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The legend of the Indian cinema, Satyajit Ray, has crossed two more years after his centenary celebrations began on May 2 of 2021. The last icon of what is termed as Bengal Renaissance, died at the age of only 71 on April 23, 1992. Though his last film ‘Agantuk' was released in 1991, just a year before his death, the last eight years of his life since 1984 was controlled with strict medical supervision in view of his heart disease.

The multi-talented, widely admired performer Harry Belafonte died Tuesday, April 25, at age 96. He was born on March 1, 1927, in New York City as Harold George Bellanfanti, Jr. His ancestry is Jamaican and Martiniquan, and his paternal grandfather had Dutch Jewish origins.

It’s a strange thing to discover that Harry Belafonte got to be a big star faster than his old friend and early rival Sydney Poitier for good roles. Poitier became so famous and remained such a respected actor that his screen eminence rose over time, whereas Belafonte walked away from top film stardom early. He couldn’t reconcile his serious political principles with what he regarded as the demeaning roles he was offered — some of which went to Poitier after Belafonte turned them down. Belafonte had nothing but scorn, for example, for what he considered the grotesque racial stereotypes of Porgy and Bess (1959), and he claimed to have rejected the script for Lilies of the Field (1963), which won Poitier the first Academy Award for Best Actor ever given to a black man.

Andaleeb Wajid is back at her mother’s house, this time for a month. It is Ramzan—the months of fasting and praying. She logs in from her refuge—the desk in her peppermint green room. A romance writer, love is her business. In 2021, she spent six months in her room, writing happy ending, even as she dealt with the other side of the four letter word she has based her career on—loss.

For the first time we face the challenges against whatever we have held sacred till now. Our Constitutional values, our composite culture rooted deep in the society with all its beauty and love, our economy built democratically with a strong public sector, with rights to live, work and express ourselves freely and then finally the right to chose our government. Today, people’s elected representatives are not allowed to function. Bills in Parliament are passed without debate. Efforts are made to mute the Opposition.

Pyre—Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s novel about caste—based hatred, along with 12 other books—made it to the long-list of international Booker Prize 2023. Murugan’s 2013 book was translated into English by Anirudh Vasudevan in 2016.

Rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into both workplace and domestic settings poses serious challenges to women’s opportunities for work, their position, status and treatment in the workplace.

The republican theory of freedom is the idea that the most important kind of freedom is freedom from domination. It’s important for the Left talk about freedom in the first place. We see “freedom” invoked to defend everything from the right of corner gun shops to sell AR-15s without background checks to the right of chemical plants to dump toxic waste in rivers. Shouldn’t we instead ground our politics in alternative values like equality or the alleviation of suffering?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming economies and promising new opportunities for productivity, growth, and resilience. Countries across the world are also responding with national AI strategies to capitalize on these transformations. However, no country today has sufficient data on, or a targeted plan for, national AI compute capacity. This polity blind-spot may jeopardise domestic economic goals.

The German film "All Quiet on the Western Front'' won seven prizes, including best picture, at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) on Sunday. This was expected as the anti-war theme of the film had its echo among the BAFTA members during the current raging war in Ukraine and the threats of using nuclear weapons by some powers.