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Agreements signed between India and Myanmar during the visit of Chairman, State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar (July 27, 2010)
Published by July 28th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsJoint Statement during the visit of Chairman, State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar
Published by July 28th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsFrom the Ministry of External Affairs (accessed 27/07/2010, 731 PM IST)
At the invitation of the President of India, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil, the Head of State of the Union of Myanmar, Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of the Union of Myanmar, is paying a State Visit to India from July 25- 29, 2010. The Chairman is accompanied by his wife Daw Kyaing Kyaing. Apart from his official engagements in New Delhi, Senior General Than Shwe will also visit places of economic, historical and religious interest.
2. This visit is a part of a series of high-level contacts that India and Myanmar have had over the past few years. These include visits by Vice Senior General Maung Aye, Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of the Union of Myanmar, in April 2008 and Shri M. Hamid Ansari, Vice President of India, in February 2009.
3. In New Delhi, Senior General Than Shwe was accorded a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 27 July 2010. He was received by the President of India, who hosted a banquet in his honour.
Burmese refugees disappointed over Myanmar junta ruler’s visit
Published by July 28th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsFrom The Morung Express
Burma leader expects silence from India visit
by Amit Baruah from the BBC.
As Burma’s top leader, General Than Shwe, pays a five-day state visit to India, the BBC’s Hindi Service editor Amit Baruah asks what reaction the military ruler can expect from the world’s largest democracy.
The general is unlikely to face open diplomatic pressure in Delhi
Silence. And the absence of disapproval.That is what Burma’s Gen Than Shwe will be looking for from Delhi, after touching down in the Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodh Gaya on Sunday morning.
And he will get it.
As Burma’s junta prepares to hold much-criticised elections later this year, the silence of the world’s largest democracy on Than Shwe’s plans will be good enough for the ruling generals, many of whom are shedding their military stripes ahead of the polls.
When Than Shwe meets Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Hyderabad House in Delhi, there will be no press conference, not even a sound byte. Silence will be guaranteed.
After giving its full-throated support to the democratic movement after the 1990 elections in Burma, India has studiously wooed the generals - who first lived in Rangoon and now reside in the new capital of Naypyitaw - for over a decade.
INDIAN CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS APPEAL TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA TO PRESSURE BURMA’S GENERAL FOR GENUINE ELECTIONS
New Delhi: Burma Centre Delhi (BCD) submits an open letter to Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, calling on the Government of India to pressure Burma’s military regime to hold genuinely free and fair elections. The letter is endorsed by 38 civil society organisations and 71 individuals which comprise intellectuals, prominent activists, lawyers, film makers, writers etc from India.
The letter requests the Government of India to denounce the upcoming 2010 elections in Burma, unless the military regime takes key steps towards genuine democratization: release all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, end attacks against ethnic groups, engage in genuine political dialogue, review the 2008 Constitution and 2010 Election Laws, and conduct free, fair and inclusive elections under the supervision of the United Nations and the international community.
“It is completely unacceptable that the Government of India is allowing our neighbour to go ahead with such fundamentally flawed elections,” said Dr. Alana, Coordinator of BCD “Prime Minister Singh, as the leader of the biggest democracy in the world, must take a lead in pressuring Than Shwe to uphold basic democratic principles that are so far being ignored in preparation for 2010 elections. His silence will be a double-standard that the people of India will not accept.”
Media Release
Indian Parliamentarians Protest the Visit of Burma’ Senior General Than Shwe
25 July 2010
Indian Parliamentarians’ Forum for Democracy in Burma (IPFDB) expresses their protest on the government’s decision to welcome the state visit of the Senior General Than Shwe of Burma at this point of time in India.
The IPFDB wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh and expressed their concerns of the view that Indian government should not lend legitimacy for the military rule and its abusive human rights violations in Burma by focusing primarily on military and economic corporation with the military dictatorship in Burma.
The parliamentarians urge the Prime Minister to take this visit as an opportunity to convey the clear message that India is in favor of free, fair and inclusive political processes in the neighboring country.
