'Indian Fabrics Need To Make On World's Textile Map'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to choose Varanasi as his constituency in the 2014 general elections has rekindled the hope that it will lead to the revival of the city’s fabled craft, the Benaras Brocades. 

These patterned gold and silver silks have been woven in the city since ancient times, but unfortunately there has been a sharp decline in the demand for this fabric in recent years.

Special Feature: 'A Secret Couture Of Modern Trends'

By Shefalee Vasudev / Mumbai

A peek into the stunning private wardrobes of an India that doesn’t equate couture with crystal. Far from the razzmatazz of couture weeks is the closet of Malvika Singh, publisher of Seminar magazine. Collected with passion over more than 40 years, her 700-odd saris include cotton Jamdanis, many of them in patterns no longer woven on the looms of Varanasi, Upadas and Venkatagiris from Andhra Pradesh, the rare Bomkais of Orissa, Kanjeevarams from Chennai’s Kalakshetra and Maheshwaris that she says are “very special”.

Feature: The Return Of The 'Half-Sari Fashion' Trends

By Aeman Nishat / Hyderabad

Chennai unfurls its updated answer to north India’s ‘ghagra-choli’. Deepika Padukone gives it the thumbs up. With a broad zari border on a green dupatta, an orange silk blouse and a flowing yellow skirt, Deepika Padukone in a pavadai thavani, or half-sari, is almost a cliché in the role of village belle in Chennai Express, which releases on 8 August.

The humble half-sari, once the bridge outfit for girls too old to wear the traditional silk skirt without a dupatta but too young to graduate to a sari, has now been adopted by the Hindi film industry.

Is Shah Rukh Khan's daughter Suhana already a style icon?

Suhana, Shah Rukh Khan's daughter, was spotted with her mother Gauri at the 19th Annual Colors Screen Awards. She was wearing what looked like a dress, mirroring her mother's style. She had done up her hair in ringlets and looked quite chic.

Though Suhana had little on no make up on, with the exception of perhaps a bit of lip gloss, the 12-year-old looked quite composed in front of the paparazzi in her off-shoulder, knee-length dress with floral print.

Shah Rukh often tweets about his children - son Aryan and daughter Suhana - and takes them to IPL matches. Suhana has been seen more often in sweat shirts and jeans. But it seems the junior Khan has already a fashion statement to make.

The 8th standard star-daughter is all set to be a child fashion-icon by the blessings of fashion gurus and encouragement of fashion-sensed mom Gauri Khan. 

We have to wait and watch for Suhana's bright future.....!!

Amid Glitz, Glamour, India's Sad Handloom Story

A toddy-tapper climbs down a palm tree, his legs bent out from his hips in a distorted ‘W’, the soles of his feet gripping and releasing the trunk till he reaches terra firma. He holds out to you a cupful of neera—sweet, unfermented sap from the palm efflorescence. Even if filter coffee is your preferred wake-up pick-me-up, neera can bring about a quick conversion. Yellow weaver-birds peer from their nests to check you, the visitor, out. 

Meanwhile, the neera takes charge and you are suffused with a sense of peace. This is your welcome to Pochampally. While silk woven in the ikat style is what Pochampally is about, a brief stopover by a swaying paddy field on the way to the Handloom Park can make your day too. The weaving village of Pochampally, about 60 km from Hyderabad, combines the silken allure of its saris so well with the romance of nature.

Colourful spindles and yarn hang outside houses. As the morning progresses, the thak-thadaak of looms gains in volume. It’s magical to watch the irresistibly intricate designs take shape as the weavers ply their craft, each piece demanding detailed, patient work. Since every piece is hand-woven and the designs are laid out piece by piece, the watchword is uniqueness. The tourism complex at the village gives just a foretaste of this process, grounded in years of traditional expertise; for the complete magic to unfold, one must visit the handloom park, in Kanumukkala village, just a few kilometres from Pochampally proper. It’s spread over 24 acres and began functioning in 2009 and trains men and women in the intricate process behind the creation of ikat saris. Visitors are allowed to occasionally try their hand at working the looms.

Picture yourself working out on a cross-trainer; then visualise yourself trying to play table tennis at the same time, your eyes darting from left to right, right to left, following the flying jenny that carries the thread across. Then there’s the design to remember, taking shape slowly. That’s the sort of skill a Pochampally weaver displays. And this is just the last part, the culmination. Before reaching this stage, the silk yarn has to be set, marked, tied-and-dyed, sized and put through many more processes before the weaving begins. Weaving makes a multi-tasker out of you. If weaving isn’t for you, warm down by spinning the charkha, fascinating once you get the hang of it. “Students from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, delegates from the National Institute for Rural Development and many foreigners come here to understand the art,” says Shekhar, a master weaver, as he shows us around.

Back in Pochampally, many friendly families offer to demonstrate the art of weaving in return for some gupshup. It is common to see small units, headed by a master, with six or seven looms worked by hired weavers. At one such unit, Prasanna, a weaver, says he and his wife work for about 10 hours a day. “It takes a week to make one sari.”

