Category Archives: Media

Vidura: Battles of another kind?


Vidura, journal of the Press Institute of IndiaVidura, the journal of the Press Institute of India, is just out with its January-March 2009 issue. Some themes I found interesting:

    Language media in the electronic age
    Business and religion in the Gujarat media
    Print media in Kashmir, post-1989

Vidura 2009

… and, of course, a number of smaller informative snippets.

Vidura‘s annual subscription is Rs 200 for four issues, and Rs 500 for 12 issues spread across three years. Email pii@gmail.com

Tiatr… and a scholar from Pune


Dr Pramod Kale is perhaps the first scholar to focus on the traditional Konkani theatre form (the tiatr) in such detail. Here, the scholar, now retired, talks to FN about his views of the same….

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , , , , , ,

The editor-journo relationship


Some views I presented in some corner of cyberspace:

The editor-writer relationship is a crucial one, close yet fraught with misunderstandings.

Before burning bridges, we need to evaluate carefully whether it’s worth it.

Personally, I would prefer to keep quiet when something doesn’t work, rather than to come across as someone who is “complicated to work with”.

There *are no* standards to go by, more so when we try to span different worlds — the commercial and the non-commercial, India and North America, Goa and her diaspora, print and cyberspace.

The approach that works for me is to try and be flexible with my editors. (I hope writers treat me similarly when I don the editorial cap occasionally. With writers, I try to be accomodative, and to pay them with gratitude and feedback when I can’t do so with money.) If things turn too bad, then I would follow the Biblical dictum of wiping the dust of my feet and moving on. (Look who’s quoting….)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , ,

Some more old photos… from another Goa


While we are going down on the road to yesterday’s Goa and tripping on Goastalgia, here are some more (retouched) photos from my album, which I recently rescued from the white ants at home! Now that they are digitised, feel free to share and reproduce:

On this [1] page, you can see most of my 15,000+ photos. For specific images, click on any photo and then use the ‘all sizes’ tab (on top right) to download a larger sized image.

Unusual carnival float ... circa 1980s or 1990s

Here’s the late Alfred Vaz’s unusual image of a carnival float parade[2], probably from the ‘eighties or early ‘nineties. So hard to believe that Alfred vanished from the scene as fast as this returned Bomboicar had descended on us! You need to zoom in on the placards to understand why I term it unusual.

Leonard Aarons, a photographer whom I worked with during my stint in the Deccan Herald, shared this photo [3] with me, of the Calangute-Candolim stretch, after some work we did together. Today, the area grows concrete.

Temple tank

Sometime around 1987 (maybe I got the year wrong), I went along with Matanhy Saldanha and others on the ‘protect water, protect life’ march around Goa. Here are a couple of photos from there, one from the Mangueshim temple tank[4], and the other from a fisherman’s home[5]. This photo of Sanvordem town, taken from the Guardian Angel School,
where we spent a night halt, is also from the same time[6].

During one of my many flirtations with the camera, I was trying out clicking (in a pre-digital era) this once-catchy image of a coconut leaf, and all its geometric patterns [7].

Two images on politicians from the yesteryears (not yet out!) are here [8] and [9]. Tell me, how does having an ultra-costly-to-build and as-costly-to-maintain underutilised new assembly complex help Goa to be better governed?

Among the other photographs imprinted on my mind’s camera are Taresh Kumar’s photo of the marooned ‘Sea Transporter’ (before the ‘River Princess’ came). I recall the way in which the Coast Guard were struggling to remove the fuel from the ship, fearing it would ruin the Taj’s beach and more! [10] Here’s Joel’s photo of the inaugration of the Portuguese Consulte [11]. And an unidentified photographer’s work on damaged salt pans in times before global warming was spoken about [12]. Finally, here’s a link to the commonman’s casino! [13]

And I probably can’t end without another version of the Colvale carreira photo [14] which got a total of  1,066 views in its polaroid version [15]. Thank you for all your feedback. –FN

[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/
[2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660919917/
[3] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660918335/
[4] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660917437/
[5] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2661740732/
[6] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2661718440/
[7] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2661712262/
[8] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660882765/
[9] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2661715148/
[10] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660892549/
[11] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660890733/
[12] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2661716434/
[13] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660889489/
[14] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2660883033/
[15] http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/2642196864/

