Indian Army –Magic Formula to have beautiful and successful daughters ? #WTFad #AFSPA #Kashmir #Manipur

Dear Indians

Do you want a daughter ? No of course not, why will you want a girl child , she is such a burden and a son will only carry on the family name etc etc… blah blah.

Oh No  !  you dont want to have a  girl child !!!

Well  in shillong specifically and allover india generally, the  Indian army  is giving the incentive, to have a girl child. Wow, this advertisement will go a long way in balancing child sex ratio ?  and it might also give impetus to the ‘ Laadli Campaign, which is in deep shit for now, 42% girls dropped from Laadli scheme over 2 years

So above in the advertisement you see—  PRIYANKA  Chopra, Gul Panag, Preity zinta,  Anushka  Sharma , Celina Jaitley , Simmi Garewal,  Amrita singh, Chitrangadha , Sakshi Tanwar, and it says -‘If you want to have beautiful and successful daughters  join INDIAN ARMY”,.

Now , Indians this  is your  chance dont let ti go away.. RUSSSSHHH TO INDIAN ARMY,  if you want to have BEAUTIFUL daughters who will become a hit  Bollywood  or television actresses, and will make you PROUD and will  add to the great  HONOR  of your family, ie   if they save themselves from honor killing.!

Also all women in the ad are BEAUTIFUL as per what is  ingrained in our brains. The super-skinny, super-tall, and amazingly gorgueous figure; The Super-Models and Actresses.The  certain typecast images fed on physical appearances and . If you don’t fit into those notions, you feel terrible – that’s why people are unhappy about their bodies. This advertisement further promotes, the fact  that to succeeed you need to have a hour glass figure ?. How do you define beauty ? Who said “big” isn’t beautiful? Who said curves aren’t sexy?
Who told you to change who you are, loosing the weight that you’ve gained so far. For me Tuntun, Manorama  all were beautiful also. beauty has nothing to do with your body but your innerself , your personality as a whole. For me Sheetal Sathe, Soni Sori, Aparna Marandi, Irom Sharmila are all BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, and SUCCESSFUL as well.

 The Fact that  whether you will  have a daughter or son THE MANS SPERM WILL DECIDE, if  you have a daughter, she has to decide her life and what’s success for her ?

This  sexist  advertisement further strengthens  the stereotypes feminist have been fighting.  Women are human being and not relationships , think about them outisde their roles as  daughters mothers and sisters. Valourising women as  daughters, sisters, , mothers, bhabhi, dadi and Nani.  Today women are screaming at top of their voice-– ” I am not your  Mother, Wife, Sister or daughter . I am a PERSON.  So this ad, adds to all the sexists ads which are defining every woman by her relationship to another person rather than as a person in her own right; and that relationship (by implication if not stated overtly) is usually with a man. The self-sacrificing mother who bravely sends her son to war; the devoted sister who pampers her brother, the obedient daughter who makes her  PARENTS  proud, as stated in the ad . Women are  fed up being boxed into traditional roles. They are angry at being told what to wear, how to behave and lead their lives.  Respect women”, we tell our sons, “for they are all someone’s mother, sister or daughter.” Aha,,,,, yes…..  But the childless woman;  and a  woman whose husband is no more or whose  father has died and has no brother to ‘protect her honour’ — well, she’s fair game, isn’t she?  This is the kind of logic we perpetuate when we glorify a woman by her relationship rather than as a person.

I wonder if all these ‘ SUCCESSFUL DAUGHTERS’  have given their permission to be on the Advertisement and if they agree

and gulpanag tweets says so,

About the join army ‘ad’.Whether in jest or not,I have no problem with it.I owe 100% of what I am to my AF upbringing. Proud of it. @rwac48

— Gul Panag (@GulPanag) April 14, 2013

I wonder,   if all of them are  proud of  The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act . which is to-date the single most direct instrument violating the democratic rights of the people of the North East and of Jammu and Kashmir. The Act is implemented when an area is declared ‘disturbed’ by either the central or the state government. Since 2 November 2000, she has been on hunger strike to demand that the Indian government repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA), which she blames for violence in Manipur and other parts of northeast India. Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she has been called “the world’s longest hunger striker”.

What is  rationale for  keeping AFSPA ,  thinking that security persons who rape innocent women should enjoy impunity in the name of national security? For whose security was the law enacted, for that of the country or of the criminals in uniform? Whenever some change is suggested in the Act the army seems to oppose it and the civilian government buckles under its pressure. For Eg , when the Jeevan Commission appointed to inquire into the alleged rape and murder of 30-year old Manorama Devi of Imphal in Manipur arrested by the Assam Rifles suggested  AFSPA should be repealed ,the  Government did not even publish the report.

Do you all know of woman called Manorma ?  In 2004, the women of Manipur held a protest after the brutal murder of Thangjam Manorama who was taken into custody from her home by the Assam Rifles under suspicion of having links with rebels. Her bullet ridden body was found a few kilometres away from her home, bearing signs of torture. Twelve Manipuri women came out naked, holding a banner saying ‘Indian Army Rape Us’ to protest against the paramilitary forces of the Assam Rifles demanding justice and taking a stand against the many rapes of other girls. Despite the curfew imposed, the protests by the women continued as they wanted the men responsible to be punished

One of the major rape cases in the history of Kashmir and indeed whole of India is the Kunan Poshpora mass rape incident. A village in northern Kashmir’s Kupwara district, Kunan Poshpora, on February 23, 1991 witnessed incidents of alleged mass rape of 20 women by the Army troops in one night. The incident drew the attention of national and international media. However this was soon forgotten and the womenfolk of the village landed in unending troubles. Women who deserved the respect and honor of the society, were not secure anymore form the cruel face of the armed forces and since that incident, numerous other cases of rape and enforced disappearances have come to fore in the last three decades. Another case which shook the region was the 2009 Shopian rape and murder case which resulted in protests rocking the whole Valley and several families lost their loved ones in the agitation.

Some  more cases of rape and sexual assault against personnel of the Army and central forces in Kashmir:

Case against Harbhajan Singh and Gurtej Singh

May 15, 1994: Rashtriya Rifles men entered the house of a couple and took the husband to Qazigund Hospital. When he returned the next morning, his wife told him she had been gangraped. A case of rape an other charges was filed at Qazigund police station. Responding to an RTI application, the home department said it sought sanction on January 23, 2006, to prosecute the Army men and have not yet got it. In a 2009 affidavit in the high court, the defence ministry said the state was informed that both accused, Nk Harbajan Singh and Rfn Gurtej Singh, had been tried by a summary general court-martial for rape, sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and dismissed from service. “A retrial for the same offence will be in contravention to Article 20 (2) of the Constitution,” it argued.

Case Against Major Arora

January 3, 1997: A family comprising a 60-year-old, his two daughters and a grandson were preparing to go to bed at Manzgam, Kokernag, when some soldiers allegedly broke in. They were allegedly led by Major Arora of 5 Rashtriya Rifles. “He slapped me and dragged my younger sister (then 16) into a room and raped her,” the elder daughter told The Indian Express recently. The elder daughter’s husband had joined the Hizbul Mujahideen and the local army unit would often raid her father’s house. The day of the alleged rape, the Army allegedly picked up the father, who remains untraced 15 years on. The younger sister is now married with children, the elder one said, while her own husband surrendered  to the army, divorced her and remarried.

The police registered a case of rape at Anantnag and the government sought the defence ministry’s sanction to prosecute the officer. In an affidavit in the J&K High Court on June 5, 2009, then defence secretary Ajay Tirkey said the ministry received the request in December 2006 and it is “under consideration in army headquarters/Ministry of Defence”. On January 10, 2012, the ministry, responding to an RTI query, said permission was denied on April 21, 2007. “There were a number of inconsistencies in the statements of witnesses… The lady was forced to lodge a false allegation by anti-national elements,” the MoD said.

