Document Actions
March 2002
Newsletter- March 2002
Table of Contents:
Reader Launch @ Sarai
Talks @Sarai
Films @Sarai
Open Source/ Free Software Research
---------------------------------------------------
I. Reader Launch @ Sarai
Sarai Reader 02 "Cities of Everyday Lives" was launched on February
27th. Sarai was a buzz of activity with friends, associates and new
acquaintances streaming in through the day.
Writers, activists, medical professionals, media practioners and
concerned citizens gathered together at the Sarai Interface Zone in
the afternoon to talk on their experience of Delhi in the year gone
by. Key speakers included Purushottam Agarwal, Manglesh Dabral, Nishit
Saran, Sumit Ray & Dilip Simeon. The session,
entitled This Year/ This City, borrowed its name from the last section
in Sarai Reader 02 .
The focus shifted to the seminar room by the evening where Ashis Nandy
talked on "The City of the Mind". For those not present the lecture
was streamed live on the internet. It will also be available as audio
files soon on the Sarai website.
Sarai Reader 02 "Cities of Everyday Lives" is available in hardcover &
paperback editions. For more information log onto
www.sarai.net/journal/reader2.html or write in to dak at sarai.net
II. Talks @ Sarai
linuxinindia.pitas.com
All talks will take place in the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054.
1. Media Theorists Series*
March 7, Thursday, 4:00 pm
Networks & Borders: Politics of Migration & Communication
Florian Schneider
Film Maker & New Media Activist
(As co-founder of the no-one-is-illegal campaign Florian Schneider has been
involved in numerous online and offline activities around the issues of
borders, migration and illegality, including the Make-World festival
in Autumn 2001. As a free-lance writer he contributes regularly for
`Sueddeutsche Zeitung' as well as various other mainstream and independent
media in Germany).
*This is in collaboration with the Society for Old & New Media,
Amsterdam
2. March 13, Wednesday, 3:30 pm
Reading the Demolition: Urban Transformation in New Delhi
Diya Mehra
Researcher, University of Texas, Austin
3. March 14, Thursday, 3:30 pm
What's a Community? The Whitechapel Art Gallery & its
multi-ethnic audience in the 1990s
Catherine Lampert
Contemporary Art Historian
4. March 18, Monday, 3:30 pm
Shehar Aur Sapna: Speculating on the City
Ashish Rajadhyaksha
`Shaher Aur Sapna' is a compilation of excerpts from 44 films from the late
silent cinema to 2000. It was assembled for the exhibition: `Bombay/Mumbai
1992-2001', part of `Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis'
(Tate Modern, 2001).
This compilation is a cinephiliac's investigation into the role that the
moving image plays in defining space and desire as a metropolitan construct.
It explores the role that 'Bombay' as an imagined space has had in
constructing the metropolis, as well as the role that the 'cinema' (in its
broadest sense, which includes television, low-end digital `dumps' and
a host of other resources that might well be viewed as cyber-garbage) has
had in constructing 'desire' for all of us.
Ashish Rajadhyaksha is a Film Historian & Cultural Theorist.
5. March 22, Friday, 4:30 pm
Working Visions: The Imprint of Labour in Photography
Ravi Agarwal
Photographer & Environmentalist
`Working Visions...' is Agarwal's reflection on the political, ethical and
aesthetic issues involved in the photographic representation of labour in
India.
Ravi Agarwal is a photographer and environmentalist, whose work encompasses
policy as well as grassroots work on issues of waste, recycling and chemical
safety at the national as well as international level . He is a founder of
Toxics Link, a national information exchange on toxics and head of Srishti,
an environmental group. He has also authored `Down and Out: Labouring under
Global Capitalism'.
Talk @ Sarai:
Talk by RICHARD STALLMAN
The Sarai Programme dak at sarai.net
Fri Mar 15 10:31:22 CET 2002
"Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks"
by RICHARD STALLMAN,
Founder, Free Software Foundation
20 March, 2002, 3:30 pm
Seminar Room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 54.
"COPYRIGHT developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to
fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press.
But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only
draconian punishments can enforce it. The global corporations that profit
from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their
copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we
seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright--to promote
progress, for the benefit of the public--then what must be done is either to
reduce copyright powers or effectively eliminate them, depending on the kind
of work. Governments must now protect the public's right to copy."
RICHARD STALLMAN is "the founder of the GNU Project, launched in 1984 to
develop the free operating system GNU (an acronym for "GNU's Not Unix''), and
thereby give computer users the freedom that most of them have lost. GNU is
free software: everyone is free to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to
make changes either large or small."
Stallman has also founded the related Free Software Foundation (FSF) and is
outspoken about his belief that all software should be free. In his view
proprietary software, for which corporations charge a fee, is wrong from a
moral or ethical standpoint.
Sarai & The British Council, India,
invite you to a lecture on
What's a Community? The Whitechapel Art Gallery & its multi-ethnic
audience in the 1990s
by Catherine Lampert
Contemporary Art Historian
March 14, Thursday, 3:30 pm
Seminar room, CSDS
Catherine Lampert is the former director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery,
London. She is currently an independent curator and a guest lecturer at the
Slade School of Art, University of London; Wimbledon School of Art; the
National Gallery, London and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Thematic exhibitions curated by her include `Seven Stories About Modern Art
in Africa', `New Art from Cuba', `Protest and Survive', `Sacred Circles:
North American Indian Art', `The Modern Spirit in Painting' &
`In the Image of Man: 2000 Years of Indian Art'.
She has a number of published works and has also edited
and contributed to the Centenary Review.
III. Films @Sarai
All screenings are on Fridays, at 4:30 pm, in the Seminar Room, unless
otherwise mentioned. Screenings will be followed by discussions at the
Interface Zone. The films are listed in the order of screening.
1. March 1, 4:30 pm
Freedom, 58 min
Dir. Amar Kanwar
"Freedom" is a documentary film about nature and captivity, about
working people resisting an onslaught on their livelihoods, about
democracy, profit and the sound of the rain.
The film documents and presents insights into many different peoples
struggles in India from the British colonial empire to the
globalisation of today, from the anti mining tribal resistance in
Kashipur and Gandhmardhan in Orissa, the mass movements in Chattisgarh
to the coastal communities in their struggle against big ports and
industrial parks in Kutch and Umbergaon.
"Freedom" was filmed on a DV camera and shot mainly in Assam, Bihar,
Orissa, Chattisgarh, Gujarat and Delhi.
2. March 8, 4:30 pm
Dahan (The Burning)
Dir. Rituparno Ghosh
The film, based on an award winning novel by Suchitra Bhattacharya, is
about two women's search for justice in a man's world. When the
protagonist is saved from attempted rape by another woman, the
subsequent battle within the family, and outside, leads them both to
question the fragile nature of their relationships with the men they
love. It is a film that raises questions of liberation, of rebellion,
of compromises. And ultimately of the personal choices women have to
make. Says Ghosh, in one of his interviews, "it was mainly the spirit
of female bonding that attracted me to the story."
Dahan bagged for its leading ladies, Indrani Haldar and Rituparna
Sengupta, the National Award for Best Actress, split for the first
time ever, between two artistes.
3. March 15, 4:00 pm
Kashmir Film Series
A set of 3 documentaries made on Kashmir:
i. Pather Chujaeri (The Play is on...)
Dir. Pankaj Rishi Kumar
How does art survive in a regime of fear? "Pather Chujaeri" follows
two theatre groups as they prepare for public performances of the
traditional pather form of satire, a rare phenomenon today. For the
bhands, who daily witness the erosion of their way of life, each
performance represents both a change as well as a repetition of the
same brutal fact: that they are not free to share their
revolutionary spirit.
Pankaj Rishi Kumar found an illiterate community that has sustained a
centuries-old tradition in the face of debilitating social and
cultural changes. Although perenially intimidated by the
corruption, violence and intolerance that prevail in Kashmir, the
bhands continue to affirm a commitment to their theatre, to the
critical potential of its form and the liberating joys of
performance. Faith in Sufism has, however, tempered their enthusiam
for satire and they identify with the collective voices of Kashmir's
freedom.
ii. Tell them, the tree they had planted has now grown
Dir. Ajay Raina
"Tell them..." is an account of Raina's return to Kashmir after 12
years - an account that he calls a "journey of fear" - and his
association with the people and places in Srinagar, where he spent his
childhood.
