His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the King of Bahrain
Members of the Arab Parliament lauded Bahrain’s wide-ranging development process led by its monarch Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa which bolstered Bahrain’s role on the Arab, regional and international arenas, reports Bahrain News Agency.
This came during the session which was held at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, chaired by Speaker, MP Adel bin Abdulrahman Al-Asoomi.
Its members Alaa Abed, Dr Abu Salah Shalabi, Dr Dhafer Al-Ani, Shada Al-Naqabi all hailed the efforts undertaken by the Kingdom of Bahrain, led by HM the King to support Arab issues and pan-Arab action.
In statements on the sidelines of the Arab Parliament session, they hailed HM the King’s support to the Arab Parliament which, they said, reflects its active role in supporting cooperation between Arab Parliaments.
Films releasing on OTT not the solution: Makarand Deshpande.
Film and theater actor and director, Makarand Deshpande, feels that digitizing theatre helps reach new audiences and helps archive it as well.
‘Sir Sir Sarla’, a play written and directed by Deshpande, will be launched online by Zee Theatre. After winning audiences nationwide since its premiere in 2001, the play is now set for its television debut. The network released the trailer of the timeless classic that is premiering on October 31 on Tata Sky Theatre. The teleplay stars Deshpande, Aahana Kumra, Sanjay Dadhich and Anjum Sharma.
‘Sir Sir Sarla’ is the story of Professor Palekar and his student Sarla � the pretty, innocent young girl who seems to be enamoured by her mentor � and Phanidhar who shares a love-hate relationship with the professor. The play explores the bond between the students and their professor, which faces many ebbs and flows. Secrets are revealed, accusations are thrown, and the three lives remain interwoven for many years to come.
Writer and director Deshpande says, “This is a story about what appears to be a very morally upright and innocent relationship between a professor and student. It also shows how a student who loves literature goes on to feel the pain of reality. The play throws light on the pressure exerted on us by traditions and beliefs and how they stop us from speaking our heart out.”
Excerpts from an interview with IANSlife:
The play debuted in 2001, and in all the two decades till 2020, how has the play evolved?
Deshpande: The core has not changed. What must have evolved is, there are always layers behind what you actually say. Suppose, if I say, the meaning of words change with situations. This line, over a period of time, can give you in your own life, different contexts to understand it better. The language of this play, which has been written in a metre. Audiences who used to watch it during that time, had the play on their tips. The relationship between the three key characters in the play, I feel has gotten stronger and deeper. The play was first done by Rajender Gupta, Sonali Kulkarni, Abhimanyu Singh and Anurag Kashyap. I asked Anurag to channel his anger of a stuck film into the play.
I think the character of Phanidar evolved because of his anger. And then Sanjay Dadhich took on the role. Then it got embossed that this is Phanidar. Vijay Tendulkar saab, when he saw the play, he said he hasn’t seen such a character in many years. If this character is still working, I think there’s a truth in its writing. Over a period of 20 years, the play is evolved and they’ve become real people now. I think until a point I made the play, and after that, it made us. In 20 years, it became a river and a sea. I think it has tested the times, come up in Marathi and Gujarati, and I think will stand for the next 50 years.
It’s premiering on Tata Sky Theatre, which is digital..
Deshpande: It’s something new. We don’t know when we’d be able to perform live now, whether this year or next year. If you miss out on a play, you can see it on Tata Sky Theatre, so it becomes archival also. I’m looking forward to new, unreached audiences.
As a maker, do you think the beauty of a play lies in the live experience and physicality of it?
Deshpande: I’m sure there must be some. The entire team has made sure it looks like theatre, and have tried to take care of the live feel.
The theatre community has been affected massively…
Deshpande: It really is, what to say! It’s really been terrible. For how long can someone support somebody else? The theatre fraternity has people who work backstage and even actors, they’re all unemployed. The worst thing is there’s no ray of light. Theatre will open, whether people will come, the economics of it, it is painful. I hope we manage to do more plays digitally on Tata Sky Theatre and Zee Theatre.
Mumbai’s celebrated literature festival Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest, which is now in its 11th year has adopted a virtual format due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic this year.
The festival, which will also incorporate an entertaining Children’s Festival for two days, will be held for a week this time, with this edition hosting a formidable range of participants including this year’s Nobel Laureate Sir Roger Penrose; the father of modern linguistics Noam Chomsky; acclaimed authors Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Lord Jeffrey Archer, Ruskin Bond, Amy Tan, Neil Gaiman, Howard Jacobson, Robert Harris, Sudha Murthy, Arun Shourie, Fareed Zakaria, Emma Donoghue, Peter May, Ashwin Sanghi, Amish, Shashi Tharoor, Shobhaa De, Farrukh Dhondy, Craig Brown; internationally known thinkers Michael Sandel, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Robin Dunbar, Henry Marsh, Christophe Jafferlot, Tom Friedman; former RBI Governor Dr. Raghuram Rajan; historian Ramachandra Guha; renowned cultural figures Javed Akhtar, T M Krishna, Sir David Hare, Naseeruddin Shah, and Miriam Margolyes.
