Sound: Christian Beusch, Shiju, José Sojen, Martin Witz
Editing: Loredana Cristelli
Music: Mafalda Arnauth, Giuseppe Laruccia, Ajit Singh
Production: Reck Filmproduktion
Rajas’ Journey (German Title: Rajas Reise)
by Karl Saurer
The film recounts the mysterious story of the Indian elephant Raja that journeyed through the forests of Kerala via Lisbon to Vienna in the year 1550. The reconnaissance trip made by Gandhi-activist P.V. Rajagopal on Raja’s route provokes surprising associations. The film reenacts the little elephant’s imprisonment, training and appearances at temple ceremonies – until he was ambushed as a status symbol by European rulers. It is a story of misappropriation that continues today.
Karl Saurer
Born in 1943 in Einsiedeln. Studied in Zurich, Munich, Cologne and Osnabrück. 1979 Receives MA in media, literature and psychology. Since 1970 works as film publicist in Switzerland and Germany. 1980-84 Works as lecturer in the Script Department and as staff member at DFFB (Deutschen Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin). Lecturer at universities and film schools. Screenwriter and director of fiction and documentary films.
The BRICS summit 2013 is scheduled to take place in Durban, South Africa on 26th and 27th March.
The BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) helds annual summits since 2009, with member countries taking turns to host. Prior to South Africa’s admission, two BRIC summits were held, in 2009 and 2010.
The first five-member BRICS summit was held in 2011. The most recent summit took place in New Delhi, India, on March 29, 2012. (Wikipedia.org)
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South Africa will host the fifth BRICS Summit from 26 to 27 March 2013 at the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC). This will complete the first cycle of BRICS summits.
These summits are convened to seek common ground on areas of importance for these major economies. Talks represent spheres of political and entrepreneurial coordination, in which member countries have identified several business opportunities, economic complementarities and areas of cooperation.
English: The BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Português: As Potências regionais. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
BRICS is an acronym for the powerful grouping of the world’s leading emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The first BRIC Summit took place in Yekateringburg, Russia, where the elected leaders of the four countries formally declared the membership of the BRIC economic bloc. South Africa joined the bloc in 2010, resulting in BRICS.
The BRICS mechanism aims to achieve peace, security, development and cooperation. It also seeks to contribute significantly to the development of humanity and establish a more equitable and fair world.
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Programme Director, Members of the Diplomatic Community, Consular Representatives from BRICS Member States Members of the Business Community and Captains of Industry, Members of the Academia and Think-Tanks, Members of the Media, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to …Continued
BRIC(S) is the only grouping whose name was coined by a Wall Street-based finance company in 2001, while predicting a shift in global economic power, away from the developed G7 countries towards the developing world. It was, however, the shared … Continued
A letter from Tswhane Pretoria News 26/02/2013 BRICS – Why South Africa’s Citizens Should Care By Millar Matola When South Africa plays host to the prestigious 5th BRICS Summit from 26 to 27 March in Durban, this will be a … Continued
Media Advisory 26 February 2013 The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Ms Tina Joemat-Pettersson, who also serves as a member of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on BRICS, will address the Northern Cape Province’s BRICS roadshow. The purpose of the roadshow … Continued
Programme Director, Minister Derek Hanekom (Science and Technology) Excellencies, Ambassadors of Brazil, India, and China Ambassador Matjila, (Director General in the Department of International Relations) Members of EXCO Gauteng, Executive Mayors Representatives of Business, Stakeholders, Members of Media, Ladies and … Continued
PRESS RELEASE North West Premier Thandi Modise is upbeat about the first BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) EXPO and International Trade and Tourism Conference that her province will be hosting. The four-day International Investor conference is scheduled to … Continued
Mosa Walsalam Sastriyar(1847 – February 20, 1916) was born in Thirupuram near Thriuvananthapuram, Valsala Shastriar was a poet, music composer, singer and social reformer. His actual name was Mosa Valsalam. He was christened “Valsala Shasthri” by the Metropolitan of Malabar in 1883 after listening to his music & discourse.
He has to his credit a large number of literary and musical works.A few of them were published during his lifetime itself. They include “Gitamanjari-Garland of Songs” (1903) and “Dhyanamalika-Meditation Songs ” (1916). Later on “The collected works of Valsala Shasthriar” was brought out by Mr. J.John, his grandson, in 1958.
