Haryanvi dancer, singer Sapna Chaudhary joins Congress

Mumbai, Jul 6: Mumbai Police on Monday recorded the statement of filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death.

The director arrived at Bandra Police Station on Monday morning to give his statement.

As per reports, late actor Sushant was approached by Bhansali for his 2013 film "Goliyon Ki Rasleela: Ram-Leela". However, Sushant could not take up the offer reportedly due to his contract with a production house. Later Ranveer Singh was signed for the role. The female lead was played by Deepika Padukone and the film turned out to be a commercial success.

Meanwhile, Mumbai Police has, over the past weeks, recorded statements of Sushant's family, staff, a few of his friends, and Rhea Chakraborty, besides filmmaker Mukesh Chhabra and actress Sanjana Sanghi who worked with the late actor in his upcoming last film "Dil Bechara".

Sushant Singh Rajput was found hanging in his Mumbai residence on June 14. The actor's postmortem report stated his death was a suicide.

Within a few days of the actor's death, a complaint was filed by advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate in Bihar's Muzaffarpur. The case filed regarding the actor's death was against eight Bollywood personalities including Bhansali, Salman Khan, Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra and Ekta Kapoor.

Mumbai Police is investigating the death of the actor, though many fans on social media have been demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the case.

London, Feb 12: Oscar-winning British director Steve McQueen is returning to his art roots with a series of short films at London's Tate Modern art gallery, offering a sensory exploration of black identity.

McQueen, who became the first black director to win the best picture Academy Award in 2014 for "12 Years a Slave", is now based between London and Amsterdam and is focused on championing diversity in the film industry.

Visitors to his new exhibition will be greeted by "Static", a film of New York's Statue of Liberty, scrutinising the iconic symbol from every possible angle at very close range against a deafening backdrop of the helicopter from where the footage was filmed.

"What interests Steve is our view of the world, how humans are trying to represent Liberty," said Fiontan Moran, assistant curator of the exhibition.

"7th Nov, 2001" features a still shot of a body while McQueen's cousin Marcus tells of how he accidentally killed his brother, a particularly traumatic experience for the artist.

"Western Deep" is another visceral work, giving a sense through sights and sounds in an interactive installation of the experiences of miners in South Africa, following them to the bottom of the mine.

"Ashes", meanwhile, is a tribute to a young fisherman from Grenada, the island where McQueen's family originated.

The images of beauty and sweetness filmed from his boat are tragically reversed on the other side of the projection screen, which shows a grave commissioned by McQueen for the eponymous young fisherman, who was killed by drug traffickers.

African-American singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976) is honoured in "End Credits".

The film shows censored FBI documents detailing the agency's surveillance of Robeson, read by a voice-over artist, for five hours.

"He is... testing the limits of how people can be documented in an era of mass surveillance," said Moran.

In a similarly militant vein, the exhibition features the sculpture "Weight", which was first shown in the prison cell where the writer and playwright Oscar Wilde was imprisoned.

It depicts a golden mosquito net draped over a metal prison bed frame, addressing the theme of confinement and the power of the imagination to break free.

The show runs alongside an exhibition of McQueen's giant portraits of London school classes, many of which appeared on the streets of London last year.

"I remember my first school trip to Tate when I was an impressionable eight-year-old, which was really the moment I gained an understanding that anything is possible," said McQueen, adding it was "where in some ways my journey as an artist first began".

He recently told the Financial Times newspaper the difference between his art films and his feature films was that the former were poetry, the latter like a novel.

"Poetry is condensed, precise, fragmented," he said. "The novel is the yarn".

The exhibition opens on February 13 and runs until May 11.

Mumbai, Mar 28: Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar has donated Rs 25 crore to Prime Minister Narendra Modi''s initiative PM CARES Fund to lend support to the ongoing battle against the coronavirus pandemic.

Akshay wrote on Twitter: "This is that time when all that matters is the lives of our people. And we need to do anything and everything it takes. I pledge to contribute Rs 25 crores from my savings to Narendra Modi ji''s PM-CARES Fund. Let''s save lives, Jaan hai toh jahaan hai."

Earlier, the government set up the Prime Minister''s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund, or the PM CARES Fund, with the objective of dealing with emergency situations such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Contributors to the fund will enjoy tax benefits, it has been announced.

"People from all walks of life expressed their desire to donate to India''s war against COVID-19. Respecting that spirit, the Prime Minister''s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund has been constituted. This will go a long way in creating a healthier India," PM Modi announced in a tweet on Saturday.

The Prime Minister is the chairman of the trust that includes the home minister, the finance minister the defence minister