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New Delhi, Dec 25 (IANS) He says the guiding thought was ensuring unusual experiences, doing formal things in informal spaces, and vice-versa. For him, it was important to look at newer groups from across the country, and how their work is smashing ‘order’, and conveying the unsaid.

Theatre director Quasar Thakore Padamsee, curator of the theatre segment at the recently concluded Serendipity Arts Festival-2023 in Goa, tells IANS that it was important not to play safe and present the form in multiple and novel ways.

Padamsee, who helmed the curation before as well, says that in the beginning one mostly tries to capture the greatest hits. “However, over some time, we have achieved a lot and the confidence to take greater risks and the ambition has grown. We are constantly finding things that can be done differently. This is also one of the few festivals that has such a good relationship with space. There is so much cross-pollinating between art forms and a very interesting merger happens. It is very liberating to witness how art forms are shifting and coming together in a modern context,” he says about the festival that witnessed 150 events, works by over 300 artists, and 15 commissioned projects.

The theatre segment offered a wide range encompassing many foundations. From war, mental health, and alienation to LGBT+ themes.

The play ‘Jump’, directed and written by Maneesh Verma was performed on the terrace of a building, while Vikram Phukan’s ‘Postcards from Goa’ was ‘staged’ on a walking trail. ‘Afganisthan is Not Funny’ was brought forth using photographs while Tim Supple’s ‘Lives of Clay’, performed by Vidya Thirunarayan was experienced in a garden. ‘Aur Theatre Karo’ by Gopal Das was a collection of songs he had composed for the stage over decades.

The curator, who insisted that all participating groups underwent workshops to create more and new roots in the space for exchange of ideas adds, “A young theatre artist is excited to discuss things. Such festivals open doors about things that they might not have access to.”

Talk to Padamsee, who has directed and produced over 20 plays with his Mumbai-based theatre company QTP, about corporate funding in theatre and he laments that while 15-20 years back, the corporate world wanted to be seen as ‘giving’, but now everything is about sales. “Believe it or not, sometimes they even ask how their product will be placed on the stage. Everything has become just about sales, sadly. Also, most corporates will not touch a play that is difficult or experimental. Precisely why festivals are extremely important for theatre groups so they can tell the stories in the ways they want to.”

Even as several unique productions have been coming from small towns in the past few years, the director admits that are more connected to what is happening around them. “To be universal, you have to be connected. The experiences of major cities are becoming more similar...”

Even as his theatre company turns 25 next year, Padamsee wants to shut down all the old plays in the first half of the year. “We will be running one of our newer shows called ‘Lungs’ which is about a couple who are deliberating whether to bring a child into the world or not because it will add to the carbon footprint,” he concludes.

--IANS

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London, Dec 24 (IANS) Sniffing women’s tears lowers brain activity related to aggression in men, reducing aggressive behaviour, researchers have discovered.

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel conducted the study, which discovered that human tears include a chemical signal that decreases activity in two aggression-related brain regions.

In the study, published in the journal PLOS Biology. In the study, researchers, led by PhD student Shani Agron from the institute's Brain Science Lab, set out to determine whether tears have the same aggression-blocking effect in people as they do in rodents.

In a series of experiments, men were exposed to either women’s emotional tears or saline, without knowing what they were sniffing or being able to distinguish between the two.

Following that, they played a two-player game designed to generate hostile behaviour in one player towards the other, who was portrayed as cheating.

When given the opportunity, the men could get revenge on the perceived cheaters by causing them to lose money, though they themselves gained nothing.

After sniffing women's emotional tears, the men's revenge seeking aggressive behaviour throughout the game decreased by 44 per cent, or roughly in half, the researchers noted.

The researchers mentioned that this result seemed equivalent to the effect observed in rodents, but rodents have a structure in their noses called the vomeronasal organ that picks up social chemical signals.

