Made public a few weeks ago, the draft National Education Policy 2019 proposes major changes in the government funding policy on education, the structure of school education, the curricular design for school and higher education, the nature of teacher training and recruitment, among other crucial areas of India’s education system. The institutional implications of these policy measures will be wide ranging and deep, and invite therefore a critical and constructive engagement with the draft NEP. What is the process that has guided the making of the NEP? How do the NEP proposals relate to the Right to Education? Do the experiences of the socially marginal communities offer an alternate vantage point for responding to them? These are among the several questions addressed in the panel discussion.
Our Panelists:-
Chandan Gowda - CG is Professor of Sociology at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru."
Shantha Sinha is a former Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, and retired as a Professor, department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad. As secretary trustee of MV Foundation she worked towards abolition of child labor and in support of children's right to education.
Sujatha Suryapally - Professor of Sociology at Satavahana University & Activist.
Ritesh Khunyakari- Faculty at TISS Hyderabad.
Moderator :- Dr.A.Suneetha is a Senior Fellow at Anveshi. She has studied women's madrassas as part of her research on gender and minorities.
Two British track athletes, one a determined Jew, and the other a devout Christian, compete in the 1924 Olympics.
Director: Hugh Hudson
Writer: Colin Welland (original screenplay)
Stars: Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nicholas Farrell
Movies Intro : 7:00 PM
Movies Starts at 7:10 PM
Post-Screening Discussion - 15 mins
Ever since the state government decided to build the new secretariat at the complex of Irrum Manzil, one of the icons of Hyderabad Collective Heritage, there's this huge buzz amongst the activists to safeguard from monument from being razed to the ground. As part of several talks and discussions happened earlier at Lamakaan and at various other places, this talk by Prof Shahnaaz will give the detailed account of the Irrum Manzil, its history and the way out of preserving it from the clutches of the governmental agencies.
Dr Fatima Shahnaz is an international advocate of human rights, a Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science; an author and journalist. She obtained her B.A., M.A. and PhD from the Sorbonne University, Paris, France. Her school-leaving General Certificates of Education was from the Oxford/Cambridge Boards. She was the first Indian/Asian Head Girl at her English boarding school.
She has written one novel, GOLCONDA, on Hyderabad and the end of the Asaf Jahi NIzam’s rule and the integration of Hyderabad into the Indian Union in 1948; this book gives an insider’s insights into the Hyderabad of that period and its palace life. The book was published in New York by News India (Times). Other books include several poetical collections: Sarasvati; Shards; KHAKI –Poems on Pulwama; The New York Poems, In the Arms of Words – Poems whose funds went for the Relief of victims of the Asian Tsunami and Hurrican Katrina in New Orleans (by Sherman Asher publishers, USA) and others. She has given speeches and lectures in the New York area and in India, Delhi and Hyderabad, after returning to her homeland. She has worked on many human rights causes, and women’s rights, in India as well as overseas.
About the book: n this explosive book, Suraj Yengde, a first-generation Dalit scholar educated across continents, challenges deep-seated beliefs about caste and unpacks its many layers. He describes his gut-wrenching experiences of growing up in a Dalit basti, the multiple humiliations suffered by Dalits on a daily basis, and their incredible resilience enabled by love and humour. As he brings to light the immovable glass ceiling that exists for Dalits even in politics, bureaucracy and judiciary, Yengde provides an unflinchingly honest account of divisions within the Dalit community itself-from their internal caste divisions to the conduct of elite Dalits and their tokenized forms of modern-day untouchability-all operating under the inescapable influences of Brahminical doctrines.
This path-breaking book reveals how caste crushes human creativity and is disturbingly similar to other forms of oppression, such as race, class and gender. At once a reflection on inequality and a call to arms, Caste Matters argues that until Dalits lay claim to power and Brahmins join hands against Brahminism to effect real transformation, caste will continue to matter.
