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  • Spain set to launch app to track men’s contribution to household work

    Source: NDTV

    In order to get men to help out more at home, Spain plans to release an app that will keep track of how much time each person of a household or family spends doing housework. Angela Rodriguez, Spain’s Secretary of State for Equality, told The Guardian about the change, which is seen as a way to improve gender equality.
    She says that the goal is to bring attention to the hidden “mental load” that women carry when it comes to doing housework.The plan was announced Tuesday in Geneva at a meeting of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

    She told the UN Committee, “We’ll soon be releasing an app that lets people keep track of the chores that different family members do around the house. This way, we can see how many hours each of us spends doing housework and change the way we do it.”

    She said that the new software, which cost a total of 2,11,750 euros to make, was made to make sure that every family member did their part. She also said, “We think this is an activity that could be used at home to figure out how to divide up chores between sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, flatmates, or life partners, since these tasks aren’t always split up evenly.” The app will work like Splitwise, which lets people split the cost of going out to eat or other costs.

    Ms. Rodriguez said that the app will “bring to light all the invisible jobs that are necessary for a house to run well.” She gave the example that it could take 20 minutes to clean the kitchen, but it all depended on whether someone had made a shopping list or remembered to get dish soap.

    Later, she wrote on Twitter, “All of those who are offended by the housework app are really offended by the idea that they might have to start helping out around the house.”

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  • Ex-Nepalese soldier with artificial legs conquers Everest, creates history

    Source: NDTV

    An official said on Saturday that an ex-British Gurkha soldier with two prosthetic legs climbed Mt. Everest. He made history by being the first person in his group to climb the world’s highest peak with prosthetic legs.
    Hari Budhamagar, who is 43 years old, reached the top of the 8848.86-meter peak late Friday afternoon.

    “Ex-soldier Hari Budhamagar made history on Friday when he became the first person with his condition to reach the top of Mt. Everest,” a Department of Tourism official said. Budhamagar, who lost both of his legs in the war in Afghanistan while fighting for the UK government as a British Gorkha soldier in 2010, climbed Mt. Everest with prosthetic legs.

    He had planned to climb Mt. Everest in 2018, but he had to change his plans after the government made a rule that blind, double-amputee, and solo hikers couldn’t climb mountains, including Everest, in 2017.

    A petition was brought against the ban, and in response, the Supreme Court issued an order in 2018 that cancelled the rule. This made it possible for Budhamagar to make history.

    On Sunday, five people from outside of Nepal reached the top of Mount Everest.

    This spring, Nepal gave out a high number of permits to climb Mount Everest: 466.

    Nepal has eight of the ten highest mountains in the world.

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  • ‘Maa’ director and producer walked streets of Cannes wearing lungi-panjabi

    Source: The Daily Star

    Today, Aranyo Anawer’s picture “Maa” will have its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Picture Festival. Before the opening, the director, Aranya Anawer, and the producer, Pulak Kanti, were seen in the streets of Cannes wearing a panjabi and a lungi.

    The movie will be shown at the Palais de Festivals of Cannes theater at 6:45 pm local time as part of the festival’s “marché du film.”

    The director and producer of the movie “Maa” proudly waved the Bangladeshi flag as they walked the streets of Cannes. They wore traditional Bengali clothes like Punjabi, Lungi, and gamcha to honor their roots. This one-of-a-kind display was meant to show the world the rich history and uniqueness of Bangladeshi film.

    Aranyo Anawer also wrote about his feelings on his Facebook page. He said, “Marche means to sell, and Marche du Film means the film market. Yesterday, I wore a lungi and Punjabi and spent the whole day in that market area. I was happy to sit in the booth for Bangladesh.

    People who thought he walked the red carpet in traditional clothes were also wrong, he said.

    “Please correct yourself if you call it the red carpet by mistake. I want to be true to myself. Please help me or don’t say anything.”

    The movie “Maa” is about Bangladesh’s Liberation War, and Pori Moni plays a grieving mother in the main part.

    Before, “Maa” was supposed to come out in the U.S. on May 19. But the rules say that a movie can’t come out in theaters before it’s shown at a festival. So, “Maa” couldn’t come out in local theaters until May 26.

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  • Bangladeshi filmmaker writes book on BTS titled “BTS: Seoul to Soul”

    Source: The Daily Star

    The essay book “BTS: Seoul to Soul” by filmmaker Anarya Murshid about the famous Korean pop music group BTS came out on Friday.

    A press statement said that the book about the rise of the Korean pop band is now on sale.

    The book has stories about the trials of seven BTS members and lists their shows, albums, and awards. In the book, there was an important piece about the Korean Cultural Wave and the use of “soft power.”