"These findings suggest that tears are a chemical blanket offering protection against aggression – and that this effect is common to rodents and humans, and perhaps to other mammals as well," said Prof Noam Sobel, head of the Brain Sciences Department.

Agron said: "We knew that sniffing tears lowers testosterone, and that lowering testosterone has a greater effect on aggression in men than in women, so we began by studying the impact of tears on men because this gave us higher chances of seeing an effect."

--IANS

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New Delhi, Dec 24 (IANS) If we make smart investments now, artificial intelligence (AI) can make the world a more equitable place, reducing or even eliminating the lag time between when the rich world gets an innovation and when the poor world does, billionaire Bill Gates has said.

In a blog post titled ‘The road ahead reaches a turning point in 2024,’ the Microsoft Co-founder said that we can learn a lot from global health about how to make AI more equitable.

“The main lesson is that the product must be tailored to the people who will use it,” he wrote.

One of the biggest impacts so far is on creating new medicines. Drug discovery requires combing through massive amounts of data, and “AI tools can speed up that process significantly”.

“Some companies are already working on cancer drugs developed this way. But a key priority of the Gates Foundation in AI is ensuring these tools also address health issues that disproportionately affect the world's poorest, like AIDS, TB, and malaria,” he stressed.

Can AI combat antibiotic resistance?

Nana Kofi Quakyi from the Aurum Institute in Ghana is working on an AI-powered tool that helps health workers prescribe antibiotics without contributing to antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

“The tool will comb through all the available information—including local clinical guidelines and health surveillance data about which pathogens are currently at risk of developing resistance in the area—and make suggestions for the best drug, dosage, and duration,” Gates informed.

On the question can AI help treat high-risk pregnancies, Gates met some of the researchers at non-profit Armaan this year, who hope to use artificial intelligence to improve the odds for new mothers in India.

“Their large language model will one day act as a copilot for health workers treating high-risk pregnancies. It can be used in both English and Telugu, and the coolest part is that it automatically adjusts to the experience level of the person using it—whether you’re a brand-new nurse or a midwife with decades of experience,” the billionaire philanthropist said.

On a question can AI help people assess their risk for HIV, he said that for many people, talking to a doctor or nurse about their sexual history can be uncomfortable.

“A new South African chatbot aims to make HIV risk assessment a lot easier. It acts like an unbiased and nonjudgmental counsellor who can provide around-the-clock advice,” said Gates.

“If I had to make a prediction, in high-income countries like the United States, I would guess that we are 18–24 months away from significant levels of AI use by the general population,” Gates added.

“In African countries, I expect to see a comparable level of use in three years or so. That’s still a gap, but it’s much shorter than the lag times we’ve seen with other innovations”.

--IANS

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The nonprofit has demanded the UN chief's resignation over his remarks.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement in a statement said that it was unbelievable and unconscionable as how out of touch with realityGuterres was.

CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa said: “Over the last couple of weeks, our generation has had a chance to reflect and better understand how the Holocaust was allowed to happen by the silence and complicity of global decision-makers and opinion-shapers in the face of Nazi-style atrocities.

“The fact that the so-called leader of the most prominent international institution has engaged in victim-blaming shows how he clearly has different rules for Jews among all the other peoples of the world.

“He sees the blood of masses of Jews spilled and can only think of the political ramifications. Would he have said that the Holocaust didn’t happen in a vacuum, which is a repugnant but sadly increasing global sentiment?.

“These comments are just a thin whisper away and hold the Jewish people uniquely responsible for their own massacres, rapes, beheadings, and kidnappings.”

CAM joins the growing number of people and institutions calling for Gutteres’ immediate resignation as UN Secretary-General, she said .

--IANS

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PDS 70 is a K-type star, cooler than Sun and hosts both an inner disk and outer disk of gas and dust, separated by a 8 billion kilometre gap, and within that gap are two known gas-giant planets.

Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) detected the presence of water in the inner disk of the system, at distances of less than 160 million kilometres from the star -- the region where rocky, terrestrial planets may be forming.

