Entertainment
Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award for Girija Devi
New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) The prestigious Sumitra Charat Ram Award for Lifetime Achievement for 2017 will be posthumously conferred on thumri maestro Girija Devi here on November 17.
The award, that was instituted six years ago to honour the memory of Delhi’s well-known art patron, Sumitra Charat Ram, will be presented at the Kamani Auditorium by Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri and accepted by the late singer’s daughter, Sudha Datta. In previous years, the award has been given to leading artistes like Pt Birju Maharaj, Kishori Amonkar, Pandit Jasraj and Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, among others.
Shobha Deepak Singh, Sumitra Charat Ram’s daughter and director of Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra (SBKK), who initiated the award, said: “It is with a heavy heart that we are presenting this award posthumously. She sang at the Kendra’s Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival only in March this year and little did one know that her words at that time would be prophetic. She had said, ‘I don’t know for how long I’ll sing, but singing at SBKK is always like homecoming. I have been part of the SBKK family since 1952 when I sang at the Constitution Club when the Kendra was founded'”.
The event will also witness an audio visual presentation on Girija Devi, and will conclude with a musical tribute by her disciples.
A recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award, Girija Devi, known famously as the thumri queen, was a celebrated classical singer of the Seniya and Benaras gharanas. She performed classical and light classical music and helped elevate the profile of thumri. Her repertoire included the semi-classical genres kajri, chaiti, and holi and she sang in the khayal, Indian folk music and tappa styles. She passed away on October 24, 2017.
The Sumitra Charat Ram Award is given to those individuals who have greatly contributed to the field of Indian classical music and dance or other disciplines of Indian art and culture, including theatre during the last 15 years and who have had a significant impact in promoting a particular art form.
Sumitra Charat Ram belonged to the illustrious Shri Ram family and played a key role in the revival of the performing arts traditions, specially kathak and Hindustani music in north India. She was also the founder of Shiram Bharatiya Kala Kendra.
–IANS
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Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
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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