Month: March 2021

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to submit before it the regulations on Over The Top (OTT) platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime while stressing that there should be some screening of shows and web series being telecast on such platforms.

A Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said that some regulation is needed for OTT platforms as in some cases even “pornography is being shown” on such platform and a balance has to be maintained.
“We want to see the regulations because we are of the view that there should be some screening of these types of films/shows… What they are showing? They are showing pornography in some films. There should be some regulations. Balance has to be maintained,” said Justice Bhushan.

It asked the Centre to place the recently framed regulation before it by tomorrow.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for Centre told the Court that these platforms are showing filthy things with abuses too. He said regulations will be placed before the Bench tomorrow.

The Bench hearing an appeal of the commercial head of Amazon Prime Video, Aparna Purohit, against the Allahabad High Court order that denied anticipatory bail to her, in the ongoing investigation against the web series ‘Tandav’, adjourned it for tomorrow.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Purohit, contended that regulations have come and the Allahabad High Court order was not based on OTT regulations. It’s about freedom of speech and expression, he added.

During the hearing, Rohatgi further said that she is an employee Of Amazon and not the producer and they are only publicity seekers filing cases all over India.

The High Court on February 25 declined to give protection from arrest to Purohit by dismissing the anticipatory bail application of her.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had filed an FIR against the top Amazon Prime executive for the derogatory depiction of Hindu deities and promoting religious enmity through the series.

The High Court in its order has noted that “such people make the revered figures of the religion of majority community the source of earning money in a most brazen manner taking benefit of the liberal and tolerant tradition of the country.”

Making strong observations while rejecting Purohit’s anticipatory bail plea in a case filed against her in Noida, Justice Siddharth said, “The conduct of the applicant shows that she has scant respect for the law of the land and her conduct further disentitles her to any relief from this court.”

Earlier on January 27, the Supreme Court had refused to grant interim protection from arrest to actors and makers of web series ‘Tandav’ and allowed them to approach High Courts for relief from arrest or quashing of FIRs.

Justice Ashok Bhushan while denying to grant interim protection from arrest however had agreed to hear the issue of transferring and clubbing several FIRs registered against them across the country and issued notice to complainants on the prayer.

‘Tandav’ actor Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub, Purohit and the makers had approached the top court seeking protection from arrest on the FIRs registered against them for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and telecasting objectionable content.

‘Tandav’, a nine-episode political thriller that started streaming in January this year on Amazon Prime Over The Top (OTT) platform, featuring Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia and Ayyub, has created an uproar for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

The petitions filed in January had requested the top court that criminal proceedings initiated against them for offences including hurting religious sentiments be quashed or alternatively club all the seven FIRs registered in different states and transfer them to a court in Mumbai.

Three FIRs were registered in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow, Noida and Shahjahanpur. Two FIRs were lodged in Madhya Pradesh while one FIR each was lodged in Karnataka and Bihar. Apart from the FIRs, at least three other criminal complaints are pending in Maharashtra, Delhi and Chandigarh respectively.

FIRs were registered for the alleged inappropriate depiction of Uttar Pradesh Police personnel, deities, and adverse portrayal of a character playing the role of Prime Minister in the show.

FIRs mentions that the show portrayed the Hindu deity, Shiva, in “a poor light” as the actor playing him on-screen was shown using foul language. (ANI)

India witnessed a spike of 17,407 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry.

14,031 discharges and 89 deaths were recorded during this period.
The country’s coronavirus tally has reached 1,11,39,516 including 1,08,26,075 recoveries and 1,57,435 deaths.

At present, there are 1,73,413 active coronavirus cases.

With 83,556 active coronavirus infections, Maharashtra has the highest number of cases in the country. Kerala follows with 46,288 active cases.

According to the ministry’s data till March 4, a total of 1,66,16,048 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 so far.

A total of 21,91,78,908 samples were tested for COVID-19 up to March 3, of these, 7,75,631 samples were tested yesterday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) informed. (ANI)

Bollywood stars and rumoured couple Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal are collaborating as producers for their first production venture titled ‘Girl Will Be Girls’.