This is the first detection of water in the terrestrial region of a disk already known to host two or more protoplanets, said researchers in the paper published in the journal Nature.

“We’ve seen water in other disks, but not so close in and in a system where planets are currently assembling. We couldn’t make this type of measurement before Webb,” said lead author Giulia Perotti of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany.

“This discovery is extremely exciting, as it probes the region where rocky planets similar to Earth typically form,” added MPIA director Thomas Henning, a co-author on the paper.

PDS 70 is estimated to be 5.4 million years old. This is relatively old in terms of stars with planet-forming disks, which made the discovery of water vapour surprising.

Astronomers haven’t yet detected any planets forming within the inner disk of PDS 70. However, they do see the raw materials for building rocky worlds in the form of silicates.

The detection of water vapour implies that if rocky planets are forming there, they will have water available to them from the beginning.

The origin of water is also not clear. The team aims to use two more of Webb’s instruments, NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) to study the PDS 70 system in an effort to glean an even greater understanding.

Webb is an international programme led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

--IANS

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According to the researchers from the US-based Stanford Internet Observatory, the findings raise serious concerns about the effectiveness of safety efforts across so-called 'decentralised' platforms, which allow users to join independently run communities with their own moderation rules, particularly when dealing with the internet's most vile content, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Over two days, researchers found 112 matches for known CSAM in addition to nearly 2,000 posts that used the 20 most common hashtags which indicate the exchange of abuse materials.

The Internet Observatory searched for CSAM on the 25 most popular Mastodon instances. Researchers also used Google's SafeSearch API and PhotoDNA, a tool that helps find flagged CSAM, to identify explicit images.

“We got more photoDNA hits in a two-day period than we’ve probably had in the entire history of our organisation of doing any kind of social media analysis, and it’s not even close,” David Thiel, one of the study’s authors, was quoted as saying.

During its search, the team discovered 554 pieces of content that matched hashtags or keywords commonly used by online child sexual abuse groups, all

of which were identified as explicit with 'highest confidence' by Google SafeSearch.

There were also 713 mentions of the top 20 CSAM-related hashtags on Fediverse (a group of federated social networking services) posts with

media, and 1,217 text-only mentions of 'off-site CSAM trading or grooming of minors'.

According to the study, the open posting of CSAM is 'disturbingly prevalent'.

Decentralised networks do not approach moderation in the same way that mainstream sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit do. Instead,

moderation is delegated to each decentralised instance, which can lead to inconsistency across the Fediverse.

--IANS

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The women-first dating app launched a global integrated campaign titled Kindness is Sexy featuring new content with actor Aditya Roy Kapur. This partnership comes at a time when singles in India are more focused on kindness as a key element of their dating decisions. According to its latest survey, an overwhelming majority (81 per cent) of respondents in India agree that kindness is sexy now more than ever before and 56 per cent of respondents value kindness over physical attributes in a potential partner.

“When we approach dating with kindness, we help create an environment of respect and compassion, and for connections to grow,” said Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble. “Kindness is a core value here at Bumble, and we know it is the driving force behind our mission of creating healthy and equitable relationships. This new content helps redefine the idea of attraction and encourages us to never lose sight of the most valuable traits in a relationship.”

The campaign's new film embodies this sentiment as it features popular actor, Aditya Roy Kapur exploring modern online dating as he redefines stereotypical tropes of sexy through the lens of different facets of ‘kindness’ in a relationship-respect, vulnerability to empathy. The film leverages a playful, humourous twist in the end which ultimately shows how kindness is sexy and goes a long way in making meaningful connections.

Speaking on this partnership, actor Aditya Roy Kapur shares, “At the end of the day, the heart of everything lies at being good to people around you, including your romantic relationships. I think it's great what Bumble is doing by telling everyone, who is on their platform and whoever wants to join, that what matters is being good to each other, being accountable and responsible on the platform. By showing kindness is sexy, I think they have set the tone very clearly about the kind of interactions and the kind of people they want on the platform - I think more power to Bumble for doing that!”