About the Author: Suraj Yengde is a Shorenstein Center inaugural post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has worked with leading international organizations in Geneva, London and New York, and is associate editor of Caste: A Global Journal of Social Exclusion. His writings have featured in India Today, the Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Economic and Political Weekly, Huffington Post, the Conversation, Globe Post, Mail and Guardian, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, and Social Transformations, among other leading publications.
The Discussants are:
1. Prof Kancha Illaiah Shepard
2. Dr. Manisha Bangar
Hepatologist, Socio-political Analyst, International speaker on Bahujan Rights, National Vice President People's Party of India-Democratic, Former National Vice President BAMCEF.
3. Prashanth Dontha, HCU
ALL ARE WELCOME. ENTRY IS FREE AND OPEN TO ALL
Well, this fact is true to its core. All stories do not end on a good note. Some have a
tragic conclusion and some end without even a proper closure. A relationship is
characterized by different kinds of emotion. It is a journey. A journey where two people find
each other, accept each other and create magical moments with each other. But what happens when
when this beautiful and magical relation ends! It brings a flood- A flood of emotions
where everything which was initially beautiful and magical, starts to hurt!
Come to watch Meera's story who is going through a similar kind of trauma.
Safarnama presents a Hindi Play- 'Broken' which will definitely touch your soul with its
take on modern day relationships.
A.Suneetha is a feminist scholar and activist who has worked in civil liberties and human rights organisations as well as with women's rights groups. She is part of a team that produced the first bilingual textbook on gender sensitisation in India - Towards a World of Equals. At present, she is a researcher working on gender and minority politics at Anveshi Research Centre on Women's Studies.
A film by Shyam Benegal 1987. 140 min
Shyam Benegal’s SUSMAN is a highly regarded
film. It provides a deep insight into the travails of
the “Ikat” handloom weavers of Pochampally.
From yarn to loom to final product, Susman
captures the backlash of irregular and inadequate
state support for the handloom industry in the 1980s.
The film has a host of powerful performances
including Om Puri, Shabana Azmi and Kulbhushan Kharbanda.
The words of Mandira, a designer, played by
Neena Gupta, resonate even more powerfully
today : “We must make space for creative persons
… so they can function even in an industrialised
society... (along with) a method by which markets
should be made available to craftsmen who work
with their own hands. Do you think we should
allow our remaining skilled craftsmen to die out or
become historical anachronisms?”
The film was selected for the Indian Panorama at Filmotsav 1987, Invited to the London Film Festival, the Chicago Film
Festival, the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Sydney & Melbourne Film Festivals 1987.
It was remade as Kancheevaram in Tamil by Priyadarshan.
Written by Shama Zaidi
Music : Vanraj Bhatia
Cinematography : Ashok Mehta
Editor : Bhanudas Divak
Cast :
Shabana Azmi - Gauramma
Om Puri - Ramulu
Kulbhushan Kharbanda - Narasimha
Neena Gupta -Mandira
Mohan Agashe - President of Handloom
Cooperative Society
K.K. Raina
Annu Kapoor - Lakshmaya
Ila Arun
Anita Kanwar
Pankaj Kapur
Jayant Kripalani
Satish Kaushik
Screening of Shyam Bengal’s masterful film from
1987 on the travails of the weavers of
Pochampally, and the handloom industry.
Followed by a discussion.
7.30 pm, Thursday, 18 July, 2019
at LAMAKAAN (off Road No. 1, Banjara Hills,
Opposite GVK One, Hyderabad – 500034)
The administration has arbitrarily decided that students should pay Rs. 54,650 / - upfront for tuition fee and hostel, without which they will not be allowed access to hostel accommodation. This is clearly an exclusionary step whereby most students belonging to socio-economically marginalized communities will not be able to continue education and in an indirect way reinforces rigid caste structures whereby students only from certain social locations can access quality education. Such a huge monetary expectation runs contrary to the spirit and purpose of an exemplary institution like TISS as well as the previous guidelines which stipulated payment of Rs. 15,000/- as accommodation charges over three instalments.
