From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 1 10:33:02 2007 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 22:03:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Turkish folk musician in Delhi Message-ID: <38401.29108.qm@web51409.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Friends, this is highly reccommended: ======= Turkish Embassy in Delhi cordially invites you to A Journey of Turkish Folk Music by Muammer Ketencoglu Folk Trio Following concerts and a workshop will take place: 5 June 2007, 7 pm, at Banquet Hall, Hotel Ashok, Chanakyapuri 7 June 2007, 6:30 pm, India International Centre, Delhi 4 June 2007 (workshop) School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU 10 am: a documentary film and discussion on Turkish folk music (followed by tea and snacks) 2 pm: interactive lecture-demonstration by Muammer Ketencoglu For more details about the musician, see: http://www.muammerketencoglu.com/index02.html ____________________________________________________________________________________ Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html From indersalim at gmail.com Fri Jun 1 11:18:32 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:18:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] invite-performance ( part of Queer Fest 2007 ) In-Reply-To: <47e122a70705312246lf16ec15m1202244d6c4bc2d8@mail.gmail.com> References: <47e122a70705312246lf16ec15m1202244d6c4bc2d8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47e122a70705312248s6d850e8axac7bffba83683d49@mail.gmail.com> ( please ignore, if u got this mail already ) Dear all Ist of June 7 PM, an evening of performances. Part of THE QUEER FEST organized by The Nigah. http://www.thequeerfest.com/performance.html I am doing a little performance piece on Hazrat Sufi Sarmad Shaheed Sahib. Please fill the ATTIC with your graceful presence. It is Sansad Marg, next to People Tree, C.P. I have uploaded some image in my blog. Please visit http://indersalim.livejournal.com with love indersalim -- -- From cugambetta at yahoo.com Fri Jun 1 12:10:31 2007 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 23:40:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] us embassy in baghdad Message-ID: <612950.84433.qm@web56802.mail.re3.yahoo.com> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070601/ap_on_go_ot/baghdad_embassy_plans how absurd! and crass... a pool? clearly the bush admin has no intention of leaving any time soon... curt ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel. http://travel.yahoo.com/ From hpp at vsnl.com Fri Jun 1 14:14:26 2007 From: hpp at vsnl.com (hpp at vsnl.com) Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 08:44:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] All-India Convention, Kolkata, on Nandigram & SEZs Message-ID: Dear Friends, Following the arbitrary cancellation by the West Bengal state govt of the booking for the All India Convention on 2-3 June at the Salt Lake Stadium (Yuva Bharati Krirangan) - this will now be held at Netaji Subhas Institute, Sealdah. This is at the foot of the northern end of the Sealdah flyover. On Kaiser Street, opposite Jagat cinema. Contact nos. of the organisers: Aditi 91 98301 76085 Krishna 91 98304 06870 Samar Bagchi 91 9433526839 Sumit 91 98302 49430 Vaskar Nandy: 91 94340 18621 Best V Ramaswamy cuckooscall.blogspot.com From shijusam at gmail.com Sat Jun 2 22:28:45 2007 From: shijusam at gmail.com (Shiju Sam Varughese) Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 22:28:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] on media and science Message-ID: <345848710706020958v22fb70bbk1bce120b60acf9ac@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friends, My third posting.. On Media and Science:Insights from a German Sociologist In today's world, mass media has a crucial influence in shaping reality at many levels. When we think about the role of mass media in contemporary science, it can be seen that the media is an important institutional space of negotiations between scientists and the public. Peter Weingart (1998. "Science and the Media". Research Policy, 27/8, December: 869-879; 2002. "The Loss of Distance: Science in Transition", in Garland E. Allen and Roy M. MacLeod eds., Science, History, and Socialism: A Tribute to Everett Mendelsohn. Dordrecht: Kluwer) is a German sociologist and philosopher of science who contends that there is a 'loss of distance' between science and different domains of its social environment. In his opinion there is a "close coupling between science and politics, the economy, the media, and law. These new arrangements have peculiar repercussions on knowledge production, on notions of true and false, certain and uncertain, and on the demarcations between science and non-science" (2002: 170). He points out that the media also have recently gone through a development very similar to science, in terms of growth rates and internal differentiation. The media has developed its own criteria and parameters like profitability and public attention to represent the world, and they construct their own reality in the same way as science does. Media becomes more and more pertinent in shaping public opinion and public perception of reality, and consequently the monopoly of science in judging representational adequacy deteriorates, and science's abstract criterion of truth is now being confronted by the media's criterion of public acclaim. Weingart argues that the importance gained by media in structuring public discourse led to the 'medialisation of science' as media attention is important for the contemporary science. The media provides space for science to communicate with a 'non-scientific public', and the recourse to the public serves the purpose of mobilising legitimacy with reference to securing the expansion of the boundaries of science vis a vis its social environment, as well as the settlement of conflicts within science. For Weingart the practice of pre-publication in the mass media and the scientific communities' attempt to achieve legitimacy through media in their competition for scarce resources are instances of medialisation of science and the close coupling between them. Though communication of science to the public is not a new phenomenon, the novelty here is in the form and intensity that emanates from a closer linkage between science and its social environment as well as the new role of media in observing this connection. It marks a changed configuration of science at the institutional and organisational levels. He stresses that the loss of distance no way implies de-differentiation or blurring of boundaries with politics and media. "In discourse about science", he clarifies, "the notion of truth does not disappear, nor it is replaced by the notion of power, or that of popularity, emotional appeal or others. The relevant sociological question is, however, if and in what ways the complex interrelations observed on the organizational level affect the differentiation between science and other social systems that has emerged over the last three centuries" (1998:181). Weingart's theorisation of the science-media coupling take notice of the changing nature of science and situate the public and media as playing pertinent roles in the contemporary, 'big science'. His conceptualisation of greater public criticism of and participation in science provides fresh openings for the democratisation of science, which is a political process that is part of the everyday life of citizens. Shiju Sam Varughese, 02.06.2007 From hpp at vsnl.com Sun Jun 3 12:56:06 2007 From: hpp at vsnl.com (hpp at vsnl.com) Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 07:26:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] All-India Convention on Nandigram & SEZs Message-ID: Dear Friends Pictures from the first day's session of the All-India Convention on Nandigram & SEZs (2-3 June) are accessible here: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=rimcegid&aid=576460762403418509&pid=&wtok=b84OsaD0THI0J7ayWm04aA--&ts=1180855325&.src=ph The Convention continues today, and concludes with a rally at Esplanade at 3 pm. Best V Ramaswamy cuckooscall.blogspot.com From jbnaudy at gmail.com Fri Jun 1 19:32:38 2007 From: jbnaudy at gmail.com (Jean-Baptiste Naudy) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:02:38 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] M6 D3 Abschlussball - WestGermany Message-ID: Manifesta 6, Department 3: Abschlussball WestGermany | SkalitzerStr. 133 | Berlin Abschlussball, Friday June 1, 2007 | from 20:00 till late featuring DJ bad ass - new weird america + new zealand indie classics. DJ Chris van Chrome - soul. You are cordially invited to attend the Manifesta 6, Department 3: Abschlussball, a party to celebrate the signing of the final draft of the contract by Robin Bhattacharya, Chicks on Speed, Samuel Dowd, Pia Fuchs (dt. ID v. Patricia Reed), Gaia Fugazza, Gabriele Gaspari, Ingela Johansson, Ralph Kistler, Magnus Liistamo, Lyn Lowenstein, Susannah Mira, Petros Moris, Can Sarvan, Alexander Schikowski, Anthony Schrag, Societe Realiste, Craig Smith, Jens Strandberg et Inga Zimprich. This carnivalesque party pretends to be the malignant colloidal soulless agonistic turbocurare oikotic emulsive anarcho-passive catho-communist real Ding, to be held at WestGermany tomorrow evening (into maniacal laugh, in deep echo). Network communications as well as the First Draft Contract available at: http://www.abschlussball.net/ Contact: m6.abschlussball at gmail.com with the support of Canadian Embassy - Berlin, Collegium Hungaricum, Bureau des Arts Plastiques -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070601/a980a389/attachment.html From shijusam at gmail.com Sat Jun 2 22:24:29 2007 From: shijusam at gmail.com (Shiju Sam Varughese) Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 22:24:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On Media and Science: Insights from a German Sociologist Message-ID: <345848710706020954o2b57f39evf1cc9729e533a987@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friends, My third posting is on Media and Science. In today's world, mass media has a crucial influence in shaping reality at many levels. When we think about the role of mass media in contemporary science, it can be seen that the media is an important institutional space of negotiations between scientists and the public. Peter Weingart (1998. "Science and the Media". Research Policy, 27/8, December: 869-879; 2002. "The Loss of Distance: Science in Transition", in Garland E. Allen and Roy M. MacLeod eds., Science, History, and Socialism: A Tribute to Everett Mendelsohn. Dordrecht: Kluwer) is a German sociologist and philosopher of science who contends that there is a 'loss of distance' between science and different domains of its social environment. In his opinion there is a "close coupling between science and politics, the economy, the media, and law. These new arrangements have peculiar repercussions on knowledge production, on notions of true and false, certain and uncertain, and on the demarcations between science and non-science" (2002: 170). He points out that the media also have recently gone through a development very similar to science, in terms of growth rates and internal differentiation. The media has developed its own criteria and parameters like profitability and public attention to represent the world, and they construct their own reality in the same way as science does. Media becomes more and more pertinent in shaping public opinion and public perception of reality, and consequently the monopoly of science in judging representational adequacy deteriorates, and science's abstract criterion of truth is now being confronted by the media's criterion of public acclaim. Weingart argues that the importance gained by media in structuring public discourse led to the 'medialisation of science' as media attention is important for the contemporary science. The media provides space for science to communicate with a 'non-scientific public', and the recourse to the public serves the purpose of mobilising legitimacy with reference to securing the expansion of the boundaries of science vis a vis its social environment, as well as the settlement of conflicts within science. For Weingart the practice of pre-publication in the mass media and the scientific communities' attempt to achieve legitimacy through media in their competition for scarce resources are instances of medialisation of science and the close coupling between them. Though communication of science to the public is not a new phenomenon, the novelty here is in the form and intensity that emanates from a closer linkage between science and its social environment as well as the new role of media in observing this connection. It marks a changed configuration of science at the institutional and organisational levels. He stresses that the loss of distance no way implies de-differentiation or blurring of boundaries with politics and media. "In discourse about science", he clarifies, "the notion of truth does not disappear, nor it is replaced by the notion of power, or that of popularity, emotional appeal or others. The relevant sociological question is, however, if and in what ways the complex interrelations observed on the organizational level affect the differentiation between science and other social systems that has emerged over the last three centuries" (1998:181). Weingart's theorisation of the science-media coupling take notice of the changing nature of science and situate the public and media as playing pertinent roles in the contemporary, 'big science'. His conceptualisation of greater public criticism of and participation in science provides fresh openings for the democratisation of science, which is a political process that is part of the everyday life of citizens. Shiju Sam Varughese, 02.06.2007 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070602/945a1e3d/attachment.html From iram.ghufran at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 12:13:41 2007 From: iram.ghufran at gmail.com (iram ghufran) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 12:13:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] An online film festival Message-ID: <6c6fbec50706032343y729edbc1k83d5dd694e64dcc6@mail.gmail.com> ================= DearCinema Fest 2007 ================= DearCinema, an online community of filmmakers and film-lovers is organizing an online film festival, the first DearCinema Fest 2007. Short films made on any format (including mobile phone cameras and web cams) may be submitted. The maximum duration of an entry should be not more than 30 minutes. An eminent jury will select the films for online and offline screening. Submission closes on June 30th, 2007. For further details visit: http://DearCinema.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070604/49e6f860/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From hpp at vsnl.com Mon Jun 4 12:21:24 2007 From: hpp at vsnl.com (V Ramaswamy) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:21:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Public meeting, All-India Convention on Nandigram & SEZs Message-ID: <070d01c7a679$3142bf20$6301a8c0@Ramaswamy> Dear Friends Pictures from the public seesion at Esplanade, Kolkata, on Day 2 of the All-India Convention on Nandigram & SEZs (2-3 June) are accessible here: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=rimcegid&aid=576460762403602161&pid=&wtok=SsKjcRc7xmnr5pTeyeosOg--&ts=1180938127&.src=ph Among the speakers were: Vaskar Nandy, Hari Sharma, Siddiqullah Chowdhury,Vara Vara Rao, GN Saibaba, Pasupati Prasad Mahato, Dipankar Bhattacharya,Sandeep Pandey and Medha Patkar. Among the resolutions accepted by delegates: Punishment of those responsible for the Nanndigram massacre. Compensation for the victims. Scrapping of the SEZ Act.Amendement of the Land Acquisition Act. All projects must be approved by Gram Sabhas. For me personally, it was astounding and electrifying to see that a Muslim clergyman, Sidiqullah Chowdhury, has entered the public domain and the political space; brought together diverse groups, parties, communities and individuals, and especially from the weaker sections, with significant participation in all aspects by women; and shaken the all-powerful CPI(M) in West Bengal. Speaker after speaker complimented Siddiqullah Chowdhury and lauded his leadership of this movement, which is now an all-India movement against SEZ, and for inclusive economic development. Once again, Bengal shows the way ... Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee had been quick to label the grassroots mobilisation in Nandigram "communal". However, the truth is that the Nandigram resistance and struggle may prove to be a beacon of real unity and solidarity across communities - in this 150th anniversary year of the First War of India's Independence, and the centenary of the son of India, Bhagat Singh - to thwart the whims of the capitalist lapdog CPI(M). Speakers cautioned the public about possible attempts to subvert this unity by provoking communal disturbances. Best V Ramaswamy cuckooscall.blogspot.com From anivar.aravind at gmail.com Mon Jun 4 14:05:11 2007 From: anivar.aravind at gmail.com (Anivar Aravind) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:05:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Please Endorse: Statement on Smartcity SEZ, Kerala Message-ID: <4663CEBF.2000907@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dear Friends, I Request you to sent the endorsements to anivar at movingrepublic.org before 10th June 2007 You can also Endorse by Leaving a comment at http://smartsez.movingrepublic.org/statement-on-smartcity-sez-cochin-kerala/ . For More details on The Project You can call on Following Numbers C.K Raju +91 9446230270 Johnson +91 9447019546 Dileep raj +91 9447316701 Anivar Aravind +91 9446545336 Anivar Statement on Smartcity SEZ, Kerala ================================== The Smart City project in Kerala is yet another example of the way in which unjust economic development is being pushed as part of globalisation. We are particularly concerned that a Left government elected to power in Kerala on a mandate of questioning the infirmities of globalisation is now firmly on the same path – be it the approval for Smart City or the acceptance of ADB loans with all the attendant conditionalities. The Left is particularly open to criticism because it is exploiting the provisions of the anti-people SEZ Act (2006) to push neo-liberal reforms in places like Kerala while opposing land acquisition via the SEZ Act in every other state. We specifically oppose the Smart City project on the following grounds, and appeal to the Kerala Government to reconsider its decision to grant approval to this project. 1. By granting approval to the Smart City project – an IT/ITES-based SEZ near Kochi, the Government is deliberately making development a vertical process - by focusing and investing on a sector that by itself is the wealthiest. This is a deviation from a socialist ideology, whereby development is conceived to be a horizontal process, through which all sections of society can benefit. 2. Citizens in Kerala have been kept in the dark about the fact that Smart City is an SEZ. Besides not being transparent, the government has also allowed itself to be anti-democratic by: (a) not allowing a debate to be raised on the issue where citizens finally get to know the pros and cons and (b) not allowing the citizens to decide on the issue - which has far reaching consequences for all the citizens in the state. 3. The state in this case has acted on behalf of private capital against the general good of all people. This goes against its constitutional obligation to safeguard interests of all citizens. 4. Wealth creation in the information technology sector is not merely accumulation of labour. Its also based on exploiting international draconian legal framework of patents and intellectual property rights - whereby revenue is generated multiple times from a single labour. There is no case for such activity to receive public financial subsidies. We see no reason why the Smart City SEZ in Kerala has been granted sops of a 10 year tax-holiday and concessions in other forms of tax. 5. Smart City SEZ in Kerala is labelled an IT infrastructure project - a sector which cannot just grow with provision of exclusive space, because of its strong inter-linkages and connections with other sectors of economy. This will lead to unevenness in development of infrastructure and economic growth. In a society that is already witnessing the ill-effects of uneven development – with the highest reported suicide rate in the country – such projects that create enclaves of "prosperity" are against public interest. 6. The Government claim of "new opportunities" in the context is hollow as the project claims to create only 9000 new jobs per year for ten years. In a state that produces nearly 9 lakhs youth every year with training in software seeking jobs in the sector, such a paltry job creator does not deserve the support and hype that the Government has been offering. 7. The creation of Smart City as an SEZ is against the interest of the working class in Kerala. The rights of workers won over years of struggle – to unionise; for an 8-hour day; for tenured employment; for democracy at the workplace – all stand to be denied within the borders of the SEZ as these rights can be suspended by government fiat. In the long run this weakening of workers' rights will not remain confined to the borders of the SEZ. In the context, we, the undersigned, resolve to oppose the Smart City, an SEZ project in Kochi and demand that the Kerala Government immediately repeal the permission given to the project. Ashim Roy, NTUI Sandeep Pandey, Asha Parivar/NAPM Hari Sharma, SANSAD Medha patkar, NAPM/ Sangharsh 2007 Satya Sivaraman, journalist Faizal Khan, Asha Parivar/NAPM Sumit Choudhary, Kolkotta Bolan Gangabodhyay, Kolkotta Manohar Monli Biswas, BDSS Ashok Debray, Kolkotta Manoranjan Mahato, Jharkand Mukthi Morcha Harsh Dobhal, Combat law, HRLN Deepti D'sosa, HRLN Meena Menon, Focus on Global South, Mumbai Nilanjana Biswas, Bangalore Mdr Nagesh, J.P foundation Vaskar Nandy PCC-CPI(ML) Tapon Chakravarty, SJP Farid Ali, All india Minority forum Sirish Agarwal, AID maryland Sukakman Burman, SC, ST, OBC Development Society Sabyasachi Deb Diana Katyan Balu doori Mondal, WB Krishak Sangha kazi Mohd, Peoples Democratic Conference of India Surasri Chaudhury, College Lecturer Kolkotta G.N. Saiba, Revolutionary Democratic Front(RDF) Rupesh Kumar, Youth for Social Change Aditi Choudhary Michele Kelly Sumit Sinha, Bhumi hecked Prathirodh Samiti- Nandigram Shyamali Klastgir, artist, Kolkotta Samar Bagchi, Science & environment Activist, Kolkotta Chandan Sen Gupta, PCCCPI(ML), Assam Bipul Hazarika, PCCCPI(ML), Assam Pradh Sarkar, Nipirita Jatigosth Satmanay Samitee, Barakvalley, Assam Biswajit Das, CHORUS, SILCHAR, Kolkotta sandip Bandopodhyay, writer, kolkotta Willfred D, INSAF Rachana, Bhopal Group for Information & Actions Sunita Furman, Danish Books Jerry Dolly, Youth for Social Change Lakshmi. P, Youth for Social Change Meghna Sukumar, Youth for Social Change Satimath Sarangi, Bhopal Group for Information & Actions Rabin Chakrobarty, Kolkotta Tarun Basu, Freelancer Jishnu das Gupta, Students Consolidation Platform Dr. Tamonash Bhatacharya, Kolkotta Sampat kale, NCAS Pune Shakhyayan Chowdhary, Film Student, Aishee Sengupta, Student of Law Samir Sinha, PCCPIML Anir Bhattacharya, Akineham Patrika Upal Chakrobarti, Student, Kolkotta Tarisha Deb, Student, Kolkotta Soumitra Bose, CPI(ML) Sanjay Ghosal, Student, Kolkotta Pintu Roy, Student, Kolkotta Prosun Chatopadhyay, RDF V.Sreenivasan, PUCL, Tamilnadu Benny Kuruvila, Focus on Global South, Mumbai Anindo Banerjee, Praxis, Patna D.Leena, independent researcher, Delhi Pradeep Esteeves, Bangalore Milap Choraria Lenin, PVCHR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGY86/F+jWtLmEaycRAgy1AJ4ubKxqgdZS0NNDuwLQyY+sn+0iFwCfVeZ6 eXKyiS4ojajauyiqM8tStY4= =kYY9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From mail at shivamvij.com Mon Jun 4 14:48:37 2007 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 14:48:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Lord save the world: India TV is the No 2 Hindi news channel Message-ID: <9c06aab30706040218u346eb1fah65d99485c899ca76@mail.gmail.com> Sex, sleaze spell boom for Hindi channels Shuchi Bansal June 02, 2007 Business Standard http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jun/02spec.htm Earlier this week when Rajat Sharma's Hindi news channel India TV grabbed almost 18 per cent share of the news market, top management teams in rival companies such as Zee News [Get Quote], Aaj Tak and Star News, among others, went into a huddle. Zee executives, it is learnt, spoke to TV Today managers who run Aaj Tak, and wondered if the two could jointly take steps to curb India TV's growing popularity. Star News' top brass, too, reviewed the threat from Rajat Sharma's channel which grew from 12 per cent to 17.4 per cent in the last six or so weeks. Tension ran high in the editorial and advertising sales team of competing channels with people pledging to quit the TV news business if India TV dislodged the leader. Such reactions, a bit alarmist, were understandable. Surprisingly, India TV, which inched its way to occupy the number two position and continues to sit there, is hardly celebrated for its credibility or content. Take a look at the kinds of stories that are helping it climb up the popularity charts. In the last few weeks, among its most watched stories was a private video of a starlet sauntering about her house in lingerie. Jahnvi, the aspiring heroine was in the news some time ago when she slashed her wrists during Abhishek Bachchan's wedding. The video, played by India TV (and refused telecast by others or so they claim), fetched the channel a 26 per cent viewership share and a court notice from Jahnvi. In the weeks gone by, it has aired stories with pulp fiction titles: "Masjid mein sex" (where couples are allowed into ancient monuments for a fee) or "Sex on the Rajdhani" (call girl in the first class train coupe). Snakes mating also made news on the channel as did stuff like "Joota bhagaye bhoot" and "Aurat bani maa Kali". Cold numbers show that viewers have given a thumbs up to India TV's tabloid-like content. Interestingly, people are not only watching it in larger numbers, they are spending more time on the channel. Those in the 15-plus age group are watching the channel for 42 minutes a week, much higher than 34 minutes that the market leader Aaj Tak clocks. Broadcasting industry's most acceptable television monitoring mechanism -- TAM -- shows that even its elite panel (households owning an AC, PC and car) has given India TV's popularity a leg-up by tuning in. On the other hand, a hard news channel like NDTV India saw its viewership slip by four per cent in the last few months. To be sure, India TV is not the first Hindi television network to have used tabloid-like content to get eyeballs. When former Aaj Tak executive producer Uday Shankar was driving it, Star News, the JV between ABP Ltd and Star India, did just that. In fact, media industry veterans indict Star News for starting the trend of blowing up the inconsequential. Among the first trivial stories that occupied Star News' small screen for four to five hours was "Mandir ka rahasya". The story focused on children who visited a temple and, mysteriously, never wanted to return home to their parents. That week in 2005, Star News displaced Aaj Tak from the number one position. Not one to go down without a fight, Aaj Tak came up with "Yamraj se mulakat" where a dead man came alive and recounted his experiences after death. "That was the beginning of the battle for eyeballs and 'naag, nagin, bhoot-preyt' started surfacing on news channels," says a former Aaj Tak producer, adding "racy tabloid content on news TV became common". However, at the same time India TV was taking the definition of "tabloid" content a little further. It not only conducted a sting operation on Bihar politicians' sexual escapades at Delhi's Bihar Bhawan but also aired explicit visuals. Little surprise, then, that media observers hold Hindi news channels collectively responsible for tabloidisation of content. Says Starcom Mediavest's CEO (South Asia) Ravi Kiran: "Pulp and sensationalism are dominant across news channels. News may be the fourth or the fifth element in their content plan after crime, sex, violence etc." Agrees TBWA India's senior vice president, Gopinath Menon: "Hindi news channels are straddling the entertainment space." India TV's CEO Chintamani Rao, formerly a media specialist with McCann-Erickson, is unruffled by such criticism: "People watch what is relevant to them and it is they who decide what is relevant. In a free competitive market, they choose and buy products and brands they prefer. The same applies to TV news," he says. To be sure, sex, sleaze and the slight are driving content on Hindi news in general. But Zee News editor Raju Santhanam would have you believe that sleaze is a subjective term. "What was sleaze earlier is news today. The kind of stories that appear in print today would be defined as sleaze 10 years ago. TV channels too can't remain unaffected by the changing environment." While not all content on news channels is crass, it is, more often than not, flimsy. A senior news channel executive says that most players are weaving content around the four Cs: crime, cinema, comedy and cricket. High viewership of Sansani on Star News and ACP Arjun on India TV clearly show that crime sells. Two weeks ago, Star News' top rated show was not one of its bulletins, but Parde Ke Peeche Kya Hai -- the behind-the-scenes story of Vivek Oberoi' new film Shootout at Lokhandwala. Rao rubbishes the allegation that India TV airs sleaze, adding that "sex, crime and supernatural sell and so does violence on TV, newspapers, magazines, movies, books, the Internet. . . " Psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh, too, isn't surprised by the popular vote to tabloid content on news TV. "Horror, superstition, sleaze, crime has always been part of our life. The only difference is in numbers. What came in spurts, is rolling now," he says. The trivialisation of Hindi news TV content stems from severe competition in the genre. There are at least eight major Hindi news channels fighting for the Rs 550 crore (Rs 5.50 billion) advertising pie growing at 20 to 23 per cent a year. Santhanam says there is increased pressure on channels to deliver ratings to generate revenue. "We don't have the luxury of being a public broadcaster where numbers don't matter. The challenge before a news channel is to keep its reputation ahead of rating. It is a tough call." Unfortunately, sometimes reputation is sacrificed for rating, he adds. Needless to say, in the numbers game, news broadcasters need to generate consumer stickiness to their channels through non-newsy spice dressed as news. According to ABP Ltd (which runs Star News) CEO Pramath Sinha, some broadcasters may be under a different kind of pressure. "The new players have raised money from investors who may want quick returns to cash out. News does not give such fast returns, so you have to show numbers." Besides, the distribution cost of a news channel is very high. Having spent Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million) to Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) a year on distribution, there is little money left for investment in programming. "So channels resort to cheap programming," says Sinha. Compelled to drive viewership, channels hire stand-up comedians, invite astrologers to the studio for viewer phone-ins and put up dance and music shows. While light content gets viewers, do advertisers fall for such "news"? Chintamani Rao says yes. Advertisers are already moving into India TV. Among a slew of local advertisers are major brands such as Tata Motors [Get Quote], Coca Cola and Amul. However, news is a not a rational game as you don't buy it for numbers. "The channels are bought for their image," says TBWA India's senior vice president (media) Gopinath Menon. Agrees Ravi Kiran: "Advertisers look at brand fit. They will not advertise in an environment that doesn't suit them." Hindi news channels have eroded their own brand equity by under-selling themselves. "There was a time when DD's news bulletin sold a 10-second spot for Rs 90,000. The category has degraded itself." While that could be a function of DD's monopoly then, Menon makes a point when he says that today channels follow a marketing and not an editorial model. "There are no benchmarks, no rules for content," he adds. But that is set to change. And it must, say media observers. "If I show a film on a news channel, it will get eyeballs. The question is what you want to do. Viewers may be watching your content, but they are certainly not defining it," says the CEO of a Hindi news channel. Adds Rao: "Viewership is voluntary. If people wanted serious news, DD News would have been the most watched channel." TV Today's executive director G Krishnan, while refusing to comment on India TV ("It is not our competitor. We are in the news business," he says), points out that some serious news channels are slipping not because of content but poor presentation and packaging. "You must remember that the Hindi audiences needs some masala." ________________________________ The Regional Divide Sex on the Rajdhani or in the Masjid will not find takers in Bengal, Kerela or even Andhra Pradesh. "The kind of stuff you see on Hindi news channels is peculiar to the North or, say, the Hindi-speaking belt," says Sanjay Salil, a broadcast media consultant. Salil has studied these markets as he's putting up news channels in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and the North east. "In these markets, sleaze on news doesn't sell." Agrees Star News' business development head Barun Das: "There will be a furore in West Bengal if we put out what the Hindi news channels show." Das should know. He looks after Star Ananda, the ABP and Star JV's Bangla news channel. There are four news channels in West Bengal and none seems to be competing with the Hindi news channel content. Again, Kerala has four news channels. "Their storytelling may evolve but they are unlikely to go for 'tamasha'news of Hindi channels even when competition comes in," feels Salil. But with Rajat Sharma now eyeing the Gujarati news market, will the rules of the game change? ________________________________ However, the news broadcast industry is pausing to give its content some thought. Informal discussions have been on among the Hindi news channels to form an ethics committee and create an ombudsman to do content audit for channels. The information and broadcasting ministry, too, is revising the content code for television. ________________________________ Cracking The Code The information and broadcasting ministry is revising the programming code for TV channels. The review committee, set up more than 15 months ago and comprising people from different sections of society (NGOs, government officials, FICCI members, Film Guild representatives, advertising industry bodies etc), met yesterday to modify the existing programming code. The revised code will spell out details on how sex and nudity, crime and violence can be depicted on the small screen. Explicit visuals of sexual activities and complete nudity will be banned. Crime shows will be allowed but crime cannot be glamorised. Programmes promoting superstition or the occult will not be allowed and "Adults Only" content can be aired post 11 pm. The revised code, part of the Cable Television Networks Regulation Act, is also expected to incorporate rules for news channels which, media representatives feel, may stifle their freedom. "People may think that we just sit here doing nothing, but we do keep an eye on all the TV channels. There is a long process which involves the nod of an inter-ministerial committee," says a senior I&B official. The existing guidelines state that TV programmes must not show obscenity or "encourage superstition", which Hindi news channels happily do. "We send notices for such programmes. Often, news channels hide behind the garb of educating and informing people," says the I&B ministry official. With the committee spelling out the details, the ministry should have fewer reasons to fret. "What constitutes obscenity will be explained. The revised code will encourage self-regulation as we have no desire to be 'thanedaars' or the moral police," says the official. The much awaited Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC) will also come up. "Currently, we informally divide channels to watch among our section officers. Now we will have at least 50 people monitoring them round the clock," he says. ________________________________ Some channels have resorted to introspection and realigned their strategies. Henceforth, Star News will focus on the social aspect of news. Last week it started a consumer affairs programme called Main Hoon Na. "Another pilot of a programme on similar lines is on the cards. We will do a reality show with a social conscience," says Sinha. IBN 7's managing editor Ashutosh (he does not use his surname) claims that the channel tweaked its positioning and content some months ago. It got out of the race for the frivolous to focus on hard news. "In the last six months, we've seen 100 per cent growth (from 6 to 13 per cent) on the back of serious sting operations on corruption among MLAs and spiritual leaders, among other things." The view is that tabloid news is a short cut which eventually does not make much headway. Star News tried it and succeeded up to a point. "It got viewers but advertisers did not follow," says an industry observer. Clearly, the way forward is segmentation between hard news and tabloid news channels. In any case, if Hindi news content on the small screen does not change soon, there will be a consumer rejection of news channels, warns Ravi Kiran. He speaks from experience of holding focus group discussions for his advertisers. Adds Zee News' Santhanam: "Most channel heads are hoping that viewers will get back to news and that news will give us ratings. It's a challenging time for Hindi news channels." From balthassar at gmail.com Tue Jun 5 01:54:51 2007 From: balthassar at gmail.com (Fahad Mustafa) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 23:24:51 +0300 Subject: [Reader-list] JNU and its discontents Message-ID: <5047ec820706041324j425b3936r6dde23b445809f6e@mail.gmail.com> ** *Following is a blog-post from **http://jnuchronicles.blogspot.com* *. The author who, referred to in my post on JNU **here* *, describes himself as a liberal and hates "the left ideology of branding any non lefty as a right winger". * ** *Interestingly, his "discontent" with JNU, by his own admission reflects a on a divide between the Science and the Arts and Humanities courses. This perhaps has something to do with the fact that many students who study Science at JNU (or any other university for that matter) are or were aspirants for an engineering degree from an IIT or likewise... * ** *The Sanctuary* There is a very little known sanctuary in New Delhi. It is a home for a variety of birds, Neelgais, civet cats (according to the Anandbazzar Patrika) and dodos. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, dodos, albeit of the ideological variety. Booze fuelled Marxists and pot fired Maoists. Wondering where this place is? Well, you know that for sure; in fact you might have been there sometimes as well. Its called JNU, the "Jawaharlal Nehru University". Want to take a tour of this mystical place? You will need a guide for that. I am always at your service for that purpose. But before you accept my services, let me tell you something about myself. Call me "the spectator", for I am rather detached from campus politics. I belong to one of the few non-communist Schools of the University, come from a middle-class background and can be loosely described as an individualist or a libertarian. I am a 'sciencee' proper and don't know much about Political "Science". If you have still retained my services after learning all this, then let's start the tour. I am sure that the Neelgais and the civet cats you'll handle on your own; so let me begin with the dodos and their highly interesting and at times thoroughly outrageous activities. They are collectively known as communists, Marxists, commies, etc., but thinking them as a "collective" is the first big mistake that an outsider makes. Their internal struggles are as intense as their struggle against the 'class enemies'. A most interesting phenomenon is the suitability of the environment of this sanctuary for their survival and procreation. While the world over this species is either extinct or on the verge of extinction, their population in JNU has increased to such an alarming extent that the niche called the "political space" has been completely monopolized by them. The dodos can be broadly classified into three subspecies. On the extreme right is the SFI-AISF (Students Federation of India-All India Students Federation). Once the dominant subspecies, nowadays their dominance is being undone by the activities of their "godfather" CPI(M) in West Bengal. Though absolutely nauseating in their home ranges of West Bengal (and maybe in Kerala as well, but I don't know for sure), here they exist as peace-loving herbivores. The midsection is marshalled by AISA (All India Students Association), the second subspecies. They are known for their sense of balance, tightrope walking skills and the skill of making the most of any given situation, and creating situations which they can make most out of. The third, and the most aggressive sub-species, which inhabits the far-left corners of the political space, is the most ironically named DSU (Democratic Students Union), the 'more radical than thou' banned young guns of a banned naxalite outfit who do not believe in democracy altogether. Visitors are cautioned that this particular sub-specie is extremely aggressive and can explode with dire consequences at the slightest provocation. Let me show you some of their antics. They have brought out a pamphlet (unsigned, as usual) regarding the soon to be conducted re-elections for the post of Councillor of the School of Social Sciences, and I quote: "Nandigram has exposed the anti-people nature of *all* parliamentary forces, and *all*forms of parliamentary politics" (the italics aren't my addition, the are so in the pamphlet as well). While this statement is detestable, what follows is darkly comical- "Its time we vote politically…Let's make a choice now…and decisively vote against parliamentarism, its practitioners, its defenders, and all those who try to justify this oppressive system." The pamphlet concludes by urging the people to "Vote and Elect VANESSA for the SSS Councillor". I don't know if someone has ever tried to explain to them that if you are against parliamentary democracy, you boycott elections, not contest them. Or that if it weren't for the (relatively) liberal democratic system that governs this country, being 'underground' wouldn't have been fashionable (everyone knows who they are), but necessary. They should be thankful that they haven't been thrown into a dungeon in some concentration camp for dissidents, which was a standard practice in the nations ruled by their beloved leaders. I am surprised at the extent to which they can go and yet get away scot-free. Sometime back, they have started a movement deploring the move to create digital archives for the School of Arts and Aesthetics with corporate funding. The project is supposed to be supported by the TATAs or by the Ford Foundation or some other corporate donor. Now, the DSU has problem with anything and everything that is not named "Peoples Revolutionary XYZ" or something similar. But it does it give them the license to level baseless allegation against anyone at will? Sample this poster (again unsigned, bearing only the name of the organization), "The Ford Foundation, in close collaboration with the CIA, has been at the forefront of the capitalist and imperialist propaganda in the Post-War period, especially in third world countries… Why is Ford Foundation interested in funding campuses? To own, control, commodify, and market knowledge, education, art and culture. Particularly in the field of art and culture, to 'preserve' and marginalized (sic) art forms as dead artifacts that no longer evolve, a museum exhibit with no dynamism, no living relevance… Funds from the state for education are rolled back at the behest of the World Bank and the 'philanthropic' imperial foundation it spawns. The government refuses to fund education on the pretext of lack of funds. Then Ford and assorted fronts of imperialist institutions step in and offer funds. They may not make us pay for the archive, dictate terms to us immediately, or try to influence our research right now…but they have deep pockets and long term plans. What they 'give' they take back many times more." I don't know much law, but instinct says that this is enough for a libel suit. Along with the poster, a pamphlet (again unsigned) dated 8th April 2007 was published under the heading "Of funds and foundations: What is wrong with corporate funding in education and research?" Excerpts from that pamphlet "From a reading of the history of 'philanthropic' international intuitions, be it Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Bill Gates Foundation and the likes, it is apparent that that they have worked worldwide, closely with imperialist regimes in the post-War period to propagate and legitimize the worldwide hegemony of imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism… International monetary institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, WTO; foundations, NGOs…have been used to buy out and silence voices of dissent, to destroy resistance. Peoples movements have been subverted and replaced with the NGO brand of 'conflict management' between the oppressor and the oppressed… Three particularly oppressed sections of the Indian society: women, dalits and adivasis have been particularly targeted by these foundations for funding. This is because all three are important components of a movement for basic change in society." Thankfully, the pamphlet does not mention other social sections/groups as alternative recipients for funding so that their constituency is not encroached upon. If the most oppressed and underprivileged are not to be helped, then who are? Sounds like abusing the firemen for putting out a fire, which would have fetched a large insurance amount ONLY if it had burned down the house completely and killed at least half the occupants in the process. So this was the DSU. If you are asking how are they surviving in the heart of civilization, then I'm sorry to say that I don't have an answer. As I said earlier, the environment of this sanctuary is particularly conducive to their survival. Perhaps because it is the only University in the country (except the wild east cowbelt) where you can accuse the VC of embezzlement (without proof), hold the Registrar hostage for hours in the most humiliating fashion and get away with it. More of that later. -- Fahad Mustafa 26 Narmada Apartments Alaknanda New Delhi, 110019 Phone:+91-9818893784 **** ragon mein daudtey rahney ke ham nahin qayal jo aankh se hi na tapka woh lahoo kya hai http://www.nomadings.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070604/b056b796/attachment.html From mail at shivamvij.com Tue Jun 5 19:15:38 2007 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 19:15:38 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Urban Delhi meets country cousins Message-ID: <9c06aab30706050645g73f804fcjaa10a373a201e057@mail.gmail.com> Urban Delhi meets country cousins Neha Lalchandani TIMES NEWS NETWORK / 5 Jun, 2007 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Urban_Delhi_meets_country_cousins/articleshow/2098329.cms NEW DELHI: It isn't easy to shake the Delhiite's phlegmatic self-absorbtion. But the Capital's urban cocoon was shattered on Monday when the Gujjars hit the town. Agitated mobs, driven by the force of caste interests, lathis in hand, made the city feel vulnerable. The Gujjars who torched buses, clashed with police and turned the office-goers morning into a heated crawl displayed the power of community bonding coupled with a readiness to impose themselves onto the heart of urban Delhi, its new economy extention of Gurgaon and the eastern enclaves of Noida and Ghaziabad. In a swift, military move, Gujjars sniped Delhi's arteries. Suddenly, it was not about newspaper headlines about some people wanting a change of status, from OBC to ST, which sounded distant and quite unrelated to the urban cycle. Meenas and Gujjars killing each in Rajasthan, though only a few hours away, sounded far-away and not "my problem." The gunshots that reverberated in Lalsot in Rajasthan's Dausa district, had found an echo in Delhi as Gujjars, an agressive community, took to the streets. In the last one week, slogans on the back of buses like "sherni Gujjar ki" came to mean more than quaint trivia to residents of Delhi's leafy colonies. Drawing rooms with split a/cs learn't all about Gujjars. "People in Delhi are politically indifferent. Even when agitations happen, it is just the disruption to their lives that bothers them, not the cause per se. Only when it hurts directly, like reservations or demolitions and sealings, do they react," said Dr Anuja Agarwal, sociologist. Delhi, as the capital of the country, is the hub of political activity but it is not often that the city is held ransom by a particular community. "Gujjars were just another community. Truthfully, I would not have given them a second thought. Even when the rioting started in Rajasthan, it didn't really matter to me but when they took over the city on Monday did I realise how important it had become," said Sayali Mathur, a DU student. The previous two agitations the city witnessed in the recent past have been different. For many, the quota protests had a PLU factor and the traders' agitation found its sympathisers. Though not on the same scale, Gujjars reminded citizens of the 1991 Mandal stir and the even earlier "kisan" rallies of Devi Lal. In teh mid-80's Delhi came to fear Devi Lal's anti-Rajiv Gandhi mobilisations which saw rallyists "capture" India Gate. Delhi's urban indifference is hardly unique, said sociologist Pratap Bhanu Mehta. "Such a reaction holds true for all places — from metros to rural areas. Why would anyone bother if the issue doesn't concern them. The engagement of the middle class with mass politics is increasingly diminishing but it is nothing peculiar to Delhi. Each group keeps to itself which is why it is impossible to create any coalition," he said. Agreed Dipankar Gupta of JNU. "Delhi is the Capital city so everyone turns up here for greater visibility. Why should we react to each and everything even when it does not affect us," he asked. neha.lalchandani at timesgroup.com From mail at shivamvij.com Tue Jun 5 20:29:57 2007 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 20:29:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow Message-ID: <9c06aab30706050759p6cd46831s9ff0420e77f878b1@mail.gmail.com> Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow By Kamna Mathur http://www.dailyindia.com/show/145852.php/Devotees-offer-cigarettes-at-Captain-Babas-mausoleum-in-Lucknow Lucknow, June 1: Though smoking or drinking at any religious place can offend many believers at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow, offering cigarettes is a gesture of respect. It is believed all prayers can be answered on lighting cigarettes a-la joss sticks. And, a large number of Hindus and Muslims do so while visiting this sacred mausoleum here. Everyday, hundreds of cigarettes are offered by devotees who visit this place to seek blessings of Captain Baba. "One of my uncles told me that many of his wishes were fulfilled once he visited Captain Baba's shrine. I accompanied him on the first occasion. Now, I am regular visitor. All wishes are fulfilled here", said Ram Gopal Pal, a devotee. It is said Gore Baba alias Mohammad Ashim, worked as Captain in the British Army when the British ruled India. He died during the uprising of 1857. But he had a special liking for the "Capstan" brand of cigarette. After his death, a mausoleum was built and today it is revered as "Captain Baba's Dargarh". As he was known for smoking cigarettes, the followers started a convention to offer the same at his mausoleum.The devotees bring this particular brand as their expression of affection for the Baba. Gore Baba was a highly respected person and some believed he had divine qualities. Later, admirers started calling him Captain Baba. Every Thursday, there is a big rush at Captain Baba's mausoleum and all visitors, irrespective of caste or creed, come along their cigarettes. "We have deep faith in Baba. He is near to God. However, we are just his devotees who come here to seek blessing for ourselves and our children," said Aquil Ahmed, a devotee. 'After lighting the cigarette, I express my desires to Baba. The wishes are fulfilled, so we have faith in Baba", said Nazim Ali, a devotee. People light the cigarettes and insert them in cracked crevices on Captain Baba's grave, just like incense sticks are lit at mausoleums. From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de Mon Jun 4 12:27:42 2007 From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (videoNET) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:57:42 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?=5BAnnouncements=5D_Women_Directors_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?Cut_II?= Message-ID: <20070604085742.D870751B.BF74B98C@192.168.0.4> June 2007 VideoChannel - video art project environments http://videochannel.newmediafest.org launched in April 2007 a series of bi-monthly shows featuring a young generation of female video/film artists/directors participating in VideoChannel, entitled: Women Directors Cut [WDC] --> Now, in June 2007, the 2nd edition of the feature series - curated by Agricola de Cologne - spotlight another six film/video artists ---> Eva Drangsholt (Norway), Erika Frenkel (Brazil), Ji-Hyun Kim (South Korea), Petra Lindholm (Sweden), Irene Coremberg (Argentina), Sonja Vuk (Croatia) --> "Women Directors Cut II" can be entered here directly http://videochannel.newmediafest.org/blog/?page_id=114 ---------------------------------------- VideoChannel - video art project environments http://videochannel.newmediafest.org is a corporate part of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne http://www.nmartproject.net the experimental platform for art and New Media from Cologne/Germany # info (at) nmartproject.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From bfs at bgl.vsnl.net.in Mon Jun 4 12:34:43 2007 From: bfs at bgl.vsnl.net.in (SIEDS) Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:34:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Voices from the Waters 2007: Invite Message-ID: <007801c7a677$dc57a940$0b09a8c0@NEWSYSTEM> WATER IS CLOUD WATER IS RAIN WATER FROM YOUR TAP WATER- THE SOURCE OF LIFE WATER IS CIVILIZATION WATER IS PANI PURI WATER, A PRECIOUS GIFT WATER WE TAKE BATH IN WATER IS CULTURE WATER, POETRY WATER IS GETTING SCARCE WATER, WE BUY? WATER FLOWS BRIGHT and SPARKLING WATER IS HAPPINESS WATER IS MAGIC CELEBRATE, WATCH, THINK, SPLASH, TALK WATER! - THE BIGGEST FILM FESTIVAL IN BANGALORE 2 screens, 50 films, 30 countries Interact with 14 film directors, 6 water voices from different parts of the country Painting & Photograph Exhibition, Stalls VOICES FROM THE WATERS 2007: 2nd INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ON WATER 7th to 11th June 2007 10am to 9pm at Gurunanak Bhavan, Bangalore. ADMISSION FREE "If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water" - Loran Eisley Scroll below the schedule and the short synopsis. For further details contact: email- bfs at bgl.vsnl.net.in tel: 080- 25493705/ 9886213516 Arghyam- safe, sustainable water for all, Bangalore Film Society and Films for Freedom, Bangalore in collaboration with Water Journeys- Forum for the Fundamental Right to Water, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Ithaca College (FLEFF) and Urban Research Centre are proud to present the second edition of the International Film Festival on Water titled 'Voices from the Waters 2007'- a vibrant celebration of life itself in all its liquid blue glory. SCREENINGS IN MAIN AUDITORIUM: JUNE 7, 2007 SESSION 1: 2.00pm to 4.00pm OPENING FILM:- Film: 1000 Days and a Dream Dir: P. Baburaj and C. Saratchandran Dur: 77 minutes An affecting human document that captures four years of courage, resilience, joys and sorrows as a small community in Plachimada District, Kerala dares to go up against global conglomerate that threatens to destroy their fresh water sources. Directors P. Baburaj and C. Saratchandran, veteran artists of the Indian Documentary scene will be present at the screening along with activists from Plachimada for a question and answer session after the screening. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/2006/11/03/stories/2006110300510300.htm Film: Zone of initial dilution Dir: Antoine Boutet Dur: 30 minutes Acclaimed and feted at the most prestigious documentary film festival across the globe, Zone of initial dilution is a chronicle of the dilemma of progress and urban sprawl that documents the change in the landscape effected by the construction of the Three Rivers Dam in China. http://www.uta.fi/festnews/2007/sunday/37465.shtml Film: 'International Water and Film Event' Spots Pro: International Water and Film Event Dur: 5mins40secs A collection of public awareness spots from across the globe that won acclaim and awards at the 'International Water and Film Event 2006', Mexico. http://www.internationalwaterandfilm.com/ SESSION 2: 4.15pm to 5.50pm Film: Ganashatru Dir: Satyajit Ray Dur: 93mins Ray's scathing film on greed, corruption and pollution, Ganashatru is set in small town Bengal where Dr. Ashoke Gupta (Soumitra Chatterjee) is the head of a town hospital. Gupta's younger brother, Nisith (Dhritiman Chatterjee), is the head of the committee running the hospital and a temple, both built by a local Industrialist. When Dr. Gupta is convinced that the holy water of the temple is causing an epidemic in the town, the industrialist and other town officials reject his view and refuse to close the temple to carry out the repairs. SESSION 3: 6.15pm INVOCATION FILM: Window Facing the Sun Dir: Bijan Zamanpira Dur: 12 Mins A carnival shadow-play of prayers, ceremonies, the land and the clouds as a desert community in Iran beseeches the clouds to rain water and life down upon their scorching land. A triumphant, poetic invocation of the source of life weaved with simple strokes that make Iranian cinema so poignant, so powerful. http://www.payvand.com/news/05/jun/1101.html IMAUGURAL FILM:- We Corner People Dir: Kesang Tseten Dur: 50mins Adjudged the Best Documentary at the 2006 Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, 'We Corner People' offers a intimate glimpse into the life and complexities of the inhabitants of a remote Tamang village who are at the mercy of poverty, an indifferent government and an angry river when they are given the chance for a better life in the form of a suspension bridge. Director and iconoclast, Kesang Tseten will be present at the film screening and participate in a question and answer session. http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/119/DomesticBrief/5136 JUNE 8, 2007 SESSION 1: 2.00pm to 4.00pm Film: Cutting off a Lifeline Dir: Saraswati Kauvala Dur: 62mins When the most of Hyderabad has dismissed the river Musi as nothing more than a big open drain, 'Cutting off a Lifeline' reveals the deep relationship between the ancient river and life in and around the flourishing city that through the years has been abused by the callous city dwellers, planners and policy makers. Director Saraswati Kauvala will be present at the film screening and participate in an interactive session with the audience. Film: Ganga: From the Ground Up Dir: Yves Saduvani & Miriam Ciscar Dur: 43min 41sec With vibrant images and sounds, the kinetic documentary takes you along the course of the river Ganges affirming its spiritual and ecological importance as a sustainer of an entire civilization while delving into the myriad crises plaguing the river at almost every point of its course, exploiting its water and its poorer inhabitants in the name of progress and development and offer simple and thoughtful suggestions so that yet another generation can witness the magnificence that is the Ganges. http://citizen.nfb.ca/blogs/uncategorized/ganga-from-the-ground-up/ WATER VOICES: 4.15pm to 4.45pm Shivaji Kagnikar, a Gandhian; and he laughs at the term, has been working in the village Kattanbhavi and its environs near Belgaum. His work along with many has resulted in the village well in Kattanbhavi being always full. Forest planting, watershed works, check dams, pond desilting, recharge structures, gobar gas plants for every household and water security for the village is achievement if it can be called that. SESSION 2: 4.45pm to 6.45pm Film: Dweepa Dir: Girish Kasaravalli Dur: 100min Winner of 2002 National Award for Best Film and Best Cinematography, 'Dweepa' gives a human face to the tragedy of the displaced. When the village of Sita Parvata is being submerged by the construction of a dam, the government evacuates its residents, giving them meager compensation but temple priest Duggajja and his family are yet to come to terms with the implications of life outside their tiny island. In Ganapa's own words, the compensation can give them food and shelter, but cannot compensate for the love and respect of their people. Winner of multiple National awards and a major personality in Indian art house cinema, Girish Kasaravalli will be present at the screening and participate in an interactive session. WATER VOICES: 7.00pm to 7.30pm Pokkudan plants mangroves. This incredible feat by an individual is amazing for the sensitivity displayed in a biological system that acts in many ways to buffer erosion, enhance bio-diversity, minimise high tide, tsunami impacts and many other things. Why does he do it? The man himself will answer. SESSION 3: 7.30pm to 9.00pm Film: The Lost Water Dir: Dakxin Bajrange Dur: 25min21sec There is an old folk tale that is told in the Rann of Kutch that in the vast desert expanse, the Agariya tribe is perpetually found digging the sand is search of lost water. It's almost as if time has stood still in the salt pans of Gujarat as the film sheds light on the plight of the tribe who have been cultivating salt through the generations and in return have been exploited and reduced to sickness, poverty and thirst. Award winning Director, playwright, actor, director and founder of the Budhan school of theatre, Dakxin Bajrange will be present at the screening for an interactive session with the audience. http://english.georgetown.edu/Lannan/bioarchive/chhara.html Film: Solitary Cedar Dir: Hegedus 2 Laszlo Dur: 4min Torrents of wind, rain, thunder and lighting, enduring nature's wrath, the solitary cedar survives and is blissful. Film: Mountains in the Mist - Discovering Cloud Forests Pro: Halsundbeinbruch Film Dur: 40 min Home to 100 species of mammals, 400 species of birds (including 30 kinds of hummingbirds), tens of thousands of insect species and 2500 species of plants (420 kinds of orchids), Cloud Forests are rare and intriguing eco-systems that are intense with life and color. 'Mountains in the Mist' is a lush journey through the secrets of these mystical forests in the clouds. http://www.monteverdeinfo.com/index.htm JUNE 9, 2007 SESSION 1: 10.00am to 11.15am Film: Flow Dir: Scott Nyerges Dur: 4:26 min Handpainted 16mm and 35mm filmstrips collude with video to render a meditation on the creeks and rivers of Austin, Texas, in paint and pixels. Flow has exhibited at the TriBeca Film Festival, the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, and CinemaTexas. http://www.nyerges.com/ Film: Faecal Attraction Dir: Pradeep Saha Dur: 32 minutes 'When you flush, where does the water go?' Find Out. Director Pradeep Saha, freelance photographer, film-maker and managing editor of the CSE environmental journal, Down to Earth will be present at the screening of his film to answer what you can do the next time you press the lever for a flush. http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2408/stories/20070504001409200.htm SESSION 2: 11.30pm to 1.30pm Film: Desert's voice: A sufi tale Dir: Massimiliano Troiani Music Dir: Stephan Micus Dur: 9:50 mins It lives among the clouds and comes down to earth so that it can run in rapid streams and travel to different places. A beautiful sufi invocation of the journey of water on earth. Film: Swaraj: The Little Republic Dir: Anwar Jamal Dur: 90min Winner of the Silver Lotus at the National Awards 2003 for the Best Film on Social Issues and inspired by the true story of a woman councilor who took on the might of the water mafia, Director Anwar Jamal's 'Swaraj: The Little Republic' is a rousing tale of four women journeying barefoot and audacious, across the desert in the search of justice and water. Director Anwar Jamal will be present at the screening for a question and answer session with the audience. http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2010/stories/20030523001708200.htm SESSION 3: 2.00pm to 4.00pm Film: Sea in the Blood Dir: Richard Fung Dur: 26min A personal documentary about living with illness, tracing the relationship of the artist to thalassemia in his sister, Nan and AIDS in his partner, Tim. The narrative of love and loss is set against a background of colonialism in the Carribean and the reverberations of migration and political change. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr0703/kbfr15.html Film: Shadows of Tehri Dur: 45 Mins Dir: Anirban Dutta A one-of-a-kind film that interweaves folklore, music, tradition and history to create a textured memory of the essence of old Tehri town in Tehri Garhwal, Uttaranchal, after it is lost forever under the swirling waters of the world's highest dam, built over the rivers of Bhagirathi and Bhilangana. Film: The Disappearing of Tuvalu: Trouble in Paradise Dir: Christopher Horner and Gilliane Le Gallic Dur: 50 min Incisive, controversial and featured in the most prestigious environmental film festivals across the globe, 'The Disappearing of Tuvalu' is a detailed overview of the first sovereign nation that is in danger of being capsized and drowned by the rising waters of the global warming phenomena. A tale of loss and displacement, the film beholds a frightening future of drowned worlds and environmental refugees. http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/12/tuvalu_that_sin_1.html WATER VOICES: 4.15pm to 4.45pm Farhad Contractor empowers people. Working in Rajasthan through his organization, Sambhav, Farhad fills hope in people to be able to manage their water affairs themselves. Traditional water structures are on revival in Barmer and Jaisalmer simply because Farhad Contractor has thought it fit to work with these communities SESSION 4: 4.45pm to 6.45pm Film: Village of Dust City of Water Director: Sanjay Barnela & Vasant Saberwal Duration: 28 minutes Winner of the Lion Award 2007 for Best environmental film and Nominated for the International Natural History Museum One Planet Award, the country's foremost environmental documentary film-makers focus on water-induced migration and the discriminatory divide in the supply of water between the urban and the rural. Director, screen-writer, academic researcher with a doctorate from Yale for his work with the Gaddi community of Himachal Pradesh, Dr. Vasant Saberwal will be attending the screening and participate in a question and answer session. Nor any Drop to Drink Director: Joska Wessels Duration: 23 minutes An inspiring, informative slice-of-life that travels from Jordan to Egypt to Palestine capturing the interaction between the general public and the policymakers, surprisingly sans red-tape and ego hassles, as they try together to initiate solutions for the looming water issues. http://www.sapiensproductions.com/news.htm Film: The Never Never Water Dir: Allessandra Speciale Dur: 15min The "water lords" have arrived in the Sahell. In Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, the search for water has always been an exhausting chore. In addition to the shortage of water there is now also the threat of privatization. In this period of drought, people crowd around the wells, waiting hours to fill a few buckets. Midway between reportage and narrative story-telling, this documentary tells the story of Moussa, an itinerant water seller in the suburbs of the capital. It is a mesmerizing and paced tale of water justice at a very personal level. WATER VOICES: 7.00pm to 7.30pm Chattar Singh knows the tradition, history and development of each of the water structures in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. How and why is a tanka built? What are naadis? What are beris? How does society decide wher a water harvesting structure should be? How can malaria be detected and remedied? Chattar Singh is the water bard of Jaisalmer SESSION 5: 7.30pm to 9.00pm Film: Erosion Dir: Sourav Sarangi Dur: 60mins Erosion is a powerful document of the vicious circle of human tragedy allowed to perpetuate by a callous and greedy government. Every year, the banks of the Ganga and the Padma overflow in the Malda and Murshidabad districts in West Bengal disrupting the life and livelihoods of thousands while concerned authorities only add to their tragedy for monetary and political gain. Erosion is a stirring account of the pains and penury, the anger and resoluteness of the sufferers of erosion. Director Sourav Sarangi and scholars and activists of the grassroots' movement will be present at the screening for an interactive session with the audience. Film: Let's not disturb the water Dir: Bijan Zamanpira Dur: 22 mins Another award winning gem from Iran that captures a day in the life of migrant mountain dwellers adapting to a new landscape without disrupting the course of nature. http://www.payvand.com/news/05/jun/1101.html JUNE 10, 2007 SESSION 1: 10.00am to 11.15am Film: The Beginning Dir: Parvez Imam Dur: 3min30sec The concept of buying and selling is turning almost everything into a commodity. And a thrifty, businessman decides to invest his bit on an ocean. This short fiction brings to life a powerful screenplay with merely three characters and the ocean. http://www.kalpana.it/eng/film/parvez_imam/index.htm Film: Al Otro Lado Dir: Natalia Almada Dur: 70min When you're an aspiring Mexican singer trying to move up in life, you have two choices: traffic drugs or make an illegal cross over the border to the US. Set to the pulse of Mexico's corrido music, the movie takes to the streets of Sinaloa Mexico all the way to L.A. through a hard-boiled network of drug trafficing, illegal immigrants and a fishing industry in decline, tracing the plight of those who dream to crossover to the other side. http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/alotrolado/about.html SESSION 2: 11.30am to 1.30pm Film: Loktak- The Dying lake of Manipur Dir: Aribam Shyam Sharma Dur: 58 minutes Director and Iconoclast Aribam Shyam Sharma, who in his long and esteemed career has been compared to the likes of Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray, documents with compassion and anger the death throes of Manipur's Lake Loktak and its inhabitants (which include the endangered dancing deer) brought on by the Manipur government's plan to set up a hydroelectric power station with dreams of 'progress'. Auteur Ariban Shyam Sharma will be present at the screening for an interactive session with the audience. http://readerlist.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2007/04/03/reader-list-how-satyajit-ray-got-floored-2nd-if-posting-2.html Film: The Rainy Season Dir: Isaac Pinhanta, Valdete Pinhanta, Tsirotsi Ashaninka, Llullu Manchineri, Maru Kaxinawá, Nelson Kulina, Fernando Katuquina and André Kanamari Dur: 38 min >From the Indigenous Video Makers series from the Video in the Villages project in Brazil. A daily chronicle of the Ashaninka community during the rainy season recorded during a workshop in a village on the Amônia River in Acre. The involvement among the filmmakers and the Ashaninka community makes the film go beyond a mere description of activities, reflecting the rhythm of the village and the humor of its inhabitants. www.videonasaldeias.org.br SESSION 3: 2.00pm to 4.00pm Film: Devil's water Dir: Amirul Arham Dur: 53.10 min Winner of Best Documentary at the Terra Festival, 'The Devil's Water' is Director Arham's vivid record of the humanitarian catastrophe involving 49 million people in Bangadesh afflicted by the arsenic contaminated water they are forced to consume daily. Through the personal accounts of Asma and Najma, two girls affected by the contamination and Jamal, a scientist fighting against the effects of contamination; this film hopes to contribute to a vision of hope for a better future. http://www.sos-arsenic.net/english/article/index.html#18 Film: Dui Paatan ke Beech Mein (Between The Devil and The Deep River) Dir: Arvind Sinha Dur: 65mins Director Arvind Sinha's Swarna Kamal (President's Gold Medal) winning documentary is an incisive indictment of the hypocrisy of 'development models' chosen and implemented by the governments only to ravage the land with man-made floods and reduce its inhabitants to poverty and disorientation. He also studies the coping mechanisms developed by the people, which over the years have become integral to their culture. And all the while, the government shamelessly continues to declare that all has been done in the name of "protecting people from the floods". Winner of multiple National Awards and internationally acclaimed, Arvind Sinha is one of the most prominent documentary film-makers of the country and he will be present for an interactive session at the screening. http://www.yidff.jp/97/cat051/97c068-e.html WATER VOICES: 4.15pm to 4.45pm Eklavya Prasad is a young modern development professional. Leading the Maegh Pyne Abhiyaan he has chosen Bihar as his 'karma bhoomi'. Working with partners in the flood affected districts, he seeks solutions for peoples drinking water and sanitation needs. He also searches for livelihood opportunities for people on embankments whose lives are impacted by the floods of the Kosi and its tributaries. SESSION 4: 4.45pm to 6.45pm Film: Old Sea and the Man Dir: R.R. Srinivas Dur: 70mins Director R.R. Srinivasan brings out the tragedy of the post-tsunami 'relief and rehabilitation' efforts when a shameful circus of greed and manipulation is played out in the name of development. The film exposes the design of the state to forcibly relocate the fishing community from their pre-tsunami settlements that amounts to completely uprooting them from their livelihood while also bearing testament to the brave resilience of the coastal communities to not only recover from the devastation of the tsunami but the larger forces bent on disrupting their very existence. Radical and controversial film-maker R.R. Srinivasan will be present at the screening for an interactive session with the audience. http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mp/2005/12/10/stories/2005121002080800.htm Film: Gharat Dir: Pankaj Rishi Kumar Dur: 41mins 'Gharat' celebrates the indigenous, traditional watermills of Garwhal, which have been around since as early the 7th century A.D. as the spirit and path to decentralized sustainable development. Director Pankaj Kumar, acclaimed film-maker and editor of 'Bandit Queen' narrates the triumphant story of Tau's attempts to bring electricity to his house with a 'gharat' while critiquing the government's excesses in the name of 'progress' like the 'Tehri Hydel Project'. http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/discovery/waterwheels.html WATER VOICES: 7.00pm to 7.30pm Premji is with an organisation called SAMTA. Based in Khagaria he has seen the Kosi and sisters rise up and fill the town with water as much as he has seen people on embankments living with snakes and scorpions. His has been a constant voice to plead their case. In times of emergency, to row with food and medical supplies, in other times to drain the waters so that cultivation can happen. SESSION 5: 7.30pm to 9.30pm CLOSING FILM: Bara Dir: M.S. Sathyu Dur: 120mins M.S. Sathyu's classic Bara follows his idealist protagonist as he becomes a mere pawn caught in the intense political rivalry between the chief minister and a political aspirant that is played out in the times of drought and poverty. Local political rowdies instigate chaos. Everything from hiding rice and wheat from the starving public to violating women and igniting a communal war takes place. All this is done just to keep their bellies full at the cost of the poor people. The famine is used as an excuse for all of them to pursue their own personal goals. Director, playwright, screenwriter, cinematographer M.S. Sathyu who has given us films like Bara and Garam Hawa will be present at the screening for an interactive session with the audience. EXPERIMENTALS & SHORTS on SCREEN 2: Name of Film Filmmaker Country Dur. 1 WATER IN OVERTIME Dominique Jonard Mexico 5.00 2 THIS, AND THIS Vincent Grenier US (FLEFF) 10.00 3 THE BEGINNING Parvez Imam India 3.31 4 SOLITARY CEDAR Hegadus Lazlo Hungary 4.00 5 THE DESERT'S VOICE Massimiliano Troiani Italy 9.50 6 LIFE IN THE RIVER Marjan Riahi Iran 5.00 7 THE DIARY Mohammed Ali Safoora Iran 5.30 8 FLUX Gruppo Sinestetico Italy 9.48 9 HERE Vincent Grenier US (FLEFF) 7.00 10 FLOW Scott Nyerges US (FLEFF) 4:26 11 LIFE IN OFFSHORE ISLAND Kazi Amirul Islam Shoya Bangladesh 8.10 12 WOMEN OF DORFAK Mohammed Nami Iran 20.00 13 CLIMACTIC REFUGEES - Shishmaref - Tuvalu - Maldives - Chad - Bangladesh France 5.50 6.30 7.00 6.30 6.25 14 WATER AND FLOWER Mohammed Ali Safoora Iran 15.00 15 WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE Simon Welch UK 4.00 16 INSIDE /OUTSIDE Celine Trouillet France 3.00 17 PLIP AND PLOP Christaine Doring USA 6.10 18 DIRTY AID, DIRTY WATER Jo Winterburn UK 17.00 19 KITUI SAND DAMS Eva Zwart & Hans Van Westerlaak Kenya/Netherlands 14.00 20 WATER AND FILM EVENT SPOTS 5.00 21 ORANGE FARM WATER CRISIS SA 16.51 22 CRAZY ON THE ROCK Altaf Mazid India 15.00 23 WATER AND AUTONOMY US (FLEFF) 14.00 24 RADIO NONMDAA Chiapas Media Project/Promedios Mexico (FLEFF) 15.00 25 SUNCOOKERS Catherine Scott US / Kenya (FLEFF) 18.00 26 PROSPECTING Brooke White US (FLEFF) 12.00 27 ISLANDS Richard Fung Canada (FLEFF) 9.00 28 THE LAND BELONGS TO THOSE WORK IT Chiapas Media Project/Promedios Mexico (FLEFF) 15.00 __._,_.___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070604/aa806c46/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From pukar at pukar.org.in Mon Jun 4 12:36:43 2007 From: pukar at pukar.org.in (PUKAR) Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 12:36:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [announcements] Inviting applications for India China Institute Fellows Programme Message-ID: <001601c7a676$eb9af020$9966c2cb@freeda> India China Institute - PUKAR (Local Partner) invites applications for the India China Institute Fellows Program The India China Institute (ICI) based at The New School, New York, invites applications for its second fellowship program: Prosperity and Inequality: India and China India China Fellows Program (ICFP), ICI seeks applicants who are highly accomplished, innovative and emerging leaders with 5 to 15 years of professional experience in their respective fields. Applicants from diverse backgrounds such as public administration, academics, media, civic action, art, architecture and private entrepreneurship are encouraged to apply. Applicants should address the program theme with particular focus on regional development, migration, and design strategies. Priority will be given to applicants who are sensitive to social, cultural and gender aspects. This two year fellowship requires: 1. Indian citizenship and proof of residency for more than 5 years 2. Masters Degree or equivalent experience 3. Willingness to be an active and essential participant in an interactive, intellectual, collaborative research project that will be innovative and influential 4. Commitment to participate in 4 international residencies: . March 16-30, 2008, NY . November2-9, 2008, China . August 23-30, 2009, India . April 14-18, 2010 (tbd) 5. Total fluency in English, working knowledge of the computer and access to internet for communication and research purpose 6. The selected fellows could continue their current profession during their fellowship period. They will be assisted in the research proposal, travel, workshops and compensated appropriately by an honorarium 7. Applications must be postmarked no later than August 30, 2007. Late applications will not be considered. (Kindly ignore this mail if you have already applied) Application Forms can be downloaded from: www.indiachina.newschool.edu For further information, please write or email: Dr. Anita Patil-Deshmukh Senior Advisor, India China Institute C/o PUKAR, 1-4, 2nd floor, Kamanwala Chambers, Sir P M Road, Fort, Mumbai, 400 001 Tel: 91 22 6505 3302 Fax: 91 22 6664 0561 E-mail : deshmuka at newschool.edu; pukar at pukar.org.in 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/20070604/1f91f975/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From turbulence at turbulence.org Tue Jun 5 19:37:43 2007 From: turbulence at turbulence.org (Turbulence) Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 10:07:43 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Turbulence Commissions: Mixed Realities Message-ID: June 5, 2007 Turbulence Commissions: "Mixed Realities" Venues: Ars Virtua (Second Life); Huret & Spector Gallery (Emerson College, Boston); and Turbulence.org With funds from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts http://turbulence.org/comp_07/awards.html New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. is pleased to announce the winners of "Mixed Realities," an international juried competition and exhibition. The five commissioned works ($5,000 each) will be exhibited simultaneously at Ars Virtua (Second Life), Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), and Turbulence.org in spring 2008. They are: IMAGING KALININGRAD: THE SEVEN BRIDGES OF KOENIGSBERG John (Craig) Freeman REMOTELY COUPLED DEVICES (WORKING TITLE) Usman Haque, Georg Tremmel and Neill Zero NO MATTER Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott THE VITRUVIAN WORLD Michael Takeo Magruder, Drew Baker and David Steele CATERWAUL Pierre Proske, with technical assistance from Artem Baguinski and Brigit Lichtenegger KALININGRAD AND THE SEVEN BRIDGES OF KOENIGSBERG by John (Craig) Freeman is an extension of Freeman's "Imaging Place" project; a place-based, immersive, virtual reality project that takes the form of a user navigated, interactive computer program combining panoramic photography, digital video, and three-dimensional technologies to investigate and document situations where the forces of globalization are impacting the lives of individuals in local communities. The famous Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler invented Topology--the key to understanding how networks are formed--in the city of Koenigsberg, now Kaliningrad, in 1735. When Euler visited the city, there were seven bridges connecting the city's center to the banks of the Pregel River. A favorite pastime for visitors was to try to solve the puzzle of whether or not a person could walk throughout the city and cross each of the bridges exactly once. Freeman will retrace the imaginary steps of Leonard Euler across these seven bridges. Users will be able to navigate the virtual space as the story of the seven bridges unfolds, as well as the story of how globalization is impacting this remote Russian city. Full proposal here: http://turbulence.org/comp_07/proposals/freeman/index.html REMOTELY COUPLED DEVICES by Usman Haque, Georg Tremmel and Neill Zero: This proposal takes as its starting point that the distinction between 'virtual' and 'real' is as quaint as the nineteenth century distinction between 'mind' and 'body'. As such, the spaces of Ars Virtua and Huret & Spector Gallery will be treated equivalently. A device will be constructed for each space which--via the EnvironmentXML framework--will enable people around the world to build remote devices and environments that respond in real time to the local environmental conditions of the two galleries. A Java applet and historical data repository, residing on the Turbulence.org server, will enable the tracking of real time and historical sensory data from the two locations as well as the connections that people make over time. Full proposal here: http://turbulence.org/comp_07/proposals/haque/index.html NO MATTER by Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott: No Matter is an interactive installation that translates the psychology of the Second Life virtual economy into physical space. Virtual economies--where artificial currencies are exchanged in online worlds for dematerialized goods and services--are presently impacting the 'real' economy. The leakage of one to another appears on eBay, on the SL Exchange and through virtual land brokers. This mixed economic model overturns established relationships between labor and production. As specialty items can be obtained at a fraction of their real world cost, our perception of the value of objects becomes further obscured. No Matter reflects this conflation of imaginary and real economics by: (1) commissioning the creation of imaginary objects in Second Life; (2) inviting viewers to re-construct these immaterial 3D objects in physical space; (3) paying them Second Life wages; and (4) reselling the replicas on eBay. Full proposal here: http://turbulence.org/comp_07/proposals/kildall_scott/index.html THE VITRUVIAN WORLD by Michael Takeo Magruder, Drew Baker and David Steele: In the 1st century BC, Roman writer, architect and engineer Vitruvius authored specific building formulae based on the guiding principles of strength, utility and beauty. For him, architecture is intrinsically linked to nature and is an imitation of cosmic order. The most well-known interpretation of this postulate is the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci in which the human form is depicted in unity with the square and circle--representing material and spiritual existence respectively. Given that this tripart union of human body, material form and spiritual essence maintains relevance within the current climate of distributed presence, mixed realities and internet culture, The Vitruvian World will embody the principles of Vitruvius within a contemporary context. Full proposal here: http://turbulence.org/comp_07/proposals/magruder/index.htm CATERWAUL by Pierre Proske, with technical assistance from Artem Baguinski and Brigit Lichtenegger: When someone screams in real life, do they hear us in virtual reality? Do they want to? The proliferation of networked online worlds has provided a small quota of the human race the option to seek refuge in utopian, less troubled imaginary lands. Rolling synthetic green pastures offer us respite from a planet undergoing exploitation and climate change. For those of us too firmly rooted in this material world to join them, how shall we communicate with them? In what way shall we lament their departure? The essence of Caterwaul is a large, monolithic, dark wall that is represented both in the real and virtual worlds. It is a one-way portal to the virtual world through which people can whisper their thoughts, scream their frustrations and convey regret without the privilege of reply. It is a wailing wall through which to mourn the loss of our humanity to the virtual network. Full proposal here: http://turbulence.org/comp_07/proposals/proske/index.html The competition was juried by Yasmine Abbas, Founder, Neo-Nomad; Michael Frumin, Technical Director Emeritus, Eyebeam; James Morgan, Director, Ars Virtua; Trebor Scholz, Founder, Institute for Distributed Creativity; and Helen Thorington, Co-Director, Turbulence. Jo-Anne Green, Co-Director New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856 Turbulence: http://turbulence.org Networked_Performance Blog: http://turbulence.org/blog Networked_Music_Review: http://turbulence.org/networked_music_review Upgrade! Boston: http://turbulence.org/upgrade New American Radio: http://somewhere.org _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From 125548 at soas.ac.uk Wed Jun 6 12:18:04 2007 From: 125548 at soas.ac.uk (MATTI POHJONEN) Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:48:04 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Conference - SOAS Message-ID: <1181112484.8c7e1cc125548@soas.ac.uk> Friends, Just a quick reminder about our upcoming conference "The Indian Mass Media and the Politics of Change" we are organising together with the Centre for Film and Media Studies at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) on the 13th of October, 2007. We are glad to now announce that we have now confirmed our speakers. The opening address will be given by Dr Paul Webley, the director of SOAS. The keynote will given by Dr John Hutnyk, the Director for the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University, and the endnote will be given by Professor Laura Mulvey from Birkbeck University. In addition, we have also received a number of outstanding abstracts looking at the complex relationship between mass media and change in the Indian context from a variety of disciplines and countries. We are still accepting abstracts until the 15th of July when we will announce the shortlisted candidates. Then on the 15th of August we will provide specific details about the conference for those who will be attending. We except this to be a timely and thought-provoking event and hope to see you all there. Best, SMC collective From iwasthere2000 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 6 16:57:07 2007 From: iwasthere2000 at yahoo.com (S.Shashidhar) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 04:27:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow Message-ID: <15588.88659.qm@web32415.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Price of agitations THIS is with reference to the forthright tone of your stinging editorial, ‘No raj in Rajasthan’ (IE, June 5), in which you rightly say that “for a modern state, the rule of law is a non-negotiable”. Can you imagine my misery yesterday when, having come here on some urgent professional business, I could not go beyond two kilometres from my parent’s home in Ghaziabad, because of the sealing of Delhi’s borders by the sponsors of the bandh? If in many parts of Rajasthan, both the Gujjars and the Meenas had played havoc with the normal life of ordinary citizens for six days, in the Capital, Monday was made into a nightmare. Yet no one from the UPA government or the BJP said anything about it. You are right when you say that “shrill and uninformed accusations of police excesses” dissuade the police from acting tough. When the police act tough, their political bosses must stand by them. Now, who will pick up the bill for the damage caused to public and private property, as well as for the time lost at work? — M. Ravi, Ghaziabad ----- Original Message ---- From: Shivam Vij To: sarai list Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 8:29:57 PM Subject: [Reader-list] Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow By Kamna Mathur http://www.dailyindia.com/show/145852.php/Devotees-offer-cigarettes-at-Captain-Babas-mausoleum-in-Lucknow Lucknow, June 1: Though smoking or drinking at any religious place can offend many believers at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow, offering cigarettes is a gesture of respect. It is believed all prayers can be answered on lighting cigarettes a-la joss sticks. And, a large number of Hindus and Muslims do so while visiting this sacred mausoleum here. Everyday, hundreds of cigarettes are offered by devotees who visit this place to seek blessings of Captain Baba. "One of my uncles told me that many of his wishes were fulfilled once he visited Captain Baba's shrine. I accompanied him on the first occasion. Now, I am regular visitor. All wishes are fulfilled here", said Ram Gopal Pal, a devotee. It is said Gore Baba alias Mohammad Ashim, worked as Captain in the British Army when the British ruled India. He died during the uprising of 1857. But he had a special liking for the "Capstan" brand of cigarette. After his death, a mausoleum was built and today it is revered as "Captain Baba's Dargarh". As he was known for smoking cigarettes, the followers started a convention to offer the same at his mausoleum.The devotees bring this particular brand as their expression of affection for the Baba. Gore Baba was a highly respected person and some believed he had divine qualities. Later, admirers started calling him Captain Baba. Every Thursday, there is a big rush at Captain Baba's mausoleum and all visitors, irrespective of caste or creed, come along their cigarettes. "We have deep faith in Baba. He is near to God. However, we are just his devotees who come here to seek blessing for ourselves and our children," said Aquil Ahmed, a devotee. 'After lighting the cigarette, I express my desires to Baba. The wishes are fulfilled, so we have faith in Baba", said Nazim Ali, a devotee. People light the cigarettes and insert them in cracked crevices on Captain Baba's grave, just like incense sticks are lit at mausoleums. _________________________________________ 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/> Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From mail at shivamvij.com Wed Jun 6 21:57:16 2007 From: mail at shivamvij.com (Shivam Vij) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 21:57:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow In-Reply-To: <15588.88659.qm@web32415.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <15588.88659.qm@web32415.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9c06aab30706060927q7d261b4ejb0fe83fbec788b4a@mail.gmail.com> "for a modern state, the rule of law is a non-negotiable" It must be modernity that the rule of natural justice for an entire community (Gurjars) is negotiable. best s On 6/6/07, S.Shashidhar wrote: > Price of agitations > > THIS is with reference to the forthright tone of your stinging editorial, 'No raj in Rajasthan' (IE, June 5), in which you rightly say that "for a modern state, the rule of law is a non-negotiable". Can you imagine my misery yesterday when, having come here on some urgent professional business, I could not go beyond two kilometres from my parent's home in Ghaziabad, because of the sealing of Delhi's borders by the sponsors of the bandh? If in many parts of Rajasthan, both the Gujjars and the Meenas had played havoc with the normal life of ordinary citizens for six days, in the Capital, Monday was made into a nightmare. Yet no one from the UPA government or the BJP said anything about it. You are right when you say that "shrill and uninformed accusations of police excesses" dissuade the police from acting tough. When the police act tough, their political bosses must stand by them. Now, who will pick up the bill for the damage caused to public and private property, as well > as for the time lost at work? > > — M. Ravi, Ghaziabad > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Shivam Vij > To: sarai list > Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 8:29:57 PM > Subject: [Reader-list] Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow > > > Devotees offer cigarettes at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow > > > By Kamna Mathur > http://www.dailyindia.com/show/145852.php/Devotees-offer-cigarettes-at-Captain-Babas-mausoleum-in-Lucknow > > > Lucknow, June 1: Though smoking or drinking at any religious place can > offend many believers at Captain Baba's mausoleum in Lucknow, offering > cigarettes is a gesture of respect. > > It is believed all prayers can be answered on lighting cigarettes a-la > joss sticks. And, a large number of Hindus and Muslims do so while > visiting this sacred mausoleum here. > > Everyday, hundreds of cigarettes are offered by devotees who visit > this place to seek blessings of Captain Baba. > > "One of my uncles told me that many of his wishes were fulfilled once > he visited Captain Baba's shrine. I accompanied him on the first > occasion. Now, I am regular visitor. All wishes are fulfilled here", > said Ram Gopal Pal, a devotee. > > It is said Gore Baba alias Mohammad Ashim, worked as Captain in the > British Army when the British ruled India. He died during the uprising > of 1857. But he had a special liking for the "Capstan" brand of > cigarette. > > After his death, a mausoleum was built and today it is revered as > "Captain Baba's Dargarh". As he was known for smoking cigarettes, the > followers started a convention to offer the same at his mausoleum.The > devotees bring this particular brand as their expression of affection > for the Baba. > > Gore Baba was a highly respected person and some believed he had > divine qualities. Later, admirers started calling him Captain Baba. > > Every Thursday, there is a big rush at Captain Baba's mausoleum and > all visitors, irrespective of caste or creed, come along their > cigarettes. > > "We have deep faith in Baba. He is near to God. However, we are just > his devotees who come here to seek blessing for ourselves and our > children," said Aquil Ahmed, a devotee. > > 'After lighting the cigarette, I express my desires to Baba. The > wishes are fulfilled, so we have faith in Baba", said Nazim Ali, a > devotee. > > People light the cigarettes and insert them in cracked crevices on > Captain Baba's grave, just like incense sticks are lit at mausoleums. > _________________________________________ > 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: > > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com > -- http://www.shivamvij.com From iwasthere2000 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 7 08:11:43 2007 From: iwasthere2000 at yahoo.com (S.Shashidhar) Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 19:41:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] corporators with fake caste certificates Message-ID: <879005.61645.qm@web32411.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Radheshyam Jadhav Pune, June 5: Politics in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has hit a roller coaster with membership of five corporators getting cancelled on account of invalid caste certificates submitted while contesting polls from reserved wards. Decision in two similar cases are pending. Membership of another four corporators is under a cloud as the defeated candidates have approached Bombay High Court raising objections on the caste certificates of these corporators. Congress corporators Usha Jadhav and Suman Chimte have resigned from their posts while Nitin Jagtap is on his way to join the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Seven posts are already vacant and result is awaited in six cases in the house of 144. As of now NCPs strength stands reduced to 44 from 46, Congress to 40 from 44 and MNS left with 7 members, having lost one member in the caste validity row. However, the BJP and Sena numbers — 25 and 20 — remain intact. “This will not have an immediate effect on the power equations in the municipal corporation. But we as ruling party will put in every effort to win maximum seats in the bypolls,” said one senior NCP leader. The BJP-Sena members in the standing committee have already started complaining that they are not getting ‘proper share’ in the power, he also said. “It’s been hardly four months and some differences in the ruling coalition are already shaping. With state assembly polls only a year away, the number game in municipal corporation will undergo a change and then every single member will count. But as of now BJP-Sena will continue to support us,” he said. “We would like to contest all vacant seats despite our alliance with the NCP in municipal corporation,” said a BJP leader while Congress leader Aba Bagul put the onus on the election commission. “The state election commission has goofed up in the matter,” he said, alluding to the invalid caste certificates. Municipal secretary Sharad Samel said the decision about conducting the bypolls will be taken as per instructions from the state government and election commission. Five corporators including Bandu Gaikwad (Congress) Malan Bhintade (independent Congress supporter), Balasaheb Bodke (NCP) Bandu Kemse (independent NCP supporter) and Rajendra Gorde (MNS) had contested in reserved seats. They had claimed that as Kunbis, they were entitled to contest from reserved seats. However their opponents objected the Kunbi caste certificate and claimed that Maratha corporators had submitted invalid caste certificates as Kunbis. Thereafter, the caste verification committee agreed with the point raised by defeated candidates. NCP corporator Sunil Gogale and Rekha Shinde of Congress failed to submit their caste certificates in the stipulated period of four months and their case have been referred to the state government. State EC seeks information from PMC The State Election Commission has sought information from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on the invalid caste certificate row. “We provided the information sought by the Election Commission on Tuesday,” said civic election officer Dyandeo Thube. Of the 144 seats, 57 seats were reserved under various categories. “In the case of the two corporators whose caste certificates are valid — but who failed to submit the same in time — the State government will take a final decision soon,” said Thube. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From ysikand at gmail.com Thu Jun 7 09:10:46 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 09:10:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Book Review: Target Iran: The Truth about the White House's Plans for Regime Change Message-ID: <48097acc0706062040t44dc7e19i74fe459102b546f@mail.gmail.com> Target Iran: The Truth about the White House's Plans for Regime Change by Scott Ritter. Pub: Nation Books, New York, 2006. Pp: 316. Hbk: US$25.95. http://www.muslimedia.com/usiranbk.htm Target Iran is the latest book by Scott Ritter, one of the UN's top weapons inspectors in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. He is the author of many books, including Iraq Confidential (2005), in which he revealed how the CIA deliberately sabotaged the activities of the UN Special Commission on Iraq. An integral, independent inspector, Ritter insisted over and over again, in 2002 and early 2004, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The US, however, was only using allegations of weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to pursue its real aim: regime change. Seeing history repeat itself before his very eyes, Ritter has written Target Iran with a sense of urgency, hoping that his call from the wilderness will not go unheeded again. Ritter's book is based on IAEA reports, media accounts, and his extensive contacts among academics, weapons inspectors, nuclear experts, intelligence officials, and diplomatic sources. Target Iran reveals that the present Iranian crisis was manufactured in Israel, an effort spearheaded by Major-General Amos Gilad, senior advisor to Israel's Minister of Defence. Rejecting the disciplined approach that Israeli military intelligence had embraced since 1973, Gilad moved from fact-based analysis to faith-based konseptsia. He took on the task of elevating Iran to the state of number one threat facing Israel, overseeing the 1996 National Threat Assessment which called for regime change in Iran. Amos Gilad then engaged the services of the pro-Israeli lobby, the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), in order to bring the battle to the US Congress. History, of course, was repeating itself. Amos Gilad, along with Israeli intelligence, had plenty of experience manipulating American political opinion against Syria and Iraq. He had previously placed Iraq as the number one threat facing the state of Israel, unleashing the propaganda campaign which eventually led to the overthrown of Saddam Hussein. In February 2003, Amos Gilad made one of his most outlandish allegations, claiming that Saddam "kept astounding quantities of chemical weapons aimed at half the world. He apparently also has biological weapons and is engaged in building nuclear weapons." As Ritter explains, the statement was stunning since it was not backed by any serious assessment from within the Israeli military system. Despite the fact that the Israeli-supplied information against Iraq had been manufactured, it was presented as fact by the fear-mongering Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed that "Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapon," that "Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon," and that "he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon". Condoleeza Rice claimed that Saddam had the infrastructure and nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon and that he was only six months away from making a crude nuclear device. Dismissing United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspectors who found no evidence whatsoever of a nuclear programme in Iraq, Rice claimed that "there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Even though Mohammed El-Baradei, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), refuted every single allegation made by the US regarding an Iraqi reconstituted nuclear program, his calls for calm fell on deaf ears. The decision to destroy Iraq had long been made in both Israel and the US. The UN weapons-inspection process had long been hijacked by the US, using it as a justification for military action against Iraq. Since lies lead to more lies, the reasons for invading and occupying Iraq have continued to morph: 9/11, the war against terror, weapons of mass destruction, freedom and democracy… Although Ritter clearly understands the Israeli agenda against Iraq and Iran, he should also have stressed the Syrian-Lebanese situation. After the invasion of Iraq, Israeli intelligence intensified its propaganda against Syria and Iran. In April 2003, Amos Gilad said that "Now that Saddam Hussein's regime has collapsed, it's time for a change in Syria too." On February 14, 2005, Lebanon's former Primer Minister, Rafiq Hariri, was assassinated by the Mossad in Beirut, unleashing events that had been orchestrated for years by the Israel and US intelligence: a "popular" uprising against the Syrian "occupation" which was coined the "Cedar Revolution" by US undersecretary of state for global affairs, Paula J. Dobriansky in a news conference. Lacking the sophistication of the Israelis and Americans when it comes to world-wide media manipulation and political machination, the Syrians were pressured into withdrawing their 14,000 troops from Lebanon on April 27, 2005. The aim of this operation was not to bring freedom and democracy to the Lebanese, but rather to facilitate an Israeli invasion of Lebanon which took place in July of 2006. Lebanon and Syria, of course, were only part of the pie. The Zionist set eyes on the big baker, Iran, which was seen as the leavening agent in the entire Islamic world. No soon was Saddam Hussein overthrown, that Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalmo told the UN general assembly that "Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the world's number one exporter of terror, hate and instability." Following the lead of Amos Gilad, the Bush administration's 2006 National Security Strategy listed Iran as the greatest threat to the United States, claiming that it was in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Although Ritter possesses pieces of the puzzle, he has not completely put them together. As part of its paranoia, Israel believes that it is in a state of perpetual war. While the early zionists openly advocated the creation of a Greater Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates, they soon realised that such a goal was not attainable militarily. Rather than focusing on physical force in all circumstances, Israel invested enormously in its intelligence service, seeking to influence and eventually dominate regional powers. There was no need for annexation if Israel could get engaged to Egypt, sleep with Saudi Arabia, "get jiggy" with Jordan, elope with the Emirates, kiss Kuwait, tongue-twist Turkey, and make love to Morocco. As for those who fail to submit to Israeli seduction, they will simply be violated by means of regime change in order to create a buffer zone. Like a mercenary mistress, America has offered its services, reshaping the Islamic world, to protect its persuasive pimp. Israel, of course, understands its image and lack of credibility. In order to advance their agenda against Iran, the Israelis have used intermediaries which include the Kurds loyal to Mustafa Barzani, the Mujahidin-e Khalq, and US neo-conservatives. Kurdish separatists loyal to Mustafa Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) have long maintained close ties with Israeli intelligence, relations which expanded during the Iran-Iraq. Barzani initiated contacts with Israel in 1963, and military cooperation began in 1965 with Kurdish guerrillas being led into battle by officers from Israel's military intelligence. Thanks to the Kurd connection, Israel created a number of intelligence-gathering networks in Iran and Iraq. After the 1991 Gulf War, Israel greatly expanded its presence in northern Iraq, using elite teams of spies drawn from the ranks of Israeli Kurds of Iraqi origin which number around 50,000. By 1995, this Kurdish network was providing Israeli intelligence with information regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, evidence which was used to support aggression and invasion against the country. At the same time, of course, Israel was supporting the destruction of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey. In fact, it was largely due to Israeli intelligence that Turkish authorities were able to apprehend PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. Like the separatist Kurds, the People's Mujahidin of Iran, known as the Mujahidin-e Khalq or MEK, has also been providing Israel with information regarding Iran's military capabilities for decades. In order to gather public support for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, Israeli intelligence started to feed false information to the National Council of Resistance in Iran in Washington DC, often using the Israeli lobby as an intermediary. The NCRI, of course, is merely the official façade of the Mujahidin-e Khalq, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, Canada, the EU, and Iran. The Israelis denounce Iran for its support of Hizbullah and Hamas when the Israelis themselves support terrorist groups such as the MEK. In the US, the Israeli agenda against Iran was further advanced by extreme right-wing think-tanks like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, as well as the Project for the New American Century. Both the JINSC and the PNAC have long advocated the neutralisation of Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Libya by means of regime change. Thanks to falsified information fed by Israeli intelligence to counter-revolutionary Iranians, and continued pressure by the America-Israel Public Relations Committee (AIPAC), members of Congress started to express their support for regime-change in Tehran. By the late 1990s, the US government had been convinced of the Israeli way of thinking. With the rise to power of the Republicans in 2000, many leading members of the JINSC and PNAC assumed positions of political power, including: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, John Bolton, Richard Armitage, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, among many more. By 2004 the US House of Representatives had passed resolution 398, which expressed the concern of the Congress over Iran's development of the means to produce nuclear weapons, and calls upon the president to use all appropriate means to deter, dissuade, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Despite the fact that the IAEA concluded that there was no evidence of a nuclear weapons programme in Iran, the head of the Mossad insisted that Iran was on the point of no return. During a trip to Germany, Donald Rumsfeld claimed that Iran has "a very active program and are likely to have nuclear weapons in a relatively short period of time." John Bolton claimed that the IAEA report was "impossible to believe" and that it actually proved that Iran was engaged in a "massive covert" effort to acquire nuclear weapons. In his words, "There's just no doubt that for close to 20 years, the Iranians have been pursuing nuclear weapons through a clandestine program that we've uncovered." According to Ritter, Bolton has leaked Israeli provided information to US media outlets. The CIA, which lied about the existence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program, continued its campaign of falsehood, claiming that: "Tehran has been pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program." As proof, the CIA stated that its satellites showed Iran actively trying to bury the centrifuge enrichment facility at Natanz. As Ritter explains, the CIA position is absolutely absurd since the facility in Natanz was under the total monitoring of IAEA inspectors, who reported back that the plant was still very much under construction and engaged in no activity whatsoever. Despite the objections of the IAEA, the Bush administration continues to misrepresent the capabilities of the Iranian uranium-enrichment programme, irresponsibly inserting red herrings in their assessment. The US even claimed that the Shahib-3 missile was designed to carry a nuclear warhead. Since Israeli-US allegations regarding the Iranian nuclear enrichment programme have been proved to be unfounded, their propaganda machines have attempted to cast a broader net. As Condi Rice now says, "it's not just Iran's nuclear program, but also their support for terrorism around the world. They are, in effect, the central banker for terrorism around the world." Iran is now accused of arming insurgents in Iraq, along with a renewal of old accusations: violation of human rights, oppression of women, suppressing democracy and so on. As Ritter explains, the Iranian nuclear power program dates back to the time of the Shah of Iran. During the mid 1970s, the monarchy decided to install a network of twenty nuclear reactors which would supply the country with all of its energy needs. Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and, according to Article IV, has the inalienable right to develop, research, produce, and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination. At present, Iran finds itself embroiled in a very difficult situation. If it walks away from the IAEA, it jeopardises lucrative trade talks with the European Union. The Russians have also made it clear that their assistance is linked to Iran's continued cooperation with the IAEA. If Iran refuses to cooperate with the IAEA or pulls out of the NPT, Israel and the US will use it as proof of Iran's culpability. At the same time, the IAEA is infiltrated with Israeli and American agents, who use the inspection programme to acquire sensitive information regarding to Iran's military capabilities. The hypocrisy of the world community towards Iran is not lost on Ritter. One only has to look to Israel to see the double standard. The Zionist regime has an undeclared nuclear weapons program, and refuses to sign on to the provisions of the NPT. Even El-Baradei admits that Iran is much more forthcoming and cooperative about its nuclear programme than Israel has ever been. Such an important issue never makes it to the mainstream media, which is more concerned with demonising the present Iranian president. Despite all the outrage caused by Ahmadinejad's statements against Israel, and all the false allegations made regarding his hostage-holding past, Ritter argues that these allegations cannot be used as grounds to justify war against Iran. In the Islamic Republic, he says, the president has no power whatsoever when it comes to using force against any threat, domestic or foreign. All power resides with the Supreme Leader, Imam 'Ali Khamenei. As Ritter reveals to those who are unfamiliar with the Iranian political system, whatever the president's views may be, he has no effective authority to do so without the agreement of the Supreme Leader, whose public position is very different. This is in stark contrast to the paranoid delusions of John Bolton who presents Ahmadinejad as a Holocaust-denier with his finger on a nuclear button. As Ritter points out, Imam Khamenei clarified Iran's position after Ahmedinejad's statements had been sensationally misreported, stating that Iran "will not commit aggression towards any nations." In contrast, while Khamenei calls for calm, President Bush calls for war, openly threatening to use nuclear weapons against friends or foes who challenge US interests. The 2002 National Security Policy states that "the United States…will not hesitate to act alone…by acting preemptively." When indirectly asked about nuking Iran, Bush stated in September 2003 that "we don't take options off the table." In May 2006, John Bolton told B'nai Brith that if Iran did not play ball, it would not be allowed to stay in place. As Ritter shows, the US and Israel are paranoid players in the Iran crisis, the French and the Germans are appeasers, and the Russians are the only rational players. Interestingly enough, the solution to the crisis will not come from Western powers. According to Ritter, "Ayatollah 'Ali Khamenei may represent the best hope for a diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis." As the author explains, Khamenei has reached out to the US on several occasions by means of ambassadorial intermediaries. In its stubborn-minded arrogance, the diplomatically-deficient Bush administration has failed to respond in any fashion. Khamenei, however, was not swayed, and continues to articulate a moderate approach towards resolving the differences between Iran and the US. Strategically silenced by the mainstream media in the Western world, Imam Khamenei seems to be the sole hope for saving Iran. As Ritter has revealed in his book, "the conflict currently underway between the US and Iran is, first and foremost, a conflict born in Israel. It is based upon an Israeli contention that Iran poses a threat to Israel, and defined by Israeli assertions that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program. None of this has been shown to be true, and indeed much of the allegations made by Israel against Iran have been clearly demonstrated as being false. And yet the US continues to trumpet the Israeli claims." The author denounces the unparalleled influence the Israeli lobby exerts over the US Congress and the executive branch of government. He reminds Americans that while many of them may feel compelled to support Israel out of sense of moral duty and obligation, Israel in the end does not share the same moral bond in terms of supporting the United States. As Ritter explains, Israeli security policy makers view America as but a tool to be wielded in support of larger Israeli interests. Whether reason will prevail remains to be seen. The outlook, however, is far from promising. As Ritter admits, "When it comes time to Iran, the Bush administration ultimately has only a single policy objective: regime change, at any cost." As the author explains, US military and intelligence officials had reviewed the possibility of a decapitating strike against Iran's nuclear programme, and the results were not encouraging. Unlike Iraq, Iran does not possess a single target that could be bombed to destroy a nuclear programme. In Iran there are numerous targets, spread out over a vast territory, requiring a massive military effort. According to military planners, a war against Iran lacked the certainty of success, risking a rapid escalation of violence which could not be contained. In short, "according to U.S. military planners, an attack on Iran, even if it was limited in scope to Iran's nuclear activities, would rapidly spin out of control into a regional conflict that could not be contained." Ritter's conclusion is gripping: Iran is not Iraq…Iran remains a very modern nation state…with access to the complete spectrum of technologies…This includes military technology. Iran is a vastly larger country than Iraq, with a correspondingly larger population and military. The Iranian people are a proud people who cherish their culture history, and independence. Any notion that the Iranian people who somehow stand idly while the United States bombarded their nation or occupied their soil is tragically unfounded. Iran would resist any attack against its soil with all of the considerable means available. Any aerial bombardment of Iran would result in an immediate attack by Iranian missiles on targets in Israel, followed by a major Hezbollah rocketing from northern Israel. If U.S. military forces were deployed from the soil of any nation within striking distance of Iran, those nations too could be expected to come under Iranian attack. Iran will fire missile barrages against American forces in Iraq, and then engage the entire collation occupation force on the ground…Iran will do its utmost to play the oil card, not only shutting off its exportation of oil and natural gas, but also threaten the oil production of Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, and Saudi Arabia… US naval forces operating in the Persian will be put at risk… There is a better than even chance that Iran would succeed in shutting down the straight [sic.] of Hormuz, chocking [sic.] off the global oil supply…The Iranian reaction will have global reach, with …terror bombings, kidnappings and/or assassinations… Attacks will definitely occur in Europe, and may even spread to American soil…Any American ground invasion of Iran would be doomed to fail…America simply does not have the conventional combat power to fight a sustained ground combat action in Iran…Faced with such a disaster, the United States would have to no choice but to escalate the conflict along military lines, which means engage Iran with nuclear weapons. At this juncture, the equation becomes unpredictable, the damage done incalculable, and the course of world history, including America's role as a viable global leader. Ritter's vision may be realistic; let us hope that it is not prophetic. From cahen.x at levels9.com Thu Jun 7 03:01:49 2007 From: cahen.x at levels9.com (xavier cahen) Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 23:31:49 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] pourinfos Newsletter / 06-06 to 13-06-2007 Message-ID: <466727C5.8070905@levels9.com> pourinfos.org l'actualité du monde de l'art / daily Art news ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From Wenesday June 06, 2007 to Wenesday June 13 2007 (included) ------------------------------------------------------------------- (mostly in french) @ 001 (06/06/2007) Meetings: François Morellet, Wednesday June 6, 2007, Coffee of the Museum, the Museum of contemporary art of Lyon, Lyon, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34945-tit--Francois-Morellet-Mercredi-6-Juin-2007- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 002 (06/06/2007) Residencies: chantier public, residency #3, Lyon, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34975-tit--chantier-public-residence-3-Lyon- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 003 (06/06/2007) Residence: Artist in Residence (Air) program, The Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands. http://pourinfos.org/art-34976-tit-Residence-Artist-in-Residence-AiR- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 004 (06/06/2007) Meetings: Future Histories of the Moving Image, Nov. 2007, University of Sunderland, Sunberland, United Kingdom. http://pourinfos.org/art-34983-tit--Future-Histories-of-the-Moving-Image-Nov -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 005 (06/06/2007) Rencontres : Meetings: Mutamorphosis conference: opening of the inscriptions, CIANT, Prague, Czech Republic. http://pourinfos.org/art-34984-tit--Conference-Mutamorphosis-ouverture-des -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 006 (06/06/2007) Meetings: lecture “On DIGITAL Arts” - Wednesday June 6th 2007, Island6 Center Arts, Shanghai, China. http://pourinfos.org/art-34985-tit--Lecture-On-Digital-Arts-Wednesday -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 007 (06/06/2007) Meetings: Day discusses: “times of art of feminism”, July 7, 2007, Le Plateau, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34986-tit--Journee-debat-les-temps-d-art-du -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 008 (06/06/2007) Publication: #.05 Semaine, editions Analogues, Arles, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34988-tit--no-05-Semaines-editions-Analogues- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 009 (06/06/2007) Publication : Lectureof the contemporary art, Textual n°52, Paris-Diderot University, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34989-tit--Lectures-de-l-art-contemporain-Textuel -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 010 (06/06/2007) Formation: Initiation Maxmsp, June 11, 2007, Petahertz, Montreuil, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34993-tit-Formation-Initiation-Maxmsp-11-12-juin -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 011 (06/06/2007) Various: Paul Burty Haviland, medal of Right among the Nations (médaille des Justes parmi les Nations,), Yzeures, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34995-tit-Divers-Paul-Burty-Haviland-medaille-des -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 012 (06/06/2007) Various: Diplomas Conservation-restoration of Scultpure, École supérieure des beaux-arts de Tours, Tours, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34996-tit-Divers-Diplomes-Conservation-restauration -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 013 (06/06/2007) Call: The 1st Salon of symbolic art, Toulon, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34997-tit--Le-1er-Salon-de-l-Art-Symbolique-Toulon- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 014 (06/06/2007) Call: Call for Work: Overlap 06 - Rx Gallery, Studio 27, San Francisco, Usa. http://pourinfos.org/art-34998-tit--Call-for-Work-Overlap-06-Rx-Gallery- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 015 (06/06/2007) Call: Portrait in all its states, Bourse talent #32, photographie.com, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34999-tit--Portrait-dans-tous-ses-etats-Bourse -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 016 (06/06/2007) Call: Seoul International Film Festival Head Office, Seoul, South Korea. http://pourinfos.org/art-35000-tit--Seoul-International-Film-Festival-Head -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 017 (06/06/2007) Call: competition Eyeka, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35001-tit--concours-Eyeka-Paris- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 018 (06/06/2007) Call: “to eat healthy”, Competition of creation graphics 2007, pixelcreation, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35003-tit--manger-sain-Concours-de-creation -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 019 (06/06/2007) Call: CALL FOR CURATORIAL PROPOSALS, LabforCulture.org, Amsterdam, Netherlands. http://pourinfos.org/art-35004-tit-Appel-a-candiature-CALL-FOR-CURATORIAL -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 020 (07/06/2007) Screening: body @perception (@perception corporelle), Jacques Ibanez Bueno, June 7, 2007, Turbine de Cran-Gevrier, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34954-tit--perception-corporelle-Jacques-Ibanez -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 021 (07/06/2007) Meetings: Never make that music again, Sound-Art, Performances & DJs, Thursday June 7, 2007, L'opa, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34980-tit--Never-make-that-music-again-Sound-Art-s -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 022 (07/06/2007) Meetings: day of conference about exhibition Cadavres exquis, Thursday June 7, 2007, Foundation Caisse d'épargne-art-contemporain, Toulouse, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34982-tit--journee-de-colloque-dans-le-cadre-de -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 023 (07/06/2007) Call: 2nd International Meetings Sciences and Cinemas, Association Polly Maggoo, Marseille, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35002-tit--2e-Internationales-Sciences-et-Cinemas- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 024 (09/06/2007) Screening: 'Sad In Country Part 1' : A film by Catherine Vertige & Kosten Koper, June 9th 2007, Aalst, Belgium. http://pourinfos.org/art-34991-tit--Sad-In-Country-Part-1-A-film-by -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 025 (10/06/2007) Meeting: Which cultural policy in favour of poetry? , June 22, 2007, the regional Council of Ile de France , Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34978-tit--Quelle-politique-culturelle-en-faveur-de -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 026 (11/06/2007) Meetings: Next seminar: Allan Kaprow and art like experiment, Monday June 11, 2007, Sciences Po, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34979-tit--Prochain-seminaire-Allan-Kaprow-et -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 027 (12/06/2007) Meetings: Hot spot, To project photography, Tuesday June 12, 2007, Confluence, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34987-tit--Hot-spot-Projeter-la-photographie- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Jun 7 16:22:57 2007 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 16:22:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 4 (June 2007) Message-ID: <4D64872F-EC40-4F3F-8D2F-E7A09CA1EF63@sarai.net> News from the Special Exploitation Zone - www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com Gurgaon Workers News - Newsletter 4 (June 2007) Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development. At first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters for the middle-classes which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway between Delhi and Gurgaon. Thousands of young middle class people lose time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres, selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door thousands of rural-migrant workers uprooted by the agrarian crisis stitch and sew for export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or Vietnam. And the rat-race will not stop; at the outskirts of Gurgaon, India’s biggest Special Economic Zone is in the making. The following newsletter documents some of the developments in and around this miserable boom region. If you want to get to know more about working and struggling in Gurgaon, if you want more info about or even to contribute to this project, please have a go at: www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com gurgaon_workers_news at yahoo.co.uk In the June issue you can find: 1) Proletarian Experiences - Daily life stories and reports from workers' perspectives "Needles and Threats", Local Textile Industry, Part One - A text on the local textile export industries, including Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar reports from a young textile worker about his journey from village to industrial city life. Plus stories about how the management of a bigger textile company in Okhla got rid of permanent workers by making use of repression and by taking advantage of the workers' trust in their official representatives. 2) Collective Action - Reports on proletarian struggles in the area "No more Heroes!", Local Automobile Industry, Part Two - Factory occupation and chain reaction of workers' unrest at Hero Honda and Shivam Autotech factory in Gurgaon, April 2006. A rough overview of one of the most significant workers' actions in the area during recent years. 3) According to Plan - General information on the development of the region or on certain company policies "Red Flags and Welfare Schemes" - Some symbolic gestures during the Day of Labour. "Extreme Outsourcing"- Because of rising rents and wages and toll-taking highwaymen, some local call centres make use of internet cafes in order to outsource work; they speed-up the hiring process and put pressure on the less fortunate service workers. "Corporate Watch" - This month with news items on: DGM India, GVK Bioscience, House of Pearl, IKEA, Maruti, Promed, TCI 4) About the Project - Updates on Gurgaon Workers News "Hindi Version" - Introduction to the Hindi version of the Gurgaon Workers News, about to be distributed in the area. Glossary - Updated version of the Glossary: things that you always wanted to know, but could never be bothered to google. Now even in alphabetical order. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1) Proletarian Experiences "Needles and Threats", Local Textile Industry, Part One - Reports from the local textile industry The series "What are we/you doing...?" puts our daily experiences in the focus, against the general trend of giving more importance to the `big events´ (marriages of the rich and beautiful, election results, cricket World Cup, etc.) than to our own life. The first step in changing our lives is to reflect upon it together, shredding the veil of boredom and misery. Following are three reports from the textile sector. The first report is from a young worker living in Delhi area, telling about his daily life; it was originally published in Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar (FMS) no. 215, in May 2006. The second report is from a Sona Fashion worker; the third is about LM Sagar Export describing the policy of many textile companies in Delhi’s South, shifting work and workers between various factories, often using official strikes as a pretext to re-structure exploitation. These two stories were distributed in the area with FMS no. 216, in June 2006. All three stories are from the industrial area of Okhla, in the South of Delhi. In order to get some background information on Okhla textile cluster we attach a summary of an academic study by NISIET (2003). On the rather narrow empirical base of short chats at chai stalls in the more shiny textile area of Gurgaon Udyog Vihar Phase One we can say that at least in terms of basic wages and working-hours the situation is similar compared to the one in Okhla, as is the situation in sector 34 and 37 in Gurgaon. In front of the Orient Craft factory (pics: see web-site), opposite of the Hero Honda factory, two former workers hired through contractors sit and wait for their out-standing money. They report that workers are abused and hit in the factory. But as soon as buyers from America or Europe arrive, everything is all nice-nice again. One of the workers has been kicked out because he returned late from his village in Bihar. He worked at Orient Craft for about seven months. He says that the permanents get about 3,200 Rupees (Rs) per month, their over-time is paid double rate, while the workers hired through contractors get about 2,500 Rs and mostly do piece-work. Orient Craft has about 20 factories in the Gurgaon area. Just across the road in the industrial area of so-called Pace City 1, Sector 37, a permanent worker sits at another chai stall, also waiting for his severance pay. He worked as a skilled tailor in sector 37, in the finishing department of a company making shirts for export. He had a permanent job, but he decided to quit it. The company promised double-rate of the over-time payment after three months of employment, but they never paid. People were abused, wage payments were delayed and the wage was crap anyway, ranging between 2,500 to 2,800 Rs. The worker knows that he might have to return many times in order to get his outstanding money, about 5,000 Rs. Maybe the many job adverts at most of the factory gates in Gurgaon assured him in his decision to leave the job "tailors needed, helpers needed". The decision of the Haryana government to increase the minimum wage might be more than just a formal move, but a reaction to the wage pressure from below. The conditions in Gurgaon are not only similar to those in Okhla, but also to those in Bangladesh and Vietnam, where there have been major textile workers upheavals in the export zones recently... What are we/you doing...? (A nineteen year old worker.) I get up at 6:30 in the morning. For an 8ft by 8ft room in a newly built house in Tekhand we three people pay 910 Rs rent per month. The house has two floors, altogether fifteen rooms, the landlord lives somewhere else. There is one latrine upstairs and one downstairs. At the moment three or four rooms are empty, that is why the queue for the latrine is not that long. There is no bathroom; the men bathe outside, the women inside their rooms. The house where I lived before was much more crowded and the rent for a much smaller room was 920 Rs. At 7 am one of us cleans the alloy pots, the second prepares wheat flour rotis and the third cooks some vegetables, then we bathe. At 8:30 am, after having had rotis, we three go off to work. At the moment I work at the Anand Internationals D-3 factory in Okhla Phase One. Right from the beginning of the shift at 9 am you are immersed in trying to meet the target. Nowadays I make ties - when starting this work the company gave you 12 minutes to finish a tie, then after three days it was 11 minutes, then 10-9-8 and now it is 7 minutes per tie. Because the target was too high I left the Anand Internationals A-185 factory after two months of work. There you got 20 minutes per skirt at the beginning, then 19 minutes the next day and the target time kept on dropping; by the third day it was down to 10 minutes. You have to increase the work speed so much that the body cannot keep up, the work is consuming the body. My father does handicraft work, he makes metal utensils as a profession. Well-off people in the trade asked him to come to Kanpur, Nagpur, or Nepal. But today - because of steel and aluminium - plates or water-pots made of brass or copper do not sell anymore. In the village I left school after the seventh class and learned how to tailor. When I was fifteen, in 2002, I went to Delhi with an uncle and he got me a job in Okhla Phase One, in the A-257 factory of Raj Mataar. Instead of small sewing machines like in the village there were big Zukki machines and ‘modern fashion’ production in the factory. During the four months of the 'learning and doing' period I worked day in and day out from nine in the morning to one in the night. The pressure from the company was a clear "do it or leave it", and my uncle also said that I should stick to it. I was still in puberty and after four months of working such long hours I fell ill. In Delhi Doctor Usha Maheshvari took a 200 Rs fee and diagnosed TB. I went back to the village and Doctor Pande in Ilahabad took a 20 Rs fee and said that my blood picture is bad. I stayed in the village for four months and bought medicine from Doctor Pandes’ shop, which was 20 percent overpriced, and continued my treatment. When back in Delhi I started working at PeeEmparo Exports factory (F2/6 Okhla Phase One). I worked there for three years and they covered neither ESI nor PF. Every eight to nine months I went to Ilahabad in order to get medicine. Then I made friends with someone in Okhla who gave me treatment. Then at D-3 factory of Anand International you had to work from 9 in the morning to 12 at night. Official working hours were from 9 am to 9 pm but if a worker finished work at 9 pm then the company would only count working-time till 8 pm, meaning that in order to save one hour paid working time for which you had already worked, which is 16 and a half Rupees, you work till 12 at night! Your company account is sealed on 15th of April, meaning that the company card will expire and you will be made a new one. The numbers on the cards change and the cards are kept in the factory. (meaning that the workers cannot proof their seniority). From the total of fifteen working days I was 30 hours in minus, lacking behind in the race for the target. The company cut 496 Rupees from my wage. In the factory the target becomes an obsession; if you go for a piss, you get minus (meaning that they cut your wage), if you go to drink water, you get minus. Only when it becomes unbearable do we go for a piss or to get water. Only for the lunch break at 1:15 pm do we get up from the machines. On the board in the canteen it says that a meal is 8 Rupees and a tea is 1.5, but actually it is 12 and 2. If you ask about it they say that the board is just for display. The lunch break is 45 minutes and in order to allow people to get out quickly there are two security guards for checking people; at midnight when people finish work a huge crowd queues up because there is only one security guard. Then it takes ten minutes to leave the factory premises. For lunch I go back to my room, where there is the food we made in the morning. After eating I leave the dishes like they are so that there is a little time for relaxing. At 2 pm you are back in the factory behind the machine. At 4 pm there is a fifteen minute tea break; we leave the factory for tea. From 4:15 pm till 6 pm behind the machine, then another tea break, leaving the factory in order to grab some food, and again from 6:15 pm onwards behind the machine. In the factory there are 300 sewing machines, they are in the basement where it is very hot; even in winter you sweat. One always feels suffocated. Out of the 300 workers there will be 10 who are healthy, the rest of us suffer from this or that illness. No one has been given an ESI card, we pay privately for our treatment and if you are too ill you get fired from the company. In the first floor of the D-3 factory of Anand Internationals there is the office, in the second and third floors the finishing department - cutting threads, removing stains, ironing and packaging. In the fourth floor there are people who earn 15,000 to 25,000 Rupees, they don’t talk to us. In the fifth floor, next to the canteen, chemicals are prepared for washing the clothes. For 500 men and women working in the factory there is only one latrine each in the basement, there is always a queue. Because nowadays they keep us working until midnight they give us half an hour dinner break at 8:30 pm. We eat at a street stall - the company gives us 20 Rs for food. Then again, from 9 pm to midnight behind the machine. After returning to my room I go to sleep at about 1 am, leaving the dishes from the noon break like they were. At the moment they put 7:30 pm as the time that we finish work on the timecard, so it shows 1.5 hours overtime. The payment for overtime is at double rate, but what does that mean if we actually work 15 hours, from 9 am till midnight? If the working time was from 9 am to 9 pm they would say on the timecard that we stopped work at 6 pm. The timecard is to show to the buyer and the labour department. There is not a day off, neither Sundays nor any other day. The delegates of the buyer GAP or Lenson announce their arrival, and at that day we finish work at 6 pm. In the factory conversations are not like they should be and people misbehave - abuse, swear words, lies, exaggerations, petty cheating. If a piece is wrongly made then you get told off by the line man and the master. Our land- lord at home bickers about our water and electricity consumption. When work finishes at 9 pm then one of us gets some veggies on his way home from work. In Tekhand the market is very crowded even at 10 pm.. The shop-keepers pack up their stuff at midnight. When back in our room we clean the dishes and make food. We do not even make tea at home. At night we make rice, lentils and roti-bread, the veggies we prepare in the morning. We get veggies, lentils, rice, flour, oil, spices, gas and soap together and each cent is listed in a book; in every respect we have learnt to keep separate accounts of everything one spends. At the moment I live with very close relatives. For food and rent each of us pays about 1,100 Rs, in addition to that 10 Rupees are spent daily on tea and food in the factory. If you work from 9 am to midnight you get 5,000 Rupees, if you work from 9 am to 9 pm you get 4,000 Rupees. Apart from covering my costs here I send money back to the village, because if you fall ill you cannot predict how much money it will cost you. During the four years that I am in Delhi, I have never been well - illnesses have cost me 30,000 to 32,000 Rupees. What hope is there in this kind of existence? You just have to keep on going. Sona Fashion Worker Plot F-63, Okhla Phase One. There is one shift from 9 am to midnight. Only the 20 women employed in the thread-cutting department leave the factory at 9 pm. Fifteen hours of daily work, 30 days per month: our condition is bad. Some skilled workers are given 110 Rs for an eight hour shift, others 115 Rs; this is 13.75 Rs and 14.25 Rs respectively per hour. For lunch and tea break they deduct one hour, so they pay us for fourteen hours per day. Those women who cut threads and other helpers get 1,800 Rs per month, based on an eight hour work day and a 26 day work month. The overtime is paid at the single rate, based on this wage. For the fifteen hour shift the company does not give you tea, but they provide 20 Rs for food. The water-cooler in the factory is broken and the quality of the drinking water is bad. For 80 machines there are two air coolers; the air reaches eight machines and the other 72 sewing workers are soaked in sweat during work. LM Sagar Exports Worker FMS no.213 and no.216, March and June 2006 Okhla Phase One - the factories B-48, B-237, B-242, and D-116 manufacture clothes for export. The sign at the gate of all the factories says LM Sagar Exports, but inside on the documents it says JK Textiles, KK Apparels, Manish Apparels, DB Garments, Sonu Enterprises, MM Apparels, HV Enterprises and other names. There was only one general manager and one personnel manager. In order to avoid having to give workers permanent contracts (see glossary) the company had a trick: workers are sometimes listed in the account of one company, sometimes another. In this game of changing names, several months’ worth of workers´ PF money was embezzled as well. The workers kept on working and the PF is deducted from their wages, but the deducted money was not deposited at the PF office. According to the company’s documents, during this period the workers were not employed in the factory! There were also workers employed by contractors inside the factory. Despite all that the workers managed, by all kind of means, to create such a pressure that the company made 1,500 out of 6,000 workers permanent. Officially the shift was 8 hours, but actually workers worked 10 and a half, twelve, and even sixteen and a half hours on a daily basis. The overtime did not show up in the company’s documents and it was only paid at single rate. Most of the casual workers and workers hired through contractors were not mentioned in the company’s records, they neither got ESI nor PF. Those workers employed by contractors did not get the minimum wage mandated by the Delhi government. The management paid less than their stated fixed piece rate. They cut wages under the pretext of bad quality. This was common practice in the company. Bullying by goons was also a common issue in all the factories. The arrangements for drinking water were not acceptable. In spite of it all the company started to get into difficulties. For four years (since 2002) there have been delays of wage payments. The resistance of the workers grew. Jag Sagar was replaced by Kailash Agraval and Amit Agraval as directing managers. The new directors´ priority was to get rid of the 1,500 permanent workers. By bullying individual workers they managed to kick 250 out of the factory. ...On Saturday, the 11th of February, when the workers of the B-48 finishing department asked the new managing director Kailash Agraval for their January wage, he answered: "How can you have the courage to ask for wages? In two minutes I will kick you all out". After the weekly Sunday off, when the workers arrived at the factory gate at 9:30 in the morning of the 13th of February, there were five guys with guns and 15 guys with laathis and inside there were guys with hockey sticks waiting as well. The company had brought these people in three vans. At the gate notices with the various companies' letterheads were attached each listing the names of all workers employed in the finishing department. The notices said that the workers had verbally asked for their final dues and that the company was going to give them. The guns and laathi men stopped the 100 workers from entering. 150 sewing machine operators from the sewing division were let in and they were given the January wage on the 13th of February. Once the shady deals with the future funds (PF) became known to the workers, the skilled tailors joined a union. On the 15th of February the finishing department workers also gave money to this union and obtained their member receipts. After a complaint by the union a labour officer arrived at the factory on the 16th of February. The personnel manager only talked about the issue of the final dues and said that the workers can do what they want but that they will not be taken back on the job. On the very same day there was a meeting of the union with the director Amit Agraval, where he said that he can get free electricity in Muradabad, that he will re- locate the company there, and that the Okhla workers will get their final dues. By making the notice pay, compensation, gratuity, bonus sum, etc. the question of concern, the conditions were created for striking a deal which did away with 1,500 permanent jobs of workers. Then at the B-237 factory they managed to force a huge number of workers to resign at one go, after the workers were tricked into a union banner-and-strike-tent action (meaning a traditional union protest) with the corresponding lock-out by the management. After having kicked out most of the casual and contract workers in January 2006, in February the management picked the B-48 factory as their target. On the 13th of February 100 workers from the finishing department were stopped at the gate. Hand-in-hand with another union and the Labour Department the company had arranged this deceptive action. It resulted in getting rid of 100 workers in one go (see passage above). In April the company singled out the sewing workers of the B-48 factory. On the 12th of April 90 workers were laid off, on the 16th of April another 50, on the 18th of April the remaining 80 workers were laid off (see glossary "lay off"). Being transfixed by the union the workers abstained from taking steps themselves and then again, after complaining about the leaders having sold out, the workers only continued lamenting. In the absence of actions taken by the workers themselves the company, the union and the labour department were successful in tightening the noose - by 1st of May the employment of all permanent workers at B-48 was finished. Only some permanents are left at B-242 and D-116. All the talk about the company shifting to Muradabad turned out to be bullshit, the company opened a new factory in Faridabad, under the name of Target Fashion. Ten of the senior staff were sent there, too. The company sold the machines of the B-237 factory and was taking the machines of B-48 to Faridabad. Okhla Readymade Garment Cluster The development of the garment industries in Okhla started in the late 1950s, although the main boost came during the 1970s and 1980s, when imported, power- operated cutting and sewing machines were introduced. Another shift was the displacement of the raw material industries (bleaching, dyeing, printing) from Delhi during the 1980s and 1990s. Raw material now comes mainly from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the main work-force in the Okhla area. After the printed cloth arrives in Okhla the primary work then consists of cutting, sewing, embroidery, finishing, washing, ironing and packaging. Most of the garments are manufactured for export; the design and samples usually are dictated by the buyer. There are hardly any official figures of how many companies and factories are involved in the process; the NISIET study from 2003 states that there are 500 fabricating and 250 embroidering units in Okhla. The number of sub-contractors is not given. The same report says that 40 percent of the overall export garments come from Delhi and 40 percent of Delhi’s output originates from Okhla. It reckons that 50,000 workers are employed in the area. Knowing that most of the workers are not on the official payroll (see reports), the actual number will probably be three to four times higher. If you wait at one of the several entry points to the industrial area and watch people arriving for the early shift, you get a feel for the real numbers of workers: at the railway-crossing near Apollo hospital alone over 100,000 people pass within two hours. According to the report the average export factory employs 100 people. It lists the following reasons for the development of the cluster: already-provided infrastructure for the factories, short distance to railways and the airport, short distance to raw material supply, easy supply of migrant work-force, and proximity to political and public administration in Delhi. The report categorizes different types of companies in the area: -the buying house (getting contract from buyer, organising the business, checking quality of sub-contractors), -the manufacturers (get direct contracts from buying houses, sub-contract parts of the work), -the machine embroidery units (get contracts from manufacturers), -the contractors (take contracts from manufacturers and embroidery units and give work to work-shop and house-hold units), -traders and manufacturers of threads, buttons, fittings (supply to the industry in the area), -the machine manufacturers and maintainers (provide and repair tools and machines for the industry), -the packaging and transport units, -the training and administrative bodies. The study also comes up with following value chain analysis, with the percentage referring to the later sales price: basic raw material (50 to 60 percent), processing of raw material, e.g. bleaching, dyeing, printing (10 to 15 percent), cutting and fabrication (10 to 15 percent), fittings and accessories (7 to 8 percent), finishing and packaging (7 to 8 percent), embroidery and handwork (plus 25 percent on sales price). It reckons a profit margin of 5 to 30 percent for the different kind of companies involved. Most of the machinery is imported, mainly from Japan, particularly from Zukki Machines Corporations. Most companies are family-owned, and the study says that a minimum investment of 100,000 to 150,000 Rs is necessary to get a contract in the area. Between 2000-2003 a down-turn hit the industry in Okhla; according to the study 50 percent of the manufacturing units have been closed or shifted to other areas, mainly Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad. The study gives two (rather unconvincing) reasons for the closures: the liberalisation of the textile market and the lower minimum wages in Gurgaon (Haryana) and Noida. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2) Collective Action "No more Heroes!", Local Automobile Industry, Part Two - Strike and factory occupation at Hero Honda motor-cycle plant and its supplying company Shivam Autotech. Gurgaon, April 2006 Intro After we had a short glimpse at the structure of the local automobile industry in newsletter no.3, now we document how workers made antagonistic use of their central position in the web of social cooperation. The example of the Hero Honda strike is last year’s news. Why bring a workers' struggle up again, about one year after it took place? Although widely ignored by media and by most of the official organisations, the strike and factory occupation at Hero Honda and Shivam Autotech have been the most important recent workers' unrests in the Gurgaon area. The wildcat action at Hero Honda was followed by direct actions of temp workers at Honda (HMSI) and Delphi in the following months (see next issues of the newsletter). The important features and lessons of the short period of strike and factory occupation are: * The unrest hit one of the main cores of the local industry. The Hero Honda factory in Gurgaon is the two-wheeler factory with the highest daily output in India and attached to it are over 240 official suppliers. * The strike hit with full force, and no notice was given, therefore the management could not prepare a countermove (piling extra stocks, increasing production in other plants, mobilising strike-breakers, etc.). * The strikers managed to avoid a lock-out situation and the consequent police repression by occupying the factory. * At Hero Honda the workers hired through contractors were organising the strike, at Shivam it was a united strike of all categories of workers. This is rare in a situation where most of the official strikes are led by and mainly in the interest of permanent workers. * According to the group of workers who struck, their demands were addressing issues of hierarchy (abolishment of different kind of uniforms) as well as wage questions. The demands were egalitarian, trying to overcome differences within the work-force. * The workers' mobilisation spread from the main plant to the supplier, without open or official organisational links. The impact of the strike was noticeable further down the supply-chain (truck-drivers, second-tier suppliers). * The official unions were outside of the strike. Some positive elements of the strike might be due to the absence of established unions (no strike notice, occupation, involvement of workers hired through contractors), as well as some of the problems, e.g., that there was little support from the outside, necessary during a factory occupation. * Workers showed that they are able to organise a strike, but during negotiations workers displayed their inability to finish it in their favour. The workers at Hero Honda sent a small delegation for negotiations and they paid for this mistake. The Shivam Autotech workers tried to avoid this, but got bogged down in legal processes and were divided. * Both strikes showed the volatile situation in the industry, the weak links of capital: the fragile supply-chain and the simmering anger amongst the casual and temporary work-force. In the aftermath the management debates equated the strike at Hero Honda with the suddenness of natural catastrophes. For the summary of the unrest we rely on some internet and media material, some short conversations we had with workers at the factory gates during the strikes, an article published in the Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar (May 2006) and a report by comrades from the area, written shortly after the strike at Shivam Autotech. We structured the summary as follows: 1. Overview on the Indian two-wheeler sector 2. Glimpse on the structure of Hero Honda company 3. Strike at Hero Honda a) Prelude of the unrest b) Chronology of the unrest c) Workers' demands and result of the dispute d) FMS article 'Hero ka Honda' 4. Glimpse on the structure of Shivam Autotech company 5. Strike at Shivam Autotech a) Prelude of the unrest b) Chronology of the unrest c) Negotiation Process d) Outcome e) Short visit at KDR, a supplier of Shivam Autotech in Faridabad 1. Overview on the Indian two-wheeler sector India is the 2nd biggest two-wheeler market and manufacturer in the world. The sales numbers increased from around 0.1 million in the early 1970s to 3.76 million in 2000 to 7.9 million in 2006. This is compared to about 1.1 million passenger cars being sold in 2006. About 70 percent of all registered automobiles in India are two-wheelers. The ”market saturation” is still low; in 2000 there were about 10 bikes per 100 adults (aged 18 to 50), a total of 42 million running (registered) bikes. The main growth of the sector started with joint-ventures in the 1980s (Hero Honda, Bajaj Kawasaki, TVS Suzuki, Escorts Yamaha). Export of two wheelers is still limited, both in terms of numbers (about 350,000 in 2005), as well as regionally (mainly other Asian and African countries). Together with pedestrians, riders of two- wheelers also account for 60 to 70 percent of the 300 people who die in road accidents every day in India, 60 to 70 percent of the 1,000 daily permanent injuries, 4,000 daily serious and 18,000 minor injuries. These numbers are rough estimates from 2000, though as you can see above the number of annually sold two-wheelers has more than doubled since then. 2. Glimpse on the structure of Hero Honda company The Hero Group, directed by the industrial dynasty Munjal, started as a supplier of bicycle components in the early 40s. Over the years, the Hero Group had entered multiple business areas, largely related to the transportation industry. The group bought into multiple areas of raw material processing, such as steel rolling, to the manufacture of subassemblies and components. In 1984/85 Hero Group started a joint-venture with Honda. Both partners held 26% of the equity with another 26% sold to the public and the rest held by financial institutions. Hero Honda became a public company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). In 1999 the joint-venture with Honda became critical, because Honda set up 100% subsidiary Honda Scooter and Motorcycles India (HMSI). The Honda HMSI plant is only 15 km down the road from the main Hero Honda factory. At the day of the announcement of the entering of HMSI into the market, Hero Honda’s share price dropped by 30%, given the outlook of fierce competitions in the two-wheeler segment. But Honda was ready for concessions. First, Honda agreed to delay entry into the motorcycles segment until 2004. It also agreed to form a four-person committee with two members from Hero Honda to examine any new motorcycles that it would release post-2004. Lastly, it offered an opportunity to Hero Honda to share in the equity as a minority holder in HMSI. The fact that both companies also tap into a similar pool of suppliers should make clear that only from a very legalistic and formal view can they be seen as two separate companies. The same is true for the composition of capital of the seven main suppliers of Hero Honda, which are basically subsidiaries of the Munjal Group (for example: Munjal Showa Ltd., Sunbeam Auto ltd., Majestic Auto Ltd. Shivam Autotech Ltd.). The Munjal Group has set up a range of firms to supply components, not just to Hero Honda, but also to other automobile companies. These operations range from the manufacture of shock absorbers and wheel rims to aluminum castings and plastic products. Apart from Honda, the Hero group has joint-ventures with Universal Cycles Plc. from the UK and Bombardier-Rotax from Austria. In 2006 Hero Honda sold 3,336,756 motorcycles in India, which means that Hero Honda has a major market share in India (still around 40 to 45 percent) and is the biggest motor-cycle and bicycle producer in the world. In 2007 Hero Honda laid the foundation stone of a third plant in the Gurgaon area (the other two plants are located in Dharuhera and Haridwar). The Gurgaon plant has a daily output of about 6,000 bikes per day and a major dispatch department for spare parts. Spare parts are a big business, given the 42 million running bikes in India (2000). Hero Honda’s management has been very paternalistic towards its work- force, a mixture of tight social control and employee family outings, of enforced discipline and company cricket teams. This is expressed, for example in the company’s suggestion scheme: "All employees who make a suggestion are given a ballpoint pen. Further, the best suggestion of the year is given the annual award of cash prize and the family is given a plant visit along with a free lunch in the factory cafeteria" (source: “Transferability of Japanese Human Resource Management Practices: Case Study of Honda Japan and its Joint Venture Hero Honda in India” by Ms. Srabani Roy Choudhury ). At the Gurgaon plant the permanent workers were put in a position very distinguished from the rest of the casual work-force, distinguished due to their supervising function and also visually distinguished by differently coloured uniforms. Following are some excerpts from a manager's study showing that the paternalism at Hero Honda Gurgaon plant starts with recruiting: "The Gurgaon plant has taken considerable trouble to recruit the right kind of individuals at the shop floor level. The personnel manager at the Gurgaon plant told the researcher that apart from technical knowledge he looked for honesty and earnestness in the candidates. Moreover the integrity of the candidate, past record of alcoholism, vandalism and involvement in union activity is given due consideration. The department has therefore ventured into a time consuming policy of background checks. A candidate’s background is given a thorough checking by contacting his previous employer. Moreover, someone from the plant goes and meets the employees in his previous company, as well as gathers information about him from nearby shops and tea stalls. Hero Honda management supports this sentiment and even rejects a candidate with very good qualifications, if he is found to have some past history of unionism. Honda Japan conforms to the Japanese practice of enterprise union system - with 100 per cent participation of workers up to the level of assistant managers. The Honda union functions at two fronts - collective wage bargaining during the spring offensive and participation through meetings at various levels. The management having had a bitter experience of unionism in the Daruhera plant is keen to establish communication channel with all employees so as to enable the management to react immediately to grievances of the employees". (source: see previous citation) At the time when the strike kicked off at the Gurgaon plant the general division between the 1,400 permanent workers and the 5,500 workers hired through contractors became blatant. The company sent the permanents into holiday, and they went. Interesting is the fact that, like the suppliers, the contractors at Hero Honda are also related to Hero Honda managing Mujal Group. They sub-contract the contracts to other smaller contractors (Sehgal Brothers, Prakash Contractor and Ram Mehar Mann of RSV Enterprises). 3. Strike at Hero Honda a) Prelude of the unrest The workers hired through contractors at Hero Honda had been angry for various reasons: * Although 50 percent of these workers have worked in the plant for more than six to seven years, they are not offered permanent contracts. * There is a huge wage difference: after six to seven years a permanent worker will receive up to 30,000 Rupees per month while a worker hired through a contractor gets between 2,200 and 6,200 Rupees. * Most workers have all kinds of trouble because they do not receive a company card, which is necessary for dealing with authorities (e.g., when applying for medical care or other benefits). They are not enrolled in the register, which means that they will not receive PF or ESI. * Casual/ workers (see glossary) hired through contractors are not given work periodically as production targets change. When that happens, Rs 500 is cut from their monthly wage. * There have been cases of physical harassment of the workers hired through contractors by supervisors and managers of Hero Honda. We have no idea what finally triggered the dispute. Some people said that a bigger group of workers was not taken back after they returned from holiday (a lot of workers come from far off places in Bihar or Orissa). This is said to have been the final straw. Other sources say that there were some informal gatherings taking place during the week before the 10th of April 2006 where workers agreed on taking action. b) Chronology of the unrest 10th of April 2006 Strike and factory occupation begins when workers refuse to leave the factory after the end of their shift. For some pictures from the action, visit our makeshift multi-media section on the web-site. 11th of April 2006 Most of the workers have confined themselves within the factory premises demanding regularisation of jobs while another 500 are waiting outside, giving moral and physical support to the workers inside. "The police have prevented us from standing near the gate or raising slogans," says Sushant, a contract worker from Orissa, who was not allowed by the management to go inside the factory. (source: Labourfile). Hero Honda starts negotiating with the strikers. In a public statement made by Hero Honda, it says: "A section of workers hired by contractors have raised demands on their contractors and have irresponsibly stopped working". Reply of a worker during an interview with a newspaper: "We want all the 4,000 contract workers to be absorbed in the company as regular employees, so that we do not have to deal with contractors any longer." (source: DNA Money) The article presented this worker as a "strike leader", then as a "spokesperson", while adding that there is no union inside the plant. 14th of April 2006 Allegedly the water supply for the workers inside the factory has been cut on the 13th of April. Hero Honda says in a statement that the ongoing strike at its Gurgaon plant will "not impact" the company's annual profitability or production targets. "Hero Honda aims to make up the production loss by stepping up production from the current 5,800 units per day to 6,500 units per day, post commencement of operations at its Gurgaon plant," the company said in a statement in New Delhi. "Due to the very nature of the business, there are sufficient stocks in the pipeline and at the dealerships," it said. "The company would also like to clarify that this is a flash strike and there is no formal workers union at its Gurgaon plant. Also, the permanent workers are not supporting this strike," it added. The canteen stopped providing food for the strikers after the third day of occupation. Some local unionists said that they started collecting money for food. 15th of April 2006 Production at the manufacturing plant in Gurgaon remains suspended for the fifth day in a row. Meanwhile production at Hero Honda’s other plant at Dharuhera is going on as usual. At the retail level some dealers complained of supply problems for a few specific motorcycles. Only a small police force is stationed at the factory, most of them sleeping in the shade. Workers hold assemblies on the factory lawn and put up self- painted posters. Some call centre workers on the other side of the street watch the scene. No one is allowed to enter the factory, the security guards are still in place. Allegedly the police refused to enter the factory premises and management was afraid of creating dangerous situations (dangerous for their factory and machinery). 16th of April 2006 The rather miserable end of the strike. After representatives of the Labour Department refused to enter the factory, both the Labour Department and company management asked for a delegation from the workers. About six to seven workers went to a meeting outside the factory; other people, amongst them local unionists, were not allowed to attend the meeting. The delegation returned and said that the strike was over, promising that some of the demands were met. The workers called off the strike, but those workers who went as a delegation to the negotiation disappeared. People assume that they have been bought off. Allegedly, out of the 5,500 workers hired through contractors only 4,000 went back to work the next day, angry about the fact that a lot of the demands were actually not met (for more on the demands, see below). A contract worker at the gate said that they were granted an Rs 1,000 monthly wage rise. He said that people are not happy with the result, but that they decided in an assembly to stop the strike. It sounded like some strikers (strike leaders?) had suggested to resume work after the negotiations did not proceed. About 20 - 30 workers who took part in the dispute were dismissed. Hero Honda management announced that in order to compensate for the loss of production, output at the Dharuhera plant had been stepped up. c) Workers' demands and outcome of the dispute Some demands of the workers have been agreed to - whether they are actually implemented remains to be seen: * A 30 percent hike in wages of casual workers. Workers hired through contractors used to getRs 4,000-4,500 a month for an 8 hour shift. That will now be Rs 5,500. In comparison, ITI graduates (skilled workers hired through contractors) get Rs 6,500. * Besides this 30 percent hike, there will be no difference in dress colour between helpers and ITI graduates. The initial demand to abolish the different uniforms for permanents and temps has not been met. * The wage of the contract workers will go into a bank and they will have ATM accounts. * They too will get a gift annually. This was told by workers at the gate one day after the end of the strike. However, workers seeking casual/contract work at the Gurgaon plant of Hero Honda report that ever since the strike at Hero Honda during April- May 2006, workers hired through contractors are now being hired only at the Haryana rates of Rs 2,400 (this is the minimum wage valid in April 2006). During short conversations in May 2007 workers hired through contractors working at Hero Honda say that those amongst them with ITI qualification get 6,000 Rs per month, those without get 4,800 to 5,000 Rs, which would mean that the strike resulted in a pay hike. Apart from that they tell that there has been little change since the strike. They say that the major changes after the strike were that they received ATM bank accounts and that now all skilled workers, disregarding their contract situation, got white uniforms. Nowadays the helpers hired through contractors have to wear the blue uniforms and the burden of visual minority. Interestingly, in a discussion amongst managers of various automobile manufacturers managers were quite blatant about how to assess the strike. In an article published in the ”automobile” section of www.indiatimes.com they stated: “The Hero Honda strike or indeed the floods in Mumbai last year, the transport strike in were all instances when JIT- dependent Motown's supply chains went for a six. "When the floods happened not having a single supplier helped us because we had multiple suppliers from whom we could step up supplies to overcome the crunch," says General Motors' [manager] Balendran. As for strikes, here too there is a built-in buffer which is violated only when the dispute involves irregular workers. "In most cases, any legal strike that a labour union goes in for is preceded by an advance notice to the management about the strike which gives the management some time to take stock of the situation," adds Balendran. Says Hero Honda head of marketing PS Sunder: "We have a stock of 15 days with our dealers so retail sales are not hit." Adds Ravi Sud, vice president-finance, Hero Honda: "We manufacture 5800 bikes in our Gurgaon plant. If we value a bike at Rs 35,000 then we are losing an estimated Rs 20 crore per day which is loss of sales to dealers and not retail sales. However, we would make up for it by stepping up production to 6500 bikes." (source: http://auto.indiatimes.com/ articleshow/msid-1496288,prtpage-1.cms) d) FMS article 'Hero ka Honda' Although in the following article there are some repetitions and some statements which contradict some of the information above, we nevertheless want to include it as a report and a kind of summary. The Honda Hero Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar no.215, May 2006, (reported by someone who regularly visits the Hero Honda plant) In the Hero Honda factory in Gurgaon 1,350 to 1,400 permanent workers and 5,500 workers hired through contractors are employed. In addition there are 300 to 400 security guards who are hired through another contractor. On the 15th of April the 5,500 workers hired through contractors suddenly stopped work; the production was put to a halt till 21st of April, when work was resumed. The Hero Honda factory in Dharuhera was not affected. Most of the permanent workers are employed in the motorcycle assembly. About 25 percent of the workers hired through contractors are in the motorcycle assembly and 75 percent in the spare parts division. The workers hired through contractors who have already worked in the plant for years still get re-issued a card with their photograph every three months. On the card with the Hero Honda stamp is written that they have the permission to work on the company premises (meaning that the card is not an official proof of company ID, necessary for a lot of dealings with administrations). In the name of ESI 206 Rupees are currently cut from monthly the wages, but no worker has received an ESI card; the contractor says that if a worker gets ill, we will get him treated. No PF slips are issued. Daily the spare parts division sends out parts worth 40 to 50,000,000 Rs. There is constant pressure to fulfil the immediate massive demands of the dealers on time. The finished parts are ordered from external suppliers. In the factory there is only coding, counting, packing and sealing machines ; there are no machines to produce parts in the spare parts division. The workers hired through contractors used to get 2,600 Rs, and a year earlier I saw a supervisor slapping a worker. Last year after the trouble at Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) the wage of the workers hired through contractors at Hero Honda was raised to 3,600 Rs. Then after some deductions some workers received 3,600 Rs and some 4,200 Rs. Then the contractor refused to take back some workers who had been on holiday. The wildcat strike happened after that. The call to stop work on 15th of April was not made by a union, there were no leaders. The management sent the permanent workers immediately into holiday. The state government immediately got into gear, remembering the troubles at Honda HMSI in June 2005. There were talks of setting the factory on fire... Some people were chosen from the workers and on 20th of April a verbal agreement was given, stating, amongst others: that workers would get a 30 percent wage increase, that 500 workers would be made permanent and that white uniforms would be given to all workers. The workers who announced this agreement to the others disappeared from the factory; they were allegedly bought off by the company. Anger prevailed amongst the 4,000 out of 5,500 workers who arrived at the factory in order to work on 21st of April, "We have been cheated". When the strike ended at Hero Honda, the workers of a Honda supplier in turn occupied 'their' factory, situated 20 km away. 4. Glimpse on the structure of Shivam Autotech company Shivam Autotech Ltd. (http:// www.shivamautotech.com/) based at Binola Village (Gurgaon district) is part of the Hero Group owned by the Munjals. The factory is situated close to the NH8 highway, about 20 km south from the Hero Honda plant. About 80 percent of Shivam's production goes to Hero Honda. Shivam Autotech is engaged in manufacturing of Hot / Warm and Cold Forging Components. On the 10th of August 2005 Mark Auto Components (MAC), a two-wheeler components manufacturer promoted by the Hero Group, had decided to spin off its Binola unit in Haryana into a separate company named Shivam Autotech allowing it to focus on its forging business activity. According to workers met on the 12th of June 2006 the company only changed its name on 1st of April 2006. The workers are still wearing MAC uniforms as uniforms are distributed each year only in November - December. The factory is fairly new, production started at 2000. There are about 300 permanent workers, 350 contract/casual workers and 150 trainees. Permanent and Trainee workers all have either ITI certificates or B.Sc degrees. Casual/workers hired through contractors have ITI certificates but none have B.Sc degrees. Permanent workers get a salary of Rs 3000 (net) which must be about Rs 4000 gross they say. A miniscule 2-4% of workers may get salaries up to Rs 8000 net. Workers hired through contractors only get the Haryana minimum wage rates of Rs 2400 and even then the canteen charges are deducted from this amount. Since the work involves forging and metal work, there are no women in the workforce (there are some in the managerial staff). Workers say that Shivam uses CNC machines of various technological levels. The contractors at Shivam are R.N.V. Enterprises, N.N. Associates and Ravipul Enterprise. Just as a piece of information: a supervisor who works for one of the contractors said that he gets 5,000 Rs wage per month in order to manage the workers hired through contractors, to hire them and ensure a sufficient supply of new work-force. 5. Strike at Shivam Autotech There are various interesting elements in the Shivam Autotech strike. First of all is the fact that it started at the very same day when the occupation at Hero Honda finished. Unfortunately we can only speculate why this happened. Workers must have noticed the impact of the Hero Honda strike, which might have contributed to their decision. When the management decided not to send the buses for the next shift, which is more or less a clear move to a lock-out, it might have thought that now is the time to battle things out, with the main client paralyzed by industrial dispute. The management's strategy not to send the buses to the villages of the workers is an often used practise. Many bigger local companies prefer to or exclusively hire people who live in villages further away, workers who depend on bus services and who can be left isolated in case of industrial action. It is also interesting to see that 'small' things like the food question became the trigger for a conflict with much more pressing problems in the background. The fact that workers know about the conditions and higher wages in the main Honda plants and refer to these standards when they put forward demands is of major importance. During the struggle it looked like that workers managed to stay together, despite their contractual differences and despite the attempts of the management to single out 'representatives', which then could be bought off like in the Hero Honda case. The final outcome of the struggle, which turned into a rather boggy negotiation process, excluded the workers hired through contractors from the wage hike. a) Prelude of the unrest Workers had been unhappy since February 2006 since they got increments which were very small about Rs 70 only, whereas the increments of managerial staff were nearly 50% of their salary and the workers' increment amounted to only 2-4% of their salaries. Workers were also unhappy since managers were not treated them well on the shop floor. One new trainee was made to sit like a murga (chicken) on the shop floor on making a small mistake. Another senior worker was slapped by a senior engineer. For 2 years the workers had been requesting management to extend the company bus service up to Bhiwadi (Rajasthan) which was only 3-4 kms from the last pick up at Dharuhera. However the company had been steadfastly refusing since this meant the bus would have to cross state borders and the company did not want to pay the additional taxes etc. to the Rajasthan government. This was a big problem for the workers since Bhiwadi was much cheaper for them to live in and many were complaining that had the company extended the bus service up to Bhiwadi many employees would have shifted there and would have been able to buy their own houses since land was cheap there at that time. Now the same land which was selling for Rs 1000 is selling for Rs 10,000 in June 2006. After the recent SEZ deals the price will have gone up even more. Workers were unhappy that management was unwilling to seriously discuss these issues during the open houses that were held in the company. They were strictly told to only talk about production issues during open houses and the bus service or financial matters would not be discussed. Another ongoing problem was the food in the canteen. Ever since management decided to tear down the old smaller canteen and build a new canteen with new food supplier there were problems with quality of food and standards of hygiene. Workers complained that bugs and cockroaches were found in the food. A canteen committee was formed to address these problems. Meetings would be held, management would tell the canteen manager to fix the problems, he'd promise to fix it but there would be no improvement. The workers also complained that food served to staff (staff and workers had different canteen timings) never had these problems and bugs were only found when it was time for workers' meals. The catalyst for all grievances crystallizing into a strike unfolded on a Sunday. Cockroaches were found in the dal [lentils] served to the workers. A worker went up to the canteen staff and asked them to stop serving the dal. It was stopped. But after some time, some workers came up to one of the members of the canteen committee and said that the dal was being served again. Satish now went up to the manager and told him to stop serving this dal. He was promised that new dal would be cooked and then workers could have their meal. However, all workers trooped out of the canteen offended at being served the roach-ridden dal again and again. This resulted in management action against the worker who was a canteen committee member. Over the next few days he was called by different managerial staff time and again and asked that when you were present why did you allow the workers to leave the canteen? Why didn't they wait for the new dal to be served? Tired of being treated like this, the workers decided that they would place their demands before management and drafted a list of 21 demands, including issues of increment, contract workers' problems, bus service, canteen service, etc. The workers hired through contractors demanded to be made permanent and to be allowed to wear the same uniforms as the permanents. b) Chronology of the unrest 21st of April 2006 Workers arriving at bus stops for the 6 a.m. shift found that there were no buses. They started calling the workers who were working the night shift to find out why buses had not been sent to the bus stops. They also called the security staff directly. Workers for the 6a.m. shift used private means of conveyance to show up at the factory only to be told by the security staff that they should go home as they were being given a holiday. Workers had problems believing this since they didn't even get Sundays off (trainings were scheduled on this day. This was another bone of contention that training should be held during company time and not on their only day off). Night shift workers were being asked to get their production figures noted and leave the premises. Security staff told them - why are you worried about the 6 a.m. shift? Those workers will report to duty when they show up. However, sensing that something was wrong, these workers, 600 of them, sat down on one side of the shop floor. Meanwhile, about 100-200 workers were gathered at the gate outside and not being allowed in. A fight erupted between workers and the security supervisor. So the workers declared a strike. They occupied the factory for 5 days. A list of demands was handed over to the general manager, the vice president and human resource manager. The canteen was allowed to run for 2 days but after that it was shut down by management. Food was not allowed in from the outside either. It turned into a case of hunger strike for the striking workers even though small quantities of food managed to get smuggled in. Permanent workers and contract workers came together to occupy the plant for 5 days. They have been together in this fight ever since. All 3 categories of workers are united - permanent, trainees and casuals/ workers hired through contractors. Permanent workers have been conscious of including contract workers from the start and have paid attention to their grievances and demands as well. 22nd to 25th of April 2006 During this time the Labour officer (B.S. Yadav - sits in the mini secretariat and Binola village comes under his circle) and management tried to negotiate with the workers. The Deputy Labour Commissioner arrived on the 4th day. A higher AITUC official also visited the workers. Together all of them brokered the strike to be broken on the 5th day - 25th of April. See copies of agreement. c) Negotiation process Workers had submitted paperwork to register an independent union. The first set of applications was 'lost' by the labour office. A second set of application papers has been submitted but again it has run into roadblocks. There was one meeting with the DLC when he came to the plant on 24th of April. Another meeting was held on 8th of June when he asked the workers to resubmit 5 copies of the list of demands but this time to exclude the items on which an agreement has already been reached. He also asked the workers to submit an authorization letter signed by all workers, that they authorize the 5-10 workers to serve as their representatives and will abide by whatever agreement these workers hammer out with the management on their behalf. Workers were expected to submit these papers to the Labour Officer, B.S. Yadav, by 13th June. There have been several meetings with the management. Workers were asked to sign a 3 year agreement whereby the workers would get small increments but agree not to ask for salary raises for the next 3 years. The workers submitted a Rs 10,000 package for 3 years under which all workers would get a Rs 5000 raise in the first year, Rs 3000 raise in the 2nd year and Rs 2000 raise in the 3rd year. Management has not accepted this proposal and is only willing to talk about Rs 1000-1500 raises in total over 3 years. This is unacceptable to the workers. Mr. L.R. Parudhi, legal advisor to the Munjal Group has been inducted into the management team and has declared that he will not allow salaries to rise. Workers are also unhappy with his inclusion and would like to include a legal advisor in their team since Mr. Parudhi talks legal mumbo-jumbo during the meetings which the workers don't understand and therefore stalls the negotiations. Workers also report that the financial negotiations are stuck because management wants to know why they should raise the workers' salaries by so much when the prevailing rates at nearby plants are not this high. Workers compare it to the Hero Honda plant in Dharuhera which does have an independent union and where the prevailing salary is much higher. Workers tell that permanent workers there get Rs 25,000 and workers hired through contractors get Rs 6,000. Even at the Gurgaon plant of Hero Honda, permanent workers get Rs 18,000 and contract workers get nearly Rs 6,000. According to the agreement signed on 26th of April 2006, the 10th of June 2006 was the last date by which all negotiations were to be completed and agreement to be reached. However, 10th of June has come and gone and negotiations are stalled on the financial aspect. The DLC has asked the workers to sit quietly as he is working on their behalf. Meanwhile, the workers have been asked to re-submit the same documents to the LO and are now starting to feel that they are being given the run-around. Workers are being called in groups of 2-4 and management is trying to persuade them to agree to a works committee and drop the demand for forming a union. In exchange they'll be given money. Sometimes workers are asked by senior engineers to come with them to off-site places just to hangout and have a chat, only to find that when they get there, management is also there and tries to persuade them to drop plans for union formation. Sometimes 2-3 workers are picked up and driven to some place where again they are persuaded/intimidated to drop union formation plans. Workers report that so far they are all together and they are trying to counter management efforts to break them and/or create misunderstandings among them by creating very strong channels of communication amongst themselves. All proceedings of meetings/dealings etc with management are duly reported to the workers. They also try to go in a bigger group of 10 to 25 workers to the negotiation appointments d) Outcome With the end of the strike a short first agreement was signed, the workers ensuring work discipline and the managers that training would henceforth take place within regular office hours, not on Sundays. Bus service would be provided until Bhiwadi. There would be special food twice a week, like the staff gets. Later on workers representatives signed a settlement with management for Rs 2700 wage increase over 3 years (far less than the Rs 10,000 package they had presented management). They get 60% increase this year, and 20% increase each year after that. There is a reworked incentive scheme. Unfortunately, the workers hired through contractors are not covered in the wage hike, but they do get to participate in the productivity incentive scheme. Another outcome is that the management decided to replace all security guards. In general they have been too supportive of the workers during the strike. e) Short visit at KDR, a supplier of Shivam Autotech in Faridabad From a truck driver who had to return the metal parts during the strike at Shivam Autotech we got to know that Shivam is supplied by KDR Forgings in Faridabad, Ballabhgarh twice a day. The KDR workers must have noticed the strike. The industrial area of Ballabhgarh already looks more like second tier suppliers, no nice architectural lay-out and nice facades like at Shivam. KDR is about 70 km away from Shivam; the truck drive takes about one and a half hours. Our info is based on very brief chats with a couple of workers at the gate as they were entering the morning shift, with the head of security who came to check what we were up to, and with a worker whom we talked to later in some detail. KDR Forgings is a medium sized factory in the vast industrial belt beyond Faridabad, at Plot No. 32 sector 25, Faridabad. It's owned by one Rajesh Juneja, who along with his family owns 8 factories in Ballabhgarh, four that do forging work, three that do more final CNC work on the gears and one lower down in the production chain where iron sariyas (forged parts) are made. From Juneja's CNC factories, the product is sent also to America. However, of this particular KDR unit, Munjal's Shivam Autotech is among their two main buyers, the other being QH Talbros, also located in Faridabad. KDR Forgings has about 160 workers, who work in 2 shifts of 12 hours each, 8 am to 8 pm to 8 am. Only about 7-8 are permanent, the rest are directly employed by the company, not through a contractor, but not permanent. Their wage levels are about 2,000 for a helper and Rs 2,500-3,500 for an operator. The one worker we spoke to in detail was a final checker who earns Rs 7,000 presumably for a 12 hour shift work. Concerning the strike at Shivam, those we spoke to said that yes they had known of it because the parts from the factory had come back. During those days, they did work for other buyers. However, since Shivam is such a major buyer, it meant that production was lower than usual. Workers during those days worked only for 8 hour shifts. However since they seem to be regular workers and not contract, there were no lay-offs for the 5 days. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 3) According to Plan - General information on the development of the region or on certain company policies "Red Flags and Welfare Schemes" - The 1st of May, a great day for symbols and symbolic announcements. Mayday is the public day when to praise or re-claim labour, the day which allows those in power to ignore the plight of the labourers during the rest of the year. A day of symbolic parades and airy announcements. A friend reported that 300 people took part in the Mayday demonstration, which paraded through Okhla industrial estate. Every morning 200,000 people march in a long tired procession through one of the several entry point of this textile industrial area in the south of Delhi (see report in this newsletter). No red flags, but thousands of pent up demands. According to a worker active in the union in Gurgaon 2,000 to 3,000 took part in a Mayday celebration. The Haryana government used the occasion of the 1st of May to announce further paper tigers, further welfare scheme for the local workers. We will have to see whether an increase of the minimum wage actually makes a difference in every day life (see report from a call centre cleaner below), how many people actually receive the announced benefits. On one hand we can see that the majority of workers are employed outside the legal frame-work, on the other hand there is an actual wage pressure in certain sectors (e.g. skilled industrial workers), due to the boom. The Haryana government announced two welfare schemes, a) a health insurance scheme for building workers of the "unorganised sector" and b) a housing scheme for industrial workers: a) "After a hefty hike of about 37 per cent in minimum wages this year, the state government has decided to give welfare cover to all labourers and workers engaged in the unorganised sector by realising a cess of one per cent on all constructions whose value is Rs 10 lakh or more. This amount will be purely meant for the welfare of construction labourers, who get engaged in the work for 90 days at a stretch. This will benefit around three lakh persons involved in such work at any given time of the year. It would cover various risk factors, including mediclaim and insurance. The money would also be used to set up night shelters and other facilities for the beneficiaries. These were non-existent so far. At least 30,000 works of this nature were in progress in the state at any given time, claimed the authorities concerned. It is stated any worker desirous of availing the benefit of the scheme was required to submit an affidavit. There was no need of any attestation from anyone. The authorities have revealed employers or owners of buildings who fail to follow the new rule will be dealt with strictly as this rule envisages imprisonment of three months, a penalty of about Rs 25,000 or both" and b) "The Haryana Government has decided to construct labour colonies near the major industrial townships under a new state plan scheme "Construction of Labour Colonies in Industrial Estates, Parks and Towns" for the convenience of the labourers. A sum of Rs. 50 lakh has been earmarked for the scheme". "Extreme Outsourcing"- Because of rising rents and wages, local call centres make use of internet cafes in order to outsource work. The boom in BPO (Business Process Outsourcing – e.g. of call centre work) creates demands amongst workers and the boom in real estate gnaws on the boom of BPO. Recently bosses of local call centres and BPO companies complained about a) rising rents, b) rising wages of the IT/BPO workers and c) about additional costs due to toll-taking highwayman on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. They try to counteract the rising costs by d) out-sourcing night shift work to internet cafes e) finding new fields of outsourcing f) rationalizing the hiring process g) putting more pressure on the wages of the rest of the work-force, e.g. cleaners, security guards. a) rising rents In a newspaper article of the 12th of April Mr.Kapoor, a directing manager of a local BPO complaints: “Apart from availing the large English speaking talent pool to run their businesses, companies headed towards India for its affordable real estate, too, as BPOs require large areas of real estate compared to other businesses. But, in the last couple of years, India has almost lost the advantage. In cities like Gurgaon, Delhi and Bangalore, the rentals are almost equal to that in US. In Gurgaon, the rental in SEZ is Rs 75 sq ft per month which is more than $ 1.5 in US. In US, one will get ready to move in facilities where as in India one has to invest to refurnish the entire space". b) rising wages Another article on the same day states that IT-wages in booming Gurgaon have become the highest in India: "Salaries of IT professionals in Gurgaon, which has seen an IT boom only in the last few years, are the highest in India and comparable to that in IT capital Bangalore, a survey by CyberMedia-Dice has found. The average annual salary of job-seeking IT professionals in Gurgaon is Rs 6 lakh plus, while in Bangalore it is Rs 6 lakh. This leaves Delhi far behind at Rs 4.89 lakh". Also the wages of the call centre workers increased in the bigger call centre hubs: "Wages have increased 15-20 per cent in the last three years and continue to rise. A newcomer joining a call-centre in a metro is likely to be paid anywhere between Rs 15,000 and 18,000". One way to counteract the rising local wages is to re-located work to other places. In May the market- research company Azure advertises jobs for Spanish speaking people in Gurgaon, who are ready to move to Ahmedabad. The wages offered are 17,000 Rs per months for a full-time job, which is about 8,000 Rs less than the rate in Gurgaon or Noida. c) rising tolls Apart from rents and wages the call centre operator in Gurgaon will also have to pay more for getting their workers driven to work. The expressway was built by private developers who rejected state subsidies; instead they will introduce a toll system. An article on the 2nd of May says: "What’s spurring the increasing interest [of private developers] in road projects are rosy traffic projections. Says Subroto Choudhary, executive director, DS Constructions that gave a negative grant [to the state] of Rs 61 crore to construct the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway: 'Our models suggested a manifold increase in traffic density on the (Delhi-Gurgaon) stretch. In fact, passenger car unit density at the time of tendering (2001) was 60,000 and that number now stands at 1.3 lakh. With this kind of traffic, toll collections would enable us to comfortably cover all our costs, including the negative grant'". d) outsourced again Some friends wrote the following description of an internet cafe in the Delhi area which was transformed into an outsourced call centre unit at night. This is one way how the managers of the local BPO industry try to curb the wage pressure from below: "Microgate internet-cafe is located in the basement of a three- story building, easily one of the better constructions of the area. Narrow steps lead to a tin door, which is usually open at all times. The ten feet by ten feet basement hall is divided into four sections: A small reception area next to the stairs, a cubicle with a table and a revolving chair for Guddu, the owner, a small empty space, where the technical and managerial staff of the cafe sleep at night, and a hall, which is the main cafe space. Guddu provides better services than many cafes of the locality. There is round-the-clock supply of water, electricity and internet connectivity at Microgate. One night, a couple of weeks ago, we used Microgate's services to send off a few urgent emails. It was late and by midnight we were the only customers. Some of the staff were dozing on makeshift beds in the sleeping corner and most of the lights had been switched off. At about 1:00 PM however, people started trickling in young men, in one's and two's, sometimes a helmet in hand. They began taking position on the vacant seats, behind the till now blank screens. Before long, a semi-American accent was confirming participation in Pope John's funeral. A few months before, a middle level manager of an elite international call centre contacted Guddu. The proposition was to share some load of that call centre in return for sum of forty thousand rupees a month. Guddu agreed. He hired some out-of-work and some working agents who had prior experience of the industry on 'payment on performance' basis, from 2:00 AM till 10:00 AM. With no frills of dinner and snacks, pick-up or drop, and no facilities like toilets, cash coupons or tickets to multiplexes, Guddu operates an 'international call centre'. He manages a complete gamut of campaigns and products, just like any other Business Process Outsourcing unit in Noida and Gurgaon. For the agents of this international call centre, there is no accent training, minimal process training, and a more informal relationship with the boss. Unlike many other premium call centres, less monitoring, supervision and surveillance takes place here, even as the work contract is more fragile. The call centre aspect of the operations of the cyber cafe has been closed since last week for about one month now, as the contract has expired; and while Guddu finalises his deal with the next company, his team of agents has moved on". ("Chronicling the Remote Agent: Reflections on Mobility and Social Security of Call Centre Agents in New Delhi” by von Taha Mehmood und Iram Ghufram) e) finding new fields of out- sourcing Local BPO companies try to find new markets, after the market for straight-forward telephone services is saturated. From a newspaper article: (17th of May 2007)"In an office in the southern port city of Chennai, Indian analysts pore over stock market data for a London-based fund company, searching for investment opportunities. Some 1,200 miles (1,900 km) away in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of Delhi, Indian lawyers have taken over research and patent filing for several Western technology and healthcare companies. Patent research can be done in India at $50 to $80 an hour, compared with $150 to $350 in the United States, said R. Sivadas, chief executive of Scope e-Knowledge Centre Pvt. Ltd. in Chennai. Average billing rates in the knowledge process sector are 40 to 50 percent higher than those in the call centres". f) rationalize the hiring process A little story from a job interview at Teleperformance call centre, Gurgaon, Udyog Vihar Phase One. The entrance room is chilled, so is the woman at the front desk. Four young men sit silently in a circle of chairs, they do not talk to each other during the whole next hour. They came for a so-called "walk-in" interview, the equivalent to a drive-in, it seems. Fast job, fast food. From their age one would guess that it is their first job, they seem nervous. From the next room we can sudden cheering and applause, but it sounds like a routine, like on command. Then the already hired invisible agents start to sing a Michael Jackson song. May be this is how they try to heat silenced young men and women up for their coming verbal piece-work. After an hour the front desk lady tells the first young man to enter the glass-front meeting room in the middle and to pick up the receiver. We all can hear the phone ringing inside the room. The young man enters and starts to talk, with a submissive facial expression. After two minutes he leaves the booth, his face now expressing disillusionment. "Not short-listed", he mumbles and leaves the building. The next one enters. The same process and outcome. It took four minutes for the HR person on the other end of the line to single them out. Not suitable for international calls, yet. The third one is successful; he can sit down again and wait for his face-to-face interview. g) pressure on service workers' wages Another way for the management to lower costs is to put pressure on those workers who have a less favourable bargaining power than the actual call centre employees, e.g. the cleaning and house keeping workers. A less symbolic move around the 1st of May 2007 was undertaken by the management of the BPO company Evalueserve, First India Place, MG Road Gurgaon. The company changed the contractor of the house keeping and cleaning workers. The workers did not loose their jobs, they were just shifted from one pay-roll to the other, but they suffered a severe cut in wages. While the Haryana government uses the 1st of May to portray itself as 'worker friendly', these workers who do the cleaning job in one of Haryana’s model KPOs (knowledge business outsourcing: see article above) companies do not receive the new Haryana minimum wage of 3,500 Rs, instead their wage is cut by 500 Rs, from 2,500 Rs to now 2,000 Rs. They also only get the canteen food left-over by the call centre employees, meaning that often enough there is only stale or no food at all. When asked for an ESI card or PF slip the contractor answers: "Tomorrow, tomorrow". Six months ago the land-lord increased the rent for a plastic-tarpaulin jhuggi from 700 Rs to 800 Rs. A proper stone- built room in the same area is about 1,200 Rs, meaning that for the land-lord the jhuggis are much more profitable... (for more info on the local call centre world: see newsletter no.1) Corporate Watch On the web-site (www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com) you can find some news items on the following multi-national companies in Gurgaon area, just click on "List of Companies." The list is boring in a general sense and it smells like shareholders oi-stress sweat, but it might possibly be useful once shit hits the fan or a picket the factory gate. For a longer list of companies situated in Gurgaon have a look at the web-site as well. News items this month on: DGM India GVK Bioscience House of Pearl IKEA Maruti Promed TCI ------------------------------------------------------------------ 4) About the Project - Updates on Gurgaon Workers News Hindi Version, One - Introduction of the Hindi version of the Gurgaon Workers News, about to be distributed in the area If you want to get hold of an electronic version of the Hindi Gurgaon Workers News, please drop us an e-mail. Intro When Politicians, Employers or other leaders talk about development, about economic progress or 'Shining India', they mean places like Gurgaon. They mean rising DLF towers, the growth rate of Maruti or Hero Honda, the increase in textile export. They also mean, but do not mention, the shanty towns of the building workers, the 12 to 16 hours day of the factory workers, the people displaced for the SEZ. When they talk about progress, they mean the six-lane expressway, the computer programmed stitching machine in Udyog Vihar, the automatic-dialler in the call centre. They also mean, but do not mention, that for most of us their progress will result in further submission, their expressway only an accident-prone way to a pro-longed night-shift, their computer controlled machine the rhythm-stick which makes us move faster and faster. It is time for us, those who construct, tailor, weld, assemble their progress, to find our own way to a better life. Together, we have the experience we need, we just have to start sharing it and use it in future struggles. We came from Bengal, Bihar, UP or the long way from the work on the fields or in our traditional crafts in the nearby village. With the help of friends and family we managed to find a first place to stay in this strange new place called Gurgaon. We have worked in small work-shops, or through contractors in big factories, we have sold vegetables or cigarettes on the market. We manage to raise children, despite the water-shortage, despite the pressure from the landlord, despite the little income. We have found ways with other work-mates to resist the managers pressure to make us work on Sundays. We have seen the police repression at Honda Manesar. We might have failed to make the contractor pay our outstanding wages, but we have learnt for the next time. The aim of this monthly publication is to share workers' experiences. It is independent from any organisation, party, union. It is meant to tell about conditions in companies or living areas in Gurgaon. We can use it to tell others about problems with certain contractors or administrations, about successful or unsuccessful attempts to resist harassment by authorities or to enforce better working conditions. Given that most of the companies in Gurgaon have links with the rest of the world (textile for export, call centres call abroad, multi-national automobile companies), we also want to publish related workers' news from other countries. You can show or read the publication to your friends, neighbours and co-workers. You can tell us or write to us your own story, anonymously. This can be a first step to build new relation-ships and links amongst each other. Links which are stronger than their games to play us off against each other: permanents against workers hired through contractors, locals against outsiders, Hindus against Muslims and so on. In this issue there are two stories, one from workers employed as security guards in Gurgaon and one about a struggle at Fashion Express, a textile factory in Gurgaon Udyog Vihar Phase I, plot 100. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Glossary AITUC BPO CITU Casual Workers Contract Workers Crore DA DC ESI Exchange Rate HSIIDC Jhuggi Lakh (see Crore) Lay off Minimum Wage Panchayat PF Ration Card SP Staff Trainees VRS Wages and Prices Workers hired through contractors AITUC The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) is the oldest trade union federation in India and one of the five largest. It was founded in 1919 and until 1945, when unions became organised on party lines, it was the central trade union organisation in India. Since then it has been affiliated with the Communist Party of India. BPO Business Process Outsourcing: for example of call centre work, market research, sales. CITU Centre of Indian Trade Unions, a national central trade union federation in India. Politically attached to CPI(M), Communist Party of India (Marxist). Founded in 1970, membership of 2.8 million. Casual Workers Workers hired by the company for a limited period of time. Contract Workers Workers hired for a specific performance, paid for the performance. Crore 1 Crore = 10,000,000 1 Lakh = 100,000 DA (Dearness Allowance): An inflation compensation. Each three to six months the state government checks the general price development and accordingly pays an allowance on top of wages. DC Deputy Commissioner, Head of the District Administration. ESI (Employee's State Insurance): Introduced in 1948, meant to secure employee in case of illness, long-term sickness, industrial accidents and to provide medical facilities (ESI Hospitals) to insured people. Officially the law is applicable to factories employing 10 or more people. Employers have to contribute 4.75 percent of the wage paid to the worker, the employee 1.75 percent of their wage. Officially casual workers or workers hired through contractors who work in the factory (even if it is for construction, maintenance or cleaning work on the premises) are entitled to ESI, as well. Self-employment is often used to undermine ESI payment. Exchange Rate: 1 US-Dollar = 43 Rs (March 2007) 1 Euro = 57 Rs (March 2007) HSIIDC Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Jhuggi Slum Hut Lakh see Crore Lay off Lay off in the Indian context means that workers have to mark attendance, but they actually do not work and receive only half of the wage. Minimum Wage: Official minimum wage in Haryana in March 2007 is about 2,500 Rs per month for an unskilled worker, based on an 8 hour day and 4 days off per month. Panchayat A locally elected village administrative body in charge of village-level issues. PF (Employee's Provident Fund): Introduced in 1952, meant to provide a pension to workers. Officially applicable to all companies employing more than 20 people. Official retirement age is 58 years. Given that most of the casual workers belong to the regular workforce of a factory, they are entitled to the Provident Fund, as well. So are workers employed by contractors. If workers receive neither PF nor ESI they also do not show up in the official documents, meaning that officially they do not exist. Ration Card Officially the so called 'governmental fair price shops' are shops were 'officially poor' people can buy basic items (wheat, rice, kerosene etc.) for fixed and allegedly lower prices. In order to be able to buy in the shops you need a ration card. The ration card is also necessary as a proof of residency, but in order to obtain the ration card you have to proof your residency. Catch22. Local politics use the ration depots and cards as a power tool which reaches far into the working class communities. Depot holders are normally working in the hands of local political leaders, in return they receive this privileged position, which often enable them to make money on the side. SP Superintendent of Police, Head of the District Police. Staff In India staff includes managers, supervisors, security personnel and white-collar workers. Trainees In general trainees work as normal production workers, they might have a six month up to two-year contract. Depending on the company they are promised permanent employment after passing the trainee period. Their wages are often only slightly higher than those of workers hired through contractors. VRS (Voluntary Retirement Scheme): Often a rather involuntary scheme to get rid of permanent workers. Particularly the VRS at Maruti in Gurgaon made this clear, when 35 year olds were sent in early retirement. Wages and Prices: When we hear that a cleaner in a call centre in Gurgaon, an industrial worker in Faridabad or a rikshaw-driver in Delhi earns 2,000 Rs for a 70 hour week, which is about the average normal worker’s wage, we have to bear in mind that they often came from West Bengal, Bihar or other remote place in order to get this job. In order to put 2,000 Rs into a daily context here are some prices of goods and services: - Monthly rent for a plastic-tarpaulin hut shared by two people in Gurgaon: 800 Rs - Monthly rent for a small room in Gurgaon (without kitchen), toilet and bathroom shared by five families: 1,300 Rs - Monthly rent for a small room in a new building in central Gurgaon, single toilet and bathroom: 4,500 Rs to 8,000 Rs - Half a kilo red lentils on the local market: 25 Rs - Kilo rice on local market: 14 Rs - 1 Kilo Onions and 1 Kilo carrots on local market: 25 to 30 Rs - McChicken: 40 Rs - Bus ticket to nearest bigger bus stop in South Delhi: 14 Rs - Daily Newspaper: 3 Rs - One hour internet in a cafe: 20 Rs - Bottle (0,7l) of beer at Haryana Wine and Beer shop: 50 to 70 Rs - Cigarettes (10), cheapest local brand: 25 Rs - Cinema (new) ticket Saturday night: 160 Rs - single entry for swimming pool: 100 Rs - Starbucks Coffee (Latte Medium) in Shopping Mall: 59 Rs - Faulty shirt on Faridabad local market: 40 Rs - Single gas cooker plus new 2 litre gas cylinder: 720 Rs - Re-fill gas (2 litres - once every month and a half): 100Rs - Second-hand bicycle: 600 to 1,000 Rs - Two simple steel pots: 250 Rs - One litre Diesel: 30 Rs - Driving license in Haryana: 2,000 to 2,500 Rs - Start package pre-paid mobile phone (without the phone) 300 Rs - Phone call to other mobile phones: 1 Rs - Minimum dowry poor workers have to pay for the marriage of their daughter: 30,000 Rs (80,000 Rs more likely) - One month mobile phone flat rate: 1,500 Rs - Compaq Laptop: 50,000 Rs - Flight Delhi to London: 28,000 Rs - cheapest Hero Honda motor- bike (150 cc): around 40,000 Rs - Ford Fiesta: 587,000 Rs - four hours on Gurgaon golf course: 800 Rs (info from golf course worker earning 2,400 Rs monthly) - Two-Bedroom Apartment in Gurgaon: 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 Rs Workers hired through contractors Similar to temporary workers, meaning that they work (often for long periods) in one company but are officially employed by a contractor from whom they also receive their wages. Are supposed to be made permanent after 240 days of continuous employment in the company, according to the law. A lot of companies only have a licence for employing workers in auxiliary departments, such as canteen or cleaning. Companies usually find ways to get around these legal restrictions, e.g., workers services are terminated on the 239th day to avoid workers reaching eligibility criteria to become permanent. In many industries contract workers account for 60 to 80 per cent of the work force, their wage is 1/4 to 1/6 of the permanents’ wage. News from the Special Exploitation Zone - www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com From ravikant at sarai.net Thu Jun 7 23:37:29 2007 From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 23:37:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Joseph Alter's talk on Wrestler's Body Message-ID: <200706072337.29382.ravikant@sarai.net> INVITATION CSDS Discussion with the Author Series Joseph Alter will read from and present his well known work The wrestler's body: Identity and Ideology in North India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). He is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. The discussion will take place in the Seminar room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi, on Friday, 8 June 2007 from 5-7 pm. The text of the book is available at the following link: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6n39p104/ . Do join us, Shail Mayaram Ravi Sundaram From dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in Thu Jun 7 23:56:22 2007 From: dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in (Dwaipayan Banerjee) Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 19:26:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] IFS 3rd Posting: A Genealogy of the Code - II Message-ID: <104571.45969.qm@web94509.mail.in2.yahoo.com> INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND POSTING In this posting I continue my effort to uncover a genealogy of symbolic code that is at the heart of computing and programming today. By this I mean both in the languages of programming, as well in the design of logical systems such as the computer - the binary system. In this post, we shift focus to symbolic algebera in the 16th and 17th centuries - and look at the works of those who preceded Leibniz and Boole. While Leibniz and Boole are credited (and rightly so) for a definitive role in the history of thought that made computing possible, we push the chronology slightly further and begin to uncover the conditions of thought that made their work possible. We argue that - alongwith the quest for universal languages in the first posting - the development of symbolic algebra was absolutely crucial to the development of mathematical and computing logic. Also, this is not a historical quibbling on origins. A tracing of the genealogy and strengthening our understanding of it allows us to make certain arguments about code and mathematical languages as a certain kind of symbolic arrangement in our modern times. By following the transformations and the incredible variations that have occured in the relationship between such language-systems and the world, we stand to gain much knowledge of our the human subject is configured to the field of representations in our times. The next posting will follow this debate into Leibniz and Boole and attempt a theory of the changing status of symbolic languages in changing epistemes. The posting after that will follow these debates into the 20th century and the status of universal languages of logic (the direct precursors of modern code) in mathematical disciplines. The posting after that will address directly issues pertaining to code as we understand it today, strengthened by a thorough genealogical survey. SECOND POSTING In the works explored in the preceding posting, we were confronted with a relationship between the world and language that had yet to experience a schism. Whether in the Renaissance episteme or the Classical that followed, language was thought wholly capable of expressing the world that it existed in. The unity between language and the world (representation and being) was supported ably by a unity across what are now a multitude of disciplines. As Foucault argues, the classical configuration of a universal order enabled a kind of ‘general science’ practiced by polymaths like Leibniz and Descartes. With the transition into modernity however, the reordering of the episteme (the questioning of absolutes, the birth of a new positivism) fractured both these kinds of unities. The appearance of positivism and the centring of the human subject saw the loss of the transparent visible and univocal tables of the classical order. The birth of new kinds of invisibles (the metaphysic, the unconscious) as the twins of the new positivism only reinforced the loss of the classical unity. This division resonated in the divisions that thus occurred in disciplines – the pure formal sciences were separated from empirical sciences. What happened then to language? Separated from a mathesis, it lost its ability to speak for the universal. Philology turned in upon itself, concerned only with its own density, its internal patterning – it became one object among many others. Most interesting to us here is how Foucault thinks this profound loss was compensated for. No longer sharing a simple correspondence with reality, the focus shifted onto how language could be best internally structured to serve as an expression system of mathematical and logical thought; how it could be stripped of ‘singularity and accidents’, how it could be formalised, how it could again aspire to the privileged status it possessed in the classical episteme. Most interestingly, one result was the innovation of even newer forms of expression (primarily logical) that sought to represent thought and at the same time provide bases for a new kind of universal mathesis. So we see that the quest we were following in the first posting continues, albeit in a radically altered way. In this posting we shall we interested in following the continuation of this altered quest in the form that it survived – the birth and development of symbolic algebra and symbolic logic. We shall simultaneously be interested in charting the exact nature of transformations that occurred in their character. To briefly anticipate this, as we move into modernity the two chief and radical differences will be: 1) A movement from a nominalist to a syntactical conception of language and then finally from the syntractical to the purely symbolic. 2) A reordering of the conception of infinity and the limits of mathematics in light of the new positivities of knowledge. In this and the next posting then, the focus shifts from language in general to the specific language of mathematics and logic. This narrowing is made inevitable by the fracturing of disciplines that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, we are still interested in seeing how the quest for universality and perfect duplication of thought is continued, and the precise transformations that take place in the nature of this search. Vieta’s ‘logistice speciosa’ Francois Vieta is known to us now as the father of modern algebra. Even such a generous epithet perhaps does not do justice to his achievements. Writing in late 16th century France, Vieta inaugurated a symbolic and syntactic conception of algebra that – flourishing under Descartes and Leibniz – would provide the firmaments for mathematical thought and logic for centuries to come. Coupled with the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin who provided a theory for the continuity of numbers and posited them as a level of representation that were analogous to objects, Vieta provided the tools that would flourish in use under the classical episteme. To put it very simplistically, while Vieta inaugurated a symbolic language in mathematics that allowed an internal syntactic referentiality, Stevin connected this system to being and object – allowing and retaining the process of naming that is the fundamental task of classical representation. The conditions for the two defining characteristics in the classical episteme were slowly being forged – a level of representation separate from objects that were internally consistent syntactically while not losing touch with its power to name the objects that it existed separately from (a partial symbolic). To understand this more precisely, let us retrace our steps and examine Francois Vieta in more detail. Jacob Klein’s excellent work on Vieta’s sources demonstrates his grasp of the ancients and the influence of Diophantus and Pappus on his algebraic work. While we are not concerned with the details of his sources here, we are interested in a novel bringing together of two different stands in Greek mathematical thought – Diophantine arithmetic and the geometry of Pappus. The understanding of algebra as geometric – as essentially a theory of proportions – is what Vieta’s definitive contribution to modern thought can be briefly summed. To put it differently, for the ancient mathematicians, arithmetic was a computation on determinate numbers. It was strictly a manipulation of definable magnitudes. Vieta’s comparison with geometry and a general theory of proportions undermined this nominalist tendency that thought of numbers as just counting. It inaugurated an internal proportion, a theory of the equation that privileged a consistency between terms that were internally defined. In establishing a plane of reference different from objects (a plane of internal syntax) a problem is certain to arise. In what way can numbers as determinate magnitudes (ancients) be represented as indeterminate and hence open to syntactical manipulation? Vieta’s solution to this problem gives us perhaps the most valuable mathematical contribution of the time, the systematic presentation of a system of algebraic notation that establishes a symbolic conception in mathematics. To move numbers from the determinate to the indeterminate, he uses letter signs to represent not a specific number, but the general character of being a number. This generality in the syntactical unit allows a similar generality in the analytical and problematical procedure. Certain rules of comparison and operations between these signs are postulated, allowing a systematic manipulation of these letter units. We are entering thus a new domain of mathematical analysis in which objects begin to be defined purely by the syntactic contexts, a far cry from numbers as pure magnitudes. As Jacob Klein understands, this moment marks a strong break from the fundamental ontological science of the ancients, replaced by a symbolic discipline whose ontological presuppositions are left unclarified. The structure of the world is now to be understood as a symbolic calculus. As Vieta himself put it, the numeral reckoning of the ancients (logistice numerosa) that operated with numbers is now replaced by the reckoning by species (logistice speciosa) that operates with species on the forms of things. At the same time, it would be an over-reaching to say that the symbolic and syntactical conceptions in mathematics was established at this point once and for all. In every way, this was just a beginning. The internal systemisation was rudimentary and far from complete. Additionally, the symbolic letter signs that represented the general character of being a number are just a first step in a symbolic understanding in mathematics. We shall find that in a later years virulent debates will rage around the nature of numbers themselves, their internal consistency and determinateness and their relationship to the world. These debates will give rise to even a hapless abandonment of numbers in favour of an even more prior system that is needed to define numbers themselves. While these debates will be discussed in more detail in the next posting, they are alluded to briefly here to remind us that while revolutionary in mathematics, Vieta and his contemporaries’ understanding of symbolism is an early and curtailed one, linked strongly to the world that it seeks to represent. In other words, it is absolutely vital to remember that while a general internal syntax has been brought about, it is a syntax that transparently connects to the ordering of thought and being, to the general theory of proportions that was in pre-eminence during the classical episteme. The continuous, tabular, grid-like arrangement of Vieta’s symbolic algebra mimics the similar arrangements of representation of language, biology and economics that Foucault unearths in his archaeology of the same time. The crucial link between the two is that mathesis as we represent here was an ordering of simple natures, and taxinomia (as we came across in the first posting) was an ordering of complex natures. While mathesis was a calculation of equality, taxinomia dealt with differences. Both in consonance established the grid of knowledge that transparently represented knowledge. The underlying conditions, rules and philosophies of different representations and disciplines were the same: a system of identities and differences (as discussed before). Since there was no difference imagined between how the world was and how it was represented (although at a different plane), it was only natural that different representations would obey the same principles of ordering, which in turn would directly illuminate the principle of ordering inherent in the real world. This is brief, is the classical notion of order. This is also the conditions of emergence of Vieta’s symbolic algebra and the main point of difference from the symbolism that will overtake the discipline in modernity. Stevin and Zero Brian Rotman - in his comparison of Stevin and Vieta – thinks of the latter as more limited in his symbolic conception of the algebraic variable sign. For him, Vieta’s linking of letters to sets – which are strongly constituted as collection of real ‘things’, ties him to a nominalist understanding of the algebraic sign. To him, Stevin’s introduction of the zero does something far more drastic to structure of mathematical entities, something that posits a far stronger break from the classical arithmos, the status of numbers as mere magnitudes. In Jacob Klein’s discussion of Stevin’s work, the implications of his mathematical innovations are interpreted in almost a contrary way to Rotman. His belief is that there is a conflation of first and second intentions, of object and concept, of being and thought that does not think of numbers as free-floating signs but as distinct materiality. Let us first examine Stevin’s work briefly here. The principle contribution that Stevin made to the theory of numbers was his understanding of zero as the arche (the principle of construction) of the numerological system. He was borrowing this idea from the Arabic scholars, rejecting the Greek arithmos that posited the unit as the central principle and hardly recognised zero. Both Klein and Rotman agree that a conception of numbers that has zero has its fundamental basis made possible a continuous system of numbers; one that had place not only for rational integers but also for irrationals, quadratics and so forth. In other words, it made possible indeterminate numbers for which the actual numerical value was not known. Since these were not determinate, Vieta’s symbolic letter signs would be necessary to represent them. >From this initial agreement Rotman and Klein take two different courses. Klein believes that in conjunction with geometry, Stevin was attempting to reinforce the materiality of the number by articulating a clearer continuity that was given to geometric formulations. The lack of the Greek mathematicians and their inability to conflate arithmetic with geometry was their inability to understand zero. Once this was difficulty was surmounted and a continuous theory of the number made possibly, the conflation of arithmetic and geometry was made possible. Algebraic variables such as these did not break the conflation of object and thought, of being and representation but reinforced it by drawing parallels between a general theory of geometrical proportions and its relations to arithmetic through algebraic equations. Rotman on the other hand argues that the introduction of zero breaks away from numbers as units of definite things. He believes that Stevin is claiming for all numbers the status of free-floating signs, inaugurating a structural semiotic that gives them meaning only in a potentiality and in reference to other signs. Signs are privileged over things in this conception of algebra, and their terms gain meaning only in reference to each other. While Rotman’s argument has certain persuasiveness, a reading of the original text Stevin’s L’arithmetique pushes one here towards agreement with Klein. Stevin’s reasoning is consistently conflates concepts with objects, language with things. The very analogy that goes into defining a number uses a reasoning that ignores the distinction between the thing and its symbolic referent. To understand algebraic variables in both Stevin (and indeed even in Vieta) it is too early to talk as Rotman does of free-floating symbolic systems. The conditions for a complete dissociation of representation from being have yet to come about. Under the classical episteme, it is much more probable to conflate object and concept (given that the latter is a transparent mirror of the first in any case) than it is to think of a domain of structural semiotics with a pure referentiality to other signs and only to other signs. Following Klein then, we are enabled to think of Stevin as providing the crucial theoretical link between the new syntactical domain inaugurated by symbolic algebra and the world of objects that it seeks to represent. This is made possible by the introduction of the zero as the fundamental principle of arithmetic and the consequent understanding of numbers as continuous and not discrete phenomenon. Once this is achieved, the classical episteme with its emphasis on the twin operations of visible identities and differences lends itself easily to a conflation with the geometrical world of algebraic notations made visible and continuous (hence operable upon to calculate identity and difference). In other words, the eventual linking of algebraic and geometrical proportions, which – since it was thought to be a transparent representation of the ontological status of the classical episteme – enabled symbolic algebra to emerge as a new kind of pure representation, a privileged language of enquiry and analysis. Manipulations of algebraic terms through internally defined operations would enable an access to truth and an answer to every question that could and ever had been posed. Hence Vieta’s proud and famous contention: ‘Analytical art appropriates to itself by right the proud problem of problems, which is: TO LEAVE NO PROBLLEM UNSOLVED.’ Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Click here http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php From Charles.Baldwin at mail.wvu.edu Fri Jun 8 00:00:09 2007 From: Charles.Baldwin at mail.wvu.edu (Charles Baldwin) Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:30:09 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] IFS 3rd Posting: A Genealogy of the Code - II In-Reply-To: <104571.45969.qm@web94509.mail.in2.yahoo.com> References: <104571.45969.qm@web94509.