IANSlife caught up with Aditya Roy Kapur to get his opinion and thoughts regarding the campaign and dating:

According to you, what are the simple acts of kindness that can make a positive impact in the dating culture these days?

Aditya: I think open communication is key in every relationship, being open to listening and understanding each other is an act of kindness. So I would say being comfortable with each other is important and expressing gratitude in any kind of relationship goes a long way too!

Any tips for your fans to make kindness a habit?

Aditya: I think whenever you think someone is doing something nice, make them know that you notice and appreciate it. It feels nice to know that someone has noticed good things that you do and good qualities, if they have been nice to you or checked in with you - let them know that you notice because it matters to them that you see them for the good.

How does it feel to associate with Bumble for Kindness is Sexy Campaign? What message do you hope to communicate through this collaboration?

Aditya: What Bumble is trying to put across is something that resonated with me. I think being kind, asking people how you like to be treated with empathy should be at the core of any healthy relationship, whichever form it may take. So, when I heard of the campaign and what its message was, I looked at it only as something that can be positive, and I felt that Bumble always goes about putting their ideas across in a fun way. I really liked the stuff that they have done for their other campaigns as well. So, it was a really exciting prospect to collaborate with them on something that I felt would be fun, interesting and also a positive message.

(IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in)

--IANS

ianslife/tb

Adding a touch of magic to our everyday attire while maintaining an effortless look is something we all desire. Unfortunately, our busy lives with tight schedules leave little time for meticulous fashion choices. However, fear not, as you are not alone in this fashion dilemma. Instead of revamping your entire wardrobe, why not explore your jewellery casket?

Enter the world of demi-fine jewellery, a game-changer in creative outfit styling. Whether you're donning a bossin'-it-at-work attire or a casual no-work-brunch outfit, these gold-laden demi-fine accessories know how to make a statement as your daily essentials.

IANSlife caught up with Pallavi Mohadikar, the Co-Founder and CEO, of Palmonas, an international jewellery brand, to get some must-have fashion cheat codes that will elevate your basic looks to chic ensembles.

Read on...

Break the Monochrome:

Break free from the mundane monotony of monochrome by adding splashes of gold. Style your outfits with chunky earrings or fancy golden bracelets to act as a colour block.

Style Guide: pair a neutral- colour ed outfit, such as black-on-black, with dazzling earrings and a few rings to create an extravagant yet classy look.

The Highlighter Effect:

Accessorisation is a powerful weapon when it comes to highlighting your best features. Experiment with different jewellery pieces to accentuate your unique attributes and achieve a stylish, cheeky look.

Style Guide: Pair a turtleneck top with a delicate necklace and studs while sporting a sleek high-top ponytail. This combination creates a sleek appearance for your neck and torso. Similarly, a V-neck top complements a layered neckpiece, creating the illusion of an elongated figure.

Mix and Match:

Don't be afraid to play with various lengths and designs of your accessories. Group necklaces of different lengths to give your ensemble a touch of panache. Alternatively, mix and match different jewellery designs to curate your own collection of unique objet d'art.

Style Guide: For a breezy brunch date, experiment by wearing studs on one ear and dazzling earrings on the other. Combine lightweight chains of varying lengths with a pendant charm to accompany button-downs, ribbed tank tops, or even a camisole.

The Showstopper:

Reverse your approach to styling by choosing a single piece of jewellery as the showstopper of your outfit. Once you have selected this statement piece, focus your attention on the clothes that will complement it.

Style Guide: Select a bold-gold statement necklace to grace your saree or pair shoulder duster earrings with square necklines or backless outfits.

Strike the Balance:

Artisans meticulously design jewellery while keeping the principles of design in mind. To achieve maximum aesthetic impact, by being mindful of how your jewellery interacts with your attire.

