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OSGeo News
Please read Submitting News Items for details on submitting new news items. An RSS News Feed is also available.
University of Colorado Denver's FOSS4G LabSubmitted by aghisla on Sun, 2014-10-12 08:10.
The global ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS labs http://www.geoforall.org/ are pleased to announce the launch of the University of Colorado Denver's FOSS4G Lab. Thanks to Dr. Rafael Moreno-Sanchez who has been leading this at University of Colorado, Denver, USA. It is also great to see the establishment of an international advisory board for the lab to review plans and activities and provide advice for the growth and future direction of the lab. Details at http://geospatial.ucdenver.edu/foss4g/advisory-board
The University of Colorado Denver's FOSS4G Lab is supported by a diverse group of faculty from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Architecture and Planning, all of whom have a particular interest in FOSS4G. The faculty collective is constantly expanding into new departments and colleges, adding to the breadth of knowledge and expertise in Geospatial Science. The initial lab faculty include Dr. Peter Anthamatten, Dr. Joshua French, Michael Hinke, Dr. Wesley Marshall, Dr. Carolyn McAndrews, Dr. Rafael Moreno-Sanchez, Dr. Deborah Thomas, Dr. Austin Troy, Dr. Amanda Weaver, Dr. Michael Wunder, Suzanne Anderson, Tim Stalker and Valerie Kraucunas.
Details at http://geospatial.ucdenver.edu/foss4g/faculty
They also offer a wide diversity of geospatial training with certificate programs in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science, the College of Architecture of Planning, and the School of Engineering. More details of the University of Colorado Lab at http://geospatial.ucdenver.edu/foss4g/home-2
University of Colorado is the 18th University in the USA to establish Open Geospatial Lab in the last 2 years and joins a great family of other key research universities (University of Massachusetts ,Harvard University, University of California, University of North Carolina, University of Kansas, Arizona State University, Kent State University etc). We are looking forward to receiving more applications from other universities in USA to establish research labs and expand our research in Open Geospatial Science in the United States and globally.
There is also good news on Open Education with the U.S. Open Government Partnership: National Action Plan that is released. Details at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/new_nap_commitments_report_092314.pdf
Thanks to all who made this possible and this will have a domino effect...
Announcing FOSS4G-Europe 2015 (Como, Italy)Submitted by aghisla on Wed, 2014-10-01 13:20.
We are proud to announce the second Edition of the FOSS4G (Free and Open Source For Geospatial) Europe Conference.
The Conference aims to bring together FOSS4G users and developers worldwide and foster closer interactions with and amongst European communities in order to share ideas for improving geodata, software and applications, openness, and availability.
It will be held at Politecnico di Milano (http://www.polo-como.polimi.it/en/), Como (Italy), from July 14 through 17, 2015.
A one day of workshops precedes the conference (13 July 2015) and the code sprint closes the event (18 July 2015).
Besides the traditional Academic Track (one day track), three special Tracks on FOSS4G for water resources (one day track), OpenGeodata (half day track) and FOSS4G for Libraries (half day track) will be organized.
A meeting of the Labs involved in the GeoForAll (http://www.geoforall.org/) initiative will take place.
A mapping party for celebrating the International Map Year (http://internationalmapyear.org/) will be organized together with ICA and other Associations.
Last but not least, the winners of the NASA Worldwind Europe Challenge 2015 (http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it/) will present their innovative apps to the public.
This is just the beginning. Stay tuned: website and more information available soon.
Maria Brovelli & the Organizing Team
Gary Sherman Receives Sol Katz AwardSubmitted by warmerdam on Fri, 2014-09-19 00:35.
Gary Sherman was honored last week with the 2014 Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software during the FOSS4G 2014 conference in Portland, Oregon, US. This was the tenth year of the award. Gary is the founder of the QGIS project (or Quantum GIS), a desktop Open Source GIS that has become one of the most popular projects today, with a huge user and developer community. He began development of QGIS back in 2002, and it was approved as an OSGeo project in 2008. Gary's work and passion for "open" has touched the lives of millions.
Gary's acceptance video http://vimeo.com/106310099
The Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software is awarded annually by OSGeo to individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the GFOSS community. Recipients of the award will have contributed significantly through their activities to advance open source ideals in the geospatial realm. The hope is that the award will both acknowledge the work of community members, and pay tribute to one of its founders, for years to come. Sol Katz was an early pioneer of GFOSS and left behind a large body of work in the form of applications, format specifications, and utilities. In the early 80's, Sol assisted in the development of a public domain GIS package called MOSS (Map Overlay and Statistical System). This software was arguably the first open source GIS software in the world. Sol would later go on to release and maintain PC MOSS. He was also one of the first involved in public data translator utilities. Utilities that he developed for converting DEMs and reading SDTS files were contributed back to the geospatial community, and are still available today. Sol was also a frequent contributor to many geospatial list servers, providing much guidance to the geospatial community at large. Sadly, after fighting Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for almost a decade, Sol died April 23, 1999 in bed. His legacy will always live on in the GFOSS world.
OSGeo-Live 8.0 ReleasedSubmitted by aghisla on Tue, 2014-09-02 07:14.
Version 8.0 of the OSGeo-Live GIS software collection <http://live.osgeo.org/> has been released, featuring over 50 open source, standards compliant geospatial applications.
Release Highlights
Lubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
We have moved from Xubuntu to the lighter Lubuntu base operating system, which starts up faster, requires less RAM, and uses less disk space, making it a better choice for running in a Virtual Machine or from a LiveDVD. We have upgraded to the latest 14.04.1 stable Long Term Support (LTS) release. LTS releases are put out every 2 years by Ubuntu.
Debian packaging
We have steadily been moving more of our projects to .deb packaging, which makes it easier to install programs on Debian-based systems such as OSGeo-Live, and allows application of post-release fixes if required.
34 geospatial programs have been updated to newer versions.
About OSGeo-Live
OSGeo-Live is a self-contained bootable DVD, USB flash drive and Virtual Machine, pre-installed with robust open source geospatial software, which can be trialled without installing anything. It includes:
- Over 50 quality geospatial Open Source applications installed and pre-configured
- Free world maps and sample datasets
- Project Overview and step-by-step Quickstart for each application
- Lightning presentation of all applications, along with speaker's script
- Overviews of key OGC standards
- Translations to multiple languages
Homepage: http://live.osgeo.org
Download details: http://live.osgeo.org/en/download.html
Post release glitches collected here:
Over 180 people have directly helped with OSGeo-Live packaging, documenting and translating, and thousands have been involved in building the packaged software.
Developers, packagers, document writers and translators include:
Activity Workshop, Agustin Diez, Aikaterini Kapsampeli, Alan Beccati, Alan Boudreault, Alessandro Furieri, Alexander Bruy, Alexander Kleshnin, Alexander Muriy, Alexandre Dube, Alexey Ardyakov, Alex Mandel, Amy Gao, Andrea Antonello, Andrea Yanza, Andrey Syrokomskiy, Andry Rustanto, Angelos Tzotsos, Anna Munoz, Antonio Falciano, Anton Novichikhin, Anton Patrushev, Argyros Argyridis, Ariel Nunez, Assumpcio Termens, Astrid Emde, Barry Rowlingson, Benjamin Pross, Brian Hamlin, Bruno Binet, Bu Kun, Cameron Shorter, Christophe Tufféry, Christos Iossifidis, Cristhian Pin, Damian Wojslaw, Dane Springmeyer, Daniel Kastl, Danilo Bretschneider, Daria Svidzinska, David Mateos, Denis Rykov, Diego Gonzalez, Diego Migliavacca, Dimitar Misev, Dmitry Baryshnikov, Dominik Helle, Edgar Soldin, Eike Hinderk Jürrens, Elena Mezzini, Eric Lemoine, Erika Pillu, Estela Llorente, Etienne Delay, Etienne Dube, Evgeny Nikulin, Fran Boon, Francois Prunayre, Frank Gasdorf, Frank Warmerdam, Friedjoff Trautwein, Gavin Treadgold, Giuseppe Calamita, Grald Fenoy, Grigory Rozhentsov, Guy Griffiths, Hamish Bowman, Haruyuki Seki, Henry Addo, Hernan Olivera, Hirofumi Hayashi, Howard Butler, Hyeyeong Choe, Ian Edwards, Ian Turton, Ilya Filippov, Jackie Ng, Jan Drewnak, Jane Lewis, Javier Rodrigo, Javier Sanchez, Jesus Gomez, Jim Klassen, Jing Wang, Jinsongdi Yu, Jody Garnett, Johan Van de Wauw, John Bryant, Jorge Arevalo, Jorge Sanz, Jose Antonio Canalejo, Jose Vicente Higon, Judit Mays, Klokan Petr Pridal, Ko Nagase, Kristof Lange, kuzkok, Lance McKee, Lars Lingner, Luca Delucchi, Lucia Sanjaime, Mage Whopper, Manuel Grizonnet, Marc-Andre Barbeau, Marco Curreli, Marco Puppin, Marc Torres, Margherita Di Leo, Maria Vakalopoulou, Mario Andino, Mark Leslie, Massimo Di Stefano, Matthias Streulens, Mauricio Miranda, Mauricio Pazos, Maxim Dubinin, Michael Michaud, Michael Owonibi, Micha Silver, Mike Adair, Milena Nowotarska, M Iqnaul Haq Siregar, Nacho Varela, Nadiia Gorash, Nathaniel V. Kelso, Ned Horning, Nobusuke Iwasaki, Oliver Tonnhofer, Oscar Fonts, Otto Dassau, Pasquale Di Donato, Patric Hafner, Paul Meems, Pavel, Pedro-Juan Ferrer, Pirmin Kalberer, Raf Roset, Regina Obe, Ricardo Pinho, Roald de Wit, Roberta Fagandini, Roberto Antolin, Roger Veciana, Ruth Schoenbuchner, Samuel Mesa, Scott Penrose, Sergey Grachev, Sergio Banos, Simon Cropper, Simon Pigot, Stefan A. Tzeggai, Stefan Hansen, Stefan Steiniger, Stephan Meissl, Steve Lime, Takayuki Nuimura, Thierry Badard, Thomas Baschetti, Thomas Gratier, Tom Kralidis, Toshikazu Seto, Trevor Wekel, Valenty Gonzalez, Vera, Xianfeng Song, Yoichi Kayama, Zhengfan Lin
Sponsoring organisations
- The Open Source Geospatial Foundation <http://www.osgeo.org> provides development & hosting infrastructure for OSGeo-Live and many of the included applications.
