The India Habitat Centre is a multipurpose building in the city of New Delhi, India. It was the brain child of the HuDCO Chairman, Santosh Sharma.
Sangeet Natak Akademi is the national level academy for performing arts set up by the Government of India.
Ratan Thiyam is an Indian playwright and theatre director, and the winner of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987, one of leading figures of the "theatre of roots" movement in Indian theatre, which started in the 1970s. Also known as Thiyam Nemai, Ratan Thiyam is known for writing and staging plays that use ancient Indian theatre traditions and forms in a contemporary context. A former painter, and proficient in direction, design, script and music, Thiyam is often considered one of leading contemporary theatre gurus.
Arunima Kumar, Sangeet Natak Akademi Yuva Puraskar awardee for the year of 2008 for Kuchipudi. As a young girl of 9, Arunima acted in the ballet Amrapali. The Kuchipudi Dance Academy formally launched her in 1995 where she performed her Arangetram at the Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi.
Anuradha Pal is a Tabla virtuoso, multi-percussionist and music composer who is acclaimed as the first professional female tabla player in the world by Encyclopedia Britannica and the Limca Book of Records.
Tansen Samaroh or Tansen Sangeet Samaroh is celebrated every year in the month of December in Behat village of Gwalior district, Madhya Pradesh. It is a 4-day musical extravaganza. Artists and music lovers from all over the world gather here to pay tribute to the Great Indian Musical Maestro Tansen. The event is organized near the tomb of Tansen by Ustad Alauddin Khan Kala Evam Sangeet Academy, under the department of culture, Government of Madhya Pradesh. Artists from all over India are invited to deliver vocal and instrumental performances.
The 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder, commonly known as the Nirbhaya case, involved a rape and fatal assault that occurred on 16 December 2012 in Munirka, a neighbourhood in South Delhi. The incident took place when Jyoti Singh, a 22-year-old physiotherapy intern, was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling with her male friend, Avnindra Pratap Pandey. There were six others in the bus, including the driver, all of whom raped the woman and beat her friend. She was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi for treatment and transferred to Singapore eleven days after the assault, where she succumbed to her injuries two days later. The incident generated widespread national and international coverage and was widely condemned, both in India and abroad. Subsequently, public protests against the state and central governments for failing to provide adequate security for women took place in New Delhi, where thousands of protesters clashed with security forces. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country. Since Indian law does not allow the press to publish a rape victim's name, the victim was widely known as Nirbhaya, meaning "fearless", and her struggle and death became a symbol of women's resistance to rape around the world.
Nirbhaya Fund was an Indian rupee 10 billion corpus announced by Government of India in its 2013 Union Budget. The Finance Minister P. Chidambaram expected the fund to support initiatives protecting the dignity and ensuring safety of women in India. Nirbhaya (fearless) was the pseudonym given to the 2012 Delhi gang rape victim. The Ministry of Women and Child Development and several other ministries decided the application of the fund. One use was to open One Stop Centres to support women who are victims of violence.
Kasturi Pattanaik is a pioneering Odissi dance exponent, performer, choreographer, teacher, trainer and music composer from India.
Manasi Pradhan is an Indian women's rights activist and author. She is the founder of Honour for Women National Campaign, a nationwide movement to end violence against women in India. In 2014, she was conferred with Rani Laskhmibai Stree Shakti Puraskar by the President of India. Along with Mary Prema Pierick, global head of the Missionaries of Charity, she won the 'Outstanding Women Award' in 2011.
Mrityunjay Kumar Prabhakar is an Indian playwright, theatre director, theatre critic, poet, Assistant Professor of Drama and Theatre Art at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal and the recipient of Bihar Kala Samman by the government of Bihar in 2012.
Geeta Mahalik is an Indian Odissi dancer. The Government of India honoured her with the Padma Shri in 2014 for her services to the field of art and culture.
India's Daughter is a documentary film directed by Leslee Udwin and is part of the BBC's ongoing Storyville series. The film is based on the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of 22-year-old "Nirbhaya", who was a physiotherapy student. The documentary explores the events of the night of 16 December 2012, the protests which were sparked both nationally and internationally as a result of the assault, and the lives of the men before they committed the attack. The film is told through the use of reconstructed footage and interviews with those involved in the case, including the defence lawyers, psychiatrists, and one of the rapists.
Samanvay, Indian Languages Festival is the initiative of India Habitat Centre. It is held annually in New Delhi. The first Samanvay was held in 2011.
Meeta Pandit is a Hindustani Classical vocalist and a leading exponent of the Gwalior Gharana. She is the granddaughter and disciple of Krishnarao Shankar Pandit and daughter of Laxman Krishnarao Pandit. She is the sixth in the unbroken lineage and the first woman in the family to have taken up music as a profession.
Baisali Mohanty is an international diplomat and United Nations official, author, Indian classical dancer and analyst of foreign and public policy. She is a regular contributor on foreign policy and strategic affairs to several prestigious international publications including American business magazine Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Diplomat and openDemocracy, London.
The Honour for Women National Campaign is a nationwide movement in India to end violence against women. The movement was founded by women’s rights activist Manasi Pradhan in the year 2009.
OYSS Women is a non-profit organization engaged in empowering women in India. It was founded in 1987 by women's rights activist Manasi Pradhan.
Chandan Tiwari is an Indian folk singer from Bihar. She is known as folk singer and sings in Bhojpuri, Nagpuri, Awadhi and Hindi. She was awarded Sangeet Natak Academy-Bismillah Khan Samman. She was honoured by Bhojpuri Kokila in Kolkata. BAG Films-News 24 awarded her best traditional folk singer. She appeared in India Today Magazine in cover story for her contributions to Indian folk music. She has been singing in various forms of folks like Purabi Sohar, Pachra Gandhi song, River Song, Chhath Song Kajri and Thumri.
Dhaneswar Swain is an exponent and Guru of the Odissi Mardala, the traditional percussion instrument of Odissi music. He is known for his rhythmic compositions and fingering techniques, as well as his efforts to promote solo Mardala recitals and group presentations combining traditional percussive instruments from Odisha. He is the founder of Vadya Vani Gurukula, an institution for training and research in Odissi Mardala and other traditional percussion instruments of Odisha.