Style Guide: Pair a long flare dress with minimalist studs and a delicate bracelet to strike the perfect balance.

"Don't let your wardrobe be the sole focus of your style transformation; let your jewellery shine and make a bold statement. With a touch of gold, you can add the perfect amount of elegance, charm, and sophistication to any outfit, ensuring that you look and feel your best every day", concludes Pallavi Mohadikar.

(IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in)

--IANS

lh/tb

Gajjar's film with a revolutionary theme, based on Kaajal Oza Vaidya's short story of the same name, stands out for its universal appeal despite being made in Gujarati. The film is making waves as one good production across all languages.

Kudos to the director for taking the untrodden path of selecting a bold regional story that seldom finds a taker in the Hindi film Industry.

The narrative unravels the emotional and logistical baggage of losing someone and then finding love once again. But who says, age, falling in love for the second time and marrying is a cakewalk? Our society and cultural mores are the biggest hindrances and the director handles this subject tactfully.

As bonding and relationships between the protagonists unspool, the narrative gets complex and intriguing. Here, as the chemistry between the cast alters the equation literally and figuratively, we find apart from the direction, the writing too is the strongest element of the film.

To begin with, the title 'Chandlo' has a dual meaning and is aptly used for the film. It means a token or a gift given on an auspicious occasion and it also means a bindi. And you realise soon that the bindi is missing on the foreheads of the two leading women in the film.

Aastha (Shraddha Dangar) is a young forlorn woman living with Meera (Kaajal Oza Vaidya), her mother-in-law and a professor. Their lives get upended when ghazal singer Sharan (Manav Gohil) enters their lives and ends up staying in the same building they live in.

On the surface, the story may appear like a predictable love triangle, but it is the easy-going chemistry among the three that makes you empathise with them. Their relationships unravel subtly and their pragmatic approach to life is positive and adorable.

Metaphors too are seamlessly woven into the narrative, giving meaning to the storytelling. Sample this dialogue: "You keep a bird in a cage for years and then you may open the cage. It is not necessary that it will fly away. It doesn't have the idea of freedom." This statement encapsulates the essence of the older woman rejecting love.

The plot is linear, with the narrative being focused on delivering its message to its audience, and it succeeds in its endeavour.

The casting in the film is perfect. Kaajal Oza Vaidya, making her debut as the older woman keen on fulfilling her obligations, is remarkable. She is spot-on with displaying her emotions effectively. You feel her pain and misery.

She is aptly supported by Shraddha Dangar, who essays the role of the Aastha. She is the epitome of a pampered daughter and scores in her realistic portrayal of the character.

Manav Gohil's physical aggression on screen may appear to be an aberration, but still, he delivers a likable performance in a well-etched character.

Jayesh More as Tapas, Meera's friend and colleague, an ungratifying character, is a delight to watch. Similarly, the rest of the supporting cast deliver what is expected of them.

The film sparkles with moderate production values. DOP Hrishikesh Ghandi's camera movements are flawless and the visuals are perfect. The background score by Prasad Sashte and Sachin-Jigar's music elevate the viewing experience.

Overall, the film will surely touch an emotional chord with the viewers.

Film: Chandlo (Streaming on Jio Cinema) Duration: 115 minutes

Director: Hardik Gajjar Cast: Manav Gohil, Shraddha Dangar, Jayesh More, Kaajal Oza Vaidya and Ojas Raval

Producer: Jio Studios, Parth Gajjar and Poonam Shroff

IANS Rating: ***1/2

--IANS

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The bill was passed by a voice vote in state Assembly on Friday.

This bill also makes social pension a legal right for various categories of people.

In a video message, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that Rajasthan is the first state in country to have a minimum guaranteed income law.

"This act is on four laws enacted during former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh' regime-Right to Information Act, Right to Education Act, Right to Food Act and MGNREGA."

The bill promises a minimum pension of Rs 1000 to old people, specially-abled, widows and single women under social security pension schemes.

IANS

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