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Gender perceptions
No leg to stand on |
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Putin’s visit and after
Stars, stripes and chakras
In quest of perfect 'pani puri'
london latitude
Award for Sir Charles Wheeler
Christie's to support India Art Fair
Canada Calling
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Gender perceptions
Many
perceptions and misgivings are nurtured by the distancing of genders, by their isolation. Perhaps, it is time for society to rethink if segregating girls and boys right from the school to launching special buses and trains for women was a good idea. Secondly, while in educational institutions texts can be monitored for their gender-sensitive content, dogmas delivered from the pulpits of different religious shades remain free to preach misogyny, in its worst medieval hangover. In a country like ours where literacy rates are poor, there is a large following for these dogmas that preach woman needs to be subjugated. It serves the purpose of earning easy popularity and following. In a secular state, where one has to learn to respect other religions, it is nobody’s responsibility to safeguard that gender perceptions based on ancient texts are banned, or not allowed to be dogmatised. Gender still remains a major stumbling block in the twenty-first century India. This could be attributed to the fact that different segments of our society talk in different languages, in terms of their perception of women’s social relevance. This causes more incoherence. No wonder, even the President of the country had to admit that perceptions about women need to change, so that they are not victimised merely on the basis of their gender. But the fact remains that females are subjected to violence for this biological accident. What triggers this violence still remains a complex issue, to be studied by bringing about a change in mindsets. But, till that happens, steps must be taken to check rising crimes against women. To begin with, there should be a special coordination cell that could oversee that different law-enforcing agencies worked with alacrity in situations of gender-related complaints. Each city and town should have one emergency number that should respond only to women’s distress calls. Each education institute and work place should have a personnel with special responsibility of responding to complaints of sexual harassment.
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No leg to stand on
Things
cannot get more embarrassing than this for the SAD-BJP government in Punjab. An AIG of the police has now had his leg broken in a fracas during a party at a Ludhiana pub owned by a man who at least till recently was associated with the SAD. Besides the murder of an ASI in Amritsar earlier by a SAD leader, a couple of constables have also been assaulted over the past month. In the latest incident, the government will have to first come out with convincing facts as to what exactly happened. The government’s version of what took place — that the AIG slipped and broke the tibia in his leg — is at gross variance with what has appeared across the media. The tibia is one of the strongest bones in the body, and it would be rare for a healthy middle-aged male to break it by simply slipping on the floor. Whatever be the case, there are two aspects that are shocking. One, the pub owner, who knew the AIG, had the gumption to assault a senior police officer. Two, the government has not thought it fit to order a separate inquiry into a violent incident in which a police officer has been injured seriously — however it may have happened — and the officer himself is silent. The manner in which the government machinery, including the Deputy Chief Minister, has been quick in dismissing the matter as simply a brawl at a party and a slip on the floor suggests someone does not want all to come to light. Why was the officer’s friend carrying a revolver at a Christmas party, or what was the relationship between the officer and the owner of the pub? The politician-moneybag-police nexus is operating as a well-oiled machine in Punjab. Why else would the government not want to have IPS officers on key field postings? It is only occasional clashes of interest within that expose the cartel once in a while. Unless the state government and the SAD both go for a thorough shake-up in their power structures, it would be hard now to convince people that Punjab is safe at all, not to talk of ‘safest’, as the Deputy Chief Minister claimed in the Assembly.
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Putin’s visit and after
Despite
the hiccups over the Sistema
issue and some other matters, India and Russia continue to maintain
friendly relations. Some changes in their ties may be visible here and
there, but nothing significant can be cited to prove that the two
traditionally friendly nations are drifting apart. The fact that
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Delhi in accordance with his
revised schedule, ignoring his health problems, shows that there is no
dearth of eagerness to upgrade India-Russia relations in every area
possible. They have always depended on each other’s support at
regional and global levels, and there is no reason why they should not
do so now. If there is a trust deficit as a result of controversies
over the grant of licences to Russian telecommunications giant Sistema,
or the delivery of the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier to India,
these cannot create an unbridgeable gulf between the two countries. During
the daylong visit of President Putin to Delhi on Monday, India and
Russia signed many agreements, the biggest being the one on civil
nuclear energy. Under the new accord, Russia has committed that it
would build another nuclear power plant in Koodankulam (Tamil Nadu)
where it has already set up two plants for generating nuclear energy.
