India's Education Sector: Moving Toward a Digital Future

The typical Indian classroom was once characterized by students sitting through hour-long teacher monologues. Now, technology is making life easier for both students and educators. Schools are increasingly adopting digital teaching solutions to engage with a generation of pupils well-versed with the likes of PlayStations and iPads, and trying to make the classroom environment more inclusive and participatory.

Take Smartclass from Educomp Solutions, one of the first Indian companies in this space. Smartclass is essentially a digital content library of curriculum-mapped, multimedia-rich, 3D content. It also enables teachers to quickly assess how much of a particular lesson students have been able to assimilate during the class. Once a topic is covered, the teacher gives the class a set of questions on a large screen. Each student then answers via a personal answering device or the smart assessment system. The teacher gets the scores right away and based on that, she repeats parts of the lesson that the students don't appear to have grasped.

"Technology makes the teaching-learning process very easy and interesting," says Harish Arora, a chemistry teacher at the Bal Bharti Public School in New Delhi who has been using Smartclass since 2004. "For instance, [earlier] it would easily take me one full lecture to just draw an electromagnetic cell on the blackboard. Though I could explain the cell structure, there was no way I could have managed to show them how it really functions. This is where technology comes to our aid -- now I can show the students a 3D model of the cell and how it functions. Instead of wasting precious time drawing the diagram on the blackboard, I can invest it in building the conceptual clarity of my students."

According to Abhinav Dhar, director for K-12 at Educomp Solutions, more than 12,000 schools across 560 districts in India have adopted Smartclass. More importantly, the number is growing at almost 20 schools a day. On average, in each of these schools eight classrooms are using Smartclass.

"When we launched Smartclass in 2004 as the first-ever digital classroom program, it was an uphill task convincing schools to adopt it," Dhar notes. "These schools had not witnessed any change in a century.... It is a completely different scenario now. Private schools across India today see [technology] as an imperative. A digital classroom is set to become the bare-minimum teaching accessory in schools, just like a blackboard is today."

Dhar recalls that one major roadblock for Educomp's proposition in the early days was on the price front. At US$4,000 (at the exchange rate of Rs. 50 to a U.S. dollar) per classroom, schools found the product very expensive. To get over this hurdle, Educomp quickly decided to make the initial investment and gave the schools an option to pay over a period of three to five years. The strategy worked. Enthused by the market response, in January Educomp launched an upgraded version -- the Smartclass Class
Transformation System -- with more features, including simulations, mind maps, worksheets, web links, a diagram maker, graphic organizers and assessment tools.

HUGE POTENTIAL
According to the "Indian Education Sector Outlook -- Insights on Schooling Segment," a report released by New Delhi--based research and consultancy firm Technopak Advisors in May, the total number of schools in India stands at 1.3 million. Of these, private schools account for 20%. Educomp's Dhar points out that only around 10% of the private schools have tapped the potential of multimedia classroom teaching whereas in government schools, it has barely made any inroads.

"The current market size for digitized school products in private schools is around US$500 million," says Enayet Kabir, associate director for education at Technopak. "This is expected to grow at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 20% to reach the over US$2 billion mark by 2020. However, the market potential then might get as big as S$4 billion [i.e. if the total population of private schools that could adopt multimedia actually adopt it.] Apart from this, the current market size for ICT [information and communications technology] in government schools is US$750 million. We expect this to grow five times by 2020 due to the current low level of penetration in government schools."

Kabir lists Educomp Solutions, Everonn Education, NIIT, Core Education & Technologies, IL&FS and Compucom as dominant players in this sector. New entrants include HCL Infosystems, Learn Next, Tata Interactive Systems, Mexus Education, S. Chand Harcourt (India) and iDiscoveri Education. Except for S. Chand Harcourt, which is a joint venture between S. Chand and US-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, all the others are Indian firms.

A recent trend is that schools in tier two and tier three cities are increasingly adopting the latest technology. Rajesh Shethia, head of sales and marketing at TataInteractive Systems, which launched Tata ClassEdge in early 2011 and has partnered up with more than 900 schools, says that "more than half of the demand for digital classrooms is from tier two and tier three cities." According to Shethia, schools in these smaller cities realize that it is difficult for their students to get as much exposure as students from tier one cities. "[So] they proactively subscribe to solutions such as ours, which richly benefit both teachers and students by simplifying the syllabus....

Even parents want the best for their wards and are not averse to paying a little extra. They see value in these initiatives by schools to modernize the way teaching is imparted today." Making some back-of-the-envelope calculations Shethia adds: "If we consider the top 100,000 private schools in India as the captive market, the potential is approximately two million classrooms of which currently just about 80,000 have been digitized."
Srikanth B. Iyer, COO of Pearson Education Services, also sees tremendous potential in the smaller cities. Pearson provides end-to-end education solutions in the K-12 segment. Its multimedia tool, DigitALly, has been adopted in more than 3,000 private schools across India since 2004. "DigitALly installations have been growing at three times the market for the past two years," Iyer says. "Currently, more than 60% of our customers are from tier two and tier three towns, such as Barpeta (in the state of Assam), Sohagpur (in Madhya Pradesh) and Balia (in Uttar Pradesh)."

In order to make its offering attractive to the schools, Pearson has devised a monthly payment model under which a school pays around US$2 per student per month. "As the price point is affordable, schools across all locations and fee structures find it viable to opt for our solution," Iyer notes. "We focus on tier two and tier three towns and cities where penetration is relatively low and desire for adoption of technology is high." HCL's Digischool program, which launched about 18 months ago, has also made a strong beginning, with a client base of more than 2,500 schools.

PARTNERING WITH STATE GOVERNMENTS
Meanwhile, state governments are also giving a boost to the adoption of technology in schools. Edureach, a divison of Educomp, has partnered with 16 state governments and more than 30 education departments and boards in the country, covering over 36,000 government schools and reaching out to more than 10.60 million students.