- LISAsoft <http://www.lisasoft.com> provides sustaining resources and staff toward management and packaging.
- Information Center for the Environment (ICE) <http://ice.ucdavis.edu> at the University of California, Davis provides hardware resources and development support.
- Remote Sensing Laboratory at the National Technical University of Athens <http://www.ntua.gr>, provides hardware resources and development support.
- The DebianGIS <http://wiki.debian.org/DebianGis> and UbuntuGIS <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGIS> teams provide and quality-assure many of the core packages.
Call for Abstracts for FOSS4G-Asia 2014Submitted by aghisla on Tue, 2014-08-26 08:27.
The Steering Committee of FOSS4G-Asia (2-5 December, Bangkok) is pleased to invite abstract submissions on a wide range of topics, in celebration of 10 years of FOSS4G activity. The deadline for submissions is 8 September 2014. Please follow the steps at:
Topics of Interest
- FOSS4G Project Status Report, New Developments and Road-map
- Open Data – Technology, Use Cases and Data Quality
- Open Geospatial Standards
- Open Hardware Development and Sensor Network
- Architectures and Frameworks for Open SDI
- Approaches to Combine Open and Closed Software
- Mobile Mapping and Location Based Services
- Data Visualization and Augmented Reality
- Teaching Geospatial Sciences with FOSS4G
- Community Building and Citizen Participation through FOSS4G
- Disaster Management and Mitigation with FOSS4G
- Improving Quality of Life and Sustainability through FOSS4G
- FOSS4G in Local and Regional Administrations
- FOSS4G Application Examples in Health, Water, Energy, Air-quality, Climate Change,Transportation, Agriculture, Forestry, Marketing...
- Doing Business with FOSS4G
About FOSS4G-Asia
FOSS4G-Asia 2014 aims to bring together FOSS4G users and developers worldwide and foster closer interactions with and amongst Asian communities in order to share ideas for improving software and applications. The Bangkok conference will cover all aspects of FOSS4G, Open Data and Open Standards, with a particular focus on exchanging experiences between FOSS4G users and developers and providing first-hand information on FOSS4G for developing national/local spatial data infrastructures in Asian countries. FOSS4G-Asia 2014 also commemorates ten years since the FOSS-GRASS User Conference was held at Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand between 12-14 September 2004.
Join the conference mailing list to follow discussions on the FOSS4G-ASIA event:
FOSS4G update: additional activities - Volcanoes, Megafauna, Sprinting, Hieroglyphics and Beer, oh my!Submitted by aghisla on Fri, 2014-08-08 10:25.
August 6, 2014
Portland, Oregon, USA
After you register [1] for FOSS4G and as you make your plans to join us in Portland, Oregon this September 8th - 13th, you might be wondering what other exciting things you can do while in PDX...
[1] http://foss4g2014.eventbrite.com/
PostgreSQL Day
Join the Portland Postgres Users Group [2] (PDXPUG) for PostgreSQL Day on September 6th, the Saturday before FOSS4G. Attendance is free, but an RSVP is required [3]. PostgreSQL Day is hosted by Portland State University and PDXPUG.
[2] http://pdxpug.wordpress.com/
[3] http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PDXPUGDay2014
Code Sprint
The annual FOSS4G Code Sprint is on Saturday Sept 13th at the Eliot Center. More details at the wiki [4]. The industrious GeoServer team is continuing the sprint on Sunday [5].
[4] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2014_Code_Sprint
[5] http://blog.geoserver.org/2014/07/25/geoserver-sunday-sprint-foss4g/
If you are lingering in PDX after FOSS4G, and need a place to put your creative thoughts into action, drop by WhereCampPDX and share them with other friendly geo-nerds. WhereCamps are unconferences that aim to connect geo-enthusiasts, developers, social place hackers, artists, activists, grad students, geographers, earth scientists and anybody else who wants to "know their place". More details at website [6]. (check back for updates).
[6] http://wherecamppdx.org/
Js.Geo is officially happening during FOSS4G (for reals). This one day conference brings together experts or people deeply interested in spending a full day digging into advanced topics in the Geospatial Javascript realm. We'll convene for a series of curated talks from some leaders in JS + GEO and have plenty of time to explore ideas and concepts. The talks will also leave time for demos and questions and answer sessions
More details and speakers will be revealed as the event gets closer, but space is limited and we are down to 80 tickets. So book your spot [7].
[7] http://jsgeo2014.eventbrite.com/
After an evening of hor d'oeuvres in the exhibit hall, head over to the FOSS4G stop of the LocationTech Tour [8].
[8] http://tour.locationtech.org/2014/
Additional guest tickets for Gala
The Gala Night at the World Forestry Center is included with regular conference registration. If you would like to bring a guest, then you will need an additional ticket. Note that single day and volunteer registrations do not include the Gala Night; you will need a ticket if you want to attend. Gala Night tickets are available in the registration [1].
[1] http://foss4g2014.eventbrite.com/
Field trips and tours
You travelled all the way to Portland so be sure to take some time to relax
and explore our beautiful little corner of the world with one of our field
trips or tours:
Sunday, Sept. 7th:
- Portland Timbers Soccer Match [9] (football & chainsaws!)
Friday, Sept. 12th:
- Portland 101 Walking Tour [10] (more than just Portlandia!)
- Keep Portland Wired! Walking Tour [11] (wired, and weird!)
Saturday, Sept. 13th:
- Mount Saint Helens Field Trip [12] (live volcano!)
- Willamette Valley Wine Tour [13] (viticulture and sustainable farming!)
Sunday, Sept. 14th:
- Portland Breweries Tour [14] (Beer Bus!)
Space is still available, but limited. To register for an activity, visit the main registration [1] page (scroll towards the bottom). Note that you can still register for field trips even if you've already registered for the conference. If you need assistance or have questions, contact support at email@example.com.
[9] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#Timbers
[10] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#WalkingTours
[11] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#WalkingTours
[12] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#MtStHelens
[13] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#WillametteWine
[14] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#Breweries
About FOSS4G
About FOSS4G
The annual FOSS4G conference is the largest global gathering focused on open source geospatial software. FOSS4G brings together developers, users, decision-makers and observers from a broad spectrum of organizations and fields of operation. Through six days of workshops, presentations, discussions, and cooperation, FOSS4G participants create effective and relevant geospatial products, standards, and protocols.
FOSS4G has been held all over the world and draws attendees from over 40 countries. Nottingham, England hosted the conference in 2013. In 2014, Portland, Oregon, USA will host FOSS4G's tenth year.
Important Conference Dates
See the full calendar [15] for more details.
- Sep 8th-9th: Workshops
- Sep 10th-12th: Main Conference
- Sep 13th: Code Sprint
[15] https://2014.foss4g.org/about/calendar/
[1] http://foss4g2014.eventbrite.com/
[2] http://pdxpug.wordpress.com/
[3] http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PDXPUGDay2014
[4] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2014_Code_Sprint
[5] http://blog.geoserver.org/2014/07/25/geoserver-sunday-sprint-foss4g/
[6] http://wherecamppdx.org/
[7] http://jsgeo2014.eventbrite.com/
[8] http://tour.locationtech.org/2014/
[9] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#Timbers
[10] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#WalkingTours
[11] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#WalkingTours
[12] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#MtStHelens
[13] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#WillametteWine
[14] https://2014.foss4g.org/schedule/field-trips#Breweries
[15] https://2014.foss4g.org/about/calendar/
For more information or to keep informed from the FOSS4G Organizing Committee, follow@foss4g (https://twitter.com/foss4g) on Twitter, subscribe to our announcements list (http://eepurl.com/N5Q6X) , or contact: firstname.lastname@example.com
Contact us at:
- email@example.com


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About Unlucky
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Rename Applications
Unlucky replied to GabrielS's topic in Product FeedbackHi,Is this information still current?
chilihead liked a post in a topic: [REQUEST] Ability to close poll without closing topic
IP.Board 3.3.x, 3.4.x Security Update
Unlucky commented on IPS News's blog entry in IPS NewsSo can people confirm it definately works without issue on IP.Board 3.4.6 Thanks,
Unlucky liked a comment on a file: Global Ajax Quick Search
The mod mentioned on the other forum ( http://www.moneymakingexperts.org/f12/claim-google-authorship-your-forum-threads-497/ )gives you full control on what you are trying to claim which should be ok if you are only using it for the correct type content you start. Also it does't apply any authorship to the replies If it was only used for IPcontent articles and the blog section, would that be ok? Or does google look at the site as a whole?
