Shah Rukh among 3 global stars to be honoured with Crystal Award at WEF Davos summit

Agencies
January 12, 2018

New Delhi/Geneva, Jan 12: Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan will get the Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos later this month, along with Hollywood star Cate Blanchett and legendary musician Sir Elton John.

Khan will get the award for "his leadership in championing children's and women's rights in India," the World Economic Forum (WEF) said.

The past awardees from India include Amitabh Bachchan, Mallika Sarabhai, A R Rahman, Shabana Azmi, Ravi Shankar and Amjad Ali Khan.

Sir Elton John has been selected for the 2018 award for his leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and Blanchett for her leadership in raising awareness about the refugee crisis.

The Annual Crystal Awards ceremony, which opens the WEF summit in the Swiss ski resort, celebrates the achievements of outstanding artists who have shown exemplary commitment to improving the state of the world.

Announcing the names of the three awardees for this year, the WEF said "each of them in their own way has taken action to uphold human dignity". The award ceremony will take place on January 22, the first day of the five-day annual meeting of Geneva-based WEF, which describes itself as an international organisation for public-private cooperation committed to improving the state of the world.

The three awardees will be among 40 art and culture leaders taking part in this year's annual WEF summit, which will have a theme of 'creating a shared future in a fractured world'.

Last year's awardees were Anne-Sophie Mutter, Forest Whitaker and Shakira, while Yao Chen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Olafur Eliasson and will.i.am were awarded in 2016. The past awardees include Matt Damon, Bono and Charlize Theron.

About Shah Rukh Khan, the WEF said he is one of Bollywood's most prominent actors who has been at the forefront of the Indian film and television industry for over 30 years.

He is also the founder of the non-profit Meer Foundation, which provides support to female victims of acid attacks and major burn injuries through medical treatment, legal aid, vocational training, rehabilitation and livelihood support.

He has also been responsible for the creation of specialised children's hospital wards, and has supported childcare centres with free boarding for children undergoing cancer treatment.

"With victims of acid attacks, I have had the privilege to witness the unparalleled courage and compassion that women are capable of. I have seen the transformative strength of goodness and the healing power of gentleness," Khan said.

About Blanchett, the WEF said she is an internationally acclaimed award-winning actor and director of both stage and screen.

She was appointed a UNHCR Global Goodwill Ambassador in 2016 in recognition of her commitment to refugees, and has lent her voice and influence to raising awareness, advocating and fundraising for the UNHCR.

Having met refugees in countries including Lebanon, Jordan and her home country Australia, she advocates for increased solidarity and responsibility sharing for the 65 million-plus displaced people across the world. She has brought her creative skills to bear in sharpening focus on the individual human stories that lie behind the vast numbers.

"As a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, my job is simple: to help connect people to the human stories of those forced to flee, and to state the case for all of us to stand with refugees," she said.

Sir Elton John, one of the world's most successful musical solo artists of all time with a career spanning more than five decades, said that AIDS is the leading cause of death for women of childbearing age, yet the medicine and know-how exists to prevent this.

"If we want to give the next generation a better future, we could solve this problem. What it takes is our collective passion and compassion," he said.

With 35 Gold and 25 Platinum albums, he has sold more than 250 million records worldwide. In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF), which today is one of the leading non-profit HIV/AIDS organisations.

EJAF has raised more than USD 400 million to date to support hundreds of HIV/AIDS prevention, service and advocacy programmes around the globe. In 1998, Queen Elizabeth knighted him Sir Elton John, Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to music and charitable causes.

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News Network
March 11,2020

Washington, Mar 11: Pop star Selena Gomez made some revelations about her personal life in a recent interview.

While explaining the lyrics of her song "Rare" on the 'Genius' YouTube channel, the 27-year-old said that there are times when she feels that she will ever be able to find a suitable partner for herself, reported Fox News.

"Some days when I wake up and I am annoyed and I am like, 'I am going to be alone forever.' But after that 15 minutes go away, I say to myself, 'I know that there is someone for everybody," the singer told in the seven-and-a-half minute long video.

However, she remains optimistic as she is still young and "this isn't the end all be all".

Elaborating upon the chorus of her song, Gomez opened up and said, "self-esteem and confidence is a constant struggle".

"It's getting better with time and age, but it will always be something that I'm working on," she added while explaining the lyrics further.

"So what I think is so important about this chorus is that it's acknowledging, 'Hey, I don't have it all. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I do know that I'm special,' and I think that is a humble approach of saying, 'Why don't you see that I am different?'" the singer added as reported by Fox News.

Touching upon her experiences from past relationships, she commented: "In certain relationships, I've heard and I've experienced and whatnot, I think men and women do it -- especially teenagers and young people in love -- is there's this satisfaction out of hurting someone because you know that they care. Purposefully putting someone down because they want to keep them at a level. I've had someone actually say that to me before".

