From geetanjoy at rediffmail.com Thu Oct 1 14:11:53 2009 From: geetanjoy at rediffmail.com (Geetanjoy Sahu) Date: 1 Oct 2009 08:41:53 -0000 Subject: [Urbanstudy] =?utf-8?q?Consultation_on_=E2=80=9CRegulatory_Author?= =?utf-8?q?ity_in_Housing_and_Real_Estate_Sector?= Message-ID: <20091001084153.63881.qmail@f4mail-235-237.rediffmail.com> Dear All, The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India has recently released a draft Model Real Estate (Regulation of Development) Act. The Ministry has asked for suggestions on the draft act by November 6th 2009. This draft model bill could be seen as a precursor to a new governance regime in the real estate sector, which may have serious implications for the housing sector as a whole. Hence, this development needs to be discussed thoroughly and systematically. In this context, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences is planning to organize a one-day consultation on “Regulatory Authority in Housing and Real Estate Sector” in TISS, Deonar, Mumbai in the last week of October. The main objective is to share analysis and understanding on the draft model act and provide suggestions to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. This one-day consultation will try to bring together NGOs, activists, academicians, government officials, and other stakeholders. We intend to kick-start the process by preparing and sending to all of you a discussion note on the draft model act. But, in order to widen the debate, we also request interested researchers, officials, and activists to provide their written comments and suggestions in the form of Short Notes. Efforts will be made to distribute these notes to participants well in advance, so that points raised in these notes could also be discussed. Considering the short time and limited resources available, it may not be possible to bring together a big group with participants coming from different parts of the country. In this situation, these short notes will provide an opportunity to interested people who will not be able to make it to the consultation. We intend to prepare and present to the ministry a compendium comprising the summary of the short notes and a detailed report on deliberations in the consultation. We will confirm the exact date of Consultation in near future. We are also attaching the soft copy of the draft Model bill for your ready reference. Please treat this mail as an initial communication to invite your active participation in the process. You can send your comments and suggestions to Prof. Subodh Wagle. His email id is: subodhwagle at gmail.com Regards, Geetanjoy School of Habitat Studies TISS, Mumbai -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091001/3728e289/attachment-0001.html From rkamath.research at gmail.com Fri Oct 2 07:50:00 2009 From: rkamath.research at gmail.com (Ranjan Kamath) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 07:50:00 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Cpositive Foundation launches website on Gandhi Jayanti Message-ID: <24b9c2a0910011920g1938d9c1l9b11fe71fe5a2fb1@mail.gmail.com> Dear Citizens Cpositive Foundation officially launched its website at www.cpositive.in at 0000 hours on October 2, to celebrate Gandhi Jayanti - To illustrate our commitment to effecting change using non-violence as our operating system; - to network citizens of Indian origin everywhere; - to engage in citizenship transcending geographical boundaries. Please register on the website and join this worldwide community of enablers and change makers.Ranjan Kamath Managing Trustee for Cpositive Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091002/d2292083/attachment.html From jamiejcross at gmail.com Fri Oct 2 10:16:31 2009 From: jamiejcross at gmail.com (Jamie Cross) Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:16:31 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] CFP: Rethinking Economic Zones in South Asia Message-ID: <4AC585A7.6020405@gmail.com> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * CFP: Rethinking Economic Zones in South Asia Panel @ the 21st European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies July 26th-29th, 2010, University of Bonn, Germany Free trade zones, export processing zones and special economic zones have become controversial sites of planning, investment, and enterprise across South Asia. For anthropologists they have also come to be seen primarily as sites of 'neoliberal governance', in which national territory and working populations are oriented specifically in relation to their potential for growth and productivity. This panel invites papers that rethink how economic zones operate and what they do. Key questions and themes that the panel hopes to address include: * To what extent are 'neoliberal imaginaries' realized in economic zones and translated into the production of neoliberal subjects? * How have local histories of social transformation and trajectories of development planning shaped the implementation of economic zones? * Are disciplinary regimes that hinge on the insecurity, flexibility and precariousness of labour be desribed as exceptional? * What differences or continuities exist between economic zones and other spaces that are governed in relation to the global market (this may include sites of mineral extraction, private sector manufacturing and state run enterprise)? * How have market-oriented modes of governance shaped notions of competition and individuality or solidarity and mutual-aid? We invite papers based on current or recent empirical research in the fields of anthropology, geography, sociology, history, political science and development studies. For further information, please contract the panel organisers: Jamie Cross, Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, London -- /jamiejcross at gmail.com/ Christian Strüempell, South Asia Institute, Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg - /struempell|@eth.mpg.de/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091002/04364a1b/attachment.html From sunalini_kumar at hotmail.com Fri Oct 2 11:36:30 2009 From: sunalini_kumar at hotmail.com (Sunalini Kumar) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 07:06:30 +0100 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Static walls of Bengalooru..... In-Reply-To: References: <79e82f610909232251o7baa3df8s8114fb469f416beb@mail.gmail.com> <79e82f610909250206n7f15133t2aec8e9fff0a64b9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Apropos Ramola and Gabriel, Of course, civic initiatives like getting artists to paint walls by authorities can be creative and dynamic enterprises. The point is that very often they are not; they are attempts to de-fang the undirected, more spontaneous use of public space by other forces. Even here of course one has to be precisely sensitive to who exactly might be using these walls normally...if a political party dominates the wall by its posters and disallows others from similarly accessing it, then the power dynamic would be rather easy to critique. But we are arguing that each seeming development in material or civic culture, however innocent or desirable on immediate view, may conceal a series of exclusions - of social actors, political and economic agents, and of imaginaries of the city. Not all exclusions may be equally egregious, some are rather benign or neutral in their long-term impact on civic life. So where does one begin to make judgements about whether wall beautification or park manicuring or similar moves are inclusive, democratic enterprises, or exclusionary, arbitrary impositions? There is no easy way, but one clear hint would be the manner in which civic authority has acted in the past. If civic authorities have been trustworthy and democratic in their decision-making, then there is good reason to trust the outcomes of that decision-making. But if they have a record of imposing top-down visions of the city (bureaucratic or corporate) then we have equally sound reasons to be wary of such initiatives. The issue is also of the levels of desire, blind imitation and aspiration that civic initiatives are filtered through, in a postcolonial context, where urbanisation is a very different enterprise from the West. So a similar initiative that worked in the West may not necessarily produce the same effects here. Even in the West of course, gentrification is a real problem; the literature on this is enormous. As for whats 'pleasant' and what not, this is a highly contested area; one person's pleasant may be another person's conventional/dull, another's shocking may be a fourth one's creative. The only thing that makes the resolution of these difficulties ethically palatable is if that resolution emerged from a democratic process. I believe Rohan's mail was indirectly about questions of democracy and inclusion. These are questions that we must take seriously, even and maybe expecially when its an apparent no-brainer - shall we have a dirty, pan-stained wall or a beautified one? One last thing, cf Gabriel. If the walls really became static snapshots of the tourist deptt in the way you described it, then I would be the first one to say hey, bring it on, that looks like really creative public art - for one, it visibilises a section that is at best invisible, and at worst demonised in popular imagination - the public sector employee. But I doubt if this is what the walls will ever be - they will reflect dominant notions of (probably Hindu) mythology or contemporary art. Speaking of which, the Ramayana and Mahabharata themselves became ossified, static myths unerringly upholding the caste system and patriarchal notions when they ceased to be oral traditions and became literary forms. So we have almost entirely lost all other versions of these timeless classics - a metaphor for what happens when authorities direct popular culture or art? Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:43:39 +0800 From: ramolan at gmail.com To: virtuallyme at gmail.com CC: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Urbanstudy] Static walls of Bengalooru..... Rohan, Though I am a strong opponent to such beautification drives in the name of ‘globalising’ a city, I feel this initiative by BBMP is an educative and creative endeavour that maintains city walls that too often turn into grimy pan-splattered displays of civic disregard for public property. I remember the proposal by Charles Correa in the early 90’s to remove the bill-boards that completely camouflaged the scale and proportion of architectural heritage down D.N. Road. If after almost 20 years one can begin new ways of reading and rendering the image of a city, it is a laudable effort. While I understand the argument that an urban narrative is dislodged through the apparent fixed montage of historical/mythological paintings, I think it generates a new way in which young citizens could start interacting with Indian culture. It’s almost like reading an Amar Chitra Katha comic painted to a large scale. Each tableau has a story behind it and a lesson to be learnt. The walls can be the key to change as the new canvas for budding artists and could even be used as innovative out-door galleries displaying unexpected talent a-la John Pugh. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1187338/Off-wall-The-astonishing-3D-murals-painted-sides-buildings-trompe-loeil-artist.html In Mumbai, many a billboard painter’s skill has been rendered obsolete due to the technological changes in the advertising field. This loss of livelihood could be rechanneled and put to creative use in the city of flyovers! Ramola Naik-Singru Adjunct Professor, Center for Development, Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines PhD (candidate) Urban and Regional Planning Department of Geography & Environment London School of Economics & Political Science, U.K. _____________________________________________ E-mail: ramolan at gmail.com; r.n.naik-singru at lse.ac.uk 2009/9/25 Rohan DSouza Hi All, The city corporation of Bangalore has recently gone on a wall beautifcation drive in the city aimed supposedly at 'bringing down defacement of public property' (http://beta.thehindu.com/news/cities/Bangalore/article19884.ece) This has resulted in the walls of the city being painted by artists, displaying various themes, ranging from the mythological to the cultural, heritage etc. While passing by these newly adorned walls, one gets the impression that despite the colours and attempted vibrancy of the paintings, this has changed their essential character. These walls which have a dynamic nature by being notice boards of cultural, political, social and even economic activities in the city, have now morphed into static snapshots of the tourism department. Walls in Bangalore have, like most other urban centres, been sites of announcement of new movies, political rallies, job opportunities and in some places graffiti as well as adornments of pan, tobacco etc. As movies change, political rallies and gatherings come and go, social circumstances change, the walls respond to these ebbs and flows with an ongoing narrative of urban life. The new initiative by the city corporation, in the name of beautification, is changing these walls of urban commentary into lifeless and single dimensional paintings, that will stay as 'they used a special weather-proof paint'! Rgds, Rohan _______________________________________________ Urbanstudygroup mailing list Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup _________________________________________________________________ Get the best of MSN on your mobile http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/147991039/direct/01/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091002/d189e894/attachment-0001.html From sunalini_kumar at hotmail.com Fri Oct 2 11:37:09 2009 From: sunalini_kumar at hotmail.com (Sunalini Kumar) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 07:07:09 +0100 Subject: [Urbanstudy] FW: Static walls of Bengalooru..... In-Reply-To: References: <79e82f610909232251o7baa3df8s8114fb469f416beb@mail.gmail.com> <79e82f610909250206n7f15133t2aec8e9fff0a64b9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Apropos Ramola and Gabriel, Of course, civic initiatives like getting artists to paint walls by authorities can be creative and dynamic enterprises. The point is that very often they are not; they are attempts to de-fang the undirected, more spontaneous use of public space by other forces. Even here of course one has to be precisely sensitive to who exactly might be using these walls normally...if a political party dominates the wall by its posters and disallows others from similarly accessing it, then the power dynamic would be rather easy to critique. But we are arguing that each seeming development in material or civic culture, however innocent or desirable on immediate view, may conceal a series of exclusions - of social actors, political and economic agents, and of imaginaries of the city. Not all exclusions may be equally egregious, some are rather benign or neutral in their long-term impact on civic life. So where does one begin to make judgements about whether wall beautification or park manicuring or similar moves are inclusive, democratic enterprises, or exclusionary, arbitrary impositions? There is no easy way, but one clear hint would be the manner in which civic authority has acted in the past. If civic authorities have been trustworthy and democratic in their decision-making, then there is good reason to trust the outcomes of that decision-making. But if they have a record of imposing top-down visions of the city (bureaucratic or corporate) then we have equally sound reasons to be wary of such initiatives. The issue is also of the levels of desire, blind imitation and aspiration that civic initiatives are filtered through, in a postcolonial context, where urbanisation is a very different enterprise from the West. So a similar initiative that worked in the West may not necessarily produce the same effects here. Even in the West of course, gentrification is a real problem; the literature on this is enormous. As for whats 'pleasant' and what not, this is a highly contested area; one person's pleasant may be another person's conventional/dull, another's shocking may be a fourth one's creative. The only thing that makes the resolution of these difficulties ethically palatable is if that resolution emerged from a democratic process. I believe Rohan's mail was indirectly about questions of democracy and inclusion. These are questions that we must take seriously, even and maybe expecially when its an apparent no-brainer - shall we have a dirty, pan-stained wall or a beautified one? One last thing, cf Gabriel. If the walls really became static snapshots of the tourist deptt in the way you described it, then I would be the first one to say hey, bring it on, that looks like really creative public art - for one, it visibilises a section that is at best invisible, and at worst demonised in popular imagination - the public sector employee. But I doubt if this is what the walls will ever be - they will reflect dominant notions of (probably Hindu) mythology or contemporary art. Speaking of which, the Ramayana and Mahabharata themselves became ossified, static myths unerringly upholding the caste system and patriarchal notions when they ceased to be oral traditions and became literary forms. So we have almost entirely lost all other versions of these timeless classics - a metaphor for what happens when authorities direct popular culture or art? Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:43:39 +0800 From: ramolan at gmail.com To: virtuallyme at gmail.com CC: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Urbanstudy] Static walls of Bengalooru..... Rohan, Though I am a strong opponent to such beautification drives in the name of ‘globalising’ a city, I feel this initiative by BBMP is an educative and creative endeavour that maintains city walls that too often turn into grimy pan-splattered displays of civic disregard for public property. I remember the proposal by Charles Correa in the early 90’s to remove the bill-boards that completely camouflaged the scale and proportion of architectural heritage down D.N. Road. If after almost 20 years one can begin new ways of reading and rendering the image of a city, it is a laudable effort. While I understand the argument that an urban narrative is dislodged through the apparent fixed montage of historical/mythological paintings, I think it generates a new way in which young citizens could start interacting with Indian culture. It’s almost like reading an Amar Chitra Katha comic painted to a large scale. Each tableau has a story behind it and a lesson to be learnt. The walls can be the key to change as the new canvas for budding artists and could even be used as innovative out-door galleries displaying unexpected talent a-la John Pugh. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1187338/Off-wall-The-astonishing-3D-murals-painted-sides-buildings-trompe-loeil-artist.html In Mumbai, many a billboard painter’s skill has been rendered obsolete due to the technological changes in the advertising field. This loss of livelihood could be rechanneled and put to creative use in the city of flyovers! Ramola Naik-Singru Adjunct Professor, Center for Development, Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines PhD (candidate) Urban and Regional Planning Department of Geography & Environment London School of Economics & Political Science, U.K. _____________________________________________ E-mail: ramolan at gmail.com; r.n.naik-singru at lse.ac.uk 2009/9/25 Rohan DSouza Hi All, The city corporation of Bangalore has recently gone on a wall beautifcation drive in the city aimed supposedly at 'bringing down defacement of public property' (http://beta.thehindu.com/news/cities/Bangalore/article19884.ece) This has resulted in the walls of the city being painted by artists, displaying various themes, ranging from the mythological to the cultural, heritage etc. While passing by these newly adorned walls, one gets the impression that despite the colours and attempted vibrancy of the paintings, this has changed their essential character. These walls which have a dynamic nature by being notice boards of cultural, political, social and even economic activities in the city, have now morphed into static snapshots of the tourism department. Walls in Bangalore have, like most other urban centres, been sites of announcement of new movies, political rallies, job opportunities and in some places graffiti as well as adornments of pan, tobacco etc. As movies change, political rallies and gatherings come and go, social circumstances change, the walls respond to these ebbs and flows with an ongoing narrative of urban life. The new initiative by the city corporation, in the name of beautification, is changing these walls of urban commentary into lifeless and single dimensional paintings, that will stay as 'they used a special weather-proof paint'! Rgds, Rohan _______________________________________________ Urbanstudygroup mailing list Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup Beyond Hotmail — see what else you can do with Windows Live. Find out more. _________________________________________________________________ Share your photos with Windows Live Photos – Free. http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/134665338/direct/01/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091002/d23f87d1/attachment.html From dolfteli at yahoo.com Fri Oct 2 14:03:14 2009 From: dolfteli at yahoo.com (Dolf te Lintelo) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 01:33:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Call for papers: Regulating the informal sector in South Asia Message-ID: <773508.51097.qm@web36304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Dear all, The European Association of South Asian Studies is organising its 21st annual conference from July 26-29th 2010 in Bonn, Germany. Various panels address topics highly relevant to urban studies (see: http://www.ecmsas.org/panels.html) and panels are now calling for paper submissions. I would like to invite papers for my panel on "Regulating the informal sector in South Asia: normativity and representation in social, legal and policy processes". In short, the panel aims to advance our understanding of contemporary state and non-state regulatory processes regarding the urban and rural informal economy in South Asia. It interrogates the social, legal and political processes that create and reproduce norms regulating economic activity in this burgeoning sector. For a full description, see attached document. Abstracts of not more than 350 words should include the name of the speaker and her/his institutional affiliation, and should be submitted by 1st December 2009. This will allow time to review and suggest panel presenters to the organising committee (by December 15th).  with regards, Dolf te Lintelo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ECMSAS 2010 panel25 regulating the informal sector.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 141090 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091002/539b55f3/attachment-0001.pdf From virtuallyme at gmail.com Sat Oct 3 12:11:42 2009 From: virtuallyme at gmail.com (Rohan DSouza) Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 12:11:42 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Static walls of Bengalooru..... In-Reply-To: References: <79e82f610909232251o7baa3df8s8114fb469f416beb@mail.gmail.com> <79e82f610909250206n7f15133t2aec8e9fff0a64b9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <79e82f610910022341g4816620cue474323689aa8241@mail.gmail.com> Hi All, Sunalini, appreciate the point that you bring up about democracy and inclusion. My mail was a personal reaction on encountering static in the place of variety of posters and painted announcements that I normally see on some stretches in the heart of the city. However the fact is that this is an initiative that has literally popped up in the city's visual landscape overnight. This without any visible public invitation for debate and discussion on changes to these vital public 'spaces'. Also appreciate the point you bring up about the aspect of democratic nature of these spaces being a result of free and uncontrolled access to them for all. I suspect (am not sure though) that this initiative is one mooted by the recently formed CM's advisory group, ABIDE (http://www.abidebengaluru.in/). This body has for all practical purposes taken over the role of the local elected municipal council, which is not in place since it was disbanded three years ago. It has a heritage plan and committee which has plans for heritage sites, including even common property resources such as Bangalore's tanks (or lakes in more recent discourses). It does have 'public consultations' in halls in well heeled nieghbourhoods with invitations open to RWAs and select NGOs. Ramola, there is no doubting that these paintings could provide new avenues of employment to bill board painters. However, as you point out it fractures a narrative. And that narrative is usually one of dissent, in the form of protest rallies and ones not by mainstream political parties. These activities which may not get or even benefit from popular newspaper coverage, gets overshadowed in the dazzle! The paintings are at "locations with high pedestrian and vehicular movement". For those familiar with Bangalore, these include roads leading from the public transport transit hub, Majestic. This is vital in a radial city like Bangalore, as large volumes of people from across the city travel these roads daily, especially in buses. On some of the stretches where these paintings are being done, for example the Anand Rao circle flyover, some level of gentrification is already happening through the restriction of non-motorised transportation (cycles, pedestrians, carts etc). These paintings to me then seem to go with the thrust of the authorities of converting Bangalore into a city replete with flyovers and signal free corridors where such 'defacement' of walls on such 'high end' (literally and metaphorically) infrastructure would be unwelcome and 'messy'. Which points out then to the attempts to engineer change to the character of the street. Ramola, your point on these paintings being educational material for children, such as the Amar Chitra Katha is well taken. But given the nature of the party that is in power in the state and the passing off of mythological as historical ("a majority of the paintings are of important tourist destinations, sculptures and historical events") to me points to a different agenda. Its true that there are many paintings of tourist destination and even some of adivasis and other indigenous people. But if the attempt is really to capture history among other things, then someone like Tipu Sultan, who has played an important role in shaping the state's history, is not visible anywhere on these walls! This again is the benefit of the (purposeful) undemocratic/non-consultative process of this initiative, which as Sunalini indicates, directs civic memory. In this context, it will also be worthwhile to read this interesting article in Tehelka on Amar Chitra Katha and how it has helped reinforce stereotypes; http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=hub230808SLIPSBETWEENTHE.asp Gabriel, when you say the "default setting" is by no means dynamic, sure, it isnt! The walls as they are, minus posters, graffitti and paintings, are static. It is what goes onto them that changes their character and makes them communicate. They are in that sense a canvas, and for me this canvas is much more useful to understand the city on a continuous basis rather than to admire beautiful paintings, which for me, within a few hurried viewings (as I am travelling by) becomes pretty and static wallpaper! Which wont be the case in exhibitions or historical sites. Of course, as you say graffiti as art doesn't present itself so much in Bangalore. That would be a welcome addition, aesthetically and politically. As can be seen for example in the tastefully (artistically speaking) done political cartoons on walls in Kerala. Rgds, Rohan On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Sunalini Kumar wrote: > > Apropos Ramola and Gabriel, > > Of course, civic initiatives like getting artists to paint walls by authorities can be creative and dynamic enterprises. The point is that very often they are not; they are attempts to de-fang the undirected, more spontaneous use of public space by other forces. Even here of course one has to be precisely sensitive to who exactly might be using these walls normally...if a political party dominates the wall by its posters and disallows others from similarly accessing it, then the power dynamic would be rather easy to critique. But we are arguing that each seeming development in material or civic culture, however innocent or desirable on immediate view, may conceal a series of exclusions - of social actors, political and economic agents, and of imaginaries of the city. Not all exclusions may be equally egregious, some are rather benign or neutral in their long-term impact on civic life. So where does one begin to make judgements about whether wall beautification or park manicuring or similar moves are inclusive, democratic enterprises, or exclusionary, arbitrary impositions? There is no easy way, but one clear hint would be the manner in which civic authority has acted in the past. If civic authorities have been trustworthy and democratic in their decision-making, then there is good reason to trust the outcomes of that decision-making. But if they have a record of imposing top-down visions of the city (bureaucratic or corporate) then we have equally sound reasons to be wary of such initiatives. > The issue is also of the levels of desire, blind imitation and aspiration that civic initiatives are filtered through, in a postcolonial context, where urbanisation is a very different enterprise from the West. So a similar initiative that worked in the West may not necessarily produce the same effects here. Even in the West of course, gentrification is a real problem; the literature on this is enormous. As for whats 'pleasant' and what not, this is a highly contested area; one person's pleasant may be another person's conventional/dull, another's shocking may be a fourth one's creative. > The only thing that makes the resolution of these difficulties ethically palatable is if that resolution emerged from a democratic process. I believe Rohan's mail was indirectly about questions of democracy and inclusion. These are questions that we must take seriously, even and maybe expecially when its an apparent no-brainer - shall we have a dirty, pan-stained wall or a beautified one? > One last thing, cf Gabriel. If the walls really became static snapshots of the tourist deptt in the way you described it, then I would be the first one to say hey, bring it on, that looks like really creative public art - for one, it visibilises a section that is at best invisible, and at worst demonised in popular imagination - the public sector employee. But I doubt if this is what the walls will ever be - they will reflect dominant notions of (probably Hindu) mythology or contemporary art. Speaking of which, the Ramayana and Mahabharata themselves became ossified, static myths unerringly upholding the caste system and patriarchal notions when they ceased to be oral traditions and became literary forms. So we have almost entirely lost all other versions of these timeless classics - a metaphor for what happens when authorities direct popular culture or art? > > > > > > > ________________________________ > Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:43:39 +0800 > From: ramolan at gmail.com > To: virtuallyme at gmail.com > CC: urbanstudygroup at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Urbanstudy] Static walls of Bengalooru..... > > Rohan, > > Though I am a strong opponent to such beautification drives in the name of ‘globalising’ a city, I feel this initiative by BBMP is an educative and creative endeavour that maintains city walls that too often turn into grimy pan-splattered displays of civic disregard for public property. I remember the proposal by Charles Correa in the early 90’s to remove the bill-boards that completely camouflaged the scale and proportion of architectural heritage down D.N. Road. If after almost 20 years one can begin new ways of reading and rendering the image of a city, it is a laudable effort. > > While I understand the argument that an urban narrative is dislodged through the apparent fixed montage of historical/mythological paintings, I think it generates a new way in which young citizens could start interacting with Indian culture. It’s almost like reading an Amar Chitra Katha comic painted to a large scale. Each tableau has a story behind it and a lesson to be learnt. > > The walls can be the key to change as the new canvas for budding artists and could even be used as innovative out-door galleries displaying unexpected talent a-la John Pugh. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1187338/Off-wall-The-astonishing-3D-murals-painted-sides-buildings-trompe-loeil-artist.html > > In Mumbai, many a billboard painter’s skill has been rendered obsolete due to the technological changes in the advertising field. This loss of livelihood could be rechanneled and put to creative use in the city of flyovers! > > Ramola Naik-Singru > > Adjunct Professor, Center for Development, > > Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines > > > > PhD (candidate) Urban and Regional Planning > > Department of Geography & Environment > > London School of Economics & Political Science, U.K. > > _____________________________________________ > > E-mail: ramolan at gmail.com; r.n.naik-singru at lse.ac.uk > > 2009/9/25 Rohan DSouza > > Hi All, > The city corporation of Bangalore has recently gone on a wall beautifcation drive in the city aimed supposedly at 'bringing down defacement of public property' ( http://beta.thehindu.com/news/cities/Bangalore/article19884.ece) This has resulted in the walls of the city being painted by artists, displaying various themes, ranging from the mythological to the cultural, heritage etc. > While passing by these newly adorned walls, one gets the impression that despite the colours and attempted vibrancy of the paintings, this has changed their essential character. These walls which have a dynamic nature by being notice boards of cultural, political, social and even economic activities in the city, have now morphed into static snapshots of the tourism department. > Walls in Bangalore have, like most other urban centres, been sites of announcement of new movies, political rallies, job opportunities and in some places graffiti as well as adornments of pan, tobacco etc. As movies change, political rallies and gatherings come and go, social circumstances change, the walls respond to these ebbs and flows with an ongoing narrative of