Agra, December 23
The famous pigeon flyers of Agra are getting set for a battle royale in the traditional sport of ‘kabootarbazi’ when thousands of these birds will flock the skies.

More than 10,000 pigeons are being trained at eight different locations by 18 groups of ‘khalifas’, or master trainers, who come from distant places for the weeklong contest, called ‘kulkul’, to be held from December 25, 2007-January 1, 2008.

The contest will see different teams of pigeons taking off from the grounds behind the Taj Mahal simultaneously, and, landing back at the same place. Through shouts and sounds, the trainers will try to get the pigeons of other teams to join their own group while in air. Eventually, whichever team returns to the ground with the maximum number of birds will be the winner.

“The training is strenuous. The birds take off and land at the base. The group of birds that has the highest number is the winner,” explained Nasir Husain, a passionate fan of kabootarbazi - or the art of flying pigeons.

Nasir said that each group has more than 600 birds and when the group lands, the numbers usually increase or decrease, as the trainers of the other groups try to mislead them through calls and sounds that the birds find confusing.

Right now the ‘sulla’ war is on, which means the birds are returned to the owners, but from December 25 the ‘set’ war will begin, which means no birds will be returned.

The Moughals started the sport and, later, the local khalifas of different neighbourhoods patronised it. The popularity of the sport had seen a downward trend but four years ago, a bureaucrat with a passion for it gave a boost to kabootarbazi by organising a contest behind the Taj Mahal.

The ‘mohallas’ of the old Agra still have patrons of this art.

“It’s a costly passion. The birds have to be fed on dry fruits and looked after. Pigeons are very delicate birds,” Dinesh Yadav Choudhary, a kabootarbaz, told IANS.

The birds are trained to recognise colours, the shouts and sounds of their trainers, flying commands and landing orders. It is believed that many ‘ustaads’ tame the birds with doses of opium.

Talking of the diet of these birds, a kabootarbaz of Loha Mandi said, “The birds are given rich food, bajra with dry fruits, butter and a special roti that gives strength to their wings. It can cost up to Rs 1,000 a day for one group of birds.”

Agra’s feudal legacy has many such traditional sports like patangbazi (kite-flying), tairaki (swimming), akharebazi (wrestling).

“Unfortunately, with the passage of time, the old arts and passions are disappearing. But the kabootarbazs of Agra are special. One kabootarbaz of Gokulpura got so furious with a cat for killing a pigeon that he ripped open the cat from the middle,” said Gyanesh Verma of Raja Ki Mandi.

Roller Singh, a vet, said, “It has become difficult to keep the birds in the ‘darbas’ (pigeon shelters) on the terraces of the house because of monkeys, which are quite a nuisance.”  — IANS

Firozabad, December 23
The police cane charged students, including girls, even dragging some by the hair, in this Uttar Pradesh town on Saturday, after they refused to call off their road blockade to protest the murder of the school principal.

Students in this town, 50 kilometres from the city of the Taj, were protesting the murder of the principal of SR Gyaneshwari Vidhyalaya. Four girls reportedly fainted following the police cane charge. Girl students were dragged and beaten, said eyewitnesses.

Rajesh Chaurasia, a police official, in-charge of the Rasoolpur thana, warned the crowd of more than 150 students to clear the road jam on Asafabad crossing, but they persisted with the blockade forcing the police to cane charge them.

Later, local politicians joined the students and locals to protest the police’s high-handedness and blocked roads in different parts of the city, leaving the city in turmoil for a couple of hours.

The protesters are particularly incensed over the reported dragging of four girls by the police. “The girls were dragged by their hair by some policemen,” said a functionary of the Samajwadi Party.

The students were demanding punishment for those behind the murder of the principal, Santosh Kumar Dhakra. Early this month, the manager of the school was also murdered.

District magistrate of Firozabad, Vinay Kumar Srivastav, has ordered a magisterial inquiry.

Senior police officials in Agra said on Saturday night that things were under control.

