Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (1922 -2009), the legendary sarode maestro was born on April 22, 1922. He would have been 93 years old today. He spent his formative years in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. His father Ustad Allauddin Khan was a court musician and is the founder of the Maihar Gharana of Hindustani classical music. Khan sahib as… Continue Reading
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (1922-2009) turned 93 years old on April 14, 2015. And in celebration of his 93rd birthday an all day music tribute to the legendary sarode maestro will be held at the Ali Akbar College of Music (AACM) in San Rafael in San Francisco bay area. He passed away in 2009. Khan sahib as he… Continue Reading
They are back. You know the nerd pack from “Silicon Valley’s“ Pied Piper consisting of Richard Hendriks, Bertram Gilfoyle, Dinesh Chugtai Ehrlich Bachman and others. After a successful first season, HBO’s “Silicon Valley“ premiers its second season today. Sadly, Christopher Evan, who plays the socially awkward Venture Capitalist Peter Gregory in the series passed away. He will be missed.… Continue Reading
Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature film “Court” pulls you right in. That is all I am going to say about this powerful film with its slow, meditative and unhurried pace with excellent acting by Vira Sathidar, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Vivek Gombar and others. “Court” takes you to places that you tend to ignore or overlook in India. The… Continue Reading
“Kinky and cofounding,” is how this film is described. “It is obscene” says Isabella Rossellini in the the video clip embedded at the end of this post. It is a “fun romp,” says Noah Cowan, Executive Director of San Francisco Film Society. Now, don’t jump to conclusions. This “kinky and confounding” and “fun romp” is a… Continue Reading
Meet Kosha Patel, Los Angeles-based actor and writer. Did I mention funny? Perhaps, you have seen her in “Shit White Girls Say…To Brown Girls.” She has acted in “Grey’s Anatomy,” “House of Lies,” and “The Newroom” We caught up with Patel at this year’s Cinequest Film Festival in Silicon Valley during the world premiere of “Miss… Continue Reading
LinkedIn announced today it is buying Lynda.com, an online learning platform for $1.5 billion. This is the largest acquisiton by Mountain View-based LinkedIn. This is a mix of cash and stock deal with approximately 52 % in cash and approximately 48 % in stock. LinkedIn plans to close the acquisition by the end of second quarter of 2015 according… Continue Reading
Silicon Valley-based startup CollegeFeed, a social network for college students was acquired by Arizona-based AfterCollege. The acquisition announcement was made yesterday, but the terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sanjeev Agarwal, one of the co-founders of CollegeFeed will join the board of AfterCollege that was founded in 1999 by Roberto Angulo. The merger of the… Continue Reading
Dr. Salman Akhtar talks about the 100 year old history of Bollywood or Hindi cinema in this multi-part interview. What is different about Dr. Akhtar’s approach is he brings his trained psychiatrist eyes to the subject and helps us understand what socio-economics factors permeated and colored the narrative and story lines of filmmakers. And how films in turn… Continue Reading
Billie Holiday turns 100 today. The talented jazz and blues singer was born on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia. “Lady Day” as she was popularly known was 44 years old when she passed away. But, what a life Holiday led filled with joy, happiness, pain, drugs, prison and music. And what a voice Holiday possessed. It was a… Continue Reading
Over 100 years ago a small group of Punjabis from British India made their way to the west coast of America in search of a better life. Many of them eventually moved to Yuba City in California, where they became successful farmers.Because of legal barriers the early settlers from India were not allowed to marry… Continue Reading
Martin (Marty) Cooper made the first phone call from a cell on April 3, 1973 in New York. And he made the first mobile or cell call to Joel Engel of Bell Labs, whose team was working on a similar project. Do you want to guess how heavy that first mobile phone was? It was 2.5… Continue Reading
Meet Manan Mehta, co-founder of Unshackled, a new angel fund based in Palo Alto. Started in 2014 the company has raised $4.4 million, and they plan to invest their money, effort and time in helping entrepreneurs, especially immigrant entrepreneurs realize their dream of doing a startup. Many immigrant workers are tied to their H1B or “work”… Continue Reading
Noah Cowan is Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) that hosts the annual San Francisco International Film Festival. Cowan joined SFFS last year, and prior to that he spent a lot of his time at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). His last post was as artistic director of the Bell Lightbox… Continue Reading
The lineup of films, guests and events for the 58th San Francisco International FilmFestival (SFIFF) was announced yesterday. This year’s festival is an interesting mix that reflects the “spirit of the bay area,” as Noah Cowan put it. Cowan is the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society that hosts the annual film festival,… Continue Reading
