Current Affairs 10 April 2019 Digest 6: Scientists to release landmark image of Black Hole; FTII announces course in Film Criticism

Story 1: Scientists to release landmark image of black hole

A team of international scientists is likely to unveil the landmark photo of a black hole captured through the Event Horizon Telescope project.

A few news conferences have been set in Washington, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo to reveal the "groundbreaking result" from the ‘Event Horizon Telescope’ (EHT) project. The EHT project began in 2012 to observe the immediate environment of a black hole using a global network of telescopes.

The project targeted two supermassive black holes residing at the center of different galaxies.

The researchers carrying out the project obtained the first set of data in April 2017 using telescopes in the US states of Arizona and Hawaii as well as in Mexico, Chile, Spain and Antarctica. Later, telescopes in France and Greenland were added to the global network that created a planet-sized observational dish.

Black hole’s image may question Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity

This first ever picture of a black hole would be a landmark achievement in the field of astrophysics that may question Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. This outcome will test the theory put forward by Einstein in 1915 to explain the laws of gravity and their relation to other natural forces.

Einstein's theory allows scientists to predict the size and shape of a black hole and if the prediction turns out to be wrong, the theory may require rework.

Black hole at the centre of Milky Way Galaxy

In 2017, the journal “Nature Astronomy” published the discovery of a giant black hole ‘Sagittarius A*’, nearly 100000 times the mass of the sun near the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy. The black hole was found hiding in a huge cloud of molecular gas called CO–0.40–0.22.

The hole is thought to possess 4 million times the mass of the Sun and is located some 26,000 light years from the Earth.

The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) on April 10, 2019 announced a course in Film Criticism and the Art of Review for the first time.

This 20-day Course would be conducted from May 28 to June 19, 2019 in Delhi in association with Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi.

Highlights of the course

• The course meets a long-standing demand of cinema critics, film reviewers, film bloggers, research scholars, film academics and anyone who has more than ordinary interest in cinema.

• During the course, one will be provided with the tools to know how to ‘read’ a film in order to review it.

• It will provide a basic grounding in the discipline of Film Criticism and train the participants into becoming serious viewers of Cinema.

• The course includes the study of significant films in the history of cinema through the prism of critical thinking.

• The Course is open to all with no age bar.

• The course would be led by Bhopal-based filmmaker, Rajula Shah, an FTII alumnus. She studied film direction at FTII from 1997 to 2000.

• The Course is being conducted under FTII's countrywide film education initiative ‘SKIFT’ (Skilling India in Film and Television).

Film and Television Institute of India (FTII)

• Established in 1960, FTII is considered as a premier institute for training in Cinema and Television.

• It is an autonomous institute under the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and is aided by the Central Government.

• It is situated on the premises of the erstwhile Prabhat Film Company in Pune.

• FTII is a member of the International Liaison Centre of Schools of Cinema and Television (CILECT), an organisation of the world's leading schools of film and television

• It has been accorded the status of Institute of National Importance by the Union Government.

• It boasts of notable alumni such as Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri, Jaya Bachchan, among others.