A video of the Citizens' Initiative photo exhibition on Singur that was hosted by the Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre in Kolkata in June/July 2008 and by the Women's Studies Programme and the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi in September 2008. It is a documentation of life in Singur from February 2008 to April 2009.
Showing posts with label under development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label under development. Show all posts
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Acknowledgements for Under Development: Singur in Delhi and Kanpur from 10.09.08 to 18.09.08
Citizens’ Initiative wishes to thank:
• Amar Kanwar: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Amit Sengupta: for providing us with contacts in Delhi.
• Anil Chowdhury: for his help and support.
• Anuradha Talwar: for answering our queries on the NREGS and for helping us by providing contacts in Delhi.
• G Arunima: for agreeing to host our exhibition at JNU, for organising the talk at WSP and for the immense support not only this time round in Delhi but earlier as well.
• Aseem Shrivastava: for giving us his house to stay in, in Delhi, and for the various contacts he provided us with. Also, for speaking in the February 2008 conference, for putting things in perspective for the months to come and for sending us a truckload of films on development for the film festival at our event at Seagull.
• Devika Lal: for helping us organise talks in various colleges in Delhi.
• Dilip Simeon: for travelling to Kolkata and speaking at our conference in February 2008. Also, for providing contacts in Delhi.
• Manali Chakrabarti and Sounak Chakrabarty: for organising the talk at IIT-Kanpur.
• Maria Ann: for organising the talk at St. Stephen’s College
• Meher Engineer: for humour and immense support with collecting (food, clothes and medicines) for Dobandi over the months s and also for appealing for help to all on our behalf for this event in Delhi. The various events would not have been possible without him.
• Mukul Priyadarshini and Sharmila Purkayastha: for organising the talk at Miranda House.
• Naveen Kishore the miracle worker: without whose unflinching generosity not an iota of the event at Seagull would have been possible. For continuing to help us with our endeavours in Kolkata as well as providing us contacts in Delhi.
• Praful Bidwai: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Promona Sengupta and Bedatri Datta: for organising the talk at LSR and for informing fellow students about Singur in the canteens.
• Shukla Sawant and School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU: for providing us with the venue for the exhibition in Delhi.
• Sujoy Chakravarty: for inviting us to Delhi and organising the talk at IIT-Delhi. Also, for winning the 2nd best attendance prize for the event at Seagull.
• Tanika Sarkar: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Vrinda Grover: for her support.
• Women’s Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, JNU: for hosting our exhibition in Delhi, and for being patient and generous with time and help.
• A Punjabi Dilliwala who chooses to remain private but who helped us organise this public event.
• Amlan Das Gupta: for being there even before we began and for telling us exactly what he liked (regardless of our telling him what we liked) during our photo-selection procedure. Also, for providing immense support during the event at Seagull and thereby bagging the best attendance prize for the event.
• Ananda Lal: for his generous contribution to CI and for feeling touched by our work.
• Ananya Chatterjee Chakravarti: for generously funding the filming of our February seminar.
• Anchita Ghatak, Sourinee Mirdha and ACTION AID: for their steady supportive presence.
• Anuradha Kapoor and SWAYAM: for their support.
• ANYA NARI: for translating and publishing the Nandigram Interim Report in Bangla.
• Arundhati Ghosh (Bangalore): for effective and affective sisterhood from afar.
• Banojyotsna Lahiri: for being the only person in Delhi (a city where we thought we had many friends) who agreed to collect and courier to us the films from Aseem, even though she hardly knew us.
• Biplab Dey: for obsessive concern about the technicalities surrounding our photographs, and for critical comments whose usefulness we learnt only with time.
• Bodhisattva Kar: for saying ‘Silence after Auschwitz’ with despairing eyes.
• Buddha Deb and AMNESTY: for helping the event at Seagull.
• CCTV and Minakshi Chaudhuri: for making the medical camps at Dobandi possible. Almost 70 people were treated in Dobandi at this camp in April in a collaborative effort by CCTV and CI and another 70 people were treated in a follow-up camp in July.
• Debolina Dutta and OPEN SPACE: for helping the event at Seagull.
• Debalina and Aulic: for their support and advice.
• EBONG ALAP: for its almost constant support and guidance. Especially, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Aveek Sen, Swati Ganguly and Sudeshna Banerjee.
• ELAAN and BLANKNOISE PROJECT, fellow students groups: for their presence and for keeping the dialogue on comprehensive awareness going.
• Garga Chatterjee: for his help and support.
• Jishnu Dasgupta: for being there unconditionally when we needed him and disappearing into Oly Pub when we did not.
• Kavita Panjabi: for supporting us from the very beginning through everything, including giving us her premises for our extremely noisy meetings and for the excellent food.
• Kenneth Bo Nielsen: for the photographs that only he could have taken (for there are perhaps always things that we, as visitors, cannot get to see), for familiarising us with Singur, for sharing analyses and information that he had researched while working for his own doctoral dissertation, and for sharing his room with us whenever we needed a place to rest and sit and talk. All this, despite the mosquitoes, the heat, and the toothache.