"Edureach leads the market with 27% of the total schools where ICT projects have been implemented," says Soumya Kanti, president of Edureach. "We are looking [to add] 3,000 more schools this fiscal year and 20,000 to 25,000 additional schools in the next five years." As of now, Edureach has created digital learning content in more than 14 regional languages for these projects.

In the northern state of Haryana, CORE Education and Technologies is implementing a US$59 million ICT project that aims to benefit 5 million students across 2,622 schools. Five of these schools will be developed as "Smart" schools. CORE is also implementing ICT projects in the states of Gujarat, Meghalaya, Punjab, Maharashtra and Nagaland. The scope of work in these projects ranges from implementation of computer-aided learning in schools, installing bio-metric devices to monitor attendance of teachers, and setting up computer hardware, software and other allied accessories and equipments.

"The task has not been an easy one," admits Anshul Sonak, president of CORE. "There are several logistical issues. Delivery of equipment to rural areas is a big challenge in itself.... There is lack of basic infrastructure -- either there are no classrooms or there are ones with no windows.... Some schools don't even have toilets. Moreover, the power availability in these areas is often poor and we have had to deploy generator sets in many schools."

But despite the challenges, educationists are optimistic. Rahul De, professor of quantitative methods and information systems area at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore (IIM-B) believes that "ICT can have a huge impact on our education system." He points out that ICT can result in increasing the reach [of education] and in keeping the costs low. "With increasing penetration of mobile phones and Internet kiosks, the potential is indeed immense," he adds.

A study conducted by De in 2009 on the economic impact of free and open source software (FOSS) in India found that it resulted in significant cost savings. "FOSS can play a huge role in education," De notes. "In the state of Kerala, it has already had a huge impact in both saving costs and providing state-of-the-art access computing to students in government schools. FOSS has a huge number of packages for school students, many of which can be ported to local languages and used in schools. It is also helping disabled students in a big way, by enabling them to access digital resources using audio-visual aids."
Edureach's Kanti adds that a study by the Centre for Multi-Disciplinary Development Research in Dharwad in Karnataka in 2006 revealed significant improvement in student enrolment and attendance, as well as a reduction of student dropouts due to ICT interventions. "Yet another study conducted by the Xavier Institute of
Management in Bhubaneswar in 2007 revealed that computer-aided education has improved the performance of children in subjects such as English, mathematics and science, which are taught through computers using multimedia-based educational content."

ALL IN A TAB
In line with this increasing interest in technology for school education, there has been a rush of education-focused tablet computers in the market. The most high-profile of these has been Aakash, which was launched by Kapil Sibal, union minister for human resource development, in October 2011. The Aakash project is part of the ministry's National Mission on Education through Information & Communication Technology (NME-ICT). It aims to eliminate digital illiteracy by distributing the Aakash tablets to students across India at subsidized rates. While the project itself has become mired in delays and controversy, it has generated a lot of awareness and interest among students around the educational tablet.

Meanwhile, DataWind, the Canada-based firm that partnered with the union government for the Aakash project, has also launched UbiSlate7, the commercial version ofAakash. "The opportunity for low-cost tablets in India is huge. In the next two years, it will exceed the size of the computer market in India i.e. 10 million units per year," says Suneet Singh Tuli, president and CEO of DataWind.

In April, technology firm HCL Infosystems launched the MyEdu Tab, which is priced at around US$230 for the K-12 version. The device comes preloaded with educational applications and also books from the National Council of Educational Research and Training, a government organization. Anand Ekambaram, senior vice-president and head of learning at HCL Infosystems, is in the process of partnering with more than 30 educational institutes across India for MyEdu Tab. "MyEdu Tab has content offline and can be accessed over the cloud. It allows students to learn at their own pace," Ekambaram notes. "With a topic revision application and a self-assessment engine, students can evaluate their skills and knowledge on their own. Teachers can upload content, which can be accessed by students and parents for tasks such as homework and progress reports on their respective devices. The parent can monitor the progress of his or her child through the cloud-based ecosystem."

Earlier this year, Micromax, a leading Indian handset manufacturer, also launched an edutainment device called Funbook. Micromax has also partnered with Pearson and Everonn to make available relevant content for students. Susha John, director and CEO at Everonn, was upbeat at the launch. "Digital learning facilitated through tablets will revolutionize the educational space," John said. "Everonn has invested in developing content and services targeted toward tablet audiences. To start with, we will offer our school curriculum-learning modules ... and at home live tuition products on the Funbook. Students can now have access to good teachers, educational content and a great learning experience anytime, anywhere."

At Pearson, Max Gabriel, senior vice-president and chief technology officer, is "focusing on K-12 content in English to begin with. We are sitting on a huge repository of existing content. Adding the right level of interactivity and richer experience will be our priority." Meanwhile, Educomp is gearing up to launch content that is device agnostic and can be run on any tablet.

But even as schools in India are going through this transformation powered by technology, one key question is how big a role technology will play in the education sector.

In an earlier interview S. Sadagopan, founder-director at the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, pointed out that there are four parts to learning -- lectures, library, laboratory and life -- noting that, "Technology plays a critical role in all these." Kabir of Technopak adds another perspective. "Despite numerous studies on the impact of ICT in education, the outcomes remain difficult to measure and open to much debate. It needs to be understood that technology is only an enabler and a force multiplier and cannot be treated as a panacea. We believe that impressive gains in teaching-learning outcomes are possible only through an integrated approach rather than a piecemeal intervention."

Don Huesman, managing director of Wharton's innovation group, recommends caution in considering potential investments in educational technologies. "These are very exciting times for online and distance education technologies, but there are risks facing parents, educators and policy makers in evaluating the opportunities these new technologies, and their proponents, represent."

