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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS