Sat January Issue 2016

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CELEBRATING 13TH YEAR OF PUBLICATION

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READ INSIDE

South Asia Times Vol.13 I No. 6 I JANUARY 2016 I FREE s o u t hasiatim es.com .au Editor: Neeraj Nanda

I

GUEST EDITORIAL pG 5 Spirit of India Run pg 6 Australia-India social security pg 8 World Hindi Diwas celebrated pg 13 Melbourne Durbar pG 16 Mars PHOTO FEATURE pG 20-21

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457 Visa Review To Plug Misuse Hurting Domestic Workers & Protect Foreign Workers

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GUEST editorial

4.1 billion not online

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By Thalif Deen

U

NITED NATIONS: The worlds developing nations, numbering over 130, are still lagging far behind the 34 rich industrialized countries in the race for digital technology.

In the developed world, 81.3 percent of households now have home-Internet access compared with 34.1 percent in the developing world, according to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

But far worse are the 48 least developed countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the world’s poor, with only 6.7 percent households having online access.

And even as digital technology progresses by leaps and bounds, the United Nations says only about 3.2 billion people — out of a total world population of 7.3 billion — are online, leaving the remaining 4.1 billion out in the cold.

Still, mobile cellular subscriptions have made tremendous strides reaching out to almost 7.1 billion worldwide, with over 95 percent of the world population covered by a mobile-cellular signal, according to the UN. A high-level meeting of the General Assembly last week reaffirmed one of the basic human rights recognized by the United Nations: that every person in today’s digitalized world should have the means to access information and communications technologies (ICTs), described as a “key driver” of sustainable development.

The meeting, which was a 10-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+10) held in Tunis in 2005, highlighted the significant digital divides—between men and women and between rich and poor nations — which need to be addressed urgently.

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed out more than 80 percent of households in developed countries have Internet access but two out of three households in developing countries do not.

“Women are half the global population – yet 200 million fewer women than men have access to the Internet. We must bridge these divides,” he declared.

The outcome WSIS document, adopted at the high-level meeting, also addressed the new and emerging challenges, including cybercrimes, cyber attacks, and the use of ICTs for terrorist purposes.

The document recognized the leading role for governments in cybersecurity matters relating to national security. It further recognized the important role of international law, especially the UN Charter, in building confidence and security in the use of ICTs by member states.

Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, a researcher in the Essex Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project at the University of Essex in UK, told IPS recent events have heightened the need to be more vigilant against the use of the internet by terrorist groups and there have been calls for increased powers of surveillance for

security agencies.

“However, we stress the importance of taking measured and proportionate steps that respect the privacy and the rights of all in a democratic society”.

The measures taken should be evidence-based as to their effectiveness, must be anchored in the basic human rights principles of accountability, transparency and non-discrimination, he noted.

“This is why we thought it was so crucial that the WISIS+10 review make the human-rights based approach a central pillar of the outcome document.”

“While the final document is a vast improvement from the initial drafts that were drawn up several weeks ago– and we welcome the increased prominence given to the provisions on human rights — it could have done a lot more to highlight and address the challenges that ICT poses beyond issues related to privacy, accessibility and security,” said Dr.Shaheed, a former Foreign Minister of the Maldives.

Kathryn Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer of Internet Society (ISOC) expressed strong support for the unequivocal commitment to the multistakeholder model, first adopted at the 2005 Tunis summit.

She was also supportive of the renewal of the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum, and the central focus on creating a digital-enabling environment aimed at achieving the UN’s recently adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

However, the outcome statement failed to fully recognize the transnational nature of the Internet as a borderless “network of networks”. It sought to apply national solutions to global problems, particularly those related to safety and security, Brown told delegates.

That stance was compounded by an “unfortunate” misbelief by some that cooperation only among Governments was sufficient to solve issues that required the expertise and commitment of all.

“As more people — and things — come online, many challenges, known and unknown, lie ahead,” she added. And government-centric processes were only one of the many ways solutions could be crafted and implemented.

Solving twenty-first century problems required the collaboration of all stakeholders through twentyfirst century mechanisms, she declared.

“ICT has played an increasingly important role in promoting economic and social development, such as enhancing productivity, facilitating trade, creating quality jobs, providing ICT-based services such as e-health and e-learning, and improving governance,” said MogensLykketoft, President of the General Assembly, who convened the high-level meeting.

The General Assembly also decided to extend the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum

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(IGF) for another 10 years, while recognizing that during this period, the IGF should continue to show progress on working modalities, and participation of relevant stakeholders from developing countries.

The member States also called for close alignment between the WSIS process and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, highlighting ICT’s crosscutting contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals and poverty eradication.

Constance Bommelaer, Senior Director, Global Internet Policy at Internet Society (ISOC) told IPS the agreed outcome document represents overall a positive vision by re-committing to the Tunis agreement and the principle of a multistakeholder model for Internet governance.

Recognizing the role that the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) plays, the WSIS+10 outcome document renews the IGF’s mandate, and finally, it asserts that human rights online must be protected, as they are offline.

“We are especially pleased with how the review process has been conducted and managed by the cofacilitators from the UAE and Latvia.

It can be truly called a success,” she declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com —Source: IPS.

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Spirit of India Run:

Pat Farmer to run from Kanyakumari to Srinagar

By SAT News Desk

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elbourne: Australia’s ultramarathon running legend, Pat Farmer AM, has announced he will run the length of India, covering 4600km in 60 days.The Spirit of India Run will begin on 26 January 2016 – a significant date for both countries, marking Australia Day and India’s Republic Day. Starting in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu at the most southern point of India, Pat will head north, running an average 80km each day. Pat hopes to reach Srinagar, Kashmir on 26 March 2016.

Along the way he will run through busy cities, rural towns and coastal villages, stopping to speak with school students, business leaders and community representatives at receptions most evenings.

He will pass through landmark cities such as Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Ajmer, Jaipur, Agra with its TajMahal, New Delhi and Chandigarh.

Pat’s aim is to promote goodwill, friendship and trade between Australia and India, while also highlighting and raising funds for girls’ education in India.

“Young girls grow up to be the mothers of the next generation, they are the first educators to their children and I believe every girl should have access to basic literacy skills as education

is the way to change their world and ours,” said Pat. “My goals are to raise $100,000 to support the education of girls in India through The K.C. Mahindra Education Trust and to showcase this amazing country and its people.

“Our nations have so much in common and we share many traits – this run is about bringing the people of our nations closer together and helping children most in need to change their future.”

The Spirit of India Run has the support of both the Australian and Indian Governments.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, The Hon Julie Bishop MP, today helped Pat launch the Spirit of India Run.

“I wish Pat all the very best for the Spirit of India Run and support his efforts to highlight the strong people-to-people links between our two countries,” the Minister said.

“I know the people of India will be just as inspired

by Pat’s efforts as his fellow Australians are.”

The Indian High Commission in Australia has enthusiastically assisted Pat with his planning of this ultra-marathon. The High Commissioner of India in Australia, His Excellency Mr. NavdeepSuri, expressed his support for Pat’s latest ultramarathon.

Hats off to Pat for embarking on this epic project,” said the High Commissioner.

“As he traverses the length of India, Pat will witness its ancient civilization, its immense diversity, its incredible natural beauty and its vibrant culture. In two action-packed months, he will truly capture the Spirit of India!''

Pat has selected Australian film maker of Indian origin Anupam Sharma and his team of Australian film professionals to film The Spirit of India Run. With the recent success of Anupam’s film ‘unINDIAN’ starring Brett Lee, and a growing interest in India and Indian culture, Anupam believes the Spirit of India Run has the potential to capture imaginations.

Pat’s aim is to promote goodwill, friendship and trade between Australia and India, while also highlighting and raising funds for girls’ education in India.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get inside the heart and mind of Pat Farmer and the human spirit which will take him through a dramatic run across India,” said Anupam.

“Through the film and the TV off shoots we will be looking at India through the eyes of an Australian, which will go a long way in showcasing more of India’s rich diversity to Australians and continue to build IndianAustralian relations.”

To follow Pat’s Spirit of India Run and donate to The K.C. Mahindra Education Trust, simply go to patfarmer.com.au.

457-visa review ordered

By SAT News Desk

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elbourne, 24 December: The federal Government has ordered a review of the 457-visa program. It is aimed at ensuring the visa category is not misused at the cost of domestic workers and protect vulnerable foreign workers.

Mr. John Azarias has been appointed to undertake an evidence-based review of the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT), which was recommended by the recent Independent Review into Integrity in the Subclass 457 Program.

“The review will consider a range of issues including the factors that should determine the settings, the appropriate base level, and the roles of

indexation and regional concessions for the TSMIT. The TSMIT defines the salary threshold for jobs that can be filled by a 457-visa holder and is designed to

protect Australian workers and ensure that visa holders are undertaking skilled employment, “ says a media release from Peter Dutton MP, Minister of Immigration and

Border Protection.

The Minister said the review's terms of reference were consistent with the Government's commitment to ensuring the 457 program

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acted as a supplement to, and not a substitute for, local workers and the protection of potentially vulnerable foreign workers in Australia.

"As the chair of the independent panel which undertook the 457 Integrity Review in 2014, Mr. Azarias brings extensive knowledge of the 457 program to the conduct of this review," Mr. Dutton said. “The Government has brought forward the review as part of an agreement with the Opposition to ensure passage through Parliament of legislation to implement the landmark China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, “ the media release says. Mr. Azarias will provide a report to Government at the end of April 2016.

—SAT News Service

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community

AustraliaIndia social security pact commences

By Neeraj Nanda

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elbourne, 11 January: Retirees of India and Australia living in each other’s countries will now have their respective pensions protected. Australians living in India and Indians living in Australia will now now be able to claim their respective pensions while living in the other country.

“A new social security agreement between Australia and India is now in force, making retirement easier for residents of both countries,” says a media release.

The agreement was signed between the two countries during the visit of Indian Prime Minister NarendraModi’s visit here in November last year.

Federal Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter and Minister for Small Business and Assistant Treasurer, Kelly O’Dwyer said the Commonwealth Government wants to make sure people who live and work in more than one country are not disadvantaged.

“This agreement will give people more freedom to move between Australia and India, knowing their pension rights will be recognized and protected,” Minister Porter said.

“Australian residents living in India will be able to claim the Australian Age Pension without having to return to Australia, while Indian residents living in Australia will have access to Indian retirement pensions. It’s a win-win.”

