Sitar - The Sound of India | Purbayan Chatterjee & Jay Dabgar

from meditational to sheer energy and excitement.

Weaving a musical fabric

Purbayan Chatterjee & Jay Dabgarpresent their Adelaide concert as part of a national tour and invite QLD audiences to enjoy an evening of classical Indian music in the ambient environment of Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre.

Purbayan Chatterjee: Based in Mumbai, India, Purbayan is one of the finest contemporary Sitar players performing Indian Classical music. Through the mesmerising sounds of his Sitar playing, he has attained a reputation as one of the great sitar players of his generation.

Date: 4th Aug 2023, Time 7.30pm to 9.30pm

Brisbane Multicultural Arts

Centre

Level 1/102 Main Street, Kangaroo Point, QLD 4169

Bookings: https://bemac.org.au/event/ purbayan-chatterjee-and-jaydabgar/

One of India's most celebrated sitar players Pandit Purbayan

Chatterjee is joined by tabla virtuoso Jay Dabgar on a national tour presenting a series of exciting concerts featuring instrument that best captures the essence of Indian traditional music.

Experience musical virtuosity with unusual energy, skills and dynamic improvisation. Purbayan Chatterjee presents the sitar in all its shades and textures both melodic and playful and wistful and spiritual. The music ranges

Virginia Governor appoints IndianAmericans to key admin posts

state’s health education system. The board’s responsibilities include overseeing the operations of the health system, as well as providing strategic direction to various medical schools and hospitals.

Harshad Barot, owner of Galaxy Corporation and Kamlesh Dave, President, Heart Care Associates, were named to the Virginia Asian Advisory Board, which serves as a formal liaison between the administration and the diverse and rapidly growing Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in the Commonwealth.

In their new role, Barot and Dave will advise the Governor on ways to improve economic and cultural links between the Commonwealth and Asian nations.

Padmanabhan Seshaiyer, Professor and Director of George Mason University, and Kunal Kumar, President of Pooja Group, were named to the Virginia Board of Workforce Development, which acts as the principal advisor to the Governor and provides strategic leadership to the state regarding the workforce development system and its efforts to create a strong workforce aligned with employer needs.

Purbayan belongs to the famous Senia Maihar Gharana, the musical school established by, Baba Allauddin Khan (the guru of renowned artists including Ustad Ali Akbar Khan). Purbayan also studied with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan on the sarod as well as with sitar players Pandit Ravi Shankar and Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. In addition to his mastery of North Indian raga music, he also performs with musicians from the South Indian raga tradition and participates in various fusion projects with jazz. His music has been appreciated by jazz greats, such as Chick Corea, Bella Fleck, and Pat Metheney, as well as by world musicians all over the globe. In addition to this, he is an astounding vocalist and has lent his soulful voice to many mellifluous compositions. Purbayan has designed the DWO, which is a Doppelganger of the Indian Sitar. Purbayan's DWO celebrates the oneness of two. It creates sound where the acoustic and the digital, where the ancient and the modern, where the ethnic and the urban, where the esoteric and the virtuosic, all complement each other and become one.

New UK passports to bear

Majesty’ title for the first time since 1952

New York, July 19 (IANS) Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has announced additional key administration and board appointments, which includes many Indian-Americans.

Dr Bimaljit Singh Sandhu, a gastroenterologist at Richmond

Gastroenterology Associates, took oath as a board member of the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System Authority.

As board member, Sandhu, who migrated from Punjab to the US in 2004, will play a pivotal role in the

"I am thankful for these appointees' service to our Commonwealth as we continue to make Virginia the best place to live, work and raise a family," Governor Youngkin said in statement released last week. "Their critical work will provide essential help as we move into my administration's day two agenda," he added.

London, July 19 (IANS) British passports bearing the title of ‘His Majesty’ will start being issued this week in the name of King Charles III for the first time in 70 years.

"For 70 years, Her Majesty has appeared on British passports and many of us will not remember a time when she did not feature. Today marks a significant moment in UK history, as the first British passports since 1952 start featuring the title of His Majesty, the King," Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced on Tuesday.

In the first six months of 2023, over five million passports were processed with more than 99 per cent issued within the standard UK service of 10 weeks, the vast majority well within this timeline, with over 90 per cent delivered within three weeks.

This marks a significant improvement in HM (His Majesty's) Passport Office’s performance since 2022, during which time 95.4 per cent of passports were issued within this 10-week timeframe, a Home Office statement said.

According to the statement, the success can be attributed to a series of strategic measures implemented to overcome the challenges faced in early 2022, including process improvements, significant advancements in digital systems, enhanced access to flexible resources, and the introduction of a second supplier of customer contact services. The earliest recorded British passport can be traced back to the reign of Henry V in 1414 and documents were known as safe conducts.

It was not until 1915 that the first modern-style British passports, including a photograph and signature were first issued. The first security feature, a special watermark, was introduced in passports in 1972. Since then, a large number of security features have been incorporated into British passports -- from watermarks, holograms, elaborately printed patterns, to the polycarbonate page.

The first burgundy-coloured machine-readable passports were issued in 1988 and over 30 years later, in 2020, the distinctive blue cover was re-introduced following the departure of the UK from the EU.