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <46681671020000510002B004@WVUGW01.wvu.edu> On all this, look at Florian Cramer's Word Made Flesh: Code, Culture, Imagination http://plaintext.cc:70/00-recent/words_made_flesh/words_made_flesh.pdf >>> Dwaipayan Banerjee 06/07/07 2:26 PM >>> INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND POSTING In this posting I continue my effort to uncover a genealogy of symbolic code that is at the heart of computing and programming today. By this I mean both in the languages of programming, as well in the design of logical systems such as the computer - the binary system. In this post, we shift focus to symbolic algebera in the 16th and 17th centuries - and look at the works of those who preceded Leibniz and Boole. While Leibniz and Boole are credited (and rightly so) for a definitive role in the history of thought that made computing possible, we push the chronology slightly further and begin to uncover the conditions of thought that made their work possible. We argue that - alongwith the quest for universal languages in the first posting - the development of symbolic algebra was absolutely crucial to the development of mathematical and computing logic. Also, this is not a historical quibbling on origins. A tracing of the genealogy and strengthening our understanding of it allows us to make certain arguments about code and mathematical languages as a certain kind of symbolic arrangement in our modern times. By following the transformations and the incredible variations that have occured in the relationship between such language-systems and the world, we stand to gain much knowledge of our the human subject is configured to the field of representations in our times. The next posting will follow this debate into Leibniz and Boole and attempt a theory of the changing status of symbolic languages in changing epistemes. The posting after that will follow these debates into the 20th century and the status of universal languages of logic (the direct precursors of modern code) in mathematical disciplines. The posting after that will address directly issues pertaining to code as we understand it today, strengthened by a thorough genealogical survey. SECOND POSTING In the works explored in the preceding posting, we were confronted with a relationship between the world and language that had yet to experience a schism. Whether in the Renaissance episteme or the Classical that followed, language was thought wholly capable of expressing the world that it existed in. The unity between language and the world (representation and being) was supported ably by a unity across what are now a multitude of disciplines. As Foucault argues, the classical configuration of a universal order enabled a kind of general science practiced by polymaths like Leibniz and Descartes. With the transition into modernity however, the reordering of the episteme (the questioning of absolutes, the birth of a new positivism) fractured both these kinds of unities. The appearance of positivism and the centring of the human subject saw the loss of the transparent visible and univocal tables of the classical order. The birth of new kinds of invisibles (the metaphysic, the unconscious) as the twins of the new positivism only reinforced the loss of the classical unity. This division resonated in the divisions that thus occurred in disciplines the pure formal sciences were separated from empirical sciences. What happened then to language? Separated from a mathesis, it lost its ability to speak for the universal. Philology turned in upon itself, concerned only with its own density, its internal patterning it became one object among many others. Most interesting to us here is how Foucault thinks this profound loss was compensated for. No longer sharing a simple correspondence with reality, the focus shifted onto how language could be best internally structured to serve as an expression system of mathematical and logical thought; how it could be stripped of singularity and accidents, how it could be formalised, how it could again aspire to the privileged status it possessed in the classical episteme. Most interestingly, one result was the innovation of even newer forms of expression (primarily logical) that sought to represent thought and at the same time provide bases for a new kind of universal mathesis. So we see that the quest we were following in the first posting continues, albeit in a radically altered way. In this posting we shall we interested in following the continuation of this altered quest in the form that it survived the birth and development of symbolic algebra and symbolic logic. We shall simultaneously be interested in charting the exact nature of transformations that occurred in their character. To briefly anticipate this, as we move into modernity the two chief and radical differences will be: 1) A movement from a nominalist to a syntactical conception of language and then finally from the syntractical to the purely symbolic. 2) A reordering of the conception of infinity and the limits of mathematics in light of the new positivities of knowledge. In this and the next posting then, the focus shifts from language in general to the specific language of mathematics and logic. This narrowing is made inevitable by the fracturing of disciplines that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, we are still interested in seeing how the quest for universality and perfect duplication of thought is continued, and the precise transformations that take place in the nature of this search. Vietas logistice speciosa Francois Vieta is known to us now as the father of modern algebra. Even such a generous epithet perhaps does not do justice to his achievements. Writing in late 16th century France, Vieta inaugurated a symbolic and syntactic conception of algebra that flourishing under Descartes and Leibniz would provide the firmaments for mathematical thought and logic for centuries to come. Coupled with the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin who provided a theory for the continuity of numbers and posited them as a level of representation that were analogous to objects, Vieta provided the tools that would flourish in use under the classical episteme. To put it very simplistically, while Vieta inaugurated a symbolic language in mathematics that allowed an internal syntactic referentiality, Stevin connected this system to being and object allowing and retaining the process of naming that is the fundamental task of classical representation. The conditions for the two defining characteristics in the classical episteme were slowly being forged a level of representation separate from objects that were internally consistent syntactically while not losing touch with its power to name the objects that it existed separately from (a partial symbolic). To understand this more precisely, let us retrace our steps and examine Francois Vieta in more detail. Jacob Kleins excellent work on Vietas sources demonstrates his grasp of the ancients and the influence of Diophantus and Pappus on his algebraic work. While we are not concerned with the details of his sources here, we are interested in a novel bringing together of two different stands in Greek mathematical thought Diophantine arithmetic and the geometry of Pappus. The understanding of algebra as geometric as essentially a theory of proportions is what Vietas definitive contribution to modern thought can be briefly summed. To put it differently, for the ancient mathematicians, arithmetic was a computation on determinate numbers. It was strictly a manipulation of definable magnitudes. Vietas comparison with geometry and a general theory of proportions undermined this nominalist tendency that thought of numbers as just counting. It inaugurated an internal proportion, a theory of the equation that privileged a consistency between terms that were internally defined. In establishing a plane of reference different from objects (a plane of internal syntax) a problem is certain to arise. In what way can numbers as determinate magnitudes (ancients) be represented as indeterminate and hence open to syntactical manipulation? Vietas solution to this problem gives us perhaps the most valuable mathematical contribution of the time, the systematic presentation of a system of algebraic notation that establishes a symbolic conception in mathematics. To move numbers from the determinate to the indeterminate, he uses letter signs to represent not a specific number, but the general character of being a number. This generality in the syntactical unit allows a similar generality in the analytical and problematical procedure. Certain rules of comparison and operations between these signs are postulated, allowing a systematic manipulation of these letter units. We are entering thus a new domain of mathematical analysis in which objects begin to be defined purely by the syntactic contexts, a far cry from numbers as pure magnitudes. As Jacob Klein understands, this moment marks a strong break from the fundamental ontological science of the ancients, replaced by a symbolic discipline whose ontological presuppositions are left unclarified. The structure of the world is now to be understood as a symbolic calculus. As Vieta himself put it, the numeral reckoning of the ancients (logistice numerosa) that operated with numbers is now replaced by the reckoning by species (logistice speciosa) that operates with species on the forms of things. At the same time, it would be an over-reaching to say that the symbolic and syntactical conceptions in mathematics was established at this point once and for all. In every way, this was just a beginning. The internal systemisation was rudimentary and far from complete. Additionally, the symbolic letter signs that represented the general character of being a number are just a first step in a symbolic understanding in mathematics. We shall find that in a later years virulent debates will rage around the nature of numbers themselves, their internal consistency and determinateness and their relationship to the world. These debates will give rise to even a hapless abandonment of numbers in favour of an even more prior system that is needed to define numbers themselves. While these debates will be discussed in more detail in the next posting, they are alluded to briefly here to remind us that while revolutionary in mathematics, Vieta and his contemporaries understanding of symbolism is an early and curtailed one, linked strongly to the world that it seeks to represent. In other words, it is absolutely vital to remember that while a general internal syntax has been brought about, it is a syntax that transparently connects to the ordering of thought and being, to the general theory of proportions that was in pre-eminence during the classical episteme. The continuous, tabular, grid-like arrangement of Vietas symbolic algebra mimics the similar arrangements of representation of language, biology and economics that Foucault unearths in his archaeology of the same time. The crucial link between the two is that mathesis as we represent here was an ordering of simple natures, and taxinomia (as we came across in the first posting) was an ordering of complex natures. While mathesis was a calculation of equality, taxinomia dealt with differences. Both in consonance established the grid of knowledge that transparently represented knowledge. The underlying conditions, rules and philosophies of different representations and disciplines were the same: a system of identities and differences (as discussed before). Since there was no difference imagined between how the world was and how it was represented (although at a different plane), it was only natural that different representations would obey the same principles of ordering, which in turn would directly illuminate the principle of ordering inherent in the real world. This is brief, is the classical notion of order. This is also the conditions of emergence of Vietas symbolic algebra and the main point of difference from the symbolism that will overtake the discipline in modernity. Stevin and Zero Brian Rotman - in his comparison of Stevin and Vieta thinks of the latter as more limited in his symbolic conception of the algebraic variable sign. For him, Vietas linking of letters to sets which are strongly constituted as collection of real things, ties him to a nominalist understanding of the algebraic sign. To him, Stevins introduction of the zero does something far more drastic to structure of mathematical entities, something that posits a far stronger break from the classical arithmos, the status of numbers as mere magnitudes. In Jacob Kleins discussion of Stevins work, the implications of his mathematical innovations are interpreted in almost a contrary way to Rotman. His belief is that there is a conflation of first and second intentions, of object and concept, of being and thought that does not think of numbers as free-floating signs but as distinct materiality. Let us first examine Stevins work briefly here. The principle contribution that Stevin made to the theory of numbers was his understanding of zero as the arche (the principle of construction) of the numerological system. He was borrowing this idea from the Arabic scholars, rejecting the Greek arithmos that posited the unit as the central principle and hardly recognised zero. Both Klein and Rotman agree that a conception of numbers that has zero has its fundamental basis made possible a continuous system of numbers; one that had place not only for rational integers but also for irrationals, quadratics and so forth. In other words, it made possible indeterminate numbers for which the actual numerical value was not known. Since these were not determinate, Vietas symbolic letter signs would be necessary to represent them. >From this initial agreement Rotman and Klein take two different courses. Klein believes that in conjunction with geometry, Stevin was attempting to reinforce the materiality of the number by articulating a clearer continuity that was given to geometric formulations. The lack of the Greek mathematicians and their inability to conflate arithmetic with geometry was their inability to understand zero. Once this was difficulty was surmounted and a continuous theory of the number made possibly, the conflation of arithmetic and geometry was made possible. Algebraic variables such as these did not break the conflation of object and thought, of being and representation but reinforced it by drawing parallels between a general theory of geometrical proportions and its relations to arithmetic through algebraic equations. Rotman on the other hand argues that the introduction of zero breaks away from numbers as units of definite things. He believes that Stevin is claiming for all numbers the status of free-floating signs, inaugurating a structural semiotic that gives them meaning only in a potentiality and in reference to other signs. Signs are privileged over things in this conception of algebra, and their terms gain meaning only in reference to each other. While Rotmans argument has certain persuasiveness, a reading of the original text Stevins Larithmetique pushes one here towards agreement with Klein. Stevins reasoning is consistently conflates concepts with objects, language with things. The very analogy that goes into defining a number uses a reasoning that ignores the distinction between the thing and its symbolic referent. To understand algebraic variables in both Stevin (and indeed even in Vieta) it is too early to talk as Rotman does of free-floating symbolic systems. The conditions for a complete dissociation of representation from being have yet to come about. Under the classical episteme, it is much more probable to conflate object and concept (given that the latter is a transparent mirror of the first in any case) than it is to think of a domain of structural semiotics with a pure referentiality to other signs and only to other signs. Following Klein then, we are enabled to think of Stevin as providing the crucial theoretical link between the new syntactical domain inaugurated by symbolic algebra and the world of objects that it seeks to represent. This is made possible by the introduction of the zero as the fundamental principle of arithmetic and the consequent understanding of numbers as continuous and not discrete phenomenon. Once this is achieved, the classical episteme with its emphasis on the twin operations of visible identities and differences lends itself easily to a conflation with the geometrical world of algebraic notations made visible and continuous (hence operable upon to calculate identity and difference). In other words, the eventual linking of algebraic and geometrical proportions, which since it was thought to be a transparent representation of the ontological status of the classical episteme enabled symbolic algebra to emerge as a new kind of pure representation, a privileged language of enquiry and analysis. Manipulations of algebraic terms through internally defined operations would enable an access to truth and an answer to every question that could and ever had been posed. Hence Vietas proud and famous contention: Analytical art appropriates to itself by right the proud problem of problems, which is: TO LEAVE NO PROBLLEM UNSOLVED. Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Click here http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php _________________________________________ 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/> From sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in Fri Jun 8 11:33:19 2007 From: sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in (S Fatima) Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 07:03:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: Gautier does it again Message-ID: <176274.38074.qm@web8409.mail.in.yahoo.com> Democracy Hijacked François Gautier Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven by the lust for power are destroying all that is good and true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at and persecuted while Government is busy devising ways and means of dividing the nation along caste and communal lines India prides itself as the greatest democracy in the world. But actually, there are very few places where democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. Nothing demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring going on at the moment to find India 's next President. President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular President in the history of India . Yet he will not be re-elected, because he was the people's President and not a stooge of political parties. Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive him, as he was the one who stopped her from becoming Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of his chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for many years (she is not the only foreigner who did so after obtaining Indian citizenship). Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously because, although he is a true Muslim, he respects other religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita and Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus Mayawati, partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away from him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did not always do its bidding. How else is democracy perverted in India ? Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which has been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, and sprung to power at the Centre by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment and is dividing India more and more along caste and religion lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules as the supreme leader of this country, one whose word can make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be possible for an Indian to become a de facto President or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? Absolutely not! Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak man, is not elected: He was defeated the last time he contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam , where he has no roots at all. Democracy in India has also been hijacked by cynical mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of the Muslims; who remain the most backward community in India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen Congress Governments since Independence; and how to manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share of benefits and have had one of them as President and many of whom are politicians in power. Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did in her three previous stints as Chief Minister? It seems doubtful, the way she has started, wasting hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous projects, including the Special Economic Zones and transferring hundreds of officials. In the name of freedom of expression, Indian intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. Would he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? Certainly not! When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish newspaper - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's derogatory portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world erupts in flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would have been dead today. Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV or publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely available and have been reproduced in a coffee table book sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi Modi. India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by clever lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, thanks to judges who go by the book without adapting their judgements to the Indian context, or by bribing witnesses as has been allegedly done in the BMW case. But poor people go to jail and it takes seven years to get a case cleared. India's socialist system, which is still enforced, pretends to tax the rich to subsidise the poor. But in reality, the rich have smart chartered accountants who twist the law, while the less fortunate have to pay taxes on small savings and salaries. And, of course, most of this money never reaches the destitute. Finally, here you have a country of 850 million Hindus, a billion worldwide, one of the most tolerant, law-abiding communities in the world. Yet, Hindus in India are made fun of and their beliefs riled at. They are persecuted, as the four lakh Kashmiri Pandits have been, without raising finger in defence - their men hanged, women raped, children disembowelled. They have become refugees in their own country and the media is mostly silent. Yes democracy is needed, and a free and democratic India definitely has (in the long run) an advantage on an undemocratic China . But the way things are going now, India seems on the verge of losing all that is good and true and valuable within the nation, thanks to cynical and self-serving politicians. Cry O my Beloved India . Look at what Thy children are doing to Thee. Download prohibited? No problem! To chat from any browser without download, Click Here: http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php From ysikand at gmail.com Fri Jun 8 11:52:05 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 11:52:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Muslim Youth Activism in Kerala: The Ittehadul Shiban lil Muslimeen Message-ID: <48097acc0706072322s4dade0afs16665b8791582b73@mail.gmail.com> Muslim Youth Activism in Kerala: The Ittehadul Shiban lil Muslimeen Yoginder Sikand Established in 1969, the Calicut-based Itehadul Shiban lil Muslimeen (ISM) is the youth wing of the Kerala Nadwath ul-Mujahin (KNM), a leading Kerala-based Islamic reformist movement. Since its inception, the ISM has played a crucial role in promoting Islamic awareness as well as social, educational and economic development among the Muslims of Kerala, who form around a quarter of the state's population. It has some 600 units all over Kerala as well around 20 'Indian Islahi Centres', in various Gulf states, where Malayali Muslims, or Mapillas as they are commonly known, live in substantial numbers. It has over 15,000 active members, aged between 15 and 40, and the number of its sympathizers runs into tens of thousands. A large number of ISM's members are government school Arabic teachers, Kerala being the only state in India where Arabic is taught in public schools. Businessmen, journalists, doctors, engineers, college lecturers and ulema comprise most of the rest of the ISM's membership. The ISM's sphere of activities is wide, not being limited to Islamic preaching alone, explains ISM President Mujeeb ur-Rahman Kinalur. Some 500 part-time Quranic Learning Schools function under its aegis all over Kerala. The ISM's preaching wing, 'The Truth', promotes inter-faith dialogue and Islamic missionary work. Its Unity Family Cell provides pre- and post-marital counseling to married couples and conducts mass, dowry-free marriages for the poor. Its Programme on Education and Career Enhancement provides counseling by trained resource persons to students about higher studies and job prospects. Its Yuvatha Book House is one of the largest Islamic publishing houses in Kerala. Its Academy of Studies and Research conducts studies and conferences on issues related to Islam, Muslims and inter-community relations in Kerala. Its weekly newspaper, Shabab, has a circulation of some 50,000, making it one of the largest Muslim papers in the state. Besides articles on Islam, it provides news about community development initiatives, scholarships, job and higher education opportunities and government schemes. Podava, the ISM's monthly women's magazine, has a circulation of more than 10,000 and among its regular contributors are Hindu and Christian women. Two medical assistance centres in Calicut and the roughly 200 Pain and Palliative Clinics that the ISM runs in various parts of north Kerala benefit several thousand patients, Muslims, as well as others, every day. Its Social Welfare wing builds houses for the poor, provides relief at times of natural disasters and grants some 500 scholarships to poor students every year. The ISM's Gulf Cell conducts a Malayali conference in some Gulf state or the other every year, bringing together Malayali Hindus, Muslims and Christians to celebrate and interact. Interestingly, almost all these many activities of the ISM are undertaken by volunteers. 'In short', says ISM President, 35-year old Mujeeb ur-Rahman Kinalur, 'we are trying to relate Islam to our daily lives, enabling us to live as members of a very plural society. Promoting social justice and inter-community solidarity is one of our man tasks, and this is reflected in our understanding of Islam and in the work we do'. 'Our services are not restricted to Muslims alone', he says. 'Instead, we seek to reach out to others as well'. Kinalur explains that this urge stems 'from a realization of one's duty to other human beings, irrespective of their religion'. 'Such an attitude', he adds, 'also helps Muslims live harmoniously along with others in a multi-religious society'. 'So, for instance', he explains, 'many Hindus come to our clinics for treatment. This is just a humanitarian task, not a missionary strategy. But through our service we establish close bonds with people of other communities and that helps them see Islam in practice. Islam cannot just be preached through words or writing alone'. The ISM's state council meets every six months to chalk out plans for activities throughout Kerala. District, zonal and local units then formulate activities accordingly. 'This year', says Kinalur, 'we decided to launch a mass campaign against communalism and extremism, both Hindu as well as Muslim, that threaten the multi-cultural fabric of Kerala'. 'We held literally hundreds of seminars and public meetings throughout the state, where our workers as well as Christian and Hindu social activists and leaders from various political parties, spoke against communalism and stressed the need for inter-community solidarity. Not just Muslims, but others, too, attended these meetings in large numbers', Kinalur relates. 'Hindu and Muslim extremism feed on each other. Today in Kerala these forces are raising their heads and we need a joint struggle against them and cannot afford to remain complacent', he explains. Another major concern of the ISM is the struggle against Western imperialism. 'True religion and genuine spirituality cannot co-exist with the sort of hegemony that the West, in particular the United States, seeks to impose on the rest of the world', Kinalur says. This January, the ISM joined hands with various leftist groups to organize mass rallies throughout Kerala against George Bush and American imperialism, in which thousands participated. 'Our opposition to Western imperialism goes beyond what the West is doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. We are fundamentally opposed to Western economic hegemony, the nexus between the Indian ruling classes and the West, and the agenda of so-called globalization, which is naked and crass capitalism and consumerism, which only benefits the rich and further impoverishes the poor', Kinalur says. Kinalur was elected President of the ISM this January. He tells me about some of the plans that he has for the organization in the immediate future. 'We want to organize seminars on the Kerala Muslim model so that Muslims in other parts of India can learn from our example. We want to translate some of the works of leading Kerala Muslim reformists into Urdu and English so as to make other Muslims familiar with reformist trends in our part of the country', he says. 'We also plan to launch regular discussion programmes in our units to which we would invite community activists, politicians and writers, irrespective of religion, to discuss issues of contemporary social concern'. 'Islam, as we understand it', Kinalur tells me as we conclude our meeting, 'means being constructively engaged in society, working for general welfare, especially of the poor, irrespective of religion, and this we are trying to do in our own humble way'. ==================================== Mujeeb ur-Rahman Kinalur, President of the ISM, can be contacted on kinalur at gmail.com -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping From vibhaaurora at gmail.com Fri Jun 8 15:21:32 2007 From: vibhaaurora at gmail.com (Dr. Vibha Arora) Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 15:21:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Eco-Cultures: Culture Studies and the Environment Message-ID: <10d6c6990706080251g51bb7564oa626e7072ed1cc00@mail.gmail.com> FYI Eco-Cultures: Culture Studies and the Environment (ed.) Ganser and Arora Reconstruction is proud to announce the publication of its Vol. 7, No. 2 (2007) themed issue, "Eco-Cultures: Culture Studies and the Environment," which can be found at http://reconstruction.eserver.org. Featured in the issue: * Introduction by Guest Editors Alexandra Ganser and Vibha Arora * Amanda Boetzkes, "Contemporary Art Facing the Earth's Irreducibility" * Catherine M. Roach, "Thinking Like a God: Nature Imagery in Advertising" * Mary Newell, "Gestures toward Cross-Species Reciprocal Relations in Contemporary Poetics" * Lisa Uddin, "Bird Watching: Global-Natural Worlds and the Popular Reception of Winged Migration" * Chris Drinkwater, "Deep Ecology and Postmodernity: Making space for conversation" * Stephanie Posthumus, "Translating Ecocriticism: Dialoguing with Michel Serres" * Chia-ju Chang, "Reconciling Ethnicity, Subalternity and Chinese Eco-aesthetics: Human and Animal Subjects in Lu Chuan's Kekexili: Mountain Patrol" * Don Romesburg, "Camping Out with Ray Bourbon: Female Impersonators and Queer Dread of Wide-Open Spaces" * Brian Black, "Addressing the Nature of Gettysburg: 'Addition and Detraction' in Preserving an American Shrine" * Lori Martindale, "Can Nature's Language be Written, Spoken, and Heard? Mahasweta Devi's 'Pterodactyl' and Marlene Nourbese Philip's Looking for Livingstone" * Sabine Wilke, "Albert Bierstadt's Images of the American West: An Eco-Critical Reflection on Nature Painting" * Phylis Johnson, "Women of the New Walden: Gender in Sound Culture, Now and Then" * Creative Works by Rob Baum, Rosemary Rowley, Casey Clabough, Gayle Goldstick, and Anand Silodia * Book Reviews by Kuchler, Arora, Kipgen, and Satya -- Vibha Arora, DPhil (Oxon) http://web.iitd.ac.in/~aurora/ Assistant Professor in Sociology Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences The Indian Institute of Technology, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 INDIA aurora at hss.iitd.ac.in; vibhaaurora at yahoo.com From sananth99 at gmail.com Fri Jun 8 20:47:28 2007 From: sananth99 at gmail.com (Ananth) Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 20:47:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Bill Gates & Africa's Food Supply Message-ID: <624E35AD-C879-4A4B-BCEE-94BAAC401962@gmail.com> June 6, 2007 The Profits of Philanthropy Is Bill Gates Trying to Hijack Africa's Food Supply? By BRUCE DIXON http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06062007.html Genetically altered crops will rescue Africa from endemic shortfalls in food production, claim corporate foundations that have announced a $150 million "gift" to spark a "Green Revolution" in agriculture on the continent. Of course, U.S.-based agribusiness holds the patents to these wondercrops, and can exercise their proprietary "rights" at will. Are corporate foundations really out to feed the hungry, or are they hypocritical Trojan Horses on a mission to hijack the world's food supply --- to create the most complete and ultimate state of dependency. "Poor-washing" is the common public relations tactic of concealing bitterly unfair and predatory trade policies that create and deepen hunger and poverty with clouds of hypocritical noise about feeding the hungry and alleviating poverty. It's hard to imagine a better case of media poor-washing than the hype around the recently announced $150 million "gifts" of the Gates and Rockerfeller Foundations to the cause of reforming African agriculture, feeding that continent's impoverished millions and sparking an African "Green Revolution." For ADM, Cargill, Monsanto and other agribusiness giants farming as humans have practiced it the last ten thousand years is a big problem. The problem is that when farmers plant and harvest crops, setting a little aside for next year's seed, people eat, but corporations don't get paid. That problem has been so thoroughly solved in U.S. food production that chemical fertilizers and pesticides create a biological dead zone of hundreds of square miles in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi, draining much of the continent's richest farmland, empties into it. U.S. law requires the registration all crop varieties, and makes it extraordinarily difficult for farmers to save and plant their own seed year to year without paying royalties to corporations who "own" the genetic code of those crops. But until recently in the developing world, farmers still planted, plowed and harvested without paying American agribusiness anything. The first attempt to "monetize" food production took place a generation ago in Southeast Asia and India. Called the "Green Revolution" its public face was a masterpiece of pious poor-washing. A thin layer of native academic, "experts" and local officials were bought off, and slick ad campaigns were told local farmers the road to prosperity was the use of vast quantities of pesticides, herbicides, and high-yield crops grown for international markets instead of feeding local populations. The "Green Revolution" in India worked out well for the middlemen who sold the chemicals and lent poor farmers money to buy them, and for its wealthiest farmers. But when millions of farmers, on the advice foreign and domestic "experts" produced cotton, sugar and export crops for the world market instead of food to feed their neighbors, several nasty things happened. The prices for those export staples went down, so poor farmers wound up without the cash to repay loans for the year's seed and chemicals. Food which used to be abundant and locally grown became scarce, expensive and had to come from other regions or overseas. The chemicals killed many beneficial plants and insects, and promoted the emergence of newer, tougher pests and diseases. Export crops needed more water than traditional ones, so wealthy farmers monopolized what water there was to feed their export crops. Man-made famines occurred. People starved or became dependent on imported foreign grain. Millions of farmers were forced to sell their land (or sometimes their children) to pay off their debts, and move to the cities. In the tradition of the European explorers unleashed on the rest of humanity with letters from their kings entitling them to claim and seize the lands, treasure and inhabitants of all places not under the rule of white Christian princes, the U.S. patent office began in the 1990s, granting American corporations exclusive "patents" for varieties of rice produced in Asia for thousands of years, for beans grown in Mexico centuries before Columbus, and for all the products which were or might be made from trees, plants, roots and molds growing in the rain forests of Africa and Asia. Indian courts, under pressure from their citizens, rebuffed for now American attempts to collect royalties for the production of basmati rice, which farmers in India and Pakistan have cultivated for centuries. But every developing country can't bring to the table against the U.S. the power that India, with a fifth of the world's population can. In the U.S. media this privatization of nature is called "the biotech industry". Most of humanity outside the U.S. call it biopiracy. In the last decade, corporate "life scientists" in the biotech industry have invented, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has patented a perverse but profitable technology which prevents a current year's crop from producing usable seed for next year's planting. These "terminator seeds" will force farmers to return to corporate seed suppliers every year. For the last 20 years, the U.S. has, with varying degrees of success, bullied, bribed and threatened governments on six continents to enforce its skull-and-crossbones patent laws through bilateral trade agreements --- think NAFTA and CAFTA --- through World Bank and International Monetary Fund dictates, and the World Trade Organization. Today UN bodies and dozens of individual countries are under pressure to allow the introduction of genetically modified crops and terminator seed technologies into their food chains. Despite their poverty and need for development aid, African countries, informed by the world media (outside the U.S.) have been forced by their own citizens, scientists and farmers to stoutly resist Western efforts to undermine their food security. But the slick and shiny PR campaign around the Gates and Rockerfeller initiatives, supposedly addressed at alleviating world hunger seem to mark a new stage in the continuing scramble for African resources. Last year, the Gates Foundation hired former Monsanto VP Robert Robert Horsch as senior robert_horschprogram officer for Africa. Monsanto is the company that invented "biotechnology" and the patenting of life forms by corporations. This is the context for the "philanthropy" of the Gates and Rockerfeller Foundations, and their expressed concern for foisting a "Green Revolution" upon Africa. Will African farmers and their governments be forced to pay American corporations to cultivate the crops they have for centuries? Global capital and competition to control the world's remaining energy have put Africa's oil resources in the sights of America's strategic planners. If the Gates and Rockerfeller Foundations, along with Monsanto, Cargill, ADM and other agribusiness and biotech and "life science" players have anything to say about it, Africa's food supply is up for grabs too. BRUCE DIXON is editor of the Black Agenda Report. From keshvani at leoalmanac.org Sat Jun 9 07:45:47 2007 From: keshvani at leoalmanac.org (Nisar Keshvani, LEA) Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 10:15:47 +0800 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Leonardo Electronic Almanac Supplement - Vol 15 No 7 - 8 Message-ID: <5d60ab0c0706081915q3b9f2b90h2383263dfb7cff42@mail.gmail.com> ________________________________________________________________ Leonardo Electronic Almanac Volume 15, Number 7 - 8, 2007 http://leoalmanac.org ISSN #1071-4391 ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO REVIEWS ---------------- < Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions > Reviewed by Geoff Cox < The Animation of Lists> and < the Archytan Transpositions > Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen < Constant, Avant le Départ > Reviewed by Anthony Enns < Renzo Piano: Work in Progress > Reviewed by Nameera Ahmed < Leonardo Reviews, May 2007 > LEONARDO -------- < Table of Contents: Leonardo Vol. 40, No. 3, 2007 > LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS --------------------- < MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences, International Conference > < Jeffrey Babcock and Greg Harper Elected to Leonardo Governing Board > < Leonardo Education Forum Elects New Chairs > < In Memoriam: LeRoy White > < In Memoriam: Patrick Purcell > BYTES ----- < art meets science: Events in Honor of the 80th Birthday of Herbert W. Franke > < Research Coordinator Position, Arts Media and Engineering Program, Arizona State University > < Call for Submissions: 2nd Annual Conference on the Arts in Society > < Register for the UCLA Design | Media Arts Summer Institute program 2007 > ________________________________________________________________ LEONARDO REVIEWS, May 2007 ________________________________________________________________ This month Leonardo Reviews is featuring four reviews: two of films, one of an audio CD and another of a book. It is always difficult to know what to feature since we have a vigorous review panel comprising experts in their field. Leonardo Reviews is grateful to all for their support and relentless hard work. Since LEA is published electronically the choice this month is an indirect reflection on the kind of media activity that has flourished since the early 90s when the internet was opened to widespread participation. Of course much has changed since then,- including Leonardo Reviews. The full list of reviews is posted below and can be accessed along with the archive at http://www.leonardo.info/ldr.html Michael Punt Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Reviews _______________________ Leonardo Featured Reviews, May 2007 < Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions > by Ned Rossiter NAi, Rotterdam 2006 In association with the Institute of Network Cultures, Hogeschool van Amsterdam 250 pp., illus. 2x b/w, paper ISBN 90-5662-526-8 Reviewed by Geoff Cox University of Plymouth Gcox [at] Plymouth [dot] ac [dot] uk Organized Networks asserts there is urgent need for new institutional forms that reflect "relational" processes to challenge existing systems of governance and outmoded representational structures. Emergent forms are radically dissimilar to the ways in which social relations are organized under the "moribund technics" of modern institutions (such as the university or the state). These older forms, referred to as "networked organizations," are hierarchical and centralized despite their pretensions towards fair representation. In contrast, emergent "organized networks" are horizontal, collaborative and distributed in character, offering a distinct social dynamic and transformational potential. The key difference is how institutions have responded to developments in networked communications technology and the issue of intellectual property rights: On the one hand, networked organizations using this as a regulatory mechanism to enforce or extend existing power structures, and on the other, organized networks advocating open source culture. If all this sounds rather too straightforward, Rossiter elaborates on the complexities, uncertainties and contradictions associated with sociality, labour and life in general. The book is split into three main sections, each with two chapters: the first, addressing the limits of democracy and organized networks; the second, tackling the creative industries, precarious labour and intellectual property; and the third, the virtuosity of general intellect and "processual democracy." Previous versions of many of the chapters have been already published but together they make a powerful interlacing argument for network criticism demonstrating a depth of research to highlight the key issues for political intervention (a companion volume might be Tiziana Terranova's Network Culture [Pluto 2004]). Acknowledging the peer intellectual support of the Nettime and Fiberculture mailing lists, it is perhaps not surprising that Rossiter demonstrates an impressive but familiar range of sources to subscribers (including immanent critique and negative dialectics of the Frankfurt School, the concepts of general intellect and immaterial labour in Autonomous Marxism, and the constitutive role of the outside and immanence in Deleuze's philosophy, amongst others); taking a transdisciplinary approach that he likens to the collective ethos and protocols of the network itself. A sense of project is clear, passionate and full of hope: "It is about conditions of possibility, the immanent relation between theory and practice . . . and a resolute belief . . . in the concrete potential of transdisciplinary institutional forms that enlist the absolute force of labour and life." (p.17) The potential to transform social relations is somewhat demonstrated in the socio-technical dynamics of mailing lists, blogs, wikis, content management systems, and so on. But it is the institutional nature of this, as a description of the organization of social relations, that makes it thoroughly political. An example is the section on the creative industries, where the instrumental ways in which creativity has been exploited in the realm of policy are mapped against "a concept of communications media that acknowledges the constitutive role of the outside" (p. 103). For the argument of the book, the creative industries indicate two aspects: antagonism in the form of the exploitation of creative labour power underpinned by the increasing regulation of intellectual property as a consequence of the drive to commodify collective and communicative knowledge (the appropriation of general intellect, in other words); and also, the affirmation of creative labour that holds potential for self-organisation through its networked capacity (where organized networks emerge). By focussing on the exploitation of immaterial labour-power, or what Rossiter refers to as "disorganized labour power," the underlying conditions are exposed but so too are new forms of agency. Organized networks represent relative institutional autonomy but do so not in isolation; they are also required to operate tactically, engaging horizontal and vertical modes of interaction: "The tendency to describe networks in terms of horizontality results in the occlusion of the 'political', which consists of antagonisms that underpin sociality. It is technically and socially incorrect to assume that hierarchical and centralizing architectures and practices are absent from network cultures." (p. 36) Networks are clearly not limitless or without borders, but are far more complex, for "while networks in many ways are regulated indirectly by the sovereign interests of the state, they are also not reducible to institutional apparatuses of the state. And this is what makes possible the creation of new institutional forms as expressions of non-representational democracy." (p. 39) This is one of the interventions of the book: far from arguing against institutions, the limits of democracy and the discourse of neo-liberalism in general is taken as the available means to rethink politics within network cultures - and this is what is referred to as "non-representational democracy" to describe democracy decoupled from sovereign power (citing Virno's The Grammar of the Multitude, New York: Semiotext(e) 2004). For Rossiter, organized networks offer such an opportunity to develop strategies and techniques of better organization. Indeed, "transformation is conditioned by a capacity to become organized." (p. 215) _______________________ < The Animation of Lists > and < The Archytan Transpositions > by Warren Burt XI Records, New York, 2006 2 audio CDs. 63'29" and 64'48" XI 130 Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen Hogeschool Gent Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium Stefaan [dot] vanryssen [at] hogent [dot] be Warren Burt has a history of exploring the very edges of what is technically possible with new and old instruments. He has been using the mechanical gates of the earliest generation of synthesizers as percussion instruments, thereby changing would-be electronic instruments into acoustical ones. He has traveled the most remote regions of what is possible with the human vocal apparatus and redefined the borders between digital and analogous. With a solid background in musical and organological analysis and an ongoing interest in psycho-acoustics, he seems to be able to take any established practice just one step further, creating fuzzy no-man's lands where entirely new aesthetics can be created, enjoyed and used to reassess old ones. For this double CD Burt has been using a set of tuning forks precisely tuned to a just intonation. One would wonder how a tuning fork could not be precisely tuned, but the expression "just intonation" refers to the actual frequencies the forks are tuned to and not the fact that they vibrate at one frequency only. Our traditional tuning forks fit in a system of 'tempered scales' where certain tones are slightly off from what they should be in a perfect, just-intonation scale. Under Pythagorean assumptions, all notes in a scale should be,- I emphasize "should" because Pythagoras and his followers soon discovered that reality isn't as ideal is they hoped it to be, -ordered in a series of ratio's of integers: _ for the octave, 2/3 for the fifth etc. However, if one moves through the scale and tries to find the ratios necessary to construct all intervals in this way, the system runs into serious trouble. It gets even messier when you go beyond the octave or when you move from major to minor and more exotic scales. Numerous schemes have been proposed to solve these problems before Western music settled for the "tempered" scale, where one instrument is supposed to be able to perform any scale. The tempered scale, however, trades harmonic integrity for practical ease and loses a lot of aesthetic qualities in the deal. I apologise for this long digression and you will certainly find a better explanation in any good book on harmony and the mathematical basis of music, but it is necessary to explain what the otherwise cryptic "Archytan Transpositions" refer to. In the first four pieces, Burt uses a series of sounds played on his tuning forks and manipulates that series to create a cycle of four equal-length variations. He digitally shifted the pitches of his series up and down and combined the manipulated recordings into highly intricate fabrics of very pure sounds. The sound of bass forks with a decay time of up to thirty seconds combine with the clear and crisp bell-like sounds of the treble ones. Their harmonics merge, melt, create unexpected chords and seem to play a game of their own. Nothing new-agey here, simply pure and almost Pythagorean effectless music. In The Archytan Transpositions, Burt does something similar with digitally retuned forks. The Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum proposed a variation on the Pythagorean scale, where a certain interval is taken to be 28/27. To our modern ears, this results in a weird scale, but using this interval to transpose the pitches of some of his forks, Burt succeeded in creating a combined virtual/real instrumentarium of 53 forks with harmonics that are more interesting than the ones in his first series of variations. The second cycle, called "And the Archytan Transpositions 1 to 4," has more colourful harmonies and at times even more drive because of the "beating" interferences we hear between certain pitches. But don't expect anything like a drum 'n base record. The music is absolute. The harmony is most intriguing and yet unimaginably pleasing, but it takes a lot of effort to enjoy this record, or should we say, this perfect example of what "research in music" could mean. _______________________ < Constant, Avant le Départ > by Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele First Run / Icarus Films, Brooklyn NY, 2006 VHS / DVD, 81 minutes, b/w, col. Sale, $398; Rental, $100 Distributor Website: http://www.frif.com. Reviewed by Anthony Enns Department of English University of Iowa anthony-enns [at] uiowa [dot] edu The latest documentary by Dutch filmmakers Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele marks a significant departure from their previous work. Their 1995 documentary I Have a Problem, Madam, which won the Golden Calf Award for best short documentary at the Dutch Film Festival, examined the struggles faced by Ugandan women in a male-dominated society, and their 2002 film Made in Holland Wordt Dutch Design focused on labor issues and globalization. Constant, Avant le Départ, on the other hand, is an intimate portrait of Dutch painter Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys, who died on August 1, 2005. The film chronicles the last months of his life, as he contemplates death and reflects on his life and work. In 1948 Constant founded the Experimentele Groep Holland with Corneille, Karel Appel, and his brother Jan Nieuwenhuys. In November 1948 they joined Christian Dotremont, Joseph Noiret, and Asger Jorn to form the CoBrA group. Tensions developed between Constant and Jorn in the summer of 1949, however, when they vacationed together with their wives on the island of Bomholm and Jorn started an affair with Constant's wife Matie, whom he later married. Constant relates this story in the film, noting that Matie took two of their three children with her when she left. He subsequently resigned from the group and abandoned painting altogether, claiming it "had nothing new to offer."[1] In the 1950s Constant became increasingly interested in urban space, and he began constructing sculptures to express the dynamic experience of the modern city. In December 1956 Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio took him to a Gypsy camp, and Constant's models of this encampment became the first in a series of maquettes of an ideal city called "New Babylon where, under one roof, with the aid of moveable elements, a shared residence is built; a temporary, constantly remodeled living area; a camp for nomads on a planetary scale." [2] According to Constant, the modern city ignores the psychological needs of its inhabitants, and New Babylon was designed to meet those needs by infusing creativity and play into the experience of urban life. This theory led Constant to become a founding member of the Situationist International in 1957, and later that year he collaborated with Guy Debord on "The Amsterdam Declaration," a manifesto that emphasizes the need for "collective creativity" in urban planning. [3] Constant remained in the group until 1960, when he was expelled by Debord. Although Debord rejected Constant's New Babylon designs, claiming that he was nothing more than "a public-relations man for integrating the masses into capitalist technological civilization," [4] Henri Lefebvre argues that this action was merely a political move to help Debord cement his own authority. [5] Constant discusses his theories of urbanism in the film as he watches his son Victor filming his New Babylon designs, and he adds that this city was never intended to be a prediction of the future but only to show that urban space should be playful, like a game. There is evidence, however, that he was firmly committed to the realization of this project until 1966, when he gradually became aware that automation would not result in "freedom from slavery and toiling," but rather in "poverty and boredom." [6] Constant subsequently returned to painting, and the film primarily focuses on this part of his career. Constant's work from this period frequently deals with political subjects, like the Vietnam War, famine in Africa, and refugees from Kosovo, and in the film he discusses both his theories of art and his working methods. He describes how he stares at the blank canvas until an image gradually emerges and how he always begins painting the edges of the frame before moving towards the center. The film also shows Constant putting the finishing touches on his final painting, Le Piège (The Trap), and it follows his last visit to see Titian's La Pietà at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, a painting which he greatly admires and which he once studied for days at a time. Looking over his own oeuvre, Constant discusses his favorite works and claims that the best paintings "with great simplicity illustrate maximum expression"--something that few painters ever accomplish. Although he hesitates to say whether any of his works achieve this goal, it appears that a similar aesthetic also informs Schmidt and Doebele's film. While their approach is extremely simple and straightforward, the end result is a profoundly moving portrait of the artist at the end of a long and successful life. References 1. J.-C. Lambert, "Constant and the Labyrinth," Situationists: Art, Politics, Urbanism, ed. Libero Andreotti and Xavier Costa, trans. Elaine Fradley et al. (Barcelona: Museu D¹Art Contemporani, ACTAR, 1996) p. 100. 2. C. Nieuwenhuys, "New Babylon," Constant: New Babylon (Den Haag: Gemeentemuseum, 1974), rpt. in Theory of the Dérive and Other Situationist Writings on the City, ed. Libero Andreotti and Xavier Costa, trans. Paul Hammond and Gerardo Denís (Barcelona: Museu D'Art Contemporani, ACTAR, 1996) p. 154. 3. C. Nieuwenhuys and G. Debord, "The Amsterdam Declaration," Internationale Situationniste Vol. 2 (December 1958), rpt. in Theory of the Dérive and Other Situationist Writings on the City, ed. Libero Andreotti and Xavier Costa, trans. Paul Hammond and Gerardo Denís (Barcelona: Museu D'Art Contemporani, ACTAR, 1996) p. 80. 4. G. Debord, A. Kotányi, and J. Nash, "Critique of Urbanism," Internationale Situationniste Vol. 6, 3-11 (August 1961), rpt. in Theory of the Dérive and Other Situationist Writings on the City, ed. Libero Andreotti and Xavier Costa, trans. Paul Hammond and Gerardo Denís (Barcelona: Museu D'Art Contemporani, ACTAR, 1996) p. 109. 5. K. Ross, "Lefebvre on the Situationists: An Interview," October Vol. 79, 69-83 (Winter 1997) p. 76. 6. S. Sadler, The Situationist City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998) p. 153. _______________________ < Renzo Piano: Work in Progress > by Marc Petitjean, Director First Run/Icarus Films, Brooklyn, New York, 1999 Video-DVD, 52 mins., col. Sales, video-DVD: $390; rental, video: $75 Distributor's website: http://www.frif.com Reviewed by Nameera Ahmed Pakistan Nameeraa [at] gmail [dot] com "In a sense the process of construction is never complete. I believe that buildings, like cities, are factories of the infinite and the unfinished." Renzo Piano [1] Resting on this ideology of Renzo Piano, the film Renzo Piano: Work in Progress not only showcases Piano's finished projects but portrays the process out of which his architectural masterpieces are born, almost acting as his audio-visual logbook. By taking the viewer to Piano's building sites, through his two offices in Paris and Genoa and inside the brain-storming sessions with clients, it seeks to provide a window into the architecture of this contemporary giant. Renzo Piano follows four of Piano's current projects at their different stages of progress: the Paul Klee Museum in Bern, the reconstruction of the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the NOLA Cultural and Commercial Centre in Naples, and the Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church in Foggia, Italy. By examining them, the filmmaker subtly reveals the artist and the philosophy behind his monumental projects. The film starts in the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Paris, with a voice over by Piano. We see a young man carrying a maquette and, then, we find ourselves in a meeting for the Paul Klee Museum Project, Bern in its initial stages. "The museum would first appear as a movement": Piano is presenting his design concept that has been inspired by the topographical movement of the surrounding hills. Being site-specific, a lot of the concept in Piano's design is developed from the surrounding terrain while also giving importance to the morphology and structure. He studies the organic rhythmic patterns of his terrain well, unifying his design with them. We arrive in Genoa, Piano's hometown, where he tells us he "especially remember(s) the building sites." They are part of Piano's memories of where he grew up with his father. "My origins are those of a handyman, a craftsman. My father was a builder as (was) my grandfather." Even though he makes his past live on with him, his approach to architecture and space is not totally nostalgic but contemporaneous. "Architecture is not alone; it is always the result of a combination of things that live together--art, science, technology, sociology, anthropology, all are mixed together, kind of like a stew." Punta Nave, Near Genoa: The viewer is taken up on an inclined plane, corresponding to a hill. Here we arrive at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa, where his designers are preparing for an exhibition of Piano's own works at the Pompidou Centre, which aims to present "not merely models of the finished building. On the contrary, they present the process and especially its sources." At the Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, one finds a sudden burst of excited activity: Piano is at the inauguration of the new neighbourhood, amongst a group of people. Up to now, we have been following Piano through his different designing and building processes; this scene brings them to fruition. His other finished pieces are showcased through intertitles as we get an idea of the extent of his projects: the San Nicola Stadium, Bari; Kansai Airport, Osaka; International City, Lyon; Beyeler Foundation Museum, Basel; Tijibaou Centre, Noumea; Potsdamer Platz, Berlin; Paul Klee Museum Project, Bern; G. Pompidou Centre, Paris; De Menil Museum, Houston, partly exhibiting the vastness of his monumental and technologically sophisticated portfolio. The film comes closest to the observational mode of documentary where there is unobtrusive camera-work following the action. Piano does not engage directly with the camera, rather the camera observes him, traveling with him on his jet and in Father Gerardo's car, with whom Piano is working on the Padre Pio Church. Unlike the voice-over tradition of the expository mode, where the narrative voice dictates its own truth with a voice-of-God narration, Renzo Piano forms the narrative through Piano's own voice representing his world. The non-diegetic music employed is composed of unobtrusive musical elements that may resemble the environmental noises in a workplace or remind us of the hammering of a craftsman. Rhythmic percussions reflect the process of Piano's current work, representing the acoustics of his architecture. In effect, they build a soundscape that helps us to stay within the architectural world of Piano. Even though this working portrait of Renzo Piano gives us an idea of the extent of Piano's work, it remains wanting in the kind of creative treatment that would do justice to, and reflect the genius of, Piano in a more exciting way for the viewer. Reference: [1] Piano, Renzo. The Renzo Piano Logbook. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1997. _______________________ Leonardo Reviews, May 2007 < The Animation of Lists And the Archytan Transpositions > by Warren Burt Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen < Art: Key Contemporary Thinkers > by Diarmuid Costello and Jonathan Vickery, Editors Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) < Constant, Avant le Départ > by Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele Reviewed by Anthony Enns < Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America > by Takayuki Tatsumi Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher < Ghosthunter: A Journey through Haunted France > by Simon Marsden Reviewed by Allan Graubard < Making Easy Listening, Material Culture and Postwar American Recording > by Tim J. Anderson Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen < The Material Image: Art and the Real in Film > by Brigitte Peucker Reviewed by Jan Baetens < Musimathics. The Mathematical Foundations of Music, Vol. 1 > by Gareth Loy Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen < Renzo Piano: Work in Progress > by Marc Petitjean, Director Reviewed by Nameera Ahmed < Salvador Allende > by Patricio Guzmán, Director Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher < Scientific Pluralism (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science > by Stephen H. Kellert, Helen E. Longino, and C. Kenneth Waters, Editors Reviewed by Amy Ione < Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art > by Caroline A. Jones, Editor Reviewed by Craig Hilton < Too Beautiful to Picture: Zeuxis, Myth, and Mimesis > by Elizabeth C. Mansfield Reviewed by Amy Ione < YLEM Journal: Artists Using Science and Technology > by Loren Means, Editor; Gregg Rickman, Guest Editor Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia) To read all the reviews posted for May 2007, visit Leonardo Reviews at: < http://www.leonardo.info/ldr.html>. ______________________________________________________ LEONARDO, VOL. 40, No. 3 (MAY 2007) TABLE OF CONTENTS AND SELECT ABSTRACTS ______________________________________________________ Editorial < Celebrating the Art, Science and Technology Community > by Amy Ione _______________________ After Midnight < Media Art in Beijing > by Li Zhenhua _______________________ Gallery: Lines of Flight, curated by Celina Jeffery < Stop Motion Studies > by David Crawford < Triptych: Motion Stillness Resistance > by Peter Horvath < Surface Tension > by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer < Weather Gauge > by Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead _______________________ Artist's Article < Gathered from Coincidence: Reflections on Art in a Time of Global Warming > by George Gessert ABSTRACT: How will global warming affect art? The author proposes that the effects will be continuous with other human-caused threats to civilization such as nuclear weapons. Such threats have already contributed to devaluation of the human figure. In many different times and places, the primary focus of art, with the notable exception of Western art, has been on nonhuman imagery. Global warming will give this new significance. Questions of permanence and impermanence in art are also likely to become more relevant. _______________________ General Note < Games of Pain: Pain as Haptic Stimulation in Computer-Game--Based Media Art > by Pau Waelder Laso ABSTRACT: The text describes several media-art projects that introduce pain as a form of interaction within the context of a two-player game: *PainStation *(2001--2003) and *LegShocker *(2002) by Tilman Reiff and Volker Morawe, *Tekken Torture *(2001) by C-Level and *Tazer Tag *(2005) by Randy Sarafan. By presenting these examples and briefly analyzing the nature of pain and games, this text offers an overview of the implications of incorporating pain into a computer game and presents an approach to the motivations that lead players to perceive a painful experience as fun and addictive. _______________________ General Articles < The Non-Realistic Nature of Photography: Further Reasons Why Turner Was Wrong > by Richard Latto and Bernard Harper ABSTRACT: The authors discuss the limitations of photography in producing representations that lead to the accurate perception of shapes. In particular, they consider two situations in which the photographic representation, although an accurate reproduction of the geometry of the two-dimensional image in the eye, does not capture the way human vision changes this geometry to produce a three-dimensionally accurate perception. When looking at a photograph, the viewer's uncertainty of the camera-to-subject distance and the fact that, unnaturally, a photograph presents almost exactly the same view of an object to the two eyes result in substantially distorted perceptions. These most commonly result in a perceived flattening and fattening of the 3D shape of the object being photographed. < *SwarmArt*: Interactive Art from Swarm Intelligence > by Christian Jacob, Gerald Hushlak, Jeffrey E. Boyd, Paul Nuytten, Maxwell Sayles and Marcin Pilat ABSTRACT: Swarms of bees, colonies of ants, schools of fish, flocks of birds, and fireflies flashing synchronously are all examples of highly coordinated behaviors that emerge from collective, decentralized intelligence. Local interactions among a multitude of agents or "swarmettes" lead to a variety of dynamic patterns that may seem like choreographed movements of a meta-organism. This paper describes *SwarmArt*, a collaborative project between several computer scientists and an artist, which resulted in interactive installations that explore and incorporate basic mechanisms of swarm intelligence. The authors describe the scientific context of the artwork, how user interaction is provided through video surveillance technology, and how the swarm-based simulations were implemented at exhibitions and galleries. _______________________ Special Section: ArtScience: The Essential Connection < Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Structure as Art > by Robert Root-Bernstein < The Study of Patterns Is Profound > by Trudy Myrrh Reagan ABSTRACT: The author has studied natural patterns both by drawing them and by finding analogs for them in crafts materials and processes, including batik, shibori, wrinkled paper painting, paper marbling, moiré, painting and engraving on Plexiglas. She discusses the generation of patterns in nature and how scientists' understanding of them has expanded during the period of her own explorations. She recommends this study for enhancing one's connection to the natural world and the cosmos. The author also explains how she has found patterns useful as metaphors for philosophical ideas. < Fractal Reactor: Re-Creating the Sun > by Todd Siler ABSTRACT: The author recounts his quest to design an alternative plasma fusion device that could generate limitless energy through nuclear fusion. The proposed Fractal Reactor is based on fractal geometry rather than the Euclidean geometry used in the designs for the containment systems of plasma fusion devices. Fusion energy systems might become more effective if they more closely embody the geometry and physics of stars, nature's "fractal reactors." The author aims to work with nature and not against it in controlling the forces that govern burning plasmas. Instead of jamming the square peg of Euclidean geometry into the round hole of fractal geometry, the author considers exerting intense forces on plasmas that approximate the gravitational forces in a star. _______________________ Theoretical Perspectives < The Perception of Nonmaterial Objects and Events > by William H. Ittelson ABSTRACT: All animals receive light and sound from the surrounding world and use this input to provide information about the material properties of that world. Humans, in addition, are able to utilize information in light and sound that has nothing to do with its material source but is about objects and events that are not materially present and may have no material existence at all*.* The author argues that this perceptual capacity is a necessary condition for the development of the arts, humanities, science and all that is considered uniquely human. < The Nature and Functions of Synesthesia in Music > by B.M. Galeyev ABSTRACT: The author considers the phenomenon of synesthesia, defining it as intersensory association formed by similarity or "contiguity" of heteromodal perceptions. The results of this associative process (occurring mainly at the subconscious level), when coming to the light of consciousness, may be fixed either in verbal form or directly in the sensuous material of the nonverbal arts (most significantly music). Synesthesia calls forth such notions as "melody line," "the hearing space" and "tone color," and makes it possible to perceive sounds and chords as "sharp," "dull" or "high." Synesthesia (and the particular case of "color hearing") is the essential component of musical thinking, first of all, in music intended to evoke images. _______________________ Leonardo Reviews Reviews by Fred Andersson, Wilfrid Niels Arnold, Jan Baetens, Roy R. Behrens, Allan Graubard, Rob Harle, Amy Ione, Martha Patricia Niño Mojica, Kathleen Quillian, Eugene Thacker, Stefaan Van Ryssen, Jonathan Zilberg ______________________________________________________ LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS ______________________________________________________ < MutaMorphosis: Challenging Arts and Sciences, International Conference > Organized by CIANT and co-organized by Leonardo, Hexagram, and Pépinières Européenes pour Jeunes Artistes, the MutaMorphosis conference will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, November 8-10, 2007. Partners of the event include Center for Global Studies at Charles University, CYPRES, Czech Academy of Sciences, French Institute in Prague, MARCEL and UQAM. Registration is available beginning June 1, 2007 through the MutaMorphosis website: www.mutamorphosis.org. Associate Members of Leonardo (paying subscribers, members of Leonardo Boards and Committees) get a 20% discount on registration. Please contact Roger Malina at rmalina at prontomail.com. Space is limited. Leonardo Associate Members are also invited to Leonardo Day to be held in Prague on Sunday, November 11, 2007 at Euro RSCG Europe HQ (www.eurorscg.cz ). _____________________________ < Jeffrey Babcock and Greg Harper Elected to Leonardo Governing Board > The Leonardo Governing Board elected two new members at the April 2007 Governing Board meeting. The new members, elected to serve through 2009, are Jeffrey Babcock and Greg Harper. Jeffrey Babcock is a composer, producer, consultant and arts executive with a special interest and expertise in creative technologies that are expanding, even redefining the creative process and significantly influencing the role of the arts in society. As Executive Director San Francisco State University's International Center for the Arts, he leads a multidisciplinary team of distinguished artists and innovators who pursue a variety of entrepreneurial initiatives that focus on the creative process and the advancement of gifted emerging artists through research projects, performances and exhibitions. Babcock co-founded the Los AngelesPhilharmonic Institute with artistic directors Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony with Tilson Thomas; he served as the latter organization's first president and CEO. He led the creative/technology team that developed the innovative Pianocorder Reproducing System for Superscope/Marantz, directed the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Maryland, served as dean of Fine Arts at Boston University and general director and CEO of Boston Ballet, and owned Cultural Strategies, Inc., a nonprofit consulting, event and new media production company. Greg Harper is an attorney and a politician. His formal education consists of a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science and B.A. in economics, both from the University of Illinois. His graduate work at San Jose State University focused on artificial intelligence and culminated with a J.D. from the University of California at Hastings. He is the principal of Harper & Associates, a law firm specializing in contract and land use law. Since 2000, Harper has served in the elected political position of director of the Alameda-Contra Costa County Transit District for Ward 2, representing approximately 300,000 citizens of Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and Piedmont, California. Currently he is president of that board as well. He is also a member of the Berkeley's Measure G Global Warming Task Force. His numerous political positions and appointments include the position of Mayor of Emeryville from 1990 to 1991. _____________________________ < Leonardo Education Forum Elects New Chairs > Leonardo is pleased to welcome Nina Czegledy and Victoria Vesna as co-chairs of the Leonardo Education Forum (joining Eddie Shanken, Chair and Andrea Polli, Co-Chair) and Justin Cone (joining Mariah Klaneski and Josh Levy) as Co-Chair of the Graduate/Young Professional Committee of Leonardo Education Forum. The Leonardo Education Forum (LEF) promotes the advancement of artistic research and academic scholarship at the intersections of art, science and technology. Serving practitioners, scholars, and students who are members of the Leonardo community, LEF provides a forum for collaboration and exchange with other scholarly communities, including the College Art Association of America (CAA), of which it is an affiliate society. The Leonardo Education Forum is open to all individuals in the Leonardo and/or CAA communities. Visit the Leonardo Education Forum web site for more information on LEF members, events and activities: . Join the LEF discussion list: . Nina Czegledy, media artist, curator and writer, has collaborated on international projects, produced time-based and digital works, and participated in workshops, forums and festivals worldwide. She has exhibited her work with the ICOLS group and toured with the Girls&Guns collective in East Europe. *Resonance,* the *Electromagnetic Bodies Project, Digitized Bodies Virtual Spectacles* and the *Aurora Projects* reflect her art-science-technology interest. These projects focus on the changing perception of the environment and the human body and are presented via on-line and on-site events. The *Aurora Feast Public Art Collaborative Project* has premiered at the Finnish science center Heureka and was presented at Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand and the Waves Festival, Riga, Latvia. Lately, Czegledy curated Code Zebra, Sifting Time, Shifting Space, for the Women Arts Resource Center, Toronto (2005) and the Reconnaissance, Finnish exhibition InterAcces,Toronto (2006). Czegledy curated over 35 digital art/video programs presented in more than 25 countries and initiated Points of Entry, the first Canadian/Australian/New Zealand digital arts collaboration. Her academic lectures and international conference presentations lead to numerous publications in books and journals worldwide. Czegledy is the president of Critical Media, a Canada-based knowledge institute. She is also a member of the Leonardo SpaceArt Network. An advisor to the UNESCO DigiArts Portal and a Yasmin group moderator, Nina Czegledy is a senior fellow at KMDI, University of Toronto, an adjunct associate professor at Concordia University, Montreal and the outgoing chair of the Inter Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA). Victoria Vesna is a media artist, professor and chair of the department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts. She is also director of the recently established UCLA Art|Sci center and the UC Digital Arts Research Network. Her work can be defined as experimental creative research that resides between disciplines and technologies. She explores how communication technologies affect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. In her most recent installations she is concerned with the environment -- "Mood Swings" deals with the environmental effects on mental health and was exhibited in University of Washington, in a festival in Berlin and Castellon, Spain. "Water Bowls" aims to raise consciousness around the issues of pollution of our global life source and was exhibited in Beijing, Los Angeles and is currently at the Laboral gallery in Gijon, Spian. Other notable works are *Bodies INCorporated*, *Datamining Bodies*, *n0time* and *Cellular Trans_Actions*. Victoria has exhibited her work in 18 solo exhibitions, over 70 group shows, published 20+ papers and gave a 100+ invited talks in the last decade. She is recipient of many grants, commissions and awards, including the Oscar Signorini award for best net artwork in 1998 and the Cine Golden Eagle for best scientific documentary in 1986. Vesna's work has received notice in numerous publications such as *Art in America*, *National Geographic*, the *Los Angeles Times*, *Spiegel* (Germany), *The Irish Times* (Ireland), *Tema Celeste* (Italy), and *Veredas* (Brazil) and appears in a number of book chapters on media arts. She is the North American editor of AI & Society and editor of Database Aesthetics to be published by Minnesota Press in August, 2007. Justin Cone is a student in the MFA program in Motion Graphics and Broadcast Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Justin is also a freelance writer and editor interested in the intersection between technology (especially audio/visual authoring systems), art and design. He has written for *ID* magazine and Print, in addition to curating and judging various international design showcases and competitions. His blog, Motionographer.com, is the leading source for motion graphics news and inspiration worldwide. _____________________________ < In Memoriam: LeRoy White > LeRoy White, an early adopter of digital art-making, died unexpectedly on 28 February 2007. He was 71 years old and had taught at the Rhode Island School of Design for over 40 years. With a history of exhibitions in sculpture and conceptual art, White began investigating digital imaging in the mid-1980s. At the Rhode Island School of Design, he was director of the BM/RISD Fine Arts Imaging Research Project, focusing on how issues of composition and design could be explored with the computer. White exhibited and spoke about his digital images in the first and second Arts and Technology Symposia held at Connecticut College 1986 and 1989 (curated by Cynthia Beth Rubin and David Smalley), and was included in the 1986 exhibition The Artist and the Computer in Louisville (curated by Roberta Williams), the 1987 exhibition Hypergraphics VIII and several other early digital imaging exhibitions. Working with his colleague Bert Beaver, he organized the first digital imaging exhibition in Rhode Island in 1988 at the Bannister Gallery of Rhode Island College. Through this exhibition and his teaching efforts, White was instrumental in bringing the new field of computer art to a large number of colleagues and paved the way for the integration of computers into the sphere of fine art. At the time of his death, LeRoy White was working on a series of digital photographs, subtly manipulated and masterfully printed in his own studio. His digital photographs are in the collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Worcester Art Museum, the Rhode Island School of Design Art Museum, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and the Dayton Art Institute. He is a graduate of the University of Dayton and the Rochester Institute of Technology. _____________________________ < In Memoriam: Patrick Purcell (1929--2007) > By George Mallen (Originally published on the e-list of the Computer Arts Society, a British Computer Society Specialist Group founded in 1968; reprinted with permission.) Patrick Purcell died after a short illness on 9 February 2007. Patrick had polymathic interests and was an important early contributor to the founding of the Computer Arts Society. He had early recognized the potential importance of computing and computer graphics to the art and design world and used his position as Senior Research Fellow in the Design Research Unit at the Royal College of Art with great flair to bridge the two cultures gap. He was one of that rare breed, a conduit for ideas and a selfless enabler of action. Sensitive to the needs of creative individuals and the institutional challenges of channeling that creativity he built a substantial portfolio of Science Research Council funded projects, no mean feat, at the RCA. I had the good fortune to work with him on these projects throughout the 1970s. Patrick's invaluable contribution to CAS was as enabler of the Society's inaugural exhibition, Event One, at the RCA in 1969. He was the interface for both the RCA and Imperial College. Heroically, Patrick persuaded Bill Elliot at IC to loan, and the RCA to accept for a weekend, a PDP7 computer that had to be loaded onto a truck at Imperial College, driven 500 yards to the RCA, unloaded and installed in the Event One exhibition hall. I cherish the memory of Patrick, as always elegant of waistcoat and patrician of demeanor, marshalling the truck driver up the very narrow Jay Mews to the College back entrance. I suspect this was the first computer to penetrate the RCA---and the rest is history. Patrick's remarkable diplomatic skills were further tested when the polystyrene tiles announcing Event One on the outside walls of the College left marks on the stone facade. Oh, the tantrums! Patrick, however, smoothed it all out. Besides helping at the birth of CAS, he midwifed many other major innovations at the RCA. The list includes bringing the DTI's Computer Aided Design Centre's London office into the College. Similarly he brought in the Department of Environment's CEDAR computer-aided building design projects and encouraged the development of the Natural Environment Research Council's Digital Cartography unit. He built strong bridges to Imperial College, so that when an Internet link was established there it was used to download artwork from Harold Cohen's Aaron drawing system. Joint courses on computing were subsequently established with IC. He provided links to Nicholas Negroponte's Architecture Machine Group at MIT and then went to work with Negroponte in the Media Lab, where he continued to pursue his many interdisciplinary interests before coming back to his final years at Imperial College. Looking back we can see that Patrick's influence on these seminal projects helped change the culture of the time and hastened the coming of the IT revolution. He is sorely missed. The following website has reminiscences: . _____________________________ LEONARDO NETWORK NEWS COORDINATOR: Kathleen Quillian kq [@] leonardo [dot] info ______________________________________________________ BYTES ______________________________________________________ < art meets science: Events in Honor of the 80th Birthday of Herbert W. Franke > Herbert W. Franke, expert in media theory, pioneer of computer art, and co-founder of the Ars Electronica festival, will celebrate his 80th birthday in May 2007. On this occasion, a cycle of several events, themed art meets science and dedicated to Herbert W. Franke's life's work, will take place at various locations in Germany and Austria from May through July 2007. Within the scope of the art meets science events on the occasion of his anniversary, Herbert W. Franke will conduct science talks with scientists of very different backgrounds - physicists, computer scientists, Artificial Intelligence experts, psychologists and philosophers - on topics such as the future of man or the origin of art, and discuss questions like what does it mean to be a human being or such subjects as artificial intelligence, reality and cyberspace. The events will also feature Mr. Franke reading and interpreting some of his utopian short stories with plots in line with the mentioned issues. A collection of his stories will also be republished in a best-of edition by Phantastische Bibliothek, Wetzlar, on the occasion of his anniversary. Subsequent to the science talks, an exhibition of his works of computer art or a multimedia arts event are planned, as Kunsthalle Bremen (arts exhibition hall) for instance, has acquired Mr. Franke's collection of computer art. It has been gathered over fifty years and contains his own works as well as some of the works of nearly every recognized pioneer in computer art worldwide. A selection from this internationally unique collection will be on display to the public for the first time, in a special exhibition at Kunsthalle Bremen in June 2007. Also, Karlsruhe's ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (center for art and media technology) will show again his Hommage à E.M., a multimedia performance for a dancer and an interactive picture designer, first enacted in 1989. Venues and topics: Berlin, Archenhold-Sternwarte: Mankind - accident, coincidence or purpose of nature? Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremen: The human being - an automaton: the self, the emotion and the art. Karlsruhe, ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie: The universal roller coaster - within the net of illusion. Dresden, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions: Man playing God - learning automata are advancing fast. Vienna, Künstlerhaus Wien: Leonardo digital - art between logic and emotion. Munich, Akademie der Bildenden Künste: God does play dice! Coincidence and necessity in the universe. Another highlight will be the world premiere of a puppet play in the Marionettentheater (string puppet theatre) in Bad Toelz (Southern Bavaria) on 7 July 2007. Scripted by Herbert W. Franke, *The Crystal Planet* will be staged by Albert Maly-Motta and Karl-Heinz Bille, who are both renowned artists of puppet making and puppeteering. This will probably be not only the first puppet play whose plot is set in the future, but it will also combine for the first time traditional stage effects with the most advanced puppeteering technology. Together with established animation techniques, very special micro-animation and computer animation techniques will be applied. Professor Herbert W. Franke, honorary editor of *Leonardo* for quite some years, began to generate works of art using computers in the 1950s. A physics PhD, he was fascinated by the possibilities of machine-supported graphical creation. At the same time he gave much attention, right from the start, to aspects of information and reception theory that are relevant in the borderland of art and science. This is how he made an important scientific contribution to the understanding of the aesthetic mechanisms. In addition, Mr. Franke ranges among the most renowned German-speaking authors of utopian literature and has acquired great merits in the field of cave and karst exploration. For more information on Herbert W. Franke please see: www.zi-biologie.uni-muenchen.de/~franke Events and venues can be found under the web address: www.art-meets-science.info For pictures or additional information please contact: Susanne Paech mce GmbH Bavariafilmplatz 3 82031 Grünwald Germany Phone: +49 (171) 600 44 22 sp [at] mce-gmbh [dot] de www.mce-gmbh.de _____________________________ < Research Coordinator Position, Arts Media and Engineering Program, Arizona State University > The Arts, Media and Engineering Program (AME) (http://ame.asu.edu) at Arizona State University is announcing an opening for a research coordinator. AME is a nationally leading program in transdisciplinary research and education for experiential media. The program has established a diverse graduate interdisciplinary curriculum which includes AME concentrations in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics, Dance, Music, Theater and Film, Visual Arts, Design, Psychology, Bioengineering, Education, as well as a PhD in Media Arts and Sciences awarded through AME. Ten AME faculty and 30 affiliated faculty from the participating departments work collaboratively with over 50 graduate students supported by research assistantships for the creation of innovative media systems and applications. AME has state of the art media facilities. The appointee will: - Coordinate the promotion and presentation of AME research activities - Coordinate the production of AME promotional material - Coordinate an annual program of visiting speakers and researchers - Coordinate scheduling of Department events and large AME research activities - Participate actively in tours and demos of the program (including leading tours and visits when appropriate) - Give summary presentations of AME research when needed - Coordinate the production of AME promotional materials - Coordinate work on mailing lists and electronic announcements - Assist in grant preparation and reporting - Other program coordination duties as needed To better perform their duties, the appointee will need to stay well informed of AME research and education activities and have current knowledge of other media arts and sciences graduate programs nationally and internationally and of developments and trends in the digital media industry. Minimum qualifications: Bachelors degree in a field appropriate to the area of assignment and three years of related experience. Desired qualifications: Masters degree in related field. Experience in: media; arts; computing; communications; design. Experience with: MS Office applications (e.g. Word, Excel). Research, creative and/or educational experience in digital media, arts, computing and/or design. Experience with media arts/digital design software (e.g. Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver). Experience with online scheduling system(s). Experience with grant administration and/or development. Experience in public relations or communications. This is a 12 month position renewable annually, contingent upon performance, for an initial term of 3 years. ASU conducts pre-employment screening for all positions which includes a criminal background check, verification of work history, academic credentials, licenses, and certifications. Close Date: June 6, 2007 Salary: Competitive and commensurate with experience Application Instructions: Please reference Job ID # 11107 at: www.asu.edu/asujobs/ for application instructions and to submit an application for the position. For more information regarding this position, please write to: ameresearchcoord [at] asu [dot] edu Arizona State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer _____________________________ < Call for Submissions: 2nd Annual Conference on the Arts in Society > On behalf of LEF and other collaborating participants, the International Conference on the Arts in Society would like to announce the following for posting and circulation: The 2nd Annual Conference on the Arts in Society will take place August 22 - 24th in conjunction with the Documenta 12 at the University of Kassel, Germany. The next Call for Presentation Abstracts (for papers, performances, workshops, colloquia) is being accepted through June 30, 2007 via the online submission process at www.arts-conference.com. For further information, contact tressa [at] commongroundconferences [dot] com _____________________________ < Register for the UCLA Design | Media Arts Summer Institute program 2007 > Information on this year's summer program on web, game, video and/or graphic design in the Design | Media Arts Summer Institute program 2007 is available at: http://www.dma.ucla.edu/summerinstitute/ UCLA Design | Media Arts Summer Institute program is designed for high school students who are interested in exploring their creative potential by learning techniques using the most current software and working with trained and experienced instructors and professionals in the field. Students not only develop pieces that can be submitted for applications to college but also earn one unit of college credit for attending class. In a short time they will taste the excitement of being a part of a cutting edge department that will help motivate them during their last years of high school and prepare them for college life. At the end of class students will have the ability to create their own online portfolio to show friends and family, as well as to use in high school and college arts admission applications. During the time students are enrolled in the D|MA Summer Institute, students will be in the newly renovated Broad Art Center building and have access to UCLA facilities, just like current undergraduate students. Students can also stay in the UCLA residence halls to fully experience campus life. For details, visit: http://www.summer.ucla.edu Although workshops are designed to last a week, it is recommended that students enroll in all three weeks to gain as many skills as possible and incorporate work from other modules. All workshops meet every day with hands on instruction in the lab for two sessions per day, totalling 32.5 hours of instruction. Class size is limited to 20 students. Each class has two highly skilled instructors from the Department of Design | Media Arts teaching college level skills. The UCLA Design | Media Arts Summer Institute 2007 begins June 24th! If you have other questions, please contact Carolyn Ramirez-La Faso at cramirez[at] arts [dot] ucla [dot] edu or call 310-267-4907. ________________________________________________________________ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * CREDITS * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ________________________________________________________________ Nisar Keshvani: LEA Editor-in-Chief Natra Haniff: LEA Editor Nicholas Cronbach: LEA Editor Kathleen Quillian: LEA e-news Digest Coordinator Michael Punt: LR Editor-in-Chief Andre Ho: Web Concept and Design Consultant Roger Malina: Leonardo Executive Editor Stephen Wilson: Chair, Leonardo/ISAST Web Committee Craig Harris: Founding Editor Editorial Advisory Board: Irina Aristarkhova, Roy Ascott, Craig Harris, Fatima Lasay, Michael Naimark, Julianne Pierce Gallery Advisory Board: Mark Amerika, Paul Brown, Choy Kok Kee, Steve Dietz, Kim Machan fAf-LEA Corresponding Editors: Lee Weng Choy, Ricardo Dal Farra, Elga Ferreira, Young Hae- Chang, Fatima Lasay, Jose-Carlos Mariategui, Marcus Neustetter, Elaine Ng, Marc Voge ________________________________________________________________ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * LEA PUBLISHING INFORMATION * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ________________________________________________________________ Editorial Address: Leonardo Electronic Almanac PO Box 850 Robinson Road Singapore 901650 keshvani [@] leoalmanac [dot] org ________________________________________________________________ Copyright (2007), Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology All Rights Reserved. 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To post to this group, send email to LEAalerts at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to LEAalerts-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/LEAalerts -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070609/a8f80913/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From smitamitr at gmail.com Fri Jun 8 18:05:52 2007 From: smitamitr at gmail.com (smita mitra) Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 05:35:52 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] 4th posting IFS-2007--Cinematic City:Kolkata, Modernity, Middle Class and the Urban Woman--Astudy of 1950s and 60s Popular Bangla Cinema. Message-ID: Dear All, Sorry for delayed posting.Just back in town from my field trip in Kolkata. The primary objective of my field trip was to do a recce of the material that is available on popular cinema of the 50s and 60s.thanks to satellite television it is easier to get at least the Vcds and some Dvds. I have managed to collect all the films that I had on my list and added somemore that I thought were interesting though do not necessarily fit into my project at this moment.Need some more work to figure out how to incorporate these films into my narrative of the cinematic city, modernity,and the middle class. As I started my field trip ,I realised that there was a dearth of critical material that I could easily access. One reason seems to be a curious apathy to Popular Commercial Bangla cinema.Whoever I spoke to seemed surprised that I had chosen to work on these films inspite of the fact that these old films have a tremendous presence in the popular domain ,specially as they are repeatedly telecast on all the satellite channels and their music is the staple of all FM and Radio channels.Anyway for most of us who choose to work on popular culture this is a familiar refrain.I guess we need to create our own archive,and use what is available. One axis of archive on Bangla cinema that is easy to access is the fantastic collection on the cinema of Satyajit Ray and the other masters like Ghatak and Sen.Their writing on cinema, works on them-both in Bangla and English is easily available both in the bookshops at College Street and Libraries like Nandan, Rupkala Kendra, Satyajit Ray Institute ,Jadavpur Film Studiesdept etc. However what I found interesting was the existence of a thriving subculture of published books in the popular market on the stars of this period.It is amazing that a number of small publishers in College Street(this is the book bazaar in Kolkata ,an amazing world of lanes and bylanes stocked with everything a bibliophile may want,it is one of the must visits in the city),regularly commission books on Uttam Kumar or Suchitra Sen.I managed to get around 10 books on the two stars!!!(Of course now I will have to read them as well). The other discovery was a Little magazine Library in the same area that has two huge shelves of little magazines on cinema!! I propose to go back and work there.The old Film Clubs like Cine Central, North Calcutta Film Society and Chitrabani also have a great collection of their film journals.Thesesocieties came into existence in the 50s and still have a presence in the film culture of the city.Their old members can provide interesting inputs on that period.I was thrilled to discover that CSSS has a huge collection of 50s and 60s filmposters painstakingly put together from various private collections by Gautam Bhadra.The West Bengal government has recently converted the old Radha Studio in Tollygunj into a Film Archive.I visited the inaugaral exhibition of still photographs narrating a brief history of Bangla Cinema.The Director of the archive Shri Debananda Sengupta assured me that it would be fully functional in a year's time as they are in the process of collecting and curating their material.One only hopes that they would take popular films more seriously and plan their collection accordingly. I am planing to sort out the material that I have collected and keep you guys informed on this. Regards, Smita. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070608/d04477a4/attachment.html From navayana at gmail.com Fri Jun 8 15:47:41 2007 From: navayana at gmail.com (Navayana Publishing) Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 15:47:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] One Billion Eyes--CASTE--Film Festival--Call for Entries Message-ID: * One Billion Eyes** 2007* *Indian Documentary Film Festival* *The Prakriti Foundation, Chennai* *in association with* *Alliance Francaise, Chennai* *Caste* * One Billion Eyes*, the annual Indian documentary film festival organised by the Prakriti Foundation, Chennai, is in its third year. This year's theme is *Caste*. The theme for 2005 was 'Arts, Activism, Animals', and for 2006 it was '*Our Cities: the Real and the Imagined'**.* In India, caste consumes everyone. From the brahmin priests of the Chidambaram temple who continue to practice child marriage, to McDonalds substituting panneer for beef in their Indian burgers, to the dalits of Khairlanje who get lynched for asserting their humanity. But such has been the conditioning of mainstream, contemporary, urban sensibilities that to talk caste has meant to talk of reservation, dalits, OBCs, government/sarkari brahmins, atrocities against dalits, Mandal, Mayawati, gurjjars, meritocracy, state policy. Suddenly, it appears that caste is not a system of domination, discrimination and exploitation, but just a classificatory category. It appears as if brahmins, kayasths, banias and other privileged castes do not have anything to do with caste. It appears that matrimonial advertisements that demand a 'wheatish complexion Iyer Vadama non-Koundinya gotra 25–28 girl' for a caste-compatible IIT-IIM–educated brahmin based in Connecticut, or ads that explicitly seek to rent houses 'only for vegetarians' do not encode caste. In fact, the anti-reservation brigade recently managed to project itself in the media as anti-caste. Does the world of documentary films in India exhibit similar anxieties and stereotypes? While so many films get made about dalits and around dalit themes, do dalits get to make their/our films? What is the existing filmic discourse on caste? Have makers of short films sought to rethink caste? This festival—juxtaposing screenings with literary readings, panel discussions and interventions from the audience—will seek to broaden the contours of the discourse on caste. Besides filmmakers and their films, it will feature poets, activists, students, victims, agent provocateurs, academicians, and of course a panel of judicious and judgmental but jolly judges who will decide on the best film for a prize of Rs 25,000. We hope to have a wide range of caste subjects to choose from for this festival. And if this note makes you think afresh on caste, there's time to make a quick short and submit it by 15 July. Broad areas/themes where submissions are encouraged vis-à-vis caste are: Advertisements, Apartheid, Atrocities, Arts, Bureaucracy, Class, Communalism, Cinema, Culture, Education, Environment, Fashion, Food, Gender, Geography, Healthcare, Labour, Media, Nationalism, Natural Disasters, Occupation, Race, Religion, Reservation, Science & Technology, Sports, Touchability, Untouchability, Violence, Xenophobia. The entry form is available on our website www.abillioneyes.com * Key Dates:* Last date for entries: 15 July 2007 Festival dates: 15 to 19 August 2007 Selected list of films and detailed programme list will be circulated by 25 July. Preferred entry format: DVDs/ VCDs For further details contact abillioneyes at gmail.com or anand.navayana at gmail.com -- Navayana Publishing M-110 (First Floor) Saket New Delhi--110017 Ph: +91 9971433117 Registered address: Navayana Publishing 54, I Floor Savarirayalu Stree Pondicherry 605001 Ph: 91-413-2223337 Mobile: 91-94430-33305 www.navayana.org Join Navayana Book Club and avail free books and special discounts! http://www.navayana.org/content/bookclub.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070608/855a1b2c/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From ranjanyumnam at gmail.com Sat Jun 9 15:12:23 2007 From: ranjanyumnam at gmail.com (Ranjan Yumnam) Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 15:12:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Small money, big dreams: 3rd IF posting Message-ID: If there is one thing that keeps Manipuri digital films alive more than anything else, then it is the sheer love of the art by its patrons and filmmakers. This may be true of any other film industry. But if you look at the size of the industry and the time, energy and enthusiasm that Manipuris put in the production of films, one thing would strike an observer: so much for so little stakes. Consider the budget of an average Manipuri film budget. A modest amount of 5-6 lakhs is a respectable allocation for a film that is entirely shot in Manipur. Stars's salaries which usually take a lion's share of a film budget are incredibly low in Manipur. Leading Manipuri actors in the equivalent league of Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee take home—hold your breath—a mere fifteen to thirty thousand. Directors are luckier with fifty thousand followed closely by editors and script writers. This sounds crazy. But not so crazy if you look closer. Manipuri digitals are usually made so fast that actors—and they are few in number—make up for the peanut paychecks they receive in increased volume. It is common for a star to sign as many as five films at one time and work for all of them simultaneously with acrobatic shooting schedules. Some films are made as quickly as in 15 days! The real problem however is not the schedules of the actors but the inordinate time it takes for a finished film to go to the theatres. A producer has to wait for at least two years before she gets to screen her film in a theatre. The paucity of screening halls is caused by the decline in the exhibition business during the celluloid days when there were few films to show because of low rate of production. The balance sheets of the exhibitors were understandably in the red. Many theatres had to shut down and turn into schools, shopping plaza and offices. That slump has now turned into sunny outlook. With the advent of the digital film boom, the few remaining theatres are doing a great business, often finding it difficult to accommodate the digital films that are being churned out at the neck-breaking speed. At the beginning of this write-up, I said so much effort was invested for so little stakes. The most that a producer can expect from a film as profit is in the range of one to three lakhs. And it is a difficult call for the producers to predict the outcome of a film at the box-office, as is the case with any film anywhere in the world. Out of ten films, only about two will turn up profits, three will get even and the rest will go to the dumps. One strategy that producers employ is to spread the risk. A newly released film will be first released in theatres in Imphal only. If it gets favourable word-of-mouth publicity, the producers would seek to cash on it and eventually release the prints at the theatres in sub-urban and rural areas where the film would have already created a "wave" as one prominent film director told me. If it sinks at the box office in Imphal, the film would be released elsewhere as a new package completely disassociated from the dismal performance at Imphal. The entire cycle from Imphal premiere to the openings in far flung theatres is complete in about six months. A simple arithmetic would put the duration from production to final box office collections at around 3 years (1-6 months for production, 2 years for booking a place in a theatre and 6 months for screening the film at all theaters). No producer would be forthcoming on the precise amount of profits made out of a film. This reluctance is in part due to the fears on the part of the producer to honour financial obligations due to the supporting actors (leading actors are always given special treatment). It is not uncommon for a producer to default on payments due to small actors and instead treat them to a sumptuous dinner with some gifts. These are treated as favours that would be returned in some form—a tacit understanding that nothing is for free. The following is a budget break-up of an average Manipuri digital film: (Figures in thousand) Leading actor: 15-30 Actor in supporting roles: 2-5 Script writer: 15 Director: 50-60 Editor: 20-30 Costumes: 10 Music: 40 Light: 30-35 Make-up person: 15 Transportation: 50 Equipments: 20-30 Arrangement shoots (like wedding, rainy scenes etc.): 20-50 Marketing: 50 Contingencies: 50 To sum up, anybody with a few spare cash can produce a film in Manipur. It's not the important point though. What's remarkable is why Manipuris get so excited about dedicating themselves to such a low-margin and high-risk venture as filmmaking that promises nothing more than a few pittance in profit at best. The answer is, Manipuris love arts, music, dance and theater; and cinema provides the ultimate platform that happily blends all these. Above all, they love experiments. Not surprising for a state that has produced such theater legends as Ratan Thiyam and Kanhailal. -- Regards, Ranjan Yumnam From sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in Sat Jun 9 21:55:49 2007 From: sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in (sayandeb mukherjee) Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 17:25:49 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] corridor spaces/ 3rd posting/2 Message-ID: <94502.70028.qm@web7714.mail.in.yahoo.com> dear all, in the interface section of the third posting i am presenting a kind of questionaire that needs conceptual clarifications that can further reinforce my project. if you know any references or if you yourself have an idea about the topic, kindly respond THE INTERFACE-3RD POSTING The questionaire 1. What are the changes that happened in the field of architecture that mark its difference from the colonial period? 2. Do you think that after the invasion of British and after their reign in India for a considerable period, Indian architecture, somewhat lost their identity for a continuous adoption of western architectural vocabularies, or do they still possess unhybridized, indigenous architectural models/styles. If they’ve done so, could you enlighten us about the elements that discriminate the modern architectural models from that of the pre-colonial and colonial period? Highlight the areas of changes/shift that happened due to the colonial influences, if any. 3. Are you agreeable to the fact that there used to be practiced a kind of space lavishness in the pre-colonial period or early India. If yes, how? 4. Has the space-consciousness evolved with the progression of the post-colonial period? Kindly enlighten us about its development. Did this lead to the strategy of maximum and multiple utility in a minimized living space. 5. How a human built space affect the human mind. What are the layers of consciousness that are influenced by the living and working space? 6. Corridors used to exist in public or religious spaces in early days. But now, it has also become an integral part of domestic spaces. Please explain this intrusion of a new space in the domestic domain. 7. Do you think, that this corridor or like spaces have gone through a degradation aesthetically, as we consider the historicity of architecture since colonial period. Express your views in this regard on the statement – ‘ corridors of today have become not more than a blatant, aesthetically flat and monotonous commutative space. Nowadays it is not constructed with a pre-planning considering the above factors. It emerges by virtue of the construction of two parallel walls. Corridors that were integrated in constructions during the pre-colonial period used to have a display of artistic splendor like stone carvings, sculpted columns, paintings, murals and many other artistic elements embodied with heritage. 8. How will you discriminate an apartment-corridor from a corridor in a public space? with best regards sayandebmukherjee SAYANDEB MUKHERJEE FT#308, SUBBARAJU TOWERS, ROAD NO.4, VIJAYAPURI COLONY, KOTHAPET, HYDERABAD PIN: 500 035 PH#9849383863 Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at in.groups.yahoo.com From jummadeen at yahoo.co.in Sat Jun 9 20:17:50 2007 From: jummadeen at yahoo.co.in (Jumma Deen) Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 15:47:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Muslim Youth Activism in Kerala: The Ittehadul Shiban lil Muslimeen Message-ID: <589301.51087.qm@web94313.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Hello Sikand, As far as I know Kerala Nadwath ul-Mujahidin (KNM) is an Ahl e Hadis (Wahabi) organization in its sectarian outlook. This means that they are against Sufi Islam and all other manifestations of syncretic Islam. I wonder why you haven't mentioned that, while describing KNM as Islamist reformist- considering that in most current discourse on political Islam, writers make people aware of anything which has any semblance to Wahabism? I am curious to understand their political leanings? Is their charity/ relief work different from that of Jamiat ul ulema e Hind or Jama't-e-Islami,Hind, or Markazi Jamiat Ahl e Hadis (with strong Wahabi leanings)? It will be great if you can write more on "ISM's sphere of activities" besides charity and relief work (which seems to have become the prerogative of right wing organization in this country!) Looking forward Jummadeen Civil Lines Allahabad. --------------------------------- Here’s a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070609/f560525b/attachment.html From sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in Sun Jun 10 13:40:01 2007 From: sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in (sayandeb mukherjee) Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 09:10:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] corridors/4th posting/1 Message-ID: <862331.95010.qm@web7709.mail.in.yahoo.com> CORRIDORS THE 4TH POSTING I am thinking to rename my research project as SPACE INTERLUDE. If the readers have any opinion, please let me know. THE MAINFRAME IN the later part of the 1970s, the cities started becoming more crowded and that implied the space to be further reconciled. The necessities gave birth to newer architectural styles/format. The new construction had the primary motive to provide accommodation/dwelling to a huge number of people or a number of working spaces under the same roof or occupying a common square of horizontal space. The only solution was to project the construction vertically; a propagation toward the z-axis to the possible extent. So, the ‘complexes’ rose over a particular horizontal space and they’re named as ‘apartments’. It is termed as ‘tower block in UK. The buildings constituted of a considerable number of individual enclosures/units called ‘flats’ for the case of residences. These ‘flats’, which were the newest version of home for the nuclear families (previously mentioned), used to look like cubicles with approximately identical dimensions. The configuration of the houses just supported the functional necessities of living. They were constructed on the basis of facility orientations. There would be pre-allocated spaces inside the flat for certain furniture or consumer product. For example, long time after the invention of Television, it became increasingly popular and affordable, and is now like other indispensable object of living. For this reason, the modern flats pre-consider an accommodative space for television while laying down the architectural scheme. But since these flats were impossibe to be extended both horizontally and vertically, it failed to give space to further invented gazettes that inflicted its necessity as a consequence of the modernization of society. To exemplify, after the advent of computers, it was once upon a time, an unaffordable object of desire, found only in highly engineered laboratories or working environments supporting specially programmed jobs. But then came the personalized version of computers with lesser technical proficiency for sharing smaller amount of the huge workload (at the office/workstation) that can be executed at ‘home’. This could only belong to the affluent class. Much later, computers became extremely inexpensive and new versions of personal computers came into existence supporting personal works. So the same dwellers who designed their flats allocating space to the then present electronic products began to procure personal computers at their home when there was no space left for that to accommodate. That enforced a further compromise of the living space thereby laying a disproportionate existence. What mattered more was the severe redemption of the dimension of these flats with the increasing clamor of space-crisis over the years. It is now incomparable to the houses of the olden houses. One can say, there happened a functional displacement of spaces – the courtyards are replaced by suspended small balconies, the garden which was once an encompassing space of direct environmental association becomes as minimized as two/three flower pots laid at the corner of the balcony......to be continued best regards sayandeb mukherjee SAYANDEB MUKHERJEE FT#308, SUBBARAJU TOWERS, ROAD NO.4, VIJAYAPURI COLONY, KOTHAPET, HYDERABAD PIN: 500 035 PH#9849383863 __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ From elkamath at yahoo.com Sun Jun 10 23:17:45 2007 From: elkamath at yahoo.com (lalitha kamath) Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 10:47:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] RTI Bank in Bangalore Message-ID: <850306.53064.qm@web53609.mail.re2.yahoo.com> RTI Bank in Bangalore For the time being print outs collected from Bangalore Mahanagara palike have been kept for the use by genral public. Any body can walk in to our Mahithi Hakku Adhyayana Kendra, located at No.54, 17th Cross, M C Layout, Vijayanagar, Bangalore and inspect the records. They may even take out xerox copy of the documnts at their own cost. About 200 documents of public importance are on display. Each document contains the following parts: A) Application filed under RTI Act B) Reply received from the PIO C) Complaint filed before the Commission/First Appeal u/s 19(1) of the Act D) Information received from the PIOs E) Orders of the Karnataka Information commission. The documents are paticularly being used by Law Students, Management Students and other post graduate students for their reference and study of implementation of RTI Act. A few Advocates are using the documents for their reference. Public Information Officers are also visiting the data bank for reference. We even assisted some Public Authorities in drafting their suo-moto declaration as laid down u/s 4 1)(b) of the Act. A few first appellate authorities are using the documents for their reference while disposing off their first appeals. Some of the journalists are frequently visiting and making use of the data bank for publishing reports. Documents are being used for Educating citizens, whoever visits our data bank. Total number of documents held by us is approximately 400. About 40 complaints have already been filed before the Karnataka Lokayukta based on the information secured from the Public Authorities. The information available with us is not digitised as we are shortage of space and manpower. We are planning to host a web site in the near future. Apart from the above Mahithi Hakku Adhyayana Kendra is assisting citizens in filing applictions, Complaints before KIC and first appeals before the Appellate Authorities. Mr. Vikram Simha and myself are representing complainants/Appellants before the Karnataka Information Commission during hearing of cases. So far we have presented more than 400 cases before the Karnataka Information Commission since December 2005. Apart from the above we will be filing atleast Five applications per day with various public authorities in Bangalore. Our activities are now confined to a few selected public authorities located in Bangalore City. The following RTI Activists are at present associated with us on a full time basis: Mr. Amaresh, Trustee, Mahithi Hakku Adhyayana Kendra Mr. Vikram Simha, Trustee, MHA Kendra Mr. Gopal, President, Bangalore Nagarikara Vedike Mr. K Shivaramanna, Editor, Nudigannada. Mr. G Vincent, President, Kengeri REsidents Welfare Assocation Mr. Venkatesh Bhovi, Vice President All India Small & Medium News papers Federation Mr. Mr. Ravi Reddy, President, Nagara Nagarikara Kriya Vedike, Bangalore. Mr. T Ramu, Secretary, Vijayanagar REsidents Welfare Association Mr. Lakshmi Narasimhaiah, Deputy Secretary (Rtd.),Govt. of Karnataka. Apat from the above all KRIA KATTE members are sharing the information/documents collected by them from various public authorities. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get the Yahoo! toolbar and be alerted to new email wherever you're surfing. http://new.toolbar.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/index.php -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070610/948569b0/attachment.html From indersalim at gmail.com Tue Jun 12 00:11:37 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:11:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= Message-ID: <47e122a70706111141m64dde289kc55fe7f96ffb3951@mail.gmail.com> It is very interesting to see how one can unwittinlgly fall in a trap... You begin to criticize the politicians for all the ills in India... and also highlight the fact that they are terrible manipulators... fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts choice for being creative.... and forget the the fact that the politicians are ther real culprits...( if they only are ) for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i can quote Salman Rushdie for you There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not provoke, it is meaningless... with love indersalim Democracy Hijacked François Gautier Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven by the lust for power are destroying all that is good and true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at and persecuted while Government is busy devising ways and means of dividing the nation along caste and communal lines India prides itself as the greatest democracy in the world. But actually, there are very few places where democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. Nothing demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring going on at the moment to find India 's next President. President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular President in the history of India . Yet he will not be re-elected, because he was the people's President and not a stooge of political parties. Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive him, as he was the one who stopped her from becoming Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of his chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for many years (she is not the only foreigner who did so after obtaining Indian citizenship). Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously because, although he is a true Muslim, he respects other religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita and Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus Mayawati, partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away from him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did not always do its bidding. How else is democracy perverted in India ? Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which has been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, and sprung to power at the Centre by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment and is dividing India more and more along caste and religion lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules as the supreme leader of this country, one whose word can make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be possible for an Indian to become a de facto President or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? Absolutely not! Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak man, is not elected: He was defeated the last time he contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam , where he has no roots at all. Democracy in India has also been hijacked by cynical mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of the Muslims; who remain the most backward community in India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen Congress Governments since Independence; and how to manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share of benefits and have had one of them as President and many of whom are politicians in power. Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did in her three previous stints as Chief Minister? It seems doubtful, the way she has started, wasting hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous projects, including the Special Economic Zones and transferring hundreds of officials. In the name of freedom of expression, Indian intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. Would he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? Certainly not! When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish newspaper - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's derogatory portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world erupts in flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would have been dead today. Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV or publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely available and have been reproduced in a coffee table book sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi Modi. India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by clever lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, thanks to judges who go by the book without adapting their judgements to the Indian context, or by bribing witnesses as has been allegedly done in the BMW case. But poor people go to jail and it takes seven years to get a case cleared. India's socialist system, which is still enforced, pretends to tax the rich to subsidise the poor. But in reality, the rich have smart chartered accountants who twist the law, while the less fortunate have to pay taxes on small savings and salaries. And, of course, most of this money never reaches the destitute. Finally, here you have a country of 850 million Hindus, a billion worldwide, one of the most tolerant, law-abiding communities in the world. Yet, Hindus in India are made fun of and their beliefs riled at. They are persecuted, as the four lakh Kashmiri Pandits have been, without raising finger in defence - their men hanged, women raped, children disembowelled. They have become refugees in their own country and the media is mostly silent. Yes democracy is needed, and a free and democratic India definitely has (in the long run) an advantage on an undemocratic China . But the way things are going now, India seems on the verge of losing all that is good and true and valuable within the nation, thanks to cynical and self-serving politicians. Cry O my Beloved India . Look at what Thy children are doing to Thee. -- http://indersalim.livejournal.com From chandita.mukherjee at gmail.com Sun Jun 10 15:19:08 2007 From: chandita.mukherjee at gmail.com (chanditamukherjee) Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 09:49:08 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] [vikalp] a good legal precedent for documentary film makers Message-ID: Dear Friends The courts have once again set a good precedent for documentary film makers! I am sending you a story which has a meaning for all watchers of the media scene. It would be of special interest for those who aspire to get their work produced by a TV channel. The interesting thing is that despite this being a landmark judgement, except for DNA (Daily News and Analysis, Mumbai) all the other newspapers have refused to take the story. The magnates of the established media seem to have a "You-don't-touch-me and I-don't-touch-you" protocol in place. It appears that all the newspapers and news magazines either have channels of their own or have "strategic partnership" agreements with particular channels which stop them from exposing one another. Talk about cross-media monopoly and censorship! We could help to rip this gag by spreading this news. On Monday, June 11th the matter goes into appeal, so the story is not over yet. Chandita Mukherjee ================================================== Urmi Juvekar Vs CNN IBN On 9th November 2005, documentary film maker and scriptwriter Urmi Juvekar registered a concept for a reality television show called `Work in Progress' with the Film Writers' Association. The concept was simple: three citizens or citizen's groups at three locations across the country take up a troublesome civic issue and try to solve it on a campaign footing within a month. Reporters and cameras from a channel follow the story as it unfolds. Every night on the news bulletins of the channel a 3-minute capsule keeps us updated on the developments at each location. At the end of the first three weeks we see a 60 minute episode of the week's developments with a forward look to the upcoming week. A concluding 60 minute finale comes at end of the month. This was a project that would draw public attention to all the good work of activists under the Right to Information Act. A tremendous idea for civic education and involvement, the immediate daily TV coverage during the course of the campaign would have had implications for the progress of the cases followed. Such an idea for a reality-based programme could only have been realised with the resources which a TV news channel, with its network of people all over the country, can provide. Here is how the story unfolded: 10th March 2006, Urmi wrote to Rasika Tyagi from CNN IBN after a telephonic conversation and e-mailed her the concept note. 21st March 2006, Rasika Tyagi wrote back saying that she found the concept note interesting and asked for a meeting. 3rd April 2006, a meeting is held in the CNN IBN office in Delhi. A detailed concept note with treatment, sample characters and episode development is presented along with the budget and production plan. The budget is deemed to be high and CNN IBN offers some in-house facilities to bring costs down. They also suggest an option of doing it in two languages so that it can be broadcast on IBN 7 simultaneously. Several more discussions are held in subsequent months and finally Urmi is informed that the project will be considered after World Cup 2007. 14th May 2007, CNN IBN puts on a new show `Summer Showdown'. It is a daily 3-minute capsule, but has no the-end-of-the-week review. Their website ibnlive.com advertises it as a reality show showcasing five families across five metros solving their civic problems in 4 weeks. 19th May 2007, Urmi is informed by friends that a show that looks very similar to her `Work in Progress' is on air and she manages to see the show. 21st May 2007, Urmi rushes to the Bombay High Court. The case is scheduled for 23rd May in front of the vacation judge. She claims infringement of copyright and breach of confidentiality. 23rd May 2007, counsel for CNN IBN makes a statement in court that `Summer Showdown' is not a reality show but a live news clipping. The court asks them to give an affidavit stating the same. 24th May 2007, CNN IBN asks the judge to change the order. Now they admit that Summer Showdown' is a reality-based programme but insist that it is not based on `Work in Progress'. They claim that their previous day's statement in the court was misunderstood. Their appeal is rejected and they are asked to file an affidavit on the 31st stating that `Summer Showdown' is a live news clipping and not based on Urmi's project. 29th May 2007, CNN IBN files an affidavit only stating that they have not copied Urmi's idea. They also state that ideas are not protected by copyright. The affidavit is filled with contradictory statements. `Summer Showdown' now becomes a race between various civic authorities in completing summer-related problems in four weeks. Traffic, monsoon and garbage are portrayed as summer problems. In a play of semantics, the civic problems dealt in `Summer Showdown' become macro level while the problems suggested for `Work in Progress' problems are stated to be local and at micro level. At the same time the CNN IBN website continues to feature `Summer Showdown' as a tale of five families across the country trying to solve civic problems. Urmi's sample episodes demonstrating the concept are dismissed as fiction scripts. According to CNN IBN, her 25 page project proposal is a mere idea. Well known anchor Rajdeep Sardesai denies knowledge of the matter while his e-mail replies to Urmi state otherwise. 4th June 2007, Urmi sends a rejoinder, exposing the contradictions in the affidavit, and pointing to the fact that although in the court `Summer Showdown' was described as a live news clipping, it has now become a reality show created in-house during March and April 2007. 6th May 2007, the case comes for hearing in Bombay High Court. The counsel for CNN IBN pleads for more time since he has not been able to prepare adequately. Urmi's counsel opposes the move as only 4 days remain for the first round of 4 weeks of the telecast. The judge agrees to listen to the case on merit. The case is heard for four hours. Urmi's counsel puts all facts regarding meetings and submissions on the table and deals with similarities at great length. The counsel for CNN IBN sticks to the single point that ideas are not protected by copyright and Urmi's idea is just a rehash of `Rajni', the popular programme of the 1980s, and several present day citizen journalism programmes on TV. Urmi's counsel refutes these arguments, concluding his statement by saying that if she does not get a stay order in this matter, then no creative person who approaches a TV channel in order to realise his or her idea will feel safe and protected by the law. The judgment is scheduled for the next day. 7th June 2007, the judge dictates the judgment in his chamber for three hours. He comes to the court and grants the stay order to Urmi Juvekar on the basis of copyright claims and breach of confidentiality. CNN IBN demands a relief of four days. The judge reminds them that their programme cycle gets over on Saturday 9th June in any case, so relief till Monday 11th June seems pointless. 8th June 2007, CNN IBN rushes into appeal but the division bench asks for a copy of the judgment. That still being in preparation, they have to stop there. On Monday 11th June, CNN IBN is expected make an appeal to the bench and we will see how the story spins on. In the meanwhile, considering the landmark nature of the judgement and the significance of it for independent film makers, script-writers and the Film Writers' Association, there is not much news of it about. The simple reason: media refuses to touch the story. In that lies another story, something of a warning to those who have to survive in India Inc. __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Calendar Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Visit Your Group SPONSORED LINKS Freedom of expression Independent movie Independent movie on dvd Independent Lip-Sync? Win a guitar & CD! See Good Charotte Contest on Bix! Yahoo! Movies Staying in tonight? Check out new DVDs and read reviews. Yahoo! TV Staying in tonight? Check Daily Picks & see what to watch. . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070610/0dbef2a0/attachment.html From abasole at gmail.com Mon Jun 11 19:59:37 2007 From: abasole at gmail.com (Amit Basole) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:59:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] need names of urdu bookstores in Bombay and Delhi Message-ID: <8e2bace60706110729l427868a2wbf684ae13a3ffcd2@mail.gmail.com> Dear Sarai list folks Does anyone know of good Urdu bookstores to visit in Bombay and Delhi? I know of one, Kitabi Duniya, in Delhi, but do not know of any in Bombay. Thanks in advance. Amit -- Amit Basole Department of Economics Thompson Hall University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: 413-665-2463 http://www.people.umass.edu/abasole/ -------- Congress of Planetary Initiatives Towards Eliciting a Global Conversation August 24-26, Salt Lake City, Utah www.congress2007.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070611/40065152/attachment.html From crd at fondation-langlois.org Mon Jun 11 19:24:21 2007 From: crd at fondation-langlois.org (CR+D) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:54:21 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Daniel Langlois Foundation: Projects in India Message-ID: <25605d6edee697a60f46933a98d11105@fdl-webmestre> Daniel Langlois Foundation: Projects in India Since 2000, the Daniel Langlois Foundation has supported a number of projects in India. These projects have highlighted, documented and engaged various aspects of Indian culture and ecological issues, including current local and national realities. In this Web publication, we spotlight these projects and their recent developments: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200706&NumPage=2063 New Leonardo Organisational Member We are pleased to announce that the Daniel Langlois Foundation Centre for Research and Documentation (CR+D) is now a member of the Leonardo Organisation. As part of our ongoing collaboration, the Foundation continues to host the Leonardo/ISAST and OLATS Web sites. Later this year, the Foundation and Leonardo will celebrate two important anniversaries - the Foundation's 10th and Leonardo's 40th: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?Lstsrv=200706&NumPage=563 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 12 10:23:22 2007 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:53:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] need names of urdu bookstores in Bombay and Delhi In-Reply-To: <8e2bace60706110729l427868a2wbf684ae13a3ffcd2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <987332.85371.qm@web51409.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Dear Amit Sadly Urdu bookstores are becoming extinct. You could find some stores on Mohammad Ali Road in Mumbai - look for Maktaba Jamia - you may even find some roadside stalls on that road. As for Delhi, there is something called the Urdu bazar on the south gate side of Jama Masjid which used to have many bookstores (most of which are now Kabab sellers). But you can still find good books at Maktaba Jamia's shop in Urdu Bazar. (This road can be approached from the Darya Ganj overhead bridge side). In Urdu bazar, you will also find a store of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu which has good selection. The rest of the bookstores sell religious books only. Another small store (which has good selection) is the official shop of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu at their office on Rouse Avenue (also known as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya marg) near ITO. Yousuf Amit Basole wrote: Dear Sarai list folks Does anyone know of good Urdu bookstores to visit in Bombay and Delhi? I know of one, Kitabi Duniya, in Delhi, but do not know of any in Bombay. Thanks in advance. Amit -- Amit Basole Department of Economics Thompson Hall University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: 413-665-2463 http://www.people.umass.edu/abasole/ -------- Congress of Planetary Initiatives Towards Eliciting a Global Conversation August 24-26, Salt Lake City, Utah ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally, mobile search that gives answers, not web links. http://mobile.yahoo.com/mobileweb/onesearch?refer=1ONXIC From ysikand at gmail.com Tue Jun 12 18:17:25 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:17:25 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Correction in Kerala Muslim Articles Message-ID: <48097acc0706120547v365c95e3qf0c85f53e10b9e69@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friend I had sent out two articles recently on Muslims in Kerala, where I talked about the ISM.....The full form of ISM is Ithihadu Shubbanil Mujahideen, not Muslimeen. Sorry for the mistake! Regards Yogi -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping From ysikand at gmail.com Tue Jun 12 19:04:43 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:04:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] "Al-Qaeda Hind": Fact or Fiction?: Two Articles Message-ID: <48097acc0706120634qe18b15bsbe3fa7616e8bdd68@mail.gmail.com> 1. AL-QAEDA - A CIA-MOSSAD FRONT ORGANIZATION PRESS CONFERENCE / INVITATION Once again Indian Newspapers have prominently carried reports of an 'Al-Qaeda Hind' based in Kashmir. Interestingly this report comes only a day after, newspapers boldly announced a high powered delegation Of Israeli Military Generals and Intelligence Officers, here to advice the Indian government on combatting "terror" in Jammu and Kashmir. Also do contrast this in the way the governement, the police and the media suppressed the involvement of the RSS-Bajrang Dal in Nanded where the Bajrang Dal activists are manufacturing bombs. We believe that the Al-Qaeda announcement that followed was a planted story and a part of the disinformation campaign so as to justify the unholy alliance between the ruling elites of India with the Zionist Apartheid Nazi Israeli state. There is enough evidence that the Al-Qaeda is a front organization of the CIA and MOSSAD. The Bush junta has used the bogey of terror and of Al Qaeda to justify his unending and ever expanding Global War on Terror, which is only a means of capturing the resources of the world and of establishing the sole hegemony of Israel in West Asia. As we have repeatedly stated, the 9/11 attack on the WTC was an American-Israeli operation. This has been widely written about in USA and Europe itself and more than 50% of the American people and far more Europeans, now believe and are convinced about this fact. Sections of the Indian ruling political and military elite are importing the same Bush-Olmert formula into our country. The increasing terror attacks, only serve the cause of the Indian elite and divide the masses along communal lines. It is only the ordinary Indians who are the victims of terror either in temples, mosques, buses or trains. Interestingly practically no political leader suffers a similar fate, where the terrorists are apprehended and killed in "encounters". Every terror attack is meant to push and drag the Indian masses further into the waiting arms of Uncle Sam and the Israeli Goliath. Every terror attack spreads further hatred for Muslims and Islam and weakens the Indian Muslim community. In our presentation we will be putting forward and exposing the links between Al-Qaeda and the CIA-MOSSAD. We also want to put forward the dangers of the collusion of the Government of India with American Imperialism and Apartheid Nazi Israel. Venue: Marathi Patrakar, Azad Maidan, opp. C.S.T., Mumbai. Date: June 13, 2007 (Wednesday) Time: 3-5pm The Press Conference will be addressed by: Amaresh Misra: Eminent Writer Feroze Mithiborwala: Muslim Intellectual Forum Kishore Jagtap: Vidyarthi Bharti Jagdish Nagarkar: Phule-Ambedkar-Shahu Vichar Manch Harshvardhan Vartak: Hindu Vikasini Mulniwasi Mala: Indian Social Movement :Organizers: Sarfaraz Arzoo, Asif Khan, Syed Iftikhar Ahmed, Ravi Bhilane, Aslam Ghazi, Shyam Sonar, Farid Batatawala, Sudhir Dhawle, Munawwar Khan, Sayeed Khan, Maqbool Alam, Shantanu Kamble, Gazala Azad, Ihtishaam Ansari. contact nos. 98208-97517 / 93233-66634 email: ferozearachne at gmail.com ================================= 2. United Jihad Council denies Al Qaeda presence in Kashmir 10 June 2007 - 8:39am — Tarique Anwar By IANS Srinagar : United Jihad Council (UJC), based in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Saturday denied the existence of the Al Qaeda terror group in the Kashmir Valley and described the release of a video CD as "a deep-rooted conspiracy against the ongoing freedom struggle in Kashmir". The UJC, in a statement to the local media, said: "Al Qaeda doesn't exist in Kashmir and the CD circulated here yesterday is nothing but deception as there is no role and relevance of the outfit in Kashmir." "For the past 18 years various militant groups have been carrying out a steely armed campaign in Kashmir by carrying out coordinated and effective attacks under the support of the UJC," Syed Sadaqat Hussain, the chief spokesman of the guerrilla combine said. Hussain alleged that the CD was circulated by Indian authorities to "create dissension among separatist groups". A video CD sent to the offices of a local news agency Friday, apparently on behalf of Al Qaeda, declared holy war on India and named half-a-dozen local leaders on a hit-list. -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 12 10:22:01 2007 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:52:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] need names of urdu bookstores in Bombay and Delhi In-Reply-To: <8e2bace60706110729l427868a2wbf684ae13a3ffcd2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <261328.47116.qm@web51412.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Dear Amit Sadly Urdu bookstores are becoming extinct. You could find some stores on Mohammad Ali Road in Mumbai - look for Maktaba Jamia - you may even find some roadside stalls on that road. As for Delhi, there is something called the Urdu bazar on the south gate side of Jama Masjid which used to have many bookstores (most of which are now Kabab sellers). But you can still find good books at Maktaba Jamia's shop in Urdu Bazar. (This road can be approached from the Darya Ganj overhead bridge side). In Urdu bazar, you will also find a store of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu which has good selection. The rest of the bookstores sell religious books only. Another small store (which has good selection) is the official shop of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu at their office on Rouse Avenue (also known as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya marg) near ITO. Yousuf Amit Basole wrote: Dear Sarai list folks Does anyone know of good Urdu bookstores to visit in Bombay and Delhi? I know of one, Kitabi Duniya, in Delhi, but do not know of any in Bombay. Thanks in advance. Amit -- Amit Basole Department of Economics Thompson Hall University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: 413-665-2463 http://www.people.umass.edu/abasole/ -------- Congress of Planetary Initiatives Towards Eliciting a Global Conversation August 24-26, Salt Lake City, Utah --------------------------------- Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel and lay it on us. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070611/af5680ed/attachment.html From ghosh.ranu at gmail.com Tue Jun 12 17:39:01 2007 From: ghosh.ranu at gmail.com (ranu ghosh) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:09:01 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] changing Industrial landscape in Kolkata Message-ID: <80ea5720706120509s2b5ff779ge96ce21a74c8d245@mail.gmail.com> hi everyone,apologies for the delayed posting. *The Changing Industrial Landscape of Kolkata: documenting the transformation of a half a century old factory, Joy Engineering Works into Kolkata's South City Project, "Eastern India's largest mixed use real estate development".* POSTING 2 *South** City** Project at a glance: * Located on Prince Anwar Shah Road opposite Jodhpur Park, the South City Project is touted to be Eastern India's largest and tallest residential township. It is spread over an area of 31.14 acres of land. The South Cityproject will have four towers, out of which three will be 35 storeys high, and one 30-storeyed. Total numbers of flats will be1600. An investment of Rs. 1,500 crores has been made. Work on the project started in 2004 and is expected to be complete by December 2008. Presently, tower II and I have neared completion, foundations for towers III and IV has been laid and initial construction started. Some of the biggest name in the real estate - the Emami Group, the Rameswara Group, the Sureka Group, the Shrachi Group, the J.B.Group and the head of The Eastern India Tea Co. Ltd., and the Merlin Group of Companies - are involved behind the South City Project. ** * * *The other side of the wall:* In 2005 I have been documenting the south city construction mostly from top of the nearby houses as entry to the site has been completely restricted to me. I have been talking to local people and evicted labourers who were living outside the wall then. The wall was raised around the erstwhile Joy Engineering factory area to make way to the construction work. There were only two entry points to the construction site where the developers put heavy security checks. I saw that the evicted workers of the factory along with their families were still living there in crude hutments and shacks adjacent to the high wall outside the construction site. It is here I met Ramesh, one of the evicted workers. He had also put up there like others as that area belonged to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (and thereby outside the purview of South City Projects). I found out that some of the evicted families were also living in makeshift tents on the nearby fields and in abandoned houses. Lack of proper employment opportunities led the evicted workers to penury. They continued to live like lost souls along the adjacent locality of South Cityconstruction area. The displaced workers of Joy Engineering, who were skilled technicians mostly, had to accept odd jobs. Some became vegetable sellers, or gatekeepers of jewellery shop and multi-storeyed buildings. A few tried out as bus conductors and some were completely out of job. A few committed suicide apparently out of poverty and depression. They were pulled down from a secured and graceful life into an everyday of uncertainty and disgrace. Ramesh was recalling about 3rd March 2004, the day of eviction, "The developers, armed with the police and local hoodlums came in to throw us out of our quarters. There was no female police. Even then the policemen did not hesitate to forcefully pull out women members of our families!" The helpless labourers mutely witnessed the destruction of their homes, utensils being thrown away. They saw their children's school and playground demolished in front of their own eyes. Ramesh's house was demolished too. Never were they informed of the sale of the factory land, or handed out an eviction notice and the subsequent demolition of their residences. Ramesh informed me that most of the workers had accepted the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) which was almost forced upon them. The Joy Engineering authority made the deal happen with the active support from the trade union leaders of the company. But there were fourteen workers who did not accept the VRS offered to them as compensation. Ramesh was one of them. They filed a court case against Joy Engineering. While interacting with Ramesh I heard of Sambhu Prasad Singh, a third-generation worker of Joy Engineering (JE). It was quite a revelation for me to know that Sambhu is the loner who had decided not to leave his quarter. It was definitely a stubborn and brave decision to make! He was then living slap-bang in the middle of the mammoth real estate. During my shoot in 2005 I had documented Bikramgarh Jheel, a large water body in the backyard of the South City Project area. This water body is one of the largest natural waterbodies in the southern suburb of Calcutta spread over 7 acres of area. It is a natural habitat of a varied species of birds, animals and insects. When I came back to shoot in early 2006, I noticed that a corner of the water body have already been filled up. South Cityconstructors have started filling it up slowly to construct tower III and IV of the high rise complex. I immediately enquired about it and found out that Vasundhara, an environmental group, filed a case in the High Court against the developers for the illegal filling up of the wetland. It alleged that the developers filled up 1.31 acres of the waterbody and the West Bengal Pollution Control Board officials gave illegal permission. I also met Bhaskar Gupta, a resident from that locality who has filed a case against 'West Bengal Pollution Control Board and Ors' in Calcutta High Court. The case, filed on the basis of a signature campaign among 250 or so resident families, accusing them of allowing severe environmental pollution caused by the construction work and filling up of the Bikramgarh Jheel. In spite of of these court cases the construction work continued and the foundation of the tower III and IV had been laid. End of posting 2 * * * * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070612/32e2647a/attachment.html From nalin.mathur at gmail.com Tue Jun 12 22:43:56 2007 From: nalin.mathur at gmail.com (Nalin Mathur) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:43:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] B Grade Engineering College Culture Message-ID: <7c0063460706121013w54e44c91pffb6e1957317a254@mail.gmail.com> B - Grade Engineering College Culture / Fourth Posting / Nalin N. Mathur Of Cricket & Regional Divide With Contributions from Neha Gupta – a friend, colleague and social counselor Most Indians would remember 1983 as the year we won cricket's holy chalice – The Prudential World Cup. But ask people of my age and they will tell you that it was also the year they were born. Not surprisingly then, it won't be wrong to say the passion for cricket resides in all twenty three year old Indians by default. Add to this passion the opportunity to be away from the prying eyes of parents, glass-pane-window-loving neighbors and being with some three hundred like minded individuals. The result leaves nothing to imagine. Just like the fervor for the game, the culture at college was such that my mates savored the same belief as our cricket's governing body, of Zonal Selections. The teams so formed were strictly on the basis on the region the player hailed from. There were regular and emotion packed matches between teams from Delhi, U.P., Punjab and Himachal. The remaining teams which did not constitute of players 'exclusively' from a state had a heavy regional influence. Being someone who believes in the notion that an individual is at his truest form when engrossed in a passionate game, such duels were of concern. Inevitably, one would observe an undercurrent of regional divide that plagued the atmosphere; and at times highlighted the true emotions. It was not just on the field but off the field as well that one could witness the unrest. Those matches that involved two different factions meant another Heysel Stadium disaster like atmosphere. The joke was that the playing field has been a witness to less matches and more fights and that our neighborhood dhaba often doubled up as the maison de justice. Now, the development of groups is a common feature in any social setup. People interact and integrate on the basis of a common thread that binds them. In cases wherein the individuals are subjected to an environment that is new and to adapt is a must, they generally stick with individuals having similar cultural background. This is so because out of all things it is one's culture and not interests and skills, which make him / her socially acceptable. The same happens in an engineering college where people from different cultures and background come together. The groups so formed are basically on the basis of region and ethnicity. So we see that from the very beginning there is an inclination of sticking with people whom one can relate, which is absolutely perfect and understandable. However, in due course of time, as the comfort level within an existing group increases, the individual becomes content and makes no efforts to mingle with individuals from / of different groups. On the very first day I was only too happy to observe that the bulk of people who were allotted rooms on my floor were all from Delhi. The ones on the floor above were from UP. To this day I am not certain if the sorting was done on purpose. The consequence of the sorting was hardly on my mind. To have a room mate whose residence was only five minutes walk and getting acquainted to people with whom I shared common friends from school was reassuring. Hence, I did not look anywhere else for friends. It is my understanding that most other students had similar experience since in the first two months or so I never saw anyone mingling with students from other floors. Hence, my interaction with people from UP was restricted only to the classroom. Overall, this resulted in regional groupism rather then groups based on intellectual likings. This was the foundation of the regional divide that was to be experienced. There is an interesting point highlighted by a good friend who graduated from a different institute, but having similar experiences. She points out the role played by the Alpha Male (or Female) in a group. He or she would be the pivot around which the group revolved. The internal scuffle among group members to play the role of that Alpha Male was witnessed too. This further confirmed by belief in the notion of hanging together on the basis intellectual likings was crippled by the 'charm' of being socially acceptable first. She goes on further to observe, that even in universities abroad, which often boast of their rich diversity, the students from different countries prefer hanging out together. This may only be partially true but the existence of various region based clubs in almost all universities is a testimonial to the fact that region plays a major role in bringing about the cultural dynamics that exist within an institution. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070612/6cf0fe07/attachment.html From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de Tue Jun 12 13:23:44 2007 From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (cologneOFF) Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:53:44 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?=5BAnnouncements=5D_call=3A_CologneO?= =?iso-8859-1?q?FF_III_-_art_cartoons_and_animated_narratives?= Message-ID: <20070612095344.6A468A62.DDD3BFEF@192.168.0.4> Call for entries deadline 1 August 2007 http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=23 ------------------------------------------- CologneOFF III 3rd edition of Cologne Online Film Festival http://coff.newmediafest.org Festival theme: Toon! Toon! - art cartoons and animated narratives After the successful launch of CologneOFF - Cologne Online Film Festival and the organisation of the first two editions in 2006 CologneOFF I - Identityscapes, CologneOFF II - Image vs Music VideoChannel is preparing now edition III of CologneOFF to be launched in October 2007 & to be presented in cooperation with divers festivals in sequence. ---> Toon! Toon! art cartoons and animated narratives VideoChannel invites artists and directors for submitting animated films/videos telling a story in form of a cartoon or other forms of narratives by using the new digital technologies. Rules: • Deadline: 1 August 2007 • The subject can be chosen freely. • The films/videos may originate from the years 2002-2007. • The duration max. 10 minutes, exceptions possible. • Max 3 films/videos can be submitted. • Productions using language and/or text other than English need English subtitles. • The preview copy should be made available online for review and/or download as Quicktime . mov, Windows Media .wmv, Flash video .swf or.flv or Real Media .rm minimum size 320×240. • After selection the artists/directors will be invited to send a hardcopy of the selected video on DVD in best screening quality. All entry details and the submission form can be found on netEX - networked experience http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=23 ------------------------------------------- CologneOFF - Cologne Online Film Festival http://coff.newmediafest.org is a new type of film festival which is organised simultaneously online and offline via worldwide collaborations organised by VideoChannel - video project environments http://videochannel.newmediafest.org More info on http://videochannel.newmediafest.org/blog/?page_id=62 http://videochannel.newmediafest.org/blog/?page_id=57 http://videochannel.newmediafest.org/blog/?page_id=64 ------------------------------------------- This call is released by netEX - networked experience http://www.nmartproject.net/netex . info (at) nmartproject.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From arshad.mcrc at gmail.com Wed Jun 13 12:52:52 2007 From: arshad.mcrc at gmail.com (Arshad Amanullah) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:22:52 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Hey Reader-list@sarai.net ;) Message-ID: <161916586.1181719266732.JavaMail.root@sfapp069> http://www.hi5.com/register/hhVBW?inviteId=A_7d055f3_S2zcvS9RoVr0 arshad From harilalms at gmail.com Wed Jun 13 15:32:25 2007 From: harilalms at gmail.com (harilal madhavan) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:32:25 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Threats to ayurvedic Industry Message-ID: <786e9c3e0706130302g8cf827fvedb590b9145dec68@mail.gmail.com> M S HARILAL/ SARAI INDEPENDENT FELLOW 2007/ FOURTH POSTING/ AYURVEDIC INDUSTRY: SPECIFIC CHALLENGES AS EVIDENCED FROM THE STUDY OF ORGANIZED SECTOR (MAINLY ISSUES FROM CASE OF OUSHADHI) This posting I mainly refer to the threats faced by the organised sector as evidenced from the case of Oushadhi, Kerala. While the industry is very much receptive to innovation and product pattern shift, the major challenges faced by the sector are many. Other than the general problems like competition from other countries (in the case of ayurveda, it is China), cost competitiveness and demand enrichment, investing on innovation and technology etc. it face some unique problems like a) Availability of right and quality raw material, especially medicinal plants b) standardization, and validation of Ayurvedic products as per the modern trials for selling larger market outside and c) Problems regarding the protection under IPR regimes. That means upgrading the domestic market or strengthening industry from within alone will not be sufficient, but an effort should be there to solve major external problems. The common feature of these issues is state has a crucial role in assuaging all these issues. They are: a) Depletion of medicinal and aromatic plants 'Right and timely availability of raw material' is going to be a crucial factor if not, one of the biggest problems that this industry is going to face in the coming future. 'Right' here means of right kind and right quality. Depletion of the same due to ruthless cultivation and forest destruction is of major concern. Since the demand for medicinal plants is a derived demand from the demand for Ayurvedic medicines and related products, and mainly 80% of the Ayurvedic raw material consists of medicinal plants, the growth of Ayurvedic industry will result in consequently a same increase in the medicinal plant demand. An estimate shows that Ayurvedic industry is growing at a rate of 12 to 15% in Kerala (Harilal, 2004). A same growth can be expected in other parts of the country also. This will put an additional compulsion on the medicinal plant sector to provide matured and specific quality raw material for the growing industry. This problem has been addressed in international arena through various conservation activities and cultivation promoting programmes. Many studies (MAPPA 1998, Suneetha and Chandrakanth 2001, Devi and Joseph 2003) have addressed the problem of economic scarcity of medicinal plants in relation to the demand from the pharmacies in and outside Kerala. A study by Suneetha and Chandrakanth (2002), using the real price increase as a proxy of relative scarcity, also reach the conclusion that many plants are getting extinct in Indian forests. There are various medicinal plants which the firms in the country are getting from outside, since it is no longer available in the country. At the same time, India is supplying around 14% of the medicinal plant needed in the European Union herbal market. This shows that, we have comparative advantage in the collection and cultivation of some of the plants while we have disadvantage in some others. So the promotion of both in-situ and ex-situ cultivation and various other methods like gene banks and herbal parks should be encouraged nation wide. This conservation issues are hitting the headings at present especially after the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), in which the first declaration regarding the rights of indigenous community and equal sharing is being made and need for conservation also emphasized. Direct ways of protection and indirect methods through incentive policies should be pursued. Since a large literature on this issue is available, here we will concentrate more on other concerns. b) Standardizing the products/process for the world market* The main issues the industry faces in terms of quality and standardization are: Lack of Product and process validation: Once a product is conceived the efficiency of the product has to be proved authentically. For which internationally accepted non-clinical trials to prove the efficacy of the product in animals abiding OECD guidelines, toxicity studies, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, bio-equivalence etc. should be used. As far as Ayurvedic medicines are concerned no such validation methodology has been used for generations together. Since the toxicity of the product is not known, the action of the product in human body cannot be known and thus the modern medical community will not accept Ayurvedic product as a medicine. There should be uniform process techniques for each product and this should not be changed from batch to batch so as to get uniform products from each batch. There should be a Standard Operating Procedure for each product and this should be clearly followed and the standard operating procedure should start right form the selection of raw materials and continues till the final product gets packed. There should be a uniform procedure for each product manufacturing, which is called process validation. Till date nothing has been developed in the field of Ayurveda for Process Validation (Varghese, 2005). Lack of Quality Control and quality assurance: Quality Control refers to the processes involved in maintaining the quality of validity of a manufactured product. Regardless of the form of herbal preparation, some degree of quality control is necessary. Currently, there is no organization or government body that certifies a product is 'labeled correctly'. Without proper QC, there is no assurance that the herb contained in the bottle is the same as what is stated on its outside label. The solution to this is for manufacturers and suppliers of herbal products to adhere to QC standards and good manufacturing practices. With improvements in the identification of plants by laboratory analysis, consumers should at least be guaranteed that the right plant is being used. Currently, only a few manufacturers in India adhere to complete QC and good manufacturing procedures including microscopic, physical, chemical and biological analysis. In general, it is believed that if the active components of a particular herb are known, whatever forms the herb product is, the herb should be analyzed to ensure that it contains these components at an acceptable/standardized level. More accurate dosages can then be given for optimal use of the herb. Currently, in many countries, numerous standardized extracts fulfill requirements for marketing as drugs. During the production process, there should be a continuous monitoring of a quality assurance department to see that all quality parameters were strictly followed during manufacturing. If we go through the specifications of international standards like USFDA, TGA etc., they have definite standards for each and every activity, which gives better performance during the manufacturing stage. If we can develop such guidelines and evolve specific procedure, our entry to the international herbal pharmaceutical market will be much easier and we can take the advantages of WTO, by patenting our processes and products. Lack of GLP and GMP: GLP regulations were intended for toxicity testing only. It was reserved for labs undertaking animal studies for pre-clinical work. Some laboratories follow GLP's whenever the studies are to be used to support applications for research or marketing studies to be submitted to the FDA. GLP regulates all non-clinical safety studies that support or are intended to support applications for research or marketing permits for products regulated by the FDA or other similar national legislation. Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) regulates manufacturing and its associated quality control (in contrast to GLP which covers more drug development activities). GMP predates GLP. GMP regulations have been developed to ensure that medicinal (pharmaceutical) products are consistently produced and controlled to the quality standards appropriate to their intended use. GAPs stress the selection of correct germ plasm with high content of stable active components. GAPs also establish standards for noxious and harmful contaminants like heavy metals, pesticide residues and microbes in plants. Chinese success story should work for India as a model. Lack of Toxicological/ Safety Studies: The Evaluation of the toxicity and adverse drug reaction of the herbal preparation has been a neglected area, as herbs are considered as natural products and, therefore safe. This lack of information makes it difficult to compare the benefit-risk profile of herbal medicines. Standardization doesn't mean only for the products, but the collection, processing of raw material and the final product should be standardized. Availability of the desired genotype of plant in the required quantity, free from toxic contaminants and with desired therapeutic activity has also very critically considered. This issue gains relevance in the current context were many countries like UK and Canada has been banned the Indian Ayurvedic products, with the allegation that most of these contains metal content, and similar allegation was there regarding some products that they contain steroids. But most of the experts has the opinion that, the problem is actually, created by the simple drugs and compound drugs. Simple drugs the standardization is simple and it can be followed in the modern lines. But in the case of compound drugs it is very difficult to find the therapeutic quality of each and every component. So while in ayurveda when poly herbal product is validated we have a chemical finger printing mechanism for validation up to three ingredients are possible, but difficult. But most of the Ayurvedic medicines, it is very difficult to go for these chemical finger printing. For example the case of dasamoolarishtam, one cannot check the quality by taking each and every ingredient of the formulation. So in the case of standardization, we can follow the efficiency model China has been put forward, through Good Agricultural Practice (at the collection/cultivation level), Good Manufacturing Practice (at the manufacturing level) and Good Clinical Practice (at the trial standardization level). India has already adopted the Good Manufacturing Practice and many firms are following the guide lines set. c) Inadequacies with existing patent laws and protection of Ayurvedic knowledge Inadequacies in the Intellectual Property Regime are of great relevance when the fact of community ownership and secretive nature of Traditional medicine is considered. In addition to this, in the case of traditional medicine, like Ayurveda, how the grass-root innovations, which have high commercial significance, can be protected and equally shared is of major concern. Though we have some successful examples like Jeevani , at present, the requirements for protection provided under international standards of patent law and most national patent laws are inadequate to protect traditional knowledge and biodiversity. For example, traditional skills in manual and spiritual therapies are different from those in modern practice and there is no record of who was the inventor. Existing conventional patent law can and does protect pharmaceutical products. However, herbal medicines and herbal products are different from chemical drugs. The intellectual property standards established by the Agreement of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) (1994) allows innovation to be protected by the discovery of new chemical components, know-how in producing the product, trademarks and trade secrets. However, for herbal medicines it is difficult to meet all the requirements of patentability due to their intrinsic characteristics. Firstly, herbal medicines are crude plant materials, such as leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, stems, wood, bark, roots, rhizomes or other plant parts, which may be entire, fragmented or powdered. As such, it is often not possible to obtain existing patent law protection for herbal medicines by claiming the discovery of new chemical entities, which are novel, involve an inventive step and are industrially applicable. Secondly, herbal products are powdered herbal materials, or extracts, tinctures and fatty oils of herbal materials prepared by steeping or heating herbal materials in alcoholic beverages and/or honey, or in other materials. The production process is usually simple. There is no know-how or invention in the preparation process that is sophisticated enough to justify protection under existing patent laws. Thirdly, except for pharmaceutical companies and industries, other holders of traditional knowledge, such as research institutes and practitioners, often do not have the financial and human resources that are necessary to obtain protection through trademarks. Fourthly, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to keep knowledge a secret, because disclosure of the composition of the product is a prerequisite for registration of herbal medicines before the product can be sold. The identification of TK/assigning property right to the medicinal knowledge, five major analytical steps have to be considered. i) subject matter of IPR i.e. information categories that would be called as knowledge in this category, ii) Identification of beneficiaries, iii) contribution to biodiversity conservation and appropriate mechanism for the same, iv) specific attributes of any chosen system of IPR like duration, enforcement mechanism etc and v) implementation mechanisms. Regarding these issues major consideration should include, i) the protective mechanism should take into account the ethic laws of the community, who own the knowledge, ii) sharing authorities should decide for further proceeding forum depends on the intention of protection, for example, whether we are looking for trade benefits (then WTO), or proceed it as a major health care system and to be incorporated to the 'mainstream' medicine (then WHO), iii) Immediate need to develop the sharing benefits mechanism of cumulative innovations, which consider all the involved stakeholders. The recent models, like Bhagirathy (2003), are relevant in this concern and iv) possibilities should be explored not only to develop a sui generis system, but inclusion in geographic indication should also be explored. d) Easing the Power Relations and Framing an Adequate Export Policy To an extent, the policy framed by the major export destinations, like USA, UK and other European nations, have the ability to decide the role of Traditional medicine in the world market. Thus the 'selling benefits' from ayurveda largely depend on the destination policies. Many herbal products fall between the far ends of this regulatory range: unlicensed preparations are thought to account for over 80 per cent of herbal sales (De Smet, 1995). European Union legislation requires herbal products to be authorized for marketing if they are industrially produced and if their presentation or their function, or both, bring them inside its definition of a medicinal product. Unfortunately, the drawing of sharp borderline is difficult. Many medicine-like products on the British herbal market remain unregistered for two reasons: acceptable data on efficacy, safety and quality may not be available, and the licensing fee is high (De Smet, 1995). Special licensing procedures for herbal medicines are already in force in Germany, where regulatory evaluations of medicinal herbs have been laid down in more than 300 monographs, and in France more than 200 herbs have been listed as acceptable ingredients of phytomedicines. Australia developed an integral approach to the herbal market that will also cover various non-western herbs. The main registering and regulating body for Western herbal practitioner is the National Institute of Medical Herbalist situated in U.K. Only graduates of approved courses are accepted on to the register, and a strict code of ethics is maintained. The European Herbal Practitioner Association, an umbrella body with about 1000 members, has been set up to encourage greater unity among herbalists. However, it has no formal criteria for screening membership and no published code of ethics yet (Vickers and Zollman, 1999). What is striking is that WHO has been accepted the Chinese yardstick for standardization of the traditional medicines, which is of a more evidence based and scientific, which compels India to go for the scientific validation of their products. The guidelines set for good practices, in manufacturing, agriculture, validation or clinical trials (GCP< GMP< GAP) are accepted as a common requirement for acceptance. Many countries have been taken very abrasive steps regarding the traditional medicine, might be the pressure from the lobbies of other medicines. From 2000, the EU has drafted a series of directives that seriously restrict the practice of herbal medicine, with the intent of a suitable choice on consumer choice and public safety. A house of lords have been appointed in 1999-00 in Britain to enquire into various science and technology aspects. Since 2000, this British House of Lords and the Government have been working towards a regulatory scheme for Complementary and alternative medicine in Britain, a scheme that will include ayurveda. House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology produced six reports, the last of which was entitled 'Complementary and Alternative Medicine ' (henceforth the 'Report'). The report, of which most of the recommendations have been agreed upon by the government have raised a big protests from the CAM practitioners and manufacturers. The report classifies the Traditional medicines into three sections, in which ayurveda has been included in the third category, advocates strong evidence to prove its efficacy (for detailed discussion see Wujastyk, 2004). There are criticisms that this document has prepared without considering the available knowledge about different traditional medical systems, and been not helpful in bringing out more truthful deliberations on the same. It is also regrettable that such a bluntly hegemonic approach to CAM has been the informing principle behind these documents, in stark contrast, for example, to the approaches taken by the WHO (Wujastyk, 2004). So the industry, academia and government have to keep on track of the larger power relations in the world herbal market, because that can be a decisive factor ultimately, though whatever efforts effectively we put up (Banerjee, 2004). US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the agencies under that, strongly acknowledges the need for scientifically proven CAM practices, to integrate the same to modern medicine and mainly insists on research, outreach and integration. For the effective integration, it has been mentioned as a clause that the published research work will only be considered. So the validation should be in the modern norms. Since, these kinds of regulations, exist in other countries, the manufacturers are exporting medicines in food supplement and cosmeceuticals category, from which the manufacturers are gaining much. This fetches them additional tax benefits too. Now Ayurvedic medicines are exported to UAE and Malaysia. Singapore and Germany are emerged to be the new destinations and opens new potentials and possibilities. . But the solution will be as we mentioned earlier, proper in house validation and standardization along with our own well-developed modern Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia and bring more transparency in listing the documents and ingredients. regards Hari alt. email: harims at cds.ac.in From ysikand at gmail.com Wed Jun 13 16:04:41 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:04:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Blog on Plight of Muslims in Gujarat Message-ID: <48097acc0706130334l5a186193j2986be91f4cd9b5c@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friend You might wish to look at this excellent blog maintained by A. Deepa, Delhi-based social activist, which deals mainly with the continued plight of Muslims in Gujarat five years after the state-sponsored anti-Muslim carnage there: http://underabloodredsky.wordpress.com/ Regards Yoginder Sikand -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping From taraprakash at gmail.com Thu Jun 14 00:33:09 2007 From: taraprakash at gmail.com (Taraprakash) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:33:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] What an achievement References: <161916586.1181719266732.JavaMail.root@sfapp069> Message-ID: <014401c7aded$80c420e0$0201a8c0@IBM61525879EE4> Global Military Spending Hits $1.2 Trillion. Associated Press. STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- The U.S. remained the world's biggest military spender last year, devoting about $529 billion to arms, while China overtook Japan as Asia's top arms spender, a Swedish research institute said Monday. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said the U.S. spent the most on arms, ahead of Britain and France. Global military spending rose 3.5% to $1.2 trillion. Top 10 military spenders, in 2005 dollars and percent of global spending. 1. U.S., $528.7 billion, 46% 2. Britain, $59.2 billion, 5% 3. France, $53.1 billion, 5% 4. China, $49.5 billion, 4% 5. Japan, $43.7 billion, 4% 6. Germany, $37.0 billion, 3% 7. Russia, $34.7 billion, 3% 8. Italy, $29.9 billion, 3% 9. Saudi Arabia, $29.0 billion, 3% 10. India, $23.9 billion, 2% Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute The large increase in the USA's military spending is to a great extent due to the costly military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq," SIPRI said in its annual report, noting that the U.S. spent $505 billion in 2005. China's growing military expenditures reached nearly $50 billion, making it the fourth biggest arms spender in the world, SIPRI said in its annual report. Japan was fifth with $43.7 billion. The figures cited were in 2005 dollars. International arms transfers have grown continuously since 2002, with China and India being the biggest importers and the U.S. and Russia the two major exporters, the Stockholm-based institute said. Russia, which spent $34.7 billion on arms, has used its energy wealth to revive national pride, to restore its influence" in surrounding countries and to maximize its geopolitical power," SIPRI said. Five Middle Eastern countries were among the top 10 importers of weapons. While much media attention was given to arms deliveries to Iran, mainly from Russia, deliveries from the USA and European countries to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were significantly larger," the report said. The institute said the U.S., Russia, France, Britain and China together held more than 26,000 nuclear warheads at the start of 2007. Although the total number of warheads is gradually being cut, all five countries are undertaking or planning major programs to update their nuclear weapon arsenals," SIPRI said. The report said that the U.S. government provided a total of $432 billion in supplemental appropriations for the war on terrorism between September 2001 and June 2006. This massive increase in U.S. military spending has been one of the factors contributing to the deterioration of the U.S. economy since 2001," SIPRI said. Copyright © 2007 Associated Press From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de Wed Jun 13 20:44:45 2007 From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (desertWind) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:14:45 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?=5BAnnouncements=5D_The_Desert_Gener?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ation?= Message-ID: <20070613171445.27F76D47.66E4268@192.168.0.4> THE DESERT GENERATION 40 Years of Occupation, 1967-2007 - Israeli and Palestinian Artists against the Occupation and for a Just Peace a digital photo exhibition at Jerusalem Artists' House 5-11 June 2007 On Tuesday, June 5, 2007 at 18:00, the 40th anniversary of the 1967 War, Israeli and Palestinian artists who oppose the occupation and continue to call for its immediate and negotiated end, opened a joint exhibition at the Artists House, Jerusalem. The exhibition was presented for six days, closing on the June 10, 2007 at 19:00. This six days exhibition was presenting hundreds of images sent via E-mail by artists from Israel, Palestine and around the world, in response to a call distributed on the Internet as a chain E-letter. All the images were printed in a homogenous A4 format and hanged upon the Artists' House walls, with no selection or editing. The hundreds of images in the exhibition represent a generation of Israeli and Palestinian artists doomed to waste their best years in the desert of the occupation. Freedom of creation is un-divisional, and as long as the rights for self-expression are denied, both Israelis and Palestinians will not be free. The participants of this exhibition are artists of different ages and artistic perceptions, united under the call for the immediate ending to occupation and negotiation for Peace between the two nations. The DESERT GENERATION exhibition is the outcome of an initiation of artists and is not connected to any political movement. Orgenizers: Larry Abramson, David Tartakover, Saliman Mantzur and David Reeb. More about the exhibition Jerusalem Artists' House http://www.art.org.il/en/exhibition_about.php?id=199 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From meenamenon at gmail.com Wed Jun 13 11:39:29 2007 From: meenamenon at gmail.com (meena menon) Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:39:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Jogeshwari Past and Present Message-ID: <57ad49a60706122309u8e329ecpcdfab378d99103e0@mail.gmail.com> Hi all, This is the fourth posting of my Sarai independent fellowship on Recovering Lost Histories where I am meeting the riot victims of Mumbai and looking at how the city has changed after 1992-93. This posting is on Jogeshwari. I' d also like to thank people on this list who have sent in many useful suggestions. Cheers Meena meenamenon at gmail.com Jogeshwari Past and Present Jogeshwari East saw some of the worst rioting during the 1992-93 riots. Those were not the first riots in the area which has a long history of communal strife. But what happened in January 1993 changed the way people would live in that area forever. A lot of changing over happened which has been documented by YUVA in their report titled Planned Segregation by Miloon Kothari and Nasreen Contractor. Wounds are deep and time has been a healer in many ways. There is no political exigency now to kill and gain votes. Till that greed resurfaces, Jogeshwari enjoys its communal harmony, however fragile. THE BORDER >From Jogeshwari suburban station east you have to share an autorickshaw into Meghwadi. As you sit crushed in the back seat, the rickshaw careers through the narrow roads, past the large stinking nallah where some egrets search for food and down the slope into Meghwadi. The centre of the storm during the riots of January 1993, today "the border" as it's still called is relatively peaceful. The bloody riots only intensified that separation though bridges have been built over the years. As you get off the auto, the local Shiv Sena shakha greets you with giant posters of Uddhav Thackeray and saffron flags. Shops and vegetable vendors cram the "border" which splits the Hindu and Muslim dominated localities of this western suburb. It was in Gandhi chawl on Jogeshwari east that four persons were burnt alive, two died later on January 7, 1993. This led to the worst episode of rioting all over Mumbai. Today Gandhi chawl has been rebuilt and is the office of the NGO YUVA which bought it over since no one was willing to live here. Jogeshwari has witnessed repeated riots since 1964 in varying intensities and for the people who live there it is an uneasy backdrop to their existence. Yet things are changing and some efforts are being made to forge links among communities in the area. AAGAZ, SAHAR, AKANKSHA It's a Sunday morning and I am going to attend the inaugural function of a youth group called Aagaz. Sitaram Shelar from YUVA which has done extensive work in the area is there to meet me and make sure I don't get lost. We climb the trademark narrow staircase into the loft above a medical clinic and there is a large group of young people already gathered. The walls of the room are freshly painted and plastered with posters defining Aagaz. There is an expectant buzz before the formal inauguration and everyone looks justifiably proud. Sitaram, who also grew up in Jogeshwari and is a field convenor with YUVA, says that its work with the affected communities in the area and since 1998 with the youth has made a big difference. "We focus on some core issues like gender justice, civic issues, and livelihoods," says Sitaram. Many youth groups have sprung up in the area and are extremely active. Shaali Abdul Sheikh, one of the youngsters who has set up Aagaz says they started a year ago with a handful of members. "We wanted to do something for the youth and we have organised medical camps and after the serial train blasts on July 11, 2006, we had peace rallies. Aagaz means beginning," he points out with a smile. Shaali lives in Janata colony which is in Bandra plot, a predominantly Muslim dominated settlement. Now 22, Shaali was a kid when the riots broke out. "There was a feeling that Hindus and Muslims are separate entities. We lived in a ghetto surrounded by non Muslims, I had very few interactions with other communities," he says. His association with YUVA helped him meet many people and dispel a lot of his misgivings. "I used to worry about religion. We lived near the border and we had to shift inside for safety. We were kept at home as kids and rarely could we move out. Our parents used to worry," he said. After his association with YUVA he says he looked at people not as belonging to a particular religion but as human beings. "In Aagaz we have about 20 members from all communities. We run by private contributions and we want to bring a lot of changes. We don't want any more riots here," Shaali says firmly. Another organisation which has been working for a while in Jogeshwari is SAHAR(Society for awareness harmony and equal rights) in Jogeshwari run by Sheikh Masood Akhtar. The repeated riots in Jogeshwari already ensured the process of ghettoisation. After 1992-93 that process was complete and about five per cent of Hindus are left in this area, he said. The riots left a deep impact on those growing up seeing it. Again Akhtar was driven by the need to do something. "We had street plays on communal harmony, we began helping students with their school books and we also were part of the mohalla committee. Meetings were initiated between police and people as there was a lot of distrust." SAHAR held programmes like Diwali Milan to bring youth and police together. Another idea was to host sports meets so that children of Urdu and English medium schools would get a chance to compete with each and later even become friends. Now lack of funds is hampering this event. SAHAR has also held workshops to break down stereotypes with the help of International Association for Religious Freedom and also responds to various civic needs. Walking down the road from Aagaz you come to where the tenements end and a group of apartments have sprung up. Just before the end, is a large square building with Akanksha Seva Sangh painted across it. Set up by Shiv Sena corporator Ravindra Waikar 14 years ago, Akanksha functions as a Balwadi and has now branched out into working with women and helping them with credit and savings groups. Vasant Ambore of Akanksha says that the organisation also hosts melas, works with handicapped in the western suburbs and also with the youth. Though it worked mainly with Hindu communities in the area, for two years as part of another venture Samaj Sanshodhan Kendra, they interacted with other communities. "This started an exchange and after that if there is some problem we do get in touch and we sit together and sort out problems. Initially the police also had mohalla committees but that did not work," he said. Ambore says that since those riots many things have changed. He has also worked with Muslim youth in the area and mobilized them to form groups. There are some seven or eight groups now. "We understand the politics behind the riots and both sides feel this should not happen," he says. He was quite proud that Aagaz was set up with some of the youth he had worked with. It has members of different communities and the atmosphere is quite different now. Akanksha was set up in 1982 and since 1999 it functions as a balwadi. YUVA'S Community Resource Centre (CRC) worked in the area to bring together youth. Ambore used to stay on the border and though his house was damaged he did not move from there. He came across CRC and started attending their programmes. "I was attracted to the political meetings (called by the Sena) but I also went for meetings by YUVA and Salokha, which worked on communal harmony. I feel now I have a realistic picture of what happens. The Sena is not as radical as it used to be," he feels. Youth groups try to keep a balance between all parties instead of adhering to any single ideology. Both communities have found many common causes and the July 26 floods in 2005 was a case in point. "We come together on common issues and we have good relations in that sense," he says. Communal issues occupy very little time now maybe about 25 per cent of our work, he adds. There are some staunch Hindutva wadis but the earlier fervour has gone down, he feels. However politically people are divided and geographically too in many ways. Despite this there is an atmosphere of cooperation. At least for the moment. RABIA BI Communities who live there know fragile this peace can be. And the memories of those riots are very fresh for those who lost their loved ones. Rabia Apa or Rabiabi Ahmed Naik recalls the fear and terror of those times. She was among those actively involved in the peace efforts after the riots. Rabia came from a village in Deogad on the Konkan coast. She married her husband and has been living in Pascal colony since 1975. A housewife, Rabiabi was forced to come out of her house after her daughter's marriage broke up. "I started helping other people and during the riots I was among those who tried to broker peace and help the affected," she said. She remembers the eerie silence that fell over the slum after much of the violence had abated. "We had a Maharashtrian living in our lane- we did not let anything happen to that family," she said. However, many families left after the riots, making Pascal colony more of a Muslim pocket. Many Muslim families moved into the area and there was a lot of changing over. Rabia was among those who testified to police inaction and Sena's role in the riots before Justice Srikrishna. "I agree the attacks were on both sides but police sided with them" she said. "So many businesses were hit and it took so long for people to come back and get their lives on track. Now people can roam freely and there is no fear. The common person today understands that riots are not for them," she added. THE PAST AND PRESENT The riots are not something that Sadiqa Sheikh will ever forget. A few rooms away from Rabia's house, Sadiqa sits on the floor cutting vegetables. She earns a living by selling lunches and dinners to a few people. Her son Mohammed has appeared for the tenth standard and is waiting for his results. He stares at the television set. Mohammed was six months old when the riots broke. "I managed to educate him …sometimes I don't know how, At times some others paid my fees and once his school teachers saw me on TV and then they did not take any fees from me," Sadiqa said. "For a few years I did get money for school fees. Once I got Rs 2600 and then Rs 3500 but after that nothing. I had to run around so much making affidavits after my husband died." She was married in 1991 and her husband was a tailor who used to work in a factory. "I can never forgive the police, they shot my husband deliberately- he was just standing outside." Behind where she lives is Shankarwadi- the police aimed their guns through broken toilet windows. "I don't want to spoil my son s life by making him work. I want to educate him and make something out of him," she said. Her husband was among the four men shot dead in that area. Sadiqa has spent her life after the riots working from home to make ends meet. She used to deliver milk early morning, do odd jobs and now she makes tiffins which her son delivers. She stays with her husband's brothers who want to throw her out of house. Her mother- in- law was good to her and she kept pleading to be allowed to stay on till her son did his schooling. Now that has come to an end. "They say I got Rs two lakhs as compensation and now I should get out of this house and live some where else. Where will I go," she asked. Looking at Sadiqa in her early thirties, and the way she has managed to put her life back on track, well almost, I think she will come up with a new survival strategy. Ends/ -- Meena -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070613/a3e96b85/attachment.html From adityarajkaul at gmail.com Thu Jun 14 10:37:08 2007 From: adityarajkaul at gmail.com (Aditya Raj Kaul) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:37:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] ...And The World Remained Silent, 20th June - World Refugee Day Message-ID: Dear Friends, As you are aware that 20th June is observed as World Refugee Day.In order to mark this day,Roots in Kashmir(An Initiative of Kashmiri Youth)is screening the critically acclaimed documentary titled "And the World Remained Silent" The screening shall be followed by a panel discussion on the topic "Why the Nation Remains Silent".The panelists shall include Swapan Das Gupta(Eminent Journalist),Vivek Tankha(Noted Criminal Lawyer),Zafar Meraj(Freelance Journalist and Kashmir Expert),Dr.Agnishekhar(Convenor-Panun Kashmir) and Sandhya Jain(Intellectual and Columnist). We request your presence at the screening. Cards/Passes shall be available at the venue itself. *Venue*: *Main Auditorium, Sri Satya Sai International Centre,Pragati Vihar,Lodhi Road Date:20th June,07 Time:6.30 PM * For more details please visit our blog http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com Looking forward to seeing you at the screening. Thanks and Regards ** *-- Aditya Raj Kaul Blog: **www.kauladityaraj.blogspot.com* *Website: **www.adityarajkaul.tk* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070614/d9d87a9b/attachment.html From cahen.x at levels9.com Fri Jun 15 00:58:04 2007 From: cahen.x at levels9.com (xavier cahen) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:28:04 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] pourinfos Newsletter / 14-06 to 21-06-2007 Message-ID: <467196C4.8000904@levels9.com> pourinfos.org l'actualité du monde de l'art / daily Art news ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >From Wenesday June 14, 2007 to Wenesday June 21 2007 (included) ------------------------------------------------------------------- (mostly in french) @ 001 (14/06/2007) Publication: new Neural mag (#27) Neural.it celebrates 10 years of activity! neural.it, Bari, Italy. http://pourinfos.org/art-35005-tit--new-Neural-mag-27-Neural-it-celebrates -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 002 (14/06/2007) Publication: Livraison #8, "traduire", Edition rhinoceros, Strasbourg, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35006-tit--Livraison-8-traduire-edition -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 003 (14/06/2007) Publication: Hz #10, Fylkingen' S newspaper, Stockholm, Sweden. http://pourinfos.org/art-35007-tit--Hz-10-Fylkingen-s-journal-Stockholm- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 004 (14/06/2007) Publication: Etc, no 78 « Écologie/Ecology (2) » revue trimestrielle de l’art actuel, Montreal, Canada. http://pourinfos.org/art-35008-tit--ETC-no-78-Ecologie-Ecology-2-revue -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 005 (14/06/2007) Publication: Fabriques de la danse, Simon Hecquet et Sabine Prokhoris, Edition PUF, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35009-tit--Fabriques-de-la-danse-Simon-Hecquet-et -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 006 (14/06/2007) Publication: Cimaise n°286, Fabre, Bilal, Klasen, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35010-tit--Cimaise-n-286-Fabre-Bilal-Klasen- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 007 (14/06/2007) Publication : “The psychoanalysis of Guy Overflow by Freud” ("La psychanalyse de Guy Debord par Freud") de David Legrand et Philippe Zunino, Collection Electrons libres, édition 68 Septante asbl, Bruxelles Belgique. http://pourinfos.org/art-35011-tit--La-psychanalyse-de-Guy-Debord-par-Freud- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 008 (14/06/2007) Various: Plug in, platform of production and promotion of artistic projects multimedia, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35012-tit-Divers-Plug-in-plateforme-de-production -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 009 (14/06/2007) Call: art project and new media, Interlligence, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35013-tit--projet-art-et-nouveaux-medias- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 010 (14/06/2007) Call: INTERVAL07, Turnstile - Single Use, Manchester, United Kingdom. http://pourinfos.org/art-35014-tit--INTERVAL07-Turnstile-Single-Use- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 011 (14/06/2007) Call: Goldsmiths Digital Studios, University of London, London, United Kingdom. http://pourinfos.org/art-35015-tit--Goldsmiths-Digital-Studios-University-of -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 012 (14/06/2007) Call: call for submissions: slide show lecture/video, Virginia Beach, Usa. http://pourinfos.org/art-35016-tit--call-for-submissions-slide-show -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 013 (14/06/2007) Call: Diesel New Art 2007, Desiel Denim, New-York, Usa. http://pourinfos.org/art-35017-tit--Diesel-New-Art-2007-Desiel-Denim- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 014 (14/06/2007) Call: « Croisées d’artistes 2007 », Empreinte directe, Saint-Denis, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35018-tit--Croisees-d-artistes-2007-Empreinte -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 015 (14/06/2007) Call: AGON, 7th International Meeting of Archaeological Film of the Mediterranean Area, Athen, Greece. http://pourinfos.org/art-35019-tit--AGON-7th-International-Meeting-of -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 016 (14/06/2007) Call: professional artists and students in school of art, Pontault-Combault, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35020-tit--artistes-professionnels-et-etudiants-en -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 017 (14/06/2007) Call: Call for short video works, The Consequence, Glasgow, United Kingdom. http://pourinfos.org/art-35021-tit--Call-for-short-video-works-The -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 018 (14/06/2007) Call: Dessinateurs Anonymes 7 , blütenweiss, Berlin, Germany. http://pourinfos.org/art-35022-tit--Dessinateurs-Anonymes-7-blutenweiss- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 019 (14/06/2007) Call: Les Inattendus, Festival de films (très) indépendants, Festival of films (very) independent, 6th edition, Lyon, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35023-tit-s-Les-Inattendus-Festival-de-films-tres- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 020 (19/06/2007) Meetings: Seminar Program, Working in Public: Art, Quality and Imperfection , 19 and 20 June 2007, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Royaume Uni. http://pourinfos.org/art-34977-tit--Seminar-Program-Working-in-Public-Art- -- XAVIER CAHEN -------------- cahen.x at levels9.com Paris France http://www.levels9.com _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From shafiawani at gmail.com Thu Jun 14 16:53:28 2007 From: shafiawani at gmail.com (Shafia Wani) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:53:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Independent Fellowship Posting IV Message-ID: <41eea6080706140423o8d46171v7881eab2b0e98096@mail.gmail.com> * * Dear Vivek, Am sending my fourth posting for the SARAI Independent Fellowship. ** *Uncommon; Common Narratives.* Apart from the earlier narratives that we have detailed there are some common place though yet uncommon narratives of women that that are increasingly available that show that a desire to engage in original endeavors and enterprises is not only a phenomenon that is limited to a few relatively well recognized women but that other women , lesser known also in their own way have explored the possibility to expand and explore spaces that offer them what they see is an opportunity to fulfill their creative and productive urges. One such common narrative is that of forty years old Shameema Mir an energetic and feisty middle aged lady who comes from a middle class family in Srinagar. Her parents married her very early on when she was just 22 and had just finished her graduate studies. She always had the desire and the determination to start out on her own, what she wanted is a business enterprise that she would manage independently. She did her MA in education soon after she finished her graduation from the University of Kashmir. Her marriage though put a stop to her ambitions of starting out on her own. She barely managed to finish her studies while at the same time managing the household and caring for and bringing up her children. Her husband who is a senior executive in a large handicraft house of the valley was not very encouraging of this prospect as well. * * As well in general terms, it was something that that women did not engage in at that point in time, a woman entrepreneur was unheard of. Shamima had to wait a long time, before she could even begin to think of starting out.* *But this did not mean that she lost her drive and the desire to be a successful entrepreneur. She always kept her sights on it and she would promise herself that one day she would fulfill her desire. And then a time came and she took the initiative and went ahead and started a business enterprise, she registered and set up a company where she herself and many people are working including other women. It is a business venture that few would normally associate with a woman, the general idea of the woman entrepreneur is that of the fashion designer or the interior designer or the boutique owner. Shamima has laid these stereotypical images of the woman business entrepreneur to rest. Her company, R.S. Agricultural and Horticultural Products deals in the distribution of modern agricultural, gardening machines and equipments. She has started out well and is expecting substantial orders for these equipments to flow in not only from private individuals, farmers and landowners but from institutional sales as well. On what was it that actually stopped her from doing what she wanted for so long, in her characteristic feisty manner she says, "my husband was very possessive about me. He never let me explore the things that I wanted to do, but now things are different. As my children grew they became my support. The attitude of my husband have also changed by now. But I had to wait for this till I was forty. If a person has desire, passion, dedication to accomplish one's goal in my opinion age is no bar for this. I started at the age of forty" This is not all; Shameema was recently elected the vice president of a new Delhi based non governmental organization called the Asian Eurasian Human Rights Forum, this organization works for the promotion and protection of human rights of all especially of the people caught up in conflict situations in any part of India. The focus is to draw inspiration from the clauses of United Nations Human Rights Charter and the protocols of its various subsidiary bodies as these are based on the principles of Universal judgement.The basic aim is to improve the quality of life of citizens of the society. The organization undertakes guidance, assistance, support and dissemination of information in educational, health and environmental spheres also. The organization worked for Tsunami relief and also in earthquake relief to the victims in Poonch, Mendhar and Uri sectors of J&K State. Shamima was actively involved in most of these interventions of her organization. Shamima's association with this initiative also reveals another aspect of her personality; that she not only seeks to see herself managing a successful business enterprise but at the same time seeks to engage herself with welfare initiatives. She brings her irrepressible attitude and energy to this work as well. For her colleagues in the Forum she is source of constant enthusiasm and inspiration. In keeping with these commitments she divides her time between Srinagarwhere she runs her business, Delhi and Chennai where her daughter and son are pursuing higher studies. Shamima's story then also shows how geographical barriers and the idea of the mofussil identity are being reworked for and by an increasing number of women. These women are seeking to engage with opportunities and movements that bring creative and productive satisfaction to their own selves. As we see all this is not at the cost of either family or ones traditions. There is an elaborate negotiation within that makes sure that this engagement is not contrary to ones rooted ness in ones culture and place. Shamima's story has some very interesting observations on the sense of how only a decade back there was lesser freedom for women to be able to explore their potentialities and as well how Shameema had to actually fulfill the traditional role of the householder and it was only when she was older, her children having grown up and she had in a manner of speaking fulfilled a large part of her societal mandated role. It was only then she was able to and felt the freedom to do what she had always wanted to. Another factor that lent her support was her children who as they grew older also formed a support base for her within the family. Another common narrative is that of twenty four year old Saba, a girl from a business family of Kashmir who is pursuing her master's course in management (MBA) through University of Kashmir. She is a bubbly girl with great energy about her, she has a very positive attitude and despite the fact that her choosing business management as her career brought much opposition she stuck it out and not only does she nurture a desire to work for the best companies but later in life, much like Shamima has done to start a business enterprise of her own. But her definition of success is not limited to a personal vision of a happy personal life but it encompasses a concern for what happens about and around her and an acute desire to contribute to the happiness of other people as well. Saba is yet very young but has very strong opinions and displays an informed understanding of issues in general and especially issues that affect women. She thinks that her independence in her decisions; be it about career, life or any other thing- is an accomplishment for her. Being only of age 24, she feels that there is still a lot that needs to be achieved. But being financially independent is something that she feels she needs to achieve on priority. This kind of an emphasis on financial independence shows an appreciation and understanding of the benefits that an economic production position in society and family can bring. This is increasingly the case with the younger women who increasingly define themselves vis a vis their position in the family but also with reference to the work they do. This appreciation of the value of economic agency and the benefits it brings is something that has been long in the coming to this part of the world but is increasingly making its presence felt and the social setup at large also recognizes the value that such an agency can bring. Also this is then something that feeds into a say for the woman in the crucial decisions of family and society as well. Saba thinks that it is usually hard for women to assert themselves and be able to do the things that they really want, but if one is convinced of the soundness of one's decision and determination then nothing can stop one from getting there. She has strong reservations about the typical portrayal of the woman especially in patriarchal setups and is a very strong advocate of an active agency for women, She says, "I believe if every woman starts taking care of herself, there is no need of any other person to take care of hers. Every women needs to be independent" but on the other hand she has a very balanced understanding of what the issues of change for women entails, she believes that positive change is taking place but, "Only for some women. Not all the women are lucky…… just by looking at the bunch of successful women, we can't deny the plight of women at large" and so for her the dream of universal empowerment is distant but not impossible. It is something that still requires a lot of work. "More women are getting educated and are aware of their rights. Besides this they are more ambitious and passionate about their goals in life. Women are fighting for equality and this dream is not distant, it is for every woman to actualize it" * * As said earlier she displays an acute understanding of the dynamics of empowerment in the society around her, she holds that "There is much hue and cry about empowering women. But does the society really want to empower women? In our society people are becoming more liberal, supporting women but at the same time not giving them the actual power. They make the women act like puppets" This is an active and passionate defense of the rights of women and an understanding that what women need to fight for are substantive rights not superficial pronouncements about their rights that are doled out every now and then. Young women like Saba are then a sign for the future. A future that is being negotiated in this present by women like Shamima. Commenting on instances like this Mr. Bashir Ahmad Dabla, one of the most recognized sociologists of the state says that the role of women has changed; over the past two decades education and employment have meant greater emancipation for women. With the benefits of education reaching them, women are now increasingly independent. Their independence has led to attitudinal changes in the women but these changes are within the culturally accepted domain. Women have been able to change her status within and outside the family. The crucial point to note is that the change works in a two fold manner. Work and employment brings about an economic independence and education brings about a complementary change in attitudes. These two factors are then at the center of how the roles of women have seen a dramatic change over the past two decades. The conflict of the past many years meant that the situation did not progress well for along time towards the emancipation of women. But the changes over the world have begun to show their presence here as well. Commonplace stories like these are on the increase where women have demonstrated potential against great odds and have transformed those conditions of their lives not only for themselves but for others as well. What appears over the narratives that are being constructed is the constant desire to creatively engage with the world and with work, not to be cocooned into living a life that does not test one's potential. This is the emerging leitmotif. The manner in which roles of women are changing are yet emerging and the way they are perceived by the larger society are yet emerging. There is generally speaking a tradition of not only accommodation in the local cultural space with respect to the altered roles that women have, but an active appreciation of the need of an increased and active agency that women should have. The greater access to education and the economic benefits that it brings has over time also translated to a realization of not only the economic benefits of education but intellectual, artistic/creative benefits as well. This cultural space of accommodation though has its own domain within which women engage themselves. This cultural domain though does not act as a limitation to any pursuit that one might engage in but rather gives direction, meaning and context to that particular pursuit and in many cases actively informs it. This is what will reveal itself as subsequent narratives are submitted and the earlier ones are further developed to lead on to a discovery of the leading themes of this research. *Ends * Warm Regards, Shafia Wani -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070614/f4e74a1a/attachment.html From aisiyer at gmail.com Thu Jun 14 14:50:50 2007 From: aisiyer at gmail.com (Aishwarya Iyer) Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:50:50 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <47e122a70706111141m64dde289kc55fe7f96ffb3951@mail.gmail.com> References: <47e122a70706111141m64dde289kc55fe7f96ffb3951@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On the other hand, I totally stand by François Gautier's view of Hussain's hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own religion in this manner? Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must recognise its sister, responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for instance, and invited the fatwa upon himself. He was conscious of his own transgression, but Hussain did it for cheap thrills. It is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a trap. Aishwarya On 6/12/07, inder salim wrote: > > It is very interesting to see how one can unwittinlgly fall in a trap... > > You begin to criticize the politicians for all the ills in India... > and also highlight the fact that they are terrible manipulators... > fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts choice for being > creative.... and forget the the fact that the politicians are ther > real culprits...( if they only are ) > > for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i can quote Salman Rushdie > for you > > There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not provoke, it is > meaningless... > > with love > indersalim > > > > Democracy Hijacked > > François Gautier > > Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven by > the lust for power are destroying all that is good and > true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at and > persecuted while Government is busy devising ways and > means of dividing the nation along caste and communal > lines > > India prides itself as the greatest democracy in the > world. But actually, there are very few places where > democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. Nothing > demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring going on > at the moment to find India 's next President. > > President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular > President in the history of India . Yet he will not be > re-elected, because he was the people's President and > not a stooge of political parties. > > Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive > him, as he was the one who stopped her from becoming > Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of his > chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two > passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for many > years (she is not the only foreigner who did so after > obtaining Indian citizenship). > > Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously because, > although he is a true Muslim, he respects other > religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita and > Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus Mayawati, > partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away from > him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did not > always do its bidding. > > How else is democracy perverted in India ? > > Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which has > been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, > came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh > Assembly election, and sprung to power at the Centre > by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra > Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . > > Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment and is > dividing India more and more along caste and religion > lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - > witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. > > You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities > -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an > elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules as > the supreme leader of this country, one whose word can > make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be > possible for an Indian to become a de facto President > or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? > Absolutely not! > > Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak man, > is not elected: He was defeated the last time he > contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from > Assam , where he has no roots at all. > > Democracy in India has also been hijacked by cynical > mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of the > Muslims; who remain the most backward community in > India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen > Congress Governments since Independence; and how to > manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share of > benefits and have had one of them as President and > many of whom are politicians in power. > > Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical > mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = > Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the > Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did in > her three previous stints as Chief Minister? > > It seems doubtful, the way she has started, wasting > hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous projects, > including the Special Economic Zones and transferring > hundreds of officials. > > In the name of freedom of expression, Indian > intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who > denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. Would > he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? > Certainly not! > > When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish newspaper > - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's derogatory > portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world erupts in > flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would > have been dead today. > > Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV or > publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's > derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely available > and have been reproduced in a coffee table book > sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi Modi. > > > India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by clever > lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, > thanks to judges who go by the book without adapting > their judgements to the Indian context, or by bribing > witnesses as has been allegedly done in the BMW case. > But poor people go to jail and it takes seven years to > get a case cleared. > > India's socialist system, which is still enforced, > pretends to tax the rich to subsidise the poor. But in > reality, the rich have smart chartered accountants who > twist the law, while the less fortunate have to pay > taxes on small savings and salaries. And, of course, > most of this money never reaches the destitute. > > Finally, here you have a country of 850 million > Hindus, a billion worldwide, one of the most tolerant, > law-abiding communities in the world. Yet, Hindus in > India are made fun of and their beliefs riled at. They > are persecuted, as the four lakh Kashmiri Pandits have > been, without raising finger in defence - their men > hanged, women raped, children disembowelled. They have > become refugees in their own country and the media is > mostly silent. > > Yes democracy is needed, and a free and democratic > India definitely has (in the long run) an advantage on > an undemocratic China . But the way things are going > now, India seems on the verge of losing all that is > good and true and valuable within the nation, thanks > to cynical and self-serving politicians. > > Cry O my Beloved India . Look at what Thy children are > doing to Thee. > > > > -- > > http://indersalim.livejournal.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/> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070614/0600f096/attachment.html From sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in Fri Jun 15 12:37:47 2007 From: sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in (S Fatima) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 08:07:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Aishwarya Hussain may or may not have indulged in a hypocracy (about not portraying his own religious icons), but I think the greater hypocracy of most artists (including Rushdie) is to disconnect from the people/masses who ultimately oppose their "blasphemous" art. Our artists makes billions of dollars selling their paintings to the elite, but never make an effort to spread awareness among the masses about what their art is all about, or why do they paint a deity in the nude. They just assume that if the people do not appreciate their art, it is people's fault, not the artist's. If our education system had taught us how to appreciate good art, how to read a painting, we probably would have less of incidents such as the recent one at Baroda art college. It is the elite of this country that is mostly responsible for the growing intolerence among the people. Husain or Rushdie or Tasleema Nasreen are not hiding in foreign lands because of a threat to their lives, but because they can't come to the street to explian why they wrote or painted what they did. --- Aishwarya Iyer wrote: > On the other hand, I totally stand by François > Gautier's view of Hussain's > hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own > religion in this manner? > Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must > recognise its sister, > responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for > instance, and invited the fatwa > upon himself. He was conscious of his own > transgression, but Hussain did it > for cheap thrills. > > It is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a > trap. > > Aishwarya > > > On 6/12/07, inder salim > wrote: > > > > It is very interesting to see how one can > unwittinlgly fall in a trap... > > > > You begin to criticize the politicians for all the > ills in India... > > and also highlight the fact that they are terrible > manipulators... > > fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts > choice for being > > creative.... and forget the the fact that the > politicians are ther > > real culprits...( if they only are ) > > > > for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i > can quote Salman Rushdie > > for you > > > > There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not > provoke, it is > > meaningless... > > > > with love > > indersalim > > > > > > > > Democracy Hijacked > > > > François Gautier > > > > Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven > by > > the lust for power are destroying all that is good > and > > true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at > and > > persecuted while Government is busy devising ways > and > > means of dividing the nation along caste and > communal > > lines > > > > India prides itself as the greatest democracy in > the > > world. But actually, there are very few places > where > > democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. > Nothing > > demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring > going on > > at the moment to find India 's next President. > > > > President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular > > President in the history of India . Yet he will > not be > > re-elected, because he was the people's President > and > > not a stooge of political parties. > > > > Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive > > him, as he was the one who stopped her from > becoming > > Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of > his > > chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two > > passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for > many > > years (she is not the only foreigner who did so > after > > obtaining Indian citizenship). > > > > Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously > because, > > although he is a true Muslim, he respects other > > religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita > and > > Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus > Mayawati, > > partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away > from > > him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did > not > > always do its bidding. > > > > How else is democracy perverted in India ? > > > > Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which > has > > been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, > > came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh > > Assembly election, and sprung to power at the > Centre > > by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra > > Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . > > > > Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment > and is > > dividing India more and more along caste and > religion > > lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - > > witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. > > > > You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities > > -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an > > elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules > as > > the supreme leader of this country, one whose word > can > > make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be > > possible for an Indian to become a de facto > President > > or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? > > Absolutely not! > > > > Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak > man, > > is not elected: He was defeated the last time he > > contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP > from > > Assam , where he has no roots at all. > > > > Democracy in India has also been hijacked by > cynical > > mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of > the > > Muslims; who remain the most backward community in > > India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen > > Congress Governments since Independence; and how > to > > manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share > of > > benefits and have had one of them as President and > > many of whom are politicians in power. > > > > Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical > > mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = > > Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the > > Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did > in > > her three previous stints as Chief Minister? > > > > It seems doubtful, the way she has started, > wasting > > hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous > projects, > > including the Special Economic Zones and > transferring > > hundreds of officials. > > > > In the name of freedom of expression, Indian > > intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who > > denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. > Would > > he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? > > Certainly not! > > > > When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish > newspaper > > - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's > derogatory > > portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world > erupts in > > flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would > > have been dead today. > > > > Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV > or > > publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's > > derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely > available > > and have been reproduced in a coffee table book > > sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi > Modi. > > > > > > India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by > clever > > lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, > > thanks to judges who go by the book without > adapting > === 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. > To unsubscribe: > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at in.groups.yahoo.com From janicepariat at gmail.com Fri Jun 15 12:54:03 2007 From: janicepariat at gmail.com (Janice Pariat) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:54:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] postmodernism disrobed Message-ID: <72cca7600706150024r200f6a23r66bc2705d44b1afd@mail.gmail.com> interesting..... Postmodernism disrobed by Richard Dawkins [Published in Nature, 9 July 1998, vol. 394, pp. 141-143.] Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont Profile: 1998. Pp. 274. £9.99 To be published in the USA by Picador as Fashionable Nonsense in November 1998 Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content. The chances are that you would produce something like the following: We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their expansion: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously. This is a quotation from the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, one of many fashionable French 'intellectuals' outed by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont in their splendid book Intellectual Impostures, previously published in French and now released in a completely rewritten and revised English edition. Guattari goes on indefinitely in this vein and offers, in the opinion of Sokal and Bricmont, "the most brilliant mélange of scientific, pseudo-scientific and philosophical jargon that we have ever encountered". Guattari's close collaborator, the late Gilles Deleuze, had a similar talent for writing: In the first place, singularities-events correspond to heterogeneous series which are organized into a system which is neither stable nor unstable, but rather 'metastable', endowed with a potential energy wherein the differences between series are distributed... In the second place, singularities possess a process of auto-unification, always mobile and displaced to the extent that a paradoxical element traverses the series and makes them resonate, enveloping the corresponding singular points in a single aleatory point and all the emissions, all dice throws, in a single cast. This calls to mind Peter Medawar's earlier characterization of a certain type of French intellectual style (note, in passing, the contrast offered by Medawar's own elegant and clear prose): Style has become an object of first importance, and what a style it is! For me it has a prancing, high-stepping quality, full of self-importance; elevated indeed, but in the balletic manner, and stopping from time to time in studied attitudes, as if awaiting an outburst of applause. It has had a deplorable influence on the quality of modern thought... Returning to attack the same targets from another angle, Medawar says: I could quote evidence of the beginnings of a whispering campaign against the virtues of clarity. A writer on structuralism in the Times Literary Supplement has suggested that thoughts which are confused and tortuous by reason of their profundity are most appropriately expressed in prose that is deliberately unclear. What a preposterously silly idea! I am reminded of an air-raid warden in wartime Oxford who, when bright moonlight seemed to be defeating the spirit of the blackout, exhorted us to wear dark glasses. He, however, was being funny on purpose. This is from Medawar's 1968 lecture on "Science and Literature", reprinted in Pluto's Republic (Oxford University Press, 1982). Since Medawar's time, the whispering campaign has raised its voice. Deleuze and Guattari have written and collaborated on books described by the celebrated Michel Foucault as "among the greatest of the great... Some day, perhaps, the century will be Deleuzian." Sokal and Bricmont, however, think otherwise: "These texts contain a handful of intelligible sentences -- sometimes banal, sometimes erroneous -- and we have commented on some of them in the footnotes. For the rest, we leave it to the reader to judge." But it's tough on the reader. No doubt there exist thoughts so profound that most of us will not understand the language in which they are expressed. And no doubt there is also language designed to be unintelligible in order to conceal an absence of honest thought. But how are we to tell the difference? What if it really takes an expert eye to detect whether the emperor has clothes? In particular, how shall we know whether the modish French 'philosophy', whose disciples and exponents have all but taken over large sections of American academic life, is genuinely profound or the vacuous rhetoric of mountebanks and charlatans? Sokal and Bricmont are professors of physics at, respectively, New York University and the University of Louvain in Belgium. They have limited their critique to those books that have ventured to invoke concepts from physics and mathematics. Here they know what they are talking about, and their verdict is unequivocal. On Jacques Lacan, for example, whose name is revered by many in humanities departments throughout US and British universities, no doubt partly because he simulates a profound understanding of mathematics: ... although Lacan uses quite a few key words from the mathematical theory of compactness, he mixes them up arbitrarily and without the slightest regard for their meaning. His 'definition' of compactness is not just false: it is gibberish. They go on to quote the following remarkable piece of reasoning by Lacan: Thus, by calculating that signification according to the algebraic method used here, namely: You don't have to be a mathematician to see that this is ridiculous. It recalls the Aldous Huxley character who proved the existence of God by dividing zero into a number, thereby deriving the infinite. In a further piece of reasoning that is entirely typical of the genre, Lacan goes on to conclude that the erectile organ ... is equivalent to the of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (-1). We do not need the mathematical expertise of Sokal and Bricmont to assure us that the author of this stuff is a fake. Perhaps he is genuine when he speaks of non-scientific subjects? But a philosopher who is caught equating the erectile organ to the square root of minus one has, for my money, blown his credentials when it comes to things that I don't know anything about. The feminist 'philosopher' Luce Irigaray is another who gets whole-chapter treatment from Sokal and Bricmont. In a passage reminiscent of a notorious feminist description of Newton's Principia (a "rape manual"), Irigaray argues that E=mc2 is a "sexed equation". Why? Because "it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us" (my emphasis of what I am rapidly coming to learn is an 'in' word). Just as typical of this school of thought is Irigaray's thesis on fluid mechanics. Fluids, you see, have been unfairly neglected. "Masculine physics" privileges rigid, solid things. Her American expositor Katherine Hayles made the mistake of re-expressing Irigaray's thoughts in (comparatively) clear language. For once, we get a reasonably unobstructed look at the emperor and, yes, he has no clothes: The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all, she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids... From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence. The problem of turbulent flow cannot be solved because the conceptions of fluids (and of women) have been formulated so as necessarily to leave unarticulated remainders. You do not have to be a physicist to smell out the daffy absurdity of this kind of argument (the tone of it has become all too familiar), but it helps to have Sokal and Bricmont on hand to tell us the real reason why turbulent flow is a hard problem: the Navier-Stokes equations are difficult to solve. In similar manner, Sokal and Bricmont expose Bruno Latour's confusion of relativity with relativism, Jean-François Lyotard's 'post-modern science', and the widespread and predictable misuses of Gödel's Theorem, quantum theory and chaos theory. The renowned Jean Baudrillard is only one of many to find chaos theory a useful tool for bamboozling readers. Once again, Sokal and Bricmont help us by analysing the tricks being played. The following sentence, "though constructed from scientific terminology, is meaningless from a scientific point of view": Perhaps history itself has to be regarded as a chaotic formation, in which acceleration puts an end to linearity and the turbulence created by acceleration deflects history definitively from its end, just as such turbulence distances effects from their causes. I won't quote any more, for, as Sokal and Bricmont say, Baudrillard's text "continues in a gradual crescendo of nonsense". They again call attention to "the high density of scientific and pseudo-scientific terminology -- inserted in sentences that are, as far as we can make out, devoid of meaning". Their summing up of Baudrillard could stand for any of the authors criticized here and lionized throughout America: In summary, one finds in Baudrillard's works a profusion of scientific terms, used with total disregard for their meaning and, above all, in a context where they are manifestly irrelevant. Whether or not one interprets them as metaphors, it is hard to see what role they could play, except to give an appearance of profundity to trite observations about sociology or history. Moreover, the scientific terminology is mixed up with a non-scientific vocabulary that is employed with equal sloppiness. When all is said and done, one wonders what would be left of Baudrillard's thought if the verbal veneer covering it were stripped away. But don't the postmodernists claim only to be 'playing games'? Isn't the whole point of their philosophy that anything goes, there is no absolute truth, anything written has the same status as anything else, and no point of view is privileged? Given their own standards of relative truth, isn't it rather unfair to take them to task for fooling around with word games, and playing little jokes on readers? Perhaps, but one is then left wondering why their writings are so stupefyingly boring. Shouldn't games at least be entertaining, not po-faced, solemn and pretentious? More tellingly, if they are only joking, why do they react with such shrieks of dismay when somebody plays a joke at their expense? The genesis of Intellectual Impostures was a brilliant hoax perpetrated by Sokal, and the stunning success of his coup was not greeted with the chuckles of delight that one might have hoped for after such a feat of deconstructive game playing. Apparently, when you've become the establishment, it ceases to be funny when someone punctures the established bag of wind. As is now rather well known, in 1996 Sokal submitted to the US journal Social Text a paper called "Transgressing the boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity" . From start to finish the paper was nonsense. It was a carefully crafted parody of postmodern metatwaddle. Sokal was inspired to do this by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt's Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), an important book that deserves to become as well known in Britain as it is in the United States. Hardly able to believe what he read in this book, Sokal followed up the references to postmodern literature, and found that Gross and Levitt did not exaggerate. He resolved to do something about it. In the words of the journalist Gary Kamiya: Anyone who has spent much time wading through the pious, obscurantist, jargon-filled cant that now passes for 'advanced' thought in the humanities knew it was bound to happen sooner or later: some clever academic, armed with the not-so-secret passwords ('hermeneutics,' 'transgressive,' 'Lacanian,' 'hegemony', to name but a few) would write a completely bogus paper, submit it to an au courant journal, and have it accepted... Sokal's piece uses all the right terms. It cites all the best people. It whacks sinners (white men, the 'real world'), applauds the virtuous (women, general metaphysical lunacy)... And it is complete, unadulterated bullshit -- a fact that somehow escaped the attention of the high-powered editors of Social Text, who must now be experiencing that queasy sensation that afflicted the Trojans the morning after they pulled that nice big gift horse into their city. Sokal's paper must have seemed a gift to the editors because this was a physicist saying all the right-on things they wanted to hear, attacking the 'post-Enlightenment hegemony' and such uncool notions as the existence of the real world. They didn't know that Sokal had also crammed his paper with egregious scientific howlers, of a kind that any referee with an undergraduate degree in physics would instantly have detected. It was sent to no such referee. The editors, Andrew Ross and others, were satisfied that its ideology conformed to their own, and were perhaps flattered by references to their own works. This ignominious piece of editing rightly earned them the 1996 Ig Nobel prize for literature. Notwithstanding the egg all over their faces, and despite their feminist pretensions, these editors are dominant males in the academic establishment. Ross has the boorish, tenured confidence to say things like, "I am glad to be rid of English departments. I hate literature, for one thing, and English departments tend to be full of people who love literature"; and the yahooish complacency to begin a book on 'science studies' with these words: "This book is dedicated to all of the science teachers I never had. It could only have been written without them." He and his fellow 'cultural studies' and 'science studies' barons are not harmless eccentrics at third-rate state colleges. Many of them have tenured professorships at some of the best universities in the United States. Men of this kind sit on appointment committees, wielding power over young academics who might secretly aspire to an honest academic career in literary studies or, say, anthropology. I know -- because many of them have told me -- that there are sincere scholars out there who would speak out if they dared, but who are intimidated into silence. To them, Sokal will appear as a hero, and nobody with a sense of humour or a sense of justice will disagree. It helps, by the way, although it is strictly irrelevant, that his own left-wing credentials are impeccable. In a detailed post-mortem of his famous hoax, submitted to Social Text but predictably rejected by them and published elsewhere, Sokal notes that, in addition to numerous half-truths, falsehoods and non sequiturs, his original article contained some "syntactically correct sentences that have no meaning whatsoever". He regrets that there were not more of these: "I tried hard to produce them, but I found that, save for rare bursts of inspiration, I just didn't have the knack." If he were writing his parody today, he would surely be helped by a virtuoso piece of computer programming by Andrew Bulhak of Melbourne, Australia: the Postmodernism Generator. Every time you visit it, at http://www.cs.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/postmodern, it will spontaneously generate for you, using faultless grammatical principles, a spanking new postmodern discourse, never before seen. I have just been there, and it produced for me a 6,000-word article called "Capitalist theory and the subtextual paradigm of context" by "David I. L.Werther and Rudolf du Garbandier of the Department of English, Cambridge University" (poetic justice there, for it was Cambridge that saw fit to give Jacques Derrida an honorary degree). Here is a typical passage from this impressively erudite work: If one examines capitalist theory, one is faced with a choice: either reject neotextual materialism or conclude that society has objective value. If dialectic desituationism holds, we have to choose between Habermasian discourse and the subtextual paradigm of context. It could be said that the subject is contextualised into a textual nationalism that includes truth as a reality. In a sense, the premise of the subtextual paradigm of context states that reality comes from the collective unconscious. Visit the Postmodernism Generator. It is a literally infinite source of randomly generated, syntactically correct nonsense, distinguishable from the real thing only in being more fun to read. You could generate thousands of papers per day, each one unique and ready for publication, complete with numbered endnotes. Manuscripts should be submitted to the 'Editorial Collective' of Social Text, double-spaced and in triplicate. As for the harder task of reclaiming US literary departments for genuine scholars, Sokal and Bricmont have joined Gross and Levitt in giving a friendly and sympathetic lead from the world of science. We must hope that it will be followed. -- not all who wander are lost Tolkien From jeebesh at sarai.net Fri Jun 15 14:34:04 2007 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:34:04 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: References: <47e122a70706111141m64dde289kc55fe7f96ffb3951@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9F741E18-C832-4A7B-9648-05B2EA71F390@sarai.net> How do you know that Hussian is not a Hindu? :-) On 14-Jun-07, at 2:50 PM, Aishwarya Iyer wrote: > On the other hand, I totally stand by François Gautier's view of > Hussain's hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own religion in > this manner? Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must > recognise its sister, responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for > instance, and invited the fatwa upon himself. He was conscious of > his own transgression, but Hussain did it for cheap thrills. It > is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a trap. Aishwarya > > On 6/12/07, inder salim wrote: It is very > interesting to see how one can unwittinlgly fall in a trap... > > You begin to criticize the politicians for all the ills in India... > and also highlight the fact that they are terrible manipulators... > fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts choice for being > creative.... and forget the the fact that the politicians are ther > real culprits...( if they only are ) > > for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i can quote Salman > Rushdie for you > > There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not provoke, it is > meaningless... > > with love > indersalim > > > > Democracy Hijacked > > François Gautier > > Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven by > the lust for power are destroying all that is good and > true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at and > persecuted while Government is busy devising ways and > means of dividing the nation along caste and communal > lines > > India prides itself as the greatest democracy in the > world. But actually, there are very few places where > democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. Nothing > demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring going on > at the moment to find India 's next President. > > President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular > President in the history of India . Yet he will not be > re-elected, because he was the people's President and > not a stooge of political parties. > > Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive > him, as he was the one who stopped her from becoming > Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of his > chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two > passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for many > years (she is not the only foreigner who did so after > obtaining Indian citizenship). > > Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously because, > although he is a true Muslim, he respects other > religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita and > Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus Mayawati, > partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away from > him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did not > always do its bidding. > > How else is democracy perverted in India ? > > Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which has > been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, > came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh > Assembly election, and sprung to power at the Centre > by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra > Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . > > Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment and is > dividing India more and more along caste and religion > lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - > witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. > > You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities > -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an > elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules as > the supreme leader of this country, one whose word can > make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be > possible for an Indian to become a de facto President > or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? > Absolutely not! > > Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak man, > is not elected: He was defeated the last time he > contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from > Assam , where he has no roots at all. > > Democracy in India has also been hijacked by cynical > mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of the > Muslims; who remain the most backward community in > India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen > Congress Governments since Independence; and how to > manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share of > benefits and have had one of them as President and > many of whom are politicians in power. > > Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical > mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = > Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the > Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did in > her three previous stints as Chief Minister? > > It seems doubtful, the way she has started, wasting > hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous projects, > including the Special Economic Zones and transferring > hundreds of officials. > > In the name of freedom of expression, Indian > intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who > denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. Would > he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? > Certainly not! > > When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish newspaper > - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's derogatory > portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world erupts in > flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would > have been dead today. > > Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV or > publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's > derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely available > and have been reproduced in a coffee table book > sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi Modi. > > > India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by clever > lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, > thanks to judges who go by the book without adapting > their judgements to the Indian context, or by bribing > witnesses as has been allegedly done in the BMW case. > But poor people go to jail and it takes seven years to > get a case cleared. > > India's socialist system, which is still enforced, > pretends to tax the rich to subsidise the poor. But in > reality, the rich have smart chartered accountants who > twist the law, while the less fortunate have to pay > taxes on small savings and salaries. And, of course, > most of this money never reaches the destitute. > > Finally, here you have a country of 850 million > Hindus, a billion worldwide, one of the most tolerant, > law-abiding communities in the world. Yet, Hindus in > India are made fun of and their beliefs riled at. They > are persecuted, as the four lakh Kashmiri Pandits have > been, without raising finger in defence - their men > hanged, women raped, children disembowelled. They have > become refugees in their own country and the media is > mostly silent. > > Yes democracy is needed, and a free and democratic > India definitely has (in the long run) an advantage on > an undemocratic China . But the way things are going > now, India seems on the verge of losing all that is > good and true and valuable within the nation, thanks > to cynical and self-serving politicians. > > Cry O my Beloved India . Look at what Thy children are > doing to Thee. > > > > -- > > http://indersalim.livejournal.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/> > _________________________________________ > 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/> From jeebesh at sarai.net Fri Jun 15 14:36:01 2007 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:36:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <70F3273B-685A-4217-8CD0-78E593BA2473@sarai.net> On 15-Jun-07, at 12:37 PM, S Fatima wrote: > because they can't come to the street > to explian why they wrote or painted what they did. And how are we suppose to achieve this? Any ideas? From sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in Fri Jun 15 15:30:15 2007 From: sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in (S Fatima) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:00:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <70F3273B-685A-4217-8CD0-78E593BA2473@sarai.net> Message-ID: <24840.11784.qm@web8410.mail.in.yahoo.com> Well, I mentioned about the education system and the elitism - that's the answer. As long as Husain continues to paint for the drawing rooms of the billionares, he will continue to hide in London. If some of our artists could go to the schools holding workshops - even in RSS shakhas - to explain why they paint what they paint, wouldn't that make a difference. You need to come down from your pedestal to bring any change. You can't sit in the ivory towers and blame the poor. --- Jeebesh Bagchi wrote: > > On 15-Jun-07, at 12:37 PM, S Fatima wrote: > > > because they can't come to the street > > to explian why they wrote or painted what they > did. > > And how are we suppose to achieve this? Any ideas? > > Download prohibited? No problem! To chat from any browser without download, Click Here: http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php From rashneek at gmail.com Fri Jun 15 10:56:09 2007 From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:56:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Nadim-The Harbinger of Renaissance in Kashmiri Poetry Message-ID: <13df7c120706142226x70fc5b2ev2e0116e1fc6bc0e7@mail.gmail.com> *The cascade was convulsed with laughter Not aware who cried how much…. *With the onset of 14th century the cultural renaissance in Kashmir had almost come to an abrupt end. The era of new ideas and fertile philosophical thoughts had died down owing to hostile historical and cultural incursions in the otherwise enlightened house of Sharda*.The great mystical poet and genius, Lal-Ded was probably the last new philosophical thought to have dawned in Kashmir till the time Dina Nath Nadim arose on the poetic firmament. Eminent Kashmiri scholar Dr.S.S.Toshkhani says and I quote "If you took out themes related to mysticism and love from Kashmiri poetry, there would remain nothing else at all". The literary stagnation or death of ideas can be attributed to the fanatic and intolerant rulers who ruled Kashmir 14th century onwards till the arrival of British rule in Kashmir. Dina Nath Nadim was born in an era when Kashmiri nationalism was searching for its roots. It was a time when young educated Kashmiris were beginning to feel that their mother tongue had suffered utter neglect for many centuries and thus had avowed to bring glory to Kashmiri language. The pioneers of this movement were Mahjoor and Abdul Ahad Azad. It goes to their credit that they liberated the language from the Persian influence. The arrival of these two young poets on the scene and the collapse of feudal system gave Kashmiris a renewed sense of confidence and freedom from the mental bondage, six hundred years of slavery had set them in. A new idiom in Kashmiri poetry had thus arrived, the idiom which was largely influenced by Marxist thought and progressive Indian writers. Dina Nath Nadim's father passed away when Nadim was just seven. Thus he saw days of abject poverty and it was his mother's courage and resilience that made two ends meet. It was his mother who set the first seeds of poetry into the young boy. She would often sit by her spinning wheel and sing verses of Parmanand and Krishanjoo Razdan.The song she had written on the death of her husband was to haunt and influence Nadim for his life *The flower of my heart stole away And did not return to bloom in spring Where does he now lie concealed ? Who knows who stole his heart! *(Translation by T.N.Raina) In his initial years as a poet Nadim wrote in English and it is believed that he was greatly influenced by T.S.Eliot. He also wrote in Urdu which was then the main language of poetic expression. There again he was greatly influenced by Iqbal,Chakbast,Josh and Bismil. His Urdu poems were however localized and Kashmir was the main theme in almost all his poems. He wrote poems in Hindi too but it was Kashmiri where he eventually found his style, images, forms, syllables and voice to his emotions.He made his presence felt on the Kashmiri poetics when he first read his poem Nov Sonth(New Spring) at a poetry recitation session at the famed Nishat Bagh. *Welcome the air with open doors! The spring is here…*(Translation By Rashneek Kher) Nadim's literary career had three definite phases. The first being the phase when India had just attained its independence and there was an air of hope and utopian Marxist ideas ruled the roost in literary circles. The environment was surcharged with sloganeering and rhetoric, which eventually found its way into the literary and cultural mainstream too.It was then that he wrote on almost all social and political issues. He spoke of the worker and tore off the capitalist in his rather peculiar poem,Sonth ti Harud(Spring and Fall).He supported the land to the tiller and wrote Aise Kaashirayav Tul Nov Rut Kadam(We,Kashmirs have taken the right step).There were other poems which hailed socialism and communist thought. It was however his path breaking experiment in free verse in the form of a poem, Bu Gavene Az (I will not sing today) which is considered as a milestone in the evolution of Kashmiri poetry. This was for the first time that free verse was written in Kashmiri and to this effect that anyone who read or heard the poem was mesmerized by the blending sound of the words and rhyme. Even though the essence of the poem seemed like a communist party manifesto yet the use of native collocations made it dear to every Kashmiri. Common Kashmiri phrases which poets of yesteryears had deemed unfit as poetic expression lend aesthetic expression and beauty to this poem. During the first phase of his career communism and Marxist ideas had great influence on him and it showed in almost all his poems but, Me Sham Aaash Pagehech(My Hope,Tomorrow)clearly stands out from the rest in terms of its content. There is no sloganeering, no Marxist ideas, it reflects layers of insecurity of a common Kashmiri in the times of uncertainty. It has three monologues, three persons having a tryst with their destinies howsoever small, nonetheless important for them. How they pray in vain for the war not to break tomorrow for tomorrow is their day of hope. *They say war is breaking out But surely not tomorrow When I have a rendezvous It can't break out tomorrow! *(Translation by T.N.Raina) It is in this period that Nadim wrote Son Watan(Our motherland),Sar-Subhai(The break of Dawn) and the first sonnets in Kashmiri language. One must not fail to mention his poem Dal Heanzni Hond Vatsun(Song of the Boatwoman) where the poet easily submerses into the role of a spokesperson for the poor and downtrodden Kashmiri. Everyday imagery has been used and intrinsically woven around the theme of a poor woman trying to sell vegetables and fish. The pathos of the poor woman arouses intense emotions and pain, the reader is almost drawn towards a state of empathy with the boatwoman. It was for the first time in Kashmiri poetry that a poet had identified so strongly with the masses. *I hear a baby crying Someone is whimpering at my breast O my good woman, my heart is not here Come buy!Come buy!Come buy! *(Translation by T.N.Raina) Another great poem of this era which merits mention is the obituary Nadim wrote on the passing away of the secular nationalist poet Mahjoor.In his tribute in Gwonmatas motuk shar kari kyah(Artist is but immortral)he has immortalized Mahjoor with the assertion that an artist like Mahjoor will never die. He hasn't rued on the loss of Mahjoor's life but emphasized the fact that the latter has left behind a legacy of ideas which will keep him alive amongst the people of Kashmir. Thus we move to the next era of his literary career which saw the fall of ideals and the icons that Nadim held close to his heart and reflected in his poetry. The erstwhile progressives and supposed Marxists were now in seats of power and their social, ethical and moral values stood exposed while running governments. It was but obvious that calls of equality, socialistic values and Marxist ideas were used as means to get to the seats of power. The mask had come off. The revolution was betrayed by the ones who were once its supposed torch bearers. Nadim wrote sarcastic, almost poems of black satire in the period following 1954.In his poem Kagaz Vaalesunz Hakh (Paper Vendors' Cry) he emphasizes the new materialistic thought had consumed morals and dreams and how everything including conscience is up for sale. It was however his poem which he recited in the presence of the then Chief Minister as a dig at him that made his fearlessness evident. *Khwaja Mohammad is now a Nawab But Moma remains Moma Can you solve this puzzle? Fill me a cup of wine! *(Translation by Rashneek Kher) His poems Huti Nazran Dolaan Dyaar Matyo (Money Bags dangling before your eyes),Zindabad Me Haz Chu az chony Shreh(Today,You are the one I love) were in the same league and were full of sardonic humour and satire.The poem that is distinctively different from the poems Nadim wrote in this era is,Lakhchi chu Lakchun (Identification,Thy Mole)The poem is a literary marvel since Nadim has brought in symbols and images from different historical, mythical and geographical contexts and juxtaposed them in the native language. The poem in my opinion is Nadims first brush with feminine beauty albeit in a metaphysical context. The object of the entire feminine aspect of beauty centers on an otherwise inconsequential mole of the face of the lady. This is really the first poem where Nadim has attempted to stay clear of any social message but his ideology has had better of him as can be seen in the last two lines of the poem. *She has a mole Above her artery Pulsating love, As if a mother Nursed in her heart The jewel of her eyes, Whom she rears with love alone; Joy of the poor woman who has gleaned from husk Grain by grain, a handful of rice *(Translation by T.N.Raina) With this we come to the third phase of Nadim's literary career where his style had seen a change from sloganeering to suggesting. This is evident from his poem Naabad ti Tyathyvan(The Bitter and the Sweet)wherein the underlying theme of revolution is stated in hushed tones almost to the point of internalizing the philosophy of communism. The poet has borrowed heavily from mythology and woven what might seem like disparate and divergent elements into upsurge of love and its orgasmic climaxes with the shame and the guilt of the clandestine love post the coital. Although Nadim wrote various poems in this era with differing styles, rhyme and content but two poems without which the piece would be incomplete are Zalar Zaej(Cob webs) and Shihul Kul(The Tree of Shade).In Zalar Zaej the poet tries to present a picture of the society where entropy is the rule and disarray over rides every facet of life. The poet ends on a positive note hoping the arrival of dawn would usher in fresh ideas.In Shihul Kul the poet has attempted to paint the glorious traditions of Kashmir, of which the Chinar is the most potent symbol. The Chinar has welcomed everyone irrespective of colour, religion and race and nourished them under its benign shade.It is in this era that Nadim wrote a lot of short poems of which the prominent ones are Shah-i-Hamadan,Gaasa Tul,Tsoor,Taav Taav and Yapary Traviv Tsopary Nazarah.He wrote Haary'Saath(Happenings)as a group pf poems over a period of time.In these poems he has tried to revive the Vaakh, a form of poetry which Lal Ded started and wasn't frequently used except for by Krishanjoo Razdan. While his contribution to poetry is widely recognized his contributions to other fields of art like drama and short story needs to be equally appreciated and recorded. Nadim wrote the first opera in Kashmir and most of his operas were showcased in India as well as abroad.He brought new styles of presentation to drama in Kashmir and also revived the Band-Pather form of art in its new avatara on the stage.Some of his prominent operas were Heemal ta Naagraey and Bombur Yamberzal.Nadim wrote the first short story in Kashmiri and was thus a trendsetter in this field too. Nadim was a wordsmith who had this unique way of presenting his wares in a manner that rhyme and tinkle followed them. He brought out words which had probably gone into oblivion for no one used them. He wrote in the same language as the one spoken on the road. His imagery was drawn from the ordinary Kashmiri on the street. He was the first Kashmiri poet to write a free verse, blank verse, sonnet, haiku and short story .He broke the worn out and much used mould of poetry and replaced it with new images drawn from ordinary people. He was thus a people's poet for he spoke their language and drew their inspiration from their everyday life.Nadim was an inspiration for poets in his generation and many more to follow. The present day great poets like Rahi,Kamil ,Firaq and Majboor wrote in styles which were similar to that of Nadim's. Some of the poems written by his illustrious contemporaries like Santosh and Saqi were so similar in diction to Nadim's poems that it was hard to tell one from another. Such was the influence Nadim wield over his contemporaries and the aspiring poets. (Rashneek Kher) -- Rashneek Kher http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070615/1d9744e6/attachment.html From aisiyer at gmail.com Fri Jun 15 13:05:29 2007 From: aisiyer at gmail.com (Aishwarya Iyer) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:05:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Dear Fatima and Inder, Inder seems to have taken issue with the fact that my argument resembles that of the right. Let me clarify however, that I would be the last person to endorse its views, despite being a practising Hindu. I wish to take an objective view of Hussain's exhibition of certain "questionable" art, the media's characterisation of it as "portraying the religious as nude" and the subsequent parallel drawns between his representation of mythic/historic Muslim personalities and hindu myths. If you claim that Hussain naively exhibited the two sets of work, so that they be considered independently and not beg comparison to each other, you are surely missing an important point. The subtext had been arranged to achieve a certain effect. For Hussain such gimmicks landed him better sales, greater publicity and won him more titles as the maverick-painter. The argument for free expression almost seems anachronistic in this day and age. For Hussain, creating free art, uncluttered by religious fetishism was the least of his concerns. What disturbs me is the comparison of his hindu subjects with the muslim ones. Even if [and I say this with circumspection], Hussain had no such comparative representation in my mind, he should have foreseen the damage it did to the segment of discourse on hindu practises and its effect on muslim practices. If art is free, then he should have imaginatively represented the prophet's kin, without paying heed to the injunction in the Quran. To me the double standards on Hussain's part are appalling. The acceptance of nudity in art does not ensure one's well-readness. See the brilliant egon schiele for once then. It is important for us to interpret the events in the light of our present, rather than with recourse to heady notions which have been handed down from generations [free expression]. I would like you to speak with such fervour in public, Inder, concerning the subject of the Danish cartoonist then. [I deliberately use the difference [hindu/muslim] here to achieve a certain effect, for me it serves here as a functional difference, rather than a merely ideological one] Fatima, I do not think it would be possible for Taslima to go to her homeland and explicate her art. The artist creates, and it is for us to interpret. However, I agree with you on the artists' encashing of moral and social anathemas for unthinkable monetary sums. love, Aishwarya Iyer Jadavpur University Calcutta On 6/15/07, S Fatima wrote: > > Dear Aishwarya > Hussain may or may not have indulged in a hypocracy > (about not portraying his own religious icons), but I > think the greater hypocracy of most artists (including > Rushdie) is to disconnect from the people/masses who > ultimately oppose their "blasphemous" art. Our artists > makes billions of dollars selling their paintings to > the elite, but never make an effort to spread > awareness among the masses about what their art is all > about, or why do they paint a deity in the nude. They > just assume that if the people do not appreciate their > art, it is people's fault, not the artist's. If our > education system had taught us how to appreciate good > art, how to read a painting, we probably would have > less of incidents such as the recent one at Baroda art > college. It is the elite of this country that is > mostly responsible for the growing intolerence among > the people. Husain or Rushdie or Tasleema Nasreen are > not hiding in foreign lands because of a threat to > their lives, but because they can't come to the street > to explian why they wrote or painted what they did. Please give me a chance ot provoke you a little....... If i ask u, who are you ? you will probably reply, BJP, Bajrangdal,ShivSaina,VHP, and RSS... the other side of fundamentalists names of other religions... If that is true, then i understand why u fear Hussain, because your daal roti must be coming from that... and if u say that you are really afraid of Hussain without being a party to the above party(s), then u are simply naive or a dangerously half read person... normally, i dont respond like this... but i see a child like innocence in your reflectiion... may be the Drawings/paintings of Hussain has given u nightmeres, this silly modern art is not good for children... you know..... it is not so good for adults even... because the time space has shifted the form of art even... so there is no fight really, on what is good art and bad art.... most of things are dead by now....... i believe, we are quite close to life and living forms, but if only we cease to look at life merely as a subject...What Hussain is doing... is his own world...whether he is making money with his art or pleasing his gods.. it is all his private vision... let us respect 'the other'... let us respect the artists choice.... but what you are doing, that is question.... yes, i usually i introduce myself : THIS indersalim STUFF from KASHMIR... with LOVE --- Aishwarya Iyer wrote: > > > On the other hand, I totally stand by François > > Gautier's view of Hussain's > > hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own > > religion in this manner? > > Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must > > recognise its sister, > > responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for > > instance, and invited the fatwa > > upon himself. He was conscious of his own > > transgression, but Hussain did it > > for cheap thrills. > > > > It is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a > > trap. > > > > Aishwarya > > > > > > On 6/12/07, inder salim > > wrote: > > > > > > It is very interesting to see how one can > > unwittinlgly fall in a trap... > > > > > > You begin to criticize the politicians for all the > > ills in India... > > > and also highlight the fact that they are terrible > > manipulators... > > > fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts > > choice for being > > > creative.... and forget the the fact that the > > politicians are ther > > > real culprits...( if they only are ) > > > > > > for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i > > can quote Salman Rushdie > > > for you > > > > > > There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not > > provoke, it is > > > meaningless... > > > > > > with love > > > indersalim > > > > > > > > > > > > Democracy Hijacked > > > > > > François Gautier > > > > > > Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven > > by > > > the lust for power are destroying all that is good > > and > > > true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at > > and > > > persecuted while Government is busy devising ways > > and > > > means of dividing the nation along caste and > > communal > > > lines > > > > > > India prides itself as the greatest democracy in > > the > > > world. But actually, there are very few places > > where > > > democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. > > Nothing > > > demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring > > going on > > > at the moment to find India 's next President. > > > > > > President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular > > > President in the history of India . Yet he will > > not be > > > re-elected, because he was the people's President > > and > > > not a stooge of political parties. > > > > > > Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive > > > him, as he was the one who stopped her from > > becoming > > > Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of > > his > > > chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two > > > passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for > > many > > > years (she is not the only foreigner who did so > > after > > > obtaining Indian citizenship). > > > > > > Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously > > because, > > > although he is a true Muslim, he respects other > > > religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita > > and > > > Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus > > Mayawati, > > > partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away > > from > > > him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did > > not > > > always do its bidding. > > > > > > How else is democracy perverted in India ? > > > > > > Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which > > has > > > been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, > > > came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh > > > Assembly election, and sprung to power at the > > Centre > > > by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra > > > Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . > > > > > > Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment > > and is > > > dividing India more and more along caste and > > religion > > > lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - > > > witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. > > > > > > You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities > > > -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an > > > elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules > > as > > > the supreme leader of this country, one whose word > > can > > > make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be > > > possible for an Indian to become a de facto > > President > > > or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? > > > Absolutely not! > > > > > > Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak > > man, > > > is not elected: He was defeated the last time he > > > contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP > > from > > > Assam , where he has no roots at all. > > > > > > Democracy in India has also been hijacked by > > cynical > > > mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of > > the > > > Muslims; who remain the most backward community in > > > India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen > > > Congress Governments since Independence; and how > > to > > > manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share > > of > > > benefits and have had one of them as President and > > > many of whom are politicians in power. > > > > > > Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical > > > mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = > > > Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the > > > Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did > > in > > > her three previous stints as Chief Minister? > > > > > > It seems doubtful, the way she has started, > > wasting > > > hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous > > projects, > > > including the Special Economic Zones and > > transferring > > > hundreds of officials. > > > > > > In the name of freedom of expression, Indian > > > intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who > > > denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. > > Would > > > he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? > > > Certainly not! > > > > > > When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish > > newspaper > > > - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's > > derogatory > > > portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world > > erupts in > > > flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would > > > have been dead today. > > > > > > Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV > > or > > > publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's > > > derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely > > available > > > and have been reproduced in a coffee table book > > > sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi > > Modi. > > > > > > > > > India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by > > clever > > > lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, > > > thanks to judges who go by the book without > > adapting > > > === 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. > > To unsubscribe: > > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > List archive: > > > > > Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at > in.groups.yahoo.com > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070615/ec39ed74/attachment.html From kaiwanmehta at gmail.com Fri Jun 15 13:22:12 2007 From: kaiwanmehta at gmail.com (kaiwan mehta) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:22:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2482459d0706150052w9628253nc3086f4f3b079c11@mail.gmail.com> To begin with let me clarify that I write this mail in a reactionary mode, but would have rather liked to give a more comprehensive and planned response. But it was necesary that I respond immediately to this thread. Dear Aishwarya We do not have time for your petty remarks like 'your religion' and 'my relligion'. What do you mean by "Would he have represented his own religion in this manner?". If you have an intelligent argument to make, please by all means go ahead, we can all partcipate. But if a conversation starts with an indication of water-tight compartments that we are essentially expected to occupy just by default of our birth, then there is no room for conversation. Does my birth crucially define all my traits? Is it not possible for my education, working space, media, etc. to influence my traits acquired through my upbringing within my family and home? Why is it expected that 'another man's religion' is essentially poison for me? (Which is implied in your question to Hussain regarding 'his religion') Do we not struggle often to fight not one but many traits we acquire from family, school, etc. but do not believe in some time later in life? And all these questions I ask taking on from your presumption that family and religion of birth essentially make us 'haters of others' and 'respect only the self'. This is sheer disrespect for those many many families that may have actually struggled to give a liberal upbringing to their kids in these times pressured by fundamentalism. In this quick mailer I am unable to expand on my questions further, but there are many such questions that need to be asked. FATIMA rightly points out at the possibility of locating the problem in another line of argument, rather than indulging in petty quabbling of 'mine' and 'yours'. The Reader List is a space that allows for freedom of expression - Let me ask you Aishwaria did you consult your sister 'responsibility' before posting your un-researched, un-validated views on this platform that gave you the space for free expression??? Thanks Kaiwan On 6/15/07, S Fatima wrote: > > Dear Aishwarya > Hussain may or may not have indulged in a hypocracy > (about not portraying his own religious icons), but I > think the greater hypocracy of most artists (including > Rushdie) is to disconnect from the people/masses who > ultimately oppose their "blasphemous" art. Our artists > makes billions of dollars selling their paintings to > the elite, but never make an effort to spread > awareness among the masses about what their art is all > about, or why do they paint a deity in the nude. They > just assume that if the people do not appreciate their > art, it is people's fault, not the artist's. If our > education system had taught us how to appreciate good > art, how to read a painting, we probably would have > less of incidents such as the recent one at Baroda art > college. It is the elite of this country that is > mostly responsible for the growing intolerence among > the people. Husain or Rushdie or Tasleema Nasreen are > not hiding in foreign lands because of a threat to > their lives, but because they can't come to the street > to explian why they wrote or painted what they did. > > > --- Aishwarya Iyer wrote: > > > On the other hand, I totally stand by François > > Gautier's view of Hussain's > > hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own > > religion in this manner? > > Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must > > recognise its sister, > > responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for > > instance, and invited the fatwa > > upon himself. He was conscious of his own > > transgression, but Hussain did it > > for cheap thrills. > > > > It is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a > > trap. > > > > Aishwarya > > > > > > On 6/12/07, inder salim > > wrote: > > > > > > It is very interesting to see how one can > > unwittinlgly fall in a trap... > > > > > > You begin to criticize the politicians for all the > > ills in India... > > > and also highlight the fact that they are terrible > > manipulators... > > > fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts > > choice for being > > > creative.... and forget the the fact that the > > politicians are ther > > > real culprits...( if they only are ) > > > > > > for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i > > can quote Salman Rushdie > > > for you > > > > > > There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not > > provoke, it is > > > meaningless... > > > > > > with love > > > indersalim > > > > > > > > > > > > Democracy Hijacked > > > > > > François Gautier > > > > > > Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven > > by > > > the lust for power are destroying all that is good > > and > > > true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at > > and > > > persecuted while Government is busy devising ways > > and > > > means of dividing the nation along caste and > > communal > > > lines > > > > > > India prides itself as the greatest democracy in > > the > > > world. But actually, there are very few places > > where > > > democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. > > Nothing > > > demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring > > going on > > > at the moment to find India 's next President. > > > > > > President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular > > > President in the history of India . Yet he will > > not be > > > re-elected, because he was the people's President > > and > > > not a stooge of political parties. > > > > > > Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive > > > him, as he was the one who stopped her from > > becoming > > > Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of > > his > > > chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two > > > passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for > > many > > > years (she is not the only foreigner who did so > > after > > > obtaining Indian citizenship). > > > > > > Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously > > because, > > > although he is a true Muslim, he respects other > > > religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita > > and > > > Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus > > Mayawati, > > > partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away > > from > > > him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did > > not > > > always do its bidding. > > > > > > How else is democracy perverted in India ? > > > > > > Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which > > has > > > been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, > > > came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh > > > Assembly election, and sprung to power at the > > Centre > > > by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra > > > Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . > > > > > > Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment > > and is > > > dividing India more and more along caste and > > religion > > > lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - > > > witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. > > > > > > You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities > > > -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an > > > elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules > > as > > > the supreme leader of this country, one whose word > > can > > > make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be > > > possible for an Indian to become a de facto > > President > > > or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? > > > Absolutely not! > > > > > > Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak > > man, > > > is not elected: He was defeated the last time he > > > contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP > > from > > > Assam , where he has no roots at all. > > > > > > Democracy in India has also been hijacked by > > cynical > > > mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of > > the > > > Muslims; who remain the most backward community in > > > India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen > > > Congress Governments since Independence; and how > > to > > > manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share > > of > > > benefits and have had one of them as President and > > > many of whom are politicians in power. > > > > > > Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical > > > mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = > > > Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the > > > Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did > > in > > > her three previous stints as Chief Minister? > > > > > > It seems doubtful, the way she has started, > > wasting > > > hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous > > projects, > > > including the Special Economic Zones and > > transferring > > > hundreds of officials. > > > > > > In the name of freedom of expression, Indian > > > intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who > > > denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. > > Would > > > he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? > > > Certainly not! > > > > > > When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish > > newspaper > > > - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's > > derogatory > > > portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world > > erupts in > > > flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would > > > have been dead today. > > > > > > Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV > > or > > > publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's > > > derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely > > available > > > and have been reproduced in a coffee table book > > > sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi > > Modi. > > > > > > > > > India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by > > clever > > > lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, > > > thanks to judges who go by the book without > > adapting > > > === 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. > > To unsubscribe: > > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > List archive: > > > > > Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at > in.groups.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: -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070615/0535e588/attachment.html From aisiyer at gmail.com Fri Jun 15 13:39:26 2007 From: aisiyer at gmail.com (Aishwarya Iyer) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:39:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <2482459d0706150052w9628253nc3086f4f3b079c11@mail.gmail.com> References: <447114.66711.qm@web8414.mail.in.yahoo.com> <2482459d0706150052w9628253nc3086f4f3b079c11@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: You have just now given me the pseudo-secularist argument. Well,I am not here to change your mind, but to express my point of view. You seem to consider religion as a natural entity, as just something one is born with. There is another side to religion, which is social practice, in which the entire debate on Hussain's representation falls for me. If I have given you the impression that I 'hate' other religions, you have replied too hastily. I mentioned that I was not posing an ideological difference. In any case, I have made my point, I would just like to hear from now on. Thanks, Aishwarya On 6/15/07, kaiwan mehta wrote: > > > To begin with let me clarify that I write this mail in a reactionary mode, > but would have rather liked to give a more comprehensive and planned > response. But it was necesary that I respond immediately to this thread. > > Dear Aishwarya > > We do not have time for your petty remarks like 'your religion' and 'my > relligion'. What do you mean by "Would he have represented his own religion > in this manner?". > > If you have an intelligent argument to make, please by all means go ahead, > we can all partcipate. But if a conversation starts with an indication of > water-tight compartments that we are essentially expected to occupy just by > default of our birth, then there is no room for conversation. > Does my birth crucially define all my traits? > Is it not possible for my education, working space, media, etc. to > influence my traits acquired through my upbringing within my family and > home? > Why is it expected that 'another man's religion' is essentially poison for > me? (Which is implied in your question to Hussain regarding 'his religion') > Do we not struggle often to fight not one but many traits we acquire from > family, school, etc. but do not believe in some time later in life? > And all these questions I ask taking on from your presumption that family > and religion of birth essentially make us 'haters of others' and 'respect > only the self'. This is sheer disrespect for those many many families that > may have actually struggled to give a liberal upbringing to their kids in > these times pressured by fundamentalism. > > In this quick mailer I am unable to expand on my questions further, but > there are many such questions that need to be asked. > > FATIMA rightly points out at the possibility of locating the problem in > another line of argument, rather than indulging in petty quabbling of 'mine' > and 'yours'. > > The Reader List is a space that allows for freedom of expression - Let me > ask you Aishwaria did you consult your sister 'responsibility' before > posting your un-researched, un-validated views on this platform that gave > you the space for free expression??? > > Thanks > Kaiwan > > > > > > On 6/15/07, S Fatima wrote: > > > > Dear Aishwarya > > Hussain may or may not have indulged in a hypocracy > > (about not portraying his own religious icons), but I > > think the greater hypocracy of most artists (including > > Rushdie) is to disconnect from the people/masses who > > ultimately oppose their "blasphemous" art. Our artists > > makes billions of dollars selling their paintings to > > the elite, but never make an effort to spread > > awareness among the masses about what their art is all > > about, or why do they paint a deity in the nude. They > > just assume that if the people do not appreciate their > > art, it is people's fault, not the artist's. If our > > education system had taught us how to appreciate good > > art, how to read a painting, we probably would have > > less of incidents such as the recent one at Baroda art > > college. It is the elite of this country that is > > mostly responsible for the growing intolerence among > > the people. Husain or Rushdie or Tasleema Nasreen are > > not hiding in foreign lands because of a threat to > > their lives, but because they can't come to the street > > to explian why they wrote or painted what they did. > > > > > > --- Aishwarya Iyer wrote: > > > > > On the other hand, I totally stand by François > > > Gautier's view of Hussain's > > > hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own > > > religion in this manner? > > > Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must > > > recognise its sister, > > > responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for > > > instance, and invited the fatwa > > > upon himself. He was conscious of his own > > > transgression, but Hussain did it > > > for cheap thrills. > > > > > > It is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a > > > trap. > > > > > > Aishwarya > > > > > > > > > On 6/12/07, inder salim > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > It is very interesting to see how one can > > > unwittinlgly fall in a trap... > > > > > > > > You begin to criticize the politicians for all the > > > ills in India... > > > > and also highlight the fact that they are terrible > > > manipulators... > > > > fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts > > > choice for being > > > > creative.... and forget the the fact that the > > > politicians are ther > > > > real culprits...( if they only are ) > > > > > > > > for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i > > > can quote Salman Rushdie > > > > for you > > > > > > > > There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not > > > provoke, it is > > > > meaningless... > > > > > > > > with love > > > > indersalim > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Democracy Hijacked > > > > > > > > François Gautier > > > > > > > > Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven > > > by > > > > the lust for power are destroying all that is good > > > and > > > > true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at > > > and > > > > persecuted while Government is busy devising ways > > > and > > > > means of dividing the nation along caste and > > > communal > > > > lines > > > > > > > > India prides itself as the greatest democracy in > > > the > > > > world. But actually, there are very few places > > > where > > > > democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. > > > Nothing > > > > demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring > > > going on > > > > at the moment to find India 's next President. > > > > > > > > President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular > > > > President in the history of India . Yet he will > > > not be > > > > re-elected, because he was the people's President > > > and > > > > not a stooge of political parties. > > > > > > > > Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive > > > > him, as he was the one who stopped her from > > > becoming > > > > Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of > > > his > > > > chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two > > > > passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for > > > many > > > > years (she is not the only foreigner who did so > > > after > > > > obtaining Indian citizenship). > > > > > > > > Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously > > > because, > > > > although he is a true Muslim, he respects other > > > > religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita > > > and > > > > Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus > > > Mayawati, > > > > partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away > > > from > > > > him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did > > > not > > > > always do its bidding. > > > > > > > > How else is democracy perverted in India ? > > > > > > > > Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which > > > has > > > > been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, > > > > came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh > > > > Assembly election, and sprung to power at the > > > Centre > > > > by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra > > > > Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . > > > > > > > > Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment > > > and is > > > > dividing India more and more along caste and > > > religion > > > > lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - > > > > witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. > > > > > > > > You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities > > > > -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an > > > > elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules > > > as > > > > the supreme leader of this country, one whose word > > > can > > > > make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be > > > > possible for an Indian to become a de facto > > > President > > > > or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? > > > > Absolutely not! > > > > > > > > Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak > > > man, > > > > is not elected: He was defeated the last time he > > > > contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP > > > from > > > > Assam , where he has no roots at all. > > > > > > > > Democracy in India has also been hijacked by > > > cynical > > > > mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of > > > the > > > > Muslims; who remain the most backward community in > > > > India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen > > > > Congress Governments since Independence; and how > > > to > > > > manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share > > > of > > > > benefits and have had one of them as President and > > > > many of whom are politicians in power. > > > > > > > > Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical > > > > mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = > > > > Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the > > > > Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did > > > in > > > > her three previous stints as Chief Minister? > > > > > > > > It seems doubtful, the way she has started, > > > wasting > > > > hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous > > > projects, > > > > including the Special Economic Zones and > > > transferring > > > > hundreds of officials. > > > > > > > > In the name of freedom of expression, Indian > > > > intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who > > > > denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. > > > Would > > > > he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? > > > > Certainly not! > > > > > > > > When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish > > > newspaper > > > > - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's > > > derogatory > > > > portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world > > > erupts in > > > > flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would > > > > have been dead today. > > > > > > > > Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV > > > or > > > > publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's > > > > derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely > > > available > > > > and have been reproduced in a coffee table book > > > > sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi > > > Modi. > > > > > > > > > > > > India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by > > > clever > > > > lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, > > > > thanks to judges who go by the book without > > > adapting > > > > > === 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. > > > To unsubscribe: > > > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > List archive: > > > > > > > > > > Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at > > in.groups.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: > > > > > -- > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070615/27cbeffc/attachment.html From aisiyer at gmail.com Fri Jun 15 16:41:39 2007 From: aisiyer at gmail.com (Aishwarya Iyer) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:41:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <9F741E18-C832-4A7B-9648-05B2EA71F390@sarai.net> References: <47e122a70706111141m64dde289kc55fe7f96ffb3951@mail.gmail.com> <9F741E18-C832-4A7B-9648-05B2EA71F390@sarai.net> Message-ID: If he is one, I'd have no issues with his art, nude copulating goddesses et al. On 6/15/07, Jeebesh Bagchi wrote: > > How do you know that Hussian is not a Hindu? :-) > > On 14-Jun-07, at 2:50 PM, Aishwarya Iyer wrote: > > > On the other hand, I totally stand by François Gautier's view of > > Hussain's hypocrisy. Would he have represented his own religion in > > this manner? Freedom is not an absolute entity. Freedom must > > recognise its sister, responsibilty. Look at what Rushdie did for > > instance, and invited the fatwa upon himself. He was conscious of > > his own transgression, but Hussain did it for cheap thrills. It > > is interesting how one can unwittingly fall in a trap. Aishwarya > > > > On 6/12/07, inder salim wrote: It is very > > interesting to see how one can unwittinlgly fall in a trap... > > > > You begin to criticize the politicians for all the ills in India... > > and also highlight the fact that they are terrible manipulators... > > fine.... but suddenly you criticize the aritsts choice for being > > creative.... and forget the the fact that the politicians are ther > > real culprits...( if they only are ) > > > > for Hussain ( whether he is a genius or not ) i can quote Salman > > Rushdie for you > > > > There is no Freedom of Expression if it does not provoke, it is > > meaningless... > > > > with love > > indersalim > > > > > > > > Democracy Hijacked > > > > François Gautier > > > > Practitioners of cynical politics who are driven by > > the lust for power are destroying all that is good and > > true and valuable in India . Hindus are mocked at and > > persecuted while Government is busy devising ways and > > means of dividing the nation along caste and communal > > lines > > > > India prides itself as the greatest democracy in the > > world. But actually, there are very few places where > > democracy has been so hijacked and perverted. Nothing > > demonstrates this better than the manoeuvring going on > > at the moment to find India 's next President. > > > > President APJ Abdul Kalam must be the most popular > > President in the history of India . Yet he will not be > > re-elected, because he was the people's President and > > not a stooge of political parties. > > > > Congress president Sonia Gandhi will never forgive > > him, as he was the one who stopped her from becoming > > Prime Minister when he told her in the privacy of his > > chambers that it was unconstitutional to hold two > > passports - Indian and Italian - as she did for many > > years (she is not the only foreigner who did so after > > obtaining Indian citizenship). > > > > Quite a few Muslims regard him suspiciously because, > > although he is a true Muslim, he respects other > > religions and is known to keep the Bhagvad Gita and > > Sri Aurobindo's Savitri in his study. Thus Mayawati, > > partly elected by Muslims votes, will keep away from > > him. And the BJP is wary of Kalam because he did not > > always do its bidding. > > > > How else is democracy perverted in India ? > > > > Well, here you have a party, the Congress, which has > > been going from bad to worse in the last 15 years, > > came a miserable last in the recent Uttar Pradesh > > Assembly election, and sprung to power at the Centre > > by a freak accident because the TDP lost in Andhra > > Pradesh and the Marxists did well in West Bengal . > > > > Yet, the Congress is all powerful at the moment and is > > dividing India more and more along caste and religion > > lines, thanks to a cynical reservation policy - > > witness the recent strife in Rajasthan. > > > > You have a foreigner who, whatever her qualities > > -honesty, hard work, family values - is just an > > elected MP, like hundreds of others, and yet rules as > > the supreme leader of this country, one whose word can > > make or unmake anybody. Do you think it would be > > possible for an Indian to become a de facto President > > or Prime Minister in the US , France or Germany ? > > Absolutely not! > > > > Even India 's Prime Minister, a decent but weak man, > > is not elected: He was defeated the last time he > > contested an election and is now a Rajya Sabha MP from > > Assam , where he has no roots at all. > > > > Democracy in India has also been hijacked by cynical > > mathematics: How to get elected with the votes of the > > Muslims; who remain the most backward community in > > India, in spite of having brought to power umpteen > > Congress Governments since Independence; and how to > > manipulate the Dalits, who have had a fair share of > > benefits and have had one of them as President and > > many of whom are politicians in power. > > > > Ms Mayawati has become a master of cynical > > mathematics: Muslims + Dalits + Brahmin votes = > > Absolute majority. Yet, will she do more for the > > Muslims and the poor of Uttar Pradesh than she did in > > her three previous stints as Chief Minister? > > > > It seems doubtful, the way she has started, wasting > > hundreds of crores by scrapping all previous projects, > > including the Special Economic Zones and transferring > > hundreds of officials. > > > > In the name of freedom of expression, Indian > > intellectuals defend people like MF Husain, who > > denigrates Durga , India 's most holy goddess. Would > > he dare depict Mohammed's wife in this manner? > > Certainly not! > > > > When the Prophet is caricatured by a Danish newspaper > > - harmless lampooning compared to Husain's derogatory > > portrayal of Durga - the entire Muslim world erupts in > > flames. Had Husain defiled Islam's icons, he would > > have been dead today. > > > > Did India 's 'free' Press ever care to show on TV or > > publish in magazines and newspapers Husain's > > derogatory paintings? Yet, they are freely available > > and have been reproduced in a coffee table book > > sponsored by Tata Steel with a foreword by Russi Modi. > > > > > > India's judiciary is stretched to the limits by clever > > lawyers getting their rich clients off the hook, > > thanks to judges who go by the book without adapting > > their judgements to the Indian context, or by bribing > > witnesses as has been allegedly done in the BMW case. > > But poor people go to jail and it takes seven years to > > get a case cleared. > > > > India's socialist system, which is still enforced, > > pretends to tax the rich to subsidise the poor. But in > > reality, the rich have smart chartered accountants who > > twist the law, while the less fortunate have to pay > > taxes on small savings and salaries. And, of course, > > most of this money never reaches the destitute. > > > > Finally, here you have a country of 850 million > > Hindus, a billion worldwide, one of the most tolerant, > > law-abiding communities in the world. Yet, Hindus in > > India are made fun of and their beliefs riled at. They > > are persecuted, as the four lakh Kashmiri Pandits have > > been, without raising finger in defence - their men > > hanged, women raped, children disembowelled. They have > > become refugees in their own country and the media is > > mostly silent. > > > > Yes democracy is needed, and a free and democratic > > India definitely has (in the long run) an advantage on > > an undemocratic China . But the way things are going > > now, India seems on the verge of losing all that is > > good and true and valuable within the nation, thanks > > to cynical and self-serving politicians. > > > > Cry O my Beloved India . Look at what Thy children are > > doing to Thee. > > > > > > > > -- > > > > http://indersalim.livejournal.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/> > > _________________________________________ > > 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/20070615/f87644f0/attachment.html From amitabh at sarai.net Fri Jun 15 17:17:13 2007 From: amitabh at sarai.net (Amitabh Kumar) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:17:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_does_it_ag?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ain?= In-Reply-To: <24840.11784.qm@web8410.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <70F3273B-685A-4217-8CD0-78E593BA2473@sarai.net> <24840.11784.qm@web8410.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: "If our education system had taught us how to appreciate good art, how to read a painting,.." I think blaming our education system is an argument that borders the trite and is screeching towards boredom. Q: Do artists disconnect from people/masses or is it vice versa? What is this disconnect and how can it be cured by 'spreading awareness'? If Hussain's work instigates any reaction in a person ( be it of anger, enjoyment, fear, condescension... ) I think perhaps a way to engage with it would be to actually go and find out what is causing that reaction. There is little that can be achieved by way's of trying to 'educate' the 'masses' about contemporary art. And to the best of my knowledge,this effort has already been once made when in the 80's the mayor of Bombay had publicly displayed the works of Hussain and other distinguished artists out in the open. The artists would engage with the 'common man' and the work would be discussed. Once again, the source of this information might be a rumor. I, personally, am not a huge fan Hussain's work and that has got nothing to do with him painting a nude goddess or which religion or creed he belongs to or how much his work sells or the feeling of being betrayed by his ' disconnected'-ness. It's an opinion that is informed by my aesthetic sensibilities. And what my notion of a good thought provoking work is. Have all the provacation associated with Hussain's come from within the work or from sources outside ? Sadly, all the provocation associated with Hussain's work comes from outside of it. On 6/15/07, S Fatima < sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in> wrote: > > Well, I mentioned about the education system and the > elitism - that's the answer. As long as Husain > continues to paint for the drawing rooms of the > billionares, he will continue to hide in London. If > some of our artists could go to the schools holding > workshops - even in RSS shakhas - to explain why they > paint what they paint, wouldn't that make a > difference. > You need to come down from your pedestal to bring any > change. You can't sit in the ivory towers and blame > the poor. > > > --- Jeebesh Bagchi < jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote: > > > > > On 15-Jun-07, at 12:37 PM, S Fatima wrote: > > > > > because they can't come to the street > > > to explian why they wrote or painted what they > > did. > > > > And how are we suppose to achieve this? Any ideas? > > > > > > > > Download prohibited? No problem! To chat from any browser without > download, Click Here: http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php > _________________________________________ > 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: -- www.amitabhkumar.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070615/3114ec60/attachment.html From sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in Fri Jun 15 23:21:49 2007 From: sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in (S Fatima) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:51:49 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_=2E=2E=2E?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <911998.62817.qm@web8415.mail.in.yahoo.com> "Boring" and "trite", yes you've proved my point, Amitabh. We, who produce or consume "high" art, are too bored to go to the masses to explain what good art is. I can't think of any effort made by the serious contemporary artist to reach out to the people. And my remarks are not for Hussain alone - these are for the entire elitist art community which produces only for galleries which have to be reserved for a show several years in advance these days. I am sorry I am constantly taking this entire argument away from Gautier and friends, but my point (about education system) was to show that it is possible to spread the "awareness" however boring it may sound. One big example is our classical music (as abstract as modern paintings) which is being appreciated by more and more young people now thanks to SPIC-MACAY and other similar efforts. If classical musicians can talk to youngsters and inculcate at least some interest in them (although I may not agree with SPIC-MACAY's version of things), why can't painters go to the people. --- Amitabh Kumar wrote: > "If our education system had taught us how to > appreciate good > art, how to read a painting,.." > > I think blaming our education system is an argument > that borders the trite > and is screeching towards boredom. > > Q: Do artists disconnect from people/masses or is it > vice versa? What is > this disconnect and how can it be cured by > 'spreading awareness'? > > If Hussain's work instigates any reaction in a > person ( be it of anger, > enjoyment, fear, condescension... ) I think perhaps > a way to engage with it > would be to actually go and find out what is causing > that reaction. There is > little that can be achieved by way's of trying to > 'educate' the 'masses' > about contemporary art. > And to the best of my knowledge,this effort has > already been once made when > in the 80's the mayor of Bombay had publicly > displayed the works of Hussain > and other distinguished artists out in the open. The > artists would engage > with the 'common man' and the work would be > discussed. > Once again, the source of this information might be > a rumor. > > I, personally, am not a huge fan Hussain's work and > that has got nothing to > do with him painting a nude goddess or which > religion or creed he belongs to > or how much his work sells or the feeling of being > betrayed by his ' > disconnected'-ness. It's an opinion that is informed > by my aesthetic > sensibilities. And what my notion of a good thought > provoking work is. > > Have all the provacation associated with Hussain's > come from within the work > or from sources outside ? > Sadly, all the provocation associated with Hussain's > work comes from outside > of it. > > > > > On 6/15/07, S Fatima < sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in> > wrote: > > > > Well, I mentioned about the education system and > the > > elitism - that's the answer. As long as Husain > > continues to paint for the drawing rooms of the > > billionares, he will continue to hide in London. > If > > some of our artists could go to the schools > holding > > workshops - even in RSS shakhas - to explain why > they > > paint what they paint, wouldn't that make a > > difference. > > You need to come down from your pedestal to bring > any > > change. You can't sit in the ivory towers and > blame > > the poor. > > > > > > --- Jeebesh Bagchi < jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > On 15-Jun-07, at 12:37 PM, S Fatima wrote: > > > > > > > because they can't come to the street > > > > to explian why they wrote or painted what they > > > did. > > > > > > And how are we suppose to achieve this? Any > ideas? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Download prohibited? No problem! To chat > from any browser without > > download, Click Here: > http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php > > _________________________________________ > > 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: > > > > > > -- > www.amitabhkumar.blogspot.com > Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at in.groups.yahoo.com From delhi.yunus at gmail.com Sat Jun 16 00:35:46 2007 From: delhi.yunus at gmail.com (Syed Yunus) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:35:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_=2E=2E=2E?= In-Reply-To: <911998.62817.qm@web8415.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <911998.62817.qm@web8415.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: DEAR ALL, I Dont know answers but all three ( hussain,Gautier,& salman) have learnt the art (or science) of getting attention . Gautier has got good obseravation skills,infact great . probably thats why he is good in playing with words and feelings of people . but I am surprised to listen the sermon on democracy from him ( & the old debate about politics) . Probably I should mention here that he has has recieved the Nachiketa award of journalism from L.K.ADVANI ( and we will have all our major roads and buildings named after him). because being an OUTSIDER he has written on the issue of kashmiri pandits. since it is a sensitive and provocative issue for the Hindus , he get large numbers of supporters who cant afford to disagree because of their ignorance. He has also put together an exhibition of paintings on aurangzeb, interpreted from some where by some one with out mentioning the actuals facts ( though the forum is know by FACT Fight Against Contunity of Terrorsism) thus he understands 'Democracy'...well and speaks the same language as the great proponents of Hindutwa.( or probably it is just becasue of his marriage with a Hindu lady). let us wait for another award for this great journalist. Long live the distorted history, On 6/15/07, S Fatima wrote: > > "Boring" and "trite", yes you've proved my point, > Amitabh. We, who produce or consume "high" art, are > too bored to go to the masses to explain what good art > is. I can't think of any effort made by the serious > contemporary artist to reach out to the people. And my > remarks are not for Hussain alone - these are for the > entire elitist art community which produces only for > galleries which have to be reserved for a show several > years in advance these days. > > I am sorry I am constantly taking this entire argument > away from Gautier and friends, but my point (about > education system) was to show that it is possible to > spread the "awareness" however boring it may sound. > One big example is our classical music (as abstract as > modern paintings) which is being appreciated by more > and more young people now thanks to SPIC-MACAY and > other similar efforts. If classical musicians can talk > to youngsters and inculcate at least some interest in > them (although I may not agree with SPIC-MACAY's > version of things), why can't painters go to the > people. > > > > --- Amitabh Kumar wrote: > > > "If our education system had taught us how to > > appreciate good > > art, how to read a painting,.." > > > > I think blaming our education system is an argument > > that borders the trite > > and is screeching towards boredom. > > > > Q: Do artists disconnect from people/masses or is it > > vice versa? What is > > this disconnect and how can it be cured by > > 'spreading awareness'? > > > > If Hussain's work instigates any reaction in a > > person ( be it of anger, > > enjoyment, fear, condescension... ) I think perhaps > > a way to engage with it > > would be to actually go and find out what is causing > > that reaction. There is > > little that can be achieved by way's of trying to > > 'educate' the 'masses' > > about contemporary art. > > And to the best of my knowledge,this effort has > > already been once made when > > in the 80's the mayor of Bombay had publicly > > displayed the works of Hussain > > and other distinguished artists out in the open. The > > artists would engage > > with the 'common man' and the work would be > > discussed. > > Once again, the source of this information might be > > a rumor. > > > > I, personally, am not a huge fan Hussain's work and > > that has got nothing to > > do with him painting a nude goddess or which > > religion or creed he belongs to > > or how much his work sells or the feeling of being > > betrayed by his ' > > disconnected'-ness. It's an opinion that is informed > > by my aesthetic > > sensibilities. And what my notion of a good thought > > provoking work is. > > > > Have all the provacation associated with Hussain's > > come from within the work > > or from sources outside ? > > Sadly, all the provocation associated with Hussain's > > work comes from outside > > of it. > > > > > > > > > > On 6/15/07, S Fatima < sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in> > > wrote: > > > > > > Well, I mentioned about the education system and > > the > > > elitism - that's the answer. As long as Husain > > > continues to paint for the drawing rooms of the > > > billionares, he will continue to hide in London. > > If > > > some of our artists could go to the schools > > holding > > > workshops - even in RSS shakhas - to explain why > > they > > > paint what they paint, wouldn't that make a > > > difference. > > > You need to come down from your pedestal to bring > > any > > > change. You can't sit in the ivory towers and > > blame > > > the poor. > > > > > > > > > --- Jeebesh Bagchi < jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > On 15-Jun-07, at 12:37 PM, S Fatima wrote: > > > > > > > > > because they can't come to the street > > > > > to explian why they wrote or painted what they > > > > did. > > > > > > > > And how are we suppose to achieve this? Any > > ideas? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Download prohibited? No problem! To chat > > from any browser without > > > download, Click Here: > > http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php > > > _________________________________________ > > > 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: > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > www.amitabhkumar.blogspot.com > > > > > > Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at in.groups.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: -- Change is the only constant in life ! From rashneek at gmail.com Fri Jun 15 10:51:05 2007 From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:51:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Screening of Documentary to mark World Refugee Day Message-ID: <13df7c120706142221w6499fbf9i7b7c9b5ba09c6980@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friends, As you are aware that 20th June is observed as World Refugee Day.In order to mark this day,Roots in Kashmir(An Initiative of Kashmiri Youth)is screening the critically acclaimed documentary titled "And the World Remained Silent" The screening shall be followed by a panel discussion on the topic "Why the Nation Remains Silent".The panelists shall include Swapan Das Gupta(Eminent Journalist),Vivek Tankha(Noted Criminal Lawyer),Zafar Meraj(Freelance Journalist and Kashmir Expert),Dr.Agnishekhar(Convenor-Panun Kashmir) and Sandhya Jain(Intellectual and Columnist). We request your presence at the screening. Cards/Passes shall be available at the venue itself. Venue: Main Auditorium, Sri Satya Sai International Centre,Pragati Vihar,Lodhi Road Date:20th June,07 Time:6.30 PM For more details please visit our blog http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com Looking forward to seeing you at the screening. Thanks and Regards Rashneek Kher for Roots in Kashmir http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com -- Rashneek Kher http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070615/0de2bacd/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From pukar at pukar.org.in Fri Jun 15 14:35:41 2007 From: pukar at pukar.org.in (PUKAR) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:35:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [announcements] June 21: The 4th Annual PUKAR Lecture Message-ID: <007a01c7af2c$5e510ba0$3d66c2cb@freeda> PUKAR cordially invites you to The 4th Annual PUKAR Lecture Design Education in a Globalising World Keynote address Tim Marshall Dean, Parsons The New School for Design, New York Moderator Arjun Appadurai President, Board of Trustees, PUKAR Thursday, June 21, 2007 6:00-6:30 PM Tea, 6:30-8:30 PM Lecture Venue: Godrej Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point Tim Marshall will discuss the concept of social role of design and connecting design to other social sciences in order to impact the outcomes of the activities, agents and agencies. Tim Marshall is a well-known academician in the field of Design Education. As a faculty member and administrator of one of the best schools of design, Marshall emphasizes a more cohesive undergraduate education, a stronger faculty culture, and the creation of more integrated and comprehensive design degrees. Marshall has lectured extensively on academic topics related to design research and design education and has contributed to professional design journals. 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/20070615/2f307182/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From vrjogi at hotmail.com Sat Jun 16 08:06:30 2007 From: vrjogi at hotmail.com (Vedavati Jogi) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 02:36:30 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd_=3AFran=E7ois_Gautier_=2E=2E=2E?= Message-ID: because being an OUTSIDER he has written on the issue of kashmiri pandits. since it is a sensitive and provocative issue for the Hindus , ...................... this statement shows the real colour of secularism in india. kashmiri hindus have become refugees in their own country, this is a shame on politicians as well as we indians. AND, seculars who keep on cursing narendra modi and raking up gujrat issue again & again don't have time to go to refugee camps. moreover kashmiri pundits' issue is a sensitive issue only for hindus (as mentioned by you), it means, muslims are no way concerned with their kashmiri hindu brothers, right? Gotier is speaking the truth! his writing is an eye opener for hindus unfortunately that is falling on deaf ear!. vedavati > Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:35:46 +0530> From: delhi.yunus at gmail.com> To: sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in> CC: reader-list at sarai.net> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Fwd :François Gautier ...> > DEAR ALL,> > I Dont know answers but all three ( hussain,Gautier,& salman) have> learnt the art (or science) of getting attention .> > Gautier has got good obseravation skills,infact great . probably thats> why he is good in playing with words and feelings of people . but I> am surprised to listen the sermon on democracy from him ( & the old> debate about politics) .> > Probably I should mention here that he has has recieved the> Nachiketa award of journalism from L.K.ADVANI ( and we will have all> our major roads and buildings named after him). because being an> OUTSIDER he has written on the issue of kashmiri pandits. since it is> a sensitive and provocative issue for the Hindus , he get large> numbers of supporters who cant afford to disagree because of their> ignorance.> > He has also put together an exhibition of paintings on aurangzeb,> interpreted from some where by some one with out mentioning the> actuals facts ( though the forum is know by FACT Fight Against> Contunity of Terrorsism)> thus he understands 'Democracy'...well and speaks the same language> as the great proponents of Hindutwa.( or probably it is just becasue> of his marriage with a Hindu lady).> > let us wait for another award for this great journalist.> > Long live the distorted history,> > > On 6/15/07, S Fatima wrote:> >> > "Boring" and "trite", yes you've proved my point,> > Amitabh. We, who produce or consume "high" art, are> > too bored to go to the masses to explain what good art> > is. I can't think of any effort made by the serious> > contemporary artist to reach out to the people. And my> > remarks are not for Hussain alone - these are for the> > entire elitist art community which produces only for> > galleries which have to be reserved for a show several> > years in advance these days.> >> > I am sorry I am constantly taking this entire argument> > away from Gautier and friends, but my point (about> > education system) was to show that it is possible to> > spread the "awareness" however boring it may sound.> > One big example is our classical music (as abstract as> > modern paintings) which is being appreciated by more> > and more young people now thanks to SPIC-MACAY and> > other similar efforts. If classical musicians can talk> > to youngsters and inculcate at least some interest in> > them (although I may not agree with SPIC-MACAY's> > version of things), why can't painters go to the> > people.> >> >> >> > --- Amitabh Kumar wrote:> >> > > "If our education system had taught us how to> > > appreciate good> > > art, how to read a painting,.."> > >> > > I think blaming our education system is an argument> > > that borders the trite> > > and is screeching towards boredom.> > >> > > Q: Do artists disconnect from people/masses or is it> > > vice versa? What is> > > this disconnect and how can it be cured by> > > 'spreading awareness'?> > >> > > If Hussain's work instigates any reaction in a> > > person ( be it of anger,> > > enjoyment, fear, condescension... ) I think perhaps> > > a way to engage with it> > > would be to actually go and find out what is causing> > > that reaction. There is> > > little that can be achieved by way's of trying to> > > 'educate' the 'masses'> > > about contemporary art.> > > And to the best of my knowledge,this effort has> > > already been once made when> > > in the 80's the mayor of Bombay had publicly> > > displayed the works of Hussain> > > and other distinguished artists out in the open. The> > > artists would engage> > > with the 'common man' and the work would be> > > discussed.> > > Once again, the source of this information might be> > > a rumor.> > >> > > I, personally, am not a huge fan Hussain's work and> > > that has got nothing to> > > do with him painting a nude goddess or which> > > religion or creed he belongs to> > > or how much his work sells or the feeling of being> > > betrayed by his '> > > disconnected'-ness. It's an opinion that is informed> > > by my aesthetic> > > sensibilities. And what my notion of a good thought> > > provoking work is.> > >> > > Have all the provacation associated with Hussain's> > > come from within the work> > > or from sources outside ?> > > Sadly, all the provocation associated with Hussain's> > > work comes from outside> > > of it.> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > On 6/15/07, S Fatima < sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in>> > > wrote:> > > >> > > > Well, I mentioned about the education system and> > > the> > > > elitism - that's the answer. As long as Husain> > > > continues to paint for the drawing rooms of the> > > > billionares, he will continue to hide in London.> > > If> > > > some of our artists could go to the schools> > > holding> > > > workshops - even in RSS shakhas - to explain why> > > they> > > > paint what they paint, wouldn't that make a> > > > difference.> > > > You need to come down from your pedestal to bring> > > any> > > > change. You can't sit in the ivory towers and> > > blame> > > > the poor.> > > >> > > >> > > > --- Jeebesh Bagchi < jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:> > > >> > > > >> > > > > On 15-Jun-07, at 12:37 PM, S Fatima wrote:> > > > >> > > > > > because they can't come to the street> > > > > > to explian why they wrote or painted what they> > > > > did.> > > > >> > > > > And how are we suppose to achieve this? Any> > > ideas?> > > > >> > > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > Download prohibited? No problem! To chat> > > from any browser without> > > > download, Click Here:> > > http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php> > > > _________________________________________> > > > 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:> > > > > >> > >> > >> > >> > > --> > > www.amitabhkumar.blogspot.com> > >> >> >> >> > Looking for people who are YOUR TYPE? Find them at in.groups.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: > > > -- > > Change is the only constant in life !> _________________________________________> 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/> _________________________________________________________________ Palate Teasers: Straight from Master Chef! http://content.msn.co.in/Lifestyle/Moreonlifestyle/LifestylePT_101106_1530.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070616/a388ec0b/attachment.html From rahul_capri at yahoo.com Sat Jun 16 11:54:18 2007 From: rahul_capri at yahoo.com (Rahul Asthana) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 23:24:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd :Franois Gautier ... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <333461.36026.qm@web53601.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Aishwariya and Fatima, Thanks for making some very good points and thereby enriching this debate on freedom of expression. The concept of "freedom of expression" is never absolute,but it is governed by certain ethical and normative assumptions of the time,place and people concerned.Isaiah Washington was fired from a Tv soap in the US for calling his gay colleague "faggot".Michael Richard's ass was fried for using the word "nigger". One of the european countries which were printing Prophet Mohammad pbuh's cartoons with gay abandon actually have criminal laws to prosecute someone who questions the validity of the genocide of the jews in the WW.Go figure! Will any of the champions of the freedom of expression take up their case? I think not. The reason why "Freedom of expression" is cited by the media when someone insults(knowing or unknowingly) Hindu symbols in India and Muslim symbols in the west is the inherent disapproval in media of these two religions in these places, in the current climate.That was my 2-bit attempt at deconstruction:) If I see myself as liberal and tolerant and want to foster a liberal and tolerant society,I should care about,recognize and respect value systems that are antithetical to my own. If I as an upper caste atheist Hindu become a champion of LGBT rights or reservation for deprived classes that does NOT make me liberal\tolerant because in principle I identify with,agree and support these causes. Fatima has talked about solutions.I think that those who have a voice should raise it beyond stating the obvious that Hussain should have the freedom to do it.He should get called for bad taste. Any amount of reductionist political correctness cant take away from the fact that the paintings were in bad taste.Lets see three types of responses from (possibly) the same person. 1.If I had understood art,I would probably(possibly?) have declared them as great works of art! 2.As a civil libertarian,I would champion the right of Hussein's freedom of expression and support his right to not be lynched and not be subjected to shiv sainiks protesting in their undies outside his house! 3.As a liberal AND tolerant individual,I would also make the observation that Hussein's paintings are in bad taste, because they are so obviously offensive to a large group of people. I dont see any contradiction in the same person making these 3 statements. If the religious men/women in the street (and our homes)find a voice in the media,they would probably not find it necessary to take their protest directly to Hussein.The artist would also probably feel the onus to explain and refrain from unnecessary sensationalism. rgds Rahul --- Syed Yunus wrote: > DEAR ALL, > > I Dont know answers but all three ( > hussain,Gautier,& salman) have > learnt the art (or science) of getting attention . > > Gautier has got good obseravation skills,infact > great . probably thats > why he is good in playing with words and feelings > of people . but I > am surprised to listen the sermon on democracy from > him ( & the old > debate about politics) . > > Probably I should mention here that he has has > recieved the > Nachiketa award of journalism from L.K.ADVANI ( and > we will have all > our major roads and buildings named after him). > because being an > OUTSIDER he has written on the issue of kashmiri > pandits. since it is > a sensitive and provocative issue for the Hindus , > he get large > numbers of supporters who cant afford to disagree > because of their > ignorance. > > He has also put together an exhibition of paintings > on aurangzeb, > interpreted from some where by some one with out > mentioning the > actuals facts ( though the forum is know by FACT > Fight Against > Contunity of Terrorsism) > thus he understands 'Democracy'...well and speaks > the same language > as the great proponents of Hindutwa.( or probably > it is just becasue > of his marriage with a Hindu lady). > > let us wait for another award for this great > journalist. > > Long live the distorted history, > > > On 6/15/07, S Fatima > wrote: > > > > "Boring" and "trite", yes you've proved my point, > > Amitabh. We, who produce or consume "high" art, > are > > too bored to go to the masses to explain what good > art > > is. I can't think of any effort made by the > serious > > contemporary artist to reach out to the people. > And my > > remarks are not for Hussain alone - these are for > the > > entire elitist art community which produces only > for > > galleries which have to be reserved for a show > several > > years in advance these days. > > > > I am sorry I am constantly taking this entire > argument > > away from Gautier and friends, but my point (about > > education system) was to show that it is possible > to > > spread the "awareness" however boring it may > sound. > > One big example is our classical music (as > abstract as > > modern paintings) which is being appreciated by > more > > and more young people now thanks to SPIC-MACAY and > > other similar efforts. If classical musicians can > talk > > to youngsters and inculcate at least some interest > in > > them (although I may not agree with SPIC-MACAY's > > version of things), why can't painters go to the > > people. > > > > > > > > --- Amitabh Kumar wrote: > > > > > "If our education system had taught us how to > > > appreciate good > > > art, how to read a painting,.." > > > > > > I think blaming our education system is an > argument > > > that borders the trite > > > and is screeching towards boredom. > > > > > > Q: Do artists disconnect from people/masses or > is it > > > vice versa? What is > > > this disconnect and how can it be cured by > > > 'spreading awareness'? > > > > > > If Hussain's work instigates any reaction in a > > > person ( be it of anger, > > > enjoyment, fear, condescension... ) I think > perhaps > > > a way to engage with it > > > would be to actually go and find out what is > causing > > > that reaction. There is > > > little that can be achieved by way's of trying > to > > > 'educate' the 'masses' > > > about contemporary art. > > > And to the best of my knowledge,this effort has > > > already been once made when > > > in the 80's the mayor of Bombay had publicly > > > displayed the works of Hussain > > > and other distinguished artists out in the open. > The > > > artists would engage > > > with the 'common man' and the work would be > > > discussed. > > > Once again, the source of this information might > be > > > a rumor. > > > > > > I, personally, am not a huge fan Hussain's work > and > > > that has got nothing to > > > do with him painting a nude goddess or which > > > religion or creed he belongs to > > > or how much his work sells or the feeling of > being > > > betrayed by his ' > > > disconnected'-ness. It's an opinion that is > informed > > > by my aesthetic > > > sensibilities. And what my notion of a good > thought > > > provoking work is. > > > > > > Have all the provacation associated with > Hussain's > > > come from within the work > > > or from sources outside ? > > > Sadly, all the provocation associated with > Hussain's > > > work comes from outside > > > of it. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 6/15/07, S Fatima < sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > Well, I mentioned about the education system > and > > > the > > > > elitism - that's the answer. As long as Husain > > > > continues to paint for the drawing rooms of > the > > > > billionares, he will continue to hide in > London. > > > If > > > > some of our artists could go to the schools > > > holding > > > > workshops - even in RSS shakhas - to explain > why > > > they > > > > paint what they paint, wouldn't that make a > > > > difference. > > > > You need to come down from your pedestal to > bring > > > any > > > > change. You can't sit in the ivory towers and > > > blame > > > > the poor. > > > > > > > > > > > > --- Jeebesh Bagchi < jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 15-Jun-07, at 12:37 PM, S Fatima wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > because they can't come to the street > > > > > > to explian why they wrote or painted what > they > > > > > did. > > > > > > > > > > And how are we suppose to achieve this? Any > > > ideas? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > === message truncated === ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when. http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222 From anivar.aravind at gmail.com Sat Jun 16 13:30:04 2007 From: anivar.aravind at gmail.com (Anivar Aravind) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:30:04 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] fwd: Action Alert on Coastal Zone, India In-Reply-To: <35f96d470706160052t2d834f51u66a988dece9eb8f@mail.gmail.com> References: <35f96d470706160052t2d834f51u66a988dece9eb8f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <35f96d470706160100l542a3096qd56a4b876a7e2fc8@mail.gmail.com> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sign Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/cmz/petition.