• Niladri Chatterjee: for going to every michhil we called him for, even when we did not manage to ourselves.
• Nilanjana Deb: for her time, for marshalling volunteers whenever we needed more hands, and for her ideas. For helping to find place to store clothes and food, and for bringing little things like flowers into our lives on busy days.
• Our hosts in Singur.
• Paromita Brahmachari: for arguing with Trina almost all the time about everything.
• Paromita Chakravarti: for being there all the time and for scolding us about everything, even things we had not done.
• Prabir Niyogy: for helping us out in Singur along with Kenneth.
• Pradip Kumar Dutta, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya and Manas Ray: for their help and advice.
• Prasanta Chakravarty: for constant dialogue and debate all the way from Bangalore.
• Rajarshi Dasgupta: for advising us about the photographs and for being the only person around whom Trina is scared of.
• Sabir Ahamed and CALCUTA SAMARITANS: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs.
• Samantak Das: for being there ab ovo and for telling us things about rural Bengal which we never knew.
• Saswati Biswas: for giving us the use of her car in February and much, much else through the months.
• Shuktara Lal: for giving us our first press coverage, in Civil Society
• Subhendu Dasgupta: for his time and his talks -- albeit informal -- at Jadavpur University almost a year back now, and then being with us through all the present efforts.
• Sujato Bhadra and APDR: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs
• Sujit Kumar Mandal and Rafat Ali at JU: for giving us so much support during the Dobandi Drive.
• Sunando, Megha, Indrani and others at Seagull: for helping to organise the tripartite event in July-August 2008 and for helping us organise talks in schools.
• Supriya Chaudhuri: for appreciating our work and encouraging us in our efforts.
• SWAJAN, Arpita Ghosh and Kaushik Sen: for keeping the dialogue open.
• The faculty at JUDE: for being understanding.
• All our friends and co-students at Jadavpur University and the CSSSC, who have chipped in, in a million little ways. Those who have worked days on end to make everything from donation bins from shoe boxes to posters for seminars.
• Each person who has helped us with their time, their patience, their solidarity, their thoughts, their affection, their labour and their constant support.
• All those who have travelled with us to Singur and Nandigram. All those who have wanted to know, in most minute detail, what we saw when we came back.
• Every person who contributed to the Dobandi (Singur) Relief Drive in March.
• Our parents: for scaring, discouraging, madly loving and in the end, grudgingly supporting us. We know where you have been and what you have seen, but a kid’s gotta do what s/he’s gotta do. We know you will come around.
• Everyone we missed in this list and who should have been here.
• Above all, our deepest thanks are due to the people of Singur. They have allowed us into their villages and homes, shared with us their sorrows, apprehensions and happiness, and finally, trusted us to look at them through our lenses. This exhibition is dedicated to them.
Sincerely,
Aditya Vikram Das
Amrita Dhar
Aniruddha Dutta
Aniruddha Maitra
Arnab Banerji
Dibyajyoti Ghosh
Insiya Poonawala
Joyraj Bhattacharya
Lav Kanoi
Madhura Chakraborty
Mrinalini Ghosh
Pramita Ray
Reep Pandi Lepcha
Rohini Chaki
Rwitayan Mukherjee
Sahana Bhose
Sahana Ghosh
Saptarshi Chakraborty
Trina Nileena Banerjee
Uttaran Dasgupta
• Amar Kanwar: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Amit Sengupta: for providing us with contacts in Delhi.
• Anil Chowdhury: for his help and support.
• Anuradha Talwar: for answering our queries on the NREGS and for helping us by providing contacts in Delhi.
• G Arunima: for agreeing to host our exhibition at JNU, for organising the talk at WSP and for the immense support not only this time round in Delhi but earlier as well.
• Aseem Shrivastava: for giving us his house to stay in, in Delhi, and for the various contacts he provided us with. Also, for speaking in the February 2008 conference, for putting things in perspective for the months to come and for sending us a truckload of films on development for the film festival at our event at Seagull.
• Devika Lal: for helping us organise talks in various colleges in Delhi.
• Dilip Simeon: for travelling to Kolkata and speaking at our conference in February 2008. Also, for providing contacts in Delhi.
• Manali Chakrabarti and Sounak Chakrabarty: for organising the talk at IIT-Kanpur.
• Maria Ann: for organising the talk at St. Stephen’s College
• Meher Engineer: for humour and immense support with collecting (food, clothes and medicines) for Dobandi over the months s and also for appealing for help to all on our behalf for this event in Delhi. The various events would not have been possible without him.
• Mukul Priyadarshini and Sharmila Purkayastha: for organising the talk at Miranda House.
• Naveen Kishore the miracle worker: without whose unflinching generosity not an iota of the event at Seagull would have been possible. For continuing to help us with our endeavours in Kolkata as well as providing us contacts in Delhi.
