Latest news with #Ananth
Otago Daily Times
03-07-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Woman with $70k student loan debt too afraid to return
By Bella Craig of RNZ A former IRD prosecutor is calling for changes to the student loan system so that Kiwis living overseas aren't put off coming home because they're worried about being arrested at the border. In April, interest rates for overseas borrowers were lifted from 3.9 percent to 4.9 percent and the late payment interest rate for all borrowers to 8.9 percent. Tax barrister Dave Ananth said this was putting people off returning to New Zealand at a time we should be encouraging skilled people to come home. A pilot who's been living in Australia for over 10 years has racked up a whopping $170,000 in student loan debt, most of it being interest. After completing his training in 2014 he struggled to find work in Aotearoa, so he headed across the ditch, where he worked as a commercial pilot for six years. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and overseas travel all but ground to a halt, he was forced to take a low-paying job in a storage warehouse meaning he struggled to meet his loan payments. The pilot, whom Checkpoint has agreed not to name, has since resumed flying for a regional carrier, but worried about an uncertain job market and whether he'd ever pay off his loan. "This loan becomes an ongoing - it becomes a burden and it's not the fact the size of it. There's just no pathway forward as it currently stands." Checkpoint's also spoken to a woman who was unable to come home to see her sick mother as she was scared she'd be arrested at the border. When she moved to the United States 20 years ago, her student loan debt was around $15,000. That had ballooned to close to $70,000. "When they told me how much penalty fees that I had and that was 10 years ago when I first found out about the penalty fees and that was more than my initial student loan and interest combined, I just was deflated." She received emails from IRD threatening legal action if she didn't pay, but she said she couldn't afford it. "You may think, 'oh no, I'm just going to go to a different country and make all my money there'. "But at some point, in time, when you're older, you're going to want to go back to your roots and see family and friends. I just screwed that up for myself. "Just don't get yourself in this situation like so many of us have where you can't even go home and see family when they're ill. "I've been petrified something's going to happen to my mum and she's going to pass away and I'm not even going to be able to go there." After getting legal help from Ananth, IRD agreed to wipe the penalty fees so she now need only pay the original $15,000 loan and interest. Ananth, who's a tax barrister with the law firm Stace Hammond, agreed there should be penalties for failure to pay but said these should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. "A lot of them are telling me I've not heard from IRD for the last 10 years, but IRD's perspective is it's your obligation, you should contact. "[It's] that sort of 'Who should contact? I'm away, you haven't rung me, there was no emails', that sort of thing. I think both sides need to come to the table." He also wanted better communication between IRD and the student debtor. "There should be a bit of leeway to say, 'Hey, okay you come in, but come back and talk to us and see whether a hardship application can be made, whether you can pay a few $100 for a start and then we can see how you go'." "For a lot of them because the loan has been taken, 15, 20 years ago they've got their head buried in the sand, they don't want to deal with it. So, it creates a lot of anxiety, creates mental stress for a lot of people." In the year to March, there were about 80,000 overseas-based student loan borrowers with overdue repayments - that's an increase of 10 percent on the year before. In total they owed $2.3 billion. Ananth said many people had found the grass wasn't greener overseas. "Everyone doesn't go overseas straight away and then lands in this cushy, $200,000, $300,000 job." He said people working in healthcare, technology, and engineering should be prioritised to help plug gaps in the job market here. Inland Revenue said between January 23 and February 7 this year they had emailed 3502 borrowers with overdue repayments telling them they're being monitored, and that enforcement may be taken against them. That could include being arrested at the New Zealand border. But it said border arrests were a last resort, and it would work with people before taking legal action. One borrower in default had been arrested in the past year. IRD said it could consider remission of late payment interest, but on a case-by-case basis. It said borrowers often did not update their contact details when overseas making it harder for the department to contact them. The student loan base interest rate was increased by one percent in the 2024 Budget and was intended to partially cover the loss in value of the scheme due to recent high inflation. IRD did not set the student loan interest or late payment interest rates. "Student loan interest that has been correctly charged on overseas based borrowers student loan accounts cannot be written off under current legislation, nor can Inland Revenue accept any agreement that voids a borrower's liability to repay this. "We always encourage student loan borrowers to contact us directly to discuss their situation. There is no need to engage the services of a lawyer."