My newfound respect for the art of ikat prevents me from haggling, as I shop for a sari at the Pochampally Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society which houses some of the best collections. Pochampally is also the village where Acharya Vinoba Bhave began the Bhoodan movement in 1951, persuading zamindars to part with a piece of their land for peasants. The Vinoba Ashram which stands next to the tourism complex has clearly seen better days, though: some precious portraits of Vinoba Bhave are covered in cobwebs. Pochampally is also a temple palle (village). The Markandeya temple, with its quiet environs, is worth a visit. But it is the bewildering process of a sari taking form on the handlooms that’s a vision to behold.

Weft Side Story
It wouldn't be too hard to stick out in a simple white shirt and black pants amid a crowd of glamorous dresses, jazzy shirts, colourful trousers and high heels. Varanasi-based Badruddin and Hanumanta were a duo with a mission of creating awareness of the charm of India's age-old handloom work - and its growing problems.

They stood out as fashion-conscious crowds strolled, cheered and even jeered at a plethora of outfits at the exhibition area of the just-concluded Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW).

With as many as 128 participating designers, WIFW served as a business-to-business platform for many, and in their case, to educate people about the lost charm of handlooms.

Busy spinning the yard, they rued how the growing western culture has depleted the importance of handloom work in India and how that is the reason behind their everyday struggle for survival. "We don't get wages for the work that requires so much of hard work," Badruddin, 55, told INN while showing the minute work that he was busy doing on the handloom machine.

"The main problem of handloom work is the market. When we take the piece to the market, we don't get a price for it. And if we don't get the money, how will we make the next piece? We need money to make new saris and we don't even get that," he added.

Hanumanta, who must be in his late 50s, agreed. "We don't get value for our hard work. We take approximately six to seven days to make a silk sari and what do we get in return? Nothing."

Both the men were part of WIFW as members of Bunkar Seva Kendra, an initiative by the textile ministry's Development Commissioner for Handlooms, who lends support to local artisans and weavers through many of their policies around the country.

At the fashion extravaganza, where designers hardly sell anything below Rs.10,000, they were glad to get queries at least.

"People came with queries, but there are more number of watchers than buyers. Most people want bling and other stylish fabrics. Who wants to go for purity? People don't understand silk any more," rued Badruddin.

They said handlooms around their village, 20 km away from Varanasi, have depleted from 1,500 to to just 50 to 60. Plus, the remuneration is not on a par with the market price of the project.

Hanumanta said the prime reason for the dismal payment is the existence of middlemen.

"They buy our pieces according to their convenience, and we are forced to sell for whatever price they want to as we need money for our livelihood... even if it means selling it at a loss," Hanumanta told INN.

That is also the reason why they discourage their new generation to continue the trend.

"Our families have been into handlooms since generations, but we don't want our next generation to get into this. Earlier, we used to get a good amount, so we continued with this work. But now there is no money," said Hanumanta, who is also a government employee and earns a monthly income of Rs.32,000.

Even government schemes haven't been fully useful to free them of their struggle.

"The government says it has already launched several schemes for us (handloom artists), but the middleman takes the entire cost in the form of NGOs and welfare communities. We want the mediator's role to vanish. We want to get in touch with the government directly," said Hanumanta.

Even while many of noted designers like Ritu Kumar and Sabyasachi Mukherjee have been making efforts to revive the handloom sector, the plight of such weavers is sad.

On its part, the National Handloom Development Corporation Limited (NHDC), a national level agency for the promotion and development of the handloom sector, has given handloom weavers many facilities, said B.B Paul, director (Noth Zone), Weavers' Service Centre.

"We are bearing the transport cost of these weavers if they are travelling to buy yarns from other states. Also, the government has announced some bank facilities. These weavers were not getting easy access to the bank, but now things have changed," Paul told INN.

http://newshyd.blogspot.in/2013/03/inn-advertising-tarrif.html

Movie Review: Ghanchakkar Isn’t Funny, But Worthy Film

By Tayyeb Ali / Mumbai

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Vidya Balan all over the place, promoting Rajkumar Gupta’s Ghanchakkar dressed in some spectacularly awful costumes. Polka dotted shirts, print on print, stripe on stripe, floral frill on floral frill, headbands, umbrellas, devil horns, peacock earrings, oversized glasses…just enough ridiculousness to make your eyes bleed. To be reminded that these aren’t fashion faux pas but her ‘in character’ isn’t necessarily a good thing, because this hints at an OTT comedy, one we’re already skeptical of. Then again, Balan has given us some pretty ace performances, and we last saw Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan pair up in The Dirty Picture…couldn’t be that bad, could it?

Makeover Experts 'Mirrors Salons', In A Class Of Its Own!

From 3Marks PR Services, Hyderabad

Celeb stylist Vipul Chudasama and Dr.Vijayalakshmi Goodapati, Owner of Mirrors Salons and Academy are coming together to give Hyderabad a glam and glitz makeover. 

According to a press statement, Vipul Chudasama will be available at Mirrors from today onwards. This is a remarkable opportunity for the style-conscious Hyderabadis who travel all the way to Mumbai, London Paris or New York for that perfect haircut-they just have to walk into 'Mirrors Salons' at Jubilee Hills and Madhapur in Hyderabad and get a makeover befitting a Hollywood star. Get ready to become the cynosure of all eyes!

How Indian Designers Reviving The Handloom Sector?

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi lands in Chennai to be part of the National Handloom Day celebrations, there arises the pertinent question as to how designers and boutiques across India can help the handloom sector.