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Friends, In line with the sweeping changes being made in environment and land acquisition policies to favor industry and investment, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is preparing to introduce new coastal management legislation to open up coastal land for unregulated commercial exploitation. A draft notification prepared by the MoEF to this effect and due to be published in the Official Gazette was recently leaked to the press. The draft is based entirely on the recommendations of the infamous MS Swaminathan Expert Committee Report, which since its release in 2005, has been summarily and universally rejected by fisher peoples' organizations and all other democratic forces in civil society. We must prevent the gazetting of the draft notification, which if allowed to go unchecked will eventually be transformed into new law with disastrous consequences for coastal communities and ecosystems. We therefore urge you to write to MoEF to not take any steps to enact new coastal legislation without due consultation with all stakeholders in particular fishing communities and their democratic representation. Please Endorse the following Petition and Circulate it widely. http://www.petitiononline.com/cmz/petition.html Regards, T Peter President KSMTF A. Andrews General Secretary KSMTF From yasir.media at gmail.com Sat Jun 16 14:38:33 2007 From: yasir.media at gmail.com (yasir ~) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:08:33 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: A documentary on Kashmir @ City Press Film Club In-Reply-To: <5af37bb0706160150p3ee98782yd9daa5e6a3582115@mail.gmail.com> References: <7e6d07440706150847i60f2f198tabef46da4736e721@mail.gmail.com> <5af37bb0706160150p3ee98782yd9daa5e6a3582115@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5af37bb0706160208o42dce5fdof56e8ab9e296aad9@mail.gmail.com> fwd 210th Film Screening at City Press Film Club Saddar, Karachi Saturday, 16 June 2007 at 6:30 p.m. There was a queen... Directed by Kavita Pai and Hansa Thapliyal India, 2007, Colour, 122 min Kashmiri/Urdu with English subtitles The film makers started this film looking for peace initiatives in the conflict-torn region of Kashmir. This search took them to different parts of Kashmir where the women ― young and old, eager speak about the life under siege ― told them how difficult it was for them to think of ' Peace'. More about the film... Voice of the Valley SHUJAAT BUKHARI The Srinagar audience was reduced to tears at a film show highlighting the suffering of women during Kashmir's 17-year turmoil. This was for the first time a women-exclusive film was shown highlighting their sufferings ________________________________ For a moment it seemed as if it was not the same Tagore Hall, usually a venue for cultural programmes, plays and musharias. As Kashmir's prominent poetess Nasim Shifai recited a verse reflecting the sufferings of people in the trouble torn Valley, only sobs and shrieks could be heard. "Ye Aes Akh Padshah Bai (There Was a Queen)", the two-hour documentary was screened at the hall highlighting the women's initiatives in Kashmir's 17-year conflict in which women have been the worst sufferers. "Mate Martew Wane Chu Wanse Kam, Mate Martew Wane Chu Na Manze Nam (Do not die you are too young, Do not die you the henna is still on your nails)" ― this is how Shifai described the fate of youth in the conflict by modifying the verses of great Kashmiri poet Mehmood Gami. In fact the title of the film has also been picked up from Shifai's poem, and the princess also talks about her children who come home late. Her verses reduced scores of those mothers whose sons have gone missing in these 17 years to tears. Young filmmakers Two young filmmakers from Mumbai, Kavita Pai and Hansa Thapliyal, have made the film for Other Media Communications and travelled to remote areas in Kashmir to trace the role of women in the conflict. From highlighting the brave fight many women have put up, to the efforts of others who joined empowerment avenues, the filmmakers have primarily stressed how the brunt of the struggle is faced by women, as mother, daughter, sister or wife. The film revolves round Parveena Ahangar, whose son Javed is missing in "custody" since 1990. An illiterate woman, she founded Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and is fighting till date, not only for her son but thousands of others. Pai and Thapliyal agree that Parveena figures in the film many times, but say it does not revolve around her. It is just because she has played a "greater role" they explain. That such women are rare in Kashmir makes her more relevant, adds Pai. The story The documentary starts with the infamous fake encounter exposed in February this year, in which bodies of five civilians killed as "foreign militants" were exhumed. Ghulam Rasool Padder, father of Abdur Rehman, one of the victims, gives the statement about his missing son. Then the long and unending story of miseries in Kashmir with focus on women starts. There is Mughli, who lost four of her sons, talking about the tough life she is leading, and a group of girls in Maisuma, the heart of trouble in Srinagar, engaged at a vocational training centre. The innocent girls have powerful expressions of their stories. One has lost her brother while another talks about how difficult it is to walk past a security forces bunker. An interesting discussion takes place at the Centre in which the girls try to define who is a shaheed (martyr), the one killed by security forces or the one by militants. One young girl has a strong argument that whosoever is innocent and killed is a shaheed. The example of two young girls killed in crossfire in Sopore also reveals the trauma of the people. "Why is Pakistan playing cricket with India when it says Kashmir is disputed and we are a party to it," is the terse comment from a woman in Sopore who lost her daughter and blamed the Army for deliberately killing her. Same is the case with a young woman in Malangam (Bandipore) whose brother was a militant and killed in a gunfight. She brought up his children and did not marry. But she curses everybody from the government to the Hurriyat for not paying attention to their needs. In her interview Shifai highlights the plight of Kashmiri youth saying, "When they go out of Kashmir to save themselves they are being harassed, especially on the eve of August 15 and January 26. Every Kashmiri youth is a militant." Hamida Naeem, a teacher at Kashmir University, believes women in Kashmir have braved everything like men and even suffered more. "The right of self determination is our inalienable right and we should get it," she says in the documentary. But she does not hesitate to criticise the militants too. "Why should they (militants) kill the civilians? Why are they settling scores with their own people? This is not in the interest of the movement," she adds. "This was for the first time a women-exclusive film was shown highlighting their sufferings," said Raashid Maqbool, a local journalist. Kavita and Hansa say that it was difficult for them to identify the people on whom they could work. Initially hesitant to take up the project, they were happy they did. The camera work is by Ranu Gosh. Sound is by Gissy Michael, editing by Gouri Patwardhan and music by Manish J Tipu. -- The Hindu, Friday, 04 May,2007 For information: -- Ajmal Kamal City Press Publishing House, Bookshop and Film Club 316 Madina City Mall, Abdullah Haroon Road, Saddar, Karachi 74400, Pakistan. Tel: (92-21) 5650623, 5213916 From venkatt2k at gmail.com Sat Jun 16 14:45:20 2007 From: venkatt2k at gmail.com (venkat t) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:45:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Migrant workers on IT corridor fourth posting Message-ID: <388da81f0706160215g6ffdef15ia80531d0c480c498@mail.gmail.com> Migrant workers on IT corridor fourth posting This months posting is in three parts, first a status report and the work over the next 2 weeks, second a excerpts from an occupational health and safety workshop that I attended and third a write up on an interview we had with project manager of a construction firm entrusted with constructing the duct laying works on the IT express way. At the middle of the project duration, we are not yet half way, with the research work. we have identified, 5 sites where the migrant workers are being camped, of these 2 or camp cum work site, 2 are exclusive residential camps, and one is a temporary residential area on the side of OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road). We have been speaking to a number of workers on these sites. We have also interviewed subcontractors, supervisors and one project manager. Apart from this we have been reading into the laws and regulations that govern the Migrant contract labourers working on the IT corridor. In the next 2 weeks we intend to visit the sites we have already identified, as well as identify three more camps with fairly large number of Migrant workers. Especially places where the migrant workers have housed themselves on tenancy with local land owners I had been to an 'Occupational health and safety' workshop in the last week of may, in Chennai. It was organised in order improve the awareness about the various forms of occupation health hazards, the safety measure that needs to be put in place as well as the remedial and compensations available to workers. This workshop was organised for active members of various unorganised workers unions. Some of the occupational hazards that were outlined in the workshop session, were, hazards due to i. Physical causes, ii. Chemical causes iii. Mechanical, iv. Biological causes and v. Psycho social causes. In relation to what we have seen in the worksites and the residential camps, we can conclude that the workers are exposed to every form of hazard. The workers on the construction site as well as the road work, have been exposed to the indiscriminate heat and sun light of Chennai's summer. The work on the road was hampered a bit due to technical reasons but on the other sites as I had already stated in my previous post, work went on schedule. While dealing with Physical hazards Jagadesh Patel, from gujarat who was conducting this session had mentioned that heat stroke, heat exhaustion and heat cramps are quite common among construction workers. The first two forms of heat related hazard can also lead to death if proper medical/first aid is not provided immediately. But in not a single work site that we saw was there a medical practitioner available at hand, and it was not sure if there were workers trained in first aid available. When we spoke to the project manager about the cases of accidents especially on the road work, where traffic still flows, he said that there were not many and there could be hardly 4 or 5 cases where, FIR has been filed. But un official reports suggest a far higher accident rate. The other greatest risk is the Mechanical hazards to which the workers are exposed. The work places are often crowded with humans and materials, as well as machines. While at some sites we did see the men wearing fiber helmets to cover their heads, women seldom wore them. There was absolutely no other protective gear. When we did ask the workers about accidents and injuries they did not give coherent answers. But there are a number of cases of injuries and we need to document them through more and more onsite visits. In the earlier post we had mentioned of a hospital site in which the workers had gone on strike demanding compensation for a worker who met with a fatal accident and also for better safety standards. The graver danger is to the children of the workers who are housed on the work site. The kids run through the construction area. when we spoke to the site managers they said that they take excess care to keep the kids away from the site but this adds to the danger, when there is no proper day care facility. The workers are also exposed to high percentage of particulate matter, including cement, silicon and even asbestos (not very much). These are chemicals with proven record for causing deadly and painful deaths including cancer. Biological hazards are relatively less at the work site but in the absence of proper sanitation facilities and good volumes of water, the danger of bacterial and viral diseases especially to children increases. When we talk to the workers they did say that children and even they fall sick and have to go to doctors close by. Some even asked if we could arrange for doctors to visit them on a regular basis. When we raised this question with the site managers and project managers, they said that though no doctor wanted to come to the site, they promptly send the workers to hospitals nearby. But the workers say that the companies and contractors only pay them for accident and injury related hospital expense and not for illness. These are not an exhaustive list of hazards but a preliminary assessment of the condition in the sites. Interview with Mr. Prem Kumar, Project Manager Ramkay constructions: We met Mr. Prem kumar at his office in perungudi. He was cordial and was willing to give us all the information we needed. He said that the IT expressway was a multi crore investment by TNRDC through a special purpose vehicle called ITEL (IT Expressway Limited). It was a BOOT (Build Own Operate Transfer) model and they might levy a toll once the construction upto Siruseri is over. He said that Ramky constructions were constructing the duct for electrical, telephone lines as well as for drainage systems. He said that it was the state of the art technology even though it is not a highway. There were about 500 workers unskilled and semi skilled working on the road works while another 300 were working on an IT park that ramky is building at Navalur opposite SIPCOT. They have been housed inside the SIPCOT Industrail area in one huge camp. "Here, he said all facilities for sanitation and water had been provided,….. as there were fewer than 5 children there has been no attempt to set up day care centres". But from other sources, especially workers we came to know that there are a minimum of 30 children. The labourers are sourced from 10 -13 independent contractors who come from all over central India as well as andhra. The company pays the contractors on per piece basis, in other words in terms of work, and it is the contractors who pay the wages to the workers. But the company has taken workman's compensation policy for all the workers and in the event of accidents are illness the workers can claim compensation. He said they also give the workers travel allowance once in 6 months The rates that he said more or less were the same that the workers, had said. But he added that there were times, when the contractor shared the money equally among all his workers rather set a daily wage. On the issue of health and safety he said that the workers health is taken care off, and they do send them to hospitals or local doctors for checkups. In case of accidents the contractors can raise a bill on the company for the expenses incurred and compensate the workers. When we asked him about cases of domestic violence and sexual harassment he said "not many cases in this work, they are all good and there are no reports of major domestic violence, but in case there is any our HR team calls the person concerned and tell advise them not to involve in such activities, and in case it persists, the person is terminated from service. We had a lengthy discussion on the plausibility of setting up day care centers and he assured us that he would extend his help towards any such attempts. But he also cautioned that not many of the workers or companies might be interested, more so if they have to make a monetary contribution. We requested him for access to his work sites as well as his workers camp, and he readily put us to people who would be able to help us. From dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in Sat Jun 16 17:06:36 2007 From: dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in (Dwaipayan Banerjee) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:36:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] postmodernism disrobed... thoughts on sokal-bricmont In-Reply-To: <72cca7600706150024r200f6a23r66bc2705d44b1afd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <547128.72537.qm@web94509.mail.in2.yahoo.com> He who laughs last, laughs best? Dwaipayan Banerjee A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream. Gaston Bachelard Every discourse, even a poetic or oracular sentence, carries with it a system of rules for producing analogous things and thus an outline of methodology. If this work seems so threatening, this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange, but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction. Why is it the philosopher who is expected to be easier and not some scientist who is even more inaccessible? Jacques Derrida I read the post on the Sokal-Bricmont affair a couple of days ago, and I have to say the currency it continues to hold years after the event is disconcerting to say the least. To put it briefly, I cannot find many ways of distinguishing between those who blindly toe the Sokal line and the editors of the journal (not peer-reviewed let us remember) that the hoax was sent to. To me, they both represent the highest forms of intellectual laziness and lack of rigour. Why? Simply, because when Sokal and Bricmont make sweeping accusations about disciplinary masters such as Deleuze, Latour, Irigiray and Lacan, they have simply not bothered to train themselves in the disciplines they think they are at such liberty to condemn. To me, it is precisely the equivalent of someone 'debunking' Eistein's theory of relativity because it did not make immediate sense to him as he flipped through it before bedtime. I am not for a moment arguing that there is no such thing as bad social science writing. I am just wary of people making judgements on such writing without the adequate training to do so. I am honestly scared of a world and people that would walk into a Picasso exhibition without any understanding of painting and dismiss it summarily without any curiousity or desire to learn. I am also scared of a world with only the literature that is 'easy' to read and has no place for Joyce, Eliot and countless others. I certainly would not enjoy living in a world that ridiculed the hootings of a Charlie Parker because it did not make them immediately want to dance. In academics, as I make place for a host of mathematics and physics that I do not understand, I wish simultaneously that a similiar place would be made for philosophy and social studies of science rooted in philosophy (which of course are strengthened by a fundamental knowledge of the science examined). I am glad therefore for the many scientists and mathematicians who have come out over the last ten years against Sokal and debunked his 'debunking' so to speak. More specifically, the rubric 'science studies' is now so broad that is it as meaningless an analytical category as it is to ludicruously criticise it in a sweeping generality. There is good writing on science and bad writing on science, but picking on Latour whose understanding of the most complex theoretical physics (thanks to a training in science, which is more than te can say for Sokal's knowledge of philosophy) really fails to make much sense to me. Also to pick on arbitrary extracts from Deleuze - while ignoring the vast philosophical tradition beginning with Spinoza - seems to me to represent the worst excesses of intellectual laziness that characterise so many critics of 'science studies'. It is fortunate now that social studies of science represent a high degree of knowledge of their objects of knowledge; it is unforunate that the same can't be said of their critics. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater also means making redundant the path-breaking work done by Bohr, Heisenberg and countless others who have done pioneering work (much before 'science studies') at the intersections of science and philosophy. I mention those two specifically because of their intersections with Lacan that Sokal is so critical of. For more on this: http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~bohmmech/BohmHome/sokalhoax.html To put it succintly, I am sure Guattari does not fascinate the everyday reader, and that neither do Deleuze or Lacan. But perhaps it would not be too much to ask that you be trained to some reasonable extent in psychoanalysis or philosophy before judgements on their work are so pronounced with such forthright candour? If their works were next in line for the Pulitzer I would understand some apprehension. However they are not, and in the same way we appreciate the specificity of the use of language in scientific languages, let us accord some of the same to serious social sciences? Honestly, I cannot respect academic thinking that is too parochial to understand that different forms of academic enterprise require different styles and logics of writing. If we do not malign the languages of science such as mathematics as 'jargonistic' and unreadable, perhaps non-specialists should similiarly attempt to understand that some good social science writing demands a similiar exactness and specificity that should not be confused with 'jargon' and posturing. 'Style comes in many shapes and sizes'. Some scientists write to communicate to lay audiences, some do to their trained peers. In the same way, social scientists too have different sets of audience in mind. Deleuze and Guattari are no bed-time reads, I am in fact glad that such rigour exists alongside similiar other exciting social science writing (Latour's for example) that keep a larger audience in mind and style their prose with such a purpose. This is perhaps not the place to enter into a discussion about the crucial intermingling of writing, method and thought - the interlinkings of form and concent about which poetry teaches us so much, but it would do us a whole lot of good to begin to realise that style is deployed for a reason - be it intellectual, aesthetic, technical or combinations of these. And as regards Dawkin's quoting of Foucault's 'One day perhaps this century will be Deleuzian', he woefully missed the equally wonderfuly reply. Deleuze replied thus to Foucault's comment: "A joke meant to make people who like us laugh, and make everyone else livid". Poor livid Dawkins. He who laughs last, laughs best? I have no quarrel with those who wish for simplicity and clarity in writing. To me, poetry remains the form of expression for which I reserve the most respect and adulation. However - try as we may - we are not all poets and the men of genius who encapsulate beauty and truth in one pithy phrase come few and far in between. In the meanwhile, we are left with the task of saying what we know in the best possible way. __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ From sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in Sun Jun 17 13:45:49 2007 From: sayandebmukherjee at yahoo.co.in (sayandeb mukherjee) Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 09:15:49 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] corridors/4th posting/2 Message-ID: <961605.26322.qm@web7709.mail.in.yahoo.com> In the interface section I am presenting a short interview of two students of B.Architecture at Jadavpur University in Kolkata. This University had certain corridors where I have done certain audio recordings. I would post the audio clips in my blog and later submit with the final project. Visually, the corridor was bounded with walls on both the sides interspersed with classrooms; there some corridors had a dark projection leading to engineering laboratories and a dim tube light was on at its extreme end. INTERFACE Q. Do you think, that this corridor or like spaces have gone through a degradation aesthetically, as we consider the historicity of architecture since colonial period. Express your views in this regard on the statement – ‘ corridors of today have become not more than a blatant, aesthetically flat and monotonous commutative space. Nowadays it is not constructed with a pre-planning considering the above factors. It emerges by virtue of the construction of two parallel walls. Corridors that were integrated in constructions during the pre-colonial period used to have a display of artistic splendor like stone carvings, sculpted columns, paintings, murals and many other artistic elements embodied with heritage. ANS. It is true to certain extent. This should not be the look of a university or a college corridor. It lacks the color or the brightness that could make the young generation feel buoyant. It should have one side open (maybe she was visualizing a verandah) from where one can see the sky. But the corridor from where we make our daily journey to our classroom is very mundane; it is the space we try to avoid always. On the contrary, I received a totally different response from a student – Varun, in the same stream studying at JNTU in Hyderabad. Here the corridor was extremely bright with one side open and had got an arch by structure. The wall was painted with different graffiti giving an exotic look. Q. How do you feel about this corridor? Tell us your experiences that involve this corridor and any other such. Do you have any childhood memories in this kind of space? ANS. It is the best corridor of my life. It is always enchanting to spend time sitting on this railing and chatting with friends. It also has got an artistic look that always makes us spirited. I feel great when I think that this is the railing where many of my seniors have seated and enjoyed their afternoons like I am doing. In my childhood too I got good corridors for playing hide and seek with the other kids. I have no bitter experiences as such in a space like this, but when I think that this space could also generate fear I recall one of the horror movies made by Steven Spielberg. SAYANDEB MUKHERJEE FT#308, SUBBARAJU TOWERS, ROAD NO.4, VIJAYAPURI COLONY, KOTHAPET, HYDERABAD PIN: 500 035 PH#9849383863 Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Click here http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php From yasir.media at gmail.com Sun Jun 17 16:40:26 2007 From: yasir.media at gmail.com (yasir ~) Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 16:10:26 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] global warming & peak oil solved - by YesMen In-Reply-To: <5af37bb0706170409x43a54eekff3e8c19eb9b4dd6@mail.gmail.com> References: <5af37bb0706170409x43a54eekff3e8c19eb9b4dd6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5af37bb0706170410u188ec959gac23d002fde1233d@mail.gmail.com> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/14/214445/536 http://www.vivoleum.com/event/ From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 18 21:42:44 2007 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 09:12:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Pratibha Patil's "views" on Purdah system Message-ID: <676714.37954.qm@web51407.mail.re2.yahoo.com> End the veil system: Pratibha Special Correspondent JAIPUR: Rajasthan Governor and UPA Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil on Sunday left historians and Muslim social activists astounded by her remarks that the purdah (veil) system was introduced in India to protect women from Mughal aggressors. Addressing a function marking the 467th birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap at the Nagar Parishad Auditorium in Udaipur, Ms. Patil said though Indian culture always respected women, the veil system began during the Mughal rule to "save women from Mughal invaders." Ms. Patil said: "Today we are citizens of free India. There is need to put a stop to such practices. That alone will ensure real respect for women. When women are progressing in every field, it is our duty to discontinue such practices." Historians said the veil system was prevalent much before the Mughal invasion. "There is evidence of construction of separate `zanana' chambers for women in the Chittaurgarh fort in the 11th century," said Varsha Joshi of the Institute of Rajasthan Studies. Dr. Joshi said women were not allowed to take part in the coronation ceremonies of Rajput rulers, and they were mostly confined to home. "To argue that purdah started because of Mughals amounts to taking a very narrow view of history." State president of Jamat-e-Islami Hind Mohammed Salim said the opinion that women adopted the veil because of the fear of Mughal rulers reflected the distorted view of history taken by the Sangh Parivar. "It is unfortunate that Ms. Patil found the communal forces' views convincing enough to incorporate them in her address." "Factually incorrect" The State secretary of the All-India Milli Council, Abdul Qayoom Akhtar, said Ms. Patil's remarks were "factually incorrect and historically untenable." "We have been listening to such comments in the false propaganda of Sangh Parivar earlier. It is surprising that Ms. Patil has chosen to agree with the Sangh's line of thinking," he said. However, Congress spokesperson Param Navdeep, contacted by The Hindu, defended Ms. Patil's remarks, saying they should be seen in the light of the life and times of the erstwhile Mewar ruler. "There should be no controversy about it. It is an established fact that women were the target of aggression during the Mughal rule," she said. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos & more. http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC From mail at art-jhuggi.net Sat Jun 16 11:28:46 2007 From: mail at art-jhuggi.net (Takahiro Noguchi) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 11:28:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Hassan Al-Saidi: Iraqi artist-in-exile, New Delhi exhibition In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You are cordially invited to an exhibition of mixed-media painting, installation and videos by Iraqi artist-in-exile Al-Saidi Hassan. Hassan Al-Saidi "portrait of a man" presented by art-jhuggi on view: 17 - 24 june 2007 preview saturday 16 june 2007 6:00 to 9:00 pm about the artist: Al-Saidi Hassan's career in art spans over 35 years, beginning with his studies at the Baghdad Art College and the Academy of Fine Arts, in Rome, to exhibiting and living in Italy, where he had his own sculpture and design studio and was an instructor at the Pietrasanta Art Studios. He has exhibited widely in Italy, France, Africa and India and has most recently been featured in group exhibitions at the Lalit Kala Akademy and Travancore Art Gallery in New Delhi. Since 1996, Hassan has been living as an artist-in-exile in New Delhi. In past years this was due to his political disagreements with the former regime of Saddam Hussein, and currently because of the United States invasion and civil war. He is a singularity in the world of contemporary Indian art: an artist who has experienced life as both a cosmopolitan nomad and a 'homo sacer,' his life hanging between the sovereignty of states. Hassan's work offers a glimpse of a possible Iraqi modernism, albeit one suspended and deferred. about the 'art' space: jhuggi: hindi term that describes informal structures built by the poor out of found materials for housing in the slums of India. art-jhuggi: an informal art/curatorial project that borrows from contemporary art and popular culture. we organize informal art and unconventional curatorial projects to examine connections between different economies and people. our current project is the launch of a d.i.y. (do it yourself) alternative 'art' space from an apartment in lajpat nagar, new delhi. the goal is to explore alternative economies and possibilities for exchange within and through the brokering of art and artists. ------------------------- takahiro noguchi artist/organizer art-jhuggi e-98, 1st floor lajpat nagar I new delhi, 110024 india www.art-jhuggi.net timings: 5:00 - 9:00 pm (monday closed) _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From navayana at gmail.com Sat Jun 16 09:43:06 2007 From: navayana at gmail.com (Navayana Publishing) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 09:43:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Kancha Ilaiah's children's book: A Review Message-ID: *THE WORK OF OUR HANDS* *Vatsala Kaul has high praise for Kancha Ilaiah's book for children on the values of 'simple' work* * Tehelka, Jun 23 , 2007* The cavernous divide between those who 'labour' and those who 'work' in India has always inhabited the shaky bedrock of our social system. Labour is work that leads to no accumulation of wealth, though it often perpetuates its own impoverished struggles. Its devaluation, as scripted in Hindu religious texts and fostered by years of selfish conditioning, has only worsened, aggravating the disengagement between the historically privileged and those banished to the fringes as 'lower castes', 'Backward Classes', 'Scheduled Tribes' and 'untouchables'. Flung into such compartments without escape, millions of Indians — adivasis, potters, weavers, dhobis, farmers, cobblers and domestic workers — are regarded as a lobotomised, unskilled mass, providing 'services' it seems they have no choice but to perform. As Ilaiah points out, the modern education system — in continuance of an ideology that considers physical labour undignified — anoints mental endeavour but is derisive and disparaging of physical work. Basic productive services are neither valued nor well-paid. It is to this work and to those who perform it that Ilaiah seeks to restore a core of long deserved respect. The book is presented as a possible course book for children of classes 7-10, their teachers and parents. Of the book's 11 'lessons', eight deal with the scientific temper, artistic abilities, knowledge pool and many skills of adivasis, cattle-rearers, farmers, weavers and barbers. There is enough to grip the imagination — how the adivasis discovered and standardised most of the foods we eat; how leather workers used the tangedu plant for eco-friendly tannin; how tillers use traditional knowledge in planning their harvests; how potters improve their clay with smooth ash and charcoal; how dhobis use fuller's earth to remove stains and kill germs; how dais — largely the women of the barber community — are able to turn breach babies in the womb without ultrasounds or other costly techniques. There are interesting asides, and inventive exercises readers are encouraged to try — they work as well for adults as for kids. What do you know about CK Janu? Ever tried composting? Or protesting against manual scavenging? How much does a farmer earn on a crop? Grownups who fret over whether to let their domestic help use the ac are advised to resolve their own conflicts before handing this book to their children. The book was sparked off by Ilaiah's shock at students from the iits and iims protesting against reservations by going out to sweep roads and polish shoes, clearly demonstrating what little dignity they associated with such labour. Through lucid, logical text, Ilaiah places this work in socio-historical perspective, impressing upon the reader how entire categories of usually marginalised people have learnt, invented, discovered and created products we use but take for granted, and how they are as capable as others — often more so — of becoming teachers, software engineers, doctors, nuclear physicists or anything else. Ilaiah's well-intentioned narrative can become simplistic in places, such as in the chapter on 'Labour and Religion,' where he denounces Hinduism and its caste system. It's an impractical approach — one can not imagine the relatively privileged suddenly converting to Ilaiah's point of view if they are not already attuned to caste's heinous unfairness. By contrast, medieval Europe is described as a blissfully classless society — an assertion that is simply not true. Admittedly, however, while almost every religion has had cliques that arrogated to themselves powers and privileges, neither class nor slavery were sanctified by religion in the way Hinduism sanctified caste. Even if the word 'caste' were now to disappear, a vicious complex of reasons helps its long-entrenched effects to survive in this country and seep even into the lives of converts to more egalitarian religions. Although one understands that Ilaiah's case rests on presenting 'labouring' people as informed, skilled and creative, it is a little disappointing that he doesn't touch upon the fundamental, intrinsic equality of all people, skilled or not, learned or not, labouring or not. We may owe weavers a 'historical debt, so they must be given preference in education and employment,' but that should not mean that those whom we do not owe any such debt should not get, or be enabled to get, the same opportunities. Ilaiah excludes those who may not be 'skilled' or 'inventive', and new migrants to the 'labouring' classes who may or may not have traditional wisdom and learning. While most of the writing in the book is blissfully straightforward and not without humour (Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo are 'cobblers', for instance), academic jargon does creep in. But then, it's always hard labour to build up debate and easy work to nitpick. The cause is worthy, and the last chapter on gender issues more than welcome. This wonderfully designed book is a much-needed resource for both parents and teachers and anyone else who wants to educate themselves — teeming with interesting information, yet spacious and uncrowded. It is also beautifully embellished — one can't use so neutral a term as 'illustrated' — by Durgabai Vyam of Bhopal, whose Gond-style black-and-white drawings are feisty works of art. In times when children think cows eat garbage and not grass, and that flower pots grow one on top of the other on roadsides, Turning the Pot, Tilling the Land will prove vital in empowering our children to respect all kinds of peoples and their work, and to understand, and hopefully work against, the atrocious machinations of the caste system. Class 7 is too late to start, though; it would be best to share the contents of this book as soon as kids are old enough to understand the words 'play' — and 'work'. *Jun 23 , 2007* BOOK details *Turning the Pot, Tilling the Land: Dignity of Labour in Our Times* By Kancha Ilaiah. Illustrations: Durgabai Vyam. 9x9 inches, paperback, 108 pages Rs 150 ISBN 81-89059-09-6 Who discovered the first detergent soap in India? *Who created scripts as they crafted pots? * Who selected and standardised most of the food items we eat today? *How did cotton come to be spun into cloth? * Who originated the science of making leather out of animal skin? In this book, Kancha Ilaiah throws light on the science, art and skill of adivasis, cattle-rearers, leatherworkers, potters, farmers, weavers, dhobis and barbers. The book documents the contributions to the betterment of human life by castes and communities despised as 'lowly' and 'backward'. Recently, students opposed to reservation in educational institutions expressed protest by polishing shoes, sweeping the roads and selling vegetables. Why such resentment against labour? Could these students make shoes or till the land? Could they make a pot? This book – with stunning illustrations by Durgabai Vyam – is the first ever attempt to inculcate a sense of dignity of labour among India's children. ========= For copies and bulk orders write to navayana at gmail.com; to buy the book visit any good bookstore, or visit www.navayana.org for details -- S.Anand Publisher Navayana -- Navayana Publishing M-110 (First Floor) Saket New Delhi--110017 Ph: +91 9971433117 Registered address: Navayana Publishing 54, I Floor Savarirayalu Stree Pondicherry 605001 Ph: 91-413-2223337 Mobile: 91-94430-33305 www.navayana.org Join Navayana Book Club and avail free books and special discounts! http://www.navayana.org/content/bookclub.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070616/c50f7eca/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From navayana at gmail.com Mon Jun 18 14:45:19 2007 From: navayana at gmail.com (Navayana Publishing) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:45:19 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The one-eyed twice-borns In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *The one-eyed twice-borns* * Tehelka, Jun 23 , 2007* *Confronting the extremist fringe of the Right comes easy to the liberal-secular set but it ignores the more widespread casteist slurs by other sections of society* *S. Anand* Two recent incidents, seemingly unrelated, demonstrate how the "secular" common sense can react in shockingly contrasting ways. The first, much publicised case from MS University, Vadodara, involves Chandramohan Srimantula's paintings, the rightwing opposition to his work, and the subsequent rallying of the secular-liberal intelligentsia around the victim. About the same time, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, a case of blatant victimisation of a postgraduate student, Sukhbir Singh Badhal, was reported. The case came to light through the findings of a three-member committee inquiring into caste discrimination at AIIMS headed by University Grants Commission chairman Sukhdeo Thorat. Badhal's case was highlighted by The Times of India (May 13, 2007) and followed up by cnn-ibn. Badhal had stood first in a selection examination in lab medicine, but he was superseded by the second-ranker in the appointment to the coveted post of senior resident at the department of lab medicine. Like Chandramohan, a Lalit Kala award winner, Badhal had distinguished himself in his field. Both were wronged. In both cases, the deans of the departments concerned — Shivaji Panikkar at msu and RC Deka at AIIMS — stood up for their students whereas the respective managements not only justified their maltreatment but actively participated in their persecution. Where the similarity begins, it also ends. While Chandramohan's victimisation outraged a cross-section of voices — artists, academics, writers, actors, public intellectuals, lawyers, concerned citizens — there was no one to take up Badhal's cause. While a Free Chandramohan Committee quickly came into existence, a Help Badhal Committee did not materialise. Crucial here is the fact that Badhal happens to be a Dalit, and a Dalit who could stake a rightful claim to an institutional position without taking recourse to reservation. He had topped in the General category. In Chandramohan's case, the very obvious villainy of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal provided an ideal foil for the righteous though predictable indignation of the Left-liberal-secularists against the loony Right. Many times in the past they have appeared to feed off each other, and seem to unwittingly participate in a theatrical ritual where words and phrases such as "artistic freedom, cultural freedom, land of Khajuraho and Tantra, freedom of expression, moral policing, cultural intolerance/ hijack", etc, cross swords with "Western ideas, Hindu culture, hurting the sentiments of the majority, desecration of gods", and so on. These tiresome expressions, in turn, occupy placards, editorials, television bytes and SMS polls. In this secular theatre, Chandramohan and not Badhal would appear "the good victim". This phrase was used in another illuminating context by Gary Younge (The Nation, April 19, 2007) while comparing Rosa Parks' case in Alabama, 1955, with that of Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old who too had a few months earlier refused to get up and offer her seat to a white man. But unlike Parks, Colvin was too dark, too poor; and worse, an unwed mother. Colvin being the trigger for the boycott that spurred the civil rights movement would have been unacceptable. Parks, however, was seen by Martin Luther King Jr as a woman of family values, someone who had "character, integrity and Christian commitment". Strategists of movements, argues Younge, need a good victim and wait for one if they have to. In India, this plays out a little differently. There are people whose victimhood, however grievous and morally grounded, does not qualify as campaign-worthy for the rest of civil society. AIIMS is a high-profile institution headed by P. Venugopal, an unabashed opponent of reservation who has done little to hide his prejudices against Dalits and other oppressed sections of society. (A white man in a similar position at Harvard Medical School would not have so zealously paraded his prejudices as Venugopal has.) Badhal, with his indisputable academic "merit", represents an attack on the new sense of victimhood claimed by the entrenched classes and castes, the likes of Venugopal and his no-less-tactful supporters in the media. When news of Badhal's victimisation broke, we did not see any outrage from the usual interlocutors who launched email signature campaigns and organised protest meetings in support of Chandramohan. Badhal's, for that matter, is not an isolated case. Reports of Dalit and Adivasi students being hounded at AIIMS surfaced in April and September 2006. One student, Umakant Nagar, had reported that an "abusive and threatening" message had been inscribed on the door of his room forcing him to shift out. In due course, 29 students — all Dalits and Adivasis — were forced to shift hostels. But such ghettoisation and segregation at AIIMS — justified by Venugopal and his ad-hoc appointees — did not become a campaign issue for the secular-liberals. More recently, Ajay Kumar Singh, an mbbs student at AIIMS, testified at the Indian People's Tribunal on Untouchability organised by the National Council for Dalit Human Rights. His account of systematic abuse by the AIIMS administration appeared in Tehelka (June 2, 2007) in which he describes how the privileged caste students and management at AIIMS had joined hands to make sure he does not get his medical degree. This selective indifference is not so inscrutable. It could be argued, perhaps rationally, that Badhal's being a Dalit is not the sole factor, and that the secular-liberals who show up at these protests relate more easily to a case of denial of freedom of an artist's expression than to a case of denial of a job to an otherwise qualified candidate. The latter comes across as a dull, drab case in comparison with one like Chandramohan's. It is likely that most of those who identified with the Baroda student-artist were in fact offended by the encroachment by unenlightened lumpens on the turf of art. Art becomes a good cause to fight for and Chandramohan the perfect victim. However, the reason why most players who took to the streets for Chandramohan did not deem it necessary to react to Badhal goes a little deeper than the attractiveness that "art" provides. When students in elite institutions across the country (led by iits, iims, AIIMS) protested the suggested reservation for the Other Backward Classes in Central colleges, and demonstrated their protest in the most vulgar and demeaning manner — by sweeping roads, polishing shoes and selling vegetables — the same secular-liberal intelligentsia that jumps at the opportunity that a Chandramohan or a Husain provides, remained completely indifferent. Perhaps they decided that the protesting students could not be denied their rightful freedom to express their contempt towards the labouring castes. It is this silence — 'indifferentism' as Ambedkar had prophetically termed the caste Hindu/liberal attitude to anti-caste concerns — that continues to echo for Badhal. What happened to Badhal was unconstitutional, as much as what happened to Chandramohan. msu Vice-Chancellor Manoj Soni, Narendra Modi's rss-backed appointee, is quite easily the ugly villain compared to Venugopal; unlike Soni, the AIIMS director does not have any direct Hindutva connection. We are left with a scenario where confronting the obvious wrongs of the overzealous Hindutva brigade seems an acceptable national-secular pastime, whereas taking on the casteist non-Hindutva demons who have prowled this society for far longer, becomes nobody's burden. When only Dalits are forced to bear the burden of articulating Dalit issues they are dubbed sectarian; the casual betrayal of Dalits by the rest of society passes for secularism. While everyday secularism in India is animated by concerns for issues that relate to religion, and especially the religious Right, issues concerned with caste discrimination leave them cold. Such secularism fails to acknowledge, forget understand, that for civil society to come to real terms with the Modis, Sonis, Goradias and Togadias, it has to first take a position on invisibilised everyday caste discrimination. In the hierarchy of wickedness, Venugopal must share space with Soni and Modi. We can no longer afford to choose to free Chandramohan from Soni and yet allow Venugopal to hold Badhal a prisoner of caste. * The writer is publisher, Navayana anand.navayana at gmail.com* -- Navayana Publishing M-110 (First Floor) Saket New Delhi--110017 Ph: +91 9971433117 Registered address: Navayana Publishing 54, I Floor Savarirayalu Stree Pondicherry 605001 Ph: 91-413-2223337 Mobile: 91-94430-33305 www.navayana.org Join Navayana Book Club and avail free books and special discounts! http://www.navayana.org/content/bookclub.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070618/4f0af0cd/attachment.html From renee75 at gmail.com Mon Jun 18 17:05:50 2007 From: renee75 at gmail.com (Renee Lulam) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:05:50 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 4th post: Conversations and Discussions Message-ID: The screening of Sanjay Kak's Jashn-E-Azadi. Here at Shillong. In Assam Club at Laban. Laban was one of the first colonial settlements, hence Laban, meaning White. Students, scholars, academicians, writers, journalists, aspiring filmakers and documentarians abound. From various communities in Shillong -- Khasi, Assamese, Bengali, Karbi, Meitei, Adi, Mizo, Nepali, Malyali...to mention ONLY a few. All based in Shillong. Post-screening discussions took on various colours -- green, red, very very subtle shades of what could be saffron, grey, black, white....all depending on personal backgrounds and political persuasions. And paymasters. For a while, being there, recording the discussions, listening to the questions asked and answered, even those that tended towards downright vapid, conversing with people, it was tempting to accept all this at face value, to leave the surface unscratched, to ignore the very real complexities that make up the Shillong milieu. Almost too tempting to oversimplify things -- to allow one's self that Shillong is indeed cosmopolitan and leave it at that, that this variety is allowed free equal expression in different forms in its democratic and public spaces. For a couple of hours there, it felt like it. Because at some level, that discussion and that audience could happen only in Shillong. As we pack up, later, Jules comments -- Here we are, in Laban, at Assam Club, with Bengalis, discussing politics (in Kashmir) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070618/d096005e/attachment.html From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de Mon Jun 18 11:53:16 2007 From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (soundLAB) Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 08:23:16 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?=5BAnnouncements=5D_call_for_entries?= =?iso-8859-1?q?=3A_soundobjects_and_soundart?= Message-ID: <20070618082316.AB11C4B.CA6CBD7C@192.168.0.4> Call for proposals ------------------------------------------ 1. soundobjects for SoundLAB exhibition deadline 9 July 2007 2. soundart for SoundLAB - Edition V deadline 1 August 2007 ------------------------------------------- SoundLAB - sonic art project environments http://soundlab.newmediafest.org is currently preparing two projects ------------------------------------------- 1. an exhibition in the framework of a digital art show in 2008. Call for proposals --> SoundLAB is looking for some additional physical SoundObjects for completing the show Details and specifications can be found on http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=112 ------------------------------------------- 2. Edition V of SoundLAB call for entries--> new soundart works under the theme: soundSTORY - sound as a tool for storytelling -------------------------------------------- In 2004, SoundLAB was launched as a corporate part of the global networking project [R][R][F]200x--->XP - http://rrf200x.newmediafest.org on occasion of BEAP - Electronic Art Festival Perth/Australia 2004, but started soon also individually acting as an environment for sonic art. Edition IV was launched in October 2006 under the title "memoryscapes" incorporating 144 artists and 235 soundart pieces dealing with "memory and identity" in most different ways, and it became corporate part of the media art exhibition ://selfportrait - a show for Bethlehem - a show for Peace http://self.engad.org. - and was presented in Poland, Italy and Argentina . Edition V stands under the theme: --> "soundSTORY" exploring "sound" as a tool for storytelling. Therefore besides the soundart piece itself, the story this piece is telling has a particular relevance. SoundLAB - Edition V is also planned to be presented in the frameworks festivals and media art exhibitions after its launch. SoundLAB is inviting soundartists, musicians and composers to submit such a soundart narrative. Please find all entry details and the submission form on http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=24 . -------------------------------------------- SoundLAB Editions I - IV can be visited on http://soundlab.newmediafest.org -------------------------------------------- Released by NetEX - networked experience http://nmartproject.net/netex powered by [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne www.nmartproject.net - the experimental platform for art and New Media operating from Cologne/Germany. . info& contact info (at) nmartproject.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From pukar at pukar.org.in Tue Jun 19 09:43:19 2007 From: pukar at pukar.org.in (PUKAR) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:43:19 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [announcements] This Thursday: The 4th Annual PUKAR Lecture at NCPA Message-ID: <00c201c7b228$32a41ac0$3d66c2cb@freeda> PUKAR cordially invites you to The 4th Annual PUKAR Lecture Design Education in a Globalising World Keynote address Tim Marshall Dean, Parsons The New School for Design, New York Moderator Arjun Appadurai President, Board of Trustees, PUKAR Thursday, June 21, 2007 6:00-6:30 PM Tea, 6:30-8:30 PM Lecture Venue: Godrej Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point Tim Marshall will discuss the concept of social role of design and connecting design to other social sciences in order to impact the outcomes of the activities, agents and agencies. Tim Marshall is a well-known academician in the field of Design Education. As a faculty member and administrator of one of the best schools of design, Marshall emphasizes a more cohesive undergraduate education, a stronger faculty culture, and the creation of more integrated and comprehensive design degrees. Marshall has lectured extensively on academic topics related to design research and design education and has contributed to professional design journals. 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/20070619/b687c07d/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From nicheant at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 19 12:06:58 2007 From: nicheant at yahoo.co.uk (Nishant) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 06:36:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [Reader-list] The Hoot and Google Message-ID: <20070619063658.66156.qmail@web27908.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> The Hoot and Google Boycotting the Hoot unfairly will hurt what it has set out to do. (http://thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid=Web5917615240Hoot113240%20PM2598&pn=1#) For over a week now Google searches returning a link on the Hoot have been saying that visiting the site could be harmful for the surfer’s computer. We won’t really know how much damage that has done to our traffic, though it is a fair guess to assume that it is considerable. After all, who would carry on regardless to a site that is supposed to unload nasty things onto your computer? But here’s putting the record straight in the hope that word gets around that the Hoot is only harmful for bad journalism. A doubtless well-meant initiative called Stop Badware.org has set up a clearinghouse that blacklists sites which distribute badware. And what is badware? By the site’s definition it is software which installs deceptively, software which does not clearly identify itself, software which negatively impacts other computers, software which makes changes to other software, software which transmits data to unknown parties etc etc. One would imagine all these devious deeds would require a level of technical sophiscation which alas, the Hoot patently lacks. If a "trusted third party" , not named, not defined, complains to stopbadware.org that a site is doing one or more of the above anti social things,they slap the url of that site into their Badware Website Clearinghouse. Once there it is a short step to entering the bad books of Google, which promptly puts a default warning on that url. Does anybody check to see if the site is actually distributing badware before taking this drastic step? By StopBadware.org’s own declaration, nobody does. They trust their trusted third parties. And what does the hapless website do, assuming it is not at all guilty of such deviousness? It can ask the stop badware people for a review. If the review finds the site innocent of such harmful intention it removes the url from its Clearinghouse. And lets Google know. So a trusted third party suggested to StopBadware that the Hoot was a site distributing harmful software. It then did all the things it promises to do, namely acted with some alacrity and triggered the process which ended with a dark warning on Google. We did the only thing we could do—namely, asked for a review. The answer came within 48 hours. The site was clear, and was being removed from the clearinghouse. Google would also remove the warning it said reassuringly. That was four days ago. The site’s url did disappear from the Stop Badware Clearinghouse. Google persists with the warning, nevertheless. And what you discover when something like this happens to you is that Google has no channels by which you can contact them on this. None at all. You can write to stopbadware.org, once, twice. You won’t hear from them again either. Hows that for fairplay? So please spread the word. Visiting the Hoot is not harmful for your computer. With only text files, no ads, no pictures, it couldn’t do you harm if it tried. But yes, boycotting the Hoot unfairly will hurt what it has set out to do. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ From sadan at sarai.net Tue Jun 19 18:16:28 2007 From: sadan at sarai.net (Sadan) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:46:28 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] 4th post: Conversations and Discussions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4677D024.2030702@sarai.net> Dear Renee, I found your small posting quite promising and finished it wanting to know more about the discussion, kind of responses this screening generated. You also hinted to some specificity about Shilong regarding this discussion when you wrote,'...that discussion and that audience could happen only in Shillong'. would you elaborate this statement? There is peculiarity about Assam Club and its colonial past that you have mentioned. would you also elaborate it a bit more? I have not read your earlier postings and it is possible that you might have written about all these issues. In such case, please ignore this posting. Will get back to you after going through your earlier postings too. wishes, sadan. Renee Lulam wrote: > The screening of Sanjay Kak's Jashn-E-Azadi. Here at Shillong. In > Assam Club at Laban. Laban was one of the first colonial settlements, > hence Laban, meaning White. Students, scholars, academicians, writers, > journalists, aspiring filmakers and documentarians abound. From > various communities in Shillong -- Khasi, Assamese, Bengali, Karbi, > Meitei, Adi, Mizo, Nepali, Malyali...to mention ONLY a few. All based > in Shillong. Post-screening discussions took on various colours -- > green, red, very very subtle shades of what could be saffron, grey, > black, white....all depending on personal backgrounds and political > persuasions. And paymasters. > For a while, being there, recording the discussions, listening to the > questions asked and answered, even those that tended towards downright > vapid, conversing with people, it was tempting to accept all this at > face value, to leave the surface unscratched, to ignore the very real > complexities that make up the Shillong milieu. Almost too tempting to > oversimplify things -- to allow one's self that Shillong is indeed > cosmopolitan and leave it at that, that this variety is allowed free > equal expression in different forms in its democratic and public spaces. > For a couple of hours there, it felt like it. Because at some level, > that discussion and that audience could happen only in Shillong. > As we pack up, later, Jules comments -- Here we are, in Laban, at > Assam Club, with Bengalis, discussing politics (in Kashmir) > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _________________________________________ > 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/> From sadan at sarai.net Tue Jun 19 19:01:33 2007 From: sadan at sarai.net (Sadan) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:31:33 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Renee on Shilong Message-ID: <4677DAB5.1040103@sarai.net> Dear Renee, Hi! I just wrote a mail to you and then read your earlier postings. There are couple of threads that I found personally quite interesting in your work hence this response. If I am not wrong, one of the central issues that you are dealing with is the question of outsider and those who belong to the place. In your word, it is about the cosmopolitan and the indigenous in Urban cosmopolitan Shillong. You enter into a very complicated domain of memory ( urban memory) with these figures and then try to explore physical spaces. Now, this sounds very complicated and exciting. There are couple of responses. In your postings it appears to me that you have not questioned enough your categories of cosmopolitan and indigenous. Is it a sociological category( cosmopolitan= first generation migrants/ second generation migrants)? Is it about an outlook ( cosmopolitan with particular kind of appearance, dress, food habits, language, education etc)? Now, similar questioning can be applied to the figure of indigenous. Now, the need for asking such questions is two fold. If it is about sociological categories then these categories do not make much sense as your project by its very nature is not sociological. In the heart of the project lies an exploration about belongingness with place/physical spaces and its relation with memory. If categories and figures you choose are not social categories then why this distinction between cosmopolitan and indigenous at all. The point I am trying to communicate is that the very question, who belongs to and who does not belong to a place, a city or to any space for that matter actually frames your project and limits its significance. The wider question that needs to be posed here is how to approach ( for some of us how to write) about belonginess. Can we do it in sociological framework? My response would be skeptical. But more difficult question would be can we ignore sociological questioning while approaching the problem? Phenomenologists would look at the question quite differently and art practitioners will take a different route. It is easier to say that I am so and so hence my practice does not demand questioning from any other perspective. It is difficult to engage with what one is not. And, it is here both memory and place-ness become crucial as both have tendencies to evoke what it is not, both elides 'here' and 'now'. We can talk about memory and place ( with spaces) some other time. wishes, sadan. From indersalim at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 00:28:21 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:28:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] a performance today:a painting past Message-ID: <47e122a70706191158t5fc1b5a0s30615f21d9f60ac5@mail.gmail.com> please have a look at the image ( a Ghazal-Numa Image ) from performance Mandi House on 19/6/2007. a root of 40000 trees ( no. of trees to be felled for modern Delhi ) Majnu throws himself on Lyla's Tomb, Painting from a copy of Amir Khusru Divlavi's Khamsab, India, 15th century ( freer gallery washington DC ) http://indersalim.livejournal.com From ysikand at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 07:42:10 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:42:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Socio-Cultural Empowerment of Indian Muslims Message-ID: <48097acc0706191912i7397574xcd72517698dfe1dc@mail.gmail.com> Socio-Cultural Empowerment of Indian Muslims Yoginder Sikand (Paper presented at a conference on the Sachar Committee Report in Kochi, 16th-17th June, 2007 organised by the Al-Ameen Educational Trust and the Forum for Faith and Fraternity) I have been asked to speak on the subject of the social and cultural empowerment of Muslims in India. This is, of course, a very broad topic and one cannot do justice to it in the course of a short presentation. Rather than explore the reasons of Muslim disempowerment, about which much has already been written, I think it would be more useful to focus on certain practical measures that could be undertaken in this regard. I will deliberately refer to the crucial question of political empowerment only in passing as this is beyond the scope of this presentation. An important point to consider in discussing the question of Muslim social and cultural empowerment is that of the internal diversity among Muslims, which makes it difficult to make any but the most broad generalizations. These diversities are of various types—class caste, sect, language, region, ethnicity, gender and so on. Often, discussions about Muslim social empowerment miss out, whether deliberately or otherwise, these internal differences and variations, based on a misleading and untenable assumption of a pan-Indian Muslim monolith. It is striking to note how this notion of a Muslim monolith (like that of the equally misleading notion of a Hindu monolith) informs the discourse of both Hindu and Muslim right-wing forces and of the state. It was this same misplaced notion of Hindus and Muslims being two separate, monolithic and undifferentiated communities that paved the way for the Partition of India, which benefited the ruling elites of India and Pakistan, but made matters much worse for the masses, Hindu as well as Muslim. It must be noted that demands for resources or empowerment based on this notion of a Hindu or Muslim monolith works essentially to promote the interests of the elites, the so-called high caste, upper class Hindus and Muslims. Thus, for instance, the demand by some Muslim elites for reservations for all Muslims, based on this untenable assumption of a single Muslim monolith, can be seen as reflecting the interests of these elites, for it is obvious that such reservation would benefit essentially them, leaving out in the cold the vast majority of the Muslim community. This is similar in its implications to the case of Hindutva discourse, where the equally untenable myth of a Hindu monolith is used as a means to protect and promote the interests of so-called high caste and high class Hindus, and to deny other Hindus—the vast majority—their rights. Hence, in discussing the issue of the empowerment of the Muslim community, one must desist from speaking in terms of a Muslim monolith, and focus particularly on the question of the empowerment of the marginalized sections within the Muslim community, who, in many parts of India, happen to form the vast majority of the community, most of them being of indigenous so-called low caste background. It is a striking comment on the existing Muslim leadership that often their demands are couched in terms of a Muslim monolith, rarely referring to the specific problems of these marginalized sections, in whose marginalization, historically as well as now, Muslim elites, in addition of course to Hindu elites and the state, have had a crucial role to play. Muslim politics, particularly in north India, has been largely the politics of symbolism, with political elites raising such issues as the question of Urdu, the Muslim Personal Law, the Aligarh Muslim University, the Babri Masjid and so on. One can perhaps speak of some sort of complicity here with right-wing Hindu political elites, with both having a vested interest in focusing on such communally divisive issues to boost their own political fortunes. These issues are not unimportant in themselves. The point, however, is that because these issues have overwhelmed north Indian Muslim politics, the massive and growing social, educational and economic problems of the Muslim masses have been ignored, deliberately or otherwise. This calls for the need for a new sort of grass-root based community leadership from among the marginalized sections of the Muslims, which can go beyond the symbolic politics that only further promote communal polarization. This new leadership would focus on bread-and-butter issues that affect these sections as well as other similarly marginalized sections among other communities, such as Dalits, Backward Castes and Adivasis. Efforts at uniting these groups are underway, although, Hindu and Muslim elites do not regard this with any enthusiasm, for obviously it undermines their claims to be authoritative spokesmen and leaders of their communities. This means that the empowerment of the marginalized sections of the Muslims demands a dual process of democratization: gaining their rightful share within the larger Indian society as well as within the Muslim community itself. Now, leaving aside the complex world of politics, a few practical suggestions with regard to the issue of cultural empowerment. In this regard, it is crucial to note that Muslims in India are not a cultural monolith, although they share a common commitment to Islam, but even here one needs to take into account the diverse interpretations and expressions of Islam, as reflected, for instance, in the number of different maslaks, many of which define themselves in opposition to each other. There has been a tendency among Muslim elites in north India to seek to impose their so-called ashraf feudal culture and the Urdu language on the rest of the Indian Muslim population. Even in north India itself, highly Persianised Urdu, which is sought to be presented as the standard form of Urdu, has always been an elitist language, historically the language of some north Indian Muslim and Hindu elites. It was never the language of the Muslim or Hindu masses, who spoke and continue to speak in various regional dialects, incorrectly incorporated as Urdu or Hindi. The elitist strategy of projecting north Indian ashraf culture as the culture of all Indian Muslims is, in fact, no different from similar efforts on the part of north Indian Hindu elites to impose Brahmincial culture and a highly Sanskritised Hindi on the rest of the Hindu population, or what the Pakistani establishment sought to do in the erstwhile East Pakistan with disastrous consequences. Even the state has sought to present Urdu as a particularly Muslim language, which is not the case. Efforts to preserve and promote Urdu are surely welcome, but it must be remembered that it cannot and must not be treated as a Muslim language or as the language of all the Muslims of India. This will only further reduce the chances of survival of the language. It would also keep Muslims confined to their ghettos, unable to compete in the job market because of lack of competence in other languages. It would also further fortify barriers between Muslims and others, which can only further strengthen the deep-rooted stereotypes that others have about Muslims and Islam. In this regard, the emergence of a number of Muslim publications in languages other than Urdu is a welcome development. This can help promote communication with other communities. It can also help strengthen regional identities and cultures, in which Muslims, Hindus and others can participate together, thus making for greater and more positive inter-community interaction. North Indian Muslims have much to learn from their counterparts in Kerala in this regard, where Muslims, Hindus, Christian, Dalits and others all share a common linguistic and cultural heritage, which has helped in fostering fairly cordial inter-community relations. The democratic revolution demands that the cultures of marginalized communities be celebrated and promoted. These often contain rich symbolic resources that reflect the pains and anguish of the oppressed and their quest for emancipation, as well as a symbolic critique of the culture of elites that is used to legitimize their oppression. The retrieval of the cultures of the oppressed or subalterns is happening today in the case of the Dalits and Adivasis. In the Muslim case, this is less marked, for various reasons, but is reflected in some recent efforts by so-called low caste Muslim groups, particularly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, to celebrate their histories and heroes, commemorating the liberative spirit of Islam, which, they argue, has been sought to be watered down by Muslim elites. The tradition of numerous Sufi saints who bitterly critiqued political and religious elites for their oppression of the poor, and whose understanding of Islam was ecumenical and broad, reflecting a concern for all of God's creatures, and not just Muslims alone, was also a part of this broader subaltern tradition. This crucial social aspect of India's rich and varied Sufi traditions, of the non-elite variety in particular, needs to be highlighted, in order to evolve a popular culture that celebrates religious pluralism and at the same time speaks out against oppression and hegemony, be it of the state, or of Hindu and Muslim elites, and so on. This can play a vita role in the socio-cultural empowerment of the marginalized, Muslims as well as others. In this regard, it is pertinent to note how this tradition has been considerably bruised by the ritualisation of popular Sufism, with the transformation of Sufi shrines from centres of instruction and provision for the needy to centres of mediation, being controlled by a class of elites who claim to be religious intermediaries. Indian Muslim history, as is taught in schools and madrasas, and as is reflected in books on the subject by both Muslim and other scholars, continues to be highly elitist, and, incidentally, rather north Indian centric. This, too, is an issue that needs to be addressed in the process of promoting the cultural empowerment of the marginalized sections of the Muslims. Books on the subject of Indian Muslim history inevitably focus almost entirely on Muslim rulers, Sufis and ulema, almost all of whom were from the so-called higher castes—Sayyeds, Shaikhs, Mughals and Pathans, who form only a relatively small minority of the Indian Muslim population. There are hardly any books available on the literally hundreds of indigenous Muslim communities, mainly those of so-called low caste background. This, too, must change, if we are serious about a promoting democratic culture that is biased in favour of the oppressed. This democratization of Muslim historiography is as necessary as the democratization of the official Hindu historical canon, which, like its Muslim counterpart, is sternly elitist. Democratising Indian Muslim history writing would also serve a very necessary political purpose—to highlight the fact that the so-called period of 'Muslim rule' in India, which is routinely talked about both by Muslim and Hindu elites, was hardly that. It was actually the rule of Muslim elites, almost entirely of foreign extraction, in collaboration with sections of the Hindu elites. The vast majority of the Muslims, of indigenous extraction, were as marginalized and oppressed by these elites as their Hindu counterparts from the so-called low castes were. Making this point in today's context of communal rivalry is extremely significant in order to counter the political projects of Hindu as well as Muslim right-wing forces. In north India, as some surveys have shown, Muslims from so-called low caste background do not have adequate representation in various Muslim organizations. This is an issue that needs to be seriously addressed. Demands for their adequate representation are sometimes dismissed as 'conspiracies' to divide the Muslims on the basis of caste, which is said to be an un-Islamic institution, but I believe this argument is untenable, reflecting a desire to preserve the status quo. In actual fact, genuine and lasting unity can only be promoted if such organizations, particularly at their leadership level, are more socially inclusive in terms of class and caste. Keeping certain social groups out or not providing them adequate representation, whether consciously or unconsciously, can only further reinforce Muslim disunity. In this regard, the Muslim media has a very crucial role to play and it would be interesting to do a survey on what space they devote to the bread-and-butter issues of the Muslim poor. I do not suppose think the conclusions of such a survey would be very heartening. Related to this is the lack of serious empirical research on the marginalized sections of the Muslim community. This, too, reflects a certain lack of concern or indifference on the part of large sections of the Muslim elite towards the crucial social and economic problems of the Muslim masses. There is, to my mind, just one institution in the whole of India, the Institute of Objective Studies in New Delhi, that sponsors such research, although the quality of its research output leaves much to be desired. Why, one must ask, did we have to wait for the government-appointed Sachar Committee to produce a detailed report on the social and economic marginalization of Muslims? Why have Muslim organizations not been doing this sort of research, although this is crucial for planning for practical intervention as well as for lobbying with the state and working with NGOs? It is striking that while there are literally thousands of institutions in India for Islamic Studies, there is hardly any institution focusing on Indian Muslim Studies, on the social, educational and economic conditions of Muslims. This reflects the way in which Muslim elites view the priorities of the community and their relative neglect of the manifold problems of the Muslim masses. Promoting empirical research on marginalized sections of the Muslim community, and awareness-building, mobilisation and lobbying based on this, is essential in empowering them socially as well as culturally. I think the notion that an ideal career is that of a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer, or, now, a computer scientist or a business manager, needs to be challenged, and more Muslim youth need to go in for higher studies and careers in journalism, the liberal arts, humanities and the social sciences, to focus in their work particularly on marginalized sections of the community. There is a pressing need for the setting up of voluntary agencies to work among the Muslim poor. While there are literally thousands of madrasas in India, and crores of rupees are spent on fancy mosques, the number of Muslim NGOs which are really doing sincere and constructive work for the educational and social empowerment of the marginalized sections of the Muslims is relatively meagre. Muslim organizations must make demands on the state for adequate state investment in Muslim areas. In addition, however, efforts must be made to mobilize the internal resources of the community for the empowerment of the marginalized. In this regard, there needs to be rethinking of the best possible use of zakat funds, most of which now go to madrasas. The standard charity-based approach has to give way to seeking to help empower the poor. There is also a serious need for working on the issue of waqfs and dargahs and exploring possibilities for increasing their revenues and using these for the poor. This also calls for democratic management of the waqf boards and dargah committees. Another important issue in the context of the empowerment of the marginalised sections among the Muslims is that of madrasa reforms. The vast majority of madrasa students come from these sections of Muslim society. The on-going debate on madrasa curricular reforms needs to be taken further and efforts to include 'modern' subjects need to be expanded. In addition, students must be familiarized with the world around them and with contemporary affairs. This will enable them to play a more constructive and socially engaged role in their capacity of would-be religious specialists. This will also help widen their career options and facilitate their joining colleges and universities after they graduate. The rigid dualism that characterizes Muslim education, between the ulema and 'modern' educated Muslims, must be narrowed down and efforts need to be made to promote greater dialogue and interaction between the two to help in the process of the empowerment of the marginalized sections of the Muslim community. In this regard, I would like to cite the instance of a group of Muslim activists, mainly retired government officers, in Bangalore which I recently came across. This group goes every Friday to various mosques in the city and, after the imam reads the Arabic khutba, they deliver sermons on the importance of education and also on the salience of the findings of the Sachar Committee report. After the prayer gets over, there is a question and answer session, where people ask questions and advice is given on how to form local groups, solve local problems and access various government schemes. Another such interesting example is that of a group of ulema in Bangalore, who are now doing a course in English, Computer Applications and Social Sciences. They have got together to prepare and publish Friday khutbas in Urdu that relate religious prescriptions to the need for education, health provision and other forms of social service. Further in this regard, it would be useful if arrangements can be made for madrasa managers and ulema, particularly from the younger generation, to visit Christian seminaries and learn from their example. There, would-be Christian priests learn not only about their own religion, but also about other religions, as well as about social work and social activism. Perhaps these subjects and skills could be included in the madrasa curriculum as well. I also think that there is much that madrasas and other Muslim organisations in the rest of India can learn from the Kerala example, where Muslim organizations are much better organized and socially engaged. It would serve a valuable purpose if arrangements could be made for Muslim social activists and younger ulema from other parts of India, who wish to work for the empowering the Muslim poor, to visit various Muslim institutions in Kerala to see the very interesting and creative work that they are doing and to learn from their example. The somehow deeply-rooted notion that north India must lead and south India must follow is completely mistaken and there is much that the south Indian example holds for north Indian Muslims to learn from. Linked to this is the need for developing alternate understandings of Islamic theology and jurisprudence that are rooted in and creatively responsive to the Indian situation of religious pluralism, caste, class and gender oppression and the fact of Muslims being a minority in India. This needs to be reflected in the madrasa curriculum as well. Such progressive understandings of religion can play a crucial role in addressing the lived realities and concerns of the marginalized, irrespective of community. Clearly, understandings of religion, no matter what religion, that are exclusivist and insensitive to the local context, particularly that of oppression, betray the genuine core of true spirituality. My last point relates to intra-community and inter-community relations. It is obvious that the empowerment of the marginalized sections among the Muslims requires an atmosphere of harmonious intra- and inter-community relations. It is striking to note in this regard the sharp inter-maslak divisions and strife that are promoted by certain Muslim institutions, publishing houses, ulema groups and madrasas. It is equally striking to note the absence of any organized dialogue work to bring together ulema of different maslaks to enable them to work together in a spirit of ecumenism. I think this is a serious issues that urgently needs to be addressed. On the inter-community relations front, obviously Hindu-Muslim strife hurts the marginalized sections of the Muslims the most and so for their progress and empowerment communal harmony is indispensable. In this regard, the state and Hindu organizations and activists have a crucial role to play. But so do Muslims. The ulema need to be sensitized to the issue and need of inter-faith dialogue and undertake suitable efforts in this regard. There is an urgent need to promote inter-religious dialogue, and in this regard to go beyond the present limited form of dialogue at the level of religious doctrines between religious specialists—ulema and pundits—which, although important, is clearly inadequate. Often, such dialogue is promoted simply by missionary motives or in order to defend one's beliefs against those of others. Generally, such dialogue at the level of theology stumbles after a point because each religion, as interpreted by its religious orthodoxy, has certain non-negotiable fundamentals. Hence, dialogue efforts must go beyond simply theological exchange, which remains limited to a small religious elite . Dialogue needs to be extended beyond the narrow sphere of religious specialists to become more democratic and socially inclusive, include people from different walks of life, particularly social activists and media persons from different religious backgrounds. Inter-community dialogue should go beyond talking about one's religion to focus on the possibilities of joint efforts to work for social issues of common concern. This is the dialogue of social action, which moves beyond mere theological exchange and polemics. There is an urgent need for many more Muslims to be involved in social movements on issues that are not limited just to the Muslim community, but, rather, are of much wider concern, such as the environmental movement or the struggle against so-called globalization and against caste, class and gender oppression. The obsession with issues only concerning the Muslims is, I feel, very stifling and also counter-productive from the point of view of the Muslim masses. So, too, is the tendency to be self-righteous, to ignore the serious need for introspection, to blame others for all one's ills and to remain silent when, in some situations, non-Muslims suffer at the hands of Muslims. Of course there are several other things that must be done for the empowerment of the marginalized sections of the Muslim community, including, particularly, women. I will not go into this because much has already been said and written about this, including in the recommendations of the Sachar Committee Report. What I have presented here are some stray and rather disjointed thoughts for your consideration and I only hope that this would enthuse at least some people here to seriously think of working on these issues. ============================== Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He can be contacted on ysikand at gmail.com From rashneek at gmail.com Tue Jun 19 12:34:34 2007 From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:34:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Documentary Screening on World Refugee Day Message-ID: <13df7c120706190004j15c8cbe7r52d41ea71713c993@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friends, As you are aware that 20th June is observed as World Refugee Day.In order to mark this day,Roots in Kashmir(An Initiative of Kashmiri Youth)is screening the critically acclaimed documentary titled "And the World Remained Silent" The screening shall be followed by a panel discussion on the topic "Why the Nation Remains Silent".The panelists shall include Swapan Das Gupta(Eminent Journalist),Vivek Tankha(Noted Criminal Lawyer),Zafar Meraj(Freelance Journalist and Kashmir Expert),Dr.Agnishekhar(Convenor-Panun Kashmir) and Sandhya Jain(Intellectual and Columnist). We request your presence at the screening.Cards/Passes shall be available at the venue itself. Venue: Main Auditorium, Sri Satya Sai International Centre,Pragati Vihar,Lodhi Road Date:20th June,07 Time:6.30 PM For more details please visit our blog http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com Looking forward to seeing you at the screening. Thanks and Regards Rashneek Kher for Roots in Kashmir http://kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com -- Rashneek Kher http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070619/18f8f43f/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From priyababu_sudar at yahoo.co.in Tue Jun 19 13:33:45 2007 From: priyababu_sudar at yahoo.co.in (priya babu) Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:03:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] aravanis in madurai-june 2007 Message-ID: <341178.95006.qm@web94113.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Posting for june 2007- Priyababu . In Madurai and adjoining villages during death ceremonies aravanis will be called to sing Oppari (Death songs). Since none of the women were involved in this profession, people prefer calling aravanis to sing oppari songs. There was general belief among the public that Aravanis have female tone and don’t feel shy singing oppari songs. If a person died in a particular house then the house will be called as Mattai by aravanis. In villages mattai means the coconut leaf in which the dead body will be placed and taken to the burial ground. Oppari will have standard lyrics. The aravanis who were invited to sing oppari will collect all the details about the person who died and will tailor the song (oppari) accordingly without changing the standard lyrics. In 90% of the death ceremonies aravanis will sing Nallathangal, a traditional folk song. There is a demand among general public for this Nallathangal folk song. There is general belief among the people that this Nallathangal, folk story is a real incident that happened in Virudhu Nagar district, Vathirairuppu taluk Achananpuram village. The story goes like this; Once upon a time there lived a brother (called Nallathambi) and a sister (called Nallathangal). Both of them were affectionate to each other. Years passed and Nallathangal attained puberty. Nallathangal was married to Kasirajan, head of a village close to the place where Nallathambi and Nallathangal lived. Nallathangal and Kasirajan lived happily for several years and they had seven children. But things became worse soon, due to severe drought in the village. Kasirajan lost everything and the couples were left in the streets. Nallthangal decided to approach her brother Nallathambi for financial support but Kasirajan haven’t allowed her to do that. In spite of her husband’s wish Nallathangal went to meet her brother along with her 7 children unfortunately Nallathangal couldn’t able to see her brother since he went to forest for hunting. Nallathangal met her sister-in law and explained her about their family situation. But her sister-in law insulted Nallathangal and made her to leave from her house. Since there was no hope to live, Nallathangal committed suicide along with her children. After a few days, Nallathambi returned home. Somehow through the villagers Nallathambi came to know the death of his sister and the reasons behind it. Nallathambi got angry and killed his wife later he also committed suicide. Kasirajan without knowing anything came to Nallathambi’s house to meet his wife and children. When Kasirajan heard the news of his wife’s death he was shocked and committed suicide. The moral behind this story is about brother, sister relationship and the importance of respecting husband’s word Thus, being the performers of Oppari songs, Aravanis are also included in the main stream society and also being acknowledged as women or even better than the biological females since Oppari is traditionally song by women. Thus, though Aravanis are still by and large kept at the margins of the society, inclusion of Aravanis in the mainstream society happen through some of the traditional customs like Oppari. --------------------------------- Here’s a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070619/4c95df39/attachment.html From p.hatzopoulos-alumni at lse.ac.uk Wed Jun 20 14:03:42 2007 From: p.hatzopoulos-alumni at lse.ac.uk (p.hatzopoulos-alumni at lse.ac.uk) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:33:42 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] New rights - new publication Message-ID: New online journal Re-public has just published the special issue "New rights". The issue explores how the notion of 'new rights' challenges the primary categories through which modern democracy has been conceived and practiced . Articles include: Ulrich Beck - Rights: Beyong methodological nationalism < http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=167 > Leading contemporary sociologist Ulrich Beck points to the need of rethinking human rights on a transnational level. _____ Bonnie Honig - The time of rights: Emergent thoughts in an emergency setting < http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=158 > Bonnie Honig argues that new rights unsettle chronological time. They plunge us into plural timeframes _____ Paola Cavalieri - Animals: For an expanded theory of human rights < http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=151 > What can it mean to extend fundamendal rights beyond the boundaries of our species, asks Paola Cavalieri. _____ Michael Geist - The open access principle < http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=152 > Michael Geist call for open approaches to publishing, as means of stengthening digital rights and creating a better-informed society. _____ All articles of Re-public are published with a Creative Commons license and can be re-printed freely, by acknowledging their source. Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm From ysikand at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 22:21:30 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:21:30 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Trauma of Violence: Mounting Psychological Illnesses in Kashmir Message-ID: <48097acc0706200951q6d0a72c5q27cd175af9b56f89@mail.gmail.com> Trauma Of Daily Violence In Jammu And Kashmir Telling Upon Mental Health By Syed Junaid Hashmi 20 June, 2007 Countercurrents.org Ravaged by conflict, traumatized by lack of accountability and strangled by social taboos, people in Jammu and Kashmiri have been both witness to and victims of violence which has had a significant effect on their mental health. While a sustainable political solution to "K" problem seems far away, psychological wounds inflicted by violence and impunity on the Kashmiri society continue to increase and go well beyond socio-economic problems. Studies and survey's conducted by various reputed organizations and institutes have confirmed that Psychological problems have been increasing in Jammu and Kashmir. According to one survey conducted by state mental health society (SMHS), around 80,000 people from Kashmir valley visited various mental health professionals during the year 2005-2006 and nearly three-fourths were diagnosed with serious psychological disorders. This represents an over twenty percent increase from 2005 and reveals that the emotional and mental damage caused by the conflict continues to surge. A survey report on Jammu and Kashmir by a Holland-based humanitarian group M‚decins Sans FrontiŠres (MSF) maintains that a third of its respondents suffered from psychological distress. Nearly one in 10 people reported having lost one or more members of their immediate family due to violence in the period from 1989-2005. The survey reported that almost half ( 48.1%) of the respondents said they felt only occasionally or never safe. It also indicated that violence or the threat of physical violence seems to have had a significant effect on the mental health of people. It revealed that respondents suffered from high levels of anxiety such as nervousness, tension and extensive worrying. The survey stated that a substantial number of people interviewed by them admitted to having thoughts about ending their life (33.9%). "Such a high percentage of suicidal tendencies within a population holding strong religious beliefs that condemn the act of suicide, is a worrying indicator of the level of despair and hopelessness in which people in Jammu and Kashmir are living," stressed a neurologist. The survey also indicated high rates of physical complaints including headaches (23.5%), body pains such as joint and back complaints (20.5%), and abdominal complaints (16.9%). It reported that poor health placed a substantial burden on the area's health facilities, with most people saying they visit health clinics frequently ( 63.9%); some even four times or more. Medicine consumption was also high, with over one-third taking six or more medicines in the previous 30 days (37.9%). According to MSF, Interviewees reported witnessing (73.3%) and directly experiencing themselves ( 44.1%), physical and psychological mistreatment, such as humiliation and threats thus causing extensive damage to their psychological health. A shocking finding of the survey was that torture appeared to be widespread suggesting that a strategy of intimidation and fear has been employed by army and paramilitary forces. Maintaining that sexual violence has impinged upon the mental health of people in Jammu and Kashmir more than physical violence, the survey reported that sexual violence has been used as a common strategy to intimidate people in conflict. 11.6% of interviewees said they had been victims of sexual violence since 1989. Almost two-thirds of the people interviewed (63.9%) by MSF had heard over a similar period about cases of rape, while one in seven had witnessed rape. The worst hit have been the children among whom the major effect of the violence reported in this survey has been fear (24.6%). School-related problems also scored highly, such as being unable to attend school (15.5%) and having problems studying ( 16.3%) due to the lack of professional teachers and study material. Respondents told the surveyors that people deal with stress by isolating themselves (22.3%) or becoming aggressive (16%). They further informed them that talking confidentially to someone they trust is helpful when confronted with tension ( 89.4%). It is essentially this survey which brought out the real picture of the mental health of people in Jammu and Kashmir. The findings of the survey revealed a bleak picture of the mental health of people in the conflict-afflicted region and raised important questions about the government's failure to adequately provide mental health services to the population. Overburdened, understaffed, and in-demand, this is the state of mental health care in Kashmir. The Psychiatric Diseases Hospital at Kaathi Darwaza is the only refuge for mental patients in Kashmir, and its doctors, facilities, and supplies have long been grossly inadequate. According to one report, records from the out-patient department (OPD) of Srinagar's Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases show that more than 300 people arrive every day. It stated that most self-admitting patients are women aged between 16 to 25. Because of the social stigma associated with psychological disorders, doctors believe that no more than 10 percent of those in need of psychiatric care are actually approaching the hospital. One outcome of this under-treated trauma is an increase in teenage girl suicides. According to another report published in a local daily, 19-year-old Jameela witnessed her aunt being killed while working in the kitchen and later also witnessed a shootout in her locality. With no history of psychiatric problems, she began suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders: recurrent, intrusive and distressing recollection of the events, marked irritability, outbursts of anger, difficulty in concentrating, sleeplessness, sadness, and disinterest in all social, domestic and college activities. Following a minor altercation with her sister, she consumed pesticide and ended her life. A statistical report of the state health and medical education department revealed that on an average, two to three cases of attempted suicide are admitted into Srinagar's two main hospitals on regular basis. A large number of people from the villages die on the way or in local health centers. Psychologists maintain that people living at a place ravaged by conflict are often faced with a number of Psychological problems. They say that the physical environment in which people live and survive has a direct bearing on their mental health. "Stress caused by feelings of insecurity and dependency can deplete physical and psychological buoyancy leading to varied mental problems, this has happened in most of the cases in Jammu and Kashmir," said Dr.Adarsh Bhargav He maintained that crackdowns, frisking by security forces and round-up raids in villages have a deep impact on the mental health of the people. "When you find yourself in the middle of a situation where your movement gets restricted, where you have to follow orders, where you are abused and humiliated, where your imaginations fail to take a flight and where your identity always remains a suspect, you are bound to suffer from Psychological disorders," added the young practicing Psychologist. A young neurologist Dr.Nida who is presently doing her masters from a reputed institute in Delhi maintained that since 1990, the number of mental patients in Kashmir Valley have increased from 1500 to nearly 1 Lakh in 2006. "Around 60 to 70 percent of these patients are suffering from depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia; all of these disorders are of serious nature, apart from these problems, there are many other psychological complications associated with violence which can be easily noticed among the people in Kashmir valley," added Dr.Nida. She maintained that situation has come to a stage where people feel so unsafe that they prefer staying in hospital than going home. Increasing psychological and neurological problems among the people in Jammu and Kashmir begs further discussion of the continuing situation of impunity in Kashmir for those who perpetrate acts of terror and violence without any fear of being caught and held accountable. Until this atmosphere of impunity is not addressed, psychological problems are bound to increase. =================================================== The writer is a journalist, presently working with Jammu and Kashmir's largest circulated daily "The Kashmir Times". He can be contacted on syedjunaidhashmi at gmail.com -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping From indersalim at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 22:33:18 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:33:18 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] OTHER: Digitariat, Jihad & Abhinavagupta In-Reply-To: <47e122a70706200918r4a4a7f02t216e1213318e33d8@mail.gmail.com> References: <47e122a70706200918r4a4a7f02t216e1213318e33d8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47e122a70706201003h243bb521w1f1bb95f88252eba@mail.gmail.com> OTHER: Digitariat, Jihad & Abhinavagupta 1. I am lifting fragments from an essay by Dieter Lesage from 'Another Publication Is (n't) Possible' which is part of the conceptual book titled ANOTHER PUBLICATION brought out by Renee and Katarina from Rotterdam. I happen to be part of it, besides other contributions from all over the world. 'For Negri and Hardt, neither identity, nor difference or hybridity are the key to anti-imperial resistance, but 'the common'. The multitudes should try to understand what is at stake in their common battle: a decent life for everybody, not only for those who belong to one's own people, nor only for those who share one's own territory. Negri and Hardt are very concrete when they formulate three political demands of the multitude. First of all, they demand that all people should obtain civil rights in their country where they live. Indeed, the capitalist liberal democracies themselves are greatly responsible for the migration of which they happen to be terminus. The demand can be radicalized further: everybody should have the right to stay to go where s/he wants. The multitude should demand the right to control its own movements. This demand is nothing less than the demand for 'global citizenship' and corresponds to the suggestion by Immanuel Wallerstein that liberalism should be taken literally. There should not only be freedom of circulation for capital and for good, but also- and may be in the first place—for people. Today people don't have the same rights as capital and good. According to Wallerstein, one should demand that markets should be really free and thus that markets should be open for all those who want to come, Economic liberals will soon have to acknowledge that they are not really liberal. A second demand of the multitude which Negri and Hardt formulate is that of a social wage for all producers. In the biopolitical philosophy of Negri and Hard everybody is a producer. It has become utterly impossible to maintain a difference between productive and unproductive labour. Life itself is a production. ( after two pages almost ) A third political demand of the multitude, according to Negri and Hardt, concerns free access to knowledge, information and communication. If we translate this as a plea for resistance against copyright and theprivatization of the means of communication, or as plea for copyleft and open source. Then this demand links up with a central concern of a fraction of digitariat, namely the open source movement which, unlike the glamour proletariat, has developed a kind of political activism concerning the systemic conditions of the possibility of digital productivity. It is important to connect the three demands of the multitude with one another. Some will have difficulties… The essayist, Lesage further argues that demands formulate the common struggle of the multitude, but it is much less clear in what context Negri and Hardt expect their demands to be fulfilled, given the fact that they are absolutely against ' the state'. The other criticism which he points out is that thedemands reflect the virtual desire of another transnational hegemony, since they have no trust whatsoever in the classical mechanism of representation, characteristic of liberal democracy ? The essay enters a very interesting debate when the author highlights the fact that, the new proletariat, the digitariat, shows littleinterest in politics. It wants a certain lifestyle, but without struggle. Struggle, they believe, has no style. And if, here and there, they do participate in struggle, it is because struggle has been working on its style, as in the case of 'Reclaim the Streets'. Struggle only interests them insofar as it can be experienced as a stylistic innovation. In that sense, struggle is often an artistic pose. It further explains how, there were times when not talking about money was considered to be a matter of style. And style was considered much more important than struggle, and struggle was definitely a sign of lack of style. 2. I have been reading a book 'Landscapes of Jihad' by Faisal Devji whichI re-open again to quote. It might look like a bad book review, but I am not, and neither I pretend. I hope, after talking a little about Abhinavgupta I am able to link 1,2,& 3 for some understanding of our complex times. I begin to lift, quite randomly. 'Al-Qaeda could neither control nor even predict their global repercussions. Hence the actions of this jihad, which they are indeed meant to accomplish certain ends, have become more ethical than political in nature, since they have resigned control over their own effects, thus becoming gestures of duty or risk rather than acts of instrumentality properly speaking. This might be why a network such as Al-Qaeda, unlike terrorist or fundamentalist groups of the past, has no coherent vision or plan for the future.' It goes on and on about the complexity of Muslim world since the divide between Christian and Muslim world is starkly visible. It must have begun earlier than it is realized now, when the all time great Jean Genet's memoir of the Palestinian movement appeared in 1970s. The book quotes Jenet: " Our Palestinian graves have fallen from planes all over the world, with no cemeteries to mark them. Our dead have fallen from one point in the Arab nation to form an imaginary continent. And if Palestine never came down from the Empire of Heaven to dwell upon earth, would we be any less real? So sang one of the fedayeen, in Arabic. The last of outrage was urgent. Yet here we are, a divine people, on the brink of exhaustion, sometimes close to catastrophe, and with about as much political power as Monaco, answered another. " We are the sons of peasants, Placing our cemeteries in heaven, boasting of our mobility; building an abstract empire with one pole in Bangkok and other in Lisbon and its capital here, with somewhere a garden of artificial flowers lent by Bahrain or Kuwait; terrorizing the whole world; making airports put up triumphal arches for us, tinkling like shop doorbells—all this to do in reality what smokers of joints only dream of. But has ever been dynasty that didn't build its thousand year reign on a sham? So sang a third Fedayeen . The author Faisal Devji has done an extensive research and found links to support his understanding of Jihad as a landscape and mental-scape as well besides political one.. I would humbly like to add to his outstanding book a line by J.L.Godard's who said that " once Jews carried the cross for Christians, but now their cross is carried by Palestinians". Another observation by great Iranian Film maker " it is the shame…of the west ( see cold war ) which resulted in the destruction of Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan" . A deeper insight would even hint the possibility that the very occupying forces might have stage managed the destruction of B.Buddha to pass on the blame to under-dogs of war. The book is however overwhelmingly marked by sub-chapters after chapters with short witty titles. One such is 'New Market for our traders'. The chapter quotes the decoded message of Al-Zawahiri, who thinks that the fall of Taliban in Afghanistan has opened opportunity to open profitable trade for our Muslim companies. It seems the fundamentalism as represented by Taliban is in fact helping the pseudo-liberal face of Capitalist regimes in the West. So, a net work like Al-Qaeda becomes global beyond a politics of intentionality. " The global effects of Jihad have brought heterogeneous characters likeGreenpeace movements under one umbrella, who have no prior history of communication between them…. Violence, though definitive of the Jihad today, is probably the least important of these responses, and likely the most short-lived compared to other transformations that al-Qaeda has wrought. Indeed such violence might well represent the final agony of an old-fashioned politics centered in a specific geography and based on a history of common needs, interest or ideas. Rather than marking the emergence of a new kind of Muslim politics, in other words, Al-Qaeda's jihad may signal the end of such politics. Far more important than violence might be the emergence of a new kind of global practice in the accidental and unintended effects of the jihad…. The jihad displaces politics by ethics as a way of engaging with its accidental universe. It is in this sense only the most radical example of the proliferating debates on ethics that increasingly mark global entities like non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations". Recent discoveries of large scale 'slavery' in China have shown that something is seriously wrong with the so called modern progressive world. So cleverly, and so much is hidden under the gloss of development, hat we often forget to remember our initial pursuits to unravel the truths. We are all, in fact, sailing in the same boat, heading towards a death like black hole; but let us see which forces are resisting. The Sufis. Unlike the corporate Sufis, the Sufis are quite akin to the radical contemporary artist of post modern practice. That includes the performance art, even. A chapter in the book is A metaphysical war It furthers, that conceptually, the jihad's global character is manifested in its abandonment of the freedom struggle for the religious war. Fighting over material gains and losses continues to be crucial in this narrative, but what gives these battles global meaning is nothing less than a metaphysical war. Another chapter is titled ' The art of war' " Unlike political movements in the past, including fundamentalism and terrorism in the service of some national cause, the jihad's votaries do not attempt to convert people to their vision of things. In fact such conversion, as we noticed in the first chapter, might well occur only as an accidental effect of the jihad's ethical performance. The chapter elucidates that how Jihad is fulfilling the desire of the mass media for real horror, but on the same model as reality television shows. So while this reality strives to achieve authenticity by its very extremity, just as in reality television shows, it in fact achieves exactly the opposite by becoming a piece of theatre. It is the jihad's unwillingness to distinguish between media spectacle and political reality that most effectively illustrates its character as an ethical performance. The chapter talks in detail about the various forms of Al-Qaeda member's prophetic dream, eg a scorer match played by men in uniform of pilots who finally won the match. The dream came true, and now, it is usually prohibited to discuss dreams in their close circles lest the content is revealed. Chapter No. 5. THE DEATH OF GOD. At various points the slogans of jihad resemble the slogans of Left. The great Poet, Mohammad Iqbal supported the vision of Pakistan under the shadow of God's death that I ( the author ) contend marks the jihad with the sign of Islam's modernity. The lesson, that death of God is necessary for religion's modernity made possible by doubt rather than certainty. Chapter no. 6. New World Order : I quote " The jihad, suggests Derrida, "demonstrates more clearly than any other movement the strict character of global conflict in the wake of the Cold War. So America can only address the threat of holy war by attacking itself. Subverting the constitutional provisions of its own civil liberties and impeding… I hurriedly quote from the chapter THE END OF ISLAM : Does violence therefore become an accidental factor in such movements ? I would argue that the jihad is violent precisely because it is inherently unstable, because it can in fact turn into its opposite. This is an assumption on my part, but one that is based on the jihad's own ethical practice, which links it to non-violent movements like environmentalism or the anti-globalization protest. In other words it is the very fragmentation of Muslim practice in jihad, or what I am calling Islam's democratization, that prevents if from becoming entrenched as a form of politics, and that consequently makes the jihad such an unstable phenomenon. …. In the long run, violence is probably Al-Qaeda's most superficial and shor-lived effect, though it is certainly one of great importance for the moment…. 3. This is from a well researched Monogram by G.T. Deshpande on Abhinavagupta: As a result of his practices in Yoga, miraculous powers were manifested in him. Abhinava quotes in Tantraloka a text from Sripurva Sastra which refers to some infallible signs found in such a Yogin. They are : (i.) unfailing devotion to Rudra, (ii). The power of incantation. (iii). Control over elements. (iv). Capacity to accomplish desired results. (v) Sudden dawn of knowledge, and sudden burst of poetic faculty. What is the meaning of 'The sudden burst of poetic faculty' one must go to is Pratyabhijna ( philosophy ) first. Pratybhijna is recognition. What is nature of this recognition ? We shall try to understand it with the help of an example. The usual example taken in this respect in philosophical writings is' this is the same Devadatta as I saw on that occasion ' This is a statement of experience. What is the nature of this experience ? There is a direct perception ( pratyaksa ) of Devadatta. But it is not perception alone. This perception becomes the operative cause of recollection ( smriti ) of my previous perception of him in the form of mental image of that object seen on previous occasions. But this is not Smrti only. There is also the experience of these two objects being identical. The novelty of recognition lies neither in the direct perception alone, nor in remembrance alone, but in the realization of their identity. We the identity is realized, we have a new experience altogether. Another example- Damayanti had heard about Nala, and thus formed an image of him. The object of her love was not identical to her image when he actually appeared as Indira's messenger to her. But when at the end of the meeting when the facts are revealed to her the image in her mind got identified and she found her love. Likewise though the individual self is identical with the Supreme yet we cannot experience the joy of the identity unless we are conscious of that identity. The aim of Pratyabhijna is to make us conscious in that respect. The book quite lucidly explains the other nuances of the Pratyabhina which I can not talk here in full, but I again lift another fragment, quite randomly. ' The intellectual knowledge can only give us an idea of the universal power of self. That des not suffice for the liberation. It is only the spiritual knowledge that liberates us. The consciousness of these powers in us, can change our whole personality so much that our attitude of viewing life becomes altogether different. Some Vedantins believe it to be only an illusion as is the illusion of snake on the substratum of rope. Abhinava does not subscribe to any of these explanations as the final explanation. He holds that the world of experience is real, because it is the manifestation of All-inclusive Universal Consciousness or Self. ( This is similar to Oscar Wilde who thinks that the mystery of the world exists in the appearances alone and not in the invisible. ) So this All-inclusive Universal Consciousness which is necessary to explain the phenomenon of knowledge is called Anuttara ( the highest reality or Para-Samvid). Annuttara means 'beyond which there is nothing' Anuttara cannot be spoken as 'this' or 'that' not as 'not this' or 'not that'. It is all but not in the sense in which all is taken to mean by the limited human mind. The mind cannot grasp it cannot be the object of perception or conception. It can only be realized. It cannot be expressed by a word or words. In whatever way we try to define it, our attempt is just that of a blind men who describe the elephant to be something like a table, or broomstick, a pillar or a winnowing basket. But the ultimate reality is much morethan what the limited mind can imagine it to be. The ideas of unity and multiplicity, of time and space, and of name and form are based upon certain ways and forms in which the Ultimate appears. The transitory world represents only an insignificant part of manifestation. Before I go to briefly to Praksha ( the Light ) here is a brief about Vimarsa which is a distinctive aspect of the self signifies. - the capacity of the self to know itself to know itself in all its purity in the state of perfect freedom from all kinds of affections. - Analysis of all its states of varying affections due to the internalof expertnal causes. - Retaining these affections in the form of residucal traces ( samskaras ) - Taking out at will, anytime, anything out of the existing stock of Samskaras and bring back he old affected state of itself as in the case of remembrance.- And, creation of an altogeather new state of self-affection by making a judicious selection from the existing stock and displaying the material to selected on the background of its Praksas aspect as at the time of free imagination. Thus when we say that the individual self is Prakasa Vimarsamaya, it means that the self is luminous and contains residual traces within and that it is capable of receiving reflection of knowing itself and others, of controlling what it contains within and of giving rise to a new psychic phenomenon with the residual traces which are essentially the same with the self. About Prakasa, : One important difference between the individual Prakasa and the Universal Prakasa. The affection of the individual Prakasa is caused not only by internal causes as dream, imagination, etc, but also by external causes as in case of direct perception. But the Universal Self, being universal and all-inclusive, there cannot be anything external to it and hence its affection by external cause is out of question. So, after constructing ( 1,2,3) three fragments like three different dishes with different flavours, I am myself pretty confused about the freedom of tasting all the three simultaneously. Besides these three versions of reality, we have other multiples that keep on navigating our minds for deeper meanings. For example, we have a close possibility of mixing science, art and sociology. I again quote from a mail reader-sarai-list. "In an exchange several months after his New York Review of Books article, Weinberg admitted that the founders of quantum theory had been wrong in their "apparent subjectivism," and declared that "we know better now" [15]. What exactly do we know better now" Einstein fully realized that the world is not presented to us twice –But, since everything is in flux what do we have concretely in our hands ( realization ) that we can call this as the original world and the other its theory only. As we know, there is a whole lot of writing on all that what I have quoted and much more. What ignited me to do this little exercise is the fact that I gotmails ( reader sarai list ) about Salman Rushdie, Hussain, and chanderamohan, some opposing them, some in favour and some indifferent even. At the surface it is about simple politics out there, and as an artist I have no choice but to support the 'freedom of expression'. But deeper than that I guess there is the question of 'other', which I feel all the three pieces (1,2,3 ) universally and profoundly talked about 'that self' and 'that other' radically. Meanwhile, please give me some more clues about the ways to enter,digest,reflect THE OTHER. With love Inder salim http://indersalim.livejournal.com From indersalim at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 23:02:56 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:02:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Trauma of Violence: Mounting Psychological Illnesses in Kashmir In-Reply-To: <48097acc0706200951q6d0a72c5q27cd175af9b56f89@mail.gmail.com> References: <48097acc0706200951q6d0a72c5q27cd175af9b56f89@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47e122a70706201032v47655e39ub98381bf00cb83b2@mail.gmail.com> LET US MULTIPLY KABIR AND OTHER SUCH THINGS.... IN ORDER TO.... Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingvvSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping On 6/20/07, Yogi Sikand wrote: > Trauma Of Daily Violence > In Jammu And Kashmir > Telling Upon Mental Health > > By Syed Junaid Hashmi > > 20 June, 2007 > Countercurrents.org > > Ravaged by conflict, traumatized by lack of accountability and > strangled by social taboos, people in Jammu and Kashmiri have been > both witness to and victims of violence which has had a significant > effect on their mental health. While a sustainable political solution > to "K" problem seems far away, psychological wounds inflicted by > violence and impunity on the Kashmiri society continue to increase and > go well beyond socio-economic problems. > > Studies and survey's conducted by various reputed organizations and > institutes have confirmed that Psychological problems have been > increasing in Jammu and Kashmir. According to one survey conducted by > state mental health society (SMHS), around 80,000 people from Kashmir > valley visited various mental health professionals during the year > 2005-2006 and nearly three-fourths were diagnosed with serious > psychological disorders. This represents an over twenty percent > increase from 2005 and reveals that the emotional and mental damage > caused by the conflict continues to surge. > > A survey report on Jammu and Kashmir by a Holland-based humanitarian > group M‚decins Sans FrontiŠres (MSF) maintains that a third of its > respondents suffered from psychological distress. Nearly one in 10 > people reported having lost one or more members of their immediate > family due to violence in the period from 1989-2005. The survey > reported that almost half ( 48.1%) of the respondents said they felt > only occasionally or never safe. > > It also indicated that violence or the threat of physical violence > seems to have had a significant effect on the mental health of people. > It revealed that respondents suffered from high levels of anxiety such > as nervousness, tension and extensive worrying. > > The survey stated that a substantial number of people interviewed by > them admitted to having thoughts about ending their life (33.9%). > "Such a high percentage of suicidal tendencies within a population > holding strong religious beliefs that condemn the act of suicide, is a > worrying indicator of the level of despair and hopelessness in which > people in Jammu and Kashmir are living," stressed a neurologist. > > The survey also indicated high rates of physical complaints including > headaches (23.5%), body pains such as joint and back complaints > (20.5%), and abdominal complaints (16.9%). It reported that poor > health placed a substantial burden on the area's health facilities, > with most people saying they visit health clinics frequently ( 63.9%); > some even four times or more. Medicine consumption was also high, with > over one-third taking six or more medicines in the previous 30 days > (37.9%). > > According to MSF, Interviewees reported witnessing (73.3%) and > directly experiencing themselves ( 44.1%), physical and psychological > mistreatment, such as humiliation and threats thus causing extensive > damage to their psychological health. A shocking finding of the survey > was that torture appeared to be widespread suggesting that a strategy > of intimidation and fear has been employed by army and paramilitary > forces. > > Maintaining that sexual violence has impinged upon the mental health > of people in Jammu and Kashmir more than physical violence, the survey > reported that sexual violence has been used as a common strategy to > intimidate people in conflict. 