New Delhi, June 16: A central scheme to fund organization of and participation in book fairs, exhibitions and publishing events is being both welcomed with glee and dismissed with cynicism by the intended beneficiaries- publishers and libraries.
The objective behind this culture ministry scheme is to popularize Indian culture and encourage more people to buy and read books. Focused on non-profit organizations and small publishers, the scheme is open to varsities, book trade bodies and trusts which have been registered and functioning for at least three years.
“We didn’t have a scheme particularly for smaller publishers to participate in book fairs in India and abroad. Small publishers don’t have the resources nor the scope to raise more money to participate. By this scheme we hope to not only promote the book trade but also enrich our libraries,” a ministry official said.
While the ministry would finance 75 per cent of the cost, up to a ceiling of Rs. 10 lakhs per event, the beneficiary needs to prove it can afford the remainder 25 per cent and should preferably have prior experience in the field. While the advertisement for availing the scheme would be made once a year, the application can be submitted any time- with a recommendation from any of the national or state Akademis and government culture bodies.
Shakti Malik, honorary general secretary of the Federation of Indian Publishers, explains that most renowned bookshops largely stock books of foreign or multinational publishers. “We believe that every book has a buyer and every bookseller can sell at least 2 to 3 copies of any book. But if Indian publishers don’t get exposure our books will not sell.”
He adds, “We had approached Culture Secretary Jawhar Sircar saying that its becoming increasingly expensive for us to participate or organize book fairs. Strictly speaking this comes under the HRD ministry, but books also sell our culture to other countries. Literary works are more than commercial commodities. He then agreed to bring a scheme for us.”
This scheme will not only encourage more publishers to exhibit but also market Indian books better through literary events, he stated.
While Baldev Verma, Vice President (North) of the Federation of Publishers and Booksellers Association of India, welcomes the ministry’s manna, he expressed doubts over the way book fairs are run. “There’s no authority to supervise the way book fairs go on. The rentals for stalls go up every year at the World Book Fair in Delhi and now they want to have it from February 26 to March 4 next year- right in the middle of exam season. Which parent will bring their child now- subsidy or no subsidy.”
While Verma says that the scheme will definitely help publishers go for book fairs abroad, he was skeptical about getting the grant- which he fears may be caught in red tape.
It’s a fear that’s shared by varsities too. The Dr. Zakir Husain Library, of Jamia Millia Islamia university here, houses rare manuscripts. The scheme also covers exhibitions of manuscripts, but University Librarian Gayas Makhdumi prefers small in-house activities.
His reasoning is blunt: “Who will spend so much time and do the paperwork to get this grant to go for book fairs. We use our own resources. Besides, there are issues of security if we send manuscripts outside.”
Shakti Malik though is confident that once the word spreads, publishers will line up for the dole. The ministry’s also roped him in to publicise the scheme. The question however, from most small publishers was, “Will the ministry really subsidise us to go for book fairs. Can they afford it?”
A senior ministry official assured this paper that applicants would be screened and only the best would make it. If money runs out, more could always be transferred from other heads where it is unspent. If there are still deserving publishers, the finance ministry is always kind to culture.
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Historians welcome selection of Mahesh Rangarajan as NMML director, though objections over selection process persist
New Delhi, July 9: The chairman of executive council of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library- India’s premier institute for research on modern and contemporary history- Karan Singh told The Telegraph today that historian Mahesh Rangarajan would be its next director.
Rangarajan, a renowned environment historian and former journalist with this paper, was mailed his appointment letter yesterday, said Singh. He was chosen by a selection committee comprising of Karan Singh- a Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha, Balmiki Prasad Singh- governor of Sikkim and former home and culture secretary and, Nitin Desai- economist and former adviser to UN Secretary General.
The term of incumbent director Mridula Mukherjee expires on August 9. Her term, which began in 2006, has been plagued with controversies of flouting payment regulations, mis-utilization of funds and her alleged proximity to the Congress. In 2009, 57 scholars led by Ramachandra Guha had written to the prime minister against her being given an extension. Rangarajan was part of this campaign.
