The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDUCATION

42 schools get last chance to show record of students
Our Correspondent

Bhiwani, July 24
Keeping in view the interests of the students, the Haryana School Education Board has decided to give a last chance to the 42 senior secondary schools to present the record of students relating to examination held in March 2003.

Giving this information, the Chairman of the Board, Brig O.P. Chaudhary, said that the students of these schools were issued temporary roll numbers and the schools were asked to submit the record of students regarding their eligibility between June 21 and 30.

Thereafter, these schools were given one more chance to present the record between July 12 and 14, but still some schools did not produce their record in the office of the board on the stipulated dates.

He said that keeping in view the future of these students and requests from various sections, the board has decided to give another chance to the school authorities to produce their record between July 23 and 31.

Brig Chaudhary further said that the results of those students who had passed 10+1 would only be declared if they produced the certificate relating to 75 per cent attendance of the students.

He said that the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court delivered on July 10, had clearly indicated that the results should only be declared after checking the eligibility record and attendance of students up to 75 per cent. If any individual wants to get his result declared, then he will have to produce the record that he was the regular student of that school and will have to produce a certificate from the head of that institution.

COURTS

School gets court notice for denying admission
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 24
The Delhi High Court yesterday issued notices to the Government of National Territory of Delhi and the Principal, Achayra Tulsi Rajkiya Sarvodhaya Vidhalaya, Chhattar Pur seeking a reply as to why a student who had failed in a particular class has been denied admission in the same class and the same school.

Mr Justice Vikramjit Sen disposing of the petition returnable on the 30th of this month noted that since the academic session has already started, the matter is urgent and the counsel for the respondents should take instructions from their clients and inform the court as to why admission was denied to the applicant.

Anoop Kumar, student of the Achayra Tulsi Rajkiya Sarvodhaya Vidhalaya, has been denied admission in the same school after he had failed in the Class XII Board examination conducted in March 2003. This it was pointed out is in violation of Rule 138 of Delhi School Education Rules, 1973, which entitles a failed student to get readmission in same class of the school last attended.

The petitioner submitted that the respondent school reopened on July 1, 2003 after summer vacations following, which he approached the Principal for readmission to Class XII. However, the Principal refused to admit him without giving a valid reason.

The student had to move court when the school authorities did not allow him admission, said advocate Ashok Aggarwal. He went on to say, “It is quite common for public schools to turn down students who fail in the Board examinations. This practice is absolutely illegal. Schools in their bid to maintain their results cannot turn down students who could not clear their examinations.”

CULTURE

ARTSCAPE
Conveying emotions through devotion
Tribune News Service

The ‘arangetam’ of Bharatnatyam dancers, Sumana Majumder and Sumita Majumder, disciples of guru Geeta Chandran, will be held at the Indian International Centre auditorium on July 27.

Sumana and Sumita have been learning Bharatanatyam under Geeta Chandran’s tutelage for the last 10 years.

The sisters enjoy dancing and bring their unique energy and verve to Geeta’s choreography and training.

While Sumita, has just completed her BA (Hons) in History from Lady Shri Ram College (Delhi University), Sumana, despite her hearing impairment, has kept pace with both the classical dance and her studies at the New Delhi Polytechnic.

A deeply codified classical dance, Bharatanatyam was transformed in to a performing art in the 20th century.

With its ubiquitous flexed knee stance, ‘araimandi’, the dance is a construction of abstract geometric and symmetric dance patterns presented to complicated rhythm patterns, ‘taala’. This is then interspersed with the narrative, ‘natya’, and the expressional, ‘abhinaya.’

An amazing dictionary of hand gestures, ‘hasta mudras’, enable the artist to communicate images and emotions to the audience.

This heady mix is clarified through the prism of devotion, ‘bhakti’, to create a complete aesthetic visual experience.

Artistry is achieved when the dancer, after mastering and perfecting the technique, transcends it, and through improvisation and personal imagination, dances with and through the spirit.

