Posts Tagged ‘Berlin’
Written by admin on 30 June 2011
Berlin, June 30 (IANS) An estimated 70,000 people from 151 countries are expected to congregate at the Olympic Stadium in the German capital over the weekend as the Art of Living organisation of spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar celebrates its 30 years of existence with a World Culture Festival that will also showcase Indian music, dance, food and yoga.
The event is being celebrated as a ‘peace festival’ at a historic venue that has hosted the 1936 Olympics and 1974 World Cup football matches.
‘Thirty years of the Art of Living is a big milestone with many achievements, inspiring us to move forward with greater speed and greater enthusiasm,’ said a statement quoting Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
‘The dream to make life a celebration and the world a family has materialised and become a reality,’ it added.
‘I came to know about the festival from a poster near my office. It seems interesting and I am planning to go either on Saturday or Sunday,’ Julia Bosel, a media consultant, told IANS.
The festival offers a variety of things to the visitors with the World Continents Pavilions showcasing the cultural heritage, food, dance, literature and music of Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and America.
The festival will share the vast cultural heritage of India, not only by showcasing the benefits of yoga, but also by sharing the beauty and depth of the music, dance and the cuisine of the country. The Yoga Park will allow participants to experience the powerful impact of yoga as a way to improve physical and mental health as well as to create inner peace.
‘Yoga experts of different traditions will share their expertise in conferences and workshops. A unique Yoga Museum will chart the evolution of yoga from ancient sages to its global application in the 21st century,’ one of the organisers told IANS, not wanting to be named.
Leading dance and music troops from around the globe will mesmerise the audience with dazzling performances during the weekend.
The grand finale Sunday will see an unparalleled concert with 30 pianos and 2,000 guitars as well as a peace meditation exercise.
Besides, there will be performances by African drummers, Bulgarian folk dancers, German choirs and fusion dance and music concerts.
This World Culture Festival concert is part of a world series of intercultural peace concerts, which began with the Brahmnaad concert in New Delhi, India in November 2008.
This concert featured over 1,200 sitar players and entered the Guinness Book of World Records, followed by many other events such as Antarnaad choir in Pune, India which brought together over 2,700 Indian classical singers.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at richa.s@gmail.com)
Tags: Berlin, Germany
Posted in Europe | No Comments »
Written by admin on 30 June 2011
Berlin, June 30 (IANS) Celebrating harmony in diversity, the World Culture Festival to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Indian spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living will kick off here Saturday with 70,000 participants from across the globe in a carnival of dance, music, food and yoga.
The event is being celebrated as a peace festival.
The July 2-3 festival to be held at the Olympic Stadium will see participants from 151 countries. The opening ceremony will start at 10 a.m. local time with a colourful parade having representatives from various countries.
‘Thirty years of the Art of Living is a big milestone with many achievements, inspiring us to move forward with greater speed and greater enthusiasm,’ said a statement quoting Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
‘The dream to make life a celebration and the world a family has materialised and become a reality,’ it added.
The city is ready to be part of the multi-cultural congregation as posters of the event can be seen on walls and other public places here.
‘I came to know about the festival from a poster near my office. It seems interesting and I am planning to go either on Saturday or Sunday,’ said Julia Bosel, a media consultant.
The festival offers a variety of things to the visitors with the World Continents Pavilions showcasing the cultural heritage, food, dance, literature and music of Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and America.
The festival will share the vast cultural heritage of India — the source of yoga — not only by showcasing the benefits of yoga, but also by sharing the beauty and depth of the music, dance and the cuisine of the country.
The Yoga Park will allow participants to experience the powerful impact of yoga as a way to improve physical and mental health as well as to create inner peace.
‘Yoga experts of different traditions will share their expertise in conferences and workshops. A unique Yoga Museum will chart the evolution of yoga from ancient sages to its global application in the 21st century,’ the organisers said.
Leading dance and music troops from around the globe will mesmerise the audience with dazzling performances during the weekend.
The grand finale Sunday will see an unparalleled concert with 30 pianos and 2,000 guitars as well as a peace meditation exercise.
Besides, there will be performances by African drummers, Bulgarian folk dancers, German choirs and fusion dance and music concerts.
This World Culture Festival concert is part of a world series of intercultural peace concerts, which began with the Brahmnaad concert in New Delhi, India in November 2008.
This concert featured over 1,200 sitar players and entered the Guinness Book of World Records, followed by many other events such as Antarnaad choir in Pune, India which brought together over 2,700 Indian classical singers.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at richa.s@gmail.com)
Tags: Berlin, Germany
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Written by admin on 29 June 2011
Berlin, June 29 (IANS) Khushali Darbeshwar, 19, pinched herself several times as she watched the opening ceremony of the women’s football World Cup in a jam-packed Olympic Stadium here. From an Indian slum to Germany – it was like a fairytale dream for her to witness the soccer extravaganza Sunday.
Khushali is part of the 11-member Indian women’s team participating in a parallel tournament – Discover Football, a global initiative to help disadvantaged girls, challenge societal norms and make a mark.
‘I have never ever in my dreams thought about watching the women’s World Cup opening ceremony and the first match of Germany against Canada. I pinched myself several times to feel if this was a reality or not,’ an excited Khushali said with a wide smile.
Being held on the sidelines of FIFA Women’s World Cup, Discover Football has brought together eight teams from across the world for an international women’s football tournament in the centre of Berlin.
The June 27-July 3 tournament is seeing the participation of women’s teams from India, France, Brazil, Israel, Togo, Cameroon and Rwanda, as also a team from Berlin. The teams have been selected by Streetfootballworld from a list of 38 applicants.
The tournament is accompanied by a diverse cultural festival.
Slum Soccer – the Indian team — lost their first match against Berlin Monday, but there is no dearth of confidence among the players as they are looking forward to other matches and a global exposure.
‘The Berlin team has practised for a month with football experts of the national team. It was a learning experience, but I am more excited after watching the World Cup opening ceremony … it was breathtaking,’ said Priyanka Arun Ragit, daughter of a daily wage labourer in Nagpur, who plays as a forward.
Slum Soccer was founded by a Nagpur-based NGO that trains underprivileged children and youth from across India in football.
For most of the girls, the journey from slums to football was a challenging task, but they fought back to follow their dreams.
Shehnaz Kureshi, 19, took to football as the boys in her class challenged her that girls can never play the game.
‘I was interested in football but it is said to be a masculine game. I never tried it till I was challenged by the boys. When I started, I used to play with boys as none of the girls played the game, but now things have improved,’ said Shehnaz, with the Indian tricolour painted on her cheeks.
This second year humanities student, who was abandoned by her father for being a girl child, had to fight both family and society to play football.
But now she is a star in her slum near Nagpur.
‘People in my slum now look with respect and pride at me and even my mother is happy as I have also started earning by coaching children in football. Most of the girls in my locality now play football,’ Shehnaz said confidently.
Slum Soccer was launched in 2001 with a vision to equip the underprivileged to deal with and emerge from the disadvantages riding on their homelessness using the medium of football.
‘It was started by my father, but we started focussing on football in 2007 and decided to use it as a tool to bring a change in society,’ Slum Soccer CEO Abhijeet Barse told IANS here.
Barse left his doctorate in environment studies in the US in 2007 to concentrate on Slum Soccer. Since then he has never looked back and Slum Soccer is making a mark everywhere.
‘We have training centres in several parts of central India and will soon start one in Chennai. We have 12 volunteers and a fund-raising team. We are also developing a curriculum using football as medium for development and making the whole process more self-sustainable for players,’ he said.
In 2010, Slum Soccer participated in the Homeless World Cup in Brazil and India won the Fairplay Award.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at richa.s@ians.in)
Tags: Berlin, Germany
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Written by admin on 26 June 2011
Berlin, June 26 (IANS) As the women’s football World Cup kicked off in Germany Sunday, a group of Indian girls will take part in a parallel international tournament — Discover Football, a global initiative to help disadvantaged girls challenge societal norms and make a mark.