Huesman points to the recent growth in high-quality, free, online educational courseware offered on websites like the Khan Academy and the Math Forum, as well as the work of the Open Learning Initiative in developing intelligent cognitive tutors and learning analytics. "But such technologies, available from a global network of resources, only provide value when understood, chosen and integrated into a local educational community," he says. As an illustration, Huesman offers the example of cyber kiosks, provided in recent years by foundations at no cost to rural communities in India, exacerbating the "gender divide" in many traditional communities in which young women congregating at public cyber cafes, also frequented by young men, would be considered taboo. "Interventions by governments and NGOs must be inclusive of local community concerns and aware of local political complications," Huesman notes.

Can Technology Help Solve India’s Education Problems?

In the mid-1980s, semiconductor manufacturer Texas Instruments (TI) spotted India’s potential as a hub for research and development, and heralded a wave of tech multinationals moving into India. A few years ago, it expanded its operations in the country and stared looking at India also as a market for its semiconductor products.

Now, the company has taken a further step: Globally, TI has been in the education technology space for more than two decades, and a few weeks ago, it brought this to India. TI sees India not only as a strong market for its education technology solutions, but also believes that these can help the country to address the constraints it faces in the education sector.

TI has tied up with Indian firm CORE Education and Technologies, which focuses on content creation and teacher education to offer an integrated solution called STEMpower. (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.) This includes laptops for teachers, networked handheld devices for students, software and content. “Some of the recent reforms in the education sector in India, like the focus on continuous and comprehensive evaluation and formative assessments, have interested TI in bringing our classroom training technology solutions here,’’ says Jagan Chelliah, director of sales and marketing, education technology at TI India. He adds: “Our intention is to refine [these solutions] over time to address the specific needs of the India market.”

During a press event, Sanjeev Mansotra, chairman and global CEO, CORE said: “STEM is about more than just education. It is about our economic future. The viable jobs of the 21st century will require high degrees of STEM literacy, and if our communities don’t have a STEM-literate workforce, those jobs can and will go elsewhere.”

Another technology multinational which recently introduced a new initiative in the Indian education sector is chip-maker Intel. In collaboration with the Karnataka government in September, Intel announced the launch of Computers On Wheels, an e-learning pilot program, in five districts across the state. It is based on the Intel Learning Series and includes infrastructure, hardware, software, content, training and support. The program is designed to deliver one-on-one e-learning in classrooms that is matched to local needs. “Advances in technology continue to transform how we live, work, play and learn. Intel is committed to making education accessible and engaging for all students,” says R. Ravichandran, director of sales, Intel South Asia.

Visvesvara Hegde Kageri, minister for primary and secondary education in the Karnataka government, sees the Intel initiative as a “very useful mechanism to enhance student learning by integrating innovative teaching methods” and by providing “a more engaging, interesting and experiential form of teaching and learning through smart use of technology.”

But how much of a role can technology really play at present in India’s education sector? S. Sadagopan, director at the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, points out that there are four parts to learning — lectures, library, laboratory and life. “Technology plays a critical role in all these,” he says. Sadagopan cities an example from the laboratories: “Frog dissection is completely gone…. Many expensive instruments can be made available to school children in less endowed places through technology.”
But Dilip Ranjekar, co–CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation, which focuses on primary education, offers another perspective.

Technology, Ranjekar says, can play an important role in education but only when the basic infrastructure is place. “In a vast number of schools in India, basic facilities like water, power and sanitation are inadequate. The teacher quality and involvement is also abysmal. These basic issues have to be addressed before there is any scope for technology to create any meaningful impact.”

Why we should be concerned about juvenile crime?

Of the six men accused of raping and brutally assaulting the 23-year-old woman, one of them turned out to be a juvenile, making him ineligible to be tried with the others but raising questions about what needs to be done to curb the rising number of crimes committed by teenagers.

According to the police, Ankur (name changed to protect identity), who worked at odd jobs at eateries in Delhi before becoming a helper for a white line bus, was the one who asked the couple to board the bus and got involved in one of the most gruesome gangrapes witnessed in the recent history of crime in India.

While Ankur will be tried in a juvenile court, experts say that the implementation of Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act- meant to prevent juvenile delinquency and reform offenders such as Ankur- falls way below expectations.
On paper, JJ Act mandates the operation of observation homes, child welfare committees and juvenile justice boards. But, on ground, “the Act has been made a mockery,” the Supreme Court observed in 2010.
More than 850 juveniles were booked for their alleged involvement in rape cases in 2010, up from 399 in 2001.

Kidnapping and abduction cases against juveniles witnessed a rise from 79 to 391 in the same time period. Crimes committed by juvenile suspects was 1.1 per cent of total crime in the country in 2011.
“We wake up reacting when we see children ending up doing something horrible. The question we should be asking is: What are we doing about juvenile crime prevention?” said Anant Asthana, lawyer and child rights activist.

Among the many lacunae in the implementation of JJ Act is the absence of a dedicated police unit for juveniles, he said.

“Delhi Police did not obey the circular issued by the police commissioner on juvenile police officers who would work exclusively on juvenile issues. Secondly, Delhi government has not set up district child protection units in all districts, which are mandated under the law to reach out to such children and their families,” Asthana said.

Probation units is another problem area. Under law probation units in JJ Boards (JJB) will have probation officers who act as an additional guardian of the juvenile offender and are responsible for restoration of the child.

“However, in practice the probation unit working with JJ Board 1 (JJB) is almost dead. No probation officer in any matter has come up with a rehabilitation plan of a child or has given insight to the Board on the needs of any juvenile. The probation unit thus is not doing the work that the Acts expects from and requires it to do and is as such a complete disappointment,” observed the principal magistrate of JJB 1 (one of the juvenile courts in the national capital) about the functioning of probation officers in an order in March 2011.

A study done by the Department of Community Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, and Prayas observation home for boys highlighted “a strong positive association between drug use and crime in adolescents.” Based on interviews of the staff of an observation home in Delhi, researchers found that the prevalence of any drug use among the boys before coming to the observation home was between 60- 70 per cent.