Hans India
22-06-2025
- Hans India
10-year-old boy electrocuted; BBMP officials booked
Bengaluru: An FIR has been registered against Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) officials in connection with the death of a 10-year-old boy due to electrocution in K R Puram area here, police said on Saturday. The incident occurred on June 15 when Ananth, a native of Nepal, while playing with a broom on the third-floor of his rented accommodation, came into contact with a high-tension wire, they said. According to the police, the boy was alone at home in Swatantra Nagar when the incident occurred. His mother, a house help was at work at that time. Following the incident, neighbours who heard the boy's screams rushed him to KR Puram government hospital and later he was shifted to the burns ward at Victoria Hospital for advanced treatment. He succumbed to injuries on Friday during the course of treatment, a senior police officer said. Based on the victim's mother's complaint, we have registered a case against the building owner, BBMP and BESCOM officials under section 106 (causing death by negligence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act, he added.
New Indian Express
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Ananth Subramaniam: Tamils have a culture of acceptance
The idea behind Pride Month lies in rebellion. The first Pride march was held in June 1970, one year after the Stonewall Riots in New York. For filmmaker Ananth Subramaniam, who believes telling the stories of the underdogs is important, the recognition for his recent film, Bleat! (Kattu! in Tamil), was a shot in the arm. The film won the Queer Palm at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. 'My interest in cinema is passed down from my parents,' says Ananth, who studied architecture for his undergraduate studies in Malaysia. It was in Malaysia that he had the opportunity to make documentaries, albeit in an amateurish manner. Shifting his focus to short films proved to be a better decision. Liar Land, one of his short films, received a special mention in the Locarno Film Festival. His other short film, The House of Brick and Stone, premiered at the Fantasia Festival, which was held in Montreal, Canada. Ananth considers Bleat! as a personal test, especially since he moved out of his comfort zone. 'I was previously making films in Malay. So I wanted to see if making a film in Tamil would work for me,' says Ananth. In Bleat!, an old couple realise that their ceremonial goat, which they thought was a male, is actually pregnant. Talking about the queer elements in Bleat!, Ananth says, 'There is a rigid demeanour to the couple. They represent the conservative ideals you find in parents, with the goat representing a queer child. Queerness comes with finding your identity. It is about the freedom to be who you want to be. Beyond a person's sexual preferences, it is about a queer person's feelings and their quest to find their place in the world. So even though we are confronted with the woes of the couple in Bleat!, the film is about the community around the couple and its reaction to the change in the gender of the goat.'
Hype Malaysia
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hype Malaysia
Malaysian Short Film 'Bleat!' Wins Queer Palm Award At Cannes Film Festival 2025
Earlier in April, the Malaysian-Tamil short film 'Bleat! (கத்து!)' made history as the first Malaysian short film to compete in the Critics' Week section at the Cannes Film Festival. A month later, the project achieved another milestone after it won the Queer Palm Award. 'Bleat!' is a Malaysian-French-Filipino comedic drama short film directed and written by Malaysian filmmaker Ananth Subramaniam. The movie tells the story of an elderly Malaysian-Tamil couple who discovers their male goat is pregnant. As the goat was raised for a ceremonial slaughter, the couple faces the dilemma of proceeding with the ritual or risking divine consequences. On 24th May 2025, the 2025 Cannes Film Festival closed out and awarded the winning movies of the year. 'Bleat!' won the Queer Palm award under the short film category, making history as the first Malaysian short film to win the award. The Queer Palm is an independently sponsored prize for selected LGBT-relevant films in the Cannes Film Festival. The award recognises films for their treatment of LGBT themes. Upon winning the award, Director Ananth Subramaniam shared a touching speech with the crowd. He said, ' There are some in the older generation who are so oblivious to change. Even when the change hits them right in the face, they feel the need to ignore it. But tonight, in this space, among you, I feel the opposite. I feel seen. I feel our stories are being heard, our truths acknowledged, and our joys celebrated.' Ananth's speech continues, 'Bleat! was born out of defiance, but it grew in tenderness. It's a film about the voice that breaks the silence, even when it trembles. About bodies that don't conform but still dance. About queerness not just as identity, but as resistance and reinvention.' Ending his speech, he said, 'To the Queer Palm jury — thank you for holding space for films that don't ask for permission. And to the older generation, may you someday listen, not to correct, but to understand.' The comments were filled with congratulations from local and international movie buffs. We would also like to congratulate Ananth and the 'Bleat!' team for their historic win. May this be the first award of many to come! Check out the official trailer for 'Bleat!' below: Sources: China Press, Instagram (1)(2)