Copies of the works published in 1908 and 1916 were brought to light by Dr. (Miss) Pushpita John, former Head of Dept. of Education and Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Kerala, a descendent of Shastriar. ‘Gita Manjari testifies Valsala Shasthriar’s in-depth knowledge of Carnatic music. Some of them have the “Chitta Swaras” attached to them. Only a person having real expertise in classical music can produce such compositions. “Cholkottu” like those in the compositions of Deekshithar and Swathi Thirunal have been attempted in some compositions, “Kaithukki Parane” in “Saveri-Rupakam“, “Ananda Kirtaname” in Shankarabharanam-Rupakam contain this embellishment. The first composition is presented as a ‘Chithrapadyam’- a matrix of letters arranged meticulously to generate the poem (“Neethithakaya” in Thodi). The swara notations are unfortunately not included. Even some of the raga and tala specifications seem to be confusing. “Bandhu Varadi” is possibly “Pantu Varali”. In some compositions, raga is specified as ‘English’. These compositions are probably set to Shankarabharanam and meant to be sung in the Western style. This, perhaps, is an indication that only songs specified as ‘English’ are meant to be sung in the Western style and the others are pure Carnatic classical compositions.
Legacy
The Moses Walsalam Sastriyar Chorus was formed by Mr.Richy Walsalam as a tribute to his contributions to music.
Maharaj Kumari Binodini Dev Manipuri (source: indianetzone.com)
Maharaj Kumari Binodini Devi (February 6, 1922 – January 17, 2011) was an Indian writer from Manipur, a Southeast Himalayan state in North-east India and a member of the erstwhile royal family of Manipur. She was notable for bridging the two worlds of ancient royalty and modern art. Born as a princess into a palace life which she lovingly recalled in a series of late essays, she made her name in the wider world as a novelist and a writer of short stories, essays, plays and award-winning screenplays, lyrics and ballet scripts. She received the Padma Shri in 1976, one of India’s highest civilian awards, followed by Sahitya Akademi Awardgiven by Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of letters) in 1979 for her novel Boro Saheb Ongbi Sanatombi (The Princess and the Political Agent) based on the true life story of a Manipuri princess, daughter of Maharaj Surchandra Singh. However, she returned the Padma Shri to protest the alleged rape and killing of Thangjam Manorama by 17 Assam Rifles personnel in 2004.
M. K. Binodini Devi wrote under the single name of Binodini. Her screenplays were made into award-winning feature films, directed by her long-time collaborator director Aribam Syam Sharma, such as My Son, My Precious, 1982; The Chosen One (1990), that have also been screened in the London Film Festival as well as the Museum of Modern Art, and Cannes, Toronto and Locarno Film Festivals. Her wildlife and environment themed script for a modern ballet was made into Sangai, Dancing Deer of Manipur, a performance film that won the British Film Institute’s Outstanding Film of the Year Award in 1984.
She died at 8.04 pm at her Yaiskul Police Lane residence in Imphal on January 17, 2011. She is survived by her two sons.
Arts and activism
In her writing and in her arts and social activism, M. K. Binodini is recognized as a pioneer of a non-doctrinaire thinking in Manipur that borrows little from conventional modernism and is rooted deeply in Manipur’s own traditions.
Although M. K. Binodini Devi is known best for her writing, she is an also an accomplished sculptor. While a student at Tagore’s Santiniketan, she became celebrated as the muse of the Indian sculptor and painter Ramkinkar Vaij. Portraits and sculptures of her by Vaij are in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.
Her vocal renditions of Rabindra Sangeet have aired over All India Radio. She is a Founder Member of Roop Raag, Manipur’s pre-eminent association of writers, poets, dancers, musicians and dramatists since 1960. This association paved the path of a lifelong immersion in the arts for her.
M.K. Binodini Devi served as the first Secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy where she pioneered the incorporation of martial arts into the canon of classical Manipuri Dance and took the first all-Manipuri dance troupe on a tour of Latin America, North America and Europe in 1976.
She ignited environmental awareness in Manipur with Thoibidu Warou’houee, her 1972 essay on the state’s wetlands and wildlife. An elegy to the brow-antlered deer, the essay was the basis for her script for Thoibi (1972), an environmental ballet she wrote during the time she ran the Jawaharlal Nehru Manipuri Dance Academy. Other contemporary Manipuri Dance ballet scripts with an environmental message include Keibul Lamjao (1984) and Loktak Isei (1991) a ballet on the wetlands of Manipur. Her environmentalism often takes on an active aspect as with The Nong’goubi Project, a series of community actions taken in 2002 to clean up the Nambul River.
