Asian cinema should be properly recognised: Shabana Azmi

0 Comments read Arts, Entertainment & Lifestyle

By Neena Bhandari

Gold Coast (Australia), 12.11.2007 (IANS):  “Asia Pacific Screen Awards is an idea whose time has come, both politically and culturally. It is only fair that Asian cinema which comprises nearly three-fourths of the world cinema is properly recognised and represented”, says acclaimed actress and activist Shabana Azmi.

Shabana is in Gold Coast, one of the favourite tourist destination for Indians, as president of the international jury for the inaugural Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) being held here.

In an exclusive interview to IANS in the plush Sheraton Mirage, where the awards will be presented on Tuesday, Shabana said, “What has happened with Oscars, assuming the importance that they have over the years, the Oscar awards seems to be the definitive award filmmakers aspire for. We are going to create in the times to come an alternative to that so that Asian cinema gets the recognition it deserves,”

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Veena Sahajwalla makes world first “Green” steel a commercial reality

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 10.11.2007 (IANS): Millions of tonnes of waste plastic will be recycled into steel. The breakthrough Australian “green” steel technology which cuts coke and coal demand and reduces emissions has been invented by University of New South Wales materials scientist Professor Veena Sahajwalla.

Sahajwalla, an alumni of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, told IANS “Plastic is simply another form of carbon. In making steel there’s essentially no difference between the polyethylene plastic in shopping bags and a natural resource like coal.”

Polyethylene plastic contains carbon, an essential raw material in electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking, which recycles steel from scrap metal and accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s steel production. Annual steel production is around 1.1 billion tonnes globally.

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At home in the world: Indian diaspora in Australia

1 Comment read Diaspora, Features, Migration
Ian De Mellow pointing at India on an antique map. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 07.11.2007: Nestling amidst the unkempt undergrowth of native shrubs, a haven for Rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, bush rats and possums, Ian De Mellow’s home in the Sydney suburb of Wahroonga has kept alive his memories of a childhood spent in a Delhi bungalow with sprawling gardens.

“When you live in Australia for some years, as in India, the land itself permeates your soul”, says De Mellow, who arrived on the shores of Sydney in 1948 at the age of 13 with his mother and half-sister. His father, whose career as a superintending engineer in the central Public Works Department was bluntly nipped with all senior posts in independent India going to Indians, joined them four years later.

“There was a tremendous sense of betrayal and disillusionment with the British Raj”, he says. “My mother was part of the secret committee for air evacuation of Europeans, in case the post-partition riots spilled over to consume the European population”.

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