11.6% of interviewees said they had > been victims of sexual violence since 1989. Almost two-thirds of the > people interviewed (63.9%) by MSF had heard over a similar period > about cases of rape, while one in seven had witnessed rape. > > > The worst hit have been the children among whom the major effect of > the violence reported in this survey has been fear (24.6%). > School-related problems also scored highly, such as being unable to > attend school (15.5%) and having problems studying ( 16.3%) due to the > lack of professional teachers and study material. > > Respondents told the surveyors that people deal with stress by > isolating themselves (22.3%) or becoming aggressive (16%). They > further informed them that talking confidentially to someone they > trust is helpful when confronted with tension ( 89.4%). It is > essentially this survey which brought out the real picture of the > mental health of people in Jammu and Kashmir. The findings of the > survey revealed a bleak picture of the mental health of people in the > conflict-afflicted region and raised important questions about the > government's failure to adequately provide mental health services to > the population. > > Overburdened, understaffed, and in-demand, this is the state of mental > health care in Kashmir. The Psychiatric Diseases Hospital at Kaathi > Darwaza is the only refuge for mental patients in Kashmir, and its > doctors, facilities, and supplies have long been grossly inadequate. > According to one report, records from the out-patient department (OPD) > of Srinagar's Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases show that more than > 300 people arrive every day. > > It stated that most self-admitting patients are women aged between 16 > to 25. Because of the social stigma associated with psychological > disorders, doctors believe that no more than 10 percent of those in > need of psychiatric care are actually approaching the hospital. One > outcome of this under-treated trauma is an increase in teenage girl > suicides. > > According to another report published in a local daily, 19-year-old > Jameela witnessed her aunt being killed while working in the kitchen > and later also witnessed a shootout in her locality. With no history > of psychiatric problems, she began suffering from post-traumatic > stress disorders: recurrent, intrusive and distressing recollection of > the events, marked irritability, outbursts of anger, difficulty in > concentrating, sleeplessness, sadness, and disinterest in all social, > domestic and college activities. Following a minor altercation with > her sister, she consumed pesticide and ended her life. > > A statistical report of the state health and medical education > department revealed that on an average, two to three cases of > attempted suicide are admitted into Srinagar's two main hospitals on > regular basis. A large number of people from the villages die on the > way or in local health centers. > > Psychologists maintain that people living at a place ravaged by > conflict are often faced with a number of Psychological problems. They > say that the physical environment in which people live and survive has > a direct bearing on their mental health. "Stress caused by feelings of > insecurity and dependency can deplete physical and psychological > buoyancy leading to varied mental problems, this has happened in most > of the cases in Jammu and Kashmir," said Dr.Adarsh Bhargav He > maintained that crackdowns, frisking by security forces and round-up > raids in villages have a deep impact on the mental health of the > people. "When you find yourself in the middle of a situation where > your movement gets restricted, where you have to follow orders, where > you are abused and humiliated, where your imaginations fail to take a > flight and where your identity always remains a suspect, you are bound > to suffer from Psychological disorders," added the young practicing > Psychologist. > > A young neurologist Dr.Nida who is presently doing her masters from a > reputed institute in Delhi maintained that since 1990, the number of > mental patients in Kashmir Valley have increased from 1500 to nearly 1 > Lakh in 2006. > > "Around 60 to 70 percent of these patients are suffering from > depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia; all of these disorders > are of serious nature, apart from these problems, there are many other > psychological complications associated with violence which can be > easily noticed among the people in Kashmir valley," added Dr.Nida. > > She maintained that situation has come to a stage where people feel so > unsafe that they prefer staying in hospital than going home. > Increasing psychological and neurological problems among the people in > Jammu and Kashmir begs further discussion of the continuing situation > of impunity in Kashmir for those who perpetrate acts of terror and > violence without any fear of being caught and held accountable. Until > this atmosphere of impunity is not addressed, psychological problems > are bound to increase. > > =================================================== > The writer is a journalist, presently working with Jammu and Kashmir's > largest circulated daily "The Kashmir Times". He can be contacted on > syedjunaidhashmi at gmail.com > > -- > Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping > _________________________________________ > 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/> -- http://indersalim.livejournal.com From ysaeed7 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 21 00:09:20 2007 From: ysaeed7 at yahoo.com (Yousuf) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:39:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Trauma of Violence: Mounting Psychological Illnesses in Kashmir In-Reply-To: <47e122a70706201032v47655e39ub98381bf00cb83b2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <582663.47325.qm@web51409.mail.re2.yahoo.com> I don't think Kabir would be happy if you make the sansar dukhia by duplicating his verse so many times! --- inder salim wrote: > LET US MULTIPLY KABIR AND OTHER SUCH THINGS.... IN > ORDER TO.... > > Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping > > Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping > Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingvvSukhia > Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping > Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping > > Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur 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sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weepingSukhia Sab > Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > === message truncated === ____________________________________________________________________________________ Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ From taraprakash at gmail.com Thu Jun 21 01:44:21 2007 From: taraprakash at gmail.com (Taraprakash) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:44:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Trauma of Violence: Mounting Psychological Illnessesin Kashmir References: <48097acc0706200951q6d0a72c5q27cd175af9b56f89@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <029e01c7b377$a6a5c3b0$0201a8c0@IBM61525879EE4> "A shocking finding of the survey was that torture appeared to be widespread suggesting that a strategy of intimidation and fear has been employed by army and paramilitary forces." Do we see here a clean chit to all the separatist groups in J&K in this regard? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Yogi Sikand" To: Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 10:21 PM Subject: [Reader-list] Trauma of Violence: Mounting Psychological Illnessesin Kashmir > Trauma Of Daily Violence > In Jammu And Kashmir > Telling Upon Mental Health > > By Syed Junaid Hashmi > > 20 June, 2007 > Countercurrents.org > > Ravaged by conflict, traumatized by lack of accountability and > strangled by social taboos, people in Jammu and Kashmiri have been > both witness to and victims of violence which has had a significant > effect on their mental health. While a sustainable political solution > to "K" problem seems far away, psychological wounds inflicted by > violence and impunity on the Kashmiri society continue to increase and > go well beyond socio-economic problems. > > Studies and survey's conducted by various reputed organizations and > institutes have confirmed that Psychological problems have been > increasing in Jammu and Kashmir. According to one survey conducted by > state mental health society (SMHS), around 80,000 people from Kashmir > valley visited various mental health professionals during the year > 2005-2006 and nearly three-fourths were diagnosed with serious > psychological disorders. This represents an over twenty percent > increase from 2005 and reveals that the emotional and mental damage > caused by the conflict continues to surge. > > A survey report on Jammu and Kashmir by a Holland-based humanitarian > group M‚decins Sans FrontiŠres (MSF) maintains that a third of its > respondents suffered from psychological distress. Nearly one in 10 > people reported having lost one or more members of their immediate > family due to violence in the period from 1989-2005. The survey > reported that almost half ( 48.1%) of the respondents said they felt > only occasionally or never safe. > > It also indicated that violence or the threat of physical violence > seems to have had a significant effect on the mental health of people. > It revealed that respondents suffered from high levels of anxiety such > as nervousness, tension and extensive worrying. > > The survey stated that a substantial number of people interviewed by > them admitted to having thoughts about ending their life (33.9%). > "Such a high percentage of suicidal tendencies within a population > holding strong religious beliefs that condemn the act of suicide, is a > worrying indicator of the level of despair and hopelessness in which > people in Jammu and Kashmir are living," stressed a neurologist. > > The survey also indicated high rates of physical complaints including > headaches (23.5%), body pains such as joint and back complaints > (20.5%), and abdominal complaints (16.9%). It reported that poor > health placed a substantial burden on the area's health facilities, > with most people saying they visit health clinics frequently ( 63.9%); > some even four times or more. Medicine consumption was also high, with > over one-third taking six or more medicines in the previous 30 days > (37.9%). > > According to MSF, Interviewees reported witnessing (73.3%) and > directly experiencing themselves ( 44.1%), physical and psychological > mistreatment, such as humiliation and threats thus causing extensive > damage to their psychological health. A shocking finding of the survey > was that torture appeared to be widespread suggesting that a strategy > of intimidation and fear has been employed by army and paramilitary > forces. > > Maintaining that sexual violence has impinged upon the mental health > of people in Jammu and Kashmir more than physical violence, the survey > reported that sexual violence has been used as a common strategy to > intimidate people in conflict. 11.6% of interviewees said they had > been victims of sexual violence since 1989. Almost two-thirds of the > people interviewed (63.9%) by MSF had heard over a similar period > about cases of rape, while one in seven had witnessed rape. > > > The worst hit have been the children among whom the major effect of > the violence reported in this survey has been fear (24.6%). > School-related problems also scored highly, such as being unable to > attend school (15.5%) and having problems studying ( 16.3%) due to the > lack of professional teachers and study material. > > Respondents told the surveyors that people deal with stress by > isolating themselves (22.3%) or becoming aggressive (16%). They > further informed them that talking confidentially to someone they > trust is helpful when confronted with tension ( 89.4%). It is > essentially this survey which brought out the real picture of the > mental health of people in Jammu and Kashmir. The findings of the > survey revealed a bleak picture of the mental health of people in the > conflict-afflicted region and raised important questions about the > government's failure to adequately provide mental health services to > the population. > > Overburdened, understaffed, and in-demand, this is the state of mental > health care in Kashmir. The Psychiatric Diseases Hospital at Kaathi > Darwaza is the only refuge for mental patients in Kashmir, and its > doctors, facilities, and supplies have long been grossly inadequate. > According to one report, records from the out-patient department (OPD) > of Srinagar's Hospital for Psychiatric Diseases show that more than > 300 people arrive every day. > > It stated that most self-admitting patients are women aged between 16 > to 25. Because of the social stigma associated with psychological > disorders, doctors believe that no more than 10 percent of those in > need of psychiatric care are actually approaching the hospital. One > outcome of this under-treated trauma is an increase in teenage girl > suicides. > > According to another report published in a local daily, 19-year-old > Jameela witnessed her aunt being killed while working in the kitchen > and later also witnessed a shootout in her locality. With no history > of psychiatric problems, she began suffering from post-traumatic > stress disorders: recurrent, intrusive and distressing recollection of > the events, marked irritability, outbursts of anger, difficulty in > concentrating, sleeplessness, sadness, and disinterest in all social, > domestic and college activities. Following a minor altercation with > her sister, she consumed pesticide and ended her life. > > A statistical report of the state health and medical education > department revealed that on an average, two to three cases of > attempted suicide are admitted into Srinagar's two main hospitals on > regular basis. A large number of people from the villages die on the > way or in local health centers. > > Psychologists maintain that people living at a place ravaged by > conflict are often faced with a number of Psychological problems. They > say that the physical environment in which people live and survive has > a direct bearing on their mental health. "Stress caused by feelings of > insecurity and dependency can deplete physical and psychological > buoyancy leading to varied mental problems, this has happened in most > of the cases in Jammu and Kashmir," said Dr.Adarsh Bhargav He > maintained that crackdowns, frisking by security forces and round-up > raids in villages have a deep impact on the mental health of the > people. "When you find yourself in the middle of a situation where > your movement gets restricted, where you have to follow orders, where > you are abused and humiliated, where your imaginations fail to take a > flight and where your identity always remains a suspect, you are bound > to suffer from Psychological disorders," added the young practicing > Psychologist. > > A young neurologist Dr.Nida who is presently doing her masters from a > reputed institute in Delhi maintained that since 1990, the number of > mental patients in Kashmir Valley have increased from 1500 to nearly 1 > Lakh in 2006. > > "Around 60 to 70 percent of these patients are suffering from > depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia; all of these disorders > are of serious nature, apart from these problems, there are many other > psychological complications associated with violence which can be > easily noticed among the people in Kashmir valley," added Dr.Nida. > > She maintained that situation has come to a stage where people feel so > unsafe that they prefer staying in hospital than going home. > Increasing psychological and neurological problems among the people in > Jammu and Kashmir begs further discussion of the continuing situation > of impunity in Kashmir for those who perpetrate acts of terror and > violence without any fear of being caught and held accountable. Until > this atmosphere of impunity is not addressed, psychological problems > are bound to increase. > > =================================================== > The writer is a journalist, presently working with Jammu and Kashmir's > largest circulated daily "The Kashmir Times". He can be contacted on > syedjunaidhashmi at gmail.com > > -- > Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye > Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye > > The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping > The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping > _________________________________________ > 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/> From rahul_capri at yahoo.com Thu Jun 21 05:06:03 2007 From: rahul_capri at yahoo.com (Rahul Asthana) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:36:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] A Britisher in India\Pakistan Message-ID: <370631.21014.qm@web53602.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hi all, An Indophile British friend of mine is planning a trip to Pakistan and India-she plans to go from Lahore to Delhi and wants to cross the border by bus\train. She has been to Delhi before and wrote some blog like stuff.She is the quintessential backpacker and her travel plans are not constrained by her finances. She and I were wondering if she could pitch herself to some publication as a travelogue writer and thereby earn some money and make her stay in India longer and more comfortable. Here is her two line intro- 'I'm not very good at discussing historical stuff, I can never remember all the names and dates (I'm no William Dalrymple...too short for a start. And female) But I like talking about people and places." So I,acting in the capacity of her informal literary agent,wanted to humbly inquire if someone on this list could guide on how she should go about doing this. Finally, I hope list members would excuse me for using this list for a personal purpose. Rgds Rahul ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121 From priyababu_sudar at yahoo.co.in Thu Jun 21 11:53:55 2007 From: priyababu_sudar at yahoo.co.in (priya babu) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 07:23:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] aravanis in madurai-june 2007 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <531866.53690.qm@web94103.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Dear pritham, In Tamilnadu most of the women are sing oppari in their relativs death or in their own family death ceremonies.They are not professional oppari singers. They are not getting money for that.But in madurai and adjoining villages aravanis are professional oppari singers.Singing oppari is their economical source.thus we say none of the women involved in this profession. priyababu ====================================================== pritham k chakravarthy wrote: Dear Priya, Sounds good enough. But please recheck about 'no women' singing oppari as i have heard groups from Madurai who do so at the dalit kalai vizha. we cannot make sweeping statements. Pritham >From: priya babu >To: SARAI >Subject: [Reader-list] aravanis in madurai-june 2007 >Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:03:45 +0100 (BST) > >Posting for june 2007- Priyababu . > In Madurai and adjoining villages during death ceremonies aravanis will >be called to sing Oppari (Death songs). Since none of the women were >involved in this profession, people prefer calling aravanis to sing oppari >songs. There was general belief among the public that Aravanis have female >tone and don’t feel shy singing oppari songs. If a person died in a >particular house then the house will be called as Mattai by aravanis. In >villages mattai means the coconut leaf in which the dead body will be >placed and taken to the burial ground. > > Oppari will have standard lyrics. The aravanis who were invited to sing >oppari will collect all the details about the person who died and will >tailor the song (oppari) accordingly without changing the standard lyrics. >In 90% of the death ceremonies aravanis will sing Nallathangal, a >traditional folk song. There is a demand among general public for this >Nallathangal folk song. There is general belief among the people that this >Nallathangal, folk story is a real incident that happened in Virudhu Nagar >district, Vathirairuppu taluk Achananpuram village. The story goes like >this; Once upon a time there lived a brother (called Nallathambi) and a >sister (called Nallathangal). Both of them were affectionate to each other. >Years passed and Nallathangal attained puberty. > > Nallathangal was married to Kasirajan, head of a village close to the >place where Nallathambi and Nallathangal lived. Nallathangal and Kasirajan >lived happily for several years and they had seven children. But things >became worse soon, due to severe drought in the village. Kasirajan lost >everything and the couples were left in the streets. Nallthangal decided to >approach her brother Nallathambi for financial support but Kasirajan >haven’t allowed her to do that. In spite of her husband’s wish Nallathangal >went to meet her brother along with her 7 children unfortunately >Nallathangal couldn’t able to see her brother since he went to forest for >hunting. Nallathangal met her sister-in law and explained her about their >family situation. But her sister-in law insulted Nallathangal and made her >to leave from her house. Since there was no hope to live, Nallathangal >committed suicide along with her children. > > After a few days, Nallathambi returned home. Somehow through the >villagers Nallathambi came to know the death of his sister and the reasons >behind it. Nallathambi got angry and killed his wife later he also >committed suicide. Kasirajan without knowing anything came to Nallathambi’s >house to meet his wife and children. When Kasirajan heard the news of his >wife’s death he was shocked and committed suicide. The moral behind this >story is about brother, sister relationship and the importance of >respecting husband’s word > > > Thus, being the performers of Oppari songs, Aravanis are also included >in the main stream society and also being acknowledged as women or even >better than the biological females since Oppari is traditionally song by >women. Thus, though Aravanis are still by and large kept at the margins of >the society, inclusion of Aravanis in the mainstream society happen through >some of the traditional customs like Oppari. > > > > >--------------------------------- > Here’s a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers >_________________________________________ >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: _________________________________________________________________ Amity University - Admissions 2007. Government Recognized. http://ss1.richmedia.in/recurl.asp?pid=65 --------------------------------- Here’s a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070621/18bf3b13/attachment.html From cahen.x at levels9.com Thu Jun 21 22:22:44 2007 From: cahen.x at levels9.com (xavier cahen) Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:52:44 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] pourinfos Newsletter / 21-06 to 1-07-2007 Message-ID: <467AACDC.1070103@levels9.com> pourinfos.org l'actualité du monde de l'art / daily Art news ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >From Wenesday June 21, 2007 to Sunday July 1 2007 (included) ------------------------------------------------------------------- (mostly in french) pourinfos is closed from July 1 until to... September 2007 Have good summer holidays or activities... see you soon... Xavier Cahen @ 001 (21/06/2007) Exhibition: Carole Douillard, Beauty Room, Missa China, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35034-tit--Carole-Douillard-Beauty-Room-Missa -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 002 (21/06/2007) Exhibition: « A Collideorscape », Mamco, Geneva, Switzerland. http://pourinfos.org/art-35035-tit--A-Collideorscape-Mamco-Geneve- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 003 (21/06/2007) Call: Salon Court Circuit, Nantes, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35036-tit--Salon-Court-Circuit-Nantes- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 004 (21/06/2007) Call: LESS REMOTE, THE FUTURES OF SPACE EXPLORATION , Symposium, Glasgow, United Kingdom. http://pourinfos.org/art-35037-tit--LESS-REMOTE-THE-FUTURES-OF-SPACE -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 005 (21/06/2007) Call: Creative Resistance New Media as Soft Arms, Nictoglobe, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. http://pourinfos.org/art-35038-tit--Creative-Resistance-New-Media-as-Soft -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 006 (21/06/2007) Call: 12 hour life coding,event , Piksel festival in Bergen, Norway. http://pourinfos.org/art-35040-tit--12-hour-life-coding-event-Piksel -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 007 (21/06/2007) Call: Share Prize 2008, Torino, Italy. http://pourinfos.org/art-35041-tit--Share-Prize-2008-Turin- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 008 (21/06/2007) Call: DIGit Media Arts Exposition 2007, New York, Usa. http://pourinfos.org/art-35042-tit--DIGit-Media-Arts-2007-New-York- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 009 (21/06/2007) Call: create a poster preaching it “to eat healthy”, Pixelcreation, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35043-tit--creez-une-affiche-pronant-le-manger -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 010 (21/06/2007) Call: call for short films and videos for backup_festival, Weimar, Germany. http://pourinfos.org/art-35044-tit--call-for-short-films-and-videos-for -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 011 (21/06/2007) Various: .fiction DOCUMENTAIRE 2006.2007, University Paris 8, Saint Denis, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35045-tit-Divers-fiction-DOCUMENTAIRE-2006-2007- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 012 (23/06/2007) Meetings: rencontres artistiques de Chaillol, 23 to 26 june 2007, la Fare en Chapsaur, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34940-tit--rencontres-artistiques-de-Chaillol-23-au -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 013 (23/06/2007) Various: Call : To make attention, Debate June 23, 2007, Bernard stiegler, Théâtre national de la Colline, Ars Industrialis, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34964-tit-Divers-Appel-Faire-attention-Debat-23 -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 014 (23/06/2007) Exhibition: To explore the Numerical Culture, Espace Gantner, Bourogne, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35033-tit--Explorer-la-Culture-Numerique-Espace -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 015 (24/06/2007) Exhibition: V.O.S.T. / Doubling, La Generale, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-35032-tit--V-O-S-T-Doublage-La-Generale-Paris- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 016 (26/06/2007) Meetings:The relation art-science-technology, Tuesday June 26, 2007, Ensba, Paris, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34981-tit--La-relation-art-science-technologie- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 017 (26/06/2007) Publication: The Centre of Attention Magazine no.4, london,United Kingdom. http://pourinfos.org/art-35029-tit--The-Centre-of-Attention-Magazine-no-4- -------------------------------------------------------------------- @ 018 (01/07/2007) Exhibition: Horizons, meetings “arts Nature”, Massif du Sancy, France. http://pourinfos.org/art-34992-tit--Horizons-rencontres-arts-Nature- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From sananth99 at gmail.com Wed Jun 20 17:45:52 2007 From: sananth99 at gmail.com (Ananth) Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:45:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Criminalising the Classroom Message-ID: June 19, 2007 What Kind of a System Does This to Its Youth? Criminalizing the Classroom http://www.counterpunch.org/flores06192007.html By LINDA FLORES "They're treating us like criminals, like we're animals." -- Student at Curtis High School, Staten Island, New York City "Sometimes the classroom feels like a jail cell." -- Jane Min, Flushing High School, Queens, New York City Imagine if schools were places where youth were treated like the precious people they are--where their creativity, their curiosity, and their critical thinking were valued and encouraged. Imagine if, in school and out of school, the youth were challenged and unleashed and they were called upon to discuss and debate everything from Shakespeare to religion, from the state of the planet to how society-- including their own schools--should be run. Imagine if the rebellious spirit and questioning of the youth were not only not squashed and corralled--imagine if it were valued as a crucial part of revolutionizing society. But in this society, we can only imagine this. And for way too many youth, the experience is exactly the opposite. Schools are ringed with fences and metal detectors. Instead of the sounds of debate and lively discussion over string theory or globalization, the hallways ring with echoes of cops, Glocks at their hips, screaming to the youth to "Get the fuck back in line!" When youth come to school, instead of knowing they are coming to a safe place where they will learn and be learned from, they live with fear: will they be frisked and humiliated in front of everyone for no real reason? Will they be arrested if they wander out of the metal detector line? Will they make it home at the end of the day, or will they be taken to jail for swearing or getting into a fight? An important report, "Criminalizing the Classroom: The Over-Policing of New York City Schools," was released by the New York Civil Liberties Union in March 2007 . It covers the experience of youth in New York City, but it provides an all-too-rare glimpse at the experience of youth all over this country, particularly Black and Latino youth--the harassment, degradation, brutalization, and criminalization that they are forced to endure when they come to school. The report is drawn from interviews with parents, teachers, school administrators and staff, and, importantly, surveys from 1,000 youth in New York City schools. In New York City, the public schools have been policed by the NYPD since 1998. In the 2005-2006 school year, there were a total of 4,625 cops (200 of them armed) patrolling the schools as so-called "School Safety Agents (SSAs)." The NYCLU report points out that if the NYPD's School Safety Division were its own police force, it would be the 10th largest in the country--larger than the entire police force in Washington, D.C., Detroit, or Boston. Cops Like School Prison Guards Under the school "safety" program, any junior high and high school in the New York public school system is subject to "roving metal detectors." What this has meant is cops coming into schools unannounced, setting up a military-style task force. In an approach very similar to what U.S. soldiers do in Iraq, the cops swarm in, take over the school's cafeteria or gym, and turn the school into a police zone, snaked with lines of students waiting to pass through the metal detectors. Students are forced to wait for hours in line as their bags are searched and their cell phones (prohibited in the school district) or cameras (not prohibited) are confiscated. And 21 percent of the city's junior high and high schools now have metal detectors permanently installed. At Wadleigh Secondary School in Manhattan, one student who found a "roving" metal detector at his school called his mother to come pick up his phone before it was confiscated--and was then arrested when he tried to explain why he wasn't waiting in line. These cops in the schools act like, and basically function as, prison guards: barking orders, pushing and shoving students, deciding arbitrarily what is and is not allowed on any given day. Students' bags are searched, and everything from house keys to spare change is confiscated. The cops decide what they will and won't let students bring in to schools. For example, some students who had permission to carry cell phones had them taken. Some students had their iPods confiscated and never returned. And at an aviation magnet high school, students had their engineering supplies taken for supposedly being "weapons." Cops have confiscated students' food and then eaten it. Students are routinely yelled at and cursed at, and have reported being physically shoved through the metal detectors or shoved against the wall to be frisked regardless of whether they set off the metal detectors. At one school, the cops taunted one student who was wearing a nice coat, accusing him of stealing it. When one cop found a blank CD in a student's backpack he said, "Is that rap? That's probably why you're being searched." In one eight-month period more than 17,000 items were taken from students in the "roving" metal detector program--70 percent of them were cell phones, and 29 percent were iPods and similar items. Not one gun was found. The NYCLU report detailed numerous instances where the cops actively terrorized and brutalized students. At one school, cops chased students who tried to avoid the checkpoints, screaming, "Round them up!" At Samuel Tilden High School in Brooklyn, a 17-year-old student named Biko Edwards was walking toward his chemistry class when a vice principal stopped him. When Biko protested not being allowed to go to class, the vice principal called in a cop. The report describes what happened next: "Officer Rivera then grabbed Biko and slammed him against a brick door divider, lacerating Biko's face and causing him to bleed. Officer Rivera then sprayed Mace at Biko's eyes and face, causing Biko's eyes to burn. Rather than treat the student, Officer Rivera then called for back-up on his radio, and proceeded to handcuff Biko [He]was taken to a hospital where he spent approximately two hours being treated for his wounds, and spending most of his time in the hospital handcuffed to a chair He faces five criminal charges." And what happens to young women in these schools--are they places where young women are treated as human beings with value and intelligence, and not as a collection of body parts? Are the schools themselves a place where young women and men are encouraged to debate the oppression of women, and called upon to solve it? No--the schools are places where women are harassed and groped by the armed enforcers of the state themselves. One student reported that "the police like to put their hands on kids without reason." And 27 percent of students surveyed reported that officers touched or treated them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. Young women whose underwire bras set off the metal detectors reported they were forced to lift up their shirts, supposedly to prove they weren't carrying any weapons, or to unzip or unbuckle their pants supposedly to prove they weren't concealing cell phones. Young women have been searched by male officers, and the report says, "students and teachers alike complain that male SSAs subject girls to inappropriate behavior, including flirting and sexual attention." At one high school, cops were heard making remarks about a young woman's body. At another school, a gay student was humiliated every day as male cops would flip coins to see who had to search him. Teachers Also Targeted And what about those teachers who really are trying to make a difference? Who care about the students and despite low pay, cutbacks, deteriorating buildings, and increasingly fascistic rules, and who are really trying to connect with students and give them an education? Who do not like the way schools are being turned into prisons? The ACLU report exposes how teachers who dare to defend their students are attacked and brutalized, sending a crystal clear message to the youth: "No one is going to defend you. Look what happens to anyone that does." Take one story recounted in the report: "On March 8, 2005, at least seven NYPD officers arrived at the New School for Arts and Sciences after teachers called 911 to ask for medical assistance for a student who had been involved in a fight. "Several teachers had successfully stopped the fight and controlled the situation before the police responded, and Cara Wolfson-Kronen, a social studies teacher, informed the 911 operator that the fight had been defused. Despite this, one of the officers demanded that the teachers identify the students who had been involved in the fight and said that they would be handcuffed. "Quinn Kronen, an English teacher, pointed out that those students were now peacefully sitting in the classroom. Officer Bowen responded by yelling: 'You fucking teachers need to get your shit together. These kids are running crazy. You need to get rid of them.' When Mr. Kronen objected to such language, Sergeant Walter told Mr. Kronen that he had 'better shut the fuck up' or she would arrest him. When Ms. Wolfson-Kronen objected, Sergeant Walter said: 'that is it; cuff the bitch.' Officers arrested Ms. Wolfson-Kronen, paraded her out of school in handcuffs and forced her to stand outside in sub-freezing temperature without a jacket. They also arrested Mr. Kronen. "The teachers were detained at the 41st Precinct for approximately two hours before being released. The charges against them -- disorderly conduct -- were dismissed at their initial court hearing, because their alleged wrongdoing did not constitute unlawful activity. "On March 22, 2005, Mr. Kronen and Ms. Wolfson-Kronen received an anonymous letter signed by 'The Brotherhood.' The letter threatened them with physical harm for 'messing up with our fellow officers' continuing: 'If I were you I'd be planning my getting out of New York fast.'" In October 2006, Adhim Deveaux, a math teacher at the Urban Assembly Academy of History and Citizenship, ran outside after hearing that one of his students was being assaulted by a cop. After seeing the student being slammed onto a car, Deveaux went up to the cop, hoping he could calm the situation down; he said, "He's my student, I'm his teacher. He's just a kid." In response the cop hit and shoved Deveaux and then another cop grabbed Deveaux from behind, slammed him onto the sidewalk and handcuffed him. Deveaux was taken to the precinct and charged with assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration. This teacher was trying to defuse a situation before it got worse: in any society where the police or other kinds of authorities were really about serving the people, they would welcome this and try to work with and rely on the teacher--and they would listen when the teacher pleaded, "He's just a kid." But these cops arrested the teacher, because enforcing repressive prison-like conditions in the schools is what they are about--not trying to solve problems among the students and teachers. Criminalization of the Youth The NYCLU report details numerous times where students were attacked and/or arrested for petty and ridiculous offenses like swearing, being late for school or refusing to turn over their cell phones. Their web site mentions a case of a 13-year-old girl who was handcuffed and taken into custody in May for drawing on her desk in school, charged with graffiti. These are youth who are doing nothing wrong--and they are being pulled into the criminal system and treated like criminals themselves. And this kind of criminalization of the youth is not limited to New York City. Bob Herbert, a writer for the New York Times, has written a number of columns about outrageous instances of police brutality against youth, including a 6-year-old Black girl in Florida who was handcuffed and driven to jail because she threw a tantrum in kindergarten, and a 7-year-old Black boy in Baltimore handcuffed for riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. Herbert points to the racist discrimination involved in such cases. For instance a 14-year-old Black girl in Texas was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2006 for shoving a hall monitor (she was recently released) while a white girl in the same town convicted of arson was sentenced only to probation. Commenting on how students are "belittled, shouted at, cursed at, instrusively searched and improperly touched by cops," Bob Herbert points out: "This poisonous police behavior is an extension into the schools of the humiliating treatment cops have long been doling out to youngsters--especially those who are black or Latino--on the city's streets." ("Poisonous Police Behavior," June 2, 2007) What kind of message is this sending to the youth? Schools should be places where the youth are encouraged to test and try out limits, where they are encouraged to make mistakes, where the most important thing is making sure their minds are really challenged and unleashed. But not in this society. When a young woman is handcuffed for drawing on a desk, or a 6-year-old is handcuffed for throwing a tantrum, this is a reflection of how this society views youth. And the message to the youth themselves here is unmistakable: This is not your world. Your lives don't matter. The only future this system has for you is a shit job or prison. And when the cops arrest these youth, these illegitimate and bogus arrests are used to "prove" that the youth really are criminals, and to isolate these youth further from the rest of society. It is not simply that these cops are racist, brute thugs who hate and fear the youth they are charged with controlling--although that is unmistakable after reading things like this report. The outrageous and brutal use of the police in the schools and more generally against the youth reflects the role of the police in enforcing exploitative and oppressive relations in society, including national oppression. These police are not in the schools (or anywhere else) to "serve and protect" the people. They are there to serve and protect the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation that many of these youth face with the highest unemployment and worst housing, education, and health care. The report states that "during the 2004-2005 school year, 82 percent of children attending high schools with permanent metal detectors were Black and Latino, a minority enrollment rate eleven percentage points higher than in schools citywide. At DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, the largest high school with permanent metal detectors in the city, there are 4,511 students and not one school librarian." What kind of system is it, where youth are forced to go to overcrowded, under-funded schools that look more like prisons than places of learning and growth? What kind of system treats the energy, the creativity, the rebelliousness of youth, as something to be snuffed out, rather than cherished and unleashed? What kind of system has enforcers who harass youth for not going to school--and then harass and even arrest them, for petty bullshit, when they do? Those who peddle the lie about America being the "land of opportunity where any kid can become president," who prattle on about the "value of education" and "no child left behind"--while saying and doing nothing about the prison-like conditions in schools--have no right to speak about "individual responsibility" and how the youth need to take make "better choices." To quote Pink's song "Dear Mr. President": "How can you say No child is left behind? We're not dumb, and we're not blind They're all sitting in your cells While you pave the road to hell" Linda Flores writes for Revolution. She can be reached at: comolaflores at yahoo.com From cahen.x at levels9.com Sat Jun 23 02:13:51 2007 From: cahen.x at levels9.com (xavier cahen) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:43:51 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] =?windows-1252?q?=5BAnnouncements=5D_=2Efiction_DOC?= =?windows-1252?q?UMENTAIRE_2006=2E2007=2C_Universit=E9_Paris_8=2C_Saint_D?= =?windows-1252?q?enis=2C_France=2E?= Message-ID: <467C3487.6070303@levels9.com> .fiction DOCUMENTAIRE 2006.2007 “The truth is somewhere between the documentary and fictional, and that is what I try to show. What is real one moment has become imaginary the next. You believe what you see now, and the next second you don’t anymore.” (Robert Franck : my and my brother 1964-1968) +++++++++ Direct access amina_zoubir http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/amina_zoubir/video.html auriana_houssin http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/auriana_houssin/document/page1.html benjamin_chassagne http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/benjamin_chassagne/animation.html claudia_gomez http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/claudia_gomez/audio.html dominique_gonin http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/gonin_dominique/document/page1.html frederic_bachmann http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/frederic_bachmann/documents/video.html gary_burgi http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/gary_burgi/video.html marine_le_saout http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/marine_le_saout/documents/explication.htm melanie_lepaih http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/melanie_lepaih/telecharge/page2.html nelly_boulesteix http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/nelly_boulesteix/ piamelissa_laroche http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/piamelissa_laroche/document/video.html rocio_burga http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/rocio_burga/documents/video.htm romain_cieutat http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/romain_cieutat/documents/page1.html yann_aucompte http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/yann_aucompte/installvid/installvid.htm liao_zhexi http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/2007/liao_zhexi/projet/avi2.html +++++ Canal 14 /xavier cahen/. fiction DOCUMENTAIRE http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/~canal14/ Don't forget to visit other chanels ! http://www.arpla.univ-paris8.fr/index2.html +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Find other works on Arpla : "Arpla is the data-processing Server from the Visual Art department of Paris 8 universtity, Saint-Denis, 93, France. You'll find work of students” 1999>2007 _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From lieneman at umn.edu Fri Jun 22 22:37:07 2007 From: lieneman at umn.edu (Stacy Lienemann) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:07:07 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Sarai Reader List / OURSPACE: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture Message-ID: Dear ListServ Administrator: Please post this to Sarai Reader List. Also, please let me know if you'd like to review the book for your listserv. Thanks! Best wishes, Stacy Lienemann Direct Response and Scholarly Promotions Manager University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 612-627-1934 http://www.upress.umn.edu Culture jamming is so twentieth century! What¹s next? OURSPACE: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture Christine Harold University of Minnesota Press | 232 pages | 2007 ISBN 978-0-8166-4954-9 | hardcover | $24.95 In OurSpace, Christine Harold examines the deployment and limitations of ³culture jamming² by activists. For Harold, it is a different type of opposition that offers a genuine alternative to corporate consumerism. Exploring the revolutionary Creative Commons movement, copyleft, and open source technology, Harold advocates a more inclusive approach to intellectual property that invites innovation and wider participation in the creative process. ³This book deftly navigates the borders between markets and publics. And it offers us strategies of survival in and resistance to the increasingly corporatized digital realm.² ‹Siva Vaidhyanathan ³OurSpace is a handy how-to primer, with illustrations, on subversion tactics and culture-jamming that is a must-read for anyone with an anti-establishment itch to scratch, a sense of humor, and no clue what the etymology of the word ³detournement² is.² ‹ Baltimore City Paper ³A follow-up to the bible of brand resistance, Naomi Klein¹s No Logo, Harold¹s book is an academic survey of and intense meditation on the efficacy of current culture jams. She explores the limitations of sabotage, the role of parody and models of success. Adbusters, Barbie Liberation Organization, Yes Men are all placed under her scrutiny. I was familiar with all of the above, but OurSpace led me also into new territory.² --Jim Poyser, NUVO Please contribute your thoughts, links, ideas, oppositions, and provocations to the new OurSpace wiki: http://www.upress.umn.edu/wiki/index.php/OurSpace For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book¹s webpage: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/H/harold_ourspace.html Sign up to receive news on the latest releases from University of Minnesota Press: http://www.upress.umn.edu/eform.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070622/7fb95166/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From surojit369 at yahoo.co.in Fri Jun 22 18:47:06 2007 From: surojit369 at yahoo.co.in (SUROJIT SEN) Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] IFS '07 - Displacement of Prostitute - 4th Posting - june Message-ID: <865906.86414.qm@web8610.mail.in.yahoo.com> Hi All, This is my fourth posting. More on Bodmayes Jobdo ( Wicked Punished ) Towards the end of his text, Bodmayes Jobdo, Prankrishna Datta observes that the Act 14 has put the wicked in an almost moribund state by restraining from going to brothels and indulging in lechery. Keeping aside their typical black-bordered dhotis, china-courts of Nayansukh brand and the lukchandi shoes on the aarkata, they have now engaged in baismani, engraving, pressmani and some other socially recognized occupations. His description is significant because it points to particular items of dress-typical of the babus in those days. Nayansukh stands for the fashionable fine cloth that babus were fond of. It was 20 yeards in length and 15 days in breadth. China court is a particular type of court or comforter after the Chinse style. Lukchandi shoes are the costly designer shoes. Aarkata is a wooden loft under the roof for keeping things. Prankrishna datta’s prose style is characterized by apt use of colloquial terms. Some of the occupations, he speaks of, need to paraphrased, baismani is carpentry – the name derives from vice( a clamp with two jaw ), a tool that carpenters and masons use. While by pressmani he means working in a printing press, engraving precisely is wood engraving. It may be added here that the Chitpur area around Sonagachi was known for both engraving and printing industries in the 19th century. Datta’s description reveals that the Act 14 affected mainly the poor, working people whom the author dubs as wicked. Datta end his text with a poem which in rough translations as follows: ‘what has befallen us! This act 14’, cry toughs. Constables go the rounds The official rule they announce. Alas, aren’t we now destitutes! Hopelessly wonder the prostitutes. Time seems to be upside down. Where we go ( out of town )? With no black bees making advances How can flowers retain their freshness! The act being so insulting We won’t have clients visiting. This is how the poem begins and then goes on to narrate the reactions of the prostitutes. They know that the babus would not like to record their names and hence stop visiting brothels. This means on the one hand they would lose their clients and on the other would have to expose themselves to doctors for medical examination. They deem it a great injustice done to a poor community of helpless women that they are. The poem also describes the ‘plight’ of the wicked clients as a consequence of new Act and finally ends with an ironical note which deserves to be quoted in full: ( Now that the babus are not going to brothels ). The housewives have had the good opportunity to enjoy the company of their husbands and delightfully they give kudos to the British Raj. Surojit Sen --------------------------------- Download prohibited? No problem. CHAT from any browser, without download. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070622/41204fcb/attachment.html From lmadhura77 at gmail.com Sat Jun 23 10:34:31 2007 From: lmadhura77 at gmail.com (madhura l) Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 10:34:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 4th Post: Urban Spaces and Identity Formation Message-ID: <4dea04310706222204n298b6547n3920807d803e813e@mail.gmail.com> Hi all! Sorry for the delayed posting. Its up on the blog: http://vartaphalak-photos.blogspot.com/ This one's rather long winding, but I've tried to include lots of images in it to break the monotony. Looking forward to feedback, comments... Madhura -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070623/2d792abe/attachment.html From monica at sarai.net Sat Jun 23 14:51:22 2007 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:51:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Migrating our server Message-ID: <1579525B-1BF8-447C-8FA9-E2CD393E0212@sarai.net> Dear List-subscribers, We will be migrating our server to a better server and this will mean a mild disruption on the 23rd. (for four hours between 4 pm to 8pm IST) Sorry for the inconvenience. best, list-admins Monica Narula Raqs Media Collective Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net From prithu7 at hotmail.com Sat Jun 23 15:00:39 2007 From: prithu7 at hotmail.com (pritham k chakravarthy) Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:00:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Urban Drama June Message-ID: Sambandha Mudaliyar's Suguna Vilas Sabha is the first amateur group. The members were the elite of Madras who would rehearse in evenings and during weekends and perform their plays. Once they became popular even rehearsals at Victoria Public Hall were ticketed. They would stage one play for a month. If requested by the public they would restage a play from their repertoire. The only professional groups then were Boys' Companies like Shakthi Krishnasami or T. K. Shanmugam. They were dependant on daily collections made at the counter. T. K. Shanmugam's plays were staged on contract. S. V. Sahasarnamam who was a part of that group forms his own group only after N.S.K is arrested and goes to jail in 1944. As S.V.S was the car driver of N.S.K he forms his group Seva Stage. The main actor of N.S.K, K. R. Ramasami continues with Krishnan Nadaga Sabha, the original group. Gate collection goes to the contractor and the group is paid the contract money. Triplicane Fine Arts, started by Sambu Nataraja Iyer, in late 40s was the first to stage plays in the sabha drama format. Their most successful play Thuppariyum Sambu was scripted by Devan. Though there were groups like UAA etc. there were no sabhas [theatre halls] except Parthasarathy Sabha and Rasiga Ranjini Sabha. So all the existing groups would have to share these halls. These halls became numerous only in the late 50s and 60s. Between 1965 and 1975 there were 155 sabhas in the city, some with their own space and members some only member and would hire halls for them [Vadyar Raman]. Some were one-man shows with no governing committee, elections, or audit. They had subscription though. In the 60s and 70s they were so dominant that groups had to beg to stage for their members as the sabha owner may decide that the particular play was not good enough for his audience. Sabha audience was majority Brahmins at that time. So there was no space for any revolutionary or contemporary idea. So if a play did not cater to this particular audience. The sabha will take care of providing the space and audience and would give a group 700/ for a show. Madurai, Coimbatore, Thiruchy, Salem and Bangalore also had a few powerful sabhas. Groups could recover the initial production cost of 15,000/ only when touring to these sabhas. The payment would be double and take care of all other incidental expenses. These sabhas are now non-existent, except Bangalore. The others have reduced all shows to twice a year. In the early 70s sabhas shifted their shows in the city to Saturdays. In 1960s payment from sabhas was 300/ of which the director can hope to make a profit of 35/ per show. Komal Swaminathan, a writer from Seva Stage starts his own theatre group because sabhas could afford to pay SVS. Also SVS could not make a good gate collection like what Manohar's plays could make. So Komal started his own Stage Friends. His group members though earlier with SVS with Komal agreed to come for a reduced payment. Komal's plays were therefore affordable to the sabhas. He even cast SVS in several of his plays. Sanandhi Theru was their first play in 1972. Since that moment he was able to stage each of his plays were staged minimum of 200 times in the city. His plays though scripted within the sabha groove, his was of a slightly better quality. He never resorted to puerile humor to suit the sabha. Indhu Puli Oru Penn in 1973 was unique production. It had train rails on the stage and the sets would move across the rails. But at this time several of the professional actors who had come from Seva Stage with Komal became popular in cinema and that made room for many accidental actors to emerge. By 1975, Komal was getting jaded with producing plays that were technically different but subject wise still was juvenile. He could not anymore cast SVS in major roles for he was too old and had lost his retaining power, but was too big to play minor characters on stage. He decided to change track and scripted Swarga Bhoomi on naxalite problem. He followed this with this was very new for the sabha, which thought that Komal was preaching communism and naxalism. . But was greatly appreciated by the audience. He managed to stage it 100 times within the city. He followed this with Chekku Madukal, which dealt with agrarian problems with the zamindari system 1976. Though it started as a sabha drama, it caught the attention of the Communist Party of the state who adopted it and decided to tour it through the state over 100 shows a year. This made it possible for the play to travel to remote villages often staged on fields till 1985. The audience number would sometimes be over 2000. While the Communist Party was very keen about the subject, they wanted the actors to raise the party flag in the climax. Actors refused for they were all believers, not atheists. The party had to agree for this play to be staged with no communist icons on as props. Unfortunately, this accidentally gave a communist image to Komal himself that now the sabhas were truly scared of staging him for their audience. Komal followed this play with his most famous play Thaneer Thaneer in 1980. _________________________________________________________________ Shaadi.com Matrimonials. Register FREE! http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=mhottag From s0metim3s at optusnet.com.au Sun Jun 24 09:21:33 2007 From: s0metim3s at optusnet.com.au (s0metim3s) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:51:33 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Declaration of state of emergency Message-ID: <467DEA45.6010909@optusnet.com.au> Some initial remarks, and some links to news articles and blogs below. On June 22nd 2007, the Australian Prime Minister declared a de facto state of emergency over remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. The overt reason given for this extraordinary move was the protection of children from abuse – or, more specifically, its occasion was the release of the report by the Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse in the Northern Territory. There have been countless other reports on the conditions, often described as "Fourth World", that many indigenous peoples endure, particularly in remote areas – abuse, deaths in police custody, terrible rates of life expectancy and infant mortality and, not least, destitution. Neverthless, the measures so far announced under this state of emergency proffer a rather dubious theory of the causes of child abuse, suggesting that the principal question being posed (and answered) here is not, in fact, that of how to stop children being abused. Those measures include the banning of alcohol and x-rated pornography, the attachment of normative conditions to welfare payments, and the suspension of (what is currently in some cases) communal titles over indigenous land and local controls over the movement through them. Angela Mitropoulos http://archive.blogsome.com/2007/06/24/national-emergency/ http://www.influxus.org/2007/06/22/norm-emergency/ http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/06/21/tampa-2007-edition/ http://clubtroppo.com.au/2007/06/21/australias-day-of-shame/ http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/21/1958547.htm From geert at desk.nl Sun Jun 24 12:22:35 2007 From: geert at desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 08:52:35 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] dutch-indian cybercrime Message-ID: <13b92085c15bf76cf6905f7416a72ae1@desk.nl> Dutch NGOs summoned by Bangalore court INDIA-SAARC 23 June 2007 - Issue : 735 Two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based in the Netherlands were asked to appear before a court in Bangalore on June 25. They are accused of “cybercrime, acts of racist and xenophobic nature and criminal defamation,” according to the NGO’s pres release. The two organizations are the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN). The former is an international network of trade unions and NGOs, the latter an independent NGO, based on solidarity with deprived groups in Indian society. They have been raising public “awareness of serious labour rights’ violations” at jeans suppliers Fibres and Fabrics International and its wholly-owned subsidiary Jeans Knit Pvt. Ltd (FFI/JKPL). This is the first time that a factory has filed suit against the CCC and ICN for publishing information on working conditions in the garment industry on their respective websites, their press release points out. Their information was based on interviews with workers conducted in 2005 and 2006, and backed up by a fact-finding mission of seven human rights’ and women’s rights organisations. Since July 2006 the Garment and Textile Workers’ Union (GATWU), the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), the Civil Initiative for Peace and Development (CIVIDEP), the Women Garment Workers’ Front Munnade and the CCC Task Force Tamil Naidu have been prohibited from distributing information on working conditions at FFI/JKPL inside and outside India. “Suing all human rights organizations that report about working conditions in the garment industry in Bangalore will not solve anything,” according to Esther de Haan, of the CCC International Secretariat and one of the accused. She called on FFI/JKPL to start a dialogue with GATWU and the other organisations, according to the CCC/INC press release. From patrice at xs4all.nl Sun Jun 24 20:24:37 2007 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 16:54:37 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] dutch-indian cybercrime In-Reply-To: <13b92085c15bf76cf6905f7416a72ae1@desk.nl> References: <13b92085c15bf76cf6905f7416a72ae1@desk.nl> Message-ID: <20070624145437.GH62902@xs4all.nl> As an aside to Geert's posting it might be interesting to know that two Dutch providers, who are hosting the websites of undermentionned NGOs have been dragged to court in Bangalore as well: XS4ALL (http://www.xs4all.nl) and Antenna (http://www.antenna.nl). Both maintain that (i) as providers they are merely carriers and not content providers (the 'post office argument') and (ii) it is up to the Indian aggrieved party to prove that the allegedly infringing sites are prosecutable under _Dutch_ law, or under international law and/or conventions. The former is surely not the case, and as India is not signatory of the cybercrime convention, the latter is not even arguable. On Sun, Jun 24, 2007 at 08:52:35AM +0200, geert lovink wrote: > Dutch NGOs summoned by Bangalore court > > INDIA-SAARC > 23 June 2007 - Issue : 735 > > Two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based in the Netherlands were > asked to appear before a court in Bangalore on June 25. They are > accused of ?cybercrime, acts of racist and xenophobic nature and > criminal defamation,? according to the NGO?s pres release. The two > organizations are the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and the India > Committee of the Netherlands (ICN). > > The former is an international network of trade unions and NGOs, the > latter an independent NGO, based on solidarity with deprived groups in > Indian society. They have been raising public ?awareness of serious > labour rights? violations? at jeans suppliers Fibres and Fabrics > International and its wholly-owned subsidiary Jeans Knit Pvt. Ltd > (FFI/JKPL). > > This is the first time that a factory has filed suit against the CCC > and ICN for publishing information on working conditions in the garment > industry on their respective websites, their press release points out. > > Their information was based on interviews with workers conducted in > 2005 and 2006, and backed up by a fact-finding mission of seven human > rights? and women?s rights organisations. > > Since July 2006 the Garment and Textile Workers? Union (GATWU), the New > Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), the Civil Initiative for Peace and > Development (CIVIDEP), the Women Garment Workers? Front Munnade and the > CCC Task Force Tamil Naidu have been prohibited from distributing > information on working conditions at FFI/JKPL inside and outside India. > > ?Suing all human rights organizations that report about working > conditions in the garment industry in Bangalore will not solve > anything,? according to Esther de Haan, of the CCC International > Secretariat and one of the accused. She called on FFI/JKPL to start a > dialogue with GATWU and the other organisations, according to the > CCC/INC press release. > > _________________________________________ > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. From ysikand at gmail.com Sun Jun 24 22:14:57 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:14:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Mohammad Yousuf Naqash: Violence No Answer Message-ID: <48097acc0706240944g13158eaamdfdcfd0fae2a5e6d@mail.gmail.com> *Mohammad Yousuf Naqash: Violence No Answer* Armed offensive conflict is not the answer to the problems confronting the world. Islamic principles show us the right path in this regard. As a matter of fact, Islam totally rejects extremism in whatsoever form and manifestation. We need to make a difference and draw a clear line between right and wrong and choose between the Islamic and the non-Islamic. Masked faces with double standards within our community have to be identified, exposed and isolated so as to help stop misinterpretation and misrepresentation of Islam. It is wrong to argue that Islam allows for ruthless, offensive war. This argument has no footing. Illiteracy about Islamic teachings and vested interests within our community have given the likes of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to exploit Islam and give it a bad name. The Holy Quran and the Sirah and Sunnah (the life and sayings) of the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) allow violence to the extent of self-defence and in such an event they prescribe certain norms and conditions whose observance is obligatory. Firstly, the struggle (or what in Arabic language is called Jihad) should be against those who carry out massacres and cause damage to Muslims. Secondly, it should be against those who conspire to destabilize or overthrow an Islamic state, using military might. Thirdly, the defense should not inflict any type of damage to non-combatants, including the elderly, the ailing, women, children and those who surrender to or seek refuge with the Muslims. Fourthly, there must be no damage to property, animals, plantations and orchards. Fifthly, those arrested and imprisoned should not be subjected to third-degree methods for confession. Prisoners of all types should be treated well and humanely. Being a universal religion based on values such as tolerance, patience, compassion, brotherhood, nobility and civility, Islam cannot be blamed for savagery and terrorism. No such inhuman act can be justified or considered as legitimate in any way, regardless of who perpetrates it and on what pretext it is done. People with Muslim names who perpetrate crimes against humanity on the pretext of safeguarding Islam are actually damaging the Islamic cause, which upholds peaceful mutual co-existence of human beings, irrespective of religion and ideology. It is un-Islamic to seek to effect reformation of society and conversion of non-Muslims by force. Everyone has the right to follow and preserve his or her own religion, but not the right to force it on others. Muslims have the right to work for a genuine Islamic state, provided the majority favors this, but one's political ideology cannot be forced on others. This must be done through convincing others, using persuasive arguments and other peaceful methods, devoid of any type of threat. We first need to reform our own selves, to cleanse ourselves of immorality. In Islam this is the highest degree of Jihad. Yet, we often forget this, and with all our evils and ills and vested interests intact within, seek to take up the second degree of Jihad, armed struggle, forgetting the major Jihad relates to motivation by argument, dialogue and peaceful persuasion. Our quest for self-interest takes us towards inhuman intentions and actions. As is said, every action has its reaction, and so we face the wrath of others in return and also the damage and desecration of our religion. What purpose do our men serve for Islam by killing innocents in India, America, or elsewhere? Islam forbids us such in-human acts directed against innocent civilians and non-combatants. Such a mindset reflects jingoistic extremism and revengeful madness, not the Islamic values and objectives. True, there must be reaction to oppression, but it should be directed only against those who are directly involved and responsible for this oppression, and that too it should be strictly defensive, not offensive, reaction. And in reacting through self-defence, strict observance of a code of conduct in conformity with Islamic principles is mandatory. Certain non-Muslim forces are in occupation of some Muslim countries and territories and have let loose a reign of terror there. This is a bitter reality. But this does not justify Muslims acting against non-combatant citizens of these countries. Whatever the provocations by non-Islamic governments and ideologies against Islam and Muslims, Islam considers the killing of civilians and non-combatants irrespective of religion and ideology a dreadful sin, indeed the most heinous crime after polytheism. That this can never be condoned is the word of Allah Almighty. To take revenge against oppression, some Muslims have resorted to suicidal attacks and grenade blasts that cause naked death and destruction. Where does Islam allow such inhuman and savage acts in the name of Jihad? This is obviously a gross violation of Islam. Despite this, we witness these un-Islamic, inhuman and intolerable incidents occurring daily, in which hundreds and thousands get killed. This misguided understanding of Islam developed by some people with Muslim names needs to be countered to project and demonstrate Islam in its right perspective. True, conspiring against Islam and Muslims is the persistent policy of certain non-Islamic governments and ideologies. However, many Muslims mishandle their reaction to this and seek to take recourse to only violence for a way out and for their salvation from subjugation and persecution, avoiding peaceful means like dialogue, arguments and protests. It is here that we get confronted with more problems due to our own willful misinterpretation of Islam. Such a devilish behavior and attitude gives a pretext to non-Islamic governments and ideologies to carry forward their ill-intentions against Muslims and Islam. It is unfortunate to note that we are doing the reverse of what has been commanded to us by Allah Almighty and demonstrated by the Prophet Muhammad ( p.b.u.h). We Muslims are mainly responsible for undermining the importance of Islam due to our own misdeeds and un-Islamic blunders. ================================== *Mohammad Yousuf Naqash* *Chairman * *Islamic Political Party* (JK) *Head * *Human Rights Committee* *Hurriyat Conference* *Rajbagh * *Srinagar*** *Kashmir*** *Email: *ipp_55 at yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070624/ef4be27e/attachment.html From ysikand at gmail.com Mon Jun 25 09:32:51 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:32:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Muslims in Kerala and Elsewhere: Accounting for the Difference Message-ID: <48097acc0706242102r185808b4md9651b862b4eb4@mail.gmail.com> *Muslims in Kerala and Elsewhere: Accounting for the Difference* * * *Yoginder Sikand* Muslims form around a quarter of Kerala's population. Islam's first contact with India took place in Kerala, more than a thousand years ago. Kerala has the distinction of being India's most literate state. Although in terms of literacy the Muslims of Kerala are slightly behind the Hindus and the Christians of the state, they are considerably ahead of Muslims living elsewhere in India. In contrast to north India, where most of India's Muslims live, Kerala boasts numerous Muslim educational institutions, hospitals, orphanages and other such community-based institutions. There is thus much that Muslims elsewhere in India can learn from the Kerala Muslim experience. However, few outside Kerala know about this unique model. Part of the reason has to do with language. Kerala Muslim scholars and social activists have produced an impressive corpus of literature about their community, but almost all of this is in the Malayalam language, the official language of Kerala, which is not understood or spoken by Muslims elsewhere. Likewise, few Kerala Muslim community activists write in Urdu, Hindi or other languages spoken elsewhere in India or even in English. A second reason for the fact the Muslims elsewhere in India are not generally aware of the unique Kerala Muslim experience is a certain tendency on the part of many north Indians, irrespective of religion, to assume that north India must lead and the rest of India, including the south, must follow. This tendency is reflected in a particularly warped understanding of Indian nationalism and culture that is based essentially on the experience of the elites of the Gangetic belt. In the Hindu case, it is reflected in the notion that north Indian Brahminical culture and the highly Sanskritised Hindi language form the bedrock of Hindu or even Indian identity. In the Muslim case, it is reflected in the equally misplaced notion that the cultural traditions of the Muslim elites of Uttar Pradesh, and, to a lesser, extent, Bihar, rooted in highly Persianised Urdu, form the basis of the identity of the Indian Muslims as a whole. Perhaps this deep-rooted north Indian-centrism is also a reflection of the age-old Aryan-Dravidian divide. Be that as it may, it has had a seriously deleterious effect. It has meant that the Kerala Muslim experience has, unfortunately, been ignored by Muslims living elsewhere, particularly in the north. Several historical factors account for the uniqueness of the Kerala Muslim model. The history of Islam and Muslims in Kerala is quite different from that of most of the rest of South Asia. Islam had its first contact with India on the shores of Malabar, in northern Kerala, Arab merchants playing a key role in establishing Muslim settlements here and spreading the faith. Trade links between Arabia and Malabar existed even before the advent of the Prophet Muhammad and were further strengthened after this. In fact, it is said that the Hindu rulers of Calicut, the Zamorins, decreed that at least one son of every fisherman family should become a Muslim in order to assist the Arabs in conducting overseas trade, thereby contributing to the prosperity of the Calicut kingdom. Kerala's international trade was controlled by the Arabs till the Portuguese arrived on the scene in the early sixteenth century. Few Hindus dared to cross the seas to engage in trade because of the ban imposed on this by the Brahmins, who felt that this might lead to the disintegration of the caste system, with people being exposed to other ways of life or being unable to practice the rules of 'purity' and 'pollution' abroad. The Hindu rajas of Kerala thus welcomed the Arab merchants since they played such a valuable role in the local economy. They were granted lands to build mosques and, gradually, they married local women, the off-spring of which unions are the Mapillas, the Muslims of Malabar. The word 'Mapilla' means 'son-in-law', indicating the high respect with which the Muslims were considered by the Hindus of Kerala. Islam thus spread in Kerala peacefully, largely through traders. Muslims never ruled Kerala, except for a brief period under Tipu Sultan, because of which the history of Hindu-Muslim relations in Kerala is quite distinct from that in the north, where successive Muslim dynasties ruled for over a thousand years. The north has had a long history of conflicts between Muslim and Hindu ruling houses that is in stark contrast to Kerala. Consequently, historically, and even now, Hindu-Muslim relations in Kerala have been far more harmonious than in the north. This has enabled the evolution of a distinct Malayali or Keralite identity, based on a common language, which unites the Hindus, Muslims and Christians of Kerala and sets them apart from other Indians. This also explains why in Kerala, unlike in large parts of north India, there are no separate Muslim ghettos—Muslims and others live, by and large, in the same mixed localities. All this has meant that there is considerable give and take and sharing between the different religious communities in Kerala and ample opportunities to learn from each other. In contrast to much of north India, this tradition of inter-community harmony has enabled the Muslims of Kerala to focus on the work of social reform and institution-building. In the north, a long history of communal conflict and the persistent, deep-rooted and widespread insecurity among Muslims there have meant that north Indian Muslim politics have been focused on the defence of the community and its identity rather than on the work of internal reform. Related to this is the legacy of the Partition. The Partition affected the north Indian Muslims particularly, in contrast to Kerala, which was virtually untouched by its consequences. Few Kerala Muslims migrated to Pakistan. In north India, on the other hand, the bulk of the Muslim middle-class, which could have played a key role in institution building, political mobilisation and promoting modern education, migrated to Pakistan. The majority of the Muslims who remained behind were poor, mainly from the 'lower' castes. Being accused, rightly or wrongly, of being responsible for the Partition, and faced with constant anti-Muslim pogroms, pervasive discrimination and the growing strength of Hindutva chauvinism, the north Indian Muslims were too afraid to mobilize politically as a strong force. It was felt that this would invite charges of being 'communal' or 'anti-national'. Hence, lacking a strong independent political identity, the Muslims of north India were politically divided and weakened. The north Indian Muslim political leadership, for whatever it was worth, was divided between different political parties, but even these so-called 'secular' parties used them to gain Muslim votes but actually did little at all for the Muslim masses. Afraid to alienate their political bosses, these Muslim political elites consistently refrained from addressing the manifold problems of the Muslim masses. In contrast, the middle class among the Muslims in Kerala steadily grew in the post-Partition period, especially due to the Gulf boom from the 1970s onwards. They played a key role in mobilizing the Muslims politically as a strong, effective force. Being taken seriously by various political parties, they were able to get many of the demands of the community met. While in north India Muslim politics have been dominated by symbolic, although not unimportant, issues—Babri Masjid, Urdu, Muslim Personal Law and so on—in Kerala Muslim political discourse has been very different, focusing more on social and economic issues. In Kerala, in contrast to the north, there has historically been a strong Muslim mercantile class. This class has flourished in recent years, and has financed the establishment of a wide range of community institutions. On the other hand, in the north there was historically hardly any Muslim merchant class, trade being controlled by the Banias, or, as in Gujarat, by Muslim caste-groups of Bania and Lohana origins, such as the Memons, Khojahs and Bohras. A large section of north Indian Muslim elites were landed aristocrats, and after 1947, the abolition of the princely states and the zamindari system and the subdivision of holdings hit this class particularly badly. In north India, the Muslim middle class is much less significant and so they have not been able to play the same assertive role in community institution-building as have their Kerala counterparts. Further, while in north India Muslim elites have, typically, stayed away from the masses, taking little or no interest in their issues, possibly for fear of being wrongly branded as 'communal', this is not quite the case in Kerala, where the middle class has strong links with the masses through various institutions and socio-religious movements. Another key difference between the Kerala and the north Indian Muslim case is cultural. North Indian Muslim culture, as articulated by north Indian Muslim elites, continues to be represented in a feudal mould, reflecting a nostalgic longing for the past, stemming from centuries of the political dominance of Muslim elites, the 'ashraf', now long since ended. This feudal culture is reflected in the huge hiatus between the Muslim elites and the masses. Kerala, on the other hand, never had a long tradition of Muslim rule, and historically lacked a Muslim feudal class. Hence, Muslim popular culture is considerably less hierarchical. This is also reflected in the striking difference in the work culture of Muslim institutions in Krala and in the Urdu-Hindi belt, where many such institutions suffer from a distinct lack of professionalism and from the stern authoritarianism of their managers. Yet another key aspect of the Kerala Muslim model is the role of various social reform movements in the state, including the strong communist presence, the activities of various Christian organisations and the anti-caste movement, all of which have also impacted on the Muslims of the state. Added to this is the long tradition, from the late nineteenth century onwards, of Islamic reformist movements in Kerala, which continue to be vastly influential. They have played a key role in bridging the sharp dualism between the ulema and the 'modern'-educated class, in promoting 'modern' as well as religious education, including women's education. They have also set up literally thousands of institutions that cater to the community—not just madrasas and mosques, as in much of north India, but also schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages, industrial centres, banks, newspapers and so on. In this way, the ulema in Kerala have played a more socially engaged role than their counterparts in the north as far as community work is concerned. Although the Kerala Muslim model cannot be wholly replicated elsewhere in India because each region has its own specific context, there is much that can be learnt from it. Muslim organizations and social activists in other parts of India could consider arranging for study tours to visit Muslim institutions in Kerala and interact with their counterparts there. In addition, the work of Kerala Muslim organizations and social and religious reformers urgently needs to be documented and published in English, Urdu, Hindi and other languages so that Muslims elsewhere can profit from their example. Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He can be contacted on ysikand at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/defanged-1 Size: 13087 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070625/ef2fbcd2/attachment.bin From dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in Tue Jun 26 02:32:16 2007 From: dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in (Dwaipayan Banerjee) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 22:02:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State- 3rd Sarai I-Fellowship Post Message-ID: <362572.95544.qm@web94510.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Hi Raman, I've been following your posts with interest and really look forward to your work in the coming months. The interviews will be an extremely interesting exercise! I just thought maybe I'd offer some stray thoughts on this, purely academic. 1. One, perhaps would be: what theoretical notion of State, or Statehood can we work with to understand it in relationship to the Internet? Apart from the censorship angle, which of course you are exactly on the right track, I think it might be interesting to look at it in terms of 'Secrecy' and a fetishising of technology, both working in different ways but ultimately together to control the flows of information. In India, I am thinking of Itty Abraham's theorising of the Indian State in his book on the atomic bomb. It might be worthwhile to add that to your bibliographic list. 2. If one does think of practices of establishing technological secrecy as a essential tactic of the state, the special powers that the state takes on during times of disturbance offer a special insight into its censoring of the internet. I am thinking here of 1998, when the BJP made it mandatory for all private communications to be made available to security agencies such as the IB and the RAW. This was around the time the Goverment captured high-tech encryption technologies from Kashmiri terrorists. I am also thinking of legal control over electronic communication in sections 14 through 17 of MCOCA, those suspending rights to encryption, without any safeguards at all. I wouldn't be surprised to find similiar legal control of communication in other legislation similiar to the MCOCA. 3. If we are thinking of secrecy, it might also be interesting to look at the laws on encryption/decryption and changes in them over the last decade or so. I know that in the Information Technology Bill of 1999-2000, under Section 68 'the Government is enabled to intercept and decrypt any information transferred through the computer resource. Although wire-tapping is protected against as an invasion of privacy, section 69 allows for interception of any information transmitted through a computer resource and requires that users disclose encryption keys or face a jail sentence of up to seven years. Of course, this direction is only to be given if the CCA is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so to do in the interests of the following: the sovereignty or integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence.' Of course, I'm sure you're aware of this, and I may well have missed your posting on this. What I basically intend to suggest is in addition to the legal, perhaps try to additionally unpack the technological 'black-box' of cryptography and the internet, to better understand how it has been constructed, developed and used? 4. The reason I am thinking of unpacking 'technologies' that the State uses in its practices of control is because it offers a new approach, one that involves the social study of developing technologies to understand the interpenetrations of the technological and the social. This seems to me to be a better way than to see technology as a 'tool', as something finished that is then manipulated by the state, bloggers and so on. This of course is the direction the 2.0 approach is taking too in a very different way. ALL THIS ACADEMIC DILLY-DALLYING DOES HAVE A PURPOSE, WHICH IN MY MIND IS TO NUANCE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE 'STATE' AND ITS PRACTICES OF GOVERNMENTALITY AND CONTROL. RATHER THAN SEE IT AS SOMETHING REPRESSIVE (CENSORING THE INTERNET) IT SEEMS USEFUL TO SEE IT AS PRODUCING THE INTERNET AND ITS TECHNOLOGY IN SPECIFIC WAYS, PRODUCING AN ARENA OF CONTROL DISGUISED FAR MORE EFFECTIVELY THAN IN THE PAST. TO ME, THIS PERHAPS BEST EPITOMISES THE WORK THAT FOUCAULT AND DELEUZE HAVE DONE IN REFINING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE STATE - AWAY FROM A PURELY REPRESSIVE MECHANISM TO A PRODUCTIVE AND DIFFUSEDLY CONTROLLING ONE. THROUGH THE INTERNET PERHAPS, IS THE STATE FINALLY AND MINUTELY LOCAL. I know your perspective and approach might be different, and a very valuable one at that, trained as you are in the legal framework. I thought I'd just share some random thoughts because I found your posts of much interest. I would completely understand and maybe even agree that it might too early to start theorising, even before one has done the ground fieldwork that you intend to do. But since you were reading around at this stage... Best of luck with your work! Dwai. Once upon a time there was 1 GB storage on Yahoo! Mail. Go here for happy ending http://in.mail.yahoo.com From dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in Tue Jun 26 02:57:18 2007 From: dwaipayanbanerjee at yahoo.co.in (Dwaipayan Banerjee) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 22:27:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] 'postmodernism'... Message-ID: <422404.88210.qm@web94512.mail.in2.yahoo.com> Just a note of thanks to the people who emailed me after that post... appreciate the interest and glad it meant sense. And just finally, for anyone really interested in actually figuring out 'science studies', rather than reading my rather confused ramblings I suggest you look at the first chapter of Bruno Latour's book 'Pandora's Hope' which is far more coherent, intelligent and fun to read. It is a clearly argued program-statement and an overview of the discipline, firmly placing its theoretical orientation as that of a 'radical realism'. It is a realism on the side of scientists rather than against them, hoping to counter the growing threat of deconstruction and post-modernism. The rather hopeless irony is that poor Latour got branded a post-modernist in Sokal's book, the very theory he has made it his life-work to undermine. [His is the actor-network theory in social sciences, hoping to establish at least limited relations between the mind and the world, in order to counter the growing retreat into form and deconstructive post-modern solipsism.] One may sometimes agree with Latour, and as often disagree with his extremely provocative positions. But one cannot help admire his fun writing and his easy wit and style. For those in CSDS and JNU, Pandora's Hope is available in your libraries, and in csds so are his other amazing books - 'we have never been modern' and 'aramis or the love of technology.' Pandora's Hope is also avaiable in the Ratan Tata Library, and if you are a member of the French Information and Resource Centre, you can find it there too, along with some of his others. Don't miss this, its a great read. Dwaipayan Download prohibited? No problem. To chat from any browser without download, Go to http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php From ysikand at gmail.com Mon Jun 25 20:46:45 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:46:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Haren Pandya's Murder Judgment: His Father Dissents, Suggests Modi's Hand Message-ID: <48097acc0706250816kb95081fmcebd366b4445cfc2@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friend, As you might have heard, a POTA court in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, today sentenced nine persons to life imprisonment for killing senior BJP leader and former Home Minister Haren Pandya in 2003. All of them are Muslims. Among the nine persons, one was awarded life imprisonment till his natural death while the other eight were awarded life term of 14 years.The court which had conducted the in-camera hearing in the case also sentenced two others to seven years imprisonment and another accused to a five year jail-term. However, it is significant to note that Haren Pandya's father, Vitthalbhai Pandya, has disagreed with the court's verdict. He believes that his son was killed at the behest of none other than Narendra Modi, the BJP Chief Minister of Gujarat. I interviewed him at length two years ago about the murder of his son and had sent out the interview on my email list then. Given the fact that the case is now again in the news, I am sending it out a second time [below]. Please circulate it. Regards Yogi 79-year old Vithalbhai Pandya is the father of the slain former Gujarat Home Minister, Haren Pandya. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand he talks about his struggle against Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who, he believes, was the man behind his son's murder three years ago. He also reflects on the anti-Muslim carnage of 2002 in Gujarat and the dangerous rise of Hindutva fascism, which he sees as a sin against Hinduism. Q: Whom do you hold responsible for Haren Pandya's death? A:. I am convinced and have reason to believe that Narendra Modi, whom I call a psychic mass killer, was the person behind Haren's death. Haren, my only son, was found dead in Ahmedabad on 26 March 2003. He was just 42 when he was killed. From day one I have been insisting that Haren was murdered on the orders of Modi and that is was a politically motivated crime arranged at Modi's behest. The CBI investigation into his murder is, I have been repeatedly alleging but to no avail, not being conducted in a transparent manner, free from political interference. My appeals about this continue to go unheeded. A fair investigation can only happen when Modi is removed from the office of Chief Minister, which he continues to occupy even three years after launching a deadly carnage that took the lives of more than 3000 innocent Muslims. As in Haren's murder case, justice remains a far cry for the Muslim victims of the genocide. Q: Some people claim that Haren Pandya was killed by some Muslim youth. What do you feel? A: The claim that the instigators of my son's death were some Muslim youth from Hyderabad is, I believe, completely false. It is a sly way of denying Modi's hand in the affair and to shift the blame onto hapless Muslims and to spread anti-Muslim hatred. The case of my son's death should be carried out in public because the public has the right to know the truth. But, the inquiry is being conducted in camera, and I think this is simply in order to save Modi's skin. Haren was a victim of Modi's political intrigue and innocent Muslims should not be arrested, harassed or blamed, as they have been, for his killing. Q: If, as you claim, Modi was behind Haren's death, why do you think he wanted him out of his way? A: Modi saw Haren as a major challenge to his authority and viewed him as his main political rival. He may have felt that by doing away with Haren he could silence all other rivals, within and without the BJP, because they would be too scared to speak out against him. There was growing dissatisfaction in BJP ranks in Gujarat with Modi and so the message that was probably sought to be sent out was that those who dared to speak out against Modi would meet the same fate. Modi detested Haren for his uprightness. When Haren was the state revenue Minister he took stern action against land-sharks, including some of Modi's cronies, who had illegally acquired properties worth crores of rupees and this Modi could not stomach. Another factor behind Haren's killing, I believe, was his clear-cut moral position on the murder of thousands of Muslims following the burning of the train carriage in Godhra on 27 February 2002. Haren believed that the Godhra incident should be limited to Godhra alone and should not be used, as Modi did, to spread murder all over Gujarat. He was opposed to Modi's use of the Godhra incident to launch an anti-Muslim genocide and to garner Hindu votes. He was vehemently opposed to Modi's fascist agenda. He told me, in great anguish, that he heard of a confidential meeting apparently held by Modi and attended by some ministers, senior bureaucrats and police officers on 27 February 2002, in which, he said, Modi instructed police officials to remain inactive in the face of the anti-Muslim carnage that was launched with active state connivance the next day. Haren very specifically mentioned before the Iyer Commission that Modi had set off this anti-Muslim genocide. Modi did not like Haren's opposition to the genocide. Haren told me that Modi asked him to apologise but he refused to. This further added to Modi's hatred for Haren and made him, I believe, conspire to have him killed. Q: But if Haren was against Modi's anti-Muslim policies, as you say, then how come he chose to remain in the BJP, because the BJP is known for being anti-Muslim? A: Not all people in the BJP are ncecessarily communal. Haren certainly was not. When Haren was the Gujarat Home Minister in Keshubhai Patel's government, some fanatic VHP and Bajrang Dal elements started hounding Christians in the Dangs but he mediated and solved the situation. Yes, although Haren was with the BJP, I, as his father, know that he had no hatred for Muslims. In the anti-Muslim carnage that Modi engineered Haren saw to it that no Muslims were killed in his area. Haren did not believe in the same version of hate-driven Hindutva as Modi does. His understanding was of what is called samrasta, equality of people of all faiths. True, Haren was with the RSS, but, unlike many other people in the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, he was not a fundamentalist. He believed in the "Integral Humanism" of Deendayal Upadhyay, who, some people say, was killed by Hindu fundamentalists as they found him a stumbling block in their political designs. Q: How did leaders of Hindutva organisations, such as the RSS, react to Haren's murder? A: Advani, who presents himself as a die-hard Hindutva leader, tried to prejudice the investigation into my son's death by what I believe to be falsely claiming that the Pakistani ISI or the gangster Dawood was responsible for it. I told Advani that he was responsible, in a way, for Haren's death. He had kept quiet and had allowed the BJP in Gujarat to be monopolised by a single Ravana—the bloodthirsty dictator Modi. When he came for the condolence meeting after Haren's death I told him he was shedding crocodile tears. This was because the real culprit was Modi, Advani's henchman. Vajpayee, too, supported Modi and did not condemn him for Haren's death. The BJP government was also responsible for this by deliberately failing to provide Haren with security although Haren suspected that Modi was conspiring to take his life. Several other senior RSS and BJP leaders maintained a stony silence on Haren's death, thus appearing to support Modi's criminality. Q: So, how do you characterise these Hindutva organisations. After all, Haren was also a member of the RSS. A: There are some balanced and sensible people in these organisations, but many of them are driven by hatred and a thirst for power, for which they are misusing the Hindu religion. I was an activist of the RSS myself but now I don't believe in its ideology. The Sangh Parivar have become a gang. They are not really concerned about the poor. Nor are most of them genuinely concerned about Hinduism. Some of them may be good people as individuals, but now, as a group, they are very different. Many of them are just immoral, power-hungry people who can stoop to any level. So, I don't believe in the sort of Hindutva that Modi and Advani preach, because it is predicated on hatred. I believe that all people, irrespective of religion, are human beings. Any ideology that teaches us to hate other communities is a sin in God's eyes, and that is precisely what people like Modi and Advani are doing. What fascists who claim to be defenders of Hinduism are doing is a great crime according to the Hindu religion. Murdering innocent people is a major sin. These people are the greatest enemies of Hinduism. They are not religious in the true sense of the term. Advani's own daughter-in-law has come out with a statement that Advani does not believe in the Hindu religion. Hence, it is obvious that people like him are simply using Hinduism to get Hindu votes. How can God forgive them for this crime? Q: If, as you say, Modi was responsible for your son's death, how do you think he should be dealt with? A: Modi, as is well known, has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims in Gujarat. I also believe that he was responsible for the murder of my son. In that case, shouldn't he be punished in the same way as those who are sentenced for murder? What Modi has done, being responsible for the murder of more than 3000 people, is an enormous sin in the eyes of God. Justice demands that he should meet the same fate that he has meted out to the thousands of people who have lost their lives. But that has not happened. The law has not been allowed to take its course. The thousands of Muslims whose relatives were killed in the carnage and I as well, as Haren's father, have been deliberately denied justice and Modi continues to rule as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. What sort of democracy is this? If Modi's fascist dictatorship remains unchecked and if he goes unpunished, I fear the cancer that he is breeding will spread all over India. Modi is worse than mass murderers like Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia. His government should have been dismissed a long time ago if we are serious about democracy and justice. If I had my way, I would have sought international summons issued against him for his crimes against humanity. Modi claims to be a protector of Hinduism but all this is just a trick. He curries favour with Hindu religious leaders to get Hindu votes, but he has no real faith in God his heart. A decade ago, the well-known scholar Ashish Nandy met Modi when the latter was an RSS-pracharak. Nandy then wrote an article in the 'Seminar' journal describing Modi as 'a textbook case of a fascist and a prospective killer, perhaps even a future mass murderer'. And that is a fact. Last year I sent a letter to the President of India, Abul Kalam, in which I quoted Modi as declaring that 'Every Muslim of this country is a traitor and expected terrorist'. I asked the President what he, as a Muslim, had to say about this. I urged him to take stiff action against Modi for this inhuman and anti-national statement and for the genocide of Muslims that he had engineered. But no action has been taken. Such is the state of this so-called 'democratic' country that claims to be the largest 'democracy' in the world. Q: The burning of the coach of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, which was used as an excuse by Modi and Hindutva outfits to launch a genocide of Muslims in Gujarat, has been much discussed. What do you feel actually happened at Godhra on that day? A: It has been proved that the train carriage was not set on fire by a mob from outside. No inflammable liquid, contrary to what Modi and RSS leaders and others have alleged, was thrown from outside the train. So, the fire must have started from inside the train. Maybe this was an accident but, who knows, it may have been a pre-planned strategy to justify the genocide of Muslims. In an affidavit presented in October 2004 before the committee that investigated the burning of the coach I pointed out that Modi had delivered a very provocative speech to the so-called 'kar sevaks' going to Ayodhya. When they were returning from Ayodhya, these fanatics, fired by pseudo-religious frenzy, began shouting anti-Muslim slogans and harassing a Muslim girl at Godhra station. This must have been designed before hand and it resulted in a fracas with some Muslims outside. This was intentionally done, I believe. I argued in my affidavit that the chain was deliberately pulled by the so-called 'kar-sevaks' at Signal Falia, a Muslim-dominated locality, so that chaos and violence could be unleashed. I asked in the affidavit why it was that some relatives of politically significant so-called 'kar-sevaks' were said to have been asked to get down at a station just before Godhra? Obviously, therefore, at least some of the so-called 'kar sevaks' possibly knew about this pre-planned strategy. Q: How are you keeping up your struggle against Modi and for justice for Haren and for the victims of the anti-Muslim genocide? A: I am an old man of 77 years, but in order to get Modi thrown out and to heal the terrible wounds that he and his men have inflicted on Gujarat, I stood against Advani, Modi's protector, in the elections as an independent candidate. Of course I lost the election, because I had no money. But I got around 10,000 votes and used the election as a means to generate support for the demand to have Modi dismissed and punished. In my election campaign, I focussed particularly on the desperate need for inter-community harmony. I went to the sprawling Muslim ghetto of Juhapura, and the Muslims there greeted me and said I was the only Hindu candidate who had bothered to visit them. I am continuing with this struggle against fascism, not simply as Haren's father, but as a concerned citizen, as someone worried about the fate of India if fascists like Modi continue to go free despite their enormous crimes. And so today wherever I go I tell people to defeat this fake Hindutva, because this is a crime against Hinduism. Every day I keep sending off letters to people to protest against Modi. I don't get many responses but I will continue to do this. Ever since Haren's assassination I have been sending letter after letter to all sorts of 'important' people, including the Gujarat governor, the National Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Court and even the Prime Minister and President of India, but I have got no positive response. So, I have lost faith in all our talk about 'democracy' and 'justice'. Because of Modi, Gujarat is now standing on the shoulders of mrityudeva, the god of death, who will continue to shriek unless Modi and his ilk are brought to justice. I have decided to fight till my last breath against Modi, Advani and people like them, who are continuing to use religion to spread murder and hatred. Maybe in this world they will not be punished, but God will certainly punish them after death. But we must see that such people receive the punishment they deserve for their crimes in this world as well. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070625/7f71619f/attachment.html From ysikand at gmail.com Mon Jun 25 23:16:11 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:16:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Book Review: New Book on Hizbullah Message-ID: <48097acc0706251046u69c864e3o8cae7de7204cda75@mail.gmail.com> Book Review Name of the Book: Hizbullah—Party of God: An Islamic Movement Perspective Edited by: Abdar Rahman Koya Publisher: The Other Press, Kuala Lumpur (www.ibtbooks.com) Year: 2006 Pages: 142 Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand Much has been written about Hizbullah, 'The Party of God', the Lebanon-based resistance movement. Yet, as the editor of this book, Abdar Rahman Koya, points out, most of this has been by Western writers, who represent a distinctly Western and, therefore, biased, perspective. This book, a collection of essays that originally appeared in the columns of the Toronto-based monthly 'Crescent International', provides an alternative perspective on the movement. In his editorial note, Koya focuses on Hizbullah's consistent opposition to Zionist aggression and Western imperialist designs in the Middle East. Despite this, he remarks, pro-Western Arab regimes have either remained studiously silent on the movement or else have sought to actively oppose it, buying into the baseless Zionist/Western argument of it being a 'terrorist' movement. This shows, he argues, that their 'piety is selective'. He berates Saudi mullahs for issuing fatwas, at the behest of the Saudi rulers, denouncing Hizbullah as 'wrongdoers'and 'Satans'. Panic-stricken by Hizbullah's growing popularity as a resistance movement and the threat that it poses to pro-American Arab regimes, Koya says in this regard that 'the Wahhabi fatwa-factory seems to be working overtime, much to the delight of the Zionists and of their Western backers'. In his paper, Iqbal Siddiqui, editor of 'Crescent International', describes the unique features of Hizbullah that sets it apart from most other Islamic movements. He sees it as, in a sense, a model for these movements to emulate. In this regard, he critiques the way in which the Western media has sought to present Islamic movements, making unwarranted generalizations on the basis of a few instances. 'Thus', he writes, 'marginal and extremist movements such as al-Qaida, and misleaders such as Usama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are promoted as the real face of the political Islamic movement, while Islamic movements and leaders that have far stronger roots in Muslim societies and Islamic political culture, and have far greater credibility and potential as forces for the liberation and transformation of Muslim societies, are disparaged and demonised'. Allegations against the Hizbullah of being 'Shia' and 'sectarian' abound in the Arab and Western media, Siddiqui notes. He argues that this charge is baseless and is geared to marginalize the movement. While Hizbullah did emerge from among the Shia of southern Lebanon, and while most of its leaders are Shia ulema, it nonetheless has, Siddiqui states, considerably credibility and popularity among Lebanon's Christians and Sunnis, too. In fact, this is a distinction that few other political movements in Lebanon, which is wracked by sectarianism, have achieved. Hizbullah, says Siddiqui, is one of the few Islamic movements that have 'genuinely managed to rise about petty local concerns' to address issues such as Western imperialism and Zionism, clearly steering away from narrow sectarianism. Another aspect that distinguishes Hizbullah from many other Islamic movements, Siddiqui argues, is that it has a 'sophisticated and nuanced political vision of how Muslim societies should be governed in the modern world'. It is actively engaged in the social, cultural, educational and welfare fields. It runs scores of schools, clinics and hospitals, has built numerous power stations, and offers aid to farmers, the poor and war victims. Its welfare services are available not jus to Shias, but to Christians and Sunnis, too. Siddiqui contrasts this model of working with that of the Taliban, who, he says, caused immense misery to the Afghans with what he calls their 'limited and rigid understanding of Islam'. Like Koya, Siddiqui also lauds Hizbullah for superseding pro-American client regimes in the Arab world and for consistently opposing American and Israeli hegemony. Three articles by Khalil Osman discuss the origins of Hizbullah in 1982 as a resistance movement struggling against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and its modus operandi, examining both its military engagements as well as its social involvement in a diverse rage of fields. Osman remarks how Hizbullah has consistently sought to promote a Lebanese national consensus, uniting the different confessional communities in the country against the Israelis. He thus dismisses charges of it being a sectarian Shia movement, as is generally alleged by the Western press and by certain Arab governments, most notably Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. He notes how the Americans have unsuccessfully tried to tame Hizbullah and reduce it to a mere political party by offering millions of dollars in the guise of rebuilding south Lebanon, but how Hizbullah has consistently rebuffed such overtures. Stressing Hizbullah's record in opposing Zionist aggression, he writes that in the face of Arab regimes' slavishly following American diktats, Hizbullah has brought back 'the logic of resistance in the Arab world', exposed the bankruptcy of the American-sponsored 'peace prcoess' and shattered the myth of the invincibility of Israeli arms. In their articles Zafar Bangash, Shameema Ismail and Mansour Ansari cover much the same grounds as the previous contributors, focusing on different aspects of Hizbullah's resistance to Israeli aggression and the various social services that it is engaged in. The book ends with three speeches by the head of Hizbullah, Shaikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, where he outlines the ideology of the movement, focusing particularly on its anti-imperialist agenda and its advocacy for a united opposition to American and Israeli aggression, warning against consistent American efforts to pit Shias and Sunnis, and Arab Christians and Muslims, against each other. This slim and immensely readable book is a good introduction to a unique Islamic movement and a welcome counter to much Western writing on the subject. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070625/6813d013/attachment.html From sayyadain2000 at yahoo.co.in Mon Jun 25 23:31:30 2007 From: sayyadain2000 at yahoo.co.in (faizan ahmed) Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:01:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [FDR] A good legal precedent Message-ID: <6746.61807.qm@web7702.mail.in.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Here’s a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070625/97d59043/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Isteyaq Ahmed" Subject: [FDR] A good legal precedent Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:01:57 +0530 Size: 33987 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070625/97d59043/attachment.mht From sadan at sarai.net Tue Jun 26 15:40:51 2007 From: sadan at sarai.net (sadan at sarai.net) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:10:51 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] university of California Press Online Message-ID: <18de785307c8f33dba0a48198b57c672@sarai.net> Dear All, Today while surfing I found that University of California Press has published 25% of its academic books online for free access. So now you have a lot of complete texts at your disposal So if you want to read Irschick, Eugene F. Dialogue and History: Constructing South India, 1795-1895. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. the site is http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft038n99hg/ or Bazaar India by Anand Yang you can find full text online. This is what they write about the project: The eScholarship Editions project is managed by the eScholarship program at the California Digital Library. As one of the University of California libraries, the CDL supports the assembly and creative use of the world's scholarship and knowledge for the UC libraries and the communities they serve. The eScholarship program facilitates innovation and experimentation in the production and dissemination of scholarly works. More than 1,400 electronic editions of academic books have been published online at the eScholarship Editions web site. All eScholarship Editions are available for free to UC faculty, staff, and students. Additionally,more than 25 percent of the books are available for free to the public. eScholarship utilizes an XML- and Java-based infrastructure to support the publication of electronic books that are user-friendly, flexible, and viable for the long term. This infrastructure provides a full range of services for researchers, scholars, teachers, and readers, including full-text searching and internal links to footnote and index references. the link is http://content.cdlib.org/escholarship/ happy reading. wishes, sadan. From indersalim at gmail.com Tue Jun 26 23:34:12 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:34:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Book Review: New Book on Hizbullah In-Reply-To: <48097acc0706251046u69c864e3o8cae7de7204cda75@mail.gmail.com> References: <48097acc0706251046u69c864e3o8cae7de7204cda75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47e122a70706261104ud3a2f38qbb3869d0b83cd82b@mail.gmail.com> It is good for those who are really interested. thanks. 'Landscapes of Jihad'by Faisal Devji. published by Foundation Books Pvt Ltd. Cambridge House, 4381/4, Ansari Road, Darya Gang, New Delhi. People must be already knowing about the book, ( which i quoted extensively in my previous mail , OTHER: digitrait, Jihad and Abhinavagupta. Those who are intested in the reviewed book by Mr. Yogi should also read Faisal Devji.The echo is similar, but texture-wise i guess there must be a marked difference. Faisal rarely talked about Hizbullah, but discusses lucidly about Al-Qaeda, which is quite in contrast with Abdar Rahman's understanding of Osama Bin-Laden and Co. But the essense wise there is no difference between Hizbullah and Al-Qaeda. ( as one can see from this precise review ) Faisal Devji believes that the future Islamic movement will automatically shun fundamentalism, and focus more on ethics and evironmental issues at global level. Like Abdar Rahman he also believes that the ' wrongdoes and satans' in the garb of jihadees would perish sooner or later. The western imperialism is their common enemy, which is most significance part of these two books. There must be other books written outside western point of view. I hope we will get to know about it, sooner or later. inder salim On 6/25/07, Yogi Sikand wrote: > > > > Book Review > > > > Name of the Book: Hizbullah—Party of God: An Islamic Movement Perspective > > Edited by: Abdar Rahman Koya > > Publisher: The Other Press, Kuala Lumpur (www.ibtbooks.com) > > Year: 2006 > > Pages: 142 > > Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand > > > > Much has been written about Hizbullah, 'The Party of God', the Lebanon-based resistance movement. Yet, as the editor of this book, Abdar Rahman Koya, points out, most of this has been by Western writers, who represent a distinctly Western and, therefore, biased, perspective. This book, a collection of essays that originally appeared in the columns of the Toronto-based monthly 'Crescent International', provides an alternative perspective on the movement. > > > > In his editorial note, Koya focuses on Hizbullah's consistent opposition to Zionist aggression and Western imperialist designs in the Middle East. Despite this, he remarks, pro-Western Arab regimes have either remained studiously silent on the movement or else have sought to actively oppose it, buying into the baseless Zionist/Western argument of it being a 'terrorist' movement. This shows, he argues, that their 'piety is selective'. He berates Saudi mullahs for issuing fatwas, at the behest of the Saudi rulers, denouncing Hizbullah as 'wrongdoers'and 'Satans'. Panic-stricken by Hizbullah's growing popularity as a resistance movement and the threat that it poses to pro-American Arab regimes, Koya says in this regard that 'the Wahhabi fatwa-factory seems to be working overtime, much to the delight of the Zionists and of their Western backers'. > > > > In his paper, Iqbal Siddiqui, editor of 'Crescent International', describes the unique features of Hizbullah that sets it apart from most other Islamic movements. He sees it as, in a sense, a model for these movements to emulate. In this regard, he critiques the way in which the Western media has sought to present Islamic movements, making unwarranted generalizations on the basis of a few instances. 