Pete Cannito, Redwire Corporation at the New York Stock Exchange, September 8, 2021.

Source: NYSE

Private investment in space companies hit $3.9 billion in the third quarter, propelling this year to a new annual record of $10.3 billion, according to a report this week by New York-based firm Space Capital.

"This quarter sets a new record for yearly infrastructure investment, having surpassed the previous of $9.8B set in 2020," Space Capital managing partner Chad Anderson wrote in the report.

The quarterly Space Capital report divides investment in the industry into three technology categories: infrastructure, distribution and application.

Infrastructure includes what commonly would be considered as space companies, such as firms that build rockets and satellites.

Space companies closing SPAC mergers and going public made up a significant portion of the capital raised in the third quarter with moves completed by Rocket Lab, Spire Global, BlackSky, Momentus, and Redwire. The two largest deals in the quarter were by ORBCOMM, which was taken private for $1.1 billion, and satellite broadband company OneWeb, which raised $550 million.

With more SPAC deals expected to close in the fourth quarter, Anderson wrote that "the average round size and the number of rounds are also on track to set new records at the end of Q4."

In total, Space Capital tracks 1,654 companies which have raised $231.2 billion in cumulative global equity investment since 2012 across its three space categories.

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Investment in space companies exceeds $10 billion this year, a new annual record - CNBC

Key Points

Building a diversified portfolio full of sound investments is crucial to growing wealth and preparing for your financial future. But what if you could pick just one investment that would allow you to achieve the goal of growing your money while limiting risk?

I know that if I had to pick only one asset to put all my money into, the decision would be a no-brainer. I'd sink all of my cash into this investment without hesitation.

Image source: Getty Images.

If I had to choose a single investment, there's no question it would be an S&P 500 index fund. There are a few primary reasons for that.

First and foremost, an S&P index fund provides a very small ownership interest in around 500 of the largest companies in the United States. With this single investment, I'd buy small fractions of shares of innovative, well-established businesses that are extremely unlikely to fail.

This would provide me with instant diversification because I'd own a varied mix of stocks including technology companies, auto parts suppliers, communication and financial service businesses, and companies that make consumer goods. With such a mix of different businesses, it's almost a given that at least some of the assets my money is invested in would perform well no matter the economic conditions.

By putting my money into an S&P 500 fund, I'd also be taking minimal risk. This is crucial, since if this was my only investment, I'd have 100% of my money in equities, and it's generally a good idea to put some cash into other types of investments such as bonds. The S&P 500 index has reliably produced average annual returns of around 10% over its long history. And anyone who invested in an S&P fund and left their money alone for at least 20 years should have always turned a profit at the end of 20 years, no matter how poorly timed their investment.

Lastly, I'd also be limiting the investing fees I'd owe by putting my money into an S&P 500 index fund. Since these funds are passively managed with stocks selected to mimic the performance of the index, rather than actively managed, there's minimal cost involved. Investment fees reduce effective returns, so keeping them to a minimum is essential to maximizing the amount of money you end up with.

By investing everything in an S&P fund, I'd miss out on my chance to try to beat the market. When most people talk about the market's performance, they're usually referring to how the S&P 500 is doing. You aren't going to earn huge returns over a short time when you're investing in so many companies at once since they aren't all going to outperform expectations dramatically.

But investing in an S&P fund is easy and simple, it all-but eliminates the chances of losing money over the long term, and it could turn you into a millionaire over time if you invest enough in it. Of course, you don't have to pick just one investment. But if you don't want to spend a lot of time managing your portfolio, putting most or all of your money into an S&P index fund could be the smartest move you'll make.

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If I Could Buy Just One Investment, This Would Be It - Motley Fool

Artificial intelligence is at the top of many lists of the most important skills in today'sjobmarket.

In the last decade or so we have seen a dramatic transition from the AI winter (where AI has not lived up to its hype) to an AI spring (where machines can now outperform humans in a wide range of tasks).

Having spent the last 25 years as an AIresearcher and practitioner, I'm often asked about the implications of this technology on the workforce.

I'm quite often disheartened by the amount of disinformation there is on the internet on this topic, so I've decided to share some of my own thoughts.

The difference between what I am about to write, and what you may have read before elsewhere is due to an inherent bias.Rather than being a pure AI practitioner, my PhD and background is in Cognitive Science - the scientific study of how the mind works, spanning such areas as psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. My area of research has been to look explicitly at how the human mind works, and to reverse engineer these processes in the development of artificial intelligence platforms.Hence, I probably have a better understanding than most of the differences and similarities between human and machine intelligence and how this may play out in the workforce (i.e. what jobs will and will not be replaceable in the future).

So let's begin.

A good place to start this discussion is with the work of Katja Grace and colleagues at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. A few years ago they surveyed the world's leadingAI researchers about when they believed machines would outperform humans on a wide range of tasks. These results are below:

Evidently there were different predictions made as to when different types of work will be able to be performed by machines.But in general, there is consensus that there will be major shifts in the workforce in the next 20 years or so.

In the paper,they define high-level machine intelligence being achieved when unaided machines can accomplish every task better and more cheaply than human workers.Aggregating the data, on average experts believe there is a 50% chance that this will be achieved within 45 years. That is, the leading experts in AI believe that there is a 50% chance that humanity will be fully redundant in 45 years.

This prediction is unimaginable to most of us.But is it realistic? In the next sections I will answer this question looking at the different types of work.But firstly, I will explain a little about recent AI advancements.

Up until recently we were very much in an AI winter (a term coined by relating it to a nuclear winter), where there were distinct phases of hype, followed by disappointment and criticism.The disillusionment was reflected in pessimism by the media, and severe cutbacks in funding, resulting in reduced interest in serious research.

This lull has changed in the last decade or so, with the success of deep learning - an AI paradigm that was inspired by how the brain processes information (in short, artificial neural networks that that process information in parallel, as opposed to the typical serial processing we see in most computer CPUs).