Minister O’Dwyer said the agreement would improve economic links between Australia and India.

“As a result of this agreement, temporarily seconded workers, and their employers, will only have to make compulsory contributions into their home country’s superannuation or pension system rather than both countries’ systems,” Minister O’Dwyer said.

“This is expected to save Australian businesses operating in India about $10 million per year, and put Australian businesses on an equal footing with their competitors from other countries that already have similar agreements with India.

“Further, it is an important step in strengthening Australia’s relationship with India, and shows the Government’s commitment to the 397,000 Indian-born people living in Australia, who make a substantial contribution to our community.”

Australia now has 30 international social security agreements around the world to support people living and working in more than one country.

These agreements are with Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the USA. For further information on Australia’s social security agreement with India visit: https://www.dss.gov.au/ international/agreement-betweenaustralia-and-the-republic-ofindia-on-social-security. www.southasiatimes.com.au - (03) 9884 8096, 0421 677 082

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$ 2.7 million grants for festivals and events

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By SAT News desk

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elbourne: A new grants program is open to provide support to community organizations and groups to run multicultural celebrations, festivals and events across Victoria.

Minister for Multicultural Affairs Robin Scott is encouraging community groups to apply for funding under the new Multicultural Festivals and Events (MFE) program for 2015-16.

The Andrews Labor Government has allocated $2.7 million towards the Festivals and Events grants program, with grants ranging from $500 to $100,000.

“The MFE ensures Victoria’s multicultural communities can celebrate and preserve traditions in meaningful ways while showcasing the vibrancy of Victoria’s multiculturalism to the wider community,” says a media release.

Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Robin Scott said, “Victorians come from more than 200 countries and

follow more than 135 faiths – we’re a great multicultural success story and we’re proud to celebrate this.”

“The Multicultural Festivals and Events grants program provides community organizations and groups with the financial support needed to develop or expand their festivities, he said.

Larger events funded through MFE will aim to

assist newer communities to deliver events by forming partnerships, and by fostering intercultural relationships and understanding. Community harmony and resilience is greatly influenced by our ability to come together, learn from one another and develop partnerships based on shared values and joint activities.

The program aims to

ensure that the wider Victorian community has the opportunity to participate and contribute to a broad range of events that strengthens social cohesion and celebrates unity.

The MFE combines the previous Multicultural Festivals and Events grants and Unity Through Partnership grant programs and is accessible for

AMOM Christmas luncheon By our community reporter

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elbourne: The Australian Multicultural Organisation – Melbourne (AMOM) organised a Christmas Luncheon In December 2015 at the Parliament House. Ms Danielle Green Member for Yan Yean and the Labor Party helped in organising the luncheon. Inga Peulich, MP (Liberal Party) attended and guided the AMOM team during the Parliament tour, which preceded the luncheon. Top community leaders including Mr.Guri Singh & Me. Deepak Vinayak were present at the event. Views were exchanged and the multicultural nature of Australia praised.

www.southasiatimes.com.au - (03) 9884 8096, 0421 677 082

The Andrews Labor Government has allocated $2.7 million towards the Festivals and Events grants program, with grants ranging from $500 to $100,000. festivals and events being held between 1 January and 30 June 2016.

Applications close 24 January 2016. To apply for a grant and view program eligibility and guidelines visit:www.multicultural.vic. gov.au/grants/apply-for-agrant.

—SAT News Service

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Lohri celebrations @ Cranbourne West By our community reporter

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ohri festival was celebrated for the first time in Cranbourne West (Casey Council) by local resident groups on 9 Jan 2016. It was a feast of colorful dresses, food and music. Lohri bonfire was

lit with people all around it. Guests Jude Perera, MP, Sonia, MP, addressed the gathering withManoj Kumar, ALP leader and Neeraj Nanda, SAT Editor.

Lohri, a harvest festival originating in Punjab, India is now regularly celebrated in Australia with the arrival of many migrants from Punjab and other places in

India. At the center of a large park in Cranbourne Punjabi and non-Punjabi families mingled with each other as kids flew kites to mark the festival. Tasty snacks were in plenty and popular Punjabi music made the celebration lively.

Sheer hard work and dedication mad the event possible and many helped

Lohri, a harvest festival originating in Punjab, India is now regularly celebrated in Australia with the arrival of many migrants from Punjab.

in the preprations. Those who toiled hard included Baljinder Singh, Aman, Janral, Sepal Patel, Harman Singh, PreetpalMikky, Gagan Singh etc.

The presence of ALP MPs and leaders made the crowd confident and consolidated their faith in multicultural Victoria and Australia.

The word around was that

next year Lohri will be celebrated at a much larger scale. The organizers need to be congratulated for the success of the event at such a short notice.

DRESS UP AND TO JOIN THE FUN

#GOGOLD

AUS V IND

#GOBLUE

17 JAN | MCG | TICKETS AT CRICKET.COM.AU

don’t miss the debut of our new international food markets.

International cuisine • Entertainment • Big screen cricket • Yarra Park, outside Gate 3, 1- 9:30pm • fieldofflavours.com.au www.southasiatimes.com.au - (03) 9884 8096, 0421 677 082

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Dosa Plaza opens in Point Cook

By Neeraj Nanda

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elbourne: “Go Veggie-Go FreshGo Healthy’ is the slogan of Dosa Plaza, which is now a Australia wide popular vegetarian chain. The Point Cook franchise opened on 25 December 2015 and since

that day there has been a sea of humanity enjoying the delicacies at Dosa Plaza.

Dosa is a South Indian dish but here you get much more full of taste and satisfaction.

I was there one day before and had these delicacies with friends and local residents. Talking to SAT, Mr. Neerav Desai, Point

Cook Dosa Plaza franchise owner said, “ We are doing well and the response is overwhelming. It’s all about flavor and authenticity that makes a good meal.” “ We have been accepted by people of all cultures. Our South Indian and Indo-Chinese cuisine are among the popular

cuisines,” he said.

Mr. ManojSheth, Master Franchiser of Dosa Plaza for Aust. & NZ on phone from Perth told SAT, “ We ding extraordinarily well and will do the best>” “ We are likely to further expand Australia wide,” he said.

A glance at the menu of

Dosa Plaza has sections Cool Plaza, Sweet Plaza, Traditional taste of South India, Chinese Style Idly, Punjabi Plaza, Punjabi Combo, Indo-Chinese Plaza and Sizzlers. It covers all the vegetarian Indian food you need. The best way is to go there and enjoy this delicious food.

Dosa Plaza Point Cook is situated at - 20 Adelphi Bvd, Point Cook, Vic 3030 Mon to Sun 11 am to 10 pm (Tuesday closed)

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World Hindi Diwas celebrated

By our community reporter

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elbourne, 11 January: Hindi Diwas was celebrated by a large number of people at the Indian Consulate.

The event organized by

the Indian Consulate saw the participation of many Hindi lovers from across Melbourne. The love for Hindi was evident and participants gave their ideas to promote Hindi among the diaspora here. The main emphasis being to take the Hindi language to children

so that it remains alive in the next generation.

Mr. NirmalChaudhury, Indian Consulate read out the message of the Indian Prime Minister NarendraModi and earlier the evet took off with ‘Vandana’ by Mr. Ramesh Dave. Then those

present were addressed

by Subash Sharma, Dr. KaushalSrivastava, Manoj Kumar, Jaya Sharma, NarendraGarg, Dr. EyanWulfurd, Dr. Suresh Bhargava among others and Dr. Dinesh Srivastava’s message was read out.

The occasion was

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graced by a lively ‘KaviQoshti’ (poetry recital) in which HariharJha, Rajendra Chopra, Dr. KaushalSrivastava, ArvindGainder, SumanVarma, Dr. manikaMangresh, Sonali Sharma, Pratik Kalia, Dr. NarendraAgarwal, Vimelash Sharma and Dr. Subash Sharma participated.

All speakers pledged to promote Hindi and work for its enhancement. Issues and problems related to Hindi promotion were also discussed with many positive ideas. It was generally agreed to catch the young generation so that they do not miss out Hindi.

Being bi-lingual, it was felt, was a good thing.

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community

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Melbourne Service Club organizes Seniors Lohri Lunch

By our community reporter

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elbourne: The Melbourne Service Club (MSC) organized its first 'Seniors Lohri Lunch' on 10th January, 2016 @ Tandoori

Times Yarraville. The event was attended by roughly 70 people including Acting Mayor of Wyndham Council - Gautam Gupta and Sarah Carter - Councillor City of Maribyrnong.

The activities at the event included a singing

competition for seniors, Bingo, Karaoke on top of lots of dancing and other fun filled activities. Melbourne Service club is a fairly new initiative started by a group of immigrants who have been in the country for over a decade now and have a shared belief

that its time to give back to the community.

In addition to focusing on areas such as breakfast club for school kids, assisting organizations trying to eradicate youth homelessness, MSC is focusing on working closely

Sangeet Sandhya Open forum for music lovers – classical, semi-classical & film music

Saturday 6/02/16 - Cyril James Saturday 2/04/16 - Ustad Aminul Haque Tuesday 4/06/16 - Shubhangi Pandey Saturday 6/08/16 - Sneha Mahajan Saturday 1/10/16 - Chanchal Mandal Saturday 3/12/16 - TBA

Swar Sandhya Open forum for music lovers; Karaoke – Popular Indian Music Bring your own music, perform and enjoy

Saturday 2/1/16 Saturday 7/5/16 Saturday 3/9/16

Saturday 5/3/16 Saturday 2/7/16 Monday 5/11/16

Venue: Waverly Meadows Primary School,

Time: 8.00pm

Columbia Drive, Wheelers Hill Free Entry, with ample parking, Free tea, coffee and biscuits Contact: Phone- 0402 074 208 or 0407 559 113 email- sangeetswarsandhya@gmail.com www.facebook.com/sangeetsandhya

www.southasiatimes.com.au - (03) 9884 8096, 0421 677 082

with seniors in the society, especially the ones that have recently migrated and still finding their feet in the country.

Those sponsors of the event were WizWealth Finance, Natural Stone Importers and Tandoori Times.

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community

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Chaupal New Year Celebrations in Cragiburn (5 Jan., 2016)

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COMMUNITY

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Melbourne Durbar

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By Desi Oz

World cuisine at Australia-India matches

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ricket fans heading to the Victoria Bitter One Day International Series between Australia and India next month will get a very different taste for the game. At matches in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, Cricket Australia will host a ‘Field of Flavours’ food market offering fans cuisines from all over the world. Inspired by popular late-night food markets around the world, the events will be created with the help of celebrated celebrity chef, Peter Kuruvita and will give fans the chance to enjoy cuisines including Indian, Vietnamese and Mexican. The Melbourne and Sydney events will also feature cultural entertainment such as music and dance.