Through the film Raina tries to grapple with the present situation in
Kashmir, with how Kashmiris - both "Us" and "Them" - view the
situation. It is an inquiry into the state of helplessness, confusion
and gloomy uncertainty that Kashmiris feel about the future of their
'cursed' land whose legendary beauty has been fetishised.
This film has won the Best Documentary Video Prize (Golden Conch) at
the just concluded Mumbai International Festival of Documentary and
Short Films.
iii. Ku'near
Dir. Abir Bazaz
The Kashmiri word Ku'near has multiple meanings, particularly Onenesss
and Solitude. Ku'near is a film on Kashmiri language as the language
of solitude and the language of Kashmir's struggle for 'azaadi'.
Nearly 95% Kashmiris cannot read or write Kashmiri. It is hardly
surprising that Kashmiri writing - Sufi or Saivite - is inaccessible
to most Kashmiris. Ku'near uses the state of the Kashmiri language to
encounter the unconscious of the 'azaadi' struggle in Kashmir...And
Ku'near discovers the beginning of an ethical solution to what is
proclaimed as the Kashmir problem”in the reconciliation of Kashmiri
Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims.
IV. Open Source/ Free Software Research
Frederick Noronha, a print media fellow of Sarai, has put together
http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
This page is an attempt at mapping some of the Indian contributions to
the world of Open Source/ Free Software. There's a lot happening,
which has not got the attention it deserves. Check it out. It is
meant to be a work-in-progress report. Frederick
would be grateful for any pointers which you could send to
fred at bytesforall.org
And if you have any comments on the newsletter, or wish to make
suggestions, or simply get in touch with Sarai do write in.
Until next month,
Ranita.
The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054.
email: dak at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
Table of Contents:
Reader Launch @ Sarai
Talks @Sarai
Films @Sarai
Open Source/ Free Software Research
---------------------------------------------------
I. Reader Launch @ Sarai
Sarai Reader 02 "Cities of Everyday Lives" was launched on February
27th. Sarai was a buzz of activity with friends, associates and new
acquaintances streaming in through the day.
Writers, activists, medical professionals, media practioners and
concerned citizens gathered together at the Sarai Interface Zone in
the afternoon to talk on their experience of Delhi in the year gone
by. Key speakers included Purushottam Agarwal, Manglesh Dabral, Nishit
Saran, Sumit Ray & Dilip Simeon. The session,
entitled This Year/ This City, borrowed its name from the last section
in Sarai Reader 02 .
The focus shifted to the seminar room by the evening where Ashis Nandy
talked on "The City of the Mind". For those not present the lecture
was streamed live on the internet. It will also be available as audio
files soon on the Sarai website.
Sarai Reader 02 "Cities of Everyday Lives" is available in hardcover &
paperback editions. For more information log onto
www.sarai.net/journal/reader2.html or write in to dak at sarai.net
II. Talks @ Sarai
linuxinindia.pitas.com
All talks will take place in the Seminar Room, Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054.
1. Media Theorists Series*
March 7, Thursday, 4:00 pm
Networks & Borders: Politics of Migration & Communication
Florian Schneider
Film Maker & New Media Activist
(As co-founder of the no-one-is-illegal campaign Florian Schneider has been
involved in numerous online and offline activities around the issues of
borders, migration and illegality, including the Make-World festival
in Autumn 2001. As a free-lance writer he contributes regularly for
`Sueddeutsche Zeitung' as well as various other mainstream and independent
media in Germany).
