India Ink: Highlights of the India Art Fair

NEW DELHI —All roads in Delhi lead to the Okhla Industrial Estate this weekend, where the India Art Fair opened to the public on Friday.

At a preview on Thursday, a well-heeled crowd took in over 3,000 works of art by 105 exhibitors from 24 countries. Eleven interactive art projects, works on loan from the artists, are also on display, as well as Jitish Kallat’s installation of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s letter to Adolf Hitler advising him against war.

Although there’s plenty of art to take in amid all the air-kissing society folks, be sure to wander past the following booths:

GALLERYSKE: The gallery’s director, Sunitha Kumar Emmart, shows a stellar lineup of contemporary artists, including Sudarshan Shetty, Srinivasa Prasad and Prabhavathi Meppayil. Where: booth C-2.

Gallery Espace: Works by Zarina Hashmi, who is currently showing at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Nilima Sheikh, Rajinder Tikoo and Rina Banerjee. Where: booth B-2.

Samdani Art Foundation: The nonprofit based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has on display “My Daughter’s Cot,” a baby crib made of stainless steel razor blades, by the artist Tayeba Begum Lipi. Where: booth D-6.

Tasveer: Powerful photography and photo-based art by Maimouna Guerresi, Steve McCurry and Raghu Rai. Where: booth D-9.

Photoink: Great photography, with Vivan Sundaram riffing on the work of his late aunt, Amrita Sher-Gil, and compelling contemporary photos by Dhruv Malhotra. Where: booth F-7.

Seven Art: A must-see is Martand Khosla’s “Site Reconsidered 2,” made of brick dust. Where: Booth C-15.

Scream of London: Pakpoom Silaphan’s “Triple Gandhi on Pepsi” attracted a lot of eyeballs. The gallery’s works have already sold out, according to the fair’s founder, Neha Kirpal. Where: booth A-5.

Imaginart Gallery/Tasneem Gallery: Big-name Spanish artists you don’t typically get to see in India, including works by Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso. Where: booth B-9.

TAG Fine Arts: A wall of black butterflies created by Jane Dyer. Where: booth D-5.

Dhoomimal Art Center: A collection of the Indian master Jamini Roy’s works, from the early 1900s to the 1950s. Where: booth J-2.

The Swiss curator Mirjam Varadinis is offering curated walks through the fair.

There are also several don’t-miss Speakers Forum talks:

“Art in the Age of Uprising” includes panelists Ravi Sundaram, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies; Chus Martínez, chief curator of the El Museo del Barrio in New York, and Juan Gaitán, the curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Monica Juneja, chairwoman of global art history at Heidelberg University in Germany, moderates. When: Saturday, Feb. 2, noon to 1:30 p.m.

“The Museum of the 21st Century: A Working Model?” includes panelists Barbara London, a curator from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Liu Yingjiu, from the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, Sandhini Poddar, from the Guggenheim in New York, and Professor Tapati Guha-Thakurta of Kolkata. Professor Kavita Singh of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University moderates. When: Sunday, Feb. 3, noon to 1:30 p.m.

There are also various events and in and around Delhi timed to the fair:

This year’s four finalists for the Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art offer something for everyone at the National Gallery of Modern Art. Curated by Girish Shahane, the exhibit includes art by a younger set of contemporary artists, including Shilpa Gupta, L.N. Tallur, Srinivasa Prasad and CAMP. Kids especially will love Mr. Prasad’s “Igloo” and “Rebirth,” both of which involve climbing in and out of structures.

At the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts, “Homelands,” a British Council-sponsored exhibit curated by Latika Gupta, explores the idea of nationality, home and identity in 80 works of photography, painting, sculpture and video, many shown for the first time in India.

If you’re an audio buff, don’t miss an “Evening of Sound” on Feb. 2, organized by the artists’ residency Khoj. Arrive at their newly renovated studio, across the street from Select City Walk Mall in Saket at 6 p.m. to hear live performances by Chi-Wei Lin, Rudi Punzo and Robert Millis, then wander to nearby DT Cinemas to hear a sound exhibition curated by Alexis Bhagat and Lauren Rosati. Khoj’s studio is at S-17, Khirkee Extension.

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Channing Tatum All Set to Learn About Diapering

By Paul Chi

02/01/2013 at 08:00 AM EST

Jenna Dewan-Tatum and Channing Tatum

FameFlynet

First time dad-to-be Channing Tatum already in baby mode – studying baby books and watching documentaries.

But there's one thing he's still lacking: mastering the art of diapering.