Case against Major Aman Yadav

December 5, 1999: Army men led by Major Aman Yadav of 28 Rashtriya Rifles, along with a few counter-insurgents, raided a house at Norpora, Kitter Dhaji, in Rafiabad. The officer allegedly raped a housewife, whose husband wasn’t home, while his men allegedly robbed the house. The family later left the village.

On January 4, 2000, based on a complaint by the victim’s husband, Panzala police lodged an FIR, one of the charges being rape. In an affidavit to the high court on June 5, 2009, then defence secretary Tirkey said the ministry received the request for sanction in January 2009 and “the case is under consideration in Army headquarters/Ministry of Defence”. In response to a separate RTI query, the MoD said sanction was denied on September 23, 2010. It has argued the allegations are “baseless and framed with mala fide intentions to put army on the defensive” Intriguingly, the ministry has cited it as a case of torture leading to death. Calling the allegations “mala fide” was effectively an indictment of J&K police, for it was on the basis of the police probe’s outcome that sanction was denied. There was, however, no follow-up government action. In response to an RTI application, police said they closed the case on August 19, 2011, having declared the accused “untraced”.

Case against Captain Ravinder Singh Tewatia

February 14, 2000: Captain Ravinder Singh Tewatia and three special police officials allegedly entered a house at night in Nowgam, Banihal. Captain Tewatia and one of the SPOs allegedly raped a mother and her daughter in separate rooms. A case of rape was filed in the Banihal police station. Two chargesheets were prepared for house trespass, assault, wrongful restraint and rape, and submitted to the Banihal chief judicial magistrate’s court on April 1, 2000.According to information gathered by rights group International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice through RTI applications, the case was split between a court-martial and criminal courts (in Banihal, Ramban and Jammu). The court-martial found Tewatia guilty of rape, sentenced him to seven years of imprisonment and dismissed him from service. He challenged the findings on October 1, 2000. On December, 31, 2002, the high court set aside the court-martial’s ruling. In 2003, the defence ministry filed a letter patent appeal in the high court, where it is pending. The state government didn’t challenge the high court order.

Rape case against  BSF Personnel

April 18, 2002: Personnel of the BSF’s 58 Battalion allegedly gangraped a 17-year-old in front of her mother, relatives and neighbours, all held hostage at gunpoint in Kullar, Pahalgam. Some 15 or 16 men in a BSF patrol party, passing through their village, had been beating up the girl’s uncle and she had tried to rescue him. A medical examination confirmed rape, while then BSF inspector general (Kashmir Frontiers) G S Gill, too, conceded that BSF personnel had committed rape. The girl identified three men at a parade. The same day, a case of rape was registered at Pahalgam police station. The police say that they submitted a chargesheet before the chief judicial magistrate in Anantnag. There hasn’t been any progress since.

Case against Major Rehman Hussain

November 6, 2004: Troops of 30 RR raided the home of a horsecart driver at Badhra Payeen village in Handwara at night. The man’s younger brother said, “The officer went into my brother’s room and pushed him out.” “He dragged my daughter (then 10) into the kitchen,” the wife of the targeted man this correspondent, adding the officer left and returned after an hour. This time, the woman alleged, she was raped in the kitchen.

The police registered a rape case and the district administration ordered a magisterial inquiry. The Army invoked the AFSPA . The accused officer, Major Rehman Hussain, was tried by a general court martial, which absolved him of rape. He was, however, found “guilty of using criminal force with the intent of outraging the modesty” of the 10-year-old girl and dismissed from service. But he challenged the decision in court and returned to service.

Even the  comments by apex court few days back while hearing PILs filed by families of victims of alleged fake encounters in Manipur, are a stinging rebuke of the lack of political will on revoking laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). In this instance, the government’s response to the damning report of the SC-appointed committee set up to probe six such cases in Manipur was that it agreed that such fake encounters should not take place. But mere “taking note” will not do any more. The government must speedily act to revoke this black law from wherever it is in effect, be it the north-east or Jammu and Kashmir. Blanket immunity for security forces has led to murder, rape and other crimes. And when the legal framework vests such crimes with impunity, it vitiates the basic principles of democracy and the rule of law that are necessary for the citizens of these areas to feel part of the national mainstream.