*This is in collaboration with the Society for Old & New Media,
Amsterdam
2. March 13, Wednesday, 3:30 pm
Reading the Demolition: Urban Transformation in New Delhi
Diya Mehra
Researcher, University of Texas, Austin
3. March 14, Thursday, 3:30 pm
What's a Community? The Whitechapel Art Gallery & its
multi-ethnic audience in the 1990s
Catherine Lampert
Contemporary Art Historian
4. March 18, Monday, 3:30 pm
Shehar Aur Sapna: Speculating on the City
Ashish Rajadhyaksha
`Shaher Aur Sapna' is a compilation of excerpts from 44 films from the late
silent cinema to 2000. It was assembled for the exhibition: `Bombay/Mumbai
1992-2001', part of `Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis'
(Tate Modern, 2001).
This compilation is a cinephiliac's investigation into the role that the
moving image plays in defining space and desire as a metropolitan construct.
It explores the role that 'Bombay' as an imagined space has had in
constructing the metropolis, as well as the role that the 'cinema' (in its
broadest sense, which includes television, low-end digital `dumps' and
a host of other resources that might well be viewed as cyber-garbage) has
had in constructing 'desire' for all of us.
Ashish Rajadhyaksha is a Film Historian & Cultural Theorist.
5. March 22, Friday, 4:30 pm
Working Visions: The Imprint of Labour in Photography
Ravi Agarwal
Photographer & Environmentalist
`Working Visions...' is Agarwal's reflection on the political, ethical and
aesthetic issues involved in the photographic representation of labour in
India.
Ravi Agarwal is a photographer and environmentalist, whose work encompasses
policy as well as grassroots work on issues of waste, recycling and chemical
safety at the national as well as international level . He is a founder of
Toxics Link, a national information exchange on toxics and head of Srishti,
an environmental group. He has also authored `Down and Out: Labouring under
Global Capitalism'.
Talk @ Sarai:
Talk by RICHARD STALLMAN
The Sarai Programme dak at sarai.net
Fri Mar 15 10:31:22 CET 2002
"Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks"
by RICHARD STALLMAN,
Founder, Free Software Foundation
20 March, 2002, 3:30 pm
Seminar Room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 54.
"COPYRIGHT developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to
fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press.
But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only
draconian punishments can enforce it. The global corporations that profit
from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their
copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we
seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright--to promote
progress, for the benefit of the public--then what must be done is either to
reduce copyright powers or effectively eliminate them, depending on the kind
of work. Governments must now protect the public's right to copy."
RICHARD STALLMAN is "the founder of the GNU Project, launched in 1984 to
develop the free operating system GNU (an acronym for "GNU's Not Unix''), and
thereby give computer users the freedom that most of them have lost. GNU is
free software: everyone is free to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to
make changes either large or small."
Stallman has also founded the related Free Software Foundation (FSF) and is
outspoken about his belief that all software should be free. In his view
proprietary software, for which corporations charge a fee, is wrong from a
moral or ethical standpoint.
Sarai & The British Council, India,
invite you to a lecture on
What's a Community? The Whitechapel Art Gallery & its multi-ethnic
audience in the 1990s
by Catherine Lampert
Contemporary Art Historian
March 14, Thursday, 3:30 pm
Seminar room, CSDS
Catherine Lampert is the former director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery,
London. She is currently an independent curator and a guest lecturer at the
Slade School of Art, University of London; Wimbledon School of Art; the
National Gallery, London and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Thematic exhibitions curated by her include `Seven Stories About Modern Art
in Africa', `New Art from Cuba', `Protest and Survive', `Sacred Circles:
North American Indian Art', `The Modern Spirit in Painting' &
`In the Image of Man: 2000 Years of Indian Art'.
She has a number of published works and has also edited
and contributed to the Centenary Review.
III. Films @Sarai
All screenings are on Fridays, at 4:30 pm, in the Seminar Room, unless
otherwise mentioned. Screenings will be followed by discussions at the
Interface Zone. The films are listed in the order of screening.
1. March 1, 4:30 pm
Freedom, 58 min
Dir. Amar Kanwar
"Freedom" is a documentary film about nature and captivity, about
working people resisting an onslaught on their livelihoods, about
democracy, profit and the sound of the rain.
The film documents and presents insights into many different peoples
struggles in India from the British colonial empire to the
globalisation of today, from the anti mining tribal resistance in
Kashipur and Gandhmardhan in Orissa, the mass movements in Chattisgarh
to the coastal communities in their struggle against big ports and
industrial parks in Kutch and Umbergaon.
"Freedom" was filmed on a DV camera and shot mainly in Assam, Bihar,
Orissa, Chattisgarh, Gujarat and Delhi.
2. March 8, 4:30 pm
Dahan (The Burning)
Dir. Rituparno Ghosh
The film, based on an award winning novel by Suchitra Bhattacharya, is
about two women's search for justice in a man's world. When the
protagonist is saved from attempted rape by another woman, the
subsequent battle within the family, and outside, leads them both to
question the fragile nature of their relationships with the men they
love. It is a film that raises questions of liberation, of rebellion,
of compromises. And ultimately of the personal choices women have to
make. Says Ghosh, in one of his interviews, "it was mainly the spirit
of female bonding that attracted me to the story."
Dahan bagged for its leading ladies, Indrani Haldar and Rituparna
Sengupta, the National Award for Best Actress, split for the first
time ever, between two artistes.
3. March 15, 4:00 pm
Kashmir Film Series
A set of 3 documentaries made on Kashmir:
i. Pather Chujaeri (The Play is on...)
Dir. Pankaj Rishi Kumar
How does art survive in a regime of fear? "Pather Chujaeri" follows
two theatre groups as they prepare for public performances of the
traditional pather form of satire, a rare phenomenon today. For the
bhands, who daily witness the erosion of their way of life, each
performance represents both a change as well as a repetition of the
same brutal fact: that they are not free to share their
revolutionary spirit.
Pankaj Rishi Kumar found an illiterate community that has sustained a
centuries-old tradition in the face of debilitating social and
cultural changes. Although perenially intimidated by the
corruption, violence and intolerance that prevail in Kashmir, the
bhands continue to affirm a commitment to their theatre, to the
critical potential of its form and the liberating joys of
performance. Faith in Sufism has, however, tempered their enthusiam
for satire and they identify with the collective voices of Kashmir's
freedom.
ii. Tell them, the tree they had planted has now grown
Dir. Ajay Raina
"Tell them..." is an account of Raina's return to Kashmir after 12
years - an account that he calls a "journey of fear" - and his
association with the people and places in Srinagar, where he spent his
childhood.
Through the film Raina tries to grapple with the present situation in
Kashmir, with how Kashmiris - both "Us" and "Them" - view the
situation. It is an inquiry into the state of helplessness, confusion
and gloomy uncertainty that Kashmiris feel about the future of their
'cursed' land whose legendary beauty has been fetishised.
This film has won the Best Documentary Video Prize (Golden Conch) at
the just concluded Mumbai International Festival of Documentary and
Short Films.
iii. Ku'near
Dir. Abir Bazaz
The Kashmiri word Ku'near has multiple meanings, particularly Onenesss
and Solitude. Ku'near is a film on Kashmiri language as the language
of solitude and the language of Kashmir's struggle for 'azaadi'.
Nearly 95% Kashmiris cannot read or write Kashmiri. It is hardly
surprising that Kashmiri writing - Sufi or Saivite - is inaccessible
to most Kashmiris. Ku'near uses the state of the Kashmiri language to
encounter the unconscious of the 'azaadi' struggle in Kashmir...And
Ku'near discovers the beginning of an ethical solution to what is
proclaimed as the Kashmir problem”in the reconciliation of Kashmiri
Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims.
IV. Open Source/ Free Software Research
Frederick Noronha, a print media fellow of Sarai, has put together
http://linuxinindia.pitas.com
This page is an attempt at mapping some of the Indian contributions to
the world of Open Source/ Free Software. There's a lot happening,
which has not got the attention it deserves. Check it out. It is
meant to be a work-in-progress report. Frederick
would be grateful for any pointers which you could send to
fred at bytesforall.org
And if you have any comments on the newsletter, or wish to make
suggestions, or simply get in touch with Sarai do write in.
Until next month,
Ranita.
The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054.
email: dak at sarai.net
www.sarai.net