Being held on the sidelines of FIFA Women’s World Cup, Discover Football is bringing together eight teams from across the world for an international women’s football tournament in the centre of Berlin.
The tournament will be accompanied by a diverse cultural festival.
The June 27-July 3 tournament will see participation of women teams from India, Afghanistan, Israel, Rwanda, Togo, Cameroon and Brazil, as also Berlin. The teams have been selected by Streetfootballworld from a list of 38 applicants.
Streetfootball is a Berlin-based organisation that drives a network of local organisations that use football to provide opportunities to disadvantaged young people and builds a coalition of powerful partners to create social change.
Slum Soccer – the Indian team – is founded by a Nagpur-based NGO that trains underprivileged children and youth from across India in football.
‘Football is a unique and yet a perfect vehicle that transcends race, religion, language and gender to bring about a change in the lives of street dwellers,’ Slum Soccer CEO Abhijeet Barse told IANS here.
Barse, who is accompanying team India, said development through sports has a track record of being successful across continents and from our own experience.
Team India landed in Berlin Saturday and will play its first match against team Berlin Monday at 8 p.m. local time.
The girls participating in the tournament are equally excited as for most of them it’s the first time they are visiting a foreign land.
‘Me and my mother were abandoned by my father after I was born as he did not want a girl child. My mother worked as a labourer in Orissa to bring me up,’ said 18-year-old Shehnaz Kureshi.
‘When I was in Class 10 I got interested in football. My mother and society objected to it. But I continued and I am happy to be a part of this tournament,’ she added.
Kureshi’s story is similar to stories of other members of the team who have all fought social and economic battles to participate in the event.
Slum Soccer was launched in 2001 with a vision to equip the underprivileged to deal with and emerge from the disadvantages riding on their homelessness using the medium of football.
‘Our project was created through necessity. Its aim is to offer much-needed sporting opportunities and personal development programmes to disadvantaged young people across India,’ he said.
The event, which will be staged this year in the Willy Kressmann stadium and the Victoria Park in Kreuzberg, Berlin, is part of the official cultural programme of Discover Football in the Women’s World Cup year.
Besides football, the participants will take part in a lot of cultural, sight-seeing and grooming workshops during the week-long stay. All the participants will attend live screening of Women World Cup matches in Berlin.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at richa.s@ians.com)
Tags: Berlin, Germany
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Written by admin on 25 June 2011
Berlin, June 25 (IANS) Decked in colourful costumes, vibrant masks, holding hands, hugging and kissing each other, members of the gay community along with thousands of other people marched in the city to celebrate and demonstrate their rights.
Celebrated as Christopher Street Day (CSD), it is an annual memorial day for homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender across the globe seeking equal rights.
The parade this year saw 44 vibrant and richly decorated floats and nine marching contingents as participants wearing rainbow coloured masks, costumes, feathers, shades, danced for hours to enjoy the annual festival.
The entire route of the parade saw a sea of people as thousands of them, both young and old, came out to support the community. Many were holding balloons, flags and placards reading ‘equal rights for gays’ and ‘Proud to be gay’.
On both sides of the entire parade route, drinks and eatables were being sold while participants having a special Berlin Pride Card were enjoying free drinks.
‘The party has just begun and it will go past midnight. The parade, passing through 11 streets in the city, will commence at Brandenburg Gate in the evening where a song and dance festival will go till late in the night,’ Lara Lopez-Cordon, press officer for the CSD, told IANS.
Coinciding with the women’s football World Cup starting June 26 here, the theme for this year’s parade is ‘sport’ while the motto is ‘Fairplay for diversity’.
The CSD celebrations in Berlin start at least a week before with Gay-Lesbian Street Fair.
People from the queer community turn up in large numbers in the Schoneberg area in south Berlin — the hub of the gay community — and party on the streets.
Civil courage awards are also given to the community members who have done something exceptional to fight for the rights of LGBT, an acronym for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender.
It was fun and party time for thousands of spectators in the city as they danced, sang and enjoyed with their friends and family members.
‘I have been attending the gay parade from last several years and it has always been fun. Moreover, we all should support the community as they are normal people with different sexual preferences and they have a right to live happily,’ said 21-year-old Stella Eheminger, sporting a rainbow mask and black feather wings.
