Geert Lovink on Delhi Sunderam Sarai etc.

Latest reports from the Nangla Maanchi eviction (Dehli settlement)filed under Uncategorized , geert @ 01:03
Disturbing reports came in last night from Delhi, thanks to Ravi Sundaram from Sarai, who sent the personal accounts, written over the past days about the eviction of the Nangla Maanchi settlement where one of Sarai’s media labs (called cybermohalla) was based. I have saved some of the messages on my pages. A few days ago I posted a letter about this on my blog (see below). You can follow the latest news and activities on their own blog. How the elites imagine Delhi you can see here.

March 28th, 2006
Blog about endangered Delhi settlementfiled under Uncategorized , geert @ 02:03
Monica Narula of the new media centre Sarai in Delhi has written the following call about the eviction of a settlement in Delhi where one of Sarai’s media labs (called Cybermohalla) is based:
Dear friends,
Over last 35 years we have seen many an internal dislocation of habitations and life worlds within the city of Delhi. This is something that started with high intensity from the early 70s. Now the process of this internal dislocation has become intense and harder.
Nangla Maachi is a 30 year old habitation. It was made by its inhabitants over this period. It is along the river bank and next to Pragati Maidan (Progress Grounds). It has now become valuable real estate as it is prime land for new urban development fairly close to the centre of the city.
The process of its dislocation has, therefore, begun.
In Nangla Maachi Sarai/Ankur had set up a cybermohalla lab two years ago. Many practitioners have been through the lab.
Over these two years, diaries have been written by the lab practitioners and many of the entries have been about life in Nangla. These diary entries are also a way to stubbornly remind us all that Nangla was made into a lively, heterogeneous habitation by countless people’s efforts, and needs to be remembered for this creative act of making and finding ways of living together.
A recent entry reads - “Packing up and leaving from Nangla has begun.” The diary is now a record of a contested terrain of the violence of dislocation.
We have set up a blog in both English and Hindi, to share with a wider public the various diary entries of the practitioners. Do visit it, read it, circulate it, share it and link it further. Your comments and stories will be very valuable.
English language blog:http://nangla.freeflux.net/
Hindi language blog:http://nangla-maachi.freeflux.net/
More postings from the practitioners will be made. A countdown to yet another disappearance of a self-organised urban space has begun.
bestMonica ....

Maoist Revolutionary parties and organizations in India

The abundance of this site is truly wondrous:

Maoist Revolutionary parties and organizations in India: "massline.info
Maoist-Influenced Revolutionary
Organizations in India
[Last revision: Feb. 18, 2005. This information is subject to further correction and updating.
For more information about a specific organization, click on its name if highlighted below.]

Current Maoist or Mao-influenced Organizations in India
NameakaPublicationsPolitical
LineNotes
All India Peoples Resistance ForumAIPRF

Founded in 1992. Focuses mainly on democratic rights, opposition
to imperialist globalization, etc. Viewed by some people as a
front group for CPI(ML) People's War. Some of its adherents,
however, view its program as an alternative to that of the PW Group.

Communist League of India (M-L)CLI(ML)Lal Tara
Founded on Feb. 20, 1978.

Communist Party of India (Maoist)CPI (Maoist)
Engaged in
guerrilla
war in many
states.Formed on Sept. 21, 2004 as a merger of CPI(ML) People's
War and MCC(I). This is by far the largest and most
important revolutionary party currently engaged in guerrilla warfare
in India.

Communist Party of India (M-L)
[A new formation as of 2005]CPI (ML)
(?)
Centrist This new party will be formed in January 2005 by a merger of
CPI(ML) [Sanyal Group] and CPI(ML) Red Flag. Both of
these groups are substantial, so the new party will be one of
the more important middle-of-the-road Maoist organizations in India.

CPI (M-L) Bhaijee GroupS. R. Bhaijee Group
Formed in 1990. Active in Bihar.

CPI(ML) Central Team
Surkh Rekha
Formed in 1977. In Aug. 1994 the Punjab section of Central Team
merged with 3 other groups to form the CPRCI(ML), but the
Maharashtra and W
West Bengal sections refused to go along.

CPI (M-L) Janashakti — Rajanna group — Ranadheer group — Chandra Pulla Reddy group — Other factions
CPI (M-L)People's Power
Janashakti
Guerrillawar.
Formed in July 1992 by merger of 6 CPI(ML) groups. There are nowmany independent groups with this same name. Active in at least8 states. The Rajanna faction is critical of the "mass line" groupswhich it says do not really seem to be advancing toward people's war.After a period of internal confusion, it seems to have settled ona strategy of guerrilla warfare.