The  Court  also sharply brought attention to another vital fact: keeping these laws, and thereby maintaining an unnatural state where the armed forces are seen as the primary representatives of government, mutates the whole political, democratic system itself.

Now after  getting a glimpse of AFSPA, what the supreme court of india says of Indian army ?

I wonder  if you  all are still proud of Indian Army

This sexist  advertisement should be immediately removed,

It will be great if  women part of the advertisement ask to do so.

best

Kamayani Bali Mahabal

Not proud of Indian Army

Not a Proud Indian

A Person  , A  Feminist and a  Human Rights Activist

April 15th, 2013

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Faking Happiness- Vedanta Khushi vs Vedanta ki Vedana #socialmedia #CSR

Corporate mining giant  Vedanta has been violating the human rights of tribals in Odisha for  many  years now. The Dongria Kondhs, a primitive tribe, has been forced to relinquish their rights over their homeland, and cultural and livelihood resources to accommodate the company’s refinery and mines complex. The company’s mines, no matter how benign, will rip through a hill that is the sacred deity of the tribe that has lived in these hills for centuries without leaving a trace on the sensitive ecosystem of the biodiverse watershed forests. The hills that are slotted for mining are home to the Golden Gecko, a species that figures in IUCN’s Red List of endangered species. The Niyamgiri Mountains are the primary source of drinking water for the entire area, apart from being the source of two important rivers of Orissa Nagabali and Vamsadhara which are the lifeline of at least 50000 people downstream.

Research by Amnesty International and other local and international groups documents the serious and continuing pollution caused by the refinery’s operations. Despite the string of decisions against Vedanta, the company has failed to remedy the pollution.

In March this year shortly after Vedanta launched its public relations campaign,  called ‘ creating happiness “. – a series of short films about Vedanta that aired on 37 TV channels – was an advertising campaign conceived by India’s ad guru Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather. It was launched with a technically slick film that focused on the apparent happiness of Binno, a small girl in Rajasthan, when she discovers that she can get an education from the anganwadis (child day care centres) set up by the company.

We launched our  FAKING HAPPINESS CAMPAIGN with series of open letters and call for short film competition, showing the true picture of Vedanta. Following  our onslaught,  Shyam Benegal and  Gul Panag withdrew from the jury saying they were unaware of Vedanta’s role in the competition. At the end of the day, Vedanta’s PR campaign backfired badly.

Now once again Vedanta ,as they claim have launched first social media campaign ‘ Vedanta ‘ Khushi”   , and we are back with a BANG.

Here is the launch of our, ‘ VEDANTA ki VEDANA” Campaign.  We launch our first Music Video- ‘Vedanta Saddan”

Lyrics are by- Rahul Yogi Deveshwar

Singer- Madan Shukla

Edited and Adapted by- Kamayani Bali Mahabal

A big THANKS to Music Inn  support for the recording

The Facebook page says-KHUSHI” is a mission started on fulfilling the objective and let know the world that we do “Care for the Under-Privileged Children” – their Nutrition – Education – Health and overall development. “KHUSHI” – a Vedanta Group initiative – is a mission to bring in together like minded people, particularly youth of today, to spread this awareness amongst colleagues, friends, relatives and people around, through word of mouth or through e-medium and the way one feels would be useful.