In addition to the demand of reinstating the earlier fee structure, the TISS Hyderabad Student Action Committee (SAC) also raised in its Charter of Demands the need to enable those students unable to immediately pay the dining hall fee with the option of paying their dues once their student aid and scholarship amounts are disbursed. The fulfilment of this demand requires that the institute provide an assurance to the service provider (the private party running hostel on TISS campus) to this effect, which the administration is reportedly unwilling to do. It is also quite disconcerting that the TISS management seems unwilling to uphold principles of transparency and display its tender documents and contract with the private party Mr. CN Reddy, despite repeated demands from students. This is even more worrying since the private party is charging the students hostel fee for 6 months at an exorbitant rate of Rs. 8,600/- per month, while the semester itself is only for a period of four months ! (while reportedly the same service provider chares Rs. 4,500 outside)
Students have also been complaining that the location of the girls’ hostel is unsafe, with many women facing street sexual harassment near the hostel. However, we are informed that the administration has denied responsibility for their living conditions, stating that the campus is ‘non-residential’ from the current academic year.
In order to bring this issue to light for the general public and mainstream media, we would be grateful if Lamakaan would allow us to conduct a discussion about our present situation and link it with the larger socio-political and economical scenario of our country
Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the South African President, initiates a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn land: enlist the
national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writers: Anthony Peckham (screenplay), John Carlin (book)
Stars: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge
Movies Intro : 7:00 PM
Movies Starts at 7:10 PM
Post-Screening Discussion - 15 mins
About the Book
Aspiring actress Priya is dead. It’s a suicide, and rumour has it that Anil, son of politician and former Telugu-movie superstar Mohan Krishna, drove her to it. Just another film-industry scandal? Or something bigger, much bigger?
Partha, hired by Mohan Krishna’s family to handle the crisis, thinks so. Why won’t such a powerful father defend his son, Partha wonders. Is there an intra-family war? Whose interests are playing out in the media and on social media? Is a political game afoot or is this all connected to Mohan Krishna’s own dubious past? And why are student unions getting involved?
Even as Partha and his associates, Seema and Harish, confront the ethics of being involved in a war with no heroes, they are drawn into a dangerous hunt. They must negotiate a tangled and vicious world to answer one question: a young woman is dead—to whom is her death useful?
Passes - 200/-
Contact # 9700074079
Rachana Mudraboyina is a transgender rights activist from Hyderabad. She is the founder member of Telangana Hijra Intersex Transgender Samiti and also the founder of Trans-Vision, a youtube channel where she is also the writer and director of its web series.
The activity, which is called doing drag, has many motivations, from individual self-expression to mainstream performance. Drag queen activities among stage and street performers may include lip-syncing, live singing, dancing, roasting etc.
Lamakaan invites one and all to this interesting conversation with one of the finest educationists in the country on the National Education Policy 2019.
The draft of NEP 2019 was the first document to be released by the newly elected government in May 2019 and was made public on June 2019. There were suggestions invited from the public. The draft policy is an important document about the education in the so-called new India and its implementation will have a great impact on all the stakeholders Therefore, Lamakaan believes that it needs to be discussed widely.
About Prof Anil Sadgopal: Prof Anil Sadgopal is an Indian educationist and activist, known for the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme and for advocacy related to the Right to Education (RTE) Act. He is a recipient of several awards and honours, including the Jamnalal Bajaj Award for 'Application of Science and Technology for Rural Development'. He was instrumental in setting up the Eklavya foundation in 1982. For over a decade, he was Professor of Education at Delhi University and headed its Department of Education during 1998-2001. Since 2004-2005, he has been campaigning for changes in the RTE Act, which he believes is flawed.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
While the psychoanalysis increasingly focuses on the immediate causes behind the students’ suicides viz. depression, stress etc. But the question remains as to what it is that causes the students go into such a state at first place? Analyses employed mainly by psychiatric means tend to make the underlying systemic factors as secondary. It must be asked why after 72 years of independence, Indian state has failed to provide an environment in the campuses which is free from any kind of discrimination. Further, why hasn’t the state been able to ensure a respectable employment to everyone. After all, what it is that makes parents have unrealistic expectations from their children? What it is that causes this rat race amongst students and starts the process of dehumanizing from their age of innocence? How is it possible that even today the students from lower-castes have to face casteist slurs by upper-caste students? All of this cannot be understood merely from psychoanalytical dimensions. Instead, those dimensions must be placed in the overall socio-economic scenario of this country. Only then, we can come to a conclusion that can be a real guide to further action. In Defense of Reason, a discussion forum, cordially invites you to have a discussion on this issue in Lamakaan on July 30, 2019. No registrations are required. Please come and do not forget to spread the word.
