Peacocks fly, lion rajas hip hop, a blue baby elephant pouts, bugs bunny bounce, and (Baal) Ghatothkach performs more magic tricks than Merlin. Unarguably, the first half an hour or so of this animation feature directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, is sheer delight.
Evidently, the 77-year-old director reputed for his wry sense of humour (Pushpak, Appu Raja.. forget Mumbai Express though) is tapping the puckish child in him. He wants kids — young and grown up — to have a pop-the-corn time. And you do for a while. The picturisation of the songs — particularly the title track and then Angalik bangalik jadoo hai — are imaginative and high-adrenaline.
Clearly, though, animation in India still has endless miles to fly. The auspicious thing is that the trip towards Disney-Pixar standards has at least taken off the ground. The draftsmanship and colours have improved, yes, but detailing hasn’t. For instance, almost all the women characters look the same here — with maidan-sized eyes, lotus lips and Shakira-style hips.
Rao, also credited as the music composer, conjures a background score straight out of Titanic, except for a few mandatory flourishes of Indian classical. Be that as it may, it’s the scripting that needs major finessing. The story of Ghatothkach – the son of Bhima and Hidimba – keeps wandering restlessly into the multiple routes of the Mahabharata. The focus blurs. Consequently, the transition of Ghattu to the adult Ghatothkach is somewhat confusing. Like it or not, the second-half of the well-intentioned enterprise literally ends up losing its plot.
Shakira Washington is an 18-year-old senior at Central High School. She runs the 100-meter hurdles and is a member of the 4 x 100-meter relay team. She's been on the track team all four years of high school. She finished third in the hurdles in the SIAC meet and placed second in the sectional, which qualifies her for the regional. Her mother is Shelia Washington. Her father, George, is deceased. Her fraternal twin sister is Shelise. She has an older sister, Erin, and an older brother, Eric.
Shakira plans to go to Philadelphia (Pa.) University and major in fashion design. She maintains a 3.9 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale. She and Shelise each received $2,000 in scholarships from the Northside Kiwanis Club. What are the three words that best describe you? Honest. Friendly. Artistic. Take us through your school day. My classes are advanced environmental science, desktop publishing, advanced literature, statistics, advanced 3-D art, photography and economics. In AP literature, we shared poems we liked. I picked Alice Walker's "A Woman Is Not a Potted Plant." In art, I finished a jewelry piece last week and I'm starting printmaking. Did you consider playing other sports? No. When I was young, I couldn't catch, hit or throw. I don't have the hand-eye coordination for basketball and soccer.
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone. The lesson focused on the importance of providing quality education to everyone especially the 72 million children and 774 million adults who are currently missing out. All over the world politicians and ministers went back to school to attend the lesson taught by children. During the lesson they were asked what they planned to do to ensure quality education for all. The country with the highest attendance was Bangladesh; with 2.5 million people taking part in over 25,000 different locations across the country. Millions also took part in the lesson in Vietnam and in an impressive campaigning effort, one million took part in the lesson in the Palestinian Territories.
Celebrities, heads of states and officials took part in the lesson across the world. The highest profile student was Colombian singer and Grammy award winner, Shakira. She generated international attention as Honourary Chair of Global Action Week, along with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick, as she lobbied congress with students in Washington DC. “I find it so inspiring that there are so many young people who care so deeply about the rights of all children to go to school that they would bring about this global movement,” saidShakira. “The most promising reason to believe that the world will achieve its goals of “Education for All by 2015” has been the emergence of strong civil society movement and this mobilisation of millions of children, women and men during the Global Action Weeks each year,” noted Kailash Satyarthi, Global Campaign for Education President. “We will not fall silent until we have ensured quality education for all.”
“One in four women in the world are illiterate. It’s not right, and it’s not just. The Global Campaign for Education has been demanding an end to this injustice since 2000,” noted Muleya Mwananyanda, GCE Action Week Coordinator. “By having legislators and government leaders join in the World’s Biggest Lesson, we are challenging them to share with us what they are doing to ensure others get educated, and have the opportunities to be sitting where they’re sitting now.” The World’s Biggest Lesson was the highlight of the Global Campaign for Education’s Action Week which took place 21 – 27 April. Every year, organizations across the world take part in the campaign, pressurising governments to meet their “education for all goals”. These were signed up to by 164 governments in Dakar in April 2000. With the phenomenal success of the “World’s Biggest Lesson”, 2008 is the biggest action week since the beginning of the Global Campaign for Education in 1999.
Grammy-winning pop singer Shakira is teaming up with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to call for more global help in sending poor children to school. VOA's Kent Klein reports from Washington. The glamorous Colombian singer and the quiet British leader are working together to persuade developed countries to help finance an effort to provide a basic education for every child in the world.Shakira is the honorary chairman of a week of events to publicize the cause of an advocacy group called the Global Campaign for Education.
She says one of the group's goals is to get more help from world leaders in paying for primary education for 72-million children, ages six to 12, who cannot attend school because of poverty. "From 1999, there were 96 million children around the world who were not enrolled in any kind of education, and the number has decreased to 72 million, so, yeah, it is working, but we still have to do so much more," saidShakira. The group also wants to help some 226 million older children who miss out on school. British Prime Minister Brown joined with Shakira in a telephone conference on Monday, to push for the effort.
"I want to see us become the first generation in history to ensure that every child goes to school and that we develop the potential of not just some of the world's children but all of the world's children," said Gordon Brown. "If we meet our goals in education, we will not just transform those children's lives for good. By consigning childhood illiteracy to history we will help make poverty history too." As British treasury chief in 2006, Mr. Brown pledged $15 billion over 10 years for education in the developing world. Last month, Britain and France each agreed to support the education of eight million children in Africa by 2010.
Britain's commitment in this area dwarfs that of the United States, whose funding for global education aid is $465 million a year.Shakira will meet with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday to persuade them to pass a bill, which members of both parties have endorsed, to increase U.S. aid for education in developing countries to $3 billion a year by 2012. The Education For All Act was introduced last May, but has not passed either house of Congress.
Another event sponsored by the Global Campaign for Education this week will have an estimated five million students from more than 100 countries take part Wednesday in an effort to break the world record for the largest simultaneous lesson.
Peacocks fly, lion rajas hip hop, a blue baby elephant pouts, bugs bunny bounce, and (Baal) Ghatothkach performs more magic tricks than Merlin. Unarguably, the first half an hour or so of this animation feature directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, is sheer delight.
