|
|
|
|
|
Victims twice over
Plastic lives |
|
|
Delhi is losing the plot in Dhaka
Puzzles in prepositions
Missing epic proportions
A delightful walk
Not liberating enough
|
Victims twice over As
winter peaks, victims of violence who have been displaced from their homes have a tough time. Living in make-shift camps which are often as crowded as they are ill-equipped, the families face many challenges, including getting food and medicines. In Uttar Pradesh alone, at least 34 children below 12 years have died at the relief camps in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts between September 7 and December 20. In Hisar’s Mirchpur village, 70-odd families face a hostile environment, both natural and man-made. Life in camps, which are meant to be a refuge for victims of violence, is insecure. Overcrowding, lack of basic amenites and even essentials turn living there into a “nasty, brutish, and short” experience. Indeed, what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes called “state of nature” is what we see in camps. They are also a visible reminder of the failure of the social contract of society with its members. It is a collective failure of society as a whole and the administrative machinery in particular that people face violence on a scale where they are compelled to leave their homes and shift to camps that promise them security. No one wants to leave his house. The victims have been displaced because the administrative machinery failed to ensure their safety. It is for the state governments concerned and the local administration to provide adequate security and make other arrangements so that they can be rehabilitated. This could be done by both beefing up the police presence as well as intervening with the people of the area. Each case is unique, but generally speaking, if an administrator decides to solve a problem, he can often do so effectively. Children and the elderly need care. They should not be exposed to the elements. The unfortunate deaths of the children in UP remind us of the gravity of the situation. Ignoring this wake-up call would make us forfeit the right to call ourselves a civilised society. |
|
Plastic lives Implementation of the Himachal Pradesh High Court order banning plastic bags and plastic packaging of non-essential food (read junk) items would prove to be a life-altering development for anyone living in the state. Way of living, food habits, trade, environment — all of which are determined or affected to varying extents by the use of plastic — stand to change. In the immediate context of personal lives, the first experience is going to be inconvenience. But a moment’s introspection would show even an untrained eye the devastation plastic is causing all around us. The court has used the opportunity to hit at two levels — the wrappers themselves, and what comes in them. A simple rule of the thumb in healthy eating is that what comes industrially packaged is not good. Apart from the unhealthy fats, sugars and other refined materials that go into junk food, these also contain a lot of chemicals for
flavouring, colour and preservation. The court order, asking for all food to be sold strictly as per the Food Safety and Standards Regulation, 2011, may prove to be a little too much to implement for the state government and civic bodies in one go, but it cannot be faulted. For the average child and homemaker it may take a while for the adjustment, but Himachal has seen partial success with banning plastic carry bags earlier, something other states and Union territories have struggled with. There will be some realistic criticism of the ban too. Modern technology and global ways of living have plastics as a fundamental ingredient. Packaging of non-food items, coming in from world over, and most industrial products contain plastic. That brings us to the next stage — waste management. The solution is age-old: clean up after you make a mess. The fault lies not as much in using plastic as in not disposing it in a correct manner after use. We let most of it just litter all over our landscape. For a market driven country that India is today, asking for garbage collection and management, sorted as organic, non-biodegradable and toxic, should not be too much to ask. Administrations need not wait for court orders. |
|||||
|
It doesn’t work to leap a 20-foot chasm in two 10-foot jumps. — American proverb |
|||||
The situation in South Africa
Recent telegrams from South Africa have made it abundantly clear that the object of the Union Government in appointing a commission of inquiry is not so much the conciliation of Indian sufferers as conforming to an imperial policy foreshadowed by public men in England during the struggle. For purposes of the Union Government Indian opinion does not seem to exist, however strong it may be and however vehemently it may be expressed. Indians are in South Africa by the sufferance of the whites. They can only be moved like pawns on the chess board. If they do not like it they can do what they like with themselves. That is the meaning of the Union Government's rejection of the modest conditions offered by Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Wacha on the financial crisis
MR. D. E. Wacha, that sound, fearless leader of Indians, has offered a few timely and useful suggestions to the public and the officials connected with banks in distress. In an article, he points out what the liquidators can do and are not to do. He warns them against hasty and indiscreet sales and points out how values are depreciated unjustly under certain circumstances. He warns against all these “Modern Asyrians”. Mr. Wacha further says: “If a liquidator acts in collusion which buyers or syndicates, eager to make 'a good thing' for themselves at the expense of the creditors, there is an end of the matter. Forced sales of good securities are generally made in Bombay with this object only. A few fill their packets at the expense of the many already ruined.” “What is just now wanted in Bombay is character, character for the highest integrity, character for prudence and foresight in monetary affairs and character to save the city from the reproach of refined swindling.” Mr Wacha’s advise and warning are necessary and his appeal to character ought to have an grudging response, not merely in Bombay but in Punjab and other places likewise.
