From jonfor at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 11:42:47 2005 From: jonfor at gmail.com (Jonatan Forsberg) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 11:42:47 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] fast food chains In-Reply-To: <6.1.0.6.0.20050228194707.027f0eb0@smma.sancharnet.in> References: <20050227045124.23445.qmail@webmail28.rediffmail.com> <6.1.0.6.0.20050228194707.027f0eb0@smma.sancharnet.in> Message-ID: Howdy, I find your research very interesting and since I come from Sweden, McDonald's has always been a part of my life. First as The Place of All Places to eat, always cheering when my parents conquered their own disgust and took me and my sister there, then to where you went with a frown with your class mates because there was no time for a pizza, and then to where you went since it's the only place in town which is open 3 o'clock on a Saturday morning and you've just considerer starting to chew your own leg. Even though it is a fact that McDonald's in India serves ten times better food than McDonald's in Sweden, I don't see where the need for a fast food chain is in this country. The 'real' fast food, or street food, is superb with Samosas, Aloo Tikkis, and countless other fantastic dishes. In Sweden there are three different kinds of fast food: hamburgers, hot dogs, and Turkish kebabs (not anything like kebabs in India, google "kebabrulle") I'm excluding pizza since food is hardly fast when there is more than five minutes between the order, and the eat. There are of course hundred different variations of burgers, hot dogs, and kebabs; but to hit a street in India and find an uncountable number of dishes, all of which I wouldn't mind spending a life time of enjoying, and then stumble across a Pizza Hut or McDonald's restaurant just doesn't make sense in the way, I'm very sorry to say, it does in Sweden. Why would anyone pay 50 rupees for a slimy burger in a noisy, stressful, and is-this-a-hospital-diner-or-what restaurant when you can get a freshly fried 10 rupee Aloo Tikki just around the corner? Health! Jonatan From impulse at bol.net.in Tue Mar 1 11:44:40 2005 From: impulse at bol.net.in (Kavita Joshi) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 11:44:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcement: Expressions in Freedom: Intl. Women's Day Message-ID: <01b501c51e26$54662ce0$10c09fca@mtnl.net.in> TO: LIST MODERATOR FOR: POSTING ON READERLIST-ANNOUNCEMENTS The IIC Asia Project & the International Association of Women in Radio & Television (IAWRT) invite you to EXPRESSIONS IN FREEDOM a festival of films by Asian women filmmakers 8TH | 9TH | 10TH MARCH 2005 at the INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE, DELHI 'Expressions in Freedom' is a festival celebrating documentary films by Asian women. Launching on the International Women's Day, 8th March, the festival seeks to open up a space for debate on creative processes enriched by women's quest for freedoms of expression. The festival features films from 5 countries - India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Palestine & Nepal. Apart from documentaries, the festival includes animation films, talks and special presentations. Films will be followed by discussions with the directors, if present. IAWRT is a non-profit organization of women working in electronic and allied media. It seeks to enhance the electronic media by ensuring that women's views and values become an integral part of programme making. ( www.iawrt.org ) ENTRY TO THE FESTIVAL IS OPEN TO ALL ________________________________ SCHEDULE*: 8th March 2005, Tuesday 10:30 AM INAUGURATION incl. screening of LINE OF CONTROL a film by Surekha 3 min / 2003 / India An ant moves within a boundary. It is a mere pen mark. And yet the ant hesitates to cross the line of control and come out of the boundary. Will it, finally? Or wont it? This spontaneous work examines how one behaves when confronted with imaginary boundaries. 11:30 AM: BREAK 12:00 NOON UNLIMITED GIRLS by Paromita Vohra 94 min / 2002 / India Reflective in tone and playful in its form, 'UnLimited Girls' asks questions about feminism in our lives: why must women lead double lives, being feminist but not saying they are? How do we make sense of love and anger, doubt and confusion, the personal and the political in this enterprise of pushing the boundaries, of being un-limited? The tale is told through the conversations of a narrator called Fearless who encounters diverse characters - feminists, yuppies, college kids, a woman cab driver, a priest, academics - all talking of their engagements with feminism. 01:45 PM: LUNCH 02:30 PM: UNTIL WHEN. by Dahna Abourahme 76 min / 2004 / Palestine, USA Set during the current Intifada, this documentary follows four Palestinian families living in Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. Fadi, just 13, cares for his 4 younger brothers; the Hammash family believe in living life with humour and passion; Sana, a single woman endures long commutes to do community work; and Emad and Hanan are a young couple trying to shield their daughter from the harsh realities of the occupation. Through their joys and sorrows, 'Until When.' paints an intimate portrait of Palestinian lives today. 03:45 PM: BREAK 04:00 PM MY MOTHER INDIA A film by Safina Uberoi 52 min / 2002 / Australia This film tells the story of a mixed marriage set against the tumultuous backdrop of modern Indian history. It focuses on the filmmaker's own quirky family: an Indian Sikh father who collects kitsch calendars; an Australian mother who hangs her knickers out to dry in front of the horrified neighbours in Delhi; a grandfather who was a self-styled Guru' and a seething grandmother who grows to despise him. What begins as a quirky and humorous documentary about an eccentric, multicultural upbringing unfolds into a complex commentary on the social, political and religious events of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 that changed the destinies of the family. 05:00 PM TALK: Uma Chakravarti: Alternative Spaces for Alternatives Texts (30 min) 05:30 PM: BREAK 06:30 PM LADIES SPECIAL A film by Nidhi Tuli 29 mins / -- / India 'Ladies Special' travels on a Mumbai train reserved wholly for women. For a brief while, the camera, crew and viewers become part of the spontaneous community of women that this train has engendered. With women boarding the same bogey daily, lives are shared, vegetables are chopped, birth ceremonies are celebrated, and clothes bought, as the 50 km journey becomes a space suspended unto itself. Many women speak of the commute as a cherished time when they can be themselves, instead of wives and mothers and workers and housewives. Ladies Special is a celebration of their lives. followed by GIRL SONG A film by Vasudha Joshi 29 min / -- / India This film enters the life of Anjum Katyal, blues singer, poet and mother, capturing her voice as she performs the blues in her home city of Kolkata, as she reads from her journal to her daughter, as she converses with her mother and her daughter about the multi-religious, multi-cultural heritage that she so proudly owns to, and as she talks of confronting the climate of hostility and distrust towards minorities spreading through the country. In her interactions with her mother and her daughter, we see how a cultural identity proudly woven from many strands is increasingly under threat from narrow and exclusionist definitions of identity. followed by INDIA CABARET A film by Mira Nair 60 min / -- / India By focusing on a group of female strippers who work in a nightclub in the suburbs of Bombay, 'India Cabaret' explores the "respectable" and "corrupt" stereotypes that typify women in contemporary Indian society. The film tells their story, relating their hopes and fears while respecting their pride and resilience. In the process, it reveals the rules and double standards of a deeply patriarchal society. ************ SCHEDULE* FOR: 9th March 2005, Wednesday 10:30 AM Sri Lankan films from the Reconciliation Series, and a talk with Sharmini Boyle. including a scrng. of: RAJESHWARI Sharmini Boyle, Siyangka Nawaz 25 min / 2003 / Sri Lanka This documentary is part of a television series that explore situations of conflict and their impact on the lives of the Sri Lankan people. The series, as the name suggests, promotes reconciliation and peace. 'Rajeshwari' is the story of the experiences of a woman who was affected by the conflict in Sri Lanka. The programme also includes screenings of shorts (5 - 10 mins each) from other episodes of the series, like:- Women Waging Peace (mothers and war)- Defiant Art (women and language) 11:30 AM: BREAK 12:00 NOON MANJUBEN TRUCK DRIVER A film by Sherna Dastur 52 min / 2002 / India Manjuben has broken the gender stereotypes that are part of the social landscape she inhabits. She has created an identity for herself against social, cultural and economic odds, commanding respect from the community. This identity is deliberately 'male' - that of a macho trucker, drawn from several popular notions of maleness. Yet Manjuben defies simple categorization. Though she lives a free life compared to the other women in her society, she is just as patriarchal as the next person. In other words, Manjuben is no crusader. OF LOVE & LAND A film by Samina Mishra 24 min / 2001 / India Randhir Singh and Darshan Kaur's grandchildren grow up together in a prosperous home in a village near Amritsar. The children - 3 girls, 3 boys - go to the same school, eat together and often even play together. Yet there are borders that demarcate their lives. Set against the backdrop of an alarming and continuously declining sex ratio in the region, 'Of Love and Land' examines the boundaries that limit the lives of little girls. 01:45 PM: LUNCH 02:30 PM TALK: Shohini Ghosh: "Documentaries of Self and Sexuality" (30 min) 03:00 PM IN THE FLESH A film by Bishakha Datta 53 min / 2002 / India An intimate account of what it is like to be in prostitution, this film revolves around 3 people: Shabana, a street-smart woman working the dark highways outside Bombay; Uma, an aging theatre actress who lives in a brothel in Calcutta where she earlier worked; and Bhaskar, a trans-gendered person who sells sex to men. We see their lives unfold - their workplaces, their stories, their daughters, mothers, lovers, passions... We see them as they pick up customers, fight AIDS in their communities, battle violence through collective action. We see them as they are - human beings struggling for a space in society. 04:00 PM: BREAK 04:30 PM GUHYA A film by Kirtana Kumar 55 min / 2000 / India Today in India, we live in an aggressively patriarchal time. Modernity is equated with homogeneity and the complex nature of female sexuality is offered up at the altar of Nationhood. But thanks to the co-existence of diverse sexual and socio religious practices, there still exist residual memories of a past where the Goddess is worshipped, and communities where the female principle is considered life-affirming. This film asserts that our attempts to eradicate such practices in the name of development are born of our essentially patriarchal mores. followed by ORANGE a film by Geetanjali Rao 4 mins / 2003 / India 'Orange' is a conversation between two women about love and relationships, over a drink on a rain drenched evening. The film uses animation in vivid shades of orange to express moods and feelings. 05:40PM: BREAK 06:30 PM TALK: Patricia Uberoi: "The Family in Media: Shaping our views" (15 min) followed by WHEN MOTHER COMES HOME FOR CHRISTMAS A film by Nilita Vachani 109 min / 1995 / India, Greece, Germany Josephine Perera is a migrant worker from Sri Lanka who has spent the last ten years taking care of the families of others. She currently works in Greece, lavishing care on 2 year-old Isadora whose own mother works in Paris. Josephine's children meanwhile have been left to relatives and orphanages - she hasn't seen them in ten years. Finally she has a work visa and can travel back to them for Christmas. Through her story, we witness the restructuring of an entire society where women have become the breadwinners in a foreign land. Ironically it is their gender functions that lead them to 'economic freedom', though never in the context of their own families and culture. 8:30 PM: CLOSE ********************** SCHEDULE FOR*: 10th March 2005, Thursday 10:00 AM BORN TO SING by Shikha Jhingan 44 min / 2002 / India Born to Sing is a musical journey with four Mirasans, who sing life-cycle songs for their patrons in Punjab. The film explores a rich musical and oral tradition kept alive by these women across religious boundaries. What is the nature of their relationship with their land-owning patrons? What happens when Punjabi pop music takes the entertainment industry by storm? The films grapples with these concerns faced by women who find themselves shunted out of their expressive traditions. At another level, the film also evokes memories of partition and the resilience of the composite culture of the Malwa region of Punjab. followed by THE BROKEN SPINE A film by Ein Lall 30 min / 2001 / India Nalini Malani is one of India's leading painters and installation artist. Her work is political and gendered, even as it is subtle and layered. This film portrays the conflicting yet complementary tones in her work. We see life in the Lohar Chawl where Malani has her studio; we see the people that power her work; we see what moves her. The film travels from work to work, from painting to installation to beachside where Malani draws on the shifting sands. Formally, it creates juxtapositions that draw the viewer into the inner world of the artist. 11:30 AM: BREAK 12:00 NOON A FEW THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER A film by Anjali Panjabi 30 min / 2002 / India Mirabai, a sixteenth century poetess is a cultural icon in India. Her images and stories swamp our popular culture. She was a princess who rebelled. Her poems versed in a religious idiom speak of personal choices and questioned the social hierarchies of her time. The conflicts expressed in her poetry however, do not tally with popular notions that choose to see her only as a pious saint. The film explores some of these contradictions. It travels through the towns and villages and vast deserts of Rajasthan in search of Mira. On the journey, it discovers the many ways in which Mirabai still sings to us. followed by THREE WOMEN AND A CAMERA by Sabeena Gadihoke 56 min / 1998 / India Homai Vyarawalla is India's first professional woman photographer, whose career spanned three decades from the 1930s; Sheba Chhachhi and Dayanita Singh are contemporary photographers who started work in the 1980s. Vyarawalla's work underscores the euphoria of the birth of a nation, while Chhachhi and Singh grapple with the complexities and undelivered promises of the post independence era. This film debates the shifts in their concerns regarding representation and subject-camera relationships. It seeks to contextualise their work through their photographs and explores how their identity as women shapes this work in turn. 01:45 PM: LUNCH 2:30 PM HINA A film by Beena Sarwar 8 min / 2004 / Pakistan Hina is the first girl in her family to attend college and contemplate a career rather than marriage. But this apparent freedom has come at a terrible cost: it was the death of Hina's father (the family's sole breadwinner) that forced her mother to take charge of her own life and family in a society which frowns upon women stepping outside the home even for education. The conflicts that 17 year-old Hina faces as her horizons expand lend poignancy to her aspirations. She is determined to not only to become self reliant but also to care for her ailing mother once her 4 older sisters marry and leave. followed by DAUGHTERS OF EVEREST By Ramyata Limbu, Sapana Sakya 56 min / 2004 / Nepal, USA In 2000, the first ever expedition of Nepalese women to climb the Everest was organised. Although the Sherpa people of Nepal are legendary for their unmatched skills in mountaineering, Sherpa women are discouraged from climbing, relegated instead to the support roles in the climbing industry. Told from a women's perspective, rarely seen on Everest or off it, this film gives a close-up account of the expedition and its impact on the lives of the women - not just the climbers but the women of Nepal. 03:35 PM: BREAK 04:00 PM PRESENTATION: Women of Deccan Development Society - Community Media Trust (Idpapally Mollamma and Edakupalli Sooremma): A case for autonomous community media. including the screening of TEN WOMEN & A CAMERA By the women of DDS - CMT 9 mins / 2003 / India The Deccan Development Society's Community Media Trust has been training rural women to use video to articulate their concerns. Making a film thus becomes a process of learning to speak up, to be heard, be counted. Made by the women themselves, this film looks how the act of making films for over six years and this process of filmmaking itself has impacted on them and their lives. This presentation by the women of DDS will also include clips from their other works, like:- Sangam Shot, BT Cotton, and other excerpts 05:00 PM WHO WILL MEND MY FUTURE : Plan India + a team of 12 year olds - Hemlata and Savita 10 min / -- / India During adolescence, young girls are denied the information they need to understand the changes in their bodies. When she is experiencing acute confusion, the teenage girl is fed a steady diet of mumbo jumbo. Instead of information, all she gets is stony silence from her teachers. Instead of counsel, all she gets from her mother is yet more restrictions on her scarce freedoms. This film shows how such attitudes wreak havoc in the lives of teenage girls, especially those living in conservative communities. An animation film, it has been directed by 12 year old girls as part of a workshop. The film will be accompanied by an informal presentation where the young filmmakers and representatives from PLAN India will share their experiences on making and screening this film. 05:30PM: BREAK 06:30 PM YEH GULISTAN HAMARA A film by Fareeda Mehta 30 min / 2003 / India The film looks at communities that live 'behind walls', and the possible cultural, political and economic reasons for doing so. Within 'mixed societies' people may be united by economic necessity but prejudices often run deeper than the words uttered in interviews. The film works with images from a small town magic show and from 'video' to build a narrative of longing and a socially constructed amnesia that feeds on jingoistic patriotism. followed by I LOVE MY INDIA Directed by Tejal Shah 10 min / 2003 / India After the Godhra incident in February 2002, India witnessed the killing of over 3000 Muslims in Gujarat. A year after the genocide, this film takes place at a popular public recreation space - a balloon-target shooting stall. Dark and bitterly funny, it uses the opinion poll format to satirise our generalised understanding of social and political injustices; and critiques the practice of electoral democracy in India by employing the metaphor of random target practice. followed by SOMETHING LIKE A WAR A film by Deepa Dhanraj 53 min/ -- / India Launched in 1952, India's family planning programme was formulated in collaboration with Western population control experts. It is based on the assumption that irresponsible, anti-national breeding by the poor is the main cause of the nation's backwardness and that population control is the magic key to success. Despite brutal coercion, the programme has failed in its objective of drastically reducing the birth rate. The film traces the history of the programme, exposing the cynicism, corruption and brutality that characterise its implementation. It questions the programme from the perspective of women, who are its primary victims. 8:30 PM: CLOSE ***************** * schedule subject to changes; please confirm at venue. From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 12:48:20 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 12:48:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar Message-ID: <73cd0cce05022823185536c29e@mail.gmail.com> Today morning I woke up to an strange news. A documentary film Born Into Brothels has won the Oscar for the best documentary and already there are questions raised against how the filmmakers were allowed access into the lives of the children. How come this group of white filmmakers were allowed to shoot in Sonagachi? But first some info about the film (and for this I depend on rediff.com reports) Zana Briski, whose film Born Into Brothels about her work with the children of Kolkata prostitutes won the best documentary Oscar, will soon see her inspiring film expand from its current screen count (about 40) to hundreds of screens across North America and Europe. The British Broadcasting Corporation recently quoted Partha Banerjee, who interpreted for the Bengali-speaking children and English-speaking filmmakers, complaining there were 'ethical and stylistic' problems with the documentary. Banerjee also wondered why the film should be considered a documentary as it used fictional shots. He also wrote to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organiser of the Oscars, asserting the experience made the children's lives 'worse,' not better. The filmmakers probably new that this might happen and anticipated this. Look at what they say on rediff.com Three months ago, Briski told rediff.com in New York that even if the film were to win an Oscar, she would not want it to be seen in India except at film festivals because she had promised to protect the identities of the prostitutes from police and politicians. What does she mean by saying that the children needed protection from Indians? Do western tourist not go to such places? Hasn't she been told about the arrests in Goa of several western tourists on charges of pedophilia? I am sure the film must be already doing the rounds in these circles in Europe and America. My point is this – had an Indian filmmaker made such a film we would have torn that person apart. Why let them go without an explanation? And how did they pull off this scam? Regards sudhesh From srhodes at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 13:24:01 2005 From: srhodes at gmail.com (Steve Rhodes) Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:54:01 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <73cd0cce05022823185536c29e@mail.gmail.com> References: <73cd0cce05022823185536c29e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I haven't seen the film, but here are the websites http://www.thinkfilmcompany.com/brothels/ http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/bornintobrothels/film.php And here is a radio interview with the filmmakers http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050201_b_main.asp -- Steve Rhodes http://ari.typepad.com blog http://tigerbeat.textamerica.com photo/moblog http://flickr.com/photos/ari/ more photos http://del.icio.us/tigerbeat interesting articles & sites http://tvbarn.com contributor From abshi at vsnl.com Tue Mar 1 14:09:20 2005 From: abshi at vsnl.com (abshi at vsnl.com) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:39:20 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] City Limits: Photo Exhibition, Panel Discussion and Film Series Message-ID: <2d6a4a72d6a835.2d6a8352d6a4a7@vsnl.net> Gender & Space Project, PUKAR & Point of View Present A Photographic Exhibit, A Panel Discussion & A Film Series Photography Exhibit City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space Dates: 05 March to 12 March 2005 (Sunday Closed) Time: 12 pm to 7 pm Venue: The Fourth Floor Kitab Mahal (In front of New Excelsior Cinema) Dr. D.N. Road, Mumbai 400001 Curators: Shilpa Phadke and Bishakha Datta Photographers: Abhinandita Mathur, Roshani Jhadav, Neelam Ayare and Karan Arora. City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space intends to view everyday public spaces in Mumbai through a gendered lens, to focus on the demarcations between public and private spaces, and understand the hierarchies of access that have become part of our taken for granted grammar of viewing the city. The effort has been to privilege the everyday, to engage with women’s strategies in negotiating public space and to draw attention to the ways in which the private refuses to be compartmentalized An Interactive Panel Discussion Imagining Gendered Utopias As part of International Women’s Day celebrations, we are organizing a discussion titled where women speak as citizens, professionals, mothers, commuters, consumers, and flaneurs. Date: 08 March 2005 Time: 6.30 pm Venue: The Fourth Floor Kitab Mahal (In front of New Excelsior Cinema) Dr. D.N. Road, Mumbai 400001 Neera Adarkar imagines a gender-friendly city from the position of architecture and design. Celine D’Cruz provides a view from the perspective of dispossessed women. Kalpana Sharma envisions a utopian world for women journalists and for reporting on women. Shireen Gandhy explores the implications of combining a career in art with motherhood. Sameera Khan imagines a welcoming public space for breast-feeding women. The discussion is intended to be an interactive one involving the audience in imagining a space for women in the truly public spaces in Mumbai. Our hope is that the discussion would go beyond what is feasible in the short term to explore our wildest dreams of living as liberated citizens in the Mumbai of tomorrow. Film Series Imagining Women Film Schedule: All films will be screened at The Fourth Floor, Kitab Mahal Sat 5 March 4 pm: Bhaji On The Beach (Gurinder Chadha)(100 mins) A group of women of Indian descent take a trip together from their home in Birmingham, England to the beach resort of Blackpool. The women vary in ages from mid-teens to old, and initially have little in common. But the events of the day lead them to better mutual understanding and solidarity. Mon 7 March 6.30 pm: Ma Vie En Rose (Alain Berliner ) (88 mins) Ludovic is a young boy who can't wait to grow up to be a woman. When his family discovers the little girl blossoming in him they are forced to contend with their own discomfort and the lack of understanding from their new neighbors. Their anger and impatience cave and Ludovic is sent to see a psychiatrist in the hopes of fixing whatever is wrong with him. A movie that addresses trans-gender and gender issues in general through the eyes of a child. Wed 9 March 6.30 pm: Three Women and A Camera (Sabeena Gadihoke) (56 mins) This film is about Homai Vyarawalla, India's first professional woman photographer, whose career spanned nearly three decades from the 1930s and two contemporary photographers, Sheba Chhachhi and Dayanita Singh, who started work in the 1980s. Vyarawalla's work underscores the optimism and euphoria of the birth of a nation, while Chhachhi and Singh attempt to grapple with the various complexities and undelivered promises of the post independence era. This film debates the major shifts in their concerns regarding representation, subject-camera relationships and the limits and possibilities of still photography in India today. Frida (JulieTaymor) (123 mins) Frida chronicles the life Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) shared unflinchingly and openly with Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), as the young couple took the art world by storm. From her complex and enduring relationship with her mentor and husband to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Frida Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary. Thu 10 March 6.30 pm: Fat Sister (Catherine Breillat) (86 mins) A Ma Soeur! is a provocative and shocking drama about sibling rivalry, family discord and relationships. Elena is 15, beautiful and flirtatious. Her less confident sister, Anais, is 12, and constantly eats. On holiday, Elena meets a young Italian student who is determined to seduce her. Anais is forced to watch in silence, conspiring with the lovers, but harbouring jealousy and similar desires. Their actions, however, have unforeseen tragic consequences for the whole family. Some of the films will be followed by discussions. For more information – email: genderspace at pukar.org or pointofview at vsnl.com or call: 55748152 or 55727252 From joasia at i-dat.org Tue Mar 1 20:25:16 2005 From: joasia at i-dat.org (joasia) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 14:55:16 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] DATA Browser 01 Message-ID: -- The first book in the DATA Browser series: ECONOMISING CULTURE: ON 'THE (DIGITAL) CULTURE INDUSTRY' http://www.data-browser.net/01 contributors: Carbon Defense League & Conglomco Media Conglomeration | Adam Chmielewski | Jordan Crandall | Gameboyzz Orchestra | Marina Grzinic | Brian Holmes | Margarete Jahrmann | Esther Leslie | Marysia Lewandowska & Neil Cummings |Armin Medosch | Julian Priest & James Stevens | Raqs Media Collective | Mirko Tobias Schäfer | Jeremy Valentine | The Yes Men -- The interaction between culture and economy was famously explored by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer by the term 'Kulturindustrie' (The Culture Industry) to describe the production of mass culture and power relations between capitalist producers and mass consumers. Their account is a bleak one, but one that appears to hold continuing relevance, despite being written in 1944. Today, the pervasiveness of network technologies has contributed to the further erosion of the rigid boundaries between high art, mass culture and the economy, resulting in new kinds of cultural production charged with contradictions. On the one hand, the culture industry appears to allow for resistant strategies using digital technologies, but on the other it operates in the service of capital in ever more complex ways. This publication, the first in the series, uses the concept of the culture industry as a point of departure, and tests its currency under new conditions. -- details: Title: ECONOMISING CULTURE: ON ŒTHE (DIGITAL) CULTURE INDUSTRY¹ Authors: Various contributors, edited by Geoff Cox, Joasia Krysa, Anya Lewin Publisher: Autonomedia (DATA browser 01) in association with i-DAT Copyright 2004 (all texts released under a Creative Commons License) ISBN 1-57027-168-2 Pages 256, Paper Perfectbound Price $15 To order online visit: Or Distributed by Autonomedia (US) and Pluto Press (UK & Europe). From sdatta at MIT.EDU Tue Mar 1 20:32:12 2005 From: sdatta at MIT.EDU (S Datta) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:02:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <73cd0cce05022823185536c29e@mail.gmail.com> References: <73cd0cce05022823185536c29e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: a totally unwarranted, and somewhat racist, rant against a film the writer of the mail i am responding to has not even seen. first of all, it is highly inappropriate to sound off on a film (or a book, for that matter), without doing its maker (writer) the basic courtesy of watching (reading) it. secondly, sudesh's objections seem to centre in large part on the race of the filmmakers (incidentally, zana briski is half iraqi, so i'm not sure she qualifies as 'white'). i do not wish to waste too much time responding to something that is essentially without merit, but i just wanted to make a few points: 1. the race of a filmmaker is hardly, in and of itself, a disqualification for making a documentary on a particular topic. you could argue that it colours her view in a particular way, or imposes a way of seeing that is problematic, but to do this you would have to see the work (and not pre-judge based simply on her race) 2. the film (and yes, i have seen it) grew out of briski's desire to document the lives of sonagachi prostitutes, in aid of which she lived in sonagachi for several years. whatever you think about the politics of her project, it is clear from the film that she has spent enough time in the area with the familes of those the film is about for them to talk freely about their lives, let her into their homes, and generally open up to her in a way they would be unlilely to do with someone they did not trust. incidentally, the woman is not a filmmaker. she's a photographer, and that's precisely what makes her eminently qualified to teach a photography class, which is how it all began. so in response to 'who allowed them' .. answer: the subjects. luckily, sudesh unnikrishnan isn't a one-person censor board. yet. 3. in case sudesh unnikrishnan hasn't realised, the film is about a bunch of kids learning to use cameras, and turning out to be very good photographers. if this is the sort of material she thinks pedophiles get off on, then i suppose she has a very strange idea of what constitutes pornography. it's not a film, even tangentially, about sex. it's about a bunch of children. 4. finally, on the topic of the film not being released in india: i think it's an enormous pity, because it should be seen, but it seems that some of the women whose kids were filmed prefer it not to be shown in india. a pity, as i said, but everyone (yes, even a sonagachi prostitute) has a right to real or imagined privacy, and it's important that this be respected. given the amount of prejudice children such as those in the film face simply because their mothers are prostitutes, it's not surprising they wouldn't want this to be widely seen in the community where they or other members of tiehr families (who may not in all cases be aware of the precise nature of their jobs) live. the politics of any documentary film are both interesting and worthy of discussion, and born into brothels is no exception. yet to peg that discussion on grounds which seem inherently racist ('white filmmakers') and xenophobic ('had an indian filmmaker'...) seems a pity. incidentally, unless the writer is of the opinion that there is something inherently wrong about the premise/project of the flim, i'm not sure why (s)he suggests that an indian filmmaker 'would not have been allowed' to handle the topic. perhaps she is unaware that indian filmmakers, specifically documentary filmmakers, have handled topics such as this with sensitivity. what makes this particular film worth seeing is how completely it surrenders the centre to the ostensible subjects: few 'do-gooders' would be able to recede into the background as ably and willingly as zana briski has done. whether it is a 'good' film, or even a 'successful' one (artistically, that is) is certainly worth discussing; whether the lives of the children who are shown in it changed for the better is unclear and will continue to be debated; but to discuss an extremely moving work in the terms put forth in the mail i am responding to seems utterly ridiculous. On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, sudhesh wrote: > Today morning I woke up to an strange news. A documentary film Born > Into Brothels has won the Oscar for the best documentary and already > there are questions raised against how the filmmakers were allowed > access into the lives of the children. How come this group of white > filmmakers were allowed to shoot in Sonagachi? > > But first some info about the film (and for this I depend on > rediff.com reports) > Zana Briski, whose film Born Into Brothels about her work with the > children of Kolkata prostitutes won the best documentary Oscar, will > soon see her inspiring film expand from its current screen count > (about 40) to hundreds of screens across North America and Europe. > > The British Broadcasting Corporation recently quoted Partha Banerjee, > who interpreted for the Bengali-speaking children and English-speaking > filmmakers, complaining there were 'ethical and stylistic' problems > with the documentary. Banerjee also wondered why the film should be > considered a documentary as it used fictional shots. He also wrote to > the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organiser of the > Oscars, asserting the experience made the children's lives 'worse,' > not better. > > The filmmakers probably new that this might happen and anticipated > this. Look at what they say on rediff.com > > Three months ago, Briski told rediff.com in New York that even if the > film were to win an Oscar, she would not want it to be seen in India > except at film festivals because she had promised to protect the > identities of the prostitutes from police and politicians. > > What does she mean by saying that the children needed protection from > Indians? Do western tourist not go to such places? Hasn't she been > told about the arrests in Goa of several western tourists on charges > of pedophilia? I am sure the film must be already doing the rounds in > these circles in Europe and America. > > My point is this – had an Indian filmmaker made such a film we would > have torn that person apart. Why let them go without an explanation? > And how did they pull off this scam? > > Regards > sudhesh > _________________________________________ > 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 eye at ranadasgupta.com Tue Mar 1 20:51:02 2005 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 20:51:02 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Gandhi + technology = end of history Message-ID: <4224885E.7080001@ranadasgupta.com> http://www.epica-awards.com/assets/epica/2004/winners/film/flv/11071.htm From aman.malik at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 00:09:52 2005 From: aman.malik at gmail.com (Aman Malik) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 00:09:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Need Help Message-ID: <95be635605030110394ae93290@mail.gmail.com> Hi, Would anyone on this list please pass on Radhika Bordia's contact information to me. I am currently in the middle of a research paper that seeks to study Indian language radio stations in countries with substantial populations of Indian origin. Radhika had recently done a three part series for NDTV named Island Rythms and some portions of my research overlap with hers. Would be greatful for all help extended. Regards, Aman Malik From aman.malik at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 00:17:24 2005 From: aman.malik at gmail.com (Aman Malik) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 00:17:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Indian Language Radio stations in Countries with people of Indian origin Message-ID: <95be6356050301104730e8cbe5@mail.gmail.com> Hi, I am currently in the middle of a research paper that seeks to wholistically study the dynamics of Indian language radio stations in countries with substantial populations of Indian origin. Have listed out a few focus areas, ones which I can think of at this stage, below. Please note that these are in no way exhaustive. This is followed by questions that I wish to put forth to anyone who may be (in any capacity) associated with or knowledgeble about this topic. I request all such people to hwlp me in my endeavour by answering these questions in part or whole. Indian Language Radio Stations in Countries with substantial population of Indian origin. Countries covered: Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago, Singapore, Guyana, New Zealand and Kenya. Key focus areas 1. The general history of Indian language radio stations in the aforementioned countries and how it finds resonance with the history of the population of Indian origin in these countries. 2. Consider the programming of these radio stations from the cultural standpoint of the local Indian community? 3. How do these radio stations generally operate? 4. Focus on the exact content. What kind of language is generally used? Is the lingo pure or a variant. Programming schedule required. 5. What is the exact listener base? What music do the various age groups listen to? 6. How and where are the anchors trained? Are their training needs sufficient? 7. How does the programming reflect the social dynamics of the Indians and the indegenous people in these countries? 8. Research more on Worldspace. 9. What inputs do these people get from India? Do they get any help from the Indian government? 10. What relationship do these people of Indian origin enjoy with India? Are there any biases and/or prejudices and are they in any manner reflected in the dynamics of these radio stations and/or their programs in any manner whatsoever? Questions: 1. When and how were the Indian language radio stations started in your country? Please give a brief historical perspective. 2. What degree of importance does radio hold in your country when considered from an overall perspective? How well does it fair when it comes to the media as a whole? 3. How many such radio stations operate in your country? Please name them and kindly indicate against each name whether it is owned by the government or privately owned. 4. Was the initiative to start the Indian language stations taken first by the government or the private sector? Was there any opposition from the indigenous people or were they supportive of the need of the Indian community to have exclusive media channels? 5. Please comment on the relationship between the people of Indian origin resident in your country and the societal dynamics between people of Indian origin and others, that prevail in your country. 6. Does the above relationship have any bearing on the media of your country? Please comment. 7. How important are such radio stations from a cultural standpoint? 8. Are they an important cultural link with India and do they in any way aid in the preservation of culture of the people of Indian origin? 9. Is the language used "pure" or is it a corrupted version of an Indian language? 10. Do the indigenous people form a part of the target audience? 11. What are the penetration percentages of such radio stations in population terms? 12. What kinds of programmes are aired on radio? (Genre of programmes like Pop, Hindi Filmi, Ghazal, Drama etc) 13. Where do the announcers receive their training? Are any of them trained in India? 14. Do Indian language stations make enough money so as to remain an economically viable proposition? Could you quote some financial figures (a broad overview would suffice)? 15. Please indicate as to how exactly is music or any other Indian content that forms a part of the programme actually sourced? Is some or all of it sourced form India or are there alternate sources? 16. Are Indian cultural factors unique to the people of Indian origin in your country (such as Chutney music of Trinidad & Tobago) represented in the radio programmes? Please explain briefly. 17. Has the Indian government been of any help to the Indian language radio stations of your country? Do you think India has done enough or could more have been done? Please comment. 18. Are similar trends as discussed above visible in Indian language print and TV media as well? Please comment briefly. Would be greatful for all help extended. Regards, Aman Malik New Delhi From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 08:29:42 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 08:29:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: References: <73cd0cce05022823185536c29e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <73cd0cce0503011859297522b0@mail.gmail.com> my only arguement was this that how come she does not want to show the film in India ? why this double standard how does it protect the identities of the children or the adults anyways the photographs of the children are available all over the net and the film is playing in Europe and America how would it be if i made a film on sex workers or their children from Europe /America release it in India and then say I want to protect the identities of these people so i am not releasing it there give me a break !!! From arisen.silently at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 09:48:26 2005 From: arisen.silently at gmail.com (arisen silently) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 09:48:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: paper sky In-Reply-To: <1925b33d050227222430862070@mail.gmail.com> References: <1925b33d050227222430862070@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1925b33d050301201811d8e863@mail.gmail.com> http://www.memefest.org/works/130-4a0b16fde/ From amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in Tue Mar 1 16:35:26 2005 From: amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in (Amit Basu) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 11:05:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050301110526.63105.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> But the sex workers and their children are not quite happy as they did not get anything out of the film. Apart from a few children getting some support for their education nothing was done for the sex worker's project in general and the Oscar brought money and worldwide fame for the filmmaker. Some of the sex workers felt that, they felt like 'being used' as they are in the sex trade. Most of the local newspapers carried critical reports highlighting the ethical issue of such work where the documentary film maker earned fame at the expense of poor and marginalised people. Amit Steve Rhodes wrote: I haven't seen the film, but here are the websites http://www.thinkfilmcompany.com/brothels/ http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/bornintobrothels/film.php And here is a radio interview with the filmmakers http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2005/02/20050201_b_main.asp -- Steve Rhodes http://ari.typepad.com blog http://tigerbeat.textamerica.com photo/moblog http://flickr.com/photos/ari/ more photos http://del.icio.us/tigerbeat interesting articles & sites http://tvbarn.com contributor _________________________________________ 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/20050301/117f1da6/attachment.html From kate at katearmstrong.com Wed Mar 2 07:25:18 2005 From: kate at katearmstrong.com (Kate Armstrong) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 17:55:18 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list]: "Grafik Dynamo" by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett References: <421257BB.5030803@turbulence.org> <4221C299.2070109@sarai.net> <42222D6C.2090405@turbulence.org> Message-ID: <03d101c51eca$e3b368a0$6600000a@Kate> Hi Vivek Thanks for your note about Grafik Dynamo. Yes, you're right about how the work functions with regard to text. The text fragments are pulled from a flat file and randomly fed into the piece using javascript. There is one document for the thought and speech bubbles and one for the notes at the foot of the frames - this is the internal structure of how they are distributed. It would be possible technically to have a version that pulls the text from blogs. I've had a couple of discussions around this idea since the piece launched: one idea was to use keywords to pull in nouns etc and substitute those within the sentences. I've also been contacted by A. Stern, who told me about his piece "Charlie's Ants" http://aphid.org/CA/ which takes user submitted phrases and distributes them into a pre-drawn cartoon - in some ways this is the inverse of Grafik Dynamo & creates a very interesting - and very different - effect. So I am interested in these different ways of feeding and filtering information, but in the case of Grafik Dynamo we also wanted to do something specific with the text, which was to experiment with open narrative form - which for me meant retaining some notion of the writing, and conceiving of it functionally, almost in the tradition of constrained or generative text. Kate ----- Original Message ----- From: Jo-Anne Green To: Vivek Narayanan Cc: reader-list at sarai.net ; Kate Armstrong ; Michael Tippett Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 12:28 PM Subject: Re: [Reader-list]: "Grafik Dynamo" by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett Dear Vivek, Thanks for sharing your enthusiastic response with us. I'm copying Kate and Michael so that they can respond to you directly. Best, Jo Vivek Narayanan wrote: Dear Turbulence, Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippet, It took me a while to get to it, given that connectivity is still not something we can take for granted here in India, but I just had a look at your magnificent Grafik Dynamo below and thought, "This is money!" It's not often that net art machines actually induce pleasure (as opposed to a theoretical hmm) in me, and this one certainly works. Just one question-- as I understand it, the work pulls images from blogs and pairs them with text written or assembled by the authors? And if so, is it possible to have a version that also pulls its text from blogs? Kudos, Vivek Jo-Anne Green wrote: February 15, 2005 Turbulence Commission: "Grafik Dynamo" by Kate Armstrong and Michael Tippett http://turbulence.org/works/dynamo/index.html "Grafik Dynamo" is a net art work that loads live images from blogs and news sources on the web into a live action comic strip. The work is currently using a feed from LiveJournal. The images are accompanied by narrative fragments that are dynamically loaded into speech and thought bubbles and randomly displayed. Animating the comic strip using dynamic web content opens up the genre in a new way: together, the images and narrative serve to create a strange, dislocated notion of sense and expectation in the reader, as they are sometimes at odds with each other, sometimes perfectly in sync, and always moving and changing. The work takes an experimental approach to open ended narrative, positing a new hybrid between the flow of data animating the work and the formal parameter that comprises its structure. "Grafik Dynamo" is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. BIOGRAPHIES KATE ARMSTRONG is a new media artist and writer who has lived and worked in Canada, France, Japan, Scotland, and the United States. Her work focuses on the creation of experimental narrative forms, particularly works in which poetics are inserted within the functional framework of computer programs, and performative pieces in which computer functionality is merged with physical space. Armstrong has worked with a variety of forms including short films, theatre, essays, net art, performative network events, psychogeography and installation. Her work has been exhibited internationally. She has written for P.S 1/MoMA, the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, TrAce, Year Zero One, and The Thing, as well as for catalogue publications. Armstrong's first book, "Crisis & Repetition: Essays on Art and Culture," was published in 2002. MICHAEL TIPPETT has a decade of experience creating and managing technology businesses. With expertise in design, namespace, distributed and mobile media, and wireless technology, Tippett's media background is in pioneering new forms of networked content. His newest venture, NowPublic.com, uses emerging technologies like camera phones, digital cameras, blogging tools and RSS standards to change the way news is created and distributed. It can be thought of as "reality news" - providing a hub for citizen reporting and for viewing world events though the prism of an alternate, distributed, real time media. For more information about Turbulence, please visit http://turbulence.org -- /Jo-Anne Green, Co-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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _________________________________________ 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: -- Jo-Anne Green, Co-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/20050301/46166fdc/attachment.html From adreesh.katyal at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 16:29:25 2005 From: adreesh.katyal at gmail.com (Adreesh Katyal) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 16:29:25 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] The Chameli Devi Jain Award, 2004-05: Nominations invited Message-ID: <549462c1050301025964ea0b05@mail.gmail.com> Chameli Devi Jain Award, 2004-05 http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid=Web2021592227Hoot70334%20PM1517&pn=1 The criteria for selection will be excellence, analytical skill, social concern, insights, style, innovation, courage and compassion. The Media Foundation is pleased to invite nominations for its annual Chameli Devi Jain Awards for an Outstanding Woman Mediaperson for 2004-05. Journalists in the print, broadcast and current affairs documentary film media are eligible, including photographers, cartoonists and newspaper designers. The criteria for selection will be excellence, analytical skill, social concern, insights, style, innovation, courage and compassion. Other things being equal, preference will be given to small town/rural and Indian language journalists. The entries will be evaluated by an independent panel of jurists whose verdict shall be final. Nominations should include a bio-data (with complete postal address, telephone, fax numbers and email address, for facility of communication), together with samples of work done during 2004-05 in the form of clippings/tapes/cassettes . These should be accompanied by a brief appreciation of why the candidate is especially deserving of recognition. Nominations addressed to B.G.Verghese, 30 Ferozshah Road, New Delhi-110001 should be received not later than March 5, 2004. The Award will be given at the India International Centre auditorium in Delhi on March 29, 2005. B.G.Verghese Chairman The Media Foundation, C-11 Dewan Shree, 30 Ferozshah Road, New Delhi- 110001 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in Wed Mar 2 11:23:07 2005 From: aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in (Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 11:23:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] art x documentary: cultural conjuncture. Talk by Geeta Kapur Message-ID: <1109742787.8fb6d480aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> School of Arts and & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi – 110067 You are cordially invited for a talk on art x documentary: cultural conjuncture by Geeta Kapur Venue: School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium Time: 4:30 pm Date: 9th March 2005 Geeta Kapur is an independent art critic and curator. She is currently a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, J.N.U ============================================== This Mail was Scanned for Virus and found Virus free ============================================== _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From isast at leonardo.info Wed Mar 2 08:13:36 2005 From: isast at leonardo.info (Leonardo/ISAST) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 18:43:36 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award Message-ID: <200503020243.DJQ70334@ms2.netsolmail.com> For immediate release 1 March, 2005 contact: isast at leonardo.info The 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award Leonardo/ISAST is pleased to announce that the First Leonardo Global Crossings Prize has been awarded to Abdel Ghany Kenawy and Amal Kenawy, of Cairo, Egypt, a brother-sister team who have been collaborating on large-scale installations since 1997. These works, whether tower-like structures containing glass balls rising up towards the ceiling or tunnels leading to a block of frozen ice in a room surrounded by chiffon, demonstrate that there is no "natural" barrier between the worlds of art and science. The Kewanys' unique collaboration is built partially upon Abdel Ghany's background in the physical sciences and Amal's background in filmmaking, yet their individual efforts cannot be so neatly defined as singularly "scientific" or "artistic." Committed to their creative processes, they work very closely together on every aspect of their projects from conceptualization and structural design to production and execution in their workshop. Characteristic of all their projects is the power of texture and image, and sensorial play with surfaces between spaces (loosening up the inside/outside polarity)--whether it is a "textured" video, the texture of light projected on a triple screen of chiffon, the texture of human hair bows on a pair of wax legs in a display case, or the textures (acoustic and visual) of a beating heart on which a pair of lace gloved hands is sewing a white rose appliqué. For examples of their work see http://www.thetownhousegallery.com/html/artists/amal_abdelghany_kenawy.htm. The three runners-up for the 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award are Regina Célia Pinto (Brazil---web-based and CD-ROM art), Kim Machan (Australia---curator, arts producer and consultant) and Shilpa Gupta (India---Internet, video and installation works). Other nominees for the 2005 award included: Andres Burbano (Colombia), Kibook (collaborative team of Visieu Lac [Vietnamese-Australian], Mark Wu [British-born Chinese] and Stefan Woelwer [Germany]), Nalini Malani (India) and Hellen Sky (Australia). The 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Award, funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation, was juried by an international panel of experts co-chaired by Nisar Keshvani (Singapore) and Rejane Spitz (Brazil). The award recognizes the contribution of artists and scholars from culturally diverse communities worldwide within the emerging art-science-technology field. The award is part of the Leonardo Global Crossings Special Project, supported by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. For additional information about the Leonardo Global Crossings Award, please visit http://leonardo.info/isast/awards.html. Leonardo/ISAST serves the international arts community by promoting and documenting work at the intersection of the arts, sciences, and technology, and by encouraging and stimulating collaboration between artists, scientists, and technologists. Our activities include publication of the art, science and technology journal Leonardo; the Leonardo Music Journal; the Leonardo Book Series; the Leonardo Electronic Almanac; and Leonardo On-Line (all published by The MIT Press). More information about Leonardo/ISAST http://leonardo.info # # # _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From jo at turbulence.org Wed Mar 2 04:22:57 2005 From: jo at turbulence.org (Jo-Anne Green) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 14:52:57 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Turbulence Commission: "IN Network" by Michael Mandiberg and Julia Steinmetz Message-ID: <4224F249.7000706@turbulence.org> March 1, 2005 Turbulence Commission: "IN Network" by Michael Mandiberg and Julia Steinmetz http://turbulence.org/works/innetwork [Optimized for Mozilla Browsers; Explorer 6+ Netscape 7.2 for Mac] "IN Network" is an extended cell phone life-art performance about distance, communication, intimacy, telepresence, and living together while apart. Faced with the prospect of a long-distance relationship when Michael moved from Los Angeles to New York in August 2004, the two artists got their frequent flyer numbers handy, and switched both of their cell phones to a provider with free "IN Network" service. Michael and Julia started out having regular conversations and sending cameraphone pictures back and forth. However, when they switched to using hands-free microphones they began using their phones differently; they started doing things together at the same time, 3000 miles apart, via cellular connection--driving to/from work, eating dinner, giving lectures to students, going for walks, having cocktails, reading books in silence, falling asleep and waking up. During the month of March the artists will present this cell-phone life-art performance via a photo moblog and podcasts of their phone conversations. There will also be several live audio webcasts of the artists sleeping together on their cellphones. All of their text and picture messages will be routed through the "IN Network" website. If you'd prefer, you can have installments of the performance sent directly to you via the Podcast. "IN Network" is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation. BIOGRAPHIES MICHAEL MANDIBERG is a new media artist who uses the internet, video and performance to explore subjectivity, labor, and commerce. His projects include "Bush Poll," a statistical survey of the 170 George Bushes in the United States, 2004; and "The Exchange Program," a collaborative performance, 2002. Mandiberg has exhibited at Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria; ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany; Transmediale Festival, Berlin; and C-Level, Los Angeles. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Berliner Zeitung, and Wired. Mandiberg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Culture, at the College of Staten Island/CUNY. JULIA STEINMETZ is a founding member and co-director of the Toxic Titties, a Los Angeles based collective working in performance, video, photography, and new media. Their work has been performed at the Museum On Contemporary Art, Seattle; REDCAT at the Walt Disney Concert Hall; Out Fest Film Festival Los Angeles, LA; "Intersectional Feminisms" conference at UC Riverside, CA; and Edith Russ Site for New Media, Oldenberg, Germany. Titties have been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, Mexico City's La Reforma, and Black Book Magazine. Their performance documents and design work have appeared in "Gendered Geographies," and "SITE, Schinitt Austellungsraum." For more information about Turbulence, please visit http://turbulence.org -- Jo-Anne Green, Co-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/20050301/5eea3144/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From jyotirmoy2003 at rediffmail.com Tue Mar 1 20:07:16 2005 From: jyotirmoy2003 at rediffmail.com (Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 20:07:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Sheba Chhachhi: exhibition In-Reply-To: <007d01c51e7e$68a232a0$6601a8c0@GeetaPatel> Message-ID: Wellesley College (Massachusetts, US)Presents: Sheba Chhachhi, South Asian artist and writer sculptor, photographer, installation artist On International Women's Day--March 8th Collins Theatre, Davis Museum and Cultural Center 6-7 Reception, 7-9.30 slide talk by artist Ms. Chhachhi will be presenting her installation work Sheba Chhachhi will examine dominant media representations which construct attenuated perceptions of the conflict in Kashmir. She will discuss attempts, including her work with Sonia Jabbar, to create a third space outside this highly polarized discourse March 9th 12.30-2.00 Bronfman Galleries, Davis Museum and Cultural Center Ms. Chhachhi will be leading a workshop on the relationship between testimony and making art Event sponsored by Elizabeth Turner Jordan '59 Endowed Humanities Lecture Fund, and Davis Museum and Cultural Center Peace and Justice Studies, Department of Writing, Dean of Religious Life, Office of the Dean of the College, WASAC For information on Ms. Chhachhi see: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2005/02/09_chhachhi.shtml Events free and open to the public For questions around accessibility contact Jim Wice: 781 283-2434 For directions to Wellesley College go to: http://www.wellesley.edu/Admin/travel.html Geeta Patel Associate Professor of Women's Studies Wellesley College Wellesley MA 02481 781 283 3335 508 753 8615 (fax) ------ End of Forwarded Message _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 14:45:22 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:45:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <20050301110526.63105.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <20050301110526.63105.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <73cd0cce050302011515949c6a@mail.gmail.com> i have never commented on the quality of the film all i am saying is that how has it helped the subjects ? and why don't they want to release the film in India? what makes us different? in any case the DVDs are available on the net also the filmmaker being an iraqi is of no consequense you can have first world ideologies sitting in delhi From oli at zeromail.org Wed Mar 2 20:36:30 2005 From: oli at zeromail.org (Oli) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:06:30 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] digital inequalities Message-ID: <876D36178D57163617E425BC@hipparchia> Dear all, here is a proposal of what could be called "digital inequalitities". Best, Oli Leistert ---- Digital Inequalities Abstract The following text raises questions about digital dependencies and inequalities. Most agendas of development work and computer literacy see their goals in a distribution of computers and relating hardware. « Computer » here is seen generally as a means for empowerment, as a means to access resources of knowledge and as a means for building networks. Left out, whether consciously or not, is a critical reflection on the product « computer » and the accompaining regimes of computer products. This text argues, that a distribution of computer products such as Microsoft through multiplicators such as NGO's does not diminish digital inequalities, but, in a way, extends them. With the distribution of a black box, such as Microsoft Windows, a profound empowerment is prevented, not inforced. The users of these software bundles are strictly depending on the proprietary product. With this kind of distribution of computers, the misleading and wrong equation « Computer is Microsoft » is transported as a gospel, or ruling motto, into rural areas. The second issue this text discusses is the general accumulation of data in a digitally connected environment, that confronts our everyday life more and more. This world of data is produced by us while we are acting the way we always used to do. Our acting gets more and more translated and transported as data into a dataworld, mostly without that we know about it. Wireless networks connect everyday life (mobiles, smartcards in the metro, payback cards while shopping) and produce a counterworld, that consists of data, intangible and purely informational. This data then feedbacks into the real world, into everyday life, structures what we do and how we do it, sometimes even determines it. Digital inequalities belong to a world of patents, licences and copyright protection The digital divide saga goes roughly like this: the poor on this planet do not only have not enough to eat, no, (even worse) they they don't have computers. And not having computers seems to be the reason, why they don't have enough to eat. Other reasons of their poverty, or of poverty in general, are not touched or even considered in this discourse, because development aid is not about questioning the political agenda where it gets its money from. The analytical gap is being replaced by a simple equation: once the poor have computers, they have access to information and with that, they have access to resources of knowledge that will help them escape their poverty. This tale of progress through technology is being used to implement new dependencies, dependencies that are of an old kind, but with a new look. Digital dependencies emerge, when western commercial products, such as Microsoft Windows, are being introduced as bringing salvation in communities of the paupers. The dependency consists of not more and not less than the usage of a commercial product, including the introduction of such concepts as licenses, copyright regimes and patents. And, maybe most important, the introduction of what a computersystem is, or seems to be: a commercial product. A deep rooted equal computer system would be one, that allows full control over its usage, distribution and changing in any way, including improovement. An equalitiy would allow free choice of applications and the possibility to deny the usage of some. So, digital inequalities can in part be seen as a result of a society, that is shaped by commodities, where social interaction is replaced through an exchange of commodities and of a society, where important tools are « protected » by regimes of copyrights, patents and licenses and where a huge political, juridical and police apparatus takes care of this. These regimes successfully prevent any emancipation of the consumer to a user controlling his/her means by her/himself. This is applies to the west as to any other region (although, surely, there are big differences, the main line stays the same). A licence defines the terms of usage. It prohibits that the user appropriates the products in a way not being intended by the manufacturer of the product. The product is not intended to become a thing amongst others, which is being determined by the user. Licenses somehow guarantee the determination and limitation of the user. A different example of digital inequalities is much deeper situated in the logique of software products: no matter the customer is allowed to use the product in a way different from the licence agreement, software products (including the software running on mobiles) can hardly be changed into appropriated means. The interface design is strictly determining their usage. It is not open to any change. Also, the product does not need to even inform the user about what else it does. By offering the services mentioned in the licence, the product fullfills its requirements the user has paid for. The contract between user and manufacurer is not about any activities of the manufacturer, but solely about the user's. So, the product may have interfaces and communication channels to a third party, without even informing the user. The SMS-channel provided by mobiles is such a case, where a channel, initially made for technical services as checking remotely the functionality of the mobile, has become popular means of communication, sold seperately. Letting connected digital devices give feedbacks and transmit data, with or without notifying the user, is the contempory challenge of the majority of IT-companies. Their goal is to build an environment, an ambient, that permantly transmits data about « events » in real time. The Rfid-technology (link) is such a case, where little computers, that transmit data, are being attached onto or implemented into any possible thing surrounding an individuum, or carried by the individuum. A different approach of bringing together offline and online worlds is made by the consortium that tries to establish « Trusted Computing » . They don't even try to hide their ambitions: a complete control over any connected personal computer, including the possibility of remotely deleting files, if « appropriate ». The history of these kind of plans shows that totalitarian goals usually fail because they underestimate the complexity of reality. But on the other side, if the transnationals make a combined effort in a connected world, one should not underestimate their will and power to solve the « problem » of pirated media and what else they have on their agenda. With the emergence of a counterworld and its computational infrastructure, everyday life is being more and more confronted with a data accumulation innaccessible for most. A kingdom of information for governments, authorities, companies, sales persons and so on, beyond any legitimation. Everyday life produces a counterworld What follows is an example of RFID-technology, that shall serve to explain the impact of a digital black box computer in everyday life. The first part of the Delhi Metro is on service for a couple of months now. This line goes from east to west, connecting the city devided by the river Yukamo. The Delhi Metro has been equipped with a complete computerized ticket system by french global player Thales. It offers to types of « tickets »: one for the single or two-way passage, and one for multiple passages. The ones for the single/two way passage are looking like plastic coins, manufactured by Sony (CHECK), they go uner the product name RC-S 890 and have a diameter of 30mm, are 3 mm thick, and weight 2.7 gramm. They contain a small computer with an antenna. They have themselves no power supply (a very important aspect of RFID-items), but get their energy through field induction from a reader-device. Between the « Ticket » and the reader-device, that is integrated into the barrier one has to pass to reach the platform, an intense data traffic takes place: the computer is activated by induced energy. Then, the reader reads the data on the « ticket » that has been stored on it. The system now knows which smart token has been purchased, for what passage and when. Possibly the smart token stores data given by the reader: the reader might store place and time of passing the reader on the « ticket ». The communication between the two runs on 13.56 Mhz. Both, token and card are working within a so called close coupling distance (distance from reader not more than some centimeters). The smart token has a memory size of 576 bytes. This Eeprom-memory can be overwritten up to 50.000 times. These coins, which have to be placed near the barrier before every passage, open, if valid, the barriers and the commuter can proceed to the platform. After the passage, they are thrown into the barrier again. And depending on the passage done and the one paid for, or better: depending if the passage done is compatible to the one reserved for the commuter by the system, the barriers open or don't open. The traveller does not get any material proof of the passage, like the paperticket in the old days. The tickets are bought at the ticket counter, readily configured for the announced passage. A spontanous prolongation of the passage is not possible without somehow embarrasing procedures at final station. The ticket system notices the change of passage and the yatri gets punished with high attention by the uniformed employees. Furthermore, only a limited timeslot is open for the passage. If the yatri leaves the train in between and discusses with a fellow the pro's and con's of the Delhi Metro and then continues the passage, the timeslot will be closed and again the uniformed personal will pay high attention to this yatri. This high attention mostly leads to a rising deprivation of the yatri, She/he is now a disturbing subject, at least disturbing the continuous flow of the other passengers at the gate. With the total electronic control, no manual control and no spotting of faredodger is necessary in the trains. This means less employees and the end of a possible economy not fully in the hands of the Delhi Metro Transport Corporation (DMTC). Supposedly, full control of metro usage is done over two different stages: purchase of ticket at counter and barrier/reader-device. As some uniformed employees always hang around at the barriers, it is hard to jump over them - a sport of civil disobedience very popular in several western old metro systems. It's even harder, as two barriers have to be passed: at the beginning and the end. The uniformed employees are mere appendixes of the digital machine: they are getting active when the machine tells them to, by sending off alarm clock like sounds that changes the whole place into a location of emergency. One detail, that arises from the fact, that the tickets are computers, is the fine of RPs 100 one has to pay, if the « ticket » is not used for travelling but taken away, removed out of the closed system of the digital machine. It is not allowed to do this, because these « tickets » are far too expensive. They cost far more than the prize for the passage. A smart token ticket system only pays off, if each token is used some hundred times. Only then it is cheaper than the classic paper ticket system. To prevent « theft » of tickets, the DMTC has invented so called « souvenir tokens », simple plastic coins without any computer inside, for 4 rps, that can be taken home by fans of the metro. That it does not contain a computer might not matter, as the computer is invisible anyway. The contactless data traffic does not feel very technical, more magic. While purchasing a paper ticket in a classical metro system, it is still the passengers decision to make the journey or not. In the case of the RFID-System, the passenger has to do the passage or to give back the ticket at the counter. The second type of ticket offered by the DMTC is a plastic card in the size of creditcards. It is intended for those who commute frequently and can be obtained for a deposit of one hundred rupees, which comes close to the actual prize for the product on the market. This smartcard can be charged with data that represents money, from 50 rps upwards. The usage is identical to the usage of the tokens (but you keep it and don't throw it into the slot). Some commuters have invented the practice to keep it in the wallet or bag and to hold the wallet against the reader, which works fine as long as the wallet or bag does not contain too much metal. The value « on the card » will be shown each time the card is read. A little discount is given for users of the smartcard, which means that two classes of users are invented, token user and card user. Whoever has enough money to pay the deposit and at least 50 rps gets rewarded with a discount. Technically seen, the « metrocard » is more sophisticated than the token. It is again a product by Sony, called FeLica, most reasonably the type RC-S833, made out of PET-plastic. The Computer has an 8-bit RISC CPU with 1.2 kbytes usermemory. The most important difference is the Triple-DES Encryption Algorithm the CPU is equipped with. This Encryption is used everytime the card gets read by the System. It prevails the « illegitimate » charging of the card. The metrocard can be used as an electronic wallet, and some shops in the metro stations supposedly accept it (I haven't tried). Whether token or card, both are computers, and being a ticket is just one possible application. It can also be said, that they simulate tickets. The smart ticket system offers online statistics about the metro usage, because every single passage is tracked by the system. This is a manager's dream, a real-time analysis of such a complex company. The possibility of real-time analysis lowers operational cost and increases profits. Information is of big value for companies. Today, a lot of products, from toothpaste to milk, have toll-free number printed on, that can be called by consumers. « We want to know what you think about this product! » Sure they want. And while this kind of feedback is based on free will, other feedback channels have emerged which are much more subtile and imperceptible: City Bank's PayBack card reports every item purchased to the members of the Payback consortium. Customers Cards by chains are a different example. They provide special offers or discounts, which shows how high this kind of informations is valued by the chains. But in all these cases, it initially was a decision by the customer to be member of the « club ». This is different in the case of the Delhi Metro. Every commuter is being reported in real time. >From the operator's perspective, the ticket system provides a complete picture of the metro usage, from its first day of operation on. Every token or card, that had been connected to the reader, gets storaged. So, for exampe, no inspectors in the trains are needed anymore. Also, the expansive and inexact counting of passengers, still seen in older metro systems, is outdated. The system counts everything itself, or better: by counting it works. Every metro station is connected via fibre cable or satellite dishes with the central server. The metro operates its own, closed network, no local business is envolved. The central database, run by a software system thats main target is to eliminate costs (SAP, the neoliberal's dream), contains each single passage: time, places, durage, which token or card used (they all have unique numbers). The software generates daily analysis of each stations usage, routes taken. The metrocards are not personalized, but as video pictures from each station are also transmitted to the headquarters, tracking of each single yatri is fairly easy. The commuting behaviour of each metrocard can be visualized with a mouse click. Okay, well, somehow interesting this, but tell me: what has this to do with digital inequalities? Every yatri produces data during her/his voyage, without knowing about it. No one informs the yatri about this, not during « ticket » « purchase » or by a leaflet handed out. The signs in the stations inform about video surveillance and not to touch unknown things. It seems as if the data is not a matter of the yatri, who produces it. This raises questions of ownership: whose data is this? Doesn't it belong to the commuter? Or should not at least the commuter decide what this data is used for? In the case of the Delhi Metro, the yatri has no possibilities to interfere into the production and usage of his/her data. The Metro System needs the data to operate, so the data is an immanent part of the metro. Any questioning of the data production means a questioning of the whole metro system. The only possibility to avoid data production is not using the metro, definitely not a good choice. The Delhi Metro has implemented a data regime, that is immanently connected to the metros functionality as a transport system - real world and virtual world fall together. Digital inequalities consist in this of the asymmetric dataworld. No influence possible on the data produced and the way it is used. The way to any surveillance scenarios is paved. But even without this in mind, the data production is highly questionable: who has legitimized the DMRC to maintain a total data collection of their passengers? Can this be legitimized by the system itself? A technology, that has implemented such features as being necessary for operation is frightening. What if the next generation cars only move, if a real time data stream is up and running? In a wireless connected surrounding, the real, physical world of moving objects produces a virtual, informational world, a distorted mirror. Simultaneously and in synchronity this mirror is build. But while the real world is fluid, passing, fading in its stream of time, the virtual world is of very different character. It consists of incoherent, but continuously generated data, that does not fade away in time. It is an evergrowing accumulation of discrete « moments », that, as data, lack the sense of time humans have. Data is omnipresent. The virtual world collects passing moments and preserves them for signification at any possible time in the future, in a reductionist way, as data never represents the qualities of real life, the overwhelming number of impressions and emotions one connects with moments passed. The virtual world is a homogenized substratum, lacking any sense of time. It can haunt the real world at any arbitrary moment by « prooving » long forgotten situations or constellations. The temporal disconnection and, with that, the shortage to an everlasting present is not only of philosophical interest. Nothing less but everyday life is affected by it. The virtual world affects everyday life as an objective narrative Although much poorer in sensual qualities and details, which makes the world surrounding us so interesting, the quality of total objectivity is attributed to the virtual world. This total objectivity is also seen as universal, meaning the same anywhere at anytime; the « pure truth ». This authoritarian style data, being always correct, echoes the politics of those who are building it: technicians, engineers, scientists, and authorities of states and companies. White male's dreams of omnipotence rule the data world. A well trained view from above, learned through centuries of « neutral » science and thinking, a god's view. The data world is independent of local bindings. It is a register of a divine almanac, never to be questioned. This objectivity is unquestionable, as there is no locality to question it from. It lies beyond the living world, a dead(ly) objecitivity. This doesn't mean that any data is evil or forever lost in bad politics. But being in the hands of those, whose interest is control, government, surveillance, optimization, cost reduction, the virtual world helps generate images of the real world, that are reduced to parameters belonging to such regimes. The output, the generated view on the real world, always appears to be true and unquestionable, independent of how contingent the meanings given to it are. While emotions and other not quantifyable matters structure the signification of everyday moments, and truth and objectivity are of secondary interest, this relation is upside down in the virtual world. Data of total objectivity generate the meanings of moments. The parameters used for these operations are contingent, maybe even senseless and incomprehensible. They are set by the operators of the system, by the managers, politicians: they generate a world of theirs. The « real » world is being generated from scratch on the basis of datasets, replayable in any contingent way, objectified by computers. A good example is the weathershow on BBC World. A colourful ball appears on the screen, that represents the « world weather » of, say, the last 24 hours, and some gray spots hurry around it. We are feeling comfortable with images like that and hardly notice, that the picture shown by BBC World can not be seen by anyone on earth. It is generated from the virtual world's data and narrates something about the real world, that is computated out of billions of data sets. We are all astronauts, aren't we? The virtual world acts normatively on the real world because of the objectivity awarded to it. The power of the virtual world to generate reductionistic perspectives, views, diagrams, cross-sections by any possible criteria, that are always true, but never representing something experienceable in this abstract and contextless way, alienates the real world from it self step by step. Endless generating of « real » worlds by the means of virtual worlds change every real world substantially. The virtual world is a misguided mirror of the real world, in which the real world never can regain itself. In its reduction to some few parameters, the virtual reduces the real, that bows to it, anddeclares its own richness of images, imaginations, emotions more and more irrelevant. The virtual objectivies the real. The accumulation of data in a digitally connected world generates a counterworld, immaterial, informational, of ruling objectivity. It structures the real, it economises the real and sorts it by contingent, undiscussed criterias, that reflect the thinking of those who have access to it. To trace, to govern, to control, to collect, to calculate, to divide. Quantifyable kingdoms, pure and clean. Classes, modules, segments, parts. Most of the time, we don't even notice the production of the counterworld. The striking thing is, though, that it is us who produce it. Without movements of objects, of transactions, of sounds and any other dynamics, no data would be produced, at least no data of interest. Our actions are connected only one way: into the virtual. The stream goes unidirectional, away from us. It is only on special occasions that we get an impression about the accumulation already done, about datamountains and informationrivers. We are kept away from the data we produce, as if they had nothing to do with us and as if they would not feedback into our worlds. It is an inequality of prominent kind, that our data are present in an unaccessible counterworld, always about to interfere into our lifes. Besieging our lifes with meanings generated by others, meanings we only can react on, mostly helpless as the meanings comes in an objectified form. Personalized data are suspected to be the most problematic data, as a counterimage of a single person is made up with it. But personalisation of data at least offers some advantages: a personal reaction is possible, it is much easier to adress the problem of personal data storage and ask for access to it. Unpersonaliszed data, however, are in a way a much bigger challenge, as they also feedback onto single lifes, but on a different, bigger scale. It's much harder to comprehend and critize their effects, as they act on whole segments of societies. An overwhelming case of building constant data flows into the counterwelt is RFID-technology, pushed by huge transnational companies. They dream of a permant data emission by individuals and their objects. Putting life online. A doubled world of data. Digital inequalities are basically productions of data, that are caused without the consent and knowing of the individuum, that uses digital devices such as Personal Computers or the Delhi metro « ticket ». When Microsoft promotes the connection of every earthling to the net, in collaboration with huge development agencies, their goal is not to fight digital inequalities, but to gain control over its definition. Unconnected people are not of interest to anyone, like unaccessible islands. To connect them means to connect them with and to an unequal digital world, like it is done with the wide distribution of MS Products through NGO's. Connection is always designed by third parties. In the case of most NGO's, a connectivity and computer distribution is promoted, that is designed by one of the largest companies in the world. While the small tokens of the Delhi Metro are hardly to be recognized as computers, the personal computer is the most significant incarnation of a computer, and what is striking, always with some proprietary software by a single company running on it. But this is without any proper reason, as the GNU/Linux solution offers an open operating system free of charge, completly controllable by the user and changeable in any imaginable way. This is a setting, that reduces digital inequalities from the ground. Once the technical knowledge is spread, the computer is under control of those, who should have it under control: the users. Meanwhile, every single newly distributed MS computer only reinforces the reign of Redmond. As the information politics goes, new user even don't get told about alternatives. The equation that MS is computer is being passed on from generation to generation, like some religion. Some argue, that MS is easy to use and that its desktop is the entry to computer literacy. This is an interesting claim that internalizes an element of IT-politics that has undoubtly successfully been brought into people's mind: the problem of the difficult machine and how to solve it. Computers are some of the most complex machines build by humans and their power lies in their ability of calculate in such an enormous speed, that the calculation can be used to generate representations as graphics, sounds and so on. But this computational power has also produced fear and anger at computers. To make them a mass product, it was necessary to give them a human-touch look. The promise of simplicity Computers are of complex and difficult matter. 25 years ago, computers were part of the world of experts. These experts were and are educated to understand the processes inside the machine, to configure and programme it. To operate such a computer was difficult and laymen had lots of respect for these machines and their commanders. These were understandable fears of contact with these modern, eerie machines. Images of machines ruling human kind were born and entered the world of science fiction. Today, the computer has become an everyday item for a lot of people and it can be found in many offices and at home. Fear of contact has been reduced and the computer has become an integral part of contempory life, in many places of the world. Like radio and television, one can't think about life without it. But still, computers are complex machines. Nothing has changed for that. Still, their inner processes are only understood by experts. What has changed and what made them such a big success is their surface, or better: its design. With a little training, one feels comfortable with this surface and one gets the impression to understand a computer. Though, one has « only » become a user. Computers with desktops such as Windows are made to look easy understandable at the price of not letting anyone know what really happens inside. A promise of simplicity is being given, that builds trust between a higly complex machine and a layman. With this promise of simplicity, people get initiated into a colourful world, that provides any means for the consum of digital products. Through this simplicity, the computer as become a mass product. But behind the surface, the complex machines still operates in the same way as 25 years before. And everytime the machines crashes, an event of regularity, some window pops up that « tells » about errors that happened in the most cryptical way. In this moment, the user is helpless and experiences the fragiltiy of her/his relation to the machine. In these cases, the computer proves its power over the user. But this is only because it was build this way. Microsoft has no interest in any other relation. Their software doesn't allow more than a superficial knowledge of the machine. Errors are not to be solved by the user, but by the hotline, an expensive service and integral part of the product. The user's dependency on the manufacturer and other commercial services is part of the game. The user's kingdom ends with changing the background colour of the desktop. In this ambivalence of computer complexity and the politics, to connect everyone to the internet through pretending computers are simple, a digital inequality emerges. The prize for simplicity is a black box, a product that treats the user like a child. The metaphor of the desktop had helped to spread the equation MS is Computer. The politics of making people using computers, whether they need them or not, with the promise of simplicity, has the goal to reduce the number of those, that have been left out of the computer world so far. In the west, these are the older people, the last analog generation. As the market reached its limit in the west, the targetted number of people had to be increased. The retired people are mostly wealthy (they gained the fruits of 60's and 70's social system), buy laptops and search the internet for information on old age illnesses. In the computer courses they visit, they learn how to make spreasheets with MS Excel and other weird things, but no one tells them about Linux. The retired in the west are the rural people in big parts of Asia. While the cities and towns offers internet services in so called cybercafes, NGO's try to bring the computerblessing to the countryside. Main reason is the argument, that computers increase knowledge exchange, that a network of computers also helps to build a network of humans, and finally, computerliteracy is seen as empowerment. This all might be true, even if the computer itself serves also as a fetish that makes people move. The problem is the computer system the NGO's introduce, as it is most of the time MS Windows. They introduce a western regime, that finds its expression in the equation MS is computer. It would be an easy task to qualify a person to administrate Linux machines. Doing this, the network could easily add applications for free and change their own system in any desired way. This autonomy is not intended, supposedly. The agenda fighting the « digital divide » is not an agenda for digital independence, including operating systems and applications. Moreover, the goal is to redo what has been done in the west before. The distribution of western products through NGO's might not be a reflected part of their work. Having the same computers in their offices, why should they distribute Linux to the rural people? Multiplicators such as NGO's are the vehicles to promote the de facto monopoly of one software company. The Desktop-metaphor was one of the most striking events to make the computer a mass medium, followed, of course, by the internet. By succesfully pretending that knowing how to move a mouse and clicking some windows means being able to operate a computer, millions of computers have been sold to people lacking any sense of the machine. But the illusion soon gets into trouble when the first time one of those well-known and weired messages appears, telling about something happening deep down inside the machine, completely in cryptic language. This is where the metaphor of the desktop ends and where the users dependency begins. Knowing how to change the colour of the desktop's « background » doesn't help here. Microsoft is not letting anyone understand the inner states of the computer. Two kinds of PC's exists: unequal and equal ones. The unequal ones are more popular, because they seem to fulfill the promise of simpleness. But also because the unequal ones are being promoted by a huge apparatus of politics, bureaucracy and administrations, not to mention economics. The whole machinery of patents, copyright, commodities, licences, that comes with an unequal computer, feeds the power of these promoting agencies. The entertainment industry finally depends on a machine that can not be controlled by users themselves. How heavily armed this destructive apparatus of control and moneymaking is, shall be shown with an example not entirely realistic today, but very much in a couple of years: You switch on your comp and open, as every morning, your dairy, a file in MS Word. At your surprise, a window pops up that announces some irritating message: « Your license to use this MS product has expired. To renew it, please visit microsoft.com .» And the application closes. You think you are smart and you start OpenOffice, an alternative some computer geek once installed on your comp. OpenOffice can import doc. files, so what's the problem. But instead of your dairyfile, again some message pops up: « This file's license has expired. To renew it, please visit microsoft.com » This time, you start feeling a bit worried. Not knowing what your computer does and always living in a subliminal state of panic to loose data while using it, is normal for you, but not having access to some of your most personal data is a new chapter in your computer dependency. You worry even more, in fact start being hectical, as the same happens when you doubleclick your Phd-Thesis, that is almost finished. Also every letter you have written is inaccessible. There seems to be no other possibility but to « visit » the mentioned website and hope for help. This takes longer than a coffee break. You are being requested to submit a whole bunch of personal data concerning your person, profession, income, creditcard number and more of the kind that is absolutely unnecessary to male your MS Word work again. After having gone through this striptease process, you doubleclick a small « OK »button on the website. To your surprise, an even more worrying text appears: « According to the Trusted Computing guard, your computer system gives host to the following applications without any licence and therefore illegally. We remind you that computer piracy is a criminal act: MS Paint Adobe Photoshop QuarkExpress All data, that has been illegally generated with these applications has been deleted from your computer. In case any other files carrying the signature of these illegally used applications are circulating on the Internet, they will be deleted successively, too. Also, the applications themselves have been deleted. You have infringed copyrights and licenses of Microsoft and other companies by installing and using these applications. It is possible that you have caused severe financial losses for these companies in doing so. Please expect a legal case taken against you. The renewal of your MS Word licence is valid 18 months. We will withdraw $ 293 from your account in the next 24 hours. Thank you for using Microsoft! » Paths to digital independence This scenario of expired dairies does not seem real since until today, there has always been a way to use pirated software. But this time, the past is not much helpful to evalute the near future of computers. Cracking of programs and the old liberal times of the internet are about to be replaced by strict regimes of control. Since 11/9, nearly every government implemented laws and regimes to control the flow of data. The authorities are prosecuting the sharing of music files in the name of antiterrorism. And they monitor the data streams. They store terra bytes of data. Automated filter software works its way through myriads of information, sorting things out by any criteria imaginable. The governments oblige internet service providers to hand over log files without telling their customers; in some countries, the authorities even have direct access to the ISP's internal data. The governments are driven by the reduction of liberties on the net. In a networked world, things have to regulated properly. And it does not take much manpower to do this, since data is processable by computers easily, even such large quantitites as the daily internet connections. This counterworld, being generated in the name of counterterrorism, produces new suspects and delinquents en masse and en passant. Computertechnology has began to tyrannize everyday life. Every citizen is a possible bad guy. But it is not only governments, that have put the counterworld on their agenda and make intensive use of it. The « Trusted Computing » consortium is about to change the Personal Computer from an autonomous machine to a mere appendix of software companies, content providers and entertainment industries. Intel, Microsoft, HP and others invest huge sums to convert the PC to a device, which they can trust. This has nothing to do with a secure computer for the user. The trust is about total control of what is running on a machine under conditions dictated by them. The biggest inequalitiy so far in the digital domain. A sophisticated implementation on hardware level of algorithmns, that ensure proper payment and licensing, that will not be an easy case for crackers and hackers, if at all. The goal is to define, what the user is allowed to do with her/his comp. This control is only possible through a huge connected infrastructure such as the internet. This computer is definitely not a good place for storage of relevant personal data. This computer has become an outlet of the transnational company. Today, the question is not to have or have not a computer. Today, the question is how a computer can be used, without being a data producer for governments and companies. It's about the liberty to decide which data one produces, where it goes and who can access it. It's about the one's self-defined usage of a technology, that holds immense means of empowerment by its huge range of applications, whereof email is the killerapplication. If it is right, that a networking computer is a means of empowerment, than all the big players involved are trying to take control over this empowerment, cutting it down to dependencies and consumerism. Microsoft does not wait until NGO's start to distribute Linux computers. They take care of it themselves to explore new markets, with the aid of agencies like UNESCO. A developing world that develops with Linux is a a nightmare for the big players and would mean the end of the neverending growth of their market shares. China, India, most parts of Asia are about to be computerized. A huge market emerges. Every engagement of Microsoft in Asia is part of a fight against national IT-solutions and Linux. The WTO and other neoliberalist structuring regimes are the instruments to fight any development in the IT-sector that differs from the past ones. But digital inequalities are no natural laws. They are manmade and can be changed by man. It is not advisable to seek help from governments, companies or even NGO's. Digital independence is for the most part selfmade and self empowerment. It doesn't matter to have the latest Computer model. Linux runs on every old machine just perfect. And a computer that has the « trusted computing » hardware implemented can't be trusted much. As digital inequalities are not primarily depending on levels of « development », but on levels of self empowerment and consciousness, digital inequalities are not only subject to the « developing  world ». It doesn't cost much money to operate a comp that gets upgraded regularely and is well documented. Only pay for the Hardware, never for the Software, since Linux is free. Uncountable online-sites contain helpful postings and discussions on technical problems. Most of the times, people answer ones question very fast, because helping others to empower themselves is fun. Linux supports willingness to help. It is pretty easy to encrypt your emails. Noone but you and your communication partner will then be able to read it. The manuals for PGP and GPG are all out there. To encrypt your email it comparable with the usage of an envelope in classic mail. Any non encrypted email will automatically be prossessed by huge keyword search machines, storaged in databases and maintained for possible later use. It doesn't matter if your mail contains secrets, poems or whatever, because it simply isn't anyone's elses business to know the content. What would you say, if all your paper mail letters arrive with an open envelope or if the postman would tell you what your mail contains today? The payments by creditcards, bankcards or any other smart cards is being pushed because it provides two simple advantages for companies: it is cheaper, as cash is cost intensive and always a risk and it provides a flow of data that enters into the counterworld. It is still fairly easy to say no. Use cash where possible. Everytime you choose electronic payment, you let a third party participate in your business and you expose yourself to a situation in that you don't know what happens. A similar case are RFID chips, that emerges more and more in everydaylife. They might be attached to products in the supermarket, to CD's in music stores, and they have already been sewn into clothes. They garnish medical products and are present in systems like the Delhi Metro. Spare parts for cars or mobiles, printer cardridges and other items are identified through their unique number and they have been used to tag dead bodies after the tsunami in Thailand. RFID is a technology for different purposes and usages and there is not one single way to deal with them. They will appear more and more in very different situations of our everyday life. Each specific usage needs its own reflection. There is not a single solution for or against it. But what they always do: they partake in the accumulation of data for the counterworld. In a world of data transmitting things, more and more problems arise for people that want to decide about their data themselves. If companies make it to introduce RFID more broadly in the human environment, we face a counterworld, that can't be ignored by anyone. Through the huge concentration in the food sector, the global players can easily do what they want to. RFID is the effort to eliminate any self-defined data environment. This won't be total, but still troubling enough. To raise consciousness against any data transmitting environment is still a good move, as the business has just started. And as long as the promissary rhetoric of progress and a better living is being used by its promoters, it is fairly easy to expose the myths. The intelligent fridge, that notices a shortage on milk and orders two more litres is not a picture that convinces anyone to switch to this technology. But tracking of pets with GPS devices is a reasonable succesful attempt to introduce a complete surveillance scenario into everyday life. Improvement of security is the keyword of such interventions. But the same actors that are responsible for the condition of everyday life are not trustworthy at all. Some sources, that have been helpful writing this: A good introduction on the Trusted Computing project: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html How Microsoft describes its engagement with NGO's itself: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/citizenship/report/digitalinclusion.mspx The wikipedia page about RFID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID The GnuPG site, email encryption software: http://gnupg.org/ One big source of (coorporate) information on RFID http://www.rfidjournal.com/ From db at dannybutt.net Wed Mar 2 16:23:16 2005 From: db at dannybutt.net (Danny Butt) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:53:16 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I found S Datta's response here unhelpful. Sudesh's email raises a number of questions that have been discussed in the anthropology literature for many years, and continue to be an important issue for many communities who become "material" for first world subjects to document for aesthetic consumption within the West. (Linda Smith's "Decolonizing Methodologies" is a great book from New Zealand as a starter on this) I didn't find the questions racist, xenophobic, "utterly ridiculous" or censorius. I think they highlight critical questions that need to be answered to understand the political efficacy of work motivated by social justice concerns, as the fact that various Oscar judges are "moved" by the work will make little difference to the film's subjects. I would be interested in finding out more on the questions Sudesh has raised, particularly from anyone associated with the process of making the film. (I am not trying to prejudge it, just want to find out more about the different perspectives and expectations, as these are related to my research) Thanks and regards, Danny On 3/2/05 1:02 AM, "S Datta" wrote: > a totally unwarranted, and somewhat racist, rant against a > film the writer of the mail i am responding to has not even seen. first of From rochellepinto at yahoo.com Wed Mar 2 21:38:00 2005 From: rochellepinto at yahoo.com (rochelle pinto) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 08:08:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: sudesh's critique In-Reply-To: <20050302110005.4E33C28D90D@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20050302160800.21875.qmail@web30504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> This is yet another response from someone who hasn't seen this film. Sudesh's critique may raise important questions, but these questions apply across the board to a range of media practitioners and academics who are parasitical on the communities they study/ report/publicise/raise awareness about. The vehemence against this particular filmmaker would have to be justified only after watching this film - or made more explicit in his critique. I also think his anger over the question of whether or not to screen it in India is misplaced. It is a relief to find that the filmmaker recognised that her subjects have a right to demand privacy and ensure that their lives are not endangered. This sensitivity may be quite disingenuous as Sudesh says, if DVDs are already available. Less disingenuous, however, than his own question - why are indians to be feared as an audience for this film? Perhaps because we have no way of addressing prostitution decently as a society that will allow prostitutes to live safely once their identities are made public; perhaps because we routinely target them as the bearers of disease and the source of immorality. Perhaps because we won't allow their children to lead a life that anyone outside the profession does. With our obsession with caste and lineage, those crippled with the wrong kind have to grapple with its shadow permanently. This can scarcely be news to anyone in this country. --------------------------------- Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050302/e8e34b06/attachment.html From aarti at sarai.net Wed Mar 2 22:37:09 2005 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:37:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <73cd0cce050302011515949c6a@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050301110526.63105.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> <73cd0cce050302011515949c6a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4225F2BD.50500@sarai.net> Dear All, Some question on ensuing discussion.. Are you uncomfortable, sudesh, with this specific filmmaker making a film about these specefic children, where the issue devolves on the particular subject positions they both inhabit? .i.e is your discomfort to do with the filmamkers being 'first world' or 'white' or whatever, making a film about these children because you feels this is inherently a process of 'othering'? Or, does it lie instead in the fact that the claim of protecting their identity seems hollow given the availability of the film in other easily accesible forms, such as the web, and that you suspect there is some other reason why she does not wish to release the film. best, Aarti sudhesh wrote: >i have never commented on the quality of the film > >all i am saying is that how has it helped the subjects ? > >and why don't they want to release the film in India? > >what makes us different? > >in any case the DVDs are available on the net > >also the filmmaker being an iraqi is of no consequense > >you can have first world ideologies sitting in delhi >_________________________________________ >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 soudhamini_1 at lycos.com Thu Mar 3 00:17:57 2005 From: soudhamini_1 at lycos.com (sou dhamini) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:47:57 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] mad u rai Message-ID: <20050302184757.D7C84C611C@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050302/7f91263f/attachment.html From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 07:42:31 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 07:42:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <4225F2BD.50500@sarai.net> References: <20050301110526.63105.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> <73cd0cce050302011515949c6a@mail.gmail.com> <4225F2BD.50500@sarai.net> Message-ID: <73cd0cce050302181235582c5d@mail.gmail.com> Reading danny's letter, reminds me of the explorers and archeologists from Europe who would go to "investigate" and "study" ancient civilizations – Egypt and the Silk Route are two places where they went. They took away huge number of scrolls, books, artifacts, coins and even scrapped off paintings off the walls all the while pretending that they are civilized scientific secular people who are just studying ancient communities. Like the filmmakers, they spent many years exploring these regions in some cases even adopting local attire, cuisine and customs. However the funny thing is that they never bothered to keep the artifacts in a museum in Asia or Africa. The natives could not see the artifacts created by their own civilization. The natives called it – "taking our soul away" and many people especially in China resisted. Of course some natives prospered due to these expeditions but for a large majority nothing changed. The explorers themselves were given awards and knighthoods back home. These explorers were not deliberately cruel and never killed many people but they were product of a civilization that treated Asians and Africans as different. In not releasing the film in India the filmmakers are treating us the same way. Their claim is that the majority of the Indians do not have the sensibilities to understand the subject or something like that. Else if you think about it how could the film being seen in select places (as documentaries are) in India have a negative impact on the kids' lives? aarti i am not comfortable with the subject or the film in any case the people at sonagachi are far more aware and organised and therefore they must have taken a concious decision to allow the project. my arguement is only with an attitude which says- "Oh we cannot release the film there, you know those people will never understand the issues involved" But we will have a 100 screen release in america and DVDs will be sold on the net sudhesh From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 07:50:19 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 07:50:19 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <73cd0cce050302181235582c5d@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050301110526.63105.