The Living and Learning Design Centre in a Kutch village is about dialogue between contemporary designers and traditional artisans and about keeping crafts relevant.
“Why here? Why a design centre of such sophistication in a small village off a highway?” The answer flashes in one’s mind at the same time: “Because that’s the most logical and relevant place for it.” The answer is validated a while later in a conversation with Ami Shroff, the 43year-old project director of the Living and Learning Design Centre (LLDC). She explains: “My mother, Chanda Shroff, was born in a village in Kutch. She has always been inclined towards art and felt she was privileged to be able to move to a city where she could view art in museums. It got her thinking about rural India and how there is no place to view art. Art is so much a part of the lives of people and yet they cannot see the work created by others. So here it is, a museum in the middle of nowhere!”
It truly does seem that way—a modernist piece of architecture looming up just off the Bhuj-Bhachau highway near the village of Ajrakpur in Kutch, Gujarat, the LLDC was inaugurated on January 23. Ami Shroff jokes about its origins saying: “It all started on an A4-sized paper from which the idea grew. Everyone asked me what it was that I wanted. It was tougher to answer that than my school exams. Ba [mother] would say one sentence, and I would write four pages on it and ask her, ‘Is this what we are planning?’, and gradually it took shape.”
Esta historia es de la edición March 18, 2016 de FRONTLINE.
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Esta historia es de la edición March 18, 2016 de FRONTLINE.
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How Not To Handle An Epidemic
The lockdowns were meant to buy time to put in place appropriate health measures and contain the coronavirus’ spread, but they have failed to achieve the objective and heaped immense misery on the marginalised sections of society. India is still in the exponential phase of the COVID-19 infection and community transmission is a reality that the government refuses to accept.
Tragedy on foot
As the COVID-19-induced lockdown cuts the ground beneath their feet in Tamil Nadu, thousands of migrant workers are trudging along the highway to the relative safety of their upcountry homes.
Sarpanchs as game changers
Odisha manages to keep COVID-19 well under control because of the strong participation of panchayati raj institutions and the community at the grass-roots level under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Scapegoating China
As the COVID-19 death rate spikes and the economy tanks in the United States, Donald Trump and his advisers target China and the World Health Organisation with an eye to winning the forthcoming presidential election.
New worries
Kerala’s measured approach to the pandemic and lockdown has yielded results. But it still has to grapple with their huge economic impact on its economy, which it feels the Centre’s special financial relief package does little to alleviate.
No love lost for labour
Taking advantage of the lockdown and the inability of workers to organise protests, many State governments introduce sweeping changes to labour laws to the detriment of workers on the pretext of reviving production and boosting the economy.
Capital's Malthusian moment
In a world that needs substantial reorienting of production and distribution, Indian capital is resorting to a militant form of moribund neoliberalism to overcome its current crisis. In this pursuit of profit, it is ready and willing to throw into mortal peril millions whom it adjudicates as not worth their means—an admixture of social Darwinism born of capital’s avarice and brutalism spawned by Hindutva. .
Understanding migration
When governments and their plans are found to be blatantly wanting in addressing reverse migration, exercises such as the Ekta Parishad’s survey of migrant workers throughout India can be useful to work out creative long-lasting solutions.
Waiting for Jabalpur moment
The Supreme Court’s role in ensuring executive accountability during the ongoing lockdown leaves much to be desired. Standing in shining contrast is the record of some High Courts.
An empty package
The Modi regime, which has been unable to control the COVID-19 infection, restore economic activity and provide relief to millions exposed to starvation, trains its sights on Indian democracy, making use of the panic generated by fear and a lockdown that forecloses paths of resistance.