Play a short skit on incidents
A coach with a checkered past and a local drunk train a small town high school basketball team to become a top contender for the championship.
Director: David Anspaugh
Writer: Angelo Pizzo
Stars: Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper
Movies Intro : 7:00 PM
Movies Starts at 7:10 PM
Post-Screening Discussion - 15 mins
It is a different rather seldom Love Story which evolves in a routine college life, A Hindu Middle class girl who is very Confident, Practical, Smart, Bold, Beautiful, Bindass and Extrovert falling in love with simple & reserved Muslim Boy who suppresses his identity in his college.
The story unfolds their respective fathers Friendship, Trust, Admiration, loyalty and great respect towards each other and its family. The story also deals with the bomb blast, riots, political issues, communalism, terrorism, fascism, mythos, intolerance and patriotism.
Come hear Anil share his fascinating story about his travels and travails.
This will be a two day/two session event which is open for all age groups,
Children below 12 need to be accompanied by parents, but they will be considered as individual participants, participants can take away their creative works at the end of the session. This will be a 3 hours workshop on day one (clay design moulding, casting)and two hours session on day two (painting the murals )
All the required Materials will be provided for the work shop,
Participation fee is 300 per day,
The workshop is conducted by National award winning artists ( sculpture Sri.Kota Partha Saradha, & painter crimson )
For queries contact : 9959864467,9182783684 .
Capacity ~ 50 members
Date - 3rd August ( Saturday ) 2019
Time - 07:30 pm to 09:00 pm
Venue - Lamakaan, Banjara Hills, Rd No 01
Donor Pass - Rs 200/-
Online Booking on in.bookmyshow.com
This will be a two day/two session event which is open for all age groups,
Children below 12 need to be accompanied by parents, but they will be considered as individual participants, participants can take away their creative works at the end of the session. This will be a 3 hours workshop on day one (clay design moulding, casting)and two hours session on day two (painting the murals )
All the required Materials will be provided for the work shop,
Participation fee is 300 per day,
The workshop is conducted by National award winning artists ( sculptor Sri.Kota Partha Saradha, & painter crimson )
For queries contact : 9959864467,9182783684 .
Ponni Arasu is a queer feminist activist. She has been part of queer collectives and advocacy groups such as Nigah, Anjuman and Voices Against 377. In her capacity as a legal practitioner and researcher at the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore, she worked with the LesBit collective. She is also a historian of public politics in Tamilnadu.
In spite of the US government’s Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act, supposedly strict and powerful regulatory agencies like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency are almost helpless to mitigate the contamination left by the nuclear industry.
This film explores how colonialism, which came to the Southwest with Spanish conquest, has changed face in modern time, as it is played out in a new quest for mineral resources.
Contaminated land, water, and air have left these poor communities helpless. Their efforts to gain justice have failed. Indigenous and poverty-stricken communities who suffered the most are trapped and exploited, as new mining companies continue to disregard the health and environment of these people with the lure of a better economy, jobs and new In Situ Leach uranium mining methods.
Unfortunately, this is the same sad story repeated in other parts of the world including India, but in India it is the government itself undertaking the enterprise and repeating the same degradation in Jadugoda (Jharkhand).
Why a handloom Day?