Deep learning and neural networks have been around for some time. However, it is only recently that our computers have been powerful enough to run these algorithms on real-world problems, in real-time.For example, visual object recognition systems of today (e.g., facebooks face recognition system) use what are called convolutional neural networks that mimic how the human visual cortex works. Papers describing this approach started appearing in the early 80s such as with Fukushimas Neocognitron.However, it was not until 2011 that our computers were able to run these algorithms at an appropriate speed to make them useful in practice.

What happened around only 10 years ago, was it was discovered that neural networks could run on computer graphics cards (GPUs - graphics programming units) as these cards were specifically designed to process large amounts of information in parallel - exactly what is needed for artificial neural networks.Most AI researchers these days still use high-performance graphics cards, with there being exponential growth in the capabilities of these cards over time. That is, graphics cards today are 16x more powerful than what they were 10 years ago, and 4x what they were 5 years ago that is they double in computational power every 2.5 years.And with growing interest in the area, we are sure to see ongoing rapid advancements in this technology.

Beyond the fact that computers can now run these large scale networks in real-time, we also have a wealth of large data sources to train them on (n.b., neural networks learn from examples), and available programming platforms such as TensorFlow developed by Google that are openly available to anyone with an interest in machine learning.

As a result of the availability and success of deep learning approaches, AI has officially moved from its supposed winter, to a new season - spring.

What does all this mean for the workforce?Lets continue...

Perhaps one of the low hanging fruits of robotics and AI is in automation replacing repetitive manual labour with machines that can perform the same kind of task cheaply and more efficiently.

An example of this is in Alibabas smart warehouse, where robots perform 70% of the work:

I think the important thing to note when we think of AI replacing human workers, is that they do not have to do the same exact work, in order to make humans redundant.

Consider how Alibaba and Amazon have disrupted the retail sector, with an increasing number of shoppers heading for their screens to make their purchases rather than entering brick-and-mortar retail stores.The outcome is the same (i.e. a consumer making a purchase and receiving a product), but the process itself can be restructured in a way that uses automation to make the process cheaper and more efficient.

For example, Amazon (Prime Air), is trialing a drone delivery system to safely delivery packages to customers in 30 minutes or less disrupting the standard way humans would make similar deliveries:

We are seeing much progress in the ability of machines to perform manual tasks in a wide range of areas, both in and outside of the factory.Take for example the task of laying bricks. Fastbrick, has recently signed a contract in Saudi Arabia to build 55,000 homes by 2022, using automation:

As a glimpse of the future, companies such as Boston Robotics are capable of building robots with similar physical structures to humans, performing tasks that average humans cant:

The point here is that robots in the near future will no doubt be able to replace low-skilled workers, in menial and repetitive tasks, either by performing it in a similar manner, or changing the nature of the work itself, solving the same task in a different but more efficient manner.

I was speaking with a leader only last week, who was about to replace his airport baggage handling staff with machines.And he simply said, the robots will be cheaper and do a better job so why wouldnt he.

And the truth is, this is how these decisions are being made.To gain or maintain a competitive advantage, automation is indeed a rational choice.But what does this mean for the unskilled labourers?

What we currently know is that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing rapidly (e.g., the 3 richest people in the world possess more financial assets than the lowest 48 nations combined):

In the bottom percentiles the number of hours worked has decreased substantially, with the main reason being the demand and supply of skills.

Many argue that although machines will no doubt take on the low-skilled jobs, these workers will simply move to positions where more human-like traits are required (e.g., emotional intelligence and creativity).Will will delve into these areas, to test this assumption in the following sections. But from research such as the above, the current trend has been so far to replace workers without creating the equal number of opportunities elsewhere.

A level up from automation, are jobs or aspects of jobs that require decision-making and problem-solving.

In terms of decision-making, AI is incredibly well-suited for statistical decision-making tasks. That is, given a description of the current situation, categorising the data into appropriate classes. Examples of this include speech-to-text recognition (where the auditory stream is classified into distinct words), language translation (converting one representation to another), object detection (e.g., finding objects or detecting faces in an image), medical diagnoses (e.g., detecting the presence of cancerous cells), exam grading, and modelling consumer behaviour etc. etc.These systems are perfect for scenarios where there is a lot of data that can be used for training the systems, and there are numerous examples (such as those I just listed) where machines now outperform their human counterparts.

I place problem-solving here in a slightly different category to decision-making.Problem-solving is more about how to get to a desired state given the current state, and may involve a number of steps to get there.Navigation is a perfect example of this. And we have seen how well technologies such as google maps have been integrated into our daily lives (e.g., calculating the fastest route given current traffic conditions, and modifying the recommendation should conditions change).

Deep learning has also had a major impact in AI approaches to problem-solving.Take for example chess. In 1997 Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer developed by IBM beat Garry Kasparov, becoming the first computer system to defeat a reigning world champion.This system used a brute force approach, thinking ahead, and evaluating 200 million positions per second. This is quite distinct to how humans experts play chess, that play through intuition rather than thinking through all possible exhaustive moves.

With the advent of deep learning, AI problem-solving has become more human-like.Googles AlphaZero for instance has beaten the worlds best chess-playing computer, teaching itself how to play in under 4 hours.Rather than using brute force AlphaZero uses deep learning (plus a few other tricks) to extract patterns of patterns that it can use to evaluate its next move.Thus, this is similar to human intuition, where it has a feeling how good a move is based on the global context. Similar to human intuition, one drawback of this approach is that it is often impossible to understand "how" the decision was made (as it is due to the combination of millions of features at different levels).

Besides chess, Google has also beaten the world champion at the ancient Chinese game of go.This was a major achievement, as it was foreseen by AI researchers as an incredibly difficult task.In a game of chess, there are on average approximately 35 legal positions that a player can make on each move.By comparison, the average branching factor for Go is 250, making a brute force search intractable. In 2016, AlphaGo won 4-1 against Lee Sedol, widely considered to be the greatest player in the past decade.AplhaGos successor, AlphaGo Zero, described in Nature, is arguably the strongest Player in history.