The latest controversy pertains to the selection of the new director. Historians Arjun Dev, Irfan Habib, Shireen Moosvi, Bipan Chandra and D. N. Gupta have filed a petition in the Delhi High court challenging the procedure of selection and the executive committee’s amendment of rules extending eligibility for director to even non-historians. In February, the Indian History Congress had unanimously passed a resolution asking the government to annul the changes amendment.
Speaking to this paper, Moosvi said, “The PIL has nothing to do with any individual. It is to highlight the malfunctioning of the NMML Society- which never met for a deacde… There were no historians on the selection committee. Besides, how can an appointment be made before the term of the present director is over.”
The petitioners have also alleged that Mukherjee has been restrained from her duties since May 2. The latter didn’t respond to repeated calls to her mobile phone from this correspondent.
Moosvi promptly pointed out that she had nothing against Rangarjan. In fact she was a visitor’s nominee with veto powers over his appointment to Delhi University, she claimed.
“I recommended him to DU despite him not having a single day’s teaching experience. Our fight is on principles. A premier institute of this country cannot run on the whims of former rajas (Karan Singh is the titular maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir). We want academics, not politicians, to run the place,” she said.
On Rangarajan’s selection, Ramchandra Guha said, “Finally, the government has got something right. Mahesh Rangarajan is the finest historian of his generation. He was chosen through an open and transparent process. Given proper support, he will certainly make the NMML a world-class institution.”
The appointment would be final only after Rangarajan and DU agree to his deputation to NMML. He said that he would only speak to the press after everything was finalized.
Modern historian S. Irfan Habib (not the Irfan Habib who filed the petition), of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, said that he saw no reason for litigation over the issue.
“Search Committees normally announce the selection before the incumbent’s term ends. This is not the first time. Anyone wanting an extension shouldn’t stop the government to proceed with the selection. Besides the result is that a fairly younger history professor- who has been using the institute for a long time and who is competent to carry on the legacy on the institute- has been chosen,” he explained.
Another senior Marxist historian said that Rangarajan fears trouble from Marxists as he is seen in the company of post-modernists like Guha. “But we need to see people in a broader frame beyond ideological positions. He is open, progressive and secular and that is what India needs.”
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
India finally makes it to Venice Biennale, sets stage for delayed triennale
New Delhi, April 15: India’s first ever national pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale will assert a view of Indian art which will be a counterview to the kind of Indian art that the west has been exposed to, said art critic Ranjit Hoskote, who will curate the pavilion.
India will finally find a place among 94 other countries at this 116-year-old show. This comes after many missed attempts for national representation at the prestigious international art exhibition. Selection to it is globally recognised as a coming-of-age of a nation’s contemporary art.
Ashok Vajpeyi, Chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi which is sending the expedition to Venice, indicated that this would set the stage for the Triennale in India which is scheduled to take place next year. The XI Triennale in India was held in 2005.
New York based mixed-media artist Zarina Hashmi; painter-sculptor and video artists Praneet Soi from Kolkata and Gigi Scaria from Delhi and; Guwahati’s Desire Machine Collective’s Sonal Jain and Mriganka Madhukaillya’s works will be featured at the pavilion. The Venice Biennale is from June 4 to November 27.
“Much of Indian art that has been exhibited abroad has gone there through the market route,” said Hoskote who added that the pavilion will showcase the country’s non-commercial contemporary art.
Vajpeyi justified the discretionary selection of Hoskote as curator, saying that the number of curators in India was disproportionately smaller than the demand for them. Other exhibitions would feature different curators who will also be chosen at the Akademi’s discretion.
The selection of artistes was done so as to showcase the cross cultural nature of contemporary art from diverse locations. The rich art practices that run parallel to the gallery circuit will be displayed.
The rent for the pavilion, at the Arsenale in Venice is Rs. 60 lakhs. India’s art adventure to the Adriatic will totally cost the exchequer almost Rs. 2 crore, “a cost too small for India’s pride,” confirmed Culture Secretary Jawhar Sircar. There would be three important art conferences in Mumbai, Delhi and Guwahati while the Biennale is and a delegation led by the culture minister would visit the show, he added.
