Ahmedabad, January 1: THE 24th edition of the 13-day annual Saptak music festival of Indian classical music began on Thursday. This year’s festival, which is part of the celebrations of Saptak which has entered its silver jubilee year, is dedicated to the celebration of tradition with innovation and will feature a performance by Pandit Ravi Shankar. Organised by Saptak School of Music, the festival will run till January 13. There will be 46 sessions, in which more than 140 artistes, besides 26 folk artistes and seven child artistes from Rajasthan, will participate. Pandit Ravi Shankar, Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Kishan Maharaj, Kishori Amonkar, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Begam Parveen Sultana, and Zakir Hussain are some of the well-known artistes who will be performing during the festival. While Pandit Chaurasia will perform on January 2, Begam Sultana will perform on January 3, Zakir Hussain on January 6, Shubha Mudgal on January 7, Pandit Jasraj on January 8, and Ustad Khan and Pandit Maharaj on January 9. Pandit Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar will perform on the last day. The performance by the folk artistes have been organised on January 12. A special performance by Jesse Bannister, a Briton who plays Indian classical music on saxophone, has been organised on January 9. This year the festival will feature some experimental items like Jasrangee, saxophone and Indian instrument ensemble, tabla, keyboard and others. More than 25 different instruments, including folk instruments, will also be presented.

Ahmedabad, Nov 15.(UNI): Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is planning a kite flying carnival with Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), specifically those hailing from Gujarat, on the occasion of Makar Sankranti in January 2004, in a unique attempt to invite the attention of NRIs to the states development. Flushed with the success of the recently-concluded Vibrant Gujarat - Global Investors Summit held here during the Navratri Festival, the chief minister now plans to hold a similar event during the Uttarayan (Makar Sankranti) festival. Modi has chalked out a three-day programme from January 12. A convention of NRIs has been planned for January 12 for the sharing of views and exchange of ideas and technologies. An excursion has been planned for the foreign visitors the next day and an itinerary has been chalked out to offer the visitors a glimpse of the various tourist places and developmental projects in the state. Kite flying has been planned for the third day, on January fourteen, when the guests will be provided an opportunity to get a feel of Uttarayan and the kite festival. Invitations on behalf of Modi are already being sent out to the NRIs urging them to visit Gujarat during the three-day festivities. The invitation says: We want to make Uttarayan and the kite festival an internationally-known icon of Gujarat and to use the occasion to orient the attention of our non-resident community for the development of the motherland. The chief minister claims that the recently-concluded Global Investors Summit had been a success and investment proposals worth over Rs 66,000 crore had been received during the event.

National Institute of Design is pleased to announce a series of Design Workshops for Industry, to be held between January 2004 and November 2004. NID is an internationally renowned, multi-disciplinary Institute engaged in education, advanced training, and applied research and design services. The series of workshops in the area of film making (Videography, Script Writing, Editing) will be conducted at the lush-green campus of NID, Ahmedabad, by the experienced faculty and other distinguished design professionals.