From monica at sarai.net Tue Aug 1 10:31:35 2006 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 10:31:35 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] There has been a change of plan: Raqs Media Collective In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3CCE3EBE-CD5E-4123-A467-DD87CA8A2467@sarai.net> dear Jose, Thanks for your response. But I must point out a misreading. I spoke about contexts of showing work - there was nothing implied about there not being audiences! Its true that these things are connected but - through many of the things that we do at Sarai, i have definitely discovered that there is a large number of people interested in a very wide range of things in Delhi. I would therefore be the last person to imply the opposite. Regarding our practice: We are based in Delhi and work with many limbs. The 'local' densities that we inhabit are fairly intricate and we participate in them many ways. These ways may not be just through art work. Here the processes and modalities are multiple and only a long duree approach will give us any meaningful sense of it. I would not pit this site's intricate and multiple impulses with an abstraction called 'global'. Somehow, we all get into an groove with the idea that 'global' is only elsewhere! The reciprocity question that you end your posting with is a bit confusing. There is a traffic that we are all part of. It is a complex nuanced traffic. To have a simple equation of giving back, in terms of 'showing' or 'not showing' works may not be productive in this. At best it will create a defensive form of argument, and at worst will produce resentment about other places (which manages to keep the local/global con-terminus like say New York). I would humbly add, that i am not inclined to be very conclusive on and 'works that travel' and 'works that embed'. I would like to keep the question open and explore it further, given that there is no singular thing called an 'international audience' (each city, each location has also its own audience besides the few that travel from art show to art show) and a separate thing called a 'local audience'. Both of these are constructs and do not do justice to the fractures that we all encounter in our travels and in our localities. best M On 31-Jul-06, at 6:08 PM, Jose-Carlos Mariategui wrote: > Dear Monica: > > Thanks for your detailed answer. > > Obviously the global side is not the one to be questioned, not only > because > to question some type of global process may be absolutely > complicated since > no clear specific rules apply. In this sense, a good word you use is > 'neutral' grounds, since globalization cleans up local reality to > much more > unpredictable spaces, with universalized information loosing its > contextualization and its former canonization and therefore a > source of > reality. > > Though globalization is a complex process, it may not be compared > to a local > process. Even in local terms, the processes may be more > challenging and > complicated since when you 'talk' to a global audience there is in > deed a > group of people that know your work and are willing to see what is > the most > recent work developed (there is an international audience). Though > these > avid group may seen interesting it is also 'neutral' and somewhat > irrelevant > to the specific local contexts. > > My reality, at least working for many years in Latin America is > that few > local people are interested in those global questionings (except > obviously > from a minuscule local group of cosmopolitan intellectuals and > artist that > are culturally versed). This is why the exploration of what > happens in the > city along with the local engagement is more difficult, silent, > problematic > (even erroneous) and usually unheard and unimportant for an > international > audience. > > I can put once more the case of Peru to clarify this much more: the > VAE > Festival ( www.festivalvae.com), which one of few constant annual > new media > art festivals in Latin America, does a lot of things outside the > capital > city, Lima. Those interactions are silent and inexistent to > everyone in > Lima (and obviously to the global audience). Nevertheless, these > small > things ('acts'), done with more difficulty, being more expensive > (since > there are no technical conditions), more problematic (not a steady > audience > if an audience at all) had been happening with some intensity for > the last 3 > or 4 years. Today we can say that some of those places are > 'waiting' for > the Festival to happen in their locality every year. So after some > years of > 'struggle' and allocating resources, there is a contribution to a > local > experience that through workshops and presentations may trigger new > local > practices and an expansion of their knowledge. > > This is today even much more important if we consider that young > people are > already 'digital natives' which means they use technology as a 'mother > tongue' though quite unfortunately the content available (specially > through > TV) is very poor. In that sense, when you mean that it is > difficult for > someone with a non-visual arts > background to enter the art context, I think > that more than arts background we need people with 'media' > background, which > I believe a vast majority of young people are. One of our aims in > involving > artists from Peru and abroad in this local exchanges is questioning > what the > outcome is going to be. As I told you perhaps it will require many > years to > see something out there, but sooner or latter something may happen. > I had > found that with younger audiences the involvement in new media art > is almost > immediate, they are media ready (and I am not speaking here > necessarily of > the Internet, but other 'offline' media such as the TV or radio). > > So these local situations (transformations, change) are absolutely > necessary > and in my perspective, without trying to criticize too much, are > usually > unimportant to the international audience. So here I have new > questions: > If you mean there is not a local audience for your work (which I > think is a > very harsh statement), are you just thinking in a global > audience? If from > a local perspective these processes seem important, to what degree > you think > the experience could be mounted or duplicated to other realities? > In my > perspective it may be difficult but possible, thherefore to > activate a group > of peripheral projects and participants can led to interesting > results. > > While you are refereeing to Raqs projects with international > curators, if > the purpose of working globally obviously resituates the people, > what will > be then the difference to work in Dehli or in New York, for > example? I > believe that Dehli and the Sarai centre are places of confrontation > that had > triggered many of your works and that is what is valuable. This is > why I > believe as much as the local gives to us, we must give back...don't > you > think? > > All the best, > > Jose-Carlos > > > > > > on 7/31/06 7:26 AM, Monica Narula at monica at sarai.net wrote: > >> dear Jose-Carlos > > Thanks for your mail. It opens up many questions. Some >> responses, far > from 'explanatory' and perhaps starting strands of >> thought... > > - The art context in India is primarily around what is termed as >> the > "visual arts". 95% of the works shown and transacted are paintings. >> > Followed at a distance by sculptures/objects and then the rare > photographic >> show. Photography has yet to find a stable space, though > there is some >> important work being done in this domain. It is only in > the last few years >> that there has been somewhat of a shift towards > the showing of video works >> and some installation work. These works > are emerging both from established >> and newer artists, and basically > have a wider circulation outside India. > > - >> It is extremely difficult for someone with a non-visual arts > background to >> enter the art context here. The reasons for this are > yet to be researched >> and understood. The recent entry of some > documentary practitioners in to >> this context is due more to their > international presence rather than any >> serious rethinking of the > values and consensus that run the art contexts >> here. (The documentary > film on the other hand has had for many years a >> decent and at times > controversial public presence, and a committed public >> around it.) > > - This situation will hopefully change over the next few years, >> with > more diverse kinds of practitioners making interesting works and >> > staking a claim in the art space - which we think has begun. This > process >> will be interesting as it will mean changes in the ways 'art > practice' sees >> itself in relation to other practices and also to ways > in which new publics >> can and will emerge around the domain of the > 'art context'. > > - We have shown >> our CD works (GVHM, No_des and Ectropy) in Delhi and > Bangalore and these >> works have a circulation (also as cds). Also many > of our works travel - >> lightly - through publications and the web. In > terms of installation, we >> could not find a context to show (we have > shown a few works within means >> affordable to us in Sarai). This is > slowly going to loosen up over the next >> decade, as art contexts will > probably become more curious to practices from >> other domains. > > - It is an interesting process how many of our installation >> works > emerge, and expectedly a complex one. Works have emerged through >> > conversations and the sharing of ideas and questions with some > extremely >> curious and sharp people in many parts of the world. (I > would not club them >> all together in any one idea of an institutional > context.). In this let me >> share a recent interaction. A young curator > located between Lithuania and >> Sweden has been in dialogue with us for > more than two years. We share ideas, >> critiques, questions, resources > etc. Over this period he has invited us to >> think on an idea that has > been exciting and troubling him for some time. >> This process of > thinking may find an expression in an installation to be >> first hosted > in a place that he has access to, which will definitely by >> outside > India. As a process, we find this exciting and challenging, along >> > with our work here in Sarai/Delhi. And i do think that such an > interaction >> - whether from a 'local' context or a 'global' one - > deserves respect and >> engagement. > > - Some of our work has emerged from collaboration and in >> 'neutral' > grounds. This made possible very intriguing dialogues and >> processes. > Sometimes I do wish that we could ourself host a few of these >> > unpredictable encounters. > > - We are yet fully to understand the complex >> processes that we are > all part of in today's world and will give ourselves a >> few more years > before we find ourselves able to speak definitively on >> 'publics' and > 'places'. We have found very demanding and challenging >> interlocutors > and viewers in many different ways and places. This has made >> our own > map of the world more dense and knotty, and not merely defined by >> > national borders. > > best > M > > On 30-Jul-06, at 7:32 AM, Jose-Carlos Mariategui >> wrote: > >> Dear Monica: >> >> Thanks for the information on the Raqs >> solo-exhibition in Dehli. I >> just >> must say that it is in my perspective >> strange to see that this is >> the first >> solo exhibit of Raqs in Dehli, >> taking into consideration that Raqs >> is Indian >> and that it has been >> exhibiting internationally for many years. >> Perhaps as >> in the case of >> many of us (that we face as non-westerns), it is more >> feasible to develop >> projects in Europe or the US. >> >> To which factors you attribute this >> situation? Has Raqs exhibited >> in other >> cities of India or in cities of >> neighbouring countries? How >> difficult is >> it? >> >> I am not criticising >> the situation but questioning it, because when >> we do >> 'something for >> abroad' it may dissociate the project with immediate >> reality. >> >> I >> believe there is a need (and an struggle) to present works in >> local and >> >> regional contexts and there may be strategies for its deployment. >> I had >> >> recently curated a screening of recent video art from Latin America >> >> (www.videografiasinvisibles.org) that went first to Europe too but >> now >> is >> going to be presented in all Latin America (thanks to the support >> of >> the >> Spanish Cooperation Agency's network of Cultural Centres of Spain >> in >> all >> Latin America). Sometimes these supranational organizations may be >> >> very >> useful (more than national organizations). >> >> Perhaps this would be an >> interesting topic of discussion during the >> Pacific >> Rim New Media Summit >> at ISEA 2006. Specially on how we can develop >> parallel >> networks in the >> Pacific Rim. >> >> All the best, >> >> Jose-Carlos >> >> >> >> >> on 7/29/06 2:33 PM, >> Monica Narula at monica at sarai.net wrote: >> >>> Raqs Media Collective : 'There >> Has Been a Change of Plan' >>> (Selected Works 2002-2006) >>> Nature Morte >> Gallery, A 1 Neeti Bagh, New Delhi >>> August 5 - 26, 2006 >>> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >> --- >>> ---------------------------------------- >>> Sometimes, adjustments have >> to be made. Schedules need calibration. >>> There are contingencies, questions, >> obstinate demands, weak excuses, >>> strong desires. You return to the city you >> never left. You pause, >>> take stock. Sit still and let a conversation begin. >> Maybe? >>> >>> Around you, aeroplanes sit on wooden platforms in a wilderness >> like >>> widows on a funeral pyre. Clocks measure fatigue, anxiety and >> modest >>> epiphanies across latitudes. A door to nowhere stands obstinately >>> >> against the sky. All your cities are a blur. >>> >>> "Do you like looking at >> maps?" >>> >>> Meanwhile, measures are taken, shoes lost and found, ghost >> stories >>> gather, the city whispers conspiracies to itself, the situation >> is >>> tense but under control. Someone offers you a postcard. >>> >>> Now: Let's >> see what happens. >>> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >> --- >>> ---------------------------------------- >>> Raqs Media Collective is >> pleased to announce its first solo >>> exhibition in Delhi - 'There Has Been A >> Change of Plan' at Nature >>> Morte Gallery. The exhibition features selected >> works (2002 - 2006) >>> in the form of cross media installations with networked >> computers, >>> objects, postcards, video, sound, prints and projections. >>> >>> >> Works exhibited include: 'Lost New Shoes', selections from 'A Measure >>> of >> Anacoustic Reason', 'Location (n)', '28.28 N / 77.15 E :: 2001/02 >>> >> (Co-Ordinates of Everyday Life, Delhi 2001-2002)', 'Erosion by >>> Whispers', >> 'Preface to a Ghost Story' and 'There Has Been a Change of >>> Plan'. (See >> Details in PDF attatchment with this mail) >>> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >> --- >>> ---------------------------------------- >>> About Raqs Media >> Collective >>> www.raqsmediacollective.net >>> >>> (Excerpt from the Wikipedia >> Entry on Raqs Media Collective - >>> >> www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raqs_Media_Collective) >>> >>> Raqs Media Collective was >> formed in 1992 by independent media >>> practitioners Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica >> Narula and Shuddhabrata >>> Sengupta. Based in Delhi, their work engages with >> urban spaces and >>> global circuits, persistently welding a sharp, edgily >> contemporary >>> sense of what it means to lay claim to the world from the >> streets of >>> Delhi. At the same time, Raqs articulates an intimately lived >>> >> relationship with myths and histories of diverse provenances. Raqs >>> sees its >> work as opening out a series of investigations with image, >>> sound, software, >> objects, performance, print, text and lately, >>> curation, that straddle >> different (and changing) affective and >>> aesthetic registers, expressing an >> imaginative unpacking of questions >>> of identity and location, a deep >> ambivalence towards modernity and a >>> quiet but consistent critique of the >> operations of power and >>> property. >>> >>> In 2001 Raqs co-founded Sarai >> (www.sarai.net) at the Centre for the >>> Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) >> in Delhi where they coordinate >>> media productions, pursue and administer >> independent research and >>> practice projects and also work as members of the >> editorial >>> collective of the Sarai Reader series. For Raqs, Sarai is a >> space >>> where they have the freedom to pursue interdisciplinary and hybrid >>> >> contexts for creative work and to develop a sustained engagement with >>> urban >> space and with different forms of media. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Monica Narula >>> Raqs >> Media Collective >>> Sarai-CSDS >>> 29 Rajpur Road >>> Delhi 110054 >>> >> 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: >> > > Monica Narula > Raqs Media >> Collective > Sarai-CSDS > 29 Rajpur Road > Delhi >> 110054 > 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: > > Monica Narula Raqs Media Collective Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From bhatt_rudra at yahoo.com Tue Aug 1 14:22:19 2006 From: bhatt_rudra at yahoo.com (Rudradep Bhattacharjee) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 01:52:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] The Lowest Common Denominator (July Posting) Message-ID: <20060801085220.25525.qmail@web34207.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Greetings... Apologies for the delay. In the middle of 2003, the then recently-formed Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in India to block a discussion group on Yahoo! The group in question was called Kynhun and it was a discussion forum for the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), one of North-east India's many banned separatist groups. Unfortunately, the ISPs ended up blocking all discussion groups on Yahoo!, thus managing to incur the wrath of the cyber community and bring the banned outfit some much-needed visibility. But why did the ISPs exceed their brief? Why did they end up blocking all groups on Yahoo!? Earlier this year, (in May to be precise) I posed this question to Mr. Deepak Maheshawri, the Secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI), an umbrella organizatiion of ISPs in India. It was a technical problem, he explained. At that point in time, ISPs in India did not have the technology to do this kind of 'targetted blocking', thus ending up causing a 'blanket ban'. However, he assured me, they were now equipped to do such a thing. But, as it appears, he was wrong. Or was he? In my last posting, I had tried to re-evaluate the project and had listed out the 'debates' the film was going to focus on, trying to make things more structured, yet simpler. Well, it's better news this time around. I have finally worked out a way to sructure the sprawling narrative. The film will be divided into five separate sections: The Network The State The Corporation The Public The State, The Corporation, The Public and The Network (which, incidentally, is the title) The story of the Internet, as I see it, is a story of increasing 'barriers', all technological in nature but mostly prompted by traditional political, commercial and cultural factors. At every level, the individual, the corporate, the national, in that order, there are entry barriers. Hence, this structure, which, if you wish to be persuaded, can be pictured as a series of concentric circles, an onion if you like. The final section, which is outside this series of concentric circles) will examine the idea of Internet governance. This project, which had initially started out as a 30-minute thingy, is now an ambitious feature-length documentary. Yes, this is going to be a 'traditional' documentary in many ways, replete with archival footage and interviews! But that is a small price to pay for narrative clarity, something which this project needs. I have maintained from the very beginning that this a film targetted at a general audience, people like myself and probably like quite a few of you reading this, people who are not geeks, nor hackers, probably not even bloggers; they might use e-mail sometimes but probably not even that. The challenge is to make the film informative, yet entertaining, and more so to make it relevant to people who would not normally think so. Looking forward to meeting the other Fellows in August in Delhi. Cheers. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From abhinanditamathur at gmail.com Tue Aug 1 11:20:27 2006 From: abhinanditamathur at gmail.com (abhinandita mathur) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 11:20:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Needed Research Assistants for a project on LGB mental health Message-ID: <19aa1b810607312250r2255167dxcc5ee489f56dbea8@mail.gmail.com> from Ketki Ranade Dear All, Hello and greetings from Pune. I am a practising mental health professional working at Bapu Trust, Pune (www.camhindia.org) I am looking for people to work with me on a fellowship (Health and Population Innovation Fellowship Programme, Population Council, former MacArthur Fellowship) awarded to me for one and a half year to work on health, mental health issues of LGBs. Anyone interested, please contact me. Also, I would be grateful, if you are able to circulate this mail among friends working on similar issue. Basic info about the project as well as profile of the research assistants is pasted below. Thanks Ketki Project title – Understanding Health/Mental Health Needs Of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Individuals Project duration – 18 months Project based at – Bapu Trust for research on mind and discourse, Pune Data Collection site – Pune and Mumbai Research Assistants – Required 2 full-time RAs Compensation – Rs. 8,000/- p.m. Funded under – Population Council, Health and Population Innovation Fellowship Programme Profile of RAs Post graduate degree in any of the social sciences Proficient in written and spoken English and Marathi/Hindi Proficiency in basic computer applications Skills of reading, processing academic materials, abstract writing etc. Basic orientation to quantitative and qualitative research methods Research experience in mental health/sexuality issues, preferably both Contact Details: Ketki Ranade Project Leader (Programmes) Bapu Trust, Pune Tel: (020) 26837644/47 E-mail: rketki at yahoo.co.in/wamhc at vsnl.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From knsunandan at gmail.com Tue Aug 1 16:01:09 2006 From: knsunandan at gmail.com (Sunandan K.N.) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 16:01:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Objective Novels!!!! Message-ID: <2a1c900c0608010331m1fb04d24tf642c7e64321246@mail.gmail.com> Mr Vinod Jose reviews which came in Biblio and was frowarded to reader's list: "When a novelist claims that his work "is based on a true incident"—a claim that gives legitimacy to the book—one expects him to portray the period and its reality with some objectivity." Philosophers of sceince now are doubtful about the objectivity of even scientific narratives. And now Vinod wants a novelist to be objective. He continues: "From a novel telling Naxalite stories, one would at least expect the author to provide the readers with some accurate portrayal of how a guerilla squad carries out an operation. This is also lacking in this novel. The author seems to have done very little research on this matter and leaves much of it to his imagination." Is imagination a crime of a novelist. If so, is there any difference between a news paper report and a novel? Here it seems the reviewer has done very little reserch regarding this. He also writes: "Naxalites fell short of achieving their goal, but if it had not been for them, issues such as the agrarian crisis in Wayanad (manifested in the alarming rate of farmers' suicides), alienation of land from the adivasis (the 2003 police firing on adivasis inside Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary), large scale deforestation (the felling of trees in Wayanad by the Birlas since 1960s for their newsprint factory and the subsequent environment movement) etc. would have remained in oblivion." Here vinod give all credit to naxalite whatever happens in Wynad. According to him the farmers protest under christian church, the environmental movements and the Adivasi gothra sabha lead by Janu etc all are part of Naxalite movement. Where as the remaining naxalite groups consider all these movements as imperialist agents.. Here vinod could do a little more research and be more 'objective'. I haven't read the novel and I am not going to read it. I almost know it is trash.. sunandan knsunandan at gmail.com From rana at ranadasgupta.com Tue Aug 1 16:59:12 2006 From: rana at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 16:59:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] World eBook Fair Message-ID: <44CF3B08.5040205@ranadasgupta.com> http://worldebookfair.com/ "The World eBook Fair welcomes you to absolutely free access to a variety of eBook unparalleled by any other source. 1/3 million eBooks await you for personal use, all free of charge for the month from July 4 - August 4, 2006, and then 1/2 million eBooks in 2007, 3/4 million in 2008, and ONE million in 2009." R -- Rana Dasgupta www.ranadasgupta.com From aziz.mansour at gmail.com Tue Aug 1 19:28:00 2006 From: aziz.mansour at gmail.com (Mansour Aziz) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 16:58:00 +0300 Subject: [Reader-list] From Beirut ... Message-ID: <8C093E06-A360-4AB0-AF30-272D3C2A4755@gmail.com> Hi, Just finished setting up this site: www.beirutletters.org I will add other formats as well soon (including, if I can manage the bandwidth, a broadcast version). Best, Mansour From anjalijyoti at yahoo.com Wed Aug 2 13:25:31 2006 From: anjalijyoti at yahoo.com (anjali jyoti) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 00:55:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] mapping delhi Message-ID: <20060802075531.55656.qmail@web38913.mail.mud.yahoo.com> PLease check out some maps drwan by the kids http://foggyfroggie.blogspot.com cheers aj __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From monica at sarai.net Wed Aug 2 19:11:27 2006 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 19:11:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] For the Record... Message-ID: For the Record Raqs Media Collective A Place Like This, A Time Like Now Sometimes it feels like things are beginning to get really interesting. We imagine that Calcutta in the 1940s and ‘60s (or in the 1880s) and Bombay in the 1920s and ‘50s or Delhi in the 1850s and (briefly) in the 1970s, might have been really rewarding times and places to live in. We have a sense that Delhi, today, in the first decade of our young century, is again showings signs of quickening to the possibilities of a new life. This new life does not come upon us without its share of pain, because it exists simultaneously with the cruel transformation of the city that evicts hundreds of thousands of people, and destroys their carefully built frameworks of existence. It is not without its share of paranoia, as the shadow of the deep state, through a variety of surveillance networks, leaches into every street corner. It is not without its vulgarity as new money explodes and talks tough and dirty. Perhaps it is at times precisely such as this one – when large structural conflicts play themselves out on the urban landscape – that the forging of critical and reflective cultural practices seems all the more urgent and compelling. Perhaps that is why we sense them so keenly when they begin to intimate themselves to us. And so, even as our city re-invents itself through escalating conflicts over extant and looming habitation and property, new migrants re-define the face and voice of the street, women take an increasingly visible place on the precincts and old urbane certainties crumble; a new sensibility takes hold. Delhi has outgrown the destiny of being a small town with a violent past and burdened with Imperial grandeur. It is now just a city, just another very big city. A city that has set out on a journey to find the world. Circuits and Cities Interesting connections are being formed, between Delhi and Bangalore, between Delhi and Lahore, Delhi and Kathmandu, Delhi and Berlin, New York, Beirut, Bandung. There is also a relationship with mofussil towns, and regional centres in north India which is not only extractive. Traffic between Delhi and Benaras, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Ballia, Patna, Jabalpur and Jaipur has a different cultural significance now. People bring new thoughts and voices from these places, and return to them with the connections that they make in a place like Delhi. Within our city, entire worlds, like those of the resettlement colonies of Dakshinpuri or of the threatened riverside settlements like Nangla Machi or of inner city squatter zones, are finding a voice. The sense of Delhi being a place that contains entire worlds is more vivid today than it has ever been. Writers, artists, practitioners, performers and audiences travel between spaces more than before, and the magnet of Mumbai, which necessarily took away the best of Delhi, seems to have weakened, replaced, in parts, by a genuine conversation. We can no longer think of our milieu only in terms of the physical boundary of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, of the Republic of India, or even of the South Asian region, but crucially, in terms of how different sub cultures and scenes in Delhi function as nodes in an expanding network that intersects at key points with other networks which may have originated in other cities. Here, the distance (or proximity) between Delhi and Bangalore or Mumbai, or for that matter Beirut or Bandung, becomes a function not of geography but of the affinities and interests that transcend frontiers of one kind or another. What’s going on? Where? In the domain of the imagination, images, sounds and thought, there is a quiet ferment that marks our city. Its signs are muted, nascent, fragile. There is nothing overt or spectacular about these symptoms and we must not rush headlong to any conclusions or prognoses. Everything is uncertain. But the symptoms of a specific sensibility are insistent on revealing themselves. They demand from us a renewal of the terms of engagement which have hitherto ruled the domain of cultural praxis and artistic work. New publics beckon us to join them at play. So many things wait to be done. This is as good a time as any to initiate a conversation that indexes some of these developments around us, points to things further away that might be of interest, and pauses to take stock of what might lie head. First, to take a look at what is around us: Spaces like Khoj in Delhi which provide an excellent context of hospitality for new and emerging work, cross-border initiatives in modest and unconventional public spaces by artists and practitioners in India and Pakistan like Aar-Paar, (http://www.members.tripod.com/ aarpaar2/02.htm), and the recent initiatives taken by documentary filmmakers to challenge censorship in exhibition (http:// www.delhifilmarchive.org/) are signs that there exists a strong desire to re-write the terms within which cultural practice occurs in our milieu. Younger practitioners are trying out new forms – lawyers (such as in the Alternative Law Forum http://www.altlawforum.org/lawmedia) are making comic books and html works against intellectual property and censorship, and the comic book or graphic novel is emerging as an interesting complex new form (see the work of Sarnath Bannerji, Vishwajoyti Ghosh and Parismita Singh, among others), as its practitioners explore difficult zones in personal experience and history. Architects and urban theorists, such as Solomon Benjamin, are experimenting with performance based presentation formats. A new generation of photographers is making edgy and personal work, without obligatory colourful turbans and the tyranny of the ‘well made photograph’. There is a new energy in the documentary, and the short and experimental film making scenes, made possible in part by more accessible technologies of production. Zines appear and disappear with an interesting frequency and broadsheets inaugurate the advent of a serial image-text essay form, and a new kind of critical fiction as well as non-fiction writing is making its presence felt in English, Hindi, Bangla, Tamil and Malayalam on Blogs. It appears that things are stirring. Meanwhile, elsewhere... At times like this, it also becomes useful to try and see what may be going on in other places and in other milieux. In our travels over the last six years, we have had the good fortune of observing many initiatives and practices all over the world that we think might serve as interesting provocations, so as to begin a conversation about what might be possible. We are placing this list on record also to register our kinship and solidarity with the people who have actualized these practices. We are mentioning here only those spaces and initiatives that we consider to be modest. We need to focus on situations and processes that can be initiated and sustained with limited resources. What we have noticed in each of these instances is that a tight budget, or a lack of expansive resources, has not by any means implied a handcuffed imagination. Exciting things can also be done in small spaces, with little money, with no captive audiences, and by people who have full time jobs and next to nothing in terms of social security. We have also restricted this list to instances where we have actually encountered the concerned practitioners personally. The list of practices and initiatives that we have found interesting, exciting and challenging which we have read about in addition to these, or seen in a show or on the internet, (although we may not have met the people involved with them) is far longer, and would require separate writing! This list is not exhaustive, and we intend to update and expand it from time to time so as to maintain a public database of the conceptual, intellectual and practice based context that we are nourished by. There is no specific design or hierarchy implicit in the order in which they appear in the list below: Queen's Nail Annexe, San Francisco http://www.queensnailsannex.com/ A very small not-for-profit exhibition space (two rooms) which also doubles as a recording label in the Mission district in San Francisco, sustained by the innovative work of two dynamic persons. They work as community pedagogues, artists, facilitators and curators. The Queen’s Nail Annex offers space to young and old practitioners and curators who are able to offer a rigorous argument in their work. When we visited the Annex (which borrows its name from its neighbour - a Nail Beauty Parlour) we saw the opening of an exhibition devoted to videos and music produced by and in collaboration with the veteran experimental architecture and urbanism practice Archigram. AndCompany, Frankfurt http://www.andco.de/ A group of performers, theatre artists, musicians and theorists, based mainly in Frankfurt. We collaborated with them on a 'reading performance' in connection with 'The Wherehouse', a process and work that reflects on the relationship between cities and people termed as illegal migrants. What attracted us to Andcompany&Co's work was its practical adventurousness, which took in a strong interest in the legacy of Brecht's work, along with theatre, music, acrobatics and theory with a sense of enjoyment in working together as an ensemble. Their commitment to music, fun and philosophy, within the constraints of a modest working style and a commitment to working with all available materials was interesting to engage with. Mongrel, London http://www.mongrelx.org/ A collective of software programmers, artists, technicians, writers located in and around London. Mongrel considers its practice to be a kind of art hacking, and is founded on meticulous, almost obsessive research often initiated by Mongrel Graham Harwood in collaboration with itinerant theorist Matt Fuller. What continues to attract us to Mongrel's diverse productivity is its eclecticism and serious irreverence. They are just as happy doing cut and paste xerox comic books and newsprint broadsheets as they are writing complex bits of code for a piece of software or hacking games and applications. Park Fiction, Hamburg http://www.parkfiction.org/ An ensemble of people and practices located in close proximity to the depressed Saint Pauli district in Hamburg. A very successful instance of how cultural action within a community/neighbourhood context can stall the designs of urban redevelopment that might have resulted in eviction and demolition. Atelier BowWow, Tokyo http://www.bow-wow.jp/http://www.icon- magazine.co.uk/issues/022/bowwow.htm An innovative architecture practice located in Tokyo, initiated by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Mayomi Kaijima, with whom we collaborated on the making of Temporary Autonomous Sarai (TAS) in Minneapolis in 2002. Atelier BowWow's investigations in what they call 'da-me' or 'not good' and 'pet' architecture, with their accent on researching informal and improvised architectural interventions in dense urban spaces is something we have a great deal of sympathy for. BowWow’s take on built form in urban space privileges that which may seem marginal at first, but is actually vital to the life of a neighbourhood or a street. It gestures to a density of contact, a plurality of usage and function, to the animatedness of interstitial spaces, and to a democracy of the sidewalk, the verge and the back alley that we find resonant with the urban forms of our city. It would be interesting to see what could occur if architectural practices in South Asia began taking an active interest in the informal city as an expressive of an architectural language. TOROLAB, Tijuana http://torolab.co.nr/ Another architectural practice, like Atelier BowWow with a strong presence in contemporary art venues. Torolab is based in Tijuana at Mexico's northern frontier with the USA, and much of its work is by way of an imaginative and focused reflection and research on the special conditions of the border zone, the peculiar relationship between the twin cities of Tijuana in Mexico and San Diego in the USA and the forms of improvised and 'emergency' architecture, using discarded automobile bodies, car tyres, crates and cardboard boxes that are a hallmark of subaltern urbanism in Tijuana. Arab Image Foundation, Beirut http://www.fai.org.lb/ An archival initiative undertaken by a group of photographers, critics and theorists spread across the Arabic speaking world, and in the Arab diaspora, to archive and document popular photographic and image making practices, especially with a view towards the destabilization of the 'Arab Image. They have spoken in Delhi, at an invitation from Khoj. The Atlas Group Archive, Beirut/New York http://www.theatlasgroup.org/ A somewhat disembodied entity centred around the personage of Walid Raad that invokes an archival register to explore the contemporary history of Lebanon through mixed media installations, single channel screenings, visuals and literary essays and lectures/performances. What we find interesting in the work of the Atlas Group is the close attention to history, a sense of archival irony and a highly sophisticated visual language. What the Atlas Group Archive does is to use a historical imagination to weld a set of philosophical statements about the politics of seeing. The invocation of an image by the archive becomes an occasion for thinking about truth claims and uncertainty. Images, even the memories of images, become things to think with, not just objects to look at or recall. It may be interesting to see what happens were we to transpose aspects of this register of thinking with images and memories to the fractured history of our city. Common Room & The Bandung Center for New Media Arts, Bandung http:// www.commonroom.info/bcfnma/ A dynamic cluster of self-organized spaces in Bandung, Indonesia, with a special interest in expressing the enormous vitality of urban youth culture in Bandung, with its distinct political and critical edge and commitment to having a very good time, with music, murals, experimental video, street fashion, new media, publishing and comics. The Common Room and the Bandung Center are object lessons in the ability to organize a dynamic public space and presence that is non- commercial, that has little or no funding, and that survives because of a close relationship to a young public that nurtures it with time and with improvised resources. Long March Foundation, Beijing http://www.longmarchspace.com/english/ homepage.htm A highly intense ensemble of artistic, cultural and archival practices, developed over many years and within the matrix of a densely collaborative framework, particularly interested in areas such as migration within China, that emerges from the space of the Cultural Transmission Center in Beijing. We found this practice, which we encountered for the first time at the Taipei Biennale 2005, to occupy a different, more nuanced but far more quietly subversive register of expression compared to the by now formulaic visual sensation of contemporary art from China. kein.org: collaborative media production, Internet/Munich http:// kein.org/ kein.org is a peer to peer network of cultural practices that encompasses software, theory, performance, events and conferences - kein.org has in its history been the site for very precise and focused online and offline interventions ('Kein Mensch ist Illegal' and 'Deportation Class') against the detention and deportation of illegal immigrants in Germany and Europe. Metareciclagem, Rio de Janeiro/Sao Paulo http:// www.metareciclagem.org/wiki/index.php/MetaReciclagemEn Metareciglagem is a loose ensemble of people and practices that embody a critical free and open source practice with software, machines, people and spaces in Brazil. Equally distant from the NGO scene and the imperatives of self-consciously political language, metareciclagem is basically interested in initiating a set of creative processes that reclaim autonomies for human presence and subjectivity in all processes involving technological mediation, especially, but not only in those that use computers (accessible, assembled hardware) and software. Chaos Computer Club, Berlin http://www.ccc.de/?language=en A pioneering group of hackers and who were and continue to be active in the Berlin scene, intervening critically and through cultural and artistic work in areas to do with intellectual property, electronic surveillance and technological creativity. Radioqualia, London, Bacelona, Auckland http://www.radioqualia.net An online art collaboration by New Zealanders Adam Hyde and Honor Harger, it was founded in 1998 in Australia and is currently based in Europe. Using various streaming media softwares, r a d i o q u a l i a experiments with the concept of artistic broadcasting, using the internet and traditional media forms, such as radio and television, as primary tools, and aims to explore broadcasting technology within the context of philosophical speculation. Bureau d'etudes, Paris/Strasbourg http://bureaudetudes.free.fr/ A practice consisting of researchers and cartographers who map flows of power and control in politics, economy, society and culture and render their work through elaborate diagrams, often exhibited within contemporary art venues and events. Visible Collective, New York http://www.disappearedinamerica.org/ about/collective/ A collective of artists, documentarists, legal practitioners, designers, programmers, cartographers and activists - creators of the 'Disappeared in America' project that documents the detention and disappearance of people in the United States of America following September 11, 2001 Temporary Services http://www.temporaryservices.org/ Temporary Services is a group of three persons: Brett Bloom, Salem Collo-Julin and Marc Fischer. Their work draws on their varied backgrounds and interests to produce creative exhibitions, events, projects and publications. Within their work they create socially dynamic situations and spaces for dialogue. They are distinguished by their fondness of self published pamphlets, and public projects that are temporary, ephemeral, or that operate outside of conventional or officially sanctioned categories of public expression. We were especially struck by Temporary Services collaboration with a prisoner serving a sentence of life imprisonment that resulted in a project called 'Prisoners Inventions' consisting of a collection of ingenuous inventions made by a prisoner, a book and the replica of a prison cell. Red 76, mainly Portalnd, Oregon http://www.red76.com/ Red76 is the title used by a group of people working on collaborative projects in Portland, Oregon. The guiding constructs holding Red76 projects together are the facilitation of thought in public space and the examination of how to define what and where that space can be. The wish to charge space, to create an atmosphere where the public may become hyper aware of their surroundings and their day-to-day activities – such as making a lecture series in Laundromat shops – is an important construct for them. Critical Art Ensemble, dispersed locations online http://www.critical- art.net/ A collective of artists, theorists and scientists known for their critical research and creative work located at the intersections of technology, biology, cybernetics, feminism and a trenchant critique of the military-industrial-information technology complex. CAE produces events, performances based on laboratory experiments, books and web-based renditions of research themes and ideas. Middle Corea http://middlecorea.net/ Middle Corea describes itself as a virtual networked territory actually located in the Internet, and ideally located within the ecosystem of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. It realises itself through a variety of artistic and documentation activities undertaken by a group of artists, practitioners, photographers, theorists and curators loosely located in and around Seoul. Mute and Metamute www.metamute.org, London A print journal and website devoted to a wide ranging critical discussion of the politics and culture of new technologies of communication Improbable Voices http://www.improbablevoices.net Improbable Voices is an archive of reflections in the form of interviews from inside a women’s prison, and a proposal for a monument to the prison-industrial system. The Improbable Voices project emerges out of a collaboration between a California based artist, Sharon Daniels, a group of ten women inmates who are incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, CA - the largest female correctional facility in the United States and Justice Now, a human rights organization that works with women in prison to build a safe, compassionate world without prisons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------- From the above list it will be evident that the kind of practices that we are talking about range from comics to high theory, with software, web-based work, radio, documentary filmmaking, and self- published broadsheets in between. Crucially, each of these might involve either a level of sociality in the production of cultural processes or a willingness to engage with a discursive register (and sometimes both). This unties art and cultural work from decorative or propagandist demands and enables it to claim a space for forms that are generative of questions, thought, reflection and communitas. Many of these formal approaches might seem somewhat alien to the current milieu of art exhibition practices in places such as Delhi, but we are certain that there is a change in the offing. New spaces will emerge and are emerging where new forms and new people will be at play. This is nascent now, but we think that this will take on a momentum of its own in a matter of years. What is also evident is that as in other areas of human creativity (science, music, filmmaking) the rise of collectives, ensembles and networks will accelerate a vibrant cultural milieu. We hope that this listing provides everyone in our milieu with reasons for reflection, and we look forward to carrying forward a conversation. We look forward to more interesting times in our city! August 1, 2006 Monica Narula Raqs Media Collective Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From cawnpore at rediffmail.com Thu Aug 3 14:28:18 2006 From: cawnpore at rediffmail.com (Maitrey Bajpai) Date: 3 Aug 2006 08:58:18 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Cawnpore the blog Message-ID: <20060803085818.15034.qmail@webmail31.rediffmail.com>   Hi all just posting the link to my blog where you all can read posts and I have also posted a few photographs, that would give you some idea of what the positions of mills are in Cawnpore. "www.cawnporethefilm.blogspot.com" peace maitrey bajpai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060803/cd6f1056/attachment.html From s_kavula at yahoo.com Wed Aug 2 12:43:57 2006 From: s_kavula at yahoo.com (saraswati) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 00:13:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Open letter to MS Swaminathan Message-ID: <20060802071357.25429.qmail@web36602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Open Letter From: Bhaskar Save, ‘Kalpavruksha’ Farm, Village Dehri, via Umergam, Dist. Valsad, Gujarat – 396 170 (Phone: 0260 – 2562126 & 2563866) To: Shri M.S. Swaminathan, The Chairperson, National Commission on Farmers, Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India July 29, 2006 Subject: Mounting Suicides and National Policy for Farmers Dear Shri Swaminathan, I am an 84-year old natural/organic farmer with more than six decades of personal experience in growing a wide range of food crops. I have, over the years, practised several systems of farming, including the chemical method in the fifties – until I soon saw its pitfalls. I say with conviction that it is only by organic farming in harmony with Nature, that India can sustainably provide her people abundant, wholesome food. And meet every basic need of all – to live in health, dignity and peace. [Annexed hereto are: (1) a concise comparison of chemical farming and organic farming; (2) an introduction to my farm, Kalpavruksha; (3) some recorded opinions of visitors; and (4) a short biographical note on myself. You, M.S. Swaminathan, are considered the ‘father’ of India’s so-called ‘Green Revolution’ that flung open the floodgates of toxic ‘agro’ chemicals – ravaging the lands and lives of many millions of Indian farmers over the past 50 years. More than any other individual in our long history, it is you I hold responsible for the tragic condition of our soils and our debt-burdened farmers, driven to suicide in increasing numbers every year. As destiny would have it, you are presently the chairperson of the ‘National Commission on Farmers’, mandated to draft a new agricultural policy. I urge you to take this opportunity to make amends – for the sake of the children, and those yet to come. I understand your Commission is inviting the views of farmers for drafting the new policy. As this is an open consultation, I am marking a copy of my letter to: the Prime Minister, the Union Minister for Agriculture, the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, and to the media - for wider communication. I hope this provokes some soul-searching and open debate at all levels on the extremely vital issues involved. – So that we do not repeat the same kind of blunders that led us to our present, deep festering mess. The great poet, Rabindranath Tagore, referred not so long ago to our “sujhalam, sufalam” land. Ours indeed was a remarkably fertile and prosperous country – with rich soils, abundant water and sunshine, thick forests, a wealth of bio-diversity, And cultured, peace-loving people with a vast store of farming knowledge and wisdom. Farming runs in our blood. But I am sad that our (now greyed) generation of Indian farmers, allowed itself to be duped into adopting the short-sighted and ecologically devastating way of farming, imported into this country. – By those like you, with virtually zero farming experience! For generations beyond count, this land sustained one of the highest densities of population on earth. Without any chemical ‘fertilizers’, pesticides, exotic dwarf strains of grain, or the new, fancy ‘bio-tech’ inputs that you now seem to champion. The many waves of invaders into this country, over the centuries, took away much. But the fertility of our land remained unaffected. The Upanishads say: Om Purnamadaha Purnamidam Purnat Purnamudachyate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamewa Vashishyate “This creation is whole and complete. From the whole emerge creations, each whole and complete. Take the whole from the whole, but the whole yet remains, Undiminished, complete!” In our forests, the trees like ber (jujube), jambul (jambolan), mango, umbar (wild fig), mahua (Madhuca indica), imli (tamarind), yield so abundantly in their season that the branches sag under the weight of the fruit. The annual yield per tree is commonly over a tonne – year after year. But the earth around remains whole and undiminished. There is no gaping hole in the ground! From where do the trees – including those on rocky mountains – get their water, their NPK, etc? Though stationary, Nature provides their needs right where they stand. But ‘scientists’ and technocrats like you – with a blinkered, meddling itch – seem blind to this. On what basis do you prescribe what a tree or plant requires, and how much, and when ? It is said: where there is lack of knowledge, ignorance masquerades as ‘science’! Such is the ‘science’ you have espoused, leading our farmers astray – down the pits of misery. While it is no shame to be ignorant, the awareness of such ignorance is the necessary first step to knowledge. But the refusal to see it is self-deluding arrogance. . Agricultural Mis-education This country has more than 150 agricultural universities, many with huge land-holdings of thousands of acres. They have no dearth of infrastructure, equipment, staff, money, And yet, not one of these heavily subsidized universities makes any profit, or grows any significant amount of food, if only to feed its own staff and students. But every year, each churns out several hundred ‘educated’ unemployables, trained only in misguiding farmers and spreading ecological degradation. In all the six years a student spends for an M. Sc. in agriculture, the only goal is short-term – and narrowly perceived – ‘productivity’. For this, the farmer is urged to do and buy a hundred things. But not a thought is spared to what a farmer must never do so that the land remains unharmed for future generations and other creatures. It is time our people and government wake up to the realisation that this industry-driven way of farming – promoted by our institutions – is inherently criminal and suicidal! Gandhi declared: Where there is soshan, or exploitation, there can be no poshan, or nurture! Vinoba Bhave added, “Science wedded to compassion can bring about a paradise on earth. But divorced from non-violence, it can only cause a massive conflagration that swallows us in its flames.” Trying to increase Nature’s ‘productivity,’ is the fundamental blunder that highlights the ignorance of ‘agricultural scientists’ like you. Nature, unspoiled by man, is already most generous in her yield. When a grain of rice can reproduce a thousand-fold within months, where arises the need to increase its productivity? Numerous kinds of fruit trees too yield several hundred thousand kg of nourishment each in their lifetime! That is, provided the farmer does not pour poison and mess around the tree in his greed for quick profit. A child has a right to its mother’s milk. But if we draw on Mother Earth’s blood and flesh as well, how can we expect her continuing sustenance! The mindset of servitude to ‘commerce and industry,’ ignoring all else, is the root of the problem. But industry merely transforms ‘raw materials’ sourced from Nature into commodities. It cannot create anew. Only Nature is truly creative and self-regenerating – through synergy with the fresh daily inflow of the sun’s energy. The Six Self-renewing Paribals of Nature There is on earth a constant inter-play of the six paribals (key factors) of Nature, interacting with sunlight. Three are: air, water and soil. Working in tandem with these, are the three orders of life: ‘vanaspati srushti’ (the world of plants), ‘jeev srushti’ (the realm of insects and micro-organisms), and ‘prani srushti’ (the animal kingdom). These six paribals maintain a dynamic balance. Together, they harmonise the grand symphony of Nature, weaving the new! Man has no right to disrupt any of the paribals of Nature. But modern technology, wedded to commerce – rather than wisdom or compassion – has proved disastrous at all levels... We have despoiled and polluted the soil, water and air. We have wiped out most of our forests and killed its creatures; And relentlessly, modern farmers spray deadly poisons on their fields. These massacre Nature’s jeev srushti – the unpretentious but tireless little workers that maintain the ventilated quality of the soil, and recycle all life-ebbed biomass into nourishment for plants. The noxious chemicals also inevitably poison the water, and Nature’s prani srushti, which includes humans. The Root of Unsustainablity Sustainability is a modern concern, scarcely talked of at the time you championed the ‘green revolution’. Can you deny that for more than forty centuries, our ancestors farmed the organic way – without any marked decline in soil fertility, as in the past four or five decades? Is it not a stark fact that the chemical-intensive and irrigation-intensive way of growing monoculture cash-crops, has been primarily responsible for spreading ecological devastation far and wide in this country? – Within the lifetime of a single generation! Engineered Erosion of Crop Diversity, Scarcity of Organic Matter, and Soil Degradation This country boasted an immense diversity of crops, adapted over millennia to local conditions and needs. Our numerous tall, indigenous varieties of grain provided more biomass, shaded the soil from the sun, and protected against its erosion under heavy monsoon rains. But in the guise of increasing crop production, exotic dwarf varieties were introduced and promoted through your efforts. This led to more vigorous growth of weeds, which were now able to compete successfully with the new stunted crops for sunlight. The farmer had to spend more labour and money in weeding, or spraying herbicides. The straw growth with the dwarf grain crops fell drastically to one-third of that with most native species! In Punjab and Haryana, even this was burned, as it was said to harbour ‘pathogens’. (It was too toxic to feed farm cattle that were progressively displaced by tractors.) Consequently, much less organic matter was locally available to recycle the fertility of the soil, leading to an artificial need for externally procured inputs. Inevitably, the farmers resorted to use more chemicals, and relentlessly, soil degradation and erosion set in. Engineered Pestilence The exotic varieties, grown with chemical ‘fertiliser’, were more susceptible to ‘pests and diseases’, leading to yet more poison (insecticides, etc.) being poured. But the attacked insect species developed resistance and reproduced prolifically. Their predators – spiders, frogs, etc. – that fed on these insects and ‘biologically controlled’ their population, were exterminated. So were many beneficial species like the earthworms and bees. Agribusiness and technocrats recommended stronger doses, and newer, more toxic (and more expensive) chemicals. But the problems of ‘pests’ and ‘diseases’ only worsened. The spiral of ecological, financial and human costs mounted! The ‘Development’ of Water Scarcity and Dead, Salty Soils With the use of synthetic fertilizer and increased cash-cropping, irrigation needs rose enormously. In 1952, the Bhakra dam was built in Punjab, a water-rich state fed by 5 Himalayan rivers. Several thousand more big and medium dams followed all over the country, culminating in the massive Sardar Sarovar. And now, our government is toying with a grandiose, Rs 560,000 crore proposal to divert and ‘inter-link’ the flow of our rivers. This is sheer ‘Tughlaqian’ megalomania, without a thought for future generations! India, next to South America, receives the highest rainfall in the world. The annual average is almost 4 feet. Where thick vegetation covers the ground, and the soil is alive and porous, at least half of this rain is soaked and stored in the soil and sub-soil strata. A good amount then percolates deeper to recharge aquifers, or ‘groundwater tables’. The living soil and its underlying aquifers thus serve as gigantic, ready-made reservoirs gifted free by Nature. Particularly efficient in soaking rain are the lands under forests and trees. And so, half a century ago, most parts of India had enough fresh water all round the year, long after the rains had stopped and gone. But clear the forests, and the capacity of the earth to soak the rain, drops drastically. Streams and wells run dry. It has happened in too many places already. While the recharge of groundwater has greatly reduced, its extraction has been mounting. India is presently mining over 20 times more groundwater each day than it did in 1950. Much of this is mindless wastage by a minority. But most of India’s people – living on hand-drawn or hand-pumped water in villages, and practising only rain-fed farming – continue to use the same amount of ground water per person, as they did generations ago. More than 80% of India’s water consumption is for irrigation, with the largest share hogged by chemically cultivated cash crops. Maharashtra, for example, has the maximum number of big and medium dams in this country. But sugarcane alone, grown on barely 3-4% of its cultivable land, guzzles about 70% of its irrigation waters! One acre of chemically grown sugarcane requires as much water as would suffice 25 acres of jowar, bajra or maize. The sugar factories too consume huge quantities. From cultivation to processing, each kilo of refined sugar needs 2 to 3 tonnes of water. This could be used to grow, by the traditional, organic way, about 150 to 200 kg of nutritious jowar or bajra (native millets). While rice is suitable for rain-fed farming, its extensive multiple cropping with irrigation in winter and summer as well, is similarly hogging our water resources, and depleting aquifers. As with sugarcane, it is also irreversibly ruining the land through salinisation. Soil salinisation is the greatest scourge of irrigation-intensive agriculture, as a progressively thicker crust of salts is formed on the land. Many million hectares of cropland have been ruined by it. The most serious problems are caused where water-guzzling crops like sugarcane or basmati rice are grown round the year, abandoning the traditional mixed-cropping and rotation systems of the past, which required minimal or no watering. Since at least 60% of the water used for irrigation nowadays in India, is excessive, indeed harmful, the first step that needs to be taken is to control this. Thus, not only will the grave damage caused by too much irrigation stop, but a good deal of the water that is saved can also become available locally for priority areas where acute scarcity is felt. Conservative Irrigation and Groundwater Recharge at Kalpavruksha Efficient, organic farming requires very little irrigation – much less than what is commonly used in modern agriculture. The yields of the crops are best when the soil is just damp. Rice is the only exception that grows even where water accumulates, and is thus preferred as a monsoon crop in low-lying areas naturally prone to inundation. Excess irrigation in the case of all other crops expels the air contained in the soil’s inter-particulate spaces – vitally needed for root respiration – and prolonged flooding causes root rot. The irrigation on my farm is a small fraction of that provided in most modern farms today. Moreover, the porous soil under the thick vegetation of the orchard is like a sponge that soaks and percolates to the aquifer, or ground-water table, an enormous quantity of rain each monsoon. The amount of water thus stored in the ground at Kalpavruksha, is far more than the total amount withdrawn from the well for irrigation in the months when there is no rain. Thus, my farm is a net supplier of water to the eco-system of the region, rather than a net consumer! Clearly, the way to ensure the water security and food security of this nation, is by organically growing mixed, locally suitable crops, plants and trees, following the laws of Nature. Need for 30% Tree Cover We should restore at least 30% ground cover of mixed, indigeneous trees and forests within the next decade or two. This is the core task of ecological water harvesting – the key to restoring the natural abundance of groundwater. Outstanding benefits can be achieved within a decade at comparatively little cost. We sadly fail to realise that the potential for natural water storage in the ground is many times greater than the combined capacity of all the major and medium irrigation projects in India – complete, incomplete, or still on paper! Such decentralized underground storage is more efficient, as it is protected from the high evaporation of surface storage. The planting of trees will also make available a variety of useful produce to enhance the well-being of a larger number of people. Even barren wastelands can be restored to health in less than a decade. By inter-planting short life-span, medium life-span, and long life-span crops and trees, it is possible to have planned continuity of food yield to sustain a farmer through the transition period till the long-life fruit trees mature and yield. The higher availability of biomass and complete ground cover round the year will also hasten the regeneration of soil fertility. Production, Poverty & Population After the British left, Indian agriculture was recovering steadily. There was no scarcity of diverse nourishment in the countryside, where 75% of India lived. The actual reason for pushing the ‘Green Revolution’ was the much narrower goal of increasing marketable surplus of a few relatively less perishable cereals to fuel the urban-industrial expansion favoured by the government. The new, parasitical way of farming you vigorously promoted, benefited only the industrialists, traders and the powers-that-be. The farmers’ costs rose massively and margins dipped. Combined with the eroding natural fertility of their land, they were left with little in their hands, if not mounting debts and dead soils. Many gave up farming. Many more want to do so, squeezed by the ever-rising costs. This is nothing less than tragic, since Nature has generously gifted us with all that is needed for organic farming – which also produces wholesome, rather than poisoned food! Restoring the natural health of Indian agriculture is the path to solve the inter-related problems of poverty, unemployment and rising population. The maximum number of people can become self-reliant through farming only if the necessary inputs are a bare minimum. Thus, farming should require a minimum of financial capital and purchased inputs, minimum farming equipment (plough, tools, etc.), minimum necessary labour, and minimum external technology. Then, agricultural production will increase, without costs increasing. Poverty will decline, and the rise in population will be spontaneously checked. Self-reliant farming – with minimal or zero external inputs – was the way we actually farmed, very successfully, in the past. Barring periods of war and excessive colonial oppression, our farmers were largely self-sufficient, and even produced surpluses, though generally smaller quantities of many more items. These, particularly perishables, were tougher to supply urban markets. And so the nation’s farmers were steered to grow chemically cultivated monocultures of a few cash-crops like wheat, rice, or sugar, rather than their traditional polycultures that needed no purchased inputs. [See Annexure 5 on an old, six-crop integral system (of cotton, 2 millets and 3 edible pulse legumes) which successfully provided farmers in low-rainfall regions with more diversity and continuity of yield round the year – without any irrigation or external inputs.] In Conclusion: I hope you have the integrity to support widespread change to mixed organic farming, tree-planting and forest regeneration (with local resources and rights) – that India greatly needs. I would be glad to answer any query or doubt posed to me, preferably in writing. I also welcome you to visit my farm with reasonable prior notice. Since many years, I have extended an open invitation to any one interested in natural/organic farming to visit Kalpavruksha, on any Saturday afternoon between 2.00 and 4.00 pm., which continues till date. I may finally add that this letter has been transcribed in English by Bharat Mansata, based on discussions with me in Gujarati. (The annexures hereto are excerpted from his forthcoming book, ‘The Vision of Natural Farming,’ Earthcare Books, which draws largely on my experience.) Whether or not you agree with my views, I look forward to your reply. Yours sincerely, Bhaskar H. Save Copy to: (i) The Prime Minister of India, (ii) The Union Minister for Agriculture, (iii) The Chairperson, National Advisory Council, (iv) The media. Annexures: Comparison of Chemical Farming and Organic Farming An Introduction to Kalpavruksha (my farm) Recorded Opinions of Visitors A Biographical Note 5) Note on a Traditional Six-Crop, Integral System – in a low rainfall zone, providing diverse yield round the year without any irrigation or external input. Content Overview and More Excerpts from ‘The Vision of Natural Farming’ Annexure 1: Comparison of Chemical Farming & Organic Farming: -- by Bhaskar Save, transcribed from Gujarati to English by Bharat Mansata Chemical farming fragments the web of life; organic farming nurtures its wholeness Chemical farming depends on fossil oil; organic farming on living soil. Chemical farmers see their land as a dead medium; organic farmers know theirs is teeming with life. Chemical farming pollutes the air, water and soil; organic farming purifies and renews them. Chemical farming uses large quantities of water and depletes aquifers; organic farming requires much less irrigation, and recharges groundwater. Chemical farming is mono-cultural and destroys diversity; organic farming is poly-cultural and nurtures diversity. Chemical farming produces poisoned food; organic farming yields nourishing food. Chemical farming has a short history and threatens a dim future; organic farming has a long history and promises a bright future. Chemical farming is an alien, imported technology; organic farming has evolved indigenously. Chemical farming is propagated through schooled, institutional misinformation; organic farming learns from Nature and farmers’ experience. Chemical farming benefits traders and industrialists; organic farming benefits the farmer, the environment and society as a whole. Chemical farming robs the self-reliance and self-respect of farmers and villages; organic farming restores and strengthens it. Chemical farming leads to bankruptcy and misery; organic farming liberates from debt and woe. Chemical farming is violent and entropic; organic farming is non-violent and synergistic. Chemical farming is a hollow ‘green revolution’; organic farming is the true green revolution. Chemical farming is crudely materialistic, with no ideological mooring; organic farming is rooted in spirituality and abiding truth. Chemical farming is suicidal, moving from life to death; organic farming is the road to regeneration. Chemical farming is the vehicle of commerce and oppression; organic farming is the path of culture and co-evolution. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060802/e9f48c62/attachment.html From aasim27 at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 2 21:02:55 2006 From: aasim27 at yahoo.co.in (aasim khan) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 16:32:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: FW: Why Do They Hate Us? Listen to Qana (Again) Message-ID: <20060802153255.1277.qmail@web8706.mail.in.yahoo.com> Hi folks, One reason why all should read; Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His website is www.jkcook.net Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Aasim Khan" Subject: FW: Why Do They Hate Us? Listen to Qana (Again) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 21:00:03 +0530 Size: 27106 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060802/3249d9fa/attachment.mht From aheli.chowdhury at gmail.com Wed Aug 2 12:23:22 2006 From: aheli.chowdhury at gmail.com (Aheli Chowdhury) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 12:23:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Protest at Jantar Mantar on 7th of August Message-ID: Save Right to Information Save Democracy 7th of August, 2006 2pm to 5pm at Jantar Mantar Voices of the youth and EUPHORIA unite against the Cabinet's decision to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005. Come be a voice of this protest as Euphoria sings to Save Democracy and Right to Information Act on the 7th of August at Jantar Mantar. Activists, students and other citizens join hands to demonstrate against the recent amendment proposed in the Right to Information Act,by the Cabinet. This proposed amendment exempting file notings from the Right To Information Act, 2005 will render it virtually dead. Please come and join us at Jantar Mantar, to strengthen the fight to assert our rights. Aheli Chowdhury Joint Operation for Social Help (JOSH) josh4india at gmail.com 9811765959 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From monica.mody at gmail.com Thu Aug 3 12:44:15 2006 From: monica.mody at gmail.com (Monica Mody) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 12:44:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] New Delhi: Citizens protest Israel's disproportionate war against Lebanon and Gaza Message-ID: <4badad3b0608030014l4c76e281xed54b4792f84e8e7@mail.gmail.com> [It has been suggested by some of that post-protest, this letter be handed over to the embassies of Israel, US and UK, perhaps also the embassies of Lebanon and Palestine. In the interest of transparency, would also like to share that there have been some objections to the demand for US and UK to be prosecuted for war crimes. Just to clarify that these two countries have been included in the demand as they have provided logistical support to Israel's ongoing war in Lebanon and Gaza, by sending bombs (US) via their own airports (UK) with the knowledge that these are likely to cause civilian deaths. This is a war crime. As the letter would be in final form only on Saturday morning, when we will print it and carry to the protest, please do continue to send in your signatures or to retract them!] CALL TO PROTEST ISRAEL'S DISPROPORTIONATE WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND GAZA Dear friends, We have watched with horror as Israel's disproportionate use of force against the citizens of Lebanon and Palestine has increased daily and with impunity in light of sanction for Israel from the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Israel's aggression continues in open defiance of calls from the rest of the international community for an immediate cease-fire, and continues to take a heavy toll of innocent life. Until today, the 2nd of August, 850 Lebanese including 290 children have been killed and 9,00,000 Lebanese refugees have been displaced in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah 22 days ago. The number of Israeli dead in the conflict thus far is 55, including 19 civilians, as Hezbollah continues to target Israel with rockets. Despite this, yesterday, the European Union too provided implicit sanction to Israel's disproportionate actions by failing to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Almost immediately, Israel has launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, involving tens of thousands of troops. We, the undersigned, condemn this brutal targeting of unarmed civilian populations and the systematic destruction of the infrastructure of Lebanon and Gaza. We demand an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Lebanon and in Gaza and that the leaders of Israel, the US and the UK be tried for war crimes against the Lebanese and Palestinian people. We mourn the loss of innocent Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli lives. We urge groups and individuals to join in a citizen's protest against Israel's targeting of civilians which goes against all laws of war and ethics of combat. Do come with banners, slogans and solidarity. Please do forward widely information about the protest on all activist lists, and to the media. When Saturday 5th, 11 am Where Israeli Embassy, 3, Aurangzeb Road (As police do not permit protests outside the embassy, the rendezvous point is the UPSC building) In solidarity, 1. Aarti Sethi, editor 2. Ahtushi Deshpande, travel writer 3. Aman Sethi, journalist 4. Amar Kanwar, filmmaker 5. Anand Vivek Taneja, researcher-writer 6. Aniruddha Shankar, concerned citizen 7. Anita Roy, editor 8. Anita Vasudev, writer 9. Annie Zaidi, journalist 10. Anubhav Gupta, writer 11. Apoorvanand, teacher and writer 12. Ashwin Aishwaria, artist 13. Bindu Menon, educator 14. Charu Soni, journalist 15. Colin Fernandes, journalist 16. Danish Husain, actor and writer 17. Gautam Bhan, activist 18. Gayatri Reddy, educator 19. George Kurian, filmmaker 20. Harpreet Anand 21. I. Priya Thangarajah, student 22. Indira Pathak, activist 23. Jaya Sharma, activist 24. Jeet Thayil, writer 25. Julia Dutta, journalist 26. Kanchana Natarajan, educator 27. Kaushiki Rao, concerned citizen 28. Kishore Kumar Singh, freelance consultant 29. Lesley A. Esteves, journalist 30. Madhu Mehra, human rights lawyer 31. Mario D'Penha, historian-activist 32. Maya Sharma, Parma 33. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer 34. Monica Mody, writer 35. Mujtaba Farooq 36. Dr NK Afandi 37. Narayani Gupta, consultant INTACH 38. Neelima Sharma, theatre activist 39. Niharika Gupta, editor 40. Nishant Natya Manch, New Delhi 41. Ponni Arasu, activist 42. Pranav Kumar Singh, lawyer 43. Prism, New Delhi 44. Radhika Kolluru, lawyer 45. Samit Basu, writer 46. Sanjay Kak, filmmaker 47. Shabnam Hashmi, social activist 48. Shakti Bhatt, editor 49. Dr. Shamsul Islam, theatre activist 50. Shivam Vij, blogger-journalist 51. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, media practitioner 52. Siddharth Narrain, journalist 53. Subasri Krishnan, filmmaker 54. Sumit Baudh, lawyer 55. Sumit Roy, filmmaker 56. Sunil Gupta, photographer 57. Susan M Koshy, writer 58. Vaibhav Vats, student 59. Vineeta Bal, peace activist Suggested placards/ slogans No to the War Amir Peretz-They Wait for You in the Hague No to the Destruction in Gaza and Lebanon Children in Beirut and Haifa Deserve to Live Listen up, soldier – it's your duty to refuse Save Lebanon, Stop Israel Lebanese children are not terrorists Israel pulverises, US supervises Israel kills UN observers, world remain mute expectator Innocents killings, US dealings Jang to khud hi ek maslaq hai Jang kya mas-alon ka hal degi Jang, jangon ke phalsafe ke khilaf Aman pur aman zindagi ke liye _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From iram at sarai.net Thu Aug 3 15:51:37 2006 From: iram at sarai.net (iram at sarai.net) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 12:21:37 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] New Delhi: Citizens protest Israel's disproportionate war against Lebanon and Gaza In-Reply-To: <4badad3b0608030014l4c76e281xed54b4792f84e8e7@mail.gmail.com> References: <4badad3b0608030014l4c76e281xed54b4792f84e8e7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98ffac433d07bc839043765889b52c8a@sarai.net> Dear Monica, Its very commendable to have initiated and put together a letter of protest against the present situation in Lebanon. However I would request you and other signatories to rethink the word 'dispropotionate'. Is a propotionate war justified? - An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a dead child for a dead child, a wounded soldier for another wounded soldier. It is not and I have a feeling that you and eveyone else who has signed the petition will agree with me. Yet including the word 'dispropotionate' in what seems like a carefully worded call for protest does not seem like an oversight on the part of the drafting team. In fact it reads like a statement of sorts. Though what's being implied is not very clear to me. Perhaps someone will shed light on this, before Saturday. Best Iram On 9:14:15 am 08/03/06 "Monica Mody" wrote: > [It has been suggested by some of that post-protest, this letter be > handed over to the embassies of Israel, US and UK, perhaps also the > embassies of Lebanon and Palestine. > > In the interest of transparency, would also like to share that there > have been some objections to the demand for US and UK to be prosecuted > for war crimes. Just to clarify that these two countries have been > included in the demand as they have provided logistical support to > Israel's ongoing war in Lebanon and Gaza, by sending bombs (US) via > their own airports (UK) with the knowledge that these are likely to > cause civilian deaths. This is a war crime. > > As the letter would be in final form only on Saturday morning, when we > will print it and carry to the protest, please do continue to send in > your signatures or to retract them!] > > > > CALL TO PROTEST ISRAEL'S DISPROPORTIONATE WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND GAZA > > Dear friends, > > We have watched with horror as Israel's disproportionate use of force > against the citizens of Lebanon and Palestine has increased daily and > with impunity in light of sanction for Israel from the United States > of America and the United Kingdom. Israel's aggression continues in > open defiance of calls from the rest of the international community > for an immediate cease-fire, and continues to take a heavy toll of > innocent life. > > Until today, the 2nd of August, 850 Lebanese including 290 children > have been killed and 9,00,000 Lebanese refugees have been displaced in > response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah 22 > days ago. The number of Israeli dead in the conflict thus far is 55, > including 19 civilians, as Hezbollah continues to target Israel with > rockets. > > Despite this, yesterday, the European Union too provided implicit > sanction to Israel's disproportionate actions by failing to call for > an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Almost immediately, Israel > has launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, involving tens of > thousands of troops. > > We, the undersigned, condemn this brutal targeting of unarmed civilian > populations and the systematic destruction of the infrastructure of > Lebanon and Gaza. We demand an immediate and unconditional cease-fire > in Lebanon and in Gaza and that the leaders of Israel, the US and the > UK be tried for war crimes against the Lebanese and Palestinian > people. We mourn the loss of innocent Lebanese, Palestinian and > Israeli lives. > > We urge groups and individuals to join in a citizen's protest against > Israel's targeting of civilians which goes against all laws of war and > ethics of combat. > > Do come with banners, slogans and solidarity. Please do forward widely > information about the protest on all activist lists, and to the media. > > When > Saturday 5th, 11 am > Where > Israeli Embassy, 3, Aurangzeb Road > > (As police do not permit protests outside the embassy, the rendezvous > point is the UPSC building) > > In solidarity, > > 1. Aarti Sethi, editor > 2. Ahtushi Deshpande, travel writer > 3. Aman Sethi, journalist > 4. Amar Kanwar, filmmaker > 5. Anand Vivek Taneja, researcher-writer > 6. Aniruddha Shankar, concerned citizen > 7. Anita Roy, editor > 8. Anita Vasudev, writer > 9. Annie Zaidi, journalist > 10. Anubhav Gupta, writer > 11. Apoorvanand, teacher and writer > 12. Ashwin Aishwaria, artist > 13. Bindu Menon, educator > 14. Charu Soni, journalist > 15. Colin Fernandes, journalist > 16. Danish Husain, actor and writer > 17. Gautam Bhan, activist > 18. Gayatri Reddy, educator > 19. George Kurian, filmmaker > 20. Harpreet Anand > 21. I. Priya Thangarajah, student > 22. Indira Pathak, activist > 23. Jaya Sharma, activist > 24. Jeet Thayil, writer > 25. Julia Dutta, journalist > 26. Kanchana Natarajan, educator > 27. Kaushiki Rao, concerned citizen > 28. Kishore Kumar Singh, freelance consultant > 29. Lesley A. Esteves, journalist > 30. Madhu Mehra, human rights lawyer > 31. Mario D'Penha, historian-activist > 32. Maya Sharma, Parma > 33. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer > 34. Monica Mody, writer > 35. Mujtaba Farooq > 36. Dr NK Afandi > 37. Narayani Gupta, consultant INTACH > 38. Neelima Sharma, theatre activist > 39. Niharika Gupta, editor > 40. Nishant Natya Manch, New Delhi > 41. Ponni Arasu, activist > 42. Pranav Kumar Singh, lawyer > 43. Prism, New Delhi > 44. Radhika Kolluru, lawyer > 45. Samit Basu, writer > 46. Sanjay Kak, filmmaker > 47. Shabnam Hashmi, social activist > 48. Shakti Bhatt, editor > 49. Dr. Shamsul Islam, theatre activist > 50. Shivam Vij, blogger-journalist > 51. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, media practitioner > 52. Siddharth Narrain, journalist > 53. Subasri Krishnan, filmmaker > 54. Sumit Baudh, lawyer > 55. Sumit Roy, filmmaker > 56. Sunil Gupta, photographer > 57. Susan M Koshy, writer > 58. Vaibhav Vats, student > 59. Vineeta Bal, peace activist > > Suggested placards/ slogans > > No to the War > Amir Peretz-They Wait for You in the Hague > No to the Destruction in Gaza and Lebanon > Children in Beirut and Haifa Deserve to Live > Listen up, soldier – it's your duty to refuse > Save Lebanon, Stop Israel > Lebanese children are not terrorists > Israel pulverises, US supervises > Israel kills UN observers, world remain mute expectator > Innocents killings, US dealings > Jang to khud hi ek maslaq hai > Jang kya mas-alon ka hal degi > Jang, jangon ke phalsafe ke khilaf > Aman pur aman zindagi ke liye > _______________________________________________ > 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: /pipermail/reader-list/> From jamie.dow at pobox.com Thu Aug 3 16:36:35 2006 From: jamie.dow at pobox.com (Jamie Dow) Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 12:06:35 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <98ffac433d07bc839043765889b52c8a@sarai.net> References: <4badad3b0608030014l4c76e281xed54b4792f84e8e7@mail.gmail.com> <98ffac433d07bc839043765889b52c8a@sarai.net> Message-ID: <44D1D8BB.5080606@pobox.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060803/34742995/attachment.html From gowharfazili at yahoo.com Thu Aug 3 16:36:53 2006 From: gowharfazili at yahoo.com (gowhar fazli) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 04:06:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] New Delhi: Citizens protest Israel's disproportionate war against Lebanon and Gaza In-Reply-To: <98ffac433d07bc839043765889b52c8a@sarai.net> Message-ID: <20060803110653.82892.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> I think the way the protest is drafted is lame... like dragging ones feet to protest.... too late too little and shamefully apologetic. I think to do honour to those who have died in this war of aggression, probably silent observation rather than this pitiable apology is better. "CALL TO PROTEST ISRAEL'S DISPROPORTIONATE WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND GAZA" Sounds like the Lebanese and Gazans deserve to be punished but only in right measure. I think our senses are numbed, we don't protest against bloodshed or injustice anymore... It doesn't really move us... I think obscenity of Iraq did it. What do you think? --- iram at sarai.net wrote: > Dear Monica, > Its very commendable to have initiated and put > together a letter of protest > against the present situation in Lebanon. However I > would request you and > other signatories to rethink the word > 'dispropotionate'. Is a propotionate > war justified? - An eye for an eye, a tooth for a > tooth, a dead child for a > dead child, a wounded soldier for another wounded > soldier. It is not and I > have a feeling that you and eveyone else who has > signed the petition will > agree with me. > Yet including the word 'dispropotionate' in what > seems like a carefully > worded call for protest does not seem like an > oversight on the part of the > drafting team. In fact it reads like a statement of > sorts. Though what's > being implied is not very clear to me. Perhaps > someone will shed light on > this, before Saturday. > Best > Iram > > > > > On 9:14:15 am 08/03/06 "Monica Mody" > wrote: > > [It has been suggested by some of that > post-protest, this letter be > > handed over to the embassies of Israel, US and UK, > perhaps also the > > embassies of Lebanon and Palestine. > > > > In the interest of transparency, would also like > to share that there > > have been some objections to the demand for US and > UK to be prosecuted > > for war crimes. Just to clarify that these two > countries have been > > included in the demand as they have provided > logistical support to > > Israel's ongoing war in Lebanon and Gaza, by > sending bombs (US) via > > their own airports (UK) with the knowledge that > these are likely to > > cause civilian deaths. This is a war crime. > > > > As the letter would be in final form only on > Saturday morning, when we > > will print it and carry to the protest, please do > continue to send in > > your signatures or to retract them!] > > > > > > > > CALL TO PROTEST ISRAEL'S DISPROPORTIONATE WAR > AGAINST LEBANON AND GAZA > > > > Dear friends, > > > > We have watched with horror as Israel's > disproportionate use of force > > against the citizens of Lebanon and Palestine has > increased daily and > > with impunity in light of sanction for Israel from > the United States > > of America and the United Kingdom. Israel's > aggression continues in > > open defiance of calls from the rest of the > international community > > for an immediate cease-fire, and continues to take > a heavy toll of > > innocent life. > > > > Until today, the 2nd of August, 850 Lebanese > including 290 children > > have been killed and 9,00,000 Lebanese refugees > have been displaced in > > response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers > by Hezbollah 22 > > days ago. The number of Israeli dead in the > conflict thus far is 55, > > including 19 civilians, as Hezbollah continues to > target Israel with > > rockets. > > > > Despite this, yesterday, the European Union too > provided implicit > > sanction to Israel's disproportionate actions by > failing to call for > > an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Almost > immediately, Israel > > has launched a ground invasion in southern > Lebanon, involving tens of > > thousands of troops. > > > > We, the undersigned, condemn this brutal targeting > of unarmed civilian > > populations and the systematic destruction of the > infrastructure of > > Lebanon and Gaza. We demand an immediate and > unconditional cease-fire > > in Lebanon and in Gaza and that the leaders of > Israel, the US and the > > UK be tried for war crimes against the Lebanese > and Palestinian > > people. We mourn the loss of innocent Lebanese, > Palestinian and > > Israeli lives. > > > > We urge groups and individuals to join in a > citizen's protest against > > Israel's targeting of civilians which goes against > all laws of war and > > ethics of combat. > > > > Do come with banners, slogans and solidarity. > Please do forward widely > > information about the protest on all activist > lists, and to the media. > > > > When > > Saturday 5th, 11 am > > Where > > Israeli Embassy, 3, Aurangzeb Road > > > > (As police do not permit protests outside the > embassy, the rendezvous > > point is the UPSC building) > > > > In solidarity, > > > > 1. Aarti Sethi, editor > > 2. Ahtushi Deshpande, travel writer > > 3. Aman Sethi, journalist > > 4. Amar Kanwar, filmmaker > > 5. Anand Vivek Taneja, researcher-writer > > 6. Aniruddha Shankar, concerned citizen > > 7. Anita Roy, editor > > 8. Anita Vasudev, writer > > 9. Annie Zaidi, journalist > > 10. Anubhav Gupta, writer > > 11. Apoorvanand, teacher and writer > > 12. Ashwin Aishwaria, artist > > 13. Bindu Menon, educator > > 14. Charu Soni, journalist > > 15. Colin Fernandes, journalist > > 16. Danish Husain, actor and writer > > 17. Gautam Bhan, activist > > 18. Gayatri Reddy, educator > > 19. George Kurian, filmmaker > > 20. Harpreet Anand > > 21. I. Priya Thangarajah, student > > 22. Indira Pathak, activist > > 23. Jaya Sharma, activist > > 24. Jeet Thayil, writer > > 25. Julia Dutta, journalist > > 26. Kanchana Natarajan, educator > > 27. Kaushiki Rao, concerned citizen > > 28. Kishore Kumar Singh, freelance consultant > > 29. Lesley A. Esteves, journalist > > 30. Madhu Mehra, human rights lawyer > > 31. Mario D'Penha, historian-activist > > 32. Maya Sharma, Parma > > 33. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer > > 34. Monica Mody, writer > > 35. Mujtaba Farooq > > 36. Dr NK Afandi > > 37. Narayani Gupta, consultant INTACH > > 38. Neelima Sharma, theatre activist > > 39. Niharika Gupta, editor > > 40. Nishant Natya Manch, New Delhi > > 41. Ponni Arasu, activist > > 42. Pranav Kumar Singh, lawyer > > 43. Prism, New Delhi > > 44. Radhika Kolluru, lawyer > > 45. Samit Basu, writer > > 46. Sanjay Kak, filmmaker > > 47. Shabnam Hashmi, social activist > > 48. Shakti Bhatt, editor > > 49. Dr. Shamsul Islam, theatre activist > > 50. Shivam Vij, blogger-journalist > > 51. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, media practitioner > > 52. Siddharth Narrain, journalist > > 53. Subasri Krishnan, filmmaker > > 54. Sumit Baudh, lawyer > > 55. Sumit Roy, filmmaker > > 56. Sunil Gupta, photographer > > 57. Susan M Koshy, writer > > 58. Vaibhav Vats, student > > 59. Vineeta Bal, peace activist > > > > Suggested placards/ slogans > > > > No to the War > > Amir Peretz-They Wait for You in the Hague > > No to the Destruction in Gaza and Lebanon > === message truncated ===> _________________________________________ > 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: Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares. Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. Peter Ustinov __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mohaiemen at yahoo.com Thu Aug 3 19:22:32 2006 From: mohaiemen at yahoo.com (NAEEM MOHAIEMEN) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 06:52:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] URL for the letter? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060803135233.35392.qmail@web50306.mail.yahoo.com> Is there a URL where the letter is posted? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From aasim27 at yahoo.co.in Thu Aug 3 21:37:16 2006 From: aasim27 at yahoo.co.in (aasim khan) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 17:07:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <44D1D8BB.5080606@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20060803160716.30203.qmail@web8702.mail.in.yahoo.com> Well I see some genuine concern on Iram's part...and feel a bit unnnerved by the way it got dismissed... Well ofcourse I and everyone else here does understand the meaning of 'disproportionate'...And I will not dismiss her suggestion in the way someone has done here... Like disproportionate amounts of food can cause high cholestrol or disproportionate amount of icecream can cause obesity.Similarly by saying disproportionate War it seems the blame is not on the war but on what is said before it. I felt the point Iram made was important...by adding disproporationate to war you are ignoring the idea that the present war itself is 'unjust'( onother grounds as well).And here I will refer to something I found on the Net , on the idea of unjust/Just Wars...and Israel's war fails on five out of the six points laid out below to make its war a Just one.... If you read all the points ,'disproportionate' is only the last thing on making it unjust War .Before it there are three(maybe more important) points that will be missed if we jump directly to the last one.... but thats that...I feel the protest to such a disproportionate war should also be disproportionate and to begin with lets drop the word from the headline...What say ...?Atleast we have the intentions (the first point below) right. Asim I want to refer here to the idea of what some call the 'Just War'. . Right intention. A state must intend to fight the war only for the sake of its just cause. Having the right reason for launching a war is not enough: the actual motivation behind the resort to war must also be morally appropriate. Ulterior motives, such as a power or land grab, or irrational motives, such as revenge or ethnic hatred, are ruled out. The only right intention allowed is to see the just cause for resorting to war secured and consolidated. If another intention crowds in, moral corruption sets in. International law does not include this rule, probably because of the evidentiary difficulties involved in determining a state's intent. 3. Proper authority and public declaration. A state may go to war only if the decision has been made by the appropriate authorities, according to the proper process, and made public, notably to its own citizens and to the enemy state(s). The “appropriate authority” is usually specified in that country's constitution. States failing the requirements of minimal justice lack the legitimacy to go to war. 4. Last Resort. A state may resort to war only if it has exhausted all plausible, peaceful alternatives to resolving the conflict in question, in particular diplomatic negotiation. One wants to make sure something as momentous and serious as war is declared only when it seems the last practical and reasonable shot at effectively resisting aggression. 5. Probability of Success. A state may not resort to war if it can foresee that doing so will have no measurable impact on the situation. The aim here is to block mass violence which is going to be futile. International law does not include this requirement, as it is seen as biased against small, weaker states. 6. Proportionality. A state must, prior to initiating a war, weigh the universal goods expected to result from it, such as securing the just cause, against the universal evils expected to result, notably casualties. Only if the benefits are proportional to, or “worth”, the costs may the war action proceed. (The universal must be stressed, since often in war states only tally their own expected benefits and costs, radically discounting those accruing to the enemy and to any innocent third parties.) --- Jamie Dow wrote: --------------------------------- It is not an oversight, I think, to include theword "disproportionate" in the wording of the statement. On the contrary, the word is extremely well-chosen. Its inclusion stresses that *regardless of what you think in generalabout whether wars can be justified*, there is something morallyscandalous and objectionable here. I illustrate below. If you think that no war, even proportionately conducted, can bejustified, then of course this war is unjustified. But notice that evenon this view, you STILL might think that there is something importantly*worse* about conducting a military campaign in a disproportionate way. However, if you think that *some* military action on Israel's part wasjustified by the activities of Hezbollah, then it will be somethingabout *how* they responded militarily that makes their militarycampaign objectionable. And that's precisely where disproportion comesin. The point is that it is not only pacifists, not only those who arealways or nearly-always opposed to war that should find Israel'sactions objectionable. The word "disproportionate" signals that theobjection here goes beyond a general objection to war. The claim isthat there is a moral violation here that *everyone* should object to. This of course is why the more spineless of our politicians havebaulked at using the word. (Incidentally, it is not correct to take the use of thisword to imply that a proportionate war would be justified. It does notimply that.) ______________________________ Jamie Dow Tel: +44 131 467 2115 Mob: +44 7801 033499 Email: jamie.dow at pobox.com Web: www.jamiedow.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re:[Reader-list] [Announcements] New Delhi: Citizens protest Israel's disproportionate war against Lebanon and Gaza From: To: reader-list at sarai.net Cc: Monica Mody Date: 03 August 2006 11:21:37 Dear Monica,Its very commendable to have initiated and put together a letter of protestagainst the present situation in Lebanon. However I would request you andother signatories to rethink the word 'dispropotionate'. Is a propotionatewar justified? - An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a dead child for adead child, a wounded soldier for another wounded soldier. It is not and Ihave a feeling that you and eveyone else who has signed the petition willagree with me.Yet including the word 'dispropotionate' in what seems like a carefullyworded call for protest does not seem like an oversight on the part of thedrafting team. In fact it reads like a statement of sorts. Though what'sbeing implied is not very clear to me. Perhaps someone will shed light onthis, before Saturday.BestIramOn 9:14:15 am 08/03/06 "Monica Mody" wrote: [It has been suggested by some of that post-protest, this letter behanded over to the embassies of Israel, US and UK, perhaps also theembassies of Lebanon and Palestine.In the interest of transparency, would also like to share that therehave been some objections to the demand for US and UK to be prosecutedfor war crimes. Just to clarify that these two countries have beenincluded in the demand as they have provided logistical support toIsrael's ongoing war in Lebanon and Gaza, by sending bombs (US) viatheir own airports (UK) with the knowledge that these are likely tocause civilian deaths. This is a war crime.As the letter would be in final form only on Saturday morning, when wewill print it and carry to the protest, please do continue to send inyour signatures or to retract them!]CALL TO PROTEST ISRAEL'S DISPROPORTIONATE WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND GAZADear friends,We have watched with horror as Israel's disproportionate use of forceagainst the citizens of Lebanon and Palestine has increased daily andwith impunity in light of sanction for Israel from the United Statesof America and the United Kingdom. Israel's aggression continues inopen defiance of calls from the rest of the international communityfor an immediate cease-fire, and continues to take a heavy toll ofinnocent life.Until today, the 2nd of August, 850 Lebanese including 290 childrenhave been killed and 9,00,000 Lebanese refugees have been displaced inresponse to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah 22days ago. The number of Israeli dead in the conflict thus far is 55,including 19 civilians, as Hezbollah continues to target Israel withrockets.Despite this, yesterday, the European Union too provided implicitsanction to Israel's disproportionate actions by failing to call foran immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Almost immediately, Israelhas launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, involving tens ofthousands of troops.We, the undersigned, condemn this brutal targeting of unarmed civilianpopulations and the systematic destruction of the infrastructure ofLebanon and Gaza. We demand an immediate and unconditional cease-firein Lebanon and in Gaza and that the leaders of Israel, the US and theUK be tried for war crimes against the Lebanese and Palestinianpeople. We mourn the loss of innocent Lebanese, Palestinian andIsraeli lives.We urge groups and individuals to join in a citizen's protest againstIsrael's targeting of civilians which goes against all laws of war andethics of combat.Do come with banners, slogans and solidarity. Please do forward widelyinformation about the protest on all activist lists, and to the media.WhenSaturday 5th, 11 amWhereIsraeli Embassy, 3, Aurangzeb Road(As police do not permit protests outside the embassy, the rendezvouspoint is the UPSC building)In solidarity,1. Aarti Sethi, editor2. Ahtushi Deshpande, travel writer3. Aman Sethi, journalist4. Amar Kanwar, filmmaker5. Anand Vivek Taneja, researcher-writer6. Aniruddha Shankar, concerned citizen7. Anita Roy, editor8. Anita Vasudev, writer9. Annie Zaidi, journalist10. Anubhav Gupta, writer11. Apoorvanand, teacher and writer12. Ashwin Aishwaria, artist13. Bindu Menon, educator14. Charu Soni, journalist15. Colin Fernandes, journalist16. Danish Husain, actor and writer17. Gautam Bhan, activist18. Gayatri Reddy, educator19. George Kurian, filmmaker20. Harpreet Anand21. I. Priya Thangarajah, student22. Indira Pathak, activist23. Jaya Sharma, activist24. Jeet Thayil, writer25. Julia Dutta, journalist26. Kanchana Natarajan, educator27. Kaushiki Rao, concerned citizen28. Kishore Kumar Singh, freelance consultant29. Lesley A. Esteves, journalist30. Madhu Mehra, human rights lawyer31. Mario D'Penha, historian-activist32. Maya Sharma, Parma33. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer34. Monica Mody, writer35. Mujtaba Farooq36. Dr NK Afandi37. Narayani Gupta, consultant INTACH38. Neelima Sharma, theatre activist39. Niharika Gupta, editor40. Nishant Natya Manch, New Delhi41. Ponni Arasu, activist42. Pranav Kumar Singh, lawyer43. Prism, New Delhi44. Radhika Kolluru, lawyer45. Samit Basu, writer46. Sanjay Kak, filmmaker47. Shabnam Hashmi, social activist48. Shakti Bhatt, editor49. Dr. Shamsul Islam, theatre activist 50. Shivam Vij, blogger-journalist51. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, media practitioner52. Siddharth Narrain, journalist53. Subasri Krishnan, filmmaker54. Sumit Baudh, lawyer55. Sumit Roy, filmmaker56. Sunil Gupta, photographer57. Susan M Koshy, writer58. Vaibhav Vats, student59. Vineeta Bal, peace activistSuggested placards/ slogansNo to the WarAmir Peretz-They Wait for You in the HagueNo to the Destruction in Gaza and LebanonChildren in Beirut and Haifa Deserve to LiveListen up, soldier – it's your duty to refuseSave Lebanon, Stop IsraelLebanese children are not terroristsIsrael pulverises, US supervisesIsrael kills UN observers, world remain mute expectatorInnocents killings, US dealingsJang to khud hi ek maslaq haiJang kya mas-alon ka hal degiJang, jangon ke phalsafe ke khilafAman pur aman zindagi ke liye_______________________________________________announcements mailing listannouncements at sarai.nethttps://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements_________________________________________reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.Critiques & CollaborationsTo subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net withsubscribe in the subject header. List archive: --------------------------------- _________________________________________reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.Critiques & CollaborationsTo subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.List archive: > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > subject header. > List archive: __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ From hight at 34n118w.net Fri Aug 4 04:52:47 2006 From: hight at 34n118w.net (hight at 34n118w.net) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 16:22:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Floating Points to be discussed at ISEA Message-ID: <52829.70.34.241.32.1154647367.squirrel@webmail.34n118w.net> Next thursday (Aug 10) at 1pm Jeremy Hight will be part of the ISEA remote speaker series. He will be discussing how to create a new field of locative art and narrative art that exists above the earth and its cities and changes with altitude. He will be speaking over the net from his home. From christina112 at earthlink.net Fri Aug 4 10:07:19 2006 From: christina112 at earthlink.net (Christina McPhee) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 21:37:19 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] August on -empyre- soft-skinned space: Paripatetic Pacific Message-ID: <48DDCF5D-9C84-4FB4-8579-3693604E7EED@earthlink.net> August on -empyre- soft-skinned space: Paripatetic Pacific with: open mike plus PRNMS guests TBA subscribe at : http://subtle.net/empyre Welcome an open mike on Pacific Rim and new media practice, in terms of two metaphors, 'journey' and 'bridges'. At ISEA this year, there's a Pacific Rim New Media Summit (PRNMS) going on August 7 and 8. PRNMS hopes for international cooperation in new media culture, via the metaphor of the bridge: > > > (quoted from the ISEA PRNMS site http://01sj.org/content/ > blogcategory/69/87/ > > >> From the outset we thought of the Summit as a mechanism to >> encourage and facilitate international cooperation with an eye to >> sustainable relationships. Understandably this approach is not >> without difficulties and, as desired, it has been an emergent >> process rather than directorial. We view the Summit as a point >> along a trajectory of building ‘interpretive bridges’ that broaden >> all of our capacities for creative and intellectual exchange. By >> focusing the Summit on sustainable ‘outcomes’ it is our objective >> to facilitative cooperative agendas that enable creative >> production, research and cultural/political practice that >> challenge current models of cooperation. The Summit is not an >> attempt to simply become comfortable with one another or to >> suggest that collaboration is not without controversy, dissent and >> disagreement. The Summit is also about the collisions of ideology >> and manifesto. It is about trying to work through the >> problematics of diversity and difference. >> And we're keying off of a provocative artists manifesto by Raqs Media Collective (Delhi) (quoted from the recent Place, Ground and Practice in Asia Pacific New Media Arts, December 2005, Auckland) http://culturalfutures.place.net.nz/ Raqs conceptualizes practice in terms of 'journey' and 'journeyman'. > "The first imperative, that of crossing borders, translates as > scepticism of the rhetoric of bounded identities, and relates to > the role of the practitioner as a 'journeyman', as the peripatetic > who maps an alternative world by her journey through it. The > second, of building a shelter against the odds of the law, insists > however on a practice that is located in space, and rooted in > experience, that houses itself in a concrete 'somewhere' on its own > terms, not of the powers that govern spaces. It is this fragile > insistence on provisional stability, which allows for journeys to > be made to and from destinations, and for the mapping of routes > with resting places in between." > -- Raqs Media Collective, 'X Notes on Practice' > > Join us at http://subtle.net/empyre -cm From monica.mody at gmail.com Thu Aug 3 23:58:48 2006 From: monica.mody at gmail.com (Monica Mody) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 23:58:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War Message-ID: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> Whether a war is just or not is a more philosophical response. To add to Jamie's comment, the term "disproportionate" has also been used very specifically to refer to the rules for conduct of war under international humanitarian law, and becomes important when you are trying to determine the legality or otherwise of Israel's actions. In other words, Israel could be charged for war crimes because of its disproportional conduct. (For a more detailed analysis, see the Human Rights Watch O&A on Israel and Hezbollah, available at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/17/lebano13748.htm) Cheers, Monica From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Thu Aug 3 21:37:27 2006 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 09:07:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] blogs blocked again? Message-ID: <20060803160727.81793.qmail@web51406.mail.yahoo.com> Has someone noticed (or is it only me) that the blogspots that were allowed to be seen in India after a ban, have been blocked again - at least I cannot access any. Is it because of the 15th August security beef-up. The following news may also interest some: ------ PM apologises to Jahangir NEW DELHI: Displaying a rare courtesy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday apologised to prominent Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jehangir whose hotel room in New Delhi was searched by police without any warrant. Singh, who knows Jehangir, spoke to her and personally apologised for any inconvenience caused to her, Prime Minister's media adviser Sanjaya Baru said. It was explained that there was heightened security at the moment and police were on high alert. Jehangir, who is part of a Pakistani delegation to discuss human rights violations in South Asian countries, said she had checked into a hotel in Sundar Nagar in South Delhi on Monday. Shortly thereafter, police had "barged" into their rooms and started going through their luggage and other belongings, she said. When contacted, DCP (South) Anil Shukla said ahead of Independence Day, it was "routine checking" conducted in hotels and restaurants. He said the hotel owner had informed that some foreigners were staying in his hotel. No inconvenience was caused to them, he said. --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060803/db5bf345/attachment.html From shahzulf at yahoo.com Fri Aug 4 01:35:53 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 13:05:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Virtual Dialogue in Hyderabad Message-ID: <20060803200553.47402.qmail@web38809.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Virtual Dialogue in Hyderabad The socio-political and peace activists and writers from Hyderabad were enriched by their Indian counterparts on August 03, 2006 evening when the first telephone conference of the Virtual Dialogue was organized in the city. In this dialogue many activists from Varanasi, UP, India shared their experiences with their counterparts in Hyderabad, Sindh. This program was jointly organized by South Asia Partnership – Pakistan and People’s Development Foundation in Hyderabad and Vidya Ashram in Sarnath Varanasi, UP, India. Initiating the dialogue Tenzin Rigzin of Vidya Ashram briefed the participants about the social and class movements in India, particularly in the UP, and the sorrows of the divided families of sub-continent of which he himself was a victim. He informed the participants about their initiative on translating the social movement’s literature in common languages of Pakistan. He declared the virtual contact between the activists of both countries as an alternative of physical interaction & announced that the activists from Varanasi will soon organize same kind of conference with activists from Sindh. He hoped the scope of this activity will be enlarged on South Asian level. Mr. Nand Lal, the leading figure of Anti Coca Cola Movement said that this movement was launched in 1995. They are struggling against the exploitation of multi-national companies, during which the active leaders and workers of this movement has been physically assaulted and arrested many times. He informed that the main slogan of their movement is ‘Coca Cola Must Leave India’. Replying a question, he informed that 60 percent activists and participants of the movement are women. He said that they have been baton charged and arrested many times like their male components. Father Arnold of Kala Manch shared his experiences of cultural expression in social movements and briefed about their theater performances on the issues of religious tolerance, peace and harmony, corruption and general exploitation of common people. One street theatre group from Hyderabad Sindh announced to collaborate with Kala Manch in the upcoming days. Ms. Patel informed about the role of UPian women in social movements. She briefed about her organization working on women issues. She shared an idea about establishing a factory on their organization’s initiative to arrange the fair wages for women workers. Advocate Sunil Lal briefed about their efforts on religious harmony. In this regard he told that since last 6 years many Hindu, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs are celebrating their religious occasions jointly in Varanasi. Peasant activist Vinod briefed about the exploitation of agriculture workers by multi national companies and shared Vidya Ashram’s initiatives on organic agriculture. The two poets from Varanasi recited their poetry. The participants from Hyderabad asked many questions from Indian friends and one of the leading young poets, Aasi Mahmood Zamini recited his Sindhi poetry on South Asian perspective. The participants of the dialogue from Hyderabad were prominent poets, writers, journalists and socio-political activists. --------------------------------- Why keep checking for Mail? The all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta shows you when there are new messages. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060803/acc1565f/attachment.html From shahzulf at yahoo.com Fri Aug 4 03:15:57 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 14:45:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] The blind man and Everest: Paulo Coelho Message-ID: <20060803214557.52468.qmail@web38808.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The blind man and Everest Paulo Coelho Little by little we seem to grow used to the same metaphors for life. Some time ago I wrote in this column the “Manual for climbing mountains”, and out of the blue I meet a reader in Hamburg who decides to share his experience with me about climbing in life. He discovered what hotel I am in, and has some criticism to make of my page in the Internet. After making some harsh comments, he asks: “Do you mind if I take a photo with my girlfriend?” Of course I don’t. He picks up his cellular, presses a button, says nothing, and his girlfriend turns up a minute later. After the photo is taken comes the next question, this one more intriguing: “Can a blind man climb Mount Everest?” “I don’t think so,” I answer. “Why don’t you answer ‘perhaps’?” I am almost certain that I am in the company of a “compulsive optimist.” One thing is the whole universe conspiring for our dreams to become true, quite another is to place yourself in front of absolutely unnecessary challenges, which can lead to death or unpredictable failure. I explain that I have to leave for an appointment, but the reader does not give up. “The blind can climb Everest, the highest mountain in the world (8,848 meters). Not only can they do it, but I happen to know of at least one blind person who did it. His name is Erik Weihenmayer. Can your appointment wait?” Since he gave me a name, there could an interesting story here. My appointment can wait, of course. “In 2001, Weihenmayer managed the feat. Meanwhile, people complain that they cannot afford a better car, more elegant clothes, and a salary that matches their abilities.” “Are you sure?” “Look it up in the Internet. But what fascinates me is that Weihenmayer knew exactly what he wanted: he changed his life into what he thought it should be. He had the courage to risk everything to have the universe conspire in his favor.” I agree. The reader goes on, as if my attitude is no longer of any interest to him: “If you know what you want in life, then you have all you need to manage to make your dream come true. Didn’t you yourself say that?” Of course. But there are limits, such as blind people climbing the highest mountain on earth. “And if people have no dreams, what are they supposed to do?” “Think about something that they would like to be doing, and then take the first step,” I answer. “Without being afraid of making a mistake. Without fear of offending those who ‘worry’ about their behavior.” “That’s it!” said the reader, for the first time identifying my ideas clearly. “So we realize that to reach what we want we have to run risks. Don’t you say that in your books?” Not only do I say it, but I also try to keep my word. But we are interrupted in our conversation; it is time for the appointment that has brought me to Hamburg. I thank him for his attention, ask him to send me suggestions for my page on the Internet, we take another picture and then say goodbye. At three o’clock in the morning, returning from that event, I reach into my pocket for the key to my room and discover the piece of paper where he had jotted down the blind man’s name. Even knowing that I have to travel to Cairo in a couple of hours, I turn on the computer, and there it is: “On 25 May 2001, at the age of 32, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to reach the top of the highest mountain in the world. A former high-school teacher, he received the ESPN and IDEA prize for his courage in overcoming the limits that his physical condition permitted. Besides Everest, Erik Weihenmayer has climbed the other seven highest mountains in the world, including Aconcagua in Argentina and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania”. If you don’t believe it, look it up. Courtesy: Warriors of the Light --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060803/fb7f8003/attachment.html From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Aug 4 14:00:06 2006 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 14:00:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> Dear Monica Mody, Jamie, Iram and others on the list As one of the signatories to this petition, I am clearly one of the people who overlooked the significance of the qualifying word, 'disproportionate'. I would like to thank Iram for pointing out the irony in protesting against the idea of 'proportion' while thinking about a state of war. I agree with Iram, that to do this is not to quibble at details, but actually central to the way we think about a state of war. I am not one of those people who believes that there are any just wars. In today's world it is inconceivable that a military and political elite that governs a nation state, would acting 'proportionately' or reasonably to advance its military objectives. Military action in defence of the interests of a nation state are objectionable to me in principle, and there can be no question in my view, that Israel could enter into a 'reasonable, proportionate, just' war with Lebanon. The same holds true of Hezbollah (a state within a state) or the Syrian , or the Iranian state, should they choose to retaliate militarily (as they have already, in the case of Hezbollah) as parties involved in aggression against people inhabiting the boundaries of the territories governed by the State of Israel. Civilians, who die in this conflict, be they Lebanese, Palestinian or Israeli do not have the luxury to ask whether their death was in proportion to the deaths on the other side. The arrogance of the Israeli state consists in its belief that the value of the life of an Israeli person is greater than that of his or her Lebanse or Palestinian neighbours. That therefore, the Israeli military's actions are reasonable and those of the Hezbollah are not. If we are to act against this way of thinking, we must insist that the value of an Israeli civilian's life is the same as that of a Lebanese, or Palestinian civilian. This would mean, that any party to the conflict, on any side, involved in any violence that befalls any civilians, by design or by accident is equally morally responsible for the tragedy that has engulfed the region. We cannot parcel out this tragedy and weigh its proportions. To do so would be to fall prey to the arrogance that the leadership of these states adorn themselves with. I find the discussion of the laws of war somewhat pedantic. The laws of war are to organized armed aggression like the death penalty is to murder. While it is useful that the laws of war occasionally prevent civilian death, I find that they are invoked in the main to indict the inhman acts on the losing side. If it were otherwise, Hiroshima, Dresden, the Rape and Pillage by the Red Army at the close of the Second World War, or many of the actions of the armies of occupation in Afghanistan or in Iraq would have attracted the provisions of the laws of war. It is interesting to note that the charge of war criminal, against, say Saddam Husain has some value, for his usage of chemical weapons against Kurds, or during the Iran-Iraq war can be made to stick only when he is a defeated prisoner. The governements that castigate him as a war criminal today were the very same who ensured that he was supplied with the chemicals and devices needed to make chemical weapons. In light of this, I find the hallowed invocation of the 'international laws of war' somewhat trite. Finally, I would request the drafters of the petition to reconsider their usage of the word 'disproportionate'. So that my signature on the petition can rest in peace. many thanks Shuddha Monica Mody wrote: > Whether a war is just or not is a more philosophical response. > > To add to Jamie's comment, the term "disproportionate" has also been > used very specifically to refer to the rules for conduct of war under > international humanitarian law, and becomes important when you are > trying to determine the legality or otherwise of Israel's actions. In > other words, Israel could be charged for war crimes because of its > disproportional conduct. > > (For a more detailed analysis, see the Human Rights Watch O&A on > Israel and Hezbollah, available at > http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/17/lebano13748.htm) > > Cheers, > > Monica > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: From jamie.dow at pobox.com Fri Aug 4 14:36:32 2006 From: jamie.dow at pobox.com (Jamie Dow) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:06:32 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> Message-ID: <44D30E18.6010900@pobox.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060804/0c20f140/attachment.html From aziz.mansour at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 15:14:20 2006 From: aziz.mansour at gmail.com (Mansour Aziz) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 12:44:20 +0300 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> Message-ID: Dear Shuddha, It is indeed ironic. I was quite uncomfortable with the use of the same terminology for descriptive text we had been drafting for the mapping project (lebanonmaps.org). Not incidentally, the woman who used the term in one of the drafts is a human rights activist. But besides my reservation, and my general agreement with you regarding your moral position towards war, the word serves two purposes. One is to assert the indisputable and highly distorted fact that it is indeed a disproportionate war. Many right-wing Israeli commentators are going mad because they just don't understand why "we can't crush those few thousand mosquitos". I have been appalled with American and European coverage of the war, with notable exceptions, as if it were roughly two equal sides. The other issue is the simple fact that there's an international law -- whether we like it or not -- and it is through this legal (and moral) framework, once can hold this party or that accountable for their actions. I send you my warmest greetings. M. On Aug 4, 2006, at 11:30 AM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > Dear Monica Mody, Jamie, Iram and others on the list > > As one of the signatories to this petition, I am clearly one of the > people who overlooked the significance of the qualifying word, > 'disproportionate'. I would like to thank Iram for pointing out the > irony in protesting against the idea of 'proportion' while thinking > about a state of war. > From aziz.mansour at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 15:49:11 2006 From: aziz.mansour at gmail.com (Mansour Aziz) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 13:19:11 +0300 Subject: [Reader-list] From Beirut ... In-Reply-To: <44D17FA5.2040609@optusnet.com.au> References: <8C093E06-A360-4AB0-AF30-272D3C2A4755@gmail.com> <44D17FA5.2040609@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <4A9EB012-2706-4B98-BB19-3B47B2B9DCF6@gmail.com> http://v2v.cc/v2v/From_Beirut_to_.._those_who_love_us On Aug 3, 2006, at 7:46 AM, s0metim3s wrote: > Hello Mansour, > > Thank you for the video. Unfortunately, I seem to be having > trouble either downloading or watching more than a quarter of it. > I am not sure what the problem is, and perhaps it is at my end. > > But if you upload the film in other formats, please notify the list. > > All the best, > Angela Mitropoulos > (Melbourne) > > Mansour Aziz wrote: >> Hi, >> Just finished setting up this site: >> www.beirutletters.org >> I will add other formats as well soon (including, if I can manage >> the bandwidth, a broadcast version). >> Best, >> Mansour >> _________________________________________ >> 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: > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.5/406 - Release Date: > 2/08/2006 > From mallica.mi at gmail.com Fri Aug 4 15:47:22 2006 From: mallica.mi at gmail.com (mallica mishra) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 03:17:22 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] differences; identities & aspirations in exile Message-ID: <49966ea80608040317r19c22617ie8ef8a4fce332e10@mail.gmail.com> Hello everyone! this is a very late posting and am sorry about this, was caught up with my Ph.D and stuff! Have tried to look at intra-group differences amongst Tibetan refugee youth in exile alongwith identifying patterns of interlinkages with their identities; aspirations and dilemmas. -Mallica Intra-group Diversities, Identities & Aspirations of Tibetan Refugee Youth in Delhi Tibetans are generally seen as a homogenous, monolithic, uniform group of people but my research made me realize that they are actually a heterogeneous group of people with the presence of several intra-group diversities amongst them in Tibet in the pre-1959 period as also in exile in India. Socio-economic, religious and other differences existed amongst them in the pre-migration period, before the exodus into India in 1959. While the circumstances of refugeeism were experienced by all of them alike, socio-economic and cultural rehabilitation and years in exile have brought about changes in position as well as status. Intra-group differences continue to exist amongst them, which may have implications for the identities and aspirations of Tibetan youth in India. Diversities exist in terms of first, second and third generation refugees and also new arrivals to the country. Differences on the basis of class, gender, etc also exist which needs to be explored. Differences are likely to exist in terms of the degree of vulnerability amongst children on the basis of gender, and also in terms of orphaned and destitute children. The intra- group differences need to be explored to understand if they impact upon their individual and collective identities. A. Regional & Sectarian Differences: Pre-migration circumstances: Review of secondary literature suggests that there were three major regions in erstwhile Tibet: U-Tsang; Kham and Amdo. Being separated from each other by large distances, these regions were bound together not so much by the presence of a common political authority as by the presence of similar cultural; religious and ethnic bonds. It took several months on horseback to journey from the Eastern part of Kham to Amdo. Sectarianism, though existent due to low population density and remoteness of one center from another was also not very operative in traditional Tibet, as it made it possible for each of the four major sects to co-exist without threatening the others' 'area of influence'. Post-Migration circumstances: Exile forced closer proximity between these geographically and to an extent also culturally separated people which made the differences in philosophical emphases and interpretations to stand out more clearly and also an inter-sectarian awareness of the other's relative strength (number as well as influence) promoting a competitive attitude "aggravated by western devotees seeking a very un-Tibetan "one true sect" (Nowak, 1978:69). Steps were needed to prevent these regional and sectarian differences in exile and to build and strengthen the struggle for a free Tibet. National identity had to take precedence over traditional regional differences. Thus, concerned Tibetans from all sects, including the Dalai Lama, himself started a public relations campaign to stress harmony and unity amongst the sects as also amongst people from different regional backgrounds of Tibet (Nowak, 1978:69) and, it seems, a national identity was given precedence over regional and sectarian identities in exile. Regional differences also seem to exist amongst Tibetans in India settled in different regions in India. Review of secondary literature suggests that existence of socio-cultural differences, particularly amongst the younger generations of Tibetans from places like Darjeeling in North Eastern India and those from the rest of the country like parts of Himachal Pradesh (Dharamsala; Paonta Sahib etc); Uttaranchal (Dehradun; Mussorie); South India (Bylakuppe; Mundgod etc). My research include interviews with Tibetan students who born in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan but have been educated in India alongwith those Tibetans born and educated in different parts of India. B. Differences of Language/Dialects: Another important aspect with regard to language which influence ethnic identity of students are the differences in dialects of the new entrants from Tibet, particularly, the people belonging to the Kham and the Amdo region of Tibet which brings into sharp focus the differences between the new refugees and the old. For instance, new arrivals tend to be considered as 'sinocized' while according to the old settlers are highly' Indianized' and 'westernized". However, the role of the education system in exile in this regard requires mention. Tibetan schools in India, by the teaching the Lhasa dialect (Central dialect) as standard Tibetan as well as consciously framing textbook content in a similar manner for all refugee children have played a major role in playing down regional and sectarian differences amongst the Tibetans by stressing upon and creating the ideology of a unified Tibetan nation in exile. Thus, Interviews from youth studying in colleges in Delhi University who have passed out from such schools also suggest the absence of all remnants of regional identity and the presence of a pan-Tibetan, cohesive group identity. While there is awareness of the region in Tibet from where their parents and ancestors were from, one's regional identity is not regarded as really important at all. What emerges as important is the ethnic identity, of belonging to the same ethnic group, and comprising a Tibetan nation in exile. The influences of regional differences can, however, still be felt particularly on the dialects and identities of Tibetan youth even within the country, for instance, the youth from places in the north-east, like Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok, seem to speak a Tibetan which is a mixture of Tibetan, Lepcha and Nepalese. They stand out from other Tibetans because they can speak fluently in English and Hindi though they cannot speak in Tibetan. Similarly, it seems, Tibetans settled in Tamil Nadu speak a "strange Tibetan", i.e. 'Tibetan with a Tamil accent' as the curriculum in Tamil Nadu schools call for it, they are also taught Tamil. All the above differences (due to schools attended, regional influences, influence of country of birth etc) contribute towards shaping the identities of the youth. It is believed that life in the city with students living in scattered places might add to the differences and lead to a further loss of traditional Tibetan language skills. This is why the Tibetan Youth Hostel was constructed to enable Tibetan youth to stay together and to speak in their language, celebrate festivals/occasions together and to maintain the Tibetan identity. The hostel is also important as it enables the youth to speak the Tibetan language more frequently (students from non-Tibetan schools seem to strengthen their Tibetan language skills, which in many cases was very limited before their stay there). Thus, the importance of language as a marker of identity of the Tibetan people, therefore, needs to be recognized. C. Differences based on Religion: Religion in pre-1959 Tibet: For centuries, Lamaist Mahayana Buddhism exerted a major influence in Tibet until 1951 when Communist china through massive armed action annexed Tibet and overthrew the old religious order. Harrer, Hienrich, has observed how religion was an all-pervading influence on the lives of Tibetans as "pious texts were constantly on the lips of Tibetans. The religious rituals were an inalienable part of their lives. The prayer wheels were constantly turned and the prayer-flags waved on the housetops, and the mountain passes and the tree-tops. The religious symbolism pervaded their consciousness. To the Tibetans, the rain, the wind, the majestic snow-covered peaks, in short all the phenomena of nature were the various aspects of the godly presence. The divine anger as the Tibetans believed, was manifested by the hailstorm and benevolence, by the fruitfulness and the fertility of the land. The life of the people was regulated by the divine will, whose interpreters were the lamas" (Harrer cited in Saklanai, 1984:132). It was this high degree of conformity, which the Chinese ideology tried to undermine through 'mass education' techniques and 'brain-washing' and yet found difficult to break. The final attack on the lamas led to shock and anguish with a large number of them fleeing the country and following their 'god-king', the Dalai Lama to India. They fled 'to save their religion' and to keep alive the traditional mode of life as also to escape the horrors of persecution (Saklani, 1984,138). Religion in Exile: On coming to India, one of the first major problems that the refugee community faced was -to rehabilitate the monastic community and to keep the religious traditions alive for which, the monasteries and religious institutions were established. Within a very short period of time, they had shown remarkable initiative and creativity and succeeded in creating their very own 'religious environment'. Religious and Cultural institutions have been set up to preserve and foster the pristine religious and cultural heritage of the Tibetans. Exile has also led to a remarkable growth in popularity of Tibetan Buddhism throughout the world, outside the closed environs of Tibet. Such institutions can be found in the U.K, U.S.A, Switzerland, Netherlands, and South Africa, New Zealand apart from different parts of India, Bhutan and Nepal where the refuges have settled in bulk and where naturally the number of such institutions is larger (Saklani, 1984,1984:154). In India, wherever the Tibetan refugee settlements are located, the refugees have built chorten (stupa), gompas (monasteries) or temples; one can still see the ritual of circumambulating these religious monuments; rosaries and prayer-wheels being turned; mantras being chanted, especially by elder people. Religious Differences amongst Tibetans: Tibetans can, however, also be differentiated on the basis of religions. While a great majority of them are Buddhists, there are followers of other faiths also amongst them, for example, the Tibetan Muslims. After the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1959, the Tibetan Muslims, alongwith the Tibetan Buddhists, also decided to opt for India on the basis of their "Indian (Kashmiri and Ladakhi) ancestry to escape Chinese tyranny and were rehabilitated in Srinagar, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok in India (Mondal, 2001:243). While schools were started for the Tibetan Muslim refugee children in these settlements to provide "modern and traditional education", some of them were also sent to Central schools set up for the Tibetans elsewhere in India in Shimla, Dalhousie etc (Mondal, 2001:247). While many of these Tibetan Muslim refugees have become naturalized citizens of India, they seem to still cultivate, both the Tibetan as well as Islamic knowledge and thereby have maintained their "distinct identity" which needs to be acknowledged (Mondal, 2001:248). Apart from Tibetan Muslim refugees, there are also Christian Tibetan refugees in Kalimpong and Darjeeling, India who also have "permanently settled down" in India. It seems before the Chinese entered Tibet, Christian missionaries had functioned in East Tibet (Srinivasan, 1977:4). Decline in the tradition of family members being sent to monasteries to join the monastic order (In Tibet, usually one member of the family from each generation, joined the monastic order). What, however, cannot be disregarded is the importance of religion in the lives of the Tibetan people in exile. Another evidence of changing social attitudes is the fact that recruits to the Lamaist order have "definitely declined" (Saklani cited in Norbu, 1986:19). Narratives of Tibetan youth in the study also reflect decline in interest in monastic education. Recent statistics show that only 10% of Tibetans may be enrolled in various Tibetan monastic institutions (Tibetans in exile, March, 2004:8,DOE, CTA). However, religious values continue to be upheld, or even religious identity, interpreted as the desire to remain devoted to Lamaist Buddhism and to follow the Dalai Lama. All the Tibetan youth in the study were followers of Tibetan Buddhism. D. Differences based on Gender: With regard to the position of Tibetan women in exile as also in Tibet, Tibetologists largely seem to believe that women share a position equal to that of men. At the same time, however, there also seems to be the fact that in relation to education and professional employment "they are staying shy"(Tsering, D, 1986:16). The above paradox, which regards the position of Tibetan women "at par in life activities" but at the same "staying shy" in the educational and professional sphere seems to be important. The fact as to whether the burden of being Tibetan is greater on Tibetan girls rather than boys is explored in terms of the interlinkages between culture, identity and education. Tibetan boys and girls spoken with largely seemed to suggest that there is no 'blatant gender discrimination' against Tibetan women and that their position in society is better than that of Indian women; that they are regarded as better at business as compared to men; are provided equal opportunities to study etc. The limited presence of women in the upper-most echelons of the Tibetan Government in exile is explained on grounds that while opportunities are provided to them, girls tend to be 'shy' and 'don't participate' and even as 'lack talent'. The general argument that is usually given is that 'its not that there is gender discrimination, there are simply not many capable women around'. A few dissenting voices, however, could also be heard, especially from girls from non-Tibetan convent schools. These girls, for instance, Dawa, clearly spoke against the "conservative" Tibetan society. As a woman, she feels that there is "social pressure on Tibetan girls to be well behaved" and to be "shy' and "modest". She feels that the Tibetan youth (both boys and girls) are not comfortable with the fact that she interacts with boys and girls from inside as well as outside the community. "I like interacting with different people all, the time, in the college as well as here in the hostel, which is not considered good for girls. They expect us to be shy all the time and walk with downcast eyes, but why should I act shy if I'm not and why should I walk with downcast eyes, except maybe in front of my boyfriend!" she retorts. The atmosphere of Tibetan schools, according to the students, is also at fault, in terms of promoting limited and healthy interaction between girls and boys. 'Teasing' and 'labeling' takes place if a boy and a girl are seen talking alone giving rise to youth with hesitant and 'shy' personalities who feel uncomfortable in interacting with boys/girls of the opposite sex. A Tibetan girl who studied in a Tibetan school till 10th and later on, for plus-two, shifted to a Convent schools explains the difference in the atmosphere of these two schools. In the TCV School, she says, the warden was "very strict and orthodox" and was "not happy about girls and boys with each other". Girls could not go to the boys hostel and vice versa. "They used to beat us up, also", she adds. "Dar-dar ke rehna padta tha"("we used to be sacred most of the time"). It was not like this in the other school. There was plenty of interaction between girls and boys; for instance, birthday parties were "celebrated in the basketball court, there was food and even a DJ!" As cultural and social values and ideas about gender and sexuality are inculcated into individuals through the process of socialization at the level of the family; school; peer-group and community - these years of adolescence are specially important in the context of Tibetan youth as they inform and shape their values, opinions, worldviews and identities that gives meanings to and shapes their behavior in the years to come. It also emerges from review of secondary literature as well as from interviews with Tibetan youth that the burden of preserving traditional Tibetan culture and heritage seems to be more upon Tibetan girls' as compared to Tibetan boys. An example being the fact that in traditional ceremonial occasions, like Losar (Tibetan New Year) while the boys seem to be at ease in comfortable western outfits (jeans and t-shirts); girls are expected to be dressed in their traditional Tibetan outfits called chubbas. Thus, intra-group differences on the basis of gender and the influence of the same upon individual and collective identities seems to be a significant fact that needs to be further explored in detail. E. Differences based on Class: Pre-migration circumstances: Tibetan society seems to have been a stratified one with the people divided on the basis of class. Scholars like Grunfeld note the existence of an "overwhelming evidence of a highly stratified society with a huge gulf between the classes in former Tibet" which also had an impact on education in the country (Grunfeld, 1987:14). Formal, secular education was a preserve of only the upper classes in Tibet (particularly prior to the advent of the Chinese secular schools) with the wealthy hiring tutors or during the 20th century, sending their children to India and Sikkim for an Anglo-Indian education at Christian missionary schools (Grunfeld, 1987:14;Alam, 2000:186). Post-Migration circumstances: Exile in India, seems to have provided scope for social and economic mobility, with modern, secular education, no longer remaining the preserve of the upper classes (Alam, 2000:186). Yet, it seems that access to expensive public schools is not available to all Tibetan children in India with the former aristocracy contining to send their children to exclusive and expensive, private Anglo-Indian schools or aboard for their education (Grunfeld, 1987:16). The fact that whether those who constituted the upper classes in Tibet, continue to have an upper hand in exile seems to be a significant issue. Life in exile seems to have brought about disruptions in terms of traditional occupations, with occupational mobility taking place and chances being available for those traditionally at the bottom-rung of the social hierarchy to move up the same. However, many of the older classes, particularly members of the old nobility have also managed to retain their old status, continuing to be a part of and exercise their influence in the Dalai lama's administration. A trend that was detected from the interviews was a clear difference between the class situation of students from Tibetan and non-Tibetan schools. Differences in economic background can be seen largely in terms of students from Tibetan schools and those from non-Tibetan schools. While the latter's parents largely seem to belong to the middle and upper-middle class groups and are able to afford expensive school fees of non-Tibetan schools, the latter usually seem to belong to lower and lower-middle class families and therefore send their children to Tibetan schools where education is provided free of cost or at subsidized rates. While such trends were noted, further research is required to look at the class situation of Tibetan youth to determine how (and if at all) these differences impact upon their sense of individual and collective identities in exile F. Place of Birth: Differences between Tibetan youth born outside India & those born in India There are significant differences, in terms of lived experiences; identities and aspirations between Tibetan children born and brought up in India and the new arrivals born in Tibet but who have, subsequently crossed the border from Tibet into India to study in the Tibetan schools of The Dalai Lama's government in exile. Review of secondary literature on the issue highlights the following points of difference between the two groups of Tibetans. New Arrivals: According to Liang, L, "for the past five years, the average number of refugees who have been coming to India is in the 3000 range. More than 50% of these new arrivals are children under the age of fifteen. Increase in the number of new arrivals is the direct result of easing of the Chinese policies in the post-cultural revolution period. There are now thirteen established routes through which Tibetan people escape to their freedom in exile in India. Most of the new arrivals cross Tibet in India during the winter months (Dec-Feb) because this is the time of the year when the snow is at its most treacherous and most of the Chinese guards are withdrawn to safer places". Liang states that for the parents who send their children across, it is the belief that their children will have a "better education" in India since most of them do not have the chance of a regular education in Tibet. It is also the desire of the Tibetan parents "to ensure that their children do not lose their identity and their language" which makes them take the decision of taking the perilous journey (Liang, 1999: 18). i. Socio-cultural adjustment problems: These include, missing Tibet and their families; not being able to adjust to the climate and food in India, not being able to get used to the educational system here especially if they have never studied in a school before, an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the other children who were born in India. ii. Dialect Differences: not being able to adjust to the Lhasa dialect spoken in India, especially if they are from Kham or Amdo (In India the Central Tibetan dialect (U-Tsang) is normally spoken while those who come from the other two regions of Tibet (Kham and Amdo) have different dialects alongwith a pronounced Chinese accent). Those born in India, on the other hand are more at ease with both the Central Tibetan dialect or Lhasa dialect spoken in India as well as the ways of the country. iii. Cultural and temperamental differences: Goldstein-Kyaga refers to "newcomers often commenting what they consider the bad Tibetan language of the old refugees, a mixture of dialects intermingled with Indian words. The old refugees, on the other hand, comment on the newcomers' Chinese influenced ways and language"(Goldstein-Kyaga, 1993:124). iv. Better academic performance: Despite above-mentioned problems of adjustment to life in a new country, it seems that children in Tibetan schools like TCV (most of whom are new arrivals) have better examination results (X and XII) than India-born other Tibetan children. v. Spirit of patriotism/nationalism: Goldstein-Kyaga also found the new refugees to be more nationalistic as compared to the old refugees, "even though it is assumed that it is refugees who represent the nationalism, while Tibetans in Tibet are less engaged in this respect"(Goldstein-Kyaga, 1993:125). Interviews with Tibetan youth born in India as well as those who were born in Tibet/Nepal/ Bhutan have been conducted that bring out the above differences, though in varying degrees. G. Differences between Tibetan youth on Type of School attended: Alongwith the intra-group diversities that existed amongst Tibetans, even in the pre-1959 period (region; religion; sect; gender; class etc) another variable that I have looked at to determine linkages of these diversities with individual and collective Tibetan identities in exile is: the type of school that they have passed out from in India. As pointed out earlier, there are largely three kinds of schools and education that Tibetan children in India have. These are provided in a) Tibetan schools b) Non-Tibetan Schools c) Monastic Schools. My interactions and interviews with the Tibetan youth residing in the Tibetan Youth Hostel in Rohini, New Delhi, basically shed light on differences in life experiences of students from Tibetan and non-Tibetan schools in India. The 'Tibetan' and the 'non-Tibetan' or Indo-western atmosphere of these two varieties of schools give rise to students with differing levels of acculturation with the host culture and people; feelings and sentiments towards 'the homeland' Tibet; and different aspirations and identities. i. Role of Tibetan Schools in forging a national identity: My previous posting had dealt with the ways in which the school culture of Tibetan schools in exile are an important medium through which the idea and concept of Tibet-as one nation is translated into 'reality' for Tibetan children. They form the soil on which the idea of Tibet emerges and takes root in the imagination of the children. It is through textbooks (alongwith other school processes) that Tibetan children come to know of the concept of a nation, Tibet as a lost nation, their relation with India and their status as refugees (at the national and the international level). At the same time, the textbooks also provide future pointers to action- elaborating upon the dreams and 'fervent wish' of their return to Tibet, sustaining the idea of the myth of return and even elaborating on the kind of Tibet they want to return to (that has either freedom or real autonomy, as pointed above) Uniformity of identity has been consciously brought about, amongst other things, through the medium of education. The school environment seems to be imbued with the spirit of patriotism with daily rituals and ceremonies such as, singing of national anthem; staging of debates on legitimacy of Tibet's claim to independence, school wide commemoration of Tibetan festivals and occasions, through which, the school's role in promoting of nationalism becomes even more evident. Most Tibetans are also socialized to think of themselves as a homogeneous group through schooling and group celebrations such as the celebration of the 10th March uprising or the Dalai Lama's birthday; both celebrations are primarily designed to raise a sense of national consciousness. The symbols of a political nation that include: a flag, a national anthem, days of national celebration and a national figurehead. All of the Tibetan youth spoken to refer to, the raising of the Tibetan flag and the singing of the Tibetan national anthem (alongwith the Indian national anthem) in their schools every morning. The two new festivals created in exile to foster a sense of national identity, primarily, commemoration of the 10th March uprising and celebration of the Dalai Lama's birthday both take place in the Tibetan schools. The schools contribute towards the development of emotions of intense nationalism' not only through the above methods but also with the attitudes of teachers and other school staff who constantly try to impress upon students their refugee status and the need for them to be 'different' from others, to 'work harder' and to fight for the cause of Tibet. Discussions with youth shed light on their memories of how these events are celebrated and/or commemorated in Tibetan schools and their impact upon their identities as children. The schools' role in creating a pan-Tibetan national identity becomes important due to the fact, as mentioned before intra-group diversities that existed amongst them, had to be consciously downplayed so that the a Tibetan national movement had to be built in exile for Tibet's freedom. The role of Tibetan schools is important as an agency of identity-construction of Tibetan youth, in view of the fact that most of the senior secondary Tibetan schools in India are residential (twelve out of fourteen) largely located in hill stations and a majority of students spend important years of their lives within these boarding schools, before going out into bigger cities like Delhi for pursuing their higher education. Language; Schools & Opportunities: all the Tibetan students from Tibetan schools, spoken to, referred to a lack of fluent English language skills amongst them. This, they feel, is due to the 'Tibetan' environment of their schools with teacher-student interaction in Tibetan language and lack of use of English language in school. Students also stated that the limited English and Hindi language skills, a product of the education system, are an important impediment, as it leads to low confidence and does not prepare them adequately to get jobs in the job-market in the Indian community. Those from non-Tibetan schools on the other hand, clearly accept their lack of knowledge about traditional Tibetan culture, language and religion due to the nature of their schooling. They, however, being fluent in English and Hindi language, according to them, is an advantage that will help them in higher education and in seeking jobs in exile. Language & Interaction with Indian Students: Their limited English and Hindi speaking skills also make communication and interaction (of Tibetan students from Tibetan schools) with Indian students difficult. The students from Tibetan schools, thus, come across as low in confidence and shy and tend to prefer to hang around with Tibetan students in their college. Tibetans from non-Tibetan schools, on the other hand, claim to be facing no such problems, have Tibetan as well as Indian friends in college. While all the students from non-Tibetan schools claimed to have both Tibetan and Indian friends in college; all the students from Tibetan schools stated that they 'try' to find and be with Tibetan students in college. Though most of the Tibetan students in exile seem to be attending Tibetan schools as compared to non-Tibetan schools, there are very few of such students from Tibetan schools who seem to be enrolled in premier colleges. Choice of college: students from non-Tibetan schools stated that they had the desire to get admission into such institutions of learning because of the reputation of good quality of education provided. Interviews with Tibetan youth who have passed their senior secondary from Tibetan schools, on the other hand, suggest that they seem to be studying in the middle and lower rung colleges of Delhi. The reasons for studying in these colleges seems to be largely dependant upon the marks secured in their 12th grade and in some cases the fact of presence of Tibetan 'seniors' in these colleges that provides a feeling of 'security'. H. Generation-Gap & Differences between Tibetan youth: Research suggests that the older generations of refugees, as compared to their children generally tend to be loathe to give up their native identity and traditional culture, which, in many instances is on the brink of extinction and which, quite often was the main reason behind their persecution and escape from their native country. For refugee children and youth, a dilemma invariably exists as to whether to conform to the host society's culture and ways of life so as to climb up the occupational ladder or to adhere to their parents desire to preserve and cherish (to the extent possible) their own cultural values and language Interviews of students born, brought up and educated in India in non- Tibetan schools (as compared to those who were born in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan etc) indicate that the issue of 'generation-gap' is more prominent amongst youth in certain regions of the country (for instance, Darjeeling, W.B). Generation gap and resultant socio-cultural differences, it seems, can be seen primarily amongst those Tibetans born and brought up in exile in India who have had their education in non-Tibetans schools like Christian convents and Indian public schools. These students also seem to have higher degrees of acculturation with the host country, India and are less integrated with the Tibetan community in exile. They also seem to have aspirations (educational & career-wise) to explore opportunities outside the Tibetan community, India as well as aboard. An interesting case is that of Jigme Yeshi, for instance, born and brought up in Darjeeling and a product of a Christian missionary school, St Josephs' North Point, who wishes to settle down in India and seek naturalization, though,, in consonance with his parents' wishes. Jigme, feels that despite the desire to seek naturalization, he "feels for Tibet" and realizes the need for its "conservation". Another "dream" of his is to work at UNESCO and convert precious sites in Tibet as 'Heritage Sites' (only the Potala Palace has been so far made a Heritage Site"). Jigme, however, refers to existence of a 'generation-gap' amongst families of other Tibetan youth in Darjeeling who, "because of being educated in "western schools", do not have a "direct, straightforward attachment to the Tibet issue". Another reason, he said, is that they are "selfish", have relatives aboard and want to settle there; also Tibetans in Darjeeling, it seems, do not live in a settlement but are dispersed and live in small pockets. Peace marches are also; it seems, very infrequent with "only the elders participating". He says his father; though a staunch supporter of the Dalai Lama wanted him out of "sloganeering; picketing and shouting anti-Chinese slogans as he felt it would "make matters worse" for Tibet. He says that only the 'leaders' of such marches are educated. Most of the participants are college dropouts; into smoking and listening to Bob Marley and Santana. Jigme refers to the "pollution" of the younger generations in Darjeeling. "They like to imitate Eminem; Kid Rock, wear clothes like that and behave like them". Jigme, provides a very interesting description of the clothes work by such youngsters in Darjeeling: huge t-shirts /jerseys touching the knees; huge baggy jeans; cap worn backwards (like tennis-players); colored hair (in shades like green; blue etc); a long chain hanging from the neck; a scarf worn around the neck (is supposedly very important); 2 wrist -bands; a kind of wallet with a metallic tattoo of a skeleton etc and a long chain hanging loosely from waist-band of jeans to jeans-pocket alongwith earrings etc. There is another group that he says dresses like rock artists. This is the "biker-macho" group and they wear leathers; have t-shirts with emblems of Metallica; ACDC; scarf/bandana around the head and wear accessories, like metallic 'knuckles' etc. Jigme says that, of his batch, he was the "only" Tibetan who was apart from these groups and totally uninfluenced by their ways. This, he says, was the result of his socialization in his Christian school and also due to values instilled in him by his parents. He was advised "not to be carried away by the sea or will become like them". · Language/dialect: the Tibetan youth in the study have a belief that the parents and elders speak 'real' Tibetan whereas students born and brought up in exile schools speak a "different Tibetan". The former cannot also speak in English and even Hindi, a fact that, it seems, makes them 'more' Tibetan. Tamdin, "states that, "I think my father and elders in my community are 'more Tibetan' than I am because of the fact that they speak in their own language. My Tibetan (as also the Tibetan spoken by youngsters of my generation in India) is a different kind of Tibetan, which has originated in schools. My father and elders of the community cant write or read Hindi but can speak and understand the language. They don't understand English". There are concerns about the declining standards of Tibetan language, particularly writing skills amongst the new generation of Tibetans due to faulty pedagogical methods and influence of globalization. Tashi Dorjee, an ex-student of a Tibetan school, TCV, Bylakuppe, feels that the Tibetan language is weakening due to "western influences" like hip-hop songs; TV; clothes upon the youth etc." · Religion & Lifestyle: Many students regard religion to be an area where a generation gap exists between the older and the younger generations of Tibetans, especially in terms of level of adherence to religious beliefs and performance of daily rituals. While they accept that religion is also important to them, to their parents, they say, it is "more important". Differences in lifestyle in exile, particularly, ways of dressing; utilization of leisure time are also referred to, in this regard. · Decline in academic standards: The younger generation of Tibetans are said to suffer from "declining standards of scholastic achievement" (Norbu, 1994:13), which is attributed to a lack of motivation to study. Against this, the older generation, it seems, were motivated enough to excel in education in India, by memories of hardships their parents had suffered under the Chinese and a strong sense of patriotism aroused by the 1959 Tibetan uprising. To the third generation of Tibetans born and brought up in exile, in more or less improved socio-economic conditions, the former event seems to be, "a mere memory, if not entirely forgotten" (Norbu, 1994:13). Students from outside India, like Tibet who come to India for a 'Tibetan' education are supposed to be more motivated and hard-working, as compared to their counterparts in India who are supposedly more laid-back as have their parents' sweater-business to fall back upon. Lack of Academic Motivation/Competition: Amongst the students, there is, as pointed out above, also the feeling that Tibetan students studying in Tibetan schools lack a spirit of competition and have low motivation to study. As compared to the former, students in Christian Missionary non-Tibetan schools, it seems, "do better" in terms of academic performance due to the spirit of competition amongst students in such schools. Students "from Tibet" (i.e. those who were born in Tibet), it is believed, have seen "many hardships" and tend to work harder and do well in school, as compared to those who were born in India and who got "things easily". According to Yankyi, a student from a Tibetan school, the reason why Tibetan students don't do well academically is that they grow up in 'homes' and the foster mother, "did not make us study as hard as our parents". "Though she may be good, she cannot look after all 40 students well. This is why she thinks; the "lack of focus" is there amongst Tibetan students. While they blame the 'system' of teaching-learning in the schools and lack of parental attention in 'homes' for the decline in motivation to study, students from non-Tibetan schools feel that students from Tibetan schools are also to be blamed alongwith the system itself. Dawa, for instance, thinks, " 90% of Tibetans who pass out of Tibetan schools, like TCV schools are not serious about their career. The Government in exile does not get quality work from its people because of the quality of the education in Tibetan schools in India. In terms of knowledge of Tibetan culture and language, these schools might be good but not in terms of preparing for jobs.." She also feels that they lack motivation to go aboard for higher studies "they don't have any wishes to go aboard"), they just want to stay within the community. Their attitude is"yahi rehna hai, kya karna hai" ("we have to stay here only, why should we bother") Even if they do go aboard, they do so to earn money, not for study purposes". Dawa feels that students from Tibetan schools get "things easily" and suffer from a lack of competitive spirit as compared to students from non-Tibetan schools. This is the reason why she feels that "children who go to missionary schools are far better; more brainy; more mature". The desire to go aboard for higher studies, for instance, can be seen in the case of students from non-Tibetan students more clearly (case of Dawa Dolkar born and brought up in Nainital); to go aboard for work (case of Tsechu born in a Tibetan settlement in Bir, Himachal pradesh and Chime brought up in Mussoorie) or even, in some, cases, to apply for naturalization in India. They have as many, if not more, Indian friends in college, some of them from school-time. Tibetan students born in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan etc who have received education in Tibetan schools in India, unlike students born in India, did not express any such wish (to apply for naturalization in India). While going aboard for work is an option, they all seem to believe in the dream of 'real autonomy' becoming a reality in the future and are content to live as refugees till then. They also desire to largely stay within the folds of the Tibetan community in India, even while looking for jobs either in India or in "parents' home" in Nepal or Bhutan. Identities; Aspirations & Dilemmas of Tibetan youth in Delhi Despite the existence of the above-mentioned intra-group diversities amongst Tibetan youth in Delhi, a strong sense of political identity, manifested in the desire to fight for the cause of Rangzen or even 'real autonomy' seemed evident amongst all the Tibetan youth in the study. Narratives of Tibetan youth in the study reflect a strong sense of political and ethnic identity- an awareness of intra-group differences that is, voluntarily given precedence over their 'national' identity as one, homogeneous group-Tibetan. Influences of forces of westernization and influence of the host country on the ways of life and aspirations of the younger generations of Tibetans can also be seen at the same time. They seem to be drawn towards modern education; careers and dreams of economic mobility. Interviews with some of these students reflect western as well as Indian cultural influences on tastes in music; movies; food; television soaps etc all of which seem to combine to define their multiple and shifting youth identities that have as their "core", a Tibetan identity. They spoke about their 'stereotyping' and demands placed upon their identities and expectations for them to conform to the one single 'true' definition of Tibetan identity by 'outsiders'. That every Tibetan does not have to be a vegetarian Lama dressed in a traditional chubba that in this hot weather, it would be 'madness' to be dressed in chubbas all the time! They asserted that just because they seem to be 'westernized' in their choice of clothes, music etc does not mean that they are 'losing' their identity and are not Tibetan enough. Analogies often tend to be drawn by them between their situation and that of the Jews. As Monlam puts it, "Tibetanness is in the blood of every Tibetan, even as a child as one learns and knows 'Om Mane Padme Hum'. Like the Jews have Sabbath every Friday, it's the same with us. It is part of our culture and we are comfortable living like this". He says that he usually wears a rosary and chants, "wherever possible", in a bus while travelling etc.He says that he also wears beaded bracelets and other accessories "for fashion, but that does not mean that I become less of a Tibetan". "I try to "flow with the trend", he adds. There are assertions by all the youth that jeans; t-shirts; sneakers and accessories like chains; bracelets etc are 'just for fashion'. Posters of sportstars like Beckham; Ronaldo and rock and pop stars like Shakira and Enrique are proudly pasted on their hostel room walls alongwith framed pictures of the Dalai Lama. There is no contradiction there, while they 'like' the stars, the Dalai Lama is their 'everything' - the reason for their very survival. While the number of prostrations before his photograph (alongwith that of Buddhist deities like Tara; Manjushri etc) might have reduced considerably as compared to their years in school, religion is 'important' to them, though not as important as compared to their parents. All of them are very clear about having Tibetans as their marriage partners - as it amounts to preserving their 'heritage' in exile. While those from non-Tibetan schools might seem to be more adventurous and experimentative while hanging around with non-Tibetan friends and even while dating, choice of a marriage partner is considered as 'serious' matter with a person from the same cultural and ideological background being 'preferred' over an 'outsider'. Whatever the elders in the community or even the Tibetan government in exile might say, the Tibetan youth in the study seemed to be very conscious of their responsibilities towards their cause of preserving their identity in exile as seeds of future Tibet and were vocal about expressing the same. They also accepted the fact that differences can exist amongst them and that they can still be very much 'Tibetan' at heart. Monlam, an ex- student of a Tibetan school for instance, is proud of his Tibettanness and also of his regional identity ie Khampa and kinship ties or (Nangchen) identity. As he puts it, "I will certainly say that I am Tibetan. But I am also a Khampa with a Nangchen identity". Dawa, is Convent educated, yet says with pride, "Tibetanness is something that is inherent within you; "koi nehi le sakta hai" ("no one can take it away from you"). Choice of food; movies; music for them seems to be a delightful mix of Indian; Tibetan and western (sometimes even Nepalese and Bhutanese, depending upon the place of residence of their parents). When questioned about their identity, however, there is always an immediate, non-hesitant, proud answer-'Tibetan'! Combination of the influence of above cultures is seen as not leading to contradictions but as enhancing their innate identities as Tibetan. Parallels are drawn easily (between Indian and Tibetan youth) with depiction of the former in the movie 'Rang De Basanti' as easygoing and directionless (in the first half of the movie). There is the self-critical view that many of them, specially those who have been born and brought up in exile with their parents, have everything easy and have the easygoing and aimless attitude (towards their life and towards 'fighting' for Tibet's cause) as the Indians in RDB initially had. There's Pasang who says, "Just like in the movie, they don't do anything to change the system, just say that the system is not working". There are tentative admissions that they youth 'may be getting influenced' by 'outside' cultures, western as well as Indian and also forgetting their traditional Tibetan language (specially writing as tend to get 'out of practice' after school) but there is also the definite assertion that these changes are 'superficial' and that 'deep-down' they are all Tibetan at heart. Their identities, thus, come across as hybrid; fluid; shifting and multiple, with Tibetan ness as the core component. Tibettanness here can be said to consist of a combination of certain diverse elements, primarily being: a strong feeling of Tibetan nationalism or political identity; realization of the urgent need for preservation of their cultural and linguistic heritage in exile; adulation and veneration of the Dalai Lama; importance of religion of Tibetan Buddhism in their lives. Alongwith aspirations to do 'something for Tibet', all the youth in the study seemed to be facing dilemmas as to choice of a career after their graduation in Delhi University. One major difference that was noted amongst the youth was in terms of aspirations of Tibetan youth from Tibetan schools and those from non-Tibetan schools. There was a general feeling amongst the former to stick to finding work 'within' the Tibetan community - their years of living a closed, sheltered life in residential Tibetan schools was often given as the reason for this desire. On the other hand, students from Indian public schools; convents etc seemed to be more adventurous and at ease with finding jobs 'outside' the Tibetan community- either in bigger, Indian cities, like Delhi or even aboard. 1.Dilemmas in Choice of Career: Most of the students seemed to be facing dilemmas to what to do after graduation. All of them suggested the need for more job-placement and career-guidance workshops in the Tibetan Youth hostel to help students make proper choices. Most of Tibetan students from Tibetan schools aspire to work for the Tibetan Government in exile, in its various departments as administrators or as teachers in the Tibetan schools that they have passed out from. Other options mentioned by students were: workings in call centers; applying for post-graduation in Jawaharlal Nehru University; Delhi University or even aboard, in case of scholarship or if they have siblings/relatives aboard; getting enrolled in computer courses, like Multimedia; courses in journalism etc. 2. Dilemma about returning to Tibet or staying in India: Students from Tibet, who have relatives/family, seemed to be facing the dilemma of going back to Tibet or staying back in India, after graduation. Though the desire seems to be there, they also fear arrest and persecution by the Chinese government, especially if they have participated in anti-China demonstrations in India. Many of such students have had no contact or limited contact (through letters sent through visiting relatives/friends etc) with their parents/family in Tibet. Years of schooling in India amidst Tibetan friends and elders (school staff) gives rise to close bonding with the former, while relationships with the biological 'family' becomes 'strange'. One of the students spoken with expressed the dilemma in poignant words spoken, straight from the heart. Confiding in me, he spoke of how he was secretly 'smuggled' to India by his parents to study as there was "no scope in Tibet" for a proper education based on Tibetan culture and religion. As he puts it, "my parents sent me to enable me to get blessings from His Holiness the Dalai Lama (whose existence I was never even aware of at that time; I did not know who he is as I was never told) and to receive an education based on Tibetan culture and language as it was not available in TAR. My parents sent me when they got to know (with great difficulty) that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is running schools for the "future seeds" of Tibet in India".He studied in a residential school in Dharamsala. Today, he is caught between the horns of a major dilemma in his life. After ten years of no contact with him, his parents had believed him to be dead. When he was in his plus-two, they could finally establish contact with him, ever since they have been asking him to come back to Tibet. They want to see him "before they die", they say and they also do not want him "to die on foreign soil". He obviously wants to be with his parents but is also very close to his Tibetan teachers and friends in India with whom he has grown up and who are advising him not to go to Tibet. A part of him is also scared of his life being endangered in Tibet, if he caught by the Chinese authorities (as has actively taken part in protest demonstrations against China). He also has educational aspirations of pursuing a Masters in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also toying with the idea of going to Tibet for one year and then coming back as the scholarship provided by the Department of Education to him recognizes a gap-year after graduation and can also continue to receive it after coming back. He is proud of his Tibetan identity. Like all of the youth interviewed, the most important role model to him is His Holiness the Dalai Lama followed by Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. There are others, like him who would 'ideally' like to go back to meet with family/friends or just 'to see Tibet' and come back for higher education or for jobs in India ('preferably with the with the Tibetan government in exile) but are scared of being caught and persecuted in Tibet by the Chinese government as 'spies' of the 'splittist' group. Identities & Aspirations in motion: I have tried to look at identities of the Tibetan youth in Delhi from a Sociological perspective as an on-going, continual process rather than as a finished product. Alongwith their present experiences and lives in the city of Delhi, the years of schooling- of lived experiences of growing up in the company of friends and teachers (and in some case also with parents and community), I believe, are also very important as they seem to have moulded and forged a major sense of their feelings of belongingness and identities. In this respect, the 'Tibetan' atmosphere of Tibetan schools in India and the 'non-Tibetan' atmosphere of non-Tibetan schools are both important and have been explored. Memories and stories as constructed from elders' voices about the past are important alongwith life experiences in exile. The move to the big Indian city of New Delhi for pursuing their graduation amounts to a major turning point /shift in their lives as it involves a move from protected, sheltered and routinised lives in Tibetan schools to a life 'on their own'. As pointed out in an earlier posting, life in the city leads to their identities becoming influenced by diverse western, Indian and 'popular' urban youth culture - a hallmark of cities. Tibetanness, however, seems to remain the 'core' element of their individual and collective identities- forged in school and reaffirmed and strengthened by 'routine' protest marches organized by the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress in Delhi; celebration of Tibetan New Year and other festivities in the Tibetan Youth Hostel etc. There are also times, however, when in the absence of such re-affirming and reassuring public demonstrations for affinity towards Tibet's cause, the youth behave and act out lives as similar to that of youth in a city anywhere else in the world and want to be accepted as such. Merging with the rest of the young, urban crowd, they can be seen wearing similar western and even Indian outfits (chubbas being worn largely by Tibetan girls and on traditional occasions like Losar or Tibetan New Year); eating the usual grub at McDonalds after college or the college/hostel canteen; watching a similar array of Hollywood and Bollywood movies, loving Hindi film songs and dances and also western rock; pop; reggae and hip-hop numbers; and film stars (Shahrukh Khan; Aamir Khan - after RDB seem to be hot favourite alongwith Richard Gere- not so much for his acting abilities as due to his association with Tibet's cause also, Rani Mukherjee; Aishwarya Rai; Angelina Jolie etc) , thus, becoming part of a global youth culture that eclipses differences amongst them. As Dawa , a student of Political Science at Hindu College wonders, "It is strange but I see the Tibetan spirit only when I go for Tibetan protests and gatherings. If we are just sitting like this or just hanging around "toh lagta hi nehi hai ki koi feelings hain" ("it just does not feel like there are any feelings"). Dawa believes that "the Tibetan identity seems to be fading away" amongst the youth and that more social gatherings and workshops should be held to motivate Tibetan youth "to study hard; to be proud of the fact that they are Tibetans". She breaks off, adding, "We really feel inspired by people like you who are so much interested in our cause. If you can, why not we?". The complexity of identities; aspirations and dilemmas that Tibetan youth in Delhi seem to embody, thus, seems to come across to me as a colourful and diverse mosaic that is interesting as much as it is complex, deserving careful scrutiny that I have been working upon! Warm Wishes, Mallica From iram at sarai.net Fri Aug 4 15:50:17 2006 From: iram at sarai.net (iram at sarai.net) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 12:20:17 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Dear all, Let me begin by saying that I do not doubt the sincerity of the drafters of the petition (which I haven't read) and the signatories. My objection still is to the usage of the word 'disproportionate' in the call to protest. It acts a qualifier and has been read as a call to protest a disproportionate' war as opposed to a 'proportionate' one. If this is not enough to econsider the word, then nothing will be. The word 'disproportionate' as we all know and would agree forms a part of the discourse around this 2006 war in Lebanon. I wonder if it was used in a similar manner in protests and petitions in earlier wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am also sure that the protests against these wars were not mere philosophical positions on War in general but then again I may be wrong. I understand the need to highlight the disproportionality of the war in Lebanon, but can't it be done by having a clause, one of the points in the petition rather than the word being used in its title? Can it be rephrased to avoid this misreading? I do understand that the legal framework requires the usage of the word 'disproportionate' to describe the war , but then again to me it seems like an invitation to misreading and possible misuse. Excuse my ignorance and naivety or call it cynicism but word play in the course of this war had made me wary. It is not easy to forget the manipulation of the word 'immediate/ ly' by Ms Condoleezza Rice regarding the ceasefire in Lebanon. Best Iram On 8:28:48 pm 08/03/06 "Monica Mody" wrote: > Whether a war is just or not is a more philosophical response. > > To add to Jamie's comment, the term "disproportionate" has also been > used very specifically to refer to the rules for conduct of war under > international humanitarian law, and becomes important when you are > trying to determine the legality or otherwise of Israel's actions. In > other words, Israel could be charged for war crimes because of its > disproportional conduct. > > (For a more detailed analysis, see the Human Rights Watch O&A on > Israel and Hezbollah, available at > http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/17/lebano13748.htm) > > Cheers, > > Monica > _________________________________________ > 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: /pipermail/reader-list/> From aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in Fri Aug 4 14:04:13 2006 From: aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in (Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 14:04:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Lecture: First Venice, then...biennials in a polycentric art world Message-ID: <1154680453.8d232dc0aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> School of Art and Aesthetics, JNU, and The Biennale Society cordially invite you to a talk First Venice, then...biennials in a polycentric art world by Robert Storr Director 2007 Venice Biennale Venue: School of Arts and Aesthetics Auditorium Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Date: Monday 7th August 2006 Time: 6pm Robert Storr is the Director of the 2007 Venice Biennale. An artist and critic, he is the former Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1990-2002), former Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (2002-2006), and the newly appointed Dean of the Yale University School of Art ============================================== 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 aasim27 at yahoo.co.in Fri Aug 4 21:29:57 2006 From: aasim27 at yahoo.co.in (aasim khan) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 16:59:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> Message-ID: <20060804155957.533.qmail@web8710.mail.in.yahoo.com> hi... Just thought of playing devils advocate, one day before the rally...here are some second thoughts...I just got reading these posts ...on why protestors ( prospective) are sounding so passive, some almost guilty in propounding their anxieties...Should not the debate be clear. Frankly they seemed to to have slipped into a denial mode as far as acceptance of the war is concerned.I mean let us accept that Wars do happen and their pitch( wars per year) is only getting louder( or do we still think that '68ers still live in the barracks).To deny it 'in principle' as Shudbrat from SARAI says seems a bit odd. Yes surely to support warfare that leads to the bloodshed of innocents is definitely not right.But then maybe that is not exactly how we should respond as we have;Wars are a reality that we live with( even if we don't accept it) . So what I suggest is that we do take an active stand,be stakeholders atleast in building opinion on the war. And here the question of taking sides comes into picture. Who do you support? And if I were to think of the latest war then there is to answer the question as Israel is not right.Becaue of the Hizbollah.Arent they commiting warfare.Yes then the answer has to be We oppose Israel's war and Hizbollah's war. So if we are writng just Israel then we have to write 'disproportionate'( thats the excuse for not writing hizbollah) There can be several versions on different grounds( I mentioned few in yesterday's mail)...But for now i think there is nothing wrong with ';Disproportionate' in the heading.Here is something i found ...worth a read,its conversation with an american war expert justifying( in my view) 'disproportionate' war... ---------------------------------------- The Principle of Proportional Force in Warfare A major accomplishment of the Red Cross and other humanitarian agencies has been the adoption by most states of the principle that the use of force must be proportional to the objective and the opposition encountered. "This turn to principles is associated with the rise of courts, of judicial review of battlefield justice, of war criminals." While appearing to be a genuine limitation of the evils of war, David Kennedy suggested that this achievement has mainly given field commanders a set of guidelines on how to describe afterward what they would have done anyway, or to raise objections to perceived excesses of the enemy. "No professional commander says, I want you to go and commit disproportionate violence. We don’t need international law for that. The real work begins when the militaries disagree, when the tactics of the other side seem disproportional. When this happens you get the professional military leaders using the vocabulary of international law to express their disagreement with the tactics of the other side." When it comes to their own side, the standard of military men on how many civilian casualties are permissible, Kennedy suggested, is "Not one more than is necessary, but as many as are necessary." That is better than no standard, but "The difficulty is that it legitimates a great deal: all the violence that is necessary." The humanists have accepted the premises of the military here. "A military strategist asks: How many civilians can you kill? 40 for a bridge, 1000 for a city? They wont say. Humanitarians want to say you can't target civilians, but that is not what their vocabulary has agreed to. The military in law claims that every target was evaluated, including by a lawyer. But if you ask by what standard, there is nothing inside the box, no revealed rules by which you can judge what has been done, was it too much. Here the pragmatic system grinds to a halt. It does not include any specification by which to judge costs. The main attitude of the humanitarians since the League of Nations has been, not to outlaw war but to civilize it." --- Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > Dear Monica Mody, Jamie, Iram and others on the list > > As one of the signatories to this petition, I am > clearly one of the > people who overlooked the significance of the > qualifying word, > 'disproportionate'. I would like to thank Iram for > pointing out the > irony in protesting against the idea of 'proportion' > while thinking > about a state of war. > > I agree with Iram, that to do this is not to quibble > at details, but > actually central to the way we think about a state > of war. I am not one > of those people who believes that there are any just > wars. In today's > world it is inconceivable that a military and > political elite that > governs a nation state, would acting > 'proportionately' or reasonably to > advance its military objectives. Military action in > defence of the > interests of a nation state are objectionable to me > in principle, and > there can be no question in my view, that Israel > could enter into a > 'reasonable, proportionate, just' war with Lebanon. > > The same holds true of Hezbollah (a state within a > state) or the Syrian > , or the Iranian state, should they choose to > retaliate militarily (as > they have already, in the case of Hezbollah) as > parties involved in > aggression against people inhabiting the boundaries > of the territories > governed by the State of Israel. Civilians, who die > in this conflict, be > they Lebanese, Palestinian or Israeli do not have > the luxury to ask > whether their death was in proportion to the deaths > on the other side. > The arrogance of the Israeli state consists in its > belief that the value > of the life of an Israeli person is greater than > that of his or her > Lebanse or Palestinian neighbours. That therefore, > the Israeli > military's actions are reasonable and those of the > Hezbollah are not. If > we are to act against this way of thinking, we must > insist that the > value of an Israeli civilian's life is the same as > that of a Lebanese, > or Palestinian civilian. This would mean, that any > party to the > conflict, on any side, involved in any violence that > befalls any > civilians, by design or by accident is equally > morally responsible for > the tragedy that has engulfed the region. We cannot > parcel out this > tragedy and weigh its proportions. To do so would be > to fall prey to the > arrogance that the leadership of these states adorn > themselves with. > > > I find the discussion of the laws of war somewhat > pedantic. The laws of > war are to organized armed aggression like the death > penalty is to > murder. While it is useful that the laws of war > occasionally prevent > civilian death, I find that they are invoked in the > main to indict the > inhman acts on the losing side. If it were > otherwise, Hiroshima, > Dresden, the Rape and Pillage by the Red Army at the > close of the Second > World War, or many of the actions of the armies of > occupation in > Afghanistan or in Iraq would have attracted the > provisions of the laws > of war. It is interesting to note that the charge of > war criminal, > against, say Saddam Husain has some value, for his > usage of chemical > weapons against Kurds, or during the Iran-Iraq war > can be made to stick > only when he is a defeated prisoner. The > governements that castigate him > as a war criminal today were the very same who > ensured that he was > supplied with the chemicals and devices needed to > make chemical weapons. > In light of this, I find the hallowed invocation > of the 'international > laws of war' somewhat trite. > > Finally, I would request the drafters of the > petition to reconsider > their usage of the word 'disproportionate'. So that > my signature on the > petition can rest in peace. > > many thanks > > > Shuddha > > > > > > Monica Mody wrote: > > > Whether a war is just or not is a more > philosophical response. > > > > To add to Jamie's comment, the term > "disproportionate" has also been > > used very specifically to refer to the rules for > conduct of war under > > international humanitarian law, and becomes > important when you are > > trying to determine the legality or otherwise of > Israel's actions. In > > other words, Israel could be charged for war > crimes because of its > > disproportional conduct. > > > > (For a more detailed analysis, see the Human > Rights Watch O&A on > > Israel and Hezbollah, available at > > > http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/17/lebano13748.htm) > > > > Cheers, > > > > Monica > > _________________________________________ > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > the city. > > Critiques & Collaborations > > To subscribe: send an email to > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > subject header. > > List archive: > > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > subject header. > List archive: __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ From gowharfazili at yahoo.com Fri Aug 4 23:03:49 2006 From: gowharfazili at yahoo.com (gowhar fazli) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 10:33:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <20060804155957.533.qmail@web8710.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060804173349.36047.qmail@web60624.mail.yahoo.com> Sorry for the disproportionate reaction to the "Disproportionate war"s earlier. Have been arguing with Americans and Israelis in various communities over the weeks who are completely enamored by the war/s. It is hard to alter thinking when the positions are already taken. Though i still think draft under consideration is too weak...to protest against indignation like war especially this war. I don't think statements can stop wars. The protests are only to register indignation... louder the better... and not to explain logic of war to those who are convinced and are in it with clear speculation, a cool nerve and a clear long term design. They are prepared to defend any logic. It is evident from the build up to the war. Especially the day some 29 kids and women died in a bombing, Israels defense for that barbarous act was so well prepared.... with media statements on How the cowardly 'hizbos' are hiding behind children and women and if they had prior information this tragedy would not have happened... in the same breath but sorry we must go on bombing as before. Despite the figures at odds the image registered is that Hizbos bomb to kill civilians... Israelis do not deliberately target civilians but civilian deaths are unavoidable. The bigger truth is that we are being benumbed with a constant flow of violence and they are preparing us for the impending attacks upon Iran and Syria. Lebanon is just a preparation for us to get comfortable. Exactly the way occupation of Iraq was made acceptable over a decade of demonization. I can understand the logic of including people who may not be really against wars yet, but may still have a problem with 'disproportionate wars'. I think the logic makes sense if you are using it to mobilize public opinion among those who have that kind of a position on the war or wars in general. Also if you are wrestling with legal jargon... the rules that they set... and then themselves violate... But let me tell you, it wouldn't make sense to a war battered publics anywhere if you were trying to express solidarity. I hope your aim is clear to you. --- aasim khan wrote: > hi... > Just thought of playing devils advocate, one day > before the rally...here are some second thoughts...I > just got reading these posts ...on why protestors > ( prospective) are sounding so passive, some almost > guilty in propounding their anxieties...Should not > the > debate be clear. > > Frankly they seemed to to have slipped into a denial > mode as far as acceptance of the war is concerned.I > mean let us accept that Wars do happen and their > pitch( wars per year) is only getting louder( or do > we > still think that '68ers still live in the > barracks).To deny it 'in principle' as Shudbrat from > SARAI says seems a bit odd. > > Yes surely to support warfare that leads to the > bloodshed of innocents is definitely not right.But > then maybe that is not exactly how we should respond > as we have;Wars are a reality that we live with( > even > if we don't accept it) . > > So what I suggest is that we do take an active > stand,be stakeholders atleast in building opinion on > the war. > > And here the question of taking sides comes into > picture. > > Who do you support? > > And if I were to think of the latest war then there > is > to answer the question as Israel is not right.Becaue > of the Hizbollah.Arent they commiting warfare.Yes > then > the answer has to be > > We oppose Israel's war and Hizbollah's war. > > So if we are writng just Israel then we have to > write > 'disproportionate'( thats the excuse for not writing > hizbollah) > > There can be several versions on different grounds( > I > mentioned few in yesterday's mail)...But for now i > think there is nothing wrong with > ';Disproportionate' > in the heading.Here is something i found ...worth a > read,its conversation with an american war expert > justifying( in my view) 'disproportionate' war... > ---------------------------------------- > > The Principle of Proportional Force in Warfare > A major accomplishment of the Red Cross and other > humanitarian agencies has been the adoption by most > states of the principle that the use of force must > be > proportional to the objective and the opposition > encountered. "This turn to principles is associated > with the rise of courts, of judicial review of > battlefield justice, of war criminals." While > appearing to be a genuine limitation of the evils of > war, David Kennedy suggested that this achievement > has > mainly given field commanders a set of guidelines on > how to describe afterward what they would have done > anyway, or to raise objections to perceived excesses > of the enemy. > > "No professional commander says, I want you to go > and > commit disproportionate violence. We don’t need > international law for that. The real work begins > when > the militaries disagree, when the tactics of the > other > side seem disproportional. When this happens you get > the professional military leaders using the > vocabulary > of international law to express their disagreement > with the tactics of the other side." > > When it comes to their own side, the standard of > military men on how many civilian casualties are > permissible, Kennedy suggested, is "Not one more > than > is necessary, but as many as are necessary." That is > better than no standard, but "The difficulty is that > it legitimates a great deal: all the violence that > is > necessary." The humanists have accepted the premises > of the military here. "A military strategist asks: > How > many civilians can you kill? 40 for a bridge, 1000 > for > a city? They wont say. Humanitarians want to say you > can't target civilians, but that is not what their > vocabulary has agreed to. The military in law claims > that every target was evaluated, including by a > lawyer. But if you ask by what standard, there is > nothing inside the box, no revealed rules by which > you > can judge what has been done, was it too much. Here > the pragmatic system grinds to a halt. It does not > include any specification by which to judge costs. > The > main attitude of the humanitarians since the League > of > Nations has been, not to outlaw war but to civilize > it." > > > > > > > --- Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > > > Dear Monica Mody, Jamie, Iram and others on the > list > > > > As one of the signatories to this petition, I am > > clearly one of the > > people who overlooked the significance of the > > qualifying word, > > 'disproportionate'. I would like to thank Iram for > > pointing out the > > irony in protesting against the idea of > 'proportion' > > while thinking > > about a state of war. > > > > I agree with Iram, that to do this is not to > quibble > > at details, but > > actually central to the way we think about a state > > of war. I am not one > > of those people who believes that there are any > just > > wars. In today's > > world it is inconceivable that a military and > > political elite that > > governs a nation state, would acting > > 'proportionately' or reasonably to > > advance its military objectives. Military action > in > > defence of the > > interests of a nation state are objectionable to > me > > in principle, and > > there can be no question in my view, that Israel > > could enter into a > > 'reasonable, proportionate, just' war with > Lebanon. > > > > The same holds true of Hezbollah (a state within a > > state) or the Syrian > > , or the Iranian state, should they choose to > > retaliate militarily (as > > they have already, in the case of Hezbollah) as > > parties involved in > > aggression against people inhabiting the > boundaries > > of the territories > > governed by the State of Israel. Civilians, who > die > > in this conflict, be > > they Lebanese, Palestinian or Israeli do not have > > the luxury to ask > > whether their death was in proportion to the > deaths > > on the other side. > > The arrogance of the Israeli state consists in its > > belief that the value > > of the life of an Israeli person is greater than > > that of his or her > > Lebanse or Palestinian neighbours. That therefore, > > the Israeli > > military's actions are reasonable and those of the > > Hezbollah are not. If > > we are to act against this way of thinking, we > must > > insist that the > > value of an Israeli civilian's life is the same as > > that of a Lebanese, > > or Palestinian civilian. This would mean, that any > > party to the > > conflict, on any side, involved in any violence > that > > befalls any > > civilians, by design or by accident is equally > > morally responsible for > > the tragedy that has engulfed the region. We > cannot > > parcel out this > === message truncated === Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares. Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. Peter Ustinov __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mail at shivamvij.com Fri Aug 4 23:17:52 2006 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 23:17:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] India's columnists envy their Pakistani counterparts! Message-ID: <9c06aab30608041047k49185efamcc7fcfdebed1d47d@mail.gmail.com> It would be so much fun if the government of India were to do something like this. And going by India's point-by-point replication of Pakistan's blogspot-blocking controversy, it would indeed be in the order of things. India has so many columnists, and so many of them are so dull, drab, predictable. Imagine boosting the egos of 33 columnists! This is even better than censorship. In censorship you end up making martyrs out of fools, in pro-government PR you give fools a power kick. But why columnists? I would imagine news editors would be more important people. Let's try this: which columnists do you think would be the first to get love letters from the Soochna Mantralaya? Depends on the government of the day, of course. So in the present circumstances it would be something like Tavleen Singh, Chandan Mitra, Swapan Dasgupta...! And Arjun Singh would want Pratap Bhanu Mehta! Regardless of whether their is a left government in power or a right one, most columnists trying to be 'original' about India's Kashmir policy would be in for trouble, sorry, PR. If any Soochna Mantralaya babus are reading this (no, really - some bloggers have been getting page hits from sarakari IP addresses!), please note that the leaking of such intentions is the worst PR, and this too should be replicated from Islamabad. Enjoy, Shivam Govt seeks to 'soften up' top columnists, reporters >From our correspondent 27 July 2006 http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=§ion=subcontinent&xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/July/subcontinent_July995.xml ISLAMABAD — In a major PR exercise, the government of Shaukat Aziz has prepared a list of 33 columnists, writers and reporters in the English and Urdu print media of Pakistan and assigned its top 'spin doctors' to neutralise the 'negativism' of these writers by making them 'soft and friendly'. Understandably, no editor or owner-editor has been so targeted, suggesting that the government thinks it best to directly deal with the troublemaker writers than indirectly through their prickly bosses. The glib new information minister, Mohammad Ali Durrani, will lead his team of spin doctors along with the affable Information Secretary Shahid Rafi, to work on the targeted columnists and reporters and 'soften' them up so that their criticism of the Aziz government's policies and decisions is muted. The top Urdu columnist, Irshad Haqqani of Jang, is to be 'softened' up by two top government stalwarts — Information Minister Durrani and the Principal Information Officer (PIO) of the federal government, Ashfaq Gondal. Rafi is also tasked with buttering up Khalid Hasan, the Washington-based correspondent of Daily Times and The Friday Times. The others from Daily Times on the government's 'soft' hit list are Kamran Shafi (columnist) and Irfan Ghauri (reporter). Khaled Ahmad, the contributing editor of TFT, figures prominently in the line-up. The military's chief media manager, Major General Shaukat Sultan, has been asked to chasten Kamla Hyat, a human rights activist and columnist of The News. The 'secret' list also mentions Rauf Klasra and Ansar Abbasi of The News and Mehtab Haider of The Nation, but doesn't say who will 'handle' them. Strangely enough, the names of Sherry Rehman and Farhatullah Babar of the PPP also figure on the list of negative columnists. Who will pick up the phone in Islamabad and brave the wrath of these stalwarts is not clear. Naturally, too, the names of Karachi's most intransigent columnist, the veteran Ardeshir Cowasjee, and his associate Amina Jilani, are highlighted. Sources wondered who would have the guts to try and silence them, which is why no particular handler has been assigned to them. Roedad Khan, a former senior civil servant and presidential adviser, is also named for his unrelenting hostility to the Musharraf regime. Apparently, the government is again at a loss to know how to deal with him. Durrani has also taken upon his robust shoulders the task of handling a number of senior Urdu columnists: Hasan Nisar, Abbas Athar (both from Daily Express), Attaur Rehman, Irfan Siddiqui and Haroon Rashid (all from Nawa-i-Waqt). Senator Tariq Azeem, the PML-Q's media manager, has been entrusted the job of buttering up Attaul Haq Qasmi (Jang) and Abdul Qadir Hassan (Daily Express). Shahid Rafi will apply his charm on Dr Ajmal Niazi. The PM's Press Secretary, Javed Akhtar, has also been roped in to 'coordinate' with Hamid Mir (Geo TV), Farrukh Saleem (The News/TFT), Shafqat Mahmood (The News) and Khaled Ahmed. He claims to know these gentlemen well. Respectable Karachi journalists shouldn't be alarmed. They haven't been left out of the loop. The former journalist turned PM adviser on media affairs, Jaffar Bilgrami, should be soon getting in touch with old hands like M.B. Naqvi and Ghazi Salahuddin of The News. The PIO, Ashfaq Gondal, will have his hands full dealing with Ayaz Amir of Dawn and Farooq Qaiser and Raja Anwar of Khabrain. From shuddha at sarai.net Sat Aug 5 02:00:32 2006 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 02:00:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> Message-ID: <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> Dear Jamie, Mansour, Iram, Aasim and others On the eve of the day when a demonstration that I hope will happen as close as possible to the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, I think it is very worthwhile that we are having this debate on the reader list. I would like to thank all of you for the very thoughtful points that you have raised. I have learnt a lot from all of them. I am not doubting for a moment that there is something obscene in the spectacle of the most powerful military force in the Middle East, (the Israeli Defence Forces) targetting civilians and non combatants in Lebanon (or for that matter in the Gaza Strip, or on the West Bank). I have also no doubt that they are aided in this obscenity by many commentators in the US media who pretend that the conflict is one between equal parties. So I agree with Mansour and what he says in his posting. I also, like Iram, do not at all doubt the sincerity and good faith of those who have drafted and circulated the petition. I also believe that to unleash hostilities on to a civilian population, to bomb airports, houses and roads, because two soldiers have been kidnapped is a gross moral wrong. But, the question remains, is it 'disproportionate'. What would have been proportionate? How can one measure the magnitude of suffering in this case, and say this is the cut off point where a response by the Israeli Defence Forces would have ceased to be proportionate. And this, here is where it would have stayed within the respectable bounds of proportionality. Let me clarify a few points. I am not a pacifist. Generally, my sympathy for non-violent opposition stems as much from pragmatic as it does from purely ethical grounds. I maintain that armed opposition to oppression is not in every instance a morally questionable aim. However, I do have a problem with the monopoly over force that the modern nation state has claimed, with which comes the relatively new notion of the standing army. Given the nature of the state, and the fact that in my view a state is by definition an organ of the power of a ruling class, I view all violence (exercised by all and any state(s) or proto state(s)) as objectionable. This includes what statesmen like to call 'defensive measures'. Remember, all war ministries are called 'Ministries of Defence'. I have no fundamental moral objection to a population, or even individuals, undertaking acts of violence either in self defence, or in pursuit of a specific aim that aims to put an end,reasonably, to a condition that itself constitutes unbearable violence. I do not think violence is pretty, or beautiful, or redemptive, just that sometimes there is no other way. And given a choice between dying or watching someone I love die and attacking an aggressor in order to ensure that this does not happen, I would unhappily choose the latter. I believe that there can be just acts of violence, but no good acts of violence, and that these can occur when the perpetrators of such acts do not claim to be doing anything other than effecting simple violence in order to put an end to a greater violence. Such a perpetrator cannot make the claim that their act is somehow above question. They are fully aware of the fact that what they do causes pain to someone or the other. I do not believe there can be just wars. Because, the perpetrator of a war, a state, views itself as an agent who has a monopoly over the legitimate claim to force. Once a claim is successfully made with regard to legitimacy, the undertaker of that claim need not question or doubt their act. The state does not doubt its necessity to make war, It has the 'right' to conduct violence, to make war, that is what makes it a state in the first place. In fact, the state that cannot make war, is hardly justified in being seen as a state, and so, even Japan (with its so called 'Pacifist' constitution, continues to maintain one of the most powerful military machines in Asia). In fact there is a crucial difference between an individual, or even collective violent act by people who do not see themselves as the state, and a state's action. This does not make the first less violent, only violent in a different way, and I would argue that this difference has a significance. The first (if it attempts to justify itself, or if it can be justified) is not the violence that seeks to punish, or make a point, or even safeguard a territory, but the violence that has to occur, as a last resort, in order to save lives. In this understanding, only a combatant can be the legitimate target of violence. Those who have read my last posting carefully, will note that i had qualified every statement I was making by invoking the figure of the civilian. The International Laws of War (spelt out in the covenants of the Geneva Convention) are instruments that aim to spell out what should happen between combatants. Civilians are granted protection in the main when they become subject to the actions of an occupying power. This means, that if Israel invades Lebanon, or parts of Lebanon, then it has the responsibility under International law (the Geneva Convention) to ensure that the Lebanese non combatants in the zones that it controls are not subjected to arbitrary violence by its armed forces, it is here that the question of 'disproportionate' or 'unreasonable' force can arise, in a strictly legal sense. Until that time, if an Israeli rocket hits a structure that was sheltering non combatants, all that the Israeli government needs to do (if it so desires) is to say that it regretted the 'collateral damage'. This is the time honoured principle that the US Administration has used in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and elsewhere. In fact, the princicple of was is to inflict maximum damage to a civilian population so that the targetted population understands that the only guarantee of its safety lies in the hands of the state that enacts the violence upon it. This is why every modern war is also simultaneously projected as a war of liberation. A state liberates the subjects of another state from that state by bombing it into a situation where it is willing to delegitimize one ruling power in favour of another. This logic has no room whatsoever for 'proportionate' force in relation to civilian populations. To argue that a state act proportionately violently in relation to the subjects of a state that it considers hostile is to miss the point. A state need not do so. And the whole point of Guantanamo Bay, for instance, lies in this fact. That is why the inmates of the camp are not seen as combatants, it is in fact easier for the US governement to deal with them outside the limitations of international law precisely because they can be represented as non-combatants to the outside world, and held in a territory that legally does not fall within the boundaries of the United States of America. Prisoners of war, in a US POW camp would have to be treated under the Geneva Conventions. State's do not kill in order to save lives (even if that is what they say they do). Because states do not kill combatants alone. The nature of war aims today is based on a terrorization of a non combatant population. This is why there is no difference between recognized states and terrorist organizations. Neither actually is interested in targetting combattants, but in making civilians and non combatants scared. And this is why the language of proportion, in my view is ultimately untenable. In the end, it is about whether you believe that a state has the moral authority to involve you (as a subject or a citizen) in a declared act of aggression against another state and its subjects. I refuse to grant my state that moral authority over my person, and consequently I refuse to see why any aggressive act of the Israeli (or Syrian, or Iranian, or Lebanese, or Indian or Pakistani or any)state should be measured by me against some abstract scale of proportional and reasonable violence, and found either wanting, or not wanting. I do not want to be involved in this measuring game at all. As far as I am concerned, the question is not about whether there should or should not be a just war. I would personally much rather that there should just not be war. Apologies for a long post, regards, Shuddha From supreet.sethi at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 03:57:53 2006 From: supreet.sethi at gmail.com (s|s) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 03:57:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: content for posting... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Forwarding with prejudice :) supreet ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Aheli Chowdhury Date: Aug 4, 2006 6:17 PM Subject: content for posting... To: Supreet Sethi Save Right to Information Save Democracy 7th of August, 2006 2pm to 5pm at Jantar Mantar Voices of the youth and EUPHORIA unite against the Cabinet's decision to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005. Come be a voice of this protest as Euphoria sings to Save Democracy and Right to Information Act on the 7th of August at Jantar Mantar. Activists, students and other citizens join hands to demonstrate against the recent amendment proposed in the Right to Information Act,by the Cabinet. This proposed amendment exempting file notings from the Right To Information Act, 2005 will render it virtually dead. Please come and join us at Jantar Mantar, to strengthen the fight to assert our rights. Aheli Chowdhury Joint Operation for Social Help (JOSH) josh4india at gmail.com 9811765959 From supreet.sethi at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 04:06:17 2006 From: supreet.sethi at gmail.com (s|s) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 04:06:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Right to Information [voice of protest - EUPHORIA] Message-ID: Save Right to Information Save Democracy 7th of August, 2006 2pm to 5pm at Jantar Mantar Voices of the youth and EUPHORIA unite against the Cabinet's decision to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005. Come be a voice of this protest as Euphoria sings to Save Democracy and Right to Information Act on the 7th of August at Jantar Mantar. Activists, students and other citizens join hands to demonstrate against the recent amendment proposed in the Right to Information Act,by the Cabinet. This proposed amendment exempting file notings from the Right To Information Act, 2005 will render it virtually dead. Please come and join us at Jantar Mantar, to strengthen the fight to assert our rights. Joint Operation for Social Help (JOSH) josh4india at gmail.com 9811765959 From jamie.dow at pobox.com Sat Aug 5 05:09:12 2006 From: jamie.dow at pobox.com (Jamie Dow) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 00:39:12 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <44D3058E.7030208@sarai.net> <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> Message-ID: <44D3DAA0.1080605@pobox.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060805/33668759/attachment.html From t.ray at vsnl.com Sat Aug 5 06:55:00 2006 From: t.ray at vsnl.com (Tapas Ray) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 06:55:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <"44 D3058E.7030208"@sarai.net> <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> Message-ID: <009c01c6b82d$fb751030$0a01a8c0@tapas> Thanks to Shuddhabrata for his deeply insightful post. There is a question that has been troubling me, because I support Lebanon's right to exist as a "normal" country with liberal values that is not ravaged by either Israel or Syria or Iran, and because I am as concerned about Hezbollah's Islamism as I am about Israel's Zionist militarism. Apologies if the question already has been discussed on this list ... I must confess that I have not read everything that has been written here on Lebanon. The question is this: Since Hezbollah have been firing rockets at civilian areas in northern Israel, does this justify the "collateral damage" inflicted by Israel on Lebanon? Are the Hezbollah justified in hitting civilian areas in Israel because the Israeli Army is a conscript army and the civilian population is, therefore, an army in waiting? Is the difference in scale - hence the question of proportion - due solely to technological factors? I mean, Israel is killing hundreds of civilians because it has the means of delivering explosives on chosen targets with precision and Hezbollah have been killing a far fewer number only because it does not have those means, being a non-state actor? I shall really appreciate an anwer to these questions, on-list or off-list. Once again, apologies if these questions have been raised and answered already. Tapas > Dear Jamie, Mansour, Iram, Aasim and others > > On the eve of the day when a demonstration that I hope will happen as > close as possible to the > Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, ... From t.ray at vsnl.com Sat Aug 5 07:52:59 2006 From: t.ray at vsnl.com (Tapas Ray) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 07:52:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <"4 4 D3058E.7030208"@sarai.net> <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> <009c01c6b82d$fb751030$0a01a8c0@tapas> <44D3FC41.7010609@pobox.com> Message-ID: <00cd01c6b836$122dbd10$0a01a8c0@tapas> Thanks, Jamie, for those detailed answers. I scanned them quickly, and will get back to you later once I have read them properly and savoured them. And I will definitely forward anything I receive offlist. Thanks again, Tapas > What great questions! I'd be really interested in seeing where this goes. > If you get off-list replies and have time to digest them, I'd be really > interested to see. Or if your own thoughts develop further lines on these > topics, do post or send me a PM. I've put some thoughts inline. > > Very best, > Jamie From gowharfazili at yahoo.com Sat Aug 5 09:05:17 2006 From: gowharfazili at yahoo.com (gowhar fazli) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 20:35:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] This is the quality of war propaganda we are combatting! Message-ID: <20060805033517.42117.qmail@web60612.mail.yahoo.com> Hezbollah was using UN post as 'shield' Canadian wrote of militia's presence, 'necessity' of bombing Article Tools Printer friendly E-mail Font: * * * * Joel Kom, with files from Steven Edwards, CanWest News Service, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Thursday, July 27, 2006 The words of a Canadian United Nations observer written just days before he was killed in an Israeli bombing of a UN post in Lebanon are evidence Hezbollah was using the post as a "shield" to fire rockets into Israel, says a former UN commander in Bosnia. Those words, written in an e-mail dated just nine days ago, offer a possible explanation as to why the post -- which according to UN officials was clearly marked and known to Israeli forces -- was hit by Israel on Tuesday night, said retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie yesterday. The strike hit the UN observation post in the southern Lebanese village of El Khiam, killing Canadian Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener and three others serving as unarmed UN military observers in the area. Just last week, Maj. Hess-von Kruedener wrote an e-mail about his experiences after nine months in the area, words Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie said are an obvious allusion to Hezbollah tactics. "What I can tell you is this," he wrote in an e-mail to CTV dated July 18. "We have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both (Israeli) artillery and aerial bombing. "The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters (sic) of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters (sic) from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to tactical necessity." Those words, particularly the last sentence, are not-so-veiled language indicating Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets near the post, said Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie. "What that means is, in plain English, 'We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the (Israeli Defence Forces)," he said. That would mean Hezbollah was purposely setting up near the UN post, he added. It's a tactic Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie, who was the first UN commander in Sarajevo during the Bosnia civil war, said he's seen in past international missions: Aside from UN posts, fighters would set up near hospitals, mosques and orphanages. A Canadian Forces infantry officer with the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and the only Canadian serving as a UN military observer in Lebanon, Maj. Hess-von Kruedener was no stranger to fighting nearby. The UN post, he wrote in the e-mail, afforded a view of the "Hezbollah static positions in and around our patrol Base." "It appears that the lion's share of fighting between the IDF and Hezbollah has taken place in our area," he wrote, noting later it was too dangerous to venture out on patrols. The e-mail appears to contradict the UN's claim there had been no Hezbollah activity in the vicinity of the strike. The question of Hezbollah's infiltration of the area is significant because UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking Tuesday just hours after the bombing, accused the Israelis of the "apparently deliberate targeting" of the base near Khiam in southern Lebanon. A senior UN official, asked about the information contained in Maj. Hess-von Kruedener's e-mail concerning Hezbollah presence in the vicinity of the Khiam base, denied the world body had been caught in a contradiction. Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares. Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. Peter Ustinov __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From t.ray at vsnl.com Sat Aug 5 10:20:19 2006 From: t.ray at vsnl.com (Tapas Ray) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:20:19 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <"4 4 D3058E.7030208"@sarai.net> <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> <009c01c6b82d$fb751030$0a01a8c0@tapas> <44D3FC41.7010609@pobox.com> Message-ID: <00da01c6b84a$a9adace0$0a01a8c0@tapas> Jamie, I sent the last quick response to the Sarai list as I thought you had posted your message on the list. I did not realise it was a personal message, because it had landed in my Sarai folder. That was because of the way I had set up the filter - based on the 'Subject' line instead of the 'To' line. Have now modified that. I am posting this one on the list, because you had said I might. Let me tell you, at the outset, that sometimes I have only tried to get under the skin of each side and what I have written in those places does not constitute an attempt to justify what they have been doing ... if anything, it is a condemnation of the way things are, overall. > (1) Prospective justification: that is that these rockets and air > bombardments, even with their collateral damage, are necessary (or > optimal) > means to an end / objective that is sufficiently valuable to make such > damage > worth it. What would such an objective be? The security of > Israel - it seems > to me that this is more than ever put in jeopardy by these actions. I agree with you entirely, that the prospective justification does not work - that the Israeli attacks have jeopardised Israel's security ... I think PERMANENTLY ... rather than improved its prospects. Actually, it may be more than that - it may be permanent anger at the West as a whole, or at least the USA and UK. What OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said may be spot on: "I am afraid that the anger of the Muslim masses is being transformed into permanent hatred against the aggressors and their implicit and explicit protectors." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5240844.stm) > (2) Retrospective Punishment: that is, that these rockets and air strikes > are > deserved punishment. It seems to me that punishment of this general > kind *is* > part of what constitutes justice. But it won't apply in these > circumstances, > since neither the rockets nor the airstrikes are adequately targetted so > as to > constitute punishment. If you want to punish, then it is the > politicians and > commanders that you should strike. Even if everyone bears some > responsibility > for the actions of their elected governments (and this > will apply much more > readily to Israel than to Hizbollah), still the leaders bear a greater > responsibility. The retrospective justification, too, does not work as you have explained. But then your arguments are rational, in the sense of being reasoned, in this case on ethical lines. I am not sure that is how politics (war being politics by other means) is always conducted. I think politics has a visceral element, because crowd psychology probably does not follow individual rationality and works according to its own logic instead. It would be great if someone could shed light on this aspect. What you say is right - the Israeli leaders are probably acting out of the compulsions of internal politics. > Are the Hezbollah justified in hitting civilian areas in Israel because > the > Israeli Army is a conscript army and the civilian population is, > therefore, an > army in waiting?[JD] > No. Certainly not. The nearest to justification that they could get along > these lines would be: > Hitting these civilians is justified because by killing persons A, B and > C, > they prevent A, B and C from undertaking worse and more heinous crimes > that > they will otherwise commit when on active service in the Israeli army. > It just seems wildly implausible. And it certainly doesn't justify the > killing > of the old, and those exempt, etc.. Rationally, your argument seems flawless to me. But what if Hezbollah's popular base wants some Israeli blood and it wants that in spite of the fact that it knows shedding it will bring down more retribution rather than stopping Israeli atrocities? Again, the visceral element. As for the old - it is likely that they were in the army at some point, so they are fair game in Hezbollah's eyes. > It is also the case that if people are conscripted, they are not choosing > to > be involved in the war. So, this reduces the justification for treating > even > the regular soldier as a "legitimate target" because a combatant. It can also be said that by choosing not to stay out of the army - possibly at the risk of inviting a jail term - people are choosing *to be* in the army. In a sense, no law can take away your freedom to choose. > ... note that the question of proportion is not a matter of measuring HzbU > violence against Israeli violence. It is a matter of measuring the > violence of > each party against the benefit that the use of violence will > achieve. It seems > to me that on this measure, both sides are guilty of > disproportionate > violence. But here, we are weighing the benefits accruing to the peoples of each side individually, against the violence committed by its own side. In this way, it seems to me, we are considering the Israelis and the Hezbollah individually, in isolation. Suppose A's violence is proportionate in terms of the violence committed by it, and so is B's. But A's proportionate violence is still killing B's people and vice versa. Why is benefit to the Hezbollah's people superior to benefits to Israelis or vice versa? If the answer is that neither is superior, then what is the way out in a situation in which one side or both sides feel(s) cheated or oppressed or treated unjustly? Tapas From t.ray at vsnl.com Sat Aug 5 10:27:40 2006 From: t.ray at vsnl.com (Tapas Ray) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:27:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <"4 4 D3058E.7030208"@sarai.net> <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> <009c01c6b82d$fb751030$0a01a8c0@tapas> <44D3FC41.7010609@pobox.com> Message-ID: <010401c6b84b$ae32a350$0a01a8c0@tapas> Sorry, there was an error in my last post. In the last paragraph, "Suppose A's violence is proportionate in terms of the violence committed by it" should be "Suppose A's violence is proportionate in terms of the BENEFIT ACCRUING FROM IT". Tapas From jamie.dow at pobox.com Sat Aug 5 16:03:44 2006 From: jamie.dow at pobox.com (Jamie Dow) Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 11:33:44 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <00da01c6b84a$a9adace0$0a01a8c0@tapas> References: <4badad3b0608031128p651d1027p6480aa08d956c805@mail.gmail.com> <"4 4 D3058E.7030208"@sarai.net> <44D3AE68.9060502@sarai.net> <009c01c6b82d$fb751030$0a01a8c0@tapas> <44D3FC41.7010609@pobox.com> <00da01c6b84a$a9adace0$0a01a8c0@tapas> Message-ID: <44D47408.6040701@pobox.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060805/c1701603/attachment.html From paul at waag.org Sat Aug 5 22:00:40 2006 From: paul at waag.org (Paul Keller) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 18:30:40 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Nida]: Call for Interventions Message-ID: <73CE0B52-93A7-4675-9763-9BC015607B2A@waag.org> "I DON'T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR CONFLICT (BUT I AM)" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>> Call for Interventions >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Global Webcast, Saturday, August 12 2006, 9-11 PM (CET) URL: http://beirut.dischosting.nl | http://streamtime.org Outraged at Israel's ongoing aggression on Lebanon - which since July 12 2006 has killed over 900 people (mostly civilians), displaced nearly one million people (1/4 of Lebanon's entire population), and wrecked Lebanon's infrastructure and economy - we say: khalas! enough! We call for an immediate end to the violence and destruction. We call on the international community to open its eyes - and on you to make your voice heard. With our fellow activists, artists and other bloggers in Lebanon - and input from Iraq - we will produce a collaborative global webcast on Saturday August 12, from 9 to 11 p.m. Central European Time/10-12 p.m. Lebanon time This unique free style web jam around 'frequently raised despair' will be produced at Waag Society in Amsterdam by Streamtime's Cecile Landman, Jo van der Spek, Geert Lovink and Jaromil in collaboration with Tarek Atoui, Nat Muller, Paul Keller and many others. The Global Webjam will consist of an audio and video stream, and feature live interviews and conversations, video clips, cartoons and blog blurbs, soundscapes, DJs and VJs, a lively mix of information, art, protest, party and reflection. Wahid el-Solh, a Lebanese DJ based in the Netherlands, will provide us with the unrivalled nightlife ambiance of Beirut. We see this as a precedent for future collaborations - to create a platform fitting the spirit of Beirut, in defiance of war, and in search for solidarity. We shout out for our friends in Lebanon and elsewhere to contact us if they want to join, share, participate in and contribute with their recent experiences and productions. Contact the team in Amsterdam with all your questions, suggestions & contributions at: beirut at dischosting.nl If you are in Lebanon and you want to contribute you can also contact Tarek in Beirut: atouitarek at yahoo.fr mobile: +961-3-190985 If you have material to contribute please upload it to our ftp server: ftp://dischosting.nl (username: upload password: streamtime) Web-site: beirut.dischosting.nl Skype: streamtime-khalas | cileland | jo-streamtime Chat: freenode #nida Telephone: +31206279661 (Solidarity Fund X-Y) This event is funded and facilitated by Solidarity Fund X-Y http://www.xminy.nl/ and initiated by Streamtime http://streamtime.org/. Founded in 2004, Streamtime is an international support campaign for Iraqi bloggers and engages with tactical media initiatives of artists and activists throughout the Middle East. From t.ray at vsnl.com Sun Aug 6 07:53:17 2006 From: t.ray at vsnl.com (t.ray at vsnl.com) Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 07:23:17 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War Message-ID: Jamie, Thanks for your response. My hard drive had to be formated yesterday. Hence the late response. What you say is absolutely right. In fact, I was aware of the mix-up in my last response myself, which is why I made it a point to mention that in some places I am merely trying to see what motivates the actors. > Hi, Tapas, wanted to say something about your reasoned vs. visceral distinction. > It's good to distinguish 2 (and maybe more) separate types questions here: This sounds very interesting. I would really like to read it. Could you let me have the links, etc., if any of it is available online? > My current research, curiously enough, makes me hesitate to classify the > visceral element as irrational or outside the sphere of good reasons. Thanks, Tapas From rajeshmehar at yahoo.com Sun Aug 6 09:59:34 2006 From: rajeshmehar at yahoo.com (rajesh mehar) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 21:29:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Sarai Independent Fellowship Presentation Overview Message-ID: <20060806042934.61573.qmail@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> It's been a wonderful yer somewhat fleeting 8 months through this Independent Fellowship. I've had some of the most interesting interviews and conversations of my musical career, and there have been quite a few fascinating discoveries along the way. Here's a brief overview of what I plan to present at the August-end sessions at Sarai in Delhi. (Apologies for the lack of formatting in this plain text email. To view the complete, formatted version, you can go over to http://community.livejournal.com/whosemusic/2071.html) Warm regards, Rajesh. ===================================================== Presentation Overview: Understanding Notions of Creative Ownership Among Contemporary Musicians in India By Rajesh Mehar Review of Proposal The proposal for this project outlined a few key questions to be explored among which, the following two questions have resulted in the most interesting responses: (A) In India, music education is still largely unregulated, ranging from the individual instructor to semi-formal institutions that impart arbitrarily designed 'curriculum-based' training. Certification (open only to classical musicians) is restricted to examinations conducted by the various state education boards. Indian English musicians operate under even less organised scenarios with no formal education and no opportunity for certification. • How is music education imparted in India? How does this affect an Indian musician's sense of assimilating, interpreting and creating music ? • What are the implications of using oral traditions rather than written/textual traditions of imparting and assimilating musical education? • How does the culture of learning by imitation and copying inform the sense of ownership of creative material of musicians in India? (C) Relatively new concepts of ownership that inform the contemporary musician in India (through the media) are largely borrowed from the West, and gaining in prominence and aggressiveness as the entertainment industry renews its crusade against piracy. However, musicians in India are also affected by other traditions unique to their context. • Does the musician in India approach ownership as merely possession of (and hence exclusion of others from) a creative work? Can the understanding of ownership be explained differently, by a relational proximity of the musician to the musical work? • How do Indian musicians relate to their work of art in terms of ownership? • Do musicians in India approach their work from a purely possessive perspective? If not, what are the implications of ownership and the exclusion that this brings with it on this understanding? One of the planned work-products in the proposal also took on a life of its own and made it necessary to devote a much larger chunk of time and effort than initially planned: (1) Oral histories – Histories of Indian classical music are already available readily. From personal interviews and online resources, I plan to generate oral histories of English music in India, documenting the important musical groups/bands/artists that have shaped and popularised Indian English music, and the centres in each metro/small town where English music was available in the grey/black market; access to new content is a big part of who creates new material and how this material spreads. Overview of Main Findings and Presentation Plan The Musician’s Learning Process Almost none of the musicians interviewed cited musical instruction as the main catalyst in their learning process. The common theme running through what most of the musicians identified as the most critical part of their learning curve is an Ekalavyan tradition of learning by observation and imitation. This observation spans across the visual and aural realms, involving ‘watching’ more experienced players perform and ‘assimilating’ the work of popular musicians of the West. The process can be likened to reverse engineering, with the accurate imitation of the results facilitating an intimate understanding of the act of composition itself. It then follows that the music one listens to for the purpose of “ absorbing the music will obviously reflect in your playing.” In contrast, there have been landmark cases in the West involving the construction of the idea that an act of composition has to be sufficiently dissimilar to all other acts of composition (even of the musician in question) to be considered unique. These cases have also brought into focus the idea that music that a musician listens to repeatedly makes its way (consciously or unconsciously) into music that is then created by that musician. I will play sound recordings of the interviews of musicians, which relate to this aspect of the learning process, and juxtapose them with excerpts from documents relating to the cases mentioned. The Early Creative Process An interesting pattern across different musicians’ interviews emerges with them recalling their first act of composition as being an act of imitation. As Bruce Lee Mani, lead guitarist and vocalist for Bangalore-based band Thermal And A Quarter, describes his first composition, “ for me it was interesting enough, when I was listening to this music, to try and create something, y’know, similar to it.” However, there is a clear distinction made with such ‘premature’ imitation and eventual ‘mature’ composition, which relies on ‘growing up’ out of the mimic phase. I will play sound recordings of sections of interviews pertinent to this theme and examine them in the context of existing theories on the mimetic faculty. Authorship and the Process of Creation Most of the musicians interviewed had spent a considerable part of their musical careers performing in groups or ensembles. One of the points of focus was an attempt to understand how the creative process and the authorship of the material composed differed between a solo compositional effort and composition within a band/ensemble structure. Different answers emerged to questions of how much ownership could one member claim over a song that was composed together and how attribution could work in such a setting. I will play sound recordings of relevant sections of interviews and contrast them with excerpts from Anne Baron’s essay titled Copyright Concepts and Musical Practice: Harmony or Dissonance? The Source of Creation When speaking about the creative process, some of the musicians clearly identified an early phase of imitative composition and distinguished this with ‘mature’ composition that was not clearly identifiable as inspired by the music they consumed. This evaluation of two kinds of creativity, externally inspired and internal, and the positing of one as better than the other presents an interesting dichotomy. While musicians used words such as “influences”, “assimilating”, “internalizing”, and “absorbing” when it came to listening to their favourite music, they also used words such as “find your own voice”, “not just a copy”, “create from within”, and “unique” when referring to composition. Sound recordings of relevant sections of interviews will be played and examined in the context of the emergence of the narrative of creativity as emerging from within rather than without. Two Different Worlds When the musicians interviewed spoke about the creative process, they frequently explained the act and the incentives behind it in social and cultural terms. Aspects ‘nurturing’ of a public knowledge, channeling some energy that was around them, and ‘expressing’ themselves took on great importance. Simultaneously, there was a distinct property context in discussing the finished product of the creative process, along with the attendant connotations of exclusion that this context brings with it. This contrast between the societal and cultural aspects of creation and the proprietary aspects of the commerce of music provides an interesting point of discussion. I will play sound recordings of relevant sections of interviews to bring out this contrast. Alternatives If there was one thing that was unanimously agreed upon, it was the ‘evilness’ of record companies and their control of the creative output of musicians. There was a simultaneous expression of the desire of the creator to connect with the consumer without the involvement of ‘middlemen’. I will play sound recordings of relevant sections of interviews and examine the alternative forms of production and distribution emerging around the world. The HiStories of Rock In this section, I will lay out a few interesting highlights of the stories of rock music in India: • The experiences of the first beat music (the preferred term of the time for the music we call retro-rock now) band in India to release a record back in 1969. • India’s first female lead-guitarist, Farida Vakil, a guitar-toting diva of her times. • India’s pioneering Raga Rock band, The Human Bondage, playing raga-influenced rock music back in the 70s. • The Junior Statesman, the only chronicler of the history of rock music in India? • The Indus Creed story. • Indian rock music’s latest hopes: Pentagram, Thermal And A Quarter, and Indian Ocean. ================================================= Gonna make a lot o'money, gonna quit this crazy scene. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From aasim27 at yahoo.co.in Sun Aug 6 21:09:58 2006 From: aasim27 at yahoo.co.in (aasim khan) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2006 16:39:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War In-Reply-To: <44D3DAA0.1080605@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20060806153958.65256.qmail@web8707.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Shudbrat,Jamie, Mansour, Iram and all... Your mails have opened up my mind to many new thoughts .Maybe its for the first time that I have actually got beyond my ususal hyper-passionate support for Palestinians and actually got down to think about how to think about it. And yes I do admire both S. and J. when they present their cases on the question of disproportionate.And the banality of combat jargon.But thats that and I have some responses...I guess I shall now begin my tirade... If numbers ( casualties) form the premise for Israel's war being disproportionate as J. suggests in the post. Then we should maybe leave aside the basic number of casualties and try and see them in the perspective...of percentages. Afterall Israel with a population of less then 10 million is fighting a war against the Arab world and in that way the casualties per hundred citizens should throw up a new figure(the percentage).Like if the Arab population is ten times more and then to fight a propotional(percentag-wise)war Israel should kill ten times more people . This cruel thought is simply to make a point that S. made in his post.All this talk about proportion and disproportion is just anive attempts to smoke out the real mechanics of war and its brutality. Or bakaul Arundhati roy its the Algebra of Injustice that War essentially is. S. has really cut through all the talk that surrounds violence in our times and he writes accurately ,in my view , about why wars make no 'human' sense.And that is why I feel when S. says Pragmatism being the basis of his otherwise 'human' aprroach I feel he might have fallen for an instictive faith in one's understanding of the self. Maybe I should qoute someone who is considered by many as an influential man in Israel's last one century of existence;Moshe Dayan... "I must ask: Are [we justified] in opening fire on the [Palestinian] Arabs who cross [the border] to reap the crops they planted in our territory; they, their women, and their children? Will this stand up to moral scrutiny . . .? We shoot at those from among the 200,000 hungry [Palestinian] Arabs who cross the line [to graze their flocks]---- will this stand up to moral review? Arabs cross to collect the grain that they left in the abandoned [term often used by Israelis to describe the ethnically cleansed] villages and we set mines for them and they go back without an arm or a leg. . . . [It may be that this] cannot pass review, but I know no other method of guarding the borders. then tomorrow the State of Israel will have no borders." I see Pragmatism in this guys voice...To base an active ( I actually want to say passionate) stake in opinion formation pragmatism is ,I believe, not the way.Somehow I always feel genuine activism has to have that idealistic tweak.And that ideal should not care much about dialectics between the ( exalted) individual and the (blighted)State.Ideals or Utopias may not ever exist but they atleast offer space for some concepts to develop. Anti-War thoughts I guess are all essentially based on the Utopia of Peace.And npo matter what we base our judgement of war ( Pragmatism et al) we will miss the reall thing if we don't believe in that Utopia. Moshe Dayan understanding is chillingly as accurate as ours about the whole talk about state and indivduals. See how he refers to Palestinians as individuasl(...to graze their flocks...) and to himself as a Us (as Israel,herself)...the thing is the people who war and people who don't war, they are only different in the sense that the first have no faith in Utopia( the Peace) while the latter live( or rather die) by it. Moshe Dayan charcterises that first group,with his 'arrogant pragmatism'...while S. and others on this list here personify the 'reluctant idealists'. Guess that all that comes to my mind right now on the feuds of the world ... best Asim Jamie Dow wrote: --------------------------------- Yes, this is good. There is a widespread misunderstanding of what is meant by"disproportionate" that you highlight. And I think I'd not really hadthis clear in my own mind before your post. You've raised it well. Certainly in the tradition of ethical thinking from which this kind ofprotest originates, the demand that any use of violence be"proportionate" is not really about exacting revenge - so it's not aquestion of what would be a proportionate response *to the kidnappingof 2 soldiers*. The point, I think, is that any use of violence (and the traditioninsists it is only permissible as a last resort) be proportionate tothe good that it is designed to achieve. So, in a widely-publicisedlegal case in the UK recently, it was deemed - correctly, I think -that although some use of force could be permitted in defending yourproperty against trespass and theft, shooting the intruder with ashotgun to prevent him fleeing was "disproportionate". The point hereis that shotgun injuries are not proportionate to the benefit ofpreventing theft (the householder's life was not in danger). In WWII, supposing that other means had been exhausted, the questionwould be what level violence is proportionate to the gain of stoppingHitler's extermination of the Jews and others. Whatever level thatturns out to be marks the limit of permissible violence in bringingabout that end. When the lives of millions were at stake, it isgenerally thought that some substantial parts of the allies' campaignwere permissible, even if this kind of reasoning might plausiblyconclude that other parts (Dresden, Hiroshima, etc.) were not. Whetheror not this gets the details right in this specific situation, itillustrates with a practical example how proportionality helps clearthinking about the morality of extreme situations, where -occasionally, so it is thought - peaceful means will not do the trick. Actually, I think that here the case against the Israeli action becomesabundantly clear: - there is actually no clear prospect of achieving any good by theirmilitary action: this IMMEDIATELY makes their violencedisproportionate, since there is no prospect of any good to be achievedfor the violence to be proportional to. Any violence isdisproportionate to nil good achieved. - even if they could recover their two soldiers by this action, thathardly merits the deaths of 1000 or so Lebanese, indeed, it doesn'twarrant the deaths of any Lebanese. - even if they could prevent rocket attacks or future kidnappings bythis action (which they certainly won't - indeed their actions areunbelievably short-sighted if this is their aim), the damage and deaththey have wreaked on Lebanon far outstrips what this benefit wouldmerit. And when we get to the actual aims of the Israeli action, which seem tohave more to do with showing its military muscle to the region, andparticularly to their own population, it is obvious that these gains(whatever they are supposed to be) do not merit the deaths even ofenemy combatants. Add to that the rather obvious fact that peaceful means would have beenfar more effective, even from the narrow perspective of Israel's ownends, considered in isolation ... let alone, from the wider perspectiveof what is best for all the people of the region. Some of the other interesting views you espouse will need to await theleisure of another time, or someone else's post! Thanks again, Jamie ______________________________ Jamie Dow Tel: +44 131 467 2115 Mob: +44 7801 033499 Email: jamie.dow at pobox.com Web: www.jamiedow.