Make language packs hidable
Unlucky replied to Aiwa's topic in Product FeedbackHi, It is really imporant to hide language packs on some of our installs. Would love this addition instead of manually editing the skins to hide.
Assign Group Upon Registration Approval
Unlucky replied to SkimPappa's topic in Product FeedbackHi, This is exactly what I am trying to do now with one of my forums - what is the solution? Thanks,
Where and how do forum members posting their thread starts, blog posts ipcontent articles etc link them to their google profile? And how can they select which ones they want linked as per the options available in this link posted below http://www.moneymakingexperts.org/f12/claim-google-authorship-your-forum-threads-497/ Can't find any documentation on this whatsoever at invision - can you post the links please as this will be a deal maker for the new project plus existing sites. Thanks,
[REQUEST] Ability to close poll without closing topic
Unlucky replied to RObiN-HoOD's topic in Product Feedback+1 We really need this too
The way that plugin works is it is only relevant to the person that starts the thread. But this will be really important for us for a new project which we really want to use IPB board, ipcontent and ipblog for instead of wordpress that supports google authorship fully. It is for an ASD site and we want the mums that contribute to be creditied for their input whether it be as guest bloggers or thread starters.
Google Author Markup / Author rank Support
Unlucky posted a topic in Product FeedbackHi, It would be extremely helpful if the suite could support Google Author Markup Vbulletin has a plugin that allows you to choose which threads you start will be credited to you by allowing you to add Google authorship to them IE - http://www.moneymakingexperts.org/f12/claim-google-authorship-your-forum-threads-497/ Is this something that can be added or is there currently a hook for this out there now? Many thanks
hi all
Custom Payment Gateway Documentation..
Unlucky posted a topic in IP.NexusI was asked to post this by support. The documentation does not show what is expected or explain what fields need to be passed back and forth between the coreGateway. It keeps saying look at the code which is encoded. So it can't be done. WHat is needed is a real explanation of what the program expects to receive as input and what you get for input. A sample code showing the interface (like in the Subscriptions package) would be very useful. Please update the documentation.


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SACW - 1 May 2012 | Pakistan: Free laptops / India: Missiles; Food policing; Superstition; Riot impresario Sajjan Kumar / An Imperialist Springtime? / Wartime internment of Japanese Americans
Expand Messages
- South Asia Citizens Wire - 1 May 2012 - No. 2746
1. Pakistan: Free laptops is not the answer. What is? (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
2. India: Missiles, missiles everywhere (Kanti Bajpai)
3. India: Regulating cultures through food policing (Kalpana Kannabiran)
4. India : Superstition continues to Kill
5. India: 1984 Anti Sikh Pogrom in New Delhi: The case against Sajjan (Harinder Baweja)
6. India: Upper caste male Hindu iconography in Alphabet Sheets in Education Ad - Open Letter to Hindustan Times
7. Publication Announcements
(i) Human rights in South Asia and the functions of SAARC
(ii) Shahzad Bashir and Robert D. Crews, eds., Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands
8. Upcoming Events:
(i) PILER International Conference Labour in the Age of Globalization (Karachi, 2-3 May 2012)
(ii) 32nd Bhimsen Sachar Memorial Lecture by Shri Ashish Nandy (New Delhi, 3rd May 2012)
9. An Imperialist Springtime? - Libya, Syria, and Beyond - Samir Amin Interviewed by Aijaz Ahmad
10. USA: We Japanese Americans must not forget our wartime internment (George Takei)
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
(Express Tribune, 30 April 2012)
To loud applause at a special distribution ceremony on Pakistan Day, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif declared: "We do not give weapons in the hands of youngsters, we give them laptops; we give them education". The laptop scheme is the brainchild of kid brother Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab. He says that the Punjab government plans to distribute a further 300,000 laptops - in addition to the 100,000 already distributed - as a "weapon against poverty and ignorance".
The Sharifs are surely to be commended for preferring computers over Kalashnikovs (some of their political rivals would want it the other way around). But laptops are not silver bullets that can transform Pakistan's education. Cost is not the main issue. Of course, we do know that Dell laptops, purchased at Rs 37,700 apiece, are more expensive than the Rs 2,200 indigenous product developed by Tata for use in India's schools. Possible cuts and commissions by middlemen, and allegations of unfair distribution, also cannot be ruled out. But this too is a peripheral matter.
Instead, the central question is: how exactly are these laptops to combat poverty and ignorance, or improve education? The answer is not clear in any developing country but is even muddier in Pakistan. The purchased computers did not come loaded with school books, supplementary educational materials, or programmes like "Comic Life" which make math learning fun. There are no locally-developed programmes, and none in Urdu or any local language. Nor have schoolteachers been trained to deal with computers as a teaching tool. Of course, there will be some Google searching and perhaps some educational material will be downloaded. But overwhelmingly they will be used for chatting, surfing, or video games.
The false notion of technology as a magic wand has made our rulers euphoric from time to time. Few Pakistanis will remember the bulk purchase of Apple-II C computers for schools at the end of the 1980s. General Ziaul Haq's minister of education, Dr Muhammad Afzal, (now deceased), was a progressive man in a religiously-charged government. Somehow he was seized with the notion that computers would revolutionise everything. In one of my occasional meetings with him, I unsuccessfully sought to persuade him that his idea was fundamentally flawed. Sadly, the warning turned out to be correct: it is likely that many machines were not even turned on before they were junked en masse 10-15 years later.
Earlier on, a still bigger revolution had been promised. Pakistan Television was founded on the premise that its core purpose would be education. At the invitation of the Pakistan government, a Unesco team visited Pakistan and met with the ministers of law, broadcasting, and education. In a subsequent report the team leaders, HR Cassirer and TS Duckmanton, wrote:
"We arrived in Lahore on October 10, 1960, where we were the guests of the Regional Director of Radio Pakistan, as well as the Provincial Department of Education. We pursued our consultations with officials concerned with the following: university and college education, primary and secondary education, vocational education, village aid, broadcasting, the Arts Council". The report document does not even mention entertainment or news broadcasts, but has paragraphs on how telecourses should be conducted.
But PTV never made a sizable contribution to education. For 50 years its broadcast content has been almost exclusively entertainment and news. In this period PTV has produced only two documentary serials that sought to popularise science for the general public, one in 1994 and the other in 2002. I can testify that these had the lowest priority accorded to any programme series; for months I was given the midnight shift and would work through on the editing until morning arrived, at which point I would go bleary-eyed to teach my classes at Quaid-e-Azam University.
These negative examples do not mean that technology is valueless for education. Far from it! Distance education, conveyed via laptops and notebooks, is clearly the future. Open Course Software (OCS) from the world's best universities brings a wealth of knowledge to those who can absorb it; the clever instructional techniques of the Khan Academy helps millions of students across the world; and increasing interactive learning programmes are becoming more effective learning tools.
But students who benefit from internet resources already know what they are looking for; they have already achieved a certain level. A digital utopia cannot be constructed on a shaky educational base such as ours. Most Pakistani schools do not have the bare minimum infrastructure like blackboards, toilets, library, or wall posters. More importantly, they do not have competent teachers. Expectedly, the recently released Annual Status of Education Report paints a dismal picture of basic reading and writing skills. Laptops can do nothing to improve things here.
What about well-off city schools that do have reasonable infrastructure? Unfortunately here too, the laptop can presently play only a marginal role because, with some honourable exceptions, students mostly study for grades. If grades were awarded on the basis of real learning, it would be a different matter. But where money buys marks and cheating is rampant, the incentive for self-improvement diminishes. Moreover, exams test little beyond that contained in guidebooks or prescribed textbooks. They stress memorisation rather than internalisation of concepts. I think revamping the examination system will do more good than buying a million laptops.
Of course some good does come from merely connecting children to the internet. Nicholas Negroponte of MIT, who fathered the idea of one-child one-laptop, argues that children are naturally inquisitive and access to an internet-enabled computing device is sufficient to release their creative faculties. He says somehow they will "figure it out" and "learn to learn". But this view is excessively optimistic.
Connectivity and access, already provided by cellphones, alone does not create a thinking mind. For example, consider Darul Ulum Haqqania at Akora Khattak. This "Harvard of madrassas" has produced Mullah Omar as well as other such luminaries. It is awash in computers but, even in a hundred years from now, shall not have added an iota to the stock of human knowledge.
