Hindi Diwas at IABBV Hindi School

The Vimla Luthra Memorial Hindi Poetry Competition is a highlight, among other activities including skits, dances and a Gandhi exhibition

BY RAJNI ANAND LUTHRA

The only people who never fail, are those who never try. We’ve all heard that motivational quote before. Those of us who grew up in northern India heard of it in the popular poem Koshish karne walon ki kabhi haar nahi hoti.

It was clear that many young Hindi students were motivated by that thought, as a record number signed up for this year’s Vimla Luthra Memorial Hindi Poetry Competition.

Indeed those very same poem was heard fromno less than four different contestants, in various age categories.

Held as part of IABBV Hindi School’s annual Hindi Diwas celebration, the competition gave kids aged 5 to 18 an opportunity to present their poems on stage.

The said poem was significant in another way, guest Rajan Luthra reminded the gathering on the occasion, as it truly captured the ‘never give up’ attitude of his mother Vimla Luthra, after whom the competition is named. A wellloved community figure, Mrs Luthra became a poet late in her life, producing two books and regaling audiences with her recitations. It was one of a number of new endeavours that she took up and mastered in the twilight of her life, such as swimming and driving and new age pursuits like Sudoku, thus perfectly encapsulating the words of poet Sohanlal Dwivedi, Koshish karne waalon ki…

(Yes, the poem is written by Dwivedi, but is often incorrectly attributed to

Harivansh Rai Bachchan, as it was at this most recent IABBV event, simply because his son Amitabh made the most famous rendition of it).

Among the many presentations, we heard poems on quintessentially Indian themes - koel, baarish, garmi ki chuttiayaan, Hindu prayers, Holi, Diwali, Gandhi, even the importance of education especially for girls (which Vimla Luthra would have particularly enjoyed).

Patriotic works were a popular choice: poems based on Bharat desh, on the tiranga (Indian tricolour), on Jhansi ki Rani and Padmini, and that old classic Pushp ki Abhilasha by Makhanlal Chaturvedi took on special significance for the audience, as the service of our forces have been in the spotlight this year.

The little ones went for age-relevant themes like haathi, kela, pedh, chidiya, gubbare, Mummy-Papa.

The judging panel was made up of Santram Bajaj, Kusum Chaudhry, Darshan Behl and Rekha Rajvanshi, all of them litterateurs. Cash prizes were awarded to winners in four categories: Upto 6 years, 7-8 years, 9-12 years, and 13-18 years.

Ayaan Uttam, who won the little kids category, said later, “Mujhe Ganpati Bappa ne jitaya hai (Lord Ganesh helped me win)”. He had worn a yellow Ganpati kurta for the day. Mala Mehta, principal of IABBV Hindi School, said later, “The teachers and I are very pleased with efforts made by the students this year.”

We can only conclude, Hindi poetry is safe in the hands of next-gen kids in Sydney’s Indian community!

Throughout the day, the 32-year service of IABBV Hindi School was acknowledged not only by founder and Principal Mala Mehta OAM, but also many of the invited special guests including Consul General of India Manish Gupta, MPs Geoff Lee, Julian Leeser (himself an ex-student), Julia Finn and MattKean, Multicultural NSW Chair Dr GK Harinath, and educationists Paul Cahill and Dr Robyn Moloney.

The special guests were also given a showcase of cultural activities by the students, including a skit on environmental awareness, and dances in the Bollywood, Kathak, Dandiya and Bhangra styles.

Students who have excelled in Hindi as well as teachers who have served at IABBV for a long period were felicitated.

Mahatma Gandhi made a special appearance at this year’s Hindi Diwas at IABBV, given Indians the world over are marking his 150th birth anniversary this year. He watched on from his life-size cutouts as the kids recited their poems, as Darcy Road Public School students sang Sabarmati ke Sant, as others presented the skit Bapuka Uphaar, and as all attendees walked through an exhibition of photos devoted to his life.

The photographic exhibition, entitled ‘Mahatma Gandhi: My life is my message’ is produced by India’s National Gandhi Museum and the Government of India’s Ministry of External Affairs. As an exhibition on the move, it has been seen by students in over 20 Sydney schools now.

Rushdie's 'Quichotte' shortlisted for 2019 Booker Prize

Award-winning and internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie's new novel Quichotte is in the race to win this year’s 50,000 pound Booker Prize for Fiction.

The news of the shortlist broke with an announcement from the organisers of one of the leading literary awards in the Englishspeaking world.

