[Imc-india] Re: [New-imc] Questions
Boud Roukema
imc-india at lists.indymedia.org
Tue, 9 Oct 2001 16:09:25 +0200 (CEST)
Dear Shekhar,
On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Shekhar Krishnan wrote:
> I have received a couple of e-mails in the past week regarding
> establishing an Indy Media Centre in India, though I am unsure as to
> whom I should address myself regarding this. I had been in touch with
You're addressing exactly the correct lists/people! Probably you
could restrict most questions to imc-india@lists.indymedia.org,
but there's no harm sometimes cross-posting to new-imc@lists.indymedia.org.
An important practical question: do you have reasonable web access?
That is, can you use, e.g. Netscape, or Internet Explorer etc. to
click on http:// links like:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-india
or can you only read email? Indymedia is web-based, and you'll need
to learn how to use the web if you want to developing Indian Indymedia.
Please browse the Aug/Sep/Oct archives at:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-india
and you'll then know everything that I do!
And please subscribe to the list. I happen to be motivating people,
but you have every much right as me (more in fact!) to help "moderate"
the list. (I'm *not* the administrator, BTW, and don't have the time
to be! I just talk too much ;-) )
> several people in the Indy Media and Direct Action Media Network
> circles over the past two years about this, most recently with Vidhi
> Parthasarathy in Madison Wisconsin in June 2001, and earlier with Jay
> Sand in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, in May 2000.
OK, Vidhi apparently spent several months in many places in India
and found many people interested, but her email address that you
used above seems to be invalid, and we haven't heard much from her
since June (as far as I know).
> I would like to clarify that I am no longer a part of, nor do I have
> any continuing affiliation with, the Indian People's Media Collective
> in Mumbai, having left because of political and personal differences,
> and a lack of transparency as regards transparency and accountability
> in that group.
OK. It's normal that political and personal differences happen.
Depending on how serious these are, there can be ways of working
together while retaining independence. But lack of transparency and
accountability is a bigger problem.
Given that Indymedia policy is to be open to many groups, please
keep in mind that in establishing an (or some) Indymedia sites,
we would want you to remain open to groups such as the Indian
People's Media Collective (IPMC). Given the Indymedia software and
people structures, any contributions the IPMC make would hopefully
develop transparency. If any money were involved, then accountability
would also be generated by having discussions on imc-finance (I presume).
If the IPMC is uncomfortable with Indymedia policies, then that is
their choice. But if some members come along to local Indymedia
face-to-face meetings, are polite, constructive and don't try to
dominate the meeting, then this would be a way in which Indymedia
could help "reconstitute" a positive working relationship.
> I am now the Coordinator for a new cross-sectoral
> research initiative in Mumbai called Partners for Urban Knowledge
> Action and Research (PUKAR), and in my most recent correspondence
> with Vidhi had told her that PUKAR would be interested in supporting
> an IndyMedia site as a partnership between PUKAR and IMC.
Did Vidhi reply to you? If not, it may be because her email address
is invalid.
In any case, PUKAR sounds like a good start for getting people together
and organising a Mumbai site of Indymedia. Urban knowledge action
and research definitely sounds local, and can definitely benefit
from a non-hierarchical web-based news medium. An Indymedia site
does not have to be restricted to reports on anti-IMF demos!
> I was aware that several people in other parts of India would be in
> touch with people in Indy Media, and had taken seriously the offer
> that Vidhi had made to us regarding initial support for the site, but
> had not heard from her or Jay Sand since then. I hope that we can
Well, Vidhi seems to have disappeared, and if Jay Sand is *the* Jay,
then he/she is very active on Indymedia - and will certainly read your
message - but it would be fair for others to take up some of the
workload!
> clarify with whom we should be in touch, and how to work out
> modalities for getting this started. This would be important if we
The most important is for locals to get into touch with each other,
and for a variety of e-connected locals from different groups to talk
to each other via imc-india@lists.indymedia.org so that the process is
highly transparent - everything is on the public archive. I'm only
acting here as a motivator (with a little knowledge of India).