The new plant will have a capacity of producing 1000 mw of nuclear
energy every year. As a result, India’s nuclear energy generating
capacity will go up to over 20,000 mw. The cooperation in the area of
defence between India and Russia was reaffirmed with the signing of a
$ 2.9 billion defence agreement. Under the new deal, India will buy
from Russia Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and 71 Mil Mi-17 helicopters.
Though New Delhi no longer depends solely on Moscow for its major
defence requirements, it still does 70 per cent arms purchases from
Russia. There is, however, a threat to Russia’s pre-eminent
position in arms purchases by India. The US, France and Israel are
among the new major arms suppliers to India. This means that Russia
will have to be more considerate with India in the area of defence
supplies. It will have to find a way so that India continues to remain
as much interested in procuring arms and armaments from Russia as it
has been in the past.
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Know or listen to those who know.— Baltasar Gracian
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Stars, stripes and chakras
TWO weeks ago, the US Senate passed an amendment to the National Defence Authorisation Act for 2013, asking the Pentagon to report on an approach for “normalising” the US defence trade and relationship with India, including discussions of co-production and co-development of defence systems. Seen in isolation, this is a statement of intent by Capitol Hill, in particular spearheaded by Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn, to provide some ballast on the defence relationship. In fact, this mirrors a quietly ongoing coalescence of the US government’s notorious interagency process on the very same issue. This coming-together, a revolution of sorts in Washington’s India orientation, has been sparked by the Carter initiative — led by Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter, with Indian NSA Shivshankar Menon as his interlocutor. When taken together with the interest shown by Capitol Hill, the US now has a superstructure in place to look holistically at issues surrounding defence ties with Delhi, including India’s long-expressed concerns about technology release. The November 6 election results conferred the blessing of continuity on President Obama’s “Asian pivot”. While the re-balancing of US strategic priorities in Asia will be happening regardless, India has a chance to shape this debate. There is not yet a uniform understanding in Washington as to what military capabilities India might need assistance from the US in developing. This is the kind of discussion that the interagency coalescence encouraged by the Carter initiative is intended to bolster. India could table a discussion on areas it deems national priorities, and has a forum to raise specific export control cases. From India’s perspective, what it might want to request from the US in terms of co-development possibilities or technical assistance would depend on an in-depth assessment of the out-of-area contingency operations it anticipates conducting on its own or jointly with other countries over the long-term (20-25 years). The immediate future of the defence relationship will be measured along two fronts: first — the health of the defence trade, which includes not just Indian procurements of US defence equipment, but also co-production and co-development as long-term goals. Here, India has been looking to the US as a supplier to its defence modernisation, with $8 billion worth of contracts being signed since 2008, and the positive experience of the delivery of the C130J aircraft ahead of schedule and under budget. The US is in line to be awarded additional contracts for M-777 Howitzers, Apache helicopters and Chinook helicopters. Follow-on orders are in the offing for C-130Js, P-8I maritime patrol aircraft and C-17 heavy airlift aircraft. With the security of the sea-lines of communication in the Asia-Pacific being of such mutual concern, future programmes could include the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and, if MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) issues are resolved, possibly Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS). On the co-development side, many options appear to be open, and the direction taken will depend on where India wants to put its money, what system or platform branches of military service on either side will buy into, and what the export market for it would be. The second front for measuring defence relations is the broad ambit of capacity building. This would include technical training and joint exercises. At the moment, the discussion gates appear to be open on technical training in many areas in which India expresses its interest. For instance, in the training of Landing Signal Officers (LSOs) for the Vikramaditya and subsequent aircraft carriers in the Indian Navy. Both countries conduct regular joint exercises, which is anticipated to continue apace. Capacity building is a function of the quality of service-service interaction, for which regular exchanges of officers are vital. Services in both countries could also discuss regional contingencies in which they might be required to jointly operate, and without putting in place a priori arrangements that are politically charged, work on tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in case called on to do so. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently identified, one area that is a good candidate for discussion on capacity building is humanitarian assistance/ disaster relief, feeding off the successful instance of both navies working together during the tsunami relief effort in 2004-2005. The ongoing challenge for both governments is to define what exactly this “strategic relationship” is in form and function, in which context a defence relationship will mature. A historically mercurial relationship has settled into a pattern, where both Washington and New Delhi now largely understand the in principle intersection of grand national interests across many fronts, but recognize that the de facto reality cannot always reflect this. What disagreements there are can mostly be managed as being those between friends. For India, the point to be noted is that the new superstructure offers promise to deal in a regularised manner with the issues it has historically complained about the most in regards to technology denial. It must educate its own internal constituencies to this effect, failing which it runs the risk of slowing down real collaborative possibilities. There are still skeptics in both capitals — those bruised by past battles over non-proliferation, export control, nuclear issues, or just simple inertia — who think that nothing will ever change in either the US attitude towards India, or India’s attitude towards the US. To them, a US-India defence relationship is the Teumessian fox from Greek mythology, the animal that can never be caught. The god Cephalus used the hound who caught everything he hunted — Laelaps — to try and catch the fox. The optimists on US-India defence ties have bet on the hound. It might just take him a
while.