The bottom line: good education requires planning, organisation, integrity, resources and, above all, a mindset that is oriented towards the future and not the past. Techy hi-fi stuff has glitz, but it's really the sub-stratum of thought that matters.
by Kanti Bajpai
(Times of India)
Apr 28, 2012, 12.00AM IST
Why can't we in India be more business-like? When we tested nuclear weapons in 1998, the government, the media, and the Indian public were spectacularly undignified. A lot of vulgar and foolish things happened in the ensuing months - intemperate statements by our leaders, media coverage that was adulatory and clownish, and public behaviour that was childish (handing out sweets in the streets).
Predictably, the Pakistanis punctured our bubble. They tested immediately and then attacked in Kargil to show that nuclear weapons did not scare them. Pakistan's public reactions were as juvenile as ours, if not more so, which shows that South Asians are cut from the same cloth.
With India's Agni V missile test two weeks ago and Pakistan's Hatf IV Shaheen-1A test, we have had a replay of 1998. Missiles are not as big a deal as nuclear weapons, so our leaders were more restrained this time round. The media, though, was pretty much as bad as before, thinking it appropriate to talk a lot of nonsense about India's ability to project power (to Europe, amongst other destinations). Unlike 1998, the public did not rush out into the streets to party, which was a relief; instead, the blogosphere, the new public square, lit up with commentary, most of which would shame a nine-year-old.
When the Agni V has been properly tested, it will certainly strengthen India's deterrent with respect to China. Having said this, the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) goes back to the 1980s. That it managed to produce a missile which can carry a nuclear warhead 5,000 km is noteworthy but hardly the stuff of national celebration. After all, it took nearly 30 years to produce a missile of that range.
Any one of a dozen countries today could do it - and in short order. These include Japan and both the Koreas, just in Asia, and surely it would not take Australia very long. Pakistan's latest Shaheen already has a range of 3,000 km, so it is not technologically beyond our next-door neighbour's capabi-lity either. And Iranian missile technology is catching up fast.
The point is that missiles, as much as nuclear weapons, are old technology. Hopping up and down about them is silly. India's scientists have not particularly distinguished themselves (nor have Indian social scientists). If we look at the number of scientific papers published in leading journals, patents filed, and inventions credited to Indians, our scientists do not rank high. China ranks well ahead, as do Japan and South Korea. Britain, with 60 million people, has had 76 Nobel laureates in science and technology.
India has had only one that worked in India (C V Raman, who worked in British and not independent India) and three that worked outside India (Har Gobind Khorana, Subramanyan Chandrashekhar and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, all in the US). There are probably only two Indian technologies that have international name-recognition - the Jaipur leg prosthetic device and the Nano mini car - which are home-grown.
Why are we so undignified over things like the missile test? The answer most likely is that we have so little to celebrate, with human development indicators lower in key areas than our South Asian neighbours and sub-Saharan Africa. Indians are eating less in calories terms than a decade ago. We have millions of more males than females in our population: the social consequences of this male surplus will be massive. Our education system is in a shambles. Our infrastructure is scarily bad. The only town in India with clean drinking water is Jamshedpur. We have a fiscal crisis looming, stuttering growth, rising prices, stagnating agriculture, caste and religious discrimination, partisan politics to the maximum, and policy paralysis. Governance, particularly at the state-level, where one absurd chief minister replaces another, is so awful that you run out of adjectives.
If India wants to be respected and secure in the long run, it should celebrate clean renewable energy and the eradication of polio far more than the launching of a new missile. That would be worth many sweets in the streets.
by Kalpana Kannabiran
(The Hindu, May 1, 2012
Organising a food festival can hardly be described as an act promoting hatred between students or communities.
The controversy over the Beef Festival recently organised on the campus of Osmania University in Hyderabad and the threat of professors being investigated by the police for "instigating" the organisers needs to be understood in the context of the larger politics of food and policing of food practices.
Across the country, different communities in different regions have widely varying food habits. It is also well known that food is closely linked to ideas of the sacred and the profane — and must vary along the scale of social diversity. The dense nesting of beliefs related to food extends from what vegetables may be consumed, whether meat may be consumed or not, which kinds of meats are food and which not, which kinds of meat are deemed vegetarian, and whether animal products come within the definition of meat or not.
Ideas about eating
Ideas about food also extend to who can eat together; within a family, who consumes which parts of an animal's body; what is the sequence in which people in a family eat, depending on gender, generation and social status; whether vice chancellors, judges and peons can partake of the same feast at the same time — or in earlier times or even today in more self declaredly caste ridden locales whether the "chuhri" can even dare to ask for fresh cooked food from "chowdhriji" — to recall Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan. And further in the caste context, who must not be sighted by a Brahmin man while he is in the vulnerable state of ingesting food — the shudra, a menstruating woman, pigs, dogs — all to be equally banished from sight.
Because food is surrounded by thick religiosity, there are days and times of the year and cycles in a month or in a reproductive lifetime when certain foods are proscribed and others mandatory. There are also rigid rules around the slaughter of animals and the preparation of meat for consumption — meat consumers do not eat all meats and do not eat the same meat at any place. The acceptance of meat as food is determined by whether the slaughter of the animal has been appropriate. And there are castes who were condemned to eat only carrion, not animals freshly slaughtered for consumption. There are communities in Andhra that share the hunt with the tiger — they believe the tiger leaves enough of its prey for its human kin — with a delicate balance in mutual food security in the deep forests. When religions proscribe the killing of animals, communities of believers who live in hostile and difficult mountainous terrain may drive a herd off a cliff and strip and dry the meat to meet a year's supply of meat. Even with people and communities that eat meat, there are places and times when meat may be eaten — and these vary widely as well. While a religious occasion for some may be marked by the abstinence from meat, for others it is marked by the sacrifice of an animal, its ceremonial preparation and its distribution in a prescribed manner among kin.
Ideas of purity, danger, potency, malevolence, uncleanness, tastes (not individual but social) and aesthetics thickly overlay our attitude to food. Faint hearted but brahmanical consumers of meat can swoon or get terribly sick at the sight of a butcher at work, or the sight of "unclean" parts of the animal body — entrails, head, hooves and so on. The same could be the case with lovers of fish when they see a beach overlaid with dry, pungent fish or the baskets of fish vendors on the train on their way to the market. Similarly too, it is not uncommon to find strong negative reactions to snake gourd, bitter gourd, and several other vegetables, not to speak of cooking oils from vegetarians. There are of course caste hierarchies in vegetables and oils too.
Its life giving and life sustaining quality also makes food the medium through which faith is expressed, through sharing on particular auspicious, festive occasions. Whom food is shared with and how is determined by status and social location ranging from "poor feeding" to mutual exchanges of festive food. There is then the renunciation of certain foods as acts of faith (temporarily or permanently) or as an acknowledgement of loss and mourning. It is not uncommon to hear of people giving up their favourite food on the death of a loved one. And of course giving up food is a way of renouncing life itself.
Change in habits
There are also histories of food habits that show that they change over time: the beef eating Vedic brahmin is a well known example.
Among the meats that are consumed in India are chicken, goat, fish and other aquatic creatures, frog, dog, pork, monkey, beef, buffalo, a variety of insects, field rats, deer, a range of birds, some reptiles and many, many more. Across this entire range of food, there are some we might love and relish, and others we might recoil at the mention of. What we relish and what we find unthinkable depends on religion, caste, tribe, and social location, after which individual taste plays a role. The diversity in food habits is part of the plurality of cultures and the right to consume, accept and share food, privately and in festivity, is part of cultural expression.
To the extent that culture is a matter of politics, food becomes the mobilising point for politics. The ubiquitous blessed food that believers partake in at places of worship now gets distributed in street-corners to believers and non-believers alike in every neighbourhood. This is part of an aggressive proclamation of religiosity demanding acceptance as an act of faith from all — often spreading tension that has the police in full force out on the streets for days.
We have sizeable communities in India who eat beef and pork — and these are the two meats on the Indian subcontinent that are used to stoke collective emotions in ways that present polarised stereotypes. Yet we know that the realities of beef and pork consumption defy these stereotypes. There is, however, a distinction between the two: beef is traditionally consumed not just by non-Hindus but by subaltern castes as well, a reality that is denied by the dominant castes.
In this context, if there is a hegemonic cultural formation across or within a religious group that proscribes or stigmatises the consumption of certain kinds of foods, a central part of resistance and of cultural assertion is to share that food publicly. Acquiescing to one proscription will pave the way for another, and the intolerance to diversity in food habits and through food to plural cultures will spiral upwards.
The choice of whether or not to partake of the feast is one an individual makes. In the recent beef festival organised on the campus of Osmania University, there were no reports of any coercion or force-feeding of beef to unwilling people. The people who were there went because they wanted to be there and were people for whom beef was not taboo. The argument on the need to take action against spreading hatred can scarcely be sustained. Even more irrelevant is the suggestion that professors were instigating students — it was a gathering of consenting, free thinking adults.
The organising of a food festival is not a matter for courts to interfere with or order an investigation into. There are more pressing matters related to life and liberty that wait endlessly to get a hearing.
