With a shelf life of 1,000 years, Dinesh Magar’s art celebrates grandeur of metallic sheen and bold hues
Bengaluru :
Technology has percolated different streams of art, but Dinesh Magar prefers to follow the traditional method for creating his works. After all, he says, his chosen medium – brass – has been used in Indian temples for centuries. The city-based artist is exhibiting 15 paintings from his latest series, called ‘Heaven Sent’, at Gallery G. The exhibition will continue till Oct. 15.
Magar, whose work is considered a good mix of mural, painting and sculpture, has always found mythology as his muse. So no points for guessing what his latest series is about. “I have always found mythology very interesting. And it’s not restricted to Hinduism. A lot of my art pieces are based on Buddhism, Jainism and Christianity, so that they can reach a wider audience,” says Magar, who is a board member of Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath.
Ask Magar about what fascinated him about this particular style of art, and he replies, “I have always found water and acrylic painting really intricate and difficult, which is the same as brass painting. But in the latter medium, there is no scope for mistakes. Whatever you decide to do, it’s set in brass, and is difficult to undo.” The 50-year-old artist, who has been pursuing this passion for over 27 years, adds that even the temperature used on the brass plate affects the painting. Another reason for his choice, he mentions, is that brass has been an important metal used in Indian temples. “Since many of my painting are on mythology, it gels well with the theme,” he adds.
Brass paintings have a shelf life of almost 1,000 years. But he does not want to stick to just the basic art. In an effort to make each piece one of its kind, some of the paintings are also embedded with crystals. The works are priced beginning at `2.5 lakh, and the cost goes up to `7.5 lakh. “But I can assure anybody who owns a piece made by me that it will be exclusive to them and there won’t be any other like it,” says Magar, who also works as an art consultant for different companies. The exhibition is on at Gallery G, Lavelle Road, till Oct. 15
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Monika Monalisa / Express News Service / September 22nd, 2020
Aadi Swaroopa displaying her writing skills. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Swaroopa toys with nine other forms too, including simultaneously writing in Kannada and English
15-year-old Aadi Swaroopa can write with ease using both the hands in unidirectional way. She has also mastered writing in nine different ways including speed writing with right and left hand, reverse running writing and mirror image writing.
Daughter of Gopadkar and Sumadkar, Ms. Swaroopa recently secured a certificate from Uttar Pradesh-based Barelia Lata Foundation for writing 45 words in a minute in an unidirectional way.
Ms. Swaroopa, who is writing the SSLC examination this year as a private candidate, picked up writing with left hand two years ago during a summer camp conducted by her parents, who manage Swaroopa Adhyayana Kendra – a centre that promotes self-learning.
It’s during the lockdown, when there were not much children at the Kendra, that Ms. Swaroopa started practising different forms of writing using both hands. “It’s continuous practice that helped me to improve my speed,” said Ms. Swaroopa, who started writing at the age of three. “I keep on adding new forms of writing.”
On Monday, Ms. Swaroopa demonstrated her skill before reporters by writing the line “See the line where the sky meets the sea ..” unidirectionally. She then wrote the same sentence in the opposite direction, followed by speed writing with right and left hand separately and also writing the mirror image of the sentence. She also showed her heterotopic style of writing, and the hetero linguistic style that involved simultaneously writing in Kannada and English. She showed dancing form, exchange form and her blindfolded writing skill too.
Ms. Swaroopa, who has already come out with a short story book in Kannada and a fiction book in English, said writing with both hands has had positive effect on her creativity. “I am now writing my second novel,” said Ms. Swaroopa, who is a voracious reader, an Yakshagana artiste, a Hindustani classical singer and an artist. She loves mimicry and performs beatbox.
Gopadkar and Sumadkar said they have liberated their daughter from the pressure of learning in a classroom. “She has all the skills to become a good writer,” said Sumadkar.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Mangaluru – September 23rd, 2020
Nori, along with Indu Antony, Krishanu Chatterjee and Vivek Muthuramalingam has been working on this hands-on project through the lockdown.
From left: Vivek Muthuramalingam, Aparna Nori, Indu Antony and Krishanu Chatterjee
Bengaluru :
Feeling that she has forgotten her mother’s fragrance and the touch of her cool hands, photoartist Aparna Nori has made a diptych, a memory of her mother’s favourite bloom, the rajnigandha (tuberose).
“I wanted my work to have a multi-sensorial experience,” she says about her work titled ‘Memory is My Sixth Sense’. It has been made using the salt technique, a process dating back to the 1800s.