    “I’m making a movie about a Bangladeshi BTS fan’s cultural problem. “When we were getting ready to make the movie, I felt like I needed a book about K-pop,” Anarya said.

    The book’s editor said that he also wanted to put out books that were about culture and diplomacy. His publishing house has also put out books like this in the past.

    “I hope the book will help Bangladesh and Korea build a culture bridge that will last for a long time. “The book will also help the older generation see this generation in a good light,” Anarya said.

    Fans of BTS can buy the book at Tobuo Proyas, Lalan, or Chandal Books.

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  • OpenAI launches an official ChatGPT app for iOS

    Source: The Verge

    OpenAI has put out a ChatGPT app for iOS and said that an Android version will be out “soon.” The app is free to use and syncs your chat data with the web. You can also use your voice to send messages, which is made possible by the open-source speech recognition model Whisper from OpenAI. The app can be downloaded from the App Store here and works on both iPhones and iPads. OpenAI says that the app will be released first in the US and then in other countries “in the coming weeks.”

    OpenAI didn’t say before that there would be a mobile app, but given how famous ChatGPT is, it makes sense. The AI assistant came out in November, but its use took off quickly. Some outside reports say that by January of this year, the app had 100 million users, but OpenAI has never confirmed these numbers.

    The launch of the app is interesting, given that OpenAI isn’t sure how to place ChatGPT in the market. Even though the chatbot started out as an experiment, it quickly found a consumer audience that uses it for everything from cheating on college writings to business applications. In February, OpenAI released ChatGPT Plus, a paid version of the app that gives users priority access and answers made with the company’s most recent language model, GPT-4. Each month, it costs $20.

    Up until now, the best way to use OpenAI’s language models on a mobile device was to use the Bing app from Microsoft, which gives you access to the company’s GPT-4-powered robot. Microsoft has been using access to its chatbot as a way to get people to use Bing and Edge. If ChatGPT makes an official app, it’s possible that some of these users will switch to it instead. The start of an official ChatGPT should also stop people from signing up for the many spam and fake apps that claim to give access to the chatbot on mobile.

    ChatGPT has the same problems on mobile devices as it does on the web, of course. These include the fact that the bot is likely to make up information and be sure of it, and worries about privacy. OpenAI just recently gave users the option to make talks private, and the app’s homescreen (shown above) still tells users not to share “sensitive info” on the app.

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  • ‘Deora’ breaks YouTube records, goes international

    Source: The Daily Star

    The fifth song of the second season of Coke Studio Bangla, “Deora,” came out on May 7 and has been the most popular thing on YouTube ever since. Incredibly, the song got over 21 million views in just 11 days, which was a new record for the site.

    Before, “Bhaber Pagal” by Nigar Sumi and Jalali Set had 24 million views, making it the most watched song on Coke Studio Bangla.

    But it’s important to remember that this song came out a year ago, while “Deora” got a crazy 21 million views in just 11 days. It is rare for any Bengali song, not just Coke Studio Bangla, to become so popular so quickly.

    When “Deora” came out, it quickly went to the top of YouTube’s popular list and stayed there for a few days. As of right now, it is still a strong rival. It is currently the third most popular video on YouTube. The crowd doesn’t seem to be getting tired of the song.

    “Deora” is popular outside of Bangladesh, which is an interesting fact. The song has gotten a lot of interest in India, and it’s even been heard in Tanzania, which is in Africa.

    Kili Paul, a popular African content maker, used the song in a TikTok video that got over 1.2 million views in just one day. Also, social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are still full of reels, videos, and other artistic works that were inspired by the song. This huge number of responses shows how much of an impact the song has had on the internet.

    “Deora” is a great mix of modern and traditional music. It was written by Fazlu Majhi and played by Pritom Hasan, Islam Uddin Palakar, and the Ghaashphoring Choir.

    A few new lines have been added to the original song, and Pritom himself wrote the new parts.

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  • Bangladeshi bead artist Anisa Murshed grabs Guinness World Record by making the longest thread of beads in one hour

    Anisa Murshed is a Bangladeshi bead artist holding 20 years of experience. She took up the craft as a hobby when she was just 10 years old, and mastered bead art with years of self-practice.

    On August 12th, 2022, on her birthday, Anisa broke the Guinness World Record for the “Longest Thread of Beads Made by an Individual in One Hour” as part of her initiative to promote bead art as well as her expertise in this field. An official declaration from Guinness was given on 1st November 2022 after a series of evidence reviews.

    She is currently the only female to still hold an individual Guinness World Record title from Bangladesh.

    A marketing specialist by trade, Anisa initiated her passion project “Hey AniSay” back in 2021, through which she showcases creatively unique and millennial forms of bead art.

