More teeth for DSGMC council on schools
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14
The education council of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) is formulating changes in the admission policy for the forthcoming academic session to schools and colleges run by the committee granting teeth to the council.

Almost eight months after the council was set up by the DSGMC, it has been given overriding powers to appoint, transfer and promote teaching and non-teaching staff in 23 educational institutions by the committee.

The chairman of the educational council and former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala, Prof Amrik Singh, told the NCR Tribune that the council is preparing a new set of guidelines for the admission of students and recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff.

“We would also review the performance of some of the existing staff and take suitable action,” Mr Amrik Singh, head of the 10-member council, said.

The DSGMC runs 23 educational institutions, including schools, colleges and technical institutes.

Several members of the Sikh community had expressed serious concern about the falling educational standards in the DSGMC-run institutions.

ARTSCAPE
None to guide a visitor in this centre
Rana A. Siddiqui

A video art by Nalini Malani at the Apeejay Media Gallery. Apeejay Media Gallery in the Capital showcases new media art.

There is a pindrop silence at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture, Firozeshah Road, where paintings of many a contemporary Indian artist on Russia and India in its mundane and religious lives are on show. There are also various sculptures, graphics and drawings.

If you are a keen follower of art, you will probably be able to make out the paintings of famous Indian artists like Jatin Das and Laxman Pai. Others may identify them from the signature on the canvas.

However, you will be at sea if you really want to know any of the artists and his specific work that is displayed here and his specialty, as none of them is present here as well as there is none to assist you.

The man at the counter tells you, “Ever since the exhibition has started, neither the artists nor any persons concerned have taken pains to be present here. And this is a regular feature. There is hardly anyone to assist the visitor who pester me for information on the artists.”

The centre is a regular at exhibiting paintings, twice in three months and so on, he informs. Surprisingly, there are no brochures also, just an invite which helps you know the names of the artists! Yet, landscapes and life in Russia is something that makes you stay and stare and forget other things.

(The curator, Surjit Akre, tells you later that she was there, upstairs!)

Unknown artists

Good news for talented, obscure artists from all walks...because the Apeejay Media Gallery comes up in the city at Mohan Cooperatives, Mathura Road. The gallery claims to be the first in India that “focuses on new media art,” that is the “experimental artwork” from India and abroad.

The gallery will not only promote obscure yet talented artistes but also provide a forum where one can come to grip with the nuances of film making, video performances, installation art, digitally manipulated photography, virtual reality, acoustics, choreography and so on. The gallery will have a series of performances, including six mega events. Ms Preeti Paul, director, Apeejay Surrendra Group, says that that the gallery has been specially created as a dedicated facility to showcase and recognise new media and emerging technology artworks in keeping with the international trends.

To begin with, it is showing Nalini Malani’s video art from March 17. The artist has international acclaim to her credit. Her two recent works are showing for the first time in India.

It includes her interrogation of fundamentalism and politics. Puja Sood, an independent curator, and Johan Pijnappel, a Dutch art historian/curator who specialises in new media in Asia curate her works.

Let’s believe what the gallery claims and hope that it does not turn out to be a ‘rich people’s society’ only.