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , , , , ,

Needed: volunteer translators


Needed volunteers who can translate old Portuguese texts into English, for possible republication, including Arte Palmarica. See http://www.divshare.com/download/4088057-e79 If you can help in any way, please get in touch. Also, needed volunteers to help put online, the digital versions of copyright-expired Goa-related books. FN, http://goa1556.goa-india.orgpublishing Goa, not accidentally

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , , ,

Author profile: Dr Teresa Albuquerque


Dr  TERESA ALBUQUERQUE, a writer from Goa who lives between her homes at Anjuna (Goa) and Santa Cruz (Bombay) happens to be the sister of pioneering ex-editor Frank Moraes and the aunt of accomplished writer Dom Moraes. Incidentally, when we met last at the Literati in Calangute, I mentioned to her the idea from expat journo Eugene Correa
of having a Frank Moraes School of Journalism in Goa.

Born of Goan origin in 1930, at Poona, she was a student of St.Xavier’s College, Bombay, graduated through  the University of Bombay in Arts with Honours in English and French, and then  in Education, and has a Masters degree in History and Politics as well a Doctorate in History.

As a Fellow of  Heras Institute of Indian History and Culture, she was an active member of the Bombay Museum Society, Asiatic Society of Bombay, Church History Association of  India, Heras Society and the Bombay Local History Society.

Dr Albuquerque has been a recipient of  Mahindra Senior Research Fellowship of Heras Institute, was also awarded a scholarship by Heras Institute to undertake research on the Goans in Kenya.

In her micro-historical studies, she has delved into the colonial past of Bombay and Goa with special emphasis on the “Portuguese impress”. Dr Albuquerque has traveled widely, lectured on the subject both at home and abroad  and frequently contributes historical articles to art journals and newspapers.

Books authored by her are:

SANTA CRUZ THAT WAS
(Bombay 1981)

URBS PRIMA IN INDIS : An epoch in the history of Bombay
(Promilla& Co. Publishers, New Delhi, 1986)

TO LOVE IS TO SERVE : Catholics of Bombay
(Heras Institute,Bombay, 1986)

ANJUNA: Profile of a village in Goa
(Promilla &Co. Publishers, New Delhi, 1987)

SANTA CRUZ : Profile of a village in Goa
(Fernandes & Co.,Publishers, Goa, 1989)

A LIFE WELL SPENT: Biography of Pascoal de Mello, MBE
(Speedy Printing Centre. Missisauga, Ontario, Canada, 1996)

GOA: THE RACHOL LEGACY
(Wenden Offset Private Ltd., Bombay 1997)

Bassein -- The Portuguese Interlude

BASSEIN :The Portuguese Interlude
(Wenden Offset Private Ltd., Bombay, 1999)

GOANS OF KENYA
Michael Lobo Publishers, Mumbai 2000)

BACAIM TO VASAI
(Wenden Offset Private Ltd., Mumbai 2001)

Teresa Albuquerque can be contacted via email <teresalbu@gmail.com> In Goa, her telephone number is +91-832-2273676, and they expect to leave for Bombay on July 16, 2008. There, her number is +91-22-26499005

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , , ,

News, via SMS, claimed to reach 60,000 subscribers in eastern India


A journalist I know, Jatindra Dash from the eastern Indian state of Orissa, started this rather interesting SMS-based news-service in the Oriya language which is spoken by some 31 million people. Elsa Patnaik’s article on TheHoot.org describes it thus:

Odisha.com, the world’s first and only 24×7 Oriya news portal has tied up with SMSGupShup, a free group messaging service provided by Webaroo Technology India Pvt. Ltd. Mumbai. While Odisha.com provides the content, SMSGupShup provides the free group SMS technology and platform. Started in November 2007, the service has close to 60,000 subscribers at present.

The figures sound amazing. Tried SMSGupShup myself, and found it fairly efficient (and free-of-charge, so far) to launch an SMS alerts service for journalists in Goa, a former Portuguese colony on the west coast of India. Needless to say, there are still less than a hundred SMS-recipients there, and keeping it active has proven a bit tough… No blaming the technology for that!

Things otherwise seem to work almost fine (sometimes a slight delay in the delivery of the messages … not sure who’s end that’s at).

Have also been impressed by some other work of Webaroo — not linked to SMS — but more to do with taking Wikis, including the Wikipedia, to offline and mobile devices.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , , ,

The new GEO… in India


GEO, in India

GEO, in India

Has anyone of you run into the new GEO? Vol I Issue I is just out, and available at Varsha’s (Panjim). Probably elsewhere too.