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re:[Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justification of War From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta To: Mansour Aziz Cc: Monica Mody ,reader-list at sarai.net Date: 04 August 2006 21:30:32 Dear Jamie, Mansour, Iram, Aasim and othersOn the eve of the day when a demonstration that I hope will happen as close as possible to the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, I think it is very worthwhile that we are having this debate on the reader list. I would like to thank all of you for the very thoughtful points that you have raised. I have learnt a lot from all of them.I am not doubting for a moment that there is something obscene in the spectacle of the most powerful military force in the Middle East, (the Israeli Defence Forces) targetting civilians and non combatants in Lebanon (or for that matter in the Gaza Strip, or on the West Bank). I have also no doubt that they are aided in this obscenity by many commentators in the US media who pretend that the conflict is one between equal parties. So I agree with Mansour and what he says in his posting. I also, like Iram, do not at all doubt the sincerity and good faith of those who have drafted and circulated the petition. I also believe that to unleash hostilities on to a civilian population, to bomb airports, houses and roads, because two soldiers have been kidnapped is a gross moral wrong. But, the question remains, is it 'disproportionate'. What would have been proportionate? How can one measure the magnitude of suffering in this case, and say this is the cut off point where a response by the Israeli Defence Forces would have ceased to be proportionate. And this, here is where it would have stayed within the respectable bounds of proportionality.Let me clarify a few points. I am not a pacifist. Generally, my sympathy for non-violent opposition stems as much from pragmatic as it does from purely ethical grounds. I maintain that armed opposition to oppression is not in every instance a morally questionable aim. However, I do have a problem with the monopoly over force that the modern nation state has claimed, with which comes the relatively new notion of the standing army.Given the nature of the state, and the fact that in my view a state is by definition an organ of the power of a ruling class, I view all violence (exercised by all and any state(s) or proto state(s)) as objectionable. This includes what statesmen like to call 'defensive measures'. Remember, all war ministries are called 'Ministries of Defence'.I have no fundamental moral objection to a population, or even individuals, undertaking acts of violence either in self defence, or in pursuit of a specific aim that aims to put an end,reasonably, to a condition that itself constitutes unbearable violence. I do not think violence is pretty, or beautiful, or redemptive, just that sometimes there is no other way. And given a choice between dying or watching someone I love die and attacking an aggressor in order to ensure that this does not happen, I would unhappily choose the latter. I believe that there can be just acts of violence, but no good acts of violence, and that these can occur when the perpetrators of such acts do not claim to be doing anything other than effecting simple violence in order to put an end to a greater violence. Such a perpetrator cannot make the claim that their act is somehow above question. They are fully aware of the fact that what they do causes pain to someone or the other. I do not believe there can be just wars. Because, the perpetrator of a war, a state, views itself as an agent who has a monopoly over the legitimate claim to force. Once a claim is successfully made with regard to legitimacy, the undertaker of that claim need not question or doubt their act. The state does not doubt its necessity to make war, It has the 'right' to conduct violence, to make war, that is what makes it a state in the first place. In fact, the state that cannot make war, is hardly justified in being seen as a state, and so, even Japan (with its so called 'Pacifist' constitution, continues to maintain one of the most powerful military machines in Asia).In fact there is a crucial difference between an individual, or even collective violent act by people who do not see themselves as the state, and a state's action. This does not make the first less violent, only violent in a different way, and I would argue that this difference has a significance. The first (if it attempts to justify itself, or if it can be justified) is not the violence that seeks to punish, or make a point, or even safeguard a territory, but the violence that has to occur, as a last resort, in order to save lives.In this understanding, only a combatant can be the legitimate target of violence. Those who have read my last posting carefully, will note that i had qualified every statement I was making by invoking the figure of the civilian. The International Laws of War (spelt out in the covenants of the Geneva Convention) are instruments that aim to spell out what should happen between combatants. Civilians are granted protection in the main when they become subject to the actions of an occupying power. This means, that if Israel invades Lebanon, or parts of Lebanon, then it has the responsibility under International law (the Geneva Convention) to ensure that the Lebanese non combatants in the zones that it controls are not subjected to arbitrary violence by its armed forces, it is here that the question of 'disproportionate' or 'unreasonable' force can arise, in a strictly legal sense. Until that time, if an Israeli rocket hits a structure that was sheltering non combatants, all that the Israeli government needs to do (if it so desires) is to say that it regretted the 'collateral damage'. This is the time honoured principle that the US Administration has used in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and elsewhere. In fact, the princicple of was is to inflict maximum damage to a civilian population so that the targetted population understands that the only guarantee of its safety lies in the hands of the state that enacts the violence upon it. This is why every modern war is also simultaneously projected as a war of liberation. A state liberates the subjects of another state from that state by bombing it into a situation where it is willing to delegitimize one ruling power in favour of another. This logic has no room whatsoever for 'proportionate' force in relation to civilian populations.To argue that a state act proportionately violently in relation to the subjects of a state that it considers hostile is to miss the point. A state need not do so. And the whole point of Guantanamo Bay, for instance, lies in this fact. That is why the inmates of the camp are not seen as combatants, it is in fact easier for the US governement to deal with them outside the limitations of international law precisely because they can be represented as non-combatants to the outside world, and held in a territory that legally does not fall within the boundaries of the United States of America. Prisoners of war, in a US POW camp would have to be treated under the Geneva Conventions.State's do not kill in order to save lives (even if that is what they say they do). Because states do not kill combatants alone. The nature of war aims today is based on a terrorization of a non combatant population. This is why there is no difference between recognized states and terrorist organizations. Neither actually is interested in targetting combattants, but in making civilians and non combatants scared.And this is why the language of proportion, in my view is ultimately untenable. In the end, it is about whether you believe that a state has the moral authority to involve you (as a subject or a citizen) in a declared act of aggression against another state and its subjects. I refuse to grant my state that moral authority over my person, and consequently I refuse to see why any aggressive act of the Israeli (or Syrian, or Iranian, or Lebanese, or Indian or Pakistani or any)state should be measured by me against some abstract scale of proportional and reasonable violence, and found either wanting, or not wanting. I do not want to be involved in this measuring game at all. As far as I am concerned, the question is not about whether there should or should not be a just war. I would personally much rather that there should just not be war.Apologies for a long post,regards,Shuddha_________________________________________reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.Critiques & CollaborationsTo subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.List archive: > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and > the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to > reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the > subject header. > List archive: __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ From rgdj12 at yahoo.com Sat Aug 5 14:56:25 2006 From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com (roger das) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media Message-ID: <20060805092625.43510.qmail@web38910.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Sir, In this communal driven country even media is running on the path of partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims ahcievement arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful singer-actor Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired nice programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in the midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th July NDTV carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, to celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined the death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. I was desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the death anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels even bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference comes out of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has not given due respect in media whereas singers and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on television in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not seen any especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. This established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper caste hindu groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian Muslim acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and deep rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is also running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope this letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. --------------------------------- Groups are talking. We´re listening. Check out the handy changes to Yahoo! Groups. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060805/a6e02b1b/attachment.html From monica.mody at gmail.com Sat Aug 5 17:18:15 2006 From: monica.mody at gmail.com (Monica Mody) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 17:18:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Press release: Citizens protest Israel's brutal war against Lebanon and Gaza In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4badad3b0608050448i2a603368w5f4d50ae54ba8da0@mail.gmail.com> Please forward widely Citizens in New Delhi protest against Israel's war More than 120 writers, poets, activists, journalists, lawyers, queer rights activists, communal rights activists, womens issues activists, child rights activists and other citizens held a 2-hour peaceful protest near the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi today, Saturday August 5, to demand an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in the ongoing Middle East war. The protestors condemned Israel's disproportionate war against Lebanon and Palestine, the sanction given to Israel by US and UK governments, and also the silence of the Indian government on the issue. Some present said the Indian Parliament must pass a resolution condemning the war just as the previous NDA government had passed a similar resolution with regard to Iraq war. Others criticised the Manmohan Singh government for permitting the US to influence Indian foreign policy, which they held was responsbile for India's failure to speak up in international fora on behalf of the hapless Lebanese and Palestinian people. As the Delhi Police did not permit the protestors to stage their dharna outside the Israeli Embassy itself, the protestors occupied the traffic island at the intersection of Shahjahan Road and India Gate Outer Circle. Slogans were raised against Israel, the US, the UK and the UPA government, and in support of Lebanon and Palestine. The protestors sang songs, performed jhankis and read poems of peace. The protest was followed by a march towards the Israeli Embassy. The police did not permit the dharna to proceed beyond the UPSC building on Shahjehan Road, but after pressure from the protestors, traffic was stopped on Shahjehan Road and the road was closed so that the protestors could conduct a meeting. The Nishant Natya Manch perfomed a jhanki caricaturing Israel, Tony Blair and Manmohan Singh as stooges of George Bush. A group of queer activists sang a song of peace. Shri Khursheed Anwar of the Aman Ekta Manch addressed the crowd. And the protest ended with all protestors lying on Shahjahan Road in silence to commemorate and grieve the war dead. Shouts of 'Salim, Salam, Shalom' brought the protest to a close. The following petition signed by more than 250 concerned citizens was handed over to the US, UK and Israeli embassies by the protestors. THE PETITION CITIZENS PROTEST ISRAEL'S BRUTAL WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND GAZA Even as we condemn all acts and forms of violence in the current crisis in the Middle East, irrespective of who commits them, we have watched with horror as Israel's disproportionate use of force against the citizens of Lebanon and Palestine has increased daily and with impunity in light of sanction for Israel from the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Israel's aggression continues in open defiance of calls from the rest of the international community for an immediate cease-fire, and continues to take a heavy toll of innocent life. Until today, the 5th of August, 900 Lebanese including 290 children had been killed and 9,00,000 Lebanese – one-third of the population – displaced in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah 24 days earlier. The number of Israeli dead in the conflict is 67, including 24 civilians, as Hezbollah continues to target Israel with rockets. Despite this, on August 1, the European Union too provided implicit sanction to Israel's disproportionate actions by failing to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Almost immediately, Israel launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, involving tens of thousands of troops. We, the undersigned, condemn this brutal targeting of unarmed civilian populations and the systematic destruction of the infrastructure of Lebanon and Gaza. We demand an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Lebanon and in Gaza from all parties, and that the leaders of Israel, the US and the UK be tried for war crimes against the Lebanese and Palestinian people. We mourn the loss of innocent Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli lives. We urge groups and individuals to join in a citizen's protest against Israel's targeting of civilians which goes against all laws of war and ethics of combat. In solidarity, 1. Aanchal Kapur, KRITI Research and Praxis 2. Aarti Sethi, editor 3. Aditya Nigam, political scientist & writer 4. Ahtushi Deshpande, travel writer 5. Ajay Bhardwaj, filmmaker 6. Aman Sethi, journalist 7. Amar Kanwar, filmmaker 8. Anand Vivek Taneja, researcher-writer 9. Aniruddha Shankar, concerned citizen 10. Anita Roy, editor 11. Anita Vasudev, writer 12. Annie Zaidi, journalist 13. Anubhav Gupta, writer 14. Anuradha Vijayakrishnan, writer 15. Aparna Sanyal 16. Apoorvanand, teacher and writer 17. Archana Dwivedi, Nirantar 18. Arka Mukhopadhyay, poet and theatre practitioner 19. Arti Sawhney 20. Ashok Vajpeyi, poet 21. Ashwin Aishwaria, artist 22. Ashwini Ailawadi, trainer 23. Bindu Menon, educator 24. Charu Soni, journalist 25. Colin Fernandes, journalist 26. Danish Husain, actor and writer 27. Devaki Khanna, student 28. Devika Prasad, human rights activist 29. Dipta Bhog, Nirantar 30. Farah Aziz, journalist 31. Farah Naqvi 32. Farida Khan, educationist 33. Gargi Sen, filmmaker 34. Gautam Bhan, activist 35. Gayatri Reddy, educator 36. George Kurian, filmmaker 37. Gita Hariharan, writer 38. Harjinder Singh Laltu, writer & scientist 39. Harpreet Anand 40. I.K. Shukla 41. I. Priya Thangarajah, student 42. Indira Pathak, activist 43. Jamaat e Islami Hind 44. Jaya Sharma, activist 45. Jeet Thayil, writer 46. Julia Dutta, journalist 47. Jyotsna Kumar,concerned citizen 48. Kanchana Natarajan, educator 49. Kaushiki Rao, concerned citizen 50. Kaveetaa Kaul writer/journalist 51. Keerti Jayaram, educationist, activist 52. Khadeeja Arif, researcher-writer 53. Khursheed Anwar, social activist 54. Kishore Kumar Singh, freelance consultant 55. Kunwar Narain, poet 56. Lesley A. Esteves, journalist 57. Madan Gopal Singh, film scholar & music composer 58. Madhu Mehra, human rights lawyer 59. Mario D'Penha, historian-activist 60. Maya Sharma, Parma 61. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer & journalist 62. Meera Samson, researcher 63. Mini Krishnan, publisher and writer (Chennai) 64. Monica Mody, writer 65. Mujtaba Farooq 66. Mushirul Hassan, Prof, Historian 67. N.K. Afandi, Dr 68. Nalini Nayak, teacher 69. Nandini Sundar 70. Nandita Das 71. Narayani Gupta, consultant INTACH 72. Naveen. T.K., law researcher 73. Nazim Khan 74. Neelima Sharma, theatre activist 75. Niharika Gupta, editor Womens Collective 76. Nini, Nirantar 77. Nishant Natya Manch, New Delhi 78. Nivedita Menon, academic & activist 79. Om Gupta, playwright 80. Ponni Arasu, activist 81. Prabhash Joshi, journalist 82. Pranav Kumar Singh, lawyer 83. Preeti Bose, poet 84. Prism, New Delhi 85. Priyanka Mukherjee, social worker 86. Pulin Nayak, economist 87. Radhika Kolluru, lawyer 88. Rajneesh Saran, freelance writer 89. Rahul Roy 90. Rama Kant Agnihotri, Prof, linguist 91. Ranjan De, filmmaker 92. S. Vinita 93. Saba Dewan 94. Samit Basu, writer 95. Saba Naqvi Bhaumik, journalist 96. Sanjay Kak, filmmaker 97. Shabnam Hashmi, social activist 98. Shakti Bhatt, editor & writer 99. Shalini Joshi, Nirantar 100. Shamsul Islam, Dr, theatre activist 101. Shivam Vij, blogger-journalist 102. Shohini Ghosh, film scholar & filmmaker 103. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, media practitioner 104. Siddharth Narrain, journalist 105. Smarth Bali, Communications Specialist 106. Sridala Swamy, writer 107. Subasri Krishnan, filmmaker 108. Sudeep Sen, writer & editor 109. Sujit Ghosh, social activist 110. Sumit Baudh, lawyer 111. Sumit Roy, filmmaker 112. Sunil Gupta, photographer 113. Susan Bertolino, writer 114. Susan M Koshy, writer 115. Tabish Khair, writer 116. Teena Gill 117. Uma Iyer 118. Vaibhav Vats, student 119. Vineeta Bal, peace activist -- Lesley A. Esteves Associate Editor Outlook Traveller Getaways Outlook Publishing (India) Pvt Ltd AB10 Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi-110029 Tel: 01141650184 (direct) 01126191421, ext 317 Cell: +919810297743 Fax: 01126191420 Email: lesley at outlookindia.com apni aag mein khud jal jaye, tu aisa parwana ban ja... From shahzulf at yahoo.com Sat Aug 5 19:53:43 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 07:23:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: These mysterious disappearances Message-ID: <20060805142343.92643.qmail@web38801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> These mysterious ‘disappearances’ [Editorial of Daily Dawn] CITIZENS of the republic continue to vanish without a trace. This national disgrace was highlighted in the Senate on Thursday when the government came in for sharp criticism over the mysterious ‘disappearance’ of Baloch politicians and activists. The opposition’s concern on this score is understandable given the number of people who have gone missing in Balochistan in the course of the ongoing military operation. The malaise, however, is neither confined to one province nor recent in its origins. It is estimated that due legal process was not followed in the ‘arrests’ of some 800 people allegedly picked up by intelligence or law enforcement agencies between 2001 and 2005. Many such ‘ghost’ prisoners remain untraceable to this day. Dr Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT graduate who was apparently wanted for questioning by the US, has been missing for three years. Attiqur Rehman, a nuclear scientist associated with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, has not been seen since he disappeared on his wedding day two years ago. His father claims that he was picked up from his home in Abbottabad by operatives of “secret agencies”. The case of missing journalist Hayatullah Khan came to a tragic end when his body was found six months after his abduction in North Waziristan. Recent months have seen the disappearance of Dr Safdar Sarki of Jeay Sindh and Sindh Nationalist Forum president Asif Baladi. When pressed for answers, the police and intelligence agencies consistently deny any knowledge of these disappearances. It is clear, however, that officials have been hiding the truth in all such cases. For instance, journalist Mukesh Rupeta and cameraman Sanjay Kumar were produced in court three months after their disappearance in Jacobabad. Throughout their detention, the official line was that their whereabouts were unknown. This brazen trampling of the fundamental rights of citizens flies in the face of the government’s claims that it is committed to human rights and due process of law. Irrespective of the crime — real or perceived, serious or minor — innocence or guilt can be established only through a legal process involving formal arrest, framing of charges, production in a court of law, access to defence lawyers and, finally, adjudication. In many cases, these norms and principles are respected more in breach than in observance. Daily Dawn, Karachi, August 5, 2006 http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/05/ed.htm#2 --------------------------------- Why keep checking for Mail? The all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta shows you when there are new messages. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060805/b5189060/attachment.html From anjula.garg at jrc.it Fri Aug 4 18:07:22 2006 From: anjula.garg at jrc.it (Anjula Garg) Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 14:37:22 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] niyogi memorial convention Message-ID: <0J3H00C0O4DKXK30@ipsc-sc-msg.jrc.it> Dear Lalit, In your annoucement below from two years ago, you have mentioned Sudha Bharadwaj of Chattisgarh mukti morcha. I would be grateful if you could send me some contact information for her, I have been trying for some years to make contact with her. Many thanks and best regards Anjula [Announcements] niyogi memorial convention lalit batra lalitbatra77 at yahoo.co.in Fri Oct 1 19:51:16 CEST 2004 * Previous message: [Announcements] please post announcement * Next message: [Announcements] Make History with the US Department of Art and Technology -- October through November Fourth on -empyre- * Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] _____ NIYOGI MEMORIAL CONVENTION ON LABOUR STRUGGLES FOR JUSTICE Thirteen years after the martyrdom of Shankar Guha Niyogi his legacy lives on. Guided by his creative and charismatic leadership, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha redefined trade union struggles by breaking the narrow shackles of economism. Under the slogan of "sangharsh aur nirmaan", this movement touched and transformed all aspects of people's lives - it established a worker's hospital, led vibrant anti liquor movements, and actively promoted local history and traditions. It created an active relationship with the movements of the peasantry and labour in the surrounding countryside. The slogan "Naye Bharat Ke Liye Naya Chattisgarh" captures this people-centric model of development. Niyogi's vision of a society free of oppression stands in stark contrast to the lop-sided priorities of the development model being implemented in Chhattishgarh today. Shankar Guha Niyogi was murdered in the early hours of 28th September 1991 by the industrial mafia of Chattisgarh. At that time he was organising contract workers in Bhilai. Even as the government of Madhya Pradesh was wooing foreign investors and promising a dispute free industrial haven, workers were unionising. The burgeoning agitation launched by the contract workers for the implementation of labour laws under his leadership posed a threat to the profits of industrialists, and also to the unchallenged supremacy they enjoyed in the area for decades. His cold-blooded murder sent shock waves throughout the nation. In the trial for his murder, the trial court for the first time in the legal history of the country convicted two industrialists on the charge of conspiracy for the murder of a trade union leader. The final appeals in this matter have been argued before the Supreme Court and the judgment is now awaited. The theme of the convention is "Labour Struggles for Justice" in today's context of dilution of labour laws, attack on fundamental rights like the right to strike, and growing repression of workers. PROGRAMME Session 1: 3.00 pm to 5.00 pm Aruna Roy, Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Rajasthan on Rural Workers' Issues and Struggles Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University on Changing Macroeconomic Policies and Growing Repression of Workers Arundhati Roy, Author and Social Activist on Global Political Context of an Increasingly Anti-Labour World Economic Order Sudha Bharadwaj, Secretary, Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha on Challenges Before the Workers' and Peasant Movement in Chhattisgarh Indira Jaising, Senior Advocate, SC, on Judiciary and Workers Rights Session 2: 5.00 pm to 6.00 pm Comments by representatives of Trade Unions and Workers' Organizations Chairperson: Dunu Roy, Environmental Activist, Hazards Centre, New Delhi Venue : Deputy Speaker's Hall, Constitution Club, Viththalbhai Patel House, New Delhi Date : 5th October 2004 K.J Mukherjee Smita Gupta Vrinda Grover SOLIDARITY GROUP FOR CHHATTISGARH WORKER'S MOVEMENT ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony _____ * Previous message: [Announcements] please post announcement * Next message: [Announcements] Make History with the US Department of Art and Technology -- October through November Fourth on -empyre- * Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] _____ More information about the announcements mailing list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060804/2aedefb7/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From crd at fondation-langlois.org Mon Aug 7 19:16:51 2006 From: crd at fondation-langlois.org (CR+D) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 09:46:51 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] News from the Daniel Langlois Foundation Message-ID: <4f5a9ce5d3c17e7c794af8e4bd91617a@fdl-webmestre> Research and Experimentation Residencies in Montreal The project proposal submission deadline for Research and Experimentation Residencies in Montreal for Professional Artists from Emerging Countries or Regions is September 30, 2006. A new online application form is now available on our Web site and must be used by all individuals wishing to apply for this program. The Daniel Langlois Foundation offers this program in collaboration with OBORO, an artist-run centre in Montreal. Two residency grants will be offered to professional artists from emerging countries. These grants aim to help the successful applicants in their research, experiments and project development, while allowing them to work in a different environment than their region or country of origin. To access the online application form and the program guidelines: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/programmes/obo/menu.html To access the OBORO New Media Laboratory: http://www.oboro.net/lab/index_e.html Centre for Research and Documentation fifth anniversary On May 26, the Daniel Langlois Foundation's Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D) celebrated its fifth anniversary. During the event, Steina Vasulka performed her work Violin Power. On May 27, Hubert and Nicolas Reeves presented a conference entitled Voyageurs étonnés, chercheurs et créateurs au seuil de l'inconnu as part of the Foundation's Matinées-conférences series: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=1822 Catalina Briceno appointed Program Officer The Daniel Langlois Foundation is pleased to announce that Catalina Briceno, who has been Assistant to the Executive Director since 2003, was appointed Program Officer on July 3, 2006. Ms. Briceno has extensive experience in film and new media production project analysis and management. Her new functions will most notably see her manage programs involving individual artists and researchers and monitor evaluations and supported projects according to the program criteria. For a more detailed biography of Catalina Briceno: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=699 To consult the list of programs and their guidelines: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=515 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering fonds: finding aids The Foundation is pleased to announce that the finding aids of the 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering fonds are now online. The fonds consists mainly of original factual footage (16 mm and 35 mm film) of the nine evenings as well as some audio recordings on magnetic tape. These finding aids include a detailed record of the fonds in its entirety, records of each of the series in the fonds, and an exhaustive list of its contents. In addition, the CR+D provides access via the finding aids to documentary resources that complement the fonds: press review of the event, performance descriptions accompanied by bibliographies, biographies and bibliographies of the participants (engineers and artists), etc: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=1841 From lawrence at altlawforum.org Mon Aug 7 19:42:52 2006 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 19:42:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Rights of Artists to share of resale of Art works Message-ID: Hi All We were working on a review of Indian copyright law when we came upon a very interesting thing: Droit de Suite. Droit de suite (DDS) is the name given to a principle in law that gives artists (specifically, the creators of artistic works) the right to a percentage of SECONDARY sales of said artistic work. Essentially, lets say I am Tyeb Mehta. I sell a painting in 1985 to X. X sells it in 2006 through an auction house for a whopping big load of money. Conventional wisdom, especially in the artistic community, is outrage - since Tyeb Mehta apparently gets nothing since X owned the painting sold, not him. Except, ever since 1994, India has a legal provision which entitles the artist to upto 10% of the resale value, and the Copyright Board is empowered to step in to decide what the percentage should be in case of a dispute. Here's the section - see http://www.copyright.gov.in/cpract.doc, and look at Section 53A: Resale share right in original copies. (the text is attached as 53A.doc) No artist seems to know anything: and indeed, a whole bunch of prominent people (inlcuding Raza, Tyeb) have been complaining (bizarrely) that if only such a provision were to exist in Indian law it would be of great use to them. See: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060514/spectrum/main2.htm http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060531/edit.htm#6 http://www.dnaindia.com/sunreport.asp?Newsid=1034599 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/02/07/bawb07.xml&s Sheet=/arts/2005/02/07/ixartleft.html http://www.blonnet.com/2006/06/02/stories/2006060204361400.htm http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/jun/24perfin.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_23/b3987048.htm http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=6&art_id=19738&sid=8192 860&con_type=1&d_str=20060531 http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2006-March/007002.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/06/29/India/ccar t29.xml http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/aug/22spec.htm http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2005/jul/26art.htm Now the thing is, DDS has a specific history - even though the Indian govt. apparently has no data to share on whether it has been used or not (casual conversations with the Registrar of Copyright indicated that its rarely/ never been that a dispute has come up to the Copyright Board, which does not mean that all artists are getting their due share, rather that no artist is - on resale rights at least). Here are the links to 2 documents that cursorily talk about DDS in the Indian context, both worth reading: http://www.ficci-frames.com/frames2001/Frames%202004/Knowledgebase2004/IPR.h tm http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001014/101438E.pdf And here is a much broader UNESCO study on DDS itself, with a very good explanation of how it works - useful to know, since for instance, private sales (between the buyer and seller directly, without intermediaries) are EXEMPT in the sense that the artist is not entitled to anything there - DDS only applies when the sale is through a gallery, auction etc. Lawrence / Achal From mohaiemen at yahoo.com Tue Aug 8 11:37:12 2006 From: mohaiemen at yahoo.com (NAEEM MOHAIEMEN) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 23:07:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Moshe Dayan citation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060808060712.64628.qmail@web50307.mail.yahoo.com> Hello Asim Could you please post the citation for the Moshe Dayan quote. I would like to refer to it on shobak.org but don't want to do so without sourcing it. thx Naeem __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com Mon Aug 7 22:12:33 2006 From: kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com (Kamal Kumar Mishra) Date: 7 Aug 2006 16:42:33 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] SARAI posting Message-ID: <20060807164233.27688.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com>  Dear ANDREW, Thousands apologies for not answering to your mail for soooo long,today when i was clearing my mail account i noticed this blunder i have done,i am extremely sorry!!! True as you say the relationship between crime and detective is closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting in most of the cases...but you might find it surprising that in Hindi detective ficttions this link is mostly absent. Hindi deteective fictions have a few peculiar characteristics par example-1) there might not be a single detective and this function might be performed by many people or 2) detective need not use modern or rational techniques to solve a mystry, role of chance is often crucial in solving a case. Thus one hardly finds this clue and puzzle type in hindi detective fictions. I have not come across a single piece translated ,adapted,or original where (here i am talking about the early hindi detective fictons from 1900-1940's) a detective solves a case with the help of fingerprints.Though, one may find examples of foot prints, as a clue, but not so elaborate either. THEN what we have are discourse of criminality mostly based on jati(caste)n lakchana (physical attributes n morality) where colonial state is often absent in these popular fictions. hope you find it interesting enough...with apologies again warm regards!!! kamal On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 Andrew MacDonald wrote : >Hi Kamal.. > > Nice to see your posting on SARAI and your research..I'm a post-grad history student based at Duban, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I just thought, tangentially, since I have just finished reading it myself, The book Imprint of the Raj - how fingerprinting was born in Colonial India. Maybe you have seen it already, but the relationship between crime and detectives is closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting (which was only then becoming the kind of embryonic, precocious state project we now take for granted). I wonder if their is much in the Hindi literature on this topic? It would be quite interesting... > I have worked/am working on aspects of biopower (to sound foucauldian, though i have some real problems with his arguments), concerned less with literature but more with labour and immigration in colonial South Africa).. > > Anway, thought I would put my two cents worth in.. > > Andrew > > >--------------------------------- >To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060807/1e5f0a0b/attachment.html From monica.mody at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 16:30:10 2006 From: monica.mody at gmail.com (Monica Mody) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 16:30:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justificaiton of War Message-ID: <4badad3b0608070400o20528898y2618079aeda670b3@mail.gmail.com> That was a brilliant debate on the list - all of which went towards making the protest space on Saturday vibrant, inclusive, and exhilarating. Apologies that this was not forwarded to you on Friday night, which is when we put together what finally became the citizens' petition handed over to the embassies at UK and US (Israel and Lebanon tomorrow). I have already shared with you the press release for the protest and will shortly be sharing the pictures clicked then. Cheers, Monica ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lesley E Date: Aug 4, 2006 11:04 PM Subject: Protest update, Friday 4 August To: voicesagainst377 at yahoogroups.com, nigahmedia at yahoogroups.com, Apoorva Anand , svinita at gmail.com, aparna_sanyal at yahoo.com, iram at sarai.net, jamie.dow at pobox.com, mail at shivamvij.com, aasim27 at yahoo.co.in, shuddha at sarai.ne, aziz.mansour at gmail.com, mriduus at yahoo.com Dear friends and colleagues, I have been organising Saturday's protest against Israel with Monica Mody, Apoorvanand and Mridu Koshy. Several others too have contributed to the organising effort, all in individual capacity and not as part of any organisation. We have received very many signatures to the letter and feedback from some about its content. There were at first objections to the fact the number of Lebanese dead were recorded, not Israeli. This was indeed an unacceptable omission and was rectified. It was suggested that the line "The Lebanese and Palestinians are not children of a lesser god and their blood is not worth less than Israeli tears", which is a reconstruction of what Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said to assembled diplomats at the failed Rome summit, was too emotive and melodramatic. It was dropped, because it was considered unnecessary anyway. There were objections to the demand for US and UK to be prosecuted for war crimes. It was clarified on all lists that these two countries have been included in the demand as they have provided material and logistical support to Israel's ongoing war in Lebanon and Gaza, by sending bombs (US) via their own airports (UK) with the knowledge that these are likely to cause civilian deaths. This is a war crime. While today Prime Minister Tony Blair finally said that the bombing of Lebanon is "unacceptable", the UK continues to refuse to condemn Israel's actions as disproportionate and still refuses to demand an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. The UK hence extends its sanction for Israel's actions in Lebanon and Gaza against the majority opinion within the UK, among citizens and MPs. Meanwhile, Israel continues to bomb civilian targets and as these words are being written, is preparing to attack a residential suburb of Beirut which will undoubtedly lead to even more Lebanese civilian deaths. The strongest objections have been to the use of the word 'disproportionate' in describing Israel's actions. The gist of the suggestions is that no war or violence is justifiable or can hence be considered "proportionate". We agree, and must clarify that it was not the intention to ask that violence of an acceptable degree be visited upon anyone, whether Lebanese, Palestinian or Israeli. We would have it that no one is killed or injured, soldier or civilian. Hence we are demanding an immediate and unconditional cease-fire. But since far greater powers than us remain determined to continue with this war, to which we can only offer our opposition, either through this protest or in any other way, we can also certainly point out that even as per accepted laws of military engagement (who would not love to live in a world which had no need for such laws?), the force of Israel's response to attacks on its territory and citizens is disproportionate. To give a very simple analogy: if my enemy slaps me, its wrong. If I slap him back, that's still wrong. But if he slaps me and I respond by blowing his head off with an AK47, that's a very different kind of wrong. And one must protest all these degrees of violence, and violence itself. The letter does both. We do see though that the word 'disproportionate' need not be in the headline and have hence dropped it. The heading now reads as 'CALL TO PROTEST ISRAEL'S BRUTAL WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND GAZA'. To ensure that the letter no longer gives the impression that the signatories advocate a lesser degree of military action by Israel, we have added the following line to the first para: Even as we condemn all acts and forms of violence in the current crisis in the Middle East, irrespective of who commits them…'. We have also updated the statistics. The rest of the letter remains unchanged. Should anyone still like to add or retract their signature, please do get back to us before 9 am tomorrow morning since we will be printing copies of the letter then to release to the press and take to the embassies. We hope that even those who don't wish to sign the letter will attend the protest. We look forward to a disciplined and peaceful protest tomorrow. Please do come with placards, banners, slogans, songs and poetry. In solidarity, Lesley - -- Lesley A. Esteves Associate Editor Outlook Traveller Getaways Outlook Publishing (India) Pvt Ltd AB10 Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi-110029 Tel: 01141650184 (direct) 01126191421, ext 317 Cell: +919810297743 Fax: 01126191420 Email: lesley at outlookindia.com apni aag mein khud jal jaye, tu aisa parwana ban ja... __._,_.___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060807/f2657e54/attachment.html From workshops at mediamatic.nl Tue Aug 8 18:01:49 2006 From: workshops at mediamatic.nl (workshops) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 14:31:49 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] reminder Mediamatic workshop on RFID Message-ID: <24E5C62D-59B1-47E5-8A7B-F6D059F1B634@mediamatic.nl> workshop: RFID and The Internet of Things 11, 12, 13 September 2006 @ Mediamatic Amsterdam 50 Euro discount ! RFID is the barcode of the future equipping individual objects with IP addresses. Metadata for physical objects will make an internet of things possible. The real world and the internet come together in an Internet of Things. In this 3 day workshop, participants will develop creative concepts and/ or prototypes for an Internet of Things in a hands-on way. Ideas can range from scripts for small new rituals to outlines of societal changes of epic scale. Prototypes can be tested with workshop tools. We have invited a number of people to look at RFID and the Internet of Things from multiple angles: JULIAN BLEECKER Julian Bleecker is researcher at the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication and an Assistant Professor in the Interactive Media Division. His work focuses on emerging technology design, research and development, implementation, concept innovation, particularly in the areas of pervasive media, mobile media, social networks and entertainment. One of his main research topics is The Internet of Things. In his lecture he'll speak about the internet of things and the current role of ' blogjects' in the hybrid fusion of the real world and the internet. TIMO ARNALL Timo Arnall focuses on practices around RFID in urban space, and continously keeps an eye out for potential interactions with objects and city spaces through mobile devices. His former research on flyposting and stickering in public space sought design strategies for combining physical marking and digital spatial annotation. He will fall into the practice of applying metadata to physical objects, for instance through RFID, and showcase his research in application of Nokia's RFID enable phone. ARIE ALTENA Arie Altena is literature scientist, publisher and teacher. He writes about new media, art and culture. He teaches at the Frank Mohr Instituut Interactive Media and Environments, CMD Breda and other art academies. Internet and personal publishing are themes he addresses in his lectures and trainings. In his lecture Arie will speak about social tagging and the usability of dataclouds in the context of RFID- tagged places and things. ROB VAN KRANENBURG Rob van Kranenburg is senior lecturer Ambient Experience Design (HKU, KMT) and program manager at the Virtueel Platform. He is a longtime critical follower of the developments around ubiqitous computing and RFID. He will explain the basic set-up of RFID, discuss the ways in which old and new stakeholders deal with the most important issues, and deduct a prediction about 'where it's going'. The participation fee is reduced with EUR 50 ! You can now participate for EUR 300 excl. VAT !! (EUR 357 incl. VAT). For further information and registration visit www.mediamatic.net/ workshops, call Klaas Kuitenbrouwer: +31 20 6389901 or mail to workshops at mediamatic.nl. Mediamatic Foundation - Postbus 17490 - 1001 JL Amsterdam - The Netherlands t +31 (0)20 6389901 - f +31 (0)206387969 - http://www.mediamatic.net From shuddha at sarai.net Tue Aug 8 19:46:28 2006 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 19:46:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Disproportion and the Justificaiton of War In-Reply-To: <4badad3b0608070400o20528898y2618079aeda670b3@mail.gmail.com> References: <4badad3b0608070400o20528898y2618079aeda670b3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44D89CBC.4020808@sarai.net> Dear Monica, Thanks, this is indeed a nuanced and balanced petition, and the question of proportion is well qualified, and placed in an appropriate context. I have no ambivalence on being included as one of the signatories of this text. Thanks to everyone for the discussion that happenned, lets keep ensuring that this list remains a space hospitable to this kind of conversation. regards Shuddha Monica Mody wrote: > That was a brilliant debate on the list - all of which went towards making > the protest space on Saturday vibrant, inclusive, and exhilarating. > Apologies that this was not forwarded to you on Friday night, which is when > we put together what finally became the citizens' petition handed over to > the embassies at UK and US (Israel and Lebanon tomorrow). > > I have already shared with you the press release for the protest and will > shortly be sharing the pictures clicked then. > > Cheers, > Monica > > From blauloretta at yahoo.com Wed Aug 9 11:34:10 2006 From: blauloretta at yahoo.com (Gustaff Harriman) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 23:04:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Project report: Hetero Utopia Exhibition, Bandung - Indonesia In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060809060410.77960.qmail@web51005.mail.yahoo.com> Hetero Utopia: Mapping the Urban Terrain This exhibition shows a collection of works that specifically compiled to map out the various urban space complexities in various countries. It presents artworks from artists of different social & political territories in different periods, including some public participatory and online project. This exhibition also tries to portray a comparative study on contemporary urban situation from various urban territories, which will be investigated through personal perspectives and a subjective micro-narration. Most of the works are focusing on city spaces, carefully examining layers hidden beyond building walls and highways. Participating in the exhibition are artists from Indonesia, New Zealand, Denmark, Germany & Austria; as well as the city inhabitants of Bandung. Apart from video works, this exhibition is equipped by several projects specifically dedicated in conjunction with Artepolis: Creative Culture & the Making of Place. 36 Frames Photography Project involves the public in identifying the visual trajectory around Dago area, thus collectively recognizing the mental map of the participants from their own perception about Dago street. Urban Cartography Project also involves its audience to map out spots with special meanings for the public in Bandung City as a dynamic psychogeography of Bandung from the view of its inhabitants. At the same time, an online project connecting Bandung and Manchester will be commenced as a part of the Futuresonic 2006 event in Manchester. Through a project entitled Luncheon in the Barge Project, several individuals will meet to share stories on the experience of living in Bandung and Manchester, while exploring river/canals in Manchester. These projects can be accessed through www.commonroom.info/bcfnma/futuresonic2006. During the exhibition, the audience may actively participate in the event. In general, some artworks and projects presented in the exhibition show diverse perceptions of the intertwined urban spaces, filled with flux and contradiction. A city is an in between-space where "self" and "the other" confronts, unleashing possibilities of conflicts and negotiations, and thus become a pure representation of chaos and order. Several of the presented videos also show a view of banality tendencies in the dailyscape, as well as wild imaginations, stories, relations between individuals, memories of places, including the anxieties and terrors that are often present in the urban spaces. For this reason, perhaps we could consider the urban spaces as a symbol of many utopian conflicts and enigmas. This presentation is specially commissioned by Department of Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Policy Development, Bandung Institute of Technology. Organized by Bandung Center for New Media Arts in conjunction with Artepolis: Creative Culture & the Making of Place. Participants: Platform I (Architecture Galllery - ITB) 36 Frames Photography Project participants: Bondri Cemara, Chendy Oktaviana Y., Christian Aditya, Dadang, Dedi Ruhendi, Eko Kurnianto, Imam Cahyadi, Lunalda Kanzeila, M. Aminullah, Medianna Novita, Mulana Rohimat, Oktavina Qurrota Ayun, OQ Adiredja, Pidi, Reggy, Riswan Andika, Rizki Ardianto Priramadhi, Samuel Unggul, Stevie Stephanie, Syauqi Lukman, Tatat Tresnawatie, Tifa Nurlatifa, Trias Terina, Troy, Utami Karmawan, Vijey and Yustinus Ardhitya. Platform II (Soemardja Gallery - ITB) Muhammad Akbar (Indonesia), Nanna Debois Buhl (Denmark), Tamar Guimares (Denmark), Klaus Ohad Said Auderer (Austria), Daniel Malone, Sriwhana Spong, Kah Bee Chow, Catherine Garet, Janet Lilo, Nova Paul (New Zealand), Prilla Tania (Indonesia) and ruangrupa (Indonesia). Also featuring Recurring Spaces Video Compilation (From the Displacement Project Bandung-Singapore 2006). Including works from Banung Grahita; (IKAL) Chairine Stevanny, Fitriani K.D., Annisa S., Fini Kania; Erik M. Pauhrizi; Gembi & Ageng (Pemuda Elektrik); Muhammad Reggie Aquara; OQ Adiredja; Rizaldi Fakhruddin; Tisa Granicia & Budi Adi Nugroho; and Yusuf Ismail. Organized by Bandung Center for New Media Arts Directed by T. Ismail Reza Produced by R.E. Hartanto Text by Gustaff H. Iskandar Photograph by OQ & LUNA More information please visit http://commonroom.info/bcfnma/futuresonic2006/image/2006/08/hetero-utopia-mapping-urban-terrain.html. Cheers, -Gustaff __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From subasrik at yahoo.com Tue Aug 8 15:38:29 2006 From: subasrik at yahoo.com (Subasri Krishnan) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 03:08:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong Message-ID: <20060808100829.18489.qmail@web52101.mail.yahoo.com> Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong The assault on Lebanon was premeditated - the soldiers' capture simply provided the excuse. It was also unnecessary George Monbiot Tuesday August 8, 2006 The Guardian Whatever we think of Israel's assault on Lebanon, all of us seem to agree about one fact: that it was a response, however disproportionate, to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah. I repeated this "fact" in my last column, when I wrote that "Hizbullah fired the first shots". This being so, the Israeli government's supporters ask peaceniks like me, what would you have done? It's an important question. But its premise, I have now discovered, is flawed. Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the "blue line" between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line "on an almost daily basis" between 2001 and 2003, and "persistently" until 2006. These incursions "caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas". On some occasions, Hizbullah tried to shoot them down with anti-aircraft guns. In October 2000, the Israel Defence Forces shot at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on the border, killing three and wounding 20. In response, Hizbullah crossed the line and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. On several occasions, Hizbullah fired missiles and mortar rounds at IDF positions, and the IDF responded with heavy artillery and sometimes aerial bombardment. Incidents like this killed three Israelis and three Lebanese in 2003; one Israeli soldier and two Hizbullah fighters in 2005; and two Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers in February 2006. Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006, on some occasions by Hizbullah. But, the UN records, "none of the incidents resulted in a military escalation". On May 26 this year, two officials of Islamic Jihad - Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub - were killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese city of Sidon. This was widely assumed in Lebanon and Israel to be the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. In June, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh confessed to the killings and admitted that he had been working for Mossad since 1994. Militants in southern Lebanon responded, on the day of the bombing, by launching eight rockets into Israel. One soldier was lightly wounded. There was a major bust-up on the border, during which one member of Hizbullah was killed and several wounded, and one Israeli soldier wounded. But while the border region "remained tense and volatile", Unifil says it was "generally quiet" until July 12. There has been a heated debate on the internet about whether the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah that day were captured in Israel or in Lebanon, but it now seems pretty clear that they were seized in Israel. This is what the UN says, and even Hizbullah seems to have forgotten that they were supposed to have been found sneaking around the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab. Now it simply states that "the Islamic resistance captured two Israeli soldiers at the border with occupied Palestine". Three other Israeli soldiers were killed by the militants. There is also some dispute about when, on July 12, Hizbullah first fired its rockets; but Unifil makes it clear that the firing took place at the same time as the raid - 9am. Its purpose seems to have been to create a diversion. No one was hit. But there is no serious debate about why the two soldiers were captured: Hizbullah was seeking to exchange them for the 15 prisoners of war taken by the Israelis during the occupation of Lebanon and (in breach of article 118 of the third Geneva convention) never released. It seems clear that if Israel had handed over the prisoners, it would - without the spillage of any more blood - have retrieved its men and reduced the likelihood of further kidnappings. But the Israeli government refused to negotiate. Instead - well, we all know what happened instead. Almost 1,000 Lebanese and 33 Israeli civilians have been killed so far, and a million Lebanese displaced from their homes. On July 12, in other words, Hizbullah fired the first shots. But that act of aggression was simply one instance in a long sequence of small incursions and attacks over the past six years by both sides. So why was the Israeli response so different from all that preceded it? The answer is that it was not a reaction to the events of that day. The assault had been planned for months. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and thinktanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail". The attack, he said, would last for three weeks. It would begin with bombing and culminate in a ground invasion. Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that "of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared ... By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board". A "senior Israeli official" told the Washington Post that the raid by Hizbullah provided Israel with a "unique moment" for wiping out the organisation. The New Statesman's editor, John Kampfner, says he was told by more than one official source that the US government knew in advance of Israel's intention to take military action in Lebanon. The Bush administration told the British government. Israel's assault, then, was premeditated: it was simply waiting for an appropriate excuse. It was also unnecessary. It is true that Hizbullah had been building up munitions close to the border, as its current rocket attacks show. But so had Israel. Just as Israel could assert that it was seeking to deter incursions by Hizbullah, Hizbullah could claim - also with justification - that it was trying to deter incursions by Israel. The Lebanese army is certainly incapable of doing so. Yes, Hizbullah should have been pulled back from the Israeli border by the Lebanese government and disarmed. Yes, the raid and the rocket attack on July 12 were unjustified, stupid and provocative, like just about everything that has taken place around the border for the past six years. But the suggestion that Hizbullah could launch an invasion of Israel or that it constitutes an existential threat to the state is preposterous. Since the occupation ended, all its acts of war have been minor ones, and nearly all of them reactive. So it is not hard to answer the question of what we would have done. First, stop recruiting enemies, by withdrawing from the occupied territories in Palestine and Syria. Second, stop provoking the armed groups in Lebanon with violations of the blue line - in particular the persistent flights across the border. Third, release the prisoners of war who remain unlawfully incarcerated in Israel. Fourth, continue to defend the border, while maintaining the diplomatic pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hizbullah (as anyone can see, this would be much more feasible if the occupations were to end). Here then is my challenge to the supporters of the Israeli government: do you dare to contend that this programme would have caused more death and destruction than the current adventure has done? www.monbiot.com 'You can only understand your life backwards. But you have to live it forwards' --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060808/daf37cc4/attachment.html From avinashcold at gmail.com Tue Aug 8 17:52:22 2006 From: avinashcold at gmail.com (Avinash Kumar) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 17:52:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Deewan] SARAI posting In-Reply-To: <20060807164233.27688.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> References: <20060807164233.27688.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: Dear Kamal, Sorry for butting in without a legitimate ground. Nevertheless thought, I would give my two cents.I haven't read too many early detective fictions in Hindi, so it goes with a caveat. One of the most famous stories by Gopalram Gahmari, 'Malgodam mein Chori' is a stark example of the way the 'modern, rational' practices of detection methodology were sought to be acknowledged. As I remember clearly, even though it does not talk of finger print, it talks of a 'keen, detailed' analysis of the crime scene and not merely remains dependent on 'chance', though, that as you correctly say, remained a principal feature in a lot of fiction of that period. What is further interesting in that piece is that, even as the crime has happened somewhere in Bihar (i forget where, perhaps gaya), the detective called into investigate is from Calcutta, the signifier for a 'modern city' and who speaks with an English accent despite being a Bengali. Of course, how he blends in with the local landscape singing popular Braj poetry while doing his job, is another matter to investigate. Second, in another novel of Gahmari, I forget the title right now and the Shivpujan Sahay classic , 'Dehati Duniya', Jati is very prominent as once again rightly pointed out by you. Yet, I would see it still as a result of the very presence of colonial discourse of criminality, which fixated certain castes, tribes under the labels of criminality. Even, the colour, physical attributes etc as a criterion, came under the same phenomenon largely. We are now replete with studies around this theme. On the other hand, the role of daroga, the local police is so predominant in these stories (and not only in these two works I am talking of) that the picture you get is that villages are vacated en masse with the news of arrival of the local 'daroga'. In this sense, what I would assert is given the context, whether as a pseudo-detective posing as a city-bred man like Holmes or as a daroga, the colonial state is omnipresent in these narratives. What then is worth investigating is how they are renegotiating these different roles... Sorry, for this long mail but this, as I said is an instant reaction with a very limited knowledge of the subject... thanks, avinash On 7 Aug 2006 16:42:33 -0000, Kamal Kumar Mishra wrote: > > Dear ANDREW, > Thousands apologies for not answering to your mail for soooo > long,today when i was clearing my mail account i noticed this blunder i have > done,i am extremely sorry!!! > True as you say the relationship between crime and detective is > closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting in most of the cases...but > you might find it surprising that in Hindi detective ficttions this link is > mostly absent. > > Hindi deteective fictions have a few peculiar characteristics par > example-1) there might not be a single detective and this function might be > performed by many people or 2) detective need not use modern or rational > techniques to solve a mystry, role of chance is often crucial in solving a > case. > Thus one hardly finds this clue and puzzle type in hindi detective > fictions. > I have not come across a single piece translated ,adapted,or original > where (here i am talking about the early hindi detective fictons from > 1900-1940's) a detective solves a case with the help of > fingerprints.Though, one may find examples of foot prints, as a clue, but > not so elaborate either. > > THEN what we have are discourse of criminality mostly based on > jati(caste)n lakchana (physical attributes n morality) where colonial state > is often absent in these popular fictions. > hope you find it interesting enough...with apologies again > warm regards!!! > kamal > > > On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 Andrew MacDonald wrote : > >Hi Kamal.. > > > > Nice to see your posting on SARAI and your research..I'm a post-grad > history student based at Duban, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I > just thought, tangentially, since I have just finished reading it myself, > The book Imprint of the Raj - how fingerprinting was born in Colonial India. > Maybe you have seen it already, but the relationship between crime and > detectives is closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting (which was > only then becoming the kind of embryonic, precocious state project we now > take for granted). I wonder if their is much in the Hindi literature on this > topic? It would be quite interesting... > > I have worked/am working on aspects of biopower (to sound foucauldian, > though i have some real problems with his arguments), concerned less with > literature but more with labour and immigration in colonial South Africa).. > > > > Anway, thought I would put my two cents worth in.. > > > > Andrew > > > > > >--------------------------------- > >To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new > Yahoo! Security Centre. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Deewan mailing list > Deewan at mail.sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/deewan > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060808/9c5bf17b/attachment.html From clifton at altlawforum.org Wed Aug 9 11:35:14 2006 From: clifton at altlawforum.org (Clifton) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:35:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Communalism Seminar at ISI, Bangalore on 12th and 13th August Message-ID: <44D97B1A.8030507@altlawforum.org> _*Seminar on Communalism in Karnataka *_*_Venue:_*ISI, Bangalore *_Date_: 12^th *and 13^th August, 2006 Organised by PUCL, NAPM, Samajika Kriya Samiti, Pedestrian Pictures, Indian Social Institute, Slum Jagatthu, Alternative Law Forum Opening Plenary: 9.00 a.m. to 11.15 a.m. on 12th August Dr. Lakdawala, Sanchetana, Gujarat Gowri Lankesh, Editor, Lankesh Teesta Seetalvad, Social Activist Sr. Celia, National Alliance of Peoples Movements We invite you for the opening plenary and also for the seminar. The schedule for the two days is below. Please do confirm you participation with us so that we can make arrangements. Except for the plenary the proceedings will be predominantly in Kannada. In Solidarity, Clifton (on behalf of the organising organisations) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _*12^th August, 2006*_ *_/Plenary:/_/ / _9.00 a.m. - 11.15 a.m._* Dr. Lakdawala, Sr. Celia, Gowri Lankesh, Teesta Setalvad /_*Karnataka: Historical and political context of communalism*_* **_11.15 a.m. – 1.00 p.m._*/ *_Chair_: *Usha B.N., Hengasara Hakkina Sangha Shivsundar, Journalist Chand Peer, Indian Social Institute *_/Communlisation of society/_/ /**_/2.00 p.m. – 4.30 p.m./ Chair_: *Fr. Ambrose Pinto, Principal, St. Joseph's College Farmers Movement and Communalism – Sunanda Jayaram, KRRS, Respondent: Prof Muzzafar Assadi, Mysore University Dalits – Indudhara Honnapura, K. Ramaiah Women – Bhanu Mushtaq Minorities – Prof Hasan Mansur / BN Hanif Class – Selva / PRS Mani OBCs and communalism – Dr. Banjagere Jaya Prakash *_/Communlisation of the State/_* / * _4.30 p.m. - 6.00 p.m._*/ *_Chair:_*Prof. Laxminarayana, PUCL Baba Budhangiri – Ashok, KKSV Uma Bharti – Arvind Narrain, ALF Communal Violence Bill – Teesta Setalvad */Night/*– screening of “Girige Hidhida Grahana” + discussion moderated by KKSV _*13^th August, 2006*_ /*_Morning Session: Experiences around Karnataka_ _9.30 a.m. - 1.00 p.m._*/ *_Chair:_*Ki Rom Nagraj, Writer North Karnataka – Basavaraj Sulibhavi Malnad – Vittal Hegde Udipi – Sriram Diwan, KKSV Hampi – Peer Basha Dakshina Kanada – Sharief, KFD Slums – Prof. Hasnath Mansur, / Y.J.Rajendra /*_Afternoon Session: Fighting Communalism and Challenges Ahead_ _2.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m._*/ *_Chair:_*Prof. Hasan Mansur Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike Karnataka Forum for Dignity Dalit Christian Federation South Indian Council From explore at prashant.ca Thu Aug 10 00:13:17 2006 From: explore at prashant.ca (Prashant Kadam) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 14:43:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Copy of a study by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Message-ID: <4520.69.195.80.77.1155148997.squirrel@email.powweb.com> Hi There, I am writing this email with reference to the following article: http://www.newswatch.in/?p=5255 Indian media does not reflect country’s social profile: Study __________________________________________________________________________ If sex, religion and caste are to be taken together, more than two-thirds of the top media professionals in the country come from less than 10 per cent of the population. Hindu upper caste men, who are barely 8 per cent of the country’s population, have a majority share of 71 per cent among top media professionals in the country. These findings are from the same survey of the social profile of key decision makers in the national media that had created a flutter last month. The findings are based on a survey of the social background of 315 key decisionmakers from 37 “national” media organisations (up to 10 from each) based in Delhi. The survey was carried out by volunteers of Media Study Group between May 30 and June 3 this year. It was designed and executed by Anil Chamaria, freelance journalist, and Jitendra Kumar, independent researcher, from Media Study Group, and Yogendra Yadav, senior fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).... _______________________________________________________ I am an aspiring media studies student in Canada and a wish to study the issue of representation of journalists in India. I wish to obtain a copy of the report/survey recently conducted by CSDS. I have had no reponse from CSDS, and one freelance journalist involved in the study, I had send them an email request. I am hopeful that somebody here will be able to help me secure a copy. Thanking you, Regards, Prashant Kadam Canada From explore at prashant.ca Thu Aug 10 00:29:31 2006 From: explore at prashant.ca (Prashant Kadam) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 14:59:31 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Copy of a study by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Message-ID: <4553.69.195.80.77.1155149971.squirrel@email.powweb.com> Hi There, This email has reference to the following article: http://www.newswatch.in/?p=5255 Indian media does not reflect country’s social profile: Study __________________________________________________________________________ If sex, religion and caste are to be taken together, more than two-thirds of the top media professionals in the country come from less than 10 per cent of the population. Hindu upper caste men, who are barely 8 per cent of the country’s population, have a majority share of 71 per cent among top media professionals in the country. These findings are from the same survey of the social profile of key decision makers in the national media that had created a flutter last month. The findings are based on a survey of the social background of 315 key decisionmakers from 37 “national” media organisations (up to 10 from each) based in Delhi. The survey was carried out by volunteers of Media Study Group between May 30 and June 3 this year. It was designed and executed by Anil Chamaria, freelance journalist, and Jitendra Kumar, independent researcher, from Media Study Group, and Yogendra Yadav, senior fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).... _______________________________________________________ I am an aspiring media studies student in Canada and a wish to study the issue of representation in India. I wish to obtain a copy of the report/survey recently conducted by CSDS. I have had no reponse from CSDS, and a freelance journalist involved in the study, I had send them an email request. I am hopeful that somebody here will be able to help me secure a copy. Thanking you, Regards, Prashant From mail at shivamvij.com Thu Aug 10 13:11:46 2006 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:11:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Media cliches: `Survival of the fittest'... `at the end of the day' Message-ID: <9c06aab30608100041j3420030ajfcdd408047f17fdb@mail.gmail.com> `Survival of the fittest'... `at the end of the day' D. Murali http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/07/28/stories/2006072801072200.htm Tired of `level playing field' in news stories? Cheer up that you aren't alone. It ranks as the top cliché in Indian media. `In the red' is at rank two; the opposite, `in the black', is three ranks down. At the end is not `at the end of the day', which hogs the third spot, but `survival of the fittest'. These, according to Factiva Insight June 2006, which has compiled `top 20 clichés' from stories in Indian media. Cliché means "a phrase or opinion that is overused and shows a lack of original thought," according to Concise Oxford English Dictionary. French cliché is "printer's jargon for `stereotype'," says Online Etymology Dictionary. "Appearance of cliché in writing or speech can indicate a lack of creativity, innovation, or sincerity on the part of the author/orator, who most likely cannot come up with something of his or her own," instructs Wikipedia. For instance, the details of a deal may be `shrouded in mystery' (rank 19); or a lobby may `leave no stone unturned' (rank 8) to get its view heard. One hears of `last-ditch effort' (rank 7) not just at `the eleventh hour' (rank 9). Using hackneyed phrases is no `freak accident' (rank 17). Go in `hot pursuit' (rank 18) of alternatives to clichés, even as `time is running out' (rank 15), rather than `call it a day' (rank 14). `Up the ante' (rank 16), therefore! As told `time and again', `fly by night' won't help, if you want to laugh `all the way to the bank'. Nor is waiting with `bated breath' of any avail. `Better late than never' that you became aware of the formula lines. Happily, we aren't alone in the use of sapped-out words. Factiva's analysis presents the list of `top 20' for media around the world. Down Under, what comes at the very beginning is `at the end of the day', with 2,183 press citations from about 6,000 articles. `In the red' and `in the black' occupy the next two slots, followed by `level playing field' and `unsung heroes'. Phrases that are not common with the Indian list include: about face, wealth of experience, concerned residents, split second, clean bill of health, carnival atmosphere, dog eat dog, and time after time. Interestingly, the top four Australian slots match with the rankings in the UK. `Firing on all cylinders' seems to be a British favourite, though at rank 18. The last rank goes to `survival of the fittest', matching with our list. There are hardly any surprises from the `volume analysis' of the US media, with the same phrases turning up across the Atlantic, as if there is a homogenisation of writing. However, `outpouring of support' is a new one on the US list, at rank 10. `Avoid Clichés Like the Plague', exhorts Chip Scanlan in an article on www.poynter.org. "There's no reason why we shouldn't do a cliché-check as well as a spell-check," he writes. "I read a business story that said a computer company was trying to win `the hearts and minds' of consumers. If the writer had said, `hearts, minds and modems,' what a difference it would have made," wonders Scanlan. "Speech is often riddled with clichés because people speak faster than they think and because they speak in phrases rather than in words," reads a quote of John Bremner that Scanlan cites. We pick up the phrases over the years and don't stop to think what the words mean, explains Bremner. "At their creation, the phrases were original and bright. Down the years, they have become worn-out by use. What we need are new clichés." Time we begin to `think outside the box' instead of going for the `low hanging fruit'! From bawree at yahoo.com Thu Aug 10 13:15:05 2006 From: bawree at yahoo.com (mamta mantri) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:45:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] exchange program/ mamta- nandita Message-ID: <20060810074505.25082.qmail@web33103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Mamta wrote: 11/7, a date evoking bad memories in the mind of Mumbai. To my good luck, I was in Delhi, another big city-space, on exchange programme, as a part of which I had to visit cinema halls there. The pleasure of meeting Nandita at Regal hall at Connuaght place was doubled with the visit to the hall. What was striking was the employment of the space by the owner. Gigantic, large, magnificent, splendid were the words that came to my mind. I was reminded of Eros in Mumbai, my favorite hall. The black and white pictures of Dev Anand, Madhubala, Raj Kapoor and others added to the feeling of nostalgia. Well, we then headed to Stadium Restaurant next door, and began chatting about and with each other. The Restaurant was again huge and the other side was interesting, though under renovation. So, other things apart, we began discussing the motivation behind the research. It was pleasant to discern that her motive were as personal as mine were; and a part of a personal journey; like I had embarked upon. That hit me instantly. The next journey that we undertook was to Excelsior, at Chawri Bazar. As we moved to the ground from the Metro, N told me about the engineering marvel that this station was. The moment we were out and began understanding the place, she recollected an incident worth remembering. She wanted to enquire about the now extinct Amar cinema to a particular richshaw wala, in front of the Metro station. He said," Kyon mazak kar rahe? Aap wahi par to khadi hai." Walking through the old city was an experience in itself. Although all old parts of cities look similar (I am thinking of Surat, Vadodara, Ajmer, Alwar, et al), yet there is something very distinct about each city in an unknown manner. So, Excelsior felt very closer to the cinema halls that I studied in Mumbai, although very different in terms of color(striking blues and greens as opposed to biege here), stairs, terrace et al. Somehow, the memories of this hall remain not of affluence and renovation, which does get seen, but that of now defunct A/C, the fans, the closed dilapidated garage, the hands-on-the-breasts-poster of "Sadhu Bana Shaitan", the fake new film "Heeralal-something", the lassi-ka-bada-glass" and the good-looking manager. The lack of time deterred us from making longish and detailed conversations. We then began to walk towards Jami Masjid and Meena Bazar and moved on to Chandni Chowk-Parathe-wali-Gali and had a wholesome lunch, the best being the Banana paratha. Then we went on to see Moti. Very much like Naaz in Mumbai, the entrance to the compound passed through an overflowing and so many posters....dirty surroundings, colorful paraphernalia. The following days, we visited Ritz at Kashmiri Gate, Rivoli PVR, Delite and Golcha at Daryaganj, and Odeon at Connaught Place. During the brief visits to all the halls, the following came to my mind: The ticket rates are higher than that of the cinema halls under survey in Mumbai; most of the halls showed fresh releases. They were huge and royal in magnitude, and accommodated women and families. The canteens were cleaner, safe and very inviting. Always felt like eating there. It looked like the owners took very genuine interest in their theatres. The most striking was the Delite, which proudly boasted of its grand past with photos of the then President, Prime minister and other dignitaries. Well, Delhi has its plusses. While the entire war of cinema halls seemed to concentrate around PVRs as opposed to single screen halls there, the tough fight given by the owners of single screens is worth noting. I simply could not resist the temptation of watching a film there, but had to stop myself due to paucity of time. But I did visit the projector room, terraces, and of course, the loos. They say, one can gauge the place by its loos. The loos are worth a visit. For me, the experience got intense with emotions of resistance and tough fights all along the way by these cinema halls, along with the humane facet to it. -------------------------------------------------- Nandita wrote: “I am wearing an orange Gandhi T-shirt. The code word is ‘lal gulab’.” “Ha ha ha ok.” “Alright then, see you at five.” I met Mamta at a few minutes past five near Regal. Unfortunately, my orange t-shirt was too conspicuous and left no need for the use of the code word. It was a hopeless attempt to be filmy. With Regal next door, I couldn’t resist taking Mamta there right after exchanging pleasantries. So we went in. The shutter bug took over Mamta and she captured the past actors and actresses’ photos hung on the gallery. To explain the plan of the theatre which was built for live performances, I took her to the floor plan, pined up in a glass box next to the box office. “I didn’t come across these in Mumbai halls.” She observed. I had come across these floor plans in every cinema hall in Delhi and took it to be a standard format for safety rules to display the plan with the fire exits. At Standard Restaurant, we discussed our journey so far, our motive, experiences and impressions of the Cinema Halls. It was an animatedly passionate discussion. It was elating to find a fellow traveler. In the next five, six days we went to Excelsior, Moti, Ritz, Golcha, Delite, Rivoli and Plaza. I was a little apprehensive taking a guest to the Halls. Having gone alone to all these places, I wasn’t sure how they would react to another inquisitive visitor. My apprehensions were put to ease by the warm welcome we received at Excelsior. It was fascinating to know that like many cinema halls in Mumbai that Mamta was studying, Excelsior too had a durgah. The cinema hall patronized it. The Manager believes that it was the pir who looks after the Hall, that is surviving against all odds. After comparative observations on ticket prices, film genres and audience between Mumbai Halls and Excelsior we headed towards Moti, another interesting hall in Chandani Chowk. On our way we visited Jama Masjid and had a sumptuous lunch of parathas at the parathe wali gali. After the indulgent meal we just about dragged ourselves to Moti. A bhojpuri film was playing there. When we entered the balcony wing a mujara was playing. Majority of the audience were totally involved in the song, clapping and hooting. It was as if they were watching a live performance and the screen didn’t exist. Though the audience consisted of shop attendants, rickshaw pullers and laborers, Mamta found most of the viewers more urbane than Mumbai. In the course of visiting the cinema halls we came to understand the differences and similarities between the cinema halls in Delhi and Mumbai. Beside the higher ticket rates and larger space in Delhi, I feel there was a subtle difference in the owners and their management. From what I understand after discussing with Mamta, the Delhi owners seem to have a residual feudalism in them. The cinema hall owners that Mamta had met in Mumbai were more approachable. What was especially delightful for me was to see someone look at the cinema hall, its people, the screen, the projectors and its operators with the same intensity of emotions as I had approached it. It was an enriching experience. Nandita this is also the opportune moment to thank Vivek, Ashish and Sarai, for the pleasant trip... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From pukar at pukar.org.in Thu Aug 10 12:51:54 2006 From: pukar at pukar.org.in (PUKAR) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:51:54 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [announcements] Third Annual PUKAR Lecture Message-ID: <001101c6bc4d$a9b73e20$4e66c2cb@freeda> PUKAR codially invites you to The 3rd Annual PUKAR Lecture Nature and the Future of Cities: Reflections on Mumbai, Bangalore and New Orleans Chairperson and Respondent Rahul Mehrotra Speakers Dilip da Cunha Anuradha Mathur Aromar Revi Date: Friday, 25th August 2006 Time: 6:00-6:30 PM Tea, 6:30 - 8:30 PM Lecture Venue: Godrej Dance Academy Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400 021 PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research) Address:: 1-4, 2nd Floor, Kamanwala Chambers, Sir P. M. Road, Fort, Mumbai 400 001 Telephone:: +91 (22) 6574 8152 Fax:: +91 (22) 6664 0561 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/20060810/71f5a545/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From aarti at sarai.net Thu Aug 10 18:11:22 2006 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti Sethi) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 18:11:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Monsoon Musings: Read-Meet Message-ID: =========================== Monsoon Musings: Read-Meet =========================== Caferati Delhi chapter & Sarai presents Monsoon Musings - the Caferati Read-Meet 5:00 P.M., Saturday, 12 August 2006 Interface Zone, Sarai It seems like its going to be a big one this month. (No drizzles!) In new and interesting environs, Caferati Delhi meets at Sarai-CSDS. We hope to have many more writers join in so drive, take a bus, take the metro -here's looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible. Share your original writing in English with the group. What you can read: Fiction, poetry, essays, scripts, screen scenarios - anything that can be read aloud - in English, and within the time limits set - we usually do 8 to 10 minutes per person. We will have quick critiques by other members as usual. Work in other languages may be permitted, at the discretion of the moderator, but must be accompanied by an English translation. Priority will be given to new voices. We also invite Caferati members from other cities to mail in work that can be read for them by someone present, but only if time permits. Those present always get top priority. Do specify if you are going to read and the length of your piece, so we can schedule the evening accordingly. You can mail these details to: anita.vasudeva at gmail dot com, or Danish at dan.husain at gmail.com , or Annie at zaidiannie at gmail.com It would be nice if you could confirm your attendance to the moderator beforehand. (If you haven't done so already, please join Caferati's Delhi googlegroup to keep track of this and future events. If you'd like to know what a read-meet is all about, please read this.) The Caferati Delhi newsgroup: http://groups.google.com/group/Caferati- Delhi The FAQs: http:www.caferati.com/FAQs.htm _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From rana at ranadasgupta.com Thu Aug 10 23:55:36 2006 From: rana at ranadasgupta.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 23:55:36 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] power on the streets of Moscow Message-ID: <44DB7A20.9070008@ranadasgupta.com> extract from my BBC blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/freethinkingworld/2006/08/naked_power.shtml In Andrew Meier's fascinating Russian travelogue, Black Earth, we find the following vignette from Moscow: "Beyond lust and fear, Moscow breeds power. You cannot help feeling that you are trespassing in its path. Every effort is made to impress upon the populace its privileged proximity to the unlimited power of the state. This is not just state power as in other countries. This is not merely the pomp of officialdom, but the deliberate demonstration of the state’s power over the people, an ever-present slap in their face. "It is mid-morning. You walk through the cold, dank underpass, lit by long fluorescent lamps. At one end stand two grandmothers, selling cigarettes, hand-knit caps, dried flowers. The underground walkway fills with the sounds of an accordion. A mournful Russian ballad. Every day the accordion player, a Moldovan refugee, is here busking. Every day he squeezes out the same song. It is a long underpass. When at last you emerge and climb the stairs up into the cold wind of the far side of the street, you suddenly hear it: the silence. Nothing announces power like the silence. "Kutuzovsky Prospekt may well be the broadest street in Moscow. At its widest it has seven lanes in each direction. In its center the road is divided by a lane reserved for the political and financial elite, or at least any Russian sufficiently well moneyed or well connected to procure the coveted migalka, a little flashing blue light that, once affixed to a car roof, announces the right of the faceless passenger hidden behind the curtained, smoked windows, to break any traffic rule or regulation. In the morning as the city’s bankers and bureaucrats rush toward their offices, the road is filled with cars and heavy trucks trying to tack their way into the center. The roar of the traffic, with all fifteen lanes fully loaded, is deafening. Walking the sidewalks of Kutuzovsky, as I did nearly every morning, can be unpleasant. "Until the silence comes. It happens at least twice a day, usually in mid-morning and just before the sun sets. You are walking down the sidewalk, and then in a single moment, you realize something has changed, something is amiss. All you hear is the crunch of your boots on the hard snow. On the street, the slow-moving river of cars has not simply stopped; it has disappeared (In minutes a road as wide as a highway is completely cleared.) he trolley buses have pulled over and stand along the edge of the prospekt. The citizens too, waiting at the bus stops, stand still. Everyone waits. Hundreds of poor souls, trapped in the stilled traffic, sit mute in their parked cars. The street has frozen into a photograph, and you are the only one moving through it. "For several minutes nothing stirs. Then suddenly a black Volga, an illuminated migalka fixed to its roof, speeds down the middle of the prospect. Then another, and a third, a fourth. And then the chorus of sirens accompanying the flashing lights. A convoy of automobiles, a dozen in all, each duly impressing the motionless citizenry with its size, speed and cleanliness. As men, women and schoolchildren (and the secret policemen in plain clothes sprinkled among them) stand and watch, a squadron of BMW militsiya sedans sweeps past, followed by an extended black Mercedes limousine and a quartet of oversize Mercedes jeeps. As the convey passes, the cars leave a ripple of turned faces on the sidewalks. "A visitor might imagine the world had stopped because of a dire emergency. But the Muscovites frozen in place along this vast slate gray avenue recognize the scene for what it is: their president, the leader of all Russia, making his way to work. More than twenty miles of roadway in the Russian capital are closed in this fashion every day. In a city already paralyzed by too much snow and too many cars. And still no one complains, ever. It is the essence of power, Moscow style. It is naglost. In general, naglost is an unseemly blend of arrogance, shamelessness and rudeness. In this instance it is the contemptuous disdain of the rights of ordinary Russians." The only word of this fantastic description that jars with me is the word "rights" in the last sentence. This is a piousness creeping in, as if rights were naturally existing entities that "ordinary Russians" possessed. To people living in Delhi, this description would not seem exotic or strange. The reality of power in the streets is very clear, and the invocation of "rights" in this context a pure anomaly. R -- Rana Dasgupta www.ranadasgupta.com From shahzulf at yahoo.com Thu Aug 10 23:01:36 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 10:31:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Civil Society Activists Demand to Stop Mysterious Disappearances in Pakistan Message-ID: <20060810173136.8084.qmail@web38802.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Civil Society Activists Demand to Stop Mysterious Disappearances in Pakistan In Pakistan 800-1000 people belonging to different sectors are disappeared by various state apparatuses. Mysterious disappearances of the political leaders, activist and media person has become crucial in Sindh. More than 57, out of 1000 could be enlisted as yet including prominent activists from Sindh and. These were the views of the civil society members gathered at a local hotel of Hyderabad in the Dialogue on ‘In-volunteer Disappearance: Role of Civil society and State’ organized by the Sindh Development Society in collaboration with Action Aid Pakistan. Ayaz Latif Palijo a renowned lawyer and political analyst said in the dialogue that mysterious disappearances by the law enforcing agencies in Sindh must be stopped immidiately. He also emphasized that Supreme Court to take Sou motto actions for recovering of these missing people. He appreciated the Sou motto actions taken by Supreme Court against the Rahman Maree who kept family of the freed bonded labor Munoo Bheel. Farheen Mughual, MPA Sindh Assembly said that Sindh pays the biggest part of taxes but its inhabitants’ lives are insecure. She blamed the state that it has failed to protect its people and it intends to divert the people mind from heavy issue of the Sindh. Punhal Saryo of Sindh National Congress said that state wants to create anarchy. He condemned all kind of illegal disappearances by the law enforcing agencies in Pakistan. Zulfiqar Shah, Provincial Coordinator, SAP- PK said that it non judiciary action that families of the disappeared political and media person are in miserable position. He warned if this continues, people’s trust on state and judiciary intuitions will decrease. He said that every person has the rights of political disagreement, and any violent action by the state institutions will generate a violent reaction. Fathah Maree, Manager Programs, Action Aid Pakistan, said that state is responsible to give safety to its peoples. Freedom of expression is the basic right of the people. The act of involuntary disappearances is threatening the innocent peoples of society. He stressed that civil society can play better role to create pressure on the state. Peace and social activist Aslam Khwaja suggested that this type of problems could only be solved if international pressure is created through unbiased International Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. SDS’s executive director Ghfar Malik said that lawyers can play a vital role to move this campaign successful. . At the end, a committee was formed to launch a campaign to resolve the issue. The committee comprises veteran lawyer Yousaf leghari, Muzfar Saidq Bhatti, Hussain Bux Thebo, Ayaz lateef Palijo, Punhal Saryo, Farheen Mughal, Aslam Khuwaja, Zulifqar Shah and Ghafar Malik. In the dialogue family members of disappeared political activists Asif Baladi, Manhji Chandio, and Chetan Bajir demanded the freedom of the disappeared activists or declaration of the detention by the state. Finaally, Jagarta Threater Group presented a theatre drama over the issue. The representatives of NGOs, political organizations, Bar Counsel, writers, columnist and families of disappeared people participated the dialogue. --------------------------------- Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060810/c8b04b06/attachment.html From kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com Fri Aug 11 00:19:19 2006 From: kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com (Kamal Kumar Mishra) Date: 10 Aug 2006 18:49:19 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [Deewan] SARAI posting Message-ID: <20060810184919.2532.qmail@webmail69.rediffmail.com>   Dear Avinash, Thanks a lot for your comments and suggestion. I thought I was careful enough not to simplify or give a misleading picture while I was responding to the queries of Andrew regarding the uses of fingerprints and 'aspects of bio power' as it appear in these hindi detective fictions. To avoid such confusions I have been using words like 'mostly' n 'often' and not 'always'. By the way I am thankful to you for bringing the complexity of subject in for a discussion .I think I have nothing much to say about the uses of fingerprints as you also agree that we don't see it even in the texts of Gahmari. Gopal Ram Gahmari is a very important hindi detective fiction writer thus he requires special attention. Though I agree what you say about the characteristic feature of the novels of Gopal Ram Gahmari ,regarding a keen and detailed analysis of crime scene still I think the picture is much more complex as, here too,its mostly chance which use to play an important role in solving a case than the rationale of detection. Pursuing a few issues a bit further such as the question of jati in the novels of Gahmari and all pervasive nature of colonial authority might not only help us understand Gahmari's works better but it could also be of some interest. As far as my reading of Gahmari is concerned ,I would like to ask why is it so that most of the 'original' detectives of Gahmari a part from Md. Sarwar are rajputs? ( for deciding what is his original and what is not I am using one of Gahmari's own account where he gives the full list of his original ,translated and adapted works and he claims Md Sarwar to be one of his original creation) For example Sujan Singh,Sanwal Singh, Deven Singh ,Roshan Singh,Diler Singh and all .Does it have any thing to do with the idea of 'jawanmardi' or 'bahaduri' attached to rajputs or its just a co-incidence? Or how should one look at this? Could we say that like the discourse of criminality it also confirms the colonial stereotype. Or Its so because of some deep rooted structures? Or is it a sign of fractured colonial modernity? "EK POLICE ADHIKARI KI ATMKATHA" by Vishwanath Lahiri though confirms the important position of local police officers, like DAROGA, it also helps me ask- with what set of values do these local officers(mostly Indians ) use to operate? And above all what about the texts (jasoosi of course)which are direct descendents of tilasmi n ayyari tradition of kissagoi.Its mostly in these texts ,produced throughout in a considerable number we don't find the presence of colonial authority and even if its there its undermined as in 'BHYANKAR JASOOS' by Ram Chandra Singh (Rachit),gullu prasad kedarnath,Benaras city, 1935. In 'Bhayankar Jasoos', Daroga Tedhai Khan has been murderd by Shyama ,when she is on her way to search her husband and Tedhai Khan, who has been portrayed as nutfe haram(a born illegitimate ), tries to rape her. After this murder Shyama manages to escape and reaches to Usha Rani,her close friend who is married to a rich Bengali Rajnikant Mukherjee.Both the husband and wife tries to console her and say there is nothing wrong in killing someone while defending one's dharma( stri dharma here of course) and later they decide to inform another friend Bina who is, "ek bahut chalak sakhi hai dooje wah fan ayyari men nipun aur sujan hai .yon to hum log bhi kisi se kam nahin hain lekin wah hamjolion men sab se gunagar hai." As a consequence what we encounter is this long tussle going on between both of these groups, the detectives (in fact they are ayyars more than jasoos in any modern sense)of colonial state on the one hand who are trying to catch the murderer of Daroga as well as her companions and Bina and Shyama and co. on the other , using their magical powers in this struggle. What strikes most to a reader like me is the character of 'jungali Raza'(a tribal king) who has been portrayed ,sympathetically, as a powerful character and with his magical powers, like his control over the wild animals, tries ho help Bina. And here he comes in a direct confrontation with the colonial state/authority. Animals can fly and these ayyars/jasoos could transform themselves into animals. Nothing is impossible -of course- in this world of novel where there is enough space for such imagination. Finally ,the all mighty colonial state had to bow-down. Colonial authorities had to accept the request of setting a special court of hearing in this matter . where Shyama and her friends would not only be acquitted but would be awarded with other jassos for their bravery. In his jasoosi faisla writer says- "aap donon dalon ka yahi kartvya tha .jo ki apne apne kala-kaushal ko ek doosre ke tain khadyantra rach kar upanyas ke premi rasik janon ko sarvada ke liye ek accha rasta nikala jise padh kar upanyas ke anugami bane rahenge" We also have in this very line the novels written by Devaki Nandan Khatri, for ex-Narendra Mohini , to name just one ,where one can read the presence of colonial modernity only between the lines. Apart from Khatri we have lots more from other known and less known writers who do undermine or remained silent towards the reality/ies of the colonial present in their own particular ways. I am not sure if that is what you meant by investigation for negotiations and renegotiations of these different roles? regards! kamal On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 Avinash Kumar wrote : >Dear Kamal, > >Sorry for butting in without a legitimate ground. Nevertheless thought, I >would give my two cents.I haven't read too many early detective fictions in >Hindi, so it goes with a caveat. > >One of the most famous stories by Gopalram Gahmari, 'Malgodam mein Chori' is >a stark example of the way the 'modern, rational' practices of detection >methodology were sought to be acknowledged. As I remember clearly, even >though it does not talk of finger print, it talks of a 'keen, detailed' >analysis of the crime scene and not merely remains dependent on 'chance', >though, that as you correctly say, remained a principal feature in a lot of >fiction of that period. >What is further interesting in that piece is that, even as the crime has >happened somewhere in Bihar (i forget where, perhaps gaya), the detective >called into investigate is from Calcutta, the signifier for a 'modern city' >and who speaks with an English accent despite being a Bengali. Of course, >how he blends in with the local landscape singing popular Braj poetry while >doing his job, is another matter to investigate. > >Second, in another novel of Gahmari, I forget the title right now and the >Shivpujan Sahay classic , 'Dehati Duniya', Jati is very prominent as once >again rightly pointed out by you. Yet, I would see it still as a result of >the very presence of colonial discourse of criminality, which fixated >certain castes, tribes under the labels of criminality. Even, the colour, >physical attributes etc as a criterion, came under the same phenomenon >largely. We are now replete with studies around this theme. > >On the other hand, the role of daroga, the local police is so predominant in >these stories (and not only in these two works I am talking of) that the >picture you get is that villages are vacated en masse with the news of >arrival of the local 'daroga'. In this sense, what I would assert is given >the context, whether as a pseudo-detective posing as a city-bred man like >Holmes or as a daroga, the colonial state is omnipresent in these >narratives. What then is worth investigating is how they are renegotiating >these different roles... > >Sorry, for this long mail but this, as I said is an instant reaction with a >very limited knowledge of the subject... > >thanks, > >avinash > >On 7 Aug 2006 16:42:33 -0000, Kamal Kumar Mishra >wrote: >> >> Dear ANDREW, >> Thousands apologies for not answering to your mail for soooo >>long,today when i was clearing my mail account i noticed this blunder i have >>done,i am extremely sorry!!! >> True as you say the relationship between crime and detective is >>closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting in most of the cases...but >>you might find it surprising that in Hindi detective ficttions this link is >>mostly absent. >> >>Hindi deteective fictions have a few peculiar characteristics par >>example-1) there might not be a single detective and this function might be >>performed by many people or 2) detective need not use modern or rational >>techniques to solve a mystry, role of chance is often crucial in solving a >>case. >>Thus one hardly finds this clue and puzzle type in hindi detective >>fictions. >> I have not come across a single piece translated ,adapted,or original >>where (here i am talking about the early hindi detective fictons from >>1900-1940's) a detective solves a case with the help of >>fingerprints.Though, one may find examples of foot prints, as a clue, but >>not so elaborate either. >> >>THEN what we have are discourse of criminality mostly based on >>jati(caste)n lakchana (physical attributes n morality) where colonial state >>is often absent in these popular fictions. >>hope you find it interesting enough...with apologies again >>warm regards!!! >>kamal >> >> >>On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 Andrew MacDonald wrote : >> >Hi Kamal.. >> > >> > Nice to see your posting on SARAI and your research..I'm a post-grad >>history student based at Duban, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I >>just thought, tangentially, since I have just finished reading it myself, >>The book Imprint of the Raj - how fingerprinting was born in Colonial India. >>Maybe you have seen it already, but the relationship between crime and >>detectives is closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting (which was >>only then becoming the kind of embryonic, precocious state project we now >>take for granted). I wonder if their is much in the Hindi literature on this >>topic? It would be quite interesting... >> > I have worked/am working on aspects of biopower (to sound foucauldian, >>though i have some real problems with his arguments), concerned less with >>literature but more with labour and immigration in colonial South Africa).. >> > >> > Anway, thought I would put my two cents worth in.. >> > >> > Andrew >> > >> > >> >--------------------------------- >> >To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new >>Yahoo! Security Centre. >> >> >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Deewan mailing list >>Deewan at mail.sarai.net >>http://mail.sarai.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/deewan >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060810/1ec24db6/attachment.html From faiz.outsider at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 12:50:03 2006 From: faiz.outsider at gmail.com (faiz ullah) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:50:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Terrorist takes a wicket!! Message-ID: <96c0bb200608110020v67d0fa28ue53dc19446c50be4@mail.gmail.com> Dear all, "It was never supposed to be heard over the air" says Dean Jones who's now been sacked after exclaiming "The terrorist has taken another wicket!" as 'bearded' South African Batsmen Hashim Amla got Kumar Sangakara out. I don't know if it inadvertently went on-air and it doesn't matter if it did. The point is that a certain image has now been very rigidly formed of that "terrorist" and unfortunately the image is only too common. One comes across so many malicious, hurtful, and widely understood and accepted, broader labels and images, everyday in schools and workplaces. Labels like 'Bhangi' or 'Chamaar' for long have been used as abuses, but before that were also used to describe the physical appearance, social status (class has always been a function of caste in India), etc, of a person/group. I am unable to draw 'one' conclusion out of this incident, which perhaps has marks our entry in the second phase of labeling and stereotyping. Till some time back a bearded man could've been readily called a Muslim or a Sikh, but now a bearded man will not only be recognised only as a Muslim but also as a terrorist/potential terrorist. The vocabulary is fast changing. Babri Masjid in some time became "Disputed Structure" to now being widely referred to as "Ram Mandir". The images on the 'Ram-Nami' have changed and now seem more belligerent. The chants that all of us used to repeat during the "Parikrama" at Ayodhya have changed from the innocent "Siya Ram" and 'Ram Ram" to "Jai Shri Ram". I don't know if I'm reading too much into it. Or reading things that don't require a reading. Any comments?? Much Regards, Faiz Also some thing That i came across at the Rand Foundation's website: "The biometric system used at Super Bowl XXXV relied on facial recognition. Specifically, surveillance cameras surreptitiously scanned spectators' faces to capture images. Algorithms then measured facial features from these images—such as the distances and angles between geometric points on the face like the mouth extremities, nostrils, and eye corners—to produce a "face print." This faceprint was then instantly searched against a computerized database of suspected terrorists and known criminals to recognize a specific individual. A match would have alerted police to the presence of a potential threat.1 Should we be concerned about the government's use of this technology? One could argue that "facial recognition" is a standard identification technique and that it raises no special concerns. After all, we look at each other's faces to recognize one another." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060811/b0ec8858/attachment.html From mail at shivamvij.com Fri Aug 11 15:22:41 2006 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 15:22:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] NOW ONLINE: draft Broadcasting Bill 2006 Message-ID: <9c06aab30608110252i62bd85d8le341430a7d47d8ee@mail.gmail.com> The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (India) has placed the Draft Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, 2006 and a Consultation Paper on the Broadcasting Bill at http://www.mib.nic.in/informationb/POLICY/BroadcastingBill.htm From surovani at hotmail.com Fri Aug 11 17:47:42 2006 From: surovani at hotmail.com (surajit vani) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:17:42 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] 25 years of Saheli - Meeting invite In-Reply-To: <44DB7A20.9070008@ranadasgupta.com> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060811/c793c912/attachment.html From paul at waag.org Fri Aug 11 20:51:06 2006 From: paul at waag.org (Paul Keller) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:21:06 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] tomorrow 6.30 p.m (IST): Mrabba Electroni[c]que: Global Lebanon Web Jam. Message-ID: --------8<----------8<-------- For Immediate Release - Amsterdam, August 11th 2006 PRESS ANNOUNCE : Mrabba Electroni[c]que: Global Lebanon Web Jam. Stop the war! http://beirut.streamtime.org http://streamtime.org !!!!please note time change!!!!!!! Saturday, August 12 2006, 15:00 - 19:00 PM CEST [-> 16:00 - 20:00 EEST] Live audio/video streaming transmission from Waag Society in Amsterdam, in direct connection with Beirut and surrounding localities. The event was initiated by Streamtime, a web support campaign for Iraqi bloggers. After one month of violence and carnage, this Global Web Jam brings together live interviews and conversations, video clips, cartoons and blog blurbs, soundscapes, DJs and VJs, a lively mix of information, art, protest, party and reflection. We feature the voices, images stories, reports and initiatives from Lebanon and beyond, with participation of activists, artists, bloggers, journalists, musicians and many others. This is a call for an immediate end to the violence and destruction, in defiance of war, and in search for solidarity. With contributions and participation of: Wahid el-Solh, Mounira el- Solh, Sonya Knox, Naeem Mohaiemen, Kanj Hamadi, Jim Quilty, Randa Mirza, Mazen Kerbaj, Raed Yassin, Charbel Haber, Nathalie Fallaha, Henri Gemayel, Fadi Tufayli, Tariq Shadid, Chalaan Charif, Martin Siepermann, Arjan El Fassed, Ruud Huurman, Kadir van Lohuizen, Thomas Burkhalter and Anna Trechsel, Beirut DC, Tarek Atoui and many others. This Global Web Jam is an initiative of Jo van der Spek, Geert Lovink and Cecile Landman (from Streamtime), Nat Muller, Paul Keller and Denis Jaromil Rojo in Amsterdam; and Tarek Atoui and Rawya el-Chab in Beirut. info: http://beirut.streamtime.org | mail: beirut at dischosting.nl This project is supported by ____________________________ Waag Society, Novib (Dutch Oxfam) and X-Y Solidarity Fund - -------8<----------8<-------- From vrjogi at hotmail.com Sat Aug 12 09:57:29 2006 From: vrjogi at hotmail.com (Vedavati Jogi) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 04:27:29 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media In-Reply-To: <20060805092625.43510.qmail@web38910.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Thank you Mr. Roger Das for giving me the valuable information ��Mohammad Rafi was a Muslim�. I was not aware of that. For me he was an Indian, who happens to be my most favourite singer. Incidentlly, my most favourite actress is Madhubala, I love to see Shahrukh�s films, I am an admirer of Shabana�s acting skills & Javed Akhtar�s writing skills. I saw �Dil Chahata Hai� 5 times, which was directed by Farhan Akhtar and 2 of its 3 leading actors were Amir & Saif. I love to watch Irfan Pathan�s bowling, I am a fan of Ustad Jakir Hussain, and most importantly, I possess great respect for Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam! Very frequently, rather every day, I see them on TV screen. Unfortunately it had not occurred to me before, that all of them ARE MUSLIMS! Thank you once again. I will definitely support you in your crusade against communal media. And I am sure, all practicing �Pseudo-secularists� will join us. �Islam� is really �khatare me hai� in India- happenings in Kashmir, Godhra, Akshardham, Bomb blasts in Mumbai have proved it from time to time. yours sincerely, Vedavati Ravindra Jogi >From: roger das >To: reader-list at sarai.net, >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, >thestatesman at vsnl.com >CC: ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) > > >Sir, > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path of >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims ahcievement >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful singer-actor >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired nice >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in the >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th July NDTV >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, to >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined the >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. I was >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the death >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels even >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference comes out >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has not >given due respect in media whereas singers > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on television >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not seen any >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. This >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper caste hindu >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian Muslim >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and deep >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is also >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope this >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. > > > >--------------------------------- >Groups are talking. We´re listening. Check out the handy changes to >Yahoo! Groups. >_________________________________________ >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 elkamath at yahoo.com Wed Aug 9 09:41:01 2006 From: elkamath at yahoo.com (lalitha kamath) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 21:11:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] RA position available Message-ID: <20060809041102.43172.qmail@web53607.mail.yahoo.com> Collaborative for the Advancement of the Study of Urbanism through Mixed Media (CASUMM) Position Available for Research Assistant Position available for Research Assistant part-time/full-time, preferably full-time, to investigate the urban reforms agenda of the Government of India, including current initiatives at the National, State and Local Level (e.g. JNNURM). The research project aims to understand the urban reforms process and politics, government policies and programmes, emergence of new governance institutions like para-statals, civil society groups, private sector and the impact of these reforms on the poor. Selected candidates will work with activists and academics in Bangalore who will expose and engage you in analytical discussion in urban studies, economics, sociology, politics, policy and infrastructure. Selected candidates will be expected to conduct both field research and secondary data gathering. Outputs will be in the form of materials for public dissemination including newspaper and journal articles, short papers and presentations, short films and multimedia products. Preference will be given to applicants with master’s degree and a background in social sciences, law or journalism. You will be expected to take initiative in conducting research and demonstrate strong analytical, writing and communication skills. Knowledge of multimedia, film and photography will be an added asset. A one-year commitment is expected. Remuneration will be commensurate with experience and commitment. Interested persons should send a brief covering letter describing your interests and why you would like to apply for this position along with your CV either by email to Lalitha Kamath on elkamath at yahoo.com or by post to Lalitha Kamath, CASUMM, 30 Surveyor Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore – 560004. . --------------------------------- Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs.Try it free. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060808/54f79594/attachment.html From christina112 at earthlink.net Mon Aug 14 08:29:27 2006 From: christina112 at earthlink.net (Christina McPhee) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 19:59:27 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Locative Media on http://virose.pt Message-ID: <13671D7D-19A3-4743-8A2C-ACE91A0298EC@earthlink.net> http://www.virose.pt/ edited by Miguel Leal July 2006 issue vector #05 with Jordan Crandall, Precision + Guided + Seeing Ana Boa-Ventura, The rise of the 'location-aware' generation, and Christina McPhee with Amy Wiley La Conchita mon amour: ‘bare life’ and the traumatic landscape VIROSE is a non-profit organization dedicated to art and media technology based in Porto, Portugal. Normally is designated simply as an organization for the theory and practice of the old and the new media (Virose - art, theory, practice). It gathers artists, programmers, architects and others and runs a server with several areas, including an e-zine [http://www.virose.pt/vector] and free hosting areas. Since the beginning of the project, in 1997, the main question was to understand digital arts in the broader sense of art. The problems of net.art, digital art or whatever are no so different, and even less opposed, to the ontological question that put together (and apart) art and technic. Is it possible to speak about a plural of the arts without thinking also its singular? And is it possible to sustain the singularity of each art without its plural? This is the work field of VIROSE ORG. miguel leal ml at virose.pt Fernando José Pereira fjp at virose.pt cristina mateus cm at virose.pt Duarte Lema (arch.virose) dsl at virose.pt Mari Vinikainen (arch.virose) mv at virose.pt -cm www.christinamcphee.net From s_kavula at yahoo.com Sat Aug 12 16:28:22 2006 From: s_kavula at yahoo.com (saraswati) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:58:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media Message-ID: <20060812105822.391.qmail@web36613.