Quichotte is published in India by Penguin Random House India, making it the only nominee by an Indian publisher in this year's shortlist. This book is published under the Hamish Hamilton imprint in India, and was simultaneously released in the UK and India on August 29.

Inspired by the classic Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Quichotte is one of the most anticipated books of the year and opened to exceptional reviews from the media. It is the 14th novel from the prize-winning author, the story of an ageing travelling salesman who falls in love with a TV star and sets off to drive across America on a quest to prove himself worthy of her hand. The tragicomic tale is one of our deranged times, and deals, along the way, with father-son relationships, sibling quarrels, racism, cyber-spies, and the end of the world.

Commenting on the nomination, Rushdie said, "It has been 19 years since The Moor's Last Sigh made it to the shortlist, so I'm obviously delighted. I'm also happy to be chosen, alongside such terrific writers, to be part of an interesting, strong list."

Meru Gokhale, publisher of Penguin Press, Penguin Random House India, said, "In Quichotte, Salman Rushdie has again caught the zeitgeist by writing a novel that engages hilariously and meaningfully with the absurdities of the contemporary world, taking in pop culture, TV soaps, America's opioid crisis, giants of world literature, and much more besides. It offers moments of pure pleasure for every reader. We are delighted to be Salman Rushdie's publisher, and not surprised that he is once more in line for the Booker Prize for Fiction."

Rushdie is the author of 14 novels including Midnight's Children, for which he won the Man Booker Prize, the Booker of Bookers Prize, and the Best of the Booker Prize. He has also published one collection of short stories and four works of non-fiction, including the internationally acclaimed bestseller, Joseph Anton, and has co-edited two anthologies.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature. His books have been translated into over forty languages.

The other books on the shortlist:

• Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)

• Lucy Ellmann (US/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)

• Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)

• Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)

• Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)

The judges' panel was chaired by Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, and consisted of former fiction publisher and editor Liz Calder; novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo; writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch; and pianist and composer Joanna Mac Gregor. The winner of the Booker Prize will be announced on October 14.

Trump to attend 'Howdy Modi' rally

In a rare honour, US President Donald Trump will make an unprecedented appearance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the "Howdy Modi" ethnic rally in Houston on Sunday 22 Sept, the White House has announced.

"It will be a great opportunity to emphasize the strong ties between the people of the United States and India, to reaffirm the strategic partnership between the world's oldest and largest democracies, and to discuss ways to deepen their energy and trade relationship," the White House said recently.

"The event, 'Howdy, Modi! Shared Dreams, Bright Futures,' is expected to draw tens of thousands of people," it added.

The joint appearance will boost Modi's presence on the US stage and will also be controversial in the divisive US political landscape. It is also an outreach ahead of next year's election by Trump to the Indian American community that leans towards the Democratic Party. According to new Research, only 18 percent of Indian Americans support the Republican Party, while 65 percent back the Democrats.

Trump has reached out to the IndianAmerican community, which is the highestearning and among the highly educated ethnic group in the US to draw them into the Republican fold with his message of fighting terrorism and promoting pro-growth economic policies. During the campaign the 2016 election, Trump attended a rally organised by the Republican Hindu coalition with the theme, "Humanity United against Terror".

Indian Americans have contributed about $1 million to the Trump re-election campaign and $2 million to Democrats as of June 30, according to research by The Los Angeles Times.

Trump's strong backing for India against terrorism as well as his administration's position that removing Kashmir's special status under Article 370 of the Constitution have strong support in the Indian community. However, there have also been tension over trade because of Trump's American First policy.

On the other side, the joint Trump-Modi meeting will draw Modi into the vortex of divisive US politics. Pakistani groups have been mobilising for a protest outside the "Howdy Mody" event. Other protests can now be expected alongside theirs.

Hindus in this Bihar village cross religious lines to maintain centuries-old mosque

India is a country where gross generalisations can be made on the basis of single incidents or events. Though the temple-mosque dispute in the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh is what grabs frequent media headlines over "HinduMuslim conflict", not too far away in the village of Maadhi, in Nalanda district of Bihar, there are Hindus who quietly manage a mosque and conduct its regular prayers even though the village is now virtually empty of Muslims.

The Maadhi village situated 100 km from Patna, made up of but 1,200 households, was once known for its large Shia Muslim population. No Muslims live here now, but namaz is offered five times a day by the Hindus.

The Hindus also take care of the maintenance of the lone mosque. "We (Hindus) don't know the azaan, but a pen drive (with a recording of the azaan) is played every day to perform the ritual," said Hans Kumar, a village resident.

Construction work is ongoing at the Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan, 16 Sept 2019, the first visa-free border crossing with India, a corridor that will allow Sikh pilgrims to easily visit their shrines on each side of the border. The crossing, known as the Kartarpur corridor is a rare sign of cooperation between the two nuclear-armed rival countries.

According to the villagers, Maadhi once had a sizeable Muslim population, but residents have all migrated to other parts of the country for better opportunities.

"There was no one to take care of the mosque, so the Hindus had to come forward," said Gautam, who takes care of the mosque.

Gautam said no one knows when the mosque was constructed and by whom, but local residents say on the basis of folklore that the mosque is 200 to 250 years old. There is also a tomb in front of the mosque where people offer prayers.

"The mosque is cleaned and prayers are offered every morning and evening. Whenever there is a problem, people come here for redressal," said Janki Pandit, the village priest.

After a wedding, even newly-wed couples come here first to take blessings, said a villager.

Villagers also take out Muharram procession every year in which almost all the residents of the village participate. Most of the Muslim residents in the village were Shias.

"Hindus themselves make tazia during Muharram, and take out the procession", a ward member Laxmi Devi told IANS.

A villager Sanjay Paswan said, "The tazia procession during Muharram ends at the tomb of Hazrat Ismail Rahamatullah."

Villagers believe that even if there are no Muslims here, this mosque and the tomb protects people from bad omen.

The village also celebrates Hindu and Muslim festivals together in keeping with the country's traditional syncretic culture. Sometimes Durga Puja and Muharram are observed simultaneously. The expenses are shared among the villagers.

Block Development Officer Mohammad Firoze, under whose charge this village falls, says that it is a great example of communal harmony at a time when there is a lot of distrust between the two communities.

During festivals, special arrangements are made to maintain law and order and communal peace everywhere, but in this village there is no such problem as all the festivals are celebrated peacefully, says Firoze.

Safarnama app reanimates Delhi's ancient monuments

There have been guidebooks, bus tours, videos, pamphlets, walkabouts et al, but a new app 'Safarnama' is set to "capture the way history in Delhi is actually held within and under the stones" in short bursts as you travel across the city.

"We wanted to capture the way history in Delhi is actually held within and under the stones - so much extraordinary heritage is embedded within small places and barely seen fragments," said Dr Debs Sutton, a

Senior Lecturer in Modern South Asian History at the Lancaster University, who developed the app with the aid of a grant from its Arts and Humanities Research Council and in association with Centre for the Study of Developing Studies (CSDS) in the national capital.

"I wanted others to feel the energy of the city's fabric and heritage as I do. With that in mind we really thought about how technology could reanimate the city. There are so many stories to be told and so many sounds to hear - and the app provides the medium to do this. It's a new way of seeing the past - a fantastic philosophy," Sutton told IANS.

Sutton lived in Delhi for five years and was captivated by the "energy and excitement" of the city when she studied for a PhD at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The app contains images, texts, newspaper cuttings and audio recordings that tell the stories of Delhi in the years after the partition of the subcontinent that displaced millions of people and caused unparalleled violence. Delhi was transformed by this displacement.

Refugees were accommodated in monuments, mosques, temples and thousands of people opened their doors to offer shelter to those forced to leave their homes.

Refugee centres were opened to provide training and jobs to refugees and hundreds of new businesses were established across the city.

The app will enable users to hear these stories at the places they took place. As they near particular points of interest, travellers will receive a push notification. If they pass close enough - within a 'trigger zone' - their phone will automatically open the media associated with the place of interest.

How did this project come about?

"The work evolved from my historical research on the ways in which Delhi heritage has been animated by and integrated into the city of Delhi in the twentieth century. Despite the best efforts of the Imperial government to set monuments apart from the everyday life of the city, monuments were always animated by all sorts of social (and often economic) occupation. This led me to think about the proliferation of physical heritage across the city. Notified monuments are only a small fraction of the extraordinarily rich and complex history of the city.

"Safarnama is an attempt to capture that variety and to allow new publics to engage with heritage. The app promotes that engagement as part of everyday mobility, rather than as occasional visits to monuments," Sutton explained.

What did the development process involve?

"It was a long one! I was awarded funding by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK to get together with others to think about the potential of digital heritage in complex and fast changing urban environments. We started out using a different software and about six months ago the software developer and I decided to start again and create a purpose-built authoring tool. This authoring tool and platform allows the creation and dissemination of different experiences.