The Field of Flavours will be located

inside the WACA on the West Bank for the Perth Victoria Bitter ODI, meaning fans must have a match ticket to attend.

In Melbourne and Sydney, the Field of Flavours is open to the public and will be situated in Yarra Park outside Gate 3 of the MCG, and in Centennial Park outside Gate E of the SCG.For more information on the Fields of Flavours markets please visitwww.fieldofflavours.com.au

Melbourne DATE: Sunday 17 January, 2016 TIME: 1:00pm – 9:30pm LOCATION: MCG - Yarra Park outside Gate 3 Please note fans will NOT require a match ticket to access the Field of Flavours

Field of Flavours details are as follows: Perth DATE: Tuesday 12 January, 2016 TIME: 10:00am – 7:00pm LOCATION: The WACA - inside the venue on the West Bank Please note fans will require a match

Sydney DATE: Saturday 23 January, 2016 TIME: 1:00pm – 9.30pm LOCATION: SCG, Centennial Park outside Gate E Please note fans will NOT require a match ticket to access the Field of Flavours

ticket to access the Field of Flavours

Dancing Dog Café

S

AT was passing by a road somewhere in West Footscray and noticed this unusual named café.

– Dancing Dog Café and took a

photograph. Checked the net and found that it is on 42 Albert Street, Vic 3011. Have no idea about the origin of the café’s name. For menu and contact see

www.dancingdogcafe.com.au. To conclude the a few words from the Café’s site - Come check us out and feel the love! It’s on the t-shirt and the heart is on our sleeve.

‘Guru’ in Clayton

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owards the end of the year (2015) went to Clayton opposite the station (where there are a lots of Indian shops) and saw a beautifully made ‘sadhu’ (holy man)

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with unorganized hair, beard, mustache and a ‘tika’ graffiti (or maybe can call it a painting) in a side lane.

Can’t make out who the fellow is or who made it?

Looks like a ‘guru’.

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AUSTRALIA DAY C E L E B R AT E Y O U R WAY Australia Day means something different to everyone, and it’s important you do what’s right for you. So on January 26, reflect on what you love about being Australian.

australiaday.org.au #australiaday

Enjoy the perfect day out at Werribee Park There’s so much for the whole family to see and do at Werribee Park. Experience the grandeur of Werribee Mansion, enjoy a delicious lunch at the Mansion Café or bring a picnic and relax, surrounded by the beauty of the formal gardens. From acres of safe outdoor space for the kids to play to unique insights into Victoria’s

pastoral history, there’s something for everyone to enjoy at Werribee Park.

Visit Werribee Park today. Entry to the park is free and it’s so easy to get to: located just 30 minutes' drive from Melbourne or 10 minutes from Werribee town centre by car or bus (#439).

www.southasiatimes.com.au - (03) 9884 8096, 0421 677 082

For more information call 13 1963 or visit www.parks.vic.gov.au

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PHOTO FEATURE

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Pictures fro Camera (MCC Orbiter Spac

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also call 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Res fourth space agency to reach Mars, after t reach Mars orbit, and the first nation in th (US$73 million).The primary objective of t capabilities. Specifically, the objective is t of an interplanetary mission.Another obje using indigenous scientific instruments.

Regional dust storm activities over Northern Hemisphere of Mars captured by MCC

Pital crater is an impact crater located in OphirPlanum region of Mars, which is located in the eastern part of VallesMarineris region. This image is taken by Mars Color Camera (MCC) on 23-04-2015 at a spatial resolution of ~42 m from an altitude of 808 km. Wall of the crater and chain of small impact craters are clearly seen in this image. This crater is having the diameter of ~40 km. Most of craters observed on planetary surfaces are circular in shape. Some of the craters are in elliptical shape. However, this Pital crater is in different shape. This could be due to the eastern extension of regional fracture in the W-E trending fracture zone. - See more at: http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c25-mars-orbiter-mission/pitalcrater-picture-mars-color-camera-mcc-23-04-2015#sthash.QF0TrWJ8.dpuf

Eos Chaos area, part of the gigantic VallesMarineris Canyon of Mars

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PHOTO FEATURE

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om Mars Colour C) onboard India’s Mars pacecraft

led Mangalyaan is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014. It was launched on search Organisation (ISRO). It is India's first interplanetary mission and ISRO has become the the Soviet space program, NASA, and the European Space Agency. It is the first Asian nation to he world to do so in its first attempt. The total cost of the mission was approximately 450 Crore the MOM is to showcase India's rocket launch systems, spacecraft building and operations to develop the technologies required for designing, planning, management and operations ective is to explore Mars' surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere SOURCE of Photos, teXt and Captions : ISRO

MCC image, taken on September 03, 2015 at an altitude of 6144 km with a resolution of 320 m, shows an intermediate sized shield volcano known as TharsisTholus. It is located in the eastern Tharsis region of the planet Mars. The TharsisTholus is dome-shaped with flank slopes ranging from less than 1° near the summit to up to 16° at the base. The average flank slope is 10°, making it one of the steepest volcanoes on Mars. The volcano rises to an elevation of about 9 km (5.5 miles).

Spectacular 3D view of Arsia Mons, a huge volcano on Mars

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South Asia Times south asia 22 South Asia Timestimes

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Punjabis bitten by the foreign bug I

By Govind Thukaral

t for long that Punjabis were struck by the lure of the foreign lands. In early 20th century and even in the last quarter the 19th century, the Punjabis begin seeking work outside India.

Young men facing lack of opportunities and the lure of good earnings, started moving to southeast Asia and Africa ; south Africa, Malaysia, and other close by countries and even to China . Come World War 1 and, Punjabi soldieries who participated in large numbers brought tales of prosperity. While thousands were killed, some made their homes there and this gave ideas to their near and dear ones. This meant now moving to pacific coast also. California and British Columbia were the places to make good living, though hard in lumber industry.

They saw and experienced new freedom and its denial even in those countries and back home inspired them to fully participation in country’s freedom struggle.

We have those epic stories of KamagataMaru and the Ghadar movement. But this heroic story also meant moving to these countries even if the struggle was grim.

Look into the new matrimonial columns, the lure for foreign bridegrooms

occupies prominent place.

Punjabis are moving to all kinds of courtiers after spending lakhs of rupees and even getting cheated by the greedy travel agents.

Thousands of reports with the police and cases in courts are a testimony of this repeated deceitful business.

A recent study by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), Chandigarh, and Institute National d’ÉtudesDémographiques, Paris reveals new facts about this migration. Canada may be the dream country to settle in, but maximum Punjabi emigration; 28% is to United Arab Emirates. It is here that work brings good money as compared to the joblessness aback home. A good part of prosperity which one sees around in rural Punjab is because of money comes from these foreign lands.

This larger sample survey on migration with more than 10,000 households and 54,000 people covered shows that more than 1 in 10 of the households in Punjab reported at least one current international out-migrant.

More than 24% households desired to move to Canada followed by more than 15% to the UAE, and more than 13% to the US. But actually emigration to the UAE tops, followed by Canada with 12%

and Italy 11%.

The choice of adopted countries shows the class bias between upper and lower sections. The UAE is popular with rural folk with 30%. These people largely from the Majha region are Hindus, the Scheduled Castes, those educated up to middle school, the landless, and those with the lowest standard of living. Canada is the preferred choice of Malwa region people, Sikhs, general castes, agricultural families owning at least 10 acres, and the super rich. Emigration to Canada increases with the improvement in education.

Doaba households are most likely to send a member abroad, while the Malwa households are least likely.

Sharp difference is observed in the percentage of Sikh and Hindu households with at least a current international out-migrant.

An overwhelming share of the households like 73% has only one emigrant, while 27% have more than one .The rural areas are more likely to have more than one emigrant from a single household. A higher proportion of Malwa households, 23% send multiple members abroad.

Now even affluent families contribute more to the rush.

Women emigration is a little more than 16% of the total current international

out-migrants. And, their emigration rate of 10 per 1,000 is much lower than men’s 46 per 1,000. Aswini Kumar Nanda, who supervised the survey asserts, “Women always have been emigrating as family dependants, but their increasing independent emigration is a modern phenomenon.” Maximum women are going to Canada, followed by the US and Australia. Almost 21% are going for work, 19% for education and the maximum 29% for family union or marriage. Close to 80% are from rural areas, more than 40% from Doaba, and more than 80% are Sikh. The hands of the police are full of the cases where young brides are cheated into marriage that ends courts cases and divorces.

The desire for an NRI groom is most among the prosperous households as defined by standard of living or the size of agricultural land. If they had a chance to accept an NRI (nonresident Indian) match for daughter, only 17 households go for that as fear of being cheated dominates.

The Sikh, Malwa, and woman-headed households prefer to marry off a daughter abroad, for 50% believe that it is the guarantee to her better future, 48% think she’ll have a comfortable life, 47% assume she’d be more

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The desire for an NRI groom is most among the prosperous households as defined by standard of living or the size of agricultural land. If they had a chance to accept an NRI (nonresident Indian) match for daughter, only 17 households go for that as fear of being cheated dominates. prosperous, and 31% are lured by foreign social security provisions. There is clearly an economic motivation in seeking cross-border marriage ties for girls or even in case of boys in Punjab. It helps other members to move abroad through new ties. If they had a chance to accept a nonresident Indian match for daughter, 17 % households would go for it. Almost 14% of the households hunting for NRI groom said having relatives and members of the community abroad made matchmaking easy and reliable.

—Source: South Asia Post

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southSouth asia times 23 Asia Times

US, Pak, China Meet on Afghanistan, India out

By Gayeti Singh

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EW DELHI: The recent meeting involving representatives from Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the United States on a roadmap to peace in Afghanistan must have come as a reality check for India, after Prime Minister NarendraModi made a high profile visit to Kabul in a bid to demonstrate India’s continuing interest in the conflict torn country.

The four countries met in Islamabad on Monday morning, with the meeting beginning with words of caution from the host country. Sartaj Aziz, advisor to the Pakistani prime minister on foreign affairs, warned against prematurely deciding which Taliban factions are ready to talk, urging instead "confidence building" measures to get even the recalcitrant Taliban to the negotiating table.

