Paresh Rawal appointed as chief of National School of Drama

Veteran actor Paresh Rawal has been appointed as the chairman of National School of Drama Society by President Ram Nath Kovind. The post had been vacant since 2017.

Rawal, a former BJP MP, has been appointed for a period of four years. 

Rawal, who has years of experience in both cinema and theatre, won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1994. In 2014, he was conferred with the Padma Shri for his contribution to the entertainment industry. 

National School of Drama

The National School of Drama in New Delhi is a constituent unit of the Sangeet Natak Akademi which came into existence in 1959. It became an autonomous organisation in 1975 and is fully financed by the ministry of culture.

It was registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. The apex governing body of the School is the NSD Society. The chairman of NSD society is appointed by the President of India.

Apart from theatre, the NSD alumni have often left an indelible mark in other media as well. There are two performing wings of NSD – the Repertory Company and Theatre-in Education Company (TiE).

Along with NSD in New Delhi, four centres have been established at Varanasi, Gangtok, Agartala and Bengaluru under consolidation of outreach programmes.

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US company names spacecraft after Kalpana Chawla

An American commercial cargo spacecraft bound for the International Space Station (ISS) has been named after fallen NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla, the first India-born woman to enter space, for her key contributions to human spaceflight.

Northrop Grumman, an American global aerospace and defence technology company, announced that its next Cygnus capsule will be named the ‘S.S. Kalpana Chawla’, in memory of the mission specialist who died with her six crewmates aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

The S.S. Kalpana Chawla capsule is scheduled to launch on the NG-14 mission atop a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on September 29. 

Key points on Kalpana Chawla:

Kalpana Chawla was born in Karnal, Haryana on March 17, 1962. She received a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas and a PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado in 1988. 

She held commercial pilot’s licenses for single and multi-engine aeroplanes, seaplanes and gliders, and was also a certified flight instructor. 

Chawla began her career at NASA in 1988 as a powered-lift computational fluid dynamics researcher at the Ames Research Center in California. 

In November 1996, Chawla was assigned as a mission specialist on STS-87 aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, becoming the first woman of Indian descent to fly in space. 

She was also selected for STS-107. The spaceflight was dedicated to science and research, with approximately 80 experiments completed. Chawla lost her life during the STS-107 mission in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentering the Earth's atmosphere.

She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 2004.

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Chatainya Tamhane wins award at Venice International Film Festival

Filmmaker Chatainya Tamhane won the best screenplay award for his Marathi-language feature ‘The Disciple’ at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. 

Chinese-American filmmaker Chloe Zhao bagged the top prize of the coveted Golden Lion for her drama ‘Nomadland’.

The Disciple had bagged the prestigious FIPRESCI award at the festival. 

Tamhane’s previous film ‘Court’, which was selected as India’s official entry for the Oscars, had won the Orizzonti Award and the Luigi De Laurentiis in Venice in 2014. 

Venice International Film Festival, which was organised for the first time in Italy in 1932, is one of the oldest film festivals in the world. 

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PM Modi launches e-Gopala app

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a mobile app — e-Gopala — that will provide solutions to farmers on livestock related issues. 

This online platform provides all the information related to cattle care, from productivity to its health and diet and will help farmers choose better quality livestock and get freedom from middlemen.

The e-Gopala app is being linked with animal Aadhaar and once that work is complete, then it will be easier for farmers to get all information about animals as well as help them in buying and selling animals.

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Naidu inaugurates 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Viswanatha Satyanarayana

Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Kavi Samrat Viswanatha Satyanarayana on September 10.

Satyanarayana is a Telugu writer and his works included poetry, novels, plays and short stories. He was conferred with Padma Bhushan in 1970. He won the Jnanpith Award in 1971 for his work ‘Ramayana Kalpavruksham’. 

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DST felicitates C.R. Rao on his 100th birthday

Eminent statistician and mathematician C.R. Rao, known for his path-breaking contributions to the field of statistics, was felicitated by the department of science and technology (DST) as he turned 100 on September 10.   

Born in Huvinahadagali, Karnataka, Rao is known for concepts like ‘Cramer Rao Inequality’, ‘Rao-Blackwellisation’ and ‘Rao metric’.

Rao was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan in 2001. He was awarded the US National Medal of Science in 2002.

He worked at the Indian Statistical Institute for 40 years. Later, he moved to the US and worked for 25 years at the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University.

Rao is the author of around 475 research papers and 11 books. He also founded the C.R. Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science (AIMSCS) in Hyderabad.

Newsmaker

Social activist and Arya Samaj leader Swami Agnivesh passed away in New Delhi. He was 80. The former Haryana MLA, who founded a political party, Arya Sabha, was involved in various campaigns including emancipation of women and welfare of tribal communities. Born in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh, he was the founder of Bandhua Mukti Morcha. 

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