Daily Times India

New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS) Delhi-based artist Asurvedh crafts birds in bronze and makes them fly out in droves from sculpted homes, nests and cages, symbolising freedom from captivity.

“I have been sculpting birds since I was in college. Most of the common species of birds like sparrows, brown robins and small colourful bulbuls have almost disappeared. Birds lift spirits and the morning birdsong fills up empty spaces in life. They spell freedom,” Asurvedh told IANS.

Reality is the theme of art on the autumn-winter exhibition calendar this time despite artists probing new creative frontiers to stand out in a market that is recovering from a slump and is wary of parking money in young art.

“My sculptures are never far from reality, though the expressions are different,” the 1969 born Asurvedh said.

He also sculpts heritage monument replicas in bronze. “I have sculpted India Gate, the Gateway of India in Mumbai and the old ‘havelis’ of Rajasthan. I try to spread the message of conservation of both natural and built heritage through my art,” Asurvedh said.

His first solo exhibition of sculptures, “Birds Home Coming”, began Wednesday at Gallery Ragini in south Delhi’s Ladosarai.

Naren Bhiku Ram Jain, the director of Art Mall, one of Asia’s biggest art retail houses, told IANS: “The market is looking up. But principally the market was never down for ‘affordable art’. Buyers were mainly speculating.

“The hyperbolism – hyping of art by the media – has actually created an awareness about good art over the last two years. The aesthetic trend this season is more realistic, figurative and innovative.”

Jain said most artists this season were using multi-media techniques and blending genres. “A sculptor told me that he was fusing his fibre glass sculptures with oil colours,” Jain said.

Singapore-based artist Sunaina Bhalla uses the ancient Japanese tradition of “gouache on silk of the Haiku poets” to paint on large-format canvases. Her exhibition, “Towards Utopia”, began at the Experimental Art Gallery in the India Habitat Centre Sep 27.

She has been inspired by religion and socio-political and economic realities of India for her largely “concept-based images”.

The metaphors of her expression, however, are drawn from nature. “I have experimented with textures this time – using block prints and gels. My work has grown larger but I have returned to my roots of my textile designing days. As a result, the patterns I draw are repetitive (as in patterned fabric),” Bhalla told IANS.

Most of her canvases are in monochrome. Bhalla’s works speak of “rulers, oppression, money and how religion can guide man to a better life”.

Poonam Belvi Sahi, a Delhi-based artist, whose exhibition, “Over The Moon”, opens at the Alliance Francaise Oct 7, is inspired by the moon, Indian figures and artist Manjit Bawa.

Most of her figures are “people from across the states of India romancing a half moon” – a relationship that the artist says is “older than history itself”.

“I travel to the countryside to seek inspiration,” said the artist, who paints with a broad fan-shaped brush gifted to her by her tutor, the late Bawa.

It helps her “get the tonalities and even out the colours”.

Sahi has experimented with mediums for her moon series. “I have used real gold leaf to paint a woman’s feet, Indian tea liquor and turmeric for the yellow, brown and ochre shades that predominate my figures,” Sahi said.

“I think realistic figures painted with a new perspective still appeal to art lovers,” the graphic designer-turned-artist, who is planning a new series on goddess Durga, said.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)

Thekkady (Kerala), Oct 1 (IANS) The toll in the Thekkady boat tragedy touched 37 as five more bodies were recovered Thursday morning, officials said.

The tragedy occurred Wednesday at 5.15 p.m. when the boat carrying 76 tourists capsized in a lake in the Periyar wildlife sanctuary in central Kerala.

A 24 member diving team of the Indian Navy reached the accident site Thursday morning and were searching for more bodies.

P.T. Thomas, Congress Lok Sabha member representing the area, said the exact number of people who have died is yet to be ascertained as some foreign tourists reportedly swam to safety.

“Those rescued are being treated at various hospitals and since the search is going on, we will have to wait,” said Thomas.

Meanwhile Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan told reporters at his residence in state capital Thiruvananthapuram that the state government would bear all expenses for transporting the dead bodies as well as the expenses incurred by the rescued tourists.

“We have decided to hold a judicial inquiry by a sitting judge of the Kerala High Court. We have also decided to sanction an ex-gratia of Rs.5 lakh each to the families of the deceased,” said Achuthanandan.

Achuthanandan will arrive in Thiruvalla — where the bodies of the victims are being brought for embalming — to pay his respects. The bodies will then be sent home. The state government has booked air tickets from Kochi to send the survivors as well as the bodies home.

Shimla, Oct 1 (IANS) Lt General A.S. Lamba Thursday assumed charge of the Army Training Command (ARTRAC), which is based in this Himachal Pradesh capital, an official statement said.

“Lt General A.S. Lamba is the 15th general officer-in-command of the ARTRAC. He assumed the charge this (Thursday) morning,” the statement said.

General Lamba’s predecessor Lt Gen B.S. Jaswal is now the general officer-in-command of the Northern Command that is based in Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir.

General Lamba was commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery in June 1971.