And we know what an apt time to start the campaign when Vedanta is fighting for its existence

The Supreme Court is due to make a final decision on the challenge posed to the Environment Ministry’s stop to the Niyamgiri mine on 11th January, 2013 . In its December 6th hearing the Supreme Court concluded that the case rested on whether the rights of the indigenous Dongia Kond’s – who live exclusively on that mountain – could be considered ‘inalienable or compensatory’. The previous ruling by Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh in August 2010 prevented Vedanta from mining the mountain due to violations of environment and forestry acts. The challenge to this ruling has been mounted by the Orissa Mining Corporation, a state owned company with 24% shares in the joint venture to mine Niyamgiri with Vedanta, begging questions about why a state company is lobbying so hard for a British mining company in whom it has only minority shares in this small project. (see http://infochangeindia.org/environment/features/niyamgiri-a-temporary-reprieve.html)

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK- AND LET YOUR CREATIVE JUICES FLOW- submit your entries here

https://www.facebook.com/events/498091896917401/

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Faking Happiness: Activists Strike Back at Vedanta Ad Campaign

 

by Freny Manecksha, CorpWatch Blog
May 30th, 2012

Vedanta Resources, a UK based mining and metals company with numerous projects in India, is attempting to claim to be social responsible via a huge advertising campaign. However activists have struck back by effectively using social media tools to counter Vedanta‘s claims.

“Creating Happiness” – a series of short films about Vedanta that aired on 37 TV channels – was an advertising campaign conceived by India’s ad guru Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather. It was launched earlier this year with a technically slick film that focused on the apparent happiness of Binno, a small girl in Rajasthan, when she discovers that she can get an education from the anganwadis (child day care centres) set up by the company.

The company announced an initiative for students at media and film institutes to produce short films about the company that would then be judged in competition by a heavy-weight jury consisting of Pandey, actor Gul Panag and noted director Shyam Benegal who had championed “art cinema.” (Benegal’s early films realistically depicted feudal conditions in rural India).

Vedanta was already well known in India but for very different reasons. Several years ago, the company applied for a license to mine for bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha and to set up an accompanying refinery. The refinery was set up at Lenjigarh but the manner in which the company flagrantly flouted laws regarding land acquisition and displaced people and did not adhere to environmental norms aroused huge anger among the local population.

In 2010 the license to mine for bauxite was denied after an impassioned protest by these populations and especially by the Dongria Kondhs, an indigenous population, who believe the mountain is their god. The protest was given weight because of a damning report by the high-level Saxena committee that was submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Vedanta appealed and the case now rests in the Supreme Court in Delhi.

In March this year shortly after Vedanta launched its public relations campaign, things went off the carefully planned script. A few caustic comments on social networking sites fuelled anger against Vedanta which then went viral.

Kamayani Bali Mahabal, a human rights activist from Mumbai, penned an open letter on the Web to film maker Shyam Benegal whom she hailed as “a voice for the voiceless.” The letter appealed to him to pull out of the jury of the competition because “Vedanta is not creating happiness but it is faking happiness.” Embedded in the online letter were several videos made by activist Surya Prakash Dash that captured the anger and anguish of the Kondh community.

Critics charged that Vedanta’s attempt at burnishing its reputation – spearheaded by Priya Agarwal, the 22 year old daughter of the company’s executive chairman Anil Agarwal – had been timed before the crucial final hearing in the Supreme Court on April 9, for Vedanta’s appeal to be allowed to mine bauxite. (A decision is expected this August)

An online petition was launched on Change.org to Ambika Soni, the information and broadcasting minister, was launched demanding that the film be pulled from TV, attracting dozens of angry comments and thousands of signatures.

“Vedanta Creating Happiness…this is as true as Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction,” wrote Sushil Yadav. “It’s like Hitler pretending to be Mother Teresa,” added Reboni Saha.

Ashok Thurai, another commenter, noted that parallels between Vedanta’s action in central India and the film Avatar which pits the (fictional) indigenous Na’vi against the RDA corporation mining for nobatium people on planet Pandora.

Following the activist onslaught, Benegal and Panag withdrew from the jury saying they were unaware of Vedanta’s role in the competition.  “My bad. Just got full details. I wasn’t aware that the competition was past of #vedanta glorification/PR Have pulled out]” tweeted Panag.

Activists also struck back with their own competition asking for creative content on the topic of “Faking Happiness.” Blog posts, short films, cartoons and spoofs poured in on Facebook and YouTube that charged Vedanta with falsehoods.