“In order to purchase drugs, boys indulged in shoplifting, gambling, pick- pocketing, burglaries and even murder. Thus, drug use led to other criminal activities,” noted the study.

However, it appears that the government has not acknowledged the drug- crime link among juveniles. The country’s only government drug de-addiction and rehabilitation centre for juveniles became operational in Delhi in 2011 after rejoinders from Delhi High Court.

“Drug use and sexual assault are common with street kids. Many of these boys have their own cult. Among their peers, they boast about having more than one girl friend,” said Dr Rajesh Kumar, executive director, Society for Promotion of Youth & Masses, which runs the centre in North Delhi.

On our preparedness to curb substance abuse in juveniles, Dr Kumar said, “We are not prepared to tackle issues as complex as drug use among juveniles in conflict with law. Such cases (Delhi gang rape) are warnings that we need to act.”

For better clarity and to bring maximum number if children under the ambit of the system, JJ Act (Central Model Rules 2009) mandates that the state government, JJB, child welfare committee, other competent authorities and agencies ensure that every person, school or other educational institutions abide by the guidelines issued from time to time by state and central government. But neither states nor Centre have formed guidelines. Hearing a public interest litigation filed by Delhi based NGO HAQ centre for child rights, Delhi High Court, in October 2012, asked the Centre and Delhi government to submit a status update on framing of these guidelines.

Conceding that the implementation of JJ Act leaves much to be desired, Bharti Ali of HAQ said that only systemic corrections will not help in containing juvenile delinquencies.

“Giving a child in conflict with the law a choice between being in an institutional facility or outside, is actually no choice at all as both suffer from ills that defeat the ends of justice and reform. Work is required at both ends. It is like making a choice between treating crime or criminal, when you need to work on both,” Ali said.

Post Gangrape: Why it’s difficult to believe the govt?

The distance between rulers and ruled has become an unbridgeable chasm in India. Nothing illustrates this better than the way in which the government has behaved vis-à-vis the Delhi gangrape victim and the protests that emerged as a spontaneous response to the brutality.

The victim has since been flown to Singapore to be accorded the best possible treatment.

While Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde can certainly be believed when he says that “since the day of the incident, it has been our endeavour to provide her the best medical care” and that “her fluctuating health remains a big cause of concern to all of us” (read here),why is it not easy for us to accept the government’s sincerity? Or why would a Hindustan Times report today explicitly claim that Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit was the person who originally called for her treatment abroad?

Is it easy to believe Shinde today when it was the same person who declined to meet the people protesting against the gangrape on the ground that he wouldn’t meet Maoists either; isn’t he part of the same government that tried to use the tragic death of a policeman to prevent protestors from continuing their agitation; and isn’t he the one who said the protests should have died down after Sonia Gandhi had met a midnight delegation.

Shinde’s boss and Prime Minister addressed the nation with a prepared speech on this tragic event. Is it so difficult for a PM with three daughters to emote and talk to the nation from the heart like any anxious father would? Why would he need to read out a formula speech from a piece of paper, even forgetting, for a minute, the technical glitch over his “Theek hai?“ remark that wasn’t intended for telecast?

Why is it that no one, Sonia included, is able to make one sincere connect on what the nation is angry about? Why is it that her son and youth icon is missing in action, and no minister, no MP and no political leader from the government is able to converse with the crowds? Why has humanity itself gone missing from the government’s engagement with its people?

Today’s newspapers tell us how alienated politicians are from the people when we learn that the decision to shift the patient from Safdarjung Hospital was planned like an anti-terror operation rather than a humanitarian one.

There are more questions than answers. For example, why was the home ministry organising the victim’s shift to Singapore when it should have been the health ministry, which was largely kept in the dark? Why did the government have to create decoy ambulances and burqa-clad doubles at Safdarjung to shift the patient from the ICU in a hush-hush operation as though national security was at risk? Why were the very doctors who kept her alive at Safdarjung not accompanying her on the air ambulance to Singapore?

Is the decision to shift a critical patient for better medical care something about which the nation needs to be kept in the dark? Even her parents did not know where she was going to be taken till they were ready to board the flight to Singapore, reports The Indian Express.

It is one thing to keep the Ajmal Kasab execution secret for fear of roadblocks from human rights activists, quite another to pretend that a patient about whom the entire country is concerned needs to be shifted under a heavy veil of secrecy.

There may be good reasons for secrecy, and maybe the home minister will let us know his reasons later, but the haste with which the operation was organised even after the patient suffered a cardiac arrest on Wednesday makes one doubt what this was all about. Was the patient in any condition to be moved? Or was she moved for non-medical reasons? According to a Times of India report, she faced another medical emergency in mid-air, and “went into near collapse” before she was rescued through the efforts of the doctor.

Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore has made it clear that the patient was “extremely critical” – a term doctors use only when they think the worst cannot be ruled out. The hospital statement attributed to Dr Kevin Loh, CEO, noted: “As at 7 pm (Singapore time) the patient remains in an extremely critical condition. She is under treatment at Mount Elizabeth Hospital’s intensive care unit. Prior to her arrival, she has already undergone three abdominal surgeries, and experienced a cardiac arrest in India. A multi-disciplinary team of specialists is taking care of her and doing everything possible to stabilise her condition.”

The key question is: why was she moved? An Economic Times report suggests that she was moved for non-medical reasons. Samiran Nundy of Delhi’s Gangaram Hospital is quoted as saying: “I cannot understand why they shifted the girl at a time when she is in need of critical care. Everyone is jumping the gun, saying that the girl is in need of immediate organ transplant. At this stage, she doesn’t need an intestinal transplant. She is suffering from infection and severe bleeding, and there cannot be any transplant when there is an infection.”
Subhash Gupta, a liver transplant expert, told the newspaper: “It doesn’t seem like the girl was transferred for medical reasons. They might have done it to reduce interference from the doctors or to give privacy to the patient, but saying that she is being taken to Singapore because they have better treatment facility is not correct.”