The talks are aimed at putting together a roadmap for rebuilding Afghanistan, where a peace dialogue with

the Taliban plays a crucial role. The dialogue had gotten off to a nascent start, till the news of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar dealt it a severe blow last year, with the Taliban stepping up violence in response and Afghan-Pakistan relations again dipping as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani pinned the blame on Pakistan for not doing enough to reign in crossborder terror. Pakistan’s direct link to terror in Afghanistan is a widely held view in Afghanistan, with analysts believing that US pressure is the

reason behind Ashraf Ghani reaching out to Pakistan and singing a different tune to his predecessor Hamid Karzai.

This is why analysts believe that even though four countries may be talking, the crucial role in the path to peace will be played

by Pakistan, which continues to exert control over a large faction of the Taliban.

That said, it is important to remember that the Taliban is not a homogenous group, as militants who were opposed to a peace dialogue with the Afghan government reneged on their pledge to new leader Mullah Akhtar

Mohammad Mansour, who is seen as close to Pakistan.

The BBC, in fact, quoted a Taliban spokesperson saying that newly appointed leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour had not been appointed "by all Taliban", going against Sharia law. A breakaway faction appointed another leader -- Mullah Mohammed Rasool -- and vowed to push on with their fight against the Afghan state.

Nevertheless, Pakistan does exert some influence on the Taliban, and its role in pushing for dialogue will be crucial -- a step it seems to be tentatively willing to take as General Raheel Sharif travelled to Afghanistan unaccompanied by ISI representatives -- who are seen as the force behind the Taliban -- recently.

Further, although the Taliban were not invited to Monday’s talks, a representative of the militant group who has chosen to remain anonymous said that two Taliban delegates, currently headquartered in the Middle Eastern country

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of Qatar, will meet "soon" with China's representatives.

The meeting will also include Pakistan and will take place in Islamabad.

Notably absent from all the above developments is India, even though the country has indicated that it has interests in Afghanistan as evinced by PM NarendraModi’s recent visit to Kabul, and the resumption of ties with Pakistan so as to allow for Minister of External Affairs SushmaSwaraj’s visit to Pakistan and India’s participation in the “Heart of Asia” Conference on the future of Afghanistan.

India’s exclusion, however, shouldn’t come as a surprise.

In September last year, The Citizen had drawn attention to a little-reported meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly coconvened by the US, China and Afghanistan, which signalled a major change in the power politics in Afghanistan, as months of efforts by Pakistan and the US to bring China on board finally bore fruit.

Contd. on pg 25

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Gender equality a distant dream in India

By Neeta Lal

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EW DELHI, Jan 8 2016 (IPS) - Women constitute nearly half of the country’s 1.25 billion people and gender equality — whether in politics, economics, education or health — is still a distant dream for most.

This fact was driven home again sharply by the recently released United National Development Programme’s Human Development Report (HDR) 2015 which ranks India at a lowly 130 out of 155 countries in the Gender Inequality Index (GII). India trails behind most Asian countries, including lesser developed Bangladesh and Pakistan which rank 111 and 121 respectively, and fares not much ahead of warravaged Afghanistan at 152.

The GII reflects genderbased inequalities on three vital parameters: reproductive health, empowerment, and economic activity. India’s record, dismal on all three counts, is especially disquieting when it comes to representation of women in Parliament.

Just 12.2 per cent of parliamentary seats in the world’s largest democracy are held by women as against 19.7 in Pakistan, 20 in Bangladesh and 27.6 percent in Afghanistan.

Even some of the poorest nations — such as Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Uganda, Mozambique — are way ahead by having over a third to half of their parliament seats occupied by women.

Health remains a niggling worry as well with Indian women’s maternal mortality rate (MMR) being one of the world’s highest. The country witnesses 190 deaths per 100,000 live births as compared to 170 pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 births in both Bangladesh and Pakistan, states the HDR. Even in terms of the percentage of women receiving secondary education, Bangladesh at 34 per cent outsmarts India at 27 per cent. On labour force

participation rate for women, as compared to Bangladesh’s 57 per cent, India is at 27 per cent. The only parameter where India scores marginally better is the adolescent birth rate or the number of births per 1000 women aged 15 to 19 years. Here, over the last couple of years, India’s GII values have improved marginally from 0.61 to 0.563.

However, activists say India’s low GII scores are hardly surprising given the country’s fierce resistance to change and entrenched patriarchal mindsets. “We’ve been featuring at the bottom of the gender equity pyramid for years. So what’s new?”

Dr. RanjanaKumari, Director, Center for Social Research, a New Delhi-based nonprofit, told IPS. “Though the gender agenda has higher visibility in India now, that positive momentum hasn’t really translated into higher investment for women in different sectors due to continued discrimination and ineffectual laws and policies.”

Kumari points out that one of the most pivotal instrument of change — the Women’s Reservation Bill, which seeks to grant 33 per cent of the Parliament’s seats to women — has still not been passed by the upper house (RajyaSabha) despite being cleared by the lower house (LokSabha) in 2010.

“The non-passage of the Bill due to splintered views of different political parties has severely inhibited women’s participation in politics.

Until this basic requirement is addressed, Indian women can’t truly be empowered,” observed the activist.

According to some women politicians, bias underlines the selection of women as political candidates. National and regional Indian parties continue to follow the policy of exclusion while allotting seats to women. The common perception is that they lack the ‘win-ability’ factor. Those who manage to win elections have to work doubly hard to prove themselves as compared to the men,” one senior woman politician

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told IPS on the condition of anonymity.

The current gender picture appears even more disconcerting, say experts, as the principle of gender equality as enshrined in the Indian constitution. The framework of Indian laws, development policies, plans and programs too, are aimed at women’s advancement and equality. India, also a signatory to the Millennium Declaration adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2000, has reaffirmed its commitment towards promoting gender parity.

“These goals are not only desirable in themselves but are critical for achieving UN’s other Millennium Development Goals,” opines Dr. AbhaKhatri, former professor of political science at Delhi University.

“These include 33 per cent reservation for women in local bodies, state legislatures and Parliament; elimination of all forms of violence against women; skill development for women; making women’s participation in education safe and secure; elimination of sex selection before birth; and universal access to sexual and reproductive health.”

The benefits of India becoming a 2-trillion dollar economy, Asia’s third largest, have also not percolated down to its women, point out economists. On the contrary, Indian women’s workforce participation has plummeted from 35 per cent in 1990 to 27 per cent in 2013. According to a 2012 report on global employment trends by the International LabourOrganisation, many Indian women are able to find only marginal work in the informal economy, with low wages and little or no job security.

Well-qualified young urban women too, admit to having limited job options.

Though over 60 per cent of urban females are a part of the informal sector, unemployment among those with graduate degrees and above qualifications

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continues to be a high 15.7 per cent, states the report.

Even educated urban women are unable to find opportunities that fit their profiles. Close to 20 per cent of urban females work as domestic help, cleaners, vendors, hawkers and salespeople. Nearly 43 per cent of urban women were self-employed and the same proportion of women had regular wage salaried jobs, according to the National Sample Survey Organisation 2011. Nearly 46 per cent of urban women with regular wages have no social security or employment benefits, while 58 per cent have no written contract for their jobs.

The example of Archana Desai, 35, is illustrative.

New Delhi-based Desai had to give up her job at a global retail chain when it started downsizing due to budget cuts. Despite an MBA degree, Desai is currently employed as a part-time tutor at a coaching institute earning a fraction of her previous salary. “Though I’m technically qualified to hold a manager’s position, I’m stuck with something I don’t have any passion for. Why can’t the government provide jobs for women like us?”

Addressing women’s unemployment or underemployment issues can be deeply transformative for the country’s economy, says a McKinsey Global Institute report, “The Power of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality in India”. The report states that improving gender parity at the workplace can help India add a whopping 2.9 trillion dollars to its GDP in 2025.

If this isn’t incentive enough, what is question activists. Besides, Indian women constitute almost 30 per cent of the total workforce in the country.

Stricter policy and legislative measures need to be adopted as there is statutory recognition of the principle of equal job opportunities and equal pay under the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

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However, activists say India’s low GII scores are hardly surprising given the country’s fierce resistance to change and entrenched patriarchal mindsets.

To be fair, some measures have been taken by the Center to address the gender parity skew. The government has announced a 33 per cent reservation for women in police forces of union territories, including Delhi, for posts from constables to sub-inspectors to make the police more gendersensitive. Another scheme — ‘BetiBachao, BetiPadhao’ (Save the Daughter, Educate Her) — focuses on improving the life of the girl child in 100 districts with low child sex ratio (CSR), meaning many fewer girls than boys. The initiative is especially critical for a country like India which hosts one of the world’s lowest CSRs. Daman and Diu records a CSR of 618 girls per 1,000 boys.

“The key to achieving gender parity is resources.

We need gender-responsive budgeting and money to be allocated and spent effectively on achieving these goals,” elaborates Kumari. Any breakthrough on gender equality also requires changes in the mindsets of all stakeholders –including legislators, administrators as well as the public — so that every social, economic and political issue can be made gender-sensitive, sums up the activist.

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southSouth asia times 25 Asia Times

US, Pak, China Meet...

Contd. from pg 23 In the first meeting of its kind, in the chair were the Chief Executive of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Afghan Foreign Minister SalahuddinRabbani. Those who participated in the talks were ministers from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran,Australia, Italy, Norway.

Kazakhstan. Pakistan was represented by National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz.

There was no sign of India, clearly not even invited as a participant.

China has thus stepped in where India seems to have been afraid to tread. In that it has expanded its role from economic and financial assistance to a clearly strategic partnership, sitting on the same side of the table as the US on this issue. In the process that India, which seems to be happy with the “fondness” that the common Afghan reportedly has for Indians, is now completely out of the picture as even two major competitors join hands to tackle the challenges posed

by Afghanistan, and the

fast deteriorating situation there.

India’s strategic---if it can be called that---is limited to exchanging dossiers on terrorism with Pakistan, and threatening war through media channels every other day. The absence of dialogue, or as a senior retired diplomat said, even basic strategic thinking has pushed India out on the periphery with even that position----as the meeting above indicated--now under serious threat.

PM Modi’s visit to Kabul was nothing more that quips reiterating support to counter-terrorism, lobbying for investment, and providing the media with great photo-opportunities.

