iWorld
With a focus on empowering women, Facebook launches digital skilling and mentorship initiative
MUMBAI: In a bid to empower more women with digital know how and new age skill sets, Facebook today announced GOAL- Going Online As Leaders, a program aimed at inspiring, guiding and encouraging tribal girls from across India to become village-level digital young leaders for their communities. Spanning across West Bengal, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, the initiative seeks to nurture and train young girls from India's tribal heartland across three core areas – digital literacy, life skills, leadership and entrepreneurship.
The program will see 25 eminent people from diverse backgrounds like business, education and health to politics, arts and entrepreneurship volunteering and personally mentoring 4 girls each from tribal communities across the above priority states. Spanning over six months, the program will see on-ground trainers impart digital literacy to the identified girls through a dedicated digital skilling curriculum while the 25 women leaders mentor them via Facebook or WhatsApp on a fortnightly basis. The digital training of the selected girls will be supported by Digital Empowerment Foundation led by Osama Manzar through pre-established community digital infrastructure hubs in tribal areas of the country.
Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director, Facebook -India, South & Central Asia said, “The internet, especially social media over the past few years has emerged as one of the most powerful tools for empowering women from across India's diverse social economic backgrounds and varied cultural roots. With GOAL, we seek to make the digital medium more accessible and usable for young girls from our resource rich but economically weak tribal communities in the country. We are confident that this network of learners will employ these skills as a means of social and economic elevation for themselves and drive change making in their communities.”
In order to be a part of GOAL, the applicants will be required to be over 18 years of age and of tribal origin. The programme will specifically focus on girls who've dropped out of school due to financial constraints, reside near the skilling center to ensure regular participation.
GOAL will provide functional digital marketing and safety skills; equip the participants with basic digital tools; and nurture this network of young girls to instill life skills, leadership qualities and entrepreneurial attitude- readying them to shape the future of their respective communities. By the end of this year-long project, 25 women leaders would have inspired, guided and encouraged 100 girls from tribal communities to imbibe digital skills and life skills to become village-level Young Agents of Change.
iWorld
Why Peaky Blinders is one of television’s biggest hits that still deserves more attention
Six seasons, multiple awards and the release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man bring the Shelby saga back into the spotlight
In the crowded universe of streaming content, only a handful of shows manage to leave a lasting cultural footprint. Peaky Blinders is overwhelmingly considered one of the biggest global hits of the past decade. Yet many viewers still haven’t fully explored the dark, gripping world of the Shelby family.
Originally produced for the UK’s BBC and later finding a massive global audience through Netflix, the series quietly grew from a British period drama into a worldwide streaming phenomenon.
Created by Steven Knight, the show follows the rise of the Shelby crime family in post-First World War Birmingham. What begins as a gritty street-gang story gradually expands into a sweeping narrative about ambition, politics, power and survival.
At the centre of the saga is Thomas Shelby, portrayed with extraordinary depth by Cillian Murphy. The casting of Murphy is widely regarded as perfect for the role. With piercing eyes, restrained dialogue and an almost hypnotic screen presence, he transforms Shelby into one of the most unforgettable characters in modern screen storytelling.
Murphy’s brilliance lies in his restraint. He rarely shouts or performs theatrically. Instead, a quiet stare, a calculated pause or a subtle shift in expression conveys the emotional storms within the character. Beneath the ruthless gang leader is a war veteran carrying trauma, guilt and loneliness. Murphy captures this complexity with remarkable precision, making Thomas Shelby both terrifying and deeply human.
Beyond its central performance, Peaky Blinders stands out for its unfiltered portrayal of reality. The show does not romanticise crime. Instead, it exposes the harsh social conditions of early 20th-century Britain, from poverty and class struggle to political extremism and the psychological scars left by war.
The series also presents powerful female characters who hold their own within the Shelby empire. Polly Gray, played by Helen McCrory, is the strategic backbone of the family and one of the most formidable figures in the story. Women in the series shape decisions, influence power structures and challenge the rigid social norms of the time.
Across six seasons, the narrative grows dramatically in scale. What begins in the smoky streets of Birmingham evolves into a story involving political conspiracies, fascism and international criminal networks.
The series has also earned significant critical acclaim. It won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2018 and multiple National Television Awards for Best Drama, cementing its reputation as one of Britain’s most celebrated modern shows.
Another defining feature of the series is its iconic music. The show’s opening theme, Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, became instantly recognisable and widely associated with the Shelby universe. Combined with a powerful soundtrack featuring artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, the music helped shape the show’s dark, stylish identity and became hugely popular among fans.
And the Shelby story is not over yet.
In fact, its legacy is unfolding right now. The long-awaited feature-length continuation, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was released on March 6, 2026, bringing the Shelby universe from streaming screens to cinemas and giving fans a new chapter in the saga.
For viewers who have not yet stepped into this world, the timing could not be better.
Six gripping seasons are ready to binge on Netflix. A new film has just arrived in theatres. And at the heart of it all stands one of the most magnetic performances in modern drama by Cillian Murphy.
So if Peaky Blinders has been sitting on your watchlist for years, this weekend is your moment.
So, by order of the Peaky fookin’ Blinders, consider this your cue to finally step into the ruthless world of Thomas Shelby. Pour yourself a drink, clear your schedule and press the play button. Because when the Peaky Blinders give an order, you listen.