CPI (M-L) Jan Samvad
CPI (M-L)People's Dialogue

CPI (M-L) Liberation
Liberation,ML Update,WWW
Electoralfocus.
Claims to be the main continuation of the original CPI(ML). Backedaway from armed struggle in the 1970s. Probably the largest CPI(ML)group. Active in many states including Assam, W. Bengal and Bihar.

CPI (M-L) [Mahadev Mukherjee]
CPI (M-L) [MM]
Bharater Iskra,WWW
Split from CPI(ML) 2ndCC. They claim to be the "real" CPI(ML).Small, doctrinaire and idiosyncratic; they continue to support Lin Biao!

CPI (M-L) Maharashtra
[Maharashtra is a state in west India.]

CPI (M-L) Nai Pahal

CPI (M-L) Naxalbari
Naxalbari
Advocatesimmediatepeople's war.

CPI(ML) MUC merged into this group in April 1999. After 2000,a splinter group from the CPI(ML) Red Flag, led by someone namedRauf, merged with CPI(ML) Naxalbari. Rauf is the current Secretary ofthis group. It is affiliated with CCOMPOSA and RIM.

CPI (M-L) New Democracy
CPI (M-L)Prajapandha
New Democracy,Pratirodh ka Swar
Possiblyin flux.
Formed in 1988 by Yatendra Kumar. Active in Bihar and elsewhere.Say they favor the "revolutionary mass line", but also leaning moretoward guerrilla warfare lately.

CPI (M-L) New Proletarian

CPI (M-L) Organizing Committee
CPI (M-L) OrganizationCommittee
Said to be active in Bihar under the leadership of B. N. Sharma.(Unclear if this is the same group that merged into CCRIin 1988.)

CPI (M-L) Praja Pratighatana
People'sRetribution
Engagedin armedstruggle.

CPI (M-L) Prajashakti

CPI (M-L)People's Power

CPI (M-L) Prathighatana

CPI (M-L) Retribution;CPI (M-L) [PhaniBagchi]
Pratighatana
Engagedin armedstruggle.
Split from CPI(ML) Praja Pratighatana.

CPI (M-L) Provisional CentralCommittee
CPI(ML)PCC
For a New Democracy
Prob.centrist
Formed in 1977 with the merger of the CPI(ML) S.N. SinghGroup and the CPI(ML) Unity Committee. The CPI(ML) CentralTeam split off in 1978. In 1980 the C. P. Reddy Groupsplit off. Active in Bihar, etc.

CPI (M-L) Shantipal
CPI (M-L)Santi Pal Group
Formed around 1972 in northern West Bengal. Also activein Bihar, etc.

CPI (M-L) Second Central Committee
CPI(ML) 2ndCC
Formed in 1972 by Mahadeo Mukerjee, who was later expelled.Active in Bihar, etc.

Communist Party of the UnitedStates of India
CPUSI
Engagedin armedstruggle.
Split from CPI(ML) Janashakti in 1997. Wanted more attentionto caste issues.

Communist Party ReorganizationCentre of India (M-L)
CPRCI(ML)
Surkh Rekha,The Comrade
Advocatesthe "revolu-tionary massline".
Formed in 1994 by merger of 4 groups: the Punjab unit of CPI(ML)Central Team; Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India;Communist Unity Centre of India; and the Marxist-LeninistOrganising Centre.
Communist Revolutionary Centre

Communist BiplabiKendra

Communist Revolutionary Leagueof India
CRLI
Small party in West Bengal. Founded and led by former CPI(ML) studentleader Ashim Chatterjee. May now lean towards social democracy.

Marxist Communist Party of India
MCPI
People's Democracy
MCPI is a splinter group from the revisionist CPI (Marxist). Althoughits Maoist credentials are weak, it seems to be exploring unity withseveral centrist Maoist groups.

Marxist-Leninist Committee
ML Committee
Seems to be a small middle of the road group (i.e., not engagingin guerrilla warfare) in the eastern part of Andhra Pradesh.

Revolutionary Communist Centre,India (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)
RCCI(MLM)
This may be a separate organization from RCCI(Maoist) which mergedwith MCCI in Jan. 2003. It is also affiliated with CCOMPOSA.
Revolutionary Socialist Partyof India (M-L)

RSPI/ML
Formed in 1969.

