Entertainment
Shyam Benegal honours Govind Nihalani at LIFFI
Lonavla:The opening ceremony of the maiden edition of the Lonavla International Film Festival India (LIFFI) here on Thursday saw iconic Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal bestow the Lifetime Achievement Award upon his close associate Govind Nihalani, who has given Indian cinema some milestone films.
In a moment of joy, Nihalani, maker of films like “Aakrosh” and “Ardh Satya”, said to Benegal: “Shyam babu, abhi ek aur film baaki hai (we have one more film to do)”.
Nihalani had worked as cinematographer on Benegal’s directorials “Arohan”, “Mandi”, “Kalyug”, “Bhumika”, “Manthan”, “Nishant” and “Ankur”.
Both defying age — Nihalani at 75 and Benegal at 81 — shared their excitement to be in this quaint hill station, located between Mumbai and Pune, for LIFFI.
“I’m delighted to be here and it’s a marvellous initiative to launch a film festival in a tourist destination like Lonavla,” Benegal said, citing how most globally popular film fiestas including that film fests in Venice, Cannes and Telluride began only as they were tourist hotspots.
Nihalani, in his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award, spoke at length of how three people — V.K. Murthy, Satydev Dubey and Benegal have been the force behind the success that he tasted in his career.
He also shed light on the evolution of film festivals as mere windows of national and international cinema to different audiences across all corners, but as viable platforms where new projects can be discussed and given shape to.
Also present at the opening ceremony were Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Ketan Mehta, Deepa Mehta, Vivek Agnihotri, Pallavi Joshi, Dolly Thakore and Tanuja.
In his opening address, festival director Riju Bajaj, who has been living in Lonavla for the past five years, said he was “fed up” of attending film festivals across the country and so he decided to host one here itself.
Bajaj has organised the gala in association with Madhav Todi — owner of the festival’s venue Triose Plaza here — and Anamika Sharma, an NRI who is passionate about cinema.
A total of 52 films, including shorts and feature films, are scheduled to be screened at the five-day fest. Some of the titles include “UnIndian”, “Manjhi – The Mountain Man”, “1962 – My Country Land”, “Rough Book”, “Buddha In A Traffic Jam”, “Rang Rasiya” and “Toba Tek Singh”.
A trophy for Best Music was also launched in the name of music composer Khemchand Prakash.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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