So in short Again, there is much growing research and success in computer decision-making and problem solving.

When talking about the future of work, there is often an argument that, although machines will replace many jobs, there will always be a space between what AI and humans can do.Accordingly, human work will simply move to areas that involve creativity and emotional intelligence - competencies that machines will never be good at. Lets explore this argument, as it was the topic of my own PhD.

My own PhD work (gosh, around 20 years ago now), was inspired by Douglas Hofstadter and the Fluid Analogies Research Group (FARG)- a team of AI researchers investigating the fundamental processes underlying human perception and creativity.

Many of the models that FARG implemented seem trivial by todays standard, but illustrate the core processes underlying human creativity.

One of the many examples of creativity that they looked at, was the game JUMBLE - a simple newspaper game, where you were required to unscramble the given letters into a real word.Consider the scrambled letters UFOHGT

Now, you are probably asking yourself what this trivial anagram task has to do with creativity.And the answer is EVERYTHING.

While trying to solve this problem, think about HOW you solve it.

Unlike Deep Blue, in solving anagrams, you will not search through every combination.But instead you will create word-like candidates - letter strings that follow the statistical properties of what words generally look like.E.g., you would not start with the letters HG together or FG, as statistically speaking, these are not how typical English words start.

You might instead start by chunking the letters OU FT and GH together, and arrange them in a sequence to create the word GHOUFT.But you discover that this is a non-word, and you pull it apart and try again.

Over time, you will try different combinations of word-like candidates until you come up with a real English word.

The creative aspect of this task lies in the fact that you generated a range of word-like options based on the statistical properties of english.

A demo of this (one of the many demos from my thesis) can be found below:

In short, most creativity can be viewed in this manner. that there exists statistical regularities of things that belong together, and the creative process involves searching through a range of options until you find a global solution that is suitable.For example, music is not a random sequence of notes but has inherent structure, with music composition exploring different combinations of notes that conform to these rules.

With the advent of deep learning, AI now is very good at extracting such statistical regularities from domains, and generating novel examples that follow the statistics of the domain.

An example of this is from Sonys CSL Research Lab that can listen to music, extract the statistical regularities, and generate its own songs in the given style.As an example, the below song was generated in the style of the Beatles:

An example perhaps more illustrative of current advances is Googles drawing bot that is capable of generating photo-realistic images, given a text description. This system was trained on captioned images, and once trained could generate its own images given a text based description.

For example, the following drawing was generated from the query this bird is black and yellow with a short beak (i.e. this bird does not exist in real life, and was generated by the algorithm rather than being retrieved):

This system can generate a range of images, including ordinary pastoral scenes such as grazing livestock, through to more abstract concepts such as a floating double-decker bus.

Another example of this is in computer programming - as this is something schools are focussing on, that they believe will be an essential skill of the future.

EnterBayou...

Researchers from Rice University havecreated and are refining an applicationthat writes code given a short verbal description from the user.

The software uses deep learning to "read the programmer's mind and predict the program they want."

So, in short... There is major disruption about to potentially occur in this area as well. The future (and as such what we need to be teaching kids to prepare them for it), is very uncertain.

So - to answer the question that I started above.Yes, in the short-term there may be spaces between what humans and machines are capable of, but in the near future these spaces will get smaller and smaller.

In the long-term, I certainly believe creativity is an area that could and will be outsourced to machines (particularly in the technical space of creating new ideas and solutions).

The final bastion that seems to protect humans (and our jobs) from complete redundancy, is our human emotions and emotional intelligence.Many people argue that this is a defining feature of humans that truly segregates us from machines.

Or does it?

If you believe in evolution, you should believe that humans have emotions for a reason - there is some evolutionary benefit.

Thought of in this way, most emotions are definitely here for a reason.They are our internal guidance system that tells us if we are getting things right or wrong.For example, pain and fear are incredibly important, as they prevent us from taking risks that could lead to harm.No doubt such emotions are useful for machines to have as well, and we already see early analogues of them in machines of today (e.g., bump sensors, or sensors to prevent your robot vacuum cleaner from falling down stairs - sensors that prevent them from doing things that could be self-harming).

Ok, so pain is an obviously important signal for machines to have, but what about something more complex like happiness - what could be the evolutionary benefit of that?

Well, I am glad you asked, as it has been part of my own research to look at pleasure centres in the brain, and develop their analogue in robots - yes, indeed happy robots.

You can check out some of my older research on this topic in the video below.In short, one of the many purposes of happiness is that it drives learning (i.e. we are naturally curious, and are as a result active participants in our own learning).

So, hopefully, watching the above video, you will understand the role of emotions, and how they are central to intelligence.So, I do definitely believe that in the near future machines will have their own emotions and drives that will increase in complexity over time. There is no real bastion that will be left standing in the end.

I have made many strong claims in the above text (i.e. that in the near future, all human jobs are in jeopardy), and I am sure that there will be more than a few people that may be skeptical at this point.Possibly because the advances in current AI are not visible in our lives - they are currently hidden away in our factories, mobile phones, and online shopping recommendations. But if you look under the hood, the technology is there, and progressing at an alarming rate.

A possible metaphor is that of the boiling frog - i.e. if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out immediately, but if you put a frog in cool water that is brought slowly to boil it will not perceive the threat and be boiled alive (not scientifically true, but a nice metaphor).

As humans, we are used to slow and gradual change.In contrast, we are unfamiliar with exponential growth, in that something that we perceive as changing slowly today, may rapidly change tomorrow.As a result, rapid overnight changes are not something we naturally fear. But all the research suggests that advances in AI are following this exponential pattern, and there is a tipping point in the near future where changes will be rapid and unpredictable.

Ray Kurzweil, in his book the age of the spiritual machines charts evidence of this exponential growth, in terms of the increase of calculations per second of computers over time.Given the current GPUs we are currently using for AI, the predictions he made with respect to where we are in 2018 are remarkably accurate.

What is scary about this graph is that if these trends continue, the average PC will have the computational power of the human brain by around 2030, and the computational power of the entire human population in around 2050.