As we all pray and hope that the patient ultimately recovers, one can only shake one’s head at the enormous insensitivity and/or incapacity of the people who rule us to talk to us from their heart, as though we mattered.
There’s surely something wrong in the government-citizen equation if the former is willing to spend crores in treating an individual victim, but is entirely unwilling to engage with thousands of women fearing for their lives in a patriarchal and misogynist world. Does New Delhi think the health of the victim is unlinked to the broader concerns of India’s women?

The government’s actions suggest that it views people as an impediment to its own political priorities, whatever they are.

BOLLYWOOD GOES TO TOLLYWOOD

Rowdy Rathore, Singham, Bodyguard, Wanted, Ghajini and now Son of Sardaar — remaking a south Indian film, along with enlisting a big Bollywood star, is an easy way to box office success. There’s, however, more to the story.

Great stories travel across cinemas of different languages. This is especially true of Indian cinema — not only in the celebrated examples we have borrowed from the West, but also in the speed at which powerful ideas travel across Indian cinemas. So my first memory of Mani Ratnam’s film Roja is not in Tamil, but in the film’s Hindi avatar that went by the same name. The Tamil song Chinna Chinna Aasai became the equally evocative Dil Hai Chhota Sa Chhoti Si Asha, and none of the poignancy of the original was lost in translation. Though it may be argued that the story of a Tamilian wife struggling for justice in the Hindi heartland was more effective in the Tamil version, the Hindi film spoke equally powerfully to a pan-Indian audience.

But, like in Roja, it was more common for films to be dubbed in other languages during the 1990s. While other acclaimed films like Mani Ratnam’s Geetanjali had already been remade into Hindi, this does not compare with the growing trend of remaking Indian films into other languages that we have seen over the last decade. While Hindi cinema has always borrowed from south Indian cinema and vice versa — the successful remake ofRam Aur Shyam from the Telugu filmRamudu Bheemudu goes back to 1967 — such instances have been on the increase in recent times, and often with tremendous box office success.

While the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s often saw sensitive topics (Geetanjali, Saathiya), hard-hitting films (Dayavan) and social commentary (Virasat, Yuva) being remade for Hindi cinema, the last decade has been that of the big budget potboiler, which has hit the box office jackpot with regular succession.

Most often, as in films like Singham (remade from Tamil filmSingam), Rowdy Rathore (a remake of Telugu filmVikramarkudu) and Son of Sardaar (remade from Telugu film Maryada Ramanna), this is often done by simply borrowing the film’s story line, but not its director and cast. Few directors understand this better than Priyadarshan, with as many as eight film adaptations from Malayalam cinema to his credit. Though some of his earlier experiments of the 1990s were not successful, the tide turned with Hera Pheri. While not all the original films were directed by him, Priyadarshan’s forte lies in picking a great story idea and then completely immersing it in the cultural context of Hindi cinema. So while Hindi cinema audiences are familiar withHera Pheri, Hulchul and Bhool Bhulaiyaa, the original films — Ramji Rao Speaking, Godfather and Manichitrathazhu — are also well-loved and respected Malayalam films. Here, it is the language of wholesome entertainment that binds Priyadarshan’s work across languages.

In recent times, others like Mani Ratnam in Raavan have worked on Tamil and Hindi versions of their films separately — right from the inception stage. This is a new dimension for Indian cinema, where directors for the first time are even conceptualising their work in different languages for diverse audiences.

But some of the most celebrated remakes have been instances where the directors of popular south Indian films have themselves worked to recreate these films in Hindi. Take for instance the case of Kamal Hassan’s Chachi 420. Inspired by Mrs Doubtfire, Hassan created the hugely successful Tamil film Avvai Shanmugi. He then went on to adapt the film for a Hindi cinema audience — taking on the role of producer, director and actor. In recent times AR Murugadoss created two versions of the same experience with the Hindi and Tamil versions of Ghajini. Here the nuances and idioms of Hindi cinema become clearer.

While the Hindi and Tamil Ghajini are broadly similar (except for a difference in the conclusion), they are clearly made for two different audiences. As Sanjay Ramaswamy becomes Sanjay Singhania, the film’s principal characters move from being the boy and girl next door to towering larger-than-life personas. Glitzy glamour, metaphors of success and bright colours replace an almost rustic simplicity, and a flamboyant sophisticated entertainer emerges. But the essence of the original remains, with Murugadoss and Aamir Khan working tirelessly on the Hindi script to ensure that meaning was not lost in translation. The script was, in fact, first translated from Tamil into English, and from this came the final Hindi dialogue.

Yet, the stupendous success of Ghajini aside, the remaking a south Indian is in no way a sure recipe for box office success. While films No Entry, Housefull and Wanted have benefited from better production values and star power, laughing their way to the box, other successful south Indian films have not always been embraced by Hindi cinema audiences. Gautham Menon’s Minnale and Kaakha Kaakha have a huge fan-following among Tamil cinema audiences. But when Minnale was remade asRehna Hai Tere Dil Mein featuring Madhavan, Diya Mirza and Saif Ali Khan, the film disappeared without a trace. Both the freshness and cultural contexts of the remade Tamil film were not completely appreciated by Hindi film audiences. More recently Force — a remake of Kaakha Kaakha that starred John Abraham and Genelia D’souza, but without Menon’s direction — couldn’t repeat the kind of success it got in the south.

Clearly, these films are called ‘remakes’ with reason and a good story line alone is not enough to get audiences to participate in the success of a film. In these instances, films need to be virtually taken apart and re-made for a Hindi cinema audience. When remakes succeed there seem to be a combination of factors at play — a good story, backed by star power and a sustained marketing blitz.