"Other partners include INTACH Delhi, Hilal Ahmed at CSDS, the Centre for Community Knowledge at AUD (Ambedkar University Delhi) and the New DelhiBerkley-based 1947 Partition Archive.

How were the monuments chosen?

"In all sorts of ways. I had been working on the occupation of mosques, mandirs and monuments by Partition refugees when I started thinking about the project. That is why I proposed the Partition City Delhi as the first, proof of concept digital heritage experience. Thereafter, we drew on a huge range of archives and scholarly publications," Sutton said.

What's next?

An Industrial Heritage Experience for Mumbai and an app for Karachi, Sutton concluded.

1,000 PhD fellowships for ASEAN students at IITs

In a unique capacity building initiative, India recently launched 1,000 PhD fellowships that could be taken up at the IITs, for the students from ASEAN countries. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' jointly launched the programme here.

The fellowships could be taken up at the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country.

Officials said that with a total outlay of Rs 300 crore, the fellowship programme is touted to be the largest capacity development initiative by India in partnership with ASEAN. The fellowship will cover the full cost of study and living expenses for a duration of up to five years.

"Honoured to launch the largest capacity-building programme in the #ASEAN India partnership - offering 1000 fellowships to the students from our SE Asian neighbourhood to carry out doctoral research at IITs. Thank Ministry of HRD @DrRPNishank & IIT for this initiative," tweeted Jaishankar.

IIT Delhi has been designated by the HRD ministry to coordinate for the fellowship programme that was launched at the External Affairs Ministry.

"To strengthen the deep and historical ties between India and ASEAN, India's foremost technical education centres, the internationally-renowned Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), welcome scholars from ASEAN countries to apply for PhD fellowships. Applicants may apply online on our portal at http://asean.iitd.ac.in," the MEA said in a release.

It further said, "Those selected can complete their PhD with Government of India funding at par with Indian counterparts. Such funding will cover the entire cost of study and living expenses for up to five years of a PhD programme."

The ministry also added that in January 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced India's offer to provide up to 1,000 integrated PhD fellowships for ASEAN students in IITs while attending the 25th Anniversary ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in New Delhi.

The HRD Minister said that the ASEAN nations share deep cultural ties and this will be strengthened by this fellowship programme.

"The fellowships will strengthen our cultural, technical and financial relations. It will foster the three Cs -- culture, commerce and connectivity," he said.

Govt nudges Apple Inc to increase Indian operations' scope

Hailing its presence in the country, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Apple Inc to scale up operations in India from its current presence as the tech giant has just started manufacturing phones and components for both domestic use and exports purpose.

"Apple has started manufacturing phones in India including components. They have started making iPhones in India and also components both for exports. But this is just a tip of the iceberg. I want a robust presence of Apple in India. A super robust presence of Samsung in India. Apple is also on board as far as the India story in concerned," R. S. Prasad told media after a roundtable discussion with CEOs of global manufacturing companies who raised issues of tariffs, taxes, single window clearance, component manufacturing, among others.

Apple has started to export iPhones to some European markets from India, which boosts the government's 'Make in India' and also the company's projection of making India an export hub.

Though Prasad declined to link India's opportunity to become a manufacturing hub for electronics due to the US-China trade war, it is believed that Apple's suppliers and partners like Foxconn or Wistron have been hinted by the US company to move production outside China gradually to some extent.

In the past years, the government's measures to promote electronics manufacturing include the modified special incentive package scheme, the phased manufacturing programme, electronics manufacturing clusters and the electronics development fund.

Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT) President Nitin Kunkolienker highlighted the need for creation of a component manufacturing hub in India that needs to be promoted aggressively by incentivisation by the government. It also included offering a production-linked export incentive, leveraging India's geo-political influence and FTA influence with countries to accept BIS and TEC standards as sufficient to access to their markets.

India has set its sight on creating a $400 billion (around Rs 28.43 lakh crore) electronic manufacturing ecosystem by 2025, and notified a new policy to boost manufacturing activities.

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BY SHYAMAL

The Emu in the Sky: The indigenous Papunya community of NT tell a story of a blind man whose wife is killed the Milky Way, where it can still be seen today. The photograph above shows the celestial clouds of the Milky beaches on a new moon winter night, with my Nikon D750 and Nikkor 24-70 mm f/2.8 lens. It is a 20-sec exposure she has not yet forgiven me for making her stay still