Each Oscar nominee was given a goodie bag worth Rs 1 crore containing, among other things, a licence to a square metre of land in Australia. The property is reportedly “in the heart of a coal seam gas field”. The goodie bags were part of what has been called the Aussie Mate Conservation Gift Pack, courtesy a company called Pieces of Australia (PoA). The privately-owned land is a “symbolic souvenir” and no one can build on it or even access it without the PoA’s permission. The Academy’s gesture, however, ran into a spot of controversy when the indigenous-owned charitable company, Indigenous Carbon Industry Network, objected to the use of their name and photographs of aboriginals without permission.
Last year, the Oscar goodie bags featured a plot of land in Scotland.
***
It is the 90th anniversary of the Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich or the Enabling Act. On March 23, 1933, the German Reichstag (Diet) passed the bill that allowed Adolf Hitler to assume dictatorial powers and issue laws without the consent of the parliament.