Siri Fort cultural centre to shut down for renovation

October 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The 11th edition of the annual Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema commenced here Saturday evening with legendary lyricist Gulzar getting the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. "I really want to thank Osian's and all people for this honour bestowed upon me.

October 20th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The 11th edition of the annual Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema will confer legendary lyricist Gulzar with the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award for cinematic contribution. The award will be given to the Oscar-winning lyricist-writer-director at the opening ceremony on Saturday in the presence of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

October 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - In its 11th year, Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, sees many changes -- it has become shorter, for the first time focus is on Indian films, instead of June it is being held in October and lastly there are no tickets, though movie aficionados will have to pay and register. "This time there is no price on tickets.

October 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The 11th annual Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, starting here Oct 24, will focus on Indian films and filmmakers for the first time since its inception a decade ago. "Osians-Cinefans young friends Vishal Bhardwaj, Imtiaz Ali, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee along with their wonderful star actors and technicians will directly present in NewStream (Cinema Section) the emerging new face of Indian cinema through their films that have won both critical and popular acclaim, Mani Kaul, director general of the film fest, said in a statement released here Tuesday.

October 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Armed with the global appeal of Bollywood, the country's multimillion dollar movie industry in Mumbai, and the power of yoga, India has launched a massive exercise to project its soft power across the world, says Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) director general Virendra Gupta. "The primary focus now is to carry India's soft power - the power of its popular and traditional culture - to all the Asian countries," the director general told IANS in an interview.

October 2nd, 2009 NEW DELHI - Riding on the soaring popularity of yoga and Bollywood, India is poised to nearly double its network of cultural centres across the globe in places as diverse as the US, Africa and Latin America. The opening of new cultural centres is an important initiative in cultural diplomacy to achieve range and depth of cultural coverage, said Karan Singh, president of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), here Friday.

August 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Tina Sani, one of Pakistan's most popular classical and semi-classical ghazal exponents, feels that globalisation, the widespread culture of pop and rock music and the end of royal patronage are taking their toll on the popularity of ghazal in south Asia. Not just the pop and rock culture, globalisation to some degree has taken the purity out of ghazal.

July 17th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Those who mourn the closure of Delhi's charming single screen cinema halls, take heart. Many of these such as Odeon, Savitri, Kumar and Deep are set to open their gates to movie lovers in a new avatar.

June 30th, 2009 LONDON - Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg and actor Will Smith's plan to remake cult Korean film Old Boy seems to have become jeopardised as the makers of the 2003 hit are not authorised to give permission for a remake. Spielberg and Smith recently secured the rights to modernise director Park Chan-Wook's film, which was produced by Show East.

June 26th, 2009 LOS ANGELES - Pop star Michael Jackson, 50, was in a coma Thursday after collapsing at his home in Los Angeles, CNN reported. The King of Pop was found unconscious in his rented mansion and was rushed to the UCLA Medical Centre.

June 26th, 2009 LOS ANGELES - Pop star Michael Jackson has died in Los Angeles, aged 50, media reports say. Paramedics were called to the singer's home around midday local time Thursday after he stopped breathing and suffered a suspected cardiac arrest, BBC reported.

June 17th, 2009 NEW DELHI - To keep the memory of Bollywood's legendary singer Kundan Lal Saigal alive, a Delhi-based arts and culture organisation has instituted annual awards which will be conferred June 20. The awards will be given in a star-studded musical tribute to Saigal, "Saaz Aur Aawaz - K.L.

June 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The annual Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema has been re-scheduled from July to October from this year onwards. The film fest used to be held during July at the Siri Fort Complex in the capital since its inception a decade ago but from now it will be held in October.

June 2nd, 2009 LOS ANGELES - Hollywood actor Mel Gibson blasted fellow worshippers at a church for gossiping about his private life following his split from wife Robyn and threatened to shut it down. The actor, who had visited the Holy Family Chapel in Agoura Hills, California, told the congregation including two priests and a visiting bishop that he would not stand by and be judged and scrutinised, reported femalefirst.co.uk.

May 3rd, 2009 India’s most-acclaimed filmmaker, Adoor Gopalkrishnan, inaugurated Nila National Festival of Dance and Music, organized by Kerala Kalamandalam, at Cheruthuruthy, Thrissur on Friday. He has also been selected as a jury member of the international Fribourg Film Festival to be held from March 14 at Switzerland.