One film – by Nakul Sawhney – focused on disadvantaged young children like Binno whose parents’ rights to land, forests and pure water water had been snatched away. It was interspersed with interviews with actual villagers from the Niyamgiri hills like Kurmali Majhi of Simlibhatta who spoke of community lands being acquired by brute force.

Another film – by Manasi Pingle – remixed a Coca Cola jingle and visuals with public data to puncture the myth of “sunshinewali asha” (hope for sunshine). For example the film noted that for every Rs. 6 (12 US cents) that the government spends on health and family welfare, it gives away Rs 95 ($1.90) in tax relief for corporations.

At the end of the day, Vedanta’s PR campaign appears to have backfired badly. “(I)t would appear that Vedanta is less the leader in sustainable development and social responsibility in India’s universe of corporations, and more the black sheep of that world,” concluded novelist Chandrahas Choudhury in an editorial written for Bloomberg.

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Vedanta- “Creating Happiness “results declared ” Chori Chori Chupke Chupke “

 

 

The twitter doe snot say it – https://twitter.com/#!/planethappiness, no tweet after 19th March

The  Facebook page does not say it –https://www.facebook.com/creatinghappiness no post after 30th March

The website does not say it- http://www.creatinghappiness.in/index.html

But the results of ‘  Creating Happiness’ have been declared in a hush hush  manner as compared to its thundering Launch with the binoo ad in March this year. The Binoo ad also disappeared from channels now why was that I wonder ?

The ‘  Faking Happiness”- Team has got this EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS  😉

RESULTS ARE DECLARED

1.Pehchaan NIFT, Delhi

2. Company Thilidukoalal Christ University, Bangalore

3.Kamala ki Kahaani,NIFT, Delhi NIFT Delhi 

Lookout  for more updates 🙂

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Vedanta not ” Creating Happiness ” but pollution causing diseases in Niyamgiri Hills

Dear friends,“I went to the Niyamgiri  Hills   in Odisha , after a gap, and people drew my attention to the growing skin disease on children adults, men and women.” says Girdhari Patra. The villagers say that this is happening because of the pollution from the smoke from Vedantafactory. Giridhari Patra requests the govenrment to set up a camp, and arrange for medicines, and investigate the possibility of this being a cancerous disease. Problems inside the mouth are also showing up and this could be due to polluted water. For more Patra ji maybe contacted at 9583022500

Listen to him at CGNET SWARA –

http://www.cgnetswara.org/index.php?id=10131

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Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag still figure as Judges in Vedanta’s Creating Happiness ” Competition”

 

Before this page is censored, here is snap shot

Amazing, there is a limit  to which you can lie, or infact hide the truth ??

 Is it  ???

 No, not for  Ogilvy and Mather and Vedanta

They have clearly remained SILENT about the Jury , very slyly 🙂

After Reading my open letter , Mr Shyam Benegal, who was in the jury of your competition withdrew knowing that the Creating Happiness is just Vedanta PR exercise to promote themselves. The other jury Member Gul Panag informed me on twitter that she withdrew precisely for the same reason on Feb 12th 2012.

Now, according to news item reported in  exchange4media.com, on 18th March 2012, just two days before the Vedanta’s ” Creating Happiness” is going to end, it still says the films are judges by gul panag an shyam Benegal. Also,  they have not officially made an announcement that jury has withdrean they just deleted the names of gul panag and shyam benegal first from jury page on the craetinghappiness.in and now youc cant even see a jury page at all as, its only  Piyush Pandey who is judging the competition or maybe the Vedanta employees themeselves we dont know 🙂 It all hidden

So here is the link of news item  and  I quote

Thitry-eight more films have been created by student filmmakers from around India as part of the campaign and have been uploaded on YouTube for public voting until March 20, 2012. The films will be judged by a jury that includes Piyush Pandey, Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag. Each team has also been given ‘cinema tickets’ for their films, inviting people to view the films on YouTube and vote.

