A London art gallery has missed the chance of a lifetime scoop by apparently ignoring the work of an Indian painter with a loyal international following among connoisseurs who believe she has a great future.

The Serpentine Gallery is exhibiting works by artists described as having 'already made an impact on the international art world alongside less well-established practitioners.'

They include such predictable and well known names as M.F. Husain, Jitesh Kallat, Ravi Agarwal, Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher among a host of others.
The missing name belongs to Pretoria-based and Kanpur-born Aparna Swarup who had her first solo exhibition Creations in Addis Ababa in May 2000, followed by another solo exhibition in London's Nehru Centre in February 2002.

A student of the Life Drawing Course in Hampstead and Life Painting and Mixed Media Painting in Central St Martins, her works exhibited at the 'Artistic Licence' gallery in London, as well as the Affordable Art Fair in London's Battersea Park, have attracted both critical and commercial praise.
Her solo exhibition in South Africa in Le Canard on May 5, 2007, entitled Risky Dreams and inspired by the women of South Africa, was also very well received.

While she was in London, Aparna's paintings in oil and acrylic were changing hands for five figure sums upwards — more than enough to pay for some of life's little luxuries enjoyed by her husband and two sons.

Her husband, as it so happens, is the acclaimed diplomat-author Vikas Swarup, whose debut novel Q&A has sold nearly a million copies world wide and is the subject of a Hollywood Film, Slumdog Millionaire, which has received 10 Oscar nominations.

Whether Aparna likes it or not, her name will, from now on, be associated with that of her famous husband. For that reason alone — apart from her own intrinsic abilities — her fame and the value of her paintings can only go in one direction — skywards!

A spokesperson for the Serpentine, which has never before hosted an exhibition of Indian artists, said the methodology for selecting the artists was a painstaking process that involved visiting commercial galleries in India and following the recommendations of experts and colleagues.

'We wanted to focus on major artists who live and work in India, not Indian artists living abroad. There is for example an extraordinary community of Indian artists living in London. Our idea was to show major artists who have lived and worked in India. The only exception to this is M.F. Husain,' the spokesperson explained. 'This is the first exhibition of its type of Indian contemporary art and we hope it will be followed by many others.'

The Serpentine exhibition will travel to eight other European cities before ending up in India towards the end of next year.

Remembering Benazir

Benazir Bhutto has been dead for more than a year, but friends and family continue to make sure the murdered former prime minister is not forgotten.
Among those committed to making sure her memory lives on is British reporter Christina Lamb who reveals in a British Sunday newspaper magazine how the locked bedroom of the Pakistani leader's family home remains exactly as she left it.

Benazir's widower and now the President of Pakistan, Asif Zardari, is quoted as saying, “I sleep in the next room because the children and I don't want to lose her scent.”

He goes on to say, “Benazir is all around. I dream about her and wake expecting her to come in. But I don't think she would be unhappy. I think she's looking down at us now, saying, 'Tell me, Asif, now do you think it's easy?' ”

Their children are Bilawal, currently in his second year at Oxford, Bakhtawar, a first year student at Edinburgh, and 15 year old Asifa who remains at school in Dubai.

Lamb's recollections about Benazir have plenty of references to Zardari who accompanied his late wife on her last trip to India a few years before she died.

On that trip the couple visited Delhi before travelling to a Sufi shrine in Ajmer. Zardari was at his wife's side when she asked a mutual friend to arrange for the casting for herself of 'Shanni' or Saturn rings. The rings are cast from horse shoes and many Indians believe they help to ward off bad luck.

It is understood Benazir was wearing a 'Shanni' ring under another diamond ring when she was shot and killed at an election rally in December 2007.
Subsequently, Benazir had her personal horoscope made. She was told by an astrologer in Delhi of the safe and secure future that lay ahead for her, provided she managed to survive beyond 2010.

Gandhi on Jews, Palestine

The Palestinians of Gaza have reason to feel aggrieved by the muted international support they received during their three week siege at the hands of the Israeli army, navy and air force.

Some 1,100 Palestinians, including 300 children, were killed and more than 4,000 others wounded during what has been described as a disproportionate Israeli response (from the end of December 2008) to sporadic rocket attacks launched by Hamas militants operating from Gaza city.

Desperate for whatever help they could obtain, Gazan families looked in vain for meaningful assistance either from their fellow Arabs, or from western and other governments moved by their suffering.

But in practice no foreign government was prepared to try and force Israel's hands to stop the bombings beyond joining a ritual call for an immediate ceasefire. In the final analysis only the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Mauritania were prepared to either expel the Israeli ambassador from their countries or break all diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv.

More forceful protests were expressed by non- governmental organisations, such as the peace movements of the West and India's communist party (CPM), which called on Delhi to cut relations with Israel.

Beleaguered Gazan families drawing comfort from wherever possible took delight in circulating the views of Mahatma Gandhi who addressed the Palestinian issue as far back as November 1938.

In an article published in the Harijan on November 26, 1938, Gandhi wrote, 'My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close.

'But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

'Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.

'The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will?'

Gandhi goes on to address the Jews' claim to Palestine and the role of the British colonial authorities in helping them.

‘The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not geographical tract,' Gandhi commented. 'It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart, who rules the Jewish heart.’

Missile misses target

The failure of a recent Indian missile test is cause for concern to Delhi as it tries to maintain its competitive edge over Pakistan in the ongoing South Asian arms race.

The cruise missile that was being tested in Pokhran, Rajasthan, close to where India tests its nuclear bombs, was the 290 kilometer range BrahMos hitherto kitted out with conventional warheads, but now being kitted out for nuclear delivery as well.

The BrahMos, named after the Brahmaputra and Moscow rivers, has been compared to the U.S. Tomahawk and Pakistan's longer range Babur developed with Chinese assistance.

'There were minor hitches in the last stage of the BrahMos missile during the current test at the Pokhran ranges of Rajasthan,' BrahMos Aerospace Corporation's director Dr Sivathanu Pillai was quoted as saying. 'The missile performance was absolutely normal until the last phase, but the missile missed the target, though it maintained the direction.'

He added, 'The complicated mission called for an advanced algorithm and intelligence embedded in the missile. The problem was in the software, not hardware. We are now revalidating the new software through extensive simulations. We will test the missile again within a month.'

India's strategic superiority over Pakistan is not in doubt, but concerns have been expressed over Delhi's defence preparedness following last November's attacks in Mumbai carried out by Pakistan-based terrorists. The authorities in Islamabad confirmed they recently redeployed some troops from the Afghan to India border in a bid to deter Delhi from carrying out any surprise retaliatory attacks on Pakistan.

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