Art/Culture

By IANS

New Delhi : Mike Bryan will be the new CEO and president of Penguin India from Sep 1, the publishing house announced Wednesday. The current Penguin India chief, Thomas Abraham, is leaving to start the India publishing operations of the Hachette Livre UK.

Bryan has been with Penguin for 27 years, most recently as international sales and marketing director in Britain and the US. His team managed the sales of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in a majority of export markets.

By IANS New Delhi : Book lovers from across India will get an opportunity to browse through millions of books and broaden their horizon of knowledge at the 18th New Delhi World Book Fair beginning Feb 2. Organised by National Book Trust (NBT), an autonomous organisation under the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry, the nine-day knowledge extravaganza would be held at Pragati Maidan.

By Heather Yamourm, KUNA, Washington : US filmmakers use experience to bridge the cross-cultural divide, and to breakdown stereotypes, by offering a unique window into the lives of American Muslims, and a chance to win USD 50,000 in prizes. The "One Nation, Many Voices" online film contest, which kicked off this month, asks filmmakers to create a short video that "reflects the American Muslim experience" and is open to any US citizen, regardless of race or religion.

By DPA, Singapore : Taoists are launching a drive to debunk misconceptions that their religion is based largely on superstition, after a poll showed many young followers are switching to Christianity, leaders of the faith said Tuesday. An exhibition containing nearly 400 books in 36 languages will include the works of Taoist sage Lao Zi, known as Dao De Jing, and materials from 10 other major religions in Singapore. "There have been misconceptions that Taoism is a religion based on superstitious beliefs," The Straits Times quoted Tan Thiam Lye, Taoism Federation chairman, as saying.

By IANS, Amsterdam : Sudarshan Pattnaik, an acclaimed Indian artist, is building a sand Taj Mahal in this city of tulips - his 38th and biggest - in his quest to make such replicas in 100 places around the world. Here for the three-week-long Amsterdam India Festival, he began carving Nov 7 and hopes to complete the Taj Mahal replica Wednesday. He is sculpting it in front of the Rijksmuseum.

By Radhika Bhirani, New Delhi : She grew up watching the films of Bollywood's late ethereal beauty Madhubala, has enjoyed new wave Indian gems like...

By DPA

Bamberg : Four masterpieces by painter Lucas Cranach, the Elder (1472-1553) have been discovered in a German antique shop, 27 years after thieves ripped them from a church in communist-run East Germany.

The foldout pictures on wood, each about 1 metre tall, depict the birth of Saint John the Baptist.

The set would be worth several hundred thousand euros, art experts said. The thieves who took the paintings from the Lutheran church at Klieken near Wittenberg in 1980 were never caught.

By Xinhua Stockholm : British writer Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy announced Thursday. The Academy cited Lessing as "that epicist of the female experience who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny." This was the fourth of the prestigious Nobel prizes handed out this year, with awards in chemistry, physics and medicine given away in the past three days.

By IANS Kolkata : Bollywood playback singer Shaan is all set to entertain the music lovers of Kolkata at a daylong music festival to be held here Sunday. Gaan Mela, a famous musical extravaganza, to be held at Nicco Park Sunday, will feature Kolkata's own man with the golden voice Shaan besides versatile singer Pratik Choudhury and a whole array of Bengali bands, from Fossils, Lakkhichhara and Bhoomi to Cactus. Private telecom service provider Tata Indicom is organising this special musical event.

By IANS New Delhi : Gifted with one of the most versatile voices in the industry, Asha Bhonsle has sung every genre of song, be it pop, club mixes, romantic numbers, bhajans and ghazals. Now the singing legend is all set to receive India's second highest civilian honour Padma Vibhushan Award for her contribution to the field of cinema.

By IANS, New Delhi : Leading auction house Christie's will offer an exclusive selection of works by contemporary artists like Subodh Gupta, Jitish Kallat, T.V. Santosh and Thukral and Tagra in its autumn sale in Hong Kong Nov 30-Dec 1. Most of the works are comments or reactions to burning issues like migration, economic boom, wealth imbalance, social change, terrorism and violence that the artists have experienced near home in India.

By Subhash K. Jha, IANS, Mumbai : The director broke his wrist, the lead actress burnt herself and the hero badly injured his back - renowned painter M.F. Husain's son Owais is shaken by a series of accidents on the sets of his directorial debut and says the film can be termed as the most accident-prone ever made. "I didn't know I broke my wrist until it got swollen like a dolphin out of the water," Owais, whose fractured hand is tucked away in a sling, told IANS.

By IANS

New Delhi : The 'P' phenomenon sure has it's grip strong over India, like elsewhere. Just 12 hours after the seventh book of the Harry Potter series was released Saturday, it sold 170,000 copies in the country, making it one of the fastest selling books on the first day of its release in all time.

By DPA Berlin : The position is not yet vacant, but the Wagner family has stepped up its manoeuvring over who is to take over as Bayreuth Festival founded by Richard Wagner in the late 19th century. The issue of the succession to 88-year-old Wolfgang, the composer's grandson who has been at the helm of the festival since 1951, has been a matter of controversy, conjecture and often some unseemly familial infighting for a number of years now.

By Papri Sri Raman, IANS Book: "Towards Water Wisdom - Limits, Justice, Harmony"; Author: Ramaswamy R. Iyer; Publisher: Sage Publications, India; Price: Rs.350. In the 21st century world, water is the most contentious of elements, its ownership more disputed than land and space. The laws regarding water are less clear than those on land and space. For land, territories can be established and rights claimed. For space, technology determines ownership.

By Uma Nair, IANS New Delhi : Will a whiff of caution touch the season's first Indian contemporary art auctions beginning September in New York? A dealer in Manhattan, who wishes to remain anonymous, prophesies that art prices will decline as a result of losses by hedge funds and other large contemporary art collectors in New York.

By NNN-PTI, Chennai, India : A film is to be made on the life and times of St Thomas, one of principal disciples of Lord Jesus, a noble missionary, involving about 25 foreign and local artistes, as well as actors from Hollywood. The movie, to be produced by city-based St Thomas Apostle of India Trust at a budget of Rs 50 crore, would be made in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi and in many other foreign languages, film project coordinator Paulraj Lourdusamy told PTI here on Saturday. One Crore: ten million.

By TCN News,

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter, Mumbai: Who would not be familiar with Munawwar Rana’s name? Munawwar Rana, whose poetry is the place where a mother, surrounded by the fence of mundaneness, breathes freely. Munawwar Rana, for whom the way to heaven is not above skies but at the feet of mother.

By IANS New Delhi : The reverberating voices of singers rendering soulful Sufiana songs and graceful movements of women in bright-hued kaftans performing varied folk dances - all this and more were part of the Jammu and Kashmir cultural festival here that left audiences mesmerised. The two-day fest showcased the rich and colourful traditions of Jammu and Kashmir Wednesday and Thursday, with pretty girls dressed in the most vibrant outfits dancing to melodious folk tunes and men playing soulful and foot-tapping music.