"I have never changed a diaper before, so I may need some help learning," Tatum, 32, told PEOPLE at Thursday's New York premiere of his new movie Side Effects, presented by the Cinema Society and Michael Kors.

"I don't have friends who have kids, so it's going to be an interesting experience to learn how to change a diaper. I hope I don't have any problems where the diaper falls off and the baby [poops] on the ground," said PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive, whose baby with wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum, 32, is due this summer.

"But once the baby is born, I'll definitely do the diaper changing. If it means touching the [poop] and getting peed on, I'll still do it. I'm up for the challenge."

One thing the Magic Mike star has mastered is keeping his pregnant wife relaxed and happy.

"Oh man, I'm not even getting into what I do to pamper Jenna. I'm doing anything that she asks for," he said.

"She jokes to me all the time by saying, 'If I feel
good, then the baby feels good or if I'm happy, then the baby is happy.' And I'm like, that is such an urban myth. You're just saying that to get me to do everything for you," he said.

"I know it's probably true, but I like to joke about it and
she hates it. I'll go to the store to pick up shakes or give her a thousand foot rubs. A foot rub now until the nine months if I have to just to keep her happy and comfortable."

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Cardinal Mahony relieved of duties over handling of abuse

In a move unprecedented in the American Catholic Church, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez announced Thursday that he had relieved his predecessor, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, of all public duties over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse of children decades ago.

Gomez also said that Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry, who worked with Mahony to conceal abusers from police in the 1980s, had resigned his post as a regional bishop in Santa Barbara.

The announcement came as the church posted on its website tens of thousands of pages of previously secret personnel files for 122 priests accused of molesting children.

"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil," Gomez wrote in a letter addressed to "My brothers and sisters in Christ."

The release of the records and the rebuke of the two central figures in L.A.'s molestation scandal signaled a clear desire by Gomez to define the sexual abuse crisis as a problem of a different era — and a different archbishop.

"I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages. Reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused has been the saddest experience I've had since becoming your Archbishop in 2011," Gomez wrote.

The public censure of Mahony, whose quarter-century at the helm of America's largest archdiocese made him one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church, was unparalleled, experts said.

"This is very unusual and shows really how seriously they're taking this. To tell a cardinal he can't do confirmations, can't do things in public, that's extraordinary," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and Georgetown University fellow.

An archdiocese spokesman, Tod Tamberg, said that beyond canceling his confirmation schedule, Mahony's day-to-day life as a retired priest would be largely unchanged. He resides at a North Hollywood parish, and Tamberg said he would remain a "priest in good standing." He can continue to celebrate Mass and will be eligible to vote for pope until he turns 80 two years from now, Tamberg said.

The move further stained the legacy of Mahony, a tireless advocate for Latinos and undocumented immigrants whose reputation has been marred over the last decade by revelations about his treatment of sex abuse allegations.

Before Gomez's announcement, Mahony had weathered three grand jury investigations and numerous calls for his resignation. He stayed in office until the Vatican's mandatory retirement age of 75. No criminal charges have been filed against Mahony or anyone in the church hierarchy.

Terrence McKiernan, president of bishopaccountability.org, said that in a religious institution that values saving face and protecting its own, Gomez's decision to publicly criticize an elder statesman of the church and his top aide was striking.

"Even when Cardinal [Bernard] Law was removed in Boston, which was arguably for the same offenses, this kind of gesture was not made," he said.

Law left office in 2002 amid mounting outrage over his transfer of pedophile priests from parish to parish, but the church presented his departure as of his own accord and he was later given a highly coveted Vatican job in Rome.

Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien of Phoenix relinquished some of his authority in a deal with prosecutors to avoid criminal charges for his handling of abuse cases, but he kept his title and many of his duties. A Kansas City bishop convicted last year of failing to report child abuse retained his position.

The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer and Dominican priest who has testified across the nation as an expert witness in clergy sex abuse cases, said the Vatican would have "absolutely" been consulted on a decision of this magnitude.

"This is momentous, there is no question," he said. "For something like this to happen to a cardinal.... The way they treat cardinals is as if they're one step below God."

Gomez's decision capped a two-week period in which the publication of 25-year-old files fueled a new round of condemnation of the L.A. archdiocese. The files of 14 clerics accused of abuse became public in a court case last Monday. They laid out in Mahony and Curry's own words how the church hierarchy had plotted to keep law enforcement from learning that children had been molested at the hands of priests.

To stave off investigations, Mahony and Curry gave priests they knew had abused children out-of-state assignments and kept them from seeing therapists who might alert authorities.

Mahony and Curry both issued apologies, with the cardinal saying he had not realized the extent of harm done to children until he met with victims during civil litigation. "I am sorry," he said.

