A potter sanding a pot behind the "Colour Box", one of the venues of the Dharavi biennale that started on February 15. Indranil Mukherjee / AFP
A potter sanding a pot behind the "Colour Box", one of the venues of the Dharavi biennale that started on February 15. Indranil Mukherjee / AFP
A potter sanding a pot behind the "Colour Box", one of the venues of the Dharavi biennale that started on February 15. Indranil Mukherjee / AFP
A potter sanding a pot behind the "Colour Box", one of the venues of the Dharavi biennale that started on February 15. Indranil Mukherjee / AFP

Dharavi slum residents display their artistic side at the Alley Galli Biennale


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The three-week long Alley Galli Biennale in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum includes 22 workshops, called artboxes. During the festival, the venues — Jeevan Hall, Colour Box and Swami Vivekanada Society — are a hive of activity, with artists at work and hundreds of visitors stopping by to view artistic displays on health, social problems and recycling.

Aside from being held every other year, the festival has little in common with some of the world’s better-known art fairs, said co-director David Osrin, who in a presentation this month described the name as “slightly a joke, and slightly ideological. The spirit and the way that our biennale is structured is very different.” While other festivals simply ask artists to submit works, the focus in Mumbai has been on participation with Dharavi residents, particularly through workshops led by “mentor” artists..

The projects include comic strips depicting residents’ experiences with food safety, and installations, some with block prints and painted pots, featuring locally made pots and block-printed cloth that tackle subjects such as depression and sexually transmitted diseases.

Billboard painters have applied their brushes to canvas for the first time to create portraits of Dharavi’s Healers, legal practitioners of informal medicine within the slum. Contributing to the event are architects Prakriti Shukla and Venkat Ashok, who’ve created upcycled furniture from the tons of plastic waste recycled in Dharavi.

Sticking to sustainable, pro-health agendas while creating the exhibits also proved tough, said urban gardener Adrienne Thadani, who worked on the project “Growing Fresh Air in Dharavi” promoting the use of plants indoors to stay healthy.

“By using locally crafted clay pots to create easily replicable home gardens, we were working with kilns fired with synthetic scraps and used oil rags, which was polluting the area further,” she said.

Film screenings include Indefensible Space, a movie by new newbie filmmakers from the slum who have been mentored by New Delhi-based filmmaker Manish Sharma. Indefensible Space brings to light the lack of sanitation and women’s safety in the community.

Also in the line-up is a play about tuberculosis that features life-size, brightly painted papier-mâché puppets made by Dharavi residents.

What the law says

Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.

“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.

“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”

If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.

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1. Featherweight 66kg: Ben Lucas (AUS) v Ibrahim Kendil (EGY)

2. Lightweight 70kg: Mohammed Kareem Aljnan (SYR) v Alphonse Besala (CMR)

3. Welterweight 77kg:Marcos Costa (BRA) v Abdelhakim Wahid (MAR)

4. Lightweight 70kg: Omar Ramadan (EGY) v Abdimitalipov Atabek (KGZ)

5. Featherweight 66kg: Ahmed Al Darmaki (UAE) v Kagimu Kigga (UGA)

6. Catchweight 85kg: Ibrahim El Sawi (EGY) v Iuri Fraga (BRA)

7. Featherweight 66kg: Yousef Al Husani (UAE) v Mohamed Allam (EGY)

8. Catchweight 73kg: Mostafa Radi (PAL) v Ahmed Abdelraouf of Egypt (EGY)

9.  Featherweight 66kg: Jaures Dea (CMR) v Andre Pinheiro (BRA)

10. Catchweight 90kg: Tarek Suleiman (SYR) v Juscelino Ferreira (BRA)

Company Profile

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Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
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Match info

Uefa Champions League Group H

Juventus v Valencia, Tuesday, midnight (UAE)

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
THE CLOWN OF GAZA

Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah 

Starring: Alaa Meqdad

Rating: 4/5

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young