“My topmost priority would be to prepare the troops for any eventualities and to improve their battleworthiness,” he said after assuming charge.

New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS) In artist Rachna Chhachhi’s eyes, the earth is a “despairing woman” weighed down by natural woes.

“I have been trying to raise awareness about ecological degradation through my art and spread the message of conserving fresh water species,” Chhachhi told IANS at the opening of her exhibition at the India Habitat Centre here Wednesday evening.

Called “The Ugly Earth”, the exhibition by the former journalist and now corporate social responsibility consultant has 13 paintings in acrylic colours.

Earth comes across as a woman stripped naked. She wilts at the shores of mountainous lakes, in strange forests, degraded land and on steps of fire.

The proceeds from the show will go to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) with which the artist has been associated “off and on” since 1993.

“Two years ago, Ravi Singh, the CEO of WWF saw my works and told me to do something to promote the cause of environment. The result is this exhibition. I have tried to portray earth in various stages of despair. Mankind has been abusing her in all possible ways and now she is turning her back on us,” said Chhachhi.

The self-taught artist has been painting since she was 12. This is her fifth solo show. “Earlier, my themes were gender. I plan to do a series on children next,” she said.

She does not believe in art for art’s sake. “Personally, I feel what is the use of art if it cannot convey a message. Without a message, viewing art is like looking at splashes of colour. I think all great artists have a message to convey.”

The exhibition, which closes Oct 6, was presented by Bank On Art, a platform that offers art lovers and buyers a wider access. It has organised 12 shows across the country.

Rohtak (Haryana), Oct 1 (IANS) At a time when politicians in patriarchal Haryana do not hesitate to show off their luxury SUVs and cars during electioneering, a woman contestant of the ruling Congress in the state is happy to run her campaign for the assembly polls on a motorbike.

Shakuntala Khatak, who has been allotted the Congress ticket for the Kalanaur constituency (reserved for the Scheduled Castes) in this district, does not want to change her image of being a ‘commoner’ in the electoral fray for the Oct 13 polls.

At most places where she campaigns and addresses rallies, Khatak prefers to ride her black-coloured Hero Honda Passion motorbike. She drives the bike herself to these places even though most of her party supporters follow on cars and SUVs.

“I prefer to campaign on the bike. Sometimes, you have to go in big cars but the motorcycle works better for me,” said Khatak, 41, a staff nurse at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in Rohtak.

Having used the motorcycle while going for work and political activities, Khatak has earned the image of being an avid biker. “For me, the motorcycle is like a Safari (an SUV brand). It is also lucky for me,” she said.

During her campaign, Khatak rides the motorbike with two Congress party flags fluttering from her steering handle.

Khatak says she had driven her motorcycle even to rallies addressed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his wife Asha Hooda are said to have ensured the party ticket for Khatak for the Kalanaur seat despite other leaders vying for it. The seat was represented by former Haryana health minister Kartar Devi in the previous assembly. Kartar Devi died in August following prolonged illness.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)

Chennai, Oct 1 (IANS) With parliamentary elections over in May, election to its lone Rajya Sabha seat recently completed and no major poll in the near future, Election Commission officials in Puducherry are planning to revise the electoral rolls in the union territory.

S. Kumaraswamy, chief electoral officer of Puducherry, told IANS Thursday: “We plan to start the electoral roll revision beginning next year subject to permission from the Election Commission of India.”

The current rolls show 762,028 voters, with women outnumbering men — 395,240 to 366,788.

The union territory has 30 assembly and one Lok Sabha seat.

New York, Oct 1 (IANS) Two Indian American journalists are among the four winners of the prestigious 2009 Knowledge@Wharton Awards for Business Journalism, sponsored by the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), the Wharton School and the Knowledge@Wharton online business journal.

The Indian origin winners are Sonia Narang, a journalist with NBC News in New York, and Sanjay Bhatt, an enterprise reporter for The Seattle Times.

The awards provide journalists with a scholarship to attend the prestigious Wharton Seminars for Business Journalists at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in October.

Knowledge@Wharton and SAJA launched the award in 1999 and later expanded it to include the four organisations in UNITY: Journalists of Colour.

“A mortgage crisis, global market turmoil, federal, state and local government budget cuts and tracking federal stimulus money. It’s clear that economic and business coverage is important no matter what beat a journalist covers,” said SAJA president Sandeep Junnarkar.

“The Wharton seminar is an immensely valuable opportunity for journalists to learn about intricacies of business coverage. We’re grateful to the Wharton School for the 10th year of continued support.”

“Knowledge@Wharton seeks to disseminate the knowledge behind the news, and the continuing support of the Knowledge@Wharton Awards for SAJA and the UNITY organisations fits in well with this mission,” said Mukul Pandya, executive director and editor-in-chief of Knowledge@Wharton. “We are delighted to welcome this year’s winners to the Wharton seminars.”