I am not necessarily saying that these predictions are fully accurate, but I do believe that as individuals we are underestimating the rapid changes to our lives that are about to occur.

If you view AI as a species that is evolving, it is evolving at a pace unlike anything we have ever witnessed before, and in the last 10 years, progress has been remarkable.

As an interesting example of this, check out Google Duplex:

There is no doubt that there is a tsunami of change that is about to hit our shores.A tsunami that few people are expecting, with a ferocity and timescale potentially more threatening to our species than climate change.

The danger I believe, is not in the technology itself, but in how we are using it.

If we use AI unchecked for corporate competitive advantage, there is no doubt companies will choose the cheapest and most efficient option, and the employees at the lowest levels will be the first to be hit hard.But over time, it is highly likely that all of our opportunities at all levels will be washed away. And very soon.

But it is a tsunami. I do believe we can channel for the greater good if we choose to.If we dont use it for corporate advantage but instead use it to solve the biggest issues facing humanity such as education, poverty, famine, disease and climate change.

I also fear that this issue will be similar to climate change that the leaders at the top will be reluctant to take action (e.g., it is unfathomable that some current world leaders are still denying that global warming is an issue, despite there being a 97% consensus by climate specialists).

So what can be done?

They say that the Holocaust was allowed to occur in Nazi Germany because the good people sat back and did nothing.Some later justified their inaction claiming that they did not know where the trains were heading. Today, we do not have this excuse. in terms of both climate change and AI, we know exactly where these trains are heading. and these trains contain our children.

I think the major problem we face in stopping or redirecting these trains (i.e. pressuring the government to intervene) is what in the psychological literature is known as bystander apathy - the fact that people in a crowd are less likely to step in and help than individuals witnessing an atrocity alone.

With bystander apathy, people only step in to help when:

1) they notice that something is going on

2) interpret the situation as being an emergency

3) feel that they have a degree of responsibility (i.e. there is no-one else who is better suited)

4) and know what to do to help.

So if it is really up to the people to upward manage our governments (to make sure companies act sustainably and in a way that is beneficial to humanity) - how do we avoid our own bystander apathy?

So if it is really up to the people to upwardly manage our governments (to make sure companies act sustainably and in a way that is beneficial to humanity) - how do we avoid our own bystander apathy?

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Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Work Should We Be Worried? - BBN Times

A day after a group of Gandhian organisations set out on a march from Sevagram to Sabarmati to protest against the redevelopment plan for Mahatma Gandhi-founded Sabarmati Ashram, the state government on Monday released a video on social media platforms, sharing its plan for the Ashram for the first time in public domain.

The government has termed its plan as "restoration" of "Gandhiji's karmabhoomi" to "keep alive his values and philosophy and continue to inspire future generations."

The 4.48 minutes long video titled "Gandhi Ashram Restoration Project" was uploaded on Chief Minister Office Twitter and Instagram handles. The video has been made by "Mahatma Gandhi Sabarmati Ashram Memorial Trust", which is said to have been formed by the state government recently to look after redevelopment work and the subsequent management of the Ashram precinct. Despite repeated attempts, K Kailashnathan, chairman of the Executive Council, set up by the state government for project implementation, didn't respond to comment.

The development comes a day after 50 people representing various Gandhian organisations embarked on "Sevagram-Sabarmati Sandesh Yatra" in protest against the government's plan for redevelopment. The march, started from Sevagram Ashram in Wardha, will reach Ahmedabad on October 23. On October 24, a silent protest is likely to be held at the Ashram.

The short videodescribes the Ashram set up by Gandhi in 1917 as "the austere, simple and authentic architecture of the ashram was the very embodiment of Gandhiji's value and philosophy."

It says, "It is true that today's Gandhi Ashram memorial is deeply inspiring yet it has long been felt that it leaves much to be desired. When established the Ashram was spread out over 120 acres of land on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. It had 63 buildings that housed numerous activities of the Ashram. Today, what people know as Gandhi Ashram is only five acres of the original Ashra which has been preserved as a memorial. Only three of its original buildings are open for visitors, many of the others have either been torn down or lie across the busy ashram road. The video says that over the years many new buildings "that are incongruous with the architecture of the original Ashram, have also been built on Ashram ground, making it unrecognisable from the place where Gandhijji nurtured India's quest for freedom."

It adds, "During this 75th year of India's independence the government has resolved to restore Gandhi ashram in a way that preserves the ethos of the original ashram. Ashram road will be severed and diverted. The Ashram will be expanded to include all buildings built during Gandhi's time. Buildings and activities which are not congruent with the proposed memorial will be moved to satellite campuses adjoining the ashram. Ashram wasis who are currently the tenants of various trusts will be given ownership of new houses with upgraded facilities located within 50 metres of their current locations. Those who chose to move to a different location will be provided a generous compensation or four-bedroom homes which are ready to occupy."

Sharing the government's plan, the film says, "A conceptual master plan for expansion and restoration of Arham has been prepared. The original building of the Ashram will be carefully restored and brought alive for everyone to visit and be inspired by. A few new museums and exhibits will be added to display Gandhi's life and works. Gandhi Ashram archive and library will be better housed and facilities will be created for research and training. Amenities will be augmented to support the continuously increasing number of visitors. All of these be done in a way that preserves the ethos and sanctity of the original Ashram.Chandrabha revolt in the vicinity of the ashram will be made into a pleasant urban waterway. The historic dandi bridge will be restored."

The video says that the estimated cost for this project is 1,200 crore, which will be funded by the Government of India and managed by the Gujarat government in "consultation and consensus" with all stakeholders. "Restoration of Gandhiji's karmabhoomi will keep alive his values and philosophy and continue to inspire future generations," the video added.

Check out the latest videos fromDH:

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Gujarat govt releases video of its plan for Gandhi Ashram, says 'restoration' to inspire future generation - Deccan Herald

Three firms have bid for the Gandhi Ashram redevelopment project work, for which the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) had issued a tender worth an estimated cost of Rs 218 crore last month, said AMC officials.