urban life. The new initiative by the city corporation, in the name of beautification, is changing these walls of urban commentary into lifeless and single dimensional paintings, that will stay as 'they used a special weather-proof paint'! > Rgds, > Rohan > > > _______________________________________________ > Urbanstudygroup mailing list > Urban Study Group: Reading the South Asian City > > To subscribe or browse the Urban Study Group archives, please visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/urbanstudygroup > > > > ________________________________ > Beyond Hotmail — see what else you can do with Windows Live. Find out more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091003/9d9a8568/attachment.html From rahulks7 at gmail.com Mon Oct 5 09:17:24 2009 From: rahulks7 at gmail.com (Rahul Srivastava) Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 09:17:24 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] URBZ MASHUP MUMBAI Workshop, Oct 29 - Nov 1 Message-ID: Dear Friends, URBZ announces its first MASHUP workshop in Mumbai to be held between Oct 29 and Nov 1, 2009. The venue is the JJ School of Art and Architecture and the sites include Girgaum and Bhuleshwar stretching from Chowpatty to Crawford Market. The MASHUP workshop is an opportunity for urban practitioners to collectively explore localities, streets and neighbourhoods, bring in their own experiences to produce new ways of looking at, visualizing and imagining the city. Architects, planners, designers, writers, activists, film-makers, photographers from all over the world will meet, interact, explore, combine and exchange their images, narratives and experiences. The workshop will explore some of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, archive ongoing transformations, introduce thoughts, ideas and images from elsewhere and help visualize the future in a manner that does justice to both, the history and potential of these spaces. For more info, please visit http://urbz.net/workshops/mashup/mumbai Please do register at the earliest, write to us if you have any queries and forward this email! Cheers! The URBZ Team -- URBZ - User-Generated Cities -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091005/89e7e427/attachment-0001.html From ramolan at gmail.com Tue Oct 6 06:40:15 2009 From: ramolan at gmail.com (Ramola Singru) Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:10:15 +0800 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Urban Age Recruitment: Research Officer, 9 October Deadline In-Reply-To: References: <1884580384-1463792126-1253897534@urbanage.b.topica.com> Message-ID: FYI Urban Age Recruitment - 9 October Deadline Research Officer in Urban Development and Economics Urban Age is looking to recruit a new Research Officer in Urban Development and Economics to work in its research programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science Application deadline: 9 October 2009 < http://urbanage.c.topica.com/maanqHyabTg9FaDhojpcaeQHRE/> * Research Officer in Urban Development and Economics * Salary: From 31,711 to 38,391 per annum inclusive. * Reference: RES/09/06 * Application Deadline: 5.30pm on Friday 9 October 2009 Urban Age, LSE Cities and LSE's Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion are currently looking for a Research Officer specialising in Urban Development and Economics to help facilitate research for "The Next Urban Economy" project and for the "Weak Market Cities" programme. Candidates should have a Master degree (or above level) in relevant field, proven experience in empirical urban development research, and a committed approach to rigorous academic research. For a full application pack please see the instructions on how to apply < http://urbanage.c.topica.com/maanqHyabThhtaDhojpcaeQHRE/> , notes for applicants , job description , person specification < http://urbanage.c.topica.com/maanqHyabThhwaDhojpcaeQHRE/> and personal details form (pdf) (or, Word version ). If you cannot download the pack, please call 020 7955 6183 or email hr.recruit.res at lse.ac.uk quoting referenceRES/09/06. We value diversity and wish to promote equality at all levels. Urban Age Cities Programme, London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 7706 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7955 7697 Email: urban.age at lse.ac.uk www.urban-age.net Alfred Herrhausen Society < http://urbanage.c.topica.com/maanqHyabThhdaDhojpcaeQHRE/> Deutsche Bank, Unter den Linden 13/15, 10117 Berlin, Germany Tel: +49 (0)30 3407 4201 Email: ute.weiland at db.com www.alfred-herrhausen-gesellschaft.de < http://urbanage.c.topica.com/maanqHyabThhdaDhojpcaeQHRE/> If you wish to be added to the mailing list please click here to subscribe . Unsubscribe < http://topica.com/f/unsub.html/aaadztiw0jh8j0isffjkfhm6hnetgneusj31fvah5q1b50> | Update Profile | Confirm < http://topica.com/f/?a2jeFk.aDhojp.ci5uLm5h.c> | Complain < http://www.topica.com/f/abuse.html?aaadztiw0jh8j0isffjkfhm6hnetgneusj31fvah5q1b50> | Forward < http://www.topica.com/f2f/?f=aaadztiw0jh8j0isffjkfhm6hnetgneusj31fvah5q1b50&r=r.n.naik-singru%40lse.ac.uk> Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091006/5f6aae15/attachment.html From rajivkumar_rk at yahoo.com Wed Oct 7 18:03:25 2009 From: rajivkumar_rk at yahoo.com (Rajiv Kumar) Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 05:33:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fw: protest against cash for food scheme from 11am- Mandi House to Jantar Mantar Message-ID: <666008.49889.qm@web37301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 9/29/09, Delhi shramik sangthan wrote: From: Delhi shramik sangthan Subject: Rally & Public meeting on PDS To: aarti at sarai.net, act_ngo at yahoo.co.uk, aditya at sarai.net, ajitbiomed at gmail.com, ajkaur2004 at yahoo.co.in, alakshendra39 at gmail.com, aldbss at rediffmail.com, amb1857 at yahoo.com, anand at pssindia.net, ashchakra2001 at yahoo.com, baroda at narmada.org, bharti41 at gmail.com, bipimse at cal.vsnl.net.in, bvd at vsnl.net, carrilynch at msn.com, cbox at careindia.org, chieforganizer at acorn.org, creatinghomes at yahoo.co.uk, dsharma at ndf.vsnl.net.in, dwfdelhi at bol.net.in, efrah at rediffmail.com, fedinablr at gmail.com, gice_07 at yahoo.com, gos at bol.net.in, gotoneeraja at yahoo.com, gotoneerja at yahoo.com, indianyouthorgs at yahoo.co.uk, isi at isidelhi.org.in, jadsule at hotmail.com, janvikas_eq at icenet.net, jenifer_2007 at yahoo.co.in, jih at vsnl.com, kumar111_prat at yahoo.co.in, laya at sancharnet.in, leds.jaipur at gmail.com, legalcell_ncw at yahoo.co.in, madhu_pathariya at yahoo.co.in, madhura06 at gmail.com, makdhan at vsnl.com, martin at vavsarjan.org, meenakshi672003 at yahoo.co.in, nfiwdelhi at yahoo.com, niwcydnagpur at gmail.com, Parwat_peeyush at rediffmail.com, pdivakar at satyam.net.in, peter.foster at telegraph.co.uk, projectswati at yahoo.com, psamantra at rediffmail.com, ranjanapadhi at yahoo.co.uk, ravip29 at gmail.com, roy.sunita at gmail.com, ruth at blr.vsnl.net.in, sahyogita at rediffmail.com, sakshi.cec at gmail.com, salah_action at yahoo.co.in, sameapen at gmail.com, sanjay69 at hotmail.com, sanjay at narmada.org, seetasharma at gmail.com, sharonsamuel at yahoo.co.in, shashikar at redifffmail.com, sk.deshpande at nabard.org, somakp at gmail.com, sweta at rgfindia.com, teesta at gmail.com, udayancare at gmail.com, update.collective at gmail.com, vincent at ncdhr.org, vsuneel at gmail.com, walterpeter at indiatimes.com, willyindia at gmail.com, workers at vsnl.net, yamunajiye at gmail.com, yuvacentre at gmail.com, "Alan Greig" , "asif iqbal" , "contact at adaa.in" , "cri. delhi" , "Dalits Media Watch" , "Dr Abhishek Singhvi" , "Gender Desk - Caritas India" , "HRLN" , "jan urhahn" , "lilabati samom" , "Loyla cpllege" , "navodita pandey" , "Priti Darooka" , "rajiv kumar" , "sammaanfoundation" , "Seeta Sharma" , "shweta tripathi" , "skampy hastir" Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 7:32 AM                             Delhi Shramik Sangathan                                                                 Protest over cash for food scheme   Mass rally & Public meeting on 8th Oct’09 from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar at 10am     Dear Friends                          Zindabad!   Greetings from Delhi Shramik Sangathan!                                                                  The Below Poverty Line (BPL) families living in slums areas, J J Colonies & unauthorized colonies are forced to come on the roads to protest against the “cash for food” proposal of Delhi Government. Delhi CM & Minister of Food & Civil Supplies have announced a scheme of providing cash of Rs. 1100/pm to BPL families instead of ration & kerosene oil. They have proposed the scheme to the Planning Commission. The protest is being organized by Delhi Shramik Sangathan and supported by several other organizations, trade unions and individuals. The protests have been organized in series at Traffic signals of Sector-I, R K Puram, Uttam Nagar and Peera Garhi on 23rd , 24th & 25th Sept’09 respectively by the residents of slum communities of R K Puram, Peera Garhi, Paschim Vihar, Sultanpuri, Jwalapuri , J J colony, Hastasal & Vikaspuri.   The protest was a symbolic protest where around 300 affected poor families assembled and formed human chains demanding   1)      Abolition of cash for food scheme immediately as it goes against the basic objective of Food Dept to provide subsidized food to the needy & poor families of the state. 2)      The income criteria for identifying BPL families to be changed as it is very old, unrealistic and half of the minimum wages of Delhi. We demand income criteria for identifying BPL families should be equal to the minimum wages of the state. The present criterion is reducing the actual number of BPL families & that the Government wants. 3)      Universalization of Public Distribution System (PDS) as 80% of the nation population need subsidized food from PDS. (Refer to the Arjun Sen Gupta  committee report) 4)      Abolition of categorization of Ration cards as it has divided the poor and left many poor out of its purview. 5)      Increased participation of poor in making the system more transparent and poor friendly. 6)      Strict action against corrupt politicians, Food Dept officials & ration dealers as it will boost the morale of the poor consumers.   The Government arguments that the corruption is the main basis of withdrawing subsidized food from PDS (means closing or reducing the size of Food Dept) & proposing cash scheme and if it becomes the principle of removing corruption from the institutions then DDA, MCD,  slum & J J wing, Delhi Police are the most corrupt institutions in Delhi. Why not these institutions should be shut down? Now why Government has opened 22 new police stations? Do they want to legalize the corruption?   If there is corruption in Food Dept, then we want to know that how many desciplinenary actions have been taken by the Government to check the corruption against the bureaucrats & shop keepers. This should be made to the public. DSS and its members have filed hundreds of RTIs & complaints against the corrupt shop keepers & officials and no actions have taken by the Government. What does it indicate?   The hidden agenda is something else which Government does not want to expose & that is withdrawing support from the welfare measures/schemes. This is being done as part of the New Liberal Economic Policy of the Government under the pressure from the International financial institutions. If this experiment becomes successful then the Government can play the same card for education & health sectors.   