The music accompanying the dance is Carnatic vocal, the classical music form of South India and the instruments accompanying the dancer are the cymbals – ‘nattuvangam’, wielded by the Guru, the ‘mridangam’ and the violin and/or flute which provide the melodic refrain.

At first encounter the dance appears unusually ornate, but to the ‘rasikas’ (enlightened audiences), it is an aesthetic experience with amazing density of detail and body/mind skills, all of which combine to make it a cherished performing art.

An enchanting evening

‘Raag Roop Rang’, a programme conducted to popularise classical music, by Samagam, was an enchanting musical evening.

The programme was designed as a musical exploration and presentation of the ‘khayal’ by renowned vocalist Pandit Chakravarty of the Patiala Gharana. He first rendered the ‘khayal bandish’, based on a particular raga and then, to enable the music lover to appreciate the discipline and the methodology required to maintain the purity and essence of a raga while rendering a ‘khayal’, he illustrated the same ‘bandish’ in its light classical form.

The main idea of organising such programme was to popularise and promote Hindustani Classical music. For a music lover uninitiated in classical music, it becomes easier to associate a ‘raag’ with popular ‘raag’ based film tunes. With this in mind, the programme demonstrated how the same notes are used by well-known composers to create popular film tunes to fit into various situations.

To give the listener an opportunity to associate in this musical journey, Shreya Ghosal, a well-known playback singer, alongwith Javed Ali presented film songs based on these ‘ragas’. Durbadal Chaterjee, a renowned violinist and music arranger conducted the orchestral presentation of the film songs.

To create the ambience and mood of the songs, short video clippings were also shown. While Ms Sarita Sethi, a media personality, handled the compering, Tushar Bhatia, a music composer, scripted the show.

Kamalakant Ki Gawahi

Helpage India, a voluntary body engaged in the welfare of the senior citizens, staged Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s famous comedy, ‘Kamalakant Ki Gawahi’, at the Bipin Chandra Memorial Auditorium here. What was interesting was the fact that the court room satire was presented by senior citizens exclusively with the youngest star being 65 year old.

The lead actor was an active 75-year-old. However, the age restriction was not for the audience where both young and old enjoyed the satire.

Crossing a threshold

It is not about far-fetched utopian dreams, nor about baseless optimism and fairy tales. ‘Threshold’, an exhibition of paintings in mixed media by Preeti Varma, is about consolidation, the merging of the human spirit, the crossing over of limitations and boundaries set by political, religious and geographical divides. The soils of the minds of collective humanity are tilled, watered and waiting for the seeds of change to find strong new roots and crossover the thresholds to new awareness.

These paintings are Preeti’s recent works and they touch issues that are deeply complex in nature, age-old and much mulled over, in almost all corners of the world, yet there is a new hope, new direction, a new vision. Her art reflects that ability to dream is our greatest asset.

Born in a cosmopolitan armed forces family, the artist had the opportunity to be exposed to a very large kaleidoscope of experiences. She, who has worked in the fields of both art and science, feels acutely for all environment-related issues. In year1998, she executed four series of card designs based on bio-diversity and ecology.

The exhibition will be on from July 26 to 31 at the India Habitat Centre.

Oleographs from a bygone era

Gallery Espace will conduct an exhibition of Raja Ravi Varma’s oleographs in the Capital.

When Raja Ravi Varma decided to open his printing press in 1894, he chose to use the oleograph process. By this method, paintings were reproduced on stone as in lithographs, but the colouring agent was oil paint instead of printing ink. Mohini

Raja Ravi Varma’s choice of the oleograph process can easily be related to his involvement with the oil medium. The oleographs have a greater density compared to other reproduction processes like aquatint, lithograph and so on.

The collection here represents the characteristic Ravi Varma images-icons, mythological scenes, and portraits. One will get to see some of his famous images like the Gajalakshmi, Saraswati and Damayanti with the Swan. The exhibition will be on from July 25 to August at Gallery Espace in New Friends Colony.

Vintage Ravi Varma oleographs, Kishan Kanhaiya and Mohini.