• Praful Bidwai: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Promona Sengupta and Bedatri Datta: for organising the talk at LSR and for informing fellow students about Singur in the canteens.
• Shukla Sawant and School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU: for providing us with the venue for the exhibition in Delhi.
• Sujoy Chakravarty: for inviting us to Delhi and organising the talk at IIT-Delhi. Also, for winning the 2nd best attendance prize for the event at Seagull.
• Tanika Sarkar: for agreeing to speak at our panel discussion in Delhi
• Vrinda Grover: for her support.
• Women’s Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, JNU: for hosting our exhibition in Delhi, and for being patient and generous with time and help.
• A Punjabi Dilliwala who chooses to remain private but who helped us organise this public event.
• Amlan Das Gupta: for being there even before we began and for telling us exactly what he liked (regardless of our telling him what we liked) during our photo-selection procedure. Also, for providing immense support during the event at Seagull and thereby bagging the best attendance prize for the event.
• Ananda Lal: for his generous contribution to CI and for feeling touched by our work.
• Ananya Chatterjee Chakravarti: for generously funding the filming of our February seminar.
• Anchita Ghatak, Sourinee Mirdha and ACTION AID: for their steady supportive presence.
• Anuradha Kapoor and SWAYAM: for their support.
• ANYA NARI: for translating and publishing the Nandigram Interim Report in Bangla.
• Arundhati Ghosh (Bangalore): for effective and affective sisterhood from afar.
• Banojyotsna Lahiri: for being the only person in Delhi (a city where we thought we had many friends) who agreed to collect and courier to us the films from Aseem, even though she hardly knew us.
• Biplab Dey: for obsessive concern about the technicalities surrounding our photographs, and for critical comments whose usefulness we learnt only with time.
• Bodhisattva Kar: for saying ‘Silence after Auschwitz’ with despairing eyes.
• Buddha Deb and AMNESTY: for helping the event at Seagull.
• CCTV and Minakshi Chaudhuri: for making the medical camps at Dobandi possible. Almost 70 people were treated in Dobandi at this camp in April in a collaborative effort by CCTV and CI and another 70 people were treated in a follow-up camp in July.
• Debolina Dutta and OPEN SPACE: for helping the event at Seagull.
• Debalina and Aulic: for their support and advice.
• EBONG ALAP: for its almost constant support and guidance. Especially, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Aveek Sen, Swati Ganguly and Sudeshna Banerjee.
• ELAAN and BLANKNOISE PROJECT, fellow students groups: for their presence and for keeping the dialogue on comprehensive awareness going.
• Garga Chatterjee: for his help and support.
• Jishnu Dasgupta: for being there unconditionally when we needed him and disappearing into Oly Pub when we did not.
• Kavita Panjabi: for supporting us from the very beginning through everything, including giving us her premises for our extremely noisy meetings and for the excellent food.
• Kenneth Bo Nielsen: for the photographs that only he could have taken (for there are perhaps always things that we, as visitors, cannot get to see), for familiarising us with Singur, for sharing analyses and information that he had researched while working for his own doctoral dissertation, and for sharing his room with us whenever we needed a place to rest and sit and talk. All this, despite the mosquitoes, the heat, and the toothache.
• Niladri Chatterjee: for going to every michhil we called him for, even when we did not manage to ourselves.
• Nilanjana Deb: for her time, for marshalling volunteers whenever we needed more hands, and for her ideas. For helping to find place to store clothes and food, and for bringing little things like flowers into our lives on busy days.
• Our hosts in Singur.
• Paromita Brahmachari: for arguing with Trina almost all the time about everything.
• Paromita Chakravarti: for being there all the time and for scolding us about everything, even things we had not done.
• Prabir Niyogy: for helping us out in Singur along with Kenneth.
• Pradip Kumar Dutta, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya and Manas Ray: for their help and advice.
• Prasanta Chakravarty: for constant dialogue and debate all the way from Bangalore.
• Rajarshi Dasgupta: for advising us about the photographs and for being the only person around whom Trina is scared of.
• Sabir Ahamed and CALCUTA SAMARITANS: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs.
• Samantak Das: for being there ab ovo and for telling us things about rural Bengal which we never knew.
• Saswati Biswas: for giving us the use of her car in February and much, much else through the months.
• Shuktara Lal: for giving us our first press coverage, in Civil Society
• Subhendu Dasgupta: for his time and his talks -- albeit informal -- at Jadavpur University almost a year back now, and then being with us through all the present efforts.
• Sujato Bhadra and APDR: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs
• Sujit Kumar Mandal and Rafat Ali at JU: for giving us so much support during the Dobandi Drive.
• Sunando, Megha, Indrani and others at Seagull: for helping to organise the tripartite event in July-August 2008 and for helping us organise talks in schools.
• Supriya Chaudhuri: for appreciating our work and encouraging us in our efforts.
• SWAJAN, Arpita Ghosh and Kaushik Sen: for keeping the dialogue open.
• The faculty at JUDE: for being understanding.
• All our friends and co-students at Jadavpur University and the CSSSC, who have chipped in, in a million little ways. Those who have worked days on end to make everything from donation bins from shoe boxes to posters for seminars.
• Each person who has helped us with their time, their patience, their solidarity, their thoughts, their affection, their labour and their constant support.
• All those who have travelled with us to Singur and Nandigram. All those who have wanted to know, in most minute detail, what we saw when we came back.
• Every person who contributed to the Dobandi (Singur) Relief Drive in March.
• Our parents: for scaring, discouraging, madly loving and in the end, grudgingly supporting us. We know where you have been and what you have seen, but a kid’s gotta do what s/he’s gotta do. We know you will come around.
• Everyone we missed in this list and who should have been here.
• Above all, our deepest thanks are due to the people of Singur. They have allowed us into their villages and homes, shared with us their sorrows, apprehensions and happiness, and finally, trusted us to look at them through our lenses. This exhibition is dedicated to them.
Sincerely,
Aditya Vikram Das
Amrita Dhar
Aniruddha Dutta
Aniruddha Maitra
Arnab Banerji
Dibyajyoti Ghosh
Insiya Poonawala
Joyraj Bhattacharya
Lav Kanoi
Madhura Chakraborty
Mrinalini Ghosh
Pramita Ray
Reep Pandi Lepcha
Rohini Chaki
Rwitayan Mukherjee
Sahana Bhose
Sahana Ghosh
Saptarshi Chakraborty
Trina Nileena Banerjee
Uttaran Dasgupta
Under Development: Singur (events in Delhi and Kanpur)
Citizens' Initiative, Kolkata
and
Women's Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, JNU
request the pleasure of your company and participation at
Under Development: Singur
Panel Discussion on Displacement and Development
Amar Kanwar, Praful Bidwai, Tanika Sarkar
Committee Room, School of Social Sciences (1), JNU
Wednesday 10 September
5 pm to 7 pm
Photo Exhibition on Singur
School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU
Wednesday 10 September to Wednesday 17 September
9 am to 7 pm
Development Dialogues
by the members of the Citizens' Initiative, Kolkata
Thursday 11 September 10.35 am
Lady Shriram College for Women
Monday 15 September 3 pm
Women's Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Tuesday 16 September 3.30 pm
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Wednesday 17 September 12.30 pm
Miranda House
Wednesday 17 September 1.30 pm
St. Stephen's College
Thursday 18 September 6 pm
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
All are welcome
Friday, August 1, 2008
Acknowledgements for Under Development: Singur at Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre from 27.06.08 to 2.07.08
Citizens’ Initiative wishes to thank:
1. First and foremost, Naveen Kishore the miracle worker: without whose unflinching generosity not an iota of this would have been possible.
2. Amlan Das Gupta: for being there even before we began and for telling us exactly what he liked (regardless of our telling him what we liked) during our photo-selection procedure. Also, for providing immense support during the event at Seagull and thereby bagging the best attendance prize for the event.
3. Ananda Lal: for his generous contribution to CI and for feeling touched by our work.
4. Anchita Ghatak, Sourinee Mirdha and ACTION AID: for their steady supportive presence.
5. Anuradha Kapoor and SWAYAM: for their support.
6. Ananya Chatterjee Chakravarti: for generously funding the filming of our February seminar.
7. ANYA NARI: for translating and publishing the Nandigram Interim Report in Bangla.
8. Aseem Shrivastava: for speaking in the February conference and for putting things in perspective for the months to come. And for sending us a truckload of films on development this time.
9. Banojyotsna Lahiri: for being the only person in Delhi (a city where we thought we had many friends) who agreed to collect and courier to us the films from Aseem, even though she hardly knew us.
10. Biplab Dey: for nothing short of obsessive concern about the technicalities surrounding our photographs, and for many, many critical comments whose usefulness we learnt only with time.
11. Bodhisattva Kar: for saying ‘Silence after Auschwitz’ with despairing eyes.
12. Buddha Deb and Amnesty: for helping the event at Seagull.
13. CCTV and Minakshi Chaudhuri: for making the medical camp at Dobandi possible. Almost 70 people were treated in Dobandi at this camp in April in a collaborative effort by CCTV and CI.
14. Debolina Dutta and OPEN SPACE: for helping the event at Seagull.
15. Debalina and Aulic: for their support and advice.
16. Dilip Simeon: for agreeing, just like Aseem, to travel all the way from Delhi at his own expense, just to speak to us.
17. EBONG ALAP: for its almost constant support and guidance. Especially, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Aveek Sen, Swati Ganguly and Sudeshna Banerjee.
18. ELAAN and BLANKNOISE PROJECT, fellow students groups: for their presence and for keeping the dialogue on comprehensive awareness going.