The technical scrutiny of the three bidders is expected to be completed by October 19 and if all goes as per plan, the work is expected to commence by end of November, an AMC official said.

The three bidders include construction company NCC in a joint venture with Ahmedabad-based P Das Infrastructure Ltd, Ahmedabad-based Apex Tarmac Pvt Ltd and Kalthia Group base in Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar, according to AMC officials who handle the tender process for the Gandhi Ashram Precinct Development at Sardar Patel Stadium in West Zone, which shall cover the restructuring of the Chandrabhaga river a tributary of the Sabarmati. The submission of bids to the online tender, which closed on October 5, are undergoing technical evaluation to verify if the bidders fulfill the necessary criteria for undertaking the work, said an AMC official.

Once the technical evaluation and scrutiny are done, we will open up the financial bid for whosoever qualifies where they will quote the amount and the one who quotes the lowest will win the bid, the official said.

According to the tender document, the bidder shall have experience of similar work of infrastructure-based projects, completed between 2014-15 and 2020-21. After the financial bidding, the AMC official said, it would take one week for approval from the municipal commissioner and 21 days for approval of the standing committee (of the AMC)Work will start thereafter.

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Gandhi Ashram Redevelopment: Received bids from 3 firms, says AMC officials - The Indian Express

Samantha Ruth Prabhu is vacationing in Rishikesh with her friend and has been sharing pictures from there. The Family Man 2 star, who has been in the news lately for her separation from Naga Chaitanya, has revealed she's staying at The Roseate Ganges, a luxury hotel on the banks of the river Ganges.

In the pictures shared on her Instagram Stories, Samantha gave a glimpse of the infinity pool that comes with a view of the mountain, the monkeys, a huge spiderweb she noticed, and an old tree she spotted. She also geotagged the location. Her friend Shilpa Reddy also shared a picture to reveal that they stepped out for a trek.

The luxury resort, as per their official website, offers nature walks by the river, treks, yoga on the white sand beach, meditation, the religious Arti by the Ganges, river rafting, a spiritual peregrination, as well as visits to organic farms, Sivananda Ashram, Rajaji National Wildlife Park and The Beatles Ashram.

With 17 villas present, a night at the resort could cost anything between 26,897 to 50,000, depending on the time of the year one visits. While the prices seem to be below 30,000 most times, on occasions like Diwali and New Year, the prices shoot up.

Also read: Samantha Ruth Prabhu reveals what she hates being asked in interviews, calls such questions extremely inhumane

Previously, Janhvi Kapoor had stayed at the resort when she visited Rishikesh with her friends. A picture of her unwinding in the infinity was shared by the resort as well.

Samantha's break in the mountains comes after her announcement of her split with Chaitanya. After being married for close to four years, Samantha and Chaitanya issued identical statements confirming that they were parting ways. Although the cause of their separation isn't revealed, Samantha had lashed out at rumours suggesting affairs, that she never wanted children and has had abortions.

The Telugu star is also set to return to work soon. She has recently signed two bilingual movies back-to-back. One is helmed by director duo Hari and Harish whereas the second is with debutant director Shantharuban. She also has director Gunasekar's period drama Shaakuntalam in the pipeline.

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Step inside Samantha Ruth Prabhu's Rishikesh luxury resort on banks of river Ganges, see pics and video - Hindustan Times

Durga Puja is an integral part of Hindu Bengali culture. Apart from being a religious festival, it is an emotion that resonates in the hearts of the Bengali community. As such, it comes as no surprise that Bengalis wait in sheer anticipation of the annual Durga Puja. But, for Hindus living across the border in Bangladesh, the auspicious occasion was sullied by violence, vandalism, killings, rapes and desecration at the hands of radical Islamists.

In a Muslim-majority nation where they constitute less than 10% of the total population, Hindus remain vulnerable to attacks by radical Islamic terrorists. Opindia has documented 100s of such cases of persecution and ill-treatment meted out to the minority community. Given Bangladeshs track record of human rights violations, attacks on Hindus remains a routine affair. However, this time the Islamists tried to create a context to justify their ruthless atrocities on minorities, ahead of Durga Puja.

In the wee hours of Wednesday (October 13), radical Islamists reportedly entered the Nanuar Dighir Par Durga Mandir in Cumilla district and placed a copy of the Quran on the feet of the idol of Lord Hanuman. According to Shibu Prasad Dutta, the general secretary of Cumilla Mahanagar Puja Udjapon Committee, someone carried out the mischief in the morning when the guard was asleep. The miscreants took some pictures of this and ran away. Within a few hours, using Facebook, the propaganda spread like wildfire with the provocative pictures, confirmed a district official.

The foundation for orchestrating a Hindu pogrom was perfectly laid The insult of the Holy Book, the punishment for which is death. Dipan Mitra, the Secretary-General of World Hindu federation (Bangladesh Chapter), stated, Then they raised an issue of insulting Islam and gathered a mob and started attacked Hindu Temples in Cumilla town. After that, the attack on temples and Hindus was spread all over the country

He further added, They Vandalized more than 315 Temples and its Idols and looted all valuable things in more than 30 districts of Bangladesh during 13 16 October 2021. They attacked and vandalized nearly 1500 Hindu houses in Cumilla, Chandpur, Noakhali, Chittagong, Coxs Bazar, Feni, Chapai Nawabgonj and other districts. Mitra recounted the names of the 10 Hindus who were slaughtered by radical Islamists under the garb of blasphemy. They included Manik Saha, Jatan Saha, Prashanta Das, Priest Nimai Krishna, 4 unnamed Hindu priests and 1 more unidentified victim. Besides, 23 Hindu women and girls were raped and 17 Hindus remain missing.

Mitra concluded, Now is the time to clarify the position of the government do they want Bangladesh to be a secular prosperous Bangladesh or do they want to take it back to the ideology of previous Pakistan. He also mentioned that the lack of justice is giving birth to new crimes in this country. He appealed to the government for immediate arrest of all culprits and provides exemplary punishment.