She has also held elected office as was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Manipur and founded micro-financing for women in Manipur with the formation of Manipur’s first women’s cooperative bank in 1973.
Awards
M. K. Binodini Devi was honored with India’s National Book Award (the Sahitya Akademi Award given by Sahitya Akademi, India’s national arts and letters academy) in 1979 for her novel Boro Saheb Ongbi Sanatombi (The Princess and the Political Agent). The Sahitya Akademi also commissionedBinodini: A Writer’s Life (2001), a documentary film on her literary career, directed by Aribam Syam Sharma. In 2007, the Sahitya Akademi selected her for their Eminent Senior Writer Award.
Other awards include the Jamini Sunder Guha Gold Medal in 1966 by the Manipuri Sahitya Parishad for Nung’gairakta Chandramukhi, her collection of stories; and the 2002 Kumari Barooah Foundation Award for Culture.
In 1976 she was awarded the Padma Shri (India’s national honors list) by the President of India for her contribution to music, drama, dance, film and literature,She subsequently returned the award in 2001 in protest to India’s plans to alter Manipur’s historical boundaries.
M. K. Binodini Devi makes an appeal on the animals’ behalf (Oct 2009)
The Funeral Ceremony…
M. K.Binodini Cremation and Ashes Retrieval Ceremony in Jan 2011…
The funeral pyre included a special construct called the keiren keijao in recognition of her status as the youngest daughter and princess born to Maharaja Churachand Singh and Maharani Dhanamanjuri Devi of Manipur.
For the Vaishnav Hindu ceremony called Asti, her older son retrieved her ashes and her younger son took it to the Palace Temple and to her residence in Yaiskul. The procession was led by polo ponies and a sankirtan pala (choir of classical Manipuri music). The contingent consisted of close friends and family and community members.
These two rituals precede the funeral in Manipuri tradition. The slideshow was based on photographs by Oinam Doren.
Mahadev Desai (1892-1942) joined Mahatma Gandhi in 1917 and remained with him till Desai’s death in 1942. I came upon a very interesting account, inMahadev Desai’s diary, of a discussion between Mahatma Gandhi and Dilip Kumar Roy, in the end of January 1924. I reproduce that below.
Dilip, son of the well-known dramatist of Bengal, Dwijendralal Roy, visited Gandhi one evening. He had already earned abroad the reputation of a distinguished Indian singer. He had come in the morning and promised to return in the evening to sing some hymns to Bapu.
It was about 8 p.m. when he came. Dilip had brought his sitar. A good number of listeners had collected in the room. Sitting on a sofa opposite to Gandhiji’s bed he began singing a song of hymn to Krishna.
“O Lord! O Hari! Gopal! my Love!
Call me I pray to Thee above …
The moving sentiment in the hymn, the charming voice of the singer and the listners’ receptive mood filled the place for a while with the earnest loving entreaty made in the song. Everyone was, as it were, wafted to that blissful place and humming the following lines :
“Of hunger, thirst, I won’t complain.
Content with fruit I will remain”.
But even before vibrations of that son had died in our ears, the friend began the well-known song of Meerabai (Hindi Film, 1933), Chakar rakhoji, which thrills with the same ethereal air:
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“Make me Thy servant – the last stain efface
Of selfhood; be my life an offering
In song’s own bliss and bloom’s own loveliness.
For beauty holds a mirror to Thee, O King,
Of Beauty’s ultimate home – Thy Brindaban!
Whose glory in her bowers will I sing.
And accost Thee daily in Thy golden dawn
In every flower, every purlingst realm
In changing forms deciphering the One.
Here, in Thy happy hunt, where dreamers dream
And Yogis strive through Yoga Thee to meet
And all who visit hail Thy summit gleam,
Thy Meera treads but one way Thee to greet:
She prays: “Besiege my heart at midnight hush
And on banks of Love’s blue rill Thy dance repeat.”
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All of us felt as if we ourselves were ‘dancing on Love’s blue rill’ – that was the effect the performance produced. Profound silence prevailed for a while. Dilip then touched a topic and raised a dialogue.
“I feel, Mahatmaji”, he said, “that our beautiful music has been sadly neglected in our schools and colleges.”
“It has – unfortunately”, Bapu agreed, “I have always said so.”
“I am very glad to hear this, Mahatmaji, because, to be frank, I was under the impression that art has no place in the gospel of your austere life. I had often pictured you as a dread saint who was positively against music.”
“Against music – I”! exclaimed Mahatmaji, as though stung. “Well, I know, I know,” he added resignedly, “there are so many superstitions rife about me that it has now become almost impossible for me to overtake those who have been spreading them. As a result, my friends’ only reaction is almost invariably a smile when I claim I am an artist myself.”
“I feel so relieved, Mahatmaji” I laughed, “but may not your asceticism be somewhat responsible for such popular misconceptions? The people would find it difficult to reconcile asceticism with art”.
“But I do maintain that asceticism is the greatest of all arts. And to think that I should be dubbed an enemy to an art like music because I favour asceticism! I, who cannot even conceive of the evolution of India’s religious life without her music! But, indeed, I fail to see anything in much that passes for art in these days. What is needed for the appreciation of any art is to have the heart for it, not any ntimate knowledge of technique or training. Why must my walls be overlaid with pictures, for instance, when they are meant only for sheltering us? I do not need pictures. Nature suffices for my inspiration. Have I not gazed and gazed at the marvellous mystery of the starry vault, hardly ever tiring of that great panorama? Could one conceive of any painting comparable in inspiration to that of the star-tudded sky, the majestic sea, the noble mountains? Beside God’s handiwork does not man’s fade into insignificance?’
Dilip agreed: “Yes, what man in his senses will claim that the artist’s handiwork is even greater than life’s?”
Bapu then rushed on and changing the Gita’s aphorism, “Yoga is skill in action”, he said in effect that skill in action was itself the highest art. “Life must immensely exceed all the arts put together. To me the greatest artist is surely he who lives the finest life. For what is this hot-house art-plant of yours without the life-soul and background of a steady worthy life? What after all does that art amount to which ll the time stultifies life instead of elevating it? No. Art has a place in life, but art is not life. Life, on the contrary, is Art. Art should be subservient to life. It should act as its handmaid, not master. It should be alive to life and the universe.”
The Gandhi Tour is a global music festival created with the intent to arise social change by uniting people through the Universal language of music. This global music events are creating a platform for cultural dialogue relating to all cultures and religions inspired by the life of Mahatma Gandhi with the support of Dr. Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson.
Tobias Huber, founder of the Gandhi Tour lived in India for more than seven years. Inspired by his vision of a huge music event touring around the globe in cause of peace and non-violence, generating the consciousness to enable us to stop global hunger. Tobias with Dr. Arun Gandhi’s blessing created this dynamic musical event to inspire people on the choice of peace and non-violence in life.
The first of many events the Gandhi Tour celebrated Gandhi’s 100 years of Non-violence with Dr. Arun Gandhi at Earthdance 2006. It is there that the Gandhi Tour began its journey in the cultural peace movement of the 21st century.
On the eve of our 64th Republic Day, I extend warm greetings to all of you in India and abroad. I convey my special greetings to members of our armed forces, paramilitary forces and internal security forces.
India has changed more in last six decades than in six previous centuries. This is neither accidental nor providential; history shifts its pace when touched by vision. The great dream of raising a new India from the ashes of colonialism reached a historic denouement in 1947; more important, independence became a turning point for an equally dramatic narrative, nation-building. The foundations were laid through our Constitution, adopted on 26 January 1950, which we celebrate each year as Republic Day. Its driving principle was a compact between state and citizen, a powerful public-private partnership nourished by justice, liberty and equality.
India did not win freedom from the British in order to deny freedom to Indians. The Constitution represented a second liberation, this time from the stranglehold of traditional inequity in gender, caste, community, along with other fetters that had chained us for too long.
This inspired a Cultural Evolution which put Indian society on the track to modernity: society changed in a gradual evolution, for violent revolution is not the Indian way. Change across the knotted weaves of the social fabric remains a work in progress, impelled by periodic reform in law and the momentum of popular will.
In the last six decades there is much that we can be proud of. Our economic growth rate has more than tripled. The literacy rate has increased by over four times. After having attained self sufficiency, now we are net exporters of food-grain. Significant reduction in the incidence of poverty has been achieved. Among our other major achievements is the drive towards gender equality.
