Michael Jackson wanted to play James Bond

Mumbai, Apr 2: Ramayan, the over three-decade-old TV series based on Hindu mythology, garnered 170 million viewers in four shows over the last weekend in its new avatar, the BARC said on Thursday.

This catapulted the Ramanand Sagar production as the highest watched serial in the Hindi general entertainment space ever, the Broadcast Audience Research Council said.

The show was relaunched last Saturday amid the gloomy times of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lot of thrust laid by the government machinery to popularise the series.

BARC's chief executive Sunil Lulla said the numbers notched up by the series was a bit surprising and called the move as a brilliant one by the Prasar Bharti.

He said eventually, we will also see advertisers flock the series which will be running for a few more days.

The inaugural show of the series on Saturday morning had 34 million viewers glued to their TV sets watching and enjoyed a rating of 3.4 per cent, while a telecast the same evening had 45 million viewers and a rating of 5.2 per cent.

The show bettered its performance on Sunday, with 40 million and 51 million people watching it in the morning and evening telecasts, respectively.

Mumbai, Jan 4: After the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur constituted a panel to decide whether legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poem 'Hum Dekhenge' is offensive to Hindu sentiments, filmmaker Shoojit Sircar had a cryptic take on the burning controversy.

"Best time for the rich & small businesses to make money as most of the population are engaged with a revolutionary poet named Faiz," Sircar said in a tweet.

The poem, penned down by the iconic poet in 1979, came into limelight again recently during the protests against CAA and NRC in IIT Kanpur.

Earlier on Thursday, senior lyricist Javed Akhtar rejected the claims about the poem being 'anti-Hindu'.

IIT Kanpur on Thursday had set up a committee to look into the issue.

The move came after a complaint that the students who took out a peaceful march in the campus on December 17 against the Citizenship Amendment Act and in solidarity with Jamia Millia Islamia students, sung it as a mark of protest, which hurt the sentiments of other communities.

The CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians who faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh and came to India on or before December 31, 2014.

New Delhi, Jun 2: 'Dabangg' actor Sonakshi Sinha was showered with greetings as she turned 33 on Tuesday.

Sonakshi's father and veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha took to social media to express gratitude that the family is spending time together during the lockdown period.

"This week is very special for my family, as we have a lot to thank for during this lockdown period. The family got to really spend some good quality time together," the veteran actor tweeted.

"Today we all celebrate our darling @sonakshisinha Sona's birthday. May she always be positive & abundantly blessed," his tweet further reads.

Actor Preity Zinta also made sure that she wishes the 'Kalank' actor as she posted a picture with her on Instagram.

"Happy Birthday my darling Sona. Wish you all the wonderful things, today and always. Keep Smiling and shining always. Love you loads @aslisona," the 'Kya Kehna' actor wrote in the caption.

Fashion designer Manish Malhotra also posted a picture of himself with Sonakshi on his Instagram stories and wrote, "@aslisona Happy Birthday Beautiful."

Actor Huma Qureshi too extended birthday greetings to Sonakshi by posting a picture with her on her Instagram stories.

Huma wished her friend in what seems like a code language as she wrote, "You are...this friendship..how to...Love...Dosti.." along with the picture.

"Don't want to use words, you know what I mean..right@aslisona," she further wrote.

Sonakshi was last seen in the third installment of her hit film series 'Dabangg' which was released last year in December.