19. G Arunima (Delhi) and Arundhati Ghosh (Bangalore): for effective and affective sisterhood from afar.
20. Garga Chatterjee: for his help and support.
21. Jishnu Dasgupta: for being there unconditionally when we needed him and disappearing into Oly Pub when we did not.
22. Kavita Panjabi: for supporting us from the very beginning through everything, including giving us her premises for our extremely noisy meetings and for the excellent food.
23. Kenneth Bo Nielsen: for the photographs that only he could have taken (for there are perhaps always things that we, as visitors, cannot get to see), for familiarising us with Singur, for sharing analyses and information that he had researched while working for his own doctoral dissertation, and for sharing his room with us whenever we needed a place to rest and sit and talk. All this, despite the mosquitoes, the heat, and the toothache.
24. Meher Engineer: for humour and immense support with collecting (food, clothes and medicines) for Dobandi over the months.
25. Niladri Chatterjee: for going to every michhil we called him for, even when we did not manage to ourselves.
26. Nilanjana Deb: for her time, for marshalling volunteers whenever we needed more hands, and for her ideas. For helping to find place to store clothes and food, and for bringing little things like flowers into our lives on busy days.
27. Our hosts in Singur.
28. Paromita Brahmachari: for arguing with Trina almost all the time about everything.
29. Paromita Chakravarti: for being there all the time and for scolding us about everything, even things we had not done.
30. Pradip Kumar Dutta, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya and Manas Ray: for their help and advice.
31. Prasanta Chakravarty: for constant dialogue and debate all the way from Bangalore.
32. Prabir Niyogy: for helping us out in Singur along with Kenneth.
33. Rajarshi Dasgupta: for advising us about the photographs and for being the only person around whom Trina is scared of.
34. Sabir Ahamed and Calcutta Samaritans: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs
35. Samantak Das: for being there ab ovo and for telling us things about rural Bengal which we never knew.
36. Saswati Biswas: for giving us the use of her car in February and much, much else through the months.
37. Shuktara Lal: for giving us our first press coverage
38. Subhendu Dasgupta: for his time and his talks -- albeit informal -- at Jadavpur University almost a year back now, and then being with us through all the present efforts.
39. Sujato Bhadra and APDR: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs
40. Sujit Kumar Mandal and Rafat Ali at JU: for giving us so much support during the Dobandi Drive.
41. Sunando and Megha: for help and advice at the venue. Babuda and his men: for their labour.
42. Swajan, Arpita Ghosh and Kaushik Sen: for keeping the dialogue open.
43. The faculty at JUDE: for being understanding.
44. All our friends and co-students at Jadavpur University and the CSSSC, who have chipped in, in a million little ways. Those who have worked days on end to make everything from donation bins from shoe boxes to posters for seminars.
45. Each person who has helped us with their time, their patience, their solidarity, their thoughts, their affection, their labour and their constant support.
46. All those who have travelled with us to Singur and Nandigram. All those who have wanted to know, in most minute detail, what we saw when we came back.
47. Every person who contributed to the Dobandi (Singur) Relief Drive in March.
48. Our parents: for scaring, discouraging, madly loving and in the end, grudgingly supporting us. We know where you have been and what you have seen, but a kid’s gotta do what s/he’s gotta do. We know you will come around.
49. Everyone we missed in this list and who should have been here.
50. Above all, our deepest thanks are due to the people of Singur. They have allowed us into their villages and homes, shared with us their sorrows, apprehensions and happiness, and finally, trusted us to look at them through our lenses. This exhibition is dedicated to them.
Aditya Vikram Das
Amrita Dhar
Aniruddha Dutta
Aniruddha Maitra
Arnab Banerji
Dibyajyoti Ghosh
Insiya Poonawala
Joyraj Bhattacharya
Lav Kanoi
Madhura Chakraborty
Rwitayan Mukherjee
Sahana Bhose
Sahana Ghosh
Trina Nileena Banerjee
Uttaran Dasgupta
1. First and foremost, Naveen Kishore the miracle worker: without whose unflinching generosity not an iota of this would have been possible.
2. Amlan Das Gupta: for being there even before we began and for telling us exactly what he liked (regardless of our telling him what we liked) during our photo-selection procedure. Also, for providing immense support during the event at Seagull and thereby bagging the best attendance prize for the event.
3. Ananda Lal: for his generous contribution to CI and for feeling touched by our work.
4. Anchita Ghatak, Sourinee Mirdha and ACTION AID: for their steady supportive presence.
5. Anuradha Kapoor and SWAYAM: for their support.
6. Ananya Chatterjee Chakravarti: for generously funding the filming of our February seminar.
7. ANYA NARI: for translating and publishing the Nandigram Interim Report in Bangla.
8. Aseem Shrivastava: for speaking in the February conference and for putting things in perspective for the months to come. And for sending us a truckload of films on development this time.
9. Banojyotsna Lahiri: for being the only person in Delhi (a city where we thought we had many friends) who agreed to collect and courier to us the films from Aseem, even though she hardly knew us.