(The author is Professor and Director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad. Email: kalpana.kannabiran@...)
(Rediff, April 25, 2012 )
The Velankanni church in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district where a miracle is said to have taken place. (Inset) Sanal Edamaraku, president, Indian Rationalists Association
Vicky Nanjappa in Bengaluru
In a country where most people are religious and believe in superstitions and miracles, the toughest profession to take up is that of a rationalist. Be it the miracles proclaimed by the church or holy men and their remedies, even though many of them have been proven wrong, people continue to flock to these people and places.
Recently, a huge controversy had erupted over the claim that the water flowing from the statue at the Velankanni Church in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district was caused by a leak in the sewage system and not a miracle as claimed by the church.
The revelation was made by Sanal Edamaraku, president, Indian Rationalist Association. What followed was a series of threats from the church and also a case under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code -- outraging religious feelings by insulting religion or religious beliefs.
Edamuruku, the author of 25 books, has spoken out against miracles and god men in the country. In this interview with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, Edamuraku says he has sought to exercise his constitutional right to develop scientific thinking, while lashing out at the churches, Sathya Sai Baba and Baba Ramdev for the miracles and so-called magic theories that they promote.
How does it feel to be a rationalist in India -- a country that thrives on magic, miracles and beliefs?
It is a question of choice, and the more difficult the choice is, the more important it is. No doubt it is a difficult task when one is a rationalist in a country where superstition is rampant.
Which religion according to you has the highest element of superstitions?
I would say every religion. However, there are a many that have a modern thought and others who have fanatics.
You claimed that there was no miracle in Velankanni, but sewage water. How has the reaction been?
They were shocked and outraged. They were trying to make a miracle out of that thing. The priest himself was leading the prayers and trying to show that it was a miracle.
They were collecting that water in a bucket and giving it to devotees. I had asked for a sample of the water, but they refused to give it to me. I found that there were hardly one or two drops which had come from the statue and the Church had mixed it with extra water and were distributing it to the people.
Later, I went ahead and touched the nail on the crucifix and found that there were drops of water on it. On further examination, I found that there was a sewer pipe behind the statue which had a leak. The church obviously did not like my findings and what followed was outrage.
People have a right to follow a religion of their choice. Is it right on your part to come in the way of that?
I am not abusing any religion. I just feel that no one has the right to fool people in the name of miracles. I do believe in the right to belief.
You have written and spoken about Sathya Sai Baba as well.
Yes I have. Sathya Sai Baba used miracles to dupe people. He gave the impression that he was God. As a result, many bigwigs flocked to his ashram, and liberally donated large sums of money. I have been speaking on and also demonstrating how he did magic to rope in disciples, and trust me, it is very easy to do that magic.
But the other aspect to Sathya Sai Baba is his philanthropy.
Yes, that is there. However, the amount spent on philanthropy was only four per cent of the donations. The rest of the money was spent on extravagance, which is not needed for a human being.
So why do you think miracles are being promoted?
In the churches miracles are promoted so that it becomes a pilgrimage centre. There is a lot of money in such things. Once it becomes a pilgrimage centre then it automatically brings in the people who pump in a lot of money.
This is why churches artificially create miracles. What can one say about churches creating miracles when the Vatican itself has a policy of creating miracles? We have around 10,000 saints and a miracle has been attributed to each one of them.
Take the case of Sister Alphonsa from Kottayam. It is said that a boy with upturned feet was cured after he started to pray to her. Her tomb, in Bharanagaram in Kottayam, has now become a place of pilgrimage.
They are trying the same thing at Velankanni. There was also a failed attempt at the church in Mahim (in Mumbai) where they tried to say that blood was oozing out of Mother Mary's picture.
What about Baba Ramdev?
Baba Ramdev does not speak about miracles, but about magical remedies. He has been trying to say that yoga can work like magic. He says that he has the results, but his claims are not substantiated. I feel sad when I see people in parks rubbing their fingers to prevent themselves from growing old faster.
Ramdev has also said that tulsi (basil) leaves give protection from the H1N1 virus and also claimed that yoga can also protect one from HIV. These are baseless, and more importantly very irresponsible statements.
These people continue to have a very big following. Are people then basically stupid?
Yes, they do have a following. However, take the population of the country as a whole and compare the following these people have. The number of followers is not all that great.
Yes, Sai Baba was an exception. That is because it was systematic. They had identified loopholes in religions and exploited that. For instance, not everyone can enter a mosque or some other place of worship. That was never the case in a Sai Baba ashram.
How has the response been to your campaign against miracles been?
I have had a very good response. There are people who are interested in what I am trying to say. Many others agree with me, but have been either too oppressed or scared to speak.
Are there are threats to your life?
When I embarked on this mission, I was aware of the threats that would follow, especially in the case of the church which has been intolerant right from the time of Galileo.
On Tuesday, one Catholic organisation had even said that I need to put into a mental asylum and not sent to jail because I am talking rubbish. However, I will continue with my work, since I do not care about the consequences.
o o o
(The Hindu)
Madurai, April 29, 2012
by D. Karthikeyan
The life of the five-year-old Dalit girl was sacrificed based on the superstitious belief that the sprinkling of her blood at the construction site will give the proposed structure life and enduring strength.
Rajalakshmi, daughter of poor agriculture laborers Thotthan and Annakili of Kachakatti, was killed on new moon day. The state of the body and the manner in which the child was murdered had sent shockwaves among the villagers.
Construction sacrifice
Dalit activists who spoke about the issue said that as the victims of human sacrifice were often strangers or marginal members of the community the practice was rarely challenged. It was based on "construction sacrifice," a practice done during the execution of building projects.
There are two categories: a sacrifice made to please supernatural possessors of the land for obtaining the title of the land; and another to bring the proposed structure to life by warding off evil spirits. This case belonged to the second category.
PUCL, CPI (ML)'s role
A People's Union for Civil Liberties team led by R. Murali, principal, Madura College, found that the murder could have had no economic or social reason as all people in the colony were Dalits.
Mr. Murali said that they concluded that it must have been a case of human sacrifice as the child was found missing a day before Amavasai. Also, a person who indulged in black magic in the area was missing since the day of the murder. The PUCL found that there was not a single drop of blood in the body and the flesh near the child's face had been cut using a sharp weapon.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) demanded Rs.10 lakh compensation for the family of the victim.
C. Mathivanan, district secretary, CPI (ML), said those protecting the offenders and destroying evidence should be brought to book. The government should take strong action to end ensure that no one involved in such practices hereafter.
by Harinder Baweja
Hindustan Times
New Delhi, April 28, 2012
The skyline was dark; it was uncomfortably grey and it stayed that way. For three long days and nights, the Capital resembled a huge funeral pyre to its west and east, and the stench of burning rubber and bodies started filling the air. Word had spread that Indira Gandhi had been shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards and a motley crowd of angry blood-thirsty protestors roamed the streets, hunting down turbaned men and their children; sprinkling them with kerosene or simply throwing burnt tyres around their necks.
That time, from late-evening of October 31 to November 3 in 1984, a daughter saw her father being set on fire, a wife looked on helplessly as her husband and son were dragged by lumpens and bludgeoned to death with iron rods and a brother lost three siblings. He identified them from the watch one was wearing and the other two, from their half-burnt clothes.
Daughter Nirpreet Kaur, wife Jagdish Kaur and brother Jagsher Singh have lived a wretched life in the pursuit of justice, perhaps because they had seen a powerful Congressman and Member of Parliament of the area, Sajjan Kumar, exhort the mob and order the killing of Sikhs in the Raj Nagar locality, in Delhi Cantonment. For 27 of the 28 years, each of the three have variously approached the police and the many commissions of inquiry (see box) to give a first-hand, 'I witnessed the carnage' account, but it stayed buried in affidavit after affidavit.
For them, revisiting 1984 is always a painful memory; the denial of justice a second stab in the heart. They had seen Sajjan Kumar, and heard him, saying, "Ek bhi sardar zinda nahi bachna chahiye… en sardaron ko maro, enhone hamari maa ko mara hai," but till June last year, no court of law had ever heard their testimonies. Says HS Phoolka, their lawyer, "Whenever it came to the commissions of inquiry, Sajjan Kumar's name appeared prominently, but whenever it went to the police, his name disappeared."
If today, the noose is tightening around Sajjan Kumar's neck, it is because the CBI, and not the police, is the investigating and prosecuting agency. If today, public prosecutor RS Cheema, has, in his concluding remarks in the sessions court, said that the riots were a conspiracy of terrifying proportions that indict the police, it is because the men in uniform sided with the rioters. The police's daily diaries of that time are blank. Ironically, there are only two entries and they pertain to complaints against the Sikhs; of them assembling with kirpans.