Many globally renowned designers in south India, like Gaurang Shah, Vivek Karunakaran and Shravan Kumar Ramaswamy whose clients include a long list of Indian celebs, have been consistently working with weavers and handlooms. Applauding the creation of a National Handloom Day to throw the limelight on a dying craft, Hyderbad-based designer and textile revivalist Gaurang Shah says, “It’s motivational and the most satisfying moment for a designer like me as the Prime Minister dedicates this day for handlooms.

Blooming 'Hyped' Tattoo Business Makes India Flourish

By Manasi Joshi / Mumbai

The tattoo industry, which is in the unorganised sector in India, is said to have grown by over 100 percent in the last one year, according a recent survey. Experts credit endorsement of inkings by Bollywood stars like Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone for the boom.

A report by mydala.com, one of the country's largest mobile couponing platform that also enables tattoo artists to gain traction among youth, indicates the growth of the tattoo vertical in India.

Opinion: Is Supreme Court Losing Its Moral Authority?

By Anil Dhawan (Guest Writer)

As allegations of "unwelcome behaviour" against retired Supreme Court judges - two have surfaced so far - are denting the institution's moral authority, an informal in-house mechanism is required to determine the veracity of such allegations and a single yardstick should be applied for any probes into the charges, eminent lawyers say.

They have also objected to the allegations being dealt with in an "extra legal fashion" and urged the media to be more circumspect in its reportage of the issue.

"I am extremely disturbed about the irreparable damage that these allegations are making to the institution. If we continue to deal with such allegations in extra legal fashion and the media continues to be oblivious to the most fundamental constitutional principles of the right to silence and presumption of innocence, then the Supreme Court will never be able to command the moral authority which is essential for democracy.

Suave Actress Amrita Rao To Be Seen In New Avatar

Press Release

Known for being a lucky mascot for Bollywood actors, Amrita Rao will be seen walking the ramp with co-star Arshad Warsi as a part of the special IIFA Foundation Fashion Extravaganza followed by a rapid fire Q&A round with hosts Zayed Khan and Sophie Choudhary on centre stage.

Her presence at IIFA this year is for the promotion of her film Shortkut, which is scheduled for release in July 2009, where she will be playing the lead actress. The film is directed by Neeraj Vora, produced by Anil Kapoor and screenplay by Anees Bazmee. Other star cast of Shortkut includes Akshay Khanna, Arshad Warsi and a special appearance by Sanjay Dutt and the producer Anil Kapoor himself in a cameo. This film will be a family entertainer and one will have to wait and watch what magic this multi-starrer will create at the box office.

Amrita will be seen wearing sleek and sexy Wendell Rodricks outfit complemented by elegant jewellery by Gitanjali Group for IIFA Foundation Fashion Extravaganza. Her look for the IIFA will showcase 2C’s - colour and comfort.

Well known designer, Swapnil Shinde will be creating Amrita’s look by keeping a balance between the two extreme terms, “sexy” without being cheap or crude, and “elegant” without being boring or matronly.. There will be an exclusive look depicting a mix of prêt and couture, for each of her appearances on the ‘green carpet’ or at the cocktail parties. She will also be seen sporting accessories and more from international brands of the likes of Christian Dior, FCUK, Aldo, Luxottica Group.

Two days before the actual excitement begins, Amrita Rao says “My stint with IIFA started off in Singapore where I was awarded the “Face of the Year” Award. It is an event that is extremely close to my heart and extremely special for sentimental reasons. Macau is a unique amalgamation of Portugal and Chinese culture which I am quite fascinated by and looking forward to explore. This year besides mingling with the entire film fraternity, I will be giving undivided attention to my soon-to-be-released film, Shortkut. My fashion statement will express loads of ‘green carpet’ glamour for the night, but simple yet sexy dresses for the day.”

The entire Shortkut team will reach The Venetian, Macau on the 12th of June.

The Offbeat Jewelry for Fashion Savvy Women In India

INNLVE Media Team

Flaunt like the queen Cleopatra and flirt like a blooming nymph with TI Couture ‘Nature Resurgence’ jewelry collection, the premium ensembles are filled with purity and verve of the nature. TI Couture ‘Nature Resurgence’ unfolds the mystery and charm of the eternal nature. Depicting the sublime beauty of the beads and the pearls. ‘Nature Resurgence’ is a treasure trove of seminal floral designs which are colorful and lively, and perfect for the summers.

‘Nature Resurgence’ comprises an impressive range of necklaces and earrings. Designer Tania M Kathuria preferred silver over gold to create a cool jewellery line in this hot summer. Semi-precious stones, pearls and crystal balls further magnify the grace of these stylish and eye soothing ensembles.

Mumbai’s Hawkers: We Don’t Even Know How To Deal With Them

Hawkers are not new to Mumbai nor are the slums. They are in fact distinct features of the city to the extent that hawkers’ numbers are only an estimate despite their being ubiquitous. The Census in the past has shown that six out of ten Mumbai residents live in its slums.

Getting rid of them is not easy. Just over a fortnight ago the hawkers were evicted from Bandra’s Hill Road and a few other spots and they are trickling back to do their business. The slums, unlike hawkers, cannot be evicted unless they are provided replacement housing.

