The Canadian Parvasi - Issue 24

The International News Weekly VIEW
December 08, 2017 | Toronto
17
Hollywood's sexual misconduct cases
don't surprise me, says 'Twilight' star
By Sugandha Rawal
NEW DELHI: "Twilight"
star Elizabeth Reaser feels
women continue to be
"very vulnerable" in showbiz
and the string of sexual
misconduct cases coming
out of Hollywood doesn't
surprise her. The American
actress says she is glad
that people found the courage
to speak up against the
"heart-breaking and horrific
truth of our world".
The actress, who has
been part of projects like
"The Good Wife" and "Ouija:
Origin of Evil" -- which
was aired in India on Sony
PIX last month -- feels the
whole "dynamic is always
tricky when a majority of
people in power are men".
"Nothing about it surprises
me. What surprises
me is that people care to
be honest; maybe that is a
dark view, but I think it is
an old story for women,"
Reaser, 42, told IANS in a
recorded response from
Los Angeles.
"Women have been
dealing with this in every
industry since the beginning
of time. It is a really
challenging and scary
thing to speak up. It is such
an act of courage."
"Usually people don't
believe you, or you become
a victim again by sharing
the story. There is backlash.
There are things that
you can't anticipate... that
can go wrong by sharing
the story. I really feel grateful
to the people who have
come forward because it is
a heart-breaking and horrific
truth of our world and
the whole world in general.
"Women are still very
vulnerable in show business
because being a young
or not-so-young woman,
who wants to get a job, puts
you in a vulnerable position.
I think that dynamic
is always tricky when a
majority of people in power
Shashi Kapoor was most handsome
man I had seen: Sharmila
By Subhash K. Jha
MUMBAI: "His death has still not sunk in," says Sharmila
Tagore on the demise of her "Aa Gale Lag Jaa" and "My Love" costar
Shashi Kapoor, whom she describes as the "most handsome
man" she had ever seen. "I don't think I enjoyed working with
any co-star as much as I did with Shashi Kapoor... His death
has still not sunk in. Even as I've been busy with various things
during the past few days, my mind has been going back to all the
wonderful times I shared with Shashi," Sharmila said.
The actress recounted her special bond with Shashi, who
died on Monday. He was 79. "While I shared only a professional
rapport with my other co-stars, with Shashi I also socialized. We
did meet over dinner and drinks. And it was always a pleasure
to meet Shashi and his really wonderful wife Jennifer. "They
complemented each other perfectly. Seeing Shashi and Jennifer
together was so gratifying. I don't think Shashi ever got over
her death. It broke him and turned him reckless about his life.
He became suicidal. It was sad to see him let himself go... I still
remember how handsome he was. My God! He was the most
handsome man I had seen."
Her first meeting with Shashi was when he visited the
location of her first Hindi film "Kashmir Ki Kali".
"We were shooting the song 'Isharon isharon mein' with
Shashi's brother Shammi. I couldn't concentrate on my romantic
poses with Shammi. "The director Shakti Samanta had to ask
Shashi to leave. The funny thing was, before I could confess I was
a fan, Shashi started telling me he was a fan of my work, having
seen me in Satyajit Ray's 'Apur Sansar'. That charm completely
won women over," she said. Sharmila said she counted Shashi
among her close friends. "We got a lot of opportunity to work
and spend time together as most of our films were shot outside
Mumbai over a lengthy period of time. I remember we were
all together for 'My Love' in Nairobi. Likewise, my other films
with Shashi which were shot in places as far-flung as Rajasthan
and Canada. "I remember we were shooting 'Paap Aur Punya'
in Rajasthan. Shashi's children and my son Saif were all there.
Saif, who was very small, became very fond of his Shashi uncle.
In a sequence where Shashi was being hung by a noose by the
villain, Saif, unknown to the camera and crew, toddled up to the
villain and bit him for hurting his favourite Shashi uncle."
are men," the actress added.
From Harvey Weinstein,
Ben Affleck, Brett
Ratner, Charlie Sheen,
Dustin Hoffman, James
Toback to Kevin Spacey,
several men from Hollywood
have been accused of
sexual assault and harassment.
It all started with
numerous women coming
forward to allege that Hollywood
mogul Weinstein
used his position to harass
them.
Reaser feels the outcry
over the sexual harassment
scandals will "make
predators rethink some
of their behaviour" and
be "less inclined to these
acts".
"It is really up to us going
forward on how one
makes these decisions.
Who do we want to put in
power and in the power to
By Arnav Joshi
Investors everywhere (this
is not a problem specific to India)
are notorious for jumping
on the newest, shiniest bandwagons
without necessarily
understanding what lies underneath
the hood.
What is a problem specific
to India is the dichotomy of its
burgeoning investor community
lining up with alacrity for
their golden tickets, without
any semblance of a safety net to
catch them if they fall. With Bitcoin
(and other crypto-currencies),
that fall has the potential
to be their hardest yet. As prices
surge to tantalising new heights,
constantly breaking their own
records, Bitcoin FoMO is very
real -- and there is clear potential,
as there are pitfalls of investing
in what some have carelessly
called Gold 2.0.
Rags to riches Bitcoin investment
stories are, of course,
plastered across the web and
beyond, drawing investors by
the boatload, and why not, when
value rises 900 per cent in a year,
albeit with fluctuations between
44 (up) and 25 (down) percent.
What isn't easy to come by when
Bitcoin fever takes hold, is the
ominous flip side.
Vili ehdonvirta (who may
or may not be Satoshi Nakamoto)
is among many others rightfully
labelled experts who have
for some time now been warning
of the eyeball frenzy and an
approaching proverbial "big
short" moment. Closer home,
Pramod Emjay of CryptoMe
Payment Technologies and formerly
the Dogecoin Foundation,
shares this concern.
In our discussion on cryptocurrency
exchanges in India,
he tells me how "any exchange
worth its salt knows that it's supplying
the shovels in this gold
rush. It is stupid to assume this
will go on forever".
And while it may admittedly
be the wave of the future,
for the time being, a gold rush
is what it is -- of which there
will be both casualties and collateral
damage. You may have
forgotten Mt. Gox for example,
but its clients have not. Bitcoin,
of course, is only the flag-bearer,
and gets most of the attention,
good and bad. In all there are
over a thousand publicly traded
coins, and the advent of Initial
Coin Offerings opens up new
fronts for slapdash investments.
As the world once again leaps
before looking, parallels to the
sub-prime crisis and the dotcom
bubble are not unwarranted.
Fed enough quick-buck hysteria,
history will repeat itself.
Commercially, prospective
Indian investors need to
dig deep and understand how
Bitcoin infrastructure, buying,
storing and pricing actually
works. A lack of adequate
tell stories or use the power
to tell the stories... Hopefully,
we will make everyone
more accountable in
every department because
it is not just actresses (who
are getting exploited).
"It is not just film industry.
It is every industry
around the world. The
more we talk about it the
more powerful it makes
us all." Reaser, who has
also featured in "Mind
local mining infrastructure for
instance, means eye-watering
premiums over global prices (30
per cent is the latest figure doing
the rounds) currently apply for
Indian purchases.
On the legal front, the Indian
government has on several
instances in the past, through
the Reserve Bank, the Securities
and Exchange Board of India
and recently the Finance Minister
himself, reminded the country
that crypto-currencies do not
have legal sanction. While some
industry stakeholders have
stretched this wait-and-watch
to claims that a hard stance is
all but impossible, such exuberance
is exaggerated and has little
evidence or precedent. There
are, however, enough and more
examples of reactive legislation
ranging from public liability to
data privacy, and everything
in between. In a worst-case scenario,
public issue and private
placement, exchange control
and national security considerations
create a minefield that
can cause governments to take
sudden and radical steps, saying
only that "you were warned".
Where does this leave the
Bitcoin investor legally? At best,
what your purchase can be likened
to a commodity -- furniture,
only furniture doesn't (usually)
cost you $13,000 apiece. Careless
moves with wallets can cause
your investments irreversibly
the Gap", "Law & Order:
Criminal Intent", "Grey's
Anatomy" and "Mad Men",
asserts that "we have been
in this culture where we
have allowed this kind of
behaviour and these kinds
of crimes, and just looked
the other way".
"I hope things really
change now," she said.
Reaser began her career
in theatre and started
making appearances in
films and television from
2000.
How does she rate her
work?
"I am pretty hard on
myself whenever I watch
myself. I don't watch myself
because I will have
a lot of regrets. There is
always that voice in your
head saying that 'I could
have done better'," she
noted.
On the work front, she
is now part of Netflix show
"Easy" and "The Haunting
of Hill House".
Bitcoin: Approaching the 'big short' moment?
going up in smoke, and data
breaches associated with these
wallets also have limited legal
and practical recourse.
Pramod Emjay, even as an
industry pro, has himself been
the subject of crypto-currency
fraud, and he rightly points out
that when that happens, there's
nobody to go crying to. In the
absence of legal sanction and a
regulator, investments are not
just a commercial, but also a
legal gamble. Should and would
you invest in the stock market if
SEBI didn't exist?
Having had a consistently
ominous outlook (although
I myself treasure all things
blockchain), I have been the
recipient of many an evil-eye
from stakeholders in the local
Bitcoin ecosystem. Genuine as
their motives may be, there are
clear conflicts of interest, which
do not help spread objective
awareness or resolve desperate
uncertainty for potential investors.
Uncertainty which local
law still does not alleviate, and
inherent commercial volatility
exacerbates. It is for this, above
all other reasons, that I continue
to hold up the red flag. With the
law providing no protection, being
forewarned now more than
ever, is being forearmed.
(Arnav Joshi is a technology lawyer
and Data and Society masters candidate at
the London School of Economics and Political
Science. He can be reached via
Twitter @boom_lawyered)