Nori, along with Indu Antony, Krishanu Chatterjee and Vivek Muthuramalingam has been working on this hands-on project through the lockdown. The collective is now exhibiting their works, ‘Being in a State of Salax’, at Kanike, their studio, which is complete with a dark room set up, on appointment basis.
A part of Nori’s work, ‘Memory is my Sixth Sense
Quite tired of looking at the digital screen, this long-drawn out process has been meditative, says Antony. Feeling a sense of resonance with abandoned photographs, she says, “I have been collecting images, especially of women, from various places. Salt prints have an ephemeral quality to them, they fade, they disappear in front of your eyes – like the abandoned people.” She wanted to preserve them or their existence by stitching the edges of the photograph with her hair which eventually will be the only part of this work that will remain and the empty space to question our existence.
“Each of us has expressed ourselves in different ways without restricting ourselves. From photographs to drawings, our visual language has been varied,” Antony says. During the lockdown, Muthuramalingam woke up every morning to the calls of the visiting birds in his mother’s garden, that made him reminisce about his birding days.
“I took to drawing and rendered the birds that remained in my memory, an exercise that offered me considerable solace,” says Muthuramalingam, who as a part of his photographic documentation of the projects of Biome Environmental Solutions (a Bengaluru-based design firm with a focus on architecture, ecology and water), has created a series of salt prints for their forthcoming book.
“Much like Biome’s architectural creations, each of which is made considering a unique set of challenges – local materials, location, weather and client aspirations – the making of the salt prints considers a variety of parameters too. Quite often the prints don’t necessarily turn out the way it was envisioned, yet yield a different, but surprisingly good result,” he says.
‘Talaash’ by Chatterjee
With the digital world having broken barriers, they will do a virtual walk through of the show at the end of the week. Next up is a salt print workshop to teach the technique, scheduled in the next two weeks.
‘Being in a State of Salax’ is on until Sept. 25, at Kanike, Cooke Town, between 11am and 6pm.
Know How The salted paper technique was created in the mid-1830s by English scientist and inventor Henry Fox Talbot. Acid-free paper is coated with salt and silver nitrate, which makes the paper photo sensitive. A negative is then imprinted through contact print. It involves multiple levels of washing, seven to be precise and no two prints look the same. The toning of prints being exhibited has been done with gold chloride.
Visits by appointment. E-mail: kanikestudios@gmail.com
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Vidya Iyengar / Express News Service / September 21st, 2020
The subject of the portrait is Devajammani, says historian Nigel Chancellor / COURTESY: SOTHEBY’S
When Devajammani arrived at the royal court of Mysore in 1805, it was to marry Krishnaraja Wadiyar III. They were both 12 years of age and he was the newly minted ruler of the southern Indian kingdom.
But Devajammani soon found herself recruited for a more momentous cause – to publicise and promote the smallpox vaccine. And her unwitting role was captured in a painting commissioned by the East India Company to “encourage participation in the vaccination programme”, according to Dr Nigel Chancellor, a historian at Cambridge University.The cure for smallpox was fairly new – it had been discovered just six years before by Edward Jenner, an English doctor – and met with suspicion and resistance in India. Not least because it was being championed by the British, whose power was rising at the turn of the 19th Century.But the British would not give up on their grand scheme to inoculate Indians – they justified the cost and effort of saving “numerous lives, which have yearly fallen a sacrifice” to the virus with the promise of “increased resources derived from abundant population”.What followed was a deft mix of politics, power and persuasion by the East India Company to introduce the world’s first ever vaccine to India, their biggest colonial enterprise. It involved British surgeons, Indian vaccinators, scheming company bosses and friendly royals – none more so than the Wadiyars, indebted to the British who had put them back on the throne after more than 30 years of exile.
The women in the painting
Dr Chancellor believes this painting, dated to around 1805, is not just a record of the queen’s vaccination but also a window into how the British effort unfolded.
The portrait, an arresting rendition in oil on canvas, was last offered for sale via Sotheby’s auction house in 2007. Its subjects were unknown – and thought to be dancing girls or courtesans – until Dr Chancellor stumbled upon it.He says he “immediately felt this was wrong”.He identified the woman on the right in the painting as Devajammani, the younger queen. He said her sari would have typically covered her left arm, but it was left exposed so she could point to where she had been vaccinated “with a minimum loss of dignity”.The woman on the left, he believes, is the king’s first wife, also named Devajammani. The marked discoloration under her nose and around her mouth is consistent with controlled exposure to the smallpox virus, Dr Chancellor said. Pustules from patients who had recovered would be extracted, ground to dust and blown up the nose of those who had not had the disease. It was a form of inoculation known as variolation, that was meant to induce a milder infection.