'Thus', he writes, 'marginal and extremist movements such as al-Qaida, and misleaders such as Usama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are promoted as the real face of the political Islamic movement, while Islamic movements and leaders that have far stronger roots in Muslim societies and Islamic political culture, and have far greater credibility and potential as forces for the liberation and transformation of Muslim societies, are disparaged and demonised'. > > > > Allegations against the Hizbullah of being 'Shia' and 'sectarian' abound in the Arab and Western media, Siddiqui notes. He argues that this charge is baseless and is geared to marginalize the movement. While Hizbullah did emerge from among the Shia of southern Lebanon, and while most of its leaders are Shia ulema, it nonetheless has, Siddiqui states, considerably credibility and popularity among Lebanon's Christians and Sunnis, too. In fact, this is a distinction that few other political movements in Lebanon, which is wracked by sectarianism, have achieved. Hizbullah, says Siddiqui, is one of the few Islamic movements that have 'genuinely managed to rise about petty local concerns' to address issues such as Western imperialism and Zionism, clearly steering away from narrow sectarianism. > > > > Another aspect that distinguishes Hizbullah from many other Islamic movements, Siddiqui argues, is that it has a 'sophisticated and nuanced political vision of how Muslim societies should be governed in the modern world'. It is actively engaged in the social, cultural, educational and welfare fields. It runs scores of schools, clinics and hospitals, has built numerous power stations, and offers aid to farmers, the poor and war victims. Its welfare services are available not jus to Shias, but to Christians and Sunnis, too. Siddiqui contrasts this model of working with that of the Taliban, who, he says, caused immense misery to the Afghans with what he calls their 'limited and rigid understanding of Islam'. Like Koya, Siddiqui also lauds Hizbullah for superseding pro-American client regimes in the Arab world and for consistently opposing American and Israeli hegemony. > > > > Three articles by Khalil Osman discuss the origins of Hizbullah in 1982 as a resistance movement struggling against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and its modus operandi, examining both its military engagements as well as its social involvement in a diverse rage of fields. Osman remarks how Hizbullah has consistently sought to promote a Lebanese national consensus, uniting the different confessional communities in the country against the Israelis. He thus dismisses charges of it being a sectarian Shia movement, as is generally alleged by the Western press and by certain Arab governments, most notably Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. He notes how the Americans have unsuccessfully tried to tame Hizbullah and reduce it to a mere political party by offering millions of dollars in the guise of rebuilding south Lebanon, but how Hizbullah has consistently rebuffed such overtures. Stressing Hizbullah's record in opposing Zionist aggression, he writes that in the face of Arab regimes' slavishly following American diktats, Hizbullah has brought back 'the logic of resistance in the Arab world', exposed the bankruptcy of the American-sponsored 'peace prcoess' and shattered the myth of the invincibility of Israeli arms. > > > > In their articles Zafar Bangash, Shameema Ismail and Mansour Ansari cover much the same grounds as the previous contributors, focusing on different aspects of Hizbullah's resistance to Israeli aggression and the various social services that it is engaged in. The book ends with three speeches by the head of Hizbullah, Shaikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, where he outlines the ideology of the movement, focusing particularly on its anti-imperialist agenda and its advocacy for a united opposition to American and Israeli aggression, warning against consistent American efforts to pit Shias and Sunnis, and Arab Christians and Muslims, against each other. > > > > This slim and immensely readable book is a good introduction to a unique Islamic movement and a welcome counter to much Western writing on the subject. > > _________________________________________ > 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/> > -- http://indersalim.livejournal.com From shekhar at crit.org.in Wed Jun 27 14:56:38 2007 From: shekhar at crit.org.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:56:38 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Make/Shift Mumbai, 9-12 July Message-ID: <1182936398.5550.49.camel@nowhereman> Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), an initiative of Upanagar Shikshan Mandal, is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of the Institute's work on the city,"Make/Shift Mumbai: Readings, Imaginations and Propositions" on display from 11 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. from MONDAY 9 JULY to THURSDAY 12 JULY 2007 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India), Mumbai. The exhibition will be inaugurated by: Chief Guest Dr. (Smt.) Snehalata Deshmukh Ex. Vice Chancellor, University of Mumbai on MONDAY 9 JULY 2007 at 5:30 P.M. Venue: Coomaraswamy Hall Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India) 159-61, Mahatma Gandhi Road Colaba, Mumbai 400023 India MAKE/SHIFT MUMBAI: Readings, Imaginations and Propositions The exhibition "Make/ Shift Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and Propositions" will showcase the large repertoire of work on the city completed over the last fifteen years by the Kamala Raheja Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA). Since the institute's inception in 1992, a group of educationists, professionals and artists have been involved in envisioning the school's direction, and discussions on cities have been central to its academic investigations. Through its varied research and consultancy projects, and through its undergraduate courses and its extra-curricular programmes, the institute has actively engaged with the city and provided an important platform for debate and discussion. Espousing an inter-disciplinary approach, its initiatives have ranged from mapping and reading the metropolis; to providing new spatial imaginations for the city through its academic work; to its advocacy work which proposes alternative futures to the city's development. The college is now starting a post-graduate programme in Urban Studies, offered as an Master of Architecture (M.Arch) degree with a specialisation in Urban Design and Urban Conservation. The intention is to take its earlier initiatives forward by providing a platform for structured research and design at the post-graduate level. The Exhibition, "Make/ Shift Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and Propositions" is both a retrospective of the institute's work and an introduction to its post-graduate programme. While the three categories Reading, Imaginations and Propositions are in many ways interconnected, they form an important structure through which to see the institute's work on the city. The work displayed through these above conceptual categories has been done through the institute's Design and Research Cell, its urban studies courses from the fourth year of the B.Arch programme, humanities courses, final year thesis projects, and design projects undertaken from the first to the fourth year of the undergraduate programme, all of which engage in readings and interventions in the city at various scales and through multiple approaches. Kamala Raheja Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) Vidyanidhi Marg, JVPD Scheme Juhu, Mumbai 400049 India Tel: +91.22.2670.0918 Fax: +91.22.2620.8547 E-Mail: krviaevents at gmail.com Web: http://www.krvia.ac.in KRVIA Postgraduate Programme in Urban Studies Brochure http://krvia.ac.in/images/JAK2.pdf Make/Shift Mumbai Announcement http://krvia.ac.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=1 -- Shekhar Krishnan 9, Supriya, 2nd Floor Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road no.4 Dadar, Mumbai 400014 India http://www.mit.edu/~shekhar http://www.heptanesia.net http://www.crit.org.in/members/shekhar From sananth99 at gmail.com Sun Jun 24 09:06:52 2007 From: sananth99 at gmail.com (Ananth) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 09:06:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Profits in Biowarfare Research Message-ID: <477A0BBA-265B-4AE7-B47F-E156952CE57E@gmail.com> June 22, 2007 The Big Profits in Biowarfare Research Corporate America's Deadliest Secret http://www.counterpunch.org/ross06222007.html By SHERWOOD ROSS A number of major pharmaceutical corporations and biotech firms are concealing the nature of the biological warfare research work they are doing for the U.S. government. Since their funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, the recipients are obligated under NIH guidelines to make their activities public. Not disclosing their ops raises the suspicion they may be engaged in forbidden kinds of germ warfare research. According to the Sunshine Project, a nonprofit arms control watchdog operating out of Austin, Texas, among corporations holding back information about their activities are: Abbott Laboratories, BASF Plant Science, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont Central Research and Development, Eli Lilly Corp., Embrex, GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-LaRoche, Merck & Co., Monsanto, Pfizer Inc., Schering-Plough Research Institute, and Syngenta Corp. of Switzerland. In case you didn't know it, the White House since 9/11 has called for spending $44-billion on biological warfare research, a sum unprecedented in world history, and an obliging Congress has authorized it. Thus, some of the deadliest pathogens known to humankind are being rekindled in hundreds of labs in pharmaceutical houses, university biology departments, and on military bases. An international convention the U.S. signed forbids it to stockpile, manufacture or use biological weapons. But if the U.S. won't say what's going down in those laboratories other countries are going to assume the worst and a biowarfare arms race will be on, if it isn't already. Sunshine says failure to disclose operations also puts corporate employees involved in this work at risk. Only 8,500, or 16%, of the 52,000 workers employed at the top 20 U.S. biotech firms work at an NIH guidelines-compliant company, Sunshine says. Francis Boyle, an international law authority at the University of Illinois, Champaign, says pursuant to national strategy directives adopted by Bush in 2002, the Pentagon "is now gearing up to fight and win' biological warfare without prior public knowledge and review." Boyle said the Pentagon's Chemical and Biological Defense Program was revised in 2003 to endorse "first-use" strike in war. Boyle said the program includes Red Teaming, which he described as "plotting, planning, and scheming how to use biowarfare." Besides the big pharmaceutical houses, the biowarfare buildup is getting an enthusiastic response from academia, which sees new funds flowing from Washington's horn of plenty. "American universities have a long history of willingly permitting their research agenda, researchers, institutes and laboratories to be co-opted, corrupted, and perverted by the Pentagon and the CIA," Boyle says. What's more, the Bush administration is pouring billions in biowarfare research while some very real killers, such as influenza, are not being cured. In 2006, the NIH got $120 million to combat influenza, which kills about 36,000 Americans annually but it got $1.76 billion for biodefense, much of it spent to research anthrax. How many people has anthrax killed lately? Well, let's see, there were those five people killed in the mysterious attacks on Congress of October, 2001 --- attacks that suspiciously emanated from a government laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. One would think the FBI might apprehend the perpetrator whose attack shut down the Congress of the United States but nearly six years have gone by and it hasn't caught anybody. Seem a bit odd to you? Some folks suspect the anthrax attack was an inside job to panic the country into a huge biowarfare buildup to "protect" America from "terrorists." Milton Leitenberg, of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, though, says the risk of terrorists and nonstate actors using biological agents against the U.S. "has been systematically and deliberately exaggerated" by administration scare-mongering. And molecular biologist Jonathan King of Massachusetts Institute of Technology says, "the Bush administration launched a major program which threatens to put the health of our people at far greater risk than the hazard to which they claimed to have been responding." King added President Bush's policies "do not increase the security of the American people" but "bring new risk to our population of the most appalling kind." In the absence of any credible foreign threat, Sunshine's Hammond said, "Our biowarfare research is defending ourselves from ourselves. It's a dog chasing its tail." Sadly, it looks more and more every day like a mad dog. Sherwood Ross has worked as a reporter for major dailies and wire services. Reach him at sherwoodr1 at yahoo.com From zubinpastakia at gmail.com Wed Jun 27 21:01:31 2007 From: zubinpastakia at gmail.com (Zubin Pastakia) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:01:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Photographs from Bombay's Cinema Halls Message-ID: <379173b10706270831y35c50a3dyc5fa2953f14f446b@mail.gmail.com> Hello, This is my fourth post to the Reader-List related to my fellowship project "A Photographic Study of Bombay's Cinema Halls as a Cultural Experience of Space." The highlight this month was photographing a full-house at Maratha Mandir for the Sunday matinee show, where "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (DDLJ) has been playing for nearly 12 years now. The hall, which was filled to its capacity (approximately 1200 seats), reverberated with the collective reactions of the primarily young male viewers, many of whom had watched the film several times over. That would maybe explain why there were a lot of people sleeping through large sections of the film as well. Also added to the website, a couple of pictures from Moti Talkies, which is located in Khetwadi, close to the "red-light" area of Falkland Rd. This was the first hall that I had started photographing last year. I have had a bit of trouble with access this month, however things have finally started moving in the past couple of weeks with some help from the owners of places that I have already photographed. In the coming weeks I will be shooting Bharat Mata, Gaiety Galaxy, and Capitol. The first is a hall that plays only Marathi films; the second is a unique stand-alone "multiplex"; and the third is a certified heritage structure opposite the CST station. As usual, all feedback and comments are most welcome. Please take a moment to view the pictures: http://peripheralvision.blogspot.com I will be updating the site frequently this month as I collect more material that I want to share. Best, Zubin -- Zubin B. Pastakia Photographer e: zubinpastakia at gmail.com w: http://peripheralvision.blogspot.com t: [91] 9833739998 From indersalim at gmail.com Wed Jun 27 21:37:17 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:37:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] FWD:Well he's almost gone ( Name: Tony Blair ) Message-ID: <47e122a70706270907k7fd39f97wdc6283f58701b73a@mail.gmail.com> _---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Ana gonzalez" >Well he's almost gone............. > >While on his morning walk, Prime Minister Tony Blair falls over, has a >heart attack and dies because the accident and emergency ward at his >nearest hospital is too understaffed to treat him in time. So his soul >arrives in Heaven and he is met by Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. > >"Welcome to Heaven," says Saint Peter, "Before you settle in, it seems >there is a problem. We seldom see a politician around these parts, so we're >not sure what to do with you." > >"No problem, just let me in; I'm a good Christian; I'm a believer," says >the PM. > >"I'd like to just let you in, but I have orders from God Himself. He says >that since the implementation of his new HEAVENCHOICES policy, you have to >spend one day in Hell and one day in Heaven. Then you must choose where >you'll live for eternity." > >"But I've already made up my mind. I want to be in Heaven," replies Blair. > >"I'm sorry ... but we have our rules and bureaucracy. " Peter interjects. > >And, with that, St. Peter escorts him to an elevator and he goes down, >down, down ... all the way to Hell. > >The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a lush golf course. >The sun is shining in a cloudless sky. The temperature is a perfect >21degrees. In the distance is a beautiful club-house. > >Standing in front of it is MPs from all the years of the Great British >democracy. There are luminaries who had helped Blair over the years. The >whole set of the Party leaders from the past were there . everyone >laughing, happy, and casually, but expensively, dressed. They run to greet >him, to hug him and to reminisce about the good times they had getting rich >at the expense of 'suckers and peasants.' They play a friendly game of golf >and then dine on lobster and caviar. > >The Devil himself comes up to Bliar with a frosty drink, "Have a tequila >and relax, Tony!" > >"Uh, I can't drink anymore, I took a pledge," says Blair, dejectedly. > >"This is Hell, son. You can drink and eat all you want and not worry and it >just gets better from there!" > >So Tony takes the drink and finds himself liking the Devil, who he thinks >is a really very friendly bloke who tells funny jokes like himself and >pulls hilarious nasty pranks, like the ones he and Hewitt pulled with the >NHS and with Kelly on Education. > >They are having such a great time that, before he realises it, it's time to >go.Everyone gives him a big hug and waves as Blair steps on the elevator >and heads upward. When the elevator door reopens, he is in Heaven again and >Saint Peter is waiting for him. "Now it's time to visit Heaven," the old >man says, opening the gate. > >So for 24 hours Blair is made to hang out with a bunch of honest, >good-natured people who enjoy each other's company, talk about things other >than money and treat each other decently. Not a nasty prank or egotistical >remark among them. > >No fancy country clubs here and, while the food tastes great, it's not >caviar or lobster. And these people are all poor. He doesn't see anybody he >knows and he isn't even treated like someone special! > >"Whoa," he says uncomfortably to himself. "Mandleson never prepared me for >this!" > >The day done, Saint Peter returns and says, "Well, you've spent a day in >Hell and a day in Heaven. Now choose where you want to live for eternity." > >With the 'Deal or No Deal' theme playing softly in the background, Blair >reflects for a minute ... then answers: "Well, I would never have thought >I'd say this -- I mean, Heaven has been delightful and all -- but I really >think I belong in Hell with my friends." > >So Saint Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down, >all the way to Hell. > >The doors of the elevator open and he is in the middle of a concrete jungle >covered with garbage and toxic industrial wasteland, kind of like the >eeroded, infested areas that Prescott created in the South East housing >blight. > >He is horrified to see all of his friends, dressed in rags and chained >together, picking up the roadside rubbish and putting it into black plastic >bags. They are groaning and moaning in pain, faces and hands black with >grime. >The Devil comes over to Blair and puts an arm around his shoulder. > >"I don't understand," stammers a shocked Tony, "Yesterday I was here and >there was a golf course and a club-house and we ate lobster and caviar and >drank tequila. We lazed around and had a great time. Now there's just a >wasteland full of garbage and everybody looks miserable!" > >The Devil looks at him, smiles slyly and purrs, "Yesterday we were >campaigning; today you voted for us!" _________________________________________________________________ Descubre la descarga digital con MSN Music. Más de un millón de canciones. http://music.msn.es/ -- http://indersalim.livejournal.com From mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com Thu Jun 28 11:49:48 2007 From: mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com (mahmood farooqui) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:49:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Dastangoi at The Attic on the 30th Message-ID: Dastangoi performance at The Attic, CP, New Delhi on Saturday the 30h June at 7pm. The tale of how Mahtab Jadu falls victim to his own lust and how Bahar mesmerises the sorcerer's army with her magic Limited seats... From chiarapassa at gmail.com Thu Jun 28 12:58:43 2007 From: chiarapassa at gmail.com (Chiara Passa) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:28:43 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] "LOYAL_ROOFTOPS_2007" Kassel. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "LOYAL_ROOFTOPS_2007" As part of the program of the festival "Bürgerstolz und Stadtfrieden" (Civil Pride and Urban Peace) we offer a billboard for screening video works from 15. May to the 24. September 2007. "Loyal_Rooftops_2007" shows video works, that point at social grievances and/or the struggle of independent culture/cultural institutions and therefore the festival "Bürgerstolz und Stadtfrieden" seems to be the right place at the right time to position themselves, short before those free spaces are closing. The works will be shown without sound and as a loop, alternating daily. All participating artists will be present on our info media. We will be happy to give you a hand concerning accommodation. (more info shortly on www.buergerstolzundstadtfrieden.de Galerie Loyal -Werner-Hilpertstr. 22 - 34117 Kassel). Full Program of "LOYAL_ROOFTOPS_2007" at: http://madege.de/aktuelles/program-of-loyal_rooftops_2007 21.06. Ralph Raabe, Kassel (D) - "zapping TV", 2007 22.06. Martin A. Dege, Kassel (D )- ".one day, 2000", 2,23 min. 23.06. Martin Sommer und Björn Westphal, Kassel (D) - "Autokamera", 2007 24.06. Eric Pries, Kassel (D) - "25 horses in the room next door", 2007 25.06. Martin Fürbringer, Nürnberg (D) - "horror vaculi", 2006 26.06. Ralf Küster, Berlin (D) - "Achtzehn Fragmente eines Gewaltaktes", 2003 27.06. Andrey Ustinov, Kassel (D) - "Funny and Tasty", 2002 (Performance in Moskau) 28.06. Hermelinde Hergenhahn, Amsterdam, (NL) - "Karussell", 2007, 11.03 min. 29.06. Vadim Schäffler, Berlin (D) - "Motion", 2006, 35 min. 30.06. Kisito Assangni, Chateauroux, (F) - "Diaspora", 2006, 2,16 min. 01.07. Orit Ben-Shirit &Harold Moss, New York, (USA) - "the Long from Inside" 02.07. Benjamin Matzek, Ulm (D) - "Das Recht auf Selbstverteidigung", 2006 03.07. David Kasdorf & Joanna Goodmann, Bellefonte, (USA) - "Tell Me What to Do", 2007 04.07. Kristoffer Ardena, Madrid, (E) - "Talking walls", 2007, 3:44 min. 05.07. Thomas Müller, Berlin (D) - "Abduction", 2007 06.07. Chiara Passa, Roma (I) - "TIME BOMB THE LOVE", 1998, 5:00 min. 07.07. Nooshin Farhid, (GB) - "Zone End", 2007, 2.30 min. 08.07. Astrid Hagenguth, Berlin (D) - "Kalaripayat 2", 2007, 09.07. Christine Klein, Hamburg (D) - "Celebrities Shopping", 2007, 15 min. 10.07. Lui Ke, Kassel (D) - " Nur ich lache", 2007 11.07. Marisa Cunningham, East Yorkshire (GB) - "All the Kings Horses and all the kings Men" 12.07. Robert Hailton, Ontario (CAN) - "People of Kassel", 2007 -- Chiara Passa chiarapassa at gmail.com http://www.chiarapassa.it http://www.ideasonair.net From anivar.aravind at gmail.com Tue Jun 26 11:24:49 2007 From: anivar.aravind at gmail.com (Anivar Aravind) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:24:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] workshop on Tourism, Policies and Encroachments Message-ID: <4680AA29.7090901@gmail.com> WHAT : Workshop on Tourism, Policies and Encroachments WHERE : Animation centre, Vellayambalam, Thiruvananthapuram WHEN : 1st & 2nd July 2007 Dear friends, Tourism development in the state is highly unregulated and the present tourism policies and programmes are mainly focusing on growth and promotion. Both the central and state government are trying to capture more investments in tourism. With this new investments and market expansion, the ill effects of tourism such as environmental and social impacts and pressure on resources are also visible and reaching levels of urgent intervention to stop them. Encroachment of forest, revenue and ecologically sensitive land for tourism is causing many environmental and social problems. Real estate and land speculation activities are very common, which is causing loss of livelihood and denying access to resources to the communities. The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) violations by industries, hotels and resorts are a serious concern throughout the state, and so is the uncontrolled tourism development in Kovalam, Varkala, Alappuzha and Kumarakom, which has lead to an unsustainable tourism development in these areas. This shows there is strong need for strengthening the regulations instead of diluting them. At the same time the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is introducing a new Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Plan to replace the existing Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification of 1991.The MoEF is choosing to act upon the recommendations of the MS Swaminathan Expert Committee Report, a report that since its release in 2005 has been comprehensively rejected by fish worker's unions, coastal communities, environmental groups, trade unions, democratic rights organizations, women's organizations and other civil society activists ad groups In this context, Forum KERALA in association with Malabar Coastal Institute for Training Research and Action (MCITRA), KABANI - the other direction, Global Alternate Information applications (GAIA), Peoples watch, facilitating a workshop on *Tourism, Policies and Encrochments* At *Animation centre, Vellayambalam, Thiruvananthapuram* on *1st and 2nd of July 2007*. The workshop will discuss Tourism policies, Coastal Regulation Zone, proposed Coastal Zone Management by MoEF and its impact in the context of encroachments by tourism industry. We would greatly appreciate your active participation in the workshop. Kindly confirm your participation by contacting us over e-mail: OR telephone. For further information, please contact: Sumesh Mangalassery - 09388402948 K.C.Santhosh Kumar - 09447375708 Anivar Aravind - 09446545336 In Solidarity For Organisers K.C.Santhosh Kumar Mob. 09447375708 =/* Programme Schedule *(Tentative)*/= *Sunday, 01 - 07 - 2007* ----------------------- 10 am - 10.30 am - Registration 10.30 am - 11.00 am - Introduction and objectives of the workshop 11.00 am - 12.30 - A situational Analysis of Kerala Tourism Dr.T.T.Sreekumar 12.30 - 1.00 - Discussion 2.00 - 2.45 - Kerala Tourism Act 2005 and Tourism zones 2.45 - 3.15 - Open discussion 3.15 - 3.30 - Tea break 3.30 - 5.30 - Presentation of Case studies *Monday, 02 - 07- 2007* ------------------------ 9.30 am - 12.30 - Stock taking of Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 1991 and Proposed CZMP 12.30 - 1.00 - Discussion 2.00 - 2.30 - CRZ, CMZ and Tourism, Saroop Roy, EQUATIONS, Bangalore. 2.30- 4.30 - Group Discussion and follow up plan 4.30 - 5.00 - Concluding Session -- Anivar Aravind moving Republic Peringavu.P.O Thrissur-18 Kerala http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/about _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From announcer at crit.org.in Wed Jun 27 14:37:30 2007 From: announcer at crit.org.in (KRVIA) Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:37:30 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Make/Shift Mumbai: Readings, Imaginations and Propositions Message-ID: <1182935250.5550.27.camel@nowhereman> Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), an initiative of Upanagar Shikshan Mandal, is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of the Institute's work on the city, "Make/Shift Mumbai: Readings, Imaginations and Propositions". The exhibition will be on display from 11 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. from MONDAY 9 JULY to THURSDAY 12 JULY 2007 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India), Mumbai. The exhibition will be inaugurated by: Chief Guest Dr. (Smt.) Snehalata Deshmukh Ex. Vice Chancellor, University of Mumbai on MONDAY 9 JULY 2007 at 5:30 P.M. Venue: Coomaraswamy Hall Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly Prince of Wales Museum of Western India) 159-61, Mahatma Gandhi Road Colaba, Mumbai 400023 India MAKE/SHIFT MUMBAI: Readings, Imaginations and Propositions The exhibition "Make/ Shift Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and Propositions" will showcase the large repertoire of work on the city completed over the last fifteen years by the Kamala Raheja Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA). Since the institute's inception in 1992, a group of educationists, professionals and artists have been involved in envisioning the school's direction, and discussions on cities have been central to its academic investigations. Through its varied research and consultancy projects, and through its undergraduate courses and its extra-curricular programmes, the institute has actively engaged with the city and provided an important platform for debate and discussion. Espousing an inter-disciplinary approach, its initiatives have ranged from mapping and reading the metropolis; to providing new spatial imaginations for the city through its academic work; to its advocacy work which proposes alternative futures to the city's development. The college is now starting a post-graduate programme in Urban Studies, offered as an Master of Architecture (M.Arch) degree with a specialisation in Urban Design and Urban Conservation. The intention is to take its earlier initiatives forward by providing a platform for structured research and design at the post-graduate level. The Exhibition, "Make/ Shift Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and Propositions" is both a retrospective of the institute's work and an introduction to its post-graduate programme. While the three categories Reading, Imaginations and Propositions are in many ways interconnected, they form an important structure through which to see the institute's work on the city. The work displayed through these above conceptual categories has been done through the institute's Design and Research Cell, its urban studies courses from the fourth year of the B.Arch programme, humanities courses, final year thesis projects, and design projects undertaken from the first to the fourth year of the undergraduate programme, all of which engage in readings and interventions in the city at various scales and through multiple approaches. Kamala Raheja Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) Vidyanidhi Marg, JVPD Scheme Juhu, Mumbai 400049 India Tel: +91.22.2670.0918 Fax: +91.22.2620.8547 E-Mail: krviaevents at gmail.com Web: http://www.krvia.ac.in KRVIA Postgraduate Programme in Urban Studies Brochure http://krvia.ac.in/images/JAK2.pdf Make/Shift Mumbai Announcement http://krvia.ac.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=1 _____ CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust), Mumbai Announcements List http://www.crit.org.in http://lists.crit.org.in/mailman/listinfo/announcer _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From sayyadain2000 at yahoo.co.in Wed Jun 27 03:14:17 2007 From: sayyadain2000 at yahoo.co.in (faizan ahmed) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:44:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] The Sharpness of Grass Blades Message-ID: <655575.64670.qm@web7710.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear All Please check the link below... it's hilarious at the same time a serious piece of fiction. i am sure it will make us think on several issues that we are knowingly or unknowingly concerned with http://www.mississippireview.com/2006/Vol12No1-Jan06/1201-010906-rehman.html The author is a colleague of mine at Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. Thanks Faizan. --------------------------------- Here’s a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070626/6781da93/attachment.html From santanaissar at gmail.com Thu Jun 28 11:20:53 2007 From: santanaissar at gmail.com (Santana Issar) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:20:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Rethinking animal activism - Sarai Fellowhip Post 2 Message-ID: Due apologies for the much delayed posting, but Santana Issar has been out of the country the last month attending a couple of film festivals. All work was on hold while she was away (fieldwork was stalled thanks to the heat) but we have resumed our research by attempting to gain some sort of foothold into the dominant theories surrounding animal welfare. Very briefly, Western theory on human-animal relationships revolves around two strains of thought – animal welfare and animal rights. Animal welfarism accepts the instrumental use of animals by humans so long as the former are not subjected to "unnecessary" suffering and cruelty i.e. so long as certain community-derived ethical standards for their treatment are in place. Animal welfarist action, thus, has focused on the regulation of animal exploitation rather than its abolition. The more utopian animal 'rights' activism, born in the late 1970s, rejects outright the use of animals by humans in any form – consumption, experimentation, entertainment – on the premise that it violates basic principles of justice. Rights activists contend that animals have inalienable rights (whether equivalent to human rights or not) that must be protected legally, and they often adopt the arguments and strategies employed for feminism and anti-racism – predicated on the rejection of discrimination based on perceived differences. Discrimination against animals based on their perceived 'inferiority' and 'irrationality' is seen as negated in view of modern notions of justice which extend the principle to infants, the elderly and the mentally handicapped. Despite conceptual differences, rights and welfare activists frequently overlap strategies – the cessation of cruelty aimed at the gradual abolition of institutionalized exploitation of animals. While animal activism in the West revolves around these ideas, human-animal interaction transcends the rights/welfare worldview. Heated debate rages around animal experiments, demand for meat continues to rise, and the urban environment produces interesting disciplines like 'Urban Animal Management' (http://www.iimage.com.au/ava.com.au/UAM/uamhome.htm) which quite literally applies management strategies and uses management jargon ( like "risk management") to 'streamline' and 'organise' human-animal relationships – largely urban pet-owners and their cats and dogs. A UAM institution based in Australia covers aspects as diverse as microchipping of dogs, control of stray animal population and innovative feeding mechanisms for housebound pets (here's a good one – "freeze bits of meat on a string in ice and hang from the washing line. When the ice melts, the meat will drop to the ground.") We are in the process of creating a blog which will contain further details on theory as well as be regularly updated with our work. The link will be posted up shortly. Aditi Saraf Santana Issar On 24/06/07, reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote: > > Send reader-list mailing list submissions to > reader-list at sarai.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > reader-list-request at sarai.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > reader-list-owner at sarai.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of reader-list digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State- 3rd Sarai > I-Fellowship Post (Raman Chima) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 20:46:57 +0530 > From: "Raman Chima" > Subject: [Reader-list] Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State- > 3rd Sarai I-Fellowship Post > To: reader-list at sarai.net > Message-ID: > <2fbb8fe0706230816t34a46d56x1c2821f911e9eb37 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed > > Hello all, > > I'm extremely sorry for the considerable delay on my part in putting > up this third post of mine. I've set up a blog at > http://stateoftheweb.blogspot.com where I've put up an expanded > write-up on this post. I've decided to only post summaries here on the > Readers-List in order to cut down on the amount of material you all > have to read at one go here. I'll post a summary of each entry here on > the list so you all know when I make a new post there along with an > idea of what the expansive post is about. The expansive notes for this > post will be up on my blog in a day or so. But without further adieu, > let me give you a summarized update on what I've been doing. I've got > several books examining the subject of how the Internet is regulated, > and specifically how the nation state relates to this. > > I've currently read "Who Controls the Internet" by Goldsmith and Wu, > whose essential argument supported by their research is that the > Internet is well within the ambit of regulation by national > governments. This is a counter to a very widespread view among the > initial users, developers, and entrepreneurs of the Internet that it > was an essentially libertarian space which couldn't be subject to > regulation, especially that of traditional nation states. There are > other writers dealing with this subject that I'm currently reading, > these being Lessig in "Code 2.0", and Giacomello in "National > Governments and Control of the Internet". You'll find a detailed look > at all of this in my blog. I've also put up a rough chronology of the > known "active" attempts by the Indian State to regulate speech and > expression on the Internet across the years till now on my blog as well. > > An interesting glance into the Indian psyche concerning speech and the > Internet was presented by a recent episode of "We the People" on NDTV. > The striking feature about all of that was the absolute lack of any > clear mention of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and > expression with relation to Internet activity. I've posted a detailed > look on it on my blog, and I'm trying to obtain a copy of the > programme along with any research and production note to add to the > archival material that I'll submit. I'd appreciate any help on how to > go about to obtain this from NDTV if anyone has experience on how such > things work. > > I'm currently planning on interviewing people next week in Delhi. The > person that I'm meeting first is Dr Gulshan Rai, who's with the > Department of IT and a name most people know in relation to the > blocking of certain blogs last year by the Government of India. I'm > also going to try meeting heads of Internet Service Providers in > Delhi. What I want to do though is survey these providers along with > local establishments such as Internet cafes in order to see how they > are subject to regulation by the local administration and police. > > Sincerely, > Raman Jit Singh Chima. > http://stateoftheweb.blogspot.com > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > reader-list mailing list > reader-list at sarai.net > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > End of reader-list Digest, Vol 47, Issue 48 > ******************************************* > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070628/310e15ab/attachment.html From ysikand at gmail.com Tue Jun 26 18:54:39 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:54:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] New Release: Condensed Version of Sachar Committee Report on Muslims Message-ID: <48097acc0706260624q7b7a2a1awd2a566d09a8861db@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friend The Bangalore-based Centre for Contemporary Studies has published a 67-page condensed version of the Sachar Committee Report on Indian Muslims, edited by M.A.K. Tayab. For copies, contact "Islamic Voice", Bangalore on editor at islamicvoice.com It is priced at Rs. 25, plus Rs.15 [postage or courier charges] Regards Yoginder Sikand -- Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070626/7bb16859/attachment.html From ysikand at gmail.com Tue Jun 26 23:46:08 2007 From: ysikand at gmail.com (Yogi Sikand) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:46:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Irshadul Haque--Muslim Dalits Denied Justice Message-ID: <48097acc0706261116h28d2347bv9d0e3c21191404bf@mail.gmail.com> *Muslim Dalits Denied Justice* * By **Irshadul Haque* * * *A* number of people are attending a unique marriage ceremony, being held in a public space in a remote village in central Bihar. The bride and the bridegroom move around the fire, a Hindu religious symbol, supervised by a Pandit who recites Vedic mantras. The relatives and friends of the couple are seated around them. As soon as the bride and the bridegroom complete the seventh round of movement of fire, the priest declares, 'Now you are attached with the unbreakable bond of marriage. You are now a couple according to the Hindu religion'. But shortly after, the situation takes a new turn and the environment changes like a scene from a traditional Indian drama. The same bride and the bridegroom are seated clandestinely in a locked house with only a few near relatives with them, under the supervision of a Qazi, a Muslim priest who is responsible for performing Muslim marriage ceremonies. The Qazi recites some verses of the Quran and then asks the bridegroom in the presence of three witnesses, 'Do you accept this girl as your life partner'? The bridegroom replies, 'Yes, I accept'. The Qazi declares the nikah, the Muslim marriage, to have been completed and the couple to have been legally married under Islamic law. Is it possible for a person to be follower of Hinduism and Islam at the same time, particularly in such a society like India, where one's religious identity is given such importance? Why did this couple follow the marital rituals of both religions? In fact, as it emerged, the family of the bride and bridegroom used to be Muslim. However, they found that certain constitutional rights and benefits are reserved by law for Dalits or members of 'low' caste or socially marginalised communities, like themselves, only if they declare themselves officially as Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist. Hence, in order to be able to access these rights, the couple had a formal Hindu marriage, declaring themselves as 'Hindus'. The head of the family, who is in his early sixties, also changed his Islamic name, and adopted a Hindu name. His wife did so too, after formally declaring herself a Hindu. She keeps pictures of Hindu deities in her sitting room, so that outsiders think of her family as Hindu, which she says she is not. If the officials come to know that she is wrongly claiming to be a Hindu, the family will be denied all Scheduled Caste-related benefits. A vital question is that if they have declared themselves as 'Hindus', why did they follow the Hindu as well as the Islamic way of marriage? Why did they not follow only the Hindu way, as they had declared themselves 'Hindu'? Why did they follow the Islamic way of marriage clandestinely, whereas they got married the Hindu way in public? I asked this question to Dr Ejaz Ali, head of the All-India Muslim Morcha, a Patna-based organisation working for marginalized Muslims. He explained it as a result of economic compulsion, although, he said, the couple still were emotionally attached to Islam, evidence of which was the fact that they had also married the Muslim way clandestinely. As he put it, "By officially declaring themselves as Hindu Dalits in public, although still retaining their affection for Islam, these poor people can get special constitutional rights to government employment and reservations. But as Muslims they cannot'. This family belongs to the Nat caste. The Nats are considered to be 'untouchables' by caste Hindus. They are an impoverished nomadic community. Many of them survive through begging. There are both Muslim as well as Hindu Nats. The Nats were traditionally treated as 'untouchables' and so many of them converted to Islam over the centuries, to escape caste oppression and in search of social equality. After embracing Islam, the Muslim Nats changed only marginally, in terms of religious beliefs, but their social, economical as well as educational background remained the same. As a Muslim, the Nat groom referred to above had been observing various Islamic rituals. But one day he formally declared himself a 'Hindu', because unlike Muslim Nats, Hindu Nats are recognised as a Scheduled Caste by the state and can, accordingly, benefit from various government programmes and schemes, which Muslim Nats are legally denied, simply because of their religion .Hence, the groom's conversion was tactical, not because of any religious reason, but simply in the hope of some economic advancement. The man's wife thinks that the law is iniquitous. 'If our brethren, the Hindu Nats, can get special constitutional rights and on that basis can get employment, then why not fellow Nats who are Muslims?. We are equally, if not more, poor than them', she asserts. According to a special provision in article 341 of the Indian Constitution, 'untouchable' or Dalit communities, termed as Scheduled Castes (SCs), get several special rights, including reservations in education, employment and membership of Parliament as well as states assemblies. But this special right has been extended to only those who declare themselves to be Hindus, Buddhists or Sikhs, while Muslim and Christian Dalits are denied these rights. As Ejaz Ali argues, "This constitutional provision compels Hindu Dalits not to embrace Islam or Christianity. If they do they would lose the special constitutional rights as well as several other benefits given by the states and the union government." On the other hand, as the case of the Nat couple shows, many Dalits who had historically converted to Islam feel that it is better to declare themselves as Hindus and thereby access special constitutional rights for Scheduled Castes'. As Ali Anwar, a veteran journalist and member of the Rajya Sabha, who has written several books on the socio-economic condition of marginalized Muslims, puts it, "This constitutional provision is a violation of the Constitutional principle of secularism'. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Irshadul Haque is a social activist and writer based in Bihar. He can be contacted on irshadulhaque786 at googlemail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070626/c24a4d2c/attachment.html From shubhra_n71 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 28 19:53:50 2007 From: shubhra_n71 at yahoo.com (shubhra nagalia) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 07:23:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Underbelly of poorvanchal - 2 Message-ID: <187666.61794.qm@web32402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> THE UNDERBELLY OF POORVANCHAL– Part 1 Media representation of communal conflict Mau riots, october 2005. In an informal interview with an old friend, a lot of his growing up experiences slowly wove a story of life and culture of semi urban townships of poorvanchal, which structure the psychology and attitudes of urban youth from these parts of India. Amongst the many dimensions of this informal interview, regarding caste, sexuality, power and so on, I am writing down one story from the eyes of a teenage boy. This is a true and personal story which gives us a glimpse into the grisly, dark and distorted truth that shapes the thoughts of young boys and girls and informs their beliefs, behavior and attitude. It is the particiation of this youth that is the subject of enquiry in situations of communal violence.The psyche shaped by brutal growing up experiences of social reality structure the behaviour of young men and women in situations of tension, conflict and mobilisation. Perhaps for most of the boys and girls that grow up in kasbaa townships it is normal, ordinary everyday knowledge but what is not so clear is the profound influence it has on the remaining life of most of these young people. ‘Me and knowing my caste’ This was my first visit to a kasbaa-township area in poorvanchal (Azamgarh and Mau region). We were used to staying with our father, who was doing a transferable job. This time he got posted to a far off Southern state and decided to leave us in his home town and get us admitted to a missionary school of the town. We were to spend the summer in the village that year. In our village there were two tolas (clusters) of Brahmins, of which one consisted of just our extended family of 8-10 households, The second tola also had about 8-10 households, 3 kayastha households, 15-20 thakur households, Ahir basti, one muslim household and a little further on, in front of us, Harijan tola. Often our uncles and grandfathers would shout and call someone from the threshold of Harijan tola for any work that had to be done. Verbal abuse of people from Harijan tola by brahmins was a part of normal everyday discourse of the village. Harijan tola was the main source of landless agrarian labourers who worked on our and other dominant landed babusahebs’ land. One of my father’s younger brothers was well known for being well read and a graduate in science in first class. Not only that, he had topped in the university which made him reasonably respected in the village. Recently he had finished PCS training and had come to the village for a short holiday. His well known hobby was to collect all the children and quiz them and tell them interesting tidbits and recent inventions in science. That evening also the same thing was in progress. He asked from us children, a question from mathematics which neither me, my elder brother nor any child of my uncles could answer since it was of relatively higher standard. Suddenly, the quiet, unobtrusive and shy Sumair bhai volunteered – “Kaakaa! Hum bataain?” (Kaakaa, should I answer?). All eyes turned towards him. Sumair was in class 10th and was the elder son of Ramlaal from Harijan tola, who used to plough our land. Happily uncle encouraged him to reply. Sumair bhai gave the correct answer to the question. Uncle patted his back in appreciation and told all other children to learn from him. Sumair bhai, from Harijan tola, paid a heavy price for not only answering correctly but more so for daring to answer when all Brahmin boys could not do so. I learnt later that my elder uncle’s sons beat up Sumair bhai very badly on his way back from school, all the while abusing and warning him from daring to compete with upper caste children. They humiliated his ability and desire to study. This was narrated to us by our elder uncle himself, not without a trace of pride, although it was marred by lines of worry on his forehead because “Ab pehle jaisa jamaanaa nahi raha bhauji. Chamaar saalen bhi bad gaye hain.” (The times have changed now. These low caste chamars have also gone forward in society). He also said that somehow Ramlaal had been managed and the case had been dismissed but the nuisance of Birjua and Bansi was creating a lot of ruckus. I should mention here that Birjua (who is no more now) was a communist activist and my uncle is from jansangh. That area falls under reserved electoral constituency. I was entering my 12th year and this was my first exposure to the question of caste. In about 3-4 months I had forgotten this episode and visited the village again. I met Sumair bhai again. The marks of wounds were still visible on his face. When I asked him about it, he evaded it and did not say anything. I came back to town. In less than a year from then, around holi, I found out the sequel to this grisly chain of events. Birjua could not be managed, probably for political reasons, but bansi had definitely been managed. How? Bansi’s elder son was accused of eve-teasing the daughter of one of my uncle’s on her way back from school. As punishment, not only was Bansi’s son badly beaten up but in the dead of the night, Bansi’s house was set afire and was burned to the ground. The original plan was to burn all family members alive but somehow the information got ‘leaked’ to the Harijan tola and the family left their house and had fled. Birjua had raised a lot of noise and ultimately an FIR had been lodged and some of my male relatives had to temporarily leave the village and abscond although they were reasonably confident of managing this small inconvenience. I was stunned and could not help remembering the disturbing images that were engraved in my mind from what I had seen a couple of times in the village. It was these very boys whom I had seen indulging in obscene acts at the tubewell, at least a couple of times, with that very cousin who had now accused (or had been made to accuse) Bansi’s son of eve-teasing her. Later what happened was even more tragic. The FIR led to nothing and remained buried under files. Bansi conceded defeat and apologized and came back to the village. Although Sumair bhai passed high school with good marks, he stopped further studies and took on a job as a peon at the nearby mill. One thing did result from all this. Sumair bhai never ever again worked in the house of a Brahmin. I don’t know to this date if he was forced to drop his studies due to economic reasons or because of his public humiliation for being educated. Today also he is silent on this issue. My cousin is now married and has three children. Even today I wonder if that accusation had any truth in it or not? Or maybe Bansi’s son also had seen these ‘protective brothers’ doing to her what I had seen at the tubewell on my way back from school. His ‘seeing’ was different from mine. I had to suppress and forget those images, but he had to be punished for having seen it. He has aged prematurely having toiled all these years at the lands of those very people. The paradox of this ‘reserved constituency’ is that these upper caste criminals are the ones who always win pradhani elections in panchayat elections. These very people have joined hands with Mayawati, the leader of dalit party (BSP) and now chief minister of Uttar Pradesh to keep their dominating power consolidated. How empowered will dalits be with such a political alliance will be clear enough in the coming months and years. Needless to say, this ground education into the real caste configurations informs much of the relationship between members of these castes despite opportunist political alliances for short term electoral gains at the top. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/features_spam.html From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de Tue Jun 26 12:57:08 2007 From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (netEX) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:27:08 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?netEX:=20calls, =20deadlines=20and=20news=20July=202007?= Message-ID: <20070626092708.C4CC85B5.2AA0748E@192.168.0.4> netEX: calls, deadlines & news July 2007 ------------------------------------- [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne newsletter contents 1. calls & deadlines 04 Calls: deadlines internal 24 Calls: July deadlines external 05 Calls: ongoing external 2. network news ------------------------------------- 1. Calls & deadlines ---> [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne www.nmartproject.net internal calls -------------------------------------------- 1. Deadline 31 July 2007 JavaMuseum - Forum for Internet Technology in Contemporary Art www.javamuseum.org released the call for a new show case to be launched in September 2007, entitled: a + b = ba? - [art + blog = blogart?] find all entry details on http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=7 2. Deadline 1 August CologneOFF - Cologne Online Film Festival http://coff.newmediafest.org - announced recently its 3rd festival edition to be launched in October 2007 --->Theme: Toon! Toon! - art cartoons & animates narratives all entry details on http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=23 3. Deadline 1 August SoundLAB - sonic art project environments http://soundlab.newmediafest.org released a call for SoundLAB - Edition V to be launched in October 2007 online --->theme: soundSTORY - sound& music as tools for narrating all entry details on http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=24 4. Deadline 9 July 2007 SoundLAB - sonic art project environments http://soundlab.newmediafest.org is looking for physical soundobjects to be presented in the framework of an exhibition of soundart --->rules and entry deatails on ------------------------------------------------ July deadlines: external ------------------------------------------------ 31 July Teheran Shortfilm Festival 2007 http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=105 31 July Experimenatal Film Festival Puebla/Mexico http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=92 31 July Experimental Filmfestival Nicosia/Cyprus http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=53 Experimental Sonic Art Festival Nicosia/Cyprus http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=54 31 July MobileFestival Sao Paulo/Brazil http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=59 31 July Shortfilm Festival Forli/Italy http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=17 31 July Short Cuts Cologne - 10th Int. Shortfilmfestival Cologne/Germany http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=42 31 July OVNI 2008 Barcelona http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=63 29 July Optica Video Art Festival Gijon/Spain http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=48 28 July Flashflood Video Art Festival Tuscon (USA) http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=113 27 July D- NEFF - European Experimental Festival Vitoria/Gasteiz (Spain) http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=49 25 July VAD Festival Girona/Spain - H2O competion http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=76 25 July Kansk Video Festival (Russia/Siberia) http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=107 23 July Desideratum, exhibition at Aferro Gallery Newark/NJ (USA) http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=89 15 July V international electro_acoustic contest Huelva/Spain http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=111 15 July Balmoral Scholarship (Germany) http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=99 15 July No Words Festival Bolzano/Italy http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=98 15 July MAD.Punto Raya Festival Madrid http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=85 13 July SENEF - Seoul Film Festival http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=86 13 July International ShortFilm Festival Berlin (Germany) http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=41 13 July Shortmoves Festival Halle/Saale http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=64 1 July Cheekwood Museum video art screenings Nashville/Tennesse/USA http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=69 1 July Unimovie Festival Pescara/Italy http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=77 1 July International Panorama of Independant Moviemakers Patras/Greece http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=87 1 July Rujum Video Festival Jerusalem/Israel http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=73 ----------------------------------------------- Ongoing calls: external ------------------------------------------------ Films and video screenings Sioux City (USA) http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=15 Laisle screenings Rio de Janeiro/Brazil http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=21 Videos for Helsinki based video gallery - 00130 Gallery http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=93 Web based works for 00130 Gallery Helsinki/Finland http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=94 Project: Repetion as a Model for Progression by Marianne Holm Hansen http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=95 ------------------------------------------ more deadlines on http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?page_id=4 ------------------------------------------ 2. network news ------------------------------------------ a) Late, but not too late --> Wilfried Agricola de Cologne received the 1st prize of Salon de Arte Digital 2006 at MACZUL - Museum of Contemporary Art Maracaibo/Venezuela for his work on the subject of "violence". http://www.agricola-de-cologne.de/blog/?p=95 b) ENTER Festival Caravansarai Istanbul/Turkey 27-30 June 2007 is presenting selected works from CologneOFF I & CologneOFF II curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne http://videochannel.newmediafest.org/blog/?p=116 c) Divine_in.tent - an exhibition curated by Doron Polak and Amir Cohen was presented in the framework of 52 Venice Biennale 7-30 June 2007 and Documenta 12 - Kassel Germany - opening on 11 June including two videos by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne http://www.agricola-de-cologne.de/blog/?p=94 d) The Desert Generation, 40 years occupation 1967-2007 Israeli and Palestine Artists against the Occupation and for Just Peace, a travelling exhibition started on 5 June at Jerusalem Artists House, and will be opened on 27 June at Kibbutz Art Gallery Tel-Aviv/Israel The exhibition includes the participations of Wilfried Agricola de Cologne. http://www.agricola-de-cologne.de/blog/?p=93 e) P'Silo/Festival Images Contre Nature experimental film festival Marseille/France 22 June- 07 July 2007 includes Wilfried Agricola de Cologne award winning video "House of Tomorrow" ---> ArtChannel Paris/France included a selection of Agricola de Cologne videos in the show "Television is Art" at Galerie 13 Sevigne 14-23 June 2007 http://www.agricola-de-cologne.de/blog/?p=92 ----------------------------------------------- NetEX - networked experience http://netex.nmartproject.net http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/ # calls in the external section--> http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?cat=3 # calls in the internal section--> http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?cat=1 ----------------------------------------------- # This newsletter is also released on http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?cat=9 # NetEx - networked experiences http://netex.nmartproject.net is a free information service powered by [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork]:||cologne www.nmartproject.net - the experimental platform for Art and New Media from Cologne/Germany # info & contact: info (at) nmartproject.net _______________________________________________ announcements mailing list announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements From indersalim at gmail.com Fri Jun 29 00:51:00 2007 From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 00:51:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] understanding Duchamp,Chinmastka in the present In-Reply-To: <47e122a70706281219t3c2c968dtc547e77dd737ffd6@mail.gmail.com> References: <47e122a70706281219t3c2c968dtc547e77dd737ffd6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47e122a70706281221i1deab5b5qe467b1c6b961b6b@mail.gmail.com> Kab say hoon, kaya batavoon, Jahanay Kharab mein, Shab hai, Hijr ko bi rakhoon ghar hisaab mein, The above couplet by Ghalib roughly means that ' words are despotic and empty'. I was also quoting Michel Foucalt. And after few more lines he talks about 'madness', which has some possibility to give us an insight about 'the mind', or else it is directly: 'the death'. It was few years back. I knew about this, a little, and about Chinmastaka painting, and about Duchamp's ' the bride… ), but it was few days back that a random surfing on the net I discovered the amazing variation of Chinmastka painting that I am trying to reconnect; this time a little more profoundly than before. Even Ghalib admits : that even if I manage to write about the separation, the pain, the night, still I can't say what I am ? So let alone this piece by poor inder salim. This particular Chinmastka, the miniature, ( collection Robin Musem of Art, New York ) shows a flame tilted towards left. see image: . Two friends on two stones, with a rivulet in between. ( one of them almost looking into the eyes of onlooker, i.e. us ) Each drop of water flowing within a thought (form), each stroke in orange and red coming towards us like heat of a flame, although going elsewhere and up. Is it the illusion of a chitta, a corpse on the burning pyre? Is it the illusion that she is too explicitly celebrating the ritual of love? Though, what I see is She, once hidden inside his body, but is there anybody alive in the flame. The two are in discourse, and there are two on the pyre as well. Broadly speaking, the energy/shakti is free, and that is the main spectacle in the land space. It is easy to identity the corpse: Mahesha himself, and Parvati herself as flame, the Shakti. But that is the lower half of the painting. The upper half is death, in comparison to life which manifests the lower half of the image. A strange double of the shakti, releasing itself from the shakti underneath who is seen amputating her own head, which is akin to the sudden end of the tilted flame against the green of the land scape. The visible part of the flame can not go beyond, but the energy can go. The released flame has its own blues and blacks which drink the blood, perhaps to reinforce the shakti to a free flowing upward flight. The flame, once hidden in the wood ( of the landscape ) is coming out finally. There is no death, but death is celebrating itself! In this sense, sheer eroticism is merely a west-oriented word; and is quite explicitly visible in the lower half of the chinmastka itself. The Indian mythology has successfully blended sexuality, spirituality and death through such celebration of life which is quite unlike to occidental understanding of life. It is through the example of this master miniature that we have can makes a square of the understanding of the life and death. This understanding as per the ancient Indian thought structures reveals also that only a God and Goddess union can be put on the pyre to comprehend the life: death. Since one can not experience death in such a way that one can come back to life and reveal it too, so an impossibility to understand death. Since We cant understand death, there is an automatic impediment to a real understanding of life even. It is almost like what Physicists say, ' since we don't know about the true nature of a particle how can claim to know anything about the cosmos.' Again, in the image, the Buddha, like a decorated wisdom piece decorated is once again seated on the fragment of the released Shakti/energy of this understanding of the death and life. Perhaps, because of this universal impossibility to understand death, Duchamp wrote his own Epitaph which reads: 'Any way, it is always the other guy who dies'. So, to be the other or not to be the other is the question… The 'other' is debated all over the post modern text, and for obvious reasons. The issues of environment, war and misery are paramount to this word 'other'. But, we all know how difficult it is to negotiate this word. We all know, how unpredictable is the nature of this word ' other' and how rapidly it betrays any definition that does not match its capacity to recede. It is perhaps our destiny to disappear at the horizon of our pursuits to know the ' the self' through ' the other'. No one can say whether Duchamp had any idea of this 'chinmastka' before he began to work out his ambitious project ' the bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even'. Octavio Paz once observed that if there is anything in the world which balances this particular master piece by Duchamp it is this Chinmastake. What Duchamp wrote in his notes on the said work is wonderfully animated in www.understandingduchamp.com Images uploaded in http://www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=179 show us a whole lot of imagery of that time and what sensibility and thought artists achieved during those times. In most of works the gods are literally without garments on their bodies. True, there is no meaning of garments whenever it comes to a discourse on death. But that is half truth, because we need to put something on the surface to understand the illusion. So in terms of meaning, a poetic/surrealistic imagery can give us something in comparison to something which we feel is logical or rational. Do I sound too irrational ? Artists have done such works in the past to understand this profound liaison between sexuality and death, and even in the present there have been artists in the west, besides Duchamp who have intuitively mixed images of Christ with piss or other sexual imagery. Your piss, and my piss from Our Genitals ( created by desire) Kiss and merge in the gutter To experience 'god' I am writing this all in reflection to recent controversies about Hussain, Chandermohan and all that besides my inner compulsion to understand images of the past and present. But at the same time, I quote 'I fear we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in grammar.' Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. What art and literature in the past achieved is monumental, but the aesthetic value judgment of our times has changed with the change of times. The thought values of the great Himalayan minature got somehow stuck in the aesthetic of times. (see Grammer ) Duchamp's own work ' the fountain' popularly known as 'the urinal' was meant to deconstruct the aesthetic norm of his times, but that too got appropriated by aesthetic of times, and Duchamp was disappointed by the way the urinal was interpreted or seen as merely a readymade art piece. Times have indeed changed and so shall we. We have to change the tract, says Derrida. Bashir Baddar, a great urdu poet, observes quite lucidly that a forest fire seen from a distance might have looked beautiful once, but that was then, not now any more. Maurice Blanchot in his book ' THE BOOK TO COME' talks lucidly about the fact that times are such a poem can not take place. But in other chapter he points out that whenever we felt that all the master pieces have happened, and there is no possibility to happen, something happens at the same time. In this book and other good books I found that there is an impossibility to talk about art and literature without the mention of writers like Kafka, Jenet, Gide, and here we also feel that whatever religion one may belong to, it is inevitable to talk about saint/poets like Kabir, Meera, Sarmad… So, there is a future… only if we know how to write a new poem. The knowledge of medium, talent, and other such tools is immaterial, since the times have changed from art to life. Coming back to the miniature 'chinmastka' , may be it is not so interesting to many, and that is quite normal, ( see grammer-less-ness ) but I began to talk about it because Duchamp's work ' the birde …' is already a master piece in the western world and to connect this with that was also one important step ( begun by O. Paz ) towards the understanding of art, and not understanding west-art only. That is that, which looks quite trivial in comparison to the universal questions which are profoundly embedded in the words like 'life' and 'death'. I guess, I hope I have not grossly slipped over to something else, but I believe, that there is a way to return back to the very discourse if we are able to connect different things on the surface which as vast universe itself. to be continued ... ( even in silence ) with love inder salim -- http://indersalim.livejournal.com -- http://indersalim.livejournal.com From malavikav at yahoo.com Fri Jun 29 11:14:32 2007 From: malavikav at yahoo.com (Malavika Vartak) Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:44:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] JNU's exploitation of Contract Labout: A PUDR report Message-ID: <791395.56191.qm@web35604.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Please do come - and feel free to distribute widely. --- PEOPLE'S UNION FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS JNU'S CONTRACT LABOUR VIOLATIONS AND THE RUSTICATION OF STUDENTS The condemnable move by the JNU administration to rusticate 8 students and fine three-office bearers of JNUSU hides the context in which their agitation and rustication has taken place, namely, the exploitation of contract labour on campus and the violations of several labour laws by the JNU administration in its capacity as their principal employer. To discuss these issues, PUDR invites to you to a press conference at which we will be releasing our detailed report ''Fettered Lives: Contract Labour in Jawaharlal Nehru University'. Date: 29 June 2007 (Friday) Venue: Indian Women's Press Club, 5 Windsor Place, Ashoka Road Time: 3.30 pm Sincerely, SHASHI SAXENA, NAGRAJ ADVE Secretaries, PUDR ____________________________________________________________________________________ Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz From preetunair at yahoo.com Fri Jun 29 17:38:25 2007 From: preetunair at yahoo.com (PREETU NAIR) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:08:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Oppurtunities for Change Message-ID: <56359.96144.qm@web31714.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Asmi's marriage to Raja is an indication of a new liberation that's sweeping the women who had so far led a life of prolonged violence and self-destructive behaviour as commercial sex workers. Economically rehabilitated, she is the third woman who has changed the rules and her life, reports PREETU NAIR. VASCO: Asmi married Raja in a low profile ceremony in a temple in Vasco on Friday. The wedding ceremony was performed, Raja applied sindoor on Asmi's forehead and they took seven pheras, legitimizing their relationship of last 4 years. Their marriage may have been planned in heaven, but it needed courage and self-belief for the couple to break the shackles of tradition and say "I do" on the big day in their life. With this ceremony, Asmi has broken the age-old cultural taboo that prohibits a "Devdasi" from entering the wedlock. Asmi was dedicated to Goddess Yellama at the age of 12 and forced into prostitution as a Devadasi in Goa. Devadasi is a religious practice, whereby parents marry a daughter to a deity or a temple. The marriage usually occurs before the girl reaches puberty and requires the girl to become a prostitute. A Devadasi is forbidden to enter into a real marriage. The mass demolition of cubicles in Baina's unofficial red light area on June 14, 2004, didn't change her situation, but in fact worsened it. With no economic rehabilitation in sight, she was forced to travel to other parts of the state for "business". The real opportunity to transform her life came when she was economically rehabilitated by ARZ, an NGO working with trafficked victims in Goa, as part of its economic rehabilitation programme. She started working in a fully mechanized laundry unit, "Swift Wash", at Sancoale Industrial estate, which provides employment to 40 trafficked victims like her, mostly from Baina. While the employment programme made women financially self-sufficient, marriage has given them social acceptance. Asmi is the third woman working at Swift Wash to tie the nuptial knot. "I am very happy. I feel liberated and hope to inspire other women like me. Its nice to marry the man you love," reveals Asmi. Her act reflects a growing confidence among the women, who were once trafficked into the flesh trade and exploited everyday. Besides being a moment of great emotional and personal satisfaction, it is also a moment of realization for other girls like her: the onus of changing their lives is on them. However, it wasn't easy for Asmi. Among the many tests she went through was refusal by her "parents" to except the relationship and Raja's initial resistance to commit. Asmi's "parents" were aghast that their daughter had dared to break the social tradition. "We have realized that our love for each other is more important than anything else. Initially, I was reluctant to marry, but now I am happy that I married Asmi," said Raja. Seeing women resettled and doing well is the most rewarding part for Arun Pandey, Director, ARZ. "Economic rehabilitation has empowered trafficked victims who no more want to be in a relationship that is exploitative. They are increasingly emphasizing on marriage, which not only has legal sanctity but also social acceptance, which helps them in joining the mainstream," says Pandey. This newfound confidence and inspiration would definitely help the survivors of the country's worst social tradition to pick up the threads of their lives by breaking the socio-economic compulsions. (Name of the couple changed on request) (An earlier version of the article appeared in GT Weekender, Panaji edition, 24 June 2007) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preetu Nair Senior Reporter Gomantak Times St.Inez, Panaji Goa-403 001 India http://goadourada.blogspot.com/ "Freedom of mind is the real freedom" Babasaheb Ambedkar ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ____________________________________________________________________________________ Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today! http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7 From shijusam at gmail.com Fri Jun 29 18:10:00 2007 From: shijusam at gmail.com (Shiju Sam Varughese) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:10:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Regulation of social worlds: public distrust in science and the role of media Message-ID: <345848710706290540w183325fbrd004a7972cccaa74@mail.gmail.com> Dear Friends, my posting for this month is about the increasing importance of modern science in our daily life and the emerging picture of a new 'mass-mediated science'. We are living in a world where modern science and media are influencing our daily lives in a deeper manner. It is a 'risk society' we live in, according to Ulrich Beck (1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London, New Bury Park and New Delhi: Sage). Because of the presence of risk as a factor in our society, modern science and technology also turns to be of extreme importance as producer and regulator of risk. There is a growing public distrust in modern science because of the risks generated by its applications as well as due to its failure in managing hazards successfully. Hagendijk ("The Public Understanding of Science and Public Participation in Regulated Worlds". Minerva, 42/1:41-59, 2004.) argues that this kind of a new relationship between publics and modern science in the context of risk leads to the origin of a new 'mass-mediated science'. Here the argument is that the making of such a 'new science', wherein publics are no more merely appreciators of the greatness of modern science but providing staunch critique of the functioning of S&T, is largely influenced by the mass media. Hagendijk uses the concept of 'regulated social world' to understand this peculiar relationship between science, media, and the publics. The 'social world' is defined by him as "the constructed and volatile order of everyday life and social experience" and 'regulation' is used "to stress how everyday life around the globe has become subject to almost infinite, yet heterogeneous techno-scientific regulation, standardisation, and representation" (ibid: 54). Everyday life has been subject to all sorts of regulation and control and coordination through different manifestations of science including agriculture, food, health, education, industry, transport, communication etc. and all of them are based on scientific knowledge, technical standardisation and regulation (ibid). He points out that the diversity and heterogeneity of regulated worlds and their internal inconsistency and opaqueness demand 'agency' and 'responsibility' from individuals. However, much of the decision-making related to these issues that affect our daily life eludes public review and hence the architecture and maintenance of our regulated worlds are in the hands of scientific, technical and legal experts (ibid). In this context the media seems to play a significant role in making these issues public. Hagendijk opines that most of the citizens start paying attention to such issues only when it appears in the media and after that the systems of regulation become subject to public scrutiny and consequently involve public agencies along with scientific, technical and legal experts. For him "[t]he mass media and related forms of communication provide the lenses through which the disempowered citizens of regulated worlds actually look at themselves. Regardless of the scepticism one may entertain with respect to the media as arenas for rational debate and informal communication, mass media are key vehicles of large-scale reflexive modernisation, turning citizens and consumers 'on' and 'off' according to new 'logics'" (ibid: 57-58). Therefore, he contends that research on Public Understanding of Science should not concentrate merely on public surveys and ethnographic studies but such studies should be combined with analyses of science and science-related issues as represented and narrated by the media. Thus Hagendijk makes it clear that the mounting distrust and loss of authority of science is because of the changing institutional configuration of science and a subsequent mass media involvement in the scientific and technical issues that manifest in the regulated worlds of people. Therefore it can be seen that media has an important role in contemporary science, especially in the context of aggravating environmental and industrial risks. In Indian context, the emergence of such a new situation in the context of a growing distrust among the publics on modern science and its applications began with the Bhopal Gas tragedy and Narmada Sagar Dam project. The social movements emerged in the context of such hazards proposed a new politics which seriously criticised the role of modern science and technology in creating the disasters. It can be seen that mass media also played a crucial role in this context. Therefore it is very crucial to understand and promote the new politics emerging in the context of an increasing regulation of our social worlds by modern science and technology. -- shiju sam varughese 15 E Brahmaputra, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110 067 From clinicalexam at gmail.com Fri Jun 29 18:49:43 2007 From: clinicalexam at gmail.com (Chitra Venkataramani) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:49:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Hygiene and the City- Pages from the book Message-ID: I have reached a point where, the draft of the book is complete and a substantial number of pages have been drawn. In order to finish the book, I still need to draw a lot more, collate the data I already have, and start making drawn parts of the book ready for print. This implies formatting, adding text- either on the computer or handwritten text. Though the structure of the book largely remains the same, the two main stories have merged to form one larger story. Like manga forums that post chapters every week to read I plan to post one page from this main story every day on a blog, so it can be read as it gets drawn and put together. I expect this to go on till the first week of august. Pages from the book can be found here: http://hygienebook.blogspot.com From Jankees.Boer at balie.nl Fri Jun 29 15:57:44 2007 From: Jankees.Boer at balie.nl (Jankees Boer) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:27:44 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Experimenta Indian Films at Cinema de Balie, november 2008 Message-ID: Dear Shai Heredia, Here is Jankees Boer from Cinema de Balie in Amsterdam. We once briefly met and during that period I couldn't screen the work you proposed due to lack of money. At the moment we are trying to raise money for a bigger India event in November 2008. We would like to give the Dutch audience an idea about the other India and would like to screen experimental films aswell. Is it possible you send us previews of the work you think that would be suitable for something like that? Greetings, Jankees Boer Cinema de Balie Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 1017 RR AMSTERDAM The Netherlands Tel: # 31 20 55 35 160 cinema at balie.nl -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070629/04e4f7f9/attachment.html From bangali_mnb at yahoo.com Fri Jun 29 13:31:43 2007 From: bangali_mnb at yahoo.com (bangali_ mnb) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:01:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fourth Posting, Mithun Narayan Bose, I. Fellow Message-ID: <922639.61566.qm@web35714.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Religious Pictures on the Calcutta-Rickshaws, Religion is one of the most vital factors defining our national character and most importantly, our culture. Calcutta-rickshaws are not alien in this matter and thus religious pictures are as important and dominating as the Bollywood or Tollywood-pictures. The use of this kind of pictures is not for aesthetical causes only but the wish for safety is also a prominent side which should not be overviewed. The Hindus, Muslims and Christians, these Rickshaw-pullers, regardless of their religion, caste or creed, are using the pictures of Gods, Goddesses, Religious sites or shrines, Prophets or religious symbols for the sake of their safety. It shows man’s ever-lasting faith on religion in one hand and the inter-relation between the urbanity and folk in another, and the inter-mingling character of the folk-beliefs and religions is another interesting part of study. The pictures of Lord Shiva, Mother Kali or Radha-Krishna are commonly visible on the Hindu Rickshaw-pullers’ rickshaws. Hanumaan or religious personalities like Shri Ramakrishna or Baba Lokenath are also making their presence felt. These pictures are always drawn as the part of the safety-measure and thus drawn in a serious fashion. In one of the rickshaws I had had seen that the rickshaw-puller, someone named Bulton, had written his own name on the lap of Baba Lokenath. But I had seen a picture of Lord Shiva where He was reffered as “MOTABABA” or “The Fat Father” and thus the intermingling of sacred and profane in folk-religion is distinctly visible here. Though it can happen only with Lord Shiva, other deities are always been respected and certain fear-psychosis is related with them. But Shiva has become the family-person in Bengali-culture. In Gambhira dance or in Shivayana Kavya, Bengali people make great laugh on Him. The rickshaw-paintings carry that tradition on its back which is simply superb and fantastic. The Matriarchal base of Bengali proto-culture is visible in the worshipping of mother-goddesses in Bengal in such a great manner. That’s why pictures of Mother Kali, Tara or Durga are very common on the rickshaws of Calcutta. Snake-Goddess Manasa or Pox-healer Shitala is also popular and one can go to the Pre-Aryan history tracing the influences and causes of those depictions. Thus it seem interesting to me. “Baba Borokachari” or “The judge of the final judgment” of Howrah or “Maa Naachinda” of East-Midnapore district of W. Bengal are as popular as the mainstream deities and it depicts that many of the rickshaw-pullers come from these districts as well as Calcutta. It also proves that the Folk-religion is deeply rooted in the Subaltern and it maintains its own existence and identity living parallely with the Super-structure. The Christian rickshaw-pullers draw pictures of Jesus or Mother Mary on the rear-side of their rickshaws while the inscription of the sacred number of ‘786’ on rickshaw is commonly visible among the Muslim rickshaw-pullers. I have known that most of the rickshaw-pullers of Christian rickshaw-dwellers are from Catholic Church and thus the picture of Mother Mary is very popular. But which is most interesting is the inter-mingling character of the religious faiths. As most of the Muslim and Christian rickshaw-pullers were originally low-caste Hindus, the influence of certain Hindu traditions is being felt in the decoration of their rickshaw also. Hindu rickshaw pullers too use the number ‘786’ in their rickshaws to ward off the evil influences from their life. Using of lotus, picture of Maa Kali and the holy number ‘786’ in Bangla, English or Arabic simultaneously is not uncommon among my subjects. Tradition lives, sometimes nonchalant and hideously, but never dies. Those paintings give me this confidence and the secular and inter-religious practice draws my attention and respect to these people, my poor subjects Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070629/06e80085/attachment.html From ashariravani at hotmail.com Fri Jun 29 18:57:46 2007 From: ashariravani at hotmail.com (Vani Asharira) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:57:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] PM asked to drop Petroleum SEZ in M'lore Message-ID: Dear Friends, Found this article on the Mangalorean.com please file your objection to the MSEZ and PCPIR after reading this article. NO MSEZ and PCPIR. Best Regards, S. AarvindPM asked to drop Petroleum SEZ in M'lore By Team Mangalorean - Mangalore MANGALORE June 27: The SEZ Impact Assessment Committee an NGO working in the field of environment and anti chemical activism has apprehended that the proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and its downstream component Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) would make Mangalore a 'chemically hazardous zone'. Addressing a joint press conference along with Dakshina Kannada Parisaraskthara Okkutta here today Convener of the SEZ Impact Committee Dinesh Pai Kateel released a letter he had written to the Prime Minister and said that the committee had appraised him about the dangers that the region will face due to the Chemicals storage and other environmental and public health hazards. The letter has asked the PM Dr. Manmohan Singh to "drop the idea of having a SEZ or the PCPIR in Mangalore"; the letter has stated that if the PCPIR or the SEZ comes in Mangalore the industries would need an annual requirement of 8000 Metric Tonnes of Benzene in storage near Mangalore in the proposed petrochemical complex. "Benzene is internationally accepted chemical to have very high levels of toxicity in the case of even small doses" and highly carcinogenic in nature and a small leak also could lead to deadly diseases like leukemia. He said the city of Mangalore has been placed in the seismic zone III which meant that the city could be badly affected in the case of tectonic movements. The scientific experts have also pointed that the city could progressively move into the Seismic Zone IV in the years to come. When that is the projection for the city, it was a dangerous thing for the city to have huge storages of toxic chemicals like Benzene. Mr. Pai said the guidelines issued by the state Pollution Control Board (PCB) specifies that no new mega industry could be established within 25 kilometers from a sensitive area and no new industries could be established within a city of population of more than 3 lakhs. "Mangalore qualifies in both the categories and hence the SEZ and its Petrochemical component PCPIR could not be established anywhere near Mangalore". The committee has also expressed apprehensions that the concept of Special Economic Zones took away the control of the government over the land and hand it over to the foreign investors which was nothing by an "alienation of India 's sovereignty". The letter has also appraised the Prime Minister that the ONGC had suggested that the use of the existing infrastructure be considered on the basis of mixed bonding since Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals (MRPL) has developed infrastructure such as tanks and pipelines. At present the SEZ rules do not provide for sharing of infrastructure. The letter asked the PM to note that the Petrochemical complex was an integrated up-gradation facility of the MRPL. This may lead to heavy revenue loss and consequently an adverse impact on the national economy.This Article is featured in Mangalorean.comwww.Mangalorean.com _________________________________________________________________ Palate Teasers: Straight from Master Chef! http://content.msn.co.in/Lifestyle/Moreonlifestyle/LifestylePT_101106_1530.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070629/e1deab94/attachment.html From soracod at ntc.net.np Sat Jun 30 09:02:03 2007 From: soracod at ntc.net.np (Dr. Prem Prasad Sharma) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:17:03 +0545 Subject: [Reader-list] Community Radio Message-ID: <200706300345.l5U3jcqv009440@seti.ntc.net.np> Could you please send the information regarding community radio. Regards, Prem Prasad Sharma Nepal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070630/b5c6f57c/attachment.html From gora at sarai.net Sat Jun 30 10:51:14 2007 From: gora at sarai.net (Gora Mohanty) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:51:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Community Radio In-Reply-To: <200706300345.l5U3jcqv009440@seti.ntc.net.np> References: <200706300345.l5U3jcqv009440@seti.ntc.net.np> Message-ID: <1183180874.6609.15.camel@anubis> On Sat, 2007-06-30 at 09:17 +0545, Dr. Prem Prasad Sharma wrote: > Could you please send the information regarding community radio. [...] Um, whom exactly are you asking here? Depending on what exactly you are looking for, the community radio mailing list, which you can subscribe to at https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india might be more relevant to you. Regards, Gora From apnawritings at yahoo.co.in Sat Jun 30 19:34:20 2007 From: apnawritings at yahoo.co.in (ARNAB CHATTERJEE) Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:04:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Personal as pre-private,pre-public!!! Message-ID: <111152.37002.qm@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Readers, Sorry for being a bit late but for reasons even you would surely recognize and consider my apology with sentimental biology that's needed. You’ll remember where we parted: the promise was to begin with the history of the personal. I had made a short detour charting this history in telegraphic terms-from the monarch to the dictator -- taking Gandhi’s desire as drive. And now after so much of empirical historical lesson I think the choices are pretty clear : people wanting to interpret the world would go for so called democracy, liberalism and so forth; people wanting to change the world would go for either Fascism or revolutionary Communism—there is no other way, perhaps. And my version of pure politics will inform as a rider over this that any person or programme can cheat or made to deceive: morality does not come with a warranty. And this failure being irreducible, it was illuminated by Hegel when he said that there are two ways to achieve a moral world : utopia or terror. Even such a grand ‘deontologist’ philosopher as Kant uses a phrase like “moral terrorism” and proposes a “terroristic” conception of “history”; but Hegel’s copula is more illuminating. Terror rejects an immediate place; utopia regulates a non-place—they can never, never be estranged. And with Fascism and communism it is more futile to undertake such an exercise. But you might have noticed a sharp difference : while in Fascism you have dictatorship in the person-al form, in Marx you have dictatorship of a whole class –even if universal or not. Now, if it is a collective whole embodied in the one person of the monarch -- which is the dictatorial example of the first, it is basically the group personality of the class that could act as the dictatorial unity, reflective of a single will, in the second case. Now, my intention this time is to refer the reader to an extension of my argument stated previously. First is the person taken as a singular-collective; the second is a collective-singular. First is the spontaneous natural personality; the second is an artificial personality masquerading as a legal fiction whose origins have been traced back to the Roman Law. I’ll come to the second when I deal with the Hiralal Haldar -- Mactaggart debate. In this post I’ll address only the first part—that too a bit cryptically. (1) RECEIVED HISTORY The public/private binary -whose historical roots have been traced to classical Greece acquired its modern meaning through the mediations of medieval Roman Law and 18th century Europe. Aristotle made a distinction between household (oikos) and the space of the city state (polis) where through deliberation (lexis) and common action (praxis) a shared, common and in a loose sense “public” life beyond bare essentials or necessities was sustained. The private realm of necessities (subsistence, reproduction) was the household. Therefore property, “and the art of acquiring property” was considered a part of “managing the household” (Aristotle, 1988: 5) and participation in the polis was restricted by one’s status or rank as a master of oikos. In the medieval age in Roman Law one encounters terms like publicus and privatus but without the standard usage (Habermas, 1996:5) because everything public/private ultimately resided in the person of the monarch (more on this latter.) However, in Roman Law-the first systematic legal document-- the privacy of the home (domus) was sanctioned ( Black, 1988: 593) and Roman Law itself was “private law” in that it would have application only for individuals or relations of coordination. Public law would administer affairs of the state or relations of domination. But similar to the Greek city state, it was the status of the individuals that determined their participation in the medieval public sphere. We enter modernity when men entered the realm of contract from that of status, from duties to that of rights ( 18th century enlightenment and the French revolution remain the canonical examples). Formal equality of persons was a prerequisite of such a contract. Particularly, at the break of the medieval age, in the wake of civil or commercial law in 18th century Europe, a democratic climate was created where apparent equality of all before the law and the market was preempted. And the public sphere was thus -in a sense-- opened to all. This meant the formation of public opinion through the media ( enabled at that time by the advent of print capitalism) and institutionalization of state sovereignty which would rest, henceforth, with the people or the public. A new category of legitimacy was created. This also engendered the rise of civil society where the subjects would fulfill two roles at the same time: as a property owner or bourgeois he would pursue his private interests and as a citizen in the public sphere he would bear equal rights granted by the state. This also-- as a part of the public sphere, ensured the separation of society (family) from the state and that the state would not intervene in societal matters and expectedly, privacy would be located in the societal realm hence forth. (Separated from the state, classically, the church was the first private to have imparted the secular colour so characteristic of modernity.) The state would ensure privacy, but would not intervene; its closest analogy was the market: the state would ensure a free market by itself not intervening in it and the free market was not only of commodities but a great market place of ideas and exchange of opinion in which, irrespective of birthmarks and the stink of status anybody could participate. The modern public sphere had arrived. It was just a step further when Marx would denounce universal suffrage and invoke the proletariat as the class with “universal suffering” (Marx, 1983:320) and would mock this artificial equality of publics before the law and the market (alleging that they masked real inequalities) and thought of smashing the private /public divide by abolishing private property- which he thought was at the core of this suffering. The rest is history and its repetition. No wonder that the public/private divide has been considered as the core of our modern existence. ONE OR TWO WORDS ON HOW THE PERSONAL LOST ITSELF IN THE PRIVATE An interesting part of recent academic discussions is while there is a growing interest in the public and the private, critical discourse on the personal nearly draws a blank. (The state of the personal is somewhat dubious and absent in all classic European discussions --even in Jurgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt .) Although Habermas does cursorily refer to the process through which the “modern state apparatus became independent from the monarch’s personal sphere”, he rarely engages with it (Habermas 1996, 29). For instance here goes this recognition in the form of a footnote to one of his famous articles: "The important thing to understand is that the medieval public sphere, if it even deserves this recognition, is tied to the personal. The feudal lord and estates create the public sphere by means of their very presence." (Habermas 1974, 51) But the personal sphere of the monarch-and what it means in the western tradition is somewhat available in G.H Mead from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Mead meticulously charts the components of this personal sphere where the people within the same state “ can identify themselves with each other only through being subjects of a common monarch .” (Mead 1972, p.311) Mead traces the phenomenon to the ancient empires of Mesopotamia and observes, “It is possible through personal relationships between a sovereign and subject to constitute a community which could not otherwise be so constituted .” In the Roman Empire through the mediation of Roman law, Mead notes, while the emperor-subject relationship was “defined in legal terms”, through sacrificial offerings made to the emperor-the subject was “putting himself into personal relationship with him, and because of that he could feel his connection with all the members in the community”. “It was the setting up of a personal relationship which in a certain sense went beyond the purely legal relations involved in the development of Roman law.” (312) In India considering the King's person as sacred, it was assumed that he had influence over crops, cattle, rain and general prosperity. So again, the subjects, in order to relate to cattle, the mediation of the King was involved in a metonymic gesture-through whose presence, people could relate and be present to themselves. (Hocart 1927, 9) Personal is that which predates both the public and the private and what is historically interesting is to discover when and why the collapsing of the personal and the private began. For this last instance - we can borrow from Max Weber the diffused origins of the Public Law-Private Law distinction, which as Weber shows was “once not made at all. Such was the case when all law, all jurisdictions, and particularly all powers of exercising authority were personal privileges, such as especially, the “prerogatives” of the head of the state.” [Who was] “Not different from the head of the household.” (Weber 1978, 643). This world of the personal or as Weber calls it “patrimonial monarchy” forms the prehistory of the private /public distinction and again I repeat that what is historically interesting is to discover when and why the collapsing of the personal and the private began to which today’s feminists are but victims. Habermas therefore does away with a vast repertoire. So far Arendt is concerned, commentators have tried to make a case out of the feminist energy generated by the latter’s ‘personal’ -previously having been at pains to argue that the ‘political’ and the ‘personal’ during Arendt’s celebration of feminist moments later had become the ‘public’ and the ‘private’. “With the emergence of women’s liberation a decade or so after The Human Condition appeared, the relation between the “ political” and the “personal” moved to the forefront of politics, and this eventually took the form of the public and the private” (Zaretsky 1997, 214) with their corresponding emphasis on ‘personal life’ becoming a “third challenge to the liberal dichotomy” (214) (ref. endnote 1) : really a queer mix up in history. The reason perhaps is that we tend to have a mix up between the private and the personal and this is its contemporary moment(Nothing could be more explicit an affirmation than from a feminist superstar: Catherine Mackinnon, “The private is the public for those for whom the personal is the political.” (Mackinnon 1992, 359). This easy and historic conflation of personal as private is perhaps not the end of the story. In the western history itself there is also a suppressed narrative (suppressed because it does not suit the liberal project) where the two are not the same; in fact they two cannot be the same. But first I’ll take the opportunity to narrate how the personal/private coalescence occurs and then I shall try to excavate if the personal could be recuperated. Then is it possible to appreciate the fact that the appearance of the personal through the sieve of the private is basically an historical maneuver ? This major point then needs mention: the qualitative leap when personal came to be identified with the private. Now, private property is as old as Greek antiquity: Aristotle had argued in favour of and Plato had wanted to abolish private property. That is not the point; the first signs were available in the natural law (or natural rights) tradition and despite a lot of caveats, one of its representative voice still remains John Locke. In this tradition property, for the first time, is placed in the person : “Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a “property” in his own “person”. This no body has any right to but himself. The “labour” of his body, and the “work” of his hands, we may say are properly his. Whatsoever he hath mixed his “labour” with, and joined it to something that is his own, and thereby makes it his “property” that excludes the common right of other men” (Locke, (1690) 1982 : [Sec. 27.]130). “His property” or private property when derives from personal capacities of labour, the first motivated mix up between the personal and the private occurs. And then having had its eighteenth century initiation, it became a cornerstone of liberal theory where property becomes an attribute of personality. If you take away property from me, I become a non-person because (private) property is in my person. Here there is natural ownership before there is a legal ownership. Here is a classical example in Hegel, “ Not until he has property does the person exist as reason” (Hegel, (1820) 1991: 73). Hegel goes at length to show how property is required to supersede “the mere subjectivity of personality”(73). In fact this is the personal in Hegel invested with some kind of immediacy but lacks in content i.e. Hegel’s “abstract personality” in order to become concrete and objective awaits a trick: “ Since my will, as personal and hence as the will of an individual [des Einzelnen], becomes objective in property, the latter takes on the character of private property ” (77). This would be picked up by liberal capitalism and now onwards property being in person and that which makes objective, tangible personality possible, private becomes the realm of liberty, reprieve and freedom. Marx would fall heavily on all of this and in fact this discourse finds its final resolution in Marx only. His argument was just the reverse: in a society without private property, the personal selves of men freely blossom to enter the true realm of freedom. Therefore this hyphenation between the private and the personal is more an ideological investment necessary for liberal history than a structurally indispensable relation. RECOVERING THE PERSONAL IN LOCKE, HEGEL, MARX AND OUR TIMES Now, having presented the anatomical, bare rudiments of how the personal looses itself in the private, here I’ll extrapolate how it could be recovered and allowed to have a safe passage. Given the force of history, it would be wise to start with Locke. LOCKE For Lockes’ allergy towards communal or collective ownership, (see Macpherson, C.B. 1972, 197-221.) But even in Locke it is possible to find an other discourse of the personal besides property and the private dominion. While discussing property as an extension of the person, and particularly Adam’s property as “private dominion” which is supposed to have arisen from God’s “grant” or “donation” and that of fatherhood from the act of begetting Locke meditates on how this divine donation was made “personally” to Adam to which his heir could have no right by it. (Locke1982, 60-61) Locke argues that even if it belongs to the parents “personally”, after their death, their property does not go to the common stock of mankind but is inherited by their children as heirs because human have a natural propensity to continue their creed (62). This power of begetting in another form—and that what roots continuity- founds inheritance. The point relevant to our case, is, this “personal” belongingness is a middle-term that appears with some autonomy and mediates person and property—seen as an extension of each other in Locke. And the mutual-extension argument because, I guess, in itself cannot explain inheritance, Locke is taking recourse to a different premise; the “personal” appears to give a language to this premise. HEGEL As established earlier, the reading that entails Hegel as a canonical case where the personal private mix up receives the force of an argument, is not wrong and as rendered by Marx, it carries an immense sway with it. But it is as well possible to discover in Hegel a curious personal impatient not to be suppressed by the interested world of the private. Take for instance the distinction between real property and personal property that could be traced to the Roman Law from which Kant borrowed his interesting theory of rights and where we find personal appearing with a rider “personal rights of a real kind”. Hegel made a critique of Kant’s formulation; drawing on that critique, let me here try to illuminate the distinction which I think was unconsciously made by Hegel himself. Deriving from the Justinian Roman legal division of right into rights of persons, things, and actions, Kant in 1797 had proposed, taking into account the “form” of the rights, a threefold division, “a right to a thing; a right against a person; a right to a person akin to a right to a thing .” (Kant 1999, 412). The first is a property right, the second is a contract right, and the third is a “personal right of a real kind” (Hegel 1991, 71); in other words, it is a right about “ what is mine or yours domestically, and the relation of persons in the domestic condition ” [including] “ possession of a person.” (Kant 1999, 426) like the rights of spouses over one another, the rights of parents over their children etc. The third is the most interesting because it resembles what today we call Personal Laws supposed to distribute “private” affairs within a household. And this is what Hegel attacks; Hegel thinks that the division is a confusing one; secondly, while family relationships form the content of “personal rights of a real kind” , in actuality family relationships are based on the “surrender of personality.” (Hegel 1991, 72) Hegel further notes that “For Kant personal rights are those rights which arise out of a contract whereby I give something or perform a service Admittedly, only a person is obliged to implement the provisions of a contract, just as it is only a person who acquires the right to have them implemented. But such a right cannot therefore be called a personal right; rights of every kind can belong only to a person ” (73) What is interesting in Hegel’s engagement -relevant to our project is the way he extricates the personal from being stamped with the badge of household rights or the power to accomplish a civil contract ( See Endnote 2) in brief personal right not masquerading as a private right. In brief, what Hegel may have argued here could be that there are no “personal rights of a real kind.” But let us underline this binary: Personal vs./ and real, which is significant and requires of us to reiterate that a distinction between real property and personal property was strongly a feature of English Law. Real property was that which had “some degree of geographical fixity”.[Reeve, 1986, 80-81] In order to examine this distinction in the form that it is found in a 1827 tract I think the notions of the personal still could be recovered in a very different sense. In personal property “the general rule is, that possession constitutes the criterion of title; hence the vendor of personal chattels is never expected to show the origin of his right. [but] real property like land is held not by possession but by title requiring “the production of documents.” (Mathews 1827, 27). Please note the somewhat loose coverage that personal property requires compared to real property. Now if it is pointed out that personal property does have property as a signified even if in a loose sense, it may be rebutted by saying that in the same text Mathews goes on to mention “peculiarities personal” or as to how “personal disability” may be enough to “repel the presumption of a grant”. (14) Does this personal call for documents or is a means to establishing a title? No, in fact these are blatant uses appropriate to our cause existing in a legal tract meant to discuss property personal or real. MARX The common knowledge now that the key to understanding modernity is the public/private divide and a corresponding failure to find a way beyond the binary would find—if considered carefully—an approval with dignity in Marx because Marx curiously is a symptom of both: he said for the first--"the state is founded upon the contradiction between public and private life" (Marx, 1961, p.222) and for the second : "if the modern State wished to end the impotence of its administration it would be obliged to abolish the present conditions of private life. And if the State wished to abolish these conditions of private life it would have also to put an end to its own existence, for it exists only in relation to them." (p.223) Now, throwing in the fact that private property is just a singular and an isolated moment in the discourse of private life, Marx's agenda --I guess- looks readily defamiliarised here. Marx would fall heavily on all of this and in fact this discourse finds its final resolution in Marx only. It is not a fact that in a system without private property and a sanction against ‘unlimited appropriation’ all are non persons and there would be nothing personal. Therefore this hyphenation between the private and the personal is more an ideological investment necessary for liberal history than a structurally indispensable relation. Let us document a few discursive fragments where this collapsing has been done away with. Now, notwithstanding the will to go beyond private/public divide, it may rightly be asked, could Marx be used to endorse the personal that I'm proposing? Yes! And choosing only one instance -- love , we may document this flower unfolding in Marx. "Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc... if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people. ...If you love without evoking love in return that is, if your loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a living person you do not make yourself a beloved one then your love is impotent -- a misfortune" ( cited in Geras 1990, 14). Isn't this the personal in Marx -- which --I'm sure --he would willingly exclude from the domain of private life he wanted to abolish for history? I think the reader agrees. A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE Marx apart, curiously, the Human Rights discourse does have, it may be pointed out, a phrase like ‘personal property’. What does it qualify? In fact it endorses the distinction that we are making between the personal and the private. A theorist of such rights comments, “ By personal property” I mean individual ownership and control of possessions such as clothing, furniture, food, writing materials, books, and artistic and religious objects. Considerations of personal freedom provide strong reasons for instituting and protecting personal property. These reasons are related not to production but to the requirements of developing and expressing one’s own personality. Ownership of personal property is a matter of personal liberty, not a production-related right ( see endnote 3) .”(Nickel 1987, 152) Therefore it is possible to attempt a historical reconstruction of the personal where the personal could be said to have filtered through the monarchical metonymy right down to human rights discourses via Roman Law, Kant, Hegel and English Common law. While the prehistorical personal comes to be contaminated by the private, the human rights discourse is significant in its attempt to do away with this conflation. While it tries to do away with the infiltration, genealogically it perhaps proves the point that there was this contamination or over determination. CONCLUSION I conclude with a sense of disgust. I could share 1/6 th of the material I've amassed. This is not surprising since there are whole books on each of the strands to which I've referred. Consider Roman Law : Read Duff's Personality in Roman Private Law or Richard Tuck's path breaking works on Natural Rights and Natural Law debates on themes surrounding that what I'm trying to pursue. A further limitation is I've bound myself to narrating bits of western history of the personal and left out our own cultural cognitive histories of the personal. Let that be some time else. Nevertheless,with this our narrative of historical recovery or historical demystification of the personal reaches a benchmark and awaits if the personal-private distinction can be theoretically grounded as well. We’ll pursue that in the next post—early next month. Thank you. ENDNOTES 1. For consideration of the failure of this appraisal in its true light and that the personal-private distinction could be read unto Arendt, judge the following comments of Craig Calhoun, “Arendt would never endorse social engineering and, against such threats, certainly would protect privacy. Even more, she would protect the personal and the distinctive from absorption into the impersonal. But she would not assimilate the notion of the personal to that of the private as Zaretsky does.” (Calhoun 1997, 237). The point is if it could be correct for Arendt, it could be correct for Habermas as well. 2. Carole Pateman does not agree that Hegel is successful in his attempt and according to her he is rather limited to transcending just one part of the Kantian argument which saw personal right, among others, in the manifest act of pointing out “this is my wife” where a “thing” is, accidentally, a person. ( Pateman1996, 212-213). But I disagree with Pateman and reiterate that there is a moment of personal in Hegel which precedes the contamination of property. 3. The ownership of means of production is called in this discourse ‘private productive property’ (Nickel 1987, 152). BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Aristotle, 1988: The Politics, Transl. Benjamin Jowett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Black, A., 1988 : The Individual and Society. In J.H Burns (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 588-606. Calhoun, Craig. 1997. ‘Plurality, promises, and Public Spaces’ In Calhoun and Mc Growan. eds. 1997. 232-259. Calhoun, Craig, and John Mc Growan. eds. 1997. Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of Politics, Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Geras, Norman, 1990 : 'Seven types of Obloquy: Travesties of Marxism' in Socialist register, Eds. Ralph Miliband, Leo Panitch & John Saville, pp.1-34, The Merlin Press : London. 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From Personal Duties towards Personal Rights: Late Medieval and Early Modern Political thought, 1300-1600. Montreal: McGill Queens University Press. Nickel, James W. 1987. Making Sense of Human Rights :Philosophical Reflections on the Universal declaration of Human Rights. Berkeley: University Of California Press. Pateman, Carole.1996. ‘Hegel, Marriage, and the Standpoint of Contract’ in Feminist Interpretations of G.W. F. Hegel. Ed. Patricia Jagentowicz Mills. 209-223. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Reeve, Andrew. 1986. Property, London : Macmillan. Weber, M. , 1978 : Economy And Society :An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Vol.II. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, (Eds.), Berkeley : University of California Press. Zaretsky, Eli. 1997. “Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of the Public/Private distinction” In Calhoun and Mc Growan 1997. 207-231. __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. 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