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Fair deal in
far lands
 Working
away from their country makes women domestic labour vulnerable to
exploitation. With incidents of physical and mental abuse on the rise,
the Government of India has acted to ensure fair wages and protection
of their rights, reports Aditi Tandon
The
lives of as many as two lakh Indian maids working abroad are
set to change for the better. In September last, the Government of
India acted to secure one of its most vulnerable workforces abroad.
The government has laid down strict terms and conditions for employing
female household workers (FHWs) and the Indian missions abroad will
ensure compliance by overseas employers. Among these terms and
conditions are the minimum wages, terms of contract and minimum age
for emigration. Only recently, the Indian mission in Kuwait rescued a
Maharashtrian girl, who had gone there as a housemaid and got enmeshed
in the flesh trade.
Photos by Mukesh Aggarwal
ATHENS:
Monumental attractions
Sujata Varadarajan
Athens,
called the birthplace of democracy, is also the birthplace of many
philosophers and writers, such as Socrates, Plato, Pericles and
Sophocles. It was a major centre of arts, learning and philosophy
during ancient times, most famous being the Plato’s Academy.
Aristotle, too, received his education at the academy.
A
lesson from the British
When Victoria Cross winner
Subedar Major Umrao Singh (retd) requested the then British prime
minister John Major to enhance the pension of those honoured with the
medal, it was immediately raised from `A3 100 to `A3 1,300. However,
the Government of India has failed to provide a better package to the
country’s war heroes, says Lt-Gen Baljit Singh
(retd)
Among
my happiest memories of Army service is a 45- minute meeting
with Subedar (Hony Captain-retd) Bana Singh in my office. The soldier
narrated the story of the re-capture of a bunker from Pakistan army
intruders on the Siachen glacier heights.
Aircraft
once, junk now
Maharaja Harinder Singh Brar
of Faridkot imported the Gemini M65 aircraft for his personal flights.
Now the flying machine has turned into junk and lies in a hangar on
the outskirts of the town, writes S. P. Sharma
It
was a marvel when 60 years ago maharaja Harinder Singh Brar
imported the Gemini M65 aircraft for his personal flights. But now the
flying machine has turned into junk in a hangar on the outskirts of
Faridkot.
A
place in history
with or without trophies
The low profile that the
latest Dadasaheb Phalke award winner, Tapan Sinha, kept even in his
most successful years may have cost him a few trophies but, says Swapan
Mullick, his work has the intelligence and power to confirm his
place in history
That
National Awards ceremony at Vigyan Bhavan in 1985 in many ways
told the story of Tapan Sinha — the man and filmmaker. He was one of
the award winners that year — something that he got accustomed to.
The difference was that, unlike Satyajit Ray who had won frequent
recognitions and was talked about, he was away from the media and from
debating circles that mattered.
Osian’s
Cinefan revives festival fever
The annual 11-day Festival of
Asian and Arab Cinema has recreated a site and season in New Delhi
where films are finding a new audience and filmmakers file in to hear
what viewers, peers and critics have to say.
Shastri Ramachandaran reports on the 10th edition of Osian’s
Cinefan
With
the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) being shifted
from Delhi to Goa a few years back, the Capital, particularly its Siri
Fort complex, was deprived of an event that was looked forward to
every alternate year. Making Goa the permanent venue for IFFI left
northern India without any seasonal hub for cinema.
Story
of world’s first TV drama
Andrew Johnson
Over
78 years ago, four men and a woman gathered in John Logie
Baird’s new studio in central London and carried out an experiment
with the infant medium of television. They had no idea they were about
to give birth to an art form that would dominate the world and lead to
decades of hand-wringing over sex, violence and profanity: television
drama.
Tech
tools to fight fake art
With
museums increasingly digitizing their art collections, it
becomes pretty easy to forge paintings. Now, two researchers are
working on a digital system to help detect original works from
counterfeit ones. The findings of the study, which was led by James Z.
Wang, associate professor of information sciences and technology, Jia
Li, associate professor of statistics, were based on 101
high-resolution greyscale scans of Van Gogh paintings provided by the
Van Gogh and Kroller-Muller Museums in the Netherlands.
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