While blaming the Hindu community for the desecration of the Quran, Islamists vandalised the Durga Puja pandal and the idols of the deities kept at the Nanuar Dighir Par Durga Mandir in Cumilla. According to Dipan Mitra, the Islamic extremists also attacked the Nrisingh Dev and Dashavuja Kali temples. He added that the mob also vandalised the Rishipara temple, Rajeswari Kali temple, besides 14 other temples and Durga pandals in the district.

The Secretary-General of the World Hindu Federation (Bangladesh Chapter) informed that the Muslim fanatics attacked 15 Puja pandals (Banskhali), 3 temples and puja pandals (Melaghar in Patia), 5 temples and Puja pandals (Sarkarhat and Hathazari) in the Chittagonj district. He added that attacks were also carried out at the Karunamoyi Kalibari temple at Chakbazar and J M Sen Hall Puja Pandal in Chittagonj.

At the same time, 70 Hindu houses were attacked in Hajiganj in the Chandpur district. About 150 Hindu families were targeted along with the iconic Ramkrishna Mission. Besides, 7 temples and puja pandals were also destroyed by Muslim extremists. Advocate Dr Gobinda Chandra Pramanik, Secretary-General of Bangladesh Jatio Hindu Mohajote, shared the news of the death of Manik Saha, publicity secretary of Chandpur district branch of Bangladesh National Hindu Youth Grand Alliance.

The Islamists attacked the Ram Thakur Ashram and vandalised 10 temples and puja pandals including Mongola, Nabadurga, Bijoya, Trishul and Koatbari Puja Pandal. About 20 houses were attacked in Nalchira, Chayanibazar, Begumgonj, Choumohoni and Sonaimuri. At the same time, 9 temples and puja pandals were vandalised at Choumohoni in Noakhali.

On Friday (October 15), a frenzied mob of radical Islamists attacked the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) temple in the Noakhali district of Bangladesh.In a tweet, the official handle of ISKCON wrote, ISKCON temple & devotees were violently attacked today by a mob in Noakhali, Bangladesh. Temple suffered significant damage & the condition of a devotee remains critical. We call on the Govt of Bangladesh to ensure the safety of all Hindus & bring the perpetrators to justice.

The Bangladesh unit of ISKCON lamented that the sculpture of its founder, AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, was burnt down during the arson attack on the temple. A Twitter account (@HinduVoice_in) had shared disturbing visuals of arson by radical Islamists. In the video clip, flames and smoke were seen rising from the burnt ISKCON temple. SpokesmanRadharamn Das had shared visuals of a Hindu monk, who was critically injured after sustaining a dagger attack to his head.

In a video that has now surfaced on social media, a Hindu monk at ISKCONnarrated, Hare Krishna! Today, Jamaat attacked the ISKCON temple and other temples in Choumani in Noakhali. They have executed it as part of a vicious plan. ISKCON Mandir has been desecrated. They have killed one devotee outright and stabbed another, leading to his critical state. Several motorcycles were set on fire. There was a mob of 400-500 people. They have looted 1 lakh taka from our temple The Noakhali administration has yet not taken any action against the miscreants.

Radical Islamists attacked Hindus in the Feni district in the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh. A 14-second video clip had gone viral wherein radical Islamists could be seencreating mayhem on the streets. Equipped with lathis, the frenzied mob gathered in large numbers and then looted and vandalised Hindu temples in unison.

Reportedly, the President of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, Shukdeb Nath Tapan, was attacked by the same Islamist mob near the Joykali temple. The Hindu community was preparing to lead a march from the said temple to the old Dhaka-Chattogram Highways Trunk Road. Islamists, who had gathered near Trunk Road Bara Masjid attacked the Hindus with sticks and brickbats. In a bid to control the law and order situation, the cops deployed a large team in the Feni town. They resorted to firing tear gas shells to disperse the unruly mob.

According to Officer-in-Charge (Feni Model Police Station) Nizam Uddin, more than 40 people were injured during the clashes. They were then rushed to the Feni General Hospital. According to Shukdeb, the district administration took time in sending in Border Guard Bangladesh (BGF)and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). The attackers torched a passenger vehicle at Kalipal, hurled crude bombs, vandalised a fire truck and attacked Hindu temples such as JoyKali, Jagannathbari, Kalibari Temple and Gaziganj Ashram.

As per eyewitnesses, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami named Islami Chhatra Shibir was among the perpetrators. Local activists of the Awami League and its student wing Bangladesh Chhatra League tried to resist the attackers. Weve got reports about vandalism of shops. We are working on it, stated Inspector Monir Hossain (Feni Model Police Station).

In a fresh attack on Sunday (October 17), they carried out arson at a village and burnt 20 Hindu homes in Pirganj Upazila in the Rangpur Division of Bangladesh.

BDNews24reportedthat Muslims in Jelepolli in Majipara had alleged that a Hindu man had posted content dishonouring religion on Facebook. District Superintendent Md Qamruzzaman stated, Police stood guard around his home. That home was saved, but the attackers set fire to some other homes not so far from his. The frenzied mob of radical Islamists targeted three villages namely, Majhipara, Bottola and Hatibandha villages in Pirganj Upazila.

BDNews24 added that the Fire Service Department received information about the arson attack at around 9:50 pm. It was only at 3 am on Monday morning that the fire could finally be extinguished. While there have been no casualties or estimates of the damage caused, it is believed that 15-20 houses were burnt down during the attack.

Dipan Mitra, the Secretary-General of the World Hindu Federation (Bangladesh Chapter) shared a list of temples, Hindu houses that were attacked and burnt in 24 other districts of Bangladesh. His comprehensive list reads

In a statement on Friday (October 15), the International Commission for Human Rights and Religious Freedom(ICHRRF) condemned the targeted attacks on the minority Hindu population during Durga Puja. ICHRRF remarked, Durga Puja is the years biggest religious festivity in traditional Bengali Hindu culture, and is a time of great celebration, musical performance, dioramas, feasts, parades and personal reflection, observed across social divides in Bengali society. However, this iconic Hindu religious festival has come under gruesome attack from Muslim mobs this year in Bangladesh, vandalizing Hindu temples, smashing icons, and assaulting devotees.