Nobody knows the abysmal conduct of the police better than former police commissioner and governor, Ved Marwah. Soon after the riots, he was asked to inquire into the role of police officers and give a report in three months. He spent, day and night, examining a number of persons and seizing all records of the police stations, including the one at Delhi Cantt. That sent alarm bells ringing and because the daily diaries could not have been challenged. It was obvious that the men in uniform had vanished from their police stations
According to police rules, all movements of police officers are recorded minute by minute in the thana daily diary and the diaries were totally blank. Police officers, whose names figured prominently, filed a writ against the inquiry in the High Court, but when the court refused to stall the inquiry, Marwah received an order to stop the inquiry — and tear all his notes. In Raj Nagar, specifically, Jagdish saw the chowki in-charge applaud the mob and ask them, 'kitne murge bhun diye' (how many Sikhs have you roasted). All this, while the bodies of her husband and son lay nearby.
The policemen had also colluded in Delhi Cantt, tagging over 30 deaths, including Nirpreet's father, Nirmal Singh, into a single FIR. Sajjan Kumar's name was never put in the list of the accused and the summons for Nirpreet, in yet another act of treachery, were sent to an address that never belonged to her (see Page 1). Respite for Sajjan's victims came only after the Nanavati Commission submitted its report in 2005 and concluded that there was 'credible evidence' against the Congressman. Affidavits filed by Jagsher and Jagdish finally counted for something. After tremendous pressure from the Opposition — for now too the government tried to exonerate him in their action taken report — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh relented after a stirring speech in Parliament.
"On behalf of our government, on behalf of the entire people of this country, I bow my head in shame," he told the House, adding, "But, Sir, there are ebbs, there are tides in the affairs of the nation. The past is with us. We cannot rewrite the past. But as human beings, we have the will power, and we have the ability to write a better future for all of us." The case against Kumar was entrusted to the CBI and perhaps, a better future had been scripted for Nirpreet, Jagdish and Jagsher.
But 2005 to 2012 is a long time. Each of the three claim they were under immense pressure to turn hostile — in return for land and money, but they held out. Nirpreet went through a vilification campaign — she was charged under TADA, the defense lawyers said but failed to add that she had been discharged in two cases and acquitted in one. The pressure was so acute and the frequency of threats so alarming, the victims had to apply for police protection; and couldn't be from the Delhi police, whose men stood condemned for siding with the perpetrators. The CBI director wrote to the DGP Punjab and got them the gun-toting policemen who shadow them to court.
The eye witness accounts and the daily diaries form good evidence but the CBI has more — the testimony of a joint secretary in Delhi government's home department, who told the court that the director of prosecution had signed off on a file, saying, the sanction to prosecute Kumar should not be granted. It finally was, by Delhi's lieutenant governor and the sessions court in Delhi framed charges against him — of murder, rioting with deadly weapons and promoting disharmony amongst communities. His lawyers contested the framing of charges but his revision petition was struck down both by the High Court and the apex court.
Finally, hope peeps faintly through the legal and psychological debris. With a judgement due in a few months from now, it still might be time for history to write a better future. And give them a tomorrow.
Enquiries over the years
Various committees and commissions that have probed the 1984 riots
Nov 1984
MARWAH COMMISSION: Set up to look into role of police in the riots but suddenly stopped by the central govt. Records selectively passed on to next commission
May 1985
MISHRA COMMISSION: Formed to find out if the violence was organised. The August 1986 report recommended the formation of three new committees: Ahooja, Kapur-Mittal and Jain-Banerjee
Nov 1985
DHILLON COMMITTEE: Set up to recommend rehab for victims. Asked that insurance claims of attacked businesses be paid, but the govt rejected these claims
Feb 1987
KAPUR-MITTAL COMMITTEE: Set up to probe, again, the role of police. 72 cops identified for connivance/ gross negligence, 30 recommended for dismissal, none punished
Feb 1987
JAIN-BANERJEE COMMITTEE: Looked at cases against Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar. Recommended cases be registered against both. Later, the Delhi HC quashed the appointment of this committee
Feb 1987
AHOOJA COMMITTEE: Set up by the Misra Commission to ascertain the number of people killed in the Delhi massacre. In August 1987, Ahooja's report put the figure at 2,733 Sikhs
Mar 1990
POTTI-ROSHA COMMITTEE: Appointed as a successor to the Jain-Banerjee committee. Potti-Rosha also recommended registration of cases against Kumar&Tytler
Dec 1990
JAIN-AGGARWAL COMMITTEE: Appointed as Potti-Rosha's successor, also suggested cases against HKL Bhagat, Tytler&Kumar. No case registered, probe stopped in '93
Dec 1993
NARULA COMMITTEE: In its Jan 94 report, it was the 3rd committee in 9 years to repeat the recommendation to register cases against Bhagat, Tytler and Kumar
May 2000
NANAVATI COMMISSION: One-man commission appointed by the BJP-led government. Found 'credible evidence' against Tytler and Kumar. The CBI tried to give a clean chit
January 2010
CBI finds case against Sajjan, framed charges that included murder and rioting with deadly weapons
An Open Letter
The Editor In Chief
The Hindustan Times
We were attracted by the announcement made by the Hindustan Times that it intends to spend 5 Paisa earned from the sale of each copy on educating the children of India. It did not however tell us how it intends to spend this money. That is important since education of a child is not a sum of random acts. Schooling is a holistic experience composed of several components identified and selected through a Curricular Design which seeks to attain the education goals which a society sets for itself from time to time.
The issue of 19 April, 2012 of the Hindustan Times carried on its pages alphabet -sheets in English and Hindi with pictures. It asked its readers to cut all the sheets, staple them together to make a pictorial alphabet book and give it to a poor child to motivate her to read. This move seems to be driven by good intentions, however, it is clearly a misconceived , directionless and futile investment which does not help the poor child at all. There are social as well as educational reasons to say this. The Right to Education Act has made education a right, an entitlement for each and every child of India. It is not realized through some disparate acts of benevolence of some well meaning people. It is based on the principle of equity meaning thereby that the child is entitled to get education of equitable quality. It is to be done though a well defined institutionalized mechanism. What the HT does is to appeal to the conscience of its readers who , out of compassion for the poor children should find time to prepare a first language textbook for them by cutting and pasting these sheets. This is an act of pity which no self respecting individual would accept. The campaign designers must ask themselves this question: would they do this for their own children? If not, how is it right for a poor child? It would also be interesting for the managers of this campaign to do a survey to find out how many of its readers have actually indulged in this act of charity.
This campaign, apart from showing its insensitivity to the issue of equity and equality is also faulty in its design from the point of view of language pedagogy. In 2012 no language teacher ought to prescribe alphabet-books as the first learning tool. Language pedagogy has moved far ahead from the days when alphabets used to be the first step in language learning. Had the campaign designers taken care to read the National Curriculum Framework 2005 and the focus group papers on language teaching, they would have realized that now language teaching has become much more sophisticated. If the argument is that children deprived of the latest language teaching methods should at least be given this much, it again violates the constitutional principle of equality.
We have moved away from the 'A for Apple' nonsense after considerable effort, and it is disconcerting to see a major media agency reviving it without much thought.
Textbooks are only one part of it, significant and crucial though they are. Textbooks are held together by integrity of content and design, they are not merely a cut-paste- sew job. Designing of a first language book for a child in a multi-lingual context, requires a lot of responsible thinking which minds uneducated in the issues of language learning and unaware of the latest research in this field should not do. The first book in the hands of a child is a total experience. It should be able excite and stimulate all her/ his sensory perceptions. Moreover, the act of reading at the very first stages is now taken very seriously. It would do well to the designers of this campaign to have a look at the reading programs initiated by the NCERT and many states for the first and second grade children. Poor children deserve quality textbooks and reading material designed and produced well to last a full term, and printed on good quality paper and not on newsprint.
Seen even from the angle of social diversity, the pictorial alphabets sheets use images which leaves out a large population of children who have not been brought up in the tradition of upper caste male Hindu iconography .
The cavalier manner in which the whole campaign is designed again leads one to question the minds behind it: are they serious in their intention to support the educational system? If yes, they should give the money to the professional agencies involved in the business of schooling rather than squandering it on such tokenistic gestures which is also bad investment.