The IPFDB also suggested the Prime Minister to tell the Burmese general that Burma’s 2008 forcefully adopted military controlled constitution and recently announced election law must be amended, otherwise the scheduled 2010 polls will be “very difficult to judge as free, fair or credible.”
Life and times of a dictator Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant
Published by July 26th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments
BOOK REVIEW
Life and times of a dictator
Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant by Benedict Rogers
Reviewed by Bertil Lintner
CHIANG MAI - When Myanmar military dictator General Ne Win was still alive, foreign pundits often postulated that the country would change for the better once he passed from the scene. The country would still be ruled by the military, they predicted, but by a younger generation of more reform-minded officers that would bring Myanmar, also known as Burma, out of the Dark Ages.
Read the rest here
From Business Standard: “Smiling, the official added, “If Myanmar is the gateway to India’s ‘Look East’ policy, and if the Than Shwe visit underlines Myanmar’s interest in using India as a counterpoise to China, equally Myanmar is a country where India and China can meet in a win-win partnership.””
From AFP: “India Blasted by Rights Groups”
From Asia Times: “Though it is unlikely to appear in the official agenda, Than Shwe will expect Indian leaders to recognize, if not endorse, the upcoming general election in Myanmar. Such recognition would boost the junta’s quest for international legitimacy for the vote, expected in November.”
From The Independent: India rolls out red carpet for its pariah friend Than Shwe. The world’s largest democracy may have an eye on Burma’s energy reserves
From The Democratic Voice of Burma: “The 164-member International Forum for Human Rights (IFHR) said it was “deeply troubled” that India was welcoming the head of a junta that may be responsible for “war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law”.”
From The Independent: “”Delhi risks finding itself on the wrong side of history”
From Mizzima: India to keep silent on 2010 election opposition says
Burma leader’s India visit draws rights criticism
Published by July 26th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsFrom the BBC
Gen Than Shwe Burma and India have enjoyed warm relations over the last 10 years
Burmese military ruler General Than Shwe has arrived in India for a controversial five-day visit, which has been condemned by rights groups.
The junta leader is expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a trip that marks India’s desire to strengthen trade links with its neighbour.
Rights groups have written to Mr Singh saying it was “unbecoming” of a democracy to welcome Gen Than Shwe.
Burma’s junta is accused of widespread human rights abuses.
Until the mid-1990s, Delhi was a supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s imprisoned pro-democracy leader.
But analysts say India’s desire to do business with Burma, reputed to have large reserves of natural gas and precious stones, has since outweighed concerns over human rights.
Burmese pro-democracy campaigner in Delhi India has kept diplomatically silent over Burmese democracy
The BBC’s Subir Bhaumik in Calcutta says some Indians welcome what they see as a pragmatic approach to foreign policy, but many others support Burma’s pro-democracy movement and accuse their country of not doing enough to support it.
CFP: Special South Asia issue of International Journal of Z studies
Published by June 14th, 2009 in Announcements, Panic time and zizek. 1 Comment
Guest Editors: Gopalan Ravindran (gopalanravindran AT rediffmail DOT com) and Angad Chowdhry (angad DOT chowdhry AT gmail.com)
Subaltern Studies Media and Communications Collective is proud to collaborate with the International Journal of Žižek Studies in bringing out a special issue of the journal for writings on South Asia, either to elaborate on or critique the ideas of Slavoj Žižek. We welcome papers analysing/theorising South Asia on the topics given below (though not limited to).
- postcolonialism
- ideology
- myths
- fundamentalism
- secularism
- multiculturalism
- psychoanalysis
- popular culture
- mass media
- capital
- globalization
- cyberspace
- human rights
- post-marxism
- modernity
- feudalism
- tradition
- regionalism
- sub-nationalism
- populism
- cult behaviour
Done!