There is a link between the two. Slums are from where the hawkers come, and slums are where the poor, even if not bone-poor, live. Slums, it so happens, have mostly the migrants who risk everything to anchor themselves in search of livelihoods. That is why the Supreme Court had linked hawking and right to livelihood.

But the mean of having hawkers and not allowing them to overrun every available space in congested public spaces remains elusive. There hardly is a city with as many slum dwellers, and probably as many hawkers. The latter serve the middle class as well as the poor who too traverse the city’s roads and stop to pick up a thing or two, to run their lives.

However, despite making people to walk on the carriageway of the thoroughfares, and do a hop-skip-and-jump on sidewalks, they are patronised. People grumble about them even on the foot overbridges in the railway stations but wade on regardless. The fish, it so happens, never complain that the water they swim in makes them wet.

But to the Hill Road residents—or their ilk—hawkers are a serious issue. They can do without them. On the Linking Road too, the residents can seek their eviction, and probably with good reason. For, those who do not or cannot go to Fashion Street in South Mumbai, visit and crowd Linking Road. Daytime population densities can be hard to live in.

It is much like the genteel not wanting slums in their midst for – oh, they are such an eyesore. But the flows from the eyesore keeps their lives ticking well – the bai, the khanawali, the plumber, the driver comes from that eyesore. If not, they’d be paying an arm for their services.

Talking of Fashion Street, it, as well as the booksellers who colonised the footpaths along the High Court and the Central Telegraph Office, together reveal the ambivalence of Mumbai towards the issue of hawkers. Fashion Street vendors were regularised, given stalls, and asked to keep space for pedestrians too. The booksellers were evicted.

Apparently, hawkers are good in one place and not in another. In rest of the places, like the slums, they were allowed to proliferate by a tight league of the local politicians, the local goons, and petty officials who had the brief to curb them. The hawkers’ number apparently kept pace with the growth of the slums. In mid-1950s, slums barely accommodated five per cent of the city’s population which by now has grown by more than 12 times.

The logic follows that if there are laws which protect slum dwellers if they have been in the dwellings prior to 1995, then the hawkers too should get a similar consideration. The two cannot be separated because they are linked in more ways than one. If slums are untouched—mostly, that is—even if they sprang up after 1995, why should the hawkers suffer? Slums have come up on all lands – civic, state and Central government and parastatals’ parcels, huge and small.

Hawkers are usually on civic lands; civic bodies own sidewalks. If the city’s civic body has been at a wits’ end, assuming that it really means to ensure hawkers-free sidewalks, then it has to blame itself for the plight. So much so, after the late 1980s, the civic body even stopped counting the number of hawkers there. SS Tinaikar, as Commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, had estimated their size at 1.4 lakh.

Now even the hawkers’ unions only have estimates, ranging from three lakh to ten.

However, to its credit, the civic body, which thinks it has now some 18,000 hawkers who have licences to do sell their wares, had charged a fee for many more of them. It was towards the cleanup of the streets dirtied by the hawkers. Suddenly, that practice was ended because it presumed a kind of tacit title being awarded by the nominal fee.

Now the hawkers’ issue has snowballed into a size that no one can dare think is solvable. Small ideas failed because they were not thought out. Hawking zones were laid out on streets where the crowds don’t come; Bhau Daji Road is not as attractive as Matunga Station which ensures higher footfalls.

It had thought that mere eviction and seizure of their wares was enough to discourage them from returning to the streets, because to secure their return, they had to pay three times the value of the confiscated goods. There was no way it could be calculated because hawkers’ business is entirely in the grey – no receipts for goods bought or sold.

In fact, after the theatrics of periodic drives to embellish their records or the whims of a superior, these drives led to return of the goods for a fee, not, of course, the official penalty thrice their value. The city government does not even have a place to store these confiscated goods. Neither does it have a procedure for their disposal should they remain unclaimed.

The catch is here: why should the hawker return to claim it at that penal cost if he is not supposed to hawk?

Even if each street were to have a Vasant Dhoble patrolling it, the problem would persist because dealing with hawkers alone is not the single brief of the police. They have other things to do and the manpower in police stations is so low that Mumbai’s crime chart is already a matter of concern. No wonder even the four constables deployed on Hill Road had been assigned elsewhere by this mid-week.

However, MCGM which failed in the task of protecting land owned by it and which it has to provide for the safety of the pedestrians now thinks that the understaffed police are its saviour. It is contemplating an award of Rs 1 lakh for a police station and Rs 25,000 for a beat chowky if they can prevent nuisance on the streets.

Nuisance, under municipal laws, are of a variety. They range from urinating, spitting, throwing garbage. The police, under their rules, are empowered to deal with them under Section 115. If they cause obstruction- which hawkers cause – they can be dealt with under Section 102. That is why Dhoble zeroed in on Hill Street.

But Rs 1 lakh to the police on a street teeming with hawkers is chicken feed. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a single ‘drive’ every now and then for haftas on a single day can generate that much and more. What prize the incentives then?

It would perhaps be practical to ensure that hawkers are regulated in terms of the widths of the footpaths they occupy, and stay away from the carriage ways which are now the refuge of the pedestrian needing to dodge between parked cars, and don’t dirty the place. Even the might of the MCGM and the police cannot get them off the streets.