The writer is a Visiting Fellow at Observer Research Foundation,
New Delhi.
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In quest of perfect 'pani puri' I never realised one could miss street food so much till I moved to Chandigarh a couple of decades ago. It was in 1992 when I came to the city to pursue my masters' degree at Panjab University. Coming from the hustle-bustle of a metropolis like Ludhiana and taking to the quiet environs of the City Beautiful obviously took some time. A switchover from the dusty, crowded roads to wide tree-lined avenues and a clean environment should have made anybody ecstatic at the change. From a city infamous for its lack of traffic sense to the one where even rickshaw-wallas kept to their lane, ideally we should have been thanking our stars for this opportunity. But either we (I and a few of my other 'country cousins') were suckers for punishment or die-hard Ludhianavis. Even the novelty of Sector 17's huge plaza could not move us. A hostel-mate constantly used to reminisce about Chaura Bazaar, which, despite its name, is not so wide after all. She would often sigh and say that till you are jostled and your feet trampled by a few fellow pedestrians or under the wheels of wooden handcarts, it does not feel that you have shopped at all. Not for her the uniqueness of organised shopping or beauty of a tree-lined plaza with fountains to match. But slowly we got used to living in this city of order. Over the years, a few of us found jobs, got married and even settled in the city. Unlike the earlier habit, when we used to even buy our essentials on week-end visits to 'home', we started finding our feet here. The city became a familiar place and we could even behave like locals or natives. Now we knew from where to get the best of everything at reasonable prices - be it groceries, clothes, curtains and, yes, haircuts, too. Rather, now the two cities had a role reversal. The visits back home were now punctuated with exclamations about its chaotic traffic, potholed roads and what not. We had truly become Chandigarhians, taking pride in our unique roundabouts and our clean, green wide roads and a lot more. But one thing that was truly our City Beautiful's Achilles' heel was its lack of a street food culture. During my stay of more than two decades, I have not been able to adjust to the lacklustre, bland and limited street food it offers. Like a true-blue Ludhianavi, I still hanker after the samosas and gulab jamuns of College Road, Pannu halwai's pakodas, the melt-in mouth pedas from Ghas Mandi, the spicy chana-kulchas of Cemetery Road, the tangy chaat at Kumhar Mandi and a variety of other specialities which the dhabas of Ludhiana are known for. But what I miss the most are the gol gappas. My quest for that elusive taste I used to relish back 'home' has taken me to all corners of the city literally. From various khomchawallas at Sector 17 to various sweet shops of sector markets, and even famous ones from Sector 23 or Sector 34, it seems pretty futile even after 20 years. On visits home, the first stop is not my home but the golgappa wallah we have patronised since school days. And during my stay there, I faithfully make a beeline to the shop every evening to have my fill, particularly the special ones like a double golgappa or a dry one, and drinking copious amounts of that tangy water of which I never seem to have enough. And the heights of desperation — when family and friends come visiting and ask if they can get anything for me, I unabashedly ask them to get me golgappas packed from my favourite
rehriwalla.
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london latitude Shyam Bhatia AN Oxford college has justified its decision to co-fund the proposed Indira Gandhi Centre for Sustainable Development by describing the former Prime Minister as a "major historical figure" who "championed the cause of a sustainable environment before any other government of a large nation." Oxford University and Somerville College, Oxford, where Mrs Gandhi was enrolled for a year in 1937 before she dropped out, have agreed to contribute £5.5 million towards the centre which will conduct inter-disciplinary research into international governance, environmental sustainability and food security. The Indian government has agreed to contribute another £3 million with a spokesman in Delhi explaining, "It will be a leading centre for research into environmental issues that were dear to Indira Gandhi and are of vital and increasing relevance to India's and the world's future." This is the second time in recent years that India has offered money to Oxford. In 2000 the BJP government announced a £1.8 million grant to Oxford to help create a Chair in Indian History and Culture at the Institute of Oriental Studies. Until then only two other foreign governments, South Korea and Greece, were associated with country specific projects. The latest donation from India coincides with Oxford's decision to launch its biggest-ever fund-raising campaign to attract £3 billion. Vice-Chancellor Andrew Hamilton, commented earlier this year, "We are enormously grateful to all those who have supported the campaign and who are helping us to secure Oxford's place as a world-class university for generations to come. “When Oxford embarked upon the planning for the campaign in 2004, our aim of raising a minimum of £1.25 billion seemed ambitious, and perhaps rather daunting. The fact that we have been able to pass this target in only seven and a half years is testament to the strength of support for Oxford University around the world, as well as the hard work of our combined efforts as a collegiate university." Asked whether Oxford had taken into account the human rights abuses, including forced sterilization, imprisonment and police brutality associated with Mrs Gandhi during the 21 month Emergency between 1975 and 1977 Somerville College responded, "Indira Gandhi was indeed a controversial leader, and the college does not suggest that everything she did was positive." A university spokeswoman added, “We can only reiterate that the college does not suggest that every action of Indira Gandhi's was positive. It does not condone every action she took. Beyond that, there is nothing to add to the statements already made."
