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

The National School of Drama in New Delhi; (right) a ground on the campus decked out for the school’s annual festival. Pictures by Prem Singh 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.” Click to follow link

Bengal’s child bravery award winner kept illiterate despite ‘full state support’

New Delhi, Jan 19: Birbhum’s Sunita Murmu is West Bengal’s sole National Bravery Award winner for 2010. 17-year-old Sunita can’t read or write. She had dropped out after Class II. She was gifted a laptop along with other award winners, by an education consultancy firm, by an education.

The irony doesn’t end here. The government has put up Sunita at an NGO, in Rampurhat, for her safety. Though the NGO says that she has all the help from the state, she is still not being sent to school.

Santhal girl Sunita was paraded naked across three villages on May 11, 2010, for allegedly befriending a non tribal boy. A 15-minute-long MMS of her ordeal was circulated. She won the bravery award for pursuing the legal battle, against the wishes of her family. Most of her tormentors are now behind bars.

“I had gone to the village shop to buy something. There the badmash captured me and…” her voice trembles down. Her citation reads that she was also sexually abused.

“The people in my village were not against me, but no one said a word when the atyachaar happened on me in front of them,” she says

This paper had reported, on December 12, that most villagers are sorry for what happened and want her to come back. But Sunita says she doesn’t want to go back.

There isn’t much to go back to. She says her village school doesn’t work any more. Her biggest ambition isn’t getting a job, or move to a big city. She just wants to study, she says.

Staff Officer Dipankar K. Ray of the Pushparagniketan Temporary Home for Destitute Women, in Rampurhat where she stays, said that there isn’t any school close by. Rampurhat is the sub-divisional headquarters.

“We have provided her a TV. She likes watching Bengali TV channels during the day,” says Ray, with a misplaced sense of pride.

A Bengal government publication says that Birbhum means “Land of the Brave.” It is only fitting that a bravery award winner comes from here. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Amartya Sen hail from here. Tagore chose the district to set up Santiniketan. For Sunita, the pride ends here.

40 per cent niggle in PM studio theatre scheme

PHEROZE L. VINCENT

Artistes perform at the annual theatre fest of the National School of Drama in New Delhi on Tuesday. Picture by Prem Singh 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

Pro Telangana students meet intellectuals, curse Congress in Delhi

New Delhi, Jan 6: Members of the Telangana Students Joint Action Committee came to Delhi to urge leaders to boycott the release of the Srikrishna Committee report. They also met students and intellectuals to support a separate state. They were hosted by Congressman V. Hanumantha Rao, Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh.

J. Ramesh Babu, of Hyderabad’s Osmania University, said the region’s youth given up on political parties to achieve Telangana. He dubbed the Srikrishna report as a betrayal of the people by Sonia Gandhi. It was on her birthday, on December 9, 2009, did home minister P. Chidambaram announce the initiation of the formation of Telangana.

After a meeting with BJP leaders Shahnawaz Hussain and Anurag Thakur, the students burnt an effigy of Sonia and a copy of the report in front of the AICC hadquarters. Hussain promised that the first bill his government would pass, if they won the parliamentary elections, would be that of forming Telangana.

Since they were refused entry into the premises, they left their memorandum with the security. “We have nothing to do Congress from now on,” said Babu. The activists were further angered as rumours of 3 students getting hit by police rubber bullets, in Osmania University, reached them.

His views were echoed by social activist Swami Agnivesh, who told the students to confine the report to the dustbin. “It’s a cruel joke on the people. All those who testified before Srikrishna feel betrayed,” he added.

On the swami’s suggestion that Telangana Rashtra Samiti was the most credible party in the region, student activist Rajesh told him that the party hadn’t taken a single concrete step to solve even the day to day problems of the people.

Rajesh is from the Backward Caste Students Federation of Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, in coastal Andhra. Politicians from the region have a firm stand against bifurcation. Yet a large proportion of the students came from outside Telangana.

“Ambedkar said that smaller states would strengthen the depressed classed. Only politicians and capitalists want a united Andhra,” said Y. Vasudeva from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, in the state’s Rayalaseema region.

He added that they expect trouble from their classmates, for their support for bifurcation, when they return. “We would still flock to Hyderabad’s superior colleges, but they deserve a separate state,” said Vasudeva.

The activists appeared in front of TV cameras near the home ministry, at North Block, where the report was released. The held up placards and shouted slogans despite prohibitory orders in the area. None of them were arrested.

A public meeting by Telangana supporters is scheduled in Jawaharlal Nehru University tomorrow. Activists say they want to rope in dissent icon Arundhati Roy too. Many far- left student outfits too, in the city, are supporting the agitation.

JNU students, alumnus prevent another Nirupama Pathak

New Delhi, Jan 6: Janta ki aave paltaniya, hilela jhakjhor ee duniya (The platoon of the people is coming, it violently shakes the world) sang the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), accompanied by beats of a daflu, in front of Jharkhand Bhawan.

Their comrade Shruti Tiwari, a first year MA Spanish student, didn’t turn up for registration for the spring semester after the winter vacations. Tiwari, from Ranchi, had married Kaushal Kishore Thakur in August last, in Delhi.

Thakur, a Ph. D researcher at English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, is also from Ranchi. Their marriage was solemnized at a temple followed by a registration in court. Tiwari’s parents had no knowledge of their union.

From friends and her roommate, students got to know yesterday that her brother had leaked the news to her parents. The parents then confined her at home and began threatening Thakur’s family. Though a complaint was registered with the Ranchi police, no action was taken.

The All India Students Association, JNU, contacted Mukesh Kumar, additional district magistrate of Chaibasa, who coaxed the cops to act. In Delhi today, more than 60 students came to see Jharkhand’s resident commissioner Rajiv Kumar.

Kumar called up the state’s DGP, who said that the police had visited the girl today. She would be sent back to Delhi before January 10^th, the last day for registration for the semester. The commissioner then helped them prepare a memorandum, which he accepted.

It’s apparently a happy ending for the couple. But students say they won’t rest till Tiwari’s back. They marched away into the sunset, tapping the daflu and raising slogans against khap panchayats.

M. S. Swaminathan addresses RSS backed NGO forum

New Delhi, Dec 22: With an image of Bharat Mata holding a saffron flag in the background, National Advisory Council member Prof. M. S. Swaminathan spoke on sustainable development at the National Convention of Voluntary Organisations, in the city today.

Organised by the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an organization close to the Sangh Parivar, the 2 day seminar was on Ecology for Development. Dr. Swaminathan praised Gujarat for introducing soil health charts for farmers all over the state. “It is the first state to formulate a strategy for fertilizer based on the soil’s health,” he explained.

Swaminathan rued the fact that traditional cereals, like ragi, jowar and so on, are being confined only to tribal areas. The public distribution system (PDS) only gives rice and wheat. NGOs need to impress upon the government to include traditional cereals too in the PDS and noon meals,” he said.

He added that his research foundation will start a sea water farming project in Vedaranyam Tamil Nadu, on December 26. Sea water farming can be used to cultivate shrimp, medicinal plants and mangroves which serve as a shield against tsunamis and cyclones, he said.

The need of the hour is harmony, said the professor. “A greed revolution is engulfing the country with extravagant consumption.” He cited the examples of long convoys of politicians and “the 5000 crore house of an industrialist in Mumbai,” as examples of extravagant consumption.

Swaminathan stressed the need for good social values and education.

Turn veg to school your child

New Delhi, Dec 28: Delhi’s Jain schools may probably achieve what Anbumani Ramadoss and Baba Ramdev have been trying for long. Most of the 58 schools run by the community, in the capital, will give additional points for admission to children of teetotalers and vegetarians. Parents will have to sign declarations to that effect.

Private schools in Delhi follow a point based system by which applicants are given points based on proximity to the school, siblings in the school, alumni parents, famous parents and so on. The top scorers get into nursery.

While minority institutions have the right to prefer students of their community, discrimination based on food habits of parents is illegal says Ashok Agarwal of NGO Social Jurist. It is casteist move.

“Discrimination during admission violates the Right to Education (RTE) Act and the constitution,” says advocate Agarwal who has filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court against the nursery admission guidelines of the state government. The guidelines, he says, gave a free hand to private schools to select whom they wanted.

Agarwal favours the system adopted by government schools. Weightage is only given to proximity of the child’s home to the school. After that selection is by lottery.

But managements of private schools have deemed the lottery impractical. Some parents too favour preference in admission to a school whose value system they subscribe too. The government wants a mix of points and lottery.

“The RTE says states should formulate criteria for admission. We are following the point based system as laid down by the Ashok Ganguly committee, which the High Court prescribed,” says R. C. Jain, President of the Delhi State Public Schools Management Association.

Jain, a former secretary of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, adds that giving extra points to kids of vegetarians and teetotalers is a right of minority institutions. This right extends not just to the general category (75 %) but even the economically weaker category (25%). Reservation for poor children is imperative under the RTE.

Agarwal differs saying that while reserving seats for minorities is legal, policing food habits of people is not. “They’re not just saying seats for Jains. They’re also defining what kind of Jains.” Besides, the Ganguly committee called for a uniform selection procedure across the board, not unique criteria for every school, he adds.