'Long kurta with collars always look classic'

By M H Ahssan

Designer duo Varun and Nidhika talk about the uniqueness of their label and the freshness they bring into fashion.

Your line is known by your names Varun and Nidhika. Why is that?We’re married and equal partners in the designing process. Our work and our designs involve both of us — and we wanted a brand name to reflect that.

When did you start?We both went to NIFT, Mohali. We graduated in 2006. I worked with Manish Arora and Rohit Bal, putting in two years with each. Nidhika worked with Namrata Joshipura and Abhijit Khanna in that time too. After putting in four years in the industry, we felt ready to come up with our own line. We started in 2010.

What defines the style trends of the moments?
Fashion has become more individualistic. Since we work on a prêt line, let’s talk about the trends here. Bright and yet offbeat colours are doing great and the emphasis is on interesting theme elements. This means, no bling and no more usual kurtas. The cuts are edgy, the details are quirky and the silhouettes are unusual. Women want to experiment these days and this is what is being reflected in the trends these days.

What is the future forecast for Indian fashion?
In India, we have a long summer. It’s hot for almost nine or ten months. We’re going to see more blends of cotton and linen, with light fabrics like chiffons and georgettes. Bling embellishments will not be seen and when it comes to colour combinations, the palate will be bright, but these colours will be paired with nude or neutral tones. Say, instead of pairing a fuchsia with mustard, we’ll see a fuchsia and mustard paired with nude overtones.

Are you going to go beyond clothes and venture into accessories?
We have already done some of that, including designing spaces. It’s all about the aesthetics. We’ll try our hands on whatever comes our way - it could be home décor, it could be cookware, it could be interiors. One never knows.

What is a classic look for an Indian woman?
One look that always works is a really long kurta with collars and a keyhole neck. This is a classic one.

EComm Fuels Entrepreneurs To Turn Dreams Into Reality

INNLIVE Media Team

As she walked out of her college alumni meet brimming with nostalgic thoughts about her amazing years at B-School, she wondered how great it would be to have a simple keepsake to help her connect with this feeling forever. A t-shirt or a hoodie came to her mind. So she went to someone who created such apparel, but the poor quality on offer appalled her. The vendor didn't care about quality since promotional material is usually about meeting a low cost target.

But this lady was made of stronger stuff. She decided that if high quality products for such purposes weren't available, she would become an entrepreneur, build a team and create such apparel. Extensive research and much hard work later, Campus Sutra was born.

'Sheer Example, A Socially Responsible Garment Factory'

By Kiwi Kunder / INN Bureau

In response to the continuing injustices suffered by garment workers globally, tougher regulations and more stringent factory audits are not enough, says Rob Broggi, CEO and founding partner of Industrial Revolution II, a new kind of garment factory founded on the principles of socially responsible manufacturing.

The recent tragedy at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, where over 1100 factory workers were killed in a senseless accident, was just the most recent travesty in a long line of injustices for garment workers globally.

After Myanmaar, Now In Srilanka Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiments Stoke Fears Of Another Ethnic War

A red-robbed Buddhist monk calmly picked up stones and hurled them at a security camera. Then, as police looked on, his followers smashed up a popular, Muslim-owned clothing store.

Last month’s attack on the Fashion Bug chain near Colombo, filmed by a local television station whose cameraman was attacked by the mob, was the most public outburst in a growing anti-Muslim campaign by Sri Lanka’s Buddhist nationalist groups.

The escalation in attacks and anti-Muslim rhetoric has caused fears of a new wave of ethnic violence in a country still recovering from a quarter-century civil war between the government, controlled by ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists, and a mainly Hindu ethnic Tamil rebel group.

“They just finished hunting the Tamils, without solving any of the issues, and now they are starting on the Muslim hunt. Virtually all minority communities are being threatened,” said Muslim political leader Azad Salley.

The anti-Muslim campaign has been led by Buddhist monks and is fast gaining ground among youth through raging speeches and ludicrous conspiracy theories spread on social media.

The leaders of the campaign complain that Sri Lanka’s ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists, who make up almost 75 percent of the country’s 20 million people and control the government and the military, are under threat from the 9 percent of the country that is Muslim. They say Muslims dominate the nation’s businesses, are fomenting religious fundamentalism and are conspiring to demographically take over the country by increasing their birthrate while secretly sterilizing the Sinhalese.

A Muslim volunteer group, which does not wish to be identified for fear of reprisals, has documented 33 anti-Muslim incidents since September 2011. They include at least five attacks on Muslim places of worship, attacks on businesses and an episode where Muslim students at a government agriculture school were served pork, which their religion forbids them from eating.

Buddhist nationalists demanded Muslim religious leaders stop issuing “Halal” certificates — which certify that local products comply with Islamic tenets — charging that the fees paid for certification were passed onto unwitting — often non-Muslim— consumers and used to construct mosques. Certification was made free of cost last month.

They have also campaigned for laws aimed at the Muslim community. One would stop women from wearing a veil.

“I have a fundamental right when I go in the street to see the face of a person,” said Dilantha Withanage an official of the prominent Buddhist nationalist group, Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Force.

Another proposed law would stop Muslim men from being able to marry up to four women.

“What we are fighting for is a single legal system in this country. If a Muslim has the right to marry four wives let the Buddhists also have that,” he said.

