Month: December 2011

By Subir Ghosh
Production and distribution were only two pegs to the films busines. But the movie moguls of early Hollywood knew that the money actually entered the industry from the third – exhibition. If ‘Hollywood’ was initially a group of California-based studios and offices for distribution throughout the world, it also came to include a cluster of movie palaces situated on the main streets of the big American cities – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The modern movie palace era started during the silent phase of the film industry. Much credit for this goes to Samuel Lionel Rothapfel, better known as “Roxy” (1882 – 1936), an American theatrical impressario and entrepreneur. He is noted for developing the lavish presentation of silent films in the deluxe movie palace theatres of the 1910s and 1920s.

As they say, in the beginning it was The Strand. Roxy’s rule commenced with the opening of the 3,000-seat Strand in 1914 in New York. The Mark Strand Theatre, as it was called, was built as part of the chain of movie theatres owned by the Mark Brothers, Mitchell and Moe. It cost $1 million to build and may have been the first lavish movie palace built only to show motion pictures. It was designed by Thomas W Lamb and served as a model for many other similar theatres built at the time. To manage the theatre, Mitchell Mark personally hired Roxy Rothafel.

Roxy combined a live vaudeville show with films. His vaudeville presentation offered a little something extra that attracted audiences away from more ordinary film theatres down the street. Roxy’s shows opened with a house orchestra of 50 musicians playing the national anthem. Then came a newsreel, a travelogue, and a comic short, followed by a live stage show. Finally, the audience got to see the film. Roxy’s strategy worked.

The Strand went on to be renamed first as the Warner Theatre in 1951, the Warner Cinerama Theatre in 1953, and in the 1980s as the RKO Warner Twin. The building closed in February 1987 to make way for the Morgan Stanley Building, part of the redevelopment of Times Square.

Roxy’s greatest achievement was the eponymous Roxy Theatre, a 5,920-seat theatre, just off Times Square in New York City, in March 1927. The huge movie palace was a leading Broadway film showcase through the 1950s and was also noted for its lavish stage shows. It finally closed down and was demolished in 1960.

The Roxy Theatre was originally conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin in mid-1925 as the world’s largest and finest motion picture palace. Lubin roped in showman Rothapfel with an astronomical salary, a percentage of the profits, stock options, and even offering to name the theatre after him. It was intended to be the first of six Roxy Theatres in the New York area. Roxy worked closely with Chicago architect Walter W Ahlschlager and decorator Harold Rambusch of Rambusch Decorating Company on every aspect of the theater’s design and furnishings.

The theatre boasted lavish support facilities including two stories of private dressing rooms, three floors of chorus dressing rooms, huge rehearsal rooms, a costume department, staff dry-cleaning and laundry rooms, a barber shop and hairdresser, a completely equipped infirmary, dining room, and a menagerie for show animals. There were also many offices, a private screening room seating 100, and massive engine rooms for the electrical, ventilating and heating machinery. The Roxy’s own staff enjoyed a cafeteria, gymnasium, billiard room, nap room, library and showers.

The theatre’s stage innovations included a rising orchestra pit which could accommodate an orchestra of 110. The film projection booth was recessed into the front of the balcony to prevent film distortion caused by the usual angled projection from the top rear wall of a theater. This enabled the Roxy to have the sharpest film image for its time. Courteous service to the patron was key to the Roxy formula. The theatre’s uniformed corps of male ushers were known for their polite manner, efficiency and military bearing. They went through rigorous training, daily inspections and drill, overseen by a retired Marine officer. Film-watching was an experience.

Roxy’s ambitious and outlandish ideas made the budget shoot up over $2.5 million over the planned costs, and pushed Lubin to sell his own controlling interest to movie mogul and theater owner William Fox for $5 million. The final cost of the theatre was $12 million. But by this time, Roxy had shot himself in the foot – by making Lubin go almost bankrupt. His own film career ended soon after, and none of the other planned Roxy theatres were built.