No one suggested this would be easy. The difficulties that accompanied the first quantum leap, the Hindu code bill, enacted in 1955 tell their own story. It needed the unflinching commitment of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Babasaheb Ambedkar to push through this remarkable legislation. Jawaharlal Nehru would later describe this as perhaps the most important achievement of his life. The time has now come to ensure gender equality for every Indian woman. We can neither evade nor abandon this national commitment, for the price of neglect will be high. Vested interests do not surrender easily. The civil society and the government must work together to fulfill this national goal.
Fellow Citizens:
I speak to you when a grave tragedy has shattered complacency. The brutal rape and murder of a young woman, a woman who was symbol of all that new India strives to be, has left our hearts empty and our minds in turmoil. We lost more than a valuable life; we lost a dream. If today young Indians feel outraged, can we blame our youth?
There is a law of the land. But there is also a higher law. The sanctity of a woman is a directive principle of that larger edifice called Indian civilization. The Vedas say that there is more than one kind of mother: birth mother, a guru’s wife, a king’s wife, a priest’s wife, she who nurses us, and our motherland. Mother is our protection from evil and oppression, our symbol of life and prosperity. When we brutalise a woman, we wound the soul of our civilization.
It is time for the nation to reset its moral compass. Nothing should be allowed to spur cynicism, as cynicism is blind to morality. We must look deep into our conscience and find out where we have faltered. The solutions to problems have to be found through discussion and conciliation of views. People must believe that governance is an instrument for good and for that, we must ensure good governance.
Fellow Citizens:
We are on the cusp of another generational change; the youth of India spread across villages and towns, are in the vanguard of change. The future belongs to them. They are today troubled by a range of existential doubts. Does the system offer due reward for merit? Have the powerful lost their Dharma in pursuit of greed? Has corruption overtaken morality in public life? Does our legislature reflect emerging India or does it need radical reforms? These doubts have to be set at rest. Elected representatives must win back the confidence of the people. The anxiety and restlessness of youth has to be channelized towards change with speed, dignity and order.
The young cannot dream on an empty stomach. They must have jobs capable of serving their own as well as the nation’s ambitions. It is true that we have come a long way from 1947, when our first Budget had a revenue of just over Rs.171 crore. The resource base of the Union government today is an ocean compared to that drop. But we must ensure that the fruits of economic growth do not become the monopoly of the privileged at the peak of a pyramid. The primary purpose of wealth creation must be to drive out the evil of hunger, deprivation and marginal subsistence from the base of our expanding population.
Fellow Citizens:
Last year has been a testing time for us all. As we move ahead on the path of economic reforms, we must remain alive to the persisting problems of market-dependent economies. Many rich nations are now trapped by a culture of entitlement without social obligations; we must avoid this trap. The results of our policies should be seen in our villages, farms and factories, schools and hospitals.
Figures mean nothing to those who do not benefit from them. We must act immediately, otherwise the current pockets of conflict, often described as “Naxalite” violence, could acquire far more dangerous dimensions.
Fellow Citizens:
In the recent past, we have seen serious atrocities on the Line of Control on our troops. Neighbours may have disagreements; tension can be a subtext of frontiers. But sponsorship of terrorism through non-state actors is a matter of deep concern to the entire nation. We believe in peace on the border and are always ready to offer a hand in the hope of friendship. But this hand should not be taken for granted.
Fellow Citizens:
India’s most impregnable asset is self-belief. Each challenge becomes an opportunity to strengthen our resolve to achieve unprecedented economic growth and social stability. Such resolve must be nourished by an avalanche of investment, particularly in better and greater education. Education is the ladder that can help those at the bottom to rise to the pinnacles of professional and social status. Education is the mantra that can transform our economic fortunes and eliminate the gaps that have made our society unequal. So far education has not reached, to the extent desired, to those most in need of this ladder. India can double its growth rate by turning today’s disadvantaged into multiple engines of economic development.
On our 64th Republic Day, there may be some reason for concern, but none for despair. If India has changed more in six decades than six previous centuries, then I promise you that it will change more in the next ten years than in the previous sixty. India’s enduring vitality is at work.
Even the British sensed that they were leaving a land which was very different from the one they had occupied. At the base of the Jaipur Column in Rashtrapati Bhavan there is an inscription:
“In thought faith… In word wisdom… In deed courage… In life service… So may India be great”
The spirit of India is written in stone. JAI HIND!”
