VOL. 9 NO. 9 JULY 2012 www.civilsocietyonline.com `50 JJJaaaccckkkfffrrruuuiiittt bbbuuusssiiinnneeessssss HHHooowww sssrrriii LLLaaannnkkkaaa gggrrreeewww aaa ttthhhrrriiivvviiinnnggg aaagggrrrooo---iiinnnddduuussstttrrryyy ‘Shanghai canalS vs water tankS the buzz about buzzaria iS a foot Pages 8-9 Page 26 in the door’ vizag Steel waS warned great park, rare goat Pages 10-11 Pages 32-33 Dibakar Banerjee on his kind of cinema inSide a green office kiShwar on Surrogacy Pages 6-7 Pages 14-15 Pages 34-35 CoNTENTS READ U S. WE READ YO U. The jackfruit solution or inclusion to work there has to be prosperity. The Sri Lanka cover story this month shows how the simplest of initiatives can be driv - Fers of employment and put money in people’s pockets. Why can’t we cOVer stOrY look at Sri Lanka and Southeast Asian nations and do similar things for our farm sector? our cover is one of many stories we have done on the importance of jackFruit business fresh thinking in the search for economic growth. Big investments are Sri Lanka has raised a thriving agro-industry in jackfruit by needed, but can they ever be a substitute for enabling people to earn in training vendors, housewives and entrepreneurs in processing small robust ways with their immediate resources? The best growth we technologies. They now make a range of jackfruit products. 20 can hope for should be broadbased. It should involve letting small enter - prises come up by linking them to markets and helping them with Cover piCture By shree paDre finance and simple technologies. The humble and unglamorous jackfruit is a solution only to those who Jarawa buffer zone is in force . 8 see its intrinsic merits. It is packed with nutrition. It also grows without a fuss. Value addition comes when you make chips and flour and ice cream from it. For a perfect road . .10 But even easier is partial processing which makes the jackfruit ready- to-cook. And by identifying this opportunity, Sri Lanka has helped a Learning the natural way . 12 whole agro-industry to come up. People can work out of their homes for a few hours in a day to increase their incomes. In this issue we feature Dibakar Banerjee whose film Shanghai has Elephants and 3,000 workers . 16-17 been making waves. We can proudly say that Civil Society began bringing you stories on the new Mumbai cinema much before it got identified as a definite trend. These are new filmmakers with different backgrounds ‘No policy for inclusive ventures’ . 24-25 and mostly from small town India. Dibakar says Shanghai has given his kind of filmmaking a foot in the door. Acceptance and demand have per - haps gone much further than that. There is a rapidly growing conscious - Ganga can be reborn . 27-28 ness which expects greater relevance and authenticity of cinema, as it does of journalism. Simultaneously, there is a demand for sophistication. Tedious breast-beating won’t do. It is expected of new creative offerings When love defies old age . 31-32 that they be mainstream and engaging. The reason is that mainstream concerns have come to be redefined. Technology has allowed people to explore their world in adventurous ways. They espouse values and expe - Ayurveda: Tone up your liver . 36 riences like they never dared do before. Additionally, problems relating to land, water, housing, pollution now affect everyone. You will also find in this issue a story on the Sehgal Foundation’s green Products: Desi Spanish & Natural Art . 38 building in Gurgaon and another story from Bangalore on how to make the perfect road. We believe such initiatives, though small, matter. They raise the bar for what we should be doing. Contact Civil Society at: [email protected] The magazine does not undertake to respond to unsolicited contributions sent to the editor for publication. Publisher Layout & Design new Delhi-17. umesh anand virender Chauhan printed at samrat offset pvt. Advisory Board Get your copy of Civil Society from ltd., B-88, okhla phase ii. Editor Cartoonist anupam mishra Delhi: Bahri sons, Central Lucknow: ram advani aruna roy rita anand samita rathor Postal Registration No. news agency, stalls at green Bookseller at hazratganj. Dl(s)-01/3255/2012-14. nasser munjee park market, south extn part News Network Write to Civil Society at: Chandigarh: the Browser. registered to post without arun maira ii, aurobindo market. ts sudhir, shree padre, D-26 Basement, south extension pre-payment u(se)-10/2012-14 Darshan shankar Gurgaon: music store at jehangir rashid, rakesh part 2 new Delhi-110049. INTERNET EDITION at new Delhi pso harivansh DlF phase 1 market. Civil society is on the net at agarwal, susheela nair ph: 011-46033825, 9811787772 www.civilsocietyonline.com. registered with the registrar of jug suraiya Kolkata: oxford Bookstore, subscribe for a pDF version. Classic Books. Photo-journalists printed and published by umesh newspapers of india under rni shankar ghose register online or write to us Bangalore: variety on st Gautam Singh, anand from a 53 D, First Floor, no.: Deleng/2003/11607 upenDra kaul at response@civilsocietyon - lakshman anand panchsheel vihar, malviya nagar, total no of pages: 40 mark’s road. line.com VoICES IN THE LIGHT by SAMITA rATHor bution system (PDS). The middle bottom-up business som.’ As a resident of Almora, I am Letters class sometimes falls into poverty very impressed with the Himalayan and depression for many reasons. Your story titled, ‘Bottom-up Action and resource Centre’s (HArC) Cases of severe malnourishment Businesses’ had very inspiring, work. It just shows that small and among women living in isolation innovative and original ideas. These marginal farming should not be dis - are reported from time to time in are all worth taking the risk. I espe - missed as economically unviable. the media. In the old days, the mid - cially liked the solar light section Agriculture along with agro-process - dle class used to access the PDS. It very much. ing provide dignity and livelihood to should be made functional and Pradeep Pratap people unlike menial jobs. A winning available for anybody. combination is lucrative farming Asha Choudhury Game changers with good education. Bina Mishra Pension is the right of the retired The Building as Learning Aid (BALA) poor. They also need PDS and free project is a good idea for your Game books healthcare. A few entitlements will Changers series. I have been follow - give them dignity and respect with - ing some of their innovative work in Please could you make your books in the family. Alwar. and authors page a regular feature. Sheila Mehta Rajesh Lawania We find this keeps changing. The book reviews are sometimes long civic bodies BALA should be implemented in and sometimes short. It is very dis - baba adhav schools across the country. The concerting for readers since we like Thanks for the interview with rK transformation that takes place in familiarity. Linda Gonsalves Your cover story on the ‘Pension Srivastava, director of local bodies in the school’s environment is quite Parishad’ by Baba Adhav is timely. the Delhi government. I think the stunning. It creates a learning ErrATA As a retired person lucky enough to trifurcation of the Municipal atmosphere that relaxes children In the story, ‘Fatehpura’s radical have a pension I can say it is very Corporation of Delhi is a sincere and teachers and helps them learn. NrEGA union’ it was wrongly difficult to make ends meet. The effort to provide better services. The sound of children’s laughter is stated that the rashtriya rojgar prices of daily necessities have sky - Srivastava and his team have done heartwarming. Khatri Kamdaaronu Kayda rocketed. Pension has to be linked their best under the circumstances. Kritika Desai Union (rrKKKU) is a member of to inflation, especially for the poor. Much will depend on how the new the New Trade Union Initiative D K Sinha law on municipalities shapes up. Hill farms (NTUI). The rrKKKU is an inde - The committee drafting it should pendent union and not affiliat - Apart from pension, I think it is invite public comments. Many thanks to rakesh Agrawal for ed to the NTUI. Editor important to revive the public distri - Rajesh Nautiyal his story, ‘Hill farms begin to blos - CIVIL SOCIETY, JULY 2012 5 INDIA interVieW Dibakar banerjee says his films are for an urban consciousness ‘With shanghai we have got a foot in the door’ Saibal Chatterjee pletely unconscious. the youth segment, for corporate sector couples, New Delhi Yes, indeed. As I’ve already said, we get fooled by for yuppie viewers, call them what you will. They the treatment into believing that a particular film are the people Shanghai is targeted at. N the face of it, writer-director Dibakar is political, and another one isn’t. The treatment Shanghai does not follow the standard narra - Banerjee’s Shanghai , his fourth feature, is a of a film differs; the context essentially remains tive trajectory of a Hindi film. For instance, the Ogenre film, a dark political thriller set in a fic - the same. The script and treatment of Shanghai film’s male protagonist, bureaucrat T.A. Krishnan, tional small town called Bharat Nagar. But the comes unconsciously from what I like and want played by Abhay Deol, does not revolt against the subdued thrills it provides are only incidental to to see. It comes from within me. It is the kind of system and opt out. He stays inside and fights in its larger purpose – probing the grave anomalies film that I want to watch. his own understated way. inherent in India’s current urban redevelopment The film isn’t meant to be a joyride.