COURTESY: SOTHEBY’S
Dr Chancellor cited details to support his theory, which was first published in an article in 2001. For one, the date of the painting matches the Wadiyar king’s wedding dates and the court records from July 1806, announcing that Devjammmani’s vaccination had a “salutary influence” on people who came forward to be inoculated. Two, as an expert in Mysore history, Dr Chancellor is certain the “heavy gold sleeve bangles” and “the magnificent headdresses” are characteristic of Wadiyar queens. Also, the artist, Thomas Hickey, had earlier painted the Wadiyars and other members of the court.And most important, he wrote, is the “compelling candour” with which they engage the viewer. Half-smiling royal women striking a casual pose for a European painter is rare enough to raise eyebrows. And the Wadiyars would have not have risked a scandal, Dr Chancellor said, for a run-of-the-mill portrait.But what if it was quid pro quo?It was a heady time for the East India Company. In 1799, it had defeated one of its last great foes, Mysore’s ruler, Tipu Sultan, and put the Wadiyars in his place. But British dominance was still not assured.So, according to Dr Chancellor, William Bentick, the governor of Madras (now Chennai), sensed a political opportunity in battling a deadly disease.And the British were keen on getting the vaccine to India to “protect the expat population,” says Professor Michael Bennett, a historian who has documented the arduous journey of the vaccine to India in his book, War Against Smallpox.In India, smallpox infections were high and fatalities common – symptoms included fever, pain and severe discomfort as pustules broke out across the face and body. Those who survived were often scarred for life. For centuries, it had been treated with variolation, accompanied by religious rituals. Hindus saw it as a sign of the wrath of Mariamma or Sitala, the goddess of the pox, and sought to propitiate her.
Hindus worshipped the goddess of pox / GETTY IMAGES
So the advent of a vaccine, which consisted of cowpox virus, was not welcome. And Brahmin variolators, or “tikadars”, resented the new procedure that threatened their livelihood.”The major concern was the pollution of pushing into their healthy child a cattle disease,” Prof Bennett said.”How do you translate cowpox? They brought in Sanskrit scholars and found themselves using terms locals would have used for far worse diseases. And there was alarm that cowpox might devastate their cattle.”There was another, bigger problem – the most effective way to vaccinate was to do it “arm-to-arm”. Using this method, the first person would be vaccinated by smearing the vaccine onto their arm with a needle or a lancet. A week later, when a cowpox pustule developed in that spot, a doctor would cut into it and transfer the pus on to the arm of another person.Sometimes, the lymph from the arm of a patient would be dried and sealed between glass plates to be transported elsewhere, but it usually did not survive the journey.
Lancets were used in the 19th Century to vaccinate against smallpox / COPYRIGHT -GETTY IMAGES
Either way, the vaccine was passing through bodies of all races, religions, castes and genders, and that ran counter to unyielding Hindu notions of purity. How better to overcome these fears than enlist the help of Hindu royals, whose power was tied to their bloodlines?The journey of the vaccine to the Wadiyar queen probably began – in India at least – with the three-year-old daughter of a British servant named Anna Dusthall.Starting in the spring of 1800, the vaccine was sent by ship from Britain in the form of dried lymph samples or via “vaccine couriers” – a human chain of people being inoculated arm-to-arm to keep the vaccine going during the voyage. But none of those vaccinations took once they arrived in India.After several failed attempts, dried vaccine matter was sealed between glass plates and successfully delivered from Vienna to Baghdad in March 1802. It was then used to vaccinate an Armenian child and the lymph from his arm was taken to Basra, in Iraq, where an East India Company surgeon established a supply arm-to-arm that was sent to Bombay (now Mumbai).
There was opposition to the smallpox vaccine in Europe as well
On 14 June, 1802, Anna Dusthall became the first person in India to be successfully vaccinated against smallpox. Little else is known about her, except that she was “remarkably good tempered”, according to the notes of the doctor who vaccinated her. Dusthall was partly of European descent, Prof Bennett said, but her mother’s heritage is unknown.”We know all vaccination in the subcontinent came from this girl,” he said.The following week, five other children in Bombay were vaccinated with pus from Dusthall’s arm. From there, the vaccine travelled, most often arm-to-arm, across India to various British bases – Hyderabad, Cochin, Tellicherry, Chingleput, Madras and eventually, to the royal court of Mysore.The British did not always record the names of people who kept the supply going, but they did note that it passed through many “unexceptional bodies” – there are mentions of three “half-caste” children who re-established supply in Madras, and a Malay boy who ferried the vaccine to Calcutta (Kolkata).It’s not known if the young queen Devajammani was vaccinated with dried lymph or from the pus of an earlier patient. There is no mention of anyone else in the family or at the court being vaccinated, Dr Chancellor said.That would not have been unusual because there are reports of other royals being vaccinated.
British power grew quickly after Tipu Sultan’s death in the Anglo-Mysore War in 1799 / GETTY IMAGES
But none memorialised it in a portrait. The credit for that politicking, according to Dr Chancellor, goes to the king’s grandmother, Lakshmi Ammani, who had lost her husband to smallpox. He believes she is the woman in the middle of the portrait of the three women, buttressing the Wadiyar stamp of approval for the vaccine. The “oval face and enormous eyes” are typical of the family, he adds.Dr Chancellor says the painting was possible because she was in charge – the king was too young to object and the queens were too young to refuse.The campaign continued as people came to realise the benefits of the procedure, and many tikadars switched over from variolation to vaccination. By 1807, Prof Bennett estimated, more than a million vaccine doses had been administered.Eventually, the painting made its way back to England and disappeared from public view.It did not resurface until 1991, when Dr Chancellor spotted it at an exhibition and rescued the women from obscurity, giving them a place in one of the world’s first immunisation campaigns.
source: http://www.bbc.com / BBC News / Home> Asia> India / by Aparna Alluri – BBC News, Delhi / September 20th, 2020
Lakshmikant Hibare on his farm at Hagarga village in Kalaburagi taluk.
The three-acre farm, which now has several varieties of plantations, was once without water
A matriculate progressive farmer Lakshmikant Hibare from Hagarga village, about 15 km from Kalaburagi, is a living example for the farming community as he has adopted agroforestry along with various techniques for conservation of natural resources, while earning a good income cultivating in his three acres of land.
The untiring efforts of the farmer have helped him convert his barren piece of land into a self-sustainable green farm.
It is indeed difficult to believe that the farm, which now has 850 sandalwood trees, 850 red sanders trees, 800 drumstick trees, 225 Java plum trees, 225 Lucknow 49 guava plants, 225 Thai orange trees, 225 red orange trees and 125 timber plants and 125 melia dubia trees, along with vegetable plantations, was once a barren land, without water. The farmer has also planted lemon trees and fever nut trees as border fencing. Though he has a borewell and a water harvesting pond on the farm, he has installed a drip irrigation system for water supply. Lakshmikant Hibare has adopted the organic way of farming and composting process for improving soil fertility.
Besides growing fruits and vegetables, Lakshmikant Hibare has established a poultry farm that breeds a special variety of chicken, BV-380. The farmer earns between ₹ 40,000 and ₹ 50,000 per month by selling eggs, vegetables and fruits from his farm.
Lakshmikant Hibare, who planted sandalwood and red sanders two years ago, also runs a nursery. Replying to a query, he explained that it takes at least 15 years to 18 years to procure usable sandalwood from the plantation.
Meanwhile, farmers from across the district and students from agriculture colleges visit his farm to take his advice and to learn more about his farming techniques.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Praveen B Para / Kalaburagi – September 15th, 2020
An IKEA, India spokesperson told TNIE that the company is in the middle of a hiring process and will continue to recruit more talent targeted at setting up a digital framework in the country.
Customers stand outside Ikea’s store in Hyderabad, India. (File| AP)
Bengaluru :
Swedish furniture giant IKEA will set up its new global office in Bengaluru and hire for key roles as the company is planning to expand its digital footprints in line with the new consumer shopping trends shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic.
An IKEA, India spokesperson told TNIE that the company is in the middle of a hiring process and will continue to recruit more talent targeted at setting up a digital framework in the country.
The company is investing in a new global office to operate within the areas of Global Business Operations (GBO), Digital, and Centres of Expertise (CoE) which will help streamline, simplify, and standardise ways of its operations, while diversifying the overall digital footprint, IKEA said in a statement.
The office will operate from the Karle Special Economic Zone, in Bengaluru. Bengaluru will be the first Indian city which will be the key partner for the group functions such as Finance, Digital, Procurement and People & Culture to continuously improve ways of working. Currently IKEA’s GBO centers operate in cities including Poznan (Poland), Shanghai (China) and Baltimore (US).