The cooperation on Afghanistan with China now sharing the grand high table with the US is clearly a major move forward. China’s interest in Afghanistan shifted from the financial to the strategic about two years ago according to experts here. In fact the Wall Street Journal taking first note of the shift wrote: During Afghanistan’s tumultuous political transition last year, Chinese security officials began

visiting Kabul regularly, and expressed concerns about militant havens, according to a former senior Afghan security official.

Franz-Michael Mellbin, the European Union envoy to Afghanistan, said he first noticed increased Chinese interest in Afghanistan in 2013. “They have been looking for an area to expand their foreign policy toolbox,” he said, “but also doing it in a way that would not be seen strategically threatening to the U.S.” During an October conference on Afghanistan in Beijing, a Chinese general surprised some U.S. participants by suggesting the Pentagon inquire about a joint effort with China to train Afghan security forces, say people familiar with the matter.”

This was followed by a secret meeting of the Taliban in China in May last year, with the news being leaked at the time to the Wall Street Journal in the US. Top officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan were present at the meeting, that really became the turn point for full blown Chinese participation in the Afghan peace process. The US has

been in close contact with Beijing with Secretary of State John Kerry speaking highly of the new found cooperation with China on various occassions, going as far as to describe China “as a country that understands very deeply the cross currents in Afghanistan.”

Relations between China and Pakistan are close and strategic, leading to discomfort in New Delhi and also Washington, that the latter has clearly overcome. The Wall Street Journal quoted Hu Shisheng, an Afghanistan expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a think tank linked to the Ministry of State Security saysing that the training of Afghan forces outside Afghanistan by both US and China was seen as “feasible and realistic.” The two countries are jointly training diplomats as well.

Pakistan is supportive, with a foreign ministry statement from Isalamabad maintaining earlier that the Sharif government will work closely with China to support the Afghan peace process. US media reports also suggest a lowering of tensions with senior

The cooperation on Afghanistan with China now sharing the grand high table with the US is clearly a major move forward.

China’s interest in Afghanistan shifted from the financial to the strategic about two years ago according to experts here. officials being quoted as saying that they do not see China as a competitor to its relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan. This recent meeting is a clear example of this major shift in policy, with close coordination being the key word even as India is eased out. Or as a source said, eases itself out of the Afghan peace process altogether.

—Source : The Citizen

AUSTRALIA DAY C E L E B R AT E Y O U R WAY Australia Day means something different to everyone, and it’s important you do what’s right for you. So on January 26, reflect on what you love about being Australian.

australiaday.org.au #australiaday

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The intolerance debate Ram Puniyani

B

eginning with September 2015 we witnessed a flood of ‘returning’ honors by writers, scientists and artists. There are also various statements from academics, historians, artists and scientists showing their concern about the growing intolerance and erosion of our plural values. Those who returned the honors are amongst the outstanding contributors to literature, arts, film making and science.

They in a way have been pouring their heart out at what is going on at social level. The growing intolerance has taken the lives of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi. There are incidents like where the lynching of one Muslim on the issue of beef eating which has shaken the conscience of the society.

In the face of this strong statement from diverse sections of society those related to the ruling party, BJP; its parent organization RSS and many of its affiliates; have been strongly criticizing these people by saying as to how come it is intolerance now just because of few incidents here and there. A section of social media is mocking those who returned the awards.

At the same time the President of India disturbed by the happenings in the society; time and again has been reminding the nation about our core civilizational values of pluralism. The vice President has told that it is the duty of the state to protect the ‘right to life’ of citizens. The international agency Moody Analytics pointed stated that unless Modi reins in his colleagues, India stands to lose her credibility. Disturbed by the current growing atmosphere of intolerance the eminent citizens are feeling uncomfortable. So we have the earlier statement of Julio Rebeiro that ‘as a Christian I am a stranger in my country’.

Now Naseerudding Shah said that he is being made to realize his Muslim identity for the first time.

The poet, film makerGulzar stated that the times have come where people ask your religion before they ask your name. The renowned tabla maestro ZakirHussain felt that there is a drastic change in the social scenario. He recalled his father worshipping Ma Sarswati before his music sessions. Many prominent entrepreneurs like Narayan Murthi and KiranMajumdar Shaw have shown their concern over growing intolerance. In the same boat of those calling for preserving

values of pluralism are people like RaghuramRajan, the RBI Governor.

The case of two superstars expressing their anguish did prove that intolerance has crossed the limits. When Shahrukh Khan said that there is intolerance in the society, he was advised to go to Pakistan and BJP leaders like Yogi Adityanath compared him with Hafiz Sayeed of Pakistan. Aamir Khan when he shared his conversation with his wife that she is feeling insecure about their son, the whole RSS cabal pounced on him, challenged his patriotism.

During all these episodes our Prime Minister NarendraModi maintained a silence, giving the signal that he is in agreement with RSS-BJP leaders making these statements. These organizations and leaders giving ‘Hate other’ statements have sometimes been called fringe elements, but as such they are part of the SanghParivar, and all the members of the RSS combine act in coordination with each other.

The ruling dispensation, the BJP leaders have come out scathingly on these creative people-scientists and labeled the whole process as ‘manufactured rebellion’ as put by ArunJaitley. It has been alleged that those returning awards are the leftists or those who were recipients of privileges from the state when Congress was the ruling party and now with BJP coming to power from last one year, they are baffled and so the protests. It has been alleged that these people are trying to derail the ‘development story’ being written by the BJP under the leadership of NarendraModi.

Jaitley even goes to say that NarendraModi is the victim of intolerance by these people returning their awards. Some like Rajnath Singh have asserted that it is a mere ‘law and order’ problem for which state governments

are responsible while these people are targeting Modi government. The response to statements of Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan was much different to the response to similar statements

by RaghuramRajan and KiranMajumdar for example.

Statements were similar but super stars were attacked scathingly, while there was a quiet to similar statements by others who happened not to be Muslims.

As such what has happened is neither a law and order problem nor the one related to loss of patronage as it is related to the much broader phenomenon which is due to intense communalization of society. This time the degree of communalization has crossed the civil limits.

Most of those who returned the honors are generally very critical of Congress as a party. They have done these acts of returning awards or issuing statements to express their pain at the erosion of values of amity and diversity have done this spontaneously. The jibe that these people did not return their awards at the time of emergency, anti Sikh violence, migration of Kashmiri Pundits and at the time of Mumbai blasts of 1993 overlooks the point that awards have not been returned to protest against a particular incident, but to the overall process building up towards narrow nationalism.

The degree of intolerance has seen a qualitative worsening.

As the awards which have been returned and the statements put out by different groups do give the reasons for the same and these reasons pertains to the cumulative process and not this or that event. All these incidents mentioned

by Jaitley and company have been a tragic part of recent Indian history. Many a writers did protest against most of these incidents earlier also.

NayantaraSahgal for instance

had returned the award at the time of emergency and had been part of the PUCL which had brought out report on Anti Sikh massacre also.

The present times cannot be compared with the tragic incidents of the past for various reasons. Take the case of emergency for example.

It was a dark chapter of Indian history, still it was the authoritarianism imposed mostly from the top. What is most disturbing in the current times is the vast network of organizations related to the ruling party whose followers either they themselves create hatred in the society or they mobilize the social sectors through hate speech; the result of which is communalization and violence. Currently there is an attack on the values of tolerance and liberal space from top as well as from bottom. From the top the ruling dispensation has people like Yogi AdiyanathSakshiMaharaj, Giriraj Singh, SadhviNiranjanJyoti who keep spreading sectarian messages. The social groups implement it in the way what happened in Dadri.

At yet another level is the institutional control by communal ideology.

Our major institutions and educational places are being mauled by divisive ideology.

Our frontline areas of science and technology are being tampered day in and day out.

The level of social thinking the ‘Hate other’ ideology has been promoted through the issues like GharWapasi, love jihad and beef. This is creating the intense social insecurity amongst the religious minorities. This is leading to incidents like Dadri. Such incidents are reflective of the overall social atmosphere created by the ruling ideology, so it is not a question of this or that state government being responsible for that.

Essentially the insane communalization, which leads

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to communal violence, has its roots in the prejudice leading to hate for the religious minorities. And that’s what flows from the ideology of Hindu nationalism, or any other sectarian nationalism, in the name of any religion or race. In current times in India; the fountainhead of Hindu nationalism is RSS. Not to say that Muslim sectarianism has its own divisive and supplementary negative influence. This ideology assumes the ‘Hate other’ sentiment and leads to situation where cow slaughter, beef eating and gharwapasi or love jihad become the ground on which ‘hate other’ sentiments build up. The communalists are talking in the dangerous language of ‘we will kill and get killed while defending our Holy mother the cow’, as one BJP leader said.

To compare the intolerance which has come up during last some time with the situations in other countries or the past kingdoms is totally wrong. India today should not be compared with the times and policies of earlier rulers or the states where democracy has not seen a bit of nurturing, whatever be its degree, as we experienced in India since independence. Also the hallmark to understand today’s situation has to be in the change in degree of intolerance. As such three months down the line since the award return process began, one can say this one of the very effective protests we have witnessed. At least temporarily the venom spewing Hindutva leaders seem to have shut their mouths. The international impact of the move was very strong; hard hitting articles appeared in the major newspapers in the World.

That might have forced the authorities to call for a truce to save the face.

The major factor leading to present atmosphere lies in the qualitative transformation of ‘hate for others’. The stereotyping of minorities has assumed horrendous proportions. Intolerance has been there earlier also, now it is changing qualitatively for the worse. We need to combat the threat of sectarian nationalism looming large on our democratic society, the threat of sectarian propaganda and politics leading to stifling of democratic space. And these are not the ordinary times, the divisive process, intolerance have assumed menacing proportions and cannot be hidden by the illusory growth story!

—Response only to ram. puniyani@gmail.com www.pluralindia.com

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CPJ: 69 journalists killed for their vocation

ROME, Jan 1 2016 (IPS) - Of the 69 journalists who died on the job in 2015, 40 per cent were killed by Islamic militant groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Startlingly more than two-thirds were targeted for murder, according to a special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

By Kuldip Nayar

T

he Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in its annual report that nine of those killings took place in France, second to Syria as the most dangerous country for the press in last year.

Globally 69 journalists were killed due to their vocation, including those slain for their reporting and those caught in crossfire or in conflict. The total for 2015 is higher than the 61 journalists killed in 2014.

The CPJ says it is investigating the deaths of a further 26 more journalists during the year to determine if they too were workrelated.

In 2012, 2013, and 2014, those killed in Syria exceeded those than anywhere else in the world. But the fewer number this year dying on the job in Syria only means it is so dangerous that there are fewer journalists working there, said the report.

