A popular Indian comic superhero who usually fights rapists and traffickers deploys her powers against a new enemy — COVID-19 — in the latest digital book and film released on Wednesday.
Priya, a rape survivor who flies around on a tigress, has since 2014 been spreading the message of gender equality by helping other women and girls get justice in the Priya’s Shakti (Priya’s Strength) comics.
In Priya’s Mask, India’s first female superhero befriends a little girl, Meena, to show her the sacrifices made by health workers, like her mother, and to spread compassion and battle COVID-19 myths, such as young people not being at risk.
“There was a lot of misinformation being disseminated, mostly on WhatsApp and social media, within India about the pandemic,” series creator Ram Devineni said.
“There was victim blaming, blaming poor people, blaming various nationalities for the virus... Priya challenges that disinformation,” he said.
The South Asian nation has the world’s second-highest number of COVID-19 infections, behind only the US, with about 9.5 million cases and more than 138,000 deaths, according to a tally by the Johns Hopkins University.
In Priya’s Mask, the superhero teams up with Jiya, star of Pakistan’s Burka Avenger cartoon, to help the villain when he catches COVID-19, underlining the “need for compassion and humanity in such times,” script writer Shubhra Prakash said.
The creators said they drew on their own isolation, fear and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic while developing the story.
Devineni’s elderly father, a pediatrician for nearly 50 years, had to shut his practice to shield himself and attend, via video, the funerals of two close friends who died from COVID-19.
Monika Samtani, one of the producers based in Washington, said she was constantly worried for her husband, a doctor, and her family, and that Priya’s “real superpowers” were to explore these feelings with honesty and courage.
“She’s a freaking badass. She’s female, she’s brown. And brown to me is really important because I live in the United States and that representation is also what drew me to this because it’s about time,” she said.
“It’s here now, and it’s here to stay,” she added.
Initial talks are underway about Priya’s next adventures, which the creators said could tackle everything from mental health and body image issues to climate change.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS