SRK to be bestowed with Honorary Doctorate at Indian Film Festival of Melbourne

Agencies
July 15, 2019

New Delhi, Jul 15: Shah Rukh Khan in his career spanning 27 years has received several awards for his incredible performances and raw acting prowess in many of his films.

Now, during his visit to Australia for the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM), SRK is all set to be awarded La Trobe University's highest accolade - Honorary Doctor of Letters (honoris causa).

The honour will be given in recognition of his efforts to support underprivileged children, his dedication to fight for women's empowerment through MEER Foundation and his achievements in the Indian entertainment industry.

Meer Foundation is a philanthropic foundation named after the actor's father Meer Taj Mohammed Khan which aims to effect change at ground level and works to build a world that empowers women.

Expressing his happiness, the 53-year-old actor stated, "I'm proud to be conferred with a great University like La Trobe which has a long-standing relationship with Indian culture and impressive track record in advocating women's equality. I feel truly privileged to receive this Honorary Doctorate and I would like to sincerely thank La Trobe for choosing to recognise my achievements in such a humbling way."

SRK will be given the award on August 9 at La Trobe's Melbourne campus in Bundoora. IFFM's tenth edition will be held from August 8 to August 17. 

King Khan, who is admired globally, will be officially opening the festival on August 8, 2019, along with 'Premier of Victoria' Daniel Andrews and the director of the festival Mitu Bhowmick Lange. 

On the work front, SRK has lent his voice to the king of the Jungle, Lion Mufasa, in the Hindi version of 'The Lion King'. Aryan Khan has lent his voice for Mufasa's son Simba. This is the first time that the father-son duo has come together for a project.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Los Angeles, Jan 27: Pop-rock innovator Billie Eilish on Sunday bested a packed field to win the Grammy for Song of the Year -- which honors songwriters -- for her hit "Bad Guy."

The 18-year-old beat veteran acts Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey along with newcomers Lewis Capaldi and Lizzo to take home the coveted honor.

She shares the prize with her older brother Finneas O'Connell, her primary creative collaborator.

The pair were gracious onstage, with Eilish telling her fellow nominees: "I grew up watching all of you."

"We just make music in a bedroom together," said O'Connell. "We still do that and they let us do that. (...) This is to all of the kids making music in your bedrooms today -- you're going to get one of these."

Eilish was among this year's most nominated artists with six nods, and is the youngest person ever nominated in all four of the top categories.

Best song was her second award of the night. She won earlier for best pop vocal album for "when we all fall asleep, where do we go?"

Before she released the album in March 2019, Eilish had already assembled a fervent online following for her bold, often haunting pop sound.

In August, Eilish became the first musician born in the 2000s to top the Billboard Hot 100, when she dethroned Lil Nas X, who spent a record-breaking 19 weeks at the top with viral hit "Old Town Road."

The artist named Billboard's 2019 Woman of the Year has also written and will perform the theme song for the upcoming James Bond film "No Time To Die."

"I feel like I'm not supposed to be here," she told E! television on the red carpet before the gala. "Life is weird."

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Mumbai, Jan 4: After the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur constituted a panel to decide whether legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poem 'Hum Dekhenge' is offensive to Hindu sentiments, filmmaker Shoojit Sircar had a cryptic take on the burning controversy.

"Best time for the rich & small businesses to make money as most of the population are engaged with a revolutionary poet named Faiz," Sircar said in a tweet.

The poem, penned down by the iconic poet in 1979, came into limelight again recently during the protests against CAA and NRC in IIT Kanpur.

Earlier on Thursday, senior lyricist Javed Akhtar rejected the claims about the poem being 'anti-Hindu'.

IIT Kanpur on Thursday had set up a committee to look into the issue.

The move came after a complaint that the students who took out a peaceful march in the campus on December 17 against the Citizenship Amendment Act and in solidarity with Jamia Millia Islamia students, sung it as a mark of protest, which hurt the sentiments of other communities.

The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh and came to India on or before December 31, 2014.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Los Angeles, Jan 27: Lil Nas X, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and... Michelle Obama?

Yep.

The former first lady can now add Grammy winner to her resume, after snagging the award on music's biggest night for Best Spoken Word Album, for the audiobook of her memoir Becoming.

Her win on Sunday gives the Obama household its third Grammy: former president Barack Obama has already snagged two Grammys in the same category for his books.

She faced an eccentric group of rivals that included Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys for Beastie Boys Book and John Waters, the director-performer known for his transgressive cult films, for Mr. Know-It-All.

 Released in late 2018, Becoming saw the former first lady slam U.S. president Donald Trump for questioning her husband's citizenship and promoting the notion that he was born abroad.

"The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed," Obama wrote.

America's first black first lady also dug into her personal life in her book, expounding on issues including a miscarriage, using in-vitro fertilization to conceive her daughters and marriage counseling.

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