But, political activists said that the glass city would see more trouble, if the authorities failed to announce compensation to the victims of Saturday’s police cane charge and also to the family members of the deceased principal. — IANS 

New Delhi, December 23
“History and Destiny”, an exhibition of paintings by Delhi artist, Anita Trehan is being presented at the Triveni Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam here from December 28 to January 6.

Nostalgia by Anita Trehan

Three Graces by Kumud Mohindra

Born in Kabul in Afghanistan, Anita had her schooling and college education in Delhi. She subsequently trained in art and craft under the expert guidance of eminent artist, Rameshwar Broota ,at the Triveni Kala Sangam here.

Russia with Love

The Canvas Art Gallery here is presenting “Russia With Love”, an exhibition of paintings by artist Koushal Choudhary at the Open Palm Court, India Habitat Centre here from December 19 to December 24.

The works of Koushal Choudhary are of interest because they combine in themselves two cultures, that of India and of Russia.  His sojourn in Russia has been fruitful, not as of the usual tourist, but one who has imbibed the especial cultural riches of that vast land.  Thus seen grafted on his artistic spirit are the hues — not merely material ones, of the land of the great icons, of the Orthodox Church, of its distinct literature, and its flora and fauna. This comes about not illustratively, but by subtle nuances. 

City Cite Site

The Anant Art Gallery here is presenting, “City Cite Site”, an exhibition of paintings by six prominent contemporary artists from December 19 to January 9. The exhibition is being curated by eminent art critic and appraiser Latika Gupta.

Nature Bazaar

Dastkar, the society for crafts and crafts people is holding its annual Nature Bazaar at the Dilli Haat from December 18 to December 31. This year, which incidentally marks the 25th year of the society’s existence, the Bazaar is celebrating the “Elephant” which it claims is a wonderful role model for us all. The elephant combines size and power with gentleness, wisdom and strength.

This year more than 200 organisations and crafts groups are participating in the Bazaar.

Liquid Memory

Vadehra Art Gallery here is holding “Liquid Memory + Rant” – an exhibition of recent art works by artist Baiju Parthan, from December 22 .

Parthan’s exhibition, being presented in Delhi after a considerable gap, includes remarkable works rendered with an enthralling diversity of mediums, ranging from canvases and prints to videos. Baiju began his career as a ‘non-art’ person or unswervingly speaking, as an engineer and gained a different sense of self worth while switching his career to art-making. His artistic psyche with its techno-scientific grooming and his upbringing within a communist schema in Kerela has resulted into a procedure of art production which is multilayered-meaning-generative, leaving abundant capacity for interpretation to the audience.

Life Against Life

“Life Against Life”, an exhibition of sculptures by well known Delhi artist Kumud Mohinder is being held in the gallery foyer of the Lalit Kala Academy here from December 23 to December 29.

Kumud, who has experimented virtually with all the mediums available for her creations, has her studio in East of Kailash and has participated in many solo and group shows. This is precisely why many a critic has referred to her as an iconoclast. Her creations have come in for critical acclaim and are now part of many a private collection.

New Delhi, December 23
An exhibition of the limited edition prints of eminent artist M.F. Husain resumed on Sunday in the Capital, after it was hurriedly called off a day ago following alleged threats from Hindu fundamentalists over his nude depiction of Hindu goddesses.

One of the exhibits of Husain’s show: India in the Era of Mughals

The India International Centre (IIC), a culture hub of the Capital, decided to resume the solo show after a “brief disruption” following a meeting of its directors late Saturday night. “It opened at 11 am on Sunday and closed at 5 pm,” an IIC official said. The show would continue.

The exhibition, featuring 20 odd prints of Mughal India, curated by Dolly Narang and the IIC, was culled from Fida Museum, the artist’s studio-cum-home in London. It has been inspired by K. Asif’s ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ and is a tribute to Indian cinema.