Unity Centre of CommunistRevolutionaries of India (M-L)
UCCRI(ML)
Proletarian Path
"Massrevolutionaryline."
Formed in 1975 and led by T. Nagi Reddy (who died in 1976) andD.V. Rao. The Punjab Coordination Committee of CommunistRevolutionaries merged with UCCRI in 1976.

"

theory of the offensive

Ben renames his spot, and deftly arcs up the flare:

theory of the offensive: "Yet Another Televised Revolution, exclusively distributed as part of the Straight-to-Video Collection
My new bland ambition: a critique of schematic efforts at the periodisation of the combined and uneven subsumptions constituting this current moment in the history of capital, in which the concept of 'the left-wings of capital' plays a substantial supporting role, with cameo and bit parts for leftists, 'activists', insert your own etceteras, also providing technical assistance helping to give the left-wings of capital the illusion of three dimensions

..in which illusion I include our new geopolitics of reification i.e. the illusion of three dimensions rather than four, the provision of special lighting to generate a depthless appearance of the always-already eternal, an occlusion of the conflictual constitution of the lived categories of capital thus, as a bonus, producing that flat Surrealpolitik making imaginable some sick, consensual left-wing capitalism in which we can all labour hard and manage the oh-so-fairer exchanges of the work-camps on whose ethical status we can found a good conscience, high moral ground and claim for surplus value ..
well, you get the picture, we can all assent to exploitation-as-liberation. Fight the class struggle: Kill a fair trader this winter."

Intel needs anthro Interns for Love and Spirit research!!

From: Payne, Michael J
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 9:42 AM
To: Ethnography Researchers
Subject: Call for Interns - please forward as appropriate

Intel Corporation's Domestic Designs and Technologies Research Group
is calling for interns! As part of Domestic Designs and Technologies
Research, the ethnographic and design research team within the Digital
Home Group, you will work within a multidisciplinary team to explore
and research 'love and spirituality' and its intersection with
computers and technology, in and around the home.

DDTR is a driving force within the Digital Home Group: our charter is
to develop a clear & actionable understanding of daily life all over
the world, identify opportunities for our platforms to enable
experiences that consumers value, merge original insights with
technology, market, platform and planning intelligence to define usage
models & platform requirements, and seed future research & platform
opportunties. DHG's vision is to make Intel the trusted foundation of
your digital home. To that end, the Digital Home Group develops
computing and communications oriented platforms that anticipate and
satisfy the needs of consumers world-wide.

We will be offering 3 month paid internships starting in October '06,
January '07, and April '07, for graduate students in anthropology,
design research or related social sciences. Interns must re-locate to
the Portland, Oregon area to work closely with the research team
during the entire length of the internship.

We are looking for individuals with experience in designing and
conducting both qualitative and quantitative user or design research
studies, including analysis of the resulting data. Candidates should
prepare a concise yet thorough one-page proposal to explore some
aspect of love and spirituality and its intersection with computers
and technology in and around the home. Exact responsibilities of the
position will be defined with the successful applicant based on the
proposal you submit.

Please submit your proposal describing the research you'd like to do
in this area over the course of your internship to
michael.j.payne@intel.com . Applications (CV + proposal) must be
received by July 31st, October 31st, and January 31st respectively for
the Oct, Jan, and April start dates; successful candidates will be
contacted by the 10th of the month following.
.

BREAKING NEWS album causes conflict

BREAKING NEWS album causes conflict
BREAKING NEWS !
FUN DA MENTAL NEW ALBUM IN TROUBLE




FUN DA MENTAL'S new album “ALL IS WAR” (the benefits of g-had) has caused the directors of Nation Records to offer their resignations in the event the album is released through Nation Records.
Martin Mills and Andrew Heath (Beggars Banquet Group) both have expressed their concern and fear in the event they are linked to the many provocative and controversial elements of the album.

Aki Nawaz who also is a director but also the main man of Fun Da Mental is troubled by the stance and is considering the options.

”The album is challenging the notion of freedom of speech and creative dissent especially in current times and my background gives me the perfect platform to express the issues from a personnel point of view and not from a mainstream imposed, misguided, patriotic perspective. I have the right equally and without condition as others to expose the hypocrisy and contradictions of democracy, been a Muslim does not mean I have to subservient, loyal or silent to the State or any of its illegal activities against any peoples, anywhere around the world. Fear is not a choice, I welcome it, but to say nothing, whatever the consequences, would be a cowardly act on my behalf ”

MORE INFO- 0207 792 8167

Check the image through a search to see the iraq Ghraib version - doesn;'t show in blogger since blogger is crap.

.