Published by June 14th, 2009 in Ads, Announcements, Latest news, academics and conferences. 8 CommentsHello people, back in action. We have finished the book, collected and edited the chapters, argued and started blood feuds amongst each other, but in the end, and perhaps because we have reached the end, we say “it was worth it”
So this is what it look like:
- INTRODUCTION
- NDTV 24 X 7, the Hanging Channel: News Media or Horror Show? - Prof John Hutnyk
- Editorial! Where art Thou? News Practices in Indian Television: An ethnography of Star News and Star Ananda -Somnath Batabyal
- Identities in ferment: Reflections on the predicament of Bhojpuri cinema and language in Bihar - Dr Ratnakar Tripathy & Jitendra Verma
- ‘Dress Indian! Say no to rum:’ Mela’s and the Redefining of Cultural lives. - Dr. Atticus Narain
- The Roja Debate and the Limits of Secular Nationalism - Meenu Gaur
- Environmentalism among the middle classes in India: locating media influences. -Deepty Shastri
- Can a money shot trigger psychosis? -Angad Chowdhry
- The Facts of Life: Sex-Surveys, Marriage and Other Intimate Truths in Urban India - Dr Kriti Kapila
- Autopsies of laughter - Angad Chowdhry and Aditya Sarkar
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.
SMC has now gone into book writing mode - well, in addition to our other post-doctorate, work, marriage, teaching, art modes etc - so blog updates shall be now be less forthcoming. You probably have noticed this already. Besides, the cool people already know that BLOGGING IS SO PASSE. 
We will of course have a more information posted about the book here and other of our events / plans as they emerge but meanwhile please feel free to visit our abundant content accumulated over the past few years. We created this just for you to so you can navigate our older pastures while we type away the future of media studies in India … (yes, you can click on the 3D tag cloud above).
Pushing that agenda along
Published by December 18th, 2008 in Latest news, Som's Blog and tabloid. 2 CommentsAnother one on the Mumbai bombings by our own Som, traveling somewhere in warm India as we speak. As usual, click HERE or on the image to access the PDF.
We are helping a MA student show his film so plugging it in here. The specifics follow - hope to see you there:
FRESH
a T.O.M. Hand film.
…..7 days to find out who you Aren’t……
completed: 2008; run time: 80 min; filmed: mini-DV.
Monday December 8th, 7.30pm, B102, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Russel Square.
Rose experiences the excitement, but also fear, that goes with exploring whether identity should be fixed or fluid. Set within university freshers’ week, we start with a glimpse of ‘day 7′, but then build back up to the end of the week from ‘day 1′. How does Rose cope with having her grasp on her own personality challenged?
The screening will be followed by a short Q & A with the director, plus wine and nibbles.
Presented by Sacred Media Cow and SOAS Centre of Media and Film; certificate 15 (local classification).
Hope to see you there!
Best Wishes
Tom Hand
(240584)
Its time to heal, not avenge
Published by December 5th, 2008 in News, Panic time, Som's Blog, Vignettes of Violence and academics. 0 CommentsWonder if this is the first time Baudrillard’s has been quoted in an Indian tabloid - all hope is not lost. Som’s great column about the Mumbai bombings (pdf HERE or clicking on the image):
Folks, We recently showed Pradip Saha’s film on the Sunderbans and the vanishing landscape due to climate change which was very well received. He has started a blog on the climate change at http://climatenoise.wordpress.com
Best Wishes
Bombay’s Dia de los Muertos… -Tara Chowdhry
Published by December 1st, 2008 in Latest news, Uncategorized and guest writer. 2 Comments
Yesterday’s candle light vigil was something that was asking to be photographed. And it wasn’t just me. No. Pretty much every Mumbaikar wandering around near Leopold’s, Marine Drive, and the Taj, was standing there with cell phone outstretched, clicking away. There was this incredible drive to bear witness. And in my case, I wondered whether or not part of my need to do so was borne out of a desire to outsource my reaction. Well here are the pictures. Make what you’d like out of them. They aren’t photographs of the recycled news material of flames and smoke billowing, or of that beady-eyed gunman entering the Taj, or of mobs, relieved tourists, martyrs, teary-eyed survivors. This was just the neighborhood of South Bombay, lighting candles, holding hands, singing, and wandering around with that vaguely cheery expression that seemed to wryly comment “aise to hota hai…†but with a gentle reverence as well. It was Bombay’s Dia de los Muertos…
11 PM IST
VT station
Capital cinema has a shoot out on now
Oberoi Hotel had a blast, some news about Oberoi hotels having perpetrators hiding inside
Taj Hotel had firings
Leopolds cafe has firings
Ville Parle
Grant Road
Taxis used to deliver explosives
Highways jammed
Mobile Networks Jammed
7 areas firing has taken place, a few shoot outs still on
Rumors about blasts in Napean sea road
Rumors about the airport
Massive coordinated attack
Folks,
Two years ago, as SMC was starting off, the first event we organised was the premiere of Pradip Saha’s film “Faecal Attraction: The Political Economy of Shit.†I am delighted to tell you that Pradip is coming back with his new film, “Mean Sea Levelâ€, a documentary on the first climate change refugees, the inhabitants of Sagar island in the Sunderbans in West Bengal.
