[Reader-list] sunday book market faces closure.

[Lawrence Liang]

Hi all


Just to follow up on Ravi's suggestions, I am thinking aloud on the kinds of
strategies that one may think of. One of the usual strategies,  if one sees
past judicial strategies when it comes to asserting rights of street
hawkers/ vendors has been a right to life and right to trade argument. And
again apart from a few 'sympathetic'  sweet nothings, the SC has generally
rejected these fundamental rights arguments.


It however be interesting in terms of a campaign to argue, apart form a
livelihood argument, an argument of a violation of freedom of  speech and
expression. Since the SC has held in favour of right to information, it
would be useful to start thinking of the question of infrastructures of
information in addition to the question of access. This can also be
pursuasive given that a large number of the book sellers sell basic text
books. While the question of the link between infrastructure and freedom of
speech has thus far been used only by large media players (the Indian
express case argued that costs of news print can affect freedom of speech),
how  do we start using these arguments to speak of infrastructures for
common people?


I am also interested in looking at the connections between these urban
cleansing programs and the question of the emerging  regimes of
information, such as copyright. I am not sure if there is a linkage that is
being made here , or any pressure that is asserted by say, the Indian Boo
Publishers Association, because a few years ago I was in a   meeting
organised by the IBPA and one of the things that they were advocating was
stringent action against street book sellers.
  

Lawrence  



 


On 6/28/05 3:08 PM, "Ravi Agarwal" <ravig1 at vsnl.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> I will  be happy to participate and / or help in taking this forward. We
> should consider a range of options, including legal remedies, media, street
> protest, letters to mcd...but first we must also we should ask the street
> book sellers what their view on this is.....
> 
> ravi
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "shivam" <shivamvij at gmail.com>
> To: "Anand Vivek Taneja" <radiofreealtair at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Reader List" <reader-list at sarai.net>; <chapatimystery at googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 4:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] sunday book market faces closure.
> 
> 
> They did the same in Mumbai recently. What, just what, is wrong with
> these guys? Sarkari monsters who work at the "municiopal corporation"
> seem especially berserk. "Municipal corporation(s)" have special teams
> to withdraw the menace of cows and rabid dogs from the city. These
> teams are equipped with a huge van and nets and what not. I suggest
> establishing a paralell municipal corporation (with maoist help from
> nepal, if you please) and putting our cattle-catching team after these
> sarkari monsters.
> 
> May I float a conspiracy theory? Has the MCD been requested,
> pressurised, bribed by Daryaganj's publishers and booksellers into
> doing this?
> 
> sv
> 
> 
> On 6/25/05, Anand Vivek Taneja <radiofreealtair at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear All,
>> 
>> Woke up to the horrifying news in this morning's Hindustan Times that
> 
> 
> www.shivamvij.com
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