10. Biplab Dey: for nothing short of obsessive concern about the technicalities surrounding our photographs, and for many, many critical comments whose usefulness we learnt only with time.
11. Bodhisattva Kar: for saying ‘Silence after Auschwitz’ with despairing eyes.
12. Buddha Deb and Amnesty: for helping the event at Seagull.
13. CCTV and Minakshi Chaudhuri: for making the medical camp at Dobandi possible. Almost 70 people were treated in Dobandi at this camp in April in a collaborative effort by CCTV and CI.
14. Debolina Dutta and OPEN SPACE: for helping the event at Seagull.
15. Debalina and Aulic: for their support and advice.
16. Dilip Simeon: for agreeing, just like Aseem, to travel all the way from Delhi at his own expense, just to speak to us.
17. EBONG ALAP: for its almost constant support and guidance. Especially, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Aveek Sen, Swati Ganguly and Sudeshna Banerjee.
18. ELAAN and BLANKNOISE PROJECT, fellow students groups: for their presence and for keeping the dialogue on comprehensive awareness going.
19. G Arunima (Delhi) and Arundhati Ghosh (Bangalore): for effective and affective sisterhood from afar.
20. Garga Chatterjee: for his help and support.
21. Jishnu Dasgupta: for being there unconditionally when we needed him and disappearing into Oly Pub when we did not.
22. Kavita Panjabi: for supporting us from the very beginning through everything, including giving us her premises for our extremely noisy meetings and for the excellent food.
23. Kenneth Bo Nielsen: for the photographs that only he could have taken (for there are perhaps always things that we, as visitors, cannot get to see), for familiarising us with Singur, for sharing analyses and information that he had researched while working for his own doctoral dissertation, and for sharing his room with us whenever we needed a place to rest and sit and talk. All this, despite the mosquitoes, the heat, and the toothache.
24. Meher Engineer: for humour and immense support with collecting (food, clothes and medicines) for Dobandi over the months.
25. Niladri Chatterjee: for going to every michhil we called him for, even when we did not manage to ourselves.
26. Nilanjana Deb: for her time, for marshalling volunteers whenever we needed more hands, and for her ideas. For helping to find place to store clothes and food, and for bringing little things like flowers into our lives on busy days.
27. Our hosts in Singur.
28. Paromita Brahmachari: for arguing with Trina almost all the time about everything.
29. Paromita Chakravarti: for being there all the time and for scolding us about everything, even things we had not done.
30. Pradip Kumar Dutta, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya and Manas Ray: for their help and advice.
31. Prasanta Chakravarty: for constant dialogue and debate all the way from Bangalore.
32. Prabir Niyogy: for helping us out in Singur along with Kenneth.
33. Rajarshi Dasgupta: for advising us about the photographs and for being the only person around whom Trina is scared of.
34. Sabir Ahamed and Calcutta Samaritans: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs
35. Samantak Das: for being there ab ovo and for telling us things about rural Bengal which we never knew.
36. Saswati Biswas: for giving us the use of her car in February and much, much else through the months.
37. Shuktara Lal: for giving us our first press coverage
38. Subhendu Dasgupta: for his time and his talks -- albeit informal -- at Jadavpur University almost a year back now, and then being with us through all the present efforts.
39. Sujato Bhadra and APDR: for speaking at our workshop on RTIs and PILs
40. Sujit Kumar Mandal and Rafat Ali at JU: for giving us so much support during the Dobandi Drive.
41. Sunando and Megha: for help and advice at the venue. Babuda and his men: for their labour.
42. Swajan, Arpita Ghosh and Kaushik Sen: for keeping the dialogue open.
43. The faculty at JUDE: for being understanding.
44. All our friends and co-students at Jadavpur University and the CSSSC, who have chipped in, in a million little ways. Those who have worked days on end to make everything from donation bins from shoe boxes to posters for seminars.
45. Each person who has helped us with their time, their patience, their solidarity, their thoughts, their affection, their labour and their constant support.
46. All those who have travelled with us to Singur and Nandigram. All those who have wanted to know, in most minute detail, what we saw when we came back.
47. Every person who contributed to the Dobandi (Singur) Relief Drive in March.
48. Our parents: for scaring, discouraging, madly loving and in the end, grudgingly supporting us. We know where you have been and what you have seen, but a kid’s gotta do what s/he’s gotta do. We know you will come around.
49. Everyone we missed in this list and who should have been here.
50. Above all, our deepest thanks are due to the people of Singur. They have allowed us into their villages and homes, shared with us their sorrows, apprehensions and happiness, and finally, trusted us to look at them through our lenses. This exhibition is dedicated to them.