Another fact is that only 39% of the BPL families have received BPL cards so far in country. The rest 61% identified BPL families are still waiting for the cards. The poor women & children are the victim of malnourishment & hunger. If the subsidized food scheme is closed down then the poor women & children will be the most affected and there would be no control on market, prices on the basic food products etc.   Another question is that who will control this money & for what use? At present, women go to the fair price shop to collect the food grain & kerosene oil but once this scheme is implemented, the slum women have fear that the money might be used for purposes other than ration & kerosene oil.   Delhi Shramik Sangathan is organizing these protests in series from 23rd Sept to 5th Oct’09 at major traffic signals of the city and it will culminate in a mass rally & public meeting on 8th Oct’09 from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar at 10am. We want a debate on the proposed scheme in the city.   Please join the rally & Public meeting.   Schedule of symbolic protest and Human chain at pavements of traffic signals/squares:   SN Date Venue Timings 1 23.09.09 Sector-I Traffic signal, R K Puram 4pm-6pm 2 24.09.09 Uttam Nagar Traffic Signal 9am-12 noon 3 25.09.09 Traffic signal, Peera Garhi 4pm-6pm 4 30.09.09 Traffic signal, Richi Rich, Shalimar Bagh 9am-12 noon 5 30.09.09 Rampura, near petrol pump 4pm-6pm 6 01.10.09 Okhla roundel, ph-II 9AM-12Noon 7 5.10.09 Traffic signal, Mayapuri chowk 9am-12 noon 8 5.10.09 F- block Traffic signal, Mangolpuri 4pm-6pm       Ramendra/Anita   Contact Add- Flat No- 231, Pocket-A, Sector-13, Phase-II, DWARKA, New Delhi-110075, Ph-011-28031792, 9868815915. Email- delhidss at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091007/0020f931/attachment-0001.html From campaigns at ipetitions.com Thu Oct 8 12:58:04 2009 From: campaigns at ipetitions.com (campaigns at ipetitions.com) Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 03:28:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Message from suma Message-ID: <20091008072804.C882A10A0018@w2.angle9.com> Hello, suma would like you to visit the following online campaign, by iPetitions: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/reviseICSSRdoctoralfellowship Message: Please join in this petition _____________________________________________________________ Create a petition, sign a petition: At http://www.ipetitions.com, your voice counts. From outtes at uol.com.br Thu Oct 8 14:34:13 2009 From: outtes at uol.com.br (outtes) Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 06:04:13 -0300 Subject: [Urbanstudy] CFP: Cities and Urban Regions in Latin America and International Urban and Planning Issues. Message-ID: <4acdab0d87d4_6efaffa9eac1dc@weasel1.tmail> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091008/009eeced/attachment.html From anant_umn at yahoo.co.uk Sat Oct 10 07:45:29 2009 From: anant_umn at yahoo.co.uk (anant maringanti) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:45:29 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] The Cold White Light of Truth has just left us Message-ID: <8d5106ed0910091915n521ee9f4nfac8c03fe8fff62a@mail.gmail.com> for all those who come to their senses in urban India --- K. Balagopal – the celebrated civil liberties activist is no more. When you grow up in Hyderabad, there are shadows that you grow up under. These are shadows that nurture you – give you the courage. First, Balagopal was a phenomena. We heard about him. Never saw him. In some part because he was in Warangal, not Hyderabad. That’s where he began to be known, politically. A mathematics lecturer, who was deeply committed to revolution. His writings began appearing in the press and the incisiveness of each word he wrote was striking. He never minced words. There was a clarity in his writing – especially his early writings — that was absolutely rare – a kind of illuminative capacity so well described by the Brechtian idea of “the cold white light” of truth. That was Balagopal. Fiercely honest. Armed with the toolbox of Marxist theory that he had mastered even as he mastered Stochastic Environments, he taught many of us to think. By the mid 1980s, the legend was visible In the making. As the General Secretary of the APCLC, he guided the organization through the severe period when the NTR government had mounted an all out attack against Peoples War. Balagopal himself was arrested under TADA in the mid 1980s on trumped up charges of murdering a sub inspector. The repression was so great that there was a choice to be made and he did it without fear or furor. He gave up his professorship and moved full time into politics. When he decided to distance himself from the Naxalite movement, it was something that came from an intense period of self reflection. His critical essays that signaled his departure and a new beginning were incisive and moved a generation into thinking about the future of left politics in Andhra, if not in India. The mathematics professor turned himself into a lawyer – and he was there at the service of the people. Balagopal was not a friend. His reticence made it difficult to judge what he thought of you. He was not a mentor for he said little. He offered no personal advice. He just told you things as he saw them – not pushing you one way or the other. And yet, I can say, that there hasn’t been a stretch of time of any significance in my life, when I haven’t thought about him. Every few weeks, something would happen and I would think of something he had written, something he had said, something about the way he led his life. In the wake of Babri Masjid, he wrote a piece in EPW that even today comes to mind – whole paragraphs from it. I think it was that early moment of neo liberalism in India – and here I was reading an article on communal strife and came out feeling that the future of capitalism in India had just been mapped. There have been moments of deep political confusion over the last decade, and often at those moments, I would ask myself – “so what would be Balagopal’s analysis of this?” I would search to see if he has written anything recently – reading him, brought back clarity and a resolve. A few years ago I met him consistently over the period of several months. I needed some advice on the legal twists that a campaign had taken and I would go to visit him. Each time I would go to meet him, I would walk in with some trepidation: “Will I be disturbing him from some more important work?” because he was always at it – never off. “Will he talk much?” I would ask myself. And then, I felt, I had discovered a secret. I began to see him just after he returned home from court. He would be home alone with his young cricket crazy son. Prabhas would be lighting up the apartment with a rapid fire series of transformations from one cricketing persona to another. . Vasanthalakshmi, his wife, he knew, would come home soon from her day at work as a journalist. And he would cook dinner. Something, I felt, was different about him when was cutting vegetables. He would talk more freely suddenly, in the context of that moment where he was just involved in caring for those immediately around him. After that I would joke with people. “If you want Balagopal to talk, get him when he is cooking” I would say and laugh. He was not a friend. He was not a mentor. But he was simply put – an inspiration and a compass – like I have not known. And how is it, that many like me, saw him this way. He started out as a beacon whose very stature as a teller of truth gave us courage. Even after he moved away from the Naxalite movement, his stature only grew. The sheer breadth of work he did made him that bearer of crystalline truth. He not only wrote for the popular press. He not only practiced law. He not only contributed theoretical writings to journals. He not only spoke at numerous public events. He not only served on fact finding teams and gave testimony. He did all this and more. Even with the rigorous schedule through the week, his weekends were always fixed. He was out. Visiting this jilla or that village, this struggle or that community. There was rarely a weekend when he stayed home. It was popular knowledge in left circles in Hyderabad that if you wanted to see Balagopal you had to do it during the week, for come the weekend, he would board a bus and head out. This summer in Hyderabad, on a couple of occasions, I was supposed to go with him and a few others to visit different SEZ and other land struggles. Once to Medak, another time to the open cast mines in Karimnagar. Both times I missed the trip and I wonder now, what else I would have gained from a man who has already given me so much, if I had been there. I just spoke with a friend, who had seen him just yesterday morning – Gita. Little did she know that it was the last she would see of him. He had agreed, sometime ago, to translate the book “Curfewed Nights” on Kashmir by Basharat Peer into Telugu. “How come you are not pestering me about it?” he asked Gita, the wry smile across his face. It was all important to him. Kashmir or Polavaram, Chhatttisgarh or Polepally. The cold white light of truth that guided several generations has just gone out. - – Biju Mathew -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091010/23d19756/attachment.html From kg204 at cam.ac.uk Mon Oct 12 10:36:23 2009 From: kg204 at cam.ac.uk (Kaveri Gill) Date: 12 Oct 2009 06:06:23 +0100 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Of Poverty and Plastic - OUP October 2009 Message-ID: Dear All, Just to let anyone who might be interested know that my book, on poverty and labour market issues amongst those working in the informal waste recovery and plastic recycling sector of Delhi, is out later this month with OUP. You may read a more about it at the following link (although I hasten to add it is being put out at a more reasonable Rs. rate in India): http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780198060864.html I would love to engage in a conversation with anyone who might be interested in any particular aspect of this research, and since I am living and working fulltime in Delhi, meeting up is a possibility too. Please contact me on gill.kaveri at gmail.com, which is my regular email. Best wishes, Kaveri From anant_umn at yahoo.co.uk Tue Oct 13 08:28:46 2009 From: anant_umn at yahoo.co.uk (anant maringanti) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:28:46 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Doctoral and Post-doctoral fellowships at NIAS In-Reply-To: <4b84e4260910121944k1d0bd0b3o9fddbc79041ba36d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4b84e4260910121944k1d0bd0b3o9fddbc79041ba36d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8d5106ed0910121958o3fd61d16l658cea48f17deb6a@mail.gmail.com> Apologies for making a plug for a program I am associated with. This program (see below) could be a great career-shaping opportunity - small coherent international research team focused on an area that is just opening up at the junction of transnational studies, globalization studies and urban studies - all focused on medium towns in India. anant * * Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Fellowships *National Institute of Advanced Studies* * * * * The National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) is a multidisciplinary research institute located in Bangalore. We are searching for two Ph.D. students and one Post-Doctoral Fellow to work in a new research programme of the School of Social Sciences, entitled ‘Provincial Globalisation: The Impact of Reverse Transnational Flows in India’s Regional Towns’. This is an international collaborative programme of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR), University