Art & Culture - Current Affairs for November, 2015

The festival was held at Shilpa Kala Vedika in Hyderabad on Saturday. CFSI was started soon after independence to harness medium of cinema for children. The festival was graced by the presence of noted personalities from the film world, Tabu, Kareena Kapoor and Karishma Kapoor. Sand art by Hari Krishna and a illuminati on the Digital India initiative were also hosted during the festival.

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has nominated Shri Satish Shah and Ms. Bhawana Somaaya as members of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Society in the category of “persons of eminence connected with Films and Television Education, Journalism, Literature, Fine Arts, Dramatics, Performing Arts, etc”. Shri Brijendra Pal Singh has also been nominated as member of FTII Society in the category of “alumni of FTII”.

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a portrait of ancient philosopher Confucius from a 2000 year old tomb. After the broken lacquer screen found in the tomb’s main chamber, one of two portraits believed to be of Confucius was also discovered. The restored screen is 50-60 cm wide and 70-80 cm tall. Confucius has been regarded as China’s cultural symbol and venerated as a great sage in ancient China.

Scientists have discovered the fossils of a new species of duck billed dinosaur in the US which existed on earth around 79 million years ago. Dinosaur species was uncovered by Montana State University researchers. This shows an evolutionary transition from the earlier duck billed species to the descendants of the group. This dinosaur species uncovered the gap between an ancient form with no crest and descendants who subsequently bore large crests. Elizabeth Freedman Fowler and MSU paleontologist Jack Horner named the dinosaur Probrachylophosaurus bergei and indicated that it was the missing link between a preceding species, Acristavus, which lived about 81 million years ago, and form Brachylophosaurus, which lived about 77.5 million years ago.

The conference will be hosted in collaboration with Indian Council for Cultural Relations from November 21 to 23 2015. In this first of a kind event, 21 well known Indologists will be hosted by Rashtrapati Bhavan with 8 Indian scholars to debate on topics pertaining to Indian culture and philosophy. ‘Distinguished Indologist’ Award will be presented by President Mukherjee toProf. Heinrich Freiherr Von Stietencron from Germany on the occasion, having been instituted for the first time by ICCR.

The fossils of a 200 million year old dinosaur was the largest plant eating creature ever found in the border area between S. Africa and Lesotho. University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg researchers made the discovery. Remains belong to a huge plant eater the Highland Giant which is the largest animal ever found in this region. To give an idea of the size of the fossil, a femur of the Highland Giant is 1 metre long.

Indian researchers have discovered 5 new long haired species of wasps from different parts of the nation. The scientists who made the discovery, Veenakumari Kamalanathan, Prashanth Mohanraj and FR Khan of the National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources have named them 'adikeshavus,' meaning 'first one to have long hairs' in Sanskrit. Tribe to which the 5 new wasp species have been added have an exclusive preference for spider eggs. These species are 1 to 2 mm long because of their being parasites for considerably medium sized spider eggs. Scientists have made the suggestion that clustering into groups is needed for further studies. This group of wasps will yield a much larger set of parasitoids attacking spider eggs in India.

The Antiquities Ministry in Egypt has identified thermal anomalies in the Giza pyramids including the one in the biggest pyramid known as Khufu built by the Cheops. Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry has said that a particularly impressive anomaly is located towards the eastern side of the Khufu pyramid. Thermal scanning was carried out during sunrise on structures more than 4500 years old.

Scientists have discovered the biggest rat fossils ever in east Timor. Some of these fossils weigh as much as the size of a small dog. Humans inhabited this area around 46,000 years ago and fed on these mega fauna known to be the largest species of rat ever discovered.

Archaeologists from Israel have found the remains of the ancient Greek fort of Acra, according to reports. This solved the greatest mystery of the precise location of the fortified Hellenistic citadel erected in the heart of Jerusalem by the Seleucid conquerors, after they first destroyed this city in 168 BC. Acra dates back more than 2,000 years, to the time of Greek excavation site in Jerusalem and was constructed in 168 BC by ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

The U.S. Census Bureau based on American Community Survey data collected from 2009 to 2013, said that more than 60 million people in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home and that Hindi was the top Indian language spoken with nearly 6.5 lakh speakers. Top languages other than English spoken in the U.S. homes include Spanish, Chinese, French, Korean, German, Vietnamese, Arabic, Tagalog and Russian.