The film will be screened at the Khalili Auditorium, SOAS, Russell Square Campus on November 21st, 2008 at 7 pm. It will be followed by a question and answer session with Pradip. For those of you who saw the earlier film, you would know that it is an event not to be missed. For the rest, have a look at the details of Mean Sea Level below. Hope to see a lot of you at the event.
Mean Sea Level
Around 7500 Kms from the heart of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] in Geneva or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] secretariat in Bonn, Ghoramara and Sagar islands are going through their own testimony of climate change related phenomena.
SAEED MIRZA screen-writing workshop!
Published by October 18th, 2008 in Announcements, academics and films. 0 CommentsThe new academic sessions have now coughingly started and SMC is getting out of the slow blog summer mode and back to organising events at and around SOAS. The first of these is an exciting event with the acclaimed Film Director Saeed Mirza who is visiting UK for a retrospective of his films. SMC alongwith the South Asian Cinema Foundation is organising a one day screen writing workshop at SOAS with Mirza on Nov 8th at the Russel Square Campus, Room 116. See the full poster below or enlarged by CLICKING on the image.
The seats are limited, just 30. If interested, please email info<[at]>southasiancinema.com to reserve a place or call them at 02082305765. Unfortunately, there is a small fee of 10 pounds to cover expenses but the event runs from 11 am till 5 pm so you can pack in a lot. Hope you will enjoy them!
Anti-Terrorism: A Canine School of Thought- RATNAKAR TRIPATHY
Published by October 7th, 2008 in Panic time and guest writer. 0 CommentsFrom Ratnakar Tripathy:
In a television interview on 5th October by a major Indian news channel the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi got one more chance to expound on his views on terrorism. Known for his tough stance on terrorism, Modi suggested a number of measures including additional laws to deal with the menace. We thus need both, a nice thick clutter of laws and a heavy fist to restrain the terrorist. According to Modi, the trouble with terrorism is that we have been very soft on it, and that automatically and logically implies that we are complicit. Modi’s solution to the problem is summarized in a Hindi expression – ‘eent ka jabab patthar se’, meaning respond to ‘brickbats with stones’ [or pebbles with rocks]. He also emphasized that Gujarat now has a most sophisticated academic centre of Forensic science. This is clearly meant to compensate for the recent wrecking of academic freedom in the Gujarat universities by Modi government, in case you are complaining.
individual++?
Published by September 18th, 2008 in Panic time, animals, art, photography, remix and technology. 0 CommentsSo if Bombay was the ‘-dividual city’ - that is, the forces that come before the individual: flows, moorings, speeds, halts, accelerations - now the case shall be the contrary. London. I am interested in seeing London as a city of ur-individuals, that is, that which supercedes and exceedes the individual. Not less or before the individual - but that which is more than the individual: individual++?