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> <73cd0cce050302011515949c6a@mail.gmail.com> <4225F2BD.50500@sarai.net> <73cd0cce050302181235582c5d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <73cd0cce05030218203ca5edba@mail.gmail.com> rochelle i have never said the film is bad or exploitative that can only be said after seeing the film my response was to a statement by the filmmakers that they would never release the film in India if you think this may be because we do not have a constructive attitude towards sex workers how will that change if we keep self censoring films on the subject what would the response of the European media be if i made a film on the same subject and told them that I would not release the film there. They would not have like it at all. Compare the making of the films Elizabeth and Gandhi. There was no controversy in India for Gandhi - in fact we bent over double to help the production but the British press said Shekhar Kappor was not qualified to make the film and then they refused to promote it when it was finally made. sudhesh On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 07:42:31 +0530, sudhesh wrote: > Reading danny's letter, reminds me of the explorers and > archeologists from Europe who would go to "investigate" and "study" > ancient civilizations – Egypt and the Silk Route are two places where > they went. They took away huge number of scrolls, books, artifacts, > coins and even scrapped off paintings off the walls all the while > pretending that they are civilized scientific secular people who are > just studying ancient communities. > > Like the filmmakers, they spent many years exploring these regions in > some cases even adopting local attire, cuisine and customs. However > the funny thing is that they never bothered to keep the artifacts in a > museum in Asia or Africa. The natives could not see the artifacts > created by their own civilization. The natives called it – "taking our > soul away" and many people especially in China resisted. Of course > some natives prospered due to these expeditions but for a large > majority nothing changed. The explorers themselves were given awards > and knighthoods back home. > > These explorers were not deliberately cruel and never killed many > people but they were product of a civilization that treated Asians and > Africans as different. In not releasing the film in India the > filmmakers are treating us the same way. Their claim is that the > majority of the Indians do not have the sensibilities to understand > the subject or something like that. Else if you think about it how > could the film being seen in select places (as documentaries are) in > India have a negative impact on the kids' lives? > > aarti i am not comfortable with the subject or the film > in any case the people at sonagachi are far more aware and organised > and therefore they must have taken a concious decision to allow the > project. > > my arguement is only with an attitude which says- > "Oh we cannot release the film there, you know those people will never > understand the issues involved" > > But we will have a 100 screen release in america > and DVDs will be sold on the net > > sudhesh > From lawrence at altlawforum.org Thu Mar 3 10:20:12 2005 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:20:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] When Free Music does pay - Thermal Story Message-ID: Hi all some time ago I had posted the news of an upcoming band called thermal and a quarter who released their latest album "Plan B" for free to download under a Thermal Open Music License. Perhaps a good example of how a band without large studio backing can make good use of the internet to gain recognition for themselves. We are also in the process of finalising a copyleft comic which takes off on a WIPO pedagogical comic on Copyright and thermal will also feature in the comic, a rough cut of the comic of the comic is available right now on our website but Ver. 1 with the thermal story should be up in a few days lawrence ===== Hey there, This has been a really busy weekend and we can't wait to get to the big news! NPR's highly rated show 'All Things Considered' featured Thermal And A Quarter on February 28. We were interviewed by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, who has also interviewed Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, Ani DiFranco, Bruce Cockburn and our own Allah Rakha Rahman. The entire audio documentary is up at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516908 THE LAST PLAN B DOWNLOADS With the release of Motorbyckle and Intermission, we come to the end of Plan B downloads. The album will remain up on the site for you to download and share. Enjoy! For more details, check out our web site at www.thermalandaquarter.com (just a warning: the site may be slow as there are plenty of downloads after the broadcast). RADIO GA GA! We rocked Bangalore mighty hard on Saturday, February 26 at the Airtel-Radio City Live Chapter 1 gig in Cubbon Park. Our interviews were broadcast before and after the gig on Radio City 91 FM in Bangalore. That's all we have for you to munch on... keep downloading Plan B! peace. TAAQ From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Thu Mar 3 11:17:15 2005 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj kaushal) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 11:17:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] art x documentary: cultural conjuncture. Talk by Geeta Kapur In-Reply-To: <1109742787.8fb6d480aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> References: <1109742787.8fb6d480aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> Message-ID: <4226A4E3.8010207@linux-delhi.org> Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics wrote: > School of Arts and & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University > New Delhi – 110067 > > You are cordially invited for a talk on > > art x documentary: cultural conjuncture > by Geeta Kapur > > Venue: School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium > Time: 4:30 pm > Date: 9th March 2005 > > Geeta Kapur is an independent art critic and curator. She is currently a Visiting > Professorial Fellow at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, J.N.U Dear Ms Geeta Kapur or whoever wrote this mail, I was tempted to top post, include the whole 201 people in your To: list and cross-post this to several different news groups, but I'm not feeling well today. I might have used my favorite cop-out, "I dont' argue with girls" but, then again, if I wont do this who will? Myabe you are not aware of this. But, you are breaking a major netiquette by mentioning all these people in your To: list. Not to mention, infringing on the privacy of all those who gave their email address to you. You see it is highly probable that many will not like their email address available to the rest of the 201 + the entire audiance of the reader-list. I for one now know who all might be interested in art and aesthetics and without their knowledge or will, subscribe them to my news group alt.animal.husbandry which, I believe is a very important topic to be aware off. It is useful in any aesthetic discussion and these people deserve to be a part of it. The purpose of including a specific person in the To list is to specify that the mail is addressed to that person (note the To line in this mail). The Cc list specifies people who need to know what's happening, but aren't directly addressed in the message (note the Cc line in this mail). I hope the usage of other mail headers is apparent enough to not require clarification. Cheers! Pankaj -- Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. pub 1024D/94C525E2 2003-02-16 Fingerprint=7A60 AE0C C773 2CD2 74E3 29F4 EEFD CD6D 94C5 25E2 From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Thu Mar 3 11:32:17 2005 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj kaushal) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 11:32:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] art x documentary: cultural conjuncture. Talk by Geeta Kapur In-Reply-To: <1109742787.8fb6d480aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> References: <1109742787.8fb6d480aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> Message-ID: <4226A869.1000700@linux-delhi.org> Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics wrote: > School of Arts and & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University > You are cordially invited for a talk on [snip] > Geeta Kapur is an independent art critic and curator. She is currently a Visiting > Professorial Fellow at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, J.N.U Dear Ms Geeta Kapur or whoever wrote this mail, I was tempted to top post, include the whole 201 people in your To: list and cross-post this to several different news groups, but I'm not feeling well today. I might have used my favorite cop-out, "I dont' argue with girls" but, then again, if I do not do this, who will? Maybe, you are not aware but, you are breaking a major netiquette by mentioning all these people in your To: list. Not to mention, infringing on the privacy of all those who gave their email address to you. You see, it is highly probable that many of those on your list will not like their email address available to the rest of the 201 plus the entire audience of the reader-list. I for one now know who all might be interested in art and aesthetics and without their knowledge or will, subscribe them to my news group alt.animal.husbandry which, I believe is a very important topic to be aware of. It is useful in any discussion on aesthetic or art and these people deserve to be a part of it. The purpose of including a specific person in the To list is to specify that the mail is addressed to that person (note the To line in this mail). The Cc list specifies people who need to know what's happening, but aren't directly addressed in the message (note the Cc line in this mail). I hope the usage of other mail headers is apparent enough to not require clarification. Please do not mass include people in the To: or CC: field it is horribly rude. If It is required to send mass emails use the BCC: option. Cheers! Pankaj -- Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. pub 1024D/94C525E2 2003-02-16 Fingerprint=7A60 AE0C C773 2CD2 74E3 29F4 EEFD CD6D 94C5 25E2 From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Thu Mar 3 11:43:48 2005 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj kaushal) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 11:43:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] art x documentary: cultural conjuncture. Talk by Geeta Kapur In-Reply-To: <4226A4E3.8010207@linux-delhi.org> References: <1109742787.8fb6d480aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> <4226A4E3.8010207@linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <4226AB1C.9000104@linux-delhi.org> Pankaj kaushal wrote: > Dear Ms Geeta Kapur or whoever wrote this mail, > > I was tempted to top post, include the whole 201 people in your To: list [snip, snip] > require clarification. My apologies for the unedited draft reaching the list. :"> -- Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. pub 1024D/94C525E2 2003-02-16 Fingerprint=7A60 AE0C C773 2CD2 74E3 29F4 EEFD CD6D 94C5 25E2 From oli at zeromail.org Thu Mar 3 16:35:01 2005 From: oli at zeromail.org (Oli) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 12:05:01 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] digital inequalities In-Reply-To: <1925b33d05030219493135c68d@mail.gmail.com> References: <876D36178D57163617E425BC@hipparchia> <1925b33d05030219493135c68d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <646BB7492CBC3A724644D524@hipparchia> dear t., dear all, yes, I am the author. This is a text I have written while being at sarai. It is intended for discussion, or a starting point of discussion. please feel free to comment... -oli --On Thursday, March 03, 2005 09:19:27 +0530 arisen silently wrote: > Hi > What is this for? Are you the author? > t > > > > > On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:06:30 +0100, Oli wrote: >> Dear all, >> >> here is a proposal of what could be called "digital inequalitities". >> >> Best, Oli Leistert >> >> ---- >> >> Digital Inequalities >> >> Abstract >> >> The following text raises questions about digital dependencies and >> inequalities. Most agendas of development work and computer literacy see >> their goals in a distribution of computers and relating hardware. >> « Computer » here is seen generally as a means for empowerment, as a >> means to access resources of knowledge and as a means for building >> networks. Left out, whether consciously or not, is a critical reflection >> on the product « computer » and the accompaining regimes of computer >> products. This text argues, that a distribution of computer products >> such as Microsoft through multiplicators such as NGO's does not diminish >> digital inequalities, but, in a way, extends them. With the distribution >> of a black box, such as Microsoft Windows, a profound empowerment is >> prevented, not inforced. The users of these software bundles are >> strictly depending on the proprietary product. With this kind of >> distribution of computers, the misleading and wrong equation « Computer >> is Microsoft » is transported as a gospel, or ruling motto, into rural >> areas. >> The second issue this text discusses is the general accumulation of data >> in a digitally connected environment, that confronts our everyday life >> more and more. >> This world of data is produced by us while we are acting the way we >> always used to do. Our acting gets more and more translated and >> transported as data into a dataworld, mostly without that we know about >> it. Wireless networks connect everyday life (mobiles, smartcards in the >> metro, payback cards while shopping) and produce a counterworld, that >> consists of data, intangible and purely informational. This data then >> feedbacks into the real world, into everyday life, structures what we do >> and how we do it, sometimes even determines it. >> >> Digital inequalities belong to a world of patents, licences and copyright >> protection >> >> The digital divide saga goes roughly like this: the poor on this planet >> do not only have not enough to eat, no, (even worse) they they don't have >> computers. And not having computers seems to be the reason, why they >> don't have enough to eat. Other reasons of their poverty, or of poverty >> in general, are not touched or even considered in this discourse, because >> development aid is not about questioning the political agenda where it >> gets its money from. The analytical gap is being replaced by a simple >> equation: once the poor have computers, they have access to information >> and with that, they have access to resources of knowledge that will help >> them escape their poverty. This tale of progress through technology is >> being used to implement new dependencies, dependencies that are of an >> old kind, but with a new look. Digital dependencies emerge, when western >> commercial products, such as Microsoft Windows, are being introduced as >> bringing salvation in communities of the paupers. The dependency >> consists of not more and not less than the usage of a commercial >> product, including the introduction of such concepts as licenses, >> copyright regimes and patents. And, maybe most important, the >> introduction of what a computersystem is, or seems to be: a commercial >> product. A deep rooted equal computer system would be one, that allows >> full control over its usage, distribution and changing in any way, >> including improovement. An equalitiy would allow free choice of >> applications and the possibility to deny the usage of some. >> >> So, digital inequalities can in part be seen as a result of a society, >> that is shaped by commodities, where social interaction is replaced >> through an exchange of commodities and of a society, where important >> tools are « protected » by regimes of copyrights, patents and licenses >> and where a huge political, juridical and police apparatus takes care of >> this. These regimes successfully prevent any emancipation of the >> consumer to a user controlling his/her means by her/himself. This is >> applies to the west as to any other region (although, surely, there are >> big differences, the main line stays the same). A licence defines the >> terms of usage. It prohibits that the user appropriates the products in >> a way not being intended by the manufacturer of the product. The product >> is not intended to become a thing amongst others, which is being >> determined by the user. Licenses somehow guarantee the determination and >> limitation of the user. >> >> A different example of digital inequalities is much deeper situated in >> the logique of software products: no matter the customer is allowed to >> use the product in a way different from the licence agreement, software >> products (including the software running on mobiles) can hardly be >> changed into appropriated means. The interface design is strictly >> determining their usage. It is not open to any change. Also, the product >> does not need to even inform the user about what else it does. By >> offering the services mentioned in the licence, the product fullfills >> its requirements the user has paid for. The contract between user and >> manufacurer is not about any activities of the manufacturer, but solely >> about the user's. So, the product may have interfaces and communication >> channels to a third party, without even informing the user. The >> SMS-channel provided by mobiles is such a case, where a channel, >> initially made for technical services as checking remotely the >> functionality of the mobile, has become popular means of communication, >> sold seperately. >> >> Letting connected digital devices give feedbacks and transmit data, with >> or without notifying the user, is the contempory challenge of the >> majority of IT-companies. Their goal is to build an environment, an >> ambient, that permantly transmits data about « events » in real time. >> The Rfid-technology (link) is such a case, where little computers, that >> transmit data, are being attached onto or implemented into any possible >> thing surrounding an individuum, or carried by the individuum. A >> different approach of bringing together offline and online worlds is >> made by the consortium that tries to establish « Trusted Computing » . >> They don't even try to hide their ambitions: a complete control over any >> connected personal computer, including the possibility of remotely >> deleting files, if « appropriate ». The history of these kind of plans >> shows that totalitarian goals usually fail because they underestimate >> the complexity of reality. But on the other side, if the transnationals >> make a combined effort in a connected world, one should not >> underestimate their will and power to solve the « problem » of pirated >> media and what else they have on their agenda. >> >> With the emergence of a counterworld and its computational >> infrastructure, everyday life is being more and more confronted with a >> data accumulation innaccessible for most. A kingdom of information for >> governments, authorities, companies, sales persons and so on, beyond any >> legitimation. >> >> Everyday life produces a counterworld >> >> What follows is an example of RFID-technology, that shall serve to >> explain the impact of a digital black box computer in everyday life. >> The first part of the Delhi Metro is on service for a couple of months >> now. This line goes from east to west, connecting the city devided by >> the river Yukamo. The Delhi Metro has been equipped with a complete >> computerized ticket system by french global player Thales. It offers to >> types of « tickets »: one for the single or two-way passage, and one for >> multiple passages. The ones for the single/two way passage are looking >> like plastic coins, manufactured by Sony (CHECK), they go uner the >> product name RC-S 890 and have a diameter of 30mm, are 3 mm thick, and >> weight 2.7 gramm. They contain a small computer with an antenna. They >> have themselves no power supply (a very important aspect of RFID-items), >> but get their energy through field induction from a reader-device. >> >> Between the « Ticket » and the reader-device, that is integrated into the >> barrier one has to pass to reach the platform, an intense data traffic >> takes place: >> the computer is activated by induced energy. Then, the reader reads the >> data on the « ticket » that has been stored on it. The system now knows >> which smart token has been purchased, for what passage and when. Possibly >> the smart token stores data given by the reader: the reader might store >> place and time of passing the reader on the « ticket ». The communication >> between the two runs on 13.56 Mhz. Both, token and card are working >> within a so called close coupling distance (distance from reader not >> more than some centimeters). The smart token has a memory size of 576 >> bytes. This Eeprom-memory can be overwritten up to 50.000 times. >> >> These coins, which have to be placed near the barrier before every >> passage, open, if valid, the barriers and the commuter can proceed to >> the platform. After the passage, they are thrown into the barrier again. >> And depending on the passage done and the one paid for, or better: >> depending if the passage done is compatible to the one reserved for the >> commuter by the system, the barriers open or don't open. >> The traveller does not get any material proof of the passage, like the >> paperticket in the old days. The tickets are bought at the ticket >> counter, readily configured for the announced passage. A spontanous >> prolongation of the passage is not possible without somehow embarrasing >> procedures at final station. The ticket system notices the change of >> passage and the yatri gets punished with high attention by the uniformed >> employees. >> Furthermore, only a limited timeslot is open for the passage. If the >> yatri leaves the train in between and discusses with a fellow the pro's >> and con's of the Delhi Metro and then continues the passage, the >> timeslot will be closed and again the uniformed personal will pay high >> attention to this yatri. This high attention mostly leads to a rising >> deprivation of the yatri, She/he is now a disturbing subject, at least >> disturbing the continuous flow of the other passengers at the gate. >> With the total electronic control, no manual control and no spotting of >> faredodger is necessary in the trains. This means less employees and the >> end of a possible economy not fully in the hands of the Delhi Metro >> Transport Corporation (DMTC). Supposedly, full control of metro usage is >> done over two different stages: purchase of ticket at counter and >> barrier/reader-device. As some uniformed employees always hang around at >> the barriers, it is hard to jump over them - a sport of civil >> disobedience very popular in several western old metro systems. It's >> even harder, as two barriers have to be passed: at the beginning and the >> end. >> The uniformed employees are mere appendixes of the digital machine: they >> are getting active when the machine tells them to, by sending off alarm >> clock like sounds that changes the whole place into a location of >> emergency. >> >> One detail, that arises from the fact, that the tickets are computers, is >> the fine of RPs 100 one has to pay, if the « ticket » is not used for >> travelling but taken away, removed out of the closed system of the >> digital machine. It is not allowed to do this, because these « tickets » >> are far too expensive. They cost far more than the prize for the >> passage. A smart token ticket system only pays off, if each token is >> used some hundred times. Only then it is cheaper than the classic paper >> ticket system. To prevent « theft » of tickets, the DMTC has invented so >> called « souvenir tokens », simple plastic coins without any computer >> inside, for 4 rps, that can be taken home by fans of the metro. That it >> does not contain a computer might not matter, as the computer is >> invisible anyway. The contactless data traffic does not feel very >> technical, more magic. >> While purchasing a paper ticket in a classical metro system, it is still >> the passengers decision to make the journey or not. In the case of the >> RFID-System, the passenger has to do the passage or to give back the >> ticket at the counter. >> >> The second type of ticket offered by the DMTC is a plastic card in the >> size of creditcards. It is intended for those who commute frequently and >> can be obtained for a deposit of one hundred rupees, which comes close >> to the actual prize for the product on the market. This smartcard can be >> charged with data that represents money, from 50 rps upwards. The usage >> is identical to the usage of the tokens (but you keep it and don't throw >> it into the slot). Some commuters have invented the practice to keep it >> in the wallet or bag and to hold the wallet against the reader, which >> works fine as long as the wallet or bag does not contain too much metal. >> The value « on the card » will be shown each time the card is read. A >> little discount is given for users of the smartcard, which means that >> two classes of users are invented, token user and card user. Whoever has >> enough money to pay the deposit and at least 50 rps gets rewarded with a >> discount. Technically seen, the « metrocard » is more sophisticated than >> the token. It is again a product by Sony, called FeLica, most reasonably >> the type RC-S833, made out of PET-plastic. The Computer has an 8-bit >> RISC CPU with 1.2 kbytes usermemory. The most important difference is >> the Triple-DES Encryption Algorithm the CPU is equipped with. This >> Encryption is used everytime the card gets read by the System. It >> prevails the « illegitimate » charging of the card. The metrocard can be >> used as an electronic wallet, and some shops in the metro stations >> supposedly accept it (I haven't tried). >> >> Whether token or card, both are computers, and being a ticket is just one >> possible application. It can also be said, that they simulate tickets. >> The smart ticket system offers online statistics about the metro usage, >> because every single passage is tracked by the system. This is a >> manager's dream, a real-time analysis of such a complex company. The >> possibility of real-time analysis lowers operational cost and increases >> profits. Information is of big value for companies. Today, a lot of >> products, from toothpaste to milk, have toll-free number printed on, >> that can be called by consumers. « We want to know what you think about >> this product! » Sure they want. And while this kind of feedback is based >> on free will, other feedback channels have emerged which are much more >> subtile and imperceptible: City Bank's PayBack card reports every item >> purchased to the members of the Payback consortium. Customers Cards by >> chains are a different example. They provide special offers or >> discounts, which shows how high this kind of informations is valued by >> the chains. But in all these cases, it initially was a decision by the >> customer to be member of the « club ». This is different in the case of >> the Delhi Metro. Every commuter is being reported in real time. >> >> > From the operator's perspective, the ticket system provides a complete >> picture of the metro usage, from its first day of operation on. Every >> token or card, that had been connected to the reader, gets storaged. So, >> for exampe, no inspectors in the trains are needed anymore. Also, the >> expansive and inexact counting of passengers, still seen in older metro >> systems, is outdated. The system counts everything itself, or better: by >> counting it works. >> >> Every metro station is connected via fibre cable or satellite dishes with >> the central server. The metro operates its own, closed network, no local >> business is envolved. The central database, run by a software system >> thats main target is to eliminate costs (SAP, the neoliberal's dream), >> contains each single passage: time, places, durage, which token or card >> used (they all have unique numbers). The software generates daily >> analysis of each stations usage, routes taken. The metrocards are not >> personalized, but as video pictures from each station are also >> transmitted to the headquarters, tracking of each single yatri is fairly >> easy. The commuting behaviour of each metrocard can be visualized with a >> mouse click. >> >> Okay, well, somehow interesting this, but tell me: what has this to do >> with digital inequalities? >> >> Every yatri produces data during her/his voyage, without knowing about >> it. No one informs the yatri about this, not during « ticket » « >> purchase » or by a leaflet handed out. The signs in the stations inform >> about video surveillance and not to touch unknown things. >> It seems as if the data is not a matter of the yatri, who produces it. >> This raises questions of ownership: whose data is this? Doesn't it >> belong to the commuter? Or should not at least the commuter decide what >> this data is used for? >> In the case of the Delhi Metro, the yatri has no possibilities to >> interfere into the production and usage of his/her data. The Metro >> System needs the data to operate, so the data is an immanent part of the >> metro. Any questioning of the data production means a questioning of the >> whole metro system. The only possibility to avoid data production is not >> using the metro, definitely not a good choice. The Delhi Metro has >> implemented a data regime, that is immanently connected to the metros >> functionality as a transport system - real world and virtual world fall >> together. >> >> Digital inequalities consist in this of the asymmetric dataworld. No >> influence possible on the data produced and the way it is used. The way >> to any surveillance scenarios is paved. But even without this in mind, >> the data production is highly questionable: who has legitimized the DMRC >> to maintain a total data collection of their passengers? Can this be >> legitimized by the system itself? A technology, that has implemented such >> features as being necessary for operation is frightening. What if the >> next generation cars only move, if a real time data stream is up and >> running? >> >> In a wireless connected surrounding, the real, physical world of moving >> objects produces a virtual, informational world, a distorted mirror. >> Simultaneously and in synchronity this mirror is build. But while the >> real world is fluid, passing, fading in its stream of time, the virtual >> world is of very different character. It consists of incoherent, but >> continuously generated data, that does not fade away in time. It is an >> evergrowing accumulation of discrete « moments », that, as data, lack >> the sense of time humans have. Data is omnipresent. The virtual world >> collects passing moments and preserves them for signification at any >> possible time in the future, in a reductionist way, as data never >> represents the qualities of real life, the overwhelming number of >> impressions and emotions one connects with moments passed. The virtual >> world is a homogenized substratum, lacking any sense of time. It can >> haunt the real world at any arbitrary moment by « prooving » long >> forgotten situations or constellations. The temporal disconnection and, >> with that, the shortage to an everlasting present is not only of >> philosophical interest. Nothing less but everyday life is affected by it. >> >> The virtual world affects everyday life as an objective narrative >> >> Although much poorer in sensual qualities and details, which makes the >> world surrounding us so interesting, the quality of total objectivity is >> attributed to the virtual world. This total objectivity is also seen as >> universal, meaning the same anywhere at anytime; the « pure truth ». This >> authoritarian style data, being always correct, echoes the politics of >> those who are building it: technicians, engineers, scientists, and >> authorities of states and companies. White male's dreams of omnipotence >> rule the data world. A well trained view from above, learned through >> centuries of « neutral » science and thinking, a god's view. The data >> world is independent of local bindings. It is a register of a divine >> almanac, never to be questioned. This objectivity is unquestionable, as >> there is no locality to question it from. It lies beyond the living >> world, a dead(ly) objecitivity. >> This doesn't mean that any data is evil or forever lost in bad politics. >> But being in the hands of those, whose interest is control, government, >> surveillance, optimization, cost reduction, the virtual world helps >> generate images of the real world, that are reduced to parameters >> belonging to such regimes. The output, the generated view on the real >> world, always appears to be true and unquestionable, independent of how >> contingent the meanings given to it are. While emotions and other not >> quantifyable matters structure the signification of everyday moments, >> and truth and objectivity are of secondary interest, this relation is >> upside down in the virtual world. Data of total objectivity generate the >> meanings of moments. The parameters used for these operations are >> contingent, maybe even senseless and incomprehensible. They are set by >> the operators of the system, by the managers, politicians: they generate >> a world of theirs. The « real » world is being generated from scratch on >> the basis of datasets, replayable in any contingent way, objectified by >> computers. A good example is the weathershow on BBC World. A colourful >> ball appears on the screen, that represents the « world weather » of, >> say, the last 24 hours, and some gray spots hurry around it. We are >> feeling comfortable with images like that and hardly notice, that the >> picture shown by BBC World can not be seen by anyone on earth. It is >> generated from the virtual world's data and narrates something about the >> real world, that is computated out of billions of data sets. We are all >> astronauts, aren't we? >> >> The virtual world acts normatively on the real world because of the >> objectivity awarded to it. The power of the virtual world to generate >> reductionistic perspectives, views, diagrams, cross-sections by any >> possible criteria, that are always true, but never representing something >> experienceable in this abstract and contextless way, alienates the real >> world from it self step by step. Endless generating of « real » worlds by >> the means of virtual worlds change every real world substantially. The >> virtual world is a misguided mirror of the real world, in which the real >> world never can regain itself. In its reduction to some few parameters, >> the virtual reduces the real, that bows to it, anddeclares its own >> richness of images, imaginations, emotions more and more irrelevant. The >> virtual objectivies the real. >> The accumulation of data in a digitally connected world generates a >> counterworld, immaterial, informational, of ruling objectivity. It >> structures the real, it economises the real and sorts it by contingent, >> undiscussed criterias, that reflect the thinking of those who have access >> to it. To trace, to govern, to control, to collect, to calculate, to >> divide. Quantifyable kingdoms, pure and clean. Classes, modules, >> segments, parts. >> Most of the time, we don't even notice the production of the >> counterworld. The striking thing is, though, that it is us who produce >> it. Without movements of objects, of transactions, of sounds and any >> other dynamics, no data would be produced, at least no data of interest. >> Our actions are connected only one way: into the virtual. The stream >> goes unidirectional, away from us. It is only on special occasions that >> we get an impression about the accumulation already done, about >> datamountains and >> informationrivers. We are kept away from the data we produce, as if they >> had nothing to do with us and as if they would not feedback into our >> worlds. It is an inequality of prominent kind, that our data are present >> in an unaccessible counterworld, always about to interfere into our >> lifes. Besieging our lifes with meanings generated by others, meanings >> we only can react on, mostly helpless as the meanings comes in an >> objectified form. >> >> Personalized data are suspected to be the most problematic data, as a >> counterimage of a single person is made up with it. But personalisation >> of data at least offers some advantages: a personal reaction is >> possible, it is much easier to adress the problem of personal data >> storage and ask for access to it. Unpersonaliszed data, however, are in >> a way a much bigger challenge, as they also feedback onto single lifes, >> but on a different, bigger scale. It's much harder to comprehend and >> critize their effects, as they act on whole segments of societies. >> >> An overwhelming case of building constant data flows into the counterwelt >> is RFID-technology, pushed by huge transnational companies. They dream >> of a permant data emission by individuals and their objects. Putting life >> online. A doubled world of data. >> Digital inequalities are basically productions of data, that are caused >> without the consent and knowing of the individuum, that uses digital >> devices such as Personal Computers or the Delhi metro « ticket ». >> When Microsoft promotes the connection of every earthling to the net, in >> collaboration with huge development agencies, their goal is not to fight >> digital inequalities, but to gain control over its definition. >> Unconnected people are not of interest to anyone, like unaccessible >> islands. To connect them means to connect them with and to an unequal >> digital world, like it is done with the wide distribution of MS Products >> through NGO's. Connection is always designed by third parties. In the >> case of most NGO's, a connectivity and computer distribution is >> promoted, that is designed by one of the largest companies in the world. >> While the small tokens of the Delhi Metro are hardly to be recognized as >> computers, the personal computer is the most significant incarnation of >> a computer, and what is striking, always with some proprietary software >> by a single company running on it. But this is without any proper >> reason, as the GNU/Linux solution offers an open operating system free >> of charge, completly controllable by the user and changeable in any >> imaginable way. This is a setting, that reduces digital inequalities >> from the ground. Once the technical knowledge is spread, the computer is >> under control of those, who should have it under control: the users. >> Meanwhile, every single newly distributed MS computer only reinforces the >> reign of Redmond. As the information politics goes, new user even don't >> get told about alternatives. The equation that MS is computer is being >> passed on from generation to generation, like some religion. >> Some argue, that MS is easy to use and that its desktop is the entry to >> computer literacy. This is an interesting claim that internalizes an >> element of IT-politics that has undoubtly successfully been brought into >> people's mind: the problem of the difficult machine and how to solve it. >> Computers are some of the most complex machines build by humans and their >> power lies in their ability of calculate in such an enormous speed, that >> the calculation can be used to generate representations as graphics, >> sounds and so on. But this computational power has also produced fear >> and anger at computers. To make them a mass product, it was necessary to >> give them a human-touch look. >> >> The promise of simplicity >> >> Computers are of complex and difficult matter. 25 years ago, computers >> were part of the world of experts. These experts were and are educated to >> understand the processes inside the machine, to configure and programme >> it. To operate such a computer was difficult and laymen had lots of >> respect for these machines and their commanders. These were >> understandable fears of contact with these modern, eerie machines. >> Images of machines ruling human kind were born and entered the world of >> science fiction. >> >> Today, the computer has become an everyday item for a lot of people and >> it can be found in many offices and at home. Fear of contact has been >> reduced and the computer has become an integral part of contempory life, >> in many places of the world. Like radio and television, one can't think >> about life without it. But still, computers are complex machines. >> Nothing has changed for that. Still, their inner processes are only >> understood by experts. What has changed and what made them such a big >> success is their surface, or better: its design. With a little training, >> one feels comfortable with this surface and one gets the impression to >> understand a computer. Though, one has « only » become a user. Computers >> with desktops such as Windows are made to look easy understandable at >> the price of not letting anyone know what really happens inside. A >> promise of simplicity is being given, that builds trust between a higly >> complex machine and a layman. With this promise of simplicity, people >> get initiated into a colourful world, that provides any means for the >> consum of digital products. Through this simplicity, the computer as >> become a mass product. >> But behind the surface, the complex machines still operates in the same >> way as 25 years before. And everytime the machines crashes, an event of >> regularity, some window pops up that « tells » about errors that happened >> in the most cryptical way. In this moment, the user is helpless and >> experiences the fragiltiy of her/his relation to the machine. >> In these cases, the computer proves its power over the user. But this is >> only because it was build this way. Microsoft has no interest in any >> other relation. Their software doesn't allow more than a superficial >> knowledge of the machine. Errors are not to be solved by the user, but >> by the hotline, an expensive service and integral part of the product. >> The user's dependency on the manufacturer and other commercial services >> is part of the game. The user's kingdom ends with changing the >> background colour of the desktop. >> >> In this ambivalence of computer complexity and the politics, to connect >> everyone to the internet through pretending computers are simple, a >> digital inequality emerges. The prize for simplicity is a black box, a >> product that treats the user like a child. The metaphor of the desktop >> had helped to spread the equation MS is Computer. >> The politics of making people using computers, whether they need them or >> not, with the promise of simplicity, has the goal to reduce the number of >> those, that have been left out of the computer world so far. In the west, >> these are the older people, the last analog generation. As the market >> reached its limit in the west, the targetted number of people had to be >> increased. The retired people are mostly wealthy (they gained the fruits >> of 60's and 70's social system), buy laptops and search the internet for >> information on old age illnesses. In the computer courses they visit, >> they learn how to make spreasheets with MS Excel and other weird things, >> but no one tells them about Linux. >> >> The retired in the west are the rural people in big parts of Asia. While >> the cities and towns offers internet services in so called cybercafes, >> NGO's try to bring the computerblessing to the countryside. Main reason >> is the argument, that computers increase knowledge exchange, that a >> network of computers also helps to build a network of humans, and >> finally, computerliteracy is seen as empowerment. This all might be >> true, even if the computer itself serves also as a fetish that makes >> people move. The problem is the computer system the NGO's introduce, as >> it is most of the time MS Windows. They introduce a western regime, that >> finds its expression in the equation MS is computer. It would be an easy >> task to qualify a person to administrate Linux machines. Doing this, the >> network could easily add applications for free and change their own >> system in any desired way. This autonomy is not intended, supposedly. >> The agenda fighting the « digital divide » is not an agenda for digital >> independence, including operating systems and applications. Moreover, >> the goal is to redo what has been done in the west before. >> The distribution of western products through NGO's might not be a >> reflected part of their work. Having the same computers in their >> offices, why should they distribute Linux to the rural people? >> Multiplicators such as NGO's are the vehicles to promote the de facto >> monopoly of one software company. >> >> The Desktop-metaphor was one of the most striking events to make the >> computer a mass medium, followed, of course, by the internet. By >> succesfully pretending that knowing how to move a mouse and clicking some >> windows means being able to operate a computer, millions of computers >> have been sold to people lacking any sense of the machine. But the >> illusion soon gets into trouble when the first time one of those >> well-known and weired messages appears, telling about something >> happening deep down inside the machine, completely in cryptic language. >> This is where the metaphor of the desktop ends and where the users >> dependency begins. Knowing how to change the colour of the desktop's « >> background » doesn't help here. Microsoft is not letting anyone >> understand the inner states of the computer. >> >> Two kinds of PC's exists: unequal and equal ones. The unequal ones are >> more popular, because they seem to fulfill the promise of simpleness. >> But also because the unequal ones are being promoted by a huge apparatus >> of politics, bureaucracy and administrations, not to mention economics. >> The whole machinery of patents, copyright, commodities, licences, that >> comes with an unequal computer, feeds the power of these promoting >> agencies. The entertainment industry finally depends on a machine that >> can not be controlled by users themselves. How heavily armed this >> destructive apparatus of control and moneymaking is, shall be shown with >> an example not entirely realistic today, but very much in a couple of >> years: >> You switch on your comp and open, as every morning, your dairy, a file in >> MS Word. At your surprise, a window pops up that announces some >> irritating message: >> « Your license to use this MS product has expired. To renew it, please >> visit microsoft.com .» And the application closes. You think you are >> smart and you start OpenOffice, an alternative some computer geek once >> installed on your comp. OpenOffice can import doc. files, so what's the >> problem. But instead of your dairyfile, again some message pops up: >> « This file's license has expired. To renew it, please visit >> microsoft.com » This time, you start feeling a bit worried. Not knowing >> what your computer does and always living in a subliminal state of panic >> to loose data while using it, is normal for you, but not having access >> to some of your most personal data is a new chapter in your computer >> dependency. You worry even more, in fact start being hectical, as the >> same happens when you doubleclick your Phd-Thesis, that is almost >> finished. Also every letter you have written is inaccessible. There >> seems to be no other possibility but to « visit » the mentioned website >> and hope for help. >> This takes longer than a coffee break. You are being requested to submit >> a whole bunch of personal data concerning your person, profession, >> income, creditcard number and more of the kind that is absolutely >> unnecessary to male your MS Word work again. After having gone through >> this striptease process, you doubleclick a small « OK »button on the >> website. To your surprise, an even more worrying text appears: >> « According to the Trusted Computing guard, your computer system gives >> host to the following applications without any licence and therefore >> illegally. We remind you that computer piracy is a criminal act: >> >> MS Paint >> Adobe Photoshop >> QuarkExpress >> >> All data, that has been illegally generated with these applications has >> been deleted from your computer. In case any other files carrying the >> signature of these illegally used applications are circulating on the >> Internet, they will be deleted successively, too. Also, the applications >> themselves have been deleted. >> >> You have infringed copyrights and licenses of Microsoft and other >> companies by installing and using these applications. It is possible >> that you have caused severe financial losses for these companies in >> doing so. Please expect a legal case taken against you. >> >> The renewal of your MS Word licence is valid 18 months. We will withdraw >> $ 293 from your account in the next 24 hours. Thank you for using >> Microsoft! » >> >> Paths to digital independence >> >> This scenario of expired dairies does not seem real since until today, >> there has always been a way to use pirated software. But this time, the >> past is not much helpful to evalute the near future of computers. >> Cracking of programs and the old liberal times of the internet are about >> to be replaced by strict regimes of control. >> Since 11/9, nearly every government implemented laws and regimes to >> control the flow of data. The authorities are prosecuting the sharing of >> music files in the name of antiterrorism. And they monitor the data >> streams. They store terra bytes of data. Automated filter software works >> its way through myriads of information, sorting things out by any >> criteria imaginable. The governments oblige internet service providers >> to hand over log files without telling their customers; in some >> countries, the authorities even have direct access to the ISP's internal >> data. The governments are driven by the reduction of liberties on the >> net. In a networked world, things have to regulated properly. And it >> does not take much manpower to do this, since data is processable by >> computers easily, even such large quantitites as the daily internet >> connections. This counterworld, being generated in the name of >> counterterrorism, produces new suspects and delinquents en masse and en >> passant. Computertechnology has began to tyrannize everyday life. Every >> citizen is a possible bad guy. >> >> But it is not only governments, that have put the counterworld on their >> agenda and make intensive use of it. The « Trusted Computing » consortium >> is about to change the Personal Computer from an autonomous machine to a >> mere appendix of software companies, content providers and entertainment >> industries. Intel, Microsoft, HP and others invest huge sums to convert >> the PC to a device, which they can trust. This has nothing to do with a >> secure computer for the user. The trust is about total control of what >> is running on a machine under conditions dictated by them. The biggest >> inequalitiy so far in the digital domain. A sophisticated implementation >> on hardware level of algorithmns, that ensure proper payment and >> licensing, that will not be an easy case for crackers and hackers, if at >> all. The goal is to define, what the user is allowed to do with her/his >> comp. This control is only possible through a huge connected >> infrastructure such as the internet. This computer is definitely not a >> good place for storage of relevant personal data. This computer has >> become an outlet of the transnational company. >> >> Today, the question is not to have or have not a computer. Today, the >> question is how a computer can be used, without being a data producer >> for governments and companies. It's about the liberty to decide which >> data one produces, where it goes and who can access it. It's about the >> one's self-defined usage of a technology, that holds immense means of >> empowerment by its huge range of applications, whereof email is the >> killerapplication. If it is right, that a networking computer is a means >> of empowerment, than all the big players involved are trying to take >> control over this empowerment, cutting it down to dependencies and >> consumerism. Microsoft does not wait until NGO's start to distribute >> Linux computers. They take care of it themselves to explore new markets, >> with the aid of agencies like UNESCO. A developing world that develops >> with Linux is a a nightmare for the big players and would mean the end >> of the neverending growth of their market shares. China, India, most >> parts of Asia are about to be computerized. A huge market emerges. Every >> engagement of Microsoft in Asia is part of a fight against national >> IT-solutions and Linux. The WTO and other neoliberalist structuring >> regimes are the instruments to fight any development in the IT-sector >> that differs from the past ones. >> >> But digital inequalities are no natural laws. They are manmade and can be >> changed by man. It is not advisable to seek help from governments, >> companies or even NGO's. Digital independence is for the most part >> selfmade and self empowerment. It doesn't matter to have the latest >> Computer model. Linux runs on every old machine just perfect. And a >> computer that has the « trusted computing » hardware implemented can't >> be trusted much. As digital inequalities are not primarily depending on >> levels of >> « development », but on levels of self empowerment and consciousness, >> digital inequalities are not only subject to the « developing world ». >> It doesn't cost much money to operate a comp that gets upgraded >> regularely and is well documented. Only pay for the Hardware, never for >> the Software, since Linux is free. Uncountable online-sites contain >> helpful postings and discussions on technical problems. Most of the >> times, people answer ones question very fast, because helping others to >> empower themselves is fun. Linux supports willingness to help. >> >> It is pretty easy to encrypt your emails. Noone but you and your >> communication partner will then be able to read it. The manuals for PGP >> and GPG are all out there. To encrypt your email it comparable with the >> usage of an envelope in classic mail. Any non encrypted email will >> automatically be prossessed by huge keyword search machines, storaged in >> databases and maintained for possible later use. It doesn't matter if >> your mail contains secrets, poems or whatever, because it simply isn't >> anyone's elses business to know the content. What would you say, if all >> your paper mail letters arrive with an open envelope or if the postman >> would tell you what your mail contains today? >> >> The payments by creditcards, bankcards or any other smart cards is being >> pushed because it provides two simple advantages for companies: it is >> cheaper, as cash is cost intensive and always a risk and it provides a >> flow of data that enters into the counterworld. It is still fairly easy >> to say no. Use cash where possible. Everytime you choose electronic >> payment, you let a third party participate in your business and you >> expose yourself to a situation in that you don't know what happens. >> >> A similar case are RFID chips, that emerges more and more in >> everydaylife. They might be attached to products in the supermarket, to >> CD's in music stores, and they have already been sewn into clothes. They >> garnish medical products and are present in systems like the Delhi >> Metro. Spare parts for cars or mobiles, printer cardridges and other >> items are identified through their unique number and they have been used >> to tag dead bodies after the tsunami in Thailand. RFID is a technology >> for different purposes and usages and there is not one single way to >> deal with them. They will appear more and more in very different >> situations of our everyday life. Each specific usage needs its own >> reflection. There is not a single solution for or against it. But what >> they always do: they partake in the accumulation of data for the >> counterworld. >> In a world of data transmitting things, more and more problems arise for >> people that want to decide about their data themselves. If companies make >> it to introduce RFID more broadly in the human environment, we face a >> counterworld, that can't be ignored by anyone. Through the huge >> concentration in the food sector, the global players can easily do what >> they want to. RFID is the effort to eliminate any self-defined data >> environment. This won't be total, but still troubling enough. >> To raise consciousness against any data transmitting environment is >> still a good move, as the business has just started. And as long as the >> promissary rhetoric of progress and a better living is being used by its >> promoters, it is fairly easy to expose the myths. The intelligent >> fridge, that notices a shortage on milk and orders two more litres is >> not a picture that convinces anyone to switch to this technology. But >> tracking of pets with GPS devices is a reasonable succesful attempt to >> introduce a complete surveillance scenario into everyday life. >> Improvement of security is the keyword of such interventions. But the >> same actors that are responsible for the condition of everyday life are >> not trustworthy at all. >> >> Some sources, that have been helpful writing this: >> >> A good introduction on the Trusted Computing project: >> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html >> >> How Microsoft describes its engagement with NGO's itself: >> http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/citizenship/report/digitalinclusion.mspx >> >> The wikipedia page about RFID: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID >> >> The GnuPG site, email encryption software: >> http://gnupg.org/ >> >> One big source of (coorporate) information on RFID >> http://www.rfidjournal.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 amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in Thu Mar 3 11:59:46 2005 From: amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in (Amit Basu) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 06:29:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <73cd0cce050302181235582c5d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050303062946.90230.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> Sudesh, I agree with you that visual anthropologists who visit India for their documentaries are not self-conscious of their "orientalist" attitude and it is a part of their 'professional' activity to adopt local customs. Regarding the Oscar winning film on Sonagachhi, protests were audible in Kolkata and Partha Bandopadhyay (who worked in the film) wrote a critical letter in a leading Bengali daily before it had own the award. If the film only changes the life of the director and the characters remain as 'object of research' then it needs to be reviewed critically. Regards, Amit sudhesh wrote: Reading danny's letter, reminds me of the explorers and archeologists from Europe who would go to "investigate" and "study" ancient civilizations – Egypt and the Silk Route are two places where they went. They took away huge number of scrolls, books, artifacts, coins and even scrapped off paintings off the walls all the while pretending that they are civilized scientific secular people who are just studying ancient communities. Like the filmmakers, they spent many years exploring these regions in some cases even adopting local attire, cuisine and customs. However the funny thing is that they never bothered to keep the artifacts in a museum in Asia or Africa. The natives could not see the artifacts created by their own civilization. The natives called it – "taking our soul away" and many people especially in China resisted. Of course some natives prospered due to these expeditions but for a large majority nothing changed. The explorers themselves were given awards and knighthoods back home. These explorers were not deliberately cruel and never killed many people but they were product of a civilization that treated Asians and Africans as different. In not releasing the film in India the filmmakers are treating us the same way. Their claim is that the majority of the Indians do not have the sensibilities to understand the subject or something like that. Else if you think about it how could the film being seen in select places (as documentaries are) in India have a negative impact on the kids' lives? aarti i am not comfortable with the subject or the film in any case the people at sonagachi are far more aware and organised and therefore they must have taken a concious decision to allow the project. my arguement is only with an attitude which says- "Oh we cannot release the film there, you know those people will never understand the issues involved" But we will have a 100 screen release in america and DVDs will be sold on the net sudhesh _________________________________________ 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/20050303/767a4cea/attachment.html From k.kuldeep97 at rediffmail.com Thu Mar 3 11:48:15 2005 From: k.kuldeep97 at rediffmail.com (kuldeep kaur) Date: 3 Mar 2005 06:18:15 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Labour room as a space for unheard voices Message-ID: <20050303061815.13544.qmail@webmail17.rediffmail.com>  Counter Contraceptives Contraceptives are considered as backbone of family planning program adopted in 1952. The role and methods of contraceptives is well advertised through mass media by agencies (government and non-governments) related to family planning and female health. These so-called awareness campaigns have not been translated into social awareness if my thirty respondents are any indicator of society. Lack of awareness accompanied by well-entrenched social attitude contributes to no or least use of contraceptives to plan the childbirth and spacing between two children. This can be ascertained from the women when they arrive to deliver babies in the labour room. Only two out of thirty respondents used the contraceptives immediately after marriage. Rest of the respondents let the pregnancy took place at its own. Seventeen out of thirty were pregnant within six months after marriage. What about the claims of family planning department? This is not only a question about planning but also the social importance of institution of marriage. Here marriage seems less important about the chemistry of couple getting married more important to produce children. One more thing worth mentioning is that most of contraceptives used by the respondents were female responsibility. Only two respondents depended upon condoms. A respondent was handed over condom by a health worker without any guidance so she threw it away on her way back to home. None of the respondent is planning vasectomy as method of contraceptive despite its being most effective and safest method. In all the cases the choice of contraceptive was made by the male and forced upon the female. It is noticed that if the first child is female second pregnancy is sought at the earliest after the birth of girl child. If the first child is male then the possibility of gap between second pregnancy is more. The respondents with first child as female are articulate about their choice of second child — male. Only five respondents were aware of the fact that sex of the child is determined by X and Y chromosomes. What about the advertisement campaigns carried out by concerned departments? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050303/5622bc25/attachment.html From aarti at sarai.net Thu Mar 3 14:31:21 2005 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:31:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <20050303062946.90230.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <20050303062946.90230.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4226D261.2010004@sarai.net> Dear All, Thank you for ensuing discussion on this film which none of us have seen, but seems to excite much debate nonetheless.. A few more questions: I am not sure if the analogy between anthropologists who plundered civilisations of artefacts, and filmmakers representing a culture diffrent from theirs, is very useful. In this I am not saying that there cannot be 'orientalist' represetations of cultures, or that films, like other representational forms, are innocent of historical baggage. But there are good representations, indifferent representations and bad representations. This is not to say that any representational attempt is, in and of itself, one or the other. And I would certianly be very uncomfortable with a position that said only 'authentic' subjects are allowed to represent themselves. You can make a film about what you damn well please. Whether it is a good or bad film (both in style and in content etc) is a totally different question. How you make the film is again a different question. Secondly, there seems to some issue about the film 'not making their lives better'. or it 'only changing the director's life'. I'm not sure why this is problem. Why should it make anyone's life better? And if in the process of making this film, the filmmaker discovered new provocations, why is this process of discovery in any way questionable? best Aarti Amit Basu wrote: > Sudesh, I agree with you that visual anthropologists who visit India > for their documentaries are not self-conscious of their "orientalist" > attitude and it is a part of their 'professional' activity to adopt > local customs. Regarding the Oscar winning film on Sonagachhi, > protests were audible in Kolkata and Partha Bandopadhyay (who worked > in the film) wrote a critical letter in a leading Bengali daily before > it had own the award. If the film only changes the life of the > director and the characters remain as 'object of research' then it > needs to be reviewed critically. Regards, Amit > > */sudhesh /* wrote: > > Reading danny's letter, reminds me of the explorers and > archeologists from Europe who would go to "investigate" and "study" > ancient civilizations – Egypt and the Silk Route are two places > where > they went. They took away huge number of scrolls, books, artifacts, > coins and even scrapped off paintings off the walls all the while > pretending that they are civilized scientific secular people who are > just studying ancient communities. > > Like the filmmakers, they spent many years exploring these regions in > some cases even adopting local attire, cuisine and customs. However > the funny thing is that they never bothered to keep the artifacts in a > museum in Asia or Africa. The natives could not see the artifacts > created by their own civilization. The natives called it – > "taking our > soul away" and many people especially in China resisted. Of course > some natives prospered due to these expeditions but for a large > majority nothing changed. The explorers themselves were given awards > and knighthoods back home. > > These explorers were not deliberately cruel and never killed many > people but they were product of a civilization that treated Asians and > Africans as different. In not releasing the film in India the > filmmakers are treating us the same way. Their claim is that the > majority of the Indians do not have the sensibilities to understand > the subject or something like that. Else if you think about it how > could the film being seen in select places (as documentaries are) in > India have a negative impact on the kids' lives? > > aarti i am not comfortable with the subject or the film > in any case the people at sonagachi are far more aware and organised > and therefore they must have taken a concious decision to allow the > project. > > my arguement is only with an attitude which says- > "Oh we cannot release the film there, you know those people will never > understand the issues involved" > > But we will have a 100 screen release in america > and DVDs will be sold on the net > > sudhesh > _________________________________________ > 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 > . > > From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 14:32:49 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:32:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <4226D261.2010004@sarai.net> References: <20050303062946.90230.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> <4226D261.2010004@sarai.net> Message-ID: <73cd0cce0503030102196ee9ea@mail.gmail.com> dear all i repeat again that i have not commented on the quality of the film since i have not seen it i have only talked about the attitude of the filmmakers in not wanting to show the film in India that attitude presumes that they treat Indians differently of not being able to judge the film and understand the issues involved i repeat my example again that had an asian made a film on sex workers in Europe or America and not released the film there would they not have a problem with it? sudhesh From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 14:40:34 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:40:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <4226D261.2010004@sarai.net> References: <20050303062946.90230.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> <4226D261.2010004@sarai.net> Message-ID: <73cd0cce050303011067d31292@mail.gmail.com> One can make a film about any subject as you please there is no need for an "authentic" subject but to say that we cannot release it here because people here do not understand the sensitive nature of the film that does not make any sense the issue of whether lives has improved has been discussed since the time of Salaam Bombay. Of course in most cases the director has no resposibility to make anyone's lives better but in this case they are documenting lives of people whose identities need to be protected (their words not mine) and who were living in no man's zone. If the children have given two years of their lives (for the making of the film) how have they benefitted? the process of discovery is all fine when we are discovering other people and lands - we are not bothered what happens to them after that.... sudhesh From mpillai65 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 3 21:49:10 2005 From: mpillai65 at yahoo.com (Meera Pillai) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 08:19:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <20050303062946.90230.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050303161910.6410.qmail@web53510.mail.yahoo.com> hi, throwing my hat in the ring for what it's worth! i haven't seen the movie either, but i think enough has been said on the list to get a sense of the issues. i think sudesh has some legitimate concerns. once a cultural object has been produced and it is in the public domain, then why and in what manner it is censored becomes a tricky issue. this is true of books, newspaper articles, porn...whatever. If the film-maker did state that the indian audience was incapable of the sensitivity necessary to appreciate such a film, or take it in the right spirit, and so would not be shown it (how big brotherly!) perhaps it was regrettable and immature. perhaps if she had said "sections of the indian audience..." a much more participatory approach may have been to determine viewing/distributorship rights in collaboration with representatives of the women in sonagachi. as sudesh suggested at some point during his debate, there is a section of the commercial sex workers in sonagachi which is extremely empowered, articulate and capable of advocating for itself, and also, with a greater degree of authenticity than perhaps any of us, for the larger community of sex workers in sonagachi. also, the concept of "member checking" which ethical qualitative research emphasizes, may have been a good principle to follow in the making of a documentary on such a sensitive subject. this way the participants in the documentary would have had a significant (deciding?) part in determining exactly how much they wanted to reveal of their lives and how. and if someone wanted her identity concealed, there is surely no dearth of cinematic techniques to achieve this. this could have been negotiated during the rough cuts of the film. and the creativity and skill of the film-maker would have been to tell/show the story to maximum effect while respecting the wishes of the participants about confidentiality. i think another issue that sudesh is raising is that of what ethical qualitative research calls "reciprocity." you get your story and you get out, and you also get whatever goodies come your way courtesy the story (whether it's a ph.d., a sarai grant, or the oscar). what do the people who are the story and who gave you the story get? it's always a good idea to worry about this and negotiate with those whose story it really is or those who are authentically involved in their lives, before rather than after the artefact has been made. that said, it's also a good idea to critically look at who is protesting and WHY these folks are protesting. sudesh's language in the initial mails seemed a little extra-emotional, but as i mentioned earlier, i personally think he has some legitimate concerns. however, when we hear that "protests were audible in kolkata", it's a good idea to look into what kind of protests and what triggered them. all too often we feel threatened and defensive when we're forced to face up to the not-so-nice aspects of our society, and this is perhaps especially so of "high-profile" sections like the bengali/kokatan intellectual or middle-class community, which is more used to having aspects of the culture feted. if there's someone in this e-community who can contact someone in Sanlaap or one of the other organizations which has been working in Sonagachi for a long time and has credibility with the community there, and who can share this debate with the community and get their feedback, i wonder if it would be eye-opening and/or humbling. would they see us as completely out of tune with the realities of their lives, carrying on our debates in this sanitized, bloodless forum, tilting at windmills on their behalf while they wring out what they can of value from their harsh lives? best, meera pillai. --- Amit Basu wrote: > Sudesh, > I agree with you that visual anthropologists who > visit India for their documentaries are not > self-conscious of their "orientalist" attitude and > it is a part of their 'professional' activity to > adopt local customs. Regarding the Oscar winning > film on Sonagachhi, protests were audible in Kolkata > and Partha Bandopadhyay (who worked in the film) > wrote a critical letter in a leading Bengali daily > before it had own the award. > If the film only changes the life of the director > and the characters remain as 'object of research' > then it needs to be reviewed critically. > Regards, > Amit > > sudhesh wrote: > Reading danny's letter, reminds me of the explorers > and > archeologists from Europe who would go to > "investigate" and "study" > ancient civilizations – Egypt and the Silk Route > are two places where > they went. They took away huge number of scrolls, > books, artifacts, > coins and even scrapped off paintings off the walls > all the while > pretending that they are civilized scientific > secular people who are > just studying ancient communities. > > Like the filmmakers, they spent many years exploring > these regions in > some cases even adopting local attire, cuisine and > customs. However > the funny thing is that they never bothered to keep > the artifacts in a > museum in Asia or Africa. The natives could not see > the artifacts > created by their own civilization. The natives > called it – "taking our > soul away" and many people especially in China > resisted. Of course > some natives prospered due to these expeditions but > for a large > majority nothing changed. The explorers themselves > were given awards > and knighthoods back home. > > These explorers were not deliberately cruel and > never killed many > people but they were product of a civilization that > treated Asians and > Africans as different. In not releasing the film in > India the > filmmakers are treating us the same way. Their claim > is that the > majority of the Indians do not have the > sensibilities to understand > the subject or something like that. Else if you > think about it how > could the film being seen in select places (as > documentaries are) in > India have a negative impact on the kids' lives? > > aarti i am not comfortable with the subject or the > film > in any case the people at sonagachi are far more > aware and organised > and therefore they must have taken a concious > decision to allow the > project. > > my arguement is only with an attitude which says- > "Oh we cannot release the film there, you know those > people will never > understand the issues involved" > > But we will have a 100 screen release in america > and DVDs will be sold on the net > > sudhesh > _________________________________________ > 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.> _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > subject header. > List archive: __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 07:46:00 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 07:46:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <20050303161910.6410.qmail@web53510.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050303062946.90230.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> <20050303161910.6410.qmail@web53510.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <73cd0cce050303181652fe0a21@mail.gmail.com> my initial response was to reports on rediff where the filmmakers had said their would be trouble if the film was shown in India while the film was being shown in Europe and United States i would also have protested if our government had banned the film because of itsn subject. i belive that such films should be made and shown so that we get used to dealing with realities around us and face upto them but we cannot have someone else decide whether we are capable of watching a film. there is a risk in releasing film in cinema halls. there have being cases of riots in India. But in the case of this documentary it would only be shown in IIC delhi or other metros to select audiences. so why do the filmmakers have a problem with India? From iyer_renu at rediffmail.com Thu Mar 3 13:56:11 2005 From: iyer_renu at rediffmail.com (renu swaminathan iyer) Date: 3 Mar 2005 08:26:11 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] 'My Jim': A New Take on a Twain Classic Message-ID: <20050303082611.2974.qmail@webmail10.rediffmail.com> 'My Jim': A New Take on a Twain Classic by Karen Grigsby Bates Day to Day, March 2, 2005 · American literature is rich with accounts of Antebellum life from the perspective of white slaveholders. Last year's The Known World, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward P. Jones, looked at slavery from the black perspective -- in this case, both master and slave were black. In the mid-1960s, the late Margaret Walker wrote Jubilee as an answer to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, a classic that was largely considered a mythological view of slavery -- but one that was comfortable for white Americans to believe. Nancy Rawles' new novel My Jim is the story of Sadie Watson, the wife of "Nigger Jim," as he was referred to in the Mark Twain classic Huckleberry Finn. Jim was the escaped slave who took the journey down the Mississippi (and into American literary history) with runaway Huck. Rawles says that Jim mentions his family at least twice in Twain's book, but that the classic divulges no details about who this woman was. Starting from that point, Rawles created Sadie, a woman who never resigned herself to involuntary servitude, and who was Jim's lifelong love. Rawles relied upon new research revealing more about the daily lives of slaves to show how Jim and Sadie -- like real-life slaves in the South -- created family in the midst of chaos, and, whenever they could, sought stability in an environment that offered none. My Jim is an enduring love story as much as it is a chronicle of slavery and resistance to it. For more information and interviews with the author: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4519174 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050303/45d31589/attachment.html From rochellepinto at yahoo.com Thu Mar 3 16:34:39 2005 From: rochellepinto at yahoo.com (rochelle pinto) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 03:04:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] on sudesh' critique In-Reply-To: <20050302110005.4E33C28D90D@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20050303110439.24686.qmail@web30510.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Sudesh you still don't address the question of privacy. i think there are a number of issue involved here. for one, even if documentaries have a select audience as you suggest, in india, this still doesn't guarantee control. further, if the subjects have themselves asked for privacy, can one actually disregard it? One would think though, that technology can provide other means of concealing identities other than banning the screening of a film in India. Further, the idea that if it is shown elsewhere, it cannot rebound on the inhabitants of Sonagachi seems naive. During the coverage of the current occupation of Iraq within the US, Iraqi 'suspects', accused of anything from theft to terrorism during road patrols by US soldiers, were frequently displayed on television without the slightest concern that they had not been convicted of these crimes or that their lives would be affected if they were recognised by viewers within the US. If a white person were represented in the same manner, there is no doubt that this would be seen as a violation of human rights. All of this has less to do with sensitivity of Indians versus other nationalities, and more to do with the perceived threat to the existence and life of subjects from viewers. --------------------------------- Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050303/cd1c7e1e/attachment.html From schatte2 at ncsu.edu Thu Mar 3 20:43:14 2005 From: schatte2 at ncsu.edu (schatte2 at ncsu.edu) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:13:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Reader-list] Child friendly environment: an observational study of =?iso-8859-1?q?children=92s_lives_in_Nizamuddin_basti?= Message-ID: <60097.203.101.9.218.1109862794.squirrel@203.101.9.218> Child friendly environment: an observational study of children’s lives in Nizamuddin basti The fieldwork in Nizamuddin basti has finally started off. Though the first half of February went by in getting the final permission for interviewing children from the school, things happened at a breakneck speed after that. I told the school to draw up a roster of all the children aged between 11 and 12 years. I was given 44 names, 33 girls and 11 boys. I have randomly selected 21 girls and retained all 11 boys for my sample. Of these girls, about 9 go to neighboring government schools while the rest are all non-formal education students at the school. Two of the boys are apprentices in their father’s trades—whitewasher and tailor respectively, while four are non-formal students. Rest of the boys goes to nearby government schools. The school had originally started as a non-formal girls school which explains why there are more girls studying here than boys. The government school kids come here for educational support in the afternoon. All these children live, learn and play in Nizamuddin basti. For the purpose of my research this is quite an ideal situation, I get a diverse range of childhoods in one place and a community that is by and large homogeneous in terms of culture and religion. I had called the parents of all these kids one afternoon and in the presence of the teacher and the school social worker assisting me in the project, explained in great detail what was going to happen in the next six months. Only the mothers had come with sons and daughters. This did not surprise me, as during one of my many informal chats with the principal, I was explained the issue of gendered interaction of the school and the children’s families. I was told that due to the intense gender segregation within the community, the school’s interaction was restricted to mothers. Fathers were not part of the school-child-parent dialogue. The principal had narrated an episode about the time one father had turned up for the weekly community meeting. He looked into the room and found he was the only man. The teachers tried to make him feel at ease and made him sit at the back of the room so that all the womenfolk had their backs toward him. After some time he got up and said, “ Mein ja rahan hun, aurate hai yahan to (I am leaving, there are only women here).” So I sent out From askshetty at rediffmail.com Thu Mar 3 22:21:14 2005 From: askshetty at rediffmail.com (prasad shetty) Date: 3 Mar 2005 16:51:14 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Stories of Entrepreneurship Message-ID: <20050303165114.23481.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com> Hello Everybody, My second posting to the reader list including some of the cases of Entrepreneurship in the City of Mumbai. These are some of the raw data which interestingly are fairly close to Bollywood scripts. CASE 1: A SOAP RETAILER This is a case of a soap manufacturer within the industrial city of Mumbai. This large migrant joint family of around sixteen members manufactured soap since late 1960s in their house in Mazgaon by acquiring raw materials from the wholesale market in Bhindi Bazaar. These soaps were sold to the industrial labour in the area. The family head acquired a small shop front (2 m X 0.5 m) from the adjoining restaurant in the early 1970s. The agreement with the restaurant owner was informal and a meagre rent was charged. The shop and the restaurant were located in a dense industrial housing area opposite a cotton textile mill. By the late 1980s the mill closed down. The labour got scattered. The restaurant shut and in its place came a bank. The family head retired and the soap manufacturing was taken over by the eldest son. The son soon realised that the family was growing and the sales of the soap were decreasing. By the nineties, a large number of branded, highly advertised soaps, which were at the same time cheap, had entered the market. The soap manufacturer was unable to advertise or compete with these new brands of soaps. The new consumers of soap had no image of his soap in their memory. The eldest son decided to shift from the manufacturing business to retailing business. He would buy branded soap from the wholesale market and sell them in his shop. This required lesser number of people. The remaining members of the family either became occupied with other jobs or remained jobless. The family was breaking. The elders had retired to their native place. The eldest son was the only real earning member. He was able to acquire a new shop adjacent to the old restaurant (now a bank). This was not through the profits, but through taking advantage of a distress sale of the shop. This new shop was earlier a tailor’s shop. Again with the advent of branded cheap clothes, the tailor lost his business. The immense loans and borrowings forced this tailor to commit suicide. The wife of the tailor preferred to sell the shop and return to her native place. Our soap manufacturer took advantage of this situation and bought the shop at a very cheap price. He was able to also maintain the old shop because the law of the municipality gives the occupier of the place a right to stay if he/she has been using the premises for more than twenty years. Hence, though the restaurant (now the bank landlord) owner tried her best to vacate the soap manufacturer through elaborate legal processes, it wasn’t possible. Today, the brother of our soap manufacturer who repairs electronic/mechanical household objects occupies this old shop. His elder brother sells soap in their nearby shop. A year ago the bank moved as the old restaurant premise was too small for the increasing banking activity. The restaurant owner tried to sell the premises, but the property price was too low for her expectations. The mill had closed and remains closed even today. The area has become run down with no large-scale business opportunities. On the other hand, the building condition had become very poor, as there was no investment on maintaining the building the landowner whose rents were fixed by the Rent Control Act in the 1940’s. The other tenants of the building along with our soap manufacturer and restaurant owner have jointly agreed with the landlord to demolish the building and develop a new high-rise in its place. The additional real estate made available on account of the new high-rise would compensate the redevelopment. But since the property prices are low, no developer is interested in investing. Our soap manufacturer has now realised that the new shopping malls and supermarkets are eating away his business as a soap retailer. He is not able to compete with them. He has decided to shift his occupation again. He has entered into an informal agreement with the restaurant owner to amalgamate the two premises (his shop and the restaurant) and rent the larger premises to another bank. CASE 2: CHIT FUND OPERATOR The second case is that of a family headed by a worker employed in a tyre company. The family lives in the fringe of the city where the development control regulations of the city do not apply. Due to this, the area has seen extremely dense development (about 1.5 m space between two buildings that are four to seven stories high) with low infrastructure (the road condition is poor and the water supply is occasional) The area still harbours a huge population of labourers due to the proximity to work places in the city and cheap accommodation available in this area. The family consists of three members, a migrant father, his wife (the mother) and a daughter. The tyre company shut down in the beginning of the nineties. There was absolutely no saving in the family. The mother’s relatives helped the family to survive for a short period. There was a condition of indefiniteness regarding the restarting of the company. The labour believed that the company would start again. In such a condition of insecurity, the father would take up occasional informal jobs, as fresh jobs were not available because of his age. The family struggled to survive with a young daughter who was getting educated. The mother, being uneducated, found it difficult to procure work. The family started a chit fund. This is a kind of saving system where around twenty people contribute a small amount every month. This amount is then auctioned to the lowest bidder for that amount. The remaining amount would then be redistributed amongst the members. All members continue to pay for around twenty months. The person who has already been given the auctioned amount cannot bid again, but has to keep paying the amount. The last person gets the entire amount. But the advantage is that the organiser of the fund keeps the first amount in the first month for him/herself, as he/she is also one of the members. Hence if there are twenty persons and the fund is worth 20,000, then each person pays 1000 each. Then this 20,000 is auctioned and the lowest bidder gets the amount. Suppose the lowest bid is for 10,000, then the remaining 10,000 is redistributed amongst all the members. That is their profit. The bidder gets money when he needs it but has to pay a big price. This is the kind of chit fund that is very popular amongst the business communities in the western coast of south India. The family operated such a fund and would invest the first month’s amount with a private financier and acquire some profits as interest on this amount. The family came from a community of businessmen (restaurant owners) who required quick money without any collateral. Hence, there were lots of businessmen who became members of such a scheme. The scheme operated with informal networks and trust without a single written document. The businessmen could afford the high price of money, and in return the family benefited. Both the mother and the father were completely involved in this enterprise. The family was then able to invest in another house outside the city very soon. This house was rented for some time and the rents added to the family income. But the family went through a lot of hardships, especially when a member involved in the chit fund fled. At such times, the entire burden of that member would come on the fund organiser. There was another serious crisis. The niece of the father was getting married. And as a community custom, if the bride’s family is poor, then the relatives contribute for the marriage. Marriages in India are a very expensive deal. The father of our family decided to sell the newly bought house to contribute to the wedding of the niece. The daughter was growing up and university education required much more money. The mother then decided to run tuition classes for very young children. The house was converted into a coaching class with ten students. The mother and daughter now run tuition classes while the father is employed as a supervisor of an industrial canteen. The most recent venture that the family has entered into is selling cosmetics for a multinational company, Orion. One large cosmetic manufacturing multinational industry has come up with a scheme employing housewives as sales agents. The industry would sell the products to these housewives and the housewives would use their networks to resell these products. Some feeble advantages are floated by the industry to lure the housewives. The most recent worry of the family is their daughter’s marriage. Case 3: TRANSPORTER This is a case of a young lad of 26 years who owns a truck and works in the transportation business in the city of Mumbai. After completing his twelfth grade he joined a correspondence course in computer hardware at one of the computer institutes sprawling all over the suburbs in the 1990s. He worked alongside in a wholesaler’s agency selling electronic products and the easy money attracted him to early jobs rather than the completion of his education. He then worked at the age of seventeen with Research International, an agency that conducted elite field operations for various agencies. The company shut down as the employer turned out to be fraud, so he joined the Indian Market Research Bureau for two years, which hired part timers and college students to conduct their field surveys. He rose to the position of a Supervisor for Corporate Studies, and earned 30% of the project fee. However, with the advent of computers and international outsourcing into the city, interviewers sought employment in the ubiquitous call centres leading to a huge paucity of English speaking recruits required for the research team. While on one such project that involved 1000 interviewers of transporters, the idea of an inter-state transport business germinated. With a friend of four years from the same company, they decided to start a partnership business in intra-national transportation in March, 2002 – and finalised the venture in November, as it took six months to research the practices in the industry and organise finance. His parents, pensioners in Central Bank of India and United India Insurance Company respectively, made the down payment of Rs. 2 lakhs and lent two more lakhs for the registration. With the truck costing Rs. 12 lakhs, Kotak Mahindra bank loaned the remaining money and one of his business friends signed as the guarantor. In 3 months his partner friend couldn’t repay the money, so he left. Research for the venture took him to Goa and Karnataka, as the requirement of trucks was minimal in Mumbai – there were more trucks available than required. He met an agent in Jogeshwari through an ad in the newspaper and was introduced to a book that contained all the names of all the registered transporters in the country. He also learnt of some trucks that were required to transport 4500 tons of coal required for Met Coke furnaces from Vasco to Hospet every day. For a new truck, it is a 15 hours journey, while it takes 3-4 days for a six-month-old truck for the entire to and fro journey including loading, refreshment breaks and unloading. Each round earns a profit of Rs. 10,000/-, while the number of rounds decreases, as the truck gets older. Also, the Met Coke pollution at the Vasco port led to numerous complaints and the overloading of trucks was restricted. The limit allowed is 16.5 T, while trucks were overloaded upto 30-35 T, which earned the real profit. A special unofficial pass is issued by the RTO employees at various tollbooths for varying rates as per location. (For e.g. Rs. 100 / T / overload at the Goa-Karnataka border.) While staying in Goa with three other transporters, one friend who had networks in Mumbai suggested Nagpur as a prospective site for business. With parents aging in Mumbai, he decided to come back to Mumbai and work along the Nagpur – Mumbai route as the transport business would require him to be present in one of the two cargo destinations. For two years now, he has been working as a sub-transporter on the Nagpur – Mumbai route transporting metal balls for coils. He earns Rs. 15,000 per round and manages 3 rounds per month. A sub transporter is not a registered transporter and supplies to the transporter who procures contracts through bidding for tenders. The transporter usually has lesser trucks than required for the contract and sublets the contract to such sub transporters and charges a commission of Rs. 500 / - per truck which becomes his main source of income. He networks through his cell phone and all his agreements are done by word of mouth and no paperwork at all. A typical work day would be the day the truck halts in Mumbai (Vikhroli, as parking is easy and his transporter is based there) and would involve him enquiring about events with his driver whom he has hired at Rs. 3500 / month (average market rate – Rs. 2000 / month) and cleaner at Rs. 150 / day (average market rate – Rs.100 / day) for maintenance and cleaning of truck, checking of tyres for next round, etc. He feels that he’s not been able to succeed in this business for he does not have enough cash rolling. He’s currently looking for a personal loan of Rs. 8 lakhs and has not received any response from any bank. Banks usually give loans for purchase of trucks but not personal loans – transporters are blacklisted in their diaries. He plans to sell his truck if no loan materialises in two months. If he manages to get the loan, then as diesel is his only major expenditure he will be able to start earning well and once his dues are cleared he will be able to roll money through purchase and sale of assets. He surely thinks that the industry now is in a major low, for the price of diesel has increased to Rs. 18 per litre while the transportation rates haven’t moved above Rs. 650 per ton. Besides there are more trucks than their demand. He hopes one day to become a transporter with his own contracts. That would require him to be able to pay a deposit of Rs. 5, 00,000/- with the company and his direct earnings would be Rs. 950 / T for his own trucks and Rs. 300 / T from the sub transporters as commission. He has begun paying income tax from this year on, so that he becomes eligible for the personal loan. CASE 4: STATIONER After passing Secondary School Certificate Examination in 1974 from Parel (an industrial district in Mumbai), he joined a workshop for tools as an apprentice at Rs. 50/- a month. However, the metal dust began to cause health problems so he switched to a clerical job on leave vacancy in a Navy office. He worked there for 4-5 months at Rs. 400 - 600/- (1976). At that time he lived in a joint family of parents, with a father who worked as a clerk in Fort, and four brothers, so his salary was absorbed for household expenses. The family was a landlord of a chawl (industrial housing) in Parel, but due to the Rent Control Act, they received only Rs. 10/- as rent per room, so that didn’t help much with a high household expenditure. In the mid eighties early twenties, his father met with an accident in the bathroom and couldn’t go to work for some time. So his mother approached the managing director of his father’s company to hire him on the job. After much pleading he inherited his father’s job of a clerk. He began with filing work and moved on to typing and then accounts – He worked as an accounts clerk for six years. At that time, the Labour union of the company was dissatisfied with the wages, as they were getting paid lower than their counterparts in Gujarat where the company’s factory (for engineering spare parts, etc. supplied to Tata, Telco, etc.) was located. He joined the union and his intense involvement led to payment of worker’s dues (he got RS. 4000 – 5000/- for his 6 year service) and shutting down of office in Mumbai. When on strike, he got a call from the Employment Exchange confirming his job at Trade Fair Authority of India. However, he fell sick and couldn’t pursue the job. While working as an accounts clerk he had begun along side a part time business in small items like shirt – pant pieces, small stationery. He would buy material from Mangaldas Market in Crawford street and sell it among neighbours, friends etc. He began to get familiar with the market procedures. Through a friend he acquired know-how about book binding and also started taking orders for rubber stamps, etc. He had learnt that every department in the BMC requires book binding regularly, so he started taking orders for small time stationery (the BMC usually gets its stationery by means of inviting tenders and signing contracts, but when in need of excess they are allowed purchase up to Rs. 500 / - per month). A drafting-slider manufacturer, who was also his relative, learnt of his growing networks. So he approached him for sales and marketing of his sliders in Mumbai. As he got involved he learnt more about architect’s implements, and decided to fill a tender at the BMC for architect’s implements. He got the contract for some items and had to supply to BMC departments all over the city. Due to lack of rolling money and resources, he couldn’t manage and stopped. However, he continued door-to-door sales of stationery in the BMC departments, architects’ offices, etc. The earnings were low, so he also had to look for a job – worked as a printing press manager in an industrial estate in Lower Parel itself. This job paid low, too. In 6 years, his salary rose from Rs. 900 to only Rs. 2400. His part time business of supplying stationery and repairs of sliders continued. While visiting architects (on the slider manufacturer’s list) to supply sliders, he met an architect who was also the director of a school for architecture in Juhu. Pleased with the sliders supplied to his office, he appointed him to supply and service sliders for all the students in the school. While doing so, he got talking to a few students through whom he learnt that quick stationery was a huge requirement in the school. He contacted senior members in the school and the director immediately agreed to let him set shop within school. The deal was that he would provide subsidised stationery, and in return he would not pay any rent or other charges to the school. For the first month he took leave from his printing press job to make sure it was business enough and when sure, he left that job completely in 1998. For the first three years, he collected material from Abdul Rehman Street and came to the school. He supplied stationery to students at discounted rates and also gave it on credit. He had a little corner in one of the wings in the school building. Over time, he was allowed to use a bigger cubicle for his supplies needed more space. Now he has established networks with wholesale stationers across the city and for most of the items they send their own salesmen. International stationery companies like Staedtler, Maped, Edding, etc. also directly contact him and offer him stationery at wholesale rates. He has hired an assistant since two years – a young boy from his own residential building. The assistant goes to the market to pick up the material that is bought directly from the market. He also sits at the shop. He pays him Rs. 2000/- By this time the Housing Board had approached them (1968) to demolish the old and build a new building in which they would be allotted 8 rooms as compensation. Since they were four brothers, each got two rooms of 160 and 180 sq. ft. each. Parents had expired by then. It was a non-cess building. Now he pays rent of Rs. 200/- per month. This job earns him enough to lead a ‘basic’ life. Although he also supplies some stationery to architects’ offices occasionally, he’s also looking for better chances for business. His problem is Finance, which he has not been able to generate due to the credit system in the school, which has stalled most of his money. He shares a great rapport with all his suppliers, so he pays them as and when he gets paid. For a rainy day he has kept aside an outstanding sum of Rs. 30,000/- which he rolls in case of an emergency. He doesn’t pay any taxes, as he hasn’t been authorised on paper as part of the deal. He also doesn’t have a license –and due to these reasons, he has not been able to get a loan from any bank. So as and when required he borrows from friends. His is a family of four, with a housewife (married in 1991) and two children, both of whom go to a Marathi medium school in Lower Parel itself. On holidays, they go for movies or watch Marathi plays at Shivaji Mandir, which his favourite theatre. While doing business in 1985, his interest in theatre got him enrolled at the Hattangady workshop, and he also participated in many Marathi plays. Though that didn’t earn him anything he loved theatre and pursued it till he took the job at the printing press. CASE 5: FOOD STALL OWNER Originally from Varanasi, this man came to Mumbai in 1985 in search of livelihood. He applied for a job at a real estate consultancy firm in Worli, but was denied a job for not knowing English. So he bought a ‘Learn English in 30 days’ got help from some friends too, but couldn’t manage. He also learnt typing but because his English wasn’t good enough, it didn’t come of any use. Then he worked as a delivery boy for a courier company in Tardeo for about two years where he earned Rs. 300/- a month. Dissatisfied with the remuneration, he sought another job with a restaurant owner through a friend where he began to earn Rs. 500/- per month. He also worked part time with a chemist - Mamta Medicals in Naigaon, Dadar, for Rs. 300/- a month and stayed in a room in B.D.D. chawls in Worli (the room was owned by his father who worked in the Piramal mills in Worli. The mills having shut down, he had let his friends stay there and gone back to his hometown where he resumed small scale farming of his small portion of land). Addicted to movies, once he bunked work and went for a movie. When his employer found out, he sacked him. So he joined his aunt in Kurla who owned a provision store. She suggested that he should start a business, and that small time jobs would get him nowhere in Mumbai. Having seen a sandwich stall outside the medical store in Dadar, he decided to start a business in sandwiches. With the Rs. 720/- he had saved up from his previous job he began looking for a site and spent some time in finding out what he would need for a sandwich stall. He bought a box for Rs. 40/- and reworked on it to suit his needs for Rs. 250/-. Having been in the courier service he was familiar with various parts of the city, so looking for a site to set shop didn’t take too long. He installed his shop in Worli close to an engineering college, however about 300 metres away from an existing sandwich stall to make sure he didn’t hamper the stall owner’s business. He earned a good profit of Rs. 70/- the first day, and the response to his sandwiches kept growing, so he stayed on for a whole year. He bought his vegetables from Dadar at a wholesale price every morning and made chutney at home. When work load increased, he even hired a maid at Rs. 150/- to do the cleaning at home and grind the masala for the chutney. He didn’t have a license but paid a BMC hafta of Rs. 120/- per month, which took care of his existence. Soon another sandwich stall got set up very close to his own and began to hamper his business. The other sandwich stall owner had support from a lot of people including the police. So he shifted to Malad east, where he resumed the sandwich business, but wasn’t able to earn as much as he was earning in Worli. Meanwhile, his father sold the room in BDD chawl to a taxidriver for Rs. 1.62 lakhs and had lent a lakh to his friend, Gupta, who got stuck in a case during the 1992 riots. Gupta ran a chit fund society that included Hindus and Muslims. During the riots everyone dispersed, and a lot of people had to be repaid. Gupta, highly indebted to his father, brought him home and suggested that he should set up shop in Juhu. Gupta also knew a local goon and the Corporator, which ensured that he would have no trouble from any third party. He had heard once ‘thoda khaana par shehar mein hi rehna’ (Eat Less but Live in the City). So he decided to settle down in the city itself. He acquired a license for his stall but he thinks that the BMC hafta of Rs. 220/- and the police hafta of Rs. 440/- is what works as security for him. His business flourished and he moved out to his own place in Khajurwadi, Andheri (W) and got his family of his wife and three kids from his hometown too. All three of them go to a school in Vile Parle (W). He also got his brothers to the city for whom he invested and set up shop. Gradually, he hired more staff (7, now) from his hometown for his stall and built another house for Rs. 1, 70,000/- in the same vicinity as his own to accommodate them. He also feeds them and pays them an average salary of Rs. 1750/- p.m. and a Diwali bonus. He ensures that all their problems are taken care of including yearly visits to their hometown. Now he only manages his stall and his staff does all the work. He has expanded his stall to juice, samosas, dosas and Chinese food too. He owns two freezers and now visits Dadar only once in 10 days for the chutney and vegetables remain unspoilt in the freezers. Once he met a doctor for his thyroid problem and through one his discussions he acquired a network with the hospital for tea and coffee. He also acquired the same with his bank – Allahabad bank. He now also supplies about 28 – 30 litres of tea and coffee daily. He has bought himself a first hand bike (Boxer) at Rs. 41,000/- without any loan and takes his family for outings on holidays. He has also been able to help a lot of his native family members with their expenses like his brother’s wedding (Rs. 1,24,000/-), investments, etc. He also sent Rs.1,65,000 for his father’s medical expenses. He aspires to run a fast food centre one day. It will require an investment of Rs. 12 lakhs for which he isn’t ready yet. He hopes to rent a place first which would cost him about a lakh as deposit and RS. 4000 – 5000/- p.m. He doesn’t want to invest on the main road for he thinks eventually he will get evicted. He invests Rs. 10,000/- every month in Allahabad Bank as Reserve Deposit and pays Income Tax every year of Rs. 1, 15,000/- so that he becomes eligible for a loan. He has also opened an account in ICICI bank, so that he can withdraw money from anywhere in the country including from when he is in his hometown. Prasad Shetty Residence: 501, Marigold, Opposite Shakti Motors, New Link Road, Malad (W), Mumbai 400 064 INDIA Phone: +91-9820912744 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050303/eba746e3/attachment.html From lokesh at sarai.net Thu Mar 3 15:18:57 2005 From: lokesh at sarai.net (Lokesh) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 15:18:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] rally on 4th march Message-ID: <4226DD89.7080403@sarai.net> Stree Adhikar Sangathan B 2 / 51, Rohini. Sector 16, Delhi 110085 Ph : 011-27872835 IIIT, Duplex Apartment, Kalindipuram, Jhalwa, Allahabad Rally & cultural program on 4 th march 2005 to Celebrate International Women's Day Greetings ! This is to cordially invite you for a programme to be held on Friday, 4 th March 2005 to celebrate International Women's Day. A rally as well as a cultural programme has been planned in Delhi University.as part a campaign undertaken by Stree Adhikar Sangathan on this occasion. It may be added that we also plan to hold similar programmes in Metro Vihar, Shahbad Dairy and Rohini Sector 16-17. The rally to mark the occasion would start at 11 a.m., Friday, 4 th March from Vivekanand Statue, Arts Faculty, Delhi University ( North Campus) and would pass through different faculties and colleges. Cultural program comprising of songs, skits and dramas would be held after the culmination of the rally. We will be happy if you can spare your valuable time and join us for this celebrations. Yours sincerely Stree Adhikar Sangathan _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From onlywalia at yahoo.co.in Fri Mar 4 15:15:16 2005 From: onlywalia at yahoo.co.in (harleen walia) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 09:45:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050304094516.20943.qmail@web8312.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, I have been following this discussion with a great deal of interest. As I have understood it the focus of concern seems to have boiled down to 'why cant the film be shown in India?' A lot of rhetoric has been exchanged since then about xenophobia, racism, anthropologists etc; but what really pushed me into responding was meera's letter yesterday mentioning 'Sanlaap'. I found her concerns about - 'what does the subject of your story get'/ ie. reciprocity thought provoking, and wondered if some more information might add a reality perspective to this story. So regardless of the bengali/kolkatan 'intellectuals' [!] resistance to face the sordid greys of their environment [meera's contention, not mine!] here goes...for what its worth! Perhaps some information as a backdrop to start with: Being the mental health proffessional who first oriented Zana Brisky [the film maker] on trafficking, child sexual abuse, commercial sexual exploitation, and prostitution on her very first visit to India and Sanlaap a good 6 years ago, I feel a little responsible for a situation which has resulted in this discussion [amongst other things! ].... Even though I would personally like to exonerate Zana of all responsibility [and/or malafide exploitative intentions] for the outcome of her film [and feel on the contrary that her orientation just did not teach her enough]; as a development professional, I have a question about whether we can ever be divorced from the outcome of our actions. I presume Zana had a story to tell, or was sufficiently moved by the lives of the children she touched to want to make things different for them, but did this desire to 'make things better' go hand in hand with information/understanding/and thought about impact, or was the film just that for her 'a film' is a question I would like to ask? And in either case were the subjects of her story aware of her intentions and prepared about the impact? I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the title of the documentary 'Born into a Brothel' makes it sufficiently clear that it is a documentary on second generation issues in brothels/red light areas and not on first generation prostitution. This is very important to keep in mind whilst discussing impact on lives. I reitterate, we are talking about the lives of children of women in prostitution. The quality of life that these children experience has its own set of dynamics altogether. I would request anyone who is taking the time to read this mail to just be with me and flow with my story for a couple of paragraphs more... ' I am a 16 year old girl [/or boy], living in sonagachi, [or kamatipura, or buyana beach or any other red light area in India that you would like to see me in]... as far back as I can remember, my home was always full of sound, light, music and darkness... I remember being constantly asked to go out of my house because ma had important work to finish inside; I remember ma crying and shouting for help because Anup uncle was hitting her so hard and asking for money; I remember the smell in my small one room house, of ma/warmth/and maach bhaja or then ma/pain/ paan [betel leaf] and the strange smelling jaul [water in bangla] that was always with her; I remember the narrow lanes and the thousand corners to hide in amongst slush/roaches/pigs and film songs; I remember ma dragging me by my hand and taking me to a small room in the area where an aunty said ' she should come every single day or I cannot put her into the big school.....' And days passed by slowly into months and years...I was studying in the big school till sometime back....I now understood what that strange smell around ma meant, I also pushed and sceamed at sudhir uncle the other day when he tried and pulled me into one of the corners. The lanes that I grew up in were familiar still but now there is a strange restlessness in that air; it's as if a hundred eyes follow me as I enter the area... I have also got used to getting off my bus a few stops ahead of our area so that my school friends do not realise where I stay exactly. You see by now I knew what to tell people and what not.. But with every passing day my need to find answers to all these questions that are eating me up inside is growing....and the need to be able to say ' who I am, and why I feel this way..' without any shame or guilt or lies. I love my mother and I hate my life... then I met my friend...she listened and I could finally talk... she spoke about rights and space and telling my story. I was so happy to be able to just talk without losing the person I was speaking to. I was so happy to not have to lie. I was so happy to be able to run away from my cruel questioning world. We [some friends and us] began taking photographs; she taught us. we felt so free, so powerful. Not only were we being able to express ourselves in pictures but also in words. she said she wanted to make a film on our stories but that we would be safe as our photogaphs would not appear so no one would be abe to recognise us... I have not been going to school for a few days now, they were pointing and whispering...ma has been crying and abusing me; what have we done wrong. I just wanted to tell my story without any lies or colour. Just my story, so that I could be free, of all those stories and questions in my head. What did I do wrong?...' When we as caregivers [and we are all caregivers in a childs world regardless of the capacity in which we engage with a child] enter a childs life there is a certain onus involved. An onus we cannot run away from, regardless of theoritical ssues such as artistic license, freedom of expression etc. It is our responsibility to prepare a child for a journey we have decided the child should embark on, and to protect the child not only from the visble and not so visible impacts of that journey but also from ourselves...that is important. The rest of the world is quite unimportant in my opinion and governed by many more things which are quite beyond our control. I wonder if Informed consent was taken, and all these results talked about? I wonder if we really care...? Harleen Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050304/380d344e/attachment.html From db at dannybutt.net Fri Mar 4 07:28:58 2005 From: db at dannybutt.net (Danny Butt) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 11:58:58 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi wins oscar In-Reply-To: <4226D261.2010004@sarai.net> Message-ID: Greetings all, I certainly wouldn't suggest that only 'authentic' subjects are allowed to represent themselves. A film's "success" or "quality" relies on the time-honoured practices of turning conflict and oppression in human lives into narrative (the film is after all called "Born into Brothels" and not e.g. " Sonagachi", so its a title which deliberately plays on a set of moral assumptions about choice and sex work that operate outside the setting of the film). Surely it is important to critically question the role that media might play in displacing or reinforcing spectacular logics between Hollywood and third world environments, and what the real possibilities are for people connected to both environments to achieve social justice. I think the separation of the "quality" of the film from such questions is a dangerous move. That is not to say that the aesthetic should be reduced to the sociopolitical, but neither is it separate, in that the "new provocations" a filmmaker might discover are not uniform in their effects across all parts of the network that has been drawn upon to create the film. Thanks and regards, Danny On 3/3/05 7:01 PM, "Aarti" wrote: > And I would certianly be very > uncomfortable with a position that said only 'authentic' subjects are > allowed to represent themselves. You can make a film about what you damn > well please. Whether it is a good or bad film (both in style and in > content etc) is a totally different question. How you make the film is > again a different question. > > Secondly, there seems to some issue about the film 'not making their > lives better'. or it 'only changing the director's life'. I'm not sure > why this is problem. Why should it make anyone's life better? > And if in > the process of making this film, the filmmaker discovered new > provocations, why is this process of discovery in any way questionable? -- http://www.dannybutt.net http://weblog.dannybutt.net <<-- new! #place: location, cultural politics, and social technologies: http://www.place.net.nz [ Lilith] laughed bitterly. "I suppose I could think of this as fieldwork - but how the hell do I get out of the field ?" (Octavia E. Butler, _Dawn_) From adreesh.katyal at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 20:15:08 2005 From: adreesh.katyal at gmail.com (Adreesh Katyal) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 20:15:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Zana's Shutters Message-ID: <549462c105030606453a870b08@mail.gmail.com> Zana's Shutters Briski's Born Into Brothels begins as a story of Sonagachi's children but ends with her as its sole heroine By Seema Sirohi [ Outlook | 14 March 2005 ] http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050314&fname=Film+%28F%29&sid=1 Anointed by an Oscar and feted on the celebrity circuit, Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman are flying well above the mean streets of Sonagachi, Calcutta's red-light district, where their award-winning documentary Born Into Brothels is set. Briski, in a backless gown, blew a kiss from the Oscar stage across the oceans to the "kids" she said were watching in Calcutta. The big smile heralded the big times for the photographer and her co-director, now armed with the coveted statuette for their entire filmmaking life, thanks to the children and women of the city of joy. Born Into Brothels is being hailed in the West as the ultimate uplifting film, a "humanitarian" effort by Briski who dared to live amid the squalor. Western critics and audiences are taken up by the British-born photographer's knight-in-shining-armour efforts. Some of the children too are happy she got the award. The film is about the "missionary zeal" with which she tried to save seven kids from their environment in Sonagachi. And from Calcutta, a city ever fascinating to "white" saviours, from Mother Teresa to Dominique Lapierre and now Briski. The film centres around Briski's efforts to improve the lives of some children she befriended in 1997 while trying to document the lives of sex workers in Calcutta. Unable to fulfil her original goal, she shifted her focus to the kids, giving them cameras and basic lessons in photography. The children take telling shots of their surroundings which Briski later used for exhibitions and a Sotheby's auction in 2001 to raise money. Amnesty International used a photo for its 2003 calendar. Flush with grants, she created 'Kids With Cameras', a charitable organisation to help the children. But Born Into Brothels won't be shown in India. At a recent screening in Washington, Kauffman said the sex workers whose children feature in the film don't want it to be shown in India. The filmmakers want to protect their identities. Really? After an Oscar and a relentless run of the festival circuit, the issue of maintaining anonymity seems far-fetched. The decision, whatever its merit, has already led to serious questioning of the filmmakers' intent. Is it because Indian audiences and reviewers might take issue with Briski's "intervention" in the lives of some of the most unfortunate? Members of the Durbar Women's Coordination Committee, an organisation of Sonagachi's sex workers, are unhappy about Briski's high-handed decision. Sandhya Dutta, who helped Briski and lives in Sonagachi, told a Calcutta newspaper she felt "used" twice over because people in other countries were watching a film about their lives while she couldn't. Some critics are also asking whether the duo obtained legal permission from the sex workers whose innermost lives and conflicts they exposed, sometimes through the kids. One such child, Puja, enrolled in Briski's photography class, clicks people who clearly don't want to be photographed. The photos appear in the film, raising troubling questions about consent. If Sonagachi residents do not want to be immortalised on film by one of their own, they surely wouldn't want to be exposed to a worldwide bazaar of gawkers. The children in the film come across as children anywhere—likeable and friendly. They seem to have implicit faith in 'Zana Aunty' who shepherds them around, even taking one specially talented boy to Amsterdam for a photo contest after struggling to get him a passport. The film crosses the line from documentation to activism but no one knows whether the interventions helped or hampered the subjects. In the end, the film seems more about Briski's journey and less about the hard reality of prostitution and the effects of her interference in young lives. It tugs at the heart but leaves the head relatively untouched.Intentionally or not, Briski is the noble soul in the film, faced with the mountain of Indian bureaucracy, teaching the children photography, trying to move them to good schools, getting them tested for aids and taking them to the zoo. The film's self-congratulatory tone thickens as it progresses through 'Zana Aunty's' triumphs and travails, making us wonder who the real subject is. The film also gives the impression that besides Briski, no one wants or is trying to improve the squalid scenario, that Indians are unaware and blind to the cancer within. The film's paternalistic tone has evoked a response here. Most Western reviewers have seen Briski's effort in the light she cast for them. The New York Times called the film "moving, charming and sad, a tribute to Ms Briski's indomitability and to the irrepressible creative spirits of the children themselves". But Partha Banerjee, a New Jersey-based immigration advocate who interpreted hundreds of hours of tape for Briski from Bengali to English during the filming, was disturbed enough by the end-product to write to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last month raising questions about the film, including the unauthorised use of music from Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy. Having grown up in Calcutta, Banerjee is passionate about his city and incensed that the tireless work of other concerned citizens gets not even a fleeting mention. He says it is their work and organising prowess that keeps Sonagachi relatively free of hiv infections compared to other red-light areas in India. Banerjee also says the children's lives are "worse" rather than better, thanks to Briski's intervention. "I visited these children a number of times over the last couple of years and found that almost all the children are now living a worse life than they were before Ms Briski began working with them," he wrote to the Academy. "The children's despair has exacerbated because they'd hoped that with active involvement in Ms Briski's camera project, there would be an opportunity for them to live a better life." Their parents believed their children would share some of the glory the filmmakers are now basking in, he said. Banerjee told Outlook he doesn't begrudge Briski her fame, but he finds her treatment "sensational" as it is unbalanced and ultimately unfair. During the filming, Briski's relations with local activists worsened over many of her decisions. But do Briski and Kauffman have time to look back and analyse this? Not really. From prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com Fri Mar 4 18:58:55 2005 From: prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com (Prashant Pandey) Date: 4 Mar 2005 13:28:55 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] music industry,prashant pandey Message-ID: <20050304132855.13206.qmail@webmail31.rediffmail.com>   DOCUMENTATION OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BOLLYWOOD SONG SECOND POST after a tough time i have mananged some real good sound bites from the industry people . i attended a music sitting of Tango Charlie(An upcoming film) where bollywoods ace arranger Ranjit Barot spoke to me about his work and musical philosophy. he believes that analog will will never fade out. he has given world class stuff like Fiza and Aks on analog mixers.he also spoke about the fear sentiment in the industry. in short, "fear" travels down from producers to the lower rungs of the music industry. musicians,singers ,lyricists nobody wants to take a risk. conversations with young upcoming singers kirti Sargathia - an aspiring singer who wants to excel in range singing. now what is range singing? it is a high scale singing like sukhwinder and kailash kher. though he fears he has already been branded by music directors as "sukhwinder type" then i have interviewd a lot of lyricists. some of them are out of industry because they are sahitythik(literary). pandit kiran mishra is one of them. though he has created a big market in devotional lyrics. Tipu,an assistant music director to Pritam( the current heaertthrob after his mega hit Dhoom) Pritam is a sound pass out from FTII. so it is really easy and smooth to work with him as Tipu too belongs to FTII lobby.(in bombay FTII is a very strong group) tipu is a very talented musician and percussionist. lately he has been "allowed" by Pritam to take and execute his own projects. tipu gives intersting insights on casting couch in the music industry. "bahut si singers to apne ko prepare karke aati hai" then he also told that there are dummy singers and dummy lyricists for every song. however it is not a rule. main lyricists and singers come into picture when a new singer has sung the song. he listens to the track and gives his her "silver" touch to the song. i am interviewing certain big-wigs next week . till then push the tempo prashant prashant pandey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050304/15659174/attachment.html From souweine at hawaii.edu Sat Mar 5 20:54:59 2005 From: souweine at hawaii.edu (Isaac D W Souweine) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 10:24:59 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [asata] Born into Brothels critique Message-ID: <1409cf2140776a.140776a1409cf2@hawaii.edu> Forwarding as part of the ongoing discussion. . . -Isaac -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Krishneil Maharaj Subject: Fwd: [asata] Born into Brothels critique Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:28:58 +1100 Size: 10807 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050305/2908abe5/attachment.mht From sudeshna.kca at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 10:20:24 2005 From: sudeshna.kca at gmail.com (Sudeshna Chatterjee) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:20:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?utf-8?q?Child_friendly_environment=3A_an_observa?= =?utf-8?q?tional_study_of_children=E2=80=99s_lives_in_Nizamuddin_b?= =?utf-8?q?asti?= Message-ID: <3ef603b7050304205067376f04@mail.gmail.com> The full text didn't make it the last time. Trying to send it from another id. Thanks, Sudeshna Child friendly environment: an observational study of children's lives in Nizamuddin basti The fieldwork in Nizamuddin basti has finally started off. Though the first half of February went by in getting the final permission for interviewing children from the school, things happened at a breakneck speed after that. I told the school to draw up a roster of all the children aged between 11 and 12 years. I was given 44 names, 33 girls and 11 boys. I have randomly selected 21 girls and retained all 11 boys. Of these girls, about 9 go to neighboring government schools while the rest are all non-formal education students at the school. Two of the boys are apprentices in their father's trades—whitewasher and tailor respectively, while four are non-formal students. Rest of the boys goes to nearby government schools. The school had originally started as a non-formal girls school which explains why there are more girls studying here than boys. The government school kids come here for educational support in the afternoon. All these children live, learn and play in Nizamuddin basti. For the purpose of my research this is quite an ideal situation, I get a diverse range of childhoods in one place and a community that is by and large homogeneous in terms of culture and religion. I had called the parents of all these kids one afternoon and in the presence of the teacher and the school social worker assisting me in the project, explained in great detail what was going to happen in the next six months. Only the mothers had come with sons and daughters. This did not surprise me, as during one of my many informal chats with the principal, I was explained the issue of gendered interaction of the school and the children's families. I was told that due to the intense gender segregation within the community, the school's interaction was restricted to mothers. Fathers were not part of the school-child-parent dialogue. The principal had narrated an episode about the time one father had turned up for the weekly community meeting. He looked into the room and found he was the only man. The teachers tried to make him feel at ease and made him sit at the back of the room so that all the womenfolk had their backs toward him. After some time he got up and said, " Mein ja rahan hun, aurate hai yahan to (I am leaving, there are only women here)." So I sent out the consent forms with children to get parental consent for their participation in the project. The school social worker also talked to parents about the project. Before the interviews started, I walked around the basti at different times for several days observing daily life as it unfolded around me. I also spent a couple of days in the school, sitting behind classrooms of my chosen sample to absorb the language of the children I was going to interview. I also looked around the city for maps, aerial photographs, and other information about the physical environment of the basti. I found a faded 1962 aerial photograph (unfortunately only a photocopy) of the area inside the draft master plan of Delhi at SARAI, and found out that Nizamuddin falls under subzone D of urban Delhi. I followed up another lead, that of an architect who worked on a book on the different heritage walks of Delhi (in press). She had delineated a walk through Nizamuddin basti with plenty of practical advice for prospective walkers. Lucy Peck had lived in Niamuddin for the last seven years and had mapped the area. Since her focus is architectural heritage and a walking tour, her map has an accurate representation of the monument locations and a detailed area map of the dargah area. However the commoners homes and local spots are all part of an amorphous orange built fabric blob. I had the good fortune of being accompanied by Lucy in one of my walks. I was explained in detail the history of the place and explained the intricate street network within the fabric of the settlement. Sympathetic to my interest in people's systems and children's outdoor activities, Lucy took me to her maid's house in Nizam Nagar Basti. I am really grateful to her for revealing this amazing living environment to me. Nizam Nagar has developed in the last twenty years as a squatter camp for migrant families coming from Bengal, Bihar and Bangladesh. The squatters are squatting on top of the dead, the land being a graveyard. I had to hold my breath as we snaked through the stinking magical spaces within Nizam Nagar, the mysterious semi-darkness of these spaces lit up here and there with shafts of light. We saw a tiny courtyard that barely managed to hold a grave and its tombstone. This court was littered badly with all kinds of refuse. We past many courtyards. All of them had one to many graves in them. We saw children playing among the dead, clotheslines gently swaying over tombstones, and normal everyday activities of the household unfolding around them. A family had just sat down at their threshold near a grave for their mid-day meal. They beckoned us to come and join them in their frugal lunch. We thanked them and moved on. What to make of this complex settlement? There is acute poverty, but great music, poetry, culture, beautiful monuments, active and alive open spaces, good-hearted people wanting to share their lives and their stories with me. The teachers in the school also come up to me with stories and their experiences in the community as do children. I have become the keeper of many secrets—the reward and burden of the ethnographer. When I asked them whether Nizamuddin was a safe place to live, I was told that one of the reasons the migrants come and settle in Nizamuddin is because of the perceived safety. But one cannot ignore the drug menace looming over the community. I was told by some of the teachers that certain areas are unsafe because of massive drug use and alcoholism. They even told me how they have heard that children, sometimes as young as five year olds are used as couriers of drugs. I have myself seen children playing with fire, playing on the edge of unprotected barren roofs, playing barefoot on garbage heaps outside their homes. One day as I was leaving Nizamuddin after an interview session, I saw a group of kids playing on top of a sand pile. This pile was mixed with a darker wet substance which I failed to figure out. One boy appeared to be slightly older, maybe eight years or so. All the others were smaller in size. The older boy had a broken glass which he was using as a scoop to dig and distribute among the smaller boys who held out small white plastic bags, like the ones used to pour chutney in a chat shop. I asked the driver what the kids were doing. He said, " arre madam, yeh to khad dal rahe hai, bech ne ke liye. Yeh khad mehengi cheez hoti hai, bazaar mein nabbai rupaiye kilo bikti hai, hain (madam, they are digging manure for selling. Its pretty expensive stuff, sells for Rs. 90/kg)." I had thought the boys were playing, but found out that many acts of play were economic activities as well. I will save the interviews for my next post. I have already completed ten in-depth semi-structured interviews with nine girls and one boy. At this point, I would just like to comment that I am finding a difference in the narratives, both in terms of telling and contents, of children who had been born in the community and children who are recent migrants to Nizamuddin. Children's affection for places seemed to be mediated by how well they know the place, and their general feeling of being at home in a familiar community peopled with large social networks. I want to probe more to find out how the same place which appears friendly to one child (a long-term resident), and appears unfriendly to another (a recent migrant). I would value all your thoughts and inputs to this work in progress. I am also looking for help with transcriptions and translations. If anyone knows of someone in Delhi who might be able to work with me, please let me know. Sudeshna From abshi at vsnl.com Mon Mar 7 14:23:29 2005 From: abshi at vsnl.com (abshi at vsnl.com) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 13:53:29 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Imagining Gendered Utopias Message-ID: <3bce953bd00f.3bd00f3bce95@vsnl.net> Gender & Space Project, PUKAR & Point of View Present A Photographic Exhibit, A Panel Discussion & A Film Series Interactive Panel Discussion Imagining Gendered Utopias As part of International Women’s Day celebrations, we are organizing a discussion titled where women speak as citizens, professionals, mothers, commuters, consumers, and flaneurs. Date: 08 March 2005 Time: 6.30 pm Venue: The Fourth Floor Kitab Mahal (In front of New Excelsior Cinema) Dr. D.N. Road, Mumbai 400001 Neera Adarkar imagines a gender-friendly city from the position of architecture and design. Celine D’Cruz provides a view from the perspective of dispossessed women. Kalpana Sharma envisions a utopian world for women journalists and for reporting on women. Shireen Gandhy explores the implications of combining a career in art with motherhood. Sameera Khan imagines a welcoming public space for breast-feeding women. The discussion is intended to be an interactive one involving the audience in imagining a space for women in the truly public spaces in Mumbai. Our hope is that the discussion would go beyond what is feasible in the short term to explore our wildest dreams of living as liberated citizens in the Mumbai of tomorrow. Photography Exhibit City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space Dates: 05 March to 12 March 2005 (Sunday Closed) Time: 12 pm to 7 pm Venue: The Fourth Floor Kitab Mahal (In front of New Excelsior Cinema) Dr. D.N. Road, Mumbai 400001 Curators: Shilpa Phadke and Bishakha Datta Photographers: Abhinandita Mathur, Roshani Jhadav, Neelam Ayare and Karan Arora. City Limits: Engendering the Body in Public Space intends to view everyday public spaces in Mumbai through a gendered lens, to focus on the demarcations between public and private spaces, and understand the hierarchies of access that have become part of our taken for granted grammar of viewing the city. The effort has been to privilege the everyday, to engage with women’s strategies in negotiating public space and to draw attention to the ways in which the private refuses to be compartmentalized Film Series Imagining Women Film Schedule: All films will be screened at The Fourth Floor, Kitab Mahal Mon 7 March 6.30 pm: Ma Vie En Rose (Alain Berliner ) (88 mins) Ludovic is a young boy who can't wait to grow up to be a woman. When his family discovers the little girl blossoming in him they are forced to contend with their own discomfort and the lack of understanding from their new neighbors. Their anger and impatience cave and Ludovic is sent to see a psychiatrist in the hopes of fixing whatever is wrong with him. A movie that addresses trans-gender and gender issues in general through the eyes of a child. Wed 9 March 6.30 pm: Three Women and A Camera (Sabeena Gadihoke) (56 mins) This film is about Homai Vyarawalla, India's first professional woman photographer, whose career spanned nearly three decades from the 1930s and two contemporary photographers, Sheba Chhachhi and Dayanita Singh, who started work in the 1980s. Vyarawalla's work underscores the optimism and euphoria of the birth of a nation, while Chhachhi and Singh attempt to grapple with the various complexities and undelivered promises of the post independence era. This film debates the major shifts in their concerns regarding representation, subject-camera relationships and the limits and possibilities of still photography in India today. Frida (JulieTaymor) (123 mins) Frida chronicles the life Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) shared unflinchingly and openly with Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), as the young couple took the art world by storm. From her complex and enduring relationship with her mentor and husband to her illicit and controversial affair with Leon Trotsky, to her provocative and romantic entanglements with women, Frida Kahlo lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary. Thu 10 March 6.30 pm: Fat Sister (Catherine Breillat) (86 mins) A Ma Soeur! is a provocative and shocking drama about sibling rivalry, family discord and relationships. Elena is 15, beautiful and flirtatious. Her less confident sister, Anais, is 12, and constantly eats. On holiday, Elena meets a young Italian student who is determined to seduce her. Anais is forced to watch in silence, conspiring with the lovers, but harbouring jealousy and similar desires. Their actions, however, have unforeseen tragic consequences for the whole family. For more information – email: genderspace at pukar.org or pointofview at vsnl.com or call: 55748152 or 55727252 From cswara at hotmail.com Tue Mar 8 00:47:16 2005 From: cswara at hotmail.com (Swara Bhaskar) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 19:17:16 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Space and Violence in Vatva, Ahmedabad. Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050307/27642005/attachment.html From joasia at i-dat.org Tue Mar 8 03:35:03 2005 From: joasia at i-dat.org (joasia) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 22:05:03 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] DATA Browser 01 Message-ID: -- The first book in the DATA Browser series: ECONOMISING CULTURE: ON 'THE (DIGITAL) CULTURE INDUSTRY' http://www.data-browser.net/01 contributors: Carbon Defense League & Conglomco Media Conglomeration | Adam Chmielewski | Jordan Crandall | Gameboyzz Orchestra | Marina Grzinic | Brian Holmes | Margarete Jahrmann | Esther Leslie | Marysia Lewandowska & Neil Cummings |Armin Medosch | Julian Priest & James Stevens | Raqs Media Collective | Mirko Tobias Schäfer | Jeremy Valentine | The Yes Men -- The interaction between culture and economy was famously explored by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer by the term 'Kulturindustrie' (The Culture Industry) to describe the production of mass culture and power relations between capitalist producers and mass consumers. Their account is a bleak one, but one that appears to hold continuing relevance, despite being written in 1944. Today, the pervasiveness of network technologies has contributed to the further erosion of the rigid boundaries between high art, mass culture and the economy, resulting in new kinds of cultural production charged with contradictions. On the one hand, the culture industry appears to allow for resistant strategies using digital technologies, but on the other it operates in the service of capital in ever more complex ways. This publication, the first in the series, uses the concept of the culture industry as a point of departure, and tests its currency under new conditions. -- details: Title: ECONOMISING CULTURE: ON ŒTHE (DIGITAL) CULTURE INDUSTRY¹ Authors: Various contributors, edited by Geoff Cox, Joasia Krysa, Anya Lewin Publisher: Autonomedia (DATA browser 01) in association with i-DAT Copyright 2004 (all texts released under a Creative Commons License) ISBN 1-57027-168-2 Pages 256, Paper Perfectbound Price $15 To order online visit: Or Distributed by Autonomedia (US) and Pluto Press (UK & Europe). From sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 10:17:14 2005 From: sudhesh.unniraman at gmail.com (sudhesh) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 10:17:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] film on sonagachi - an exhibition held last year In-Reply-To: <20050303110439.24686.qmail@web30510.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050302110005.4E33C28D90D@mail.sarai.net> <20050303110439.24686.qmail@web30510.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <73cd0cce050307204749f5ab7f@mail.gmail.com> rochelle i agree with you in my earlier mails i had mentioned the fact that there are other ways of concealing using technology and it is naive to assume that showing it in europe or selling DVDs outside India is not going to affect the lives of the children i think why i raise the issue of Indiana was because in this case Indians are invloved of course your point of percieved threat from viewers is true But let me remind you that the filmmkaers did hold an exhibition of the photographs in delhi at Dilli Haat last year which was resounding success. I had done some research on dilli haat for a film and on an average 10000 people visit it on a holiday or weekends. Even assuming 1000 people visited the exhibition everday that would make it 10000 for 10 days. All of them could see the children and the pictures they have taken. Given that a documentary film would have a far lesser audience in one city why not show the film? regards sudhesh > All of this has less to do with sensitivity of Indians versus other > nationalities, and more to do with the perceived threat to the existence and > life of subjects from viewers. > > > > > > ________________________________ > Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! > Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web > > > _________________________________________ > 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 zainab at xtdnet.nl Tue Mar 8 10:53:34 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 09:23:34 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Indian Flag, Indian Idol, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Nationalism in One City Message-ID: <1182.219.65.9.200.1110259414.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Indian Flag, Indian Idol, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Nationalism in One City Walking around VT station is always a revealing experience. The Indo-Saracenic architectural style gives Bombay one shade of its multi-pli-city character. Surrounding VT railway station are the buildings of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Times of India, Capitol Cinema and old style residential and office buildings. Sooner or later, the area from VT to the High Court, all structures of the British Colonial Rule period, will be encased into a heritage precinct. I have heard that during the British rule, this area was walled off from the natives and was known as the walled city. Today, as I was walking around the main road of VT, I noticed that visible on the VT Railway Station building was the flying national flag – jhanda ooncha rahe hamara (flying high be our flag). And as I shifted my gaze, I noticed the national flag was flying high on the BMC building as well. I don’t know exactly when this symbol i.e. national flag, come to adorn these buildings. What does the national flag do to these two buildings? Does it change the character of these two institutions/structures? Does it impact the identity of the city? Why does the flag have to be played out at a railway station and at an administrative building in a city? What is heritage? How does it relate to our individual identities? Indian Idol Now, Pushpa, our housemaid is one of my sources of understanding the city and its imaginations. She loves to talk. She talks about people in the other houses where she works and their lifestyles. She talks about mobile phones. She talks about slum dwellers. She talks about local trains. And she talks about television programmes. Off late, her daily pratter is about Indian Idol, a Sony Television programme, which has caught up on everybody. I am unaware about this programme except that I have been watching large hoardings at Dadar railway station which urge commuters and citizens to vote for their favourite contestant in the Indian Idol programme. Before I proceed any further, let me tell you what Indian Idol is all about. Indian Idol is a singing competition programme on Sony Television. Participants are aspiring singers from all parts of the country. Since four months, they have been competing to win the Indian Idol trophy. The winner at the end of the four months of hard work will truly be the Indian Idol – the best singer of the country – a new symbol of national pride. What is unique about the programme is that while there are three judges who judge the technical competence of the participants, viewers are asked to vote for the participant who they think is worthy of becoming their Indian Idol. Hoardings at Dadar Railway Station show the voting symbol where the black dot is replaced with a sticker of Indian Idol on the index finger. “Before you go shopping, vote for your Indian Idol” or “Before you put on your make-up, vote for your Indian Idol” are what the hoardings have to say. Today, I entered the BMC building to complete some work. While waiting for the officer, I strolled along the corridor and saw a poster which said (in summary) ‘with your blessings, our son Abhijeet Sawant has entered the finals of Indian Idol. Now you must vote for him and make sure that he wins’. On finding out about this poster, I came to know that the Abhijeet Sawant, one of the two final competitors, is the son of a BMC worker. The BMC workers’ union is praying and voting hard for his victory. The poster was signed by none other than the infamously famous Sharad Rao, union leader of the BMC, who is known to hold the city at ransom through strikes of civic workers. These posters were put up everywhere in the BMC building. Later, my friend informed me how the Shiv Sena was also campaigning for Abhijeet Sawant in the Western Suburbs with banners everywhere. Finally, that evening, the finals took place – between Abhijeet Sawant of Mumbai and Amit Sanna of Kolkatta. Pushpa excitedly said that morning to my mother, “If Abhijeet wins, it will a matter of pride because after all, it is a Mumbai boy!” As audiences sat glued to television sets in their home, I was at an STD booth. Suddenly, crackers went up everywhere and there were loud shouts of victory. The STD booth owner asked me curiously, “Is there a cricket match going on?” He was surprised with the crackers and shouts. I said to him, “No, it’s Indian Idol. And I guess the Mumbai boy has won.” Abhijeet Sawant had won. He is the Indian Idol. What does media do to the city? Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From isast at leonardo.info Sat Mar 5 07:19:28 2005 From: isast at leonardo.info (Leonardo/ISAST) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 17:49:28 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Liliane Lijn and Semiconductor receive fellowships at Space Sciences Lab, UC Berkeley Message-ID: <200503050149.DKI29986@ms2.netsolmail.com> For immediate release 4 March, 2005 Contact: alex.holdaway at artscouncil.org.uk LEONARDO ANNOUNCES CO SPONSORSHIP OF UK Arts Council England International Artists Fellowship Programme Art and Space Science at UC Berkeley Arts Council England, The Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley, California, and Leonardo Network are pleased to announce that two fellowships at the Space Sciences Laboratory in California have been awarded to the artists Liliane Lijn and Semiconductor. The artists will each be spending a minimum of three months at The Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley in California during the next year. Working alongside scientists and educators, the fellows will have the opportunity to build their professional careers through sustained periods of research and experimentation at the forefront of space science. For the full text of the press release see http://www.leonardo.info/isast/announcement_ssl_ace.html For further information contact Alex Holdaway on 020 7973 6459 or alex.holdaway at artscouncil.org.uk # # # _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From abhayraj at nls.ac.in Tue Mar 8 13:34:56 2005 From: abhayraj at nls.ac.in (Abhayraj Naik) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 13:34:56 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] Call for Submissions, Literary Magazine Quirk Message-ID: <1117.219.64.156.1.1110269096.squirrel@219.64.156.1> Apologies for cross-posting. Please do circulate in possibly interested channels. fundraising/sponsorship nuggets are hugely welcome :) regards Abhay QUIRK ESTD. 2005 A Slice of Literature, Society, and the Law Call for Submissions for the March 2005 Edition January 2005 saw the birth of an ambitious new venture at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore through the publication of the first edition of ‘Quirk’- a student-run literary magazine that seeks to provide an exciting new forum for student writers while helping create a community of articulate, expressive and socially-conscious youth across India and South Asia. With a modest 1000 print copies promotionally distributed in select locations across Bangalore, Baluchistan, Calcutta, Chennai, Colombo, Delhi, Mumbai, Lahore, and Trivandrum, Quirk has created quite an initial impact – with several writers, artists, and collaborators evincing interest in forthcoming editions. The online version of the January edition of Quirk is available at http://www.nls.ac.in/students/quirk/Index.htm In its ongoing effort to include increasingly diverse voices of literary merit from the student community across South Asia, Quirk seeks submissions for its second edition in March 2005. The Second Quirk Edition: March 2005 Featured Theme Contributions: 'The Indifferent College Student' Also Looking For: Poetry, Short Stories, Articles, Opinions, Reviews, Visual Art, Cartoons, Cool Quizzes, Puzzles, Wacky Undefinable Submissions, and So On.... Think Big, Think Different. Anything That’s Good and Fits our Quirky Quality Standards - We're Good to Publish. No Restrictions on Length, Content or Style. Email: quirk at nls.ac.in Or Write In: The Quirk Team, C/o Abhayraj Naik, National Law School of India University, PO Bag 7201, National Law School of India University, Bangalore – 560072, India. Flexible Deadline: March 18th, 2005. From jo at turbulence.org Tue Mar 8 00:43:19 2005 From: jo at turbulence.org (Jo-Anne Green) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:13:19 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Turbulence Spotlight: "playListNetWork" by LeMaitre & Rosenzveig Message-ID: <422CA7CF.6020500@turbulence.org> March 7, 2005 Turbulence Spotlight: "playListNetWork" by LeMaitre & Rosenzveig http://turbulence.org/spotlight/playlist/index.htm "playListNetWork" is a distributed video editing database that allows multiple users in different locations to edit and annotate media clips and playlists simultaneously. It's comprised of three parts: the software developed in consultation with the artists; the audio visual media content made with the software; and an interface to visualize and navigate the authored structure. BIOGRAPHY Since 1993, LeMaitre & Rosenzveig's longterm, large scale projects have functioned as a frame for the process of creation and resulted in the development of software, media and net works, and physical commodity objects. Each has been designed to allow for repeated iteration and hence experience for the public. They are currently working on a series of consumer electronic devices designed for the obsolescence of mass media. For more Turbulence Spotlights, please visit http://turbulence.org/spotlight/index.html -- Jo-Anne Green, Co-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/20050307/14bc7c44/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de Mon Mar 7 15:14:37 2005 From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (Cinematheque at MediaCentre) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:44:37 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Cinema-c: call for submissions - extended deadline Message-ID: <010f01c522fa$47727920$0400a8c0@NewMediaArtNet> Cinematheque at MediaCentre http://www.le-musee-divisioniste.org/mediacentre . announces the opening of Cinema_C by launching a special call for submissions (can be also downloaded from http://service.nmartproject.net/calls/call_cinemac.htm ) Title: O-C-I-N ´ Online Cinema - Interactive Narratives New extended deadline Monday, 2 May 2005 ______________________________ O-C-I-N is a new project environment going down to experimental forms of cinema in an online context. . Until now, the spaces of Cinematheque were mainly presenting streaming video works of different kind and interactivity played basically rather a certain role concerning interface design than a conceptional component of the art works themselves. . Cinema_C and "O-C-I-N" will focus on the conceptional role of interactivity as a basic component for a new film creation by involving the user actively in the process and progress of story telling. . The participating artist or artists collaborative are free to choose and develop their story and the specific way they allow/enforce the user to take influence on the progress of the story in a conceptional and technological concern, and these represent also the basic conditions for creating the art work. . Although, the call is mainly focussing on two digital output formats .i.e. Flash .swf and Shockwave Director .dcr, which may include all possible media files (digital video etc), also other Internet compatible and cross-platform programming environments may be considered on request. . The artist/artists collectives are invited to submit one work only and make the work online available for preview or download, once the work is selected it has to be submitted completely including all files, so that Cinematheque is able to post and host the work online. . Cinematheque is neither commssioning, nor aquiring any work, but hosting the art work "only", the best way to make the works available for permanent to the online audience. The artists/artists collective keep all rights on their works. No fee!! . These are the technological specifications for the project to be submitted: . screen resolution: 1024x764 px (also maximum project dimensions) output file formats/submission format: Flash .swf/html, Shockwave Director .dcr/html, other formats on request cross platform project size: no limit year: 2001-2005 . Please use this form for submitting: ******************* 1.name of artist(s), email address(es), URL(s) (in case of an artists collective plase credit all participants properly) 2. short biography/CV (not more than 300 words each) 3. 1 work/project only -->title, year of production a) URL of the posted work online and/or b) URL from where the project file(s) can be downloaded 4. work description (story included, not more than 500 words) 5. screenshot (.jpeg, max. 800x600 px) . Confirmation/authorization: The submitter(s) declares and confirms that he/she/they is/are holding all rights on the submission and give permission to include the submitted work in "Cinematheque" online/offline environment until revoke. Signed by (submitter) . Please send the complete submission to mediacentre at le-musee-divisioniste.org subject: Cinema_C . New extended deadline Monday, 2 May 2005 ******************************** This call can be also downloaded from http://service.nmartproject.net/calls/call_cinemac.htm . Cinematheque at Mediacentre www.le-musee-divisioniste.org/mediacentre is part of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne www.nmartproject.net contact: info at nmartproject.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From pukar at pukar.org.in Mon Mar 7 14:37:09 2005 From: pukar at pukar.org.in (PUKAR) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:37:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [announcements] Friday, March 11th: Max Muller Bhavan: 6:30 p.m. Message-ID: <001901c522f5$2cd44d50$2bd0c0cb@freeda> PUKAR and Max Muller Bhavan cordially invite you to a talk: Speaker: Dr. Nimmi Rangaswamy, Associate Researcher, Microsoft India Private Limited. Topic: Expanding Urban Frontiers: Village Internet Kiosks Date: Friday, 11th March 2005 Time: 6:30 p.m. Venue: Max Muller Bhavan, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai. Looking forward to seeing you there! warm regards, The PUKAR Team PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research) Mumbai Address:: 1-4, 2nd Floor, Kamanwala Chambers, Sir P. M. Road, Fort, Mumbai 400 001 Telephone:: +91 (022) 5574 8152 / +91 (0) 98204 04010 Email:: pukar at pukar.org.in Website:: www.pukar.org.in -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050307/9c64ef81/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shivamvij at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 15:58:46 2005 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 15:58:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A brief history of Pakistan, and other poems Message-ID: A brief history of Pakistan With their backpacks full of shallowness, the men in uniform arrive commanded by generals cut out in tin law makers made of straw. People wait for the sun to die. Happiness lives in the moon. - Harris Khalique, "Between You and Your Love" (Karachi, 2004) In Pakistan, there are few among Harris Khalique's contemporaries who could boast comparable literary achievement in two languages. Harris Khalique comes from a generation of poets who have internalised both English and South Asian poetic traditions. Also, through English he has imbibed a lot from world literature. His experience of living in both South Asian and European cultures brings a rare synthesis in both thought and expression. But what makes him unusual is his ability to express his emotions with a unique directness and a remarkable combination of paradox and simplicity. His poems are widely acclaimed and considered much deeper than conventional poetry by leading critics and writers. He is counted among the most significant poets of his generation who use English as a medium linking local feel and experience with the universality of anguish and wonderment. "Between You and Your Love" is Harris Khalique's third collection in English. He has three more in Urdu. In this collection, the spectrum is broad, the metaphor is accessible and the language is absorbing. The poems deal with personal, political and social experiences of the poet. The partition of India and its aftermath in terms of wars and conflict provide the backdrop for some of the most powerful poems. Many are about the social and political experiences in Pakistan besides some other places. His love poems grip the reader and his understanding of both emotional fragility and strength is unique. The arch South Asian linguist and scholar Dr Tariq Rehman writes in the preface, "It is the compression of the craftsman who distils thoughts to create their essence. This haunting lyricism, this evocative imagery; this moving narrative –these are the high points of his poetry." Born on 20 October 1966, Harris Khalique studied social development at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and engineering at the NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. He now heads a national community development organisation in Islamabad, and writes poetry in Urdu and English. His earlier collections include "Purani Numaish" (Urdu, 2001), "Divan" (English, 1988), "Saray Kaam Zaroori Thay" (Urdy, 1997), "If Wishes Were Horses" (English, 1996), "Aaj Jab Hui Baarish" (Urdu, 1991). He is also author of "Pakistan: The Question of Identity" (2003) and co-author, along with Rohini Kohli, of "Unfinished Histories" (2002). "Between You and Your Love" contains new poems as well as selections from his earlier collections. Some of the poems here have appeared in "The Little Magazine" (Delhi), "Pakistani Literature" (Islamabad) and "The News International". The collection has been published by Fazleesons, Karachi, 2004. Harris, who is a member of ZESTPoets, has sent us some copies of the book; 72 pages and Rs. 150 each. Should you want to order a copy, please send your name and postal address to shivamvij at gmail.com and we'll let you know how you can order it. The proceeds shall go towards some literary cause in India, as determined by Mr Khalique. Please note that the ZEST lists are non-commercial public mailing lists. Shivam Vij | Delhi Administrator, the ZEST lists [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets ] From ritika at sarai.net Tue Mar 8 22:00:15 2005 From: ritika at sarai.net (ritika at sarai.net) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:00:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] researchers based in rajasthan Message-ID: <422DD317.8050104@sarai.net> Dear all, A private company - called JPS Consultants (www.jpsconsultantsindia.com) needs to employ a couple of researchers based in rajasthan. The project is being funded by World bank. The project will evaluate the health initiatives taken by the Rajasthan Government. The requirement is of urban researchers - (preferably sociologists) with minimum post-graduate qualification. The researcher should be based in Rajasthan. If you know of someone who might be interested, then get back to Aditi Banerjee. For more details contact - ADITI BANERJEE (aditi.banerjee at jpsconsultantsindia.com) cheers ritika _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From basvanheur at gmx.net Thu Mar 10 02:55:51 2005 From: basvanheur at gmx.net (Bas Van Heur) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 22:25:51 +0100 (MET) Subject: [Reader-list] Issue #9 of cut.up.magazine is now online Message-ID: <25097.1110403551@www10.gmx.net> Avant-garde, mediated intervention and the city. Edition #9 of cut.up.magazine is now online at http://www.cut-up.com Five new articles – two long ones, so take your time. Only one in English and four in Dutch, but just try it! Go Dutch! Being Absolute Avant-Garde, Again! (Gideon Boie en Matthias Pauwels aka BAVO); Flitsarchitecten in het Popmodernisme - stedelijke (denk)beelden van videoclips (Alex de Jong en Marc Schuilenburg); Overwegingen bij een Kwijnende Avant-garde (Peter Bruyn); Every Musician Should Have His Own Record Label (Sjoerd Yedema); De Vrolijke Schilderkunst (Peter Stufkens). Images: BAVO, Zhong Biaoart en Peter Stufkens. Reviews (music, theory, media-art): Appear all the time. So please feel free to visit us on a daily basis and read for example on: Populism, Venetian Snares, Atomic Hooligan, BLUE4COLDRED4WARM, Y4K, Soldout, Kitsune X, Chocolate Fairy, Omski, Mod X vs Paul Murphy, Danny S., Viva Stereo and Gary Winogrand and the American Streetphotographers. As always: let us know what you think of this new edition, about mediated life in general, on your last visit to the cinema and your neighbors’ music. Editors info at cut-up.com cut.up.media postbus 313 2000 AH Haarlem -- SMS bei wichtigen e-mails und Ihre Gedanken sind frei ... Alle Infos zur SMS-Benachrichtigung: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/sms From kranenbu at xs4all.nl Wed Mar 9 15:12:44 2005 From: kranenbu at xs4all.nl (Rob van Kranenburg) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:42:44 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [caravan99] GM Crops + WTO Kenya Mini-ministerial Message-ID: >From: IndianSocietyFor SustainableAgriculture >To: unamity at yahoo.co.uk, webmaster at globalexchange.org, 50years at 50years.org, > bankboycott at econjustice.net, caravan99 at lists.riseup.net, > its at notoncnn.com, pma at xtra.co.nz, info at actforchange.com, > info at marchforjustice.com, info at moveon.org, > melbourneanarchists at lists.riseup.net, webeditor at imedia.ru, > Peace at renaissancealliance.org, pga_europe_resistance at squat.net, > planetrescue at wildmail.com, tpa at lists.riseup.net, > wef-announce at lists.riseup.net, APFN at apfn.org, > celine.charveriat at oxfaminternational.org, > Hans.Engelberts at world-psi.org, agonzales at wwfint.org, sporter at ciel.org, > aileenkwa at yahoo.com, thormeku at twnafrica.org >Cc: daniela.perez at igtn.org, tebtebba at skyinet.net, pannequin at ifdc.org, > jfederico at ciel.org, news-feedback-in at google.com, ratnakar at sawtee.org, > ratnakar at hqsawtee.wlink.com.np, jeaton at ca.inter.net, stella at mcn.org, > SIUHIN at aol.com, sysop at zmag.org, franca.damico at biodiv.org, > erie.tamale at biodiv.org, singh at southcentre.org, >bridges_weekly at ictsd.ch, > americas at irc-online.org, editors at ibon.org, smartikke at worldwatch.org, > sunstwn at bluewin.ch, info at grain.org, A.BENAVENTE at CGIAR.ORG, > adapt at pei.aibn.com, cjsfpa at sfu.ca, cca_toronto at hotmail.com, > ahigginbottom at blueyonder.co.uk > > >In This NEWS Bulletin :- >*************************************** > >1. Govt's Economic Survey Comments On GM Oilseeds >2. Can WTO's Kenya Mini-ministerial Break The Impasse ? >-------------------------------- >Can India afford to grow transgenic crops? > >http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=83863 > >ASHOK B SHARMA >Posted online: Monday, February 28, 2005 at 0000 hours IST > >NEW DELHI, FEB 27: An assessment done by the Economic Survey >2004-05 on the status and future of agriexports in India has raised >a pertinent question as to whether India can afford to grow >transgenic crops. > > Referring particularly to the >exports of oil meals from India, the survey said that its growth has >increased and sustained on account of its “non-GM nature.” > > India has not yet approved any >genetically modified (GM) oilseed crop for cultivation. GM mustard >seed varieties, which were developed by PrvoAgro, were not approved >by the regulatory authority. > > The Economic Survey, which is an >annual report prepared by a team of experts in the government, said: >“Indian oil meals command a premium because of their non-GM nature.” > > It noted that the demand for Indian >oil meals is increasing as the world market is flooded with oil >meals of GM oil seeds. > > The survey said that the export of >oil meals gained substantially both in terms of volume and share >during 2002-03. The growth was also sustained during the first half >of 2004-05, because of the increasing demand for Indian oil meals in >the world market. Oil meals are used as poultry and cattle feed. > > Exports of oil meals increased >phenomenally from 18,96,521 tonne in fiscal 2002-03 to 33,23,025 >tonne in fiscal 2003-04. Even in the first nine months of the fiscal >2004-05, the exports of oil meals marked an increase. > > India imports a substantial quantity of >vegetable oils to meet domestic needs. The exports of oil meals >partly offsets the foreign exchange outgo on account of imports of >vegetable oils. > > In the first six months of the fiscal >year 2004-05, imports of vegetable oils (for edible purpose) was >valued at $1,235.60 million, consisting of 69.10% of the total >agricultural imports. > > Generally, annual imports of edible oils >are to the tune of $1,800 odd million and constitute around 72% of >the total agricultural imports. > > Comparatively, exports of oil meals in >the first six months of the 2004-05 fiscal year beginning April, >2004 was $298.40 million, constituting 8.5% of the total >agricultural exports. > > In 2003-04, exports of oil meals was to >the tune of $728.70 million, constituting 9.7% of total agricultural >exports. > > The vegetable oil industry has estimated >imports of edible oils as per each oil year, which begins from >November 1. According to industry data, 43,96,587 tonne of vegetable >oils (for edible purpose) was imported in the oil year 2003-04. >Imports of non-edible oils was 2,35,163 tonne. > > In the first two months of the current oil >year 2004-05, the imports have shot up to 6,29,731 tonne as compared >to 5,15,143 tonne in the first two months of the previous oil year. > > According to industry data, exports of oil >meals increased phenomenally from 18,96,521 tonne in fiscal 2002-03 >to 33,23,025 tonne in fiscal 2003-04. In the first nine months of >the fiscal 2004-05, the exports of oil meals also marked an increase. > > The exports of oil meals in the period April >2004 to December 2004 was 1,948.631 tonne as compared to 1,612,350 >tonne in the first nine months of the previous fiscal year. > > Indian oil meals are generally exported to >Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Japan, Vietnam, >Indonesia, The Philippines, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, >Bangladesh, Pakistan, Kenya, Egypt, Dammam, UAE, Baharain, Oman, Abu >Dhabi, Jebel Ali, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq and Sharjah. > > Apart from these traditional export >destinations, Indian oil meals have found their way into the >European Union, on account of the non-GM character. > > Italy has emerged as one of the main importers >of Indian oil meals. Indian oil meals are also re-exported to Europe >from Abu Dhabi (in Dubai) and Singapore. The European Union has >recently allowed imports of two varieties of transgenic corn, but >its acceptance by the public is very low. >--------------------------------------------- >FARM FRONT Column > >Will Kenya mini-ministerial break impasse in WTO talks > >http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=83871 > >ASHOK B SHARMA >Posted online: Monday, February 28, 2005 at 0000 hours IST > > > Several working groups of the World >Trade Organisation (WTO) were engaged this month for working out >modalities for implementation of the package agreed upon in July, >last year. > > The discussions were mostly mired with >difference and there was no concrete outcome. It is expected that >the WTO mini-ministerial meeting scheduled early next month in Kenya >may break the impasse. > > Negotiations on agriculture, services and >non-agricultural market access (NAMA) are likely to figure >prominently in the Kenya mini-ministerial. The February discussions >took place in the backdrop of the European Union (EU) reinstating >its export subsidies for wheat and the World Intellectual Property >Organisation (WIPO) trying to push its agenda for harmonisation of >patent laws at the Casablanca meet. > > The EU reinstating export subsidy on wheat >on February 3 strongly defended as ‘compensation for strengthening >of the euro vis-a-vis dollar’ and this measure is set to cover 2 >million tonne of wheat. The EU had suspended its export subsidy on >wheat since 2003. The reinstating of European export subsidy on >wheat has taken place when modalities are being worked out to >implement the July package which calls for phasing out of export >subsidies within a given time frame. > > The EU is also in a mood to make some >compromise with USA on the issue of its moratorium on genetically >modified crops, the dispute which is before the WTO dispute >settlement body. If such a compromise takes place, either in open or >in secret, these two major blocs will come more closer in defending >their professed agenda in global trade. > > The developed countries are also trying to >push their agenda for harmonisation of patent laws, which may >ultimately result in erosion of member country’s sovereignty. The >February discussions on agriculture differences arose on converting >specific tariffs to ad valorem equivalents (AVEs). > > EU, G-10 group of net-food importing >countries, including Switzerland and Japan currently have tariffs >based on quantity of imports rather than AVEs. These countries >wanted flexibility to make their own calculations arguing that >tariffs are a highly politically sensitive issue. > > The developing countries including China, >India, Brazil, The Philippines, Indonesia, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, >New Zealand, Thailand, Costa Rica, Chile, Nicaragua said that such a >concession would allow the developed countries to manipulate figures >for the subsequent formula for tariff reduction. Generally, >developing countries have AVEs. Tim Groser has, however, decided to >revise his draft on AVEs. > > Similar division between developing and >developed countries emerged in relation to Mr Groser’s proposal to >include in March discussion ‘issues of interests but not agreed’ in >the July package covering sectoral initiatives, differential export >taxes and geographical indications. The developing countries said >that bring such issues, at this stage, would dilute the negotiations >on three pillars - domestic support, export subsidies and market >access. > > Senegal and Kenya proposed longer repayment >periods and lower interest rates on export credits should be allowed >to developing countries and Malyasia suggested subsidised credit >should be allowed for promoting south-south trade, while others >cautioned that such flexibilities might create loopholes and >undermine the effectiveness of the commitment to end export >subsidies. > > Discussions on agriculture issues, thus, >remained inconclusive. In the meeting of the sub-committee on cotton >controversy centered around inclusion of International Cotton >Advisory Committee as an observer. The committtee chairman, Tim >Groser, however, sounded to reach an ‘approximation’ by July, this >year. > > In discussions on NAMA, member countries >differed on whether all products not covered by the WTO agreement on >agriculture were to be covered by any rules under NAMA negotiations. >There were confusion over how to classify fish and fish products. >There was also differences of opinion on binding of tariffs. A >number of developing countries in Asia and Africa wanted tariffs on >sensitive products to remain unbound. > > On the issue of S&D, a split emerged between >two groups - African group wanted that 88 agreement-specific >proposals for S&D enhancement, while other developing countries >wanted that the controversial cross-cutting issues, including the >principles and objectives of S&D should be addressed. > > In discussions on services, the progress was >sluggish, despite Indonesia’s offer to open up its service sector. >Two proposals for defining and classification of different kinds of >service-providing professionals under GATS Mode 4 was discussed. > > The only successful results of the February >talks are the change of guards in different bodies. Amina Chawahi >Mohamed becomes the chairman of WTO General Council, Eirik Glenne >now heads the WTO Dispute Settlement Body and Don Stephenson will >head the Trade Policy Review Body. Can the upcoming Kenya >mini-ministerial break the impasse ? >------------------------------------------------------- > > > >Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner >online. > > >caravan99 at lists.riseup.net -- http://www.virtueelplatform.nl/person-1024.25.html http://blogger.xs4all.nl/kranenbu/ 0031 (0) 641930235 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050309/560da8f7/attachment.html From lawrence at altlawforum.org Fri Mar 11 00:06:43 2005 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:06:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Parody of WIPO's Copyright Comic Message-ID: Hi all The WIPO as a part of their pedagogic mission have been brining out a series of comics on Copyright, TM and patent. A few of us at ALF have been working a response to these comics, and we have now finished ver 1.0 of the response to the Copyright Comic and are working on a response to TM and Patent Comics. What we have done is basically use the base comics to create a counter story, by changing the dialogues in the blurbs and adding images etc, in other words a remixed version of the WIPO Comics. Hope you enjoy it, and Anyone interested in making changes to it, helping with the next versions on patent TM etc please feel free to mail namita at altlawforum.org You can find these at Right2Copy Comic: http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia/CC.pdf The 'original' comic can be found http://www.wipo.org/about-wipo/en/info_center/cartoons/pdf/copyright_cartoon .pdf Lawrence From zainab at xtdnet.nl Fri Mar 11 12:12:12 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:42:12 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Postscript to Indian Idol and Message-ID: <1262.219.65.14.139.1110523332.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> 11th March 2005 It was just last Friday, last Friday, when Abhijeet Sawant became the first Indian Idol. And the questions that have been lingering on my mind since the week that has passed are about democracy. On Sunday, 6th March, I was traveling in the local train from Byculla to Kurla, in the ladies compartment. At Dadar station, a woman with two children entered the compartment and sat on the seat opposite to mine. Sitting next to me, at the window seat, was a woman and sitting opposite her, on the window seat was another woman. The two children (boys), aged around seven years, began singing Hindi film songs in chorus as soon as they became comfortable in their seats. I was very amused at this sight. The two boys were singing very melodiously and somehow, the scene was very surreal. It was performance, a pretty and perfect performance. I could not help smiling broadly and was enjoying myself. The lady sitting next to me, and the one sitting opposite her began smiling as well. The lady sitting next to me mistook my smile to mean ‘look at these kids, how they can rattle Hindi film songs instead of knowing their school lessons’. The children, in the meanwhile, felt shy and stopped singing. The lady next to me asked them their ages. Then she turned towards me and said, “This is all the impact of television. Look at these children. It is all the doing of Indian Idol!!!” So I think Indian Idol has settled into urban talk lingo of Mumbai and will now be evoked either as ‘the other’ or as a metaphor for the effects of television on the public or both. Just yesterday, I was in the Municipal Corporation building and a colourful poster of Abhijeet Sawant was on the walls near the lifts. The poster read, “Our son has won. And this is all due to the lakhs of votes which the BMC workers polled for our boy. He has won because of you.” Today, as I am writing this posting, the city is at ransom again. The BEST public bus service is on strike for an indefinite period. I am told that there is tremendous traffic on the streets and trains are jam-packed. As I listen to this news, I tell my mother, “There is just one person who can rescue us from this strike. It is Abhijeet Sawant!” Hail democrazy! The questions on my mind: what is democracy? Is the notion of democracy changing with the emerging urbanism? Is democracy unworkable beyond a certain scale? Is there a link between public spaces and democracy? Now, for a little peek into Mumbai’s urban talk. Following six months of fieldwork, I have compiled a basic A, B, C, D (with some missing alphabets) of Mumbai’s lingo, gathered from different encounters and groups. Please feel free to modify and transform the content. Let’s go: A – apnawala, literally meaning ‘our man’, allegorically meaning ‘aligned with us’. Like Zubair, the Ticket Examiner I have been talking to, is hailed as apnawala by Muslim commuters or Abhijeet Sawant is hailed as ‘our boy’ by the BMC union B – both bhidoo (as in buddy) and bhenchod (abusive, literally meaning sister fucker) and bhidoo can also be lovingly and affectionately addressed as bhenchod B – also stands for baap meaning influential person, a person in power. Usually, the Mumbai police is referred to as baap. Also used as a common slang term as in kya baap? (what man?) C – chutiya, allegorically meaning to make a fool of oneself or to be fooled – as in when Manoj Kumar used to tell me, “Shah Rukh keeps going to the area where the BMC van is parked and does dhanda there and gets caught, making chutiya of himself!” D – well, you guessed it right. D stands for dhanda i.e. business, the lifeline of this city. Perhaps Mumbai actually derives its character and its ethos from the practices of dhanda at various levels E – stands for ‘English’ not meaning British but a girl who is dressed ‘modernly’ aka television and Bollywood style and can speak fluent English language. Was first used by my Driving Master who would tell me to drive cautiously if an ‘English’ was walking in front of the car. “Make sure you don’t touch her with the car because she is English and will then abuse in English and I will not be able to respond to her!”, he would warn me. F – stands for faltoo and is directly linked with L which stands for lukha and lafanga – faltoo and lukha both denote, at various points in time and persons, unemployed, useless, worthless, and the unemployed is often hailed as lafanga though lafanga is used to ‘mark’ an individual who is a miscreant, usually an eve-teaser G – stands for the abbreviation ‘GPL’ i.e. gaand pe lath (kick his arse) which means drive him/her off because she/he is faltoo and is wasting our precious (economic) time. As shop owners will tell their salesman, “GPL the customer” because she/he is faltoo, wasting time and is not genuinely interested in buying G – also stands for gaadi meaning Municipal and Police Van which land up suddenly to raid on hawkers H – hawker, the prominent ‘other’ in the city who is an encroacher on property and is a dirty sore on the city, the only obstacle which prevents Mumbai from becoming a Shanghai, a clean and green city I – obviously, Indian Idol now! M – maal directly linked with D for dhanda. Maal suggests goods, commodities and is the engine driving dhanda. But maal can also be used metaphorically as a term for a sexy/voluptuous girl (as in kya maal hai baap!) or maal can also mean narcotic drugs. Thus, maal is a term both, for the legal and the illegal M – also stands for madarchod (abusive, meaning mother-fucker). Very common abusive term, though used more often in anger M – also stands for Madam, used by persons non-conversant in English to refer to a lady who can speak English fluently P – stands for Party. Now, ‘party’ is a term used by people of all classes in the city. In common lingo, ‘party’ suggests a ‘business party’, a potential customer as in maaldaar party hai, or zordaar party hai. Basically used to denote ‘the other side in the dealing’. Party also stands for Page 3 Party, used in the Bandra lingo as in “Where’s the party tonight?” R – stands for raasta, as in raasta napo meaning get lost. Raasta literally meaning road. S & T – are interlinked alphabets in Mumbai lingo. For instance, S for tsunami and T for tsunami. So also, S for station (i.e. railway station) and T for theshan (Marathi pronunciation of railway station). T, in the railway station lingo stands for TTE (ticket examiner), and the TTE indulges in S for Sounding i.e. levying fines. Then again, S in the dhanda lingo stands for Seth meaning boss and the hawker also addresses the customer as Seth during sales on the road indicating that customer is the man in charge, in control. T also stands for Time, often pronounced as tame – Time, the only thing we are always running short of in this city! V – stands for Vaat meaning fire in the arse, as in vaat lag gayi, we are doomed, run! Y – for yaar, used both as slang as well as to suggest ‘buddy’ – as in jaane de na yaar (please let go buddy!) Z – zindagi as in life jiska koi bharosa nahi, life which is there today, gone tomorrow! Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From patrice at xs4all.nl Fri Mar 11 16:04:49 2005 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:34:49 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [bytesforall_readers] Parody of WIPO's Copyright Comic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050311103449.GH48881@xs4all.nl> On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 12:06:43AM +0530, Lawrence Liang wrote: > > > Hi all > > > The WIPO as a part of their pedagogic mission have been brining out a series > of comics on Copyright, TM and patent. > > A few of us at ALF have been working a response to these comics, and we have > now finished ver 1.0 of the response to the Copyright Comic and are working > on a response to TM and Patent Comics. (...) > > You can find these at > > Right2Copy Comic: http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia/CC.pdf > > > The 'original' comic can be found > http://www.wipo.org/about-wipo/en/info_center/cartoons/pdf/copyright_cartoon > .pdf > Downloading the 'original' costs so long that I give up. Proves Jean-Marie Le Pen wrong for once ("Les gens preferent toujours l'original a la copie") ;-) patrizio & Diiiinooos! (crypto anti-fakists) From rakesh at sarai.net Sat Mar 12 01:52:26 2005 From: rakesh at sarai.net (Rakesh) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 01:52:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Postscript to Indian Idol and In-Reply-To: <1262.219.65.14.139.1110523332.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> References: <1262.219.65.14.139.1110523332.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Message-ID: <4231FE02.7090006@sarai.net> Dear Zainab Sahi baap, kya marela hai. Do you find any resemblense between Indian Idol Abhijeet and the shining Indian tenis star madam Sania Mirza. Because the way media is portraying her is quite disturbing. You must recall the day when she had edited one edition of a national daily, who claims to be 'The Times Of India'. So, it can easily be imagined the nature of news and views provided by any newspaper, when a khilari become its editor. If it is symbolic, then you are just falsely promoting her/him. and if if is genuine tab to bhagwan hi malik. In fact, now we are in the crossroads of a new kind of democracy, which will ultimately be tending towards such developments. best rakesh zainab at xtdnet.nl wrote: >11th March 2005 > > > >It was just last Friday, last Friday, when Abhijeet Sawant became the >first Indian Idol. And the questions that have been lingering on my mind >since the week that has passed are about democracy. > >On Sunday, 6th March, I was traveling in the local train from Byculla to >Kurla, in the ladies compartment. At Dadar station, a woman with two >children entered the compartment and sat on the seat opposite to mine. >Sitting next to me, at the window seat, was a woman and sitting opposite >her, on the window seat was another woman. The two children (boys), aged >around seven years, began singing Hindi film songs in chorus as soon as >they became comfortable in their seats. I was very amused at this sight. >The two boys were singing very melodiously and somehow, the scene was very >surreal. It was performance, a pretty and perfect performance. I could not >help smiling broadly and was enjoying myself. The lady sitting next to me, >and the one sitting opposite her began smiling as well. The lady sitting >next to me mistook my smile to mean ‘look at these kids, how they can >rattle Hindi film songs instead of knowing their school lessons’. The >children, in the meanwhile, felt shy and stopped singing. The lady next to >me asked them their ages. Then she turned towards me and said, “This is >all the impact of television. Look at these children. It is all the doing >of Indian Idol!!!” > >So I think Indian Idol has settled into urban talk lingo of Mumbai and >will now be evoked either as ‘the other’ or as a metaphor for the effects >of television on the public or both. > >Just yesterday, I was in the Municipal Corporation building and a >colourful poster of Abhijeet Sawant was on the walls near the lifts. The >poster read, “Our son has won. And this is all due to the lakhs of votes >which the BMC workers polled for our boy. He has won because of you.” > >Today, as I am writing this posting, the city is at ransom again. The BEST >public bus service is on strike for an indefinite period. I am told that >there is tremendous traffic on the streets and trains are jam-packed. As I >listen to this news, I tell my mother, “There is just one person who can >rescue us from this strike. It is Abhijeet Sawant!” Hail democrazy! > >The questions on my mind: what is democracy? Is the notion of democracy >changing with the emerging urbanism? Is democracy unworkable beyond a >certain scale? Is there a link between public spaces and democracy? > > >Now, for a little peek into Mumbai’s urban talk. Following six months of >fieldwork, I have compiled a basic A, B, C, D (with some missing >alphabets) of Mumbai’s lingo, gathered from different encounters and >groups. Please feel free to modify and transform the content. Let’s go: > >A – apnawala, literally meaning ‘our man’, allegorically meaning ‘aligned >with us’. Like Zubair, the Ticket Examiner I have been talking to, is >hailed as apnawala by Muslim commuters or Abhijeet Sawant is hailed as >‘our boy’ by the BMC union > >B – both bhidoo (as in buddy) and bhenchod (abusive, literally meaning >sister fucker) and bhidoo can also be lovingly and affectionately >addressed as bhenchod > >B – also stands for baap meaning influential person, a person in power. >Usually, the Mumbai police is referred to as baap. Also used as a common >slang term as in kya baap? (what man?) > >C – chutiya, allegorically meaning to make a fool of oneself or to be >fooled – as in when Manoj Kumar used to tell me, “Shah Rukh keeps going to >the area where the BMC van is parked and does dhanda there and gets >caught, making chutiya of himself!” > >D – well, you guessed it right. D stands for dhanda i.e. business, the >lifeline of this city. Perhaps Mumbai actually derives its character and >its ethos from the practices of dhanda at various levels > >E – stands for ‘English’ not meaning British but a girl who is dressed >‘modernly’ aka television and Bollywood style and can speak fluent English >language. Was first used by my Driving Master who would tell me to drive >cautiously if an ‘English’ was walking in front of the car. “Make sure you >don’t touch her with the car because she is English and will then abuse in >English and I will not be able to respond to her!”, he would warn me. > >F – stands for faltoo and is directly linked with L which stands for lukha >and lafanga – faltoo and lukha both denote, at various points in time and >persons, unemployed, useless, worthless, and the unemployed is often >hailed as lafanga though lafanga is used to ‘mark’ an individual who is a >miscreant, usually an eve-teaser > >G – stands for the abbreviation ‘GPL’ i.e. gaand pe lath (kick his arse) >which means drive him/her off because she/he is faltoo and is wasting our >precious (economic) time. As shop owners will tell their salesman, “GPL >the customer” because she/he is faltoo, wasting time and is not genuinely >interested in buying > >G – also stands for gaadi meaning Municipal and Police Van which land up >suddenly to raid on hawkers > >H – hawker, the prominent ‘other’ in the city who is an encroacher on >property and is a dirty sore on the city, the only obstacle which prevents >Mumbai from becoming a Shanghai, a clean and green city > >I – obviously, Indian Idol now! > >M – maal directly linked with D for dhanda. Maal suggests goods, >commodities and is the engine driving dhanda. But maal can also be used >metaphorically as a term for a sexy/voluptuous girl (as in kya maal hai >baap!) or maal can also mean narcotic drugs. Thus, maal is a term both, >for the legal and the illegal > >M – also stands for madarchod (abusive, meaning mother-fucker). Very >common abusive term, though used more often in anger > >M – also stands for Madam, used by persons non-conversant in English to >refer to a lady who can speak English fluently > >P – stands for Party. Now, ‘party’ is a term used by people of all classes >in the city. In common lingo, ‘party’ suggests a ‘business party’, a >potential customer as in maaldaar party hai, or zordaar party hai. >Basically used to denote ‘the other side in the dealing’. Party also >stands for Page 3 Party, used in the Bandra lingo as in “Where’s the party >tonight?” > >R – stands for raasta, as in raasta napo meaning get lost. Raasta >literally meaning road. > >S & T – are interlinked alphabets in Mumbai lingo. For instance, S for >tsunami and T for tsunami. So also, S for station (i.e. railway station) >and T for theshan (Marathi pronunciation of railway station). T, in the >railway station lingo stands for TTE (ticket examiner), and the TTE >indulges in S for Sounding i.e. levying fines. Then again, S in the dhanda >lingo stands for Seth meaning boss and the hawker also addresses the >customer as Seth during sales on the road indicating that customer is the >man in charge, in control. T also stands for Time, often pronounced as >tame – Time, the only thing we are always running short of in this city! > >V – stands for Vaat meaning fire in the arse, as in vaat lag gayi, we are >doomed, run! > >Y – for yaar, used both as slang as well as to suggest ‘buddy’ – as in >jaane de na yaar (please let go buddy!) > >Z – zindagi as in life jiska koi bharosa nahi, life which is there today, >gone tomorrow! > > > > > >Zainab Bawa >Bombay >www.xanga.com/CityBytes >http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html > >_________________________________________ >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: > > -- Rakesh Kumar Singh Sarai-CSDS Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Ph: 91 11 23960040 Fax: 91 11 2394 3450 web site: www.sarai.net web blog: http://blog.sarai.net/users/rakesh/ From shivamvij at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 08:35:19 2005 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:05:19 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Postscript to Indian Idol and References: <1262.219.65.14.139.1110523332.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Message-ID: <001401c526b0$7d3f7ee0$2a36e0dc@iccec3176b309c> Dear Zainab, Thoroughly enjoyed this. Just that, how come 'money' - or 'maal' as in money - is not one of the items in 'M'? Also, some of the terms seem characteristically Bombay, or shall I say Bambayya. But some are pan north-Indian. It would be interesting to draw an all-India list - the urban researcher's humble contribution to national integration! Jai hind! Shivam From monica at sarai.net Sat Mar 12 03:58:54 2005 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 03:58:54 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Parody of WIPO's Copyright Comic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Lawrence, Namita and everyone else at Alf This is excellent! And i think Liang's 'intervention' as jargonist quite apt :-) Now if only we could ...um... publish it! best M At 0:06 +0530 11/3/05, Lawrence Liang wrote: >Hi all > > >The WIPO as a part of their pedagogic mission have been brining out a series >of comics on Copyright, TM and patent. > >A few of us at ALF have been working a response to these comics, and we have >now finished ver 1.0 of the response to the Copyright Comic and are working >on a response to TM and Patent Comics. > >What we have done is basically use the base comics to create a counter >story, by changing the dialogues in the blurbs and adding images etc, in >other words a remixed version of the WIPO Comics. Hope you enjoy it, and >Anyone interested in making changes to it, helping with the next versions on >patent TM etc please feel free to mail namita at altlawforum.org > >You can find these at > >Right2Copy Comic: http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia/CC.pdf > > >The 'original' comic can be found >http://www.wipo.org/about-wipo/en/info_center/cartoons/pdf/copyright_cartoon >.pdf > > > >Lawrence > > >_________________________________________ >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: -- Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From zainab at xtdnet.nl Sat Mar 12 09:47:23 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:17:23 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Postscript to Indian Idol and In-Reply-To: <001401c526b0$7d3f7ee0$2a36e0dc@iccec3176b309c> References: <1262.219.65.14.139.1110523332.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> <001401c526b0$7d3f7ee0$2a36e0dc@iccec3176b309c> Message-ID: <1077.219.65.12.140.1110601043.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Daer Shivam, Seems like you are reading my mind. Yes, Maal in Bombay lingo also means 'money' both black and white, legal and illegal! In fact, in an interview with a boot polish man at the station, I discovered two more words i.e. J - for 'jugaad' as in trying means to gather money and D - for 'dadagiri' as in bullying. Cheers, Zainab > Dear Zainab, > > Thoroughly enjoyed this. Just that, how come 'money' - or 'maal' as in > money - is not one of the items in 'M'? > > Also, some of the terms seem characteristically Bombay, or shall I say > Bambayya. But some are pan north-Indian. It would be interesting to draw > an > all-India list - the urban researcher's humble contribution to national > integration! > > Jai hind! > Shivam > > _________________________________________ > 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: > Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From zainab at xtdnet.nl Sat Mar 12 09:51:34 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:21:34 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Postscript to Indian Idol and In-Reply-To: <4231FE02.7090006@sarai.net> References: <1262.219.65.14.139.1110523332.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> <4231FE02.7090006@sarai.net> Message-ID: <1118.219.65.12.140.1110601294.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Dear Rakesh, Thank you for pointing out Sania Mirza. Today's Times of India Mumbai edition talks about how Maharashtra has been lacking idols and that Sania and Abhijeet are 'proof' of the talent that this region can produce. Last evening, a friend mentioned to me that a school named Ashirwad Academy in Palghar District, located 60kms from Mumbai, has started 'Ashirwad Academy Idol' based on Indian Idol. Way to go!!! Cheers, Zainab > Dear Zainab > > Sahi baap, kya marela hai. Do you find any resemblense between Indian > Idol Abhijeet and the shining Indian tenis star madam Sania Mirza. > Because the way media is portraying her is quite disturbing. You must > recall the day when she had edited one edition of a national daily, who > claims to be 'The Times Of India'. So, it can easily be imagined the > nature of news and views provided by any newspaper, when a khilari > become its editor. If it is symbolic, then you are just falsely > promoting her/him. and if if is genuine tab to bhagwan hi malik. > > In fact, now we are in the crossroads of a new kind of democracy, which > will ultimately be tending towards such developments. > > > best > rakesh > > zainab at xtdnet.nl wrote: > >>11th March 2005 >> >> >> >>It was just last Friday, last Friday, when Abhijeet Sawant became the >>first Indian Idol. And the questions that have been lingering on my mind >>since the week that has passed are about democracy. >> >>On Sunday, 6th March, I was traveling in the local train from Byculla to >>Kurla, in the ladies compartment. At Dadar station, a woman with two >>children entered the compartment and sat on the seat opposite to mine. >>Sitting next to me, at the window seat, was a woman and sitting opposite >>her, on the window seat was another woman. The two children (boys), aged >>around seven years, began singing Hindi film songs in chorus as soon as >>they became comfortable in their seats. I was very amused at this sight. >>The two boys were singing very melodiously and somehow, the scene was >> very >>surreal. It was performance, a pretty and perfect performance. I could >> not >>help smiling broadly and was enjoying myself. The lady sitting next to >> me, >>and the one sitting opposite her began smiling as well. The lady sitting >>next to me mistook my smile to mean ‘look at these kids, how they can >>rattle Hindi film songs instead of knowing their school lessons’. The >>children, in the meanwhile, felt shy and stopped singing. The lady next >> to >>me asked them their ages. Then she turned towards me and said, “This is >>all the impact of television. Look at these children. It is all the doing >>of Indian Idol!!!” >> >>So I think Indian Idol has settled into urban talk lingo of Mumbai and >>will now be evoked either as ‘the other’ or as a metaphor for the effects >>of television on the public or both. >> >>Just yesterday, I was in the Municipal Corporation building and a >>colourful poster of Abhijeet Sawant was on the walls near the lifts. The >>poster read, “Our son has won. And this is all due to the lakhs of votes >>which the BMC workers polled for our boy. He has won because of you.” >> >>Today, as I am writing this posting, the city is at ransom again. The >> BEST >>public bus service is on strike for an indefinite period. I am told that >>there is tremendous traffic on the streets and trains are jam-packed. As >> I >>listen to this news, I tell my mother, “There is just one person who can >>rescue us from this strike. It is Abhijeet Sawant!” Hail democrazy! >> >>The questions on my mind: what is democracy? Is the notion of democracy >>changing with the emerging urbanism? Is democracy unworkable beyond a >>certain scale? Is there a link between public spaces and democracy? >> >> >>Now, for a little peek into Mumbai’s urban talk. Following six months of >>fieldwork, I have compiled a basic A, B, C, D (with some missing >>alphabets) of Mumbai’s lingo, gathered from different encounters and >>groups. Please feel free to modify and transform the content. Let’s go: >> >>A – apnawala, literally meaning ‘our man’, allegorically meaning ‘aligned >>with us’. Like Zubair, the Ticket Examiner I have been talking to, is >>hailed as apnawala by Muslim commuters or Abhijeet Sawant is hailed as >>‘our boy’ by the BMC union >> >>B – both bhidoo (as in buddy) and bhenchod (abusive, literally meaning >>sister fucker) and bhidoo can also be lovingly and affectionately >>addressed as bhenchod >> >>B – also stands for baap meaning influential person, a person in power. >>Usually, the Mumbai police is referred to as baap. Also used as a common >>slang term as in kya baap? (what man?) >> >>C – chutiya, allegorically meaning to make a fool of oneself or to be >>fooled – as in when Manoj Kumar used to tell me, “Shah Rukh keeps going >> to >>the area where the BMC van is parked and does dhanda there and gets >>caught, making chutiya of himself!” >> >>D – well, you guessed it right. D stands for dhanda i.e. business, the >>lifeline of this city. Perhaps Mumbai actually derives its character and >>its ethos from the practices of dhanda at various levels >> >>E – stands for ‘English’ not meaning British but a girl who is dressed >>‘modernly’ aka television and Bollywood style and can speak fluent >> English >>language. Was first used by my Driving Master who would tell me to drive >>cautiously if an ‘English’ was walking in front of the car. “Make sure >> you >>don’t touch her with the car because she is English and will then abuse >> in >>English and I will not be able to respond to her!”, he would warn me. >> >>F – stands for faltoo and is directly linked with L which stands for >> lukha >>and lafanga – faltoo and lukha both denote, at various points in time and >>persons, unemployed, useless, worthless, and the unemployed is often >>hailed as lafanga though lafanga is used to ‘mark’ an individual who is a >>miscreant, usually an eve-teaser >> >>G – stands for the abbreviation ‘GPL’ i.e. gaand pe lath (kick his arse) >>which means drive him/her off because she/he is faltoo and is wasting our >>precious (economic) time. As shop owners will tell their salesman, “GPL >>the customer” because she/he is faltoo, wasting time and is not genuinely >>interested in buying >> >>G – also stands for gaadi meaning Municipal and Police Van which land up >>suddenly to raid on hawkers >> >>H – hawker, the prominent ‘other’ in the city who is an encroacher on >>property and is a dirty sore on the city, the only obstacle which >> prevents >>Mumbai from becoming a Shanghai, a clean and green city >> >>I – obviously, Indian Idol now! >> >>M – maal directly linked with D for dhanda. Maal suggests goods, >>commodities and is the engine driving dhanda. But maal can also be used >>metaphorically as a term for a sexy/voluptuous girl (as in kya maal hai >>baap!) or maal can also mean narcotic drugs. Thus, maal is a term both, >>for the legal and the illegal >> >>M – also stands for madarchod (abusive, meaning mother-fucker). Very >>common abusive term, though used more often in anger >> >>M – also stands for Madam, used by persons non-conversant in English to >>refer to a lady who can speak English fluently >> >>P – stands for Party. Now, ‘party’ is a term used by people of all >> classes >>in the city. In common lingo, ‘party’ suggests a ‘business party’, a >>potential customer as in maaldaar party hai, or zordaar party hai. >>Basically used to denote ‘the other side in the dealing’. Party also >>stands for Page 3 Party, used in the Bandra lingo as in “Where’s the >> party >>tonight?” >> >>R – stands for raasta, as in raasta napo meaning get lost. Raasta >>literally meaning road. >> >>S & T – are interlinked alphabets in Mumbai lingo. For instance, S for >>tsunami and T for tsunami. So also, S for station (i.e. railway station) >>and T for theshan (Marathi pronunciation of railway station). T, in the >>railway station lingo stands for TTE (ticket examiner), and the TTE >>indulges in S for Sounding i.e. levying fines. Then again, S in the >> dhanda >>lingo stands for Seth meaning boss and the hawker also addresses the >>customer as Seth during sales on the road indicating that customer is the >>man in charge, in control. T also stands for Time, often pronounced as >>tame – Time, the only thing we are always running short of in this city! >> >>V – stands for Vaat meaning fire in the arse, as in vaat lag gayi, we are >>doomed, run! >> >>Y – for yaar, used both as slang as well as to suggest ‘buddy’ – as in >>jaane de na yaar (please let go buddy!) >> >>Z – zindagi as in life jiska koi bharosa nahi, life which is there today, >>gone tomorrow! >> >> >> >> >> >>Zainab Bawa >>Bombay >>www.xanga.com/CityBytes >>http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html >> >>_________________________________________ >>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: >> >> > > > -- > Rakesh Kumar Singh > Sarai-CSDS > Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 > Ph: 91 11 23960040 > Fax: 91 11 2394 3450 > web site: www.sarai.net > web blog: http://blog.sarai.net/users/rakesh/ > Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in Thu Mar 10 17:45:41 2005 From: aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in (Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:45:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] ART IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN Message-ID: <1110456941.95c3c380aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> You are cordially invited for a panel discussion on ART IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN Venue: School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Time: 3pm to 6pm Date: 11th March 2005 The panelists are Jyotindra Jain, Amit Mukhopadhyaya, Ashish Karode and Vivan Sundaram The School of Arts and Aesthetics J.N.U in collaboration with Khoj International Artists Workshop is currently hosting a residency for artists who are making works on the J.N.U campus. This panel discussion is being organized as a part of this outreach programme. All are cordially invited ============================================== This Mail was Scanned for Virus and found Virus free ============================================== _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From deepfocus at bgl.vsnl.net Fri Mar 11 04:20:45 2005 From: deepfocus at bgl.vsnl.net (deepfocus) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 04:20:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Film Festival; Voices from the Waters Message-ID: Voices from the Waters A Film Festival Call for Entries Bangalore Film Society and Water Journeys, in collaboration with the Alliance Francaise, Bangalore (India) and with the support of the Federation of Film Societies of India are organising an international film festival on water titled, 'Voices from the Waters'. The Film festival will take place from April 13 - 16, 2005 at the Alliance Francaise, Bangalore. Bangalore Film Society " In each image one must know who is speaking ... our task is to discover images and sounds which are free..." Bangalore Film Society is a forum of individuals committed to evolving a new perspective for film appreciation-an attempt that seeks to transcend the popular conceptions of cinematic entertainment from neutral, value free flights into the realms of the fantastic and the illusory to that of a purposeful voyage into terrains of the real and immediate concerns of human experience. In its 27 years of active involvement, Bangalore Film Society has been instrumental in screening films of internationally acclaimed film directors from all over the world, initiating a process of intercultural dialogue and creating avenues for divergent aesthetic experiences. The basic objective of the Society is to familiarise and generate awareness among the public about the contemporary socio-political and cultural issues, which informs artistic expressions. The Society attempts to promote an aesthetic, which affirms human values, multi-culturalism and plurality. Water Journeys Campaign for the Fundamental Right to Water " May the rain continue to dampen the land, May the wet forests continue to grow." It is a conglomerate of several groups and organizations from South Asia who are deeply concerned about the increasing scarcity and commodification of water. Water, the source of life, today, has been deviously packaged into a commodity, creating a paucity of water and causing severe trauma to various peoples all over the world. The shortage of drinking water both in urban and rural areas has escalated to an acute level in the last five years, specially heightened by drought and war. This will have serious repercussions for the peoples of the world and the environment. One of the objectives of Water Journeys is to screen films on water issues, water struggles, water conservation and related issues in schools, colleges and communities to start a dialogue on the issue of control and use of water. It aims at networking with agencies involved in the protection and preservation of lakes, rivers and other water bodies. Further Water Journeys will soon start an international journal on water issues. It will address the socio-political and cultural implications of water, making it an interesting and enlightening knowledge source for action. While both Bangalore Film Society and Water Journeys are autonomous bodies, they are under the auspices of Society for Informal Education and Development Studies (SIEDS), Bangalore, India. SIEDS is a thirty-year-old organization that critiques the contemporary development paradigm which has created pockets of plenty and abysmal poverty across the globe. The homocentric development paradigm treats the earth as a commodity, which will have catastrophic effects on nature and the environment. We are already victims of such an approach. SIEDS in its involvement with present socio-political and cultural issues concerning women, tribals, Dalits, environment, media and so on, attempts a nature-centric vision and sustainable development. The film festival on water will concentrate on subjects such as water scarcity, its conservation and positive steps for action towards the preservation of the same. The festival will hold discussions on water and related issues. The festival hopes to create awareness on culture specific water conservation. Simultaneously, there will be an exhibition on water that will sensitise and inspire the audience, particularly the youth. This international film festival is the first of its kind in India. We invite you to be part of this event by contributing short, documentary and feature films (DVD/VCD formats) with English subtitles on water and related issues. Further, we would appreciate a preview copy of any films you would wish to send so that we may place them in one of the five categories of the festival, namely Water Scarcity, Narmada Valley Struggle, Water Harvesting, Water and Spirituality and Water Struggles. We would duly acknowledge your participation. We would appreciate contact details, email and website details. Should you need more information about us, please do get in touch with us. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanking you, Yours Sincerely, Anupama Jayaraman Co ordinator Water Journeys _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de Fri Mar 11 13:50:16 2005 From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (memorial://) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:20:16 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Tsunami - call for submissions Message-ID: <007e01c52613$287641c0$0400a8c0@NewMediaArtNet> Tsunami - call for submissions 1st deadline 31 March 2005 . A Virtual Memorial www.a-virtual-memorial.org and [R][R][F]2005---XP www.newmediafest.org/rrf2005 initiate on occasion of this disaster in South East Asia and in solidarity with all affected people in this human tragedy a net based art project environment, entitled: Tsunami. . The title: "Tsunami" does thematically not only refer to this or similiar disasters in Present or Past, but beyond that "Tsunami" is primarily also understood as a symbol for the Inevitable, the Immutable, for Powers of Nature, Powers of Destiny which cannot be controlled by the human being, situations of helplessness the human being is irrevocably at the mercy of. Has he any chance to escape or take influence? . Nearly everybody whereever he may live has made experiences of that kind in one or the other way already. . Artists around the globe are invited to reflect these traumatic conditions of human life and submit art works, documents, texts or any other material connected the thematical context which can be submitted as digital file . . "Tsunami" - this collaborative project will be published and featured on www.a-virtual-memorial.org and www.newmediafest.org/rrf2005 simultaneously and will take part in all coming physical events of [R][R][F]2005--->XP, global networking project by Agricola de Cologne. . Following file typs are accepted: HTML including Javascript and Dhtml Text: .txt, .rtf, plain email Image: .jpg,.gif., png sound: .mpg3 movie: .mov, .avi, wmv, .swf, .drc, .mpeg2 . The submission can consist of different parts, works or documents but must not exceed 5MB. All serious contributions will be accepted. . 1st deadline 31 March 2005, afterwards ongoing and will be continuously updated. . Please use this form for submitting . 1.Name, Email, URL 2.brief bio (not more than 50 words/English) 3.work(s) (number of entries, titles, year of origin, medium of original work, submitted media file types) 4. Short description for each submitted work (not more than 50 words/English) . Please send the submission as individual files attached to info at a-virtual-memorial.org subject: tsunami ************************************** A Virtual Memorial www.a-virtual-memorial.org and [R][R][F]2005--->XP global networking project www.newmediafest.org/rrf2005 are corporate members of [NewMediaArtProjectnetwork]:||cologne www.nmartproject.net . contact: info at nmartproject.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From arisen.silently at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 12:31:04 2005 From: arisen.silently at gmail.com (arisen silently) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 12:31:04 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: who resolves disputes in an anarchist society In-Reply-To: <20050309180725.255%08992@smtp.ntlworld.com> References: <20050309104605.29018.qmail@web26509.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <20050309180725.255%08992@smtp.ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <1925b33d05031123017cb134a2@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: jet_black at ntlworld.com Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:07:25 +0000 Subject: Re: who resolves disputes in an anarchist society To: Situationist No society in which there are disputes is truly anarchist in the first place. Anarchism pre-posits a post-scarcity environment in which individuals are immersed in the mechanisms of controlling their own essentials and production (a priori). To install anarchism is to promote such productive control mechanisms. Conflict and anarchism are in a sense semantic opposites and it is therefore gibberish to conceive of a society which is both anarchist and has conflict. Some will probably think that such a definition of anarchism is pedantic, because in practice nothing will ever be perfect. However, if one refuses to imagine a perfect world one must cease to demand a perfect anarchism. On the other hand, if one anticipates an imperfect future world, one must not complain if the policies of its anarchists are a mere approximation to an anarchist society. One must be consistent. In other words, the question is unfairly conceived -- (you are implicitly expecting "Anarchism" to be immaculate when confronted by a world you refuse to believe an be immaculate too). In the meantime, in this undoubtedly imperfect world, the practices of any anarchist worth his or her salt are confined by NO pedantic idealisms, an anarchist resorts to whatever available method is most effective in the place and time he dinds himself (what law should he allow to deter him?) The modern difference between an anarchist and a non-anarchist is a different interpretation of "best method", hinging upon a different image of the desirable Future -- a different morality based upon result, not upon taboos about methods (By Any Means Necessary). To hone this anarchist strategy (if that's what you still want to call it -- I for one am indifferent) is what we should be here to do: another word for it is morality, a morality of consequences not tablets of stone (karma not taboo); a morality which permits anarchists to use *anything* to resolve conflicts, so long as they understand the consequences of what they do and are choosing the best of them. -ku guyot jean-marc wrote: >Hi Dan, > >I'm a frenchspoker, so sorry for my broken english... >But I'll try to answer your question. > >This question of resolving disputes or any problems in >an anarchist society seem the most important question. > >Repression or neighborhood control is not acceptable. >I thing that all go through education of people, >beginings by our childrens to values as liberty (I may >say me free only when all the people around me is also >free...) and,consequence, brotherhoodness. I've in the >ears the words of Imagine by John Lennon... > >Education of ours childrens, sure. But also our >self-education, without gods or masters (god is not >good ;-)). > >What do you says about this necessary self education? > >Thanks for your answers. > >Cheers, > >Jean-Marc. From monica at sarai.net Sun Mar 13 00:17:51 2005 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:17:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On Preacarity Message-ID: With the crumbling of social democratic guarantees of the post-WW2 consensus in western europe, a new social landscape is emerging and finding its own conceptual self articulation. This condition of the present has been termed precariousness/precarity. We are the 'precariat' :-)! Below are some links: http://republicart.net/disc/precariat/index.htm http://www.euromayday.org/lang_eng.html http://www.metamute.com/look/issue.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=29 best M -- Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From s0metim3s at optusnet.com.au Sun Mar 13 09:28:27 2005 From: s0metim3s at optusnet.com.au (s0metim3s) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 14:58:27 +1100 Subject: [Reader-list] On Preacarity In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200503130405.j2D45l14032538@mail05.syd.optusnet.com.au> Hello Monica, all, I'm not sure who you mean by 'we', but 'precariat' is a highly-contested concept. For my part, I think the concept is ambivalent, opening up a space for what might is an important debate and discussion, but not I think for pursuing an identity. http://linkme2.net/2h Aside from the links you sent here, there is also a discussion paper written by the Frassanti Network (which might be of interest). I'll also append a fragment of a debate on precarity from the euromayday list, and a link to an article by Franco Berardi (for those who can read Italian). best, Angela // Info-Lavoro e Precarizzazione [Franco Berardi] http://rekombinant.org/article.php?sid=2578 // Precarious, Precarization, Precariat? Impacts, traps and challenges of a complex term and its relationship to migration {Frassanito Network] I. Precarious literally means unsure, uncertain, difficult, delicate . As political term it refers to living and working conditions without any guarantees: for example the precarious residence permission of migrants and refugees, or the precarious everyday life as a single mother. Better known was the term Since the early 80s the term has been used more and more in relation to labor. Precarious work refers to all possible shapes of unsure, not guaranteed, flexible exploitation: from illegalized, seasonal and temporary employment to homework, flex- and temp-work to subcontractors, freelancers or so called self employed persons. II. Precarization at work means an increasing change of previously guaranteed permanent employment conditions into mainly worse paid, uncertain jobs. On a historical and global scale precarious work represents not an exception. In fact was the idea of a generalization of so called guaranteed working conditions a myth of a short period, the one of the so called welfare state. In the global South, in eastern Europe as well as for the main part of women and migrants in the north all together the big majority of global population precarious working conditions were and are the norm. Precarization describes moreover the crisis of established institutions, which have represented for that short period the framework of (false) certainties. It is an analytical term for a process, which hints to a new quality of societal labor. Labor and social life, production and reproduction cannot be separated anymore, and this leads to a more comprehensive definition of precarization: the uncertainty of all circumstances in the material and immaterial conditions of life of living labor under contemporary capitalism. For example: wage level and working conditions are connected with a distribution of tasks, which is determined by gender and ethnic roles; the residence status determines the access to the labor market or to medical care. The whole ensemble of social relationships seems to be on the move. III. Precariat an allusion to proletariat meanwhile is used as an offensive self-description in order to emphasize the subjective and utopian moments of precarization. Through the mass refusal of gender roles, of factory work and of the command of labor over life, precarization has really a double face: it is possible to speak indeed of a kind of flexibilisation from below. Precarization does not represent a simple invention of the command centers of capital: it is also a reaction to the insurgency and new mobility behaviors of living labor, and in so far it can be understood as the attempt to recapture manifold struggles and refusals in order to establish new conditions of exploitation of labor and valorization of capital. Precarization thus symbolizes a contested field: a field in which the attempt to start a new cycle of exploitation also meets desires and subjective behaviors which express the refusal of the old, so called fordist regime of labor and the search for another, better, we can even say flexible life. However, we think that precariat as a new term of struggle runs in an old trap if it aims at a quick unification and creation of a dominant social actor. Precariat gets even into a farce, if the radical left tries to legitimize itself as main force in its representation because of the increasing involvement of leftist activists in precarious labor and life conditions. But the main point is that taking into account the hierarchies which shape the composition of the contemporary living labor (from illegalized migrant janitors to temporary computerfreaks), the strong diversity of social movement and respective demands and desires, nobody should simplify precarization into a new identity. We are confronted here with the problem of imagining a process of political subjectivation in which different subject positions can cooperate in the production of a new common ground of struggle without sacrificing the peculiarity of demands which arise from the very composition of living labor. In these conditions, we think that precarization as complex and contested process - can offer a frame, - to bring the different subjects into an intensified exchange, on a social as well on a political level; - to mediate contradictions and even concurrences within the respective realities; - and to pick out comprehensive questions as common themes. We are thinking of process which bases on the autonomy of the various struggles, which fosters the communication between the struggles, which invents new forms of cooperation and which opens new fields. IV. Particularly because migrants experience all mentioned forms of depreciation and precarization of nowadays work, and particularly because mobility is their answer through and against the borders and identities, they show in their subjective conditions all the main characteristics which shape modern labor as a whole: in their subject position a common ground of the existence of social labor today finds a peculiar expression. To talk about migrants labor means to talk about a general tendency of labor to mobility, to diversity, to deep changes, which is already affecting although with different degrees of intensity all workers. Because of the possible extension of these conditions we speak of a political centrality of migrants work. The position of migrants represents the social anticipation of a political option to struggle against the general development of labor as it will be extended to the whole society and the whole life of all people. At the same time, we are aware that migrant labor as well as precarious labor doesnt represent an homogeneous subject: the process of subjectivation we were talking about is a process which must go through migrant labor itself, and which can be fostered by an increasing communication with other struggles and with the demands of other sections of contemporary living labor. // euromayday discussions Alex Foti's [European Lobby] response to the paper, the one from the Frassanito Network: "I must say the document is frankly biased and mysteriously hostile to net/flex/temp workers as being central subjects of the labor process today and potentially of a new, radical, european politics. ... we have to embody a subject in order to be effective." Dimitris Papadopoulos: "Foti's response to the ideas sent earlier about connecting the 2nd Day of Action and the EuroMayDay sounds like a desperate attempt to subsume all various social and political actors under a single generic political subject (to come). Foti argues from the standpoint of (European) law, while migrational movements argue from the standpoint of the struggles and reveal the permeability and instability and corrupt, racist character of Europe." From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Sun Mar 13 19:54:17 2005 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 06:24:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] On (Pakistani) Preacarity In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050313142417.80852.qmail@web51101.mail.yahoo.com> Hi Monica, all, When did "we" become (Western) European? The only (Western) Europeans we know are in Islamabad, as donors and journalists, these days defining, refining, finding and funding "devolution," (our social and democratic norm). best, Rehan --- Monica Narula wrote: > With the crumbling of social democratic guarantees > of the post-WW2 > consensus in western europe, a new social landscape > is emerging and > finding its own conceptual self articulation. This > condition of the > present has been termed precariousness/precarity. We > are the > 'precariat' :-)! > > Below are some links: > http://republicart.net/disc/precariat/index.htm > > http://www.euromayday.org/lang_eng.html > > http://www.metamute.com/look/issue.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=29 > > best > M > -- > Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] > Sarai-CSDS > 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 > www.raqsmediacollective.net > www.sarai.net > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > subject header. > List archive: > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From radiofreealtair at gmail.com Mon Mar 14 07:50:10 2005 From: radiofreealtair at gmail.com (Anand Vivek Taneja) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 07:50:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Parody of WIPO's Copyright Comic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8178da99050313182023c11a2c@mail.gmail.com> Dear Lawrence, Brilliant. But still shying away from the vexed Lessig question of 'Asian Piracy', no? cheers, a On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:06:43 +0530, Lawrence Liang wrote: > Hi all > > The WIPO as a part of their pedagogic mission have been brining out a series > of comics on Copyright, TM and patent. > > A few of us at ALF have been working a response to these comics, and we have > now finished ver 1.0 of the response to the Copyright Comic and are working > on a response to TM and Patent Comics. > > What we have done is basically use the base comics to create a counter > story, by changing the dialogues in the blurbs and adding images etc, in > other words a remixed version of the WIPO Comics. Hope you enjoy it, and > Anyone interested in making changes to it, helping with the next versions on > patent TM etc please feel free to mail namita at altlawforum.org > > You can find these at > > Right2Copy Comic: http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia/CC.pdf > > The 'original' comic can be found > http://www.wipo.org/about-wipo/en/info_center/cartoons/pdf/copyright_cartoon > .pdf > > Lawrence > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: > -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. http://www.synchroni-cities.blogspot.com/ From sam at myspinach.org Sun Mar 13 03:03:05 2005 From: sam at myspinach.org (s|a|m) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 08:33:05 +1100 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] New channels at S7 DIGITAL .. Message-ID: <42336011.8040304@myspinach.org> *** Three New Channels at S7 DIGITAL *** ** SIGNATURE SIGNATURE is a new monthly online journal brought to you by Marni Cordell and Eve Vincent, former editors of Spinach7 magazine. We've folded the mag for now, but want to keep bringing you thought-provoking stories from this country's critical new voices. Each month we'll be publishing a range of feature stories: both investigative, topical coverage and quality writing that is personal and reflective. http://s7digital.com/signature/ ** SOUND PLAY SoundPlay is an independent online space connecting with people who want to discover and be inspired by stories about sound and music. Dan Rule – who was a regular contributor to SPINACH7 magazine and has diverse background in music writing – will be the driving force behind SoundPlay. He will be editing the channel and inviting like-minded contributors from across Australia to write features, essays and reviews. http://s7digital.com/soundplay/ ** MO:LIFE mo:life is interested in how inherently global mobile media will be implicated in our daily lives here in Australia and the Asia Pacific. Jointly produced by busa aat and s7-digital, it is a moderated email list focusing on mobile-media culture and technology. To join mo:life - send a blank email to molife-subscribe at lists.s7digital.com or visit http://s7digital.com/molife/ ** Upcoming Forum Check out the JUST SHOOT IT forum about diy filmmaking. Featuring Mark Pesce, Shannon Owen and David Tiley. http://s7digital.com/777/ When: Thursday 17th March ... 6:15pm Where: ACMI - Memory Grid space Cost: Free! And there'll be free drinks also! _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From sharan at sarai.net Mon Mar 14 12:01:49 2005 From: sharan at sarai.net (Awadhendra Sharan) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:01:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On (Pakistani) Preacarity In-Reply-To: <20050313142417.80852.qmail@web51101.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050313142417.80852.qmail@web51101.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42352FD5.9010405@sarai.net> Hi Monica, Adding to Rehan's: For most people in the 'third world' precariousness has historically been the defining character of existence, in colonial and post-colonial times. The question then is not whether there is a greater uncertainty now and whether there has been a breakdown of a presumed consensus, but whether we now witness a new set of interactions between the forms/ strategies of negotiating uncertainty. If one extends Partha Chatterjee's argument that modernity and democracy have often been in conflict in most of the world, one may suggest that welfare for most parts of the world was indeed about maintaining uncertainties and yet providing for welfare goods - say electricity to illegal settlements. It is this political arrangement that is now in question, ironically through the search for greater certainty and formalisation (from the left and the right). Dipu rehan ansari wrote: >Hi Monica, all, > >When did "we" become (Western) European? > >The only (Western) Europeans we know are in Islamabad, >as donors and journalists, these days defining, >refining, finding and funding "devolution," (our >social and democratic norm). > >best, > >Rehan > > >--- Monica Narula wrote: > > > >>With the crumbling of social democratic guarantees >>of the post-WW2 >>consensus in western europe, a new social landscape >>is emerging and >>finding its own conceptual self articulation. This >>condition of the >>present has been termed precariousness/precarity. We >>are the >>'precariat' :-)! >> >>Below are some links: >>http://republicart.net/disc/precariat/index.htm >> >>http://www.euromayday.org/lang_eng.html >> >> >> >> >http://www.metamute.com/look/issue.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=29 > > >>best >>M >>-- >>Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] >>Sarai-CSDS >>29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 >>www.raqsmediacollective.net >>www.sarai.net >>_________________________________________ >>reader-list: an open discussion list on media and >>the city. >>Critiques & Collaborations >>To subscribe: send an email to >>reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the >>subject header. >>List archive: >> >> >> >> > > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! >http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ >_________________________________________ >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 Mon Mar 14 21:36:38 2005 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 21:36:38 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] ILUG in IRAQ Message-ID: <4235B68E.8010708@sarai.net> apologies for cross posting...but it is important (from nettime) (Dear nettimers, this might be of interest for you. It certainly was for those of us involved in the www.streamtime.org campaign. This Adam gives an amazing inside view on what's happening on the ground, beyond what mainstream media report about Iraq. Best, Geert BTW. LUG stands for Linux Users Group). -- http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/02/1415224 Adam Davidson is an American reporter who has been in Baghdad for many months, and in his 'spare time' helped start Iraq's first LUG. We sent him your questions last week, and he's replied in great detail, not only about the LUG itself but also with a rare 'geek's eye view' of daily life in Baghdad, and comments about how the Iraqi IT infrastructure (and laws controlling it) are being (re)built. 1) Computer density in Iraq - by MajorDick What is the density per capita of PC type computers in Iraq ? I mean how many people even own computers ? What is the average computer available for use in Iraq ? Adam: It's impossible to get accurate statistics for pretty much anything in Iraq. But I've found that most middle-class families do have a computer. Middle-class in Iraq means the senior bread-winner makes anywhere from $100 to $600 per month. Many businesses have computers. And there are Internet cafes that have sprung up all over the country and are wildly popular. So, most people who want to are able to use a computer as often as they'd like. The computers available are surprisingly up-to-date. Sana'a Street, the main computer shopping area, has dozens and dozens of computer shops where you'll find almost everything you'd need: late-model P4 or AMD CPUs. Decent motherboards, even raid, good hard-drives, some decent soundcards, etc. Good printers from HP, etc. There are a lot of low-end brands as well as the well-known ones. You can get most of the gadgets you'd like: USB memory keys, digital cameras, portable harddrives, flat screens, whatever. And anything you want that's not in stock can be shipped in from Dubai in a week or so. The prices are far cheaper than in any other Arab country I've been to. Most Iraqis have their desktop or tower computers assembled locally, from imported parts, of course. But you can buy full HP systems and a few other brands. It's also easy to buy pretty current laptops. A basic system--AMD, 256MB RAM, 40gig HD, is around $400. I just bought a fully loaded system for less than $1500. I go to Sana'a street pretty often and it is always completely packed with people buying computer systems and parts. There is so much pent-up demand for so many things. Under the previous regime, import tariffs were so high that everything cost twice what it would elsewhere. Now, it's so cheap. And while many Iraqis are miserably poor, many others are benefiting from the current situation and are buying not only computers but their first washing machines, satellite TV systems, microwave ovens, and on and on. 2) Encryption - by onyxruby For years strict encryption rules were an issue for Iraq. Has the US now stopped it's encryption restrictions for Iraq or do you simply get your crypto from elsewhere? Adam: I don't know too much about this. I'd check out Don Marti's coverage of the issue at LinuxJournal. But there is no regulation of software in Iraq now. There are tons of shops that burn you anything you want for about a buck a CD. I downloaded US-crypto here, because I'm a US citizen working for a US-based radio show and I figure I'm entitled. But I don't think Iraqis would even know what restrictions exist or have any idea how to follow them. That being said, security and crypto issues are not big concerns here. Most Iraqis just don't know much about them, since they're less than a year into using the internet freely. Under Saddam, of course, there was massive government restriction on what could be accessed and what crypto could be used. 3) What will the Iraqi government use? - by rueger I'm presuming that any government computer infrastructure has been destroyed, and that they will be more or less starting from scratch. Am I correct in assuming that Microsoft is in there big time locking down contracts to rebuild government computing sytems? Adam: In the massive looting after the war, pretty much the entire computer infrastructure of the government was stolen. I'm friends with the head of IT for the Ministry of Trade (one of the biggest users of computers in Iraq) and he told me that he had recently purchased 30,000 desktop workstations. Every single one was looted. So, yes, they're starting from scratch. My friend, the MoT IT guy, says he wants to deploy Linux. From what he knows, he thinks it's a much better fit for Iraq. It's cheap, adaptable, has good Arabic support. But he just doesn't know enough about Linux, since it was all but unknown in Iraq during Saddam's regime. I find that is typical--when I explain Linux to just about any Iraqi, they get it quickly and want it. Any company or ministry that had a server most likely used Unix and now wants to switch to Linux. And there is great interest in desktop Linux. I know the guy who is Microsoft's sole agent in Iraq. He's actually a nice guy, lives down the block from me. He's having a very hard time. They are not as powerful here as you'd expect. First of all, since all software--including M$--costs a buck a CD, it's pretty much impossible to convince anyone that they should pay thousands of dollars for systems. Also, there is a general suspicion of large foreign corporations coming in and gobbling up Iraqi assets. So, people in the know are more excited about Linux. That being said, few Iraqis even know that there are operating systems other than M$. I've found exactly one Iraqi who has heard of Apple, and maybe a few dozen who've heard of Linux. So, just letting people know there is an alternative is a big issue. The US occupational government, the Coalition Provisional Authority, uses M$ desktops and servers, as does the US-appointed Interim Governing Council. Most ministries are now using DOS systems. But the ministries are largely able to purchase things like hardware and software completely independently of the US. The Iraqi government has a budget this year of something around $12 billion and they choose how it's spent. The US government has made the decision not to alter the ministries too much. It's too much work in the short time before the handover of power to a sovereign government at the end of June. And the CPA is so overworked and out-of-touch with day-to-day issues at the ministries that I don't think they could force a M$ deployment even if they wanted to. I do assume, though, that without any counter-pressure, the new Iraqi government will use M$ by default. 4) Can we help you in some way? - by herrvinny Can we help you in some way? Old computers, networking equipment, webspace, etc? Adam: The Iraqi LUG has received several generous offers of support. I'd say that old computer equipment is not helpful, because so much new stuff is available so cheaply. They also don't need any more distributions. several people have sent distros, and I've become a one-man distro download center, since I have pretty fast DSL (believe it or not) and have been downloading the major distros and giving them to the iLug. What the iLug needs most is: 1. Money. 2. Information. 3. Technical help. The amazing iLug has some ambitious and exciting plans. They are planning to open a Linux Users Center in May. A generous ex-pat Iraqi living in London will donate space and some money to set up a place that can have a dozen or more Linux machines. It will be in a prominent location and will offer free or very cheap internet access, to lure people in. There will be trainings, tech support, meetings, to build up the base of knowledgeable Linux users. The space is centrally located and will, I'm certain, be extremely popular. Before the center is opened, the iLug is distributing one-page fact sheets in Arabic along with a CD of MandrakeMove to introduce Iraqis to Linux. They're handing these out on college campuses and on Sana'a street. I'm also hoping the iLug gets enough money so that its two directors, Ashraf Tariq and Hasanen Nawfal, can go on staff. These two guys are so impressive, so smart, ambitious, eager. But, like all Iraqis, they need to make a living. So, if there could be, say $500 a month for each of them, they could devote themselves full-time to Linux advocacy. That would be so wonderful. In their off hours--handing out distros and evangelizing--they've brought the membership of the iLug up from two to 70 in a couple months; it would be thrilling to see what they could do if they worked at it full time. The iLug also wants to create packages of information, along with copies of distributions, to hand out to IT decision makers at the ministries and private companies. So, a few bucks can go along way towards creating a well-informed, vigorous, and free computer environment in Iraq. To donate, just go to the paypal link on the www.linux-iraq.org site. Information is also very important. Don Marti, of LinuxJournal, has very generously arranged to have a lot of books sent over to Iraq. But many more are needed. They still don't have any kind of basic intro to Linux. They want to create a strong library for the iLug members and for the soon-to-be created Linux Center. Technical help is also important. Having people the iLug can turn to for help would be wonderful. Since pretty much every Linux user is a newbie, it's not that easy to find someone who can troubleshoot. Also, as you can see, their website is pretty primitive. It would be great to have someone offer to design and build and host a more exciting one. 5) Domestic vs. Foreign Talent - by Evil Schmoo Is the recent growth in your user group due to an influx of homegrown Iraqi talent, or are there more foreign users (ie, contractors) coming incountry? Adam: The iLug is almost exclusively home-grown talent. These are Iraqis who have never been outside of Iraq. It started with Hasanen Nawfal, this amazing computer programmer who somehow found out about Linux during Saddam's regime and got a copy of Red Hat (he now prefers Mandrake). This alone shows how curious and capable he is. It was all but impossible to surf the web freely or download much of anything on the crappy pre-war connections. He got his friend Ashraf involved after the war, and together they've been teaching others--mostly college and graduate students--about Linux. I haven't met any returning Iraqi exiles who know Linux or have gotten involved. The foreign contractors are locked away in secure bases and don't interact with the Iraqi population. Iraq has very well-educated computer science population. Technocrats at the ministries and university professors and students. There are tons of people who know C++ and other languages. But they've been hampered by the lack of new information during sanctions and by the fact that Iraq had no software industry. There are plenty of people who designed computer control systems for power plants or databases and maintained servers. They're smart and experienced, but they have 13 years or so of catching up to do. 6) Legislative issues - by temojen Given Iraq's clean-slate status: How can the international community promote the freedom to use information technology for fair and lawful purposes (ie no DRM, free use of strong cryptography)? Adam: I think this is a major issue. It won't be answerable until there is a new Iraqi government (currently scheduled for June 30th at a former rogue state near you) and we are able to assess who is in charge, who is writing the laws, and how much influence the US will have in the process. My guess is the US will have a lot of influence and that copyright protection and it's scary cousins will have a major push. But, judging by the messy process of government-creation (see: salon.com article [Editor's note: Subscription or annoying ad required to view complete story]) it is possible the US will have to negotiate away some controls. I actually have no idea how to influence this process. The people who are currently rewriting Iraqi laws are US folks, many military lawyers who have never dealt with commercial or IP laws before, and they're so locked away in hidden offices in the CPA palace (formerly Saddam's Presidential Palace) that I don't know who they are or who is talking to them. I would say in reality that these issues are far down the list of US concerns right now. But with a new government and this huge market open for the first time, it's hard to imagine the US happily allowing the completely free system in place (there were no copyright protections for foreign companies under Saddam) to stand. I guess the usual: write your congressmen or something. I think the best thing that can be done here is to inform the future Iraqi government about the dangers of certain kinds of laws. It would be difficult to find Iraqi decision-makers who completely (or at all) support the US presence here. The vast majority are extremely wary of the corporate colonialization of Iraq. So, I think this could be a real fight and there are no clear winners yet. 7) Infrastructure - by Golias If one believes western media, Iraq is a nation under constant siege, in which the plumbing and electricity is absent for large swathes of the nation, and order is just barely maintained by the massive presense of unwelcome US troops. Also, many in the west believed that Iraq under Saddam was a very backwards and un-developed place (apart from military development), and one was not likely to find many computers at all, let alone connected ones. So, as somebody who's actually there and actually knows what life is like for a techno-geek in today's Iraq, perhaps you could give us a detailed account about current network infrastructure, how easy or difficult it is to buy computer parts, how much Iraqi people (and Iraqi computer geeks in particular) use Internet technologies to connect to one another (e-mail, blogs, instant messaging, the web, etc.), what cultural attitudes in Iraq concerning the Internet, the global community, and the West, etc. Most people in the United States (which is where most of the readers of /. come from) know very little about day-to-day life in Iraq. A detailed account would probably be very educational and broadening. Adam: Since I have to spend a lot of time convincing my mom that I'm actually a lot safer than she thinks, I know that the US impression of Iraq is way off. The truth is life here is quite normal. The streets are crowded (way too crowded, traffic is a nightmare), shops are filled with new consumer goods. Restaurants are thriving. Schools are open. People go to work, school, hang out with friends. You see the occasional American humvee or tank roll down the street, but other than that, it's hard to tell you're in a country under occupation and a guerilla war. Much of Baghdad seems like a normal, if poor, third world capital. Not too different from what I've seen in Latin America, say. There are wealthy areas, poor areas, kids playing, all that. A few months ago, I would hear a few explosions every night and a lot of gunfire. It became so common that we'd just ignore it. But these days, those things are so rare that we actually pay attention when they happen. Middle class folks (who would be desperately poor by US standards), have decent homes, cars, most likely a computer. The middle-class and wealthy areas (like Jadiriya, Karada, Arasat, and Mansour) of Baghdad are extremely lively. Poorer people are pretty badly off. Unemployment is huge and underemployment is horrible. In the Thaura or Seven Palaces neighborhoods, people are lucky to make a buck a day and wouldn't be able to live without the monthly government food ration. They are unlikely to eat much meat--since that's not included in the ration. And they are certainly incapable of buying a computer or even affording the dollar-an-hour internet cafe fees. There is a lot of fear in Iraq, but much more of bandits than of terrorists. Nighttime Iraq is pretty quiet. Only a few neighborhoods stay open after dark and the highways are all but empty. There is a lot of crime, car-jacking, murder, rape. The nights are bad and most ex-pats, like me, stay in the house. Wealthier Iraqis and ex-pats have armed guards 24-hours and never travel alone. Almost all Iraqis have a Kalachnikov rifle in the house to ward off burglars. I can say that I've been in Iraq for most of the time since the war and I have never once felt afraid. I'm always cautious, probably a lot more tense than I am back home in New York, but I've never had any reason to fear for my life or safety. The infrastructure stuff is a major hassle. Power is out as often as it's on. We, like many wealthy Iraqis, have a big generator, so we're able to stay on. But most middle class people can't. There is phone service in about half of Baghdad. The government ISP, Uruklink, is still operating and if you have a phone line you can get on line (assuming you have power). Uruklink does offer DSL service to a few neigborhoods. I have a 256K line that goes down a few hours a week and a few days a month. Yesterday we were down for most of the day because some guerillas cut the fiber-optic line. Most businesses and internet cafes opt for satellite internet connections. These vary in prices, but most likely cost a grand or so a month and are also not terribly reliable, unless you buy a very expensive system. Most Internet cafes have terribly slow connections and are down for hours a week for one reason or another. But when they're up, the Internet cafes are packed. Pretty much every Iraqi I meet has an email address, even if they don't have a computer, usually through Hotmail or Yahoo. Iraqis love chat rooms and on-line dating services and porn, like everyone else. Male/female relations are so restrictive in Iraqi society. It's pretty much impossible for most single guys to spend any time alone with a woman who is not a relative. So, I think the titillation of the 'net is all too exciting. There is also a huge explosion in networked gaming. Those places are always packed with people playing games with folks from around the world. Some Iraqis even ignore the porn and actually try to figure out what the 'net is all about or learn about advances in their profession or hobby or whatever. I've found that middle-aged and older people are more likely to find the web strange and troubling and less likely to use it. Even more than in other countries, Iraq will soon have a massive generational digital-divide. In short, Iraqis have access to everything, but it can be a huge pain. Of the iLug founders, Hasanen has a phone line and internet connection, Ashraf doesn't. Because of work and other pressures, Ashraf is able to access his email or read web-based Linux stuff only once or twice a week. Hasanen can do it every day. Not because Hasanen is richer or anything, he's just lucky enough to live in a neigborhood with a phone line. No average Iraqi has a fast-enough connection to download a distribution or even a large program. My DSL line costs a base of more than $200 a month (a fortune for most Iraqis) for a 128k connection and more than $600 a month since I boost the speed to 256k. 8) State Of Intellectual Capital - by RenegadeTempest After living under totalitarian rule, what is the state of the country's computing talent? What disciplines have the strongest computing talent? Adam: Networking is probably most advanced. It's easy to find Iraqis who can build and maintain a complex network. There are plenty of people who know the basics of desktop computing. And more than a handful of decent programmers. But the coders don't have much experience, since they were limited to small custom projects. Also, the knowledge isn't too broad. Tons of people know C++, even more know visual basic, but few know any other languages. 9) IT jobs in Iraq - by Koyaanisqatsi Out of curiosity, might as well ask someone who's in the field and there: what are the typical IT positions in Iraq? What skills are most sought after? Adam: Same as above. Networking is the main job here. there are lots and lots of new networks going up--all the ministries and private companies. There are a lot of computer salespeople with their own small shops. Unlike at say, CompUSA, the guy selling you your laser printer probably has a PhD in computer science. With all the money that's about to spent in Iraq (tens of billions this year), I'm sure there will be a lot more demand for network building and maintenance. It'll be a while before there's much of a home-grown programming industry, although there is and will be lots of demand for database and website creation. I can't imagine there will be anyone actually making computer parts any time soon. 10) Intellectual Property legislation - by Elektroschock I read in other news that Iraq as under US occupation will get a copyright legislation written by a RIAA official. But nobody talks about software patents in Iraq. Will the United States pressure for a US style patent legislation in Iraq? I heard that patents are incompatible with islamic law. Some Muslims in my neighborhood were much in favour of free software because of religious reasons. Do the Iraqis LUG guys also believe that the GPL unlike proprietary software is according to Shariah law? Adam: There is certainly no problem between GPL and Shariah law. Ashraf, the co-founder of iLug, is from a very distinguished Shiite Muslim family. He's a sayed, a direct-descendant of the prophet Mohammed, and takes his religion very seriously. Actually, contrary to what I'd heard before the war and despite decades of secular dictatorial socialism, Iraq is an extremely religious place. Most people don't drink, no Muslim eats pork. As I wrote earlier, I think that it's way too early to tell what Iraqi property rights and patent laws will look like. I think it is best to assume the worst, but to support the iLug, which is the only group I know of in Iraq who advocates for free software. Things are so up in the air right now, all of this is so new (no Iraqi has had to think about intellectual property issues for one minute of their lives), that the decision-makers will be extremely sensitive to influence. It is an open book, but it will be closed soon, within months. Now is the time to support the iLug so they can be powerful advocates for good Iraqi laws. Ashraf and Hasanen and I believe that good, open laws that avoid the hazards of absurd patents and DMCA style restriction would not only be good for Iraqi Linux geeks, but would be good for the country. This place is so poor, so behind recent advances in technology, but has such a base of strong, eager, excited computing talent. Only with the free and open ability to innovate and collaborate will Iraqi computer professionals and advocates be able to help make this place prosperous. So, once again, go to www.linux-iraq.org and click on that Paypal button. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Mar 15 08:39:15 2005 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 08:39:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Internet radio from Baghdad Message-ID: <423651DB.2000105@sarai.net> Following from earlier posting. some more details. best j http://streamtime.org " Streamtime is a project of Radio Reedflute in collaboration with Rastasoft , developed with artists and activists from Iraq and elsewhere. Streamtime is a loose network of media activists dedicated to assist local media to get connected. Streamtime uses old and new media for the production of content and networks in the fields of media, arts, culture and activism in crisis areas, like Iraq." http://streamtime.org/index.php?blogId=1&op=Template&show=radio "Radio reporting is quite different from written reporting. Few people are intimidated when somebody is making notes with pencil or pen. Most of us are familiar with this since going to school. A microphone is something strange though. You may look at it as a magic thing. It is able to capture your words, like a camera catches your image. "Everything you say may be used against you", is a familiar phrase from Hollywood, and in a way you may feel arrested when you see this mike. Once you said something, it will be kept and may be used for anything. So there is reason for suspicion, and holding back your tongue. Every tool can be used in different ways. Every technique is tricky because it can cause good and be harmful too. So let's look at the way a radio reporter can use this microphone to get close, to get a person to feel comfortable enough to speak freely, and still be committed to answer your questions. If you walk up to somebody you may scare him or her. Just like you felt uneasy when you had your first mike in front of your mouth. Consider for a moment that the mike is a weapon, a question is an assault, a lens is an evil eye. (By the way, very often people think they will be on TV when they see a microphone. Do you know why?)" From nisar at keshvani.com Tue Mar 15 07:04:29 2005 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:34:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] LEA March '05: Abraham Palatnik: 2005 Leonardo Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Message-ID: <25440843.1110850469173.JavaMail.root@m15> *sincere apologies for cross-posting* Leonardo Electronic Almanac: March 2005 ISSN#1071-4391 art | science | technology - a definitive voice since 1993 http://lea.mit.edu In LEA's March issue, we are pleased to highlight the life and work of pioneering Brazilian kinetic artist Abraham Palatnik, the winner of the 2005 Leonardo Lifetime Achievement Award. We feature a tribute to Palatnik by Rejane Spitz (2005 SIGGRAPH Chair), an interview by artist Eduardo Kac, and the original introduction to the 1951 Sao Paolo Biennial, in which Palatnik first broke onto the Brazilian art scene, by art critic Mario Pedrosa. In Leonardo Reviews, we find a typically diverse offering of reviews - Michael Punt weighing in on the 6th Swiss Biennial, themed "Consciousness and Teleportation" (!); a review by Jan Baetens of a book exploring the development of pictorial depictions of machines, both real and imagined, from 1400-1700; and Amy Ione's review of *The Junction*, a film taking a close look at the very real human consequences of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Highlights of ISAST news include: Steve Mann receiving the Leonardo Award for Excellence and honorable mention for David First. Leonardo/ISAST with support from the Rockefeller Foundation awards the inaugural Leonardo Global Crossings Prize to brother-sister team Abdel Ghany and Amal Kenawy from Cairo, Eygpt. Runners-up include Regina Célia Pinto (Brazil), Kim Machan (Australia) and Shilpa Gupta (India). >From this issue, we launch a series on the Pacific Rim New Media Summit in anticipation of the ISEA2006/ZeroOne San Jose festival. Chair Joel Slayton outlines the festival objectives with Education Chair Fatima Lasay articulating its directives towards tactical learning ecologies. Finally, with the Bytes section (featuring announcements and calls for papers), we catch up with some events in the ever-changing world of art, science and technology. ****************************************************************** *** Leonardo Abstracts Service *** As part of the Leonardo Educators Initiative, the Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) is seeking submissions for its next publication cycle. LABS is a comprehensive database of abstracts of PhD, Masters and MFA theses in the emerging intersection between art, science and technology. Authors interested in having their abstracts considered for publication should fill out the Thesis Abstract Submittal form at http://leonardolabs.pomona.edu Deadline for submissions: 15 March 2005. The English language peer review panel for 2004/2005 are Pau Alsina, Jody Berland, Sean Cubitt, Frieder Nake, Sheila Pinkel and Stephen Petersen. *** Global Crossings Prize *** Leonardo/ISAST is pleased to announce that the recipients of the inaugural 2005 Leonardo Global Crossings Prize are Abdel Ghany Kenawy and Amal Kenawy, of Cairo, Egypt, a brother-sister team who have been collaborating on large-scale installations since 1997. This award recognizes the contribution of artists and scholars from culturally diverse communities worldwide within the emerging art-science-technology field, and is part of the Leonardo Global Crossings Special Project, supported by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. For additional information about the prize, its nominees and its international panel of jurors, visit: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/ejournals/Leonardo/isast/awards2005GX.html Editorial ideas / proposals: lea [@] mitpress [dot] mit [dot] 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 comprehensive database of abstracts of PhD, Masters and MFA theses in the emerging intersection between art, science and technology. Thesis Abstract Submittal form at http://leonardolabs.pomona.edu LEA also maintains a discussion list open only to faculty in the field. Faculty wishing to join this list should submit their details @ http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/faculty.html What is LEA? ------------ For over a decade, the 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 - 2005: 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. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050314/339116e9/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From stevedietz at yproductions.com Tue Mar 15 06:11:06 2005 From: stevedietz at yproductions.com (Steve Dietz) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:11:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [call] Fair Assembly: Making Things Public Message-ID: Making Things Public: http://makingthingspublic.zkm.de Fair Assembly: http://makingthingspublic.zkm.de/fairassembly/ "We live in rather discouraging times as far as political life is concerned. Just the right moment, then, to make a fresh start by bringing together three modes of representation that are usually kept apart: How to represent people? Politics. How to represent objects? Science. How to represent their collective gathering? Art. The main idea behind MAKING THINGS PUBLIC: ATMOSPHERES OF DEMOCRACY is that politics is all about _things_. It's not a sphere, a profession or a mere occupation; it essentially involves a concern for affairs that are brought to the attention of a _public_. The public is not cast in stone for all time. We're not talking here about the people as represented by their elected officials. The public has to be created for each new issue, for each new matter of concern. So the question we wish to raise is: 'What would happen if politics were made to revolve around disputed states of affairs?'" -- Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel MAKING THINGS PUBLIC opens Saturday at ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany). Artists and other interested parties are invited to submit projects to the FAIR ASSEMBLY open database for presentation in the exhibition and as part of a long term project. Assemblies have traditionally been forums for disputation, where decisions are made but not necessarily where the knowledge on which the decisions rely is formulated. MAKING THINGS PUBLIC not only brings the idea of the Assembly to sites of knowledge production but insists that the "means, tools, tropes, tricks and knacks," which are integral tools for assembling knowledge, are also useful to the Assembly. In this sense, FAIR ASSEMBLY is a participatory platform to which anyone can submit a web-based or software project, which relates to the thematics of the exhibition, and have it be part of MAKING THINGS PUBLIC. Steve Dietz Fair Assembly, a project of Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy http://makingthingspublic.zkm.de/fairassembly/ - select "Submit" to add a project to the database _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From turbulence at turbulence.org Tue Mar 15 04:47:43 2005 From: turbulence at turbulence.org (Turbulence) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:17:43 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] IN Network Sleep Webcast Message-ID: <42361B97.6000908@turbulence.org> April 15, 2005 IN Network Sleep Webcast by Michael Mandiberg and Julia Steinmetz http://turbulence.org:8080/ramgen/encoder/mandiberg.rm From their bedtime at 11PM in Los Angeles, and 2AM in New York, until they wake eight hours later, the artists Michael Mandiberg and Julia Steinmetz will sleep together on the phone. Separated by three time zones and 3000 miles, they curl up in the same sonic space. Connected via cell phone, they will hear the sound of each other breathing, tossing and turning, snoring, etc. This audio will be webcast in real-time as they sleep. IN Network Sleep Webcast Schedule: Tuesday, April 15th, roughly 11PM PST to Wednesday, April 16th, roughly 7:30AM PST Wednesday, April 16th, roughly 9PM PST to Thurs, April 17th, roughly 5:30AM PST Tuesday, April 22n, roughly 11PM PST to Wednesday, April 23rd, roughly 7:30AM PST Wednesday, April 23rd, roughly 9PM PST to Thurs, April 24th, roughly 5:30AM PST This sleep webcast is part of IN Network their month long extended cell phone life-art performance about distance, communication, intimacy, telepresence, and living together while apart. In August 2004 Michael moved to New York; Julia remained in Los Angeles, postponing her move until the end of April because of commitments to her job and her collaborative art practice. Faced with most of a year apart, one of the things they did was switch both of their cell phones to a provider with free "IN Network" service. Michael and Julia started out having normal conversations, giving each other updates about their days, and sending cameraphone pictures back and forth, etc. As they switched to using hands-free microphones, they began using the phone differently. What began as a pragmatic attempt to make their relationship last the separation through good communication, turned into something less about communication and more about intimacy and presence through technology, and sharing sonic-virtual space. During the month of March the artists are presenting this cell-phone life-art performance via a Photo Moblog and Podcast on Turbulence.org. In addition to these webcasts, the IN Network site will host a Podcast of recordings of their phone conversations, and all of their text and picture messages. IN Network Sleep Webcast: http://turbulence.org:8080/ramgen/encoder/mandiberg.rm Free Real Player (Required for webcast): http://www.real.com IN Network Website http://turbulence.org/works/innetwork IN Network Podcast (RSS 2.0 Feed) http://turbulence.org/works/innetwork/mp3/rss.xml Contact Info juliasteinmetz -at- yahoo -dot- com michael -at- mandiberg -dot- com IN Network is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation. -- Jo-Anne Green, Co-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/20050314/d1da331d/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From sagnik at dd.nic.in Tue Mar 15 14:16:40 2005 From: sagnik at dd.nic.in (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) Date: 15 Mar 2005 00:46:40 PST Subject: [Reader-list] Please help me update my address book on Ringo Message-ID: <20050315084640.20870CE69B@ringotouch3.ringo.com> Hi I'm updating my address book. Please click on the link below and enter your contact info for me: http://ringo.com/i?uid=hcFhEQavQD9zvtgL& I'm using a new, free service where I put in my contact info for you, you put in your contact info for me, and everyone stays up to date automatically. It's surprisingly easy and useful. Thanks for your help. Sagnik From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Tue Mar 15 15:21:02 2005 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj kaushal) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:21:02 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Please help me update my address book on Ringo In-Reply-To: <20050315084640.20870CE69B@ringotouch3.ringo.com> References: <20050315084640.20870CE69B@ringotouch3.ringo.com> Message-ID: <4236B006.5060308@linux-delhi.org> Hello Sagnik, SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY wrote: > Hi > I'm updating my address book. Please click on the link below and enter your contact info for me: > http://ringo.com/i?uid=hcFhEQavQD9zvtgL& > I'm using a new, free service where I put in my contact info for you, you put in your contact info for me, and everyone stays up to date automatically. It's surprisingly easy and useful. > Thanks for your help. You might have read about this excellent and easy to use service but let me quote from their own privacy policy. "Ringo may develop special sites in cooperation with other companies. If you register at these "co-branded" sites, we share your registration information (such as name and email address) with that company. "This policy may change from time to time. If we make any material changes to the policy in the future with regard to how we use your information, we will notify you on our homepage and in a change of service email." "While Ringo will endeavor to require the successor company to maintain this privacy policy, we cannot guarantee that our policy will remain unchanged if Ringo is sold or merges with another company. We will use our best efforts to notify you by email if such a merger or acquisition occurs." "Someday, we may have ads on Ringo, and if so, we also may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our site. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is completely anonymous." Let me go into a little detail about action tags, action tag's are one pixel transparent gif's. So, you cant see them, but they are there none-the-less, it lets the application collect information about *you* what adv. *you* clicked and till what page of the advertisement/ subscription page *you* read. If you didn't register, on which page *you* changed your mind? What *you* might be interested in future ... So, that the new adv can be better targeted at *you*. I wont call it anonymous. PS: I used to work for Monster.com the owner of ringo. I wont trust them with my email address. -- Alas, even today there's little worth thinking and saying that does not grievously wound the state, the gods, and common decency. -Goethe From swamivandana at yahoo.com Tue Mar 15 23:04:05 2005 From: swamivandana at yahoo.com (vandana swami) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:34:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] On the Question of Capitalist Modernization of Railways in Colonial India Message-ID: <20050315173406.66057.qmail@web60302.mail.yahoo.com> RAILWAYS AND THE QUESTION OF CAPITALIST MODERNIZATION IN COLONIAL INDIA The railways of India have been overwhelmingly viewed through economic categories in dominant strands of history-writing. Regardless of the manner in which the nature and impact of the railways has been assessed, they have been almost unanimously accepted as an agent of capitalist modernization in India. For the British, the railways represented progress, prosperity and freedom from want. Dalhousie�s famous Railway Minute of 1852 captures this view in exaction detail. As he writes, �it cannot be necessary for me to insist upon the importance of a speedy and wide introduction of railway communication throughout the length and breadth of India. A single glance cast upon the map will suffice to show how immeasurable are the political advantages to be derived from a system of internal communication�which would admit of full intelligence of every event being transmitted to the government� and his statement that �great tracts are teeming with produce they cannot dispose of, others are scantily bearing what they cannot carry in abundance if only it could be conveyed wither it is needed�the establishment of a system of railways in India judiciously selected and formed would surely and rapidly give rise within this empire to the same encouragement of enterprise, the same multiplication of produce, the same discovery of latent resources, to the same increase in national wealth and to the same progress in social improvement that have marked the introduction of improved and extended communication in various kingdoms of the western world�. Implicit in Dalhousie�s Minute is the view that the politics of geography or space was in fact irrelevant, and that the railway experiment in India would easily demonstrate the universal applicability of the modernization potential inherent in capitalism. Further, capitalist modernization through the railways would not only add to the revenue of the government, but it would also break the ties of agricultural dependence by liberating the cultivator from the stranglehold of zamindar and moneylender alike. This would be achieved because the railway would bring to the village �millions of keep competitors for the produce of his fields, whose rivalry with each other would eventually prove the emancipation of the poor creature�. Thus, the hardships that the peasant faced, not being able to convert grain into money due to lack of railways would be eased. The faith imposed in the institution of railways was so tremendous that in 1848, when the East India Company was still unsure and reluctant about railway construction, the board members of the East India railway urged Prime Minister John Russell and tried to convince him that the railways were of great importance not only to the improvement, but equally for the establishment of commercial and industrial enterprises � without railways, India was stationary and education could not be spread, and most importantly, the country was available neither as a market to sell, nor to buy�. In sharp contrast to the celebratory tone in the British colonial viewpoint, the economic nationalists such as Dadabhai Naoroji and Romesh Chander Dutt severely criticized the railways and blamed them for the economic ruin of the country. In his famous �Drain Theory�, Naoroji argued that the railways were a drain on Indian polity and that the massive expenditures being made on the railways were squarely unjustified in view of famines raging across different parts of the country. This expenditure, argued Naoroji, could in fact be diverted towards irrigation works that would help in combating the widespread famines. In his work Naoroji provided systemic calculations and argued that the investment of English capital in India for railways, rather than promoting progress and prosperity, in fact only caused a further drain on its resources through an amount of almost 66,000,000 pounds interest paid annually on railway loans to England. The already impoverished economy of India could ill-afford such an enormous expenditure especially because the construction and operation of railways was in no way benefiting the Indians, but rather, was bringing profits to the Europeans. As he wrote, �English capitalists do not merely lend, but with their capital, they themselves invade the country. The produce of the capital is mostly eaten up by their own countrymen, and after that, they carry away the rest in the shape of profits and dividends. The people themselves of the country do not derive the same benefit which is derived by every other country from English capital. The guaranteed railways not only ate up everything in this manner, but compelled India to make up the guaranteed India also from her produce�. However, despite his trenchant critiques Naoroji did not propose abolishing the railways altogether. What he in fact was critiquing was the colonial governance of the railways. If the railway operations could be indigenized, then, suggested Naoroji, the dream of capitalist modernization could be fulfilled. Likewise, R C Dutt also systematically critiqued the lack of India�s representation in colonial governance. Having made calculations of the economic loss to the Indian population through the taxes they had to pay for the railways, Dutt stated that, �it has not struck British administrators that the people of India, whose money was thus squandered might have been consulted to some extent�but one of the greatest defects of the Indian administration is its rigid exclusiveness � there is no room in the entire machinery of the Indian government for any effective control by people of their own concerns�. Thus, Naoroji and Dutt�s critiques of the railways did not question the principles of capitalist modernization, but rather, ascribed these failures to the lack of employment and training of Indians in the railways. Through this short piece, I have tried to question the principle of the universality of capitalist modernization as it operated in the context of railways in colonial India. Were railways really the agents of this modernization? Did they in fact bring about a fair play of the principles of laissez faire economics? What really was the nature of the changes that railways effected in India? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From zainab at xtdnet.nl Wed Mar 16 00:33:15 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 23:03:15 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] One Sunday in a City Message-ID: <1820.195.169.149.2.1110913395.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> 6th March 2005 This morning ... Today is a Sunday. And there is a public meeting today. The public meeting is about the Supreme Court Judgment on the hawkers, the hearing of which is likely to take place in April. CitiSpace has organized the meeting and the 'public' has been invited to attend. At the meeting, we are being thanked for sacrificing our Sunday and for coming to the meeting. The 'public' consists of people holding residences in the Western Suburbs and who are completely fed up with the hawkers. We are each being educated about our rights as 'citizens'. And while there is a lot of talk about rights and awareness, I think about the rights of hawkers and whether they are citizens at all. How did citizenship first emerge? Who are considered citizens and who are not citizens? Why are citizens call citizens and not nationzens of statezens? Ms. Punj, one of the convenors of CitiSpace addresses the issue of hawkers. "They threaten us. They encroach on our compound walls and a wall is private property. They are a nuisance." The term nuisance is a prominent term in urban talk. Everybody complains of the nuisance that hakwers are, squatters are, beggars are, street children are - N for Nuisance! We are told of how public space is being encroached by hawkers and how we must protect our public spaces. While the meeting is proceeding and Frequently Asked Questions about rights, hawkers and property are being addressed for the benefit of all, I start to look around and analyze the virtuous public that has sacrificed its Sunday and come to this meeting. Around me are some familiar faces and some unknown. While the organizers are spreading awareness and talking about rights, men and women in the crowds are socializing with each other. This appears to be an upper middle class crowd. As I watch people mingle and exchange "Oh hello's" and "Hey, hi's", I think that Page 3 is not a phenomenon of just the rich, famous and glamorous. It pervades practically all of the middle class. Page 3, to me, is 'socializing', 'networking', and 'making contacts', with economic and political connotations. Being an 'active citizen' is a part of the package of Page 3 - the aware citizen and the citizen who participates in the politics of the locality and cleans it up. The meeting ends after a while. We have been asked to photograph hawkers near our homes. Photographs are strong proofs which shall be presented in the courts in favour of eviction of hawkers. As I walk out of the meeting, I think about 'democracy', the problematic notions of 'public space' and 'representation'. CitiSpace is soon becoming a 'representative' of the publics, a protector of 'public spaces'. What are the criteria to be representative of publics? Can a representative represent all of the diverse publics? This evening ... This evening, just like yesterday, I am writing down the people who I see at Nariman Point. Two security guards One boy trying hard to kiss his girl One guy trying hard to photograph his girl Two girl friends Three men - dressed in Western casuals Two men in Maharashtrian casuals One womanish girl with a manly man One simple-ly dressed boy with rubber chappals Three 'gujju' chokras (Gujrati boys) One chana jor garam seller One regular tea-coffee seller One huge crane lifting rocks and stones and throwing them in the sea One man, looking lost, walking slowly and lazily One couple - man pensive, woman contented One man Two men Two men One elderly man One elderly couple, walking at a distance from each other and the coming together One youngish mother with her son One old man in shorts, walking One man with a large blue plastic bag Two heavy busted and hipped women A flurry of 'worker-like' men One man with his two children by his side and his wife, sindoor-clad, walking behind One burkha clad woman with her man One Oriental looking man walking There are seven-eight pages of records of people I saw at the promenade today. But an interesting thing that happened while I was making these notes was that a young boy and young girl were walking around the promenade. The boy had a camera in hand and he would approach people, say something to them, ask to stand against the sun and then the girl would ask some questions. I thought they were video-shooting for something, maybe a student film or some such thing. They approached me and asked if I would talk with them. I asked, "Who are you? What are you doing?" "We are researching here," the boy said to me, adding, "We are doing a survey for the State Bank of India and asking people about their views on the bank." I asked again, "Why here?" He responded, "Because you get all kinds of people here - a cross section." He then went on to interview and ask me about the bank. As he finished, I started to ask myself does a public space have a single homogenous use? Does public who must use the space be defined? What kind of a public space is Nariman Point? As I walked ahead, the Sunday crowd was all over. They come from all parts of the city and also all parts of the country. I walked backwards, from where I had started. The duo were still doing their filming. They sat down after a while I spoke with them and told them how I was researching Nariman Point. The boy said to me, "This place gives me serenity. I feel calm here. Come here once in a month or so." What does the promenade mean to him? Limmerick of the Day The day was long and went on and on. Ultimately, along with some friends, I sat down at the Chowpatty beach. A hawker was selling paan. He talked a lot and we asked him where he came from and how he feels at the beach. "I am from Madhya Pradesh," he replied, adding, "hafta kills. Everybody must be paid hafta." And then he went on to say his limmerick which is: Pheri ka dhanda hai Phansi ka fanda hai Har jagah dekho Sab taraf hafta hi hafta hai! i.e. Business of hawking, Like a noose in the neck Look around everywhere, Its all about bribery! Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From supreet.sethi at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 11:52:20 2005 From: supreet.sethi at gmail.com (Supreet Sethi) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:52:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] SC relief to families temporarily hit by Narmada dam Message-ID: http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/15narmada.htm The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that even those temporarily affected by the Sardar Sarovar dam project will be entitled to alternative cultivable land allotted by the states. A three-judge Bench, comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal, Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice S B Sinha, gave the order. Consequently, the states will have to look again into the relief and rehabilitation work they carried out before raising the dam height. Though the final height of the dam will be 138 metres, the court, on a petition filed by Narmada Bachao Andolan, had said the height could be raised in phases after completing relief and rehabilitation measures for the project-affected families. The ruling came on an application filed on behalf of PAFs from Pichodi and Jalsindhi villages in Madhya Pradesh through counsels Sanjay Parikh and S Muralidhar. The court also ruled that each major son of a PAF will be entitled to separate land allotments at alternative sites in addition to the land allotted to the PAF. The counsel said Maharashtra and Gujarat had allotted alternative lands to the major sons of PAFs. With this order, even Madhya Pradesh will have to follow suit. The court directed the Grievance Redressal Authority to work out the relief and rehabilitation package for the PAFs taking into account the latest ruling. From shivamvij at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:14:52 2005 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 02:44:52 -0800 Subject: [Reader-list] Where in Varanasi? Message-ID: <000f01c52a15$37e68060$2319e0dc@iccec3176b309c> In a cybercafe in Delhi University: When Man A finishes talking to the Cybercafe Owner, Man B interrupts: "Aapki boli badi achchi hain. (You speak very politely.)" Man A replies in jest: "Hum Lakhnau se jo hain. (Because I'm from Lucknow.)" Man B: "Lakhnau mein kahan? (Where in Lucknow do you live?)" Man A: "Narhi mein, Hazratganj ke paas. (In Narhi, near Hazratganj.)" Man B, apparently showing off his familiarity with the city of Lucknow: "Achcha! achcha! Uskay aagay Parik Road hain, aur phir mukhya mantri awaas, huuun.. (Oh! That's near Park Road, right? And then there's the chief minister's residence farther ahead, I see...)" Man A: "Haan. Aap bhi kya Lakhnau se hain? (Are you also from Lucknow?)" Man B: "Lakhnau mein hum do saal rahein hain. (I lived there for two years.)" Man A: "So which city are you originally from?" Man B: "Hum Banaras ke hain. (I'm from Varanasi.)" The Cybercafe owner chips in: "Arre! Banaras mein kahan pe? (Oh! Where in Varanasi do you live?)" o o o o Excerpts from another conversation at canteen: Delhi is a city of cities. Delhi is where cities cross each other's pathways. The whole of Delhi is a sarai, where travellers meet. Where are they travelling to? They're going to Destination Success. What's their mode of transport? Buses - DTC's and 'private'. Rickshaws and autos and well, the Metro. Who runs public transport? Well, it goes like this: Biharis pull rickshaws. UP-ites ply autos. Harayanvi jats run buses. Sikhs run taxis. And who runs the Metro? The "suited-booted" Delhi Metro people. But where are they from? I don't know. They were formal shirts and ties. You can't tell where they are from. What's that place? Destination Success o o o o o Shivam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050316/afce7056/attachment.html From turbulence at turbulence.org Tue Mar 15 20:11:52 2005 From: turbulence at turbulence.org (Turbulence) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:41:52 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Deadline Approaching: Turbulence Juried International Net Art Competition Message-ID: <4236F430.5070701@turbulence.org> CALL FOR ENTRIES: Turbulence Juried International Net Art Competition New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. is pleased to announce that with the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 5 net art projects will be commissioned for the Turbulence web site in a juried international (open to everyone) competition. Each commission will be $5,000 (US). DEADLINE: March 31, 2005 GUIDELINES: http://turbulence.org/comp_05/guidelines.htm JURORS: Wayne Ashley (US), Arcangel Constantini (Mexico), Sara Diamond (Canada), Melinda Rackham (Australia), and Helen Thorington (US). -- Jo-Anne Green, Co-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/20050315/7cf8b45d/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From turbulence at turbulence.org Tue Mar 15 20:12:17 2005 From: turbulence at turbulence.org (Turbulence) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:42:17 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Turbulence Commission: "Mystery House Taken Over" by Nick Montfort, Dan Shiovitz, and Emily Short Message-ID: <4236F449.2010701@turbulence.org> March 15, 2005 Turbulence Commission: "Mystery House Taken Over" by Nick Montfort, Dan Shiovitz, and Emily Short http://turbulence.org/works/mystery/index.php "Mystery House," the first graphical adventure game, has been reverse engineered by The Mystery House Advance Team; they have reimplemented it in a modern, cross-platform, free language for interactive fiction development. Visitors to "Mystery House Taken Over" can either play modified versions of the game created by the elite Mystery House Occupying Force, or create their own versions to offer on the site. The Mystery House Occupation Kit allows artists and authors, with or without programming experience, to hack at and reshape "Mystery House," easily modifying the 'surface' aspects. Artists and writers may also choose to undertake more substantial renovations, engaging with, commenting on, and transforming this historic interactive program. "Mystery House" was developed for the Apple II in 1980; it sold more than 10,000 copies in a very small, new market for home computer software. In 1987 it was placed in the public domain. The modifiable "Mystery House Taken Over" reimplementation has also been placed in the public domain. "Mystery House Taken Over" is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. BIOGRAPHIES NICK MONTFORT is an interactive fiction author and a scholar of interactive fiction, electronic literature, computer games, and other sorts of new media. He wrote "Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction" and co-edited, with Noah Wardrip-Fruin, the book and CD "The New Media Reader." In 2004, Montfort and Scott Rettberg co-authored "Implementation," a novel published on stickers that were placed by participants in various locations around the world. Montfort holds masters degrees in media arts and sciences, creative writing, and computer science, from MIT, Boston University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He blogs at Grand Text Auto. DAN SHIOVITZ writes code for a Seattle-area Internet company for pay, and writes code for other people for free. He is the author and co-author of a number of interactive fiction games, ranging from hard science fiction (Bad Machine) to space opera (Max Blaster and Doris de Lightning Against the Parrot Creatures of Venus). Shiovitz has also produced IF-related paraphernalia, including Jetty, and Snap!, and several essays on game design ("How to Write a Great Game"). He has also been reviewing games in the text interactive fiction community for the last seven years. Shiovitz has a masters in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. EMILY SHORT is the author of several award-winning works of interactive fiction including "Best of Three," "Metamorphoses," "Pytho's Mask," and "Savoir Faire." "Galatea," winner of the 2000 IF Art Show, is assigned reading in several new media courses. Her most recent game, "City of Secrets," was listed among the Games Magazine "Top 100 Electronic Games of 2003." Short has written about interactive fiction, and reviewed dozens of games. She is currently editing IF Theory which explores interactive fiction both as literature and as game. Short is a graduate student in classical studies at The University of Pennsylvania, and is completing her dissertation on the roles of Hermes in Athenian drama. For more information about Turbulence, please visit http://turbulence.org -- Jo-Anne Green, Co-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/20050315/a0cebb03/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From vivek at sarai.net Wed Mar 16 16:15:37 2005 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:15:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Forward: on the Vijaywada Railway Station by Meera Pillai Message-ID: <42380E51.10204@sarai.net> As part of my proposed research with street children in south India’s Vijayawada railway station, I began a litt search. Apropos the ongoing discussion about copyrighting and access to resources on the web on the readers’ list, it was interesting to see how many new journals were now (un)available, with articles that you could buy for over USD 34, if you were not lucky enough to be affiliated to an institution that subscribed to it. Another interesting thing that I learned was that there is a whole discipline (fairly new) today called “Children’s Geographies” with its own conferences, journals, university courses and so on. This gave me a few leads, in terms of other scholars I could write to and so on, and also, an interesting methodological tool. A group of children mapped their neighbourhood by its smells. That would be an interesting thing to do in an Indian railway station, I thought! Comments and methodological suggestions are welcome, especially considering that the children are likely to have developed a certain degree of imperviousness to the smell, given that they live there. I’m sharing some information from the litt search on street children. It’s written up very informally, without citations and so on, I can supply you with the sources if you wish. Street children have been defined in various ways at various fora, and distinctions are usually drawn between children who live on the street with no contact with their families, and others who spend most of their time on the street but maintain regular contact with their families. However, the most common elements of these varied definitions see street children as perceiving the street as their most common shelter and means of existence, and as living without the consistent supervision or guidance of responsible adults. West (2003) suggests that the variety in the definitions may have less to do with the children or the situations and more to do with the imperatives guiding the individuals and organizations attempting to define the term: “At the root of the definitional problem is a desire to make an intervention, the aim of which may vary on the part of organizations, projects or individuals, from ‘saving’ children, to realizing children’s rights, or to a more punitive attempt to put children back ‘in place.’ Terms used to refer to street children varied from one country to another, from the bland “minors at risk” preferred in Italy, to the distinction made by Cameroon between “fighters”, “old fighters”, “mosquitoes” and “chickens”, largely based on a perception of their familiarity with criminal behaviour. While the “fighters” and “old fighters” had been sent to jail once or many times respectively, the “mosquitoes”, below the age of 14, had attracted the attention of the law for anti-social behaviour but never actually gone to jail, while the “chickens” were very young children who were on the street because they had been abandoned, or had got lost. Ghanaian terminology made a difference between “runaways”, children who rejected their homes and families and sought to escape from them, and “throwaways,” children who had been abandoned by their parents or families. Across the globe, however, perceptions seem to broadly fall in three categories (West, 2003). Street children are seen as victims, or as small criminals, or often, not “seen” at all. The phenomenon exists across the globe, with an estimated 7000 young people on the streets even in a country with fairly good social welfare systems like the Netherlands, and several hundred thousand in countries like India. In some totalitarian states, the problem tends to be hidden if there is a need for the ruling government to project that social problems have “been solved.” Thus, Teclici noted that in Romania, children who ran away from their homes or institutional settings were picked up by the police and sent back. That this did not work as a solution was revealed in the records which show children as “running away” again and again; in one instance, records showed that a child had returned to the streets over a hundred times. Post 1991, however, in Romania, both the issue, as well as attempts to look for solutions, have come out into the open. There are visibly fewer street girls than street boys. Scholars have argued that this is because girls tend to be quickly whisked off the streets by networks promoting commercial sex work. Scholars emphasize the importance of seeing the population of street children as being dynamic, not static, and not homogenous. Children grow up and become adults, or get into more settled lives, through child care institutions or employment, and are replaced by others. Street children typically find a variety of places to stay in addition to streets and footpaths. These include bus depots, railway stations, boats, marketplaces and the spaces under railway bridges and flyovers. In India, one study in Mumbai found that more street girls had had access to formal education, and more of it at that, when compared to street boys. Exploring the kind of careers that street children found attractive revealed that street girls were most attracted towards human service professions like medicine, mursing, and teaching; or tailoring. Street boys tended to focus on skilled work like driving, or technical work like that of automobile mechanics or electricians. Most of the children mentioned studying and working hard as important components to achieving career aspirations, indicating that success was seen as a concomitant of individual effort, and the role of systemic factors was not taken into account. However, a significant 33.3% of street boys said they had no idea about how to achieve their aspirations. An interesting gender difference was that a significant number of street girls said they would seek advice or assistance from individuals or institutions to help them achieve their career goals. Street boys on the other hand said that they would have to work and earn as a pre-condition to studying or training to achieve their career goals. There is an increasing recognition that children are and/or should be the protagonists of their lives, and the international instruments and conventions which focus on children’s right to participate formally acknowledge this. This is especially true in the case of street children, who more often than not, have no choice except to take responsibility for their lives. This is borne out by the research. Stephenson, from her study of street children in Moscow, concluded that street children were not merely “reacting” to their circumstances, but took on active roles, sought and gained social capital and mobility, and optimized the use of resources that they could access. She argues against the viewing of street children as a homogeneous, dispossessed mass. There is a hierarchy prevailing in the streets. In the Russian urban context, those on the lowest tiers were the new runaways, who had not yet found a support structure or aligned themselves with an established social group on the streets, or children of adults living on the street. Young people on the street sought legitimicacy and security by aligning themselves with one of two kinds of social groups: :Arbats or local street gangs. Arbats differed from local street gangs by their ban on stealing, begging and commercial sex, and their modeling of a structure that resembled familial units and provided “emotional and material support.” Local street gangs engaged in criminal activity, and individual children sought to establish a ‘good reputation’ by their contributions in the hope of obtaining a passport to adult criminal gangs. In the post-communist society, organized crime is seen as offering opportunities for employment, and career advancement. Depending on their levels of social skills, children are able to use networks and resources on the street to greater or lesser degree, not merely as a means of survival, but to achieve social mobility. Beazley (2003) in a study of Indonesia’s street children found that they use many ways to secure spaces, physical and social, for themselves. At the most obvious level, they take over particular physical localities. At a more symbolic level, they subscribe to certain sub-cultures (like the Tikyan sub-culture), and, as groups, reject the mainstream’s rejection of them by refusing to wear conventional clothing and adopting unconventional body decoration and sexual practices. In Cambodia, younger street children are controlled, and often exploited by “bong lorn” (big brother) gangs. Health is a major issue for all people in poverty, and more so for street children. In addition to the ailments and diseases associated with poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, inadequate shelter and lack of/inadequate access to preventive health and healthcare resources, in recent times, research has shown that this is a group with particular vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. A study in Bangalore showed that most street children reported early sexual initiation, high frequency of sexual contact and multiple partners. Sex was used most frequently to alleviate bejaar(anxiety/stress) but also as a means of recreation or exchange for material goods or drugs or protection. For street boys, the majority of sexual contacts were homosexual, even though they placed a higher value on heterosexual intercourse. From hpp at vsnl.com Wed Mar 16 17:05:31 2005 From: hpp at vsnl.com (V Ramaswamy) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:05:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Calcutta planning Message-ID: <073601c52a1c$467809d0$22b841db@Ramaswamy> The Editor The Telegraph Calcutta Dear Sir Thank you for the report in The Telegraph of 14 March 2005, on the 3 new blueprints for the development of metropolitan Calcutta. It is encouraging to know that this is happening, and that the the state govt. is seized of the need for strategic and long-term efforts for city improvement. However, it was disturbing and disconcerting that the report did not mention anything about public participation in such long-term development planning. Especially when the projects are intended to make a major dent in the quality of life of the metropolis' citizens, and especially the poorer sections. Public participation in planning, implementation and monitoring of development projects has been accorded much emphasis by agencies like the World Bank, United Nations, Asian Development Bank, DFID etc. This reflects the experience from projects across the world that success requires the active participation of grassroots organisations (representing beneficiary communities) and the civic wisdom, initiative and energy of the civil society. There is a lot of valuable knowledge, action experience, civic and voluntary spirit in this metropolis, which can contribute significantly to and enrich city improvement planning. Lack of transparency and genuine involvement of the citizenry and people's organisations only breeds cynicism and suspicion that such planning enhances private and partisan - rather than transparently public - ends. As the Chief Minister is engaged in a serious effort to promote all-round development of Calcutta and West Bengal, an open, transparent and participatory approach will go a long way in realising his goal of a better future for all. I hope a concerted effort will be made towards integrating public participation as a vital aspect of the Calcutta planning process. Yours sincerely V Ramaswamy Sitara, B 299 Lake Gardens Calcutta 700 045 Tel: 98300 69413 E-mail: hpp at vsnl.com ....................... The Telegraph, Calcutta Monday, March 14, 2005 SHANKAR MUKHERJEE AND SUVRO ROY Progress path with a vision Bengal shining: three new blueprints, 20-year target The goal: Bengal at its best. The timeline: 20 years. That is the task chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has assigned his men, who had till now turned their attention to traffic and transportation, water supply and sewerage and drainage and sanitation. Three new blueprints - ensuring "balanced and integrated development" of the city and its surroundings - have been drawn up and are awaiting the approval of the Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Committee (CMPC) at its next meeting. Two other master plans - on environment and housing, including the areas of education, health and employment generation - are also being prepared, and will be placed before the CMPC if they are ready by the next session. The roadmaps have been drafted by the CMDA on the basis of the perspective plan - Vision 2025 - formulated in 2000 to improve the quality of life in Calcutta and the suburbs, in the face of burgeoning population and vehicular traffic. "These master plans will cover different categories of development work, including water supply, sanitation and sewerage, traffic and transportation, healthcare, education, employment generation, environment and housing," explained K.S. Rajendrakumar, urban development secretary. "They will be applicable to the entire Calcutta Metropolitan Area," he added. "All development agencies will have to follow these plans while implementing respective projects,'' said Rajendrakumar. For instance, the traffic and transportation plan pinpoints the roads to be widened or extended, specifies areas where flyovers and new roads are to be built and indicates roads on which traffic has to be restricted. Similarly, specific schemes to build water treatment plants, reservoirs and underground pipelines have been identified. Officials estimate that about Rs 1,000 crore will be needed every year to put the plans to action. The funds will be drawn from the budgetary allocations of departments like transport, urban development, environment and irrigation, Calcutta Municipal Corporation and the PWD. Additional funds will also be sought from the Centre and agencies like the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, besides countries like Italy, Germany and France. This is not the first time the state government has attempted to inject order into its development path. The Basic Development Plan (BDP) was drawn up in 1966 with guidelines for development projects over the next two decades. Based on this, in 1967, master plans for traffic and transportation, water supply and drainage, sewerage and sanitation were drawn up. The traffic and transportation master plan was meant to see the government through on the issue of traffic flow till 1986. It was upgraded during the tercentenary celebrations of the city in the 1990s. The other two plans were applicable till 2000. The same year, the government felt that rising population and vehicular traffic called for a fresh perspective, which resulted in Vision 2025. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050316/4b14b7d3/attachment.html From openspace_india at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 14:59:14 2005 From: openspace_india at yahoo.com (openspace india) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:29:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] www.openspaceindia.org Message-ID: <20050316092914.14554.qmail@web31604.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Dear Friend, Open Space is an independent, interactive and creative public space where civil society organisations and public-spirited citizens can interact, debate and initiate action on social justice and development issues . Located in Pune, Maharashtra, India, Open Space uses social documentary and political feature films, experimental theatre, literature, lectures, workshops, readings, focus-group meetings and the music of protest to encourage citizens to talk, think and act for change. We offer video and DVD screening facilities, a growing library and cross-sectoral documentation centre, a reading room with various national and international publications and the use of Internet facilities for research. Alternative publications and fair trade practice products are available for sale. Open Space is an initiative of the Centre for Communication and Development Studies (CCDS), a social change resource centre that uses strategic and innovative communication processes to inform, initiate and inspire change in societal attitudes and public policy. CCDS focuses on: � Development research and advocacy: CCDS publishes the quarterly print journal InfoChange Agenda � Information outreach: CCDS manages the daily development news website InfoChange News & Features ( www.infochangeindia.org ), one of India's most-visited online resource bases on social justice and sustainable development � Civil society outreach (through Open Space) Visit our website for news, resources and information: http://www.openspaceindia.org Address: Venu Madhav 5 th floor, Prabhat Road, 14 th Lane (Opp Income Tax Office) Pune 411 004, India Phone: 91-20-2545 7371 Regards Renu Iyer Open Space/CCDS --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050316/393f16ba/attachment.html From schatte2 at ncsu.edu Wed Mar 16 20:11:37 2005 From: schatte2 at ncsu.edu (schatte2 at ncsu.edu) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:41:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Forward: on the Vijaywada Railway Station by Meera Pillai In-Reply-To: <42380E51.10204@sarai.net> References: <42380E51.10204@sarai.net> Message-ID: <60148.203.101.8.6.1110984097.squirrel@203.101.8.6> Hi Meera, Since you came across children's geographies, there is one more web-journal that you should check out--Journal of Children, Youth and Environment. Their articles are free and they are very high quality peer-reviewed ones. CYE is also digitizing all the back issues of the seminal (but discontinued) journal called "Children's Environments". My own research on children's environments overlaps considerably with issues commonly tackled in geographies of childhood and youth. One intersting point to note is that there is a difference between "children's geographies" and "geography of children". According to Aitken (1994) children's geographies involves "children's exploration of self in adult controlled environments" while the geography of children has to do with "the spatial variables and factors which affect the well-being of children". Will be interested in hearing more from you. Sudeshna > As part of my proposed research with street children > in south India’s Vijayawada railway station, I began a > litt search. Apropos the ongoing discussion about > copyrighting and access to resources on the web on the > readers’ list, it was interesting to see how many new > journals were now (un)available, with articles that > you could buy for over USD 34, if you were not lucky > enough to be affiliated to an institution that > subscribed to it. > > Another interesting thing that I learned was that > there is a whole discipline (fairly new) today called > “Children’s Geographies” with its own conferences, > journals, university courses and so on. This gave me > a few leads, in terms of other scholars I could write > to and so on, and also, an interesting methodological > tool. A group of children mapped their neighbourhood > by its smells. That would be an interesting thing to > do in an Indian railway station, I thought! Comments > and methodological suggestions are welcome, especially > considering that the children are likely to have > developed a certain degree of imperviousness to the > smell, given that they live there. > > I’m sharing some information from the litt search on > street children. It’s written up very informally, > without citations and so on, I can supply you with the > sources if you wish. > > Street children have been defined in various ways at > various fora, and distinctions are usually drawn > between children who live on the street with no > contact with their families, and others who spend most > of their time on the street but maintain regular > contact with their families. However, the most common > elements of these varied definitions see street > children as perceiving the street as their most common > shelter and means of existence, and as living without > the consistent supervision or guidance of responsible > adults. West (2003) suggests that the variety in the > definitions may have less to do with the children or > the situations and more to do with the imperatives > guiding the individuals and organizations attempting > to define the term: “At the root of the definitional > problem is a desire to make an intervention, the aim > of which may vary on the part of organizations, > projects or individuals, from ‘saving’ children, to > realizing children’s rights, or to a > more punitive attempt to put children back ‘in place.’ > > Terms used to refer to street children varied from one > country to another, from the bland “minors at risk” > preferred in Italy, to the distinction made by > Cameroon between “fighters”, “old fighters”, > “mosquitoes” and “chickens”, largely based on a > perception of their familiarity with criminal > behaviour. While the “fighters” and “old fighters” > had been sent to jail once or many times respectively, > the “mosquitoes”, below the age of 14, had attracted > the attention of the law for anti-social behaviour but > never actually gone to jail, while the “chickens” were > very young children who were on the street because > they had been abandoned, or had got lost. Ghanaian > terminology made a difference between “runaways”, > children who rejected their homes and families and > sought to escape from them, and “throwaways,” children > who had been abandoned by their parents or families. > Across the globe, however, perceptions seem to broadly > fall in three categories (West, 2003). Street > children are seen as victims, or as small criminals, > or often, not “seen” at all. > > The phenomenon exists across the globe, with an > estimated 7000 young people on the streets even in a > country with fairly good social welfare systems like > the Netherlands, and several hundred thousand in > countries like India. In some totalitarian states, > the problem tends to be hidden if there is a need for > the ruling government to project that social problems > have “been solved.” Thus, Teclici noted that in > Romania, children who ran away from their homes or > institutional settings were picked up by the police > and sent back. That this did not work as a solution > was revealed in the records which show children as > “running away” again and again; in one instance, > records showed that a child had returned to the > streets over a hundred times. Post 1991, however, in > Romania, both the issue, as well as attempts to look > for solutions, have come out into the open. > > There are visibly fewer street girls than street boys. > Scholars have argued that this is because girls tend > to be quickly whisked off the streets by networks > promoting commercial sex work. > > Scholars emphasize the importance of seeing the > population of street children as being dynamic, not > static, and not homogenous. Children grow up and > become adults, or get into more settled lives, through > child care institutions or employment, and are > replaced by others. > > Street children typically find a variety of places to > stay in addition to streets and footpaths. These > include bus depots, railway stations, boats, > marketplaces and the spaces under railway bridges and > flyovers. > > In India, one study in Mumbai found that more street > girls had had access to formal education, and more of > it at that, when compared to street boys. Exploring > the kind of careers that street children found > attractive revealed that street girls were most > attracted towards human service professions like > medicine, mursing, and teaching; or > tailoring. Street boys tended to focus on skilled work > like driving, or technical work like that of > automobile mechanics or electricians. > > Most of the children mentioned studying and working > hard as important components to achieving career > aspirations, indicating that success was seen as a > concomitant of individual effort, and the role of > systemic factors was not taken into account. However, > a significant 33.3% of street boys said they had no > idea about how to achieve their aspirations. An > interesting gender difference was that a significant > number of street girls said they would seek advice or > assistance from individuals or institutions to help > them achieve their career goals. Street boys on the > other hand said that they would have to work and earn > as a pre-condition to studying or training to achieve > their career goals. > > There is an increasing recognition that children are > and/or should be the protagonists of their lives, and > the international instruments and conventions which > focus on children’s right to participate formally > acknowledge this. This is especially true in the case > of street children, who more often than not, have no > choice except to take responsibility for their lives. > This is borne out by the research. > > Stephenson, from her study of street children in > Moscow, concluded that street children were not merely > “reacting” to their circumstances, but took on active > roles, sought and gained social capital and mobility, > and optimized the use of resources that they could > access. She argues against the viewing of street > children as a homogeneous, dispossessed mass. > > There is a hierarchy prevailing in the streets. In the > Russian urban context, those on the lowest tiers were > the new runaways, who had not yet found a support > structure or aligned themselves with an established > social group on the streets, or children of adults > living on the street. Young people on the street > sought legitimicacy and security by aligning > themselves with one of two kinds of social groups: > :Arbats or local street gangs. Arbats differed from > local street gangs by their ban on stealing, begging > and commercial sex, and their modeling of a structure > that resembled familial units and provided “emotional > and material support.” Local street gangs engaged in > criminal activity, and individual children sought to > establish a ‘good reputation’ by their contributions > in the hope of obtaining a passport to adult criminal > gangs. In the post-communist society, organized crime > is seen as offering opportunities for employment, and > career advancement. > > Depending on their levels of social skills, children > are able to use networks and resources on the street > to greater or lesser degree, not merely as a means of > survival, but to achieve social mobility. > > Beazley (2003) in a study of Indonesia’s street > children found that they use many ways to secure > spaces, physical and social, for themselves. At the > most obvious level, they take over particular physical > localities. At a more symbolic level, they subscribe > to certain sub-cultures (like the Tikyan sub-culture), > and, as groups, reject the mainstream’s rejection of > them by refusing to wear conventional clothing and > adopting unconventional body decoration and sexual > practices. In Cambodia, younger street children are > controlled, and often exploited by “bong lorn” (big > brother) gangs. > > Health is a major issue for all people in poverty, and > more so for street children. In addition to the > ailments and diseases associated with poverty, > malnutrition, poor sanitation, inadequate shelter and > lack of/inadequate access to preventive health and > healthcare resources, in recent times, research has > shown that this is a group with particular > vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. A study in Bangalore > showed that most street children reported early sexual > initiation, high frequency of sexual contact and > multiple partners. Sex was used most frequently to > alleviate bejaar(anxiety/stress) but also as a means > of recreation or exchange for material goods or drugs > or protection. For street boys, the majority of > sexual contacts were homosexual, even though they > placed a higher value on heterosexual intercourse. > > > > > > _________________________________________ > 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 tarana at cal2.vsnl.net.in Wed Mar 16 16:30:12 2005 From: tarana at cal2.vsnl.net.in (Vector) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:30:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: Calcutta planning Message-ID: <002801c52a17$553554a0$9cc741db@vector> ----- Original Message ----- From: V Ramaswamy To: vector ; gopublic at mac.com ; archeritage at hotmail.com ; mohitbhattacharya at yahoo.com ; samar_bagchi at rediffmail.com Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 1:58 PM Subject: Calcutta planning The Editor The Telegraph Calcutta Dear Sir Thank you for the report in The Telegraph of 14 March 2005, on the 3 new blueprints for the development of metropolitan Calcutta. It is encouraging to know that this is happening, and that the the state govt. is seized of the need for strategic and long-term efforts for city improvement. However, it was disturbing and disconcerting that the report did not mention anything about public participation in such long-term development planning. Especially when the projects are intended to make a major dent in the quality of life of the metropolis' citizens, and in particular the poorer sections. Public participation in planning, implementation and monitoring of development projects has been accorded much emphasis by agencies like the World Bank, United Nations, Asian Development Bank, DFID etc. This reflects the experience from projects across the world that success requires the active participation of grassroots organisations (representing beneficiary communities) and the civic wisdom, initiative and energy of the civil society. There is a lot of valuable knowledge, action experience, civic and voluntary spirit in this metropolis, which can contribute significantly to and enrich city improvement planning. Lack of transparency and genuine involvement of the citizenry and people's organisations only breeds cynicism and suspicion that such planning enhances private and partisan - rather than transparently public - ends. As the Chief Minister is engaged in a serious effort to promote all-round development of Calcutta and West Bengal, an open, transparent and participatory approach will go a long way in realising his goal of a better future for all. I hope a concerted effort will be made towards integrating public participation as a vital aspect of the Calcutta planning process. Yours sincerely V Ramaswamy Sitara, B 299 Lake Gardens Calcutta 700 045 Tel: 98300 69413 E-mail: hpp at vsnl.com ................. The Telegraph, Calcutta Monday, March 14, 2005 SHANKAR MUKHERJEE AND SUVRO ROY Progress path with a vision Bengal shining: three new blueprints, 20-year target The goal: Bengal at its best. The timeline: 20 years. That is the task chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has assigned his men, who had till now turned their attention to traffic and transportation, water supply and sewerage and drainage and sanitation. Three new blueprints - ensuring "balanced and integrated development" of the city and its surroundings - have been drawn up and are awaiting the approval of the Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Committee (CMPC) at its next meeting. Two other master plans - on environment and housing, including the areas of education, health and employment generation - are also being prepared, and will be placed before the CMPC if they are ready by the next session. The roadmaps have been drafted by the CMDA on the basis of the perspective plan - Vision 2025 - formulated in 2000 to improve the quality of life in Calcutta and the suburbs, in the face of burgeoning population and vehicular traffic. "These master plans will cover different categories of development work, including water supply, sanitation and sewerage, traffic and transportation, healthcare, education, employment generation, environment and housing," explained K.S. Rajendrakumar, urban development secretary. "They will be applicable to the entire Calcutta Metropolitan Area," he added. "All development agencies will have to follow these plans while implementing respective projects,'' said Rajendrakumar. For instance, the traffic and transportation plan pinpoints the roads to be widened or extended, specifies areas where flyovers and new roads are to be built and indicates roads on which traffic has to be restricted. Similarly, specific schemes to build water treatment plants, reservoirs and underground pipelines have been identified. Officials estimate that about Rs 1,000 crore will be needed every year to put the plans to action. The funds will be drawn from the budgetary allocations of departments like transport, urban development, environment and irrigation, Calcutta Municipal Corporation and the PWD. Additional funds will also be sought from the Centre and agencies like the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, besides countries like Italy, Germany and France. This is not the first time the state government has attempted to inject order into its development path. The Basic Development Plan (BDP) was drawn up in 1966 with guidelines for development projects over the next two decades. Based on this, in 1967, master plans for traffic and transportation, water supply and drainage, sewerage and sanitation were drawn up. The traffic and transportation master plan was meant to see the government through on the issue of traffic flow till 1986. It was upgraded during the tercentenary celebrations of the city in the 1990s. The other two plans were applicable till 2000. The same year, the government felt that rising population and vehicular traffic called for a fresh perspective, which resulted in Vision 2025. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050316/e93944e5/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 14-buddha.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 22412 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050316/e93944e5/attachment.jpg From kaiwanmehta at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 09:20:38 2005 From: kaiwanmehta at gmail.com (kaiwan mehta) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:20:38 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Bombay / Mumbai Fellows Message-ID: <2482459d050316195018fc2cbb@mail.gmail.com> Hi, There are a number of us from Bombay involved with Sarai as fellows or researchers. It maybe a good idea for us to connect once in a while. To begin with lets all meet up one evening. To start, let me suggest 23 and 25 March, sometime in the evening around 6 pm. We could meet somewhere around the Fort area. It would be nice to see each other and exchange our ongoing experiences. Do get back to me!! Thanks, Warm regards, Kaiwan -- Kaiwan Mehta Architect and Urban Reseracher 11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034 022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436 From prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com Wed Mar 16 22:58:14 2005 From: prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com (Prashant Pandey) Date: 16 Mar 2005 17:28:14 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Selling Music Message-ID: <20050316172814.595.qmail@webmail30.rediffmail.com> hi, i am prashant...independent research fellow... currently in mumbai researching on the music industry.........   Conversations with a music company executive . (name and company’s name withheld on persistent requests) He has been one of the most easily accessible of the respondents no ego, no tantrums Rather I see in him an ease and an honest urge to make his point about the industry . After struggling with the address, I am late by half an hour for the appointment As I reach his office on the 7th floor, a peon ushers me to his room.. Executive--- hi I am . Myself--- sorry I am late . Its all right normally I stay in office quite late I had trouble with the address You said you knew about lokhandwalla Ya just been here once Ok . You have really good knowledge about the industry I read you’re your proposal.. It’s very strong Ya that’s why I am being paid to do this` research (Laughs ) Who’s paying you? Then I tell him about Sarai (he is amused like everybody) and then about myself then he tells me that it wont be possible for him to say anything on record so we could just talk without the Dictaphone between us I readily agree as any talk is better than no talk.. myself--- tell me .. a very basic question why do music companies make films They make films because they want to sell the film as well as the music Venus, tips, t-series everybody make there own film by this the music rights are inherently theirs. I feel there could be a chance I m just thinking they could be making films primarily to sell music . Ya somewhat but returns from films are lucrative too.. but you are absolutely right Why should we buy audio rights worth 5 crores 10 crores itne me to puraa picture bana lo Ya but now its kind of a talkback Production houses are launching music companies yashraj music and so on Yashraj happened because the companies refused to buy audio rights at such exhorbitant rates .. can you believe Veer-Zara was being sold for 12 crore HMV said its fine but we aren’t sure about this madan-mohan stuff so yashraj launched its own I think I should meet people there in yashraj. You know somebody there Yes I do Ok go and talk . But I guess nobody at least in the office isn’t goin to tell you anything interesting so where were we We were talking about music companies making films and film companies making music Ya you put it perfectly but its not easy if u have never done music before u have to start everything--- cost of tapes,production,quality control, marketing and so on.. Same applies to music companies they have to take all the risks they have to shoot promos, songs (in fact the whole film) apart from making the music Then we take small break and start talking about people he mentions Sameer and I am hooked Sameers is a producers’ lyricist. He is amazingly flexible.. and incorporates every suggestion that the producers make.. If the producr says sameerji ye word thoda jama nahi kuch maja nahi aa raha then sameer will change it. A javed akhtar or gulzar wont do that. Javed se bolo ki sir aap ne jo ye “kaali syaahi” use kiya hai romantic nahi ho raha hai javed ji will say aapka kaam hai picture banana jab aap camera se shoot karoge to main waha pea a kar nahi kahoonga ki esee shot lo vaise shot lo likhna mera department hai mujhe likhne dijiye but there are writers who are willing to do as much compro as they can .. But why does he (sameer) do it Seedhi si baat hai vo nahi karega to koi aur kar dega.. yaha pe to free main likhne vale baithe hain That’s makes him so prolific Ya u can say that and he is so good with phrases and one-liners.. Like shik-dum? (shik-dum shikdum is hit song from Dhoom) Ya When u say he’s a producers writer I remember, ramesh taurani of tips recalled how sameer had traveled with him again and again to Chennai(rahman was doing the music) despite his schedules for the “legend of bhagat singh”.. Ramesh ji was really touched by his gesture Ya you need to do all this everybody is good here but u should be willing to go the extra mile... see prashant in this industry nobody is ur friend nobody is ur enemy . .everybody is a collaborator . if u r in a group or lobby it really helps lobby means eating and drinking together laughs ya but a group must have a strong commercial side to it of course as long as you can help to sell my tapes u can eat and drink with me as much as u want.. accha tell me one thing music companies seem to taking almost all executive decisions about music making some of these decisions fall in the creative domain as well do music companies have creative departments ya some of them have HMV has a very good creative department.. it’s a company that runs on the support of its employees.. Sony is good too however in some companies like TIPS all decisions are taken by the owners Are they musically inclined . Not in a traditional sense but when it comes to packaging and selling and getting a particular kind of music done they are very very good at it.. They exactly know what is going to sell and what is not How much is the interference Well that’s not exactly interference its their money and they make sure they get the job done as they envisage.. so every word of the songs is looked at changes are made Music pieces in the song, how the song should begin alaap dalna hai ki nahi singer kaun sa hoga everything Lot of times a song is “appreciated” but after the final mix agar lagta hai ki vo feeling nahi hai to we also change singers Oh it must be very tough you must be saying sorry all the time.. No its very common and singers have to accept it. See a song is a song only after it has been shot and you have an actor singing it.. or even it is none of these there has to be a promo on tv the recorded song must compliment the promo and vice-versa.. So much money is involved in just shooting the song so what’s wrong in changing a singer/lyricist/tunes/lyrics or changing the whole song You must be paying them.. Paying them what? I mean once a singer has sung a song he/she gets the payment but then you go for another singer Ya you know lot of times singer jab apni film hall me dekhne jaate hai to unhe shock lagta hai as they hear their own song in somebody else’s voice Can give a recent example Yaar common cheez hai why get into unnecessary troubles. (pauses but adds later on .) Babul (supriyo) is a big sufferer because of this.. Producer (music company also producing the film ) says yaaar maza nahi aaya sanu se gavao.. Tell me about kumar sanu . Oh he is very strong even today if I take 10 odd songs from my catalogue and put it in the sales without any marketing it will sell good people especially in west Bengal or say everywhere love him though his throat isn’t keeping well but we insist On sanu every time we do a film he is our bankable star. Alka is also our favourite she will sing all the songs... That’s our word... both sanu and alka are big and have strong fundamentals. How do u watch a singer and how do you decide that she/he is good.. Past records and popularity in the charts By past records you mean sales Yes and also music companies have good understanding of market.. they may not take new singers but they know who is doing well and who is not New singers and music directors will suffer due to this . Ya because its very risky how can we bank on new people see its not very easy to work with new people. if the singer/director happens to be in house then only it becomes easy for him.. Like kumar sanu who was doing cover versions for T-series and was called for auditions for Aashiqi also a t-series film that’s how he made it big. Or say like manmohan warris who sang “rang de basanti chola” with Sonu in the “legend of bhagat singh” he happens to be an in-house singer for TIPS. Talking to you I feel that film music is all about selling Yes we also work like that . a promo must hit a consumer like that it must create a sensation strong enough this makes promos very very important people notice everything lyricist kaun hai .. music director kaun hai etc etc.. then you know once our stuff reaches these music outlets the ball then goes to their court.. We carefully arrange songs in the album.. side a mein kaun sa gaana kaha hoga side b meain kaun sa hoga normally side a first song is most catchy one the music store people play it again and again easily( side a first easier to play) and attract the people.. Ek baar khareed liya phir uske upar hai how he finds music in other tracks Aajkal ek do songs hee acche hote hai . Those we use to sell our cds and cassesstte.. At this point again I raise the fundamental question at the risk of being seen as a revolutionary and naïve How do businessmen decide what is good music and what’s bad . Oh its not important we just follow the current trend.. I look at a 14 year old and decide what my music this 14 year guy is most important..this is the time people form their music tastes and impressions.. they start watching films fall in love and when I sold a kumar sanu in early nineties or sell shaan or kunaal now , the teenage says “oh this guy is singing my song its me, my emotions my love life my tragedy my fun ”. what is the film that struck you for the first time as a music lover? Aashiqi and I was 11 then (the momemt of enlightenment is here) So there you go (smiles) that’s how it works today somebody might be singing and buying Kunal as you bought kumar sanu those days times change so do we in our approach to identifying and selling its very natural and common sense. We then realize that there is nothing more to talk and we compliment each other its 7.45pm. We come down from the office together. prashant pandey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050316/9e7b1ed6/attachment.html From tenzinrigzin at email.com Thu Mar 17 19:49:00 2005 From: tenzinrigzin at email.com (Tenzin Rigzin) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 10:19:00 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw:Abdul Ghaffar Khan: Peace-Maker from the Heart of Islam Message-ID: <20050317141900.9EDEA101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Abdul Ghaffar Khan: Peace-Maker from the Heart of Islam Announcing a World-wide Movement to Honor the Legacy and Teachings of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Baacha Khan, Badshah Khan, Frontier Gandhi, Fakhr-e-Afghan “The Pride of Afghans” Badshah Khan devoted his life to justice, liberty, & peace--for eight decades he struggled unceasingly for freedom, literacy, and human rights through non-violent means. Ghaffar Khan was one of the greatest humanitarians in the 20th century--a non-violent soldier who fought peacefully and persuasively for human dignity, universal education, and sustainable prosperity. Khan, a practitioner of nonviolent social change, transformed his society. But few people have heard of him-even in the part of the world where he lived and worked and strived for peace, independence, and the dignity of the people. Examples from Khan’s life and teachings are catalysts to promote inter-community/inter-faith harmony, brotherly love, and cultural acceptance. This is a call to human rights organizations, educational and cultural establishments, peace institutes, foundations, and individuals: to join forces and co-create and coordinate opportunities to explore and promote the teachings and philosophy of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, one of the greatest peace-makers in the twentieth century. Khan was a Muslim who drew his inspiration for non-violence and human rights from his deep faith in Islam. Today his message is integrally international and truly required. Badshah Khan’s philosophy offers viable peaceful alternatives--practical solutions to ease the volatility and hostility that often characterize today’s international relations. The events and activities proposed by this project will focus on Khan’s nonviolent, proactive, socially involved, democratic, and spiritually dynamic indefatigable life’s examples. The formats of the programs will vary from place to place: seminars, presentations, workshops, lectures, videos, skits, dramatic performances, conferences, school curricula, discussion groups, writing and/or art exhibitions, teach-ins, lectures, panel discussions at mosques, churches, temples, schools, or community centers. This letter is intended to initiate connections with colleagues and generate commitment, participation, ideas, and enthusiasm to begin the processes of developing the programs and projects that will propagate the noble, humanitarian, profoundly important and essentially contemporary message of Badshah Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The life’s teachings and legacy of Baacha Khan provide a unique historical opportunity to bridge the widening gulf between the Western world and the world of Islam. These programs to honor the eternally valid teachings of Ghaffar Khan-a true “son of the soil” will help promote harmony and brotherhood among the peoples of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It is imperative to revive, restore, and propagate the ideals and inspirations of Baacha Khan as models that can create an atmosphere of understanding and peace. These goals will be furthered by launching this international project to rediscover and disseminate the treasures of Khan’s teachings--his philosophical ideals and practical concepts for peace, development, and democracy. The results of these collective international efforts will strengthen the processes of regional and global peace and enhance inter-community understanding and dialogue. This project offers opportunities, at this appropriate time in world history, to elevate Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s legacy to the respected and appropriate level among the greatest peace makers in the world. The Abdul Ghaffar Khan initiatives will be implemented by local people in communities across the world-Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia--India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and also Thailand. Malaysia, and Japan. The structure of each individual program emerging from these international collaborations will be modified to be locally appropriate. Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a very religious man who drew inspiration and validation from the Qu’ran and the life of Mohammed (PBUH) to support his non-violent and compassionate activism. He was an untiring social reformer and supporter of education who established schools, self-help organizations, and literary and publishing endeavors. He worked unceasingly for democracy and human rights. In the recent biography, The Pathan Unarmed, the author, Mukulika Banerjee “found that Ghaffar's pacifism grew out of his concept of jihad, or holy war, because nonviolent resistance ‘offered the chance of martyrdom in its purest form, since putting one's life conspicuously in one's enemy's hands was itself the key act’.” The struggles, teachings, and sacrifices of Baacha Khan confirm his stature as a universal figure--a person to stand shoulder to shoulder in the pantheon of the greatest peace-makers in history. Unfortunately, due to competitions between the super powers and international and regional hostilities, history has not done justice to this noble person. Khan’s endeavors for the cause of tolerance, peace, democracy, human rights, and nonviolence offer culturally appropriate and universalized keys to solving today’s international controversies and culturally laden quarrels. The story of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the humanist and advocate of human dignity who offered peaceful solutions to conflict, has been sadly neglected. He deserves his place among the distinguished leaders of the century, not only in the Muslim world, but internationally. More than two decades of violence in Afghanistan: first, the CIA-ISI supported Mujahideen fighting the USSR, then the protracted era of rivalries and brutality between contesting war lords, followed by the cruel intolerance of the Taliban, nurtured a culture of violence among the peoples of Afghanistan, the bordering North-West Frontier Province, and the Balochistan region of Pakistan. Violence was sanctified through the misuse of Jihadi concepts. The “Afghan Jihad” left a legacy of drugs, guns, and violence in northwestern South Asia, which still poses a potent threat to regional and global peace. The two-decades long Jihadi indoctrination of the youth of Pakistan has seriously undermined efforts of the moderate, progressive, and secular forces to maintain the social equilibrium and promote peace in the society. The conservative, fundamentalist approach was in part inspired by the massive curriculum project undertaken in the early 1980’s by the University of Nebraska (USA), which stressed the promotion of militarized Jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. These American generated textbooks that venerated violence of the mujahideen, were disseminated in NWFP among other areas. Their long-term impact remains a factor. On the other hand, envisioning the Badshah Khan program offers multiple opportunities that speak to the heart of peace and human dignity. During the past few years a reconciliation process has been going on in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. Significant steps have been taken to ease the tensions between the two nuclear rivals. Among many initiatives, in December 2004 the Chief Minister of West Punjab, Parvaiz Elahi, visited East Punjab to attend the World Punjabi Conference. Groups of journalists traveled across the border to promote the “movement of people”. The Pakistan High Commissioner in Delhi, Aziz Ahmed Khan attended the programme in East Punjab, along with the West Punjabi Chief Secretary, Kamran Rasool. The event focused on education: Mr. Elahi helped to lay the foundation stone of the World Punjabi Centre at Punjab University. Additionally, among other initiatives, a bus service is being opened between Pakistani Kashmir and Srinagar. Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan, under pressure from the international community, have also taken a new turn and there are signs that the two countries may coexist in peace in the future. There is a momentum to create a trade route between Afghanistan and India across Pakistan. These negotiations will hopefully lead to the eventual opening of trade and more congenial relations between Pakistan and India. In the 1980’s and 90’s, the violence-prone Jihadi organizations were recipients of huge institutional, financial, and moral support from internal and external sources. Contrarily, the moderate and peace-loving people in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been without a well-funded forum or international support to promote peace and non-violence. Fortunately, at this juncture, Pakistan has a unique opportunity in the form of Baacha Khan to build a durable peace with India and Afghanistan, given the high degree of respect that Baacha Khan receives in both India and Afghanistan. The model of his life and his philosophy offer grounded and relevant examples to cultivate peace and prosperity. Through this initiative Pakistan can show the world a face of home-grown peace and universalism. Baacha Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgar Movement -- a non-violent reformist anti-colonial organization- was an ally of the Indian National Congress before partition. In his personal capacity, Baacha Khan was a close associate of Gandhi-ji, which makes Baacha Khan an even more revered figure in the eyes of the Indian masses. Baacha Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar’s place in the history of the anti-colonial freedom movement is based more on their immense sacrifices rather than simply their association with Gandhi.] In view of his tremendous struggle and personal ordeals for freedom, Baacha Khan was awarded the Bharat Ratna, the highest Indian civil award. Similarly, in Afghanistan Baacha Khan is still considered a non-controversial and highly respected figure, both at the government and public levels. The Afghani people conferred on Abdul Ghaffar Khan the title “Fakhr-e-Afghan” (The Pride of Afghan). Concept: to coordinate and encourage a series of international events, programs, curriculum materials, posters and art, pamphlets, and publications to explore the life and teachings of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, one of the greatest practitioners of nonviolence and humanitarians in the twentieth century. This initial notification is designed to enlist support for the project and to generate discussion about strategies and methodologies that will further the efforts to educate the world about Abdul Ghaffar Khan--Frontier Gandhi. Baacha Khan’s life exemplifies intercommunity harmony and dedication to social justice. The anticipated world-wide dissemination of the message of Badshah Khan will be accomplished by coordinating and collaborating with organizations and individuals who share a common vision and commitment. These connections will be utilized to mobilize international awareness about one of history’s most inspiring yet forgotten heroes. In collaboration with colleagues in India, Pakistan, and the USA, this letter of inquiry is sent by Yvette C. Rosser, from the Observer Research Foundation. Please send ideas, constructive comments, and suggestions to: YvetteRosser at yahoo.com Vision: to boost peace efforts, create better understanding between countries and cultures, enhance peaceful conflict resolution strategies, and encourage the time-tested tools of nonviolence for fighting oppression, domination, and subjugation. The Baacha Khan Trust, Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF), Observer Research Foundation, (ORF), Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), the G M Syed Memorial Committee, and other foundations and organizations that join the effort, will work together to rediscover the universal teachings and philosophy of the greatest Muslim peacemaker, Baacha Khan. This program will document, archive, and disseminate his message of nonviolence, peace, and sustainable socio-economic development by encouraging a series of seminars, conferences, and other events and publications that will educate the world about the life of Badshah Khan. This project will conduct research and help coordinate multiple programs in collaboration with peace and cultural organizations and other interested stakeholders throughout the world. Objectives: 1. To collect scattered materials about the person and teachings of Baacha Khan and Khudai Khidmatgar Movement; compile, document, and disseminate this valuable information in different languages throughout the world. These assets belong to the entire humanity will not be allowed to remain in the dustbin of history. 2. To run an advocacy campaign for making the message of Baacha Khan a part of the curricula and educational systems world-wide, particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. 3. To present the life and struggles of Baacha Khan as one of the best models of achieving political freedom, democratic liberties, and mobilizing people for socio-economic development and positive change. 4. To provide impetus and guidance for multiple programs that will offer effective platforms to promote the forces of peace, moderation, and non-violence, which will empower the people to raise their voices against religious extremism and political violence. 5. Highlighting Baacha Khan’s cosmopolitan outlook, based on the fundamentals of his Islamic faith, will help to reduce and eliminate religious, cultural, and ethnic conflicts among different groups in South Asia and also promote international, inter-cultural harmony. Initially we are seeking to create contact with knowledgeable groups and individuals that can offer their expertise and cooperation as we create international networks that will work together to bring out Khan’s message of peace and service to a world-wide audience. We seek the involvement of committed groups, organizations, and individuals who will work locally to institute this global program in their communities. The overall strategic goal of the programme is to promote an environment of dialogue, based on non-violence, through the use of the philosophy of Baacha Khan, whose teachings and methodology provide a functional semblance of the particular and an inspiring and practical answer to the universal. Initial strategy: archive and assemble a collection of Baacha Khan's stories and quotations. Compile a selection of quotations on a wide variety of topics and vignettes from his life that will teach by example--a paragraph or short story about each. These “sound bites" will be quotes, short narratives, facts, and data that describe the humanitarian, spiritual, consistent, loving, and very spiritual life and philosophy of Badshah Khan. These quotes and stories will explain why, at this moment in the world's history, Khan’s message offers a special key to international peace and prosperity that is trans-culturally transformative. The materials won't dwell excessively on how many decades Baacha Khan was incarcerated under previous autocratic Pakistani regimes. They will focus on the positive side of his life. His work with the people, his accomplishments, his unflagging moral strength and humanitarian spirit, and particularly, where he drew his inspiration and what sustained his vision. Stories and quotes from Badshah Khan will be collected and assembled in a variety of accessible and useable formats. In the first phase, we will develop the program’s contents along with methods and models for the seminars, conferences, and presentations. Basic strategies will be developed so that the program can be applicable and accessible in a variety of situations. We will gather and develop materials, such as video footage, booklets, flipcharts, handouts, informative and engaging educational curriculum--useful items designed for easy distribution. Many of the materials will be made available on the Internet. Needed materials will be provided to cooperating institutions, foundations, and NGOs in countries around the world. All materials will be translated into regional and international languages. The structure of the presentations or seminars will be modified to suit culturally specific situations depending on location. However, the content will be faithful to Khan’s perennial, universal philosophy of peace, compassion, and social work. The purpose of the programs will be firmly rooted in Badshah Khan’s unfailing commitment to nonviolence and social upliftment. He framed his work in the context of his religious beliefs, which confirmed the equality of all human beings. The message of Badshah Khan is vitally relevant to all the inhabitants of today’s fractious, turbulent world. We will emphasize the creation and distribution of school and community-based curriculum for various age groups... in a variety of forms depending on the circumstances. We will also co-create films and children's books that will be translated into languages, such as Sindhi, Balochi, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, French, German, Spanish, English, etc. Other materials will also be developed and translated, such as art books, CDs, videos, etc. This project will focus primarily on the works of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, not his sorrows. Though in his efforts he experienced many trials and tribulations, this program will emphasize his triumphs among his people. Though his repeated incarcerations and torture-- inquisitions by consecutive non-democratic autocratic authorities--will not be ignored, the main focus will be on his message of brotherly love and peace. Program Activities: 1. Formation of a Coordination Committee of participating individuals and organizations that will plan program activities in further detail and prepare a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) giving definition to work-distribution and responsibilities. 2. Identification of places (cities, towns, and villages) in which the events are to be held and resources, organizational persons, and presenters for events, conferences, and/or seminars in different countries. Saleem Shah from the SDPI suggested that “apart from big cities we should have seminars type activities at Red Shirts strongholds like Charsada, Swabi, and Mardan. Such meetings should be presided over by ‘old red shirt activists’. We also need to collect oral history and such occasions are great opportunities to do it.” Saleem Shah also suggested that the events be presented in the Provincially Administrated Tribal Areas (PATA) because the local people “need a lot of education on peace as they were brain washed towards violence during Afghan war”. 3. Collection and preservation of available materials and resources about Baacha Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement, including film footage and video clips, photographic and textual documentation, and ethnographic information. Methods and models will be developed for the proposed seminars, conferences, workshops, and presentations. Basic educational materials will be made available to schools, including CDs, handouts, booklets, videos, classroom activities such as role playing, and other curriculum materials. These will be given to cooperating institutions, foundations, and NGOs in communities cosponsoring the project. The Badshah Khan materials will be translated into local languages-they will be free if cost and accessible. 4. Working with cooperating institutes and foundations in selected places around the world to organize seminars/conferences/meetings emphasizing peace-building and respect for cultural diversity. 5. Preparation (translation and dissemination) of peace literature, based on Baacha Khan’s teachings, in Pashto, Urdu, Sindhi, Balochi, and international languages. 6. Publication of reports on the progress of the project and documents describing the details of the on-going international events. 7. Preparation of Audio/ Video format of program events, where possible. The envisioned project is designed to rediscover, compile, and disseminate the teachings and life's examples of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. It will be universally inspirational--a multi dimensional and far reaching project. It will contain an inherent capacity to create a metamorphosis within individuals and societies. The various components will be designed and distributed as productive, positive dynamic tools to promote, encourage, and teach about methods to achieve and sustain peace, human dignity, and justice. This program contains a spiritual message from the heart of a devout Muslim, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. During his long profoundly productive life he drew from the essential core of his faith a deep and transformative devotion to nonviolent social upliftment, political and personal freedom, responsibility to humanity, justice, and equality. Follow-up workshops and interviews will gauge the results and the impact of these efforts. Intentionally, one of the parallel purposes of this project is to provide an international space there the world of Islam and the Western world can meet in a mutually familiar environment conducive to community cooperation and constructive conversation. Additionally, this effort will serve as a salve to help heal the animosity and violence rampant between certain sects and communities in some Muslim countries. This program has one central mission: To educate the world about Khan's example as a model of service, brotherly love, and human rights--which he wove into a modern, pro-active, multi-dimensional mosaic, intertwined with ancient cultural expressions from his tribal heritage and his Islamic beliefs combined with an integral understanding of democratic principles and human rights. Were it not for the hegemonic and forcefully destructive interventions of the "great powers” who brought communal violence and militarized politics to the region, the teachings of Baacha Khan would be as well known as Mahatma Gandhi’s. That is one of the main missions of the project.... to spread the name and the teachings of Badshah Khan. It will be done in such a way that it will be accepted and respected in the Muslim world and expand the horizons of both critics and apologists all over the planet. Please note that this document is not a proposal for funding. It is intended to create connections and explore possibilities and generate suggestions and strategies. Badshah Khan’s teachings and life’s examples can help the world at this troubled time. Just as the teachings and life of Mahatma Gandhi have helped humanity in recent decades--influencing peace and human rights activists--so too at this critical juncture in world history, the life of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan can help guide humanity towards peace and social responsibility. This planned acknowledgement of Badshah Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar (Red Shirt) Movement, as pioneers of peace, is decades overdue--but it is a big step forward to remember such a great man. We anticipate that people around the world will work together to share and promote his teachings. It is the need of the hour to counter extremists through such positive thinking and action, while also recognizing the brave and unsung heroes of the people. It is true that the most important contribution of Badshah Khan was cultivating the culture of nonviolence and secular ideas in the hearts of Pashtoons, that could otherwise be accomplished only by prophets and saints. Khan’s movement--that is still alive within the ranks of his followers--has several dimensions. Khan was active in launching literary movements, reforming culture, opening schools, publishing literary and political newspapers and journals, involving women and minorities in politics, introducing modern means of politics such as political parties, and the concept of voting to ensure democracy. He was also the pioneer of establishing the first NGO, Tehriki Islahi Afghana (Afghans Reformation Movement), with the basic objective of reforming culture, traditions, and religion. All of these dimensions are related to educating people and promoting harmony, peace, and a civilized society. Through these programs featuring the philosophy of Badshah Khan, many issues of contemporary importance will be explored. "It is only a matter of time before his (Khan's) special light will begin to shine in many corners of the earth. For his contribution to the legacy of nonviolence has special significance today, when so many countries of the Islamic world are torn by violence. Just as Gandhi reminded Indians of their long-forgotten legacy of truth and nonviolence, it has been given to Badshah Khan to perform the same great service for Islam. His life is a perfect mirror of the profound values of love, faith, and selfless service embedded in Islam since its inception. His nonviolent "army of God" stands as a beacon to all Muslims who seek an alternative to the self-destructive violence of our times." Badshah Khan’s life-long commitment to nonviolence, justice, and human dignity must be included in Social Studies classes across the globe--in North America and Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and especially the Subcontinent. Programs will be created to fill niches wherever connections are made with groups committed to hosting programs or disseminating information in their communities. Culturally sensitive curriculum materials of various formats will be made available according the circumstances of the particular program. Khan’s message and teachings, as personified by his life’s efforts, were certainly not intended exclusively for Islamic communities. Khan’s model and methods can lead the planet towards peace and sustainable prosperity and intercommunity harmony. The deeds and life of Badshah Khan are familiar among only a small group of informed people. Even in Pakistan, he is almost unknown and his heroic actions and ethical stance have not been used as positive examples to inspire the people. In the educational system and the popular and state-controlled media, Khan has been portrayed in a negative light for over five decades. Sometimes people in West Punjab and other places in Pakistan complain that “Baccha Khan is inseparably attached with Pakhtun nationalism and notions of Pakhtun supremacy.” He is remembered for his opposition to the Two-Nation Theory and considered to be anti-Pakistani. His contributions to literacy, democracy, and inter-communal harmony are irrelevant to nationalistic Pakistani propaganda. Khan was born is what is now Pakistan and shares the religious faith of the vast majority of the citizens. It is essential that the programs be promoted extensively there--in Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad, Islamabad, Peshawar, and Quetta, as well as smaller cites, such as Multan and Chitral--wherever there is interest, especially in villages where small traveling programs could take his message of peace and brotherly love to far-flung districts. Khan’s ideas can be disseminated universally, finding receptivity. They are appropriate and will be welcomed in the most obscure and remote regions as well as in highly industrialized urban locales. The first military government of Pakistan banned Khan’s organization and confiscated the possessions of his followers. His ideas have been suppressed and shunned since Pakistan’s inception. He has been purposefully excluded from Pakistani textbooks. Paranoia about Pakhtun separatism has somewhat diminished in recent years. Tactfully and assertively, these programs on Abdul Ghaffar Khan must in no way allude to ethnic fissiparousness or the controversial autonomy of Pakhtunkwa. Under the colonial British government, Badshah Khan spent more time in jail than did Mahatma Gandhi. Ironically, Khan spent more time in jail under the military governments of independent Pakistan, than he did under the colonial regime. In both cases, he was imprisoned because he was a advocate of freedom and democracy. Now is the time to honor his philosophy and legacy and spread his ideas of peace and prosperity. In Pakistan these programs will bring Pakhtun (Pashtun/Pathan) narratives into the mainstream of Pakistani historiography and popular culture. This proposal will hopefully find resonance with the current Pakistani leadership that is striving to present a more secular face and at the same time, trying to keep the smaller provinces appeased and loyal. In order for this project to be acceptable to the Pakistani leadership it must be framed as a uniquely Pakistani solution to an international problem. General Musharraf is under pressure from the international community to promote secularism and educate Pakistanis to shun extremism. Ghaffar Khan used the fundamentals of Islam as validation for his philosophy of nonviolence and universalism. In this context, these proposed programs are politically correct in contemporary Pakistan. If promoted appropriately, this effort would be in tandem with Pakistan's present-day international and domestic priorities. Today, the circumstances are ripe that a message of brotherly love and international peace should come from Pakistan’s past to a wider international audience. Khan was a devout Muslim who employed the words and deeds of the Prophet (PBUH) to validate his message of brotherly love, equality, compassion, peace, justice, and service. Badshah Khan explained, "There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed 1,400 years ago by the Prophet all the time when He was in Mecca.” “Badshah Khan was a devout Muslim whose surrender to God was rewarded by a divine wisdom to act rightfully. Khan derived deep inspiration from the Koran and based his life on Prophet Mohammed's universal principles of love (muhabat), service to humanity (amal), and faith (yakeen). His lifelong reform work, the constructive programs, and the nonviolence of the Khudai Khidmatgars can be best understood in light of the underlying Islamic and universal ethics. Khan's nonviolence was spiritual, based on Islam's "Sabr" (tenaciously holding on to a righteous cause without revenge or retaliation) just as Gandhi's nonviolence was based on Hindu principles of Ahimsa and Advaita. Khan's life is also an example of faith-based transformation of two kinds - his own "qutb" or divine analytic wisdom which awakened true faith in him and his reformation of 100,000 belligerent Pushtuns into nonviolent God's servants.” Prasanna Vengadam developed the strategy for the website that promoted the presentation about Khan at the World Parliament of Religions in Barcelona. She emphasized that it is essential to focus on Khan's spirituality, including his ideas about jihad. “Khan's spirituality represents true Islam [….] from the very recent past. The role of Islam in his life, his constructive reform programs grew out of his spiritual development, his unparalleled leadership in nonviolence and the KKs, his ability to reach out and bridge between Sikhs, Christians, and Hindus is a great story to tell. Another aspect to highlight is that, independently of Gandhi, he chose nonviolence. There is a misconception that Gandhi influenced him into nonviolence. That's what is so remarkable of Khan. He was very independent in his spiritual development and didn't subjugate to the teachings of the mosques, but as a true Muslim--only to Allah. He made his own careful interpretations of Islam and when he doubted himself, he did the ‘chilla’ or the fast, for an inner revelatory experience. Then he never doubted himself. It is important to project Khan as a man who exemplified true Islam (submitting one's self to Allah) and a great proponent of peace, versus a token example of nonviolence in the Muslim world.” To initiate the process of planning this project, two foundations in New Delhi, India were consulted, the Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF) and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), both responded favorably. The SDPI (Sustainable Development Policy Institute) in Islamabad, Pakistan is enthusiastic about the project and has offered valuable suggestions. Scholars and leaders and activists in the West who have been contacted, are keenly interested in helping to promote and organize this project. At this initial stage we must communicate with organizations and foundations in South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, East Asia, and the western hemisphere --to share ideas about this project, and importantly, to determine interest. After establishing connections, the core project will provide materials and ideas to support efforts to hold Badshah Khan events wherever there is an interest and commitment. (Please send suggestions and references.) The Baacha Khan Trust in Peshawar, as well as many Pashtuns in the NWFP, are supportive of these plans to hold seminars on Badshah Khan. Abdul Ghaffar Khan is the antithesis of the dreaded Taliban, who were also Pakhtuns. These programs will promote Badshah Khan's ideas as positive, proactive alternatives to extremism. This effort will highlight the progressive and democratic and spiritually dynamic aspect of the unflagging determinism of the Khudai Khidmatgars, a formidable group of heroes and heroines whose bravery and ideals have largely been ignored not only in Pakistan, but in the history of the world. This discussion document is designed to make contact with organizations who can offer expertise and support. This pervasive and persuasive proposal about Badshah Khan, an idea whose time has come, will highlight the philosophy of a devote Muslim, who drew from Islam's sacred scriptures to support his path of nonviolence and humanitarianism. To help guide the project, the following questions were developed by Mr. M. Raza in Peshawar. Please contribute your suggestions and strategies or additional questions. While developing this project we will use a methodology that engages and investigates the following guidelines, some of which are discussed below: 1. VISION: What is the vision of promoting the teachings and ideas of Baacha Khan? 2. GOALS: What are the ultimate goals of the project? 3. OBJECTIVES: What are the specific objectives that the project intends to achieve? 4. ACTIVITIES: What is the list of activities corresponding to each objective in the project? 5. METHODOLOGY: How are we going to achieve the goals and objectives? 6. BENCHMARKS: How we measure our success in achieving the objectives? 7. TIMELINE: What is the time line for each activity and the whole project? 8. MONITORING and EVALUATION: How are we going to evaluate our success and achievements? 9. IMPACTS: What this project is going to achieve in the long and short run and who are the beneficiaries? 10. PARTNERS: Interested partners will reach an MoU for executing the project. 11. ASSUMPTIONS: What are the assumptions up on which this project is planned? 12. BUDGET: What are the total costs and prospective donors? Anticipated Results-- The programme is expected to: 1. Strengthen the peace process in the Indian, Pakistani, and Afghani region. 2. Revive the message of a non-violent Muslim reformer--a bridge between the Muslims and the West. 3. Add to peace assets of humanity, strengthen peace efforts of peace organizations around the world. 4. Change the militant outlook of significant numbers of the population and establish Baacha Khan as a symbol of non-violent struggle for achieving political ends and socio-economic development. 5. Reactivate and rejuvenate the moderate and liberal forces in South Asia and the world to effectively and peacefully counter the forces that consider war as the ultimate recourse for achieving political ends. Assumptions-- The program is based on the following assumptions: 1. Interested participants will provide financial, logistical, and intellectual support for the project(s). 2. Resource persons, once contacted and recruited, will be available for coordinating specific activities. 3. The governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, and other nations in the world, will be supportive to allow movements of presenters/ resource persons without hindrance or delay. 4. Material/ resources about Baacha Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgars - textual, audio-visual and oral materials - are scattered in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India --these will be collected and compiled. Time Action-- The programme is scheduled for one year, starting from the date of funding; however, depending upon the availability of funds, it can be further expanded to establish ‘Baacha Khan Peace Centers’ in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other regions of the world. (Timeline for each activity will be determined after the collaborations are established and the programs are in the planning phase.) Ideally, the first event will be held in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on January 20, 2006, this commemorative event at Khan’s gravesite on the anniversary of his passing, will symbolically launch the series of international programs. Budget-- Approximate budget for the program will be created after the components of the project are identified and detailed. The budgets will be submitted at that time. Suggested Methods to Overcome Hurdles in Producing Badshah Khan Programs in Pakistan: “Abdul Ghaffar Khan is not a respected name for many Pakistanis outside of his home province. The level of hatred and contempt for Khan among elder generations, who heard little but sensationalized propaganda about him from despotic rulers, is significant. To an outsider, it may seem surprising that a man and an entire movement who fought bravely and truthfully could be so successfully demonized. However, this kind of aggressive ignorance towards good people who profoundly challenge society is not found only in Pakistan. ‘Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it,’ advises a traditional Arabic saying. These are fighting words, appreciated by anyone who engages in the struggle to make our world a more peaceful place in which to live.” These international seminars, conferences, and teach-ins on Badshah Khan will undoubtedly elicit positive responses, especially in India and the West. However, there are some questions concerning the viability of presenting these conferences in Pakistan. There are serious reservations that must be considered when advancing this proposal in the Pakistani context. In this capacity, we must address some realities that are not encouraging. Khan is lovingly known as 'Frontier Gandhi' in India, and is respected and revered in India and elsewhere. But when implementing these conferences in Pakistan, we must consider how he is perceived by the authorities, especially in Punjab. Khan is deeply respected by the secular democrats in NWFP, but not by everyone. Outside NWFP, Abdul Ghaffar Khan is more often seen as a person who opposed the idea of Pakistan and actively fought against it. Even after independence, Khan nonviolently defied the autocratic nature of the Pakistani state and was repeatedly jailed. He spent many of his last years in exile in Afghanistan. If created and promoted in an appropriate manner in Pakistan, this idea could be extremely welcome. We will consult with possible conference organizers and sponsors in Pakistan, to determine how the state is likely to respond to the proposal. One route to overcoming possible opposition to the program is to emphasize that Khan used examples from the Qu’ran to explain his ideas and strategies. He profoundly believed that nonviolence was integral to the teachings of Mohammad. It is important to note, in the context of the possible outcome of this program, that Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s effort to promote nonviolence among the hill tribes was highly challenging. It was suggested that in Pakistan, these proposed conferences on Abdul Ghaffar Khan could be presented in the context of a broader program that expounds the ideals of the democratic and secular leaders from the early days of Pakistan. This would include M.A. Jinnah, who is respected all over Pakistan, and especially revered in Punjab. He stood for a secular and democratic state--a modern and forward looking Pakistani state, with religion playing a subsidiary role. Placing the programs about Badshah Khan in the context of the history of Pakistan’s moderate period, would facilitate getting clearance from the current Pakistani establishment. Among Pakistani hardliners, Abdul Ghaffar Khan certainly raises many eyebrows and conservatives would ask, why this interest in him now? This may be especially true considering the recent, but localize unrest in NWFP in late 2004. The Pakistani editions of the proposals must be creatively and cautiously designed so as not raise the suspicion of the “agencies”. Though these above cited objections may be controversial, they are important to consider in order to move this proposal further, particularly regarding it acceptance among Pakistani authorities. Funding: After we develop this preliminary proposal, we will apply for funds from international foundations in Europe and the Middle East, and in the USA, including but not limited to the US Institute for Peace (USIP) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and The Open Society Institute (OSI). At this stage, we seek collaborators who will visualize programs and models that can be implemented to spread Khan’s message widely. Program planners and coordinators will need to seek local funding to support these activities in various locations throughout the world. The organizers will create posters and cards to highlight Khan’s life and sayings, pamphlets, booklets, CDs, video clips, skits and plays will be created for the project… the creativity will carry this effort forward. Informational, educational, literary, and artistic materials will be made available free of cost where possible -simply to “get out the word”. Badshah Khan’s philosophy offers viable peaceful alternatives--practical solutions for the volatility and hostility that often characterize today’s international relations. This proposed series of international events will focus on Badshah Khan’s nonviolent, proactive, socially involved, democratic, and spiritually dynamic indefatigable life’s purpose. The formats of the programs will vary from place to place and may include seminars, presentations, workshops, lectures, videos, dramatic performances, conferences, school curricula, writing or art exhibitions, and teach-ins at mosques, churches, schools, or community centers. "My religion is truth, love and service to God and humanity. Every religion that has come into the world has brought the message of love and brotherhood. Those who are indifferent to the welfare of their fellowmen, whose hearts are empty of love, they do not know the meaning of religion." --Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan The 9/11 tragedy in the United States and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have, in the apparent views of the antagonists, vindicated theories of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’. The established mind-set among the powerful on both sides of the political/cultural divide between the Western world (particularly the USA) and the world of Islam exalts violence as the ultimate means to settle disputes. This development has created a perception among the general public in the Muslim world that the US is bent to humiliate and defeat Islamic centers of power. Hence the assumption that the only response to such an effort is to resist the perceived threat by violent means - promoting the call to Jihad. The support in the ‘war against terrorism’ offered to the United States by several undemocratic nations in the Muslim world notwithstanding, the militant groups and organizations receive sympathies and support from these regimes and a large segment of the Muslim population are sympathetic to the jihadis. In dire contrast, the anti-war, peace-loving, pro-democracy forces [of Pakistan] have been marginalized and disempowered. Regardless of the lack of international support, they continue their efforts to create an environment that supports dialogue and enhances understanding between nations and among cultural groups. There is a legacy of mistrust and violence that has plagued the region comprising Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. Pakistan and India have been at logger heads since independence from the British in 1947. The two countries have fought four open wars and many proxy wars in each others’ countries. South Asia, host to a billion human beings, is beset by a population explosion, extreme poverty, and low Human Development Indices. Added to this scenario is the fact that a huge portion of their national resources are poured into non-development, military sectors. Similarly, the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have remained strained since Pakistan’s inception. This led the two countries to fall in the big powers’ rivalries, as pawns for countering hostile moves in the Cold War. The recent flowering of democracy in Afghanistan is a powerful inspiration for other nations in the region. More than two decades of violence in Afghanistan: first, the CIA-ISI supported Mujahideen fighting the USSR, then the protracted era of rivalries and brutality between contesting war lords, followed by the cruel intolerance of the Taliban, gave birth to a culture of violence among the peoples of Afghanistan, the bordering North-West Frontier Province, and the Balochistan region of Pakistan. Violence has been sanctified through the misuse of Jihadi concepts. The Afghan Jihad left a legacy of drugs, guns, and violence in northwestern South Asia, which still poses a potent threat to regional and global peace. The two-decades long Jihadi indoctrination of the youth of Pakistan has seriously undermined efforts of the moderate, progressive, and secular forces to maintain the social equilibrium and promote peace in the society. The conservative, fundamentalist approach was in part inspired by the curriculum project by the University of Nebraska that promoted militarized Jihad. During the past few years a reconciliation process has been going on in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. Significant steps have been taken to ease the tensions between the two nuclear rivals. The first initiative was the establishment of the Delhi-Lahore bus service in 1999. Among many recent initiatives, in December 2004 the Chief Minister of West Punjab, Parvaiz Elahi, visited East Punjab to attend the World Punjabi Conference. Groups of journalists traveled across the border to promote the “movement of people”. The Pakistan High Commissioner in Delhi, Aziz Ahmed Khan attended the programme in East Punjab, along with the West Punjabi Chief Secretary, Kamran Rasool. The event focused on education: Mr. Elahi helped to lay the foundation stone of the World Punjabi Centre at Punjab University. Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan, under pressure from the international community, have taken a new turn. There are signs the two countries may coexist in peace in the future. There are initiatives to create a trade route between Afghanistan and India across Pakistan. Afghanistan has requested the government of Pakistan to permit a trade route, which would allow access to Indian commodities. These negotiations will hopefully lead to the opening of trade and more congenial relations between Pakistan and India. In the 1980s and 90s, violence prone Jihadi organizations received huge institutional, financial, and moral support from internal and external sources. Contrarily, moderate and peace-loving people have been without a well-funded forum or international support to promote peace and non-violence in the region. Fortunately, at this juncture, Pakistan has a unique opportunity in the form of Baacha Khan to build a durable peace with India and Afghanistan, given the high degree of respect that Baacha Khan receives in both nations. The model of his life and his philosophy offer grounded and relevant examples to cultivate peace and prosperity. Through this initiative Pakistan can show a face of humanitarian universalism to the world. Baacha Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgar Movement -- a non-violent reformist anti-colonial organization - was an ally of the Indian National Congress before partition. In his personal capacity, Baacha Khan was a close associate of Gandhi-ji, which makes Baacha Khan an even more revered figure in the eyes of the Indian masses. Baacha Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar’s place in the history of the anti-colonial freedom movement is based more on their immense sacrifices rather than simply their association with Gandhi. In view of his tremendous struggle and personal ordeals for freedom, Baacha Khan was awarded the Bharat Ratna, the highest Indian civil award. Similarly, in Afghanistan Baacha Khan is still considered a non-controversial and highly respected figure, both at the government and public levels. In Afghanistan the people conferred on Abdul Ghaffar Khan “Fakhr-e-Afghan” (The Pride of Afghan).“ The following questions were developed by Mr. M. Raza in Peshawar to help guide the project. Please contribute your suggestions and strategies or additional questions. 1. VISION: What is the vision of promoting the teachings and ideas of Baacha Khan? 2. GOALS: What are the ultimate goals of the project? 3. OBJECTIVES: What are the specific objectives that the project intends to achieve? 4. ACTIVITIES: What is the list of activities corresponding to each objective in the project? 5. METHODOLOGY: How are we going to achieve the goals and objectives? 6. BENCHMARKS: How we measure our success in achieving the objectives? 7. TIMELINE: What is the time line for each activity and the whole project. 8. MONITORING & EVALUATION: How will we evaluate our achievements? 9. IMPACTS: What this project is going to achieve in the long and short run and who are the beneficiaries? 10. PARTNERS: Who are interested partners and what is the method of reaching an MoU for executing the project. 11. ASSUMPTIONS: What are the assumptions up on which this project is planned? 12. BUDGET: What are the total costs and prospective donors. Please send “brainstorming” or inspirational ideas in response to the above guideposts and this preliminary proposal to: . Foundations, institutions, or organizations committed to the process of hosting a program on the legacy of Badshah Khan, please send your contact information and your vision. The Baacha Khan Trust in Peshawar has for many years recognized the need for a movement such as this. In 2004, they developed a proposal for a “Year if Peace” (copied below). Interest in Badshah Khan is international and certainly predates these current efforts. Please see the following related proposal from the Baacha Khan Trust in Peshawar, Pakistan: “The Baacha Khan Trust is a not-for-profit, non-government organization working for socio-economic development, peace building and promotion of human rights in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The legacy of the Trust provides a strong foundation for marking 2004 a ‘Year of Peace’ in the region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is faced with momentous challenges in terms of peace and stability. “The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan resulted in more than two-decade old war, promoting a culture of war; proliferation of sophisticated weapons in private possession; drugs and religious extremism. Pakistani society in general and the Northwestern Pakistani region in particular saw the negative impacts of the war in Afghanistan. The Afghan war and drug money strengthened extremist religious groups, which acted as non-state actors promoting a myopic foreign policy agenda of certain states in the region. Although, this extremist course of action resulted in tragic consequences for many innocent people yet the forces of extremism are not ready even now to abandon the extremist course. “In this scenario, Baacha Khan Trust plans to mark the year 2005 as a ‘year of peace’ in the Pakistan and Afghanistan region, which shall have significant impacts on changing the public perception about extremism, stressing the importance of peace and non-violence in conflict resolution and tolerating diverse viewpoints in a democratic spirit. More significantly, it will discourage state and non-state actors who use war, terrorism and extremism as a tool to achieve political objectives. “Baacha Khan Trust would hold a series of seminars and conferences comprising of distinguished personalities, intelligentsia, and opinion leaders working for peace, democracy and human rights in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The ‘2005 - A Year of Peace’ project would streamline and institutionalize the peace building aspirations and efforts of the peace-loving masses and peace activists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The project activities would culminate in an international conference on the ‘ Relevance of Baacha Khan’s Philosophy of Non-violence in the 21st Century’ to be held in Peshawar.” --end of Baacha Khan Trust “2004 Year of Peace” proposal- Partial Bibliography: Ahmad, Eqbal. Confronting Empire: Interviews with David Barsamian. South End Press, 2000. Banerjee, Mukulika. The Pathan Unarmed, Oxford University Press 1996. Bakshi, S. R. Abdul Ghaffar Khan: The Frontier Gandhi (Indian Freedom Fighters Series, 27) Oxford University Press, 1994. Cerrina, Jean Akhtar. Abdul Ghaffar Khan, (for young readers) XLIBRIS CORPORATION, 2003. Eknath, Easwaran. Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains. Petaluma: Nilgiri Press, 2000. Gandhi, Rajmohan. Ghaffar Khan - Nonviolent Badshah of the Pakhtuns, New Delhi, Penguin/Viking, 2004. Hussain, S. Iftikhar. Some Major Pukhtoon Tribes Along the Pak-Afghan Border. Area Study Center Peshawar and Hanns Seidel Foundation, Univ. of Peshawar, 2000. Khan, Abdul Ghaffar. My Life and Struggle. Delhi: Hind Pocket Books, 1969. Khan, Abdul Ghaffar. Khudai Khidmatgar and National Movement: Momentous Speeches of Badshah Khan, S.S. Publishers, 1992. Korejo, M.S. The Frontier Gandhi: His Place in History, Karachi, OUP, 1993. Meyer, Karl E. “The Peacemaker of the Pashtun Past”, New York Times, Dec 7, 2001. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan: A Centennial Tribute, Har-Anand Publications (ISBN: 8124101701), 1995. Pyarelal. A Pilgrimage for Peace: Gandhi and Frontier Gandhi among N. W. F. Pathans, Ahmedabad, Navajivan Publishing House, 1950 Radhakrishnan, N. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan: The Apostle of Nonviolence (Champions of nonviolence), Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, New Delhi, 1998. Ramu, P. S. Badshah Khan: Indo-Pakistan Relations (Foreword By Sadiq Ali) (ISBN:8185396043) S S Publishers, 1991 Shah, Sayed Wiqar Ali. Ethnicity, Islam and Nationalism: Muslim Politics in the North- West Frontier Province 1937-1947. Islamabad: Oxford University Press, 1999. Tendulkar, Dinanath Gopal. Abdul Ghaffar Khan: Faith is a Battle, Gandhi Peace Foundation, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, India, 1967. Woolston, Heather. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Badshah Khan) www.peacemakersguide.org/articles/peacemakers/Badshah-Khan.htm Zutshi, G. L. Frontier Gandhi: The fighter, the politician, the saint, National Publishing House, Delhi: 1970 Historical notations: Excerpted from: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1268431 In 1929, [Khan] helped found the Khudai Khidmatgar movement (which eventually had numbers estimated as high as 100,000). The movement (meaning "servants of God") was a populist-nationalist movement that encompassed his ideas of social reform, unity, independence, and nonviolence. Members (who wore red garments-hence the other name for the group: the "red shirts") were organized not unlike an army, with leaders and subgroups and training (for organizational purposes, not as imposed hierarchical structures)-only this was an army of unarmed men-and women, something unheard of at the time. Besides giving up all one's weapons, each member had to take an oath that, among other things, swore to serve mankind in the name of God, reject any means of violence, and dedicate at least two hours each day for social work. Equality of all people under God (it was a religious-based movement, as he felt it had a basis in the Qu'ran and the life of the Prophet), including non-Muslims and women and children, was an important part of the movement. From: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1268431 While Gandhi's movement espoused nonviolence and civil disobedience as policy and as a means to overcome oppression, the nonviolence of Ghaffar Khan's movement was far more at the core of the belief system. While others in the greater movement for the independence accepted the possibility that violence and even an army would be needed (at least in the future), the Khudai Khidmatgar denied any justification for the use of force. The nonviolence he advocated was a matter of deep religious faith that this was the way to live one's life. He said it "affects all our life, and only that has permanent value" and the movement must "be what our name implies-servants of God and humanity-by laying down our own lives and never taking any life" (www.wcfia.harvard.edu). From: Reclaiming the Great Khan for History by Dennis Myers, March 8, 2002 SPARKS TRIBUNE "That the Pathans with their brutal culture could so easily adapt to nonviolence - and succeed at it! - mystified Ghaffar Khan himself. "I started teaching the Pathans nonviolence only a short time ago," he told Gandhi. "Yet in comparison the Pathans seem to have learned this lesson and grasped the idea of nonviolence much quicker and much better than the Indians...How do you explain that?" Gandhi responded, "Nonviolence is not for cowards. It is for the brave, the courageous... "The Pathans’ territorial gains were lost in negotiation - India was partitioned and Pakistan created. In the ensuing years, though he lived until 1988, Ghaffar Khan vanished from view, expunged from the history he did so much to make. "[I]t all seemed written on water," his biographer Eknath Easwaran wrote of the way this magnificent story was erased from our planet’s history. Gandhi and King are remembered; Ghaffar is forgotten. Since the beginning of the Afghan war (the Pathan region straddles the Pakistan/Afghan border), in spite of Ghaffar’s direct relevance to present events, I have seen only one mention of him in U.S. journalism, a New York Times essay by Karl Meyer - and it referred to Ghaffar as a pacifist. Even in Pakistan, Ghaffar’s role in national history has been diminished and trivialized. "As Timothy Flinders wrote in the after word to Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, a biography of Ghaffar Khan, 'True nonviolence did not issue from weakness but from strength.' It was a matter of the powerful voluntarily withholding their power in a conflict, choosing to suffer for the sake of a principle rather than inflict suffering - even though they could. The obliteration of Ghaffar Khan from history has two consequences. Those of us in the west are robbed of a history that would conquer our stereotypical view of Islam. And the heroic example of Ghaffar Khan could have given Muslims an alternative to those leaders who appealed to their worst instincts." >From the “The Milli Gazette”: By Damon Lynch Two Islamic Soldiers When Khan was talking of people whose hearts are empty of love, he was signifying something more than an intellectual or rational struggle. These are absolutely necessary, of course. However, he was talking of a demanding spiritual struggle, of taming forces that can overwhelm us with their intensity: burning anger, seething resentment, and jealous hatred, just to name a few. "It is my inmost conviction that Islam is amal, yakeen, muhabbat [work, faith, and love] and without these the name Muslim is sounding brass and tinkling cymbal," Khan said. He would have fully agreed with the Buddha's statement, "Hatred can never put an end to hatred. Love alone can." To talk of love in a time of war may seem preposterous and hopelessly idealistic, but this is what Khan and others like him did during their lives, and they were on the front lines. They did this not as part of a post-war reconciliation process, but in the thick of devastating conflict. They went through tremendous suffering fighting tyranny, and despite this they never clamored for revenge. Instead, they called on us to undertake a war within the mind, so that our highest aspirations will be better reflected in our daily realities. Spirituality itself is nothing other than the interplay between humanity's very highest aspirations and the demands of daily living. With it is an awareness of a dialogue that takes place deep within our minds, urging us to make wise choices, based not on often-tempting short-term satisfaction, but lasting goodness. To be spiritual is to reflect these aspirations in one's thought and actions, very often an arduous and sometimes thrilling undertaking. Spiritual people engage in this noble duty with a sense of purpose; often failing, they pick themselves up after their inevitable mistakes, and encourage others to do the same by their own example. Spirituality is why Gandhi said to a world focused primarily on the external, "Turn the searchlight inwards." Reforming and Revolutionizing Religion Religion is the social manifestation of spirituality, the attempt to take the lessons of spiritual traditions and give them institutional status. People are not equal in their spiritual inclinations. We learn from others by example. Spiritual truths, by their very nature, are difficult to communicate. When spirituality is institutionalized into a system of religious thought, and when structures are erected to promote that thought, the very essence of that thought is often lost. Lessons are codified into rules, experiential discoveries transformed into hardened declarations of fact, and questioning and innovation is replaced by a mass of customs and institutions. Religion may have spirituality for its heart, but all too often creeds and dogmas have been its clenched fist. Throughout history religion has been used to fervently justify staggering levels of violence and social decay. It may often seem that religion is doomed to perpetual failure, trafficking mystery posed as unchallengeable fact, rationalizing authoritarianism, and at best acting as a battered ambulance for the wounded and distressed. Perhaps Tagore had this in mind when he continued his discussion on crowd psychology by saying, "Therefore I do not put my faith in any new institution, but in the individuals all over the world who think clearly, feel nobly, and act rightly, thus becoming the channels of moral truth. Our moral ideas do not work with chisels and hammers. Like trees, they spread their roots in the soil and their branches in the sky, without consulting any architect for their plans." For religious believers, Tagore's observations, however accurate they might be, are not an excuse to give up the fight to make their religious institutions relevant to contemporary needs. Without significant structural reform and changes of focus, religious institutions will continue, by and large, to pose a threat to genuine peace. Their spiritual basis must be manifested in their institutional outlook. Religious institutions should be participatory, where members and formal representatives are partners in exploring their inner and outer worlds together--all interested parties right there on the edge, participating and learning from one another. The great ambassador of the unity of religions, Swami Vivekananda, made the point powerfully: "[Y]ou must remember that freedom is the first condition of growth. What you do not make free, will never grow. The idea that you can make others grow and help their growth, that you can direct and guide them, always retaining for yourself the freedom of the teacher, is nonsense, a dangerous lie which has retarded the growth of millions and millions of human beings in this world. Let men have the light of liberty. That is the only condition of growth." For skeptics of religion, the Khudai Khidmatgars are not evidence justifying religion. They can point out, truthfully, that just as religious believers hold fast to wildly diverse opinions on violence and nonviolence, so do the nonreligious. They can argue that religion is not necessary to practice nonviolence. Yet skeptics must acknowledge that religion was not some kind of optional attachment for potent nonviolent movements like the Khudai Khidmatgars; it was integral. When religion identifies, names and connects forces within the mind and society that contribute to peace and justice, it can be an empowering moral force. Skeptics as well as believers can learn from the universal spiritual insights these nonviolent movements and their religions have to offer, even as they discard the rituals, ceremonials, dogmas and creeds. The Task Ahead Abdul Ghaffar Khan is not a respected name for many Pakistanis outside of his home province. The level of hatred and contempt for Khan among elder generations, who heard little but sensationalized propaganda about him from despotic rulers, is significant. To an outsider, it may seem surprising that a man and an entire movement who fought bravely and truthfully could be so successfully demonized. However, this kind of aggressive ignorance towards good people who profoundly challenge society is not found only in Pakistan. "Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it," advises a traditional Arabic saying. These are fighting words, appreciated by anyone who engages in the struggle to make our world a more peaceful place in which to live. Stakes at the moment are high indeed. Millions of Afghans are on the brink of starvation, and many are surely dying, an entirely avoidable tragedy. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and while its current leadership is not extreme, it is not inconceivable that extremists could seize power, and decide that they ought to give Americans a dose of their own nuclear medicine. Likewise, there are sure to be many in the Islamic world who fear the use of nuclear weapons by either side. "The present-day world can only survive the mass production of nuclear weapons through nonviolence," Khan said not long before his death. "The world needs Gandhi's message of love and peace more today than it ever did before, if it does not want to wipe out civilization and humanity itself from the earth's surface." Abdul Ghaffar Khan, affectionately called Baacha Khan or Badshah Khan, Frontier Gandhi and Fakhr-e-Afghan (The Pride of Afghans), struggled for freedom and human dignity with non-violent means, against British domination and later against Pakistani dictators. He spent 33 years of his life in prisons and in exile for the cause of liberty. **** Tenzin Rigzin Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies Sarnath, Varanasi - 221 007. India. Fax:0542-2585150 Phone (resi): +919839115353 www.smith.edu/cihts **** -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From radiofreealtair at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 11:21:26 2005 From: radiofreealtair at gmail.com (Anand Vivek Taneja) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:21:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: cessation of cellphone services to/from India to/from Pakistan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8178da99050317215120894f21@mail.gmail.com> seems like the indian government is getting jittery about three thousand plus pakistanis in india.... as this mail from a friend indicates. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rinku Dutta Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 10:54:52 +0530 Subject: cessation of cellphone services to/from India to/from Pakistan To: rinmad at gmail.com While cricket 'bhaichara' is on and Musharraf's family make nostalgic reconnections with their old home in Naharwali Haveli inside the Walled City of Delhi, and the Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh walked back to the Indian side of the border at Wagah in tow with 23 of the 83 Indian prisoners whose release from Pakistani jails he had secured after his bichhrey-bhai talks with Musharraf, Hutch and other cellular networks in India have taken off sms, calling and roaming services to Pakistan. I had been having trouble receiving and sending smses from Pk since Feb 24th. Had registered a complaint with Hutch (my cell phone service) earlier. Checked with them today morning and was given this news. Orwellian Double-speak or what? - -- "Conscience is, in most, an anticipation of the opinion of others." ~Sir Henry Taylor - -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. http://www.synchroni-cities.blogspot.com/ From amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in Fri Mar 18 12:26:35 2005 From: amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in (AMIT BASU) Date: 17 Mar 2005 22:56:35 PST Subject: [Reader-list] Please help me update my address book on Ringo Message-ID: <20050318065635.7A6143AD98@ringotouch2.ringo.com> Hi I'm updating my address book. Please click on the link below and enter your contact info for me: http://ringo.com/i?uid=scNZ4ajsUIFPBkJ2& I'm using a new, free service where I put in my contact info for you, you put in your contact info for me, and everyone stays up to date automatically. It's surprisingly easy and useful. Thanks for your help. Amit From monica at sarai.net Fri Mar 18 21:37:26 2005 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 21:37:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] list etiquette Message-ID: Dear all I would really suggest that before you 'send to all' in your address book update on various platforms, you remove the reader-list from the list of recipients. As someone pointed out recently, there is the question of privacy if you go and join the platform, but more specifically, these kinds of mails can become an irritant for many people on a non-moderated discussion list. best M -- Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From hilalbhatt at yahoo.co.in Sat Mar 19 12:53:40 2005 From: hilalbhatt at yahoo.co.in (Hilal Bhat) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 07:23:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] Psychiatrists advocate faith-healing when trauma increases Message-ID: <20050319072340.98697.qmail@web8410.mail.in.yahoo.com> Psychiatrists advocate faith-healing when magnitude of mental trauma increase Hilal Bhat Sarai Fellow srinagar (Kashmir) My recent filed visits to various shrines of Srinagar in pursuance of the Sarai fellowship brought to fore the fact that majority of devotees are forced to take refuge at a shrine in response to physical, social and emotional needs. The in-depth interaction with the people also proved the earlier assertions that the profile of the devotees cuts across the socio-economic strata. It also showed how overcrowding at the Government psychiatric hospital and the stigmatization of consulting a psychiatrist in a relatively conservative milieu like Kashmir steers people clear of the modernistic coping mechanisms. Rahmti, a middle aged woman from down-town Srinagar comes to the shrine of Mukhdum Sahab every thursday. “In 1996,” she says, “My son suddenly disappeared when he went to market to collect some household items. I got the clue that he was picked up by security personnel and visited almost every battalion headquarter only to be referred to other places.” Rahmti even approached state High Court and many state officers and politicians but nothing could be ascertained about the whereabouts of her youthful son. The conflict in Kashmir has brought home twelve thousand such human disappearances. Most of the families of these disappeared persons have lost faith in the state machinery after knocking doors of the authorities for many years. In absence of justice such people form major chunk of the devotees at various shrines whereby they seek the help of Pir (saint) in dealing with their personal trauma as also to supplicate the saint in facilitating the return of their lost members of the family. Many devotees at Makdum Sahab narrated the tragedies of life more or less similar to that of Rahmti. None of 21 devotees I interviewed visited the shrines for the reasons which are not related to the conflict. Enforced disappearances, widowhood, half-widowhood, routine gun battles, civilian causalities and myriad manifestations of the protracted low intensity conflict are the major sites where the mental and social trauma is produced. This is what makes the valley fertile for mental sickness of different magnitude. In the wake of pervasive distrust, exhibited by the Kashmiris in general the support within the modern practices of psychiatry is inadequate. “Over the fifteen years every kashmiri has become mentally sick,” says a prominent psychiatrist form Government Psychiatric Hospital, Srinagar. The number of patients reporting at OPD of Government Psychiatric hospital was six in 1990 and today the figures range 300-350 per day. The statistics speaks about the magnitude of the collective trauma, Kashmir continues to witness in the wake of ongoing war. The influx of aid workers of diverse vision are looked upon with doubtful eyes. “Such programs are culturally alien and the mental health needs of Kashmir are being met by traditional spiritual practice,” says Shobna Sonpar, Consultant IIT, Delhi. Due to the centuries’ old established practice of visiting a shrine for different reasons, the distrust assumes yet greater importance when it comes of combating the stress related situation within the modernistic perspective. Going to a shrine is acceptable to the society but not going to the Psychiatrist. Even the Prominent Psychiatrists like Dr Mushtaq Marghoob advocate involving faith healers in fighting the psychiatric morbidity which largely emanates from insecurity of life in Kashmir. The colossal destruction of Kashmir mindscape can be gauged from. such assertions. When the modern psychiatric practitioners advocate what is actually unacceptable to their perspective of healing the mental trauma, it significantly means a lot ! Rgds Hilal Bhat Sarai Fellow (Srinagar Kashmir) ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony From prayas.abhinav at gmail.com Sat Mar 19 13:57:20 2005 From: prayas.abhinav at gmail.com (Prayas Abhinav) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:57:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] advertising - selling fear, uncertainity and doubt == posting 3 Message-ID: <423BE268.1010803@gmail.com> Hi all, Am posting some of my notes and summaries of reference material filed at my blog - http://www.prayasabhinav.net/blog/index.php?cat=3. Research: "Publicity, promises and the public space" hope you find it interesting ! regards, prayas <<>> [[Statements]] * < advertising is a product >: advertising is creative. it employs creative teams. in a way the “art” which is advertised is a seperate entity. It is a seperate product which has its own language, its own aesthetic, its own message. Its creators are seperate from the creators of the product which they try to sell. this simple / obvious observation can speak a lot about the process / direction which the growth of advertising has taken. the process through which it has come to take on the its present role. small retailers and producers publicizing their shops and producers to attract people, with the hope that some of them might become customers. small producers / retailers establishing niches by the personal relationship / rapport they have been able to develp. that is the business model. [ref: Richard Tedlow, The Reader’s Companion to American History] small retailers / producers have grown – become big companies, having to sell in situations / locales with which they have no connection, no roots. having a compulsion of reducing the creative process of selling to a bland and uniform means of mass-subjugation. this compulsion becoming more pronounced as money from the market is invested in the company (maybe) and the market has been conveniently misunderstood to be a cold / ruthless / mean / selfish entity in which there is no place for individuality, inconsistency, smallness, amicability etc. the market has successfully been misinteprated as a professional and commercial “forum” – in which people participate only for selfish ends. and so enters the professional advertising agency. an agency which manufactures make-believe roles, personalities and identities for routine products and services. if a product does not do well, the agency changes—not the quality / etc. the professional advertising agency uses well-studied tools of mass persuasion. The “tools / methods of persuasion” are used quite uniformly to sell / get support / get to vote. persuasion can be broadly referred to as – “the process of convincing someone to believe or act on something.” [ref: Wikipedia: Persuasion] The methods used to persuade, can be classified as appeals to reasons, appeals to logic, scientific-logic, proof. Persuasion by creating psychological pressure / sociocultural pressure is also common. The use of fear, respect, rivalry, competition, aspiration, elitism etc. are very widespread. [ref: Theories of Mass Communication, M. Fleur & Sandra Ball] advertising has the enviable position in mass media genres in which it has a generally accepted / publicly acknowledged role of persuading us to buy, consume, to behave / act in the way we are sought to. and living in a highly consumerist times – this seems to be very valid, moral and aggreable. So we will participate in competions by cola companies and detergent companies which are direct brand building exercises and border on being silly and ridiculous. in advertising there has been a gradual transition from being a mere publicity medium to becoming a persuasive, coercive and manipulative medium. and these are the same words the industry uses to talk about the ad campaigns it makes. [see: agencyfaqs.com] * < more on persuasion >: to build-upon, I would say that advertising is a "license" to persuade. it is a license to convert strangers into customers. the customer is paying and consuming for being treated better than others. when this doesn’t happen – we have consumer protection and efforts / consumer courts. persuasion is licensed and apreciated when the delivery of promises happens in a timely. I am more likely to be persuaded more easily by agents who persuaded me meaningfully before. costumer loyalty and costumer loyalty programmes. subliminal advertising just talks about messages communicated under the cover and guise of other communication. what about the promises made in advertising, promises which are value judgements, doubly corroborated by the market, media and pop culture. the promise of routes / ways to happiness, carreer fulfillment, domestic politics, notions of "independence", "security", "cool". media, pop culture and the market creates trends by lucky / manipulative sociocultural insights. advertising cashes in on it. brothers in arms ? burglars in arms ? actually most of the anti-advertising campaigns – either led by adbusters or other groups have made unscrupolous persuasion [bad production standards, globalization, lies, selling to kids…] and the extraordinary power which they seem to have. it might partially explain why even public sector ads, political ads and social sector / charity ads are created by advertising agencies today. "they know the language" "they know what it takes to make you sit up and take notice" "they will sell you the idea" so public communications is now flat-shaded / anxiety-struck cautious field in which noone experiments with new voices / new approches, new tones. in our minds there are no identities. no differenctiation, no understanding of who says what. we just know that everyone is telling is to buy a lot. whether or not we have the money. / -------------------------------------------------------------------------| Methods of persuasion [ref: Wikipedia, persuasion] By appeal to reason: * Argument (especially logical argument) * Logic * Scientific method * Proof By appeal to sentiments / emotion: * Faith * Presentation and Imagination * Rhetoric * Seduction * Tradition Other techiques, which may or may not work: * Hype * Hypnosis * Subliminal advertising * Power (sociology) Methods of immoral persuasion: Some of the foregoing techniques can even be used in an immoral or coercive way in order to convince someone to believe something or to act in a particular way. In addition, one might employ:b * Coercive persuasion * Deception * Exaggeration * Mind control * Torture < Ethics and persuasion >: The philosopher of ethics, Michael Berumen , requires that one not persuade or coerce another against his will or by making him servile, which, in effect, is to disable his will. Moreover, Berumen says, "the information we provide /must not be deceptive/, either becasue of misstated facts or the way facs are presented or arranged. Two, the information /must be sufficient/ in order for a person in a position of trust to make an informed decision. And, three, the information must be provided /in accordance with any relevant obligations/, including the terms of contracts, pertinent laws, or other duties implied by the circumstance." Source: Michael E. Berumen, /Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business/ (iUniverse, 2003) [[Reference]] ==== refer at http://www.prayasabhinav.net/blog/index.php?cat=8 * Resistance - adbusting / culture jamming / anti-ad - Commercial Rebellion - Advertising agencies cloaking themselves in the style of the street... to counter counter-culture ? - Anti-advertising group takes campaign to Paris Metro - “I feel like I’ve been taken hostage by advertising, and this is the only way I can make my voice heard.” - Why we Should Tax Advertising : kuro5hin.org- "...that advertising is damaging from both an economic and social standpoint, and that because of this the amount of advertising should be reduced by making it more expensive" - CAP - Good Advertising Checklists * Resistance in Art - Life’s Pretty Straight Without Support - An advertising generator. enter a word and get an advertising slogan using it ! - TV-B-Gone™ - "...TV Turnoff Week is no ordinary social ritual. The goal is simple: to shake up routines and get people questioning the role of TV in their lives. ...How can we fight back? In years past, we’ve smashed TVs, postered schools and offices, aired ads, and performed anti-tube street theater. The hottest idea this year? TV-B-Gone—a key-chain remote control capable of turning off virtually any television. It’s the ultimate tool for reclaiming our commons...." * Theories - propaganda model: manufacturing consent: "The propaganda model is a theory advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that seeks to explain systemic biases of the mass media in terms of structural economic causes." - bait and switch: "A deceptive commercial practice in which customers are induced to visit a store by an advertised sale item and then are told that it is out of stock or that it is far inferior to some more expensive item." - advertising: definitions & reflections - III: Tools of persuasion: "Advertisers use several recognizable techniques in order to better convince the public to buy a product. These may include..." [[Photographs]]: The major part of the work envisioned in done and is online at http://prayasabhinav.net/section21.html ------------------------<<>> In Future Postings: - Inteerviews with Indian advertising professions - Interviews of Children - Discomfort and resistance in India ------------------------<<>> Prayas Abhinav, http://www.crimsonfeet.org Personal web: http://www.prayasabhinav.net -------------------------------------------------<<>> Mobile: +91 9227234979 From prayas.abhinav at gmail.com Sat Mar 19 16:04:33 2005 From: prayas.abhinav at gmail.com (Prayas Abhinav) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:04:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] advertising - selling fear, uncertainity and doubt == posting 4 Message-ID: <423C0039.5030303@gmail.com> Hi all, Am posting some more of my notes and summaries of reference material filed at my blog - http://www.prayasabhinav.net/blog/index.php?cat=3. Research: "Publicity, promises and the public space" hope you find it interesting ! regards, prayas <<>> [[Statements]] * < interview with mahesh murthy > I got a chance to meet Mahesh for some time in Ahmedabad. I always admired his spontaeity and informality. He is one person – whom I feel awkward talking starchily to. We got to discuss various things in a light kind of way – new ideas, new trends… Got to discussing Advertising. I always had this image in mind – that he is one guy from advertising who has come to believe that advertising is not a good investment – it is ineffective , citing businesses which have grown without fance Ad budgets. "I felt it was not the best way in which I could help my clients" – is one line I remember. He clarified this time – "I believe advertising is not good for startups. Big companies need it. All products are generic and they are all competitive. It makes a difference." The small chat I had with him confirmed the assumptions I had made – that fear, uncertainity, doubt (FUD) / confusion was a marketing tool which many companies used for want of other approaches. It also made one’s task much easier – if the consumer / customer is so lost he can’t make a decision any more, one can always appear to guide them rightly to your product. Too many similar choices = confusion = sales == the backbone of a "free-market" / market-oriented society ? Can "closed markets" / protected markets, communist economies be seen as an agressive reaction against the agression of confusion of a "free market". But Mahesh said – "But that’s the game, we all manipulate. Someone or the other all the time." Someone save me, before its my turn ! So we are all doing it all the time, manipulating others to extract benefit. So anything goes in advertising. Let them hawk our mindspace and dont even talk of negotiating a percentage ? * < privacy exploded…> so was was the last time you were staring at a TV screen – looking at actors mimic initimacy, love and passion ? if you are a well-adjusted TV viewer as so many of us these days – you are very conscious—This is Entertainment, These are Professionals and They are being Paid For It or They are Artists Performing. so discussions generally tend to revolve around the quality of performance, quality of mimicry. an obseration: across the last ten years we are less and less aware of TV and film content as content and more aware of it as a medium, more aware of it as a art + craft as a performance. moving performances are praised not moving situations. now we are at a stage at which – we already know everything, are already aware of everything and we are testing the filmmakers – how tactfully, how delicately, how entertainingly can they say things to us. not what they have to say to us… which technically bad content-rich film has been a success in recent times ? which technically perfect content-poor film has been a success in recent times ? techniques can be taught. services for teaching can be advertised and sold. institutes flourish. voices cannot be trained ? so why bother even talking about it ? vision is a luxury. if you have it, good. if you dont, ok. sorry for the diversion, but I was writing about the private self in public. so now everybody knows what I do in the garden, in the bedroom… in the… publicity burns. there are cameras all over the place burning holes into our psyches. stealing us for the hungry visocous audience. there are people today who have lost the capacity to experience intimacy. to experience heroism, to experience goodness. they pay TV guys and filmmakers to make these actors be good. "I want to remember" "I want to feel the boundaries of my bondage" advertising agencies sell us the hope of feeling the things we cannot feel anymore. this hope is tokens which we can possibly redeem at cash counters. of course we have to pay, not collect. but that’s a minor detail. so we see before us a cubist fantasy. our self disembodied and dismantled. our psychological / emotional needs being taken care of by people we wouldn’t trust our credit-card with. our mind’s a dustbin. maybe a public urinal. bring it on ? ========= private acts are learnt form public performances. personal aspirations / ideals / concepts of "cool" evolve from trends, popular dreams which in turn create powerful peer-pressure. ideal fodder / data for advertisers to manipulate us by. ========= [[Reference]] ==== refer at http://www.prayasabhinav.net/blog/index.php?cat=8 ++ Resistance - adbusting / culture jamming / anti-ad * The Anti-Advertising Agency (AAA) - "Starting Points for Ideas - We share the following questions which are a starting point for our ideas. Many of these questions we don’t have answers for. We would like to see work from artists that can inspire further critical thought by asking more questions and beginning to provide some well-developed answers." * The Anti-Advetising Agency - Mission - "The Anti-Advertising Agency co-opts the tools and structures used by the advertising and public relations industries. Our work calls into question the purpose and affects of advertising in public space. Through constructive parody and gentle humor our Agency’s campaigns will ask passers by to critically consider the role and strategies of today’s marketing media as well as alternatives for the public arena." * The Art & Science of Billboard Improvement, Billboard Liberation Front - "Look up! Billboards have become as ubiquitous as human suffering, as difficult to ignore as a beggar’s outstretched fist..." ++ Resistance in Art * Cesky Sen - "Cesk Sen (The Czech Dream) was a large-scale hoax perpetuated on Czech advertising industries and public by two film students in 2003. Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak invented a fake supermarket, ”Cesk Sen”, and created a massive advertising campaign around it. The supermarket was presented as having unprecented scale and low prices, featuring products such as a television for 500 Kc ($19)..." ++ Theories * advertising: definitions & reflections II - here is mentioned again the “quality of advertising” – we need and expect quality – aesthetic, taste – in a product which is trying to persuade us at any cost about the quality of another product. what is our stake in advertising ? why do we care ? * advertising: definitions & reflections I - the evolution of advertising... * Today’s salespeople, whatever type, face a more sophisticated customer: cautious, cynical, and slower to say yes - "Understanding What Product Selling Is and Why It Won’t Work." * Questions for Redressing the Imposition on Public Space - "The fight against the use of billboards as commercial adverts rather than as a medium for public self expression, protest and communication for social issues. Doctoral thesis research, by Jessica Hall. An Interview with 'Jack Napier, CEO, Billboard Liberation Front'" ------------------------<<>> Prayas Abhinav, http://www.crimsonfeet.org Personal web: http://www.prayasabhinav.net -------------------------------------------------<<>> Mobile: +91 9227234979 From nisar at keshvani.com Fri Mar 18 17:28:12 2005 From: nisar at keshvani.com (nisar keshvani) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 05:58:12 -0600 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] LEA Special cfp: Wild Nature and the Digital Life Message-ID: <200503180558.AA8847654@keshvani.com> LEA Special Issue: Wild Nature and the Digital Life * Worldwide Call for Submissions * Guest Editors: Sue Thomas and Dene Grigar digitalwild at astn.net http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2004/authors.htm#digiwild The Leonardo Electronic Almanac (ISSN No: 1071-4391) is inviting papers [and artworks] themed around Wild Nature and the Digital Life. Wild nature has traditionally been perceived as the preserve of the physical world and may seem to have little to do with the abstract spaces of the digital. But what can be described as “wild nature” at a time when much of the earth’s land is being annexed by cities, brought into production, and turned into tourist meccas or eco-excursions? How are humans reinventing “the wild” digitally? What is the relationship between humans and wild nature, and has it changed with the advent of the computer technology? Is the notion of wild nature limited to the physical world, and if not, then where else can we find it? How do those who are most immersed in the digital integrate it with the physical? While a critical response to these questions is highly encouraged, we are equally interested in the wide-angle view and in the intimate. Specifically, we welcome essays, interviews, reports and other genres of writing that speak to the ways in which we reconcile and integrate the relationship between wild nature and the digital life; that address the part that wild nature plays in our work; looks at the ways the functionality of our body in the digital compares with the way it works in the mountains, in the ocean, or other physical spaces; and explores the changes that the wired life has brought about to our domestic and professional habitat, how it may have changed our health, or shifted our understanding of ecosystems and of other species on this planet and elsewhere. Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to): - Projects combining art and natural history - Art and nature collaborations - Telematics and consciousness - Historical context - Connectedness studies - Embodiment theory - Emergence studies - Anthropology and social networks - Ecology and the environment - Natural magic and spirituality The twin conceptual territories of bits and atoms are closer than they may at first seem. This call invites papers and works that explore ways in which the wired sensibility has led us full circle towards an enhanced engagement with wild nature. LEA encourages international artists / academics / researchers / students / practitioners / theorists to submit their proposals for consideration. We particularly encourage authors outside North America and Europe to send proposals for essays / artists statements. As part of this special, LEA is looking to publish: - Critical Essays - Artist Statement/works in the LEA Gallery - Bibliographies (a peer reviewed bibliography with key texts/references in Digital Life) - Academic Curriculum (LEA encourages academics conducting course programmes in this area to contact us) Expressions of interest and outline should include: - A brief description of proposed text (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 Wild Nature and Digital Life – Date Submitted”. Please cut and paste all text into body of email (without attachments). Detailed editorial guidelines at: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/submit Deadline for expressions of interest: 8 July 2005 Timeline (please note the timeline is subject to changes) 8 July 2005 - submission of abstracts 22 July 2005 - short-listed candidates informed 2 September 2005 - contributors to submit full papers for peer review 3 – 30 September 2005 – Peer Review Process 1 – 21 October 2005 – Authors to make changes November 2005 – Ready to publish papers Please send proposals or queries to: Sue Thomas and Dene Grigar digitalwild at astn.net and Nisar Keshvani LEA Editor-in-Chief lea at mitpress.mit.edu http://lea.mit.edu _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From maheshsarma at rediffmail.com Sun Mar 20 19:27:47 2005 From: maheshsarma at rediffmail.com (mahesh sarma) Date: 20 Mar 2005 13:57:47 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] CNG conversion; the story so far Message-ID: <20050320135747.32445.qmail@webmail10.rediffmail.com>   CNG: the case so far For the last five weeks I’ve been assembling from different sources, the whole process of CNG conversion in Delhi. The story evolves something like this. July 1985: Advocate M.C Metha files a petition against Union of India. This petition also has Shriram Foods as another respondent, which has mysteriously disappeared and later mentions. I am yet to lay my hands on details of this petition, and I presume it has changed character overtime. It deals with industrial pollution, then vehicular pollution and so on. July 1985- July 1996: The case goes on, and the various courts and judgements, keep coming up. And the nature of the case also undergoes change. Sometime in early 1996: CSE, leading research and advocacy organisation, begins its campaign for clean air in Delhi. They strongly advocate, the conversion of Delhi transport into CNG. The focus of their campaign is health, and Late. Anil Agarwal, their feisty director, made it his personal mission since he suffered from acute asthma, which he attributed to Delhi’s bad air. The campaign had public hearings, published articles, even a study on CNG. Sometime in 1996: TERI, another research organisation, started talking about environment and sustainability and said a technology neutral emission policy ( a stylised way of saying no to CNG) . Other civil society actors, like Prof. Dinesh Mohan of IIT, Dhunu roy of Hazards Centre too move in to the public space. We will look at their stances in a later posting. 1986- 1996: Interestingly for the entire 10 years, barring the publishing of emission standards for vehicles, in 1991, and 1996, the state did nothing to address the concerns of the Supreme Court. The court kept referring to CNG as alternative mode of fuel. Jan 1998: The Supreme Court forms the Environmental Pollution (Prevention and Control) Committee. It is also called Bhurelal Committee, to advice the court on the reducing vehicular pollution. The committee report (I am trying to read it, quite a boring and voluminous report) most famous reco, is the full conversion all modes of public transport in Delhi to CNG fuel mode. By the way, both Anil Agarwal, the director of CSE, and R.K.Pachuri, the Director of TERI were members of the committee. July 1998: The Supreme Court gives a composite verdict on reducing air pollution in Delhi, the most important of which is the verdict to convert the entire public transport fleet of Delhi, including cars, autos, and buses into CNG mode by 31st march 2001. July 1998- Mar 2001: A major media battle brews between the pro CNG lobby, and the pro Diesel lobby. TERI makes feverish noises regarding the undesirability of CNG, and CSE regarding the supreme desirability, or its inevitability. The Govt, the private bus operators, live life as usual. Jan 2001: Every body wakes up to the Mar 31 deadline, frantic attempts to do something, extensions were sought and media made predicted catastrophes awaiting Delhi on April 1st, incidentally All fools day. Nearly 1482 newspaper clippings vouch for the debate. TV channels have identified a new newsmaker and make hay while the sun shines. More on it later. Mar 2001: Supreme Court gave partial and conditional extensions. And in Jan 2001, exactly after 16 years of filing of a PIL, state appoints Mashelker Committee to suggest National Auto policy. Mar 2001: Sep 2002: Too many hiccups. Too many photo opportunities for different actors. Quite a bit of suffering for commuters. We have a Clean Delhi/Green Delhi. Sep 2002: Delhi has the largest fleet of CNG buses. Mar 2005: The debate on weather we have cleaner air still continues In case you find any discrepencies or have anything more to add, do drop a mail. mahesh B.Mahesh Sarma, Researcher Centre for Studies in Science Policy Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. 110 067 Ph.+91-11- 26100962 Mobile:9868090468 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050320/d34aa344/attachment.html From kalakamra at vsnl.net Mon Mar 21 19:37:54 2005 From: kalakamra at vsnl.net (kalakamra at vsnl.net) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:07:54 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Bombay, Badarpur border Message-ID: <790afe7930eb.7930eb790afe@vsnl.net> BOMBAY, BADARPUR BORDER SITESEEING AND OTHER PLEASURES Shaina Anand, Mukul Patel and Ashok Sukumaran. March 22nd and 23rd, 7 pm. to 10 pm. at the Apeejay Media Gallery BOMBAY, BADARPUR BORDER is a suite of installations created for exhibition at the Apeejay Media Gallery, Badarpur Border, New Delhi. The works use a variety of analog and digital media, including live electronics, to circulate a "theme" (Bombay), as well as a physical location (Badarpur), through the gallery space. The gallery/border is presented by the artists as a site from which to consider the Other city – Bombay. Not the material city alone (which is now anyway called Mumbai), but the more diffuse constructions of data, myth and desire that form its virtual and media identities. The artists deny the customary claims to authenticity that accompany, for example, the Tate’s Century City or NDTV’s Mumbai Live. Only one of us is actually from Mumbai, and we have almost nothing from Mumbai to show. We gather here to invent and perform “Bombay”, to synthesize it in various media: a building as text, an interactive movie generated from images trawled from the net, a virtual user-controlled sea, a piece of film, a live studio... Other actions take place beyond the gallery bounds, stretching across two groups that would perhaps never meet: visitors to the gallery, and those outside, who view the gallery itself as a technocultural object. The artists' attempt to reconsider traditional notions of site-specific art (and in turn, question ideas of location and mobility) in the context of media arts practice. Here, we are not really mobile – we are just in the "wrong" place. The map is cracked, and we have fallen through. Like GPS gone awry, or a recurring wrong number on your phone. Where is the audience? What kind of Bombay is this? Where on earth is Badarpur? By coming here, we hope to find the many unacknowledged and unexplored ways in which our bodies intersect with places, and imagined places. Artists: SHAINA ANAND : Filmmaker, lives and works in Mumbai. Founder of ChitraKarKhana (artist food / picture factory) a fully independent unit for experimental media. MUKUL PATEL: Composer and media artist based in London. Artistic codirector of ambientTV.NET, a crucible for critical hybrid media projects that span sound, film, text, dance, cookery, the law, and data networks. ASHOK SUKUMARAN: Media artist and architect, has recently moved from Los Angeles to Mumbai. Works with the physical spaces of “new media” , and is currently pursuing interests in electronic public art. From kaiwanmehta at gmail.com Tue Mar 22 09:01:45 2005 From: kaiwanmehta at gmail.com (kaiwan mehta) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 09:01:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fellows in Bombay Message-ID: <2482459d05032119314d290dcb@mail.gmail.com> Hi I sent a mail to fellows last week, planning for all Sarai Fellows to meet and interact in Bombay. Only 3 replied, 2 cannot make it on the dates suggested. Well one more try!! Smriti Vohra, an Editor with Sarai, is visiting Bombay - Mar 31 to April 11. Could we all meet sometime then? She could meet us too then. Can I suggest saturday 8 April or Sunday 9 April, at about 6 pm? Do let me know! Regards, Kaiwan -- Kaiwan Mehta Architect and Urban Reseracher 11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034 022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436 From arisen.silently at gmail.com Tue Mar 22 09:57:19 2005 From: arisen.silently at gmail.com (arisen silently) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 09:57:19 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] social security... Message-ID: <1925b33d0503212027adbf85e@mail.gmail.com> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5567661291 From zainab at xtdnet.nl Tue Mar 22 13:10:52 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:40:52 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Fellows in Bombay In-Reply-To: <2482459d05032119314d290dcb@mail.gmail.com> References: <2482459d05032119314d290dcb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1170.219.65.9.199.1111477252.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Hi Kaiwan, I will also make it on April 8 / 9. Sounds good to me. Is there a time and venue fixed for the meeting? Cheers, Z Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From zainab at xtdnet.nl Tue Mar 22 13:15:00 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:45:00 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Conversation with Kishu - Part I Message-ID: <1241.219.65.9.199.1111477500.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> 7th March 2005 This morning, I had my first telephonic conversation with Kishu. Kishu lives in Anand Nivas, Churchgate, ‘A’ Road. The motive of doing the conversation with him today was to find out more about the security measures which the residents of the ‘A’ Road on Churchgate / Marine Drive have recently undertaken. These days, I walk towards Marine Drive from Churchgate Station, landing on the ‘A’ Road and then heading out. As I walk around ‘A’ Road, I notice that buildings in the area have clear marks of property. Signs read, “Private Property – Rights of Admission Reserved with Owners” or “Private Property – Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted”. The other day, owing to work in the post office at Churchgate, I entered into two of the buildings at ‘A’ Road and found that both of them had sophisticated Surveillance Security Television Cameras which screen people entering the building. During my years of studying in that area, in Jai Hind College, I had not known of such strict security measures. I am trying to understand when these measures were introduced and how this area changed and became so highly security conscious. For this reason, I thought I’d excavate Kishu’s memories since he is a resident of the area and he may know of how things came to be the way they are today. A Brief Gist of the Conversation: 1. Tell me about the installation of security cameras and private guards in this area? When and why did this happen? Earlier, we used to have a chowkidar in each of the buildings in the area. In Maharashtra State, you have the Maharashtra Security Guards Association to which you must pay the salary of the chowkidar. The Association then deducts PF, HRA, etc. from it and hands over the salary to the chowkidar which is usually a little amount. In the case of a chowkidar, he may be absent on some days. But when you have a private security guard from a company, the company will make arrangements for an alternative if the guard is absent. The company also takes care of the night shift duty and rotation of watchmen in day and night time. We simply have to pay the salaries of the watchmen to the company which then takes care of everything. The company is also related with the Maharashtra Security Guards Association. Now, when you ask me about the surveillance cameras, these are there in two buildings on ‘A’ Road. One of these buildings has a compound which is rented out for marriages, parties, etc. and the other one has commercial premises in their compound. These two societies are rich and can afford to have security cameras. Further, these hi-tech arrangements help to raise the real estate prices. So when you have to sell your house in one of these buildings, you are likely to receive a higher amount because you have sophisticated security arrangements in your building premises. The residents in these areas are security conscious. 2. How does it feel to live in Churchgate area? Is it a high security risk area to live in? Not at all! In fact Churchgate is the safest area to live in and this is primarily due to three reasons: one, all the buildings have a compound wall which means that if the thief is to enter the building, he first has to climb over the compound wall and then enter the building. Secondly, the art deco style of the buildings in this area contribute to the safety. Art deco style buildings have a narrow entrance in front – only one entrance. The buildings on Marine Drive in fact are more prone to risk because they have two entrances: one on the front side for residents and the other on the backside for servants to enter. The compound walls of buildings like Zaver Mahal, Keval Mahal and all these buildings on Marine Drive (seafront side) are low. Moreover, because of the Rent Act system, the tenants pay a low amount to the landlords as rent. Hence, landlords don’t care to employ private security because it will be a personal expense for them. These buildings are more susceptible to security hazards. Finally, Churchgate area is well lit and that also makes the place very secure to live in. 3. It appears to me that living in Churchgate and Marine Drive area, your individual identity is usually linked with that of the building in which you live? Can you comment on this? One thing which you must remember is that Bombay has the second largest number of Art Deco Buildings in the world, the first being Miami. Further, the Marine Drive precinct is the most beautiful in the world. So there is naturally pride in living in this area. Now, at Churchgate, we are usually recognized by the buildings in which we live. But this is even more prominent at Cuffe Parade and at Napean Sea Road where there are also art deco style buildings. At Cuffe Parade, the building identity is much more stronger. A Cuffe Parade person will always say, “Yeah, I live in Meher Dad or work in Maker Tower, etc.” and will recognize another Cuffe Parade person by the building in which he/she lives. In a locality, you will always have a building identity. At Churchgate and Marine Drive, how many buildings are there in all? About forty to fifty – that’s it. Hence, people recognize each other by the buildings they each live in. 4. But would that building recognition/identity matter if you went in another area in Mumbai say Bandra? Absolutely not! It only holds true in Churchgate/Marine Drive area. Nobody outside the area will know my building! 5. There was also a phase when a lot of residents of Churchgate/Marine Drive area moved out and acquired flats in Bandra. Please talk about this. You have to know that each area in the city has a life of its own. In the case of Churchgate and Marine Drive, the residents moved in the area in the early ‘30s and ‘40s. Their children grew up in this area and soon, some went to study abroad, some got married and wanted to move out of the house. The trend of nuclear families came in. So people in this area decided to move out. Even now, as I live in this area, I miss the presence of young people in my area. Of course, there are children who are growing up fast. During my time, there were many young people and we used to have a thousand parties each day. That no longer happens now because there are hardly any young people in my area. 6. How does it feel to live in this area? Fantastic! This area has amazing art deco buildings and a beautiful precinct. There are two maidans in this area namely Azad Maidan and the Oval. Which other area in the city has two maidans? We have large open spaces. The area is beautiful. If you stand and look at Eros cinema, it will give you the impressionist view when you look from down to up. It has a telescopic effect. Further, this area is a mixed-use area with residential and commercial complexes. So, the traffic begins to clear out in the evenings. The area empties out by the evening. If you go to Bandra, all it has are residential buildings. Places of work are in Andheri and Malad. So the area becomes congested in the evenings. Moreover, Churchgate / Nariman Point is the Central Business District (CBD) in Mumbai. 7. The hawkers on ‘A’ Road got cleared out sometime ago. Why did this move take place? Can you tell me about the current arrangement to keep hawkers away? (Now he gets cautious.) Are you recording all of this? (I tell him I am not and that he need not be politically correct about this.) No, no, I don’t need to be politically correct with you on this. Frankly, I don’t know much about this. All I can tell you is that the hawkers got moved out because of the rule that you cannot hawk around 150 meters from a railway station and from educational institutions. 8. When exactly did the hawkers get moved out? Was it around the time when hawkers at Nariman Point also got moved out? Yeah, perhaps, about a year ago ... 9. A couple of other questions. What is your first memory of being at the Nariman Point promenade? Can’t remember right now. The only first memory I have is of feeding the pigeons on the promenade. 10. How does it feel to live in Churchgate where on the one hand you have your private space and just a few furlongs away, you have the promenade where many strangers come everyday? If you are asking me from the point of view of intrusion of privacy in the area, well, I don’t feel intruded upon. 11. And how does it feel living so close to Churchgate Railway station which has lakhs of people coming in everyday? To be honest, it does not matter at all now. Like you get used to everything else in Mumbai, I have also gotten used to this. Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From zainab at xtdnet.nl Tue Mar 22 13:16:28 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:46:28 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Conversation with Kishu - Part II Message-ID: <1258.219.65.9.199.1111477588.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> 11th March 2005 I decided to continue on the conversation with Kishu and try to dig a little more into his memory of growing up in Churchgate/Marine Drive. As mentioned last, his first memory of the Nariman Point promenade was feeding the pigeons as a child. “Our family was earlier living in a building called Navsari Chambers on J. Tata Road. I was about three years old when we moved into Anand Nivas. The reclamation of Nariman Point took place before my eyes, but I don’t have many memories of it. I was born in 1965. Growing up years involved playing in the maidans, going to the circus at Azad Maidan, being at the Cricket Club of India (CCI), going for walks at Marine Drive and Fort area, etc. What else? Hmmm, hmmm, I remember. I used to go to Gay Lords’ restaurant a lot. At that time, bands used to play in the restaurant and when we used to go there on birthdays, the band was specially play “Happy Birthday to you” which was quite exciting and nice. What else? Hmmm, hmmm ... yeah, you had the lemon tarts of Gourdons and the ice creams at K-Rustoms’ which is still around. There used to be Talk of the Town (today’s Pizzeria and Jazz By The Bay). We had only two clubs at that time i.e. Berrys’ and Bombellies. Tea Center was around even then. It was designed by the government to sell tea. If you look the insides of Tea Center, it is art deco style. In fact, the furniture inside Tea Center resembles the furniture in my house too i.e. the art deco style furniture. Cricket Club of India (CCI) was an essential element of growing up. CCI looked like Churchgate station in the early days. It was built in 1930s’ and later renovated in the 90’s. While growing up, I did not socialize much with my neighbours and the mohalla gang but went to CCI instead. CCI has become very vibrant now. It is way ahead of Bombay Gym now which then was touted as ‘the place’. Let me recollect, what else do I remember ... hmmm, hmmm, Yes! I remember Studio 29. Do you know Studio 29? It was the first disco in town. It was promoted by Sabira Merchant. Studio 29 was named after Studio 54 in New York. I think it was named Studio 29 because all the phone numbers in the area started with the numbers ‘29’. The only other disco in town then was 1900’s which was in the Taj Hotel. But you had to be a member to go there or you had to be a foreigner because foreigners were freely allowed in. What do I think about Nariman Point / Marine Drive? Well, it is an excellent place to spend time without spending any money. A walk after dinner on the promenade was a done thing and the walk would almost always culminate into an ice cream at the Yankee Doodles (which is now replaced by the Inter-Continental Hotel). The other thing about the Marine Drive promenade was that it was a meeting place for the Sindhi community. It was a place of pride for the Sindhis. You remember there were (and still are) stone benches on the promenade. People would gather there in the evenings. Now, if a Sindhi came from abroad to Bombay, he was certain to find fellow Sindhis at the promenade in the evenings. So these abroad se visiting Sindhis would land up at the promenade in the evening and meet around there. You would also remember my dad telling you that the promenade was a place where matrimonial alliances were struck and the girls and boys used to meet there. This is no longer the case. The promenade was not so crowded then. The other thing which you must remember is that at that time, there was no TV and no Internet. Phone was a rarity, more a luxury and a status symbol. We used to go to the promenade more frequently then. News and information would circulate at the promenade among walkers and the visiting publics. People in this area don’t mingle much with each other. Residents of Churchgate are reserved people. I live right next to Jai Hind College. But I went to Xaviers because I thought that if I go to Jai Hind or some of the other Churchgate colleges, my classmates would want to come home and I would not like it much. But I remember there was one time when all the residents of the ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ congregated and came together. This was about 7-8 years ago. The government decided that the A, B, C and D roads would be made Pay & Park. So, all the residents with cars would have to pay for parking their cars on the road. The residents were furious. There was public meeting held and everyone decided to boycott this decision. The next day was a Monday and the residents got together at 7 PM, during the peak traffic hour, and did a road blockage on Marine Drive and Nariman Point. That was one time when all came together and it was a congregation I will never forget! The Pay & Park decision was revoked. With the passing years, residents have become more alert now. Building Identity (associated with individuals living in the area) was always there and is still there. You must note that a lot of film stars lived in this area. Nargis, Sunil Dutt, etc. You knew that Nargis lived in this building and Nanda in that building. In fact, my building has been built by G. P. Sippy. A lot of film stars built buildings around here. So each building had an identity according to who built the building. The promenade is used by the people living in this area. About the reclamation, well, Air India, the Express Building and the Oberoi came up before my eyes! I love living in this area. It is well-lit, the hawkers have been moved off from here, it is totally safe and with the passing years, the area has become a more pleasant place to be in. It is a happening place – this area is prime location! If you ask me to compare the Bandstand and the Carter Road promenade with Marine Drive, I’d say that Marine Drive is grander. It has the ‘sea-touching’ effect which is not so in the case of Bandstand and Carter Road. Bandstand and Carter Road become isolated late at night whereas Marine Drive is lively. Also, Marine Drive is accessible – you are always passing it when going from somewhere to somewhere whereas in the case of Bandstand and Carter Road, or for that matter, Worli Sea Face, you have to make the effort to be in the area to access it. So, accessibility makes Marine Drive a more vivacious place. Over the years, when I think about Nariman Point and Marine Drive, I think that some things are constant here, like bus numbers 123 and 108 are always there. What does the promenade mean to me? Well, that’s a good question but I have never thought about it. It’s too profound a question. Don’t know what to say ...” Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From angharadcloss at hotmail.com Tue Mar 22 19:20:33 2005 From: angharadcloss at hotmail.com (Angharad Closs) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:50:33 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] CRIPT Call for Papers In-Reply-To: <1241.219.65.9.199.1111477500.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050322/040b7893/attachment.html From jace at pobox.com Wed Mar 23 18:06:39 2005 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:06:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] URLs exposing server architecture Message-ID: <7345c770195f8c17a7858053767a3c29@pobox.com> Follow-up to my last post on The URL as User Interface: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2005-February/005074.html Part 3: URLs exposing server architecture. A HTML file typically carries an extension of ".html". However, consider these examples: 1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml 2. http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp 3. http://www.xanga.com/register.aspx 4. http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3 5. http://www.fanniemae.com/index.jhtml 6. http://www.poets.org/index.cfm 7. http://squishdot.org/987802018/index_html 8. http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage All of these have different extensions, revealing the technology platform in use. In order: Apache Server Side Includes, Microsoft ASP, ASP.net, PHP 3, Java, Cold Fusion, Zope and Windows Dynamic Link Libraries. The trouble with including such a blatant platform signature in the URL is, should you choose to switch to a different platform, all your URLs change. Some platforms like Zope are insensitive to file extensions. You can use whatever you want and it'll still work. (In a case of taking this insensitivity too far, Zope is littered with index_html URLs.) Others like Apache-based platforms can be configured to use different extensions, but this typically requires a system-wide configuration change which your ISP may not be willing to do for you. It is best to avoid identifying platform in your URLs. These examples are even worse: 1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html/104-0744072 -3248744 2. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa 3. http://plone.org/search?SearchableText=plone&b_start:int=30 4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/30/ wgerm30.xml Notice that all URLs at amazon.com begin with "/exec/obidos", making that part of the URL semantically meaningless and unnecessary cruft in the URL. Further, home.html is followed by a slash and another path component. This breaks the file and folder hierarchy that the Web is built around. Browsers expect that folders contain other folders and files, and that files contain no sub-items. This is required for links with relative references to resolve properly. (When folder/a.html links to b.html, is it referring to folder/b.html or folder/a.html/b.html?) When a path component can behave like a file at times and a folder at other times, it risks confusing the browser. (Zope's object database also has this problem. Zope solves it by inserting a base href tag in all HTML pages. This works well but is not an elegant solution.) The second is the home page of Apple's online store, listing all their products. It seems like a simple matter to copy a link to any of the products listed there, but you'll find the link does not work when used anywhere else. Jim Roepcke deconstructs the Apple Store URL [1] to find that this is because it includes session related data that is not valid for anyone but the user it was generated for. [1] http://jim.roepcke.com/1721 The third exhibits a characteristic of the Zope platform (which Plone is built on). The "b_start:int" in the URL signifies that b_start is an integer parameter. Zope includes several others like ":list" and ":tokens". These are matters of internal architecture and should not appear in the URL. The final, from the UK Telegraph, is rather interesting. main.jhtml is taking a parameter that appears to refer to a file on disk. What if you change the path and make it read another file, one that was not supposed to be shown to the public? This may seem a humorous hack, but it could be worse. Philip Greenspun describes a case of Harvard Business School rejecting 119 applicants [2] who edited a URL to check their application status. [2] http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2005/03/08#a7726 Further Reading --------------- Matthew P. Thomas documents cruft in URLs generated by various weblogging systems: http://mpt.phrasewise.com/2003/07/26#a534 Mark Pilgrim documents the process to make Movable Type generate cruft-free URLs (warning! technical jargon): http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/08/15/slugs Nathan Ashby-Kuhlman presents more real world examples: http://www.ashbykuhlman.net/blog/2003/07/27/2227 http://www.ashbykuhlman.net/blog/2003/08/02/2224 Conclusion ---------- We have looked at various ways to construct a URL and what roles they serve. Should there be a doubt yet on how URLs are relevant to community, that is simple. To discuss the content of any web page, you need a URL that can be shared. Without a URL, you are left attempting to reproduce the content (which may be non-trivial for graphical or Flash content), and have no reference that others can visit. A simple URL is friendlier, and therefore a better URL. My next few posts will explore the human side of the UI-Community linkup. -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://www.pobox.com/~jace From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Wed Mar 23 18:57:42 2005 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj kaushal) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:57:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] URLs exposing server architecture In-Reply-To: <7345c770195f8c17a7858053767a3c29@pobox.com> References: <7345c770195f8c17a7858053767a3c29@pobox.com> Message-ID: <42416ECE.2030001@linux-delhi.org> Hi kiran, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote: > Follow-up to my last post on The URL as User Interface: > http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2005-February/005074.html An excellent read. My two bits, http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI Cheers! Pankaj -- Alas, even today there's little worth thinking and saying that does not grievously wound the state, the gods, and common decency. -Goethe From jitendra82003 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 22 16:17:15 2005 From: jitendra82003 at yahoo.com (Jitendra Srivastava) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 10:47:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] Role of Gita Press in the Life and Progress of Women Message-ID: <20050322104715.70499.qmail@web40729.mail.yahoo.com> Even today Gorakhpur is a city of cultural importance. It is known for the Nath Sect of Gorakhnath, poetry of Firaq, and literature of Prem Chand.It is alos known for Gita Press and Kalyan. While in Gorakhpur, Prem Chand wrote novels like Seva Sadan in which he raised the issue of slavery and sufferings of women. Prem Chand fought for liberation of women. But the special issue of Kalyan on women liberation does’nt provide the same solution as that given by Prem Chand. Kalyan favours the same approach as that mentioned in the Vedas. It advocates the teachings of Manu for women liberation. It needs to be seen, whether women in and around Gorakhpur follow the approach of Kalyan. Let us study the situation for women residing in rural and urban areas respectively. In rural areas, not only in Gorakhpur but all over India, women remain under the control of menfolk. It is a type of slavery. Women remain under the control of father, husband, or brother. There is a view that women in labour class are independent which is a partial truth. Their husbands also beat these women. No sacred book, not even Kalyan, saves them from this torture. Most of these women are illiterate and they don’t know about Kalyan or Gita Press. On the other hand, are educated women living in Gorakhpur, Devariya, Maharanjganj, Basti, Gonda, Siddharth Nagar, and Kushinagar. Some of these are even working. Some might have read the special issue of Kalyan on women. They are very dutiful towards their husbands. But, if you pause on the busy streets of these cities, you find women violating the norms set by the Vedas. The question that comes to mind is what is the effect of Kalyan on the lives of women in and around Gorakhpur. A retired, 65-year old lady teacher, living in a village Ahiroli says, " Polluted feelings get purified on reading Kalyan. Kalyan has affected the life of a Hindu. It was our routine to read Kalyan during our chilhood." Mrs. Shruti who spent her childhood in Lucknow knew the place by Gita Press, Kalyan, and Gorakhnath temple. She later shifted to Gorakhpur after marriage and wanted to see Gita Press in addition to other places. Women feel Gita Press is synonymous to Gorakhpur but are not able to describe it. Another teacher feels Gorakhpur owes a lot to Gita Press. Gita Press has a lot of contribution towards spreading religion. A doctor also supports this view. All cross sections of the society acknowledge the contribution of Gita press for Gorakhpur. Like books, clothes produced by Gita Press are also very famous among the people. They buy sarees, shawls, bedsheets of Gita Press. The clothes are also a trademark of Gorakhpur. Religion doesn’t come onto picture here. Jitendra Srivastava Independent Fellow, Sarai IGNOU -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050322/7d318a4b/attachment.html From intachculturalaffairs at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 22 19:55:26 2005 From: intachculturalaffairs at yahoo.co.uk (vani subramanian) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 14:25:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] INTACH HERITAGE LECTURE Message-ID: <20050322142526.70323.qmail@web86902.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> INDIAN NATIONAL TRUST FOR ART AND CULTURAL HERITAGE (INTACH) invites you to a talk on ‘Independent Filmmaking’ by Manu Rewal Director and Producer of Chai Pani etc on Monday, March 28, 2005 at 6:30 pm at the INTACH Multi-Purpose Hall, 71 Lodhi Estate, New Delhi-110003 Please join us for tea at 6.00 p.m. RSVP 24631818 24632267/69 MANU REWAL An avid filmmaker; Manu Rewal has covered several themes of architectural interest like The Parliament Library of India, Le Corbusier in India, Jantar Mantar- Charting the Heavens, Chandigarh - Search for Modernity, Datia and Orchha - The Spirit of Innovation, Fatehpur Sikri - Akbar's Vision in Stone, Udaipur - A Romance with Nature, Lutyens’ New Delhi, Mandu - the City of Joy, Jaisalmer India, Fusion, Resonance India. He has received several awards and has studied Cinema in the USA and France. Some of the awards he has received are the Jury Award: MIPA 2001, Madrid, Spain for Le Corbusier in India, Prix Archives Ethniques at the UNESCO Film Festival on Art and Education, Paris, France for Lutyens’ New Delhi, the Certificate of Honorary Mention at the Columbus Film Festival, Ohio, USA and the Prix Information Architecturale at the UNESCO Film Festival on Art and Education, Paris, France for Mandu - the City of Joy. He has recently directed and produced three films called Priya, Hollywood ki Pukar and Chai Pani etc Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050322/e5d75051/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From k.kuldeep97 at rediffmail.com Tue Mar 22 21:41:03 2005 From: k.kuldeep97 at rediffmail.com (kuldeep kaur) Date: 22 Mar 2005 16:11:03 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] hospital labour room as space for unheard voices Message-ID: <20050322161103.28474.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com>   I would like to share my interactions with Neelam. Neelam was admitted during emergency hours with a referral slip from Derabassi. Basically she was referred to PGI, but she preferred to come to Government Medical College and Hospital as it was nearer to Derabassi. She comes along with one female neighbour and her maternal aunt (Tai). She was from Lalru, Patiala residing in temporary kuccha house. She was illiterate. She does not remember her date of birth. Rather she smiles at such questions. During interview, she was eager to narrate everything she was asked. According to her she had two sisters and five brothers. It was her first child. She was very happy about her first baby. According to her in our ‘Gujjar’ clan it is considered sin to use contraceptive as ‘it is against the will of God. If he is willing to give children, how can we resist Him.’ She considered pregnancy a natural process, which does not require any special care and ‘Girl or Boy is the choice of god, not ours. We have to obey him.’ About how many children she plans to give birth to, she again left it on the will of God. On parenthood she simply said, “It is his or her fate. S/he will take care of her/himself” The following statements made by her are simply defining the status of female in our society. • We do not own lands, women are never considered as property or landowners. It is amazing to hear it from you. How will they manage it? • We have to live in joint family otherwise who will take care of our children. We are laborer. We cannot stay with our children for twenty-four hours. • I do not know how a baby is born? Only God know. I heard from elder women that it is very painful and how let us see. • In older time delivery was much complex. Some women were used to die during this process. These are all matters of fate and will of God. Some children are really problem to her mother during delivery. Placenta was used to retain in those days, causing septicemia leading to death. • During menstruation it is auspicious to touch cooking utensils and preserved food. They become impure and useless. After she delivering a male baby she was very happy. During making of birth certificate it was found that her husband was not there. Her maternal aunt performed all formalities and provides her necessary care. During interview of her maternal aunt, there were some amazing revealing as:- • Why a husband should accompany her wife during delivery? It is quite embarrassing? What will he do? In our clan it is shameful for a husband to take care of her wife during labour-process. Only woman can help another woman. • Women were not used to be so delicate in our times. We simply give birth to child during working in fields and cut the umbilical cord with ‘Datri’ (the blade-like instrument used to cut plants and crops). • There is tradition of ‘exchange marriage’ in our clan. We give our daughters in exchange of daughters-in-law. No dowry system is prevalent. If you harass your daughter-in-law, you are going to create problems for your own daughters. • We believe in ‘more hands-more work’. Children are blessing of God. We should adopt them without any discrimination, with open heart. Anyhow, sons are always preferred. Girls are good for working but sons are your identity. When they both were asked being alone if Neelam has to under gone Ceasaran-section due to some critical problem who would have helped them, they replied, “God and fate are ultimate. If he does not want you to live any longer, who can help you?” kuldeep kaur -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050322/67ec4ba4/attachment.html From prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com Wed Mar 23 11:27:09 2005 From: prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com (Prashant Pandey) Date: 23 Mar 2005 05:57:09 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Auto-tuners & bad singers by PRASHANT PANDEY Message-ID: <20050323055709.17981.qmail@webmail31.rediffmail.com> Hi this is Prashant Pandey sending you my 3rd posting on my research on the contemporary history of the making of bollywood song... i am not theorising or into any deductions i just see,record sounds on dictaphone and do extensive profiling of people who make songs... this time it is Ismail Darbar,the celebrated composer and Pawan Da, a guitar player...   Meeting Pawan Da, a guitar player Pawan da is one of the busiest guitar player in bollywood. Though Pawan Da would love to do live shows and compose his own music, he has no time at all. He on an average does 3-4 songs in a day, charging 6000 Rs. Per song. When I tell him it’s a great fun, (playing guitar and making so much money) he smiles and says that some people have struggled a lot in this industry, especially if one wants to be a music director, its very very tough. “I don’t want to do all that, I just want to play guitar and chill.” Clearly, he appears relaxed and calm unlike the producers and the music director who are the most tense and freaked out people in a studio when a recording happens. Its funny that Pawan Da doesn’t remember most of the films name for which he has played. “I work with every music director, and I don’t bother to ask what film is it. I just travel from studio to studio, play a piece, and finish my takes and come back home.” A peek into Ismail Darbars’ musical journey and reflections on the industry He comes across as a very composed and easy going person, crediting every success and every good song that he has made, to Allah. His posh apartment is full of plates and inscriptions from the holy Quran and rare Indian musical instruments. Ismail Darbar tells me strongly that he wants to work with small producers and he is doing small budget films yet there is a wrong perception about him that he does only big films. It is reminder that how much dependent this industry is on second-hand opinions and heresay. “pata nahi kaha se logo ke dimaag me aa gaya hai ki mai sirf badi-badi film karta hoon mai chahta hoon ki log mere paas aaye aur kaam kare ” But it is not really easy to work with him, there is no tune bank to listen to, there are elaborate orchestra arrangements and planning. He laughs when I tell him that a T-series executive told me, “jitney me Ismail Darbar Ek gaana banata hai,utne me hum log re-mix ka puraa album bana dete hain” . no wonder Dola re Dola in Devdas cost around 12 lakh. Ismail Darbar doesnot compromise on quality. “I make one song in a month but that’s it.” He is one the composers who despite heavy pressure have not sold themselves out. “I will work less but I will make good music” A joke – In studios there is a mechanism to tune a playback singer. you can sing your notes wrong and it will be tuned later. The singer sings the song and leaves the studio in all his greatness, but the recordist and technicians have to bear the brunt afterwards. Especially if you are doing a project with self-proclaimed pop-artists. (Think of some of the singers who are singing re-mix songs and some who just happen to be influential, connected and surprisingly popular...) there is a joke that a senior recordist told me- I met a sound recordist who looked very sad and tired. “ vo sir jhuka ke baitha tha” Kya hua yaar tabiyat to thik hai ? Ha bus pareshan hoo Kyu? Yaar vo altaf raza ka kaam chal raha tha saala ek din auto-tune karne me lag gaya To ab to ho gaya na ? Nahi yaar kaam khatam hone se paehli hee baith) gaya. (The auto-tuner too could take it and crashed after one day) prashant pandey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050323/5ca1ded7/attachment.html From sunilmonika at rediffmail.com Mon Mar 21 19:45:31 2005 From: sunilmonika at rediffmail.com (Sunil pandey) Date: 21 Mar 2005 14:15:31 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Story of the Sculptors Message-ID: <20050321141531.10647.qmail@webmail28.rediffmail.com>   The story of the Sculptors After getting a nitty gritty of Bhagwati Jagaran, I commenced with the people. In the same phase, I came across Sri V.S.Suryavanshi in D-Block, Gokalpuri, Delhi-53. “ I was student of Delhi College of Engineering, I worked in “Benatone’ for some time. He gets deep in his memories. Thus I could discover the quenchless flame that was taking jagran towards its dream. V.S.Suryavanshi is now happy and busy in his profession. He learnt a lot from his veteran ustad Sri Ramkishore ji. Here he recognize him with high regards. Now the tea had come and we are preceded further with nice sips. He shows me his albums and I notice an appeal of innovation in his work. He tells me many things about his field. He files income-tax return every year and manages his profession through his contacts. During our talks his daughter Shivani reaches home from her school. Suryavanshi ji has named his firm after her name “Shivani Decorators”. Would you like your children to go, in the same profession’, I ask. ‘No’, the environment is not good. He tells me so many things. As much as I could understand he was talking about some jekyll and hydes. Getting him out of his social duties I take him towards his dreamland. “What are the new things you are working on now a days. ‘Dwadash Shivalingas (Twelve epithets of Lord Shiva) and postures of the Goddess, he tells me. Now we headed towards his dream-rooms – his ‘godowns’. Some one has said, “Either God has created the man or the man has created the God. I could feel this here. What was not there mountains, trees, rivers, sky, the loin, the Goddess .macrocosm! “ I have to devote a lot of time and money here”. He states throughtfully.”Who provides coloring sensation to these creations? Have you managed some painters?” I am enchanted to see this colorful world. I have to do all by myself. “Although I can take the help of the other artist but it doesn’t give me satisfaction”. He answers. One of the yearly event, he provides his creation, is a jagran in Kavinagar, Ghaziabad the event is organized by Sri Pappu Bhati Ji, a profound devotee. The other areas he takes interest are Sevanagar, Lodi Road, Prabhu market, Madan Giri, Tank Road (Karol Bagh) etc. Sculptor Suryavanshi has a unique adorption in carving and painting. He is rather artist than a professional. “How many people do you think working on jagran sets like you”? I popped my data enquiry. “There may be approximately 200 people. He tells me there is a number of artists, who come from Orissa and Bengol but they often work for trade fair, republic day models and other Govt. Programmes also. Here he was telling us about contemporary sculptors as far as I know some of them are from fine art colleges also. The way he manages the size of his sets is called table. He decorates 200 tables in a mega event for this decoration he charges Rs. 5100/- and transportation charges Rs. 3750/-. Yes, he also goes to ‘Nishkam Jagaran’ (Free of charge jagran, upto a certain limit). For such an event only transportation is charged. Suryavanshi ji has spent eight years in this trade.. people go through the intricate passage.. and the voyage of Bhagwati Jagran goes on . Godspeed! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050321/a8efde9d/attachment.html From vivek at sarai.net Tue Mar 22 17:47:12 2005 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:47:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Poetry Reading by Jeet Thayil at Sarai Message-ID: <42400CC8.3000200@sarai.net> PRESENTATION @ SARAI Tuesday, March 29, 6:00 pm 'You Are Not Here' Poetry Reading by Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil will perform from his most recent collection, 'English' (Penguin/Rattapallax, 2004) and a selection of newer poems. 'English', has been widely received as an important and unprecented signpost in the history of Indian English poetry. Fusing lyric and narrative energy in a drowsy, mongrelized Americanese, alternating between strict and free forms, Thayil fashions a voice and persona that is only indirectly autobiographical, half-fiction: addicted to opium, shapeshifting, drifting across borders and stumbling through rehab, while the surrounding world teeters perpetually on the brink of apocalypse. "Ruined still by syntax", the narrator hangs on the margins of both America and India because English is his only language of love, his truest inheritance- "English fills my right hand, silence my left." Thayil's specialty in these poems is a very finely-tuned emotional precision, played out in an unmistakable register that is not crudely bitter or caustic, never heroic, but unconsolably blue, beset by visions. Jeet Thayil was born in India and educated in Hongkong, New York and Bombay. In 1998 he returned to New York where he received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a 2003 poetry award from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His poems have appeared in 'Stand', 'Verse', 'Agenda', 'London Magazine', 'The Independent', 'Salt Hill' and 'Kaviya Bharati', among many other journals. He is an editor with 'Rattapallax' and a contributing editor with 'Fulcrum', and is currently based in Bangalore and Delhi. TWO RECENT POEMS BY JEET THAYIL: IN THE CITY OF INSOMNIA There’s a parade in the white streets of the city. All night the armoured cars trundle past the avenue. Dazed men and women stand making circles with their hands, their smudged eyes wide open. At dawn the silent mayor arrives, climbs the stair to your room, takes a moment to catch his breath and present you with a key you will wear round your neck like a star. SPIDERMAN Leap tall buildings in a single bound? Forget you buddy, I leap years, avenues, financial/fashion/meatpacking districts, 23 MTA buses parked end to end. I leap Broadway, yoyo to traffic light, to bus top, to Chrysler, to jet. You need a mind of sky, of rubber, to understand moi. You need silence, cunning. Exhale! You need to know that everything is metaphor, that poems sprout in my hands like mystic confetti, like neural string theory. My brother, Mycroft, is tiny, but a genius, oh a tiny genius, whose "art is subtle, a precision of hallucinatory brilliance," – that's serious talk, boy – he's 'furthermore' and 'however,' I'm 'know what I'm saying?' and 'whatever.' He is the ghost ant, the one who is not there, unseen until he stops moving. I am companion to owl and peregrine, emperor of air, and I'm loyal to you my loyal subject, whose hard-won pleasure I perform, and though I'm not rich it takes a lot of cash to keep me in the poverty to which I'm accustomed. _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From zzjamal at rediffmail.com Wed Mar 23 00:30:10 2005 From: zzjamal at rediffmail.com (Khalid) Date: 22 Mar 2005 19:00:10 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fast food chains:Job-hunt!! Message-ID: <20050322190010.947.qmail@webmail7.rediffmail.com> I am hunting!! Looking for a job any of the fast food chains I have not worked with.McDonald’s and Café Coffee Day(ccd) are two of them.It is my intention to speak with the managerial levels as much as possible and as often as possible.This will help me in understanding the recruitment “filters”,and eventually the whole process.And hence I am appearing for several “walk-ins”. Yesterday was one such walk-in at Café Coffee Day.And this is what happened: I went straight to the receptionist,who looked rather sad and almost sunk behind the reception, and expressed my desire to work with the café. “As a ?”, she asked without even looking at me. “TEAM”, I said ,and paused.She immedietly looked up,bewildered. “MEMBER”,I continued ”Team member”.She took a deep breathe and smiled. She was’nt that sad,I must confess now. “Are you graduate?” she inquired. “With first division..” I boasted. “And how old are you?” “Twenty three.” I replied. “O,K,fill this form and take this test”she said,handing over a couple of printed papers,and directing me towards a couch closeby. I shared the couch with a man in his late 40’s,giving directions to someone to reach this office. I will soon find out that it is his daughter,who’s also “walking-in”.She is doing a diploma in computers and is keen on joining a food chain, while continuing studies. And she is on her way,while her father is waiting for her,taking a half-day from his work at this café office. I started filling up the first form which is the “Employment Application”.By the time I finished, this man was over with conversations and did’nt take much time to understand that I am her daughter’s competitor.He kept looking at the test paper while I was writing.Suddenly his cell rang again,and he went out. I was taking the test now.The test paper said,in bold letters” Screening test for Team member.Level 1” It had questions on analytical ability, situation-handling with an instructions saying “ be specific and crisp”,data interpretation and analytical writing.Time given was 30 minutes and total marks were 50. I can recall some of the questions in my Pizza Hut test too,such as: 1. Anyway back to CCD. I took over 2 hours to take this test without any interruption from anyone .When I completed I found the receptionist missing.So I stood up and walked out. “I will come again to take the test again and also appear before the interview.” I decided.And I came home. I had a very solid reason for not appearing before an interview that very day.While riding back home,I noticed, an unevenly written word “RELAX” at the traffic signal. And I knew for sure that I would use that word in my posting for my fellow readers. RELAX!!! wishing you happiness and health. Khalid -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050322/7f7b595d/attachment.html From zzjamal at rediffmail.com Wed Mar 23 00:33:08 2005 From: zzjamal at rediffmail.com (Khalid) Date: 22 Mar 2005 19:03:08 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fast food chains:Pizza hut Bible!! Message-ID: <20050322190308.2133.qmail@webmail7.rediffmail.com>   PIZZA HUT BIBLE. Let me explain some of the procedures which are followed in fast food chains religiously.This one is from Pizza Hut. These procedures form the very core of the Standardization process in these chains and are primarily the “deskilling” factor for the jobs. These standards are to be followed “as it is”, without applying any “sense”; common sense or otherwise.As a matter of fact a “ideal” employee would follow these procedures without any thoughts. The whole idea is to bring these procedures into practice without any flaw. Motto is not to make a “better” pizza but to deliver the same pizza as it was delivered yesterday. Uniform product.Not the better product. MAKE TABLE PROCEDURE: Interpretation of all job-aids. Veggie sanitizing using sumatab,chemical used for washing vegetables.Explain handling of sumatab-all do’s and don’ts. Veggie cutting : for onion,capsicum and tomatoes. Clarify dimensions: capsicum and onion(25 by 12 mm strips),for tomatoes(12 by 12 mm dices) Preparation of sause(all types:explain recipe,ingredients,mixing,storing and MRD(make,ready,deliver) Stuffing of stuffed crush dough Importance and mechanics of pre-saucing and pre-topping. Trouble shooting –Sauce issues. Interpreting The spec chart Usage of logs books and checklists(opening and closing) Pre-open cleaning Make –table layout Filling of Make table inserts Location,usage and storage of small wares Storage of back up-up meats and veggies in the make table Checking Dough status,Dough quality(both types) and co-ordination with the dough team. Oven preparations(LPG supply,ignition,temperature and belt speed settings. Make Table Printer setup(Trouble shooting-loading paper,changing ribbon.) RECEIVING PROCEDURES: Dry store items Cold/frozen items Veggies Explain the process of writing an MRD for each type Explain FIFO(First in first out) and storage process to ensure FIFO Explain storage standards for all items Explain the procedure to take and record temperatures for cold and frozen items Explain how to check for damages and expiration dates on relevant items. Dry store setup and cleaning Walk-in chiller storage and cleaning Cleaning supplies-usage and dilutions PIZZA PRODUCTION: Identify toppings Saucing procedures Using quality rings Layout method overview Placement of Pizza in the oven In-store production –time concept Need to give priority to home delivery tickets Concept of pre-saucing and pre-topping pizzas-impact on production times Hands-on practice of making pizzas Making half-n-half pizzas,single toipping pizzas,special instructions,substitutions,making pepperoni pizzas(if applicable)etc Using the Peak Revenue Period Checklist Explain the service times of all items served by the station Closing of the make table Storage of left over Toppings Cleaning procedures Thawing charts usage and placing meats for thawing Tracking wastages on the Make Table INVENTRY PROCEDURES: Daily,Weekly and Monthly count items Count units,packing units/purchase units Importance of Inventories and Efficiencies FIRE FAFETY PROCEDURES: Fire exit for the customer Evacuation procedure Location of fire extinguishers Usage of all types of extinguishers in the restaurant Location of the LPG solenoi,position of gas valves Procedure to handle a gas leak Understanding the fire detection panel-interpreting the signals and responding to them GAS BANK OPERATIONS: Connecting cylinders Connecting for maximizing usage of gas Explain need to connect not more than 5 cylinders at any given time Hazard and accident prevention Tracing the usage of gas using logbooks PRACTICE ENTERTAINMENT SERVICE(dancing) AND BIRTHDAY’S.: Manning the station independently under close supervision of the buddy trainer. Crew-evaluation to be conducted.If the crew clears with 90% and more,proceed with EXPERT certification test.If he fails,re-do session on Missed points.Re-do the crew evaluation. (After successful EXPERT certification,complete training plans and returns to the training co-ordinator,to be incorporated in the personal file) wishing you happiness and health. Khalid -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050322/07f424c4/attachment.html From zainab at xtdnet.nl Thu Mar 24 09:52:14 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:22:14 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Living in a Small City Message-ID: <1174.219.65.13.41.1111638134.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Dear All, Posting an article which I read in the Amsterdam Weekly. The column is titled "Portable City" and the article is called "The First Breakdancer". Wonder what you think of it!?!?!? Cheers, Z I sit in the tram, looking at the tourists shoving their way past the gables on the Damrak. I imagine that Amsterdam looks like a big city to them - that, despite the bikes and the cuddly canals, this city creates the impression of being a metropolis. That big-city feeling has less to do with the size of a city than with its spirit of place. Aren't there hundreds of much larger cities that are more boring than most villages in the countryside? A real city consists of conjectures about people, clubs and restaurants that you don't yet know. A big city is anonymous, which gives its inhabitants opportunities to take distance from themselves. But if - like me - you grew up in Amsterdam, the illusion of being in a big city is continually being dispelled. It's because of the people: there aren't just enough of them. I'm always running into people whose faces I know. Sometimes they greet me with a brief nod and sometimes they quickly look away. Some of the faces belong to people I know from school, or university. Other, more recent faces are those of people I know from restaurants, cafes or parties. All of them have a story of some kind that I remember. Take the driver of the tram I'm sitting in now. In the early 1980's he was the city's first breakdancer. I'd see him in the middle of the Leidseplein, dancing to the pumping hip-hop beats coming from his ghetto blaster. That's the good thing about recognizing faces. But what disturbs me about so many faces I know is that they're changing. Sometimes I'll see someone who I've seen around the city all my life whose face has got fuller and who's proudly pushing a pram. When I go out I see the same faces everywhere, but now they've become harder or fatter. For this reason alone I'd sometimes really prefer to be living in a bigger city; at least I wouldn't have to see myself growing older. What, by the way, could I ever do with all the people I know? How many people does one really need: 30, eight? Maybe only one? The tram comes to a halt at Leidseplein. I get out and walk in front of the tram. I look up and see the first breakdancer of Amsterdam. He's wearing a blue uniform, and he makes sure to rung the tram's bell before driving on. Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From aarti at sarai.net Thu Mar 24 12:41:59 2005 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:41:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] char soh bees Message-ID: <4242683F.4050107@sarai.net> Dear All, For a little while I have been thinking about some things that I want to share with you, with which I need some help. They are very unformed right now, just nascent initial thoughts, not quite coherent, but nonetheless. Through conversation with comrades here, maybe they will get clarified and more fleshed out. I am basically curious about how the law circulates, and the forms in which it circulates. By this I mean..how do we know the law in everyday life? For instance, if you happen to be a filmmaker and need to shoot in a particular area, you know you will have to get permissions from the DCPs of various police stations because many areas, Central Delhi for instance are under this Act (the exact act i forget now) which makes shooting etc without permission illegal. Likewise in the course of doing the things we do we interact with the letter of the law in various ways, and the law filters down to us. What we know of the law is not always the 'Law' i.e we have a sense of what it is we can and cannot do, though we may not always be in the know of the specific legal injunction that allows or prohibits the doing of certain things. Also, how does the language of the law enter our language. For instance 'char soh bees' (420) is a common phrase to describe a no-good character, but it is also section 420 of the IPC which relates to dishonesty, cheating, petty fraud etc. what are other similar phrases in common usage which speak of the law? I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me with this. I right now cant think of any other phrase except char so bees, but I'm sure there must be others. Any thoughts, and help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks best Aarti From rakesh at sarai.net Thu Mar 24 20:15:13 2005 From: rakesh at sarai.net (Rakesh) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:15:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] questions arising form bihar samaj simiti Message-ID: <4242D279.4010509@sarai.net> Dear All Last Monday I attended a programme of Bihar Samaj Samiti, an organisation of mainly Delhi based migrants Bihari Workers. Here I am sharing my observations and thoughts on the programme. "Jahan na pahunche gari pahunche wahan Bihari Har kshetra mein aage hain yeh kya niji kya sarkari Tab bhi dekh kar bihariyon ki dasha man hua hai bhari" These are the lines from "Bihar Samaj Samiti-Smarika (Souvenier of Bihar Samaj Samiti). Yesterday, The Samiti Launched its Souvenier-2005 in Rajendra Memorial Hall, Delhi. Mr. Oscar Fernandis, Union Minister for Programme Implementation, Mr. Tariq Anwar, General Secretary of Nationalist Congress Party, Lok Sabha MP Mr. Sandeep Dikshit, Formar MP, Lal Bihari Tiwari, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President, Rambabu Sharma, Chaudhary Matin Ahmad, Member of Legislative Assembaly, Delhi, Zameer Ahmad Munna and Ishwar Chand Goel, Member of MCD were the various types of guests (Chief Guest, Guest of Honour, Ditinguished Guest ....). Entire Rajendra Memorial Hall was full of working class population of Delhi. All, yes all of them from Bihar. Mostly Muslim. At one level the Souvenier launch programme seemed to me an occassion of show of strength. Although 'Bihar Samaj Samiti' has an organisational structure but Mr. Naushad Alam, the General Secretary of 'organisation is all in all of the ogranization. The show was totally organised and managed by him. He was busy enough in getting him photographed as much as he could, from every angle of the dias. But at the same time the programme had another dimension also, which is quite interesting in the context of the aspirations and the dialy needs of the working class in the city. The question of migrants' identity is the most crucil in this respect. Whoever from the audicance got a chance to speak, spoke about their daily experience. Speaking in local Hindi accent, a worker from Navi Kareem (a lane in walled city) said, "Hum thik kaam kare tab bhi aur kharab kam kare tab bhi, lala sala humko bihariye kahta hai." This kind of sense of humiliation was expressed almost by all, who spoke. They were poor, daily wage worker. So, humiliation is one aspect, another is a sense to show one's existance, and for this arise the need of a group of organisation. The ogranisation not only provides the migrants a sense of self being but also it serves as a tool of negotiation with local bureaucracy, civic bodies and dominating political forces. This was evident form the people present on dias, who were from different political streams, and the photographs and stories in the Souvenier. There are photographs of ACP and DCP and other higher officials, photographs of leaders of different political parties as the guests in different functions of Bihar Samaj Samiti. So all what I want to say here is that such kinds of organisations made on the basis of regional identities are the tool to negotiate with various power centers and at the same time it is a kind of claim. Claim to get share at different places. For example, one of the audiances criticised the demolition at Yamuna Pusta and the 'rehabilitation' aftermath and said, "If we are working in the middle of the city then why should we go on the outskirts, and why even staying here for more than 20-30 years we are not considered as a Dilliwallah?" On the other hand it again became evident that the participation of different political leaders and figures in the programme was nothing but a political gimmick. While attending the programme I was continiously thinking that why not a single invited leader afford to be absent from the programme. And finally, now it is clear to me that it is impossible for them to miss such kind of opportunities, because these are directly related to the final outcome. The vote. The banner of the programme was saying "Bihar Samaj Samiti ki Dusari Smarika ka Vimochan aur Bihar Mein Badh ki Vibhishika Par Sangosthi (The Lauch of the Souvenier of Bihar Samaj Samiti and A discussion on Flood in Bihar)" But not a single leader spoke on Badh ki Vibhishika. Instead one extened their best wishes for Holi. Besides, their tone was that they will do everything and anything for their (migrants') emanicipation. If fact some of them given account of what they have done during their tenure, or what they are doing presently. So, Initially when I went to the programme I thought I did a mistake, but after witnessing the enitre programme and going through the souvenier now I think this is a very important phenomenon of emerging urban and this demands attentions from urban researh community. -- Rakesh Kumar Singh Sarai-CSDS Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Ph: 91 11 23960040 Fax: 91 11 2394 3450 web site: www.sarai.net web blog: http://blog.sarai.net/users/rakesh/ From sananth at sancharnet.in Thu Mar 24 19:57:00 2005 From: sananth at sancharnet.in (Ananth) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 19:57:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Culture of Business: The Informal Sector and the Finance Business Message-ID: <6.1.0.6.0.20050324075602.0280e340@smma.sancharnet.in> The Culture of Business: The Informal Sector and the Finance Business – March Monthly Research Report Submitted By S.Ananth, Vijayawada The month of March is normally a bad time to elicit any information in the business arena. The year end accounts and related work means that most of the participants are unwilling to spend time on matters such as interviews for researchers. Hence the month was largely spent on organising the research work completed so far. A brief note on the origins of the finance business in Vijayawada after independence may form a good starting point. Historically, Vijayawada was the centre of finance business (including hire-purchase and leasing apart from conventional money lending). From 1947 to 1964, capital was provided by the branches of the NBFC’s like Sundaram Finance, Laxmi General Finance or MGF (Delhi based). They catered largely to the new vehicle market. The second hand vehicle market was in the hands of Madras based Marwari financiers, who either established branches in the town or operated here through their agents. The largest of these Marwari firms and individuals was M/S Pannalal & Co. A large section of the aspiring second hand vehicle owners would seek capital from them. These Madras based Marwari financiers would come to the town once a fortnight and would meet prospective borrowers. This changed in 1964 when a local man, Yerineni Govindiah established his finance company in Vijayawada town and in his native village, Pedana. Till about 1973, there were only about thirty companies. In 1973, the Krishna District Auto Financiers Association was formed to protect the interests of the financiers. This association was the first of its kind. The business boomed during the 1970’s and 1980’s and by the early 1990’s the Krishna District Auto Financiers had nearly 650 members. (This association caters only to the formal hire-purchase and leasing firms). The mid 1990’s saw the entry of the national level players (some of them listed companies) like Apple Finance, SRF Finance, GE Capital and subsequently ICICI (now ICICI bank). The later part of the decade saw the entry of nearly all the other players who operate in India. These include HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Finance, GE Transportation and Finance Limited, Citicorp Financial Services among others. These firms are part of the formal hire-purchase and leasing firms. There are certain interesting aspects of the finance business in the region that deserve mention. This month’s report, therefore, covers these observations (and at times a brief analysis) of the nature and dynamics of the business. An important aspect of the research centred on how the financiers select which client may be given money (referred to as finance in local parlance) and which one ought to be rejected. Preliminary research indicates that the national and multinational players have only one advantage over the local players – cheap capital with which they undercut the local players. They have been able to select clients in a more profitable manner (meaning those with a better repaying capacity) than the largely players who have large amounts of capital at their disposal and who are ‘theoretically’ better placed to carry out the business. Nearly all the financiers either local formal players, people lending money on a daily basis, people lending money to business establishments and other categories of informal finance players (often called ‘private financiers’) claimed that over the years they had been able to identity people as to who may be given money after talking to them for sometime. It may be inferred that there is no objective process that anybody follows in this regard. The large formal players claim they are ‘systems based companies’ where the head office lays down certain procedures. These ‘systems’ have to be followed. Quite often these ‘systems’ can very easily be sabotaged or bypassed as players like ICICI and HDFC seem to be finding out. A financier pointed, persistent questioning declared that he sees the keen-ness of the borrower and the rates at which they are willing to borrow as the barometer of their intentions. If a borrower is willing to borrow money at exorbitant rates and is not interested in bargaining on the rate of interest to be paid it either means that the borrower is desperate or is not going to repay the principle. Hence both these categories should be avoided. GE Countrywide have a system, not followed by any other company. The company does not lend money to people residing in certain areas of the cities. Any prospective customer from these ‘grey’ and are to be straight away rejected. Incidentally the areas set apart from by GEC are areas largely resided by lower classes / ‘lower castes’. The nature of security pledged and the mode of collection is another interesting aspect of the business culture. A lender in the informal finance sector will never lend without a reference. This does not mean that mere reference will enable a person to raise money without any safeguards. B. Srinivas (interviewed this month) clearly mentioned that ‘even after a person has a reference, they still see if the person is wearing a shirt and chappals’. A large number of them take a promissory note plus cheque and they take another promissory note from the wife. Promissory note from the wife is considered to be important because they cannot forsake wife but may forsake their friend or reference. It is common for the lenders to demand and take blank promissory notes plus cheques (both of which are prohibited under the law). These are considered to be insurance against future default. In case of daily financier who lend to vendors and so on, promissory notes with thumb impressions are the security. A large number of business establishments (including some very large retail outlets borrow money from informal lenders). These registered retail outlets borrow from the formal players as well as informal lenders. In case of a delayed payment, the informal financiers do not panic like some of the formal players. Nearly all the informal lenders and some of the local formal players (referred to as partnerships in local parlance as they had all graduated from sole proprietary concerns, partnerships, private limited status and then to limited company status as their business grew), tend to give a lot of time. A financier was candid when he remarked that a financier does not want his client to prepay the loan very quickly nor to completely default on the loan. As they charge a penal interest (which could range from twenty four per cent per annum to thirty six per cent per annum) in case of delayed payment, it is profitable for the lender to prolong the loan by sometime. In other words, the conventional image of a Shylock may not be the right image for the financiers. They would never like their golden goose to be strangulated by the burden as it would mean a complete loss. Death of the borrower is considered to be a catastrophe for the financiers. Unlike the large formal companies, an informal financiers would take any amount offered by the debtor and will come back any number of times to collect the interest. They will not hurry into repossession or fighting or grabbing what they can. The partnerships often wait for four months and even six months in to repossess a defaulter’s vehicle. They may be said to be constantly accumulating what Bourdieu called in another context ‘symbolic capital’. All the local players (either the formal partnerships or the informal lenders) have an excellent understanding of the business environment and the culture of the region. A large number of people borrow from the private players because of the service they render. Once the relationship has been established, it is common for the parties to carry on their business for years. A shop owner who has been borrowing money from a local Marwari moneylender at 36 per cent interest for the past twelve years says that trust and speed of service is what keeps the business relationship alive. Once the Marwari lent him about five lakhs at 10 PM as some payments had to be made and he had to send money to Hyderabad on some business. This is something which no formal player can ever match, because they are all ‘systems based companies’. A number of local hire-purchase firms are able to survive despite charging higher interest because the local players take care of all the paper work and at time deliver money at their door step. All disputes and problems are settled as quickly as possible without recourse to violence. All the financiers believe that litigation in courts and violence will not help them as it will only aggravate their problems and it is bad for business. This not to claim that all lenders behave in this manner. There have been instances when financiers have raided the homes of people and take away possession. Incidentally most of the financiers believe that this is the case only for those financiers who lend small amounts of less than five or ten thousand rupees. Financiers who lend substantial amounts will not go for this method for a very practical reason – most of the homes will not have items to cover their loans. If they were to fight for small amounts then they can never expect the borrower to repay the loan. A borrower often has a sentiment about the financier and the attendant good luck or bad luck they bring. Certain financiers are considered to be lucky while others are always unlucky. Borrowing money from those considered unlucky is matter of mere exigency rather than free will. The research plans to analyse this aspect in greater detail in future. WORK DONE IN THE MONTH OF MARCH: * Processing/Organizing of the material: A selection of the material has been scanned for the use of Sarai as well as for my own use. Approximately about one hundred documents have been scanned relating to different aspects of the local economy and newspaper cutting related to the finance sector in Vijayawada. These scanned documents will be submitted to Sarai. * Interviews with players in the informal as well as formal sectors. This is a very important section of the research. People interviewed include Bathina Srinivas (a financier who has been in the business since 1994. Srinivas is a rarity in finance business in that he lends across different types / categories of the finance business.); Dasari Venkateswara Rao (who has worked in the finance sector from 1964 in different capacities. He started his career as a Clerk under Yerineni Govindiah, the first local financier and is now the owner of a sole proprietorship finance company). The interview is on tape and a copy of the same will be submitted to Sarai; Bharath (Name has been changed in order to protect the identity of the person on request), a former private financer who suffered large scale losses and has since exited the business; A. Jitendranath (a partner in the first finance company, Navayuga Finance); Ramesh (name changed to protect identity on request), an employee of the central government services and a partner in a chit fund company. From soudhamini_1 at lycos.com Thu Mar 24 19:39:13 2005 From: soudhamini_1 at lycos.com (sou dhamini) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:09:13 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] madurai Message-ID: <20050324140913.D261BC612B@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050324/87aca287/attachment.html From radiofreealtair at gmail.com Thu Mar 24 22:53:24 2005 From: radiofreealtair at gmail.com (Anand Vivek Taneja) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:53:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] two years Message-ID: <8178da9905032409232ffac67d@mail.gmail.com> two years since the war in iraq began... Remember when the fear was still fresh- and the terror was relatively new- and it was possible to be shocked and awed by Iraq? a posting from http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ Two Years... We've completed two years since the beginning of the war. These last two years have felt like two decades, but I can remember the war itself like it was yesterday. The sky was lit with flashes of red and white and the ground rocked with explosions on March 21, 2003. The bombing had actually begun on the dawn of the 20th of March, but it got really heavy on the 21st. I remember being caught upstairs when the heavier bombing first began. I was struggling to drag down a heavy cotton mattress from my room for an aunt who was spending a couple of weeks with us and I suddenly heard a faraway 'whiiiiiiiiiiiiiz' that sounded like it might be getting closer. I began to rush then- pulling and pushing at the heavy mattress; trying to half throw, half haul it down stairs. I got stuck halfway down the staircase and, at that point, the whizzing sound had grown so loud, it felt like it was coming out of my head. I shoved again at the mattress and called E.'s name to help lug the thing downstairs but E. was outside with my cousin, trying to see where the missiles were going. I repositioned and began to kick the heavy mattress, not caring how it got downstairs, just wanting to be on the ground floor when the missile hit. The mattress finally budged and began to slip and slide down the remaining 10 steps, finally landing in a big pile at the end of the staircase. I followed it in a hurry, taking two steps at a time, expecting to feel a big "BOOM" at any moment. I tripped on the last step in the mad dash for the ground floor and ended up in a heap on the cotton mass on the ground. The explosion came the same moment- followed by a series of larger explosions that didn't sound like the ordinary missiles we had been experiencing the last 40 hours or so. The house was chaotic that moment. The parents were running, dad trying to locate his battery-powered radio and mother making sure the stove was turned off. She was also yelling orders over her shoulder, commanding us to go into the "safe room" we had specially decorated with duct tape and soft cushions, or 'bomb-proofed' as my cousin liked to say. The aunt that was staying with us was running around, shrilly trying to find her two granddaughters (who were already in the safe room with their mother). The cousin was rushing around turning off kerosene heaters and opening windows so that they wouldn't shatter with the impact. E. hurried in from outside, trying to keep his expression casual under the paleness of his face. Through all of this, the bombing was getting louder and more frequent- the earth rumbling and shuddering with every explosion. E. was saying something about the sky but the whooshing sound coming from above was so loud, we couldn't hear what he was saying. "The sky is full of red and white lights…" He yelled, helping me rise shakily from the mattress. "You want to go outside and see?" I looked at him like he was crazy and made him help me drag the mattress into the living room. We rushed back into the safe room and the bombs were still falling loud and fast, one after the other. Sometimes they felt like they were falling right next door, and other times, it felt like they were falling a few blocks away. We knew they were further than that. The faces in the safe room were white with tension. My cousin's wife sat in the corner, a daughter on either side, her arms around their shoulders, murmuring prayers softly. My cousin was pacing in front of the safe room door, looking grim and my father was trying to find a decent radio station on the small AM/FM radio he carried around wherever he went. My aunt was hyperventilating at this point and my mother sat next to her, trying to distract her with the voice of the guy on the radio talking about the rain of bombs on Baghdad. A seemingly endless 40 minutes later, there was a slight lull in the bombing- it seemed to have gotten further away. I took advantage of the relative calm and went to find the telephone. The house was cold because the windows were open to keep them from shattering. I reached for the telephone, fully expecting to find it dead but I was amazed to find a dial tone. I began dialing numbers- friends and relatives. We contacted an aunt and an uncle in other parts of Baghdad and the voices on the other end were shaky and wary. "Are you OK? Is everyone OK?" Was all I could ask on the phone. They were ok… but the bombing was heavy all over Baghdad. Shock and awe had begun. Two years ago this week. What followed was almost a month of heavy bombing. That chaotic night became the intro to endless chaotic days and long, sleepless nights. You get to a point during extended air-raids where you lose track of the days. You lose track of time. The week stops being Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc. The days stop being about hours. You begin to measure time with the number of bombs that fell, the number of minutes the terror lasted and the number of times you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire and explosions. We try to put it out of our heads, but it comes back anyway. We sit around sometimes, when there's no electricity, or when we're gathered for lunch or dinner and someone will say, "Remember two years ago when…" Remember when they bombed Mansur, a residential area… When they started burning the cars in the streets with Apaches… When they hit the airport with that bomb that lit up half of the city… When the American tanks started rolling into Baghdad…? Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. http://www.synchroni-cities.blogspot.com/ From ajtas at hotmail.com Thu Mar 24 22:16:27 2005 From: ajtas at hotmail.com (tasneem dhinojwala) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:46:27 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] 3rd posting Message-ID: DEALING WITH DEATH-THE ANCHOR OF FAITH �Mouth matlab is duniya se doosri duniya me jaana�, says Mujaab bhai. He is a short statured man whose age it won�t be easy to guess. There is a grey unkempt air about him which could either be due to age or due to hardships. He works as a helper in G.P.Girls Hostel of Jamia Millia University. His wife died 7 years back. It was a kitchen mishap and she was burnt alive. He had gone out to get the kids from school when it happened. She was in hospital for 3 days and eventually she died. After 2 years he stopped doing post death rituals for her. �Hum to ab chahte he ki usko hamesha ke liye bhool jaaye to acha he.bahut satata he�. After her demise he feels all the responsibilities are on him; everything from washing the clothes of the kids to cooking�. But he does believe in an after life where one can be free of the hassles of this world.�acha kaam karte he to jannath milega,nahi to jahannam.� So he too tries to gain heaven by doing good deeds. ��.. There is something about the mystery and invincibility of death which leads one to belief. Some way to explain the unexplainable. ��.. �Nadira baaji�. That is what people around her calls her. She is 33 years old and is doing her MA in Urdu. For her this world is a �musafir khana�. After death you enter another phase of life. She lost her mom 10 years back. She was with her mom at that time. She still remembers that her neighbours and relatives continuously made her and her sister recite kalmia. She says,� at that time I wondered why every one was asking me to say kalmia,the fundamental article of faith in Islam. They were saying bas kalmia pado aur zyada mat socho� May be religion has a cathartic effect. Or may be it is the hope that faith brings. The hope that you are not losing your loved one forever; that you would actually be meeting her /him in the �hereafter� where the injustices of this world will be undone. Mujeeb bhai is a firm believer in this utopia. He believes that since his wife had a painful death like an accident, she will be in heaven. In Nadira baaji�s mother�s case, all the post death rituals were done. The poor were fed, The Holy Quran was read. She believes that the benefit of all these deeds will go to her late mother. Death is inevitable. You can�t escape it; your only choice is to deal with it. So Nadira baaji recites the Quran verse which says �Every soul has to taste death�. She then speaks of the rites done to the body of the departed soul. As the person dies s/he is positioned facing the Ka�aba,the holy place of Muslims. The next important step is to bathe the body. She is not sure of the religious significance of the ritual death anniversaries, but her family follows them. Nadira baaji believes that one shouldn�t cry over one�s dead one more than 3 days. You need to take death stoically and take on with the duties of life . For her faith is a tool which helps to move ahead even after something as devastating as death. ����.. While I listen to the tapes of these interviews on death, my Kashmiri room mate interferes. She says, �If you go to Kashmir and ask people about death, they will laugh at you. It is an every day occurrence there. Nothing unusual about it� �� Sister Celine is a catholic nun from Kerala. Once she was a high school teacher;but now she works as a missionary in Manipur. She is on a short stay in Delhi. She believes in the healing power of faith and helps people to overcome their grief. �I lost my father at the age of 29 and was over come with grief�,she says. She was a nun at that time. However faith helped her in what she calls �inner healing�. Through prayers she was able to come to terms with her grief and now helps a lot of others to do the same. According to her,the concept of heaven and hell in Christianity shouldn�t be taken in its literal sense. Hell means those who are unable to attain the love of God. The very fact that they couldn�t partake God�s grace itself is the hell for them. For her,heaven is not a beautiful place in the material sense of the term,but the experience of attaining the love of God. She speaks of catholic rituals were death is seen as not a tragedy but an experience of reaching God. After death,the body is sponged and is clad in white. For women,their wedding dress is used. A crown is placed over the head of the body and a bouquet is held on hands. The funeral processions are grand and the body is placed on the tomb. The priest blesses the tomb and says the bible lines �oh, human,you came from dust and goes back to dust.� For Sister Celine death is only a stage which leads to resurrection as in Jesus Christ�s case. The lines seems to have an unknown power which helps people to deal with the ultimate unknown �Death;whether it is the bible line Sister Celine quotes or the line from Quran which Nadira baaji recited, �Every soul has to taste death.�As for Mujeeb bhai ,he firmly believes in the �hereafter� which Maulana speaks of in Friday prayers. May be without this belief or �inner healing�,it might not be every easy to move on in life after a near one�s demise. _________________________________________________________________ Make money with Zero Investment. http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/4686-26272-10936-31?ck=RegSell Start your business. From amsethi at rediffmail.com Thu Mar 24 12:31:58 2005 From: amsethi at rediffmail.com (Aman Sethi) Date: 24 Mar 2005 07:01:58 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Surveillance and the MNIC Project Message-ID: <20050324070158.10648.qmail@webmail50.rediffmail.com> Dear All, This is PART I of my term paper, "May I see your papers", on the Multi-Purpose National Identity Card(MNIC) Project. The first phase of the project is underway in 13 border districts, and the idea and is issue a card for every indian. Its rather long, so i have posted it in two parts. Cheers Aman Abstract: The Indian administration has talked about a National Identification System (NIDS) for years. But strangely enough, no one seems to know about it. Press coverage has been erratic at best, and non-existent at worst. But, the NIDS project raises crucial questions about how the Indian State engages with its citizens at present, and how it foresees a change in this relationship in the future. The project raises important questions concerning privacy and the rights of an individual, weighed against the safety of state and society. Through the course of this paper I shall examine the major arguments in favour of, and against, the NIDS project and shall examine the social and economic costs and benefits of its implementation. Introduction: The un-Sangh Advocates “The vagabond is by definition a suspect.” Daniel Nordman (1987) The earliest demands for a National Identification System (NIDS) were heard in 1992 when the Sangh Parivar and its allied organisations staged protests against the influx of Bangladeshi immigrants in the states of Assam, Bengal and the national capital – Delhi. They argued that the migration of, primarily Muslim, Bangladeshis was altering the demographic profile of the country, and took every opportunity to air their xenophobic slogan –“Infiltrators, Quit India.” In response to their protests, the Central Government launched Operation Pushback, with the expressed purpose of deporting Bangladeshi immigrants from Delhi. At the time, one of the major practical problems faced by the government was the identification and enumeration of the immigrants. The only form of identification that the Indian poor have is the ration card, and this was deemed insufficient by the Narishimha Rao government of the day; the government stated that possession of these cards would not guarantee “automatic citizenship” . In this context, a meeting of the chief ministers (of states on the eastern border) was called and a resolution was passed to issue identity cards to citizens in border districts. However, the government failed to execute the proposal. In 1998, when the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minster and L.K. Advani in charge of the Home Ministry, it had not forgotten its obsession with ‘aliens” and “anti-nationals’. A Group of Ministers (GoM) report, commissioned on ‘Reforming the National Security System,’ observed: “Illegal migration has assumed serious proportions. There should be compulsory registration of citizens and non-citizens living in India. This will facilitate preparation of a national register of citizens. All citizens should be given a Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) and non-citizens should be issued identity cards of a different colour and design. This should be introduced initially in the border districts or may be in a 20 Kms border belt and extended to the hinterland progressively. The Central Government should meet the full cost of the identity card scheme.” The Obvious Solution A card for every Indian The NDA government chose to act upon the recommendations of the GoM report, and the idea of a Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) Project was put forward; Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was commissioned to carry out a feasibility study in early 2000. The aim of the MNIC was, to quote Advani, “to help substantially in checking illegal immigration and infiltration and in tracing of criminals and subversives, especially in the border areas of the country. These cards will also be used for the purpose of issuing passports, driving licenses, ration cards, health care, admission in educational institutions, employment in public/private sector, life and general insurance as also for maintenance of land records and urban property holdings.” The ministry envisaged a massive information superstructure that would maintain records on every Indian resident. But would it work? By February 2001, TCS had given the go-ahead for the MNIC project. Christened Project NISHAN (National Identification System Home Affairs Network) by TCS, the project was estimated to cost 4000 crores over the next 10 years, excluding the cost of establishment, management, fibre connectivity, and the cost of capital. The project would also require completely new software, capable of handling detailed information on at least one billion data entries. TCS suggested a three-tier network comprising of a client tier- that would provide the interface between the user and the network; a data-source tier that would access the central data warehouse; and a mid-tier that would provide an interface between the two. Primary data would be collected at 15,000 collection points, which could be franchised out to private collectors. It further recommended a plastic identification (ID) card with two dimensional bar coding that would store a wealth of information about the card holder – personal details, biometric measurements like digital fingerprints or iris/ retinal scans and details of verified documents like passports, driver’s licenses and ration cards. To ensure that the database stayed current, the initial phase of the project would have to be completed in 5 years. Subsequently the enrollment would be in accordance with the rate of growth of population of the respective regions. TCS recommended a public-private partnership in the collection of data through a process of franchisees. Eighty percent of the population could be covered by the private sector with the remaining 20 percent – in remote and sensitive areas- covered by government. Pleased with the results of the feasibility study, the government launched a pilot project in 20 selected sub districts of 13 border-states and union territories from April 2003 to December 2004. Methodology: Getting down to the nuts and bolts Based on the information posted on the Ministry of Information Technology website , the methodology of the MNIC project shall be as follows. Initially, on the basis of a census-type survey, a National Population Register (NPR) shall be created, with the allocation of a unique National Identification Number (NIN) to each citizen. A separate National Register of Residence (NRR) shall also be prepared that will keep track of all non-citizen residents. The NIN shall be assigned at birth to every Indian citizen with a system of continuous updating put in place at every tahsil to record births, death, change in address, marital status etc. Each citizen shall be issued a Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC) and each non-citizen shall be provided with a Multipurpose Residence Card. The MNIC shall contain data regarding the personal details, heath records, education records, old-age pension, information concerning access to the public distribution system, disability related services, Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe related services. The card will contain foolproof identity markers like a unique NIN, a photograph and a digital fingerprint. All information on the card shall be printed in English and the state language. In a drastic revision of the TCS estimate, the budget allocation for the MNIC project is a whopping 10,000 crores over the next three to four years. The budget includes the cost of creation and maintenance of the National Population Register, infrastructure and the cost of the card. The government plans a public-private partnership business model to limit any possible liabilities for both parties. The government has also made changes to the Citizenship Act of 1955 to make it compulsory for every citizen to submit to the NIDS. “The gold standard for all identification”: Hard-selling the MNIC Bigger, Better, More The state sees several advantages to the MNIC project. The MNIC shall make other forms of identification like ration cards, driver licenses, birth certificates etc, superfluous. The MNIC shall also make voter ID cards, issued by the Election Commission, unnecessary. The card shall also solve the problem of false entries in electoral rolls, and impersonation of voters. Supporters of the project claim that the card shall allow socio-economic benefits to be aimed at those who need them the most, thereby shall reducing leakages and corruption in the delivery mechanism of government assistance. According to a slick presentation on the Ministry of Information Technology website, the card shall soon become the “gold standard database to form the core basis for all e-governance projects.” The NIN shall be required for the operation of existing bank accounts, the opening of new bank accounts, the operation of insurance policies, the registration and transfer of property and the operation of Pensions and Employer Provident Fund. The card shall have two variants – the India Basic Card, which shall be issued free of cost, and the India Premium Card, which shall be paid for by the user. The India Basic Card shall contain all the data described in the preceding paragraphs; while the Premium Card shall have a larger memory chip, which shall allow online financial transactions and the card’s use as an ‘e-purse’ in addition to the existing functions of the basic card. The spectre of terrorism The September 11th strike on the World Trade Centre, in New York in 2001, served as a central lobbying point for those in favour of a NIDS. According to a report by the Century Foundation, all 19 hijackers involved in the attack had valid social security numbers, and many had driver licenses and operational bank accounts. On the September 9, 2001, two days before the attack, one of the group leaders was stopped by highway patrol for speeding on I-95 in Maryland, USA. The trooper checked his license and registration papers, found that they were in order, and handed him a speeding ticket. Supporters of the NIDS point out that had there been a system in place, which would warn the trooper that the driver was on a government watch list, tragedy may have been averted. In India as well, the discourse on the MNIC is cloaked in the language of terrorism and security alongside the more soothing language of improving the delivery of government services. The Bangladeshi immigrant –once portrayed as a free-loader on the country’s scarce resources and supposedly a major reason for the implementation of the NIDS- has now been transformed into an ‘infiltrator’ in official discourse- out to destroy the rubric of the state and the fabric of the nation. In the USA, the proposed NIDS is supposed to build digital profiles of individuals to help enforcement agencies identify ‘potential terrorists.’ The category of the potential terrorist is an interesting one. A potential terrorist is a person who could at some undefined point in the future pose a security risk of some sort. In a widely quoted remark made at a press conference on the state of intelligence in Iraq, US Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld said, “Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." Clearly, the category of “potential terrorist” falls in the category of “unknown unknowns”. The US government feels such people must be stopped, and that the only way to do that is to pre-emptively put them under surveillance and so, prevent them from realizing their full potential. As they are ‘unknown’ by definition, the argument requires that everyone is a suspect and must constantly be watched for suspicious behaviour. Why is industry so interested? As I mentioned before, the government is not the only one enthusiastic about the introduction of a National Identity Card System (NIDS) in India. Predictably, the software industry has found the prospect of a 10,000 crore project rather enticing. According to a report on the Convergence Plus website, the “smart-card” industry in India is expected to churn out almost 21.7 million units by 2005 . The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that the US government spent an estimated $115 billion on government research and development on anti-terror initiatives in 2003 alone. While the report concedes that in many cases, the companies could simply be fighting for pre-existing government contracts, as opposed to proposing changes in government policy, it documents specific instances of private lobbying for surveillance initiatives. One such example is Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison’s, proposition of a NIDS and his offer to provide the software for free. What Larry Ellison did not mention were the prohibitive hidden costs of servicing and running the system. Apart from the obvious market of smart cards and the accompanying surveillance infrastructure, industry is extremely interested in the potential that such information holds. In a diverse and differentiated market like India, industry needs extremely specific consumer information to ensure that products are aimed at the right audience. Increasingly, marketing departments speak of the need to target high-profit niche markets. For example, if a pharmaceutical company, launching a product in a particular city, can estimate the percentage population that has a certain income is concentrated around a particular locality in a city and is diabetic; it can launch a highly specific ad campaign aimed straight at this segment. Additionally, if it can determine the kind of establishments this section of society is likely to patronize, it can further refine its campaign – perhaps by teaming up a popular restaurant and organizing a sugar-free dessert festival. This strategy would be far more effective than putting up huge billboards all over the city, and hoping that knowledge of its product would eventually trickle down to potential customers. However, such specific information is extremely difficult and expensive to collect. Fortunately for industry, the MNIC shall contain medical history, tax history and property records. Further, functioning as an e-purse, it shall record and store every financial transaction made by the cardholder. Under the structure imagined by the government, all transaction information shall be stored in a central database and, given industry’s role in setting up and operating the system, building consumer profiles shall be cheap, accurate and instantaneous. State versus Citizen: The need for identification The MNIC project brings the relationship between the state and the citizen into sharp focus. The project of mapping the body of the citizenry makes use of the obvious assumption that the citizenry exists. But what constitutes this citizenry? Who is a citizen? The citizen is constructed by the mode by which the state views the populace. The European Convention on Nationality defines nationality (and consequently the category of the citizen) as a legal bond between a person and the state. It further elaborates that this bond may be forged by three arterial ways – Jus Sanguinis, Jus Soli and Naturalisation. The Jus Sanguinis principle, which was the sole criteria of citizenship in the 1913 German citizenship law, provides citizenship for a person if his/her parent(s) are citizens of a particular nation and is historically based on the notion of a shared ethnicity. Jus Soli, by contrast implies that all those born within the territorial boundaries of the nation, regardless of ethnicity, are automatically granted citizenship. This principle was central to the French citizenship law enacted in 1889. In India, citizenship is clearly spelt out in Part II of the Indian Constitution (articles 5-11) , and all three criteria are considered. The fact that Indian independence and the subsequent framing of the constitution were accompanied by the Partition of Undivided India into two nations – India and Pakistan, has meant that the Indian Citizenship act is extraordinarily liberal and makes no mention of ethnicity. Article 5 of the Indian Constitution (Part II) clearly states that “At the commencement of this Constitution, every person who has his domicile in the territory of India and- (a) who was born in the territory of India; or (b) either of whose parents was born in the territory of India; or (c) who has been ordinarily resident in the territory of India for not less than five years immediately preceding such commencement, shall be a citizen of India.” There is a further provision for those migrating from the western provinces of the subcontinent (which is now Pakistan), Article 6 of the Constitution states: “Rights of citizenship of certain persons who have migrated to India from Pakistan.- Notwithstanding anything in article 5, a person who has migrated to the territory of India from the territory now included in Pakistan shall be deemed to be a citizen of India at the commencement of this Constitution if- (a) he or either of his parents or any of his grand-parents was born in India as defined in the Government of India Act, 1935 (as originally enacted); and (b) (i) in the case where such person has so migrated before the nineteenth day of July, 1948, he has been ordinarily resident in the territory of India since the date of his migration, or (ii) in the case where such person has so migrated on or after the nineteenth day of July, 1948, he has been registered as a citizen of India by an officer appointed in that behalf by the Government of the Dominion of India on an application made by him therefore to such officer before the commencement of this Constitution in the form and manner prescribed by that Government. Provided that no person shall be so registered unless he has been resident in the territory of India for at least six months immediately preceding the date of his application.” However, the creation of the category of the “citizen” is not a solely legal matter. Rogers Brubaker defines citizenship as “a powerful instrument of social closure” which establishes “a conceptual, legal and ideological boundary between citizens and foreigners.” But how is this boundary created? In the case of a nation-state based on ethnicity, or for a theocratic state, the choices are easy (and dangerous), but for one like India, that is avowedly multicultural and secular, boundary creation poses a problem. This binary of a strong and centralizing state on the one hand, and the demands of a federal, multicultural, secular constitution on the other, creates category anxieties. What does it mean to be Indian? How is that different form what it means to be Pakistani? As Arjun Appadurai points out, “The nation state relies for its legitimacy on the intensity of its meaningful presence in a continuous body of bounded territory. It works by policing its borders, producing its people, constructing its citizens, defining its capitals, monuments, cities, waters and soils, and by constructing its locales of memory and commemoration, such as graveyards, mausoleums and museums.” The quest for a national identity card can be traced to this identity crisis of the Indian state. It is a method by which the state imposes its “meaningful” presence on the citizen. Given that the Subcontinent has gone from one administrative entity (undivided India) in 1946 to three separate sovereign states (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) in 1971, this identity crisis is understandable. We now see an almost paranoid urge to conclusively identify the “other”, the “outsider” and the “infiltrator”, simply to make the category of “citizen” more lucid. This existentialist angst of the State is magnified by the presence of “minority” groups. Elia Zureik points out that minorities represent groups that are not easy to categorise, fit into boxes and slot into society. Their presence “poses a challenge to the overarching ideological framework of the nation state.” Surveillance, border policing and people counting constitute mechanisms by which the state simultaneously constructs and identifies its citizens by constantly making the populace aware of the presence of the state, and of the experience of being part of a larger whole. The process of codifying and categorizing populations helps in creating the conceptual and ideological boundary between citizen and foreigner that Brubaker speaks of. Gradually points of difference begin to emerge to reinforce these boundaries. The Population censes make citizens aware of the shared experience of nationhood, geography provides them with a mental image of the nation and history provides them with the sense of a common past. Reams of paper, ration cards, licenses, passports, voter ID cards – all give us a uniquely “Indian” identity with respect to the state and public institutions, and are the glue that holds the nation together. The identity card is the newest way to differentiate between a mass of people who look the same, speak the same language and have ancestral property “across the border.” The outsider is now easily identified as the one without the national identity card and can be dealt with as seen fit. Another explanation for the compulsive enumerative urge of the state is outlined by John Torpey’s article, “Coming and Going: On the State Monopolization of the Legitimate ‘Means of Movement’”. Torpey argues that the rise of the modern nation state parallels the expropriation of the “Legitimate Means of Movement” by the State from private entities. By the term “Legitimate Means of Movement”, Torpey means that the citizen is not free to traverse certain spaces (like internal and international borders) and need state permission to do so. This is in contrast to Medieval Europe where the serf or slave was bonded to land or master (a private entity) and needed their permission to travel. This need for state permission implies that citizens are dependent on the state for an authenticated means of identification. Thus, the idea of a nation is not just imagined, but is also codified as a group of people who cannot move beyond certain borders without permission. This restriction on movement can be for a number of reasons that are intrinsic to the construction of the state, and are linked to the concept of sovereignty. The state could restrict the movement of its citizens for a variety of reasons - national and territorial security, facilitation of law enforcement, exclusion, surveillance and the containment of ‘undesirables’. Torpey defines the possible categories of undesirables as – “ethnic, national, racial or medical” . Enforcement of such restraints requires the construction of an information superstructure - the state needs to codify its populations, develop an unambiguous means to identify its citizens, construct a bureaucracy to implement such a regime, and provide a legal framework to legitimize such a system. The MNIC project shows that, like many states, the Indian state is deeply invested in such ideas of codification. Surveillance and identification provide the foundations for this structure. They allow the state to comprehensively identify and define its citizens. The ID card is the rarefied end product of a series of information packets chronicling the movements, economic transactions, familial ties and illnesses of the cardholder. In defence of the citizen While the construction of the ‘ideal’ or ‘normal’ citizen may prove useful for a state engaged in the process of nation building, the category of the “normal” citizen is a deeply problematic one. David Allen Harvey uses a case study of the province of Alsace to illustrate the consequences of over-zealous citizen construction. The province of Alsace had been a site of conflict between Germany and France through the 19th Century. Both sides lay claim to it, and the province passed back and forth between the two empires for a considerable period of time. In November 1918, at the close of World War I, France finally wrested control of Alsace after almost 50 years of German occupation. The French army was welcomed with flowers and citizens streamed into the streets, proudly displaying their ‘Frenchness’ to their ‘liberators’. In the spirit of the liberation, the French Government declared that the ‘mother’ had reclaimed her ‘lost child’, and rubbished any demands for a referendum to finally settle the status of the province. Instead, arguing that over the years a number of Germans had settled in the province, the government set up Triage Commissions, in December 1918, in each district of the province to investigate individuals whose identities were “suspect”. Harvey notes that the commissions consisted of prominent Alsatians whose patriotism was considered “beyond doubt” in official circles - rich, émigré Alsatian industrialists settled in Paris. The commissions resulted in the en-masse deportation of Germans who had resided in Alsace for the last 50 years. The commission’s invitation to Alsatians to denounce those considered “suspect, only lead to a culture of denouncements and counter denouncements resulting in deep schisms in Alsatian society. The composition of the panel ensured that the first to be deported were radical politicians and trade union leaders. The committee also deported German workers as they felt that the Germans were “stealing” jobs meant for Alsatians. Harvey notes “Residents who offended bourgeois notions of moral order could also be targeted.” Accordingly, the commissions also deported prostitutes, blackmarketeers and petty thieves. The work of the commissions culminated in the categorization of the citizenry into four classes, graded on the basis of the nationality of their parents (Citizens with both –a French father and mother, were classified as Grade A citizens, while those with German parents were Grade D). Finally, the citizens were issued colour coded identification cards that were to be carried at all times and produced when voting, applying for a job or availing of a government service. On this basis, it can be argued that cards that seek to establish and fix identity are not just innocuous pieces of plastic, but are value-loaded and often divisive identity markers. They are capable of marginalizing significant sections of society and alter the way we look at our fellow citizens and ourselves. In the subsequent sections of this paper I shall not only prove how the MNIC is structurally incapable of combating crime, but shall also explain how it might cause more harm than good. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050324/23f9638a/attachment.html From amsethi at rediffmail.com Thu Mar 24 12:35:03 2005 From: amsethi at rediffmail.com (Aman Sethi) Date: 24 Mar 2005 07:05:03 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Part II -Surveillance and the MNIC prject Message-ID: <20050324070503.24382.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com>  Dear All, This is Part II of the paper "May i see your papers", on the Multipurpose National Identification Card Project... Aman contd from Part I A miracle drug, but will it work? The MNIC project shall map a vast ocean of information– both in terms of the depth of information extracted of every individual and the breadth of the population concerned. The sheer size of the database raises serious questions of the efficacy of the system. In evaluating its efficacy, it is important to clearly define the objectives that the system is to accomplish. As mentioned before, the system is expected to help identify illegal immigrants, track ‘potential terrorists,’ solve problems of impersonation and provide a secure pathway for delivery of government services. The ease with which the MNIC performs these functions should be taken as an indicator of the need for such a system. Identity Verification The arguments in favour of implementing MNIC project are based on the fundamental assumption that the card will be truly infallible and will provide a foolproof method of identification. Once this basic assumption is questioned, the potential for misuse is frightening. The script tends to unravel when the issuing of cards is underway. Unlike USA and other developed countries, where most citizens have a social security number and so already have a fair amount of authentic information in government databases, the MNIC project aims to start the verification process from scratch. As I pointed out in the section on Methodology, the government shall first carry out a census type survey to create a National Population Register, based on which the cards shall be issued. But how will identity be verified or authenticated? What sort of proof will be required to obtain a card? Obviously the card will require documents like ration cards, voter identity cards, proof of residence documents etc. Given that, in the eyes of the authorities, the present system of identification is insufficient, fallible and open to manipulation; a system based on these documents shall necessarily have the same shortcomings. The problem could actually be accentuated by the introduction of such a card, as the card will now have a legitimacy that these documents did not have. But what makes the identity card so different from existing documentation and surveillance? The difference lies in the popular conception of technology. As I mentioned before, the MNIC project has passed through the media filters unchallenged, drawing only praise for India’s growing IT prowess. Technology is seen a neutral, unbiased and, most importantly, consistent entity. By consistent, I refer to the greatest advantage of the machine – it can untiringly carry out repetitive tasks with minimal error percentages. This ensures that the national identity card has a legitimacy that other forms of documentation never had, and thus makes the consequences of an error that much more devastating for the innocent card holder. While a misspelling on a ration card was simply a sign of official incompetence, it could now imply that the cardholder is a dangerous subversive using a falsified identity card. In this way the MNIC shall make ‘criminals’ out of ordinary, forgetful, busy people whose only crime would be to have left their card at home. Another problem that the census authorities might face is the absence of any documentation whatsoever. The landless poor, who constitute a large percentage of the population in the rural and urban areas, have no real means of identification, nor have they required it. They have no property, no fixed residence, no birth or death records and in many cases, no ration cards either. Thus, the poorest and most vulnerable sections of society run the risk of being labeled “aliens”, being stripped of the few rights and assets that they possess and of harassment by the police. Recent experience at tsunami relief centres in Chennai has shown that in the absence of proper documentation, community leaders and local policemen carry out most identification exercises. Given the caste and class hierarchies that currently exist in rural and urban areas, it is not impossible to imagine dalits, tribals and other oppressed communities being denied the MNIC by local strongmen. Assuming that the government does survey a billion plus population successfully and accurately, which is a big assumption, the emphasis on making the MNIC the gold standard for all identification purposes opens up a lucrative avenue of crime – identity theft. According to a report by the Federal Trade Commission, USA, identity theft was America’s top consumer complaint for the fifth year in a row. Another disturbing example is the current scandal involving data aggregator ChoicePoint. ChoicePoint is a USA- based company that collates disparate data about individual consumers to create detailed consumer profiles for marketing firms. In February 2005, ChoicePoint disclosed to the press that it had been duped into passing on sensitive customer information like social security numbers, credit card details and postal addresses to a cartel of con artists posing as legitimate businesses. By offering a dense data-bundle to the cartel, ChoicePoint presented them with – everything needed to operate existing bank accounts and create new accounts in the names of the victims. According to news reports, 700 ID’s have been stolen and an estimated 500,000 persons are at risk. While ChoicePoint claims to be “actively engaged with local and federal law enforcement agencies” in an attempt to limit the damage, the scam proves that the concentration of large amounts sensitive data in central databanks makes them potential targets for hackers and ultimately puts citizens at risk. The more essential the data, the higher the stakes. By centralizing vast amounts of sensitive data, the MNIC might actually increase the incidence of identity theft instead of reducing it. The fact that the MNIC shall be seen at the gold standard of identification shall imply that, once stolen, the possibilities of abuse are unlimited. Illegal Immigration Sujata Ramachandran points out that as urban slums have been regularized over the years, many Bangladeshi immigrants have acquired documents like ration cards and ownership papers for low cost housing settlements. The government now finds itself in a classic catch-22 situation – those who must be issued the card do not have the required documentation, while those who have the required documentation are the people the card is supposed to isolate in the first place. In his paper on national identity cards, Richard Sobel examines the role of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 in curbing illegal immigration into the USA. In a disincentive for migrants in search of work, the Act made it illegal to employ aliens and those without a work permit. The act also called for greater enforcement at the borders and created new categories for seasonal agricultural workers. According to Sobel, the IRCA failed to stem the flow of immigrants into the country as most immigrants entered via legal routes using tourist visa and then simply stayed on. Unless the Indian government plans on issuing a MNIC card to every tourist, the same problem shall arise. The IRCA didn’t succeed in reducing employment opportunities either. Businesses simply realized that, due to their desperate situation, migrant labour was now even easier to exploit; thus, forcing illegal immigration further underground and victimizing legal Hispanic residents and job seekers. The same trend has been noted in India. Sujata Ramachandran suggests that the issue of immigration should be seen as part of a larger socio-economic and political context in South-Asia and not as a simple problem of law enforcement. She argues that a comprehensive package of regional dialogue and immigration policy reform would be a far more effective step in the final resolution of immigration concerns. Terrorism and the MNIC project While the Indian government has not explicitly stated that the MNIC shall be used by law enforcement agencies to track potential security threats and to monitor private citizens, it is obvious that security agencies shall find it extremely useful. While the government has been careful to speak only in terms of monitoring aliens, it is not hard to imagine it turning the technology onto its citizens. Richard Sobel points out that at the point of its implementation in 1936, President Roosevelt and the American congress promised that every citizen’s social security number would be kept confidential. Since 1936, there have been at least 40 amendments to the act, thereby ensuring that the social security number is one of the most visible features of all individual transactions in America today. The number is required to operate bank accounts and credit cards, for job applications and filing taxes, for accessing Medicare and drawing pensions. It is not inconceivable that the MNIC shall follow the same path. As I mentioned before, supporters of the MNIC have argued that the system could have helped prevent the 9/11 tragedy if a record of their activities had been easily available. What the supporters fail to mention is the fact that all the hijackers involved in the attack had entered the USA legally, had mostly valid travel documents and most were not on any government watch list, with the result that the MNIC or any similar system would not have helped foil their plans. A report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada makes the obvious point that “there is no database containing the names of each and every “bad guy.” For example, first time or unknown terrorists using legitimate identification documents will not be in law enforcement databanks. It is difficult to see, therefore, how a national identity system—however sophisticated—could compensate for such shortcomings.” The same report makes the point that terrorists are become more and more sophisticated in their methods and a costly system of surveillance is unlikely to yield any significant information and is equally unlikely to act as a deterrent. The report adds that, given the importance placed on it by the state, the database itself might become a target for a terrorist attack. An obvious example is that of Spain. It is mandatory for all Spanish citizens to carry an identity card, but that could not prevent the Madrid Bombings in March 2004 where at least 190 people were killed. The MNIC is, by definition, a ‘multi-purpose’ card. Yet, it can be argued that is fails to adequately serve any of the ‘purposes’ that its proponents have in mind. Its impact on curbing immigration, improving identity verification, and combating terrorism shall be negligible and in the case of identity theft, might do more harm than good. The project is waste of precious resources, (Rs 10,000 crore at the minimum) and allotted elsewhere, the money could probably be spent in strengthening existing structures. What we need to ask ourselves is if we should be forced to sacrifice our privacy for something that is of no practical use. The potential for abuse: Why such a system must be opposed Under an NIDS system, the individual draws his/ her rights from the act of possession of an identity card. Hence, a citizen can exercise his/ her fundamental rights contingent on her papers and documentation in correct order. This opens the door for potential abuse at the hands of those charged with authenticating the required documents. The myth of fingerprints As I mentioned earlier in the paper, the MNIC has gone largely unchallenged in the public sphere largely due to its packaging as a ‘technological breakthrough’. Technology, and especially a field as esoteric as ‘Biometrics,’ is seen as a specialised field that the common person is not competent enough to comment on, and so has no choice but to trust the experts. But is that a wise decision? Biometrics is the science of identifying people based on their physiological and behavioral characteristics. It is claimed that biometrics offers the prospect of fast, accurate identification of subjects using the unique bodily markers like eye vein patterns, fingerprints, handprints and facial recognition. But, Robin Feldman argues that biometric technology is far from proven. He says that while courts have accepted fingerprinting close to a century, technologies like facial recognition still have a lot to prove. Facial recognition is found to work only with frontal-face views in well lit conditions. Feldman writes, “In a recent demonstration of the problem, National Geographic magazine asked a former CIA operative to try to fool a facial imaging system using techniques such as glasses, facial hair and head positioning. When the system tried to match the operative’s current photo against various types of disguised images, the level of correlation ranged from roughly 60 percent to 80 percent. The results were even worse when the system tried to make the match using a photograph from 27 years before. In that case, the level of correlation between the old photo and the operative’s undisguised face was only 19 percent and the level of correlation between the old photo and various facial disguises ranged from 8 percent to 12 percent.” Similarly, in study conducted by the Department of Justice, USA, in 1999, the department checked the background records of thousands of applicants for the Civil Services with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) watch-lists. The results identified 5.5 per cent of the applicants as having criminal records, in spite them having no previous convictions. According to a report in the Guardian, in the U.K. the error margin of the national police computer is between 20-30 per cent. Of course, it might possible to build more accurate systems, but accuracy might come at a price that is unviable for the corporate-government partnership. Even if the NIDS system has even an improbably low error rate of 0.1 per cent, that would mean that for a population of 1 billion, it would wrongly identify 1 million individuals as criminals. Given the government’s enthusiasm for the identification and isolation of potential terrorists, coupled with restrictive anti-terror legislation, 1 million people could find their bank accounts seized, employment terminated, access to public spaces restricted, and could become victims of constant police harassment. This also begs the obvious question – what’s the point of a system that throws up 1million incorrect answers? What can be concluded from such examples is that no technology is foolproof, and that an identification project shall be subject to a series of technological and human errors that accompany any technology – biometric or otherwise. Any system that ensures the rights of individual on the basis of papers being in order places too much power in the hands of authenticating authorities. An examination of the track record of supposedly secure databanks reveals a history of abuse. In 1994, The Business Week revealed that the state of Ohio, USA had sold its driver’s license and car registration lists to a private company for US$ 375,000 . In early 1995, more than 500 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents were caught prying into the tax records of American citizens . The most horrifying instances of the misuse of census information were observed in the Greater Reich during the Holocaust. In his award winning book “IBM and the Holocaust” , and in several accompanying articles, Edwin Black uncovers the secret behind the ruthless efficiency that accompanied the Jewish genocide. How did the Nazis track down and eliminate almost 6 million Jews? The Holocaust began with isolation and identification of Jews across Germany. An elaborate system of identification was devised, and all German Jews were required to carry identification papers by December 31, 1938. This was followed by two censes – the first, in 1938, was carried out in Germany to identify practicing Jews; while the second, in 1939 was carried out in Austria, The Saar, Sundentenland and the rest of the Greater Reich to identify “Racial Jews”. The identity card regime was extended throughout the Reich and Jews were required to have their passports and ration cards marked. According to Edwin Black, the Reich hired IBM’s German subsidiary, Dehomag, to track entire populations of Jews across the German Empire using a revolutionary new punch card technology. Much like the identification system devised by the Indian Home Ministry, each Jew was issued a unique 5-digit number that made it possible to track him or her across the continent, in spite of changes in name, address or appearance. As Black notes, “The infamous Auschwitz tattoo began as an IBM number... [The] punch card number would follow [the inmate] from labour assignment to labour assignment as Hollerith systems tracked him and his availability for work, and reported the data to the central inmate file eventually kept at Department DII. Department DII of the SS Economics Administration in Oranienburg oversaw all camp slave labour assignments, utilizing elaborate IBM systems... The Extermination by Labour campaign itself depended upon specially designed IBM systems that matched worker skills and locations with labour needs across Nazi-dominated Europe. Once the prisoner was too exhausted to work, he was murdered by gas or bullet. Exterminated prisoners were coded ‘six’ in the IBM system.” All this was possible with a machine less sophisticated than a modern programmable calculator. Closer to home, communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 saw the planned genocide of the Muslim community by Hindu fanatics. Articles written at the time of the riots speak of official complicity and, at times, active participation of the BJP State Government. Months before the riots, ruling party cadre drew up systematic lists detailing the demographic composition of residential areas around the state. Riot victims testified that rioters used Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation lists to supplement their information. So when the riots did break out in that summer, rioters struck Muslim shops and homes, with the precision of guided missiles homing in on programmed targets. The examples of Gujarat in 2002 and the Holocaust in the 1940s prove that states should never be trusted with detailed, sensitive information about their citizenry – no matter how democratic or despotic they may seem. Privacy Given the ambitious aims of the NIDS project, it shall probably be mandatory to carry the card at all times. Citizens without cards could have their rights temporarily withdrawn and their access to public spaces denied. The fact that India plans to introduce two versions of the national identity card – a free basic version and a priced premium version could only serve to heighten class bias in public institutions. Indian cities are fast becoming sites of contestation between the middle class and the working classes for the use and control of public spaces. Given the class bias inherent in state policy, it is not hard to imagine certain spaces that cater exclusively to premium cardholders, or make the process of entry/access difficult for those with basic cards. Proponents of the MNIC regime point out that most of the information that will be collected on the card is already in the public domain in some form or the other. A collation of the information on ration cards, voter identification cards, insurance schemes and passports could arguably furnish most of the information that shall eventually find its way onto the MNIC. However, this argument can be countered on two basic fronts – firstly by the principle of “fair information” that I shall elaborate later in the text, and on the grounds that all such information has been provided on a voluntary basis. Should a private citizen choose, she could refrain from signing up for any of the schemes mentioned above, and retain complete control over her privacy and information. The fact that the government has made changes to the Indian constitution makes it mandatory for every citizen to subscribe to the MNIC Project. Thus, a citizen no longer has control over her personal and private information and is forced to share it with government and private agencies. She forced to subject herself to a search that is almost as physically intrusive as a bodily search. Surprisingly, the India press has remained largely silent on the issue of privacy when it comes to the MNIC project. The project has remained largely in the technology sections of most papers and most of the coverage is found in specialized trade journals like Convergence Plus. Most of the reports dwell at length on how the project promises to be a technological treat and is a sign of India’s ever-growing IT prowess. The assumption that the privacy of the individual shall be protected has been swallowed as easily as have the assumptions on security, identity and immigration. The very act of collecting information for the MNIC constitutes a breach of the privacy of the individual. However, even if privacy is not treated as a fundamentally inviolable right, the MNIC still does not convincingly prove how compromising our privacy shall maker us safer. The MNIC makes it possible for law enforcement agencies (and possibly private organizations) to follow the digital trail left by any or all of us at any given point in time. Monitoring an individual’s data trail is equivalent to tapping telephone conversations– which is illegal, and taped conversations are not permissible as evidence in court in India without prior permission from a court of law. The right to be free of unreasonable, unwarranted search is a benchmark of individual rights and should apply to one’s virtual identity as well. The use of personal information without consent violates the concept of due process of law. Richard Sobel points out that a national identification system runs contrary to the principle of “fair information”, i.e. that information required for one purpose shouldn’t be used for another. For example, to protect people from discrimination at the workplace, medical information should not be accessible to potential employers. By putting all the information about an individual on a single card, the MNIC allows severely compromises his or her privacy and makes the individual vulnerable to discrimination and humiliation. Another worrying fact is that the role of private companies in the project has not been defined. The government has stated that it is interested in a public-private partnership whose modalities are yet to be worked out. The role played by these companies shall play a crucial role in defining the extent to which our privacy shall be compromised. In Conclusion Identity cards are not simply the “proof” of our identities; they represent an elaborate series of institutions and processes put in place by society and the State. They represent the successful establishment of the state as the sole legitimate agent of control of society. While state interventions in society are not always negative; moves to map, categorize and monitor citizenry violate our rights as members of a free society. Post 9/11, the world has been gripped by an anxiety to gather as much ‘human intelligence’ as possible, and states have made a persuasive case for the sacrifice of our rights of freedom and privacy at the altar of national security. The MNIC and similar projects, contribute to an argument that the terrorist, the subversive and the anti-national can be stereotyped as a social profile. This reduces law enforcement into a simple task of comparing citizen profiles against a pre-determined template, identifying successful matches and arresting the “guilty”. Clearly, this is a flawed means of approaching the problem. The MNIC project is part of a larger movement that increasingly turns to technological “fixes” to contain the fallout of complex socio-political and economic problems. While a solution of the problems of terrorism, crime and corruption would require a comprehensive reshuffle of existing hierarchies of power; surveillance and enforcement ensure that the status quo can continue. As I argue through the course of my paper, the MNIC shall fail on all counts – curbing of illegal immigration, effective and foolproof identification, and the combating of crime and terrorism. Instead, it shall stifle individual freedom and blur the distinction between public and private spaces. EOM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050324/634d729f/attachment.html From geert at basis.desk.nl Thu Mar 24 14:06:18 2005 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:36:18 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Pirates, Thieves and Innocents: Perceptions of Copyright Infringement in the Digital Age In-Reply-To: <4242683F.4050107@sarai.net> References: <4242683F.4050107@sarai.net> Message-ID: <71861c2d8968b8b3cae5eec27cdc466b@basis.desk.nl> > From: Jack Boeve > Date: 23 March 2005 3:34:57 AM > Subject: Symposium--Pirates, Thieves and Innocents: Perceptions of > Copyright Infringement in the Digital Age > > The Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland > University College is interested in advertising this educational > symposium > for interested educators and administrators. > > _______________________________ > > [Please excuse the inevitable duplication of this notice.] > > ANNOUNCEMENT AND INVITATION > > 5th Annual Symposium on Intellectual Property > (http://www.umuc.edu/cip/symposium) > > Pirates, Thieves and Innocents: Perceptions of Copyright Infringement > in the > Digital Age > > June 16-17, 2005 > > Hosted by the University of Maryland University College and being held > at > the UMUC Inn and Conference Center in Adelphi, MD > > The 2005 CIP Symposium will explore a few of the various ways in which > individuals and organizations think and talk about copyright > infringement in > our digital age and what actions they take based upon those > perceptions. The > symposium will focus on issues relevant to the higher education > community > and the delivery of quality copyrighted content. Facilitating our > exploration, discussion, and reflection will be representatives from > the > academy, library, law, corporation, nonprofit organization, technology > sector, and Capitol Hill. > > Topics to be addressed by speakers and panelists will include: > -The Impact of Copyright Law and Policy on Academic Culture > -Regulatory Copyright: How Will Universities be Affected? > -P2P File Sharing: Pirates or Revolutionaries? > -Culture and Copyright: A Creative Clash? > -Copyright Infringement in the Digital Age: What Universities Need to > Know > -The Copyright Legislative Landscape > -Responses to Copyright Infringement at University Campuses: Best > Practices > > Participants will include: Clifford Lynch (Coalition for Networked > Information); Jonathan Band (Morrison & Foerster LLP); Robert Brauneis > (George Washington University Law School); Jon Baumgarten (Proskauer > Rose > LLP); Mark Luker (Educause); Patrick Ross (Progress & Freedom > Foundation); > Gigi Sohn (Public Knowledge); Siva Vaidhyanathan (New York > University); Alec > French (Office of Congressman Howard L. Berman). > > Register early since space is limited. Early registration (before May > 16, > 2005) is $275. Regular registration is $350. Please visit the > website for > details and other affiliation discounts. > > For more information and to register online, visit > http://www.umuc.edu/cip/symposium. > > Jack Boeve > Program Management Specialist > University of Maryland University College Center for Intellectual > Property > 240-582-2736 > jboeve at umuc.edu From himanshusamvad at yahoo.co.in Thu Mar 24 17:18:40 2005 From: himanshusamvad at yahoo.co.in (himanshu ranjan) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:48:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] The Growing National Ethos In The Mirror Of Allahabad Message-ID: <20050324114840.53086.qmail@web8505.mail.in.yahoo.com> The Growing National Ethos in the Mirror of Allahabad (Posting 3) Since ancient times and throughout the medieval period Allahabad has been a religious centre of high esteem. The so-called renaissance made a drastic change in its character in two ways. Revivalism and colonialism were the main dimentions making substantial space and seeking far-fetched repercussions. At this juncture, from the very duo-web, there emerged a new vivid and multifaceted socio-political and cultural phenomenon which reshaped and transformed this centre into a cultural one. This turning point is identified with the advent of the nationalist movement. The concepts of 'nation', 'nationality' and 'nationalism' in the modern European sense of the terms were not familiar to the land before. Making India a modern nation-state meant initially and intrinsically to get into the process of democratization. The Sanskrit classic textuality, manifested by renaissance revivalism, advocated the notion of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', but hardly that of a territorial nation-state. The concept of nation required mainly three constituents: a well demarcated territory, a strong state with a commanding government and a national language. All the three were not readymade ones, but to be acquired and developed democratically through the nationalist movement. Colonial India, which inflicted the process of modernization to seek its own endgames, was not ready to provide or allow the required economic growth and transformation. In this complex situation, the nationalist movement had also to construct and carry on the plank of decolonization placing it prominently side by side in its fold. It became so important that the whole vision was simplistically reduced into just throwing out the imperialist regime. But the questions and problems regarding nationhood, nation-state and national language remained unanswered. Allahabad witnessed the struggle, passed and failed to some extents both, which manifested itself in the politics of the Indian National Congress, the Swaraj Bhawan being its head office. The Congress party and the cultural centre of Allahabad obviously provided an open-ended platform for the contending political idealogies, which no doubt checked the unilateral and centralised drive. But the cleavage left in the national ethos, made a way for the communal power-play of the Hindu-Muslim strife, which had already originated in the nineteenth century. Now it was not only a tug-of-war between the Hindu and the Muslim communalists, but a triangle was formed, the secular-democratic forces placing themselves on the third vertex. The question of national language reflected the whole phenomenon in the most pointed and concentrated way. Hindu-Hindi, Muslim-Urdu and Hindustani as a compromise between the two, formed another trio. Similarly the independence and the partition of the country were the duo-resultants, which created one more significant dimension to the problem. Hindi has been declared the official language, but the old nationalist propagators are still today standing on their heels to get a sole national language status, and are not least interested in resolving the problem in a democratic and true nationalist way. The cultural institutions of Allahabad and the linguistic and literary discourses, debates and movements of HIndi and Urdu, before and after independence, have been constituting a changing mirror for the whole process. The decisive constitutional authority has shifted to Delhi but the very process of germinating and growing of national ethos, still remains as a hard historic fact in the memory of Allahabad. Himanshu Ranjan An independent CSDS Fellow Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050324/302278a6/attachment.html From jitendra82003 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 24 11:37:13 2005 From: jitendra82003 at yahoo.com (Jitendra Srivastava) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:07:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] Religion, Elections, Geeta Press and Gorakhpur Message-ID: <20050324060713.95349.qmail@web40702.mail.yahoo.com> Religion has played a major role in Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections for the last 15 years in Gorakhpur. A particular political party has been winning the elections. Gorakhnath temple has been a deciding factor in the elections in Gorakhpur. The heads of the temple, Mahant Avaidhnath and Aditynath respectively have been winning the Lok Sabha elections. It needs to be researched whether Geeta Press and its publication Kalyan have a role to play in bringing religion in elections in Gorakhpur. Till now, as a researcher, I find no proof to substantiate this statement. Shri Hanuman Prasad Poddar, founder of Geeta Press was a religious minded person but definitely not a communal personality. He wanted the spread of vedic religion but had no ill-will against any other religion. The same is true of Geeta Press and Kalyan. They have aroused the religion feelings of people and certainly not in a negative way in creating an apathy toward any other religion. There is a great difference between arousing religious and communal feelings. Taking Gandhiji as an example, we can say, a person who is religious cannot be communal. He can be tolerant, having respect for others. It is worth praising that inspite of the fact that elections are fought on the basis of religion, still there are no communal feelings. It is have been that we have been celebrating the Gorakhnath Mela, as well as the Bale Meiyan’s Mela. As a researcher, I can say confidently that Gita Press in its publications has not created any ill feelings towards anyone. Jitendra Srivastava Independent Fellow, Sarai --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Sign up for Fantasy Baseball. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050324/68b8b9ec/attachment.html From sudeshna.kca at gmail.com Thu Mar 24 20:35:11 2005 From: sudeshna.kca at gmail.com (Sudeshna Chatterjee) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:35:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fieldnotes from Nizamuddin basti-Re: Child Friendly Environment Message-ID: <3ef603b7050324070546571605@mail.gmail.com> A lot happenned during March. I completed my first round of interviews with 31 middle school children, 15 boys and 15 girls (Muslims) and one Hindu girl. I also observed specific places that children mentioned as favorite play spaces. The process of transcribing and translating the interviews has just started and will keep me busy for sometime. Meanwhile i thought of sharing a fun piece from my fieldnotes. Please drop in your comments. Sudeshna The car in the trees The open space between the Hope Project and the municipal school is an adventure playground. The most fun thing in it being the windowless, seat-less, totally gutted skeleton of a white fiat, neatly placed between two Keekar trees. Even though the wheel-less vehicle is actually placed on the ground, it gives the impression of floating between the trees with the Jamia-tul-Binat madrasa, the teashops and a couple of small homes as backdrop. When I first started going to Hope regularly (mid-February), the car was pretty intact, at least the skeleton resembled the structure of a car. I had photographed it, though I do not have any shots of children actually playing with it, I have seen play happening around it. During the course of the week (the first week of March) that I started an intense observation session in the open space that parked the car, an episode was reported to me by no other than the principal and the director of the NGO. I am a fortunate researcher indeed; everyone at the school has become my extra eyes and ears in the community looking out for events and play episodes that is an interesting use of, or a deviation from the normal use of play space. The teachers and other school staff, I have realized from the many stories reported to me, understand my study as how the basti children use space and resources for play. Rita, the school principal sits in a room right across from the open space with two large west-facing windows looking down into it. Rita tries very hard to protect her windows from the scorching sun. The electric blue, plastic-lined bamboo screens, hanging in the front face of the building outside her windows, provide evidence of her resistance. However, once in a while, at sunset, if she is still around, Rita rolls up her screen to let in some fresh air. It was a day such as this, when Rita and Kamini had an evening meeting in the small office of the principal. The next morning Kamini, the director of the Hope project, caught up with me in the wide central staircase, the social space of the school—the vertical chowk of this building. She said, " Sudeshna, you should have been here yesterday evening. Rita and I were sitting in her office, when we heard these shrieks from outside. So we looked out. The kids were all over the car. My first reaction was to get them out as I thought they might get hurt, and the next one was, Sudeshna should have seen this!" I asked, "What were they doing with the car?" "They were all over it, in it, on the roof, everywhere, obviously having a ball. Ask Rita about it." Kamini said as she went down towards her office. I went up to Rita's room. "Hi Rita. I believe you were witness to some car adventure outside yesterday?" " Oh Sudeshna, you should have been there! It was in the evening after school got over. We were having a meeting here. We heard these shouts from outside. We both went over to the window and looked out. There was a boy sitting in the driver's seat pretending to drive vigorously. A girl was sitting next to him in the front passenger's seat. There were three kids sitting on the roof with their legs dangling over the frame of the windscreen. We actually saw the roof buckling in and our hearts nearly stopped as we thought the kids inside the car will get squashed. When the roof started buckling at a precarious angle, the kids on top got off. They collected some stones and sticks and started propping up the roof again. The moment they were satisfied, they were up on it again. There were several adults standing around near the teashop as they always do. We heard some of them shouting at the kids, 'children get off the car, its rusty, you will get cut, and if you fall you will break your limbs, so please get off'. But there was no stopping the children. Somehow the roof even though it kept buckling never caved in on the inside passengers. They repeatedly fixed the roof till they were tired of it, at which point they left the car alone and went off to the other side." I said, 'oh I really wish I was there!" But as I listened to Rita, I realized that as a researcher such a situation is ethically a tricky one. Suppose I was standing there, and it was great material for my work, but it was also a potentially high-risk situation, which I, as an aware adult, should have done something about. I guess the other adults who witnessed it tried to talk the children out of the situation. The two most educated persons working in the community also witnessed it with their hearts in their mouth. The question such situations raises for me is what are the thresholds of outside control and intervention during fieldwork? The community is well aware that their children live, learn and play in near precarious circumstances most times. Its possible that the thrills had by playing with a real junked car under trees and a rough rubble-strewn track are possibly much more spine-tingling than playing with mini plastic cars in enclosed cement driveways. Its difficult to judge though as children who had had one of these experiences are unlikely to have had the other in Delhi. I consciously look at the car everyday as I enter Hope now. Yesterday the roof had touched the edge of the driver's seat, a severe case of a broken back. But the day before (fourth week of March) when I was taking some pictures in this open space, three children had climbed on the bonnet of the car and tried to get photographed. I had noticed the roof was low at that time, but not as bent as now. It certainly has seen some more action after I last shot it. Over the course of a month, mid-February to mid-March, I witnessed the gradual disintegration of the most interesting play equipment available to the kids living in Khusru Nagar, Nizam Nagar, and Baoli Gate precincts in Nizamuddin Basti. From zainab at xtdnet.nl Fri Mar 25 10:12:06 2005 From: zainab at xtdnet.nl (zainab at xtdnet.nl) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:42:06 +0400 (RET) Subject: [Reader-list] Field notes on public space and practices Message-ID: <1196.219.65.13.31.1111725726.squirrel@webmail.xtdnet.nl> Dear All, Sharing my fieldnotes of yesterday which largely involve several questions on the notion and practices of public spaces. Cheers, Zainab 24 March 2005 This morning, I entered the police station to meet my acquaintance Mr. Takalkar. I wanted to inquire the rules and regulations governing public spaces in Mumbai. When I tell him what I want, he smiles and says, “Hmmm, we are again going back to our seven fundamental rights which includes the right to property. I remember our teacher of the human rights programme in the university saying ‘if you are not standing in your private place, you are in public space!’ Everybody should have access to public space.” Right now thoughts in my mind: ü What is private place? ü What does the notion of private citizen? ü In the emerging urban, public space is increasingly being made private e.g. residents of A, B, C and D roads at Churchgate claiming that the roads and streets are their private property! In the evening, at Nariman Point ... I am walking past the Nariman Point / Marine Drive promenade. The tetrapods are in the sea now. Work is ‘progressing’ as you find the crane moving further and further. People appear to enjoy their time here irrespective of the condition of the promenade. Right now thought in my mind: ü Why? I walk past slowly and start noting. · Blank space · Three girls sitting · Blank space · One couple with some blank space between them · Little blank space · A woman sitting contemplatively · Lots of blank space · A man sitting facing the sea · Blank space · Two men sitting and chatting eagerly · Blank space · Four boys sitting and chatting · Little blank space · A man and woman sitting close to each other · Blank space · Blank space · Blank space I settle down in a place which is slightly diagonally opposite the Sony World showroom. There is a space where pigeons abound and a man makes his living by selling pigeon feed. People buy the feed for him for various reasons. Some for religious reasons, some for spiritual reasons (both aimed at feeding the pigeons for self-contentment) or buying the feed for their children or grandchildren to throw at the birds. Children love pigeons. And it’s a great sight watch children play with the pigeons. A different kind of space is created when you watch the kids play with the pigeons or when children run all over the promenade. Just as I have settled down, my classmate, architect Farrukh Hyderbadwala appears and smiles at me. I cannot believe this. Everytime, everyday, I am meeting at least two people I know in the city. I wonder about my own visibility in the area which is now my ‘field’. I start to make notes about who is sitting to my left and right and who is walking before me (since I facing with my back to the sea). · Before Me – one man walking by merrily and in a jolly manner, looking at me briefly and going along · To My Left – blank space – a man in coloured checked shirt, facing the other way · To My Right – blank space – a couple · Before me – reduced blank space – two TOPS security guards walking by easily (Question in my mind – what does this promenade as a public space mean to these security guards? Aren’t they also enjoying themselves?) · In Front of Me – blank space – a hefty man in Pathani suit walking pensively, looking to the ground · In Front of Me – a group of men walking by and wondering what I am writing · Diagonally Opposite on My Left – Two old men, one child and lots of pigeons · To My Left – increased blank space – a girl in burkha with a man and two children · Before Me – reduced blank space – two girls jogging, one of them is fat and the other is okay-okay. Both are walking fast-fast with their walkman sets and ear phones plugged in their ears and they are chatting with each other · Before Me – lots of blank space – Special Number 8 bus goes by · Diagonally Opposite to My Right Side – an elderly woman dressed in the Maharashtrian kashta nine-yard saree walking slowly and parallel to her, closely, is a middle-aged housewife in a saree and sports shoes walking very fast. I imagine what relationship they could have and immediately to my mind is the relationship of a mistress and maidservant. Middle-aged housewife soon overtakes elderly Maharashtrian woman · Before Me – lesser space – a middle-aged man with a newspaper in hand walking slowly · Slightly Diagonally Opposite Me: an old man, an old woman and a girl who looks like their granddaughter and she has a camera in her hand – lots of blank space · Slightly Diagonally Opposite on My Right – reducing blank space – a mother and daughter walking slowly · To My Right – increased blank space – a youngish man, restless · Before Me – lots of blank space – a girl dressed in lemon green clothes with an embroidered bag, walking on the edges of the promenade, as if lost in another world · Before Me – very reduced blank space – a burkha clad woman with a man and three girls dressed in bright colourful clothes, carrying similar silver wallet bags · To My Right – slightly, very slightly reduced blank space – three girls have come and sat by, facing the sea. They have taken off their shoes and are completely relaxed. · A young man comes walking by my right side, loosely stretching out his hands and separating his fingers · A dog, let off his leash and its owner dressed in sexy tight shorts, walking with another girl. This woman is now familiar to me. I see her everytime I am at the promenade · Reduced Space – two girls walking and talking · A hawker passes by – thought and question in my mind – “hawkers walk very close to the promenade wall, very closely by the people sitting on them. Do people feel that their space/privacy is violated/encroached with the hawkers passing by them so closely?” · To My Left – same amount of blank space – two male friends sitting facing the sea, one explaining the city to the other. · Question in My Mind – “Is Nariman Point / Marine Drive then a reference point to the rest of the city?” · To My Left – reduced blank space – two old men, dressed in white kurta-pyjamas, tired, relaxing, thinking deeply · One Sardar couple walking closely to each other – little to none blank space between them · A hawker selling tea-coffee, passing by slowly, makes crackling noise with the plastic cup to draw my attention to the wares he is selling · One funky chic, dressed in tight red three-quarter pants, walking in a cool, forward and hip-swinging manner · Thought in My Mind – perhaps it is the friends/neighnours from the same building who jog/walk with each other. Building identity is very strong in the Churchgate/Cuffe Parade area. People of the same ‘class’ walk/jog with each other. What kind of a neighbourhood is Churchgate/Marine Drive/Colaba then? Closed, in-group? · Crossing My Path – One slightly balding man, two young girls, and one school-going age boy · Diagonally Opposite to My Left – reduced number of pigeons, lots of grain spread around · Thought in My Mind – people cross each other’s paths, sometimes very, very closely, but no one’s sense of space is violated!!! Does this happen in an open public space? Is this what is ‘supposed’ to happen? · Question in My Mind – Was the promenade consciously created as a public space? · Question in My Mind – Are public spaces consciously created? · Question in My Mind – Are public spaces unconsciously created? · Question in My Mind – Who created public spaces? Planners? Architects? Government? State? Citizens? Residents? Outsiders? · Question in My Mind – Is the sea a natural public space in a city? · The Sun has Set – returning joggers / walkers; emerging hawkers ... · One returning jogger meets an elderly couple and chats with them for a while · Question in My Mind – is it that only known people meet each other in a vast public space? · Question in My Mind – do unknown people meet each other in a vast public space? How? What is / are the anchor/s? · Space is gradually getting crowded · A young man passes very closely to me and eyes into what I am writing. My sense of privacy is violated for those few moments and I feel angry · Question in My Mind – am I violating people’s anonymity and privacy when I note them in my field notes? · One old woman and one young girl greet each other as both cross paths while walking in opposite directions · To My Right – reduced blank space, in quantity, but relatively still the same – an old man with thick eyebrows, black track suit, and a fancy child’s ball in his hands, comes and sits down to relax and catch some breath · To My Right – Old man is soon joined with his wife and granddaughter – space is not reduced. Granddaughter is arguing lovingly with her grandfather that this space is not Nariman Point and that Nariman Point starts ahead with the onset of the Air India Building · Four boys to men – coming from somewhere to be at the promenade and maybe will go somewhere from here · Question in My Mind – are there public spaces in world which are not consciously used as spaces for leisure and relaxation, but as spaces which people access in order to get from somewhere to somewhere? · Thought in My Mind – Nariman Point / Marine Drive / Churchgate is a mixed use area with commercial, residential and educational institutions and hence is frequented more when compared with Worli Sea Face / Bandstand / Carter Road promenades which are strictly residential. · Question in My Mind – the exteriority and centrality of Nariman Point / Marine Drive / Churchgate make it a frequently accessed and lively promenade I get up and start walking towards ‘Nariman Point’. I have plugged ear phones in my ears and am listening to radio. I notice that I walk on the left when I am walking towards the Point and to my right when I am returning back. That appears to be the pattern among a section of the population. There are lots of couples kissing each other facing the sea. Why would they want to express such private emotions in a public space? What is their sense of space? What are their notions of publicity and privacy? I am walking back towards Churchgate now. The music is rolling in my ears. Suddenly, I hear a familiar voice. It is my classmate Adi and his friend Daraius. My god! I meet apnawalas in a public space – again!!! Zainab Bawa Bombay www.xanga.com/CityBytes http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html From swamivandana at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 10:55:05 2005 From: swamivandana at yahoo.com (vandana swami) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 21:25:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Early beginnings : Making a case for Railway Construction in Mid-19th century India Message-ID: <20050325052505.91483.qmail@web60309.mail.yahoo.com> EARLY BEGINNINGS : MAKING A CASE FOR RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION IN MID 19TH CENTURY INDIA In July 1844, a committee of railway promoters expressed to the imperial government in Bombay their interest in setting up a railway between Bombay and the Thull and Bhore Ghat. Well prepared to prove the general worth of the proposed railway, the value of traffic it would carry and the expected returns it would provide, these promoters urged the government to set up a committee of its own to look into the merits of their proposal, as they were firmly convinced that their proposed railway would be a source of profit to its merchants and traders at either end of it. As in Europe, it was claimed that �no undertaking of this nature can be beneficial to the parties immediately connected with it, without promoting in a still higher degree the general prosperity of the country and improving the conditions of its native inhabitants� (PWD, Railways, Vol 1, General Department). Thus presenting the �known� political, economic and social advantages of the railway, these promoters urged the government to enquire into and support their proposal for railway construction as it had earlier supported steam navigation and the building of roads. Predictably, the government responded favourably and regarded this undertaking with �the most lively interest� and assured full support of the government, should it be found that the scheme was based on a solid and reliable body of information. A committee of civil and military officers was soon appointed to look into and report on the matter. This committee embarked on active consultations with the collectors of Thana, Khandesh, Poona, Ahemednagar, Nasik and Bombay to compare their findings with those claimed by the committee. Several discrepancies emerged through their investigations, particularly with respect to technical, and topographical details and financial estimates, and accordingly, a detailed and lengthy report was submitted to the governor�s office. Citizens of Bomaby also echoed the enthusiasm for railway construction and formed the Inland Railway Association in 1845 to look into the possibilities of railway construction. Meanwhile, a Provisional Committee of the GIP Railway brought out a prospectus, wherein the objectives of the company were clearly stated, �The extent of India and the value, variety and abundance of its products render that country a most fit scene for Railway enterprise. Whenever its inhabitants are found prro in the midst of its exuberant fertility, the fact is distinctly to be traced to its imperfect means of internal communication and whenever even common roads have been made, the traffic has increased manifold in the course of a few years��the proposed lines, having for their object to connect the interior of the peninsula with Bombay in one direction and with the best port on the Eastern coast on the other, while may lay the foundation for a connection between the three seats of the British government, will for the most part traverse rich and fertile towns of Poona, Nasik, Aurangabad, Sholapur, Nagpoor, Oomrawatty and Hyderabad, affording increased facilities for the export of cotton, sugar, silk, opium, gum, dyewoods, spices and for the import of salt, manufactured and other goods�. The government provided full cooperation to carry out the required surveys for assessment of the railway to be constructed. GIP Railway engineers were given all the assistance and information as they traveled throught the Deccan provinces. A detailed description was sought of the various kinds of public conveyances plying in the area � both by land and water. The movement of all palanquins, buggies, bullock carts, labor carts, boats etc now took place under the watchful eyes of the colonial administration. Not only that, there were also detailed descriptions available of the number of people moving in and out of the vicinity of Bombay. In another set of letters written by the Chairman of the GIP Railway, R C Crawford to the office of the Governor, it was again reiterated that the railways would greatly benefit the fertile districts of Western India which are currently suffering because of being unsupplied with roads, and lacking any canal or river communication. This would, the letter did not fail to point out, also be to the benefit of the government and the native community, as revenues would also increase. The benefits of a railway, both in times of peace and war, particularly the latter, were also spelt out, as �the expanse of territory over which the Hon�ble company now extends, there will of course not infrequently be cause for military interference, and the means of expeditiously conveying troops and stores to the point where they may happen to be required is therefore of the greatest possible consequence� (GIP Railway Letter to Government, September 1846, p.4). Thus, from the very beginning, the railway was seen as an instrument for commerce that would help the British capitalists and merchants harness the rich terrain of India for profit. The military aspect � the need to control the territory and the natives also figure prominently in early discussions about setting up the railway. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From clifton at altlawforum.org Fri Mar 25 08:16:43 2005 From: clifton at altlawforum.org (Clifton) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:46:43 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] Short film on discrimination and exclusion in tsunami relief an rehabilitation Message-ID: <42437B93.1040105@altlawforum.org> Hi, A group of us have been actively involved in the relief and rehabilitation processes in the tsunami affected villages of TN and Pondicherry. While the mainstream media has been covering the sucess of the relief efforts, there are several issues that are being suppressed and need to be brought to the notice of the general public. These include issues of exclusion in the relief process and discrimnation of dalits. While we tried to write articles/notes/observations and get them published this more or less failed. As a result we have made a short documentary film that documents the losses and struggle of those thousands of people who have been severly affected by the tsunami yet have received little or no relief. Further, there is no plan to rehabilitate them as is being done for the fisherpeople. This short film is called ¨Outside Mercy¨ and is about 30 minutes long. If you would like copies please do ask us. The film is a non-funded one and as such we have incurred lot of out-of-pocket expenses and would appreciate contributions for the film. The VCD and DVD are nominally priced at Rs. 100 and Rs. 300 respectively but would appreciate it if anyone wants to contribute further. There are Tamil and English versions of the film. Warm regards Revathi, Deepu and Clifton. Contact: Revathi - r_revs at yahoo.com / 09444030032 Deepu - pedepics at yahoo.com / 09448367627 Clifton - clifton at altlawforum.org / 09880063583 From rahul_capri at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 13:32:25 2005 From: rahul_capri at yahoo.com (Rahul Asthana) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:02:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Lukman Ali by Soumitra Mohan Message-ID: <20050325080225.88721.qmail@web53608.mail.yahoo.com> Hi All, This may be an unusual request for this list, but I am trying all avenues. Does anyone have the text of the Hindi poem "Lukman Ali" by Soumitra Mohan? regards Rahul __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From kaiwanmehta at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 16:58:29 2005 From: kaiwanmehta at gmail.com (kaiwan mehta) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:58:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Meeting all in Bombay Message-ID: <2482459d05032503281bc2364c@mail.gmail.com> Hi Thanks to those who responded to my prevous mails and that too positively. Well since the suggested dates seem to suit all, I propose to meet ... at Barrista near Regal Cinema at Colaba 6pm on Saturday 9 April, 2005. Hope thats fine for all! Once again, all Sarai Fellows in Bombay, even if you have not had the time to respond to my meeting-mails earlier, do drop in if you can. Anyone else connected to Sarai, visiting Bobay by chance at this time, please do come over. Looking forward to meeting all, Thanks and Regards, Kaiwan -- Kaiwan Mehta Architect and Urban Reseracher 11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034 022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436 From soudhamini_1 at lycos.com Fri Mar 25 17:32:39 2005 From: soudhamini_1 at lycos.com (sou dhamini) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 07:02:39 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] madurai Message-ID: <20050325120239.B2E3386B0F@ws7-1.us4.outblaze.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050325/adafc4bd/attachment.html From shivamvij at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 21:30:45 2005 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:30:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: REQUEST: Date of first matrimonial ads in India? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sreenath Sreenivasan Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 07:22:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: REQUEST: Date of first matrimonial ads in India? To: SAJA E-mail Discussion List A major American magazine asked SAJA the following question for a story. Any ideas? Sources, too, please! ASAP, thanks! >> When were the first matrimonial ads put into newspapers in India? << sree at sree.net | sreenath sreenivasan http://www.sreetips.com | http://www.sree.net BRAND-NEW BLOG: New to Sree - http://www.sreetips.com/new - -- "I may not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to death your right to say it." - Voltaire From shivamvij at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 21:36:25 2005 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:36:25 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Meeting all in Bombay In-Reply-To: <2482459d05032503281bc2364c@mail.gmail.com> References: <2482459d05032503281bc2364c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Oh, so Bombay too, like Delhi, has a Regal cinema? Is Bombay's Regal also an anachronism? On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:58:29 +0530, kaiwan mehta wrote: > Hi > Thanks to those who responded to my prevous mails and that too positively. > Well since the suggested dates seem to suit all, I propose to meet ... > at > Barrista near Regal Cinema at Colaba > 6pm > on > Saturday 9 April, 2005. > > Hope thats fine for all! > Once again, all Sarai Fellows in Bombay, even if you have not had the > time to respond to my meeting-mails earlier, do drop in if you can. > Anyone else connected to Sarai, visiting Bobay by chance at this time, > please do come over. > > Looking forward to meeting all, > Thanks and Regards, > Kaiwan > > -- > Kaiwan Mehta > Architect and Urban Reseracher > > 11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034 > 022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436 > _________________________________________ > 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 may not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to death your right to say it." - Voltaire From nicodockx at yahoo.com Sat Mar 26 03:23:31 2005 From: nicodockx at yahoo.com (NICO DOCKX) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 03:23:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] building transmissions shared sonic seascape Message-ID: - the building transmissions sonic exchange program II - the idea is to download the sound files posted on www.buildingtransmissions.com coming straight from the BT archival vaults, and adapt/ abuse/ grind up/ break down/ atomize/ bastardize them to your liking. please do be so kind as to post the fruits of your labor on this same website for others to (mis)use. you can post your adaptations as an MP3 (no AIFF !) on the website with certain restrictions, it can only be up to 7 minutes long and with an 192kbps maximum quality, in order to upload your sound file you must register your name and email address, just as a security precaution, you will then receive a login name and password through your email address, your email address will not be put on any mail order, list or scheme, but we would appreciate it if you would pass on this knowledge to any of your sound making friends or foes you are allowed, if not begged to post a multitude of tracks. Selected submissions will be broadcast on these two fine radio stations / galleries : -'Participation: Nuisance or Necessity?', curated by Natasa Petresin Iaspis Gallery, Stockholm 23.3.-1.5.2005 "The 2nd version of Building Transmissions' Sonic Exchange Program will be a part of the exhibition ìParticipation: Nuisance or Necessity?î at Iaspis Galleriet in Stockholm, from 23rd March to 1st of April 2005, where SR c (www.sr.se/p1/src/buildingtransmissions.html) will podcast selected pieces on a weekly basis." IASPIS GALLERIETKonstakademien, Fredsgatan 12, 2nd floor, Stockholm Open Tue - Fri 11 - 17, Sat - Sun 12 - 16 IASPIS, International Artistsí Studio Program In Sweden, Box 1610, SE-111 86 Stockholm, tel +46 8 402 35 77, fax +46 8 402 35 92, www.iaspis.com -radio radiodays : FM 107.4, curated by Veronica Wiman "Anti-Ear" is this second version produced for "radiodays" and one approach among many, the private and social aspects of listening. "radiodays" takes place in De Appel Stichting in Amsterdam and in the air 1st April-30th of April 2005. Daily, Tuesday-Sunday, live broadcast between 16.00-21.00 from De Appel Stichting and around the world (FM and web) De Appel Stichting Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10 1017 DE Amsterdam www.deappel.nl www.radiodays.org the first building transmissions sonic exchange program was presented at the 'Utopia Station' exhibition, HausderKunst, Munich, 10/04-01/05 and broadcasted therefor on consecutive Fridays on the Bayerische Rundfunk, Bayern, Germany thanks for your attention / track / downloading Building Transmissions (Kris Delacourt, Nico Dockx, Jan Lemaire & Peter Verwimp) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From kaiwanmehta at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 10:07:33 2005 From: kaiwanmehta at gmail.com (kaiwan mehta) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:07:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Heritage of Dirt Message-ID: <2482459d0503252037d8bc202@mail.gmail.com> Hi One more posting down this third month of the fellowship. I am conducting some mutli-disciplinary summer workshops inquiring into questions of migration and neighbourhood spaces and their perception and representations. Anyone visiting Bombay in April or May 2005 - is welcome to join in. I have just finished a study with some of my students, an academic exercise into discovering history - they will present their work next week and the material will be up on the RL then. Read on!! Regards, Kaiwan Fellowship Paper Title Reading Histories: Migration and Culture Politics of Mapping and Representation of Urban Communities ** As I am discovering and photographing decorated buildings and inquiring into the history these building and their secret space tell me – I find more visions that define this locality. A Times photographer, who I met through a colleague and my students works on various photo-doc projects. One of his project involves a photo documentation of the sweepers in Mumbai. He looks at various issues – the way BMC employees – the sweepers – are street / pavement dwellers themselves. They are often living in govt. quarters, but one can immediately see how bad the living conditions are. Often families hold on to this job father to son, simply for the free one room tenement they are entitled to. Often the male sweeper dies earlier than the general age due to conditions of working in garbage dumps for over 20-30 years and the drinking habit they develop. His job is then transferred/taken on by his wife or elder son, simple to retain the kholi – one room tenement. Often two families live in this one tenement. Some of these sweeper colonies exist in the C Ward area of my study. (I need to look at them) The sweepers clean and clear from animal carcasses to dead babies, scrap metal and logs of rotting and splintered wood, medical waste to blood and sanitary napkins. The BMC over the past 100 years has not improved in technology or equipment, still very primitive means are used to collect and clean garbage. Hands to collect and shoulders to carry! To drown their depressed and dirt drowned lives drinking is a habit they develop that often drowns them in debts. How does this connect to my local history project? Well the area we are discussing has a particular urban physical geography, and this essentially has to do with the way 'native towns' in colonial set-ups developed with step-motherly treatment. They symbolized the colonial imagination of dirty and black 'native' towns – that required planning as a tool for cleaner environments and better living conditions. Hausmann was a favourite amongst the colonial visionaries – evedents in the planning of Calcutta and notes of many planners like Geddes. Even today the area is fed water by wooden vats on carts drawn by humans. The buildings are very close or literally touching each other as they developed in a vacuum of town planning regulations or bye-laws. Common toilets amongst residents of a floor or building – makes more for uncared and ignored wet areas of a building. These conditions make cleaning the area a further task. Often the minimal 2 feet space between two buildings is no one's land and hence dumped ruthlessly with garbage. One incident mentions how garbage falls on sweepers as they are cleaning these narrow lanes – which include boiling rice water and sanitary napkins – where a co worker cleaned the blood of the other's face with her broom. At a recent seminar where I presented a paper on the building facades in the area, one of the reactions I got was – how could I be appreciative of an area that is so dirty and unorganised? Dirt hence seems to be one of the faces of this area; dirt seems to be one of the defining aspects for this area. And this dirt has its share of history! Today the sweepers that clean this area bear the burden of some history and it is important to understand their views on the area as they clean it day in and day out. Well the sweepers have their classification in place – as to which community creates more dirt for them. They find Parsees as the most sweeper friendly community whereas the Jains and the Muslims the most polluting. Jains believe in keeping their private space and interiors most clean and spic and span but one step out of their houses and all their garbage is emptied there. Festivals like Diwali or Bakra Id are the most polluting. When the whole world is relaxing after a boisterous festival, the sweeper is cursed with more loads to clean in his already dirtied life. What is the relationship between urban politics of space and culture that these sweepers bear the burden of? What is the relationship between the imagination of dirt and its reality in urban space? What community and social structures allow for urban spaces that need an army of sweepers to clean it? II The Heritage of Dirt To meet Sunil, a sweeper with the C Ward, I reached Do Tanki near Kumbharwada Police Chowki, by 6:15 am. I have frequented the road but am yet not very familiar with it. This is because one has often just zoomed in and out of it and that too not very often. At 6 in the morning the road was quite awake, I was wondering if the 'activities of the night' - prostitution which skirts around this area were still on. But observation told me it was other activities; labour of a new day; bakeries and bathing that were already on the way on this Sunday morning. It was difficult to locate the place I was to meet Sunil, the names on gardens and roads did not match the popular lingo. But I guessed I had located the place, walked around to search the spot where Sunil, I thought was waiting for me. I entered a lane with a Public Sauchalaya – a very busy spot at 6:15 in the morning, people moving in and out, a lane that was stinking of urine and soap simultaneously. Searching further I landed up at another spot where about ten men were bathing on the street, while some women got them water. Finally I located my meeting spot, there was a garbage van right out there, as men and women trickled in for their ritual attendance – Hajri. I kept jumping around trying to find a spot where less people asked me what I was there for, yet making sure Sunil notices me and trying desperately to avoid the stench of the garbage van on one side and the sauchalaya at the other. Some sweepers claiming familiarity with Sunil struck conversation with me, praising Sunil, asking me if I came here to discuss a dance show with him. Oh yeah Sunil is supposedly a great performer – kalakar, but has not got his share of fame and credit due to lack of support. Sunil comes and asks me to sit in their mukadam's office, the attendance office. I sit their as men and women pour in, sign the muster, change into their khaki uniform and stroll around before they start the day. Some women, not regular workers hope for a day task as badli – to work in the absence of a regular employee. I believe most of them are widows of ex-sweepers, Sunil mentions, as he now asks me to wait outside the office. He says the compound is fresher than the stuffy office – I think he wants me to be far from the haggling women and the mukadams as they decide the day's badli workers. Fresh air? I try to hide from Sunil that what he calls fresh air is stench and stinking environment for me, which I am finding difficult to bear. He just mentions how men die soon due to their drinking habits. A habit inculcated to fight the constant stink and drudgery of their jobs. I can imagine. The constant stench and garbage they spend half their day with also gives them many diseases. After I am introduced to Sunil's immediate bosses – the mukadams – while we were chatting he explained a complex system of hierarchy of his bosses, suspensions, supervisors, etc. Our walk started, proudly (I think so) he first showed me the gully he works in. Lane after lane he showed me their narrowness, convoluted turns, broken pipes splashing constant water out of them in the gullies, clogged garbage and hence collecting water, entries and space that often could allow you only if you moved sideways and had no paunch. It is not that I had never observed these before, I had, but never so closely and most important never with human beings working in them. On of the sweepers insisted I take his picture as he displayed how the water logging in the gully was knee deep. Every lane he showed had some specific problem, for him, although to me they all looked as bad as the previous one or the next expected. I tried a quick take at some of the classically decorated buildings too, as I was being introduced to the narrow and deep gullies. However not all buildings were old, a lot of them were recent RCC constructions. Then why were they still bad with sanitation. The old one I have a reason for, why the new ones in the same mess, same foot print? Every photograph I took was like an important testimonial to their plight – Sunil hinted to me at every lane for a picture. I wonder if people like me and my Times reporter-friend are instruments of archiving for them. Do they think of us as some tools or institutions that have recorded their miseries for the generations to come and hence given them a place in history? I am sure he knew I was no agency of improvement and I almost felt apologetic about it every turn he lead me. But every sweeper in every gully obliged me and looked forward to my taking a picture of 'his' gully. It could go on and on. But we stopped, I guess he had to do his part of the job, I had seen it, how many more times can I see it? As I walked away after thanking him, I suddenly felt I was now looking at the usual world. I was walking in the same streets as earlier, but previously all focused at peeping in gullies that no one normally looks at, their existence only emphasised by the sudden split moment splash of stench as you walk any of the streets here. The gullies are also, most of the time, very visible from the streets, but either there is conscious curtain that blinds the street users to these gullies of dirt and filth. Many freshly bathe women and men were running to the temples, that dot this area like the stars in the sky on a clear night, clean they were running for the daily ritual purity this fine and cool Sunday morning, quite fresh itself, as their dirty water from bath and washing was being cleared by men and women (maybe of another species – invisible – no one notices – but I saw them co-exist!!!) – Who did it every day, unnoticed by the businesses and families and gods in the area. Yes the city has two worlds – one where we live and one which we refuse exists. Its existence would shame us! It is also a situation where it is understood that there is to ones disposal – others who will take care of things – that you are scared to shame yourself with, you are scared to pollute yourself with (and shame your gods) and you think it is not in your dignity to even think about it. Assuming that one has the right to create what one hates and others are bound by duty to oblige in taking care of it. What is the concept of dirt? How does it define one human being from the other and how does it define one group of actors from others? I could see the front and back of this city in the same wink and same shot and same frame. What hands paint the front, what imaginations design the front and how does the back automatically (?) get generated or who generates it and why? Why is dirt assumed as a natural occupant of space, while all hate it? Why is it generated to alarming proportions? Is there a vision in allowing dirt to perpetrate and exist? Experiences of Research As my friend assisting me in conducting interviews in this area struggles to discover the area – her various experiences are becoming my material. Although the primary material expected – interviews – is becoming difficult often – her troubles and struggles are often revealing interesting characteristics of this area. As she moves to search for people to interview – she often encounters resistance – at the hands of 'conservation fear' or tenant-landlord conflict! There is a lot of inter-community grumbling in quiet whispers – various people advice her on which area is friendlier or which area is worth discovering – these we observed later were clearly defined by communities living there. One newly wed housewife and a fairly new migrant to the city agreed to talk to her only after discovering her north Indian background! As we move through these areas one wonders is this really 'a' city or is it a cluster of various hamlets or villages clubbed together – forced into co-existence. At what points do our cities get defined as 'one whole' – we imagine them often so, but did my sweeper in do tanki celebrate the Kala Ghoda or Mumbai Festival – both fighting to celebrate the 'heritage of glory' of this city? (This posting does not include some interview texts – awaiting some more texts to collate them together. Some work is also on the way - about ideas on Town Planning and visions of a 'good city' in late 19 and early 20 century India – to elaborate the question and bias inherent in defining spaces by nature of their geometry and cleanliness) -- Kaiwan Mehta Architect and Urban Reseracher 11/4, Kassinath Bldg. No. 2, Kassinath St., Tardeo, Mumbai 400034 022-2-494 3259 / 91-98205 56436 From ish at sarai.net Sat Mar 26 10:33:49 2005 From: ish at sarai.net (ish at sarai.net) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 06:03:49 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Spin on this: Indo-pak on US Axis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <627bb5988b37cb7d526b08f63cbf9076@sarai.net> On a fine day when two countries (India and pakistan) are trying to work things out building bridges the US(miss/mrs Rice) is here selling aircrafts to each one of them in case things don't work out. And as the Hindustan Times "Pakistan got it's F-16 (28 of them) and India got much much more" --> Do we need that much?<--- well what India is getting is strategic partnership to become a major 'world power'. |Amen| from HT (sat mar 26,2005) US state Dept said " the sale of f-16 and $3billion assistance to pak will not change the overall balance of military power in the region and are vital to pakistans security as president musharraf prosecutes war on terror" What I seriously ask is that can genuine and pure Peace be given a chance free from all these exterior influences of diplomacy, power or whatever they might be ? One porf in college over a cup of chai told me that War is the biggest business in the world and now i think peace is too... Let see through it with X-ray Specs <>ISh From majorod22 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 26 12:17:52 2005 From: majorod22 at yahoo.com (Mario Rodrigues) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 22:47:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] the political sociology of Indian golf Message-ID: <20050326064752.78739.qmail@web51709.mail.yahoo.com> The Political Sociology of Golf in South Asia (3) In my previous posting, I had highlighted the factors that have been driving the golf-course explosion in India. This time I will explore aspects connected with the human element to benefit whom these developments have taken place � the players. If the game�s aficionados are to be believed, golf is the fastest growing sport in India. Jeev Milkha Singh, one of India�s leading pro golfers, once said that golf will be bigger than cricket in ten years, a prediction, whatever its merit, that is similarly being echoed by other prominent golf practitioners. Today, just about 1-3 lakh players (out of a population of 1 billion plus) play golf across the 210-odd courses nationwide, a figure that is reportedly increasing rapidly. The golf-playing community can be divided into three categories: 1) the traditional club golfer who plays for the love of the sport thanks to his existing club membership; 2) the burgeoning club of power/corporate golfers, many of whom have taken up the game for business reasons, status or as a lifestyle option; 3) the also increasing group of amateur and professional golfers who want to make a career of golf. The proliferation of golfers has skyrocketed due to the golf boom, which was fuelled by the pumping of corporate largesse into the sport in the late 1990s. Today, even junior golf, which could not attract sponsors in the past, can command a price. The tribe of juniors has also increased substantially. In the old days, both amateurs and pros used to play together in Open tournaments. �Now, the field has increased to double and there are two separate tours for amateurs and pros run by two separate bodies,� points out Simranjeet Singh, a veteran Delhi-based amateur golfer. In the North (Delhi & Chandigarh) and East (Kolkata), a rush of juniors, backed by equally ambitious parents, have swarmed golf courses. In Kolkata, even a six-year-old is undergoing specialised coaching. Many amateurs turn pro as soon as possible. �Golf has become a career option as there is good money in the game today,� states Satbinder Singh, convenor, Royal Calcutta Golf Course, Kolkata. Indeed, a leading English national daily has unintendedly endorsed this claim by carrying an article to this effect a few months ago in its �Careers� supplement. The Indian Professional Golfers Association-conducted ongoing Tour for Indian pros sponsored currently by the Amby Valley (the Lonavla-based �lifestyle project� of the Sahara group) offers prize money worth Rs 3.05 crores. About 150-plus golfers take part in this tour. While a top-ranked golfer can make over Rs 1 million a year in prize money alone, even an average pro can rake in around Rs 1 lakh per month through prize money, tuitions, endorsements and so on. Indian youngsters are inspired by the success of Tiger Woods � and latterly of Vijay Singh, the Fijian of Indian origin who temporarily displaced the Afro-Asian American as the world�s No 1 golfer. �When Tiger took up golf he was very young. And when he won tournaments and made a lot of money a lot of youngsters took up golf here. Vijay Singh�s successes too fired up our youth,� contends Satbinder Singh. Just for the record, Vijay Singh pocketed over $ 7.6 million when he topped the US PGA Tour, a million more than Tiger Woods. Golf is seen as a game where Indians can succeed at the topmost level as it is not overtly physical. This is borne out by the successes of the �Three Musketeers of Indian Golf� � Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa and Arjun Atwal on the international stage. Atwal and Randhawa have topped the Asian PGA Tour rankings in the past, the former becoming the first Indian to qualify for the US PGA Tour, the world�s premier golfing arena. Jeev and Randhawa have been playing on the European and Japanese Tours, the next biggest platforms in world golf. And several more Indians are not only competing on the Asian PGA Tour but even winning events there. And raking in the money as well. For example, Randhawa pocketed a winner�s cheque of $ 1.75 lakhs when he won the Suntory Open in Japan in 2003. In 2003, Atwal earned $ 2.84 lakhs on the Asian Tour apart from 3.35 lakh pounds on the European Tour. Golf reporting in the media highlights this aspect by repeatedly focussing on the aggregate prize money earnings of leading pro golfers for the season. To conclude: a point about the Pro Tour business. Geographical boundaries seem to be of no consequence as the world�s top golfers go about in search of �greener� pastures and the Tour goes in search of new markets. Indians, Japanese and other Asians are playing on the US and European Tours, while Westerners are playing on the Asian circuit. The Indian Tour too thinks nothing of meandering into Nepal, Bangladesh and now Sri Lanka. The European Tour, on its part, will travel to Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the UAE, Qatar, Australia and New Zealand this season. Golf, like some other disciplines, now represents the unrestricted flow of capital and elite performers across the globe, that has made nationalities and nations irrelevant! __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From shekhar at crit.org.in Sat Mar 26 16:19:34 2005 From: shekhar at crit.org.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:19:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Mumbai Map Archive Message-ID: <074f3594cdcc31a9b7b2aa6648c45432@crit.org.in> Dear All: I have uploaded a series of high-resolution scanned maps and satellite imagery of Mumbai City, Suburbs, and the Metropolitan Region, in the spirit of open geo-data. These are free for viewing, downloading, and sharing. This archive contains the Bombay City Guide series conducted by the Survey of India from 1929-69, which I obtained in the University of Chicago Library a few years ago, along with some other regional plans of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority and Bombay Municipal Corporation, and high-resolution composite satellite imagery of Mumbai from the NASA Landsat 7 series. You can view and download these maps at: http://www.crit.org.in/archives/maps You can view the images at different sizes, and if you want to download them, simply right-click on the image. To download the originals, view at original size and right-click. Please note that the file sizes are very large, between 5-25 MB and will require a fast connection to view and download properly. You can check the size of the image before choosing the size at which to view. We will be adding more maps and plans to this archive over the next few weeks, so please check back, and send me your suggestions for developing this Mumbai Map Archive. 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 deb99kamal at yahoo.com Sat Mar 26 20:55:22 2005 From: deb99kamal at yahoo.com (Debkamal Ganguly) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 07:25:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] 3rd posting: The culture of crime pulp fiction in Bengal: A novel: Hatya Bibhishika (The terror of killing) Message-ID: <20050326152522.37171.