Samuel Rothapfel, nevertheless, had created the concept before he vanished into oblivion. Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor, who had already established Famous Players-Lasky with director Jesse Lasky, was quick to catch on to Roxy’s ideas. He quickly purchased a string of movie palace theatres across the United States, thus gaining control of a fully integrated system of film production, distribution and exhibition. Zukor’s corporation merged with Chicago’s Balaban & Katz, to form Paramount Pictures in 1925.

The show had finally begun.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/flashback-and-thats-how-the-show-finally-began/

By Mannika Chopra/CPJ India Consultant

Sites like this Facebook discussion group have been the subject of complaints to the Indian police by activists. (CPJ)

As Internet penetration deepens, largely religiously and socially conservative India is struggling to cope with concerns about controversial web content and its easy accessibility to a vast population, all with little oversight. Local courts have become the launching point for some of the anti-Web offensives.

On December 21, a civil court in Delhi ordered 22 websites—including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and smaller ones like Orkut Blogspot, Topix, Exbii, Boardreader, and Zombietime—to remove content deemed “anti-religious” or “antisocial.”

And on December 23, 21 website operators, again including Google, Orkut, and Facebook, were summoned to court on charges of criminal conspiracy and spreading obscene content and given until February 6 to remove it. “The accused in connivance with each other and other unknown persons are selling, publicly exhibiting and have put into circulation obscene, lascivious content,” Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar said when he handed down his decision in Delhi, according to a Press Trust of India report.

Magistrate Kumar also ordered the central government to file a report to his court by January 13, explaining its plans to control what he considers the growing amount of offensive and derogatory content on websites. A copy of the order was sent to bureaucrats who head various government ministries, including Communications and Information Technology, Home Affairs, and Law and Justice.

The magistrate might well have an ally in Kapil Sibal, the minister for communications and information technology. Earlier in December, he tried to regulate online content by asking site operators to take steps to pre-screen content and filter offensive material. The suggestion unleashed a storm of protest from media activists who said the government was resorting to forms of censorship and monitoring the Internet which went against the basic principles of freedom of speech outlined in the Indian Constitution.

But Sibal’s calls echo a grass roots attitude. On Monday, social activist Nutan Thakur based in Lucknow, capital of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, filed a complaint against Facebook and one of its users for allegedly posting comments and spreading hatred against Hindu’s holy scripture, Bhagavad Gita. In her complaint, Thakur alleged that the comments on Facebook were enough to provoke anger and trigger communal riots, according to local media. Earlier, her husband had done something similar, angered by a Facebook discussion group called “I hate Gandhi.”

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says Internet usage is accelerating in India, driven by the use of mobile devices like smart phones. The ITU says mobile data usage in India grew by almost 35 percent between June 2011 and September 2011. With about 100 million users online (a low number given India’s population of 1.17 billion) India is already the country with the third largest number of Internet users, behind China and the United States.

Mannika Chopra, CPJ’s India consultant, is based in New Delhi. She is a media columnist and contributes to The Tribune, Hindustan and The Statesman. She is also involved in setting up women media collectives and mentors international journalism students visiting India.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/india-struggles-to-cope-with-growing-internet-penetration/

By B.G. Verghese
Team Anna’s farce ended, not with a bang but a whimper, with “80 crore Indians” or whatever never in sight whether in Mumbai or Delhi. They never were there in any such like numbers, despite bogus referenda and other gimmickry and media magnification.  That bluff has been called and the underlying humbug and blackmail increasingly exposed. Yet Anna is girding for another round with an anti-Congress poll campaign to boot.

If he and his friends had followed the debate in both Houses of Parliament, they would have seen who opposed the Lok Pal Bill – the BJP, Trinamool, SP, the Left, BSP and some others. But they did not wait for Parliament. They had rallied around another of Anna’s pre-determined fasts and announced dates and timetables without caring to know what Parliament might do with the Bill. It was for them still the old war cry “Our Bill or No Bill”.  Why? Because they had decided the official Bill was “useless”, “toothless”, “a joke”.  They called on Parliament to defeat the Bill on the plea that for the suffering people of India, in whose name they claimed to speak, half a loaf is far worse than no bread.