He emphasized that the recent Anish Kapoor exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, India’s entry to Biennale and, a waiver on import duty for art and antiquities to galleries in India- are the ministry’s attempts to back art and make things easier for exhibitors and connoisseurs.
Mani report finds Zonal Cultural Centres completely out of sync with their objective of taking culture to the aam aadmi
New Delhi, April 12: A report on Zonal Cultural Centres (ZCCs)- which were set up 25 years back to disseminate India’s varied cultures to audiences who did not have access to them- says these bodies have completely deviated from their objectives. More than Rs. 288 crores has been spent by ZCCs since they were formed.
The three-volume report on the seven ZCCs was authored by a committee- established by the Central Advisory Board on Culture in August 2010- chaired by Rajya Sabha Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar, actor Amol Palekar and Oriya poet Sitakant Mahapatra. They found that ZCCs have focused on cultural performances at their headquarters and middle-class urban venues, instead of disseminating the cultures of the region across the zone.
The ZCCs were set up in Patiala, Thanjavur, Santiniketan, Udaipur, Dimapur, Nagpur and Allahabad, and not in state capitals to prevent them from being state-oriented instead of catering the region as a whole. The governors of the host states chair the ZCCs, to keep them free from state politics and domination.
Yet, exactly this has happened. While most centres had seen a rise in the number of programmes they conducted, these mostly took place at the state capital or the headquarters of the centre.
The Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre now has headquarters both in Santiniketan and Salt Lake. The report notes that in the last 15 years, with a sizeable increase in funds, “…the concentration of programming at the two Headquarters of the ZCC in Salt Lake City and Santiniketan becomes even more marked.” It adds that little has been done for the poor of Calcutta or other urban centres like Siliguri.
In her deposition for the committee Danseuse Leela Samson, Director, South Zone Cultural Centre (SZCC) stated, “I think if the SZCC is only serving the Governor of Tamil Nadu, then they should equally be serving the governors of all member-States. This is a very partisan kind of situation. It really was not working because there is obviously very high pressure from the Governor’s Office.”
The committee also found that the ZCCs were regarded as a limbo for bureaucrats waiting for a posting. Danseuse Sonal Mansingh stated, “There a lot of aims, lot of money, lot of opportunities, but there is a confusion of aims.”
The committee has recommended that the corpus fund of ZCCs be raised to Rs. 50 crores to prevent them from being dominated by governments of host states, like has happened to the SZCC where all infrastructure funding was done by Tamil Nadu.
It has also recommended that ZCC director posts not be reserved only for bureaucrats.
Structural changes have also been proposed to distance ZCCs from the government, and to give the cultural community as sense of ownership over them, said Aiyar.
An independent Indian Council of Zonal Cultural Centres, integrated with the three national academies and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. ZCCs must be linked with local bodies and youth clubs.
For Naxalite-hit areas, the committee has recommended police action against ultras to be combined with participative development by promoting tribal artistes. “Cultural troupes matter at least as much as armed troops in the struggle,” says the report.
A Folk and Tribal Arts Akademi and museum, along with livelihood security for tribal artistes is an imperative to protect the dying cultural repertoire of tribals, the committee found. Cross country cultural yatras culminating in a silver jubilee Apna Utsav yatra in Kolkata or Chennai coordinated by Amol Palekar, has been proposed for this year.
Manipur’s digital film revolution comes to Delhi
New Delhi, March 12: The first Manipuri film festival- Nongpokthong (Eastern Gate)- in the capital is running to near packed houses. The fest showcases the best of Manipuri cinema right from the state’s first film Matamgi Manipur to latest ones in languages other than the dominant Meitei.
While Manipuri films have been winning international accolades since the eighties, many excellent ones in the recent past couldn’t make it to the Indian Panorama and other lists of top films because they were digital and not on celluloid.
With a population of around 25 lakhs, films aren’t the most viable business in the state. But technology has made filmmaking cheaper. “Earlier we had to go for post production to Chennai or Mumbai. But with improvements in technology we now do it on computers in Manipur,” says critically acclaimed director Ronel Haobam.