That is Elon Musk in a 1999 documentary. He had just sold his first company Zip2.com for a little over $300 million, and was working on his second company called X.com which later on became PayPal when they acquired Confinity. Did you notice the last sentence he said in that video? He’d be happy if… Continue Reading
“I have been working with men for a long time,” responds Vijalakshmi Pandit in response to a question if men had modulated their language at the UN after she became the President of the United General Assembly in 1953. This TV interview offers a fascinating portrait of Pandit, who was the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru,… Continue Reading
I finally saw “Life Itself,” a documentary about Roger Ebert, a well-known film critic with Chicago Sun-Times. The film is a warm portrait of Ebert and at times it is difficult to watch the film as we see him valiantly beat his cancer. The only reason I did not bail out was because of Ebert’s happy and… Continue Reading
The verdict is in for the high profile legal case between Ellen Pao vs. Kleiner Caufield Perkins and Byers (KCPB), the famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Pao lost the historic gender discrimination case against KCPB that was keenly followed by folks in Silicon Valley and around the world. Pao was a partner at Kleiner Perkins. She sued… Continue Reading
Art and films – that is what we are talking about with our guests in our upcoming interviews. Sherill Ingalls of San Jose Museum of Art talks about their current exhibit “Postdate: Photography and Inherited History in India” that features 9 contemporary artists from India. Actors Tiya Sircar and Kosha Patel talk about their new… Continue Reading
Academy Award winner Danny Boyle of “Slumdog Millionaire,” is busy directing his latest movie in San Francisco bay area. And the new biopic is about Silicon Valley icon Steve Jobs. The shooting of the film started in the beginning of the year. The cast and crew has spent time filming in San Francisco and in locations around South… Continue Reading
Google announced today that it is getting a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Ruth Porat is headed to California to become Google’s CFO. She was CFO at Morgan Stanley. Porat grew up in Cambridge, MA and Silicon Valley. She studied at Stanford before heading out to study in London and Wharton. She joined Morgan Stanley in… Continue Reading
San Francisco bay area has a rich history of filmmaking. The tradition goes all the way to the early 20thc when Niles Canyon near Fremont was home to the Silent Film Industry. Many silent films were produced in the studios of Niles Canyon. Fast forward to the late 1960s when Francis Ford Coppolo and George… Continue Reading
Louis Lumiere and Auguste Lumiere, the French inventors showed their first motion picture in Paris on March 22, 1895. They made the film using Cinematographe, which in turn was inspired by Thomas Edison’s invention Kinetascope. “Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory,” is less than a minute long and to use that hackneyed phrase the rest is history.… Continue Reading
Today is World Water day and naturally there are lots of stories, photo essays and interviews about water and how millions of people around the world have no access to water. The hashtag #worldwaterday is trending on social media and is helping create awareness about water right from paucity of water to how to solve the problem… Continue Reading
San Francisco bay area has a rich history of filmmaking going back to the late 19th when Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the moving picture of a horse to Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University. In the early 20th the bay area was home to the Silent Film industry and Niles Canyon near Fremont was home to Essanay… Continue Reading
Meet Lawrence Kasdan – writer, director and producer. He co-wrote the screenplay for George Lucas’s “Star Wars” trilogy, He worked with JJ Abrams on the latest Star Wars film “The Force Awakens,” that releases in December 2015. Kasdan was honored with a Maverick Spirit Award at the recent Cinequest Film Festival, which is where… Continue Reading
How is sound designed for a film? Ever wondered about it? We did and spoke with Academy Award winner Resul Pookutty to find out how he and his team worked on Shonali Bose’s “Margarita With A Straw.” Pookutty won an Oscar for his work in Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire.” “Margarita With A Straw,” is about… Continue Reading
Facebook unveiled a new feature today that lets you send and receive money through Facebook messenger.”It is easy and free,” is how the the Menlo Park-based company described this new feature that will be available to users in the US in the coming months. Facebook introduced Messenger in 2011 that is used by millions of… Continue Reading
San Francisco-based Pinterest, a visual bookmarking company has raised $367 million at a valuation of $11 billion according to the Wall Street Journal. This is Series G round reports the Financial Times on the company’s latest round of funding. In 2004 Pinterest raised $200 million at a valuation of $5 billion per NYT DealBook. The company is not done… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 