Peace Research Institute Oslo

The Peace Research Institute Oslo (Norwegian: Institutt for fredsforskning; PRIO) is an independent peace and conflict studies research institution, based in Oslo, Norway. It is regarded as the world's "oldest and most prominent peace research center." It was founded in 1959 by a group of Norwegian researchers led by Johan Galtung, the principal founder of peace and conflict studies, who was the institute's first director. The Journal of Peace Research, the discipline's preeminent journal, is also published by the institute.

The institute is mainly funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also receives funding from the Ministry of Defence, various international organisations such as the World Bank and the European Union, and private foundations. The institute has around 75 employees. PRIO headquarters are located in central Oslo, next to the headquarters of the Norwegian Red Cross.

History and governance

PRIO was founded in 1959 by a group of Norwegian researchers led by Johan Galtung. The institute originally was a department of the Norwegian Institute for Social Research in Oslo and became an independent institute in 1966. It was one of the first centres of peace research in the world, and it is Norway’s only peace research institute. The institute's director since 2009 is Kristian Berg Harpviken, with Inger Skjelsbæk as deputy director. Since 2005, the institute has been located in the former gas works building in central Oslo.

Dota 2

Dota 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux in July 2013, following a Windows-only public beta testing phase that began in 2011, and is the stand-alone sequel to Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a mod for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion pack, The Frozen Throne. Dota 2 is one of the most actively played games on Steam, with maximum peaks of over a million concurrent players.

Dota 2 is played in matches between two five-player teams, each of which occupies a stronghold in a corner of the playing field. A team wins by destroying the other side's "Ancient" building, located within the opposing stronghold. Each player controls one of 111 playable "Hero" characters that feature unique powers and styles of play. During a match, the player collects gold, items, and experience points for their Hero, while combating Heroes of the opposite team.

Humayun Ahmed

Humayun Ahmed (pronounced: [ɦumae̯un aɦmed̪]; 13 November 1948 – 19 July 2012) was a Bangladeshi writer, dramatist, screenwriter and filmmaker. Ahmed got his break-through by his debut novel Nondito Noroke in 1972. He wrote over 200 fiction and non-fiction books, all of which were bestsellers in Bangladesh. Ahmed's writing style was characterized as magic realism. Ahmed's books were the top sellers at the Ekushey Book Fair during the 1990s and 2000s. He won Bangla Academy Award and Ekushey Padak for his contribution to Bengali literature.

In the early 1990s, Ahmed emerged as a filmmaker. He went on to make total 8 films - all based on his own novels. He received six Bangladesh National Film Awards in different categories for the films Daruchini Dwip, Aguner Poroshmoni and Ghetuputra Komola.

Early life and background

Ahmed was born in Kutubpur, Mymensingh to Foyzur Rahman Ahmed (1921–1971) and Ayesha Foyez (née Khatun) (1930–2014). Foyzur served as a sub-divisional police officer in Pirojpur District and was killed during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. In 2011, politician Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was trialed for the killing but was acquitted of the charge in 2013 for lack of evidence. Humayun's brother, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, is a writer and academician. Another brother, Ahsan Habib, became a cartoonist. He had three sisters – Sufia Haider, Momtaz Shahid and Rukhsana Ahmed.