GEO is a German magazine, for the first time being published in English, and that too in India. I could call it a German National Geographic, but it’s probably better. The photographs are superb. Take a look at the “mouse lolly” below, and zoom in to read the caption!

What was a pleasant surprise was to see GoaWriter Himanshu Burte’s article prominently displayed. Nice piece, fantastic images. Himanshu’s article is about the “Trading Places”. He writes: “The extraordinary architecture of three of India’s most distinctive trading communities tells a rich and evocative story about the power of pleasure and the pleasures of power on the cusp of modernity.” Nice visual tourism of Shekhawati, Bohra land, and Chettinadu.

It’s a good investment of your hundred rupees. Specially, if like me, you too prefer to experiment with Vol I Issue I numbers when they come out. I liked GEO.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: , , ,

Editors… then and now


Just received the March 2007 issue of CRITIQUE (‘A review of Indian journalism’) edited by my long-time-friend-whom-I’ve -never-met Alok Tiwari of Nagpur.

This issue has a striking cover depicting a prominent Indian editor of the ‘seventies and ‘eighties, Shamlal. “There was no editor like him, and there would never be another one in the same league. Shamlal’s demise leaves the heavily de-intellectualised journalistic world (in India) much poorer.”

The cover story is on Page 10, and also includes tributes on Page 12 to 17. It is titled “Death of an Editor”. Says the intro to this article: “When the editor Sham Lal died many journalist also saw their own death in that process. They realized that the newspapers for which they give their working lives have no use for them the moment they step out of their working premises.”

Writes Vinod Mehta, another editor whose work I admire: “What is the difference between the (Indian) editor of the 1970s and 2007? Simple yet profound. The 1970s editor clocked in at 10 and clocked out at 6.30. He read voraciously, talked to like-minded friends and scholars, furiously debated issues, checked and re-checked information for veracity and poured out the distilled wisdom onto the Edit Page. He did not make speeches at seminars, anchor TV shows, visit cocktail parties, take part in book discussions, judge fashion shows, wear sharp clothes. The editor was not yet a celebrity. He was neither seen nor heard. He was just read….”

Other articles from this issue:

* Shame on the Indian media
* Seven media workers killed in Lanka
* Avoid cross fire, RSF tells Indian journos
* SEBI no to Independent’s higher stake in Jagran
* Editor’s guild condemns ULFA
* Three Iranian journos on way to India held
* Blackstone group gets stake in Eenadu
* IFJ skcampaign to free Lankan journalist
* ‘Editorial side must remain independent’ — Die Zelt deputy editor
* South Asia Free Media Assn for relaxed visa regime
* Caltas Fitness acquires Cinemaya
* Press Commission set up for India
* TOI: the most exciting media brand
* Booming economy (but) poor business journalism: Superficial coverage abounds as ‘pink’ papers step in.
* In Mumbai (Bombay), India’s financial and media capital, the Hindustan Times has launched its financial journal Mint, while Metro Now is a joint venture between former rivals Bennett, Coleman and Co and HT Media Limited.
* The business of it all.
* Censorship is state control of private life: But Indian art tradition treats sex with respect.
* First person: The bank robber who met literary deadlines Peter Wayne on Jean Genet’s Thief’s Journal
* Mere news gets stale: Independent turns a viewspaper.
* Indian politician George Fernandes spikes Bofors.

For subscription and other details: critiquejr@hotmail.com critiquejr@yahoo.com

See cover of the latest issue:
http://flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/487912874/

Where environment meets documentary…


Filmmaker: Fewer Than 1,000 Wild Tigers Left in India a story which links some of my interests, past and present, together… environment and documentary film.

In his new film on India’s tiger crisis, conservation filmmaker Krishnendu Bose argues that there may be less than 1,000 wild tigers remaining in India.

Bose

Called “Tiger: The Death Chronicles,” the 63 minute film in
English had its premier today at the India International Centre
Auditorium in New Delhi.

“Basically it’s a film to share the truth with the people of the
country,” Bose told ENS in an interview. “I’ve realized [while shooting
that there are] a lot of things even I didn’t know as a filmmaker, as a
person involved with conservation.”

technorati tags:, , , ,

Blogged with Flock