Month: January 2021

Celebrating six years of her role in the espionage thriller ‘Baby’, Bollywood actor Taapsee Pannu on Saturday advised aspiring actors to not focus on the length of their roles in a project.

The ‘Pink’ star took to her Twitter handle and expressed that the amount of screen time doesn’t make a difference but the impact of one’s role is important. She wrote, “Dear actors, Number of minutes don’t matter, the impact u leave with what u do in those minutes …… matters 🙂 7 minutes that changed the direction of tide for me FOR GOOD. Yours truly, Naam Shabana.”

Showering the 33-year-old actor with love and praise, Bollywood powerhouse Akshay Kumar replied, “Absolutely! Always make the most of what you have…proud of you and your onwards and upwards journey.”

In the Neeraj Pandey directorial ‘Baby’ which featured Akshay in the lead role, Taapsee played a short but pivotal role of an undercover agent. Taapsee later reprised the part in a spin-off solo project titled ‘Naam Shabana’, which also featured actor Manoj Bajpayee with Akshay making a special appearance in the 2017 movie.

Post the success of these films, Taapsee went on to cement her position in the film industry with some powerful performances in ‘Pink’, ‘Badla’, ‘Saand Ki Aankh’, and ‘Thappad’. On the work front, Taapsee has an impressive line-up of upcoming projects including ‘Shabaash Mithu’, Rashmi Rocket, and ‘Looop Lapeta’. (ANI)

Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor, who was last seen in ‘The Zoya Factor’, is gearing up for her upcoming outing ‘Blind’. The actor, who stays active on social media, shared how she is prepping for her new film.

Keeping her nose to the grindstone, Sonam shared pictures of herself in which she can be seen reading the script of her upcoming project with the director of the film Shome Makhija.

The ‘Neerja’ actor took to Instagram on Saturday and shared a series of pictures along with the director of her film. In the caption, she wrote, “Working working working. Some days you nail it and somedays you have to work towards getting it right. This was one of those days. @shomemak and I working towards it.. #Blind #GiaSingh”

Shome commented on the actor’s post writing, “@sonamkapoor we do what we gotta do to create the magic no!”

The shoot for the film kickstarted on December 28 in Glasgow, the United Kingdom. ‘Blind’ is a Bollywood remake of the 2011 Korean crime-thriller of the same name, directed by Ahn Sang-hoon.

The movie is being bankrolled by Sujoy Ghosh, Avishek Ghosh, Manisha W, Pinkesh Nahar, Sachin Nahar, and Hyunwoo Thomas Kim. It is slated to release in 2021. (ANI)

Unless you have been living under a rock, you might be familiar with the viral memes surrounding US Senator Bernie Sanders’ look at the US presidential inauguration ceremony, which has taken the social media by storm.

A number of celebrities have shared the memes on their Instagram stories, and now Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone has happily joined the bandwagon. The ‘Cocktail’ actor shared the meme on the photo-sharing application and asked her Instafam to suggest a caption for the rib-tickling post.

The picture sees her seated on the counter of a kitchen preparing something, where she is joined by Bernie. While Sanders is seen seated in the regular viral avatar, Deepika is dressed in a striped pullover and has a little tensed expression on her face.

The post prompted hilarious responses from the ‘Om Shant Om’ actor’s followers with her actor husband suggesting a caption that says, “Namak zara kam daalna beti.”

Bollywood actor Siddhant Chaturvedi, who will be sharing screen space with Deepika in ace director Shakun Batra’s next film, took the famous ‘Rasode mei kaun tha (who was in the kitched)’ reference for suggesting a caption for the picture.

“When you realise Rasode mein ye the,” the ‘Gully Boy’ actor commented. The picture of Sanders with his cozy mittens and grandpa jacket went viral after he appeared at the inauguration ceremony of the 46th US President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Deepika has an impressive line-up of projects in the pipeline including ’83’, ‘Baiju Bawra’, ‘Sanki’, ‘Pathan’, and Indian adaptation of Nancy Meyers’s 2015 hit Hollywood film ‘The Intern’. (ANI)

As the Kerala Assembly polls are nearing, a team constituted by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) led by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, comprising former Goa Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro and former Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara has reached the state in a bid to turn the tide in Congress’ favour.

