial working ethic. It was not a matter of carrot and stick policy for the Tatas. The city served as the extension of their hegemony. To put it in more precise terms, it was a platform to practice paternalism. For we have seen that in our period they resisted every attempt to let go, the control of the city from their hands, even if it meant a huge expenditure for them. Regulation of space was necessary for instilling in the workers a sense of purpose and discipline. It was also significant for obtaining optimum performance levels and guaranteed competence. Lefebvre referring to the concept of ‘spatial practice’ stated, "Spatial practice embraces production and reproduction Spatial practice ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion. In terms of social space, and of each member of a given society’s relationship to that space, this cohesion implies a guaranteed level of competence and a specific level of performance It embodies complex symbolisms, sometimes coded, sometimes not linked to underground side of social space". This cohesion and creation of purpose seemed to be one of the primary objectives of the Tatas. One could still ask why this moulding and shaping of the worker? It has been observed that ‘each mode of production has its own space; the shift from one mode to another must entail production of a new space. A fresh space needs to be generated, a space which is organized and planned subsequently’. Not only this, it has to be fashioned, shaped and invested by social activities during a finite historical period. Probably this mindset, although not pronounced, justified the refashioning or remoulding. But it was certainly not a one way process. There were contending urges for hegemony, between worker and the capital, and there seems to be contention over space for extending counter hegemony. This contention metamorphosed into an aspect of ‘ambivalence’. An ambivalence, which invited more and more negotiation rather than confrontation in the city. ===== hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 11 19:18:21 2004 From: kalyannayan at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?kalyan=20nayan?=) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:48:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Sixth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur Message-ID: <20040811134821.97525.qmail@web8309.mail.in.yahoo.com> In many ways Jamshedpur is the manifestation of Tata paternalism. This section would explore the meaning and implication of Tata paternalism in Jamshedpur. The word paternalism derives its meaning from the Latin-English kinship term. It is a type of behaviour by a superior towards an inferior resembling that of a male parent to his child - in most cases, a son. However, the precise forms of this behaviour vary from society to society because the culture of kinship varies, and also because the nature of the tasks performed in paternalistic societies vary. Max Weber, who developed the concept of patrimonialism, first noted the theoretical relevance of paternalism. But the focus on patrimonial relations by Weber cannot lead us to equate patrimonialism with paternalism. In fact paternalism is different from patriarchy or patrimonialism, an error, which comes from the assumption that male domination is the prime element in every category. We would be distinguishing these categories for the greater clarity in our discussion. This would be carried forward by focusing on the idea of paternalism as practiced by the Tatas in Jamshedpur. We have referred to this idea cursorily in the preceding chapters. By giving it a separate focus we would attempt a synthesis where the question of the urban would be amalgamated with different streams of our discussion namely planning processes, the labour in the city and the factor of paternalism. The survival or creation of a paternalistic system depends on the needs and on the existing social organizational patterns and traditions. This is clearly visible in Jamshedpur. We have been talking about paternalism in our earlier postings. In fact our concern with the planning activities in the town and the study of the general morphological development of Jamshedpur reflects flashes of paternalistic idea recurring many times. In the development of Indian capitalism Jamshedpur perhaps is the most celebrated case of this idea. The development of the steel works in the jungles of Chotanagpur forced the Company to develop infrastructure that would enable and sustain the steel works. One could argue that since the sustenance of the steel works needed this kind of preliminary investments Jamshedpur was more a matter of practical exigency on the part of the Tatas rather than a paternalistic benevolence. But then to argue in this manner would be to gloss over the sophistication involved in the deliberation of the idea of paternalism by the Tatas. Moreover we saw that the Tatas were not completely oblivious of their moral concern to provide for their employees. J. N. Tata and others down the line consistently spoke of making Jamshedpur an ideal industrial nucleus. Regulation and intrusion in other aspects of worker’s life was a logical extension of the above beginning in setting up an industrial township. The idea of being an employer and protector of the welfare of the workers saw its manifestations in the act of the Company undertaking rural development projects in the surrounding villages, including health, education, family planning and economic sustenance initiatives. Even when the eastern half of the city was being leased to ancillary industries, most of which were Tata controlled, the Companies were impressed upon to build and maintain their own workers’ colony following the model of TISCO. Paternalism is rare in Indian industries, although the Indian socio economic condition gives much space to allow this idea to thrive. Indian society continued to be a traditional patriarchal one where a strong emphasis on paternal power does not appear to have been much eroded by modernisation or urbanisation. Even after independence this is valid for India. But the extension of this idea could be hardly seen in the industrial sector. In the Western case many small capitalists could be found extending the paternalistic privileges to their workers as done by the big enterprises. One of the reasons of this might be the lack of resources which constricted Indian businessmen’s efforts. Since majority of the workers remained uneducated and unskilled the employer did not feel obliged to give more to the worker than what was required by law or union contract. For an enterprise like that of the Tatas in Jamshedpur, which started in the very beginning of the twentieth century with a conscious realisation of their role in Indian industrialisation, this attitude of paternal guidance was obvious and simultaneously an unique effort. The paternalism of the Tata Company had a profound philosophical base in its founder’s objective. We have already traced the origins of the corporate culture of the Tata group in its founder’s philosophy who passed on his social values to his sons and his successors. The Tatas like many other progressive nationalists and leaders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were advocates of swadeshi. As early as 1840s Indian intellectuals realised that the key to Britain’s power was its economic strength and that the only way India could become a free and a great nation was through industrialisation. J. N. Tata promoted many industries in his eventful lifetime and every venture of his became a model for successful industrial management and enterprise. His early focus was the cotton textiles. In its conception, the Empress Mill was the precursor of TISCO which he opened in Nagpur in 1877. He not only invested the mill with the state of the art technology like proper ventilators and automatic fire sprinklers but also with an employee welfare policy. He provided housing, recreational, and educational facilities for his workers and instituted provident fund and pension schemes. According to J. R. D. Tata, Jamsetji imbued the future Tata Management with a sense of social consciousness and trusteeship. ===== hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From monica at sarai.net Wed Aug 11 19:00:33 2004 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 19:00:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Call for contributions to Sarai Reader 05 Message-ID: CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SARAI READER O5 BARE ACTS: TRESPASSERS AND ENFORCERS IN PRECARIOUS TIMES The 'Bare Act' is an expression used to specify the content of law, bereft of any interpretative gloss. In a legal library in India and many parts of the English-speaking world, a Bare Act is a document that simply codifies a law without annotation or commentary. The 'Bare Act' is legality pared down to its textual essence. It expresses only what the law does, and what it can do. The enactment of law, however, is less a matter of reading the letter of the law, and more a matter of augmenting or eroding the textual foundation through the acts of interpretation, negotiation, disputation and witnessing. The law and practices within and outside stand in relation to a meta legal domain that can be said to embrace acts and actions in all their depth, intensity and substantive generality. This too is a stage set for the performance of 'bare acts', of what we might call 'naked deeds' - actions shorn of everything other than what is contained in a verb. The 'Bare Act' that encrypts the letter of the law, the wire frame structure that demands the fleshing out of interpretation, and the 'bare act' that expresses and contains the stripped down kernel of an act, of something that is done, are both expressions that face each other in a relationship of tense reflection and intimate alterity. Bare Acts generate bare acts, and vice versa. "Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts: Trespassers and Enforcers in Precarious Times" proposes to be a considered examination of this troubled mirror image. We are interested in looking not only at what happens in law courts but also at customs, conventions, formal and quasi formal 'ways of doing things' that are pertinent to communities howsoever they may be formed. Thus the conventions and codes evolved by the practitioners of a juridically 'illicit' trade or calling or way of life, such as that of software pirates, or 'illegal' migrants, or squatters on government land, fall within the ambit of our concerns. We want to speak of the relationships of conflict, co existence and accommodations between different kinds of codes that make claims to our ideas of what is right, or just, or functional, or even merely appropriate. To see 'actions' arrayed across a spectrum in this manner is also to see a range of ways in which laws, codes and a variety of formal and informal arbitration mechanisms act on us. Sometimes this may take the form of executive force and fiat, but crucially it may also rely on the powers of persuasion that characterize a host of quasi formal interactions between state and non-state actors, and between non-state actors and individuals. Typically, this for instance is the way in which non-legal entities like informally constituted councils, political formations outside the state, customary bodies and traditional councils act to enforce their will or influence those within (and occasionally outside) their ambit. The landscape of actions and deeds covers a far more subtle, slippery, nuanced and ambiguous ground (than the codes that seek to index, define or govern them). Actions have gradients, they ascend and descend on to each other much as peaks emerge from and plunge into troughs in a three dimensional graph. The political, ethical and semantic facets of acts shade off, and slope into each other, now revealing, now concealing hitherto unknown aspects of themselves and their consequences, often in unexpected ways. Laws are attempts to understand, interpret and govern action, but their enunciative capacity is bundled up with executive authority; they are words that decree what must be done. But just as the way in which a map is drawn can have consequences on the ecology of a terrain, the phrases spoken as law too can transform and erode as well as irrigate the ground of action. Laws are a creature of habit, of pattern, rhythm and repetition. The exceptional singularity of an action, which is precisely what law seeks to tame to the rhythm of the predictable, leaves us with a strange situation where the "bareness of an act" is precisely what is sought to be clothed by a 'bare act'. This gives rise to many tensions and aporias, which we invite contributors to reflect upon and report, from their locations in the real world, whatever be their locus standi. You may be a human rights lawyer, or an intellectual property attorney, a philosopher, an artist, an activist, a combatant or peace maker in a conflict situation, a person who lives and works with ideas and words, a person who saves lives or takes them, a person who has custody of others, or who may be in the custody of an institution; in addition, you may be someone who either is, or identifies with, or sympathizes with, a hacker, a pirate, a re-distributor of intellectual assets, an illegal emigrant, a non-heterosexual person, a compulsive traveller, a squatter, a sex worker, a terrorist of the imagination, you may be free or in confinement, you may be healthy or unwell - whosoever you may be and whatever you are, you have to act, and deal with the actions of others, and all that you do, or do not do, is framed by a structure of bare acts of the law. Yet, you shape the world with the things you do to be yourself, to act in concert with others, to defend yourself and to pursue what you see as liberty and happiness, or simply, to survive. We would also like to invite investigations into the production of 'legal subjects' through judgements (communiqués to the citizen/denizen) and petitions (appeals from the citizen/denizen) as well as through mechanisms like recording and registration mechanisms such as census records, land records, municipal records, forestry regulations, registers of citizens and aliens and other instruments that define and enumerate the person addressed by the legal-formal apparatuses that govern day to day life. What is the language, the rhetoric, the tone of these acts of address? How are they scripted, rehearsed and staged? All these are things for us to explore when we look at the law, whether in the courtroom, in a village council meeting, or in the performance of a 'courtroom drama' in a film. Crucially, here we want to explore the figures of authorised and unauthorised interlocutors, expert and wayward witnesses and the myriad characters that constitute the theatre of the courtroom. This Reader invites you to reflect on actions, yours as well as those of others, to act with your words, thoughts and images to contribute to our understanding of the world, as we know it today. We are committed to an elaboration of positions that often find themselves identified with the interloper, trespasser and the proscribed, not because we have any special affinity for the illicit, but because we feel that the growing constriction of the domain of the do-able by the letter of the law (which we all face in societies where the state and para state institutions lay increasing claims to our fealty) leads to a situation where those committed to a modicum of social liberty, to expanding the territory of what may be creatively imagined and acted upon, have to invest in knowing and understanding an ethic of trespasses. Interdictions need interrogation, and this Reader is a call for such interrogations. A 'bare act', as we said at the outset, can also be taken to mean action divested of everything other than its essence as a deed. Encountering the naked deed, action in and of itself, on its own terms, means facing up to difficult and occasionally challenging ethical questions. What constitutes violence? What is generosity, or hospitality? Why does altruism have to be hedged in by qualifications and constraints? It also means asking - what it is to become someone through action? What is it to act, or play a part, in the theatre of social life? What is the border that separates action from expression? What connects the act to gesture and to performance, as much as it does to deed? Moreover, what accounts can we give to the 'act' of witnessing, or bearing witness to a course of action, or to an event? Law or codes of action of any kind seem untenable without the notion of the witness. The presence of the witness is crucial to any notion of credence, the foundations on which arguments, petitions and judgements have to base their thrust and parry. We would like this collection to provoke reflections on the nature of the evidentiary and narrative protocols that frame acts of 'speaking' or 'speaking out' in the face of, or in the aftermath of, or in the memorialization of, acts and events that leave a mark on our times so as to instigate a more complex unravelling of the relationship between persons, actions, narratives and codes of behaviour, To carry this argument further, we want to point out that in languages such as Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Urdu, the roots for words as disparate sounding as 'martyr' and 'witness' (shaheed/martyr and shahid/witness) devolve to a common source. This suggests to us a febrile tension between the reality of a precipitate, even violent action, its consequence (the shaheed) and a recording presence (the shahid). In other words, given the fact that acts do speak for themselves (and sometimes make the claim to speak for others), we consider it necessary to take stock and reflect on what might be considered the heritage of the 'propaganda of the deed' - a doctrine that underpins violent terrorism, as well as non-violent civil disobedience and militant passive resistance, to see how such modes of acting stretch and challenge consensual notions of the relationships between means and ends. As we have said in calls for contributions to previous readers, on themes and subjects quite different from the ones that we have sketched here, these are open questions with no satisfactory and coherent answers. But Sarai Reader 05, like its predecessors, would like to take them on, so as to map new territories of thought about the things we all do and the things that are done to us. Today, there are different images of naked legality that we have grown accustomed to. We know that the law is often the last resort that the poor and the marginalized can turn to in some societies to appeal for redress and comfort from having to face obvious and naked oppression. Thus the slum dweller facing demolition sees in a high court stay order, a breathing space in which to try and muster some means of continued survival in the city as a householder. A person on death row can have little hope but to argue for an acquittal or a pardon. There are also occasions when international criminal courts may be seen to be effective instruments of redress for victims of genocide and war crimes. These are but the bare facts of a case for the law, and for a conscientious practice of the legal calling as a continuing good in human societies. However, we have also seen pictures of naked human beings in judicial custody in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. This too is naked legality. We have seen migrants waiting to be deported. We have seen the banal playing out of the script of domination and violence, on streets, in educational institutions, in homes. We have seen attempts at the foreclosure of cultural and intellectual commons. We have seen attempts at surveillance and control, and we have witnessed, resistances to each of these - quiet subversions, cunning negotiations and outright rejections as well as attempts to scale the walls erected by the threat of interdictions, sanctions and prohibitions. Sarai Reader 05 seeks to register these matters in their puzzling ambivalence, with intelligence, acuity and close attention to the pulse of our times. A Preliminary List of Themes (these are not chapter or section headings, but point to areas of interest) could include: The Pure Act, the Impure Gesture and Bare Presences: A Sceptical Guide to Acting in Today's World Barely Human/Naked Power: Critiques of Contemporary Injustices Punishments in Search of Crimes: Histories and Practices of Illegality Authorised and Unauthorised Interlocutors The Human Right to Copy and Paste: Culture, Law, Conflict and Intellectual Property The Letter of the Law: Glossing Gender, Class, Race and Caste in the Courtroom In Camera: Courts, Prison and the Justice System in Cinema Rough Justice and Gentle Persuasion: Non-legal Forms of Arbitration To Be Done and To Be Seen to be Done: Legal Action and its Media Representations Despatches and Communiqués: Reflecting on Media Representations of Direct Action Private Matters in the Public Domain: The Law and Sexuality The Encounter: Terror In and Out of Uniform Caught in an Emergency: The Ethical Dilemmas of Humanitarian Intervention in War Zones and Conflict Situations The War Against Error: The Normalization of Surveillance and Identification Bearing Witness Citizens, Denizens, Aliens, Others: Taxonomies for Our Times Altitude Sickness: The Activist on Higher Moral Ground What is (not) to be Done: Understanding the Limitations of Action and Activism The Right to be Wrong: In Praise of Political, Ethical and Legal Uncertainties What it Takes to Be... Accounts of Becoming and Choosing to Remain Marginal At A Loss for Words: Talking about Things Perhaps Best Left Unsaid Utterance as Action: How Speech Acts Change the World Sometimes The Word as Violence: Interpretative Acts in the Field of Life and Death Politics beyond the Law "Sarai Reader 05: The Bare Act" seeks to engage with this situation by inviting a series of reflections. We are looking for incisive analysis, as well as passionate writing, for scholarly and theoretical rigour as well as for critical and imaginative depth. We invite essays, reportage, diaries and memoirs, entries from weblogs, edited compilations of online discussions, photo essays, image-text collages and interpretations of found visual material. Finally, we would like to see texts that draw attention to the curious and unfolding relationships between acts, actions (especially what is called 'direct action'), activism and the domain of media practice: namely between acts and representations, and on representations as acts. What are the trade offs involved in transmission of an 'action', how does the possibility of transmission help script an action before it is staged - these are urgent questions, especially at a time when the relationship between deed and representation tends to blur in the form of what we can call a 'media event'. This is not to evaluate such instances negatively or positively, only to register the fact that they occur, and to call for an attempt at an informed understanding of their contents and ramifications. We invite activists, media activists and media practitioners to revisit and reflect on the instances of the encounters between deeds and mediatization in their own practices, and on the relationship between media and action in a general sense. In doing so, we are revisiting and continuing a discussion on some of the questions that have already been raised in "Sarai Reader 04: Crisis/Media". The Sarai Reader 05, like the previous Sarai Readers, will be international in scope and content, while retaining a special emphasis on reflection about and from areas that normally lie outside the domain of mainstream discourses. We are particularly interested in contributions from South Asia, South and Central America, East Europe, the Arabic Speaking Countries, Central and West Africa, South Africa, South East Asia, China, Tibet and Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Australia. The Editorial Collective *Guidelines for Submissions* Word Limit: 1000 - 6000 words 1. All submission, unless specifically solicited, must be in English only. 2. Submissions must be sent by email in as text, or as rtf, or as word document or star office/open office attachments. Articles may be accompanied by black and white photographs/other visual material submitted in the .tif format. 3. We urge all writers, to follow the Chicago Manual of Style, (CMS) in terms of footnotes, annotations and references. For more details about the CMS and an updated list of Frequently Asked Questions, see -http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.html For a Quick Reference Guide to the Chicago Manual of Style, especially relevant for citation style, see - http://www.library.wwu.edu/ref/Refhome/chicago.html 4. All contributions should be accompanied by a three/four line text introducing the author, with email address and a relevant url. 5. All submissions will be read by the editorial collective before the final selection is made. The editorial collective reserves the right not to publish any material sent to it for publication on stylistic or editorial grounds. 6. Copyright for all accepted contributions will remain with the authors, but Sarai reserves indefinitely the right to place any of the material accepted for publication on the public domain in print or electronic forms, and on the internet. 7. Accepted submissions will not be paid for, but authors are guaranteed a wide international readership. The Reader will be published in print, distributed in India and internationally, and will also be uploaded in a pdf form on to the Sarai website. All contributors whose work has been accepted for publication will receive two copies of the Reader. If you are interested in contributing, write to monica at sarai.net or shuddha at sarai.net with a brief note saying what you want to write about, or an outline. You can take time to write up a more substantial outline, but please make sure that they are in by September 30, 2004. Outlines can be up to 500 words. The Editorial collective will write back to all those who have submitted the outlines in early October 2004, informing them whether their proposal for a contribution has been accepted. Deadlines for the Submission of Articles is - November 15 The Editorial Collective of Sarai Reader 05 consists of the following - Awadhendra Sharan, Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Ravi Sundaram, Ravi Vasudevan and Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Sarai-CSDS, Delhi), Lawrence Liang (Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore) and Geert Lovink (Indpendent Media Theorist and Critic, Amsterdam) -- Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From aarti at sarai.net Thu Aug 12 15:26:26 2004 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 15:26:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] minutes of knowledge and democracy meeting Message-ID: <411B3ECA.2060209@sarai.net> Dear all, here are the minutes of the knowledge and democracy meeting held on 3 august in the CSDS library. it is not a complete minute and therefore if anyone who participated would like to add to this please go ahead. again if you feel that what you said has been misrepresented , i apologise, and please post any clarifications. Aarti Discussion on Knowledge and Democracy, 3 August 2004: These are rough minutes of the Knowledge and Democracy colloquium held in the CSDS library. The meeting was convened by Avinash. This is not an exhaustive minute, but I hope it provides some sense of the discussion that occurred. Avinash asked four people to think about the issue and present for about five minutes each after which the janta responded. Avinash began by speaking about his experience in a Documentation Center. He said he was interested in looking at questions of how knowledge was accessed and organsied. His presentation articulated two broad concerns. The first related to the organsiation of knowledge in society, and here he raised issues of access and the impact of new digital technologies on older forms of information collation such as documentation centers which were being seen as increasingly irrelevant. If it were true that the knowledge indices of society related to the spread of new technology, America was arguably the most knowledgeable society in the world. This was clearly not the case. He also spoke of a plurality of knowledge systems and the possibility of discovering the “truth” about anything given this plurality. Finally he raised the question of how the immense amounts of information that were being generated related back to the world. Shuddha began by saying that he was very glad Avinash had called this informal meeting because at Sarai we had been thinking about the politics of information for some time. Moreover it was appropriate that the site for conversation was the CSDS library. The library might be seen as a metaphor for a bazaar for the circulation of possibilities. He spoke of the destruction of the library of Alexandria which was destroyed three times because people saw the knowledge it contained as being irrelevant. They were confident that new knowledge supersedes the old such that it was no longer required. If compatible then irrelevant, if incompatible then blasphemous. Shuddha drew attention to the position of the outsider as a protector of a knowledge system. For instance we knew that the canons of world religions were preserved as references in the canons of other religions. Did our protocols allow space to this “lay” reader? He ended with a few comments on the linkages between the production and creation of knowledge and the protocols of academic publishing. The world of intellectual production operated within the ambit of media monopolies which owned academic journals. Academic reputations today crucially depended on a system of cross citations. In order for a piece of work to acquire any degree of legitimacy it needed to be quoted in journals within the discipline. The availability of these journals was therefore a critical determining factor in the production of knowledge. Centers for scientific research therefore needed to source enormous funds to ensure access. The funds invariably came either from the State or from the corporates. By the 1970s there was a growing realisation that very many questions were simply not looked at and thus began a movement to create open access journals. Was this happening with the social sciences as well? We needed to spend some time thinking about the political economy of the production of knowledge. Vijay Pratap spoke from an activists standpoint. He noted that the gap between action and knowledge was increasingly being reduced with theorisation following action rather than preceding it. His concerns related to the exclusionary nature of new technology, and the erosion of older, more democratic traditions. He also spoke of the discomfort with addressing moral and ethical questions in the public domain and noted that without moral anchors which provided the cohering force to democracy, society would falter . He spoke at some length of the tyranny of reason where the faithful had no place. Finally he spoke at some length about the divide between academics and activists and hoped that the academic community would be more hospitable to perspectives from the grassroots. Jeebesh began by noting that this was an extremely interesting juncture in terms of the new frameworks within which knowledge debates were reconstituting themselves on a different terrain. Conflicts over knowledge today were being reconstituted around property and anchoring themselves on a property regime. There was a crisis in established knowledge systems and therefore a search for other forms of innovation. His presentation focused on the notion of duration i.e the gestation time required for knowledge to be produced and to be deemed as knowledge. It was when we appreciated duration that we arrived an understanding of a knowledge system and a life world. In the discussion session that followed there was some concern expressed about the direction the subsequent discussion would take given the extremely diverse, and unconnected, nature of each presentation. Peter summarised what he saw as being some common themes in each presentation. He presented this clustering of concerns as those which related to knowledge and its relationship to reality in terms of protocols, procedures of organisation and so forth. The second cluster related to concerns regarding control and controllers, the management and manipulation of knowledge by power structures. Thirdly concerns related to the processes of dissemination of knowledge and here issues of access were raised. Another cluster looked at subversions, elisions, silences in the production of discourses on knowledge. What we were left with then was a picture of a knowledge production universe which was extremely diverse, characterised by eclecticism and eccentricity. Shuddha expressed some discomfort with an attempt to construct a moral hierarchy between what was seen as the knowledge of the “people” and other forms of knowledge. His interest lay in looking for eccentricities where they arose. To create protocols which were hospitable to eclecticism and eccentricity. Anannya raised the question of political knowledge and its relationship with democracy. she said that political knowledge was the only kind of knowledge that was really in the peoples control and which they exercised through suffrage. this in her opinion was a hopeful domain within which to discuss questions relating to the production knowledge because other forms of knowledge were becoming increasingly difficult to access. the relevance of this category of political knowledge excited some debate. Avinash wished to know what was included in the category of 'meaningful political knowledge. Did it include, for instance, science? What was useful and what was irrelevant and were these fixed categories? Asish Nandy responded by stating that this was not a relevant category because that which was relevant political knowledge today would not remain so for all time to come. Knowledge was not created simply to service power. D.L Sheth responded by noting that though knowledge was not created simply to service power, however it was impossible to think of knowledge as being disconnected from power. Sadan raised the issue of pleasure and knowledge. Why were we constantly overwhelmed by the burden of analysis? Were desire and pleasure illegitimate? Awadhendra Sharan said that his interest lay in looking at the new sites of knowledge production where earlier broad categories were breaking down. So today, for instance, history was reproduced in a court of law, traditional knowledge in debates about intellectual property rights. The discussion concluded with Nandy raising the issue of certitude. What provided certitude? Why were we refusing to see that which we did not wish to see? Any knowledge system could potentially become a new religion, intolerant of interlopers. From aarti at sarai.net Thu Aug 12 16:17:40 2004 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:17:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] clarification Message-ID: <411B4ACC.907@sarai.net> Dear all, Just to clarify the context of the knowledge and democracy posting. The idea is to hold a monthly colloquim in the CSDS Delhi library on the relationship between knowledge and democracy. The first meet was held on 3rd august 2004 and the next is scheduled for the first tuesday in September i.e 7th September at 4:30 p.m. I just thought others might be intrested in reading what happened. Sorry for the opacity of the last post. regards, Aarti From vivek at sarai.net Thu Aug 12 17:39:05 2004 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 17:39:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Fwd: Avinash Post No.1] Message-ID: <411B5DE1.4040803@sarai.net> * SARAI POST 1 - Avinash Kumar * Its amazing how you always see a Jhoolewala when you aren’t looking for them. So it seems like they have all disappeared though I have been doing the rounds of the colonies every evening now. One evening, I finally turn a corner and there he is! I introduce myself, and as we walk together, I try to explain the project to him above the din of the contraption itself. He is very amused (just as I had expected), especially when I tell him I want to push the Jhoola myself one of these days. The path of the Jhoola immediately brings out the conflicts between the Jhoola and the City. Bleating horns, irate pedestrians, and impatient scooters welcome the Jhoolewala as he snakes through the traffic. The summer holidays are on, and he tells me he has to plan out his times according to the season and school timings. My conversation with him reveals the interesting insights he has on modern children, their mothers and their maids. (More on the actual experience of the Jhoola and children later) We walk back to his home after an unprofitable evening for him, so he is no mood to engage in our project talk. I meet his sons and cousins and nephews, some of whom are also engaged in the same business, but have taken a departure from the traditional job of pushing the Jhoolas. Instead, they rent out the Jhoolas for birthday parties and carnivals, transporting them by tempo and plying them at the party (or /palti/, as they might say). On being informed that this is the regular practice in the younger Jhoolewalas, I think about how the Jhoola is losing its wheels, and ironically going further, from the level of the locality, to the level of the city. All you need is the mobile number of the ‘manager’, and the Jhoola is at your doorstep. I am not so sure at this stage if that is a good thing or not, so I will wait out my thoughts on that one. Further conversations with the family (and friends who have by now accumulated) reveal how it is only the old man who still continues to push the Jhoola in the colony – he says that’s all he knows. I try again to explain the project to them, and realize the need to really figure out methods to do just that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! From vivek at sarai.net Thu Aug 12 17:40:20 2004 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 17:40:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Fwd: Jhoola Post No.2] Message-ID: <411B5E2C.80000@sarai.net> Hi this is continuing the little saga of the Jhoolewalas...part 3 comes tomorrow... *SARAI POST 2 : The making of the Jhoola* * * We have new Jhoolewalas to talk to now. Our search in Jangpura (Delhi) yields a bounty – we find around 9 Jhoolas neatly parked on one of the roadsides. It of course takes 3 days to track down the owners, narrowly missing them at times. This group is more motivated than the others, and the self proclaimed leader of the Jhoolas is proactive and seems to understand our project very well. He says that they have been filmed in a forest location earlier, though I have my doubts about that. The conversation this time is about how Jhoolas are manufactured. We learn that the most of the work that goes into making the Jhoolas is done by the JW (for Jhoolewala from now on) himself. He first figures out which one to make, and then collects / buys iron scrap from the markets, cuts them up into the required parts. He then takes all this to the local welder (/mistri/) to be welded and finished. The resultant grey & black monster is then painted at home and assembled with pins & wheels for the required mechanics. Most Jhoolas cost between Rs. 7000-9000 to make, which makes us wonder about earlier estimates from the other JWs that placed it near 20-25K..anways, that’s how it goes.. We learn that there are two types of Jhoolas – the ones that are pushed through the /muhullah/ (neibourhoods), and the larger (and sometimes electric) ones that are used in carnivals. We express our primary in the former, and the JW rattles of the names of the 3 types of Jhoolas prevalent in Delhi. (He says these are the only ones ever made, and he knows since he has been doing this for 14 years now.) To elaborate, these are the merry-go-round, the ferris wheel and the rotating cars. A peculiar thing about the Jhoolas is the removal of the little wheels that give them motion in the evenings, or when going on a break, since scrap junkies seem to steal them quite often. So the provision of removable wheels becomes an additional design constraint. Many of the issues in the making of the Jhoola are similar to those in traditional crafts – of disorganized, but highly intuitive methods; of honest attempts at aesthetics; and successful accomplishments at economy – of material, costs and labour. What stands out, like in crafts, is the fact that the Jhoola really so much more than an artistic creation for pleasurable pursuits; it is the primary bread earner for a small slice of society. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! From shekhar at crit.org.in Fri Aug 13 14:57:07 2004 From: shekhar at crit.org.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:57:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] knowledge & democracy In-Reply-To: <411B4ACC.907@sarai.net> References: <411B4ACC.907@sarai.net> Message-ID: Dear Aarti: It would help to know the full names and designations of who all attended and participated in what seems like a very interesting discussion on the politics of information. Best S.K. _____ Shekhar Krishnan 9, Supriya, 2nd Floor Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road no.4 Dadar, Mumbai 400014 India http://www.crit.org.in/members/shekhar From shivamvij at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 18:32:37 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 18:32:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Take off your clothes, ma'am Message-ID: Take off your clothes, ma'am Before you decide whether you are for or against ragging, don't forget that society is full of raggers — whose propaganda you may be taken in by. See http://www.dancewithshadows.com/ From kalakamra at vsnl.net Fri Aug 13 20:12:21 2004 From: kalakamra at vsnl.net (kalakamra at vsnl.net) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 10:42:21 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] InteriorDesign (NYC) at Harvestworks Message-ID: <9517a894d34f.94d34f9517a8@vsnl.net> HARVESTWORKS DIGITAL MEDIA ARTS CENTER PRESENTS Ashok Sukumaran: Interior Design Opening Saturday August 14th from 5 - 8 pm. Ongoing installation open from Sunday August 15 - Tue. August 17th 12 noon - 7 pm. 596 Broadway Suite 602 NYC 10012 (at Houston St) 212-431-1130 Harvestworks will present a viewing of the third installment of Ashok Sukumaran's "Interior Design" Installation series. In this site-specific work, the artist will introduce some generally unacknowledged elements into the ominous "black box" in which media art usually resides. The Outside transforms this interior in both direct and mediated ways. The audience is asked to constantly readjust their presence, in a space that shifts from cinematic to architectural and vice-versa. The works refer to the Room Camera Obscura, a media apparatus and public viewing space where Kamra (room) and Kamera were one. Previous incarnations of this site-specific project have appeared in both Los Angeles and Mumbai. In adopting the view that many of these possibilities are not new, his projects imagine a "what could have been" between the disciplines of interactive art, cinema and architecture. His work has received several honors, including a David Bermant Foundation Grant in 2004. Ashok Sukumaran is an architect and media artist currently living between Los Angeles and Mumbai. He is interested in unexplored or forgotten forms of viewership, especially those that arrive at intersection of specific sites and media technologies. _______________________________________________________________________ Harvestworks is a not-for-profit arts organization founded in 1977 to cultivate artistic talent using digital technologies. We foster the creation of new works through coordinated digital media production, education, information and distribution services. Located in Soho, NYC and on the internet at http://www.harvestworks.org - we're a creative environment where artists work in an integrated way. _______________________________________________________________________ HARVESTWORKS Digital Media Arts Center 596 Broadway, Suite 602 (at Houston St) New York, NY 10012 Tel: 212-431-1130 http://www.harvestworks.org info at harvestworks.org Subway: F/V Broadway/Lafayette, 6 Bleeker, W/R Prince From shivamvij at gmail.com Sat Aug 14 13:02:11 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 13:02:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [New_Media_Forum] Data Protection Act..Pros and Cons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Na.Vijayashankar Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 04:40:30 -0000 Subject: [New_Media_Forum] Data Protection Act..Pros and Cons To: new_media_forum at yahoogroups.com Naavi.org is in the process of collecting views from the public on the need for and the nature of the required legislation for "Protection of Privacy Rights of Individuals in Cyber Space" or what is normally in the domain of "Data Protection Act". While the Human Right Activists would like a strong flavour of protection, the Security requirements of the country require the legislation to give sufficient scope to the law Enforcement Authorities. Finding a balance is the tough job for the legislators. I urge interested professionals to submit their views for consolidation and publication at Naavi.org. It is proposed that if there is a good response to this public opinion gathering exercise, a seminar on the theme of "Data Protection Legislation and Its impact on BPO business in India " may be held in Chennai to formulate a recommendation that can be submitted to the Government. It may be recalled that Naavi had organized similar exercises in the past on ITA-2000 through the Netizen's forum and on Communication Convergence Bill through New Media Forum. The present activity is planned to be taken up with the assistance of the Cyber Society of India. Naavi ---------------------------------------------- You may kindly inform your friends to join this group. To join this group a blank e mail may be sent to New_Media_Forum-subscribe at egroups.com Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT ________________________________ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/New_Media_Forum/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: New_Media_Forum-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. - -- I poured reason in two wine glasses Raised one above my head And poured it into my life From dfordesign at yahoo.com Sat Aug 14 13:02:24 2004 From: dfordesign at yahoo.com (Avinash Kumar) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 00:32:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Jhoola Post No.3 - Jhoola as an artefact Message-ID: <20040814073224.36762.qmail@web14107.mail.yahoo.com> SARAI POST 3 STUDYING THE JHOOLA AS AN ARTEFACT Each artifact operates at several levels, and the Jhoola is no different. In its everyday runabout through neighborhoods, it makes connections with people, ideas and objects, and it is these connections that give the Jhoola its existential purpose (so to speak). Some of these connections can be elaborated based on a remarkable text by Charlotte & Peter Fiell in their book �1000 Chairs�. These are� 1) Physical & Psychological (with the individual through form and material) 2) Intellectual / Emotional / Aesthetic / Cultural / Spiritual (with the inner collective senses of meaning and value) 3) Contextual Connections (with the environment through visual / functional cues) 4) Structural Connections (within itself through joineries & structure) 5) Societal Connections (with society & its best interests) This framework of �Connections� seems an appropriate canvas onto which the story of the Jhoola as an artifact can be painted. One of the critical issues that does come about while thinking about designing Jhoolas is that of the footprint of the designer. There are conflicting forces at play � one on hand we appreciate the Jhoola and its maker for its honesty, novelty and quaintness; while simultaneously �correcting� it from the point of view of modern (if myopic) views on quality and design. Wouldn�t Good Design cease to be �Good�, if it erased the marks of the maker? Perhaps it is a question of taking a stand, or of ethics, or maybe of striking a sensitive balance� It seems like the natural recourse in a situation like this today is simply to �upmarket� the product and service... so we go from the roadside chaiwala to chai-bars, and from buttawala to Uncle�s Butter Corn. Is it all good? Not really. But it is inevitable in a crowded market with much money to be made. Is there an alternative? That�s what we are trying do. For me, that is the greater design issue here at play � the place of the designed object in the original context. It is a natural, but big leap to then start thinking about redesigning (or atleast relooking) the design context itself. As if to say that if a new Jhoola were to be introduced into the old system, then the Jhoolewala, the children, the parents and the city must change too. Is it unrealistic to adopt this systems view of the design process? Perhaps not, especially given the exciting possibility to design a newer way of play, of leisure, or of livelihood. So not only are we designing the product / artifact, we are also going to design the processes then. More simply, we will think about designing the verbs (playing, pushing, paying, etc.) in addition to the nouns (jhoola, garment, money etc.). Avinash Kumar --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040814/ee9f809a/attachment.html From kristoferpaetau at WEB.DE Wed Aug 11 15:16:24 2004 From: kristoferpaetau at WEB.DE (Kristofer Paetau) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 11:46:24 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] RE-INSTITUTIONALIZE #03: St. Stephanus Church (exhibition) Message-ID: <794326376@web.de> If you didn't see the exhibition at the St. Stephanus Church, featuring the Photo Collection of Torsten Prothmanns living room, you are welcome to have a look at the documentation with an interview & photos of the show: A web documentation to view at: http://www.paetau.com/downloads/Re-Institutionalize/StStephanusEnglish.html A PDF documentation (1,5 MB) to download at: http://www.paetau.com/downloads/Re-Institutionalize/StStephanusEnglish.pdf Falls Sie die Ausstellung in der St. Stephanus-Kirche nicht sehen konnten - mit der Fotosammlung aus Torsten Prothmanns Wohnzimmer - gibt es jetzt eine Dokumentation mit einem Interview & Fotos von der Ausstellung: Eine Webdokumentation zum Anschauen: http://www.paetau.com/downloads/Re-Institutionalize/StStephanusDeutsch.html Ein PDF Dokument (1,5 MB) zum Runterladen: http://www.paetau.com/downloads/Re-Institutionalize/StStephanusDeutsch.pdf Best, MfG. Kristofer Paetau -- If you do not want mails anymore, just reply and write UNSUBSCRIBE in the mail subject, or try to unsubscribe automatically by sending an empty e-mail from your e-mail account to: ARTINFO-L-unsubscribe-request at listserv.dfn.de -- - ________________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt neu bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://freemail.web.de/?mc=021193 From shivamvij at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 20:01:21 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 20:01:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Scholars and Stooges Message-ID: Scholars and Stooges Indian academic life is unsure of what excellence means By Pratap Bhanu Mehta The Telegraph / 12 August 2004 http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040812/asp/opinion/story_3544238.asp# A change of regime in Delhi has occasioned numerous academic appointments and committees. Many academically heavyweight positions are likely to be filled in the coming months. But these appointments, and the discourse that surrounds them, are revealing at least as much about the crisis of Indian academic life as they are about the ideological preferences of the government. When the government constituted a committee comprising of Professors De, Grewal and Settar, to examine the content of the history textbooks, the first reaction of most academic colleagues, regardless of party lines, was some lament to the effect that the government should have found someone below retirement age to carry out this task. But if you followed up this comment with a question, "Whom would you recommend?" there was a long silence. In the gossip circles of Delhi, there is much talk about appointing a new director for Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, a significant institution for historians. But it is noticeable that most participants in this gossip are very hesitant to recommend names. It is astonishing that even in as well-established an academic discipline as history, there seems to be a dearth of names that command general intellectual respect. Imagine the story in other disciplines. The Delhi School of Economics, once a giant in both economics and sociology, is a pale shadow of its own past. While it still has very good talent, in both these disciplines it no longer has the commanding presence it used to. And in fact it has a difficult time finding talent whose reputation is commensurate with its own history. The story is even worse in disciplines like political science and philosophy, where the veneer of serious academic talent seems thinner still. The sense that there is a crisis of academic leadership is very palpable across a range of disciplines. This judgment is not based on some romanticized version of our academic past. After all, in academics, as in history, time often consecrates eminence. Those whom we designate as academic giants in retrospect, suffered from a similar crisis of credibility when they first appeared on the intellectual horizon. Many of the so-called giants of the field, especially in disciplines like history and economics, ran intellectually closed shops. It could be argued that there is no real diminution in the level of average professional competence in these fields. Yet there is a sense that we are experiencing an unprecedented vacuum in higher education. Why? There are many reasons for this. The political economy of higher education has altered drastically. The deteriorating state of our universities and incentives abroad make retaining talent very difficult. In disciplines like economics and history, the brain drain is quite staggering. A list of all those names who command general academic admiration, but who have left India, would take more column space than would be prudent to use up. The reasons for this attrition from Indian academic life are quite complex. It is true that many of our institutions do not reward talent. But in disciplines like history and economics, many of those who left were at the top of the profession in India, widely acknowledged and celebrated: Kaushik Basu, Veena Das, Gyan Pandey, to take some random recent examples. We ought not to rush to judgment about the choices Indian academics have made. But we should recognize that there is an institutional cost to these choices. The character of academic life has become ideologically more partisan. Academic life has always been characterized by partisanship, sometimes ideological, sometimes venial. But we have reached a point where it has become almost impossible to detach the idea of excellence from a scholar's theoretical or political positions. Judgments of excellence have become internal to sub-communities of academics. While we can name many professionally outstanding individuals, we are less sure that they will command some general credibility across theoretical or party affiliations. Sometimes, paradoxically, greater professionalism also diminishes general credibility. Academics lose the ability to reach even a wider audience of academics, let alone the general public. Then there is what we might call the phenomenon of institutional secession. Given the difficulties of institutional life in Indian universities, good scholars adopted one of the following strategies. Many of them chose to set up or affiliate themselves with small research institutions that became little islands of autonomy and occasionally excellence. But the cost was that these academics became less involved in teaching and the mainstream of university life. Two consequences followed. First, some of our best scholars have not been able to produce a critical mass of students. They have not been able to institutionalize first-rate research programmes that are necessary to sustain standards in the long run. Second, the power to command general credibility often comes from teaching, especially at critical institutions like Calcutta or Delhi University. Teaching can put a stamp of authority on a figure larger than even their scholarship. And students, more than the scholarly community, are both more tolerant of diversity and a real source of reputation. Other scholars still, who chose to remain in the university system, de facto seceded by withdrawing from institutional life altogether. The result was that even the excellence that remains is fragmented and under-institutionalized. There was perhaps a time when association with power did not diminish intellectual credibility. This was because the political climate did not force those in positions of power to make so many compromises. And those who were in power saw themselves as upholding a professional trust. In contemporary times, association with power almost automatically diminishes credibility, whether you are a vice-chancellor or simply the chair of a department. As a result, almost any academic who takes part in active institutional life, runs the risk of appearing tainted in one form or the other: they have either had to annoy enough people that their reputations suffer, or they have had to placate enough people that they come across as mere stooges. But institutional responsibility these days invariably seems to diminish academics. The result is a general crisis of credibility. In a curious way, we have also come to associate a certain kind of eminence with age more than we used to. So there might be a number of people in the age-group of forty-something, who are considered too young to provide academic leadership merely on account of their age, thus exacerbating a sense of vacuum. This is a shame. If the history of our own academic institutions is any guide, plenty of young academics have provided sterling leadership in the past. I suspect we resort to age as an argument more because we are unsure of our own judgments. So the hesitation of my interlocutors on the subject of academic appointments was entirely justified. This is not because they could not name individuals whose scholarship or good sense they could trust. But what they had less confidence in was the ability of these names to evoke widespread enthusiasm. Whether the current round of committees and appointments will lead to a better academic culture — in the best sense of that impoverished term — remains to be seen. If early evidence coming from the ministry of human resource development is any guide, the "detoxification" drive against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that is currently underway is also premised on a short-sighted view of what academic life should be about. But the difficulty we are having in making appointments that command general assent is more evidence that our academic life is fragmented, partisan and unsure of what excellence means. It shows that we have difficulty thinking of what a genuinely liberal academic life would look like. (The author is president designate, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi.) From shivamvij at gmail.com Sat Aug 14 13:09:45 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 13:09:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On Journalism Message-ID: --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE THEORY --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Diversified, efficient societies need credible media. - Inadequate reporting fails to effectively monitor and control government (and various lobbies) - Legislation on complex matters is likelyto turn out inadequate unless media present sufficient background information and provide an enlightening public debate. (Reinold E Thiel) - High prices and poor business decisions are inevitable consequences of inept market reporting (Jenny Luesby) - If civic organisations are not perceived to be relevant, their scope of action will be further reduced. [Source D+C, Development & Cooperation, July 2004] --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE UNQUOTE: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Unfortunately journalists have a rather shabby reputation. They are often accused of being sensationalist and superficial. Time constraints are an important reason for this. Deadlines rarely leave enough time to come up with a perfect product. It has always been like this, but the pressure is constantly growing. Global networks mean global data overload. Thanks to digital technology, press agencies have dramatically increased their output, while political parties, corporations and interest groups all produce more and more information material.... -- Dr Hans Dembowski, EditorinChief D+C From sourav at gmx.net Thu Aug 12 22:47:02 2004 From: sourav at gmx.net (Sourav) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 22:47:02 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Media romanticizing rapists Message-ID: <20040812171716.9FB7628D9A7@mail.sarai.net> Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood is not a solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But I don't know where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide us and we will send the signatures and mails against hanging. Sourav. West Bengal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040812/f457e245/attachment.html From eye at ranadasgupta.com Mon Aug 16 14:05:51 2004 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:05:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America Message-ID: <412071E7.9090102@ranadasgupta.com> book review by a friend of mine at USC. touches on important themes of knowledge, belief and crisis. R Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America Peter Knight (ed) New York and London: New York University Press, 2002 A Review by Christopher H. Smith, University of Southern California, USA. Considering the unfolding post-September 11th era of surveillance, paranoia, and covert paramilitary engagement, Peter Knight’s Conspiracy Nation anthology appears fortuitous. Conspiracy, after all, seems an appropriate interpretive mode for an unsettling structure of feeling constituted by “Jihad,” “regime change,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “undisclosed locations,” and “total information awareness,” not to mention “hanging chads,” “document shredding,” and “whistle-blowing.” In one of the theoretical critiques contributed to the collection, Fran Mason suggests that we all occupy conspiratorial subject positions amid a disquieting social milieu; we wage an interminable struggle to map the truth of our increasingly fragmented, yet perilously connected, world. Indeed, the uncanny restlessness of everyday life has been exacerbated post-9/11 by the abiding suspicion that significant disclosures on mechanisms of national security and economic prosperity are being withheld, p erhaps “for our own good,” or perhaps because these revelations would reveal malfeasance by those “in the know.” The most apt metaphor for our age is thus that of “the smoking gun.” Tellingly, in the lead essay Skip Willman rephrases this metaphor as a definitive conundrum: “Do we inhabit a conspiratorial universe in which mysterious forces manipulate history, or one driven by contingency in the forms of chance, accident, randomness, and chaos?” (25) While this potentially debilitating information gap threatens to obscure democratic process, American citizenry has been reassured that the discerning oversight of a vigilant executive branch will prevail over uncertainty. For many otherwise trusting and loyal citizens of the country, this benevolent claim has not made for a particularly good night’s sleep. Conceived at an academic conference in 1998, Conspiracy Nation does not delve directly into the labyrinth of post-9/11 speculative discourses, and therefore in certain respects the book’s cumulative insights seem muted. The momentous historical cleavage of 9/11 aside, the eleven essays collected in this volume do succeed in offering a compelling assessment on the crises of knowledge endemic to globalization, multiculturalism, and postmodernity-- crises that many people in the United States increasingly identify and explain via conspiracy theories of often cosmic proportions. Ranging in scope from alien abduction sagas and the paranoid fiction of Thomas Pynchon and Don Delillo, to the cult television sensation The X-Files and the mass-market paradigm of motivational research, the authors in this collection diagnose conspiratorial symptoms throughout the American social body. The primary ambition via this scholarly triage is to redeem conspiracy and paranoia from the pathologi zed margins of social relations, and for the most part this “normalization” objective is attained with acuity. Eithne Quinn’s essay on Tupac Shakur exemplifies the quality of the writing in much of the collection and it offers an especially well-phrased analysis of the rapper’s racially over-determined celebrity status, and his concomitant lyrical shift from black activist poetics to cryptic conspiratorial rhetoric. Quinn argues that Tupac’s “paranoid style” comprised performative gestures that “laid bare the fractures produced by the combination of an inordinate sense of agency conferred by media spotlight and a genuine sense of responsibility he bore as [racial] representative, coupled with his debilitating lack of autonomy in the face of wider industrial, discursive, and political forces” (192). Unfortunately, the “keeping it real” modernist code of the gangsta rap genre precluded Tupac from maintaining his spectacularly scattered subjectivity for very long. While Conspiracy Nation amply introduces some of the formative texts of conspiracy scholarship, there is a sense of redundancy in its overall theoretical approach. References to Frederic Jameson’s definitive text Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism seem to pop up on every other page, and passages from Slavoj Žižek and Jean-François Lyotard appear frequently as well. This somewhat narrow theoretical framework leads to some glaring blind-spots, the most telling of which is an inattention to the apocalyptic and millennial sensibilities that have defined significant aspects of the American mindset in the postwar era -- neither “religion” nor “Christianity” are to be found in the book’s index. In his well-crafted essay on “Agency Panic and the Culture of Conspiracy,” Timothy Melly flirts with the apocalyptic nature of many American conspiracy cultures when he says that “most conspiracy theories are virtually impossible to confirm”, and “require a form of quasi -religious conviction, a sense that the conspiracy in question is an entity with almost supernatural powers” (59). While this description certainly sounds like it could include prophetic belief, the anthology as a whole fails to notice the connection. Perhaps the notion of religion is too difficult an area for this redemption project to take on. Ironically, the vexed relationship between certain conspiracy narratives and progressive political agendas is precisely the subject of Jack Bratich’s essay, “Injections and Truth Serums,” wherein he investigates the obstacle posed against Left-wing constituencies by AIDS conspiracy theorists. Rather than close the Left off from the forms of subjugated knowledge that challenge its monopoly on radical politics, Bratich calls for a “politics of articulation, one that brings into question the very desire to avoid conspiracy theories and the aspiration to identify with a regime of truth” (147-48). Whether a willful omission or merely an oversight, this theoretical interpolation goes unheeded in Conspiracy Nation with respect to religion, and thus a prime opportunity to historicize postwar America’s paranoid “cognitive map” in theological terms is lost. From eye at ranadasgupta.com Mon Aug 16 14:23:07 2004 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:23:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] North Carolina congressional candidate: Pakistani a 'Terrorist' Message-ID: <412075F3.5000400@ranadasgupta.com> N.C. Candidate: Pakistani a 'Terrorist' Monday August 16, 2004 4:01 AM CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - A Pakistani man charged with immigration violations after filming Charlotte skyscrapers is described as a ``terrorist'' who came to the country ``to kill you'' in a new television ad from a North Carolina congressional candidate. Vernon Robinson began airing the ad days before his runoff election Tuesday in a Republican primary against state Sen. Virginia Foxx. Kamran Akhtar, arrested July 20, has been in custody ever since on immigration charges and on charges he made false statements to officers. Authorities say he also videotaped buildings in Dallas, Houston and Las Vegas, and an investigation into whether he has ties to terrorism is ongoing. His family has said Akhtar is a video buff. Akhtar's attorney, George Miller, called the political ad ``grossly unfair.'' ``We haven't even had a probable cause hearing,'' Miller told the Charlotte Observer. ``There's been no trial. There's been nothing.'' Stricter enforcement of immigration laws has been a central issue in Robinson's campaign. His new ad shows a picture of Akhtar. ``When Vernon said our unguarded Mexican border was a threat to our national security, the liberals laughed,'' an announcer says in the ad. ``They're not laughing anymore. This is Pakistani terrorist Kamran Akhtar. He got arrested videotaping targets in Charlotte, North Carolina. He came here illegally, across our Mexican border.'' Then Robinson speaks: ``I'm Vernon Robinson and I approve this message because Akhtar didn't come here to live the American dream. He came here to kill you. In Congress, I will shut that border down.'' Robinson doesn't apologize for the ad. ``If it quacks like a duck and we're in war time, I think it's a fair assessment,'' he said. ``He wasn't a tourist (and) wasn't here to study architecture.'' From shivamvij at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 19:44:52 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:44:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Geelani exhibition Message-ID: Dear all: Coverage of this in the press has been woefully inadequate. The people doing the exhibition are the All India Defence Committee for SAR Geelani. The posters were really very well made and would embarass even the ABVP activists who got the exhibition stalled by just shouting a few slogans to establish that they could disrupt la and order, and the VC got a good excuse. I saw the exhibition held privately in the on-campus residence of a teacher at St. Stephen's. - Shivam Protests in DU against 'censorship' TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2004 10:09:52 PM ] NEW DELHI: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=814298 Delhi University forum for democracy organised a march in the north Campus on Friday to protest against the way in which the university had forced cancellation of a poster exhibition 'Lies of our Times' and a seminar to be addressed by teachers of the University. They demanded that the V-C order revocation of the circular stopping such activity and ensure that the events were held in a free atmosphere. A memorandum in this regard was submitted to the V-C which was signed by 1,159 members of the university. Hundreds of students and teachers participated in the march to express their outrage at the attempt by the authorities to suppress democratic activity. "This has never happened before. It is unprecedented in the history of the university that a peaceful exhibition has been stopped," said Svati Joshi, convenor. From shivamvij at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 19:46:15 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:46:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Chirkut Times Message-ID: 'Chirkut' enters political lexicon By AKSHAYA MUKUL TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2004 05:28:11 AM ] NEW DELHI: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/812898.cms The "chirkut" brouhaha began with Satyavrat Chaturvedi of Congress calling SP's Amar Singh a frivolous person and the latter countering with the retort: "So what if am a 'chirkut'?" Their "mutual appraisal" could best be left to themselves but it has evoked a small debate, something the world of Hindi literature is used to. More than a year ago, columnist Prabhash Joshi called writer Ashok Vajpayee "darukuta" (fond of wine, women) leading to a series of exchanges between them. Noted critic Alok Rai, who has worked on the history of Hindi language, sees the "chirkut" debate differently. "Sophistication is a kind of facade but it is necessary? 'Chirkut' might be a common word in UP and Bihar but its free use in politics should be desisted," he says. He, however, concedes that few could still argue that free use of the word denotes democratisation of politics. "I still feel sophistication be retained." Rajendra Yadav, editor of the Hindi literary magazine Hans, has a different take. He feels that use of "chirkut" for political opponents symbolises the death of ideology in politics. "If you have ideological differences, you would counter them ideologically. But the political class is the same and is there to help each other. So they indulge in such language." From eye at ranadasgupta.com Tue Aug 17 08:27:03 2004 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 08:27:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Communists on education: West Bengal Education speaks Message-ID: <412173FF.9060709@ranadasgupta.com> Speaks for itself. R The Telegraph, August 12 2004 Oxbridge Will Take India Down The Drain: Kanti NEW DELHI, Aug 11. - If the University of Oxford or Cambridge or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set up branches in India, it will hurt the nation's culture and character, not to speak of the damage to national economic planning. This is the view of the West Bengal education minister, Mr Kanti Biswas. A Kolkata branch of say, the University of Oxford, will be against national interest, he felt. In the Capital to represent West Bengal at the Central Advisory Board of Education meeting, Mr Biswas told reporters he strongly opposed India's decision to agree to the General Agreement on Trade Services clauses in the WTO, because the Oxbridge universities and MIT would open branches here or offer degrees to people based here. He found three major reasons to oppose such a move. First, the syllabi would not reflect Indian culture and ideas, merely an alien one. Secondly, the institutions would be coming to India simply to make money, not work in the interest of the Indian nation. As Mr Biswas, the Bengal minister for primary and secondary education, said, there is no guarantee about what will be taught. Thirdly, the presence of private institutions like Oxbridge would upset the system of planning for the country. If all higher education institutions are 'Indian' or government-run, the government can involve itself in long-term planning. Also, these institutions, he said, could teach something that may not be required in terms of manpower planning, suggesting that these people would be virtually unemployable. Asked why graduates from elite Western universities were then given jobs in India, including in the government, the minister said there would be no objection to that. Dr Asim Dasgupta, Mr Biswas' Cabinet colleague went to MIT. Other prominent Marxist leaders in Bengal, including the former chief minister, Mr Jyoti Basu, studied in the UK. Mr Biswas felt such institutions should be allowed in only if the Indian or state government were allowed to determine the syllabi and decide on what the tuition fees to be charged from the students. The damage has already been done, he warned. Two institutions, affiliated to the University of Cambridge, have been set up in Rajasthan. From definetime at rediffmail.com Mon Aug 16 15:18:53 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 16 Aug 2004 09:48:53 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (fwd)A crisis in the fourth estate Message-ID: <20040816094853.10551.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040816/2c2fa005/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   A crisis in the fourth estate In the chase for higher ratings and circulation the media are falling prey to populism and so failing in their primary duty - to keep the public properly informed, argues Jürgen Krönig Monday August 16, 2004 The Guardian The dream that the new information age would be one of greater enlightenment, of a rational discourse and greater participation has not come true. Governments feel haunted by an aggressive media. That the media act as if they were a kind of conspiracy attempting to keep the population "in a permanent state of self-righteous rage" is the complaint in London. In Germany, one day, a red-top such as Bild demands tough action against the pension crisis; when politicians act, it accuses them of "stealing the pensions". To avoid any misunderstanding: a natural tension between politics and the media has always existed and that is right and necessary. Without a free press there is no public sphere, no informed citizen and thus no democracy. The fourth estate, however, is more powerful than ever. It is shaped by two dominating principles - sensationalism and simplification, which the American sociologist Robert McChesney, in his book Rich Media, Poor Democracy, defines as the consequence of "hyper commercialisation". It has led to ever fiercer ratings and circulation wars, which inevitably leads to what is called "dumbing down". To succeed, the media industry tries to appeal to the lower instincts of people. Of course it is one thing to pander to lower instincts. But they have to be there in the first place, and so has the willingness to be pandered to. In the end, people have a choice. One has to face an unpalatable reality: a Rupert Murdoch or Silvio Berlusconi, whose media outlets are giving the people what they want - fun, games and entertainment - is more "democratic" than the cultural elites, who tried imposing their values and standards on the masses. The appeal to the lowest common denominator is shaping the content of TV and popular culture more than ever. For programmes to be successful, they have to promise to be ever more outrageous - explicit sex, exhibitionism, violence and voyeurism have become their vital ingredients. Highly successful reality TV formats such as Big Brother and I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here are tellingly equipped with an element of direct democracy. Audiences are asked to vote; it does not matter if they use their right to vote once or dozens of times. Most of these programmes belong to the category of "sado-maso TV" - the participants must accept they are to be humiliated, they have to satisfy lower human instincts such as gloating and voyeurism; for their moment of TV fame they must do ghastly things, eat worms, dive into snake-infested swamps or wade through shit. In the "democratic age" news and information have been transformed. The way politics is covered has changed radically. Papers don't "report" news, they quite often present it according to their preferences and prejudices. The growth of columnists has led to the birth of a "Commentariat". It contains a few excellent and analytical minds, but all too often reasonable, balanced voices are drowned out by journalists who seem untainted by facts or deeper knowledge but replace this with gleefully presented prejudices. A lot of modern political journalism ignores context and complexity, presenting everything in black and white, while the nature of politics most of the time is a balancing act between contradictory interests and demands. No surprise, then, that politicians are losing control over the political agenda. The much-maligned spin doctor was an attempt to win back the initiative. It failed a long time ago. News has become more superficial and sensational. The need for images and pictures is greater than ever. News is too often degenerating into "disastertainment". Public service broadcasters are not immune to this trend. Ofcom registered a decline of up to 25% in their political content over the past decade. But more has changed than just the extent of coverage. Sensationalism and oversimplification are affecting the output of all media. There is less room for a balanced approach, for analysis instead of going for the crass headline or extraordinary story. The merciless hunt for weaknesses and inconsistencies of politicians and other public figures has become prevalent. Furthermore, the rhythms of politics and the media are drifting apart. After the end of the great ideological divide, politics is more often than not undramatic, complex, not easy to understand and therefore more difficult and boring to report. Quite often results of political decisions, in education or welfare, can be judged only years after implementing them. That is the opposite of what the modern media want. They have a 24-hour mindset, shaped by the demand for ever shorter soundbites. They are impatient, short-termist, they want results here and now. Media language has changed, too. What we are observing is an adjectival degradation. Every report, coming from inside governments or institutions outside is, if it contains some form of criticism, therefore "damning", "devastating" or "scathing". Warnings, which most of the time were not heeded anyhow, are "stark", differences of opinion between politicians of the same party are "dramatic splits", developments are "alarming" - the consumer of the media is confronted with a permanent linguistic overkill. Official language is evolving in the opposite direction, it is becoming more sanitised, cautious, bureaucratic and politically correct. All this has contributed to change democratic politics for the worse. The electorate has become hostile and distrustful of the media and politicians alike. Trust has broken down threefold, between people and politicians, media and people, journalists and politicians, with the latter now observing each other with deep distrust and mutual antipathy. A vicious circle has established itself. Journalists claim that the political culture is not appealing to the public; driven by commercial considerations and market pressures, the media are therefore reducing their political coverage even further. The chances of the public receiving the information they need to participate in the rituals of democracy are declining even more. The Phillis committee, set up to look at government communications, has confirmed this bleak outlook. Politicians have given up trying to get their message across via newspapers, which they regard as hopelessly partisan and biased; newspapers no longer believe much of what the government is saying. Which leaves public service broadcasters in an even more important and responsible position. If public service broadcasting, torn between commercial pressures and public duty, surrenders even more than it has done already to the culture of contempt, there will be only a few niche outlets left in the fourth estate willing to promote and practise a fair journalistic approach to politics. Sections of the BBC were operating on the basis of a strong antipolitical bias, like many of their colleagues in the press, regarding all politicians at the end of the day as "lying bastards", who could never be trusted. Self-criticism is not popular among the media. Indeed, sometimes it seems that's the media's only taboo. Some journalists and broadcasters are aware of the danger. Andrew Gowers, editor of the Financial Times, wrote earlier this year, after Lord Hutton had delivered his judgment, "for while the crisis at the BBC is deep-seated, it is merely part of a broader malaise; journalists' reflexive mistrust of every government action is corroding democracy". And Martin Kettle remarked in the Guardian that the Kelly and Gilligan affair "illuminates a wider crisis in British journalism than just the turmoil at the BBC". He remains deeply sceptical about the willingness of the fourth estate to address this crisis. Democracy and civil society need informed citizens, otherwise they will have difficulties in surviving. Without media organisations aware of their own power and responsibility, an informed citizenship cannot be sustained. What our democracies have got today is an electorate which is highly informed about entertainment, consumer goods and celebrities, while being uninterested in and/or deeply cynical about politics, equipped with short attention spans and a growing tendency to demand instant gratification. Politics in western democracies is mutating into a strange kind of hybrid, a semi-plebiscitarian system, in which the mass media represent the new "demos". If this trend cannot be reversed the political arena might become even emptier than it is now. It might only be filled again, if seductive populism calls. When democracy is running out of control, it is the politicians who suffer first. Once the demos in ancient Athens and during the French Revolution had developed a taste for more power, it looked for and found its victims as easily as authoritarian tyrannies did and disposed of them. · Jürgen Krönig is the UK editor of Die Zeit From dknitenine at hotmail.com Mon Aug 16 14:19:38 2004 From: dknitenine at hotmail.com (dknite nite) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 08:49:38 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] next posting/family and work Message-ID: this is the outline of the historical development of the labour regime and the everyday lives of the coalminers in the jharia coalfield. Work and Time: The Everyday Lives of the Jharia Coalfield Mazdoors, 1890s-1970s. A [remarkably] large size of the labouring masses in the Jharia coalfield invested their gruelling labour �time and power�, blood, perspiration and lives in ensuring the memorable and priding achievements [viz. sinking pits, digging quarries & inclines and, securing a huge number of coal raisings ] at a lower cost of per unit of labour . The industry was from the beginning �labour intensive� (more than sixty percent of the cost of production was on labour). The size of the labouring masses was around ten thousand during the early years of the decade of 1900�s. It rose sheerly to one lakh plus by 1920-21. Thereafter, it shrank a little during the period of depressed coal prices (1930-34), during the following decades it rose to 1.25 lakh plus in 1938-39, 1.5 lakhs (1942), 1.24 Lakhs (1944-45), 1.34 lakhs (1951), 1.23 lakhs (1969) and 1.37 lakhs in 1971 . It comprised the mazdoors largely of those social groups like, the small tenants, dwarf landholders, landless labourers, bonded labourers as well as craftsmen of more or less similar sort of socio-economic background. Most of them amassed from neighbouring bastis (such as Chandankyari, Baliapur, Tundi, Govindpur, Topchanchi, Baghmara, Nirsa, Chas, and Purulia blocks of Manbhum district); and nearby districts such as, Hazaribagh, Bankura, Bardhman & Santhal Pargana in the early phase of the colliery working . They were, however, accompanied by a small proportion of �mining community� who came from Raniganj coalfield or were in some way linked to the Raniganj colliers . A sizeable labouring poor hailed from the 1910s and the 1920s onwards, from the far distant areas such as, the districts of Gaya, Monghyr, Patna, Sahabad, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, Pratapgarh, Mirzapur, Naurangi, Raipur and Bilaspur (CP); while some other came from the �states� of Punjab, Orissa, Madras (Andhra Pradesh) and Bengal (Mednipore). They clearly outnumbered the adjacent workers by the 1950s. A number of second generation collieries Mazdoors began to enter into the mining work from the 1950s and 60s . Most of them (60% plus) had to work at underground work places of inclines and shaft mines, popularly known as Sirmuha and Khadan. These were dark and lit only by kupbatti (dhibri) till the 1920s, in the later decades by lantern and the 1960s onwards by caplamp (along with a few electric bulbs) carried by miners. Rest of the Mazdoors had worked in quarries and at surface work-as wagon loader, sale-picker, earthcutters boilers, chanuk-drivers, construction workers, electricians, etc. They had to adjust to the painstaking working and living conditions prevailed in the coalfield. These conditions were a part of the all-encompassing mining regimes, which also included the time-regime. Mostly, they had made innovative, creative, emollient and enduring efforts adapting to the regimenting situation, i.e. time regime so that they could carry their wage work on in the collieries for securing physical and generational survivable as well as fulfilling socio-familial obligations. Notwithstanding, some working population had resigned. Their following folktales (?) give me insight into their experiences and acts of adaptation to the condition of work and time regime. I here intend to investigate the pattern of adaptation of the colliery Mazdoors to the working-time regime in particular, during the period of the 1890s-1970s. It involves these enquiry into the following aspects of the colliers� lives. They faced what form of work-time routine, and the ways of its imposition? How did they experience the work routine? What were their conception of work time which mediated their strategies of organising work time? How did they respond to the work time regime? What kind of pattern did emerge of those attempts of adaptation between the 1890s and the 1970s? The scholars have analysed in different ways the issue of �adaptation�. The employers and their representative scholars have largely approached the issue in terms of a matter of labour supply and the problem of work discipline. According to them, the labouring people � who were predominantly agriculturist associated with non-mining natural inclination and habits � had to cope up with the time discipline/production rhythm. There pertained opposition between the two forms of time orientation viz. of the employer on the one hand and the mining community on the other. The latter could not fully synchronise with the mining tempo. It posed problems to the growth of mining industry. This above discussion had nothing to do with the questions such as, how did miners conceive & experience the time regime, and interact with & respond to it. The �critical theory� approaches the issue of adaptation in a different way. The former regards it as a structural issue. The status of miners as agriculturists would not be as central here as the separation of miners from the means of work/production, as well as the structure of authority organising the economy (including labour relation and production process). It is the capitalist who owned means of work and, dominated the structure of authority organising the economy. The issue of adaptation is located on the structure of relationship between the capitalist and the labourers. The former is constantly on the search of ways (for expanding capital and its profit) to drive up the work day in length and intensity � which of course is contrary to the �needs of human beings to have time for themselves, for rest and for their own self development.