At the time of filing this report Delhi’s education ministry was still undecided as to who could talk to the press- Minister A. S. Lovely or Director P. Krishnamurthy. However, the ministry will have to answer the court on Agarwal’s PIL by January 31.

But admissions begin on January 1 and it seems the revivalists will have their way.

The great Congress mela

Pheroze L. Vincent

New Delhi, Dec 19: Putting to rest all queries about his religion, a huge banner with a smiling Rahul Gandhi read: “The Indian flag is my religion.” This was among a series of banners lining Dr. Hegdewar Marg, on the periphery of the The All India Congress Committee’s 83rd plenary session in Burari, near the Delhi- Haryana border.

The banners also had images of local Congressmen who had erected them, complete with even their aliases. Aliases like Bobby, Lalu, Bhairon unnerved a sexagenarian Congressman from Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, who got off the van with me. “Yeh sab Kangressi hain,” (Are these Congressmen?) he remarked.

“Jaath se hum Brahmin hain. Naam hai mera Dubey,” (I am a Brahmin named Dubey) he said introducing himself. Dubey, visibly annoyed after realizing we had got off 4.5 km. from the main entrance, went on, “Corruption and price rise will kill this party. Coming here is just an obligation to the organization my family has been part of. Look how well, Nitish and Modi are working. Why can’t we abolish the (corruption ridden) MLA- LADS scheme like Nitish?”

The Burari complex is huge- an ocean of white tents and kurta-pyjamas- surrounded by a wall of khaki. Policemen from almost every state in the country have accompanied the Congressmen they guard. Though I didn’t have a pass, I could work my way through the Central Resreve Police cordon with the rudimentary Malayalam I know.

Budaun’s Suresh Goswami stood out among this white flood. Sporting a tattered tricolour kurta and bandana, with an array of shells and beads, he has been attending Congress sessions for 22 years. “Everyone knows me,” he said, rattling off names of every known Congress boss. “I want the Congress to win,” he shouted- his voice whistling between the four teeth he has left. “I dress like this for leaders to recognize me.”

The Burari complex also has a make shift post office, a railway reservation counter and a Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity stall selling “calandars” [sic] of endangered species. The post office says they haven’t made much of a profit. “We’re only here because we have been ordered to,” said a postal worker.

The stall with the largest crowd though is the ones selling Congress merchandise- flags, badges, diaries and posters of the Mahatma Gandhi, the Nehru- Gandhi family and even Ambedkar. Congressmen made a beeline at the section selling Kurta material.

“First me, mera teen metre kaato,” (cut three meters for me) barked a leader wearing a “We want Telangana” scarf. He wanted a mint green kurta for himself. He and a couple of others later took pains to explain to others that they were from Telangana, not Andhra Pradesh’s Congress.

There weren’t any foreign delegates of fraternal parties to be seen, except for Adrian Forster from London. Part of the West Bengal Congress’ theatre troop, Adrian is playing the role of Allan Octavian Hume- the party’s founder.

“The presentation will recreate the first session of the party in Bombay in 1885. It is a combination of theatre, dance, cinema and music. There is also film footage of the anti-partition movement of Bengal,” said the director and WBPCC spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Roy.

The 17 minute show has 60 actors drawn from various theatres of Calcutta. “We don’t want to mention their names else it may unnecessarily give political colour to these theatre groups,” Roy added.

Behind the scenes, an army of cooks stacked piles of jalebis, kachoris, and other sweets. Sambar, with an overdose of red chillies, simmered as Congress leaders and cops dropped by to sample the grub.

Some felt that the food wasn’t up to the mark and the power cuts were unacceptable. But for Chandy Oomen, of the Youth Congress, “the session gave a feel of India.”

“It’s a great exposure for youngsters to the party's line of thought,” he added.

At the exit, Mary Babychan of the All India Womens’ Association created a ruckus. “The Lord is coming she said,” holding up a bible. “I want to see Sonia. They should give each family 5 kg rice at Re. 1 per kilo like Tamil Nadu. You policemen, who are you to stop me? Will you stop me when judgment day comes.”

A crowd of Seva Dal cadre and police gathered. “Am I saying anything wrong,” Mary asked them. A plain-clothes police man came and took her name and address. On his list were a couple of other names too.

I asked him if he would take action against her. He asked me where my pass was.

Survival of the fittest

Graphic: B. Karthikeyan

HEALTH Local communities find ways to cope with food price inflation

Twenty paise (about 0.3 US cents). that's how much money is spent on veggies for lunch for a child in an anganwadi (Indian government creche) everyday.... click to read more