Aditya Vikram Das
Amrita Dhar
Aniruddha Dutta
Aniruddha Maitra
Arnab Banerji
Dibyajyoti Ghosh
Insiya Poonawala
Joyraj Bhattacharya
Lav Kanoi
Madhura Chakraborty
Rwitayan Mukherjee
Sahana Bhose
Sahana Ghosh
Trina Nileena Banerjee
Uttaran Dasgupta
Monday, July 7, 2008
Statesman report about Under Development: Singur
CORRIGENDUM: " What the group has discovered is that only 100 acres of the land allocated for the project is being used for the factory building, the remaining acres will be used to set up a private township for the workers."
Citizens' Initiative wishes to modify this statement. What we wanted to get across about the space used by the Tata motors factory and the residential houses was much more conjectural than a categorical statement of fact. Our discussions with residents of Singur and experts have led us to conclude that the space for setting up the factory would perhaps be about 10% of the total walled area and that Singur is a much more strategically located area in terms of the already extant infrastructure than uncultivated areas in West Bengal. Also, though we have seen houses being built within the acquired space, it is not yet clear whether there will be a private township for the workers.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2008-07-07&usrsess=1&clid=10&id=238726
Land of no return
Heidi Hagenlocher
Citizens' Initiative wishes to modify this statement. What we wanted to get across about the space used by the Tata motors factory and the residential houses was much more conjectural than a categorical statement of fact. Our discussions with residents of Singur and experts have led us to conclude that the space for setting up the factory would perhaps be about 10% of the total walled area and that Singur is a much more strategically located area in terms of the already extant infrastructure than uncultivated areas in West Bengal. Also, though we have seen houses being built within the acquired space, it is not yet clear whether there will be a private township for the workers.
http://www.thestatesman.net/
Land of no return
Heidi Hagenlocher
Members of Citizens’ Initiative, comprising students from Jadavpur University, professors and activists, host an exhibition dedicated to Singur and Nandigram. They tell Heidi Hagenlocher it’s no use having a developed state if the people are not self-sufficient
What would you tell someone if they told you that you had to give up your land, along with your livelihood, for the betterment of your state?
For the people of Singur, they have had many opportunities to protest and little reason to celebrate.
But they are hard working, so they set up tea stands, do embroidery work, to earn a little income. It is a far cry from the harvest they used to yield, before they were told that a small-car factory would bring not only work for the people but development for the state.
The first time Citizens’ Initiative, a group made up of mostly English Literature students from Jadavpur University as well as professors and activists, went to Singur in Hooghly district it was on a fact-finding mission, to see for themselves how the construction of the Tata Motors small-car factory had affected people. After encountering the hospitality of the villagers and hearing some of their stories, members of the group were compelled to return.
The result is Under Development: Singur, a photography exhibit, coupled with a panel discussion and film festival that took place last weekend at Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre. A full report of the group’s findings from their visits to Singur and Nandigram from February to August 2008 will be available in the coming months.
“What is a very important part of this exhibition is the growing relationship between the students who come from such privileged background and these people... our efforts have that personal touch, these are not only photographs of burnt houses and bleeding people which is what comes out in the media, you know, sensational news but these are pictures of people leading their day to day lives,” said Madhura Chakraborty, one of the group members.
The photographs vividly demonstrate that there is no short-term solution to what now troubles the people of Singur ~ no matter which political party is in power. The cement has been poured, the walls have come up around the 997.11 acres of land allocated for the project, and the factory is being built, permanently damaging the once fertile land.
“They can’t get back that land and put it to any use. But most of them think that they’re going to get back the land and go back to cultivating it. We’ve encountered this in several cases and several people have told us now that it’s going to the Supreme Court we’re hoping to get back the land. I don’t think that’s an option for them… the Opposition is exploiting them in that sense,” Chakraborty said.
Members of the group first started discussing development issues after 2 December, 2006, when police officers and CPI-M cadres burnt the houses of Singur villagers who were opposing the land acquisition. Since they were students of English Literature, they invited guest speakers who were familiar with land development issues to educate them about what was happening in West Bengal. They started a blog called Development Dialogues, where they have also been diligently archiving all of the pieces published in local newspapers, national newspapers and at times in the foreign press about Singur and Nandigram. More people joined the group after the Citizens’ Silent Protest March that took place in Kolkata on 14 November 2007. After their first visit to Singur, the group members have been trying to find ways to help the affected people, particularly those in the village of Dobadi, where 95 Scheduled Cast families, landless labourers, live.
“We found out that they haven’t received anything (compensation)… most of them are now without work since they only have farming skills and most of the cultivatable land fell within the boundary walls and they weren’t being allowed to cultivate it, so we started planning doing something for them to help them generate some income for them,” Chakraborty said. At one point the group collected more than 270 kgs of rice and various other food staples from their friends and families but that was only enough for a couple of meals for them. On another occasion they set up a medical camp.
“It’s long-term reconstruction that we’re seriously interested in because it’s pretty clear to us that the CPI-M has done a pretty poor job in Singur, in Nandigram, in several other places of Bengal but the Trinamul Congress has done little less other than raise political capital out of that situation. It has not helped,” one of the group’s photographers, Amrita Dhar said. Since some of the
“If the government takes away their subsistence, it should be able to provide alternative means. If it doesn’t, it’s obviously not doing its job. To my mind it’s not compensation to say, look this factory has come up and it will give employment by the hundreds, by the thousands. What kind of employment, is my question,” Dhar said.