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.

In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.

The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.

Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.

Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.

In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.

Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.

Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.

The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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IHT Rendezvous: The Indian State is a Coward

NEW DELHI – When the Indian state wants to laugh it probably reads Hegel’s hypothesis, “The state is the actuality of the ethical Idea.” The language of the Indian state is often sentimental, but in reality it is a practical corporation that tries to appease in the easiest ways possible its most valued consumers. Which is not a bad thing. But, like most practical people, the state is a coward. It wants to completely eliminate imaginary risks to its survival and is willing to do even stupid things that have no meaning to achieve that. That is the reason why there is no substantial free speech in India. The state sides with those who are offended even if their claim is farcical. This is the subject of my latest Letter from India.

At the Jaipur Literature Festival last week, the sociologist Ashis Nandy said that most of India’s corrupt people were from the backward castes. Some listeners claimed to be offended, and the police brought charges against him, including one under a very stringent act meant to protect the backward castes from “atrocities.” The annual festival attracts some of the best writers and academics in the world and hundreds of thousands of people are in attendance over five days. But if the lesson now is that speakers have to be cautious, the festival will find it hard to attract some of the world’s most interesting writers and intellectuals.

Page Two

Posts written by the IHT’s Page Two columnists.

Last year, Salman Rushdie was to attend the festival but had to cancel after some Muslim groups objected and the Indian government and the government of Rajasthan (the state of which Jaipur is the capital) said they could not guarantee his physical safety. A few days later he appeared at a conclave in New Delhi and there were no protests at all. He even taunted the Indian government for the uneventfulness of his appearance in India. He has since visited India at least once. The protest against his planned attendance at the Jaipur festival and the government’s reaction were a part of the same imbecilic farce that often collides with artistic and intellectual freedom in India. There is nothing valiant about the loss of the freedom of expression in India, as it often happens for no good reason at all. Just a small bunch of thugs or fools can influence the state to take their side.

The release of a Tamil-language film, which also has or will soon have versions in other Indian languages, has been blocked in several parts of southern India by some Muslim groups whose leaders have not even seen it. The film’s director, co-producer and lead actor, Kamal Haasan, had faced a similar problem a few years ago from many quarters, particularly Hindu groups, before the release of a film about a man who sets out to assassinate Gandhi. A Hindu nationalistic group said it was offended by its portrayal of historical figures. And, once again, the politicians took the side of the fanatics. Mr. Haasan went around for days in a green shirt and green trousers to irritate Hindu groups with the color of Islam. During the controversy he told me in an interview that he was very surprised that nobody had yet objected to the fact that the film depicted Gandhi as being shot and killed.

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Nintendo chief rules out price cuts for Wii U

TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo‘s president Thursday ruled out price cuts for its new Wii U home console as a way to boost sales, vowing to become profitable again in its core businesses as smartphones and tablets increasingly threaten specialized game machines.

Satoru Iwata, speaking at a Tokyo hotel to investors and reporters a day after earnings were released, acknowledged the sales momentum for the Wii U, as well as the 3DS hand-held game machine, had run out of steam during the key year-end shopping season, especially in the U.S.

But he said no price cuts were in the works. Price cuts are common in the gaming industry to woo buyers, but the move can backfire by trimming revenue. The Wii U now sells for about $ 300 in the U.S. and 25,000 yen in Japan.

“We are already offering it at a good price,” he said.

Iwata said he expects operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 2014, promising that as “a commitment.”

But he acknowledged more work was needed to have consumers understand the Wii U, which went on sale globally late last year, as well as producing more game software to draw buyers.

All game machines have suffered in recent years from the advent of smartphones and other mobile devices that have become more sophisticated and offer games and other forms of entertainment.

Nintendo returned to net profit for the April-December period of 2012 from deep losses the previous year, but that was due to a perk from a weaker yen, which helps Japanese exporters such as Nintendo.

Its operating result, which removes currency fluctuations, was a loss of 5.86 billion yen ($ 64 million), and Nintendo expects that to swell to a 20 billion yen ($ 220 million) loss for the full business year ending March 2013 as sales of its game consoles fall short of expectations.

Iwata said Nintendo is preparing more game software, including those developed in-house, for the end of this year.

Kyoto-based Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, lowered its full year sales forecast Wednesday to 670 billion yen ($ 7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($ 8.9 billion). It also said it was going to sell fewer Wii U consoles for the fiscal year through March than its previous projection. The Wii U has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii.

The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the current fiscal year, ending March 31, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.

Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.