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Hello Friends, The current posting is about an amazing Bangla crime novel, published in 1920s, 'Hatya Bibhishika' (The Terror of Killing), written by Surendra Mohan Bhattacharya. The name of the writer was advertised with the adjective 'Darshanik Pandit' (philosopher-scholar) prior of the publication to promote the 'value' of the novel. In my project description, I mentioned about noting the reference of Kolkata as a city and a milieu for crime tales. In this story all the happenings occur in a suburban locality, rather in a village, but the motive of crime is linked to Kolkata. The protagonist Gobindalal himself is the criminal as well in the tale, and though there are grotesque acts of murder he commits, the inner turmoil and spiritual crisis of him has been expressed with doctrinal religio-philosophical discourses (like the methods of Tantric rituals and its implication and various interpretation). To proceed further, a brief summary of the story would be relevant. The Story........... The story starts in a clouded summer day in Sundarnagar, a suburb away from Kolkata, where the central character Gobindalal reads a letter. The letter contains traces of emotional longing of a courtesan, Nilima for Gobindalal. Nilima stays in Kolkata. Gobindalal used to do a regular office job staying in Kolkata, when he got introduced to Nilima in a red light area. He became so involved with her, that he neglected his regular responsibility in the office and was terminated subsequently. He found no other alternative in Kolkata and came back to his village, though he always fancied a relation of living together with Nilima. He was married and the wife died when he was in Kolkata. Now Gobindalal only dreams of enough money, so that he and Nilima can stay together without her obligation for flesh trade. As Gobindalal reads Nilima's letter, a sadhu comes and flares up Gobindalal's lust for Nilima and provokes him to get into some Tantric ritual of black magic, so that he would get immense wealth. For the Tantric ritual the sadhu asks for five human heads and figures out how Gobindalal can get these heads by beheading human beings at suitable opportunity. The rest of the story deals with how Gobindalal manages to kill four persons and so on. So in the very beginning of the story, an unusual pretext for the crime is being laid down and unseen, unrepresented Kolkata (at least in this text) serves as a mystifying source to produce uncanny lust (the logic of lust here crosses the physical boundary of libido, or the emotional contour of commonly used notion of love..... as further down the story we would find Gobindalal is coming close to at least three beautiful young ladies in three occasions of his killings, even the physical attraction and the vulnerability of those ladies cannot prevent Gobindalal from the act of killing, rather at those crucial hours also he was haunted by the beauty of Nilima, who seems to be a past memory by then. The 'past' memory of Nilima becomes so evocative, that he goes on beheading as a man possessed by hyper-real addiction to a certain memory of intoxicating stimulant). The first victim was a girl with whom the second marriage of Gobindalal was arranged. In their first conjugal night, Gobindalal severed her head from her body while she was sleeping. For the second victim, Gobindalal laid a trap to seduce a house wife with a little girl. Her husband used to work in Assam, and through this span of prolonged absence, Gobindalal sneaked in and had a physical relationship with the lady. Again in one night, while they were sleeping together, Gobindalal chloroformed her and her child, took away the child, cut off her head and disposed all traces of her human remains. On the third occasion Gobindalal captivated on a helpless couple and offered them a job and decent living in Kolkata. While they were departing in the night, Gobindalal made use of a lonely dense village orchard, almost like a jungle and killed them for their heads. The 'Supernatural' discourse on the limit of modernity/rationality...................... The interesting part is after every killing police came and investigated without any result. At last the second victim, the girl child, appeared as a ghostly image to her mother asking her to reveal the secret about her killing to Magistrate. That lady was too depressed and pressurised to save her own 'honour' and finally committed suicide. After the four murders, police became really desperate but without any significant advancement. Then the ghost of the child appears before the police personnel and told the secret. The police person was a British and was apprehensive of this vision and asked for proof, the ghost mentioned about the places where different clues were to be found. The ghost also said that if needed she can appear in the courtroom to testify for the crime. The ghost also said to the Britisher that, he shouldn't be doubtful about the presence of ghost as many renowned scientists in the west had already expressed their acceptance to supernatural beings. Earlier in the story, in a self reflexive style of alienation, the writer himself talked directly to the readers, that even some scientists (Dr. Wallace) contemporary to Darwin had come to the conclusion of the presence of supernatural spirits in a scientific way. This special feature of the story, i.e. mingling of rational process of investigation and litigation and the supernatural testimony is a unique product of modernity in a colonial landscape like India, and older belief systems are seen to be negotiating vigorously and competitively to be represented in the mediation process. A Non-'alienated' Fate Struck 'Serial Killer'..... Some of the other features of the story are the moral pressure on the protagonist after every killing and the Tantric Sadhu's 'spiritual' logic to get him out of that feeling of sin. In this context there are series of dialogue with the Tantric and with other Guru regarding the spiritual goal of Tantra. The skill of writing always maintained a tone so that the protagonist had multiple shades, not only of a B/W image of a villain, but a man in psychological turmoil, at times there are passages where the reader would empathise with the sinner-protagonist. Specially in 1950s in west there were lot of stories of serial killers, where the serial -killer had a secret design, a world view, a logic of his own, and as those logic are distinctly different from the logic of society, the serial-killers motive became so mysterious for common people, and after they were being chased by law, they were thought to be outcast from society. Here also Gobindalal's secret desire and secret scheme, might give him a character similar to that of a weird serial killer, but here he is not completely alienated from the society, the reader can feel a pulsating relationship of the protagonist vis a vis society in terms of inside-outside dichotomy. Even in the end when Gobindalal was sentenced for life imprisonment in Andaman, we find the humane aspect of the core relationship of Nilima-Gobindalal, a sense of love and attachment 'wrongly' placed. Knowing about the verdict Nilima rushed to the jetty to have a last look at Gobindalal and seeing her from the departing ship, Gobindalal yelled, that he had done all these wrong only for her, though they wouldn't have chance to meet in future, he would remember her for ever. Thus the story takes here a fatalistic end, any person having western enlightenment ideas would argue that, there was nothing wrong in the love and attachment between a courtesan and a a common civilian, but as if the writer opted to strike the tragic chord of destined departure of the lovers over few headless corpses, where one would expect rationality/logic/scientific approach are the key to frame a crime-tale. The epitome of colonial culture, Kolkata works as a source/motif of destructive fate and destiny and an illusory zone where an average man like Gobindalal can end up being a 'serial killer', and this attitude might be noted specifically in some other early crime tales as well. Till next posting, Debkamal Ganguly ------------------------------------------- 404 Vimla Vihar 8-49 Gautamnagar St no. 1 Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad - 500060 India Phone - 9246363517 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From faraazmehmood at yahoo.com Sun Mar 27 12:19:27 2005 From: faraazmehmood at yahoo.com (faraaz mehmood) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 22:49:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Disconnect can be costly!! Message-ID: <20050327064927.56107.qmail@web31803.mail.mud.yahoo.com> A fax was sent from Mysore state bank but failed to reach the udaipur clearing house which was udaipur state bank & the disconnect cost Rs. 28000 to my bank the national development bank. All without the responsibility being pinned on any of the several players. Since I was incharge of the clearing in my bank I had to face the music due to cross wire mis-connection. Such was the story of clearing cheques. In each city a certain state bank is appointed as a clearing house which is conducted twice a day at noon & 3 o� clock in the afternoon. Like all other banks my bank too scrambles for the piled up cheques in the front office & the drop-box & does a brisk sorting & lodging with a grand tally of giving & claiming the calculated amount from the clearing house, the udaipur state bank. The 22nd of March was like any other day. My claims & deductions were neatly stacked out. My bank customers had deposited cheques pertaining to some 20 banks all over the city. From the clearing house I was claiming Rs. Four crores & offering Rs. Six crores on behalf of my bank as the stacked cheques amounted to. That fateful day my bank was short of funds by two crores if the claiming & offering were subtracted. Now the procedure was to contact the other local banks for the arrangement for those two crores. If the local banks failed to remit this amount then my branch contacted the state head office at jaipur. Usually the national development bank jaipur was flushed with funds & they would send the amount without any hitch. Not to be so on march the 22nd. The Mysore state bank is an associate of Udaipur state bank & acts as a mediator to our bank. The national development bank jaipur requested mysore state bank to remit the required amount through fax or telegraphic transfer (tt) the mysore state bank did so. But the udaipur state bank either failed to receive the fax or lost the copy in the hullabaloo of the frantic transactions. As the clearing house at state bank udaipur resembled a fish market twice a day on both the clearing house occasions. The state bank udaipur in the absence of the fax received promptly penalised Rs. 28000 on the deficit of my bank. I being incharge of the clearing got into a tailspin. First I went on a pleading spree with several officers of the udaipur state bank to some how locate or ascertain the transmission of the fax. Even the technical verification by the engineer was not of any help. As the fax report showed only a list of the last 35 faxes received. Then I contacted my jaipur branch to do the needful. They in turn got in touch with Mr. Ramakrishnan of mysore state bank. The clearing house was flooded with phone calls from mysore, jaipur & bombay even sending the sent message copy of the fax. But to no avail. The disdained with which the public sector banks treat their private sector counterparts was in full play. The sent in message had no meaning for the clearinghouse. A conduit to the solution is still open. In hyderabad there is an outfit for reconciliation among the associates of the state bank. It is called Absot. They employ a technique called value dating. Value dating essentially means passing or executing an entry with a retrospective date i.e. if a transaction has occurred previously but was unintentionally entered wrongly, the rectification of the same can be undertaken on a forthcoming date with the date being the original one i.e. of the transaction. I am hoping for the realisation of the same at the beginning of the next week. The officers at absot were listening & making soothing noises regarding this imbroglio. Hopefully they would wrench me out of this mess with some dignity. The public sector banks have a well-entrenched mentality of behaving like sarkari damads. They claim all privileges of authority & deny even an iota of credibility to the private players. The suspicion is so great that they first debit the penal amount & then listen to the complaint. Logic pales in the aura of absolute authority. Having said this there is also mechanisms for reconciliation & realisation of the lost money. MF __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From souweine at hawaii.edu Mon Mar 28 10:36:43 2005 From: souweine at hawaii.edu (Isaac D W Souweine) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 00:06:43 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] char soh bees Message-ID: <136bc6f136ce42.136ce42136bc6f@hawaii.edu> Aarti: I can think of two more examples of the "char so bees" phenomenon from the states. One is the use of the phrase "four twenty" to refer to marijuana smoking. This tradition is robust enough to include a practice of smoking at that time of day and even a supposed smoker's holiday on April 20 i.e. 4/20. Supposedly this usage is tied to the fact that in some state law code (California?) 420 is the number that refers to marijuana possesion. Guess it's just coincidence that this is the same number as in char so bees. Or perhaps it's an especially euphonic number. The other example is the use of the term "one eight seven" to refer to murder. I believe 187 is the number code for homicide in California (or perhaps nationally). Would be cool to know other similar examples. . . -Isaac ----- Original Message ----- From: Aarti Date: Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:11 am Subject: [Reader-list] char soh bees > Dear All, > > For a little while I have been thinking about some things that I > want to > share with you, with which I need some help. They are very > unformed > right now, just nascent initial thoughts, not quite coherent, but > nonetheless. Through conversation with comrades here, maybe they > will > get clarified and more fleshed out. > > I am basically curious about how the law circulates, and the forms > in > which it circulates. By this I mean..how do we know the law in > everyday > life? For instance, if you happen to be a filmmaker and need to > shoot in > a particular area, you know you will have to get permissions from > the > DCPs of various police stations because many areas, Central Delhi > for > instance are under this Act (the exact act i forget now) which > makes > shooting etc without permission illegal. Likewise in the course of > doing > the things we do we interact with the letter of the law in various > ways, > and the law filters down to us. What we know of the law is not > always > the 'Law' i.e we have a sense of what it is we can and cannot do, > though > we may not always be in the know of the specific legal injunction > that > allows or prohibits the doing of certain things. > > Also, how does the language of the law enter our language. For > instance > 'char soh bees' (420) is a common phrase to describe a no-good > character, but it is also section 420 of the IPC which relates to > dishonesty, cheating, petty fraud etc. what are other similar > phrases in > common usage which speak of the law? I was wondering if anyone > might be > able to help me with this. I right now cant think of any other > phrase > except char so bees, but I'm sure there must be others. > > > Any thoughts, and help would be greatly appreciated. > > Thanks > > > best > > Aarti > _________________________________________ > 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 Mon Mar 28 17:38:15 2005 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 17:38:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] blurring the news Message-ID: <4247F3AF.8020808@sarai.net> A long, but richly detailed article. -V. The New York Times March 13, 2005 Is It News or Public Relations? Under Bush, Lines Are Blurry By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?hp&ex=1110690000&en=13c49ccf73932e2e&ei=5094&partner=homepage It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets. "Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers. To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public-relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications. Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 different federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source. Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration. Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, such as the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy. Some of the segments were seen in millions of homes and were broadcast in some of nation's largest TV markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta. An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism. It is also a world where all participants benefit. Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which play a crucial role in distributing the government's coverage of itself, collect fees from the government agency that produces segments as well as the affiliate that shows them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting. The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies. In interviews, though, press officers for several federal agencies said the president's prohibition did not apply to government-made TV news segments, also known as video news releases. They described the segments as factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers. They noted that the Clinton administration also distributed video news releases, and they insisted that there was no similarity to the case of Armstrong Williams, a conservative columnist who promoted the administration's chief education initiative, the No Child Left Behind legislation, without disclosing $240,000 in payments from the Department of Education. What is more, these officials argued, it is the responsibility of television news directors to inform viewers that a segment about the government was in fact written by the government. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," said Bill Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions." Yet in three separate opinions in the past year, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that studies the federal government and its expenditures, has held that government-made news segments may constitute improper "covert propaganda" even if their origin is made clear to the television stations. The point, the office said, is whether viewers know the origin. Last month, in its most recent finding, the G.A.O. said federal agencies may not produce prepackaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials." It is not certain, though, whether the office's pronouncements will have much practical effect. Although a few federal agencies have stopped making television news segments, others continue. And on Friday, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memorandum instructing all executive branch agencies to ignore the G.A.O. findings. The memorandum said the G.A.O. failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments made by the government. Such informational segments are legal, the memorandum said, whether or not an agency's role in producing them is disclosed to viewers. Even if agencies do disclose their role, those efforts can easily be undone in a broadcaster's editing room. Some news organizations, for example, simply identify the government's "reporter" as one of their own and then edit out any phrase suggesting the segment was not of their making. So in a recent segment produced by the Agriculture Department, the agency's narrator ended the report by saying "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture." Yet AgDay, a syndicated farm news program that is shown on some 160 stations, simply introduced the segment as being by "AgDay's Pat O'Leary." The final sentence was then trimmed to "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting." Brian Conrady, executive producer of AgDay, defended the changes. "We can clip 'Department of Agriculture' at our choosing," he said. "The material we get from the U.S.D.A., if we choose to air it and how we choose to air it is our choice." Spreading the Word Government Efforts And One Woman's Role Karen Ryan cringes at the phrase "covert propaganda." These are words for dictators and spies, and yet they have attached themselves to her like a pair of handcuffs. Not long ago, Ms. Ryan was a much sought-after "reporter" for news segments produced by the federal government. A journalist at ABC and PBS who became a public relations consultant, Ms. Ryan worked on about a dozen reports for seven federal agencies in 2003 and early 2004. Her segments for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy were a subject of the accountability office's recent inquiries. The G.A.O. concluded that the two agencies "designed and executed" their segments "to be indistinguishable from news stories produced by private sector television news organizations." A significant part of that execution, the office found, was Ms. Ryan's expert narration, including her typical sign-off - "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting" - delivered in a tone and cadence familiar to television reporters everywhere. Last March, when The New York Times first described her role in a segment about new prescription drug benefits for Medicare patients, reaction was harsh. The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an editorial under the headline "Karen Ryan, You're a Phony," and she was the object of late night jokes by Jon Stewart and received hate mail. "I'm like the Marlboro man," she said in a recent interview. In fact, Ms. Ryan was a bit player who made less than $5,000 for her work on government reports. She was also playing an accepted role in a lucrative art form, the video news release. "I just don't feel I did anything wrong," she said. "I just did what everyone else in the industry was doing." It is a sizeable industry. One of its largest players, Medialink Worldwide Inc., has about 200 employees, with offices in New York and London. It produces and distributes about 1,000 video news releases a year, most commissioned by major corporations. The Public Relations Society of America even gives an award, the Bronze Anvil, for the year's best video news release. In essence, video news releases seek to exploit a growing vulnerability of television news: Even as news staffs at the major networks are shrinking, many local stations are expanding their hours of news coverage without adding reporters. "No TV news organization has the resources in labor, time or funds to cover every worthy story," one video news release company, TVA Productions, said in a sales pitch to potential clients, adding that "90 percent of TV newsrooms now rely on video news releases." Federal agencies have been commissioning video news releases since at least the first Clinton administration. An increasing number of state agencies are producing television news reports, too; the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department alone has produced some 500 video news releases since 1993. Under the Bush administration, federal agencies appear to be producing more releases, and on a broader array of topics. A definitive accounting is nearly impossible. There is no comprehensive archive of local television news reports, as there is in print journalism, so there is no easy way to determine what has been broadcast, and when and where. Still, several large agencies, including the Defense Department, the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledge expanded efforts to produce news segments. Many members of Mr. Bush's first-term cabinet appeared in such segments. A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers another rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent. Karen Ryan was part of this public-relations push - a "paid shill for the Bush administration," as she self-mockingly puts it. It is, she acknowledges, an uncomfortable title. Ms. Ryan, 48, describes herself as not especially political, and certainly no Bush die-hard. She had hoped for a long career in journalism. But over time, she said, she grew dismayed by what she saw as the decline of television news - too many cut corners, too many ratings stunts. In the end, she said, the jump to video news releases from journalism was not as far as one might expect. "It's almost the same thing," she said. There are differences, though. When she went to interview Tommy G. Thompson, then the health and human services secretary, about the new Medicare drug benefit, it was not the usual reporter-source exchange. First, she said, he already knew the questions, and she was there mostly to help him give better, snappier answers. And second, she said, everyone involved is aware of a segment's potential political benefits. Her Medicare report, for example, was distributed in January 2004, not long before Mr. Bush hit the campaign trail and cited the drug benefit as one of his major accomplishments. The script suggested that local anchors lead into the report with this line: "In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare." In the segment, Mr. Bush is shown signing the legislation as Ms. Ryan describes the new benefits and reports that "all people with Medicare will be able to get coverage that will lower their prescription drug spending." The segment, though, made no mention of the many critics who decry the measure as an expensive gift to the pharmaceutical industry. The G.A.O. found that the segment was "not strictly factual," that it contained "notable omissions" and that it amounted to "a favorable report" about a controversial program. And yet this news segment, like several others narrated by Ms. Ryan, reached an audience of millions. According to the accountability office, at least 40 stations ran some part of the Medicare report. Video news releases distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, including one narrated by Ms. Ryan, were shown on 300 stations and reached 22 million households. According to Video Monitoring Services of America, a company that tracks news programs in major cities, Ms. Ryan's segments on behalf of the government were broadcast a total of at least 64 times in the 40 largest television markets. Even these measures, though, do not fully capture the reach of her work. Consider the case of News 10 Now, a cable station in Syracuse owned by Time Warner. In February 2004, days after the government distributed its Medicare segment, News 10 Now broadcast a virtually identical report, including the suggested anchor lead-in. The News 10 Now segment, however, was not narrated by Karen Ryan. Instead, the station edited out the original narration and had one of its own reporters repeat the script almost word for word. The station's news director, Sean McNamara, wrote in an e-mail message, "Our policy on provided video is to clearly identify the source of that video." In the case of the Medicare report, he said, the station believed it was produced and distributed by a major network and did not know that it had originally come from the government. Ms. Ryan said she was surprised by the number of stations willing to run her government segments without any editing or acknowledgement of origin. As proud as she says she is of her work, she did not hesitate, even for a second, when asked if she would have broadcast one of her government reports if she were a local news director. "Absolutely not." Little Oversight TV's Code of Ethics, With Uncertain Weight "Clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders." Those words are from the code of ethics of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the main professional society for TV news directors in the United States. Some stations go further, all but forbidding the use of any outside material, especially entire reports. And spurred by embarrassing publicity last year about Karen Ryan, the news directors association is close to proposing a stricter rule, said its executive director, Barbara Cochran. Whether a stricter ethics code will have much effect is unclear; it is not hard to find broadcasters who are not adhering to the existing code, and the association has no enforcement powers. The Federal Communications Commission does, but it has never disciplined a station for showing government-made news segments without disclosing their origin, a spokesman said. Could it? Several lawyers experienced with F.C.C. rules say yes. They point to a 2000 decision by the agency, which stated, "Listeners and viewers are entitled to know by whom they are being persuaded." In interviews, more than a dozen station news directors endorsed this view without hesitation. Several expressed disdain for the prepackaged segments they received daily from government agencies, corporations and special interest groups who wanted to use their airtime and credibility to sell or influence. But when told that their stations showed government-made reports without attribution, most reacted with indignation. Their stations, they insisted, would never allow their news programs to be co-opted by segments fed from any outside party, let alone the government. "They're inherently one-sided, and they don't offer the possibility for follow up questions - or any questions at all," said Kathy Lehmann Francis, until recently the news director at WDRB, the Fox affiliate in Louisville, Ky. Yet records from Video Monitoring Services of America indicate that WDRB has broadcast at least seven Karen Ryan segments, including one for the government, without disclosing their origin to viewers. Mike Stutz, news director at KGTV, the ABC affiliate in San Diego, was equally opposed to putting government news segments on the air. "It amounts to propaganda, doesn't it?" he said. Again, though, records from Video Monitoring Services of America show that from 2001 to 2004 KGTV ran at least one government-made segments featuring Karen Ryan, 5 others featuring her work on behalf of corporations, and 19 other segments produced by corporations and other outside organizations. It does not appear that KGTV viewers were told the origin of these 25 segments. "I thought we were pretty solid," Mr. Stutz said, adding that they intend to take more precautions. Confronted with such evidence, most news directors were at a loss to explain how the segments made it on the air. Some said they were unable to find archive tapes that would help answer the question. Others promised to look into it, then stopped returning telephone messages. A few removed the segments from their Web sites, promised greater vigilance in the future or pleaded ignorance. Afghanistan to Memphis An Agency's Report Ends Up on the Air On Sept. 11, 2002, WHBQ, the Fox affiliate in Memphis, marked the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with an uplifting report on how assistance from the United States was helping to liberate the women of Afghanistan. Tish Clark, a reporter for WHBQ, described how Afghan women, once barred from schools and jobs, were at last emerging from their burkas, taking up jobs as seamstresses and bakers, sending daughters off to new schools, receiving decent medical care for the first time and even participating in a fledgling democracy. Her segment included an interview with an Afghan teacher who recounted how the Taliban only allowed boys to attend school. An Afghan doctor described how the Taliban refused to let male physicians treat women. In short, Ms. Clark's report seemed to corroborate, however modestly, a central argument of the Bush foreign policy, that forceful American intervention abroad was spreading freedom, improving lives and winning friends. What the people of Memphis were not told, though, was that the interviews used by WHBQ were actually conducted by State Department contractors. The contractors also selected the quotes used from those interviews and filmed the footage that went with the narration. They also wrote the narration, much of which Ms. Clark repeated with only minor changes. As it happens, the viewers of WHBQ were not the only ones in the dark. Ms. Clark, now Tish Clark Dunning, said in an interview that she, too, had no idea the report originated at the State Department. "If that's true, I'm very shocked that anyone would false report on anything like that," she said. How a television reporter in Memphis came to unwittingly narrate a segment by the State Department reveals much about the extent to which government-produced news accounts have seeped into the broader new media landscape. The explanation begins inside the White House, where the president's communications advisers devised a strategy after Sept. 11, 2001, to encourage supportive news coverage of the fight against terrorism. The idea, they explained to reporters at the time, was to counter charges of American imperialism by generating accounts that emphasized American efforts to liberate and rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. An important instrument of this strategy was the Office of Broadcasting Services, a State Department unit of 30 or so editors and technicians whose typical duties include distributing footage from news conferences. But in early 2002, with close editorial direction from the White House, the unit began producing narrated feature reports, many of them promoting American achievements in Afghanistan and Iraq and reinforcing the administration's rationales for the invasions. These reports were then widely distributed in the United States and around the world for use by local TV stations. In all, the State Department has produced 59 such segments. United States law contains provisions intended to prevent the domestic dissemination of government propaganda. The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, for example, allows Voice of America to broadcast pro-government news to foreign audiences, but not at home. Yet State Department officials said that law does not apply to the Office of Broadcasting Services. In any event, said Richard A. Boucher, a State Department spokesman, "Our goal is to put out facts and the truth. We're not a propaganda agency." Even so, as a senior department official, Patricia Harrison, told Congress last year, the Bush administration has come to regard such "good news" segments as "powerful strategic tools" for influencing public opinion. And a review of the department's segments reveals a body of work in sync with the political objectives set forth by the White House communications team after 9/11. In June 2003, for example, the unit produced a segment that depicted American efforts to distribute food and water to the people of southern Iraq. "After living for decades in fear, they are now receiving assistance - and building trust - with their coalition liberators," the unidentified narrator concluded. Several segments focused on the liberation of Afghan women, which a White House memo from January 2003 singled out as a "prime example" of how "White House-led efforts could facilitate strategic, proactive communications in the war on terror." Tracking precisely how a "good news" report on Afghanistan could have migrated to Memphis from the State Department is far from easy. The State Department typically distributes its segments via satellite to international news organizations like Reuters and Associated Press Television News, which in turn distribute them to the major United States networks, which then transmit them to local affiliates. "Once these products leave our hands, we have no control," Robert A. Tappan, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, said in an interview. The department, he said, never intended its segments to be shown unedited and without attribution by local news programs. "We do our utmost to identify them as State Department-produced products." Representatives for the networks insist that government-produced reports are clearly labeled when they are distributed to affiliates. Yet with segments bouncing from satellite to satellite, passing from one news organization to another, it is easy to see the potential for confusion. Indeed, in response to questions from The Times, Associated Press Television News acknowledged distributing at least one segment about Afghanistan to the major United States networks without identifying it as the product of the State Department. A spokesman said it "slipped through our net because of a sourcing error." Kenneth W. Jobe, vice president of news at WHBQ in Memphis, said he could not explain how his station came to broadcast the State Department's segment on Afghan women. "It's the same piece, there's no mistaking it," he said in an interview, insisting that it would not happen again. Mr. Jobe, who was not with WHBQ in 2002, said the station's script for the segment has no notes explaining its origin. But Tish Clark Dunning said it was her impression at the time that the Afghan segment was her station's version of one done first by network correspondents at either Fox News or CNN. It is not unusual, she said, for a local station to take network reports and then give them a hometown look. "I didn't actually go to Afghanistan," she said. "I took that story and reworked it. I had to do some research on my own. I remember looking on the Internet and finding out how it all started as far as women covering their faces and everything." At the State Department, Mr. Tappan said the broadcasting office is moving away from producing narrated feature segments. Instead, the department is increasingly supplying only the ingredients for reports - sound bites and raw footage. Since the shift, he said, even more State Department material is making its way into news broadcasts. Meeting a Need Rising Budget Pressures, Ready-to-Run Segments WCIA is a small station with a big job in central Illinois. Each weekday, WCIA's news department produces a three-hour morning program, a noon broadcast and three evening programs. There are plans to add a 9 p.m. broadcast. The staff, though, has been cut to 37 from 39. "We are doing more with the same," said Jim P. Gee, the news director. Farming is crucial in Mr. Gee's market, yet with so many demands, he said, "it is hard for us to justify having a reporter just focusing on agriculture." To fill the gap, WCIA turned to the Agriculture Department, which has assembled one of the most effective public relations operations inside the federal government. The department has a Broadcast Media and Technology Center with an annual budget of $3.2 million that each year produces some 90 "mission messages" for local stations - mostly feature segments about the good works of the Agriculture Department. "I don't want to use the word filler, per se, but they meet a need we have," Mr. Gee said. The Agriculture Department's two full-time reporters, Bob Ellison and Pat O'Leary, travel the country filing reports, which are vetted by the department's office of communications before they are distributed via satellite and mail. Alisa Harrison, who oversees the communications office, said Mr. Ellison and Mr. O'Leary provide unbiased, balanced and accurate coverage. "They cover the secretary just like any other reporter," she said. Invariably, though, their segments offer critic-free accounts of the department's policies and programs. In one report, Mr. Ellison told of the agency's efforts to help Florida clean up after several hurricanes. "They've done a fantastic job," a grateful local official said in the segment. More recently, Mr. Ellison reported that Mike Johanns, the new agriculture secretary, and the White House were determined to reopen Japan to American beef products. Of his new boss, Mr. Ellison reported: "He called Bush the best envoy in the world." WCIA, based in Champaign, has run some 40 segments by Mr. Ellison over the past three months alone. Or put another way, WCIA has run 40 reports that did not cost it anything to produce. Mr. Gee, the news director, readily acknowledges that these accounts are not exactly independent, tough-minded journalism. But, he added, "We don't think they're propaganda. They meet our journalistic standards. They're informative. They're balanced." More than a year ago WCIA asked the Agriculture Department to record a special sign-off that implies the segments are the work of WCIA reporters. So, for example, instead of closing his report with "I'm Bob Ellison, reporting for the U.S.D.A.," Mr. Ellison says, "With the U.S.D.A., I'm Bob Ellison, reporting for 'The Morning Show.' " Mr. Gee said the customized sign-off helped raise "awareness of the name of our station." Could it give viewers the idea that Mr. Ellison is reporting on location with the U.S.D.A. for WCIA? "We think viewers can make up their own minds," Mr. Gee said. Ms. Harrison, the Agriculture Department press secretary, said the WCIA sign-off was an exception. The general policy, she said, is to make clear in each segment that the reporter works for the department. In any event, she added, she did not think there was much potential for viewer confusion. "It's pretty clear to me," she said. The 'Good News' People A Menu of Reports >From Military Hot Spots The Defense Department is working hard to produce and distribute its own news segments for television audiences in the United States. The Pentagon Channel, available only inside the Defense Department last year, is now being offered to every cable and satellite operator in the United States. Army public affairs specialists, equipped with portable satellite transmitters, are roaming war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, beaming news reports, raw footage and interviews to TV stations in the United States. All a local news director has to do is log on to a military-funded Web site, www.dvidshub.net, browse a menu of segments and request a free satellite feed. Then there is the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service, a unit of 40 reporters and producers set up to send local stations news segments highlighting the accomplishments of military members. "We're the 'good news' people," said Larry W. Gilliam, the unit's deputy director. Each year, the unit films thousands of soldiers sending holiday greetings to their hometowns. Increasingly, the unit also produces news reports that reach large audiences. The 50 stories it filed last year were broadcast 236 times in all, reaching 41 million households in the United States. The news service makes it easy for local stations to run its segments unedited. Reporters, for example, are never identified by their military titles. "We know if we put a rank on there they're not going to put it on their air," Mr. Gilliam said. Each account is also specially tailored for local broadcast. A segment sent to a station in Topeka, Kan., would include an interview with a service member from there. If the same report is sent to Oklahoma City, the soldier is switched out for one from Oklahoma City. "We try to make the individual soldier a star in their hometown," Mr. Gilliam said, adding that segments were distributed only to towns and cities selected by the service members interviewed. Few stations acknowledge the military's role in the segments. "Just tune in and you'll see a minute-and-a-half news piece and it looks just like they went out and did the story," Mr. Gilliam said. The unit, though, makes no attempt to advance any particular political or policy agenda, he said. "We don't editorialize at all," he said. Yet sometimes the "good news" approach carries political meaning, intended or not. Such was the case after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal surfaced last spring. Although White House officials depicted the abuse of Iraqi detainees as the work of a few rogue soldiers, the case raised serious questions about the training of military police officers. A short while later, Mr. Gilliam's unit distributed a news segment, sent to 34 stations, that examined the training of prison guards at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where the military police officers implicated at Abu Ghraib had been trained. "One of the most important lessons they learn is to treat prisoners strictly but fairly," the reporter said in the segment, which depicted a regimen emphasizing respect for detainees. A trainer told the reporter that military police officers were taught to "treat others as they would want to be treated." The account made no mention of Abu Ghraib or how the scandal had prompted changes in training at Fort Leonard Wood. According to Mr. Gilliam, the report was unrelated to any effort by the Defense Department to rebut suggestions of a broad command failure. "Are you saying that the Pentagon called down and said we need some good publicity?" he asked. "No, not at all." Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting for this article. From amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in Fri Mar 25 20:23:42 2005 From: amitrbasu50 at yahoo.co.in (Amit Basu) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 14:53:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] Where are the Kolkata Fellows? Message-ID: <20050325145342.8764.qmail@web8507.mail.in.yahoo.com> Since we failed to meet (except Vasudha and Madhuja) at MMB the Kolkata Sarai Fellows seem to be not so interested in meeting again? I am wondering whether this mail can facilitate an e-discussion at this site on the matters of our apathy for such collective. Amit Basu Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050325/32d0bd00/attachment.html From blueskyandus at rediffmail.com Mon Mar 28 10:09:42 2005 From: blueskyandus at rediffmail.com (tangella madhavi) Date: 28 Mar 2005 04:39:42 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Sagar Cinema Message-ID: <20050328043942.8258.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com>  I Over the past few months, I have been visiting Sagar Cinema, a video theater located in the Western suburbs of Mumbai. This theatre daily screens Telugu films for the vast labour Telugu migrant population in the vicinity. Their cinematic experience in an urban space seems to be inextricably linked to the trends in cinema back Home and the Telengana conflict as a majority of people migrate from this region. Underlying their escapism into the song, fights and dances of Telugu films, is accompanied with an innate awareness. As people from Telengana, the Telugu language on screen is different from the language they speak. The screen language is the language of the Andhra people not the Telengana. According to the migrants, it is a political ploy to systemically ignore the Telengana reality and language. An indifference that forced them to migrate to the city of Mumbai in search of work and repay debts. II The large Telugu migrant community at Malad live in Ashok Nagar. The locality resembles any other slum area in Mumbai with its narrow pathway and dense one room housing. The place also has a distinct Andhra flavour with the women watering and sweeping the small ‘front yard’ and drawing ‘mugulu’ with rice flour. Few rooms have mango leaves stringed along the front door. But many rooms look like a bachelors pad with minimal living. A cooking place and a cloth string running along a wall. Under a tree a group of seven to eight Telugu men gather talking about yesterdays work. “Four to six of us live in one room. We pay a deposit of Rs.6000 and a rent of about 250-350 each depending upon the number of people sharing the room. Now, because of the demolition, the deposits have gone up to Rs.10,000. In fact, there are no rooms where one can stay if you are new to this place.” Another man in his 30’s interrupted, “these demolitions are creating havoc. They are breaking the rocks and the mountains to widen the road. A lot of our housing has already been demolished.” There is an uncomfortable silence when I asked them where would they go if their rooms were bulldozed. “We have been here for more then two decades. I vote here. Many of us, even if given an option will not go back to our villages. There is nothing left there. We don’t bring our families to Mumbai because someone has to care for our aged parents. Also, Mumbai promises regular work.” Another migrant added, “but here too we work hard. These days’ trucks come to pick us at wee hours. We are taken to the construction site and there is nothing like working for eight hours. The contract is made for a certain amount of work that needs to be done. You do it in eight hours or fourteen; it is not their concern. The ‘Master’, a labour contractor, ensures that work goes smoothly facilitating water and raw materials. Usually, there is a woman who provides water. Women are not given strenuous labour work. They are paid about 120 per day for carrying drinking water around the site. We are the people who build houses in Mumbai. If all of us plan to sit at home, even for a day, the construction work in Mumbai will come to a stand still. Our lives are miserable, we work like machines. Sometimes we don’t get rest for days together. And when our bodies tire we skip a day’s work like today.” “On days like this, we either sleep or if someone gets a CD we watch a film. Not many of us go to Sagar Cinema. We find it cheaper to buy a VCD and a TV and screen films at a time convenient for us. We get the CD’s from either Goregaon or back home. No! We don’t watch Hindi films. We don’t ‘understand’ the language although we speak Hindi at work. Telugu is our Matru Bhasha.” III Meanwhile, at Sagar Cinema, Shuklaji agreed to take us to the place from which he gets the films on rent . Shuklaji sat dwarfed under two huge posters of Masti and Hum Kisise Kum Nahin. The board behind him had a couple of Telugu posters on it, and one C-grade Hindi film poster with a sleazy lady looking seductively at us. Another blackboard said in Telugu and a Hindi translation, “Charminar: today 10:30 pm.” Shuklaji prodded me to go take a look inside the theatre room. “Ek Telugu chal raha hai,” he said. Inside, rows of people sat in the darkness, watching Okadu, a technically slick Telugu film with Mahesh Babu juggling comedy and special effects action sequences smoothly. The other theatre was showing a Hindi film. We went out, and Shuklaji was ready to leave. We walked down to the Malad station. We were heading to Lower Parel, and walking to a suburb near Worli, where Shuklaji would rent a few VCDs for the next ten days’ screenings. “Do you know Telugu?”, I asked Shuklaji. He smiled, “I don’t know to speak Telugu, but five years of this job has taught me to recognise movies without knowing their names. I just look at the poster and I can tell which film it is!” I asked him whether he had a list in mind that he would look for. He replied that he searches purely by instinct. Shuklaji has been with Sagar cinema with five years, right since its inception. “I inaugurated the theatre,” he smiled to me. Earlier he was in the diamonds business. He has been living in Mumbai for almost 30 years now. His family stays in Uttar Pradesh. “In my five years, I’ve never seen a film create so much hulchul as Indira, there were lines outside the theatre. In a room of capacity 100, I had fitted in 250 people, with another 250 waiting outside. I had to send them home. They begged me to at least let them see the last half hour. They were ready to pay Rs 25, instead of Rs 10!” He said it was a ‘fight film’ with some comedy too. “there has been no film like Indira, ever.” “All our people are in charge of separate departments,” he said. “But I’m the one who’s in charge of the entire set up, like a manager. That’s because I have the contacts, I know how to get out of trouble, trouble with the police and other such things, you know.” He proceeded to explain that the rule was to shut down at exactly 12 am. Since their last show started at 10:30, they had to run till 1:30 sometimes, and had their run-ins with the law. “I sort out those things whenever they happen. That’s why I have to stay here till late. After that I go home, and the next morning at 6 I’m up again.” Shuklaji knew lots of chai wallahs, pen sellers and other hawkers on the station. He greeted them as we went along: “Hari Om!” Shuklaji perched on the footboard of the train at the door, all the way to Lower Parel, hanging out at every station so that people could get in. 30 years of train traveling. The epitome of street smartness. We hung on footboards, hopped into share cabs, broke a five-rupee-coin from a pan wallah, and finally reached a winding lane of the Worli interiors. Among pictures of Babasaheb Ambedkar on one wall and Urdu writings on the other wall, we walked to a Telugu video store. “People from all castes live here,” Shuklaji explained to me. We landed up at ‘Sri Venkateshwara’ the video store where Sagar Cinema has been doing business for years now. Earlier, Shuklaji informed, they used to source their VCDs from another store nearby. Once they ran out of stock, so Shuklaji tried at Venkateshwara, and got what he needed. The first storeowner got angry at Shukla’s changing loyalties, and they had an argument. Shuklaji took a call. So here at Venkateshwara, we scouted for VCDs. There were Hindi and Telugu VCDs, Hindi and Telugu audio CDs, and audiocassettes, and even Hindi dubbed English films like Spiderman and Dunston Checks In. Sleazy posters adorned the walls. The walls were filled with what looked like smuggled speakers, mp3 players and other electronic equipment. The helper boy asked us, “Coffee?” Shuklaji looked at him for a minute, and snapped: “Is that a thing to ask? Just get it!” The way it went was this – Shuklaji chooses 8-10 films every 8-10 days, and periodically comes back to this VCD library to return old ones and pick up new ones. Shuklaji knew all the names, searched for the new releases, helped by the boy at the VCD store. They spoke, pulled each other’s legs, and interacted like they’d known each other for months. “Speak in Telugu, I can’t understand Hindi,” said the boy, half jokingly. “If I knew Telugu I would be doing business in Hyderabad by now!” was Shuklaji’s pat reply. Shuklaji, the UP ka bhaiyya, juggled through the shelf and took out ten Telugu VCDs he liked. All the films looked the same to me. “What is this, Teja-Vejam?” he said, looking at one of the CDs. The helper boy was impressed by Shuklaji’s knowledge of Telugu. “What are you staring at me for? I’ve been doing this for five years!” More discussion. “How’s Pelli Kari Pellam?” “No, the movie is not that good.” Shuklaji kept it back in the shelf, without second thought. “What do you have? Do you have Maas?” The boy got out another CD: “We have Shankardada MBBS.” That CD went into the bunch. “Do you have Maas?” After a pause, both the boy and the man behind the counter said, “No that’s not come in yet.” This upset Shuklaji a lot. “How can you say you don’t have Maas? That’s what I came here for, I had told Raju on the phone, it’s what the public wants! Just call Raju. Get him on the phone - ” Unfortunately, Raju seth was out doing some VCD shopping, and would not be back for a while. Shuklaji growled sarcastically, “Looks like you guys are not in the mood of doing business Just tell me what’s available and good condition, I’ll pick from there.” Maas, as I later found out, was the number one super hit in recent days, starring Nagarjuna. Shuklaji was upset that he didn’t get his hands on it. I returned to the boy and Shuklaji’s discussion. “ so does this have fight?” “It has fight also, story also.” It was tossed into our bunch. “Taarak?” “That’s a solid film,” the boy advised him. That was also tossed into the bunch. The boy started making Telugu notes in his diary about the cds. They were tightly tied up in a plastic bag and then Shuklaji threw a hundred and two ten rupee notes on the table. “Where’s the bunch from last time ” “Arey it’s here, I won’t take it and run away!” Shuklaji returned the VCDs, he had got last time. As we were leaving, the guy behind the counter opened his tiffin. “Wow, now you’re opening the tiffin when we leave, couldn’t you ask us for lunch too!” Shuklaji quipped, and we set out back home. Twenty metres away, and Shuklaji started fiddling with his pockets. “Oh God! My cell phone!” We ran back to the store. Shuklaji had left his cell phone to charge the battery. As we retrieved it, he explained: “See I have two cards, Trump and Orange. But both are in the same phone. I need my phone! It’s got all the numbers, police officers, other important people all my contacts. If there’s a problem, I know exactly whom to call.” “at times, late at night, I have skirmishes with the police. They come there, they think they rule the town and everyone’s scared of them. They ask for bribes. I straightaway tell them, I don’t have money. Who keeps money at 2 in the night? I tell them to come tomorrow. They keep loitering around next few days. But I don’t pay up after the day’s accounts are done.” Once, we were back at Sagar Cinema, the CD’s were handed over to the man at the counter. He browsed through them and picked one with the glossiest cover, action hero looking with a killer instinct and a pretty actress face looking at him. He muttered, “I will screen this film tomorrow, madam can you read out the name for me? or do you want to pick and choose a film? We will show that first if it helps you in your research.” IV In the coming weeks I would like to research about the Telengana Conflict. I would like to see if there are connections to the socio political situation in Andhra Pradesh and the migration to Mumbai. I would enquire if these issues were discussed by the migrants while watching Telugu films. I would like to visit Ashok Nagar during Ugadi, Telugu New Years Day and sit through screenings of Telugu films in the respective homes of the Telugu migrants. Also, look forward if there are any special screenings at Sagar Cinema. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050328/4f488c1e/attachment.html From kumartalkies at yahoo.com Mon Mar 28 10:04:33 2005 From: kumartalkies at yahoo.com (pankaj kumar) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 20:34:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] Kill the Body The Head Will Fall Message-ID: <20050328043433.12293.qmail@web41010.mail.yahoo.com> �The eccentricities of the human body, and the human spirit, are encapsulated in boxing.� Many of the Women boxers whom I have been following in the past few months are busy with their exams. Their inaccessibility helped me take a review of the footage that I have shot, watch Million Dollar Baby and of course reading more about boxing. Women Boxing. Kill the Body The Head Will Fall by Rene Denfield (an ex boxer) is a brilliant book sent to me by SARAI. The book has been insightful not only understanding the sport but also gaining a woman perspective from within boxing. Although rooted in the aura ascribed by the West to the sport, the book retains the sociological implications of boxing on women. The book talks about Women�s aggression, anger and boxing. The following pointers will help me formulate a questionnaire vis a vis the effect of the boxing on their personal lives, bodies and sense of self. �It is different outside it. When my face has been marked and bruised, neighbors and acquaintances grow uncomfortable silent, radiating sympathy. They think I�m a victim of domestic battery. If it were a man with bruises, they might think that he had gotten in a drunken bar fight, or had been smashed with a loose elbow during a basketball game. With a woman, they think victim, not aggressor.� � �My face was tender, and later it bruised slightly. I lay on the couch that evening, seraphic with exhaustion, nearly bursting with pride.�� �For many women, anger is a subject fraught with fears, guilt, and embarrassment. Men get angry, too, and feel guilty for it. But women confront a frustrating mixture of pop psychology and denial that men usually don�t.� �The eccentricities of the human body, and the human spirit, are encapsulated in boxing. The opponent, you face right now in this ring, is never the same as he was the month or day � or even the moment � before.� �How women feel about their bodies, and how society feels about women using them in competition, is not just a matter of fashion. That women are entering sports long defined as male � rough, full-bore, competitive contact sports � has consequences far removed from athletics.� When I meet the women boxers next I would like to know if they are the same people within and outside the ring. Do they assume different personalities in different public spaces? How similar or different is their body language? For Jharana (18) and Richa (22), the sport is an extension of their personality. Aksir (16), Joythi (21) and Kirti (18) seem assume a different personality. Also, I started out on the assumption that the women boxers use the sport to vent out their anger or there is an innate drive towards aggression that makes the sport attractive to them. But at this juncture, there is some serious unlearning. Boxing always does not necessities anger or aggression. �Richa insists that boxing is not about anger. It is a technique, which could be learnt with right and consistent training. You don�t want to kill the opponent physically or their sense of self but rather overcome their schemes and strategies. It is a high when you win over their plus point and understand their weaknesses. Physical bruises are a part of the game. �The first time when I got hurt in the ring, I was shooting with pain. But after sometime, you are numb. You lose awareness of your pain, you are just fighting. Also, when I went back home, my parents were shocked. But I was bursting with pride, very happy that I won.� Boxing is a skill and a personal drive, with risks that accompanies any sport, accompanied by a societal flaw which makes boxing seem to be natural trait with women an aberration. So question is reduced to what the writer echoes, �given the same sports and the same training as men, would women show themselves to be similar people?� or �It is a game of skill on strength which can be made genderless?� I hope that my curiosity throws light on the innate aggression embedded in women, which is systemically toned by society. Finally, how do we set parameters to ascertain that a women boxer is good at the sport. At a time, when there is a lack of competition in this sport because of marginalisation, how do we understand excellence? Or is it necessary to begin with to ask such a question but rather focus on the sociological and psychological implication of the sport on the lives of the women boxers. PANKAJ RISHI KUMAR; B/103, Gokul Tower, Thakur Complex, Kandivli (E), MUMBAI 400 101 PH: 91-22-2854 7585 --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050327/a72d4347/attachment.html From lakshmikutty at rediffmail.com Sun Mar 27 20:50:04 2005 From: lakshmikutty at rediffmail.com (lakshmi kutty) Date: 27 Mar 2005 15:20:04 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] how clean are your street hawkers? Message-ID: <20050327152004.32586.qmail@webmail31.rediffmail.com> hello everybody, brief posting on my work exploring the nuances of hygiene and sanitation in public culture spaces in mumbai. its taking some rough and jerky turns at the moment... i have been doing an analysis of newspaper reports and feature articles on the recent 'epidemic' of jaundice that hit the city about a month or so ago. many of the reports dwell on the fact that an increasing number of these cases are occuring in south mumbai, which is an affluent location of the city. the presence of jaundice in this area has spawned discussion about how even those spaces we always thought were relatively better-endowed (in terms of water supply, sanitation or civic amenities by city authorities/planning), are proving susceptible to 'epidemics'. there have also been responses rubbishing the claim of an 'epidemic' by pointing out that cases in south mumbai are so large in number probably because reporting/recording of illnesses is done more systematically among these places/people. news articles have discussed the im/probabilities of the spread of this feacal-oral disease among residents of south mumbai - who are presumed to have impeccable hygiene, standards and knowledge - and have come to the conclusion that since their water is not infected and their lifestyles are beyond doubt the main culprits must be their servants/househelps who 'might not wash their hands properly after using the loo, and then head straight to the kitchen'. these are not exact quotes but the gist. alongside this is a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation(BMC)-led drive to ensure that hawkers wear plastic gloves while doing business. reports and 'public opinion' articles are heavily invested in tying up the jaundice cases with the nature of danger that exists in street-spaces, which is the location of hawker food/wares. one interesting juxtaposition i came across was an article where the reporter had spoken to restaurant/hotel owners and hawkers about this new drive to enforce plastic gloves for hawkers, hygiene inspectors and regular checks inside public eating house kitchens. one of the hotel owners was unhappy about this intervention and said that they would not allow such presumption of doubt to regulate their businesses; that they maintained strict standards anyway so their establishments were not to be suspected/faulted on these grounds. now, the hawkers that the reporter spoke to agreed wholeheartedly that this BMC move was in the public interest and that they would comply with orders to wear gloves as they felt this would help combat infections and would foster a clean image for street food. i was struck by this article because it left me wondering what were the meanings conveyed by this juxtaposition... that hotel owners are shown to refuse intervention because of their location as legitimate/clean eating spaces, and hawkers are shown as reiterating the clean-up drive that accuses their businesses of fostering unclean eating cultures! while talking abt this to people, one response i got suggested that it may not be that the reporter intended to place these 2 positions in contrast, but that the hawkers must be seeing in this BMC drive a way of finally being able to upgrade the image of their businesses and so must therefore be ready to work in tandem with their regulations. i have yet to open up this node to further scrutiny (the interviewing aspect of my project has not really progressed) so it'll be some time before i have fleshed this out further. have been taking pictures of streetscapes and hoardings, for which i hope to set a weblink sometime soon. hoardings advertising luxurious new townships that promise a bungalow within city limits but far from the madding crowds; that are generating their own oxygen (with the symbol for oxygen written in beautiful cursive font!) and their own pure water; that are equipped with inhouse gymnasiums so u can rejuvenate yourself without having to make contact/be interrupted by anybody else. as far as readings go, i'm still looking for stuff that discusses urban cultures and their politics of displacement, of gentrification/upgrading; discussions on who/what is the middle class today; discourses of the body and its relationship to public spaces, external contact, purity/sacredness. i really need suggestions on these! am currently reading jeff ferrel's 'tearing down the streets: adventures in urban anarchy' (2001), where he's mainly discussing how forms of street culture and street-life/business are being erased in american cities, to make way for a homogenised and sanitized 'disneyfication' of american public spaces. he's talking abt street musicians; punks; 'crimes' like begging, loitering, grafitti; of how impossible it is becoming to stake a claim to public spaces if one is not white and middle-class. he's discussing the underlying discourses of security, public health, weeding out of those who are not (cannot be and dont want to be) consumers of this white middle-class themepark public culture. have also found very useful an article in the critical pedagogy reader titled 'toward a pedagogy of place for black urban struggle' by stephen nathan haymes. the 2003 book is edited by a. darder, m. baltodano and r.d. torres. he's talking about how black life and black popular culture in american cities have strong links with their physical/territorial locations, and that cleaning up/redevelopment drives by governments constantly hack into, split and undermine the community's stakes in city spaces/cultures. he's exploring the racialization that underlies white-led planning, development, sanitizing of public spaces/cultures. the discourses that are being created in mumbai and about mumbai are similarly creating a language and image of the city that is out to represent 'social stability'. this stability, however, is going to be achieved only by segregating populations and by laying a premium on certain ways of life and consumption. not only that, this skewed emphasis makes sure that it is the blueprint for all future imaginings of mumbai, and so we are seeing a shift of perspective where the hawker readily agrees to being put under scrutiny and we all sit back relaxed that 'good sense' has finally dawned! hoping to hear how u, dear reader, thinks of this. lakshmi. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050327/0bcce38d/attachment.html From prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com Mon Mar 28 21:17:36 2005 From: prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com (Prashant Pandey) Date: 28 Mar 2005 15:47:36 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Prashant Pandey Message-ID: <20050328154736.25427.qmail@webmail50.rediffmail.com> 3rd posting In Ismail's darbar: A peek into Ismail Darbars’ musical journey and reflections on the industry He comes across as a very composed and easy going person, crediting every success and every good song that he has made, to Allah. His posh apartment is full of plates and inscriptions from the holy Quran and rare Indian musical instruments. Ismail Darbar tells me strongly that he wants to work with small producers and he is doing small budget films yet there is a wrong perception about him that he does only big films. It is reminder that how much dependent this industry is on second-hand opinions and heresay. “pata nahi kaha se logo ke dimaag me aa gaya hai ki mai sirf badi-badi film karta hoon mai chahta hoon ki log mere paas aaye aur kaam kare ” But it is not really easy to work with him, there is no tune bank to listen to, there are elaborate orchestra arrangements and planning. He laughs when I tell him that a T-series executive told me, “jitney me Ismail Darbar Ek gaana banata hai,utne me hum log re-mix ka puraa album bana dete hain” . no wonder Dola re Dola in Devdas cost around 12 lakh. Ismail Darbar doesnot compromise on quality. “I make one song in a month but that’s it.” He is one the composers who despite heavy pressure have not sold themselves out. “I will work less but I will make good music”  Meeting Pawan Da, a guitar player Pawan da is one of the busiest guitar player in bollywood. Though Pawan Da would love to do live shows and compose his own music, he has no time at all. He on an average does 3-4 songs in a day, charging 6000 Rs. Per song. When I tell him it’s a great fun, (playing guitar and making so much money) he smiles and says that some people have struggled a lot in this industry, especially if one wants to be a music director, its very very tough. “I don’t want to do all that, I just want to play guitar and chill.” Clearly, he appears relaxed and calm unlike the producers and the music director who are the most tense and freaked out people in a studio when a recording happens. Its funny that Pawan Da doesn’t remember most of the films name for which he has played. “I work with every music director, and I don’t bother to ask what film is it. I just travel from studio to studio, play a piece, and finish my takes and come back home.” A joke – In studios there is a mechanism to tune a playback singer. you can sing your notes wrong and it will be tuned later. The singer sings the song and leaves the studio in all his greatness, but the recordist and technicians have to bear the brunt afterwards. Especially if you are doing a project with self-proclaimed pop-artists. (Think of some of the singers who are singing re-mix songs and some who just happen to be influential, connected and surprisingly popular...) there is a joke that a senior recordist told me- I met a sound recordist who looked very sad and tired. “ vo sir jhuka ke baitha tha” Kya hua yaar tabiyat to thik hai ? Ha bus pareshan hoo Kyu? Yaar vo altaf raza ka kaam chal raha tha saala ek din auto-tune karne me lag gaya To ab to ho gaya na ? Nahi yaar kaam khatam hone se paehli hee baith) gaya. (The auto-tuner too could take it and crashed after one day) prashant pandey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050328/e776fbd7/attachment.html From sovantarafder at yahoo.co.in Fri Mar 25 20:38:39 2005 From: sovantarafder at yahoo.co.in (sovan tarafder) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:08:39 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] 3rd Posting: The Urban housing scenario in Kolkata Message-ID: <20050325150839.64486.qmail@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear all, This is my 3rd installment and hope you will enjoy it. I’ve already stated doing field works and this installment is largely built up on what I’ve gathered so far from the projects I’ve visited during last one month. Specifically, this time I chose urban housing projects as the subject of my. I wish I could share with you the photos! These are photos of the upcoming urban housing projects, getting constructed to cater to the needs of the up and coming section of the city. While staring at those images (all are artist’s impressions, the image of a future perfect tense, as it were), something flashed upon my inward eye (pardon the Wordsworthian cliché) – something, which I got to know while surfing, just a few days back. Something that calls itself BUBBLE CITY. A futuristic urban capsule to be built in Dubai, and to be stationed high up into the air. And thus my thoughts on this 3rd installment began to roll. Regards Sovan TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT BUBBLE CITY Entertainment offers the image of ‘something better’ to escape into, or something we want deeply that our day-to-day lives don’t provide. Alternatives, hopes, wishes – these are the stuff of utopia, the sense that the things could be better, that something other than what is can be imagined and maybe realized. (Entertainment) presents, head-on as it were, what utopia would feel like rather than how it would be organized. --Richard dyer (Entertainment and Utopia) Now what is this Bubble City? ‘ a city that will be stationed 200 meters above the earth with the help of two giant helium balloons. Entire city will be powered with solar energy and it is expected to cost around $30 million dollars.’ ‘This "Bubble City" will be a kind of big glass bubble including a hotel, a theme park and a museum. It will be lifted via two helium balloons and a special motor, which keeps it in the air 200 meters above the ground.’ ‘The bubble city is not a rumor. The process is simple thinking of it scientifically; equal charges particles on both sides repel each other causing floating.’ All these are things, which I got from various postings on the net (search engine: Google. Keywords: Bubble City Dubai) And then, I noticed the following: "A few months ago one of the newspapers did a spoof about a project called Bubble City," said Sohrab Motiwalla, a longtime Dubai resident who tracks development trends. "It was going to be a huge city encased in a glass bubble, suspended above Dubai by helium balloons. The problem was that it took people here a few weeks to figure out it was a joke." (An Arab Politics-Free Zone) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26000-2004Dec25_2.html Firstly, I was bemused, to say the least, trying to figure out what this city will look like. There is a visual clue on the net, which is meant (or, so it seems) to be a kind of a rather intelligently practical joke. Now, I just started to think if there is any link between this fantasy called Bubble City and the reality of the presently booming real estate scenario in Kolkata. Seems that there is a link. And not a very far-fetched one. If one thinks that bubble city is conceptually a capsule, far from the madding crowd on the earth, and so, a perfectly utopian space, dedicated for the high and mighty section of the population, then the link I’m talking about begins to appear. Literally, what all the large housing projects in present-day Kolkata promise is nothing but different versions of the Bubble City (albeit sans the anti-gravitational mumbo-jumbo). Topping the list is South City— a huge urban housing project coming up at a prime location in south Kolkata. This project calls itself a 31 acre city. And, why not? The officials claim that once completed, it’s going to have a plethora of 35-storey building (whew, thereby giving a slip to the force of gravitation!), India’s largest mall in the heart of the city, multiplex, food courts, huge departmental stores, India’s biggest swimming pool, a school spread over 3.5 acres, 24 acres of greenery etc. I know that such a long list of facilities to be provided at the project under discussion might read like a promotional campaign, but what I’m trying to establish is simple: isn’t this a bubble city where the residents can always live happily, snug into the cocoon of the proposed city area? The other projects I surveyed seem to corroborate this argument. Be it the Aster Greens at Rajarhat, Bengal DCL Housing Development Company’s Condominium project Uttara (A Gated Community spread out over 5 acres, as the company says), the Sunrise Point towers of Bengal Park Chambers Housing Development Ltd., or the Larica Township, located at the northern suburb of Kolkata— everywhere the promise is that of a self-sufficient space of living, where the residents need not bother about the goings-on in the world outside. Obviously, there are differences in the things they offer. But, the strain underneath remains the same. Come, see the Paradise! And the paradise, as we all know, is a utopian space. What is really striking is the fact that the vocabularies of utopia are placed in such a manner that they seem to fall in line perfectly with the developmentality that has, since last one and a half decade, been tightening its grip over the urban scenario. These bubble cities are perceived as constructing the much-coveted future of the city. A perfect combo of entertainment (or infotainment, or edutainment, whatever be the lingo!) and global life-style, these are the places where the home and the world meet each other. A home is a city. A Bubble City. To end with, let me give you a clue to another posting on the net. This is an image, with a brief semantic text, which reads: Sometimes we all feel a little trapped in the city where we live. I would request you to take a look at the image placed at the following URL: http://www.upallnitestudios.com/html/bcity.html The image is a suffocating one. The concept of the city within a bubble, with its entire splendor, is seen as a transparent prison. Maybe, a utopia that we just cannot escape. But then, who is afraid of Utopia? Visibly, a large section of the residents of Kolkata seem to lap it up. Those who cannot dream so big are perennial left-outs. The bubble cities will bypass them easily, with least or no sting of conscience at this high noon of market economy. Together the urban space of Kolkata is going to have ‘ a texturology in which extremes coincide – extremes of ambition and degradation, brutal oppositions of races and styles, contrasts between yesterday’s buildings, already transformed into trash cans, and today’s urban irruptions that block out its space.’ --- Michel De Certeau (Walking 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/20050325/69dad592/attachment.html From uddipandutta at rediffmail.com Sat Mar 26 19:40:59 2005 From: uddipandutta at rediffmail.com (uddipan dutta) Date: 26 Mar 2005 14:10:59 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Imagination of a Assamese Identity in the Calcutta Cityscape Message-ID: <20050326141059.32740.qmail@webmail46.rediffmail.com> The Imagination of a Linguistic Assamese Identity in the Calcutta Cityscape: Foundation of Ax1omia Bhaxa Unnati Xadhini Xabha2 and the Birth of Jonaki Dear Readers, in my last posting we saw the germination of print nationalism in the works of Missionaries and in the pages of Arunodoi. Now let us look at the contribution of the Calcutta’s Assamese Mess in the construction of Assamese Print Nationalism. Till Cotton College was established in 1901 in Guwahati, Calcutta was the only centre for higher education for the Assamese students. They created their space in that port city among the bhadroloks by taking their houses on rent and forming messes. It is a global phenomenon, I think, for the students studying in an educational centre to rent a house and manage eating, studying and other day to day activities. But, what is important here is the creation of the ‘otherness’ and the sense of exile in the midst of a dominant culture. The Assamese students in that cityscape always had their umbilical cord attached to their villages and in their search for the identity, they contributed immensely to the growth of an Assamese nationalism. The Assamese mess in Calcutta had a very important role in the narratives of Assamese nationalism. Instead of the colonial economic exploitation, the Bengali linguistic hegemony was perceived as the real threat to the burgeoning Assamese nationality. The Assamese students studying in Calcutta, who designed Assamese nationality in the late nineteenth century, took the language as the most important unifying factor for the formation of an Assamese nationality. ‘Bhakhar bikax holehe jatir bikax hobo’ (To develop the language is to develop the nation) was the slogan of the early Assamese intelligentsia and they began the process of standardization of the language by standardizing orthography, writing grammars and dictionary, and most importantly by using the standardized version in the print. By the end of the nineteenth century the language spoken in Upper and Middle Assam became the accepted standard language of Assam as a direct intervention of this group of young men. Jonaki bears the testimony of their efforts. There were a substantial number of students in Calcutta in the eighth decade of the nineteenth century. Students used to form the messes. At the beginning, there were two messes for Hindu students and one for the Muslim students. The two Hindu messes were the 50 Sitaram Ghosh Street and 62 Sitaram Ghosh Street and the Muslim mess was the 33 Muslim Para Lane. It is important to mention some names of the students living in those messes to give a glimpse of the people who played a pivotal role in the early imagination of Assamese identity. Benudhar Rajkhowa, Dalimchanra Bora, Lakshiprasad Chaliha, Ramakanta Baruah, Krishnaprasad Duwara, Ramakanta Barkakoti, Gunindranath Baruah, Golapalchandra Baruah etc were some of the names associated with 50 Sitaram Ghosh Street mess. The important names associated with 62 Sitaram Gosh Street mess are Lakhyeswar Sarma, Tirthanath Kakoti, Hemchandra Goswami, Kanaklal Baruah, Krishna Kumar Baruah, Chandra Kamal Bezbaruah, Ghanashyam Baruah, Kamalchandra Sarma and Lakshinath Bezbaruah etc. With the increasing influx of the students the number of messes also increased. Some of the important messes were as following 67 Mirzapur Street, 107 Amherst Street, 14 Pratap Chandra Lane, Eden Hospital Street mess etc. The students used to have a lot of inter-mess activities and one such an activity was the ‘Tea Party’. Influenced by the western coffee-home culture, they had innovated this concept for social gathering. They used to gather over a cup of tea on every Wednesday and Saturday to discuss different topics and in one such a Tea Party, Axomia Bhaxa Unnati Xadhini Xabha was conceived on 25th August 1888 when the students had gathered at the 67 Mirzapur Street mess. We get this information in the pages of Jonaki (Vol 5 No. 7) under the title ‘Axomia Bhaxa Unnati Xadhini Xabhar Karjya Biboroni’3. The first secretary of the Xabha was Shivaram Sarma. In the same article the goal of the organization was discussed: “The development of Assamese language and literature is the primary aim of the organization. For that purpose it strives to preserve the old Assamese texts available, to translate different important books from Sanskrit and other languages into Assamese which are not available in the mother tongue, to develop reading habit among the masses to introduce ‘pure’ grammar and orthography instead of the ‘impure’ orthography and grammar, and to create one written language for all the areas of Assam”. (Translation: mine) The last two objectives were rather important and had a far reaching effect upon the growth of a composite Assamese identity based on language. The Xabha had taken many important decisions among which the most important was to publish a new magazine. But they did not have the financial strength to come up with a magazine. But to their rescue came Chandra Kumar Agarwala, a second year FA student in the Presidency College. He belonged to a rich business family. He came forward to publish a magazine and named it Jonaki. Benudhar Sarma writes that on two conditions Chandra Kumar came forward to publish and edit the magazine: first, every member must take care of Jonaki; second, every member must write an article for Jonaki. If anybody violates any of these two conditions, he will have to pay a fine of 15 rupees. Axomia Bhaxa Unnati Xadhini Xabha accepted these terms of Chandrakumar. The date of the first publication of the magazine is not mentioned in it. Only the Assamese month ‘Magho’ and the year of publication 1889 are mentioned. It is surmised that on 9th February 1989 the first edition appeared. We get conflicting pictures on how many copies of Jonaki were published and till which year it was published. Dr. Nagen Saikia mentions that Jonaki was printed till 1998. According to him 11 issues in the first year, 12 issues in the second year, 10 issues in the third year, 11 issues in the fourth year, 7 issues in the fifth year, 11 issues in the sixth year, 6 issues in the seventh year, 1 issue in the eighth year, with the total number of 69 issues of Jonaki were published. The aims and objective of Axomia Bhaxa Unnati X?dhini Xabha were expressed in the pages of Jonaki. It did not have an editorial. What it had was a column called ‘Atmokatha’4. The ideology of Jonaki and Axomia Bhaxa Unnati Xadhini Xabha can be comprehended by a serious reading of the texts of this regular column. In the very first edition of its publication, the aim and objective of this magazine is expressed in the following manner: “Politics is outside our state of affairs. We should concentrate only on the welfare of the subjects of our servile nationhood. Our subject matters will be literature, science or society- we would strive to comprehend these topics and publish materials in them. We would give space to ‘criticism’ and ‘protests’. But no personal slander would be entertained. Special attention would be given to language. Our endeavour would be to get love and affection from all sections of the Assamese society... We have waged our war against darkness: Objective: development of the nation, and ‘Jonak (moonlight)’5 Works are going on everywhere at a crashing speed, will the Assamese sit down idle at this hour?” (Translation: mine) The complaint of ‘sitting down idle’ at the moment when others are engaged in the process of nation building is invoked again and again in the pages of Jonaki. The political ‘neutrality’ is another expressed objective of this group of students whose unfaltering loyalty to the British is manifested in the different writings of the magazine. So the moonlight that Jonaki talks of bringing is the moonlight of language standardization and the construction of an Assamese nationhood based on language. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050326/68cdb942/attachment.html From zzjamal at rediffmail.com Sun Mar 27 20:17:47 2005 From: zzjamal at rediffmail.com (Khalid) Date: 27 Mar 2005 14:47:47 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fst food chains: McDonald'a..who's lovin it? Message-ID: <20050327144747.5718.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com>   Yeah...after having researching in Fast food chains for almost a year now,I have certainly learnt one thing, well enough, to share with you all. Here it is: Life is Uncertain. Eat dessert first!! Well, keeping that in mind let me introduce the “ the Insights of McDonald’s” to you,today.Lets call it Work,Work,Work!!! The hours for which workers have to work is unfair-they are expected to work in shifts.Any shift.It may be all night from 4pm to 6-7 am the following morning.They are never paid extra for working those extra hours.Lunch breaks are always shortened on busy days which are Friday nights and weekends.Staff are only allowed to go out for a “quick fag” or “ coffee’,to keep them awake!! They are expected to serve at speed.Customers would be expected to wait two minutes in line and only 1 minute after the order had been taken.On most occasions especially weekends this would be impossible. But McDonald’s has ridiculous expectations of their staff for the amount of money that they actually earned.18 rupees per hour!! All the Training Information used by McDonald’s came out of one book,the Training Manual,which is basically the McDonald’s bible of all rules and regulations.It is a very large book almost the size of our MTNL telephone directory !!McDonald’s managers are supposed to know everything that is in it.Copies of this manual is also very tightly guarded. This manual makes it very clear to all employees: We,the McDonald’a,are very closed to the press.As a general rule,no employee were to talk to the press unless authorized. The work is bound to be greasy and high pressurebecause it is” fast food work”.Most people realize this when they first join McDonald’s.They realise, it is the sort of job where there is no room for slackers. The DiVinE TaRgeTs. Every evening careful calculations were done in order to work out manning levels.This was done by the following method.The tills in the McDonald’s storecan print out,at any given moment in time,the amount of money that has been taken during the day or since the last print out.It was therefore possible to get an analysis from each till of how much money was taken every hour.By knowing the number of staff that were employed every hour,it was possible to work out the takings per head per hour.This was an optimum figure for such takings per head per hour,which meant that the store was running with exactly the right number of staff for that particular hour.If the actual figure is highter than the optimum target figure ,then the store is understaffed and more stay ought to be taken on.If the level was below the optimum number, the store is overstaffed during that hour and the levels have to be pruned.The effect of these calculations was that the manager would be able to predict,for each hour of the week,how many staff he would need and could therefore,trim very finely,his manning levels to suit profitability. I cannot figure out what the optimum figure was at Lajpat nagar McDonald’s in Delhi,when the store was operating at so-called optimum staffing level,the staff was generally pushed and the pressure was fairly high. If the store was found to be running with staff costs which were too high,the store manager would get into trouble with the Area Manager and also his superior,the Area Supervisor. Each store is given a target for running costs per week.If there is no increase in this figure without the proportionate increase in takings ,then the manager will be in trouble.There was, therefore, a great deal of pressure on them to keep expenses within targets.There is a specific weekly target ratio relating to staff salaries as a proportion of takings. Well, time to wipe your tears and quit feeling sorry for these managers.Only. Infact, most of the crew in the store are made to feel as if they are fully expendable.According to the theory of McDonald’s manual,if the cwer member is noe doing what he or she should,then management is supposed to file a report,give a warning or discipline the member of staff.This process is meant ot be carried out in private,the crew member being taken off the floorinto the Manager’s office and the misdemeanor discussed with him/her away from rest of the crew. But this rarely happened.( ah..ah..hold your tears please..!!) The reality was that an errant crew member( only Him) would just be given repeated toilet duty,he(and not she..) would be shouted out in front of the crew and humiliated publicly.Invaribly ,if a crew member answer back in these circumstances,he was sent home immidietly and was obviously not paid for the hours not worked!! Some employees who were sent home this way just did not come back( especially freshers),although some did. I have’nt yet found anyone who was actually sacked in accordance with the proper disciplinary procedures, which are lengthy and provide for several stages of discipline before sacking.Most employees( again the freshers)generally get too fed up with this kind of treatment (often on their first day..!!) and leave. Let me stress that the training theory of McDonald’s Management is actually very good.It is indeed a useful training in itself.However,there is vast difference between the theory and the practice. Nothing unusual for me. Work until you are KNOCHED-OUT..come-on.. YOU are TRAINED to SWEAT!! Workers in catering do badly in terms of pay and conditions.They are at work in the evenings and at weekends,doing long shifts in hot,smelly,noisy environments.Wages are low,as usual,and the chances of promotion minimal. Its obvious that all large chains-stores and fast food joints depend for their fat profitson the labour of young people.McDonald’s is no exception.Three quarters of its workers are under 21.The production-line system deskills the work itself: any one can grill the burger , cleaning toilets or smiling at customers,as I said before,needs no training.So there is no need to employ chefs or qualified staff-just any body prepared to work for low wages,will do. As a matter of fact,what is wrong with McDonald’s is also wrong with all the junk-food chains like Pizza hut,Subway,Pizza Corneretc.All of them hide their ruthless exploitation of resourses and people behind the façade of colourful gimmicks and “ family fun”.The food itself is the same everywhere.Only the packaging changes.The logo changes. McDonald has Golden Arches.Two parabolas!! On Labor Costs McDonald’s aims to keep labor costs within 15% of any outlet sales.”Its very tight”,says one store manager.” “If sales are down,labor costs must come down: You have to cut staff and make the remaining work harder!!” “Labor is the big one we hear from head office” says another.” A really high volume store could run at 10% labour,because the bodies are always in motion.But in quiet store you still have to keep a foundation crew which is why labour slips up occassionaly to 16-16.5%.The pressure to keep labour costs dowm means having less bodies in the store,so we are running around all the day ,all night.Otherwise labour would be right through the ceiling” To stick to the 15%-rule,high productivity is extracted from a “flexible” workforce of part time and temporary workers,mostly youth and women.They work for unsocial hours with no security for low pay. An average store has 80 people on its payroll,although it varies from store to store,80% of McDonald’s staff are part timers.According to the company,an average cwer member works 25 hours a week.But many work more. By employing part timers, many of whom effectively work full time,the store can cover unsocial hours without paying overtime and can adjust worker’s hours on weekly or even daily basis as sales and staff members fluctuate. “ Only a ‘skelton’, staff is scheduled for each shifts as a matter of deliberate policy to keep costs within the 15% ceiling.We are always under-staffed”, whispers a friend manager. Flexi hours: The Mystery Unravelled. “Flexibility” amounts to an absense of job security.Workers taken on for seasonal peaks are laid off when the pace slackens.McDonald’s policies epitomize the “ flexi work force strategies employers are pursuing to reduce labour costs.In the cold language of employers,it means maintaining a “ core” of permanent workers supplemented by a “ periphery” of part-time and tempory workers. This probably also explains McDonald’s lack of concern about its high staff turn over.With in a month,7 out 10 starters drop out. You are veteran,if you lasts 4 months!! No one ever syays more than 6-9 months unless they want to get into management.” It’s the pressure,heavy hours,awful pay –over all a degrading job, having to clean tables and scrub floors in front of all the customers- and always having to wear SMILE.”,says 18 year old Sandeep. “ ..But Imlovin it!!” McDonald’s promotes from within,encouraging crew members to work their way up.Here is one store manger with his version of McDonald’s: “ I started on the shop floor with no intention of going into management.Today,I am Assistant Store Manager.And as far as I can see McDonald’s says it is an equal opportunities employer and I think it really is.For crew and for managers,the constant pressure is good if you can take take it. Yesterday morning I started work at 7,went home at two,came back at midnight to do a stock take and I have been here ever since-now its 1.30 in the afternoon.I ‘m falling asleep.I have doing 75-80 hours a week,and the salary for 40 hours.But I guess that’s a deal: a given situation.I accept it because I like it.” “ ..But Imhatin it!!” This is another manager: “The constant pressure from head office is awful.You have to keep labour costs down,so in a quiet store,managers tie themselves to the stations and run around like a crew.Why this constant pressure to make as much profit as possible when we are losing more managers than anything else? You talk to other managers on courses,and out of 15,chances are, 5 will be on the verge of leaving” On the Burgerline “ 12 Big Macs down”.I push bun bases in the toaster,right?” Dress these regular please.”I’m sqirtin ketchep when the toaster start bleepin buns are done.” Where’s the regulars?”” Speed up!”” The guy on the grill is giving me the grief because is burn inand the main man is bawlinat him.Me legs are jelly,me throat dry and me head exploding under this stupid “M”.Why’s this cheese on crooked? “Give me Big Mac bases now!!” “Ooutta onion I run to the freezer” What’s goin on? “Why all this mess? “Clean it up”As I start wiping trays ,the timer flashes,meat needs turning ,the toaster’s buzzin and someone is yelling at me to get some ketchep.I want to swear at the other crew that I can’t do everything at once but just slap crowns on the finished burgers shoting:”12 Big Macs up”. And all this in 160 seconds!! Hi-tech with no-tech jobs!! McDonald’s pioneered the process of rationalizing the production and introducing hi-tech which has transformed catering into unskilled jobThey combined the standardized mass production of the assembly line with a flexible response to momentary fluctuations in demand.For the multinational chains,the system spelt higher productivity and lower wage bills.For workers,it spelt,a deterioration in the quality of their jobs. Catering once depended on the trained chef and apprentices.In McDonald’s those skills have been replaced by computerized technology,standardized products and the precise planning of each subdivided task.The is no room for creative chefs in this factory.Workers all over the world perform exactly the same repetitive tasks to prepare the same Big Mac. McDonald’s eliminated all demarcations and any career structure based training and skills.The chef,the assistant chef,waitress,and cleaner have been leveled down to the uniformed crew member.Everyone at McDonald’s cleans,goes on tills, on grill,on fries,on lobby.This enables the corporation to follow the “ flexible work force” strategy on which its profits rest. Control over the work force and their productivity is achieved in a number of ways.Managerial supervision is increasingly is excercised by technology itself,with innovations to increase the worker’s speed constantly being installed.Computerized machinery regulates the pace of work at each station to the precise second. The forced pace puts intense pressure on both managers and workers.In the heat of the moment ,tempers become frayed and each worker blames the other for holding up!! Starry Affair The corporation has fabricated an elaborate system of hierarchies and individual incentives which keep the workers “SMILING” at the customers but each other’s throat.Everyone is assigned to a team of workers at different levels.For the first 3 weeksyouare a Green badge; then progess to a Yellow badge and compete for the Gold stars awardedfor fry,grill,cleanliness ,servise and personal.Performance is reviewed every two months and pay every 4 months,star bringing financial rewards.If you win all five Stars,you wear white shirt,before joining the white badges in line for management You finally take off your tag when you become a store manager. Workers in each grade are accountable to those above and control the workers below,chasing them to meet production targets.Otherwise they may not get their starsand pay rises at the next review. The constant spot checks by higher grade employees increase competitiveness and the diligence with which workers harass their subordinates.”Its always everyone for themselves”, says one workers.”You get the feeling that none trusts the other”. Whether you get the Stars or selected for the Management Training,does’nt always depend on merit but whether you are pally with the management. And for all the talk of Team work,McDonald’s promotes a cult of individuality.”Some people wait for the future “ they say” Some people push it along” “We don’nt have WAITERS” Pinned on the sore’s noticeboard is a list of crew who “DID exceptionally well last week”. Another piece of paper says” Employee of the month” And yet another says” RISING STAR” Further, control is exercised and dissatifaction diffused through periodic “Rap sessions” and “Bitch Sessions”. Central management meet with workers to discuss their complains ,particularly against Store Manger. But the word in the air is “ They are all friends” So,I as a researcher,can conclude that McDonald’s, atleast those I have been visiting,is a terrible revenge on Delhi for all the American business being outsoursed in NCR!!! wishing you happiness and health. Khalid -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050327/f7b0eaf0/attachment.html From ish at sarai.net Tue Mar 29 09:21:55 2005 From: ish at sarai.net (ish at sarai.net) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 05:51:55 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Fst food chains: McDonald'a..who's lovin it? In-Reply-To: <20050327144747.5718.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> References: <20050327144747.5718.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: Nice, very impressive and detailed research. Well you have just put it all there the neo-slavery to rule books and numbers (cost below 15% of sales n etc). But the only difference is that(workers/Managers/Slaves) in the present circumstances have to pull it off with a smile on their faces. On March 27, 4:47 pm "Khalid" wrote: > > Yeah...after having researching in Fast food chains for almost a year > now,I have certainly learnt one thing, well enough, to share with you > all. Here it is: > Life is Uncertain. Eat dessert first!! > > Well, keeping that in mind let me introduce the “ the Insights of > McDonald’s” to you,today.Lets call it…… > > Work,Work,Work!!! > > The hours for which workers have to work is unfair-they are expected > to work in shifts.Any shift.It may be all night from 4pm to 6-7 am the > following morning.They are never paid extra for working those extra > hours.Lunch breaks are always shortened on busy days which are Friday > nights and weekends.Staff are only allowed to go out for a “quick fag” > or “ coffee’,to keep them awake!! > They are expected to serve at speed.Customers would be expected to > wait two minutes in line and only 1 minute after the order had been > taken.On most occasions especially weekends this would be impossible. > But McDonald’s has ridiculous expectations of their staff for the > amount of money that they actually earned.18 rupees per hour!! > All the Training Information used by McDonald’s came out of one > book,the Training Manual,which is basically the McDonald’s bible of all > rules and regulations.It is a very large book almost the size of our > MTNL telephone directory !!McDonald’s managers are supposed to know > everything that is in it.Copies of this manual is also very tightly > guarded. > This manual makes it very clear to all employees: We,the > McDonald’a,are very closed to the press.As a general rule,no employee > were to talk to the press unless authorized. > The work is bound to be greasy and high pressurebecause it is” fast > food work”.Most people realize this when they first join > McDonald’s.They realise, it is the sort of job where there is no room > for slackers. > The DiVinE TaRgeTs. > > Every evening careful calculations were done in order to work out > manning levels.This was done by the following method.The tills in the > McDonald’s storecan print out,at any given moment in time,the amount > of money that has been taken during the day or since the last print > out.It was therefore possible to get an analysis from each till of how > much money was taken every hour.By knowing the number of staff that > were employed every hour,it was possible to work out the takings per > head per hour.This was an optimum figure for such takings per head per > hour,which meant that the store was running with exactly the right > number of staff for that particular hour.If the actual figure is > highter than the optimum target figure ,then the store is understaffed > and more stay ought to be taken on.If the level was below the optimum > number, the store is overstaffed during that hour and the levels have > to be pruned.The effect of these calculations was that the manager > would be able to predict,for each hour of the week,how many staff he > would need and could therefore,trim very finely,his manning levels to > suit profitability. I cannot figure out what the optimum figure was at > Lajpat nagar McDonald’s in Delhi,when the store was operating at > so-called optimum staffing level,the staff was generally pushed and the > pressure was fairly high. > If the store was found to be running with staff costs which were too > high,the store manager would get into trouble with the Area Manager and > also his superior,the Area Supervisor. > Each store is given a target for running costs per week.If there is > no increase in this figure without the proportionate increase in > takings ,then the manager will be in trouble.There was, therefore, a > great deal of pressure on them to keep expenses within targets.There is > a specific weekly target ratio relating to staff salaries as a > proportion of takings. > Well, time to wipe your tears and quit feeling sorry for these > managers.Only. > Infact, most of the crew in the store are made to feel as if they are > fully expendable.According to the theory of McDonald’s manual,if the > cwer member is noe doing what he or she should,then management is > supposed to file a report,give a warning or discipline the member of > staff.This process is meant ot be carried out in private,the crew > member being taken off the floorinto the Manager’s office and the > misdemeanor discussed with him/her away from rest of the crew. > But this rarely happened.( ah..ah..hold your tears please..!!) > The reality was that an errant crew member( only Him) would just be > given repeated toilet duty,he(and not she..) would be shouted out in > front of the crew and humiliated publicly.Invaribly ,if a crew member > answer back in these circumstances,he was sent home immidietly and was > obviously not paid for the hours not worked!! Some employees who > were sent home this way just did not come back( especially > freshers),although some did. I have’nt yet found anyone who was > actually sacked in accordance with the proper disciplinary procedures, > which are lengthy and provide for several stages of discipline before > sacking.Most employees( again the freshers)generally get too fed up > with this kind of treatment (often on their first day..!!) and leave. > Let me stress that the training theory of McDonald’s Management is > actually very good.It is indeed a useful training in > itself.However,there is vast difference between the theory and the > practice. > Nothing unusual for me. > > > Work until you are KNOCHED-OUT..come-on.. YOU are TRAINED to SWEAT!! > > Workers in catering do badly in terms of pay and conditions.They are > at work in the evenings and at weekends,doing long shifts in > hot,smelly,noisy environments.Wages are low,as usual,and the chances of > promotion minimal. > Its obvious that all large chains-stores and fast food joints depend > for their fat profitson the labour of young people.McDonald’s is no > exception.Three quarters of its workers are under 21.The > production-line system deskills the work itself: any one can grill the > burger , cleaning toilets or smiling at customers,as I said > before,needs no training.So there is no need to employ chefs or > qualified staff-just any body prepared to work for low wages,will do. > As a matter of fact,what is wrong with McDonald’s is also wrong with > all the junk-food chains like Pizza hut,Subway,Pizza Corneretc.All of > them hide their ruthless exploitation of resourses and people behind > the façade of colourful gimmicks and “ family fun”.The food itself is > the same everywhere.Only the packaging changes.The logo changes. > McDonald has Golden Arches.Two parabolas!! > On Labor Costs > > McDonald’s aims to keep labor costs within 15% of any outlet > sales.”Its very tight”,says one store manager.” “If sales are > down,labor costs must come down: You have to cut staff and make the > remaining work harder!!” > “Labor is the big one we hear from head office” says another.” A > really high volume store could run at 10% labour,because the bodies are > always in motion.But in quiet store you still have to keep a foundation > crew which is why labour slips up occassionaly to 16-16.5%.The pressure > to keep labour costs dowm means having less bodies in the store,so we > are running around all the day ,all night.Otherwise labour would be > right through the ceiling” > To stick to the 15%-rule,high productivity is extracted from a > “flexible” workforce of part time and temporary workers,mostly youth > and women.They work for unsocial hours with no security for low pay. > An average store has 80 people on its payroll,although it varies from > store to store,80% of McDonald’s staff are part timers.According to the > company,an average cwer member works 25 hours a week.But many work > more. By employing part timers, many of whom effectively work full > time,the store can cover unsocial hours without paying overtime and can > adjust worker’s hours on weekly or even daily basis as sales and staff > members fluctuate. > “ Only a ‘skelton’, staff is scheduled for each shifts as a matter of > deliberate policy to keep costs within the 15% ceiling.We are always > under-staffed”, whispers a friend manager. > Flexi hours: The Mystery Unravelled. > > “Flexibility” amounts to an absense of job security.Workers taken on > for seasonal peaks are laid off when the pace slackens.McDonald’s > policies epitomize the “ flexi work force strategies employers are > pursuing to reduce labour costs.In the cold language of employers,it > means maintaining a “ core” of permanent workers supplemented by a “ > periphery” of part-time and tempory workers. > This probably also explains McDonald’s lack of concern about its high > staff turn over.With in a month,7 out 10 starters drop out. You are > veteran,if you lasts 4 months!! > No one ever syays more than 6-9 months unless they want to get into > management.” It’s the pressure,heavy hours,awful pay –over all a > degrading job, having to clean tables and scrub floors in front of all > the customers- and always having to wear SMILE.”,says 18 year old > Sandeep. > > > “…..But Imlovin it!!” > > McDonald’s promotes from within,encouraging crew members to work > their way up.Here is one store manger with his version of McDonald’s: > “ I started on the shop floor with no intention of going into > management.Today,I am Assistant Store Manager.And as far as I can see > McDonald’s says it is an equal opportunities employer and I think it > really is.For crew and for managers,the constant pressure is good if > you can take take it. Yesterday morning I started work at 7,went home > at two,came back at midnight to do a stock take and I have been here > ever since-now its 1.30 in the afternoon.I ‘m falling asleep.I have > doing 75-80 hours a week,and the salary for 40 hours.But I guess that’s > a deal: a given situation.I accept it because I like it.” > > “…..But Imhatin it!!” > > This is another manager: > > “The constant pressure from head office is awful.You have to keep > labour costs down,so in a quiet store,managers tie themselves to the > stations and run around like a crew.Why this constant pressure to make > as much profit as possible when we are losing more managers than > anything else? You talk to other managers on courses,and out of > 15,chances are, 5 will be on the verge of leaving” > On the Burgerline > > “ 12 Big Macs down”.I push bun bases in the toaster,right?” Dress > these regular please.”I’m sqirtin ketchep when the toaster start > bleepin buns are done.” Where’s the regulars?”” Speed up!”” The guy on > the grill is giving me the grief because is burn inand the main man is > bawlinat him.Me legs are jelly,me throat dry and me head exploding > under this stupid “M”.Why’s this cheese on crooked? “Give me Big Mac > bases now!!” “Ooutta onion I run to the freezer” What’s goin on? “Why > all this mess? “Clean it up”As I start wiping trays ,the timer > flashes,meat needs turning ,the toaster’s buzzin and someone is yelling > at me to get some ketchep.I want to swear at the other crew that I > can’t do everything at once but just slap crowns on the finished > burgers shoting:”12 Big Macs up”. > And all this in 160 seconds!! > > Hi-tech with no-tech jobs!! > > McDonald’s pioneered the process of rationalizing the production and > introducing hi-tech which has transformed catering into unskilled > jobThey combined the standardized mass production of the assembly line > with a flexible response to momentary fluctuations in demand.For the > multinational chains,the system spelt higher productivity and lower > wage bills.For workers,it spelt,a deterioration in the quality of their > jobs. > Catering once depended on the trained chef and apprentices.In > McDonald’s those skills have been replaced by computerized > technology,standardized products and the precise planning of each > subdivided task.The is no room for creative chefs in this > factory.Workers all over the world perform exactly the same repetitive > tasks to prepare the same Big Mac. > McDonald’s eliminated all demarcations and any career structure based > training and skills.The chef,the assistant chef,waitress,and cleaner > have been leveled down to the uniformed crew member.Everyone at > McDonald’s cleans,goes on tills, on grill,on fries,on lobby.This > enables the corporation to follow the “ flexible work force” strategy > on which its profits rest. > Control over the work force and their productivity is achieved in a > number of ways.Managerial supervision is increasingly is excercised by > technology itself,with innovations to increase the worker’s speed > constantly being installed.Computerized machinery regulates the pace of > work at each station to the precise second. > The forced pace puts intense pressure on both managers and workers.In > the heat of the moment ,tempers become frayed and each worker blames > the other for holding up!! > Starry Affair > > The corporation has fabricated an elaborate system of hierarchies and > individual incentives which keep the workers “SMILING” at the customers > but each other’s throat.Everyone is assigned to a team of workers at > different levels.For the first 3 weeksyouare a Green badge; then > progess to a Yellow badge and compete for the Gold stars awardedfor > fry,grill,cleanliness ,servise and personal.Performance is reviewed > every two months and pay every 4 months,star bringing financial > rewards.If you win all five Stars,you wear white shirt,before joining > the white badges in line for management You finally take off your tag > when you become a store manager. > Workers in each grade are accountable to those above and control the > workers below,chasing them to meet production targets.Otherwise they > may not get their starsand pay rises at the next review. > The constant spot checks by higher grade employees increase > competitiveness and the diligence with which workers harass their > subordinates.”Its always everyone for themselves”, says one > workers.”You get the feeling that none trusts the other”. > Whether you get the Stars or selected for the Management > Training,does’nt always depend on merit but whether you are pally with > the management. > And for all the talk of Team work,McDonald’s promotes a cult of > individuality.”Some people wait for the future “ they say” Some people > push it along” > “We don’nt have WAITERS” Pinned on the sore’s noticeboard is a list > of crew who “DID exceptionally well last week”. > Another piece of paper says” Employee of the month” > > And yet another says” RISING STAR” > > > Further, control is exercised and dissatifaction diffused through > periodic “Rap sessions” and “Bitch Sessions”. Central management meet > with workers to discuss their complains ,particularly against Store > Manger. > But the word in the air is “ They are all friends” > > So,I as a researcher,can conclude that McDonald’s, atleast those I > have been visiting,is a terrible revenge on Delhi for all the American > business being outsoursed in NCR!!! > > > > > > > > wishing you happiness and health. > > Khalid From shivamvij at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 09:35:13 2005 From: shivamvij at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 09:35:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fst food chains: McDonald'a..who's lovin it? In-Reply-To: <20050327144747.5718.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> References: <20050327144747.5718.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: Very, very impressive, Khalid. I often used to think that McDonald's employees work in a rather good environment! Thank you very much for this. May I suggest that you interview the top bosses of McDonald's India and see what explanation they have to offer for such pathetic work conditions. From arisen.silently at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 09:47:14 2005 From: arisen.silently at gmail.com (arisen silently) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:02:14 +0545 Subject: [Reader-list] Regarding Evil Message-ID: <1925b33d050328201736d88b3f@mail.gmail.com> Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Regarding Evil A one-day summit at MIT Sunday, April 3, 2005 11am-4pm Reception to follow Free and open to the public Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room 10-250 (Enter 77 Massachusetts Ave.) Cambridge, MA http://web.mit.edu/evil CONTACT: Ross Cisneros, indie at mit.edu From machleetank at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 15:45:48 2005 From: machleetank at gmail.com (Jasmeen P) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 15:45:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] stalker no. 1 In-Reply-To: References: <20050327144747.5718.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: "WHEN YOU FIND HIM SHOOT HIM" www.fotolog.net/machlee/ surprise!!!!! Jasmeen From rakesh at sarai.net Tue Mar 29 19:12:03 2005 From: rakesh at sarai.net (Rakesh) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:12:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Sagar Cinema In-Reply-To: <20050328043942.8258.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com> References: <20050328043942.8258.qmail@webmail29.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <42495B2B.9040308@sarai.net> Dear Madhvi I found your posting very fascinating. It really explores a new film viewing pattern, especially in a metro like Mumbai. Simulatniously, it highlights how a certain section of people imagine their life in a city. It is also very interesting to know that how a guy like Shuklaji (a north indian) manage the entire film exhibition affair in a working class settlement. It would really be interesting to know that which are the coflicts (other than Telangana) silently pass through them or have some significant impact on not only in film viewing experience but on other aspects of the migrants' daily lives. All the best for your research salam rakesh tangella madhavi wrote: > I > Over the past few months, I have been visiting Sagar Cinema, a video > theater located in the Western suburbs of Mumbai. This theatre daily > screens Telugu films for the vast labour Telugu migrant population in > the vicinity. Their cinematic experience in an urban space seems to be > inextricably linked to the trends in cinema back Home and the > Telengana conflict as a majority of people migrate from this region. > Underlying their escapism into the song, fights and dances of Telugu > films, is accompanied with an innate awareness. As people from > Telengana, the Telugu language on screen is different from the > language they speak. The screen language is the language of the Andhra > people not the Telengana. According to the migrants, it is a political > ploy to systemically ignore the Telengana reality and language. An > indifference that forced them to migrate to the city of Mumbai in > search of work and repay debts. > > II > The large Telugu migrant community at Malad live in Ashok Nagar. The > locality resembles any other slum area in Mumbai with its narrow > pathway and dense one room housing. The place also has a distinct > Andhra flavour with the women watering and sweeping the small ‘front > yard’ and drawing ‘mugulu’ with rice flour. Few rooms have mango > leaves stringed along the front door. > > But many rooms look like a bachelors pad with minimal living. A > cooking place and a cloth string running along a wall. Under a tree a > group of seven to eight Telugu men gather talking about yesterdays > work. “Four to six of us live in one room. We pay a deposit of Rs.6000 > and a rent of about 250-350 each depending upon the number of people > sharing the room. Now, because of the demolition, the deposits have > gone up to Rs.10,000. In fact, there are no rooms where one can stay > if you are new to this place.” Another man in his 30’s interrupted, > “these demolitions are creating havoc. They are breaking the rocks and > the mountains to widen the road. A lot of our housing has already been > demolished.” There is an uncomfortable silence when I asked them where > would they go if their rooms were bulldozed. “We have been here for > more then two decades. I vote here. Many of us, even if given an > option will not go back to our villages. There is nothing left there. > We don’t bring our families to Mumbai because someone has to care for > our aged parents. Also, Mumbai promises regular work.” > Another migrant added, “but here too we work hard. These days’ trucks > come to pick us at wee hours. We are taken to the construction site > and there is nothing like working for eight hours. The contract is > made for a certain amount of work that needs to be done. You do it in > eight hours or fourteen; it is not their concern. The ‘Master’, a > labour contractor, ensures that work goes smoothly facilitating water > and raw materials. Usually, there is a woman who provides water. Women > are not given strenuous labour work. They are paid about 120 per day > for carrying drinking water around the site. We are the people who > build houses in Mumbai. If all of us plan to sit at home, even for a > day, the construction work in Mumbai will come to a stand still. Our > lives are miserable, we work like machines. Sometimes we don’t get > rest for days together. And when our bodies tire we skip a day’s work > like today.” > “On days like this, we either sleep or if someone gets a CD we watch a > film. Not many of us go to Sagar Cinema. We find it cheaper to buy a > VCD and a TV and screen films at a time convenient for us. We get the > CD’s from either Goregaon or back home. No! We don’t watch Hindi > films. We don’t ‘understand’ the language although we speak Hindi at > work. Telugu is our Matru Bhasha.” > > > III > Meanwhile, at Sagar Cinema, Shuklaji agreed to take us to the place > from which he gets the films on rent…. > > Shuklaji sat dwarfed under two huge posters of Masti and Hum Kisise > Kum Nahin. The board behind him had a couple of Telugu posters on it, > and one C-grade Hindi film poster with a sleazy lady looking > seductively at us. Another blackboard said in Telugu and a Hindi > translation, “Charminar: today 10:30 pm.” Shuklaji prodded me to go > take a look inside the theatre room. “Ek Telugu chal raha hai,” he > said. Inside, rows of people sat in the darkness, watching Okadu, a > technically slick Telugu film with Mahesh Babu juggling comedy and > special effects action sequences smoothly. The other theatre was > showing a Hindi film. We went out, and Shuklaji was ready to leave. We > walked down to the Malad station. We were heading to Lower Parel, and > walking to a suburb near Worli, where Shuklaji would rent a few VCDs > for the next ten days’ screenings. “Do you know Telugu?”, I asked > Shuklaji. He smiled, “I don’t know to speak Telugu, but five years of > this job has taught me to recognise movies without knowing their > names. I just look at the poster and I can tell which film it is!” I > asked him whether he had a list in mind that he would look for. He > replied that he searches purely by instinct. > > Shuklaji has been with Sagar cinema with five years, right since its > inception. “I inaugurated the theatre,” he smiled to me. Earlier he > was in the diamonds business. He has been living in Mumbai for almost > 30 years now. His family stays in Uttar Pradesh. “In my five years, > I’ve never seen a film create so much hulchul as Indira, there were > lines outside the theatre. In a room of capacity 100, I had fitted in > 250 people, with another 250 waiting outside. I had to send them home. > They begged me to at least let them see the last half hour. They were > ready to pay Rs 25, instead of Rs 10!” He said it was a ‘fight film’ > with some comedy too. “there has been no film like Indira, ever.” > > “All our people are in charge of separate departments,” he said. “But > I’m the one who’s in charge of the entire set up, like a manager. > That’s because I have the contacts, I know how to get out of trouble, > trouble with the police and other such things, you know.” He proceeded > to explain that the rule was to shut down at exactly 12 am. Since > their last show started at 10:30, they had to run till 1:30 sometimes, > and had their run-ins with the law. “I sort out those things whenever > they happen. That’s why I have to stay here till late. After that I go > home, and the next morning at 6 I’m up again.” > > Shuklaji knew lots of chai wallahs, pen sellers and other hawkers on > the station. He greeted them as we went along: “Hari Om!” Shuklaji > perched on the footboard of the train at the door, all the way to > Lower Parel, hanging out at every station so that people could get in. > 30 years of train traveling. The epitome of street smartness. We hung > on footboards, hopped into share cabs, broke a five-rupee-coin from a > pan wallah, and finally reached a winding lane of the Worli interiors. > Among pictures of Babasaheb Ambedkar on one wall and Urdu writings on > the other wall, we walked to a Telugu video store. “People from all > castes live here,” Shuklaji explained to me. > > We landed up at ‘Sri Venkateshwara’ the video store where Sagar Cinema > has been doing business for years now. Earlier, Shuklaji informed, > they used to source their VCDs from another store nearby. Once they > ran out of stock, so Shuklaji tried at Venkateshwara, and got what he > needed. The first storeowner got angry at Shukla’s changing loyalties, > and they had an argument. Shuklaji took a call. > > So here at Venkateshwara, we scouted for VCDs. There were Hindi and > Telugu VCDs, Hindi and Telugu audio CDs, and audiocassettes, and even > Hindi dubbed English films like Spiderman and Dunston Checks In. > Sleazy posters adorned the walls. The walls were filled with what > looked like smuggled speakers, mp3 players and other electronic > equipment. The helper boy asked us, “Coffee?” Shuklaji looked at him > for a minute, and snapped: “Is that a thing to ask? Just get it!” > > The way it went was this – Shuklaji chooses 8-10 films every 8-10 > days, and periodically comes back to this VCD library to return old > ones and pick up new ones. Shuklaji knew all the names, searched for > the new releases, helped by the boy at the VCD store. They spoke, > pulled each other’s legs, and interacted like they’d known each other > for months. “Speak in Telugu, I can’t understand Hindi,” said the boy, > half jokingly. “If I knew Telugu I would be doing business in > Hyderabad by now!” was Shuklaji’s pat reply. Shuklaji, the UP ka > bhaiyya, juggled through the shelf and took out ten Telugu VCDs he > liked. All the films looked the same to me. “What is this, > Teja-Vejam?” he said, looking at one of the CDs. The helper boy was > impressed by Shuklaji’s knowledge of Telugu. “What are you staring at > me for? I’ve been doing this for five years!” > > More discussion. “How’s Pelli Kari Pellam?” “No, the movie is not that > good.” Shuklaji kept it back in the shelf, without second thought. > “What do you have? Do you have Maas?” The boy got out another CD: “We > have Shankardada MBBS.” That CD went into the bunch. “Do you have > Maas?” After a pause, both the boy and the man behind the counter > said, “No … that’s not come in yet.” This upset Shuklaji a lot. “How > can you say you don’t have Maas? That’s what I came here for, I had > told Raju on the phone, it’s what the public wants! … Just call Raju. > Get him on the phone - ” > > Unfortunately, Raju seth was out doing some VCD shopping, and would > not be back for a while. Shuklaji growled sarcastically, “Looks like > you guys are not in the mood of doing business…Just tell me what’s > available and good condition, I’ll pick from there.” Maas, as I later > found out, was the number one super hit in recent days, starring > Nagarjuna. Shuklaji was upset that he didn’t get his hands on it. > > I returned to the boy and Shuklaji’s discussion. “… so does this have > fight?” “It has fight also, story also.” It was tossed into our bunch. > “Taarak?” “That’s a solid film,” the boy advised him. That was also > tossed into the bunch. The boy started making Telugu notes in his > diary about the cds. They were tightly tied up in a plastic bag and > then Shuklaji threw a hundred and two ten rupee notes on the table. > “Where’s the bunch from last time…” “Arey it’s here, I won’t take it > and run away!” Shuklaji returned the VCDs, he had got last time. > > As we were leaving, the guy behind the counter opened his tiffin. > “Wow, now you’re opening the tiffin when we leave, couldn’t you ask us > for lunch too!” Shuklaji quipped, and we set out back home. Twenty > metres away, and Shuklaji started fiddling with his pockets. “Oh God! > My cell phone!” We ran back to the store. Shuklaji had left his cell > phone to charge the battery. As we retrieved it, he explained: “See I > have two cards, Trump and Orange. But both are in the same phone. I > need my phone! It’s got all the numbers, police officers, other > important people … all my contacts. If there’s a problem, I know > exactly whom to call.” “at times, late at night, I have skirmishes > with the police. They come there, they think they rule the town and > everyone’s scared of them. They ask for bribes. I straightaway tell > them, I don’t have money. Who keeps money at 2 in the night? I tell > them to come tomorrow. They keep loitering around next few days. But I > don’t pay up after the day’s accounts are done.” > > Once, we were back at Sagar Cinema, the CD’s were handed over to the > man at the counter. He browsed through them and picked one with the > glossiest cover, action hero looking with a killer instinct and a > pretty actress face looking at him. He muttered, “I will screen this > film tomorrow, madam can you read out the name for me? or do you want > to pick and choose a film? We will show that first if it helps you in > your research.” > > IV > In the coming weeks I would like to research about the Telengana > Conflict. I would like to see if there are connections to the socio > political situation in Andhra Pradesh and the migration to Mumbai. I > would enquire if these issues were discussed by the migrants while > watching Telugu films. > > I would like to visit Ashok Nagar during Ugadi, Telugu New Years Day > and sit through screenings of Telugu films in the respective homes of > the Telugu migrants. Also, look forward if there are any special > screenings at Sagar Cinema. > > > > > > > > > > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_________________________________________ >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: > -- Rakesh Kumar Singh Sarai-CSDS Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Ph: 91 11 23960040 Fax: 91 11 2394 3450 web site: www.sarai.net web blog: http://blog.sarai.net/users/rakesh/ From intachculturalaffairs at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 29 07:59:21 2005 From: intachculturalaffairs at yahoo.co.uk (vani subramanian) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 03:29:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] INTACH HERITAGE LECTURE Message-ID: <20050329022921.48530.qmail@web86903.