India's $70 million pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai will be completed and handed over to event organisers by the end of July.
The four-storey pavilion aims to blend history and art with technology and business using displays and exhibitions from different states throughout the six-month Expo.
The entrance is dominated by a giant spinning wheel or charkha as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi.
The charkha is a symbol of the non-violence leader's call to Indians to weave their own cloth instead of relying on foreign goods during India's independence struggle against British colonial rule.
“The India pavilion will be handed over to the Expo 2020 team by end of July 2021. Almost 75 per cent is complete, including flooring, utilities, facade, and painting,” said Siddhartha Kumar Baraily, press officer with the Indian consulate in Dubai.
“The project management team working on the India pavilion are optimistic of physical completion of the pavilion by end of April 2021 and then curation and exhibition related work will be done.”
The $70m (5 billion rupees) pavilion built across a 1.2-acre plot is one of the largest at the Expo site.
Unlike other buildings that must be dismantled after the Expo ends in March 2021, the India pavilion is one of three that will remain as part of the legacy of the world's fair.
A mosaic of earthy-coloured panels that rotate in the wind is part of a constantly changing facade.
“The design elements reflect the vibrant diversity of India’s rich culture, heritage, thriving business milieu,” Mr Baraily said.
“It will be a highly dynamic pavilion where the showcasing changes every one to two weeks in sync with the changing themes of the Expo and with each new state coming in.”
Visitors will be invited to participate in festivals such as Diwali, the festival of lights, and Holi, celebrated with colour.
The ground floor will focus on the country’s mission to Mars, after which visitors can walk down a green path filled with medicinal herbs to enter a section dedicated to yoga and wellness.
Indian heritage, the country's best tourism destinations and sections centered on established and emerging businesses will be spread across the next three levels.
As visitors leave, they will have a chance to ask questions of Gandhi through interactive holographic images.
There are also plans to invite celebrity chefs, authors, scientists and Bollywood actors to the pavilion.
“Expo 2020 will give an opportunity to Indian businesses and provide them with a global platform to tap the markets in the region,” Mr Baraily said.
“The Expo will give India an opportunity to showcase the diversity of Indian culture and encourage Emiratis and others to discover different parts of India.”
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- Premier League-standard football pitch
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- 600-seat auditorium
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- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
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Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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