E.V.V. Satyanarayana  Hit director passes away

Hyderabad, Jan. 21: The 56-year-old film producer-director E.V.V. Satyanarayana passed away in a city hospital on Friday night.

Mr Satyanarayana had been suffering from throat cancer and his condition had turned critical recently. He breathed his last following a severe cardiac arrest. He leaves behind his two sons and wife.

After making his debut with Chevilopoovu, the director tasted his maiden success with Premakaidi.

Later, Mr Satyanarayana rose to dizzying heights of success in filmdom with big hits like Hello Brother, Abbaiyigaru, Intlo Illalu Vantitlo Priyuralu and Maa Nanaku Pelli and showed his flair for comedy.

He also made his debut in Hindi with Suryavansh and had his share of success with off-beat films such as Thali.

Later, he turned producer with Chala Bagundi.

He launched his elder son Aryan Rajesh with Hai but he was more successful with his second son and actor Allari Naresh with whom he made hits like Kithakithalu and Bendu Apparao.

Their third film Kathi Kantharao was Mr Satyanarayana’s last Telugu film.

“He was looking okay even in the afternoon but unfortunately passed away after a heart attack,” said producer Suresh Babu.

Many film industry stalwarts expressed grief at the death of the veteran producer-director.

Maria Shriver’s Father Passes Away

Sargent Shriver Peace Corps Founder, Maria Shriver’s Father Passes Away

R. Sargent Shriver has died. Shriver was responsible for starting the U.S. Peace Corps and was passionate public servant was 95 years old.

He had suffered for years from Alzheimer’s disease. Shriver is the father of Maria Shriver and father-in-law to Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the governor of California.

According to CNN, the Shriver family released a statement saying Shriver died Tuesday “surrounded by his five children, five children in-law, and his 19 grandchildren.”

The family statement to the media went on to say that Shriver “lived to make the world a more joyful, faithful, and compassionate place. He worked on stages both large and small but in the end, he will be best known for his love of others. No one ever came into his presence without feeling his passion and his enthusiasm for them.”

In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded R. Sargent Shriver the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Ronald Reagan honored his wife, Eunice Shriver, with the same award in 1984. According to the New York Times, The Shrivers “were the only husband and wife to win the nation’s highest civilian honor individually.

In 2003, Shriver discovered he had Alzheimer’s disease but he attended the inauguration of his son-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the Republican governor of California. But as his condition grew worse, he withdrew from the public eye.

President Obama said he was “deeply saddened” over the death of Shriver, and the President called Shriver “one of the brightest lights of the greatest generation.”

China stealth plane News Reports

China stealth plane still 'years away', says Pentagon

Photos of a possible Chinese-made stealth aircraft were discussed in China's state-run media

The US is playing down pictures that appear to show a working prototype of a Chinese stealth aircraft, invisible to radar.

The images - first published on websites - show what looks like a stealth fighter on a taxi run.

Beijing has not commented on whether the pictures - published ahead of US Defence Secretary Robert Gates' visit later this week - are genuine.

The Pentagon says China is still years away from deploying a stealth aircraft.

In late 2009 the deputy head of China's air force, General He Weirong, said the country's stealth fighter would be ready sometime between 2017 and 2019, reports said.



But US director of naval intelligence Vice Admiral David Dorsett said that it would be "years" before China's new fighter would be operational.

"Developing a stealth capability with a prototype and then integrating that into a combat environment is going to take some time," he said.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

Three modern wars in other parts of the world have hardened the resolve of China's top brass to catch up militarily”

End Quote Shirong Chen BBC China editor

* Chen: Modernisation gathers pace

The leaked photos of the prototype aircraft first appeared on military websites and blogs. They were said to have been taken at the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute.

The images were then discussed in the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper, in both its Chinese and English-language editions, although no comment was made on their authenticity.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper said China could begin test flights of the stealth jet as soon as this month, citing unidentified Chinese military sources.
Military build-up

The world's only operational stealth fighter is the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, but Russia is also known to be working on its own prototype.

BBC defence correspondent Nick Childs says the aircraft certainly bears a superficial resemblance to the latest US stealth designs - and that may spook some in Washington.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

To me the treatment given to the photos overseas says more than the images themselves”

End Quote Mark Urban Newsnight

* Urban: What US response reveals

And it will add to the concerns of those who have been warning especially of the increasing reach and capabilities of China's air force and navy, he adds.

The US has been watching closely as China increases its military capacity - in particular, its development of a so-called "carrier killer" missile, a land-based system which could sink an aircraft carrier from up to 1,800 miles (2,900km) away.

US battle groups - including aircraft carriers - are stationed in the South China Sea.

And in August, the Pentagon reported that China had been expanding its nuclear arsenal and submarine force, as well as upgrading its land-based missiles.

Debbie Friedman News Reports

Debbie Friedman

Debbie Friedman, Jewish American singer and songwriter Debbie Friedman, who has changed the voice of the American Jewish spirituality and prayer, died Sunday in a hospital in Orange County, California, the sources of the Union for Reform Judaism confirmed. Friedman was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Friedman began writing liturgical music as a Jewish group songleader the Union for Reform Judaism’s Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute summer camp in the early 1970s, the establishment of ancient texts and modern, accessible, singable melodies. She has published more than 19 albums of music inspired by
the great American folk music, English and Hebrew words and often the simple accompaniment of a guitar.On a personal note, Artson said Friedman “hit and raised” his soul to each CAJE conference, adding that meetings of its extended “Kaddish De-Rabbanan” reaches the darkest corners of my heart. ”
“You can measure its reach by almost everyone uses the melody havdalah, often without knowing it,” Artson, which holds the presidency Abner & Roslyn Goldstine Dean Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies School, said. “You can measure its impact by the fact that there is a profession rich in contemporary Jewish music where none existed outside the cantorate before it. You can measure the gift by the way it seems natural now to learn Torah and singing women, voices and words of women. And you can enjoy her gift in the bumper harvest of its huge collection of animated and spiritual songs. ”

Debbie Friedman Passed Away z"l 

Debbie Friedman, considered one of the most important figures in contemporary Jewish music, passed away at 5:49 am PST after being hospitalized for Pneumonia. The Orange County Register, reporting that she was in a medically induced coma, described her career as follows:

Friedman, who [was] in her late 50s, took the accessibility and contemporary elements of the ’60s folk movement and blended them with traditional melodies and prayers, has released more than 20 albums and performed throughout the world. The New York Times once wrote that Friedman “has created a powerful and euphoric body of work.” The Los Angeles Times called her “one of the foremost figures in contemporary Jewish music.”

Yaffa Weisman, a member of the faculty at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, where Friedman also teaches, stated that “Her music has transformed the world of Jewish prayer” She added that Friedman is the one composer whose songs are known by almost all Conservative or Reform Jews in the United States