Tag Archives: insights
Where everything is possible – Welcome to The Himalayan Beacon Portal
Welcome to ‘The Himalayan Beacon Portal’, where you will not just be able to get the latest news, views and insights, photos, music, videos, you will also be able to join our growing community of cyber enthusiasts, participate in various discussion, share and learn. We also keep on innovating and adding new features so that it is never too dull for you. So once again, welcome to ‘The Himalayan Beacon Portal’, hope you get hooked!
UPCOMING EVENTS: Photo Exhibition – VISUAL DIALOGUE by Yogita Ranapaheli
Aperture Culture is proud to present
Visual Dialogue works by Yogita Ranapaheli
IN FOCUS
17th – 25th April 2010
12 noon to 7pm everyday
at The First Floor, Rachna books & publications
Gangtok 737101 Sikkim INDIA
+91 3592 204336
Entry : free
Trained as a professional photographer at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 2006,Yogita Ranapaheli has been practicing photography for many years. A creative and dedicated media practitioner, Yogita has years of experience in producing shows for national televisions in Delhi (Network18 & Doordarshan) in both live and documentary format.
Photography has always been very special to her. She believes that though a photo is just an image of a frozen moment in time, it has the potential to speak a mountain. She is a nature lover. She likes to capture the beauty in day-to-day sights that she sees loaded with meaningful insights.
With this exhibition Visual Dialogue, she has stringed together her works with a common theme – every image pose a question to the viewer in a direct or symbolic manner. The questions are commonly centered on human life and existence as reflected in nature.
Yogita observes that we often tend to overlook things around us and when we take photographs of the same we get a brand new perspective. She feels that these perspectives are always present in our subconscious but it is a photograph which often helps our conscious come alive.
PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES: Introduction and Rationale
THE HIMALAYAN BEACON [BEACON ONLINE]
BY DR SATYABRAT SINHA
(Dr Sinha teaches in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies and Management, Sikkim University, Gangtok)
When I tell people that I teach Peace and Conflict Studies, it evokes an all knowing reaction punctuated by an exclamation. At a social occasion, someone retorted, so you teach religion, I could only react passively not knowing the basis of judgment. The anecdote is to essentially suggest that most have little idea of the discipline of Peace Studies, Conflict Resolution or as the department at Sikkim University is called Peace and Conflict Studies. Though, living in dangerous times and in our specific location in South Asia, everyone is generally unaware of the essence of the words Peace and Conflict. For many the idea of Peace is internal, philosophical, the peace of mind, for others, it means absence of violence or war. Beyond which unfortunately there appears to be little knowledge on what the discipline might be engaged with. The essay you are reading is an effort towards addressing that knowledge gap and creating awareness about the discipline. Peace and Conflict Studies is now taught at the Masters level in many Universities worldwide and six Universities across India.
A cursory look at statistics would emphasize the dire need for a discipline which would actively make Peace its business. In the period, 1945-1989, after the Second World War and the end of the cold war, there were over 21.8 million war deaths out of which 85% were civilians, people like you and your neighbour, people who are not combatants, not trained to fight or kill. In the preceding period of the two world wars, 1914-1945, often termed the bloodiest century, the civilian deaths were at 50%. So increasingly and despite the ‘Peace’ of the Cold War, we have had a dramatic increase in civilian deaths due to violent conflicts. It would also be pertinent to remember that death is but a fraction of the people injured, maimed, of material damage to civilian economy and the further damage to health and life in direct and delayed ways. These figures are not meant to scare you; rather they are intended to drive home the seriousness of the situation. Further, majority of conflicts today are in the global, East and South, in our part of the world.
It is here that Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) finds its place. PCS is an inter-disciplinary effort at the prevention, de-escalation and resolution of conflict by peaceful means. In other words, Conflict Resolution attempts to minimize violence in a conflict, overcome antagonisms between adversaries and find outcomes and settlements acceptable to all and which are enduring.
The normative basis of the discipline states that Peace is a natural condition and the prime force of human behavior while war is an aberration. Peace is defined as ‘not violence’. Then, what is violence? We all seem to have an understanding of violence, expression of force whether, physical or verbal. Violence is defined in two ways, direct violence and indirect violence. Direct or overt violence is the visible act of violence when a policeman hits at a protester, when two people are involved in a physical fight.
