BEIJING: China’s hugely popular Lunar New Year television galas aim to woo even more viewers this year with foreign stars including “Gangnam Style” pop sensation Psy, state media said yesterday.
Watching the China Central Television (CCTV) variety show has become a tradition for families gathering on New Year’s Eve and it is set to draw a billion viewers this year, according to local newspaper.
The show, which will air tomorrow for more than four hours on multiple channels, typically features a range of performances ranging from comedy sketches to folk songs.
The CCTV program faces growing competition from local stations.
Psy, the South Korean performer who shot to global fame with his “Gangnam Style” music video last year, will do his dance on Shanghai-based television, the newspaper said.
The paper praised producers’ efforts to create the best shows possible but also questioned the reliance on international stars, especially if they required hefty fees.
“While some netizens are excited about such famous foreign figures coming to China, others wonder why the Spring Festival galas in China today have to depend on big-name foreign stars,” it said.
The CCTV gala has previously featured foreigners such as Mark “Da Shan” Roswell, a Canadian who became well known in China for his fluent Mandarin, but it lacked the worldwide celebrity of this year’s foreign lineup.
Chinese TV to cast ‘Gangnam Style’ music sensation Psy
Chinese TV to cast ‘Gangnam Style’ music sensation Psy
With murals, Indian artist transforms slums into ‘walls of learning’
- Rouble Nagi won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize at Dubai summit last week
- Her foundation set up 800 learning centers across more than 100 slums, villages
New Delhi: It was about a decade ago that Rouble Nagi began painting the walls of Mumbai’s slums with art and colors, turning the neglected spaces where India’s low-income communities live into vibrancy.
What started as a project of beautification quickly transformed into a mission of education through art, one that seeks to reach the most marginalized children in India.
Together with a team of locals, volunteers and residents, Nagi started painting the slums with interactive murals, which she calls the “Living Walls of Learning,” as an alternative way to educate children.
“The ‘Living Walls of Learning’ is our answer to the lack of infrastructure within the education pillar. In these communities, traditional schools are often physically distant or psychologically intimidating. We solve this by turning the slum itself into a classroom,” Nagi told Arab News.
An estimated 236 million people, or nearly half of India’s urban population, lived in slums in 2020, according to World Bank data.
“The abandoned, broken or dilapidated walls (are transformed) into open-air classrooms using interactive murals created by the students themselves. These aren’t just paintings; they are visual curricula teaching literacy, numeracy, science and social responsibility,” she said, adding that the initiative “treats education as a living, breathing part of daily life.”
Her Rouble Nagi Art Foundation has established more than 800 learning centers across more than 100 slums and villages in India, as the slum transformation initiative expanded beyond Mumbai and now includes parts of Maharashtra, the country’s second-most populous state.
“These centers provide safe spaces for children to begin structured learning, receive remedial education, emotional support, and creative enrichment,” Nagi said.
Over the years, RNAF said that it had helped bring more than one million children into formal education and reduced dropout rates by more than 50 percent, with the help of more than 600 trained educators.
Last week, the 40-year-old Indian artist and educator became the 10th recipient of the $1 million Global Teacher Prize, which she accepted at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
Nagi plans on using the money to build an institute that offers free vocational training and digital literacy.
“This project aims to equip (marginalized children and young people) with practical skills for employment and self-reliance, helping transform their life chances,” she said.
She believes that strengthening pathways from informal learning spaces to formal schooling and skill-based education can create “sustainable, long-term educational opportunities” that “empower learners to break cycles of poverty and become active contributors” to their communities.
“For me, this award is not just personal; it is a validation of the work done by the entire Rouble Nagi Art Foundation team, our teachers, volunteers and the communities we work with,” she said.
“It shines a global spotlight on children who are often invisible to the formal education system and affirms that creativity, compassion and persistence can transform lives.”