Many international news agencies chose to withdraw staff anf local reporters were forced to flee, said the CPJ. The report cited difficulties in researching cases in conflict including Libya, Yemen and Iraq.

CPJ went on a research mission to Iraq last year investigating reports that some 35 journalists from the Mosul area had gone missing, were killed or being

held by Islamic State.

The militant group has a grip on the city so the CPJ said it could only confirm the deaths of a few journalists. The committee’s report said it had received reports of dozens of other journalists killed but could not independently confirm the deaths or if indeed, journalism was the reason. It said several of these journalists are currently on CPJ’s missing list.

The Charlie Hebdo massacre that took place in Paris last January was claimed by AlQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Eight journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were targeted.

Islamic State in October murdered two Syrian journalists living in exile in Turkey, Fares Hamadi and Ibrahim Abd alQader. Abd al-Qader was given CPJ’s 1015 International Press Freedom Award as he was an early member of Raqaa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a Syrian citizen journalist group.

“In Bangladesh, members of an Al-Qaeda affiliate or another local extremist group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, were suspected in the hacking or stabbing murders of a publisher and four bloggers, including U.S.-Bangladeshi writer Avijit Roy, who was attending a book fair when he was killed,”said the report.

The Taliban in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the shooting of ZamanMehsud, president and secretary-general of the Tribal Union of Journalists’ South Waziristan chapter and reporter for the Urdu-language Daily Ummat and Daily NaiBaat newspapers.

In Somalia, Hindia Haji Mohamed, a journalist and the widow of another murdered journalist, was killed in December when a bomb blew up her car in an attack claimed by the Islamic militant group alShabaab.

Governments around the world were jailing at least 110 journalists on anti-state charges.

This is out of 199 total jailed, according to CPJ’s most recent annual prison census.—It shows how the press is being cornered and targeted by terrorists and also squeezed by the squeezed by authorities saying there were committed to fighting terror as well, it said.

More than two thirds of the journalists killed in 2015 were targeted and murdered as a direct result of their work.

The report said about one third of journalists’ deaths worldwide were carried out by criminal groups, government officials, or local residents who were, in most cases, drug traffickers or those involved in organized crime. They included

Brazilian GleydsonCarvalho, shot dead by two men while he was presenting his afternoon radio show. He was often critical of politicians and police Brazil had six killings last year, the highest since CPJ began keeping records in 1992.

But Brazilian judicial authorities have made headway in combating impunity by getting six convictions in murder cases in the last two years, said the report.

South Sudan registered for the first time on CPJ’s index of slain journalists when unidentified gunmen attacked an official convoy killing five journalists traveling with a county official. The motive is still unknown but there have been various accusations. Some say this could have been the result of the power struggle between former Vice President RiekMachar and President SalvaKiir which set off the civil war in 2013.

The murders of the five landed South Sudan on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which highlights countries where journalists are murdered and there is no one held responsible so their killers go free.

South Sudan, Poland and Ghana appeared on CPJ’s killed database for the first time. In Poland, ŁukaszMasiak, was fatally assaulted in a bowling alley after

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telling colleagues he feared for his life. He was the founder and editor of a news website and reported on crime and drugs and pollution. In Ghana, radio reporter George Abanga, was shot dead on his way back from covering a cocoa farmers dispute.

CPJ cites these trends from its research: • Seventeen journalists worldwide were killed in combat or crossfire. Five were killed on a dangerous assignment.

• At least 28 of the 47 murder victims received threats before they were killed.

• Broadcast reporting was the most dangerous job, with 25 killed. Twenty-nine victims worked online.

• The most common type of reporting by victims was politics, followed by war and human rights.

CPJ, in 1992, began compiling detailed records on all journalist deaths. If motives in a killing are unclear, it is possible that a journalist died in relation to his or her work and CPJ classifies the case as “unconfirmed” and continues to investigate. CPJ said its list does not include journalists who died of illness or natural causes or were killed in car or plane accidents unless the crash considered hostile action.

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southSouth asia times 29 Asia Times

The Right and the Wrong

By Kuldip Nayar

I

am the daughter-in-law of Mrs Indira Gandhi’. I have not been able to comprehend this remark by Congress President Sonia Gandhi even after two weeks. The question is that of Rs. 90 crore which the defunct National Herald, had obtained from the government and had not paid back. A court has adjudged the non-payment as an act of ‘criminality’. Sonia’s son, Rahul, has gone to the extent of characterizing the court judgment as a ‘political vendetta’ by the Modi government against them and the Congress party. It is a court judgment.

How does the government come in the picture? Because of public horror, the Congress is changing its stance and delinking Rahul’s remark with the Court’s judgment. Former Congress Law Minister KapilSibbal has given Rahul’s irresponsible observation and has called it as the government vendetta by the BJP against the Congress. He is not convincing because Rahul’s remark came a day after of the Court judgment.

Indeed, both Sonia and Rahul have politicized the loan, which they apparently do not want to repay. Both, the mother and the son have dragged in the Modi government and the BJP unnecessarily.

How do the party and the Prime Minister come in the picture?

Sonia Gandhi is behaving in the same manner as her mother-in-law did. Had Sonia been in power she would have followed her mother-in-law’s footsteps and imposed the emergency to suspend the constitution, to gag the press and to detain one lakh people without trial? After losing at Allahabad High Court, which disqualified Indira Gandhi for six years for having used the government machinery, Indira Gandhi went berserk.

Instead of submitting her resignation from the LokSabha, she imposed the emergency and had the law relating to the election amended retrospectively so as to cover her illegal election. She got it endorsed

by Parliament, which practically had no opposition because she detained the opposition members without trial so as to have a smooth sailing in Parliament.

What the Congress party has not yet realized is that the opposition is as important in a democratic polity as the ruling party. The basic question, which needs to be answered, is that the independence of institutions gives strength to the democratic structure. An attack on them is an attack on the institutions, which protect the rights of people.

Whatever the sins of Modi government, it cannot, however, be blamed for the laws which were passed earlier to dilute the concept of pluralism. The real culprit is the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP), which has Hindu Rashtra as its aim. This damages the very concept of secularism, which the democratic India has enshrined in the constitution.

The Modi government is influenced by the extremist RSS. BJP is afraid to take any step that may challenge the basic structure of the constitution. For example, it dare not touch the concept of pluralism because the party realizes that the majority of Indians would not tolerate the Hindutava, which is the anti-thesis of secularism.

It is, however, unfortunate that the Modi government should bring about an era of intolerance, which is hurting not only the Muslims but also the intelligentsia on the whole. The effort to push the country to the Right does not in any way help the nation which requires more and more investment by the government in the

different sectors so that the pace of development picks up.

In this context, Foreign Minister SushmaSwaraj should be congratulated. She has broken the stalemate with Pakistan. True, she has taken the initiative to change India’s stand not to talk to Pakistan unless it stops terrorism. But her step is in the interest of India. One wishes it should have been taken earlier. Many years have been wasted unnecessarily.

Her initiative has been applauded throughout the country. New Delhi respects the people’s wishes and wants to live with Pakistan like normal neighbours. The problem is

with Pakistan, which is dominated by extremist religious elements and the armed forces. Islamabad is under pressure not to take the path of friendship. Yet it should be realized that there is no other option. Whether this happens tomorrow or day after, this is the only way available to both countries.

The sooner they realize the better it would be for the people of IndiaPakistan. Some elements on both sides realize this. But their strength is nowhere equal to the radicals and therefore, do not count.

Almost seven decades have passed in fruitless estrangement.

Unfortunately, it is taking the shape

of hostility. The two countries have fought two full-fledged wars and a short one at Kargil. Thousands of soldiers have died on both sides.

Kashmir is the symptom, not the disease. The disease is the absence of trust. Now to bring about an atmosphere where they live like normal neighbours if no friends is the crud of the problem.

Pakistan has to change the textbooks and circular in schools and colleges so as to do away with religious intolerance. Radical Muslims are as bad as radical Hindus.

—Source: The Citizen, 29 December 2015

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1 am to Melbourne 93.1 FM & SBS Radio Hindi................................... .8 pm to 92pm – 97.7 FM Saturday & Sunday 4-5 PM

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5.30 am to 7 am – 97.7 FM Sydney 97.7 FM & SBS Radio 2 9 pm – 92.3 FM Tamil....................................

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Monday & Saturday 1 1 pm to 3 am –92.3 FM Punjabi.............................

9 pm to 10 pm – 93.1 FM 9-10 PM SINHALESE FRIDAY Sydney 97.7 FM & SBS Radio 2 Indian.................................. .8 am to 92am – 88.3 FM Melbourne 93.1 FM & SBS Radio Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri

11AM-12 PM SATURDAY Sinhalese............................ 7 am to 8 am – 92.3 FM TAMIL TSydney amil.....................................

12-12.30 97.7 FM & SBS Radio 2 pm – 88.3 FM Indian....................................

5 am to 62am - 92.3 FM Melbourne 93.1 FM & SBS Radio Sun, Mon, Wed, Sat Punjabi..........................................

