Hidesign joins hands with Pondicherry Heritage Festival (PHF) 2019

Pondicherry:Hidesign announces it partnership with one of the city’s most prestigious events, the Pondicherry Heritage Festival 2019. In its 5th edition, the festival will be held in Pondicherry from 27th January to 11th February 2019.

Hidesign an international brand that grew out of Pondicherry strongly values naturalness, handcrafting and love for nature, just like the Pondicherry envisioned by the festival. Hidesign has partnered from year one of the festival and is proud to be associated with Pondicherry Heritage Festival 2019 with its emphasis on Pondicherry’s splendid natural heritage, including the coast, rivers, water bodies, wetlands, and forests.

The schedule will be brimming with events. Many of Pondicherry’s heritage buildings will be opened to public for tours and host special events featuring Pondicherry cuisine. The festival promises multiple events for children. There will be numerous opportunities for creative participation, through dance, poetry-writing, and photography competitions. The annual Pondicherry Heritage Quiz for teams of students from schools throughout the city remains a festival highlight.

The organizers have planned a special “Street Play” day, in which young and old alike will be reminded of the important social function our streets played before they were overwhelmed with vehicles. The festival will conclude with one hundred school children coloring the Heritage Coloring Book, launched at the 2018 festival.

Dilip Kapur, President and Founder of Hidesign said, “Hidesign has always cherished natural heritage and the culture of Pondicherry, and we are happy to contribute to preserve and promote it. Whether it’s a civic issue or an issue with heritage sites, every aspect of the city is given close attention and much love. I have lived in the middle of a forest for several years; ecology is a part of our lives. Day in and day out we need to take care of our town in the best way we can.”

On 10th February, the festival will witness a unique musical evening with artist Shivan’s performance on the culture and heritage of Pondicherry at The Storytellers’ Bar in The Promenade hotel. The walls of The Storytellers’ Bar are filled with beautiful stories of Pondicherry written by travelers and local, and will be the perfect backdrop for Shivan to keep us entertained with beautiful stories about Pondicherry strung to popular melodies.

Get detailed information on the Pondicherry Heritage Festival and a schedule of events at http://pondicherryheritagefestival.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/PHF2019/

About Pondicherry Heritage Festival 2019-

Now in its fifth year, the Pondicherry Heritage Festival continues to celebrate the singular character of this extraordinary town and its environs.  Originally conceived as a way of drawing attention to the need to conserve Pondicherry’s outstanding architectural legacy, the festival has expanded its scope to embrace all manner of intangible traditions. The town boasts a diverse built environment, an idyllic seaside natural setting, a rich spiritual and intellectual history, and fascinating combination of indigenous and imported cultural practices. It is the interplay of these factors that gives Pondicherry its distinctive flavor.

About Hidesign-About Hidesign:

Founded in 1978 by Mr. Dilip Kapur, Hidesign is a lifestyle group, which re-defined the vision of luxury in India through an ethos of high quality, ecological values and personalized service. Hidesign has established its name, through its iconic leather brand, based on a strong heritage of craftsmanship and innovation. Staying true to its core values, the group has extended its concept of lifestyle by opening two luxury boutique hotels in its home town Pondicherry, Le Dupleix and The Promenade.

Ombré Lane,Women’s workwear brand,receives seed funding

 

Ombré Lane,a premium workwear brand for women has recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of angel investors including ex-Linkedin,India CEO Akshay Kothari, Linkedin General Counsel Aditi Jha,

Director at Bristol-Myers Squibb US Neeraja

Balachander.

Ombrelane.com offers functional office-wearstyles via their ecommerce website, shipping all over India. The brand waslaunched by sisters Shweta and Prachi Sharma. Shweta is an MBA from The Wharton School and Prachi is a graduate from NIFT Delhi.

Launched with the motto of making women feel confident as well as comfortable at work, Ombré Lane’s 3 primary focus areas are:

1.  Functionality:An emphasis on functionality likeno gape buttons and lining,functional pockets, thoughtful solutions for panty lines, holders to secure bra straps, invisible elastic to manage weight fluctuations and menstrual bloating, and easy maintenance and wash care.

2. Superior fit post extensive surveys keeping in mind an Indian women’s body shape, height and workwear requirements. Brand’s fit and size chart were created after interviewing, fit testing and measuring over 1000 women and it keeps evolving with every customer feedback they received.They found that over 70% of Indian women have a pear-shaped body and an average height of 5 feet 2 inches,yetover 75% of western workwear available in the Indian market is made for a woman with height of 5 feet 7 inches and the rectangular body shape which is common in the west.