� Thus there has been a contradiction in the orientation regarding the time of the capitalist on the one hand and the labourers on the other. And the latter has to cope up with the situation. Thus, the study of the structural adaptation of labourers to time regime is also a study of the structure of labour relation and response of workers to the organisation of means of work and the organisation of the economy in general . The popular literature on this matter usually links an act of adaptation to the �conflicting orientations of employers and the labourers�. And they just stop here. E.P Thompson in his essay suggested that if the industrial society has to mature, it would have to change the habits of labourers. The question that has not been raised is following: if the working classes have to survive with dignity and comfort, they will have to resolve the structural contradiction. And the issue of adjusting to the institution of work time routine is also linked to the workers� responses to the authority, commanding the organisation of economy. I will here attempt to study the adaptation process by linking it to these concerns/questions. If the responses of the majdoors happened to be of more than one kind, What was the nature of tie-in between them, specially in �revolutionary manner� on the one hand and �conservative manner� & �compromising way on other�? I have divided the period of my investigation into three sections. One, from the 1890s to the 1920s; 2nd from the 1920s to the 1940s; and 3rd from the 1940s to the early years of the 1970s. I The labouring poor were brought in or/and arrived colliery primarily for �wage work� in order to fetch cash money for subsisting themselves and their families in the coalfield or/and in their villages . Some of them were service tenants of mine owners cum zamindars for example, in Bhowra (Eastern India Coal Company), Jealgora(East India Coal Company), Raniganj Coal Company, etc . They got themselves employed at the large numbers of mines, fluctuated between 200 plus around 1910, 424 in 1944/45, 279[1969], and 327 in 1971 . The mines were of a size employing a few dozens miners to those employing some thousands of workers . They could be classified into four broad categories on the basis of their spatial and temporal engagement with the colliery-work uptil 1920s. 1. Sedentary family Mazdoors- the miners who settled in the coalfield and lived largely in the Dhowrahs provided by mine owners/Malik. Some of them also lived in on rented rooms. Contractors largely provided such rooms. Some other erected their huts of mud and thatch. Some miners lived in their Bustees. 2.Regular urban commuters- from adjoins Bustees. 3. Regular single male colliers or Regular rural urban Mazdoors- both from adjacent and distant areas. 4. Seasonal rural urban Mazdoors- both from neighbouring as well as distant areas. They were different from those Mazdoors who used seasonally to go back to their villages but regularly revert to coalfield. They could ostensibly go at work at the time they wished in the morning, and could leave at any time . The usual working day at majority of mines happened to be the entire period in a day when sunlight was available because, the electricity was available at maximum at 50 collieries even by 1925 . One chief Engineer in Bhowra colliery noted: �The absence of strikes prior to the 1920 was because miners and their families were allowed to work when they please, and to come up & down as they chose�. The form of miners associated with this practice of working had primarily been piece rated miners such as, coalcutter, loaders, trammers, railway mistress, wagon-loader, etc- who constituted a great majority of the world of miners . Nevertheless, they in practice faced the structure of working time routine, set by �exacting mechanism� of employers. It was to suit latter�s sense of demand of coal and production pattern of industry itself. The mines happened to lower down their working pace during the rainy season. During normal season, employers expected from miners the utilisation of their labour time �at most�. The �coercive socio-physical and economic� mechanism of extraction of labour-time was installed, like tea gardens in Assam. It was the lower rung of the supervisory authorities - under both sarkari and thekadari system that used to drive the miners to almost whole the day that they used to be there . The labour contractors used to recruit labouring poor from contiguous and distant areas. They received commission (around 8-14%) on each coal-tub cut by miners under them. That�s why, they, even if not working as mining sirdar , used to drive their miners as long as possible in a day and week and season that miners happened to be in the coalfield. They deployed lathaith/pehalwan for this purpose. Some of them were also local zamindars such as zamindar of Mahalbuni, Tetulia etc who provided labouring people to Bhowra colliery. Sardars used to drive colliers from Dhowrahs into the coalmines. It began to be practised more frequently when night-work had been started at some big collieries in the decade of the 1910s and when working of some big shaft mines expanded. The engrossing and exploitative �labour economic� and respective epistemological element of exacting mechanism were manifest in the �mode of compensation�. The latter included two matters. One was a level of payment. Second was a form of paying. This was firmly rooted in the mercantilist conception of or approaches to labour economy i.e. the labour time and the level of earning of workers were inversely proportional. Employers continually explained the so-called practice /habit of �absenteeism� of miners in above terms. It was expressed in the fixation of wage rate during 1900-1920. The wage rate and consequent an average earning of miners during this period rose at maximum by 100%. This happened largely during the period (1914-18) of boom in coal trade. While, the same decades witnessed a rise in prices (of rice a subsistence food stuff) by 150%. Thus, the real wage /real income of �landless miners� had virtually suffered from the decrease. This was the case when colliery owners were crying against the inadequate supply of miners, and coal industry had been expanding. The miners had, thus, faced probably multiple working time routines. The latter varied between mines especially big and small mines. It was also seasonally differentiated. There was notable unlikeness between it ostensible and �implementational forms� . They responded to it in more than one way. The piece-rated miners usually �worked (in boisterous & fitful ways) between 12-16 hours or 18 hours in a day and sometimes some of them were found working more than one or two whole days at underground work places� . Some of them used to work regularly 12-16 hours in a day for six-seven, eight or ten days, then returned back to their rural home for a few days . Chief Inspector of mines Annual report noted in 1904: ��Even in normal time the Dehatis would not work regularly. Some of them worked for six or seven days at a stretch and then returned to their home for a week and rest. And others who came from nearby village stayed for a day in which they spent eighteen hours working underground.� The proportion of above type miners, in the total strength of workers was however declining towards the 1920s. The miners from the immediate bastis in the Manbhum district, who were convincingly predominant till 1910, largely practised this kind of work rhythm. They remained only around 36.7 percent by 1921. Regular rural urban commuters as well as seasonal rural urban labourers practised this sort of working time. Some of them at this time used to come for earning some amount of �cash money� and could not revert to collieries unless and untill the sense of desperate need of cash money further beckoned . E P Thomson noted a similar sort of working practice followed by British labouring masses in the 16th, 17th & 18th centuries . But a large number of such miners would regularly revert to work in colliery with this form of intervals . The sedentary working population also used to, frequently, not work on weekly payday, and rest & celebrate �work free-time� on the day. Some of them extended this free time for one or two days further following the payday. This resembles the working rhythm of the Bombay textile workers . The owners repeatedly bemoaned about the difficulty of securing miners on the day of payment, when the colliers used to go to bazaar after receiving their wages. I am not informed whether employers attempted to physically bring workers back at work at these times? It was evidenced that owners used to take help of local zamindars and their own pehalwan for ensuring the regular attendance of labourers. The distant immigrant miners and the service tenants were �at most vulnerable� to the �mafiacist animalistic feudo- capitalist� exacting mechanism of labour time. In fact, in some cases even the colonial administration had critically remarked on this form of functioning of industrial relation. Colliery owners and labour contractors had vociferously defended the activities of their lathaiths/pehalwans. The structure of time routine had at this time not consisted provision for �paid leave� or � formal leave� or sick leave. Some of the absences from work or � free time� of the miners in the coalfield could, thus, not have strictly been � voluntary absence� from work. M D Morris analysed with this term the issue of work rhythm of textile mills workers in Bombay. Notwithstanding, the above finding about the �working pattern� of miners and its � reinforcement on the structure of working time of employers, yet, stood at its place. The mining classes designed the length of �workday� in relation to the stretch of week/ month or spell of workdays; they had planed to work in the colliery or stay in the coalfield. But this was also influenced by some technical factors. The �mining work� was by inherent dimension, �fitful� in its character. It was by and large dissimilar to the working on �mechanical power driven machines. Everyday the miners especially piece rated worked at a stretch of workday gratifying their �sense of enough coal extraction�, or/and making them feel physically and mentally exhausted. In other words, they cut and loaded an amount of coal, seemingly adequate for their �everyday sustenance�. One miner reported to RCL in 1930: �Unless he works 12 hours plus in a day, he could not fetch the cash earning required for his daily need�. The extraction of coal was done by numerous gangs/Dangles. Each dangal was of 6 to12 colliers. It included mulcuttas, loaders, trammers, mining sirdars etc. The dangal of mulcuttas & loaders were predominantly �family-gang� . The latter included the male, the female and the children. The latter two social groups were predominantly concentrated in work of coal loading alongside of mulcuttas. Usually male members cut coal, while Kamins gathered �cut coal into a basket usually of 80 bl (80 pound=36 kg). The Kamins then laboriously carried out basket on their head and put the coal into either �tubs� kept at some distance from working faces, or up to bullock cart. They sometimes, carried them on head at the surface. A pair of mulcuttas and loaders was found cutting and loading coal on an average, in normal condition, 2 to3 tubs in a day. Some miners owing to all those technical impediments, sometimes, could not secure even �one tub� of coal though worked on so �long workday. They had to extract and load �full tub� of coal either one or more and could not go out with half tub or so. They had, thus, to synchronise with this condition and the nitty-gritty of process of production everyday at the work place. They would make breaks at the working sites for several activities such as lunch, chabbena, water, smoking biri, tambaco, natural calls etc. During the night work, most miners went through some moment of sleeping. They would converse /joke, sing/ hum pipe, among themselves even in course of coal cutting and loading . L.Barnens in her fieldwork noted: �The women workers often narrated with joy �the work they did below ground, the people they worked with, the members of their gangs and how they used to sing and work�. She collected one folktale- �young miner used to take in flute below ground and that he plays music, and women would stop work (?), and sing and dance, so no work was done. Hence, bosses stopped the women from going down the mine�. However, one must be skeptical to the face value of this reporting. Unlike 2nd one, the former does not show the contradiction between work and singing. One engineer, almost two decades latter lamentably transcribed about working practices of miners in these words �they work a little, [sing a little], smoke a little and joke a little. It was also an example that mining community �emolliented/mitigated and internally negotiated the time routine. I am not informed whether some contestation happened over these issues between employers and �actual producers�. At the working site it was the gang headman /gang sirdar who worked out the plan, direction and pace of extraction in combination with the gang members. Gang sirdar supervised the work process and worked along side other miners. The Kamins and children, as loaders, were relatively free/ uninhibited /untied to come & go, work as long they wished, or not at all in the family gangs. They carried their breast-sucking babies below ground, and created temporal space for taking care of them. After the child had finished breast-feeding, they worked as a loader along side the parents, and Kamins could take care of them. The Kamins used to return to their villages for the period of child bearing and rearing. Santhal women loaders interviewed in 1930 revealed: �they often absented themselves for 6 months or one year at the time of childbirth. After this, they could return to the mines &take up employment again�. Thus, family colliers and Kamins in particular could combine production & reproduction /familial tasks in the collieries at this time, as in the pre colliery days. Thus, their practice of working time seems characterized by orientation of function/production-task, sense of cash money necessity as well as, the orientation conditioned by mental and physical �human capacity & �scope of its utilization�, and socio-cultural obligations. It could also be transcribed �an orientation of sense of concrete-time� in Postan's words. The desired amount of raising/ or necessity of �cash money� on the part of miners had manifested in more than �one� linear form. One, which regarded it in correspondence with �an average basic necessity� of working people of social group- the Santhal, the Bauri, the Rajwar, the Ghatwal, the Beldar, the Mushahar and the service tenants. William in 1896 observed: �The Santhals, the Bauris, & few other kindred tribes who work in the mines�like most aboriginals prefer to idle (?) when they have earned enough (?) to satisfy their immediate wants. CIMAR noted in 1906: �- of their Dehati�s collies� he can earn good wages, but for them, money is not everything. He is sensible enough consider comfort (?) and this is one reason which always draws him back to his old home, where he can take ease (?), in congenial surroundings�. In a little contrast, the upcountry workers Paschhimas adopted themselves with machine-mining works, and worked with more �regularity� and consequently they earned a little more. In terms of commitment they were considered to be the nearest to �English Miners� remarked A. E. Azabeg. They worked everyday to meet the �basic necessity�, but do so to the extent that their mental & physical capability allowed them to exert i.e. the maximum raising they could carry out in the given working conditions, by exploiting their mental and physical energy at most. The time rated Mazdoors & service tenant-miners workdays were seemingly guided by the sense of worktime [might be measured by nature�s time]. They were at most vulnerable to the �violent mafiacist animalistic� exacting mechanism. They had to work for a (longer duration) length of time, usually, longer then �common sensual workday corresponding� sunlight period. Underground workers had to adjust to gang of loaders & also negotiate with over-man about the time length. These ways of carrying everyday work and the respective orientations of working time also impinged upon the stretch of days, miners worked and resultant rhythm of works. I have already discussed the ways working people designed �short spell of days of work� and it was usually arranged around �payday� or an average 4/5/6/7/8/10 days. However some miners because of either fear psychic of accident and collapsing physical exhaustion & sickness could discontinue that spell for a while. For it, miners would have to develop tacit understanding with sirdars. And, when this relationship of �despotic patronage� broke, and if it broke confrontaionally in particular, the mazdoor would move away to other colliery. The mining community coped up with this situation in at least two varied ways. The sedentary and regular rural urban Mazdoors of distant areas would leave mines, when they experienced the context of work physically taxing. They escaped from the net of one colliery to another seemingly liveable colliery. That�s why this period witnessed a high rate of movement of miners from one colliery to another, and finally to villages. This was one of the ways of adjustment of Bombay textile workers to their working condition too, as discussed by Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay. Employers transcribed it as unstable and migratory characteristics of Indian miners. They did not look at the non-resolving tension of labour regime confronted with by miners. The laters largely preferred to move to big colliery; especially British owned. The latter apparently paid better wage rate, than smaller & medium sized mines (largely owned by native entrepreneurs) . In contrast, most local and adjacent immigrant rural urban Mazdoors preferred working in Pokharia & Shirmuhan, and only in daytime. They tended to move away from the mines, if it began working nightshift or went deeper. They did so, though got lower wage rate at the respective mines. They, in large number moved to new opened quarries during the 1915-19(boom period for coal trade.). Owners of big collieries sought the intervention of the �colonial government� to check such tendency of miners. The govt had stipulated a provision that �it would buy coal only from big collieries�. Thus, it was not that the �laissez faire� pertained in this period in the sense of absence of involvement of state in regulating the movement of labour and exacting the labour time . The �seasonal arrangement of work pattern� dominated the working practice for a sizeable workforce. They reverted to the villages during seasons of transplantation & harvesting work on their small piece of land or others� land. Indian coalfield committees� reports of 1920/1925 bemoaned against the persistence of �primary agriculturist status � of Indian miners. Some of such reversion, though, mediated by the seasonality of colliery�s functioning/production. A large number of Mazdoors were made redundant during rainy season. Nevertheless, rest of others silently left colliery. It resembled the case of Sri Lankan tea garden labourers of the 18th C, local labourers in Assam tea gardens and Bombay textile mills workers in the latter 19thc & the early 20thc. This reversion was not so easier for service tenants. Zamindars cum colliery owners wanted them to become substitute of reverted non-sedentary workers. I am not informed that how did they cope with this form of organisation of economy. They apparently did not threaten the structure of authority organising economy. One of the ways they opted was to send someone from their family for imposed colliery task�. The arrangement of work- timepieces of the sedentary colliers was also greatly conditioned by the �industrial temporality�. They, though, also visited their bastis between June and August. Majority of them used to visit during months of March, April and May. These periods were both a period of harvesting as well as of festivals & others socio-familial occasions (such as marriage etc). Some majdoors toured their villages for some socio cultural (familial motives) and obligations. A group of miners- Santhalis rarely stayed in Dhowrahs, but went to their Bustees on the occasions of festivals such as, �Sohrai� (in January or Magh month) for about whole month or twenty days. The workers of adjacent areas (the Rajwars, the Turis, the Ghatwals, the Mahtos etc.) used to go to rural home on Tilasakarat/Makarsakranti/Jal/Nadi and Machhali Puja. A large number of up-country single male workers used to return to their villages on festive occasions of Holi (sometimes for a whole month) , Dashahra etc. This resembled with the practice of the festivity of the 17thC & the 18thC British workers. Those who stayed in the coalfield, on the other hand, used to celebrate some festivals such as, Kali-Puja, Durga-Puja, Cake-Puja, and Holi. The mining communities seem to enforce their practice of these festival/ritual-times. I sum up with these remarks on the practices and methods that mining classes fostered in adapting the time routine up to the early 1920s. They faced �multiple work time routines � pursued by employers. These varied between mines especially between bigger and smaller ones. These were everywhere primarily framed by the capitalist deal of employers, tending to( animalistikally and mercantalistically) exact labour time at most from the mining community. Not- withstanding, these were mediated by the nature of coal trade as well as conditioning intervention of nature such as, rainy season.(monsoon could be explained directly as an impediment to mining activity) The form of their interaction with and responses to the time regime was differential. These were not- linear; mono-linear, homogenous and statically uniformed even during the 1890s-1920s. The multilinearity, interruptions and shifts were manifest. Different groups of mining classes perceived and encountered time regimes differently, and worked, a little varyingly at various levels. The piece rated miners had fair amount of control on the decision making structure about the pace and direction of work, and length of workday in normal season at the workplace . Nevertheless, this was possible within the constraints set by employer�s amount of raising and/or length of workday for that and, by the nature of process of production/impediments. A majority of piece rated miners was production-task oriented in day-to-day work at the work places. Their notation (notion)of time was guided by the two senses. One was production-task and, second was the sense of physical and mental capability to exert them. The former was predominant in the case of the set of miners largely sedentary colliers and, from some social groups such as, the Santhal, the Bouris, the Kols, the Ghatwals, the Turis, the Mushahars etc. While the latter was predominant in the case of the rural urban majdoors and from social groups- the CP miners, the Bhuiyan, the Bouris, the Jolahas, the Chamars and other distant immigrant working people. The time rated workers were subject to rigid & severe discipline. For the service tenants the work-time was a time imposed on them. Mostly, the mining communities did not challenge the ceiling of minimum length of workday at the work places but they struggled hard for reinforcing the upper limit of working day. This was aimed to restructure the wage rate . They took resort of it more emphatically in the period of the price inflation of 1915-20. For it, they �internally negotiated� with employers. They, failing in negotiation, preferred to move away to other colliery. If such option was not available some majdoors tried with a tense feeling to lengthen their work-day or recoursed to engaging more family members at work or/and, �debt practice� . Perhaps, this was one of the underlying reasons the tragic folklore of this period (cited earlier) expressed the critical and frightening experiences of majdoors of working condition in broader sense, than of formal time discipline. The working people successfully & �non-confrontaionally� created space and time for continuing pre-colliery working style that was the organic combination of work with rest/break, joy/leisure and reproductive tasks at the work places below ground. Most of them innovated a short spell of days of work as well as a series of these spells. They used to keep off from work at the intervals of these varied spells. This included the seasonality and socio-cultural dimension of working rhythm. In course of executing these working patterns they sometimes took recourse from the act of resignation/grudging conforming, escaping, desertion, internal negotiation against as well as about work-time to remonstrative enforcement or contesting negotiation. They expressed their agonised disagreement and remonstration through �non permitted� or self-declared �free-time� or break/rest-day etc. For it, they had to even negotiate or contest with �exacting means of supervisory authority�. But, these did not target/lead the abolition of structural contradiction of �time-regime� . Some scholars as one of the forms of resistance transcribed the acts of miners moving from one colliery to another and so called the idling practices or absenteeism on different occasions. The act of resistance would mean, in my mind, the act of opposing something from unfolding /happenings. In this sense the acts of moving away from one colliery to the other, could not turn to be a resistance. These seem to have been largely acts of �non-conformist desertions� or �remonstrative-escaping�. Nevertheless, their working practices constantly and submissively worked to mitigate a little the sapping/taxing tension ridden labour/time regime they lived in . These practices, in fact, mediated in coping up with that situation . The former sometimes proved one of the conditioning factors for the latter. James Mackie (the manager of Bhowra colliery) stated: �The compulsory shift can not be started since the most miners were�. commuting daily from distant villages (mid 1920s)� . This period saw dynamism in adaptive methods. As the proportion of sedentary and regular miners had been rising, the social strength behind the particularistic practices & ways changed. Miners� assertiveness on the one hand and the patron-client nexus formation on the other became a usual strategy of survival and obtaining destinations. I will discuss these affairs in the next section, since these became more apparent there. III, 1920s- 1940s In the subsequent decades the mining community saw the �stipulation� of some legislative provisions streamlining the time regime. They, notwithstanding, had to confront with their �implemented form� at the ground level designed like the previous period, by the exacting mechanism of employers demanding a particular level of coal raising. It was a multifarious and a little varying in its characters. The working people had practically been expected and asked by employers for utilization of labour time at most, [and definitely longer then those permitted under the laws]. This remained in practice through out the period of the 1920s, 1930s and the 1940s. They were asked to work six days in a week, at a large number of mines, and at some mines even on Sundays. While, some collieries used to close even on Mondays. The possibility was created that the mazdoors would work more than the regulated maximum hours of work. Deshpande committee observed: �One curious feature which was noticed particularly in the attendance register maintained by raising contractors in railways colliery was that several workers shown to have been present for more days in the week than seven. As a matter of fact instances were noticed in which certain workers shown having worked nine to nine and a half-day in the week. The explanation given by the raising contractor was that when a man had worked over time, he was given credit for it in terms of days�. �In the case of the contract labour, it was noticed that the hours of work was definitely longer than those permitted under the laws. It is not unusual to see sirdars and the Overman of contractors driving the labourers, particularly women workers almost the whole of the time that they are there�. The contract system of organization of labour had remained conspicuously widespread during these decades. The element of coercion and rigidity of regime had been becoming more taxing and reprovingly subjugating. BLEC observed: �The lathaiths of one labour contractor or colliery owner had beaten up the miners in Bhadrachack colliery, when the miners did not turn up at the work, and remained resting/leisuring in their Dhowrahs on Monday�. This was a frequent encounter for the miners at night shift work, since virtually some of them would sleep . [Thus, the mining community witnessed the persistence of �feudo-capitalistic� labour relations in practice . Labour investigation committees had criticized the persistence of such labour relations, but in relation to service-tenants, not mining community in general. This mode of eliciting labour time , each miner might not frequently have suffered from. They might have witnessed it repeatedly, in public demonstrative form, working on one of them. It might have worked in the form of �fear psychic� in the coalfield Some mechanical and technical development happened that conditioning the working of mines. It had, however, remained at rather very low level between the 1920s-40s. The coal industry in Jharia was constantly characterized largely by �labour intensive production technique�, and arduous working condition. The development of mechanization unfolded unevenly between the collieries, and within one colliery. S.R.Deshpande noted: �In the development of phases where gallery driving was going on working conditions were often tiring because, until the gallery has been driven and connected with ventilation passages there is no free circulation of air. Moreover it was noticed in one case that the heat out by the seams was so excessive that the working condition was almost unbearable. The workers were seen to be perspiring profusely and the only means of keeping themselves dry they could think of was to rub their bodies with dhotis. In many mines the air was so saturated with moisture and here blasting operation had taken place the air was full of fumes�. In addition, the coal industry witnessed the retreat in some of the fields of the technological development during the period (1930-35) of coal price depression. Almost all coal-cutting machines were made non-operational in Jharia during this period. Only by the 1940, their utilization rose to the level as it was in 1929-30. Nevertheless, the �progression of mechanization� had influenced the work-routine as well as the ways of its imposition at some working sites. This resulted in intensification of work for respective miners. The extension of electricity made possible work increasingly even in night & on shift system (two or three shifts). The big and medium sized collieries in particular gradually moved towards it. RCL observed in the 1930, �a few big mines worked even on three shifts�, and the number further rose till the decade of the 1940s. The colliers working on shifts, even though, asked or allowed their workers to work �longer hours�, had to formally work on a system of 8 or 12 hours per shift. The colliers of one shift could no longer remain, continuously, working for a longer period in a large number even if shifts overlapped. Miners of next shift would have to contest for the working-faces and tubes. In other words, the technical development inherently set a �ceiling� regarding the upper length of workday. Employers set the ceiling of lower length of working day i.e. work day of a minimum eight hours. An increasing number of collieries were gradually emerging out of the situation of vulnerability before rainy season. By using powerful electric pumps these mines could continue working. The majdoors witnessed and experienced the increasing demand /exaction from their employers of �greater regularity� at work and greater attention towards it. Colliery owners, because, wanted quickly and a greater return from their investment in technological upgradation, so they also wanted the miners to use maximally those machines and organization of production. This (business strategy) influenced and was manifest on the employers� talks/discourses of time routine. The latter, towards the late 1920s, began to bemoan vociferously against the ostensible �irregular, irrational and non-disciplined/non-efficient working pattern� of Indian miners. CIMAR (D.P.Denman), European and big colliery owners from the 1925 onwards agreed-in contrast to their position in previous years - ��that women at present keep cost up by hampering the work. They are very largely in the way and prevent speeding up. They lead to difficulties about discipline and that sort of thing reduces output�. All these affected the working time of miners in more than one way. The work time for wagon loaders actually became erratic and forceful. The extension of electricity fostered the possibility of working in the night even on surface at increasing number of collieries. It affected the time regime of wagon loaders in particular. They had to adjust with the nature of supply of wagons because, keeping empty wagons useless would amount rising the cost of production and marketing of coal. Hence, the wagon loaders were called up at work according to supply of wagons. They were subject to this time routine by contractors. The latter did it often forcefully, like other labour contractors. Nevertheless, the dominant anatomy of time regime exalted the continuity in its functioning from the �pre age of legislation�. The rigid time discipline (only in terms of lower limit) was its characteristics . Deshpande noted, �Where only one shift is worked the work generally starts at nine a.m. and ends at six p.m. Where two shifts or relay are worked the hours of work generally are from 9 or 10 a.m. to six or seven p.m. and 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. In the case of mine working three shifts the first shift starts at seven a.m. and finished at three p.m., the second shift is from three p.m. to eleven p.m., and third shift from eleven p.m. to 7 a.m. Usually one shift or relay worked on the surface. The hours of work being 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. with an interval of two hours. In quarries it is from 7 a.m. to 7p.m with an interval of two hours from 12 noon to 2 p.m.� �In most of mines the general impression gathered that there was no rules and regularity (?) as to when underground workers should go down and come up except in the case of Haziri worker. Nor was any system noticed of sounding a warning such as a bell or siren to notify the change of shifts. In the case of underground miners there are no regular intervals and the men rest as and when they like.� While Haziri workers had to work even on Sundays and in general longer hours. How did the mining community cope up with the situation? In the early years of the 1920s some leaders of working classes and trade unions, such as, Indian Colliery Employees Association (1920), Indian Trade Union Congress (1920) started demanding for shortening the length of work-time. Towards the end of the 1920s, they also asked for an 8 hours (or if possible less) workdays, because �work in mines is far strenuous and arduous than in factory. They cited before RCL the trend of similar kind of development in advanced western countries. Notwithstanding, the implemented form of �time-routine�, mineworkers had to endure. They worked �longer hours� i.e. more than nine hours in a day. It often used to cross 12 hours in a day. They worked for a week and backed to their bastis and rested for 2 to 3 days afterwards. One of them in a piece rated underground work reported in 1930 that �he unless works for more than 12 hours a day, could not fetch the �cash-earning� that he required for his daily needs. The technical factors by and large continually rendered to lengthening the working hours in day-to-day works . This had been recurrently noticed by RCL in 1930, BLEC in 1938, Burrows Coalfield Committee in 1937, Deshpande in 1946 etc. But, their production activities at the same time were largely motivated and oriented towards raising enough coal for their basic sustenance. Deshpande makes an observation, �As a matter of fact in several mines workers who were supposed to go down at 7 O�clock in the morning do not do so till 10 or 10.30 a.m., and do not come out until they feel that they have had enough production for the day. In point of fact, however, in one apparently well managed mine, night shift workers who were supposed to be off-duty at 7 O�clock in the morning actually found working at 11.30 in the morning�the workers do not have watches to know as to when a shift begins or ends�. They had to confront at the workplace to control the pace of work. Employers argued, �even though the workers stayed 8-9 hours below ground in a day, they never worked for more than 6- 6&1/2 hours�. They employed supervisory staffs on a basis of commission per tub of coal extracted by miners under them . The �Colliers� struggled to maintain a control over the structure of decision-making regarding the rhythm of the production act and the labour process at the workplaces. They contrived to �appropriate� some time and create moments at the work itself imbuing �arduous� and onerous work with some joy/humour breaks for lunch, calls of nature; in addition to the breaks for relaxing and for recouping physical mental capacity. They could do it in two ways. One, by making work enjoyable. Two, by creating moments in the structure of the working time itself not only for recouping exhaustion, for leisure and carrying out reproduction tasks. B.L.E.C. observed, �There was so much heat in the workplace that workers would be forced to take break each hour to wash the perspiration with seepage water.� They would smoke and take tobacco in between apart from the usual sharing of jokes and singing of songs. Similarly, family gangs & Kamins in particular struggled to maintain a balance between the production work and their reproductive obligations. They took the break in work to suckle and take care of their babies . They had to confront with the �repression� and �marginalisation� on this front in this period. The acts of Kamins carrying breast-feeding children to workplaces was considered repugnant and declared an uncivilised practice. Kamins now evolved new tactics. They would hide their children in mines, when white men visited, and leaving �older� in the care of family members or other retired/old women in Dhowrahs, [after child labour (below 13 years) was banned in 1923]. Some Kamins, yet, could not successfully fight the gradual marginalisation imposed on them. Collieries, seeking regular loaders, got these adequately in the form of male workers ready to work as loaders in the context of the second half of the 1920s and 30s . The Majdoors had, yet, to innovate and create a space and time for securing their ends. They had to extract coal in accordance to their �needs� within the constraints of working-time . In this context some new working practices were evolved. They began to compete stiffly for empty tubs, so that they could secure required amount of coal. The nexus developed between Munshi, who distributed tubs and the miners. Those who paid bribes to Munshi and mining Sirdar got empty tubs rather conveniently. The caste/territoriality/community ties also served the formation of such nexus. The miners, who could not confirm to this labour regime, would suffer from, waiting for a while for empty tub. These sufferers were largely �Dehatil� such as, the Santhal/Kol etc., who could not incline to forge such nexus with Munshi and mining Sirdars. The later were while largely �Paschhimas� or immigrants from Bengal. Miners could not cut coal without empty tubs because, such store of coal was not safe. These incidences of stealing coal of fellow miner expanded increasingly during the 1920s, 30s and 40s, particularly in big collieries. Miners tended to indulge in some conniving-practices for resolving one of the constraining elements of labour relation. They were deprived from wages for the tub, if Munshi declared it inadequately filled with. While, they hardly got reward for tubs over-loaded. Both types of instances frequently took place in this period. Whether the miners asked the pay for over-loaded coal? It was reported that miners were given, if any, one Anna no matter what their claims stood for overloading. In this situation they began to fill up tubs in such a way at the bottom with bigger pieces of coal that tub could be filled with rather lesser amount of coal. Thus, they had been trying to cope up with the structural and institutional contradictions of wage relation by innovating and conniving some scope helped the continuation of scarcity, tension, and non-dignity ridden survivable through a strategy of cunning and conniving. The practice of working time by the Haziri-majdoors seems to have remained tenacious during this period. They were compelled to work longer hours. It happened so that, sometimes boilermen and other went for dozing at work. The workers on machine had to adjust themselves to the pace of machine in the situation of the longer hours of work and as a result dozing at work infrequently proved hazardous. They suffered from accidents. When they found work routine and labour relation unbearable, they moved away from one particular mine to other. Among the surface workers, the wagon loaders, who were predominantly piece-rated, now faced �erratic� work routine. A gang of wagon-loaders used to work continually sometimes even for 24 hours a day. Then, they might not get work for next a few days. In this case, the recalcitrant wagon-loaders had to suffer monetarily. The fear of a period, without work, would lead them to work as long as they found themselves to be physically and mentally capable when wagons were available . Nevertheless, both types of loaders would chat, joke and smoke. Loaders evolved these ways for overcoming the log work. A majority of them tried to recuperate themselves by resting for a while, but some of them actually suffered from lack of work rather than entertaining a time for rest. A notable change in the formal working time regime, that intervened in this regard, was the institutionalisation of weekly rest day on Sundays. But, mining community saw its conversion by employer into a payday. They had to enforce their rest day at the weekend. A small proportion of them could get their payments on Saturday evenings. Those hailing from neighbouring bastis, walking on foot as long as three and three-and-a-half miles had to take payment on Sundays in a long queue. They could obtain it only till noon or so. Thereupon, they could go to market (Jharia, Dhanbad etc.). Thenceforth, theirs return to bastis likely to possible only by the late evening or early night. Thus, the very holiday seems turned to be an extension of their working time. One could see here the exploitation of time by the owners. It resembled the practice of factory owners, in Britain in the 18th and 19th C, manipulating clock-time. Whether those colliers opposed or protested against such exaction? Notwithstanding, they experienced it in terms of �deprivation� of time. It reflected in their absence at workplace on Mondays and sometimes evens on Tuesdays by extending their �work free-time� with their families or village communities. This could however, have been both as enforcement of extended free time on colliery work time regime, or just an escape from gruelling work if not resigning to it. A notable section of majdoors staying in the coalfield too used to live away on Mondays and to a lesser degree even on Tuesday from work. [Only a small proportion of miners, worked on Mondays and Tuesdays, albeit, they might take breaks on some other day]. Some of the colliery owners reported to B.L.E.C. that they kept their mines closed on Monday, because, the turnover of miners used to remain very low . E.P Thompson, in the case of the British coal-miners, found largely a similar sort of practice. S.R. Deshpande, in 1946, noted: �In two of the collieries, surveyed in the Jharia coalfield, an allowance called Monday rate was being paid at one Anna per tub on raising of the coal by miners on Mondays in order to encourage attendance on this day. It was stated by the management of these mines that the payment of this additional bonus did not result in improved attendance (?) on Mondays. Mining communities enforced it in both non-confrontational and confrontational ways; but it was largely internal negotiation against the imposed form of workweek. It was not an escaping act because, the workers had been occupying Dhowrahs. Yet, it was not a subversive negotiation since, they did not ask for formal reordering of work time regime, nor of the socio-economic relationship that was controlling and organising economy. The proportion of colliers, organising work time in accordance to the agricultural temporality, was gradually diminishing. Yet, besides some redundant majdoors during rainy seasons, some workers positively preferred to go to their bastis. B.L.E.C. observed, �..in these months- June to August, mines become depleted of their labour supply. This was actually found in course of our visit to the coalfield. Now, a few collieries were found to be working with only half of the labour force. These colliery owners were making desperate efforts to get sufficient workers by playing lorries or by poaching one another�s labourers. The exodus is much less in the busy months of February and March �but it again increases in the month of November when paddy is cut�. They happened to get off from work even on a certain occasions suiting their socio-cultural obligations. The miners of Santhal social group continued to returning their bustis for holding Parva- Sohrai. Employers however, not officially recognised this. Whether the lower rung of supervisory staffs (increasingly of non-Santhal social group) recognised that? Similarly, a sizeable number of workers continued going back to their Gaon on such an occasion such as, Holi, Makarsakranti, Dashahra, and Kali-puja etc. Among the Mazdoors staying in the coalfield, the practice of celebrating these festivals entrenched. Colliery owners, however, did not officially recognise these as holidays. But, the colliery generally remained close on these days . It did not happen in the case of occasion of Ganesh-puja, which was largely held by the C.P workers. Different section of the labouring masses began to hold some new festivals at relatively noteworthy level in the decades of the 1920s, the 1930and the 1940s. These were Jhanda/ Ramnavmi, and Muharram processions in particular. These processions were never a native festival. The mines did not remain close on these occasions in this period. Notwithstanding, the groups of colliers tended to involve at conspicuous level in these activities. Some workers used to get off from work in some erratic and wayward ways. Some might have gone through it because of sudden health deterioration or falling ill. There was not a provision for a formal sick leave . Relatively independent �unmarried male labourers� were inclined to make break in really a wayward manner . Permeshwer Nonya reported to me that �they would not work for a few days after earning some amount of money. They returned at work when they were financially exhausted or forced by parents�. �But this way of working dramatically changed after marriage, and once the responsibility of family and household fell on their shoulders�. The family majdoors & the Kamins in particular struggled to combine production and reproduction tasks. A majority of them continued to return to their rural home during the period of child bearing and rearing. But, it was not a case with all Kamins. Those who came in the coalfield and joined mines for escaping socio- cultural cage of villages, they had to stay in the colliery-bastis even during those critical moments, observed B.R Seth. The proportion of such sedentary Kamins had steadily been swelling. Their practice was characterised by the organisation of timepieces favouring a natural obligation. Similarly, mining community could not attend colliery in preferences to attending some unpredictable but frequent and some deliberated communitarian obligations. These were the times of accidents, death, funeral, mourning, and political & labour-economic collective actions. The accidents were frequented from the 1910s onwards . Likewise, the public agitation of Mazdoors conspicuously expanded during 1938-41. And it rocked almost entire coalfield during 1945-48 . These acts underwent a consequential & radical addition. These activities and their time frame expressed the motivation of colliers to enforce their own rhythm of work upon the organisation of colliery�s fiscal time They adopted multiple methods to pursuing above forms of organisation of time. Some of them would �inform� mining sardars or ticcadars under whom they were employed. Sedentary labourers in fact involved sirdars in those festive ceremonies, such as Dashahra, Holi, Kali-puja etc. Perhaps, this was one of the reasons that practically colliery started to remain closed on those occasions . Some colliery owners/employers began to distribute some �gifts� to their employees on some occasions such as-Dashahra, or Kalipuja, or Cake-Puja . The latter was probably practised at colliery run by Europeans such as, Bhowra, Amlabad, Jealgora, Lodna, Kustore, Bhudrachawk, Industry collieries etc. This development regarding �organisation of colliery work-time & breaks� was an example of �incorporation� of �assertive� popular practice, of mining community, and promotion of new ones between them as well. But, this pursuit of re-organisation of time traversed through different phases-from �subversive struggle� against work-time, to �assertively internally negotiating� about work-days/free-time. This was the case also with the festive activities such as Ganesh-puja, or Sohrai parva, Makersakranti etc which could not get the validation of employers. The Mazdoors did not go on work on these occasions. Some of them could inform sirdars or ticcadars. But a great number of them would leave the collieries. Those stayed in coalfield had to internally �confrontaionally� negotiate on the issue with employers. They resisted the imposed time regime & enforced own version of organisation work-time . The reorganisation of work-time as arrived at by miners & employers � was hardly �absolute�, completely �coherent� & tensions free ones. One informer (younger brother of Keshvo Rawani) told me that �he used to go to the village on Holi and stayed there around one month & so. But, it could not have been the case with his family working in the colliery and stayed permanently in Bhowra. For them the days that went into celebrating those occasions had been �limited�. The �paternalistic incorporation� of the practice by employers was also aimed to reconfigure such practice, and subordinate them to the logic of �structure of work-time�. While recalcitrant and refractory miners would have to either conform to the �reorganised form of work-time� or resign/ remonstratively escape from that. The mining classes started demanding and agitating for institutionalisation of provisions for �formal leaves (paid and casual) and sick leaves during the second half of the 1940s. They had organised a total strike in Bhowra and Amlabad colliery for around three months and thirteen days in 1948. They had called for a strike for largely similar demands in March 1947, before the declaration of recommendation of the Board of Conciliation. But, neither the recommendations of the Conciliation Board, nor the contesting agitation of the mining community could achieve fully their demands . The confrontation occurred between employers and the mining community on the issue of implementation of the 1947 Conciliation Board�s recommendations. It led to the constitution of the �Joshi Agreement� in 1948. The process of adjustment of the working classes to the time regime also involved the �reaction� of the former on the issue of �wage rate� . They in the 1920 and the 1921 conducted a few strikes. For example, in Standard and Kinkend collieries and a stoppage of work in most of the collieries for a few days in 1921 during the conference of AITUC in Jharia for demanding a wage increase in the context of acute inflation. After the interval of almost 7 years on the issue of wages or against wage cut, Mazdoors of Amlabad colliery (around 430 workers) in 1930 and Tosco�s Jamadoba colliery (4,000 workers) in 1932, agitated. These were also proactively zeroed in on time regimes. Instead of lengthening the �working time� (which was already pretty long) in order to fetch adequate wage, they attempted to adapt the wage structure and wage labour relation as well. Meanwhile, an increasing number of workers had to recourse to the �established� tradition of fulfilling the cost of reproduction. It was a �cycle of debt� The tension between the work- time routine and the worker�s version of fair time routine could not entirely resolve, despite such subversive political galvanisation of colliers. The workers continued to address in multitude ways the tenacious �tension�? Some workers thorough propitiating their employers (ji-hazuri/clientele) could secure patronage favours. They were known as loyal workers such as, congress leaders in Bhowra (Kedarnath Singh, Budhu Mia etc) who worked to run a �pocket union�, and cherished the patronage of management. Some of them exploited personal nexus with supervisory staff or trade union leaders by paying bribe too. At the same time, they resented on system and agony came out in the form of slang, criticism and repressed mental tension. All these were reflected in their attempts to dissolve tension through inebriation of alcohol, flight, fatalism or/& improvising continuously to further their agenda. The latter reflected in the persistence of the popularity of �Lal Jhanda� among a group of miners, even, if its �revolutionary activities� remained limited. Keshvo Rawani conceived that for them the politics of �Lal Jhanda� was aimed to control the structure of authority commanding the organisation of economy, thus to subvert the labour relation/production relations/labour regime itself, and place forward their/mining classes� agenda. The mining community had adopted �defying method of negotiation for adapting time-routine on some other issues as well. For instance, for opposing oppressive and exploitative presence of some ticcadars, victimisation of fellow miners and, asking reinstatement have dismissed fellow workers. But, it was not pervasive and consistent regarding all matters. They demanded for the �maternity benefit� , like the working class in Calcutta, Bombay or Coimbatore. But it was not made ever a central issue by the existing trade unions. The usual ways opted by Kamins were to just silently stop working during �period of confinement and initial days rearing their babies. The maternity benefit act could be passed as late as 1943. In summing up, I will underline some of the trends of development that took place in this period. The time regime varied between mines. It meant that not only legislative form of time-regime� was not followed, employers continued working with their versions of time regime. In this period some big mines� management started to assert the �talk of disciplined� working practices. In contrast, the working pattern of wagon loaders was made rather more erratic and forceful. Nevertheless, the mining community was largely subject to �intensification of work.� They worked at several levels and developed multiple ways in course of adaptation to time regimes. At the workplaces they worked largely longer work-time viz a viz the latter�s legislative form and were gradually pressed hard for completing task or carrying work . The piece rated miners were largely �production- task� oriented. They struggled to maintain their control on the production process especially, its pace in day to day work. It was aimed to mitigate a strenuous work and make it joyful. But some of the family workers had to remonstratively fight for carrying the work pattern suited to the logic of reproduction. However, they had gradually been loosing this possibility. Additionally, a group of miners � single male workers in particular strove to redesign the work time. They focused on the time which happened to be �break� due to technical interruptions for their human purposes. This marked a shift. In the previous period, mining community tended to create moments/breaks for combining production and reproduction tasks. Now they had involved themselves in practices of purposefully consuming breaks frequently created by technical interruptions. At the same time, they contrived for animating the course of extracting and loading work through their chatting, jokes and smoking etc. They began to agitate for lead and lift allowances and compensation for enforced idleness towards the end of this period. This also marked a big shift vis-�is the form of labour economy of the mining community, which prevailed in the preceding period. In the context of �shortening work time�, they developed some conniving activities. For acquiring optimum amount of coal, they not only tended to bribing supervisory staffs, stealing coal of fellow miners. Some other had struggled for lengthening the workday. Some others were subject to under utilisation of their productive capacity. These developments were not informally, all pervasive in the entire coalfield. The majdoors working in the least mechanised mines had drudged in a little different situation. The working pattern here was largely characterised by continuity of the practices prevailed in the preceding period. Perhaps that is why some family Mazdoors and regular commuters preferred working in those mines. The politics of lead and lift allowances and compensation for forced idleness was, ipso facto, not as intense among these miners as was the case with the agitated group of workers. The workdays of the mining community had undergone a process of formalisation. Sunday became a rest day in the week, over time. It disrupted the practice of working a spell of six, seven, eight, nine or ten days. But all colliers could not equally entertain the new rest day. Some of them suffered from the manipulative strategy of employers converting Sunday as payday. These sufferers in return, enforced the extension of rest day on to Monday as well. Some of them extended it even to Tuesday. The proportion of miners sharing characteristic seasonality of working pattern diminished over time. However, a majority of the rest of the workforce did not disrupt their association with and infrequent visits to rural home places. They continued to reinforce their festival time, time of confinement and time of accident on the structure of work time-routine. They introduced free time on occasion of some more festivals such as Mahavir Jhanda procession and Muhharam procession. For executing the above forms of working pattern, the mining communities had adopted multiple methods. These were from act of resigning, escaping, asserting, internally negotiating, and contesting negotiation to subversive negotiation. At the workplace they tended to exploit their labour time and power themselves at its best. Infrequent normal negotiation as well as agitation for better wage rates accompanied it. Additionally, they innovated ways for relieving & relaxing themselves in a course of work. They enforced some breaks such as, extended weekly holiday, on occasion of festivals, agricultural seasons, confinement, political agitation etc. But these were attained through the following ways: some just escaped, some internally negotiated, others asserted both confrontaionally and non-confrontaionally. Sometimes they attempted to subversively negotiate, such as the case of workers of Bhowra colliery, like Keshvo Rawani, Munshi Bhuiya etc. in the 1947-48. The most pronounced and landmark change in the method was this: an increasing number of majdoors moved towards political and social assertion in the course of negotiating their demands. They started demanding institutionalisation of annual leaves � including paid and casual leave as well as sick leave. Similarly, they started reinforcing their time of protest from the 1930s onwards. These were not only acts of publicly absenting from work. They also slogged to ensure complete stoppage of work till their demands were redressed. It was radically a new development vis-�is the act of desertion of colliers as prevailed in previous period. The above recapitulating remarks are not intended to argue that continuity between some of the practices and the strategies for carrying forward those practices did not exist. In fact, it happened as I have already underlined in some places above. Then the entire period of the 1920s to the 1940s was not representative of one process of adaptation. In fact, the period witnessed only a gradual relinquishment of one set of working patterns and embracing some new ways. But it is to be underlined that the new rhythm of work and methods of adaptation were apparently able to strongly influence the direction of further development with respect to the anatomy (politics) of adaptation. IV , 1940s-70s During the decades of the 1940s to the early years of the 1970s, the mining communities were introduced to a series of state statutes aiming to streamline and relatively shorten the time of colliery work. But the implementational form of time regime, like the previous decades remained notable by its dissimilitude from the legislative version. Some big collieries, albeit in increasing numbers , worked on three shifts such as, Bhowra, Jealgora, Lodna, Jamadoba, Industry etc. The rest of small and medium sized collieries continued to function on two shifts each of twelve hours such as, Dubari, Bera etc. The working time routine formally became more rigid and coercive. The Majdoors were animalistically driven from Dhowrahs into mines. It happened frequently at small and medium sized mines in particular. Satrodhan Rajwar and Yakub, workers respectively of Dubari and Bera mines informed me: �Miners were expected to go into mines with the siren (during this period almost all registered mines set up power house sirens). A sizeable number of workers would sleep during the night shift (it began from ten o�clock when mines worked on two shifts or from eleven o�clock when mines worked on three shifts). In that case the pahalwan of the company or contractors would check such workers. They forcefully and sometimes even violently drove miners from the dhowrahs into the mines.� The miners, especially of night shifts, in big collieries were also subjected frequently to these incidents. Pahalwans used to display the weapons of abusive threats (kamchor, muftkhor, maachod, bahanchod, sala etc.), along with their lathis and muscles. The colliers were compelled to submit themselves to siren for starting their work. At the workplace the commissioned sirdar and Munshi regulated the length of the workday. They usually set the lower ceiling in this regard. It was either eight hours or twelve hours. In the small and medium sized mines, miners could be called at any time at work when the need arose. This was the case in relation to the wagon loaders in particular everywhere. The statutory provisions for paid leave, casual leave, sick leave along with other monetary benefits and provisions for compensation were nowhere practised in their entirety, by management. The latter had ingeniously evolved ways to escape from such obligations. They categorised the workforce into four types: permanent, Badli, casual and contract workers. In fact, only direct recruited permanent labourers were in post war period retrenched as well as divided into permanent, regular, Badli and casual labourers. The Badli worker could get jobs when some permanent workers were absent; and/or there would be an acute shortage of labourers. The mines were supposed to maintain the list of Badli workers . The latter had to render them daily for getting work at the colliery. But the casual workers could secure mining work in case of an acute shortage of labour. The permanent workers only could claim all statutory benefits. Since they could only prove their claim in labour court (set up in 1948 in Dhanbad) that they were denied their rights and benefits by showing their names on payrolls . The management in general improvised methods to restrict the number of such permanent miners they did not allow the regular workers to fulfil conditions of becoming permanent miners. The most common strategy of achieving it was that they repeatedly changed the name of regular workers on the payroll. They could also just show workers absenteeism on the payroll by dropping them for a while. The banality of this practice was at annoyingly extreme in the case of small and medium sized mines. The latter did not usually maintain list of Badli workers The majdoors continually struggled for the status of permanent workers. Where workers� unions were strong and influential such as in Jealgora, Lodna, etc. the management was forced to maintain payroll properly and to follow the system of promoting regular workers from the status of Badli to permanent worker. The overall proportion of permanent workers in such collieries was between one third to two third. But the case was very dissimilar in small and medium sized collieries. Here either strong workers� union were noticeable by its absence or just a pocket union existed. The latter worked in collusion with management to subjugate the recalcitrant miners. In these collieries a very small number of miners succeeded to become permanent. For instance, in Dubari during this period at maximum some three hundred workers were represented as permanent workers. The total workforce of this mine was on an average around 1,500 to 2,000. Some of the provisions were followed in varying ways. There were only a few mines, which paid Monday rate. Nowhere was the attendance bonus given. The Tata colliery, which gave Monday rate also, introduced production bonuses in 1942-43. But it was given to workers who could work 190 days belowground or 260 days at the surface in a year. Deshpande had found that very few miners could become eligible for these benefits. A majority of the collieries provided rations to workers and not their dependants, as had been the provision under the Young Plan. The mining communities evolved some new practices in course of dealing with the working of labour regimes in this period? The piece rated miners had been oriented to raise tubs of coal at most, in given time and physical & technical situation. The pace of work was still largely under the control of mining sirdar and its gang members at the work place. The pace happened to be more intense in a colliery working on three shifts rather than those, which worked on two. Since the miners and loaders of former collieries found it difficult to cut and load more than one tub on an average even if they wanted to do so. They over time developed work ethics that they would create a store of cut coal in a shift and demarcate it with limestone. The miners, in small and medium sized collieries, gradually came with this practice that they would not cut more than one tub in a day because the employers did not pay them for the surplus coal cut. They were also paid less than their actual weekly earnings. They would get wages of only five tubs even if they cut six tubs in a week. All these discouraged miners from utilising their full potential. What happened in the mines that young robust new comers utilized their productive capacity at most for a while with orientation of task/cash need. S/he, over time began to realise the improper remuneration of his or her investment of labour power and time in the exiting situation of labor relation and production process. Thereupon, the old experienced miners tended to resign to the system. They cut an average amount of coal, and spent time belowground under pressure. They could definitely, like previous decade, chat, smoke, and take break for relieving/recuperate themselves. Some of them proceeded to big collieries. Some miners tried to redress politically and socially the problems. They fostered collective struggles. It happened in Dubari, Bera and some other collieries. They affiliated with CPI, and Congress. But they were co-opted by management. Now, a few leaders of union could get relatively fair treatment from management. For maintaining this relationship with employers this unions had to assert itself and deploy its political strength as well as muscle-power, It used to maintain a bunch of pehalwans .The latter were used by leaders to constrain and repress the recalcitrant workers. Those miners, who were not active members of unions, could not get advantage. They sometimes fought for their � just and fair claims such as the case of Satrudhan Rajwar. He initially suffered from the violent and repressive reaction of management and its pehalwan. Some friends from caste fellows who were senior workers in those collieries saved him. The latter intended to convince Satrudhan for submitting himself to the labour regime. Satrudhan, because did not want to leave that colliery, dropped the apparent demand for the fair treatment. But he also like majority of miners, lowered down the use of productive capacity. He experienced additional uncomfortability with the animalistic and exploitative industrial system. There were some more miners of that kind. They had politically been organising themselves and working to change entire system (too break away the depressive constrain). But this force expressed itself in the 1970s(between 1971- 73/74 ), when they fought (under the banner of Bihar Colliery Kamgar Union ) against the octopus of management and pocket trade unions and their pehalwan. This struggle was aimed at to save their jobs and enlisted themselves as permanent workers of colliery. Earlier such voices for just and fair treatment could outburst only spontaneous and at individual level. They had to leave colliery, otherwise they were just eliminated by pehalwan. The badali workers or casual workers in the collieries, like new comers in small and medium size collieries, were inclined to work hard and for as long a work as possible. They were not sure about the continuous availability of work in coalfield. Sizeable labouring poor were employed in Pokharia and unregistered outcropping mines . Here, the miners had to work either in two shifts or one shift. The local workers worked in a family gang, thus it was not that family gang entirely disappeared from the coalfield with the legislation prohibiting women from belowground work. They worked largely on time rated system and the sunlight was the notation of time. In this condition these miners devised some strategies to endure the coercion. They contested to control the pace of work, by rather slowing the cutting and loading work. Similarly, they contested to prolong the lunchtime. This form of working had largely manifested also in the case of other time rated workers even in registered small and medium size mines, and the Gorakhpuri labourers in general . The great numbers of workers had yet not had watches. Some of them increasingly were getting hand watches especially through practice of dowry (or dahej), but they were forcefully prohibited from putting on these watches . They could not get off from work unless the supervisory staff released them. For them the situation of labour relation was close to the condition of wage �slavery�. Yakub had reported to me one such incident � once he was working below ground, he could not get off from work for breaking his roza. He had to unfast at below ground workplace itself with one roti and some water�. In big collieries, the mining community was not so severely regimented. The workers on time rate used to go to work at around eight o�clock on siren and got relieved in the evening before the sunset. Nevertheless, Kamins could get back their home not before the sunset, even in summer season. This was definitely a rule, than exception in case of Kamins coming from nearby bastis. It was manifest in the 2nd folktale cited above. They had to contest to create breaks and off time during work day. They would often demonstrate against despotic domination of munshi or Haziri-babu of wagon loading-work. The latter even used to ask for sexual favour in return of flexibility at work. But a few Kamins could allow such harassment or relationship . The Kamins sometimes joined together and collectively resisted the despotism and the harassment by staff. A few of them also actively participated in the politics of trade union affiliated with CPI and later with BCKU to resolve their structural as well as institutional contradiction. A sizeable proportion of miners still showed reluctance to work on Monday. They were underground and quarry coal cutters and loaders in particular. Workers of neighbouring areas continued to back their bastis on Sunday or fortnightly. They would easily inform to sardars about their visits, because, now the coalfield witnessed the pouring of surplus laborers. The miners, who wanted to continue working in some collieries, had to maintain good rapport with institution of recruitment . The miners lived in Dhowrahs , in notable number, inclined to extend the time of rest even on Monday, despite of recurrent violent dragging of those miners by pehalwan. In these cases the miners either hid out themselves in room or kalali (grog shop). The above practice albeit, dwindled in this period. Nevertheless, a large number of miners gradually succumbed to fear psychic generated by employers. It was at such a level that in day to day working the miners would remain ever ready to go at work on hearing siren. If they could not turn up themselves the badali workers would have been put on work. The Gorakhpuri labourers had been at most vulnerable in this respect. They were compelled to work on Monday in particular. Some of them remonstratively contrived to escape from work. They tried to hide out inside the mines. But, when they were caught by lathaith of employer, they were brutally beaten up. I was informed about such a practice going on in industry colliery: ��in industry colliery the white sahib used to deploy bulldogs to teach lesson to such workers or recalcitrant miners. In some cases the brutality resulted into the death of victims. And all this happened in Broadway light. The employers carried on this form of regimenting the miners in collusion with colonial police administration, which during 1950s and 1960s existed largely unchanged� . These were displayed in such ways in order to make workers �awfully submissive.� It could hardly achieve complete success, although. The incidence of hiding out remained noticeable till early years of the 1970s. A few miners preferred to become pehalwan of companies or contractors for escaping from such torturous relation of domination and exploitation. Some miners moved to political trade union activities and establish themselves as an activist of some trade union units affiliated to INTUC or Socialist Unions and AITUC. These miners could escape the situation of victimization. Where those trade unions� units commanded stronghold. The heavily indebted miners, who did not see the possibility of redeeming their debts in the given situation, were not inclined to work above an average work days (one tub per shift). They would just spend the lower ceiling of workday. Similarly, they declined to have been at work on Monday. Actually whatever amount they could earn were seized by the kabuliwalas or moneylenders at the pay counter itself. Sometime these usurers had forcefully and treacherously received pay from accountant in place of indebted actual producers. Thereupon the usurers used to give a minimum amount of money to miners for running bare subsistence. The money was so low that miners family could half fed only, if another member of that family were not working. Some miners however, fought against such relation of debt and strove to secure the remuneration of their labour power. Some of such miners even approached to the company officials and trade unions- of Congress, Socialists and Communists. The latter at most tried to facilitate negotiation between usurers and miners for nonviolent realization of debt. Usually the miners, accountant and usurer overtime arrived at a compromise that usurer himself could receive payment of the respective miners. Thereupon the usurer gave the piecemeal amount of money-as a next debt- to the miners. The practice of short spell of workdays couldn�t have been dwelled on by the piece rated wagon loaders. With the expansion of the use of electricity the work of wagon loading happened to be at the night as well. The wagon loaders had to remain ready for the work of longer hours in accordance with the supply of wagons. There was no question of a formal rest on Sunday. Like previous decades the regular workers took break on any day in a week when they were either physically exhausted or pressed with some other obligation. The permanent workers would bribe Haziri men for showing his or her regular attendance (the bribe was usually around fifty percent of wage of a day). They did so for ensuring their claim for production and attendance bonus and, paid leaves, which were linked to the attendance performance of miners. The companies tended to de-legitimize the claim of the miners by contriving irregularity in their attendance. But the miners had overtime ingeniously improvised ways for securing their claims. The rest on Sunday gradually became one of the crucial days in the life of mining people. The latter considered this day as their Appna Din. They declined to work on this day, while the work on Sunday was formally an over time work. In 1947 the board of conciliation had recommended 1& � times wage for over-time work. On this day they participated in Akhara in nearby area. The practice of working time was continuously conditioned by majdoors physical and mental position (such as sickness and ill health) as well as other social-cultural and familial orientation (such as, festival time-Durga-Puja, kali-puja, Makarsakranti, Ramnavmi, Muharram, Sohrai; on occasion of marriage/funeral procession). The great numbers of mazdoors have to remonstratively enforce these days/ leaves since these workers were literally non-permanent or non-registered ones. Even the permanent workers had to enforce on some of the occasions because, they could avail only seven paid leaves. In 1967, central coal wage board recommended some casual leave. The provision was for one holiday on each twelve-day regular attendance and on fourteen days regular attendance respectively for underground and surface majdoors. But these were not implemented fully except the collieries of NCDC . The labor trade unions have been demanding these benefits from the 1940s onwards. These were some of the core issues behind the battles that mining classes fought during the 1945-1948. They could achieve it but at very low level- both in terms of formal provisions and its accessibility. In the following years and decades, though they had to struggle continually for getting implemented the pertaining provisions. The struggle in 1946-48 for some miners was an attempt to subvert the entire structure of authority and labor regime, though not production relation as such. Keshvo Rawani reported to me: �if the strike in 1948 had been successfully continued for just one more day (after three months thirteen days in Bhowra mines) the collieries would have come under the control of working class and communists�. They struggled and negotiated for becoming permanent workers so that they could entertain legislative form of time routine. Some took recourse of politics of trade union for attaining such status. The numbers of such workers were pretty high in big collieries where high number of distant immigrant workers were concentrated (such as in Jealgora, Lodna) . In addition, some workers contrived to propitiate management. They were largely distant immigrant family workers who often worked as spies of management between mining communities . They maintained and exploited their primordial ties with contractors and managerial staffs. These relations sometime extended to familial relations. One worker reported to me: �the staffs were fascinated with the female folk of those families, thus they got permanency of their jobs as a reward of their subordination and loyalty to the management. A few women worker also adopted this way of achieving their aims�. The majdoors involved in and witnessed the popularization of some new form of entertainment and rituals. These were Ramlila, Nautanki, Laundanach etc. The congress leaders towards the late 1940s started temple construction and Ramlila as a social work activities, reported kedeshwar Singh (a leader of INTAC/ Congress in Bhowra colliery). Nautanki and Laundanach etc were organized by labour contractor and/ or workers collectivity . The programmes happened in some part of the coalfield, throughout a year except a few months in rainy season. These, albeit, happened to be more extensive during festive calendar of peasants of north India such as during December, January, February, march, April, October, &n November. One Ramlila would go for a month. Similarly Laundanach would continue for ten to fifteen days in one spell. Colliers participated in a large number in leisure programs. Some of them attended it even at the cost of work . Though comrade Vinod Roy contended this fact . This new form of leisure overtime also included cinemas. The cinema halls were gradually emerging in the 1960s and the 1970s. I was told �those days cinema halls run house full. Definitely the unmarried male workers entertained these programs even by getting off from their work�. They started the public worship of collieries. They used to pray for the security and safety of their lives even on the occasion of Dashahra and Kalipuja. But the new ritual had imbued with new meanings and pattern. A few workers by grouping together could organize it. They instituted the Hanuman jhanda at the entrance of colliery and idols of kali. They considered colliery the home of kalima since the darkness and blackness in both was common. The miners gave sacrifice of a goat to invoke kali-ma, so that ma would not become angry and save the lives of their devotees and mines(?)as well . They would thenceforth go for feast. They held sometime this ritual in their free-time, and sometime even after half day of work. Mostly, these were done on Saturday. I am informed that from the 1950s the trade union leaders were at the forefront of these rituals. I am not informed, how owners initially responded to it? But they overtime recognized it and began to give a little financial aid to respective groups. They also began to promote and aid for Ramlila & temple construction etc. All workers were definitely not involved in carrying these rituals. Among the latter type of workers the communist trade unionists and workers of such political orientation were in particular. Some majdoors continued taking break to visit their family and, attend some festive occasions such as Holi, Dashahra, Sohrai etc in their bastis . The frequency of such visit decreased according to increase in distance of villages. They visited though by informing the managerial staffs or sirdars but, usually revert to colliery late than the time they would have promised. Now they used their community nexus (along caste, bustee or friendship line) for getting into work. They sometime bribed or requested to trade union leaders for these purposes. In contrast, the casual workers continued to go back their villages during agrarian season. But, these workers could not be regarded temporary/ migratory/seasonal workers. They used to revert to colliery after plantation of paddy crop or sugarcane etc. The study group in 1967-68 noted: �these workers were in fact regular workers who used to return back to colliery after agricultural seasons� I will further explore these issues and the fourth section in particular. The sources I will look at are as follows: _________________________________________________________________ Claim your Citibank Ready Cash today. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/54177.asp It�s fast, easy and affordable. From ghoshvishwajyoti at rediffmail.com Sun Aug 15 13:01:29 2004 From: ghoshvishwajyoti at rediffmail.com (vishwajyoti ghosh) Date: 15 Aug 2004 07:31:29 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Media romanticizing rapists Message-ID: <20040815073129.10354.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040815/c4692d8b/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- "In my next life, I want to be born as a rich man..." -Dhanonjoy Chatterjee For those of us who feel rapists should be dealt with an extra firm hand...I agree, But will I see: Sanjeev Nanda Salman Khan Sushil Sharma D.P Yadav & his sons (to name only a few) and all the regular rapists of Delhi and adjoining areas walking to the gallows??? As a nation, we might have to answer many such cases within ourselves, for times to come. Till then Chatterjee's words wish will continue to be a proven fact, and not a mere wish... Happy Independence Day guys! On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 Sourav wrote : >Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood is not a >solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But I don't know >where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide us and we will >send the signatures and mails against hanging. > >Sourav. > >West Bengal. > >_________________________________________ >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: VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH, D-598/c, CHITTARANJAN PARK, NEW DELHI-11019, INDIA CELL: 0091-9891238606 STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319 RES.: 0091-11-26270256 From ghoshvishwajyoti at rediffmail.com Mon Aug 16 13:28:39 2004 From: ghoshvishwajyoti at rediffmail.com (vishwajyoti ghosh) Date: 16 Aug 2004 07:58:39 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Dhanonjoy Chatterjee Message-ID: <20040816075839.13282.qmail@webmail27.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040816/5999482c/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- following is an intresting edit in the times of india, today (aug 16th, '04) If the hanging of Chatterjee is a historical verdict for the self righteous whole sale empathisers, will salman khan,dara singh, sanjeev nanda, d.p yadav and his sons, shahbuddin and sushil sharma (to name a very very few) be given the same verdict? Here I can't help but recollect Chatterjee's statement: "In my next life, I want to be born as a rich man" A Lost Culture: Dhananjoy Episode Exposes Bhadralog Underbelly JAY BHATTACHARJEE [ MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2004 12:00:00 AM ] Dhananjoy Chatterjee's life has been snuffed out and the court's order complied with. Whether justice was delivered or denied is entirely another matter. More than the unedifying ritual of state-ordained murder, the recent events highlighted the disconcerting bloodlust of the country's educated middle and upper-middle classes. Leading the brigade was Kolkata's Bengali bhadralog, whose forefathers did so much to usher in the intellectual rebirth of India nearly two centuries ago. The fact that the vast majority of the current crop of bhadralog also swears allegiance to the two largest communist parties is equally significant. Today, the moot point is whether the bhadralog and Left parties are as bhadra as they claim to be. The images that have been relentlessly repeated in the national electronic media could not have failed to leave a lasting impact on most of us. On the one hand, there was this desperately impoverished rural family that clearly did not have the social and economic clout to put forward its side of the picture; on the other, an organised menagerie of the party apparatchiks was holding public rallies and baying for blood. The Bengal chief minister's spouse almost snatched the mike away from the channel reporter to shriek that Chatterjee must keep his rendezvous with the hangman. This cosy alliance of the bhadralog with the executioner is a curious phenomenon. Is the Bengali bhadralog's much- vaunted civility, humanity, empathy and tolerance only a veneer that slips away to reveal atavistic instincts? Is Marxism in Bengal only a casual mantra to wield political power over hapless citizens? Marx would have baulked to see this kind of discrimination, founded on a typically Indian pattern of patronage. The educated and professional Bengali is mesmerised by the political power as well as the economic benefits which his Left-ruled government can either dole out or withhold. The Left displayed its retributive fangs, out of keeping with its bhadralog image, only to find the people falling in line. Apart from a small group of concerned citizens which dared to oppose the party line, Kolkata conducted itself disgracefully, similar to a lynch mob in the American South in the last century. The party, it would appear, has little use for humanist niceties anymore. The Chatterjee execution throws up at least four disturbing questions. First, the state government, not otherwise given to expedient conduct, acted in indecent haste. Having taken more than nine years to vacate the earlier stay granted by the high court, the state of West Bengal got itself into a tizzy to implement the death sentence. Why do governments that are poor in delivering public services, proceed with sudden efficiency to deliver an individual to his death? The state and the people seem united in their bloodthirst. Second, the class angle is hard to overlook — strange how the Reds of Bengal missed it. Former Supreme Court chief justice P N Bhagwati said in 1982 that death penalty was unconstitutional because the overwhelming number of those so convicted was poor. A few years back, the same state of West Bengal did not oppose the plea in the Supreme Court by a wealthy father-son duo to commute their death sentence to life imprisonment. The Baniks were convicted of murdering their daughter-in-law and wife. Their death sentence was confirmed by the high court as well as the Supreme Court. On that occasion, we did not see the West Bengal first-lady screaming on camera that she wanted the two to face the gallows. Nor did we have the unedifying spectacle of a garishly dressed school principal repeating ad nauseam on television that the accused had committed a 'heinous' offence. Third, the availability of adequate legal assistance to poor persons at the initial stage of trial and conviction is also a matter that should have engaged the Communists. Admittedly, Chatterjee managed to get legal assistance of the highest quality in the final stages of his ordeal. However, Indian criminal system is such that many critical aspects vital to the life and freedom of the accused cannot be brought up at the appeal stage, and certainly very rarely before the apex court. Finally, we are witnessing the systemic decline, if not the death, of the old bhadralog values that did the country proud and served it well for the last two centuries. The Bengalis in West Bengal suffered a raw deal in the last six decades, starting with the famine and the Partition in the 1940s. Yet, they kept alive the flame of reason and enquiry. Is that light fading away? Jorge Semprun in his epic holocaust novel, The Long Voyage, recounts the journey of a French Resistance fighter and a Spanish Civil War veteran to the death camp at Buchenwald. When the train halts at the station in Trier, a small town, groups of Nazi boy scouts are seen hurling stones at the prisoners cowering in the cattle cars. The two protagonists ask themselves why this was happening at such a nondescript location. The answer is soon clear: This was the birthplace of Marx and the Nazis had chosen it to taunt the prisoners (many of whom were communists) on their death ride. This was German society at its nadir. Is something similar happening to the bhadralog Marxists? (The author is an investment consultant.)   VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH, D-598/c, CHITTARANJAN PARK, NEW DELHI-11019, INDIA CELL: 0091-9891238606 STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319 RES.: 0091-11-26270256 From ketan at diamonds.net Tue Aug 17 12:24:34 2004 From: ketan at diamonds.net (ketan) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:24:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Report on Internet Censorship in India-Is it Necessary And Does It Work? Message-ID: <000001c48427$11b2d4a0$0600a8c0@Ketan> Hi ALL I have uploaded my report on "Internet Censorship in India-Is it Necessary And Does it Work? The site address is www.geocities.com/mumbaiketan It is still not a final version and is a work-in-progress as I am incorporating as much information and as many viewpoints as I can get till I finalise it. Please email me suggestions/comments/criticisms which I can incorporate till the date I finalise my report. I will be making a power point presentation on the report at the Sarai centre on 28th August 2003. Regards Ketan Tanna Mumbai India. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040817/ac5df2a5/attachment.html From ritika at sarai.net Tue Aug 17 13:38:04 2004 From: ritika at sarai.net (Ritika) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 13:38:04 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] slaughterhouse land use change Message-ID: <4121BCE4.4020305@sarai.net> In the latest drama to change the land use of the idgah slaughterhouse, the MCD commissioner Rakesh Mehta, has asked the Urban development ministry to change the land use of idgah site from residential to commercial. The MCD's plan is to develop the seven acre land as entertainment and shopping site for walled city. "There can be multiplexes and shopping malls with business activity around it," Mehta said (Hindustan Times, August 14, 2004) Interestingly, on 6th may 2003, MINISTRY OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION had issued a public notice: It is proposed to change the land use of an area measuring an area of 2.61 ha, from residential to extensive industrial with leave to set up a 'H' category Unit, i.e. Abattoir House at Idgah area http://www.delhiscienceforum.org/dmp2021/documents/A_Idgah.htm Gita Dewan Verma a noted activist planner had raised many issues on the Public Notice. Commenting on the land use of the walled city as envisaged by the Master Plan she says that since 1962 the Master Plan has emphasized the conservation of Walled City by checking conflicting land uses and shifting of noxious industries on a priority basis . The 2021 Plan includes Special Area status for Walled City and heritage conservation . b) Residential areas predominate in the Walled City and the Plan prohibits the mixing of residential and industrial land use .Therefore, it is unacceptable to regularize non-conforming units in residential areas . The State cannot use for commercial purposes land which is meant for the community. One can see this existing land use change as one way of legitimising/regularising the work that goes on ...but are there any other ways of looking at such debates? anxious ritika From nisar at keshvani.com Tue Aug 17 11:51:03 2004 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 01:21:03 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] LEA Special Issue cfp: Geography of Pain Message-ID: <200408170121.AA246350136@keshvani.com> ** Sincere apologies for cross-posting ** ** Worldwide Call for Submissions ** LEA Special Issue cfp: Geography of Pain Guest Editors: Tom Ettinger and Diane Gromala (pain at astn.net) http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2004/authors.htm#pain As part of Leonardo’s ongoing Art and Biology project, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is seeking short texts (with imagery and project URLs) by artists and scientists, or artist/scientist teams, whose work addresses pain in all its forms. Projects of interest include aesthetic works that address subjective experiences, social conditions, and cultural constructions of pain. Projects on the art of healing are of interest as well, especially multidisciplinary approaches that integrate Eastern and Western traditions. We will also consider current health science, computer science, and engineering research relevant to these topics. LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers / students to submit their proposals for consideration. We particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements. This LEA Special is part of a new collaborative initiative on pain management, founded by: * Tom Ettinger, Yale University, and interim Executive Director, Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (http://www.asci.org) * Diane Gromala, Georgia Institute of Technology (http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~gromala) * Julian Gresser, Chairman, Alliances for Discovery (http://www.breakthroughdiscoveries.org) * Roger Malina, Chairman and Editor, Leonardo (http://mitpress.mit.edu/Leonardo) Interested authors should send: - A brief description of proposed text (100 – 300 words) - A brief author biography - Any related URLs - Contact details In the subject heading of the email message, please use “Name of Artist/Project Title: LEA Pain Management – Date Submitted”. Please cut and paste all text into body of email (without attachments). Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2004 Please send proposals or queries to: Tom Ettinger and Diane Gromala pain at astn.net and Nisar Keshvani LEA Editor-in-Chief lea at mitpress.mit.edu http://lea.mit.edu ******************************************************************************** LEA Information and URLs ------------------------------------------- Receive your FREE subscription to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac e-mail digest at http://mitpress.mit.edu/lea/e-mail -- just provide your email address, name, and password, and check off that you'd like to be added to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac monthly e-mail list to keep on top of the latest news in the Leonardo community. Manuscript Submission Guidelines: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/submit How to advertise in LEA? http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/placeads.html#LEAads For a paid subscription (to become an ISAST member and access archives dating back to 1993): http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=4&tid=27&mode=p What is LEA? ------------- Established in 1993, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is the electronic arm of the pioneer art journal, Leonardo - Journal of Art, Science & Technology. The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), jointly produced by Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) and published under the auspices of MIT Press is an electronic journal dedicated to providing a forum for those who are interested in the realm where art, science and 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; and reviews of publications, events and exhibitions. Material is contributed by artists, scientists, educators and developers of new technological resources in the media arts. Mission ------- Since 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 while critically examining arts/science & technological works catering to the international CAST (Community of Artists, Scientist and Technologists) ******************************** From raviv at sarai.net Thu Aug 12 11:25:10 2004 From: raviv at sarai.net (Ravi S. Vasudevan) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 11:25:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Appan Menon Award Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.0.20040812112422.025bee68@mail.sarai.net> Appan Menon Memorial Award for 2004 · The Trust proposes to award a grant of Rs 1 Lakh every year to professional journalists working in the area of World Affairs or Development news with an Indian perspective . Journalists from any media with 3-5 years experience can apply by submitting the following · A brief project proposal ( 1000 words ) stating in brief the area, issues and your particular interest. · A brief account of the proposed use of the grant and the time frame . · Curriculum Vitae and one letter of reference · Samples of recent work The selection of the proposal to be awarded for this year will be by an eminent jury. The grant will be made in September 2004. Applications should reach the address below by August 30, 2004 Managing Trustee Appan Menon Memorial Trust N- 84 ,Panchshila Park New Delhi 110017 Telephone: Office 2649 -1515, 2646-8150 email : malka at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040812/e347711f/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From sayantoni at rediffmail.com Mon Aug 16 12:29:07 2004 From: sayantoni at rediffmail.com (sayantoni datta) Date: 16 Aug 2004 06:59:07 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: the idea of Jamshedpur Message-ID: <20040816065907.10332.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040816/f6a59de2/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- Dear Kalyan Your posting is extremely enriching in terms of a critique on the planning processes in Jamshedpur. On my recent visit to Jamshedpur, I found the political climate in the city very intriguing. I visited two "unauthorised" slums in the TISCO area.Most of the people there are labourers involved in the "informal sector" engaged mostly in slag picking leased out by contractors. There is a strong labour class which enjoys the paternal culture of the TATAs and yet there is a growing informal industry that does not.There is also a community of rickshaw pullers who pride themselves in not being labourers for others but for themselves. The vibrancy in different interest groups makes these planning processes more complex. I was wondering how urban planning processes like that of Jamshedpur are deeply influenced by governance and the issues of state and state accountability and citizenship rights. Jamshedpur being a Notified Area does not seem to have the similar arrangements of Wards and Ward Committees we see in other cities.How does urban local self governance(which would incorporate interests of different groups in the planning porcesses) find expression in the Jamshedpur planning process,(assuming here that planning is an intrinsic part of governance)? It would be interesting if you could share any sepcific examples of these processes, that you might have come across in the history of planning in Jamshedpur. Thanks Sayantoni   On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote : >Send reader-list mailing list submissions to > reader-list at sarai.net > >To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list >or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > reader-list-request at sarai.net > >You can reach the person managing the list at > reader-list-owner at sarai.net > >When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >than "Re: Contents of reader-list digest..." > > >Today's Topics: > > 1. Third Posting:Kalyan:The Idea of Jamshedpur (kalyan nayan) > 2. Fourth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur (kalyan nayan) > 3. Fifth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur (kalyan nayan) > 4. Sixth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur (kalyan nayan) > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Message: 1 >Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:35:29 +0100 (BST) > From: kalyan nayan >Subject: [Reader-list] Third Posting:Kalyan:The Idea of Jamshedpur >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Message-ID: <20040811133529.90455.qmail at web8307.mail.in.yahoo.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > This posting would refer to the planning processes envisaged by J. N. >Tata and others in Jamshedpur. It would also try to weave in it, the >planning mechanisms that have been initiated by them. > >"Be sure to lay out wide streets planted with shady trees, every other >one of a quick growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space >for lawns and gardens. Reserve large areas for football, hockey and >parks. Earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and >Christian churches". >Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata > >Above remarks unmistakably advocates planning as a medium to initiate >harmony in the physical as well as social resource complex of an urban >phenomenon. The founder was contemplating a vision of an industrial >city where maladies of urban growth can be done away with through >pre-emptive planning. It was the acceptance of the responsibility on >the part of the Tatas, the responsibility to plan Jamshedpur’s future. >Unlike Bombay and other cities it had genuinely started with a dream to >build a modern and efficient industrial city in the backdrop of Indian >diversity. Moreover urban planning was also a pretext to deliberate >upon the constitution of a modern nation. > The successors of J. N. Tata might have thought that initiating plans >every twenty years or so would give them a grasp over the impending >future of the city but one could easily see, through these plans, that >this was not the case. The texture of these plan documents compels one >to break free from the constraint of looking at them merely as plan >documents. It might be the case that the planners would have probably >resisted the characterization of their careful marshalling of maps, >graphs, and statistics as dreams, but there was something enormously >suggestive about the way they looked at town plans and planning as a >process. >In the backdrop of these, we would look at different plans and planners >of Jamshedpur. Detailed discussion would be initiated on the text and >the context of both - the plans and the planners historically. In the >second part there would be an attempt to see the legacy of these plans >on the Jamshedpur city and the changes instituted by them. >The idea of using town plans in the study of urban history is not new. >In Europe, it goes back to seventeenth century when some publications >combined historical information with town plans to look at the growth >of the city space. Frequent compositeness of town plans can give a >clue to distinct stages in town growth of which a historical record may >give no hint. It could be said without doubt that the town plans can >shed much light on the size and structure of different communities, the >different phases of their growth, their institutions and the relation >between them and the urban community, which they serve. >It is imperative on us first of all to describe what a town plan is? >Conzen has attempted to describe the term town plan as ‘the >cartographic representation of a town’s physical layout reduced to a >predetermined scale’. But more than this town plans are a complicated >category because they represent changing functional requirements of the >urban community. It would be our folly to regard these plans at their >face value and dispense with them. When looked at their face value they >represent themselves as a dry document of prospective physical lay out >of town. However reading these plans in the backdrop of technological >innovation, changes in industrial production, developments in the >social structure and aspects such as public health and housing, it will >provide us a comprehensive data on the evolution of physical and social >scale of the town. >Apart from the plans, planners are no less significant in the making of >a landscape. Their worldview and their ideas creep into the plans even >if they consciously attempt to be objective to the situation provided >to them. One obvious question that comes to the mind before going any >further is the primary concern of the planner regarding the objectives >of the development of a plan. For Harvey the planner is concerned with >‘for the most part, to the task of defining and attempting to achieve a >successful ordering of the built environment’. Similarly Planners are >concerned with the ‘proper location’ i.e. the appropriate mix of >activities in space of all the diverse elements that make up the >totality of physical structures and constitute the built environment. >These physical structures could be of a variety of mix, consisting of >the houses, roads, factories, offices, water and sewage disposal >facilities, hospitals and schools. Accordingly all the planners strive >to attain this ideal. And their ideology, aesthetics and politics needs >to be re-examined vis-à-vis the plans that they produce. >In the case of Jamshedpur we would see that the first of the two plans >by Kennedy and Temple are more in the nature of street plans rather >than an elaborative attempt to affect an integrative analysis of >population and spatial forms. With the increase in population and load >over the town these plans had been introduced for a fuller and >comprehensive account of the problems affecting Jamshedpur and >attempted to suggest remedies accordingly. > > > >===== >hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye > > >________________________________________________________________________ >Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online >Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 2 >Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:40:44 +0100 (BST) > From: kalyan nayan >Subject: [Reader-list] Fourth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Message-ID: <20040811134044.86857.qmail at web8312.mail.in.yahoo.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >This posting would engage with the apparent failure of planning process >in the Jamshedpur city. >Constant engagement with planning could not prevent Jamshedpur from >falling into the traps that other Indian cities have been subjected to. > >Raising the concerns of the typical middle class inhabitant of the city >an article in one of the prominent dailies of the area declared: > >"Roads overflowing with traffic, bustees eating into the taxpayers’ >prerogatives, inadequate power and clogged drains have raised questions >about our planners’ foresight. Did they not look into the future or >were their plans not implemented properly"? > > The concern raised in the quote above shows the disenchantment of a >significant section of the population in Jamshedpur. It certainly >reflects the critical scrutiny the Company planning policies have been >subjected to by the general inhabitant of the city. Although it deals >with the Jamshedpur of 90s and does not necessarily link with our >period yet the tone of assessment over the years was never very >favourable for the Company’s planning mechanisms. It might be the >reflection of one of the prominent consideration that the planner is >supposed to engage himself with in planning, i.e., to act as an arbiter >or a corrective weight in negotiating with diversity of interest groups >in an urban setting. Did the planners overlook this aspect? >We have seen that the majority of the skilled workers were provided >with one kind of housing or another. It was the unskilled labouring >class who was mostly at the receiving end in terms of housing >requirements. Quite naturally for this large section of the population >every other engagement with the city was of secondary importance. >Labour looked to the built environment as a means of consumption and a >means for its own reproduction and, perhaps, expansion. It was also >sensitive to both the cost and the spatial access of the various >components in the built environment for example housing, educational >and recreational facilities, and services of all kinds. It would have >been naturally difficult for the planners to harmonize the immediate >requirements of this class and carry on with the process of building a >model industrial city. This predicament could be seen with every >subsequent plan. Some genuinely tried to address this issue first and >later on look into what respite the plan could provide the city’s >infrastructure. Hence there was continuous emphasis on housing the >labourer. Since the entire housing requirement was to be provided by >the Company, those workers who were not directly employed by the >Company were left unprovided for. One of the logical outcomes was the >development of the bustee areas. >Part of the problem lay in the formulation of the very ideology of >planning. Michael Ames after a survey remarked three conditions that >influenced the character of Jamshedpur: one was the non local origins >of many of the workers; a second was the westernized orientation of the >upper strata; and a third was a sense of economic scarcity and >insecurity characteristic especially of the lower strata. It would be >interesting to note Ames’s further observation about the westernised >orientation of the Company elites. According to him, > >"While the Jamshedpur labour force as a whole is more cosmopolitan than >the general population of Bihar, the senior Company officials in the >city are even further removed from the masses in education and style of >life. The Company elites always have been either Western or westernized >people whose primary ties and interests were with Calcutta, Bombay, or >the Steel cities of America, England, and Germany". > >This observation was true in many respects and this has been indicated >in earlier sections. The Tata family and other factory owners never >hesitated to copy Western models of industrial organisation, labour >relations, social welfare, and community planning. They also never >hesitated to import foreign experts, to design or evaluate industrial >and residential areas, or to send their own experts abroad for advanced >training. This had its obvious impact on the nature of housing >strategies being adopted to tackle the problem of overcrowding. They >assumed that certain social forms like single family dwellings and >occupationally stratified residential areas could be easily >accommodated into Jamshedpur setting. This is not to say that in an >attempt to amalgamate these features, modifications suited to Indian >conditions were not envisioned. But it was also true that in the quest >for more economically rational transformation in the worker outlook the >primacy has always been given to the former. We could see the >reflection of it in the plans as well. In the words of J. R. D. Tata: > >"The first question one might ask is whether the problems involved in >the Industrialisation of a country like India today are likely to be >different from those experienced in the West in the nineteenth century >and the first half of the twentieth. I think not. For the process, in >both cases, will have been one of transforming the environment and the >working and living habits of a large proportion of the people from life >on the farm and in small artisan and trading communities to life in >factories and urban areas. Human nature being fundamentally the same >everywhere and at all time, it may be expected to react to such a >change in generally the same way". > > >From the above message it is clear that boundaries defined by early >modern Western standards played a significant part in the ‘idea of >Jamshedpur’. The planners’ application of his ideas in these >circumstances cannot be separated from this necessary ideological >commitment. And planners were striving to affect reconciliation in >conjunction with a rational socio-spatial ordering. We can analyse >Temple’s idea of ‘hexagonal planning’ in this perspective where he >tried to come to terms with aberrations in the surrounding of >Jamshedpur. It was also the recognition of the fact that the efficiency >of the labour might be enhanced by providing a compensatory sense of >harmony with the nature in the living place. Hence to bring more and >more nature into the city was every planner’s endeavour. > > > >===== >hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye > > >________________________________________________________________________ >Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online >Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 3 >Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:45:26 +0100 (BST) > From: kalyan nayan >Subject: [Reader-list] Fifth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Message-ID: <20040811134526.2304.qmail at web8310.mail.in.yahoo.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >This posting would focus on the aspect of paternalism in the city. We >would try to explore its impact on the city. We would also see if this >had any influence on the planning mechanisms that had been initiated in >Jamshedpur. > >"We do not claim to be more unselfish, more generous or more >philanthropic than other people. But we think we started on sound and >straight forward business principles, considering the interests of >shareholders our own, and the health and welfare of the employees, the >sure foundation of our prosperity". >Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata > >The above statement might not be a remarkable and original insight into >the social philosophy that should endow a man of wealth but it would be >of interest to contrast it with an equally frank statement ten years >later. During a conference in London with Tata’s representatives in >1904-05 regarding concessions in freight rates for bulk conveyance of >raw materials, iron and steel, the Managing Director of Bengal Nagpur >Railway said: > >"It does not appeal to us at all if you can only show that in an >indirect and remote way this would be for the benefit of India. The >only appeal that can be made to us is that we can make money out of it. >This Railway Company, you must always bear in mind, is a commercial >undertaking, and must only be actuated by commercial motives. We must >not consider the advantages to India and, must not be actuated by >anything like patriotic or philanthropic motives we do not consider a >snap of the fingers about the advantages to India". > >One could only guess the fundamental difference in opinion, which later >on became the foundation stone of Indian industrial bourgeoisie at that >point of time. To follow from the previous chapter we would be able to >see as to how the values of the Tata Iron and Steel Company were >reflected in the city plans and architecture, how human interactions >have been influenced by the architecture and urban design and how >people have reacted to the Company’s built environment. We have traced >the lineage of the city in brief but here we will not only see the >establishment of Jamshedpur but also the sustenance of it as the oldest >and the largest existing Company town in the world. It was the >prototype for post independent Indian industrial cities such as Bhilai, >Rourkela and Durgapur, which were established in completely rural >areas. >Closely following J. N. Tata’s ideas we will also see that the >objective of building the city was not considered only on the basis of >philanthropic motives. There was a larger philosophy behind it. In >fact, world over the experience has been that the Company towns are >excellent examples of rational attempts by planners and architects to >mould workers and manipulate social and economic interactions for the >primary purpose of improving industrial production. I will like to >build upon this idea and try to weave segments of Jamshedpur here for >greater continuity and understanding. >For the purpose of moulding the worker, planning served as a >significant tool. We have traced the intention and scope of planning in >Jamshedpur in great detail to demonstrate the desire on the part of the >Company to constantly intervene in the built atmosphere of the city >whenever it saw things escalating beyond control. It was true that one >of the guiding factors of planners in doing so was their concurrence >and inspiration from the European and American industrial conditions. >But it was also true that these planning mechanisms became a tool in >their hands to make regulation of space serve their need of controlling >and disciplining the labour. For example, housing was one of the prime >considerations of every planner. Efforts were made in every plan to >negotiate with this impending requirement. But it was also a means to >dissuade the worker from building whatever it liked. To quote Lefebvre: > >"In the extension and proliferation of cities, housing is the guarantee >of reproductivity, be it biological, social or political. Society i.e. >capitalist society no longer totalizes its elements nor seeks to >achieve total integration through monuments. Instead it strives to >distil its essence into buildings". > >In other words planning was also for the creation of a modern, >industrial working ethic. It was not a matter of carrot and stick >policy for the Tatas. The city served as the extension of their >hegemony. To put it in more precise terms, it was a platform to >practice paternalism. For we have seen that in our period they >resisted every attempt to let go, the control of the city from their >hands, even if it meant a huge expenditure for them. >Regulation of space was necessary for instilling in the workers a sense >of purpose and discipline. It was also significant for obtaining >optimum performance levels and guaranteed competence. Lefebvre >referring to the concept of ‘spatial practice’ stated, > >"Spatial practice embraces production and reproduction Spatial practice >ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion. In terms of social >space, and of each member of a given society’s relationship to that >space, this cohesion implies a guaranteed level of competence and a >specific level of performance It embodies complex symbolisms, sometimes >coded, sometimes not linked to underground side of social space". > >This cohesion and creation of purpose seemed to be one of the primary >objectives of the Tatas. One could still ask why this moulding and >shaping of the worker? It has been observed that ‘each mode of >production has its own space; the shift from one mode to another must >entail production of a new space. A fresh space needs to be generated, >a space which is organized and planned subsequently’. Not only this, >it has to be fashioned, shaped and invested by social activities during >a finite historical period. Probably this mindset, although not >pronounced, justified the refashioning or remoulding. >But it was certainly not a one way process. There were contending urges >for hegemony, between worker and the capital, and there seems to be >contention over space for extending counter hegemony. This contention >metamorphosed into an aspect of ‘ambivalence’. An ambivalence, which >invited more and more negotiation rather than confrontation in the >city. > > >===== >hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye > > >________________________________________________________________________ >Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online >Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 4 >Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 14:48:21 +0100 (BST) > From: kalyan nayan >Subject: [Reader-list] Sixth Posting:Kalyan:The Idea Of Jamshedpur >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Message-ID: <20040811134821.97525.qmail at web8309.mail.in.yahoo.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >In many ways Jamshedpur is the manifestation of Tata paternalism. This >section would explore the meaning and implication of Tata paternalism >in Jamshedpur. >The word paternalism derives its meaning from the Latin-English kinship >term. It is a type of behaviour by a superior towards an inferior >resembling that of a male parent to his child - in most cases, a son. >However, the precise forms of this behaviour vary from society to >society because the culture of kinship varies, and also because the >nature of the tasks performed in paternalistic societies vary. >Max Weber, who developed the concept of patrimonialism, first noted the >theoretical relevance of paternalism. But the focus on patrimonial >relations by Weber cannot lead us to equate patrimonialism with >paternalism. In fact paternalism is different from patriarchy or >patrimonialism, an error, which comes from the assumption that male >domination is the prime element in every category. >We would be distinguishing these categories for the greater clarity in >our discussion. This would be carried forward by focusing on the idea >of paternalism as practiced by the Tatas in Jamshedpur. We have >referred to this idea cursorily in the preceding chapters. By giving it >a separate focus we would attempt a synthesis where the question of the >urban would be amalgamated with different streams of our discussion >namely planning processes, the labour in the city and the factor of >paternalism. >The survival or creation of a paternalistic system depends on the needs >and on the existing social organizational patterns and traditions. This >is clearly visible in Jamshedpur. > We have been talking about paternalism in our earlier postings. In >fact our concern with the planning activities in the town and the study >of the general morphological development of Jamshedpur reflects flashes >of paternalistic idea recurring many times. In the development of >Indian capitalism Jamshedpur perhaps is the most celebrated case of >this idea. The development of the steel works in the jungles of >Chotanagpur forced the Company to develop infrastructure that would >enable and sustain the steel works. One could argue that since the >sustenance of the steel works needed this kind of preliminary >investments Jamshedpur was more a matter of practical exigency on the >part of the Tatas rather than a paternalistic benevolence. But then to >argue in this manner would be to gloss over the sophistication involved >in the deliberation of the idea of paternalism by the Tatas. Moreover >we saw that the Tatas were not completely oblivious of their moral >concern to provide for their employees. J. N. Tata and others down the >line consistently spoke of making Jamshedpur an ideal industrial >nucleus. > Regulation and intrusion in other aspects of worker’s life was a >logical extension of the above beginning in setting up an industrial >township. The idea of being an employer and protector of the welfare of >the workers saw its manifestations in the act of the Company >undertaking rural development projects in the surrounding villages, >including health, education, family planning and economic sustenance >initiatives. Even when the eastern half of the city was being leased to >ancillary industries, most of which were Tata controlled, the Companies >were impressed upon to build and maintain their own workers’ colony >following the model of TISCO. > Paternalism is rare in Indian industries, although the Indian socio >economic condition gives much space to allow this idea to thrive. >Indian society continued to be a traditional patriarchal one where a >strong emphasis on paternal power does not appear to have been much >eroded by modernisation or urbanisation. Even after independence this >is valid for India. But the extension of this idea could be hardly seen >in the industrial sector. In the Western case many small capitalists >could be found extending the paternalistic privileges to their workers >as done by the big enterprises. One of the reasons of this might be the >lack of resources which constricted Indian businessmen’s efforts. Since >majority of the workers remained uneducated and unskilled the employer >did not feel obliged to give more to the worker than what was required >by law or union contract. For an enterprise like that of the Tatas in >Jamshedpur, which started in the very beginning of the twentieth >century with a conscious realisation of their role in Indian >industrialisation, this attitude of paternal guidance was obvious and >simultaneously an unique effort. > The paternalism of the Tata Company had a profound philosophical base >in its founder’s objective. We have already traced the origins of the >corporate culture of the Tata group in its founder’s philosophy who >passed on his social values to his sons and his successors. The Tatas >like many other progressive nationalists and leaders of the late >nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were advocates of swadeshi. As >early as 1840s Indian intellectuals realised that the key to Britain’s >power was its economic strength and that the only way India could >become a free and a great nation was through industrialisation. > J. N. Tata promoted many industries in his eventful lifetime and every >venture of his became a model for successful industrial management and >enterprise. His early focus was the cotton textiles. In its conception, >the Empress Mill was the precursor of TISCO which he opened in Nagpur >in 1877. He not only invested the mill with the state of the art >technology like proper ventilators and automatic fire sprinklers but >also with an employee welfare policy. He provided housing, >recreational, and educational facilities for his workers and instituted >provident fund and pension schemes. According to J. R. D. Tata, >Jamsetji imbued the future Tata Management with a sense of social >consciousness and trusteeship. > > >===== >hi received your mail. thank you for calling me. i will reply you soon. sorry for the tantrum. bye > > >________________________________________________________________________ >Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online >Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony > > >------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >reader-list mailing list >reader-list at sarai.net >https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > >End of reader-list Digest, Vol 13, Issue 17 >******************************************* From shivamvij at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 19:54:35 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 19:54:35 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] ZESTCaste: Looking for a moderator Message-ID: Dear all, ZEST is looking for a moderator to run a new mailing list called ZESTCaste, to circulate an article a day on issues related to caste in the Indian subcontinent. The list is to reflect contemporary discourse on caste, promote new thinking on the subject, bring to light research done on caste over decades. The moderator will have to be "objective" on the issue, giving space to all shades of opinion on the subject, reflecting not just both the upper- and lower-caste views, but also the differences within them. The list will also reflect the increasingly high-brow Dalit activism being carried out by such eminent caste activists as Udit Raj, Chandrabhan Prasad, Kancha Ilaiah, VT Rajshekhar, Gopal Guru and S. Anand. ZESTCaste will also give space to news reports about caste issues, as well as the academic research by scholars who hide themselves in universities. The moderator will have to run both the editorial and technical aspects of the mailing list: the technical can be imparted by us, whereas the editorial, we presume, you already have before you write in. We can, however, also train you in procuring free caste-related editorial content from the Net. Despite objectivity, the idea of ZESTCaste will be activist in nature. ZEST supports removal of caste inequalities in society through means including affirmative action in both public and private enterprise. Anyone who's interested is requested to write to shivamvij at gmail.com. Shivam Vij The ZEST Mailing Lists _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shivamvij at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 19:48:16 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:48:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Workshop on Culture and Everyday Life, Mumbai, January 2005 Message-ID: Workshop on Culture and Everyday Life, Mumbai, January 2005 Culture has today become a central arena of contestation in the social and political life of India. Forces of globalisation and communalism have entered the sphere of culture as never before and seek to alter it to suit their own ends. The communal forces in particular attempt to transform every day to day cultural practice into a religious one and further change it into a communal practice. This is also part of a design to create a homogenous communal culture that would deny and destroy pluralities as well as syncretic practices. Vikas Adhyayan Kendra therefore plans to organise a workshop on Culture and Everyday Life in January 2005 for young scholars and activists active in the field of culture. The workshop will aim to understand the contestations in the field of culture, the 'cultural interventions' attempted by the reactionary forces, and develop democratic and secular counters to these interventions. The seven day workshop will deal with the topics of Concept of Culture; Popular Culture; Cultural Processes; Culture, State and Market; and Towards Resistance. The workshop will consist of lectures, readings, discussions, writings, and discussions with activists. Applications are invited from young scholars and activists actively engaged in study and practice in the field of culture. Only thirty (30) persons can participate in the workshop. The interested persons should write to Vikas Adhyayan Kendra with their detailed bio-data, detailing particularly their involvement in the field of culture, and the reasons for their interest in the workshop. Brochures about the workshop and formal application forms will be sent to the short-listed participants. The course fee is Rs. 500/-. Accommodation and food as well as all course material will be provided by the organisers. Travel grants may be considered for a few exceptional deserving candidates. The course will be coordinated by Prof. R. M. Bapat. Advisor to the course is Prof. K. N. Panikkar. Vikas Adhyayan Kendra is a secular non-governmental organisation with its main office in Mumbai. Write to: Ajit Muricken, Director, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, D-1, Shivdham, 62, Link Road, Malad (West), Mumbai 400 064, INDIA Telephones: (022) 28822850/ 28898662 Fax No.: (022) 28898941 Website: http://www.vakindia.org E-Mail: vak at bom3.vsnl.net.in _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From tellsachin at yahoo.com Sun Aug 15 12:35:18 2004 From: tellsachin at yahoo.com (Sachin Agarwal) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 00:05:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] human rights? why cry for a rapist? In-Reply-To: <20040815063004.0558C28DD27@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20040815070518.92704.qmail@web41510.mail.yahoo.com> Why are people clamouring about the death sentence to chatterjee in the name of human rights? where were these people when the human rights of Hetal were violated? as if rape and murder of 14 year young girl is no violation of human rights. at least a good precedent has been set by court. I am sure if 10 - 15 other death penalties happen (awarded by courts) in the years to come, there will be a considerable fear in the minds of rapists and women will also come forward to register complaints. the registering of complaints is at a dismal low at present. and the nagpur incident. i fully support the action of women. when administration is deaf and justice is blind, civil society will find its own and newer means of retribution. any body wants to locate any government agency. see www.nic.in u will find everyone from president to peon. alternatively try: www.sarkaritel.com sachin agarwal reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote: Send reader-list mailing list submissions to reader-list at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to reader-list-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at reader-list-owner at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of reader-list digest..." Today's Topics: 1. On Journalism (Shivam Vij) 2. Media romanticizing rapists (Sourav) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 13:09:45 +0530 From: Shivam Vij Subject: [Reader-list] On Journalism To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE THEORY --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Diversified, efficient societies need credible media. - Inadequate reporting fails to effectively monitor and control government (and various lobbies) - Legislation on complex matters is likelyto turn out inadequate unless media present sufficient background information and provide an enlightening public debate. (Reinold E Thiel) - High prices and poor business decisions are inevitable consequences of inept market reporting (Jenny Luesby) - If civic organisations are not perceived to be relevant, their scope of action will be further reduced. [Source D+C, Development & Cooperation, July 2004] --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE UNQUOTE: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Unfortunately journalists have a rather shabby reputation. They are often accused of being sensationalist and superficial. Time constraints are an important reason for this. Deadlines rarely leave enough time to come up with a perfect product. It has always been like this, but the pressure is constantly growing. Global networks mean global data overload. Thanks to digital technology, press agencies have dramatically increased their output, while political parties, corporations and interest groups all produce more and more information material.... -- Dr Hans Dembowski, EditorinChief D+C ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 22:47:02 +0530 From: "Sourav" Subject: [Reader-list] Media romanticizing rapists To: Message-ID: <20040812171716.9FB7628D9A7 at mail.sarai.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood is not a solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But I don't know where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide us and we will send the signatures and mails against hanging. Sourav. West Bengal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040812/f457e245/attachment.html ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ reader-list mailing list reader-list at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list End of reader-list Digest, Vol 13, Issue 22 ******************************************* --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040815/e336213a/attachment.html From tellsachin at yahoo.com Sun Aug 15 12:51:47 2004 From: tellsachin at yahoo.com (Sachin Agarwal) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 00:21:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Group to discuss Electoral Reforms started. In-Reply-To: <20040812063003.14D0128E351@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20040815072147.79557.qmail@web41507.mail.yahoo.com> A core group for discussing issues realted to electoral reforms in india has been started on the initiative of PRof Tralochan Sastry of IIM-B. Please visit it at : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/weareforelectoralreform This group will work as a forum for discussing the issues relating to the electoral process of the country consisting of the activist, thinkers and experts working in the area. This forum will work as a pressure group in pursuding the government , the elction commission and the other governemnt bodies involved in the area to take steps for the achievement of clean electoroal system in India by reforming it. Regards, sachin agarwal SOciety for People's Action, Change and Enforcement (PACE) Lucknow --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040815/c2990c4d/attachment.html From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:16:04 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:46:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] my belated posting02 Message-ID: <20040817054610.22446.h006.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Posting 02 Beginning from the end: It’s literally like ‘beginning from the end’! The final day is nearby. I mean the day for the presentation there at sarai. Now only I have realised that the months have actually gone by. I got so habituated by downloading other’s postings and going through those (I won’t request you to believe that I have read all of those as I will be meeting you all soon) that I forgot various aspects of self-concern! Authenticity of this statement depends on your interpretation. Naturally I won’t go for anything ‘absolute’. You know reader list has a major draw back. By giving free of cost home deliveries of innovative research findings, ideas, writings, debates, information, it gives people like me, who has a serious block about writing, the chances to relax. Through out these months I felt relaxed realising that so many interesting works are going on and so many postings . So I thought let me take this opportunity to pacify my ‘writing skill’ and hide behind a bunch of brilliant postings. But I have realised that this is no more possible. Actually I have done a single posting, a brief introduction of my project. I was on time then you know! But that’s long back so I don’t have the courage to request you all to excavate for that mini note. Rather I begin my second posting introducing my project work. Urban Ecology Documentation/ Mapping The eastward expansion of the city is causing the fast transformation of the semi rural and rural landscape into highly urban settlements in the eastern fringe of Calcutta. Kalikapur, a densely populated locality inhabited mostly by the people from poorer economic strata, a unique ecosystem with very rich mosaic of original vegetation, with groves of indigenous trees and bushes, swamps with reeds, and number of water bodies, has strangely survived the onslaught and now remains as a refuge threatened by the fast approaching urban expansion. A considerable number of Kalikapur residents have significant dependence on the local wilderness for their dietary supplements, fuel and fodder. They, and particularly their children, are quite knowledgeable about these available, ‘free’ resources, in the locality and also in adjacent urban settlements. The proposed research was aimed to study such indigenous knowledge, and the unique practice of resource use and sharing, in a framework of urban-semi-urban ecosystem. An outline ecological mapping along with the ethnographic history of Kalikapur region was being planned. There was another objective- documentation of the urban transformation, which is taking place in and around Kalikapur region. A small group comprises of knowledgeable kids from Kalikapur, and kids from the adjacent urban locality, who have operational computer knowledge, would be formed. Kalikapur kids will work as field guides and the urban ones will guide the documentation (paper, photographs, computer storage) mainly. A participatory bio-resource documentation, and exchange of knowledge and skill between these two groups would be actively initiated. Documentation is to be done with the help of various media forms like photographs, audio, video, sketches, and computer. Beginning after the beginning: Again, to begin with I must say that I am fortunate enough to stay in such a locality like Purba diganta which is adjacent to Kalikapur. We built a house 17 years back and since then I am staying there. That had actually enabled me to observe the unique phenomenon like existence of Kalikapur and the on going urban transformation in the eastern fringe of the city Calcutta. When I started working on my project I thought that to understand the unique existence of Kalikapur it would be important to study the development of East Calcutta in the context of the growing up of Kolikata as a city. Here is some reflections: Calcutta is situated in the world’s largest, highly dynamic delta of the Hoogly-Brahmaputra Rivers. The location where the city is situated today used to be mangrove swamps which was part of greater Sunderbans, a few hundred years ago. Rural agricultural landscape crept into this frontier once the delta matured above the inter-tidal level. A vast area especially towards the east remained under swamps originating from the moribund courses of river channels. To begin with, Calcutta grew along the east coast of the river Ganga which defines the cities spatial limit west ward. When the British arrived in India and set up Calcutta, most part of the modern East Calcutta was covered with salt-water marshes. These salt-water marshes were between the River Hoogly to the west, and the Bidyadhari River, now dry, to the east. The river Bidhyadhari was one of main trade routes then, which started silting up due to several human interventions. In 1884 a drainage system was completed for directing the city sewage into the salt water lakes in East Calcutta and then finally into the Bay of Bengal following the natural slope of the land towards the south-east through the Bidyadhari and the Matla rivers. Excavation of several canals, construction of railway lines, cross-damming, and land filling by dumping city’s garbage took place which had actually expedited the process of drying up. Ironically, in the year 1928 the Bidyadhari river was officially declared ‘dead’ by the then Government of Bengal. Much later around 1960’s reclamation of salt lakes started taking place slowly. Originally the limit of Calcutta Corporation was restricted to the eastern railway zones up to Shealdah rail lines. The Beliaghata area used to be called East Kolkata, but with the inclusion of Tollygunj Municipality within the city limits by 1961, the configuration of East Kolkata has changed dramatically. In the 1980’s with the construction of the Eastern Metropolitan By-pass the process of urbanisation gained pace. East Kolkata in the present context means an area from the Beliaghata canal up to Garia point. At present East Kolkata comprises 29 moujas under the jurisdiction of six police stations viz. Tiljala, Salt Lake, Bhangor, Kasba, Jadavpur and Purba Jadavpur. Since mid eighties development projects gained momentum. Starting from a huge stadium, business and office complexes, hotels, to the residential complexes, amusement parks, and a film institute, came up fast along the both sides of the By-pass.. My study area Kalikapur, is a place along the western side of the By-pass which still retains its almost original rustic look. Purba diganta is a fully urbanised area in the west of Kalikapur and both the places are connected by a common road, one end of which ultimately reaches the By-pass. While the residents of Purba diganta are mostly urban middle class people, the residents of Kalikapur are from the lower middle class and the poorer sections of the society. May be due to their close vicinities these places do share a relationship among themselves. Which I found could also be very significant to study along with our documentation of selection of biodiverse patches of vegetation in Kalikapur. From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:16:07 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:46:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] my belated posting02 Message-ID: <20040817054613.24507.h002.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Posting 02 Beginning from the end: It’s literally like ‘beginning from the end’! The final day is nearby. I mean the day for the presentation there at sarai. Now only I have realised that the months have actually gone by. I got so habituated by downloading other’s postings and going through those (I won’t request you to believe that I have read all of those as I will be meeting you all soon) that I forgot various aspects of self-concern! Authenticity of this statement depends on your interpretation. Naturally I won’t go for anything ‘absolute’. You know reader list has a major draw back. By giving free of cost home deliveries of innovative research findings, ideas, writings, debates, information, it gives people like me, who has a serious block about writing, the chances to relax. Through out these months I felt relaxed realising that so many interesting works are going on and so many postings . So I thought let me take this opportunity to pacify my ‘writing skill’ and hide behind a bunch of brilliant postings. But I have realised that this is no more possible. Actually I have done a single posting, a brief introduction of my project. I was on time then you know! But that’s long back so I don’t have the courage to request you all to excavate for that mini note. Rather I begin my second posting introducing my project work. Urban Ecology Documentation/ Mapping The eastward expansion of the city is causing the fast transformation of the semi rural and rural landscape into highly urban settlements in the eastern fringe of Calcutta. Kalikapur, a densely populated locality inhabited mostly by the people from poorer economic strata, a unique ecosystem with very rich mosaic of original vegetation, with groves of indigenous trees and bushes, swamps with reeds, and number of water bodies, has strangely survived the onslaught and now remains as a refuge threatened by the fast approaching urban expansion. A considerable number of Kalikapur residents have significant dependence on the local wilderness for their dietary supplements, fuel and fodder. They, and particularly their children, are quite knowledgeable about these available, ‘free’ resources, in the locality and also in adjacent urban settlements. The proposed research was aimed to study such indigenous knowledge, and the unique practice of resource use and sharing, in a framework of urban-semi-urban ecosystem. An outline ecological mapping along with the ethnographic history of Kalikapur region was being planned. There was another objective- documentation of the urban transformation, which is taking place in and around Kalikapur region. A small group comprises of knowledgeable kids from Kalikapur, and kids from the adjacent urban locality, who have operational computer knowledge, would be formed. Kalikapur kids will work as field guides and the urban ones will guide the documentation (paper, photographs, computer storage) mainly. A participatory bio-resource documentation, and exchange of knowledge and skill between these two groups would be actively initiated. Documentation is to be done with the help of various media forms like photographs, audio, video, sketches, and computer. Beginning after the beginning: Again, to begin with I must say that I am fortunate enough to stay in such a locality like Purba diganta which is adjacent to Kalikapur. We built a house 17 years back and since then I am staying there. That had actually enabled me to observe the unique phenomenon like existence of Kalikapur and the on going urban transformation in the eastern fringe of the city Calcutta. When I started working on my project I thought that to understand the unique existence of Kalikapur it would be important to study the development of East Calcutta in the context of the growing up of Kolikata as a city. Here is some reflections: Calcutta is situated in the world’s largest, highly dynamic delta of the Hoogly-Brahmaputra Rivers. The location where the city is situated today used to be mangrove swamps which was part of greater Sunderbans, a few hundred years ago. Rural agricultural landscape crept into this frontier once the delta matured above the inter-tidal level. A vast area especially towards the east remained under swamps originating from the moribund courses of river channels. To begin with, Calcutta grew along the east coast of the river Ganga which defines the cities spatial limit west ward. When the British arrived in India and set up Calcutta, most part of the modern East Calcutta was covered with salt-water marshes. These salt-water marshes were between the River Hoogly to the west, and the Bidyadhari River, now dry, to the east. The river Bidhyadhari was one of main trade routes then, which started silting up due to several human interventions. In 1884 a drainage system was completed for directing the city sewage into the salt water lakes in East Calcutta and then finally into the Bay of Bengal following the natural slope of the land towards the south-east through the Bidyadhari and the Matla rivers. Excavation of several canals, construction of railway lines, cross-damming, and land filling by dumping city’s garbage took place which had actually expedited the process of drying up. Ironically, in the year 1928 the Bidyadhari river was officially declared ‘dead’ by the then Government of Bengal. Much later around 1960’s reclamation of salt lakes started taking place slowly. Originally the limit of Calcutta Corporation was restricted to the eastern railway zones up to Shealdah rail lines. The Beliaghata area used to be called East Kolkata, but with the inclusion of Tollygunj Municipality within the city limits by 1961, the configuration of East Kolkata has changed dramatically. In the 1980’s with the construction of the Eastern Metropolitan By-pass the process of urbanisation gained pace. East Kolkata in the present context means an area from the Beliaghata canal up to Garia point. At present East Kolkata comprises 29 moujas under the jurisdiction of six police stations viz. Tiljala, Salt Lake, Bhangor, Kasba, Jadavpur and Purba Jadavpur. Since mid eighties development projects gained momentum. Starting from a huge stadium, business and office complexes, hotels, to the residential complexes, amusement parks, and a film institute, came up fast along the both sides of the By-pass.. My study area Kalikapur, is a place along the western side of the By-pass which still retains its almost original rustic look. Purba diganta is a fully urbanised area in the west of Kalikapur and both the places are connected by a common road, one end of which ultimately reaches the By-pass. While the residents of Purba diganta are mostly urban middle class people, the residents of Kalikapur are from the lower middle class and the poorer sections of the society. May be due to their close vicinities these places do share a relationship among themselves. Which I found could also be very significant to study along with our documentation of selection of biodiverse patches of vegetation in Kalikapur. From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:19:42 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:49:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] mt belated posting03 Message-ID: <20040817054945.15596.h008.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Posting 03 Bazar gives hazar options: I knew two kids from Kalikapur one of whom is a 12-year boy, Mithun, who works as a helping hand to a fish cleaner in a local market. He was my key connection for identifying other kids. Sheela, a young lady of around 25years who was married at the age of 17 or 18 and was rejected by her husband after a few months of her marriage. Sheela collects milk packs and delivers those to a few families including mine in Purba Diganta. She rears cows, rams, hens, in the empty lands and fields in and around Purba Diganta and nearby places beside the By-pass. Sheela was a very important contact I had at the beginning of the study. Her house which is still a mud house is at the last point of Purba diganta or another way that’s actually the first house of Kalikapur if you approach Kalikapur from Purba Diganta. Sheela took active initiative in recommending me to the families in Kalikapur for our data collection. Later on she had also accompanied our field team. With the help of Mithun I was able to find out three other kids within two days who all have very good knowledge about the bioresources in their surroundings. Bhim, a 13 year old boy is the most knowledgeable one among them, especially about the medicinal plants. Bhim has inherited this knowledge mostly from his grandfather. His grandfather used to treat people in the locality using medicinal herbs. Shanu, is another 13 year old kid who is quite knowledgeable about various usages of available plants. He also knows a lot about behaviours of different species of birds seen in the localities. Gwaja, a 10 year old boy, is quite an energetic one who also knows a lot about medicinal plants. Bhola, same age as Gwaja also knows a lot about birds. Shyamali, a 11 year old girl and Bhim’s 10 years old sister Buri had also joined the group. These two, particularly Shyamali, knows a lot about the medicinal plants and edibles herbs, leafs, and shrubs in and around Kalikapur. These two girls are the only regular school goers in our kid’s group from Kalikapur. As per my plan I have tried to form another group comprising of the kids who have computer knowledge and finally I could gather two to join the group. Teerna, my nephew, now 11 year old and studying in seventh standard, was an obvious choice for me. Rimli, 14 now, who studies in the ninth standard has also agreed to join the group. In the first two trips we were accompanied by Silanjan Bhattacharya, an ecologist and a teacher, who works in the field of human ecology and has considerable experience of biodiversity documentation in different areas of West Bengal. We have identified a few spots mainly, for our first round of sample collection/survey in Kalikapur. The key factors behind choosing those spots were, 1. Strategic positioning in correlation with the urban locality to show the contrast- • a roadside stretch along the road bordering Purba Diganta and Kalikapur which goes towards the By-pass. • The dense mini forest zone behind Ananya the only and one beauty parlour, of Kalikapur was another location. 2. In and around the water bodies, functioning as well as dried up ones- • The pond owned by Kartk Paik, which has a sort of community pond status as it’s being used by the people for various purposes- from bathing to immersion of idols. • Canal, small pond, beside the By-pass, where an open-air restaurant has come up recently. • Pukurkhol, the dried up pond behind Bhim and Shanu’s house.. 3. Concentration of original vegetation with number of indigenous trees- • The central concentration of old trees at Baruipara. 4. Identifying unique traditional/ adopted biodiversity related practices- • A stretch along with the vegetable garden developed and maintained by Bhim and his family beside the canal which flows parallel to the road in the northern end of Kalikapur. We took photographs of all the locations. From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:26:34 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:56:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] my belated posting04 Message-ID: <20040817055637.24659.h002.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Postings 04 What to write what to leave: So many interesting experiences and revelations were taking place as the fieldwork commenced! Initially the kids were little confused as they couldn’t realise what we intend to do and what would be their role. But as soon as the initial hesitations have cleared up they turned out to be an enthusiastic gang. They took my phone number and called me up the very next day from an STD booth to ask me about our next field visit. Bhim told me that they are ready to go out everyday (except the Saturdays and Sundays as they generally play football matches in both the days) and spend the whole day except the afternoon, as that’s their ritualistic ‘games period’. Talking to them I realised that they found a new exciting business in those field trips. I have tried to follow their everyday schedule- it mostly involves roaming around the localities - Kalikapur, canal side along the By-pass, Purba Diganta, and a few close by places, whenever they want. They search for ripen fruits, bird nests to catch birds, catch fishes, crabs, from the small ponds, or otherwise just chat. These school dropout kids who are close friends too (Bhim from class VI, Bhola from class III, Gwaja from class II and Shanu from class II) have all the characters of true ‘vagabonds’. Another little girl, Shyamali, who is a regular school goer and now studying in class III, has joined the group. She seemed to be quite enthusiastic about her studies. At that point of time I was facing a problem to plan the field trips as the urban kids have more occupying schedules. Apart from their regular studies and tuitions they are involved in several other extracurricular activates like, music classes, swimming, violin classes. Their presence in the field trips became irregular. So I have done an improvisation by involving Debasmita, a young student of social communication in this group. She has good understanding of computer and basic animation which I thought could be useful. Later on another young graduate Saikat have joined the group and started accompanying the kids in the fields. By that time we had several field trips, which had generated a significant data mostly about the plants. At least 20 varieties were identified by the kids which have different usages. Gandal’ and Telakuco leaves for diarrhea, Basak leaves for cold, Beto Shag for rheumatism, Jarmoni leaves for fever, Rangachite leaves to relieve pain, Jhaupata for wounds, white Bheranda for toothache, Kulekhara for anaemia Shankhachur leaves for snakebites, are few of those. Then I thought it’s high time to introduce them to the computer. And I have done accordingly. About the experience I would like to quote a segment from Debasmita’s note: “Apart from the regular members of the group there were two new kids from Kalikapur-- Raju and Anup. Rimly and Teerna were there too, who know computer applications. The session began as Teerna started to reveal the functional tools of Paint Brush to the Kalikapur kids. It was their first interaction with the computer- a fabulous performance from their end. I could not believe that they can have such a strong grip on the mouse at the first go. They painted four colorful images of the sun. I found it was a both-way learning session. As the Kalikapur kids were getting familiar with the computer mouase, Teerna and Rimly were learning about birds, plants. Bhim and Teerna were exchanging some notes about their ways of learning basic numeric. Bhim was referring to a traditional rhyme, ake chandra, duiye pakksha... the way they learnt it. Though except Bhim and Shyamali all of them have persisting problems in spelling their own names but finally at the end of the day they all were able to write/draw their names in Bengali by using ‘paint brush’. At the end of this participatory interactive session I found, the kids showed more interest and enthusiasm in painting rather than writing. They rely more on visuals than on letters.” From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:27:15 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 05:57:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] my belated posting04 Message-ID: <20040817055718.18819.h006.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Postings 04 What to write what to leave: So many interesting experiences and revelations were taking place as the fieldwork commenced! Initially the kids were little confused as they couldn’t realise what we intend to do and what would be their role. But as soon as the initial hesitations have cleared up they turned out to be an enthusiastic gang. They took my phone number and called me up the very next day from an STD booth to ask me about our next field visit. Bhim told me that they are ready to go out everyday (except the Saturdays and Sundays as they generally play football matches in both the days) and spend the whole day except the afternoon, as that’s their ritualistic ‘games period’. Talking to them I realised that they found a new exciting business in those field trips. I have tried to follow their everyday schedule- it mostly involves roaming around the localities - Kalikapur, canal side along the By-pass, Purba Diganta, and a few close by places, whenever they want. They search for ripen fruits, bird nests to catch birds, catch fishes, crabs, from the small ponds, or otherwise just chat. These school dropout kids who are close friends too (Bhim from class VI, Bhola from class III, Gwaja from class II and Shanu from class II) have all the characters of true ‘vagabonds’. Another little girl, Shyamali, who is a regular school goer and now studying in class III, has joined the group. She seemed to be quite enthusiastic about her studies. At that point of time I was facing a problem to plan the field trips as the urban kids have more occupying schedules. Apart from their regular studies and tuitions they are involved in several other extracurricular activates like, music classes, swimming, violin classes. Their presence in the field trips became irregular. So I have done an improvisation by involving Debasmita, a young student of social communication in this group. She has good understanding of computer and basic animation which I thought could be useful. Later on another young graduate Saikat have joined the group and started accompanying the kids in the fields. By that time we had several field trips, which had generated a significant data mostly about the plants. At least 20 varieties were identified by the kids which have different usages. Gandal’ and Telakuco leaves for diarrhea, Basak leaves for cold, Beto Shag for rheumatism, Jarmoni leaves for fever, Rangachite leaves to relieve pain, Jhaupata for wounds, white Bheranda for toothache, Kulekhara for anaemia Shankhachur leaves for snakebites, are few of those. Then I thought it’s high time to introduce them to the computer. And I have done accordingly. About the experience I would like to quote a segment from Debasmita’s note: “Apart from the regular members of the group there were two new kids from Kalikapur-- Raju and Anup. Rimly and Teerna were there too, who know computer applications. The session began as Teerna started to reveal the functional tools of Paint Brush to the Kalikapur kids. It was their first interaction with the computer- a fabulous performance from their end. I could not believe that they can have such a strong grip on the mouse at the first go. They painted four colorful images of the sun. I found it was a both-way learning session. As the Kalikapur kids were getting familiar with the computer mouase, Teerna and Rimly were learning about birds, plants. Bhim and Teerna were exchanging some notes about their ways of learning basic numeric. Bhim was referring to a traditional rhyme, ake chandra, duiye pakksha... the way they learnt it. Though except Bhim and Shyamali all of them have persisting problems in spelling their own names but finally at the end of the day they all were able to write/draw their names in Bengali by using ‘paint brush’. At the end of this participatory interactive session I found, the kids showed more interest and enthusiasm in painting rather than writing. They rely more on visuals than on letters.” From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:32:45 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 06:02:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] my belated posting05 Message-ID: <20040817060250.8032.h010.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Posting 05 Where is our land purchase deed: We have purchased our Purba Diganta land way back in 1975 from Santosh Kr. Kha of Kalikapur. It cost us little less than Rs.1500/-( Rupees fifteen hundred only) for those 3 kathas . Now the price in our locality is not less than 4 lakhs per katha. So now the same 3 kathas will cost Rupees14 lakhs only! If you see Kalikapur today, it’s more like an alienated confined habitation, an archaic existence. The rapid constructions of multi-storied apartment complexes, 5 star hotel, market complex, multiplex, water park, mega health care units, all along side the By-pass. Some are already in existence and the rest will come up soon. Though it’s understood that Kalikapur would no more be able to survive this onslaught but even then it’s a very unique and significant existence altogether. I was facing problems finding out information about Kalikapur in the old time. There is no written history available. I have tried Land Revenue Office, Corporation etc. but only to find out revenue Survey map which only depicts the areas and some Tafshil or landmarks like, rail lines, electric lines, and roads. In this connection I met Gopal Kha, our land owner Santosh Kha’s son. They used to own the whole Purba Diganta land which originally was Bheri, or water body for fish cultivation. They were also the owner of a signifant portion of Kalikapur land adjacent to Purba Diganta. I got to know from Gopal that his great grandfather sagar Chandra Kha used to work for the Jaminadar Bijoy Krishna pal as the caretaker of this whole Bheri area and some point of time he got 70 Bighas as a gift from Bijoy Krishna against his loyal service. As referred by Gopal, I met the oldest middleman Haripada Das, who is around 77 now. He came out to be a very interesting man. Initially he was very sceptical about passing me any information about land etc. He said, “ It’s quite dubious situation because the land is the prime thing now and henceforth any information costs.” However some how I could manage to talk to him for hours and find out some important information about Kalikapur and surroundings. These are quite scattered as well as little technical too. So anything concrete couldn’t be structured out of that information. But ultimately he seemed to be quite impressed with me and have finally suggested that along with Mohan Kha, and Chandan Naskar, two other elderly persons who know a lot about Kalikapur, he will sit to draw a separate map of that particular area in Kalikapur where I am running my study. But according to him it will take long time and number of sittings would be needed. He said that then only they will talk about Kalikapur in the olden days. I have tried to contact him later on but things didn’t work out, as he remained eternally busy. Selling and purchasing of land in Kalikapur and adjacent areas is a thriving business now But I hope some time in near future I would be able to pursue him to sit together. Whatever, let me try to compile the information which I gathered taking to Gopal Kha, Haripada Das, and a few other old persons in Kalikapur. As the record says, originally Kalikapur was under Borakhola Mouja, which includes Mukundapur on the east, Santoshpur and Garfa on the west, Chak Ganiagachi on the south and Kalikapur on the north. This is according to the revenue map prepared on 1928-29. Kalikapur had two settlement maps. Kalikapur1, which shows Kalikapur as a village,and Kalikapur2, which shows all the Bheri areas in Kalikapur. These Bheries used to satisfy a major portion of city Calcutta’s fish consumption. As Haripad Das’s memory goes, till 1955 water level in these Bheries used to fluctuate in effect to the high tide and low tide. Local boat was the main transportation mode during those days. Migratory as well as local birds used to fill the lakes in numbers. Another veteran from Kalikapur, Ajit Mondal, told me that they used go further east to catch birds, which they would supply to city markets. I remember, a couple of years back I met another old man (as people said that he was 103 years old then) who said that he used to work as an assistant to the Sahibs, who had come for shooting birds in those localities. His job was to collect and carry the birds after they were shot. Gopal Kha was mentioning that in his childhood they have seen various birds in numbers of which he mentioned a few, Manikjor, which would always move in pairs, Mandan Tak, Bhuto Hnas, Bali Hans, Knora Pakhi. Turtle/ Tortoise, were found frequently. Even today by fortune one can find one or two when the water bodies dry up. In this context Gopal was mentioned about a proverb which says that turtles dig the soil, lay eggs, cover it back and goes off leaving the moon behind as the guardian witness. And when the time arrives after a few months, hatchlings come out under the sky on their own and start their journey towards water (Kochchopra chand sakhkhi rekhey dim perey choley jai, thik somoy holey bchchagulo phutey beriey nijerai roana dey joler dikey). What a way to describe turtle’s astonishing embryological cycle! Foot note: as per our plan I thought even during the process of collecting ethnographic information the kids should accompany me and they had done so. But as soon as we reached Gopal Kha’s place Shanu opened his shirt and jumped inside the pond and started splashing. Gwaja, as if innocently was trying to climb the mango tree in the other corner of the pond. Gopal got so angry! He ran towards Gwaja but Gwaja had climbed down before Gopal reached him. Gopal came back to me and said angrily, “ you just don’t know them- what a bunch of rascals!” However, understanding the seriousness of the situation I had to tell the kids to leave the place and they followed the instruction. Otherwise, you know, my all important interview with Gopal about the ethnography of Kalikapur Kids told me later on that they actually rag Gopal this way. Even two days back they went to Gopal and asked for the permission to climb the mango tree to collect a few green mangos and in response he promptly offered them a beating. From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:36:17 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 06:06:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] my belated posting06 Message-ID: <20040817060624.18841.h011.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Posting 06 Where am I: In between we have documented (on video) one religious event, Gajon, which took place on the last day of the month Chaitra (mid April) in three places in Kalikapur. There were processions, mass bathing by men, women, and kids who kept vows since one month, and then there were Kanta Jhhap( jumping on the thorn), Boti Jhhap(jumping on the blades from a height ), walking under the fire, and many other rituals. Everything was dedicated to Baba Mahadeb ( Lord Shiva). It was such frenzy! People were dancing, mutually fighting while collecting the coconuts thrown by the vowers, vowers were falling on the open blade one after another from a height of fifteen feet (Bhim, Raju, Gwaja were among them too), and so on. I was watching them while they were frequently shouting, joy Baba Mahadeb, Baba Mahadeb.. before they jumped into the pond beside the road common to Purba Diganta and Kalikapur. I was just thinking that what a strange scene going on there at the border of Purba Diganta, and with which the residents of Purba Diganta didn’t have any kind of association! Now the group members, mostly the Kalikapur kids have started visiting my place quite frequently. Their main attraction was drawing pictures on computer. Their grips on mouse were firmer then but a deadlock situation had been created especially in case of writing any text in English, as all of them are almost ignorant about English. The English desktop came out to be a serious obstacle. So I thought of using a Bengali desktop and then I thought of trying out with that particular Bengali desktop, which Ankur Bangla group has developed on the Linux platform. Fortunately I am in close association with the Key members of Ankur Bangla group. I had actually thought of trying their Bangla desktop even earlier and also had a discussion regarding that with Indranil, one of the key persons of the Ankur Bangla group. Indranil was very much enthused about the idea and now as I have asked for his help he has agreed merrily. The very next day he was there in my place with his laptop! That’s another exciting session for the kids. Initially they got excited- for the first time in their life they have seen something like a laptop. Then they got enthused by seeing commands in Bengali which they could recognise. Indranil was trying to explain few things to the kids while they have then started playing with the mouse. The session continued for more than two hours and it was very encouraging for all of us. We have few more sessions with the computer from which I have derived into one conclusion that at least for this particular case localised desktop may be the only possibility towards using the computer as a potential tool for biodiversity documentation. Apart from that seeing the strong affinity and aptitude of those kids in computer I could very well see a strong possibility of turning them into literates by using their knowledge base only. They have a strong orientation towards an image rather than any written text. I have seen in my own eyes that how they were sitting in front of the computer patiently for more than an hour to see each and every scanned image of the leafs which they have collected as specimens during their field work. They were enthused to identify those leafs as if it was a game. Not only they have painted sun, tree, landscape, house, in the computer but they also tried to paint leafs, fruits, which they have collected as specimens. I can very well feel the demand and utility of an image-based desktop in Bengali, which as I understand would very much possible in a Linux platform. The fieldwork continued. More data have been generated. The kids were taking the lead and several others from Kalikapur have started sharing their knowledge. Bhim’s young uncle, Shibu Ghorai, has handed over a list to us of the birds(24 species) seen in the locality. One couple from Kalikapur has talked about the shrubs/ leafs which make an integral part of every day’s dietary supplement of Kalikapur people, and which they could easily collect from the wild. Bhim and Shanu took us to an old lady, Bidhumukhi Darik, known for her knowledge of treating animal bites, especially the dog bites. She prepares the medicine by smashing roots of a particular plant but she didn’t tell us the name of that particular plant as it’s forbidden, she said. Collection of fuel wood- most of the Kalikapur families use matir unun, the oven made of earth, for their cooking purposes. They mostly use tree leafs, stems, dry dead plants, which actually they collect either from the roadside( By-pass) social forestry, or from the nearby urban localities like, Purba Diganta, or Eastern Park. In these localities they do household collections too. Like if some how a lady from Kalikapur knows a family in Purba Diganta who has coconut trees in their house then the Kalikapur lady will have an advantage of getting the dry leafs from those trees. Sometimes it also happens that the Kalikapur people, mostly the ladies and the kids, do scavenge abruptly in the urban localities, only to find various things like, termite affected woods, packing boxes, old news papers, which all are being used as the fuel. Some families also use cow dung cakes which generally they make on their own either by gathering their own cow’s droppings or simply by scavenging for the same. Shanu and Bhola said that they also collect fuel wood whenever they get it. Another thing people of Kalikapur use is the stiff black soil which they say is very good as fuel. But that’s only available at the time of digging work. Sheela said that they use all the tree leafs available as fuel except, Bel, Bot, Ashwoththo, and Neem as their ancestors have forbidden these trees to be used for fuel. This could possibly be one of the most rare examples of retaining traditional ethics of protection of sacred trees in an urbanised surrounding. From aarti at sarai.net Wed Aug 18 11:34:55 2004 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:34:55 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] human rights? why cry for a rapist? In-Reply-To: <20040815070518.92704.qmail@web41510.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040815070518.92704.qmail@web41510.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4122F187.6070405@sarai.net> Dear Sachin, Just a few things to think about when speaking of the efficacy/desirability of capital punishment. I, personally, oppose capital punshiment on principle. However leaving principles aside even if we were to consider capital punishment from a purely strategic angel, it is woefully inadequate as a detterant. The current rate of conviction for rape in this country is dismal. There are a variety of reasons for this, at the root of which lies patriarchy in all its many forms. I have been following with some interest the recent demands that a section of the political elite has been voicing to make rape a crime punishable by death. It is ironic that the most vocal of these are the BJP whose own idealogical orientation regarding women is something we are aware of. Why should we not, strategically, make rape punsihable by death? Because the second this happens I can assure you the conviction rate will fall to zero. Why? Because when the only punshiment that a court can award once it is proved that rape did occur is death, the court will treat every case with an inordinate amount of caution. Place this in the context of a patriarchal soicety where what women wear, how they behave and carry themselves have all been cited, in legal cases in the past, as being adequate 'justification' for what was done to them. Rape will go unpunished. As convictions fall capital punshiment will have exactly the opposite effect as is intended. Capital punishment does'nt work. I refuse to believe that there are fewer murders in this country today because we have capital punishment. Regards, Aarti Sachin Agarwal wrote: > Why are people clamouring about the death sentence to chatterjee in > the name of human rights? where were these people when the human > rights of Hetal were violated? as if rape and murder of 14 year young > girl is no violation of human rights. at least a good precedent has > been set by court. I am sure if 10 - 15 other death penalties happen > (awarded by courts) in the years to come, there will be a considerable > fear in the minds of rapists and women will also come forward to > register complaints. the registering of complaints is at a dismal low > at present. and the nagpur incident. i fully support the action of > women. when administration is deaf and justice is blind, civil > society will find its own and newer means of retribution. any body > wants to locate any government agency. see www.nic.in > u will find everyone from president to peon. > alternatively try: www.sarkaritel.com > sachin agarwal > > */reader-list-request at sarai.net/* wrote: > > Send reader-list mailing list submissions to > reader-list at sarai.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > reader-list-request at sarai.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > reader-list-owner at sarai.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of reader-list digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. On Journalism (Shivam Vij) > 2. Media romanticizing rapists (Sourav) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 13:09:45 +0530 > From: Shivam Vij > Subject: [Reader-list] On Journalism > To: undisclosed-recipients: ; > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > THE THEORY > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > - Diversified, efficient societies need credible media. > - Inadequate reporting fails to effectively monitor and control > government (and various lobbies) > - Legislation on complex matters is likelyto turn out inadequate > unless media present sufficient background information and > provide an enlightening public debate. (Reinold E Thiel) > - High prices and poor business decisions are inevitable > consequences of inept market reporting (Jenny Luesby) > - If civic organisations are not perceived to be relevant, their > scope of action will be further reduced. > > [Source D+C, Development & Cooperation, July 2004] > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > QUOTE UNQUOTE: > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Unfortunately journalists have a rather shabby reputation. They are > often accused of being sensationalist and superficial. Time > constraints are an important reason for this. Deadlines rarely leave > enough time to come up with a perfect product. It has always been like > this, but the pressure is constantly growing. Global networks mean > global data overload. Thanks to digital technology, press agencies > have dramatically increased their output, while political parties, > corporations and interest groups all produce more and more information > material.... > -- Dr Hans Dembowski, EditorinChief D+C > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 22:47:02 +0530 > From: "Sourav" > Subject: [Reader-list] Media romanticizing rapists > To: > Message-ID: <20040812171716.9FB7628D9A7 at mail.sarai.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood is not a > solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But I > don't know > where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide us > and we will > send the signatures and mails against hanging. > > Sourav. > > West Bengal. > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040812/f457e245/attachment.html > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > reader-list mailing list > reader-list at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > End of reader-list Digest, Vol 13, Issue 22 > ******************************************* > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail > > - 50x more storage than other providers! > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_________________________________________ >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 sunil at mahiti.org Thu Aug 19 17:33:10 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 12:03:10 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The India e-gov and visionindia have been banned by GOI. Message-ID: <1092916990.1006.14.camel@box> Dear Friends, They have managed to get Yahoo to close the group. As Alfred E. Neuman would say - What, me worry! Depressed, Sunil -----Forwarded Message----- From: Atul Asthana @ home To: butter.cup Subject: The India e-gov and visionindia have been banned by GOI. Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 08:10:26 +0500 Friends, We have been having this problem of mailing lists being banned by GOI. Is it possible to migrate to some other service where we will not be prevented. How is topica.com? Any other service providers who will not require us to create an other email id. Or can some one run a list from his/her server, with watered down features but high availability? Any suggestions? Also, the new list needs to be unmoderated. Please pass on this message to others, who you know of, either on these lists or who may be interested in participating/sharing thoughts or helping technically. Regards. Atul Asthana atulasthana at gmx.net 2004-08-18 22:20:26 The best way to judge an individual is by observing how he treats people who can do him absolutely no good. Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ - -- Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 Currently on sabbatical with APDIP/UNDP Manager - International Open Source Network Wisma UN, Block C Komplex Pejabat Damansara. Jalan Dungun, Damansara Heights. 50490 Kuala Lumpur. P. O. Box 12544, 50782, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tel: (60) 3-2091-5167, Fax: (60) 3-2095-2087 sunil at apdip.net http://www.iosn.net http://www.apdip.net From souweine at hawaii.edu Thu Aug 19 14:15:47 2004 From: souweine at hawaii.edu (Isaac D W Souweine) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:45:47 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] the mindset of the retailer Message-ID: Dear all: Am doing some research on Indian grocery stores and came across this little missive from the head of Westside chain of stores. A rather fascinating if chilling look into the mindset of the retailer (who needless to say takes it upon him or herself to be the creator of the mindset of the consumer). If anyone has other good info./leads/articles etc. about Indian grocery stores, please pass them along - souweine at hawaii.edu. -Isaac Spurring super-shopping Simone Tata* The world of retail merchandising has come a long way since the days when general stores, that stocked everything from groceries to stationery, and small shops that sold limited varieties of products, reigned supreme. There is a movement now from the unorganised to the organised sector. There are now more modern retail formats such as supermarkets and malls. Several companies are setting up exclusive showrooms and large format stores such as Westside and several others are expanding. The whole concept of shopping has altered in terms of format and consumer buying behaviour, ushering in a revolution in shopping in India. These trends indicate that retailing, as an industry, has come into its own. According to a study by Economic Times Intelligence, the Confederation of Indian Industry and Tata Strategic Management Group, organised retail sales in India were Rs. 135 billion in 2000 and are estimated to grow to Rs 460 billion by the year 2005. Organised retail stores are characterised by large professionally managed format stores providing goods and services that appeal to customers, in an ambience that is conducive for shopping and agreeable to customers. Taking their cue from foreign retail outlets with their focus on creative display of merchandise, a number of general stores donned a new garb. But the transformation was far from complete. The attitude remained the same. The traditional consumer, initially overawed by the new look and used to equating glitzy with expensive, refrained from entering the store. But newer consumer segments, including single women, collegians with allowances and working couples, enthusiastically took to the new concept. A number of big players are entering the market. However, in spite of the momentum that the retail segment is experiencing, it is still seen as very nascent and unorganised. The per capita retailing space in India is very small in comparison with that in other countries. There are many different retail stores in India -- convenience stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, departmental stores, brand stores and discount stores. The consumer can choose between different stores for different needs. Till the early nineties, the organised retail industry had not evolved. There was no consumer culture, there were limited brands and people bought what was available. There were no ‘shopping areas’. The retail industry lacked trained manpower. It was also difficult to compete with the unorganised sector because they operated with minimal labour costs and overheads. Tax laws and government restrictions added to the problem. Liberalisation is changing all this. The customer has evolved. He has more spending power, is better educated, and most importantly, exposed to brands and products through television and foreign trips. The Indian customer now has the desire to acquire. Personal consumption is on the rise. Customer segments, already diverse, have been sub-divided with joint families giving way to nuclear families, and the increasing number of working couples. These changes, along with increased availability of retail space and qualified manpower, have had a positive impact. New players are now entering the market. In food retailing, the traditional method of shopping is changing. The Indian customer, who was used to shopping at the neighbourhood kirana, has a choice of going to a supermarket. While kiranas had their advantages -- they sell goods on credit and offer home delivery service – they suffer due to shoddy display, poor hygiene and bad ambience. The management of kiranas involves minimal labour costs since the entire family works there. The focus is on creating and retaining clients, since it is the only source of livelihood. The business passes hands down generations. As a result, shopping at a kirana, where the owner knows one’s shopping habits personally, has been ingrained in the psyche of the Indian consumer. In contrast, a supermarket appeals because of its pleasant surroundings, better product display and the availability of a wide variety of brands. The store has accurate measure controls and allows economies of scale. A shopper also has the option of shopping for all household necessities under one roof. In the days to come, supermarkets will face competition from kiranas. Perhaps, the Indian customer will go to the supermarket for his bulk needs and to his local store for his daily necessities. A new concept in India is the hypermarket, exemplified in the Big Bazaar, the first of its kind in Mumbai. It is perceived as being successful because of its low pricing and the convenience of shopping for all items in one place. The retailing boom in foodstuff has caught on only in urban India. Semi-urban areas, non-metros and rural areas are yet to feel the impact of retailing. Whether this will change will depend upon how near the supermarkets are located. Most people still associate supermarkets with "expensive" rather than "cost-effective". A number of stores have sought to counter this notion by projecting themselves as "value for money" stores. In the apparel and consumer items segment, the retail industry has seen many changes. The Tata Group entered the retail industry in 1998 with Westside as it saw a growth opportunity in this sector. Today it has nine stores across the country. The metros now have exclusive shopping areas and upcoming malls. Despite the aura associated with malls, they have not taken off on the scale they were expected due to space and cost constraints. Malls require a lot of real estate, something not easy to find in a prime location. The high overheads and labour costs make their setting up an even more expensive proposition. The promoters of a mall must realise that they have to create a shopping destination. Globally, malls are built by real estate developers, who take the help of retail experts. Malls must have the right tenant mix so that the clientele gets a good blend of products. There cannot be designers and bargain corners in the same place. It is too early to say whether malls will be successful in the long run. Most malls have many small shops with one or two anchor stores, consisting of the large format stores. In the Indian context, success would involve attracting diverse customer segments, including nuclear families, working women etc to the mall. What would attract all these groups of buyers would be the wide choice and the comfort of being able to shop for everything in one place. The only way in which the retailing industry can hold sway will be by being innovative and understanding the needs of the consumer. Since the scale is too large to build one-to-one relationships, the option is to create brand loyalty through promotions. In order to achieve success, the retailing industry will also have to counter competition from the unorganised sector. Traditional retailing is too well established in India to be wiped out. Besides, traditional retailers have negligible real estate and labour costs and little or no taxes to pay. In contrast, players in the organised sector have big expenses to meet, and still have to keep prices low to be able to compete with the traditional sector. Space and cost constraints have caused shopping areas to move to city suburbs. For instance, malls are being built in Gurgaon in the hope of drawing in customers from south Delhi. But once south Delhi gets its own malls, it will choke traffic that is going towards Gurgaon. The malls then become non-sustainable, unless they create a retail hook that will make people drive. Bluewater in London, built outside the city, is successful because the builders focused on tenant mix and designed the mall according to the tenants’ requirements. They also ensured all service facilities and amenities for customers, including ease of accessibility with good transport services. There are other issues that are needed to make the retailing industry a force to reckon with. Qualified manpower is required to look after day-to-day operations and cater to the wide spectrum of customer expectations. A consumer research study, commissioned by Westside revealed that women in the south are smaller than those in the north. So the Westside store in Chennai stocks more small-sized garments. While retaining a common look and economies of scale across the country, you have to localise your products to suit the needs of customers. Westside, which caters to the upper middle class segment, has built its customer base through its USP of affordable style. If customers are looking for style, they will probably go to Westside and buy something for Rs 400 rather than go to Mango (a UK-based chain). Another issue is convenience of parking space. Almost everyone in major metros has a car and doesn’t want to go through the hassle of finding parking space. Success will depend on selecting the right location, which will depend on the customer target and store positioning, focus on merchandise in terms of the selection of suppliers, quality of goods and correct pricing and managing the inventory to ensure that products are available. The store experience is what will bring the customer back. The layout should make browsing convenient, product display should encourage customers to try, and the billing interaction should be quick. The retailing industry also needs people with the right management skills to enable good customer interaction. Also, one must remember that there is no right retail model. The perfect model is a question of management. The large scale of consumer diversity, in terms of size, geography, culture and socio-economic background, would necessitate a varied type of successful models. Shopping in India is a family event and is seen as a kind of entertainment. In the West, departmental stores are spacious places, where one can shop at one’s own pace. In India, the per capita retailing space is very small. When entire families shop together, the store tends to get crowded. Making the shopping experience more pleasurable seems to be the driving force in the retail industry. This is seen from the move to combine shopping with food and entertainment. But whether this combination will work will depend on customer segregation and needs. Ms Tata is chairman of Trent, which runs the Westside chain of stores. The text of this article was clipped from - http://www.tata.com/trent/articles/20030305_spurring_super_shopping.htm From dfordesign at yahoo.com Thu Aug 19 11:57:11 2004 From: dfordesign at yahoo.com (Avinash Kumar) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 23:27:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Jhoola Post No.4 - Participation with children Message-ID: <20040819062711.79819.qmail@web14106.mail.yahoo.com> Below is the synopsis of the participatory workshops held with children, to discover perceptions of the Jhoola, and explore new starting points for design. The jhoola was communicated to the children in an open ended manner as a "Fun machine on Wheels"...the results were splendid and lots of fun. The workshops were communicated as "kid-Vent" workshops to the schools participating. Particpatory Kits that involve parents were also sent thru the kids home. More on that later. Similar workshops are envisaged for the Jhoolewalas and other designers also. Kid-Vent Workshops Kid-Vent Workshops focus on two governing ideas� Children thrive in a fun, creative atmosphere that gives them the opportunity to impact the world around them. Our workshops try and provide them exactly that within the constraints that the school has for time & resources. Children have valuable viewpoints about the world around them that need to be considered when things & systems are designed or envisioned. Our workshops let children give form to their own imagination, creativity and concerns. Given our background in Toy design and research with children, we give children an open canvas on which they can explore, discover, create and appreciate some of the wonders of their world. All this happens in a design environment, which ensures freedom from the traditional forms of competitiveness (�I know more & I am better�), and focuses rather on individual (or group) creativity and points of views (�This is how we see things, and that�s why what we made is special�). Typical workshops begin with introductions to what we do and who we are. This is followed by a short exchange of ideas on what design or invention. Children's views are written on the board to reflect on later in the process. Children are then given tag-cards to clip on to their shirts that identify them as �Inventors� � they write their names on them and we are ready to begin inventing! The design brief is then communicated to the children, for example: the task is to imagine and design / invent a Fun Machine for children. Some of the constraints are specified�like the fact that it should be a new invention or it should be big, or have wheels etc. Based on these discussions, children ideate and represent their ideas through sketches, drawings, explanations, models, and names. Through their process of ideation, we are in constant dialogue with the children � sorting out queries, giving direction, providing encouragement and helping focus. It has to be emphasized that we are really trying to act as facilitators, and consciously steer clear from some aspects of the traditional teacher-young student interactions. We have overwhelming evidence that this experience brings a lot of cheers and meaning to a young student�s daily school routine. Above all, the real reward of these workshops is the strong sense of ownership and individuality that they evoke within children, and the evident subsequent thrills of that. We also send material home with children for their parents to help them also become active participants in their children�s learning and creativity. This material takes different forms based on individual workshops. Ideal age groups for such workshops is grade 3 and above, when children are a little more vocal about their preferences and also have the required communication skills like drawing etc. The methods of evaluating childrens work as seeds for design is complex and not well-defined tools. Mostlt the methods tend to inform us of what children prefer...children may not be able to tell us what they want, but they can always tell us how they want it. The next step is to take these drawings and weed thru them for design directions. ===== __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From dknitenine at hotmail.com Wed Aug 18 16:37:26 2004 From: dknitenine at hotmail.com (dknite nite) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:07:26 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] next posting/family and work Message-ID: tWork and Time: The Everyday Lives of the Jharia Coalfield Mazdoors, 1890s-1970s. [A study of the work-time regimes and the strategies of adaptation of the mining communities.] A large proportion of the labouring masses in the Jharia coalfield invested their gruelling labour �time in ensuring the memorable achievements, sinking pits, digging quarries and securing a huge number of coal raisings . The industry was from the beginning �labour intensive� (more than sixty percent of the cost of production was on labour) . The labour force was composed of diverse social groups like, small tenants, dwarf landholders, landless labourers, bonded labourers as well as craftsmen. Most of them came from neighbouring bastis in the Manbhum district and nearby districts such as, Hazaribagh, Bankura, Bardhwan and Santhal Pargana in the early phase of the colliery working . There were some, who came from Raniganj coalfield or were in some ways linked to the Raniganj colliers. Some miners were service tenants of mine owners cum zamindars. A sizeable section of labouring poor hailed from distant areas such as, the districts of Gaya, Monghyr, Patna, Sahabad, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, Pratapgarh, Mirzapur, Naurangi, Raipur and Bilaspur (CP); while some others came from the �regions� of Punjab, Orissa, Madras (Andhra Pradesh) and Bengal (Mednipore). By the 1950s the long distant migrants clearly outnumbered workers from neighbouring regions. A number of second generation collieries Mazdoors began mining work from the 1940s and the 1950s . Most workers (more than 60%) had to work underground in inclines and shaft mines, popularly known as Sirmuha and Khadan. The rest of the Mazdoors worked in quarries and at surface work as, wagon loader, sale-picker, earthcutters boilers, chanuk-drivers, construction workers, electricians, etc. The miners had to adjust to the painstaking working and living conditions prevailing in the coalfield. They made innovative and enduring efforts to adapt to the mining time regime. In this chapter I intend to investigate the pattern of adaptation of the colliery Mazdoors to the working regime during the period of the 1890s-1970s. What was the form of work-time routine, and how was it imposed? How did the majdoors experience the work routine? What was their conception of work time, which mediated their strategies of organising work? How did they respond to the work time regime? What kind of patterns emerged through those attempts at adaptation between the 1890s and the 1970s? According to the employers and their representatives the labouring people�who were predominantly agriculturist associated with non-mining natural inclination and habits�could not fully synchronise with the mining tempo. This posed problems to the growth of the mining industry. The critical literature on this matter usually discusses the different ways in which working masses made adjustment to work regimes. E.P Thompson in his essay suggested that if the industrial society has to mature, it would have to change the habits of labourers . The question that has not been raised is the following: if the working classes have to survive with dignity and comfort, they will have to resolve the structural contradiction. And the issue of adjusting to the institution of work time routine is also linked to the workers� responses to the authority commanding the organisation of economy. I will attempt to study the adaptation process by linking it to these concerns/questions. If the responses of the majdoors happened to be of more than one kind, �What� was the nature of the tie-in between them ? I have tentatively divided the period of my investigation into three sections. One, from the 1890s to the 1920s; the second from the 1920s to the 1940s; and the third from the 1940s to the early years of the 1970s. II, 1890s- 1920s The labouring poor got themselves employed at a large number of mines. Their number fluctuated between 200around 1910, to 424 in 1944/45 and 327 in 1971 . The miners faced multiple working time routines. These varied between mines especially big and small mines and were also seasonally differentiated. There was a notable unlikeness between its ostensible and �implementational forms�. The labouring classes could ostensibly go to work at the time they wished in the morning, and could leave at any time . The usual working day at a majority of mines happened to be the entire day. One chief Engineer in Bhowra colliery noted: �The absence of strikes prior to the 1920 was because miners and their families were allowed to work when they please, and to come up & down as they chose�. Nevertheless, in practice they faced the structure of working time routine, set by the �exacting mechanism� of employers. The mines happened to lower their working pace during the rainy season. During normal season, employers expected from miners the maximum utilisation of their labour time. The �coercive socio-physical and economic� mechanism for extraction of labour-time was installed, like tea gardens in Assam. The labour contractors received commission (around 8-14%) on each coal-tub cut by miners under them. That�s why, they used to drive their miners as long as possible in a day and week and season that miners happened to be in the coalfield. The employers-mine owners and contractors deployed lathaith/pehalwan for this purpose. Some of them were also local zamindars such as zamindars of Mahalbuni, Tetulia etc who provided labouring people to Bhowra colliery. The use of �coercion� began to be practised more frequently, when night-work was started at some big collieries in the decade of the 1910s and when working of some big shaft mines expanded. The mining classes responded to it in more than one way. The piece-rated miners usually �worked (in boisterous & fitful ways) between 12-16 hours or 18 hours in a day and sometimes some of them were found working more than one or two whole days at underground work places� . Some of them used to work regularly for 12-16 hours in a day for six-seven, eight or ten days, then returned back to their rural home for a few days . The Chief Inspector of mines Annual report noted in 1904: ��Even in normal time the Dehatis would not work regularly. Some of them worked for six or seven days at a stretch and then returned to their home for a week and rest. And others who came from nearby village stayed for a day in which they spent eighteen hours working underground.� The proportion of this type of miners, to total of workers was however declining towards the 1920s . The sedentary working population also tended to, frequently, refrain from working on weekly payday, and rest & celebrate �work free-time� on the day. Some of them extended this free time for one or two days further following the payday. Everyday the miners, especially those who worked on �piece rated�, worked at a stretch of workday that they felt gratifying for extraction of their �sense of enough coal�, or/and they felt physically and mentally exhausted. The length of �workday� was however also influenced by some technical factors and the �mining work� was inherently �fitful� in its characters. The colliers, notwithstanding, cut and loaded an amount of coal, seemingly adequate for their �everyday sustenance�. One miner reported to the RCL in 1930: �Unless he works 12 hours plus in a day, he could not fetch the cash earning required for his daily need�. They contrived breaks at the working sites for several activities such as lunch, chabbena, water, smoking biri, tambaco, natural calls etc. for relieving and relaxing themselves. They conversed /joked, sang/ hummed/ played the pipe among themselves even in course of coal cutting and loading. L Barnes in her fieldwork noted: �The women workers often narrated with joy �the work they did below ground, the people they worked with, the members of their gangs and how they used to sing and work�. The Kamins and children, as loaders, were relatively uninhibited and worked as long they wished, or not at all, in the family gangs. The Kamins carried their breast-sucking babies below ground, and created a �temporal-space� for taking care of them. The mining classes had to develop a tacit understanding with sirdars for securing the above forms of working pattern. When this relationship of �despotic patronage� did not yield, and if it broke down, the mazdoor moved to other colliery. That is why this period witnessed a high rate of movement of miners from one colliery to another, and finally to villages. The �seasonal arrangement of work pattern� as well as �socio-cultural temporality of lives� dominated the working practice for a sizeable workforce. Workers returned to the villages during the seasons of transplantation & harvesting work on their small piece of land or other�s land. Indian coalfield committees� reports of 1920/1925 bemoaned against the persistence of �primary agriculturist status � of Indian miners. The arrangement of work-time-pieces of the sedentary colliers was greatly conditioned by the �industrial temporality�. They used to visit during the months of March, April and May, which were periods of harvesting as well as of festivals & others socio-familial occasions (such as marriage, etc.). Some majdoors visited their villages for some socio-cultural & familial obligations. For instances, the Santhalis on the occasions of �Sohrai� (in January or Magh month) for about whole month or twenty days, the workers (the Rajwars, the Turis, the Ghatwals, the Mahtos etc.) of adjacent areas on Tilasakarat/Makarsakranti/Jal/Nadi/Machhali Puja and a large number of up-country single male workers on Holi (sometimes for a whole month) , Dashahra, etc. Those who stayed in the coalfield, on the other hand, used to celebrate festivals such as, Kali-Puja, Durga-Puja, Cake-Puja, Holi, etc. The Kamins used to return to their villages for the period of child bearing and rearing. Santhal women loaders interviewed in 1930 revealed: �they often absented themselves for 6 months or one year at the time of childbirth. After this, they could return to the mines &take up employment again�. Thus, the practice of working time of the majdoors was characterized by the orientation of function/production-task, sense of necessity of cash money and, socio-cultural obligations. The mental & physical capacity and �scope of its utilization� conditioned the �orientation�. It could also be transcribed an orientation of sense of �concrete-time� in M Postan�s words. The time rated Mazdoors & service tenant-miners workdays were seemingly guided by the sense of worktime. They were at most vulnerable to the �violent animalistic� exacting mechanism of employers. They had to work for a (longer) length of time usually longer than the �common sensual workday corresponding� sunlight period. This period saw a dynamism in adaptive methods. As the proportion of sedentary and regular miners had been rising, the social strength behind the particularistic practices & ways changed. Miners� assertiveness on the one hand and the patron-client nexus formation on the other became a usual strategy of survival and obtaining destinations. I will explore these aspects in the next section, since these became more apparent there. III, 1920s- 1940s In this period the mining community saw the �stipulation� of some legislative provisions streamlining and relatively shortening the time regime. They had to confront with the �implemented form� of time regime designed like the previous period, by the exacting mechanism of employers demanding a particular level of coal raising. It was a multifarious and a little varying in its characters. The working people were practically asked by employers for utilization of labour time at most [and definitely longer then those permitted under the laws]. Deshpande committee observed: �In the case of the contract labour, it was noticed that the hours of work was definitely longer than those permitted under the laws. It is not unusual to see sirdars and the Overman of contractors driving the labourers, particularly women workers almost the whole of the time that they are there�. The contract system of organization of labour had remained conspicuously widespread during this period. The element of coercion and rigidity of regime had been becoming more taxing. The BLEC observed: �The lathaiths of one labour contractor or colliery owner had beaten up the miners in Bhadrachack colliery, when the miners did not turn up at the work, and remained resting/leisuring in their Dhowrahs on Monday�. Some mechanical and technical developments though at rather very low level took place in this period. This influenced the work-routine and ways of its imposition that resulted in the intensification of work for some miners. The extension of electricity made mining work possible even in the night and therefore on shift system. The big and medium sized collieries gradually moved towards it. The RCL observed in the 1930, �a few big mines worked even on three shifts�, and the number further rose till the decade of the 1940s. The colliers of one shift could no longer remain working for a longer period in a large number even if shifts overlapped because, the miners of next shift contested for the working-faces and tubs. The majdoors witnessed and experienced the increasing demand from their employers for �greater regularity� at work and greater attention towards it. Colliery owners wanted a quick and a greater return for their investment in technological upgradation. Therefore, they wanted the miners to put those machines and organization of production to maximum utilisation. They, towards the late 1920s, began to bemoan vociferously against the ostensible �irregular, irrational and non-disciplined/non-efficient working pattern� of Indian miners. The chief inspector of mines (D.P.Denman), European and Indian big-colliery owners from 1925 onwards agreed-in contrast to their position in previous years, ��that women at present keep cost up by hampering the work. They are very largely in the way and prevent speeding up. They lead to difficulties about discipline and that sort of thing reduces output�. Nevertheless, the dominant anatomy of the time regime exalted the continuity in its functioning from the �pre age of legislation�. The rigid time discipline [only in terms of lower limit] was its characteristics . Deshpande noted, �In most of mines the general impression gathered that there was no rules and regularity (?) as to when underground workers should go down and come up except in the case of Haziri worker. Nor was any system noticed of sounding a warning such as a bell or siren to notify the change of shifts. In the case of underground miners there are no regular intervals and the men rest as and when they like.� While Haziri workers had to work even on Sundays and for longer hours in general. How did the mining community cope up with the situation? Some leaders of working classes and the labour trade unions such as, Indian Colliery Employees Association (1920) and Indian Trade Union Congress (1920) started demanding for shortening the length of work-time in the 1920s. They argued �the work in mines is more strenuous and arduous than in factory�. I need to investigate the relation between the politics of colliers for shortening the work hour and the making of legislation in this respect. Notwithstanding, the implemented form of the �time-routine�, mineworkers had to endure. They, mostly, worked �longer hours� i.e. more than nine hours in a day. The technical factors, by and large, continually rendered to lengthening the working hours . But, their production activities at the same time were largely motivated by and oriented towards raising enough coal for their basic sustenance. Deshpande makes an observation, �As a matter of fact in several mines workers who were supposed to go down at 7 O�clock in the morning do not do so till 10 or 10.30 a.m., and do not come out until they feel that they have had enough production for the day. �the workers do not have watches to know as to when a shift begins or ends�. The Majdoors had, yet, to create a space and time for securing their ends within the constraints of working-time . This led the evolution of some new working practices. The nexus of bribing for empty tubs developed between the Munshis (tub distributors) and the miners. The caste/territoriality/community ties also served the formation of such nexus. They contrived to �appropriate� some time and create moments at the work itself imbuing �arduous� and onerous work with some joy/humour, breaks for lunch, calls of nature in addition to, the breaks for relaxing and for recouping physical mental capacity. They smoked and took tobacco in between apart from the usual sharing of jokes and singing of songs. Similarly, the family gangs & Kamins in particular struggled to maintain a balance between the production work and their reproductive obligations. But, they had to confront with the �repression� and the �marginalisation� on this front in this period. The acts of Kamins carrying babies to workplaces was considered repugnant and declared an uncivilised practice by the respective employers. Kamins now hid their children in mines, when white men visited, and leaving �older� in the care of family members or other retired/old Kamins in Dhowrahs . Some Kamins could, yet, not successfully fight the gradual marginalisation. The practice of working time by the Haziri-majdoors seems to have remained tenacious during this period. They were compelled to work for longer hours and the fatigue led to occasional accidents. Among the surface workers, the wagon loaders, who were predominantly piece-rated, now faced �erratic� work routine. The fear, of a period without work, led them to work as long as they found themselves to be physically and mentally capable when wagons were available . A majority of them tried to recuperate themselves by resting for a while, but some of them actually suffered from the lack of work rather than entertaining a time for rest. The colliers had to enforce their rest day at the weekend. They saw the conversion of legal rest on Sundays into paydays. Whether those colliers opposed or protested against such exaction? They experienced it in terms of �deprivation� of time. It reflected in their absence at the workplace on Mondays and sometimes even on Tuesdays by extending their �work free-time�. Some of the colliery owners reported to the B.L.E.C. that they kept their mines closed on Monday, because, the turnover of miners used to remain very low. The proportion of colliers, organising work time in accordance to the agricultural temporality, was gradually diminishing. They happened to get off from work even on certain occasions suiting their socio-cultural obligations. Colliery owners, however, did not officially recognise these as holidays. But, the colliery generally began to remain closed on festive-days like, Holi, Dashahra, Kalipuja and Cake-Puja . The different sections of the labouring masses began to hold some new festivals like Jhanda/ Ramnavmi, and Muharram processions in particular at relatively noteworthy level. The mining community adopted multiple methods for pursuing the above forms of organisation of time. Some of them used to �inform� mining sardars or ticcadars under whom they were employed for breaks. The sedentary labourers in fact involved sirdars in festive ceremonies such as, Dashahra, Holi, Kali-puja etc. This was, perhaps, one of the reasons that practically colliery started to remain closed on those occasions . Some employers began to distribute some �gifts� to their employees on the occasions such as-Dashahra, Kalipuja and/or Cake-Puja . The latter was probably practised at colliery run by Europeans such as, Bhowra, Amlabad, Jealgora, Lodna, Kustore, Bhudrachawk, Industry collieries etc. This development regarding the �organisation of the work-time & the breaks� was an example of �incorporation� of �assertive� popular practice of mining community, and promotion of new ones between them as well. But, this pursuit of re-organisation of time traversed through different phases-from �subversive struggle� against work-time, to �assertive internal negotiation� about work-days/free-time. This was the case also with the festive activities such as, Ganesh-puja, Sohrai, Makarsakranti etc., which could not get the validation of employers. The mining classes started demanding and agitating for institutionalisation of provisions for �formal leaves� (paid and casual) and sick leaves during the second half of the 1940s. They had organised a total strike in Bhowra and Amlabad colliery for around three months and thirteen days in 1948. They had called for a strike for largely similar demands for a week in March 1947. These developments were not informally, all pervasive in the entire coalfield. The majdoors working in the least mechanised mines had drudged in a little different situation. The working pattern here was largely characterised by continuity of the practices from those prevailed in the preceding period. Perhaps that is why some �family mazdoors� and regular commuters preferred working in those mines. The politics of lead and lift allowances and compensation for forced idleness was, ipso facto, not as intense among these miners as was the case with the agitated group of miners in some big collieries. IV, 1940s-70s During the decades of the 1940s to the early years of the 1970s, the mining communities were introduced to a series of state statutes aiming to streamline the time of colliery work. What was the nature of the �implemented form� of the time-routine? How did the mining community experience and deal with that? I will further explore these issues in a great detail in course of my research work. The sources I will look at are as follow. his is the abbreviate and modified version of the last draft. _________________________________________________________________ Block annoying pop ups! Empower your search! http://server1.msn.co.in/features04/general/MSNToolbar Enrich your internet experience! From isast at leonardo.info Wed Aug 18 05:24:48 2004 From: isast at leonardo.info (Leonardo/ISAST) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:54:48 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [Leonardo/ISAST Network] LEA Special Issue cfp: Geography of Pain Message-ID: <200408172354.CEW82770@ms2.netsolmail.com> ** Sincere apologies for cross-posting ** ** Worldwide Call for Submissions ** LEA Special Issue cfp: Geography of Pain Guest Editors: Tom Ettinger and Diane Gromala (pain at astn.net) http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2004/authors.htm#pain As part of Leonardo's ongoing Art and Biology project, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is seeking short texts (with imagery and project URLs) by artists and scientists, or artist/scientist teams, whose work addresses pain in all its forms. Projects of interest include aesthetic works that address subjective experiences, social conditions, and cultural constructions of pain. Projects on the art of healing are of interest as well, especially multidisciplinary approaches that integrate Eastern and Western traditions. We will also consider current health science, computer science, and engineering research relevant to these topics. LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers / students to submit their proposals for consideration. We particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe to send proposals for articles/gallery/artists statements. This LEA Special is part of a new collaborative initiative on pain management, founded by: * Tom Ettinger, Yale University, and interim Executive Director, Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. (http://www.asci.org) * Diane Gromala, Georgia Institute of Technology (http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~gromala) * Julian Gresser, Chairman, Alliances for Discovery (http://www.breakthroughdiscoveries.org) * Roger Malina, Chairman and Editor, Leonardo (http://mitpress.mit.edu/Leonardo) Interested authors should send: - A brief description of proposed text (100 - 300 words) - A brief author biography - Any related URLs - Contact details In the subject heading of the email message, please use "Name of Artist/Project Title: LEA Geography of Pain - Date Submitted". Please cut and paste all text into body of email (without attachments). Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2004 Please send proposals or queries to: Tom Ettinger and Diane Gromala pain at astn.net and Nisar Keshvani LEA Editor-in-Chief lea at mitpress.mit.edu http://lea.mit.edu **************************************************************************** *** LEA Information and URLs ------------------------------------------- Receive your FREE subscription to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac e-mail digest at http://mitpress.mit.edu/lea/e-mail -- just provide your email address, name, and password, and check off that you'd like to be added to the Leonardo Electronic Almanac monthly e-mail list to keep on top of the latest news in the Leonardo community. Manuscript Submission Guidelines: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/submit How to advertise in LEA? http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/placeads.html#LEAads For a paid subscription (to become an ISAST member and access archives dating back to 1993): http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=4&tid=27&mode=p What is LEA? ------------- Established in 1993, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is the electronic arm of the pioneer art journal, Leonardo - Journal of Art, Science & Technology. The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), jointly produced by Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST) and published under the auspices of MIT Press is an electronic journal dedicated to providing a forum for those who are interested in the realm where art, science and 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; and reviews of publications, events and exhibitions. Material is contributed by artists, scientists, educators and developers of new technological resources in the media arts. ******************************** -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: geography.doc Type: application/msword Size: 25088 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040817/bc394861/attachment.doc -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Leonardo-isast mailing list Leonardo-isast at mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/leonardo-isast -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From jsandha at vsnl.net Thu Aug 19 13:14:32 2004 From: jsandha at vsnl.net (jsandha at vsnl.net) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 12:44:32 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [bytesforall_readers] The India e-gov and visionindia have been banned by GOI. Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040819/2bff410b/attachment.html From majlis at vsnl.com Thu Aug 19 12:19:20 2004 From: majlis at vsnl.com (Majlis) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 12:19:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] discussion on manipur, in bombay Message-ID: <001f01c485b8$a77b7860$84d3c0cb@admin4x> Discussion on 'Manipur, the North East and the Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Specials Powers Act' Date: August 25th, 2004. Time: 4 pm Venue: Press Club, VT. Speakers: Adv. Nandita Haksar, Human Rights advocate in Supreme Court, Delhi Artex Shimrey, Advisor, North East Students Organisation (NESO), Assam. Chair: Nikhil Wagle, Editor, Mahanagar, Mumbai. On July 15, around forty elder women, ages 50 to 65, held a naked protest against military violence in Manipur in the North East and shocked and shamed the entire country. They held a banner that screamed- Indian Army rape us! The protest was sparked by the death of 32-year-old Thangjam Manorama whose bullet ridden body was found on July 10. Witnesses say Manorama was picked up by soldiers of the paramilitary Assam Rifles from her home on the charge of alleged links with separatist rebels. Protests led by a coalition of women's organisations in Manipur have since been escalating, primarily demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Specials Powers Act which has been in force since 1980, under which almost anyone from the security forces can arrest any person on suspicion of being a militant or a supporter to the militant cause. The person can be detained for months without being produced in court. There is almost no accountability. The events in Manipur and the North east raise issues that are important to all of us. We have therefore invited two speakers who have been associated with the region for many years, well known Supreme Court advocate Nandita Haksar, and Atrex Shimrey who is a leading activist with NESO. The presentations will be followed by a question and answer session. Nikhil Wagle will chair the meeting. Please make it convenient to attend, and please publicise this meeting and post it on all email lists. Organised by: Media for People, Majlis, Akshara, YUVA, Focus on the Global South, -sd- Yuvraj Mohite -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040819/b6782f1d/attachment.html From mirzachhotoo at yahoo.co.in Tue Aug 17 19:42:43 2004 From: mirzachhotoo at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?nisha=20-?=) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 15:12:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty In-Reply-To: <20040815073129.10354.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <20040817141243.29943.qmail@web8306.mail.in.yahoo.com> Looking at Chatterjee case, I'm amazed that how easy it is to ignore the political implications of sexual violence. Issues around rape and sexual abuse of various types have caused deep divisions in both anti-violence against women campaigners and human rights campaigners. And it has definitely put those like me who believe in the right to life as well as justice. The dilemma arises from being thrown in a situation where one is supposed to declare either for or against stand in a death penalty case. It doesn't matter if majority of those who are campaigning against death penalty do not see sexual violence (leave alone physical violence) as grave enough to deserve a more serious thought than ‘poor man he has already served 14 years in jail’ or ‘so and so did it, he wasn’t given a death penalty’. It doesn’t matter if you feel that criminal jusrisprudence must work out a way in which concerns of women’s and girls’ physical and bodily integrity and safety are given the consideration they deserve. It doesn’t matter if you would like to hear a deabte about what kind of laws could make the perpetrator take full responsibility for an act of sexual violence without taking away his life. You are just supposed to take a for or against position in a typical Bush style. The rampantness of sexual violence is acknowledged in so far that its existence is not being denied and work against issues of rape and sexual abuse is considered necessary if not as vital as other social issues. But when it comes to punishing the perpetrators, the message we get is don’t make the poor man such a monster. And instead of a debate on legal and public responsibility we are told it is a matter of real life, it just there so learn survival skills and develop the strength to cope with it. We also told that if you can’t do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming on your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing and verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public place store. It fills me with so much of anger when I think of all the women and girls who are being assualted every second and killed so often and see scant thought going to their right to life and sexual rights. What kind of a campaigning for right to life is this death penaly row, if it is not even willing to see the other side of the violence? Nisha vishwajyoti ghosh wrote: "In my next life, I want to be born as a rich man..." -Dhanonjoy Chatterjee For those of us who feel rapists should be dealt with an extra firm hand...I agree, But will I see: Sanjeev Nanda Salman Khan Sushil Sharma D.P Yadav & his sons (to name only a few) and all the regular rapists of Delhi and adjoining areas walking to the gallows??? As a nation, we might have to answer many such cases within ourselves, for times to come. Till then Chatterjee's words wish will continue to be a proven fact, and not a mere wish... Happy Independence Day guys! On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 Sourav wrote : >Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood is not a >solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But I don't know >where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide us and we will >send the signatures and mails against hanging. > >Sourav. > >West Bengal. > >_________________________________________ >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: VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH, D-598/c, CHITTARANJAN PARK, NEW DELHI-11019, INDIA CELL: 0091-9891238606 STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319 RES.: 0091-11-26270256 _________________________________________ 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: Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040817/8957ae36/attachment.html From monica.mody at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 11:15:16 2004 From: monica.mody at gmail.com (Monica Mody) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 11:15:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Fw: Voices Against 377 Report Message-ID: <4badad3b040819224530a9eb23@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friends, Voices against 377 is a coalition of NGOs and progressive groups based in Delhi ( including PRISM, Nigah Media Collective, Saheli, Anjuman, TARSHI, Amnesty International India, Haq, Partners in Law and Development, SAMA, CREA, Nirantar, Breakthrough and Jagori). It is a point of intersection and dialogue between various social movements that these groups represent, where a united voice is being articulated against the Article 377 of Indian Penal Code which criminalizes private consensual sexual acts deemed to against the order of nature. The law has been used by the police to intimidate same sex desiring people and has been a source of serious human rights violations . As part of this initiative we have compiled a report called "Rights for All: Ending Discrimination against Queer Desire under Section 377", which documents the violations and injustice meted out to same sex desiring people in India as a result of the Article 377 and incorporates perspectives from various social movements in India like the women's movement, the child rights groups, human rights perspectives, queer movements, health movements and many more. The report also discusses the problems within the mental health profession which is so deeply biased against alternative and marginalized sexualities along with issues related to HIV/AIDS initiatives and implications. This is to inform you that we shall be accepting orders for distribution of copies of the report to individuals and organizations.The report has been priced at the rate of Rs. 20/- per copy. Kindly send in your orders by the 23rd of August at the following email address : voicesagainst377 at hotmail.com. Also kindly specify clearly your/your organization's name, address, telephone no. and email along with the number of copies. Please write in the emails with "VOICES" as the subject so that we do not miss out on any of the orders. Thanking You, In Solidarity, Partha Pratim Shil, for Voices Against 377 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From nancyadajania71 at yahoo.co.uk Wed Aug 18 22:41:27 2004 From: nancyadajania71 at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Nancy=20Adajania?=) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 18:11:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Digital Mixing and the Transmutation of Popular Image-Production Message-ID: <20040818171127.72804.qmail@web52406.mail.yahoo.com> Posting by NANCY ADAJANIA [SARAI/CSDS Independent Fellowship 2004] Subject: Digital Mixing and the Transmutation of Popular Image-Production in Contemporary Urban Indian Contexts I have been engaged in research on an emerging urban sociology of self-representation, location, aspiration and intimacy that has been generated, during the last five years, around a newly available visual reality. This visual reality is articulated by means of Digital Mixing (DM): a technique by which hybrid or composite images are produced on Adobe Photoshop, through the reformatting of photographic portraits using stock landscapes, architectural detail, props, costumes, body parts, deities or symbols extracted from the print media and the Net (such stock is usually pirated; licensed software is very rarely encountered in this sphere). The images under review here follow the rites of passage of an individual’s or couple’s life, family ceremonies and community festivities. The sites where these images are produced and circulated is noteworthy: typically, it is the small ID-picture-type photography shops and kiosks in Bombay (the area where I have conducted my fieldwork for this project), patronised by clients belonging to the middle and subaltern classes. Thus, the clientele for this technology – which catered to the higher end of consumer when first introduced – is now found among classes of lower purchasing power too. This is, of course, symptomatic of the democratisation of a medium that follows the broader dissemination of any new technology. I would like to dwell on the paradox that, although these images pertain to private life, they are composed from highly public and even interchangeable templates and devices. Further, when treated as a flux or evolving corpus, these images constitute a circuit in which event, memory and representation are intimately connected; and in which the trajectories of private desire and the directions of social change intersect in ways that are not always predictable. My contention is that these images reflect a change in public imagination, as an expression of a macro-level trend towards familial ‘privatism’ (to adapt Habermas’ concept of civil privatism, under which the enriched private life is seen to have become the locus of individual aspiration at the cost of individual engagements in the public sphere). I will return to this theme, and qualify it for the contemporary Indian context, later in this exposition. The phenomenon under review marks the conjunction of various factors, which I give below in the form of a provisional menu: 1. The advent of new technologies of representation forms the immediate provocation in the present: I allude to the availability, at the mass level, of new digital pictorial technologies – both hardware and software, as well as efficient and qualitatively viable copying and printing options. 2. Inherited traditions of representation: this refers to the conventions of pose, gaze, look, backdrop and manner that flow from such sources as (a) classic 19th-century photography studio practice, especially using painted trompe l’oeuil backdrops; (b) the lineage of votive donor images, especially in the Vaishnava forms of worship, such as the manorath images of Nathadwara, for instance; (c) the demotic idioms that have emphasised such spheres of human activity as leisure and recreation, especially as portrayed through the recording of novelty, new landscapes of pleasure, architectures of desire and fresh imaginations of self through role model, occupation or possessions (I have in mind, particularly, the wall paintings of the havelis of Shekhawati, a reference as important as the more often cited Kalighat images); (d) the variety of hand-painted photographs popular in various regions in colonial India, and still popular in collage variants; and (e) what may be called the ‘shaadi video’ culture, which emerged during the late 1980s as video technology entered India and wedding ceremonies could be videographed, as a progression from the customary record by means of still photography; and, just as VHS has given way, successively, to VCD and DVD, these forms are now aligned with the use of DM in the collation and presentation of the wedding photo album. 3. Spectacular models of representation: these would range from (a) jingoistic NRI-oriented Hindi films such as Karan Johar’s ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham’, which fuse the feudal patriarchal family structure with the affluence of capitalism in the age of globalisation; through (b) theme parties and weddings (such as, most recently, that of the Mittal family of tycoons in Paris); and (c) theme parks and film locations as foci of visualisation (especially the Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad); to (d) domestic space-oriented TV serials (their exterior of novelty packages feudal values and structures). I would also include, as influential factors under the rubric of spectacular models of representation (e) the rise of a Page 3 subculture in the popular press and (f) the augmentation of the advertising image during the 1990s, in terms of the formal density of the individual advertising image or text, as well as its widespread dispersal through 24-hour satellite TV and mass-producible vinyl billboards, and its consequent power to penetrate into the fabric of social experience. Thus, what is under scrutiny in my project is the new social play of fantasy that has come into being through the interplay among the social, economic and cultural vectors indicated above. -------------- ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From nilanjanb at 123india.com Tue Aug 17 18:40:25 2004 From: nilanjanb at 123india.com (nilanjanb at 123india.com) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 06:10:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] my belated posting07 Message-ID: <20040817061026.23479.h002.c009.wm@mail.123india.com.criticalpath.net> Posting 07 Many more things to say but when- I think with this posting I must stop. Other I-fellows must have been very busy preparing their presentations. But what can I do as so many interesting and significant information to share with. Whatever, here in this posting I rather try to give some glimpse of the collected/ compiled data mostly by the kids on the plants and animal resources available in and around Kalikapur region. Please see the attachment for the list Concluding note: I consider that the study I have initiated is incomplete. Rather I would suggest that it is just the beginning of an exploration for establishing a relationship between biodiversity and media. This pilot project of documenting ecology/biodiversity and sharing knowledge by the local kids from two different economic classes has proved that a new way of looking at our bio resources could very well be developed through the innovative implementations of new media forms. Hope to get feed backs from you. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: List of Plants, birds.doc Type: application/msword Size: 37376 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040817/2b2161a5/attachment.doc From satish.jha at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 00:19:59 2004 From: satish.jha at gmail.com (Satish Jha) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 00:19:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [bytesforall_readers] The India e-gov and visionindia have been banned by GOI. In-Reply-To: <1092916990.1006.14.camel@box> References: <1092916990.1006.14.camel@box> Message-ID: <94d7347e040819114950616381@mail.gmail.com> Despite differences with the operations of India-egov, I do not think we can support any move that bans a group-- even though its moderator had banned several members without any reason, did not listen to any voice of reason, a group of a dozen members advised him to be democratic and he did not listen to them, umashankar a senior officer of Tamilnadu cadre was requested to advise him and he did not listen to him. Still banning of a group for whatever reason is not acceptable. What are the next steps? First let the moderator accept all the recommendations for a democratic group moderation and then escalate the matter to a level where democratic norms can be respected and restored. ----- Original Message ----- From: Sunil Abraham Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 12:03:10 +0000 Subject: [bytesforall_readers] The India e-gov and visionindia have been banned by GOI. To: Reader List , Bytesforall Readers Dear Friends, They have managed to get Yahoo to close the group. As Alfred E. Neuman would say - What, me worry! Depressed, Sunil -----Forwarded Message----- From: Atul Asthana @ home To: butter.cup Subject: The India e-gov and visionindia have been banned by GOI. Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 08:10:26 +0500 Friends, We have been having this problem of mailing lists being banned by GOI. Is it possible to migrate to some other service where we will not be prevented. How is topica.com? Any other service providers who will not require us to create an other email id. Or can some one run a list from his/her server, with watered down features but high availability? Any suggestions? Also, the new list needs to be unmoderated. Please pass on this message to others, who you know of, either on these lists or who may be interested in participating/sharing thoughts or helping technically. Regards. Atul Asthana atulasthana at gmx.net 2004-08-18 22:20:26 The best way to judge an individual is by observing how he treats people who can do him absolutely no good. Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ - -- Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 Currently on sabbatical with APDIP/UNDP Manager - International Open Source Network Wisma UN, Block C Komplex Pejabat Damansara. Jalan Dungun, Damansara Heights. 50490 Kuala Lumpur. P. O. Box 12544, 50782, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tel: (60) 3-2091-5167, Fax: (60) 3-2095-2087 sunil at apdip.net http://www.iosn.net http://www.apdip.net Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT ________________________________ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: bytesforall_readers-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. - -- _______________________________________ Satish Jha Special Advisor, Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICTs Chairman, Digital Partners India; www.dpindia.org CMD, James Martin Consulting; www.jamesmartin.co.in IND: + 91 98913 79191 From shekhar at crit.org.in Wed Aug 18 22:19:00 2004 From: shekhar at crit.org.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 00:49:00 +0800 Subject: [Reader-list] On the Same Wavelength Message-ID: <81728A84-F136-11D8-9C64-000A95A05D12@crit.org.in> Dear All: An interesting article from the Economist which you might otherwise miss... worth a read and think. Best S.K. ______ ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH The Economist Aug 12th 2004 Governments and industries are bracing themselves for the possibility that radio interference will become a thing of the past MOST people do not worry much about physics or politics when, for example, they look at the colours of a rainbow. Nor do they pause much when they use a remote control for their TV set, talk on a mobile phone, listen to the radio, cook food in their microwave oven, open their car door from a distance, or surf the internet without wires. Yet these are all phenomena of electromagnetic radiation. How humans harness electromagnetic waves--and specifically those in the radio-frequency part of the spectrum--has become so important that old and new ways of thinking are now lining up for a tense confrontation that will affect numerous businesses and billions of consumers. The old mindset, supported by over a century of technological experience and 70 years of regulatory habit, views spectrum--the range of frequencies, or wavelengths, at which electromagnetic waves vibrate--as a scarce resource that must be allocated by governments or bought and sold like property. The new school, pointing to cutting-edge technologies, says that spectrum is by nature abundant and that allocating, buying or selling parts of it will one day seem as illogical as, say, apportioning or selling sound waves to people who would like to have a conversation. The traditional mindsets were colourfully on display this week when full details were announced of a complicated spectrum swap arranged by America's telecom and media regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). First announced on July 8th, the swap gave Nextel, America's sixth-largest mobile-phone carrier, new slices of spectrum in return for vacating other bands where it was causing interference with the radios of firemen, police and hospital workers. If it wins final approval, the deal will cost Nextel $3.25 billion. It follows years of what Michael Powell, the FCC's chairman, called "ruthless lobbying". Nextel's rivals threaten to contest the decision, screaming that Nextel got a windfall of public property. Verizon Wireless, America's largest carrier, recently bought another piece of spectrum, in New York, for $930m. A glimpse of the new mindsets, by contrast, can be had in any Starbucks coffee-shop where patrons connect to the internet through Wi-Fi, a technical standard (officially called 802.11) that does not have a government licence but operates in "unlicensed" bands of spectrum in the 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz range. These are bands which governments have deliberately set aside as, in effect, an experiment for new technologies such as Wi-Fi. Almost anything goes in these bands, and any interference--between Wi-Fi base-stations and cordless phones, say--is for vendors, not the government, to sort out. On one side, therefore, are notions of radio frequencies as scarce resources that can be used by only one transmitter at a time and are worth lobbying and paying billions for; on the other side is the idea that any number of transmitters and receivers can peacefully co-exist on the airwaves and that spectrum should therefore be open to all--not individual property, but rather a commons. To understand this debate, one must look back at history; to understand its importance, at economics. SLICING UP THE AIRWAVES For decades after Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio in 1897, the only way to send multiple radio signals at the same time was by transmitting them at different wavelengths. Radio receivers were dumb devices--copper coils, essentially--and if two signals came in on the same wavelength, the result was noise. So when America passed the Radio Act in 1927 and the Communications Act in 1934, and other countries followed with similar legislation, the reigning wisdom was that governments had to chop up the radio-frequency spectrum and give exclusive privileges in each band to avoid chaos: radio required central planning. The next major change in this understanding came in 1959, when Ronald Coase, later a Nobel laureate in economics, argued that the market was far better than governments at allocating the scarce resource of electromagnetic spectrum, and that auctioning spectrum to the highest bidder was therefore superior to simply giving licences away. This fitted well with the ZEITGEIST of the following decades, when economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek won Nobel prizes for similar arguments in other areas of life. Starting in 1995, governments in America and Europe began selling spectrum by auction. Telecoms companies were the biggest buyers, mortgaging their balance sheets to get airwaves for a new generation of cellular services. The underlying assumptions about the physics of electromagnetism had not changed, however. Devices were still assumed to be dumb, interference a fact of life and exclusive-usage rights a necessity. The only change is that today most governments run mixed regimes, doling out some licences for free and auctioning others. Not all that mixed, however: auctions account for only 2% of the radio-frequency spectrum (up to 300GHz or so) in America. Central planning, in other words, still accounts for 98% of the usable airwaves. Most of the spectrum is given to television broadcasting, military communications and other forms of dedicated content. This dispensation represents a huge loss to society. James Snider at the New America Foundation, a think-tank in Washington, DC, estimates that America's airwaves would have been worth $771 billion in 2001 (when he last did the sums) if every licensee were to use his bandwidth for the service in most demand by the public. But licensees do not do this, or cannot because of regulations. This means that about half of the total value of the airwaves is wasted on uneconomic uses--on extra broadcasting capacity, say, instead of more cellular communications. It would be bad enough if most of the spectrum were being wasted on the wrong uses; in fact, much of it is not being used at all. According to one study, only four of 18 ultra-high frequency TV channels in urban Washington, DC, were actually in use when the study was done. In rural areas, the "white spaces" of fallow spectrum are even more vast. An official at America's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which manages all the spectrum used by the federal government (as opposed to the FCC, which regulates all other uses), once estimated that 95% of the government's spectrum is not being used at any given time. COMMONS, MINUS THE TRAGEDY The sheer waste of this system--the "opportunity cost" of services and technologies not offered because entrenched interests are squatting on the spectrum--is behind the third major intellectual current, after central planning and property rights, in recent thinking about spectrum. Starting in the 1980s and gathering steam in the 1990s, there have been calls for "open spectrum", or a spectrum commons. These initially met with scepticism, since economists and most other people are familiar with "the tragedy of the commons"--the idea that a scarce resource will be inefficiently over-exploited (as in the case of over-fishing, the classic instance). For sceptics, the same fate would await the airwaves. But this is wrong, says Kevin Werbach at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school and founder of Supernova Group, a consultancy. He argues that the assumption that public sharing of spectrum would lead to chaos presumes that spectrum is scarce; but this reflects a flawed understanding of the physics of electromagnetism. A common myth about electromagnetic waves is that they bounce off one another if they meet. They do not. Instead, they travel onwards through other waves forever (even though they eventually attenuate to the point where they become undetectable). Radio interference, in other words, is not a physical phenomenon, but always and only a technological problem, the result of dumb radios and dumb antennae mixing the waves up after receiving them. If devices are smart enough to distinguish between signals, says Mr Werbach, spectrum suddenly reveals itself to be not scarce, but abundant. Mr Werbach draws an analogy to acoustics. A well-attended cocktail party has a din of many voices speaking at once and on similar frequencies. But it is still possible for party-goers to have conversations and pick out individual voices--ie, sound waves--from the din, because our brains are equipped with powerful software for this task. There is no limitation in the spectrum of sound waves, only in the refinement of the human ear. The same can be true in the electromagnetic spectrum. There are four broad categories of new technologies that could make this idea a reality. The first is called "spread spectrum", or "wideband". As both names imply, this is a way of spreading an electromagnetic signal across wide bands of frequencies at low power, instead of booming a high-power wave through a narrow band. Wi-Fi is one good example of wideband technology--the large range of frequencies and the low power allow it to co-exist with cordless phones and other devices. Hopes are highest, however, for a new technology called "ultra-wideband", which will communicate by whispering its signals so softly across the frequency bands of other, higher-power transmitters, such as broadcasters, that these will not even notice the presence of another signal. Another approach is to use "smart" antennae. These are systems of multiple antennae that can "aim" a signal in a particular direction (instead of radiating it out indiscriminately) or pick out a particular signal from background noise by calculating the wave's angle of arrival (for example, from a satellite instead of a source on the ground). A third technology is "mesh networking". In a mesh, each receiver of a signal also re-transmits it. Every meshed laptop computer, for instance, in effect becomes a node or router on its network. This has three advantages. One is that, as with spread spectrum, signals can be sent at very low power, since they only have to travel to the next user's node, which will be hundreds of metres, instead of kilometres, away. Another is that each newcomer to the network not only uses, but also adds, capacity. A third is that the network will be robust, since traffic can be re-routed easily if nodes fail, the approach already taken by the internet. Open-spectrum enthusiasts are most excited, however, about the day when radios become software-powered computers, or so-called "cognitive radios". This would end the limitations of dumb radios. "Moore's law meets Marconi's transmitter," says Kevin Kahn, research boss for communications at Intel, the world's largest semiconductor-maker, referring to the prediction, so far correct, by Gordon Moore, one of Intel's founders, that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months. Radios would double their intelligence every year and a half, in other words. They could learn to hop around on the spectrum to find quiet bands for transmission, to encode digital information in new wave forms, or to analyse incoming noise and pick out only the relevant signal. "Communication is no longer a matter of frequency, but of computation," says Mr Kahn. In effect, cognitive radios would play the part of human brains at noisy cocktail parties. BACK IN THE REAL WORLD A lot of breakthroughs still need to happen before these technologies become widespread and reliable. Enthusiasts who predicted that there would be Wi-Fi transmitters in every street lamp have backtracked. "Hotspots" are mushrooming, and cities from Montpelier, Vermont, to Hamburg, Germany, are now stringing networks of them into larger "hot zones" that blanket downtown areas and entire neighbourhoods with high-speed internet access, but this seems to be an option only for dense urban areas. Mesh networks, too, are still rare. Police and firemen and other city employees in Medford, Oregon, have this year started using a mesh network to connect to the internet while on the road, but very few ordinary consumers are meshers. Cognitive radios are still in the lab. Incumbent licence-holders--and above all the telecoms firms that have paid billions in spectrum auctions--naturally use the immaturity of these technologies as their prime argument against a headlong rush away from the property model and towards a commons approach. "Unlicensed spectrum is sounding like crack cocaine: the ultimate high that solves all your problems," says Brian Fontes, a lobbyist who works for Cingular, America's second-largest mobile-phone company (and the largest once its acquisition of AT&T Wireless, a rival, is complete). But, "prove that you're not going to interfere; I mean prove it, don't just say it," he insists. The fact is, Mr Fontes says, that there is still no way to guarantee quality of service in the unlicensed bands. Yet guarantees are needed, if only for security. Such reminders are in the economic interests of Mr Fontes's industry, but that does not make them wrong. Regulators think it would be dangerous simply to embrace open spectrum and unleash a free-for-all. Rather, they see their task as managing spectrum so that it usage remains as efficient as technology allows. There are several ways to do this without adding new unlicensed bands. One clear and obvious step is to allow "underlay". This is a way of transmitting signals in somebody else's licensed band, but without disturbing the licence-holder in any way--for the incumbent, a bit like having a bird sitting in your garden. This could help to fill in the huge white spaces of unused spectrum. It could also ease the politics, since it will not be easy to persuade powerful and long-standing licence-holders to vacate their bands. With underlay rights, says Vanu Bose, the boss of Vanu, a firm that designs software-powered radios, "the broadcasters don't even have to get off the spectrum they have now, because they don't use most of it." Another good measure for regulators is to make licences more flexible. This is perhaps most urgent in Europe, where the European Commission currently requires telephone operators to use a technology called W-CDMA as they build third-generation (3G) mobile-phone networks. In 2000 the carriers paid more than EURO100 billion (then $125 billion) for these licences, and are only now rolling out services after experiencing technical flaws. Meanwhile, operators in South Korea, America and Japan have been able to launch 3G services using a rival technology, CDMA2000, that is more mature but is, in effect, banned in Europe. But licence flexibility needs to go even further. Ultimately, a mechanism for licence-holders to trade their rights on a secondary market, similar to a bond or commodity market, could lead to more efficient allocation. Nonetheless, the share of unlicensed spectrum should rise over time in order to spur innovation. In America, where the FCC has been thinking about the potential of open spectrum since 1981, this idea is no longer controversial. Michael Powell, the FCC's chairman, has said that he would like to see himself more as a speed cop than as a real-estate agent, and makes clear his penchant for unlicensed bands. America's spectrum regulator essentially agrees: the National Telecommunications and Information Administration proposed on June 24th that both it and the FCC identify an additional 10MHz of spectrum for this purpose. The problem, in America as everywhere, is in the politics of choosing someone to evict. A few pioneers profess indifference to the debate. Dewayne Hendricks, boss of Dandin Group, a wireless internet-access provider, does not care whether governments open up more spectrum because, "all the spectrum we need is already in play." He has already brought wireless internet to "tall and uncut" places from Tonga to Ulan Bator, and says he is now in talks in Armenia. Most industry participants, however, are keen for more open spectrum. One opportunity that will present itself in many countries is the migration from analogue to digital television, which will reduce the bandwidth needed for traditional free-to-air broadcasters. THE SWEET AND LOW DOWN This is promising because broadcasters inhabit the best kind of spectrum, the equivalent of beachfront property. The lower an electromagnetic wave's frequency the better it is at penetrating rain, trees and walls, which is why television and FM radio tend to work in the basement, but why Wi-Fi signals have trouble with walls. According to the New America Foundation, the 1% of frequencies below 3GHz are worth more than the other 99% of spectrum between 3GHz and 300GHz. Even a sliver of new unlicensed spectrum in the very low frequencies could therefore make an enormous difference. It could, for example, make possible a cheap alternative to cable and digital-subscriber line modems (for which roads have to be dug up and trees uprooted) in delivering high-speed internet access across "the last mile" to the consumer. "Amazing things have been done with Wi-Fi in garbage spectrum," says Tren Griffin, who is in charge of spectrum matters at Microsoft. "The pregnant question is: what if we took a tiny amount of good spectrum and repurposed it?" It might at last become feasible and economic to begin bridging the world's digital divide. If low-frequency spectrum became free for innovators, then business plans to bring connectivity to villages in India and China, as well as rural Montana, would soon follow. Lives in many places could one day be richer thanks to vibrations in the air. See this article with graphics and related items at http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3084475 Go to http://www.economist.com for more global news, views and analysis from the Economist Group. - ABOUT ECONOMIST.COM - Economist.com is the online version of The Economist newspaper, an independent weekly international news and business publication offering clear reporting, commentary and analysis on world politics, business, finance, science & technology, culture, society and the arts. Economist.com also offers exclusive content online, including additional articles throughout the week in the Global Agenda section. - ABOUT THIS E-MAIL - This e-mail was sent to you by the person at the e-mail address listed above through a link found on Economist.com. We will not send you any future messages as a result of your being the recipient of this e-mail. - COPYRIGHT - This e-mail message and Economist articles linked from it are copyright (c) 2004 The Economist Newspaper Group Limited. All rights reserved. http://www.economist.com/help/copy_general.cfm Economist.com privacy policy: http://www.economist.com/about/privacy.cfm _____ Shekhar Krishnan c/o Sunil Abraham C-0107, Palm Court Jalan Berhala, Brickfields 50470 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia http://www.crit.org.in/members/shekhar From shivamvij at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 18:30:35 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 18:30:35 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [Events] Films by Maneesh Sharma Message-ID: Showcase of short-films by Maneesh Sharma August 19, 7:00 pm. India International Center, New Delhi. EK PAL DV, Color, 12 mins. Plotline ? Boy meets girl and reality sets in. Cast ? Maneesh Sharma, Kristen Jain. Screenings ? SHOWCASE 2003, Los Angeles. A NEW AWAKENING 16 mm., Color, 4 mins. Plotline ? A windy adventure in the fields of innocence. Cast ? Houston McCrillis, Trisanne Marin. Screenings ? SHOWCASE 2004, Los Angeles. SIFAR 16 mm., Color, 22 mins. Plotline ? A coming of age story in a failed love triangle. Cast ? Ankur Khanna, Shena Gamat, Tanvi Gandhi, Radhika Singh. Official Selection ? Finalist Golden Eagle Awards (Washington), Short-Film Corner, Cannes Int'l. Film Festival, Shortshorts film festival Asia (Tokyo), Palm Springs Film Festival, Commonwealth Film Festival (UK), ARTWALLAH Film Festival & SHOWCASE 2004, LA. THE SHARMA IMAGE 24p, Color, 20 mins. Plotline ? Live Life Kingsize in the 'Land of opportunity' . Screenings ? Distributed and screened in 52 countries. BIOGRAPHY Born and raised in New Delhi, Maneesh graduated from Hans Raj College. After venturing into theatre as actor/dancer with Theater Action Group and Delhi Music Theater, Maneesh pursued MFA in Film and Theater Directing at California Institute of the Arts. At the age of 24, his short-films have been screened throughout the world which got him the "Emerging Film-Maker" grants from both KODAK and FUJI FILMS. Besides his own acting/directing ventures, he has been involved as an editor and assistant director in several award winning student short films - Student Academy Award Winning "The Projects Lumiere" and Viennale Selection "Trona" , to name a few. He just finished editing Waleed Moursi's "Carrots for Hare" at PARAMOUNT STUDIOS in Hollywood and is now pre-producing his feature length script titled "Curtains" to be produced by Grey Area Motion Pictures. _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shivamvij at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 19:18:23 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:18:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] The Hoot This August Message-ID: The Hoot Watching media in the subcontinent www.thehoot.org AUGUST 2004 The Hoot is a media watch website, the only one of its kind on the subcontinent. It is run by the Media Foundation in New Delhi. This is a monthly newsletter that alerts its members about the new stories on www.thehoot.org. Do you want to know what is going behind the scenes in that one industry that defines how you see the world around you? The more the media matters, the more we must track what it does. The Hoot brings you in-depth reports from all parts of the sub-continent and further afield. As the watchdog's watchdog we take a hard-edged look at issues that plague the media, and offer riffs and reflections on what is in the news and what ought to be. On The Hoot you will find stories that you won't find anywhere else. MEDIA WATCH Three Tears For Terrorism This kind of media selectivity suggests that victims of terrorism have no families to be interviewed. By Dasu Krishnamoorty http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web203145144115Hoot95428%20PM1299&pn==1 Tehelka exposes paedophilia in Goa India's investigative paper did a sting on Goa's worst-kept secret -- paedophilia or child-sex abuse along the state's tourist beaches. By Frederick Noronha in Panaji http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web203145144115Hoot104017%20PM1295&pn==1 Business channels spell business Competition and higher revenues is driving networks to start business channels. By Mannika Chopra http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web2031010171Hoot123045%20PM1282&pn==1 Defending a label Neither the liberal Times nor the conservative Wall Street Journal is rigid and doctrinal in the positions taken on important issues. By Dasu Krishnamoorty http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web210214207191Hoot113349%20PM1285&pn==1 MEDIA RESEARCH Coverage of elections 2004 - Part I A nine-week study by Viewers Forum and Centre for Advocacy and Research sheds light on issues which dominated the TV discourse. Development score really low. http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web210214207183Hoot84942%20AM1297&pn==1 VIEWS FROM THE REGION Indian media's cultural influence on Pakistan The reality is that cable TV does not require a visa nor does it bend under the pressure of conservative and religious lobbies. By Zainab Mahmood http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web210214207223Hoot12402%20AM1283&pn==1 REGIONAL MEDIA Booming media, exploited journalists in Assam Newspaper editions are multiplying across the state but more than 60 per cent newspaper employees in Assam are deprived of basic minimum facilities. By Nava Thakuria http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web203101449Hoot113952%20AM1281&pn==1 MEDIA ETHICS Advertorials: Blurring the dividing line Eight people in a sample of forty were able to distinguish between editorial content and advertorials. By Deepti Mahajan http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web2031010163Hoot34839%20PM1277&pn==1 FOR JOURNALISTS A Legal Ready Reckoner Journalists often do not have a precise idea of the legal import of what they write, as well as of precisely what constitutes defamation, or violations of copyright or of the Official Secrets Act. The Hoot has attempted to put together a legal ready reckoner which spells out what various provisions of the law, which have a bearing on the press, actually say. Compiled by Vishal Parik. http://www.thehoot.org/legal_overview.asp Panos-GKP journalism awards 2004 Four awards of $1,000 each will be made for the best journalism on this topic produced by journalists in developing and transition countries. http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web203145144115Hoot111014%20PM1296&pn==1 Latest list of Hoot subscribers - join them! The Hoot completed three years in March. It needs small contributions from a large number of people to keep it going. Presenting the latest list of contributors http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid==Web210214207199Hoot125754%20PM1260&pn==1 Write to editor at thehoot.org Did you get this newsletter as a forward? We'll send it to you every month. Subscribe by sending a blank mail to thehoot-subscribe at yahoogroups.com OR by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thehoot/join _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From siriyavan at outlookindia.com Thu Aug 19 06:59:44 2004 From: siriyavan at outlookindia.com (Anand) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 18:29:44 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Panel Discussion on Dalit Diary in JNU, Delhi Message-ID: <003601c4858c$0227e0a0$7504a8c0@anand> Navayana Publishing invites you to a panel discussion to commemorate the launch of Chandra Bhan Prasad's book "DALIT DIARY: 1999-2003. REFLECTIONS ON APARTHEID IN INDIA". on Thursday 26 August 2004, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at School of Social Sciences - I Committee Room, Jawaharlal Nehru University Nivedita Menon, Reader, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi, and Vivek Kumar, Assistant Professor, Sociology Dept, JNU will speak about the book Ramnarayan S. Rawat, SEPHIS Fellow (IISH, Amsterdam) and research scholar, Delhi University, will chair the session. Author Chandra Bhan Prasad will respond For further details contact navayana at ambedkar.org visit www.navayana.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040818/9310bae6/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From snitch at paradise.net.nz Tue Aug 17 14:34:15 2004 From: snitch at paradise.net.nz (Mitch) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:04:15 +1200 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: A crisis in the fourth estate References: <20040816094853.10551.