|
Delhi is losing the plot in Dhaka
As Bangladesh enters a turbulent phase with the controversial general elections on January 5 and with continuing violence following the execution of Islamist leader Abdul Quader Molla, New Delhi needs to pay special attention to its neighbour. The fallout from continuing instability in Bangladesh will have significant implications for India as well as the larger South Asian region. Mollah had a key role in Jamaat-e-Islami, which is an ally of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). This has underscored the explosive political tensions in Bangladesh between the ruling party, the Awami League, and the Opposition. BNP leader Khaleda Zia had asked the government to shelve the elections, arguing that “it could be last nail in the coffin of democracy” and accusing her arch-rival Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of “killing democracy to consolidate power forever.” More than half of the candidates in the 300-seat parliament were set to be elected unopposed in the absence of rival candidates as BNP and its allies, including the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, have decided to boycott the January 5 polls. As tensions rise in Dhaka, New Delhi has had a rather weak hand to play, given its inability to strengthen Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s hands. Though India has repeatedly signalled that it remains committed to an early solution on the sharing of the Teesta waters and the long-pending boundary issue, it has not been able to generate sufficient political consensus on these issues. And by not signing the deals that matter most to Dhaka, it has alienated pro-India forces in the country. While the UPA government has not been able to display leadership on this critical bilateral relationship, the BJP had been playing petty politics with complete disregard for larger national imperatives. India did make some initial strong overtures to the Hasina government. Pranab Mukherjee had visited Dhaka in 2010 as the then finance minister to mark the signing of a $1-billion loan deal, the largest line of credit received by Bangladesh under a single agreement. India’s Exim Bank had signed this line of credit agreement with Bangladesh’s economic relations division and the loan was to be used to develop the railways and communications infrastructure in Bangladesh. This deal carried 1.75 per cent annual interest and would be repayable in 20 years, including a five-year grace period. It was offered during Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India in January 2010. This was followed by the two countries signing a 35-year electricity transmission deal under which India will be exporting up to 500 MW of power to Bangladesh. Dhaka has also signed a $1.7-billion pact with the National Thermal Power Corporation for the construction of two coal-fired plants in southern Bangladesh. Despite these initiatives, India failed to build on the momentum provided by Hasina’s visit with its failure to implement two major bilateral agreements — finalisation of land boundary demarcation and the sharing of the waters of the Teesta river. Bangladesh has been rightly upset at the slow pace in the implementation of these pacts. Sheikh Hasina has taken great political risk by putting the momentum back into bilateral ties. But there has been no serious attempt on India’s part to settle outstanding issues. Bureaucratic inertia and the lack of political will has prevented many of the deals from getting followed through. Dhaka is seeking response to its demand for the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers on Bangladeshi products. India has failed to reciprocate Hasina’s overtures. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has used the India-Bangladesh bonhomie under Hasina to attack the government for toeing India’s line. India-Bangladesh ties had reached their lowest ebb during the 2001-2006 tenure of the BNP government. India has failed to capitalise on the propitious political circumstances in Bangladesh, damaging its credibility even further. Friends are as temporary as enemies in international politics. Instead, it is a state’s national interests that determine its foreign policy. In the case of India and Bangladesh, these interests have been diverging for some years now, making this bilateral relationship susceptible to the domestic political narratives in New Delhi and Dhaka. India is the central issue around which political parties of Bangladesh define their foreign policy agenda. This shouldn’t be a surprise given India’s size and geographic linkages. Over the years, political parties opposing the Awami League have tended to define themselves in opposition to India, in effect portraying Awami League as India’s ‘stooge’. Moreover, radical Islamic groups have tried to buttress their own ‘Islamic identities’ by attacking India. Ever since she has come to power in December 2008, Sheikh Hasina has faced challenges from right-wing parties as well as the fundamentalist organisations such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which enjoy Pakistan’s support. These groups are united in undermining efforts to improve ties with New Delhi. The greatest challenge that Hasina overcame in her first year was the mutiny by the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles, which erupted in February 2009. It soon became clear that the mutineers were being instigated by supporters of the opposition led by the BNP and others connected to the Jamaat-e-Islami. India supported Hasina’s crackdown on the mutineers by sealing its borders with Bangladesh and forcing back mutineers who were attempting to cross over. She has been taking on the extremist forces head on. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in September 2011 and was all set to sign the Teesta pact. But West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made sure that his plan got derailed at the last minute, damaging India’s credibility significantly. The Prime Minister ultimately managed to sign the land-boundary agreement that demarcates territorial sovereignty along the 4,000 km Indo-Bangladesh frontier. But even in this case, while Bangladesh has ratified this pact, India has failed to move forward because of the need for a Constitutional Amendment, which requires support from the main Opposition party, the BJP. The political dispensation in New Delhi should recognise the dangers of playing party politics with India’s foreign and security policy. India is witnessing rising turmoil all around its borders and, therefore, a stable, moderate Bangladesh is in its long-term interests. Constructive Indo-Bangladesh ties can be a major stabilising factor for the South Asian region as a whole. It can’t afford to ignore Dhaka. |
||||||
Puzzles in prepositions This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.” 1. The Ludhiana-based company has discontinued with the manufacture of mink blankets. Some second language users show a marked tendency of using superfluous prepositions and particles. We often come across usages like “awarded with a medal”, “bow down to demands,” “combat against the enemy forces” and “ordered for a dish washer” where “with”, “down”, “against” and “for” are not needed. 2. Please inform me ^ the train timings. The verb “inform” in this sentence can take a prepositional phrase and the preposition “of” can modify the noun phrase “the train timings”. Similarly, phrases such as “intimate ^ me” (with the missing “to”), “searching ^ you” (with the missing “for”) and “grapple ^ a problem” (with the missing “with”) are quite common. 3. We are working in London since a long time. Many second-language learners of English confuse the use of the prepositions “since” and “for” which express the relation of time between two constituents of a sentence. Whereas “since” is used to refer to a point of time, “for” is used to refer to a period of time. To measure the duration of time up to the present, as is the case above, a present perfect continuous tense is to be used and not a present tense. So the sentence can be reworded as “We have been working in London since 1993 (hypothetical starting point).”/ “We have been working in London for 20 years.”/ “We have been working in London for a long time.” 4. Jacob interviewed Prof. Sequeira in the Jaipur Literature Festival. In the sentence above, “at” instead of “in” is a preferred usage. The preposition “at” is used before the names of events, organisations and small areas or even larger places viewed as a geographical location or a point on the map and not a human habitation. “In” is used in relation to large areas like cities and also in relation to small places if they are important to the speaker. 5. What did you step on? The sentence ending with a preposition takes us back to the rule we started “with”. Descriptive linguists who prefer to accept legitimate popular usages consider it to be one of the myths of grammar. |
||||||
CINEMA: NEW Releases Ratings: *****Excellent ****very good ***good **Average *poor
Missing epic proportions
The story of this Indian mythological animated drama revolves around truth, justice, duty, sacrifice, and the eternal fight between good and bad ideologies. Even the two Mahabharata series on television couldn't do justice to the text, so expecting anything unbelievable is just not on! Instead, if you adopt a more pragmatic approach you will not have as much cause for disappointment. The Mahabharata, an epic by the sage Vyasa, supposedly has all that is needed to feed human consciousness. Mahabharata is teeming with myths and is regarded as one of the few ancient texts that have given birth to numerous stories. But this version is low on imagination and depth. Though the plot stays close to the ancient text (as much as possible) there are flights of fancy, especially the sequence of the Maya Mahal. Then there is also the battle of Kurukshetra between the Pandavas and Kauravas, structured and executed in piecemeal fashion with shabby pyrotechnics standing in for celestially driven warfare. The basic story is still as sublime and meaningful but the treatment is not. The 2 D animation is limiting. The use of A-list Bollywood actors to give face and voice to the legendary characters is a good enough hook, but the advantage is lost in the poor quality of character modelling with some of the well-known faces looking far too alien in toon form to connect with the audience. The voice talent though is of high quality. With the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Ajay Devgan, Anil Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Manoj Bajpayee, Jackie Shroff, Vidya Balan and Anupam Kher lending their names and faces to the legendary characters, the filmmakers could definitely have gone all out to make this a blockbuster to be remembered. But unfortunately, the lack of ambition in this venture is the biggest drawback. The 2-D animation character modelling and rendering is not distinct enough to make some of the faces recognisable and often, even the ones that are meant to be familiar look weird.