The upcoming project is a part of their newly-launched production company Pushing Buttons Studios. Indian film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh shared the news on his Instagram handle.
He wrote, “RICHA CHADHA – ALI FAZAL TURN PRODUCERS… #RichaChadha and #AliFazal turn producers, announce their production company: Pushing Buttons Studios… The first script to be green-lit under their banner is titled #GirlsWillBeGirls and will be directed by Shuchi Talati.”

Taran added, “GirlsWillBeGirls is the only #Indian script invited to the prestigious Berlinale Script Station 2021… A lab that selects only 10 projects from around the world each year.”

As per Variety, the film is being written and directed by Shuchi Talati. The movie is set in an elite boarding school in a small Himalayan hill town in northern India and follows the story of a 16-year-old girl, whose rebellious coming-of-age is hijacked by her mother who never got to come-of-age.

The production company, set up with a view to narrate stories rooted in the Indian ethos for a global audience, will kick off with ‘Girls Will Be Girls’, the only Indian selection of the 10 projects chosen for the Berlinale Talents Script Station program this year.

The script has also been selected for the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film Lab, and it won a New York State Council of the Arts Grant for development.

Talati has previously helmed several shorts including ‘A Period Piece’, which was an SXSW selection in 2020.

“I like my work to challenge dominant narratives around gender, sexuality, and the Indian identity,” said Talati.

Talati and Chadha had first presented the project at the 2018 Film Bazaar in Goa, organised by India’s National Film Development Corporation. Indian company Crawling Angel Films and France’s Dolce Vita Films boarded the project there.

Speaking about the project, Chadha said, “The world that Shuchi has created is relatable, often cruel but never hopeless or nihilistic. Its honest awkwardness will make you chuckle, not weep.”

“This is the first time that Richa and I are collaborating on a film as producers and the experience so far has been very rewarding,” said Fazal.

Fazal added, “This film being our first is close to our hearts. I am also excited that our studio will enter the market with such a progressive, female-led story. We hope to be able to tell thought-provoking and universal stories with humour and love.”

Crawling Angel’s Sanjay Gulati and Pooja Chauhan and Dolce Vita’s Claire Chassagne will produce alongside Chadha and Fazal. (ANI)

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday announced the launch of a Covid-19 testing and vaccine management software solution to streamline every stage of the journey, enabling more individuals to return to normal life experiences.

The product leverages artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) as well as the company’s network of technology partners.

TCS said the suite transforms all five stages of testing and vaccination journeys: research and manufacture, allocate and transport, store and distribute, schedule and administer, and monitor and re-open.

“It enables ecosystem participants at each of these stages to seamlessly share critical information among themselves while complying with privacy and consent regulations, and to scale up their operations so that communities receive the required quantities of tests and vaccines.”

Debashis Ghosh, Business Group Head for life sciences, healthcare and public sector, said the TCS suite of Covid-19 testing and vaccine management solutions is built to enable transparency, ease of access and equity that will collectively accelerate a return to normalcy.

“The pandemic is changing our world in many ways, driving stakeholder collaboration across industries that share a commitment to getting testing and vaccines to everyone,” he said.

In designing its new solution suite, TCS emulated the example of successful retailers and other consumer-centric enterprises to adopt their proven, people-centric approach to optimise testing and vaccination ecosystems.

Besides, given the urgency of the problem, re-purposing proven use cases from other consumer-facing industries helped speed up the design of end-to-end solution, said TCS. (ANI)

President Joe Biden’s nominee for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Burns on Wednesday suggested to the Republicans that the Confucius Institutes should be barred from the US public schools and universities.

“I think what the Confucius Institutes do, and I’m no expert on them, is to promote a narrative of Xi Jinping’s China, which is designed to build sympathy for what is, in my view, a quite aggressive leadership, which is engaged in conduct and conducted an adversarial approach to relations with the United States,” said Burns, former State Department diplomat to Russia and Biden’s CIA nominee.

Confucius Institutes are public educational partnerships between colleges and universities in China and colleges and universities in other countries.

China provides the start-up funds, the salaries, the teaching materials, and sometimes even the buildings for Confucius Institutes.

The former US envoy to Russia said that these institutes pose a risk to the institutions in the US.

“So in that sense, that particular dimension of foreign influence operations constitutes a genuine risk…And so my advice for any institutions in the United States, including academic institutions, is to be extraordinarily careful of what the motives are for a variety of institutions like that and to be very careful in engaging them,” he added.

