Ignou enters into agreement with banks on fee submission
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 22
In an attempt to facilitate the submission of fees by students, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has entered into agreements with the Indian Bank and the IDBI Bank. As per the agreement, from September 1, students of Ignou can submit their fee through the branches of the Indian Bank and the IDBI Bank across the country.

Earlier, students submitted their application forms for admission and re-registration forms into various courses/ programmes by attaching a demand draft as fee drawn on any bank to the appropriate regional centres.

The agreement authorises the designated branches of Indian Bank and IDBI Bank to collect programme fee/late fee/examination fee etc., of students of Ignou.

As per the agreement, a student can deposit the fee in cash in any designated branch of the two banks. 

CULTURE

ARTSCAPE
A mesmerising mélange of works of art
Garima Pant

An exhibition of visual arts at the Lalit Kala Academy, titled Rang-Rakhal, presented a unique mix of works by veterans as well as fresh entrants in the field of arts. The motto of the show was to promote the young artists and to spread awareness about art in real life. The senior artists of the Spectrum Artists Circle had decided to take up the cause of promoting the youngsters and thus were born the idea for this exhibition.

The group comprising thirteen artists showcases a wide assortment of talents and works, each ranging to different heights. The most appealing and eye-catching is Pranab Phouzdar’s ‘Collage’ work, where no colour has been used. But all the work has been done with such precision that the naked eye cannot point out the difference between it and any regular painting. This different work of art surely drew loads of attention.

The display portrays a fine blend of youth and seniority where new ideas and expressions jelled perfectly with experience and expertise.

Love across eternity

Emotions are an integral part of the human life. They run and govern each and every decision and point of our lives. And sometimes they defy logic too. One can experience a galore of emotions as we go on reading ‘Love Across Eternity’, a novel by Vandana Majumdar. An intriguing tale of love based on the life of a newspaper reporter, Amisha Khanna, the novel is about her search for happiness outside her married life. The character of Amisha goes through numerous ups and downs in her life. In spite being an educated journalist, she suffers at the hands of her husband and undergoes the trauma of domestic violence too. Her working demands and household responsibilities along with her husband’s uncompromising attitude makes her life a living hell. She meets a stranger at Goa sea-beach and is drawn towards him. Her love affair with that stranger poses serious problems for her professional as well as her private life when she is caught between the love of her life on one hand and her veracity and commitment as a journalist on the other hand. From there on begins an arduous battle between personal and professional ethics and she get trapped unknowingly in a malicious web of power game.

The novel explores a whole galaxy of emotions. As she goes through to find some amount of true happiness in her trouble-stricken life. The demands of her profession and the work she has to perform to maintain her career provide a very real and true picture of a journalistic life. The writer has really given each and every character a very set and defined role. As it was pointed out by Ms Kiran Bedi at the book release, that each and every chapter has the capability of being turned into an episode of a teleserial, or the entire novel into a film. It cannot be put down before completing the entire novel in one go.

True India

A perfect picture of real India was recreated by Papia Das in her recent display of oil paintings at the Lalit Kala Academy. Her central theme was the authentic India revisited through the depiction of village life in their entire true colours and realistic paintings. She believes that her point of view has been clearly depicted through her work that is simple and does not require elaborate explanations.

The hardships faced by people living in the villages, how they are still surviving amidst all troubles and the problems of old age and their neglected life has been portrayed in a very vivid way that touches your heart. This Delhi born artist had a fascination for colours right from her childhood that made her to choose professional course in applied art. Encouraged by her parents and friends, this exposition was the first one for this upcoming artist.

“The response to my first exhibition has been extremely good and many people have come and congratulated me on my realistic work of art. It has been appreciated not only by the veterans but also by common man. It has been a real boost for my spirits and future aspirations,” says the artist.

Paintings for aged

It was like walking through a valley of different emotions in one attempt. Each and every painting spoke to you and one could feel like drawn towards each work of art and listen to what it was trying to say. These were a few of the emotions one could feel at the exhibition of paintings and drawings by Shekhar Mukherjee held at the Lalit Kala Academy.

Almost all his works had in one way or the other referred to the oppressed people in our society. Be it the aged characters of his paintings titled ‘Freezed Time’& ‘Discarded’, where he has shown the ironical condition and the life of struggles of old people in our country. After working for the entire lifetime, at his age when his family should look him after, his character of the work ‘Discarded’ is forced him (old man) to work for his survival. In the former, a building is the central symbol. Built earlier, it enjoys the same value forever, but not the old people of our country. It is an indication towards the values that we are losing with the advancement of the society.

In his work titled ‘Reach’, he has pointed out at the oppression and inequality females are made to face in our society. They don’t have their own identity and are always referred to dependant on a male member of the family. Even if they do try and come out of these bindings and try and make a stand for themselves, they have to struggle a lot. These are a few of the sentiments portrayed by the artist in his works. 

PLAY TIME
A tale of a tribal

A real life incident of a denotified tribal, Budhan, a toy-maker of the Sabar tribe, has been woven into a very moving play, which was performed by the students of the dramatics society of Indraprastha College on August 19 and 20, at the India Habitat Centre. The denotified tribes, which have been given very unjust treatments and which still remain officially unrecognised, bore the brunt of the society and the authorities for long. Especially, the tribe Sabar Jamat was accused of every robbery that happened in the locality and the innocent tribals were made to accept the crime on gunpoint. Budhan was one such Sabar, who was jailed and meted out a third degree treatment when he refused to take up the responsibility of a crime, which he had not committed. He died in the police custody in 1997. His wife Shyamali then went on to plead for justice from the famous Padamashree award winner Mahashweta Devi, who ensured she got her due justice. The play had won rave reviews in Kolkatta and seemed to draw the same in the Capital too. The strong script of the play accompanied by lovely musical scores added to the powerful presentation and definitely left a lasting impact on the minds of the audience.

Garima Pant

Film for London fest

Planman life’s first venture “Saanjhbathir Roopkathara” has been selected for screening as one of the seven outstanding movies of the year at London film festival.

Directed by Anjan Das, the movie already made news after it became the first regional film ever to be distributed by Hollywood giant Columbia Tristar. Not long back one of the fastest growing management consulting firms in India, Planman Consulting, spearheaded by Arindam Chaudhuri’s thought of bringing management structures and principles into work in the unstructured world of entertainment business.

Their entertainment company, Planman life, was floated as a venture, which would make meaningful movies that would touch lives and life’s finner emotions. The motto –“watch good movies.” Their first venture “Saanjhbathir Roopkathara,” a Bengali features film, which is based on exactly these principles. Adopted from academy award winning poet by Goswami’s novel, it’s a touching story of a father and daughters relationship. TNS