NEW DELHI — Gaurav Raturi, an Indian film buff, went around the film festival circuit in the country for a few years till 2019 trying to find out if there were any takers for pay-per-view streaming platforms for independent cinema. Most people who heard his idea, said: “Who will pay to watch our films online?” Despite the naysayers, Raturi knew there was a market he could explore. And, in August 2020, he launched Cinemapreneur, a pay-per-view streaming platform for independent films. To begin with, he had only 25 films — most of which did not get screened in big cinemas or…
Author: zenger.news
A catastrophic tar spill that began washing up along Israel’s entire Mediterranean coast last week may be the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history. Beaches remain closed as Israeli officials assess the damage, formulate a long-range cleanup plan and locate the ship that caused the spill as it passed by Israel’s shores sometime earlier this month. Experts fear the damage could last for years. While governmental authorities investigate the source of the offshore leak of at least 1,000 tons of sticky, toxic tar, many Israeli civilians and soldiers are helping with cleanup efforts that will likely take months. Tar-encrusted…
NEW DELHI — When 14-year-old Roshan Ali’s family gifted him a mobile phone to help him with his online classes, they did not know the device could become the cause of his death. After a frantic search that continued for eight days, a team of divers fished out Ali’s body from the Gandhak river in the Gopalganj area in India’s eastern state of Bihar on Feb. 9. The Class XI student had no rivals. His friends killed him. “Ali’s friends went to his home and asked him to come to play together,” Amjad Ali, the victim’s uncle, told Zenger News, recalling…
HAMBURG, Germany – A new Covid-19 study conducted by the University of Hamburg has found evidence that the current pandemic started from a laboratory accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The study, which was carried out from Jan 2020 to Dec 2020, was based on an interdisciplinary scientific approach and extensive research using various sources of information, including academic literature, print articles, online media, and personal communication with international colleagues. “There are numerous direct indications that the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen is of laboratory origin and point to a young researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as being…
“Why is your child so weird? She can’t speak? How is she going to survive?” hearing such comments became a usual thing for Madan Rai and Rachana Rai when their daughter was a mere two-year-old. Soon, she was detected with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The developmental and neurological disorder, which weakens a person’s ability to learn and interact with others and in some cases makes people indulge in repetitive behavior, begins early in childhood. “I and my wife didn’t know what ASD was. On her second birthday, we invited a lot of kids. All of them were playing together but…
ABU DHABI, UAE — Russia’s largest firearm manufacturer, known for making the AK-47, will present their smart hunting shotgun overseas for the first time. The manufacturer JSC Kalashnikov Concern announced they are planning to distribute their new MP-155 Ultima smart gun overseas. The company presented the MP-155 Ultima smart gun at the IDEX 2021 International Defence Exhibition, held in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Feb 21-25. The decision to present the hunting shotgun in Abu Dhabi marks the first time JSC Kalashnikov Concern has displayed the weapon abroad. “This is more of a step into the…
FRANCE — Despite receiving dozens of death threats every day online over her love of hunting, Johanna Clermont has become a phenomenon on social media and in the hunting world. A bona fide huntress Diana for modern times, she now boasts over 300,000 followers online from all over the world. She regularly posts stylish images of herself out hunting in fashionable gear, and she said she loves going to Las Vegas to attend the Shot Show, although this year she was unable to do so because of the coronavirus pandemic. “A few years ago I went to the Orkney Islands…
GOZZANO, Italy — A 37-year-old African immigrant paid rich tribute to an elderly man, who bought him schoolbooks and helped him study after school when he migrated to Italy. The man identified as Massamba remembered his old friend in a lost post he shared on Facebook. “This is a story of Gianni, a good man who helped me when I was little,” said Massamba. “He protected me when I was alone, and bought me books to go to school.” Reportedly, Massamba was a shy 11-year-old boy when he first arrived in Italy. He and his family moved from Senegal in…
Till recently, Kishore Biyani of Future Group was to India what Sam Walton of Walmart was to the U.S. Biyani, who started a retail revolution in India with his Big Bazaar stores under the Future Group, is now fighting to stay afloat by selling stakes in his group. His empire was hit by the boom in online retail and store closures amid pandemic-induced lockdowns. A deal to pare debt with India’s largest conglomerate, Reliance Industries, made US tech giant Amazon take his firm to court. Amazon claims the transaction violates a noncompete clause it had with Biyani’s group. Biyani can’t re-enter…
NYABIBWE, Congo — Justine Kamakura, gets up at 5 a.m. and walks about 10 miles from her village to work in a cassiterite mine in Nyabibwe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s South Kivu province. Though the 40-year-old mother of six has been working in these mines for 11 years, she can still only afford to send one of her children to school. Cassiterite, from which tin is extracted, is one of the four conflict minerals mined in eastern Congo. It is used around the world by tech giants and other major corporations in the manufacture of phones, medical…