LATEST BOOK RELEASE: Enter the World of Mass Media by Barun Roy
Author: Barun Roy
Language: English
ISBN: 9788122310801
Pages: 263
Price: Rs. 175.00
Review of the book
Enter The World of Mass Media is an outcome of the author’s interactions with numerous readers and Mass Communication enthusiasts all over the nation regarding the need of a good resource book on the subject. Essentially all encompassing, the book does not merely go through the different aspects of Mass Communication, but also sets standards for the future.
This book with the help of some of the best known minds in the field of Mass Communication, Marketing and Information Technologies, seeks to set forward, for the first time in India, a germinating set of standards, norms and ethics to be followed on the Internet.
Enter The World of Mass Media thus also sets out to lay grounds for the future of Mass Communication.
A reader, after going through this book, will not only have an understanding of the subject, but coupled with his own added insights, he would also be capable of being a transforming force in the field.
CONTENTS
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Brief History of Mass Media
- A Brief History of Print Media
- The First Modern Newspapers
- The Advent of Telegraph
- The British Indian Empire
- A Brief History of Radio Broadcasting
- Types of Radio Broadcasting
- The Evolution of FM Broadcasting
- All India Radio – A Case Study
- Yuva Vani – The Voice of the Youth
- A Brief History of Television Broadcasting
- First Television Broadcasting
- Television in India
- CAS – Conditional Access System
- Doordarshan – A Case Study
- Internet: What it is and the Future it Holds?
- Genesis
- The World Wide Web
- Internet as an Instrument of Mass Communication
ESSAY: A Japanese Agent in Tibet
FROM REMEMBERING THE MASTERS
During our research into the life and times of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, we have been gathering material from a great variety of sources to gain a better understanding into the world of Tibet before the Chinese invasion of 1950, leading to Jamyang Khyentse’s pilgrimage to Central Tibet, a journey that ended in exile in 1956. As we know, he died just a few months after the flight of the fourteenth Dalai Lama to India, which marked the final incorporation of Tibet within the Peoples Republic of China in 1959.
To take you with us on our journey into some of this diverse literature, we will share with you a few of the intriguing insights we have gained.
First in this series will be the book “Japanese Agent in Tibet”, as told by Hisao Kimura to Scott Berry and published by Serindia in 1990.
Hisao Kimura came from a world that until the middle of the 19th century had been a feudal society. Like Tibet, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan had tried to protect its way of life from the outside world, particularly the modernizing forces let loose by European colonialism that created the circumstances for revolutionary changes through Asia. Their resistance was swept aside with the Meiji Restoration following the forced opening of Japan to trade with the European powers when Commander Perry of the USA Navy, forced the Japanese to sign the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. Similarly, in 1904 Francis Younghusband led a British expedition into Tibet in order to force the Tibetan government based in Lhasa to open up Tibet for trade with Britain, and in the process enable the British to pursue their political interests in containing Russian influence in Central Asia.
However, the outcomes were vastly different for these two societies steeped in their traditions and their sense of unique culture. The Japanese embraced modernity with a passion, deciding that the only way to preserve their culture was to match the Europeans in their military might and technology. By 1905, they shocked the Western world when they defeated the Russians, and in 1931 they invaded and colonised Manchuria. This was the beginning of their grand vision to become the dominant ‘modernising’ power in East Asia, which brought them into sharp conflict with both China and the West.
Through the interdependence of these great events, the young Kimura found himself in Manchuria learning the Mongolian language. And thus the stage for his great adventure as an undercover agent in Tibet was set.
NEW DELHI: The tragedy of being tribal in India
FROM BUSINESS STANDARD
By Sadanand Menon
News shared by Aardee
Millennia ago, a certain warrior-teacher, fearing the superiority of a tribal lad’s martial skills over that of his own urbane students, demanded the gift of the lad’s right thumb in return for transgressing codes of civil and caste hierarchy. The story of Dronacharya and Ekalavya is etched in most Indian minds. Many of us might even have wept at this injustice as we heard the mythological fable in our childhood. Of course, the sentimentalism blinded us to the reality of the here and now. The almost nine percent tribal population of the nation continues to be asked to part with more than its thumb.
Tribals across the country are being asked to part with their forests, lands and livelihood to make way for ‘development’. They constitute the largest percentage today of the internally displaced people. National Parks, dams, large mines, SEZs — it is the tribal zones that are up for grabs. They are now beginning to consolidate and resist. Muthanga in Kerala where they came out with their bows and arrows and Lalgarh in West Bengal now, with a large number of adivasis merely carrying sticks and axes, are just the surface manifestations of decades of aggression the ‘civilised’ have practiced over the ‘savage’.
There is a rousing music-video by documentary filmmaker K P Sashi which has become popular on You-tube. It compresses the plight of tribals into a six-minute montage, with the main slogan ‘We won’t give up our lands, we won’t give up our forests, nor will we give up our struggle’. It poses a critique of the mainstream capitalist development model which took just a few decades to destroy the forests and rivers that the tribals and their ancestors had preserved for centuries. It almost suggests why the nation needs to rethink from a tribal perspective if it has to save itself. One can see it progressively emerging as an anthem in the days to come.
It is also pertinent that both CK Janu and M Geethanandan who head tribal organizations in Kerala like the Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha and the Bhoo Parishkarana Samithi have called for an “immediate cessation of the joint military action against the people of Lalgarh to capture tribal lands”. They have proclaimed that the claim of ‘flushing out’ Maoists is merely a ploy to grab lands of the impoverished population of the region. They have alleged a secret deal between the governments at the Centre and the state with Jindal Steel Limited to hand over 5,000 acres of land to the company in return for multi-crore investments.
Celebrating Ram – A Book Review by Jyoti Thapa Mani
BY JYOTI THAPA MANI
The Book of Ram
Celebrating Ram
The Book Of Ram
By Devdutt Pattanaik; Penguin;
Pages: 211; Price: Rs 250
Why does the story of ram continue to capti-vate the imagination of millions of Indians, even 3,000 years after it was first penned by Sage Valmiki? Ayodhya, Ram’s birthplace, became such a bone of contention that it changed the face of mainstream Indian politics forever. Today, Ram finds himself in the middle of yet another controversy – the Ram Sethu bridge between India and Sri Lanka. But amid all this fighting and celebrating in the name of Ram, are we losing him somewhere?
Maryada Purushottom Ram, the upholder of civilised human values; Raghupati, the grandson of King Raghu; the pupil of Rishi Vishwamitra and Rishi Vashisht, teachers with two totally different philosophies; Ram who believed in violence for self-defence – which of these Rams is most relevant in today’s context?
FALLEN CICADA 2 – DIGITAL EDITION VER 9.0 RELEASED!
Dear Friends,
Greetings from Darjeeling!
It is with great satisfaction and pleasure that I inform you that Fallen Cicada 2 – Unwritten History of Darjeeling Hills was released in Darjeeling by Dr. Lakhi Devi Sundas. Released during a ‘writers’ enclave’ organised for the first time in Darjeeling, Dr. Lakhi Devi Sundas remarked that when she released Fallen Cicada – First Edition, on the 23rd of December 2003, she had declared that the book would do extremely well. The book went on to become a bestseller and sold out 3,000 copies during the first year of its sell. She hoped that Fallen Cicada 2 – Unwritten History of Darjeeling Hills released for the first time in Digital Format did even better and spread the love of Darjeeling Hills across the world. She also remarked that digital conversion of books was the right move and more and more books both in Nepali and English should be converted digitally and marketed through out the world. She expressed her wish to release Digital Edition of her own books and sought the help of the author on the same.
Fallen Cicada 2 – The Unwritten History of Darjeeling Hills Digital Edition 2008 Ver. 9.0 is the first of its kind produced and manufactured in Darjeeling. Based on the author’s most celebrated book Fallen Cicada – the Unwritten History of Darjeeling Hills, Fallen Cicada 2 – Digital Edition 2008 Ver. 9.0 offers more insights, more historical photographs and greater historical depth then ever before.
I hope that you will accept this labour of love and encourage me to indulge in more of such endeavours.
with best wishes and highest regards,
yours faithfully,
Barun
FALLEN CICADA 2 – DIGITAL EDITION 2008 VER 9.0
UNWRITTEN HISTORY OF DARJEELING HILLS
BARUN ROY
Price: Rs. 250 + postage extra
Usually ships in 4-6 days within in India
10-15 days depending upon the physical distance of the country from India
Payment: Paypal (paid to barunroydarj@gmail.com)
Bank Draft and Cheque in favour of Barun Roy, payable at Darjeeling
Posted at: BARUN ROY, BEACON ONLINE, BSNL QUARTERS, FLAT NO. 12/TYPE 2,
CLARKE ROAD, DARJEELING – 734101
PHONE NO. (0354) 2256393
Product Details
- Author: Barun Roy
- Publisher: Mandalay Books India Pvt Ltd, N. Delhi
- ISBN: 81-223-0684-5
- International Sales Rank: #93751 in Books (First Week)
- Published on: 2008-05-01
- Number of items: 3000
- Binding:INFO ROM (COMPACT DISC IN BOOK CASE)
- Price: Rs. 250 + Postage Extra
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