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <009e01c48439$2ec85620$5b00f6d2@analog> Thanks Sanjay, this article was very insightful, accurate and relevant to media all over the globe - but it's criticisms were not new, and it failed to address any possible solutions to this crisis. Does anyone have any thoughts on possible solutions to the pressures that are causing this crisis? Mitchell ----- Original Message ----- From: sanjay ghosh To: reader-list at sarai.net Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 9:48 PM Subject: [Reader-list] (fwd)A crisis in the fourth estate A crisis in the fourth estate In the chase for higher ratings and circulation the media are falling prey to populism and so failing in their primary duty - to keep the public properly informed, argues Jürgen Krönig Monday August 16, 2004 The Guardian The dream that the new information age would be one of greater enlightenment, of a rational discourse and greater participation has not come true. Governments feel haunted by an aggressive media. That the media act as if they were a kind of conspiracy attempting to keep the population "in a permanent state of self-righteous rage" is the complaint in London. In Germany, one day, a red-top such as Bild demands tough action against the pension crisis; when politicians act, it accuses them of "stealing the pensions". To avoid any misunderstanding: a natural tension between politics and the media has always existed and that is right and necessary. Without a free press there is no public sphere, no informed citizen and thus no democracy. The fourth estate, however, is more powerful than ever. It is shaped by two dominating principles - sensationalism and simplification, which the American sociologist Robert McChesney, in his book Rich Media, Poor Democracy, defines as the consequence of "hyper commercialisation". It has led to ever fiercer ratings and circulation wars, which inevitably leads to what is called "dumbing down". To succeed, the media industry tries to appeal to the lower instincts of people. Of course it is one thing to pander to lower instincts. But they have to be there in the first place, and so has the willingness to be pandered to. In the end, people have a choice. One has to face an unpalatable reality: a Rupert Murdoch or Silvio Berlusconi, whose media outlets are giving the people what they want - fun, games and entertainment - is more "democratic" than the cultural elites, who tried imposing their values and standards on the masses. The appeal to the lowest common denominator is shaping the content of TV and popular culture more than ever. For programmes to be successful, they have to promise to be ever more outrageous - explicit sex, exhibitionism, violence and voyeurism have become their vital ingredients. Highly successful reality TV formats such as Big Brother and I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here are tellingly equipped with an element of direct democracy. Audiences are asked to vote; it does not matter if they use their right to vote once or dozens of times. Most of these programmes belong to the category of "sado-maso TV" - the participants must accept they are to be humiliated, they have to satisfy lower human instincts such as gloating and voyeurism; for their moment of TV fame they must do ghastly things, eat worms, dive into snake-infested swamps or wade through shit. In the "democratic age" news and information have been transformed. The way politics is covered has changed radically. Papers don't "report" news, they quite often present it according to their preferences and prejudices. The growth of columnists has led to the birth of a "Commentariat". It contains a few excellent and analytical minds, but all too often reasonable, balanced voices are drowned out by journalists who seem untainted by facts or deeper knowledge but replace this with gleefully presented prejudices. A lot of modern political journalism ignores context and complexity, presenting everything in black and white, while the nature of politics most of the time is a balancing act between contradictory interests and demands. No surprise, then, that politicians are losing control over the political agenda. The much-maligned spin doctor was an attempt to win back the initiative. It failed a long time ago. News has become more superficial and sensational. The need for images and pictures is greater than ever. News is too often degenerating into "disastertainment". Public service broadcasters are not immune to this trend. Ofcom registered a decline of up to 25% in their political content over the past decade. But more has changed than just the extent of coverage. Sensationalism and oversimplification are affecting the output of all media. There is less room for a balanced approach, for analysis instead of going for the crass headline or extraordinary story. The merciless hunt for weaknesses and inconsistencies of politicians and other public figures has become prevalent. Furthermore, the rhythms of politics and the media are drifting apart. After the end of the great ideological divide, politics is more often than not undramatic, complex, not easy to understand and therefore more difficult and boring to report. Quite often results of political decisions, in education or welfare, can be judged only years after implementing them. That is the opposite of what the modern media want. They have a 24-hour mindset, shaped by the demand for ever shorter soundbites. They are impatient, short-termist, they want results here and now. Media language has changed, too. What we are observing is an adjectival degradation. Every report, coming from inside governments or institutions outside is, if it contains some form of criticism, therefore "damning", "devastating" or "scathing". Warnings, which most of the time were not heeded anyhow, are "stark", differences of opinion between politicians of the same party are "dramatic splits", developments are "alarming" - the consumer of the media is confronted with a permanent linguistic overkill. Official language is evolving in the opposite direction, it is becoming more sanitised, cautious, bureaucratic and politically correct. All this has contributed to change democratic politics for the worse. The electorate has become hostile and distrustful of the media and politicians alike. Trust has broken down threefold, between people and politicians, media and people, journalists and politicians, with the latter now observing each other with deep distrust and mutual antipathy. A vicious circle has established itself. Journalists claim that the political culture is not appealing to the public; driven by commercial considerations and market pressures, the media are therefore reducing their political coverage even further. The chances of the public receiving the information they need to participate in the rituals of democracy are declining even more. The Phillis committee, set up to look at government communications, has confirmed this bleak outlook. Politicians have given up trying to get their message across via newspapers, which they regard as hopelessly partisan and biased; newspapers no longer believe much of what the government is saying. Which leaves public service broadcasters in an even more important and responsible position. If public service broadcasting, torn between commercial pressures and public duty, surrenders even more than it has done already to the culture of contempt, there will be only a few niche outlets left in the fourth estate willing to promote and practise a fair journalistic approach to politics. Sections of the BBC were operating on the basis of a strong antipolitical bias, like many of their colleagues in the press, regarding all politicians at the end of the day as "lying bastards", who could never be trusted. Self-criticism is not popular among the media. Indeed, sometimes it seems that's the media's only taboo. Some journalists and broadcasters are aware of the danger. Andrew Gowers, editor of the Financial Times, wrote earlier this year, after Lord Hutton had delivered his judgment, "for while the crisis at the BBC is deep-seated, it is merely part of a broader malaise; journalists' reflexive mistrust of every government action is corroding democracy". And Martin Kettle remarked in the Guardian that the Kelly and Gilligan affair "illuminates a wider crisis in British journalism than just the turmoil at the BBC". He remains deeply sceptical about the willingness of the fourth estate to address this crisis. Democracy and civil society need informed citizens, otherwise they will have difficulties in surviving. Without media organisations aware of their own power and responsibility, an informed citizenship cannot be sustained. What our democracies have got today is an electorate which is highly informed about entertainment, consumer goods and celebrities, while being uninterested in and/or deeply cynical about politics, equipped with short attention spans and a growing tendency to demand instant gratification. Politics in western democracies is mutating into a strange kind of hybrid, a semi-plebiscitarian system, in which the mass media represent the new "demos". If this trend cannot be reversed the political arena might become even emptier than it is now. It might only be filled again, if seductive populism calls. When democracy is running out of control, it is the politicians who suffer first. Once the demos in ancient Athens and during the French Revolution had developed a taste for more power, it looked for and found its victims as easily as authoritarian tyrannies did and disposed of them. · Jürgen Krönig is the UK editor of Die Zeit ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _________________________________________ 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: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040817/c23fa982/attachment.html From vivek at sarai.net Fri Aug 20 16:45:05 2004 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 16:45:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Fwd: Digital Mixing and the Transmutation of Popular Image-Production] Message-ID: <4125DD39.7010602@sarai.net> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Digital Mixing and the Transmutation of Popular Image-Production Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 18:11:27 +0100 (BST) From: Nancy Adajania To: reader-list at sarai.net CC: vivek at sarai.net, raqs at sarai.net Posting by NANCY ADAJANIA [SARAI/CSDS Independent Fellowship 2004] Subject: Digital Mixing and the Transmutation of Popular Image-Production in Contemporary Urban Indian Contexts I have been engaged in research on an emerging urban sociology of self-representation, location, aspiration and intimacy that has been generated, during the last five years, around a newly available visual reality. This visual reality is articulated by means of Digital Mixing (DM): a technique by which hybrid or composite images are produced on Adobe Photoshop, through the reformatting of photographic portraits using stock landscapes, architectural detail, props, costumes, body parts, deities or symbols extracted from the print media and the Net (such stock is usually pirated; licensed software is very rarely encountered in this sphere). The images under review here follow the rites of passage of an individual's or couple's life, family ceremonies and community festivities. The sites where these images are produced and circulated is noteworthy: typically, it is the small ID-picture-type photography shops and kiosks in Bombay (the area where I have conducted my fieldwork for this project), patronised by clients belonging to the middle and subaltern classes. Thus, the clientele for this technology - which catered to the higher end of consumer when first introduced - is now found among classes of lower purchasing power too. This is, of course, symptomatic of the democratisation of a medium that follows the broader dissemination of any new technology. I would like to dwell on the paradox that, although these images pertain to private life, they are composed from highly public and even interchangeable templates and devices. Further, when treated as a flux or evolving corpus, these images constitute a circuit in which event, memory and representation are intimately connected; and in which the trajectories of private desire and the directions of social change intersect in ways that are not always predictable. My contention is that these images reflect a change in public imagination, as an expression of a macro-level trend towards familial 'privatism' (to adapt Habermas' concept of civil privatism, under which the enriched private life is seen to have become the locus of individual aspiration at the cost of individual engagements in the public sphere). I will return to this theme, and qualify it for the contemporary Indian context, later in this exposition. The phenomenon under review marks the conjunction of various factors, which I give below in the form of a provisional menu: 1. The advent of new technologies of representation forms the immediate provocation in the present: I allude to the availability, at the mass level, of new digital pictorial technologies - both hardware and software, as well as efficient and qualitatively viable copying and printing options. 2. Inherited traditions of representation: this refers to the conventions of pose, gaze, look, backdrop and manner that flow from such sources as (a) classic 19th-century photography studio practice, especially using painted trompe l'oeuil backdrops; (b) the lineage of votive donor images, especially in the Vaishnava forms of worship, such as the manorath images of Nathadwara, for instance; (c) the demotic idioms that have emphasised such spheres of human activity as leisure and recreation, especially as portrayed through the recording of novelty, new landscapes of pleasure, architectures of desire and fresh imaginations of self through role model, occupation or possessions (I have in mind, particularly, the wall paintings of the havelis of Shekhawati, a reference as important as the more often cited Kalighat images); (d) the variety of hand-painted photographs popular in various regions in colonial India, and still popular in collage variants; and (e) what may be called the 'shaadi video' culture, which emerged during the late 1980s as video technology entered India and wedding ceremonies could be videographed, as a progression from the customary record by means of still photography; and, just as VHS has given way, successively, to VCD and DVD, these forms are now aligned with the use of DM in the collation and presentation of the wedding photo album. 3. Spectacular models of representation: these would range from (a) jingoistic NRI-oriented Hindi films such as Karan Johar's 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham', which fuse the feudal patriarchal family structure with the affluence of capitalism in the age of globalisation; through (b) theme parties and weddings (such as, most recently, that of the Mittal family of tycoons in Paris); and (c) theme parks and film locations as foci of visualisation (especially the Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad); to (d) domestic space-oriented TV serials (their exterior of novelty packages feudal values and structures). I would also include, as influential factors under the rubric of spectacular models of representation (e) the rise of a Page 3 subculture in the popular press and (f) the augmentation of the advertising image during the 1990s, in terms of the formal density of the individual advertising image or text, as well as its widespread dispersal through 24-hour satellite TV and mass-producible vinyl billboards, and its consequent power to penetrate into the fabric of social experience. Thus, what is under scrutiny in my project is the new social play of fantasy that has come into being through the interplay among the social, economic and cultural vectors indicated above. -------------- ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From Rahul.Asthana at CIBC.com Fri Aug 20 20:00:52 2004 From: Rahul.Asthana at CIBC.com (Asthana, Rahul) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 10:30:52 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Hindu students study in Madarsa Message-ID: http://sify.com/news/indiapositive/fullstory.php?id=13548502 Hindu students study at UP madrasa Friday, 20 August , 2004, 11:55 Chauri: A madrasa in a UP village has opened its doors to Hindu students. Operating from a mosque in Chauri village, considered amongst the most communally-sensitive areas, this madrasa, unlike others, has a public school curriculum. The children here get to learn all subjects from geography to science, otherwise reviled and often banned from religious schools. | Also see: India Positive | The morning prayers begin with an ode to Mahatma Gandhi followed by traditional Islamic teachings and a patriotic song. Needless to say, the resonance of children learning Urdu and Sanskrit together and singing patriotic songs is a heartwarming sight for a nation ridden by dangerously deep religious divides. "It is different from the way rest of the madrasas work. Here, children from all the castes study, whether they are Muslims or Hindus. Along with Urdu language children are also taught English, Hindi and Sanskrit," Maulana Ansar Ahmed, the madarsa head-master said. Locals said they remained unaffected by communal undertones and were more interested in chalking out a better future for their children. "Children are taught everything in this madrasa and they are also taught Urdu so we send them here," Devi Prasad Gaud, a parent said. "Here children not only are they educated but they learn culture, religion and ethics. They are groomed for a better future, how to give an interview, what is positive about hygene, we teach all that," Paras Nath Srivastav, the village head said. ANI From definetime at rediffmail.com Sat Aug 21 00:14:51 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 20 Aug 2004 18:44:51 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (fwd) Where death really counts Message-ID: <20040820184451.12836.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040820/e40859bd/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   Where death really counts Richard Adams Friday August 20, 2004 The Guardian The satirical US magazine Spy, during its heyday at the end of the 1980s, ran a regular feature calculating the space the New York Times would devote to a tragedy. The greater the number of dead US citizens and the closer they were to Times Square, the calculation predicted, the more column inches the Times would devote to it. Every month or so, Spy would compare its prediction with the actual coverage, and voila! the algorithm was proved correct - so a murder on Fifth Avenue was worth hundreds of African famine victims. British newspapers have never been quite so parochial but clever mathematicians might bend their minds to creating similar arithmetic for British media. Designing such a calculation is going to be harder. Based on the relative coverage of the flooding in Bangladesh last month and the hurricane in Florida earlier this month, it's not just proximity or the presence of Britons that makes the difference. There's something else going on, something that's harder to put into figures. Xenophobia is one thing, but how does an equation account for skin colour? Obviously, things that happen within this country are going to be more extensively covered. Flash-flooding in Cornwall rightly gets rolling news coverage. After all, Prince Charles even visited Boscastle - although since he owns much of Cornwall perhaps his interest was more pragmatic. Yet it's hard not to suspect that if the Strand was washed into the Thames, then British athletes could win gold, silver and bronze medals in every Olympic event and be lucky to make page 78. But how can we explain the huge discrepancy between the space and effort devoted to Hurricane Charley in Florida, and the flooding in Bangladesh? Obviously, one place is a long-haul flight away, is regularly prone to natural disasters and political unrest, and many of the residents belong to a foreign culture and don't speak English - yes, that's Florida. Bangladesh, on the other hand, was a British colony up until 1947, is still a member of the Commonwealth and has a tremendous number of its citizens living here, as well as many other cultural and financial links. Yet all that counts for little when weighed against the key issue: Bangladesh is not home to Disneyworld. It may have an ancient culture dating back thousands of years and it may have the world's most glorious beach at Cox's Bazar, but it doesn't have Disneyworld. So when people see "breaking news" with warnings of titanic floods in Bangladesh, followed by live footage of the looming disaster, they don't think: "Oh no, I wonder if this will affect the beautiful 18th century Kantaji Temple in Dinajpur." But when they see storm warnings about Florida, they worry about a theme park built on a swamp by a rightwing weirdo. Of course there were no "breaking news" flashes or breathless live coverage of the impending disaster in Bangladesh. In fact the number of British correspondents there is very small indeed - approaching zero - whereas one can barely spit in the US without hitting a British journalist. Given that the US is the world's economic and military superpower, it's no surprise that that it gets more coverage. But Bangladesh is a country of 140 million, mainly Muslims, making it rather important. It is also the world's No 1 contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, and has a vital role to play in world affairs, given that it sits right by India and China, the likely powerhouses of the future. It's no good saying that Bangladesh is always getting hit by floods, since Florida is always getting hit by hurricanes. Just on raw statistics alone, Florida should barely get a mention. The floods in India, Nepal and Bangladesh caused a death toll of nearly 2,000. Nearly half of those occurred in Bangladesh, where more than 30 million people have been affected by homelessness and disease. In Florida the death toll was 16 - yet by Monday Britain's newspapers had carried 19,000 words in six days of coverage. In a month since the flooding in Bangladesh began, only 9,000 words were carried. The easy conclusion is that people in Florida are white and speak English (except that lots of them are Latin and speak Spanish) while Bangladeshis are neither white nor English-speaking. But it's worse than that. The only time Bangladesh even gets a mention on the news here is when there's a deadly flood. The media are caught in a cleft stick, that the only way developing countries get coverage is in a manner that does serious harm to our perception of them. The more that is written about floods and disasters, the less we take places such as Bangladesh seriously. richard.adams at guardian. co.uk From dfordesign at yahoo.com Fri Aug 20 14:38:44 2004 From: dfordesign at yahoo.com (Avinash Kumar) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 02:08:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Jhoola Post No.5 - Design as Dreaming Message-ID: <20040820090844.55863.qmail@web14104.mail.yahoo.com> SARAI POST 5 : Design as Dreaming One of the significant parts of the whole project is the involvement of diverse participants, and in line with that, this is the very interesting and engaging contribution by Harpreet Padam. He is head of the Design Team at Carbon in Bangalore, and as you will discover while reading further, and eye for fantasy and its close relation to good design. I see his view of the Jhoola as a vision for a system design, and it starts to enter what we have outlined in our work as the outermost periphery of design work � when design intervention becomes design strategy. It is also this aspect of the design process in such developmental situations that �paralyse� designers the most, since the stakes become much higher�it is no longer a �more-fun� ride for the kid; its now �How is Design going to help these people earn a livelihood?� That discussion can go on, like it has been in our group without too many clear solutions�and maybe that�s the way it should be... Read on� A LETTER FROM A FELLOW DESIGNER... Dear Avinash, My idea and perception of a jhoola are solely dependant on this instantaneous thought which I hope shall run through me in the next half an hour or so whilst I try and think about it. I have just, for a little while, maybe not more than a minute or maybe the time i printed it on the printer, looked at the other document that accompanied your email. I infer that since this has to do with a jhoola that is one thing I must keep in mind during all thought regarding an idea or a perception, which kind of makes it the very reason we're having this email conversation. The jhoolewalas come next, since they are bviously the caretakers, if not the translators and introducers of this gravity defying, or maybe gravity proving inanimate object. And then there is what may come out of newer visions for these objects and their companions. Maybe the jhoolewalas are these playground guides for the jhoolas, who actually happen to be celestial godsent visitors from the NGOs of God, sent to teach little children that you can swing this way or that, but you cant get away from earth, and that the jhoolas are speechless travellers who need to be shown all the amazing little kids and their playgrounds (or maybe the playground is created where the two of them meet) . As in a business-like situation, the guide, the jhoolewala gets his money and takes the celestial traveller to another child. The jhoola then learns from these numerous visits to numerous children, maybe in the form it takes (scratches, peeling paint, carved names, bottom polished seats), or the sounds it makes over a period of time, through the course of its travels, till one day, after all the sightseeing childseeing), it fractures itself, maybe is admitted into a ironmongery, or maybe sent to an old age home, a scrapyard where it goes back to its celestial origins (whoever saw where the last bits of jhoolas disappear). So if the children are the cities, and the jhoolas are the visitors, the tourism. which would then be the playground, is the very interaction of the two and can take better form, or evolve faster, or earn more revenue(enjoyment) for the children, if the jhoolas become better tourists. So what is a better tourist? Or which tourists generate larger revenue? Which city is such that a tourist shall visit again? Why do tourists like certain places more than others, or maybe certain tourists like certain places at certain times more than others ? So it all gets very interesting. Cities like cleaner visitors, cities like interactive, contributing visitors, cities like culture carriers or culture infectors, culture viruses, visitors who spread good word of the place to more like minded visitors ( OMP The Beach???) So the jhoolas, just like tourists, would 'stand out' from the locals (the small park swing/slide or the tyre tube hung from a tree). And thats how the city and its locals would identify them. So then these locals and the visitors interact, and learn (the jhoolas give info to the local jhoolas, toys, slides etc...maybe of other children theyve seen in other playgrounds, other localities, and the locals become smarter and then have global outlooks to life, a greater sense of the world). I dont know how this would happen, or rather, in what form. And then the tourists like to sometimes break off from the normal 'way' of sightseeing, and find that broken trail that seems to lead to an afternoon of discovery. So maybe the jhoolas enter other facets of the child's life, his or her home, his or her school, schoolbus, whatever may be the child's realm otherwise not that of the jhoola. Breakable jhoolas that give off little parts to all children which they make take elsewhere (this is probably like dignitaries planting trees when they come visiting). So why does a visitor come back to a city. As i think, maybe sometimes because the visitor is with someone 'new', and wants to brag and boast of what he or she did 'last' time. So maybe, since the jhoola came with Manohar, the jhoolewala last time, this time he comes with Vikas, another jhoolewala. And maybe that means we could have a jhoola/jhoolewala 'exchange'. SO these jhoolas are, maybe 20 in number, and then there are 20 jhoolewalas, and they all meet every morning, and get jhoolas by chance, and not by choice. SO newer jhoolas go to newer children with newer jhoolewalas, and maybe they expand their areas more. But what of the jhoolewala as the guide? Guides are crooks, or so they seem, but they know the city, so these Jhoolewalas maybe learn so much about children over a period of time, that they now can share (bragging knowledge of this monument and that) this information with someone else. Could they be part time assistants in kindergarten? ===== _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush From isast at leonardo.info Sat Aug 21 05:05:08 2004 From: isast at leonardo.info (Leonardo/ISAST) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 16:35:08 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [Leonardo/ISAST Network] Refresh! First International Conference on the Histories of Media, Art, Science and Technology Message-ID: <200408202335.CFK30118@ms2.netsolmail.com> To: Leonardo Network From: Roger Malina Leonardo is pleased to announce its co sponsorship of : REFRESH! FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORIES OF MEDIA ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY September 28 - October 2, 2005 at Banff New Media Institute, Canada "The technology of the modern media has produced new possibilities of interaction... What is needed is a wider view encompassing the coming rewards in the context of the treasures left us by the past experiences, possessions, and insights." (Rudolf Arnheim, Summer 2000) Recognizing the increasing significance of media art for our culture, this Conference on the Histories of Media Art will discuss for the first time the history of media art within the interdisciplinary and intercultural contexts of the histories of art. Leonardo/ISAST, the Database for Virtual Art, Banff New Media Institute, and UNESCO DigiArts are collaborating to produce the first international art history conference covering art and new media, art and technology, art-science interaction, and the history of media as pertinent to contemporary art. MEDIA ART HISTORIES After photography, film, video, and the little known media art history of the 1960s-80s, today media artists are active in a wide range of digital areas (including interactive, genetic, and telematic art). Even in robotics and nanotechnology, artists design and conduct experiments. This dynamic process has triggered intense discussion about images in the disciplines of art history, media studies, and neighboring cultural disciplines. The Media Art History Project offers a basis for attempting an evolutionary history of the audiovisual media, from the laterna magica to the panorama, phantasmagoria, film, and the virtual art of recent decades. It is an evolution with breaks and detours; however, all its stages are distinguished by a close relationship between art, science, and technology. Refresh! will discuss questions of historiography, methodology and the role of institutions of media art. The Conference will contain key debates about the function of inventions, artistic practice in collaborative networks, the prominent role of sound during the last decades and will emphasize the importance of intercultural and pop culture themes in the Histories of Media Art. Readings of new media art histories vary richly depending on cultural contexts. This event calls upon scholarship from a strongly international perspective. Therefore Refresh! will represent and address the wide array of disciplines involved in the emerging field of Media Art. Beside Art History these include the Histories of Sciences and Technologies , Film-, Sound-, Media-, Visual and Theatre Studies, Architecture, Visual Psychology, just to name a few. DOCUMENTATION - CURATING - COLLECTION Although the popularity of media art exhibited at exhibitions and art festivals is growing among the public and increasingly influences theory debates, with few exceptions museums and galleries have neglected to systematically collect this present-day art, to preserve it and to demand appropriate conservatory measures. Thus, several decades of international media art is in danger of being lost to the history of collecting and to academic disciplines such as art history. This gap will have far-reaching consequences; therefore, the conference will also discuss the documentation, collection, archiving and preservation of media art. What kind of international networks must be created to advance appropriate policies for collection and conservation? What kind of new technologies do we need to optimize research efforts and information exchange? MAILING LIST LEONARDO, journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, has documented for the past thirty-seven years the pioneering work of artists who work in and with new media. Together with Leonardo Book Series and LEA Electronic Journal, the journal is published by the MIT Press. For further information about the forthcoming conference and the long-term LEONARDO Media Art History Project, please email to join: TO BE KEPT INFORMED ABOUT THE CONFERENCE JOIN THIS LIST: banffleoarthistconfinfo-subscribe at yahoogroups.com CONFERENCE Held at The Banff Centre, featuring lectures by invited speakers as well as others selected by a jury from a call for papers, the main event will be followed by a two-day summit meeting (October 1-2, 2005) for in-depth dialogues and international project initiation. The first call for papers will be in late Summer 2004. In particular, young postgraduates in the research areas of: art history and new media, art and technology, the interaction of art and science, and media history, are encouraged to submit for the following panels: MEDIA ART HISTORIES Times and Landscapes Methodologies Invention Collaborative Practice Pop Mass Society Cross-Culture, Global Art ART HISTORY AS IMAGE SCIENCE Film, Sound, Media Art & Performance History of Sciences & Media Art Media & Visual Studies DOCUMENTATION - CURATING - COLLECTION - RIGHTS New Scientific Tools History of Institutions HONORARY BOARD Rudolf ARNHEIM; Frank POPPER; Jasia REICHARDT; Itsuo SAKANE, Walter ZANINI ADVISORY BOARD Hans BELTING, Karlsruhe; Andreas BROECKMANN, Berlin; Karin BRUNS, Linz; Annick BUREAUD, Paris; Dieter DANIELS, Leipzig; Diana DOMINGUES, Caxias do Sul; Felice FRANKEL, Boston; Jean GAGNON, Montreal; Thomas GUNNING, Chicago; Linda D. HENDERSON, Austin; Manrai HSU, Taipei; Erkki HUHTAMO, Los Angeles; Ángel KALENBERG, Montevideo; Ryszard KLUSZCZYNSKI, Lodz; Machiko KUSAHARA, Tokyo; W.J.T. MITCHELL, Chicago; Gunalan NADARAJAN, Singapore; Eduard SHANKEN, Durham; Barbara STAFFORD, Chicago; Christiane PAUL, New York; Louise POISSANT, Montreal; Jeffrey SHAW, Sydney; Tereza WAGNER, Paris; Peter WEIBEL, Karlsruhe; Steven WILSON, San Francisco BANFF Sara DIAMOND, Director of Research and Artistic Director of BNMI (Local Chair) Susan KENNARD, Executive Producer of BNMI (Organisation) www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/ LEONARDO Annick BUREAUD, Director Leonardo Pioneers and Pathbreakers Art History Project, Leonardo/OLATS www.olats.org Leonardo thanks Intel for their support of the conference. For more information about Leonardo's involvement in the conference see: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/events/banff05refresh.htm l PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE Chair: Roger F MALINA, Chair Leonardo/ISAST http://www.leonardo.info CONFERENCE DIRECTOR & ORGANISATION Oliver GRAU, Director Immersive Art & Database of Virtual Art Humboldt University Berlin http://virtualart.hu-berlin.de SUPPORTED BY: LEONARDO, GERMAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION, UNESCO DIGIARTS, VILLA VIGONI _______________________________________________ Leonardo-isast mailing list Leonardo-isast at mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/leonardo-isast _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From mirzachhotoo at yahoo.co.in Sat Aug 21 09:52:23 2004 From: mirzachhotoo at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?nisha=20-?=) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 05:22:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040821042223.58035.qmail@web8303.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Rahul, I am glad that you share the concerns. And no, I have not made an assumption that those who are against death penalty for rapists are male chauvinists. Those were the kind of comments I heard at different venues in the debates around the current death penalty case. Indian feminists have made their stand against death penalty clear. About death penalty not being a deterrent to rape, I would not argue from this position at all. Two reasons: first, it will strengthen the notions related to chastity and sexual purity of women - a violence of their body being a violence against the family/community identity. And second, despite the existing laws being not so stringent, the current conviction rate remains abysmally low. Applying this argument the conviction rate should have been higher. We are still dependent on the attitude of the judges and prosecution for a conviction. As I mentioned in my previous mail about portrayal of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, all we have been hearing in the media is how traumatized he has been, how well behaved he is, how he has been worshipping and devoting time reading geeta, what he has been writing, how much he loves music, how his family is grieving, how supportive people from his village has been and so on. And this is where I make a point of departure. The campaign has been uncritical and ended up romanticizing a rapist and a murderer. He should have lived and languished in a jail forever, regretting or not but definitely knowing that he committed a crime. The glory that was bestowed on him, perhaps made him see himself as the wronged hero. As for your question regarding how sexually assaulted women can to be stigmatized and denigrated, I have not been able to figure it out entirely. But I often think in terms of the practices of the social systems and institutions that burden women as symbols of family and community’s identity and the ‘good’ old patriarchy that places the onus of keeping safe on women rather than holding the perpetrator accountable. There’s something more fundamental, sex as an oppressive mechanism to control those who due to various other reasons are already rendered weak in the power relations. Warmly, Nisha "Asthana, Rahul" wrote:Nisha, I fully agree with you that there should be more discussion on this,and it is not as simple as black and white. But there is something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. If someone is against death penalty for the rapist it should not be construed as fostering male chauvinism of the worst type as you say- "We also told that if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming on your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing and verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public place store. " If such a message is sent out, it is unfortunate.How the seriousness of the crime manifests itself into the seriousness of the punishment, is an issue to be examined. Someone earlier posted that if death penalty becomes the norm in such cases, more people might be let off without any punishment. so, the debate can have other angles as well. Furthermore, this is my personal opinion and I would like to examine it by posting it here, that the heinousness of sexual violence is actually a double whammy against women.Every culture, not just eastern and third world, but western and developed countries too, somehow treat rape as something which is demeaning to the victim herself.There are hoards of examples in our culture. For example - I can rememeber countless scenes from hindi movies when the woman after being raped..says.. "Ab to mai kisi ko muh dikhane ke kabil nahi rahi.." and goes to commit suicide or something.Or another-the term "izzat lootna " How can somebody loot somebody's izzat? If a man is raping a woman, is he surrendering his own izzat or looting hers? Why we tolerate and use such language? I wonder how it came to be this way.Sometimes I feel this is like a big conspiracy which generations of men have perpetrated against women, and we are so steeped in this nonsense that we make it true by believing in it. We are actually making the crime more heinous by believing that it is heinous.I think that the after the victim is raped, besides the obvious physical trauma of rape, she also has to undergo pity of the bechari rape victim and stuff like that. Its not like a car hit you when you are crossing the road and you report the driver to the police.The pity for a rape victim is like "iski to life barbad ho gayi.." and not like "iska haath toot gaya" or something. Again,besides the cultural component, there is one more component of the stupidity against rape victims- male chauvinism .some males feel that if a girl wears "provocative" clothes,she is a party to the crime and she invites rape, which is comeple BS according to me.I wonder what they would feel if they were raped by girls for wearing some tight jeans or stuff like that.So, in campaigning against sexual violence, if we work against the attitudes pertaining to it, so that- a) The victim does not get patronizing ,demeaning and idiotic sympathy and ostracization. b) Her case is judged farily and the blame not apportioned to her for not confirming to some stupid parochial norms .. he ostracizing of victims and the shame they might possibly feel(ironically) for being a victim might possibly change.That might lead to more and more rape cases being reported and rapsits being punished. Thanks and regards Rahul -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of nisha - Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 10:13 AM To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty Looking at Chatterjee case, I'm amazed that how easy it is to ignore the political implications of sexual violence. Issues around rape and sexual abuse of various types have caused deep divisions in both anti-violence against women campaigners and human rights campaigners. And it has definitely put those like me who believe in the right to life as well as justice. The dilemma arises from being thrown in a situation where one is supposed to declare either for or against stand in a death penalty case. It doesn't matter if majority of those who are campaigning against death penalty do not see sexual violence (leave alone physical violence) as grave enough to deserve a more serious thought than 'poor man he has already served 14 years in jail' or 'so and so did it, he wasn't given a death penalty'. It doesn't matter if you feel that criminal jusrisprudence must work out a way in which concerns of women's and girls' physical and bodily integrity and safety are given the consideration they deserve. It doesn't matter if you would like to hear a deabte about what kind of laws could make the perpetrator take full responsibility for an act of sexual violence without taking away his life. You are just supposed to take a for or against position in a typical Bush style. The rampantness of sexual violence is acknowledged in so far that its existence is not being denied and work against issues of rape and sexual abuse is considered necessary if not as vital as other social issues. But when it comes to punishing the perpetrators, the message we get is don't make the poor man such a monster. And instead of a debate on legal and public responsibility we are told it is a matter of real life, it just there so learn survival skills and develop the strength to cope with it. We also told that if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming on your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing and verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public place store. It fills me with so much of anger when I think of all the women and girls who are being assualted every second and killed so often and see scant thought going to their right to life and sexual rights. What kind of a campaigning for right to life is this death penaly row, if it is not even willing to see the other side of the violence? Nisha vishwajyoti ghosh wrote: "In my next life, I want to be born as a rich man..." -Dhanonjoy Chatterjee For those of us who feel rapists should be dealt with an extra firm hand...I agree, But will I see: Sanjeev Nanda Salman Khan Sushil Sharma D.P Yadav & his sons (to name only a few) and all the regular rapists of Delhi and adjoining areas walking to the gallows??? As a nation, we might have to answer many such cases within ourselves, for times to come. Till then Chatterjee's words wish will continue to be a proven fact, and not a mere wish... Happy Independence Day guys! On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 Sourav wrote : >Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood is not a >solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But I don't know >where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide us and we will >send the signatures and mails against hanging. > >Sourav. > >West Bengal. > >_________________________________________ >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: VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH, D-598/c, CHITTARANJAN PARK, NEW DELHI-11019, INDIA CELL: 0091-9891238606 STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319 RES.: 0091-11-26270256 _________________________________________ 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: Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040821/9bdc7b99/attachment.html From Rahul.Asthana at CIBC.com Fri Aug 20 21:33:42 2004 From: Rahul.Asthana at CIBC.com (Asthana, Rahul) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 12:03:42 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty Message-ID: Nisha, I fully agree with you that there should be more discussion on this,and it is not as simple as black and white. But there is something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. If someone is against death penalty for the rapist it should not be construed as fostering male chauvinism of the worst type as you say- "We also told that if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming on your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing and verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public place store. " If such a message is sent out, it is unfortunate.How the seriousness of the crime manifests itself into the seriousness of the punishment, is an issue to be examined. Someone earlier posted that if death penalty becomes the norm in such cases, more people might be let off without any punishment. so, the debate can have other angles as well. Furthermore, this is my personal opinion and I would like to examine it by posting it here, that the heinousness of sexual violence is actually a double whammy against women.Every culture, not just eastern and third world, but western and developed countries too, somehow treat rape as something which is demeaning to the victim herself.There are hoards of examples in our culture. For example - I can rememeber countless scenes from hindi movies when the woman after being raped..says.. "Ab to mai kisi ko muh dikhane ke kabil nahi rahi.." and goes to commit suicide or something.Or another-the term "izzat lootna " How can somebody loot somebody's izzat? If a man is raping a woman, is he surrendering his own izzat or looting hers? Why we tolerate and use such language? I wonder how it came to be this way.Sometimes I feel this is like a big conspiracy which generations of men have perpetrated against women, and we are so steeped in this nonsense that we make it true by believing in it. We are actually making the crime more heinous by believing that it is heinous.I think that the after the victim is raped, besides the obvious physical trauma of rape, she also has to undergo pity of the bechari rape victim and stuff like that. Its not like a car hit you when you are crossing the road and you report the driver to the police.The pity for a rape victim is like "iski to life barbad ho gayi.." and not like "iska haath toot gaya" or something. Again,besides the cultural component, there is one more component of the stupidity against rape victims- male chauvinism .some males feel that if a girl wears "provocative" clothes,she is a party to the crime and she invites rape, which is comeple BS according to me.I wonder what they would feel if they were raped by girls for wearing some tight jeans or stuff like that.So, in campaigning against sexual violence, if we work against the attitudes pertaining to it, so that- a) The victim does not get patronizing ,demeaning and idiotic sympathy and ostracization. b) Her case is judged farily and the blame not apportioned to her for not confirming to some stupid parochial norms .. he ostracizing of victims and the shame they might possibly feel(ironically) for being a victim might possibly change.That might lead to more and more rape cases being reported and rapsits being punished. Thanks and regards Rahul -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of nisha - Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 10:13 AM To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty Looking at Chatterjee case, I'm amazed that how easy it is to ignore the political implications of sexual violence. Issues around rape and sexual abuse of various types have caused deep divisions in both anti-violence against women campaigners and human rights campaigners. And it has definitely put those like me who believe in the right to life as well as justice. The dilemma arises from being thrown in a situation where one is supposed to declare either for or against stand in a death penalty case. It doesn't matter if majority of those who are campaigning against death penalty do not see sexual violence (leave alone physical violence) as grave enough to deserve a more serious thought than 'poor man he has already served 14 years in jail' or 'so and so did it, he wasn't given a death penalty'. It doesn't matter if you feel that criminal jusrisprudence must work out a way in which concerns of women's and girls' physical and bodily integrity and safety are given the consideration they deserve. It doesn't matter if you would like to hear a deabte about what kind of laws could make the perpetrator take full responsibility for an act of sexual violence without taking away his life. You are just supposed to take a for or against position in a typical Bush style. The rampantness of sexual violence is acknowledged in so far that its existence is not being denied and work against issues of rape and sexual abuse is considered necessary if not as vital as other social issues. But when it comes to punishing the perpetrators, the message we get is don't make the poor man such a monster. And instead of a debate on legal and public responsibility we are told it is a matter of real life, it just there so learn survival skills and develop the strength to cope with it. We also told that if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming on your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing and verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public place store. It fills me with so much of anger when I think of all the women and girls who are being assualted every second and killed so often and see scant thought going to their right to life and sexual rights. What kind of a campaigning for right to life is this death penaly row, if it is not even willing to see the other side of the violence? Nisha vishwajyoti ghosh wrote: "In my next life, I want to be born as a rich man..." -Dhanonjoy Chatterjee For those of us who feel rapists should be dealt with an extra firm hand...I agree, But will I see: Sanjeev Nanda Salman Khan Sushil Sharma D.P Yadav & his sons (to name only a few) and all the regular rapists of Delhi and adjoining areas walking to the gallows??? As a nation, we might have to answer many such cases within ourselves, for times to come. Till then Chatterjee's words wish will continue to be a proven fact, and not a mere wish... Happy Independence Day guys! On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 Sourav wrote : >Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood is not a >solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But I don't know >where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide us and we will >send the signatures and mails against hanging. > >Sourav. > >West Bengal. > >_________________________________________ >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: VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH, D-598/c, CHITTARANJAN PARK, NEW DELHI-11019, INDIA CELL: 0091-9891238606 STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319 RES.: 0091-11-26270256 _________________________________________ 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: Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040820/8549ad1d/attachment.html From shivamvij at gmail.com Sat Aug 21 13:03:16 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 13:03:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Fwd: [New_Media_Forum] CNN Award for young journalists of India and Pakistan In-Reply-To: <412381F1.9070307@vsnl.com> References: <412381F1.9070307@vsnl.com> Message-ID: CNN announces award for young journos in India, Pak For registration please visit the following site http://www.cnnasiapacific.com/yja/RegistrationForm.asp Hindu story : http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200408172065.htm Mumbai, Aug 17. (PTI): American news channel CNN today announced its second edition of the Young Journalist Award, in India and Pakistan, aimed at recognising quality journalism among young media professionals. The contest, open to journalist between 22-26 years of age for electronic, print and online journalist, has this year been thrown open for Pakistani journalists as well, CNN New Delhi bureau chief, Satinder Bindra told reporters. Entries would have to be submitted before October 15, he said. Stories filed between January to September 2004 could be submitted for the contest, he added. "The entries could be in any language, irrespective of the kind of story, language or organisation. Even freelancers could send in the entry. The criteria of winning of the award would be the quality of the story, the visuals used, the use of sound, words. In short it has to be a story that draws the viewer/reader and could reflect even a local issue," he said. The jury for both the countries would be the same and would comprise of eminent personalities. The winners would be sent to CNN headquarters in Atlanta to witness the newsgathering techniques of the channel. Runners up would go through a similar training in New Delhi and Islamabad, he said. _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From ttsetan at yahoo.com Fri Aug 20 18:29:12 2004 From: ttsetan at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?tenzin=20tsetan?=) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 13:59:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] URGENT PRESS RELEASE Message-ID: <20040820125912.40018.qmail@web50603.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040820/4bc4f2ea/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: tenzin tsundue Subject: [Rangzen] URGENT PRESS RELEASE Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 03:50:52 -0700 (PDT) Size: 5925 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040820/4bc4f2ea/attachment.mht From db at dannybutt.net Sun Aug 22 08:56:29 2004 From: db at dannybutt.net (Danny Butt) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 15:26:29 +1200 Subject: [Reader-list] FW: CFP: South Asian Digital Diasporas In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20040821070154.02c09010@pop.cyberdiva.org> Message-ID: I don't think this has been posted here (sorry if I missed it!) and I figure that people on this list would be interested Regards Danny ------ Forwarded Message From: Radhika Gajjala Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 07:12:37 -0400 NOTE: I have an expression of interest from Peter Lang If you have work you'd like to submit for this, Please send a 500 abstract and bio to radhika at cyberdiva.org If you have a near complete essay - go ahead and submit that as well. thanks, radhika South Asian Networks: Digital Diasporic Circuits Editor: Radhika Gajjala 1. Brief Description: This project examines issues related to South Asian transnational networks (economic, mediated, digital and so on) and diasporic circuits that are technologically mediated in various ways. Technology and its use has shaped and in turn been shaped by dominant production processes, community practices and cultural activities throughout history. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the practices of travel, communication, labor flow and economic systems fostered by modern and postmodern modes of work and play through an engagement with various digital technologies. Therefore the essays in this anthology examine various issues regarding labor, migration and globalization at the intersection of the digital and the analogue specifically in relation to South Asia and South Asian Diasporas, in an effort to show how technology, migrancy and globalization are linked to our everyday lives. Contributors thus examine (directly and indirectly) issues related to technologically mediated diasporic spaces. Issues of voice and voicelessness as well as of marginalization, ventriloquizing and Othering based on gender, race, class, sexuality and geographical location emerge as some central concerns. Problematizing both transnational and diasporic in relation to technological environments and globalization, this collection grapples with issues at such intersections. Taking seriously Gayathri Spivaks interrogation of transnational, diasporas, old and newin relation to the Gramscian subaltern (Spivak, 1997), and based in issues raised through the editors prior work in this area (see Gajjala 1998, 1999, 2000 forthcoming 2004 and Gajjala and Mamidipudi 1999) this collection engages questions that point to the contradictions that emerge when these issues are put in conversation with digitaland related technological environments. Some implicit and explicit questions are: What kind of migratory subjects emerge in transnational spaces and in digital diaspora , at the intersection of the local and the global? What regulatory fictionsand theoretical frames shape and constrain manifestations of identity formations and communities online? What literacies are demanded in the performance of cyber-bodies? What bodies are allowed embodiment through technologies? Viewed at the intersection of cultures and communities of production, what kinds of bodies produce what kinds of technologies? What are the socio-cultural transformations demanded in the name of "technological literacy" and "development"? Exploring the ontology and epistemology of "cyberspace," some of these essays raise questions regarding the impossibility of "the subaltern's" access to the socio-economic globalization manifested in cyberspace. Processes of globalization rely on a complex layering of discourses and daily practices related to information technology, digital media, lifestyles based on the celebration of globalizing consumer cultures as well as on the seemingly contradictory invoking of national culture (as defined through postcolonial bourgeoisie nation-building ideologies). Online discourses and material practices within such technological environments are a result of such complexly layered and nuanced practices in realspaces and are visibly manifested in the various online contexts. Even in these virtual environments, participants do not leave their bodies behind. Hence the virtual/real distinction sets up a false binary that cannot be substantiated when we analyze engagement with online environments. Part of what the analyses in the chapters in this book do is to try to unravel the dichotomy between the virtual and the real. Thus Economics and Culture intersect and interweave within digital spaces to produce global and local encounters, circuits and networks. Cyberculture is not simply or essentially the west or the whole world; male or female, white or black yet it is situated within unequal power relations that must be examined in detail in relation to various categories of race, caste, gender, sexuality and geography, and at various conjunctures and disjunctures. The purpose of our project is to open up theoretical considerations for continued attempts at mapping these connections between the economic, cultural, digital, local and the global. These connections can be mapped at various local/global intersections and every such contextual analysis will reveal the various ways in which these work together and contribute to the production of power relations within which discourses and practices of globalization are situated. The chapters in this proposed collection do this in a variety of ways. This is an interdisciplinary project, drawing on multiple methodologies for studying what has come to be known as digital culture. Radhika Gajjala http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik Associate Professor Dept of IPC/School of Comm Studies 315 West Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43403 419-372-0528 fax - 419-372-0202 From eye at ranadasgupta.com Mon Aug 23 23:56:16 2004 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 23:56:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Meat-eaters soak up the world's water Message-ID: <412A36C8.8070304@ranadasgupta.com> Meat-eaters soak up the world's water http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/story/0,13790,1288702,00.html A change in diets may be necessary to enable developing countries to feed their people, say scientists John Vidal Monday August 23, 2004 The Guardian Governments may have to persuade people to eat less meat because of increasing demands on water supplies, according to agricultural scientists investigating how the world can best feed itself. They say countries with little water may choose not to grow crops but trade in "virtual water", importing food from countries which have large amounts of water to save their supplies for domestic or high-value uses. With about 840 million people in the world undernourished, and a further 2 billion expected to be born within 20 years, finding water to grow food will be one of the greatest challenges facing governments. Currently up to 90% of all managed water is used to grow food. "There will be enough food for everyone on average in 20 years' time, but unless we change the way that we grow it, there will be a lot more malnourished people," said Dr David Molden, principal scientist with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), which is part-funded by the British government and is investigating global options for feeding growing populations. "The bottom line is that groundwater levels are plummeting and our rivers are already overstressed, yet there is a lot of complacency about the future," the IWMI report says. "Western diets, which depend largely on meat, are already putting great pressures on the environment. Meat-eaters consume the equivalent of about 5,000 litres [1,100 gallons] of water a day compared to the 1,000-2,000 litres used by people on vegetarian diets in developing countries. All that water has to come from somewhere." The consensus emerging among scientists is that it will be almost impossible to feed future generations the typical diet eaten in western Europe and North America without destroying the environment. A meat and vegetable diet, which most people move to when economically possible, requires more water than crops such as wheat and maize. On average, it takes 1,790 litres of water to grow 1kg of wheat compared with 9,680 litres of water for 1kg of beef. In its report, the IWMI says it it unlikely people will change their eating habits because of concerns about water supplies. "And in many sub-Saharan countries, where the pressure on water will increase most rapidly in the next 20 years, people actually need to be eating more, not less," the report says. Anders Berntell, the director of the International Water Institute, based in Stockholm, said: "The world's future water supply is a problem that's ... greater than we've begun to realise. "We've got to reduce the amount of water we devote to growing food. The world is simply running out of water." Research suggests that up to 24% more water will be needed to grow the world's food in 20 years, but many of the fastest-growing countries are unable to devote more water to agriculture without sacrificing ecosystems which may be important for providing water or fish. The option of increased world trade in virtual water seems logical, the scientists say, but they recognise that it depends on countries having the money to import their food. "The question remains whether the countries that will be hardest hit by water scarcity will be able to afford virtual water," the report says. The best options for feeding the world, it says, are a combination of hi-tech and traditional water conservation methods. Improved crop varieties, better tillage methods and more precise irrigation could reduce water consumption and improve yields. Drought-resistant seeds, water harvesting schemes and small-plot technologies such as treadle pumps [simple foot pumps] all have the potential to boost yields by 100%, the report says. The scientists did not examine the use of GM foods which have been hailed by some companies as the way to avoid big food shortages. "Even without GM foods, in many parts of the world there is the potential to increase water productivity. Even without them there is hope," one of the report's authors said. Another option considered is that of farmers using more urban waste water for irrigation. It is estimated that up to 10% of the world's population now eat food produced using waste water from towns and cities. Cities are predicted to use 150% more water within 20 years, which will be both a problem and an opportunity. "This means more waste water but also less fresh water available for agriculture. In the future, using waste water may not be a choice but a necessity", the report says. The authors say western governments need to change their policies: "Agricultural subsidies keep world commodity prices low in poor countries and discourage farmers from investing [in water-saving technologies] because they will not get a return on their investments. "Land and water rights are also needed so people will invest in long-term improvements." From shekhar at crit.org.in Tue Aug 24 00:07:14 2004 From: shekhar at crit.org.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 00:07:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 100 Years, 100 Voices Book Release Message-ID: <74234198-F533-11D8-A9F7-000A95A05D12@crit.org.in> Dear Friends: Announcing the release of the book One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Mumbai: A Vanishing History, by Meena Menon and Neera Adarkar, with an introductory essay by Dr Rajnarayan Chandavarkar. The book will be launched on THURSDAY 26 AUGUST 2004 at 6.30 P.M. at the Oxford Bookstore in Churchgate, Mumbai. It will be released by activist Datta Ishwalkar of the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti and Girangaon Rozgar Hakk Samiti. Chief guest will be writer Kiran Nagarkar, who will read selections from the book with film-maker and writer Paromita Vohra. The discussion will be led by journalists Darryl D'Monte and Smriti Koppikar. The book will be available at a discounted rate at this event (see below for more information). ABOUT THE BOOK: ‘There is a history here which is in danger of being rewritten and forgotten in the rapid progress of what goes by the name of development . . . this means the loss of jobs and the future of their children. It also means a world that is growing around them, in which they no longer have a part to play.’ The history of central Bombay’s textile area is one of the most important, least known, stories of modern India. Covering a dense network of textile mills, public housing estates, markets and cultural centres, this area covers about a thousand acres in the heart of India’s commercial and financial capital. With the advent of globalization, the survival of these 1.3 million people, their culture and history, has been up for grabs. The new economic policies of the Indian Government have sought to style this moribund industrial metropolis into a centre for global business and finance. The middle classes and business elite are anxious to turn it into offices and entertainment centres. The working-class residents face displacement after over a century of constant habitation, and the social rhythms and cultural economy of this area face an impending destruction. This book comprises about a hundred testimonies by the inhabitants of these districts, which are a window into the history, culture and political economy of a former colonial port city now recasting itself as a global metropolis. While following the major threads of national and international events, it tries to render the history of central Bombay through the narratives and perceptions of the people, in the process casting new light on the processes of history as they were experienced by the working classes—the contesting ideas of what a free India would be; the growth of industry and labour movements; the World Wars and their impact; the complex politics of regional and linguistic identities in Bombay and Maharashtra; the eclipse of the organized Left and the rise of extremist sectarian politics. DATE: Thursday 26 August 2004 TIME: 6.30 P.M. PLACE: Oxford Bookstore Apeejay House 3, Dinsha Vachha Road Churchgate, Mumbai 400 020 Phone +91.22.5636.4477 ABOUT THE AUTHORS: MEENA MENON has been a political and trade union activist for the past thirty years. She has been active in the textile workers movement for eleven years. She is Vice President of the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti (Mill Workers Action Committee), and one of its founders. She is also a Senior Associate with Focus on the Global South, a global policy research organisation. She is based in Mumbai. NEERA ADARKAR has been active in the women's movement for twenty years. She is a practising architect and urban researcher, and visiting faculty at the Academy of Architecture, Mumbai. She is one of the founding members of Majlis, a legal and cultural centre, and is one of the convenors of the Girangaon Bachao Andolan (Save Girangaon Movement). She is based in Mumbai. Dr RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR is Reader in the History and Politics of South Asia and the Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies, at Cambridge University, and is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, U.K. His publications include The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900-1940 (Cambridge, 1994) and Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950 (Cambridge, 1998). ABOUT THE PUBLISHERS: Seagull Books, ISBN 81 7046 212 6, Rs 695, Hardback, 450 pages http://www.seagullindia.com To order the book directly online, please go to http://www.seagullindia.com/index-books/frame3.html and for more information about the book or to contact the authors, please write to girni at crit.org.in _____ CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust) Announcements List http://lists.crit.org.in/mailman/listinfo/announcer From lalitbatra77 at yahoo.co.in Tue Aug 24 12:07:46 2004 From: lalitbatra77 at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?lalit=20batra?=) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 07:37:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] fourth posting Message-ID: <20040824063746.57048.qmail@web8205.mail.in.yahoo.com> A ‘Posh’ Resettlement Colony In a situation of ever decreasing norms for the poor in the city, Gautam Puri, Molarband is considered by many as the ‘posh’ among the resettlement colonies that have sprung up on the periphery of Delhi in the past five years or so. On closer scrutiny, it appears that the only reason it deserves this dubious title is its proximity to NH-2. Otherwise, it presents a more or less familiar sight of depravation and lingering hopelessness that many such resettlements sites exhibit. Gautampuri was established in the winter of 1999. The first batch of people to have been resettled here were jhuggie dwellers from Gautam Nagar (behind AIMMS) area. For months they had to live in makeshift tents of chatai and plastic as plots were not allotted to them. The only source of water was tankers, which were, of course, very irregular and insufficient. Hunting for drinking water in the nearby areas was in itself a full-time activity. Paradoxically, there were days when these thousands of people used to find themselves surrounded by water on all sides. These were the days when the villagers of the nearby Ali Gaon, enraged over the hordes of Bihari jhuggiewalas becoming their neighbours, used to flood the ground where the ‘resettlers’ had pitched their tents. Over the years the villagers came to terms with the presence of jhuggiewalas in their vicinity but the tension still resurfaces sometimes. This in fact is a narrative that has resonance in other parts of the Outer Delhi as well with conflicts between slumdwellers and villagers becoming frequent. Tankers remained the only source of water supply in Gautam Puri for quite some time. The people here shudder when they remember those endless hours they used to spend in queues fighting with and shouting at other people. Slowly, pipelines were laid, hydrants installed, tanks put up. The situation, as far as availability of water goes, eased a lot. But many of the problems still persist. The hydrants are installed along the main lanes. So those living inside have problem accessing water while those living in corner plots claim greater right over it. This has created a sort of divide between anderwale and konewale. There are people who have installed their private shallow hand pumps. But the quality of groundwater is very bad and this water can’t be normally used for purposes other than washing. But when there is no water for more than a day, which happens quite frequently as water supply is dependent on electricity supply which is erratic, to say the least, people have to use this water for even drinking purposes. Water borne diseases, thus, are quite common. There are times when water doesn’t come for even 3-4 days. Then obviously hand pumps are not able to meet everybody’s needs. In such a situation the people have to relive the experience of the year 2000 when they had to wait endlessly in front of the tanker to fetch even drinking water. Skirmishes between individuals and groups for accessing water are an everyday occurrence. Sometimes there are serious fights also which might result in somebody killing someone as has happened a couple of times in the past few years. As far as group fights go, these happen mostly along caste or mohalla / block lines. All the people I talked to in Gautam Puri belonged to upper or middle castes. They complain of ‘scheduled caste people’ being quarrelsome and noisy on the taps. One could sense that dalits, especially Balmikis, are relatively more organised or ‘networked’ than other caste groupings in the basti, which made upper and middle castes wary of them. Although the line between caste and mohalla groupings get blurred sometimes, especially in the case of Balmikis who seem to have a sort of pan-basti network; mohalla groupings definitely have a logic of their own as their basis lies in uneven distribution of civic services and proximity. In situations of acute water crises, it is the mohalla/ block identity that seems to dominate. ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From aarti at sarai.net Tue Aug 24 12:18:59 2004 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:18:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <412AE4DB.5050506@sarai.net> Dear Rahul and Nisha, I agree with you completely. Perhaps this is precisely why we now refer to 'rape survivors' rather than 'rape victims'. I recall a very sensitive, and brave, article written by a rape survivor a few years ago that came out in a newspaper published from Calcutta, I forget which. She had been raped but in her piece she echoed the sentiments you express in your postings- that she was not broken, that this was not the worst thing that could happen to a woman, that it was as bad as any other horrendous expereince that is sometimes visisted upon us. Phoolan Devi's outrage at her portrayal in Bandit Queen related in part to the manner in which the film misrepresented her desire to seek vengance from her opressors. While some of it related to the sexual assault she sufferred, equally important was her anger at the fact that the landlord had stolen her land. Regards, Aarti Asthana, Rahul wrote: > Nisha, I fully agree with you that there should be more discussion on > this,and it is not as simple as black and white. But there is > something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. > the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the > tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. If someone > is against death penalty for the rapist it should not be construed as > fostering male chauvinism of the worst type as you say- "We also told > that if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe > place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming on > your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing and > verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public place > store. " If such a message is sent out, it is unfortunate.How the > seriousness of the crime manifests itself into the seriousness of the > punishment, is an issue to be examined. Someone earlier posted that if > death penalty becomes the norm in such cases, more people might be let > off without any punishment. so, the debate can have other angles as > well. Furthermore, this is my personal opinion and I would like to > examine it by posting it here, that the heinousness of sexual violence > is actually a double whammy against women.Every culture, not just > eastern and third world, but western and developed countries too, > somehow treat rape as something which is demeaning to the victim > herself.There are hoards of examples in our culture. For example - I > can rememeber countless scenes from hindi movies when the woman after > being raped..says.. "Ab to mai kisi ko muh dikhane ke kabil nahi > rahi.." and goes to commit suicide or something.Or another-the term > "izzat lootna " How can somebody loot somebody's izzat? If a man is > raping a woman, is he surrendering his own izzat or looting hers? Why > we tolerate and use such language? I wonder how it came to be this > way.Sometimes I feel this is like a big conspiracy which generations > of men have perpetrated against women, and we are so steeped in this > nonsense that we make it true by believing in it. We are actually > making the crime more heinous by believing that it is heinous.I think > that the after the victim is raped, besides the obvious physical > trauma of rape, she also has to undergo pity of the bechari rape > victim and stuff like that. Its not like a car hit you when you are > crossing the road and you report the driver to the police.The pity for > a rape victim is like "iski to life barbad ho gayi.." and not like > "iska haath toot gaya" or something. Again,besides the cultural > component, there is one more component of the stupidity against rape > victims- male chauvinism .some males feel that if a girl wears > "provocative" clothes,she is a party to the crime and she invites > rape, which is comeple BS according to me.I wonder what they would > feel if they were raped by girls for wearing some tight jeans or stuff > like that.So, in campaigning against sexual violence, if we work > against the attitudes pertaining to it, so that- a) The victim does > not get patronizing ,demeaning and idiotic sympathy and ostracization. > b) Her case is judged farily and the blame not apportioned to her > for not confirming to some stupid parochial norms .. he ostracizing > of victims and the shame they might possibly feel(ironically) for > being a victim might possibly change.That might lead to more and more > rape cases being reported and rapsits being punished. Thanks and > regards Rahul > > -----Original Message----- > *From:* reader-list-bounces at sarai.net > [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]*On Behalf Of *nisha - > *Sent:* Tuesday, August 17, 2004 10:13 AM > *To:* reader-list at sarai.net > *Subject:* Re: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty > > > > Looking at Chatterjee case, I'm amazed that how easy it is to > ignore the political implications of sexual violence. Issues > around rape and sexual abuse of various types have caused deep > divisions in both anti-violence against women campaigners and > human rights campaigners. And it has definitely put those like me > who believe in the right to life as well as justice. > > The dilemma arises from being thrown in a situation where one is > supposed to declare either for or against stand in a death penalty > case. It doesn't matter if majority of those who are campaigning > against death penalty do not see sexual violence (leave alone > physical violence) as grave enough to deserve a more serious > thought than 'poor man he has already served 14 years in jail' or > 'so and so did it, he wasn't given a death penalty'. It doesn't > matter if you feel that criminal jusrisprudence must work out a > way in which concerns of women's and girls' physical and bodily > integrity and safety are given the consideration they deserve. It > doesn't matter if you would like to hear a deabte about what kind > of laws could make the perpetrator take full responsibility for an > act of sexual violence without taking away his life. You are just > supposed to take a for or against position in a typical Bush style. > > The rampantness of sexual violence is acknowledged in so far that > its existence is not being denied and work against issues of rape > and sexual abuse is considered necessary if not as vital as other > social issues. But when it comes to punishing the perpetrators, > the message we get is don't make the poor man such a monster. And > instead of a debate on legal and public responsibility we are told > it is a matter of real life, it just there so learn survival > skills and develop the strength to cope with it. We also told that > if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe > place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming > on your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing > and verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public > place store. > > It fills me with so much of anger when I think of all the women > and girls who are being assualted every second and killed so often > and see scant thought going to their right to life and sexual > rights. What kind of a campaigning for right to life is this death > penaly row, if it is not even willing to see the other side of the > violence? > > Nisha > > */vishwajyoti ghosh /* wrote: > > > "In my next life, I want to be born as a rich man..." > -Dhanonjoy Chatterjee > For those of us who feel rapists should be dealt with an extra > firm hand...I agree, But will I see: > Sanjeev Nanda > Salman Khan > Sushil Sharma > D.P Yadav & his sons > (to name only a few) > and all the regular rapists of Delhi and adjoining areas > walking to the gallows??? > As a nation, we might have to answer many such cases within > ourselves, for times to come. Till then Chatterjee's words > wish will continue to be a proven fact, and not a mere wish... > Happy Independence Day guys! > > > > On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 Sourav wrote : > >Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood > is not a > >solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But > I don't know > >where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide > us and we will > >send the signatures and mails against hanging. > > > >Sourav. > > > >West Bengal. > > > >_________________________________________ > >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: > > VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH, > D-598/c, > CHITTARANJAN PARK, > NEW DELHI-11019, > INDIA > > > CELL: 0091-9891238606 > STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319 > RES.: 0091-11-26270256 > > > _________________________________________ > 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: > > *Yahoo! India Matrimony* > *:* > Find your life partner online > . > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_________________________________________ >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 jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Aug 24 13:50:13 2004 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 13:50:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Jugaad innovation Message-ID: <412AFA3D.2070700@sarai.net> "Jugaad innovation" ============= Condoms oil wheels of industry By Nivedita Pathak BBC Hindi service Older weavers balk at using the condom lubricant on looms The Indian city of Varanasi is getting through around 600,000 condoms a day, but this is no population control exercise. The weavers of the holy city, home to the world-famous Banarasi saris, have made the contraceptives a vital part of garment production. The weaver rubs the condom on the loom's shuttle, which is softened by the lubricant thus making the process of weaving faster. The lubricant does not leave any stain on the silk thread which might soil the valuable saris. There are around 150,000 to 200,000 hand and power looms in Varanasi alone and almost all are using the technique. And every loom has a daily consumption of three or four condoms. At first, weavers stocked up on condoms from the family planning department under a government scheme to provide them free of cost. Some weavers even registered with fake identities to get their hands on the precious prophylactics. Generation gap Mahfooz Alam, convener of the Bunkar Bachao Aandolan (or Save the Weavers Movement), says officials got wise to the scam, and corruption set in. UNUSUAL USES FOR CONDOMS Villagers use them to carry water when working in fields For waterproofing ceilings: condoms are spread under the cement-concrete mortar Can be mixed with tar and concrete to give a smooth finish to roads Can be placed over the ends of guns to protect them in desert sandstorms Drugs 'mules' swallow condoms filled with drugs to smuggle them across borders Family planning personnel procured condoms from government hospitals and sold them to general stores. These stores then sold them on to the weavers at 10 rupees a dozen. Mr Alam says the older generation of weaver is averse to the technique but the younger generation wants things done at a faster pace. Some of the weavers fear the industry could be at risk if sari buyers learn their garments are made with condom lubricant. But Mr Alam says many weavers have to use the technique. They would use another lubricant if there were one available that were better, he says. From eye at ranadasgupta.com Tue Aug 24 15:43:42 2004 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 15:43:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty In-Reply-To: <412AE4DB.5050506@sarai.net> References: <412AE4DB.5050506@sarai.net> Message-ID: <412B14D6.1030602@ranadasgupta.com> Thanks for interesting debate on this issue. Just wanted to comment on one aspect stated by Rahul thus: >> But there is >> something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. >> the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the >> tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. I completely agree. Some of the discussion about this issue has seemed to imply that there is some kind of absolutely natural progression from rape (or other violent crime) to the gallows. As if all that needed to be debated was the precise equation of equivalent suffering for the crime's victim and its perpetrator, and as if the mechanism of the second, reciprocal act of violence did not to be considered - as if it were abstact, sublime, other-worldly, semi-divine. If you see the question in this way then you will respect those who call for the greatest possible violence in the second instance, for it is only they who have truly grasped the scale of suffering in the first. But the execution of a criminal is as much a moral act as the original crime itself, and those who support it and implement it must bear responsibility for it and not pretend that it is a wholly natural result of the criminal's actions. Having found myself in Calcutta at the time this execution happened and been confronted in the mornings with the obscene journalistic extravaganzas of sadistic, ghoulish, bloodthirsty glee, I find it very difficult to read this punishment as simply that - a punishment. Were the readers of those papers waiting painfully for thirteen years for the suffering of this girl to be finally answered, did they see the events of august 14th as a final closure to a community's anguish? Frankly, I think not. I think this was a state-sponsored festival of violence, unfolding with thrilling twists and turns to its final, inevitable, awe-ful display. And to me, such a festival of violence gives tacit consent to all the most perverted fantasies of the co mmunity, including the very desire to see other humans utterly humiliated and obliterated which lay behind the original crime. To me, such a celebration raises the stakes of violence in a society as a whole and is *intimately connected* to violent crime as perpetrated by individuals. It is not separate or above it; it is not an antidote or a closure. As we know from contemplating the fates of grand architects of suffering, such as Milosevic or Hussein, there is nothing that a society can do to right the historical balance of suffering once it has happened. This is unfortunate - tragic even; but it is true. Suffering and death are facts which transcend the ability of human beings to make amends. If you call upon the state to right the suffering of history by visiting equivalent suffering upon the perpetrator you are implicitly giving the state a transcendental role in human affairs. You are calling on it as previous eras called upon God to bring destruction and misery upon their enemies. But the state does not have a transcendental claim to power. It has only a pragmatic claim. It can make pragmatic decisions - to remove a violent man from social intercourse, for instance - but it cannot restore a community's innocence, or erase suffering. None of us can expect this from a human institution, and we should never give such an institution the freedom to act as if it had this transcendental power. I don't think there can be a pragmatic argument for the death penalty. If the death penalty actually reduced the amount of violence in a society then America would be pretty much the most violence-free place in the world (after China and Iran). This is to say nothing of the fact, of course, that sometimes states execute people who are then found to be innocent. In this situation it really is tough for them to make amends. Let not this discussion be cornered by those who support some idea of retributive justice, and who therefore see the grandest escalation of violence as the most just and humane. I think the Bushian "double blackmail" mentioned by Nisha in the discussion on this list has indeed taken over the debate to an unfortunate degree, and that it has no merit. It is a depressing, even maddening thing to have to accept that there is no total, otherworldly justice for horrendous crimes; but let us not become savage ourselves as a result. R Rana Dasgupta www.ranadasgupta.com Aarti wrote: > Dear Rahul and Nisha, > > I agree with you completely. Perhaps this is precisely why we now refer > to 'rape survivors' rather than 'rape victims'. I recall a very > sensitive, and brave, article written by a rape survivor a few years ago > that came out in a newspaper published from Calcutta, I forget which. > She had been raped but in her piece she echoed the sentiments you > express in your postings- that she was not broken, that this was not the > worst thing that could happen to a woman, that it was as bad as any > other horrendous expereince that is sometimes visisted upon us. Phoolan > Devi's outrage at her portrayal in Bandit Queen related in part to the > manner in which the film misrepresented her desire to seek vengance from > her opressors. While some of it related to the sexual assault she > sufferred, equally important was her anger at the fact that the landlord > had stolen her land. > > Regards, > > Aarti > > > > Asthana, Rahul wrote: > >> Nisha, I fully agree with you that there should be more discussion on >> this,and it is not as simple as black and white. But there is >> something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. >> the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the >> tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. If someone >> is against death penalty for the rapist it should not be construed as >> fostering male chauvinism of the worst type as you say- "We also told >> that if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe >> place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming on >> your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing and >> verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public place >> store. " If such a message is sent out, it is unfortunate.How the >> seriousness of the crime manifests itself into the seriousness of the >> punishment, is an issue to be examined. Someone earlier posted that if >> death penalty becomes the norm in such cases, more people might be let >> off without any punishment. so, the debate can have other angles as >> well. Furthermore, this is my personal opinion and I would like to >> examine it by posting it here, that the heinousness of sexual violence >> is actually a double whammy against women.Every culture, not just >> eastern and third world, but western and developed countries too, >> somehow treat rape as something which is demeaning to the victim >> herself.There are hoards of examples in our culture. For example - I >> can rememeber countless scenes from hindi movies when the woman after >> being raped..says.. "Ab to mai kisi ko muh dikhane ke kabil nahi >> rahi.." and goes to commit suicide or something.Or another-the term >> "izzat lootna " How can somebody loot somebody's izzat? If a man is >> raping a woman, is he surrendering his own izzat or looting hers? Why >> we tolerate and use such language? I wonder how it came to be this >> way.Sometimes I feel this is like a big conspiracy which generations >> of men have perpetrated against women, and we are so steeped in this >> nonsense that we make it true by believing in it. We are actually >> making the crime more heinous by believing that it is heinous.I think >> that the after the victim is raped, besides the obvious physical >> trauma of rape, she also has to undergo pity of the bechari rape >> victim and stuff like that. Its not like a car hit you when you are >> crossing the road and you report the driver to the police.The pity for >> a rape victim is like "iski to life barbad ho gayi.." and not like >> "iska haath toot gaya" or something. Again,besides the cultural >> component, there is one more component of the stupidity against rape >> victims- male chauvinism .some males feel that if a girl wears >> "provocative" clothes,she is a party to the crime and she invites >> rape, which is comeple BS according to me.I wonder what they would >> feel if they were raped by girls for wearing some tight jeans or stuff >> like that.So, in campaigning against sexual violence, if we work >> against the attitudes pertaining to it, so that- a) The victim does >> not get patronizing ,demeaning and idiotic sympathy and ostracization. >> b) Her case is judged farily and the blame not apportioned to her >> for not confirming to some stupid parochial norms .. he ostracizing >> of victims and the shame they might possibly feel(ironically) for >> being a victim might possibly change.That might lead to more and more >> rape cases being reported and rapsits being punished. Thanks and >> regards Rahul >> -----Original Message----- >> *From:* reader-list-bounces at sarai.net >> [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]*On Behalf Of *nisha - >> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 17, 2004 10:13 AM >> *To:* reader-list at sarai.net >> *Subject:* Re: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty >> >> >> Looking at Chatterjee case, I'm amazed that how easy it is to >> ignore the political implications of sexual violence. Issues >> around rape and sexual abuse of various types have caused deep >> divisions in both anti-violence against women campaigners and >> human rights campaigners. And it has definitely put those like me >> who believe in the right to life as well as justice. >> >> The dilemma arises from being thrown in a situation where one is >> supposed to declare either for or against stand in a death penalty >> case. It doesn't matter if majority of those who are campaigning >> against death penalty do not see sexual violence (leave alone >> physical violence) as grave enough to deserve a more serious >> thought than 'poor man he has already served 14 years in jail' or >> 'so and so did it, he wasn't given a death penalty'. It doesn't >> matter if you feel that criminal jusrisprudence must work out a >> way in which concerns of women's and girls' physical and bodily >> integrity and safety are given the consideration they deserve. It >> doesn't matter if you would like to hear a deabte about what kind >> of laws could make the perpetrator take full responsibility for an >> act of sexual violence without taking away his life. You are just >> supposed to take a for or against position in a typical Bush style. >> >> The rampantness of sexual violence is acknowledged in so far that >> its existence is not being denied and work against issues of rape >> and sexual abuse is considered necessary if not as vital as other >> social issues. But when it comes to punishing the perpetrators, >> the message we get is don't make the poor man such a monster. And >> instead of a debate on legal and public responsibility we are told >> it is a matter of real life, it just there so learn survival >> skills and develop the strength to cope with it. We also told that >> if you can't do that then stay at home (as if that is a safe >> place) and kept safe from threats ranging from a load flesh coming >> on your screen in the next door cyber café to pinching, flashing >> and verbal sexal assault on the road, in the shops and at public >> place store. >> It fills me with so much of anger when I think of all the women >> and girls who are being assualted every second and killed so often >> and see scant thought going to their right to life and sexual >> rights. What kind of a campaigning for right to life is this death >> penaly row, if it is not even willing to see the other side of the >> violence? >> >> Nisha >> >> */vishwajyoti ghosh /* wrote: >> >> >> "In my next life, I want to be born as a rich man..." >> -Dhanonjoy Chatterjee >> For those of us who feel rapists should be dealt with an extra >> firm hand...I agree, But will I see: >> Sanjeev Nanda >> Salman Khan >> Sushil Sharma >> D.P Yadav & his sons >> (to name only a few) >> and all the regular rapists of Delhi and adjoining areas >> walking to the gallows??? >> As a nation, we might have to answer many such cases within >> ourselves, for times to come. Till then Chatterjee's words >> wish will continue to be a proven fact, and not a mere wish... >> Happy Independence Day guys! >> >> >> >> On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 Sourav wrote : >> >Regarding the death sentenced, I agree, blood against blood >> is not a >> >solution, also we will be killer like him if we hang him. But >> I don't know >> >where to appeal and president's emails address, please guide >> us and we will >> >send the signatures and mails against hanging. >> > >> >Sourav. >> > >> >West Bengal. >> > >> >_________________________________________ >> >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: >> >> VISHWAJYOTI GHOSH, >> D-598/c, >> CHITTARANJAN PARK, >> NEW DELHI-11019, >> INDIA >> >> >> CELL: 0091-9891238606 >> STUDIO: 0091-11-51603319 >> RES.: 0091-11-26270256 >> >> >> _________________________________________ >> 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: >> *Yahoo! India Matrimony* >> >> *:* >> >> Find your life partner online >> >> . >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _________________________________________ >> 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: >> > > _________________________________________ > 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 avinash332 at rediffmail.com Tue Aug 24 12:27:40 2004 From: avinash332 at rediffmail.com (avinash kumar) Date: 24 Aug 2004 06:57:40 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The importance of Hugo Chavez Message-ID: <20040824065740.2850.qmail@webmail7.