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A British politician tipped to be a future UK Prime Minister has emerged with such strong Indian connections that he could easily spend as much time in India in future as he does in the UK. The politician is London's mayor, Boris Johnson, who was recently in India on an official visit. He is widely viewed as a rival and sometime successor to the current Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron. Johnson's wife, Marina, is half Indian. Her widowed mother, Lady Wheeler (formerly Dip Singh) was married to one of the BBC's most distinguished India correspondents, Sir Charles Wheeler, who served in Delhi, Washington DC and Berlin. It was while he was based in Delhi between 1958 and 1962 that Sir Charles reported the Tibetan uprising and the flight ofthe Dalai Lama across the Himalayas to sanctuary in India under the protection of Jawaharlal Nehru. It was while he was serving in Delhi that Sir Charles met and married Dip Singh - his second wife - with whom he had two daughters. Their second daughter, Shirin, followed her father into the BBC and now works as a spokesperson for the European Union in Brussels. Lady Wheeler herself is part of a vast and powerful network of Sikh families based in Delhi. Her older sister married Bhagwant Singh,one of the sons of Sardar Bahadur Sir Sobha Singh, the famous civil contractor who worked with Sir Edwin Lutyens to build a new capital of India in Delhi. Bhagwant's brother is the writer and historian Khushwant Singh. No wonder Boris Johnson likes to joke that whenever he travels to Delhi he always saves the British taxpayer huge sums of money because he has so many Indian relatives by marriage that he never needs to stay in an expensive Indian hotel. Sir Charles died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 85. Earlier this month he was posthumously honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at a glittering function in London attended by diplomats, leading businessmen and politicians, including members of the House of Lords. India's High Commissioner to Britain, Dr Jaimini Bhagwati, presented the posthumous award to Sir Charles' daughters at the Indian Journalists Association (IJA) 2012 Christmas dinner held at a leading London hotel. |
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Christie's to support India Art Fair THE UK's leading art business auction house, Christie's, says it will be supporting the 5th edition of the India Art Fair in January/February 2013 and its partnership with 'Homelands', an exhibition of British contemporary arts that is due to tour Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, opening in New Delhi in early 2013 Christie's long association with India goes back to 1776 when the company's founder, James Christie, offered four India pictures painted on glass in his inaugural auction in London in 1776. In 1994 Christie's opened an office in Mumbai, the only international auction house to have a consistent presence in India, and held its first sale of contemporary Indian art the following year. Amin Jaffer, International Director Asian Art at Christie's, said: "We are delighted to support the annual India Art Fair as we recognise its importance as a convening moment for all those who are passionate about the future of the Indian art market and are interested in India's national artistic development." Menaka Kumari-Shah, Christie's Head of India, added "The 'Homelands' exhibition will showcase the very best art being produced by leading contemporary artists in Britain -- a fitting juxtaposition to our international sales of works by their South Asian contemporaries. Both the Art Fair and the exhibition are opportunities for us to lend our support to cultural and educational opportunities which are important milestones in the Indian cultural agenda for 2013." The Indian Art Fair will remain open in New Delhi from February 1-3, 2013 and includes 106 exhibitors from 24 countries. The Homelands exhibition, which opens in New Delhi on 22 January, 2013, is described as a unique take on contemporary British art and includes more than 80 works by 28 leading modern and contemporary artists.