While doing this, it becomes difficult for south Indian directors to retain their distinctive style that sometimes contributes in no small measure to the greatness of the original film. Mani Ratnam is the only south Indian director who has managed to do this with repeated success. Whether it isRoja, Guru or Raavan, his films are marked by a certain lyricism of locale, music and cinematography. In contrast, other remakes often bow to formulaic treatment. For instance when Manichitrathazhu became Bhool Bhulaiyaa, much of the greatness of the original was lost in translation.

Yet directors, who do retain their own distinctive style (like Mani Ratnam) or earn a reputation for a certain kind of entertainment (like Priyadarshan), have built their own fan-following. Others like Ram Gopal Varma now work more often on original Hindi films or even remaking old Hindi cinema.

nterestingly, while the remaking of south films has brought directors like Mani Ratnam, Priyadarshan and Ram Gopal Varma into Hindi cinema, there has been no similar movement among Tamil cinema actors. While most recent Tamil films that have been remade into Hindi have either Suriya or Vikram in the lead, neither of them have been considered for the Hindi remake. Clearly, an actor with sufficient clout at the box office — be it Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar or Ajay Devgn — is also needed to make a successful remake.

But when the experiment does succeed, there are gains for everybody involved. As the largest producer of films in the world, Indian filmmakers are always in search of new stories that they can win over their audiences. So they stand to gain from the acknowledged reconstruction of narratives that benefits both south Indian and Hindi cinema. Further, unlike in their borrowings from Hollywood, they can even collaborate with the original creators to reconstruct their narratives to new contexts.

In films like Singham, Ghajini and Bhool Bhulaiyaa, the Hindi remakes gained from the towering reputation of the south Indian original. For south Indian filmmakers, there is the opportunity to take their stories out to reach a pan-Indian audience, sometimes even drawing more attention to the original film that is the source of the remake. On the other hand, south Indian audiences who traditionally watch cinema in their own languages are often curious about the remake and flock to theatres in large numbers to watch the latest version of their favourite film. So, through Ghajini, director Murugadoss reached a pan-Indian audience, just as Aamir Khan was more closely watched in south India. For Suriya, the original actor in the Tamil version, there was increased national interest in his original portrayal of Sanjay Ramaswamy in Ghajini.

This week, as Murugadoss’ latest film Thuppakki releases in south Indian theatres, he is more respected as a Tamil film director with national appeal. Meanwhile, the Hindi remake of the film is already under pre-production. But here, Akshay Kumar replaces Vijay Kumar in the lead.

Clearly, both Hindi cinema and south Indian cinema are finding new audiences and making new icons. Besides the big bucks that filmmakers rake in at the box office, it is an opportunity for Indian cinema to build on this collaboration and extend its boundaries as well.

PRIME CRIME IN THE MAKING.....

The vagabond scrounges for meaning under the haze of neon lights, the well-worn furrows on his face primed and stark for the next battle of survival. The halogen swirls in a surreal, dank dream.

The shadows of a murky Mumbai lose themselves in the alleys and the brooding darkness doesn’t let you see what lies a few feet ahead. And Aamir Khan in Talaash prods and pokes at the fringes, digging out the unpretty side and thrusting it into popular mainstream consciousness.

Talaash, while executing the clichés of the film noir tradition, has a righteous cop questioning not only his own beliefs and shortcomings, but also peeling the humane layers behind the complexity of crime. If he had not been more discerning of his choices in saving his child, he had no authority to rail at the hardball choices of others borne out of their lesser privileged circumstances in life or their lack of ability. And therein lies the struggle to accept his flaw with theirs. Coming as it does after Kahaani, the other film that stripped the genteel veneer of an intellectual Kolkata, disembowelling its bugs and beasts, the underbelly is not only dominating our films but percolating to the popular drawing room space of television.

Weekend prime time bands, so far confined to the Karan Johar-isation of a relaxed mindspace, are now beginning to revel in gore and grime. And the fact that it made it to the `100 crore club and crime shows are scaling the ratings graph, it seems that the city underbelly has indeed become what NYU Professor Aurora Wallace recently likened to macaroni and cheese, the new “comfort food of television”. Or as filmmaker Anurag Kashyap puts it succinctly, “Throw away the warm duvet. Take off the skin and see the turmoil of emotions beneath, the tangle of messy heads and unfulfilled expectations that we so wish to hide under the carpet. Look at the failures because of our egoistical pursuits, our indulgence of the ugly.”

THE REASON
What is with this obsession with the macabre, this almost self-crucifixion of sorts on popular space and not some rap-venting at an alternative music concert? Sociologically speaking, the myth of the big city shimmering as a backdrop has ceased to represent highs in a globalised world. The idealistic struggle to chase rainbows has finally taken its toll, extracted too steep a price and left one wounded. Some have made it in the big city, others have reconciled to their migrant lot while yet others have been defeated and condemned to the hook or crook means to an end. The tussle for a new India has divided the self, exploited it and fuelled a bestial resurrection against odds. The moral fabric is frayed and flawed.

There is no room for oscillating between extremes, city life has perched itself on binary axes of neo-excellence and decay. These ideas have informed popular literature from time to time and have now invaded the mainstream. The abnormal and misbegotten, the chawls around the high class districts of Mumbai, the labyrinthine coldness of a Bob Biswas in Kahaani, the horrid stories of a deformed mind on Crime Patrol are all metaphors for a Mr Hyde co-existing on the same plane as the gentlemanly Dr Jekyll. Evil, too, has a next door neighbourly face, living a smooth life off it.

This acceptance of the war within society to push the city’s limits to the maximum has finally spilled over its popular tools of expression, films and TV. Celebrity chef Vikas Khanna, who has journeyed from a village in Punjab to setting up the Junoon restaurant in New York, has himself wrestled with the warts of a big city alongside his two club feet. “I believe the best expression comes from suppression. Take the literature and art of post-War Europe to understand the depths of the human condition, the cynicism, the desperation and the will to tide it along. For far too long we have lived in brackets. Finally, the time has come to break those barriers... this is happening in films, TV and even food. Street food and community platters are even making it to the high end eateries.”