There are several tourists who have come to Berlin during last week of June especially to attend the CSD and for most of them from developing nations it was something never seen before.
‘I cannot even think something like this happening in my country as our society is strictly against it. Here you can see men locking lips with men and women holding and hugging their female partners. It’s really an eye opener and countries in this part of the world are so open about it,’ said Babur Hodjaev, a tourist from Uzbekistan.
Germany is touted as a heaven for queers with rainbow flags flying proudly in Berlin, which is helmed by Germany’s first openly gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit. The city also has a gay museum for people to learn about the community’s history.
The city doled out discounts and special offers for people attending the CSD.
German airline Lufthansa offered special prices to all attendees of CSD while Air France and budget airlines like Germanwings also offered discounted airfares.
To make the stay of people attending the parade comfortable, special offers are being made for apartments and hotels in Berlin.
The CSD is held in memory of the first big uprising of LGBT people against police assaults that took place in New York’s Christopher Street in Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969. Since then, every year on the last weekend of June, CSD is celebrated across the world.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at richa.s@ians.in)
Tags: Berlin, Germany
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Written by admin on 24 June 2011
Berlin, June 24 (IANS) Discounted flight tickets, special shopping vouchers, rebates in hotels, free drinks and parties — the stage is set to welcome more than half a million people for Germany’s Gay Pride Parade on Saturday.
Celebrated as Christopher Street Day (CSD), it is an annual memorial day of homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders to celebrate and demonstrate their rights and against discrimination and exclusion.
More than half a million people from across the globe are expected to join the CSD parade, a political demonstration with dance beats, colourful costumes and richly decorated parade wagons.
Coinciding with the women’s football World Cup starting June 26 here, the organisers have selected ‘sport’ as the theme for this year’s parade while the motto is ‘Fairplay for diversity’.
The parade will start at 12.30 p.m. local time and after winding its way through 11 streets, will end around 4 p.m. at the historic Brandenburg Gate in the heart of the city. There will be a song and dance festival past midnight at the site.
‘The parade will see diverse crowds — men and women, gay and straight, young and old, from Berlin and all over the world. All demanding fair play for diversity,’ Lara Lopez-Cordon, press officer for the CSD, told IANS.
She said the term ‘fairplay’ is often disregarded, not just in sport, also in everyday life especially when fairplay is understood to mean accepting sexual diversity and not excluding certain groups or individuals.
Germany is touted as a heaven for queers with rainbow flags flying proudly in Berlin, which is helmed by Germany’s first openly gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit. The city also has a gay museum for people to learn about the community’s history.
‘Our mayor, before assuming office in 2001, had come out openly that he is gay and had said ‘I am gay’, and that is good the way it is. The city is open to queers and I have been attending CSD from last few years and it’s nice,’ said Diana Gatz, a college student.
The CSD celebrations in Berlin start at least a week before with Gay-Lesbian Street Fair.
People from the queer community turn up in large numbers in the Schoneberg area in south Berlin — the hub of the gay community — and party on the streets.
‘It was fun to attend the street festival last week. People from the queer community were drinking, dancing and having fun. I have heard a lot of the CSD Berlin and am looking forward to attend it,’ said Olimi Ologunagba, a Nigerian journalist here.
To attract a large number of people, German airline Lufthansa is offering special prices to all attendees of CSD. Besides, Air France and budget airlines like Germanwings are offering discounted airfares for people interested in attending the Gay Pride parade.
To make the stay of people attending the parade comfortable, special offers are being made for apartments and hotels in Berlin.
Participants can also buy a Berlin Pride Card – a discount card that gives visitors extra benefits like discounts on eatables, markets and even free drinks.
The CSD is held in memory of the first big uprising of LGBT, an acronym for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender, people against police assaults that took place in New York’s Christopher Street in Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969. Since then, every year on the last weekend of June, CSD is celebrated across the world.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at richa.s@ians.in)
Tags: Berlin, Germany
Posted in Europe | No Comments »