According to a report by Fox News, prior to the committee’s meeting, Burns said, “Beijing tries to advance its soft power and pro-China propaganda through cultural and educational programs at US academic institutions”.

“Programs such as Confucius Institutes fund Chinese-language learning and provide the CCP direct access to university officials. Beijing uses this access to spread positive portrayals of China, and steer conversations from topics sensitive to the CCP,” he added.

Last month, Biden underscored the crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang during his first conversation with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

The US President also underlined Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices and military aggression actions in the region, including toward Taiwan.

The ties between the two countries had deteriorated under the Trump administration, over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong protests, unfair trade practices by Beijing, lack of transparency concerning the pandemic, and China’s military aggression in various parts of the world, including Taiwan. (ANI)

The game is afoot for actor Srabanti Chatterjee, who recently made her political debut in West Bengal politics by joining BJP.

Chatterjee, who was once seen to be close to the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and had campaigned for several state government schemes said she joined BJP as she was inspired by the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and wanted people in the state to give a chance to the party in the forthcoming Assembly polls.

On sharing the same dias with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on different occasions, she said: “I have never got any proposal from the TMC. But yes, I respect Didi (Mamata Banerjee). I have been on the same platform with her. I went with her many times during campaigns. When it comes to ideology, I support BJP. This is the party, I can work with. I like the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

The 33-year-old who entered Bengali film industry at the age of 10 said: “People have seen me on the silver screen till today and have given me their love. Now, I want to work for the people on the ground. I want to work for the development of Bengal. BJP has worked for the development of the country. People across the nation support the party.”

BJP has been aggressively campaigning in the state, which has been governed predominantly by the Left Front and the TMC .

Chatterjee said the Left party had ruled West Bengal for 34 years and the TMC was in power for another 10 years. “There has not been as much development as it should have been in Bengal. There should be one government at the Centre and in the state to have more development.

“People should give a chance to BJP. Bengal requires a change. Being a Bengali, I feel there has been no development in the last ten years. Now, the people and the BJP will transform Bengal into ‘Sonar Bangla’,” she told ANI in an interview.

For the ensuing polls, the TMC has released the slogan ‘khela hobe’ (Game on) slogan, which Chatterjee said is quite catchy and the game is on for everybody in the political arena.

“I really like the slogan. See, we all are playing. Be it politics, acting or sports, everyone is playing in their fields. So ‘khela hobe’,” the actor said.

While Chatterjee has expressed her keenness to contest elections, she said she has left it to the party to decide. “I would like to contest elections. Whatever responsibility is given to me by the party and organisation, I will do that. The people of Bengal have given me a lot of love. Wherever the party gives me a ticket, I will contest from there.”

The actor said she was offered a chance to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 by the BJP but she could not make her mind at that time.

On TMC’s slogan “Bangla Nijer Meyeke Chaye” (Bengal wants its own daughter), the actor said, “I am also a daughter of Bengal. I believe people will stand by me. They will stand by BJP to bring ‘Parivartan’ in Bengal.”

The actor further asserted that slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’ offers her peace of mind. “I would like to say that I am a Hindu, I worship lord Ram. I worship Krishna. I like the slogan very much. It offers peace of mind. I do not think anyone should angry on ‘Jai Shri Ram’,” said Chatterjee.

The actor also commented on the raging ‘outsiders’ versus ‘insiders’ debate in the state which Mamata Banerjee has dismissed the BJP as a “party of outsiders” and the latter countering her by alleging that she favours “illegal immigrants” over Indians in Bengal for vote bank politics.

“Our Indian tradition has been of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. I think the word ‘outsider’ is not right. It should not be spoken for anyone, I go to other states and countries for shooting. I still get the same love as I have received from the people of Bengal and the country. I think that we are all one, we are all Indians, everyone is welcome in Bengal,” Chatterjee said.

The actor had joined the BJP in Kolkata on March 1 in the presence of West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh and party’s election in-charge in the state, Kailash Vijayvargiya.