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The festival’s literary awards will be presented this year as well, for the First Book and Book of the Year in the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories, and the Business Book of the Year. The Lifetime Achievement Award to a distinguished literary personality, and the honouring of the annual Poet Laureate, will continue to be among the main highlights of the Festival.
According to Festival Founder-Director, Anil Dharker said, “We are delighted to be able to announce that our LitFest has not fallen victim to the pandemic. The silver lining in our Corona cloud has been that the necessity of holding a virtual festival has resulted in us being able to host a higher number of really star participants from across India and the world, and has enabled us to give global visibility to the much loved and awaited Tata Mumbai LitFest.”
Sharjah will be the cynosure of all eyes in the global publishing industry this Sunday, as the 10th Publishers Conference is inaugurated at the Expo Centre Sharjah.
The three-day event organised by the Sharjah Book Authority, SBA, opens ahead of the official opening of the 39th Sharjah International Book Fair, SIBF, on 4th November, 2020.
More than 317 publishing professionals and 33 speakers including traditional and ePublishers from around the globe, rights professionals, publishing consultants, lawyers and other industry experts will participate in the event, which will host eight panel discussions on the key issues and challenges facing the publishing sector in the region and around the world.
The conference will be live-streamed on the Zoom platform and can be accessed through the following link: https://bit.ly/37NWOSH
England’s Eileen Whelan, the oldest living Test cricketer across genders, turned 109th on Friday.
Eileen, who played seven Tests for England between 1937 and 1949, either side of the World War II, was born in 1911 in London and played as a specialist bowler. In 2011, she became the first female cricketer to reach 100 years of age. She took 10 wickets from seven matches and aggregated 38 in 10 Test innings.
The International Cricket Council on Friday wished her on twitter, “Eileen Ash (nee Whelan) world’s oldest, who played seven Tests for England from 1937 to 1949, is the oldest living Test cricketer. She celebrates her 109th birthday today. When current England captain @Heatherknight55 met the legend in 2018, she was left enriched in yoga lessons and old cricket tales.”
The oldest living male cricketer at the moment is John Watkins of South Africa, who is 97 while the oldest living Indian Test cricketer is Dattajirao Gakekwad who turned 92 this week.
The Indian Muslims for Progress and Reform (IMPAR) on Friday condemned the murder of a French school teacher and also the attacks on three innocent civilians in Nice.
“IMPAR, a body of more than 10,000 prominent Muslims of India and Indian origin worldwide, wish to unequivocally condemn in the strongest possible terms the terrorist incidents that have taken place in France both yesterday as well as on 16th October. The attack on Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine two weeks ago, and yesterday’s attacks on three innocent civilians in Nice, have no place in a civilized society,” the IMPR said in a press statement.
“The murder of Mr. Paty, a French school teacher, for showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a classroom as part of a lesson on the subject of free speech, means that today’s attacks came during heightened tensions in the country over radical Islamism, secularism and freedom of speech.”
IMPAR appealed to the international community, and especially to the Muslim -majority countries, to join them in denouncing “these acts of mindless violence.” It said that no inhumane acts can ever be permitted to be performed in the name of religion.
French President Emmanuel Macron
Meanwhile, the body also announced its support to President Macron in condemning radicalization of the Islamic faith, and “trusts him to ensure the safety and security of the vast majority of Muslims living in France whose only desire is to live peacefully and contribute constructively to the life of this proud, democratic, and secular nation.”
IMPAR also urged the President and the people if France “not to allow such incidents to undermine the perception of these people and their way of life – for whom depiction of the Prophet Mohammed is a sensitive subject but would never condone acts of violence in the name of blasphemy, and uphold the principle of free speech in French society.”
The President of IMPAR, Dr. MJ Khan, stated: “Violence and hate are the biggest obstacle in the accomplishment of global peace should find no place in today’s civilized world.”
YouTube brought in $5 billion in advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2020, signaling that there has been a rebound in advertising revenue for both Google and YouTube.
YouTube now has over 30 million music and premium paid subscribers, and over 35 million including those on free trials. YouTube TV now has more than 3 million paid subscribers.
“As a sign of the times, views for guided meditation videos are up 40 per cent since mid March, while DIY face mask tutorials have been viewed over 1 billion times,” informed Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
“Onto YouTube, people come to YouTube for entertainment, information and opportunities to learn something new,” Pichai said during the conference call on Thursday.
Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google said that consumers are showing strong demand across nearly all verticals.
