GI GI GI GI wow! So much I learnt

The conference on " A Decade of GI Act in India: An Impact Assessment" was held on 10th January 2015 in NLSIU, Bangalore. I was the participant and also among the organizing team  as a part of the research team for CIPRA. It was a great learning experience, I started working from the first day of my joining, i.e. 22nd December 2014. My experience was not only to the extent that I gain ed knowledge in the ambit of the GI and its mechanism in Karnataka, I also indulged myself in the background material formation and writing of an  article. Thus, I faced some failures and happy moments, but the event concluded with panache. The reasons for success and failures you will find in  the following paragraphs but I couldn't  differentiate between a  success and failure while portraying the work I have done in 22 days. So I hope you can help me out.  ( HAPPILY LIVED).

GI ? Geographical Indication, it is the indication to the consumer about the origin of the good and its originality. This could be a vague definition coming from my own perspective but it will serve your purpose to form a picture for GI. Examples are Nagpur Orange, Darjeeling Tea, Dharwed Peda, these food items give an idea to a consumer of its origin itself. The Government of India have protected the good under the Geographical Indication of Goods (Registration & Protection) Act, 1999 which  came into force with effect from 15th September 2003. This Act has marked a significant approach in the fair trade in India, it is a way to stop the forging and counterfeiting of certain special value products. The fact is that India has around 215 goods protected under GI but lots of other products in India have the potential to be registered as GI  but sadly this hasn't been done. This could be because of  governmental negligence or because the producer is not aware of the rights vested with them. The splendid discussion in the conference were on the following issues:

• The challenges and issues to get GI registered
• Protection of GI, 
• Role of Government and NGO for the sustainable development of the registered GI.
• Management of the stack
• To spread awareness among producers and consumers .

The stakeholders of all 32 registered GI of Karnataka were present in the conference to present the views on the same. I was enthralled to see the associations and organisations working to protect their creativity and artistic skills which dwells in that area. 

Apart from the fact that gathered immense knowledge through the conference, the entire exercise of assisting in organizing the conference fine tuned my capabilities to do things like making background  materials, brochures, collages, cover pages, to name a few. It was a moment of pride for me when every delegate was handed a copy of the background material we had prepared. 

The first task given to me was to design a cover page for the conference, I suggested to make a collage of 32 GIs of Karnataka which was to be framed in a shield, depicting protection of goods by GI. So opinion is easy to give but difficult to follow. I started working on the task with my friend Mr. Gaurav Mishra,( bro your introduction will be given in the final post of this month)  who is also an intern with me in CIPRA.  to be more precised he is a senior  intern.  His design was selected and mine was in the trash. But I never felt exhausted , I liked the way my colleague used his intellect and gave a shape of "GI" to the 32 images to form a logo in ppt. It was an excellent art and example of using brain to develop  new and unique, I realized shield is an old design which have had in old times. So this was not one where I failed actually I succeeded in realizing the fact that from our intellect we can bring the change in custom. 

trashed logo :D :P

The next task was to write an article. I had never done this before, but still to make a debut I started and with all the possible facts and language checks from the great people I knew, I successfully drafted a 3 page article and sent it to the mentor. Okay! the conference is over   and  yet my article is still in the new mail category. Would you call it a FAILURE ? You may say so but I believe it is not. I was successful in drafting  a vague article which gave me the needed confidence to write another. Even if it again gets rejected  I am sure I will give myself another chance till I get an article published. And so, once again I could find another success from my failure. 

Now the funniest experience," THE COLLAGE", collage making , I don't remember when I did that last, probably in my school time. But an order from a mentor is to be obliged and there is no other option, with all my efforts and intellect I designed a collage on the latest GI news  but again it could only manage to occupy memory in my drive nothing else.  I am thus clearing my disk by posting it here for my self appreciation. And of course a chain of thanks to the same fellow, who helped me in completing the task, We then made a paper collage on the chart paper, I was following  his directions with utmost concentration because drawing neatly on a paper is something GREEK to me, so finally we ended up with two collages on the conference day.  I regret the days when I asked my sisters to make a collage for me back in school , that was a time of building cells for such creative work but I neglected it with great precision :P . It is never too late, I am happy that this conference gave me so many things to learn in a professional manner, which I would carry with me always. 

Trashed Collage :D :P

Perhaps, "failure is the key of success" could be the cause of winning in the long run for me. If I have only learnt from the events that happened to me during the GI conference,  then from where does  failure come into the picture  ????????? I couldn't find any, hope you can.