> are to coordinate with local partners, such as the Media Unit at Tata
> Institute for Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and SARAI in Delhi. I
Jayasankar just wrote to the imc-india list saying that he'll be busy
till the end of the year, but hopefully he would still have the
time to make an occasional useful comment, or help people get in
contact.
> had also suggested working with several established groups, such as
> the Comet Media Foundation in Mumbai, Dristhi Media Collective in
> Ahmedabad, etc., to make this a site which brings in different local
> actors in the fields of independent and educational media and
> film-making. I might add though that it would be logistically easier
> if there were city-based IMCs on the American model, such as one for
> Mumbai, one for Delhi, for Shillong, etc., because coordinating
> between different parts of the country could prove difficult.
The decision is up to you (collective "you" here)! Have local meetings
in the different cities and find out what the preference is.
> I would be happy to explore possibilities in a local meeting in
> Mumbai with anyone who is interested, and see how this might pan out
> for our organisation, which itself is still getting set up.
Great! Jayasankar says he's really busy, but if you contact him I'm
sure he'd be happy to help find other activist groups who may be
interested. Churchgate is not very far from Navy Nagar so I'm sure you
could meet in person quite easily. Take a bus that goes all the way
down Navy Nagar - get off just before the road drops into the ocean!
> clarify with whom we should be in touch, and how to work out
> modalities for getting this started. This would be important if we
=======================
What to do - modalities
=======================
-----------
-- local --
-----------
As I said above, the most important thing Indymedia wants is that
a variety of different groups - and this includes activist groups
themselves, not just the media makers - have local meetings and
talk to each other and talk through the Indymedia documents, and
how they would like to set up the Indymedia site(s).
It may be difficult to talk to groups you've never met before,
and (if I can touch on a sensitive topic) across caste boundaries.
However, having the Indymedia documents in hand and explaining that
no group will dominate over other groups may help make this easier.
Encouraging people to post to the existing, unofficial
http://india.indymedia.org
site is also likely to encourage other groups to see that the sites
are for everyone to become a journalist independently.
So, it's up to you to coordinate some local Mumbai meetings - using
imc-india, other email lists, telephone, whatever other means of
communication you have locally. Please post at least one advertisement
at imc-india so that other mumbaikers know about it.
I would expect that a majority of the grass-root activists would be
non-e-connected and non-English-speaking, but they should still
participate in the local discussions and be helped/trained into
e-access if possible. It might take a lot of work to translate the
above documents to Marathi, but I'm not sure I see any alternative.
Getting Marathi script support would be a long term project (unless
you have lots of local techies on this, but certainly desirable in the
long term), but in the short term, in order to help others benefit, if
you did write out copies by hand (or even with Micro$oft software),
you could scan these and post them as gif files on india.indymedia.org
for future use.
Here are the five documents:
-- INTRODUCTORY LETTER --
"http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-September/000935.html"
-- INDYMEDIA FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FILE --
"http://process.indymedia.org/faq.php3"
-- a (slightly out of date) GLOBAL INDYMEDIA OVERVIEW --
"http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-May/000157.html"
-- DRAFT PRINCIPLES OF UNITY --
"http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-May/000160.html"
-- DRAFT MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA at
"http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-May/000155.html"
--------------------
-- request a site --
--------------------
It might take several meetings to go through the above five documents,
but when people have been through these, are happy with them and are
satisfied that there are a variety of grass-roots groups involved and
committed and have decided on questions like whether to have local or
"national" sites, then
1) the form at http://newimc.indymedia.org should be filled out
2) a copy of DRAFT PRINCIPLES OF UNITY with comments of agreement
should be posted to new-imc
3) a copy of DRAFT MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA with answers to the questions
should be posted to new-imc
4) a free-format essay of introduction about what is planned for
the site should be posted to new-imc
-------------------
-- make the site --
-------------------
Following this will be a delay of one week for comments from anyone
at new-imc. Unless anyone objects, approval follows the one-week
deadline. Discussion then goes through to imc-process where the
various technical people help get the site set up properly.
Looking forward to hearing about some Mumbai local meetings!
Boud