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News Network
March 12,2020

Chennai, Mar 12: Superstar Rajinikanth on Thursday clarified that he never aspired to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and said his plans for politics include different heads for his prospective party and a possible government headed by it.

In his first official press conference since December 31, 2017, when he announced to take the political plunge, the veteran star also said he planned to appoint as CM, an educated youth who was compassionate and had self-respect.

With a two-leadership system for party and the government, the former would act as an "opposition" to highlight issues and would not even hesitate to "remove", apparently the head of the government, if it fails to perform, he said.

His prospective party would focus on including a substantial amount of youngsters in the age group of below 45 years while the rest would comprise retired judges and IAS and IPS officials among others.

"I myself would reach out to them and invite them," to join him, the 69-year-old actor said.

Contrary to expectations, he however, did not make a concrete statement on floating his party but called for an "uprising" by youth, after which he would make his formal political entry.

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News Network
January 23,2020

Jan 23: Calling himself an optimist who believes in the goodness of people, director Kabir Khan says everything these days is being looked at through the prism of religion but India is about more than that.

The director of blockbusters such as Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Ek Tha Tiger said he is happy he has a platform as a filmmaker to present a counterpoint to the prevailing narrative based on religious fault lines.

"I’m an optimist who believes in the goodness of the people. But yes, there is a certain level of bigotry that has crept in. Everything is being looked at through the prism of religion but India is not about that.

"It sounds like a cliché but when I was growing up, I was not aware of my religion. That was the greatness of this country,” Kabir told news agency.

He said he is a product of a mixed marriage and is pained to see the social fabric being tattered.

“I have celebrated the best that Indian secularism has to offer. But to see the greatness of this country being simplified and broken down into religious fault lines is a painful experience,” he added.

According to Kabir, it is dangerous to see history through the prism of religion, whether in cinema or society. But it is important to revisit history to know what happened and one can always find something that is relevant for the present, he said.

The director, who started as a documentary filmmaker, returns to his roots for a five-episode series on Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army, The Forgotten Army: Azaadi Ke Liye, on Amazon Prime, his most expensive project yet.

Asked whether this is a difficult time for filmmakers, Kabir said he believes art thrives in the time of strife and, as a storyteller, his politics will always reflect in his work.

“Every film has its politics and every filmmaker has to reflect his or her politics. Every film of mine will reflect my politics and it will never change according to the popular mood of the audience. But a film should not be just about that. Politics should be in the layers beneath," he said.

He terms his 2015 Salman Khan-starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan an "extremely political" film. At face value, it can also be enjoyed as the story of a mute Pakistani girl who drifts into India and is taken back to her homeland by a Hanuman devotee. But there is so much more. The "chicken song", for instance, was a sly reference to the beef ban controversy at the time, he said.

"I won’t say it is a difficult time for me as a filmmaker. It is good that I have a platform where I can talk and present a counterpoint and I refuse to believe that the entire country believes the narrative that is being sent out. There are millions and millions of people, and perhaps the majority, that does not believe. And if I present the counterpoint, they will think about it.”

Discussing his new series, the director said it has always fascinated him that the sacrifice of the men and women who comprised the INA is just a forgotten footnote in history.

“I wanted to make something that stands the test of time. It goes down in posterity,” Khan, who first explored the subject in a Doordarshan documentary 20 years ago, said.

For the documentary, he traveled with former INA officers Captain Lakshmi Sahgal and Captain Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon from Singapore to India via erstwhile Burma, retracing the route that the INA followed.

“The documentary got me a lot of attention and acclaim but the story just never left me. It's actually the first script I ever wrote and I landed up with that script in Bombay from Delhi. I realised very soon that nobody's going to give me a budget of this size to make my first film.

"And then after every film, I would pick up the script and say, ‘Okay, this is the one I want to make’, because this is the story that made me want to become a filmmaker. On the way, I ended up making eight other films but this is really the story that I wanted to make,” he said.

Kabir is happy that the story has come out as a series, not a film, as it would have required to compromise with the budget and other elements.

"Without giving any numbers, this is the most expensive project I have ever worked on… It required that kind of budget."

Kabir believes the INA was responsible for bringing down the morale of the British establishment, which realised it would be impossible to keep the country colonised without the support of the local army.

"There are a lot of debates and discussions about what happened with the INA and the controversies around it. The whole point is that, if you want to judge what the Army did, sure that's your prerogative, but at least get to know what they did. Nobody knows what happened with the Army from 1942 to 1945."

He added that 55,000 men and women of the INA fought for independence and 47,000 of them died.

"Not a single person from that Army was ever taken back into the independent Army, which is such an amazing fact... the fact that the British called them traitors became the narrative and we also started assuming that they were traitors."

"They were the only women's regiment in the whole world 70 years ago. That's what they thought about women's importance in society. I don't know whether they will be happy with what the current situation is," he said.

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