Sri Lanka allows citizens to marry according to the customs of the four main religions — Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.

Withanage denied having an anti-Islam agenda, saying his group wanted only for Buddhism to get the credit for building up Sri Lankan civilization. Other religions can still be practiced, he said.

The attack on Fashion Bug came a week after a monk accused the company and other Muslim businesses of committing “sexual crimes” against Sinhalese female employees and converting them to Islam by marrying them to Muslim employees. The mob stormed the store on the pretext that a 15-year-old girl had been raped inside, an accusation that proved to be false.

Another monk told a rally that another Muslim-owned clothing store was giving free candy to Sinhalese women customers with ingredients that caused miscarriages and infertility. He said men’s belts sold by these companies caused kidney diseases and damaged customers’ testicles.

Text messages were sent en masse accusing another Muslim company of manufacturing sanitary napkins that turned women barren. The claims were passed around on Facebook and Twitter as well.

The campaign has frightened Muslims, who suspect the government is not just refusing to protect them, but is actively fomenting the tension, a charge the government denies.

Sri Lanka’s national telecom provider started selling the Buddhist Force theme song as a ring tone to help raise funds for the group. Following protests, the company apologized for any “emotional distress” any community might feel — but refused to withdraw the tone.

Suspicion that authorities were complicit grew after the police stood by and watched the Fashion Bug attack.

Amid criticism of police inaction, 17 suspects, including three monks, were brought to court. The court later released them, saying the parties arrived at an amicable settlement. The injured cameraman also withdrew his complaint, saying fighting his case might create social unrest.

The powerful defense secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the president’s brother, was recently a chief guest at a Buddhist Force event, where he defended the group.

“The venerable monks always came forward to protect our country, race, religion and culture. This effort is to bring them to a correct course, not to spread hatred,” he said.

Mohamed Saleem, a Muslim community worker in Colombo, called the defense secretary’s endorsement of an extremist group “worrying.”

“Are the Muslims equal citizens of this country or not?” he asked.

Presidential spokesman Mohan Samaranayake dismissed accusations the government was involved in an anti-Muslim campaign as the “usual finger pointing” by the opposition.

“I need to emphasize the fact that from the beginning, the government has treated every community equally,” he said.

He said the government would not restrain anyone’s freedom of expression, but would take action if they violated the law

The Muslims, descended from Arab traders who came to the island more than a millenium ago, are considered a separate ethnic group. But they have had a relatively amicable history with the Sinhalese majority and were persecuted by Tamil rebels for siding with the state during the war.

Kusal Perera, a Sinhalese political analyst, said he believes the anti-Muslim campaign is aimed at distracting Sri Lankans from the rising cost of living and other contentious issues. Sinhalese traders have also seen an opportunity to “grab the market” dominated by Muslim businesses, he said.

Mohammed Thanis, a resident of the eastern town of Kantalai, says the government is more concerned about retaining the votes of its Sinhalese base rather than taking action against anti-Muslim forces.

Opposition politician Mujeebur Rahman said the Muslim community has so far been restrained in responding, but he feared what would happen when that patience ran out.

“If they try to react, it can flare up into a major clash,” he said.

Fashion: Latest Trends In Gold Jewellery Designs In India

Jewelery in India has drawn upon the many facets of its people, and has in turn been inspiration and solace to both wearer and beholder. Sculptors and painters transgressed boundaries between the real, the ideal and the imaginary, profusely embellishing their images with ornaments. 

To the many classical writers, gold was a source of enchanting visual metaphors. Rulers used jewels as statements of power and prestige. But to the Indian woman particularly, gold holds special significance to her life.

Is Bollywood Breeding A Generation Of Stuntmen Not Actors?

A decade and a half ago when he had not quite acquired the full-blown, trademark, girth and size of his legendary predecessors, Rishi Kapoor had quietly confided to me that he only wished that the new kids, along with their craze for bodybuilding, there was a bit of acting skills too. Randhir echoed similar sentiments, "We seem to be breeding a generation of stuntmen rather than actors. Soon there will be little acting talent left and more testesterone babas floating around."

Coming to think of it, the Kapoor brothers are not really talking through their hat. No longer the exclusive terrain of Dara Singh or even Garam Dharam.

Suneil Shetty and Akshay Kumar seemed to have kicked off a trend in the early nineties, that exploded along the way. Today be it the hot and topless Salman, John, Ajay, Emraan, Hrithik, even SRK and Aamir - along with the whole bunch of newbies like Ranveer, Ayushman, Siddharth and Varun - beefed up muscles and toned tummies seem to score higher on the visibility radar than acting.

Male bodies celebrating machogiri in Bollywood however has always come with the territory with big-built Shammi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan doing their usual action scenes with the required amount of drama to satisfy a formula-driven, happy-ending-specific audience-base, not yet obsessed with the eight-pack. If that didn't happen earlier, it was largely because both the manufacturers and consumers of the Bollywood fantasy were more into romance, drama, songs, emotions and conflicts. Also, disrobing - in a time that clearly appears to appear like another lifetime. - was an activity and preoccupation that was totally connected with the seductive and luscious vamps and sometimes, the sexy heroine.