The team will hold a series of meetings with senior Congress leaders in the state and also will attend the first meeting of the 10-member election management and strategy committee headed by former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here on Saturday.

After a dismal performance by Congress in the Local Body polls, the meeting assumes significance as many leaders recently had openly criticised the state leadership for failing to take all leaders along and argued that giving greater role to Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in the United Democratic Front (UDF) has created confusion in party’s rank and file.

Meanwhile, KV Thomas, senior Congress leader and former Union Minister from Ernakulam, who is at loggerheads with the state leadership and according to sources had held discussions to join the LDF camp, cancelled a press meet scheduled on Saturday in Kochi to announce his future plans.

It is learned that he has been called to the state capital and Ashok Gehlot may persuade him not to leave the Congress at this juncture as the party is desperately trying to put up a unified fight for the assembly polls.

“Though Kerala Congress (M) led by Jose K Mani ahead of local body polls had left UDF and joined LDF, none of the Congress leaders had deserted the party. Though the state leadership feels that the move by KV Thomas is a bargaining tactic that the party should not heed, Congress doesn’t want to create precedents, particularly in Kerala. So efforts are on to woo him to stay,” a Congress leader told ANI.

The 10-member election panel that will hold its meeting tomorrow includes AICC in-charge of Kerala Tariq Anwar, AICC general secretary organisation KC Venugopal, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Mullappalay Ramachandran, leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ramesh Chennithala, Shashi Tharoor, Kodikunnil Suresh, K Muraleedharan, V M Sudheeran and K Sudhakaran.

After the meeting of the panel, KPCC meeting is also scheduled on Saturday. (ANI)

By Poonam Joshi

Fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya has appealed to the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel for “another route” to remain in the United Kingdom.

Mallya’s legal representative made the claim during a hearing into the tycoon’s bankruptcy proceedings at the UK High Court in London on Friday.

Mallya, 65, has gone through and exhausted the full legal procedures available to him to fight the Indian government’s effort to extradite him to India to face charges of defrauding a consortium of banks of more than a billion dollars in relation to the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines in 2013.

He remains out on bail awaiting the UK Home Secretary Patel formally signing off on the extradition. The Home Office has previously said that the delay in signing off was due to a technicality.

There has been speculation that Mallya has sought asylum in the UK, which can be requested on a number of grounds, from a human rights perspective to political asylum.

At the High Court on Friday, Mallya’s lawyer Philip Marshall said: “The extradition was upheld but he (Vijay Mallya) is still here because as you know there is another route for him to apply to the Secretary of State for the status,” said Vijay Mallya’s barrister Philip Marshall.

The submission was made during Mallya’s case at the Companies and Solvency Division of the High Court where he is appealing for substantial funds to be released to him to cover his living expenses as well as the vast legal fees that he has accrued and continues to do so.

Mallya has specifically asked for funds from the sale of a luxury property he owned, located on an island off the French Riviera and amounting to nearly PS3 million to be released to him.

The money is held in the UK’s Court Funds Office (CFO) as part of bankruptcy proceedings brought by a consortium of Indian banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) in lieu of loans that went unpaid by Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines. (ANI)

Renowned Bollywood actor and prominent theatre actor Piyush Mishra on Friday said that vulgarity should be banned on web series’ in over-the-top (OTT) platforms.

While speaking to ANI, Mishra at the Indore Literature Festival said, “Vulgarity has been used unnecessarily in the web series, there should be a ban on it.”

Referring to the recent controversy over certain scenes in the web series, “Tandav” and “Mirzapur”, Mishra said, “There is no benefit in creating unnecessary controversy.”

His statement comes amid a row over Amazon Prime India’s ‘Tandav’ with several complaints being filed against the web series allegedly for hurting religious sentiments.

Mishra also talked about many talented people who got opportunities via the OTT medium.

Speaking about the Bollywood drug case and Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) probe, he added that NCB is not really active as only a few people were summoned for questioning and later they were allowed to go.

