Dear Friends, First, I thank the moderators of Assamonline for accepting me into membership of the group.
To introduce myself, I am Shankar Barua, the 51-years-old third son of late Sri Jyotirmoy Barua (IFS) and Sjt. Savitri Barua (48 Rukimini Path, Guwahati-06). I am personally based primarily between New Delhi and the lower-Himalayan area called Sattal (near Nainital), and I have sadly almost never really lived in Assam itself. However, I long for Assam quite often, and my heart always beats warmly at first sight whenever I (rarely) fly in. And of course, I thoroughly enjoy immersing myself as fully as possible as long as I am there. The main reason why I have taken up this membership of the group is to possibly carry forward into Assam some of my primary preoccupations in service of general public benefit. Most of this is essentially now embodied in a 3-year old public-benefit trust that I have established under the name The Academy of Electronic Arts? See: http://www.theaea.org/ And, whereas most of our ongoing activities under this head are largely invisible? on a person-to-person basis, you can get a reasonable idea of the primary public initiative that we have launched thus far at http://www.theaea.org/cec_cac/ceccac08/ This last is something that I have thought to extend, or possibly even migrate entirely, into Assam for the past few years, but I have had mixed signals in this regard. In the same way, I am also getting mixed signals in regard to possibly locating in Assam the first prototype?of a new initiative that we are looking to possibly start driving sometime soon,?somewhere in India. We call this a Research & Innovation Ashram? and yes, we are in a position to draw in fantastic global associations on it, and we also warmly welcome more (such as yourselves). See: http://www.theaea.org/prog/aea_ria.pdf As with most new?ideas throughout history however (e.g. the telephone, flying, photography, etc.), this is certainly not to say that we are alone or unique in regard to such thinking. But of course, as always, there are subtle differences. For example, the central governments Ministry for Science & Technology has just recently begun due diligence on setting up an Exclusive Institution of Creativity?in Hyderabad,?in which regard I have already put on record with them that what India actually needs is *many* institutions of creativity in *many* locations around the country, so that such an initiative would be more Inclusive rather than Exclusive. In turn, this may seem to be the approach that is being taken up by the Assam Government, which just last week announced that it intends to set up about 43 Skills Development Training Centres?around the state for a total outlay of about Rs. 8.5 crore. But, in that case, I put on record here that, (a) an investment of just about Rs. 20 lakhs *each* is inadequate to establish anything really meaningful along such lines, because, (b) our target should not be to drag folks up to the present, but rather to empower them to leapfrog themselves into the future. And so, Id like to know your thoughts on the matter, and possibly also have some of you join me on this and other such initiatives in Assam and the North-East. Please however forgive me if I am sometimes slow with my own responses, as this yahoo address of mine is not a primary email ID for me, and also, Im sometimes in odd situations with poor connectivity (e.g. off to Spain without my laptop next week, and then off to Sattal for a few months after that, where winds often take down my telephone line). If youd like to communicate with me directly, outside this group, please send mail to shankarbabaa [at] gmail.com (yes, the name ends with a double-a). And, if you'd like to check out some of the other associated works that Ive been up to over the past few years, follow the links appended under my name below. Keep well all ~ Shankar Shankar Barua Managing Trustee, The Academy of Electronic Arts Editor ~ Publisher, The IDEA CD-gazettes Producer ~ Director, Imadjinn (New Delhi, India) Special Advisor, Public Affairs Management (New Delhi, India) Special Advisor, Electronic Music Foundation & EMF-Institute (Albany, USA) address 1: D-3/3492 Vasant Kunj,. New Delhi - 110070,. INDIA vox & fax: (91-11) 2689 9930 address 2: The 2nd Last Resort, Bhaktura Village, Jones Estate, Bhimtal, Uttarakhand - 236136 vox: (91-5942) 247598 http://www.TheAeA.org/ (one of my primary preoccupations these days) http://retiary.org/idea/ (what The AeA grew out of) http://www.geocities.com/shankarb.geo/idea.htm (largely very old pages, but most of them still relevant) http://www.flickr.com/photos/shankarbaba/ (just for fun) http://www.youtube.com/ShankarBabaa (a few byproducts of my mainstream work) http://www.myspace.com/shankarbabaa (a few byproducts of my mainstream work)