    Breaking a Guinness World Record is a goliath task, for it demands numerous steps of preparation, submission, and evidence-proofing over a span of months. Sometimes it takes years.

    The thread of beads that Anisa created was 42.3 meters long, with 1,671 beads in total. The previous record for the same title was 32.7 meters which Anisa successfully exceeded by almost 10 meters to claim herself to be “Officially Amazing!” Less than 10 individuals have claimed the Guinness World Titles from Bangladesh.

    “The creativity, effort, and time put behind a piece of bead art gets overlooked as bead art is not a very popular form of craft. Particularly in Bangladesh, where handcrafted products do not gain the admiration it deserves. Beading is not just a craft; it is an exercise that helps develop creativity, focus, and patience. Through my initiatives, I want to inspire Bangladeshi crafters to take up bead art, earn from it and eventually take local bead art initiatives to the world.” says Anisa.

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  • Here’s how Fyruz Education Services plans to change the education scene in Bangladesh

    Written by: Mifta Al Karim

    Education is priceless. Education is what empowers us. It gives us knowledge of the world and allows us to experience life in all its beautiful colors. Human evolution over thousands of years is a result of formal and informal education. The youngsters need to understand the value of getting the proper education. They should know it is the most important thing in shaping their future. But at the same time, it is our responsibility to create an environment in which they can reach their maximum potential.

    Bangladesh has one major hindrance when it comes to creating an ideal learning atmosphere for students to flourish. The ever-growing number of Coaching Centers. During the 90s, there was hardly any coaching center around Dhaka City. The business of coaching boomed in the early 2000s and now it has spread all over the country as a money-making machine. These coaching centers rarely give enough effort for the betterment of the students. They focus more on improving their bank balance rather than the students’ future. But despite the government’s pledge to outlaw the practice, this informal form of education continues to dominate the lives of students throughout Bangladesh. Now it is about results than actual learning. Hence, the pressure of joining any coaching center has increased tenfold. And this has created an ideal breeding ground for many unethical coaching centers. Almost all of the existing coaching centers in Dhaka city fall into this category, except for a few institutions.

    Fyruz Education Services (FES) is one of those institutions. It started its journey with the sole intention of bringing a change that is quite unseen in the education scenario of Bangladesh. By nurturing each student with a unique method, FES distinguishes itself from most coaching centers in the country, if not all. And behind this one-of-a-kind teaching approach, is Mr. Fyruz Khan. Intending to inspire students to help them learn something worthwhile and, of course, help them with their careers, Fyruz Khan founded Fyruz Education Services (FES). He is the great-grandchild of Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah, so it is safe to say that his penchant for education is hereditary. After doing his Undergraduate Degree in Business and Marketing from De Montfort University, Fyruz Khan completed his Postgraduate Degree in International Education from the University of Leicester. After returning home, he started FES to provide better education to its students so they can realize their true potential. FES wants to give all its students better odds of reaching their intended heights, no matter which background they came from.

    Depending on social standing, cultural background, or financial capabilities, families vary largely in our country. They don’t have the same income, and they don’t have the same ideology either. Every family got a distinct set of rules and regulations for their children and they also give different lessons in life. That makes every student unique. Diversity like this is beautiful, no doubt about that. But it is tough to make a generalized study plan that works for everyone. There should be no one-size-fits-all solution at all. FES acknowledges this and tries to provide the best possible solution to its student through a mandatory monthly counseling session. Students will always make mistakes. They are often confused about what to do in life. FES is determined to show them the right path to follow. FES believes each student should be treated according to their needs as it will help them make the most out of their learnings.

    Teachers play an essential role in the success of the students because a competent teacher not only shares his/her knowledge with the students but also guides them on the path to success. With appropriate direction, the journey toward success becomes much more manageable. Their highly qualified teachers make sure that the students get the best advice. All of their teachers have studied abroad at some point in their careers, which made them perfectly capable of realizing exactly what their students are missing out on. They give their best effort to nurture a young mind and show the right track.

    In this era of unparalleled technological assistance, creating an environment that is completely suitable to support a positive learning experience is also very important. Fyruz Education Services (FES) is one of those institutions where students get that exact feeling. The facility is equipped with all the latest technologies, which is exactly what the current generation of students thrives on. On top of all that, FES is designed in such a way it doesn’t even look like a regular coaching center in Bangladesh. The well-maintained and exquisite interior gives it a feeling of exclusivity, unlike any other similar institute. Students, along with their parents regularly experience something they have never had before.

    Progress is a continuous process. Along with its students, Fyruz Education Services is also gradually improving and establishing itself as a giant in the field. Rather than being just a coaching center or a consultancy agency, FES is trying to reach the pinnacle and improve the curriculum of Bangladesh. And we can safely say, they are on the right track.

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