“If NCB starts conducting raids on prominent people consuming drugs, it will be problematic for a lot of people. So, NCB is not doing anything of this sort. 100 grams or 200 grams of drugs have been seized during NCB raids, it doesn’t really matter. NCB is not noticing people consuming cocaine in large quantity,” said Mishra.

“People used to think that the Me Too movement might grow into a bigger movement but there was a fundamental flaw in the movement itself and it could not proceed so it fizzled out,” he added. (ANI)

India is supplying COVID-19 vaccines being manufactured in the country to neighbouring countries including Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh but has not received any request from Pakistan.

Addressing the weekly media briefing, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said there is an interest in accessing vaccines from India, which is the global hub of vaccine production.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stated that India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used for the benefit of all humanity to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As we announced on January 19, our grant assistance of vaccines to the neighbouring countries commenced on January 20. On the first day, 1.5 lakh doses of vaccines were supplied to Bhutan and one lakh doses to the Maldives as grant assistance,” said.

“Yesterday, supplies of 10 lakh doses to Nepal and 20 lakh doses to Bangladesh were undertaken. Today, consignments of 15 lakh doses for Myanmar, one lakh doses to Mauritius and 50,000 doses to Seychelles are being airlifted,” he added.

Srivastava said supplies as grant assistance to Sri Lanka and Afghanistan will be undertaken after receiving confirmation of regulatory clearances from these two countries.

Contractual supplies are also being undertaken to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Bangladesh and Myanmar, he said.

“I am not aware of any request for the supply of Indian made vaccines to Pakistan on a G2G basis or commercial basis,” Srivastava said answering a query.

He said keeping in view the domestic requirements of the phased rollout, India will continue to supply COVID-19 vaccines to partner countries over the coming weeks and months in a phased manner.

The spokesperson said it will be ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad.

India has given emergency use authorisation to two COVID-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin. Covishield is being manufactured by Serum Institute of India. Covaxin is an indigenous vaccine manufactured by Bharat Biotech. (ANI)

In a remarkable finding, India’s indigenous Covid-19 vaccine–COVAXIN developed by the Bharat Biotech and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has shown high safety and immunogenicity during the phase 1 clinical trial, according to the findings of the clinical trial published in renowned Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal on Friday.

“We report the interim findings from the phase 1 clinical trial of BBV152 (Covaxin), a whole-virion inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. The vaccine was well tolerated in all dose groups with no vaccine-related serious adverse events. Both humoral and cell-mediated responses were observed in the recipients of the Algel-IMDG-based vaccines,” said the findings.

Between July 13-30, 2020, 827 participants were screened, of whom 375 were enrolled. Among the enrolled participants, 100 each were randomly assigned to the three vaccine groups, and 75 were randomly assigned to the control group (Algel only).

“After both doses, solicited local and systemic adverse reactions were reported by 17 participants in the 3 ug with Algel-IMDG group, 21 in the 6 ug with Algel-IMDG group, 14 in the 6 ug with Algel group, and ten in the Algel-only group,” read the research paper.

“The most common solicited adverse events were injection site pain (17 of 375 participants), headache (13), fatigue (11), fever (nine), and nausea or vomiting (seven [2%]). All solicited adverse events were mild (43 of 62) or moderate (19 [31%]) and were more frequent after the first dose,” it said. (ANI)

Stirring up controversy during the campaign for forthcoming assembly elections in Assam, AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal referred to Muslim community at a rally here and said if BJP comes to power again in the state, “you cannot go out without a beard, you cannot wear topi, you cannot do azan in mosques”.

Addressing a rally in Dhubri on Thursday, he asked people to defeat the BJP.

“If BJP government comes (to power again), you cannot go out without a beard, you cannot wear a topi (skullcap), you cannot do azan in mosques,” Ajmal alleged.

“Can you live without all these?” he asked.

He said a BJP leader had stated that the party will win 26 seats from Muslim areas.

“When there are voters like you, a single-seat cannot go to Himanta Biswa Sarma,” he said.

The remarks of Ajmal, MP from Dhubri, are likely to cause embarrassment to the Congress. The two parties are part of an alliance in the state formed against the ruling BJP ahead of assembly polls expected in May-June. (ANI)