of Amsterdam (UvA), and NIAS, beginning in January 2010. The doctoral fellowships will be for four years beginning in August 2010 and the post-doc position for two years beginning in May 2010. *Eligibility for doctoral fellowships:** * The fellowships are open to those who have completed / are completing (by July 2010) a Master’s degree in in sociology, social anthropology, geography, or related social sciences, with at least 55 % marks. Candidates with M.Phil. degrees or relevant research experience will be preferred. Selected candidates should have excellent writing skills in English and a good knowledge of Kannada or Telugu (spoken and written). The selected candidates will undergo a year of coursework and research training prior to fieldwork, half of which will be conducted at NIAS and the other half at ASSR, Amsterdam. The fellowships will provide four years of support as well as funding for research and other expenses related to the programme. *Required qualifications for the post-doctoral fellowship: * The post-doctoral fellow will design and carry out an independent project on the economics of transnational migration and resource flows. Candidates should have finished a Ph.D. degree in economics, preferably with specialization in migration studies. The successful candidate will have strong quantitative and analytical skills and an ability to utilise diverse data sources. This is a full-time two-year position based at NIAS. *Applications:* The deadline for applications is *December 31, 2009*. Short-listed candidates will be invited to NIAS for an interview in mid-February 2010. Interested candidates should write to Provincial.Globalisation at gmail.com, or check the NIAS website, for further details on the research programme and application process. Applicants should submit their curriculum vitae including the names and addresses of three referees, copies of relevant degree certificates, a writing sample, and a short statement of purpose (3-5 pages) based on the outline of the research programme (posted on the NIAS website, http://www.nias.res.in/), to: Dr. Carol Upadhya National Institute of Advanced Studies Indian Institute of Science Campus Bangalore 560012 India Email: Provincial.Globalisation at gmail.com, carol.upadhya at gmail.com -- Dr. Carol Upadhya Associate Professor School of Social Sciences National Institute of Advanced Studies Indian Institute of Science Campus Bangalore 560012 India office: +91 80 2218 5000/ 5141 (ext) cell: +91(0) 97408 50141 carol at nias.iisc.ernet.in carol.upadhya at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091013/f81f11c3/attachment.html From yanivbin at gmail.com Wed Oct 14 16:25:29 2009 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:25:29 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Metro could bring high court down In-Reply-To: <86b8a7050910140353p4e432fc5pe693c5608b8b96dd@mail.gmail.com> References: <86b8a7050910140353p4e432fc5pe693c5608b8b96dd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <86b8a7050910140355r3768ae94q73d6231d60b09845@mail.gmail.com> Earlier the water table and now the highcourt Decimating bangalore http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_metro-could-bring-high-court-down_1298801 Metro could bring high court down Bosky Khanna & Senthalir S / DNA Wednesday, October 14, 2009 9:53 IST Bangalore: One of Bangalore's heritage structures, the Karnataka high court, along with vidhana soudha and the general post office, face a serious threat of damage when tunnelling work for the Metro's underground section begins in the vicinity of these landmark structures in Cubbon Park. Surprisingly, no scientific tests have been carried out at the site to ensure that these buildings are not damaged by the blasts that will be done to bore a kilometre-long tunnel through the hard, rocky underground. Experts said the effect of the blasts will create vibrations travelling up to 200 metres. All the three buildings fall within this radius. The project developers, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL), have indeed carried out pre-tunnelling blast tests on sub-surface rocky features to study its impact on structures. But that was done about four months ago, and that too, on the city's outskirts to study its impact on buildings, BMRCL sources admitted. Inexplicable indeed! No blast (or simulation) tests have been carried out at the site to estimate the amount of damage that could occur to the high court, the vidhana soudha and the general post office. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091014/ec610114/attachment.html From cugambetta at yahoo.com Thu Oct 15 21:30:59 2009 From: cugambetta at yahoo.com (Curt Gambetta) Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:00:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] Fw: [bangaloresolidarity] Meeting in the Memory of K. Balagopal- Fri 16th October (5 pm) at Ashirvad In-Reply-To: References: <1773a06d0910130427t2ada08ableaddb229ce592b41@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <887313.67639.qm@web57416.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Following from Anant's post. For those in Bangalore tomorrow. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: siddharth narrain To: Siddharth Narrain ; alfexternal at googlegroups.com; internal at altlawforum.org; bangaloresolidarity at yahoogroups.com; Sarai Reader-list ; commons-law at sarai.net Sent: Tue, October 13, 2009 7:08:40 AM Subject: [bangaloresolidarity] Meeting in the Memory of K. Balagopal- Fri 16th October (5 pm) at Ashirvad Dear All, There will be a meeting in memory of human rights activist and lawyer, K. Balagopal. Balagopal, who was an inspiration to many in the civil liberties and human rights movement in India, died of a cardiac arrest on October 8th. Balagopal was the founder member of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) and later of Human Rights Forum. ,He was also an advocate who fought several cases to obtain justice for the poor without charge. Known for his principled stands and sharp legal mind, he lived and worked with utmost simplicity and commitment—a comrade and a friend whose loss is irreparable. Balagopal was known across the country for his profound scholarship and, more than that, fearless activism in the arena of human rights covering a wide range of issues. Please forward this email to others who might be interested in coming. There will also be a screening of a short film put together by Deepa Dhanraj from interviews conducted with Balagopal over the years. Venue: Ashirvad, no. 30, St Mark's Road Cross > >Date: October 16th (Friday) > >Time: 5pm to 7pm (tea will be served at 4:30 pm) > >In solidarity, >Siddharth __._,_.___ 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 Recent ActivityVisit Your Group Give Back Yahoo! for Good Get inspired by a good cause. Y! Toolbar Get it Free! easy 1-click access to your groups. Yahoo! Groups Start a group in 3 easy steps. Connect with others. . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091015/9c1829ad/attachment-0001.html From veena at doccentre.net Tue Oct 20 10:52:57 2009 From: veena at doccentre.net (veena) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:52:57 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Towards Copenhagen: Discussion at CED, Oct 21, Wednesday Message-ID: <1256016177.2110.3.camel@cedban8.doccentre.net> Bangalore Platform invites you to the panel discussion on Climate Change * The evidence of climate crisis: J.Srinivasan, Indian Institute of Science * Climate change and the crisis in development scenario: Sharachchandra Lele, ATREE * Towards an Alternative Indian Position: D.Raghunandan, Centre for Technology & Development, and Delhi Science Forum Date and Time: October 21, 2009 (Wednesday); 2.30 to 5.30pm Venue: Centre for Education and Documentation, Domlur For directions: http://www.doccentre.net/About/ced-map.pdf or send mail to cedban at doccentre.net or call 9341248784 Centre for Education and Documentation No. 7, 8th Main, 3rd Phase, Domlur 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560071 Phone: 080-25353397 Email: cedban at doccentre.net The Bangalore Platform is an open civic space for reflection and action through greater understanding of the science, policy and ethical issues in the context of Climate Change -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091020/483c5a7d/attachment.html From leo at esgindia.org Thu Oct 22 11:38:52 2009 From: leo at esgindia.org (Leo Saldanha ESG) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:38:52 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Your lung space is going from under your nose Message-ID: <4ADFF6F4.3080307@esgindia.org> Your lung space is going from under your nose PK Surendran / DNA Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:42 IST Email Email Print Print Share Share *Bangalore: *Those with commercial interests are eating into the city's lung spaces. But the horticulture department, the guardian of these spaces, remains in the dark. Here's one to begin with. Thumbing the nose at the Karnataka Government Park (preservation) Act, 1975, and several government orders forbidding the use of Cubbon Park for anything other than horticulture purpose, the Public Works Department (PWD) has been filing applications with the high court for various construction purposes. India-International Law, a law firm fighting for over a decade for the protection of Cubbon Park on behalf of Bimal Desai, an entrepreneur-environmentalist, says government departments, other than the horticulture department, have been representing the park in their plea seeking a judicial nod for allotting more park land for non-park purposes. "This is ominous," saysthe law firm's advocate MG Kumar. To be sure, the horticulture department has no information on new pleas for more Cubbon Park land. "There are no pending cases to our knowledge on seeking more land by other government departments within Cubbon Park for non-park development," says horticulture department deputy director M Jagadeesh. Meanwhile, Bimal Desai told DNA on Wednesday he would soon challenge the allotment of land for Namma Metro from Lalbagh Botanical Garden in the Supreme Court. He said, so far, it was only Cubbon Park that was under constant attack, but it is happening to Lalbagh too. NGOs and protesters fighting forthe premier parks contend that Metro's claim of Lalbagh and Cubbon Park is no ordinary "development versus environment" tussle, but violates the very sanctimony of the law that protects public property. Leo Saldhana, convenor of Environment Support Group, which has been fighting against apportioning of the two parks, says: "It's significant that the Lalbagh portion for the Metro project was acquired under Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board Act and is sold at commercial rates. The Metro is a commercial venture aided by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation; it is mentioned in the detailed project report that all property of the project is deemed as collateral security for winning finance for the project, points out Saldhana. "The project's cost escalation is a straw in the wind," he says. Says ESG's lawyer Sunil Dutt Yadav, "Once the precedent is set, soon the remaining parks will also be bartered by the powers-that-be." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/9a5b5115/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: email.gif Type: image/gif Size: 263 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/9a5b5115/attachment.gif -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: print.gif Type: image/gif Size: 285 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/9a5b5115/attachment-0001.gif -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: share.gif Type: image/gif Size: 267 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/9a5b5115/attachment-0002.gif -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: lg.php Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/9a5b5115/attachment-0003.gif -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: leo.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 322 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/9a5b5115/attachment.vcf From bhargavi_srao at yahoo.com Thu Oct 22 17:24:11 2009 From: bhargavi_srao at yahoo.com (Bhargavi S.) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:54:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Urbanstudy] =?utf-8?q?=28no_subject=29?= Message-ID: <202427.90010.qm@web32603.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Making our Homes Environmentally Just A workshop for urban residents to understand how to build and live Green Organized by Environment Support Group in collaboration with Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology On: Saturday the 7th of November 2009 between 3.00 pm - 6.00 pm At: Regional Institute of Cooperative Management, No.6, Padmanabhanagar, Banashankari 2nd Stage,  Bangalore-70. Tel: 26692036 Homes are spaces of comfort. It is a space to retire and feel one with our family and local community.  Feeling at home is to feel comfortable with life itself. Yet, every home today contributes incrementally to a decrease in our overall quality of life.  The energy and water we consume, the waste we dispose, the materials we use to build, the lifestyles we adopt all together contribute to the overall stress on our ecological systems to sustain our way of life. As middle classes become increasingly powerful in shaping the direction of development in India, and consumerism is equated as development itself, the value of nature is diminishing in our overall perception of our life on this living planet.  The result is dire consequences to present and future generations. Can we tread softly?  Can we make sure we contribute to burning less coal, or stopping the damming of rivers, or ensuring highly risky nuclear technology is at all required?  Can we make it possible for our cities to look clean and green by socially just practices and adopting simple home based techniques?  Can we ensure that rivers flow for sustaining life and forests and growing food, because we have chosen to harvest rain?  Can we ensure that our choice of building material is honed by a deeper understanding of causing the least disturbance to natural ecosystems?  Can we live in urban areas and yet be one with nature?  If you are one who is involved in such questioning, this workshop is for you. The workshop is especially designed keeping in mind needs of  students, homemakers, resident welfare associations and apartment owners associations, teachers, managements of institutions and in general anyone who is keen to minimise their carbon footprints. Come and learn how you can convert your waste to compost at home without a mess; harvest rain and thus use free and healthy water; understand how you can effectively make use of the abundant sunlight for many of your energy needs; and thus explore many more ways to lead not merely a low carbon lifestyle but also in an environmentally and socially just way.  The net result, therefore, will be a safer planet for us, our futures and that of future generations. Registration Fee: Rs. 150/- per person (Cheques/DDs to be made in favour of Environment Support Group) To confirm your participation, please write to Sruthi Subbanna at  sruthi at esgindia.org  or call any of our office numbers. We look forward to your active participation in this workshop. Sincerely, Bhargavi S. Rao Coordinator (Education) Environment Support Group Email:bhargavi at esgindia.org      Environment Support Group, 1572, 36th Cross, 100 ft Outer Ring Road, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore -70 Tel: 26713559-60 Email:esg at esgindia.org  Website: www.esgindia.org  www.esgindia.org www.newsrack.in -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/48e8c4ae/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Making Our Homes Environmentally just_workshop Flyer.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 209629 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091022/48e8c4ae/attachment-0001.pdf From leofsaldanha at gmail.com Tue Oct 27 11:25:09 2009 From: leofsaldanha at gmail.com (Leo Saldanha) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:25:09 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] [Fwd: [rti_india] OUR ACTIVIST FROM Belgaum Will Get Police PROTECTION From Tomorrow] Message-ID: <4AE68B3D.7010308@gmail.com> Rajeev Chawla is a highly discussed official, in urban studies in particular, because of his controversial role in codifying and turning electronic, revenue records in Karnataka. Many international institutions and software companies, and also a couple of pro-establishment NGOs and non-profit consultancy firms, have heralded these initiatives as "progressive". However, many social activists and urban researchers have criticised such "reforms" as homogenising plurality of relationships between people and communities and private and public propreties. In one instance that I am familiar with, the electronic archival of information has aided poaching of private properties such as in the case of the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project. This has caused unimaginable suffering to tens of families and communities. In this context, I found this post on the RTI list and thought this may interest those who are following on this trajectory still. Question is, why should anyone feel so threatened by the mere request for his assets declaration? Or am I being too naive? Leo -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [rti_india] OUR ACTIVIST FROM Belgaum Will Get Police PROTECTION From Tomorrow Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:08:59 +0530 (IST) From: Vikram Simha Reply-To: rti_india at yahoogroups.com To: humjanenge at yahoogroups.co.in, RTI_india at yahoogroups.com, Karnataka Intiative RTI , rti4empowerment at yahoogroups.com, rti4ngo at yahoogroups.com, antibriberycampaign at yahoogroups.com Dear All , We Have Just received Information that Our Young Activist and Advocate Who had Sought Assets & Liabilites of IAS Officer Mr Rajeev Chawla and who was threatened by Staff of the Department to which Mr Rajeev Chawla Heads( the Survey dept)of Dire Consequences , has At last succeded in Getting the Much needed Police protection from tomorrow . It was an Collective effort and lots of Behind Schenes Manouvering and Force full Arguments Before the KIC By our RTI Study Centre and Rigid and Stubborn Stand before the KIC which Convinced that this police protection be Provided to Sri Ashok Halgali our activist From Belgaum We Had to Virtually struggle at every step and probably this is the a Real achivement . we Made extensive Use of the Murder of our Activist Mr Venkatesh and his case . We Still Mourn Mr Venkatesh's Death and Pray GOD for his soul to RIP N vikramsimha ,TRUSTEE RTI Study Centre & KRIA Katte , #12 Sumeru Sir M N Krishna Rao Road , Basvangudi < Bangalore 560004. Yahoo! India has a new look. Take a sneak peek http://in.yahoo.com/trynew __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Photos | Links | Polls | Calendar MARKETPLACE Mom Power: Discover the community of moms doing more for their families, for the world and for each other Yahoo! Groups 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 Recent Activity * 2 New Members Visit Your Group Yahoo! Finance It's Now Personal Guides, news, advice & more. Need traffic? Drive customers With search ads on Yahoo! Y! Messenger PC-to-PC calls Call your friends worldwide - free! . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: leofsaldanha.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 321 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091027/9c7f3eee/attachment.vcf From yanivbin at gmail.com Wed Oct 28 00:28:21 2009 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:28:21 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Transition city blues Blr on BBC news Message-ID: <86b8a7050910271158v15892ed8ic67d8db8b08133f6@mail.gmail.com> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8293648.stm *Transition city blues * By Jamillah Knowles BBC News * Bangalore is an Indian city where hi-tech and crippling poverty live side by side. * * As the rate of development in Bangalore gathers pace, some fear that the many impoverished communities that also call the city home may be left behind. * Since the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s, the Indian tech sector has expanded rapidly. The major players - including Microsoft, Infosys, Cisco and Google - exist in enormous "tech parks" crammed with tall, shiny office buildings. Meanwhile on the same block, piles of rotting rubbish, beggars and stray dogs surround traffic that is heavy with pollution and often locked in a loud and aggressive jam. Contrast in this city is not new; the levels of poverty are growing faster than the tech industry as migrant workers from other states join the population to aid the development. There are concerns that this impoverished population could be left behind in the city of the future, unless big businesses acknowledge that the local infrastructure is under a great deal of pressure. * Ethical business offline * Many foreign businesses have set up outsourcing hubs in Bangalore and beyond - India is a leader in this type of business. Meanwhile non-governmental organisations and aid workers struggle to support the poorer aspects of society, and many believe that big businesses could have a more influential hand in helping those who are not doing so well out of the tech boom. Azim Premji is the chairman of Wipro, one of the largest companies in India. He recognised the issues of his local communities and created the Azim Premji foundation. It is a separate venture to his corporation and privately funded. It addresses methods of education in the hope that supporting youth will mean creating a better society in the long run. “ * If corporations accept that their employees have a life beyond the work place then they should take some responsibility and reach out to that life. * ” Dileep Ranjekar CEO, Azim Premji Foundation Foundation chief executive Dileep Ranjekar believes that large corporations could be making more effort to invest in their communities. "Many corporate efforts are fairly myopic, narrow minded and self centred. These are strong words but they are realities," he argues. "If corporations accept that their employees have a life beyond the workplace then they should take some responsibility and reach out to that life." Bangalore is not the only tech city in India. Hyderabad was initially seen as a forerunner in the race for a technology capital. Nishant Shah is the director of research at the Centre for Internet and Society. He says that the problems Bangalore faces are not unique. "People only look at the IT industry and economy in Bangalore. But there are questions of culture, language and communities which also constitute this city." * Culture change * However winds of political change may begin blow in the favour of smaller businesses, as India's bureaucrats are starting to emerge from more diverse backgrounds. Some live themselves in neighbourhoods that are officially designated as slum areas, and so have first-hand knowledge of the infrastructure problems that need to be addressed. “ * I think the argument about Bangalore changing too fast and growing too fast is a false argument. * ” Solomon Benjamin National Institute for Advanced Studies "It's these political conflicts and upheavals that show what democracy is all about," said Dr Solomon Benjamin, associate professor at the National Institute for Advanced studies. "I think the argument about Bangalore changing too fast and growing too fast is a false argument." * New order * On the surface it may look as though big business, outsourcing and technology have brought about a socio-economic catastrophe. Along the Mahatma Gandhi Road, couples used to walk, people used to meet. Today it is a muddy area where the already crazed traffic struggles to get around the metro site construction. People don't tend to want to spend time there. Bangalore feels like a city in planning where too many people turned up to populate it too soon. But it's those people who will hopefully build and restructure their city to make it work for them. Dileep Ranjekar believes that they will pull together. "When the pride of a society is challenged, people unite. Change comes when there is an acceptance that it is in the self interest of every individual. Everyone sees the benefit of that. You must create the right conditions." Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8293648.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8295856.stm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/urbanstudygroup/attachments/20091028/edcc5327/attachment.html From anjakovacs at gmail.com Fri Oct 30 15:19:44 2009 From: anjakovacs at gmail.com (Anja Kovacs) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:19:44 +0530 Subject: [Urbanstudy] Call for Applications: Maps for Making Change in India Message-ID: <67ee1d140910300249x50cdb418ra2fcbe9bfcd5bd6e@mail.gmail.com> Dear all, I thought the call for applications below would be of interest to some of you, as mapping techniques could be a powerful advocacy tool for many struggles relating to urban evictions and resettlements, poverty and livelihoods. We would much value applications from groups involved in such struggles. With apologies for cross-posting. Anja [Please feel free to circulate widely] Call for Applications: Maps for Making Change: Using Geographical Mapping Techniques to Support Struggles for Social Justice in India Deadline: 20 November 2009 Maps for Making Change is a two-month project specifically designed for activists and supporters of social movements and campaigns in India. It provides participants with an exciting opportunity to explore how a range of digital mapping techniques can be used to support struggles for social justice. It also allows you to immediately develop and implement in practice a concrete mapping project relevant to your campaign or movement, with full technical support. Interested in joining us? Send in your application by 20 November 2009. Background Most of us think of maps as representations of territory. But have you ever wondered why bastis, slums, unauthorised colonies and monuments of minorities and poor people rarely are given prominence on maps – or at times are even absent altogether? All too often only seats of power, such as big hospitals, the colonies of the rich and diplomatic missions, receive detailed mention. This is because maps simultaneously also function as representations of relations of power and control: which places, communities, historical monuments, townships, colonies and roads are highlighted on a map reflects the power and control that various communities and classes possess or lack. In modern times, this is particularly obvious in planning processes, which incorporate maps as crucial tools in villages and cities alike. To challenge the practice of privileging the powerful on maps, and to create maps from the margins and of margins, therefore has emerged as an important aspect as well as a tool of our fights against injustice in society. Maps for Making Change Today, with the emergence of new technologies such as GPS and the Internet, mapping techniques have advanced beyond the confines of professional cartographers and can be mobilised and used to fight for social justice by anyone with an interest in maps. Are you someone concerned with the state of social justice in the country today? Are you working closely, as an activist or a supporter, with a campaign or social movement? Are you interested in exploring how digital geographical mapping techniques might help facilitate or support your advocacy and awareness raising campaigns and understanding of the power relations in society? Perhaps you already have some ideas on how maps can fit into your work, but you require technical support to put these into practice? Then this is for you. Maps for Making Change is a two-month project that will provide you with the opportunity to explore how mapping can be used to support your campaigns, struggles and movements to fight against injustice. It is jointly organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore) and the Tactical Technology Collective (Bangalore and London), and brings together activists and technologists. Over the course of the project, participants will: * explore and share ideas about the possible uses of geographical maps within the context of campaigns and movements in India; * try out a range of mapping tools and get training and support in the creation and use of maps; * develop and implement your own mapping project, involving the creation and use as well as dissemination of maps, relevant to your campaign's or movement's advocacy and goals. Format Maps for Making Change will take the form of three workshops, with time in between each for participants to work on a mapping project of their choice. The first workshop will take place in Delhi on 3 December, and will be an introductory event, where tools and tactics will be explored and discussed and participants can determine the nature of the information they need to collect to implement their own mapping project. The second workshop will take place over 3 days during the first week of January (exact dates and location to be decided), and will involve actual work on mapping projects, using data and other resources collected by participants in the intervening time. The third workshop will be a two-day event during the first week of February (exact dates and location to be decided), and will be the time for participants to provide overall feedback, as well as to do the final touches on the projects and launch them. Not only during the workshops, but throughout the two-month project period, and at every stage of the development of your project plan, technical support will be available to help participants make your ideas a reality. The organisers will cover travel and accommodation expenses of those who are selected to participate in the project. There is no participation fee. By applying, applicants commit themselves, however, to devoting the necessary time to this project. Where relevant, an organisational commitment to allow you to do this would also be required. Who should apply? This is an event for activists and supporters of movements and campaigns based in India. Preference will be given to applicants that intend to use the project directly for their work within a campaign or movement. Applications are welcomed from individuals, but also from groups of people who are working within the same campaign or movement and who would like to develop and implement a mapping project together. Those who have been centrally involved in designing and implementing communication strategies of campaigns and movements are particularly encouraged to apply, but such a role is not at all a prerequisite to be part of Maps for Making Change. Participants from appropriate backgrounds who simply want to explore the technology and its uses without immediately implementing it will be welcome in so far as space allows. We would like to also encourage applications from students who are involved with campaigns or movements and who would like to learn these skills so as to use them in their advocacy efforts. Students will be provided with special assistance during the programme. All participants should have some familiarity with computer use. While more advanced technology skills are useful, they are not essential: technology support will be provided as required for all participants to ensure that everyone completes their own mapping project. Regretfully, we will be able to accommodate translation only from Hindi to English and vice versa, so applicants will need to be comfortable with either of these languages. How to apply Please answer the questions below in Hindi or in English. You do not need to write long responses (up to 300 words max), but please provide us with enough information to understand your involvement in and commitment to campaigns or movements for social justice, as well as your skills and interest. We also would like to know why you want to be part of the Maps for Making Change project and what are some of the contributions (of whatever kind) you could make to it. You can send your answers by email to maps4change at cis-india.org, or by post to: Maps for Making Change c/o Centre for Internet and Society No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers 14, Cunningham Road Bangalore - 560052 The last day for applications is 20 November 2009. Early applications will make us very happy though! :) *Application Questions*: Please provide answers to all the following questions. 1) Basic personal information: Name: Gender: Date of birth: Nationality: Affiliation/organisation: E-mail address (if available): Telephone and emergency contact number(s): Preferred language of communication: Veg/non veg: Anything else we should know about you (allergies, medical condition, special needs): Are you applying individually or as part of a team? If as part of a team, please provide the names of the other team members here: 2) Where are you from, where do you live now, and what is your current movement/organisational affiliation (movement/organisation you work with, its mission, position you have within it, is your organisation a non-profit, etc.)? 3) What is your wider experience of working with campaigns or movements for social justice? What kinds of initiatives have you been involved in? What kind of responsibilities have you taken up within these? 4) Have you been involved with any technology projects for non-profit organisations or campaigns or movements for social change? If so please briefly explain your experience (what worked, what didn't, what did you like, what not, etc?) and your role within the project. If you haven't been involved with such a project, please explain why you are interested in exploring the use of technology for social change. 5) Why are you interested in joining Maps for Making Change in particular? How can you and your movement/organisation benefit from your participation? 6) Do you already have an idea in mind that involves using maps for social change and that you would like to develop into a project that can support the work of the campaign or movement that you are involved with? If so, please explain. 7) To help us better understand the kind of technical support we will need to provide during Maps for Making Change, please describe your current technical expertise and ability. 8) All participants are encouraged to teach as well as to learn. What kind of contribution to the group's learning do you think you could make? If you require more information about the project or about the application process, please email us at maps4change at cis-india.org, or call us at 080 4092 6283. Looking forward to hearing from you! The Maps for Making Change Team