Malaysian Govt bans books

Apparently Malaysia Govt bans books - including my mate Bobby's (sadly not very red) rant on Kamalism.

KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 (Bernama) -- Eighteen books published locally and overseas have been banned by the Internal Security Ministry under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 as they have been deemed to be able to disrupt peace and harmony.

A copy of the prohibition citation dated June 8 by the ministry was made available to Bernama, here Thursday.

The act prohibits any form of reproduction or distribution of these books, six of which are in Malay and the rest in English.
The 18 banned books

1. The Bargaining for Israel: In the Shadow of Armageddon
2. Islam
3. Lifting the Veil
4. A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (Bobby S Sayyid)
5. Islam Revealed: A Christian Arab's View of Islam (Anis Shorrosh)
6. What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam (John L Esposito)
7. Mini Skirts Mothers & Muslims (Christine Mallouhi)
8. The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Karen Armstrong)
9. Kundalini For Beginners (Ravindra Kumar)
10. Sacred Books of the East
11. Sharing Your Faith with A Muslim (Abdiyah Akbar Abdul-Haqq)
12. Cults, World Religions and The Occult (Kenneth Boa)
13. Petua dan Doa Pendinding, Penawar, Penyembuh Penyakit
14. Hakikat & Hikmah 7 Hari Dalam Seminggu
15. Pemuda Bani Tamim Perintis Jalan Imam Mahdi
16. Kontroversi Hukum Hudud (Kassim Ahmad)
17. Risalah No 2 Dilema Umat Islam Antara Hadis dan Quran (Kassim Ahmad)
18. Siri 7 AmalanAmalan Bid'ah Pada Bulan Syaban

So, this list joins the film discussed here.

Rubbish- la
.

Captain Picard's Journal: Federation Big Brother

Captain Picard's Journal: Federation Big Brother:

"Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Federation Big Brother

Let's hope some unknown alien force or a spatial anomoly doesn't attack the Enterprise right now, as we would all be victims to whatever it was.

The reason?

The entire crew is watching 'Federation Big Brother' on a galaxy-wide telecast.

Everyone has been addicted to this show since it started. All the crew can't help watching housemates walking around doing absolutely nothing. Every so often, those viewing decide on who should leave, and those with the most votes are beamed out.

At first, I was very dismissive of it all, being the Captain; then I started to watch it, and now I don't have any sleep in case anything is missed.

These are the housemates:

Morogh: He's a gay Klingon that insists on keeping everything tidy.

Velas: He is a Romulan who taunts Morogh; there have been a lot of disputes between the two.

Four of Twelve: She is a Borg drone that all the other housemates stay well clear of; they are not sleeping well at night as she says she will sneak into their beds and assimilate them. She hasn't much of a line in conversation; all she says is 'Resistance is futile.' and 'You will be assimilated.'

Data: Yes, our very own Commander Data is a housemate. Unfortunately he was the first to be beamed out, as he lay in bed all day doing nothing. It was only later that we found out that some unscrupulous housemade had switched him off.

Lwaxana Troi: As she is a telepath, the housemates are being careful what they think whenever Deanna's mother is around as she will find them out. I know the feeling.

Ensign Jordan: This young man from Earth, just 20, is there for the female viewers. Lwaxana ha"

- There must be tonnes of this stuff including slasher versions, but I thought turning off data was funny - and I so agree. The android is just a p.o.v character for pre-teens, not even a proper geek. See also Constance Penley's great little book "Nasa/Trek".
.

Posthegemony

Pirates are "in" - see Jon B-M's recent action in Canada. Why suddenly do so many of us catch the stench of privateering as it wafts from the harbour across the campuses... echoed in Mick Taussig's course last term at Columbia on pirates too, and more

Posthegemony: "piracy, nomadism, and the state
The complexity and confusion regarding piracy's political economy leads to, is amplified in, and exacerbates a similar set of confusions regarding piracy's relation to the state. Moreover, an added complication here concerns first, the range of piratical activities and the nomenclature used to describe them, and second the historical vicissitudes of piracy from at least the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, in other words precisely during the period of the European state's consolidation, and imperial expansion. Take the issue of nomenclature. Though sometimes all non-state maritime violence is considered under the label of piracy, the series of differing terms employed at other times indicates multiple attempts (often finally frustrated) to distinguish between different forms of violence, or more strictly its different degrees of legitimacy. Pirate, buccaneer, privateer, private man-of-war, corsair, filibuster, freebooter, coastal raider. . . all these terms indicate subtle differentiations, of which by far the most important is that between privateer and pirate."
.