Bolly-trackers point towards Salman Khan's shirtless flash in Maine Pyar Kiya - echoing Dharam in Phool aur Patthar of an earlier era? - as the trigger. Soon it was to be his trademark calling card to the extent that today, Salman's fans wait breathlessly for that ooh-la-la moment when the red-hot hunk will rip off his shirt. On cue, others leaped into this space. SRK's celebrated 6-pack 'in Om Shanti Om' chewed miles of publicity before, during and after the dard-e-disco gyrations and body-flash. And who can forget Aamir's vicious tough-guy looks in 'Ghajini'?

John, Akki, Ajay, Emran, Hrithik and most wanting to grab the limelight on cue muscled in. As the hot-shot director of 'Ek Tha Tiger', Kabir Khan, recently stated in a TV interview, "when I ask aspirants how they are preparing for their roles and what's the agenda, most invariably reply is, "kyoon, Gym jaata hoon regularly, Sir."

What happened? Why aren't the greats like Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor not considered acting models any more and why is the magic of emoting and histrionics being hijacked by rippling muscles?

Social Scientist Ashish Nandy believes, It's a sociological backlash. The Female Gaze - so far kept under tight wraps by social conditioning - has cut loose and found new freedom through education, jobs, financial independence but most importantly a more liberated life-style and mindset in a new-age India. The result, an enthusiastic exercising of their long-overdue right to drool and enjoy the male body as an object of desire.

The yesteryear's baggage of guilt, shame, embarrassment and shyness - even sin - has been breezily replaced by a healthy and normal hormonal rush, everytime Chulbul Pandey or Rowdy Rathore do their deadly heroic acts. Basically, Nandy suggests, this constituency is super-cool because media-exposure and new-age perceptions of morality have got them to hit the right zone and their ooh-lallaa's have jumped out from the mothballed tin trunks and quiet recesses of heart and mind to register a nice, earthy, superloud ... wow.

Director Tarun Mansukhani (who was responsible for that deadly expose of John Abraham in 'Dostana' a few years ago), believes that cinema is a visual medium and everything and everyone should be presented in an active manner for people to see, enjoy and admire. "It only, thus, makes sense to make my heroes look as sexy as heroines. I wanted the men to appear as cool, hunky guys who could be put on heterosexual and homosexual pedestals, so that both girls and boys could scream and whistle at them with excitement."

Columnist Shobhaa De is up next, "The Female Gaze has gained prominence. I love the idea of actors being objectified ... finally. Eye-candy thrills were a bit too one-sided in the past. The shirtless dudes have restored the balance. Its the equivalent of the famous wet-sari routine."

Karan Johar, who introduced those two hunks, Sid and Varun, in his latest Student of the Year agrees. He sees movies as a fabulous platform for style and substance and reckons that with fashion playing such a huge part in stylish new-age, liberated, affluent India.

Mumbai-based assistant film director Sneha disagrees, "While school and college girls may salivate over great male bodies, they are totally replaceable because they are gym-manufactured, with newer models deleting yesterday's favourites. So today's John can well give way to tomorrow's Bob, Tom, Pat or Bill. However, an Irrfan, Rahul, Kay Kay, Paresh, Manoj, Nawaz ... or the greatest Naseer, are totally unique, irreplaceable and stay with you forever."

Ad Veteran Esha Guha joins the debate with her take. She believes that it's the Salman-factor that has triggered this movement and the purple patch that he is enjoying - 'Ready', 'Dabangg', 'Bodyguard', 'Ek Tha Tiger' - has inspired the kids to blindly ape him. "Its just a fad, craze, the flavour of the day and will disappear the day Salman has a flop. Its herd-mentality on an over-drive.

Sure, its a gym-driven time we live in and fitness is great for one and all, but this glorification and commodification that B-town champions through its male stars clearly seems to send out the wrong signals. Like Bimbos have a brief shelf-life, Himbos too, after a few flashes, will be swiftly shown the door. All body and no soul has obvious limitations in showbiz.

So, at the end of the day, while Sly and Arnie have got an entire generation - stars included - to build muscles and look like hunks, the other requirements of a truly striking performance, seem to be overlooked: understand, assimilate, interpret, claim ownership of the role to make it your own, invest it with layers before emoting it out in a fashion that connects in entertaining and enriching fashion . Sure, a great body is a visual delight but where cinematic narrative and solid story-telling is involved and effective, convincing role-playing is the key, the ramp-show, or akhara-flash may not quite be what B-town's screen stardom is looking for.

Besides, never forget that the hunk who is said to have started it all - Salman Khan - way beyond his deadly physique, has a killer star-presence and terrific charisma ... attributes, impossible to define but easy to recognise.

So buddy, body is cool, but live a life beyond it as well.

Small is the new BIG

By M H Ahssan

Global IT heavyweights see a growing opportunity in India’s SMEs during the downturn

The winds of recession have blown to India as well. Some sectors are down, and the stimulus packages are yet to show their effect. But this has had a positive effect as many companies have discovered a whole new market to sell. This was known before and companies were targeting it, but today there is a new found urgency. The SME segment. For IT companies for example, this is a good time to target the SMEs with cloud computing as a form of disaster management.

While the IT sector has been the most prolific in targeting emerging businesses, other sectors are warming up to the market in a big way. In the last few months, Indian arms of global IT heavyweights such as IBM, SAP, and Oracle have unveiled strategies to tap SMEs. According to research firm AC Nielsen, there are over nine million such enterprises in India, with an average IT spend of Rs 30 lakh a year.

