Carnatic's digital incarnation

Lovers of Carnatic music rejoice! Besides the month-long classical music fair in the form of live concerts that will be held in the Tamil month of Margazhi (December 15 to January 15), you will now be able to enjoy such musical treats from the comfort of your neighbourhood multiplex. On December 18, "Margazhi Raagam", a 110-minute film of nine songs performed by popular Carnatic singers Bombay Jayasree and TM Krishna, will hit the big screens.

Bringing this whole new musical experience to you is Jayendra, director and well-known ad filmmaker. “Live concerts have their own charm, but they also come with their own disadvantages, like low audio quality and noise disturbances. Visually too the result is not so satisfying, keeping in mind the distance between the stage and the audience, and the unflattering lighting. Besides, the microphone positioned right in front of the singer makes it virtually impossible for the audience to see emotions on the singer’s face. There are a lot of factors like that. But in "Margazhi Raagam", such shortcomings have been erased,” Jayendra told TSI. ...Continue

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India is still fumbling for a response to Pakistan in the aftermath of its worst ever terror strike, writes Ranjit Bhushan

So what can India do more substantially? According to former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, India should immediately suspend the composite dialogue with Islamabad, along with a slew of other measures: suspend rail and road communications, suspend cross-border and LoC border trade and even reduce Pakistan High Commission's staff strength.

Islamabad has already refused firmly to hand over either Dawood or Azhar. Some experts say that while the LeT is being accused of being the mastermind, there is enough to suggest that the well-trained commando killers were from Pakistan Army, engineered to create opportunities for moving their beleaguered troops from the Afghanistan border to the Indian side, particularly because American drones have continued to hit Pakistani positions on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The US, aware of the potentially volatile situation in south Asia, and certain knowledge that if India engages Pakistan on its eastern border then its war on terror in Afghanistan would be compromised, rushed in Condoleezza Rice to assuage India’s feelings. And she commended India's restraint so far. But Rice told the media on her arrival: "I have said that Pakistan needs to act with resolve and urgency, and cooperate fully and transparently, and that message has been delivered."

In 2002, after the attack on the Indian Parliament, the then NDA government had backed the demarche with heavy troops mobilisation and a threat to fight a "once and for all" battle with Pakistan. That never happened. This time, however, the world waits with trepidition as to what the next move is going to be....Continue

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What does one have to be -- and do -- to become a shankaracharya?

The authentic Hindu religious tradition prescribed a much more austere anointing procedure. The Sanskrit scripture Mathamnaya Upanishad clearly lays down the shankaracharyas’ selection process and in Mahanushashan Upanishad are listed the rules for eligibility. It is a foolproof process. The tradition is that shankaracharyas anoint their successors during their lifetime; following which the anointed person is granted recognition by the Kashi Vidvat Parishad. This is a 150-year-old organisation with 35 living members -- most of them eminent Sankrit scholars. So how come things have gone so horribly wrong? For, barring minor disputes over posts and perks, there seems nothing much wrong with the KVP’s activities. The rot that has set in is entirely due to various vested interests, which have raised at least three similar sounding committees like the Varanasi Vidvat Parisgad, the Varanaseya Vidvat Parishad and the Akhil Bhartiya Vidvat Parishad. And bodies like these have been covertly selling degrees and posts – with the result that dozens of self-styled shankaracharyas have sprung up in different parts of the country.

The life sketches of the likes of Sudhakar Dwivedi show how these nondescript people, who somehow found the money to buy their grandiloquent titles, came to sully and ultimately criminalise the faith. Dwivedi, the son of a police sub-inspector (who retired early this month) quit his job in 1993 to become Swami Amritanand. And then, along with his friend Rajesh Pachauri, he set up the Sharda Sarvagyapeeth in 1999. In 2003 he moved to Kashmir where he declared himself a shankaracharya.

The septuagenarian Shastri vividly remembers the 2003 developments. “KVP vice- president Ram Yatna Shukla and its spokesman Shivji Upadhyaya came to me with Pachauri to say they had convened a meeting of the KVP executive to anoint Amritanand as shankaracharya of Jammu. And they claimed to have the support of other KVP members like Adya Pradas Mishra, Rammurthy Chaturvedi, Rajeshwar Upadhyay, Vashishtha Tripathi and Paras Nath Tripathi. I objected on two counts. One, Jammu isn’t a peeth. The northern seat of Shankaracharya is in Badrinath. And two, I came to know that Dwivedi had two wives and that the matter was in court.”...Continue

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Farmers are reeling under power crisis and rain shortage

KARNATAKA : POWER CRISIS

The agricultural yield, including food grains and vegetables, have gone down by more than 50 per cent this year. Adding to the farmers’ woes, there was a loss of groundnut crop worth Rs 225 crores. Of the 1,45,533 hectares of land cultivated during the kharif season, 90,389 metric tonnes of crops in 1,41,730 hectares of land were spoiled, agriculture department officials informed. This ‘powerless’ situation has affected not only Chitradurga but farmers across the state. “Over 37 per cent of the land in Karnataka is cultivatable, and around 50 lakh acres of land is irrigated through pump sets. But shortage of rain, followed by severe power shortages, will only worsen the situation.

This is responsible for the spiraling prices of vegetables,” says KS Puttannaiah, president of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, who holds the government responsible for the current crisis. “The government tends to mislead the farmers, assuring them free power supply during the monsoons. But when the rain stops, the load shedding begins,” complained Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, working president of Karnataka state farmers’ association. Some drastic needs to be done to bail out the farmers. Now!....Continue

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