Apoorvanand, Professor, Delhi University, Member, Focus Group On Indian languages, National Curriculum Framework, 2005
Krishna Kumar, Professor, CIE, Delhi Unv, Former Director, NCERT
Kumar Rana, Pratichi, Kolkata
Shabnam Hashmi, Member, MAEF, NLMA
Vinod Raina, Member, NAC- RTE
(i) HUMAN RIGHTS IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE FUNCTIONS OF SAARC
The purpose of this publication is to serve as a baseline study of human rights situations in South Asia in relation to the functions of SAARC as a regional grouping. We hope this publication and the subsequent monitoring reports will help track the development of the role of SAARC in the promotion and protection of human rights in the coming years and generate wider interest and discurrion in following this development.
o o o
(ii) SHAHZAD BASHIR AND ROBERT D. CREWS, EDS., UNDER THE DRONES: MODERN LIVES IN THE AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN BORDERLANDS
Table of Contents:
Introduction / Shahzad Bashir and Robert D. Crews
1. Political Struggles over the Afghanistan–Pakistan Borderlands / Amin Tarzi
2. The Transformation of the Afghanistan–Pakistan Border / Gilles Dorronsoro
3. Religious Revivalism across the Durand Line / Sana Haroon
4. Taliban, Real and Imagined / James Caron
5. Quandaries of the Afghan Nation / Shah Mahmoud Hanifi
6. How Tribal Are the Taliban? / Thomas Ruttig
7. Ethnic Minorities in Search of Political Consolidation / Lutz Rzehak
8. Red Mosque / Faisal Devji
9. Madrasa Statistics Don't Support the Myth / Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das,
and Asim Ijaz Khwaja
10. Will Sufi Islam Save Pakistan? / Farzana Shaikh
11. The Politics of Pashtun and Punjabi Truck Decoration / Jamal J. Elias
12. The Afghan Mediascape / Nushin Arbabzadah
13. Women and the Drug Trade in Afghanistan / Fariba Nawa
Epilogue / Shahzad Bashir and Robert D. Crews
(i) PILER INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE LABOUR IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION
2-3 May 2012
Conference Day One
Wednesday 2 May 2011
Inaugural Session 09:30 am – 11:00 am
Welcome Address Dr. Syed Jaffer Ahmed
Director, Pakistan Study Center, University of Karachi
Introduction to the Karamat Ali
Conference Executive Director, PILER
Keynote Speech Labour and Poverty in Pakistan
Professor Dr. Jan Breman
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Chairperson's Remarks Professor Dr. Muhammad Qaiser,
Vice Chancellor, University of Karachi
Concluding Remarks Rasheed A. Rizvi, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan &
President PILER Board
Tea Break 11:00 am – 11:30 am
11:30– 1:30 pm Session One: Growth Paradigm and Decent Work Crisis
The Plight of the Non-Labouring Poor, Prof. Jan Breman
Employment security: lessons from India, Dr. Amrita Chachhi
Creating spaces for decent work in urban centres, Arif Hasan
Global Capitalism and the Negation of Democracy: The Case of Labor Rights, Dr. Rubina Saigol
Social Protection in Times of Crisis, Dr. Asad Saeed
Question and answer
1:30 – 2:30 pm Lunch
2:30-5:30 pm Session Two – Unions and the Crisis: Rethinking Strategies
Chair: Karamat Ali
Unions in the informal sector, Ashim Roy, India (NTUI), & Pakistan, Mian Abdul Qayyum, Labour Qaumi Movement
Labour relations and the state in the post-18th Amendment era, Faisal Siddiqui
Decentralizing labour legislation: Workers' perspective, Farid Awan
Public Sector Unions: Workers' response to privatization,
Case studies: Pakistan Railways, Manzoor Razi and Karachi Electric Supply Corp, Lateef Mughal
Peasants' movement for land rights: Post-victory struggle, Aqeela Naz
Question & answer
Conference Day Two
Thursday, 3 May 2012
10:00-1:00 PM Session Three -- Climate Change: Impact on Livelihood & Labour
Climate Change Induced Disasters: Vulnerabilities and Impacts on the Poor, Nikhat Sattar
Disaster Management, Development Planning and Role of the State, Kaiser Bengali
Women and crisis management in times of disasters, Mariam Bibi
Post-floods implications on labour: bonded labour, Bisharat Ali
Climate change and disaster preparedness: role of the community, Mohammad Ali Shah
Lunch Break
1:00 – 2:00
2:00 – 4:00 pm Session Four: South Asian Labour: Emerging Trends & Challenges
(Thematic areas: legislation, trade unionism, social protection, state policies)
Country presentations:
Bangladesh, Abul Hossain
Pakistan, Harris Gazdar, Globalisation, Labour Non-Markets and Conflict
Sri Lanka, Arumugum Muthulingum
Nepal, Ramesh Badal
4:00- 5:00 pm Plenary/Open discussion
Resetting the Agenda: Informalization of Labour--The Coping Strategies, Jan Breman
Recommendations from the informal labour
Recommendations from the formal unions
Note of thanks
o o o
(ii) 32nd Bhimsen Sachar Memorial Lecture by Shri Ashish Nandy on 3rd May 2012 at 5.30 P.M. at Constitution Club (Speaker Hall) Vithal Bhai Patel House, Rafi Marg, New Delhi.
Samir Amin Interviewed by Aijaz Ahmad
Samir Amin: You see, the US establishment -- and behind the US establishment its allies, the Europeans and others, Turkey as a member of NATO -- derived their lesson from their having been surprised in Tunisia and Egypt: prevent similar movements elsewhere in the Arab countries, preempt them by taking the initiative of, initiating, the movements. They have tested their experience in Libya, and they have tested it in Libya with success, in the sense that, in Libya, at the start we had no [broad popular] movement . . . against Gaddafi. We had small armed groups, and one has to question immediately . . . where those arms were coming from. They were -- we know it -- from the beginning, from the Gulf, with the support of Western powers, and the US. And attacking the army, police, and so on. And the same day, not even the next day, those very people who qualified themselves as "liberation forces," "democratic liberation forces," called upon NATO -- the French and then NATO -- to come to the rescue, and that allowed for the intervention. That intervention has succeeded in the sense that it destroyed the regime of Gaddafi. But what is the result of the success? Is it democratic Libya? Well, one should laugh at that when one knows that the president of the new regime is nobody else than the very judge who condemned to death the Bulgarian nurses. What a curious democracy it is! But it has also led to the dislocation of the country on a Somalian pattern: that is, local powers -- all of them in the name of so-called "Islam," but local warlords -- with the destruction of the country. One can raise the question: was this the target of the intervention -- that is, the destruction of the country?
I'll come back to this main question, because they tried to implement the same strategy immediately afterward on Syria -- that is, introducing armed groups from the very beginning. From the north through Turkey, Hatay particularly. The so-called "refugee camps" in Hatay are not refugee camps -- there are very few refugees -- they are camps for training mercenaries to intervene in Syria. This is well documented by our Turkish friends. And Turkey as a NATO power is part of the conspiracy in that case. And similarly with Jordan, introducing from the south, with the support -- not only neutrality but, I think, active support -- of Israel, through Daraa, southern armed groups.
Facing that in Syria we have objectively a situation similar to the one of Egypt: that is, a regime which a long, long time ago had legitimacy, for the same reasons, when it was a national-popular regime but lost it in the time of Hafez Assad already -- it moved to align itself with neoliberalism, privatization, etc., leading to the same social disaster. So, there is an objective ground for a wide, popular, social-oriented uprising. But by preempting this movement, through the military intervention of armed groups, the Western imperialist powers have created a situation where the popular democratic movement is . . . hesitating. They don't want to join the so-called "resistance" against Bashar Assad; but they don't want to support the regime of Bashar Assad either. That has allowed Bashar Assad to successfully put an end, or limits, to external intervention, in Homs and on the boundary of Turkey in the north. But opposing state terror to the real terrorism of armed groups supported by foreign powers is not the answer to the question. The answer to the question is really changing the system to the benefit of, through negotiations with, the real popular democratic movement. This is the challenge. And this is the question which is raised. We don't know, I don't know, I think nobody knows how things will move on: whether the regime, or people within the regime, will understand that and move towards real reform by opening, more than negotiations, a re-distribution of the power system with the popular democratic movement, or will stick to the way of meeting explosions just brutally as they have done until today. If they continue in that direction, finally they will be defeated, but they will be defeated to the benefit of imperialist powers.
Now, what is the real target of imperialism, in Syria and in the region? It is not at all bringing democracy. It is destroying societies just as they have destroyed the society of Libya. If you take the example of Iraq, what have they done? They have replaced the real dictatorship of Saddam Hussein by three uglier dictatorships: two in the name of religion, Shia and Sunni, one in the name of so-called "ethnicity," Kurds, which are uglier even than Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. They have destroyed the country by systematic assassination -- I have no other word for that. In addition to hundreds of thousands of people who were bombed in humanitarian bombings and so on, the systematic assassination of the cadres of the regime: scientists, doctors, engineers, professors of universities, even poets, and so on -- all the real elite of the nation. That is destroying the country. This is the target of imperialism in Syria. What does the so-called "Liberation Army of Syria" claim to have as its program? That we should eradicate the Alawis, the Druzes, the Christians, the Shia. When you add those four "minorities," you come to 45% of the population of Syria. What does it mean? It means democracy? It means the ugliest possible dictatorship and the destruction of the country.
Now, who has interest in that? This is the common interest of three intimate allies: the US, Israel, and the Gulf countries. The US. Why? Because the destruction of the societies of the region is the best way to prepare the next stage, which is the destruction of Iran, with a view of the containment and possibly rolling back of major "emerging" countries, the dangerous ones, China and Russia (and potentially, if India is naughty, India -- but India is not naughty, for the time being). That is the target. It implies the destruction of the societies of the Middle East, including that of Iran, as a major target. This project of destruction of societies, accompanied with the continuation of lumpen-development, is also the target of Israel. Because, if Syria is split into four or five insignificant, confessional, small states, it allows for further easy expansion of the process of Israel's colonization. It is also the target of the Gulf. Well, it is almost a farce to see today the Emir of Qatar and the King of Saudi Arabia, standing with the Westerners Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron, as the leaders of the struggle for democracy. One can only laugh. But their hegemony in the region in the name of Islam -- in the "name," because there are different possible understandings of Islam of course -- implies the destruction of countries like Egypt basically, because, if Egypt is standing on her feet, then the hegemony of the Gulf is, you know, what was the Gulf in the time of Nasser, in the days of Nasser? So they have this in common.