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Dear Mr. Roger Das, I am wondering whether highlighting only certain facts will reflect the truth. Communalisation by media, it may be true in some quaters. if the media forgetting Mohammed Rafi, equals to communalisation of Media, then what does the eugolisation of Shah Rukh Khan, day in and day out, amount to??? That special episodes are made on Amir Khan and today, Saif too has become the darling of the media. And so has his sister. And then in that case no one should be using Irfan Pathan as an advertisement Idol. Why is AR Rahman, the uncrowned king of the music world - not because he is a Muslim, but because he is the best. And let me tell you, His song, "Sat rangi re" from Dil se and "piya haji ali" are the best of his compositions according to me. My sister used to listen to "piya haji ali" every night before going to sleep, while she was pregnant, because she wanted her child to imbibe the spiritual feelings that come from that song. by the way, i am from that so-called upper caste community of brahmins. Please do not make a mountain of the mole hill. It is true that muslims have been seen with suspicion due to the effects of partition in some quarters. But then, so is it a fact, that most of our Bollywood big stars have been Muslims for many decades, even in days after partition, we had Suraiyya and Yousuf Khan AKA Dilip Kumar who were given a cult status by the people of this country. Ofcourse, Yousuf Saab, did make remarks in Pakistan against India when he went to receive an honour in Pakistan, is another matter, that no one mentions. It was reported in the Week, many years ago. It is a fact, abberations are there. But there are two sides to the same coin. Just as all Germans are not Nazis, so are not all Hindus, RSS sympathisers. In fact, while I was in school, we never bothered who was a hindu or who was a muslim. we all ate together from each others lunch boxes, and my parents never taught us to be intolerant- my first best friend was a Muslim girl, and today I have very close friends who are from Pakistan, one is from the Azad Kashmir (as they call it) and my father always took us to the Dargah in the outskirts of Hyderabad. and this is no exception. there are tons of such cases. please kindly, do not stoke anger by constantly GENERALISING, applying facts that belong only to certain sections of the society to the Society at Large. Most importantly, let us not forget where the problem arises... yes it is a fact, that caste based discrimination continues in this country, especially in rural areas, so also, it continues among both converted christians and muslims too... both religions which preach egalitarian treatment too all its peoples' have not been able to remove the caste discrimination which continued even after conversions... we will be able to change things, if we, each one of us, looks inwards at the flaws in our own individual systems and try to correct them, rather than always trying to throw stones at others.... let us set our own homes in order first.... Let us try to build a nation, away from the rifts that were created by the Colonisers. Let us not forget that Azim Premji, shot up to the top position as the richest INDIAN, in this very country. If discrimination was really so much against the minority community, they would not have been seen anywhere in the public sphere, like the way it is with the minority communities in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Regards Saraswati.Kavula From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com To: reader-list at sarai.net, arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) > > >Sir, > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path of >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims ahcievement >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful singer-actor >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired nice >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in the >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th July NDTV >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, to >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined the >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. I was >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the death >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels even >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference comes out >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has not >given due respect in media whereas singers > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on television >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not seen any >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. This >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper caste hindu >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian Muslim >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and deep >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is also >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope this >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. > --------------------------------- Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060812/76449a61/attachment.html From jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 22:06:10 2006 From: jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com (Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 22:06:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: First Palestine Report Message-ID: <44DE037A.8000405@gmail.com> These three write-ups came to me by way of a friend. I have been avidly following the Lebanon related discussions and thought these first-person reports might be interesting. Jyotirmoy ruppatrani at rcn.com Hello All, First off, I am safe and away from the hotspots. I've meant to write but what I've seen has been so overwhelming and demoralizing it's been hard to begin. I wake up at night thinking about this place and am frightened about the future. This is far worse than I imagined. I thought I was prepared and informed--but to really see it is another thing. I've been here 11 days travelling, meeting people, and reading a lot but to keep you close to the ground, I will try to describe just my first days so you can have your own experience of wading into occupation. FYI, everything I say, I've heard multiple versions of from many sources---Israeli activisits, Palestinians, and foreigners. Every single Palestinian I've met is filled with terrible stories covering similar themes that speak to a pattern of control and repression by a powerful military machine that controls just about everything. Soldiers are everywhere. I've had several interactions with soldiers myself. They are in! charge, many of them 18 or 19 and all with large guns. I've been at a loss to come up with words to capture things but I'll try to give you just a little bit (yes, the tip of the iceberg). On arrival at Tel Aviv airport, as the Passport Control woman looked at my passport, a male security person picked up my bag, took me to a room, placed my bag 8 feet away, and told me to sit. There were 15 others there, mostly Arabs, brown- skinned non-Arabs like me, and a few young white people (Europeans and Americans?). One scared Muslim man was sweating and praying. I was nervous. At one point I went to get a book out of my bag and a security person rushed over and said forcefully not to touch my bag and to sit down. I followed orders. Finally after 2 hours of mostly sitting, someone brought me my passport and said I could go. The sweating praying man was still there when I left. As I exited to Baggage Claim, yet another security person questioned me. I've heard far worse entry stories from Palestinian Americans I've met here (who have U.S. Passports). They've been held for 8 to 14 hours (sometimes without water or food) and interrogated aggressively. One college student told me he was held alone in a room that got hotter and hotter (maybe 130 degrees he thought) that he had to strip to his boxers. Then the air conditioning went on and he froze. After 10 hours of this, he was interrogated and taunted for several more hours. On Day Two, I wandered around the Old City of Jerusalem, which is in East Jerusalem. Scine 1967, East Jerusalem has been under occupation by the Israeli Defense Forces (hereafter IDF). I walked through the walled Old City and saw the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I also saw IDF soldiers with guns everywhere and many surveillance cameras on the Old City's walls. The next day our delegation left East Jerusalem to enter the West Bank. The West Bank makes up the majority of the Palestinian Occupied Territories and has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, is 10 kilometers south of Jerusalem and was our first stop in the West Bank. It is a majority Christian city. The checkpoint to enter Bethlehem is 1.5 kilometers into the boundaries of Bethlehem. This was my first viewing of the 26-foot high concrete separation wall, which extends from both sides of the checkpoint. This is called "the wall" but it is really a series of walls and walls within walls that snake through the West Bank, sometimes in convoluted configurations enclosing whole Palestinian villages or slicing through the center of villages or even entirely enclosing individual Palestinian homes (I've now seen two of these). Anyway, the wall around Bethlehem is placed so that Bethlehem's open land and olive groves (owned by citizens of the town) are on the Israeli side of the wall/checkpoint (which is actually still Bethlehem really but is effectively being annexed into Israel by this wall). Bethlehem's residential and commercial areas are on the other side of the wall. Given this set up, the citizens of Bethlehem can no longer access their land because West Bank residents! can only enter Israel with permits that are hard to obtain and don't allow multiple entry and exit. The Bethlehem checkpoint is a large cattle processing plant-like place which you enter without seeing what you are going into. It is a militarized zone with surveillance towers, barbed wire, and metal fences within fences not visible from outside it. In the checkpoint you walk through a turnstile-like gate and show your identification to IDF soldiers in enclosed glass booths. As an international, I pass through most checkpoints quickly. As you exit, you see a sign saying the "Israeli Ministry of Tourism welcomes you to Bethlehem." This is strange because Bethlehem is not a part of Israel but is a part of the Occupied Territories and thus the Israeli Ministry of Tourism does not have domain to bid you welcome. When you leave the checkpoint on the other side headed towards Jerusalem, there is a sign which says "Welcome to Jerusalem." Again, this is strange because the checkpoint is in Bethlehem. Jerusalem, including occupied East Jerusalem, is actually still 8 or 9 kilom! eters away. This is my first experience of the manipulation of language, boundary, and framing to assert ownership. In the last 11 days, I've seen the wall from a height in various towns and villages. There is a visually recognizable pattern to its placement. Palestinians towns are built with clustered population centers with agricultural land surrounding the centers. This makes much of the countryside open land. In looking at the wall from a height, you see that Palestinian population centers are enclosed by the wall and the open land and olive groves belonging to these communities are on the Israeli side of the wall (still really the West Bank but effectively being taken). I've been told by Israelis and Palestinians that there is an unspoken Israeli state policy of taking maximal land and minimal Palestininans and the wall is designed accordingly. This shows when you just look at the walls around the West Bank and also when you compare where these walls are placed in relation to the 1967 borders. Palestinians from the West Bank have different license plates than Israelis and East Jerusalem residents so IDF easily identify who is who. And mostly Israelis can no longer easily enter the West Bank areas where there are Palestinians. From UN literature, I've learned there are about 650 obstacles to movement in the West Bank created and controlled by IDF. Many of these obstacles shift location from day to day. These obstacles include roadblocks (with 1-meter square concrete blocks in the middle of the road), trenches dug so cars can't pass, checkpoints, large terminals like in Bethlehem, and others. Some are manned by soldiers. Some are not. These 650 obstacles are in an area about 1/5 the size of New Jersey. Our delegation leaders who've been coming here several years say Palestinians are now moving around little because of the obstacles to movement (which are also strangling the economy). Journeys that used to take 30 minutes can now take 2 to 6 hours because of c! ircuitousness and checkpoints. Many Palestinian towns are under curfew from the evening through the night so if a medical emergency occurs then, you cannot get to the hospital. I've been told stories of women giving birth at checkpoints on the street as they try to get through to a hospital. I've also heard of people dying in ambulances at checkpoints as people try to convince soldiers to allow the ambulance through. A student I met up north told me of seeing a man die of a heart attack at a checkpoint. She also told me about a friend who was in a car with friends when soldiers stopped the car, told them to roll up the windows, and as the windows were close to rolled up, threw a tear gas cannister into the car. A man in a wheelchair who is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by a soldier 3 years ago told me he was recently made to sit in the sun at a checkpoint without food or water for 5 hours. Okay, back to Bethlehem, we went to Deheisheh Refugee camp and talked with Nidal and others, all born here. Deheisheh is one of 59 refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Deheisheh has 11,000 people (6,000 of whom are children). In 1948, Nidal's mother and sibs fled their home in Zakaria (a village now in Israel) for the hills because Zionist gangs were bombing Palestinian villages. She thought she return soon after things quieted (as had happened before) and left everything in her house. She never saw Zakaria again and ended up in Deheisheh. At first people lived in tents. Then the UN built 9' by 9' rooms for each family (for about 6 people/room). There were 25 rooms/building, 2 outside toilets (for 150 people), no electricity, and little water. Later, more cement block structures were built. Today Deheisheh is a tightly packed community extending up a hill. I expected a "Refugee Camp" to look more temporary----this looks permanent. After ! spending 1948 to 1967 under Jordanian rule, in 1967 Deheisheh (and the rest of the West Bank) came under Israeli military occupation. In 1967 about 1/3 of Deheisheh fled and went abroad, having become refugees now a second time. Nidal says that with the Israeli occupation curfews began and continue today. In curfews, people are forbidden to leave their homes and sometimes forbidden to open windows. You cannot leave your home to go to the toilet outside. People sit in their cramped homes for days to weeks, sometimes in the dark. There are snipers up high and troops on the ground. If soldiers see anyone outside buildings they shoot to kill. Nidal knows many killed during curfews, including a 60-year-old man killed bringing food to his family (via 30 bullets from a tank) and a 12-year-old boy. Nidal's cousin was killed as he jumped a fence from his house to his sister's next door. Curfews last days to weeks. The longest curfew was 84 days. For many years (based on a study Deheisheh did), they have been under curfew for about 4 months/year. Curfew is lifted 2 hours every several days. However, curfew in Bethlehem (the place to buy food and supplies) is lifted during different hours than Deheis! heh's. So to get food you must leave your home when Bethlehem's curfew is lifted but Deheisheh's is not (so you could well get shot). Nidal also told us that the local Arabic paper is censored by the military (to varying degrees from year to year). Terms like "occupation," "Palestine," "Palestinians," or mention of the curfew system have been forbidden. (As an aside, an international I met told me that the Palestinian Counseling Center in East Jerusalem has been told recently by the Israeli authorities that they will lose their permit to operate unless they change their name to the "Arab Counseling Center" and so they are changing their name). The Deheisheh library must submit the list of books they want to order and the military has to approve the list (i.e., the military forbids some books, including a book by Franz Fanon, an Algerian psychiatrist who wrote about colonialism and oppression). Today, IDF soldiers come into Deheisheh regularly at night in jeeps with weapons, search homes, and sometimes take young men. An American psychologist visiting here told me that 90% of Deheisheh children have nightmares. Most understand death and prison by age 7. I met a young man who was beaten by soldiers at age 10. He has never been to Jerusalem (6 miles away) and cannot go without a permit (which is very hard to get). Because they cannot enter Israel, many in Deheisheh (and the West Bank in general) have never seen the villages their parents and grandparents fled in 1948 (often no more than 10 or 20 miles away). Walking around I was reminded of Native American reservations: it's poor, crowded, lacking in basic amenities, with narrow alleys, rubble and garbage in the open, no greenery, and nowhere for children to play. The young man who gave us a tour said there is one UN-provided doctor for 11,000 people and she sees 280 patients/day. I stayed two nights at Deheisheh with a family. Water is scarce. There is running water 1 day/week in the winter and 1 day every 3 weeks in the summer. I didn't take a shower. At night, I heard shots and strange loud booms. On a tour of Deheisheh, we walked by a rubble-filled site and were told that a 5-story building had been there. The entire building was demolished by the IDF because a relative of one of the 7 families that lived in the building was convicted of a crime and serving time in an Israeli prison. This type of house demolition and collective punishment is common in the Occupied Territories. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimates that more than 12,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed this way, typically to punish the family of a prisoner. A Deheisheh schoolteacher told one of our delegation he hasn't been paid for 5 months because of the international boycott. His four children cry everyday because they are starving. Many in the West Bank have told me that military orders control all aspects of life for Palestinians, including getting a driver's license, getting married, building or adding on to a house, permission to leave the West Bank, permission to go from one West Bank town to another, being able to have your mother/father/whoever in your car if you each hold different residency permits, etc. My own reading indicates an arcane, bureaucratic, and nearly impossible catch-22 system of permits to do almost anything here if you are Palestinian. For example, Palestinians in East Jerusalem must pay US$30,000 to apply for a home renovation permit and are almost always denied (leading to a lot of "illegal" construction, which is then demolished by Israel and then the people whose home was demolished have to pay the state for the costs of the demolition). Nidal (at Deheisheh) and others said their message for Americans and for those outside is that they appreciate the humanitarian aid foreigners provide but more than anything else, they want to be treated as human beings. They want basic human rights and justice for their people. Nidal believes that a 2-state solution is no longer viable (more and more Palestinians are saying this now) because of the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank (450,000), the walls, and the ways the West Bank is now discontiguous (and therefore not governable or viable as one entity because the IDF controls all borders and all movement). Back to my personal responses for a moment, beyond the humanitarian crisis here (which is huge), I have been shocked by the issues of control and power over Palestinians. This has been really staggering to take in. The IDF control so many aspects of daily life, from movement to physical safety to language and even thought. And life here is truly dangerous for Palestinians who live (I am really not exaggerating) each day at great risk. Though I don't live here and I know I can leave anytime, I have felt tense, fearful, and have a sense of confinement and helplessness that is hard to describe. There is much more to say. I'll save that for future emails. I'll try to keep those shorter (figuring out what to leave out is really hard). Thanks for reading and my best to all of you, Ruppat Rani Ruppat Rani is the pseudonym of a U.S.-based psychologist currently in the West Bank. She is a member of an education and solidarity mission. The goal of the mission is to return to the U.S. to raise public awareness about life under military occupation so that Americans will lobby their government to end its suport of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Please distribute this email as widely as possible, but do not reveal Ruppat Rani's true identity to others so that she can return to the West Bank in the future without difficulty from the Israeli authorities. It is through direct first-person reports such as this that the world can learn about what life is actually like in the Occupied Territories for the Palestinians. -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Subject: First Palestine Report Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 17:49:59 -0400 (EDT) Size: 17716 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060812/3fc55516/attachment.eml From jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 22:06:57 2006 From: jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com (Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 22:06:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Second Palestine Report Message-ID: <44DE03A9.1080603@gmail.com> Hi All, Some random stories and info: 1) “Taxi!” I’m waiting at a cabstand. I meet Jack. He looks about 45. We laugh about how he, a Palestinian, has a Western name and I, an American have an Arabic name. Early on he asks, “Do you know anything about lymphoma?” I don’t, why does he want to know. He has lymphoma. A cab comes. We’re traveling to the same part of town and share it. Jack’s wife has multiple sclerosis. She’s in a wheelchair. They have two kids, 15 and 11. Three times he’s applied for and gotten medical permits to take his wife to see specialists in Jerusalem. He wants to see a Jerusalem specialist himself. But he doesn’t have the physical strength anymore to stand hours in line in the sun to apply for a permit at the IDF command center. And in the last 5 years most permits are denied anyway. Plus he doesn’t have money for medical care. He pays for the cab and won’t let me pay. I insist. After much cajoling, he takes my money. His parting words are that he expects to be in a cemetery shortly. In 2001, 25% of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lived in poverty. The UN definition of poverty is living under US $2.20/day per person. In 2006, 75% of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live in poverty. In the West Bank, people must travel to Jerusalem for specialty medical care. My interview with the Director of the local Palestinian office that serves as liaison to the Israeli Army (the IDF) for permits indicates that for the last 6 months about 95% of medical permits to enter Israel are denied (in the past 50-70% were granted). When permits are granted, they are time limited (e.g., from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m. on a specific date). To apply, an Israeli hospital (that has never seen you) has to fax the IDF information on your case and justify why you need care in Israel. Information from a Palestinian hospital (where you have actually been seen) is not acceptable. To travel to Jerusalem, the sick have to wait in the sun at checkpoints, sometimes for hours. Sometimes the soldiers don’t let them through even with a permit. And sometimes the lines are so long that the permit expires during the waiting. Or by the time they get through, getting to Jerusalem and back before the expiration time is impossible. No matter the reason, if you don’t use your permit, you have to reapply from scratch for another one. 2) “Charles” Another day I interview Charles, brother of a 24-year-old Palestinian prisoner. Charles’s brother is 4 years into a 396-year sentence in an Israeli prison. The brother was a member of the armed resistance and committed violent acts against the occupation. The family is Catholic and Charles’s brother was in the Nativity Church in Bethlehem during the siege a few years ago. Charles isn’t allowed to visit his brother because Israel doesn’t allow brothers of prisoners to visit if the brother is between the ages of 16 and 35. Charles is 30. He hasn’t seen his brother in 4 years. Their parents are dead. The only family member allowed to visit is their 87-year-old grandmother who walks with a cane. Each visit involves a 12-hour journey and some walking. This journey is becoming impossible for her. She has seen her grandson 4 times so far for 20 minutes each visit. At the last visit the prison authorities allowed her to take photos. I look at the photos. They are sweet and sad. Later, almost parenthetically, Charles happens to mention that a few years ago he was standing in front of his house when the IDF arrived and asked who owned the house. Worried, he said the owners were abroad. The IDF sent him to the top of the street to tell people not to come down the street. While he did this, they blew up his house. The next year the UN rebuilt the house. My interview with him is in the rebuilt house. Later I see a UN plaque on the outside wall saying building funds were donated by Canada but not mentioning why the house needed rebuilding. I read about a girl of 15 who pushed and then ran away from a male soldier who wanted to body search her as she entered a mosque. He shot her. This put her in a coma. After she came out of the coma, she was sentenced to 2 years in prison. There are about 10,000 Palestinians prisoners in Israeli prisons. They are not petty criminals. They are political prisoners who have acted in resistance against the occupation, some violently, many non-violently. Many committed “crimes” we would not consider crimes (e.g., holding a Palestinian flag, being in a nonviolent demonstration, being in any political party). A few have been in prison 30+ years. About 4% of prisoners are children (i.e., 450 kids). Israel arrests children 12 and over. It charges and convicts children 14 and over. Being tortured in prison is standard. Random mass arrests of men are common (e.g., all males between ages 16 and 40 in a particular village). Almost every man I meet has been arrested or in prison. Often people are released from jail after many days and don’t ever learn why they were arrested. There is a military order called “administrative detention” that allows Palestinians to be held 6 months without the prisoner or his lawyer being told the charge (only the judge and prosecutor know the charge). This military order allows infinite 6-month extensions of the detention. There are about 600 prisoners held this way now. Some have been in prison for 8 years. To visit a prisoner, you must be a first degree relative (except for brothers who are restricted as noted above). First, you apply for a permit to enter Israel. The Red Cross serves as liaison to the IDF for this. The Red Cross staff person I interviewed told me that about 40% of permit applicants are denied for reasons of “security” and another 10% to 15% are denied because of IDF difficulty establishing kinship (i.e., the info isn’t on their computers). The journey to see a prisoner can take 5 to 12 hours/each way because of movement restrictions in the Occupied Territories. Many visitors are strip searched at each checkpoint along the way and then again at the prison itself. Visits with prisoners are 30 minutes long. To get there, first visitors take Palestinian transportation to the Green Line and then get on an Israeli bus. Israeli police or military escorts accompany visitor buses from the Green Line (1967 border) to the prison. Because of these restrictions, prisoners have few visitors. 3) “Jenin” In Jenin I meet Ibrahim, a sensitive, smart, sweet young man of 22. He’s a university student, the oldest in a family of 7 kids. He’s our host for our stay in Jenin. He looks after us in the most loving and caring way. I like him. He’s real and deep and he’s in touch with what he feels. The conditions of his life have not taken away his humanity. One night over fruit and conversation, he tells us about a time his village was under curfew for 15 days without a break. He was 18 then. There was no electricity because the IDF had cut it for cover to move around at night. The villagers were out of food. The mayor of the village pleaded by cell phone with the IDF commander for a break in curfew so people could get food. The commander refused. Soon after, Ibrahim was moving quietly from house to house at night to get food and take it to people. Neighbors were helping him (saying things like, “Go away, the soldiers are right there,” “Come now,” “Move quickly this way,” etc.). As he was making deliveries, a sniper saw him and began shooting. He dropped his bag and ran as fast as he could. He remembers the feeling of the wind rushing against his face. For a moment he thought of stopping and letting himself just get shot. By the end of the story, he was crying in this painful, quiet way. He told us other stories too, one about being used as a human shield by two soldiers who invaded his dorm and kept a gun in his back as they walked him over to another dorm. This is his life. We are walking down the hill into Jenin Refugee Camp. About 14,000 people live in the camp. In 2002 the camp was under siege by the IDF for weeks. The first part involved shelling and shooting out the roof water tanks so people ran out of water fast as they hid in as many layers of concrete as they could find in their homes. The second part involved IDF invasion with troops and bulldozers and then hand-to-hand killing, demolition of 400 homes, and serious damage to another 200. What happened in Jenin is considered a massacre by the international community but not by the governments of Israel and the U.S. On the hill walking down into the camp, we pass a man in his 50’s who chats with us briefly. Later, our host tells us this man has six children. Three are in Israeli prisons. Two were killed by the IDF in the 2002 invasion. His sixth child is wanted by the IDF and is now in hiding. This is his life. Later that day I meet a university student whose family used to live in one of the 400 houses in the camp demolished by bulldozers in the invasion. Unlike many, she was not killed in her house during this mass demolition by giant bulldozers without adequate warning to residents. Walking around the camp, the buildings that are still there are just covered in bullet marks and other damage from the invasion. A local tells our host (who grew up there) that IDF were just there a few weeks previously dressed in civilian clothes. Then they opened fire, killed three, wounded 11, and fled. Our host tells us this is why people are avoiding our group---they don’t know if we mean them harm and just look harmless. Our host tells us that his niece, who is 3 and lives in the camp, runs into a corner and starts shaking whenever she hears a helicopter overhead. 4) “Security” I see a beautiful antique urn in a shop window in the Old City of Jerusalem and walk into the shop to ask about it. The shopkeeper Ziad and I hit it off and he starts hanging out with us. Ziad works with a foundation that brings Western doctors to the West Bank to perform specialized surgeries on children. A 3-year-old girl in Gaza needed a back operation that the doctors in Gaza weren’t trained to do. The Swiss doctor was willing to perform the surgery in Israel or Egypt. Ziad arranged things and tried to get permits for the child and one family member to travel into Israel. Permit denied. And then into Egypt. Permit Denied. The reason: “Security.” Ziad also told me about a young boy who had the first in a series of eye operations. When the surgeon called to schedule the next operation, Ziad tried to locate the boy and his family and learned they’d all been killed in an IDF invasion of their refugee camp home. You encounter the word “security” a lot here. Just about everything done by the IDF is done for reasons of “security.” This includes land confiscations, curfews, closures of towns and villages, group arrests, denial of entry into West Bank towns, denial of entry for Palestinians into Israel, the uprooting of olive trees, all the movement restrictions, the permit system, restrictions on visits to prisoners. The list goes on and on 5) “Family Values” I meet Rebecca, an Israeli activist married to a Palestinian and living in the West Bank. They have two toddlers. To visit their grandmother, Rebecca’s children need a hard-to-get permit to enter Israel. So Grandma comes to them. She has to get IDF permission to do this as Israelis are not allowed in the West Bank but it’s easier for her than for the grandkids. Rebecca herself cannot travel around the West Bank because she is an Israeli and isn’t supposed to be there. So, to visit paternal family, her husband and the children take a servis van through the checkpoints. But Rebecca has to walk through remote countryside and over mountains to avoid checkpoints and soldiers. And then she has to do the same thing to get back home. This involves hours and hours of walking. Ayesha, my translator, is one of the 50,000 Palestinians who don’t have a Palestinian ID card at all. You need one of these to go anywhere at all because of the checkpoints and the random soldier checks. People don’t ever leave home without theirs. Officially, Ayesha doesn’t exist. She can’t travel at all outside of Bethlehem without doing it by walking through remote countryside or trying to convince soldiers to let her through without the ID she claims she forgot at home (a very dangerous game that risks arrest). Her six siblings are all in the same situation as she is. 6) “Why is it good to study History?” I’m waiting for the secretary to come in and unlock the office at the university where I’m doing research. I’m sitting on a bench outside in the cool morning air. I strike up a conversation with a young blonde next to me. She’s styling in a skirt, long hair, and high heels. She looks like she could be from anywhere in the world. Her name is Melissa. She’s 18 and here to take a university entrance exam. We chat about getting together in Jerusalem that weekend. I ask her where she lives there. She says unfortunately she lives right behind the Wailing Wall (one of Judaism’s holiest sites) in East Jerusalem. I ask what’s unfortunate about that. She says that on Friday evenings, she and her family, especially her mother who wears hijab, can’t go out onto their street because religious Jewish men going to the Wailing Wall attack them on their way to prayer because they are Palestinian. Later that week, I hear I’d just missed a demonstration of rightwing religious fundamentalists chanting slogans like, “Kill the Arabs” and “Arabs to the Gas Chambers.” They walked through the Old City protected by a contingent of IDF. The thing about all the above stories is that they are so typical. You hear things like this over and over. Everyone has a million stories like these. These stories are not exceptional. They are the norm. These kinds of experiences are parts of everyday life for the people I meet on the street, people I meet in shops, people I interview, just about everyone. I’m really starting to get that above and beyond everything else, this is a situation of human rights abuses by an occupying army. 7) “The Endgame” At the airport in Tel Aviv, I’m in a shop buying a paper and snack. At the counter, a map of Israel is for sale. I open it and see that the borders of Israel include all of the West Bank and Gaza. There is no West Bank on the map at all. Much of what is the West Bank is labeled “Judea” and “Samaria.” There are tiny little zones within Judea and Samaria that have stripes on them. You can hardly see these zones. I look at the legend. It tells me these miniscule striped areas are “Autonomous Areas.” I think of how the Chinese call Tibet an “Autonomous Region.” And I think of Native American reservations in the west of the U.S. Thanks for reading and my best to you all, Ruppat Rani Ruppat Rani is the pseudonym of a U.S.-based psychologist currently in the West Bank. She is a member of an education and solidarity mission. The goal of the mission is to return to the U.S. to raise public awareness about life under military occupation so that Americans will lobby their government to end its suport of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Please distribute this email as widely as possible, but do not reveal Ruppat Rani's true identity to others so that she can return to the West Bank in the future without difficulty from the Israeli authorities. It is through direct first-person reports such as this that the world can learn about what life is actually like in the Occupied Territories for the Palestinians. -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Subject: Second Palestine Report Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:36:02 -0400 (EDT) Size: 22886 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060812/3351c765/attachment.eml From jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 22:08:28 2006 From: jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com (Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 22:08:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Third Palestine Report Message-ID: <44DE0404.8020402@gmail.com> In the heart of this darkness, people are incredibly warm and hospitable. I feel at home here. I am surprised and moved by the welcome and kindness. I did not expect graciousness and gentleness in occupation and trauma. The culture is highly communal and social. Families are huge and connected. The people, even the refugees, have a sense of place that runs deep. They are of the land in a way I’ve not encountered before. Refugees, now in the third generation, still say they are from the village their grandparents fled in 1948. When I ask, a 15-year-old girl tells me, “I am from Zakaria.” Zakaria is a village in Israel proper about 20 miles away in distance but galaxies away in access. It is in ruins. It no longer exists as the village of Zakaria. Much of what was Zakaria is today a moshav, an Israeli farm cooperative named “Kfar Zaharia.” This girl has never been to Zakaria. The families that are from the West Bank have been here as far back as memory goes----centuries and more. Until the coming of European Zionists en masse in the 1920’s and after, people lived together on this land in a pluralistic society of Jews, Muslims, and ancient Christian communities (Druze, Coptic Egyptian, Greek Orthodox, and others). Mostly, they lived without hatred. I meet an old man who remembers the twilight of that time. Each week on the Sabbath he used to turn off the light switches for his Jewish neighbors. These stories are dying now. There is a powerful sense of history here. Jericho, a town in the West Bank, is the oldest known human settlement on earth. People have lived in Jericho for 10,000 years. This settledness creates deep connections. There is high trust between people. People share what they have. The Palestinians are wealthy in the social capital we no longer have. On the street strangers greet me and ask where I am from. They say, “You are welcome in Palestine.” Every morning the man at the cabstand offers me tea and a handshake. We have all had invitations for meals in the homes of people met in shops and cafes. One evening, I’m the only woman in a servis van, nervous about traveling at night alone to a new city. A man asks if I’ve been to Ramallah before. I say no. In halting English he says, “If you need help, I am ready.” It is an elegant and kind offer. And indeed he does not leave me until we arrive at my hotel. Another member of our group tells us about a fellow who walked with him for 2 hours as they searched for somewhere he was supposed to be. Stories like this are common. Before we got here, I was told that people are polite and greetings and manners important. I was also told that if I am ever in a dangerous spot, I can knock on any door and those inside will shelter me, that the ethic of hospitality overrides everything. When I heard this stateside, I thought, “Oh yeah, right.” But now I too am a believer because I have experienced that kind of welcome. Sad to say, we are all startled by the warmth and trust that Palestinians extend to each of us, whether we are American, Indian, white, Jewish, black, whatever. An irony of being here is that though I am anxious around the soldiers and their guns and their drunken excesses of power, I feel safer in Palestinian society walking around at night than I feel in the U.S. So far I have encountered two rude Palestinians. It has been amusing to tell other Palestinians about them because they are so baffled and kind of head scratching about it. It tells me how unusual such behavior is. I have been impressed by how educated and sophisticated this population is. Education is highly valued. Literacy rates are 95+%. In the last 30 years, several universities have been founded in the West Bank. A monthly magazine called “This Week in Palestine” lists artistic and cultural events all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This ancient, refined society is trying hard to keep up the semblance of a shared cultural life despite the imposed confinement, the wide-scale poverty now, and the literal destruction of institutions, infrastructure, and public gathering places. Even teenagers are knowledgeable about history and politics. I have heard several teens offer sophisticated analyses of global geopolitics. One night a student quotes Emerson at length to us and tells us about Romanticism. I can’t help but think what a sharp contrast this is to what U.S. teens and adults know about the world and art and history. Among the people I have met in these weeks, I have not encountered hate. There is outrage. There is talk of justice. There is talk of human rights. There is frequent talk of how Israel and Israelis are poisoning their own souls with the brutality they inflict on Palestinians. There is concern that Palestinians must not let themselves become the next generation of oppressors after their decades as victims. But so far, there is no talk of hate. It is a soulful and pacifist philosophy I find amazing and surprising. Sometimes I find myself impatient with the perseverance and the lack of rage. I myself feel a lot of rage about what I see. More than anything, people want peace and the normal life they have not had for nearly three generations now. They are tired. They speak of living with Israelis in peace as citizens of one country with the same human rights for all citizens. This is the only solution I hear discussed. No one speaks of a 2-state solution. The facts on the ground of Israeli settlements all over the West Bank and the ways the Wall has annexed to Israel so much of the fertile land and the water and carved up and made the West Bank discontiguous----these things make a sovereign Palestinian state no longer a possibility. People here recognize this. The evidence is in their faces. Everyone is clear that Israel is never leaving the land it calls Judea and Samaria and that we call the West Bank. The culture I see here makes me sad beyond words. I am here as a witness to the destruction of Palestine and Palestinians. I wonder how long these people can continue to persevere and hold onto dignity. Resilience cannot continue endlessly through anything. These people have endured 38 years of occupation, collective punishment, and spirit breaking humiliation. And now in the last five years the violence of the occupation has accelerated to a level of brutality for which there are no words. The events of September 11, 2001 gave the Israeli army license to do whatever it wishes in the Occupied Territories in the name of eradicating “terrorism.” And the army and government of Israel have taken full advantage of this historical moment to crush, oppress, shame, and break. I have felt despair at how the IDF come up with twisted sadistic ways to snap souls, to take away the humanity of these people, and reduce them to something less than they are. Palestinians are suffocating in suffering. One man tells me that the IDF have taken away everything he has, all that is left now is the air he breathes. Ruppat Rani ruppatrani at rcn.com -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Subject: Third Palestine Report Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 23:56:50 -0400 (EDT) Size: 10952 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060812/2a384c27/attachment.eml From peerzadaarshad at gmail.com Sat Aug 12 22:25:42 2006 From: peerzadaarshad at gmail.com (arshad hamid) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 22:25:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Is there a remedy to unending stress in Kashmir? Message-ID: <83db55e00608120955n438e2af1j5e64802490893d70@mail.gmail.com> Is there a remedy to unending stress in Kashmir? Peerzada Arshad Hamid Srinagar Seventeen years of conflict in Jammu and Kashmir has had a direct bearing on Society in the form of increasing number of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders in state. Frequent violence in the shape of grenade explosions, improvised explosive device (IED) blasts, killings, encounters culminating in damage of residential structures and brutal killings are worsening the situation. In such an aura mental disorder in shape of stress and panic is a natural outcome. On the prevailing stressful conditions in Kashmiri society, veteran sociologist Dr. Abdul Gani Madhosh says, "The overall situation in Kashmiris not all that pleasant so stress and depression can't be taken out simply." As a way out, Madhosh suggests, "Counselling of bruised souls is a first step and rest things have to follow. You have to create an atmosphere where people no longer feel scared." Dr. S Khurshid-ul-Islam is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Behaviour Sciences at Jammu and Kashmir Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development. He says that situation prevailing in the state has snatched leisure from the people and their minds always remain preoccupied with fear. "We are humans and there are varied things that one has to think of in order to run family affairs and routine business. In doing so a sort of stress always remains on us though unintentionally. Now add to it the unusual fear and insecurity that anything unusual can happen the next moment. So where from can you bring the desired change," he says. Khurshid believes that fear and insecurity are the basic reasons for increasing psychiatric disorders. "Unless and until sense of insecurity is not taken out from the minds of people, you won't be able to put a check on increasing number of such patients instead the numbers will escalate as they have since 1989," he suggests. Laying emphasis on more and more social interactions rather than focus on individualism, Khurshid foresees way out within society and holds the view that as a society, Kashmiris can definitely contribute towards lowering the number of psychiatric diseases. "What people need to do is, they have to increase their social interactions within their families and neighbourhood. By this people will manage to share their grief and possibility of stress on a particular person gets minimal to a large extent. Then religion too has a role, it helps the people to cope up and endure the worst kind of happenings in one's life," Says Khurshid. Shazia Manzoor is a lecturer in the Department of Master in Social Work at the University of Kashmir. She teaches students the art of social work and techniques of counselling and rehabilitation of the patients, whom she describes victims. "My focus is to teach students the methods by way of which they can tackle the patients and them effective counselling. So far as I have been able to get the feel of patients visiting the Psychiatric hospital, underlying reason for majority of the cases is conflict going on in Jammu and Kashmir. There are cases of Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, Drug addiction, Anxiety, Neurosis, etc.," says Shazia. Shazia feels that awareness regarding psychiatric diseases in Kashmir is not done effectively. She argues that people in Kashmir are still having inhibitions in visiting psychiatric hospital or psychiatrist. "Your figure about visits of people at psychiatric hospital will say patients are coming and number is increasing but my experience says people come to psychiatric hospital, when it becomes unavoidable for them to seek help of psychiatrists. Prior to that they try their best to seek refuge in the prescriptions of doctors other than psychiatrists," says she. Regarding awareness among the people, Shazia says help from opinion leaders and religious heads at grass root level can make difference and bring desirable change. A private international Medical and Humanitarian organisation, Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) or Doctors without Borders has set up its office in Srinagarwith the aim to bring down the levels of stress related psychosocial problems of people here. In Kashmir, MSF started its functioning in 2001 by assisting in the rehabilitation of Government hospital for psychiatric diseases. The brochure of MSF in Kashmir mentions that apart from serving victims of natural and man made disasters, MSF provides medical assistance to victims of armed conflict. The valley of Kashmir has been engulfed by instability since 1989. The armed conflict going on here gave rise to stressful situations. Violence has touched each family living in Kashmir one way or other. People here are in need of help. With the agenda to serve affected people of Kashmir, MSF reconstructed wards of psychiatric hospital and in the year 2003 started counselling services in the hospital for psychiatric patients. Farhat Mantoo is a team leader with MSF in Srinagar. "In counselling our aim remains to infuse fresh hope in the psychiatric patients. This is achieved by reinforcing the positives (healthy things) in patients and eliminating the negatives by providing alternatives," explains Farhat. Terming patients as clients, Farhat says counselling is a brief therapy where clients (individually or in groups) talk to a counsellor who in turn provides help to client by offering emotional support, psycho education , and sometimes practical advice. Furthermore the client learns to strengthen his/her ways of coping with problems. "In counselling the foremost thing is acknowledgement. You as a counsellor have to acknowledge that the client has a problem and show concern about it," she says. Haroon Mirani is Research Head at Kashmir Newz , Srinagar. Mirani says that situation in Kashmir has not changed as portrayed by certain sections of media. "Violence is still going on but we can say the society has adapted to the deteriorating situation to some extent. That is why we don't see entire town tense after a grenade blast or cross firing between militants and troops in the Srinagar or any other place. Contrary to the initial phase the impact is felt within a limited area for a short span of time," Mirani explains. Deliberating on the human relations, he says at times they surpass the limits of adaptability and one fails to control him or herself. "You can't stop yourselves when someone close to you falls prey to bullets or gets killed accidentally in violence. You experience the flow of psyche and fail to cope up, you develop stress and if it prolongs, you become a patient," Mirani says. Dr. Arshad Hussain is a practising psychiatrist at the lone psychiatric hospital in Srinagar. He advocates the amalgamation of mental health in general health. "Kashmir is closed society. People still have inhibitions in visiting this hospital. The fault does not lie with them. Actually the word went across that anyone visiting the hospital of psychiatric diseases for treatment has mental problems, which actually is not true. So in order to relieve them of this burden the government should keep services of psychiatrists available at premier health institutes of state like SKIMS and SMHS in Srinagar and other allied hospitals. Then people won't feel inhibitions," opines Arshad. Cautioning about the fallout of stress on people, Dr Arshad points out that if suffering of stress and trauma among people (mostly of younger generation) goes unattended, it results in genetic disorder. "It can become a genetic disorder and there is possibility that it can transmit from one generation to another," says he. Ends- - - -- Peerzada Arshad Hamid +91-9419027486 +91-1932-234488 Address Baba mohalla Bijbehara c/o Tak Trading Company Bijbehara Jammu & Kashmir INDIA www.kashmirnewz.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060812/9b848695/attachment.html From s_kavula at yahoo.com Sun Aug 13 21:18:30 2006 From: s_kavula at yahoo.com (saraswati) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:48:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060813154831.68753.qmail@web36609.mail.mud.yahoo.com> no vedavati, i was not equating RSS with Nazis. I should have added one more thing may be - that all americans are not George W Bush nor are all muslims Terrorists or all British are and were not BAD Fellows. i was only saying that one should not generalise. I think, the problem occurs with generalising people and communities. I guess it is about time, we just called ourselves human beings and said, okay there are just may be good or bad people and many more with various shades of grey. it was that i wanted to say. i should have said may be all Hindus are not hard core fundamentalists. About the RSS - i don't know, but what we have seen in Gujarat was genocide done in the name of religion - people were marked and killed, killed by the fundamentalist forces. I do not know where you come from, but when I traveled to the North, especially Gujarat, (i was there just before the sorry time of march 2002 - i could see the rift that was created by the works of RSS-VHP - i could witness the segregation of muslims by these forces) and soon after I returned from there - (i was in gujarat in jan 2002 and in march i hear of the horrible situation). I am not at all supporting the muslim appeasement done by Gandhi, or by the successive governments...but then, i don't support the hindutva brigade either. i believe it is about time each community did an introspection and set their own house in order, rather than throwing stones at each other. it is a fact, that caste remains the bete noire of the hindu society. and we complain about conversions - really, i feel if hinduism was such a weak religion, it would have disappeared long time ago. i think on the contrary - i think it was one religion that never needed any kind of preaching. and if it must disappear - then so be it, that is the cycles of time. secondly, each person has a right to follow his or her religion of their choice. and if they wish to convert, then it is their personal issue. however, i donot approve the way the evangelists go on about converting people - by calling names of the hindu religion. the missionaries have all right to preach about their religion, but they have no right to criticize or degrade other people's religious beliefs or practices (which they always do). similarly, the muslims in this country always cry foul and try to show a wounded heart, and anything that hurts the muslims, they simply get angry and start blaming the system and the majority community, and the governments, which continue to condone an errring child. this ofcourse was the reason for the rise in anti-muslim sentiments amongst the rest. they want to have a seperate civil code, but will they accept the rest of the law of the islam like in Saudi Arabia, where a rapist will be stoned or hanged to death, or a thief's hands are cut off? when there have been cases of molestation by fathers and brothers of their own minor girl children in my city, then it was all hushed up and noone spoke of these things. it is a fact, that double standards exist amongst the muslims. today, they ask for special reservations, but they don't send their girls to school. if they remained in the ghettos it was partly their own making. they do not wish to acknowledge their flaws. it is the same with us, the Hindus, we have failed to uplift our own people, we have failed to eradicate the caste system and bring egalitarian society, we treat our own people as third-rate citizens and then we say, they should "feel proud to be hindus" and punish them for "converting to other religions". we have not allowed the free flow of knowledge...and today we are paying the price of it. it is this that i wanted to say ...there are flaws amongst all of us. let us stop generalising and start to look inwards than outwards...let us have the courage to face the truth about ourselves and call a spade a spade. regards saraswati Vedavati Jogi wrote: saraswati, i appreciate your letter, but one thing i did not understand. why are you equating rss with nazis? has rss ever killed any muslim just because he is a muslim? they talked against gandhiji's muslim appeasement policy which ultimately resulted into partition of india. nathuram happened to be the member of rss but the latter had never deputed him to assasinate gandhi. muslims partitioned india but we don't look upon all muslims as traitors, same way you should not hold rss responsible for nathuram's deeds. i request you to first understand their views and then pass such type of remarks. vedavati >From: saraswati >To: >CC: >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:58:22 -0700 (PDT) > >Dear Mr. Roger Das, > > I am wondering whether highlighting only certain facts will reflect the >truth. > > Communalisation by media, it may be true in some quaters. if the media >forgetting Mohammed Rafi, equals to communalisation of Media, then what >does the eugolisation of Shah Rukh Khan, day in and day out, amount to??? >That special episodes are made on Amir Khan and today, Saif too has become >the darling of the media. And so has his sister. And then in that case no >one should be using Irfan Pathan as an advertisement Idol. Why is AR >Rahman, the uncrowned king of the music world - not because he is a Muslim, >but because he is the best. And let me tell you, His song, "Sat rangi re" >from Dil se and "piya haji ali" are the best of his compositions according >to me. My sister used to listen to "piya haji ali" every night before going >to sleep, while she was pregnant, because she wanted her child to imbibe >the spiritual feelings that come from that song. > > by the way, i am from that so-called upper caste community of brahmins. > > Please do not make a mountain of the mole hill. It is true that muslims >have been seen with suspicion due to the effects of partition in some >quarters. But then, so is it a fact, that most of our Bollywood big stars >have been Muslims for many decades, even in days after partition, we had >Suraiyya and Yousuf Khan AKA Dilip Kumar who were given a cult status by >the people of this country. > > Ofcourse, Yousuf Saab, did make remarks in Pakistan against India when >he went to receive an honour in Pakistan, is another matter, that no one >mentions. It was reported in the Week, many years ago. > > It is a fact, abberations are there. But there are two sides to the same >coin. Just as all Germans are not Nazis, so are not all Hindus, RSS >sympathisers. > > In fact, while I was in school, we never bothered who was a hindu or who >was a muslim. we all ate together from each others lunch boxes, and my >parents never taught us to be intolerant- my first best friend was a Muslim >girl, and today I have very close friends who are from Pakistan, one is >from the Azad Kashmir (as they call it) and my father always took us to the >Dargah in the outskirts of Hyderabad. and this is no exception. there are >tons of such cases. > > please kindly, do not stoke anger by constantly GENERALISING, applying >facts that belong only to certain sections of the society to the Society at >Large. > > Most importantly, let us not forget where the problem arises... yes it >is a fact, that caste based discrimination continues in this country, >especially in rural areas, so also, it continues among both converted >christians and muslims too... both religions which preach egalitarian >treatment too all its peoples' have not been able to remove the caste >discrimination which continued even after conversions... > > we will be able to change things, if we, each one of us, looks inwards >at the flaws in our own individual systems and try to correct them, rather >than always trying to throw stones at others.... > > let us set our own homes in order first.... > > Let us try to build a nation, away from the rifts that were created by >the Colonisers. > > Let us not forget that Azim Premji, shot up to the top position as the >richest INDIAN, in this very country. > > If discrimination was really so much against the minority community, >they would not have been seen anywhere in the public sphere, like the way >it is with the minority communities in Pakistan or Bangladesh. > > Regards > > Saraswati.Kavula > > >From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com >To: reader-list at sarai.net, >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, >thestatesman at vsnl.com > ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com > >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) > > > > > >Sir, > > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path >of > >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims >ahcievement > >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful >singer-actor > >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired nice > >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in >the > >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th July >NDTV > >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, to > >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined the > >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. I >was > >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the >death > >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels >even > >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference comes >out > >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has not > >given due respect in media whereas singers > > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on >television > >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not >seen any > >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. This > >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper caste >hindu > >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian >Muslim > >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and >deep > >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is >also > >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope >this > >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. > > > > > >--------------------------------- > Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060813/863bf9f1/attachment.html From announcer at crit.org.in Sat Aug 12 16:10:39 2006 From: announcer at crit.org.in (Devi Pictures) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 16:10:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Q2P Bombay Screening 18.8.06 Message-ID: <1155379239.19718.23.camel@localhost> Q2P (Documentary, 55 minutes, DV, English, Hindi) LOOK AT THE TOILET ... ... SEE THE CITY Director: PAROMITA VOHRA Producer: PUKAR Camera: AJAY NORONHA Editing: JABEEN MERCHANT Sound: ANITA KUSHWAHA and SAMINA MISHRA Animation: SHILPA RANADE Music: TARUN SHAHANI and NIRAV GANDHI When: FRIDAY 18 AUGUST 2006 at 6.30 p.m. Where: Little Theatre National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) Nariman Point, Mumbai 400021 About the Film: Q2P peers through the dream of a futuristic Bombay and and finds... public toilets... not enough of them.... Q2P is a film about toilets and the city. It sifts through the dream of Mumbai as a future Shanghai and searches for public toilets, watching who has to queue to pee. As the film observes who has access to toilets and who doesn’t, we begin to also see the imagination of gender that underlies the city’s shape, the constantly shifting boundaries between public and private space; we learn of small acts of survival that people in the city’s bottom half cobble together and quixotic ideas of social change that thrive with mixed results; we hear the silence that surrounds toilets and sense how similar it is to the silence that surrounds inequality. The toilet becomes a riddle with many answers and some of those answers are questions – about gender, about class, about caste and most of all about space, urban development and the twisted myth of the global metropolis. About the Director: PAROMITA VOHRA is a filmmaker and writer. Her films as director include Where’s Sandra, Work In Progress, Cosmopolis: Two Tales of A City, Unlimited Girls, A Short Film About Time, A Woman’s Place and Annapurna: Goddess of Food. Her films as writer include the feature Khamosh Pani, and the documentaries A Few Things I Know About Her, and If You Pause: In A Museum of Craft and Skin Deep. She teaches scriptwriting as visiting faculty at the Sophia Polytechnic and is a PUKAR Associate. Paromita Vohra D404, Trans Apartments Mahakali Caves Road Andheri (E) Bombay 400093 +91.22.2837.7960 +91.981937.7960 parodevi at vsnl.com parodevi at gmail.com _____ CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust), Mumbai Announcements List http://www.crit.org.in http://lists.crit.org.in/mailman/listinfo/announcer From sandygmaharaj at gmail.com Sun Aug 13 20:28:48 2006 From: sandygmaharaj at gmail.com (Sandeep Gupta) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 20:28:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Announcement - Beejnaagri and BeejU8 Message-ID: <44DF3E28.60002@gmail.com> [Please forward this message to relevant mailing lists] _एक कदम डिजीटल स्वतंत्रता की ओर_ ५९वें स्वतंत्रता दिवस के शुभ अवसर पर, बीजनागरी व बीजू८ की घोषणा। बीजनागरी एक यूनीकोड रूपांतरण फॉर्मेट (UTF) है । एक १२ बिट कूटलेखन कला जो स्वर, मात्रा व व्यंजन का अलग अलग कोडन की जगह अक्षर कोडन करता है । बीजनागरी, देवनागरी को यूटीएफ८ से लगभग ५०-६०% संक्षिप्त करता है । समान तकनीक अन्य भारतीय लिपियों लिपि पर भी लागू हो सकती है । बीजू८, बीजनागरी व यूटीएफ८ के बीच का रुपान्तरण प्रदर्शित करता है । ये लिनक्स के लिए निर्मित है । कृप्या http://beejnaagri.sourceforge.net/ से डाउनलोड करके इन्हें परखें व अपनी बहुमूल्य राय दें । संदीप गुप्ता _A step towards Digital Independence_ Announcing the release of Beejnaagri and BeejU8 on the occasion of 59th Independence day. Beejnaagri is a Unicode Transformation Fromat (UTF) for Devanagari. It is a 12-bit encoding technique which encodes akshars rather than swar, vyanjan and maatra separately. Beejnaagri is expected to compress Devanagri text by 50-60% over UTF-8. A similar technique can be applied to other Indic scripts. BeejU8 v0.1 demonstrates the conversion between Beejnaagri and UTF-8. It requires *nix environment. It has been tested on Ubuntu 6.06 with very good results. Please visit http://beejnaagri.sourceforge.net/ . It would be highly appreciated if you can comment on Beejnaagri and test BeejU8 on your systems and provide your valuable feedback. Sandeep Gupta -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060813/2b5fd2a0/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From vrjogi at hotmail.com Mon Aug 14 11:19:40 2006 From: vrjogi at hotmail.com (Vedavati Jogi) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:49:40 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media In-Reply-To: <20060813154831.68753.qmail@web36609.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: what happened in gujrat was very bad, no doubt but while cursing guj.cm for that, we should not ignore godhra, . moreover modi alone could not have done anything, hindus in guj. wholeheartedly supported him, provoked hindus 'reacted'!and it was an obvious reaction.. since gandhian days hindus have been given lot of doses of 'ahimsa'. when it comes to muslims, psedu secularists keep their mouths shut. how long hindus can tolerate these things? when babri masjid was pulled down these pseudo secularists created hue & cry, what about those temples broken in Kashmir? what about those kashmiri pundits, who have become refugees in their own country? incidentlly, i am a maharashtrian married to a kashmiri pundit.based in pune. hindu cannot be considered as secular if he stands by another hindu but to prove his or her secular credentials he has to support muslims may be even those muslims who are involved in terrorist activities.- this is secularism in india! vedavati >From: saraswati >To: Vedavati Jogi >CC: reader-list at sarai.net, arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, >feedback at hindustantimes.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, ttedit at abpmail.com, >toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com, rgdj12 at yahoo.com >Subject: RE: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:48:30 -0700 (PDT) > >no vedavati, > > i was not equating RSS with Nazis. I should have added one more thing >may be - that all americans are not George W Bush nor are all muslims >Terrorists or all British are and were not BAD Fellows. > > i was only saying that one should not generalise. I think, the problem >occurs with generalising people and communities. > > I guess it is about time, we just called ourselves human beings and >said, okay there are just may be good or bad people and many more with >various shades of grey. > > it was that i wanted to say. i should have said may be all Hindus are >not hard core fundamentalists. > > About the RSS - i don't know, but what we have seen in Gujarat was >genocide done in the name of religion - people were marked and killed, >killed by the fundamentalist forces. > > I do not know where you come from, but when I traveled to the North, >especially Gujarat, (i was there just before the sorry time of march 2002 - >i could see the rift that was created by the works of RSS-VHP - i could >witness the segregation of muslims by these forces) and soon after I >returned from there - (i was in gujarat in jan 2002 and in march i hear of >the horrible situation). > >I am not at all supporting the muslim appeasement done by Gandhi, or by the >successive governments...but then, i don't support the hindutva brigade >either. i believe it is about time each community did an introspection and >set their own house in order, rather than throwing stones at each other. > > it is a fact, that caste remains the bete noire of the hindu society. >and we complain about conversions - really, i feel if hinduism was such a >weak religion, it would have disappeared long time ago. i think on the >contrary - i think it was one religion that never needed any kind of >preaching. and if it must disappear - then so be it, that is the cycles of >time. secondly, each person has a right to follow his or her religion of >their choice. and if they wish to convert, then it is their personal issue. > > however, i donot approve the way the evangelists go on about converting >people - by calling names of the hindu religion. the missionaries have all >right to preach about their religion, but they have no right to criticize >or degrade other people's religious beliefs or practices (which they always >do). > > similarly, the muslims in this country always cry foul and try to show a >wounded heart, and anything that hurts the muslims, they simply get angry >and start blaming the system and the majority community, and the >governments, which continue to condone an errring child. this ofcourse was >the reason for the rise in anti-muslim sentiments amongst the rest. they >want to have a seperate civil code, but will they accept the rest of the >law of the islam like in Saudi Arabia, where a rapist will be stoned or >hanged to death, or a thief's hands are cut off? when there have been cases >of molestation by fathers and brothers of their own minor girl children in >my city, then it was all hushed up and noone spoke of these things. it is a >fact, that double standards exist amongst the muslims. today, they ask for >special reservations, but they don't send their girls to school. if they >remained in the ghettos it was partly their own making. they do not wish to >acknowledge their flaws. > > it is the same with us, the Hindus, we have failed to uplift our own >people, we have failed to eradicate the caste system and bring egalitarian >society, we treat our own people as third-rate citizens and then we say, >they should "feel proud to be hindus" and punish them for "converting to >other religions". we have not allowed the free flow of knowledge...and >today we are paying the price of it. > > it is this that i wanted to say ...there are flaws amongst all of us. >let us stop generalising and start to look inwards than outwards...let us >have the courage to face the truth about ourselves and call a spade a >spade. > > regards > saraswati > > >Vedavati Jogi wrote: > saraswati, i appreciate your letter, but one thing i did not understand. >why >are you equating rss with nazis? has rss ever killed any muslim just >because >he is a muslim? they talked against gandhiji's muslim appeasement policy >which ultimately resulted into partition of india. nathuram happened to be >the member of rss but the latter had never deputed him to assasinate >gandhi. > >muslims partitioned india but we don't look upon all muslims as traitors, >same way you should not hold rss responsible for nathuram's deeds. i >request >you to first understand their views and then pass such type of remarks. > >vedavati > > > >From: saraswati > >To: > >CC: >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:58:22 -0700 (PDT) > > > >Dear Mr. Roger Das, > > > > I am wondering whether highlighting only certain facts will reflect the > >truth. > > > > Communalisation by media, it may be true in some quaters. if the media > >forgetting Mohammed Rafi, equals to communalisation of Media, then what > >does the eugolisation of Shah Rukh Khan, day in and day out, amount to??? > >That special episodes are made on Amir Khan and today, Saif too has >become > >the darling of the media. And so has his sister. And then in that case no > >one should be using Irfan Pathan as an advertisement Idol. Why is AR > >Rahman, the uncrowned king of the music world - not because he is a >Muslim, > >but because he is the best. And let me tell you, His song, "Sat rangi re" > >from Dil se and "piya haji ali" are the best of his compositions >according > >to me. My sister used to listen to "piya haji ali" every night before >going > >to sleep, while she was pregnant, because she wanted her child to imbibe > >the spiritual feelings that come from that song. > > > > by the way, i am from that so-called upper caste community of brahmins. > > > > Please do not make a mountain of the mole hill. It is true that muslims > >have been seen with suspicion due to the effects of partition in some > >quarters. But then, so is it a fact, that most of our Bollywood big stars > >have been Muslims for many decades, even in days after partition, we had > >Suraiyya and Yousuf Khan AKA Dilip Kumar who were given a cult status by > >the people of this country. > > > > Ofcourse, Yousuf Saab, did make remarks in Pakistan against India when > >he went to receive an honour in Pakistan, is another matter, that no one > >mentions. It was reported in the Week, many years ago. > > > > It is a fact, abberations are there. But there are two sides to the same > >coin. Just as all Germans are not Nazis, so are not all Hindus, RSS > >sympathisers. > > > > In fact, while I was in school, we never bothered who was a hindu or who > >was a muslim. we all ate together from each others lunch boxes, and my > >parents never taught us to be intolerant- my first best friend was a >Muslim > >girl, and today I have very close friends who are from Pakistan, one is > >from the Azad Kashmir (as they call it) and my father always took us to >the > >Dargah in the outskirts of Hyderabad. and this is no exception. there are > >tons of such cases. > > > > please kindly, do not stoke anger by constantly GENERALISING, applying > >facts that belong only to certain sections of the society to the Society >at > >Large. > > > > Most importantly, let us not forget where the problem arises... yes it > >is a fact, that caste based discrimination continues in this country, > >especially in rural areas, so also, it continues among both converted > >christians and muslims too... both religions which preach egalitarian > >treatment too all its peoples' have not been able to remove the caste > >discrimination which continued even after conversions... > > > > we will be able to change things, if we, each one of us, looks inwards > >at the flaws in our own individual systems and try to correct them, >rather > >than always trying to throw stones at others.... > > > > let us set our own homes in order first.... > > > > Let us try to build a nation, away from the rifts that were created by > >the Colonisers. > > > > Let us not forget that Azim Premji, shot up to the top position as the > >richest INDIAN, in this very country. > > > > If discrimination was really so much against the minority community, > >they would not have been seen anywhere in the public sphere, like the way > >it is with the minority communities in Pakistan or Bangladesh. > > > > Regards > > > > Saraswati.Kavula > > > > > >From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com > >To: reader-list at sarai.net, > >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, > >thestatesman at vsnl.com > > ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com > > >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > > >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) > > > > > > > > >Sir, > > > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path > >of > > >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims > >ahcievement > > >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful > >singer-actor > > >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired nice > > >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in > >the > > >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th July > >NDTV > > >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, to > > >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined the > > >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. I > >was > > >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the > >death > > >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels > >even > > >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference comes > >out > > >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has not > > >given due respect in media whereas singers > > > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on > >television > > >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not > >seen any > > >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. This > > >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper caste > >hindu > > >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian > >Muslim > > >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and > >deep > > >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is > >also > > >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope > >this > > >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. > > > > > > > > > > >--------------------------------- > > Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. > > > > > >--------------------------------- >Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates >starting at 1¢/min. From hight at 34n118w.net Mon Aug 14 11:46:07 2006 From: hight at 34n118w.net (hight at 34n118w.net) Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 23:16:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Floating Points discussed at ISEA Message-ID: <49503.70.34.241.32.1155536167.squirrel@webmail.34n118w.net> Work with developing a new tool to "read" cities and the landscape with data and narrative that adjusts with elevation/altitude and how to track the trajectories of previous flights discussed as remote speaker at ISEA Aug 11. for more information go to floatingpointsspace.blogspot.com From vrjogi at hotmail.com Mon Aug 14 14:11:44 2006 From: vrjogi at hotmail.com (Vedavati Jogi) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 08:41:44 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media In-Reply-To: <271ece9c0608132325j23d51c6an152a9cfe64eca1cb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: If muslims in kashmir have ethnic cleansed the pandits, then where was the central govt as well as the subsequent BJP govt when came in power ? why werent these things investigated ? ...................... dear mr. jassim, in 1989, bjp was not the ruling party, by the time kashmir problem started third front had taken over. moreover, i am not a bjp spokes person, nor i am justifying gujrat carnage , but i sincerely feel that pseudo secular thoughts & acts are responsible for hindu-muslim rift and unfortunately poor muslims are at receiving end. after guj. happenings & before assembly elections in guj. i had visited one exhibition of gujrati dress materials in pune, out of curiosity i asked many traders about guj. riots. one of them said, 'what modi saab has done nobody else has done that for we hindus in india. just see what happens in election.' others nodded. i was stunned. pseudo secularists and people like abu azmi remain safe and poor muslims have to bear the brunt. is it a secularism? mr. jassim, politicians are always playing minority card, 'divide & rule' is their policy. now muslims like you have to take initiative & show these politicians their place. can you do that? >From: "Jassim Ali" >To: "Vedavati Jogi" >CC: s_kavula at yahoo.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, editor at ibnlive.com, >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, >feedback at hindustantimes.com, reader-list at sarai.net, ttedit at abpmail.com >Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:25:09 +0400 > >Gimme a break ..... > >We all know that there are Bad Muslims just as Bad Hindus,Bad Jews,Bad >Mallus,Bad Bongs,Bad Arabs, and so on and so forth... >If presumably educated and logically driven individuals like us tend to get >motivated by extreme propoganda and rhetorics then i guess we could forgive >the hindus and the muslims for cutting eachothers throats ..... > >If muslims in kashmir have ethnic cleansed the pandits, then where was the >central govt as well as the subsequent BJP govt when came in power ? why >werent these things investigated ? > >Even the Godhra cant justify a state sponsored genocide that happened in >gujarat ..... >and i dont think 90% of my hindu brothers would disagree with me on that >..... > >Yes muslims do have a severe state of self-pity and anguish and have >contributed to a large extent to Ghetto-ising themselves post 1857 till >this >date. >If they arent socially mobile, they got none to blame except >themselves...... > >Im an Indian Muslim and im working and living in middle east at present , >have spent a fair amount of my time studying and working in india as well, >and i mus say barring a few rare occurences i had never faced a problem. >Maybe its my luck that i have been amongst some sensible people, but that >doesnt means that i would sit on the sidelines and watch people spread crap >and tarnish of my country . > >and this is not a self induced hyperbole.... >jus a pissed off ranting post years of hearing crap from both the sides >green and saffron > >cheers >j > > > >On 8/14/06, Vedavati Jogi wrote: >> >>what happened in gujrat was very bad, no doubt but while cursing guj.cmfor >>that, we should not ignore godhra, . moreover modi alone could not have >>done >>anything, hindus in guj. wholeheartedly supported him, provoked hindus >>'reacted'!and it was an obvious reaction.. >>since gandhian days hindus have been given lot of doses of 'ahimsa'. >>when it comes to muslims, psedu secularists keep their mouths shut. how >>long >>hindus can tolerate these things? >>when babri masjid was pulled down these pseudo secularists created hue & >>cry, what about those temples broken in Kashmir? >>what about those kashmiri pundits, who have become refugees in their own >>country? incidentlly, i am a maharashtrian married to a kashmiri >>pundit.based in pune. >>hindu cannot be considered as secular if he stands by another hindu but to >>prove his or her secular credentials he has to support muslims may be even >>those muslims who are involved in terrorist activities.- this is >>secularism >>in india! >> >>vedavati >> >> >> >> >From: saraswati >> >To: Vedavati Jogi >> >CC: reader-list at sarai.net, arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, >> >feedback at hindustantimes.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, ttedit at abpmail.com, >> >toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com, rgdj12 at yahoo.com >> >Subject: RE: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >> >Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:48:30 -0700 (PDT) >> > >> >no vedavati, >> > >> > i was not equating RSS with Nazis. I should have added one more >>thing >> >may be - that all americans are not George W Bush nor are all muslims >> >Terrorists or all British are and were not BAD Fellows. >> > >> > i was only saying that one should not generalise. I think, the >>problem >> >occurs with generalising people and communities. >> > >> > I guess it is about time, we just called ourselves human beings and >> >said, okay there are just may be good or bad people and many more with >> >various shades of grey. >> > >> > it was that i wanted to say. i should have said may be all Hindus are >> >not hard core fundamentalists. >> > >> > About the RSS - i don't know, but what we have seen in Gujarat was >> >genocide done in the name of religion - people were marked and killed, >> >killed by the fundamentalist forces. >> > >> > I do not know where you come from, but when I traveled to the North, >> >especially Gujarat, (i was there just before the sorry time of march >>2002 >>- >> >i could see the rift that was created by the works of RSS-VHP - i could >> >witness the segregation of muslims by these forces) and soon after I >> >returned from there - (i was in gujarat in jan 2002 and in march i hear >>of >> >the horrible situation). >> > >> >I am not at all supporting the muslim appeasement done by Gandhi, or by >>the >> >successive governments...but then, i don't support the hindutva brigade >> >either. i believe it is about time each community did an introspection >>and >> >set their own house in order, rather than throwing stones at each other. >> > >> > it is a fact, that caste remains the bete noire of the hindu society. >> >and we complain about conversions - really, i feel if hinduism was such >>a >> >weak religion, it would have disappeared long time ago. i think on the >> >contrary - i think it was one religion that never needed any kind of >> >preaching. and if it must disappear - then so be it, that is the cycles >>of >> >time. secondly, each person has a right to follow his or her religion of >> >their choice. and if they wish to convert, then it is their personal >>issue. >> > >> > however, i donot approve the way the evangelists go on about >>converting >> >people - by calling names of the hindu religion. the missionaries have >>all >> >right to preach about their religion, but they have no right to >>criticize >> >or degrade other people's religious beliefs or practices (which they >>always >> >do). >> > >> > similarly, the muslims in this country always cry foul and try to >>show >>a >> >wounded heart, and anything that hurts the muslims, they simply get >>angry >> >and start blaming the system and the majority community, and the >> >governments, which continue to condone an errring child. this ofcourse >>was >> >the reason for the rise in anti-muslim sentiments amongst the rest. they >> >want to have a seperate civil code, but will they accept the rest of the >> >law of the islam like in Saudi Arabia, where a rapist will be stoned or >> >hanged to death, or a thief's hands are cut off? when there have been >>cases >> >of molestation by fathers and brothers of their own minor girl children >>in >> >my city, then it was all hushed up and noone spoke of these things. it >>is >>a >> >fact, that double standards exist amongst the muslims. today, they ask >>for >> >special reservations, but they don't send their girls to school. if they >> >remained in the ghettos it was partly their own making. they do not wish >>to >> >acknowledge their flaws. >> > >> > it is the same with us, the Hindus, we have failed to uplift our own >> >people, we have failed to eradicate the caste system and bring >>egalitarian >> >society, we treat our own people as third-rate citizens and then we say, >> >they should "feel proud to be hindus" and punish them for "converting to >> >other religions". we have not allowed the free flow of knowledge...and >> >today we are paying the price of it. >> > >> > it is this that i wanted to say ...there are flaws amongst all of us. >> >let us stop generalising and start to look inwards than outwards...let >>us >> >have the courage to face the truth about ourselves and call a spade a >> >spade. >> > >> > regards >> > saraswati >> > >> > >> >Vedavati Jogi wrote: >> > saraswati, i appreciate your letter, but one thing i did not >>understand. >> >why >> >are you equating rss with nazis? has rss ever killed any muslim just >> >because >> >he is a muslim? they talked against gandhiji's muslim appeasement policy >> >which ultimately resulted into partition of india. nathuram happened to >>be >> >the member of rss but the latter had never deputed him to assasinate >> >gandhi. >> > >> >muslims partitioned india but we don't look upon all muslims as >>traitors, >> >same way you should not hold rss responsible for nathuram's deeds. i >> >request >> >you to first understand their views and then pass such type of remarks. >> > >> >vedavati >> > >> > >> > >From: saraswati >> > >To: >> > >CC: >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >> > >Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:58:22 -0700 (PDT) >> > > >> > >Dear Mr. Roger Das, >> > > >> > > I am wondering whether highlighting only certain facts will reflect >>the >> > >truth. >> > > >> > > Communalisation by media, it may be true in some quaters. if the >>media >> > >forgetting Mohammed Rafi, equals to communalisation of Media, then >>what >> > >does the eugolisation of Shah Rukh Khan, day in and day out, amount >>to??? >> > >That special episodes are made on Amir Khan and today, Saif too has >> >become >> > >the darling of the media. And so has his sister. And then in that case >>no >> > >one should be using Irfan Pathan as an advertisement Idol. Why is AR >> > >Rahman, the uncrowned king of the music world - not because he is a >> >Muslim, >> > >but because he is the best. And let me tell you, His song, "Sat rangi >>re" >> > >from Dil se and "piya haji ali" are the best of his compositions >> >according >> > >to me. My sister used to listen to "piya haji ali" every night before >> >going >> > >to sleep, while she was pregnant, because she wanted her child to >>imbibe >> > >the spiritual feelings that come from that song. >> > > >> > > by the way, i am from that so-called upper caste community of >>brahmins. >> > > >> > > Please do not make a mountain of the mole hill. It is true that >>muslims >> > >have been seen with suspicion due to the effects of partition in some >> > >quarters. But then, so is it a fact, that most of our Bollywood big >>stars >> > >have been Muslims for many decades, even in days after partition, we >>had >> > >Suraiyya and Yousuf Khan AKA Dilip Kumar who were given a cult status >>by >> > >the people of this country. >> > > >> > > Ofcourse, Yousuf Saab, did make remarks in Pakistan against India >>when >> > >he went to receive an honour in Pakistan, is another matter, that no >>one >> > >mentions. It was reported in the Week, many years ago. >> > > >> > > It is a fact, abberations are there. But there are two sides to the >>same >> > >coin. Just as all Germans are not Nazis, so are not all Hindus, RSS >> > >sympathisers. >> > > >> > > In fact, while I was in school, we never bothered who was a hindu or >>who >> > >was a muslim. we all ate together from each others lunch boxes, and my >> > >parents never taught us to be intolerant- my first best friend was a >> >Muslim >> > >girl, and today I have very close friends who are from Pakistan, one >>is >> > >from the Azad Kashmir (as they call it) and my father always took us >>to >> >the >> > >Dargah in the outskirts of Hyderabad. and this is no exception. there >>are >> > >tons of such cases. >> > > >> > > please kindly, do not stoke anger by constantly GENERALISING, >>applying >> > >facts that belong only to certain sections of the society to the >>Society >> >at >> > >Large. >> > > >> > > Most importantly, let us not forget where the problem arises... yes >>it >> > >is a fact, that caste based discrimination continues in this country, >> > >especially in rural areas, so also, it continues among both converted >> > >christians and muslims too... both religions which preach egalitarian >> > >treatment too all its peoples' have not been able to remove the caste >> > >discrimination which continued even after conversions... >> > > >> > > we will be able to change things, if we, each one of us, looks >>inwards >> > >at the flaws in our own individual systems and try to correct them, >> >rather >> > >than always trying to throw stones at others.... >> > > >> > > let us set our own homes in order first.... >> > > >> > > Let us try to build a nation, away from the rifts that were created >>by >> > >the Colonisers. >> > > >> > > Let us not forget that Azim Premji, shot up to the top position as >>the >> > >richest INDIAN, in this very country. >> > > >> > > If discrimination was really so much against the minority community, >> > >they would not have been seen anywhere in the public sphere, like the >>way >> > >it is with the minority communities in Pakistan or Bangladesh. >> > > >> > > Regards >> > > >> > > Saraswati.Kavula >> > > >> > > >> > >From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com >> > >To: reader-list at sarai.net, >> > >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, >> > >thestatesman at vsnl.com >> > > ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com >> > > >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >> > > >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) >> > > > >> > > > >> > > >Sir, >> > > > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path >> > >of >> > > >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims >> > >ahcievement >> > > >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful >> > >singer-actor >> > > >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired >>nice >> > > >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in >> > >the >> > > >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th >>July >> > >NDTV >> > > >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, >>to >> > > >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined >>the >> > > >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. >>I >> > >was >> > > >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the >> > >death >> > > >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels >> > >even >> > > >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference >>comes >> > >out >> > > >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has >>not >> > > >given due respect in media whereas singers >> > > > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on >> > >television >> > > >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not >> > >seen any >> > > >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. >>This >> > > >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper >>caste >> > >hindu >> > > >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian >> > >Muslim >> > > >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and >> > >deep >> > > >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is >> > >also >> > > >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope >> > >this >> > > >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. >> > > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > >--------------------------------- >> > > Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> >--------------------------------- >> >Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great >>rates >> >starting at 1�/min. >> >> >>_________________________________________ >>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 chsreen at yahoo.com Mon Aug 14 15:07:38 2006 From: chsreen at yahoo.com (sareen ch.) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:37:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media In-Reply-To: <20060813154831.68753.qmail@web36609.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060814093738.19764.qmail@web34702.mail.mud.yahoo.com> To whom so ever it may be concerned. Dear Friends I have been requesting the mainainers of this group to unsubcribe me from the list, nevertheless, after pleading for a long one year even, I dont understand, why I could not be successful in escaping from these mails. I tried all the possible ways in communicating to both the human and non-human sources that are involved in inserting me into the group, however in vain. As a person involved in several other issues I cannot make time to read the discussions goingon between the members of the sarai group. I would be very grateful to anyone of you, who takes an initiative in helping meescape these mails. Eventhough, I extende my supporting hand to any invidual or group. Warmly Sareen __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From hpp at vsnl.com Mon Aug 14 15:21:33 2006 From: hpp at vsnl.com (V Ramaswamy) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:21:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta Message-ID: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> Richard Stallman in Calcutta Today morning, I read in the newspaper about a public symposium on free software in Calcutta, on 16 August. Dr Richard Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation, will be speaking. Wow! Was I pleased! I must attend. He is one of my heroes. And now that I am blogging and self-publishing on the internet I feel even closer in spirit to Stallman. But that gladness was immediately marred by reading the name of another speaker. This is a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who is a member of the upper house of India's parliament. He is often on television. I dislike everything about him. The CPI(M) likes to be associated with and patronise "progressive" concerns and movements, and personalities. Thus, I once attended a lecture by Prof Noam Chomsky in Calcutta in 1996. Nelson Mandela was given a public reception in Calcutta in 1990. Prof Amartya Sen had been felicitated after his Nobel Prize in economics. Last year, Hugo Chavez addressed a public meeting. But having worked in slums in Howrah and Calcutta since 1996, I have been exposed to the reality of what the CPI(M) is about and like at the grassroots. This is quite sordid and ugly, and very far away from the associations with Chomsky or Stallman. It made me seethe. I decided I would attend, and when the time came for questions from the audience, I would give a scathing knock to that pathetic politician. I would say that it was most inappropriate for him to be on the same platform as Richard Stallman, as his party's conduct in the state of West Bengal, which it has ruled since 1977, demonstrated only systematic disregard of transparency; mis-information, dis-information and witholding of public information; the party has been about its own empowerment rather than people's empowerment; it has patently failed in providing basic education to the people; it has disavowed pursuit of total literacy; decentralisation has meant distribution of corruption; it has used people's ignorance and lack of information to manipulate them; and it has bred a culture of cynical middleman-ship, a form of extortion, which has seeped into the fabric of the state's people. So if Microsoft is Mr Enemy - so is Mr CPI(M), and no one should be fooled by the pathetic politician's puny pseudo-progressive platitudes. Truth must be told. The cat must be belled. The bluff must be called. The naked emperor must be exposed. But I began to wonder whether it would not be lacking in taste and grace on my part to do this, especially when Richard Stallman is a guest, and has probably been invited by some govt agency. As a citizen of Calcutta, I am proud and honoured that he is speaking at a public programme in my city. Wouldn't my sharp attack on the politician discolour such an important occasion? Could this be done gracefully? On Richard Stallman's personal home page(http://www.stallman.org/), he quotes Mahatma Gandhi: "You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul." From aliak77 at gmail.com Mon Aug 14 15:43:06 2006 From: aliak77 at gmail.com (Kath O'Donnell) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:43:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] unsubbing from sarai suggestions... Message-ID: <383607190608140313o3bb05c22s4459807fe5a61470@mail.gmail.com> maybe you could try the subscriptions page to unsub yourself & see if that works? https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list put your email address in the box next to 'unsubscribe or edit options' at the bottom of the page. then click unsubscribe on the next page and it should send you a confirmation message I haven't tried it on this list but this usually works on other mailman lists.. otherwise, try the unsubscribe command similar to the subscribe message in the footer of each email. (perhaps this is now a pipermail list and the website link is outdated?? if so try this method) > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. so to unsub, try send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with unsubscribe in the subject header. (obviously from the mail account you receive the messages on) cheers Kath On 8/14/06, sareen ch. wrote: > To whom so ever it may be concerned. > > Dear Friends > > I have been requesting the mainainers of this group to > unsubcribe me from the list, nevertheless, after > pleading for a long one year even, I dont understand, > why I could not be successful in escaping from these > mails. I tried all the possible ways in communicating > to both the human and non-human sources that are > involved in inserting me into the group, however in > vain. As a person involved in several other issues I > cannot make time to read the discussions goingon > between the members of the sarai group. I would be > very grateful to anyone of you, who takes an > initiative in helping meescape these mails. > Eventhough, I extende my supporting hand to any > invidual or group. > > Warmly > Sareen > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -- http://www.aliak.com From jassim.ali at gmail.com Mon Aug 14 11:55:09 2006 From: jassim.ali at gmail.com (Jassim Ali) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:25:09 +0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media In-Reply-To: References: <20060813154831.68753.qmail@web36609.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <271ece9c0608132325j23d51c6an152a9cfe64eca1cb@mail.gmail.com> Gimme a break ..... We all know that there are Bad Muslims just as Bad Hindus,Bad Jews,Bad Mallus,Bad Bongs,Bad Arabs, and so on and so forth... If presumably educated and logically driven individuals like us tend to get motivated by extreme propoganda and rhetorics then i guess we could forgive the hindus and the muslims for cutting eachothers throats ..... If muslims in kashmir have ethnic cleansed the pandits, then where was the central govt as well as the subsequent BJP govt when came in power ? why werent these things investigated ? Even the Godhra cant justify a state sponsored genocide that happened in gujarat ..... and i dont think 90% of my hindu brothers would disagree with me on that ..... Yes muslims do have a severe state of self-pity and anguish and have contributed to a large extent to Ghetto-ising themselves post 1857 till this date. If they arent socially mobile, they got none to blame except themselves...... Im an Indian Muslim and im working and living in middle east at present , have spent a fair amount of my time studying and working in india as well, and i mus say barring a few rare occurences i had never faced a problem. Maybe its my luck that i have been amongst some sensible people, but that doesnt means that i would sit on the sidelines and watch people spread crap and tarnish of my country . and this is not a self induced hyperbole.... jus a pissed off ranting post years of hearing crap from both the sides green and saffron cheers j On 8/14/06, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > > what happened in gujrat was very bad, no doubt but while cursing guj.cmfor > that, we should not ignore godhra, . moreover modi alone could not have > done > anything, hindus in guj. wholeheartedly supported him, provoked hindus > 'reacted'!and it was an obvious reaction.. > since gandhian days hindus have been given lot of doses of 'ahimsa'. > when it comes to muslims, psedu secularists keep their mouths shut. how > long > hindus can tolerate these things? > when babri masjid was pulled down these pseudo secularists created hue & > cry, what about those temples broken in Kashmir? > what about those kashmiri pundits, who have become refugees in their own > country? incidentlly, i am a maharashtrian married to a kashmiri > pundit.based in pune. > hindu cannot be considered as secular if he stands by another hindu but to > prove his or her secular credentials he has to support muslims may be even > those muslims who are involved in terrorist activities.- this is > secularism > in india! > > vedavati > > > > >From: saraswati > >To: Vedavati Jogi > >CC: reader-list at sarai.net, arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, > >feedback at hindustantimes.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, ttedit at abpmail.com, > >toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com, rgdj12 at yahoo.com > >Subject: RE: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:48:30 -0700 (PDT) > > > >no vedavati, > > > > i was not equating RSS with Nazis. I should have added one more thing > >may be - that all americans are not George W Bush nor are all muslims > >Terrorists or all British are and were not BAD Fellows. > > > > i was only saying that one should not generalise. I think, the problem > >occurs with generalising people and communities. > > > > I guess it is about time, we just called ourselves human beings and > >said, okay there are just may be good or bad people and many more with > >various shades of grey. > > > > it was that i wanted to say. i should have said may be all Hindus are > >not hard core fundamentalists. > > > > About the RSS - i don't know, but what we have seen in Gujarat was > >genocide done in the name of religion - people were marked and killed, > >killed by the fundamentalist forces. > > > > I do not know where you come from, but when I traveled to the North, > >especially Gujarat, (i was there just before the sorry time of march 2002 > - > >i could see the rift that was created by the works of RSS-VHP - i could > >witness the segregation of muslims by these forces) and soon after I > >returned from there - (i was in gujarat in jan 2002 and in march i hear > of > >the horrible situation). > > > >I am not at all supporting the muslim appeasement done by Gandhi, or by > the > >successive governments...but then, i don't support the hindutva brigade > >either. i believe it is about time each community did an introspection > and > >set their own house in order, rather than throwing stones at each other. > > > > it is a fact, that caste remains the bete noire of the hindu society. > >and we complain about conversions - really, i feel if hinduism was such a > >weak religion, it would have disappeared long time ago. i think on the > >contrary - i think it was one religion that never needed any kind of > >preaching. and if it must disappear - then so be it, that is the cycles > of > >time. secondly, each person has a right to follow his or her religion of > >their choice. and if they wish to convert, then it is their personal > issue. > > > > however, i donot approve the way the evangelists go on about > converting > >people - by calling names of the hindu religion. the missionaries have > all > >right to preach about their religion, but they have no right to criticize > >or degrade other people's religious beliefs or practices (which they > always > >do). > > > > similarly, the muslims in this country always cry foul and try to show > a > >wounded heart, and anything that hurts the muslims, they simply get angry > >and start blaming the system and the majority community, and the > >governments, which continue to condone an errring child. this ofcourse > was > >the reason for the rise in anti-muslim sentiments amongst the rest. they > >want to have a seperate civil code, but will they accept the rest of the > >law of the islam like in Saudi Arabia, where a rapist will be stoned or > >hanged to death, or a thief's hands are cut off? when there have been > cases > >of molestation by fathers and brothers of their own minor girl children > in > >my city, then it was all hushed up and noone spoke of these things. it is > a > >fact, that double standards exist amongst the muslims. today, they ask > for > >special reservations, but they don't send their girls to school. if they > >remained in the ghettos it was partly their own making. they do not wish > to > >acknowledge their flaws. > > > > it is the same with us, the Hindus, we have failed to uplift our own > >people, we have failed to eradicate the caste system and bring > egalitarian > >society, we treat our own people as third-rate citizens and then we say, > >they should "feel proud to be hindus" and punish them for "converting to > >other religions". we have not allowed the free flow of knowledge...and > >today we are paying the price of it. > > > > it is this that i wanted to say ...there are flaws amongst all of us. > >let us stop generalising and start to look inwards than outwards...let us > >have the courage to face the truth about ourselves and call a spade a > >spade. > > > > regards > > saraswati > > > > > >Vedavati Jogi wrote: > > saraswati, i appreciate your letter, but one thing i did not > understand. > >why > >are you equating rss with nazis? has rss ever killed any muslim just > >because > >he is a muslim? they talked against gandhiji's muslim appeasement policy > >which ultimately resulted into partition of india. nathuram happened to > be > >the member of rss but the latter had never deputed him to assasinate > >gandhi. > > > >muslims partitioned india but we don't look upon all muslims as traitors, > >same way you should not hold rss responsible for nathuram's deeds. i > >request > >you to first understand their views and then pass such type of remarks. > > > >vedavati > > > > > > >From: saraswati > > >To: > > >CC: >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > > >Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:58:22 -0700 (PDT) > > > > > >Dear Mr. Roger Das, > > > > > > I am wondering whether highlighting only certain facts will reflect > the > > >truth. > > > > > > Communalisation by media, it may be true in some quaters. if the media > > >forgetting Mohammed Rafi, equals to communalisation of Media, then what > > >does the eugolisation of Shah Rukh Khan, day in and day out, amount > to??? > > >That special episodes are made on Amir Khan and today, Saif too has > >become > > >the darling of the media. And so has his sister. And then in that case > no > > >one should be using Irfan Pathan as an advertisement Idol. Why is AR > > >Rahman, the uncrowned king of the music world - not because he is a > >Muslim, > > >but because he is the best. And let me tell you, His song, "Sat rangi > re" > > >from Dil se and "piya haji ali" are the best of his compositions > >according > > >to me. My sister used to listen to "piya haji ali" every night before > >going > > >to sleep, while she was pregnant, because she wanted her child to > imbibe > > >the spiritual feelings that come from that song. > > > > > > by the way, i am from that so-called upper caste community of > brahmins. > > > > > > Please do not make a mountain of the mole hill. It is true that > muslims > > >have been seen with suspicion due to the effects of partition in some > > >quarters. But then, so is it a fact, that most of our Bollywood big > stars > > >have been Muslims for many decades, even in days after partition, we > had > > >Suraiyya and Yousuf Khan AKA Dilip Kumar who were given a cult status > by > > >the people of this country. > > > > > > Ofcourse, Yousuf Saab, did make remarks in Pakistan against India when > > >he went to receive an honour in Pakistan, is another matter, that no > one > > >mentions. It was reported in the Week, many years ago. > > > > > > It is a fact, abberations are there. But there are two sides to the > same > > >coin. Just as all Germans are not Nazis, so are not all Hindus, RSS > > >sympathisers. > > > > > > In fact, while I was in school, we never bothered who was a hindu or > who > > >was a muslim. we all ate together from each others lunch boxes, and my > > >parents never taught us to be intolerant- my first best friend was a > >Muslim > > >girl, and today I have very close friends who are from Pakistan, one is > > >from the Azad Kashmir (as they call it) and my father always took us to > >the > > >Dargah in the outskirts of Hyderabad. and this is no exception. there > are > > >tons of such cases. > > > > > > please kindly, do not stoke anger by constantly GENERALISING, applying > > >facts that belong only to certain sections of the society to the > Society > >at > > >Large. > > > > > > Most importantly, let us not forget where the problem arises... yes it > > >is a fact, that caste based discrimination continues in this country, > > >especially in rural areas, so also, it continues among both converted > > >christians and muslims too... both religions which preach egalitarian > > >treatment too all its peoples' have not been able to remove the caste > > >discrimination which continued even after conversions... > > > > > > we will be able to change things, if we, each one of us, looks inwards > > >at the flaws in our own individual systems and try to correct them, > >rather > > >than always trying to throw stones at others.... > > > > > > let us set our own homes in order first.... > > > > > > Let us try to build a nation, away from the rifts that were created by > > >the Colonisers. > > > > > > Let us not forget that Azim Premji, shot up to the top position as the > > >richest INDIAN, in this very country. > > > > > > If discrimination was really so much against the minority community, > > >they would not have been seen anywhere in the public sphere, like the > way > > >it is with the minority communities in Pakistan or Bangladesh. > > > > > > Regards > > > > > > Saraswati.Kavula > > > > > > > > >From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com > > >To: reader-list at sarai.net, > > >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, > > >thestatesman at vsnl.com > > > ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com > > > >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > > > >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) > > > > > > > > > > > >Sir, > > > > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path > > >of > > > >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims > > >ahcievement > > > >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful > > >singer-actor > > > >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired nice > > > >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in > > >the > > > >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th > July > > >NDTV > > > >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, > to > > > >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined > the > > > >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. > I > > >was > > > >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the > > >death > > > >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels > > >even > > > >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference > comes > > >out > > > >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has > not > > > >given due respect in media whereas singers > > > > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on > > >television > > > >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not > > >seen any > > > >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. This > > > >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper caste > > >hindu > > > >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian > > >Muslim > > > >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and > > >deep > > > >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is > > >also > > > >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope > > >this > > > >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >--------------------------------- > > > Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. > > > > > > > > > > > >--------------------------------- > >Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great > rates > >starting at 1¢/min. > > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > subscribe in the subject header. > List archive: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/6f3afea8/attachment.html From shahzulf at yahoo.com Mon Aug 14 12:59:13 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 00:29:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Little to rejoice on Independence Day: Benazir Message-ID: <20060814072913.76199.qmail@web38807.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Little to rejoice on Independence Day: Benazir ISLAMABAD, Aug 13: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto has said the nation has little to rejoice on the country’s 59th Independence Day as “a handful of adventurers have hijacked the country, its constitution and its institutions”. “Pakistan was supposed to be a state in which everyone was equal before law in accordance with the principles of Islam and all civilised societies. Unfortunately a handful of generals who have seized the state apparatus have placed themselves above the law and the Constitution,” she lamented in a statement released by her party on Sunday. Ms Bhutto blamed President Gen Pervez Musharraf for all the ills she saw in the country. “Citizens disappear mysteriously as state agencies kidnap them with impunity. Stinking corruption at the top level, worsening law and order situation, erosion of vital state institutions, the hounding of genuine leaders of people and denying the citizens their right to freely choose their representatives has undermined people’s faith,” she said. “A few powerful individuals have hijacked economic opportunities. Poor people are committing suicides due to joblessness and poverty as the rulers continue to grab lands, engage in loot and plunder.—Our Reporter Daily Dawn, August 14 http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/14/nat2.htm --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/3cea0419/attachment.html From shahzulf at yahoo.com Mon Aug 14 13:00:45 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 00:30:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] PPP demands panel to probe 'disappearances' Message-ID: <20060814073045.66390.qmail@web38804.mail.mud.yahoo.com> PPP demands panel to probe 'disappearances' By Shahid Hussain, Correspondent Islamabad: A major opposition party yesterday demanded the government set up a panel to probe the alleged detention of a large number of citizens by intelligence agencies without following legal procedures. In a statement, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) spokesman Farhatullah Babar said reports suggested nearly 800 people had been picked by the agencies during the past five years. The party expressed grave concern over the "mysterious disappearance" of the citizens. "It is a national disgrace that increasing number of citizens of the state not only vanish without a trace, but their disappearances are greeted with deafening silence by the state agencies," Babar said. Citing some cases, he said brothers of Baloch senators Sanaullah Baloch and Shahid Bugti were recently kidnapped. Educationist Masood Ahmad Janjua had been missing since July 30 last year and Dr Aafia Sidiqui disappeared three years ago, the spokesman said. Babar said nuclear scientist Attiqur Rehman disappeared on his wedding day two years ago from Abbottabad and Dr Safdar Sarki of Jeay Sindh, the President of the Sindh Nationalist Forum Asif Baladi and the head of a private TV channel Munir Mengal had also "recently joined the long list of mysteriously disappeared". The spokesman said that innocence or guilt can be established only in a court of law and not by intelligence agencies. "The Human Rights Committees of the Senate and the National Assembly should jointly take up the issue and set up an independent commission to investigate the growing number of disappeared citizens in Pakistan," he said. Babar said it is disturbing that the Ministry of Defence had taken the position in courts that it exercised only administrative control over the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence. http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/08/10/10058925.html The Gulf News, UAE --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/7f93453e/attachment.html From jassim.ali at gmail.com Mon Aug 14 14:28:37 2006 From: jassim.ali at gmail.com (Jassim Ali) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:58:37 +0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media In-Reply-To: References: <271ece9c0608132325j23d51c6an152a9cfe64eca1cb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <271ece9c0608140158q54c83427u86802958573fb90b@mail.gmail.com> Agree that we should see through the facade ....... And im doing (or rather trying to... ) my part...... But im afraid that i see a lot of prejudice both in the minds of Muslims as well as Hindus and lets accept that basic reality rather than ascribing it to one community alone...... regarding in 1989, bjp was not the ruling party, by the time kashmir problem started third front had taken over. moreover, i am not a bjp spokes person, nor i am justifying gujrat carnage , but i sincerely feel that pseudo secular thoughts & acts are responsible for hindu-muslim rift and unfortunately poor muslims are at receiving end. after guj. happenings & before assembly elections in guj. i had visited one exhibition of gujrati dress materials in pune, out of curiosity i asked many traders about guj. riots. one of them said, 'what modi saab has done nobody else has done that for we hindus in india. just see what happens in election.' others nodded. i was stunned. The BJP was and still is interested in its own political agenda .... Jus checkout wether they have worked more on the Bofors and the Sonia-Italian Issue or on the Kashmiri Pandit issue ... Trust your senses to come up with the answer ....... Our Great leader here ....is more interested in getting his pics taken and stickers stamped on food packets given out by relief workers (incidentally not from the saffron brigades ) ......... and we all know what he did and how he's won his election ...... and the fact that we are discussing the opinion of a cloth trader and take it as the Mass Opinion brings us back to square one ... besides whatever MODI-fications and TOGADI-fication have happened they have hardly made gujarat nor the rest of India safer for the hindus.... ask yourself ? Have they ? hasnt akshardham and mumbai and delhi blasts happened ? Let me know when ethnic cleansing has solved a problem ..... and that day i would happily quit advertising and join the guys with a trishul/AK 47 in hands.... cheers , j On 8/14/06, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > > If muslims in kashmir have ethnic cleansed the pandits, then where was the > central govt as well as the subsequent BJP govt when came in power ? why > werent these things investigated ? > > ...................... > > dear mr. jassim, > > in 1989, bjp was not the ruling party, by the time kashmir problem started > third front had taken over. > > moreover, i am not a bjp spokes person, nor i am justifying gujrat > carnage > , but i sincerely feel that pseudo secular thoughts & acts are responsible > for hindu-muslim rift and unfortunately poor muslims are at receiving end. > > after guj. happenings & before assembly elections in guj. i had visited > one > exhibition of gujrati dress materials in pune, out of curiosity i asked > many > traders about guj. riots. one of them said, 'what modi saab has done > nobody > else has done that for we hindus in india. just see what happens in > election.' others nodded. i was stunned. > > pseudo secularists and people like abu azmi remain safe and poor muslims > have to bear the brunt. is it a secularism? mr. jassim, politicians are > always playing minority card, 'divide & rule' is their policy. now muslims > like you have to take initiative & show these politicians their > place. can > you do that? > > > > > >From: "Jassim Ali" > >To: "Vedavati Jogi" > >CC: s_kavula at yahoo.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, editor at ibnlive.com, > >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, > >feedback at hindustantimes.com, reader-list at sarai.net, ttedit at abpmail.com > >Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:25:09 +0400 > > > >Gimme a break ..... > > > >We all know that there are Bad Muslims just as Bad Hindus,Bad Jews,Bad > >Mallus,Bad Bongs,Bad Arabs, and so on and so forth... > >If presumably educated and logically driven individuals like us tend to > get > >motivated by extreme propoganda and rhetorics then i guess we could > forgive > >the hindus and the muslims for cutting eachothers throats ..... > > > >If muslims in kashmir have ethnic cleansed the pandits, then where was > the > >central govt as well as the subsequent BJP govt when came in power ? why > >werent these things investigated ? > > > >Even the Godhra cant justify a state sponsored genocide that happened in > >gujarat ..... > >and i dont think 90% of my hindu brothers would disagree with me on that > >..... > > > >Yes muslims do have a severe state of self-pity and anguish and have > >contributed to a large extent to Ghetto-ising themselves post 1857 till > >this > >date. > >If they arent socially mobile, they got none to blame except > >themselves...... > > > >Im an Indian Muslim and im working and living in middle east at present , > >have spent a fair amount of my time studying and working in india as > well, > >and i mus say barring a few rare occurences i had never faced a problem. > >Maybe its my luck that i have been amongst some sensible people, but that > >doesnt means that i would sit on the sidelines and watch people spread > crap > >and tarnish of my country . > > > >and this is not a self induced hyperbole.... > >jus a pissed off ranting post years of hearing crap from both the sides > >green and saffron > > > >cheers > >j > > > > > > > >On 8/14/06, Vedavati Jogi wrote: > >> > >>what happened in gujrat was very bad, no doubt but while cursing > guj.cmfor > >>that, we should not ignore godhra, . moreover modi alone could not have > >>done > >>anything, hindus in guj. wholeheartedly supported him, provoked hindus > >>'reacted'!and it was an obvious reaction.. > >>since gandhian days hindus have been given lot of doses of 'ahimsa'. > >>when it comes to muslims, psedu secularists keep their mouths shut. how > >>long > >>hindus can tolerate these things? > >>when babri masjid was pulled down these pseudo secularists created hue & > >>cry, what about those temples broken in Kashmir? > >>what about those kashmiri pundits, who have become refugees in their own > >>country? incidentlly, i am a maharashtrian married to a kashmiri > >>pundit.based in pune. > >>hindu cannot be considered as secular if he stands by another hindu but > to > >>prove his or her secular credentials he has to support muslims may be > even > >>those muslims who are involved in terrorist activities.- this is > >>secularism > >>in india! > >> > >>vedavati > >> > >> > >> > >> >From: saraswati > >> >To: Vedavati Jogi > >> >CC: reader-list at sarai.net, arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, > >> >feedback at hindustantimes.