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040824/d9b06957/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   Dick Cheney, Hugo Chavez and Bill Clinton's Band: Why Venezuela has Voted Again for Their 'Negro e Indio' President Greg Palast Monday, August 16, 2004 -- There's so much BS and baloney thrown around about Venezuela that I may be violating some rule of US journalism by providing some facts. Let's begin with this: 77% of Venezuela's farmland is owned by 3% of the population, the 'hacendados.' I met one of these farmlords in Caracas at an anti-Chavez protest march. Oddest demonstration I've ever seen: frosted blondes in high heels clutching designer bags, screeching, "Chavez - dic-ta-dor!" The plantation owner griped about the "socialismo" of Chavez, then jumped into his Jaguar convertible. That week, Chavez himself handed me a copy of the "socialist" manifesto that so rattled the man in the Jag. It was a new law passed by Venezuela's Congress which gave land to the landless. The Chavez law transferred only fields from the giant haciendas which had been left unused and abandoned. This land reform, by the way, was promoted to Venezuela in the 1960s by that Lefty radical, John F. Kennedy. Venezuela's dictator of the time agreed to hand out land, but forgot to give peasants title to their property. But Chavez won't forget, because the mirror reminds him. What the affable president sees in his reflection, beyond the ribbons of office, is a "negro e indio" -- a "Black and Indian" man, dark as a cola nut, same as the landless and, until now, the hopeless. For the first time in Venezuela's history, the 80% Black-Indian population elected a man with skin darker than the man in the Jaguar. So why, with a huge majority of the electorate behind him, twice in elections and today with a nearly two-to-one landslide victory in a recall referendum, is Hugo Chavez in hot water with our democracy-promoting White House? Maybe it's the oil. Lots of it. Chavez sits atop a reserve of crude that rivals Iraq's. And it's not his presidency of Venezuela that drives the White House bananas, it was his presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC. While in control of the OPEC secretariat, Chavez cut a deal with our maximum leader of the time, Bill Clinton, on the price of oil. It was a 'Goldilocks' plan. The price would not be too low, not too high; just right, kept between $20 and $30 a barrel. But Dick Cheney does not like Clinton nor Chavez nor their band. To him, the oil industry's (and Saudi Arabia's) freedom to set oil prices is as sacred as freedom of speech is to the ACLU. I got this info, by the way, from three top oil industry lobbyists. Why should Chavez worry about what Dick thinks? Because, said one of the oil men, the Veep in his Bunker, not the pretzel-chewer in the White House, "runs energy policy in the United States." And what seems to have gotten our Veep's knickers in a twist is not the price of oil, but who keeps the loot from the current band-busting spurt in prices. Chavez had his Congress pass another oil law, the "Law of Hydrocarbons," which changes the split. Right now, the oil majors - like PhillipsConoco - keep 84% of the proceeds of the sale of Venezuela oil; the nation gets only 16%. Chavez wanted to double his Treasury's take to 30%. And for good reason. Landless, hungry peasants have, over decades, drifted into Caracas and other cities, building million-person ghettos of cardboard shacks and open sewers. Chavez promised to do something about that. And he did. "Chavez gives them bread and bricks," one Venezuelan TV reporter told me. The blonde TV newscaster, in the middle of a publicity shoot, said the words "pan y ladrillos" with disdain, making it clear that she never touched bricks and certainly never waited in a bread line. But to feed and house the darker folk in those bread and brick lines, Chavez would need funds, and the 16% slice of the oil pie wouldn't do it. So the President of Venezuela demanded 30%, leaving Big Oil only 70%. Suddenly, Bill Clinton's ally in Caracas became Mr. Cheney's -- and therefore, Mr. Bush's -- enemy. So began the Bush-Cheney campaign to "Floridate" the will of the Venezuela electorate. It didn't matter that Chavez had twice won election. Winning most of the votes, said a White House spokesman, did not make Chavez' government "legitimate." Hmmm. Secret contracts were awarded by our Homeland Security spooks to steal official Venezuela voter lists. Cash passed discreetly from the US taxpayer, via the so-called 'Endowment for Democracy,' to the Chavez-haters running today's "recall" election. A brilliant campaign of placing stories about Chavez' supposed unpopularity and "dictatorial" manner seized US news and op-ed pages, ranging from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times. But some facts just can't be smothered in propaganda ink. While George Bush can appoint the government of Iraq and call it "sovereign," the government of Venezuela is appointed by its people. And the fact is that most people in this slum-choked land don't drive Jaguars or have their hair tinted in Miami. Most look in the mirror and see someone "negro e indio," as dark as their President Hugo. The official CIA handbook on Venezuela says that half the nation's farmers own only 1% of the land. They are the lucky ones, as more peasants owned nothing. That is, until their man Chavez took office. Even under Chavez, land redistribution remains more a promise than an accomplishment. But today, the landless and homeless voted their hopes, knowing that their man may not, against the armed axis of local oligarchs and Dick Cheney, succeed for them. But they are convinced he would never forget them. And that's a fact. Greg Palast's reports from Venezuela for BBC Television's Newsnight and the Guardian papers of Britain earned a California State University Journalism School "Project Censored" award for 2002. View photos and Palast's reports on Venezuela at www.GregPalast.com. ========================================================== ========================================================== The Importance of Hugo Chávez: Why He Crushed the Oligarchs By Tariq Ali 08/17/08 -- "ICH" The turn-out in Venezuela last Sunday was huge. 94.9 percent of the electorate voted in the recall referendum. Venezuela, under its new Constitution, permitted the right of the citizens to recall a President before s/he had completed their term of office. No Western democracy enshrines this right in a written or unwritten constitution. Chavez' victory will have repercussions beyond the borders of Venezuela. It is a triumph of the poor against the rich and it is a lesson that Lula in Brazil and Kirchner in Argentina should study closely. It was Fidel Castro, not Carter, whose advice to go ahead with the referendum was crucial. Chavez put his trust in the people by empowering them and they responded generously. The opposition will only discredit itself further by challenging the results. The Venezuelan oligarchs and their parties, who had opposed this Constitution in a referendum (having earlier failed to topple Chavez via a US-backed coup and an oil-strike led by a corrupt union bureaucracy) now utilised it to try and get rid of the man who had enhanced Venezuelan democracy. They failed. However loud their cries (and those of their media apologists at home and abroad) of anguish, in reality the whole country knows what happened. Chavez defeated his opponents democratically and for the fourth time in a row. Democracy in Venezuela, under the banner of the Bolivarian revolutionaries, has broken through the corrupt two-party system favoured by the oligarchy and its friends in the West. And this has happened despite the total hostility of the privately owned media: the two daily newspapers, Universal and Nacional as well as Gustavo Cisneros' TV channels and CNN made no attempt to mask their crude support for the opposition. Some foreign correspondents in Caracas have convinced themselves that Chavez is an oppressive caudillo and they are desperate to translate their own fantasies into reality.. They provide no evidence of political prisoners, leave alone Guantanamo-style detentions or the removal of TV executives and newspaper editors (which happened without too much of a fuss in Blair's Britain). A few weeks ago in Caracas I had a lengthy discussion with Chavez ranging from Iraq to the most detailed minutiae of Venezuelan history and politics and the Bolivarian programme. It became clear to me that what Chavez is attempting is nothing more or less than the creation of a radical, social-democracy in Venezuela that seeks to empower the lowest strata of society. In these times of deregulation, privatisation and the Anglo-Saxon model of wealth subsuming politics, Chavez' aims are regarded as revolutionary, even though the measures proposed are no different to those of the post-war Attlee government in Britain. Some of the oil-wealth is being spent to educate and heal the poor. Just under a million children from the shanty-towns and the poorest villages now obtain a free education; 1.2 million illiterate adults have been taught to read and write; secondary education has been made available to 250,000 children whose social status excluded them from this privilege during the ancien regime; three new university campuses were functioning by 2003 and six more are due to be completed by 2006. As far as healthcare is concerned, the 10,000 Cuban doctors, who were sent to help the country, have transformed the situation in the poor districts, where 11,000 neighbourhood clinics have been established and the health budget has tripled. Add to this the financial support provided to small businesses, the new homes being built for the poor, an Agrarian Reform Law that was enacted and pushed through despite the resistance, legal and violent, by the landlords. By the end of last year 2,262,467 hectares has been distributed to 116,899 families. The reasons for Chavez' popularity become obvious. No previous regime had even noticed the plight of the poor. And one can't help but notice that it is not simply a division between the wealthy and the poor, but also one of skin-colour. The Chavistas tend to be dark-skinned, reflecting their slave and native ancestry. The opposition is light-skinned and some of its more disgusting supporters denounce Chavez as a black monkey. A puppet show to this effect with a monkey playing Chavez was even organised at the US Embassy in Caracas. But Colin Powell was not amused and the Ambassador was compelled to issue an apology. The bizarre argument advanced in a hostile editorial in The Economist this week that all this was done to win votes is extraordinary. The opposite is the case. The coverage of Venezuela in The Economist and Financial Times has consisted of pro-oligarchy apologetics. Rarely have reporters in the field responded so uncritically to the needs of their proprietors. The Bolivarians wanted power so that real reforms could be implemented. All the oligarchs have to offer is more of the past and the removal of Chavez. It is ridiculous to suggest that Venezuela is on the brink of a totalitarian tragedy. It is the opposition that has attempted to take the country in that direction. The Bolivarians have been incredibly restrained. When I asked Chavez to explain his own philosophy, he replied: 'I don't believe in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don't accept that we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions. All that must be revised. Reality is telling us that every day. Are we aiming in Venezuela today for the abolition of private property or a classless society? I don't think so. But if I'm told that because of that reality you can't do anything to help the poor, the people who have made this country rich through their labour and never forget that some of it was slave labour, then I say 'We part company'. I will never accept that there can be no redistribution of wealth in society. Our upper classes don't even like paying taxes. That's one reason they hate me. We said 'You must pay your taxes'. I believe it's better to die in battle, rather than hold aloft a very revolutionary and very pure banner, and do nothing ... That position often strikes me as very convenient, a good excuse ... Try and make your revolution, go into combat, advance a little, even if it's only a millimetre, in the right direction, instead of dreaming about utopias.' And that's why he won. Tariq Ali's latest book, Bush in Babylon: The Re-colonisation of Iraq, is published by Verso. He can be reached at: tariq.ali3 at btinternet.com From definetime at rediffmail.com Sun Aug 22 15:50:48 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 22 Aug 2004 10:20:48 -0000 Subject: RE RE: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty Message-ID: <20040822102048.29253.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040822/3c996fa6/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   I think Rahul Asthana has raised a very important point - rape seems to be a grand male conspiracy. I believe this line of thought needs to be explored in true earnest. Notions of political correctness often deflect serious debate on contentious issues as almost all criticism of the Jewish right is drowned under howls of anti-semitism. The very idea of feminine dignity is always linked to chastity and virginity - sexual prudence is virtue incarnated. A man who sleeps around is a stud, male virility is a virtue. A woman with similar attributes is a slut or worse - anything but positive. Based on this conditioning every rape defence argument attacks the victim's sexual discretion. The film DAHAN** had a reasonably thorough look at this issue. The original crime was only molestation and assault (may not have found a mention in newspapers these days), yet the trauma of the victim built up through social pressures is enormous (also disproportionately psychological). The incident also pointed to an interesting anomaly - the woman who comes forward to save the victim (her husband had been bashed unconscious by the goons) never mentions her own assault in the FIR. Without a sexual angle, physical assault loses significance. The defence argument is a classic case of character assassination based on that old conditioning, a woman of 'questionable sexual prudence' can't really be taken seriously. Had this been a car accident (to take Rahul's example) the whole thing would have been forgotten in an hour. In this case it shatters three relationships leaving an emotional distress of a lifetime. In the early days of civilisation men must have realised that sexuality is loaded against them. If prostitution (the proverbial oldest profession) were to be stripped off socio-psycho paraphernalia and regarded as just work, men wouldn't last beyond 2 customers a day. Except brute muscular force the female human organism has superior physical, mental and emotional attributes. If a society is not at war, men by their natural attributes would be mere 'workers'. Over time, men have worked hard to reverse the situation. The basic reading of history as taught to the majority, is all wars and monuments - the 'praiseworthy' contribution of men. Civil society and household work (including child rearing) is a boring footnote. And yet which of these activities has actually nurtured civilisation ? Now (for so long that it's historically difficult to pinpoint the breaking away) women have completely given in to the psychological conditioning rendering them victims. An appalling number of rape victims commit suicide. The issue of 'what others would think' has taken such a gigantic significance that it's worth more than life itself. It seems to escape our collective inquiry, how women (despite greater longevity, multiple orgasmic potential, multiple attention span and in a level playing field - better academic performance) have become natural victims in every society. Women's contribution to society has been constantly undermined. Faced with the spectre of 'race extinction', it is only now that governments in developed countries have started doling out cash for raising children. Until now this work wasn't even accounted for as an economic activity. No wonder even the cold gaze of economics comes a cropper having ignored such a gigantic loophole. It's high time women rejected social conditioning which have rendered them 'natural victims' for centuries. It would require an enormous effort but I think it would be worthwhile. It's ridiculous to accept a sense of dignity based on sexuality (the least transparent of all human activity). regards, Sanjay Ghosh ** Dahan (The Burning), Suchitra Bhattacharya, translated by Mahua Mitra, Srishti, 2001 DAHAN /Dir: Rituparno Ghosh /145 Min (supposedly based on a true incident) From dknitenine at hotmail.com Tue Aug 24 10:43:00 2004 From: dknitenine at hotmail.com (dknite nite) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 05:13:00 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] family and labour Message-ID: Family and Work The coal mining industry in the Jharia coalfield started working from the decade of the 1890s. The laboring masses, in an increasing number, began pouring for colliery work from different parts of South Asia. The Mazdoors who initially joined colliery came mainly from the contiguous areas and neighbouring districts. The males, females, and the children of these Mazdoors families worked together in the collieries. This was true by and large for both the underground and the surface works. I have elsewhere discussed the nature of streams of mining classes taking up colliery work between the 1890s and the 1970s. From the early years of the decade of the 1900s, the migration began to flow from relatively distant areas into the colliery work . They also joined colliery largely as �Family Mazdoors�/family labour. Some of them were, though, single male workers. The latter category of labour swelled in number during the boom period of coal trade (1915-19) and its aftermath . The single female workers also came to occupy a small proportion of the total work force in the decade of the 1920s and the 1930s. They were largely widow woman workers The mining community lived broadly in three kinds of houses in the coalfield. One- those miners who lived in their Bustees in the nearby mines. Second, those who lived in the Dhowrahs obtained from the coal Companies . Third those who lived in self-built huts of mud and straw . The second and third types of homes constituted the predominant forms of the colliery bastis/pada/neighborhoods and grew around each colliery . This relocation around collieries meant the �re-organisation of their lives�. They had to cope with the �colliery working and living contexts� (at the work place and the Dhowrahs). For instance, the mining people who worked in a �family gang�, had to habituate to the situation when women workers were withdrawn from underground work from the decade of the 1920s onwards . In reaction there was at times an exodus from collieries. Some miners protested. Similarly, Mazdoors� families had to struggle and devise ways for sustaining and maintaining the combination between the tasks of production and reproduction (of physique as well as generation). While, the industrial regime worked to redesign the organisation of their lives and scope of familial- social obligation (family/home lives), workers sought to maintain their own conception of family life. This paper is intended to study the following set of questions. What was the form of organisation of �socio-familial relation� of mazdoors? How did they apprehend the �socio-familial time�? In what ways and, how far the labour/time regime in the mines affected the organisation of mazdoors� socio-familial relation? How did the mining community react to the challenges? What extent and why only to that did they succeed in resolving the tension? And what were their experiences of the struggle of adaptation? I explore these issues of the lives of the mining community in the period from the decade of the 1920s and largely till 1940s/60s. In this period, they witnessed the phenomenon of the reorganization of the production process and work force, the gradual removal of the woman workers and the child labour, the consequent subsistence crisis, the precariousness of disruption of the �family/home� life in the coalfield, the adamant and adverse attitude of the coal-proprietors/employers and the state before their demands and, the larger vanility/vanity of their struggle. I What do I understand by the term �family�? We have at least two sets of well acknowledged definitions of �Family�. 1. A group of people tied with each other along the blood- line and sharing one household. 2. A group of people who share a marital and generational bond between each other. And, they are a part of a household economy . The third conception of the family is as follows: the social grouping of the people that is formed through the particular form of sexual life of the human kind and, the system of the consanguinity . I see some limitations in the former two conceptions. They heavily emphasize on �biological ties� & �legal relation�, and household economy. In contrast, a family of a group of people may exist, whose members feel a sense of ties/attachment with each other. And the feeling is both substantial and concrete. I should emphasise here the contention to make a distinction between the household on the one hand and, the family on the other. The former refers the family of the procreation /reproduction as an economic unit; while the family is of orientation /feeling/belief . I have deployed this meaning/ understanding of a family and at places juxtaposed with the historical forms of the family in the subsequent analysis. II There was more than one form of �social- familial organisation� amongst the colliers. [The latter lived and conceived those organisation at different levels]. One form of socio-familial organisation was a �family gang�. They lived in Dhowrahs, allotted to them by companies. The Santhals from Hazaribagh & Santhal Pargana, the Bauris from Burdwan, Bakura & Manbhum, the Rajwars from Manbhum, the Bhuiyans from Monghyr worked in family gangs . These families included the husband, the wife, the children, and even some other kith & kin. But, some of the family miners preferred to live in their houses in bastis, and did not live in Dhowrahs. They were predominantly the Santhal of nearby areas/bastis. They lived there with their kith of the same social group. At this time members of a social group known as Mahto also lived in those bastis. Bishu Mahto reported �people were simple and honest � the original inhabitants- the Santhals and Mahtos lived together amicably�almost like members of the same family� . There is, hence, a notion of a �bastis family� Dhowrahs were very crowded from the early years of mining. On an average around one dozen people lived in a small room. The workers preferred to live with fellow workers of their kith or same caste/ territory/ jila (district)/ilaka/gaon- group . I would call these forms of social organisation as a communitarian-family. Some of them were socio-familial group, which did not maintain regular links to the kin living in their bastis of origin. The proportion of this form of labour was very small till the 1920�s. It was around 15% of the total work force . An overwhelming majority of miners maintained their contact with their kin and homes in villages. They were located within an �extended family�. Chitra Joshi has shown largely similar phenomena in the case of Kanpur textile workers. These were Mazdoors from both adjacent and distant areas. The single male workers, who constituted a large section of the miners by 1920�s, were largely of this category. Some of them had to bring their female-folks. It was done for obtaining work of malcuttas, a job with better pay . A great number of male workers could not bring their female counterparts and children. They preferred to work as a trammer, timber-mistri and other surface works, where a family gang did not work. They lived in dhowrahs, in which a group of single male workers lived. They preferred a fellow worker of own kith & kin, of the same Gaon/ elaka (socio-cultural territory, and not essentially administrative one). Over time the para/ dhowrahs developed along the line of caste/ elaka community. We hear of Bhuiya Dhowrahs, Bauri, Paschima Dhowrahs etc. I want to explore whether employers planned such type of housing/ spatial arrangements. This form of configuration of socio-familial relationship led the formation of different cohesive circles of miners. This socio-familial relation was manifest even at the workplace. A sizeable number of miners worked belowground as a family gang. They were not always linked to each other through marital and parental ties. The pairs of malcuttas and loaders of family gangs contained the males and the females of broad socio- familial groupings. Workers preferred to be paired with the colliers of their kin/ caste/ tribe/bastis/elaka. The Kamins, working belowground in the 1910�s and 1920�s, declined to work along side the male workers other, than the members of their �socio- familial groupings�. The Kamins of the social group like, the Santhals, the Rajwars, the Mahtos, the Bhuiyans, the Bilaspuris, some of the Bauris, etc refused to accompany Paschima male miners, as loaders. III The �family labour� and the family working system remained a predominant form of the work unit (if not the production unit)-like in the Assam tea plantation, agrarian society and economy in South Asia-in the coal-mining industry in Jharia till the decade of the 1920s, likewise in the Raniganj coalfield . They were employed in two ways in colliery works. One, they worked belowground in the form of family gangs . Second those working families whose members worked un-unitedly at surface and underground. The family gang included the male, female and the children. They were not always linked to each other through marital and parental ties. The pairs of malcuttas and loaders of family gangs contained the males and the females of broad socio- familial groupings. It has been usual to see that the two woman workers loading coal for the four to six persons. Workers preferred to be paired with the colliers of their kin/ caste/ tribe/bastis/elaka. The Kamins, working belowground in the 1910s and 1920s declined to work along side the male workers other, than the members of their �socio- familial groupings�. The Kamins of the social group like the Santhals, Rajwars, Mahtos, Bhuiyans, Bilaspuris, Mushahrs and some of the Bauris refused to accompany Paschima male miners, as loaders. Some Kamins of the Bauri social group stepped over time to work as loaders with the Paschima male miners. The female-folks was found in higher number than the male-folks between the Bauri social group in 1921 . The male members worked as malcuttas and the female members and the children largely worked as loaders, trammers, water-bailers, etc. in the family gangs in the case of belowground works . They in numerous gangs/Dangles extracted the coal. Each dangal was of 6 to12 colliers. It included mulcuttas, loaders, trammers, mining sirdars etc . Usually male members cut coal, while Kamins gathered �cut coal into a basket usually of 80 bl (80 pound=36 kg). The Kamins then laboriously carried out basket on their head and put the coal into either �tubs� kept at some distance from working faces, or up to bullock cart. They then pushed the tubs forward to the pit bottom. They sometimes, carried them on head at the surface. This form organisation of production process was predominantly in vogue till the decade of the 1920s, when the shift started to take place. A pair of mulcuttas and loaders was found cutting and loading coal on an average, in normal condition, 2 to3 tubs in a day. In the case of the surface work the family working system was involved in the earth cutting and removing works. The toiling people from the regions like Orissa and Nagpur and Bilaspur preferred this work. If the family members worked separately, the male-folks usually worked belowground as timber-Mistries, railway line Mistries, etc.; while the female-folks and the children worked at surface as loaders, wagon loaders, shale-pickers, wooden ginners, and the jobs such as, raising coal from the pit-mouth. They slogged to carry the combined tasks of production and reproduction even at the colliery workplaces. They took their babies and elder children there. The latter members also worked as loaders or shale-pickers along side of their parents. The attempts of combining production and reproduction tasks such as, in minding their babies seem took some time out from work . The employers, however, not only allowed but welcomed the family system of working. This system was the guarantee of acquiring a maximum number of labourers at the lowest wage rate and the fringe benefits. The coal industry continued to struggle for obtaining adequate cheap labour till the early years of the 1920s . The mining condition that characterized by the over all absence of the automated production process and the mechanical power driven machinery, the employment of the family system was to have hardly been non-desirable. While, it helped the employers to secure the labourers only by paying individual wage than paying the family wage to the breadwinners. The colliery employers were, that is why, opposed to the any legislation that restricting the recruitment of the female-filkes . A few big European coal companies, nevertheless, started to bemoan the family system of mining from the early years of the 1920s. The external observers such as T R Rees, Noyce and Foley in the 1920s noticed the �wretched condition� of mining population. I am not informed whether the labour ever waged the battle for or asked for the �family wage�. They entered the colliery work as the family labour. There was, of course, a long tradition of system of family labour in the agrarian fields in the 19thc and the early 20thc among the social groups the miners were drown from . The imperialist colonial state in the disguise of the policy of the laissez faire helped the colliery employers in keeping the wage rate repressed for instance during the period of the 1915-1920. The mining families, nonetheless, never saw the practice of combining the production and the reproduction works as anomalous. For them those tasks were organically associated . L.Barnens in her fieldwork noted that the women workers often narrated with joy �the work they did below ground, the people they worked with, members of their gang- and how they used to sing and work�. Mostly, kamins used to revert back to their village during the period of child bearing and rearing (initial years of it) . The [Santhal] women loaders in the later 1920s revealed that �they often absented themselves for 6 months or one year at the time of childbirth. After this, they could return to the mines &take up employment again�. Thus, Kamins could combine production & reproduction /familial tasks in the collieries at this time, as in the pre colliery days. While� male members could largely continue their work. It has been the conventional conception that the industrial economy created a disjunction between the temporal organisation of productive task and reproductive/ familial �obligations at the work . In the case of Jharia collieries the miners strove for combinely carrying on both �tasks�. They experienced the course of the decrease in the number of the working members in their �household families�, and consequent subsistence crisis, difficulties in maintaining the balance between the tasks of mining works and familial obligation and the crisis in the old mining order in general. The scholars like B R Seth and L Barnes- have analysed in depth the process and the factors that caused the shift in the �order of the organisation of production and the work force, and the consequent changes in the working and the living contexts of the coal miners. I will just critically brief those expositions. The coal industry underwent through the progression of the investment in the technological form of the capital such as, coal cutting machines, underground railway lines, use of the explosives, ventilator fans, electrification, etc . The coal proprietors had fetched a huge profit/ surplus during the boom period between the 1914-20 under the impact of the coal driven war machinery. A great share of it, though, went into the enjoying of the dividends. A small of it was invested in the technological upgrading for reducing the relative cost of labour payment and raising the productivity. The kind of technology was installed that rendered the woman workers in particular redundant for instance from the works of the water-bailing, pushing the tubs from the work face to the pit mouth or at the surface, from the screening and the shale-picking work, etc. L Barnes argued that the installation of the particular verity of the machinery for some job in-itself does not explain the entire story of the removal of the woman workers and the reduction in their number. The selection of machinery for a particular work and for other is in-itself a gendered policy biased against the female-folks. Second the latter were actually replaced by the male-folks both underground and at the surface . The jobs on the newly installed machines were allotted to the male-folks such as on the haulage engine, tramming, water-pup-pumps, line mistry, channak, etc. The male workers also intruded the job of coal loading into the tubs belowground. They were largely distant immigrant miners. Employers adopted a policy of removing woman workers from a certain jobs. These were carried out especially at the big mines-predominantly owned by Europeans. The family majdoors underwent a number of new developments during the 1920s and the 1930s/40s. The changes in the organisation of the production process, means of the production and the organisation of the labour forces were accompanied by the phenomenon of the over arrival of the toiling people, relative slump in the coal trade, the reduction in the number of the operating mines and in the scale of the job opportunity in the Jharia coal field . They mining classes were subject to the process of regidification of labour regime/work regime during second half of the decade of the 1920s. These took place especially in big mines (European owned). These mines had gone through the progression of investment in technological capital. Colliery owners wanted quick and greater return from their investment in technological upgradation, so they also wanted their miners to use maximally those machines and organization of production. Mazdoors, thus, witnessed and experienced the increasing demand from their employers for �greater regularity� at work and greater attention towards it. This resulted in intensification of work for respective miners. This change (business strategy) influenced and was manifest on the employers� discourses of time routine. Employers, managers and supervisory authorities, towards the late 1920s, began to bemoan vociferously against the ostensible �irregular, irrational and non-disciplined/non-efficient working pattern� of Indian miners. From 1925 onwards CIMAR (D.P.Denman), European and big colliery owners agreed-in contrast to their position in previous years-�that women at present keep cost up by hampering the work. They are very largely in the way and prevent speeding up. They lead to difficulties about discipline and that sort of thing reduces output�. Now, the Kamins suffered from their forceful gradual removal from belowground works. It had begun to take place even before the stipulation of the Act of 1929 (seeking the withdrawal of Kamins from belowground). Their withdrawal increased from 1929-30 onwards in all collieries favoring such replacement or/and retrenchment. The small and medium sized collieries- largely owned by the Indian coal proprietors were opposed to the Act. These were the collieries where very low level of technological means of production were installed and the traditional mining techniques based on the manual labour with picks, hovels and baskets were predominant. The women workers continued to carry strenuous work in the quarry mines. But the industrial slump and the subsequent depression in the coal trade during the 1923 and 1936 further aggravated the problem. It caused the gradual closure of the increasing number of the small and the quarry mines in particular. As a result the spaces for the family mining system further shrank. Meanwhile, the presence of the family system of mining swelled owing to two institutional and socio-cultural reasons. The employers also adopted the policy of replacing the old �local � peasant/ tribal workers by the distant immigrant labourers. The replacements of the local� the Santhals, Bauris, and the Ghatwals coal-cutters were accompanied by the resignation of the respective female-folks . The course of the removal of female-folks and the replacement of the old family majdoors predisposed the preponderant family working system to tremble through the reduction in the number of wage earners in their families and the consequent subsistence crisis (?). The condition of the majdoors was further aggravated by the onslaught of the curtailment of the wage rates, and the working days during the period of the 1930-36, a period of coal trade depression in particular. It was around 40% reduction in the wage rates, while between 40to 80 percent in the overall earning of an individual on an average. B R Seth critically overhauled the deteriorating condition of these working class families. I will here just brief it. More than one investigator like T R Rees (1919), Noyce (1920), Foley (1925), Whitely (1930), BLEC (1938) and BR Seth (1934) noted the �pitiable material living condition� of the mining classes during the 1920s and the 1930s. An average real earning of miners was inadequate even to the �minimum basic subsistence needs� of mining household-family consisting on an average 5to 6 persons . It disposed them to the enslaving cycle of indebtedness, observed Royal Commission on Labour in 1930. The condition further deteriorated and the proletariat household families were crippled by the unrecoverable budget deficit and sapping physical and biological existence like relative high child death rate, maternal death rate, etc., owing to the reasons above discussed and some other, noted BLECR and BR Seth. One nevertheless must note that the all these industrial context differentially affected the different segments of the people engaged in the coal mining industry. The coal proprietors continued to reap rather ironically �high percentage of dividends, noted Burrows coalfield committee in 1937. Similarly the managerial and the supervisory staffs-including the sirdar continued to fetch rather a higher wage rates than the real producers like coal cutters, loaders, trammers, timber-mistry, line-man, and the wagon-loaders. The women labour, in general, and the single female breadwinners such as, widow women labourers were disposed to at-most financial hard hit. They were subject to receive rather lower wage rates compared to the male counterparts for the same works . Likewise the different segments of the beneficiaries of coal industry were availed fringe benefits such as, housing, water supply, extra-allowance, medical benefits, etc. The corrupt and the predatory managerial and the supervisory authority favored one group of the miners against other in regard of tub distribution, fines and the deduction, bribes, etc. The �local-tribal� people were predisposed to the loss from this form of function of the mining-regime . Indeed, the colliery employers, stuck with the �mercantilist and �hierarchical� labour economy�, were far short of paying �family-wage� in the Jharia coalfield. These changes- the route of the removal of female-folks and the grip of the proletariat household financial predicaments made the family majdoors liable to the trembling and �disorganisation� of the old form of the �family/home life�. They could hardly afford the non-working/non-earning members in existing economy of households. On the other hand the delicate order between the colliery works and the reproduction obligation was made liable to unmanageable. The child labour of below the age 13 in the colliery was prohibited from 1923 by the mining Act . [There was a practice of working together between these labouring poor for their sustenance . The male and female members of those families used to share household-familial tasks at homes. One old women worker reported to L.Barnes that after returning back from work both she and her husband used to jointly do house works such as, cooking, child-caring etc. Theme of joint work recurs from their joyful memories of working careers. It is also mentioned during the debate on the withdrawal of Kamins participants. Some old Kamins informed me in Dubaree colliery that these Kamins also worked to build their own houses of mud and straw. Inadequacy of Dhowrahs and of sharing rooms with sometimes more than dozen of members of a socio- family was a problem acutely felt by them.] IV How did the �family majdoors� experience and cope with the attempts by mine owners to intensify labour, the predisposition of the decimating �subsistence predicaments� and the onrush on their �household-familial organisation of lives? Mining community adopted more than one strategy to cope with the situation, and they responded in multifarious ways. They now evolved new tactics in order to maintaining a balance between the fulfilment of production and the familial obligation. They initially wilesly contrived to come to term with the regimenting work- discipline. The Kamins hid their children in mines, when white men visited, and left �older� ones in the care of other retired/old women in Dhowrahs, [after the ban on child labour (below 13 years) in 1923]. They were known that they were being removed from the work because they carried their babies at the workplace. While, the white-man considered that practices an �un-civilised� practice and were repugnant to that. The other strategy that some of the �family majdoors�, especially when they consisted only the wife and the husband and an infants, worked out was to put up other families in their in one room, so that when they go to work, they may leave their infant with the members of other families who will go to work in the next shift. Some other families drugged their infant with opium to keep it quiet and to prevent it from being too hungry when the mother�s milk is not sufficient. These option were explored at the cost of the resulting over-crowdedness or the congestion which does not fail to affect the health of the inmates of the room adversely. In other case, as Miss M. Read observed, �it is nothing short of a terrible race suicide because drugged babies seldom grow up to be healthy children� . But these escaping attempts to turn down the onrush of the marginalisation could yield for long in securing the ends. The structural and the institutional reasons responsible for their predicaments were located somewhere else. In contrast, there were three misapprehensions/delusions prevailed among the mining classes in the Jharia coalfield, which guided the formulation, the strategy of adaptation. Besides the one I have already discussed above the rest two were as follows: One, �the woman workers were prohibited from the underground work after an incidence of the women giving birth to a child at work belowground. This incidence officially took place sometimes in the period of the second half of the 1920s� . In the memory of the miners in the Jharia coalfield the incidence is placed at varied date with only common point of reference of the rule of Aungrej. But it has been the popularly well known factor behind the removal of the female-folks. Second, according to a folktale- �young miner used to take in flute belowground and that he plays music, and women would stop work (?), sing and dance, so no work was done. Hence, bosses stopped the women from going down the mine�. Notably, these commonsensical reasons are imbued with the �moral legitimacy�. E P Thompson suggested that the industrial regime also works through instilling its disciplinary rationale in terms of the appealing �moral order� . It will be a worth investigation that in what ways did the mining regime created such favorable order? How and why did the proletariat accommodate that economy of the moral order? I would like to explore further, how colliers came to terms with the new rules and regulations? The Kamins, nonetheless, could not successfully fight and survive to the gradual process of marginalisation. [The conservative philanthropists, scholars, the �gender biased� labour economy of the employers and the State acted in collusion against the rights of the Kamins to employment]. Being witnessed the venilety at large of the escaping methods some hundreds of family Majdoors remonstrated. Several pairs of Malcuttas and loaders -from the Santhals, Bauris and the Bilaspuris social groups in particular, left the coalmines in the years 1930-31 in search of works, in the places they could work together. Some of them concentrated themselves in quarry works in coalfield. A thousand of the male and the female Mazdoors organised a huge protest-demonstration in 1934 in Jamadoba. [I will discuss the significance of this demonstration for the examination of domestic economy. I would like to explore how workers came to terms with the new rules and regulations.] [One may examine a question: why the mining class could not come to resist collectively that onslaught?] The existing formal labour unions were not opposed to that. In fact, they voiced in favour of 1929 Act . Some of the participants of discussion such as, Royal Commission on Labour- recommended wage increase otherwise, poor miners might get away from colliery works. A trade union leader from second half of 1930�s demanded for �family wages� to compensate the loss of income to miners- families. It became one of the core demands of labour unions, in response to withdrawal of Kamins. This in some way helped to de-prioritise the demands/voices of �family-miners�. But, family majdoors struggled to get scope for continuing wage works. They steeped, in some collieries, to foster a little reprieving practice. The kamins who were lay-off could get work at surface for a few days in a week. Here, they had to sometime suffer from the sexual victimisation by Munshi responsible for distribution of works. B L E C in 1938, noted that munshi used to ask for sexual favour from Kamins in return of award of regular employment. There were a higher number of job seekers including women and men. Munshis tended to exploit this situation . Every one could not grease the palm of munshis. Some Kamins from Bauri social-group in particular succeeded in obtaining their ends by serving / making such nexus . The formation of such rapport did not essentially disrupt their household-familial relation. It in some cases led the making of a household-familial relation between those of munshi and Kamins. Illyas Ahmad Gaddi discusses such cases of (live-in) in his novel �Fire Area�. This was also expressed in the folk-tales of a Kamins, I have quoted in chapter one (p-5-6, section-I). It is sometime portrayed in terms of intensified practice of relation of prostitution in the Jharia coalfield. I would, rather like to suggest that one needs to make distinction between operation of �socio-familial� relation, and, of prostitution. The former was beckoned aiming to make earning through tasks of actual production. Now, family miners needed to assert them in one more way. The Kamins had to show their regular presence at work. It required a re-designing of relation between work and the time of child bearing and rearing. To practice the old form of its organisation i.e. to reverting to gaon for a period of � to1 year was �costlier�. In this situation those who could secure jobs started increasing demand for maternity benefits. V Upshots: . _________________________________________________________________ Dreaming of building your very own house? http://citibank.mediaturf.net/carcash2/landing/key_landing.jsp?referrer=HMtgofline Get Citibank Home Loan. From joshirutul at yahoo.co.in Mon Aug 23 13:24:57 2004 From: joshirutul at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Rutul=20Joshi?=) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 08:54:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Composition of Surat City - 4th Posting Message-ID: <20040823075457.31527.qmail@web8207.mail.in.yahoo.com> 4th Posting – Perceptions and the city City is often referred to as a fabric in urban architecture and planning to explain issues like pattern, composition, structure and integration of the parts. Urban fabric of a city is a living documentation of history. City is consists of diverse co-existing spaces and co-habiting organisms in one geographical location. It is also being viewed as a conglomeration of memories, associations and imaginations manifested in a physical form. City and its parts can be understood as determined by a vast process of encoding and decoding based on the perception of the city dwellers. The encoding and decoding brings tangible shapes to the identifiable attributes like the form and structure of the city. The process of encoding and decoding develops the perception of the city dwellers about various spaces in the city associating images and meaning to them. The process of encoding and decoding determines city as layers of spaces – spaces that are materialized in physical realm and spaces that are imagined in the virtual realm. A constant interaction between the spaces of the physical realm and the virtual realms, help people develop perception regarding their city and regarding the spaces they use within the city. The spaces developed by the virtual realm are influenced by the socio-cultural practices and political events. One is concerned with the perception of the city and its spaces in context of changing society and public culture. A very simple and direct classification of a city is the familiar city and the unfamiliar city. Ones socio-political exposure depicts the familiarity and the unfamiliarity within the spaces of the city. However, this is not as simple as the ‘seen’ city and the ‘unseen’ city. One might have seen all parts of the city, but the psychological and physical comfort levels within that space and ‘sense of belonging’ to it - determines the familiarity and the unfamiliarity. The dichotomy of familiarity and unfamiliarity is also not as stark as the self and the other. In unfamiliar spaces, the self-identity becomes obvious and as different from the others. Sense of unfamiliarity is not always alienating. The unfamiliar spaces also generate curiosity and interest and process of fluctuating between the familiar and unfamiliar continues. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040823/386ff5bf/attachment.html From joshirutul at yahoo.co.in Mon Aug 23 13:26:45 2004 From: joshirutul at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Rutul=20Joshi?=) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 08:56:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] 5th Posting - Urbanization in Surat Message-ID: <20040823075645.29237.qmail@web8204.mail.in.yahoo.com> The context of the study is the city of Surat. In order to understand the emerging issues in the city related to its structure and composition, there is a need to discuss the economy and urbanization process in Surat. 5th Posting – Urbanization in Surat The city of Surat has a history dating back to 300 B.C and owes its name to the old settlement 'Suryapur'. During the 15th Century, the city of Surat emerged as an important port town and a trade centre. The city was at the height of prosperity till the rise of Bombay port in the 19th century. While there was a downslide in terms of Surat's economy since 1901, the foundations for the growth in the city was laid in the 60's with the expansion of diamond trade, the gradual shift in the economic base into zari and textiles [power looms], and the intensification of oil and gas exploration activities. Today, apart from the traditional industries of textile manufacturing, trade, diamond cutting and polishing industries, intricate zari works, the base has expanded to gas based industries at Hazira. In parallel to the industrial expansion, Surat emerged as a major center for trade and commerce in the region. An informal sector has also emerged in this backdrop. These events since the 60's, while have been in the city and the region, the net result has been a spurt in urban population in the city. Surat continues to present a 6% plus annual population growth since 60's, placing Surat 9th in terms of size countrywide (2001). Spatial extent of the city also changed to include 112 sq.kms of area under SMC and 722 sq.kms areas under SUDA (including SMC area). Hazira industrial area located at 7kms distance, though, administratively not part of Surat city, has very close functional interdependency and forms part and partial of Surat economy. While the city had a vibrant economy, the focus was on growth with limited response to housing and services and the local administration did not translate benefits of growth in terms of a financially robust local administration. The turnaround of the city of Surat happened after the plague in 1994. This event reflected the ability of local governance to turnaround and the support of the citizens in transforming their city. This transformation is an outcome of ingenious entrepreneurship skills of people of Surat and commitments of the Central and the State Governments. The Surat Municipal Corporation has been the driving force behind this transformation process. The city is experiencing rapid growth in economy, an economy dominated by labor-intensive activities. This character reflects distinct demographic characteristics. Being dominated by migrant labor from eastern India, Gujarat and parts of Maharashtra has resulted a low sex ratio, growth of informal settlements characterized by high density and associated public health risks. The distribution of incomes in Surat, reflects the quality of its work force vis-a vis comparable cities. Around 60 % earn less than Rs 25000 a year or about Rs. 70 per day. While the incomes are higher than the standard poverty levels, it needs mention that the cost of living in Surat if not equal to Mumbai is at least close to this level. This is one of the reasons for the growth in informal settlements. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040823/b310dea0/attachment.html From joshirutul at yahoo.co.in Mon Aug 23 13:27:44 2004 From: joshirutul at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Rutul=20Joshi?=) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 08:57:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] 6th Posting - Migration and emerging issues Message-ID: <20040823075744.31214.qmail@web8206.mail.in.yahoo.com> 6th Posting – Migration and emerging composition Surat urban agglomeration has high growth rate of 85.09% and low sex ratio of 760. The density of Surat Municipal Corporation was lower than that of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in 1981 but it has become higher than that of AMC in 2001. The population in Surat urban agglomeration is almost doubled in last 10 years and showing the growth rate of 85.09%. at the same time, the sex ratio in Surat urban agglomeration has become 760, which clearly show very high male in-migration in the Surat urban agglomeration area. This in-migration has put lot of pressure in the areas for infrastructure and other civic facilities. The phenomenal migration of people from different parts of the country, particularly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Orissa and other parts of Gujarat are attracted to the city because of its industrial growth. The growth of industrial production has been on a substantial scale by means of small industry carried on in workshops, rough sheds and households. The industries that are either wholly or partly in the small or less regulated or informal sector are textiles including the production of artificial silk (Surat produces 60% of India’s artificial silk) and zari industry, textile processing and the production of parts of textile and garment making, diamond cutting and polishing (30% of India’s turnover in this sector is from Surat), plastics, engineering and chemicals and dyes. There has also been growth in the high investment organized sector, notably chemicals and petrochemicals, and in the financial sector and the transport sector. An extremely high job potential in Surat emanating from its flourishing industrial base has resulted in 57.60% male work force participation rate which is the highest in all the six big cities in Gujarat. The unemployment rate in Surat is only about 1.2% of the total labour force. Though, it is also important to note that the proportion of casual labour among the employed is highest in Surat. More than half of the female workers in Surat are casual labourers. The city monitor report 2002, which compared seven cities of India for various indictors of quality of life states that income inequality is highest in Surat where nearly 60% of the households have annual income below Rs. 25,000. since 1961, the city has been consistently experiencing a decline in the sex ratio as it moved from 921 in1961 to 831 in 1991. No other city in the state had experienced such a drastic decline in the sex ratio during the same period. The declining sex ratio in Surat is mainly attributed to the growing industrialization in the city during the 1960s and 1970s, which resulted in a large number of migrant workers from different parts of the country working in various industries who generally come alone, leaving behind their families back at home. In many cases even if the migrants come with their families they remain male dominated ones and contribute further to the deterioration of the sex ratio in the city. Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040823/d1ee2403/attachment.html From shivamvij at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 19:59:14 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 19:59:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Indu Anto case Message-ID: Dear all, Here are 19 stories, links only, about the Indu ANto suicide case. Indu Anto "allegedly" committed suicide in Sophia College, Mumbai, as a result of ragging, which, the post-mortem revealed, had been sexual. Sophia College, Mumbai police, and India's super-fast courts have been of immense help in booking the "alleged" culprits. Indu Anto's father, CL Anto is committed against the cause. The PACE Stop Ragging Campaign would be very grateful to anyone who can help us get in touch with Mr Anto, who shifted out from Mumbai to his home state, Kerala. after the event. He flies down to Mumbai every time there is a court hearing. The stories here should also provoke further thought on the subject of ragging and sexuality, given that we have been discussing this only in the context of male ragging. Complete texts of all these 19 stories is being made available in another mail in the stopragging mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopragging If you are looking for a quick overview of the case, see the two Gunaah.com stories. If the Indu Anto case still makes headlines it is only because 1) Sophia College is an elite institution, and 2) Anto's father has been pursuing the case relentlessly. Anyone remembers the Anup Kapoor ragging-suicide case in Lucknow? No. An 'enquiry committee' was setup which was unable to find the culprits and that was that. We are trying, also, to get in touch with Anup Kapoor's family in Kanpur. Shivam Vij The Stop Ragging Campaign www.stopragging.org help at stopragging.org _________________________________________________ Student jumps to death from college hostel The Times of India, Mumbai, 5 August 1998 http://www.educationtimes.com/filest8b.htm _________________________________________________ Indu was ragged to death, say kin The Indian Express / 6 August 1998 / Mumbai http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19980806/21850854.html _________________________________________________ Police rule out ragging; ask Jaslok to explain lapses By Sudeshna Chatterjee in Mumbai The Indian Express / 24 August 1998 http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19980824/23650524.html _________________________________________________ The story as told by Indu Anto's diaries By Sudeshna Chatterjee / Mumbai Th Indian Express / 11 September 1998 http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19980912/25550984.html _________________________________________________ Anto controversy closed; verdict is suicide Rajiv Sharma / Mumbai The Indian Express / 4 May 1999 http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19990505/ige06051.html _________________________________________________ Act keeps a check on ragging, but only just The Indian Express / July 20, 1999 / Mumbai http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19990720/ige20038.html _________________________________________________ Vengeance Shall Be Mine... By Pradeep Shinde Gunaah.com http://www.gunaah.com/drafts/article.php3?id=3744&name=SPECIAL%20FEATURES&sid=24 _________________________________________________ The Final Diagnosis Confirms Ragging Gunaah.com: http://www.gunaah.com/drafts/article.php3?id=3745&name=SPECIAL%20FEATURES&sid=24 _________________________________________________ HC orders fresh probe into Indu Anto's death The Times of India / Agencies / Mumbai / 7 April 2000 http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1991293499.cms _________________________________________________ Three year old suicide case re-opened The Indian Express / Press Trust of India / 27 October 2001 http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/20001028/ina28037.html _________________________________________________ Crime branch will probe college student's death Mumbai Central: http://www.mumbai-central.com/grapevine/msg00435.html _________________________________________________ Two chargesheeted in Indu Anto case By Ranjit Khomne / Mumbai The Times of India / 3 April 2002 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5603856.cms _________________________________________________ Sophia student summoned to court The Times of India / 3 April 2002 http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5606874.cms _________________________________________________ 'I'm fighting for all parents' By Roshni Olivera The Times of India / 2 April 2002 http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5689108.cms _________________________________________________ 'Whisky bottles were found in college hostel' By S. Balakrishnan / Mumbai The Times of India / 23 July 2003 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/92241.cms _________________________________________________ Court directed to decide on Indu Anto case By Shibu Thomas Mid-Day / 2 December 2003 http://in.news.yahoo.com/031202/149/2a0ic.html _________________________________________________ Sophia College to be raided By A Mid Day Correspondent Mid-Day / 15 June 2004 / Mumbai http://web.mid-day.com/news/city/2004/june/85653.htm _________________________________________________ Cops, drama return to Sophia's Girl died in 1998: Father, Tardeo police search college for records. Express News Service / Mumbai The Indian Express / 16 June 2004 http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=87840 _________________________________________________ Hansal Mehta's inspiration [A film on Indu Anto?] http://b4utv.com/movies/gossip/03/1104hansa _________________________________________________ From shivamvij at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 16:35:37 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:35:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 'Maybe they deserve your job' Message-ID: "In India, most universities are state-funded, and tuition fees are typically low, but other charges add up. At the highly subsidized St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, for example, tuition is about $200 a year, according to a BBC News report. But there are also library, maintenance and other fees plus $88 a month for room and board. Total cost, about $2,200 a year, still expensive by Indian standards." The figures are incorrect! Shivam Maybe they deserve your job India's top techies, often vastly more qualified than their American counterparts, are dropping in to put a new spin on outsourcing By Susan De La Vergne The Oregonian / 22 August 2004 http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/109300326192320.xml You probably think outsourcing is a bad word, stealing jobs from good, hardworking Americans. You're not alone, but I see outsourcing much differently -- more like a wake-up call. I've been a manager of software development around the country for more than 20 years, working in a variety of industries -- including banking, utilities, retail and higher education. In the last few years, I've noticed contracted workers from other countries -- usually India -- increasingly are filling information technology jobs here. Yes, their hourly wage is less than the U.S. equivalent, but there's much more to outsourcing than that. I've gotten to know many Indian contractors. Their education is often top-notch and greatly subsidized by India's government. The Indian contractors working here in high-tech jobs as programmers, architects, analysts and testers are exceptionally qualified, often bringing credentials that exceed those of their U.S. counterparts. An undergraduate triple major in subjects such as math, chemistry and physics is not uncommon among Indian programmers. And India's college students focus on their studies; unlike hamburger-slinging, office-temping Americans, working an outside job is rare. Families in India who have the means to send their kids to college expect them to knock themselves out to get an education, not work and party. Somehow, even though India is a country of incredible poverty tempered by great wealth -- palatial hotels next to crumbling shacks -- it has put a high priority on training its best students for excellence. We aren't doing the same in this country, and we'd better start paying attention before it's too late. In 10 to 15 years, 10 percent of our technology work force could be outsourced from countries such as India, estimates the Gartner Group, an information technology think tank headquartered in Stamford, Conn. Today, it's more like 3 percent. Moving "offshore" I first noticed the influx of foreign workers in the years leading up to 2000, as the new millennium unfolded, when fixing the Y2K computer bug was all the rage. Suddenly it was possible, even practical, to package up whole units of programming work and assign them to groups of Indian contractors, who often performed the work "offshore." After that introduction businesses took advantage of the Indian workers' eagerness to take on assignments we Americans considered unglamorous, like dogging the Y2K bug, and their lower hourly rates. U.S. technology professionals in these jobs locally earn on average about $70,000 annually. The Indian salary for the same work performed overseas during the Y2K effort was about one-fifth of that and onshore rates about one-quarter. Since then salaries in India have increased, but the savings compared with U.S. pay is still substantial. So we invited the offshore staff onshore. They've been here ever since, typically on temporary assignments that can last 18 months or longer. It's not unusual to find these prized workers are educated beyond a bachelor's degree -- a master's of business administration or a master's in chemical engineering or physics is typical. And they usually speak at least three languages (two Indian languages and English), often more. In India, most universities are state-funded, and tuition fees are typically low, but other charges add up. At the highly subsidized St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, for example, tuition is about $200 a year, according to a BBC News report. But there are also library, maintenance and other fees plus $88 a month for room and board. Total cost, about $2,200 a year, still expensive by Indian standards. Beyond the academics, some Indian contracting firms with a global presence send their employees to work in many different countries -- Western Europe and Asia as well as the United States. So in addition to the academic preparation, Indian contractors enjoy the broader experience of working in several cultures. Some Portland experiences Some of the Indians I work with in Portland agreed to talk about their experiences if I used just their first names, since their companies have asked them to refrain from interviews. Venkat is a young man, originally from Chennai, India, who has a bachelor's degree in electronics and a master's in computer applications from Bharathidasan University. He's been working in the United States for nearly two years and also has worked in Paris and Japan, as well as his home country. "It's more professional and productive here in the U.S. than in Paris," Venkat says. "In Paris they have more fun at the office." Ravi, a contractor who's also been in the United States for about two years, said he finished college when he was 24. He's a triple major and earned a master's in chemistry and an M.B.A. Here in the United States, he's a technical lead on integrated software projects. In India, office hours for technology professionals are typically 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., five days a week. He likes it better here, clocking out at 6 p.m. Shobha is a forthright young woman, now on her third work assignment in the United States. She, too, has similar credentials -- a triple major (physics, chemistry, math) and a master's in computer applications from Bangalore University. She, too, was 24 when she finished college. Shobha says she and others like her accomplish so much so early because, in India, college students don't hold jobs while in school. They're expected to concentrate on their studies, and parents sometimes make great financial sacrifices to ensure their academically qualified students focus exclusively on their education. The people we meet here, in our information technology jobs, are usually among the best qualified and prepared, within India's top 10 percent to 15 percent. Still, given India's enormous population -- more than 1 billion people -- even that top tier of performers makes up a large and talented pool of people entering the global job market. While they enjoy their U.S. experience, they miss home. Venkat is leaving Portland in a few weeks for India and says he'll attempt to leave the office there at a reasonable hour, something more like 6 instead of 8 p.m. "Good luck," Ravi laughs. "Tell me how it goes!" Complicated questions We depend on the work of others, and increasingly that means we rely on a global work force. As much as we might want to, there's no denying that. The term outsourcing invites misgivings. Are we trading away our jobs and somehow depleting our economy? Or theirs? Are we compromising delivery standards for a cheaper price? Should we legislate boundaries to corral jobs and halt cheaper imports? These are complicated questions. My experience with foreign contractors tells me this: In an economy noted for its poverty levels, India's emphasis on higher education for qualified students is a profound statement of its commitment to the future. In our economy, noted for its prosperity and possessions, higher education doesn't get the same emphasis. Does this make any sense? We should be growing our own best talent, making their academic experience just as competitive and accessible. That doesn't mean we shouldn't welcome the intellectual range and preparedness of technology professionals from India and other countries, opening our workplaces to their talent. It's about time we paid attention. (Kathleen Blythe, a researcher for The Oregonian, contributed to this story.) From shivamvij at gmail.com Sat Aug 21 21:05:56 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 21:05:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Petition against death penalty for landless Dalits Message-ID: Petition by All India Committee against Death Penalty Sign now: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/aicadp1/ _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From sunil at mahiti.org Wed Aug 25 04:35:30 2004 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 23:05:30 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The recombined manifesto Message-ID: <1093388730.1151.279.camel@box> Dear Friends, We disown all efforts that propagate technology specifically ICT in the name of social development across developing nations. We consider such efforts as pretentious and having vested interests. We are not an economy for the refurbished. Woah. So should I stop working to put Linux on refurbished computers? Vaibhav is a student from http://www.srishtiblr.org/. Suddenly I feel very "status quo". Direct all flames directly at whatpot at rediffmail.com ;-) Thanks, Sunil -----Forwarded Message----- From: VAIbhaV To: sunil at mahiti.org Hi Sunil This is Vaibhav from Srishti..hope you remember me vaguely! I guess Gaurabh wrote to you about us currently working on our diploma projects. This mail is regarding my project for which i need some help. Briefly my project is about activating public spaces by creating open platforms with/sans technology so that people can share, talk, discuss opinions and personal experiences on social, political and civic matters. As a prelude/intro to this project I have written a manifesto that in a way establishes a group of like minded people (who would want to be part of this project) and creates a backdrop for the work I'll be doing. I would help me if you could send or forward this to people who might be interested in subscribing, critiquing, or giving further suggestions on this idea. You can also visit a yahoo group site that I am constantly updating at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vaibhav_dip Please do write back as I'll be happy to start a dialogue and extend the spirit of this project. regards, Vaibhav The recombined manifesto 12:58 PM 8/20/2004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In this world every individual has been coded, encrypted and protected. He is so because he has been immunized. Immunized so that he is complacent, acquiescent and private. He fears what rules him. This manifesto and the acts arising from it intend to be malicious and malignant to that very individual's codification. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are artists, craftsmen, designers, musicians, writers, engineers, lawyers, philosophers and economists, and are essentially dreamers. Our acts arise from the dream space and notions of a perfect world. We believe its necessary to operate from such notions and spaces that are non-rational, poetic, and irreducible because we believe in the transitory state of both the world and its ideas. We believe in the subjective individual over the objective and complacent one. We believe ones personal feelings and opinions can have profound influences on the community and also bring temporariness to ideas and beliefs floating within the community by challenging and debating over the consensus. Whatever code we hack, be it myths, cultures, traditions, rituals, beliefs or language - we hack the new out of the old. With the old we produce new worlds or new things that are not always great things, or even good things, but new things. We believe division and distribution of information is a fundamental act of extending knowledge and we situate such acts and their preservation in open and unconditional frameworks. We continuously hack our path thorough existing flows of information and topography created by the institutions, the state and establishments to embrace such spaces with our acts that produce alternative processes of knowledge creation and exchange. We reclaim the information space by providing autonomous free platforms and networks for communication. We liberate information itself. We reclaim the public space as a place of choice and expression through fearless speech. We reconstruct the idea of the chowpal, the piazza and the agora as a place for the people and by the people. We disown all efforts that propagate technology specifically ICT in the name of social development across developing nations. We consider such efforts as pretentious and having vested interests. We are not an economy for the refurbished. We camouflage using contradiction. We visit both the sides, we walk black and white through the grey. We constantly reconfigure ourselves through contradiction and contradistinction. To us originality is a far gone concept. There is no individual creator today. We all are part of the remix machine called globalization, a meme in itself. We are the remix culture. We copy, recombine and re-present memetically. *** Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ - -- Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931 Currently on sabbatical with APDIP/UNDP Manager - International Open Source Network Wisma UN, Block C Komplex Pejabat Damansara. Jalan Dungun, Damansara Heights. 50490 Kuala Lumpur. P. O. Box 12544, 50782, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tel: (60) 3-2091-5167, Fax: (60) 3-2095-2087 sunil at apdip.net http://www.iosn.net http://www.apdip.net From shivamvij at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 16:23:32 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 16:23:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] banned? BANNED? Nobody's banned on the Net. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi all, In the sarai list i saw this thread of mails called 'The India e-gov and visionindia have been banned by GOI 3 messages' but couldn't make head or tale of it. Which mailing list has been banned by GOI and why? And why is there no uproar, and just silent resignation about it? I'd like to write about this. When Yahoo! Groups had been blocked last year there was widespread anger against it. Looking forwrd to hearing from you, Thanks and regards, Shivam Vij shivamvij at gmail.com -- I poured reason in two wine glasses Raised one above my head And poured it into my life From jamie.dow at pobox.com Wed Aug 25 19:38:35 2004 From: jamie.dow at pobox.com (Jamie Dow) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:08:35 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] death penalty - the morality of states and individuals Message-ID: I've been watching this debate for a bit, on and off, and, Rana, your contribution caught my eye today! I'm surprised at it - it seems really wayward ...... ! Here are a few thoughts. There's much right in what you say that it perhaps seems churlish to fault the reasons you give for (probably) a correct conclusion. Nevertheless..... You're of course right to say that acts of the state are moral acts. (Are there *any* acts that are exempt from moral scrutiny?!!!) Likewise, you're right that executions do not follow *inevitably* from certain kinds of criminal behaviour - they require the state to choose to exact a particular penalty. All well and good. But it seems to me that you are guilty of the same "false choice between extremes" arguments that you criticise in your opponents. You offer the following alternatives: (i) Judicial executions are non-moral, semi-divine, abstract, other worldly acts, part of a natural progression from rape to gallows. (ii) Judicial executions are a state-sponsored festival of violence. Since it is clearly absurd to suppose that they are not the first, they must be the second. Hmmmmm. Are these really the only two possibilities? This is then founded upon, or elided into another inference, where your line of thought appears to be as follows. Since the press & public reacted to the Calcutta execution with bloodthirsty glee, this must have been what they (who? - the judiciary? - the legislative? - and when?) intended in having the death penalty for certain sorts of crimes. The inference is just flawed. Further, as a pivotal foundation to your position, how is it that you argue that the state can only take pragmatic decisions? Your terms here "pragmatic" vs "transcendental" seem very slippery - it's almost as though they were designed for just this argument, i.e. "ad hoc". Again you offer only two possibilities, and the main worry about these terms is that they exclude all the most important options relevant to this debate. I take it that those who argue for the death penalty are not stupid. Even if their conclusion is in the end incorrect. In relation to the points you raise, the crucial moves made by advocates of the death penalty are as follows. (1) One of the functions of a judicial system is to execute justice in the cases that fall within its scope. (2) There is a difference between state / community agency and individual agency, even though many of the same norms apply to both individuals and states/communities. (3) Part of justice is exacting a penalty from a wrongdoer. It sounds as though you are inclined to deny (3), although many truly absurd consequences follow from denying this. Your alternative terms "pragmatic" and "transcendental" make it very unclear under which one executing justice (1) would fall. I assume you'd agree with (1). Now, in relation to (2), it seems that the whole point of a detached legislature and judiciary is that they have no immediate personal interest in the case. So, if you harm me, there would be something just about my exacting revenge, but since the likelihood is so high that we would not see the rights and wrongs of the issue the same way, the danger is similarly high that a cycle of violence will escalate. The point of a detached judiciary is that people (judges / a jury) with no immediate interest in the particular case decide it. They are not without any vested interest, but their vested interest is in having a just and well-ordered society. That is why their actions in exacting penalties, dictating terms of restitution, etc. are unlikely to result in an ongoing spiral of violence. And, indeed, even in societies which continue to use the death penalty, *this much* at least is achieved. The position was dramatised in the 450s BCE by Aeschylus in *The Oresteia*. You need to take issue with this *real* position, not some straw man, or flimsy patchwork of popular beliefs, surely. My remarks above make sense of why it remains a constant and utterly vital battle to keep personal and factional interests out of the judiciary, and in fact (a more subtle matter) out of the legislative too, and have these reflect more impersonally the deepest most common-sense and most shared intuitions of the people as a whole. Those who campaign and think in this area deserve the greatest support. Finally, your last swashbuckling paragraph: "those who support some idea of retributive justice, and who therefore see the grandest escalation of violence as the most just and humane" What's going on in the "therefore" here? (i) A supports some idea of retributive justice **therefore** (ii) A sees the grandest escalation of violence as the most just and humane. Do you really think that ii FOLLOWS FROM i? If so .... er..... how? I've not found many philosophers or jurisprudence folks who seriously deny that retribution is part of justice. I can't think of one (although probably Posner in the US does, but he's not the sort of debating ally you want!). Retribution is in the warp and weft of vast swathes of most countries' criminal law, not just in relation to the death penalty. I'd normally think of the law in the following way (funnily enough, same as Aristotle's view of the law) - that it embodies our fundamental common-sense intuitions about matters of morals and matters of human agency. Especially where it consists in case-law refined over a long period, it constitutes an extremely significant set of base data that people trying to make sense of ethics kick over at their peril. In doing so, they usually find themselves kicking over both common sense and our best moral intuitions. Of course, a bloodthirsty glee at an execution is all wrong. But that doesn't always happen in the aftermath of executions. So it rather suggests that some other factor was at work in Calcutta. I'd be interested in digging a little deeper to see what that was. It does sound like some pretty unsavoury forces at work. In the end, I think that the death penalty is not right, because of problems of judicial fallibility, and because I'd want to weight the balance of considerations more towards holding out the possibility of reform, restitution, mercy. I think that the reasons you give, and the terms in which you frame the argument, don't really allow the possibility of even making a case for the death penalty - when understood in your terms, to suggest the death penalty comes out as so utterly ludicrous a position, that one is quickly led to think that these are not the right terms in which to make sense of the debate. Or, throughout history, has it only ever been utter idiots who have thought the death penalty right? Or have I been the idiot and misunderstood what is being said here?! Best, Jamie -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of Rana Dasgupta Sent: 24 August 2004 11:14 To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty Thanks for interesting debate on this issue. Just wanted to comment on one aspect stated by Rahul thus: >> But there is >> something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. >> the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the >> tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. I completely agree. Some of the discussion about this issue has seemed to imply that there is some kind of absolutely natural progression from rape (or other violent crime) to the gallows. As if all that needed to be debated was the precise equation of equivalent suffering for the crime's victim and its perpetrator, and as if the mechanism of the second, reciprocal act of violence did not to be considered - as if it were abstact, sublime, other-worldly, semi-divine. If you see the question in this way then you will respect those who call for the greatest possible violence in the second instance, for it is only they who have truly grasped the scale of suffering in the first. But the execution of a criminal is as much a moral act as the original crime itself, and those who support it and implement it must bear responsibility for it and not pretend that it is a wholly natural result of the criminal's actions. Having found myself in Calcutta at the time this execution happened and been confronted in the mornings with the obscene journalistic extravaganzas of sadistic, ghoulish, bloodthirsty glee, I find it very difficult to read this punishment as simply that - a punishment. Were the readers of those papers waiting painfully for thirteen years for the suffering of this girl to be finally answered, did they see the events of august 14th as a final closure to a community's anguish? Frankly, I think not. I think this was a state-sponsored festival of violence, unfolding with thrilling twists and turns to its final, inevitable, awe-ful display. And to me, such a festival of violence gives tacit consent to all the most perverted fantasies of the co mmunity, including the very desire to see other humans utterly humiliated and obliterated which lay behind the original crime. To me, such a celebration raises the stakes of violence in a society as a whole and is *intimately connected* to violent crime as perpetrated by individuals. It is not separate or above it; it is not an antidote or a closure. As we know from contemplating the fates of grand architects of suffering, such as Milosevic or Hussein, there is nothing that a society can do to right the historical balance of suffering once it has happened. This is unfortunate - tragic even; but it is true. Suffering and death are facts which transcend the ability of human beings to make amends. If you call upon the state to right the suffering of history by visiting equivalent suffering upon the perpetrator you are implicitly giving the state a transcendental role in human affairs. You are calling on it as previous eras called upon God to bring destruction and misery upon their enemies. But the state does not have a transcendental claim to power. It has only a pragmatic claim. It can make pragmatic decisions - to remove a violent man from social intercourse, for instance - but it cannot restore a community's innocence, or erase suffering. None of us can expect this from a human institution, and we should never give such an institution the freedom to act as if it had this transcendental power. I don't think there can be a pragmatic argument for the death penalty. If the death penalty actually reduced the amount of violence in a society then America would be pretty much the most violence-free place in the world (after China and Iran). This is to say nothing of the fact, of course, that sometimes states execute people who are then found to be innocent. In this situation it really is tough for them to make amends. Let not this discussion be cornered by those who support some idea of retributive justice, and who therefore see the grandest escalation of violence as the most just and humane. I think the Bushian "double blackmail" mentioned by Nisha in the discussion on this list has indeed taken over the debate to an unfortunate degree, and that it has no merit. It is a depressing, even maddening thing to have to accept that there is no total, otherworldly justice for horrendous crimes; but let us not become savage ourselves as a result. R Rana Dasgupta www.ranadasgupta.com From amanmalik_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Aug 25 22:30:28 2004 From: amanmalik_2000 at yahoo.com (Aman Malik) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 10:00:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] An important press release and a humble request Message-ID: <20040825170028.82792.qmail@web90108.mail.scd.yahoo.com> Dear All, Below is the press release announcing the launch of the School of Legal Studies at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. I request you to circulate it to as many people as there are on your respective mailing lists and also on newsgroups that you might be members of. Thanks & Regards, Aman Malik School of Convergence St Stephen's College, Delhi Batch of 2004 Press Release [Dated August 25, 2004] New Delhi ST. STEPHEN�S COLLEGE AND PRECONCEPT CREATE SCHOOL FOR LEGAL STUDIES The St. Stephen�s School for Legal Studies The School for Legal Studies is the result of a collaborative effort by St. Stephen�s College and Preconcept. The School is an innovative step in advancing practical legal training. The focus will be on legal management, including issues like managing litigation and commercial confrontation, managing an intellectual property portfolio in India and abroad and training managers and in-house counsel in working with external legal counsel. The School for Legal Studies is a research and learning centre for basic and advanced legal management. The School will not focus on traditional aspects like degree programmes and will instead focus on �practising law�. The programmes whether taught courses or research projects will be based on ground level implementation of law and policy. The courses are structured and taught by practising legal professionals whether in professional service or in the Government. The Director, Rodney D. Ryder, emphasises that the School for Legal Studies would be at the forefront with �innovative legal education at the school level as well�. �The School�, he said, �would focus on Legal Novitiate Education with path breaking concepts such as how to be a good client�. The unique aspect would be the industry � community interface and the concept of �the law as strategy�. The School for Legal Studies has Centres for Technology Law and Policy, Intellectual Property and Media Law Studies. During the present academic year (2004-2005), the School will conduct workshops and training programmes, such as �Patent Law for Engineers�, �Brand Protection and Trademark Law for Marketers�, �Data Protection and Corporate Compliance� and �Intellectual Property and the Art of War for the Sales Team�. This year, the School has introduced diploma courses, such as: �Internet Law and Policy� and �Intellectual Property: Law, Practice and Management.