Washington, Oct 1 (IANS) Describing India and Pakistan as two very important countries, the United States says it is encouraging Islamabad to fully investigate and bring those responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

“Well, we certainly have encouraged and continue to encourage Pakistan to fully investigate the Mumbai attacks, and even more importantly, bring those responsible before their judicial system,” a State Department spokesman told reporters Wednesday.

The US is also helping Pakistan address the issue of extremism within its borders, spokesman P.J. Crowley said when asked to comment on a New York Times report that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terror outfit behind the Mumbai attacks, was largely intact and was determined to attack India again.

Asked about a meeting between Indian External Affairs S. M. Krishna and his Pakistan counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Crowley said: “I think we certainly encourage a dialogue between India and Pakistan, two very important countries to the United States.”

“The United States, in this region of the world, is focused -understands clearly the importance of Afghanistan, the importance of Pakistan, the importance of India, and the interaction among those countries,” he said when a reporter suggested US policy focused too much on the wrong border of Pakistan.

The US has “a strategic relationship that is emerging with India. We have a vitally important relationship with Pakistan, are working hard to help Pakistan address the issue of extremism within its borders,” Crowley said adding, the US was also very concerned about the cross-border activity between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“I think that these – this is kind of an inseparable – you can’t look at peace and stability in South Asia without understanding the vitally important role played by all of these three countries and, obviously, the surrounding republics in Central Asia as well,” said.

It’s one of the reasons why we changed our strategic focus, that you could not look at these countries in isolation. “And clearly, we have had discussions with both Pakistan and India on their relationship and how that affects the ability of any of these countries to address the challenges that exist within their respective borders.

“So we recognize the importance of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,” Crowley said. “We recognise the vital importance of a stable relationship between Pakistan and India, and we continue to encourage all of these countries to work constructively together.”

Washington, Oct 1 (IANS) In preventing violence against women and girls in Liberia, Indian women peacekeepers have set an example that must be emulated in UN peacekeeping missions across the world, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

“I recently met with an all women police unit from India in Liberia who provide an excellent example of the steps a UN mission can take in cooperation with the host government to prevent violence against women and girls,” Clinton told the Security Council Wednesday.

“The Indian unit has helped to motivate more Liberian women to participate in a campaign against rape, launched jointly by UN and the Liberian government,” she said, adding the women peacekeepers have “set an example that must be repeated in UN peacekeeping missions all over the world”.

Asking member states to include women in designing and implementing national and international peace building programmes, she said: “More bodies like the Indian unit in Liberia were needed to combat sexual violence in the conflict zones.”

“We must seek to ensure that our respective military and police forces especially those that will participate in peacekeeping missions develop the expertise to prevent and respond to violence against women and children,” Clinton said.

“This will be helped by increasing the number of women who serve in UN peacekeeping missions,” she said, adding “Let us not forget that women lead the call for peace in communities shattered by violence.”

During its 15-year-long civil war Liberia suffered from rampant rape and other forms of sexual violence and India has recently offered to help train the police force of the west African nation in an coordinated effort with the UN.

The peacekeeping unit, comprising of Indian women, is the first all female UN police unit which has been stationed in the west African nation since 2007 and will return in 2010.

Asalganj, Oct 1 (IANS) Demon king Ravana may have already gone up in flames when Dussehra was celebrated across the country, but in this small town in Uttar Pradesh he’s got all of six extra days to live – thanks to tradition and a once broke puja committee.

Some 50 km from Lucknow in Unnao district, the demon king’s effigy will be set ablaze six days after Dussehra, which was observed Sep 28.

Local people say the “unusual custom” has been prevalent since 1873, when the first Dussehra and Durga Puja celebrations were organised. According to them, the poor financial conditions of the town’s oldest puja committee – the Asalganj Puja Samiti (APS) – was responsible for it.

Because of shortage of funds, the puja samiti could not perform the ‘Ravana Dahan’ – setting fire to effigies of the demon king – on the day of Dussehra. And by the time they were able to raise sufficient funds, four-five days had elapsed.

So they burnt the effigies six days after Dussehra. And a tradition was born.

“Actually, when the puja committee decided to hold the Durga Puja celebrations, its financial condition was very bad. However, with financial assistance from the locals, the committee members were able to organise Durga Puja celebrations,” Motilal Gupta, general secretary of the APS, told IANS.

“And later, when it came to burning the effigy of Ravana on Vijaya Dashami (Dussehra), owing to paucity of funds, the puja committee again sought financial help from the locals.

“Then every year the puja committee used to generate adequate funds only four-five days after Dussehra and then a huge effigy of Ravana along with those of his brother Kumbhakarna and son Meghnad was prepared and burnt after six days of the festival. Gradually, it became a tradition for this town,” he added.

So as part of the custom, Ravana’s effigy will be burnt there Oct 4.

“I think the custom of burning Ravana six days after Dussehra is observed only in our town,” said Nirmal Pathak, a retired school teacher in Asalganj.

“This year too, with my entire family I will visit the Ravana dahan site to witness the effigy burning,” he added.

Celebrating the victory of Lord Ram over Ravana, Dussehra symbolises the triumph of good over evil.