84th Annual Academy Awards: ‘Saving Face’ Wins First Oscar for Pakistan

The 84th Annual Academy Awards were presented in Los Angeles on February 26. They were hosted by comedian Billy Crystal.
“The Artist” bagged five Oscars, including best picture, becoming the first silent movie to win Hollywood's highest honors since the original Oscar ceremony 83 years ago. It is the first silent winner since the First World War saga “Wings,” which was named outstanding picture at the first Oscars in 1929.
In the black-and-white comic melodrama category, the best actor award went to Jean Dujardin and the best director to Michel Hazanavicius.
In a night of few surprises, the other top Oscars went to Meryl Streep for best actress for the movie “The Iron Lady,” Octavia Spencer as supporting actress for “The Help.” In a night where first timers and veterans were recognized, Streep became the fifth actor to win three awards, the previous winners being Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan. She is now only a step away to match Katharine Hepburn’s four Oscar record.
Christopher Plummer as supporting actor for “Beginners.” The 82-year-old Plummer became the oldest acting winner ever for his role as an elderly widower who comes out as gay in “Beginners.”
The other wins for “The Artist” were for musical score and art direction. Martin Scorsese's Paris adventure “Hugo” also won five Oscars, all in technical categories. Streep's win was her first Oscar in 29 years, since she won best actress for “Sophie's Choice.” She had lost 12 times in a row since then. Streep also has a supporting-actress Oscar for 1979's “Kramer vs. Kramer.”
Woody Allen won the original Screenplay Oscar for “Midnight In Paris”, about a novelist adrift in a romantic reimagining of 1920s Paris. Seventy-six-year-old Allen has been nominated for an Oscar 25 times and this was his fourth win, who won for directing and screenplay on his 1977 best-picture winner “Annie Hall” and for screenplay on 1986's “Hannah and Her Sisters.”
Allen also is the record-holder for 15 writing nominations, and his three writing Oscars ties the record shared by Charles Brackett, Paddy Chayefsky, Francis Ford Coppola and Billy Wilder.
“The Artist”, nominated in 10 categories, also won Oscars for best original score and best costume design.
“Hugo”, with 11 nominations, won five trophies in the technical categories including the Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Cinematography and Art Direction but the movie failed to win in the key categories.
First Oscar for Pakistan
A Pakistani short movie on the tribulation and courage of victims of acid attacks won a historic trophy at the 2012 Academy Awards, making its codirector Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy the first from the country to win an Oscar. The movie ‘Saving Face’ by Daniel Junge and Chinoy, the first ever Pakistani movie to be nominated for the prestigious award won the Documentary (Short Subject) Academy.
The movie follows British plastic surgeon Dr Mohammad Jawad, who returns to his homeland to help victims of acid burns and performs reconstructive surgeries on survivors. It also follows the story of a woman as she fights to see that the perpetrators of the crime are imprisoned for life.
The documentary, which is filmed across Islamabad, Rawalpindi and the small towns of Punjab, released in the United States in November. It is due to release in the United Kingdom in March, following which it will be released in Pakistan. Chinoy has also received the Emmy award for her documentary Pakistan: Children of the Taliban in 2010.
Other Winners
"A Separation", directed by Asghar Farhadi, became the first Iranian movie to win the best foreign Oscar trophy. Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, the domestic drama focuses on a couple going through a divorce and touches on traditions, justice, and male-female relationships in modern Iran. "A Separation" was regarded as the front-runner for the foreign language Oscar after sweeping the awards circuit in Europe and the United States. It also garnered an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay but failed to win in that category. It was the second Iranian film to be nominated for an Oscar, and the first to win.
Johnny Depp voiced "Rango" defeated "A Cat in Paris", "Chico & Rita", "Kung Fu Panda 2", "Puss in Boots" to win Gore Verbinski an Oscar in the best animated category.
Movie editing honours went to Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". "Undefeated", by TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Rich Middlemas, won the Oscar in the documentary feature category.
"Saving Face", by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, brought Pakistan its first Oscar in the documentary short category. "Iron Lady" won Mark Coulier and J Roy Helland Oscar trophies in the make-up category. "Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" won Bret McKenzie a trophy in the original song category.
"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore" by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg won in the short movie animated category where as "The Shore" by Terry George and Oorlagh George took home the trophy in the short movie live action category.