� [a] Internet Law and Policy [a course in cyberspace law and practice] The topics in the course cover the most pervasive and general forms of regulation that can affect most types of transactions, publications and other interactions in cyberspace. The legal content of the course is based on the laws of India, considered in its international context. [b] Intellectual Property: Law, Practice and Management This course aims to provide an introduction to the law, economics and management of Intellectual Property (IP) and innovation for those whose future career may involve the management of IP and innovation. It is intended for those for whom Intellectual Property will play an important role in their work. About the Institutions St. Stephen�s College St. Stephen's College occupies a prominent position in the educational firmament of India and in Indian society. In the recent years, �College� has pioneered the development of the Centre for Mathematical Studies and the Centre for Media Studies. Under the aegis of the College St. Stephen�s School for Legal Studies has emerged. The St. Stephen�s School for Legal Studies is an international centre for legal education and research at St. Stephen�s College, Delhi to promote legal education, training and research. The School for Legal Studies has developed specialised and structured programmes with the vision of enhancing the process, mechanism and delivery of legal education. Preconcept Preconcept is a full service corporate law firm, with a cutting edge specialisation in intellectual property and technology laws. Apart from advising clients and providing consultancy services, Preconcept is dedicated to identifying, building and expressing the right idea for the promotion of legal education at every level. [www.preconcept.org] The Director The program is run under the expert guidance of Rodney D. Ryder who is presently Advisor to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India on the implementation of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Mr. Ryder has been nominated as a 'Leading Lawyer' in the areas of Intellectual Property and Information Technology and Communications by Asia Law, Who'sWhoLegal amongst other International publications. He is an alumnus of St. Stephen�s College. For further information, please contact: Kumar Saurabh Project Co-ordinator Legal Novitiate Programme saurabh at preconcept.com [0.9891115000] For further details, please visit the website at: www.preconcept.org __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From lalitbatra77 at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 25 23:10:12 2004 From: lalitbatra77 at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?lalit=20batra?=) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 18:40:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] fifth posting Message-ID: <20040825174012.47840.qmail@web8202.mail.in.yahoo.com> >From Countryside to Metropolis : Caste in Motion One of the things that I wanted to explore during the course of this study was to identify the continuities and discontinuities with respect to the manifestations of the notions of purity and pollution, the essential elements of the caste society of India, in the arena of water. All the people I talked to were first generation middle-aged migrants from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who are presently staying in various resettlement colonies and slums of Delhi. Most of these were ‘associational migrants’, i.e. women who migrated with men. More importantly, all the people I talked to belonged either to the upper castes or the OBCs or were Muslims. I was also very much interested in listening to a Dalit version of the same but couldn’t quite get it. So what I am going to present is pretty much a one-sided picture. It is a common knowledge, which got reaffirmed in the interviews I had with people, that rural UP and Bihar are badly fragmented on caste lines (that is not to say that the rest of India is not or the urban UP and Bihar are not) and that water is one of the major arenas where this fragmentation and segmentation plays itself out. Most of the people I talked to left their villages between 15-25 years back and by that time the transition from wells and ponds based water system to the handpump based system had already started taking place. So their memories of wells and ponds based water system was based mainly on childhood and adolescent experiences as well as visits to their native villages that they undertake quite regularly. What I gathered from the interviews I did is that all the castes either had their separate wells, access to which was restricted to the members of that particular caste only or there were common wells for caste Hindus and separate ones for Dalits and, in some cases, Muslims. Most of the domestic needs were fulfilled by water drawn from these wells. But what is interesting is the fact that there was no caste-based restriction on using ponds (pokhar, talaab), which were supposed to be common for all. Shakuntala, in her late 30s, came to Delhi about two decades back with her husband who is a carpenter. She is from Kangrala village in Badayun district in the UP. She said that all the castes in her village- Mussalman, Jatav, Koiri, Teli, Kumhaar, Bahman- had their separate wells and nobody used to try accessing the wells of other castes. The village pond, on the other hand, was truly a ‘village’ pond. Children, men and buffaloes of all the castes used to bathe in it. People used to take out mud from it to construct their houses. So the pond seems to be, what is called in the contemporary environmental parlance, a ‘common property resource’. Kamla from Faizabad district asserts quite vociferously that as far as water is concerned “baki sab jaat mein chal jayega; ek mussalman aur bhangi mein nahin chalega”. She also maintains that “pokhar, talaab sabke liye hota hai; barma, kooan sabka alag, alag hota hai”. Mahipal, in his early 50s, says that his village in Etta district of Uttar Pradesh, had two wells- one for Jatavs and one common for all other castes. Thus the bottom line seems to be that there has been in existence a deep running cleavage between Dalits and non-dalits as far as the issue of accessing water is concerned. All this is quite predictable and well researched but what puzzles me is the absence of caste-based restrictions on accessing ponds. Anupam Mishra of Gandhi Peace Foundation tries to explain this by drawing an analogy with the urban transport system. Wells, he says, are like private cars, meant for private, exclusive use while ponds are like buses, meant to be used by everybody. So it is essentially a matter of people articulating their identity at two different levels. Another commentator said that as no society can survive by completely alienating a section of its people it has to dole out something to keep them within its folds. So the absence of caste-based restrictions on ponds could be something designed to give Dalits a sense of being part of society at large. The people I talked to seemed to treat this phenomenon as an article of faith, as something, which is just there, needing no explanation. What happens to the notions of purity and pollution, the paradigms of exclusion and inclusion when people migrate to a city like Delhi where the very structure and network, which mediates their access to water, is essentially ‘secular’ by nature? My work suggests that the notions of purity and pollution still survive though it becomes increasingly difficult to practice them. Almost all the people I interviewed consider Dalits as “gande log” whose very presence in their midst vitiates the atmosphere. Sharing water sources like taps and tankers is considered a Majboori for which nothing can be done. Still, the upper castes try to maintain their purity by washing water taps and utensils if a harijan fills water before them. But that also becomes difficult, as the availability of water is so inadequate that those standing behind in the queue start making noises. “Hum thoda saf-safai se bharna chahte hain to vo (Harijan) jhagda karte hain. Neechi jaat kharaab hai, inse kaun moonh lagta hai, beizzati hoti hai. Aurat aadmi sab ladne lagte hain”, moans Renu of Gautam Puri. Given choice what will she do, I ask. “Paani khula ho to (Harijan ke bharne ke baad) dhoo ke bharenge”, she replies. Does this segmentation based on caste amongst the poor in Delhi inform the formation of the collectivities of the poor? I think, it does. I also think that it is a major impediment in the articulation of an inclusive identity, which is so essential for waging collective struggles. ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From lalitbatra77 at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 25 23:12:06 2004 From: lalitbatra77 at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?lalit=20batra?=) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 18:42:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] sixth posting Message-ID: <20040825174206.48030.qmail@web8202.mail.in.yahoo.com> Water and its Rituals Rahiman paani rakhiye bin paani sab soon Paani gaye na oobre moti, manus, choon This couplet by Rahim sums up the exalted and sacred place given to water in the consciousness of a huge mass of Indian people, especially those having bonds with the countryside where survival, very often, depends on the vagaries of that unpredictable god named monsoon. If you doubt the wisdom of the poet then hear what Shakuntala, a poor middle-aged woman, living in the resettlement colony of Bhalaswa has to say, “It is very important to worship water as it is the purest substance available”. This is thus the basis for an entire edifice of religious-cultural practices having water as its centre. But does this centrality continue when people migrate from rural areas to a mega polis like Delhi where the water bodies that they worshipped aren’t to be seen? First let us look at some of the practices and rituals that, as my respondents recounted, are prevalent in their native villages. Since most of my respondents were women the practices that they talked about related to marriage and childbirth. Some of the typical practices that I came across are as follows: · Kamla, a woman in her early 40s, living in Gautam Puri, Molarband, is originally from Faizabad, U.P. She told me that in their area, before the marriage ceremony the groom is carried in his maternal uncle’s lap who circles the well five times. Stopping each time to let the groom tip into the well an oil lamp made of atta. · In Faizabad women are not allowed to draw water from the well or touch household utensils for forty-five days after nativity. After this period she resumes its usage by a ritual conducted at dawn when she places a handful of mustard seeds on the parapet of the well and draws out a lota full of water. · Shakuntala, originally from Badayun, U.P., but presently living in Bhalaswa says that before digging a pond the spade is anointed and a puja is performed in honour of the elephant god Ganesha. · Renu is from Nalanda. She says that the well and the village pond are of great salience on different auspicious occasions in rural life. At the time of a wedding, women go to both wells and ponds fill water in their pots and sing songs. · The mundan ceremony for small children, involving the tonsuring of heads is more often than not performed at the village pond. · At the birth of a male child, women apply a tilak of rice grains and vermillion on the well. They return home after having drawn and poured away five buckets of water from it. Thus we see that there is a whole range of life cycle rituals centred around water. I asked my respondents whether they continue indulging in these practices in the slums and resettlement colonies they live in Delhi. If yes, then how do they do it? The answer that I got was that all of these practices continue but in slightly modified forms. Hand pumps and taps have now taken the place, which was earlier occupied by wells and ponds. But this is, of course, not without a sense of loss as the obvious fact of water being a cause of many diseases in these settlements discourages people, to an extent, to treat handpump and tap water as sacred enough. Also, there are many people who even now go back to their native villages on all the important occasions. Renu’s family, when she was in village, used to do Chath Puja at the village. Now they go to Jamunaji for the same. ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From eye at ranadasgupta.com Thu Aug 26 16:40:57 2004 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:40:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] death penalty - the morality of states and individuals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <412DC541.4090706@ranadasgupta.com> Thanks Jamie for detailed response! First, I should make it clear that I am writing specifically and not generally. I am not advancing a general theory of justice. I am writing specifically about the death penalty, and specifically about a number of discussions that have occurred about this particular execution on and off this list. One position that seems to have haunted these discussions is the following: It is only by executing a rapist and murderer that society can adequately express its abhorrence of this crime. Conversely, to subject the perpetrator only to life imprisonment (and not execution) is to send out a message that society does not truly care about crimes against women. This is the context for the "therefore" you question: > those who support some idea of > retributive justice, and who therefore see the grandest escalation of > violence as the most just and humane. where the "grandest escalation of violence" refers to the application of the death penalty as opposed to non-capital punishments. You are right to say that it is difficult to imagine a theory of justice in which retribution does not play any role. That is why my comments remain specific to the issue of the death penalty. However I think I differ with you on two fundamental points. You say: > The point of a detached judiciary is that people (judges / a jury) > with no immediate interest in the particular case decide it. They are > not without any vested interest, but their vested interest is in > having a just and well-ordered society. That is why their actions in > exacting penalties, dictating terms of restitution, etc. are unlikely > to result in an ongoing spiral of violence. And, indeed, even in > societies which continue to use the death penalty, *this much* at > least is achieved. Here (in this last sentence) you are merely making an assertion, and as my previous posting made clear, I don't think this assertion to be true. I proposed that there was an "intimate connection" between state killing and violence in society and that, therefore, the death penalty *is* part of a spiral of violence. Clearly, I am not talking about the obvious kind of escalation you describe. (You kill my brother. I kill you. Your brother kills me. And so on. Although legal systems based on the blood feud are not nearly so crude as this.) The relations between a modern state and the people within its borders - and outside them - are too abstract to be mapped out like this. I am suggesting, instead, that when killing is introduced as a legitimate resolution of a social problem that this fact inhabits all social relations. Such a position requires me to comment on another of your statements: > (2) There is a difference between state / community agency and > individual agency, even though many of the same norms apply to both > individuals and states/communities. It is clearly correct to say that the state is a different kind of actor from individuals but this should not be understood to mean that there is some kind of hermetic division. The state chooses certain terms by which it will display itself and interact in society, and like any other actor in the world it thereby influences how other actors will interact with it and with each other. Thus, though the state may have the last word in a specific chain of actions (A man murders - the state executes him) there is no reason to think that the effects of this decision to use fatal violence end at that point. Among such effects are the kind of displays I described in Calcutta. You say: > Since the press & public reacted to the Calcutta execution with > bloodthirsty glee, this must have been what they (who? - the > judiciary? - the legislative? - and when?) intended in having the > death penalty for certain sorts of crimes. > The inference is just flawed. This seems very disingenuous to me. You have already acknowledged that the state must take moral responsibility for its actions, like any other actor. On the other hand, you say that the state shoud not have to take responsibility for the consequences of its actions. This does not seem to be taking moral responsibility at all. Again: you seem to say on the one hand that the judiciary derives its legitimacy from the public and that its decisions represent the will of the public; and on the other hand that it has no involvement in what you call the "unsavoury" response by the public to its actions. You may say, and you do, that such a response to a state execution is not a necessary part of the whole ceremony. I don't think this is true. At least on the basis of the few executions I've followed in India and the US there is *always* a dramatic outpouring of both abhorrence and ghoulish fascination. This is a wholly predictable consequence of executions. Part of the disagreement here arises from an ideological difference as to what the "state" is. In your mail you at times use the terms "state" and "community" interchangeably, and you present a position in which the legislature and judiciary are imagined thus: > it seems that the whole point of a detached > legislature and judiciary is that they have no immediate personal > interest in the case. [...] The point of a detached judiciary is that > people (judges / a jury) with no immediate interest in the particular > case decide it. They are not without any vested interest, but their > vested interest is in having a just and well-ordered society. This is clearly a very controversial position. Why should the judiciary only have this one vested interest? And is there no conflict between "just" and "well-ordered"? Most importantly, let's remember that executions are often approved not by members of the judiciary but by senior members of the executive (the President in Dhananjoy Chatterjoy's case; by State Governors in most US states) and that they cannot therefore be so easily detached from politics. When Bill Clinton approved the execution of mentally handicapped Rickey Ray Rector in order to avert charges of being "soft on crime" during his presidential campaign in 1992 was he only ensuring a just and well-ordered society? Is not the whole politics of the death penalty in the US an integral part of broader divisions about the purpose and nature of state power? I would agree with you that my opposition between the "transcendental" and "pragmatic" state is not exhaustive and therefore I'm not going to try and take it too far. As far as I'm concerned, however, the central point still stands. The license to kill an individual in order to punish them for their actions endows an awesome power, real and symbolic, which puts the state as close to God as anything there is on earth. It is clear why the state might wish to occupy this symbolic position; and executions are moments when it is dramatically reasserted. But I think for any kind of imaginative and ethical freedom we have to deny to the state this total occupation of the terrain. R Jamie Dow wrote: > I've been watching this debate for a bit, on and off, and, Rana, your > contribution caught my eye today! I'm surprised at it - it seems really > wayward ...... ! Here are a few thoughts. > > There's much right in what you say that it perhaps seems churlish to fault > the reasons you give for (probably) a correct conclusion. Nevertheless..... > > You're of course right to say that acts of the state are moral acts. (Are > there *any* acts that are exempt from moral scrutiny?!!!) Likewise, you're > right that executions do not follow *inevitably* from certain kinds of > criminal behaviour - they require the state to choose to exact a particular > penalty. All well and good. > > But it seems to me that you are guilty of the same "false choice between > extremes" arguments that you criticise in your opponents. You offer the > following alternatives: > (i) Judicial executions are non-moral, semi-divine, abstract, other worldly > acts, part of a natural progression from rape to gallows. > (ii) Judicial executions are a state-sponsored festival of violence. > Since it is clearly absurd to suppose that they are not the first, they must > be the second. Hmmmmm. Are these really the only two possibilities? > > This is then founded upon, or elided into another inference, where your line > of thought appears to be as follows. > Since the press & public reacted to the Calcutta execution with bloodthirsty > glee, this must have been what they (who? - the judiciary? - the > legislative? - and when?) intended in having the death penalty for certain > sorts of crimes. > The inference is just flawed. > > Further, as a pivotal foundation to your position, how is it that you argue > that the state can only take pragmatic decisions? Your terms here > "pragmatic" vs "transcendental" seem very slippery - it's almost as though > they were designed for just this argument, i.e. "ad hoc". Again you offer > only two possibilities, and the main worry about these terms is that they > exclude all the most important options relevant to this debate. > > I take it that those who argue for the death penalty are not stupid. Even if > their conclusion is in the end incorrect. In relation to the points you > raise, the crucial moves made by advocates of the death penalty are as > follows. > (1) One of the functions of a judicial system is to execute justice in the > cases that fall within its scope. > (2) There is a difference between state / community agency and individual > agency, even though many of the same norms apply to both individuals and > states/communities. > (3) Part of justice is exacting a penalty from a wrongdoer. > > It sounds as though you are inclined to deny (3), although many truly absurd > consequences follow from denying this. > Your alternative terms "pragmatic" and "transcendental" make it very unclear > under which one executing justice (1) would fall. I assume you'd agree with > (1). > > Now, in relation to (2), it seems that the whole point of a detached > legislature and judiciary is that they have no immediate personal interest > in the case. > So, if you harm me, there would be something just about my exacting revenge, > but since the likelihood is so high that we would not see the rights and > wrongs of the issue the same way, the danger is similarly high that a cycle > of violence will escalate. > The point of a detached judiciary is that people (judges / a jury) with no > immediate interest in the particular case decide it. They are not without > any vested interest, but their vested interest is in having a just and > well-ordered society. That is why their actions in exacting penalties, > dictating terms of restitution, etc. are unlikely to result in an ongoing > spiral of violence. And, indeed, even in societies which continue to use the > death penalty, *this much* at least is achieved. > The position was dramatised in the 450s BCE by Aeschylus in *The Oresteia*. > You need to take issue with this *real* position, not some straw man, or > flimsy patchwork of popular beliefs, surely. My remarks above make sense of > why it remains a constant and utterly vital battle to keep personal and > factional interests out of the judiciary, and in fact (a more subtle matter) > out of the legislative too, and have these reflect more impersonally the > deepest most common-sense and most shared intuitions of the people as a > whole. Those who campaign and think in this area deserve the greatest > support. > > Finally, your last swashbuckling paragraph: > "those who support some idea of retributive justice, and who therefore see > the grandest escalation of violence as the most just and humane" > What's going on in the "therefore" here? > (i) A supports some idea of retributive justice > **therefore** (ii) A sees the grandest escalation of violence as the most > just and humane. > Do you really think that ii FOLLOWS FROM i? If so .... er..... how? > > I've not found many philosophers or jurisprudence folks who seriously deny > that retribution is part of justice. I can't think of one (although probably > Posner in the US does, but he's not the sort of debating ally you want!). > Retribution is in the warp and weft of vast swathes of most countries' > criminal law, not just in relation to the death penalty. I'd normally think > of the law in the following way (funnily enough, same as Aristotle's view of > the law) - that it embodies our fundamental common-sense intuitions about > matters of morals and matters of human agency. Especially where it consists > in case-law refined over a long period, it constitutes an extremely > significant set of base data that people trying to make sense of ethics kick > over at their peril. In doing so, they usually find themselves kicking over > both common sense and our best moral intuitions. > > > Of course, a bloodthirsty glee at an execution is all wrong. But that > doesn't always happen in the aftermath of executions. So it rather suggests > that some other factor was at work in Calcutta. I'd be interested in digging > a little deeper to see what that was. It does sound like some pretty > unsavoury forces at work. > > In the end, I think that the death penalty is not right, because of problems > of judicial fallibility, and because I'd want to weight the balance of > considerations more towards holding out the possibility of reform, > restitution, mercy. I think that the reasons you give, and the terms in > which you frame the argument, don't really allow the possibility of even > making a case for the death penalty - when understood in your terms, to > suggest the death penalty comes out as so utterly ludicrous a position, that > one is quickly led to think that these are not the right terms in which to > make sense of the debate. Or, throughout history, has it only ever been > utter idiots who have thought the death penalty right? > > > Or have I been the idiot and misunderstood what is being said here?! > Best, > Jamie > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net > [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of Rana Dasgupta > Sent: 24 August 2004 11:14 > To: reader-list at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty > > > Thanks for interesting debate on this issue. Just wanted to comment on one > aspect stated by Rahul thus: > > >>>But there is >>>something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. >>>the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the >>>tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. > > > I completely agree. > > Some of the discussion about this issue has seemed to imply that there is > some kind of absolutely natural progression from rape (or other violent > crime) to the gallows. As if all that needed to be debated was the precise > equation of equivalent suffering for the crime's victim and its perpetrator, > and as if the mechanism of the second, reciprocal act of violence did not to > be considered - as if it were abstact, sublime, other-worldly, semi-divine. > > If you see the question in this way then you will respect those who call for > the greatest possible violence in the second instance, for it is only they > who have truly grasped the scale of suffering in the first. > > But the execution of a criminal is as much a moral act as the original crime > itself, and those who support it and implement it must bear responsibility > for it and not pretend that it is a wholly natural result of the criminal's > actions. Having found myself in Calcutta at the time this execution > happened and been confronted in the mornings with the obscene journalistic > extravaganzas of sadistic, ghoulish, bloodthirsty glee, I find it very > difficult to read this punishment as simply that - a punishment. Were the > readers of those papers waiting painfully for thirteen years for the > suffering of this girl to be finally answered, did they see the events of > august 14th as a final closure to a community's anguish? Frankly, I think > not. I think this was a state-sponsored festival of violence, unfolding > with thrilling twists and turns to its final, inevitable, awe-ful display. > And to me, such a festival of violence gives tacit consent to all the most > perverted fantasies of the co > mmunity, including the very desire to see other humans utterly humiliated > and obliterated which lay behind the original crime. To me, such a > celebration raises the stakes of violence in a society as a whole and is > *intimately connected* to violent crime as perpetrated by individuals. It > is not separate or above it; it is not an antidote or a closure. > > As we know from contemplating the fates of grand architects of suffering, > such as Milosevic or Hussein, there is nothing that a society can do to > right the historical balance of suffering once it has happened. This is > unfortunate - tragic even; but it is true. Suffering and death are facts > which transcend the ability of human beings to make amends. > > If you call upon the state to right the suffering of history by visiting > equivalent suffering upon the perpetrator you are implicitly giving the > state a transcendental role in human affairs. You are calling on it as > previous eras called upon God to bring destruction and misery upon their > enemies. But the state does not have a transcendental claim to power. It > has only a pragmatic claim. It can make pragmatic decisions - to remove a > violent man from social intercourse, for instance - but it cannot restore a > community's innocence, or erase suffering. None of us can expect this from > a human institution, and we should never give such an institution the > freedom to act as if it had this transcendental power. > > I don't think there can be a pragmatic argument for the death penalty. If > the death penalty actually reduced the amount of violence in a society then > America would be pretty much the most violence-free place in the world > (after China and Iran). This is to say nothing of the fact, of course, that > sometimes states execute people who are then found to be innocent. In this > situation it really is tough for them to make amends. > > Let not this discussion be cornered by those who support some idea of > retributive justice, and who therefore see the grandest escalation of > violence as the most just and humane. I think the Bushian "double > blackmail" mentioned by Nisha in the discussion on this list has indeed > taken over the debate to an unfortunate degree, and that it has no merit. > It is a depressing, even maddening thing to have to accept that there is no > total, otherworldly justice for horrendous crimes; but let us not become > savage ourselves as a result. > > R > > > Rana Dasgupta > www.ranadasgupta.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 jamie.dow at pobox.com Thu Aug 26 18:02:25 2004 From: jamie.dow at pobox.com (Jamie Dow) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:32:25 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] death penalty - the morality of states andindividuals In-Reply-To: <412DC541.4090706@ranadasgupta.com> Message-ID: OK. There are some misunderstandings & talking-past-each other that are a bit too detailed to be usefully covered on-list. Suffice to say that I think that individuals and states MUST, as you say, take into account foreseeable consequences of their actions, and so I'd very much want to uphold your argument about the negative consequences of executions - the state must indeed take these as reasons against having such executions. You are right to clarify that it is a particular, and highly perverse, view of retributive justice that sees the death penalty as the only adequate penalty for, say, rape. I take it your remarks about political involvement in executions strongly reinforce mine about the importance of the independence of the judiciary. These are complex areas, but the principles come out forcibly in what you write. I'm not sure, however, that your main point does stand. ========== As far as I'm concerned, however, the central point still stands. The license to kill an individual in order to punish them for their actions endows an awesome power, real and symbolic, which puts the state as close to God as anything there is on earth. It is clear why the state might wish to occupy this symbolic position; and executions are moments when it is dramatically reasserted. ========== 3 reasons: (1) There are other ways of thinking about this, more common-sense, less theory-laden ways, under which things look very different. (2) I'm not sure how your argument is supposed to work, even on its own terms. (3) Again, you seem to move from "here is one way in which X might be viewed" to "this is what the agent *intends* in this action" - you seem to be inferring a particular *intention* in the state's action merely from your own chosen way of viewing things. To show intention, you need to show much much more. To elaborate briefly. (1) Noone denies that the power to kill is an awesome power to have. But for this power to be in the hands of the state does not make the state anything different from what it was already - a function of how a nation of people choose to organise themselves, through representatives, officials, and so on. In fact, I take it that those who support the death penalty normally want to hedge it about with controls, so that it is not a political tool, and so that the "state" is restricted from having a life of its own independent from the citizens' views & intuitions about justice. The point is that it's perfectly natural to view the judicary (and this point applies across the whole of the judiciary's powers) as a mechanism for the collective action of the people. And that is precisely the language used in the US for criminal trials - "the people vs Smith". It doesn't involve some quasi-divine outre view of the state or judicary. There are questions as to whether these kinds of controls can be made to work in practice. But that's a very different point from the one you made. (2) Here's how I understand your argument: [i] Killing is a power the state has. [ii] killing is a power God has. [iii] therefore (from i and ii) the state and God are alike in this respect that they have the power to kill Now, I'm not clear what follows from that. As someone said (maybe Bertrand Russell?), everything is in *some* respect like everything else! You are creative. God is creative. In that respect, you too are like God! But that doesn't seem to be any reason not to use or assert or enjoy your godlike creativity! Your other unargued assertions are [iv] the state might have a desire to seem like God this statement of possibility is certainly true - this is a possible desire that the officials of state might have, and it might be a desire that the citizens of a country might have for the way in which their organs of government are perceived. Then you move from the possible directly to a factual claim as though there were some connection. [v] When the state executes someone it reasserts its similarity with God. This doesn't follow from [iv], by any stretch, but even if [v] is true, it's not clear what it shows about the morality of the death penalty. At best, it shows that the state has some overweaning motives! As we know, one can do the right thing for wrong motives. And that means that one has to make the case properly for the wrongness of the death-penalty. It can't be inferred from some agent's motives. So I don't get how this is supposed to work. It's hard work to pick out the argument from within the rhetoric. Your punchline is that in order to preserve imaginative and ethical freedom, we need to deny the state a godlike role in our lives. I take it the idea is that if we see our lives as controlled from outside, we will not make use of imaginative and ethical choices that we do in fact have. Now this is surely true. But it's to do with the way in which we *see* the state. Even without the death penalty, the state has enormous power in lots of ways, and the political task, I think, is to promote involvement in politics, restructuring politics where necessary to enable this, so that we see ourselves as active agents within the various communities (including the nation) in whcih we live. Key to this is seeing that collectively we hold the strings of our own governments. They are not super-human beings, they are human institutions, answerable to us. I'm not sure that this debate is close enough to be a strong reason in debates about what powers governments and judiciary ought to have. But maybe I can be persuaded otherwise. (3) Again - the fact that you are able to see executions as symbolic occasions on which the state activates its power of life and death over individual citizens does not warrant the conclusion that this is what is intended by those agents of the state who are involved. The best that can be got from this is that, let us additionally (you do not argue this, but it seems possible / plausible) suppose that the sentencing judge is aware that some will view executions in this particular way, when she gives her sentence, she is morally accountable for how she chose to act given those foreseeable consequences, and how their reason-giving force weighs along with the other moral considerations that bear on sentencing. The violent impact on society is a good reason for not having the death penalty. You seem to me to give a good case along these lines in the middle part of your mail. I'm not sure that your "main point" contributes much to the argument. But that may be just because I've failed to see how to reconstruct it in its full strength. Jamie -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of Rana Dasgupta Sent: 26 August 2004 12:11 To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] death penalty - the morality of states andindividuals Thanks Jamie for detailed response! First, I should make it clear that I am writing specifically and not generally. I am not advancing a general theory of justice. I am writing specifically about the death penalty, and specifically about a number of discussions that have occurred about this particular execution on and off this list. One position that seems to have haunted these discussions is the following: It is only by executing a rapist and murderer that society can adequately express its abhorrence of this crime. Conversely, to subject the perpetrator only to life imprisonment (and not execution) is to send out a message that society does not truly care about crimes against women. This is the context for the "therefore" you question: > those who support some idea of > retributive justice, and who therefore see the grandest escalation of > violence as the most just and humane. where the "grandest escalation of violence" refers to the application of the death penalty as opposed to non-capital punishments. You are right to say that it is difficult to imagine a theory of justice in which retribution does not play any role. That is why my comments remain specific to the issue of the death penalty. However I think I differ with you on two fundamental points. You say: > The point of a detached judiciary is that people (judges / a jury) > with no immediate interest in the particular case decide it. They are > not without any vested interest, but their vested interest is in > having a just and well-ordered society. That is why their actions in > exacting penalties, dictating terms of restitution, etc. are unlikely > to result in an ongoing spiral of violence. And, indeed, even in > societies which continue to use the death penalty, *this much* at > least is achieved. Here (in this last sentence) you are merely making an assertion, and as my previous posting made clear, I don't think this assertion to be true. I proposed that there was an "intimate connection" between state killing and violence in society and that, therefore, the death penalty *is* part of a spiral of violence. Clearly, I am not talking about the obvious kind of escalation you describe. (You kill my brother. I kill you. Your brother kills me. And so on. Although legal systems based on the blood feud are not nearly so crude as this.) The relations between a modern state and the people within its borders - and outside them - are too abstract to be mapped out like this. I am suggesting, instead, that when killing is introduced as a legitimate resolution of a social problem that this fact inhabits all social relations. Such a position requires me to comment on another of your statements: > (2) There is a difference between state / community agency and > individual agency, even though many of the same norms apply to both > individuals and states/communities. It is clearly correct to say that the state is a different kind of actor from individuals but this should not be understood to mean that there is some kind of hermetic division. The state chooses certain terms by which it will display itself and interact in society, and like any other actor in the world it thereby influences how other actors will interact with it and with each other. Thus, though the state may have the last word in a specific chain of actions (A man murders - the state executes him) there is no reason to think that the effects of this decision to use fatal violence end at that point. Among such effects are the kind of displays I described in Calcutta. You say: > Since the press & public reacted to the Calcutta execution with > bloodthirsty glee, this must have been what they (who? - the > judiciary? - the legislative? - and when?) intended in having the > death penalty for certain sorts of crimes. > The inference is just flawed. This seems very disingenuous to me. You have already acknowledged that the state must take moral responsibility for its actions, like any other actor. On the other hand, you say that the state shoud not have to take responsibility for the consequences of its actions. This does not seem to be taking moral responsibility at all. Again: you seem to say on the one hand that the judiciary derives its legitimacy from the public and that its decisions represent the will of the public; and on the other hand that it has no involvement in what you call the "unsavoury" response by the public to its actions. You may say, and you do, that such a response to a state execution is not a necessary part of the whole ceremony. I don't think this is true. At least on the basis of the few executions I've followed in India and the US there is *always* a dramatic outpouring of both abhorrence and ghoulish fascination. This is a wholly predictable consequence of executions. Part of the disagreement here arises from an ideological difference as to what the "state" is. In your mail you at times use the terms "state" and "community" interchangeably, and you present a position in which the legislature and judiciary are imagined thus: > it seems that the whole point of a detached > legislature and judiciary is that they have no immediate personal > interest in the case. [...] The point of a detached judiciary is that > people (judges / a jury) with no immediate interest in the particular > case decide it. They are not without any vested interest, but their > vested interest is in having a just and well-ordered society. This is clearly a very controversial position. Why should the judiciary only have this one vested interest? And is there no conflict between "just" and "well-ordered"? Most importantly, let's remember that executions are often approved not by members of the judiciary but by senior members of the executive (the President in Dhananjoy Chatterjoy's case; by State Governors in most US states) and that they cannot therefore be so easily detached from politics. When Bill Clinton approved the execution of mentally handicapped Rickey Ray Rector in order to avert charges of being "soft on crime" during his presidential campaign in 1992 was he only ensuring a just and well-ordered society? Is not the whole politics of the death penalty in the US an integral part of broader divisions about the purpose and nature of state power? I would agree with you that my opposition between the "transcendental" and "pragmatic" state is not exhaustive and therefore I'm not going to try and take it too far. As far as I'm concerned, however, the central point still stands. The license to kill an individual in order to punish them for their actions endows an awesome power, real and symbolic, which puts the state as close to God as anything there is on earth. It is clear why the state might wish to occupy this symbolic position; and executions are moments when it is dramatically reasserted. But I think for any kind of imaginative and ethical freedom we have to deny to the state this total occupation of the terrain. R Jamie Dow wrote: > I've been watching this debate for a bit, on and off, and, Rana, your > contribution caught my eye today! I'm surprised at it - it seems really > wayward ...... ! Here are a few thoughts. > > There's much right in what you say that it perhaps seems churlish to fault > the reasons you give for (probably) a correct conclusion. Nevertheless..... > > You're of course right to say that acts of the state are moral acts. (Are > there *any* acts that are exempt from moral scrutiny?!!!) Likewise, you're > right that executions do not follow *inevitably* from certain kinds of > criminal behaviour - they require the state to choose to exact a particular > penalty. All well and good. > > But it seems to me that you are guilty of the same "false choice between > extremes" arguments that you criticise in your opponents. You offer the > following alternatives: > (i) Judicial executions are non-moral, semi-divine, abstract, other worldly > acts, part of a natural progression from rape to gallows. > (ii) Judicial executions are a state-sponsored festival of violence. > Since it is clearly absurd to suppose that they are not the first, they must > be the second. Hmmmmm. Are these really the only two possibilities? > > This is then founded upon, or elided into another inference, where your line > of thought appears to be as follows. > Since the press & public reacted to the Calcutta execution with bloodthirsty > glee, this must have been what they (who? - the judiciary? - the > legislative? - and when?) intended in having the death penalty for certain > sorts of crimes. > The inference is just flawed. > > Further, as a pivotal foundation to your position, how is it that you argue > that the state can only take pragmatic decisions? Your terms here > "pragmatic" vs "transcendental" seem very slippery - it's almost as though > they were designed for just this argument, i.e. "ad hoc". Again you offer > only two possibilities, and the main worry about these terms is that they > exclude all the most important options relevant to this debate. > > I take it that those who argue for the death penalty are not stupid. Even if > their conclusion is in the end incorrect. In relation to the points you > raise, the crucial moves made by advocates of the death penalty are as > follows. > (1) One of the functions of a judicial system is to execute justice in the > cases that fall within its scope. > (2) There is a difference between state / community agency and individual > agency, even though many of the same norms apply to both individuals and > states/communities. > (3) Part of justice is exacting a penalty from a wrongdoer. > > It sounds as though you are inclined to deny (3), although many truly absurd > consequences follow from denying this. > Your alternative terms "pragmatic" and "transcendental" make it very unclear > under which one executing justice (1) would fall. I assume you'd agree with > (1). > > Now, in relation to (2), it seems that the whole point of a detached > legislature and judiciary is that they have no immediate personal interest > in the case. > So, if you harm me, there would be something just about my exacting revenge, > but since the likelihood is so high that we would not see the rights and > wrongs of the issue the same way, the danger is similarly high that a cycle > of violence will escalate. > The point of a detached judiciary is that people (judges / a jury) with no > immediate interest in the particular case decide it. They are not without > any vested interest, but their vested interest is in having a just and > well-ordered society. That is why their actions in exacting penalties, > dictating terms of restitution, etc. are unlikely to result in an ongoing > spiral of violence. And, indeed, even in societies which continue to use the > death penalty, *this much* at least is achieved. > The position was dramatised in the 450s BCE by Aeschylus in *The Oresteia*. > You need to take issue with this *real* position, not some straw man, or > flimsy patchwork of popular beliefs, surely. My remarks above make sense of > why it remains a constant and utterly vital battle to keep personal and > factional interests out of the judiciary, and in fact (a more subtle matter) > out of the legislative too, and have these reflect more impersonally the > deepest most common-sense and most shared intuitions of the people as a > whole. Those who campaign and think in this area deserve the greatest > support. > > Finally, your last swashbuckling paragraph: > "those who support some idea of retributive justice, and who therefore see > the grandest escalation of violence as the most just and humane" > What's going on in the "therefore" here? > (i) A supports some idea of retributive justice > **therefore** (ii) A sees the grandest escalation of violence as the most > just and humane. > Do you really think that ii FOLLOWS FROM i? If so .... er..... how? > > I've not found many philosophers or jurisprudence folks who seriously deny > that retribution is part of justice. I can't think of one (although probably > Posner in the US does, but he's not the sort of debating ally you want!). > Retribution is in the warp and weft of vast swathes of most countries' > criminal law, not just in relation to the death penalty. I'd normally think > of the law in the following way (funnily enough, same as Aristotle's view of > the law) - that it embodies our fundamental common-sense intuitions about > matters of morals and matters of human agency. Especially where it consists > in case-law refined over a long period, it constitutes an extremely > significant set of base data that people trying to make sense of ethics kick > over at their peril. In doing so, they usually find themselves kicking over > both common sense and our best moral intuitions. > > > Of course, a bloodthirsty glee at an execution is all wrong. But that > doesn't always happen in the aftermath of executions. So it rather suggests > that some other factor was at work in Calcutta. I'd be interested in digging > a little deeper to see what that was. It does sound like some pretty > unsavoury forces at work. > > In the end, I think that the death penalty is not right, because of problems > of judicial fallibility, and because I'd want to weight the balance of > considerations more towards holding out the possibility of reform, > restitution, mercy. I think that the reasons you give, and the terms in > which you frame the argument, don't really allow the possibility of even > making a case for the death penalty - when understood in your terms, to > suggest the death penalty comes out as so utterly ludicrous a position, that > one is quickly led to think that these are not the right terms in which to > make sense of the debate. Or, throughout history, has it only ever been > utter idiots who have thought the death penalty right? > > > Or have I been the idiot and misunderstood what is being said here?! > Best, > Jamie > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net > [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of Rana Dasgupta > Sent: 24 August 2004 11:14 > To: reader-list at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] campaigning against death penalty > > > Thanks for interesting debate on this issue. Just wanted to comment on one > aspect stated by Rahul thus: > > >>>But there is >>>something that we must make distinctions about and separate - for eg. >>>the debate for and against death penalty should not be linked to the >>>tolerance or intolerance of sexual violence against women. > > > I completely agree. > > Some of the discussion about this issue has seemed to imply that there is > some kind of absolutely natural progression from rape (or other violent > crime) to the gallows. As if all that needed to be debated was the precise > equation of equivalent suffering for the crime's victim and its perpetrator, > and as if the mechanism of the second, reciprocal act of violence did not to > be considered - as if it were abstact, sublime, other-worldly, semi-divine. > > If you see the question in this way then you will respect those who call for > the greatest possible violence in the second instance, for it is only they > who have truly grasped the scale of suffering in the first. > > But the execution of a criminal is as much a moral act as the original crime > itself, and those who support it and implement it must bear responsibility > for it and not pretend that it is a wholly natural result of the criminal's > actions. Having found myself in Calcutta at the time this execution > happened and been confronted in the mornings with the obscene journalistic > extravaganzas of sadistic, ghoulish, bloodthirsty glee, I find it very > difficult to read this punishment as simply that - a punishment. Were the > readers of those papers waiting painfully for thirteen years for the > suffering of this girl to be finally answered, did they see the events of > august 14th as a final closure to a community's anguish? Frankly, I think > not. I think this was a state-sponsored festival of violence, unfolding > with thrilling twists and turns to its final, inevitable, awe-ful display. > And to me, such a festival of violence gives tacit consent to all the most > perverted fantasies of the co > mmunity, including the very desire to see other humans utterly humiliated > and obliterated which lay behind the original crime. To me, such a > celebration raises the stakes of violence in a society as a whole and is > *intimately connected* to violent crime as perpetrated by individuals. It > is not separate or above it; it is not an antidote or a closure. > > As we know from contemplating the fates of grand architects of suffering, > such as Milosevic or Hussein, there is nothing that a society can do to > right the historical balance of suffering once it has happened. This is > unfortunate - tragic even; but it is true. Suffering and death are facts > which transcend the ability of human beings to make amends. > > If you call upon the state to right the suffering of history by visiting > equivalent suffering upon the perpetrator you are implicitly giving the > state a transcendental role in human affairs. You are calling on it as > previous eras called upon God to bring destruction and misery upon their > enemies. But the state does not have a transcendental claim to power. It > has only a pragmatic claim. It can make pragmatic decisions - to remove a > violent man from social intercourse, for instance - but it cannot restore a > community's innocence, or erase suffering. None of us can expect this from > a human institution, and we should never give such an institution the > freedom to act as if it had this transcendental power. > > I don't think there can be a pragmatic argument for the death penalty. If > the death penalty actually reduced the amount of violence in a society then > America would be pretty much the most violence-free place in the world > (after China and Iran). This is to say nothing of the fact, of course, that > sometimes states execute people who are then found to be innocent. In this > situation it really is tough for them to make amends. > > Let not this discussion be cornered by those who support some idea of > retributive justice, and who therefore see the grandest escalation of > violence as the most just and humane. I think the Bushian "double > blackmail" mentioned by Nisha in the discussion on this list has indeed > taken over the debate to an unfortunate degree, and that it has no merit. > It is a depressing, even maddening thing to have to accept that there is no > total, otherworldly justice for horrendous crimes; but let us not become > savage ourselves as a result. > > R > > > Rana Dasgupta > www.ranadasgupta.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: > > _________________________________________ 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 vivek at sarai.net Fri Aug 27 08:43:43 2004 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 08:43:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Fwd: [foil] Guardian Unlimited: The protesters are coming...] Message-ID: <412EA6E7.90800@sarai.net> To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk The protesters are coming... It seemed like the perfect location for next week's Republican convention. But with widespread anti-war feeling, hordes of protesters descending on the city and alleged FBI intimidation fuelling the fear of violence, New York is preparing a noisy reception for President Bush. Gary Younge reports Gary Younge Wednesday August 25 2004 The Guardian Six weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, President George Bush flew to New York to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in the World Series baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The president was finding it difficult to throw the ball in his bulletproof vest. "Are you going to throw from the rubber or the base of the mound?" asked Yankee star Derek Jeter. The rubber, the highest point on the mound, is the point from which a pitcher would usually throw. Bush had been planning to throw from the base, which is about six to 10 feet closer to the home plate. "If you throw from the base of the mound they are going to boo you. You really need to take the rubber," said Jeter. Bush, then at the height of his popularity and leading a nation at war with Afghanistan and in fear of an anthrax attack, asked Jeter if the fans would really be so mean. "Yeah," said Jeter. "It's New York." Three years later, Bush is coming back to New York to a sceptical, if not downright hostile public as the Republicans prepare to kick off their convention on Monday. In an ad broadcast in June to prepare New Yorkers, former Democratic mayor Ed Koch pleaded: "While they're here, make nice. Volunteer to show 'em the ropes. They won't know uptown from downtown. They've never ordered pizza by the slice." But with a week to go, the best they can hope for is that this city, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by five to one, doesn't "make too nasty". It may be in vain. So numerous are the expected protesters at the presence of the "Grand Old Party" in the city that its Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has spoken of them as a marketing opportunity. Last week he offered discounts to Broadway shows, museums, stores and restaurants to those wearing buttons bearing a picture of the Statue of Liberty and the words "peaceful political activists". "It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach, so you might want to try a restaurant," said Bloomberg. "Or you might want to go shopping, maybe for another pair of sneakers for the march." The protesters, meanwhile, are making their own plans. At www.rncnotwelcome.org, a website dedicated to protesting against the convention, a group called the Biotic baking brigade, spells out the basics of how to pie your enemy. Step one: "Choose a worthy target. Any evil pompous evil-doer will do for a glouping." After that, it breaks down the strategy in to bite-size chunks, including, "Plan your pan" and "The meringue is the message". A group of activists plan to ride down Lexington Avenue on bicycles shouting, "The Republicans are coming! The Republicans are coming!", mimicking the 18th-century Massachusetts craftsman Paul Revere who rode a horse through that state warning locals that the British were coming during the American War of Independence. A group of bell ringers, meanwhile, are planning to surround the site of Ground Zero ringing 2,749 bells to commemorate the victims of September 11 and oppose the war. "Visitors to the city at the end of August may see illegal murals with political messages and the city itself may become a giant art installation," warns Liza Featherstone in the leftwing Nation magazine. "Don't be surprised if you're crossing the street and a traffic light flashes 'Beat Bush' instead of 'Don't walk'. " But not all the demonstrations will be unorthodox attention-grabbers. Among the more traditional acts of protest will be a parade of thousands of abortion-rights advocates marching across Brooklyn Bridge; the Hip-Hop summit's poor people's march to Madison Square Garden, where the convention is being held; the 5,000-strong permitless march of the poor being organised by a welfare mother from Philadelphia; and the huge demonstration planned for Sunday, which the demonstrators insist will be in Central Park and the New York Police are adamant will be on the West side highway, but which could reach a million-strong. Reverend Earl Kooperkamp of St Mary's Episcopal Church in Harlem will be hosting between 30 and 50 protesters on the wooden pews of his church, and has persuaded more than 30 other religious institutions to do the same, offering housing to almost 500 people. "As long as they're standing firm against war, working for peace, that's what the church is supposed to be about," he told the New York Times. "We pray every day to a guy called the Prince of Peace." Peace may not be on everyone's mind, however. At least 20,000 security personnel, representing everyone from the Secret Service to civilian units of the Army National Guard, have been mustered. Given that the convention is expected to attract only 48,000 visitors, including delegates, lobbyists and journalists, this is the equivalent to one law-enforcement official for every 2.4 civilians. Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning dozens of protesters who plan to come to New York, asking them all three basic questions: were they planning to be violent, did they know anyone else who was planning violent acts and did they understand that it is a crime, to withhold any information if they might know. The questioning immediately raised concerns about civil liberties, particularly after three young men, who were planning to come to New York from Missouri, were subpoenaed earlier this month and informed that they are part of a domestic terrorism investigation, without being informed on what grounds. "It is part of a national effort to chill dissent in this country," says Bill Dobbs, the spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, which is staging week-long demonstrations in New York during the convention. "And it is always a worry that this kind of intimidation will scare people off." "The FBI isn't in the business of chilling anyone's first amendment rights," says Joe Parris, an FBI spokesman, referring to the right to free speech and free assembly enshrined in the United States constitution. "But criminal behaviour isn't covered by the first amendment." The fact that the focus has shifted from what will be said inside the convention to what might happen outside is a symbol of just how much has changed in the national political mood over the past 18 months. Back in January 2003, when the party declared its choice of New York (over New Orleans and Tampa), it seemed like a shrewd if cynical move. The logic behind both the venue and the timing (the latest of any convention) was to bolster George Bush's status as a war leader, standing firm against terrorist attacks. "What we focused on was that New York was the best background for the convention, growing out of the events of September 11," says Roland Betts, a member of the committee of Republicans assembled by Bloomberg to lobby the White House to come to New York. As recently as July last year, former mayor Rudolph Giuliani was claiming that Bush could even be the first Republican to take the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984. "New Yorkers like strong leaders," he explained at the time. But that was then. In January 2003, when the announcement was made, the nation was facing down the United Nations and preparing for war with Iraq. President Bush had 59% approval ratings, 68% of Americans supported military force against Saddam Hussein and the Democrats were amassing a crowded field of contenders with no obvious frontrunner. Today, Bush's approval ratings stand at 49%, 47% of Americans think going to war was a mistake and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, leads in 13 of the 17 key swing states, if only by a narrow margin in most of them. With the latest poll giving Bush 35% in New York against Kerry's 53% he has about as much chance of taking New York as Saddam Hussein does of taking back Baghdad. Opposition to the war was not insignificant at the time, but it had been marginalised. But the torture scandal in Abu Ghraib, President Bush's premature declaration of victory in Iraq, a stiffer than expected Iraqi resistance, a lack of international support and US military casualties that could reach 1,000 during the convention, have put the war into mainstream political debate. Meanwhile, the findings of the 9/11 commission into the terrorist attacks, the publication of which has become a bestseller, have exposed institutional shortcomings that put a question mark even over what he hoped would be seen as his finest hour. In May last year, the leaseholder of the World Trade Centre, Larry Silverstein, told the Daily News that New York state's Republican governor, George Pataki, wanted to lay the cornerstone to the new building during this year's convention. With the political winds blowing against them, he did it on July 4 instead. "If you were to do something overtly political around Ground Zero you'd get hammered for it, and rightly so," says Michael McKeon, a Republican strategist and a former senior aide to Pataki. Sitting in a field last week just outside Orange, Connecticut, about 20 mostly young people were discussing non-violence. They were about two thirds of the way through a 258-mile march from Boston, scene of the Democratic party convention, toNew York, where they plan to protest. Six miles and several hours earlier they had set off from New Haven, Connecticut, crossing paths with the "Stonewalk" - a procession of family members of 9/11 victims, pulling a 1,400 pound granite memorial honouring the "Un known civilians killed in war", also heading for the Republican convention. Around two thirds of the 50 or so on the march would describe themselves as anarchists, although there are Buddhists, pacifists and others for whom knowing that they could not bear another four years of Bush is enough. "I don't have a problem with people telling the police to go fuck themselves," says one, prompting a debate about the issue of verbal as opposed to physical violence. Also under discussion is the issue of whether to "go limp" or "unarrest people" if the police try to take them away. None of these people have walked all this way to "make nice". But this particular band of vegan, non-hierarchical political travellers are not out to carve great chunks out of the Big Apple either. Like the authorities, however, they feel the need to be prepared if things do spiral out of control. With no venue so far agreed for the main demonstration on Sunday, and tempers rising over the FBI's tough stance, there is plenty of scope for tensions to flare into something more serious. The last time the issue of violence dominated a national political convention was Chicago in 1968. Back then there was a war in a far-off land, a divisive Republican candidate in Richard Nixon and a mayor who pledged not to compromise. The police responded to verbal abuse from protesters and occasional missiles with tear gas and occasional beatings. Connecticut senator Abraham Ribicoff took to the podium to decry "Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago". It was a public relations disaster for the Democrats, and Nixon went on a few months later to defeat Hubert Humphrey. With Kerry taking a moderate stance on the war, these demonstrations have little, if anything, to do with the Democratic party. None the less, many believe that whoever is responsible, a rash of violence so close to the election will once again benefit the Republicans. "If I were a voice in top Republican circles, I might be offering this advice: 'What we need for New York is a large-scale riot,' " wrote Norman Mailer in New York magazine recently, in a public written exchange with his son. "I don't have a great deal of hope that most of the people involved are really thinking of this election so much as expressing the need to vent, to gain some self-therapy." "You do get a sense that the spiritual revolution may be awakening," replied his son, John Mailer, who believes that the protests could provide a focus for a huge anti-corporate movement. "All right," replied Norman. "But if we lose the election, it's going to be a very expensive spiritual education." Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited _______________________________________________ Foil-l mailing list Foil-l at insaf.net http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/foil-l_insaf.net From dknitenine at hotmail.com Wed Aug 25 10:36:26 2004 From: dknitenine at hotmail.com (dknite nite) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 05:06:26 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] family and work Message-ID: Family and Work The coal mining industry in the Jharia coalfield started working from the decade of the 1890s. The laboring masses, in an increasing number, began pouring for colliery work from different parts of South Asia. The Mazdoors who initially joined colliery came mainly from the contiguous areas and neighbouring districts. The males, females, and the children of these Mazdoors families worked together in the collieries. This was true by and large for both the underground and the surface works. I have elsewhere discussed the nature of streams of mining classes taking up colliery work between the 1890s and the 1970s. From the early years of the decade of the 1900s, the migration began to flow from relatively distant areas into the colliery work . They also joined colliery largely as �Family Mazdoors�/family labour. Some of them were, though, single male workers. The latter category of labour swelled in number during the boom period of coal trade (1915-19) and its aftermath . The single female workers also came to occupy a small proportion of the total work force in the decade of the 1920s and the 1930s. They were largely widow woman workers The mining community lived broadly in three kinds of houses in the coalfield. One- those miners who lived in their Bustees in the nearby mines. Second, those who lived in the Dhowrahs obtained from the coal Companies . Third those who lived in self-built huts of mud and straw . The second and third types of homes constituted the predominant forms of the colliery bastis/pada/neighborhoods and grew around each colliery . This relocation around collieries meant the �re-organisation of their lives�. They had to cope with the �colliery working and living contexts� (at the work place and the Dhowrahs). For instance, the mining people who worked in a �family gang�, had to habituate to the situation when women workers were withdrawn from underground work from the decade of the 1920s onwards . In reaction there was at times an exodus from collieries. Some miners protested. Similarly, Mazdoors� families had to struggle and devise ways for sustaining and maintaining the combination between the tasks of production and reproduction (of physique as well as generation). While, the industrial regime worked to redesign the organisation of their lives and scope of familial- social obligation (family/home lives), workers sought to maintain their own conception of family life. This paper is intended to study the following set of questions. What was the form of organisation of �socio-familial relation� of mazdoors? How did they apprehend the �socio-familial time�? In what ways and, how far the labour/time regime in the mines affected the organisation of mazdoors� socio-familial relation? How did the mining community react to the challenges? What extent and why only to that did they succeed in resolving the tension? And what were their experiences of the struggle of adaptation? I explore these issues of the lives of the mining community in the period from the decade of the 1920s and largely till 1940s/60s. In this period, they witnessed the phenomenon of the reorganization of the production process and work force, the gradual removal of the woman workers and the child labour, the consequent subsistence crisis, the precariousness of disruption of the �family/home� life in the coalfield, the adamant and adverse attitude of the coal-proprietors/employers and the state before their demands and, the larger vanility/vanity of their struggle. I What do I understand by the term �family�? We have at least two sets of well acknowledged definitions of �Family�. 1. A group of people tied with each other along the blood- line and sharing one household. 