Read full story here

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Lets Vote- “Faking Happiness “- Spoof Ad Competition in reply to Vedanta’s ‘ Creating Happiness”

In today’s times when much of media is sold out to corporates, the only voices that show the truth of malpractices of various mining giants are a few activists and documentary filmmakers. Vedanta‘s strategy to organize a film competition on their ‘community initiatives’ is such a fool proof masking of their real face. By organizing such a film competition and sponsoring 114 students from top media and film schools in the country including FTII, Whistling Woods, Symbiosis, School of Convergence, MGR FTI, IIMC, Assam University, Xavier’s, Christ University, AAFT, ZIMA, Tezpur University, IP College and Ravenshaw to produce films on itself…Vedanta knows how to make opinions about itself and how to control the ‘could be’ voices of future.

With jury panel consisting of Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag , who have withdrwan now , the jury only has piyush pandey .

The ad you can see here

Objective- This campiagn is to UNMASK the TRUE FACE of corporates, which they tend to hide beautifully through their r CSR AD FILMS fool people, while on one hand they indulge in human rights violations on other hand they glorify their peice meal appraoch of CSR criminal corporations using these feel good advts, need to eb EXPOSED, and that what precisely the ” faking happiness’ campaign intends to do

You see an AD Print, Video which you feel is blatantly lying about their work and using it as an image building method, you make a spoof of that ad and send to us at

CATEGORIES

1. ad films

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3. any other

The entries have be added in the sub pages here, each entry is in a page so you can like it and give a vote once,

In some cases wherein the entry cannot be embedded you need to go to the link, hence .. the entries by one person will be in one page and if you like anyone entries or more, you can vote in the comment

so lets rock and roll 🙂

The Entries are below

faking-happiness-nakul-sawhney

faking-happiness-coke-manasi-pingle

vedanta-faking-happiness-rizvi-amir-abbas-syed

vedanta-spoof-movie-sundeep-narwani-and-team

faking-happiness-animations-surya-shankar-dash

faking-happiness-animations-kamayani-bali-mahabal

faking-happiness-print-ads-rizvi-amir-abbas-syed

faking-happiness-fair-and-lovely-ad-shrungar

faking-happines-coco-cola-mohammad-zafar

faking-happines-crocodile-in-water-tiger-on-land-a-non-profit-equal-opportunity-collection

Annie Zaidi: The artists who took a stand

Image via Wikipedia

One of life’s minor joys is finding someone to admire.
Not many heroes are left to us, thanks to the mainstream press ignoring instances of quiet, sustained courage, and our own cynicism. I’m sometimes annoyed at ‘positive’ news that translates into interviews with students who have managed high scores, or interviews with successful businessmen or creative professionals. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but there’s a difference between success and heroism.

We rarely hear about those who take a stand — unless they end up being jailed or tortured or killed for it. And then we begin to wonder if there is anybody at all who takes a stand, and whether it is worth it. And if nobody does, why should we?

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag had withdrawn from the jury of a filmmaking competition organised by Vedanta. I looked it up online and saw that lucrative prizes were being offered to media students. But the thing is, Vedanta’s money is not made through films. It is made through mining, mostly in rural areas and forests, and a lot of Vedanta’s activities and plans are protested by those who must suffer the consequences.

Vedanta wanted to create happiness, not by tackling pollution but through a film competition. It chose jurors like Shyam Benegal, Gul Panag and Piyush Pandey. Last I checked on their website, only Pandey’s name remained on the list. And I feel relieved, not because I want to see Vedanta criticised, but simply because I get hungry for the lack of an artist whom I can also admire as a person.

Benegal has long been a hero for many of us who like his artistic vision, and respect his engagement with the political, moral and social forces shaping the country. After lawyer-activist Kamayani  Bali Mahabal wrote an open letter on her blog, telling him about Vedanta’s reluctance to take responsibility for pollution and displacement, a friend of Benegal’s left a comment saying that the filmmaker has withdrawn from the jury.