These are mostly digital films made with which camera an enthusiast can afford, edited with threadbare software. But the National Film Awards used to only accept films in celluloid format.
To show that good films aren’t the monopoly of celluloid, trailblazer director Aribam Syam Sharma and Jawaharlal Nehru University teacher A. Bimol Akoijam conceived a film festival in Delhi, a year back. “This was to be a push for acceptance of the digital format,” said Akoijam.
Since then a lot of water has flown down the Barak. Film Forum, Manipur, went to court for the acceptance of digital films and the Shyam Benegal led expert committee allowed them to compete in the National Film Awards and other festivals.
Akoijam had almost buried the idea, when the Manipur Film Development Corporation called him up a month back to ask him to host a film festival. “What they had in mind was a three-day fest in Siri Fort Auditorium. But I wanted the whole thing repackaged,” he explained.
The result: a five-day fest in two varsities and four colleges of the capital. Plus there are interactions with Manipuri film personalities, cultural shows, northeastern food and DVDs of films.
And the crowds are coming. With Delhi University on strike against the murder of student Radhika Tanwar, students are spending their weekend at the movies. Akoijam says he’s tempted to ask MFDC to make this an annual affair.
Over 40 films more than 5 languages of the state are being screened, with English subtitles. One of the more popular ones was Haobam Paban Kumar’s Golden Lotus winning documentary AFSPA 1958.
The film documents the unrest that followed the rape and murder of Manipur girl Manorama Devi by the Assam Rifles in 2004. Kumar said that though the violence and bloodshed disturbed the censors they didn’t delete much.
“I don’t know if the film can change public opinion on the AFSPA, but we filmmakers try to improve the situation of the state in our own way. I don’t want to hope for a big change lest I break down later,” he said.
An alumnus of Calcutta’s Satyajit Ray Film Institute, Kumar won another Golden Lotus last year for Mr. India- the story true of HIV positive body builder Khundrakpam Pradip Kumar Singh. He said that a welcome change in the Manipuri film industry is the entry of a lot of trained professionals. “Most people never know the problems of the northeast. Let them watch our films and decide.”
The fest had everything from melodrama to sports, but politics has a strong influence in many of the films. “Even our love stories are political,” said Akoijam. “They reflect what’s going on in the state.”
The panel discussions also cover a wide spectrum with lively debates on a wide spectrum of issues. Filmstars and singers like Sadananda, Uttam, Seema and Yengkhom Roma have also turned up for the fest.
Despite minimal publicity the fest has drawn a lot of youth as it is being held on campuses. A common refrain of the audience is they now want to know more of the northeast.
Curtains go up on NSD satellite strife
| PHEROZE L. VINCENT | |||
New Delhi, March 4: Theatre artistes pushing for national drama schools in 18 scheduled languages are feeling cheated by the government’s proposal to set up five regional centres of the National School of Drama in various states. Culture minister Kumari Selja had said in Parliament this week that the centres would come up in Calcutta, one either in Maharashtra or Goa, one in the Northeast, possibly Manipur and one in Jammu and Kashmir. The fifth would be in Bangalore, where the regional resource centre would be upgraded into an NSD centre. The demand for the regional language theatre centres, voiced off and on over the last 15-20 years, had gathered steam in 2007 after former NSD director Prasanna went on a hungerstrike in Bangalore. He called off the fast only after then Union culture minister Ambika Soni assured him his demand would be met. “This was about declaring the theatre in Indian languages as national theatre,” Prasanna said. “Regional centres of NSD were not what we demanded, not what the minister (Soni) said, and it is unacceptable.” |
40 per cent niggle in PM studio theatre scheme
| PHEROZE L. VINCENT | ||
New Delhi, Jan. 12: The Prime Minister’s latest gift to the theatre fraternity may not find too many takers. On January 7, Manmohan Singh had flagged off the “Scheme of Building Grants, including Studio Theatres”, under which registered not-for-profit organisations and cultural groups dealing with the performing arts would be given 60 per cent of the money estimated to construct a studio theatre... Click to follow link |
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