The Sun
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Bleating to Cannes
BY the time the spotlight finds its way to a Malaysian film, it often carries the weight of years of underfunded dreams and of finding the razor-thin balance between authenticity and accessibility. Malaysia's cinematic landscape has seen a quiet renaissance in recent years with local filmmakers steadily gaining ground in international circuits. Bleat!, a short film by Ananth Subramaniam, is the first Malaysian short to be selected at Cannes Film Festival, premiering at the prestigious La Semaine de la Critique (Cannes Critics' Week). Amid the celebration of this milestone, theSun spoke to Ananth about the inner workings of his creative process and the intimate yet unsettling chaos that drives Bleat!, a film that pushes against expectations while rooted firmly in the emotional soil of Malaysian-Tamil identity. Crafting identity through genre Born of Tamil descent, Ananth has been steadily building a reputation for his layered, genre-bending storytelling that is at once personal and mythical. His previous work, including The House of Brick and Stone, which premiered at Fantasia and Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan), and Liar Land, a Locarno Special Mention recipient, shows a consistent thematic interest. Ananth said: 'My films explore the complex inner landscapes of ancestral identity and family. I try to weave personal and cultural memory through genre, but not in a traditional sense. I am interested in stories where the 'different' forces people to confront what they are afraid to see in themselves.' That tension between tradition and transformation is at the core of Bleat!, a black-and-white short film that begins with a surreal image of a goat about to give birth. Genesis of Bleat! 'None of it was mapped out from the start. It began with a bizarre visual that would not leave me alone. The image was jarring and beautiful. It captured something wild and sacred at once,' explained Ananth. That single vision snowballed into a film that is striking in its simplicity and potent in its symbolism. Mixed with references to Tamil rituals and mythology, Bleat! is as much about the physical as it is the spiritual and an intentional echo of the filmmaker's own upbringing. 'Tamil culture has a long, rich tradition of powerful symbolism. Growing up, I was always struck by how birth, death, animals and nature held sacred weight. In Bleat!, I tried to capture that same sense,' he said. Finding clarity in chaos Short films are often seen as a testing ground for feature ambitions, but Ananth challenges that notion. 'A lot of people think a short film is just a smaller version of a feature, but it is not. It is its own form. If you write for that form, you do not need to sacrifice anything.' This clarity allowed him to refine the film early, especially during the script stage. 'I did most of the editing during writing. By the time we got to the actual cut, the heart of the story was already there.' Yet, the creative process was not solitary. Working alongside producers from the Philippines and France expanded the scope of the project. 'They pushed me beyond my cultural shorthand. They asked the hard questions such as 'Why does this image matter?' 'Why hold this tension longer?' It sharpened my vision rather than diluted it,' he explained. Visual language of stillness Shot entirely in black and white, Bleat! is stripped to its bones – minimalist, yet deeply expressive. Ananth described the visual style as elemental. This contrast forms the basis of the film's emotional tone, which was, by Ananth's own admission, the most challenging aspect to get right. 'I did not want it to tip too far into surrealism or be too comedic. It needed to live in that in-between space where humour and unease sit side by side. That is where the magic happens.' With long-time collaborators including producer Choo Mun Bel and cinematographer Adrian Wong, as well as editors Gogularaajan Rajendran and BK Lee, Ananth built a creative environment that allowed the film to find its rhythm. Cannes milestone, what comes next When asked why he thinks Bleat! stood out to the Cannes Critics' Week committee, Ananth is characteristically modest. 'If I had to guess, maybe it is because it challenges how stories from minority communities are usually told. I did not want to fit into a neat narrative box. I played with tone and genre – and I think they saw something new in that. This moment feels like a gateway and I plan to keep walking through it,' Ananth explained. He is currently working on his debut feature Pray to the Thunder, supported by international platforms including Berlinale Talents Tokyo and Singapore International Film Festival's Asian Producers Network. The project has already earned awards from Bifan and Brussels Art Film Festival. Advice for next generation For young filmmakers impressed with his achievement, Ananth's advice is simple, but weighted with conviction. 'A sense of belonging is important, but it comes at a cost and that cost is worth paying for.'