Sadly, the Opposition in Parliament too has hugged the theorem that half a loaf is worse than no bread.  The Government made out a cogent case in both Houses and did in fact accept some amendments on the floor of the House to meet critics half why, but to no avail. The major sticking point suddenly became the alleged assault on federalism by virtue of legislating for Lok Ayuktas in the States in a Central Lok Pal Bill. The argument is specious in view of the fact that the Government was duty bound to fulfil its “treaty” obligations under the UN Convention on Corruption which India has ratified. Further, it had accepted an amendment making application of the Lok Ayukta section subject to the consent each State.  Where is there any violence to federalism here? 

Three other issues were pressed by the critics. First, the CBI, which deals with more than just corruption cases, should be under the Lok Pal and totally independent of the Government. Secondly, that Category C and D Union appointees (including peons, drivers and such like) should be under the Lok Pal and not the Vigilance Commissioner though the latter would be bound to report to the former. Objection was also taken to the explanation that the prescribed 50 per cent representation in the eight member panel of the Lok Pal bench, excluding the chairperson, would mandatorily go to SC/ST/OBC, minority or women nominees in order to reflect the plurality and diversity of India without reserved quotas for each segment.   

The official position in all these matters was not unreasonable. There are real dangers in creating a new and all powerful supra- bureaucratic-cum-police monolith virtually accountable to none. Those who doubt the efficacy of the structures and mechanisms proposed in the Bill had no reason to believe that all future options are closed. Surely if a year or two down the line, the actual working of the Lok Pal were to prove to be inadequate or hamstrung, nothing would preclude this or any successive Parliament from moving amendments to cure such defects.  Nothing is foreclosed. After all, the Constitution itself has been substantively amended many times           

Over and beyond these matters, some Members thought the Bill goes too far in encompassing certain categories of trusts and NGOs, even if only above a certain financial threshold, while others argued it did not go far enough insofar as it excludes the corporate sector. On both counts the Government has a point. Trusts and NGOs do get foreign funding and in some instances have been known to indulge in malpractices.  Corporates too are prone to corruption and can and must be dealt with through other mechanisms without overloading the Lok Pal.

The Whistle-Blowers Act was adopted without controversy by the Lok Sabha and will give heart and muscle to men and women who stand up for principles.  However, the Bill to vest the Lok Pal with constitutional authority was shot down on the ground that the Lok Pal Bill as conceived is full of infirmities.  The Congress could not muster the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment and displayed poor floor management. Yet this by itself would not have mattered, and the Constitution Bill could have been re-introduced at a later time, without impeding the establishment of a Lok Pal.

However, this was not to be. Though in a minority in the Rajya Sabha, the Government could have got the Lok Pal Bill passed by a simple majority with some friendly support. However, it was rudely let down by its own UPA allies, the TMC being the most adamant. Seeing the way things were going, the Government perhaps wisely thought it fit to close the debate by midnight December 29, the last day of the extended session, and not seek a vote on the tactical plea that the 187 amendments moved would need careful consideration. The tearing up of the Bill by an RJD member was disgraceful and should not go unpunished. Gratuitously attributing motives to the Chairman for adjourning the House sine die on account of choreographed disorder is equally unacceptable. Rival conspiracy theories have been floated to divert blame by insinuating mala fides to others. This will not wash. 

The Lok Pal Bill as passed by the Lok Sabha is still alive. This leaves the Government with the option to bring it up in the Budget session, after further consultation or amendment. In the latter case, the Bill will need to go back to the Lok Sabha for its approval, failing which a joint session of both Houses will have to be convened to settle the matter.

Though all is not lost, the current impasse is a national shame. The Government’s handling of matters has been slipshod and lacking in timely consultation. The BJP has adopted a petty partisan stand that puts embarrassing the Congress above the national interest. And the Trinamool has repeatedly betrayed every canon of collective responsibility and seems to be in the UPA only to extract what it can. Mamata

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/half-loaf-worse-than-no-bread/

By Bibhu Prasad Routray
Myanmar’s recent policy to politically reform itself might have excited many analysts outside the country, but its objective of achieving peace with the ethnic rebels is progressing slower than expected. Suspicion regarding the government’s real intentions remains the key factor.

