Entertainment
Birju Maharaj bats for artistic compositions on environment issues
Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh): Dancing like a peacock in the rain, leading Kathak exponent Pandit Birju Maharaj held audiences here spellbound with his new composition. Soon after, confessing his ardent love for nature, the face of Indian Kathak in the world stressed on more artistic creations on key environmental issues.”I really love nature. Whatever I feel, as inspired from nature, I try to bring it out. There should be compositions on environmental issues (like climate change, natural resource depletion et al) for the people, the veteran told IANS in an interview at the Amaravati Global Music and Dance Festival here.
Birju Maharaj performed with his ensemble, including danseuse Saswati Sen, at the Pavitra Sangamam amphitheatre, straddling the confluence of the Krishna and Godavari rivers.Talking after his performance, the Padma Vibhushan awardee expressed displeasure at the man-made “disruption” of natural balance.”I see big buildings going up, the earth being dug out and nature harmed. Our environment should be preserved. The balanced is being disrupted. It pains me. You see metro construction happening all across. Although this is for our convenience, but it shouldn’t happen at the cost of disrupting the natural balance,” he lamented.
The torch-bearer of the Kalka-Bindadin gharana of Lucknow, Birju Maharaj is a direct descendant of Ishwari Prasadji, the first known Kathak teacher.Admitting his voracious appetite for nature-related TV programmes, he said he sees rhythm in every step of life and that is what keeps him ticking at 79.”I watch a lot of Discovery and Animal Planet. If you see a lion walking or a cheetah running, you find rhythm in every movement, in every step. There is rhythm in everything in life. When this rhythm stops, everything stops. For example, for one who is walking at a slow pace, we would co-relate it with the introductory ‘vilamvit laya’ (slow tempo) in the Hindustani classical genre,” Birju Maharaj said counting out the beats.
“This rhythm in nature should keep going and we have a responsibility to do that because humans have a connection with their surroundings,” he explained with a smile of contentment.At the young age of 28, the living legend received the Sangeet Natak Academy Award, besides several other prestigious awards like the Kalidas Samman, Soviet Land Nehru Award, Shiromani Samman and Rajiv Gandhi Peace Award. He has been conferred honorary doctorate by Banares Hindu University and Chhattisgarh’s Khairagarh University.
Asked about his future projects/compositions, the master artiste said a lot of things simultaneously go on in in his mind.”There are a lot of things I am inspired by. For example, dancing here tonight, at the riverfront, I was taken by the sacred confluence of the rivers. It is also always enchanting to dance in a temple courtyard. The compositions will come as the inspirations come,” he signed-off with a twinkle in his eye.
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.
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Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
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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.
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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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