Referendum in Syria on New Constitution

Syrians have voted on a new draft constitution aimed at quelling the country’s uprising by ending the ruling Baath Party’s five-decade domination of power, but the Opposition announced a boycott and clashes were reported across the country. The move could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2028. The result is viewed as a foregone conclusion.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin issued a strong warning to the West against military intervention in Syria, its longtime ally, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear there was no enthusiasm in Washington for war.
The International Red Cross and Syrian Arab Red Crescent were still negotiating with Syrian authorities and the opposition in an effort to get aid into strife-torn areas of the embattled city of Homs, where conditions were said to be grim.
The country has 14.6 million eligible voters who were asked to cast ballots on whether they approve or reject the recently drafted constitution in more than 14,000 polling stations around the country.
In regions like the restive central city of Homs, where shelling by government forces has left hundreds dead, or the northwestern province of Idlib and the southern region of Daraa where rebels clash frequently with the security forces, turnout is likely to be minimal.
Antigovernment Protests
More than 5000 people have been killed in Syria's violent crackdown against protesters, the UN rights chief has told the Security Council, recommending that the regime of President Al-Assad be referred to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
Foreign journalists were taken by the Information Ministry to the Damascus neighborhood of Rukneddine and the Damascus suburb of Barzeh that witnessed antigovernment protests in the past months. Few voters were at the polling stations in either area.
Earlier this month, President Al-Assad called for a referendum on the new constitution — which allows for at least a theoretical opening of the country’s political system — as an effort to placate critics and end the 11-month uprising against his rule.
Creating Multiparty System
The new charter would create a multiparty system in Syria, which has been ruled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party since a 1963 coup. It also states that the president, who has been a member of the Assad family since 1970, can only be in office for a maximum of two seven-year terms.
Such changes were unthinkable a year ago, but after the uprising began in March and Assad’s crackdown that killed thousands of people, the vast majority of opposition groups say they accept nothing less than Assad abandoning power.
The two main umbrella opposition groups, the Syrian National Council and the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, have called for a boycott. Some groups have also called for a general strike to coincide with the referendum.
In the capital Damascus, where Assad retains support among religious minorities and the business class, many said they were eager to vote.
Party Pluralism
According to a civil servant, “This is a good constitution. It calls for party pluralism and the president can only hold the post for two terms. These did not exist in the past.”
In Barzeh, which recently witnessed intense antigovernment protests, about 20 percent of the shops were closed, apparently in compliance with the calls for a strike. Turnout was very low at a polling station in the area, with a person coming every few minutes to cast a ballot. In Rukneddine, turnout was also low. People cast ballots as they arrived with no need to stand in line.
UN Resolution
The UN General Assembly has already voted 137 to 12 to approve a resolution calling for an immediate halt to President Al-Assad's violent crackdown on dissent.
China, Russia and Iran were among the nations that opposed the text put forward by Egypt and other Arab states that condemned "widespread and systematic violations of human rights" in Syria.
Seventeen UN member states abstained from voting on the resolution, which came just days after Russia and China joined forces to use their veto power to derail a similar text in the UN Security Council.
The International Red Cross and Syrian Arab Red Crescent were still negotiating with Syrian authorities and the opposition in an effort to get aid into strife-torn areas of the embattled city of Homs, where conditions were said to be grim.
Assessment
The only way to resolve the situation in Syria is through a Syrian-led political process, and that means dialog. The Western nations instead switch gears and turn into regime change mode, discouraging dialog, discouraging dialogue within Syria, discouraging dialog between the Arab League and Syria. This is very dangerous.
In fact they make no secret of the fact that they want regime change. In numerous statements you can trace their policy, which cannot be conducive to a political process.
No one wants to see a repeat of Libya in Syria, or of the war in Iraq, which went against a decision by the UN Security Council. Any decision on Syria will require the support and shared responsibility of Moscow to make it legitimate. One suggestion is for Russia to guarantee the interests and security of the minorities in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, who fear reprisals by the Sunni majority if Al-Assad government (a privileged minority) were to fall. This would be a way for Russia to take a morally correct and a politically promising stance.