Iwata said last year holiday sales quickly dissipated in the U.S. and some European nations, including Great Britain, the key market. He said the U.S. home console sales were the worst for Nintendo in nearly a decade.

He said Nintendo needs hit games to push console sales, and the company remains confident Wii U will prove more popular with time.

“The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,” he said of the need for both game software and machine hardware.

“I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business,” said Iwata.

He declined to say what he would do if the company failed to attain the promised operating profits.

Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. That machine is also struggling in most global markets.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famed game designer, said what was missing were games for the Wii U that made its appeal clear. The progress in smartphones has also posed a challenge for Nintendo, he said.

“People have to try it to see it is fun,” Miyamoto said of Wii U.

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama

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Brooke Burke-Charvet Refuses to Say 'Fat' Or 'Diet' in Front of Her Kids

By Dahvi Shira

01/31/2013 at 07:15 AM EST

A healthy home is a happy home for Brooke Burke-Charvet.

The mother of four kids – Neriah, 12, Sierra, 10, Rain, 6, and Shaya, 4 – hopes her lifestyle rubs off on them.

"I always tell other parents to lead by example," Burke-Charvet, 41, told PEOPLE on Tuesday. "My kids know I'm always working out and I love to cook. I'm always preparing healthy meals. I think it's also about giving them healthy options, which is so, so important. My little ones, especially, grocery shop with me. They're in the kitchen. They love to cook."

Part of what she believes helps guide her children down the right path is being as cautious about what comes out of her mouth as what goes into it.

"I try to never use words like 'fat' or 'diet,' " she says. "I try to choose my words carefully with my kids. It's just about making good choices and enjoying what we eat and making delicious flavorful foods that are healthy. I'm just teaching them about being healthy and strong, not about being thin."

But a mom who is always "working out super hard" deserves a break.

"I love my red wine," the Dancing with the Stars co-host says. "I think every mom deserves a glass of wine. I eat so healthy, but I listen to my body when I have cravings and I think that's why I'm able to maintain a healthy lifestyle. If I'm really craving something, I have it. The next day, I'm back on track."

Brooke Burke-Charvet doing her Kleenex duties

Michael Simon

Burke-Charvet, who began filming her own line of workout videos over the summer, isn't only healthy when it comes to her weight. She already feels "back to normal" following a thyroidectomy in December, and it shows. She was recently spotted looking radiant and smiling with husband David Charvet at brand new members only spot 41 Ocean in Santa Monica.

"I'm so blessed and fortunate with the way things worked out with my surgery," she says. "Now I'm back in the swing of things, working and feeling great."

Now that she's no longer on the mend, she wanted to help someone else who is. Burke recently teamed up with Kleenex to deliver a special care package (tissues, sanitizers, lip balm, a cozy blanket and music downloads) to an ailing Malibu sweepstakes winner during flu season.

"It's the perfect sort of recovery care package. It was a really thoughtful gift to send to somebody. The winner was really surprised," Burke says.

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.

All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.

Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.

"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.

"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.

"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.

But some are pretty interesting.

Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.

That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.

Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:

—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.

—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.

—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.

—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.

—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.

—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.

Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.

"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Letter from India: A Paradise for Those Who Take Offense

JAIPUR, INDIA — One of India’s favorite spectator sports is “taking offense.” People go about their lives, brushing their teeth, ironing their shirts, waiting for the bus. Then some man somewhere says something ordinary and a community erupts in what looks like joy even though they say they are offended. They go in a carnival procession to some place to announce that they are offended, often laughing and waving to the television cameras. Politicians express their deep hurt at what the man has said and demand swift action from other politicians. The police file criminal charges against the offender, and the offender then begins to say he has been misquoted, possibly by himself.

But the carnival does not wish to die down early. That was what the crowd outside the Jaipur Literature Festival was about last Saturday evening. Men were cheering, laughing and screaming as a television journalist was reporting their claim that they had been insulted by a speaker at the festival.

A few hours before, an amiable billionaire stood on the fringes of a huge audience and listened to a serious debate on the topic “Freedom of Speech and Expression.” A hilarious thought must have crossed his mind, for he chuckled, fell silent, and then said to me: “What freedom of speech? Now a masked man should rise from the audience, and tearing his mask he must reveal himself as Salman Rushdie. This debate will end right now, and everybody can go home.”

Last year, Mr. Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” was met with protests and death threats from those who said it insulted the Prophet Muhammad, was forced to cancel his appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival after some Muslim groups said they would be offended by his presence and the government of Rajasthan, the state whose capital is Jaipur, said it could not guarantee his safety.