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Canada Calling THOUGH it is too early to say anything about his prospects, if Punjab-born Harinder Takhar, who in 2003 became the first Indian to hold a ministerial position in Canada’s Ontario province, manages to win the leadership of the ruling Liberal Party of the province, he will go on to become the premier of Ontario. The leadership election has been necessitated by the resignation of the sitting premier Dalton McGuinty who was also the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. So, whosoever wins the party leader’s post also becomes the premier of Ontario. If the soft-spoken Takhar wins, he will be the second Indian in Canada to become a premier after Ujjal Dosanjh who created history in February 2000 by winning the premiership of Canada’s British Columbia province. To put things in perspective, the post of a premier in Canada is equal to that of a Chief Minister in India. But unlike Indian chief ministers, premiers in Canada are much more powerful, because provincial parties are absolutely independent of national parties and choose their own leaders. Further, the premier of Ontario is considered to be the second-most powerful person in Canada after the Prime Minister, because Ontario is the country’s most powerful province as it accounts for about 40 per cent of the country’s economy and population.
After officially announcing his bid for the leadership on November 24, Takhar began the task of wooing about 2,500 delegates who will elect the new leader on January 27. The only person of colour in the fray, Takhar faces six opponents, including two formidable females — Kathleen Wynne (until now Minister for Municipal Affairs and Housing) and Sandra Pupatello (former Minister of Economic Development and Trade). “I am here in the race to win it,” he declared. A successful businessman, Takhar joined politics in 2003 and won in the Assembly elections. Immediately, he was made the Minister of Transport and has been holding the ministerial position since then. Since election rules require all contenders for the party leader’s post to quit their Cabinet posts, Takhar too has resigned from the ministry to enter the fray. The 61-year-old Takhar came to Canada from Shankar village — also the native place of the late Union Minister Swaran Singh — near Jalandhar in 1974. Before he left for Canada, he was a bank officer with the Punjab and Sind Bank. Like any new immigrant, he started his life in Canada at the bottom. However, Takhar was soon on his way up the corporate ladder because of his finance background, which he fortified by earning a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) degree from Toronto. Having held many senior positions in private companies over the years, he then went on ahead to create his own business under the name of Chalmers Group of Companies. Now, he touts his experience in the business world as his biggest asset in tackling the problems of Ontario province. “All my career, I have been involved in finance, business and job creations. In fact, my career of 25 years is based on the basic fiscal discipline. And at this point, Ontario is faced with a fiscal deficit of $14 billion and the issue of job creation. I have the financial experience to tackle these two issues which none of the other six candidates has,’’ said Takhar, kicking off his election campaign. His entry into the ruling party’s leadership race has galvanised the 5,00,000-strong Indo-Canadian community of the Greater Toronto Area. A slice of Indian cinema It looks like the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is reinventing Indian cinema for global audiences. After showcasing Mumbai under its city-to-city programme at its last edition in September in which 10 Mumbai-centric films were screened, TIFF screened yet another package from India in November. Called Indian Expressionism, the seven-film package included movies from the 1920s to the 1970s. These included Light of Asia (1925), The Blue Angel (1930), Pinjra (1972), The Indian Tomb (1921), The Tiger of Eschnapur/The Indian Tomb (1959), Amrit Manthan (1934), and Mahal (1949). Mumbai-based film critic and curator Meenakshi Shedde, who flew down to Toronto to present Indian Expressionism from November 14 to 21, said the package was “an interesting way to top off Diwali celebrations”. Interestingly, Indian Expressionism is actually all about the influence of German Expressionism on Indian cinema from the 1920s to the 1970s. Shedde, who is also India Consultant to the Berlin and Dubai film festivals, said: “Through this package, I wanted to tell global audiences that the Indian cinema from the 1920s onwards was much more global than today’s Bollywood. While current Indian films open only to diaspora audiences, the films from that era used to open to global audiences. Look at Light of Asia, an Indo-German co-production of 1925. It was released in Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Brussels, London and so on. In fact, in Britain this film had a special screening for the King and the Queen. It ran in British theatres for many weeks. “So what Light of Asia accomplished in the 1920s, no Bollywood film has been able to manage — even up to 2012,’’ said Shedde who was also India Consultant to the “Raj Kapoor and the Golden Age of Indian Cinema” festival held by TIFF last year. Shedde said the great filmmakers Himansu Rai and V. Shantaram were deeply influenced by German Expression because, in the 1920s, Germany cinema was pitching itself as a rival to Hollywood. And the UFA Studios in Berlin were their centre of excellence. “But since they didn’t have the kind of budgets that Hollywood boasted, German Expressionist films made up for this by having set designs and performances in an exaggerated, distorted, unrealistic style that reflected inner emotional realities,’’ she said.
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