Author: Bhakti Narayanan

The New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), which takes place in New York City from Thursday, May 11, to Sunday, May 14, is where Bollywood star Manoj Bajpayee will promote his forthcoming film. Since its first season in 2001, NYIFF has been the longest-running annual film festival in North America that serves the Indian diaspora. The courtroom drama in Bajpayee’s movie is called Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai. It will debut on Zee5 Global, an OTT service made specifically for South Asian programming, on May 23. In the film, Bajpayee will play high court attorney P.C. Solanki. The plot of…

On Thursday, Oscar-winning director Guneet Monga stated that she never supports a movie with the goal of taking home a prize. Producing “The Elephant Whisperers” by Kartiki Gonsalves, which in March received the Academy Award for best documentary short subject, is all about being faithful to the narrative, according to Monga. “Every film has its own journey. You never make content for an award; you just make a piece of cinema because you love the story. When you tell a story through the long format, with the number of years it takes to make the film, you have to fall…

A project of Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, the Schmidt Science Fellows program seeks to build a community of scientists and advocates for multidisciplinary science. Out of 32 applicants, five early-career scientists of Indian descent were selected. For up to two years of postdoctoral research, the fellows—Sahil Loomba of Imperial College London, Shilpa Pothapragada of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Krishnakant Saboo of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Susmita Sarkar of Purdue University, and Sridevi Venkatesan of the University of Toronto—will receive a stipend of US$100,000. The Schmidt Science Fellows are assigned to world-class researchers and famous laboratories to…

On April 28, 2023, in the Indian consulate in New York, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman (Non-Resident Indian) Awardees in the tri-state area met with Amit Kumar Mishra, Deputy Secretary of Overseas Indian Affairs in the Ministry of External Affairs. At the gathering, there was Ashook Ramsaran, president of the Indian Diaspora Council International (IDC), as well as a Guyana-based recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman (PBS). The IDC released a statement stating that the meeting’s objectives were to discuss the upcoming PBSA conference and the contributions made by diaspora scientists to scientific research in India. According to the press release, the…

As part of the severe sanctions imposed on Moscow, Russia was first denied access to the SWIFT international system. The exercise that initially aimed to make payments easier is no longer intended only to get over the severe restrictions. India is considering a similar agreement with Iran, which is also subject to US sanctions.  “There are some issues with rupee trade, but we are looking at these payment arrangements as a long-term system and not just linked to the sanctions. We are looking at rupee trade with these countries as something more permanent,” said a senior government official. “There are…

   Now that 2021 is here, many are looking for new ways to manage stress. Although mindfulness and meditation are not new – there is evidence suggesting that humans have been practicing meditation for more than 5,000 years – many are turning to these techniques to improve overall well-being. Mindfulness is a technique that involves paying attention to what’s happening now in the present moment, in an accepting, nonjudgmental manner. There are mindfulness apps for managing stress, anxiety, chronic pain, weight loss, better sleep and quitting smoking. Mindfulness and meditation are also a part of mind-body activities and exercises such…