“YouTube advertising revenues were $5 billion, up 32 per cent year-on-year, driven by ongoing substantial growth in direct response, followed by a rebound in brand advertising from increased spending by advertisers,” she informed.
Google’s advertising division brought in revenue of $37.1 billion, an increase from $34 billion last year.
YouTube ads revenue increased 30 per cent from $3.8 billion in the third quarter of 2019.
“Within YouTube’s subscription revenues, we continued to benefit from subscriber growth across its various offerings,” Porat said.
Melania urges Americans to 'take chance on Donald again'
“My husband’s administration is focused on the future,” the First Lady said, adding that the US is “a country of hope, not a country of fear or weakness”….reports Asian Lite News
Melania urges Americans to ‘take chance on Donald again’
US First Lady Melania Trump made a rare joint appearance alongside her husband, President Donald Trump at a re-election campaign rally in Florida.
At the rally held in Tampa on Thursday, the First Lady declared that her husband was a “law and order President” and also hailed the administration’s progress in the first term, The Hill news website reported.
“For those of you who are still deciding who to vote for on Tuesday (November 3), I hope that what I have to say will prove to you that a vote for President Trump is a vote for a better America.
“In a time when hate, negativity and fear are the messages the media streams into our homes and the large tech companies are protecting political censorship, we need to remember what is really important
“My husband’s administration is focused on the future,” the First Lady said, adding that the US is “a country of hope, not a country of fear or weakness”.
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and First Lady Melania Trump depart the White House in Washington D.C. (Xinhua/Ting Shen/IANS)
This was the First Lady’s second campaign appearance this week, reports The Hill news website.
On Tuesday, she appeared at a solo event in Atglen, Pennsylvnia, after which she stopped by a campaign office to deliver pizza.
Meanwhile, Trump is currently trailing in Florida, a major battleground state, where he won 49.02 per cent of the votes during the 2016 presidential election.
In the latest Hill/Harris battleground poll released on Thursday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was leading Trump by three points in Florida, 50 per cent to 47 per cent.
Also on Thursday, the Quinnipiac University poll placed Biden ahead of Trump by 3 points in the ‘Sunshine State’, while the RealClearPolitics polling average revealed that the former Vice President was leading by 7.7 percentage points.
Indian actor Adil Hussain features alongside British actor Antonio Aakeel in the upcoming British-Indian film Footprints On Water.
The film is about an illegal immigrant father in the UK who desperately searches for his missing daughter, while trying to avoid getting noticed by the police. While Adil Hussain plays the father, Malayalam actress Nimisha Sajayan plays the daughter.
“The dreams, the hope, demolition of the dreams, the realisation as to what are the most important aspects in life, are very engagingly interwoven in the narrative,” Adil Hussain told variety.com.
Directed by Nathalia Syam, the film also features Malayalam actress Lena Kumar as the missing girl’s stepmother. British actor Aakeel essays an Afghani refugee.
“As immigrants of Indian origin brought up in Britain, we’ve had a ringside view into the lives of various people, their cultures and ethnicities. Through the plot of an illegal immigrant father’s search for his missing daughter, we raise the question of what happens, when the invisibles go missing,” said director Syam.
The Geetu Mohandas-helmed atmospheric crime drama, Moothon, will conclude the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) 2020. Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the eleventh edition of the festival is beimng hosted virtually this year.
Featuring a bilingual narrative in Hindi and the Jeseri dialect of Malayalam, the film stars Nivin Pauly, Shashank Arora, Sobhita Dhulipala, Melissa Raju Thomas, Sanjana Dipu and Roshan Mathew, with Hindi dialogues by Anurag Kashyap. The film premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and has been doing the rounds of the festival circuit since then.
Talking about “Moothon” being the closing film at IFFM this year, Festival director, Mitu Bhowmick Lange shared: “Yearning for your loved ones and feeling the pangs of separation has been a lingering mood this year. There’s no better time to watch Moothon. We are elated to have the movie be the finale film at the Festival because of its distinct voice. The narrative itself encapsulates the vibe of diversity which is so precious to us.”
The film has been shot in real locations and among real people, in picturesque Lakshwadeep islands and Mumbai’s red-light area Kamathipura.
Throwing light on the story of the film, director Geetu Mohandas had earlier told IANS: “The film is about a young kid from the Lakshwadeep island who has grown up hearing a lot of tall tales about his elder brother who he has never met. One day the kid decides to leave the island due to certain circumstances and sets off in search of his brother, who is apparently somewhere in Mumbai. The kid reaches Mumbai and the adventure that unfolds is what forms the story of the film.”
IFFM, which commenced on October 23, showcased over 60 films in 17 languages including shorts, feature films, and documentaries made locally and across the globe. The festival concludes on October 30.