Cities like London are the promised playgrounds of lifestyles, of fashion, of trends, of branding, of being cool. Go to areas such as Bricklane and Shoreditch you can see people form all over the world performing their individuality to the maximum. So the obvious outcome of this, therefore, is not to see London as a city which precedes the individual (the -dividual city) but rather seeing it as a city that is MORE than the individual, that which is in excess of it: of branding, of fashion, of advertisement, of musical subcultures, of utopian reflections of one’s self projected onto the canvas of different lifestyles and imagined freedom. And what else better way to explore this than to take pictures of that which is more than what is, to introduce that which EXCEEDS the individual into everyday life in London. So for this purpose, to begin the first stage of this experiment, I will breed artificial characters into everyday scenes from London. Avatars. Virtual realities bleeding into imagined realities until both seamlessly inhabit the same space we live in. Call it, again, perhaps, the magical realism of the 21st century where instead of spirits and surrealism of the everyday minutae, virtual reality-bred creatures invade the London we are familiar with and cause a little bit of havoc .
reality mixules
Published by September 16th, 2008 in Announcements, Theory, art, games and technology. 9 CommentsThe next art-research-practice-theory experiment/project that I am starting aims at combining game-engine-created characters (such as Spore) with scenes from my everyday life in London as an experiment for photography, graphic novel/animation and film. Call it the new magical realism of the 21st century … well, the theory here is around “locative media” and “ubiquituos computing” where the overlap of virtual and non-virtual reality is predicted to be the next evolution of the Internet. I am especially interested here in conceptualizing the blurry notion of reality between the virtual and non-virtual as an experiment in both content and form. Something close to evolutionary art but not quite. I will host some of the experiments here and, despite not being South Asia per se in orientation, will show these at our beloved SMC.
This is the first rough “sketch” v 00001. Think of the following image: trendy Londoners having a pint with monsters that I will breed just to fit the particular scene of the city I am working with in photo / animation / video. My own private zoo of dubious characters I can mix with everyday scenes from my daily life London. I used a picture from Bombay here merely because I had the images ready from my last experiments to test the idea/concept. This was done in 20 minutes to see if it is possible - the particularities of all this still need to be worked out. This will be also in full color. All comments appreciated!
of smiling faces and teeth
Published by September 9th, 2008 in Panic time, photography and technology. 10 CommentsI found this article quite hilarious befitting with the pictures I have been taken recently. The images in the ads a point proven: smiling children, faces, teeth - the fetish of ordinary people. From New York Times (thanks Kishore!):
NEW DELHI — An old woman missing her upper front teeth holds a child in rumpled clothes — who is wearing a Fendi bib (retail price, about $100). In Vogue India magazine, a child from a poor family modeled a Fendi bib, which costs about $100.
A man modeled a Burberry umbrella in Vogue that costs about $200. Some 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day. A family of three squeezes onto a motorbike for their daily commute, the mother riding without a helmet and sidesaddle in the traditional Indian way — except that she has a Hermès Birkin bag (usually more than $10,000, if you can find one) prominently displayed on her wrist.
Elsewhere, a toothless barefoot man holds a Burberry umbrella (about $200).
Read the rest of the story HERE.
-the dividual city
Published by September 8th, 2008 in Latest news, Panic time, Theory, photography, remix and technology. 15 CommentsWas just in Bombay doing some research and some pixelography (me and a friend came up with this term as photography does not quite do it justice anymore …). The aim here as the idea evolved is to create a portrait of the city in terms of what I like to call ‘-dividualism’ — that which precedes the individual. See the first “sketches” below or HERE if connections are slow:
We have seen too many picture of smiling faces, or more specifically, too much photography of teeth. Of individuals and teeth. Of the National Geography imaginary of the exotic world that we all grew up on. But for anybody who stays in Bombay for more than a few days will know that in such an enormous metropolis, most of the people we never can or will experience as individuals. Rather, it is the non-linear mass of collective movement, flows, moorings, accelerations, trans- and inter-actions that we experience. This is what I call the “-dividual city.” So I am more interested in seeing a kind of an a-anthropocentric vision of the world: not seeing frozen moments, but seeing fluctuating frame-rates, seeing different timescales of existence from cars to people to buildings to nature bubbling in-between…
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