Newsletter- March 2008

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Workshop on Hindi/Urdu/Kashmiri Localisation

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Films @ Sarai

What Would It Mean To Win?

A film by Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler, Curated by Alana Victoria Hunt

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Maribu Pache Daribu Nahi

A film by Rashid Ali

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Dear Readers,

We have a lighter schedule for March with a couple of screenings featuring stories from two different worlds but with a common theme- countering globalization. The first event of this month though is a workshop, on Hindi/ Urdu/ Kashmiri Localisation. This workshop is the first of many to be held public workshops in the future, where more possibilities of computing in one’s native language will be addressed and worked upon.

Hope you will make yourself available for the events and access the particulars announced.

Best,

Mitoo Das

Programme Coordinator

Sarai, CSDS

Workshop on Hindi/Urdu/Kashmiri Localisation

Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS

Date: 7^th and 8^th March, 2008

Time: 10:00 am

The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF), and Sarai, CSDS, have decided to enter into a collaboration with the broad goal of making computing facilities available to people in Indian languages, thus empowering them to access information and work in their native tongues. As the development paradigm in India shifts towards an emphasis on knowledge driven through information technology, computing in Indian languages becomes increasingly important for the flourishing of hitherto marginalised languages and cultures, and their inclusion in the emerging economy. A key aspect of Indian language computing is localisation, i.e., the process of translating the user interface of software applications into Indian languages, thus making it possible to make full use of them without knowing any English. Towards this end, RGF and Sarai, CSDS, have jointly funded fellowships for localisation of free/open source software (FOSS) into languages including Assamese, Hindi, Kashmiri, Oriya, and Urdu. Typically, such a localisation effort covers at least twothirds of the applications included in a FOSS desktop, working out to the translation of about 40, 000 phrases, or of nearly 3, 00, 000 words. While the Hindi translation is quite advanced, localisation work is just commencing in Kashmiri and Urdu, and is at an early stage in Assamese and Oriya.

We plan on holding a series of public workshops at various places in the country, focused around the work in the fellowships. The goal of these workshops will be to disseminate the material created during the course of the fellowships, and to publicise the availability of computer interfaces in Indian languages. A manual review of the application interfaces is needed to identify any problems with the translations, and we will conduct such a review by taking advantage of the expertise of the variety of people from different backgrounds present at the workshops.

The first of these workshops will be held in the seminar room of Sarai, CSDS, on the 7th, and 8th of March, 2008, from 10am onwards on each day. It will present the current status of work done in Hindi, and Urdu. Some translators for Kashmiri will also be present to discuss the status of work being started on that language. For Hindi, this will include showcasing work done on localizing KDE 3.5, and on the forthcoming release, KDE 4. The former work has won an award from FOSS India 2008 as one of the outstanding FOSS projects in India, and the latter will be important in ensuring that localisation keeps pace with new releases of the desktop. For Urdu, this will cover the preparation of a glossary of technical terms, and the exhibition of the first few applications localized into Urdu. People commencing the Kashmiri work will discuss the issues that they face, and their approach to solving these.

You are cordially invited to be present at the workshop. The workshop is open to the public, and you are encouraged to post this note on public notice boards, and to forward the invitation to others.

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Films @ Sarai

What Would It Mean To Win?

A film by Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler,

Language: English

Length: 40 mins

Curated by Alana Victoria Hunt

Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS

Date: 14^th March, 2008

Time: 4:30 pm

“What Would It Mean To Win?” was filmed on the blockades at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 2007. In their first collaborative film Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler focus on the current state of the counter-globalisation movement in a project which grows out of both artists’ preoccupation with globalization and its discontents. The film, which combines documentary footage, interviews and animation sequences, is structured around three questions pertinent to the movement: Who are we? What is our power? What would it mean to win?

Almost ten years after “Seattle” this film explores the impact this movement has had on contemporary politics. Seattle has been described as the birthplace for the “movement of movements” and marked a time when resistance to capitalist globalization emerged in industrialised nations. In many senses it has been regarded as the time when a new social subject - the multitude - entered the political landscape. Recently the counter-globalisation movement has gone through a certain malaise accentuated byb the shifts in global politics in the post 911 context.

The protests in Heiligendamm seemed to re-assert the confidence, inventiveness and creativity of the counter-globalisation movement. In particular the five finger tactic – where protesters spread out across the fields of Roctock slipping around police lines – proved successful in establishing blockades in all roads into Heiligendamm. Staff working for the G8 summit were forced to enter and leave the meeting by helicopter or boat thus providing a symbolic victory to the movement.

“What Would It Mean To Win?” as the title implies, addresses this central question for the movement. During the Seattle demonstrations “we are winning” was a popular graffiti slogan that captured the sense of euphoria that came with the birth of a new movement. Since that time however this slogan has been regarded in a much more speculative manner. This film aims to move beyond the question of whether we are “winning” or not by addressing what would it actually mean to win.

When addressing the question “what would it mean to win?” John Holloway quotes Subcomandante Marcos who once described “winning” as the ability to live an “infinite film program” where participants could re-invent themselves each day, each hour, each minute. The animated sequences take this as their starting point to explore how ideas of social agency, struggle and winning are incorporated into our imagination of politics

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Maribu Pache Daribu Nahi

A film by Rashid Ali

Language:  Hindi, Urdu, Oriya and English

                    Subtitles in English

Length: 43 mins

Venue: Seminar Room, CSDS

Date: 28^th March, 2008

Time: 2:00 pm

Maribu Pache Daribu Nahi (Die we may, we are not afraid!) is an exploration trying to find 'modern' and 'primitive' people engaging or disengaging with 'modern' or 'primitive' accumulation practice of global capital.

The film journeys through the history of TATAs, negotiating with colonial or postcolonial state with a scriptural or edicted justification drawn from the ancient regimes of Kautiliya and Ashoka’s invasion of Kalinga. After all, Arthashastra is all about statecraft and Kalinga Nagar was just an apostrophe where 13 tribal people were killed by the Police at the behests of TATAs.  

The film takes a tour of the 'Socialist' regime of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, as to how he tried to dam the disjuncture of history through his scientific temperament where humanity was either submerged by Hirakund Reservior or had disappeared in the rather vast reservoir of displacement.

And then came the era of liberalisation where Kashipur wrestled with Utkal Alumina under the 'eternal vigilance' of the state and paid the price of neo-liberalism.  

From 'Mixed Economy' to 'Unmixed' one, history wasn't only an asymmetrical exercise of power. It also put in the picture, the struggle and resistance put up by the people against the politics of appropriation. The film is all about the holy grail of 'profits' and 'development' and also about the struggle of the marginalized, with a special focus on the identified target territory called 'Orissa'.

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