FRIDAY, 25 JANUARY 2013 00:06 – NITINDRA BANDYOPADHYAY | CHANDIGARH
Indian Council of Medical Research (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
India needs to prioritise research infrastructure and improve the human resource and bring in policy changes in the field of medicinal research to make an impact at the global arena, said VM Katoch, Director General, Indian Council of Medical Reserch (ICMR).
Delivering a lecture on the topic “Creating and Strengthening Partnerships in Health Research” at the Institute of Microbial Technology on its foundation day here on Thursday, he said more than 60 per cent researches in India only exist on papers and are not implemented.
India is a success story when it comes to innovation and implementation but the impact of the same is not visible at the grassroots levels. India is still enslaved when it comes to health policies and its implementation. Joseph Bhore implemented the public health care architecture just before independence. But as a country we lack local agenda which is need of the hour, he said.
Katoch said, “Scientists have bloated egos, and the different organizations which are funding for research in India are more self centered. There are scientists who present their obsolete paper dating back to 1992 to get promotions which has pushed our country in a sorry state and has made it a subject of mockery in the west.”
The ICMR Director General said, emphasis should be laid on establishing regional, state and district level laboratory for a holistic development of medicinal research. “In last two years ICMR has funded 22 laboratories to diversify research on viral and infectious diseases in the country,” he added.
People in India is also hooked to the technologies from the west and the scientist are more into importing ideas than innovating something keeping in mind the local needs. Government and enlightened people within the civil society will have to work together for this kind of attitudinal changes. Inter sectoral cooperation and coordination between the various agencies is needed to facilitate it.
He added that our researches in medicinal and medical field should reach the market and once it happens market forces will drive the market and people will change their thinking about indigenous therapeutic products.”Instead of following the west and waiting for them to recognize our work we should start working for our country ,” he said.
Though India became a free nation on August 15, 1947, it declared itself a Sovereign, Democratic and Republic state with the adoption of the Constitution on January 26, 1950.
A salute of 21 guns and the unfurling of the Indian National Flag by Dr. Rajendra Prasad heralded the historic birth of the Indian Republic on that day. Thereafter 26th of January was decreed a national holiday and was recognised as the Republic Day of India.
The Constitution gave the citizens of India the power to choose their own government and paved the way for democracy. Dr. Rajendra Prasad took oath as the first President of India at the Durbar Hall in Government House and this was followed by the Presidential drive along a five-mile route to the Irwin Stadium, where he unfurled the National Flag.
Men wearing festive dresses from the eastern Indian state of Orissa wait in front of their state tableaux that will participate in the Republic Day parade, during a press preview in New Delhi, India, Jan. 22, 2013.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Saurabh Das
Indian students from the state of Orissa are dressed in traditional clothing as they line up for a security check while arriving to perform at a dress rehearsal for the annual Republic Day parade in New Delhi, India, Jan. 23, 2013.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Kevin Frayer
Women and men wearing traditional attire from the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh perform a music and dance routine in front of their state tableaux that will participate in the Republic Day parade, during a press preview in New Delhi, India , Jan. 22, 2013.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Saurabh Das
An Indian student dressed in a mask jokes in front of the camera before taking part in a rehearsal during preparations for the upcoming Republic Day parade, near the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, Jan. 21, 2013.
…to all our (Indian) friends and friends of India around the globe,
to the international community of listeners and music lovers,
to all the great vocal / instrumental musicians, composers and DJs,
to the passionate event organizers, booking agencies and music labels,
to analytical music scientists, profound teachers & pedagogues
and to our colleagues from press & medias
a very HAPPY & SUCCESSFULLY NEW YEAR 2013 !!!!!
The medical student, called Amanat died on 28th December 2012 at 04:30 pm local time in Singapore Hospital because of multi organ failure after she was gang-raped 12 days ago in a driving bus.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit showed up this afternoon at the large protest in Delhi called in memory of the 23-year-old student who died in a Singapore hospital from the horrific injuries she incurred when she was gang-raped on a bus two weeks ago. However, as she lit a candle, the chief minister was surrounded by demonstrators and then taken away by her security.
The 23-year-old student who died in a hospital in Singapore today was flown on an air ambulance from Delhi three nights ago. Dr Yatin Mehta had accompanied her…
The 23-year-old student who was gang-raped on a Delhi bus has died in hospital in Singapore.