To be honest, I was surprised. I would have understood if he chose to ignore that letter. Every major corporation is devoted to extracting profit from earth, water, air, human labour, and at minimum cost. They all pump money into image management so they come off smelling like roses. Vedanta certainly isn’t the only one. And what would be accomplished if one filmmaker backed out of one tiny contest?…. CONTD…

Read DNA article here

 

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• Open letter to Shyam Benegal on Vedanta’s Creating Happiness (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Camera Obscura and the manufacture of happiness- Vedanta (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Benegal pulls out of jury on Vedanta-promoted film competition (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Faking Happiness- Spoof Ad Competition (kractivist.wordpress.com)

Camera Obscura and the manufacture of happiness- Vedanta

Image via Wikipedia

Aman Sethi and Priscilla Jebaraj, march 6, The HIndu

Hostile online campaign takes some of the shine off Vedanta‘s promotionals.

An advertisement flooding airwaves across the country would have you believe that a company called Vedanta is a creating a product called happiness. A young child called “Binno” plays, studies, and thinks big dreams in one of India‘s lusher and more idyllic villages. Binno’s joy, the voice-over says, is relatively recent: Binno’s parents probably didn’t have as much fun or as many dreams as Binno does.

Binno’s parents don’t dispute the claims, but it is safe to assume that they certainly didn’t have ad-firm Ogilvy and Mather on hand to film their childhood as part of the first national campaign to signal the entry of controversial mining and metals giant Vedanta into the happiness market.

London-based Vedanta Resources is the holding company for a host of Indian and international companies like BALCO, Vedanta Aluminum, Sterlite, Sesa Goa, and Cairn India Ltd with annual revenues in excess of $11 billion. The company’s rapid expansion has attracted the ire of environmental activists and human rights groups like Amnesty International who have accused the company of exploiting indigenous communities — such as the Dongria Kondhs of Niyamgiri in Odisha — without due process.

The company is also involved in litigation over a proposed university in Odisha, and a separate case in Chhattisgarh in which 45 labourers were killed in a construction accident in their BALCO plant in Korba. Company spokespersons have denied such allegations and say that the company has improved the lives of thousands of individuals through employment and social initiatives implemented by the Vedanta Foundation.
Telling its side of the story

Vedanta’s “Creating Happiness” campaign, according to company spokesperson Senjam Raj Sekhar, is part of an “initiative to tell our side of the story”; yet the hostile reception on blogs and social-media networks like Facebook and Twitter highlights the risks of exposing a tightly controlled corporate message to the anarchy of the internet.

Case in point: The television commercial starring Binno is merely the launch pad of the campaign, which also includes a film competition, in which media and mass communication students from 21 institutions across the country were invited to make three-minute films on the company’s various Corporate Social Responsibilty projects. An online campaign appears to have influenced film director Shyam Benegal and film artiste Gul Panag‘s decision to withdraw from the competition jury.

Activists have even started a viral “Faking Happiness” campaign in an attempt to highlight Vedanta’s alleged malpractices.

Read more here

 

Related articles

• Vedanta’s PR campaign backfires as Bollywood celebs pull out (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Vedanta -Creating Happiness? Certainly Not in Puri (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Happiness Quotient Vedanta’s corporate campaign sparks off a controversy (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Benegal pulls out of jury on Vedanta-promoted film competition (kractivist.wordpress.com)

Vedanta’s PR campaign backfires as Bollywood celebs pull out

A bid by British mining giant Vedanta Resources to repair its tarnished international reputation has backfired after two major Bollywood celebrities withdrew from a film competition supposed to show the ‘happiness’ the company creates.

Renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal and Bollywood actress Gul Panag were both part of a judging panel, which had until the end of this month to pick a winning film out of the 38 submitted.

The films were all shot by ‘budding film-makers’, who were escorted by Vedanta around villages where it has a presence.

The objective of the competition was to show the ‘happiness’ Vedanta brings to local communities where it works.

Vedanta’s reputation was irreversibly damaged when it ignored the rights of the Dongria Kondh tribe, whose sacred mountain it sought to mine for aluminum ore.

Read more here