Polio Eradication in India: Big Challenge for Government

Additional Secretary, Health Anuradha Gupta has said that India is inching closer to the goal of polio eradication and hopes to be free of the deadly viral infection by 2014. She was pointing to the fact that over 90 per cent environmental samples taken from sewage disposal sites across migration hubs of India to determine the presence of the virus in the air had been found to be negative since November 2010.
She added that India’s success will arguably be its greatest public health achievement and will provided a global opportunity to push for the end of polio.
With oral vaccines, India appears to have achieved what was once thought a Herculean task — decisively breaking the circulation of wild polio viruses that paralyzed countless children. But the use of oral vaccines, which contain live but weakened strains of the virus, can be a bit like riding a tiger. Discontinuing them, without risking a resurgence of polio that would undo all that has been achieved, is going to be a tricky exercise.
The Outbreak
The outbreak response actions were carried out jointly by the Center, State, the World Health Organization’s (WHO)-National Polio Surveillance Project, UNICEF and Rotary along with some stakeholders who identified 36 high risk blocs/municipalities and 222 high risk Gram Panchayats/wards to focus activities on. This was followed by enhanced by coordination by the local administration at all levels and 25 experienced additional Surveillance Medical Officers were deployed at each district for intensive monitoring. The vaccinators and supervisors were imparted training to improve skills trainings to improve skills & performance of vaccinators and supervisors. Approximately 9,096,609 children were vaccinated in January of 2011 which was followed by special immunization rounds on February 6 (990,586), February 13 (1,422,549), February 27 (8,996,193) and the figure remained upwards of 4,100,100 in the subsequent months.
Government’s Initiatives
The federal government is likely to step up surveillance at airports to rule out chances of cases coming in from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is endemic. Thus far, such surveillance is happening only in case of children entering India via rail or road.
Strategies to combat the virus will be discussed at the two-day Polio Summit to be held this weekend. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will open the summit, which will be attended by health ministers of Pakistan and Nigeria.
For India, the challenge is to prevent new polio cases and block imported ones. “We already have surveillance points along borders with Pakistan. These are at Wagah, Attari and in Rajasthan. But we have to create similar surveillance points at airports. Polio can also be imported via air route. We further want to strengthen polio surveillance across borders,” Additional Secretary, Health, Anuradha Gupta said today while briefing reporters about the Polio Summit.
The India Polio Advisory Group, which advises the government on strategy, is meeting on March 16 to flag new challenges.
The summit will celebrate India’s huge polio success - of reduced infection cases, from two lakh annually in 1988 to zero last year. The last child who got wild polio virus 1 was Rukhsar from Howrah. Today, she is a motivator for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), going door to door, asking parents to get children for polio drops. Rukhsar, infected on January 13, 2011, had never received polio drops.
So far as India’s hopes of eradication go (For WHO’s eradication status, nations must be able to remain polio-free for three consecutive years), they are real.
There has been a new case since Rukhsar’s and results of all environmental samplings have been negative since November 2010.
Environmental samples have been taken from sewage disposal sites in four migration hubs of India — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Patna. This has been done to gauge presence of virus in the air.
In 2009, most Mumbai samples tested positive. But in 2011, all samples across four sites were negative. This means the virus is not circulating in the environment.
In 2009, India had reported 741 cases, half of the global burden of polio. But now, it appears on track to be rid of polio.
For the 12th Plan, the Ministry has sought Rs 4,400 crore as against Rs 5,500 crore sought in the previous plan. This because of lesser burden, Gupta explained.
Globally, however, Rotary International projects a deficit of $520 million for the polio eradication initiative.
Facts About Polio
* Last wild polio virus 1 case: January 13, 2011 (Howrah, West Bengal)* Last wild polio virus-3 case: October 22, 2010 (Pakur, Jharkhand)
*Last wild polio virus 2 case: October 1999 (Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh)
*Last polio-positive case came to surface after environmental sampling in November 2010
*Polio drops given to 17.4 crore children in one round.