"There are about seven million small-andmedium-businesses that don't consume any IT today and are open to the software as a service model (SaaS) or Cloud Computing to enable them to compete with giants in their verticals," says Doug Farber, VP, Asia Pacific, Salesforce.com. A Springboard study says that the Indian SaaS market will grow at a CAGR of 76% between 2007-2011 and reach $260 million in revenues by 2011. Springboard also said that the Indian SaaS market is poised for high growth with 76% of survey respondents, who have not adopted SaaS, planning to do so within the next 12 months. Frost & Sullivan estimates the market to grow at a CAGR of approximately 71%, expecting it to reach $267 million by 2011.

Cisco is planning to give its services business a bigger thrust to tide over the tough year that lies ahead. Crucial to the success of this strategy is rolling out the red carpet for SMEs, by targeting a growth of more than 25% from this sector this year. "While the consulting business has seen lower activity, SMEs can drive our services business further," says Kumar GB, senior vice president, services, India and SAARC. The top US network equipment maker has been aiming for long-term revenue growth of 12-17% a year. To achieve this figure, Cisco expects Indian SMEs to play a much bigger role as some of their major markets experience a slow down. Last year, says Kumar, the services business grew by over 50% in India.

At one time, IT companies considered selling to such customers unviable. Today, they are developing products for them. Kumar says that the demand this year is coming from private companies who are catering to defence services and government departments. For these companies, it is not so much about understanding technology but creating value.

While earlier the services used to be bundled free with the product, "that is not the case anymore," he says, referring to an important change which is expected to add to revenues in these times. For Cisco, SMEs are again a more reliable source of revenue as they have not experienced the kind of turmoil that the bigger players are witnessing. "Most of them are still on the growth path," says Kumar. The value of services is going up, and is not tied with the product anymore, he maintains.

Cisco is also pushing for adoption of telepresence units by SMEs. These are equipped with large, high-definition screens with builtin microphone and camera lenses, and are more evolved than traditional videoconferencing systems. To install such a system, Cisco's fee includes not just the equipment but also constructing the room with appropriate acoustics.

Its competitor LifeSize is also targeting the emerging businesses aggressively. The market for telepresence is expected to grow as companies cut travel costs and chose the economy of video conferencing for face-to-face meetings. Kumar points out that in congested and big cities like Mumbai people are using their systems to even talk to other offices within the city.

In spite of Reserve Bank of India announcing measures to release funds and directing banks not to stop lending, many PSU banks are refraining from extending financial assistance for working capital and overdrafts citing reasons of liquidity crunch. This will surely hit the SMEs and emerging enterprises, who, unlike large corporates cannot bank on their internal accruals and investment portfolios.

For software giant Microsoft, the market is also about addressing the disaster recovery space. "We are seeing explosive growth in deployment of security solutions in this space," says Rajeev Mittal, group director, SME Business at Microsoft India. He says that this is arising from two areas: Requirement for more and more sophisticated solutions and customers moving their security environments from other vendors to Microsoft.

It is this same space that is being targeted by Mark Sorenson, Sr VP, EMC Storage Division. "Targeting SMEs in these times of slowdown is the way forward," he says. Typically, power makes for 50% of the cost of running a data centre. EMC has devised storage methods to store the same amount of information using dramatically less power, which is the main offering to Indian SMEs.

While the offerings to SMBs are hotting up in the IT space, other sectors are not far behind. For example players in the printing business are looking at SMEs. Take Infoprint for example. Established in January 2007 as a joint venture between IBM (Printing system division) and RICOH, the company is actively targeting SMEs.

"Only 20% of our clients are large enterprises. Others are SMEs," says Benoit Chatelard, vice president, Asia Pacific. He says that most such customers are indirect clients for the print service providers who are our largest target segment that falls under the subset of production printing. Most small banks, insurance companies, etc., are outsourcing their printing requirements to print service providers across the country.

And understandably, companies are also lining up to service SMEs in the fashion industry, at a time when bigger houses are cutting down costs despite the rise of the rupee, as their clients in the US face the brunt of the recession. Take Lectra, which has now increased focus on the emerging businesses.

"The fashion industry is composed of a large number of SMEs, many of whom have been loyal customers for a long time and have helped us develop solutions perfectly adapted to their needs," says Prashanth LJ, managing director, Lectra Technologies India. On the software side, Lectra is offering a range of 2D and 3D design, engineering, prototyping, product development and material consumption management solutions adapted to all types of fashion products (apparel, footwear, luggage and leather goods) and to all levels of user expertise.

The economic slowdown has forced SMEs to look at alternative solutions. Many of them are deferring their expansion plans and reducing their spends. But companies are also strengthening their existing infrastructure, implementing proven technology to optimise their processes.

But this is not a dampener to Lectra which has been involved with SMEs for some time. With tougher market conditions in the export market, Indian SMEs are competing with their counterparts from other countries who have implemented new technologies to offer quality products at competitive rates. Free market has also brought in competition from other countries to the domestic market. With the ever increasing input costs like power, transport, taxes and labour, SMEs to are constantly looking at ways and means to save on raw materials, decrease time to market and thereby reduce the cost of the end product.