And they are supported, within the societies, by the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, I would conclude by that. We should look at the Muslim Brotherhood not as an "Islamic" party. The criterion for qualifying and judging organizations, parties, is not whether they are "Islamic" or whether they are "secular," but whether they are reactionary or progressive. And when we look at the Muslim Brotherhood, on all real issues, they are against the strikes of the working class, they are against the resistance of poor peasants, they are for privatization, they are in favor of the dismantling of public service, which means that they are fully aligned with the most reactionary forces. This is a reactionary party using Islam as a front. This is the real criterion.
This is the global picture of what are the strategic targets of imperialists and their internal allies, reactionary forces, within the societies of the Middle East.
[Samir Amin is an Egyptian Marxist economist. Aijaz Ahmad is an Indian Marxist critic. The above text is an edited partial transcript of a video interview released by NewsClick on 24 April 2012. ]
by George Takei
(The Guardian, 27 April 2012)
The degrading treatment of Japanese American families like mine is the theme of my new musical, Allegiance
[Caption] Japanese American children outside California internment camp
Two Japanese children stand underneath a notice detailing 'Civilian Restrictive Order No 1' outside the Pinedale assembly centre, California, in 1942. Photograph: Us Army Signal Corps/ CORBIS
Seventy years ago, US soldiers bearing bayoneted rifles came marching up to the front door of our family's home in Los Angeles, ordering us out. Our crime was looking like the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor a few months before. I'll never forget that day, nor the tears streaming down my mother's face as we were forcibly removed, herded off like animals, to a nearby race track. There, for weeks, we would live in a filthy horse stable while our "permanent" relocation camp was being constructed thousands of miles away in Arkansas, in a place called Rohwer.
I recently revisited Rohwer. Gone were the sentry towers, armed guards, barbed wire and crudely constructed barracks that defined our lives for many years. The swamp had been drained, the trees chopped down. Only miles and miles of cotton fields. The only thing remaining was the cemetery with two tall monuments.
Because I was a child, I didn't understand the depth of the degradation and deprivation my parents suffered, or how courageous and foresighted my mother had been to smuggle a sewing machine into camp, which permitted her to make modest curtains for our bare quarters. I didn't grasp what a blow the ordeal was to my father's role as provider, as he struggled to keep our family together. The family ate, bathed and did chores along with a whole community, pressed together in the confines of a makeshift camp, in the oppressive heat and mosquito-infested swamps of Arkansas.
Later my family would be shipped to a high-security camp in Tule Lake, California, constructed in a desolate, dry lake bed in the north of the state. Three layers of barbed-wire fences now confined us. Out of principle, my parents had refused to answer yes to a "loyalty" questionnaire the government had promulgated. It had asked whether they would serve in the US army and go wherever ordered, and whether they would swear allegiance to the US government and "forswear" loyalty to the Japanese emperor – as if any had ever sworn such loyalty in the first instance.
Because the government had already taken so much from us, and broken its promise of "liberty and justice for all", how could my parents give them the satisfaction of a forced oath? I still remember the irony of holding my hand to my heart and pledging allegiance to the US flag in the tar-paper barrack schoolroom, even as armed guards watched over us and barbed wire kept us locked inside that prison, without charge, trial or due process.
My father once said: "America is a democracy as great as the people can be, but also as fallible." When I was a teenager, I began to understand better what had been done to us, and to question my own father about it. In one heated exchange, I said to him angrily: "Why didn't you do anything, Daddy? You led us like sheep to slaughter!" And for the first time, I saw the great sadness in his eyes as he said simply,: "Maybe you're right" – and turned and walked from the table, shutting his bedroom door behind him.
I will always regret those words. The tragedy of the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans was not only that it was the greatest violation of our constitutional guarantees, but that it broke apart families and whole communities, and left scars that today remain unhealed, even after the government later apologised and issued reparations. It was almost a half-century too late. President Ronald Reagan only reluctantly signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. It expressed regret for the injustice and paid a token redress of $20,000 to those survivors still alive. My father had already passed away in 1979, never to know of the apology or receive the redress money. I donated the sum to the most fitting institution, the Japanese American National Museum, which tells the story of the experience of Americans of Japanese ancestry.
When I returned to Rohwer this year, it was not in anger or sadness, but with a deep resolve to help ensure such a thing never happens again within our shores. I will soon be appearing in Allegiance, the first piece of American musical theatre to ever address the subject of the internment, which remains one of the darkest and most little-known chapters of our history. We also plan to bring the show to the great stage of Broadway next year, so that the world can hear the story and our profound message: "Never forget, never again."
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Photos: Remember 1983 ... The year Monte Kiffin began coaching in the NFL?
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March 25, 1983. Motown celebrates its 25th anniversary and has the television special Motown 25, during which Michael Jackson performed "Billie Jean" and introduces to the world the moonwalk.
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text:
Gold – The ultimate wealth
Updated on Friday, May 6, 2011, 17:05
Sushmita Dutta
India's love affair with the yellow metal dates back to the ancient times and spans millennia. Its significance is intertwined with the Hindu mythology. The creator of the Universe, Lord Brahma himself was born out of gold. When there was no life and darkness enveloped the earth, Brahma deposited a seed in water with which he made his own body. The seed turned into a golden egg, which was as bright and radiant as the sun itself. From this golden egg, Lord Brahma was born. 'Hiranya', being the ancient name for gold, is the reason why Brahma is also called 'Hiranyagarbha'. So if the Indians have an obsession of gold from centuries, one can easily see why it is so. Over the ages, the radiance of gold has not diminished one bit, rather, it has became part of the psyche of the Indian people.
Gold - The symbol of Indian mythology
In Indian mythology gold is known as the seed of 'Agni', the god of Fire. It has been mentioned in the Hindu religion that this yellow metal is supposed to be worn on specific ceremonies and occasions. In the Hindu mythological stories it has been found that Gods and Goddesses used to ride on golden chariots. It has always been sacred to the Hindu religion and its significance as a symbol of purity, prosperity and good fortune makes it an important part of every Hindu occasion.
Later when kings and monarchs reigned over the Indian sub-continent, gold became the common monetary unit. The Rajas imprinted their faces on gold coins as a symbol of their prowess and used it for business purposes, thus making them immortal in time. Gold became the symbol of power, the more one had, the wealthier the king and his kingdom. Kings used the power of gold to build huge armies and extend their territories. Gold coins or 'ashrafiyan' as they came to be known were also used as rewards for any good deeds done in the kingdom. Temples made entirely of gold were erected to showcase the might of the kings and their piety.
Gold - The symbol of prosperity, economy
History is loaded with instances where kingdoms were plundered just for the sake of gold others possessed. India was once called the 'land of the golden bird'. Invaders right from Alexander to Mahmud of Ghazni and Nadir Shah came with the intent of looting this country. They were flabbergasted when they saw the magnificence of its kingdoms and its richness.
Gold is not only revered in this nation because of its religious sentiments. It is considered as the primary source of savings because of its economic value. From the rich to the terribly poor, in every class of the Indian society, gold holds immense value. Till currency came into being, gold was the most practical form of savings.
Gold - The symbol of tradition
The custom of gifting gold during Indian marriages, in all classes of the society, is compulsory. So much so, that every family starts saving as soon a child is born for the purpose of 'stridhan'- gold that is traditionally gifted to the bride - and this is the exclusive property of the bride. In lean times, gold acts a saviour for most of the Indian families. Gold ornaments are also handed down over generations. New born children are presented with gold as a good luck charm. For Indians, gold will never lose its sheen.
On festivals like Diwali and Akshaya Tritiya, buying of gold is considered to be extremely auspicious. Akshaya Tritiya falls on the third day of the bright half in the Baisakh month (April-May). It is that day of the year when the sun and the moon are the brightest on the same day, which happens only once in a year. The day is important for Hindu religion in more than one way. It is also called 'Akha Teej'. It is traditionally the birth of Lord Parashuram, the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu. It is also the day when Lord Ganesha started to write the epic Mahabharata on the request of sage Ved Vyasa. The holy Ganges also descended on the earth on this auspicious day. The day of Akshaya Tritya also marked the beginning of the "Satya Yug" of the Golden Age- the first of the four 'yugas'.
The word "Akshaya" means eternal or imperishable- that which never loses its sheen. What better than to celebrate a day with gold, which also is eternal? People buy gold on this day so that there would be everlasting prosperity in their lives. Indians consider this day extremely auspicious and so conduct weddings and initiate business ventures on the day. Ultimately, prosperity is one of the primary objectives of humans.
The famous scholar Karl Marx aptly said, "Although gold and silver are not by nature money, money is by nature gold and silver."
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CFMEU Organiser Bill White was arrested doing his job!
Come along to the rally to support the rights of all workers.
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Unions have fought for and won penalty rates. This government wants to build a class of working poor.
We have different views on lots of issues. But we share one thing in common.
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