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11 pm to 1 am urdu Sydney 97.7 FM & SBS Radio24/7 2 Radio stations Melbourne FM & SBS Radio (Subscription) 2 Indian Link93.1 Radio Wednesday & Sunday 18000 15 8 47 6-7 PM Radio Santa Banta (Internet) Santabanta.com.au WORLD NEWS AUSTRALIA RADIO SydneyJhankar 1107AM88.6 & SBSFM; Radio 1 Thursday; 8 to Radio Every Melbourne 1224AM & SBS Radio 1 10 pm; Contact: 94668900 or 0411247320 or Monday & Friday 9404 2111 6-7 am & 6-7 PM

South Asian websiteS India TEHELKA – www.tehelka.com OUTLOOK – www.outlookindia.com FRONTLINE- www.flonnet.com THE HINDU: www.hinduonnet.com TIMES OF INDIA: www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com HINDUSTAN TIMES: www.hindustantimes.com Pakistan DAWN: www.dawn.com THE FRIDAY TIMES: www.thefridaytimes.com THE NEWS INTERENATIONAL: www.thenews.com.pk Sri Lanka DAILY MIRROR: www.dailymirror.lk DAILY NEWS: www.dailynews.lk THE ISLAND: www.island.lk Nepal THE HIMALAYAN TIMES: www.thehimalayantimes.com KANTIPUR NATIONAL DAILY:

PLACES OF WORSHIP HINDU Shri Shiva Vishnu Temple 57 Boundary Rd, Carrum Downs, Melbourne, Vic 3201, Ph: 03 9782 0878; Fax: 03 9782 0001 Website: www.hsvshivavishnu.org.au Sri Vakratunda Vinayaka Temple 1292 - 1294, The Mountain Highway, The Basin, Vic 3154, Ph: 03 9792 1835 Melbourne Murugan Temple 17-19 Knight Ave., Sunshine VIC 3020 Ph: 03 9310 9026 Durga Temple (Durga Bhajan Mandali) Neales Road, Rockbank, Vic 3335 Ph: 03 9747 1628 or Mobile: 0401 333 738 Hare Krishna (ISKCON) Temple 197 Danks Street, Middle Park Vic 3206 Ph: (03) 9699 5122 Email: 100237.354@compuserve.com Hare Krishna New Nandagram Rural Community Oak Hill, Dean’s Marsh Rd., Bambra VIC 3241, Ph: (052) 887383 Fax: (052) 887309 Kundrathu Kumaran Temple 139 Gray Court, ROCKBANK Victoria 3335 Ph: 03-9747 1135 or M: 0450 979 023 http://www.kumarantemple.org.au/

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Melbourne West Mosque 66-68 Jeffcott Street, Melbourne Ph: 03 9328 2067

Indian Consulate Address: 344, St. Kilda Road, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia P.O. Box No: 33247 Domain LPO Vic 3004 Consular Enquiries: +61-3-9682 5800 (9.30am-12.30noon only) General Enquiries (other than Consular): +61-3- 9682 7836 Fax No:+ 61-3- 9696 8251 Email: consular@cgimelb.org Web site: www.cgimelb.org

Broadmeadows Mosque 45-55 King Street, Broadmeadows Ph 03 9359 0054 Islamic Call Society 19 Michael Street, Brunswick Ph: 03 9387 7100 Islamic Centre of Australia 660 Sydney Road, Brunswick Ph 03 9385 8423

Indian Consulate Consular services are handled by VFS Global Visa / Passport / PCC / IDLV / PIO / OCI services contact VFS +61 2 8223 9909.

Address: Part 4 Suite, Level 12, 55 Swanston Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 Site : www.vfsglobal.com/india/australia/

Australian Islamic Cultural Centre 46-48 Mason Street, Campbellfield Ph: 03 9309 7605 Coburg ISNA Mosque 995 Sydney Road, Coburg North

Services handled by Indian Consulate Melbourne itself: OCI Misc. services, Registration of Birth, Birth Certificate, Renunciation of Indian Citizenship, Surrender of Indian Passport, New Passport Details on PIO, Transfer of Valid Visas, Marriage Certificate, Affidavit for Applying Child’s Passport in India, Documents Attestation.)

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contd from previous page Bangladesh High Commission, Canberra 43, Culgoa Circuit, O’Malley, ACT-2606 Canberra, Australia, Ph: (61-2) 6290-0511, (61-2) 6290-0522, (61-2)6290-0533 (Auto hunting).

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Entertainment

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New technologies & overseas collections to boost Bollywood revenues: Study

By SAT News Desk

M

elbourne, 25 October: Labour leader and leader of opposition in Victoria, Hon. Daniel Andrews, today announced Labour will build an, ‘Indian Precinct’ in Melbourne, if elected to govern Victoria on 29 October, when Victoria goes to polls to elect a new government. The surprise Diwali gift was announced by Hon. Daniel Andrews at the Federation Square Diwali event, organised by the Celebrate India.

Melbourne, January 5: Bollywood revenues are all set to jump in 2017, with Cable, satellite rights and online/ digital aggregation revenues being the fastest growing segments. The overseas box office collections are also projected to rise despite the Indian film industry not creating movies for a global audience.

“Clocking a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 11 per cent, size of the Indian film industry is likely to cross Rs 19,300 crore mark by 2017 from the current estimate of about Rs 15,500 crore owing to growing revenue contribution from overseas markets, improved quality of Bollywood movies, aggressive marketing campaigns, increase

in number of multiplex and growing digitisation in the industry, according to a justconcluded ASSOCHAM-Deloitte joint study.

“Box office collections in India that are currently estimated at over Rs 11,500 crore are likely to cross Rs 14,200 crore mark by 2017 and will account for about 74 per cent of the majority of film

industry revenues,” noted the study titled ‘Digitization & Mobility: Next frontier of growth for M&E,’ conducted

by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) along with knowledge firm Deloitte.

While the film industry’s revenues from overseas box office collections are likely to cross Rs 1,300 crore mark from current size of about Rs 1,100 crore, it said.

Rising demand for movies on TV together with growing penetration of smart phones across India will spur growth in cable and satellite rights and online/digital aggregation revenues which is likely to grow at a CAGR of about 15 per cent till 2017.

The ASSOCHAM-Deloitte study also highlighted that home video industry will further shrink at a CAGR of 10 per cent due to increasing piracy and growing popularity of digital platforms. “Home

video has lost share to video on demand (VoD) through direct to home (DTH) operators and over the top (OTT) platforms.”

Highlighting the role of a fairly large and active regional movie industry both in local market and abroad, the study said noted that cinema in southern India especially Tamil and Telugu might soon dethrone Bollywood from the top spot which accounts for 43 per cent share in terms of box office collections by language.

“Large national producers plan to spend 20 per cent of their annual budgets on regional cinema.”

Considering that Indian film industry has not yet been able to create universally appealing movies for a global audience, as such entertainment companies in the country need to develop content that would appeal to viewers (excluding Indian diaspora) abroad, the ASSOCHAM-Deloitte study says.

—SAT News Service

Pakistani Cinema In 2015: Stage Set For Revival

N

EW DELHI: Over the years, Pakistan’s once flourishing film industry has been terrorised into submission. Since 2009, when a spate of Taliban-led attacks on cinemas and movie halls led to a decline in the number of films produced, the industry has struggled to revive itself. 2010 was in fact the lowest point of the industry during which only seven movies were produced, six of which were major “flops.”

However, in the last few years, a small number of films that have been well received have prodded the question: Is Pakistan’s film industry set for revival? 2015 saw some big films, including Manto’ a biographical drama film based on the life of Pakistani shortstory writer Sadat Hassan Manto, starring and directed by Sarmad Sultan Khoosat in the title role, and billed as Pakistan’s first biopic.

Other films include DekhMagarPyaar Say, Moor and Shah -- all released on Pakistan’s Independence Day, and Bin Roye and Wrong No. released on Eid. The year’s biggest success, however, was JawaniPhirNahiAni an adventure comedy film directed by NadeemBaig and co-produced by HumayunSaeed.

JawaniPhirNahiAni became the biggest opening of all time in Pakistan as it was released on 80 screens, going on to be a huge success by Pakistan’s standards as it grossed over ₨470 million, eventually becoming the highest-

grossing Pakistani film worldwide, adjusted for inflation, beating out Choorian that had held the record for more than a decade.

Although behind JawaniPhirNahiAni in terms of box office returns, Pakistani films fared quite well overall in 2015, with Wrong. No taking in 15.0 crore, Bin Roye grossing 10.85 crore, and Karachi Se Lahore making 10.0 crore. Under the ten crore mark were Jalaibee with Rs. 7.1 crore, 3 Bahadur at Rs 6.63 crore, Manto grossing Rs. 5.03 crore, DekhMagarPyaar Say at Rs. 2.24 crore, and Moor making Rs. 1.85 crore. 2015 also saw the release of Bahadur -- the first Urdu 3D computer animated film. You can watch Bahadur here: The “revival” of Pakistan’s film industry has been set in motion by the preceding years. In 2013, ZindaBhaag was chosen as the country’s first entry in 50 years in the foreign film category at the Oscars’, reflecting the growing confidence of an industry that has only produced only a few films in the last few years.

The stage for revival was set in 2012 when SharmeenObaidChenoy’s Saving Face, about victims of acid attacks in Pakistan, won Pakistan its first Academy Award in the short documentary category. Talk of “revival” and “resurgence” is a throwback to the flourishing film industry of the 1960s and 70s, with films like Bombay-wallah, Shaheed, Armaan, UmraoJaan

Ada and Aina being oft mentioned. The decline of the industry was set in the 1980s, as General Zia ul-Haq’s regime’s censorship of films saw a decrease in the number of movies being produced in “Lollywood,” the informal name for Pakistan’s Lahore based film industry.

While many blame competition from the Indian film industry as one of the reasons for the decline, Indian films may have had an essential role to play in this recent “revival” and “resurgence.” As the ban on Indian films was relaxed in 2006, the newly available Bollywood productions drew such an overwhelming response from the Pakistani audience that cinema halls proliferated to meet the demand. This has created a film culture in Pakistan, leading to an audience that is not just more

receptive to but is demanding an indigenous film indusry.

2013 was witness to the release of 20 Pakistani films and ZindaBhaag is a befitting choice to represent Pakistani cinema at the international stage; it is a film that plays a tribute to Lahore and 1970s Lollywood. There is an Indian connection to the film, with post production being completed in India. ZindaBhaag follows other indigenous successes, such as Waar which is the highest grossing Pakistani

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film till date, and deals with the controversial subject of militancy and terrorism.

Bol was another recent film that did well, becoming the first Pakistani film to do $1m in business at the box office. Like most of the other films being produced in Pakistan in the last two years, Bol deals with sensitive subject matter - that of a zealously religious father who murders his only son, a member of Pakistan’s transgender community.

Film is a powerful insight into the social-cultural fabric of its times. But whether the resurgence of Pakistan’s film industry complemented by the willingness of the audience to engage with controversial subjects such as militancy (in Waar), religious tolerance (Mein HoonShahidAfridi), social justice (Josh and Lamha), articulate the mood of a society that is ready to begin the journey toward transition, it may be too soon to say, especially given the fact that violent attacks on cinemas continue, such as the a brutal attack on a cinema in Peshawar in February last year that killed 14 people and injured dozens of others. 2015, however, is perhaps the most encouraging year yet for Pakistani cinema since 2002, and a very positive indication of things still to come…

—Source: The Citizen, January 1, 2016

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Chauranga: Oppression, prejudice, violence

“Loosely based on a true incident, Chauranga weaves the dark colours that stain and scar the tapestry of a shining India by taking us into a very remote village which still lives in the dark ages into the story of a casteridden, guilt-free existence of the high-castes who believe it is their birth-right to oppress, torture and even kill the Dalits with and without reason and it is as if the police does not exist. Dalits are at the bottom of the Hindu caste system and despite laws to protect them; they continue to suffer from death threats from the upper castes everywhere in India.