Elections for the 294 Assembly seats in West Bengal will begin on March 27. The state is set to witness eight-phase Assembly polls this year. (ANI)

Phase three results of the COVAXIN, a vaccine against COVID-19 which has been developed by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in partnership with Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), has shown an interim vaccine efficacy of 81 per cent in preventing the virus.

“The bench-to-bedside journey of completely indigenous COVID-19 vaccine in less than eight months’ time showcases the immense strength of Atmanirbhar Bharat to fight the odds and stand tall in the global public health community. It is also a testament to India’s emergence as a global vaccine superpower,” said Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General, ICMR.

Trials for the third phase was jointly initiated by ICMR and BBIL in November last year. Trials were conducted on a total of 25,800 individuals across 21 sites. Bharat Biotech has claimed that its vaccine is also effective against UK variant.

“The interim efficacy trend of 81 per cent, analysed as per the protocol approved by the rugs Controller General of India (DCGI), puts it at par with other global front-runner vaccines,” read a statement by ICMR.

Covaxin is one of two COVID-19 vaccines that was granted emergency use approval in the country early January.

The DCGI in early January gave permission to Covaxin “for restricted use in an emergency situation.” However, a huge backlash followed the announcement as the vaccine had yet not completed phase three trails.

On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi received the first dose of Covaxin at AIIMS in Delhi as the second phase of the vaccination drive in the country began. (ANI)

American streaming giant Netflix has teased fans by unveiling the list of its upcoming original content in 2021.

By giving a sneak peek into its slated releases for the year 2021 that includes films and series from the horror zoner to romantic ones, Netflix has released an apt hashtag ‘##AbMenuMeinSabNew’ (everything is new on our menu) for the same.

From Dharma Production’s 5 projects to second seasons of ‘Delhi Crime’ and youth favourite ‘Kota factory’, the streamer has much intriguing content for viewers in the basket.

Check out the complete list here:

Aranyak

Producer: Roy Kapur Films, Ramesh Sippy Entertainment

Showrunner: Rohan Sippy

Director: Vinay Waikul

Cast: Raveena Tandon, Parambrata Chatterjee, Ashutosh Rana, Zakir Hussain, Megna Malik

After a foreign teenage tourist disappears in the misty Himalayan town, a harried, local cop Kasturi must join hands with her city-bred replacement Angad, on a big-ticket case that digs up skeletons and revives a forgotten Himalayan myth of a bloodthirsty, serial killing entity in the forest.

Bombay Begums

Producer: Endemol Shine India, Endeavor Content, Chernin Entertainment

Showrunner: Alankrita Shrivastava

Director: Alankrita Shrivastava and Bornila Chatterjee

Cast: Pooja Bhatt, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, Plabita Borthakur, Aadhya Anand, Rahul Bose, Danish Husain, Vivek Gomber and Imaad Shah

Five women across generations wrestle with desire, ethics, personal crises and vulnerabilities to own their ambition in contemporary urban India. As glass ceilings are shattered, and hearts are broken, difficult choices have to be made. And as each woman strives to find her own truth, they find in each other an unexpected understanding, and the sliver of a bond.

Decoupled

Producer: Bombay Fables, Andolan Films

Creator: Manu Joseph

Cast: R. Madhavan, Surveen Chawla

Arya Iyer is a man who suffers from chronic objectivity, extreme clarity and the debilitating capacity to see in any situation what others are trained to ignore. It gets him in trouble with people wherever he goes. Naturally, his marriage is over, but he has persuaded his estranged wife to continue living with him in a large villa in Gurgaon to create the myth of family for their tween daughter, who is terrified of their divorce. Arya, as the second highest-selling pulp fiction writer in India, after his old foe Chetan Bhagat, is a celebrity who has everything a man wants — fame, money, a daughter who adores him, a home run by a woman and a hot young girlfriend. Yet, he is always somehow fleeing a crisis.

Mining from the banal realism of daily life, Decoupled is an uncompromising comedy about the true nature of people, India and marriage.

Delhi Crime S2

Producer: SK Global Entertainment, Golden Caravan

Showrunner: Tanuj Chopra

Director: Rajesh Mapuskar, Tanuj Chopra

Cast: Shefali Shah, Rasika Dugal, Rajesh Tailang, Adil Hussain, Anurag Arora, Yashaswini Dayama, Sidharth Bhardwaj, Gopal Dutt, Denzil Smith

Delhi Crime is a first-of-its-kind gripping true crime series that delves into investigations undertaken by the Delhi Police. After solving the case that shook the nation, Vartika Chaturvedi and her team are up for a new challenge. It is all about will Vartika and her team help the public fight their fear?

