148th birth anniversary of Father of Indian Cinema DadaSaheb Phalke.

148^th birth anniversary of Father of Indian Cinema DadaSaheb Phalke.

                      

                   Some Known and unknown Facts about Dada Saheb:

1)    Dada Saheb Phalke’s real name was Dhundi Raj Govind Phalke. Famous for his contribution in Bollywood industry Dada Saheb was born on 30 April 1870 in a Marathi Brahamin Family at Tryambakeshwar, 30 km from Nashik, Maharashtra.

2)    Great Artist: After completing his J.J. School of Arts in 1890 he further went to Baroda to learn Sculpture, Photography, Engineering, Drawing and Painting at Sayajirao University, Baroda.

3)    Local Photographer, Magician, and Businessman: He started his career as a photographer from Godhra. Apart from that he also learned Magic after being inspired by a German Magician. But after the sudden death of his first wife and children he quit his career as an artist and started working as a Draftsman with Archeological Survey of India.

4)    A milestone in Indian Cinema: He wrote about his first experience with moving pictures “While ‘Life of the Christ’ was rolling fast before my eyes I was mentally visualizing the Gods Shri Krishna, Shri Ramchandra, their Gokul, and Ayodhya. “Raja Hairshchandra” was the first film of Indian Cinema premiered in May 1913, the budget of this film was INR 15000.

5)    First Short Film: Many people do not know that Dada Saheb’s first film was released in 1910, it was a time lapsed short film called ‘Growth of a Pea Land’.

6)    First Sound Film: He directed the first Indian Sound Film ‘Gangavartaran’. Gangavartaran was also his last film before his retirement.

7)    The great soul DadaSaheb Phalke died on 16 February, 1944 at Nashik.

8)    Contributions: In the 19 years journey of Indian Cinema he made 95 films and 26 short films His last silent film ‘Setubandhan’ was released in 1932 and later released with dubbing.

9)     The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for lifetime contribution to cinema, was instituted in his honor by the Government of India in 1969. The award is one of the most prestigious awards in Indian cinema and is the highest official recognition for film personalities in the country.

10) A postage stamp bearing his likeness was released by India Post to honor him in 1971. An honorary award from the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Mumbai was introduced in the year 2001, for lifetime achievement in Indian cinema.

Apart from Indian Cinema and lovers of Indian Cinema, Google also honours the Indian producer for his 148th year of his birth. The Google Doodle was featured in Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Ethics of Journalism are at Stake

Ethics of Journalism are at Stake.

“Upper caste people of Rajasthan killed two persons of Dalit community”

“First Dalit girl to top the UPSC exam”.etc

 (News headlines of some prominent newspapers) I am not mentioning names here, the reason is not that I am afraid of them that this is not the story of one or two newspaper or News channel, this is what most of the media houses doing these days.

Why this is happening, are we all not human beings? Most of us believe that there is one supernatural power that has created us and He has divided us into two section or community or religion and that is Men and Women so who are we to divide these two communities into various or I can say endless communities. Yes, many so-called owners of religion are already doing it but are the ethics or principle of Journalism gives us this teaching. I don’t think your answer is Yes.

Are we ready to accept Caste based journalism? Being a student of Journalism this is not only my question but my concern also. Is this the job, which I have to do after my degree, am I going to quote every one by his/her caste and not by his/her work. I don’t think in last two years, there is a single lecture given by any of our professors about how to quote someone by his/her caste rather than his/her quality and work. Where are we going? What do we want? What do we want to show? What do we want to convey?

We have to decide first, either we want to get recognized by doing what people are doing, on the name of caste politics or being an ethical citizen we just want to convey an information in the best possible way which is not controversial, the content of which should not be based on caste and any of the parameters that try to divide Humans into different subparts. I know that it is the demand of the hour, it is the demand of the corporate, the profit makers who just want more popularity and more spices, they have their own tools of measuring true journalism. But my senior and super senior friends of journalism, you are in that position where you can demand change, where you can apply the change. I guarantee you if all the journalism community (yes it is a community which is getting polluted day by day because of our own stupidity) gets united and boycott this kind of journalism which creates conflicts and creates an inferiority complex among many, this system of killing the humanity of journalism can be stopped.

Yes, I am very much concerned today, I am afraid of seeing my future as a journalist. 

A Talk with Prof K L Chopra(PadmaShri) Known for his work in physics. ...