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> INDIAN NATIONAL TRUST FOR ART AND CULTURAL HERITAGE (INTACH) invites you to a talk on ‘India’s Cricket Heritage’ by Ramchandra Guha on Thursday, April 7, 2005 at 6:30 pm at the INTACH Multi-Purpose Hall, 71 Lodhi Estate, New Delhi-110003 Please join us for tea at 6.00 p.m. RSVP 24631818 24632267/69 RAMCHANDRA GUHA A historian, biographer, and cricket writer, Ramachandra Guha studied at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and took his doctorate at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Between 1985 and 1995 he held academic jobs in India, Europe, and North America. Since 1995 he has been a full-time writer, based in Bangalore. In 1997 and 1998 he was Indo-American Community Chair Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He has also taught at the universities of Yale, Stanford and Oslo, been a Senior Associate Member of St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, a Senior Fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi, and a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He has written several books, the first of which was The Unquiet Woods, jointly published by Oxford University Press and the University of California Press in 1989. In 1999 the OUP and the University of Chicago Press published Guha’s Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals and India and in 2000 Permanent Black published a collection of biographical portraits by Ramachandra Guha, An Anthropologist among the Marxists and Other Essays. Among Ramachandra Guha’s other books are Environmentalism: A Global History (Addison Wesley Longman, 2000), and two books on Indian ecological conflicts co-authored with Madhav Gadgil: This Fissured Land (1992) and Ecology and Equity (1995), these now issued in a joint omnibus edition by the OUP. He has published scholarly essays in Past and Present, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Development and Change, and Economic and Political Weekly. His essay ‘Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation’ (first published in Environmental Ethics in 1989) has been reprinted in more than a dozen anthologies. Another essay, ‘Prehistory of Community Forestry in India’, was awarded the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society for Environmental History for 2001. He is the author of two other books Wickets in the East (OUP, 1992) and the editor of The Picador Book of Cricket. Ramachandra Guha’s most recent book is a social history of Indian cricket, entitled A Corner of a Foreign Field. Published by Picador in the summer of 2001. He is currently working on a major history of independent India, also to be published by Picador. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050329/4f31ee8c/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From vishnu at cscsban.org Tue Mar 29 16:51:06 2005 From: vishnu at cscsban.org (T. Vishnu Vardhan) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:51:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Mythologicals - the problem of form Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20050329162506.02492ca0@localhost> Hi, this is my third posting. In the last posting I have presented an argument based on three mythological films and complementing it was the field work I did. Sorry I could not send you the visuals which I mentioned in the post. Probably I need to spend some time learning these technical things. And I am doing so. Also excuse me for not translating the dialogues I mentioned. During the last month I have done more field work and I do not want to bore you with how I did it. Yes I would like to show you them, but again I have problems dealing with images. Further, I will be interviewing some yester year stars, technicians and others who were involved in the making of mythological films (especially in Telugu cinema). In this post I am trying to raise a theoretical question based on the field work I did and also after reading some of the academic writings on the subject. The important question I am at present thinking about is: Is there A Mythological? – The problem of Form Mythologicals, devotionals, socials, historicals and folklore films are often mentioned as major film ‘types’ in Indian cinema. These terms are used both in industry and in writings on film. Though one uses these terms with certain familiarity to mean particular kind of film/genre, it is difficult to conceive of them as genres beyond a point. Psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar formulates film genres in India based on “caste system”. Thus according to him the mythological is brahman, the historical film is kshatriya and the action-packed “stunt film” is shudra (Kakar 1989). Briefly stating the difficulty of the genre question in Indian cinema, Prasad writes: The question of genre has been a notoriously difficult one for critics of Indian cinema. Some critics evade the difficulties by simply identifying the mythological and the social as the principal Indian genres. Others recognize that generic differentiation in the Hollywood sense is not evident in Bombay cinema, although in the early studio era similar distinctions were prevalent. He further argues, “incipient generic distinctions are undermined by the expansive identity of the ‘social’” which serves “simply as a label for a large quantity of films which resist more accurate differentiation.” In addition he cautions to the fact that “it is necessary to free ourselves from the spontaneous association of genre formation with the specific form it has taken in the case of Hollywood cinema”. Moreover, he also claims in the early part of his book that the absence of genres in Hindi cinema is a result of the heterogeneous mode of producing films. Keeping this in view I will trace the possible ways in which mythological is defined or in what terms it is talked about and problems with it, with an intention to put forth some ideas on film form for further scrutiny. Though people write about mythological as a distinct film form few writers give adequate description/definition of what they mean by mythological. In this context it is useful to get a sense of what is being classified as a mythological. For instance Veena Das (1980) and Philip Lutgendorf (2002) writing on Jai Santoshi Maa, (Dir. Vijay Sharma, 1975) classify the film as a mythological. In analyzing the film based on devotion and religiosity Das seems to completely ignore of the category called devotional by the film industry as well as film critics. Lutgendorf on the other hand unproblematically clubs the two forms (mythologicals and devotionals) together and describes Jai Santoshi Maa as the resurgence of the early mythological. Chidananda Das Gupta trying to account for the popularity of Ramayana and Mahabharatha serials on television reads them as mythologicals. He further, sees no difference in the old Sanskritic texts of Ramayana and Mahabharatha and their interpretation, early mythological films, and the television serials. For him mythologicals are Ramayana and Mahabharatha in any form. (Das Gupta 1991,165-190). Talking about Sant Tukaram (Dir. Damle and Fattelal, Marathi, 1936), Kapur states that “it belongs more correctly to a sub-genre of special significance” but classifies it as a mythological (1987). We can trace certain commonalties in the above identifications of the mythological. Mythological has its roots in the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharatha and is usually associated with film but some do use it to describe epics in any form, i.e. text, theatre, film, television, cartoons and comics. Characterizing the stories from the epics in any form as mythological, I would say is a problematic assertion which ignores the specificity of the medium. Though dealing with the same narratives, one should note that the different formats or mediums give a new meaning to narratives. This should be kept in mind in studying the transition of theatre to film that has increasingly borrowed actors, writers and themes (i.e. mythologicals). Thus there is difference between puranalu (the epics) and pouranica chitralu (the mythological). Thus one could define mythological as any film which is based on a story drawn from the epics and the puranas of ancient India. Further, it is evident that there is a tendency among some scholars to mix up mythological and devotional films to create a category called the religious film. In contrasting the mythological from the devotional Madhava Prasad writes: Mythologicals do not necessarily have a religious dimension in the sense of content or technique that inspires religious feeling The “pure” mythological film text confines itself to the world of the puranas and is impervious to events and actions in historical time. By contrast, the devotional usually incorporates, at the very least as a framing device, references to the present, or to a specific historical time.(nd) He also cautions us to fact that “there are films which cannot neatly be fitted into one or other of these sub-genres, since they combine the promise of a devotional with the iconography and narrative devices of a mythological.” I see a need to probe further into the aspect of synonymous use of the terms mythological and devotional, probably I will not be able to do this as part of my project, but it is a question worth debating. The definition of mythological “as any film” based on the mythic material, I propose, problematically assumes that it is a unitary film form. In other words, I am drawing attention to the fact that the mythological of the silent period, the early Telugu mythological, 1940s Hindi mythological and the 1970s mythological film, though dealing with similar themes are distinct from each. This distinctiveness has to do with a number of factors such as not only context but also form. I am critical of the writings on film, which ignore the importance of the film form. At this juncture, I further suggest, that though similar themes are filmed their form changes because of : the development of a star system, the introduction of glamour, colour, and general improvement in the camera use, all of which occur in the industry as a whole, and because of the changing socio-political situations. In this context I propose that though we often talk of ‘different film forms’ (like that of Classical Hollywood form, Hong Kong form, Indian cinema form) none of these forms is ever stable and thus the description of the film form should be made bearing this in mind. I further argue that these changes in the film form are incumbent as form itself is dependent on and constituted by certain variables. The formal modifications are a result of and can be located either in variables of technological advancements or political and cultural demands on the film or both of them. The reverse can also happen, by which I mean technological modifications or political and cultural changes can be traced back to a particular set of developments in the film form. While this may be more difficult to demonstrate, it is worth exploring in the future. What do you think about these remarks of mine on the issue of ' Mythological Form'? Take the time to write to me. More in the next post. Probably I will do more than one post this time. Vishnu T. Vishnu Vardhan Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, 466, 9th Cross, 1st Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore - 560011. e-mail: vishnu at cscsban.org thvishnu_viva at yahoo.com Tel. no. 080-26562986 mobile no. +919845207308 fax no. 080-26562991 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050329/99dcfe9b/attachment.html From pukar at pukar.org.in Tue Mar 29 14:56:20 2005 From: pukar at pukar.org.in (PUKAR) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:56:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [announcements] Special Event: Thursday March 31st: Marathi Public Sphere Project Message-ID: <001101c53443$4f269930$0b64a8c0@freeda> PUKAR's Marathi Public Sphere Project invites you to attend its special event on Thursday 31st March 2005 at 6:00 p.m. in the Dadar-Matunga Cultural Centre, Dadar, Mumbai. This brings together the research and documentation efforts of six youth groups across the Mumbai Metrolopitan Region during the last one year. These will be presented in the form of a multi-media presentation to be uplinked on the PUKAR website www.pukar.org.in/MPS/tarunaee Dr. Narendra Jadhav (Economist and Writer) Mr. Kishor Kadam (Actor and Poet) and Ms. Aditi Deshpande (Actor and Producer) have kindly agreed to attend the event to encourage the young particpants in their efforts. The project has been supported by Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai. Date: Thursday, 31st March Time: 6:00 p.m. Venue: Dadar-Matunga Cultural Centre J.K.Sawant Marg, Lane opposite Shivaji Mandir, Behind Plaza Cinema, Dadar, Mumbai. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050329/37be9eb7/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From turbulence at turbulence.org Tue Mar 29 02:00:17 2005 From: turbulence at turbulence.org (Turbulence) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:30:17 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] LAST CALL: Turbulence Juried International Net Art Competition Message-ID: <42486959.1000308@turbulence.org> CALL FOR ENTRIES: Turbulence Juried International Net Art Competition New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. is pleased to announce that with the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, 5 net art projects will be commissioned for the Turbulence web site in a juried international (open to everyone) competition. Each commission will be $5,000 (US). DEADLINE: March 31, 2005 GUIDELINES: http://turbulence.org/comp_05/guidelines.htm JURORS: Wayne Ashley (US), Arcangel Constantini (Mexico), Sara Diamond (Canada), Melinda Rackham (Australia), and Helen Thorington (US). -- Jo-Anne Green, Co-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/20050328/87422bf7/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From soudhamini_1 at lycos.com Wed Mar 30 09:33:27 2005 From: soudhamini_1 at lycos.com (sou dhamini) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:03:27 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Mythologicals - the problem of form Message-ID: <20050330040327.65CD03384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050329/286c7e0e/attachment.html From arkitect95 at yahoo.co.in Tue Mar 29 23:05:22 2005 From: arkitect95 at yahoo.co.in (arkitect95) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:35:22 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [arkitectindia] William Dalrymple on Madrasas in Pakistan Message-ID: William Dalrymple on Madrasas in Pakistan Monday 28th March 2005 http://www.newstatesman.com/200503280010 Madrasas are Islamic colleges accused by the US of incubating terrorism and the attacks of 9/11. From Pakistan, William Dalrymple investigates the threat Halfway along the dangerous road to Kohat - deep in the lawless tribal belt between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and where Osama Bin Laden is widely believed to be sheltering - we passed a small whitewashed shrine that had recently been erected by the side of the road: "That is where the army ambushed and killed two al-Qaeda men escaping from Afghanistan," said Javed Paracha. "Local people soon began to see the two martyrs in their dreams. Now we believe that they are saints. Already many cures and miracles have been reported. If any of our women want to ask anything special from God, they first come here." He added: "They say that each shahid [martyr] emitted a perfume like that of roses. For many days a beautiful scent was coming from the place of their martyrdom." Javed Paracha is a huge, burly tribal leader with a granite outcrop of nose jutting from a great fan of grey beard. In many ways he is the embodiment of everything that US policy-makers most fear and dislike about this part of the Muslim world. For Paracha is a dedicated Islamist, as well as a wily lawyer who has successfully defended al-Qaeda suspects in the Peshawar High Court. In his fortress-like stronghouse in Kohat he sheltered wounded Taliban fighters - and their frost-bitten women and children - fleeing across the mountains from the American Daisy Cutters at Tora Bora, and he was twice imprisoned by General Musharraf in the notorious prison at Dera Ismail Khan. There he was kept in solitary confinement while being questioned - and he alleges tortured - by CIA interrogators. On his release, he found his prestige among his neighbours had been immensely enhanced by his ordeal. His proudest boast, however, is building the two enormous madrasas he founded and financed, the first of which he says produced many of the younger leaders of the Taliban. "They are the biggest madrasas in the [North-West] Frontier," he told me proudly after stopping to say a prayer at the al-Qaeda shrine. "The books are free. The food is free. The education is free. We give them free accommodation. In a poor and backward area like this, our madrasas are the only form of education. The government system is simply not here." Paracha got back in the car - the vehicle sinking to the left as he lowered himself into the back beside his two armed bodyguards - and added: "There are 200,000 jobless degree holders in this country. Mark my words, a more extreme form of the Taliban is coming to Pakistan. The conditions are so bad. The people are so desperate. They are waiting for a solution that will rid them of this feudal- army elite. The people want radical change. We teach them in the madrasas that only Islam can provide the justice they seek." For better or worse, the sort of madrasa-driven change in political attitudes that Javed Paracha is bringing about in Kohat is being reproduced across Pakistan. An Interior Ministry report revealed recently that there are now 27 times as many madrasas in the country as there were in 1947: from 245 at the time of independence the number has shot up to 6,870 in 2001. The religious tenor of Pakistan has been correspondingly radicalised: the tolerant Sufi-minded Barelvi form of Islam is now deeply out of fashion, overtaken by the sudden rise of the more hardline reformist Deobandi, Wahhabi and Salafi strains of the faith that are increasingly dominant over swaths of the country. The sharp acceleration in the number of these madrasas first began under General Zia, and was financed mainly by Saudi donors (though ironically the US also played a role in this as part of the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad). Since the oil boom of the early 1970s a policy of exporting not just petroleum, but also hardline Wahhabism, became a fundamental tenet of Saudi foreign policy, partly a result of a competition for influence with Shia Iran. Although some of the madrasas were little more than single rooms attached to village mosques, others are now very substantial institutions: the Darul Uloom in Baluchistan is now annually enrolling some 1,500 boarders and a further 1,000 day-boys. Altogether, there are now an estimated 800,000 to one million students enrolled in Pakistan's madrasas: an entire, free Islamic education system existing parallel to the increasingly moribund state sector, in which a mere 1.8 per cent of Pakistan's GDP is spent on government schools. The statistics are dire: 15 per cent of these schools are without a proper building; 52 per cent without a boundary wall; 40 per cent without water; 71 per cent without electricity. There is frequent absenteeism of teachers; indeed, many of these schools exist only on paper. This education gap is the most striking way in which Pakistan is lagging behind India, a country in which 65 per cent of the population is literate, and the number rises every year. Only this year, the Indian education system received a substantial boost of state funds in the government Budget; but in Pakistan the literacy figure is well under half (it is currently 42 per cent), and falling. The collapse of government schooling has meant that many of the country's poorest people who want their children's advancement have no option but to place the children in the madrasa system where they are guaranteed a conservative and outdated, but nonetheless free education. Madrasas are now more dominant in Pakistan's educational system than they are anywhere else; but the general trend is common across the Islamic world. In Egypt the number of teaching institutes dependent on the Islamic Al-Azhar University increased from 1,855 in 1986 to 4,314 ten years later. The Saudis have also stepped up funding in Africa: in Tanzania alone they have been spending $1m a year building new madrasas. In Mali, madrasas now account for around a quarter of children in primary schools. Seen in this wider context, Paracha and his educational endeavours in Kohat raise a number of important questions: how far are these madrasas the source of the problems that culminated in the Islamist attacks of 9/11? Are madrasas simply terrorist factories? Should the west be pressing US client states such as Pakistan and Egypt simply to close the whole lot down? In the panic-striken aftermath of the Islamist attacks on America, the answers to these questions seemed obvious. Donald Rumsfeld, among a number of US politicians, fingered madrasas as terror-incubators and centres of hatred, responsible - so he said - for propagating anti- Americanism across the Islamic world. There were many good reasons for people jumping to this assumption. The terrifyingly ultra-conservative Taliban regime was unquestionably the product of Pakistan's madrasas. Much of the Taliban leadership was trained at just one madrasa: the Haqqaniya at Akora Khattak, between Islamabad and Peshawar. The director, Sami ul- Haq, still proudly boasts that whenever the Taliban put out a call for fighters, he would simply close down the madrasa and send his students off to fight. But as we now know, in the aftermath of 9/11, a great many of the assumptions that people made about Islamist terrorism have proved with hindsight to be quite spectacularly ill-founded, the result of inadequate and partial understanding of the complexities of the contemporary Islamic world. There was, first of all, widespread misunderstanding about the nature of al-Qaeda. Bin Laden's organisation has turned out not to be some structured multinational organisation; still less was it the state- sponsored puppet - with Osama moving to the tug of Saddam's Ba'athist string- pulling - that was depicted by the neo-cons and their media mouthpieces (in this country, Conrad Black's Daily Telegraph and the equally credulous Murdoch Times) as they attempted to justify attacking Iraq. Instead, as Giles Kepel, the leading French authority on Islamists, puts it in his important study, The War For Muslim Minds: "al-Qaeda was [and is] less a military base of operations than a database that connected jihadists around the world via the internet . . . this organisation did not consist of buildings and tanks and borders but of websites, clandestine financial transfers and a proliferation of activists ranging from Jersey City to the paddies of Indonesia". This central failure to understand the nature of al-Qaeda was the reason that the US attempted to counter it with such unsuitable policies: by targeting nations it considered sponsors of terrorism, so inadvertently turning itself into al-Qaeda's most effective recruiting agency. In the same way, it was maintained that al-Qaeda's grievances were unconnected to America's Middle Eastern policies. This also proved to be quite wrong. From al-Qaeda's "Declaration of War Against the Americans", issued in 1996, Bin Laden had announced that his grievance was not cultural or religious, but very specifically political: he was fighting to oppose US support for the House of Saud and Israel. As he told the Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir: "America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq. The Muslims have a right to attack America in reprisal . . . The targets were icons of America's military and economic power." In retrospect, the idea that madrasas are one of the principal engines of this global Islamic terrorism appears to be another American assumption that begins to wobble when subjected to serious analysis. It is certainly true that many madrasas are fundamentalist in their approach to the scriptures and that many subscribe to the least pluralistic and most hardline strains of Islamic thought. It is also true that some madrasas can be directly linked to Islamic radicalism and occasionally to outright civil violence: just as there are some yeshivas [religious schools] in settlements on the West Bank that have a reputation for violence against Palestinians, and Serbian monasteries that sheltered some of the worst of that country's war criminals, so it is estimated that as many as 15 per cent of Pakistan's madrasas preach violent jihad, while a few have even been known to provide covert military training. Some have done their best to bring about a Talibanisation of Pakistan: madrasa graduates in Karachi have been behind acts of violence against the city's Shia minority, while in 1998, madrasa students in Baluchistan began organising bonfires of TVs and attacked video shops. In this, however, they have so far had limited success. Indeed, the bestselling video in Baluchistan last year was a pirate tape that showed a senior Pakistani MP in flagrante with his girlfriend. The tape, which had been made by the MP himself, had been stolen by his political enemies and circulated around the province, with the expectation that it would destroy his career. However, so impressive was the MP's performance in the video that he was re-elected with a record majority; I recently met him looking very pleased with himself in Islamabad, where he says the tape has transformed his political fortunes. It is now becoming clear, however, that producing cannon-fodder for the Taliban and graduating local sectarian thugs is not at all the same as producing the kind of technically literate al-Qaeda terrorist who carried out the horrifyingly sophisticated attacks on the USS Cole, the US embassies in East Africa, and the World Trade Center. A number of recent studies have emphasised that there is an important and fundamental distinction to be made between most mad- rasa graduates - who tend to be pious villagers from economically impoverished backgrounds, possessing very little technical sophistication - and the sort of middle-class politically literate global salafi jihadis who plan al-Qaeda operations around the world. Most of these turn out to have secular, scientific or technical backgrounds and very few actually turn out to be madrasa graduates. The men who planned and carried out the Islamist attacks on America - all but four of them were Saudi citizens - have often been depicted in the press as being "medieval fanatics". In fact, it would be more accurate to describe them as confused but highly educated middle- class professionals: Mohammed Atta was an architect and a town-planning expert; Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's chief of staff, was a paediatric surgeon; Ziad Jarrah, one of the founders of the Hamburg cell, was a dental student who later turned to aircraft engineering; while Omar Sheikh, the kidnapper of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, had studied at the LSE and was the product of the same British public school that produced the film-maker Peter Greenaway. Such figures represent a clash of civilisations occurring not so much between civilisations, as the author Samuel Huntingdon would maintain, but rather within individuals, products of the sort of cultural dislocation and disorientation that accompanies accelerating economic change and globalisation. As Kepel puts it, the new breed of global jihadis are not the urban poor of the developing world, so much as "the privileged children of an unlikely marriage between Wahhabism and Silicon Valley". This is also the conclusion drawn by the most sophisticated analysis of global jihadis to be published in recent years: Marc Sageman's Understanding Terror Networks. Sageman is a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA man who worked in Pakistan during the 1980s. In his study, he closely examined the lives of 172 al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, and his conclusions have demolished much of the conventional wisdom about who joins jihadi groups: two-thirds of his sample were middle class and university-educated; they are generally technically minded professionals and several have PhDs. Nor are they young hotheads: their average age is 26, most of them are married, and many have children. Only two appear to be obviously psychotic. It seems that Islamic terrorism, like its Christian predecessor, remains a largely bourgeois endeavour: "These are truly global citizens," writes Sageman, "familiar with many countries - the west as well as the Middle East - and able to speak several languages with equal facility . . . Even their ideologues are not trained clerics: [Sayyid] Qutb [for example] was a journalist." It is true that there are exceptions, and the line between these two different worlds is certainly porous. There are several examples of radical madrasa graduates who have become involved with al-Qaeda. By and large, however, madrasa students simply do not have the technical expertise or conceptual imagination necessary to carry out the sort of attacks we have seen al-Qaeda pull off in the past few years. Instead, the concerns of most madrasa graduates remain far more traditional - what the French Islamist expert Olivier Roy calls "neo- fundamentalism": the correct fulfilment of rituals, how to wash correctly before prayers, the proper length to grow a beard and how high above the ankles you should wear your salwar kameez. As the laws of the Taliban regime revealed, they are obsessed with the public covering of women, which they regard as essential to a morally ordered society. Their focus, in other words, is not on opposing non-Muslims or the west - the central concern of the salafi jihadis - so much as on fostering what they see as proper Islamic behaviour at home and attempting to return to - as they see it - the pristine purity of the time of the Prophet. That there are huge variations in the tone and quality of madrasa education should not be surprising. Throughout much of Islamic history, madrasas were the major source of religious and scientific learning, just as the church schools and the universities were in Europe. The quality and tone of their education is determined by the nature of their curricula, which have always varied widely. Between the seventh and 11th centuries, madrasas produced free- thinking luminaries such as Alberuni, Ibn Sina and al-Khwarizmi. The oldest and greatest madrasa of them all, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, has good claim to being the most sophisticated institution of learning in the entire Mediterranean world during the early Middle Ages. The very idea of a university in the modern sense - a place of learning where students congregate to study a variety of subjects under a number of teachers - is generally regarded as an innovation first developed at Al-Azhar. When the Mongol invasions destroyed the major institutions of learning in the central Islamic heartlands, many learned refugees fled to Delhi, turning northern India for the first time into a major centre of scholarship. By the time of Akbar, the third Mughal emperor of India, the curriculum in Indian madrasas blended the learning of the Islamic Middle East with that of the indigenous teaching of Hindu India, which resulted in the incredibly broad-minded and pluralistic high civilisation of the Mughal period. However, following the collapse of Indo-Islamic self-confidence that accompanied the deposition and exile of the last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, in 1858, disillusioned scholars founded an influential but depressingly narrow-minded Wahhabi-like madrasa at Deoband, 100 miles north of the former Mughal capital. Reacting against what the founders saw as the degenerate ways of the old elite, which had allowed the British to defeat Muslim power in such a catastrophic manner, the Deoband madrasa went back to Koranic basics, rigorously stripping out anything Hindu or European from the curriculum of the college. It was, unfortunately, these puritanical Deoband-type madrasas that spread throughout northern India and Pakistan in the course of the 20th century, and which particularly benefited from the patronage of Zia and his Saudi allies in the 1980s. It is certainly true that many madrasas in Pakistan have outdated curricula: some still teach Euclidian geometry and medicine from the Roman physician Galen of Pergamum. Emphasis is put on the rote learning - rather than critical study - of the Koran. Jessica Stern of Harvard recently testified before a US Senate House committee that "in a school that purportedly offered a broad curriculum, a teacher I questioned could not multiply seven times eight". This is, however, by no means the case with all madrasas, some of which are surprisingly sophisticated places. In Karachi, the largest madrasa is the Darul Uloom. To get there, you pass from the rich middle-class areas of the city centre, with their low, white bungalows and sprawling gardens, going through progressively more run-down suburbs until you find yourself in a depressing industrial wasteland of factories and warehouses, punctuated by the belching smokestacks of brickworks. Out of this Pakistani apocalypse rises the almost surreal spectacle of Darul Uloom. Its green lawns resemble a cross between a five-star hotel and a rather upmarket, modern university campus. After what happened to Daniel Pearl, I had been warned about the dangers of visiting madrasas, and had gone to the elaborate lengths of informing the British Consulate about my movements; but in reality there was nothing remotely threatening about Darul Uloom. The students were almost all eager, smart, friendly and intelligent, if somewhat intense and puritanical. When, on a visit to the dormitory block, I asked one bearded student what music he listened to on his shining new ghetto- blaster, he looked at me as if I had just asked him about his favourite porn video. The machine, he informed me, was only for listening to tapes of sermons. All music was banned. Puritanical it may be, but it is clear that the Darul Uloom performs, as do many Pakistani madrasas, an important service - especially in a country where 58 per cent of the vast population, and 72 per cent of women, are illiterate and half the population never see the inside of a school at all. Madrasas may not be cutting-edge in their educational philosophy, but they do provide the poor with a way of gaining literacy and a real hope of advancing themselves. In certain traditional subjects - such as rhetoric, logic, jurisprudence and Arabic grammar - the teaching can be outstanding. Although they tend to be ultra- conservative, it has been repeatedly shown that only a small proportion are obviously militant. To close them down without attempting to build up the state sector would simply relegate large chunks of the population to illiteracy and ignorance. It would also be tantamount to instructing Muslims to stop educating themselves about their religion - hardly the best strategy for winning hearts and minds. You don't have to go far from Pakistan to find a madrasa system that has effectively tackled both the problems of militancy and of educational backwardness. Although India was originally the home of the Deobandi madrasas, such colleges in India have no track record of producing violent Islamists, and are strictly apolitical and quietist. Their degree of success can be measured from the fact that Jamia Milia University in New Delhi, at least 50 per cent of whose intake comes from a madrasa background, is generally reckoned to be one of India's most prestigious and successful centres of higher education. According to Seema Alavi, one of India's brightest young historians, who now teaches at Jamia, there is little difference between her students educated at secular schools and those educated in madrasas - except perhaps that those from madrasas are better able to memorise coursework, but are less practised at analysing and processing information: years of rote-learning has both its pros and its cons. But there is no sense that those students from Indian madrasas are more politically radical or less able to cope with a modern urban environment than their contemporaries from secular institutions. Several of India's greatest scholars - such as the celebrated Mughal historian Muzaffar Alam of Chicago University - are madrasa graduates. If this is right, it would seem to confirm what other researchers have observed, that it is not madrasas per se that are the problem, so much as the militant atmosphere and indoctrination taking place in a handful of notorious centres of ultra-radicalism such as Binori Town or Akora Khattak. The question remains, however, whether General Musharraf's government has the strength and the willpower to see through the necessary reforms and replicate the success of madrasas across the border in India. So far, attempts at taming Pakistan's more militant madrasas have proved half-hearted. There have been some attempts to curb the attendance of foreign Islamic students at Pakistani madrasas, and noises were made about standardising the syllabus and encouraging some modern subjects. Nevertheless, the more extreme have been able to resist the enforcement of even these mild measures: only 1 per cent of the country's madrasas complied when asked to register with the government. In Islamabad, I went to see Pervez Hoodbhoy, an expert on education and the author of an important study of the madrasas. Hoodbhoy teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, the Pakistani Oxbridge, and as we sat in the spacious campus, he described the depressing changes he had witnessed since joining the staff in the 1970s. Not only had there been a general decline in educational standards, he said, but beards, burkas and hijabs, unknown in the early 1980s, were now the norm. He estimated that only one-third of his students now resist showing some visible sign of their Islamic propriety. "And this," he added, "is by far the most liberal university in Pakistan. "There is definitely a change in the temper of this society," he said. "The students are much less interested in the world and show much less curiosity - instead we have this mad, unthinking rush towards religiosity, and the steady erosion of the liberal elite." I asked Hoodbhoy about his prognosis for the future. "I am very anxious," he said. "The state educational system has reached the point of collapse. The only long-term solution has to be improved secular government schools: at the moment they are so bad that even where they exist, no one will willingly go to them. "But the biggest problem we have," he continued, "is the US. Their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan have hugely strengthened the hands of the extremists and depleted the strength of those who want to see a modern, non-fundamentalist future for this country. Before the invasion of Iraq, I called the US ambassador and warned her: if you attack Saddam, you may gain Iraq, but you'll lose Pakistan. I hope I was wrong - but I fear that I may yet be proved right." =============================== William Dalrymple's most recent book, White Mughals (Harper Perennial), won the Wolfson Prize for History. A stage version by Christopher Hampton has just been commissioned by the National Theatre ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/VaTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arkitectindia/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: arkitectindia-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From maheshsarma at rediffmail.com Wed Mar 30 00:04:20 2005 From: maheshsarma at rediffmail.com (mahesh sarma) Date: 29 Mar 2005 18:34:20 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Sleeping legislature, inept admin, perked up courts and hapless citizens Message-ID: <20050329183420.1829.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com>  The subtext in the CNG conversion story As I muddle my way through the CNG conversion project, what comes out loud and clear is the tremendous capability of the state to live in blissful ignorance. Not doing nothing unless one is pushed to the wall seems to be an art perfected by the state. Though the interface between legislature, judiciary and executive is itself an exciting area of enquiry, what is more exciting in the CNG case the seminal role-played by “Civil Society” organisations. Normally trade offs with respect to pollution, industrialisation, development and exclusions normally would have been negotiated in the political space. But as they get vacated, that space is increasingly occupied by apolitical (a term I am personally uncomfortable with and conceptually not clear) organisations, with an interesting set of consequences. Though the debate originated with the PIL by MC Metha, terms of the debate was set by these civil society organisations, with science as their preferred ally. Since science has the halo(undeserving as a host of literature would argue) its prestige is transmuted to sit in judgement to what are essentially social and political problems. And that to me is much more controversial and at times downright dangerous. mahesh B.Mahesh Sarma, Researcher Centre for Studies in Science Policy Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. 110 067 Ph.+91-11- 26100962 Mobile:9868090468 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050329/186371b7/attachment.html From z3118338 at student.unsw.edu.au Wed Mar 30 12:56:42 2005 From: z3118338 at student.unsw.edu.au (z3118338 at student.unsw.edu.au) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:26:42 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] New Book - Law and Internet Cultures Message-ID: <200503300926.43661.z3118338@student.unsw.edu.au> This looks very useful and good. As i have read some of it already I recommend it to everyone interested in the topic Martin Law and Internet Cultures Kathy Bowrey University of New South Wales, Sydney http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521600480 (ISBN-10: 0521600480 | ISBN-13: 9780521600484) Not yet published - available from May 2005 (Stock level updated: 08:00 GMT, 30 March 2005) £17.99 This book raises the profile of socio-political questions about the global technology and information market. It is a close study of communication flows, networks, nodes, biopolitics and the fragmentations of power. It brings to life the role played by personalities, corporate interactions, industry compromises and the regulatory incompetencies, affecting the technological world we all live in. US technology powers the internet and disseminates American culture on an unprecedented scale. Assessing this power requires an analysis of the diffuse ways that US practice, policy and law dominates, and a consideration of how influence is negotiated and resisted locally. This involves a discussion about how ideas about trade and innovation circulate; of the social power of engineers that establish conventions and protocols; of the reach of Leviathan corporations; and questions about global marketing and consumer tastes. For readers interested in intellectual property law, information technology, cultural studies, globalisation and mass communications. • A study of the internet and how it is regulated, familiar with the US debates, but consciously positioned from outside US perspectives • A considered, practical appraisal of the limits of contemporary law making in relation to technology issues. • It will appeal to a cross section of subject areas and includes a good mix of scholarly, journalistic and cultural observations Contents 1. Defining Internet law; 2. Defining Internet cultures; 3. Universal standards and the end of the universe. The IETF, global governance and patents; 4. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds; 5. In a world without fences who needs Gates?; 6. Telling tales. Digital piracy and the law; 7. Participate/comply/resist From z3118338 at student.unsw.edu.au Wed Mar 30 21:34:02 2005 From: z3118338 at student.unsw.edu.au (z3118338 at student.unsw.edu.au) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:04:02 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] immaterial labour - unix history Message-ID: <200503301804.04638.z3118338@student.unsw.edu.au> and now for a change of pace here is my current dilemma - about unix and its capture I thought maybe someone here might have some ideas or leads on the way in which unix was commodified and taken out of the attic where it was created .... I have been using the interviews of the unix oral history project http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/unixhistory as a large source for the stuff i am trying to write up which follows on from the excerpts i posted a couple of weeks back about immaterial labour and am a little bit confused regarding some issues concerning Berk Tague, the Unix Support Group and the marketing of early unix. Most of the *nix histories skirt over the Bell Labs experience, which the more I read I feel is a real big mistake. And they also skip over the details of exactly how it was distributed and sold during the mmid 1970's to bolster the free as in speech rhetoric of the floss/commons (not common) movement Most histories of Linux/Unix start with a line such as - because of the 1958 consent decree Bell was forbidden from entering the computer business. Although I think the legal environment had its role to play in setting the climate, I think also the nature of the machine itself has a lot to do with why *nix is what it is. So I think maybe that sort of intro to the history is a little too simplistic. For example Raymond says that "under the terms of the consent decree, Bell Labs was required to licence its nontelephone technology to anyone who asked" and this has been picked up by many who count themselves as analysing this topic. The given wisdom is that Bell couldn't market computer sytems prior to the later anti trust agreement and diverstiture in the mid 1980's. My research of the community memory list tells me that during the 1970's commercial unix licences went to eg RAND for $100,000 USD and to universities such as Berekely and UNSW in 1974 for $150 USD. So in this context I am intrigued by the role played by Berk Tague and the Unix Support Group. In the oral history interviews he talks of his first unix sale and making unix into a product. i found this other interview with Tague today: http://www.dorje.com/netstuff/folklore/hist.bell-labs Can anyone help me out a bit on this? Is he talking about Unix as a product internally? Within the wider telephone system? Or some much broader marketing? It seems to me that this standardisation by the USG was the first step on the road to the "commodification" of Unix. But prima facie Tague's comments about product, marketing, sales seem at odds with the history as skirted over by luminaries such as Lessig and even Eric Raymond. I want to try and get this clear as I am about to tackle the dissemination to universities part of the story. But to do that I need to understand better the dynamics within Bell itself. Interesting also is that Ken Thompson seems not to have been comfortable with the USG's role (see his interview) and talks of getting out for a while on sabbatical to Berkely in 1975 - Berkeley seems to have first got Unix is the 2nd half of 74. How much then did Thompson "activeley promote" an alternate non corporate home for Unix as early as 75-76? Any ideas? If not any leads that I could chase up? Anyway, any ideas on this apparent contradiction or can anyone help me clarify who in fact the USG saw as its clients/market? Thanks m From aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in Wed Mar 30 10:06:34 2005 From: aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in (Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:06:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Self x Social Message-ID: <1112157394.89065300aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> You are cordially invited to an exhibition Self x Social self stranger parent resource worker Venue: School of Arts and Aesthetics Gallery Opening: 2nd April 2005 at 5:30 pm The exhibition will be open from 10.00am to 7.00pm till 7th of April 2005 Participating artists/photographers Ravi Agarwal, Atul Bhalla, Sheba Chhachhi, Sonia Khurana, Shantanu Lodh, Ashim Purkayastha, Pushpamala N., Gigi Scaria The curatorial project is conceived by Geeta Kapur who is currently a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the School of Arts and Aesthetics The curatorial team consists of ten students Rahul Dev, Sarah Graham, Latika Gupta, Brinda Kumar, Ramesh Kumar, Anuranjan Pegu, Vasundhara Prakash, Suryanandini Sinha, Akshaya Tankha, Srishti Tikku _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From khadeeja at sarai.net Wed Mar 30 15:30:14 2005 From: khadeeja at sarai.net (khadeeja at sarai.net) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:00:14 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Medianagar02: Bibliography Message-ID: <1d33069f764feec95a553412a164f8c1@sarai.net> Medianagar 02 : Call for Contributions Medianagar is a Hindi publication of the Publics and Practices in the History of the Present (PPHP) project in Sarai-CSDS. It presents research notes and narratives from ongoing PPHP research centred on the city and media. The attempt is to study media in its rapidly changing forms, practices and modes of expression in the context of urban life  markets, factories, courts, archives, etc; and to follow the histories of the cinema, television, internet, newspapers and other media forms and technologies and technological experiences. The research involves traversing zones of legality and illegality, passing through markets, cinemas, corporate offices, music companies, film distribution offices, cable network people, detective agencies, law courts, police stations, government archives and factories. We meet shopkeepers, software copiers porn merchants, architects, singers, accountants, labourers, lawyers, officials, policemen: all of whom constitute the fraught fabric of the Media City, the intertwining networks of curtailment and circulation. Medianagar is a form through which we express our findings, sometimes as raw material and sometimes as finished texts. The idea behind bringing out Medianagar in Hindi is to create a kind of interface with Hindi-speaking people and provide materials to the researchers who are primarily working in Hindi. It is also a good medium for the researchers to continue their interaction in the field. The first edition of Medianagar was published in January 2004. It contained materials on Film and the City, Perspectives on the Media and City, Emerging Trends in Cinema, The Transformation of a Resettlement Colony into a Market, Labor in Media Market, The Contradictions of CAS, A Brief History of the Cable TV Network in India, Copyright Culture in Delhi, A Researcher's Experience in the MCD, Registered Societies, The Archival Image of a City, etc. We received a very good response from researchers and independent individuals, especially from the Hindi-speaking areas. Now we are trying to conceptualise the next issue. Apart from the articles, we are also in the process of puting up a bibliography on the above mentioned themes in this edition of MediaNagar. We invite all those who are working on/around the above-mentioned themes to contribute names/links of books/articles/audio-video sources and other relevent material.The last date for the contribution is 30th April,2005. Thanks Khadeeja From tarana at cal2.vsnl.net.in Wed Mar 30 11:14:31 2005 From: tarana at cal2.vsnl.net.in (Vector) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:14:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: Vasudha Message-ID: <001201c534ef$04c562c0$14b941db@vector> ----- Original Message ----- From: V Ramaswamy To: Vector Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 1:30 PM Subject: Vasudha 21 March 2005 Yesterday afternoon we had an old students' reunion at the Talimi Haq School in Howrah. I had thought about this for a long time, and also spoken to Amina and Binod who run the school. Finally after a recent suggestion, it had been organised on Sunday, 20 March 2005. I had been at the Howrah office-centre virtually everyday, 6 days a week, from 1998 to 2000. In mid-2000, after I joined the CALMANAC website assignment, my visits became infrequent. After this assignment was over, for a month or so I again went there everyday. But then I began getting more and more into my new duty / responsibility, the family business. Through 2001 and 2002, I went about once a week. In 2003 and 2004, this became even less frequent. I went only for specific purposes. But I had remained in close and regular contact, with Prodyut, Amina and Binod, and earlier Ranjit and Anguri. And of course I worried about the funds to keep the school running. I had visited Howrah a few days ago after almost 4 months - when the school reunion was planned. It is difficult to express all the feelings from looking, as an observer, at all that had happened since I started working in Howrah in 1996-97. I had resolved to start coming regularly again now, and make a new start with an enlargement of community action. To my surprise I learnt that since its inception in June 1998, over 400 children had studied here for some length of time. I was particularly keen that a group of boys who had studied in the very first year attend. I had taught them myself - arithmetic, singing - and developed a close rapport with them. Some 30-40 ex-students came for the reunion, and together with a good number of the small children currently studying - there was quite a crowd in our school room. It was hot and sweaty inside the room, but that did not affect anybody's enthusiasm. Some boys who had been studying here until quite recently, were now strapping lads. Some girls from a few years ago were now very pretty adolescents. Among them a girl living across the lane who had joined after I had asked her father to send her to our school. Photographs taken from over the years - a school function on Independence Day, a picnic to the Botanical Gardens, a visit to the Science Museum, visitors from Britain - were put up on a wall. Looking at some of the pictures, I felt a lump in my thoat and my eyes clouded over. Some of the tiny kids in the pictures were big boys and girls now. The programme began with a short welcome address by me. I said like every school and college, Talimi Haq School too should have a reunion of the ex-students. They should feel happy and proud to have belonged to a special school, which set them off on their journey in education and life. Where they learnt something, and can remember a time of happiness, fun and frolic. For the current students, it will give them a feeling that they are studying in a special school, which is looked up to and with which ex-students feel an attachment. This a special school as its name proclaims. Education is a right of all, so this is a school for that. So many children have come here and then gone on to other schools, where they are now studying, or have even graduated from. And thus is the stream of education in this locality advancing. The students learn Urdu, English, Arithmetic, cleanliness, good behaviour, correct values. But at root, the teachers here give love and affection to the children. Boys and girls who were unable to continue wuth their schooling - learnt at least something here. All ex-students should know that this is their place, like their home. And we at the school consider you all as our own. You have a right to this place, it is yours. You can come whenever you want, when you are happy come and share your happiness with us. When you are feeling sad and burdened, come here and find a shoulder to rest on. And you will always be in our thoughts, and we hope you will drop in every now and then. We remember all those who are unable to come today. We remember in particular all the teachers who have taught here over the years and we miss their presence very much. I hope there will be a lot of happiness today, a lot of fun, jokes and anecdotes, remembring of joy and mischief, songs, recollection of old times. There was a juice break. Several of the small children were given their juice and coaxed to go home to make space for the ex-students. Some of the boys and girls came to chat with me and I enquired about their studies. A number of skits and songs were then presented by ex-students, which had the audience in splits. A group of boys sang a song I had composed, "PM Basti ke ham sab sachhey Mussalmaan hain". A video recording of a women and children's rally on International Literacy Day in 1998 was played. Amina and another new teacher asked me to sing. I sang three songs, including another of my compostions, 'Hari aur Ali galey miley jab'. Finally there was an hour-long antakshari session, between boys and girls, with a lmale teacher, Binod, and a lady teacher, Rehana as the referees. The competition was fierce, and the enthusiasm quite explosive. The boys exulted in singing out love songs teasingly, but the girls were not going to be outdone in knowledge of songs and singing. Packets of savouries and sweets had been brought to give to everyone - but because many more than estimated had turned out, everyone had to share. Two boys asked me to share their sweets. The CPI(M) was organising an Anti-Imperialism Human Chain in the evening. The local councillor had been invited at attend a meeting with a group of visiting students from Sweden next week. She had requested that the school teachers and older children jon the human chain. So we all then proceeded to GT Road, and stood in the chain for 10 minutes. Returning to the office, I bid them goodbye and said I really enjoyed myself. The programme was shadowed for me by sadness and uncertainty, as I got the news that the building was going to be pulled down after 10 days and a new construction put up. This had been in the offing but nothing concrete had materialised. But yesterday morning my colleague Prodyut had been called by the landlord for a meeting. I remembered when we moved to this office, in early 1998, exactly 7 years ago. And the school had been started shortly after that. So much had happened here. The bitter irony of the reunion happening right now was difficult to swallow. Where would we go? Would the school have to close down? Where will we keep all the things in the room? Maybe something will work out, everything will turn out alright - but something was over, a chapter had come to an end. I should'nt feel burdened by sadness over the past that's coming to a close, one should look forward practically to the new. At home, later in the evening I spoke to Prodyut over the phone and he assured me that there was no cause for conceren. After all we had a proper deed of occupation and payment of deposit. A new agreement deed for premises in the new construction would have to be prepared. The landlord was also going to find us an alternative temporary accomodation. And until all this was sorted out there was no question of vacating our centre. At night my wife, who had also attended the school reunion, told me that from being at the reunion I should be proud and happy about the school. She referred to something I had told her once, that everyone should have the right to failure. She said a lot of successful people would not have done something like this. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050330/67222d11/attachment.html From patrice at xs4all.nl Thu Mar 31 15:26:53 2005 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (patrice at xs4all.nl) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:56:53 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwdfyi: "What The Hack?" Call for presentations Message-ID: <24750.195.169.149.2.1112263013.squirrel@195.169.149.2> The Big 'H' bash is coming! With the 2600 HOPE fests and the 4-yearly Chaos Computer Club (Germany) Summer Camp, the 4-yearly 'H' events, organised by what may be called the Dutch Hackers community (at large) are surely the major international gathering of politically/socially/culturally motivated geeks worldwide... Come One, Come All! --------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: "What The Hack?" Call for presentations From: acde at xs4all.nl Date: Thu, March 31, 2005 11:48 am -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please forward as appropiate, thank you. "What The Hack?" (WTH) is a large hacker's festival been organized (http://www.whatthehack.org). WTH is part of a interesting series of events held every four years in The Netherlands. The events are known as a great opportunity to meet others working on the same things. It started with "The Galactic Hacker Party", also known as the "International Conference on the Alternative use of Technology, Amsterdam". Since then the festival moved outdoors, and the next three editions were held on a large field. The last edition was visited by nearly 3000 people. Hackers enjoy exploring the details and capabilities of tech-systems or engage with technology on the basis of a do-it- yourself philosophy. Contrary to popular misconception hackers do not, by definition, break into systems. The festival will be taking place between July 28th and 31th July, 2005 in a camp near Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Common themes are freedom of speech, government transparency, computer insecurity, privacy, open software, open standards & software patents and community networking. Call for presentations and workshops Another focus has to do with independent media and networking in crisis areas and so called developing countries, which goals and objectives are: ** Bringing together and building links between technical people of different backgrounds and countries. Involve young professionals from Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa in this broad international event. Creating opportunities for hackers to think about how they can help in the distribution of technology, support independent media and so on. ** Show projects on the forefront of creative network development and use of new media. ** Share practical knowledge, skills and experiences in wireless technology, open spectrum, open technologies and free software. ** Make use of the power of a large group of technical people. One idea is setting up a meshing experiment. Meshing is a way to self-organize wireless networks. Up till now, nobody really knows how well it scales to lots of users. A massive mesh experiment using thousands of laptops on the camp can give some answers. If necessary, it's a challenge to try to improve the Wifi protocol so that it will scale. ** Discuss global topics like Open Access/Content issues, freedom of speech or Internet Governance. Anne Sedee program committee "What The Hack" reply to: acde at xs4all.nl From eye at ranadasgupta.com Thu Mar 31 15:38:32 2005 From: eye at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:38:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Poor migrants face gross exploitation when they send money home Message-ID: <424BCC20.5030707@ranadasgupta.com> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1449026,00.html The global remittance rip-off Poor migrants face gross exploitation when they send money home, as a new report and website show. Nick Cater reports Thursday March 31, 2005 Rip-offs by banks and money transfer firms are costing consumers up to 40% of the cash they send abroad, while transactions can take up to 10 days, according to a survey published today by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Sending Money Home - Remittances to Developing Countries from the UK is a significant new piece of work on an often-overlooked source of development funding for poor countries, the multibillion dollar flow from migrant workers and diaspora communities. Article continues The DFID has set up a new website, sendmoneyhome.org, with details of the main remittance firms and information about fees, exchange rates, security and risks to help people transferring cash to relatives or friends in developing countries to find the best deals. Despite scarce data on a phenomenon far more scrutinised in the Americas than Europe, the report estimates the annual remittances flow from the UK in 2001 to have been around £2.3bn, 0.24% of Britain's gross domestic product, equivalent to 78% of the UK's overseas aid budget. The World Bank conservatively estimates the 2003 global remittances figure at $93bn (£49bn) a year, around twice the level of worldwide official development assistance, and second only to foreign direct investment in terms of financial flows to the developing world. Some US sources suggest that many informal and unmonitored transfer systems - including those also used by terrorists and criminals - mean the real figure could be $120bn. For millions of poor families, remittances constitute up to half their income, which they spend on better housing, diet and on consumer goods as well as investing in businesses, education and health care. Such funds are also a big source of foreign exchange for many developing countries. The DFID study compared around 18 firms, such as money transfer services and banks, sending typically small remittance amounts, of £100 or £500, to Bangladesh, China, Ghana, India, Kenya and Nigeria, which are, along with the Caribbean countries, the main destinations for remittances from the UK. The cost of sending £100 varied from £2.50 to £40, 2.5%-40% of the sum, while fees for transferring £500 ranged from £4 to £40, 0.8%-8%, thus penalising people only able to afford to send small amounts. Transfer times using different systems varied from 10 minutes to 10 days. America is the largest source of remittances. Researchers involved in US efforts to cut transfer costs suggest charges average 12.5%, suggesting at least $12bn a year is extracted from mainly low-wage migrants sending already taxed income to their families overseas. The World Bank's Global Development Finance Report 2004 says transfer system fees need not be so high, since bank-to-bank "Swift" transactions cost around eight pence. The DFID report urges companies to cut charges for small amounts, to expand outlets and to improve services. Yet the DFID falls short of recommending other options, such as capping company transfer fees, setting reduction targets, proposing a timetable for companies to create cheaper joint systems and distribution networks or even tax breaks for remittances that support DFID's aid aims. From abhi1200 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 31 12:30:39 2005 From: abhi1200 at yahoo.co.uk (Abhishek Sharma) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 08:00:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Mughal-E-Azam- Restoration (posting 3) Message-ID: <20050331070039.87318.qmail@web25008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Dear All, Sorry for the delay in sending my third posting. I had to wait to get some technical details. This one is about restoration of the classic (MEA), which was carried out at Iris interactive, Chennai. I have again tried to sound less techy. But you are most welcome to get back with any questions or comments. The Report is as follows: “Films are an exaggerated form of reality” Indian Film Industry’s thirst to give quality in movies has been the motto right from the day the first movie was launched. Within eight months of taking Paris by storm, the touring agents of Lumiere brothers' Cinematographer landed on the shores of India. On July 7, 1896, The Times of India carried an advertisement heralding the arrival of "the marvel of the century" and "wonder of the world". That was an important day in the social and cultural history of the Indian people. We are racing against time to save the heritage of these films we all love. Mughal_E_Azam is one such movie which is a milestone in the Indian Cinema. This legendry movie has been taken up for restoration and colorization by Sterling Investment in Collaboration with the Indian Academy of Arts and Animation & Iris Interactive. IRIS Interactive IRIS interactive is a state of art facility located in Chennai, India. Its 10,000 Sqft animation and 3,600 Sqft motion capture and blue shoot studio is home to fully customizable, tether less creative environment. It is designed to fulfill all the animation, VFX and performance capture requirements of any productions, whether it be film, television, video games, sports analysis etc. In films it has not only expertise in special effects and visual effects but also in the fields of film restoration. RESTORATION The need for film restoration arises for the following reasons A lot does depends upon how old the film is, and how it has been stored. It is also difficult to tell if some types of film have even been used ! If there are images on the film, they may have deteriorated, especially on color film: Colour dyes weaken over time causing faded images Heat and radiation can fog films causing colour shift The emulsion can become brittle and crack, causing marks on the film Contrast tends to be reduced With very old films, the gelatin and silver compounds can degrade, causing cloud like marks over the film. If dampness has got affected the film, the emulsion may have become stuck to the film or paper, which may cause damage. Chemical vapors and static also affect films which have been stored incorrectly. However, Iris uses highly specialist chemicals which can help counteract and reverse the deterioration The digital restoration process begins with a Specialist who digitizes the images from the damaged film. They use a wet gate scanner Oxberry Cinescan 6400. This scanner transfers each film frame into digital format. Each project is then inspected and evaluated by team head, who is incharge of the project determine the appropriate course of action. The next phase includes the detection of cuts and scratches parallel to the direction of film transport, which are the first defects to be removed. In each shot or scene a reference frame is chosen for the brightness correction. Based on the evaluation of frames the following rectifications is done Scene Touch-Up Scratch Removal Tear Repair Grain Reduction/Enhancement Dirt/Dust Removal Color Balancing Dye Fade Correction Frame Re-Registration Stabilization Mis-Cut Negative Salvage Effective image restoration process requires the usage of the right tools and necessary customized plug-in which would be used along with industry leading digital content software. The process goes through a lot of skillful manual labor in the areas identified above wherever it is absolutely necessary. During the course of this project the technology and the process has undergone three generation changes which has solved problems which once seemed beyond our grasp. The restoration process can be very tedious and time consuming. In some cases a shot or the frames can be restored in just a matter of minutes and in some cases it may take as long as several days. There are several factors that can determine the length of time it takes to restore a frame or a shot. These factors include, the size of the frame, whether the frame is black and white or color, the amount and type of damage and how much of the original frame is still intact. Simply put, the quality of the restoration depends on the condition of the original. To begin the restoration process, a digital copy of the original is made. Once the frames are scanned the other aspects of the frames such as color balance, hues and saturation are balanced and the above mentioned rectifications are carried out. After the restoration is over the frames are converted from the normal English tone to the Sepia Tone which helps in the colorization process. _____________________________________________________________________ The full details and picture images of Restoration are also available with me and they will form a part of the final report. Hope you are enjoying this journey with me. Till my next report, Good Bye! Regards, ABHISHEK SHARMA Mumbai Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/297b423e/attachment.html From cfda_iss at rediffmail.com Thu Mar 31 14:02:50 2005 From: cfda_iss at rediffmail.com (CFDA ISS) Date: 31 Mar 2005 08:32:50 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [mumbai_announcements] IDPAD Workshop: Saturday, 2nd April, Rachana Sansad Message-ID: <20050331083250.1910.qmail@webmail6.rediffmail.com>   Workshop on “Inclusive Mega Cities in India? – The Learnings From Mumbai You are cordially invited to participate in the following workshop and contribute to the discussions. Date: Saturday April 2nd 2005 Venue: Venue: Artists Gallery, First Floor, Rachana Sansad, 278 Shanker Ghanekar Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, 400025. A one day workshop will be held on April 2, 2005 as a part of an ongoing research project titled “Inclusive Mega Cities in Asia in a Globalising World”, between Centre for Development Alternatives (CFDA), Ahmedabad and Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague. This is a four city study (Mumbai, Bangalore and Ahmedabad in India and Dhaka in Bangladesh) in South Asia. The study is focusing on employment, land and housing markets and basic services access of the urban poor. The key research question is: how can the globalizing mega-cities be pro-poor and improve quality of life of all their citizens? Schedule Session 1 (10.00 – 10.45) 1. Welcome & Introduction to Workshop Darshini Mahadevia 10.00 – 10.15 2. Key Note Address Prof. Amitabh Kundu 10.15 – 10.45 Tea Break 10.45 – 11.00 Session 2 (11.00 – 13.00) 1. Mega City Development Trends Changes in Employment and Policy Thrust in Mega Cities in India Darshini Mahadevia (11.00 – 11.20) 2. Transformation of Mega Cities in Asia Dr. Tapati Mukhopadhyay (11.20 – 11.40) 3. Land and Politics in Bangalore Dr. Solomon Benjamin (11.40 – 12.00) 4. Transformations in Delhi & Mumbai Harini Narayanan (12.00 – 12.20) 5. Equity Issues in Chinese Cities Darshini Mahadevia (12.20 – 12.40) Discussion (12.40 – 13.00) Lunch 13.00 – 14.00 Session 3 (14.00 – 18.00) Studies on Mumbai 1. Mumbai as World Class City Bombay First (14.00 – 14.20) 2. Inclusive Planning Process Shirsh Patel (14.20 – 14.40) 3. Property Rights and Planning Mr. Phatak (14.40 – 15.00) 4. Urban Exclusion through Functioning of Civil Society Organisations Debolina Kundu (15.00 – 15.20) Discussion 15.20 – 15.40 Tea Break 15.40 – 16.00 5. Evaluation of SRS Dr. Anita Bhide (16.00 – 16.20) 6. Location of SRS Schemes Shubhankar Mitra (16.20 – 16.30) 7. Mill Lands Development Neera Adarkar (16.30 – 16.50) 8. Revisiting Mill Lands Development Darryl D’Monte (16.50 – 17.10) 9. Summary of Asiatic Society Workshop Pankaj Joshi (17.10 – 17.30) Discussion 15.30 – 15.55 Conclusions 15.55 – 18.00 Organised by Dr. Darshini Mahadevia for IDPAD Project (for Centre of Development Alternatives, Ahmedabad and Institute of Social Studies, The Hague) Rahul Srivastav for PUKAR Arvind Adarkar for Mumbai Study Group Naresh Fernandes for Time-Out -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/70ca7171/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in Thu Mar 31 17:11:24 2005 From: indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in (infochange india) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 12:41:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] World Bank shifts gear on water privatisation Message-ID: <20050331114124.27539.qmail@web8407.mail.in.yahoo.com> http://www.infochangeindia.org/analysis67.jsp World Bank shifts gear on water privatisation By Darryl D’Monte There appears to have been an imperceptible shift in the World Bank’s stand, away from privatisation being the only answer to the world’s water crisis, towards a more pragmatic approach of public-private investments. On World Water Day, March 22, Indian non-government organisations and civil society groups will review trends towards private investments in the country Not very perceptibly, the World Bank appears to be shifting its stand on advocating privatisation as the solution for providing water in cities. At a recent meeting for Water Week, in Washington, Kathy Sierra, vice-president and head of Network Infrastructure at the Bank, opened the three-day event by asserting that there was change towards pragmatism on this front. Privatisation was not “the only answer” -- there was the full spectrum of public-private mix of investments instead. She stated that investment in equity in water utilities was no longer favoured; management contracts were. “What would it take for the private sector to come back (to this sector),” she asked, clearly indicating that it had of late retreated on this front. Only a few days earlier, a senior World Bank official, Shekhar Shah, reported in New Delhi how the Bank had “learned the hard way” that it was not correct to leave it to the private sector. At the Washington meet, Brendan Martin from the non-government organisation Public World in the UK asked whether the Bank had changed from the dogmatism of the past -- that privatisation was the panacea for providing adequate drinking water -- to a newfound pragmatism. Speaking at a session on ‘Civil society organisations: a dialogue in search of a language’, he noted that “the 1990s dogma, especially regarding the role of the private sector, had been consigned to history”; there was now a new mindset. While he welcomed the fact that the Bank -- possibly under the dispensation of President James Wolfensohn, whose term is about to expire, was ready to “repudiate past mistakes,” he asked whether the Bank and the IMF, which had advocated such policies, were prepared to assume responsibility for the consequences of their actions. He called for reparation for historical injustices: there were not only gaps in resources within countries and between countries but also failures of governance. Several countries had cut their budgets in the social sector as a result of Washington’s conditionalities. He wondered how the UN’s Millennium Goals -- which seek to halve the 1.2 billion in the world without water and 2.4 billion without sanitation, by 2015 -- would be met without rich countries contributing more as overseas development assistance. The distance that the World Bank has taken on the role of the private sector in water supply can be gauged from Wolfensohn’s remarks at the second World Water Forum and Ministerial Conference at the Hague in 2000. “We also need financial innovation if we are to meet the enormous demands for water,” he said. “The World Commission on Water (WCW) estimates that investments will have to double over the next 25 years, from some $ 70 billion today. That cannot be done unless the private sector plays a much larger role in the provision and financing of water services. “Yet most water utilities in developing countries are still financed and run by governments. A few of them are well managed. But in most cases, they lose half their water through leakage, and generally provide terrible service In recent years a number of countries have made a decisive change. In many cities -- from Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, to Buenos Aires, Argentina -- the authorities have transferred the water utilities to private companies. The most obvious advantage is that the private sector brings money -- about $ 30 billion during the 1990s. It also brings know-how. But, more important, the private sector brings transparency and accountability because, for the first time, there is a contract between supplier and consumer.” On this very last count -- transparency -- private contracts awarded to water companies hide more than they reveal. While it is true that public utilities are seldom sensitive to the needs of consumers, particularly those who are not served by water and sewerage connections, experience shows how privatisation has proceeded without public scrutiny. A document titled ‘Water in Public Hands’ by David Hall, commissioned by Public Services International in the UK in 2001, cites how the World Bank has acknowledged that, “there is very little competition in water. Not only are water systems natural monopolies but the private part of the industry is dominated worldwide by just two multinationals -- Vivendi [which has media interests as well] and Suez-Lyonnaise [now with a subsidiary called Ondeo]. A third French multinational, SAUR, holds a dominant position in Africa. “A few contracts have been obtained by some UK companies, Thames Water (now owned by the German conglomerate RWE), Anglian Water and International Water (jointly owned by two construction multinationals, Bechtel of the USA and Edison of Italy). Attempts by the USA company Azurix -- owned by Enron -- to break into the market have been a failure. Some of the privatisations have happened without any competitive tendering at all, even between the private sector companies. For instance, all the private concessions in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland upto 1997 were awarded without any competitive tendering process ” These contracts resulted in higher prices -- the most notorious case being the town of Cochabamba, the second largest in Bolivia. Aguas del Tunari, a consortium jointly owned by Bechtel and United Utilities, took control of the city’s waterworks without any competitive bidding. The company announced increases in tariffs of upto 150% and officials threatened to cut off connections of defaulters. Protests erupted the following year and army troops were called in. Ultimately, five people died in these water riots and the government cancelled the concession. Aguas del Tunari has filed a claim for a reported $ 25 million in losses. The case, according to a book titled The Water Barons , published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in the US, is before the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, which is part of the World Bank Group. Discussions on the deal began in 1995, Christopher Neal, the Bank’s external affairs officer, told the ICIJ. “The Bolivian government agreed, as a matter of policy, with the Bank’s view that [privatisation] was needed there.” According to the Bank’s lead water engineer for Latin America, however, the Bank opposed the Cochabamba deal with Aguas del Tunari because it believed that it was not financially viable. Neal told the ICIJ that “the Bank is not ideological” about privatisation, but the ICIJ believes that “privatisation is the hallmark of many of its loan projects. Lending about $ 20 billion to water supply projects over the last 12 years, the World Bank has not only been a principal financier of privatisation, it has also increasingly made its loans conditional on local governments privatising their waterworks.” The ICIJ’s study of 276 World Bank water supply loans from 1990 to 2002 showed that 30% required privatisation -- the majority in the last five years. The irony is that in the US itself public utilities deliver some of the best quality water at affordable prices. Attempts to privatise supplies, even by French companies, in such cities as Atlanta and New Orleans have failed. But the Bank has used its formidable financial muscle power to coax governments around the world -- in cities like Buenos Aires, Manila and Jakarta -- to tender long-term concessions to the major private companies. At least in the first two cities, the companies have had to withdraw after volatile foreign exchange fluctuations rendered their contracts unviable -- shades of the Enron debacle in India. It is revealing that the full thrust towards privatisation emanates not from the Bank, which is still subject to considerable public scrutiny, but from French private interests, backed wholeheartedly by the French government. At the third World Water Forum in Kyoto in 2003 -- the fourth will be held in Mexico City next March -- the report of the World Panel on Financing Water Infrastructure was released by Michel Camdessus, a Frenchman who previously headed the IMF. Titled ‘Financing Water for All’, it made a strong case for governments to provide guarantees against foreign exchange fluctuations and political uncertainty -- once again, echoes of Enron -- to ensure the smooth functioning of private investment in the water sector in developing countries. It is not accidental that France has the biggest multinational water companies. The Camdessus report waxed eloquent about increasing investments in providing water, an overwhelming emphasis on money as the main obstacle in this sector. “Yet, while over the next 50 years more than half of mankind is threatened by ‘water stress’, the dream of pure water for all continues to unite humanity How could it be otherwise?” the report asked. “This is basically a question of giving our brothers and sisters what they need to drink. The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, in its first article, sets each person the overriding duty of ‘acting towards others in a spirit of fraternity’. According to Camdessus: “Financial flows, our main concern, need to at least double. They will have to come from financial markets, from water authorities themselves through tariffs, from multilateral institutions, from governments, and from public development aid, preferably in the form of grants.” He went on to argue that, “the sovereign risk on projects, including foreign exchange risk, is a key disincentive that must be addressed if water projects in emerging markets are to attract international loans and equity.” He went on to say: “The prospect of private sector participation in its various forms can be a powerful spur to the reform of public water agencies, whether it actually happens or not Water projects can be financed by combining public funds with private financing in transparent and acceptable ways”. The Camdessus report was roundly criticised by many civil society groups at Kyoto and after. A statement issued at Kyoto by several people, including Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People in Delhi, Minar Pimple of Yuva in Mumbai and Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh in Pune, differed with the entire vision of the World Commission on Water (WCW), which guided the overall deliberations in the historic Japanese city. It accused the report of being the culmination of an effort “controlled from the start by a small group of aid-agency and water multinational officials, mainly from the Global Water Partnership, World Water Council, World Bank and Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux. “The key conclusions of the report,” it alleged, “that there is a global water shortage crisis which can only be solved with a massive increase in private funding for water projects in developing countries, backed by guarantees from the World Bank and other aid agencies, was predetermined...[The assumption is that] all public enterprises are necessarily incompetent, and all private water suppliers eager to serve the public good The WCW analysis glosses over the fact that the problem is less one of global shortages, either of water or investments, than one of mismanagement and skewed political priorities. The crisis is one of over-consumption, waste, pollution, watershed degradation, rampant dam building, poorly conceived and operated infrastructure projects, corruption and inequality The extra water required to ensure a minimum basic domestic supply to all the world’s people in 2025 is only 1% of current water withdrawals.” The Bank itself appears to have rethought its position. At the meeting in Delhi, Shekhar Shah pointed out that the issue was not to apply technocratic solutions: “It’s not a matter of fixing leaking pipes,” he said, “but the institutions that fix them. It’s not what to do, but how.” Even if the Bank no longer favours outright privatisation, private interests are eyeing the colossal market that drinking water -- and sanitation -- provides in a growing country like India. Previous attempts by French companies to enter Bangalore, for example, were unsuccessful. According to French diplomats in India, the earlier BJP-led central government in New Delhi had been discussing whether it was possible to provide sovereign guarantees to such investments, on the lines of Camdessus’ recommendations, and they are awaiting the current regime’s response to such overtures. Meanwhile, non-government organisations led by Vandana Shiva and others are staging their deliberations on World Water Day, on March 22, in Delhi, where they will review trends in the country towards private investment. They say: “In Delhi, the government had announced an increase in tariff hike effective from December 1, 2004, and the World Bank is driving it towards privatisation. The first step towards privatisation of water in Delhi was the setting up of the Sonia Vihar Plant by Suez Ondeo Degremont. The same trend is prevalent in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, etc. The World Bank has announced around 20 water-related projects.” One project to keep an eye on will be the Water and Sanitation Urban Programme in Bangalore, which is rated as a Millennium Development Goal International Alliance initiative. It concerns the overhaul of the sewerage system, among other things, and involves Thames Water. This is a company that has attracted considerable adverse comment for its outright purchase of London’s water sector assets. It remains to be seen whether this will provide a backdoor entry into the Garden City’s water supply system. InfoChange News & Features, March 2005 Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/53e3498e/attachment.html From indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in Thu Mar 31 17:30:52 2005 From: indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in (infochange india) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:00:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Another interpreter of Indian maladies Message-ID: <20050331120052.59993.qmail@web8405.mail.in.yahoo.com> http://www.infochangeindia.org/bookandreportsst84.jsp Another interpreter of Indian maladies By Arshia Sattar Maximum City: Bombay, Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta. Alfred A Knopf, New York: 2004, pp 542, hardback, $27.95 Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found picks up, historically, where V S Naipaul left off -- with the post-Babri Masjid riots and bomb blasts of 1993. Mehta follows the same trajectory of trying to understand the lumpenisation of a great and throbbing metropolis I was reading Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found on an interminable flight into Bombay , and suspended in that impenetrable cocoon of space-and-timelessness, the book filled the vacuum with smells and colours and pictures. As the plane circled over Bombay at noon , the city was covered in a brown haze that seemed to thwart the bright sunlight of the early summer. And when I left the neutral zone of the airport, I tried to look at the city of my youth anew: to look through and past the surface to the shadow world of gangsters and bar dancers that Mehta shines a candle on as he lives for a while, like Jonah, in the belly of the beast. Mehta begins his examination of Bombay ’s inner life after the communal riots and bomb blasts of 1992-1993, events that were the culmination of years of shifting, turbulent undercurrents, and which conclusively changed the city’s course and the way it thought about itself. Suketu Mehta spent his childhood in Bombay and then moved with his parents to the outer boroughs of New York City when he was 14. For this book, he relocates his young family to the city of his boyhood as he explores its underbelly in an earnest quest for how the city lives, works and plays after the polarisation that followed the betrayals, death and destruction of 1993. Mehta shows us a Bombay that we all know exists, but one that we, as the middle class, rarely have the misfortune to experience: a city controlled by goons and thugs, a city where for many young men the only jobs are provided by political gangs and the underworld, a city where the glittering bar dancers of the night are melancholic and suicidal young women by day, where perceived might is the only right, on the street as well as in middle class housing societies. Carefully researched and equally carefully thought through, Mehta confirms every bit of gossip and scandal that animated the Chinese-whispers circles of the city in the 1990s – from Michael Jackson using Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s toilet to actress Mandakini’s relationship with the underworld’s Dawood Ibrahim. Mehta takes us with him when he meets small-time gang shooters in sleazy hotels on the outskirts of the city and when he meets Bal Thackeray in his den as the ‘leader’ talks about his motivations and desires for the city. We eavesdrop on phone conversations with Chota Shakeel and learn the ethics of another kind of gangster. We follow Mehta to his meetings with the police inspector Ajay Lal, chief investigator for the bomb blasts case, and listen to the tales of torture and punishment. We also visit the Sapphire Bar at night and get involved in Mehta’s relationship with the dancers Monalisa and Honey. And we enter the interior landscapes, emotional and physical, inhabited by the rich and famous like actor Sunjay Dutt and filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra. In these encounters, Mehta is not merely our physical guide, but also our moral conscience as with him, we examine our own ambivalence towards ‘good cops’ who use torture and brutality to get information, towards the ‘honour’ that exists between men who murder people for small sums of money, towards a system of pimps and whores and johns that respects personal boundaries as its inhabitants dream of true love. Mehta carries his book close – he is on every page, not as a neutral observer, but as a thinking, feeling, caring and involved writer. Even as he lives the borrowed lives of people as unlike him as apples are from oranges, he also shares his ‘real’ life with the reader. His wife and two small children provide an oasis of comfort, familiarity and security, a counterpoint to the confusions and torments unleashed by the ‘others’ of the city. Mehta understands the new world around him through his family, using them and his emotions as a father and a husband as the touchstone of truth and morality. And from this vantage point, he is able to give a credible and sympathetic account of all those he meets even as he maintains his own ‘purity’. It is no surprise then, that the book ends with an admiring description of wealthy Jain diamond merchants (Mehta’s own community) who renounce all their worldly power and pelf, as well as the bonds of family to wander as monks and nuns, in the world, but not of it, as they seek moksha. Much has been written (almost all of it positive), in the Western press about this teeming, tumbling, tortuous and (sometimes) tortured account of Bombay , a city that must surely burst with its own contradictions or ooze into the seas that surround it. Mehta has long been an interpreter of Indian maladies for the West. Like V S Naipaul, he, too, carries the precious tag of the insider-outsider, able to understand what the outsider can’t and see what the insider won’t. In many ways, Maximum City updates Naipaul’s India: A Million Mutinies that was published in 1990. Mehta picks up, historically, where Naipaul left off, with the post-Babri Masjid riots and the bomb blasts of 1993. He follows the same trajectory of trying to understand the lumpenisation of a great and throbbing metropolis, of the small man’s desire for recognition and power, of who is excluded in the newly emergent tribalisms that dominate the inner life of the city, of who really owns the city and what they intend to do with this magnificent and troublesome possession. Mehta asks himself the right questions and then persuades his subjects to consider providing the answers. In dealing with this city of dreams, both small and poignant as well as large and outrageous, Mehta touches the obvious ends of the spectrum: the shadow world of the gangster and the dancer and the klieg lights of Bollywood, each a reflection of the other, symbiotically bound in the twilight zone where dreams and reality come together. And yet, there remains something fundamentally male and adolescent about Mehta’s account of the city and where he locates its narratives. We can see a boy’s fascination for men who carry guns, for glittering, fragile women who live at night, for heroes of the silver screen who get to keep the gun and the woman. While this naiveté contributes, initially, to the book’s charm, it begins to wear thin with endless iterations and countless biographies of smaller and larger lives. Mehta’s enterprise and his book also suffer from shades of a new Orientalism – this is the way we think about the chaotic metropolises of the non-West, be they Bombay, Sao Paulo, Hong Kong, or even Moscow – as cities run by gangsters and criminals, where the rule of law is not even a Platonic idea to strive for, where real power has moved into the bylanes of criminality and the nether world of amorality. And where the honest, hardworking middle classes are under siege from both dysfunctional governments and an increasingly aggressive underclass. Nonetheless, Mehta’s book is timely, for as we live through the first decade of the new millennium, we need to look back at how and why our finest city has changed over the last century. To balance Mehta’s somewhat skewed (though entirely sincere) perspective, Maximum City should be read alongside two other recent books about Bombay – Meena Menon and Neera Adarkar’s vibrant and significant compilation of oral histories about Girangaon, the mill district, One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices(Seagull, 2004) and the surprisingly exhilarating ‘novel’ Shantaramby Gregory David Roberts (Abacus, 2003), an escaped Australian convict who became part of Bombay’s underworld in the 1980s. Together, they present a fuller picture of Bombay ’s expanding margins and the perilous future that lies ahead as the human and urban cost of that exclusion becomes evident. InfoChange News and Features, March 2005 Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/0645cae5/attachment.html From indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in Thu Mar 31 17:33:46 2005 From: indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in (infochange india) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:03:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Film Review: The Rock Star and The Mullahs Message-ID: <20050331120346.56991.qmail@web8406.mail.in.yahoo.com> http://www.infochangeindia.org/documentary32.jsp The Rock Star and The Mullahs English, and with sub-titles, 48 mins. Directed by Angus Macqueen and Ruhi Hamid Produced by Storyville Films for BBC Screened as part of the Tri-Continental Film Festival at various locations in India As the religious right all over the world impinges upon cultural freedom, a BBC documentary follows rock star Salman Ahmed of the Pakistani band Junoon into northwest Pakistan, where the mullahs have banned and silenced all music as un-Islamic This extremely focussed and direct film asks us to look at the growing power of the religious right to control cultural events and cultural production. The film is set in Pakistan and follows the rock star, Salman Ahmed, member of the immensely popular and talented rock band Junoon, as he tries to understand why the mullahs in Peshawar have banned music for being un-Islamic. A simple quest and an equally simple question, but the simple, unequivocal answers provided by the mullahs have complex antecedents and rather dire consequences. Since an alliance of Islamic fundamentalist parties came to power in the northwest of Pakistan , music has been silenced under the imposition of Koranic law in the province. Music shops have been emptied and their owners promised other employment. Traditional singers, too, have faced the wrath of the mullahs in Peshawar , despite the fact that often, their songs are devotional in content. Ahmed presents himself as a westernised young person but with roots deep in the spiritual soil of Islam. His band sings in Urdu and Punjabi and their lyrics often draw from Sufi and other mystical traditions of the sub-continent. Hugely popular in the cities, Junoon has performed all over the world, blending a dynamic, western, rock consciousness with the melodies and musical impulses of the east. The western influence seems not to be the problem as the Peshawari government has banned not only Junoon, but all music. Ahmed travels north to ask the mullahs why music itself is offensive to orthodox Islam, citing the many instances of music and dance within South Asian Sufi traditions and the fact that even the Islamic call to prayer, the azaan, is melodic. South Asian Islam has always lived with shrines to saints and colourful festivals where music and dance are intrinsic to the devotional experience. Over and over again, Ahmed reminds the preachers that there are 52 Islamic nations in the world and none of them have banned music. The mullahs are firm: orthodox Islam cannot allow music into its creed. One goes as far as to say that the other countries are not truly Islamic and that, eventually, heaven belongs only to the true Muslim. Ahmed, armed with his guitar, also visits Pakistani madrassas , religious schools where young boys (often from impoverished families), are sent to learn the Koran. These are, allegedly, the breeding grounds of terrorism as here, the rhetoric of jihad and martyrdom runs high. Many young men in Peshawar know Junoon’s music, and many in the madrassas take to the charismatic Ahmed, but they are dogmatic in their refusal to accept music, even spiritual music, as part of their religious world. They are delighted when Ahmed prays with them as a brother and a believer, but they urge him to give up his profession and turn to something else. They suggest that all musicians should seek alternative ways to make a living since their deeds are an offence to Allah. Ahmed challenges them to show him where in the Koran this is declared but they will not. This, too, is an article of faith. The film is careful to show us that all of Pakistan is not like this – Ahmed attends a charity event in Karachi where cosmopolitan men and women mingle freely at a posh hotel. There are also shots of a Junoon concert in Lahore , in which young women (albeit seated separately), respond to the music with as much passion as their male counterparts. Clearly, the north-western frontier of Pakistan is subject to more fundamentalist influences, the consequences of increased anti-American feeling as well as the proximity of the Taliban and the monetary power of conservative Wahabi Islam imported from Saudi Arabia . In 2003, President Parvez Musharraf spoke at a rally in Peshawar urging the mullahs to accept that, among others, men without beards and those that listened to music were also good Muslims. To ensure his survival, the President clearly has to walk a tight rope between alienating the fundamentalists in the country and maintaining the semblance of a progressive state, and it is truly ironic that liberals like Ahmed have to look to a military dictator to safeguard their rights to free speech and expression. That irony apart, the freedom of the religious right all over the world to impinge upon the cultural freedoms of others has to be challenged. Sabiha Sumar’s recent feature film, Khamosh Pani (so far banned in Pakistan ) looks at the rise of religious fundamentalism under the reign of General Zia ul Haq, and The Rock Star and the Mullahs fills out that picture. Even though both these films are specific to historical moments in Pakistan and in South Asian Islam, we would be foolish not to extrapolate from them and examine the same impulses, instincts and prejudices in India as well. Incidents of cultural vandalism are on the rise and as we fight state censorship, we must not lose sight of the other enemies of free speech -- religious groups and private organisations that lay claim to cultural purity and propriety. InfoChange News and Features, April 2005 Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/da1dd07c/attachment.html From indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in Thu Mar 31 17:56:21 2005 From: indiainfochange at yahoo.co.in (infochange india) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:26:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Property and rights: Owning ideas, fish and forests Message-ID: <20050331122621.46548.qmail@web8404.mail.in.yahoo.com> http://www.infochangeindia.org/IPR_article13.jsp Property and rights: Owning ideas, fish and forests By Manoj Nadkarni All debates about property – whether it’s water, medicines or a piece of music – revolve around two fundamental questions: who should have the rights to own and benefit from the property; and what should those rights consist of? What links the privatisation of water, traditional medicines, cheaper generic drugs and the slum clearance drive in Mumbai? They are all about property. All debates about property — whether it is intangible and intellectual, or solid and physical — revolve around two fundamental questions: for any resource or goods, who should be allowed to own and benefit from it, that is, in whom should property rights be vested for those resources? Second, what should those rights consist of? The idea of ownership and sovereignty, meaning ‘I (we) can do what I (we) like with it because it is mine (ours)’, is a very emotive issue. A good example is the ongoing debate on the privatisation of water; the angry discussion sends out the intuitive message that not only can someone else own and control something basic to my survival, but they can also sacrilegiously make a profit out of it. Governments and municipalities seem to be willing to hand over this right to profit-making companies, even foreign private companies. Unfortunately the emotiveness of the discussion actually turns an extremely complex subject that has lots of grey areas into an either/or situation. Understanding this complexity and delineating those grey areas gives us tools with which to defend positions and serves to make discussions more informative and in the long run more useful. For example, in the discussion on urban water privatisation it is often not made clear if it is the water that is being privatised or the water purification and delivery system, which are just pumps and pipes, not water. A delivery system is usually private, whether a panchayat, a business company or a municipal corporation owns it. Property is about resources, anything that has a value: water, food, drugs, poetry, or goodwill. This is an extremely old area of study and some of the oldest written records available from around the world are about property and property regimes. However, rather than retracing historical discussions, a good starting point for understanding property and resource management, especially as related to environment and development, is ecologist Garrett Hardin’s 1968 article on Managing a Commons. In his article, a commons was a village grazing area which no one owned but everyone was allowed to use. Hardin’s seminal article pointed out that if no one owned it, no one had any incentive to look after it, while still having an incentive to make use of it for free food for their livestock. The more cattle you grazed the more money you made when you sold those cattle. As everyone realised this, more and more cattle would be grazed on the commons and soon overuse would degrade it to the point where it would be useful to no one. As each person individually tries to maximise their use of a particular resource, they collectively destroy it. Free riding becomes established. It seemed that the only way out was for someone to own the commons and make rules as to how many cattle it could sustain and who could and who couldn’t use it. The commons was a metaphor for the whole world and the resources it provided. Trawlers destroyed fisheries and wiped out species because no one owned the seas; factories destroyed lakes and rivers because no one cared that pollution was being dumped until it was too late. The only solution was to give someone ownership, and hence rights to benefit from that resource, hence incentive to protect that resource so that they could be used over longer periods. This view, that ownership creates sustainable resource management, applies to every resource: water, drugs, biodiversity or music. (Copyrights and patents are property rights as applied to ideas.) Though this is superficially plausible, researchers noticed that in areas where traditional resource management was practiced, the commons were actually thriving. They had survived for centuries in many countries, in spite of population growth, changing cultures, and many types of resources, be it Swiss alpine pastures, African coastal fisheries, Indonesian forests or irrigation water everywhere. As economists studied these sustainable management practices, patterns began to emerge and slowly an understanding of property rights and management tactics began to be understood. These combined with earlier micro and macro economic and political economy theories to give a good picture of what property rights actually are. The emerging Internet — decentralised, seemingly anarchic, free of all control — also forced economists to think along new lines, as did the global south’s demand for control over its own biological resources, be it medicinal plants or refusing GMOs. One fundamentally important point that economists noticed is that common property regimes are not the same as open access, meaning a free-for-all, which is what Hardin’s commons actually were. The commons and the resources which survived over centuries were actually forms of ‘private’ property which had rules and regulations; tested, modified and established over centuries. In a way the private property arguments were correct; most resources are best managed when they are owned by someone. Yet, this conclusion was not so straightforward: research showed that this someone did not have to be a single person, and in fact many resources were better managed under multiple ownership. There are some important points to note about property, property rights and resource management. A mistake is to conflate the varied uses the word ‘private’ and ‘public’ refer to. These terms make completely different claims when they refer to resources, ownership rights and representation, yet are often used interchangeably. Whether a resource is private or public depends on just two factors, whether the goods diminish when someone makes use of them, and secondly, how easy or hard it is to deny someone those goods. This is generally termed their subtractability and their excludability. These physical, natural or mental attributes do not say anything about how it can or is managed and stem from the physical or ‘real’ property of the good itself, not rights. No ownership or management system is inherent in the resource and any resource can be managed in any manner. Exclusion easy Exclusion difficult Subtractable Private goods (manufactured goods, cattle, trees in an orchard) Common pool resources, (air, the seas, some environmental sinks) Nonsubtractable ‘Club’ goods (cinemas, cable TV, religious groups) Public goods (public health, radio and TV broadcasts, national defence) These resource types are managed by systems of property rights defining ownership, these rights are social or cultural inventions, not inherent in the resource. Private rights/ownership implies that certain people can be kept away from that resource, while public rights/ownership implies otherwise. Empirically it is seen that e asily excludable resources seem to be managed best with private property rights; while those with low excludability and low subtractability are public goods, which usually the State provides. Those with low excludability and high subtractability are common pool resources. Common pool resources are often confused with common property regimes. The first is a resource that people cannot be kept from using, while the second is a management system based on multiple ownership and applicable to any resource. But it does so happen that traditionally many common pool resources were managed by common property regimes of different types, but this is not a logical necessity. It should also be noted that claims about representation, such as ‘private’ or ‘public’, are not claims about property: A private company tries to make profits for its owners and hence represents its owners; but the owners can be an individual, shareholders or institutions. In the case of nationalised companies, the owners are the citizens of the country. A private company can produce private personal cars for the rich of a country but the management of that company can be government bureaucrats and the shares of the company owned by nationalised financial institutions representing the will of the people of that country. A water distribution part of a municipal corporation can be a private company whose profits, derived from water charges, end up as tax rebates for the population of that municipality. A final point is that the flow of goods is distinct from the stock. For example, the fish caught is not the same as the fish stock in the lake. The firewood taken from a forest is not the same as the timber of trees; nor the water in an aquifer the water pumped out. This is not as trivial as it sounds, the stock makes the flow possible and often the best way to mange something is to have different ownership rules for stock and flow units. A way to look at this is like the corpus funding of many NGOs; they can use the interest as they please, but are not allowed to do anything with the principal. Rights are generally designed to make sure that the flow of goods continues without the stock diminishing. In the case of intellectual property, rights try to encourage innovation and creation, while enabling access. So the creator has rights which allow him to be recognised as the creator, to profit from that creation and to give ownership to another person if they want. Other people buy rights to use and enjoy that creation, but not make money from it or stop the creator from earning money from his creation. Generally rights are lumped together in a bundle in a rights regime. These bundles of rights themselves are ‘buyable’ in the sense that they are amenable to exchanges and transactions. Some such rights are access, withdrawal, transferableness, management, and exclusion. Along with rights is a system of rules and regulations, altogether called ‘institutions’. These decide how these rights are to be honoured, how they are to be seen and how they are to be enforced. A person could buy or be given a right to access a field, from the field they could withdraw some product such as fodder or leaves and could have the further right to stop others from going into the field. But they could not choose which grasses are grown in that field, nor could they sell ( transfer) their right to collect fodder to someone else. Another person, perhaps the owner of the field, could decide how best to manage the field and to leave ( transfer) the field to his children upon his death. Someone else may just have the right of access, meaning they were allowed to walk across the field while getting to the well, but no usufruct rights and they would not be allowed to cut or pluck anything along the way. The traditional rights in a single large village pond may include limited or species-based fishing rights, limited or unlimited drinking water abstraction, irrigation water abstraction, shore use for clothes washing, bathing, seasonal access rights, recreational rights, shore construction rights, livestock bathing and watering rights, reed cutting rights. In traditional systems rights were enforced by punishment, by fines, social or religious excommunication, or the legal system of the State. These would often be coupled with caste or other religious rights, making an extremely complex system. Many property rights are historical, local, traditional, informal and not codified. Clashes take place when institutions, designed for different scales and timeframes, attempt to manage resources which are best managed locally. A classic example of this is forestry laws in India : Rural villagers had traditional rights to access non-timber forest products in local forests. These rights were used to meet their daily needs and were honoured by local kings who actually owned the land, and in some cases honoured even by the British. But when the Indian government took over forests they saw forests merely as a source of financially valuable timber, and as owners of the land they restricted access to all forests, denying people their traditional rights and livelihoods, since they were not actual rights in the eyes of the law. Only with recognitions of autonomy for the panchayats, and recent programmes such as joint forestry management (JFM) or community-based resource management, are these rights being recognised as being vital for the survival of local people and resources. Scales, timeframes and codification are also where a lot of the problems of intellectual property stem from: a rights system for recorded music which worked when no one could make records at home was not suitable for the age of cheap cassette players and even less for the Internet age. The only thing that we can be sure of is that property rights will be of concern to human beings long after these specific issues are resolved, just as they were when ancient Egyptians tried to divide up flood plains on the Nile. Some links which serve as a good starting point for further information: Decentralised resource management and panchayats: http://www.panchayats.org/ A starting point for the Community-Based Natural Resource Management network: http://www.cbnrm.net/resources/index.html A microeconomics digital library has some basic information on property and property rights http://www.econport.org:8080/econport/request?page=man_pg_table An excellent website on common property and common pool resources. Especially interesting is the section marked “activists & thinkers” http://onthecommons.org/ A site which features research on collective action and property rights http://www.capri.cgiar.org/capri.htm Most university economics departments have website devoted to property and property regimes, for example: http://www.indiana.edu/~iascp/library.html A short simple economics of IPR can be found at the online textbook. http://www.cerna.ensmp.fr/PrimerForFree.htm For international news on trade and treaties relating to IPR and some good links to online texts: http://www.iprsonline.org/index.htm InfoChange News & Features, March 2005 Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partneronline. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/3d082e9e/attachment.html From mmdesai2 at yahoo.co.in Thu Mar 31 15:29:10 2005 From: mmdesai2 at yahoo.co.in (mmdesai) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:29:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: <00cc01c535d8$d51294e0$0a18fea9@com1> SARAI POSTING III Women and their Spatial Narratives in the City of Ahmedabad By Madhavi Desai In all cultures, there exists a demarcation between men's territory (public) and women's territory (private). Though this has been the predominant theoretical position, the boundaries are rather porous; they shift and dissolve at times. The meaning of 'inside' and 'outside' keeps changing in response to the situation, circumstances and context. Besides, the definition of public and private varies from culture to culture. However, for most men, the boundaries are very distinct in their minds: for them the outside is associated with work and earning while the inside is for family and relaxation. On the other hand, women are judged by the upkeep of their homes even if they participate and excel in the outer realm. The spatial dichotomy of these two realms is defined through the social superiority of men and inferiority of women and is maintained through the territorial dominance of the men. The dichotomy between public and private spaces and restrictions on women differ in each community, being mostly dependent on the self-image, income level of the family and the ethnicity of the community. The historic core of the medieval cities such as Ahmedabad is still inhabited. This research explores the following hypothesis (I): The traditional inner cities were originally based on the social division of the well-defined, cohesive communities/castes, a fact that may still be partially valid. I believe that women feel more comfortable in this urban landscape due to its human scale, the pedestrian distances, familiarity of the surroundings and social support network that comes through collective living. In Islamic cultures, on the other hand, the dominant emphasis is on domestic privacy and seclusion as well as on clear segregation of women. In my study of the traditional Bohra settlements of Gujarat, I found that this was indirectly reflected in the lack of open spaces and squares in neighbourhoods. The streets were mostly used by women (and men) for circulation and not as an extension of the houses and domestic activities, which was a major contrast to Hindu traditional settlements of the region. Hypothesis (II): By contrast, the modern Indian cities (or new parts of the old cities) are based on Western notions of planning, supposedly bringing in a new era of order, diminished boundaries and freedom of movement. The urban scene is full of huge malls, wide roads and tall buildings. Vehicular and public scales dominate its spatial experience, giving us the impression that women are able to move about and interact at will and also participate in the public sphere but the reality is quite different as there are psychological and physical restrictions that limit this freedom. Because of the overwhelming domination of the modernist principles (that are being followed by many architects/planners even today) with emphasise on universality, geometry and negation of the role of culture, it may have had reverse impact. Besides, there are many other conditions that hamper women's full participation in the urban space. In my study so far, I seem to find support for both the hypotheses. In addition, much more is being discovered in the socio-spatial realm such as the fact that a majority of the women do not have the time or the space to nurture their personal friendships from the days before marriage. Most of the housewives do not own a two-wheeler and that restricts their mobility, not that they are aware of it. Women in India take a lot in life for granted. Predominantly their socializing is restricted to their relatives or an occasional outing with the husband. They look forward to the legitimate social events like a marriage for going out and enjoying themselves. The workingwomen, on the other hand, longed for 'rest' on a Sunday and not necessarily an outing. Another revealing observation is that most women perceive the new multiplexes and huge stores such as "Pantaloons" as important cultural and commercial landmarks for the city and may spend a cheerful Sunday evening there. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/7f94f10c/attachment.html From shaheen at mail.ie Thu Mar 31 16:33:17 2005 From: shaheen at mail.ie (shaheen ansari) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 03:03:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Reader-list] [arkitectindia] Fwd:Socio-economic Impact of HIV/AIDS in India: A study of six states Message-ID: <20050331110317.841AE37D00@sitemail.everyone.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20050331/b5e5972d/attachment.html