“India is not only a growing retail destination for us but also one of the strongest markets when it comes to global business operations capabilities. We have long-term growth plans to expand over time,” said Lalitha Indrakanti, Head of GBO for IKEA Retail (Ingka Group).
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Business / by Bismah Malik / Express News Service / September 18th, 2020
The app, which will be available on Android to begin with, has online training modules for voice artistes and people who will benefit from voice improvement/ development training.
Bengaluru :
Shakiness of voice, weakness of sound or pitch, or volume-related issues… If you’ve faced these but have not dealt with them hands-on, voice artiste and therapist Divya RT (36) is providing tools to do so, through her app VoxCoach, which will be released this week. A former Chemistry lecturer at Mount Carmel College, Divya has been running Voxcoach, a venture dedicated to professional voice training, since 2017.
“I’m hoping that users will understand the science and exercises applied to singing, speech and voice therapy. People who suffer from vocal nodules, or have lost their voices for a period of time, etc can come to us for direction on how to get their voices back,” says Divya, adding that among the advisors is Sridhar Ranganathan, CEO and founder, Shankar Mahadevan Academy.
The app, which will be available on Android to begin with, has online training modules for voice artistes and people who will benefit from voice improvement/ development training. “Training is delivered through a series of voice exercises,” she says. But it’s not just for singers and voice artistes. “It is for anybody who wishes to get past their voice-related roadblocks, with issues like running out of breath while speaking and singing.
It is for anybody who wishes to learn about how voice behaves and which parts of the body are involved,” explains Divya. This will be done through exercises that will make the voice flow better and stronger. “The first part of our three-part course is about breath control and vocal flow,” she adds.
The existent format on the website is live online and has full certificate courses. The app includes recorded courses and subscription material voice tools. “The target audience is kids, teenagers experiencing voice changes, adults, people with voice disorders, singers, voice-over artistes, and actors, etc,” says Divya.
Besides Divya, the coaches are singer Madhura Gowda and rapper Karthik Gubbi. In-app subscription models are being worked on. Incidentally, the idea for the app was brewing before the pandemic hit. While there are other such apps too, Divya feels hers differentiates itself by not providing self-help tools. “We do a lot of handholding, and at the end of it, a user can check if, for instance, if his pitch has improved,” she says.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Express News Service / September 12th, 2020
France and India, according to Consul General of France, Dr Marjorie Vanbaelinghem, have had an intense and fruitful strategic partnership in space programmes since the ’60s.
Bengaluru :
Then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with then French President Francois Mitterrand in 1981
France and India, according to Consul General of France, Dr Marjorie Vanbaelinghem, have had an intense and fruitful strategic partnership in space programmes since the ’60s. And now, an online exhibition on Indo-French partnership in space will highlight the major joint breakthroughs. Hosted by Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), it is being showcased at the International Space Conference and Exhibition from Sept. 15 to Oct. 10 and will be available on the virtual stand of CNES/France.
Vanbaelinghem points out, “It is a lesser-known part of our bilateral relationship and common history. The exhibition, which features beautiful photos, is in itself an illustration of this bond of friendship as it is a collaboration between the Alliance Francaise Hyderabad, the CNES bureau of Bangalore and the Space Museum in Hyderabad, whose curator, Pranav Sharma, gives a fascinating account of the more humane side of this enterprise.” For instance, the Ariane Passenger PayLoad Experiment (APPLE) – the experimental communication satellite successfully launched by Ariane-1 – from Kourou, French Guiana, on June 19, 1981, marked an important milestone in India’s space programme.
APPLE was designed and built as a sandwich passenger-carrying Meteosat on top and Capsule Ariane Technologique. VIKRAM engine was developed by India by learning from liquid propulsion technology developed by CNES and shared with India after Societe Europeenne de Propulsion (SEP)-ISRO Agreement signed in 1974.
According to Sharma, who has curated India’s first interdisciplinary Space Museum in Hyderabad and is passionate about sharing the Indian history of science, the exhibition is an attempt to explore friendship between the two countries. “This exhibition is an extension to its predecessor that was hosted at WINGS-India 2020 in Hyderabad as a travelling exhibition.
This version brings interesting insights and personal memoirs of people and their families involved during the transfer of liquid propulsion technology,” he says, adding that it’s meant for anyone, but may particularly be of interest to students and those interested in the history of science.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Express News Service / September 13th, 2020
