Australia’s filmi connection with India

0 Comments read Arts, Entertainment & Lifestyle

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 15.09.2007 (IANS) Book clubs are popular in Australia, but Bollywood Clubs? Yes, they too exist, with more and more Australians cued on to Hindi films.

Curator Rebecca Bower, whose bedside table doesn’t have books but a laptop and Hindi film DVDs, has formed a Bollywood Club where a group of women watch and discuss Indian films.

“I watch a Bollywood film for half hour or so every night to unwind before sleeping,” said the curator of the Bollywood and Australia section of “Cinema India: The Art of Bollywood” exhibition, running at the Powerhouse Museum here. She is learning Hindi so she can turn off the subtitles.
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Polio never far away in the jet age

0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science, Poliomyelitis

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 28.07.2007 (The Australian): On a sweltering February day in 1951, one-year-old Maura Outterside’s tiny body was gripped by high fever and muscle pain. As she became non-responsive, her parents wrapped her in cold towels and took her to St George Hospital in Sydney. A lumbar puncture confirmed every parent’s worst nightmare in those days — poliomyelitis, the viral disease responsible for crippling hundreds of thousands of children during the 20th century. Polio epidemics from 1930 to 1970 afflicted 40,000 Australians, including media tycoon Kerry Packer, talkback radio host John Laws and former Labor leader Kim Beazley.

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Women As Science Conductors

0 Comments read Gender, Health & Science
Women farmers in Jakharo Ki Dhani village in Jodhpur (Rajasthan) India. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Melbourne, 02.06.2007 (WFS): Experts believe that if women are involved in the spread of practices based on scientific principles, society will stand a greater chance at fighting off problems related to health, environment and food security. From communicating the latest technical advancements in agriculture to ensuring access to antiretroviral and other HIV-related treatments, women and children can help transfer the findings of scientific research into communities. This was discussed at the Fifth World Conference of Science Journalists held here recently.

As Rosemary Okello-Orlale, Executive Director of the African Woman and Child Feature Service (AWCFS), a media NGO focusing on development communication in Africa says, “Being the managers of homes, environment and also the majority of agricultural produce, women are critical group for any science findings. But the role of rural women in implementing scientific research findings and innovations as a strategy to reduce poverty and disease burden is rarely discussed. Most of these women tend to be left out because majority cannot read and write.”

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