Akira Kurosawa: The emperor of Japanese cinema

Akira Kurosawa (1910–1998), the man who ruled Japanese cinema for five decades, was born to a samurai family, in Tokyo. Young Kurosawa was introduced to cinema by his father, who took his eight children to the movies to familiarize them with Western culture. In his school days, he was attracted to art and painting, after being motivated by his teacher Mr Tachikawa.

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Population explosion in Asia

Asia, the largest continent on Earth, has a total land area of 44,579,000 square kilometers. It constitutes 30 per cent of the total available land area. The continent tops the list even in terms of population. More than 4.1 billion people reside in Asia, which is 60 per cent of the entire global population, with a population density of 87 persons per square kilometer.

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Highway through a building

The Japanese engineers found an ingenious way to make the best use of the available space when they built the exit of the Hanshin Highway through the Gate Tower building in Fukushima-ku, Osaka. The exit passes between the fifth and seventh floors of the building. The elevators pass through these floors without stopping. There is a structure that surrounds the part of the highway passing through the building to protect the building from noise.

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Once Gandhiji asked, ‘What is hockey?’

In 1932 Los Angeles Olympics there were three teams, India, Japan and the USA, in men’s hockey. India won the gold by defeating Japan and USA respectively by 11–1 and 24–1. When it came to raising funds for sending the team to Los Angeles, a journalist representing the Indian Hockey Federation approached Mahatma Gandhi to issue an appeal to the masses. Gandhiji’s only reply was, ‘What is hockey?’

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