Importance of Handlooms N Handicrafts?
Need to feel responsible to protect our cultural heritage?
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky (as Andrey Tarkovskiy)
Writers: Stanislaw Lem (novel) (as Stanislav Lem), Fridrikh Gorenshteyn (screenplay) (as F. Gorenshteyn)
Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet
Movies Intro : 7:00 PM
Movies Starts at 7:10 PM
Post-Screening Discussion - 15 mins
Climate change is here! We are already seeing monsoon vagaries every year and frequent extreme weather events like the very heavy rainfall in Mumbai in July 2019, and in Kerala in August 2018. The probability of remaining within 1.5-2oC temperature rise above pre-industrial times that scientists consider a do-not-cross redline now appears to be low. If greenhouse gas emissions do not come down drastically in the near future, temperature rise is likely to be 3-4oC, and the consequences of this will be catastrophic. South Asia is one of the two most vulnerable regions to climate change impacts. The 2015 inter-governmental Paris Agreement to check climate change does not seem to be succeeding. People need to step in now. What should we do to form a people's rainbow coalition to tackle a now imminent climate crisis? What should its programme be?
Panel: K Babu Rao, Kajal Gupta, NS Prasad, Gangadhar Pandey, Arpit Sharma
Chair: T Vijayendra
ALL ARE WELCOME!
This panel discussion is a curtain raiser kind of an event for the forthcoming SAPACC meeting, Hyderabad 18-21 September 2019
More details about SAPACC:
https://www.ecologise.in/sapacc/
One side Modi Government’s anti people policies are pushing majority of the masses towards unemployment and misery and on the other side the government has recently passed subsequent bills in Parliament which will curb the democracy further and establish a complete authoritative fascist state. Bill like UAPA is aimed at suppressing any dissenting voice by labelling them as terrorists. RTI bill is also amended so that the government can operate without any accountibility and at the same time propagate misinfomations among people. And the recent Bill to abrogate article 370 is an anti democratic and autocratic step towards the people of Kashmir which will fuel fire in future and adversely impact the whole country. It is the duty of everyone now to get back the lost democratic freedom through these bills by raising their voices against it. In order to understand further about these bills in details, all are invited for a discussion at Lamakaan.
Date: 9 August 2019 Time: 07:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Venue: Lamakaan Open Cultural Space, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad-34
ALL ARE WELCOME! Entry Free!!
by Ms. Nandini R Penna and Ms. Suman Krishna intend to conduct this workshop.
9291658463
Free Art Workshop for about 20 Participants.Painting on Canvas using knife painting technique. Materials will be provided by organizers.
presents
An adaptation of Chalam's "MAIDANAM"
A play in Telugu
Produced by Rathna Shekar
Directed by Nasreen Ishaque
Date - 10th & 11th August 2019
Time - 07.30pm
Venue: Lamakaan, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.
Maidanam, one of the most famous and most controversial of Chalam’s novels, dramatises his ideas on marriage, freedom and the moral issues involved in them. Rajeswari, is a young, frustrated housewife. It all starts with her thorough disillusionment with her tradition-bound, unfeeling, emotionally sterile lawyer-husband who is given to treating her as a piece of property, as one who fulfills his sexual and social needs.
Her deliverance comes in the form of Ameer, a client of her husband. Their very first meeting is an emotionally charged and sexually exciting experience. His looks pierce her clothes and caress her all over her body. This is a new experience for her. She has never known anything so exhilarating like that before. When finally Ameer embraces her, in the absence of her husband of course, she reacts with a cry of joy. She feels that Ameer has endowed divinity on her. This realization marks the death of her old self. She plunges headlong into a life of passion and bliss with Ameer.
Soon enough Ameer, asks her to “come away” with him. They decide to go away to “Maidanam,” a wide open plain where they will not be disturbed by society. For a while Rajeswari agonizes over whether she is driven by animalistic lust or noble love or the simple desire to free herself from the shackles of soul-killing traditions.