Feels Like Ishq

Producer: Mutant Films, Awesomeness TV

Director: Ruchir Arun, Tahira Kashyap Khurrana, Ashima Chibber, Anand Tiwari, Danish Aslam, Jaydeep Sarkar, Sachin Kundalkar, Chatterji, Jaydeep Sarkar, Arati Raval-Pandey, Sachin Kundalkar

Cast: Radhika Madan, Amol Parashar, Kajol Chugh, Mihir Ahuja, Kymsleen Kholie, Bhavesh Babani, Simran Jehani, Rohit Saraf, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, Saba Azad, Tanya Maniktala, Skand Thakur, Zayn Marie Khan and Neeraj Madhav

Love on the run. On a guitar strum. At a protest. With a house guest. Cupid strikes in unexpected ways. Feels like Ishq is an anthology of seven warm and breezy stories about the kindling of young love.

Finding Anamika

Producer: Karan Johar, Apoorva Mehta, Somen Mishra, Dharmatic Entertainment

Showrunner: Sri Rao

Director: Karishma Kohli, Bejoy Nambiar

Cast: Madhuri Dixit Nene, Sanjay Kapoor, Manav Kaul, Lakshvir Saran, Suhasini Muley, Muskkaan Jaferi

This is a suspenseful family drama about a global superstar, wife, and mom who suddenly vanishes without a trace. As police and loved ones search for answers to her disappearance, her perfectly crafted facade is stripped away, revealing hidden truths and painful lies in the life of an iconic actress.

Jamtara – Sabka Number Ayega S2

Producer: Viacom18 Studio’s Tipping Point

Director: Soumendra Padhi

Cast: Sparsh Shrivastava, Monika Panwar, Anshumaan Pushkar, Amit Sial, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Aksha Pardasany

Sunny and Gudiya have one final chance to avenge their past. As bigger players enter Jamtara, politics tries to control phishing, but phishing ends up controlling politics.

Kota Factory S2

Producer: Arunabh Kumar

Creator: The Viral Fever

Showrunner: Raghav Subbu, Shreyansh Pandey

Director: Raghav Subbu

Cast: Mayur More, Jitendra Kumar, Alam Khan, Ahsaas Channa, Urvi Singh, Ranjan Raj, Revathi Pillai

Kota Factory, the first black and white web series of India, revolves around Kota – its students, its people and its coaching industry. The show depicts this universe through the eyes of Vaibhav, a vulnerable teenager, and Jeetu Bhaiya, a modern-day Dronacharya. It captures the melancholic life of Indian students who prepare for competitive exams. In this season, we will find out if Vaibhav move onto greener pastures, leaving behind Jeetu Bhaiya, his friends and his love interest.

Little Things S4

Producer: Dice Media

Showrunner: Ashwin Suresh

Director: Ruchir Arun and Pranjal Dua

Cast: Dhruv Sehgal and Mithila Palkar

It’s season 4 of Little Things and six years of Dhruv and Kavya’s togetherness. If seasons one to three were a trilogy that dived deep into the facets of young love, season four explores a new maturing love and the growing pains and adventures that come with it.

Mai

Producer: Clean Slate Films – Anushka Sharma, Karnesh Sharma

Showrunner: Atul Mongia

Director: Anshai Lal, Atul Mongia

Cast: Sakshi Tanwar, Wamiqa Gabbi, Vivek Mushran, Prashant Narayanan, Raima Dev Varma, Seema Pahwa

Following a personal tragedy, Sheel, a docile, 47-year-old wife-and-mother, finds herself accidentally entangled in a web of white-collar crime and dirty politics pushing her into a rabbit hole of violence that forever changes her and the world she inhabits.