Kahaani story writer Advaita Kala talks of the counterfoil approach. Says she, “The whole noir tradition got some attention in literature and has moved to film, which is an often noted transition. I think the audience is over being feted by stylised sets. I think the nineties and the representation of a ‘photo shopped’ India was a possible reaction to the socialist India of the recent past and the visual drabness of it. I think we are now in a space where we can deal with the reality of our cities. I think human psychology has a tendency to veer towards the macabre, it’s what makes us slow down while passing a vehicular accident on the road. Curiosity for the macabre, the forbidden. When done well, it can be art and even entertaining.”

Explaining the underbelly premise further, she adds, “Crime has always been a popular subject in films. I think there is a certain cleverness that is needed when plotting a good crime thriller, staying one step ahead of the audience, unlike a romantic film, in which you carry your viewer with you on an emotional wave.” Perhaps it is this cleverness which has been permeating the urbanscape as an edgy subculture that has come to the forefront. The raw, deviant and the manipulative mind is finally out. As Kashyap said before the release of Gangs of Wasseypur, “I didn’t glamorise crime or criminals as an exotic indulgence of the upper class vision of how the underbelly is, I present crime from a human level, making the viewer himself analyse the real outcome of crime. I present reality and make you think on the subject.”

THE BUSINESS
Not only that, the urban underbelly is becoming quite the grosser. While filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee moved from tugging at the subliminal in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye to the gruesome excesses of Love Sex Aur Dhokha and an upturned middle India in Shanghai, all at a profit. Kahaani and Talaash made it to the crore club. Vishal Bhardwaj took Shakespeare to heartland India in Omkara while Anurag Kashyap took Wasseypur’s eccentricities and grammar to Cannes.

Distributors now say that what was once a niche business in multiplexes — these making about 0.06 per cent of the 12,000 screens in the country — is contributing 38 to 40 per cent of box office revenues.

And if films have showed the way, television has completely broken new ground. Sony TV experimented with urban crimes in a docu-drama format over the largely unclaimed entertainment band of the weekend. Its CID continues to run in its 15th year and notched up a TRP of three till the last TAM reports came in. The newsy Crime Patrol notched up 2.7 points and Adalaat 1.7. Vipul D Shah, the producer of Crime Patrol, says: “When we started the show, our focus was on humanising the news around us. Drama and entertainment has to be part of anything on small screen, so we cashed in on the emotional and human aspects. We concentrated on storytelling and the TRPs shot up. Reality always had a recall value.”

Sony’s pioneering move was followed by rival channels across age groups, each show notching up ratings decent enough to sustain itself. Zee’s Fear Files, treading the unexplained and spiritualism a la Talaash, scooped up 3.6 points, while Savdhaan India on Life OK and Shaitaan on Colors inched closer to the analysis of the criminal mind. “It’s been the year of clones. Our commitment to creating original, differentiated content over weekends has spawned an entire range of such shows across channels.

We take imitation as a form of flattery and try to stay ahead with our commitment to characters, originality and quality,” says Vivek Bahl, chief creative director, Sony. The youth Channel V broke complete format with Gumraah, probing how urban youth are grossly waylaid by their own twisted beliefs. “We are not just retelling the crime, we go into the psychology of it. Maybe this show helps them talk about issues which would have already been swept under the carpet. We are building awareness in that sense,” says Prem Kamath of Channel V.

Suffice it to say that serious production houses, with entire teams dedicated to research and choosing cases juicy enough to be told in the drama format, often cannot put a finger on what works in this novella-like approach. For some, it’s the conflict of the good and the bad, the thrill of who will be the greater kill and the resolution — all elements of great drama and storytelling. For others, there is a sort of finality in a case closed under an hour compared to the much awaited justice in the real world.

Most though find the characters fascinating. They wonder why people like them or even those well placed in life are driven to heinous crimes and murder. “Everybody wonders why an average clerk would kill his wife and keep her body in the freezer, why would somebody poison his own children, why would the moneyed be perverse in his excesses, why a teen rapes an old woman or an old man abuses a child. Often it’s more about the possibility of flawed relationships in a society that’s tensile strength is being challenged by constantly changing circumstance, be they social, economical, cultural or political,” says a creative head.

Shows make a connect only because they focus on the emotional impact on victims and relatives. It’s more about the jealousies, the disappointments, the alienation of people and the hitback born out of these insecurities. In a way the belly-up approach essentially means coming to terms. And that, as some creatives say, is cathartic. Apparently a leading broadcaster is already making plans to launch the country’s first crime-only channel along the lines of Fox Crime and has approached filmmakers Kashyap, Banerjee and Nishikant Kamath to make pilots. Anil Kapoor is taking on the terror threat in our cities in the Indian adaptation of the hit series 24.

THE RECONCILIATION
There is a moral debate raging on the ethics of bombarding TV with violent imagery, particularly at a time when news television is flooding the same in our minds day in and day out. “I do not think the growing crime spiral in our society is responsible for these shows or raking up the underbelly is atavistic or altruistic. If not anything, it opens up our mind to triggers that could explode anytime. What we are doing is building a sensitivity index. Our show is not premised on the bad or its horrific dimension, it is about how the usual can morph into anything. It’s about understanding, not moralising,” says Shah.

If at all we are raising the ethical question, it has to be that as a viewer we are most often lulled into believing that violent crimes are for a certain class, a certain mindset, a vicarious pleasure in the fact that while we peep into lives of others, that life can never touch us. Popular media is just shaking us out of this misplaced idea and projecting the criminal mindset as lurking everywhere. As a creative says, “Keeping the blinkers on isn’t fair or ethical either.”