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, ttedit at abpmail.com > , > >> >toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com, rgdj12 at yahoo.com > >> >Subject: RE: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >> >Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:48:30 -0700 (PDT) > >> > > >> >no vedavati, > >> > > >> > i was not equating RSS with Nazis. I should have added one more > >>thing > >> >may be - that all americans are not George W Bush nor are all muslims > >> >Terrorists or all British are and were not BAD Fellows. > >> > > >> > i was only saying that one should not generalise. I think, the > >>problem > >> >occurs with generalising people and communities. > >> > > >> > I guess it is about time, we just called ourselves human beings and > >> >said, okay there are just may be good or bad people and many more with > >> >various shades of grey. > >> > > >> > it was that i wanted to say. i should have said may be all Hindus > are > >> >not hard core fundamentalists. > >> > > >> > About the RSS - i don't know, but what we have seen in Gujarat was > >> >genocide done in the name of religion - people were marked and killed, > >> >killed by the fundamentalist forces. > >> > > >> > I do not know where you come from, but when I traveled to the > North, > >> >especially Gujarat, (i was there just before the sorry time of march > >>2002 > >>- > >> >i could see the rift that was created by the works of RSS-VHP - i > could > >> >witness the segregation of muslims by these forces) and soon after I > >> >returned from there - (i was in gujarat in jan 2002 and in march i > hear > >>of > >> >the horrible situation). > >> > > >> >I am not at all supporting the muslim appeasement done by Gandhi, or > by > >>the > >> >successive governments...but then, i don't support the hindutva > brigade > >> >either. i believe it is about time each community did an introspection > >>and > >> >set their own house in order, rather than throwing stones at each > other. > >> > > >> > it is a fact, that caste remains the bete noire of the hindu > society. > >> >and we complain about conversions - really, i feel if hinduism was > such > >>a > >> >weak religion, it would have disappeared long time ago. i think on the > >> >contrary - i think it was one religion that never needed any kind of > >> >preaching. and if it must disappear - then so be it, that is the > cycles > >>of > >> >time. secondly, each person has a right to follow his or her religion > of > >> >their choice. and if they wish to convert, then it is their personal > >>issue. > >> > > >> > however, i donot approve the way the evangelists go on about > >>converting > >> >people - by calling names of the hindu religion. the missionaries have > >>all > >> >right to preach about their religion, but they have no right to > >>criticize > >> >or degrade other people's religious beliefs or practices (which they > >>always > >> >do). > >> > > >> > similarly, the muslims in this country always cry foul and try to > >>show > >>a > >> >wounded heart, and anything that hurts the muslims, they simply get > >>angry > >> >and start blaming the system and the majority community, and the > >> >governments, which continue to condone an errring child. this ofcourse > >>was > >> >the reason for the rise in anti-muslim sentiments amongst the rest. > they > >> >want to have a seperate civil code, but will they accept the rest of > the > >> >law of the islam like in Saudi Arabia, where a rapist will be stoned > or > >> >hanged to death, or a thief's hands are cut off? when there have been > >>cases > >> >of molestation by fathers and brothers of their own minor girl > children > >>in > >> >my city, then it was all hushed up and noone spoke of these things. it > >>is > >>a > >> >fact, that double standards exist amongst the muslims. today, they ask > >>for > >> >special reservations, but they don't send their girls to school. if > they > >> >remained in the ghettos it was partly their own making. they do not > wish > >>to > >> >acknowledge their flaws. > >> > > >> > it is the same with us, the Hindus, we have failed to uplift our > own > >> >people, we have failed to eradicate the caste system and bring > >>egalitarian > >> >society, we treat our own people as third-rate citizens and then we > say, > >> >they should "feel proud to be hindus" and punish them for "converting > to > >> >other religions". we have not allowed the free flow of knowledge...and > >> >today we are paying the price of it. > >> > > >> > it is this that i wanted to say ...there are flaws amongst all of > us. > >> >let us stop generalising and start to look inwards than outwards...let > >>us > >> >have the courage to face the truth about ourselves and call a spade a > >> >spade. > >> > > >> > regards > >> > saraswati > >> > > >> > > >> >Vedavati Jogi wrote: > >> > saraswati, i appreciate your letter, but one thing i did not > >>understand. > >> >why > >> >are you equating rss with nazis? has rss ever killed any muslim just > >> >because > >> >he is a muslim? they talked against gandhiji's muslim appeasement > policy > >> >which ultimately resulted into partition of india. nathuram happened > to > >>be > >> >the member of rss but the latter had never deputed him to assasinate > >> >gandhi. > >> > > >> >muslims partitioned india but we don't look upon all muslims as > >>traitors, > >> >same way you should not hold rss responsible for nathuram's deeds. i > >> >request > >> >you to first understand their views and then pass such type of > remarks. > >> > > >> >vedavati > >> > > >> > > >> > >From: saraswati > >> > >To: > >> > >CC: >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >> > >Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:58:22 -0700 (PDT) > >> > > > >> > >Dear Mr. Roger Das, > >> > > > >> > > I am wondering whether highlighting only certain facts will reflect > >>the > >> > >truth. > >> > > > >> > > Communalisation by media, it may be true in some quaters. if the > >>media > >> > >forgetting Mohammed Rafi, equals to communalisation of Media, then > >>what > >> > >does the eugolisation of Shah Rukh Khan, day in and day out, amount > >>to??? > >> > >That special episodes are made on Amir Khan and today, Saif too has > >> >become > >> > >the darling of the media. And so has his sister. And then in that > case > >>no > >> > >one should be using Irfan Pathan as an advertisement Idol. Why is AR > >> > >Rahman, the uncrowned king of the music world - not because he is a > >> >Muslim, > >> > >but because he is the best. And let me tell you, His song, "Sat > rangi > >>re" > >> > >from Dil se and "piya haji ali" are the best of his compositions > >> >according > >> > >to me. My sister used to listen to "piya haji ali" every night > before > >> >going > >> > >to sleep, while she was pregnant, because she wanted her child to > >>imbibe > >> > >the spiritual feelings that come from that song. > >> > > > >> > > by the way, i am from that so-called upper caste community of > >>brahmins. > >> > > > >> > > Please do not make a mountain of the mole hill. It is true that > >>muslims > >> > >have been seen with suspicion due to the effects of partition in > some > >> > >quarters. But then, so is it a fact, that most of our Bollywood big > >>stars > >> > >have been Muslims for many decades, even in days after partition, we > >>had > >> > >Suraiyya and Yousuf Khan AKA Dilip Kumar who were given a cult > status > >>by > >> > >the people of this country. > >> > > > >> > > Ofcourse, Yousuf Saab, did make remarks in Pakistan against India > >>when > >> > >he went to receive an honour in Pakistan, is another matter, that no > >>one > >> > >mentions. It was reported in the Week, many years ago. > >> > > > >> > > It is a fact, abberations are there. But there are two sides to the > >>same > >> > >coin. Just as all Germans are not Nazis, so are not all Hindus, RSS > >> > >sympathisers. > >> > > > >> > > In fact, while I was in school, we never bothered who was a hindu > or > >>who > >> > >was a muslim. we all ate together from each others lunch boxes, and > my > >> > >parents never taught us to be intolerant- my first best friend was a > >> >Muslim > >> > >girl, and today I have very close friends who are from Pakistan, one > >>is > >> > >from the Azad Kashmir (as they call it) and my father always took us > >>to > >> >the > >> > >Dargah in the outskirts of Hyderabad. and this is no exception. > there > >>are > >> > >tons of such cases. > >> > > > >> > > please kindly, do not stoke anger by constantly GENERALISING, > >>applying > >> > >facts that belong only to certain sections of the society to the > >>Society > >> >at > >> > >Large. > >> > > > >> > > Most importantly, let us not forget where the problem arises... yes > >>it > >> > >is a fact, that caste based discrimination continues in this > country, > >> > >especially in rural areas, so also, it continues among both > converted > >> > >christians and muslims too... both religions which preach > egalitarian > >> > >treatment too all its peoples' have not been able to remove the > caste > >> > >discrimination which continued even after conversions... > >> > > > >> > > we will be able to change things, if we, each one of us, looks > >>inwards > >> > >at the flaws in our own individual systems and try to correct them, > >> >rather > >> > >than always trying to throw stones at others.... > >> > > > >> > > let us set our own homes in order first.... > >> > > > >> > > Let us try to build a nation, away from the rifts that were created > >>by > >> > >the Colonisers. > >> > > > >> > > Let us not forget that Azim Premji, shot up to the top position as > >>the > >> > >richest INDIAN, in this very country. > >> > > > >> > > If discrimination was really so much against the minority > community, > >> > >they would not have been seen anywhere in the public sphere, like > the > >>way > >> > >it is with the minority communities in Pakistan or Bangladesh. > >> > > > >> > > Regards > >> > > > >> > > Saraswati.Kavula > >> > > > >> > > > >> > >From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com > >> > >To: reader-list at sarai.net, > >> > >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, > >> > >thestatesman at vsnl.com > >> > > ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com > >> > > >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >> > > >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) > >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > >Sir, > >> > > > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path > >> > >of > >> > > >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims > >> > >ahcievement > >> > > >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful > >> > >singer-actor > >> > > >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired > >>nice > >> > > >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme > in > >> > >the > >> > > >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th > >>July > >> > >NDTV > >> > > >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music > composer, > >>to > >> > > >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined > >>the > >> > > >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. > Rafi. > >>I > >> > >was > >> > > >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the > >> > >death > >> > > >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news > channels > >> > >even > >> > > >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference > >>comes > >> > >out > >> > > >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has > >>not > >> > > >given due respect in media whereas singers > >> > > > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on > >> > >television > >> > > >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not > >> > >seen any > >> > > >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. > >>This > >> > > >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper > >>caste > >> > >hindu > >> > > >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian > >> > >Muslim > >> > > >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new > and > >> > >deep > >> > > >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media > is > >> > >also > >> > > >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope > >> > >this > >> > > >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > >--------------------------------- > >> > > Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> >--------------------------------- > >> >Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great > >>rates > >> >starting at 1�/min. > >> > >> > >>_________________________________________ > >>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: > > > -- -- Jassim Ali Revolutionist / Poet/ Manager / Prisoner / Escape-artist / Acrobat / Weaver / Rain Maker / Bio-scope Wallah ! Strategic Planning & Business Development OMD Digital Al Thuraya Tower, 19th Floor Dubai Media City PO Box 121428, Dubai, UAE Mobile: +97150 3425980 Telephone: +9714 360 4182 (direct) Facsimile: +9714 36 88 230 Website : www.omd.com Blog: www.tefloncoatedyuppie.blogspot.com "Those that danced were thought mad by those who could not hear the music" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/bb85aa70/attachment.html From aasim27 at yahoo.co.in Mon Aug 14 14:35:05 2006 From: aasim27 at yahoo.co.in (aasim khan) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:05:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] 'A Letter from 18 Writers' Message-ID: <20060814090505.453.qmail@web8705.mail.in.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: aasim Subject: 'A Letter from 18 Writers' from The Nation Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:08:24 -0400 Size: 3870 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/446c991a/attachment.mht From avinashcold at gmail.com Mon Aug 14 15:22:39 2006 From: avinashcold at gmail.com (Avinash Kumar) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:22:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Deewan] SARAI posting In-Reply-To: <20060810184919.2532.qmail@webmail69.rediffmail.com> References: <20060810184919.2532.qmail@webmail69.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: Dear Kamal, Thanks for your detailed reply and apologies for late posting as I have not been checking my mails regularly. Am taking your three broad assertions for response, some of which actually continue from the previous mails. 1. still I think the picture is much more complex as, here too,its mostly chance which use to play an important role in solving a case than the rationale of detection. It would perhaps demand a long essay once again to discuss the meritocracy debate between 'chance' and 'detection' yet, i would merely like to revisit some of the specific contexts within which this genre appears in both west and east...and this is merely to do a loud thinking ... In the west, as we know, it specifically arose as one of the genres just like 'positivist hitoriography' to assert the 'rational, causation theory' which formed the bedrock of the 'modern, scientific method' of enquiry; its self-affirmed belief which almost defined the 'new west'. On a specific level, Holmes' investigations into the labyrinthine, mysterious streets of London were also an acknowledgement of the kind of unfathomable challenges a newly developing 'urban civilisation' was posing before the west itself. The art of 'detection' tried to do both, to unravel these mysteries through a 'methodology' (still evolving though) which was seen as the only way out. In the colonially subjugated contries like India, where perhaps it was still too early to fully be aware of all the contours of this rationalist enquiry, esp. when the context was quite different, I think the very first question that fascinates me is the amazing popularity that this genre received and that too in all its myriad forms, from the translations of extremely popular novels like 'Mysteries of the court of London' ('Landan Rahasya)- little known in its own land of birth though, to Khatri's so-called pseudo-scientific tilismi world of adventures (which very soon came under severe attacks from those advocating 'realism' like Guleri) to those pretending as the 'classic' of the genre like the ones written by Gahmari. In fact, Gahmari himself has a range of all of this. In this context, and this relates to your second point in my response, i.e. the presence of/ resistance against, colonial authority: 2.''Apart from Khatri we have lots more from other known and less known writers who do undermine or remained silent towards the reality/ies of the colonial present in their own particular ways.'' my assertion once again would be that in no way you could 'remain silent' towards colonial authority, not after 1857 which was still fresh and the myriad ways in which this authority was making its inroads in each and every nook and cranny of the vast hinterlands even though symbolically through a 'chowkidar' if not daroga...Yes, the debate could be around the way in which one 'negotiates' (sorry, but its my favourite word!) this presence..In fact, the way you have discussed this vis-a-vis 'Bhayankar Jasoos' reminds me of the ways in which Rajendra Yadav has discussed 'Chandrakanta' and that brings me back to your first point, ie 'chance vs detection'...It is Yadav's observation that in order to negotiate, undermine, call whatever you like, the colonial presence, the form of Khatri's 'chandrakanta' is what it is, that of a curoius combination of older stories borrowed from Persian tales of 'Dastan-e-Amir Hamza' and that of newly emerging 'technological prowess' of the 'scientific west'...Khatri makes use of all these tools to battle the colonial might, as it were where in fact it has no direct presence. But that's precisely my point, even where it might not have a direct role in the narrative doesn't mean state is not present! Yes, 'chance' is there, but to what end and to what purpose? Do we simply see it as a marker of 'oriental identity' and leave it at that? Or do we explore this further in terms of contemporary writers' difficulty in comprehending the art of scientific detection itself? An associated question with its immense popularity would be why does it peter out by late colonial period to remerge later of course? Also, what about its presence in Urdu literature? Ibn-e-safi BA is still on the shelves of many conossieurs, lets look at that as well. What I am trying to plead here is to look into the way the form has evolved over these years and it has not remained fossilised into any one slot... As for your third point with respect to Jati, esp. Gahmari's rajput heroes, 3.Could we say that like the discourse of criminality it also confirms the colonial stereotype. Or Its so because of some deep rooted structures? Or is it a sign of fractured colonial modernity? I can only say that yes, it does have a strong bearing of the colonial discourse on criminality on one hand and that of caste on the other..Just to illustrate, it would be important to refer to Kitchener-Curzon debate here on 'martial races theory', which included Sikhs and Rajputs, esp. those who had helped the Britishers retain their Raj in 1857. Yes, the valorisation to a great extent I would say also comes from this. I hope I have made some sense in attempting to understand this really enriching world of hindi detective fiction... a On 10 Aug 2006 18:49:19 -0000, Kamal Kumar Mishra wrote: > > > Dear Avinash, > Thanks a lot for your comments and suggestion. I thought I was > careful enough not to simplify or give a misleading picture while I was > responding to the queries of Andrew regarding the uses of fingerprints and > 'aspects of bio power' as it appear in these hindi detective fictions. To > avoid such confusions I have been using words like 'mostly' n 'often' and > not 'always'. > > By the way I am thankful to you for bringing the complexity of subject in > for a discussion .I think I have nothing much to say about the uses of > fingerprints as you also agree that we don't see it even in the texts of > Gahmari. > > Gopal Ram Gahmari is a very important hindi detective fiction writer thus > he requires special attention. Though I agree what you say about the > characteristic feature of the novels of Gopal Ram Gahmari ,regarding a keen > and detailed analysis of crime scene still I think the picture is much more > complex as, here too,its mostly chance which use to play an important role > in solving a case than the rationale of detection. > > Pursuing a few issues a bit further such as the question of jati in the > novels of Gahmari and all pervasive nature of colonial authority might not > only help us understand Gahmari's works better but it could also be of some > interest. > > As far as my reading of Gahmari is concerned ,I would like to ask why is > it so that most of the 'original' detectives of Gahmari a part from Md. > Sarwar are rajputs? ( for deciding what is his original and what is not I am > using one of Gahmari's own account where he gives the full list of his > original ,translated and adapted works and he claims Md Sarwar to be one of > his original creation) For example Sujan Singh,Sanwal Singh, Deven Singh > ,Roshan Singh,Diler Singh and all .Does it have any thing to do with the > idea of 'jawanmardi' or 'bahaduri' attached to rajputs or its just a > co-incidence? Or how should one look at this? > > > Could we say that like the discourse of criminality it also confirms the > colonial stereotype. Or Its so because of some deep rooted structures? Or is > it a sign of fractured colonial modernity? > > "EK POLICE ADHIKARI KI ATMKATHA" by Vishwanath Lahiri though confirms the > important position of local police officers, like DAROGA, it also helps me > ask- with what set of values do these local officers(mostly Indians ) use to > operate? > > And above all what about the texts (jasoosi of course)which are direct > descendents of tilasmi n ayyari tradition of kissagoi.Its mostly in these > texts ,produced throughout in a considerable number we don't find the > presence of colonial authority and even if its there its undermined as in > 'BHYANKAR JASOOS' by Ram Chandra Singh (Rachit),gullu prasad > kedarnath,Benaras city, 1935. > > In 'Bhayankar Jasoos', Daroga Tedhai Khan has been murderd by Shyama ,when > she is on her way to search her husband and Tedhai Khan, who has been > portrayed as nutfe haram(a born illegitimate ), tries to rape her. After > this murder Shyama manages to escape and reaches to Usha Rani,her close > friend who is married to a rich Bengali Rajnikant Mukherjee.Both the > husband and wife tries to console her and say there is nothing wrong in > killing someone while defending one's dharma( stri dharma here of course) > and later they decide to inform another friend Bina > > who is, "ek bahut chalak sakhi hai dooje wah fan ayyari men nipun aur > sujan hai .yon to hum log bhi kisi se kam nahin hain lekin wah hamjolion men > sab se gunagar hai." > > As a consequence what we encounter is this long tussle going on between > both of these groups, the detectives (in fact they are ayyars more than > jasoos in any modern sense)of colonial state on the one hand who are trying > to catch the murderer of Daroga as well as her companions and Bina and > Shyama and co. on the other , using their magical powers in this struggle. > > > What strikes most to a reader like me is the character of 'jungali Raza'(a > tribal king) who has been portrayed ,sympathetically, as a powerful > character and with his magical powers, like his control over the wild > animals, tries ho help Bina. And here he comes in a direct confrontation > with the colonial state/authority. > > Animals can fly and these ayyars/jasoos could transform themselves into > animals. Nothing is impossible -of course- in this world of novel where > there is enough space for such imagination. > > Finally ,the all mighty colonial state had to bow-down. Colonial > authorities had to accept the request of setting a special court of hearing > in this matter . where Shyama and her friends would not only be acquitted > but would be awarded with other jassos for their bravery. > In his jasoosi faisla writer says- > "aap donon dalon ka yahi kartvya tha .jo ki apne apne kala-kaushal > ko ek doosre ke tain khadyantra rach kar upanyas ke premi rasik janon > ko sarvada ke liye ek accha rasta nikala jise padh kar upanyas ke > anugami bane rahenge" > > We also have in this very line the novels written by Devaki Nandan Khatri, > for ex-Narendra Mohini , to name just one ,where one can read the presence > of colonial modernity only between the lines. Apart from Khatri we have lots > more from other known and less known writers who do undermine or remained > silent towards the reality/ies of the colonial present in their own > particular ways. > > > > > I am not sure if that is what you meant by investigation for negotiations > and renegotiations of these different roles? > > > regards! > > kamal > > > On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 Avinash Kumar wrote : > >Dear Kamal, > > > >Sorry for butting in without a legitimate ground. Nevertheless thought, I > >would give my two cents.I haven't read too many early detective fictions > in > >Hindi, so it goes with a caveat. > > > >One of the most famous stories by Gopalram Gahmari, 'Malgodam mein Chori' > is > >a stark example of the way the 'modern, rational' practices of detection > >methodology were sought to be acknowledged. As I remember clearly, even > >though it does not talk of finger print, it talks of a 'keen, detailed' > >analysis of the crime scene and not merely remains dependent on 'chance', > >though, that as you correctly say, remained a principal feature in a lot > of > >fiction of that period. > >What is further interesting in that piece is that, even as the crime has > >happened somewhere in Bihar (i forget where, perhaps gaya), the detective > >called into investigate is from Calcutta, the signifier for a 'modern > city' > >and who speaks with an English accent despite being a Bengali. Of course, > >how he blends in with the local landscape singing popular Braj poetry > while > >doing his job, is another matter to investigate. > > > >Second, in another novel of Gahmari, I forget the title right now and the > >Shivpujan Sahay classic , 'Dehati Duniya', Jati is very prominent as once > >again rightly pointed out by you. Yet, I would see it still as a result > of > >the very presence of colonial discourse of criminality, which fixated > >certain castes, tribes under the labels of criminality. Even, the colour, > >physical attributes etc as a criterion, came under the same phenomenon > >largely. We are now replete with studies around this theme. > > > >On the other hand, the role of daroga, the local police is so predominant > in > >these stories (and not only in these two works I am talking of) that the > >picture you get is that villages are vacated en masse with the news of > >arrival of the local 'daroga'. In this sense, what I would assert is > given > >the context, whether as a pseudo-detective posing as a city-bred man like > >Holmes or as a daroga, the colonial state is omnipresent in these > >narratives. What then is worth investigating is how they are > renegotiating > >these different roles... > > > >Sorry, for this long mail but this, as I said is an instant reaction with > a > >very limited knowledge of the subject... > > > >thanks, > > > >avinash > > > >On 7 Aug 2006 16:42:33 -0000, Kamal Kumar Mishra < > kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com> > >wrote: > >> > >> Dear ANDREW, > >> Thousands apologies for not answering to your mail for soooo > >>long,today when i was clearing my mail account i noticed this blunder i > have > >>done,i am extremely sorry!!! > >> True as you say the relationship between crime and detective is > >>closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting in most of the > cases...but > >>you might find it surprising that in Hindi detective ficttions this > link is > >>mostly absent. > >> > >>Hindi deteective fictions have a few peculiar characteristics par > >>example-1) there might not be a single detective and this function might > be > >>performed by many people or 2) detective need not use modern or rational > >>techniques to solve a mystry, role of chance is often crucial in solving > a > >>case. > >>Thus one hardly finds this clue and puzzle type in hindi detective > >>fictions. > >> I have not come across a single piece translated ,adapted,or original > >>where (here i am talking about the early hindi detective fictons from > >>1900-1940's) a detective solves a case with the help of > >>fingerprints.Though, one may find examples of foot prints, as a clue, > but > >>not so elaborate either. > >> > >>THEN what we have are discourse of criminality mostly based on > >>jati(caste)n lakchana (physical attributes n morality) where colonial > state > >>is often absent in these popular fictions. > >>hope you find it interesting enough...with apologies again > >>warm regards!!! > >>kamal > >> > >> > >>On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 Andrew MacDonald wrote : > >> >Hi Kamal.. > >> > > >> > Nice to see your posting on SARAI and your research..I'm a post-grad > >>history student based at Duban, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South > Africa. I > >>just thought, tangentially, since I have just finished reading it > myself, > >>The book Imprint of the Raj - how fingerprinting was born in Colonial > India. > >>Maybe you have seen it already, but the relationship between crime and > >>detectives is closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting (which > was > >>only then becoming the kind of embryonic, precocious state project we > now > >>take for granted). I wonder if their is much in the Hindi literature on > this > >>topic? It would be quite interesting... > >> > I have worked/am working on aspects of biopower (to sound > foucauldian, > >>though i have some real problems with his arguments), concerned less > with > >>literature but more with labour and immigration in colonial South > Africa).. > >> > > >> > Anway, thought I would put my two cents worth in.. > >> > > >> > Andrew > >> > > >> > > >> >--------------------------------- > >> >To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new > >>Yahoo! Security Centre. > >> > >> > >> > >>< > http://adworks.rediff.com/cgi-bin/AdWorks/sigclick.cgi/www.rediff.com/signature-home.htm/1507191490 at Middle5?PARTNER=3 > > > >> > >>_______________________________________________ > >>Deewan mailing list > >>Deewan at mail.sarai.net > >>http://mail.sarai.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/deewan > >> > >> > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/fcb9c0a1/attachment.html From z at zerosofzeta.com Mon Aug 14 17:15:22 2006 From: z at zerosofzeta.com (Yogi) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 17:15:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> Message-ID: <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> So I met Stallman last year.. and I think he is the kind of person who would relaly enjoy it if you question the govt. in front of him.. I would say even bring along a video camera and ask someone to tape the session while you are questioning the CPM(I) leaders.. and later maybe you can hand it to some news channel. on a different note.... I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about India and its large number of programmers; open source movement in india is non-existant. This is a sign that all these programmer are nothing more than coding monkeys.. who do not understand anything more than whats immediately before their eyes. Even some of my so called smart IIT friends still think that Microsoft is the greatest thing which has happened to india, because they brought computing the common people... but I ask them ... at what cost? A cage is a cage... even if its made out of gold. I think Indian government needs to ban the use of proprietary software from all educational institutes. On 8/14/06, V Ramaswamy wrote: > Richard Stallman in Calcutta > > Today morning, I read in the newspaper about a public symposium on free > software in Calcutta, on 16 August. Dr Richard Stallman, president of the > Free Software Foundation, will be speaking. > > Wow! Was I pleased! I must attend. He is one of my heroes. And now that I am > blogging and self-publishing on the internet I feel even closer in spirit to > Stallman. > > But that gladness was immediately marred by reading the name of another > speaker. This is a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who is > a member of the upper house of India's parliament. He is often on > television. I dislike everything about him. > > The CPI(M) likes to be associated with and patronise "progressive" concerns > and movements, and personalities. Thus, I once attended a lecture by Prof > Noam Chomsky in Calcutta in 1996. Nelson Mandela was given a public > reception in Calcutta in 1990. Prof Amartya Sen had been felicitated after > his Nobel Prize in economics. Last year, Hugo Chavez addressed a public > meeting. > > But having worked in slums in Howrah and Calcutta since 1996, I have been > exposed to the reality of what the CPI(M) is about and like at the > grassroots. This is quite sordid and ugly, and very far away from the > associations with Chomsky or Stallman. > > It made me seethe. I decided I would attend, and when the time came for > questions from the audience, I would give a scathing knock to that pathetic > politician. I would say that it was most inappropriate for him to be on the > same platform as Richard Stallman, as his party's conduct in the state of > West Bengal, which it has ruled since 1977, demonstrated only systematic > disregard of transparency; mis-information, dis-information and witholding > of public information; the party has been about its own empowerment rather > than people's empowerment; it has patently failed in providing basic > education to the people; it has disavowed pursuit of total literacy; > decentralisation has meant distribution of corruption; it has used people's > ignorance and lack of information to manipulate them; and it has bred a > culture of cynical middleman-ship, a form of extortion, which has seeped > into the fabric of the state's people. > > So if Microsoft is Mr Enemy - so is Mr CPI(M), and no one should be fooled > by the pathetic politician's puny pseudo-progressive platitudes. > > Truth must be told. The cat must be belled. The bluff must be called. The > naked emperor must be exposed. > > But I began to wonder whether it would not be lacking in taste and grace on > my part to do this, especially when Richard Stallman is a guest, and has > probably been invited by some govt agency. As a citizen of Calcutta, I am > proud and honoured that he is speaking at a public programme in my city. > Wouldn't my sharp attack on the politician discolour such an important > occasion? > > Could this be done gracefully? > > On Richard Stallman's personal home page(http://www.stallman.org/), he > quotes Mahatma Gandhi: > > "You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and > decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it > means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with > his or her whole soul." > > _________________________________________ > 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 shahzulf at yahoo.com Tue Aug 15 13:35:07 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 01:05:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Wall Street Journal on Mysterious Disappearances: Search for Missing Activist Message-ID: <20060815080507.60781.qmail@web38806.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Search for Missing Activist Illustrates Strain as Bush Works to Strengthen Pakistan Ties By SHAHID SHAH August 15, 2006 Pakistan's cooperation in foiling last week's terror plot shows the benefits to the U.S. of good relations with its South Asian ally. But the case of Safdar Sarki shows that such ties also have complications. Mr. Sarki, a Pakistan-born American citizen, disappeared in Karachi in February, two days before he planned to fly home to El Campo, Texas. For years, Mr. Sarki had been an advocate for Sindhis, the indigenous residents of a southeastern province of Pakistan, who claim they have suffered political and economic discrimination since the 1947 creation of India and Pakistan. Mr. Sarki, 42 years old, is one of hundreds of political activists who have gone missing in Pakistan over the past decade. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nongovernmental organization that tracks human-rights issues, says 57 political activists have "disappeared" in the past two years, including prominent figures such as Asif Baladi, a young scholar, and Nawaz Zaunr, a journalist and poet. When asked about the claim of such "disappearances," the spokesman for Pakistan's embassy in Washington said authorities in Pakistan are investigating the cases but have no information on them. Mr. Sarki's case is different largely because it has drawn the attention of the State Department and some members of Congress. It illustrates a strain that persists as President Bush works to strengthen America's relationship with Pakistan. Mr. Bush is advocating the spread of democracy around the world, and Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a coup, is an example of the kind of leader Mr. Bush has criticized. The disappearances of Mr. Sarki and others are an aspect of Islamabad's human-rights record that the Bush administration has termed troubling. The State Department earlier this year issued a report stating that Gen. Musharraf's "human-rights record was poor, and serious problems remained." The document listed practices such as "arbitrary arrest, and lengthy pretrial detention," as well as "extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape." At the time, Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected the claims and said the report was "unwarranted" and lacked objectivity. But while Washington periodically highlights such practices, it has tried to balance them -- especially since Sept. 11, 2001 -- against the need for cooperation from Gen. Musharraf in monitoring and battling terrorists, many of whom, as last week's events in the United Kingdom showed, continue to operate in Pakistan. The U.S. government hasn't made a big issue about the disappearance of a U.S. citizen, but it isn't ignoring the case. Through the spring and summer, the Sarki family has enlisted help on Capitol Hill and at the State Department. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat and co-chairman of the Congressional Pakistan Caucus, has taken up Mr. Sarki's case, meeting with Pakistan's Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani in Washington while her staff has contacted authorities in Pakistan. So far, little information has turned up. During Mr. Sarki's most recent trip to Pakistan, he had resumed his activism on behalf of Sindhis, with activities including organizing peaceful demonstrations. His friends and family say they believe Mr. Sarki was abducted by Pakistani law-enforcement officials in response to his protests against the government. The spokesman for Pakistan's embassy in Washington says Mr. Sarki wasn't abducted by Pakistan authorities and isn't in the custody of the Pakistani government or agencies. The spokesman said authorities are trying to track down what happened and where Mr. Sarki might be. Mr. Sarki's family and friends say they have little hope of finding the motel owner alive, especially since he was fleeing authorities when he first left Pakistan in 1992. He was charged with crimes in Pakistan twice, though the charges were dismissed. In one case, his vehicle had been used in a 1984 attack on the mayor of Hyderabad in Sindh province. In another, his Karachi apartment was used in a 1990 kidnapping. A State Department spokesman said recently that U.S. officials have contacted Pakistani authorities for help in locating Mr. Sarki. Officials at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi contacted the local police, while officials from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad talked to Pakistani authorities in the capital. "We have been in touch with [Pakistani authorities] at numerous times," one U.S. official said. Their response thus far: They don't know what happened to Mr. Sarki. On the day he was abducted, Mr. Sarki had arranged a meeting at his sister's apartment, where he had been staying about six months, according to Muneer Sarki, a relative who was serving as his driver. Muneer Sarki told family members that before Safdar Sarki's visitor arrived, he left to buy groceries, and when he returned, six vehicles, including two police vehicles, were on the street in front of the apartment. Muneer Sarki says he saw "agency people" beating Mr. Sarki and his guest -- a man whom neither family members nor eyewitnesses recognized. In a court appearance this spring in Karachi, authorities denied any involvement. That left the prosecutor in the Sarki disappearance case with little to pursue, especially because both the defense ministry and home ministry submitted statements to the court saying they had no knowledge of Safdar Sarki's disappearance. Write to Shahid Shah at shahid.shah at wsj.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060815/bc9d376b/attachment.html From rms at gnu.org Tue Aug 15 18:11:06 2006 From: rms at gnu.org (Richard Stallman) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:41:06 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <921490ae4e9d32a1afe88b08d5b0450b@vsnl.com> (message from V Ramaswamy on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:21:33 +0530) References: <921490ae4e9d32a1afe88b08d5b0450b@vsnl.com> Message-ID: The FSF works with various political parties -- whoever advocates free software. I don't know what the CPI(M) has done well or badly in West Bengal, but would any of its rivals support free software at all? I would be glad to do something with them too, if they wanted to support us. The point is, however, that they don't. By the way, the CPI(M) was instrumental in blocking bad software patent legislation a year ago, and we hope they will help block an evil US-style copyright law being considered right now. As a citizen of Calcutta, I am proud and honoured that he is speaking at a public programme in my city. Wouldn't my sharp attack on the politician discolour such an important occasion? I cannot deny your right to criticize anyone, but I think that if you attacked him during the event itself, it would tend to hurt the free software movement as much as or more than the CPI(M). Could this be done gracefully? If you want to criticize the CPI(M) for other things, without appearing specifically to criticize its support for free software, I think it would make sense to keep the protest out of the the meeting room. But there must be opportunities every week to protest a major political party. Why not choose an event that relates more directly to the things you actually want to protest? From gsingh.edu at gmail.com Mon Aug 14 16:44:24 2006 From: gsingh.edu at gmail.com (Gurminder Singh) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:44:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] URGENT APPEAL: "SAVE THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION" DHARNA Message-ID: <97fa80eb0608140414x25e79a20s8556d9ddbdadb12f@mail.gmail.com> URGENT APPEAL: "SAVE THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION" DHARNA This is an urgent appeal for support to the indefinite "Save the RTI Act" dharna held in Jantar Mantar ( New Delhi ). The dharna began on 7 August, to oppose the government's efforts to dilute the RTI Act. It will continue until the proposed amendments are withdrawn. For further details see the attached leaflets. Campaigns for the right to information and the right to food have supported each other for a long time. The dharna appeals to all organisations involved in the right to food campaign to join the dharna as soon as possible, and in any case before the end of the monsoon session of Parliament on 25 August. Your participation will greatly help to strengthen this effort to save the right to information. Please join soon as the amendments may be discussed in Parliament any day. If possible please stay for about a week, to help ensure a strong presence at the dharna every day. You can also support this campaign through local action, especially by participating in the "referendum" on the amendments - more on this in a follow-up mail. Contact numbers: 011-65121727 (dharna sthal), 9811661114 (Subodh), 9818782996 (Nikhil) or 9811333041 (Suchi). -- Gurminder Singh RTFC-Secretariat, Q-21-B, Top Floor, Jangpura Ext. (Near Railway Crossing) New Delhi - 110014 91+9891399565 www.righttofoodindia.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/f110e453/attachment.html From s_kavula at yahoo.com Mon Aug 14 20:12:21 2006 From: s_kavula at yahoo.com (saraswati) Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 07:42:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] reader-list Digest, Vol 37, Issue 30 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060814144221.53561.qmail@web36601.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Vedavati, Godhra was a pre-meditated incident, and many survivors themselves said, that the fire came from inside the compartment and not outside. And please, raping pregnant women, killing them and taking out the babies from their womb and burning it, is not "reaction". Cutting off 65 year old women's breasts or raping them, cannot be called "reaction". It is pre-meditated murder and mayhem. So, please let us not condone these dastardly acts. I am not a pseudo secularist. I will call a spade a spade. If you had read my mail in its entirety, you would have understood that. In Maharashtra as recently as a few years ago, people from the SC community were made to eat human excreta because they dared to take water from the upper caste well. Even today, in Andhra, lower caste people are not allowed into mainstream temples. At it was and perhaps is a very common practice that the wives of lower caste men have to satisfy their "Upper Caste" Masters. And in some places, the newly married bride, should first get PURIFIED by the "Upper caste" landlord, before she can sleep with her own husband. If you can say that What happened in Gujarat, is good for the Hindus, then I guess all the lower caste people should do the same thing to us "UPPER CASTE" fellows, since they have been suffering not for a couple of hundred years, but for centuries.... Once again, I say this, if we are not perfect, and if we have been discriminating and treating our own people in the most inhuman ways, then "WE" have no bloody right to point fingers at others. I don't support reservations, because it has divided us further as people and society and it was unable to iradicate the caste system. I feel that we should stop asking people to mention their religion and caste at every step and on every application form. And I think Jassim Ali too is saying the same thing, that we cannot generalise...and take a blinkered view. All that people are saying is that "let us look at ourselves and where we have gone wrong". And pray, who is Modi, or RSS or the mullahs or the POPE to say that they are the "thekedars" of religion??? Who are they to say that they are the protectors??? I think that is where the problem lies. I am not sure if you have understood Hinduism, but I have, and it teaches you to look inside yourself, to find the truths and answers. And it is the one religion, the SANATANA DHARMA that has preached, "Vasudaika Kutumbakam" - All world is one family. And yes, i am proud to call myself a 'Sanatani", but I will not support mass murder done by anyone, in the name of religion. If what Modi did was the right approach, then we should be supporting the Americans for what they did in Iraq and other places. And tomorrow it may be us receiving the bombs. Lastly I want to say this, that Religion (all of them) have been used very well, by those who wanted to Control the rest of the people. Saraswati Message: 2 Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:49:40 +0000 From: "Vedavati Jogi" Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media To: s_kavula at yahoo.com Cc: thestatesman at vsnl.com, editor at ibnlive.com, arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, feedback at hindustantimes.com, reader-list at sarai.net, ttedit at abpmail.com Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed what happened in gujrat was very bad, no doubt but while cursing guj.cm for that, we should not ignore godhra, . moreover modi alone could not have done anything, hindus in guj. wholeheartedly supported him, provoked hindus 'reacted'!and it was an obvious reaction.. since gandhian days hindus have been given lot of doses of 'ahimsa'. when it comes to muslims, psedu secularists keep their mouths shut. how long hindus can tolerate these things? when babri masjid was pulled down these pseudo secularists created hue & cry, what about those temples broken in Kashmir? what about those kashmiri pundits, who have become refugees in their own country? incidentlly, i am a maharashtrian married to a kashmiri pundit.based in pune. hindu cannot be considered as secular if he stands by another hindu but to prove his or her secular credentials he has to support muslims may be even those muslims who are involved in terrorist activities.- this is secularism in india! vedavati >From: saraswati >To: Vedavati Jogi >CC: reader-list at sarai.net, arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, >feedback at hindustantimes.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, ttedit at abpmail.com, >toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com, rgdj12 at yahoo.com >Subject: RE: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 08:48:30 -0700 (PDT) > >no vedavati, > > i was not equating RSS with Nazis. I should have added one more thing >may be - that all americans are not George W Bush nor are all muslims >Terrorists or all British are and were not BAD Fellows. > > i was only saying that one should not generalise. I think, the problem >occurs with generalising people and communities. > > I guess it is about time, we just called ourselves human beings and >said, okay there are just may be good or bad people and many more with >various shades of grey. > > it was that i wanted to say. i should have said may be all Hindus are >not hard core fundamentalists. > > About the RSS - i don't know, but what we have seen in Gujarat was >genocide done in the name of religion - people were marked and killed, >killed by the fundamentalist forces. > > I do not know where you come from, but when I traveled to the North, >especially Gujarat, (i was there just before the sorry time of march 2002 - >i could see the rift that was created by the works of RSS-VHP - i could >witness the segregation of muslims by these forces) and soon after I >returned from there - (i was in gujarat in jan 2002 and in march i hear of >the horrible situation). > >I am not at all supporting the muslim appeasement done by Gandhi, or by the >successive governments...but then, i don't support the hindutva brigade >either. i believe it is about time each community did an introspection and >set their own house in order, rather than throwing stones at each other. > > it is a fact, that caste remains the bete noire of the hindu society. >and we complain about conversions - really, i feel if hinduism was such a >weak religion, it would have disappeared long time ago. i think on the >contrary - i think it was one religion that never needed any kind of >preaching. and if it must disappear - then so be it, that is the cycles of >time. secondly, each person has a right to follow his or her religion of >their choice. and if they wish to convert, then it is their personal issue. > > however, i donot approve the way the evangelists go on about converting >people - by calling names of the hindu religion. the missionaries have all >right to preach about their religion, but they have no right to criticize >or degrade other people's religious beliefs or practices (which they always >do). > > similarly, the muslims in this country always cry foul and try to show a >wounded heart, and anything that hurts the muslims, they simply get angry >and start blaming the system and the majority community, and the >governments, which continue to condone an errring child. this ofcourse was >the reason for the rise in anti-muslim sentiments amongst the rest. they >want to have a seperate civil code, but will they accept the rest of the >law of the islam like in Saudi Arabia, where a rapist will be stoned or >hanged to death, or a thief's hands are cut off? when there have been cases >of molestation by fathers and brothers of their own minor girl children in >my city, then it was all hushed up and noone spoke of these things. it is a >fact, that double standards exist amongst the muslims. today, they ask for >special reservations, but they don't send their girls to school. if they >remained in the ghettos it was partly their own making. they do not wish to >acknowledge their flaws. > > it is the same with us, the Hindus, we have failed to uplift our own >people, we have failed to eradicate the caste system and bring egalitarian >society, we treat our own people as third-rate citizens and then we say, >they should "feel proud to be hindus" and punish them for "converting to >other religions". we have not allowed the free flow of knowledge...and >today we are paying the price of it. > > it is this that i wanted to say ...there are flaws amongst all of us. >let us stop generalising and start to look inwards than outwards...let us >have the courage to face the truth about ourselves and call a spade a >spade. > > regards > saraswati > > >Vedavati Jogi wrote: > saraswati, i appreciate your letter, but one thing i did not understand. >why >are you equating rss with nazis? has rss ever killed any muslim just >because >he is a muslim? they talked against gandhiji's muslim appeasement policy >which ultimately resulted into partition of india. nathuram happened to be >the member of rss but the latter had never deputed him to assasinate >gandhi. > >muslims partitioned india but we don't look upon all muslims as traitors, >same way you should not hold rss responsible for nathuram's deeds. i >request >you to first understand their views and then pass such type of remarks. > >vedavati > > > >From: saraswati > >To: > >CC: >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > >Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:58:22 -0700 (PDT) > > > >Dear Mr. Roger Das, > > > > I am wondering whether highlighting only certain facts will reflect the > >truth. > > > > Communalisation by media, it may be true in some quaters. if the media > >forgetting Mohammed Rafi, equals to communalisation of Media, then what > >does the eugolisation of Shah Rukh Khan, day in and day out, amount to??? > >That special episodes are made on Amir Khan and today, Saif too has >become > >the darling of the media. And so has his sister. And then in that case no > >one should be using Irfan Pathan as an advertisement Idol. Why is AR > >Rahman, the uncrowned king of the music world - not because he is a >Muslim, > >but because he is the best. And let me tell you, His song, "Sat rangi re" > >from Dil se and "piya haji ali" are the best of his compositions >according > >to me. My sister used to listen to "piya haji ali" every night before >going > >to sleep, while she was pregnant, because she wanted her child to imbibe > >the spiritual feelings that come from that song. > > > > by the way, i am from that so-called upper caste community of brahmins. > > > > Please do not make a mountain of the mole hill. It is true that muslims > >have been seen with suspicion due to the effects of partition in some > >quarters. But then, so is it a fact, that most of our Bollywood big stars > >have been Muslims for many decades, even in days after partition, we had > >Suraiyya and Yousuf Khan AKA Dilip Kumar who were given a cult status by > >the people of this country. > > > > Ofcourse, Yousuf Saab, did make remarks in Pakistan against India when > >he went to receive an honour in Pakistan, is another matter, that no one > >mentions. It was reported in the Week, many years ago. > > > > It is a fact, abberations are there. But there are two sides to the same > >coin. Just as all Germans are not Nazis, so are not all Hindus, RSS > >sympathisers. > > > > In fact, while I was in school, we never bothered who was a hindu or who > >was a muslim. we all ate together from each others lunch boxes, and my > >parents never taught us to be intolerant- my first best friend was a >Muslim > >girl, and today I have very close friends who are from Pakistan, one is > >from the Azad Kashmir (as they call it) and my father always took us to >the > >Dargah in the outskirts of Hyderabad. and this is no exception. there are > >tons of such cases. > > > > please kindly, do not stoke anger by constantly GENERALISING, applying > >facts that belong only to certain sections of the society to the Society >at > >Large. > > > > Most importantly, let us not forget where the problem arises... yes it > >is a fact, that caste based discrimination continues in this country, > >especially in rural areas, so also, it continues among both converted > >christians and muslims too... both religions which preach egalitarian > >treatment too all its peoples' have not been able to remove the caste > >discrimination which continued even after conversions... > > > > we will be able to change things, if we, each one of us, looks inwards > >at the flaws in our own individual systems and try to correct them, >rather > >than always trying to throw stones at others.... > > > > let us set our own homes in order first.... > > > > Let us try to build a nation, away from the rifts that were created by > >the Colonisers. > > > > Let us not forget that Azim Premji, shot up to the top position as the > >richest INDIAN, in this very country. > > > > If discrimination was really so much against the minority community, > >they would not have been seen anywhere in the public sphere, like the way > >it is with the minority communities in Pakistan or Bangladesh. > > > > Regards > > > > Saraswati.Kavula > > > > > >From: rgdj12 at yahoo.com > >To: reader-list at sarai.net, > >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com,feedback at hindustantimes.com, > >thestatesman at vsnl.com > > ttedit at abpmail.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, editor at ibnlive.com > > >Subject: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media > > >Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 02:26:25 -0700 (PDT) > > > > > > > > >Sir, > > > In this communal driven country even media is running on the path > >of > > >partiality especially when it the question of Indian Muslims > >ahcievement > > >arises. yesterday it was the birth anniversary of wonderful > >singer-actor > > >Kishore Kumar and eevery news channels, hindi and bengali, aired nice > > >programme on the late singer. It was good to have such programme in > >the > > >midst of these political drama that happens everyday. And on 30th July > >NDTV > > >carried an hour programme on S.D.Burman, the famous music composer, to > > >celebrate his anniversary. But sad to say that media has sidelined the > > >death or birth anniversary of the legend versatile singer, Md. Rafi. I > >was > > >desparately switching the channels to watch some programme on the > >death > > >anniversary of Md. Rafi, on 31st july but in vain. No news channels > >even > > >bother to carry just a spot on him. certainly only one inference comes > >out > > >of it and that is the religion. Being a devout msulim Md. Rafi has not > > >given due respect in media whereas singers > > > and music composers, his contemporaries and juniors noticed on > >television > > >in some way or other just because they are non-muslims. I have not > >seen any > > >especial coverage of any Indian Muslim dignatories of any field. This > > >established a fact that almost all the media are owned by upper caste > >hindu > > >groups and managed by hindus who least bother to consider Indian > >Muslim > > >acheievers as real treasures of the country. Thus it create new and > >deep > > >rift between Muslim and hindu, it is very unfortunate that media is > >also > > >running on the path of communalism and favouring non-muslims. Hope > >this > > >letter will find place in your esteemed newspaper. > > > > > > > > > > >--------------------------------- > > Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. > > > > > >--------------------------------- >Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates >starting at 1¢/min. ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 23:16:07 -0700 (PDT) From: hight at 34n118w.net Subject: [Reader-list] Floating Points discussed at ISEA To: reader-list at sarai.net Message-ID: <49503.70.34.241.32.1155536167.squirrel at webmail.34n118w.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Work with developing a new tool to "read" cities and the landscape with data and narrative that adjusts with elevation/altitude and how to track the trajectories of previous flights discussed as remote speaker at ISEA Aug 11. for more information go to floatingpointsspace.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 08:41:44 +0000 From: "Vedavati Jogi" Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media To: jassim.ali at gmail.com Cc: reader-list at sarai.net Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed If muslims in kashmir have ethnic cleansed the pandits, then where was the central govt as well as the subsequent BJP govt when came in power ? why werent these things investigated ? ...................... dear mr. jassim, in 1989, bjp was not the ruling party, by the time kashmir problem started third front had taken over. moreover, i am not a bjp spokes person, nor i am justifying gujrat carnage , but i sincerely feel that pseudo secular thoughts & acts are responsible for hindu-muslim rift and unfortunately poor muslims are at receiving end. after guj. happenings & before assembly elections in guj. i had visited one exhibition of gujrati dress materials in pune, out of curiosity i asked many traders about guj. riots. one of them said, 'what modi saab has done nobody else has done that for we hindus in india. just see what happens in election.' others nodded. i was stunned. pseudo secularists and people like abu azmi remain safe and poor muslims have to bear the brunt. is it a secularism? mr. jassim, politicians are always playing minority card, 'divide & rule' is their policy. now muslims like you have to take initiative & show these politicians their place. can you do that? >From: "Jassim Ali" >To: "Vedavati Jogi" >CC: s_kavula at yahoo.com, thestatesman at vsnl.com, editor at ibnlive.com, >arkitectindia at yahoogroups.com, toical1 at indiatimes.com, >feedback at hindustantimes.com, reader-list at sarai.net, ttedit at abpmail.com >Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Communalisation by Media >Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 10:25:09 +0400 > >Gimme a break ..... > >We all know that there are Bad Muslims just as Bad Hindus,Bad Jews,Bad >Mallus,Bad Bongs,Bad Arabs, and so on and so forth... >If presumably educated and logically driven individuals like us tend to get >motivated by extreme propoganda and rhetorics then i guess we could forgive >the hindus and the muslims for cutting eachothers throats ..... > >If muslims in kashmir have ethnic cleansed the pandits, then where was the >central govt as well as the subsequent BJP govt when came in power ? why >werent these things investigated ? > >Even the Godhra cant justify a state sponsored genocide that happened in >gujarat ..... >and i dont think 90% of my hindu brothers would disagree with me on that >..... > >Yes muslims do have a severe state of self-pity and anguish and have >contributed to a large extent to Ghetto-ising themselves post 1857 till >this >date. >If they arent socially mobile, they got none to blame except >themselves...... > >Im an Indian Muslim and im working and living in middle east at present , >have spent a fair amount of my time studying and working in india as well, >and i mus say barring a few rare occurences i had never faced a problem. === message truncated === --------------------------------- Open multiple messages at once with the all new Yahoo! Mail Beta. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060814/554ec607/attachment.html From jace at pobox.com Wed Aug 16 14:12:37 2006 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 14:12:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 14-Aug-06, at 5:15 PM, Yogi wrote: > I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about > India and its large number of programmers; open source movement in > india is non-existant. This is a sign that all these programmer are > nothing more than coding monkeys.. who do not understand anything more > than whats immediately before their eyes. Isn't that a gross generalisation? Shouldn't you instead be examining the causes for this apparent non-existence, or, blasphemous as this may sound, whether open source in its current form has any relevance for India at all? -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://jace.seacrow.com/ From jassim.ali at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 14:16:58 2006 From: jassim.ali at gmail.com (Jassim Ali) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 12:46:58 +0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <271ece9c0608160146w6381e72embda22076c509ec1b@mail.gmail.com> Completely agree here with Kiran, and a possible reason for the low activity levels in open source could be that talent prefers the security and comfort of a cushy job in a tech firm than percieved software activism ..... and come to think of it...whatever be the reason pirated windows is far more accessible and easier to pickup than opensource ;-) jassim On 8/16/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote: > > On 14-Aug-06, at 5:15 PM, Yogi wrote: > > > I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about > > India and its large number of programmers; open source movement in > > india is non-existant. This is a sign that all these programmer are > > nothing more than coding monkeys.. who do not understand anything more > > than whats immediately before their eyes. > > Isn't that a gross generalisation? Shouldn't you instead be examining > the causes for this apparent non-existence, or, blasphemous as this > may sound, whether open source in its current form has any relevance > for India at all? > > -- > Kiran Jonnalagadda > http://jace.seacrow.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: -- -- Jassim Ali Revolutionist / Poet/ Manager / Prisoner / Escape-artist / Acrobat / Weaver / Rain Maker / Bio-scope Wallah ! Strategic Planning & Business Development OMD Digital Al Thuraya Tower, 19th Floor Dubai Media City PO Box 121428, Dubai, UAE Mobile: +97150 3425980 Telephone: +9714 360 4182 (direct) Facsimile: +9714 36 88 230 Website : www.omd.com Blog: www.tefloncoatedyuppie.blogspot.com "Those that danced were thought mad by those who could not hear the music" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060816/3b0476aa/attachment.html From aarti at sarai.net Wed Aug 16 17:28:37 2006 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti Sethi) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:28:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] August Films @ Sarai Message-ID: Dear All, A quick reminder that next week we will be screening two films, with post-screening discussions with the directors. The first, Lalit Vachani's new documentary on JANAM (The People's Theater Front), "Natak Jari Hai (The Play Goes On)", followed by Sridhar Rangayan's feature film on queer love in South-Asia,"Yours Emotionally!". We hope many friends will make their way to Sarai :) Warmly Aarti ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++ Natak Jari Hai A film by Lalit Vachani (India; 2005; Colour & B/W; 84 min.) 6:00 P.M, Monday, 21 August 2006 Sarai-CSDS Seminar Room What does it mean to perform socialist ‘agit-prop’ theatre in India in a globalized era of increasing intolerance and inequality? Natak Jari Hai is a documentary about JANAM (The People’s Theatre Front), the little theatre group that never stopped performing in the face of dramatic political transformation and personal tragedy. The film explores the motivations and ideals of the JANAM actors and their vision of resistance and change as they perform their ‘People’s Theatre’ in diverse parts of India. It brings to life the world of socialist theatre through the words of JANAM’s members, and through a reflective portrayal of the group’s greatest tragedy - the assassination of its convenor Safdar Hashmi in 1989. Credits: Camera: Mrinal Desai Sound: Asheesh Pandya Additional editing: Sameera Jain Editing, additional camera, production and direction: Lalit Vachani A Wide Eye Film, 2005 We invite you to a screening of Natak Jari Hai, Lalit Vachani's new film. Lalit will be present for a discussion with the audience after the film. [Lalit Vachani is a documentary filmmaker based in New Delhi and New York city. His previous documentary films include work on the star- system and social worlds within the Hindi commercial film industry (The Academy, 1995; The Starmaker, 1997) and on the indoctrination, ideology and the politics of Hindutva propagated by the Hindu fundamentalist organization, the RSS (The Boy in the Branch, 1993; The Men in the Tree, 2002). Some of the venues where his work has been screened are: The Oberhausen Short Film Festival in Germany, IDFA Amsterdam, One World Prague, FID Marseille, The Queens Museum of Art in New York, Kino Arsenal in Berlin and the World Social Forum in Mumbai.] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++ Sarai-CSDS and the Nigah Media Collective invite you to a screening of Yours Emotionally! A film by Sridhar Rangayan (86 min.; English, UK / India, 2005) 6:30 P.M., Wednesday, 23 August 2006 Sarai-CSDS Seminar Room "From the director of 'The Pink Mirror' comes this intoxicating queer journey through India… With a consistently surreal look, Yours Emotionally feels like a beautiful fever dream inspired by both avant- garde gay cinema and the tropes of Bollywood." – Frameline Review ‘Yours Emotionally’ is a tribute to South Asian gay men who negotiate their same-sex-love identities within the stringent social, religious, cultural boundaries imposed by their communities. A trans- cultural drama spiced with love, romance & passions. 'Yours Emotionally!' follows Ravi, a gay British-Punjabi and his friend Paul on their visit to Shimoga. During their sojourn over a week in this idyllic town, they get a taste of gay life and its nuances there - finding a mixture of moribund traditions and shocking openness. Ravi falls in love passionately with a local lad Mani who is set to be married very soon to a girl. Ravi who cannot reconcile this, seeks the wisdom of an elderly gay couple Murthy and Anna who make him understand how sexuality operates within the closeted Indian community. Interspersed with flashes of semi-surreal situations - presented through exciting dream sequences - Yours Emotionally! unfolds a brightly painted canvas that defies stereotypes and explores contrasting values within Indian and Western gay sub-cultures. Gautam Bhan (Nigah Media Collective), will moderate the post- screening discussion with the director. Credits: Director: Sridhar Rangayan Produced by: Niranjan Kamatkar, Wise Thoughts, London Co-produced by: Solaris Pictures, Mumbai Executive Producer & Art Director: Saagar Gupta Script: Niranjan Kamatkar & Sridhar Rangayan Camera : Deepak Pandey Editor : Nishant Radhakrishnan [Sridhar Rangayan has written and directed award winning films like 'Chakkad Bakkad Bumbe Bo' - a children film that won the Bronze Remi at WorldFest, Houston and 'The Pink Mirror (Gulabi Aaina)' - a film on drag queens that has screened at 56 international film festivals and won Best Film of the Festival awards in New York and France. He has also directed over 100 hours of television with programs like Pyar Ki Kashti Mein (Star One), Krisshna Arjun (Star Plus), Kagaar (Sahara) and Rishtey, Gubbare (Zee TV) to his credit. He won the RAPA award twice in 1999 and 2000 for Best Telefilm. ] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060816/fb5a21f6/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From explore at prashant.ca Wed Aug 16 18:07:16 2006 From: explore at prashant.ca (Prashant Kadam) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:37:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Copy of Study Report Message-ID: <61653.70.51.143.41.1155731836.squirrel@email.powweb.com> Hi There I am a media studies student in Canada and a wish to study the issue of representation of journalists in India, specifically, study the issue on representation of Dalits in Media and your recent study could be very insightful. May I request you for a copy of the complete report of the study/survey that you conducted. Thanking you, Regards, Prashant Kadam Toronto _______________________________ With reference to your following study. Indian media does not reflect country's social profile: Study __________________________________________________________________________ If sex, religion and caste are to be taken together, more than two-thirds of the top media professionals in the country come from less than 10 per cent of the population. Hindu upper caste men, who are barely 8 per cent of the country's population, have a majority share of 71 per cent among top media professionals in the country. These findings are from the same survey of the social profile of key decision makers in the national media that had created a flutter last month. The findings are based on a survey of the social background of 315 key decisionmakers from 37 "national" media organisations (up to 10 from each) based in Delhi. The survey was carried out by volunteers of Media Study Group between May 30 and June 3 this year. It was designed and executed by Anil Chamaria, freelance journalist, and Jitendra Kumar, independent researcher, from Media Study Group, and Yogendra Yadav, senior fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).... ___________________________________________________________________________ From pukar at pukar.org.in Wed Aug 16 17:09:50 2006 From: pukar at pukar.org.in (PUKAR) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:09:50 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [announcements] Screening of 'Q2P' on August 18 Message-ID: <003e01c6c128$b5727e70$0d66c2cb@freeda> Q2P (Documentary, 55 minutes, DV, English, Hindi) LOOK AT THE TOILET ... ... SEE THE CITY Director: PAROMITA VOHRA Producer: PUKAR Camera: AJAY NORONHA Editing: JABEEN MERCHANT Sound: ANITA KUSHWAHA and SAMINA MISHRA Animation: SHILPA RANADE Music: TARUN SHAHANI and NIRAV GANDHI When: FRIDAY 18 AUGUST 2006 at 6.30 p.m. Where: Little Theatre National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) Nariman Point, Mumbai 400021 About the Film: Q2P peers through the dream of a futuristic Bombay and and finds... public toilets... not enough of them.... Q2P is a film about toilets and the city. It sifts through the dream of Mumbai as a future Shanghai and searches for public toilets, watching who has to queue to pee. As the film observes who has access to toilets and who doesn't, we begin to also see the imagination of gender that underlies the city's shape, the constantly shifting boundaries between public and private space; we learn of small acts of survival that people in the city's bottom half cobble together and quixotic ideas of social change that thrive with mixed results; we hear the silence that surrounds toilets and sense how similar it is to the silence that surrounds inequality. The toilet becomes a riddle with many answers and some of those answers are questions - about gender, about class, about caste and most of all about space, urban development and the twisted myth of the global metropolis. About the Director: PAROMITA VOHRA is a filmmaker and writer. Her films as director include Where's Sandra, Work In Progress, Cosmopolis: Two Tales of A City, Unlimited Girls, A Short Film About Time, A Woman's Place and Annapurna: Goddess of Food. Her films as writer include the feature Khamosh Pani, and the documentaries A Few Things I Know About Her, and If You Pause: In A Museum of Craft and Skin Deep. She teaches scriptwriting as visiting faculty at the Sophia Polytechnic and is a PUKAR Associate. PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research) Address:: 1-4, 2nd Floor, Kamanwala Chambers, Sir P. M. Road, Fort, Mumbai 400 001 Telephone:: +91 (22) 6574 8152 Fax:: +91 (22) 6664 0561 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/20060816/583a0571/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shahzulf at yahoo.com Thu Aug 17 20:43:23 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:13:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Muslims launch new organisation to challenge perceptions Message-ID: <20060817151323.90437.qmail@web38811.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Muslims launch new organisation to challenge perceptions Muslim journalists, writers, filmmakers and activists are banding together to form a new organisation aimed at influencing the media to move beyond "easy and simplistic portrayal of Muslims" and build on issues relevant to British Muslims today. Called 'Muslims for Secular Democracy', the lobbying group is being headed by the journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and supported by others such as Ghayasuddin Siddique of the Muslim Parliament, playright Nasreen Rehman and Sharq magazine editor Reem Maghrebi. The organisation says it supports a clear separation between religion and the state and wants to make "democratic engagement" its primary concern. "MSD founders wish create a platform for alternative, diverse Muslim views, essential for a progressive, multi- layered, democratic identity that is not in conflict with itself or fellow citizens. Social class, education, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, politics, culture all impact on and interact with the faith identity," they say. The group stresses that British Muslims are at present "rendered invisible because of the overriding force of stereotypical perceptions and representations" as a "problematic underclass". "Explanations tend to dwell on Islam, the religion, rather than the convergence of certain geo-political and socio-economic factors. All Muslims are expected to assume responsibility, to apologise and feel guilty for the actions of violent militants and their supporters. From left to right Muslims are perceived as ¡¥aliens¡¦ who can never really belong in this state or the EU." "This sustained negative depiction of Muslims creates discomfort and mistrust amongst non-Muslims, frustration and anger amongst Muslims." The organisation says that while there are some issues within Muslim families such as rising criminality and alienation, the majority are "not dysfunctional people with burning resentments". Such negative images are perpetuated by "unelected, self styled Muslim spokesmen who maintain power by overstating the ¡¥threat¡¦ of Muslim disaffection", they say. "The media and the State only consult these middleman who claim to represent all Muslims and together they reinforce stereotypes and myths." The organisation says it aims to: „h Challenge those who have a vested interest in promoting the 'clash of civilizations' narrative. These include some Muslim leaders and prominent white commentators they say. „h Highlight the rights of Muslims who are marginalised because of their inability to cope with or succeed within the system. „h Encourage British Muslim men and women to recognise the contributions they have made to Britain „h Examine the role of the political parties that pander to "community leaders" „h Enable Muslims to become more aware of their autonomous rights and question Muslim leaders who set themselves up as 'representatives' or ¡¥experts¡¦. „h Work with other global progressive Muslims opposing Saudi influenced Salafism and its offshoots. „h Challenge the ill-informed and politicised nature of the state's intervention with the organisation of religious life in this country and the influence faith based groups now have on public policies. „h Object to government policies that curtail civil liberties using the prevailing sense of fear of terrorism „h Work with young Muslims and try to win over their hearts and minds, so they espouse the quiet and compassionate Islam practised by Muslims through generations There are plans to build a board of directors, apply for charitable status and explore fund-raising initiatives. A conference is planned next year to raise a debate on faith-based schools and push for a return to secular public education. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is also part of the AIM magazine founding committee. Current members 1. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Chair: journalist, commentator and co-founder) 2. Nasreen Rehman (Vice-Chair: playwright Co-Chair and co-founder) 3. Ghayasuddin Siddique (Muslim Parliament and founding member) 4. Reem Maghrebi (Editor of Sharq; lifestyle magazine for young British Arabs and founding member) 5. Nadia Evans (CAABU) 6. Mustapha Karkouti (Syrian journalist and UN advisor) 7. Alamgir Masud (Businessman) 8. Yasmin Rehman (Metropolitan Police) 9 Imam Jalil Sajid (Imam) 10 Maha Sardar (Editor of website for young Muslims) 11 Arif Azad ( doctor, anti-racist activist, campaigner for secularism) 12 Saida Khanum, (TV programme maker) Source: http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/current_affairs/1354 --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060817/62f0785f/attachment.html From kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com Fri Aug 18 08:02:35 2006 From: kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com (Kamal Kumar Mishra) Date: 18 Aug 2006 02:32:35 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [Deewan] SARAI posting Message-ID: <20060818023235.20293.qmail@webmail36.rediffmail.com>     Dear Avinash, Thanks a lot for your response. I tell you its really helping me think. Now I take a few issues from your post to reflect on. 1)Yes, 'chance' is there, but to what end and to what purpose? Do we simply see it as a marker of 'oriental identity' and leave it at that? Or do we explore this further in terms of contemporary writers' difficulty in comprehending the art of scientific detection itself? An associated question with its immense popularity would be why does it peter out by late colonial period to remerge later of course? Also, what about its presence in Urdu literature? Ibn-e-safi BA is still on the shelves of many conossieurs, lets look at that as well. What I am trying to plead here is to look into the way the form has evolved over these years and it has not remained fossilised into any one slot... During my last field-trip to Allahabad I had this opportunity to converse with Muzabir Hussain, a close friend of Asrar Saheb (Ibn-e–safi B.A.). Muzabir Saheb, an editor of RUMANI DUNIYA, had also been writing under the pen name Ibn-e-Said for the Nakhat Publications, during these years, when Asrar Saheb (ibn-e-safi) was sick and had stopped writing for JASOOSI DUNIYA.In one of these interesting conversations, I had with Muzabir Saheb, he told me that what readers like most in the novels of Asrar Saheb (mostly adaptations of the novels written in English) is his humour mixed with suspense and this unique characterisation. Muzabir Saheb also recalls what M.L.Pandey, the pioneer writer-publisher of jasoosi novels in Allahabad in the late 40’s, use to say about the jasoosi fictions.He says, Mr. Pandey use to say that –“ghatna par ghatna ghatat jai ehi jasoosi upanyas hai”( detective fiction is nothing else but a form of fiction where there is an incident after an other.) I think this statement is full of meaning . It gives us some idea of how these fiction writers and publishers ,of the both, colonial and post-colonial periods(if I am allowed to use these terms) use to look up on their craft. Here I would like to mention the titles of two novels written by Gopal Ram Gahmari, as well, they are –“GHARAU GHATNA” and “GHATNA GHATATOPA”. What I mean to say,( by chance vs. rationale of detection) is this technique used by these detective fiction writers of Hindi (including Gopal Ram Gahmari ).At this point, I think it wont be less interesting to take into account the 'category' provided to these fictions by the canon forming writers of “high-Hindi-literature” which is ‘Ghatna-pradhan Upanyas’(though the uses have certain reductionist connotation in this context). As far as the context of the production of these Hindi detective novels is concerned I think one will have to locate these texts in the rich and varied field of ‘commercial- publishing’, in the late 19th century as, what Orsini says ,“Texts of pleasure” or as texts of “entertainment”(along with quissas, songs and popular poems and theatre chapbooks) ,here, we need to keep in mind this context of domain transfer from oral to print. Orsini talks of three forces in the field (in an un published paper titled “PRINT AND PLEASURE”) - “1)the insertion/appearance of less or non literate audiences and their oral traditions into the print market.2)second element/force was constituted by literate, educated writers who responded to the new possibilities of print and of the market( the news paper ,commercial fiction publishing) and who created hybrid forms that harnessed resources(character, aesthetic, narrative models) from old genres to new textual dynamics(suspense, serialization) and new discorses.3) the world of commercial theatre, which put a premium on eclecticism, the “assortment of pleasures” and act as a catalyser….”And that is something most of the exiting historiography (literary history )tend to ignore. True as you say the popularity of these “Texts of pleasure” is amazing. I have tried to approach this genre as it has been evolving over the years never I am looking at it as fossilised in one slot….i don’t know why do you say so? My assertions are strictly related to/based upon the novels published until 1940s.In Urdu ,too, as far as I know before Ibn-e –safi (who started writing in the50s) we have all these JASOOSI fiction writers like Mirza Hadi Ruswa ,Jafar Umar, Quaisi Rampuri,Tirath Ram Firozpuri who are blending the old (the elements of dastans)with the new. I am sure it would be very interesting to look at the works of Ibn-e–safi. More over I proposed to work out readership aspect as well which I have not been able to do for some reasons. 2)But that's precisely my point, even where it might not have a direct role in the narrative doesn't mean state is not present! I am not saying that state is not there but the very existence of these princely states and zamindaris also have some bearing on this literature or not? regards! kamal On Mon, 14 Aug 2006 Avinash Kumar wrote : >Dear Kamal, > >Thanks for your detailed reply and apologies for late posting as I have not >been checking my mails regularly. >Am taking your three broad assertions for response, some of which actually >continue from the previous mails. > >1. still I think the picture is much more complex as, here too,its mostly >chance which use to play an important role in solving a case than the >rationale of detection. > >It would perhaps demand a long essay once again to discuss the meritocracy >debate between 'chance' and 'detection' yet, i would merely like to revisit >some of the specific contexts within which this genre appears in both west >and east...and this is merely to do a loud thinking ... > >In the west, as we know, it specifically arose as one of the genres just >like 'positivist hitoriography' to assert the 'rational, causation theory' >which formed the bedrock of the 'modern, scientific method' of enquiry; its >self-affirmed belief which almost defined the 'new west'. On a specific >level, Holmes' investigations into the labyrinthine, mysterious streets of >London were also an acknowledgement of the kind of unfathomable challenges a >newly developing 'urban civilisation' was posing before the west itself. The >art of 'detection' tried to do both, to unravel these mysteries through a >'methodology' (still evolving though) which was seen as the only way out. >In the colonially subjugated contries like India, where perhaps it was still >too early to fully be aware of all the contours of this rationalist enquiry, >esp. when the context was quite different, I think the very first question >that fascinates me is the amazing popularity that this genre received and >that too in all its myriad forms, from the translations of extremely popular >novels like 'Mysteries of the court of London' ('Landan Rahasya)- little >known in its own land of birth though, to Khatri's so-called >pseudo-scientific tilismi world of adventures (which very soon came under >severe attacks from those advocating 'realism' like Guleri) to those >pretending as the 'classic' of the genre like the ones written by Gahmari. >In fact, Gahmari himself has a range of all of this. In this context, and >this relates to your second point in my response, i.e. the presence of/ >resistance against, colonial authority: > >2.''Apart from Khatri we have lots more from other known and less known >writers who do undermine or remained silent towards the reality/ies of the >colonial present in their own particular ways.'' > >my assertion once again would be that in no way you could 'remain silent' >towards colonial authority, not after 1857 which was still fresh and the >myriad ways in which this authority was making its inroads in each and >every nook and cranny of the vast hinterlands even though symbolically >through a 'chowkidar' if not daroga...Yes, the debate could be around the >way in which one 'negotiates' (sorry, but its my favourite word!) this >presence..In fact, the way you have discussed this vis-a-vis 'Bhayankar >Jasoos' reminds me of the ways in which Rajendra Yadav has discussed >'Chandrakanta' and that brings me back to your first point, ie 'chance vs >detection'...It is Yadav's observation that in order to negotiate, >undermine, call whatever you like, the colonial presence, the form of >Khatri's 'chandrakanta' is what it is, that of a curoius combination of >older stories borrowed from Persian tales of 'Dastan-e-Amir Hamza' and that >of newly emerging 'technological prowess' of the 'scientific west'...Khatri >makes use of all these tools to battle the colonial might, as it were where >in fact it has no direct presence. But that's precisely my point, even >where it might not have a direct role in the narrative doesn't mean state is >not present! > >Yes, 'chance' is there, but to what end and to what purpose? Do we simply >see it as a marker of 'oriental identity' and leave it at that? Or do we >explore this further in terms of contemporary writers' difficulty in >comprehending the art of scientific detection itself? An associated question >with its immense popularity would be why does it peter out by late colonial >period to remerge later of course? Also, what about its presence in Urdu >literature? Ibn-e-safi BA is still on the shelves of many conossieurs, lets >look at that as well. >What I am trying to plead here is to look into the way the form has evolved >over these years and it has not remained fossilised into any one slot... > >As for your third point with respect to Jati, esp. Gahmari's rajput heroes, > >3.Could we say that like the discourse of criminality it also confirms the >colonial stereotype. Or Its so because of some deep rooted structures? Or is >it a sign of fractured colonial modernity? > >I can only say that yes, it does have a strong bearing of the colonial >discourse on criminality on one hand and that of caste on the other..Just to >illustrate, it would be important to refer to Kitchener-Curzon debate here >on 'martial races theory', which included Sikhs and Rajputs, esp. those who >had helped the Britishers retain their Raj in 1857. Yes, the valorisation to >a great extent I would say also comes from this. > >I hope I have made some sense in attempting to understand this really >enriching world of hindi detective fiction... > >a > >On 10 Aug 2006 18:49:19 -0000, Kamal Kumar Mishra >wrote: >> >> >> Dear Avinash, >> Thanks a lot for your comments and suggestion. I thought I was >>careful enough not to simplify or give a misleading picture while I was >>responding to the queries of Andrew regarding the uses of fingerprints and >>'aspects of bio power' as it appear in these hindi detective fictions. To >>avoid such confusions I have been using words like 'mostly' n 'often' and >>not 'always'. >> >>By the way I am thankful to you for bringing the complexity of subject in >>for a discussion .I think I have nothing much to say about the uses of >>fingerprints as you also agree that we don't see it even in the texts of >>Gahmari. >> >>Gopal Ram Gahmari is a very important hindi detective fiction writer thus >>he requires special attention. Though I agree what you say about the >>characteristic feature of the novels of Gopal Ram Gahmari ,regarding a keen >>and detailed analysis of crime scene still I think the picture is much more >>complex as, here too,its mostly chance which use to play an important role >>in solving a case than the rationale of detection. >> >>Pursuing a few issues a bit further such as the question of jati in the >>novels of Gahmari and all pervasive nature of colonial authority might not >>only help us understand Gahmari's works better but it could also be of some >>interest. >> >>As far as my reading of Gahmari is concerned ,I would like to ask why is >>it so that most of the 'original' detectives of Gahmari a part from Md. >>Sarwar are rajputs? ( for deciding what is his original and what is not I am >>using one of Gahmari's own account where he gives the full list of his >>original ,translated and adapted works and he claims Md Sarwar to be one of >>his original creation) For example Sujan Singh,Sanwal Singh, Deven Singh >>,Roshan Singh,Diler Singh and all .Does it have any thing to do with the >>idea of 'jawanmardi' or 'bahaduri' attached to rajputs or its just a >>co-incidence? Or how should one look at this? >> >> >>Could we say that like the discourse of criminality it also confirms the >>colonial stereotype. Or Its so because of some deep rooted structures? Or is >>it a sign of fractured colonial modernity? >> >>"EK POLICE ADHIKARI KI ATMKATHA" by Vishwanath Lahiri though confirms the >>important position of local police officers, like DAROGA, it also helps me >>ask- with what set of values do these local officers(mostly Indians ) use to >>operate? >> >>And above all what about the texts (jasoosi of course)which are direct >>descendents of tilasmi n ayyari tradition of kissagoi.Its mostly in these >>texts ,produced throughout in a considerable number we don't find the >>presence of colonial authority and even if its there its undermined as in >>'BHYANKAR JASOOS' by Ram Chandra Singh (Rachit),gullu prasad >>kedarnath,Benaras city, 1935. >> >>In 'Bhayankar Jasoos', Daroga Tedhai Khan has been murderd by Shyama ,when >>she is on her way to search her husband and Tedhai Khan, who has been >>portrayed as nutfe haram(a born illegitimate ), tries to rape her. After >>this murder Shyama manages to escape and reaches to Usha Rani,her close >>friend who is married to a rich Bengali Rajnikant Mukherjee.Both the >>husband and wife tries to console her and say there is nothing wrong in >>killing someone while defending one's dharma( stri dharma here of course) >>and later they decide to inform another friend Bina >> >> who is, "ek bahut chalak sakhi hai dooje wah fan ayyari men nipun aur >>sujan hai .yon to hum log bhi kisi se kam nahin hain lekin wah hamjolion men >>sab se gunagar hai." >> >>As a consequence what we encounter is this long tussle going on between >>both of these groups, the detectives (in fact they are ayyars more than >>jasoos in any modern sense)of colonial state on the one hand who are trying >>to catch the murderer of Daroga as well as her companions and Bina and >>Shyama and co. on the other , using their magical powers in this struggle. >> >> >>What strikes most to a reader like me is the character of 'jungali Raza'(a >>tribal king) who has been portrayed ,sympathetically, as a powerful >>character and with his magical powers, like his control over the wild >>animals, tries ho help Bina. And here he comes in a direct confrontation >>with the colonial state/authority. >> >>Animals can fly and these ayyars/jasoos could transform themselves into >>animals. Nothing is impossible -of course- in this world of novel where >>there is enough space for such imagination. >> >>Finally ,the all mighty colonial state had to bow-down. Colonial >>authorities had to accept the request of setting a special court of hearing >>in this matter . where Shyama and her friends would not only be acquitted >>but would be awarded with other jassos for their bravery. >>In his jasoosi faisla writer says- >> "aap donon dalon ka yahi kartvya tha .jo ki apne apne kala-kaushal >> ko ek doosre ke tain khadyantra rach kar upanyas ke premi rasik janon >> ko sarvada ke liye ek accha rasta nikala jise padh kar upanyas ke >>anugami bane rahenge" >> >>We also have in this very line the novels written by Devaki Nandan Khatri, >>for ex-Narendra Mohini , to name just one ,where one can read the presence >>of colonial modernity only between the lines. Apart from Khatri we have lots >>more from other known and less known writers who do undermine or remained >>silent towards the reality/ies of the colonial present in their own >>particular ways. >> >> >> >> >>I am not sure if that is what you meant by investigation for negotiations >>and renegotiations of these different roles? >> >> >>regards! >> >>kamal >> >> >>On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 Avinash Kumar wrote : >> >Dear Kamal, >> > >> >Sorry for butting in without a legitimate ground. Nevertheless thought, I >> >would give my two cents.I haven't read too many early detective fictions >>in >> >Hindi, so it goes with a caveat. >> > >> >One of the most famous stories by Gopalram Gahmari, 'Malgodam mein Chori' >>is >> >a stark example of the way the 'modern, rational' practices of detection >> >methodology were sought to be acknowledged. As I remember clearly, even >> >though it does not talk of finger print, it talks of a 'keen, detailed' >> >analysis of the crime scene and not merely remains dependent on 'chance', >> >though, that as you correctly say, remained a principal feature in a lot >>of >> >fiction of that period. >> >What is further interesting in that piece is that, even as the crime has >> >happened somewhere in Bihar (i forget where, perhaps gaya), the detective >> >called into investigate is from Calcutta, the signifier for a 'modern >>city' >> >and who speaks with an English accent despite being a Bengali. Of course, >> >how he blends in with the local landscape singing popular Braj poetry >>while >> >doing his job, is another matter to investigate. >> > >> >Second, in another novel of Gahmari, I forget the title right now and the >> >Shivpujan Sahay classic , 'Dehati Duniya', Jati is very prominent as once >> >again rightly pointed out by you. Yet, I would see it still as a result >>of >> >the very presence of colonial discourse of criminality, which fixated >> >certain castes, tribes under the labels of criminality. Even, the colour, >> >physical attributes etc as a criterion, came under the same phenomenon >> >largely. We are now replete with studies around this theme. >> > >> >On the other hand, the role of daroga, the local police is so predominant >>in >> >these stories (and not only in these two works I am talking of) that the >> >picture you get is that villages are vacated en masse with the news of >> >arrival of the local 'daroga'. In this sense, what I would assert is >>given >> >the context, whether as a pseudo-detective posing as a city-bred man like >> >Holmes or as a daroga, the colonial state is omnipresent in these >> >narratives. What then is worth investigating is how they are >>renegotiating >> >these different roles... >> > >> >Sorry, for this long mail but this, as I said is an instant reaction with >>a >> >very limited knowledge of the subject... >> > >> >thanks, >> > >> >avinash >> > >> >On 7 Aug 2006 16:42:33 -0000, Kamal Kumar Mishra < >>kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com> >> >wrote: >> >> >> >> Dear ANDREW, >> >> Thousands apologies for not answering to your mail for soooo >> >>long,today when i was clearing my mail account i noticed this blunder i >>have >> >>done,i am extremely sorry!!! >> >> True as you say the relationship between crime and detective is >> >>closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting in most of the >>cases...but >> >>you might find it surprising that in Hindi detective ficttions this >>link is >> >>mostly absent. >> >> >> >>Hindi deteective fictions have a few peculiar characteristics par >> >>example-1) there might not be a single detective and this function might >>be >> >>performed by many people or 2) detective need not use modern or rational >> >>techniques to solve a mystry, role of chance is often crucial in solving >>a >> >>case. >> >>Thus one hardly finds this clue and puzzle type in hindi detective >> >>fictions. >> >> I have not come across a single piece translated ,adapted,or original >> >>where (here i am talking about the early hindi detective fictons from >> >>1900-1940's) a detective solves a case with the help of >> >>fingerprints.Though, one may find examples of foot prints, as a clue, >>but >> >>not so elaborate either. >> >> >> >>THEN what we have are discourse of criminality mostly based on >> >>jati(caste)n lakchana (physical attributes n morality) where colonial >>state >> >>is often absent in these popular fictions. >> >>hope you find it interesting enough...with apologies again >> >>warm regards!!! >> >>kamal >> >> >> >> >> >>On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 Andrew MacDonald wrote : >> >> >Hi Kamal.. >> >> > >> >> > Nice to see your posting on SARAI and your research..I'm a post-grad >> >>history student based at Duban, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South >>Africa. I >> >>just thought, tangentially, since I have just finished reading it >>myself, >> >>The book Imprint of the Raj - how fingerprinting was born in Colonial >>India. >> >>Maybe you have seen it already, but the relationship between crime and >> >>detectives is closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting (which >>was >> >>only then becoming the kind of embryonic, precocious state project we >>now >> >>take for granted). I wonder if their is much in the Hindi literature on >>this >> >>topic? It would be quite interesting... >> >> > I have worked/am working on aspects of biopower (to sound >>foucauldian, >> >>though i have some real problems with his arguments), concerned less >>with >> >>literature but more with labour and immigration in colonial South >>Africa).. >> >> > >> >> > Anway, thought I would put my two cents worth in.. >> >> > >> >> > Andrew >> >> > >> >> > >> >> >--------------------------------- >> >> >To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new >> >>Yahoo! Security Centre. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>< >>http://adworks.rediff.com/cgi-bin/AdWorks/sigclick.cgi/www.rediff.com/signature-home.htm/1507191490 at Middle5?PARTNER=3 >> > >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >> >>Deewan mailing list >> >>Deewan at mail.sarai.net >> >>http://mail.sarai.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/deewan >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060818/ca8f761d/attachment.html From hpp at vsnl.com Fri Aug 18 14:30:45 2006 From: hpp at vsnl.com (V Ramaswamy) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:30:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman's lecture Message-ID: <001801c6c2a4$e92fd910$75bb41db@Ramaswamy> Richard Stallman's lecture Calcutta, 16 August '06 Transcribed by V Ramaswamy http://cuckooscall.blogspot.com/ There are a number of reasons why I'm not a communist. The first of them is that I'm not against the idea of private business, as long as it does not oppose people's human rights and the interests of society. Business is legitimate as long as it treats the rest of society decently. Computing is a new area of human life. So we have to think about the human rights associated with this. What are the human rights software users are entitled to? Four freedoms define Free Software. A programme is Free Software for a user if: Freedom 0: Run the software as you wish. Freedom 1: Share the source code and change it. Freedom 2: Help your neighbour and distribute and publish. Freedom 3: Help you community and distribute your modified versions. With these 4 Freedoms, you can live an upright life with your community. If you use non-free, proprietary software, the developer has the power to decide what you can do. He can use that power over you. Like Microsoft. That game is evil. Nobody should play it. So its not a question of beating Microsoft at its game. I set out to get away from that game. Once GNU-Linux was ready in 1992, it began to catch on. It was rliable, powerful, cheap and flexible. Thousands and millions of people began to use GNU-Linux. But the ideals of freedom began to be forgotten though. In 1998, people stopped talking about Free Software, Instead they said "open source". That was a way of not saying "free" and not mentioning the ideas behind it. I don't disagree with that, but that's not what I am interested in. What I'm really interested in most of all is to teach people to value their freedoms and to fight for them. In software, as in the US, our freedom is threatened. So the basic things we need to do are: remember our freedom frequently, value it and insist on it. When someone says they protect me from terrorism by taking away my freedom - say No! Similarly, with software that threatens our freedom, that might give us some temporary comparative advantage - we should say No! West Bengal should not follow the world trend. It should stand up for freedom. That's different. No! I'm not going to let the world lead me where it wants to go. I'm going where freedom is. If you're going elsewhere - I'm not going there. It requires firmness, it requires a decision that says freedom matters and hence it must be promoted. Even if that's inconvenient. Freedom needs some sacrifices, some inconvenience, some price. But it's a small price to pay. By globalisation, people usually mean globalisation of the power of business. Business should not have political power. Otherwise democracy becomes sick. And with globalisation of business power, this political power is enhanced. Free trade treaties are designed to attack democracy. For instance, it explicitly allows any business to sue government if a law makes its profit less than it has been. Companies have to be paid for the permission to do anything of social or environmental importance. Not all free trade treaties do this explicitly. They do it implicitly. Companies can threaten to move away elsewhere. And they do use this threat. This actually happened some years ago, with the EU software patents. The govt. of Denmark was threatened that if they did not support this the company would move the business elsewhere. This tiny threat was sufficient to blackmail the govt. of Denmark. If you allow a foreign mega-corporation to buy a domestic corporation, you are allowing it to buy a weapon pointed against your country. The environment, public health, general standards of living - are all important, and free trade treaties should be abolished. They are harmful to freedom, health and the lives of people. I do not accept the term "intellecutal property". The very term is biased and confusing. It talks about useful techniques and works. It presumes they are "property". It prejudges such questions. There's also a more subtle problem. It lumps together all the diverse things and makes it look like you can talk about all of them together. Copyright, patents, trade laws - are all very different. It takes the geatest efforts of the best scholars to overcome the confusion caused by the term "intellectual property" and to discuss the details of these individual items. The GATT Treaty and the TRIPS - actually it should be called Trade-related Impediments to Education and Science. Free trade and enhancement of world trade harms democracy. When you globalise something evil, it becomes a greater evil. And when you globalise something good, it becomes a greater good. Human knowledge and cooperation are such "goods". The Free Software Movement is a part of that. It is the globalisation of one area of human knowledge, namely software. Through global cooperation like this, you get freedom and independence for every region and every country. Proprietary software is a colonial system. Its electronic colonialism. And not by a country, but by a corporation. Electronic colonial powers keep people divided and helpless. Look at the end-user licensing agreement. You don't have the source code, you are helpless. You can't share, and so you are kept divided. National colonial powers recruit local elites and pay them and keep them above the rest of the people, working for the colonial masters. Today we see electronic colonial powers recruit native zamindars to keep the system intact. Microsoft sets up a research facility and in exchange it keeps its grip firmly on everyone else. Govts and schools are in their grip. They know how to do this. They know how to buy govt support. But what's the govt buying? Dependency, not development. Only Free Software constitutes development. It enables any activity to be fully under the control of the people doing it. Free Software is appropriate technology. Proprietary software is not appropriate for any use. The West Bengal govt has an opportunity to adopt a policy of firm leadership in this regard. This will give a boost to human resource development. Free Software respects people's freedom. Govt has an influence on the future of society. Choosing which software to teach students. If you teach them Windows, they will be Windows users. For something else, they need to learn, and make the effort to learn something else. Microsoft knows this. So it donates Windows to schools. Addiction (through using unlicensed software) only helps them. They didn't want to leave anything to choice, so they give Windows free to schools. Like injecting a dose. The first dose is gratis. Afterwards its not gratis, for them or their employers. This is a way to impose their power on the rest of society and its future. Schools have a mission to society. This missions requires teaching students to live in freedom, teaching skills to make it easy to live in freedom. This means using Free Software. Free Software is good for computer science education, to maximise the potential of natural programmers. It gives students the opportunity to really learn. Its good for the natural programmers. If you have proprietary software, the teacher says "I don't know", "You are not allowed to know, it's a secret." So the alternative is to give him the source codes and let him read it all. They will then learn to be really good programmers. But the most crucial reason is for the sake of moral education. Teaching them to be good corporations and benevolent, helpful citizens. This has to be taught. School has to teach by example. If you bring software to class, you must share this with other kids. Or don't bring it. Schools must follow their own rule, by bringing Free Software to class. Schools should use 100% Free Software. No proprietary software should be used in schools. Public agencies, after a migration period, should use Free Software. All software development must run on Free Software platforms. And if its released to the public, it must be Free Software. (Free as in free speech, not free beer.) One easy and useful way to put Free Software in schools - is to participate in the "1 Laptop per Child" programme. India recently pulled out of this programme, I'm told. I'm told the Indian govt is making lots of laws to make multinational corporations happy. Maybe this was to male Microsoft happy. Even if India is not, West Bengal can participate in the 1 Laptop per child programme. I can put them in touch with the people developing that machine. The Govt of India is considering a vicious new copyright law, imitating US law, in favour of large businesses, and against its citizens. The only emergency I can see that requires this being rushed through is catastrophic shortfall in the drea profits of some businesses. Foreigners should not have political power. In my case, I don't. ............ Stallman took questions from the audience. Some of the clarifications he made were: "I want to give people freedom, I don't want to make my programme popular." "Piracy" is a propaganda word. Pirates attack ships. An unauthorised copy of a proprietary software is not "free". ".if you call MS Dog an operating system." "There is tendency to give Microsoft all the credit for all the things it copied." "I'm sure Microsoft would pay me to use their software, But I wouldn't take it." "It would have been a lot easier not to develop my own operating system - if I didn't care about freedom more than my income." "Don't use web-based services to do the things you can do yourself, in your own computer." "You can't trust a corporation, corporations are like psychopaths. If the corporation were an individual, its behaviour would be called psychopathic." "I can't see the future - because it depends on you." From arshad.mcrc at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 19:18:03 2006 From: arshad.mcrc at gmail.com (arshad amanullah) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 19:18:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] WALL MAGAZINES OF THE MADRASAS Message-ID: <2076f31d0608180648k65227d64tb127d571632e501b@mail.gmail.com> WALL MAGAZINES OF THE MADRASAS:A STUDY OF THE FORTNIGHTLY ALMANAR,VARANASI. 'Nowadays there are two ways of rendering service to the religion: oratory and pen. The spoken word is ephemeral in nature while the written word has its long lasting-impact. That's why the institution imparts us training in art of writing through making us bring out wall magazines'. (Imtiaz Ahmed, a student of Al Jamia Al Ashrafia, Mobarakpur). Madrasas of some repute are regular with bringing out wall-magazines. Managed and edited by talib-ilms, the madrasa students, who in this regard receive guidance from the teacher-in-charge. An annual edition of the wall-magazine is also printed every year with great care, containing more than hundred pages. Here I would like to explore dynamics of these magazines through the analysis of the fortnightly Al Manar (Jamia Salafia, Varanasi. Al Manar is a fortnightly wall magazine of the students of Jamia Salafia, Varanasi. They bring it out under the auspices of Nadwatut Talaba, their literary club. The latter was founded in 1966(1386 Hijri), the year education started in Jamia Salafia. The Annual Al Manar, the annual printed organ of the Nadwa, saw its first publication in 1967(1387 Hijri). After a decade-long gap of 11 years, its next edition came into print only in 1978(1398), followed by the uninterrupted publications since then. The fortnightly wall magazine version of Al Manar started in 1987, almost 20 years after the establishment of the institution. At the onset of every academic year, election for the key posts of the Nadwa's working body takes place. The process culminates in the mosque of the madrasa in the presence of senior teachers, including the Principal. Students propose names of candidates for a certain post. Sometimes, teachers select one of them while on other occasions students' votes decide who will decorate which chair. It's seldom that teachers arrive at the gathering with someone in their mind for a certain post and just make announcement of the name. It is in this gathering that the editor of the fortnightly wall magazine and one sub-editor is elected. The editor has the right to structure his editorial board which generally has a representation from all classes. He is responsible for bringing out the fortnightly magazine on time and also the annual printed magazine before the completion of the academic session. "Students contribute to the magazine on their own. If I don't receive a sufficient number of articles or some of them are not upto mark, I wait for quality contributions. If the due date is round the corner, I make special request to those who can make a quick contribution", says Shahnawaz Alam, editor of the fortnightly.<1> The magazine is divided into columns like politics, current issues, history, personalities, Islamic studies etc. As a calligrapher writes the magazine on a full fledged chart paper, each issue can carry not more than 6-7 pieces. Shahnawaz, student of Fazilat 2nd year, elaborates what goes in bringing out an issue of the magazine: "First, I collect articles or students themselves bring their writings to me; second, I go through them and make corrections if required; third, I present titles of the articles, including those of the editorial featuring in the coming issue before Maulana Obaidullah Tayyeb Makki, the advisor of the magazine; fourth, I hand over all material to the calligrapher who happens to be a student and gets paid for his labour; fifth, when he finishes his job he gets assistance from the editorial board in proof reading; and finally, putting the calligraphed chart paper into the glass frame, the magazine is published,ie.hung at its place". <2> Students write on a variety of issues ranging from Islamic studies to politics to literature. Sometimes the editor brings out special issues dealing with different aspects of a chosen theme. Before delving into details of the content I would like to reproduce here translation of a couple of verses from a poem composed by Maqbool Ahmed Maqbool. The poem tells what the fortnightly aims at. 'Al Manar has come to you with a determination in its heart Al Manar has come to wake everybody up. It's a lightning of monotheism in the dark house of kufr The heart has ignited the lamp through its own flame.' <3> BASIC TENETS AND SOCIAL PRACTICES Jamia Salafia is the apex madrasa of the Ahle Hadis sect. As the magazine is the organ of one of the students' association of the madrasa, it holds a mirror to the issues exclusive to the sect and also to its differences with other Muslim sects. Tauhid (monotheism) is a buzzword in the circle of the Ahle Hadis. Though it constitutes one of the pillars of Islam, it is the Ahle Hadis who lay extraordinary emphasis on it, almost unparallel to among other Muslim sects. Also, in details and niceties of the concept they heavily differ from others. In his piece entitled "Reality of the Monotheism", Shafiqur Rehman, renders this definition of the concept: "Tauhid is to believe in Oneness of Godship of Allah, Oneness of Lordship of Allah, Oneness of Names and Qualities of Allah".<4> .Then he quotes from the holy Quran verses meaning that all prophets were sent to spread this version of tauhid and people should worship only one God which is Allah, without regarding others as its partners in prayer. In the concluding paragraph, he writes: "Human beings should worship Allah, believing it one in its personality, qualities, rights and capacities as well as they should not consider others its partners. Whatever these mushrikin do to us (sudden change from 3rd to 1st person), we can not give up the practice of tauhid".<5> Webbed with it is the issue of the worship of tombs. According to the Ahle Hadis, it springs from the non-adherence of Muslims to the precept of the tauhid. Regarding the nature of relationship of Muslims to the tombs and shrines, the Ahle Hadis significantly differ from other sects. Writes Shamsullah, in his essay entitled "Beginning of the Grave Worship", "the most effective mechanism which comes handy to Satan against the human beings is making them, out of devotion and reverence, worship prophets, saints, dignified men and martyrs, and, thus, making them guilty enough to be sent to the hell. Nobody acknowledges that he/she worships prophets or saints. Everybody says that he does so out of devotion and love for these noble souls…It's this love which leads to the tomb-worship" .<6> In another article dealing with the same theme, Zulfiqaar Ali tries to put the issue in the perspective. Entitled as "Visiting Tombs and our Society", his piece opens with this line: "Paying visits to tombs is legal as it evokes memories of death and the Hereafter within us". Then he goes on to quoting couple of Hadis in support of his arguments. Further, he laments that Muslims nowadays are not aware of the main purpose behind visiting tombs and they don't observe the guidelines prescribed in the Hadis to do the same. "They think the dead are capable of helping them and thus, try to invoke their help while the latter themselves need the help of those who are alive. They revolve around the tomb and lay prostate for it. All these actions are shirk." <7> Taqlid <8> is another theme which has been at the centre of the polemics between the Ahle Hadis and non-Ahle Hadis ulema. Contrary to the latter, the Ahle Hadis are vehemently opposed to any sort of taqlid and they hold it responsible for the malaise of the Muslims as it inherently begets the differences within the ummah. The fortnightly Al Manar, in microcosm, reflects this contestation. Maqbool Ahmed Maqbool has composed a poem entitled "Effects of Taqlid" in condemnation of taqlid .Let's see how he engages the issues in some of the verses of the poem: Fear Allah, and give up taqlid You are making a mistake in reverence of Imam .<9> After Allah, it's only the Prophet who should be obeyed So, it's useless to talk about Imam. ––––––––––– He, who deviates from the path of the Prophet, Will be charred in flames of the hell. ––––––––––– Imams are just the preachers, not guides As it's the Prophet who elucidates Allah's commands. <10> It's interesting to note that what constitutes a quintessential part of the religion for Non-Ahle Hadis is, according to the Ahle Hadis, a severe deviation from the proper way of following the religion, and that's why those who do so, will be condemned to the Hell. The reason, according to the poet, is that Imams are mere interpreters of what Prophet said and it's the prophet who is the elucidator of the divine commandments. Inherent in this argument is the belief that the personality of the Prophet has been bestowed upon with the immunity to commit a mistake, not others. So, in spite of relying on the secondary source (which contains the chances of human error), one constantly needs to refer to the primary sources i.e. texts of the Quran and the Hadis. An issue of Al Manar entitled "In Defense of the Shariah" is completely devoted to deal with the theme of taqlid. Titles of the pieces featured in it is as follows: An introduction to Salafism ,Let's March towards Deoband, A Glance at the Deobandi Moqallidin, Insult of Imams in the name of taqlid , Importance of the Companionship of the Prophet, etc. Explaining the reason behind bringing out this special issue, Tanvir Zaki writes in the editorial that this issue is in response to the Jamiatul Ulama-e-Hind's latest venture 'Tahaffuz-e-Sunnat Conference'. The Muslim situation in India, according to him, has nowadays sunk to the unprecedented depths and that's why it's unwise to revive old contestations in these circumstances".<11> It was late Maulana As'ad Madani who had conceived the conference. "This conference has released a book which is replete with the anti-Ahle Hadis content", writes Abdullah Salahuddin in the same issue.<12> Infuriated by the release of the book, the editor decided to come up with an issue in refutation of Deobandi Islam. Enraged Abdul Haleem writes in his piece entitled 'Let's March Towards Deoband': "What is Deoband? It's neither a matchbox which can put the kafirs aflame, nor is the epicenter of Islam which can play a role in consolidation of Islam. Yes, it is the hideout of Satans". <13> Such is the language used to describe 'others' which can help only in perpetuating the vicious intra-community rivalry. In the same vein writes Maqbool Ahmed Maqbool about the Tabligh Movement in his piece entitled "Tablighi Jama'at: Reality or Myth". He acknowledges the fact that the Movement is conquering the minds and hearts of the masses with amazing rapidity. But what makes his Ahle Hadis conscience restless about the Movement is the influence it is wielding on its followers. "Blunting the rationality of the people, it has made them crazy about wahdatul wajud and endeared the concept of hulul and fana fillah to them. It is portraying the religion which is anti-Sufism in its nature, as the fountain of Sufism". <14> Further, he notes that the main objective of the movement is to spread the Hanafi School of jurisprudence, rationalize taqlid and popularize 'Tablighi Nisaab' which is an anthology of false events, innovations (bid'at),superstitions and details of miracles.<15> To Ahle Hadis, Sufism is anti-thesis to Islam. The same outlook finds resonance in 'General Influence of the Sufism on the Muslim Community', a piece by Mohd Basheer. The origin of Sufism, according to him, dates back to the 2nd century. It proved wonderfully all-pervasive and succeeded in penetrating in all branches of knowledge and also in beliefs, and that's within a period of only a hundred and fifty years. "It (Sufism) is in fact a conspiracy against Islam and its followers, hatched on the part of the foes of the religion".<16> He terms it as a 'fatal disease' and holds it responsible for widening the intra-community divide among the ummah. Further, he enumerates reasons why he is so much against Sufism: 1. Rendering misleading interpretations of the canons of Islam, the Sufis have muddied the face of Islam, 2. Sufis have falsely divided the religion into Sharia and Tariqa, 3. They consider the existence of 'women' as punishment because they create hindrance in concentrating on Allah and make one busy in the corporal ecstasy. 4. They spread wrong interpretations of the concept of tawakkul, i.e. to have faith on Allah that he will look after the believers in all their crises etc. The Ahle Hadis don't identify with the manifestations of popular Islam as they regard them as distortions of the textual Islam. Indian Muslims time and again religiously observe rituals which have no parallels in the age of the Prophet. Celebrated in the month of Rajab, a month of the lunar calendar, 'Imam Ja'far ke Kunda' is one of such festivals. It is also known as 'Nazr-e-Sadiq'. On the eve of the 22nd of Rajab, explains Mohd Arshad, cookies are prepared and are put in new earthen pots. Before the sunrise, fatiha in name of Imam Ja'far Sadiq is recited on them. Then, it is shared with relatives and friends with great care. This ritual initiated in Rampur and Lucknow; where, in 1904, it was celebrated for the first time. To lend it authenticity, a 'concocted' tale of Imam Ja'far and a woodcutter is relegated and, also, is said that on the same date the Imam walked into the eternal light. "The fact is that he passed away on Shawwal 15,148 Hijri while it is Mo'aawiya, the 'writer of the revealed word', died on this date", contends he. Further, in an effort to find out a reasonable explanation for this mistake, he avers: "Shiites have been the enemy of Mo'aawiya.That's why they celebrate Mo'aawiya's demise on 22nd of Rajab and they attribute it to Imam Ja'afar, concealing the fact," .<17>In the concluding paragraph, the essayist labels this ritual as bid'at because it was neither observed by the Prophet nor by his companions. Thus, these wall magazines help the madrasa boys in nurturing a vision regarding the social events and provide them space to comment on the latter. Television and films are seen as the fountains of social evils in the madrasa circle. That how they have their bearings on the character and psyche of the people, often features in speeches and writings of Ulema. In his piece entitled 'Television: A Fatal Disease' Riyaz Ahmed, writes: "O Brothers! Give it a thought that if having been exposed to the television, a six year old kid starts dancing, what will happen to those girls who already are in their prime, full of emotions. The result, I am sure, will be that those girls will bring shame to their family. In fact it has spoilt the society and made the women crazy about the latest trends in the fashion".<18> . Interestingly, he concludes the piece with this advice to the fellow Muslims: "People should maintain distance from watching television. Who knows God will deprive them of vision, turning them blind!" .<19> With reference to the same issue, Abdul Moeed, is of the opinion that the invention of the cinema is a conspiracy on the part of the West, with an aim to spoil the character of the young generation and to indoctrinate it with false values. All this has been done to harm Muslims. <20> GLIMPSES OF THE CAMPUS LIFE Vignettes from the campus life, students' behaviour and the condition of the hostel also feature in the pages of Al Manar, though not very often. The title of one of the editorials reads: Darul Iqamah ki Fariyad (An Appeal of the hostel).Zulfiqar Ahmed, the then editor, has personified the building of the hostel and made it ventilate its grievances to the residents in a very interesting fashion. It starts as: "It was a cold morning. Enveloping everything, fog has obscured the premises of the hostel from the sight. The morning pray was just called off. All students, including me, were almost running on the corridors leading from the mosque to the rooms. Suddenly, I sensed someone is crying silently. 'Who can be this at this odd hour?' I thought in my conscience. I looked here and there a couple of times, in an attempt to figure out where the sound is coming from. Finally I solved the riddle. It was the building of the hostel itself which was howling. I turned my ears closer to it. When I inquired of the reason behind sudden breaking into tears, it vouchsafed its feelings to me". <21> Then, the building, traveling into lanes of the bygone times, narrated the editor the history of the establishment of Jamia Salafia, construction of the hostel and the efforts the late founders of the institution put in all this. It was a delightful experience to be transmitted into the history with someone who has been witnessing all the process. As soon as the conversation entered into the present time, mood of the hostel swung into a gloomy one. It recounted with great pain: "Look at these walls and the columns. How their milky whiteness has been stained with red-spots of beetles-spit. Turn your gaze towards the southern staircase and your nostrils will abhor the smell of the rotten loaves of bread and grains of rice. It is these rotten stuffs which cause the spread of myriad of diseases. Yes, let your eyes scan these rooms where talib-ilms reside. The waste lying under their cots plays host to the mosquitoes. Apart from all these, what hurts me the most is the show of the expertise on the part of the students in drawing calligraphic sketches which decorate the walls and the doors of the toilet". <22> This tête-à-tête between the editor of the wall magazine and the building of the hostel ends at the note of anxiety on the part of the hostel: "What impression all these will leave on a newcomer to the premises about those who are growing up in my lap?" <23> Urdu is the medium of instruction and education in almost all madrasas. Jamia Salafia is no exception to it. Apart from Arabic, students are encouraged to interact in refined and chaste Urdu. However, when students from Eastern UP and Bengal get together, sometimes they communicate in their respective vernaculars. In his piece entitled "The Present Situation of the language of Urdu", Rafique Alam expresses his concerns over the increasing trends among the students to converse in their regional languages. He writes: "The pathetic situation of the Urdu language can be gauged from the fact that even the madrasa students have started showing indifference towards the language and the students of our celebrated Jamia are not that well-versed in the language as is expected from them. One can discern it from the fact that most of the students are often heard communicating in their own regional dialects. It makes me sad and even angry because one of the reasons why we have come here, away from our beloved family, is attaining a certain level of mastery over the language of Urdu, devouring more and more Urdu literature and interacting among ourselves in this very language." <24> In a daring piece entitled "Problems before the Madrasas and their Solutions", Ozair Ahmed has first identified some of the problems within the madrasa system and then suggested ways to solve them. According to him, there is a dearth of teachers who are expert in any discipline. The madrasa authorities do not show much interest in upgrading the academic standard of the institution. Lack of adequate budget to meet the necessary expenses also dogs the authorities. Students do not attach much importance to studies and to the learning of the moral values. Apart from these, other shortcomings of the system are: defective training system, flawed curriculum, absence of extra curricular activities, and non-availability of books on current affairs and lack of co-ordination between different madrasas. The panacea for all these ills of the madrasa system, according to the scribe, is to make talent the sole criteria for recruiting teachers and for granting admission to the students and strictly observe the same. <25> 'I am the Student' is the title of a poem by Ahmed Sayeed .