After living like that for months Rajeshwari gets pregnant. Ameer does not want the baby and wants Rajeshwari to get rid of her pregnancy. Maternal instincts take over her and she refuses. They have a fight and Ameer leaves her alone and vanishes. After Ameer has gone away Rajeswari turns to Meera a handsome sixteen years boy in a major way for emotional and material support.
Hoping to get back Ameer she decides to get rid of her pregnancy with the help of Meera. Things get complicated when Meera starts developing feelings for Rajeshwari. Meanwhile Ameer comes back. He does not like how close Rajeshwari and Meera have become. Now Rajeswari has to choose between Ameer who she truly loves or Meera who acted as her pillar of support in desperate times.
Vasudha Nagaraj is a senior advocate who practices in High Court of
Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. She argues for tribals displaced by
development projects, men and women subjected to police violence,
women facing sexual assault and discrimination and many public interest
litigations too.
Adil Jussawalla writes in the introduction to the volume: 'To enter Ajithan G. Kurup’s poetic world is to risk, in the words of his title poem, dancing “headlong down precipices". It’s rare to find a contemporary poet who dares near-unattainable heights and fearful depths on dancing words... Ajithan's erudition spans a great many cultures and languages, classical and contemporary, and while some of it may seem Greek to the reader who shuns difficulty, it’s a Greek the poet seems truly to have lived in, a language internalised, as though, in fact, the poet was at home in the Greece of ancient times, or had passed through it as a passionately interested traveller.
Ajithan has the uncanny gift of being able to conjure back lands he has been to, using
his own peculiar brand of magic, and to dazzle us with lands he has never seen (as in “Sketches from a Log…”). He is voyager, shaman, and most often seer, in one person.'
Jeet Thayil, another contemporary poet, says: "It is our loss that we did not know Ajithan Kurup’s work when he was alive, and we did not celebrate his brave and lonely project: to render the unsayable into language. He cannot be imitated or replaced, only admired."
presents
An adaptation of Chalam's "MAIDANAM"
A play in Telugu
Produced by Rathna Shekar
Directed by Nasreen Ishaque
Date - 11th August 2019
Time - 07.30pm
Venue: Lamakaan, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.
Maidanam, one of the most famous and most controversial of Chalam’s novels, dramatises his ideas on marriage, freedom and the moral issues involved in them. Rajeswari, is a young, frustrated housewife. It all starts with her thorough disillusionment with her tradition-bound, unfeeling, emotionally sterile lawyer-husband who is given to treating her as a piece of property, as one who fulfills his sexual and social needs.
Her deliverance comes in the form of Ameer, a client of her husband. Their very first meeting is an emotionally charged and sexually exciting experience. His looks pierce her clothes and caress her all over her body. This is a new experience for her. She has never known anything so exhilarating like that before. When finally Ameer embraces her, in the absence of her husband of course, she reacts with a cry of joy. She feels that Ameer has endowed divinity on her. This realization marks the death of her old self. She plunges headlong into a life of passion and bliss with Ameer.
Soon enough Ameer, asks her to “come away” with him. They decide to go away to “Maidanam,” a wide open plain where they will not be disturbed by society. For a while Rajeswari agonizes over whether she is driven by animalistic lust or noble love or the simple desire to free herself from the shackles of soul-killing traditions.
After living like that for months Rajeshwari gets pregnant. Ameer does not want the baby and wants Rajeshwari to get rid of her pregnancy. Maternal instincts take over her and she refuses. They have a fight and Ameer leaves her alone and vanishes. After Ameer has gone away Rajeswari turns to Meera a handsome sixteen years boy in a major way for emotional and material support.
Hoping to get back Ameer she decides to get rid of her pregnancy with the help of Meera. Things get complicated when Meera starts developing feelings for Rajeshwari. Meanwhile Ameer comes back. He does not like how close Rajeshwari and Meera have become. Now Rajeswari has to choose between Ameer who she truly loves or Meera who acted as her pillar of support in desperate times.