Actress says azaan at 5 am ‘not civilized’; Juhi hits back

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 10: Eminent Carnatic vocalist and playback singer K J Yesudas, who has enthralled music aficionados across the world with his profound and mellifluous voice for the last six decades, turned 80 on Friday.

People from various walks of life, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and luminaries of music and film world besides socio-cultural personalities, wished the legendary singer, popularly called as 'gana gandharvan' (the celestial singer) by his fans, on his birthday.

Regional newspapers came out with special pages and television channels with exclusive programmes as a tribute to the singer, who has recorded over 80,000 songs in various genres in almost all languages of India including about 25,000 film songs, Carnatic bhajans and devotional songs.

Besides Indian languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Odia, his voice gave life to songs in Arabic, English, Latin, and Russian during a career spanning over six decades.

Yesudas, whom the country had honoured with Padma Vibhushan in 2017, is the recipient of eight national awards, 25 Kerala state awards, five state awards of Tamil Nadu and four of Andhra Pradesh.

"On the special occasion of his 80th birthday, greetings to the versatile K J Yesudas Ji. His melodious music and soulful renditions have made him popular across all age groups. He has made valuable contributions to Indian culture. Wishing him a long and healthy life," Modi tweeted.

The Left veteran also shared a photo of the veteran singer along with the tweet.

Meanwhile, Yesudas this morning visited the Mookambika Temple at Kollur in Udupi district of Karnataka along with his family, a practice he has been following for the last four decades.

Draped in the traditional Kerala style kasavu mundu and shawl, 'dasettan', as he is known among his hardcore fans cutting across ages, Yesudas offered prayers along with his wife Prabha and sons and performed special poojas at the Goddess Saraswathi temple.

Hundreds of music buffs gathered at the shrine to wish the octogenarian singer.

Considered as one of the best playback singers in the country, Yesudas had begun his music career in the tinsel town with the Malayalam song "Jathi bhedam matha dwesham" in the year 1961 and sang in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films among other languages.

Yesudas's foray into Bollywood saw him recording various memorable hits, including "Jab Deep Jale Aana" and "Gori Tera Gaon Bada Pyara".

New Delhi, Jan 9: A Delhi court Thursday directed the makers of the Deepika Padukone starer feature film 'Chhapaak' to give credit to acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal’s lawyer in the movie.

Additional Civil Judge Pankaj Sharma said it was necessary that advocate Aparna Bhat's contribution is acknowledged.

"This Court is of the considered view that facts are indicative that the plea of the plaintiff for interim injunction is well-founded and it is necessary that her contribution be acknowledged by providing on the slide on the actual footage and the images, the line 'Aparna Bhat continues to fight the cases of sexual and physical violence against women' during the screening of the film.

"The said line on screen maybe with a rider that the same is with the court order," the judge said.

Advocate Bhat filed the application saying that despite representing Agarwal in courts for several years and helping in the movie-making, she was not given credit in the movie.

She said the filmmakers took her help in the entire process of writing and shooting the movie, but did not give the credit.

Mumbai, Jul 19: Mumbai Police have registered an FIR against two Instagram account holders for allegedly threatening actor Rhea Chakraborty, an official said on Sunday.

The location of the two accused is yet to be traced, the official said, adding that the investigation in the case is at primary stage.

Chakraborty on Thursday requested the cyber crime cell to look into the rape and murder threats she has been receiving ever since the death of close friend, actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

Rajput, 34, was found dead in his apartment in suburban Bandra here on June 14, leaving people in the film industry and audiences shocked.

Chakraborty, in particular, was subjected to online hate with users blaming her for Rajput's suicide.

"We registered the First Information Report (FIR) on Saturday under Indian Penal Code Sections 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication), 509 (intending to insult modesty of any woman) and relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act," Santacruz police station's senior inspector Shriram Koregaonkar said.

"No arrest has been made so far. We are conducting an investigation in the case," he added.

On Thursday, sharing a screenshot of a hate message she received on Instagram, Chakraborty said while she had ignored many abusive texts sent to her in the past month, the harassment was now unbearable.

The 28-year-old actor eventually disabled the comments section of her Instagram page.

Chakraborty, known for films such as "Mere Dad Ki Maruti" and "Jalebi", had tagged the cyber cell and requested the authorities to look into the threats.

On June 18, she was called to the Bandra police station to record her statement in connection with Rajput's death.