It further added, Across 22 districts of Bangladesh, major and minor incidents of attacks and vandalism have so far claimed the lives of at least 4 people and injured over 60 others, some critically. The violence erupted in Cumilla after rumours of an act of blasphemy at a Hindu religious gathering. Attacks followed in quick succession at several other locations. ICHRRF also condemned the targeting of the ISKCON temple in Noakhali. The International Commission for Human Rights and Religious Freedom also criticised the action of the Bangladeshi police.

To stop the attacks, Bangladesh police authorities have enforced a ban on all kinds of gatherings and rallies in several districts, effectively squelching public festivities and giving in to Islamist demands to exterminate overtly Hindu observances. The police also opened fire on a gathering of over 500 people, which is reported to have resulted in some casualties. The Durga Puja attacks this year are not isolated. They form part of a continuing series of attacks on Bangladeshi Hindus since early this year, which in turn are part of a decades long process of ethnic cleansing of minorities from Bangladesh, it concluded.

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From Hindu temples to Durga Puja pandals, Hindu homes, shops and villages: Comprehensive account of the carnage in Bangladesh by Islamists - OpIndia

Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Sunday asserted that despite less time, all out efforts would be made to realise the peoples dreams by fulfilling the remaining promises made to them.

Reiterating his Governments firm commitment to ensure holistic development in the State and welfare of all sections of the society, Channi said

judicious utilisation of time would be done to achieve the goal for betterment of the State.

Channi, in his address during a function held at local MLA and former Minister Sunder Sham Aroras residence, said the State Government was working round the clock to ensure overall development and timely completion of ongoing infrastructure works as urban development is a crucial component of holistic growth.

All basic amenities in urban areas will be provided to the people in the urban areas keeping in view their future needs, said Channi, adding that there was no dearth of funds for the same.

Announcing Rs 10 crore for Hoshiarpur to be given within next few days, the Chief Minister said that his Government was already making best use of available time so as to touch new heights of success and glory in the State as per peoples aspirations.

Pointing out, the Chief Minister also announced that Hoshiarpur would get state-of-the-art Biodiversity and Sports Park at a cost of Rs five crore to further develop flora and fauna in the region.

Foundation stone of this Park and the upcoming Medical College would be laid shortly. However, the classes of this Medical College would commence from the next academic session. All the necessary directions have already been issued to expedite the process for tender floating so that its construction could be started at the earliest, he added.

Extending a healing touch to the children, who lost their parents during COVID-19 pandemic, Channi handed over packets containing daily use items and some cash to them.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister also went to the residences of MLA Arun Dogra and MLA Pawan Kumar Adia, where he met the families of both MLAs and interacted with them. Later on, the Chief Minister also visited MLA Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewals residence.

The Chief Minister, accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Revenue Minister Aruna Chaudhary, also paid obeisance at Swami Jagat Giri Ashram in Pathankot. Channi, who attended the Satsang while sitting amongst the people, announced a grant of Rs 51 lakh for Ashram, road widening project that leads to the Ashram, and also laid the foundation stone of a hostel in MKM Public School at Ashram premises.

Special focus is being laid to strengthen the education and health sectors for ensuring affordable quality healthcare and education to the weaker sections of the society so that young minds from the unprivileged part of the society can contribute towards societys development, he said.

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Channi: Govt committed to ensure holistic development in State - Daily Pioneer

British-Vietnamese producer Chi Thai will shoot Paris Zarcillas debut feature, horror Raging Grace, this November in the UK. With inspirations including Get Out and Parasite, the film centres on an undocumented Filipina immigrant who lands a job that ensures a better life for her and her daughter, only to discover it will destroy everything she holds dear. Thai says the film will connect with any group thats been confronted with marginalisation or oppression from systemic forces.

To support Zarcilla while writing the script during the pandemic, Thai used money from the 2020 BFI Vision award for her company Last Conker. AMC-owned horror platform Shudder fully financed the film in April.

It is the latest step forwards for Thai in a career that kicked off at Leeds Northern Film School, where she graduated in 2001. She stepped away from the industry around the time of the 2007-08 recession, before returning a couple of years later with a real intensity after becoming a parent.

A passion for inclusion led to producing Kim Albrights 2016 short The Purple Plain, about the 13 women who underwent NASA astronaut training in the early 1960s. Matt Kays short doc Little Miss Sumo followed, about a female sumo wrestlers struggle against tradition and stigma. Netflix picked it up after it played at Tribeca 2019, releasing it in October that year.

The Promise, a 2020 animated short made for the BBC based on Nicola Davies and Laura Carlins book, was presented at Doc Societys Climate Story Lab, and launched in more than 1,500 UK schools. Her upcoming slate includes childrens animated series Me Jane with Irelands Cartoon Saloon, based on Patrick McDonnells picture book about UK primatologist Jane Goodall; plus Dark Chapter, adapted from Winnie M Lis Not The Booker prize-winning crime fiction.

This year Thai and cinema analytics executive Delphine Lievens published The Exclusion Act, a report indicating how the film industry is failing British East and Southeast Asians (BESEA). It found only 0.8% of British films in the last 10 years come from that diaspora. I want to work bigger, and with partners that help me do stories that centre on BESEA people, she says.

Contact: Chi Thai

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Stars of Tomorrow 2021: Chi Thai (producer) | Features | Screen - Screen International

The Rescue, an arresting truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of a Thai youth soccer team trapped in a remote flooded cave system, opens on five screens in NY/LA/Chicago this weekend in a specialty market waiting for audiences to wake up and see that theyre missing out, according to Ed Arentz, co-president of the docs distributor Greenwich Entertainment. And sooner rather than later hes counting on strong word of mouth to expand to 350-400 screeens next weekend.

