Entertainment
Benegal named for V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award
Mumbai, Feb 2 (IANS) Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal has been selected for the prestigious ‘V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award’ of the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF-2018), it was announced here on Friday.
The award, carrying a trophy, a citation, shawl and cash prize of Rs 10 lakh, will be conferred on Benegal by Maharashtra Governor C.V. Rao at the MIFF 2018 valedictory function on Saturday.
Benegal’s name was selected unanimously by an independent committee comprising Kiran Shantaram, Rahul Rawail, Prasoon Joshi, Bharati Pradhan and Vinod Anupam, in view of his significant contribution to the growth and sustenance of the documentary movement in India.
A respected and leading filmmaker, Benegal, 73, is known for making thought-provoking films centering around contemporary Indian experiences and pioneering the New Cinema in the country.
During his career, he has made 28 feature films including classics like “Ankur”, “Nishant”, “Mandi”, “Bhumika”, “Manthan” and “Junoon” and 41 documentaries on a wide gamut of topics including cultural, anthropology, sustainable growth, biopic, arts and culture.
One of his documentaries “Satyajit Ray” (1982) got him the National Award for the Best Biographical Film, while his 1985 film, “Nehru” won the award for Best Historical Reconstruction.
He also contributed to the small screen with several popular serials including the 53-epidose “Bharat Ek Khoj” first broadcast on Doordarshan in 1988, and later the acclaimed “Samvidhaan – The Making of The Constitution of India”.
Born in Hyderabad in 1934, Benegal completed his Masters in Economics from Osmania University and in 1959, started working in an advertising agency in Mumbai before venturing into film-making.
His first documentary was in Gujarati in 1963, entitled “Gher Behti Ganga” (Ganga at Doorstep) and he credited his father, photographer Sridhar S. Benegal and his cousin, the legendary actor Guru Dutt, as the early influencers who guided him into taking to film-making as a career.
He also taught Mass Communications at the Film & Television Institute of India (FITT), Pune between 1966 and 1973, and later was appointed two times as its Chairman, first in 1980-1983 and again in 1989-1992.
Benegal has been earlier conferred the Padma Shri in 1976, Padma Bhushan in 1991 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2005, besides nine National Awards for various films and documentaries.
The MIFF’s V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award is conferred on a veteran filmmaker with outstanding contribution to the world of films, instituted in memory of the legendary filmmaker, Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre, known popularly as V. Shantaram.
–IANS
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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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