So far so good
Reality check
Calling quits |
|
A delightful walk
We know very well that dinosaurs are huge pre-historic creatures that once ruled the earth but only recently they were revived by Steven Spielberg in his Jurassic Park films. Probably inspired by it, scriptwriter John Colbee has written an imaginative screenplay and directors Neil Nightingale and Barry Cook have peopled with a variety of creatures that are sure to enthrall audiences (children and adults) this festival season in Walking With Dinosaurs. It is indeed a quaint world, rife with running streams and lush greenery for which the crew travelled to Alaska and New Zealand to shoot similar surroundings to those prevalent in the dinosaur era. Computer-generated dinosaurs were then created and added to live action backdrop to conjure breathtaking visuals. The hero of course is Patchi (Justin Long), short for patchirhinoceros, who we see being brought up by his parents. His father knows only one word "gaarrooh" which he uses for a variety of reasons. Finding himself too sheltered, Patchi breaks away only to find himself under a shower of poop, braver but smellier. In the meanwhile, we come across a variety of creatures and some rare birds to add to the variety. Not surprisingly he runs into his lady-love Juniper (Tiya Sircar) but it is a rough path he has to trample before… you know what! One of them is his brother Scowler (Skyler Stone, no relative of Sharon) who has designs on both the leadership and Juniper. "Want to look for food, follow the fat guy" is just one of the cute lines and they dot the screenplay to give meat to the visuals and there's never a dull moment in this truly delightful entertainer. |
|
Not liberating enough Mokssh is built around a unique cinematic experience - the story of self-discovery and transformation of Parth during his eighteen-day journey of pilgrimage (Waari). The idea originated from the teachings in the Bhagwad Gita and the legend behind this particular enactment comes from the Warkari (Pilgrim) belief that non-stop chanting and musical celebration in the name of God Mauli (Mother Goddess) leads one to Mokssh - liberation or release. In eschatological sense, moksha is liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. Moksha is also liberation from ignorance to a state of enlightenment and self-realisation. Mokssh (as in Gajaar) tells the story of a budding film-maker, Parth, who rediscovers himself during the pilgrimage. Parth's transformation from an urban, egoistic adult to a more spiritual and responsible person is captured with easily identifiable goal posts. Bhairavkar in fact incorporates several of the Pilgrims' real-life anecdotes. The Hindi dialogues and the incantations do not have the heart-touching effect that the Marathi ones did. Also, the performances veer towards the theatrical (possibly deliberate) and this makes the ensuing drama a little less affecting. The concept and depth of the story as well as content is unimpeachable. It's the treatment that draws a yawn from time to time. The narrative does tend to sag midway through the runtime because of the sedentary pace and unviable indulgences in narration. |
||
|
Saturday December 28 ZEE CINEMA MOVIES OK ZEE CLASSIC ZEE STUDIO STAR GOLD ZEE ACTION STAR MOVIES Sunday December 29 ZEE CINEMA MOVIES OK ZEE STUDIO ZEE ACTION STAR GOLD ZEE CLASSIC STAR MOVIES |
||
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
T
There must have been some kind of skewed logic in this kind of selective casting, but it's not one that is going to go down well with the audience. 
It all begins with a trio (uncle, nephew and niece) going into the woods with a dinosaur tooth and trying to dig deep into the past of those distant creatures. But the nephew is not interested and stays behind. With the vehicle only to come across Alex, short for Alexander bird (voice of John Leguizamo) who then takes over and we are then transported into the prehistoric world.
Ajit Bhairavkar's film does try to represent that challenging aspiration with humble integrity and faith. His story is located around the pilgrim town of Pandharpur where the eleventh day (Ashadi Ekadishi) of the lunar month, Ashadi, has a special significance. Mokssh is, in fact, a Hindi remake of his own celebrated (winner of 32 awards) Marathi film Gajaar- the journey of the soul. It has retained the flavour and colour of the original, but the change in language does come across as alienating even though it was legitimately done to garner a wider audience.
1:55am movies ok
1:00pm ZEE STUDIO