A triumph at Telluride and Toronto, The Rescue has the reach of National Geographic (its a Nat Geo film) and pedigreed filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the husband-and-wife team who won a Best Documentary Film Oscar for Free Solo in 2019.

That film followed a professional rock climber attempting the first free solo ascent of the famed El Capitans 900-meter vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park. The Rescue instead features a cast of hundreds assembled to help the Wild Boars soccer club led by a handful of eccentric amateur cave divers who performed the seemingly impossible. The 12 boys and their coach, hungry and sick and with monsoon rains about to flood their small air chamber, seemed irretrievable. Divers ultimately anesthetized and pulled them one by one over the course of three days through narrow, winding passages in pitch dark water to the cave mouth, each perilous foray taking two to three hours. Saving even one would have been considered a victory. They all made it. Deadline review here.

Jimmy and I, like many people in 2018, were living the story, the lows and the highs, said Vasarhelyi. How many different people came together. Both of us being Asian and having spent time in Thailand, we were tracking the story from the beginning.

Finding footage was a huge challenge. Many docs have lots of footage but no story. We had a great story but no footage, said Vasarhelyi. The duo gathered it piece by piece from divers GoPros and never-before-seen images they tracked to the wife of a Thai admiral. The rescues were re-created in part at Pinewood Studios with the original divers and deftly melded. When you see a child get initially anesthetized, that was real footage. Then they go underwater. Someone underwater, that is a re-enactment, she said.

Some 2,000 people attended a NYC premiere Tuesday night outside in Central Park.

Most filmmakers including us want the big screen and the theatrical experience, Vasarhelyi said. But more than anything, I want people to feel safe and do what they feel comfortable with. I am grateful for anyone who comes out to see the film.

That sums up a specialty market now, still awaiting the arthouse equivalent of Shang-Chi, Venom or Bond (is it The French Dispatch? The Tragedy of Macbeth?) and a return of its key older demo. Theres debate over whether the trouble is the product, the audience or the theaters. A still-shuttered ArcLight in L.A. is sorely missed, for example, but other arthouses were losing traction even pre-Covid.)

Mostly we need to see multiple films performing well and drawing from different segments of the audience, said Arentz. The past few months have seen maybe one decent holdover each weekend with everything else is left in the dust.

So the films keep coming. This weekends releases include A24s twisted Icelandic horror Lamb, from Cannes, in 500-plus theaters; Bleecker Streets well-reviewed drama Mass on four screens (two in NY and two in LA, adding Chicago, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston and Phoenix next weekend; and Aharon Keshales noirish Jason Sudeikis starrer South of Heaven.

Lamb, starring Noomi Rapace, follows a sad, childless couple in rural Iceland who make an alarming discovery one day in their sheep barn and face the consequences of defying the will of nature. This dark, atmospheric but also deadpan-funny folk tale is a debut feature from director Valdimar Jhannsson.

Mass, Fran Kranzs writing and directing debut, has two set of parents sitting down to talk years after an unspeakable tragedy a school shooting tore their lives apart. With Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney and Ann Dowd as the respective parents of the victim and the shooter, who took his own life, on a journey of grief, anger and acceptance.

In South of Heaven, after serving 12 years for armed robbery, Jimmy (Sudeikis) gets an early parole. Upon his release from prison, he vows to give Annie (Evangeline Lilly), his childhood love whos now dying from cancer, the best year of her life. If only it were that simple. From RJLE Films. In 19 theaters. With Mike Colter, Shea Whigham. Deadline review here.

Elsewhere in specialty, Hard Luck Love Song from Roadside Attractions is a gritty love story inspired by singer-songwriter Todd Sniders Americana hit Just Like Old Times. It follows Jesse (Michael Dorman), a charismatic, down-on-his-luck troubadour living in cheap motels and making bad decisions. He finds himself at an existential crossroads during a chance encounter with Carla (Sophia Bush), an old flame. Written and directed by Justin Corsbie.

Jacinta will premiere on Hulu and in select theaters. The doc landed first-time director Jessica Earnshaw the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award at the Tribeca Festival. It follows a young woman who struggles to find stability after years of addiction and reconnect with the daughter she left behind. Shot over three years, the film begins at the Maine Correctional Center where Jacinta, 26, and her mother Rosemary, 46 both recovering addicts are incarcerated together.

Knocking from Yellow Veil Pictures is Frida Kempffs Swedish horror thriller about a woman who, after experiencing a traumatic incident, is unnerved by a haunting knocking sound from upstairs in her new apartment building. Cecilia Milocco stars. Premiered at the Midnight section at Sundance.

Demigod from Gravitas, more horror. Miles Doleacs film follow a woman (Rachel Nichols) who travels with her husband (Yohance Myles) to Germanys Black Forestto collect her inheritanceafter her huntsman grandfather dies. A terrifying secret forces her to reckon with her familys past and a mysterious ritual she thought was the stuff of fairy tales.

Comedy Golden Voices from Music Box Films follows Raya (Maria Belkin) and Victor (Vladimir Friedman), who built career as the Soviet Unions most beloved film dubbers, translating the work of Federico Fellini and Stanley Kubrick into Russian over the decades. Upon the collapse of the USSR in 1990, the Jewish couple must emigrate to Israel and reinvent themselves, but opportunities for first-rate vocal performances are few and far between. Raya finds herself catering to a lonely Russian community as a phone-sex operator, while Victor falls in with a band of black-market film pirates from the VHS underground. Directed by Evgeny Ruman.

Ascension from MTV Documentary Films, shot at locations across China by Jessica Kingdon, explores the class divides exposed by the nations economic growth. It took awards for best documentary and best new documentary filmmaker at the Tribeca Festival.

The Gig Is Up by Shannon Walsh, from Gravitas, takes on the gig economy, bringing to light the often-harrowing stories of the countrys shadow workforce.

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The Rescue Tests Murky Arthouse Waters: We Need To See Multiple Films Performing Well Specialty Preview - Deadline