<26> The poem gives an idea how the madrasa students perceive the modern education system and those who benefit from it. In the poem, the student, in first person, addresses the reader and describes different characteristics of the present situation of the student community. According to the poem, the community is unruly and most of its members are unemployed. Students are free from all social obligations and they do whatever they want to do. They simply are not interested in their studies, society and religion. All these have their bearings on their examination results and their own personalities. This has baffled the learned and responsible people of the society.<27> CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY Shah Nawaz Alam, the current editor of the magazine, has devoted one of its issues for the discussion on the concept of democracy. This initiative has no parallel in the history of the Al Manar. The issue carries 8 pieces on different aspects of the concept and practice of democracy. Laeeq Shams Kanpuri, in his piece, provides definition of democracy and discusses its pre-requisites. It starts with a famous verse of Sir Mohd Iqbal in which the poet had tried to define democracy. The verse reads: Jamhuriyat ik tarz-e-hukumat hai ki jis meN Logon ko gina karte haiN, taula nahiN karte (Democracy is a way of governance in which there is a provision to count heads, not to weigh them). Moreover, the columnist quotes the Abraham Lincoln's well-known definition of democracy: "By the people, of the people and for the people". Further, he goes on to explain it: in a democratic state, the ultimate sovereignty lies with the masses and it bestows them with the right of adult suffrage. It's necessary for the democracy to prosper that the public should use the democratic space available to control the behaviour of those who represent them in the legislature.<28 > .Riaz Ahmed, in his piece entitled "Islam and Democracy" embarks upon another aspect of the normative discourse regarding the concept of democracy. Though Islam is not at odds with the idea of democracy, writes Riaz, it has its own vision of how a democratic state should function. Giving the gist of the Islamic injunctions in this regard, he informs that everybody has the right to be the caliph and all citizens can be equal partners in the caliphate. Talent and good character can be the only criteria for promotion and progress. The caliph should be accountable to the citizens because they have elected him to represent them, investing their right to be the caliph in him. However, Islam has reserved the right to be the caliph for those who believe in Allah and perform noble deeds.<29> Ataullah Irshad talks about the functioning of the democratic polity in India since Independence. He writes that different democratic parties which were voted to the government, promised to bring economic prosperity to the country and to implement safeguards enshrined in the Constitution but they failed to keep their word. In these 56 years, he further records, "we gained nothing except poverty and unemployment. In the name of social equality and communal harmony, we received the souvenir of the state-sponsored communal violence in Meerut, Aligarh, Bhagalpur and Gujarat. Demolition of the Babari mosque is pretty enough to suggest how safe the religious monuments of the minorities are in the country. In short, when we introspect what we got in these 56 years of the democratic rule, the loss outnumbers the gain and even the future does not seem very bright under the auspices of the democratic governance". <30> Siddique Ahmed Nafis takes the debate to another plane. President Bush, in compliance with his neo-conservative colleagues, has introduced a new brand of democracy: Changezi democracy. According to it, explains Siddique, invade any sovereign country and reduce its political and economic systems to shambles, conduct election in the atmosphere of fear to introduce democracy and install any of your chaps as the head of the nation. It will easy to remote-control the politics and economy of the country. It is this sort of democracy which the Bush administration has introduced in Afghanistan and Iraq through enthroning respectively Hamid Karzai and Iladi. Siddique argues that ultimate sovereignty in a democratic political system generally lies with the citizens and the army is subservient to their elected representatives. Contrary to this, the Changezi democracy bestows the army with the authority to override the public will. "This has landed the pro-democracy people into an awkward situation", concludes Siddique.<31> FREEDOM STRUGGLE AND THE INDEPENDENCE DAY It seems that bringing out special issue of Al Manar on the occasion of the Independence Day, is becoming a recurrent practice. Three such special issues are with me. The contributions made by the students to them, range from poems originally composed for the issue, to recounting of the significant events of the freedom struggle, to assertion of the role of Muslims in general and that of the Ahle Hadis in the same and to the rebuttal of the other sects' claims regarding their contributions to war against the British imperialism. A few articles relating to the emergence of the Indian nationalism, the Partition and the bitterness which entailed it, featured in these special issues on the Independence. In the editorial column of one of these special issues, Tanvir Zaki , the editor, complains that contribution of the Muslim community to the freedom struggle is seldom acknowledged after the Partition though it played a pivotal role in fighting against the British colonialism. Shah Abdul Aziz Dehlavi was the first to issue a fatwa in favor of jihad against the Englishmen. Then the editor enumerates names of those Muslims who, in response to the fatwa, swarmed the Indian National Congress and other organizations active in the ongoing struggle, putting all that they had at stake. They are nowadays hardly remembered by their countrymen, feels the editor. <32> Maqbool Ahmed, the editor of Al Manar in the academic year of 2003, thinks that nothing has changed for the minorities of the country even though 56 years has passed since the country got independence from the British imperialism. They still are engulfed with the problems relating to their existence and identity. "How can they formulate their demands in terms of developmental issues in this situation? Moreover, how can India, as a nation, make strides when its minorities are lagging far behind the majority community?"<33> asks he in the editorial. In an interesting write-up entitled "Independence and the Partition of India", Abdul Khabir holds all the three parties equally responsible for the Partition of the country: the Englishmen, the Hindus and the Muslims. He is of the opinion that it did irreparable damage to the Muslims. That how Islamic is the polity of Pakistan, a country which came into existence in the name of Islam and whose foundation has been laid on the dead bodies of the innocent and poor, is evident.<34> The state of affairs in India after the Independence has not been very encouraging for the minorities. Incessant communal violence against them which marked the Independent India, dogged the growth and development of the Muslims. In this backdrop, Jamshed Alam in his piece entitled "Circumstances in the country after the Independence" very aptly remarks: "Though our beloved country has secured its place in the club of the Nuclear powers, it has constantly failed in protecting its minorities from the communal riots. I'm at loss to understand how I should react to this paradox of the situation: secured from the outside and threatened from within". <35> A common theme, one can discern, among all these three special issues is: emphasis on the contribution of the Ahle Hadis ulama in the freedom struggle and vociferous denial of any such claim by the Deobandi ulama. Manawwar Alam in his piece entitled "Role of the Ahle Hadis Ulama in the Freedom Struggle" writes that the British Government used to be very apprehensive about the Ahle Hadis people. To W.W.Hunter, who wrote the book "Our Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound by the Conscience to Rebel against the Queen?" , the term 'Wahhabi' is synonymous with the rebel. The reason is that Wahhabis i.e. the Ahle Hadis were considered to be the followers of Shah Mohammed Ismail Dehlavi who waged jihad against the British government and attained the martyrdom in 1831 at Balakot, fighting against the British army. Later, Inayat Ali and Vilayat Ali, two brothers from the Sadiqpuri (Sadiqpur used to be a mohalla of the British Patna) family reorganized Shah Mohammed Ismail Dehlavi's army and they used the gurilla warfare to continue the legacy of Shah Mohammed Isma'il Dehlavi. Motivated by the intra-community rivalry, as Munawwar Alam puts it, members from other Muslim sects used to inform the British government regarding the hide-outs and the strategies of the Ahle Hadis freedom fighters. This enabled the British to arrest a number of leading Ahle Hadis families like Ameer Khan and Hashmat Khan, famous leather merchants from the city of Calcutta. The British recovered huge amount of anti-Raj writings during raids at their places. Due to theses reasons, the colonial regime did not miss any opportunity to put behind bars any one whom it doubted to be of distantly linked to the Ahle Hadis. <36> Complementary to this theme is the denial by theAhle Hadis people of the role of the Deobandi ulema in the freedom struggle. To strip the 'other' of all that can be a matter of pride, is what seems to be at work at the root of the move. A piece by Nasim Akhter entitled "Role of the Hanafi Ulama in the Freedom Struggle" attempts to achieve the same. He is of the opinion that the Hanafi ulama (read Deobandi) has no share in the resistance against the British imperialism launched by Shah Mohammed Ismail Dehlavi and, later, by the Sadiqpuri family. That is why Deobandi writers tend to glorify 'the battle of Shaamli' of 1857 and 'Reshami Rumal ki Tahreek' (Movement of the Silky Handkerchiefs) of 1920s.In both of the events, the Deobandi ulama contributed significantly against the British. Nasim writes that the details of these two events provided by the Deobandi writers are not supported by the facts. Then he quotes Maulana Monazir Ahsan Gilani, a celebrated Deobandi writer, who in his biography of Maulana Qasim Nanatovi, has written that 'Maulana Nanatovi and his followers did not participate in the freedom struggle of 1857'.Afterthat he jumps to the conclusion that 'this, in addition of other evidences, prove that the Hanafi ulema simply did not participate in the freedom struggle'.<37> NATIONAL POLITICS The BJP-BSP coalition-government in UP has promulgated in 2000 a bill to regulate the construction of the religious institutions. This move on the part of the state government sent tremors among the minority communities. They saw this bill as an attempt to curtail their freedom enshrined in the Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution, to abide by their religion and to preserve it through its propagation and erecting building necessary for the purpose. With this concern as the major theme, Abdus Sabur has penned down a piece entitled "Worship Place Bill: A Condemnable Act of the UP Government". He writes that on the face of it the Bill is related to every religious community, minorities especially Muslims will be its main target. In support of his claim, he furnishes a statement by a Cabinet minister of UP saying: "All madrasas and mosques are turning into hideouts of the ISI". It is easily gauged from this statement who in reality are at the receiving end of the Bill, writes Abdus Sabur. Towards the end of his piece, he informs that the main objective of this Bill is: to obliterate the identity of Muslims which are secured due to the mosques and madrasas, to declare Muslims as anti-nationals, to provide with the opportunity to demolish mosques and madrasas, make them suspicious in the eyes of non-Muslim citizens and to push Muslims further into the lows of backwardness and illiteracy.<38> Regarding the same Bill, Faiz, another columnist, asks why the Ahle Hadis leadership is silent while all political parties and religious organizations are coming to the streets to lodge their protest against the promulgation of the Bill.<39> The RSS Supremo KS Sudarshan had advised Indian Muslims on February 23, 2001 that they should give up their insistence on maintaining their separate identity and should "Indianize Islam". Writing in this context, Shakebur Rehman argues: if patriotism is synonymous with the adoption of the values enshrined in the Hindu scriptures, Mr. Sudarshan should consider those Hindus disloyal to the country who has molded themselves according to the western values…"And if patriotism is so closely webbed to the adoption of the values of the majoritarian community by the minorities, Mr. Sudarshan should urge the Hindus of Indonesia to adhere to Islam so that they can be patriotic to their country in the sense Mr. Sudarshan understand the word". <40> In 2002 when the NDA government proposed name of Abdul Kalam as its Presidential candidate and, finally, was elected to the Highest post of the Republic, one of the editorials of Al Manar echoes the concerns of the Madrasa community and reflects their understanding of the developments in the arena of the national politics. Maqbool Ahmed, the then editor, writes: "Abdul Kalam is a political pawn and the chess player (read the NDA government) will use it as he wishes. Some may get fascinated by his Muslim-like name… But I feel the responsibility to warn my Muslim brethren of his lies and theatrics." <41> In the backdrop of the assembly elections in UP in 2002, Zaheer Ahmed, the then editor of Al Manar, has written an editorial entitled "These Elections…" According to him, whenever elections are round the corner, it's also a testing time for the Muslim citizens because they have to decide which party and which leader deserves to be voted into the government. As there is no Muslim political party, regional or national, political parties try to take benefit of this vacuum. They provide tickets to Muslim candidates so that the Muslim votes get divided and go ineffective. This is a serious issue which needs to be ruminated over. However, the Indian Muslims have gained some experiences from the functioning of the fifty years of the electoral democracy in the country. Consequently, experienced Muslim political ulama think this time Muslims should vote the Samajwadi Party into power. In the light of its past performance and its manifesto for the future, Zaheer Ahmed writes, this decision on the part of the Muslim leaders seems to be right.<42> 'Bomb Blasts and Indian Politics' is the title of a piece by Ataullah. Having described details of the bomb blasts which recently rocked the city, he analyses the dynamics of the phenomena of bomb blasts. "These blasts not only send waves of terror among the masses, they add to the political mileage of the political leaders. They tend to politicize these blasts to consolidate and polarize their vote bank. In the process, sometimes they resort to rathyatras while on the other occasions they mastermind communal riots with help of their party cadres. Thus, they try to destabilize the government. Allah should be thanked that this time the people of Varanasi foiled the dirty designs of the political leaders." <43> INTERNATIONAL POLITICS Events of the Gulf region, Palestine and the US often attract the attention of the contributors to Al Manar. In a write-up on Osama bin Laden, Arshad Hussein describes him as 'mazloom' (the oppressed) and raises some questions regarding this man and the US hunt for him. Hussein writes: "Now the oppressed Osama is being harassed in many ways: sometimes announcing prizes on his body, dead or alive, while describing him as 'terrorist' on other occasions. The question I want to raise here is: who is more dreaded terrorist than those who make false allegations against someone. Those who brand Osama as terrorist are doing so only to mask their own records of heinous crimes against the humanity. Will terrorism cease to exist if Osama is put to death?"<44> Arguing in the same vein, H.Zafar writes that we were under the impression that after the terrorist attack on the US in 2001, the US and the West would seriously make an attempt to understand the causes and effects of terrorism. Before not very long, we realized we were wrong as the US President without any substantial proof accused 'some persons' for this barbaric act. In the same piece, Zafar further elucidates: "The whole world is so blind in its animosity against Islam that they do not give a damn to the oppressions being heaped on Muslims across the world. Palestine, Chechnya, Kosovo, Burma (Myanmar), Philippine and recently in Afghanistan, Muslims are the target of the state-sponsored terrorism but nobody is ready to give it a thought. None want to understand the fact that if some Muslims are indulged in the terrorist activities, it is not because Islam preaches them to do so but only because they have been subjected to the oppression since long". <45> The US aggression against Iraq is one of the frequently debated issues in the pages of Al Manar. Qamrul Haque in his piece entitled "The Iraq War Needs a Serious Rethink from the Arabs" first provides detailed description of the fall of Baghdad and the arrest of Saddam Hussein by the US army. Then he holds Saddam responsible for the American presence in the gulf region, referring to the Iraqi invasion on Kuwait in 1990. In this regard, he writes: "It is Saddam Hussein whose imperial aspirations and short-sighted decisions made the Arabs bow before the US. However, his tyranny is now a matter of history and hearts of the Arabs are free from his terror. But now only the future will tell whether the Arabs will manage to get freedom from the US occupation".<46> This is in complete agreement with the Ahle Hadis line of arguments regarding the Gulf imbroglio. To them, Saddam Hussein is the real culprit and responsible for all the problems of the Gulf region and the House of Sa'ud has nothing to do with it and has been a victim of the dictatorial policies of Saddam. The recent controversy regarding the publication of the cartoon of the Prophet of Islam has found its echo in the wall magazine. Shahnawaz Alam is of the opinion that though a sizeable amount of literature about the life and teachings of the Prophet is available in almost every language of the world, there are few elements everywhere who have dedicated themselves to propagate indecent things regarding the Prophet. Further, he writes that "In fact the cartoons of Muhammad have nothing to do with the freedom of expression as is being claimed by Denmark and some other Christian countries. It was aimed at instigating the emotions of the Muslim community over the world. The reactions of the Muslims will enable the West to further stereotype them as barbaric and uncivilized people and to spread misconceptions about the Prophet and his teachings. This is the only way left before the West to prevent its people from embracing Islam which has scaled new heights of popularity among the Westerners after the Second World War".<47> Regarding the way Muslims have reacted to the Cartoon issue, Shahnawaz advises the community to avoid any sort of violence. "We should employ peaceful ways of lodging our protest. For example, a complete economic boycott of the western countries responsible for this mischievous act and termination of diplomatic relations with them by all the Muslim countries will be enough to teach them how to respect the revered icons of other religions" writes he. CONCLUDING REMARKS To obtain wall magazines is very difficult because they are not properly preserved. Lack of interest on the part of the madrasa authority and the financial crunch madrasa students' associations very often undergo are two main factors responsible for it. As these magazines are brought out on a full-length chart paper, their gigantic size also makes their preservation challenging and expensive. In many madrasas, articles of the current issue are pasted on those of the previous issue on a wooden board. This leaves no room for the preservation. If any editor has fortunately secured some the pieces, it will be difficult to discern which issue of the magazine a particular essay appeared. Apart from poems and ghazals, I did not come across any other literary genre in the wall magazines. On contrary, the situation is different in the wall magazines of the madrasas of Southern India. Writing short stories and publishing them in the wall magazines is not a taboo there. Narrating his experiences in Darul Huda Academy, a madrasa in the district of Chennad in Kerala, Mohd Zubair says: "As my interest lies in the field of literature, I used to frequently contribute to Sarvadigam, the literary wall magazine of the Academy. I basically used to write short stories for the magazine". When I asked which kind of short stories used to be published in the wall magazine, he replied: "Any kind of story which is not vulgar. It was not necessary to be religious. I think I've written a lot about love and all". <50> I was taken aback when he shared with me a more interesting aspect of the madrasa journalism practiced in his madrasa. It is not only about madrasa journalism, it speak volumes about the campus life in a south Indian madrasa. Zubair who now works as a sub-editor with News Link Services, an electronic evening marine newspaper, said: "We had a culture of daily hand-written newspapers. What is going on in the kitchen, what is the attitude of teachers towards students, sarcastic comments on how the management wallahs behave to students—every thing which used to happen in the campus got mention in these newspapers. They are meant to be circulated among students only. It's a kind of unofficial publications but available to all students. Sometimes they came out daily, sometimes weekly. It's a kind of pure criticism of the madrasa life". <51> REFERENCES 1. Personal interview with Shahnawaz Alam, editor of Al Manar, the students' wall magazine, Jamia Salafia, Varanasi. Date: May 1, 2006. 2. Ibid. 3. Al Manar, January 16-31,2002.p8 4. Rehman, Shafiqur, Tauheed ki Haqiqat, Al Manar, March 28, 2001.p3. 5. ibid 6. Shamsullah, Qabrparasti ka Aaghaz, Al Manar, February 20, 2000.p6. 7. Ali, Zulfiqar, Ziyarat-e-Qubur aur hamara Mo'aashra Al Manar, September 18, 2001.p4. 8. Taqlid, literally 'imitation', following one of the Sunni law schools in preference to ijtihad. As Hanafis, most Sunni Muslims in nineteenth century India were muqallids, adherers of the Hanafi School of law. 9. Imam here refers to one of the founders of the four school of jurisprudence: Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Imam Shafai, and Imam Ahmed bin Hambel. 10. Maqbool, Ahmed Maqbool, Taqlid ke Barg-o-Baar, Al Manar, July 15-30, 2003.p8. 11. Zaki, Tanveer, Editorial, Al Manar, May 8-23, 2001 .p2. 12.Al Manar, May 8-23,2001.p3 13. Haleem, Abdul, Chalo Deoband Chalen, Al Manar, May 8-23, 2001.p6. 14. Maqbool,Ahmed Maqbool, Tablighi Jama'at:Haqiqat Ya Afsana,Al Manar, February 6,2001.p5 15. Ibid. 16. Basheer, Mohd, Ummat-e-Muslima par Tasawwuf ke Umumi Asarat, Al Manar, February 26-March 10, 2005.p4. 17. Arshad, Mohd, Rajab Ke Kunde, Al Manar, 17-31 October, 1998.p4 18. Ahmed, Riyaz, Television Ik Muhlik Marz, Al Manar, July15-30, 2003.p4. 19.Ibid. 20. Moeed, Abdul, Filmbini: Summ-e-Qatil, Al Manar, Jan 17-31, 2003.p3. 21.Ahmed, Zulfiqar, Darul Iqaama ki Fariyad,(editorial),Al Manar, January 6-20,2004.p2. 22. ibid. 23. ibid. 24. Alam, Rafique, Urdu Ki Mojuda Surat-e-Haal, Al Manar March4-20.2006, p5. 25. Ahmed, Ozair, Dini Madaris ko Darpesh Masail aur unka Hal, Al Manar, October 8, 2000, p5. 26. Ahmed, Sayeed, Main Student Hoon!, Al Manar, July27-August 10,2002.,p8. 27.The text of the poem is as follows: Main student hun! ae ham-nashin is daur-e-hazir ka I am the symbol of new civilization(tmaddun ke gharey me hun nai tahzib ka sirka) Mosallat hun main sar par qaum ke wo masla ban kar Ki jis ne hosh ghaib kar diya hai har modabbier ka Mujhe sauraj ne bakhsha hai Azadi ka parwana Agar paband hun kuchh to faqat qaid-e-anaasir ka Tabi'at meri har qaid –e-talluq se hai begaana Na ghar ka hun,na college ka ,na Masjid ka,na mandir ka Siwa parhne ke har us khel me rahta hun main aage Ki jis me natiqa ho band shatir se bhi shatir ka Main lecture room me bakwas sun-ne ka nahi aadi Us par unghta hun desk jo hota hai aakhir ka Sawalaat intihan ke hal kiya karta hun yun aksar Kaleja munh ko aata hai mowarrikh ka,mobassir ka Mujhe qanun ki hadbandiyon se sakht nafrat hai Rahun paband agar ab bhi to Azadi pe lanat hai Main filmi aur jasusi rasail ka hun dildada Darsi kitabon ke tasawwur se bhi nafrat hai Meri chandya pe gumrahi wa badbakhti ki topi hai Nai tahzib ke chehre pe kalik main ne thopi hai 28. Kanpuri, Laeeq Shams, Jamhuriyat: Ta'reef aur Lawazmaat, Al Manar, February 7-20, 2006.p5. 29. Ahmed, Riaz, Islam aur Jamhuriyat, Al Manar, February 7-20, 2006.p9. 30. Irshad, Ataullah,Jamhuriyat ke Saaye me 56 Saal, Al Manar, February 7-20, 2006.p4. 31. Nafis, Siddique Ahmed, Changeziyat banaam Jamhuriyat, Al Manar, February 7-20, 2006.p2. 32. Zaki, Tanvir, Yaum-e-Azadi aur Ihsaas-e-Ziyan, Al Manar, August 11-26, 2001.p2. 33. Ahmed, Maqbool, Azadi-e-Hind ki 56win Salgirah, Al Manar August 13, 2003.p2. 34. Khabir, Abdul, Hindustan ki Azadi aur Taqseem, Al Manar August 16-31, 2005, p3. 35. Alam, Jamshed, Azadi ke baad Halaat-e-Watan, Al Manar, August, 13, 2003.p9. 36. Alam, Manawwar, Jang-e-Azadi me Ulama-e-Ahle Hadis ka Kirdar, Al Manar, August 13, 2003, p4. 37. Akhter, Nasim, Jang-e-Azadi me Ulama-e-Ahnaaf ka Role, Al Manar, August 13, 2003,p7. 38. Sabur, Abdus, Ibadatgah Bill: Hukumat-e-UP ki ik Mazmum Harkat, Al Manar, April 04-19, 2000, p6. 39. Faiz, Ye Khamoshi Kyon aur Kab Tak? Al Manar, April 04-19, 2000, p5. 40. Rehman, Shakebur, Islam ka Bhartiyakaran, Al Manar, March 28, 2001, p6. 41. Ahmed, Maqbool, Abdul Kalam Siyasi Shatranj ka Mohra, Al Manar, July 27, 2002-Augut 10, 2002,p2. 42. Ahmed, Zaheer, Ye Election…, Al Manar, February 15-March 1, 2002.p2. 43. Ataullah, Bomb ke Dhamake aur Hindustani Siyasat, Al Manar, April 1-25,2006p5. 44. Hussein, Arshad, Osama Bin Laden, Al Manar, October 10, 2000, p7. 45. Zafar,H,Dahshatgardi Ka Ilaaj Insafpasandi,Al Manar,February 15-March 1,2002,p6. 46. Haque, Qamrul, Jang-e-Iraq: Arabon ke Liye Lamha-e-Fikriya, Al Manar, January 24-February 07, 2004, p5. 47. Alam, Shahnawaz, Ye ik Badtareen Sazish Hai, (editorial), Al Manar, March 04-20, 2006, p2. 48. Alam, Shahnawaz, Ye ik Badtareen Sazish Hai, (editorial), Al Manar, March 04-20,2006, p8. 49. Personal Interview with Mohd Zubair Hudawi, New Delhi, Date:June 12, 2006. 50.Ibid 51. Ibid -- arshad amanullah 35,masihgarh, jamia nagar new delhi-25. From shveta at sarai.net Sat Aug 19 09:36:15 2006 From: shveta at sarai.net (shveta at sarai.net) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 06:06:15 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Nangla-Ghevra Update Message-ID: <4e24be1f2af707b147416d8788b7bfa3@sarai.net> Dear All, The next round (the final round) of demolition of Nangla is scheduled for next week. (There was no police availability till 15th August, but there is now). End of July, a letter was procured from MCD, stating parcheez (slips) for allocation of land will be given out in Nangla between the 3rd and the 6th of August. The process finally began on the 5th, when 33 parcheez were given out. 99 were given away on the 6th. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu4xzux1Lrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpi7Q1HkcSA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE8naL3RPqE for short videos from Nangla from 06th August, the second day of issue of parcheez. The next round of distribution of parcheez will be around the 21st-22nd of August. According to MCD officials, they have a list of 950 people who will be relocated. The list has two categories - I and II - pre 1990 and pre 1998. These parcheez are receipts of cash (Rs. 7000) that have to be deposited towards the land. They say "cash received for 10 years". Around the 24th-25th of August, parcheez for land - that is where the relocation will be and what the plot number is - will be given away against the cash receipts. Relocation will be to Ghevra. The final round of demolition will begin after that. That is around the 25th of August. MCD will provide transportation - tempos - to people who have been allocated land. CM practitioners will continue to write from Nangla and Ghevra. Do visit the Nangla Blog (http://nangla.freeflux.net) for updates since beginning of this month. (The last two weeks, the blog has been facing some upload difficulties, because of which it has not been able to upload images and videos, and the uploaded texts appear unformatted. This will soon be sorted out.) best shveta From stevphen at autonomedia.org Sat Aug 19 10:04:22 2006 From: stevphen at autonomedia.org (Stevphen Shukaitis) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 00:34:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Massive Sale on Books from Autonomedia Message-ID: <49627.72.79.147.170.1155962062.squirrel@mail.panix.com> The Brooklyn based radical publisher Autonomedia (who is the US distributor of the Sarai reader) is having a massive sale to raise some funds for some new projects. There are lots of great titles on the Zapatistas, anarchism, pirates, heretical Islam, radicals arts and media, and titles by people like Hakim Bey / Peter Lamborn Wilson, the Midnight Notes Collectives, and David Watson. So here’s a chance to snap them up for a lot less than they would usually cost. **Please Forward Widely** Massive Sale on Books from Autonomedia This is just a short note to alert you to a huge sale we're having through the end of the month at the Autonomedia (online) warehouse. Nearly every Autonomedia title is discounted from 20-70%, in an effort to clear some stock off the shelves as well as generate some cash to pay the printers for our upcoming season of new titles. There are many, many hidden gems in our warehouse, and we're eager to use this sale to move them into your hands. Some examples: “This World We Must Leave,” a collection of essays from the challenging ultra-leftist French/Italian writer Jacques Camatte, for less than $5: http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=495 “An Existing Better World,” a memoir of the Bread and Puppet Theater by George Dennison, a radical educator and long-term comrade of the ensemble, for $7. http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&products_id=55 “The Anarchists,” by John Henry Mackay, a great novel set in Victorian London at the time of the Haymarket riots. This book was originally published in 1891, and reissued by Autonomedia just over a century later, and it's under-read, to say the least. It's great! And we've got it on sale for $6 and change! http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&cPath=71&products_id=7 And there are many more. Go to http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=7 for a full list of Autonomedia books, and please consider picking up something you haven't heard of, and maybe another copy of a favorite book as a gift, or a charged object to be left in a public place... * * * Some new books you'll find in the bookstore: * The brand new issue of Cometbus mysteriously showed up in our warehouse, stinking of newsprint and old beer. This issue includes interviews with members of TV on the Radio, Low, Neurosis, The Evens, Casual Dots, and more, as well as bunch of new stories, a NYC Used Bookstore report, and a 26-page mini-book bound in the same covers. Your $2 copy awaits at http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=496 * Walter Benjamin, “On Hashish.” Benjamin was no stranger to the hash pipe, and documented his experiments with hashish between 1927 and 1934, investigating what he called “profane illumination.” At issue here, as everywhere in Benjamin's work, is a new way of seeing, a new connection to the ordinary world. Under the influence of hashish, as time and space become inseparable, experiences become subtly stratified and resonant: we inhabit more than one plane in time. What Benjamin, in his contemporaneous study of Surrealism, calls “image space” comes vividly to life in this philosophical immersion in the sensuous. Yowza. http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&products_id=487 * Max Cafard, “The Surre(gion)alist Manifesto and Other Writings.” Regarding this inspiring and rollicking brew of surrealism, anarchism, Chinese philosophy and Nietzschean trouble-making, Andrei Codrescu wrote the following: “[H]is insurgent writing gave our readers the sudden frisson that they were in the presence of something new. One never forgets that frisson when first encountering Nietzsche, Cioran, Derrida, or Deleuze... The frisson is renewed by each encounter, but the original feeling of the discovery is unequalled. This was precisely my epiphany on encountering Max Cafard's manifesto: I am in a new place.” Only $12, and available at http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&products_id=492 * * * * * Please also make the Interactivist Info Exchange a regular part of your network browse. Some recent stories posted (at http://info.interactivist.net) include A powerful post-ceasefire account of life in Lebanon http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/08/15/236213 A proposal to adopt the anniversary of the 2003 Blackout as an Unofficial Popular Holiday http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/08/14/0553217 A very interesting call for submissions on the topic of anarchist propaganda http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/08/09/0626217 A provocative essay analyzing how the tactics of the Israeli Defense Forces have been influenced by the writings of Guy Debord and Deleuze and Guattari http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/08/09/0626217 And much more. The easy way to see a table of contents for the Info Exchange is to register for a (free) account, which gives you greater control of viewing options, and will bring you one step closer to co-participating in the Exchange. Please join us! Autonomedia: http://www.autonomedia.org Turning the Word Upside Down Since 1984 Interactivist Info.Exchange: http://info.interactivist.net From ramannandita at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 20:56:40 2006 From: ramannandita at gmail.com (Nandita Raman) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:56:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Horrible experience at KINSEY PHOTOGRAPHY LAB Message-ID: <3B352B48-93F1-42C0-B768-ED81244DD74B@gmail.com> Dear All, I want to share this horrific experience I had in the Kinsey Labs owned by Ashok Dilwali. I have been documenting the changing faces of cinema halls in and around Delhi in the Black and white film medium. Spending a couple of days at each cinema hall, requesting permission, developing a familiarity and taking photographs. When I gave the last batch of 5 rolls to Kinsey Brothers in Connaught Place, little did I know that all this work will be ruined. All the five rolls have irregular scratches in most of the negatives! The people handling the processing acknowledged the scratches, accepted it was not the problem of the camera but had no idea where they went wrong. A scary situation. To top it all when I spoke to Ashok Dilwali about this over the phone, here is what he said; 'The black and white negatives are so delicate, you know. They will get scratches where ever you will process them' I was stunned, didn't know what to say to this man who has been photographing for donkey years and is amongst the top photographers in India when it comes to Himalayas. ' Well, sir, I would like to show these negatives to you. These are not scratches because the medium is delicate. And I have a request please do not process any black and white in your lab till you fix this problem.' ' We process black and white everyday, we have never got such complaints.' I thought what contradictions in a matter of a minute- from delicate negative likely to get scratched to no complains of scratches. ' Alright sir, I will wait for your call so I can come over with the negatives for you to see.' So at the end of it I stand with 36X5 =180 unusable shots and an unwillingness to give all the unprocessed rolls that I have to any lab. Thought it might be useful for you all to know this experience. Best regards, Nandita From mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com Sun Aug 20 11:54:45 2006 From: mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com (mahmood farooqui) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 11:54:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Interview with Prachand Message-ID: Interview of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) leader Prachand by Anand Swaroop Verma 29 July 2006 Q. Did you ever anticipate that within 10 years of initiating the People's War it would reach such a great height? A. I would like to tell you that towards the last leg of our preparations for launching the People's War, we did discuss about the progress sequence of Nepalese People's War. The pace of its progress was thoroughly discussed and finally, we reached at the conclusion that contradictions existing within the country and the prevailing external situation combined together to facilitate the speedy progress of the People's War. Q. Some people opine that the timing of your starting an armed struggle was wrong since the objective situations were not ripe at that time. After the dismemberment of Soviet Union in 1990, the communists, all over the world, were feeling let down and post-1990 the imperialist forces were gaining ground. Was it the right time to launch People's War? A. True, the conditions at that time, were really adverse. Post-Soviet Union dismemberment, the imperialist forces were celebrating the demise of communism. On the other hand, Peru's Maoist revolution got a severe blow with the arrest of Com. Gonzalo. Thus the international scenario was really very unfavourable for our action. But when we analyzed the situation, we found that within Nepal people's aspirations had got a fillip after the 1990 pro-democracy movement and they were under a false hope of improvement. In order to remove this false sense of hope, we even entered the parliament and for three years tried to explain to the masses that post-1990 agreement was not the real agreement, it was not in the interest of the people. We repeated the same inside the parliament also. We told people that they have been betrayed. Thus after three years of continuous campaigning, we found that conditions, within Nepal, were getting conducive for launching People's War. All the work undertaken by us during the parliamentary sittings and debates convinced us that conditions at the national level were quite ripe for the launching of the People's War. Though it is true that, at the international level, conditions were not as favourable but then this was exactly the time when our valor was needed to be tested. We thought that if we could move forward by using our internal conduciveness to remove the general sense of despair spreading fast throughout the world, then we can contribute a bit towards bringing some change in the prevailing situation. Moreover, it was our well thought-out strategy. We are convinced now that our strategy was right. By initiating People's War amidst trying conditions we got an opportunity to show that revolutions are not dead. We could tell the world that 21st century will again be a century of revolutions. Q. What was your final objective at that time? A. Looking at the semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions prevailing in Nepal, our immediate aim was to attain new democratic revolution but like any other communist our final objective was also to establish socialism and communism. Q. But then you had to change your objective. Shouldn't it be called opportunism? A. On this question a lengthy debate is still going on. We are not taking recourse to this new strategy due to some weakness. In fact, we are trying to move ahead only after gaining strength. People should understand that we have changed our policy not because of some sort of setback but due to the strength derived from the People's War. Secondly, we are forced to bring change in our functioning due to the existing balance of forces at the international level. But the first reason is primary. Having gained enough strength any revolutionary party tends to acquire greater flexibility on its way to reaching the seat of power. This is what happened in China also, when Mao Tse-tung, before meeting Chiang Kai Shek in 1945 for the talks regarding the formation of a coalition government, had already decided, in 1940, about reaching the goal of New democratic Revolution. And this could become possible since by that time the communist party had been able to gain lots of strength. Thus, Mao's proposal of a coalition was not an act of weakness but an evidence of CPC having gained strength over the years. Similarly, if we are currently talking about the democratic republic or if we engaged in peace talks or if we are here in Kathmandu, this is the result of our strength and not weakness. Even Lenin was forced to enter into Bresh-Lito Treaty with Germany at the time of October Revolution. At that time, many in Lenin's party said that it was, like an act of surrender but it was not that. Rather, it was the result of Lenin and Bolshevic Party, the result of their gaining strength. In the same way, the flexibility which you see in our tactics is not the result of our deviation but that of strength. Q. Somewhere you have said that current phase is a transition phase. What do you mean by it? A. We have said so in the context of democratic republic. It means that if we look at the current international balance of forces as also the regional balance of forces in South Asia then it is difficult to reach the centre of power. We will have to take a diversion. That's why our moving forward after reaching an understanding with the liberal faction of the bourgeoise is being called a transitionary phase by us. If we look at deeply at the essence of that which we are calling democratic republic then we would find that it was none other than the people's republic. I am saying this because within that we have raised the class question, nationality question, gender question and the regional question. If all these four issues are solved then it amounts to having new democratic republic. Contentwise it is fine but since we are also talking about the peaceful competition with the bourgeoise, its form looks like a bourgeois democracy whereas it is a New Democracy in essence. That's why we said that it could be a transitional democracy. We feel that only this way we can fulfil people's aspiration for a revolution in the current global scenario and can somewhat contribute towards international communist movement and world proletarian revolution. Q. But this is not supposed to be your final goal, it is much beyond this. You have just said that you have reached this stage through gradual strengthening of your party. Now efforts are on to disarm the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the main source of your strengthening process. How you are going to counter that? A. We feel that we have already countered them successfully. They have been defeated and we have been victorious. The question of the management of army was solved by us in Delhi itself when 12-point understanding was reached. Now what these people are doing is counter to 12-point understanding and historical mass movement. We are still being requested by the Nepalese people, Nepal's intellectual section and the civil society not to give up our arms. They say that if we give up our arms, the autocracy will again have its say and these parliamentary parties will be destroyed overnight. Those who are asking us to give up arms are unable to comprehend this. When we talk with the leaders of these political parties we say that had we not been armed, there would have been no 12-point understanding. Had we not been armed, Deuba would have never been able to come out of prison. Had we not been armed, many of you would have been killed because for a feudal monarchy, which murdered its blood-relations inside the Palace, these parliamentary parties are of no importance. These parties have nothing to fall back upon. During 12-13 years of their rule, they have been so corrupt that they have lost their credibility. They have no base among the masses nor do they have any access to arms. This autocracy could have easily eliminated them. But they were saved because we were armed. We also told them that our weapons only made the revival of your parliament possible, you are not credited with it, the credit goes to PLA. We are also saying that you have become ministers and prime minister because PLA is armed. Royal Nepal Army (RNA) has never been active in the cause of democracy. On the contrary it has suppressed all the people's movements which took place since 1951. It has always been loyal towards feudal aristocracy. Therefore the top priority should be given to the democratization of this army. When the 12-point understanding was reached we had told you clearly that we would not give up our weapons. During those days king Gyanendra was conducting farcical municipal elections and these political parties had requested us not to give up arms in any condition otherwise the dictatorship of Gyanendra will unleash a reign of terror. And now when because of these very guns you are in the parliament then you are saying that our weapons are creating trouble for you? The people of Nepal will not accept this. The people know how important are our weapons for them and that if we are disarmed, it will bring havoc in the country. But their class character and selfishness is forcing these political parties to say otherwise. Besides they are also feeling the external pressure. US is openly pressurising these political parties and they are also feeling the pressure of India. These pressures are forcing them to say such things. But we are of the view that even this battle has been won by us. When 8-point agreement was reached at Baluatar (PM Koirala's official residence) on June 16, 2006 then it was decided that both the armies and their weapons will be monitored with the cooperation of the UN. Now raising this issue again amounts to going back on the agreement. If these parties retrace back for the agreement then, we feel, people will not bear them. And a single appeal by us will again bring the masses on the streets. That's why I say that we have won this round too. Q. But these parties are delaying the implementation of 8-point agreement. A. Yes, this is precisely the main thing. We never pressed for the 8-point agreement. It was reached at Baluatar, the residence of prime minister Koirala. We were brought to his residence by home minister Sitaula so the question of our putting the pressure does not arise. On the contrary, it were we who must be feeling the pressure because we had been brought to Baluatar. We had a fierce discussion for 10 to 11 hours on the question of dissolving the parliament before the agreement was reached. We want that after drafting an interim constitution an interim government should be set up and parliament be dissolved. After this we would also dissolve the governments in areas controlled by us and will work under the interim arrangements. These things became the part of the agreement. But, later, Washington started putting pressure on these parties and India also wielded some pressure. Perhaps earlier they did not consult the Indian government on this issue. These leaders are not habitual of thinking independently and they are least bothered about the lot of the Nepalese people. These leaders pay little attention on what the people desire, what are their feelings and aspirations. Their main attention is always focussed on what US is saying or what India is saying. I think this the main weakness of Nepalese parliamentary parties. And this weakness has been playing havoc with the expectations and aspirations of the people of Nepal since 1951. Now also they have sidetracked the agreement to which they have been a party. Thus, these leaders are befooling themselves and are committing hara-kiri because Delhi and Washington cannot rescue them. Only the people of Nepal can rescue them. If, in the eyes of the people, these leaders prove themselves as honest and firm then only their political survival will be possible. Otherwise if they keep looking towards Delhi and Washington, then Nepalese people will not allow them to hold the ground. We hope that they will try to understand this. I am still hopeful of their comprehending this before it is too late. Q. Tell me at a time when American attitude is quite negative, and due to their class interests, the political parties are creating all sorts of obstacles, what can be the worst scenario? A. It is due to their class interests that US and feudal elements, comprador and bureaucratic capitalist classes want to halt and destroy this political process. At the time of 12-point agreement also US had openly said that the agreement will benefit the Maoists most and the political parties should not have entered into the agreement. Later, the US said that these parties should withdraw themselves from the obligation of the agreement. But such was the situation in Nepal that these parties were compelled to be with us. This time also when 8-point agreement was reached at the residence of the prime minister, the US ambassador James Moriarty openly said that this agreement is the agenda of Maoists. I think that the agreement is the agenda of the country, of the people and is representative of everybody's feelings. We feel that the experience of the Nepalese people is helping them to identify who are in the favour of peace and who are against it; who are pro-democracy and who are anti-democracy. One thing is sure that these political leaders cannot politically alienate us. Since you have asked about the worst scenario, I feel that they might conspire to give effect to some tragedy. For, we are presently in Kathmandu, and this is an area of their influence. We have seen that internationally when any revolutionary or democratic party becomes immense popular and starts challenging the imperialist forces then imperialism, as a last resort, orders killing of some of the leaders. After eliminating main leadership, divisions are created within the party. This has happened in many countries of the world. I think in the worst of the situations this can happen here also, but we are quite vigilant. We have also warned the Nepalese people against this danger. While currently being in Kathmandu we have received requests to remain alert and these requests have poured in from the people, intelligentsia, civil society and other segments of the country. This suggests that there does exist danger to our lives. We are trying our utmost to make their designs fail. Q. In February 2006 during an interview, you had said that important changes will take place in the Nepalese politics after 6th of April and you were proved right. Could you now tell by what time the Nepalese politics will be able to take a correct course? A. At that time we had made predictions only after objectively analysing the political forces and political events and we were proved right. We think that within one year scenario will be crystal-clear. May be things can become clearer even within 8 to 10 months or even less than that. We want that things should be clear within 3-4 months and we are making deliberate efforts towards that direction. Q. Whether you see any possibility of Jan Andolan-3 ( People's Movement-3 taking place? Can we see the emergence of a front of those who are in support of the Republic? A. This is a very important question. We feel that the chances of initiation of a third movement are very much there if those in the government do not comprehend the needs and aspirations of Nepalese people. But this will be a decisive movement. If these leaders are able to comprehend the feeling of the people then the chances are there of establishing a democratic republic through the elections of the constituent assembly and without initiating a movement. But the tendencies currently evident suggest that these leaders will not comprehend it. Therefore, the danger has increased. In such a condition things will be clear even before the process of electing the constituent assembly is initiated. The creation of the republic will be announced. Proceeding through the path of the constituent assembly may delay the announcement for some time, may be one year or so but if peoples movement-3 is started then this announcement could be made much earlier. We are trying our utmost to make this transition peaceful. For the last one and half months while staying at Kathmandu we met people from various sections and we are continuing to tell them that we are not going back and we will be staying here only. Hence, we are exchanging views with the people of Newar community. We keep on telling them that 237 years ago the Shah of Gorkhas Prithvi Narayan Shah had committed atrocities on your people. At that time your leader was not good. Your king had amassed wealth which made him a debauch. Whereas the king of Gorkhas did not have much money. So he tried to establish himself by wielding his sword. At that time your people opposed him tooth and nail. The commander of Prithvi Narayan Shah was killed in Kirtipur and one eye of Shah's brother got damaged. Now the time has come for you to stand up. We have arrived in Kathmandu after smashing the roots of 237- year old feudalism from the villages. Now it is your turn to make next revolution possible. In this endeavour we are with you. We keep on talking like this and are having a positive reaction to it. I feel that once they stand-up in Kathmandu, it won't take even 19 days to make the king run away. Q. You said that you will now follow a peaceful struggle but People's Liberation Army (PLA) has put up its camps all around kathmandu which give the impression of a forthcoming war. What is the secret behind this? A. We have stationed PLA in temporary camps for monitoring purposes. We have put on these camps for peace talks and not for initiating war. Moreover, PLA is required to do regular exercises and training. In a sense, this is also our preparation to meet any eventuality in case the Royal Army plays some prank or takes recourse to some sort of conspiracy. In this sense, of course, it can be called our preparations. One reason behind putting up these camps is also to let people go to these camps and see our army. Our goal, at least now, is not to wage war. You can look at it both ways- it can be a preparation to meet any eventuality and can also be an effort towards pushing forward the peace process. If the enemy creates some trouble then it should be considered a preparation and if the peace process is moving smoothly then it should be considered a contribution. Q. We have seen in the past in Nepal as well as other countries, the so-called revolutionary communists got degenerated once they occupied the seat of power. If you come to power what is the guarantee that you will not be degenerated? What measures you have taken to save your leadership from falling down? A. This is a very important question. We had tried to raise this debate within the party at the time of making preparation for peoples war. We should not try to mechanically implement the experiences of the revolution of 20th century and should keep in mind the specificities of 21st century and should also keep in mind the specificities of our struggle. We had also raised this debate as how to develop further the science of revolution. Many such types of serious debates were regularly held within the party. After the five years experience of People's War we did analyse a group of thoughts but decided not to follow a particular model. Two years later we organised a historical meeting in which we passed a resolution entitled 'Development of Socialism in 21st Century.' We consider this resolution as a milestone in course of development of our thought and ideas. The resolution says that a multiparty competition should be organised within a constitutional framework under both dictatorship of the proletariat and people's democratic dictatorship. If competition will not be there then the whole society will become more and more mechanical and metaphysical. There is an objective rule of society. We can't forcefully take people to a particular direction for long. If done so it always results in rebellion. This is what happened in Russia. The same happened in China too. Without learning from these experiences if we keep on repeating it then it will mean that we don't accept Marxism as science but as a dogma. We are not dogmatists. A real Marxist can never be a dogmatist. Comrade Stalin created a system wherein if you are in conflict with someone you remained in conflict with that person or system forever and if there is unity with someone it is taken to the extreme level. For this reason a metaphysical tendency dominated over the entire communist movement which Mao Tsetung tried to overcome through Cultural Revolution but the influence of Russian socialism and Stalin was such that even Mao could not succeed in his efforts. The same model was complemented in China too but after the death of Mao everything changed in China. After the Chinese revolution there existed eight political parties in China which did not support feudalism and imperialism. Mao allowed them to continue to work because he wanted them to support the Communist Party. We have turned this 'support' to competition. We feel that in order to make a society lively, the proletarian party should also take up the task of organising competition. It does not mean that we are moving towards bourgeoise democracy. We have clearly written in that document that this is organising competition under the dictatorship of the proletariate. People might get the impression that this is also a kind of moving towards bourgeois democracy but it is not so. The difference lies in that we are talking about organising the competition in the leadership of the proletariate whereas they organise the competition under the leadership of the bourgeoise. Immediately after the October Revolution, Lenin gave a call to organise the socialist competition. He had talked about the economic policy and in the field of ideology had talked about organising the socialist competition. We think that had Lenin been alive for another five years, he would have certainly gone further ahead towards organising the political competition. He would not have allowed the kind of repression within the party which was unleashed by Stalin. Though Stalin was a committed revolutionary but it is one thing to be committed and completely different to apply science in a proper way. After so many years we are again falling back upon Lenin and trying to further develop his principle. That's why we passed a resolution on 'Development of Socialism in 21st Century.' We feel that it is a revolution within a revolution, a big revolution at the level of ideology, an important development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. And we consider this a solid ideological base which will prevent our party from getting corrupted and degenerated. We will welcome the critics, we will get those in front rows who are ready to pinpoint our weaknesses, thus we will be saved from disgrace. If we commit any folly, then another proletarian party will emerge to replace us. Q. Does it also involve the system which will save you from liquidation? A. I do think this way. We will have to generate a system. Through revolution we will reach there and organise the competition. We are not talking of surrendering to the bourgeoise democracy. This is not at all connected with that. Some are not getting it. We are repeatedly saying that we will reach there through revolution. While making our bases throughout the country we have already got some indications of degeneration. When you have enough resources, the image of your party starts building up, it starts getting the respect from the people, the leader of the party becomes important then the danger of degeneration also crops up. We have already seen this. The same happened in Russia and China and its embryonic form has been seen in a symbolic way in Nepal also. In order to prevent it from growing we have thought of starting some sort of competition under the leadership of proletariate in the villages too. If we could implement this, we would be able to save our activists from degeneration. When we will occupy power in the Centre, then the danger of us and our Central committee getting degenerated will be lesser. That's why we want to develop a system. It will be a new experiment under the leadership of the proletariate. We feel that only this way we can save ourselves from getting degenerated and will prevent the revolution turning into counterrevolution. Q. After coming to power will your party operate freely or will it still remain underground? A. If we come to power 'fully' then the party will be functioning openly but if we come to power partially, then one part of the party will remain underground. The current phase is transitional in nature. Therefore we have to wait and see which direction the politics takes. During the transitional phase we will have to keep a part of the party leadership underground in order to maintain the revolutionary character of the party and to remain connected to the people's movement during the transitional phase. That's why I can not give clear reply to this question. Q. In your documents you have talked about the perpetual or continuous revolution. In this situation it is necessary to maintain the entire party structure including the PLA. Will international powers give consent to it? A. You must realise that these international powers even did not recognise our movement and what we have achieved till today but still we are here. Even these international powers are divided, there exist all sorts of contradictions among them and we have been able to reach here by properly handling these contradictions. That's why we feel that we will be able to take forward the revolutionary forces even after coming to power. In this context I will like to make a clarification. Ten months back our Central Committee has passed a resolution in which it has been said that if we occupy the seat of power then the top rung of the leadership will keep itself away from the day-to-day administrative affairs. This is a very serious question. Only by solving them properly we can save the party from degeneration and will be able to continue our programme of perpetual revolution. This is an important strategic question. If our top leadership, even after coming to power, keeps itself connected to the masses and lets the second rank of leadership look after the administrative work then we can succeed in our goal to a great extent. The top leadership will formulate a policy and handover it to the second generation of leadership which will be made responsible to run the government. We mean to say that only people from the second rank of leadership will be eligible for the post of President and Prime Minister and the top rank of leadership will remain engaged with the people's movements. This way we will also be able to keep an eye, with the help of the people, on the working of the second rank of leadership. If the person occupying the seat of power commits some mistake then we will organise the people against him. Through this process we would be able to educate our successor and at the same time people will manage to have an eye on the functioning of those who are in power. Mao could not do this in China. But we must do this and I am sure we will be able to do it. That's why we have passed a resolution to this effect. It will be a stupendous task and I am sure that if we could live for 10 more years then we will show the results. After 10 years our places will be taken up by those second rank leadership who are in the government and, in turn, they will train the third generation leadership. This way the danger of counter-revolution can be reduced to a great extent. This is also a method, rather it is an ideology. There is a rule pertaining to the development of the society - the new replacing the old. This rule is scientific in nature. We have seen that even when the leaders attain the age of 80 years, even 90 years and become absent minded but still they remain clung to the top rung of the leadership. Mao did it, Stalin also did the same. This is not a good practice, it is unscientific. This had been one of the factors responsible for creating troubles. That's why we passed this type of resolution. Q. How do you conceive the future of Nepal? A. If you are asking this from the revolutionary point of view then we look at Nepal as the base of the world revolution. From economic point of view, within 10 years we can change the face of the country. Nepal has got immense resources, mighty manpower and strong determination of its people. With the help of these we can give effect to all-sided development of Nepal. Our planning is to create a highway in hilly region linking east to the west. This highway will further be linked to various areas with the help of the link roads. Nepal has electricity in good amount which can be utilised for running many small-scale projects. Nodoubt, we also want to award some major projects to international agencies. This way we will be able to create a huge infrastructure providing employment opportunities to the people. Nepal is most beautiful country of the world and has got immense possibilities in the field of tourism. If we could implement our plans then we could be able to make Nepal like Switzerland within 10 years. Q. Is there any plan to call back millions of Nepalese gone abroad in search of livelihood? A. If a genuine people's government is formed, a government which has a vision and has a determination to work according to that vision, then we will certainly call back all Nepalese living abroad and they will be eager to come back. Q. If the ruling class of India obstructs this, how will you face it? A. Its true that in the context of Nepal, the history of Indian ruling class has not been very good. But India's masses are gradually understanding the importance of Nepalese revolution and are coming forward in its support. We would like to see this process getting more concretised. I am convinced that with the support of Indian masses we would be able to remove all obstacles put up by the Indian ruling class. Q. What will be the status of Gyanendra in the face of the changes being brought about in Nepalese politics? A. He will have to quit. If he voluntarily wants to quit Monarchy then he will be allowed to stay in the country like an ordinary citizen. If he does not do so then he will have to leave the country. We don't see any future for him because the average Nepali hates him a lot. From dilip.sarai at gmail.com Sun Aug 20 14:11:15 2006 From: dilip.sarai at gmail.com (Dilip D'Souza -- Sarai) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 14:11:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Three vignettes Message-ID: <1a57bfd0608200141q2c90b6dei1fe534a25e5e7702@mail.gmail.com> August 20 Dear Fellow Fellows, As a final (7th) post, here's three short vignettes from my travels through the "villages" of Bombay. I wrote these individually several weeks ago, but since none of them made sense as an article on its own, I put them together here. I hope to speak about some of this at our gathering in a few days. See you all soon! best, dilip. --- Three Vignettes ------------------ Dilip D'Souza The Magen Hassidim Synagogue turns 75 years old this year. (Well, by some accounts the synagogue dates to 1904, but as fas as I can tell construction on it was completed in 1931). It sits on Mohammed Shahid Road in the heart of Agripada, and it is the largest Bene Israel synagogue in the city. On the Sabbath, the peaceful and spacious interior of this largest Bene Israel synagogue attracts ... 60 worshippers. I sit outside the synagogue, trying to comprehend that number, looking up at various plaques and tablets that remember various donations to the synagogue. Then the thought comes to me, for no particular reason: on any given Sabbath, there are more names on these walls than there are bowing their heads inside. And that thought makes me get up and stroll around the little verandah, peering at the plaques. There were once something like 50,000 Bene Israeli Jews in and around Bombay. Most of them had done aliyah -- emigrated to Israel -- by the early '90s. There are only about 4000 left in India now, though that number has stayed more or less static instead of declining some more. (Meaning that aliyah has slowed over the last decade or so, perhaps a reflection of the ever-greater uncertainty and violence in the Middle East). Bene Israelis trace their history in India to a shipwreck off this stretch of coast, two hundred years before Christ was born. Now you may scoff at that, but Bene Israelis believe it. What's more, they believe that story is supported by the DNA evidence unearthed a few years ago by the English professor Tudor Parfitt. Certain features in the DNA of Bene Israelis, Parfitt discovered, are "found only in male descendants of Aaron, Moses' elder brother, who founded [a] line of Jewish priests." (Times of India, July 20 2002). So if this is to be believed and there's no reason not to, Bene Israelis are descendants of a priestly class going back 2000 years. But today? Daniel Vaskar, who calls himself the "manager" of Magen Hassidim, tells me they don't even have a regular rabbi. Now I know most Bene Israelis left here voluntarily, to do aliyah. Yet somehow ... there's something infinitely sad about the slow fade of Bombay's synagogues, and this one in particular. And I search in those plaques for some explanation. A sample of what they tell me: * Isaac David Mhedekar gave the synagogue Rs 5001 "in loving memory of late Mrs Jerusha Isaac Mhedekar." (His wife, I presume). * Mrs Shoshannabai Asher Chewoolkar gave Rs 10,001 "in loving memory of Mr Arthur Isaac Chewoolkar." * The golden letters above the Hekhal ("ark"; in a synagogue, this refers to where the Torah is kept) were the gift of Mrs Hannah Abraham Simeon Bhinjekar and Miss Ruth Abraham Simeon Bhinjekar. * Jonathan Daniel Chaulkar and Sharona Jonathan Chaulkar together contributed Rs 15,000 for the small chandelier. * Daniel Joseph Bhastekar contributed Rs 750 for two fans. * Ephraim David Solomon, Retired Deputy Superintendent of Jails in Rangoon, Burma, contributed Rs 100. (Oddly, there were plenty of contributors from Rangoon). * Other places contributors were from: Karachi, Andheri, Surat, Balsar, Nagaon, Manikpur, Sukkur, Badarpur and Bombay. * Of all people, Pestonjee Dadabhai contributed Rs 101 to the synagogue. Yes, a Parsi name. * Just above the "Dharma Peti", a slot for leaving donations, is a sign that says "Charity Delivereth from Death." Reading all this, I get a sense of what this synagogue meant to a community. What would all these people think, I wonder, to know that their splendid temple now has a congregation of just 60 people? *** Wandering over to Matharpacady, I find a gentle reminder of the plaques at the Magen Hassidim Synagogue. At one end of this once-largely Catholic village, there is a small grotto with Christ on the cross. An inscription there reads: "This cross oratory was erected in 1875 through the initiative of Mr F Oliveira. Mrs I Butelho gave the land. Others helped." "Others helped." A hint, no more, of people and generosity past. I like that. *** In Zaveri Bazar, you find roadside vendors with trays full of tools -- mostly pliers of every description. Some like the squat curved beaks of finches, some spring-loaded, some long and pointed like alligator jaws, some narrow. And handles in every colour possible. For when you make jewellery, I assume. Zaveri Bazar being, of course, this city's jewellery heart. And many of those same vendors also have piles of rectangular pads of paper, also in every colour possible. What's that for? And many of those same vendors also have piles of tiny earthen bowls. Smaller than Diwali "diyas", much thinner too, and a much lighter brown. Vendor after vendor, boxes and boxes of them. What are these, I finally ask one. "They are used to heat gold," he says. Oh yes, jewellery. Then this sign that sticks out from the wall of a crumbling building: "The Bombay Bullion Association Limited (Gold Sample Tunch Receiving Centre) 1st Floor." What do they do with a gold sample tunch once it's received at the Bombay Bullion Association? Heat it in a little earthen bowl? And several shops that tell us they deal with "All Kinds of Immitation Jewellery." Why? One, "Rupali Immitation Jewellers", informs us via a sign that it also sells "Colouring Book, Comb, Pen, Needle, Thread, Immitations, Cutlery and Bindi Item. All Family Use Items." Real Combs? Or Immitation ones? And finally the Mahalaxmi laundry, which has this sign outside, Marathi below: "Clothes of Person Suffering From any Infectious or Contegious Disease shall be properly Disenfected before Giving in this shop for Washing." Why a laundry in this jewellery heart? Why this warning about "Infectious or Contegious Disease", in this jewellery heart? And I would like to report that I have not found the word "tunch" in any dictionary. From nirupama.sekhar at gmail.com Fri Aug 18 15:01:10 2006 From: nirupama.sekhar at gmail.com (Nirupama Sekhar) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 15:01:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Urban Stories Message-ID: <87927e9c0608180231r7870c78au9f337df5b138f20e@mail.gmail.com> Urban Stories: A collection of graphic essays on Mumbai Please find below the link to some of the pieces.. http://mumbai-urbanstories.blogspot.com Click on an image to see it full size on a fresh page.(Ensure your browser doesn't automatically resize the image on the fresh page.) With these graphic essays, we hope to capture vignettes of contemporary Mumbai, its people, places and concerns. Coloured by our own perception of the city, each essay is distinguished and titled using an aspect of time - be it season, hours, dates or any other mode of time. This title page serves as a precursor to the main piece. Any feedback is welcome. Regards. Nirupama Mumbai -- Nirupama -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060818/2dd36593/attachment.html From shalini_cancer at yahoo.com Sat Aug 19 10:45:02 2006 From: shalini_cancer at yahoo.com (Shalini Venugopal) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:15:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Delhi metro Message-ID: <20060819051502.92857.qmail@web54407.mail.yahoo.com> Hi, I'm trying to contact Naveen Chander for a documentary on the Delhi Metro that I'm working on. I believe he's done a lot of research on the people who've been displaced by the Delhi Metro. I'm interested in learning more about the kind of rehabilitation that has been carried out (or not carried out). I'd be really grateful for any info! Regards, Shalini --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060818/fc399b83/attachment.html From lindrasi at yahoo.com Sun Aug 20 21:49:38 2006 From: lindrasi at yahoo.com (L. Simhan) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 09:19:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] A couple pictures, another post Message-ID: <20060820161938.12830.qmail@web52204.mail.yahoo.com> Hi, It just occurred to us to make a blog to post pictures of what we've been up to re: turning our research into a visual document. Here it is. http://jalapost.blogspot.com/ Best, Lakshmi and Jacob --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low PC-to-Phone call rates. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060820/7b9e6da4/attachment.html From rinchin at gmail.com Mon Aug 21 07:01:13 2006 From: rinchin at gmail.com (rinchin etc) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 07:01:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] One school in haat piplalya through soni bua eyes- 5 th posting Message-ID: <261872920608201831l2ac6be3eid23d678eafb52f2b@mail.gmail.com> dear all , for a small autobiographical sketch of the mission school, the town and soni bua, written for children. for the whole piece with pictures check imly blog imly-tree.blogspot.com . rinchin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060821/b8b82c69/attachment.html From gun1 at psu.edu Fri Aug 18 22:02:51 2006 From: gun1 at psu.edu (Gunalan Nadarajan) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 12:32:51 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] The DANUBE TELE LECTURES Message-ID: <19D85395-5620-4A80-8C6A-0A2120EF4500@psu.edu> :: Inauguration of the DANUBE TELE LECTURES at Danube University Krems :: The Center for Image Science at Danube University Krems starts a new international lecture series in early September with prominent scientists of our time. The lectures will be presented by live online streaming technology. The series is realized in co-operation with the Österreichische Filmgalerie and the ORF Niederösterreich (Austrian Broadcast Corporation), and will be held in the Filmgalerie Cinema at Danube University Krems. For the inaugural Tele Lecture, internationally renowned scholars deal with key topics of Image Science and Media Art: www.donau-uni.ac.at/cis :: Lecture / Debate Topics :: September 5, 2006 19:30-22:00 "DOES THE WEST STILL EXIST? Are There Boundaries of West, East and Far-East in the World of Images Now?" Lectures and debate with Sarat MAHARAJ and Machiko KUSAHARA Hollywood, computer games, net and media art, micromovies, new devices* images are undergoing a new internationalization never known before, and are increasingly being charged as a vehicle of ideologies and Weltanschauung. Seemingly bygone clashes between image opponents and image believers are reanimated in contemporary media to include all areas of art, science, politics and economy - now on a global scale. Can we still speak of images of the west today? Do we witness the arousal of a global visual language enriched universally by the various cultures, or are we at the brink of an image war’, representing extremes between the old and new economic powers and their visual culture? September 6, 2006 19:30-22:00 "PYGMALION TENDENCIES: Bioart and Its Precursors" Lectures and debate with Gunalan NADARAJAN and Jens HAUSER Art and the natural sciences are forming a new interconnection that is closer than in past centuries. Recent developments in art such as Bioart, Techno-art, Genetic or Transgenic Art bring artists into the scientific laboratories and carry their visions to the general public. Not only do artists work cross-pollinated, they also create new creatures, frequently revealing spectacular spaces of reflection on new possibilities. International experts discuss these tensions oscillating between body and nature on one hand and artificial life and illusion on the other - none the least, in their historical contexts. :: International Discussion over the Net - Innovative Image Direction :: The DANUBE TELE LECTURES is a continuation and extension of the first international conference on MediaArtHistories Refresh!, which was held under the direction of Oliver Grau in Banff/Canada last fall und will see a remake called re:place in Berlin next year. Two cameras innovatively echo the studio character and seek a virtual intimacy with the lecturers and their audience. Internet viewers from all over the world have the possibility to pose email questions, broadening the international debate character of this event. Videos of the Danube Tele Lectures will be available in an online archive. :: More at http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/cis :: You can join us live in Krems or watch online and participate in the discussion via email. The CENTER FOR IMAGE SCIENCE at Danube University Krems is an institution for inovative research and teaching on the complete range of image forms. The Center is situated in the beautiful Wachau, Austria - a UNESCO world heritage site - in the Goettweig Monastery and is housed in a fourteenth century castle. It is the base of the public documentation platforms www.virtualart.at and www.mediaarthistory.org. The Center's new low residency postgraduate master's programs in MEDIAARTHISTORIES, PHOTOGRAPHY, and IMAGE MANAGEMENT are internationally unique. :: contact for information on :: wendy.coones at donau-uni.ac.at +43 (0)2732 893-2543 directions to Krems - 60km west of Vienna towards Linz - www.donau- uni.ac.at/route shuttle Krems-Vienna offered, reserve your seat at the Filmgalerie Cinema (entrance is free), future Danube Tele-Lecture series _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From indlinux at gmail.com Mon Aug 21 14:27:09 2006 From: indlinux at gmail.com (G Karunakar) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:27:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [OT] dont believe martian hoax (aug 27) Message-ID: <773e2c260608210157g69c29268n5dc2de6e5c7c07bc@mail.gmail.com> Hi all, If you getting mail fwds of the likes saying "2 Moons visible on 27 August '06. Chance of a LIFETIME Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting next August 2006. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultimate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65 M miles of Earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the Earth has 2 Moons. Don't Miss it….. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. " treat it as a hoax (of astronomical proportions!) since mars, moon are close to sun, so would be visible only early morning & also mars is in conjunction , so it would be much smaller than its usual size. Mars came closest last in Oct/Nov 2005. It comes close every 2yrs, when earth overtakes it in orbit. Mars was closest in 60,000 yrs on 27th August 2003. Planets can look only as big as moon through a high power telescope!! Image below (mars, moon & sun are below horizon) http://www.cartoonsoft.com/blog/?p=22 Karunakar From ravikant at sarai.net Mon Aug 21 14:43:32 2006 From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:43:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Delhi metro In-Reply-To: <20060819051502.92857.qmail@web54407.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060819051502.92857.qmail@web54407.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200608211443.32601.ravikant@sarai.net> Dear Shalini, I am forwarding your mail to the Naveen's address and the two of you can carry on. cheers ravikant शनिवार 19 अगस्त 2006 10:45 को, Shalini Venugopal ने लिखा था: > Hi, > > I'm trying to contact Naveen Chander for a documentary on the Delhi Metro > that I'm working on. I believe he's done a lot of research on the people > who've been displaced by the Delhi Metro. I'm interested in learning more > about the kind of rehabilitation that has been carried out (or not carried > out). I'd be really grateful for any info! > > Regards, > Shalini > > > --------------------------------- > Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ > countries) for 2�/min or less. From penguinhead at linux-delhi.org Mon Aug 21 16:14:17 2006 From: penguinhead at linux-delhi.org (Pankaj kaushal) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:14:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44E98E81.9040702@linux-delhi.org> Hello Yogi, Yogi wrote: > I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about India and its large number > of programmers; open source movement in india is non-existant. > This is a sign that all these programmer arenothing more than coding monkeys.. > who do not understand anything more than whats immediately before their eyes. > Even some of my so called smart IIT friends still think that Microsoft is the greatest I think that your understanding of "Open source" and "Free software" and "open source movement in India" is grossly misinformed. I think that "IIT friends" and "Software programmers" are not responsible for writing software for you. If someone writes code for a company to money and does not want to write free software, it does not make him a coding monkey. It just makes him a person with a different opinion. > thing which has happened to india, because they brought computing the > common people... but I ask them ... at whatcost? A cage is a cage... > even if its made out of gold. I think Indian government needs to ban > the use of proprietary software from all educational institutes. Bravo! I think you need to get a life, an education and better get a brain while you're at it. PS: Please send a list of all free software projects that you contribute to, I will be more than happy to refer willing students. P. -- Wir wollen dass ihr uns alles glaubt. From image.science at donau-uni.ac.at Mon Aug 21 19:50:18 2006 From: image.science at donau-uni.ac.at (Image Science) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:20:18 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] DANUBE TELE LECTURES on Art, Media and Image Science Message-ID: <44E9DD420200007D00000ED1@gwgwia.donau-uni.ac.at> :: Inauguration of the DANUBE TELE LECTURES at Danube University Krems :: The Center for Image Science at Danube University Krems starts a new international lecture series in early September with prominent scientists of our time. The lectures will be presented by live online streaming technology. The series is realized in co-operation with the Österreichische Filmgalerie and the ORF Niederösterreich (Austrian Broadcast Corporation), and will be held in the Filmgalerie Cinema at Danube University Krems. For the inaugural Tele Lecture, internationally renowned scholars deal with key topics of Image Science and Media Art: www.donau-uni.ac.at/cis :: Lecture / Debate Topics :: September 5, 2006 19:30-22:00 "DOES THE WEST STILL EXIST? Are There Boundaries of West, East and Far-East in the World of Images Now?" Lectures and debate with Sarat MAHARAJ and Machiko KUSAHARA Hollywood, computer games, net and media art, micromovies, new devices* images are undergoing a new internationalization never known before, and are increasingly being charged as a vehicle of ideologies and worldview. Seemingly bygone clashes between image opponents and image believers are reanimated in contemporary media to include all areas of art, science, politics and economy - now on a global scale. Can we still speak of images of the west today? Do we witness the arousal of a global visual language enriched universally by the various cultures, or are we at the brink of an ‘image war’, representing extremes between the old and new economic powers and their visual culture? September 6, 2006 19:30-22:00 “PYGMALION TENDENCIES: Bioart and Its Precursors” Lectures and debate with Gunalan NADARAJAN and Jens HAUSER Art and the natural sciences are forming a new interconnection that is closer than in past centuries. Recent developments in art such as Bioart, Techno-art, Genetic or Transgenic Art bring artists into the scientific laboratories and carry their visions to the general public. Not only do artists work cross-pollinated, they also create new creatures, frequently revealing spectacular spaces of reflection on new possibilities. International experts discuss these tensions oscillating between body and nature on one hand and artificial life and illusion on the other - none the least, in their historical contexts. :: International Discussion over the Net - Innovative Image Direction :: The DANUBE TELE LECTURES is a continuation and extension of the first international conference on MediaArtHistories Refresh!, which was held under the direction of Oliver Grau in Banff/Canada last fall und will see a remake called re:place in Berlin next year. Two cameras innovatively echo the studio character and seek a virtual intimacy with the lecturers and their audience. Internet viewers from all over the world have the possibility to pose email questions, broadening the international debate character of this event. Videos of the Danube Tele Lectures will be available in an online archive. :: More at http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/cis :: You can join us live in Krems or watch online and participate in the discussion via email. The CENTER FOR IMAGE SCIENCE at Danube University Krems is an institution for inovative research and teaching on the complete range of image forms. The Center is situated in the beautiful Wachau, Austria - a UNESCO world heritage site - in the Goettweig Monastery and is housed in a fourteenth century castle. It is the base of the public documentation platforms www.virtualart.at and www.mediaarthistory.org. The Center's new low residency postgraduate master's programs in MEDIAARTHISTORIES, PHOTOGRAPHY, and IMAGE MANAGEMENT are internationally unique. :: contact for information on :: directions to Krems - 60km west of Vienna towards Linz - www.donau-uni.ac.at/route shuttle Krems-Vienna offered, reserve your seat at the Filmgalerie Cinema (entrance is free), future Danube Tele-Lecture series wendy.coones at donau-uni.ac.at +43 (0)2732 893-2543 From avereec at hotmail.com Tue Aug 22 12:15:11 2006 From: avereec at hotmail.com (Averee Chaurey) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:15:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Synopsis of my project Message-ID: The song of the baul.- Averee Chaurey As I come to the end of the road, my path probably has diverted to an extent. I started off to know the lives of the bauls but today I end up mourning their lives, especially the baulanis. After researching and interviewing bauls and baulanis I have written and re-written a play based on their lives. In the process I have written and got translated two plays to be precise. Initially I was mesmorized with the lives of the bauls. For them Mandir, Masjid, Brahmin, Mulla are all a farce- for them the body- self plays a very important role. According to them both Radha Krishna and Vrindavan dwell in their hearts. For them �Moner Manush� (the man of the heart) is supreme sadhana. To reach the man of the heart or beloved they need the Guru. Interestingly women are held in high esteem. Without the help of the woman, a baul cannot reach his destination- Shore. Yet when I interviewed the women bauls, I realized their insecurity and loneliness. They are mere �Sanginis� (companion). They can be shunned any time, any day. The bauls sometimes exploit them even beat them up. While my research was on, I found there were young girls who were barely in their teens, married to old bauls who were probably above seventy years old. Throughout my play I tried to pen down their thoughts to an extent. I now feel there so mych to be done. My play is like a diary where a baulani is pouring her mind, there is no solution, just bare facts. I am still looking for an appripriate name, may be �scribbles by a baulani� or �memoirs�. I am confused. While talking to them I was pained- I am sure when you hear the play you will also feel the same. Amazingly when they perform there is so much of vigour and love that one cannot imagine that deep inside them lives a reservoir of turmoil. I am grateful to two of my friends without whom my play would not see the light of the day. Maneesh Ji who will perform with me has relentessly sat through and translated the two plays in hindi from bangla. Yes I wrote the play in my mother tongue. Badal, another very very good friend and a fellow actor helped me to chalk the plot and was a constant support. From vivek at sarai.net Tue Aug 22 05:42:24 2006 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:42:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Final Schedule for 2006 Independent Fellowship Workshop at Sarai-CSDS Message-ID: <44EA4BE8.7060705@sarai.net> ***Please note that this event is open to the public, and that all are welcome!*** **Explore the interim research postings, updates and individual blogs of Sarai research fellows since January 2006 via a consolidated blog (still updating): http://ifellows2006.wordpress.com/ ** Hope to see you there, Vivek Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellows Workshop 2006 24-27 August 2006 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Thursday 24 August 9.00-9.30 Tea 9.30-10.00 Opening Statements: Vivek Narayanan and Shuddhabrata Sengupta 10.00–11.30 Microcosmic Views - 1 Chair: Shuddhabrata Sengupta Dilip D'Souza, Mumbai Village in the City: Bombay in Microcosm Abhinandita Mathur and Venu Mathur, New Delhi My Building and the Shahar Mamta Mantri, Mumbai Movie Theatres on and around Maulana Shaukat Ali Road, Mumbai 11.30-11.45 Refreshment Break 11.45-12.45 The Return of the Region Chair: Ravikant Daljit Ami, Chandigarh Celluloid and Compact Disks in Punjab Anil Pandey, NOIDA Desi Filmon ka Karobar (The Business of Desi Films) 12.45-1.45 Lunch 1.45-3.15 Microcosmic Views - 2 Chair: Monica Narula Parismita Singh, New Delhi “6 O’Clock” – A Series of Comic Book Stories Janice Erica Pariat, New Delhi Writing the Notion of Home and Urban Space Nandita Raman Dilli ke Cinemagharon ka Badalta Swaroop: Ek Chhayachitran (The Changing Face of Delhi’s Cinema Halls) 3.15-3.30 Refreshment Break 3.30-5.30 Lost and Re-imagined Lifeworlds Chair: Sarada Balagopalan Debjani Sengupta, New Delhi Colony Fiction: Refugee Colonies and Their Representation in Post-Partition Kolkata Uddipana Goswami, Guwahati City as Setting: Reflections of the Changing Faces of Guwahati in Assamese Literature Maitrey Bajpai, Mumbai Cawnpore 5.45-7.30 Audible Traditions / Listening Lounge Chair: Mahmood Farooqui Brajesh Kumar Jha, Delhi Hindi Cinemayee Geet aur Uska Bhashayee Safar (The Language Journeys of Hindi Cinema) Naresh Kumar, New Delhi Festival of Music in the City of Sports: Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Kolkata Story of a Forgotten Melody: Restoring the Sound of Bishnupur Gharana Friday 25 August 10.00-11.00 The Telephone and the Mobile Phone Chair: Lokesh Girindra, New Delhi Pravasi Ilaqe mein Telephone Booth Sanskriti (The Culture of Telephone Booths in Migrant Communities) Rama Rao, Bhopal Ladkiyon ke College ka Sarvajanik Telephone aur Ab Har Hath mein Mobile (Then and Now: The Public telephone in Girls’ Colleges and the Mobile Phone) 11.00-11.15 Refreshment break 11.15-12.45 Non-Metropolitan Trajectories Chair: Sadan Jha Prabhat Kumar, Delhi Yuvak Sangh aur Yuvak: 1920 ke Dashak mein Bihar ka Bauddhik Parivesh (Yuvak Sangh and the Yuvak Magazine in the Intellectual Public Sphere in 1920s Bihar) Rinchin, Bhopal Tracing the History of Girls' Education in a Small Town through the Eyes of Its First Woman Teacher Mrityunjay Tripathi, Allahabad Allahabad ki Chhatra Rajniti(Student Politics in Allahabad) 12.45-1.45 Lunch 1.45-3.15 Local Strategies, Regimes and Ramifications Chair: Shivam Vij Rakshat Hooja, Jaipur Urban Stakeholder Activism and the Role of Resident Welfare Associations Aamit Rai, Wardha Harsud aur Media (Harsud and the Media) Tushar Bhor, Mumbai Water Lenses: Prelude for a New Imagination for Urban Water in Mumbai 3.15-3.30 Refreshment Break 3.30-5.00 Subjective Sexualities Chair: Aarti Sethi Akshay Khanna, Delhi Apni Jagah, Zarah Hut Ke: A “Staged Ethnography” of Space and Sexuality Sheba Tejani, Mumbai Queer Cityscapes: Exploring Mumbai Cityscapes through the Eyes of Two Queer Women Sidharth Srinivasan, Delhi A Photoroman Feature Film: A Love Story Intertwined with the Myth and Folklore of Delhi's Heritage Sites 5.15-6.15 Play Reading / Performance Chair: Shuddhabrata Sengupta Averee Chaurey, Delhi “The Song of the Baul” Saturday 26 August 10.00-11.30 Generic Journeys Chair: Ravikant Kamal Kumar Mishra, New Delhi Hindi Hridaysthali mein Jasoosi Upanyason va Inkey Paathakon ka Ek Samajik Itihas (A Social History of Detective Novels and Their Readers in the Hindi Heartland) Piyush Pandey, Delhi News Channelon ka Satyakathakaran (The ‘Satyakatharization’ of News Channels/On the Compulsive Crime Reporting on TV) Indu Verma, Mumbai Society and the Soap Factory 11.30-11.45 Refreshment Break 11.45-1.15 Creative Genealogies Chair: Lawrence Liang Dripta Piplai, Delhi The Hegemony of Calcutta Music Schools in Tagore Songs: Towards an Archival Preservation of 'Multiple Traditions in Rabindrasangeet' Rajesh Mehar, Bangalore Exploring Notions of Creative Ownership Among Contemporary Musicians Rudradeep Bhattacharjee, Mumbai Freedom in Cyberspace in the Context of India: A Video Documentary 1.15-2.15 Lunch 2.15-3.15 Ambiguous and Emergent Transitions Chair: Ravi Sundaram Sudipta Paul, Asansol Response of the Labour Force to the Changing Urban Formation in the Asansol Industrial Area, West Bengal Kaushiki Rao, New Delhi Transplanting the Urban Aesthetic in a Resettlement Colony in Delhi 3.15-3.30 Refreshment Break 3.30-5.00 The City and Its Discontents Chair: Smriti Vohra Syed Mohd. Yunus and Syed Mohd Faisal, Delhi Asahay Mahanagar: Helpline Karyakartaon ke Nazariye Se Dilli Shahar ka Adhyayan(Helpless City: A Study of Delhi from the Perspective of Helpline Workers) Peerzada Arshad Hamid, Anantnag Exploring the Space of Psychiatric Hospitals in Srinagar Udaykumar M, Delhi Unravelling a 'Real' Media Incident in Trivandrum 5.00-10.00 Launch of Sarai Reader 06: Turbulence / Dinner Sunday 27 August 10.30-12.30 The “Foreigners” and the “Locals” Chair: Iram Ghufran Farhana Ibrahim, Gurgaon Maritime Histories: Merchant Networks and the Production of Locality in Western India Ayesha Sen Choudhury, Kolkata Locating Sexuality through the Eyes of Afghan and Burmese Refugee Women in Delhi John Patrick Ojwando, Bangalore An Exploration of the Experiences of Afro Students in South Asia Mallica, New Delhi Identities and Aspirations of Tibetan Youth in New Delhi 12.30-1.30 Lunch 1.30-3.00 The Endurance of Print Chair: Rakesh Singh Arshad Amanullah, New Delhi Journalism in Madrasas and Madrasas in Journalism Ram Murthi Sharma, Una, Himachal Pradesh An Analysis of Magazines in Braille Izhar Ahmed Nadeem, Delhi Muslim Mahilaon ki Urdu Patrikayo ki Duniya(Urdu Women's Magazines: Their Impact on Muslim Women) 3.00-3.15 Refreshment Break 3.15-4.45 In Search of Form - 1 Chair: Vivek Narayanan Rajesh Kumar K, Trivandrum An Ethnography of Teyyam Performance from a Practitioner’s Point of View Aman Sethi, Delhi Seeking Alternative Ways and Means of Representing “the Poor and the Oppressed” by Studying Informal Networks at Labour Mandis in Delhi Rahul Pandita, Delhi Byte Soldier: The Life and Times of a Metro TV Reporter/A Graphic Novel in Hindi 4.45-5.00 Refreshment Break 5.00-6.30 In Search of Form - 2 Chair: Priya Sen Nirupama Sekhar and Sanjay Ramchandran, Mumbai Urban Stories: A Collection of Graphic Essays on the City of Mumbai Lakshmi IndraSimhan and Jacob Weinstein, New Delhi Vending as Vernacular: Depicting Street Sales and Services through Sequential Art Anjali Jyoti, New Delhi Home Street Home: A Street Child Survival Guide for Delhi 6.30-7.30 Closing Statements / Feedback Session From vivek at sarai.net Tue Aug 22 05:43:37 2006 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:43:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Abstracts and Biographies: 2006 Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellows Workshop Message-ID: <44EA4C31.1040108@sarai.net> Dear friends, For those reluctant to go wandering among the blogs, this. Please note that this is a long document: approx. 8000 words, or about 22 printed pages long. With warm regards, Vivek SARAI-CSDS INDEPENDENT FELLOWSHIP WORKSHOP 24-27 August 2006 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054 Explore the interim research postings, updates and individual blogs of Sarai research fellows since January 2006 via a consolidated blog (still updating): http://ifellows2006.wordpress.com/ Thursday 24 August 10.00–11.30 MICROCOSMIC VIEWS - 1 1. Dilip D'Souza, Mumbai Village in the City: Bombay in Microcosm I want to document not just the physical reality of villages in Bombay, but the little signs in them that speak of a possibly disappearing, or at least forgotten, humanity. I want to emphasize that I don't see this project as a paean to the past, nor as a mournful ode to a nearly-vanished history. I'm interested in making the case that life in a city is an experience made of these small interstices. Very simply, I would like my essays to get my readers thinking about the people who make up a city. For the workshop, I will read a short piece written after a visit to the Magen Hassidim Synagogue in Agripada in Bombay. [Dilip D'Souza, has a BE in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani and a MS in Computer Science from Brown University. Only, he doesn't use either of those degrees now, professionally, except peripherally. He writes for his supper, mostly about political and social concerns, though also occasional travel writing. Dilip has won several awards for his writing, including the Statesman Rural Reporting Award, the Times of India/Red Cross prize, the Outlook/Picador nonfiction prize (for which he was also, earlier,runner up), the Sanctuary Magazine prize and more. He has written two books, "Branded by Law" and "The Narmada Dammed" (both Penguin). Contact: dilip.sarai at gmail.com ] 2. Abhinandita Mathur and Venu Mathur, New Delhi My Building and the Shahar The project presents a visual essay on our building, where about 100 Mathur families reside. Shree Ganesh Group Housing Society is one of the many housing Societies in Patparganj that came up in the 80’s, defining a new way of life for middle class Delhi. Through this assemblage of the present documentation and the archives of the past, this project attempts to map out the journey of the community and the city from the past to what it is today. [Venu Mathur and Abhinandita Mathur moved to Shree Ganesh Group Housing Society in April, 1990. Abhinandita moved to Bombay in 2002 where she works on research projects and takes photographs. Venu Mathur works in a five star hotel where she heads the Tele-communication department. It is the first project of this kind that she has worked on. She continues to live in the Mathur Society. Venu is Abhinandita’s mother. Website: www.mybuildingsociety.net Contact: abhinandita @ gmail.com and venu.mathur @ gmail.com] Mamta Mantri, Mumbai Movie Theatres on and around Maulana Shaukat Ali Road, Mumbai The 6 cinema halls on and around Maulana Shuakat Ali Road, near Grant Road Station, Mumbai-- Super, Nishaat, Royal, Alfred, Roshan and Gulshan-- have been a defining part of the neighbourhood for more than 100 years. While the neighbourhood remains in/famous for its sex workers and gang wars, these halls remain a counter-balancing factor, allowing for a more relaxed space. The project considers the history and economics of the halls from both the inside and outside, as well as the emergent relationships between the halls, hawkers, neighbours and the area around them. [Mamta has a Masters degree in History and English Literature from Mumbai University,and M.Phil in English Literature from S.N.D.T. University. She has worked as a lecturer in History, English and Media Studies at various colleges in Mumbai. She has also worked on independent projects such as translation, manuscript cataloguing, etc. Contact: bawree at yahoo.com] 11.30-11.45 Refreshment Break 11.45-12.45 The Return of the Region Chair: Ravikant Daljit Ami, Chandigarh Celluloid and Compact Disks in Punjab Two different trends have been noticed in recent Punjabi film production-- celluloid and digital video. These industries are both successful in Punjab, although they are quite different, not only in production format or length but also in terms of content and treatment. Celluloid is exploring global market with emotional dilemmas (emigration, relations) whereas digital video is turning out to be a kind of community cinema by focusing on social-economic crises. This study is an attempt to understand the different aspects of these twin trends of success. [Daljit Ami holds a Master’s degree in Ancient History from Punjab University and writes for different newspapers about socio-political issues concerning Punjab, especially rural Punjab. He worked as an auditor in the Defense Audit for three years and then resigned to be a documentary filmmaker. He has made seven films, including one about agriculture labour in Punjab, "Born In Debt". Contact: daljitami @rediffmail.com] Anil Pandey, NOIDA Desi Filmon ka Karobar (The Business of Desi Films) [Anil Pandey is currently a Principal Correspondent with the newsmagazine, Business & Economy. He has worked with Jansatta for five years as a reporter and has taught journalism for another five years at the Makhanlal Chaturvedi Patrakarita Vishwavidyalaya. Contact: panil3 @rediffmail.com] 12.45-1.45 Lunch 1.45-3.15 Microcosmic Views - 2 Chair: Monica Narula Parismita Singh, New Delhi “6 O’Clock” – A Series of Comic Book Stories The stories begin in a building in Humayunpur. They then spill out into the parks, streets and malls of the city. The various protagonists – seen and unseen - of these short pieces all experience the terror and ecstasy of the everyday. At a stylistic level, central to the work is its engagement with words and language. The narratives also explore issues of speed, light and atmosphere. [Parismita is a comic book artist. Her short stories, comic book pieces and translations have been published in The Little Magazine, Tehelka and the Katha Prize Stories 13. She has also been working in the field of primary education. Contact: parismitasingh @ yahoo.com] Janice Erica Pariat, New Delhi Writing the Notion of Home and Urban Space This is a creative writing project that broadly explores the notion of Home. It is an attempt to understand how one forms an idea of home – not perhaps as a geographical space but a mental landscape; images, things, people, around whom narratives are woven in order to make them familiar, to make them one’s own. These pieces attempt to pick up on different aspects of the process of searching for and establishing (or not) a Home. [ Currently based in New Delhi, Janice is a Project Fellow to Professor Makarand Paranjape at JNU. She completed her BA in English Literature from St Stephens College, Delhi University and her MA in Communications from the University of London. She is also a freelance editor for Macmillan Higher Education. Contact: janicepariat at gmail.com ] Nandita Raman Dilli ke Cinemagharon ka Badalta Swaroop: Ek Chhayachitran (The Changing Face of Delhi’s Cinema Halls) An outing and an entry into the unreal, cinema halls are a space where tangents meet. The millionaire’s daughter falls for a taxi driver, a Muslim marries a Hindu, a hero becomes a villain, a villain renounces the world and the rickshaw drivers and the CEO’s watch the same film in the same hall at the same time, one in the lower stall and the other in the balcony. Changing times transformed this equation and stepped in the swanky Multiplexes with expensive tickets. But tucked away in lanes there still exist the old. This project attempts to document this multi-dimensional transformation. [ Nandita was born in Benaras where she did her schooling. From 1998-2000 she studied visual communication at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi and pursued a career in films and photography thereafter. Since 2004 she has been an independent filmmaker and photographer and has worked for organizations like DANIDA, CARE India and Max New York Life Insurance. Contact: ramannandita @ gmail.com ] 3.15-3.30 Refreshment Break 3.30-5.30 Lost and Re-imagined Lifeworlds Chair: Sarada Balagopalan Debjani Sengupta, New Delhi Colony Fiction: Refugee Colonies and Their Representation in Post-Partition Kolkata My presentation is titled ‘Colony Fiction: Refugee colonies and their Representation in post Partition Kolkata.’ It is an essay that tries to look at the refugee colony as a space in texts like Meghey Dhaka Tara and Bwadwip both novels that deal with the aftermaths of Partition. It also looks at memoirs and other nonfictional works that talk of colonies, their beginnings and their expansion. I also look at Bangla poetry of the post partition years to see how a new urban poetry is being written about an ever present reality of the city of Kolkata. [Debjani Sengupta teaches at the Department of English, Indraprastha College, Delhi. She is the editor of Mapmaking: Partition Stories from Two Bengals, Shrishti Publishers, 2003. At present she is editing, with Selina Hossain of Bangladesh, a collection of South Asian feminist fiction. This monsoon, she has registered to begin her doctoral work on the Bengal Partition at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU. email: debjanisgupta @ yahoo .com] Uddipana Goswami, Guwahati City as Setting: Reflections of the Changing Faces of Guwahati in Assamese Literature The study is a personal/personalised look at Guwahati which has evolved in the last few years from a sedate, laid-back city to a fast-paced, upmarket metro. The pace at and the time span in which this has happened seems to have put everybody, especially its inhabitants off gear. Through the analysis of a few literary representations of Guwahati, I intend to look at sociological changes both in the city and in the city as a setting and to relate them with contemporaneous realities. Beginning with a questioning of my own imagination of my home, the study also qualifies the imagination of the city by the authors under consideration. [Uddipana Goswami is a PhD fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSCAL). Her focus area is indigenous-settler conflicts in Northeast India. She has done studies for the Centre for Northeast india, South and Southeast Asia Studies (CENISEAS), Guwahati and the University of Zurich. She has a Masters in English from Delhi University and worked with a number of major media houses, like India Today and National Geographic Channel (India), before turning to research. She contributes occasional articles to Assamese dailies on nationalism, assimilation and ethnicity. She is also a translator and creative writer. Contact: uddipana at gmail.com] Maitrey Bajpai, Mumbai Cawnpore Once hailed by India’s British colonial rulers as the “Manchester of the East”, the dilapidated city of “Cawnpore” in which I was born is nothing but shadow of its former glory. Now they call it an “Industrial Graveyard”. The closure of textile mills not only left the working class of the city jobless, but also ruled out any possibility of emergence of lower middle class in the city. My family, which was involved in the cloth trade since 1907, has also suffered the burn of the closure, and we are not alone, there are thousands like us. This research is geared towards a documentary film. I will try to comprehend history of Kanpur city and its mills through the stories that its people have to tell. [Maitrey Bajpai is a young (23) commerce graduate who recently took his fascination for films one step further, packing his bags and coming to Mumbai to learn filmmaking. Contact: cawnpore at rediffmail.com] 5.45-7.30 Audible Traditions / Listening Lounge Chair: Mahmood Farooqui Brajesh Kumar Jha, Delhi Hindi Cinemayee Geet aur Uska Bhashayee Safar (The Language Journeys of Hindi Cinema) Naresh Kumar, New Delhi Festival of Music in the City of Sports: Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar As Sarai fellow I have been working on Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar, a 130 years old festival of national character that concentrates on Hindustani classical music only and doesn’t allow any light music to be performed on its stage. Its evolution, different phases, organizational aspects patronage networks, local audience etc will come in this study. In addition to this my focus would be on how the festival is taken in memories and what factors make this sammelan so unique that for organizers, performers and for the common people it is thought as something ‘divine’. [To earn his bread and butter Naresh teaches social science in a government school at Delhi. Listening to Hindustani classical music is one of his weaknesses and he also possesses some theoretical understanding of it. He is a student of history and is presently working on the early phase of gramophone industry with special reference to classical music. The history of listening in twentieth century north India is going to be the topic of his future research. Histories of domesticity, gender studies, and disability studies are his other areas of interest. email: naresh.rhythm @ gmail.com] Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Kolkata Story of a Forgotten Melody: Restoring the Sound of Bishnupur Gharana My job is to assist the memory of some lost sounds: lost from a community of singers, musicians and musical practice. For my project with SARAI, I am locating, documenting and restoring the recordings of the exponents from Bishnupur Gharana to make an audio archive for everybody. It can be used as the resource for any further research work on the gharana system itself, or as the basis for future works. [Budhaditya is a student of Sound Engineering at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata. He has been working in the area of audio restoration for the past two years. He also produces experimental sound art, and one of his works was recently included on CD for commercial release in Germany. Email: budhaditya.chattopadhyay @ gmail.com budhaditya_chattopadhyay @ rediffmail.com] Friday 25 August 10.00-11.00 The Telephone and the Mobile Phone Chair: Lokesh Girindra, New Delhi Pravasi Ilaqe mein Telephone Booth Sanskriti (The Culture of Telephone Booths in Migrant Communities) delhi ke prawsi bhaul illakon mandawali aur wazirpur aur bihar ke ek gaun shreenagar(purnea zila) ke telephone boothon ke adhayan ke dauran kai booth mere samane aaey.delhi me telephone booth ne prawasion ke bhasa ko badla hin sath me booth se zore log-bag bhi badle.delhi sahar me telephone booth ke roop aur kriakalap saaf badal chuka hai. lekin gaun ke boothon me koi khas badlaw nahi ayaa hai.wahan aaj bhi booth office ki tarah kam kar raha hai.sabse alag baat gaun me yeh dekhne ko mili ki wahan booth ke madhyam se aarthik soshan ho raha ha.lekin itna to sach hai ki es sanchar kranti ke yug me booth ne prawasion ko gaun se zora hai. [Girindra Delhi vishwavidhalay se asnatak hun aur wartaman me dainik akhbar VIRAT VAIBHAW delhi me reporter ke roop me kaam kar rahey hain. Email: girindranath @ gmail.com] Rama Rao, Bhopal Ladkiyon ke College ka Sarvajanik Telephone aur Ab Har Hath mein Mobile (Then and Now: The Public telephone in Girls’ Colleges and the Mobile Phone) Rama Rao graduated from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 1999 and has since then worked with Muskan in Madhya Pradesh in the area of urban poverty and with Vishakha in Rajasthan on violence against women. Email: ramaraovedula @ yahoo.com 11.00-11.15 Refreshment break 11.15-12.45 Non-Metropolitan Trajectories Chair: Sadan Jha Prabhat Kumar, Delhi Yuvak Sangh aur Yuvak: 1920 ke Dashak mein Bihar ka Bauddhik Parivesh (Yuvak Sangh and the Yuvak Magazine in the Intellectual Public Sphere in 1920s Bihar) Rinchin, Bhopal Tracing the History of Girls' Education in a Small Town through the Eyes of Its First Woman Teacher The research attempts to capture the life of a 90 year old school teacher, who taught in the first school for girls in a small rural town in the malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. The attempt is to use a personal biography to capture the history of the town in the context of girls education. The study will be bilingual and will use pictures, sketches and written narratives. [Rinchin currently lives in Bhopal and works in and around the state of Madhya Pradesh with local peoples groups and organizations. She completed her graduation in Philosophy and then her MA in Social work. Since then, she has been working primarily with women on issues of health, violence, gender, sexuality through community based informal adult learning and training programmes. Writes sometimes on related issues. She has had a continuing association autonomous peoples’, womens’ and queer groups and has felt at most at home there. Contact: rinchin at gmail.com ] Mrityunjay Tripathi, Allahabad Allahabad ki Chhatra Rajniti(Student Politics in Allahabad) Mrityunjay Tripathi is pursuing his PhD on the Hindi novel from the Department of Hindi, University of Allahabad. Email: tripathi_mrityunjay at yahoo.co.in 12.45-1.45 Lunch 1.45-3.15 Local Strategies, Regimes and Ramifications Chair: Shivam Vij Rakshat Hooja, Jaipur Urban Stakeholder Activism and the Role of Resident Welfare Associations In many of the metropolitan cities of India, Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) have become important social institutions that play an increasingly significant role in the lives of the residents of these areas. In New Delhi the RWAs have become very active and over time most of the RWAs have been registered under the Societies Act. The Government of Delhi has also launched a “Bhagadari” scheme where the authorities form partnerships with the local RWAs for carrying out many activities. The purpose of my continuing study is to try and understand, or figure out, what makes the RWAs tick. The plan is to document the activities and functioning of a few select (selected not randomly but deliberately) RWAs in order to understand why they are successful or not successful. [Rakshat holds a Masters degree in Sociology from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi and a M.Phil in Social Science (Science Policy) from, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. At present he is working towards his PhD on the "commodification" and de-facto privatization of water in urban areas. He has done research and published on a number of topics including the history of video games, watershed development and management, livestock management, open source/FLOSS software, urban water supply etc. email: rakshat @ gmail.com] Amit Rai, Wardha Harsud aur Media (Harsud and the Media) Amit Rai is pursuing his M.Phil in Ahimsa And Peace Studies. He is a researcher at the Mahatma Gandhi Aantarastriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha(Mh.), also working as Research Associate of Hindi Suchana Vishwa Gyankosh, funded by U.G.C. Contact: raiamit14 @ rediffmail.com Tushar Bhor, Mumbai Water Lenses: Prelude for a New Imagination for Urban Water in Mumbai The paper investigates the modes of negotiation related to water resources in the city Mumbai and attempts to formulate a new imagination for popular discourse on the water resource acquisition, allocation and consumptions, which also represents a case for most of the third world cities. I will look at stories of informal water distribution in the city of Mumbai, which, on the one hand, operate in an illegal manner but on other hand the supply the very daily needs and related enterprises of certain communities. Various players will be investigated ranging from political and bureaucratic players, big and small water related enterprises, plumbers, informal water vendors, etc. and stories will be written about the players and the related water systems in the context of Mumbai. [Tushar Bhor completed his formal education in Architecture (2003) from Mumbai and then pursued his fellowship (2004) from the same college i.e. KRVIA, Mumbai on the Water Management. He presently works in a NGO - Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, India and holds a position of Program Officer. He is also part of Mumbai Fort Forum (MFF) a group of young professionals, struggling with government agencies with an aspiration to do some work in conservation of built environment. Email: tushar_bhor at yahoo.com] 3.15-3.30 Refreshment Break 3.30-5.00 Subjective Sexualities Chair: Aarti Sethi Akshay Khanna, Delhi Apni Jagah, Zarah Hut Ke: A “Staged Ethnography” of Space and Sexuality The project explores the relationships between space and sexuality from ‘Queer’ perspective. The tentative suggestion is that all space can be considered to be sexualised in one way or another; that the ’sexualness’ of a space is something that we can, and considered from a Queer activist position, should, study in explorations of the politics of space. Using the examples of trains, public parks and courts, it argues that these ‘everyday’ spaces are organised in terms of heteronormativity. The paper also examines the relevance of abstractions of space – such as ‘national’, ‘global’ and ‘local’, that are regularly brought into play in the negotiation of imaginaries of the sexual self. [Akshay spends time finding ways to transgress norms of gender and sexuality. (S)He is a founder member of Prism, a queer activist group based in Delhi. Eariler a lawyer, he is now pursuing a PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, exploring Queer movements in India, and the emergence of sexuality as a political object in people's movements and civil society formations. Email: s0454533 @ sms.ed.ac.uk] Sheba Tejani, Mumbai Queer Cityscapes: Exploring Mumbai Cityscapes through the Eyes of Two Queer Women I am attempting to create a fictional narratives of the city of Mumbai through an audiovisual medium that is structured around the conversations of two queer women. The conversations will work as a voice over on a visual narrative of the cityscape and will explore issues/ experiences such as using public transport in the city, communities and family, housing and rentals, through a queer lens. Four separate conversations will be scripted and shot, though they will form a part of a single visual essay, with the characters providing a sort of continuity. The idea is to capture queer “encounters” with the city, or tap into the continuous processes of dialogue and acts of interpretation that enable a multi-layered connection to the urban space, or even produce it in the first place. This allows queer women, for instance, to live in and take the city for their own and in turn be alienated by its homophobia and inequalities. In either case, a simple victim narrative, one hopes, would be impossible from this position. The attempt would be, rather, to capture moments where it is not only the city “seeing” the queer, but the queer seeing the city. [Sheba Tejani has an MA in economics from the New School for Social Research, New York. She lives in Bombay and works at the Economic and Political Weekly. Email: shebatejani at gmail.com ] Sidharth Srinivasan, Delhi A Photoroman Feature Film: A Love Story Intertwined with the Myth and Folklore of Delhi's Heritage Sites My research is towards the completion of a screenplay for a photoroman (a film comprised entirely of still images) titled Beeti Bahaar. Beeti Bahaar is a love story intertwined with the popular myth and folklore of Delhi’s heritage sites, a meditation on the possibility of an impossible love set in and against the backdrop of spaces frozen in space and time. Delhi’s ancient ruins, mosques and mausoleums, tombs and temples, remain an abiding haunt for clandestine lovers. Yet there is an inherent contradiction in the fact that these public spaces in the heart of an urban metropolis have become synonymous with secret romance and star-crossed love… [Sidharth Srinivasan is an independent filmmaker based in New Delhi and Mumbai. Sidharth graduated from St. Stephen's College and studied Still Photography at the Triveni Kala Sangam. His debut short Swamohita premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival and his subsequent DV feature Divya Drishti won 4 awards and was screened at numerous festivals internationally. Email: sidharth.srinivasan @ gmail.com ] 5.15-6.15 Play Reading / Performance Chair: Shuddhabrata Sengupta Averee Chaurey, Delhi “The Song of the Baul” My project entails an attempt to understand the performance tradition of the Bauls, the singing minstrels of Bengal .Throughout history , Bauls have remained an enigma .As a performer myself,it has been a lifelong dream to know more about them. The output of the project will be a play script and a performance. [Averee Chaurey has been associated with theatre since her college days. At Jadavpur University, Kolkata for my graduation, she was part of one the foremost groups of Kolkata, Bohurupee, working with Shombu Mitra and Tripti Mitra. She has acted in many plays in English, Hindi, and Bengali and worked with Habib Tanvir, Amal Allana, Rajendranath, Feisel Alkazi, and Tripurari Sharma. She has also worked as an announcer, newscaster, and actress in TV serials and feature films. Contact: avereec @ hotmail.com] Saturday 26 August 10.00-11.30 Generic Journeys Chair: Ravikant Kamal Kumar Mishra, New Delhi Hindi Hridaysthali mein Jasoosi Upanyason va Inkey Paathakon ka Ek Samajik Itihas (A Social History of Detective Novels and Their Readers in the Hindi Heartland) This paper tries to look into the issues related to publishing,writing and reading of the hindi jasoosi upanyas( detective fictions) from their beginnings in Hindi in the late 19th century. How did professionalization of the writer-publisher create a regular demand in terms of readership and ensured supply? How did this genre help professional writer-publishers to negotiate or comprehend their present and the ever-changing publishing scene? [Kamal K Mishra is a student of history, currently doing his M.Phil. from Delhi University. He is a translator and the areas of his interest are commercial publishing and the Hindi belt. Email: kamal_bhu @ rediffmail.com] Piyush Pandey, Delhi News Channelon ka Satyakathakaran (The ‘Satyakatharization’ of News Channels/On the Compulsive Crime Reporting on TV) Indu Verma, Mumbai Society and the Soap Factory The project aims to look closely into the relationship between the T.V. Soaps & the Society. It is a close encounter with the soap factory, from an actor’s point of view. I am trying to find the motivations of the actors (including myself) who play these characters on daily basis. The material I plan to submit includes analyses, reports, photographs, audio recordings & transcripts of interviews, clippings of the actors / soaps, etc. [After a master's in commerce from Rajasthan University, Indu Verma learnt acting at the National School of Drama in Delhi. She has acted in a number of TV serials including Awaz Dil Se Dil Tak, Kitte Party, Time Bomb, Agneepath, Joshilay, Achanak, 37 Saal Baad, Kabhi Aaye Na Judaai, and Siddhant. She has also acted in films including Tere Naam, Paheli, Rising, James, 9/11 The Last Fall, Humraahi (yet to be released), and White Noise. Email: induverma_virgo @ yahoo.co.in] 11.30-11.45 Refreshment Break 11.45-1.15 Creative Genealogies Chair: Lawrence Liang Dripta Piplai, Delhi The Hegemony of Calcutta Music Schools in Tagore Songs: Towards an Archival Preservation of 'Multiple Traditions in Rabindrasangeet' The paper has tried to focus on the different varieties of Rabindrasangeet which are co-existent, and tried to find out the nature and effect of power relation involved in it. I give a brief account of the emergence of Rabindrasangeet as a brand in 19th century Bengal, establishment of its practice-performance centric institutions, etc. Then, with the help of the avialable Akarmatrik notations (published by Viswa Bharatio Music Board and recorded notations from other sources), I have focused on the power relations between different schoolings. I will consider the claim of ‘originality’ and the Santiniketani-gharana versus the popular trend of Rabindrasangeet in the culture industry as central to the power-game in the domain of Rabindrasangeet. [Dripta Piplai is a Research student of Linguistics, pursuing an M.Phil. from the University of Delhi, with a specialisation in 'Language in Education' - especially the language curriculum for children. She is also an independent researcher and performer of Rabindrasangeet, trained from Gitabitan Shikhshayatan, Calcutta. Contact: dripta @ hotmail.com] Rajesh Mehar, Bangalore Exploring Notions of Creative Ownership Among Contemporary Musicians This research project is geared towards exploring how musicians in India relate to their own creative output. Over the last two decades, with the economic liberalisation of India, musicians in India are having to negotiate, in a day-to-day manner, the implications of a system of ownership of creative material that is new to them. Do they look at their creative work as merely property? Or are there other relational perspectives at work between a musician and his art? [Rajesh Mehar is a musician and writer living and working in Bangalore. He writes on topics related to music and musicians, especially rock musicians in India. Email - rajeshmehar @ yahoo.com] Rudradeep Bhattacharjee, Mumbai Freedom in Cyberspace in the Context of India: A Video Documentary How do we preserve the Net’s core values and open architecture without encouraging anarchy yet at the same time not allow cyberspace to be smothered by superfluous and numbing regulations? The proposed documentary, the first attempt of its kind to understand the issues related to freedom in cyberspace in the context of a developing country like India, asks this critical question and tries to seek answers to it. The documentary will also be a reminder that while we debate these issues, we cannot lose sight of the fact that a huge digital divide exists in our country and all notions of technological freedom and individual empowerment are superfluous while it does. [Rudradeep Bhattacharjee is an aspiring film-maker living in Mumbai. He has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Film and Television Production from Xavier Institute of Communicatons, Mumbai. He describes himself as a generalist. He does not have any hobbies. Email: bhatt_rudra @ yahoo.com ] 1.15-2.15 Lunch 2.15-3.15 Ambiguous and Emergent Transitions Chair: Ravi Sundaram Sudipta Paul, Asansol Response of the Labour Force to the Changing Urban Formation in the Asansol Industrial Area, West Bengal Capital has gradually liberated itself from the welfare cloak and by the last decade of previous century it has once again returned to it’s original business of profit maximization in the form of so called liberalization. Looking back at this trajectory is necessary to understand that this liberalized economy is not only a liberation from the welfare cloak but also a conscious effort to pre-empt social and political opposition. The process, at least in our country, is still evolving. To explore and analyze multifarious aspects of this phenomenal development are both challenging and exciting for any social researcher. Presently, though, I do not intend to arrive at any comprehensive analysis but will only look at the changes for last 15 years taking place at Asansol region, the pre-eminent industrial area of West Bengal. [Sudipta Paul is a Post Graduate in Electrical Engineering. She is a certificate holder of RTP (Research Training Program) of the year 2004-05 in Centre for Studies in Social Science and Culture, Calcutta. She was the principal investigator of the project entitled 'Collection of Oral History of Coal Workers with special emphasis on Impact of Outsourcing' at the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute. Email: sdipta_paul @ yahoo.com] Kaushiki Rao, New Delhi Transplanting the Urban Aesthetic in a Resettlement Colony in Delhi Kaushiki Rao has a MA in Social Science, with a focus on Anthropology and Political Theory, from the University of Chicago. She writes on issues of social justice, policy and governance. She currently works at Pratham — an NGO that works in the area of primary education - and lives in New Delhi. email: kaushiki.rao @ gmail.com 3.15-3.30 Refreshment Break 3.30-5.00 The City and Its Discontents Chair: Smriti Vohra Syed Mohd. Yunus and Syed Mohd Faisal, Delhi Asahay Mahanagar: Helpline Karyakartaon ke Nazariye Se Dilli Shahar ka Adhyayan(Helpless City: A Study of Delhi from the Perspective of Helpline Workers) The research, “Asahaye Mahanagar” – “Helpless City” -- is a reflection of the unexplored ‘parts’ of the city by helpline workers themselves, linking them together and showing as voices of the city. It explores the new work of help lines and the perspective of the city they allow by presenting their encounters with it. It also describes the various issues for which city ‘calls’ for help. It explores the multiple meanings of a simple telephone ‘call’ for a helpline worker. Several innovative methods have been used in this research like transit walk, participant observation, photography and the most exciting ’sting operation’ telephone calls. [Yunus is a development communicator, born and brought up in Delhi, with Social work background. He has worked on child protection issues as Project coordinator in a child help line of Delhi. Has worked with Self Help Groups of women with another NGO in Rajasthan. And has just completed his Postgraduate diploma in Development Communication, from AJK Mass communication and research center JMI. Contact: delhi.yunus @ gmail.com ] Peerzada Arshad Hamid, Anantnag Exploring the Space of Psychiatric Hospitals in Srinagar This project will study the functioning of lone psychiatric hospital of Srinagar in the strife-torn Valley of Kashmir where thousands of people are suffering from post traumatic stress disorders (PSTD). The 16 years of turmoil in the state has resulted in a sharp increase in stress related disorders especially the PSTD. The armed conflict in the state has affected the society at large. The continued violence has made a vast population of psychiatric patients. The research will seek to detail the strains and pressures in the conflict ridden society leading to the psychiatric problems among the population. It will also look into the needs and remedies required to provide solace to the battered population. [Peerzada Arshad Hamid, is a Srinagar based freelance journalist. He has written for Tehelka, Midday, and other papers, focusing on in-depth research-based human interest stories. He holds an M. A. in Mass communication and Journalism. Email: peerzadaarshad @ gmail.com] Udaykumar M, Delhi Unravelling a 'Real' Media Incident in Trivandrum This is an attempt to study a real incident in its own singularity. Considering the incident as an excellent gauge of available conceptual apparatuses, the project seeks to open up the posssibility of a few themes in a new fashion. Despite the heavy emphasis on conceptual aspects, a major part of this undertaking is concerned with reconstituting the event in order for anyone to address the questions concerning the conceptual distinction between an incident and an event; the relationship between spectacle and spectator;and the intricacies involved in event management by media and so on. Udayakumar M.’s basic academic training training was in Political Science and he completed a masters degree in the discipline from Kerala University in 2001. Soon after, he started working as a researcher at the Folklore Society of South Indian Languages. He worked at the society for nine months. Since then he has been trying to maintain a sustained engagement with several fields of knowledge which broadly come under the rubric of Human Sciences. Email: uk_ps at yahoo.co.uk 5.00-10.00 Launch of Sarai Reader 06: Turbulence / Dinner Sunday 27 August 10.30-12.30 The “Foreigners” and the “Locals” Chair: Iram Ghufran Farhana Ibrahim, Gurgaon Maritime Histories: Merchant Networks and the Production of Locality in Western India Based on fieldwork in old port towns in Kachchh and some research at the Maharashtra state archives, this paper proposes to think about the idea of the ‘cosmopolitan’ as we know it today, and to think through late modernity’s idioms of rootless-ness, movement, and flexible citizenship from the point of what we know about similar sorts of movement in the past, to locate the ‘global citizen’ across space and time. Second, the paper asks whether the fact of mobility or travel always implies an inclusive consciousness; whether in fact mobility does not sometimes more effectively and decisively seal the boundaries between us and them, self and other? [Farhana Ibrahim has a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Cornell University. Her dissertation research, conducted in Gujarat state's Kachchh district, examines the production of national political cultures through the conceptual prisms of religion, state-formation and settlement along the borders of modern nation-states. She is currently Assistant Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Bombay. Email: ibrahim.farhana @ gmail.com ] Ayesha Sen Choudhury, Kolkata Locating Sexuality through the Eyes of Afghan and Burmese Refugee Women in Delhi Premised on the rationale that men and women while sharing similar circumstances of persecution may have differing perceptions of displacement, this is a depiction of feminine spaces through the eyes of Burmese refugee women in Delhi. Refugee situations may present new challenges for a woman to negotiate with while probably fulfilling various roles of a mother, a daughter and a wife to name some. It is an attempt to identify understandings of violence, pain, pleasure, humiliation, and empowerment through daily existence in conditions of displacement, migration and hostile environments. [Ayesha is a lawyer with aspirations of engaging in discourses relating to gender and displacement. I'm a graduate from ILS Law College, University of Pune, and currently working with Women's Rights Initiative at the Lawyers Collective. Email: ayeshasc @ gmail.com] John Patrick Ojwando, Bangalore An Exploration of the Experiences of Afro Students in South Asia The South Asian subcontinent has been host to a slew of youngsters in pursuit of their academic goals, many of them drawn from far flung continents, Africa, the Middle and far East, Asia and in the recent past, a sizeable number from Europe. Most of them seem to have been taken by the county’s rich traditions, diverse customs and professed hospitality. All seemed to be going well in the past but there is a growing disenchantment slowly creeping in that could have far-reaching consequences. Though not entirely out in the open, a sizeable number of these students are becoming increasingly frustrated with a society they believe is insensitive to their concerns. The paper will focus on the experience of Afro students in India. [John Patrick Ojwando is a Kenyan national who can also claim a little of Indianess: he did his schooling in Kenya, then pursued his entire higher education in India. His received his BA from Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur and his MS in Communication from Bangalore University. Currently, he is in the final stages of his doctoral research program at the Department of Studies in Communication and Journalism, University of Mysore, as a self-financing research scholar under the guidance of Dr. N Usha Rani. Email: ojpatrick at yahoo.com] Mallica, New Delhi Identities and Aspirations of Tibetan Youth in New Delhi My research report titled ‘Identities and Aspirations of Tibetan Youth in Delhi’ is a sociological exploration of the said issue and builds upon my Ph.D research titled “Education of Tibetan Refugees in India: Issues of Culture; Ethnic Identity and Opportunity” in ZHCES, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. I have looked at this issue through exploration of secondary literature; discussions and semi-structured interviews with Tibetan youth, pursuing their Graduation from Delhi University and residing in a hostel, called the Tibetan Youth Hostel in Rohini, New Delhi. Their identities and aspirations, seem to be living, processual entities as well as part of a product of their past socialization at school and/or families or both. The youth, seen as a heterogeneous group, seem to want to preserve their core cultural values and ethnic identity, while, at the same time, being influenced by waves of globalization and Mcdonaldization in the city of Delhi. [Mallica is a Ph.D research scholar at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has worked as Social Worker (for UNHCR, India); Gender Trainer (for Center for Social Research, New Delhi) and Consultant (for Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi).She has written and published papers on issues of education; refugee children and street girls in Delhi. Email: mallica_jnu at yahoo.co.in] 12.30-1.30 Lunch 1.30-3.00 The Endurance of Print Chair: Rakesh Singh Arshad Amanullah, New Delhi Journalism in Madrasas and Madrasas in Journalism Through the content analysis of more than a dozen magazines interspersed with the insights from interviews of around 30 editors and scribes, this paper seeks to explore the fascinating world of the madrasa journals. Apart from their thematic concerns, it brings in issues like geographical reach and the social composition of their consumers. Experiences of the editors and their approach to journalism also constitute a significant part of the paper. Moreover, it helps in developing a proper understanding of the process of bringing out wall magazines in madrasas. It also tries to grasp new trends in the domain of the madrasa journalism. [Based in New Delhi, Arshad Amanullah is an independent filmmaker and researcher. He has an M.A. in Mass communication from Jamia Millia, New Delhi and has also studied for around 10 years in the Salafia Madrasa, Varanasi. He has published two books and several papers, and directed and scripted a couple of documentaries. Contact: arshad.mcrc @ gmail.com ] Ram Murthi Sharma, Una, Himachal Pradesh An Analysis of Magazines in Braille Ram Murthi Sharma has worked extensively in the field of education with Eklavya. He prepares educational content and trains teachers and provides consultancy. He holds a postgraduate degree in history from Punjab University, Chandigarh. Izhar Ahmed Nadeem, Delhi Muslim Mahilaon ki Urdu Patrikayo ki Duniya(Urdu Women's Magazines: Their Impact on Muslim Women) 3.00-3.15 Refreshment Break 3.15-4.45 In Search of Form - 1 Chair: Vivek Narayanan Rajesh Kumar K, Trivandrum An Ethnography of Teyyam Performance from a Practitioner’s Point of View This study attempts to analyse how long-term social transformation reflects on the life of a community in terms of their adherence to the Teyyam performance and their traditional social position as legitimate artists/workers of the Teyyam. The purpose of the study is to understand the predicament of marginal communities in the larger stratified society. Historically, marginalized/indigenous communities have been relegated to the conditions of existence of the most backward communities in the hierarchical social structure of India. This study intends to investigate social meanings, and aesthetic practices of cultural production in the contexts of Teyyam; a spirit medium ceremony performed by lower castes and Adivasi communities which can be say as a revenge against oppression by the dominant groups in the northern districts of Kerala State, India. The analysis will be an ethnographic and folkloristic discourse on behalf of the communities. This study will have an advantage of an “insider perspective”, as the researcher himself is an active performer of the Teyyam and will be able to combine individual experiences with the social, cultural and economic aspects of the community. [Rajesh Komath is an artist and researcher. Rajesh did his Bachelor Degree in economics, Nirmalagiri College, Kuthuparambu, Kannur; completed his Post Graduation in Development Economics, Dr.John Matthai Centre, University of Calicut and travelled a long way to the capital of Kerala—Trivandrum to do his MPhil and PhD at theCentre for Development Studies, affiliated to JNU, New Delhi. His research is on Social Development of Teyyam Performing Community and change. "As I have been born into a community of Teyyam performers, traditionally belonging to North Malabar, this form has become, since childhood onwards, my life itself." Email: rkomathcds @ rediffmail.com, rajeshkumar @ cds.ac.in] Aman Sethi, Delhi Seeking Alternative Ways and Means of Representing “the Poor and the Oppressed” by Studying Informal Networks at Labour Mandis in Delhi Aman Sethi’s fellowship, titled “Gareeb admi ka kaun dekhta hai: Alternative means of representation of ‘the poor and oppressed’“ focusses on building a new narrative to question existing media ractices on representation. Using a literary-journalism, or new-journalism format, his work seeks to configure existing hierarchies of state, the media and the “oppressed”. Aman Sethi is a Delhi-based reporter with the fortnightly newsmagazine, Frontline. Contact: aman.am @ gmail.com Rahul Pandita, Delhi Byte Soldier: The Life and Times of a Metro TV Reporter/A Graphic Novel in Hindi Rahul Pandita is a Delhi-based Freelance writer and journalist. He has formerly been a correspondent with Aaj Tak and Zee News television channels and has reported extensively from conflict zones like Iraq, Kashmir and India's Northeast. His articles have appeared in Outlook, Deccan Herald, Daily Pioneer, Northeast Sun, Sahara Times, Strategic and Defence Magazine and Finnish magazine Ihmisoikeus and Ydin. In 2001 the National Foundation of India awarded him the Northeast Media Fellowship. His buildungsroman, Chinar In My Veins, won an e-author award. He is presently working on a second novel, based on the 1947 tribesmen attack on Kashmir. He is a member of World Comics India and has been working on using comics as an alternate mode of communication. Email: rahulpandita @ yahoo.com 4.45-5.00 Refreshment Break 5.00-6.30 In Search of Form - 2 Chair: Priya Sen Nirupama Sekhar and Sanjay Ramchandran, Mumbai Urban Stories: A Collection of Graphic Essays on the City of Mumbai Urban Stories (working title) seeks to explore the myriad hues and dimensions of the culture of the city through a collection of stylized visual essays. Woven around Mumbai, the graphic essays will address a host of urban issues from the aesthetics of colonial architecture to the politics of postmodern identities. A visual experiment of sorts, Urban Stories will employ such diverse genres as collage and typography, illustration and photography. The resulting collection will emerge as a unique narrative of Mumbai, its pasts and presents, peoples and places. [Urban Stories' is a collaborative project between Nirupama Sekhar and Sanjay Ramachandran. Alumni of the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, Pune, their previous collaborations include the short film 'The 45 days around it' (DV; 8 min; B&W) screened at the British Council Digital Film Festival 2004. Both are based in Mumbai. Sanjay works in television production and is currently employed with Channel V, Mumbai. His interests include making music and illustrations. Nirupama also works in television production and is currently with Contiloe Films, Mumbai. She enjoys pursuing independent projects in the visual arts and graphic design. Email: ramachandransanjay @ gmail.com, nirupama.sekhar @ gmail.com] Lakshmi IndraSimhan and Jacob Weinstein, New Delhi Vending as Vernacular: Depicting Street Sales and Services through Sequential Art In our project we conducted interviews with various streetside vendors and craftsmen in New Delhi. Due to language and other difficulties we were unable to achieve the level of detail we had originally envisioned as the basis of our work. We spoke to a wide range of vendors, aiming to document their skill sets, the tools and rules of their trade, methodology, income, personal history, etc. The results of our research are still in the process of being turned into a comic, but one that has become increasingly fictionalized, though they still use the conversations as basis for a series of visual narratives. [Lakshmi IndraSimhan grew up in Kuwait, India, the Philippines, the US and Japan. She graduated with degrees in Political Philosophy and Fine Arts from Bryn Mawr College in 2002. Now she writes, draws and spends much time in her flat. She collects textiles. This summer she will have a short artist's residency at Point Ephemere in Paris. She lives in Delhi. lindrasi @ yahoo.com Jacob Weinstein was the art director of The Philadelphia Independent. He is currently the designer of The Common Review. He was recently awarded an artist's residency at the Cite Internationales des Artes in Paris. He lives in Delhi. jacobmweinstein @ gmail.com] Anjali Jyoti, New Delhi Home Street Home: A Street Child Survival Guide for Delhi Delhi is considered to have a fairly high population of street children and there exists an extensive formal support network for them. However lots of localized informal arrangements and systems have also evolved over time to facilitate survival on the streets. The aim is to cross communicate, that is to prepare a guide which makes a street child more aware of all the formal facilities available for him in terms of work options, health, education, shelter etc and compile a reverse guide for the likes of us, to make us more aware of the undercurrents of life on the streets so that the systems developed to facilitate the children of the street can be more effective. A booklet containing maps and pictorial information about NGOs, what they provide for, government hospitals, educational facilities, bus routes, rights etc. A take on street life as I have gathered over the past 11 months, to get an idea of how wide a gap exists between what is required and what is being provided for. Archival material to be submitted (apart from guide): Photographs, maps/sketches made by children, film footage on the process of map making, feedback on the guide, etc. [Anjali is an architect, working in Delhi for the past four years. Presently, she is site architect and part of the project management and LEED certification team for Development Alternatives Headquarters building (under construction). She has dabbled in photography and film making, and recently took pictures for a DUAC exhibition on Delhi. She is currently working on a film on street children and their relationship with the city, based on my research for Sarai. email: anjalijyoti at yahoo.com ] 6.30-7.30 Closing Statements / Feedback Session From naresh.rhythm at gmail.com Mon Aug 21 19:26:03 2006 From: naresh.rhythm at gmail.com (Naresh) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 19:26:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Introduction and abstract Message-ID: <001a01c6c529$904e7630$7e4da13b@hp5d91402bf38b> To earn my bread and butter I teach social science in a government school at Delhi. Listening to Hindustani classical music is one of my weaknesses and I also possess some theoretical understanding of it. I am a student of history and presently working on the early phase of gramophone industry with special reference to classical music. The history of listening in twentieth century north India is going to be the topic of my future research. History of domesticity, gender studies, disability studies etc are my other areas of interest. As Sarai fellow I had been working on Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar, a 130 years old festival of national character that concentrates on Hindustani classical music only and doesn't allow any light music to be performed on its stage. Its evolution, different phases, organizational aspects patronage networks, local audience etc will come in this study. In addition to this my focus would be on how the festival is taken in memories and what factors make this sammelan so unique that for organizers, performers and for the common people it is thought as something 'divine. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060821/95c73765/attachment.html From janicepariat at gmail.com Tue Aug 22 12:24:55 2006 From: janicepariat at gmail.com (Janice Pariat) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:24:55 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Final post for Notion of Home Message-ID: <72cca7600608212354g7b2f99b4i9249df39272b814c@mail.gmail.com> Hello! Finally...the last story. Hugely based in a city I personally love. But more importantly...hope you enjoy it. The link is http://thefirstsixstories.blogspot.com/ Cheers! Janice Pariat From ojpatrick at yahoo.com Tue Aug 22 12:41:54 2006 From: ojpatrick at yahoo.com (Ojwando JP) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:11:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Abstract & Bio Message-ID: <20060822071154.71445.qmail@web50103.mail.yahoo.com> Abstract The study, An exploration of the experiences of Afro students in the south Asia, draws upon the experiences of students of African descent, and looks at this unique educational convergence in the south Asian sub continent that seems to be coming under severe strain. The study attempts to document their diverse experiences, lifestyles and ways in which they have managed to keep afloat their aspirations. Also, some of the novel ways they have added during their sojourn. Through a series of articles that I have attempted to cull out, one can hope that pointers will emerge as to what the south Asian sub continent has been able to offer as a destination for those on a quest for education as well as answering some of their concerns. For the workshop, I will share my experiences on what me the country, why I have been India for so long, living in different parts of India. Also, how much I have changed as a person, as well as my perceptions of the place and its constructions/representations of Africans. Bio Data I am a Kenyan national. Having attained his BA degree from Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, I proceeded for his MS (Communication) course from Bangalore University. Currently, I am pursuing a doctoral research program at the Department of Studies in Communication and Journalism, University of Mysore as a self-financing researcher under the guidance of Dr. N Usha Rani. The working title of my study is “Treatment of Development News in the Print Media and its Correlation with the Non Governmental Organization’s Perception of Development News: A Comparative Study of India and Kenya.” The study is an attempt to explore the linkages between Print Media and Non Governmental Organizations and documents the experiences of the actors in these sectors. --------------------------------- Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060822/fd0d00b7/attachment.html From aasim27 at yahoo.co.in Tue Aug 22 14:13:22 2006 From: aasim27 at yahoo.co.in (aasim khan) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 09:43:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Are; Netizens = Not-Citizens? Message-ID: <20060822084322.22350.qmail@web8705.mail.in.yahoo.com> Hi everyone, Here is a report from the The Nation. Very interesting read... I wonder if distribution (of media)is the key to maintain the monopoly rather then the content? In the Indian context I can imagine the Ambani Brothers doing their best to buy out all the cable netwroks pretty soon... Best Aasim Congress Poised to Unravel the Internet by JEFFREY CHESTER [posted online on August 18, 2006] Lured by huge checks handed out by the country's top lobbyists, members of Congress could soon strike a blow against Internet freedom as they seek to resolve the hot-button controversy over preserving "network neutrality." The telecommunications reform bill now moving through Congress threatens to be a major setback for those who hope that digital media can foster a more democratic society. The bill not only precludes net neutrality safeguards but also eliminates local community oversight of digital communications provided by cable and phone giants. It sets the stage for the privatized, consolidated and unregulated communications system that is at the core of the phone and cable lobbies' political agenda. In both the House and Senate versions of the bill, Americans are described as "consumers" and "subscribers," not citizens deserving substantial rights when it comes to the creation and distribution of digital media. A handful of companies stand to gain incredible monopoly power from such legislation, especially AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon. They have already used their political clout in Washington to secure for the phone and cable industries a stunning 98 percent control of the US residential market for high-speed Internet. Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens, the powerful Commerce Committee chair, is trying to line up votes for his "Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunities Reform Act." It was Stevens who called the Internet a "series of tubes" as he tried to explain his bill. Now the subject of well-honed satirical jabs from The Daily Show, as well as dozens of independently made videos, Stevens is hunkering down to get his bill passed by the Senate when it reconvenes in September. But thanks to the work of groups like Save the Internet, many Senate Democrats now oppose the bill because of its failure to address net neutrality. (Disclosure: The Center for Digital Democracy, where I work, is a member of that coalition.) Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan have joined forces to protect the US Internet. Wyden has placed a "hold" on the bill, requiring Stevens (and the phone and cable lobbies) to strong-arm sixty colleagues to prevent a filibuster. But with a number of GOP senators in tight races now fearful of opposing net neutrality, the bill's chances for passage before the midterm election are slim. Stevens, however, may be able to gain enough support for passage when Congress returns for a lame-duck session. Don't Ask, Don't Tell Thus far, the strategy of the phone and cable lobbies has been to dismiss concerns about net neutrality as either paranoid fantasies or political discontent from progressives. "It's a made-up issue," AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre said in early August at a meeting of state regulators. New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu claims that net neutrality is "what the liberal left have hung their hat on," suggesting that the outcry over Internet freedom is more partisan than substantive. Other critics of net neutrality, including many front groups, have tried to frame the debate around unsubstantiated fears about users finding access to websites blocked, pointing to a 2005 FCC policy statement that "consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice." But the issue of blocking has been purposefully raised to shift the focus from what should be the real concerns about why the phone and cable giants are challenging federal rules requiring nondiscriminatory treatment of digital content. Verizon, Comcast and the others are terrified of the Internet as we know it today. Net neutrality rules would jeopardize their far-reaching plans to transform our digital communications system. Both the cable and phone industries recognize that if their broadband pipes (now a monopoly) must be operated in an open and neutral fashion, they will face real competition--and drastically reduced revenues--from an ever-growing number of lower-cost phone and video providers. Alcatel, a major technology company helping Verizon and AT&T build their broadband networks, notes in one business white paper that cable and phone companies are "really competing with the Internet as a business model, which is even more formidable than just competing with a few innovative service aggregators such as Google, Yahoo and Skype." (Skype is a telephone service provider using the Internet.) Policy Racket The goal of dominating the nation's principal broadband pipeline serving all of our everyday (and ever-growing) communications needs is also a major motivation behind opposition to net neutrality. Alcatel and other broadband equipment firms are helping the phone and cable industries build what will be a reconfigured Internet--one optimized to generate what they call "triple play" profits from "high revenue services such as video, voice and multimedia communications." Triple play means generating revenues from a single customer who is using a bundle of services for phone, TV and PC--at home, at work or via wireless devices. The corporate system emerging for the United States (and elsewhere in the world) is being designed to boost how much we spend on services, so phone and cable providers can increase what they call our "ARPU" (average revenue per user). This is the "next generation" Internet system being created for us, one purposefully designed to facilitate the needs of a mass consumerist culture. Absent net neutrality and other safeguards, the phone/cable plan seeks to impose what is called a "policy-based" broadband system that creates "rules" of service for every user and online content provider. How much one can afford to spend would determine the range and quality of digital media access. Broadband connections would be governed by ever-vigilant network software engaged in "traffic policing" to insure each user couldn't exceed the "granted resources" supervised by "admission control" technologies. Mechanisms are being put in place so our monopoly providers can "differentiate charging in real time for a wide range of applications and events." Among the services that can form the basis of new revenues, notes Alcatel, is online content related to "community, forums, Internet access, information, news, find your way (navigation), marketing push, and health monitoring." Missing from the current legislative debate on communications is how the plans of cable and phone companies threaten civic participation, the free flow of information and meaningful competition. Nor do the House or Senate versions of the bill insure that the public will receive high-speed Internet service at a reasonable price. According to market analysts, the costs US users pay for broadband service is more than eight times higher than what subscribers pay in Japan and South Korea. (Japanese consumers pay a mere 75 cents per megabit. South Koreans are charged only 73 cents. But US users are paying $6.10 per megabit. Internet service abroad is also much faster than it is here.) Why are US online users being held hostage to higher rates at slower speeds? Blame the business plans of the phone and cable companies. As technology pioneer Bob Frankston and PBS tech columnist Robert Cringely recently explained , the phone and cable companies see our broadband future as merely a "billable event." Frankston and Cringely urge us to be part of a movement where we--and our communities--are not just passive generators of corporate profit but proactive creators of our own digital futures. That means we would become owners of the "last mile" of fiber wire, the key link to the emerging broadband world. For about $17 a month, over ten years, the high-speed connections coming to our homes would be ours--not in perpetual hock to phone or cable monopolists. Under such a scenario, notes Cringely, we would just pay around $2 a month for super-speed Internet access. Regardless of whether Congress passes legislation in the fall, progressives need to create a forward-looking telecom policy agenda. They should seek to insure online access for low-income Americans, provide public oversight of broadband services, foster the development of digital communities and make it clear that the public's free speech rights online are paramount. It's now time to help kill the Stevens "tube" bill and work toward a digital future where Internet access is a right--and not dependent on how much we can pay to "admission control." __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ From machine at zerosofzeta.com Tue Aug 22 14:47:35 2006 From: machine at zerosofzeta.com (Yogesh Girdhar) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:47:35 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <44E98E81.9040702@linux-delhi.org> References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> <44E98E81.9040702@linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <1d804b40608220217r27817ff5w16f8d399fb11880a@mail.gmail.com> I really don't understand whats wrong with banning the use of proprietary software from educational institute. please explain i am really curios. Well I am currently working on some video sharing software. It will hopefully be released under some type of free software license when its in a mature enough state Before this i have worked on vtk (www.vtk.org), which is a free toolkit for building visualization software. so yes please refer willing students to me if they would like to work on either one of the projects. -yogi On 8/21/06, Pankaj kaushal wrote: > Hello Yogi, > > Yogi wrote: > > I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about India and its large number > > of programmers; open source movement in india is non-existant. > > This is a sign that all these programmer arenothing more than coding > monkeys.. > > who do not understand anything more than whats immediately before their eyes. > > Even some of my so called smart IIT friends still think that Microsoft is the greatest > > I think that your understanding of "Open source" and "Free software" and > "open source movement in India" is grossly misinformed. > > I think that "IIT friends" and "Software programmers" are not > responsible for writing software for you. If someone writes code for a > company to money and does not want to write free software, it does not > make him a coding monkey. It just makes him a person with a different > opinion. > > > thing which has happened to india, because they brought computing the > > common people... but I ask them ... at whatcost? A cage is a cage... > > even if its made out of gold. I think Indian government needs to ban > > the use of proprietary software from all educational institutes. > > Bravo! I think you need to get a life, an education and better get a > brain while you're at it. > > PS: Please send a list of all free software projects that you contribute > to, I will be more than happy to refer willing students. > > P. > -- > Wir wollen dass ihr uns alles glaubt. > From machine at zerosofzeta.com Tue Aug 22 14:51:44 2006 From: machine at zerosofzeta.com (Yogesh Girdhar) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:51:44 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <271ece9c0608160146w6381e72embda22076c509ec1b@mail.gmail.com> References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> <271ece9c0608160146w6381e72embda22076c509ec1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1d804b40608220221s58b5c77av9e344f785551273b@mail.gmail.com> Yes those genetically modified high-yeielding seeds from US are also far more accessible and easy to grow. But the problem is .. seeds from the crop you get are not fertile. Does that mean all the farmers in india should start usign those seeds? -yogi On 8/16/06, Jassim Ali wrote: > Completely agree here with Kiran, > and a possible reason for the low activity levels in open source could be > that talent prefers the security and comfort of a cushy job in a tech firm > than percieved software activism ..... > and come to think of it...whatever be the reason pirated windows is far more > accessible and easier to pickup than opensource ;-) > > jassim > > > > On 8/16/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote: > > > On 14-Aug-06, at 5:15 PM, Yogi wrote: > > > I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about > > India and its large number of programmers; open source movement in > > india is non-existant. This is a sign that all these programmer are > > nothing more than coding monkeys.. who do not understand anything more > > than whats immediately before their eyes. > > Isn't that a gross generalisation? Shouldn't you instead be examining > the causes for this apparent non-existence, or, blasphemous as this > may sound, whether open source in its current form has any relevance > for India at all? > > -- > Kiran Jonnalagadda > http://jace.seacrow.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: > > > > > -- > -- > Jassim Ali > > Revolutionist / Poet/ Manager / Prisoner / Escape-artist / > Acrobat / Weaver / Rain Maker / Bio-scope Wallah ! > > Strategic Planning & Business Development > OMD Digital > Al Thuraya Tower, 19th Floor > Dubai Media City > PO Box 121428, Dubai, UAE > > Mobile: +97150 3425980 > Telephone: +9714 360 4182 (direct) > Facsimile: +9714 36 88 230 > > > Website : www.omd.com > Blog: www.tefloncoatedyuppie.blogspot.com > > > "Those that danced were thought mad by those who could not hear the music" From machine at zerosofzeta.com Tue Aug 22 16:10:48 2006 From: machine at zerosofzeta.com (Yogesh Girdhar) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:10:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <1d804b40608220217r27817ff5w16f8d399fb11880a@mail.gmail.com> References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> <44E98E81.9040702@linux-delhi.org> <1d804b40608220217r27817ff5w16f8d399fb11880a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1d804b40608220340h5f74ab31o8b1b0da655b33207@mail.gmail.com> Oh and i forgot.. I am also in the process of helping start a inter-university collaborative environment to develop low cost medical instrucments for india. It will all be developed under GPL license. This is in collaboration with NPL(National Physical Lab.) and AIIMS. Website should be coming up shortly as it is just starting. So any help with this will also be welcome. -yogi > Well I am currently working on some video sharing software. It will > hopefully be released under some type of free software license when > its in a mature enough state > > Before this i have worked on vtk (www.vtk.org), which is a free > toolkit for building visualization software. > > so yes please refer willing students to me if they would like to work > on either one of the projects. > > -yogi > > > On 8/21/06, Pankaj kaushal wrote: > > Hello Yogi, > > > > Yogi wrote: > > > I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about India and its large number > > > of programmers; open source movement in india is non-existant. > > > This is a sign that all these programmer arenothing more than coding > > monkeys.. > > > who do not understand anything more than whats immediately before their eyes. > > > Even some of my so called smart IIT friends still think that Microsoft is the greatest > > > > I think that your understanding of "Open source" and "Free software" and > > "open source movement in India" is grossly misinformed. > > > > I think that "IIT friends" and "Software programmers" are not > > responsible for writing software for you. If someone writes code for a > > company to money and does not want to write free software, it does not > > make him a coding monkey. It just makes him a person with a different > > opinion. > > > > > thing which has happened to india, because they brought computing the > > > common people... but I ask them ... at whatcost? A cage is a cage... > > > even if its made out of gold. I think Indian government needs to ban > > > the use of proprietary software from all educational institutes. > > > > Bravo! I think you need to get a life, an education and better get a > > brain while you're at it. > > > > PS: Please send a list of all free software projects that you contribute > > to, I will be more than happy to refer willing students. > > > > P. > > -- > > Wir wollen dass ihr uns alles glaubt. > > > From amitabhkumar84 at gmail.com Tue Aug 22 14:02:41 2006 From: amitabhkumar84 at gmail.com (Amitabh Kumar) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:02:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] HUTCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Message-ID: Hutch just called. He asks my name. I tell him and he wishes Mr. Amitabh good afternoon. He wants to know my height , the colour of my eyes and my address. I give him all (this is my missionary school ways at their best) without asking for a reason…he then wants to know my local address. I give him that too. My connection has been barred twice for reasons not known to me. So a call from hutch is received with the same gratification with which I received my pocket money or a gift brought by parents returning from some 'official' trip. I sir him and he sir's me. Its mutually satisfying till the point he asks for my address once again. I sensed a faint echo of violation. I gave him the address once again. He asks for the colour of my building, the colour of the gate and any landmark's near the house. I lose it. I ask him what the bleep was he trying to do…why was I being asked so many questions and why was my connection terminated twice. He gives me some 'gyaan' about how in Haryana an identification proof was being used to create hundreds of hutch connections, and because of this the government has issued a directive which states that the company has to clarify every address. I said it was alright and that I only wanted my phone to work. " Ok , Mr. Amitabh thank you for the co-operation." " No problem, just make sure my phones not barred again." " Uhhh..Mr. Amitabh just one last question. I am talking to you, right?" " What do you mean?' " This is Mr. Amitabh ,right?" The conversation turned into its second loop. -- www.amitabhkumar.blogspot.com From jassim.ali at gmail.com Tue Aug 22 15:02:16 2006 From: jassim.ali at gmail.com (Jassim Ali) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 13:32:16 +0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Stallman in Calcutta In-Reply-To: <1d804b40608220221s58b5c77av9e344f785551273b@mail.gmail.com> References: <038901c6bf88$1b95fdf0$cbb841db@Ramaswamy> <1d804b40608140445l28cd35cdi7dd781f28bc987ac@mail.gmail.com> <271ece9c0608160146w6381e72embda22076c509ec1b@mail.gmail.com> <1d804b40608220221s58b5c77av9e344f785551273b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <271ece9c0608220232o4b9267av93252603a8755385@mail.gmail.com> Are we still talking abt Openware ? If so .. I guess the maxim that 'something is better than nothing' rules here much more than anywhere ... Unfortunately Openware sw tends to be more oriented towards the 'evolved' userbase than to the entry level users ..... As long as issues like ubiquity and distribution are tackled by the govt and the education sector, openware could still 'whack the shit' out of the 'Genetically modified seeds' ....... And in case we are talking about the HY seeds issue .... Then... As long as critical issues like sustainability,environmental safety etc are taken care off..... Doesnt matter who makes the seeds... rem even the monsanto-est of the monsanto's need a richer farmer to buy the seeds again and again and again ....... cheers j On 8/22/06, Yogesh Girdhar wrote: > > Yes > those genetically modified high-yeielding seeds from US are also far > more accessible and easy to grow. But the problem is .. seeds from the > crop you get are not fertile. Does that mean all the farmers in india > should start usign those seeds? > > -yogi > > > On 8/16/06, Jassim Ali wrote: > > Completely agree here with Kiran, > > and a possible reason for the low activity levels in open source could > be > > that talent prefers the security and comfort of a cushy job in a tech > firm > > than percieved software activism ..... > > and come to think of it...whatever be the reason pirated windows is far > more > > accessible and easier to pickup than opensource ;-) > > > > jassim > > > > > > > > On 8/16/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote: > > > > > On 14-Aug-06, at 5:15 PM, Yogi wrote: > > > > > I am really surprised by the fact that despite all this noise about > > > India and its large number of programmers; open source movement in > > > india is non-existant. This is a sign that all these programmer are > > > nothing more than coding monkeys.. who do not understand anything more > > > than whats immediately before their eyes. > > > > Isn't that a gross generalisation? Shouldn't you instead be examining > > the causes for this apparent non-existence, or, blasphemous as this > > may sound, whether open source in its current form has any relevance > > for India at all? > > > > -- > > Kiran Jonnalagadda > > http://jace.seacrow.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: > > > > > > > > > > -- > > -- > > Jassim Ali > > > > Revolutionist / Poet/ Manager / Prisoner / Escape-artist / > > Acrobat / Weaver / Rain Maker / Bio-scope Wallah ! > > > > Strategic Planning & Business Development > > OMD Digital > > Al Thuraya Tower, 19th Floor > > Dubai Media City > > PO Box 121428, Dubai, UAE > > > > Mobile: +97150 3425980 > > Telephone: +9714 360 4182 (direct) > > Facsimile: +9714 36 88 230 > > > > > > Website : www.omd.com > > Blog: www.tefloncoatedyuppie.blogspot.com > > > > > > "Those that danced were thought mad by those who could not hear the > music" > -- -- Jassim Ali Revolutionist / Poet/ Manager / Prisoner / Escape-artist / Acrobat / Weaver / Rain Maker / Bio-scope Wallah ! Strategic Planning & Business Development OMD Digital Al Thuraya Tower, 19th Floor Dubai Media City PO Box 121428, Dubai, UAE Mobile: +97150 3425980 Telephone: +9714 360 4182 (direct) Facsimile: +9714 36 88 230 Website : www.omd.com Blog: www.tefloncoatedyuppie.blogspot.com "Those that danced were thought mad by those who could not hear the music" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060822/883e9a61/attachment.html From patrice at xs4all.nl Tue Aug 22 18:06:53 2006 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:36:53 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Arabic is sortof illegal in US airports Message-ID: <20060822123653.GF44926@xs4all.nl> bwo Dave Boyce/ the Hippies list http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2006/08/back-from-mideast.html Thursday, August 10, 2006 back from the mideast I just came back from a short trip to Jordan and Syria. The trip to Syria was so fast, but I managed to visit some Lebanese refugee camps. I am so impressed by the Syrian people's generosity in receiving Lebanese refugees. The Syrian government didn't even have to send food or supplies to the refugees because of the overwhelming grassroots support. When I was in the school/refugee camp, many neighbors were walking in with food and clothes. Neighbors donated mattresses, TVs, satellites, money, and other aid. The other thing you can't miss in Jordan and Syria is people's anger against the US. On more than occasion, I got shouted at because I live in the US. The most interesting incident was during a visit to a Lebanese refugee camp. I was called by two young Lebanese people, and they asked me whether me and the rest of the delegation visiting their shelter where coming from the US. I said yes. They said: "you better get the hell out of here unless you want us to make a scene". I tried to explain that we are the "good" Americans who are against the war, so they said go back home and change your government. "you can't come here visit us in a shelter that we were sent to because of your tax money and your bombs, and expect us to be nice to you". So me and the other Americans got the hell out of there. The trip to Jordan was more productive and organized. I managed to put together a couple of meetings with Iraqi parliamentarians representing the major groups in the parliament. One meeting was with two MPs, one representing the biggest Sunni Group, and the other representing the biggest Shia group in the parliament. They gave the US delegation that accompanied me a strong and united message against the US presence in Iraq. It was a clear Sunni/Shia demand to end the occupation and set a timetable for withdrawing the US troops. Another meeting was with MPs and some other NGO representatives of mainly secular and liberal Iraqis. We had some other meetings with Human rights organizations as well. Read Tom Hayden's piece in The Nation for more details about our meeting in Amman. That week in Jordan and Syria was so intense. I came back to DC for a day, then I took the bus to New York to watch Fear Up: Stories from Baghdad and Guantanamo, and participate in some discussions. The next day, I went to JFK in the morning to catch my Jet Blue plane to California. I reached Terminal 6 at around 7:15 am, issued a boarding pass, and checked all my bags in, and then walked to the security checkpoint. For the first time in my life, I was taken to a secondary search . My shoes were searched, and I was asked for my boarding pass and ID. After passing the security, I walked to check where gate 16 was, then I went to get something to eat. I got some cheese and grapes with some orange juice and I went back to Gate 16 and sat down in the boarding area enjoying my breakfast and some sunshine. At around 8:30, two men approached me while I was checking my phone. One of them asked me if I had a minute and he showed me his badge, I said: "sure". We walked some few steps and stood in front of the boarding counter where I found out that they were accompanied by another person, a woman from Jet Blue. One of the two men who approached me first, Inspector Harris, asked for my id card and boarding pass. I gave him my boarding pass and driver's license. He said "people are feeling offended because of your t-shirt". I looked at my t-shirt: I was wearing my shirt which states in both Arabic and English "we will not be silent". You can take a look at it in this picture taken during our Jordan meetings with Iraqi MPs. I said "I am very sorry if I offended anyone, I didnt know that this t-shirt will be offensive". He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him "why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn't it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?" The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said "people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights". So I answered him "I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt". Then I once again asked the three of them : "How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn't this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?" so inspector Harris answered "you can't wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I am a robber" and going to a bank". I said "but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive, it just says "we will not be silent". I got this t-shirt from Washington DC. There are more than a 1000 t-shirts printed with the same slogan, you can google them or email them at wewillnotbesilent at gmail.com . It is printed in many other languages: Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, English, etc." Inspector Harris said: "We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don't have a translator. Maybe it means something else". I said: "But as you can see, the statement is in both Arabic and English". He said "maybe it is not the same message". So based on the fact that Jet Blue doesn't have a translator, anything in Arabic is suspicious because maybe it'll mean something bad! Meanwhile, a third man walked in our direction. He stood with us without introducing himself, and he looked at inspector Harris's notes and asks him: "is that his information?", inspector Harris answered "yes". The third man, Mr. Harmon, asks inspector Harris : "can I copy this information?", and inspector Harris says "yes, sure". inspector Harris said: "You don't have to take of your t-shirt, just put it on inside-out". I refused to put on my shirt inside-out. So the woman interfered and said "let's reach a compromise. I will buy you a new t-shirt and you can put it on on top of this one". I said "I want to keep this t-shirt on". Both inspector Harris and Mr. Harmon said "No, we can't let you get on that airplane with your t-shirt". I said "I am ready to put on another t-shirt if you tell me what is the law that requires such a thing. I want to talk to your supervisor". Inspector Harris said "You don't have to talk to anyone. Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and costumers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area". it was then that I realized that my t-shirt was the reason why I had been taken to the secondary checking. I asked the four people again to let me talk to any supervisor, and they refused. The Jet Blue woman was asking me again to end this problem by just putting on a new t-shirt, and I felt threatened by Mr. Harmon's remarks as in "Let's end this the nice way". Taking in consideration what happens to other Arabs and Muslims in US airports, and realizing that I will miss my flight unless I covered the Arabic script on my t-shirt as I was told by the four agents, I asked the Jet Blue woman to buy me a t-shirt and I said "I don't want to miss my flight." She asked, what kind of t-shirts do you like. Should I get you an "I heart new york t-shirt?". So Mr. Harmon said "No, we shouldn't ask him to go from one extreme to another". I asked mr. harmon why does he assume I hate new york if I had some Arabic script on my t-shirt, but he didn't answer. The woman went away for 3 minutes, and she came back with a gray t-shirt reading "new york". I put the t-shirt on and removed the price tag. I told the four people who were involved in the conversation: "I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don't want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon". Everyone said okay and left, and I went back to my seat. At 8:50 I was called again by a fourth young man, standing with the same jetblue woman. He asked for my boarding pass, so I gave it to him, and stood in front of the boarding counter. I asked the woman: "is everything okay?", she responded: "Yes, sure. We just have to change your seat". I said: "but I want this seat, that's why I chose it online 4 weeks ago", the fourth man said " there is a lady with a toddler sitting there. We need the seat." Then they re-issued me a small boarding pass for seat 24a, instead of seat 3a. They said that I can go to the airplane now. I was the first person who entered the airplane, and I was really annoyed about being assigned this seat in the back of the airplane too. It smelled like the bathrooms, which is why I had originally chosen a seat which would be far from that area. It sucks to be an Arab/Muslim living in the US these days. When you go to the middle east, you are a US tax-payer destroying people's houses with your money, and when you come back to the US, you are a suspected terrorist and plane hijacker. If you want to call Jet Blue and ask about their regulations against Arabic script, you can use the following numbers: * If calling within the U.S., Bahamas or Puerto Rico: 1-800-JETBLUE (538-2583) * If calling from the Dominican Republic: 1-200-9898 * If calling from outside the U.S. or Dominican Republic: 001-801-365-2525 * Customers who are deaf or heard of hearing (TTY/TDD): 1-800-336-5530 or you can leave them some comments here. Help make the US a better place by stopping such unconstitutional violations of our rights. From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Tue Aug 22 22:14:49 2006 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 09:44:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] airport scare was British govt.'s rumour Message-ID: <20060822164449.55223.qmail@web51408.mail.yahoo.com> UK terror scare: Airlines threaten legal action against British government By Steve James 22 August 2006 A bitter row has broken out between the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and companies operating airports and airlines in the UK, following the officially driven hysteria over the alleged plot to blow up aircraft en route from Britain to the US. Facing multimillion-pound losses caused by thousands of cancelled flights, tens of thousands of inconvenienced passengers, and increased levels of highly intrusive security measures, a number of airlines have openly attacked the government’s anti-terror measures and are investigating compensation claims. Tensions have risen as it has become increasingly clear the measures imposed were motivated more by the political exigencies of the British and American administrations than by any real and immediate terror threat. No evidence has been presented to back up claims that a major terrorist threat was only narrowly averted on August 10. It is questionable as to whether any terror plot existed in the first place, given that none of those held without charge had even purchased air tickets and no bombs had been assembled. Yet, in the early hours of August 10, British airport operators were told by the government to impose an unprecedented security regime, supposedly aimed at thwarting the alleged suicide-bombing plot. Without prior warning, passengers were informed that only travel documents, sun glasses and urgent medications would be allowed on board as cabin luggage. All other luggage had to be checked in, and all liquids, except baby milk, were banned, as were magazines and books, and every passenger was subject to be searched. Despite claims that the police had been investigating the alleged plotters for up to one year, none of the airports or airlines had even been informed that a potential threat existed. The instruction to impose new security measures was so unexpected that airports and airlines did not have the staff available to effectively implement the new measures. Airports were brought to a virtual standstill as check-in, luggage handling, and security staff and systems were overwhelmed. The UK’s airports handle more than 217 million people annually, 67 million of whom go through Heathrow Airport—the world’s busiest international airport. Even when hundreds of staff were called in to deal with the emergency, tens of thousands of travellers were forced to queue for many hours simply to pass security, only to be told repeatedly that their flights were delayed or cancelled altogether. On August 10 itself, British Airways (BA) cancelled all short-haul flights, and Easyjet cancelled all flights from London’s three airports, citing airport congestion. Ryanair cancelled around 50 flights. The security measures immediately backed up traffic around the world. Lufthansa cancelled or diverted 28 Heathrow-bound flights. Air France, Iberia and Alitalia made similar cancellations, while all UK-bound flights from the Netherlands were cancelled. Many other airlines were forced to take similar measures. The British Airport Authority (BAA), the privatised operator of two thirds of British airports, imposed a 20 percent flight reduction on all carriers to reduce congestion. By August 16, nearly a week after the new measures had been introduced, BA had cancelled more than 1,100 flights, and other major UK operators were only just returning to a schedule free of forced cancellations, while a reduced volume of passengers faced much-increased delays and inconvenience. Even though the government and police claim they have arrested the “main players” involved in the alleged plot, the security measures have remained in force and there are suggestions they could be made permanent. Eight days after the initial arrests, the Department of Transport said there would be no rapid reductions in security, whilst one source briefed the media that “the way we travel will never be the same again.” Estimates of the losses faced by the airlines vary. BA is reported to have lost £30 million on August 10, thereafter £5 million per day. Some reports suggest that in total, airlines will have lost up to £250 million. The cut-price airlines have been especially hard hit. Easyjet’s estimated £10 million losses will reduce its profit figures by between 5 and 10 percent, while Ryanair faces a 5 percent cut in profits. A spokesman for Heathrow Airport told the Sunday Herald, “The longer it goes on the harder it becomes for people. Unless the passengers are treated more reasonably we will not have an industry left.” Initially, the airlines turned on the BAA, recently purchased by the Spanish group Ferrovia. BA, Virgin Atlantic, Easyjet and BMI British Midland all supported calls for £250 million compensation from the airport operator. The BAA’s Heathrow CEO, Tony Douglas, and his BA counterpart, Willie Walsh, had a public confrontation at Heathrow over the airport authorities’ threat to ban all flights from airlines that did not follow cancellation orders. Walsh had previously complained, “BAA had no plan ready to keep Heathrow functioning properly.” He added, “The queues for security have wound all round the terminals like a bad dream at Disneyland...” But in recent days, the airlines, led by Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, have begun targeting the Blair government. Ryanair is one of the world’s most profitable airlines, having risen to become Europe’s largest short-haul airline on the basis of fast turnaround times, cheap web bookings, standardised aircraft, low pay for cabin crews, and flights to out-of-town air strips. O’Leary is just the kind of successful “entrepreneur” that the government has been keen to court in recent years. In 2005, Ryanair was criticised for negotiating salary increases only with non-union staff in what a spokesman for the European Transport Workers’ Federation said was tantamount to “blackmail” against unionised workers. At a press conference last week, O’Leary posed beside an actor dressed as Winston Churchill, under the slogan “Keep Britain flying.” He demanded that security be reduced to the usual levels set down by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) within seven days, or the airline would take legal action against the government. He complained, “We are now body searching five-and six-year olds flying to Spain for a vacation with their parents. We’re not adding to security, we’re adding to public hysteria.” Describing the security measures as “insane and ineffective,” he ridiculed the idea that Britain was at risk from “lethal toiletries,” and queried why, if the terror threat was so grave, similar measures were not being imposed on the London subway and bus network, which has previously been targeted for attack. In a later statement, he queried whether there had, in fact, been a plot to bomb aircraft. “We may not have seen any attempt to blow aircraft out of the sky,” he said. “Where is the evidence?” Ryanair, along with Easyjet and BA, are considering legal action under the terms of the British 2000 Transport Act. Traditionally, airlines and airports have borne any costs associated with increased security, but the 2000 Transport Act, Section 93, leaves open the possibility of operators being compensated for increased security measures. The airlines are hoping that the threat of a lawsuit will either force the government to abandon its clampdown or compensate the airlines for the costs of imposing it. The airlines’ complaints have caused a breach in the media’s otherwise unquestioning acceptance of the alleged terror plot and accompanying security measures. Reflecting widespread and growing public scepticism as to the government’s claims, airport workers have been quoted on the idiocy and oppressive character of the new rules. One pilot, for example, explained that he had been barred from taking his spectacle case onto a flight deck, but noted that there was a fire axe already on board. “While my glasses were deemed potentially deadly dangerous items, I once again took my seat at the controls of 185,000 kilos of aeroplane, people and fuel and managed to restrain myself from taking the crash axe to all and sundry prior to rolling, inverted and diving, into the Channel,” he said. Other pilots told how they had been barred from taking their contact lens fluid onto flight decks, despite the potential impact this could have on their vision. In a move designed to placate the airlines and silence further criticism, Alistair Darling, trade and industry secretary, said security restrictions would be made more “manageable” in the coming days. See Also: An officially induced panic: UK terror scare sparks wave of mini-scares [19 August 2006] European Union ministers use terror scare to justify more anti-democratic measures [19 August 2006] The US media and the London terror scare [16 August 2006] The politics of the latest terror scare [15 August 2006] Check the weather nationwide with MSN Search: Try it now! --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060822/661f09c2/attachment.html From aadityadar at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 00:18:54 2006 From: aadityadar at gmail.com (Aaditya Dar) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 00:18:54 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? Message-ID: *Students protesting reservations arrested in **Delhi** **University **: released after warning.* NSUI election campaigners from outside Delhiwelcomed with open arms by Police in the same premises. * * *"Elephants, camels and students from Rohtak, Haryana allowed. Students from **Delhi** **University** not allowed." – **Aaditya Dar**, **US** member, protesting the Police action.* *North Campus, **Delhi** **University**, 23rd Aug:* In a strange display of inverted logic the Delhi Police today found it fit to arrest five members of United Students in the University premises form leading protests against the decision of the cabinet regarding quota extensions for OBCs in government aided educational institutions. In the same premises, about a thousand hired hands of the NSUI were going beserk at their annual 'shakti pradarshan' – a show of strength to garner tickets for the forth coming elections at DUSU but the Police were clearly on very good terms with them. " It was incredible to see that elephants, camels and students from Rohtak, Haryana were allowed to have a field day, but Students from Delhi university were not.", said Aaditya Dar, a core group member of US. "The Police had been seeing us prepare for the protest meeting at Vivekananda Statue in the Arts Faculty since 10 in the morning and there was no hint of any trouble," said Dar. "At 1 p.m., once the NSUI gangs started getting active, the Police rounded up five of us without reason and shoved us into police vans after threatening us with arrest". "It was astonishing to see that the group in control of DUSU has no interest whatsoever in projecting or supporting the students cause," said Ritwik Agrawal, a US member and student of Hindu College. United Students members had planned a demonstration at the Arts faculty after news of the cabinet clearance reached students. Students said that when the Police saw the number of protesters start to swell at the demonstration, they decided to break up the meeting, threatening the gathering and forcing the students to disperse. United Students members are continuing their protests in DU tomorrow with another round of demonstrations and peaceful gathering at the Wall of Democracy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060823/aca3b023/attachment.html From rinchin at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 00:58:59 2006 From: rinchin at gmail.com (rinchin etc) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 00:58:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] spring in winter- sixth post Message-ID: <261872920608221228i73273ed0ga158f540e5d89492@mail.gmail.com> hi, Seems like things get done when they need to be. This a small semi fictional peice that i created out of all of Soni bua's narratives. It has been with me for a long time, though i hadnt intended to do this when i began the project. recoding somones narrative , one might think is an objective excercise, not completly but still as much as one can be. But there are so many things, that remain unsaid in the air. some things that one can feel, but not probe. One could add them in as notes or remarks. But didnt feel comfortable doing that. Keeping my voice different and above hers. So took refuge in fiction, which is not quite fiction, but calling it a story, allows me to mingle my thoughts with her, and in her voice. Well not quite her voice either..but still. Some might call it cheating. You can look up the story at the imly blog. imly-tree.blogspot.com rinchin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060823/39769ec5/attachment.html From machine at zerosofzeta.com Wed Aug 23 14:26:33 2006 From: machine at zerosofzeta.com (Yogesh Girdhar) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:26:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Croatian government adopts open source software policy Message-ID: <1d804b40608230156r7f15c2baoe184c496f383cfe9@mail.gmail.com> Title Croatian government adopts open source software policy Date 2006.08.22 16:01 Author Koen Vervloesem Topic http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/08/11/1855229 Last month the Croatian government adopted an open source software policy and issued guidelines for developing and using open source software in the government institutions. The Croatian government is concerned that proprietary software leads to too much dependence on the software suppliers. Open source software will make the government's work more transparent, according to the government's document, entitled "Open Source Software Policy." The document includes the following guidelines: * Government institutions will choose and/or develop open source solutions as much as possible, instead of using closed source alternatives. * The government will support development of closed source solutions that use open standards for protocols and file formats, and which are developed in Croatia. * The government will support the use of open source programs and open standards outside of its institutions. * The government will support the use of open source solutions in educational institutions; both closed and open source solutions will be equally presented to students. Domagoj Juricic, deputy state secretary at the Central State Administrative Office for e-Croatia and the leader of this project, explains what made the government publish the policy: "The use of information technology in government administration bodies is increasingly becoming important. So far, most of the software we use is proprietary software, so we cannot modify or complement it, or link software from different vendors. These software products impose rigid commercial conditions of use and limit our possibilities. In this way, government administration bodies may be led into a dependent position on the supplier of the software. This could lead to closed information systems, which make the success and efficiency of our eAdministration project more difficult. "This is a policy document," Juricic emphasizes, "which means that the Croatian government has recognised the importance of market alternatives considering the platforms, tools, and other solutions that could help us build a qualitative e-society. As in other political or economic examples, our government should have an opinion on something that is rising on the market and that is interesting from the point of building a domestic ICT market. The Croatian government has never discriminated against any platform, but never before we have put that as a political statement, and that's what this policy is all about. This is our first public document that mentions the use of open source software, and it presents some kind of recommendation to our administrative bodies. The policy is not about replacing something, it is about treating things equally." Inspired by the EU The Croatian guidelines are inspired by activities of the European Union in the same spirit. The European Commission Action Plan 2000 had already established a set of goals for the development of a European information society. Stimulating the use of open source software in the public sector and the development of an electronic government administration were the two main goals. "The dependence on a supplier of proprietary software has been identified as one of the most significant obstacles for the new EU i2010 programme, entitled 'A European Information Society for growth and employment,'" Juricic says. "The same obstacle has been pointed out as the reason for slowing down market competition in the information and communications sector. Therefore, it has been established that open source software and open standards must be built into the EU information and communications market." Croatia applied for membership of the European Union in 2003, and the European Council granted it candidate country status in 2004. This could be one of the reasons Croatia wants to follow the European guidelines for the information society. In late 2003, the government of Croatia adopted the eCroatia 2007 programme, in accordance with the EU recommendations. The main goals of the programme are to provide the citizens and firms of the country with timely information and to become a transparent and efficient service. "In order to achieve this task," Juricic says, "we have to use open standards and open source software that will enable interoperability of computer systems in different administration fields." Interoperability, transparency, and money "The state administration bodies create and exchange a lot of electronic documents," Juricic says. "There is a great danger that documents cannot be opened and presented in readable form after a certain time, because we don't have the licence anymore of the proprietary software, or the vendor can seize support of the old types of documents. Therefore we require the state administration bodies to use open standards for creating electronic documents." One of the key factors in the reform of the Croatian government's administration is transparency. "The public has the right to have full insight into operations of state administration bodies, including the computer software. Proprietary software providing services to the citizens reduces the transparency of the government." It's also about money, Juricic says. "Because of the dependence on a small number of proprietary software vendors, the competition on the domestic information and communications services market is reduced, while the administration bodies often do not have sufficient funds. Therefore, we will obligate principles of openness and freedom of use for the procurement of public information services. This will direct the administration bodies towards open source software and open standards. Open source software enables more rational distribution of state budget funds, because it creates the environment in which domestic suppliers and manufacturers may be more actively involved in any phase of the development, maintenance, and use of the systems. This will also reduce the total public expenses of providing services to the citizens, thereby managing the taxpayers' money economically." These guidelines are in sharp contrast with the present situation. As a result of having no clearly established guidelines for procurement and use of software in state administration bodies, IT experts of the different bodies procure software which, in their opinion, is best suited to their requirements. This is often proprietary software, which makes modifying the software difficult, and often impossible. Mostly, the administration bodies keep using the same software because of existing business relations. With the new guideline, the Croatian government will to the greatest possible extent avoid the use of software that makes connecting with other software or date exchange between different information systems impossible. In case this is not possible because of already operational proprietary software, Juricic says, "All subsequent upgrading and modifications have to be based on open source software and open standards." Vlatko Kosturjak, president of the Croatian Linux User Group (Hrvatska Udruga Linux Korisnika), calls the guidelines "a pretty good start for a quicker adoption of open source software and open standards in Croatia. In the past, the government IT bodies have to take risks themselves if they want to use open source software. With the open source software policy, even the more conservative IT departments will feel safe now implementing open source software." If the Croatian government develops its own software, it will to the greatest possible extent create software based on open standards. It will also promote development of open source software and the development of proprietary software based on open standards. It will promote the use of open source software and open standards outside the state administration bodies: in the public sector, the economy, and public services. And it will promote translation into Croatian of open source software. The Croatian government will also promote the development of course materials to educate civil servants in the area of open source software and open standards. It will promote integrating the knowledge of open source software into educational programmes. Open source and proprietary software will be presented equally in order to prepare the younger generations for independent decision-making. The future It's still unclear what the practical consequences of the policy will be. "There are still many questions to be answered," Juricic admits. "We will see what this policy will bring to us in real life. For the moment, it is important to declare that we're really open for all solutions which are secure, interoperable, and cost-effective. Our next step will be forming a list of ICT standards to use." Kosturjak warns against euphoria with the policy. "Although the Croatian open source community is very positive about the open source software policy, we'll see how serious the Croatian government is when the next step comes: the implementation of the policy. This will not be easy, as there are obvious practical problems. For example, most of the government bodies have now proprietary technologies together with proprietary file formats implemented in their IT systems. Migration to open standards and open source software can be technically difficult and painful. From the non-technical point of view, this is also a political and financial issue. We (the open source advocates) hope that the Croatian government will have the strength to actually implement the open source policy. Until that moment, the policy is just like an unsent letter." From vivek at sarai.net Wed Aug 23 19:16:52 2006 From: vivek at sarai.net (Vivek Narayanan) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:16:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Web exhibit: Abhinandita Mathur Message-ID: <44EC5C4C.50709@sarai.net> The web exhibit of the project, "My Building and the Sheher" by Abhinandita Mathur, Sarai Independent Fellow is now online: http://www.mybuildingsociety.net/ Regards, Vivek From anivar.aravind at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 20:44:39 2006 From: anivar.aravind at gmail.com (Anivar Aravind) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:14:39 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] India should opposse DRM: Richard Stallman In-Reply-To: <35f96d470608230812s2a15faecm99c05cb9ae87b1d6@mail.gmail.com> References: <35f96d470608230812s2a15faecm99c05cb9ae87b1d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <35f96d470608230814w7920f62br9c73ddc95f8aef19@mail.gmail.com> India should opposse DRM: Richard Stallman India should not enact a Digital Rights Management (DRM) law, Dr. Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Movement and the GNU Project said. He was speaking at the Fourth International Conference on GPL v3 held at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on August 23rd, 2006. He commented that the people who implement DRM, which he called the "Digital Restrictions Management", should be in prison if the government is really of the people, by the people and for the people. This law actually restricts the freedom of the people. A company that uses the restrictions in producing its DVD will give the format it uses to create the DVD only to a company that promises to protect that restriction. The law has been enacted in the US and the European Union has given a direction in favour of DRM. Now the government of India is contemplating modifying its laws to incorporate DRM. The time given for the public to register their comments on the law was short and was insufficient for anyone to give a comprehensive response. That time itself is now over. It is important that the public take this issue and try to convince the government that what they are planning to do goes against the interests of the people and protects only the interest of the large companies. He went on to say that the Free Software licences like the GNU General Public Licence can do only a little to protect users from these laws. The conference was organised by the Free Software Foundation of India, and the Free Software Users Group, Bangalore, in association with the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, to discuss the draft of the new version of the General Public Licence (GPL), GPL v3. Dr. Stallman explained why a new version became necessary. He said that revisions become necessary when problems with the existing licence became clear, and when new circumstances threatened the freedom that Free Software promised its users. As an example of the new circumstances, he mentioned the DRM law and the example of a program called Tivo. Tivo is a device that records television programmes for the user to watch at another convenient time. This is a combination of software and hardware. The software is based on the GNU/Linux operating system, which is Free Software. All Free Software gives its users the freedom to modify the software to suit their purpose, and thus this software also gives the freedom to its users. But the hardware is designed to reject any software that is not one of the versions that is designed to run on it. Thus, though the user has the freedom to modify the software, it becomes meaningless because then it cannot be used. In other words, though the software is Free, the freedom becomes meaningless. The present GPL is not violated, though the freedom is, in practice, useless. The new version became necessary because of such circumstances. Prof. Eben Moglen, Professor at the Stanford Law School, Legal Advisor to the Free Software Foundation, and one of the important contributors to the new draft, said that protecting the licence from violations is not an easy job, and involves considerable work from a trained advocate. He said that a legal expert will be engaged in India if many violations of the GPL are found here. Referring to the problem related to some circuits used in wireless networking, he said that there has been serious problems from Japan, which has declared that any programmer who releases software for wireless circuits under any licence that makes its source code available, will be arrested next time the person lands in Japan. The conference will continue on 24th August, when two panels will discuss the relevance of Free Software for software businesses and in Education. The draft of GPLv3 can be read at http://gplv3.fsf.org/ and the detailed programme of the conference can be seen at http://gplv3.gnu.org.in/Conference/Schedule. Some photographs of the event are available at -- http://gnu.org.in/gplv3-conf-pics/index.html Anivar Aravind Free Software Foundation of India http://gnu.org.in From amitabhkumar84 at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 00:23:43 2006 From: amitabhkumar84 at gmail.com (Amitabh Kumar) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:23:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Letter to J. Swaminathan. Message-ID: Open Letter From: Bhaskar Save, 'Kalpavruksha' Farm, Village Dehri, via Umergam, Dist. Valsad, Gujarat - 396 170 (Phone: 0260 - 2562126 & 2563866) To: Shri M.S. Swaminathan, The Chairperson, National Commission on Farmers, Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India July 29, 2006 Subject: Mounting Suicides and National Policy for Farmers Dear Shri Swaminathan, I am an 84-year old natural/organic farmer with more than six decades of personal experience in growing a wide range of food crops. I have, over the years, practised several systems of farming, including the chemical method in the fifties - until I soon saw its pitfalls. I say with conviction that it is only by organic farming in harmony with Nature, that India can sustainably provide her people abundant, wholesome food. And meet every basic need of all - to live in health, dignity and peace. [Annexed hereto are: (1) a concise comparison of chemical farming and organic farming; (2) an introduction to my farm, Kalpavruksha; (3) some recorded opinions of visitors; and (4) a short biographical note on myself. You, M.S. Swaminathan, are considered the 'father' of India's so-called 'Green Revolution' that flung open the floodgates of toxic 'agro' chemicals - ravaging the lands and lives of many millions of Indian farmers over the past 50 years. More than any other individual in our long history, it is you I hold responsible for the tragic condition of our soils and our debt-burdened farmers, driven to suicide in increasing numbers every year. As destiny would have it, you are presently the chairperson of the 'National Commission on Farmers', mandated to draft a new agricultural policy. I urge you to take this opportunity to make amends - for the sake of the children, and those yet to come. I understand your Commission is inviting the views of farmers for drafting the new policy. As this is an open consultation, I am marking a copy of my letter to: the Prime Minister, the Union Minister for Agriculture, the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, and to the media - for wider communication. I hope this provokes some soul- searching and open debate at all levels on the extremely vital issues involved. - So that we do not repeat the same kind of blunders that led us to our present, deep festering mess., Rabindranath Tagore, referred not so long ago to our "sujhalam, sufalam" land. Ours indeed was a remarkably fertile and prosperous country - with rich soils, abundant water and sunshine, thick forests, a wealth of bio-diversity, ... And cultured, peace-loving people with a vast store of farming knowledge and wisdom. Farming runs in our blood. But I am sad that our (now greyed) generation of Indian farmers, allowed itself to be duped into adopting the short-sighted and ecologically devastating way of farming, imported into this country. - By those like you, with virtually zero farming experience! For generations beyond count, this land sustained one of the highest densities of population on earth. Without any chemical 'fertilizers', pesticides, exotic dwarf strains of grain, or the new, fancy 'bio-tech' inputs that you now seem to champion. The many waves of invaders into this country, over the centuries, took away much. But the fertility of our land remained unaffected. The Upanishads say: Om Purnamadaha Purnamidam Purnat Purnamudachyate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamewa Vashishyate "This creation is whole and complete. >From the whole emerge creations, each whole and complete. Take the whole from the whole, but the whole yet remains, Undiminished, complete!" In our forests, the trees like ber (jujube), jambul (jambolan),mango, umbar (wild fig), mahua (Madhuca indica), imli(tamarind), ... yield so abundantly in their season that the branches sag under the weight of the fruit. The annual yield per tree is commonly over a tonne - year after year. But the earth around remains whole and undiminished. There is no gaping hole in the ground! >From where do the trees - including those on rocky mountains - get their water, their NPK, etc? Though stationary, Nature provides their needs right where they stand. But 'scientists' and technocrats like you - with a blinkered, meddling itch - seem blind to this. On what basis do you prescribe what a tree or plant requires, and how much, and when...? It is said: where there is lack of knowledge, ignorance masquerades as 'science'! Such is the 'science' you have espoused, leading our farmers astray - down the pits of misery. While it is no shame to be ignorant, the awareness of such ignorance is the necessary first step to knowledge. But the refusal to see it is self-deluding arrogance. . Agricultural Mis-education This country has more than 150 agricultural universities, many with huge land-holdings of thousands of acres. They have no dearth of infrastructure, equipment, staff, money, ... And yet, not one of these heavily subsidized universities makes any profit, or grows any significant amount of food, if only to feed its own staff and students. But every year, each churns out several hundred 'educated' unemployables, trained only in misguiding farmers and spreading ecological degradation. In all the six years a student spends for an M. Sc. in agriculture, the only goal is short-term - and narrowly perceived -'productivity'. For this, the farmer is urged to do and buy a hundred things. But not a thought is spared to what a farmer must never do so that the land remains unharmed for future generations and other creatures. It is time our people and government wake up to the realisation that this industry-driven way of farming - promoted by our institutions - is inherently criminal and suicidal! Gandhi declared: Where there is soshan, or exploitation, there can be no poshan, or nurture! Vinoba Bhave added, "Science wedded to compassion can bring about a paradise on earth. But divorced from non-violence, it can only cause a massive conflagration that swallows us in its flames." Trying to increase Nature's 'productivity,' is the fundamental blunder that highlights the ignorance of 'agricultural scientists' like you. Nature, unspoiled by man, is already most generous in her yield. When a grain of rice can reproduce a thousand-fold within months, where arises the need to increase its productivity? Numerous kinds of fruit trees too yield several hundred thousand kg of nourishment each in their lifetime! That is, provided the farmer does not pour poison and mess around the tree in his greed for quick profit. A child has a right to its mother's milk. But if we draw on Mother Earth's blood and flesh as well, how can we expect her continuing sustenance! The mindset of servitude to 'commerce and industry,' ignoring all else, is the root of the problem. But industry merely transforms 'raw materials' sourced from Nature into commodities. It cannot create anew. Only Nature is truly creative and self-regenerating - through synergy with the fresh daily inflow of the sun's energy. The Six Self-renewing Paribals of Nature There is on earth a constant inter-play of the six paribals (key factors) of Nature, interacting with sunlight. Three are: air, water and soil. Working in tandem with these, are the three orders of life: ' vanaspati srushti' (the world of plants), 'jeev srushti' (the realm of insects and micro-organisms), and 'prani srushti' (the animal kingdom). These six paribals maintain a dynamic balance. Together, they harmonise the grand symphony of Nature, weaving the new! Man has no right to disrupt any of the paribals of Nature. But modern technology, wedded to commerce - rather than wisdom or compassion - has proved disastrous at all levels... We have despoiled and polluted the soil, water and air. We have wiped out most of our forests and killed its creatures; ... And relentlessly, modern farmers spray deadly poisons on their fields. These massacre Nature's jeev srushti - the unpretentious but tireless little workers that maintain the ventilated quality of the soil, and recycle all life-ebbed biomass into nourishment for plants. The noxious chemicals also inevitably poison the water, and Nature's prani srushti, which includes humans. The Root of Unsustainablity Sustainability is a modern concern, scarcely talked of at the time you championed the 'green revolution'. Can you deny that for more than forty centuries, our ancestors farmed the organic way - without any marked decline in soil fertility, as in the past four or five decades? Is it not a stark fact that the chemical-intensive and irrigation- intensive way of growing monoculture cash-crops, has been primarily responsible for spreading ecological devastation far and wide in this country? - Within the lifetime of a single generation! Engineered Erosion of Crop Diversity, Scarcity of Organic Matter, and Soil Degradation This country boasted an immense diversity of crops, adapted over millennia to local conditions and needs. Our numerous tall, indigenous varieties of grain provided more biomass, shaded the soil from the sun, and protected against its erosion under heavy monsoon rains. But in the guise of increasing crop production, exotic dwarf varieties were introduced and promoted through your efforts. This led to more vigorous growth of weeds, which were now able to compete successfully with the new stunted crops for sunlight. The farmer had to spend more labour and money in weeding, or spraying herbicides. The straw growth with the dwarf grain crops fell drastically to one-third of that with most native species! In Punjab and Haryana, even this was burned, as it was said to harbour 'pathogens'. (It was too toxic to feed farm cattle that were progressively displaced by tractors.) Consequently, much less organic matter was locally available to recycle the fertility of the soil, leading to an artificial need for externally procured inputs. Inevitably, the farmers resorted to use more chemicals, and relentlessly, soil degradation and erosion set in. Engineered Pestilence The exotic varieties, grown with chemical 'fertiliser', were more susceptible to 'pests and diseases', leading to yet more poison (insecticides, etc.) being poured. But the attacked insect species developed resistance and reproduced prolifically. Their predators - spiders, frogs, etc. - that fed on these insects and 'biologically controlled' their population, were exterminated. So were many beneficial species like the earthworms and bees. Agribusiness and technocrats recommended stronger doses, and newer, more toxic (and more expensive) chemicals. But the problems of 'pests' and 'diseases' only worsened. The spiral of ecological, financial and human costs mounted! The 'Development' of Water Scarcity and Dead, Salty Soils With the use of synthetic fertilizer and increased cash-cropping, irrigation needs rose enormously. In 1952, the Bhakra dam was built in Punjab, a water-rich state fed by 5 Himalayan rivers. Several thousand more big and medium dams followed all over the country, culminating in the massive Sardar Sarovar. And now, our government is toying with a grandiose, Rs 560,000 crore proposal to divert and 'inter-link' the flow of our rivers. This is sheer 'Tughlaqian' megalomania, without a thought for future generations! India, next to South America, receives the highest rainfall in the world. The annual average is almost 4 feet. Where thick vegetation covers the ground, and the soil is alive and porous, at least half of this rain is soaked and stored in the soil and sub-soil strata. A good amount then percolates deeper to recharge aquifers, or 'groundwater tables'. The living soil and its underlying aquifers thus serve as gigantic, ready-made reservoirs gifted free by Nature. Particularly efficient in soaking rain are the lands under forests and trees. And so, half a century ago, most parts of India had enough fresh water all round the year, long after the rains had stopped and gone. But clear the forests, and the capacity of the earth to soak the rain, drops drastically. Streams and wells run dry. It has happened in too many places already. While the recharge of groundwater has greatly reduced, its extraction has been mounting. India is presently mining over 20 times more groundwater each day than it did in 1950. Much of this is mindless wastage by a minority. But most of India's people - living on hand-drawn or hand-pumped water in villages, and practising only rain-fed farming - continue to use the same amount of ground water per person, as they did generations ago. More than 80% of India's water consumption is for irrigation, with the largest share hogged by chemically cultivated cash crops. Maharashtra, for example, has the maximum number of big and medium dams in this country. But sugarcane alone, grown on barely 3-4% of its cultivable land, guzzles about 70% of its irrigation waters! One acre of chemically grown sugarcane requires as much water as would suffice 25 acres of jowar, bajra or maize. The sugar factories too consume huge quantities. >From cultivation to processing, each kilo of refined sugar needs 2 to 3 tonnes of water. This could be used to grow, by the traditional, organic way, about 150 to 200 kg of nutritious jowar or bajra (native millets). While rice is suitable for rain-fed farming, its extensive multiple cropping with irrigation in winter and summer as well, is similarly hogging our water resources, and depleting aquifers. As with sugarcane, it is also irreversibly ruining the land through salinisation. Soil salinisation is the greatest scourge of irrigation-intensive agriculture, as a progressively thicker crust of salts is formed on the land. Many million hectares of cropland have been ruined by it. The most serious problems are caused where water-guzzling crops like sugarcane or basmati rice are grown round the year, abandoning the traditional mixed-cropping and rotation systems of the past, which required minimal or no watering. Since at least 60% of the water used for irrigation nowadays in India, is excessive, indeed harmful, the first step that needs to be taken is to control this. Thus, not only will the grave damage caused by too much irrigation stop, but a good deal of the water that is saved can also become available locally for priority areas where acute scarcity is felt. Conservative Irrigation and Groundwater Recharge at Kalpavruksha Efficient, organic farming requires very little irrigation - much less than what is commonly used in modern agriculture. The yields of the crops are best when the soil is just damp. Rice is the only exception that grows even where water accumulates, and is thus preferred as a monsoon crop in low-lying areas naturally prone to inundation. Excess irrigation in the case of all other crops expels the air contained in the soil's inter-particulate spaces - vitally needed for root respiration - and prolonged flooding causes root rot. The irrigation on my farm is a small fraction of that provided in most modern farms today. Moreover, the porous soil under the thick vegetation of the orchard is like a sponge that soaks and percolates to the aquifer, or ground-water table, an enormous quantity of rain each monsoon. The amount of water thus stored in the ground at Kalpavruksha, is far more than the total amount withdrawn from the well for irrigation in the months when there is no rain. Thus, my farm is a net supplier of water to the eco-system of the region, rather than a net consumer! Clearly, the way to ensure the water security and food security of this nation, is by organically growing mixed, locally suitable crops, plants and trees, following the laws of Nature. Need for 30% Tree Cover We should restore at least 30% ground cover of mixed, indigeneous trees and forests within the next decade or two. This is the core task of ecological water harvesting - the key to restoring the natural abundance of groundwater. Outstanding benefits can be achieved within a decade at comparatively little cost. We sadly fail to realise that the potential for natural water storage in the ground is many times greater than the combined capacity of all the major and medium irrigation projects in India - complete, incomplete, or still on paper! Such decentralized underground storage is more efficient, as it is protected from the high evaporation of surface storage. The planting of trees will also make available a variety of useful produce to enhance the well-being of a larger number of people. Even barren wastelands can be restored to health in less than a decade. By inter-planting short life-span, medium life-span, and long life-span crops and trees, it is possible to have planned continuity of food yield to sustain a farmer through the transition period till the long-life fruit trees mature and yield. The higher availability of biomass and complete ground cover round the year will also hasten the regeneration of soil fertility. Production, Poverty & Population After the British left, Indian agriculture was recovering steadily. There was no scarcity of diverse nourishment in the countryside, where 75% of India lived. The actual reason for pushing the 'Green Revolution' was the much narrower goal of increasing marketable surplus of a few relatively less perishable cereals to fuel the urban-industrial expansion favoured by the government. The new, parasitical way of farming you vigorously promoted, benefited only the industrialists, traders and the powers-that-be. The farmers' costs rose massively and margins dipped. Combined with the eroding natural fertility of their land, they were left with little in their hands, if not mounting debts and dead soils. Many gave up farming. Many more want to do so, squeezed by the ever-rising costs. This is nothing less than tragic, since Nature has generously gifted us with all that is needed for organic farming - which also produces wholesome, rather than poisoned food! Restoring the natural health of Indian agriculture is the path to solve the inter-related problems of poverty, unemployment and rising population. The maximum number of people can become self-reliant through farming only if the necessary inputs are a bare minimum. Thus, farming should require a minimum of financial capital and purchased inputs, minimum farming equipment (plough, tools, etc.), minimum necessary labour, and minimum external technology. Then, agricultural production will increase, without costs increasing. Poverty will decline, and the rise in population will be spontaneously checked. Self-reliant farming - with minimal or zero external inputs - was the way we actually farmed, very successfully, in the past. Barring periods of war and excessive colonial oppression, our farmers were largely self-sufficient, and even produced surpluses, though generally smaller quantities of many more items. These, particularly perishables, were tougher to supply urban markets. And so the nation's farmers were steered to grow chemically cultivated monocultures of a few cash-crops like wheat, rice, or sugar, rather than their traditional polycultures that needed no purchased inputs. [See Annexure 5 on an old, six-crop integral system (of cotton, 2 millets and 3 edible pulse legumes) which successfully provided farmers in low-rainfall regions with more diversity and continuity of yield round the year - without any irrigation or external inputs.] In Conclusion: I hope you have the integrity to support widespread change to mixed organic farming, tree-planting and forest regeneration (with local resources and rights) - that India greatly needs. I would be glad to answer any query or doubt posed to me, preferably in writing. I also welcome you to visit my farm with reasonable prior notice. Since many years, I have extended an open invitation to any one interested in natural/organic farming to visit Kalpavruksha, on any Saturday afternoon between 2.00 and 4.00 pm., which continues till date. I may finally add that this letter has been transcribed in English by Bharat Mansata, based on discussions with me in Gujarati. (The annexures hereto are excerpted from his forthcoming book, 'The Vision of Natural Farming,' Earthcare Books, which draws largely on my experience.) Whether or not you agree with my views, I look forward to your reply. Yours sincerely, Bhaskar H. Save Copy to: (i) The Prime Minister of India, (ii) The Union Minister for Agriculture, (iii) The Chairperson, National Advisory Council, (iv) The media. Annexures: 1. Comparison of Chemical Farming and Organic Farming 2. An Introduction to Kalpavruksha (my farm) 3. Recorded Opinions of Visitors 4. A Biographical Note 5) Note on a Traditional Six-Crop, Integral System - in a low rainfall zone, providing diverse yield round the year without any irrigation or external input. 6. Content Overview and More Excerpts from 'The Vision of Natural Farming' Annexure 1: Comparison of Chemical Farming & Organic Farming: -- by Bhaskar Save, transcribed from Gujarati to English by Bharat Mansata 1. Chemical farming fragments the web of life; organic farming nurtures its wholeness 2. Chemical farming depends on fossil oil; organic farming on living soil. 3. Chemical farmers see their land as a dead medium; organic farmers know theirs is teeming with life. 4. Chemical farming pollutes the air, water and soil; organic farming purifies and renews them. 5. Chemical farming uses large quantities of water and depletes aquifers; organic farming requires much less irrigation, and recharges groundwater. 6. Chemical farming is mono-cultural and destroys diversity; organic farming is poly-cultural and nurtures diversity. 7. Chemical farming produces poisoned food; organic farming yields nourishing food. 8. Chemical farming has a short history and threatens a dim future; organic farming has a long history and promises a bright future. 9. Chemical farming is an alien, imported technology; organic farming has evolved indigenously. 10. Chemical farming is propagated through schooled, institutional misinformation; organic farming learns from Nature and farmers' experience. 11. Chemical farming benefits traders and industrialists; organic farming benefits the farmer, the environment and society as a whole. 12. Chemical farming robs the self-reliance and self-respect of farmers and villages; organic farming restores and strengthens it. 13. Chemical farming leads to bankruptcy and misery; organic farming liberates from debt and woe. 14. Chemical farming is violent and entropic; organic farming is non-violent and synergistic. 15. Chemical farming is a hollow 'green revolution'; organic farming is the true green revolution. 16. Chemical farming is crudely materialistic, with no ideological mooring; organic farming is rooted in spirituality and abiding truth. 17. Chemical farming is suicidal, moving from life to death; organic farming is the road to regeneration. 18. Chemical farming is the vehicle of commerce and oppression; organic farming is the path of culture and co-evolution. -- www.amitabhkumar.blogspot.com From Harshvardhan.Tripathi at tv18online.com Wed Aug 23 13:31:17 2006 From: Harshvardhan.Tripathi at tv18online.com (Harshvardhan Tripathi) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:31:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? Message-ID: <349EAD3E50A3324EBD14204C427BD6F650912B@email.bom.tv18.com> dear aaditya i don't think it's matter of democracy. it's just a vote bank politics. that's why not a ingle Member of parliament is oppsing reservation in prestigious institutes like IIT, IIM and Research institutes. And finally RICH OBC IS ALSO ALLOWED TO AWAIL RESERVATION BENEFIT. [Harshvardhan Tripathi] -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of Aaditya Dar Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 12:19 AM To: reader-list at sarai.net Cc: Suchismita; Sadaf; Agrima; Pankhuri Dasgupta; Aarthy; Monadhika Sharma; Aasia; Radhika; tanvi; Urvashi; Aayush; Ridhi; Khusboo; Sneha; Ritika; Kanan; sakshi watever; Abhishek; Tanya Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? Students protesting reservations arrested in Delhi University : released after warning. NSUI election campaigners from outside Delhi welcomed with open arms by Police in the same premises. "Elephants, camels and students from Rohtak, Haryana allowed. Students from Delhi University not allowed." – Aaditya Dar, US member, protesting the Police action. North Campus, Delhi University, 23rd Aug: In a strange display of inverted logic the Delhi Police today found it fit to arrest five members of United Students in the University premises form leading protests against the decision of the cabinet regarding quota extensions for OBCs in government aided educational institutions. In the same premises, about a thousand hired hands of the NSUI were going beserk at their annual 'shakti pradarshan' – a show of strength to garner tickets for the forth coming elections at DUSU but the Police were clearly on very good terms with them. " It was incredible to see that elephants, camels and students from Rohtak, Haryana were allowed to have a field day, but Students from Delhi university were not.", said Aaditya Dar, a core group member of US. "The Police had been seeing us prepare for the protest meeting at Vivekananda Statue in the Arts Faculty since 10 in the morning and there was no hint of any trouble," said Dar. "At 1 p.m., once the NSUI gangs started getting active, the Police rounded up five of us without reason and shoved us into police vans after threatening us with arrest". "It was astonishing to see that the group in control of DUSU has no interest whatsoever in projecting or supporting the students cause," said Ritwik Agrawal, a US member and student of Hindu College. United Students members had planned a demonstration at the Arts faculty after news of the cabinet clearance reached students. Students said that when the Police saw the number of protesters start to swell at the demonstration, they decided to break up the meeting, threatening the gathering and forcing the students to disperse. United Students members are continuing their protests in DU tomorrow with another round of demonstrations and peaceful gathering at the Wall of Democracy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060823/51bb69ec/attachment.html From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Wed Aug 23 14:17:23 2006 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 01:47:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] airport scare was British govt.'s rumour In-Reply-To: <20060823074252.GE91749@xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <20060823084723.26013.qmail@web51404.mail.yahoo.com> Here is the URL of the news item: https://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/terr-a22.shtml cheers' Patrice Riemens wrote: Dear Yousouf, Could you in future please always provide the URL of the articles you're fwding to the Reader-list, so those who are blessed with good connex can read them in the original lay-out? thanks! cheers, patrizio & Diiiinooos! --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060823/8398f0be/attachment.html From ojpatrick at yahoo.com Wed Aug 23 11:50:18 2006 From: ojpatrick at yahoo.com (Ojwando JP) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 23:20:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Belated Postings-Testing Times Message-ID: <20060823062018.84698.qmail@web50105.mail.yahoo.com> Belated Posting Setting of a series of my belated postings –with sincere deep apologies to all- is the story of an incident that took place sometimes back in Bangalore revolving the case of a student from Kenya. Across the world, there have been well-documented cases of incidents that have challenged the biases or injustices in the society. Seemingly, small in proportion, they have ended up stirring revolutions. This incident highlighted how genuine efforts of well-meaning individuals in the society can be marred by insensitivities of few. The story of the Afro students in south Asia, when it is finally told, will have many such incidences. Still on the experience, this experience my not have had the Rosa Parks significance, but it served to galvanise the international student community to stand together in their hour of need. It is interesting to note that the evolution of a host of international students’ welfare associations in Bangalore is attributed to the Millicent’s episode. Also, some of the students cite the case as their reasons for getting involved in welfare activities, many of them determined that no one should undergo what Millicent went through. Read on: Testing Times The journey, from a small town in the east African nation to the south Asian subcontinent must have been a long and arduous one. But Millicent Achieng’ Aoko showed a rare determination, tenacity and, a longing for something far in the distance that only she could fathom. Although diagnosed with sickle cell anemia from childhood, she exhibited a burning desire, vision, and fortitude that were to lead her to Bangalore, months after her attempts to secure a place in a discipline of her choice in educational establishments in the coastal city of Mangalore in Dakshina Karnataka proved futile. Settling for Bangalore as her second option, a change that would turn out to be the beginning of a long protracted battle that no one could have forecast and ultimately leaving an indelible mark on an otherwise well-documented warmth and hospitality of the local community. Setting off her trials were the frequent hospitalisations that put her spirits to severe test. If her admission to major hospitals in Bangalore- Manipal, St. Martha’s and Kempe Gowda Institute of Medical Sciences- all in a span of two years had been an ordeal, the way she clung to dear life was in itself an endurance of an unusual kind. So, when on the last stretch, her admission to St. John’s Medical College Hospital, Millicent had reached rock bottom, physically and mentally. The strength and will that all along had been her mainstay in this struggle, and the desire to cling on was surely on the ebb. Gone was the zest for life that had endeared her to many others and with it too, the tenacity. Indeed, time had wrought havoc on the diminutive frame. The glow in the eyes of the young beautiful African woman was surely missing. As her eyes darted from one corner of the ward to the other, one could sense that she was losing the grip on life. Her ubiquitous phrase, “I will be fine!” was further betrayed by halting movements whenever she got up to take a stroll around the ward. Gripped by the new frailness, she seemed vulnerable. But who was Millicent? Coming to India, like many other international students, Millicent had her hopes of scripting a career in the field of Microbiology. But as fate would decree, her registration for the course at T. John College in Bangalore was the closest she came to realising her dream. So enthusiastic at the outset, a bout of jaundice put a spanner in her works, heralding a gradual decline. It was a condition further complicated by the fact that she was AB Negative. This being a rare blood group, it was not easy seeking donors to boost her already depleted blood count. Depending on which side you take, it must have been a bold move in itself or an error in judgment on the part of the parents to have allowed Millicent to come all the distance to pursue her studies, considering her health. A good care at home probably would have been a better option. May be they had placed a lot of trust on the host society or her positive attitude to see her through. Perhaps! Thus when crisis point was reached, despite the best of the doctor’s efforts and medical intervention, recovery was ineffective. This set in its wake medical complications with her hemoglobin levels rapidly dipping and eventually sparking off the failure of her kidneys. From a position of marked defiance, where she had mocked her pitiable situation to hold on to life, a steady decline was now all too evident. Not surprisingly, her only wish was to be re-united with her parents. Unfortunately, this route too was clouded in mystery. The vicious circle, of being hospitalised for a long period of time had taken its toll. As finances were now hard to come by, her return home was in serious jeopardy. Stuck in a foreign country, bogged down by escalating medical bills as a result of a long period of hospitalisation, a life threatening medical situation, her future looked bleak. Later, help came through the collective efforts of individuals and organisations who found a way out of the tight financial squeeze. Leading the way was Rev, Arthur Raj and the staff of the International Ministries Fellowships (IMF), Mrs. Meera Bhupathi (incidentally India’s ace tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi’s mother), the International Victory Fellowship (IVF), Federation of International Student Associations, Bangalore, Kenyan and Ugandan students, the Kenyan Embassy in New Delhi, Administrator and staff of St. John’s Medical College Hospital, friends and well-wishers, who pooled in the resources that finally helped, accede to her request. Unfortunately, when the day of her departure finally arrived, her passage home became another talking point. Thanks to the unsympathetic crew of a domestic carrier- Jet Airways. Millicent had to suffer the ignominy of being forcibly ejected from the Mumbai bound aircraft. That too, after boarding the plane and getting fully strapped in readiness for take-off. And the reasons? According to the airline’s crew, she was too frail to be allowed to continue with the journey. Surprisingly, being in the possession of a doctor’s medical report, a Kenyan Embassy official’s acceptance of any liabilities, and the fact that she had been cleared at the airline’s boarding counter could not resolve the stalemate. However, as it turned out, the reality was that the crew believed Millicent was a HIV/ Aids patient. So, in taking that line, which other mode did the airline staff expect her to reach Mumbai and check in for the international flight? The result was that a patient in dire need of assistance was forced out and readmitted at the St. John’s Medical College Hospital for another night unsure of her journey back home. With that too, an opportunity to travel to Mumbai to link up with another student from Uganda, David Kaloke who was returning home on the same airliner was lost. Suffice it to say that prior arrangements including an emergency dialysis had been performed to ensure her safe passage. As the students, gathered once again at the hospital on learning of Millicent’s return that night, questions kept flying about that found no answers. What could have been the reason for the insensitiveness of the crew? What effect would the day’s happening have on the patient? All the while, she looked so composed and unperturbed by all that was going on around her. “I know someone will finally take me home,” she said jokingly more resolute than ever. “It is just that they did not like my face.’ Elsewhere, the guilt of having prevented a patient from traveling spilled over and the Jet Airline staff that now made arrangements and transferred the tickets of Millicent and the accompanying team to an Indian Airlines (IA) flight scheduled to leave the following day. And so on day two, the entire cast was back at the airport with Millicent, only to be rebuffed this time again. The ground staffs of IA were concerned that if allowed on board, she was likely to inconvenience other passengers. ‘We cannot compromise our customer’s trust because of one person,’ was the line they adopted. Also, ‘she could die any moment,’ a final assessment of Millicent’s condition that was made right in her face as if death was unheard of in this part of the world. But then there was a lone voice that stood out. Touched by the case that was now threatening to spill over with tempers rising, it was a mother’s compassion- IA’s ground controller- that broke the impasse. Her assurance despite opposition from her male colleagues lifted the moral of team Millicent. Not keen to get into further arguments or cause the patient any further discomfiture, she not only made arrangements for an ambulance to take her to the runway but also ensured there was a crane to lift her on board. A feat she achieved because of her commitment to service devoid of any bias. Millicent’s case was not any different. That she ultimately, facilitated the reunion of the parents and daughter even if for a brief period was perhaps the only bright side to what was a tale with signs of a tragic ending. Mulling over the happenings, one was left wondering whether it was necessary to subject a sick person to such an experience. Did she deserve this kind of treatment for no fault of hers? Aboard IA, Millicent got the best attention. “What if she is sick?” queried the IA airhostess undaunted by the supposed risk that Millicent’s travel posed. “We’ll do what it takes. After all, we are all mortal.” In the face of it, the worse for Millicent was over. The end, coming barely a week after her eventful return to her native country, but memories of the episode still lingered of sadness, others tinged with anger at the apparent lack of concern. Her passing on was certainly a reminder of the frailties of life’s struggles. After all, birth and death remain life’s only truths. End// --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060822/644fe32f/attachment.html From ojpatrick at yahoo.com Wed Aug 23 11:57:33 2006 From: ojpatrick at yahoo.com (Ojwando JP) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 23:27:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Much A Do About Hair Do Message-ID: <20060823062733.57252.qmail@web50101.mail.yahoo.com> Much A Do About Hair Do “It something that had been going on for sometime now,” confides Joy Bilha Wangari Maina, “but once I almost lost my cool.” And it all began in a public service vehicle. “I had just taken my seat in the Bangalore Metropolitan Bus Corporation (BMTC) bus when I felt a something strange on my hair. And guess what? A fellow commuter had decided to let her untamed instincts get the better of her and busy fiddling with the strands of my hair. Stares from strangers, and some trying to draw others attention to my hair, is something that I have got used to, but this one was taking it a bit too far. I presume her action was prompted by the simple fact that I had decided to unbraid my hair. Sounds innocent, doesn’t it? Back in Africa, this would be ordinary. But down here, as I found out, if you are a black woman like me, and you decide to wear your hair down, you are sure to have other things coming your way. People are often startled, and will certainly fuss over your hairstyle. There are those curious to know for how long you keep the braids, whether you get to shampoo them regularly, and if so, how long does it take to style. A couple of others go to such ridiculous levels, wanting to know whether in Africa, one is born with the braids. The list of questions, on a practice that at best should be seen as a fad Africans have taken to, is endless. Yet there are countless others who have the guts to fling at you the question, ‘is it real’? It is pretty okay if the nosiness comes from people you know, but if you have to go through life, with every other stranger you meet on the streets, or self-proclaimed stylists, trying to give you advice on what suits you and what does not, it can be a trifle irritating.” Still on the same issue, many in the sub continent, see black women as ‘hair wearers’ and not ‘hair growers’, which to me is surprising to say the least. Let us face it, is it not pretty obvious that the texture of African hair is poles apart from those of other ethnic groups? Because of practical reasons or just the fun of it, people of Afro descent, particularly women, have been experimenting with their hair. Since it is kinky air, they do find it relatively easy to straighten or perm them. Intriguingly, when blacks, especially women, straighten their kinky hair, it is often assumed they are trying to fit in the so-called ‘white’ cultural mainstream. Suffice it to say that braiding is a timeless tradition and its true character has largely been dependent on the needs of the black race. So, why the fuss? As a young girl, Joy Bilha recalls having worn tiny plaits or cornrows. These, she avers did not require extensions and helped the hair to grow longer, something any girl craves, black, white, brown, or yellow. Sometimes, she could attach beads that lent a touch of style and dash of colour. She therefore finds it amusing that in the sub continent, some people are surprised how one day her hair can fall till the back, and on another, it is back and tiny with tight braids at the back. “Braiding, to me, has a lot to do with the looks, it requires less of maintenance, and helps the wearer save on time. I have not known any other style since, so where is the issue of trying to ‘fit in’?” she poses. Others, like Susan Ndomba, Aida (Tanzanians), Happy (Uganda) and Tina Sinzwi (Zimbabwe), readily admit their hairs indeed attract curious stares on the streets. Says Tina: “The inquisitiveness of people in the sub continent initially bothered me when I arrived, but I soon got over it.” Agrees Aida: “The curiousity is just astounding. I generally don’t mind it, but sometimes it can be a nuisance. I swear.” So, should Afro students go about explaining the simple fact that in every community, people have a special attachment to their unique features, the hair included? For the uninitiated, here are some of the distinctions. There is the no-fuss hairstyle or weave- attaching natural or synthetic hair- which is nothing but hair extensions. Depending on the competence of your stylist, in just a couple of hours, you can have a mane of thick and luxurious locks. The usual hair care-wash, shampoo and oil treatment are musts though, and comfortably, they can be kept for long durations. But then let us not forget there are other people of Afro descent with purely natural hair and don’t go for extensions. Those who opt for extensions do so because they have no chemicals that can alter the hair structure unlike in the use of chemicals. Also, it matches with the hair colour, are light, seal safely, and more importantly, allow the hair to grow. Afro hair as such has inspired numerous styles the world over, from rastas (Bob Marley) to locks (Whoopi Goldberg), Graca Mandela), perms (CNN’s Femi Oke, Tumi Makhabo) to cornrows (Arsenal’s Lauren) braids (the William Sisters) to weaves (Oprah Winfrey), and many others. So what is new about it? “We too can fuss about other hair do, but we don’t,” points out Tina. According to Susan Ndomba, the expressions of the local hosts often begin with innocuous questions. “People are often startled by the length of our hair. It comes down the back and is entirely natural when blow-dried. Some perm their hair, only to be eliciting never-ending questions. Mostly, these are harmless queries or just inquisitiveness but depending on how you take, they can be a tad wearisome. Happy confesses that too much attention can be embarrassing. Sitting at a parlour, she was left wondering why the hairdresser took so long to attend to her. Later, she peeped through, and there she was in an animated discussion with her colleagues discussing the texture of her hair. “I thought that was cheap! She could have told me she could not do it and do I have to be reminded that I am different?” she fumes. Such tales bordering on mental anguish are many, but as the victims themselves do confess, it is also nice to see many people appreciate something different, and sometimes even talk of going for a similarly hair do. And why not? A host of local people can today be seen sporting braids. “I guess there are times you have to be positive about the whole thing,” reflects Joy Bilha. “Just the same way people of other races adore their hairstyles, Africans, both men and women too like their hair. This is for the simple reason that they can maintain them, style them the way they want, and most significantly, they have not known anything else all their lives.” End// --------------------------------- All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060822/c18a24f4/attachment.html From peerzadaarshad at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 12:40:41 2006 From: peerzadaarshad at gmail.com (arshad hamid) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:40:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The ill equipped hospital Message-ID: <83db55e00608230010y400c0c6dje65201f7c0ead25a@mail.gmail.com> The ill equipped hospital Peerzada Arshad hamid Srinagar Depression has become a common malady in the valley afflicting everyone cutting across gender, age and socio-economic class. Experts say that around 75 per cent of the population in Kashmir are suffering from psychiatric disorders like stress and trauma and if problem persists, there is every possibility that it can become a genetic disorder and get transmitted to future generations. Efforts by the doctors at Government Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases cannot be ruled out for they have been fighting with chaos despite many odds and handicaps. Statistics reveal that valley's lone psychiatric hospital in Srinagar's Kathi Darwaza locality is understaffed and lacks adequate infrastructure to cope up with the burgeoning number of people with psychiatric problems. Flicking the pages of history, one comes across that hospital was a part of Central Jail and subsequently a Lunatic asylum before 1950. One of the factors for the social stigma associated with the place. It was taken by State Directorate of Health Services in late 1950 for setting up of Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital. The bed strength of the hospital at that time was 100. Despite sharp increase in psychiatric diseases in the valley and to cater to the needs of growing population since 1950, the need to increase the bed strength of hospital has not been sensed. As per norms, the hospital to cater to the rising demands should have in the Clinical section at least two Professors, four Associate Professors, four Assistant Professors, five lecturers, six registrars, two Clinical Pathologists, two Physicians, one Anaesthetist and two Radiologists. The Non-Clinical section needs 15 Psychiatric Nurses, five Paramedics, Two Occupational Therapists, four Social Workers, five Wardens and 11 Class-IV employees. Contrary to this, the clinical staff recruited in early seventies is almost the same at the moment. There is no CT Scan or MRI facility or even the facility for basic laboratory tests in the hospital. The total budget of the hospital is rupees 1.92 crores per year, out of which major chunk is being spent on the salaries of employees. Government Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases is associated with Government Medical College Srinagar and serves as latter's undergraduate teaching department. In early eighties postgraduate training was also started in the hospital. Two psychiatrists complete their post graduation ever year but no vacancies are being created for them. In such a situation, they get forced to leave Kashmir for Europe or other countries. Successive governments have ignored this important sector. Against this various international organisations are said to have offered the government and Health Department in State to set up their units in Kashmir to cater to increasing psychiatric disorders. The antics of government have reportedly shied them away. Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), a leading international NGO constructed major portion of hospital, which got burned during early nineties. The counselling centre opened by them inside hospital premises is first of its kind and the hospital is dependent on it for counsellors. Since government has not so far integrated mental health with general care, separation of it is said to be the main hurdle for patients in visiting the psychiatric hospital. People shy away to seek psychiatric treatment because of the stigma attached to it. Doctors say that there should be at least one psychiatric ward at SMHS and SKIMS as they are in all the medical colleges in India like AIIMS, New Delhi and PGI, Chandigarh. Doctors also argue for the availability of psychiatrists in every District hospital of the valley. WHO survey says that by 2020 Depression will be second most common disease after heart diseases. WHO also has recommended the amalgamation of psychiatry with general health services so that people won't shy away from the treatment. Due to the lack of any transitional homes, family care and halfway homes in the valley most of the inmates at psychiatric hospital are lying there for years. Some of the patients are there for last 20 years. *Ends- - - * -- Peerzada Arshad Hamid +91-9419027486 +91-1932-234488 Address Baba mohalla Bijbehara c/o Tak Trading Company Bijbehara Jammu & Kashmir INDIA www.kashmirnewz.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060823/d97fdfdd/attachment.html From mallroad at gmail.com Wed Aug 23 13:32:45 2006 From: mallroad at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:32:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <210498250608230102j13c49d32p69c9e59f51958842@mail.gmail.com> Worthy of condemnation as this is, I wonder why the police has a special problem with anti-OBC quota protestors? I have been part of innumerable street protests and Delhi and Delhi University and I have never seen the police being hostile towards us - even when in one case the protest was partly against the police. There are well known norms of street protest - a No Objection Certificate from the police station, informing the police station of the route of your protest etc. It seems to me that anti-quota protestors - certainly the AIIMS medical students - deliberately violate these norms, provoking the police to unleash water canons so that the protestors become news and achieve the sort of filmi martyrdom they are looking for. By now I don't know what they are protesting against, because the seats are being increased. They will have to sooner or later ome over their disgust at the idea of sharing classrooms and canteens with the Other Backward Classes. best s On 8/23/06, Aaditya Dar wrote: > > *Students protesting reservations arrested in **Delhi** **University **: > released after warning.* NSUI election campaigners from outside Delhi > welcomed with open arms by Police in the same premises. > > * * > > *"Elephants, camels and students from Rohtak, Haryana allowed. Students > from **Delhi** **University** not allowed." – **Aaditya Dar**, **US**member, protesting the Police action. > * > > > > > > *North Campus, **Delhi** **University**, 23rd Aug:* In a strange display > of inverted logic the Delhi Police today found it fit to arrest five members > of United Students in the University premises form leading protests against > the decision of the cabinet regarding quota extensions for OBCs in > government aided educational institutions. > > > > In the same premises, about a thousand hired hands of the NSUI were going > beserk at their annual 'shakti pradarshan' – a show of strength to garner > tickets for the forth coming elections at DUSU but the Police were clearly > on very good terms with them. " It was incredible to see that elephants, > camels and students from Rohtak, Haryana were allowed to have a field day, > but Students from Delhi university were not.", said Aaditya Dar, a core > group member of US. > > > > "The Police had been seeing us prepare for the protest meeting at > Vivekananda Statue in the Arts Faculty since 10 in the morning and there was > no hint of any trouble," said Dar. "At 1 p.m., once the NSUI gangs started > getting active, the Police rounded up five of us without reason and shoved > us into police vans after threatening us with arrest". > > > > "It was astonishing to see that the group in control of DUSU has no > interest whatsoever in projecting or supporting the students cause," said > Ritwik Agrawal, a US member and student of Hindu College. > > > > United Students members had planned a demonstration at the Arts faculty > after news of the cabinet clearance reached students. Students said that > when the Police saw the number of protesters start to swell at the > demonstration, they decided to break up the meeting, threatening the > gathering and forcing the students to disperse. > > > > United Students members are continuing their protests in DU tomorrow with > another round of demonstrations and peaceful gathering at the Wall of > Democracy. > > _________________________________________ > 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. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060823/f2706245/attachment.html From aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in Thu Aug 24 09:32:03 2006 From: aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in (Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 09:32:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] TRIUMPH OF LABOUR PART II Message-ID: <1156392123.cd339200aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> resending without jepg attachment ANANT GALLERY > Presents > > TRIUMPH OF LABOUR PART II > Installations and Mixed Media Works > > by Shukla Sawant > > On view till Sep 6, 2006 11 am to 7 p.m. > > Monday closed > > ANANT ART GALLERY- D299 DEFENCE COLONY, NEW DELHI > 110024 ============================================== 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 jace at pobox.com Thu Aug 24 16:14:36 2006 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:14:36 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? In-Reply-To: <210498250608230102j13c49d32p69c9e59f51958842@mail.gmail.com> References: <210498250608230102j13c49d32p69c9e59f51958842@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 23-Aug-06, at 1:32 PM, Shivam Vij wrote: > There are well known norms of street protest - a No Objection > Certificate from the police station, informing the police station > of the route of your protest etc. Shivam, What is the procedure for obtaining a No Objection Certificate? Are there any conditions under which one may be refused? -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://jace.seacrow.com/ From meenakshie.verma at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 07:43:44 2006 From: meenakshie.verma at gmail.com (Meenakshie Verma) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 22:13:44 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Hi all! Message-ID: <3997c4960608241913rad0074fm9483b21ab5bf1cf1@mail.gmail.com> From meenakshie.verma at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 11:13:14 2006 From: meenakshie.verma at gmail.com (Meenakshie Verma) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 01:43:14 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] my contacts Message-ID: <3997c4960608242243l24fbd508n16e3fb57cd43b51d@mail.gmail.com> Dar all I am currently in Delhi and can be reached at 011-47092114 (R) and 9871087058 (cell) From peerzadaarshad at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 14:15:06 2006 From: peerzadaarshad at gmail.com (arshad hamid) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:15:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Some hard facts Message-ID: <83db55e00608240145y77a2878aobe2e7bd1a8d9f475@mail.gmail.com> *Some hard facts * * Peerzada Arshad Hamid Srinagar * Although it is an acknowledged fact that there has been a steep increase in the number of psychiatric patients particularly post traumatic stress disorders and further increase cannot be ruled out owing to the unending violence. Little is done by government to curb the burgeoning number of such patients The awareness programmes which Department of Health or Social Welfare could easily manage to organise for education of masses about stress related problems are not given try. The most disturbing thing that I came to know during my fellowship period is that attitude of the University of Kashmir towards prevailing situation in Kashmir society is totally lackadaisical. Despite being the highest seat of learning in the valley and running research programmes in its various departments like Sociology, Master in Social work (MSW), Psychology, Media Education Research Centre (MERC), not a single study has been carried out on the impact of violence on society or reasons for increasing number of psychiatric patients in Kashmir after 1989. The desire of one of the teachers at the Department of Psychology took me unawares when I asked her for the apathetic reasons of the University vis-à-vis conflict and its implications on Kashmiri society. "I feel such type of study should have been the very much part of the academic curriculum but unfortunately it is no," she said pleading not to be named. Amalgamation of mental health with general health should be made so that more and more people can consult psychiatrists freely at the initial stages of problem. Services of psychiatrists should be kept available at the OPD's pf District hospitals for the convenience of people living in villages and far flung areas. Fall out of stress and trauma has forced many juveniles to take harder substance to find temporary solace. Considerable chunk of youth from both rural and urban Kashmir are said to consume drugs and rely on intra-venal injections. They have become drug addicts.** Depressive disorders have led to increase in the suicidal tendencies among the people in Kashmir and reports of suicides occupy the news holes as and when reported. There is need for setting up of de-stressing centres, where people with stress related problems could be provided rehabilitation and sense of living in them. Ends--- -- Peerzada Arshad Hamid +91-9419027486 +91-1932-234488 Address Baba mohalla Bijbehara c/o Tak Trading Company Bijbehara Jammu & Kashmir INDIA www.kashmirnewz.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060824/79b4660f/attachment.html From benmerhav at yahoo.com.au Thu Aug 24 17:15:40 2006 From: benmerhav at yahoo.com.au (ben merhav) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:45:40 +1000 (EST) Subject: [Reader-list] DISBANDING THE ZIONIST APARTHEID REGIME OF ISRAEL SHOULD BE NOW HUMANITY'S FIRST PRIORITY Message-ID: <20060824114540.12716.qmail@web30703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> http://www.sondaughtersdad.blogspot.com/ DISBANDING THE ZIONIST APARTHEID REGIME OF ISRAEL SHOULD BE NOW HUMANITY'S FIRST PRIORITY by Benjamin Merhav The disbandment of the zionist apartheid regime of Israel - a process similar to that which had terminated the apartheid regime of South Africa well over a decade ago - is much overdue. Any further delay would be risking a world war, and the zionist apartheid regime has got the arsenal of WMD to plunge the world into such a holocaust whenever its rulers choose to do so. The following article, by Alan Hart, is a timely warning that the world should heed NOW ! August 17, 2006 "The Lebanon War, a Post-Mortem Israeli Militarism and the Necessity of a One-State Solution By Alan Hart I'm going to suggest to you that what we might now be witnessing is the long beginning of the end of the Zionist state of Israel. In the next 10 minutes or so I will talk my way to an explanation of why I think so; and then I'll address the question of what the most likely consequences would be. I can see two--One State of Palestine for All and real, lasting peace, or Catastrophe for All... and by "All" I don't just mean Israeli Jews and the Arabs of the region, I mean all of us, everywhere. I thought I would be the first to give voice in public to the idea that Israel might be planting in Lebanon the final seeds of its own destruction, but while I was working on my text for this evening, I came across an interview given by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was PresidentCarter's National Security Adviser. He said: "Eventually, if neo-con policies continue to be pursued, the United States will be expelled from the region and that will be the beginning of the end for Israel as well."As Israel's bombardment of Lebanon unfolded, a great deal of nonsense was written and spoken by pundits and policymakers throughout the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world about why it was happening. The main thrust of the nonsense was that Hizbullah started the war and that Israel was merely defending itself. I think the truth about Hizbullah's role in triggering the war can be summarised as follows--bearing in mind that the border incident of 12 July was one of many since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, and which more often than not, according to UN monitors, were provoked by Israeli actions and/or Israeli violations of agreements. By engaging an IDF border patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking two hostages, and firing a few rockets to create a diversion for that operation, Hizbullah gave Israel's generals and those politicians who rubber-stamp their demands the pretext they wanted and needed to go to war--a war they had planned for months. I was reminded of what was said to me on the second of the six days of the 1967 war when I was a very young ITN correspondent reporting from Israel. One of my sources was Major General Chaim Herzog. He was one of the founding fathers of Israel's Directorate of Military Intelligence. On the second day of that war he said to me in private conversation: "IfNasser had not been stupid enough to give us a pretext for war now, we would have created one in the coming year to 18 months." Hizbullah's purpose in taking Israeli prisoners/hostages was to have them as bargaining chips - to secure the return of Lebanese prisoners Israel had refused to release in a previous prisoner exchange. As former President Carter implied in an article for The Washington Post on I August, it was not unreasonable for Hizbullah to assume that an exchange would be possible because "the assumption was based on a number of such trades in the past." But on 12 July 2006 the government of Israel was not interested in trades. It did not give a single moment to diplomacy or negotiations of any kind. It did not even consider a local retaliation to make a point. Israel rushed to war. As Defence Minister Amir Peretz put it: "We're skipping the stage of threats and going straight to the action." On the subject of Hizbullah's rockets, (which are hit-and-miss low tech weapons when compared with Israel's state of the art firepower), it is right to ask-Why, really, were they there? What, really, explains Hizbullah's stock-piling and its bunkering down? The honest answer, which has its context in the whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Zionism's demonstrated designs on Southern Lebanon in particular, is this: Hizbullah was strengthening itself militarily for the same reason as Eygpt did when President Nasser, with great reluctance after America had refused to supply him, accepted weapons from the Soviet Union. Nasser did not upgrade Eygpt's military capabilities to make war on Israel. He wanted to be able to demonstrate to Israel that attacking Eygpt to impose Zionism's will on it was not a cost-free option. In other words, Hizbullah had been improving its military capability to deter Israeli incursions and attacks, which was something the Lebanese army was incapable of doing. Am I suggesting that Hizbullah would not have let loose its rockets if Israel had not gone for the war option? YES! The notion that, on 12 July 2006, Hizbullah was joined in conspiracy with Iran and Syria to wipe Israel off the face of the earth is nothing but Zionist and neo-con propaganda nonsense--to justify Israel's latest war of aggression and also, perhaps, to justify, in advance of it happening, war on Iran. It's true that the rhetoric of Iran's President gave and gives a degree of apparent credibility to Zionist and neo-con spin--but only to those who are unaware of, or don't want to know, the difference between the facts and documented truth of the real history of the Arab-Israeli conflict (as in my book) and Zionism's version of it. To those who really want to understand why the Zionist state of Israel behaves in the way it does, and is (as described in a recent article courageously carried by The Independent) "a terrorist state like no other", I say not only read my book, but give special attention to page 485 of Volume One. On it I quote what was said behind closed doors in May 1955 by Moshe Dayan, Israel's one-eyed warlord and master of deception. He was in conversation with Israel's ambassadors to Washington, London and Paris. At the time the Eisenhower administration was pressing Israel to abandon its policy of reprisal attacks. Eisenhower was aware that Nasser did not want war with Israel, and that he would, when he could, make an accommodation with it. Eisenhower also knew that Israel's reprisal attacks were making it impossible for Nasser to prepare the ground on his side for peace with Israel. In conversation with Israel's three most important ambassadors to the West, Dayan explained why he was totally opposed - whatever the pressure from the West - to the idea that Israel should abandon its policy of reprisal attacks. They were, he said, "a life drug." What he meant, he also explained, was that reprisal attacks enabled the Israeli government "to maintain a high degree of tension in the country and the army." What, really, did that mean? Israel's standing or full-time army was (as it still is and must be) relatively small, not more than about 23,000 souls in all. The other quarter of a million fighting men and women who could be mobilised in 48 hours were reservists from every walk of Israel's civil society. The real point? Without Israeli reprisal attacks and all that they implied--that the Zionist state was in constant danger of being annihilated - there was a possibility that some and perhaps many reservists would not be motivated enough to respond to Zionism's calls to arms. Put another way, what Dayan really feared was the truth. He knew, as all of Israel's leaders knew, that Israel's existence was not in danger from any combination of Arab forces. And that was the truth which had to be kept from the Jews of Israel. Dayan's fear was that if they became aware of it, they might insist on peace on terms the Arab regimes could accept but which were not acceptable to Zionism. Among those present when Dayan explained the need for Israeli reprisal attacks as a "life drug" was the Foreign Ministry's Gideon Rafael. He reported what Dayan told the ambassadors to Prime Minister Moshe Sharret-in my view, and with the arguable exception of Yitzhak Rabin, the only completely rational prime minister Israel has ever had. And we know from Sharret's diaries what Rafael then said to him: "This is how fascism began in Italy and Germany!" Ladies and gentlemen, I think future historians may say that was how fascism began in the Zionist state of Israel. The idea of Israel as a fully functioning democracy is a seriously flawed one. It's true that Israeli Jews are free to speak their minds (in a way that most Jews of the world are frightened to do), and to that extent it can be said that Israel has the appearance of a vibrant democracy... But in reality, and especially since the countdown to the 1967 war, it's Israel's generals who call most of the policy shots, even when one of them is not prime minister. In June 1967 Israel's prime minister of the time, the much maligned Levi Eshkol, did not want to take his country to war. The war, was imposed upon him by the generals, led by Dayan. As I explain in Volume Two of my book, what really happened in Israel in the final countdown to that war was something very close to a military coup in all but name. And that's where we are today--the generals effectively calling the shots in Israel, to the applause of the neo-cons. Why, really, did Israel's generals want to make war on Lebanon? There was obviously much more to it than the collective punishment of a whole people as part and parcel of a stated objective - the destruction of Hizbullah as a Moslem David which could hit and hurt the Zionist Goliath. I think there were two main reasons. The first was that Israel's generals believed they should and could restore the "deterrent power" of the IDF (Israel's war machine). They believed, correctly, that it had been seriously damaged by Hizbullah's success in not only confronting the IDF following Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, but eventually forcing it to withdraw, effectively defeated and humiliated... I think it is more than reasonable to presume that for most if not all of the past six years, Israel's generals were itching to make war on Lebanon to repair that damage--to restore the IDF's deterrent power. Put another way, it was time, Israel's generals believed, to give the Arabs (all Arabs, not just Hizbullah) another lesson in who the master was. The second main reason for the insistence of Israel's generals on 12 July this year that war was the only option...? I think it's also more than reasonable to presume that they saw the opportunity to ethnically cleanse Lebanon up to the Litani River, with a view, eventually, to occupying and then annexing the ethnically cleansed territory. For Zionism this would be the fulfilment of the vision of modern Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion - a Zionist state within "natural" borders, those borders being the Jordan River in the East and the Litani River of Lebanon in the north. Israel gained control of theJordan River border in its 1967 war of expansion, but prior to its rush to war on 12 July, all of its attempts to establish the Litani border had failed. Since 1982 because of Hizbullah's ability to cause the occupying IDF forces more casualties than Israeli public opinion was prepared to tolerate. According to those currently calling the policy shots - Israel's generals and politicians, the neo-cons in and around the Bush administration and their associate in Downing Street - the name of the game is creating a "new Middle East". It is happening. A new Middle East is being created. But what kind of new Middle East will it actually be? In my analysis it will be one in which the Zionist state of Israel, having rejected a number of opportunities to make peace with the Palestinians and all the Arab states, will become increasingly vulnerable and, at a point, actually for the first time ever in its shortish history, could face the possibility of defeat. In my view the seeds of that possible defeat have just been sewn in Lebanon. The fact is that Israel's latest military adventure has been totally counter-productive in that it has caused Hizbullah to be admired by the angry and humiliated masses of the Arab and wider Moslem world. That being so, would it really be surprising if, in growing numbers, Arabs and Moslems everywhere begin to entertain- if they are not already entertaining-something like the following thought: "If 3,000 Hizbullah guerrillas can stand up to mighty Israel for weeks and give it a seriously bloody nose, what would happen if we all joined the fight?" (Do I hear the sound of pro-Western Arab regimes being toppled? Yes, I think so). I imagine that even the thought of Israel being defeated one day will bring joy to very many Arabs and other Moslems. But there ought to be no place for joy because there's no mystery about what would happen in the event of Israel actually being on the brink of defeat. I want to quote to you now from one of my Panorama interviews with Golda Meir. (It can be found, this quote, on the second page Volume One of my book, in the Prologue which is titled Waiting for the Apocalypse). At a point I interrupted her to say: "Prime Minister I want to be sure I understand what you're saying... You are saying that if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it?" Without the shortest of pauses for reflection, Golda replied: "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." In those days Panorama went on-air at 8 o'clock on Monday evenings. Shortly after the transmission of that interview The Times had a new lead editorial. It quoted what Golda had said to me and added its view that "We had better believe her." How, actually, would the Zionist state of Israel take at least the region down with it? It would arm its nuclear missiles, target Arab capitals, then fire the missiles. Such an End-Game to the Arab-Israeli conflict, if it happened, and which I would describe as a self-fulfilled Zionist prophesy of doom, would probably take many years to play out. But the countdown to such a catastrophe would be speeded up if, as Brzezinski put it, "neo-con policies continue to be pursued." If they are, and if Iran is attacked, I think that a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, would become unstoppable. Is there no way to stop the madness and create a "new Middle East" worth having? Yes, of course, there is, but it requires the agenda of the neo-cons and their associates to be thrown into the dustbin of history, in order for there to be a resolution of the Palestine problem, which I describe as the cancer at the heart of international affairs. Unfortunately, and because of the facts Zionism has been allowed to create on the ground in Israel/Palestine, it's already much too late for a genuine two-state solution, one which would see Israel back behind more or less its pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem an open city and the capital of two states. The conclusion which I think is invited is this: If the countdown to catastrophe for all is to be stopped, the only possible solution to the Palestine problem is One State for All. That would, of course, be the end of Zionism's colonial enterprise and of Zionism itself. But in my view that's what has to happen if there's to be a "new Middle East" in which there can be security and peace for all, Arabs and Jews. Ladies and gentlemen: I'm not a politician or, any more, a working journalist and broadcaster who must write and speak in way that doesn't offend very powerful vested interests. I am a reasonably well informed human being who cares and who is free to say what he really thinks. (Which probably makes me a member of a very small club!) And in summary of all that I've said this evening, what I really think comes down to this: The equation is a very simple one: No justice for the Palestinians = no peace for any of us." (Emphasis added - B.M.) sondaughtersdad --------------------------------- On Yahoo!7 The new Yahoo!7 home page - scan your email inbox, start an IM conversation or update your blog -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060824/431bd5f6/attachment.html From benmerhav at yahoo.com.au Thu Aug 24 17:18:26 2006 From: benmerhav at yahoo.com.au (ben merhav) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:48:26 +1000 (EST) Subject: [Reader-list] MORE ON THE TREACHERY OF NOAM CHOMSKY (article 30) Message-ID: <20060824114826.27827.qmail@web30707.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Dear reader, the following article is posted on my blog : http ://www.treacheryof.blogspot.com/ and your are invited to visit the blog ,as well as the previous blog , http ://www.merhavbenm.blogspot.com/ , republish the article (and/or any previous one), and/or comment on it. Sincerely, Benjamin Merhav Melbourne, Australia MORE ON NOAM CHOMSKY AND ON URI AVNERY, THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT ASSETS OF THE ZIONIST PROPGANDA MACHINE by Benjamin Merhav (article 30 in a series) Ostensibly, both Noam Chomsky and Uri Avnery have been strongly criticised by zionist propaganda outlets, particularly by fanatical zionists like Alan Dershowitz and his ilk. Yet, that criticism never harmed any of the two. On the contrary, it has enhanced their positions among Left and peace activists. So much so, it seems without that criticism very few on the Left would have trusted any of them, knowing their treacherous records. Thus, for example, both Chomsky and Avnery, have strongly supported the military aggression and invasion of Arab lands by the zionist apartheid regime of Israel during June 1967. Avnery had then gone as far as demand that the zionist army invade and occupy Damascus, rather than be satisfied with the occupation and annexation of the Golan Heights alone. In fact, he used the paper he produced and edited to fan the flames of chauvinism and war hysteria inside Israel during that war. Another example of their treacherous records is their approval of the zionist apartheid regime, along with its institutionalised racism and fascist policies. Both of them have never stated their opposition to zionism nor to the zionist apartheid regime of Israel, much less condemn the racist regime. Accordingly, both support a two state peace agreement, thus allowing the continuation of the zionist apartheid regime, rather than a non-racist democratic state all over historic Palestine. They both oppose the full and unconditional return of the Palestinian refugees, and they both oppose international sanctions against the racist regime. Uri Avnery, with his background as a fanatical follower of Jabotinsky ( including membership of Irgun, the zionist terror organisation), had gone even further than Chomsky . He had actually volunteered (and he is still very proud of it !) to a zionist commando unit during the 1948 zionist war of ethnic cleansing. As soon as the war was over Avnery began a political career as a self proclaimed peace activist, only to betray the peace movement in 1967. This year, ever since the horrendous escalation of zionist state terrorism and war crimes, following the Palestinian elections, and then the invasion of Lebanon, Chomsky and Avnery failed once more to condemn the criminal zionist regime, and to call for international sanctions against it. Having dealt with Chomsky's treachery regarding the current situation in the last 5 articles in this series, let us now examine Avnery's attitude as reflected in two of his latest articles. The latest one, published by counterpunch.org over the weekend ,19/20 August, has got a rather revealing title : "Where are the Achievements of This War? The 155th Victim". What "achievments" was Avnery hoping for by this series of zionist war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the racist regime against the people of Lebanon ? The article serves as an eye-opener for anyone who does not know that Avnery has been a fanatical zionist all his life. It is a kind of debate he is having with the zionist army chieftains, accusing them of not being competent. Avnery is actually angry at the zionist generals not because they perpetrated horrendous crimes, rather because they were not good enough at doing so ! Listen to this : "AFTER EVERY failed war, the cry for an official investigation goes up in Israel. Now there is a "trauma", much bitterness, a feeling of defeat and of a missed opportunity. Hence the demand for a strong Commission of Inquiry that will cut off the heads of those responsible." What does Uri Avnery mean by "missed opportunity" ? Did he expect the zionist invading army to crush the Lebanese resistance, and do so without any casualities ? Could it be that Avnery still clings to his old dream of invading Damascus, and he is disappointed now ? Yet there is a contradiction here between Avnery's imperial dreams and his conclusion that there cannot be any peace for as long as Israel occupies the 1967 invaded Arab lands. However,it is merely the contradiction between Avnery, the fanatical zionist, and his purported peace activist role. He sure remains a fanatical zionist ! Here is what he says just before concluding his article : "All over Israel, they are already talking about the "Next Round", the war that will at long last eliminate Hizbullah and punish it for besmirching our honor. That has become, so it seems, a self-evident matter. Even Haaretz treats it as such in its editorials." Already a few days earlier, in an article published by the same zionism loving website, under the title, What the Hell has Happened to the Israeli Army? Avnery showed his true colours, the zionist colours. Here is what he says about the Israeli army : "This war casts a dark shadow on the whole upper echelon of our army. I assume that there are some talented officers, but the general picture is of a senior officers corps that is mediocre or worse, grey and unoriginal. Almost all the many officers that have appeared on TV are unimpressive, uninspiring professionals, experts on covering their behinds, repeating empty clichés like parrots." Avnery is not critical of the zionist army because it is an occupation army, an imperialist army, which has been perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine and in Lebanon. He is merely concerned that "general picture is of a senior officers corps that is mediocre or worse, grey and unoriginal". How can anyone believe this same Uri Avnery when he presents himself as a "peace activist" ? He himself attempts to cover himself in the article as follows , but only to further sink into the zionist quagmire : "We, as people of peace, have a great interest in changing the military leadership. First, because it has a huge impact on the forming of policy and, as we just saw, irresponsible commanders can easily drag the government into dangerous adventures. And second, because even after achieving peace we shall need an efficient army--at least until the wolf lies down with the lamb, as the prophet Isaiah promised." Genuine people of peace do not support an imperialist army. Instead, they would change the entire regime which produces and maintains such an army. Change of the army officers would not make any difference, as the army would remain a zionist occupation army for as long as the zionist apartheid regime of Israel exists ! sondaughtersdad --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Music: Check out the gig guide for live music in your area -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060824/915db14d/attachment.html From mallroad at gmail.com Thu Aug 24 19:10:44 2006 From: mallroad at gmail.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:10:44 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? In-Reply-To: References: <210498250608230102j13c49d32p69c9e59f51958842@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <210498250608240640u6e40e751q2eb9febde9743771@mail.gmail.com> Kiran, I do not know exactly what the NoC requirements are, but roughly, the Station Head Officer judges if the proposed protest could in any way disturb 'law and order', that is, turn violent. More controversially, an NoC may be denied if it is felt that the protest may *provoke* violence. It's a bit like the issues of hate speech and censorship. Which reminds me, I've been thinking lately of Delhi as a City of Protest. The discourse of street protest is dominated of course by the leftist protest, replete with songs and street theatre. What a wonderful film it would make! One could stage a protest just for the documentary, and violate the route map given by the organiser to the police, enter "VIP zones" and get water canons fired upon. Are the Youth for Equality actors looking for work? Do let me know. best, s On 8/24/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote: > > On 23-Aug-06, at 1:32 PM, Shivam Vij wrote: > > > There are well known norms of street protest - a No Objection > > Certificate from the police station, informing the police station > > of the route of your protest etc. > > Shivam, > > What is the procedure for obtaining a No Objection Certificate? Are > there any conditions under which one may be refused? > > > -- > Kiran Jonnalagadda > http://jace.seacrow.com/ > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060824/4c7297d4/attachment.html From aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in Thu Aug 24 15:57:15 2006 From: aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in (Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:57:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] exhibition at School of Arts and Aesthetics Message-ID: <1156415235.cd81ad80aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> The School of Arts and Aesthetics invites you to the exhibition Visual Voices of the Marginalized An exhibition of sculptures about the experience of displacement, environmental degradation, police brutality and other aspects of the daily life of the marginalized. Made by activists from 17 NGO's from north and central India in a workshop with K P Soman and organized by the Delhi Sramik Sangathan and SRUTI (Society for Rural and Urban Transformation) In association with the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU. At the School of Arts and Aesthetics Gallery, JNU, New Delhi 110067. From 11 am to 6 pm, 29th August to 2nd September. On the 2nd of September at 11:30 am, Prof Roma Chatterji of the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, will lead a discussion on issues raised by the exhibition. Do join us. ============================================== 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 gmc at sonologic.nl Fri Aug 25 15:58:18 2006 From: gmc at sonologic.nl (Koen Martens) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 12:28:18 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] airplane returns Message-ID: <44EED0C2.70209@sonologic.nl> Hi All, It surprises me that it is quiet on this list with regard to a plane that returned to Schiphol Airport in my country The Netherlands because the captain was afraid ten partying Indian people were terrorists. I think it is exemplifying the irrational fear sweeping through the west. The reason the captain thought these people were terrorists: 'they were noisy, had large amounts of gsm's and laptops that they were handing over to each other the whole time, and they swapped places continuously'. In other words, completely ridiculous reasons to return a plane (and dump fuel in a lake, even the environment had to suffer from the irrational fear). Meanwhile, the 10 Indians were detained for almost a week, and their stuff (the gsm's and laptops) were taken apart and still not returned to them. I sincerely hope the Indian people and/or government will claim damages from the company and or our government, this is goinf much too far! Gr, Koen -- K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/ Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence. Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/ From fmadre at free.fr Fri Aug 25 16:13:43 2006 From: fmadre at free.fr (fmadre at free.fr) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 12:43:43 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] airplane returns In-Reply-To: <44EED0C2.70209@sonologic.nl> References: <44EED0C2.70209@sonologic.nl> Message-ID: <20060825124343.yc9cq5jnvdc8g048@imp4.free.fr> Quoting Koen Martens : > It surprises me that it is quiet on this list with regard to a plane > that returned to Schiphol Airport in my country The Netherlands > because the captain was afraid ten partying Indian people were > terrorists. indeed it is a very serious event which highlights the continuous advent of fascistic behavior in so called democratic countries particularily weird was this paragrapgh from a cnn, er, report: "In addition, some passengers unfastened their seatbelts while the light requiring they be fastened was still illuminated, the official said. That was enough for U.S. air marshals aboard the DC-10 to break their cover." http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/23/schiphol/index.html The fascism here is twisting the meaning of such a simple device as the "fasten seat belt" sign, what this sign means is that you are advised to fasten your seat belt because if you don't you might get hurt because of the movements of the aircraft. what is implied here is that it could mean that when the sign is on your moves are restricted by law and you must obey otherwise your inobedience would disturb the peace and commonly accepted order of the cabin! to me it is clear that the real disturbance was caused by the air mashals and the true security threat was the presence of armed men inside the aircraft, a sentiment which is echoed in this excerpt from another report: "The Algemeen Dagblad newspaper quoted a 31-year-old Dutch businessman as saying the suspects were walking up and down the isle after takeoff. "I saw the air marshals walking, and then you know something's wrong," it quoted him as saying." yes, something is wrong when there are air marshals walking inside an aircraft > I sincerely hope the Indian people and/or government will claim > damages from the company and or our government, this is goinf much > too far! very much agreed, it is time to take action against all and every instance of the restraints on our lifes. f. From iwasthere2000 at yahoo.com Fri Aug 25 16:27:47 2006 From: iwasthere2000 at yahoo.com (S.Shashidhar) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 03:57:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? In-Reply-To: <210498250608240640u6e40e751q2eb9febde9743771@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060825105747.59827.qmail@web32415.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The best way to hurt a joker is to ignore him, please brother for the sake of Mr. Shivam's sanity leave him alone, he thiks people from a pro active protest movement are jokers and theater artists, what ever be the cause, soon he will call people from the NBA wailers and no cause exepct his own will be big enough for him. He dislikes opposition, he dislikes different opinions and voices.. well well people like him are very welcome. May us jokers get cannoed every day --- Shivam Vij wrote: > Kiran, I do not know exactly what the NoC > requirements are, but roughly, the > Station Head Officer judges if the proposed protest > could in any way disturb > 'law and order', that is, turn violent. More > controversially, an NoC may be > denied if it is felt that the protest may *provoke* > violence. It's a bit > like the issues of hate speech and censorship. > > Which reminds me, I've been thinking lately of Delhi > as a City of Protest. > The discourse of street protest is dominated of > course by the leftist > protest, replete with songs and street theatre. What > a wonderful film it > would make! One could stage a protest just for the > documentary, and violate > the route map given by the organiser to the police, > enter "VIP zones" and > get water canons fired upon. > > Are the Youth for Equality actors looking for work? > Do let me know. > > best, > s > > On 8/24/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda > wrote: > > > > On 23-Aug-06, at 1:32 PM, Shivam Vij wrote: > > > > > There are well known norms of street protest - a > No Objection > > > Certificate from the police station, informing > the police station > > > of the route of your protest etc. > > > > Shivam, > > > > What is the procedure for obtaining a No Objection > Certificate? Are > > there any conditions under which one may be > refused? > > > > > > -- > > Kiran Jonnalagadda > > http://jace.seacrow.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. > To unsubscribe: > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fmadre at free.fr Fri Aug 25 17:46:16 2006 From: fmadre at free.fr (fmadre at free.fr) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:16:16 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] airplane returns In-Reply-To: <20060825124343.yc9cq5jnvdc8g048@imp4.free.fr> References: <44EED0C2.70209@sonologic.nl> <20060825124343.yc9cq5jnvdc8g048@imp4.free.fr> Message-ID: <20060825141616.2qsoxrcvokw40kwg@imp4.free.fr> > "In addition, some passengers unfastened their seatbelts while the light > requiring they be fastened was still illuminated, the official said. > > That was enough for U.S. air marshals aboard the DC-10 to break their cover." more of that "fasten seat belt " nonsense here: A Scottish tourist, Stewart Nichols, in his 40s, said he saw the 12 being handcuffed by three armed air marshals. "Don't think that any of them behaved suspiciously." "They were not fastening seat belts despite being told so by the airline staff," Nichols said. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4A389B09-88F4-4DA1-9450-4B7A917A4693.htm "I saw 11 Arabic people arrested before I got kicked out the plane. They were treated like dogs. The way they got arrested inside the plane with everyone seeing how they got treated, I thought it was inhuman," said a passenger. "They did not hit them but they pushed them. But they let them surely feel that they have no power. The passengers were not allowed to even look back. They were all told to look in front," recalled another. http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&slug=Relieved+passengers+arrive+in+Mumbai&id=92067 f. From gowharfazili at yahoo.com Sat Aug 26 10:36:51 2006 From: gowharfazili at yahoo.com (gowhar fazli) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:06:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] If you want to end all war... Message-ID: <20060826050651.60553.qmail@web60624.mail.yahoo.com> wouldn't you have to kill everbody? Even if only one person were saved he might always be at war with himself for being the one who was chosen to carry on the human race. "Look what you have done! Damn you... Damn you straight to Hell!" "Well, hey, at least we ain't dead." "Shut up! I'm here by myself..." "Oh, really?" "And I don't talk to myself." "OK. If you say so." "Oh, Dear God! Why did he choose me?" "Because you're a nice guy." "What?!?" "I said you're a nice guy." "Be quiet...." "I can't. I'm bored" "Shut up!" "What are we going to do today?" "I'm not listening to you." "Yes, you are." "Maybe I should build a fire?" "Oh, no! Don't do that." "And why the hell not?" "Thought you weren't listening to me." "Argh!!" "What's you're problem?" "Geez! what am I going to do?" "I don't know." "If you do leave me the..." You'll what, kill me?" "What if I build the fire over here?" "Not a good idea." "Why not?" "Because I killing me would kill you" "Go away." "Have you seen yourself lately?" Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares. Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. Peter Ustinov __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From announcer at crit.org.in Fri Aug 25 18:46:54 2006 From: announcer at crit.org.in (Asia Society India Centre) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:16:54 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Maximum City Hindi/Marathi Book Launch Message-ID: <1156511814.6272.44.camel@localhost> Asia Society India Centre, Penguin Group (India) and the PEN All-India Centre invite you to the launch of Marathi and Hindi editions of Suketu Mehta's 2005 Kiriyama Prize Winner Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found In Conversation Suketu Mehta and Kumar Ketkar Reading Makarand Deshpande and Kishore Kadam Friday, September 1, 2006, 7.00 pm Hall of Harmony, Nehru Centre, Worli, Mumbai Tea and Snacks at 6:30 pm RSVP Susan Menezes TEL : +91.22.6610.0888, EMAIL: mumbai at asiasociety.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060825/851e3255/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _____ CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust), Mumbai Announcements List http://www.crit.org.in http://lists.crit.org.in/mailman/listinfo/announcer From sridevi.panikkar at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 16:23:36 2006 From: sridevi.panikkar at gmail.com (sridevi panikkar) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 16:23:36 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Green devolution Message-ID: <431944be0608250353s1a2eeaaj7735fcadad048d47@mail.gmail.com> Green devolution | Bahar Dutt August 24, 2006 The Congress had it as part of its election promises. The BJP wants to see it through since most states where it's ruling are dominated by adivasis. The Left's been pushing for it. Then why hasn't the Tribal Bill been cleared by Parliament? It's perhaps the most controversial Bill put forward by the UPA coalition. The Recognition of Forest Dwellers Rights Bill will, after all, impact the fate of millions of forest dwellers — people for whom the State has no numbers. As per existing forest laws, they are encroachers. And the Bill has created a simplistic divide — between tiger and tribal supporters. Enough has been said for and against the Bill. I intend to raise only two issues: the role the urban/English language media have played, and the complexities of some issues the Bill has raised. The urban media have shown a clear bias against the Bill. This is not surprising, given that they and their readers/viewers share a disconnect with forest issues. When does an urban city dweller encounter forests? Usually on weekend holidays to, say, Corbett National Park, when they drive down quaint country lanes to see tigers. The media have happily propagated the belief that people shouldn't be living in forests. That's what our laws say and that's what we would like to believe on our weekend breaks. Forget the fact that nearly 200 million people in this country depend on forests. The debate in the national media has stuck to one silly point: should tribals live in forests or should they be moved out and given access to development? It's suddenly upto a handful of individuals in New Delhi to decide where the tribals should live. Writer-ecologist Ramachandra Guha has rightly remarked that the influence the wildlife conservation lobby is able to exercise over policy makers is no surprise considering their ideological and physical proximity to the people in power. And yet, the same urban elite does not protest as vociferously when forests are diverted for the construction of roads, dams or mining. Between 1951 and 1981, forest authorities diverted 4.2 million hectare of forest land for non-forest use — three times the area currently under 'encroachment'. Yet, no one from these elite sections protested. Moving beyond the simplistic point of whether tribals should live in forests or not, the Bill raises more complex issues that warrant attention. More so, with the recommendations of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that was appointed to look into the Bill. The JPC has made three vital recommendations. First, the Bill should deal with all forest dweller groups, and not just Scheduled Tribes as the original Bill had envisaged. In India, it's not just adivasis who live in forests, but also others like the Van Taungiyas in Uttaranchal or Scheduled Caste communities in Tamil Nadu. The JPC has thus expanded the scope of the Bill to all communities that have been living in forests for more than three generations. Second, the cut-off date for deciding who can be vested with rights for living in forests has been pushed forward to December 2005, when the Bill was first tabled. Third, forest dwellers can claim rights to any amount of land they have been cultivating, provided they can prove it to the authorities. The power to resolve these conflicts is vested with gram sabhas and not the forest department. But there are problems with the JPC recommendations. The most predominant is that the Bill must reinstate its commitment to conservation. The original Bill has Sections 4(7) and 7, which specifies the responsibilities and duties of forest dwellers to conserve nature and natural resources. The JPC's version has removed these sections, and in their place put the onus on ensuring conservation on the gram sabha (Section 5[1]). The JPC version does not even place responsibility on the gram sabha, but only gives it the powers to achieve conservation. And what of situations in which the gram sabha allows for unsustainable use of resources? For instance, who will be responsible if a rights holder allows for stone quarrying on his land, which can cause damage to the ecology of the place? Will the forest department step in or the gram sabha? The Bill does not specify who is the enforcement authority in case of violations. Even earlier penalties for imposition of fines in case of violations have been removed. Perhaps the most troubling part of the JPC recommendations is Section 3(2), which allows for forest land to be developed. Roads have been scientifically documented to have a direct impact on breeding and survival patterns of wild animals. Animals die in collisions with vehicles; they change behaviour; roads consume land so there is less range for animals to use. The JPC has suggested cutting down of no more than 75 trees for bringing development to forest areas where forest dwellers reside. Why this magical number of 75? Some forest areas are so patchy that even the cutting down of two trees could wreak ecological havoc. If India is truly committed to community-based conservation, it must look beyond the Tribal Bill. India is not the only country where indigenous people have lost traditional land to wildlife conservation. The Kakadu National Park in Australia was set up on Maori indigenous land through a system of contracts with indigenous people. National parks in South Africa, too, were declared after contractual agreements with local communities. The money from visiting tourists was used for community development and their ancestral lands were set aside for conservation. These are the schemes we must turn to. The Tribal Bill has brought to the forefront the chaos that prevails in India's forests. The management of India's forests may be poised for a revolutionary change. But in this, communities and the proponents of the Bill have a far greater responsibility to play. They can do a better job than the State-led forest department in protecting India's natural wealth. And if they do not, the tiger lobby is ready with their lines — communities cannot conserve. In the meantime, Parliament must discuss the Bill and resolve these conflicts rather than abdicating its responsibility to one committee after another. The writer is a wildlife conservationist and does special reports on the environment for CNN-IBN -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060825/74da147a/attachment.html From jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 12:02:28 2006 From: jyotirmoy.chaudhuri at gmail.com (Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 12:02:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] airplane returns In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44EFEAFC.9080403@gmail.com> Hi Mr Martens, I think it's the US Marshals who are the looniest of the lot. The Dutch have at least let the 12 musketeers go. And no SM, US style. Imagine what would have happened if they were on US soil. Some, SM, US style! Jyotirmoy From gowharfazili at yahoo.com Sat Aug 26 12:12:02 2006 From: gowharfazili at yahoo.com (gowhar fazli) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 23:42:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] airplane returns In-Reply-To: <20060825124343.yc9cq5jnvdc8g048@imp4.free.fr> Message-ID: <20060826064202.65420.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> What do you think of the suggestion that these twelve partying Indians were taken around the country to speak to public about there European experience? Do you think this would be educative? Can some group like Combat Colonialism undertake this? --- fmadre at free.fr wrote: > Quoting Koen Martens : > > It surprises me that it is quiet on this list with > regard to a plane > > that returned to Schiphol Airport in my country > The Netherlands > > because the captain was afraid ten partying Indian > people were > > terrorists. > > indeed > it is a very serious event which highlights the > continuous advent of fascistic > behavior in so called democratic countries > particularily weird was this paragrapgh from a cnn, > er, report: > "In addition, some passengers unfastened their > seatbelts while the light > requiring they be fastened was still illuminated, > the official said. > > That was enough for U.S. air marshals aboard the > DC-10 to break their cover." > > http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/23/schiphol/index.html > > The fascism here is twisting the meaning of such a > simple device as the > "fasten > seat belt" sign, what this sign means is that you > are advised to fasten your > seat belt because if you don't you might get hurt > because of the movements of > the aircraft. what is implied here is that it could > mean that when the sign is > on your moves are restricted by law and you must > obey otherwise your > inobedience would disturb the peace and commonly > accepted order of the cabin! > > to me it is clear that the real disturbance was > caused by the air mashals and > the true security threat was the presence of armed > men inside the aircraft, a > sentiment which is echoed in this excerpt from > another report: > "The Algemeen Dagblad newspaper quoted a 31-year-old > Dutch businessman as > saying the suspects were walking up and down the > isle after takeoff. "I saw > the air marshals walking, and then you know > something's wrong," it quoted > him as saying." > > yes, something is wrong when there are air marshals > walking inside an aircraft > > > I sincerely hope the Indian people and/or > government will claim > > damages from the company and or our government, > this is goinf much > > too far! > > very much agreed, it is time to take action against > all and every instance of > the restraints on our lifes. > > f. > _________________________________________ > 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. > To unsubscribe: > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares. Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. Peter Ustinov __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rahulpandita at yahoo.com Sat Aug 26 12:18:29 2006 From: rahulpandita at yahoo.com (rahul pandita) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 07:48:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Comics Talk invite Message-ID: <20060826064829.43383.qmail@web31706.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Leif Packalen, a developmental cartoonist and the chairman of World Comics Finland will deliver a talk on using comics for social change. Maippi Tapanainen, Secretary, World Comics Finland would also be present. The duo would also be sharing their experience of using comics as a medium of communication in regions like Africa and the Middle East. We would appreciate if you could confirm your participation to enable us to make necessary arrangements. Time and Venue – August 28, 5.00 pm at: The Comics Cafe, B-3 (Basement), Lajpat Nagar 1, Delhi (Near Nirulas, Defence Colony flyover) For more information contact Sharad Sharma at 9811702925. Rahul Pandita www.sanitysucks.blogspot.com Mobile: 9818088664 ___________________________________________________________ The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from your Internet provider. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html From patrice at xs4all.nl Sat Aug 26 14:25:56 2006 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 10:55:56 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] fwdfyi: Amsterdam Radio Ballet - act conformism out of your system ... Message-ID: <20060826085556.GA42191@xs4all.nl> Reading this, I was strongly reminded of the 'airplane turns back to Schiphol airport' incident where 12 people were wrongfuly detained for 'suspicious behavior'. The crime of these people was clearly not to 'conform', in dress, talk & body language, generally in being different - and exhuberant. Resistance against this increasingly oppressive demand to conform (on the new - biometric - Dutch passport, your picture is not allowed to smile!) in all previously know as 'public' places, but now (in the West at least) increasingly looking like concentration camps or the transports to the same, is feeble and haphazard. The situation is not joyful when you have to count Michael O'Leary, the rabid anti-union boss of Ryannair (aka 'Crusty Airline' ;-) among your very few allies in the struggle against government autorities and media platforms gone bersek... But here's a little something.... ----- Forwarded message from Josephine Bosma ----- To: nettime-nl at nettime.org From: Josephine Bosma Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 07:49:02 +0200 Subject: [Nettime-nl] Radio LIGNA / Radioballet / Sept 2nd 13:30h LIGNA invites I Am(not)sterdam 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body Saturday September 2nd | 13.30 pm Radio Patapoe 88.3 FM and Radio Ruigoord 90.3 FM Location: Leidsestraat Bring your own radios and mobile phone receivers! Radio receivers also distributed at De Balie, Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam. I Am(not)sterdam - 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body ________________________________________________________________ Amsterdam Inc. In the streets of Amsterdam, we are not only inhabitants or visitors of the city, but we also are part of a brand, that blends the individual being and the city into a common identity: ?I amsterdam?. There is no being in the city without being the city. The public sphere becomes the showroom for the new brand Amsterdam. Deviant Behaviour The appearance of the inner city as showroom is a product of sanitizing policies, eviction, surveillance and control. The latter is not only executed by police, and security personnel, but also by ourselves, as we have internalized modes of self-control and ?proper? behaviour. In the beat of the corporate city we confirm this logic by simply repeating the same set of fixed gestures again and again: walking around, stopping, looking in the shop windows, exchanging money for commodities. No rule is needed forbidding deviation: individual deviation is already part of the city branding. 'I amsterdam' means diversity. But what happens if we fail to repeat these gestures, and invent alien gestures on a collective scale? Can we, as inhabitants and visitors of Amsterdam, intervene in its regulated urban rhythm without becoming incorporated in the city?s branding? Radio ballet The Radio Ballet I Am(not)sterdam challenges you to find an answer! The radio ballet consists of a radio broadcast, especially produced for the Leidsestraat. It will suggest 10 different exercises to get the city out of your body. As a dispersed collective of participants, we perform deviant gestures (according to the script of the radio ballet), which would normally be impossible to do on an individual basis. Can we subvert the logic of the corporate city, by not subjecting ourselves to it anymore? Come and find out! Be part of the Radio Ballet in the Leidsestraat on Saturday, 2nd of September 2006! I Am(not)sterdam! Dispersed collectivity instead of common identity! Don?t subject to the corporate city - become alien by public radio listening! >>>>>>>>>>more info somewhere on www.debalie.nl <<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>> - -- ______________________________________________________ * Verspreid via nettime-nl. Commercieel gebruik niet * toegestaan zonder toestemming. is een * open en ongemodereerde mailinglist over net-kritiek. * Meer info, archief & anderstalige edities: * http://www.nettime.org/. * Contact: Menno Grootveld (rabotnik at xs4all.nl). - ----- End forwarded message ----- From gmc at sonologic.nl Sat Aug 26 15:18:09 2006 From: gmc at sonologic.nl (Koen Martens) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 11:48:09 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] airplane returns In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44F018D9.8030307@sonologic.nl> reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote: > "I saw 11 Arabic people arrested before I got kicked out the > plane. They were > treated like dogs. The way they got arrested inside the plane with > everyone > seeing how they got treated, I thought it was inhuman," said a > passenger. > > "They did not hit them but they pushed them. But they let them > surely > feel that > they have no power. The passengers were not allowed to even look > back. They > were all told to look in front," recalled another. > >http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&slug=Relieved+passengers+arrive+in+Mumbai&id=92067 I wonder what really happened. Dutch media are now reporting, that upon coming home at an airport in India, the men claimed 'we were treated very well by the dutch authorities' and asked the press to drop the case. Also, the dutch authorities have been very secretive about what was really going on. So I wonder what they have done to 'silence' the 12 men. Did they offer them a lot of money? Did they threaten to detain them longer? And one thing that does not get enough attention in my opinion is that the plane dumped a lot of kerosine in a lake before landing. This has great environmental consequences of which we hear nothing! Gr, Koen -- K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/ Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence. Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/ From office at humanrightskerala.com Sun Aug 27 03:54:25 2006 From: office at humanrightskerala.com (CHRO) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 17:24:25 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] One more phony web based Human Rights Organization from Gujarat? Message-ID: The following page from the "CHRO Confederation of Human Rights Organizations, Kerala" website has been sent to you by CHRO ( office at humanrightskerala.com ). You can access it at the following url: http://www.humanrightskerala.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4235&Itemid=5 From machine at zerosofzeta.com Sun Aug 27 13:29:01 2006 From: machine at zerosofzeta.com (Yogesh Girdhar) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 13:29:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Kerala logs Microsoft out Message-ID: <1d804b40608270059u48132b05oa5c97db91f47e809@mail.gmail.com> This is good news. I hope rest of the country follows. ---------------- URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=138497 Kerala logs Microsoft out M SARITA VARMA Thiruvananthapruam, August 26: After the cola ban, it is now the turn of Microsoft to log out of Kerala. Children in 12,500 high schools in the state, India's most literate, will not be taught Windows. Instead, instructors are lining up Linux for them. This is because Kerala has chalked out a plan for migrating its high school students to free software platforms in three years. Although Linux was already blipping on the Kerala IT at School project radar, and the plans of VS Achuthanandan's government to develop the state as a Foss (free and open software systems) destination has expedited the open software plans. "Free software guru Richard Stallman's visit last week had nudged the schools to discard the proprietary software altogether," state education minister MA Baby told FE. "Stallman has inspired Kerala's transition to free software on the lines of an exciting model of a Spanish province, which did the same," the minister said. The Left Democratic Front government targets implementing an earlier government order that was issued during the previous United Democratic Front regime. The decision was taken in 2004 to push open source systems, but this was not actively followed, said Baby. Initially, schools were given the option to choose whether teachers were to be trained in Linux systems or Microsoft. The option has now narrowed down to migration. In the current year, class VIII students have shifted to Linux. By 2007, class XI students and by 2008 class X students will follow suit. Linux PC dealers are upbeat. "Offers of pre-loaded Linux operating system could fetch good hardware sales margins," says PK Harikrishnan, president, Kerala Computer Manufacturers' and Dealers' Association. There are other reasons as well. A sting operation by Microsoft in October 2005 had not endeared the proprietary software to PC and peripherals dealers. Often PC vendors are caught between customers' demand for free pirated software along with hardware, and the fine print of law. Some dealers in Kerala even see the Foss market as a narrow, but a safe corridor out of this mess. From interface.lists at ab-a.net Sun Aug 27 13:51:39 2006 From: interface.lists at ab-a.net (Anand Bhatt) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 13:51:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Kerala logs Microsoft out In-Reply-To: <1d804b40608270059u48132b05oa5c97db91f47e809@mail.gmail.com> References: <1d804b40608270059u48132b05oa5c97db91f47e809@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44F15613.9050101@ab-a.net> Yogesh Girdhar wrote: > This is good news. I hope rest of the country follows. > I believe several government departments have been replacing micro$oft office tools (Election Commission and Delhi Government for sure) from their PC. A steady migration to Opensource will continue. Could one act to accelerate this process? There are several court judgements etc., in favour of Opensource where available already? From sushmitagarima at yahoo.co.in Sat Aug 26 20:40:46 2006 From: sushmitagarima at yahoo.co.in (sushmita garima) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 16:10:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] need help... Message-ID: <20060826151046.44721.qmail@web7907.mail.in.yahoo.com> Hii actually i am a mass communication student and i have to make a project on Karuna Banerjee..and i am not getting enough material. i have got few materials on Google...can u help me.. tahnks bye regards Sushmita Garima --------------------------------- Here's a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers Send FREE SMS to your friend's mobile from Yahoo! Messenger Version 8. Get it NOW -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060826/30b5ec55/attachment.html From aadityadar at gmail.com Sun Aug 27 01:29:47 2006 From: aadityadar at gmail.com (Aaditya Dar) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 01:29:47 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? In-Reply-To: <20060825105747.59827.qmail@web32415.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <210498250608240640u6e40e751q2eb9febde9743771@mail.gmail.com> <20060825105747.59827.qmail@web32415.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Kiran: An application to the SHO of the area is required to be submitted, who thereafter approves it. The application can be rejected, if as the shivam says, the act/demonstration may turn violent. Shivam: You missed the broader point of the press release, which was that the student body activists were allowed to have a free run in the campus. Hired Hands were allowed in Campus, which is in contradiction to what the code of conduct states. The same hired hands also indulged in incidents of eve-teasing. Also, the bill was approved by the cabinet in the late evening. Since, permission could not be taken in such a short span of time, permission from the SHO was not taken. However, the Security Officer, Delhi University was informed, he was in touch with us, even visited us, and found no problems. Moreover, an application was sent to the SHO- the first thing in the morning. and just to clear the air, i'm against caste based reservations extended to OBCs- by increasing the seats, the problem (which for the me is the reservation policy) still exists. Plus, its operationally unfeasible. regards aaditya On 25/08/06, S.Shashidhar wrote: > > The best way to hurt a joker is to ignore him, please > brother for the sake of Mr. Shivam's sanity leave him > alone, he thiks people from a pro active protest > movement are jokers and theater artists, what ever be > the cause, soon he will call people from the NBA > wailers and no cause exepct his own will be big enough > for him. He dislikes opposition, he dislikes different > opinions and voices.. well well people like him are > very welcome. > > May us jokers get cannoed every day > > --- Shivam Vij wrote: > > > Kiran, I do not know exactly what the NoC > > requirements are, but roughly, the > > Station Head Officer judges if the proposed protest > > could in any way disturb > > 'law and order', that is, turn violent. More > > controversially, an NoC may be > > denied if it is felt that the protest may *provoke* > > violence. It's a bit > > like the issues of hate speech and censorship. > > > > Which reminds me, I've been thinking lately of Delhi > > as a City of Protest. > > The discourse of street protest is dominated of > > course by the leftist > > protest, replete with songs and street theatre. What > > a wonderful film it > > would make! One could stage a protest just for the > > documentary, and violate > > the route map given by the organiser to the police, > > enter "VIP zones" and > > get water canons fired upon. > > > > Are the Youth for Equality actors looking for work? > > Do let me know. > > > > best, > > s > > > > On 8/24/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda > > wrote: > > > > > > On 23-Aug-06, at 1:32 PM, Shivam Vij wrote: > > > > > > > There are well known norms of street protest - a > > No Objection > > > > Certificate from the police station, informing > > the police station > > > > of the route of your protest etc. > > > > > > Shivam, > > > > > > What is the procedure for obtaining a No Objection > > Certificate? Are > > > there any conditions under which one may be > > refused? > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Kiran Jonnalagadda > > > http://jace.seacrow.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. > > To unsubscribe: > > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > List archive: > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: -- AY+IbAA aadityadar at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060827/8a354dcb/attachment.html From zzjamaal at yahoo.co.in Sun Aug 27 03:07:05 2006 From: zzjamaal at yahoo.co.in (khalid jamal) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2006 22:37:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] My Dear diary's IPO Message-ID: <20060826213705.31566.qmail@web8611.mail.in.yahoo.com> Hi! This is just a re-production of one page of my daily diary. Today’s page. I am convinced that if diarists are paid anything, anywhere in the world, I will not starve. I read somewhere, sometime that a “personal narrative in a public domain has “its” own dynamics”. My English then, was, as it is today. Weak. So I didn’t understand this too well and that put a full of my agreeing to it or not. Over all these days, I made a lot of friends and one of them is Rapidex, with the help of whom I now understand it and wants to see “its” dynamics. So I am putting a personal narrative in a public domain. Keen, restless and hungry for the feedback that you may send at your own risk: For, “I may respond”. Aug 26.2006. 11-30 PM My Room Mughal Aps. Zakir Nagar. A long day, indeed! My bike is growing younger day by day and I am enjoying it km by km. Ever since I have studied about camera in my post-graduation, I have started thinking a lot about it “If I had a camera ready, I would have taken the shot of guy sleeping on the edge of the loaded -rickety truck , pacing fast on a buzzing crowded ring road of Delhi while I am on my way to meet a friend in greater noida on this new toll bridge, where these robbers are robbing us of eight rupees/one way in the broad daylight, with the help of some Japanese who are not seen around but are collecting the toll .” “And if I had a camera, I have taken picture of Ammijaan, now that she is sleeping, still wearing her old worn-out specs she loves dearly because daddy bought it.Wrincles on her forehead worries me because she’s yet to attend Gudia’s and Pappu bhai’s marriage, become my wife’s mother-in-law and grandmother of at least half a dozen, assuming our Govt’s DTC bus- sonnet “ Hum do.Humare do..” Each for three of us. Infact, the very thought of the camera while I am riding a bike, with the headphones plugged into my ears , and wire fixed at the other end of my cell phone’s fm radio at full-volume, converts me into a camera with damn good lenses and no focus ring. Now I look at the big luxurious Sita Travels bus ahead of me..some 100 meters ahead. My eyes takes long shot(LS), and abruptly zooms-in on to the iron bar, ordering “Keep distance” fitted at the rear of it, my hand turns the throttle and bike dollys-in Now I am just 3 feet away with the two words in sharp focus in a CU.I tilt up to take a low-angle shot of few human heads with variety of hair-style. MCU. There‘s a traffic signal ahead. I can’t see it. I know it. The throttle turns back, allowing the bus to move ahead and I am back to the long shot. Well, I forgot to mention a couple of cut-aways in the rear- view mirror of this middle aged man approaching me on his Bajaj scooty and this red old Maruti 800 overtaking taking me from left. I stay on a LS as the road is abandoned but slowing I am approaching a flyover to switch to a tilt-up LS , almost immediately reaching the peak and start climbing down, in a high angle tilt-down shot The journey goes on for another 16 kms and I continue to jump from one shot to another until my phone rings, music goes off and there’s “jump”. No cut yet I met Jasvinder and spent time in his newly bought house. I liked the door. I like open doors and closed windows with people having no-hot- head and no-cold- heart. I was not lucky to get it all today, except the open-door. So in fifteen minutes, which I spent in collecting my notes and in swallowing the cold coffee, without sugar and single- toned milk amids hot heads and cold hearts. Now, I was on my way to Sarai. Today’s a Presentation’s third day and mine’ first. But I am glad even today, there would be breaks filled with good tea & crispy biscuits. I will also have sexuality, post-modernism, colonial history, work culture and many such painful terrains after which we would arrive at dinner There’s surely nothing like free lunch and free dinner either I liked the food.( as I always do), and noticed few little kids who came with their parents and loitered around, in innocence, adding a kind of ventilation to this space which is, by now, full, with people doing serious and deep work on the terrains I mentioned above. May God bless them and their victims In the midst of all the conversation, beer, chicken, paneer tikkas and beverages someone, with a pat on my back, told me something that took me back to AIIMS, a premier hospital in Delhi. It was 25th Feb. 2005. Wednesday.11am. 7th floor. C-7 ward. I was sitting in the corridor watching my daddy lying on the bed, equipped with all the possible medical gadgets and surrounded by restless, and reportedly, meritorious doctors. The time on the big circular white wall-clock, with a layer of dust on its glasses, was exactly 11.02 am. In the next 20 minutes, daddy would make his final departure. I some how sensed it. I loved daddy dearly and I know he loved this place, his workplace dearly too. But at that moment I hated it. So I moved and sat at the door few yards away. All the memories I had of him, was scanning through my mind as if I was now a scanner. I wanted to do some thing because I knew I was not and that I didn’t want daddy to leave. In my helplessness, I looked up and found an old man gazing at me. He asked me if I could take him to the stiching room. I found some thing to do. So I stood up and took him to the concerned unit. He said we was in hurry because he had to go to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife, to which I thought of my Ammi at home, unaware,unknown. I managed to enquire about her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was victim of Alzheimer’s disease. While we were standing, the doctor called him. He had his stiches removed and asked me if I could help him get an auto. I agreed and went down with him. On my way, I kept thinking about daddy, on that white hospital- bed and Ammi at home ,and unintentionally asked him if his wife would be worried if he was a bit late.. He replied she no longer knows who he was and that she had not recognized him in five years.. I was taken aback, again, and asked, “And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?” He smiled, patted my hand and said, “Son, she doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.” He left. I saw his auto leaving with those familiar words: Keep Distance. When I returned to C-7, daddy had indeed kept a distance. My sister was crying inconsolably. Daddy was no more. But the lesson that I learnt from the old man, didn’t let me cry. I wanted to, though. But I knew that true love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be and will not be. If only we could prevent our mind from thinking like a camera, like a scanner, like a human being..Sometimes, life would be so much easier.. It’s the new day and has rendered one digit on the calendar useless Will return with life’s new day’s menu. Welcome Aug 27,2006. ONE LIFE. ONE SHOT. Happiness, Health & Peace, Syed Khalid Jamal --------------------------------- Here's a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers Send FREE SMS to your friend's mobile from Yahoo! Messenger Version 8. Get it NOW -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060826/2fedd175/attachment.html From epk at xs4all.nl Mon Aug 28 02:01:54 2006 From: epk at xs4all.nl (Eric Kluitenberg) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:31:54 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] De Balie Sept 1-3: The Public Desire - in search of new forms of public culture... Message-ID: A N N O U N C E M E N T The Public Desire In search of new forms of public culture... September 1, 2 & 3, 2006 De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics Amsterdam Admission free – please reserve! http://www.debalie.nl/agenda After the age of individualisation, now the ‘public’ seems to be the focus of attention. In the first weekend of September (2006), De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam, will explore the new forms of public culture, which we think we see emerging in all kinds of unlikely places around us - primarily by asking questions such as: Where are the new forms of public discourse and debate? Is a new shape of the ‘public’ without movements emerging? How does such a thing work? How important are the new forms of knowledge sharing such as Wikipedia and the various digital commons? How sustainable are they? How to handle public fear and the obsession for public safety and hyper-surveillance? How can we utilise public space in novel ways as a space of encounter and surprise, rather than an extended shopping mall (beyond ‘reclaim the streets’)? The challenge is to go beyond the eternal lamentations of the decline and fall of the ‘public” (public space / public man / public culture). Merely offering a critique is not enough. The critique needs to be updated and nuanced, public culture needs to be reinvented! There is such a thing as society! The 1990s are sometimes described as the era without social movements. In-between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crash of Nasdaq many residents of Western countries lived in a happy illusion that liberalism and democracy had achieved their final victory (the illusion of the ‘End of History’). With this triumph public culture seemed a redundant anachronistic notion henceforth. However, recent events have shown that public culture is remarkably alive - from the World Social Fora, to the mass mobilisation against the CPE-labour laws in France and the on-going precarity debate, to the cultures of information and knowledge sharing of the digital commons in their various guises. The era without (the necessity) of social movements appears to be over, but the new social formations are unfamiliar, heterogeneous, puzzling, contradictory, in need of clarification... The Public Desire is a kaleidoscopic weekend program full of debates, conversations, performances, interventions, public cinema, art projects and discussions about old and new forms of public culture. Background materials, detailed descriptions and program information can all be found in the special web dossier on the Balie website: http://www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=51947 ------------------------------------ PROGRAM OVERVIEW (of English and ‘non-verbal’ programs - click the URLs for details or scroll below) * Saturday September 2 – from 13.30 hrs Radio Ballet LIGNA I Am[not]sterdam. 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body” Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62935 * Saturday September 2 - 15.00 hrs Issue Politics - From Parties to Issues Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62483 * Sunday September 3 – 11.00 hrs Permanent Breakfast Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62943 * Sunday September 3 - 15.00 hrs: From Open Source to Open Knowledge Discussion about the public accessibility of scientific knowledge Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=media&articleid=63175 * Sunday September 3 - 20.30 hrs Creative Class Struggles or Creative Precarity: On the creatives and their class consciousness Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62459 Live webcasts: All these programs can also be followed live via internet as videostream and mp3 audio. For details please refer to: http://www.debalie.nl/live PROGRAM DETAILS: * Saturday September 2 – from 13.30 hrs Radio Ballet LIGNA I Am[not]sterdam. 10 Exercises to get the City out of your Body” The free radio group LIGNA exists since 1995. LIGNA consists of the media theorists and radio artists Ole Frahm, Michael Hüners, and Torsten Michaelsen, who since the early nineties have been working at the "Freies Sender Kombinat" (FSK), a public non-profit radio station in Hamburg. In several shows and performances they have been investigating the importance of dispersal in radio as well as of the radio. One of the main focuses is to refer to forgotten and remote possibilities of radio use in order to develop new forms of interactive practices. Another emphasis has been placed on the development of concepts and the production of performative audio plays in order to find out how radio can intervene in public and controlled spaces, so that its public nature reappears in the form of uncontrollable situations The “Radio Ballet” is an excellent example of the latter: it is a radio play produced for the collective reception in certain public places. It gives the dispersed radio listeners the opportunity, to subvert the regulations of the space. Held for the first time in Hamburg’s Central Station in 2002, this focused on how radio can intervene in public and controlled spaces, so that its public nature reappears in the form of uncontrollable situations. Yet, Ligna's performances aim to confront the privatised, controlled production of capitalism with the dispersed, yet collective, uncanny and public production of the radio. The Radio Ballet brought back excluded gestures of deviant behavior were invited to enter the station, equipped with cheap, portable radios and earphones. By means of these devices they could listen to a radio program consisting of a choreography suggesting permitted and forbidden gestures (to beg, to sit or lie down on the floor etc.). These suggestions were interrupted by reflections on the public space and on the Radio ballet itself. The Radio Ballet I Am[not]sterdam, especially developed for De Balie, consists of a radio broadcast, produced for the Leidsestraat in Amsterdam. The radio broadcast will suggest ten different exercises to get the city out of your body. The dispersed collective of radio listeners will be able to perform deviant gestures that no one would or could do alone. Is it possible to subvert the logic of the corporate city, if people do not subject themselves to it anymore? Come and find out! Become part of the LIGNA Radio Ballet in the Leidsestraat on Saturday, 2nd of September 2006! The Radio Ballet starts at 14:00. You can get radios at De Balie from 13:30 on. But better bring your own radios, or mobile phones with receiver! The Ballet will be broadcasted on the Frequency of Radio Patapoe 88,3 FM. I Am[not]sterdam! Dispersed collectivity instead common identity! Don ´t subject to the corporate city - become alien by public radio listening! Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62935 * Saturday September 2 - 15.00 hrs Issue Politics From Parties to Issues Social and political mobilisation is increasingly centred on Issues rather than ideologies or ‘political programs’. Without issues there no longer is a public to enlist for a collective task. A critique. ‘Don’t be happy - be worried!’ is what Noortje Marres writes in her PHD thesis No Issue, No Public - Democratic Deficits after the Displacement of Politics, which she defended in November 2005 at the University of Amsterdam. The political establishment has been discussing the widening gap between citizens and the state / government for many years now, but still refuses to call her own institutional structures into question. Understandable perhaps, but Marres points out that issues play an increasingly important role in public life and therefore also in political life. People mobilise less and less around collective notions of political identity, and increasingly around social and political issues they are concerned about and that they are unable to resolve individually. Many issues, furthermore, are uninhibited by the traditional ideological dividing lines that appear redundant and often seem to stand in the way of finding effective collective arrangements. Asked differently - is the structure of representative democracy, with its political parties and systems of representation of the people still adequate for a time in which citizens organise themselves ever more effectively, discuss among themselves about countless issues on web fora and set up their own local constituencies? Is it correct to speak about a ‘crisis of democracy’, or should we rather speak of a ‘crisis’ of the political system? And aren’t we witnessing an unprecedented flourishing of democracy, everywhere except in ‘The Hague’ and ‘Brussels’? Discussion with Noortje Marres, political philosopher and researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Michel Feher, philosopher, cofounder of Zone Books and author of Powerless by Design, a critique of the ‘international community’, Inge van der Vlies, professor of administrative and constitutional law, University of Amsterdam, Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Women on Waves and Emer Beamer, artist and organiser of a range of ‘civic education’ projects. Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62483 * Sunday September 3 – 11.00 hrs Permanent Breakfast On the morning of may 1st 1996 a group of artists around Friedemann Derschmidt began to breakfast in public places. The idea is quite simple and catching: one person invites others to breakfast. The invited persons ( usually 4 ) commit themselves to invite others to a public breakfast on the next possible date. And so on. As a matter of fact, the public breakfast became a kind of cult, and more often people could be seen taking a seat at a beautifully set breakfast table standing on a spare parking space in a parking lot, an empty dysfunctional fountain or in parks or malls. Among the places were breakfasts where breakfasts have taken place are Vienna, Tokio, Kharthoum, Qualandia chechpoint (between Jerusalem and Ramallah) and London. This initiative can be seen as an attack on the decline of public space and it tries to focus peoples attention to a collective experience in public space. Passers-by are invited to join in and to have breakfast with utter strangers. This way the breakfast acts as a sort of social interface, reclaiming the commercialised and regulated public space. On Sunday September 3rd the Leidseplein transforms into a public breakfast table. Starting at 11.00 am we reclaim the square as a place where we can all join in and listen to speeches, share personal stories and meet new friends! Speeches are in Dutch, the food is tasty in all sorts of languages! Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62943 * Sunday September 3 - 15.00 hrs: From Open Source to Open Knowledge Discussion about the public accessibility of scientific knowledge In a knowledge economy and network society free access to information and knowledge are indispensable for a healthy development of public culture. While we are technologically more able to share knowledge and information world-wide than ever before, valuable knowledge is increasingly locked up behind invincible intellectual property rights clauses. Exchange of such knowledge is confined to researchers and their patrons. When knowledge does not circulate it is also less likely to be critically tested, and even less likely to filter down in the rest of society. alternatives to these restricted knowledge practices are therefore considered in many different places, One important source of inspiration for new practices of knowledge sharing is the open source movement that originates from the realm of software development. By collaborating, sharing tasks and building on each others results a viable alternative model has emerged here for the traditional closed industrial model of software production. It has lead to lower prices and higher availability of countless products and services. These principles are now translated to other domains of intellectual / knowledge production. The collectively written on-line encyclopaedia Wikipedia is probably one of the most well known and internationally visible example of this “open knowledge” principle. This development provides a tremendous impetus for the discussion about the public accessibility of scientific knowledge; for non- specialists, interest groups, but also internationally for people in countries that need such knowledge most urgently but only have severely restricted access to vital information and knowledge resources. The move from open source to open knowledge calls forth many questions: How does such an open knowledge system actually function? How is it financed? How can the sustainability of the various open knowledge initiatives be strengthened? What is the influence of open source principles and such initiatives as creative commons and Wikipedia and others on public culture? A discussion with: Saul Albert (artists and writer from London, he is cofounder of the initiative The People Speak which deals in its collaborative projects (for instance Talkaoke, Distributed Library) with notions of democratised media), Ronald Beelaard (Wikimedia Nederland, ended up with Wikipedia through his board function with a public library and is one of the moderators of the Dutch Wikipedia), Sebastian Lütgert (artist and software programmer from Berlin, whose internet projects such as ROLUX, textz.com en Pirate Cinema are often related to opening up knowledge and information to free exchange and distribution and the negation of intellectual property rights. In 2004 Lütgert became the object of absurd legal proceedings over the on-line publication of texts of Theodor W. Adorno.) Paul Keller (Creative Commons Nederland, is head of the Public Domain Program of the Waag Society in Amsterdam and is an active member of the European noborder network). Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=media&articleid=63175 * Sunday September 3 - 20.30 hrs Creative Class Struggles or Creative Precarity: On the creatives and their class consciousness In recent years the “creative class” is regarded as the avant garde of Western economic development. Cities proclaim themselves to be ‘creative cities’. They roll out the red carpets for creative workers with equally creative marketing campaigns. Although the term “creative class” appears to refer to the traditional socio-economic definition, in fact an unheard of diversity of professions is subsumed under this heading: fashion designers, journalists, financial consultants, ICT experts, artists, graphic designers, and advertising professionals. The most important characteristic all these groups seem to share is a fast and flexible life- and work-style. Work doesn’t stop here at office hours, but continues into the ‘late hours’, and one continuously has to be up to date with latest developments in the field. These mobile, highly educated, and flexibly deployable employees - cultural entrepreneurs - are presented by policy makers as an ideal for the European labour market, which is transforming itself thoroughly to become ‘the most competitive knowledge economy of the world’. Concurrent with the discussion about the creative class another discussion has gained momentum, about another and comparably diverse class; that of precarious labour. Precarious here means uncertain, hazardous - as in the ‘precarious balance’ of a rope-dancer. This new class of employee usually operates in serial temporary and flexible work arrangements, and has no predictable security about income, pensions, or guarantees about the future availability of social benefits or chances for self-improvement in a Europe where the welfare state has become a thing of the past. A remarkable form of social mobilisation has surfaced around the issue of precarity, in one of the most unlikely areas where it could have been expected; the domain of free and flexible labour. Both classes, the creative and the precarious, merge to some extent. Artists are obviously highly familiar with such precarious living and working conditions ever since their professional group was first invented. Reasons for some to speak about a “creative under-class” or a “creative class-struggle”. Many members of this ‘creative under- class’ are involved in voluntary labour; they share information and ideas with each other and could become the founders of a new public domain (2.0), a “creative common”. The growing identification of the cultural and creative sector as an economic domain does raise the question however if it is still possible to escape from such stifling economic utilitarianism? As part of this concluding evening of the weekend of public culture at De Balie the Creative Workers Manifesto will be presented, a call for decent creative labour conditions. Discussion with; Ned Rossiter, researcher University of Ulster, Belfast, kpD / kleines post-fordistisches Drama (Marion von Osten, artist and independent theorist, Katja Reichard, independent bookstore Pro qm and organiser of autonomous culture events, Berlin), Mei Li Vos political scientist and chairwoman of the Alternatief Voor Vakbond (Alternative for Labour Union), and contributions by Flexmens.org and Greenpepper Magazine. Master of ceremonies for the evening is Max Bruinsma, design critic. Link: http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp? podiumid=politiek&articleid=62459 ------------------------- NOTE: All programs are admission free - however, please reserve a ticket in advance via the website of De Balie or the special reservation number +31.20.55 35 100 http://www.debalie.nl/agenda Details about live webcast videosterams & mp3 audio: http://www.debalie.nl/live (all time indications CET) Address: De Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Amsterdam http://www.debalie.nl Route / map: http://www.debalie.nl/route From jcm at ata.org.pe Mon Aug 28 14:53:32 2006 From: jcm at ata.org.pe (Jose-Carlos Mariategui) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 10:23:32 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] VIDA 9.0 - Art & Artificial Life International Competition Message-ID: Art & Artificial Life International Competition VIDA 9.0 20,000 euros in prizes 20,000 euros for new Iberoamerican productions Submission entry dates: September 15th-October 16th, 2006. Deadline: October 16th, 2006. http://www.telefonica.es/vida VIDA 9.0 is the eighth edition of an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines. We are looking for artistic projects that address the interaction between “synthetic” and “organic” life, as well as innovative projects that further develop the field of Artificial Life. In previous years prizes have been awarded to projects that included autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life. Applicants should refer to awards previously granted at VIDA’s web page (http://www.telefonica.es/vida) to determine suitability of their project. Some of the issues explored may include, but are not limited to: - How autonomous agents shape and interpret our data-saturated environment. - How artifacts (robotics, artificial intelligence, wetware, etc) challenge pre-existing notions of what is “human”, “natural” and “alive”. - How empathy is created between artificial entities and ourselves. - The anthropomorphization of the datasphere and its inhabitants. - How interactive systems may be designed to spark interest in emerging phenomena involving Artificial Life. Awards There is a total of €20,000 in prizes for the three projects selected by the jury: First prize: €10,000 (*) Second prize: €7,000 (*) Third prize: €3,000 (*) Awarded projects may be exhibited in projects organized by the Fundación Telefónica, related to new media art. Submitted projects must be realized after September 2004. Each project must be submitted as a 5-10-minute video with voice-over narration in either English or Spanish describing the artistic concept and the technological realization of the project presented. The jury's decision will be based almost entirely on the video. Participants must provide a VHS tape (PAL, NTSC or SECAM format) or DVD (preferably region-free) for the jury. If the work is awarded a prize or an honorary mention, you will be asked to provide a video of professional-quality format (Dvcam, Betacam, U-Matic, MiniDV) for inclusion in The Best of VIDA 9.0 DVD. The competition is open to participants from all over the world; however, each participant may present only one project. To register, read the competition rules, complete and sign the application form and submit it together with the tape to Fundación Telefónica in Madrid before October 16th, 2006. Application material can also be delivered to Fundación Telefónica headquarters in Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Lima. (Addresses included below). For the video and the VIDA 9.0 web site, we also require the following in either English or Spanish (printed and a copy on CD): - A short biography (150-200 words) of the author(s). - A description of the concept inspiring the project. - Technical information about the project. - One to three images (slides, photos or high-quality scans on CD or the Internet). - A transcription of the video narration. The application form contains the information required on the material that must be supplied to register for the competition. Iberoamerican Production Prizes VIDA 9.0 will help produce from 1 to 3 projects exploring Artificial Life and related disciplines of artists residing in Iberoamerica (Spain, Portugal and Latin America). With prize money totaling €20,000 (*), this category includes prizes meeting the following criteria: relevant concept, proven quality in previous works and evidence of the artist's ability to produce the piece. The prize is an incentive for production, not a subsidy to cover the total expenses of a project. Consequently, value is placed on the participant's capacity to secure the technical, financial and logistic infrastructure needed to produce the piece. Each project must be described in a document containing no more than 2,000 words. The text must include details of the concepts and techniques to be used to develop the piece. Diagrams, sketches and any other material that supports the proposal and help the jury understand how the piece works should be included. The competition is open to participants from anywhere in Latin America, Spain or Portugal. Proposals may be sent in Spanish, Portuguese or English. However, each participant may present only one project. The winners are required to submit a video (DVD or VHS) with a voice-over narration a year after being selected. The video should explain the results of the production, the artistic concept and the technological realization. To register, read the competition rules, complete and sign the application form and send it to Fundación Telefónica before 16 October 2006. The application form contains the information required to register for the competition. Jury The works submitted will be examined by an international jury that will meet in Madrid early November. The names of the prize-winners and the special mentions will be announced Monday November 6th during a round table attended by all the members of the jury. The jury's decision will be final. Members of the jury: Sally Jane Norman, France/New Zealand (Chairperson) Jonah Brucker-Cohen, USA Mónica Bello Bugallo, Spain Daniel Canogar, Spain José-Carlos Mariátegui, Peru Nell Tenhaaf, Canada; Video If your work is awarded a prize or a special mention, you will be asked to provide a tape in professional-quality format for inclusion in a DVD titled The Best of VIDA 9.0, which will be broadcast on specialized programs, shown at festivals and distributed to libraries and university around the world. The purpose of the production of a top-quality video production is to compile the winning artistic projects together in one volume in order to publicize, and stimulate future creative explorations of artificial life. The video will be published after the jury has selected the best works. Authors will receive a free copy. The video will be a non-profit venture and will not be for sale. The authors whose works appear on the video will be clearly identified in the credits. See the section titled RIGHTS for further information. Submission entry dates: September 15th-October 16th, 2006. Deadline: October 16th, 2006. November 2nd-5th, 2006: deliberation of the jury in Madrid. November 6th, 2006: Announcement of winners. For further information about the competition, please write to: Angeles Perez-Muela: angeles.perezmuela at telefonica.es. Doubts regarding suitability of project or proposal should be addressed to: (in English) Sally Jane Norman: s.j.norman at newcastle.ac.uk. (in Spanish) Daniel Canogar: daniel at danielcanogar.com. From fmadre at free.fr Mon Aug 28 16:23:57 2006 From: fmadre at free.fr (fmadre at free.fr) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 12:53:57 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] airplane returns In-Reply-To: <20060826064202.65420.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060826064202.65420.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060828125357.a4f79odmo00s0og0@imp4.free.fr> Quoting gowhar fazli : > What do you think of the suggestion that these twelve > partying Indians were taken around the country to > speak to public about there European experience? one of them is telling his story already http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1049585 Do > you think this would be educative? Can some group > like Combat Colonialism undertake this? what is "combat colonialism" ? f. From fmadre at free.fr Mon Aug 28 16:36:55 2006 From: fmadre at free.fr (fmadre at free.fr) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:06:55 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Kerala logs Microsoft out In-Reply-To: <1d804b40608270059u48132b05oa5c97db91f47e809@mail.gmail.com> References: <1d804b40608270059u48132b05oa5c97db91f47e809@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060828130655.ttntl3jm8kc0wsw4@imp4.free.fr> sure, but isn't the cola ban more important ? at least it seems to me to be really specific of india, I have heard of no such move anywhere in the world pepsi and coca have much more users than microsoft and they are using those products from their own "free will" (or something like that... ads, etc) whereas most microsoft users have the product thrust on them and are mostly helpless about it f. Quoting Yogesh Girdhar : > This is good news. I hope rest of the country follows. > > ---------------- > URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=138497 > > Kerala logs Microsoft out > > M SARITA VARMA > > Thiruvananthapruam, August 26: After the cola ban, it is now the turn > of Microsoft to log out of Kerala. From jace at pobox.com Mon Aug 28 14:10:45 2006 From: jace at pobox.com (Kiran Jonnalagadda) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:10:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Where did Democracy go? In-Reply-To: References: <210498250608240640u6e40e751q2eb9febde9743771@mail.gmail.com> <20060825105747.59827.qmail@web32415.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Incidentally, does anyone have a take on Satish Deshpande's deconstruction of merit in EPW, June 17? Link: Kiran On 27-Aug-06, at 1:29 AM, Aaditya Dar wrote: > Kiran: An application to the SHO of the area is required to be > submitted, who thereafter approves it. The application can be > rejected, if as the shivam says, the act/demonstration may turn > violent. Shivam: You missed the broader point of the press > release, which was that the student body activists were allowed to > have a free run in the campus. Hired Hands were allowed in Campus, > which is in contradiction to what the code of conduct states. The > same hired hands also indulged in incidents of eve-teasing. Also, > the bill was approved by the cabinet in the late evening. Since, > permission could not be taken in such a short span of time, > permission from the SHO was not taken. However, the Security > Officer, Delhi University was informed, he was in touch with us, > even visited us, and found no problems. Moreover, an application > was sent to the SHO- the first thing in the morning. and just to > clear the air, i'm against caste based reservations extended to > OBCs- by increasing the seats, the problem (which for the me is the > reservation policy) still exists. Plus, its operationally > unfeasible. regards aaditya On 25/08/06, S.Shashidhar > wrote: > The best way to hurt a joker is to ignore him, please > brother for the sake of Mr. Shivam's sanity leave him > alone, he thiks people from a pro active protest > movement are jokers and theater artists, what ever be > the cause, soon he will call people from the NBA > wailers and no cause exepct his own will be big enough > for him. He dislikes opposition, he dislikes different > opinions and voices.. well well people like him are > very welcome. > > May us jokers get cannoed every day > > --- Shivam Vij < mallroad at gmail.com> wrote: > > > Kiran, I do not know exactly what the NoC > > requirements are, but roughly, the > > Station Head Officer judges if the proposed protest > > could in any way disturb > > 'law and order', that is, turn violent. More > > controversially, an NoC may be > > denied if it is felt that the protest may *provoke* > > violence. It's a bit > > like the issues of hate speech and censorship. > > > > Which reminds me, I've been thinking lately of Delhi > > as a City of Protest. > > The discourse of street protest is dominated of > > course by the leftist > > protest, replete with songs and street theatre. What > > a wonderful film it > > would make! One could stage a protest just for the > > documentary, and violate > > the route map given by the organiser to the police, > > enter "VIP zones" and > > get water canons fired upon. > > > > Are the Youth for Equality actors looking for work? > > Do let me know. > > > > best, > > s > > > > On 8/24/06, Kiran Jonnalagadda < jace at pobox.com> > > wrote: > > > > > > On 23-Aug-06, at 1:32 PM, Shivam Vij wrote: > > > > > > > There are well known norms of street protest - a > > No Objection > > > > Certificate from the police station, informing > > the police station > > > > of the route of your protest etc. > > > > > > Shivam, > > > > > > What is the procedure for obtaining a No Objection > > Certificate? Are > > > there any conditions under which one may be > > refused? > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Kiran Jonnalagadda > > > http://jace.seacrow.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. > > To unsubscribe: > > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > List archive: > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. > Critiques & Collaborations > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with > subscribe in the subject header. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: > > > > -- > AY+IbAA > aadityadar at gmail.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. > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://jace.seacrow.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060828/c69994e9/attachment.html From SKATYAL at law.fordham.edu Tue Aug 29 23:37:06 2006 From: SKATYAL at law.fordham.edu (Sonia Katyal) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:07:06 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] India and patents Message-ID: Friends: A great article on a very thought provoking issue, definitely worth thinking about.... "Now that Cisco, Intel, General Electric, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and dozens of other companies have established Indian research centers, some fear that India's potential intellectual property will increasingly flow to multinational companies. "They're using Indian IQ to create IP for themselves," says Mashelkar. "We need to exploit our local IQ to generate IP for ourselves."" http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17339&ch=biztech warmly, skk Sonia K. Katyal Associate Professor of Law Fordham Law School 140 W. 62nd St. New York, NY 10023 Send Email: http://law.fordham.edu/ihtml/bio.ihtml?id=766&template=jd Papers available at http://ssrn.com/author=115375 From sam at media.com.au Wed Aug 30 10:06:41 2006 From: sam at media.com.au (sam de silva) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 10:36:41 +0600 Subject: [Reader-list] Strong Angel - any views? Message-ID: <44F515D9.1050806@media.com.au> Hi, I wonder if there's any critique / views from the Nettime community on STRONG ANGEL 3 - http://www.strongangel3.net/ A friend of mine, here in Sri Lanka, attended the 'event' ... His writing on it can be found here: http://ict4peace.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/strong-angel-iii-final-observations/ I am interested in the military / civilian overlap / confusion / mash-up. Thanks, Sam. From shahzulf at yahoo.com Tue Aug 29 20:45:07 2006 From: shahzulf at yahoo.com (Zulfiqar Shah) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:15:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: PAKISTAN: UN Human Rights Council must respond to bombing of Balochistan Message-ID: <20060829151507.45149.qmail@web38807.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060829/34d37dba/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Subject: PAKISTAN: UN Human Rights Council must respond to bombing of Balochistan Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:09:05 +0800 Size: 8800 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20060829/34d37dba/attachment.mht From aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in Tue Aug 29 16:48:51 2006 From: aesthete at mail.jnu.ac.in (Dean School of Arts and Aesthetics) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:48:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] events at the School - associated with exhibition Message-ID: <1156850331.8d9c0720aesthete@mail.jnu.ac.in> In conjunction with Visual Voices of the Marginalized exhibition At the Gallery, School of Arts and Aesthetics We cordially invite you to the following events: A street play on August 31 A discussion forum on September 2 A film screening on September 2 Details: ************* STREET PLAY ************* Theatre of the Oppressed Presents Mera Bharat Mahaan At Ganga Dhaba 5:45 pm Thursday, August 31 ********************************* DISCUSSION FORUM ********************************* VOICE, VISION AND MARGINALITY ********************************* A discussion forum to debate ‘the nature of folk art,’ the relationship between art, political art and propaganda, the notion of the creative individual and collective creativity and related issues The discussion will be led by Dr Roma Chatterjee, Reader, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics. At the Auditorium of the School of Arts and Aesthetics 11:30 am Saturday, September 2 followed at 1:30 pm by a screening of *********************** New Delhi Private Limited A Documentary *********************** Delhi, like other mega cities, is being systematically transformed but for whose benefit? How is the notion of a world-class city being interpreted by and intervened in by different sets of people? The city is being ‘developed’ as a site of privatized elite consumption for those who can afford it, and being purged simultaneously of those who build and service it. The divide between the ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ city could not be sharper. This documentary juxtaposes expressions on Delhi - as it exists, as it is envisioned, is likely to become and perhaps should become – constructed as such by those seldom counted as its citizens. Director: Ravinder Randhawa Producer: The Hazards Centre Duration: 35 mins ============================================== 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 abhayraj at nls.ac.in Wed Aug 30 18:36:06 2006 From: abhayraj at nls.ac.in (Abhayraj Naik) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:36:06 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] attn: moderator - change of email address Message-ID: <1811.59.92.150.33.1156943166.squirrel@59.92.150.33> hi i will no longer be available on this email address after a couple of days. I'd appreciate it if my alternate email abhayraj.naik at hotmail dot com be added to the sarai reader list. thanks -- Abhayraj Naik From aarti at sarai.net Wed Aug 30 15:59:06 2006 From: aarti at sarai.net (Aarti Sethi) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:59:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Seminar at Sarai: Aditya Behl on the Dabistan-Mahazib Message-ID: <570DA81E-BD1C-4854-9069-F8B46A4C73B6@sarai.net> ============= Seminar @ Sarai ============= Aditya Behl will speak at SARAI-CSDS on Friday, 1st September 2006, at 5 P.M., Seminar Room, on the DABISTAN-MAZAHIB, the Mughal Encylcpaedia of Religion of the 1650s. There will also be a discussion on medieval Sufi poetry in Hindavi, also known as Sufi Premakhyans notably Madhu Malti by Manjhan, Jayasi's Padmavat and Qutban's Mrigavati. All are invited and we hope many friends will be able to attend. [Aditya Behl is currently, the chair of South Asian Studies Department at the University of Pennisylvania, Philadelphia. Professor Behl's work ranges from medieval Sufi and Bhakti poetry and romances, to early modern Urdu and Hindi literature and literary culture.] Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road Civil Lines Delhi - 110054 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From announcer at crit.org.in Thu Aug 31 00:14:23 2006 From: announcer at crit.org.in (Asia Society India Centre) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:44:23 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Maximum City Hindi/Marathi Book Launch Message-ID: <1156963464.5506.98.camel@localhost> Asia Society India Centre, Penguin Group (India) and the PEN All-India Centre invite you to the launch of Marathi and Hindi editions of Suketu Mehta's 2005 Kiriyama Prize Winner Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found In Conversation Suketu Mehta and Kumar Ketkar Reading Makarand Deshpande and Kishore Kadam FRIDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 2006, 7.00 p.m. Hall of Harmony, Nehru Centre, Worli, Mumbai Tea and Snacks at 6:30 pm RSVP Susan Menezes Phone +91.22.6610.0888, E-Mail mumbai at asiasociety.org _____ CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust), Mumbai Announcements List http://www.crit.org.in http://lists.crit.org.in/mailman/listinfo/announcer