But what the amiable billionaire and I did not realize was that a festival session that morning had already set in motion a chain of events that would remind everyone, once again, that India encourages discussions of free speech but not free speech itself.

In a session titled “Republic of Ideas,” one of the panel members, the sociologist Ashis Nandy, said something that only fellow Indians would immediately understand.

“It will be an undignified and vulgar statement, but the fact is that most of the corrupt come from the O.B.C., the S.C.’s and now increasingly S.T.’s,” he said, referring to “other backward classes,” “scheduled castes” and “scheduled tribes.” “As long as this is the case,” he said, “the Indian republic will survive.”

What he meant was that most of India’s corrupt are from the historically disadvantaged groups officially called the backward castes. From a purely statistical point of view, this is an unremarkable statement given that the castes he had mentioned together constitute a majority of the Indian population. So it should not come as a surprise that “most of the corrupt” would hail from most of the nation.

But then most of India’s heart surgeons do not hail from the backward castes, and that is where the substance of Mr. Nandy’s message emerged: In an unequal society, corruption provides opportunity for those who do not have the means to progress easily otherwise.

Politicians from the backward castes wasted no time in calling for Mr. Nandy’s arrest. Among the first was Mayawati, the first female Dalit to serve as a chief minister in India, who is currently facing serious corruption charges. If there were canned laughter in real life, this country would resound with deafening guffaws.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nandy’s face soon assumed the look of a man who knew he was in serious trouble. In a courtyard outside the authors’ lounge, he gave several interviews to television cameras, often telling anchors who were grilling him from studios in New Delhi that he had been researching and writing about the backward castes “before you were even born.” Since then, the police have invoked the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against him as well as a charge of criminal intimidation.

Among those who expressed shock at Mr. Nandy’s comment were liberals attending the festival, whose conversations hinged on the evident distinction between upper-caste corruption, which involves the talent to open Swiss bank accounts and perform sophisticated forms of brokering, and backward-caste corruption, which is amateurish and carries a greater risk of being exposed. A popular young writer who did not wish to be identified told me, “I know a Dalit politician in Chennai who asks people to donate gold to him — along with the receipts.”

Even as Mr. Nandy was struggling to put out fires, the release of a Tamil-language film starring one of India’s most popular stars was blocked in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and elsewhere by Muslim groups whose members had not seen the film but claimed that it hurt their religious feelings.

India is a paradise for those who take offense because the first reaction of the state is to appease those who claim to have been offended. The law itself favors those who claim to be offended. And the police, who are so often reluctant to press charges against politicians accused of murder or men accused of rape are quick to arrive at the doorsteps of intellectuals, movie stars and other public figures who have allegedly offended people by words, actions or photographs. The fact is that India’s intellectual elite is one of the few oppressed castes left in the country today.

Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People.”

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RIM to debut new BlackBerry smartphones in a heavily hyped unveiling

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Following several delays and much anticipation, the new BlackBerry smartphones will be unveiled this morning in New York.

Research In Motion (TSX:RIM), the company behind the once dominant smartphones, is holding a splashy event in Manhattan to usher in the new devices, which were originally due for release last year.

The debut is expected to showcase the device as well as provide key launch details.

That will likely include its release date, which is expected in the next four to six weeks, the phone’s features and how much it will cost.

The company says the new BlackBerry will be released first in a touchscreen version, while a keypad alternative will follow in the weeks or months afterward.

The new phone launch is RIM’s attempt to regain its position in the highly competitive North American and European smartphone markets, which are now dominated by iPhone and Android devices.

While the first hurdles to overcome are the opinions of tech analysts and investor reaction, the true measure of success — actual sales of the phones — is still weeks away.

The BlackBerry has dramatically lost marketshare in recent years after a series of blunders.

Several network outages left customers without the use of the smartphones they had come to rely on, while the BlackBerry’s hardware hasn’t received a significant upgrade in years.

RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins has already offered a glimpse of some features on the new devices. They include BlackBerry Balance technology, which allows one phone to operate as both a business and personal device entirely separate from each other.

The new BlackBerry will also let users seamlessly shift between the phone’s applications like they’re flipping between pages on a desk.

In the coming weeks, RIM will launch an advertising blitz to promote the phones, including aggressive social media campaigning, which includes plugs from celebrities on their Twitter accounts, and a 30-second advertisement on the Super Bowl, the most watched television program of the year.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: RIM to debut new BlackBerry smartphones in a heavily hyped unveiling
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/rim-to-debut-new-blackberry-smartphones-in-a-heavily-hyped-unveiling/
Link To Post : RIM to debut new BlackBerry smartphones in a heavily hyped unveiling
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