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he Khairlanji massacre case relating to the lynching of four members of a Dalit family in Maharashtra on September 29, 2006 is a case in point followed by the sad judgement that went against the victims. The July 14, 2010, judgment of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court contended that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was not applicable to the Khairlanji case because, in their perception, there was no caste angle to the crime!

Chauranga marks the directorial debut of writer-journalist BikashRanjan Mishra and the film has been crowd-funded by Sanjay Suri, Onir and Mohan T Mulani including several co-producing banners including the NFDC. Santu (SohamMaitra) is a growing Dalit boy of the village who is angry because his mother does not send him to school while his older brother Bajrangi (RiddhiSen) studies in the city. He is too naïve to understand that Bajrangi’s schooling is paid for by Dhaval (Sanjay Suri) who sexually exploits his mother Dhaniya (TannishthaChatterjee) who cleans the cowshed of Dhaval’s home.

Dhaval is the zamindar of the village now fallen on bad days but who makes his presence felt through his past affluence and present power based on his high caste.

He has no qualms about exploiting Dhaniya’s body but does not allow Bajrangi to touch his feet. He allows his beautiful daughter Mona (EnaSaha) to scoot to school everyday but erupts with brutal violence when he chances upon a love letter written to her in Bajrangi’s hand. He beats up the girl and locks her up. He hardly speaks to his beautiful wife Nidhi (ArpitaChatterjee) nor cohabits with her. He has two young goons from

the upper caste who jump at every chance to insult, bash up and even kill any Dalit as and when they feel like.

The film is a scathing indictment on the power politics of caste played by the powerful upper-castes who dominate and exploit the powerless, landless and money-less Dalits and discards them when their use is over.

The film is also a story of dreams of hopes, where Bajrangi hopes to get into the good books of the zamindar yet raises his voice to question him about his mother’s sudden disappearance. Dhaniya dreams of getting the younger son to school by servicing Dhaval, who is in no mood to send the second one also to a city school. It is Santu who rebels against everything that is happening to people of his clan. A small boy falls into the well and no questions are asked or answered.

Santu’s pet pig, Motki, is killed brutally by the blind pandit (DhritimanChatterjee), who is terrified of all four-legged beings except his favourite she-goat, Kajari, and as Motki lies injured and hurt but refuses to die, Dhaniya goes missing. Santu has a crush on Dhaval’s daughter, Mona, and persuades his brother to pen a love letter to Mona.

Chauranga however, is not just an indictment on caste prejudice. It also shows the sub-normal anonymity women live within through Dhaniya, a victim of sexual harassment, Nidhi, Dhaniya’s beautiful wife who just exists and Mona, who is given the freedom to ride to her school but is forced to lead the blind priest to his abode late into the night by her father. Dhaniya sleeps with Dhaval in the hope of educating her son but spurns the molestation attempts by one of Dhaval’s goons.

Nidhi almost sleepwalks through her life, as if in a trance, ironing her husband’s clothes like a human robot,

yet, stripping herself in the mirror, slowly, in anger and in revenge as she prepares to walk into the priest’s den decked up in smudged kajal to offer sex to the priest in the hope of her ailing husband’s recovery. But is she forced to perform this ‘ritual’?

Or, does she do it willingly to avenge her adulterous husband’s constant insult and oppression of her womanhood and her identity?

The woman, as the film shows, is a “Dalit” never mind the caste she is born into. Mona does not even know why her father bashes her up, threatens to stop her schooling and locks her up. Dhaval’s mother’s life is a straight line lived in a world of conditioned reflex. The third angle is that of Motki, the pig who seemingly is also a Dalit in practice because she caters to Dalits alone and no one bothers when she is beaten up brutally and left to die.

Bajrangi does not have the right even to ask why his mother did not come back from work though we know that she died and her body was cast away somewhere on the railway tracks by Dhaval. The oppression, prejudice and violence runs across generations which comes across lucidly through the violence perpetrated by Dhaval’s two goons.

Bikas’s screenplay has a twist at every turn raising the suspense to a new high at every such turn aided and complimented by the brilliant editing strategy (Irene Dhar Malik) that cuts and sweeps and wipes and jump cuts without the jerks the story entails. The opening frames with a train rushing in from a distance across the horizon and a few minutes later, the rushing train overlapping

the killing of a pig is one example. In the closing shots, we encounter a train moving away from the village with Santu on it moving away through a chance realisation of his dreams not knowing that there is no family to come back to.

Bikas dots his screenplay with tiny details that enrich the drama such as Bajrangi showing Santu the sketches from his biology book, or, Santu peeping at the goings on in the night through the network of the bushes and the thorns, or waiting on a branch of a jamun tree for Mona to pass by on her scooter, or, refusing to touch the feet of Dhaval and so on.

The cinematography matches the screenplay and the editing frame for frame and one example is the outof-focus killing of Bajrangi by one of the goons who loves to kill while his partner chases a running Santu along the railway tracks captured in the foreground. The music is muted, lowkey and secondary to the action.

Among the actors, the top credit goes to ArpitaChatterjee who infuses her performance with a sense of alienation and aloofness she exudes in every movement, with every facial expression though she performs her duties with the commitment they demand. Following this are the two kid actors who play the two brothers and TannishtaChatterjee who does justice to her naïve-getting-wiser character of Dhaniya.

Sanjay slips under the skin of Dhaval but Ena and Swatilekha

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are wasted while Dhritiman invests his character with the sense of intrigue it is expected to exude.

One disturbing question is – how is Mona allowed to escort the blind priest in the darkness of evening dressed in a sleeveless maxi by her very conservative father? And how is Nidhi permitted to watch the film with the rest of the village, mostly men?

One confusing element of the film is Bikas’s way of leaving things at the suggestive level without taking it to a definite closure. For example, we are left guessing why the priest closed the door of his room when Nidhi entered it in her ritual garb, or, what happened to Dhaniya’s body, or, why no one raised a question when the first rush of water from the bore well covering the well near the temple was tainted with blood, or, why the police is conspicuous by its absence, or, how is it that Mona is the only one in the village who rides a scooter. But then, most questions in real life leave suggestions to be explored and not answered because there are none.

This makes Chauranga an extremely niche film.

Chauranga shocks you from the relative cushion of urban comfort you are used to and holds you by your hand to take you on a journey of discovery to a world you know little about. It is an extremely dark film, story wise and cinematographically where the conflict, the drama and the twists and turns bring no relief at all. But darkness is what defines the lives of the people who inhabit the world of Chauranga. Is Dhaval any less a victim than Dhaniya or Santu or his wife Nidhi? Find your answers by reading between the lines of the film.

—Source: Upperstall

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AIRLIFT

Release Date: 22nd January 2016; Language: Hindi (with English Subtitles); Cast: Akshay Kumar, NimratKaur; Director: Raja Krishna Menon; Producer: Aruna Bhatia, MonishaAdvani

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ynopsis: On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The city was looted and the general population subjugated and made to suffer great tragedies at the hands of the Iraqi army, including the 1,70,000 Indians who called Kuwait home. All of them had suddenly lost all their money, were homeless and scared for their lives.

It is in this scenario that RanjitKatyal (Akshay Kumar), a wealthy and powerful Indian businessman, who has always seen himself more Kuwaiti than Indian, realises that he no longer wields any influence on the Iraqis, and that he and his family are in as much danger as anyone else. Ranjit unknowingly becomes the man who all 1,70,000 Indians look up to for getting them out safely from Kuwait, as he cooperates with the Indian government on the largest scale evacuation programme to ever take place. Airlift is the story of Indians stranded in Kuwait during this traumatic time. A story of how they, with the help of RanjitKatyal, managed to survive the Iraqi invasion, and

against all odds travelled a thousand kilometres across the border into Amman, Jordan. From Amman, 1,70,000 Indians were brought home by the largest and the most successful evacuation ever attempted by any country, in the history of the world.

Over 59 days, the Indian government systematically flew over 488 Air India commercial flights into a war zone to evacuate all 1,70,000 Indians and safely bring them back home.

The evacuation was no easy task, as most Indians were not ready to leave everything they had worked for so hard, for so many years. Neither could they, as they did not have valid travel papers as the employers used to hold on to their employee passports once they landed in Kuwait, and those Kuwaiti employers were either dead or had fled by then. However, with the passion and determination of Ranjit and his contacts, the evacuation was successful. Airlift is an uplifting and entertaining edge-of-the-seat thriller and is the story of the biggest ever human evacuation in the history of mankind.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/ watch? v=vb5xCMbMfZ0

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SAALA KHADOOS

Release date: 29th January 2016; Language: Hindi (with English subtitles); Producer: Raj Kumar Hirani; Lead role: R. Madhavan, Ritika Singh; Supporting Role: MumtazSorcar, Nassar, Radha Ravi, KaaliVenkat; Directed by: SudhaKongara; Music: Santhosh Narayanan

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ynopsis: Saala Khadoos is a film based on the struggle of a rustic fisherwoman, talented in boxing, and a retired coach. Sudha is a fisherwoman from a small coastal village of South India, with aspiration to become a boxing champion. But poverty is the greatest enemy to her success.

She is raw talent that needs dimension as well as direction for a bright future. Fortunately, she finds Arvind Singh, a retired boxing coach, who discovers her great strength. He decides to train her in order to become a match winning boxer but he believes in learning through struggle and pain, which Sudha finds very difficult to deal with.

He provides financial assistance to Sudha's family and also arranges for her food. He realises the fact that a healthy and strong body is the key to success in sports, so he begins to develop Sudha through

his experience and complete dedication. She joins a boxing academy under the guidance of her coach. The academy is majorly dominated by the rich and influential people in the society who get jealous of Sudha's success and begin to create obstacles in the path of her success. Mumtaz, the present boxing champion from the academy poses the biggest challenge in Sudha’s life.

Though SaalaKhadoos seems to be a thrilling film on sport politics, it also has an inner dimension where it transcends the boundary of the temporal and becomes a document of person’s struggle against all odds - social injustice & oppression. It is not just a story of success but it is also an echo of the beginning - an eternal struggle against the unkind waves of barriers to achieve the final victory for the deprived Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/ watch? v=HZRXsnqcbEs www.southasiatimes.com.au - (03) 9884 8096, 0421 677 082

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