Nigeria News
Bollywood celebrates 100th birthday
MUMBAI(AFP) – One hundred years after the screening of a black-and-white silent film, India’s brash, song-and-dance-laden Bollywood film industry celebrates its centenary later this week.
The milestone will be marked with the release of “Bombay Talkies”, made up of short commemorative films by four leading directors, while India will be honoured as “guest country” at next month’s Cannes festival.
Exhibitions in the capital New Delhi are showcasing a century of cinema, including onscreen kissing scenes that originally fell foul of the censors.
It is also a time for reflection on how the industry has evolved, from its early screen adaptations of Hindu mythology to the garish romantic escapism of modern blockbusters.
Commercially, cinema is thriving: India produced almost 1,500 movies last year and the industry is expected to grow from $ 2 billion to $ 3.6 billion in the next five years, according to consultancy KPMG.
Leading the way is Hindi-language Bollywood, which took the “B” from its home in Bombay and won the hearts of movie-mad Indians.
But old-timers complain that it has become superficial, neglecting to deal with pressing social concerns of the age.
“There’s a dumbing down that has taken place in the content. I think we are suffering from what is called the narrative crisis,” said veteran director and producer Mahesh Bhatt.
He contrasts modern filmmakers with Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, known as the “father of Indian cinema”, who brought the first all-Indian feature film to the silver screen in Bombay (now Mumbai) on May 3, 1913.
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A tale from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, “Raja Harishchandra” quickly became a hit despite its female characters being played by men — women acting was still widely frowned upon.
Phalke made more than 100 films until his silent style fell victim to “talkies” in the 1930s, but the advent of sound technology allowed India cinema to flourish.
Bollywood plotlines today can involve stars breaking into song, often in picturesque far-flung locations, apropos of nothing — a style that may bemuse a Western audience, but one that helps to set Indian cinema apart.
“If it was exactly the same thing as Hollywood, Hollywood would have run us over. We don’t have that money,” said film critic Anupama Chopra.
For her and many others the “golden age” of cinema was the 1950s, when movie greats emerged such as Satyajit Ray, India’s most renowned filmmaker, who hailed from the alternative film hub of West Bengal.
It was the era of newly independent India, searching for an identity and producing films such as Mehboob Khan’s 1957 hit “Mother India”, which combined social concerns with popular appeal.
The 1970s and 80s saw a growing commercialism with the rise of the “masala” movie — a family entertainer that typically mixed up romance and action, songs and melodrama, a comedy touch and a happy ending.
Parallel Cinema continued to focus on realism, with films such as Mahesh Bhatt’s “Arth” (Meaning) in 1982, a gritty tale of an extramarital affair that presented strong female characters.
It was a path-breaker in a decade described as the “dark ages” of Hindi cinema, which struggled with the advent of colour television, rampant piracy and dependence on the Mumbai underworld for funding.
Things improved after India’s economy opened up in the early 1990s, and again a decade later when filmmaking won formal “industry” status. Both steps encouraged foreign firms, such as Fox and Disney, to invest in Bollywood.
But subsequent leaps in technology have not been matched by advances in storytelling, say critics, who lament the formulaic plots, passive roles for women and the copying of Hollywood.
Bollywood’s escapist fantasies have long held mass appeal because “there’s enough realism in the common man’s life”, said Bhatt.
But with ever more TV shows, the Internet and easily available global films, such movies may no longer meet the demands of the educated middle-class.
This expanding group “wants to see something better than trash which caters to the common man who drives auto-rickshaws. They want to see a different kind of cinema,” said veteran actor Rishi Kapoor.
A new crop of experimental filmmakers has started to appear, such as “Hindi indie” darling Anurag Kashyap who is a fixture on the global film festival circuit.
Trade analysts say the growth in multiplex cinemas has also encouraged mainstream films to diversify: a surprise hit last year was “Vicky Donor”, a romcom about sperm donation.
Raj Nidimoru is co-director of upcoming “Go Goa Gone”, one of India’s first zombie films, and he believes the move away from staple Bollywood is only just beginning.
“This is just a ripple right now, it’s going to become a wave.”
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
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