Shweta further adds, “We want the brand to represent the modern working woman in India. We want them to put their best foot forward and feel

confident and comfortable at work without getting distracted by or feeling conscious. We want them to break every glass ceiling and look good doing it!”

Women’s workwear is an untapped market in India with a market size of over Rs.10,000 crores and is expected to grow in double digits over the next 5 years.

The start-up plans to utilize the funds to establish Ombré Lane as the go-to destination for modern Indian women looking at buying functional and well-fittedapparels. With an annual growth forecast of 5xgrowthfrom the current run rate the brand plans to scale significantly over the next one-year while staying focused on building the brand.

A Robotics Workshop With Hearing Impaired Children

In a fresh take on academics, children from different IGCSE schools are showing a keen interest in robotics workshops. As a part of their curriculum, the students are required to impart what they’ve learned to the underprivileged children from NGOs.

The future world being robotics centric, Team Luminosity’s ‘Hour of Robotics’ workshop, in association with JOSH Foundation, was a maiden collaboration with hopes for more such workshops, even advanced ones. Added Audiologist-Speech Therapist Devangi Dalal, “If the children like it, then there are many more to come.” Using Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits, their aim is to give back to the society all that knowledge they have acquired in their training.

JOSH Foundation, an NGO for the upliftment of children battling hearing impairment, was set up by ENT Specialist Dr. Jayant Gandhi along with Devangi Dalal, with a mission to empower differently-abled children.

“We are supporting them. Science helps in the overall progress and development of the child. Even the hearing impaired kids should know how robotics and machines work,” said ENT specialist Dr. Jayant Gandhi.

“Balance in education and CSR activities go hand in hand. That is one aspect for them. On the other hand, the hearing impaired children have not seen robotic machines at a personal level. They’ve seen it on TV, but have themselves not done it,” averred Devangi Dalal.

“Our team consists of 8 students across the age of 12-14 years and are fascinated by the world of robotics. We are going to participate in the FIRST Tech Challenge to be held in Pune this February,” stated a representative from Team Luminosity. “Our has a vision to educate and spread the knowledge to young children, the future of tomorrow,” the representative added.

The workshop proved to be a success as the children gained the necessary insight in the field of robotics and machines.

Kangana as Rani Laxmi Bani was key reason to do the film - Prasoon Joshi

Prasoon Joshi is undoubtedly one of the best writers that the Hindi film industry has. Prasoon has not only written the dialogues of the film but also the lyrics for the magnum opus.

Talking about his experience of working on the film he says, "Working  on Manikarnika has been full of challenges and great moments,it’s a great team.The extraordinary life of Rani Laxmi Bai is something which has always inspired every indian,and was the reason for all of us to work together on this project. For me Kangana as Rani Laxmi Bani was another key  reason to do the film. She has the inherent emotion and talent required to play this role.And then the enriching interactions with Vijayendra Prasad ji and great moments with producer Kamal jain. To add to that exploring  musical landscapes with S-E-L is a joyride. The team has worked hard against many odds and I hope that will reflect .But I believe for any project to be truly successful and touch people’s hearts it also needs to be blessed. As a team, I hope we are."

Writing dialogues for a historical film certainly requires a lot of research. He further adds, "The production team had done their research and were ready with material. From my perspective the idea was to make the  words resonate. Will not say that authenticity  to the dialect  of the time was the focus, it was  more about conveying  the sentiment and connecting with the audience at large."

Richa Chadha launches the quirkiest calendar with the most hilarious cheekiest fictional movie posters for Shakeela!

What does “Paapi Pappi”, “Maneater”, “Mard Ko Dard Hoga” and “Chatri Ke Peche Kya Hai” have in common? They’re each representing a different t month in this one heck of a unique calendar that the makers of the Shakeela biopic have presented to the world. This year of 2019 got even more interesting as the 12 months of The year will now have a quirky visual representation for each month.

The poster has been designed as a fictional movie poster for each month with hilariously cheeky titles and Richa in a different look for each, as a ode to the pulp movies of the late 90s, the era in which Shakeela herself dominated the screens. Based on the life of the adult film star of the south film industry, the film helmed by award winning director Indrajit Lankesh becomes the first film to have a calendar of its own.

The calendar comes with a fun hashtag calling it #2019ShakeelaKeNaam and that truly is this case, given the high anticipation surrounding the film so far.

The film will be releasing this summer and has been produced by Sammy's Magic Cinema and Yoddhas Entertainment.