Masaba Masaba S2

Producer: Viniyard Films

Creator: Ashvini Yardi

Director: Sonam Nair

Cast: Masaba Gupta, Neena Gupta, Neil Bhoopalam

Glamour ke peeche kya hai? It is a tough world, but Masaba and Neena Gupta are tougher. The mess is over, and this time the plan is world domination. Masaba goes in front of the camera, and Neena decides to go behind them. All the while dealing with new loves, old loves, and some impossible loves. Both women take their careers, image, friendships and lovers, in their own hands and turn everything around.

Mismatched S2

Producer: RSVP Movies

Showrunner: Akarsh Khurana

Director: Akarsh Khurana

Cast: Prajakta Koli, Rohit Saraf, Vihaan Samat, Taaruk Raina, Devyani Shorey, Muskkaan Jaferi, Rannvijay Singha, Vidya Malavade

Dimple, the genius coder, has lost her app. Rishi, the hopeless romantic, has lost all faith in love.

Fate brings this “Mismatched” couple face to face again, as Rishi is forced to step back into the mess he left behind. With their futures at stake, Dimple and Rishi must navigate the rough terrains of frayed friendships, new love interests, broken promises, academic stress and shocking rivalries.

Ray

Producer: Viacom 18’s Tipping Point

Director: Srijit Mukherji, Vasan Bala, Abhishek Chaubey

Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Gajraj Rao, Kay Kay Menon, Ali Fazal, Harshvardhan Kapoor, Radhika Madan, Shweta Basu Prasad, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor, Rajesh Sharma, Bidita Bag, Kharaj Mukherjee, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Shruthy Menon, Anindita Bose, Neeraj Purohit, Lovleen Misra, Raghubir Yadav, Manoj Pahwa

A revolutionary film maker, an auteur, and the creator of the Feluda series, Satyajit Ray is also remembered for writing some of the best short stories India has ever seen. Vastly varying in genre and style, these stories are full of thrills, twists and turns, and a strong emotional core keeping you completely hooked till the end. For the first time ever we present four such passionately curated stories under Ray.

She S2

Producer: Viacom 18 Studio’s Tipping Point

Showrunner: Imtiaz Ali

Director: Arif Ali

Writer: Imtiaz Ali, Divya Johri

Cast: Aaditi Pohankar, Vishwas Kini, Kishore Kumar G, Shivani Rangole, Suhita Tatte

After swearing her allegiance to drug-lord Nayak, Bhumi must walk the dangerous line between siding with the police or with crime, while simultaneously exploring her newfound sexual liberation, as Nayak’s larger plan unfolds.

Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein

Producer: Edgestorm Pictures

Showrunner/ Director: Sidharth Sengupta

Writers: Sidharth Sengupta, Anahata Menon, Varun Badola

Cast: Tahir Raj Bhasin, Shweta Tripathi, Anchal Singh, Saurabh Shukla, Surya Sharma, Brijendra Kala, Arunoday Singh, Anant Joshi, Sunita Rajwar, Hetal Gada

Think of the most dreaded villain! What if he has a daughter who truly, deeply, madly falls in love with you? What if you do not love her back? What if you are in love with someone else? How will you say no and get out of the situation? After all, quite like her father, she is not likely to take ‘no’ for an answer.

A romantic simpleton finds himself in the middle of this crossfire in Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein, a dark comical pulpy desi thriller about three things that matter the most in the country- paisa, taqat aur pyaar (money, power and love) (ANI)

People in Andhra Pradesh are reportedly consuming donkey meat under the misconception of it being aphrodisiac, leading to a rapid decline in the animal’s population in the past five years, according to a senior official.

Dr Dhanalakshmi, Assistant Director, Department of Animal Husbandry, Andhra Pradesh said that donkeys are being illegally slaughtered in the state leading to the declining population of donkeys from 10,161 in 2012 to a total of 4,678 in 2019.
“The government conducts a livestock census at the interval of five years, and the results of the 2019 survey show a decline of 54 per cent within just five years. If the same trend continues, donkeys will disappear in Andhra Pradesh within four to five years,” said Dr Dhanalakshmi.

The director said that among one of the reasons for the decline in the donkey population is “the domestication by people who traditionally used it for carrying heavy loads”

“Another reason that came to our notice is the illegal slaughtering. There is a misconception in the state that donkey meat is an aphrodisiac and increases fertility,” she said.

Dr Dhanalakshmi added under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) guidelines, consumption of donkey meat illegal. (ANI)