What the group has discovered is that only 100 acres of the land allocated for the project is being used for the factory building, the remaining acres will be used to set up a private township for the workers. They are convinced that this is why the state government chose this fertile land for the factory site, since it is only a 40-minute drive away from Kolkata, instead of fallow land in Purulia, situated much further away from the metropolis. Since the villagers outside the wall have always been farmers, they know that they would only be given menial jobs in the factory, and they have made it clear that they do not want to become servants for the factory workers.
“There are real people involved with real dreams, with real aspirations, to whom it is not enough to say that ‘Your state is developing’. It is no use to me to have my state very, very developed if I am not self-sufficient any longer when I was. If I had land, I tilled it, I had housing for my son and daughter, I was happy. Right now I have nothing and my state is very developed,” Dhar said.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
In the News
Announcements & Reports:
Reports:
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2008-07-07&usrsess=1&clid=10&id=238726
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080708/jsp/entertainment/story_9516802.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080705/jsp/opinion/story_9498877.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080629/jsp/calcutta/story_9475812.jsp
Report in the Indian Express:
Listings and announcements:
http://kafila.org/2008/06/29/under-development-singur/
http://myownfairystories.blogspot.com/2008/06/citizens-initiative-photo-exhibition.html
http://arnabocean.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/under-development/
http://www.asklaila.com/event/Kolkata/Photographs+on+Singur/16866/
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080630/jsp/calcutta/story_9482669.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080701/jsp/calcutta/story_9486375.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080627/jsp/calcutta/story_9467380.jsp
Reports:
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?date=2008-07-07&usrsess=1&clid=10&id=238726
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080708/jsp/entertainment/story_9516802.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080705/jsp/opinion/story_9498877.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080629/jsp/calcutta/story_9475812.jsp
Report in the Indian Express:
Listings and announcements:
http://kafila.org/2008/06/29/under-development-singur/
http://myownfairystories.blogspot.com/2008/06/citizens-initiative-photo-exhibition.html
http://arnabocean.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/under-development/
http://www.asklaila.com/event/Kolkata/Photographs+on+Singur/16866/
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080630/jsp/calcutta/story_9482669.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080701/jsp/calcutta/story_9486375.jsp
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080627/jsp/calcutta/story_9467380.jsp
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Schedule for Film Festival and Panel Discussion - UNDER DEVELOPMENT: SINGUR
Hello all,
Here is the schedule for the Film Festival and Panel Discussion that are a part of The Citizens' Initiative event UNDER DEVELOPMENT: SINGUR.
***
Panel Discussion On the Representation of Displacement and Development
27 June 2008
4.30. pm
Speakers:
(the Photo Exhibition will be on from 27 June to 2 July 2008, 2pm to 8 pm)
Venue: Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre
36 C, S P Mukherjee Road. Kolkata.
(This event is brought to you by Citizens' Initiative in association with Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre and Open Space)
Here is the schedule for the Film Festival and Panel Discussion that are a part of The Citizens' Initiative event UNDER DEVELOPMENT: SINGUR.
***
Panel Discussion On the Representation of Displacement and Development
27 June 2008
4.30. pm
Speakers:
Professor Samik Bandyopadhyay (Senior Film Critic and Scholar)
Dr. Kavita Panjabi (Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University)
Dr. Rajarshi Dasgupta (Fellow in Political Science, CSSSC)
- Dr. Paromita Chakravarti (Senior Lecturer, Department of English, Jadavpur University)
Film Festival on Development and Displacement Issues
28 & 29 June 2008
11 am to 8 pm
Schedule for film screenings:
28 June 2008
11:00 am - Bombay Our City – Anand Patwardhan (India: 1985, 82 min)
02: 00 pm - Mahua Memoirs – Vinod Raja (India: 2007, 80 min)
04:30 pm - Czech Dream – Vit Klusak and Felip Remunda
(Czechoslovakia: 2004, 90 mins)
06: 00 pm - An Aura of Development - Shubhasree Bhattacharyya and Sumantra Roy
(India: 2008, 65 min)
07: 00 pm - Unnayan - Banduker Nole - Pramod Gupta (India: 2007, 44 mins)
29 June 2008
11: 00 am - A Narmada Diary – Anand Patwardhan (India: 1996, 60 min)
(
(the Photo Exhibition will be on from 27 June to 2 July 2008, 2pm to 8 pm)
Venue: Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre
36 C, S P Mukherjee Road. Kolkata.
(This event is brought to you by Citizens' Initiative in association with Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre and Open Space)
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Citizens' Initiative Presents Under Development: Singur from 27 June to 2 July '08
To carry our event poster on your blog/website, get the embed link here
(This event is brought to you by Citizens' Initiative in association with Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre and Open Space)
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