Kala, nevertheless, talks about the need for caution, “Drama is an integral aspect of storytelling, nobody wants to read an accident report or a FIR. One has to populate it, dare I say manipulate it or use the convenient ‘creative licence’ to engage the viewer. But it can’t be ridiculous, and it often is.” The need for a creative balance is further highlighted by the fact that, as Kala says, “nobody is writing good crime thrillers. And there is enough crime in our everyday lives unfortunately, we are not easily surprised anymore by excesses.” The oddball mind is the new superhero, a product of its time, engaging and entertaining in equal measure. Kala should know.

Vidya Balan may have avenged her loss with the help of clerical cops in Kahaani but it is the potbellied, mulish Bob Biswas with an outdated gun and a menacing push, whom advertisers are lapping up. He may be making his money as a hired assassin but he also owns real estate and could be your next landlord or neighbour. Hey, he is now online too.

Will the Hyderabad-Karnataka solution work for Telangana?

Those who are demanding that the Congress should make up its mind on the Telangana issue before or at the all-party meeting on 28 December in New Delhi are looking west, because the important decision on the Hyderabad-Karnataka region is perhaps an indication to which way the ruling party will go.

A bit of history first. The districts of Yadgir, Gulbarga, Raichur, Bidar, Koppal and Bellary were once part of the Nizam kingdom. Now known within Karnataka as the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, this arid region is the more backward part of Karnataka. The Lok Sabha unanimously passed the 118th Amendment Bill last week granting special status and recognition to these six districts. The government can now establish a separate development board and also provide reservation in Karnataka government jobs and educational institutions.

While it is true that unlike Telangana, there is really no movement demanding statehood for this part of Karnataka, the Centre through this Bill wants to demonstrate that it is more inclined to recognise regional disparities within a state and find a solution through such development boards. It has already experimented in the past with a similar move in Gorkhaland in West Bengal.

Telangana has, however, seen development councils before. And the experience has been nothing to write home about. People of the region look at them purely as throwing a few crumbs like creating job opportunities by setting up PSUs and the feeling by and large is that only the politicians gain by grabbing positions on such boards. The proposal, if made formally, will be rejected outright by the political parties spearheading the movement.

But from the Centre’s point of view, if such a move is made on Telangana, it is likely to receive no opposition from coastal Andhra side though it would only be fair that Rayalaseema — which in many senses is more backward than Telangana — should also get a regional developmental board. A development board with huge funds coupled with a second State Reorganisation committee could be the combo that the Centre could sell to Telangana.

The argument that is being built up in favour of a development board for Telangana on the lines of Hyderabad-Karnataka is that the Centre cannot have a dual policy on creation of new states. If development boards with an economic package and reservations are the way to deal with backwardness in some parts, the government cannot solve a similar problem across the border by creating a state.

The fear also is that creation of Telangana could incite a similar movement in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, besides of course, re-igniting statehood fires in Vidarbha and Bodoland.

But beyond these academic considerations also are serious political calculations. BJP’s victory in Gujarat has given the party a boost and it now fancies its chances in Telangana, especially if Narendra Modi campaigns aggressively in the region. The Congress strategists are loathe to concede anything that may benefit the BJP politically.

Moreover, it is too late in the day for the Congress to gain politically even if it grants Telangana as it would be seen as a reluctant move, given under duress.

However, before firming up its mind on its stand on Telangana, the Congress will need to look within. Minus statehood, one-third of its MPs from Telangana could be TRS-bound, a few others for YSR Congress. There are many others who would prefer to float a Telangana front and contest under a common umbrella, since they are uncomfortable with the leadership style of both KCR and Jagan. They hope that with seat adjustments with the TRS and the BJP, a Front will help them guard their own personal political future.

Another concern for the Telangana Congress leaders is whether the 28 December meeting, which its MPs pushed its leadership to hold, will take place at all. Given the precarious law and order situation in Delhi over the rape incident, Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is busy firefighting and may be mentally and physically in a state of fatigue to douse the Telangana fire.

RAMCHARAN POTRAYS DABANNG IN 'NAYAK'

Ram Charan Nayak Movie : Mega Power Star Ram Charan's upcoming film under the direction of VV Vinayak has been titled as 'Nayak, says the buzz. Recently Ram Charan has wrapped up the shoot in Kolkata where he participated in action sequences. Kajal Agarwal and Amala Paul have been paired as heroines opposite to Ram Charan. SS Thaman is composing the music and Chota K Naidu is the cinematographer. DVV Danayya is producing 'Nayak' under Universal Media banner.

Mega Powerstar Ram Charan’s most sought after movie ‘Nayak’ audio has been launched in a frenzy affair last night. Power Star Pawan Kalyan has attended the event as the chief guest and released the audio, handed over the first CD to Mrs Surekha Chiranjeevi. Also, the stars who have graced the event are Stylish Star Allu Arjun, Allu Aravind, Dil Raju, Chota K Naidu, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Rajamouli, Boyapati Sreenu, Vamsi Pydipalli, Kajal Aggarwal, Amala Paul and the producer of the film Danayya. Speaking at the event, Pawan Kalyan has wished the team of ‘Nayak’ all success.

It was Ram Charan’s speech that has caught lot of attention. The actor hit out at media and quashed all the rumors of a rift between Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan and adds that these writings won’t separate their 35 years of relatonship. Ram Charan also said that the news of this kind are like a strand of his hair. This speech has made the crowd to erupt with joy and especially his dialogue”Maa Mega fans kosam clarify chesthunna” has made them go gaga. Though this didn’t go well with media circles as they feel that Ram Charan’s words are in complete bad taste, otherside, mega fans are enjoying it.

Mega Powerstar Ram Charan ‘Nayak’ theatrical trailer is here. The movie directed by VV Vinayak is touted to be an action entertainer with adequate mass elements. The theatrical trailer of ‘Nayak’ was released during the audio launch has received fantastic response from mega fans. Thaman has scored the music for ‘Nayak’ which is releasing for pongal. Kajal and Amala Paul are playing the heroines.

• Watch Ram Charan Nayak Theatrical Trailer Here
• Listen or Download the chartbuster songs of Nayak Here.