“This is one of the biggest Husain shows since 1988,” artist Anjolie Ela Menon said on Monday, the day it was inaugurated. — IANS

New Delhi, December 23
A local court sentenced Ibrahim, 25, convicted of murdering a woman in a robbery bid five years ago, to life imprisonment. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 4,000 on Ibrahim, a resident of the Sangam Vihar area here.

He was found guilty under Section 302 (murder) and 394 (robbery) of the IPC.

The court noted that the accused had failed to prove his absence from the scene of crime, which renders support to the case of the prosecution. Consequently, I hold that the prosecution has been able to establish that accused had murdered the woman, additional sessions judge B.B. Chaudhary said.

Earlier, rejecting the leniency plea of the convict, the court lent credence to the arguments of public prosecutor Vipin Sanduja, who had sought adequate punishment for Ibrahim.

Ibrahim was arrested on March 2, 2002 from a house in Sultanpuri in North West Delhi.

Akash, a class IX student, who was preparing for his examinations, raised an alarm after he found that Ibrahim had murdered the woman. He locked Ibrahim in the deceased’s house, leading to his arrest.

Even though Akash did not support the case in his deposition, the court ruled that the circumstances confirmed Ibrahim’s involvement in the crime.

New Delhi, December 23
While the media industry continued its economic and technological boom in 2007, developments impacting its freedom and ethics, most prominently the Uma Khurana fake sting and the sentencing of Mid Day journalists, dominated the national discourse, making headlines in the year gone by.

Besides the above two cases, the Aish-Abhishek wedding as year’s biggest ‘’news’’ event, launch of 35 TV channels and mobile TV, shelving of the broadcasting regulation bill and to impose a content code by the government in the face of stiff resistance by broadcasters, introduction of CAS in three metros, all form a list indicating the state of media and the challenges and issues it grappled with in 2007.

The FICCI – price waterhouse coopers (pwc) report, brought out in the beginning of the year, projecting the growth of the Indian entertainment and media at 18 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach Rs1 trillion by 2011 from its present size of Rs 437 billion brought cheers to millions.

However, the increasing commercialisation of journalism, the attack on the freedom of expression and continuing strain on the ethical fabric of the media gave a cause of concern stirring the journalists community to indulge in some thought process.

It would not be wrong to say that it was also a year of introspection for the media.

While on the one hand, the year 2007 brought accolades for the media for its social activism in the way it revived the Jessica Lal and the Priyadarshni Mattoo murder case through sustained campaigns, on the other hand it subjected itself to strong and frequent scrutiny.

The Uma Khurana fake sting, which falsely implicated the Delhi’s government school teacher in a prostitution racket, prompted the government to slap a ban on the channel, and necessitated the media barons and editors to sit together and mull over where things have gone wrong.

The event also was a strong boast to the government’s argument for more control over news channels, the basis of the controversial broadcasting services regulaion bill and content code, that has now been put on the back burner.

But the Editors Guild of India and News Broadcasters Association, while condemning the TV channel concerned for airing the sting, were prompt to stress this control should come from within. The bodies are in the process of devising their own content code.

They have also strongly opposed a recent Delhi High Court direction to the Ministry of Information and Broadacsting to form a panel with a judge and a bureaucrat among its members to censor stings before its telecast.

The dishing out of entertainment, as exemplified in media coverage of Aishwarya Rai-Abhishek Bachchan wedding, and suprestition in the garb of news was a topic of hot discussion at various fora which saw no less a person than the then President APJ Abdul Kalam taking on the news barons over the objectives and duties of the media in a democratic and developing country like India, exhorting them to become ‘’the media for a billion people.’’

While some broadcasters justified the entertainment in the garb of news, arguing that TRP rating were important for their survival, others argued that TRP could be secured by high quality journalism too and a news organisation has some responsibility towards the society and so could not go strictly by profit motives.

However, the most striking of all the events in the world of media was the Delhi High Court order awarding sentence to Mid Day journalist for publishing what it called an unsubstantiated report about the former Chief Jusice of India Y .K Sabharwal.