2. A group of people who share a marital and generational bond between each other. And, they are a part of a household economy . The third conception of the family is as follows: the social grouping of the people that is formed through the particular form of sexual life of the human kind and, the system of the consanguinity . I see some limitations in the former two conceptions. They heavily emphasize on �biological ties� & �legal relation�, and household economy. In contrast, a family of a group of people may exist, whose members feel a sense of ties/attachment with each other. And the feeling is both substantial and concrete. I should emphasise here the contention to make a distinction between the household on the one hand and, the family on the other. The former refers the family of the procreation /reproduction as an economic unit; while the family is of orientation /feeling/belief . I have deployed this meaning/ understanding of a family and at places juxtaposed with the historical forms of the family in the subsequent analysis. II There was more than one form of �social- familial organisation� amongst the colliers. [The latter lived and conceived those organisation at different levels]. One form of socio-familial organisation was a �family gang�. They lived in Dhowrahs, allotted to them by companies. The Santhals from Hazaribagh & Santhal Pargana, the Bauris from Burdwan, Bakura & Manbhum, the Rajwars from Manbhum, the Bhuiyans from Monghyr worked in family gangs . These families included the husband, the wife, the children, and even some other kith & kin. But, some of the family miners preferred to live in their houses in bastis, and did not live in � G � � bjbjŽ�#142;� " � � P� p( �� �� �� ] � �� h r r r � � � � 8 � D � G � � bjbjŽ�#142;� " � � P� p( �� �� �� ] � �� h r r r � � � � 8 � D dozen people lived in a small room. The workers preferred to live with fellow workers of their kith or same caste/ territory/ jila (district)/ilaka/gaon- group . I would call these forms of social organisation as a communitarian-family. Some of them were socio-familial group, which did not maintain regular links to the kin living in their bastis of origin. The proportion of this form of labour was very small till the 1920�s. It was around 15% of the total work force . An overwhelming majority of miners maintained their contact with their kin and homes in villages. They were located within an �extended family�. Chitra Joshi has shown largely similar phenomena in the case of Kanpur textile workers. These were Mazdoors from both adjacent and distant areas. The single male workers, who constituted a large section of the miners by 1920�s, were largely of this category. Some of them had to bring their female-folks. It was done for obtaining work of malcuttas, a job with better pay . A great number of male workers could not bring their female counterparts and children. They preferred to work as a trammer, timber-mistri and other surface works, where a family gang did not work. They lived in dhowrahs, in which a group of single male workers lived. They preferred a fellow worker of own kith & kin, of the same Gaon/ elaka (socio-cultural territory, and not essentially administrative one). Over time the para/ dhowrahs developed along the line of caste/ elaka community. We hear of Bhuiya Dhowrahs, Bauri, Paschima Dhowrahs etc. I want to explore whether employers planned such type of housing/ spatial arrangements. This form of configuration of socio-familial relationship led the formation of different cohesive circles of miners. This socio-familial relation was manifest even at the workplace. A sizeable number of miners worked belowground as a family gang. They were not always linked to each other through marital and parental ties. The pairs of malcuttas and loaders of family gangs contained the males and the females of broad socio- familial groupings. Workers preferred to be paired with the colliers of their kin/ caste/ tribe/bastis/elaka. The Kamins, working belowground in the 1910�s and 1920�s, declined to work along side the male workers other, than the members of their �socio- familial groupings�. The Kamins of the social group like, the Santhals, the Rajwars, the Mahtos, the Bhuiyans, the Bilaspuris, some of the Bauris, etc refused to accompany Paschima male miners, as loaders. III The �family labour� and the family working system remained a predominant form of the work unit (if not the production unit)-like in the Assam tea plantation, agrarian society and economy in South Asia-in the coal-mining industry in Jharia till the decade of the 1920s, likewise in the Raniganj coalfield . They were employed in two ways in colliery works. One, they worked belowground in the form of family gangs . Second those working families whose members worked un-unitedly at surface and underground. The family gang included the male, female and the children. They were not always linked to each other through marital and parental ties. The pairs of malcuttas and loaders of family gangs contained the males and the females of broad socio- familial groupings. It has been usual to see that the two woman workers loading coal for the four to six persons. Workers preferred to be paired with the colliers of their kin/ caste/ tribe/bastis/elaka. The Kamins, working belowground in the 1910s and 1920s declined to work along side the male workers other, than the members of their �socio- familial groupings�. The Kamins of the social group like the Santhals, Rajwars, Mahtos, Bhuiyans, Bilaspuris, Mushahrs and some of the Bauris refused to accompany Paschima male miners, as loaders. Some Kamins of the Bauri social group stepped over time to work as loaders with the Paschima male miners. The female-folks was found in higher number than the male-folks between the Bauri social group in 1921 . The male members worked as malcuttas and the female members and the children largely worked as loaders, trammers, water-bailers, etc. in the family gangs in the case of belowground works . They in numerous gangs/Dangles extracted the coal. Each dangal was of 6 to12 colliers. It included mulcuttas, loaders, trammers, mining sirdars etc . Usually male members cut coal, while Kamins gathered �cut coal into a basket usually of 80 bl (80 pound=36 kg). The Kamins then laboriously carried out basket on their head and put the coal into either �tubs� kept at some distance from working faces, or up to bullock cart. They then pushed the tubs forward to the pit bottom. They sometimes, carried them on head at the surface. This form organisation of production process was predominantly in vogue till the decade of the 1920s, when the shift started to take place. A pair of mulcuttas and loaders was found cutting and loading coal on an average, in normal condition, 2 to3 tubs in a day. In the case of the surface work the family working system was involved in the earth cutting and removing works. The toiling people from the regions like Orissa and Nagpur and Bilaspur preferred this work. If the family members worked separately, the male-folks usually worked belowground as timber-Mistries, railway line Mistries, etc.; while the female-folks and the children worked at surface as loaders, wagon loaders, shale-pickers, wooden ginners, and the jobs such as, raising coal from the pit-mouth. They slogged to carry the combined tasks of production and reproduction even at the colliery workplaces. They took their babies and elder children there. The latter members also worked as loaders or shale-pickers along side of their parents. The attempts of combining production and reproduction tasks such as, in minding their babies seem took some time out from work . The employers, however, not only allowed but welcomed the family system of working. This system was the guarantee of acquiring a maximum number of labourers at the lowest wage rate and the fringe benefits. The coal industry continued to struggle for obtaining adequate cheap labour till the early years of the 1920s . The mining condition that characterized by the over all absence of the automated production process and the mechanical power driven machinery, the employment of the family system was to have hardly been non-desirable. While, it helped the employers to secure the labourers only by paying individual wage than paying the family wage to the breadwinners. The colliery employers were, that is why, opposed to the any legislation that restricting the recruitment of the female-filkes . A few big European coal companies, nevertheless, started to bemoan the family system of mining from the early years of the 1920s. The external observers such as T R Rees, Noyce and Foley in the 1920s noticed the �wretched condition� of mining population. I am not informed whether the labour ever waged the battle for or asked for the �family wage�. They entered the colliery work as the family labour. There was, of course, a long tradition of system of family labour in the agrarian fields in the 19thc and the early 20thc among the social groups the miners were drown from . The imperialist colonial state in the disguise of the policy of the laissez faire helped the colliery employers in keeping the wage rate repressed for instance during the period of the 1915-1920. The mining families, nonetheless, never saw the practice of combining the production and the reproduction works as anomalous. For them those tasks were organically associated . L.Barnens in her fieldwork noted that the women workers often narrated with joy �the work they did below ground, the people they worked with, members of their gang- and how they used to sing and work�. Mostly, kamins used to revert back to their village during the period of child bearing and rearing (initial years of it) . The [Santhal] women loaders in the later 1920s revealed that �they often absented themselves for 6 months or one year at the time of childbirth. After this, they could return to the mines &take up employment again�. Thus, Kamins could combine production & reproduction /familial tasks in the collieries at this time, as in the pre colliery days. While� male members could largely continue their work. It has been the conventional conception that the industrial economy created a disjunction between the temporal organisation of productive task and reproductive/ familial �obligations at the work . In the case of Jharia collieries the mine� G � � bjbjŽ�#142;� " � � P� p( �� �� �� ] � �� h r r r � � � � 8 � D � G � � bjbjŽ�#142;� " � � P� p( �� �� �� ] � �� h r r r � � � � 8 � D d the work force, and the consequent changes in the working and the living contexts of the coal miners. I will just critically brief those expositions. The coal industry underwent through the progression of the investment in the technological form of the capital such as, coal cutting machines, underground railway lines, use of the explosives, ventilator fans, electrification, etc . The coal proprietors had fetched a huge profit/ surplus during the boom period between the 1914-20 under the impact of the coal driven war machinery. A great share of it, though, went into the enjoying of the dividends. A small of it was invested in the technological upgrading for reducing the relative cost of labour payment and raising the productivity. The kind of technology was installed that rendered the woman workers in particular redundant for instance from the works of the water-bailing, pushing the tubs from the work face to the pit mouth or at the surface, from the screening and the shale-picking work, etc. L Barnes argued that the installation of the particular verity of the machinery for some job in-itself does not explain the entire story of the removal of the woman workers and the reduction in their number. The selection of machinery for a particular work and for other is in-itself a gendered policy biased against the female-folks. Second the latter were actually replaced by the male-folks both underground and at the surface . The jobs on the newly installed machines were allotted to the male-folks such as on the haulage engine, tramming, water-pup-pumps, line mistry, channak, etc. The male workers also intruded the job of coal loading into the tubs belowground. They were largely distant immigrant miners. Employers adopted a policy of removing woman workers from a certain jobs. These were carried out especially at the big mines-predominantly owned by Europeans. The family majdoors underwent a number of new developments during the 1920s and the 1930s/40s. The changes in the organisation of the production process, means of the production and the organisation of the labour forces were accompanied by the phenomenon of the over arrival of the toiling people, relative slump in the coal trade, the reduction in the number of the operating mines and in the scale of the job opportunity in the Jharia coal field . They mining classes were subject to the process of regidification of labour regime/work regime during second half of the decade of the 1920s. These took place especially in big mines (European owned). These mines had gone through the progression of investment in technological capital. Colliery owners wanted quick and greater return from their investment in technological upgradation, so they also wanted their miners to use maximally those machines and organization of production. Mazdoors, thus, witnessed and experienced the increasing demand from their employers for �greater regularity� at work and greater attention towards it. This resulted in intensification of work for respective miners. This change (business strategy) influenced and was manifest on the employers� discourses of time routine. Employers, managers and supervisory authorities, towards the late 1920s, began to bemoan vociferously against the ostensible �irregular, irrational and non-disciplined/non-efficient working pattern� of Indian miners. From 1925 onwards CIMAR (D.P.Denman), European and big colliery owners agreed-in contrast to their position in previous years-�that women at present keep cost up by hampering the work. They are very largely in the way and prevent speeding up. They lead to difficulties about discipline and that sort of thing reduces output�. Now, the Kamins suffered from their forceful gradual removal from belowground works. It had begun to take place even before the stipulation of the Act of 1929 (seeking the withdrawal of Kamins from belowground). Their withdrawal increased from 1929-30 onwards in all collieries favoring such replacement or/and retrenchment. The small and medium sized collieries- largely owned by the Indian coal proprietors were opposed to the Act. These were the collieries where very low level of technological means of production were installed and the traditional mining techniques based on the manual labour with picks, hovels and baskets were predominant. The women workers continued to carry strenuous work in the quarry mines. But the industrial slump and the subsequent depression in the coal trade during the 1923 and 1936 further aggravated the problem. It caused the gradual closure of the increasing number of the small and the quarry mines in particular. As a result the spaces for the family mining system further shrank. Meanwhile, the presence of the family system of mining swelled owing to two institutional and socio-cultural reasons. The employers also adopted the policy of replacing the old �local � peasant/ tribal workers by the distant immigrant labourers. The replacements of the local� the Santhals, Bauris, and the Ghatwals coal-cutters were accompanied by the resignation of the respective female-folks . The course of the removal of female-folks and the replacement of the old family majdoors predisposed the preponderant family working system to tremble through the reduction in the number of wage earners in their families and the consequent subsistence crisis (?). The condition of the majdoors was further aggravated by the onslaught of the curtailment of the wage rates, and the working days during the period of the 1930-36, a period of coal trade depression in particular. It was around 40% reduction in the wage rates, while between 40to 80 percent in the overall earning of an individual on an average. B R Seth critically overhauled the deteriorating condition of these working class families. I will here just brief it. More than one investigator like T R Rees (1919), Noyce (1920), Foley (1925), Whitely (1930), BLEC (1938) and BR Seth (1934) noted the �pitiable material living condition� of the mining classes during the 1920s and the 1930s. An average real earning of miners was inadequate even to the �minimum basic subsistence needs� of mining household-family consisting on an average 5to 6 persons . It disposed them to the enslaving cycle of indebtedness, observed Royal Commission on Labour in 1930. The condition further deteriorated and the proletariat household families were crippled by the unrecoverable budget deficit and sapping physical and biological existence like relative high child death rate, maternal death rate, etc., owing to the reasons above discussed and some other, noted BLECR and BR Seth. One nevertheless must note that the all these industrial context differentially affected the different segments of the people engaged in the coal mining industry. The coal proprietors continued to reap rather ironically �high percentage of dividends, noted Burrows coalfield committee in 1937. Similarly the managerial and the supervisory staffs-including the sirdar continued to fetch rather a higher wage rates than the real producers like coal cutters, loaders, trammers, timber-mistry, line-man, and the wagon-loaders. The women labour, in general, and the single female breadwinners such as, widow women labourers were disposed to at-most financial hard hit. They were subject to receive rather lower wage rates compared to the male counterparts for the same works . Likewise the different segments of the beneficiaries of coal industry were availed fringe benefits such as, housing, water supply, extra-allowance, medical benefits, etc. The corrupt and the predatory managerial and the supervisory authority favored one group of the miners against other in regard of tub distribution, fines and the deduction, bribes, etc. The �local-tribal� people were predisposed to the loss from this form of function of the mining-regime . Indeed, the colliery employers, stuck with the �mercantilist and �hierarchical� labour economy�, were far short of paying �family-wage� in the Jharia coalfield. These changes- the route of the removal of female-folks and the grip of the proletariat household financial predicaments, made the family majdoors liable to the trembling and �disorganisation� of the old form of the �family/home life�. They could hardly afford the non-working/non-earning members in existing economy of households. On the other hand the delicate order between the colliery works and the reproduction obligation was made liable to �unmanageable�. The child labour of below the age 13 in the colliery was prohibited from 1923 by the mining Act . While, the predatory �social wage policy� of the colliery employers neither provided the financial and housing scope for maintaining the non-earning members for minding the children in the coalfield nor the cr�e facilities and accessible schools . IV How did the �family majdoors� experience and cope with the attempts by mine owners to intensify labour, the predisposition of the decimating �subsistence predicaments� and the onrush on their �household-familial organisation of lives? Mining community adopted more than one strategy to cope with the situation, and they responded in multifarious ways. They now evolved new tactics in order to maintaining a balance between the fulfilment of production and the familial obligation. They initially wilesly contrived to come to term with the regimenting work- discipline. The Kamins hid their children in mines, when white men visited, and left �older� ones in the care of other retired/old women in Dhowrahs, [after the ban on child labour (below 13 years) in 1923]. They were known that they were being removed from the work because they carried their babies at the workplace. While, the white-man considered that practices an �un-civilised� practice and were repugnant to that. The other strategy that some of the �family majdoors�, especially when they consisted only the wife and the husband and an infants, worked out was to put up other families in their in one room, so that when they go to work, they may leave their infant with the members of other families who will go to work in the next shift. Some other families drugged their infant with opium to keep it quiet and to prevent it from being too hungry when the mother�s milk is not sufficient. These option were explored at the cost of the resulting over-crowdedness or the congestion which does not fail to affect the health of the inmates of the room adversely. In other case, as Miss M. Read observed, �it is nothing short of a terrible race suicide because drugged babies seldom grow up to be healthy children� . But these escaping attempts to turn down the onrush of the marginalisation could yield for long in securing the ends. The structural and the institutional reasons responsible for their predicaments were located somewhere else. In contrast, there were three misapprehensions/delusions prevailed among the mining classes in the Jharia coalfield, which guided the formulation, the strategy of adaptation. Besides the one I have already discussed above the rest two were as follows: One, �the woman workers were prohibited from the underground work after an incidence of the women giving birth to a child at work belowground. This incidence officially took place sometimes in the period of the second half of the 1920s� . In the memory of the miners in the Jharia coalfield the incidence is placed at varied date with only common point of reference of the rule of Aungrej. But it has been the popularly well known factor behind the removal of the female-folks. Second, according to a folktale- �young miner used to take in flute belowground and that he plays music, and women would stop work (?), sing and dance, so no work was done. Hence, bosses stopped the women from going down the mine�. Notably, these commonsensical reasons are imbued with the �moral legitimacy�. E P Thompson suggested that the industrial regime also works through instilling its disciplinary rationale in terms of the appealing �moral order� . It will be a worth investigation that in what ways did the mining regime created such favorable order? How and why did the proletariat accommodate that economy of the moral order? I would like to explore further, how colliers came to terms with the new rules and regulations? The Kamins, nonetheless, could not successfully fight against and survive to the gradual process of marginalisation. [The conservative philanthropists, scholars, the �gender biased� labour economy of the employers and the State acted in collusion against the rights of the Kamins to employment]. Being witnessed the venilety at large of the escaping methods some hundreds of family Majdoors remonstrated. Several pairs of the Malcuttas and the loaders -from the Santhals, Bauris and the Bilaspuris social groups in particular, left the coalmines in the years 1930-31 in search of works, in the places they could work together. Some of them concentrated themselves in quarry works in coalfield. A thousand of the male and the female Mazdoors organised a huge protest-demonstration in 1934 in Jamadoba. They asked a stoppage on the removal and retrenchment of the female-folks, and the reemployment of the removed ones. One needs to explore into and analyse the politics of the resistance- the collective mass exodus at time and assertions. There was a tradition/custom of working together and the family migration among these �landless labouring poor� for their sustenance . [They were accustomed to move from one place to another with their wives, who as their helpmates were considered valuable economic assets.] But this custom (and mediating role of it in contrast to the theoretical suggestion of EP Thompson- can not be comprehended without looking at the factuality that the custom) pertained with the dimension of the class relation, B R Seth argued. There was evidence that even if these labourers regarded their female-folks and the children as earning assets, they did not permit them to work so long as their own earnings are sufficient to maintain the family. For instance, a whole class of people, known as the Mahatas, of their own accord, prohibited the employment of their women workers in the post war boom period. When their own earnings had increased, although those women ever since the opening of the Jharia coalfield have been employed both at the surface and underground. Even among the people of other castes, for instances, the labour sirdars though they also belong to the same castes as others who cut, load and tram the coal, did not send their children and the women to work in mines because they earned more than enough to maintain them . But Seth misconceively presumed the �patriarchal character� of the poverty ridden proletariat family. In the latter form of the �household family� the male�folk was hardly the sole or despotic agent of decision making. There is nothing to evince/allude that the female-folks were drawn into the respective collective struggle under the pressure of their male-folks. [In contrary, among the oppressed classes or proletariat all the foundation of the classical monogamy, and male domination are removed. As there was a complete absence of all property, for the safeguarding and inheritance of which monogamy and male domination were established. Moreover, the women were transferred to the labour market and the mines and worked often as the equally crucial breadwinner of the household-family ]. Indeed, The male and the female members of those families used to share household-familial tasks at homes. One old women worker reported to L.Barnes that after returning back from work both she and her husband used to jointly do house works such as, cooking, child-caring etc. Theme of joint work recurs from their joyful memories of working careers. It is also mentioned during the debate on the withdrawal of Kamins participants. Some old Kamins informed me in Dubaree colliery that these Kamins also worked as pioneering architect to build their own houses of mud and straw. An inadequacy of Dhowrahs and of sharing rooms with sometimes more than dozen of members of a socio- family was a problem acutely felt by them . �Women are the manager of homes. The husbands only earn and it is their wives who spend that earning. In shopping their voice is supreme. Comfort and discomfort of the homes depends on the women�, observed Royal commission on labour and Seth . The old woman workers (the Bilaspuris, Bauris and the Santhals) of Dubarre colliery told me that they used to go for marketing to Jharia Bazaar by walking a distance of 2and � miles on the day of rest. Thus the custom of family working system not only �Mediated� in the process of struggle of habituation and reacting to the mining-historical context ridden with the subsistence crisis and the strain in the order of the works of reproduction of the mining classes. But, the latter also �affirmed� the system as a �mitigating-solution�. Furthermore, the male and the female counterparts could work separately at different colliery workplaces. Both had, of course, to take care of their children at the workplaces too. The female-folks felt themselves �unsafe� and/or sentimentally undesirable in working along sides the male-folks of some negotiable community such as paschima, some old kamins reported to L Barnes. Why did the mining classes could not come to resist collectively that onslaught? [ A-(SETH p-100)- absence of the politics of working class solidarity and the geniune and strong labour union. B- detrimental differences and distances and division among the mining classes] They could not, though, succeed in securing a change in the employment policy. Some of the collieries were coaxed to provide alternative works to some withdrawal women workers at the surface . Thais alternative opportunity, though, fell far short compared to a huge number of the workers removed from the underground work in particular or in quest of work. Meanwhile, one of the �proletariat philanthropists�� Kamini Roy advocated the voice of such Kamins and the proletariat family, and also asked for maternity benefit scheme . The existing formal labour unions- Indian colliery employees association, Jharia; Indian colliery labour union; and Tata colliery labour association were not opposed to the removal of the female labourers and that of the �local-aboriginal and the peasant miners. They, in fact, voiced in favour of the 1929 Act in order to bring about ostensible �social (safety and home life) and moral (sexual chastity) reforms in the life of the mining community and industrial progress� (productivity) . They, nonetheless, annually prayed, petitioned and on some occasions agitated for better wage rates, housing, water supply and the medical facilities; and the maternity benefit . The newly immigrant Paschhimas, predominantly single male miners, suggested L Barnes and R Ghosh, largely dominated these unions. Some of the participants in the discussion over the withdrawal of the kamins such as, Royal Commission on Labour recommended relative �wage increase otherwise, the poor miners might get away from colliery works�. It also recommended for the maternity benefit and alternative jobs at the surface to the kamins, so that they could stabilise themselves in the coalfield and become regular workers. One of the trade union leaders- M D Singh- from the second half of the 1930s demanded �family wages� to compensate the loss of income to miners- families. It became one of the core demands of labour unions, in response to withdrawal of Kamins. This in some way helped to de-prioritise the demands/voices of �family-miners�. The provincial government of Bihar and Orissa, led by the Congress between 1937-40 was far short of understanding the reality and real concerns of the coal miners in general and the family miners in particular. I will explore in detail somewhere else the question of the nature and forms of the relationship between the �raj� of the Congress and the question of the labouring masses in the province of Bihar. The Congress government, like the direct British colonial govt. not only approved the so-called top to down imposed social reform policy but precipitated the sinister course of the removal of the kamins from the underground work and asked to be completed by October of 1937. It, however, additionally recommended the compensatory 25% improvement in wage rates. In order to check the retreat of the female-folks to the villages and consequent shattering of the family life, the provincial govt. of bourgeois and non-mining class orientation approved and initiated some ostensible �moral alternative means of livelihood� for the female-folks of the Indian society. The state funded a few weaving and spinning training schools were started in the Jharia coalfield for them. These centres, notwithstanding, could cater only around some hundred of women i.e. a tiny number of female job seekers compared to the thousands of the retrenched kamins. On the other hand, these centres in Jharia and Kustore reportedly suffered from the inadequate grant of the fund from the industry and employment department of the Bihar govt . Moreover, the whole politics of the discourse of the social reforms by the govt. kept itself confined to the hollow big talks and a few aforesaid shortsighted, inadequate and sometimes adverse initiatives. It�s measures- like the British govt, remained noticeable by its absence in the realm of provisioning education facilities to the children of the miners or setting up of the cr�e facilities for the babies of the toiling families in the colliery settlements or recreational facilities such as playgrounds, parks, clubs, library, housing, etc. for the coal-mining population . The BLEC- appointed in 1938, surveyed the working and the living condition in the Jharia coalfield and condemnablly appraised the exploitative and the conservative profit making attitudes of the colliery proprietors. It recommended the state initiatives for the making of �living family wage�, adequate housing, education, cr�e and the recreational facilities to the coal-miners that were engaged in the most hazardous work, while working and living in the sinister, squalor, unpalatable, disgusting, repugnant, sickening conditions. But, the Congress govt. allowed this proposal to fall in the dustbin and nor to be enacted. The 1935 govt. of India Act has granted the power to the provincial govt. for making legislation on its own, if necessary, for ensuring the �living wage or the family wage�. We will see latter that the govt. even refused to intervene in the matter of struggle for improving the wage rates by around 6000 mining people of 4 collieries of the managing agency Bird and company. While, the mining classes remained bravely and desperately on complete strike for round 150 days for demanding just and fair wage rates and treatment from the despotic managerial and the supervisory staffs. Meanwhile, the Jharia Board of Health, on the behalf of colliery proprietors in the light of the recommendations the RCL started the maternity benefits scheme from the late1930 and the early 1931 with an annual fund of 4000 rupees. Under the scheme the colliery proclaimed to pay some monetary aid as maternity benefit to an expected mother, arrangements of trained daies and doctor and the child welfare centres . However, all these were predisposed to fall short of even the liberal recommendations of the RCL or the demands and objective requirements of the mining community. Some of the collieries such as, Kustore started a program for alternative employment to the female-folks of the male miners in order to induce them to remain settled in their colliery and also escape the rising demand of family wage . But, family majdoors desperately struggled to secure scope for continuing wage works. They steeped, in some collieries, to foster a little reprieving practice. The kamins who were laid-off competed for securing work at surface for a few days in a week . Here, they were sometimes predisposed to suffer from the sexual victimisation by Munshi responsible for distribution of works. B L E C in 1938, noted that munshi used to ask for sexual favour from Kamins in return of award of regular employment or maximum number of days in a week. There were a higher number of job seekers including women and men. Munshis tended to exploit this situation . Every one could not grease the palm of munshis. Some Kamins- from the Bauri, Bilaspuris and the Nagpuri social-groups in particular succumbed to this or/and succeeded in obtaining their ends by serving / making such nexus . The formation of such rapport did not essentially disrupt their household-familial relation. In some cases, it led the making of a household-familial relation between those of munshi and Kamins . Illyas Ahmad Gaddi discusses such cases of (live-in) in his novel �Fire Area�. This was also expressed in the folk-tales of a Kamins, I have quoted in chapter one (p-5-6, section-I). It is sometime portrayed in terms of intensified practice of relation of prostitution in the Jharia coalfield. I would, rather like to suggest that one needs to make distinction between operation of �socio-familial� relation, and, of prostitution. The former was beckoned aiming to make earning through tasks of actual production. Now, family miners needed to assert them in one more way. The Kamins had to show their regular presence at work. It required a re-designing of relation between work and the time of child bearing and rearing. To practice the old form of its organisation i.e. to reverting to gaon for a period of � to1 year was �costlier�. In this situation those who could secure jobs started increasing demand for maternity benefits. V Upshots: . _________________________________________________________________ Marriage by choice.... http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag Log onto Shaadi.com. From iyer_renu at rediffmail.com Sat Aug 28 12:31:36 2004 From: iyer_renu at rediffmail.com (renu swaminathan iyer) Date: 28 Aug 2004 07:01:36 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: The beginning of history! Message-ID: <20040828070136.5663.qmail@webmail10.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040828/40ecd669/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------       Note: Forwarded message attached -- Orignal Message -- From: "renu swaminathan iyer" To: ajay.jacob at maximizelearning.com Subject: The beginning of history! -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "renu swaminathan iyer" Subject: The beginning of history! Date: no date Size: 13957 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040828/40ecd669/attachment.mht From sameeraj at bol.net.in Fri Aug 27 11:22:42 2004 From: sameeraj at bol.net.in (Sameera Jain) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 11:22:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Films For Freedom Message-ID: <002801c48bfa$16049360$ecfc5ecb@sameeraj> AN URGENT REQUEST FROM FILMS FOR FREEDOM Films For Freedom (FFF) is an action platform of over 300 Indian documentary filmmakers who came together in August 2003 to discuss, debate and work on issues of censorship and freedom of expression. The Delhi chapter of FFF is planning to observe September as a month of Free Speech. We plan to organise screenings, discussions and seminars at Delhi University, Jawahar Lal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia. The programme will start with a seminar at the Indian Social Institute where speakers from all over the country will participate in a discussion on censorship as it affects people in various creative fields as well as people's movements. You will find some details of the planned programme as well as a background note below. THE ENTIRE EVENT IS BEING PLANNED WITH DONATIONS. We would be grateful if you could contribute towards making this event possible. Donations are needed very urgently, as September is right around the corner! Donations can also be in the form of supporting a part of the expense like printing, transport, equipment rental, stay of guests, etc. The estimated budget for the September events is Rs.300,000/-, and Rs.122,500/- is all we have collected so far! If you would like to know the breakup of the budget, or any further information, do email us at delhifilmarchive at yahoo.com To make a donation, please contact: Mana Shah: mana at ccsindia.org Tel: 26537456 Mobile 31031393 Rahul Roy: khel at vsnl.com Tel: 26515161 Mobile 9810395589 Uma : uma_ftii at yahoo.com Tel: 2606-6015 Mobile 9868005550 Sabina Kidwai : sabina at bol.net.in Tel: Mobile 9810243868 If the contribution is through a cheque, please draw it in favour of Mediastorm, and send it to the following address: Sabina Kidwai C/o Mediastorm F-2 Tara Apartments, Alaknanda New Delhi 110 019 Yours Sincerely, On Behalf of Films For Freedom, Asheesh Pandya, Mana Shah, Rahul Roy, Sabina Kidwai, Uma Tanuku -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A GLIMPSE INTO THE PROGRAMME Beginning with a seminar at the Indian Social Institute, the screenings will run through the month in collaboration with Academic Departments and Student Bodies in the three Universities (Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawahar Lal Nehru University), ANHAD, Nigah Media Collective, School of Arts and Aesthetics(JNU), Pravah, AISA, with activist and voluntary groups, as well as at schools in collaboration with Spic-Macay. 2-4 September, 2004/10 AM to 7:30 PM/ Indian Social Institute (Behind Sai Mandir, near Lodi Road): Celebrating Resistance-- Seminar/screenings/Performances on censorship. Speakers include – Nandinee Bandhopadhyaya on struggles for the rights of the sex workers and the women’s movement, Lawrence Liang on Censorship and the Law, Sudhir Patnaik on peoples movements and the media, Digant Oza on Censorship and the Gujarati Press, Lakshmi Murthy from Saheli on the women’s movements and censorship, Dr. Tanika Sarkar and Shuddhabrata Sengupta on censorship and hate speech, Prashant Bhushan on privatisation, censorship and the judiciary, Shohini Ghosh on censorship and the complexities of looking, Dunu Roy on demolitions, urban poverty and censorship, Vrinda Grover on Lying for the sake of the Nation, Hiren Gandhi on censorship and theatre, Sudhanwa Deshpande on marathi theatre and censorship, Soe Myint on resisting censorship in Burma, Anjali Monterio and Jaysankar on organising of Vikalp in Mumbai, Siddharth Vardarajan on censorship and the Press, Rajendra Yadav (TBC) on Emergency and Censorship, Akshay Khanna and Ponni on Censorship from the queer perspective. Readings from proscribed poetry and prose. Sufi singing from Bikaner. Film screenings 9-10 September: Screenings/Discussion/Speakers at Ramjas College, Delhi University 11 September: Screening/Discussion at ANHAD 13-14 September: Screening/Discussion/Speakers at Kirori Mal College, Delhi University 15 September: Screenings/Discussion/speakers at Miranda House, Delhi University 16-17 September: Screenings/Discussion/speakers at I.P. College, Delhi University 18 September: Screening/Discussion at ANHAD 18-19 September: Seminar/screenings on Documentary form and aesthetics at School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU. 20-23 September: Night Screenings at JNU 22-24 September: Screenings/Discussion/Speakers at Jamia Millia Islamia 25 September: Screening/Discussion at ANHAD 25-27 September: Gender and sexuality Exhibition/Performance by the Nigah Media Collective at the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: delhi_fest at yahoo.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BACKGROUND: Films For Freedom is an action platform of over 300 Indian documentary filmmakers who came together in August 2003 to protest against the attempt by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting to make censor certificates a mandatory precondition for Indian documentaries entered into the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF 2004). The documentary film-making community saw through this apparently innocuous step, recognising it as a part of a wider structure of control and repression, where the rights to free speech, dissent, and even creative expression are increasingly coming under threat in India. In an unprecedented display of collective resistance, filmmakers from across the country organised around the Campaign Against Censorship, and were successful in forcing the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting to drop its attempts to introduce censor certification for the festival. Foiled in its attempt to officially censor films entered at MIFF2004, the organisers subsequently tried unofficial methods to achieve the same: manipulating the selection procedure so as to reject practically every Indian documentary film that explored the times we are living in today. These films told stark but bitter truths about issues relating to communalism, destructive development, globalisation, environment, women’s rights, as well as oppression of marginalised communities. So in February 2004, Mumbai became the location of an unusual mode of cultural resistance, VIKALP : Films for Freedom, a six-day long festival of documentary films. Running parallel to MIFF2004, Vikalp was run by the filmmakers themselves, and the festival showed all the films rejected by MIFF 2004, as well as more than a dozen films withdrawn from MIFF by their filmmakers as a protest against the covert censorship-by-selection. Organised through the personal contributions and voluntary effort of documentary filmmakers, Vikalp was an unprecedented success. From February 4th to February 9th 2004, it screened films to jam-packed audiences, even as the screenings of the official MIFF stood discredited and its venue deserted. But Vikalp was not simply about fighting censorship at one festival. We are all acutely aware of a process of intensifying control in our society. This authoritarian climate has many manifestations, and it appears through different mechanisms that target specific sections of society. This includes the media, the judiciary, as well as organisations and mass movements working on a range of issues related to civil rights, to communalism, to the environment, gender, and labour. This authoritarian regime always needed to use 'official' or 'unofficial' means to bolster its agenda, through agencies of the state like the police, the intelligence apparatus, and the censor board; or through extra constitutional means like the vandalism and violence of organised mobs. Increasingly the arts too have come under the scrutiny of this machine - painters, theatre people, writers, researchers and filmmakers. All over the world, as channels of the mass media become a part of the corporate structure, television and image-making have increasingly withdrawn into an artificial world of make-believe and propaganda, and it has increasingly been left to documentary films to tell the other stories. Documentary films have the ability to enter the real lives of people, and the inner spaces of people’s struggles, their triumphs and setbacks. They have ripped apart the facades created by the propaganda machines of industrial and political empires, they document important social events and present reflective journeys that question, disturb and inspire. And since they challenge, and seek to free, it is obvious that attempts will be made to control them, bind them and prevent their dissemination. We are aware that the best way to resist censorship is to speak more, speak louder and speak from all corners of the country. Throughout the Campaign, an important premise has been that the fight against censorship is not just between filmmakers, artists, writers, journalists and academics and those in power (and those who would wield extra-constitutional authority). The Campaign believes that to fight censorship it is essential to energise a strong screening culture, because public opinion (in the form of audiences) is an important part of our struggle. In keeping with our commitment to do so, the Campaign Against Censorship is offering films from Vikalp for circulation to the widest possible community of viewers. We believe that the battle against censorship will continue to be fought in courtrooms and with censor boards, but ultimately it is the swelling numbers of our viewers who will release us from restrictions. We hope that the screenings will trigger questions, spark off debate and forge alliances with many others. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040827/51772d72/attachment.html From whatpot at rediffmail.com Fri Aug 27 16:42:48 2004 From: whatpot at rediffmail.com (VAIbhaV) Date: 27 Aug 2004 11:12:48 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Response: The recombined manifesto Message-ID: <20040827111248.21463.qmail@webmail18.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040827/2f20fb3f/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- Dear everyone, This is the first time I'm on the list and I apologize to some of you for the late reply. I only checked mail today. Sunil quoted: Woah. So should I stop working to put Linux on refurbished computers? No that’s certainly not what i am trying to say and I do realize that the statement is very open ended for various interpretations. Infact Sunil, having refurbished computers running microsoft would be ill! Your act of "reconfiguring" the machine by installing linux makes perfect sense and duly complies with the manifesto ;-) ha! This is exactly what I am trying to say but I think I don’t say it very well. I had anticipated a response such as yours but went ahead by keeping that statement in. Here is part of another response that I received from Pallavi Raina and I think its also on these lines that I made that statement: Technology in and of itself isn't a bad thing. Technology in the hands of a global economic system hell bent on destroying everything and everyone in its path and turning us into a Third World full of serfs certainly is, but technology isn't. So i guess it's all about whose "hands" it is in or rather whose hands we are ready to submit our work to (the community or the "vested"). In many ways it is also about every individual working with ICT and social development being his/her own evaluator of his/her work and the implications that arise from it. But i do agree that this manifesto is full of jargon and comments on territory I haven't fully explored (who has?) but should that stop me from searching and expressing? If yes, then what would you call a "process of learning" or "discovery” or "iteration"? In response to Pallavi: Yes i would certainly want to read the book you have recommended but would also add that I will never know "enough"(i dont know about you though! :) ). It's only that i have to keep working at it. Thanks a lot for the mail it has helped me think further. I apologize if this sounds extremely preachy but i dont intend to. Do let me know if i have done a good job on PR considering that this is my first post on any of the lists (in case I annoyed some people with the manifesto) :) For now the only other :) thing i would like to say is that this working document is amendable and infact it would be great to see other versions or further "recombinations" of it (i.e if you find it worth the effort). Thankyou all Vaibhav Bhawsar Student of Communication Design Srishti, Bangalore ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The recombined manifesto 12:58 PM 8/20/2004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In this world every individual has been coded, encrypted and protected. He is so because he has been immunized. Immunized so that he is complacent, acquiescent and private. He fears what rules him. This manifesto and the acts arising from it intend to be malicious and malignant to that very individual's codification. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We are artists, craftsmen, designers, musicians, writers, engineers, lawyers, philosophers and economists, and are essentially dreamers. Our acts arise from the dream space and notions of a perfect world. We believe its necessary to operate from such notions and spaces that are non-rational, poetic, and irreducible because we believe in the transitory state of both the world and its ideas. We believe in the subjective individual over the objective and complacent one. We believe ones personal feelings and opinions can have profound influences on the community and also bring temporariness to ideas and beliefs floating within the community by challenging and debating over the consensus. Whatever code we hack, be it myths, cultures, traditions, rituals, beliefs or language - we hack the new out of the old. With the old we produce new worlds or new things that are not always great things, or even good things, but new things. We believe division and distribution of information is a fundamental act of extending knowledge and we situate such acts and their preservation in open and unconditional frameworks. We continuously hack our path thorough existing flows of information and topography created by the institutions, the state and establishments to embrace such spaces with our acts that produce alternative processes of knowledge creation and exchange. We reclaim the information space by providing autonomous free platforms and networks for communication. We liberate information itself. We reclaim the public space as a place of choice and expression through fearless speech. We reconstruct the idea of the chowpal, the piazza and the agora as a place for the people and by the people. We disown all efforts that propagate technology specifically ICT in the name of social development across developing nations. We consider such efforts as pretentious and having vested interests. We are not an economy for the refurbished. We camouflage using contradiction. We visit both the sides, we walk black and white through the grey. We constantly reconfigure ourselves through contradiction and contradistinction. To us originality is a far gone concept. There is no individual creator today. We all are part of the remix machine called globalization, a meme in itself. We are the remix culture. We copy, recombine and re-present memetically. *** From amanmalik000 at hotmail.com Fri Aug 27 18:44:52 2004 From: amanmalik000 at hotmail.com (Aman Malik) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 18:44:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] An important press release and a personal request Message-ID: ST. STEPHEN'S COLLEGE AND PRECONCEPT CREATE SCHOOL FOR LEGAL STUDIES The St. Stephen's School for Legal Studies The School for Legal Studies is the result of a collaborative effort by St. Stephen's College and Preconcept. The School is an innovative step in advancing practical legal training. The focus will be on legal management, including issues like managing litigation and commercial confrontation, managing an intellectual property portfolio in India and abroad and training managers and in-house counsel in working with external legal counsel. The School for Legal Studies is a research and learning centre for basic and advanced legal management. The School will not focus on traditional aspects like degree programmes and will instead focus on "practising law". The programmes whether taught courses or research projects will be based on ground level implementation of law and policy. The courses are structured and taught by practising legal professionals whether in professional service or in the Government. The Director, Rodney D. Ryder, emphasises that the School for Legal Studies would be at the forefront with "innovative legal education at the school level as well". "The School", he said, "would focus on Legal Novitiate Education with path breaking concepts such as how to be a good client". The unique aspect would be the industry - community interface and the concept of 'the law as strategy'. The School for Legal Studies has Centres for Technology Law and Policy, Intellectual Property and Media Law Studies. During the present academic year (2004-2005), the School will conduct workshops and training programmes, such as 'Patent Law for Engineers', 'Brand Protection and Trademark Law for Marketers', 'Data Protection and Corporate Compliance' and 'Intellectual Property and the Art of War for the Sales Team'. This year, the School has introduced diploma courses, such as: 'Internet Law and Policy' and 'Intellectual Property: Law, Practice and Management.' [a] Internet Law and Policy [a course in cyberspace law and practice] The topics in the course cover the most pervasive and general forms of regulation that can affect most types of transactions, publications and other interactions in cyberspace. The legal content of the course is based on the laws of India, considered in its international context. [b] Intellectual Property: Law, Practice and Management This course aims to provide an introduction to the law, economics and management of Intellectual Property (IP) and innovation for those whose future career may involve the management of IP and innovation. It is intended for those for whom Intellectual Property will play an important role in their work. About the Institutions St. Stephen's College St. Stephen's College occupies a prominent position in the educational firmament of India and in Indian society. In the recent years, 'College' has pioneered the development of the Centre for Mathematical Studies and the Centre for Media Studies. Under the aegis of the College St. Stephen's School for Legal Studies has emerged. The St. Stephen's School for Legal Studies is an international centre for legal education and research at St. Stephen's College, Delhi to promote legal education, training and research. The School for Legal Studies has developed specialised and structured programmes with the vision of enhancing the process, mechanism and delivery of legal education. Preconcept Preconcept is a full service corporate law firm, with a cutting edge specialisation in intellectual property and technology laws. Apart from advising clients and providing consultancy services, Preconcept is dedicated to identifying, building and expressing the right idea for the promotion of legal education at every level. [www.preconcept.org] The Director The program is run under the expert guidance of Rodney D. Ryder who is presently Advisor to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India on the implementation of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Mr. Ryder has been nominated as a 'Leading Lawyer' in the areas of Intellectual Property and Information Technology and Communications by Asia Law, Who'sWhoLegal amongst other International publications. He is an alumnus of St. Stephen's College. For further information, please contact: Kumar Saurabh Project Co-ordinator Legal Novitiate Programme saurabh at preconcept.com [0.9891115000] For further details, please visit the website at: www.preconcept.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040827/fae66422/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shivamvij at gmail.com Sat Aug 28 22:09:39 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 22:09:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] films on water Message-ID: From: Sanjay Versain Subject: Short films invited Hi people, We need few films on water to be shown at a `Water event in Shimla' scheduled to be held on October 30/31th.. The duration of the films should be 10 to 30 minutes and strictly relating to water and water issues. Remember, it is not a film festival but a fresh water awareness event of which `film screening' would be a part. Anyone interested may write to me at :- s_versain at yanoo.com -- I poured reason in two wine glasses Raised one above my head And poured it into my life From rmazumdar at vsnl.net Sun Aug 29 15:45:51 2004 From: rmazumdar at vsnl.net (Ranjani Mazumdar) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:45:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] seminar against censorship Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20040829154526.02cec8b8@mail.vsnl.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040829/b871f816/attachment.html From eye at ranadasgupta.com Sun Aug 29 15:41:52 2004 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:41:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Outsource your own job Message-ID: <4131ABE8.6050209@ranadasgupta.com> Cross-posted from Undercurrents list. R Outsource Your Job to Earn More! Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: "About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing." Full Story: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/769493.cms From rmazumdar at vsnl.net Sun Aug 29 15:50:21 2004 From: rmazumdar at vsnl.net (Ranjani Mazumdar) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:50:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] seminaragainst censorship Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20040829154923.02cf8b50@mail.vsnl.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040829/4733ef18/attachment.html From rmazumdar at vsnl.net Mon Aug 30 08:34:16 2004 From: rmazumdar at vsnl.net (Ranjani Mazumdar) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 08:34:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: FINAL SCHEDULE for SEMINAR ON CENSORSHIP & FREEDOM Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20040830083226.0222b148@mail.vsnl.net> > >Dear Friends, > >Please find below the programme schedule of the seminar on censorship >being organized by the Delhi chapter of Films For Freedom as part of the >month long September festival. The seminar is scheduled from 2-4 September >at the Indian Social Institute, New Delhi. We look forward to the active >participation of FFF members. Needless to say we would be delighted if >members from outside Delhi join us in these celebrations. > >In Solidarity > >Amar, Rahul, Ranjani, Saba, Sabeena Gadihoke, Sanjay Kak, Shikha Jhingan, >Shohini, Vani > >Resisting Censorship /Breaking Silences: > >Celebrating Freedom of Expression > >September 2, 3 & 4, 2004 > > >Location: Indian Social Institute (ISI) > >(Behind Sai Mandir, near Lodi Road) > >Day I: September 2, 2004 10:00 AM -11:00 AM > >Inauguration & introduction: Amar Kanwar & Shohini Ghosh > >Reading from Proscribed Literature by Gauhar Raza and Shefali Bhushan > >Film Screening: To be announced > >Lunch: 1:00 PM to: 2:00 PM > >PANEL I: The Freedom of Press & Moments of Crisis: Business, politics and >censorship > >(2PM- 3PM) > >Digant Oza, Ahmedabad : > >Siddhartha Varadarajan, The Hindu, Delhi > >Rajendra Yadav, Delhi : > >D. Vinod, Delhi > >Chair: Amit Sengupta, Tehelka, Delhi > >3PM-3: 30PM: Discussion > >Break: 3:30PM-4PM > >Panel II: Theatre and Free Speech (4PM-4: 40PM) > >Sudhanva Deshpande, Delhi : > >Hiren Gandhi, Ahmedabad : > >Chair: Sanjay Maharishi > >4:40-5PM: Discussion > >5PM-5: 30PM: Plenary Speaker: > >Vrinda Grover, Lawyer, Delhi: "Lying for the sake of the Nation" > >5:30PM- 6PM: Break > >FILM: To Be Announced > >Day II: September 3, 2004 > >Panel II: Sexuality, Identity and censorship (10AM- 11AM) > >Charu Gupta, Delhi: Gender, identity and the politics of everyday sphere > >Hasina Khan, Aawaz-e-Niswaan, Mumbai: The complexities of multiple >identities- breaking boundaries > >Akshay Khanna & Ponni (PRISM & Nigah Media Collective), Delhi: Censorship >from a queer perspective > >Chair: Gargi Sen > >11AM-11: 30 AM: Discussion > >Break: 11:30PM-12PM > >12PM-1PM: FILM - TBA > >Panel III: Censorship & the Women's Movement (2PM-3: 30PM) > >Manjeet Rathi (AIDWA), Delhi: > >Laxmy Murthy (Saheli), Delhi: > >Nandinee Bandopadhyay (Durbar Mahila Samanway Samiti), Calcutta > >Chair Sabeena Gadihoke > >Break: 3:30PM-4PM > >4PM-4: 30PM: Plenary Speaker: > >Shohini Ghosh, Delhi: "Looking in Horror & Fascination: Sex, Violence and >Spectatorship" > >5:00 PM: Introduction: Vibodh Parthasarathy & Mukhtiyar Ali > >Sufi singing from Bikaner > >Day III: September 4, 2004 Panel IV: Resisting Censorship (10AM-11: >30PM)Dunu Roy, Delhi > >Sudha Bhardwaj ( Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha ) TBC > >Vimal Thorat, Delhi (TBC) > >Soe Myint, ( Mizzima News & Burmese Media Association ) > >Chair: Dilip Simeon > >11:30AM-12PM: Discussion > >12PM-12: 30PM: Break > >12:30PM-1: 15PM: Plenary Speaker: > >Sudhir Patnaik, Orissa: "Development, Politics and Censorship" > >1:15PM-2PM: Lunch > >Panel V: Censorship & the Problematic of Hate Speech (2PM-3PM) > >Shuddhabrta Sengupta, Delhi > >Lawrence Liang, Bangalore > >Tanika Sarkar, Delhi > >Chair: Shohini Ghosh > >3PM-3: 30PM: Discussion > >3:30PM-4PM: Break > >4PM-4: 30PM: Plenary Speaker: > >Lawrence Liang: "Law, Cinema and censorship" > >5PM-6PM: > >Panel VI: Future Directions for Films for Freedom: Open House > >Anand Patwardhan, Mumbai (TBC) > >Surabhi Sharma, Bangalore > >Sanjay Kak, Delhi > >Gargi Sen, Delhi > >Chair: Rahul Roy > >6:00 PM: Closing Film: To be Announced > > > >*Films For Freedom is an action platform of over 300 Indian documentary >filmmakers who came together in August 2003 to work on issues of free >speech by promoting the screening of documentaries and generating >discussions on the form, politics and aesthetics of documentaries. > >All over the world, as channels of the mass media become a part of the >corporate structure, television and image-making have increasingly >withdrawn into an artificial world of make-believe and propaganda, and it >has increasingly been left to documentary films to tell the other stories. > > >Documentary films have the ability to enter the real lives of people, and >the inner spaces of people's struggles, their triumphs and setbacks. They >have ripped apart the facades created by the propaganda machines of >industrial and political empires, they document important social events >and present reflective journeys that question, disturb and inspire. And >since they challenge, and seek to free, it is obvious that attempts will >be made to control them, bind them and prevent their dissemination. > >The Delhi chapter of the Films For Freedom has announced that September >2004 will be the Month of Free Speech. Beginning with a seminar at the >Indian Social Institute, the screenings will run through the month in >collaboration with Academic Departments and Student Bodies in the three >Universities (Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawahar Lal Nehru >University), ANHAD, Nigah Media Collective, School of Arts and Aesthetics >(JNU), Pravah, AISA, with activist and voluntary groups, as well as at >schools in collaboration with Spic-Macay. > >2-4 September, 2004/10 AM to 7:30 PM/ Indian Social Institute (Behind Sai >Mandir, near Lodi Road): Resisting Censorship /Breaking Silences: >Celebrating Freedom of Expression. > >Speakers include - Nandinee Bandhopadhyaya on struggles for the rights of >the sex workers and the women's movement, Lawrence Liang on Censorship, >the Law and Cinema, Sudhir Patnaik on Development, politics and >Censorship, Digant Oza on Censorship and the Gujarati Press, Lakshmi >Murthy from Saheli on the women's movements and censorship, Dr. Tanika >Sarkar and Shuddhabrata Sengupta on censorship and hate speech, Vimal >Thorat on dalit literature an censorship, Shohini Ghosh on censorship and >the complexities of looking, Dunu Roy on censored citizenship, Vrinda >Grover on Lying for the sake of the Nation, Hiren Gandhi on censorship and >theatre, Sudhanwa Deshpande on marathi theatre and censorship, Soe Myint >on censorship in Burma, Siddharth Vardarajan on censorship and the Press, >Rajendra Yadav on Emergency and Censorship, Akshay Khanna and Ponni on >Censorship from a queer perspective, Charu Gupta on Gender, identity and >the politics of everyday sphere. > >Readings from proscribed poetry and prose. Sufi singing from Bikaner. Film >screenings > >FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: delhifilmarchive at yahoo.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > >------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> >$9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. >http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/pDJolB/TM >--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> > > >Yahoo! Groups Links > ><*> To visit your group on the web, go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vikalp/ > ><*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > vikalp-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > ><*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > From abshi at vsnl.com Mon Aug 30 12:01:58 2004 From: abshi at vsnl.com (abshi at vsnl.com) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 11:31:58 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] The Sexuality and Rights Institute Message-ID: The Sexuality and Rights Institute: Exploring Theory and Practice, January 8-22, 2005, Pune The Sexuality and Rights Institute is an annual two week long residential course that focuses on a conceptual study of sexuality. It examines the interface between sexuality and rights and its links with the related fields of gender and health. The Institute also aims to further the analytical skills of participants to critically examine how various strategies and practices in the field of sexual and reproductive health affirm or violate the rights of individuals. Participants examine sexual and reproductive health programs as well as various legal and socio-cultural issues and incorporate their learning into planning and working on programmes. Sexuality spans multiple disciplines and areas of work. Accordingly, the course content of the Sexuality and Rights Institute draws from different social science disciplines. Course themes cover: Sexuality and Rights; Sexuality, Gender and the Legal System; Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights; Sex work, Sexuality and Rights; Agency and Victimhood; Representation of Sexuality; Sexual Diversities and Rights; and Sexuality and Disabilities. National and international faculty teach the courses. They employ different pedagogical methods including classroom instruction, group work, case studies, simulation exercises, fiction and films. The faculty at the 2005 Sexuality and Rights Institute includes: Radhika Chandiramani, Shohini Ghosh, Manisha Gupte, Dilip Menon, Nivedita Menon, Alice Miller, Geetanjali Misra, Janet Price, Tanika Sarkar and Carole Vance. The medium of instruction and discussion is English. Individuals working on issues of sexuality, rights, health or gender are eligible to apply. A maximum of twenty-five participants are selected each year, based on their applications and personal interviews. Women are especially encouraged to apply. Candidates must be fluent in English. Participants are required to stay for the whole duration of the course. The Sexuality and Rights Institute will hold its fourth course from January 8-22, 2005 in Pune, Maharashtra. Participants stay on campus in twin-sharing accommodation. The Institute covers costs of lodging and boarding. Participants from international organisations will cover their own costs. Participants are expected to contribute Rs. 5000/- towards the course and cover their own travel expenses. The Institute is a collaborative initiative of CREA (Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action) and TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues). Both CREA and TARSHI are registered non-profit organisations. Based on a vision of the right to sexual well-being for all people, TARSHI works towards expanding sexual and reproductive choices in people’s lives. CREA empowers women to articulate, demand, and access their human rights by enhancing women’s leadership and focusing on issues of sexuality, reproductive health, violence against women, women’s rights, and social justice. For other information, please contact The Sexuality and Rights Institute at the address given below. Application forms may be photocopied and distributed, and may also be submitted electronically. The last date for submission of application forms is October 7, 2004. The Sexuality and Rights Institute 11 Mathura Road, 1st Floor, Jangpura B, New Delhi-110014, India. Tel: 91-11-243136967, Fax: 91-11-24314022 Email: sexualityinstitute at vsnl.net Website: www.sexualityinstitute.org From shivamvij at gmail.com Mon Aug 30 15:17:07 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:17:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [News] Media council to replace Press Council of India Message-ID: Media council to replace Press Council of India http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=083018 Hyderabad, Aug 29: The Centre is contemplating the constitution of a media commission and media council in the wake of proliferation of media agencies, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr S Jaipal Reddy said today. 揟his will not be merely a third press commission as the government is very actively considering constitution of a media commission covering the entire gamut, including electronic media,?the minister said while releasing here the Press Academy of Andhra Pradesh publication Telugu Patrikalu authored by senior Journalist and former academy chairman, Mr Potturi Venkateswara Rao. Expressing concern over the 搒ensationalisation?of content, the Union minister said the government was also contemplating setting up a media council to replace the Press Council of India, which he termed a 損owerless body? Mr Reddy said the proposed media commission would examine various issues in the wake of the emergence of the electronic media in a big way since the constitution of the last press commission 20 years back. The Union minister said he would examine the demand for establishing a branch office of the Registrar of Newspapers in India at Hyderabad. The Andhra Pradesh Press Academy president, Mr I Venkat Rao requested the minister to extend financial assistance for digitalisation of Telugu newspapers. He pointed out that the academy had now taken up research, publication and computerisation of telugu periodicals and newspapers. Mr Venkateshwar Rao said it took him nearly 5 years to compile the book, telugu Patrikalu. He requested the press academy to post updates on the continuing research on newspapers, on its website for the benefit of future generations. Mr K Srinivasa Reddy, resident editor, Vishalandhra, Mr R J Rajendra Prasad, former resident editor, The Hindu, and information and public relations commissioner, Mr R V Ramana, highlighted the various aspects of the book and said it was a valuable book for Telugu journalists. From shivamvij at gmail.com Mon Aug 30 15:18:37 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:18:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=98Policy_Initiatives_To_Propel_Ne?= =?utf-8?q?wspaper_Growth_In_India=E2=80=99?= Message-ID: 'Policy Initiatives To Propel Newspaper Growth In India' By NIVEDITA MOOKERJI Monday, August 30, 2004 at 0000 hours IST NEW DELHI: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=67276 It's a study in contrast in some ways for China and India. Although government initiatives may have an adverse impact on newspapers in People's Republic of China, they'll be helpful for India, according to a Price-waterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey. In the case of China, it talks about government ending newspaper subsidies; and for India, it refers to relaxation of foreign investment norms. But, in terms of advertising, China and India show similar trends in the newspaper publishing industry. Under the new regulations in China, "provinces are permitted to fund only two publications and cities, only one. Moreover, government agencies and their employees will no longer be required to purchase newspapers." That led to cut in fundings for papers and resul-ted in closings. "We expect a near-term decline in unit circulation and in circulation spending...," it points out. However, according to PwC, the China market will stabilise in 2006. Coming to India, the study 'Media Outlook 2004-2008' refers to 26 per cent foreign direct investment allowed in print media in 2002. Due to this development, "we look for circulation spending growth in India to average 4.8 per cent compounded annually during the next five years," it adds. Head of entertainment and media practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deepak Kapoor, told FE: "We project the newspaper publishing industry in Asia/Pacific will expand at a 2.7 per cent compound annual rate, from $41.4 billion in 2003 to $47.3 billion in 2008." He added that "the highest of this projected growth will be in India at 6.9 per cent compound annual rate fuelled by government initiatives and potential market size in India." Also, India is emerging as a promising market for new publications given its growing role in international business, he said. Due to a hike in FDI limits in the newspaper publishing sector, "a lot more action is likely to be seen from the global players wanting to invest in this sector," according to Mr Kapoor. In terms of advertising, it was a mixed market in 2003, said PwC. Both India and China, recorded 20 per cent increase in newspaper ads. In Asia-Pacific region, Thailand was up 11.6 per cent, while Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore registered decreases. On the whole, advertising in this region across newspaper publishing industry is expected to increase to a projected $24.2 billion in 2008, from $19.3 billion in 2003. From definetime at rediffmail.com Sun Aug 29 17:39:41 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (sanjay ghosh) Date: 29 Aug 2004 12:09:41 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (fwd) Britain dragged into coup plot Message-ID: <20040829120941.17882.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040829/eac6c7e8/attachment.html -------------- next part --------------   Britain dragged into coup plot Antony Barnett, Martin Bright and Patrick Smith Sunday August 29, 2004 The Observer One of Sir Mark Thatcher's key business partners has turned 'state witness' and is alleged to have given dramatic new evidence to South African police investigating Thatcher's role in the alleged coup to overthrow the President of Equatorial Guinea. The revelation comes as speculation mounts over what British and US officials knew about the alleged plot and when. Insiders claim that officials in both countries were aware of a planned attempt to topple the leader of the oil-rich west African state, although both governments have denied this claim. Thatcher's business partner, former crack mercenary pilot Crause Steyl, is believed to have handed over details of Thatcher's investment in an aviation firm that had contracts with Simon Mann, the old Etonian and former SAS officer in jail in Zimbabwe. The former Prime Minister's son was arrested in Cape Town last week over accusations that he helped finance the alleged coup that aimed to overthrow President Obiang and replace him with the exiled Opposition leader Severo Moto. The Observer, which first revealed details of Thatcher's alleged involvement in the coup last month, has been told by South African sources that Steyl accompanied Moto to the Canary Islands on the eve of the day the alleged putsch was to happen. They were flown from Madrid to the islands in a South African-registered King Air 200 by a stunt pilot and landed in the morning of 7 March. The plane is then reported to have flown on to the Malian capital of Bamako where Moto awaited news from the mercenary leaders. The next day, the Boeing 727 carrying Mann and his crew of more than 60 mercenaries was impounded in Harare and those on board arrested. Steyl's evidence could be highly damaging to Thatcher, who faces 15 years in jail after being charged last week with helping to finance the mercenary plot to topple the President. The government of Equatorial Guinea is requesting an interview with Thatcher in South Africa and is hoping to having him extradited to face trial there. Thatcher's defence team in Cape Town - which insists he is innocent of all charges - believes Steyl is emerging as central to the prosecution and say they have been told to stay away from him. The lawyers suspect that Steyl has given the South African police a detailed affidavit containing several statements. Steyl was unavailable for comment. The Observer has obtained details of the contract signed by Steyl and Mann on 16 January to provide aircraft and aviation services. Steyl is alleged to have persuaded Thatcher to invest $250,000 (£139, 586) in a joint venture between a company called Triple A and Mann's Guernsey firm Logo Ltd to provide aircraft and aviation services. Thatcher's friends insist the investment was a 'peripheral one' in a flying doctor service and that the initials Triple A stand for Air Ambulance Africa. Similar cover stories have been used in mercenary operations, South African intelligence sources say, but Thatcher's friends say that his relationship with Steyl may be 'exaggerated and misinterpreted'. Mann's associates say he relied increasingly on Steyl's experience in running air operations as plans for the coup plot played out this year. The two first met when Mann established Executive Outcomes in South Africa in the early Nineties and won a contract to run military operations in support of the Angolan government's operations against Unita rebels. Steyl worked on several other private military operations such as the Executive Outcomes contract in Sierra Leone. It was Steyl and another former mercenary who arranged the leasing from US Dodson Aviation of the Boeing 727-100 which was seized in Zimbabwe with 70 former South African soldiers on board last 7 March. Steyl's brother Neil was piloting it, and has been held in Harare since March. One of Steyl's associates suggested that it was concern for his brother's fate that prompted Crause Steyl to start co-operating with the Zimbabwean and South African investigations. As further details emerge of the extraordinary coup plot, speculation is mounting over the role played by western intelligence agencies in the alleged plot to oust Obiang. An individual intimately involved in the alleged coup has claimed that British officials were aware of the plot to replace Obiang with Moto. South African sources claim the rumours of the coup were circulating among diplomatic circles in Pretoria ear lier this year - although the Foreign Office denies any 'prior knowledge'. The allegation that British officials knew about the potential illegal coup comes amid claims from British and Spanish intelligence agencies that French spies helped to scupper the plot. It is also claimed that the US and Spanish security services were involved in the plot to replace the dictator of the tiny West African state, which has vast oil reserves. Although it is not suggested that British intelligence was complicit in any coup plot, the claim that some officials might have had advance knowledge of the attempted putsch has prompted opposition politicians to demand a statement from the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, last night called on the government to come clean about its knowledge of the operations. Last night the Foreign Office categorically denied that it had any 'prior knowledge of the alleged plot'. The Observer has learnt that in February this year there was a meeting at the London headquarters of the Royal Institute of International Affairs on the future of Equatorial Guinea. It is known that there was at least one government official present as well as representatives of the oil industry. According to sources present, there were active discussions about rumours of coup plots there. Mann is accused of being the mercenary leader hired by mysterious business and political figures involved in an old-fashioned battle to control the oil reserves. Up for grabs was a huge multi-million pound bounty of cash plus a share of lucrative oil concessions. Many in the intelligence community are asking whether a hidden hand was played by Western powers. Some suggest American, Spanish and British interests offered their backing to exiled Moto. On the other side were the French, who believed a successful coup would have cemented US domination in the country, where US oil giant Exxon Mobil already enjoys the most important drilling concessions. British intelligence sources have suggested that the French learned of the plot and helped to sabotage it. Spanish intelligence sources have made similar claims. Former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar was a close ally of the exiled Moto, who lived in Madrid. Mann, who was found guilty on Friday in a Zimbabwean court of attempting to buy arms for the botched coup, confessed to Spanish involvement in plot. The Spanish government has denied this claim. But it has emerged that earlier this year two Spanish warships left the Nato naval base based near Cádiz. One of the frigates had on board 500 elite troops and the soldiers are reported to have been told they were heading for Equatorial Guinea. Nick du Toit, one of Mann's alleged accomplices arrested in Equatorial Guinea, told the country's court last week: 'The Spanish government would recognise the Moto government and it had the blessing of some American higher-up politicians.' Moto has dismissed the coup plot as 'complete fiction'. It was Du Toit who named Thatcher in a statement last week that led to his arrest. Thatcher's alleged involvement first emerged when The Observer obtained details of two letters written by Mann from prison referring to the former Prime Minister's son as 'Scratcher'. Antony.barnett at observer.co.uk From ritika at sarai.net Tue Aug 31 09:48:06 2004 From: ritika at sarai.net (Ritika) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 09:48:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] urban environment workshop: Call for papers Message-ID: <4133FBFE.4060105@sarai.net> The call for papers for the Urban Environments Workshop has been extended upto 15 september. November 3 - 4, 2004 Sarai-CSDS, Delhi The Sarai programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi is organizing a workshop on Urban Environments on 3rd and 4th November, 2004. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together ideas and engagements regarding the issue of environment in the cities of South Asia. We hope to generate discussions regarding the conceptual tools through which to address urban environments and also concerns around specific issues such as water, waste, pollution etc. In the recent past, environment has emerged as a major issue in urban politics in the cities of South Asia that has elicited a fair bit of response in the media, and a more limited one within the academia. In this workshop we expect to sharpen these debates through a more historically situated engagement with the notion of 'urban environment'. In our reckoning, there are a wide variety of issues that are covered under this rubric - from slums, waste and nuisance to sanitation, parks, pollution etc. The analytical frames through which the various issues have been understood and acted upon - politically, socially, aesthetically etc. - have changed over time. Similarly, the institutional arrangements for addressing environmental issues in the urban context been radically transformed over the last century. In this workshop we hope to examine both the early environmental legacies - from the ideas of Patrick Geddes to the world-view of public health officials and planners - and the more contemporary environmental concerns that are addressed through law and science, to examine both the continuities and departures in the way cities have dealt with environmental issues in modern South Asia. Those interested in presenting a paper at the workshop are requested to send in an abstract by 15th September. We expect the final papers to be submitted by 15th October. Sarai will be able to meet all costs of scholars from India/ South Asia. For further inquiries you may contact Awadhendra Sharan (sharan at sarai.net) or Ritika Shrimali (ritika at sarai.net). -- Ritika Shrimali The Sarai Programme http://blog.sarai.net/users/ritika From definetime at rediffmail.com Tue Aug 31 10:48:20 2004 From: definetime at rediffmail.com (definetime at rediffmail.com) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:18:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Reader-list] Guardian Unlimited: Days of plunder Message-ID: <20040831051820.E68F195D@mullet.gul3.gnl> Sanjay Ghosh spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it. To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk Days of plunder Coalition forces are doing little to prevent the widespread looting and destruction of Iraq's world-famous historical sites Zainab Bahrani Tuesday August 31 2004 The Guardian The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban was met with an outcry in the United States, Britain and the countries that form the coalition in Iraq. Yet the coalition forces can now claim, among other things, the destruction of the legendary city of Babylon. Ironically, the bombing campaign of 2003 had not damaged archeological sites. It was only in the aftermath, during the occupation, that the most extensive cultural destruction took place. At first there was the looting of the museums under the watch of coalition troops, but that was to be followed by more extensive and active destruction. Active damage of the historical record is ongoing at several archeological sites occupied as military camps. At Babylon, I have seen the continuing construction projects, the removal of and digging into the ancient mounds over the past three months, despite a coalition press release early in June stating that work would halt, and the camp would be removed. A helicopter landing zone, built in the heart of the ancient city, removed layers of archeological earth from the site. The daily flights of the helicopters rattle the ancient walls and the winds created by their rotors blast sand against the fragile bricks. When my colleague at the site, Maryam Moussa, and I asked military personnel in charge that the helipad be shut down, the response was that it had to remain open for security reasons, for the safety of the troops. Between May and August, the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters. Nearby, heavy machines and vehicles stand parked on the remains of a Greek theatre from the era of Alexander of Macedon. The minister of culture has asked for the removal of military bases from all archeological sites, but none has yet been relocated. Iraq is ancient Mesopotamia, otherwise called the "cradle of civilisation". It has more than 10,000 listed archeological sites, as well as hundreds of medieval and Ottoman Muslim, Christian and Jewish monuments. The coalition did not establish a means of guarding the sites, though they would be protected in any other country rich in antiquities. As a result, archeological sites are being looted to an extent previously unimagined. The looting supplies the appetites of an international illicit trade in antiquities, and many objects end up in places like Geneva, London, Tokyo and New York. The lack of border controls has only added to the ease with which the illegal trade in Mesopotamian artefacts functions. The looting leaves the sites bulldozed and pitted with robber holes. Ancient walls, artefacts, scientific data are all destroyed in the process. But it is not only the stolen artefacts that are lost. The loss of this data is the loss of the ancient history of this land. Many important Sumerian and Babylonian cities have been irreversibly damaged in this way already. Passive destruction of this kind has been widespread under the occupation, but antiquity is not the only area of concern. In Baghdad, the National Library and State Archives building is a burned-out shell in which the employees work in the most horrendous conditions. The Ottoman archive that records the history of the country, spanning the 16th to the early 20th centuries, is in the gravest danger. Having been soaked by flooding last year, the archive began to mould. Upon the advice of conservators, the entire archive was removed to freezers to stop the mould. Because of the lack of electricity and equipment, the only place that could be found with large freezers, and where power could be maintained, was an abandoned and bombed building that had previously been a Ba'athist officers' club. In Iraq, where it is not unusual for temperatures to soar up to 60C (140F) in summer, and where the Coalition Provisional Authority never managed to restore the electrical power to the country, this was no small feat. The power in Baghdad (outside the US-occupied presidential palace and embassy buildings) is available, sporadically, about nine hours a day. If the archives should thaw, the documents will be destroyed. The conservation process needs to be done in a time- and climate-controlled manner if the archive is to be saved. But the Coalition Provisional Authority reassigned ownership of this building to the ministry of justice. There is now still no place to move this archive to, the loss of which would be the loss of the modern historical records of Iraq, much of which has not been studied or published. In the midst of the disasters of Iraq under occupation, the condition of its cultural heritage may seem a trivial matter. But, as a historian of antiquity, I am painfully aware that there is no parallel for the amount of historical destruction that has taken place over the past 15 months in Iraq. The Geneva and Hague conventions make the protection of heritage the responsibility of the foreign powers during occupation. Instead, what we have seen under the occupation is a general policy of neglect and even an active destruction of the historical and archeological record of the land. · Zainab Bahrani is professor of ancient near eastern art history and archaeology, Columbia University zb2101 at columbia.edu Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited From mirzachhotoo at yahoo.co.in Tue Aug 31 19:20:56 2004 From: mirzachhotoo at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?nisha=20-?=) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 14:50:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS In-Reply-To: <20040831051820.E68F195D@mullet.gul3.gnl> Message-ID: <20040831135056.62293.qmail@web8311.mail.in.yahoo.com> ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAM Update on Urgent Appeal 26 August 2004 (UA-28-2004: PAKISTAN: A young woman killed by her husband on the pretext of honour killing on 8 March 2004) UP-48-2004: PAKISTAN: Complainant of honour killing case forced to accept jirga decision PAKISTAN: Honour killings; Rule of law; Jirgas; Police inaction ------------------------------------------------------ Dear friends, It has come to the attention of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) that a jirga was organized in the case of Hidayat Mahar, who was killed by her husband on the pretext of honour killing (see UA-28-2004). The jirga, headed by tribal leaders as well as a state official, forced the victim’s father to accept compensation for the murder of his daughter. Although the police were aware of the jirga being held, they did nothing to prevent this illegal act; in fact, they subsequently even arrested the victim’s father, Karim Dino Mahar on the behest of the jirga members for initially refusing to accept their decision and compensation. Please write a letter to the Pakistan authorities to take immediate action to end the convening of jirgas and to demand law enforcement agencies to discharge their duties responsibly and effectively. Urgent Appeals Desk Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) ----------------------------------------------------- UPDATED INFORMATION: Following the killing of Hidayat Mahar by her husband in February 2004 on the pretext of honour killing for allegedly having illicit relations, a jirga was convened in May 2004 by leaders of the Mahar tribe to reconcile the two families. The jirga was headed by Mr. Ghous Bux Mahar and Mr. Shafi Muhammad Mahar. Mr. Ghous Bux Mahar is one of the chief patrons of the Mahar tribe as well as the current Federal Railway Minister of Pakistan and a national assembly member, while Mr. Shafi Muhammad is a landlord of the Mahar tribe. The jirga was organized at Shafi Muhammad’s house in the village of Abdu. The jirga found Hidayat Mahar innocent of any allegations and urged the perpetrator—her husband—to pay Rs. 150 000 as compensation to Hidayat’s father, Mr. Karim Dino Mahar, who was the complainant of the case. Karim Dino Mahar refused to accept the jirga decision as final, which led to his arrest by officers of the Lakhi Ghulam Police Station of the village Mr. Ghous Bux Mahar belongs to. However, there is no record of any such illegal arrest. After Karim was released he accepted the compensation as set by the jirga. While the police in this instance were aware of the jirga being held, they took no action against it. The April 2004 decision of the Sindh High Court clearly ruled all jirgas as illegal and exhorted law enforcement agencies to take effective action against jirgas. By turning a blind eye to the convening of the jirga in Shafi Muhammad’s house and in further arresting Karim Dino Mahar on the behest of Muhammad and his fellow jirga members, the police are guilty of violating the law and of not discharging their duties as required under their own mandate. All state officials who take part in such jirgas are equally guilty of violating the law and should be immediately suspended from service pending an investigation. Pakistan’s jirga system continues to lead the country in feudal practices that are contrary to legal and human rights principles. The practice of honour killings is an atrocious form of violence against women that is committed almost daily within the country. While the jirgas allow and support this practice, it has been almost impossible to take effective legal action against the perpetrators. The Government of Pakistan must take strong steps to implement the decision of the Sindh High Court. Without these measures progress cannot be made in improving Pakistan’s justice mechanisms and human rights situation. SUGGESTED ACTION: Please send a letter, fax or email to the following authorities demanding them to take effective steps to abolish all jirga practices and to urge the police in Pakistan to enforce the law as is required of them. 1. Hon. General Pervez Musharraf President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad PAKISTAN Fax: +92 51 922 4768/ 920 1893 or 1835 Email: CE at pak.gov.pk 2.Hon. Mr. Ishrat-ul-Ibad Khan Governor Government of Sindh Governor House Karachi Tel: +92 21 9201201-3 E-mail: governor at governorsindh.gov.pk 3. Mr. Sayed Kamal Shah Provincial Police Officer, Sindh Police Central Police Office Karachi Tel: +92 21 9212626-7 Fax: +92 21 9212051 4. Mr. Rahoo Khan Brohi Regional Police Officer Sukkur Region Airport Road Sukkur Tel: +92 71 30547, 30248 Fax: +92 71 31824 5. Syed Sultan Shah Joint Secretary for Law, Justice and Human Rights Tel: + 92 51 920 3464 Fax: + 92 51 9203119 6. Ms. Yakin Erturk Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women OHCHR-UNOG Palais Wilson, 8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211 Geneva 10 SWITZERLAND Fax: +41 22 917 9022 Sample letter: Dear RE: Complainant of honour killing case forced to accept jirga decision I am writing to you in concern about the jirga that was organized in the case of Hidayat Mahar, who was killed by her husband on the pretext of honour killing. The jirga, headed by tribal leaders as well as state official Mr. Ghous Bux Mahar, forced the victim’s father to accept compensation for the murder of his daughter. Although the police were aware of the jirga being held, they did nothing to prevent this illegal act; in fact, they subsequently even arrested the victim’s father on the behest of the jirga members for initially refusing to accept their decision and compensation. The April 2004 decision of the Sindh High Court clearly ruled all jirgas as illegal and exhorted law enforcement agencies to take effective action against jirgas. By turning a blind eye to the convening of the jirga in Shafi Muhammad’s house and in further arresting Karim Dino Mahar (the victim’s father) on the behest of the jirga members, the police are guilty of violating the law and of not discharging their duties as required under their own mandate. All state officials who take part in such jirgas are equally guilty of violating the law and should be immediately suspended from service pending an investigation. I urge you to take immediate steps to this effect. I further urge you to take immediate action to end the convening of jirgas and to demand law enforcement agencies to discharge their duties responsibly and effectively, with the subsequent prosecution and punishment of all those officers who do not comply. Yours sincerely, ---------------------- Thank you. Urgent Appeals Programme Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) PROGRAM Update on Urgent Appeal 26 August 2004 (UA-28-2004: PAKISTAN: A young woman killed by her husband on the pretext of honour killing on 8 March 2004) UP-48-2004: PAKISTAN: Complainant of honour killing case forced to accept jirga decision PAKISTAN: Honour killings; Rule of law; Jirgas; Police inaction -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20040831/f57b52ea/attachment.html From project at werkleitz.de Tue Aug 31 22:16:46 2004 From: project at werkleitz.de (Christian Schult) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:46:46 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] 6th Werkleitz Biennale Common Property / Allgemeingut, Halle (Saale), Germany, 1 to 5 September Message-ID: <4134AB76.2030501@werkleitz.de> For immediate release: PRESS RELEASE FOR THE 6TH WERKLEITZ BIENNALE (No. 5, 31.08.2004) ******************************************************************** 1) Opening on 1 September 2004, 6 p.m. 2) On the theme of Common Property / Allgemeingut 3) Programme Highlights 4) Press Conference on 1 September 2004, 11 a.m. ******************************************************************** 1) Opening on 1 September 2004, 6 p.m. _________________________________________ The 6th Werkleitz Biennale Common Property / Allgemeingut opens on 1 September at 6 p.m. at Volkspark, Halle (Saale), Germany. With more than 170 participants from 30 countries the biennial is the biggest media art festival in the area of the former East Germany. Apart from the exhibition with over 40 works, visitors can look forward to a comprehensive film and video programme as well as numerous workshops, lectures and panels around the issue of common property. 2) On the theme of Common Property / Allgemeingut _________________________________________________ The festival is centred around the claim that art, culture and information should be considered common property and should be treated accordingly. Digitalisation and networking have enabled the free exchange of ideas, concepts and technologies. The utopia of a 'Network of Commons' is now within reach - but whether or not it will become a reality will depend on decisions made regarding intellectual property. The 6th Werkleitz Biennale festival and the preceding 'Halle School of Common Property', will offer a general overview of existing initiatives and art projects concerned with this theme. 3) Programme Highlights ___________________________ Exhibition ---------------- Sharmila Samant's (IN) mobile boutique is one of the works in the exhibition - she is mimicking the common practice of labelling mass-produced textiles as designer products, intending to question the market-economy system of monopoly and copyright. By marking pieces of clothing she has selected as artworks and selling them in exhibitions, she turns the system upside down. Musician and composer Christian von Borries (DE) has produced an interactive audio play especially for the festival that explores issues of authorship rights and Creative Commons. During the course of the biennial, visitors' comments will be added to the play. Thomas Saraceno's (AR) flying garden consists of helium-filled balloons inhabited by a number of resilient airplants which possess the ability to exist without any roots and can therefore grow in places where no other plants can survive. For Saraceno they symbolise the possibilities for plants, humans and animals to migrate beyond geo-political boundaries. Film --------- As part of the workshop series 'Halle School of Common Property', US American found-footage filmmaker Craig Baldwin has been hosting a seminar on Culture Jamming and Found Footage Film Editing. At the biennial he will also be presenting 'Sonic Outlaws', his by now classic film which makes the case for the abolition of copyright. The documentary‚ 'The Yes Men' shows actions by the political activist group of the same name, who have managed to gain access to meetings of the WTO and others under false pretences and use creative means to subvert these events. The 'Night of Crime' takes a closer look at diverse strategies of dissent, i.e. activities that question existing copyright law and position themselves against the commercialisation and privatisation of the media and public space. Discussions ------------------- Media theorist Volker Grassmuck will be discussing the consequences of the current copyright legislation with Elmar Huckow, Ministerial Director at the Federal Ministry of Justice. Andreas Broeckmann will be joined by Pit Schultz, Rachel Baker and others in a debate about the impact of new media on the public sphere as a space for communication. Architecture historian Simone Hein will be talking to Annegret Hahn (Thalia Theatre, Halle) about the different traditions of cultural identity in East and West Germany. Music and Performances ------------------------ The programme includes Torsten Lauschmann's (UK) performance 'Filter'. Berlin's 'friends of pong' trace the history of music collectives such as MC5 and Amon Düül in an audio-visual presentation. Bastard-Pop DJs Shapemod (Terranova) and Shir Khan from Berlin will be unashamedly mixing their way through all musical genres - on their bootlegs punk meets freestyle and Madonna is crossed with Harry Belafonte. Also present are: god is a dj & tadpole, teer4.com, zapotek, Marlow and Karoline Körbel (moon harbour), DJ Slender Whiteman (UK), dj LN. For the complete list of participants and other additional information on all artists please visit our website at http://www.werkleitz.de/common_property. 4) Press Conference on 1 September 2004, 11 a.m. _______________________________________________________ The opening press conference will take place on 1 September at 11 a.m. at Volkspark. It will be followed by a tour of the exhibition with biennial director Angelika Richter and curators Anja Casser, Martin Conrads, Ariane Müller, Karin Rebbert, Peter Spillmann, Florian Wüst and Peter Zorn, all of who will also be available for interviews or to answer questions after the tour. Press Contact Luc-Carolin Ziemann phone: +49 345 68 24 617 mobile: +49 173 39 25 231 biennale04 at werkleitz.de The 6th Werkleitz Biennale is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Stiftung Kulturfonds, Lotto-Toto GmbH of Saxony-Anhalt, the City of Halle (Saale), Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, GmbH, Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, via medien GmbH, Mondriaan Stichting, Stadtwerke Halle GmbH, and the British Council, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau and the Spanish Embassy. 6th Werkleitz Biennale Common Property / Allgemeingut 1 - 5 September 2004 http://www.werkleitz.de/common_property From shivamvij at gmail.com Tue Aug 31 10:13:47 2004 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 10:13:47 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Indian Personality Complex Message-ID: I wanna read this but the site is paid. any shortcuts, anyone? Shivam Indian Personality Complex By M.J. Akbar September/October 2004 Publishing a book on "India Shining" just before Indian voters slap the slogan out of power is, at the very least, unfortunate timing. In May, the electorate rejected a complacent Indian government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), despite a massive state advertising campaign claiming the government economic policies made India "shine." But bad timing is less worrisome than selfdelusion. Pavan K. Varma's new book, Being Indian:... http://www.foreignpolicy.com/users/login.php?story_id=2684&URL=http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2684