Policy to end Isolation
On 18 August 2011, the new government in Myanmar called for peace talks with armed ethnic rebel groups along its borders with Thailand and China. The new approach came three weeks after opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi wrote an open letter to President Thein Sein offering to mediate between the government and the rebels. The government went on to form a negotiating panel for peace to work on a formula of achieving peace in the entire country in the next three to four years.

By all means, the present strategy is directed at ending the country’s pariah status. Bringing the war with the rebels to an end is one of the conditions set by the West for improvised relations with the Myanmarese government. This was further emphasized by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her visit to Myanmar in early December 2011.

Peace Talks
On 29 November 2011, high ranking Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) leaders held discussions with a Myanmarese government delegation in the border town of Ruili in China’s Yunnan Province. KIO insisted that the political dialogue needs to continue whereas the government underlines the need to ink a ceasefire agreement. The KIO incidentally had signed a ceasefire with the military junta in 1994, becoming one of the first ethnic armed groups to do so.

Similarly, the first round of peace talks were held on 22 December 2011 between a Myanmarese government delegation headed by the Minister for Railways Aung Min and a delegation from the Mon armed group, the New Mon State Party (NMSP) led by its secretary, Nai Hang Thar. The talks took place in Sangkhalburi in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi Province. The government offered to favourably consider the possibility of granting the right to teach the Mon language in Mon State and also to assist NMSP leaders in developing business opportunities. While the government side said it hopes to conclude a ceasefire agreement during the second round of talks scheduled for January 2011 in the Mon state, the NMSP too, like the Kachins, insisted on a political dialogue.

Hindrances
Suspicion regarding the government’s real intentions remains a hurdle in the actualization of the peace talks. There is a widely held belief that the government is using the twin strategy – military offensive as well as peace talks – to subdue the rebels. Since June this year, armed offensives are continuing with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the armed wing of the KIO. President Thein Sein made a statement during the November 2011 ASEAN summit in Bali that the security forces could annihilate organizations like the KIO/KIA “within a day”. Reportedly more than 100 infantry battalions and three divisions of forces are being used against the rebels, who have since lost many of its camps along the Myanmar-China border. The President on 10 December 2011 ordered an end to the fighting. Skirmishes, however, continue as the directives are yet to reach the troops.

Whether a ceasefire agreement should precede political talks is the second area of contention. The government obviously is in a hurry to showcase its ability to achieve total peace in the country, where as its past records of procrastinating political dialogue with the groups which had signed the ceasefire agreement in the 1990s, remains a negative point of reference for the groups. For example, the NMSP observed a ceasefire agreement with the government between 1995 and 2010 and the entire 15 year period remained bereft of a single round of political dialogue.

Thirdly, government’s moves to individually hold negotiations with the groups rather than talking to the umbrella body United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) has contributed to the suspicion that the government is adopting a “divide and rule” strategy. The 11-member UNFC merging the loyalties of the Mon, Shan, Karenni, Chin, Arakan, Karen, Kachin and Pa-O ethnicities had been formed in February 2011. The UNFC demands that the government deals directly with it rather than individually with the groups. The government, on the other hand, insists that political talks with the UNFC will be the “third step” of its peace process. As a result, the UNFC’s Peace Talk Group formed in the last week of August 2011 remains idle. The UNFC has gone ahead to form a Federal Army during its 16-17 December emergency meeting on the Thai-Burma border.

For obvious reasons, the government will have to walk that extra mile to create confidence among the alienated ethnicities. The excitement in certain quarters about the process of reform underway in Naypyidaw notwithstanding, the rebellious ethnicities will need to be given time to internalize the process of reformation. Honesty and transparency rather than rapidity in achieving peace would have to be the key principle behind the government’s policy.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/talks-with-the-kachin-and-mon-rebels-in-myanmar-strategy-motives-and-hurdles/