On September 20, the four journalists were sentenced to four months jail on contempt of court charges, because of a report they had filed alleging that the former CJI Sabharwal’s orders on sealing in various parts of Delhi were biased and were meant to influence the business of his sons, who had contacts with mall owners.

The media protested because the court did not consider whether the charges in the report were true or not in arriving at the decision.

The Delhi High Court ruling, felt the journalists, raised serious issues regarding the freedom of the press and immunity of judges from any scrutiny for corruption. Moreover, they felt it amounted to terrorising the journalists not to pursue truth.

The imprisonment order has, however, been stayed by the Supreme Court, but the issue continued to be debated throughout the year and journalsists came together to register their strong protest against the court order.

While the media continued to grapple with these issues throughout the year, on the economic and technological side, the developments were exciting.

The corporatisaion of the media continued unabated with shares of the entities in the sector being in the limelight on the bourses throughout the year.

Convergence continued to mark the scene on the media front. consumer was the focus throughout the year with different services available on the same devices and different network platforms enabled to carry similar services.

With this new empowerment of consumers, mass media increasingly become a two-way communication platform and the importance of accurate audience measurement turning out to be greater than ever before.

Digitisation further added to the growth of media. The way content was being created and delivered was revolutionized by digitisation, which filliped the revenue option with new type of audience and new breed of advertisers.

Year 2007 began with the introduction of the conditional access system (CAS ), a digital mode of delivery of TV signals, in three metros — Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. Chennai already had the system in place.

The system helped in prevention of theft of signals and gave accurate idea of the income of various service providers in the chain, while bringing down the monthly cable bill of those not watching many channels.

However, extension of CAS to other parts of the metros has been shelved in view of reports of certain difficulties. The government has sought inputs from states to resolve some issues before extending it further.

The launch of the TV service on mobile phone by the Doordarshan added another dimension to the convergence of media techologies.

Besides, scores of FM radio stations and community radio stations came on air this year ,increasing their reach to the remotest corners of the country.

In the present scene, there is an increasing demand from broadcasters to allow news and current affairs programme on private radio. — UNI

Noida, December 23
Five robbers,  accused of murder of three security guards and loot in a factory in Sector-2here, four years ago, were awarded life sentence by the fast track court yesterday.

The court also slapped a fine of Rs. 14,000 each on the accused who belong to the Bawariya tribe.

The accused had tried to loot a factory in D-5 .Sector-2  here on October 24,2003.  When security guards on duty, Narayan Prasad, Durga Prasad and Santosh tried to stop them, the robbers hit them with iron rods on the head which resulted in their death .

Factory owner A.P. Kapur had lodged an FIR with the police against unidentified robbers. After about one year the Delhi Police nabbed the three accused, Sanjiv, Sher Singh, Amar Singh, Rajender and Bachoo on October 3,2004 along with illegal weapons while planning a robbery.

In another case two robbers, Yograj and Vijay Singh were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder of a cashier who along with a colleague was carrying cash for staff salary. The two were also slapped with a fine of Rs. 27,000 each.

Accountant Rajinder Prasad and Bir Singh of Sahu Garment Export Company in Sector-60 here were on way to the factory with Rs. 1.35 lakh.When the two reached near Dharam Kanta in Sector-60 two scooter- borne persons stopped their riksha and snatched away the cash bag at gun point. When Bir Singh resisted the robbers, one of the criminals shot him.

New Delhi, December 23
Prof H. P. Dikshit, director general, Good Governance, Madhya Pradesh presented the fourth Shri Chaitanya Scientist Talent Test awards to meritorious students at a function held in the Capital today.

The students were given cash prizes of Rs 50,000, Rs 25,000 and Rs 10,000 for securing the first, second and third position. The test was categorised in three sections, A, B, and C for class IX, X and XI students respectively.
While Diksha Chawla was declared first, Ketan Goyal stood second in the category A. Devesh Sood won the first prize in category B and Farhan Abrol ranked second. In the category C, Aman Gupta received the first prize while Mahesh Gondi came second. The school toppers were also given a cash prize of Rs 1,001 each.