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Challenging to step into Ramya's shoes: Mrunal Thakur

Agencies
November 10, 2018

Singapore, Nov 10: Actor Mrunal Thakur, who will star as a young Sivagami in Netflix's ambitious live-action series "Baahubali: Before the Beginning, says it would be challenging to measure up to Ramya Krishnan's portrayal of the queen.

Krishan was the parallel lead in “Baahubali: The Beginning” and its sequel “The Conclusion” apart from Prabhas.

Now the team behind the Telugu blockbuster has reunited for a series in the same universe.

Speaking at a session during the See What’s Next: Asia event, Mrunal said she is aware of the expectations from her.

"For me, when I gave the audition, it was not easy. When I saw both the films, the benchmark was there. To match up to Ramya who played Sivagami was a challenge. It’s a big treat to work with this team. When I got to know that it was a Netflix project, I was even more excited. I was very fascinated with the dialogue ‘Mera Vachan, Mera Shasan’. That really attracted me," she said.

Mrunal said she is living a dream through the project.

"The process wasn’t easy as well. It was a little difficult but somewhere down the line in my head, I knew I was going to be Sivagami because she is a strong character who rules the entire Mahishmati. She’s got the sense of motherhood at the same time she is got the sense of what is right and what is wrong. She treats everybody equal no matter who it is. Through this project I’m living my dream,” she said.

The live-action series, based on Anand Neelakantan’s book, will also feature Rahul Bose, Atul Kulkarni, Vaquar Shaikh, Jameel Khan, Siddharth Arora and Anup Soni in pivotal roles.

The series, being co-directed by Deva Katta and Praveen Sataru, will trace the dramatic rise of Queen Sivagami and her empire.

“The story backtracks about 50 years from the beginning of Baahubali story. The movie was a singular emotion and singular conflict, now we are exploring it in a deeper way. You will also get deeper into the street level life and multi-layer life in the kingdom,” Deva Katta said.

He also said that being a Netflix project allowed them the opportunity to explore different characters and their individual stories,

"When we have consciously evolving characters throughout unpredictable eventualities, we relate to those stories a lot. Those are epic stories like Ramayana and Mahabharata. They stand in time and are relevant to us. When you dig deeper and make the characters more dimensional with root stories and root psyche, that’s what this platform gives us. We grew up watching a lot of Hollywood films and that’s what ignited our passions to become storytellers.”

Co-director Praveen Sataru said the series is being shot in different locations in India and stressed that the show will have a pan-India appeal.

"We are covering the length and breadth of India. This is not just a south or north series. It’s a pan-India series and you have characters from all across India.”

"Baahubali: Before the Beginning”, which was announced by the streaming giant in August, has already been given a two-season order.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Los Angeles, Jan 27: Lil Nas X, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and... Michelle Obama?

Yep.

The former first lady can now add Grammy winner to her resume, after snagging the award on music's biggest night for Best Spoken Word Album, for the audiobook of her memoir Becoming.

Her win on Sunday gives the Obama household its third Grammy: former president Barack Obama has already snagged two Grammys in the same category for his books.

She faced an eccentric group of rivals that included Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys for Beastie Boys Book and John Waters, the director-performer known for his transgressive cult films, for Mr. Know-It-All.

 Released in late 2018, Becoming saw the former first lady slam U.S. president Donald Trump for questioning her husband's citizenship and promoting the notion that he was born abroad.

"The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed," Obama wrote.

America's first black first lady also dug into her personal life in her book, expounding on issues including a miscarriage, using in-vitro fertilization to conceive her daughters and marriage counseling.

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coastaldigest.com news network
August 3,2020

Mumbai, Aug 3: In a significant statement, Mumbai Police chief Parambar Singh on Monday said that actor Sushant Singh Rajput was “emotionally disturbed” after the death of his ex-manager Disha Salian.

“When he saw his name being linked to Disha Salian’s death on social media, he was emotionally disturbed. He had met Disha Salian only once, he even asked his advocate who she was,” Singh told reporters in Mumbai.

According to him, Sushant Singh Rajput was conscious about what was appearing about him on social media.

Singh also rejected allegations that Mumbai police had not sealed the Bandra duplex flat where the actor ended his life.

“The flat was sealed on June 14 itself (the day of the suicide), the next day, on June 15, forensic teams and doctors visited the flat. Only after that, the flat was unsealed,” Singh said.

The police chief also ruled out that a party was held in the flat on June 13 evening. “We have the CCTV footage of June 13 and 14,” he said.

On the quarantining of Bihar IPS officer Vinay Tiwari in Mumbai, Singh said that he does not have knowledge of this. “The BMC should have knowledge of this. They look into quarantine issues, we do not,” he said.

Singh said that the investigations are ongoing and so far 56 statements have been recorded. “We are in touch with experts, doctors,” he said.

On the bank accounts, he said that during their investigations it has come to light that Rs 4.5 crore was there in the form of deposits.  “We have recorded the statement of his current chartered accountant, former chartered accountant, we have checked the bank statements, ledger,” he said, adding that investigations are still underway.

According to the FIR filed by Sushant Singh Rajput’s father Krishna Kumar Singh in Patna, his son’s money was swindled by his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family members.

“The Mumbai Police is investigating the case thoroughly, from all possible angles, including his family members, friends, doctors and others, besides the details of the financial transactions of Sushant’s bank accounts,” Singh said.

To a query on the name of a prominent Maharashtra politician being dragged in social media, Singh categorically said that the investigations have not shown any such thing.

Singh also said that the Mumbai police had “initially recorded” the statement of the family members. “The statements of father and sisters were recorded on June 16,” he said, however, added that they have not responded to requests later on.

He said that the Mumbai Police has extended all cooperation to the family. “Sushant Singh Rajput’s sister and brother-in-law met our joint commissioner of police. They wanted to go to the Pune bungalow in Pawna area. An assistant commissioner of police accompanied them,” he said.

Who is Disha Salian?

Disha Salian hails from Karnataka’s coastal district of Udupi. She was born in 1992 into a business family background. She reportedly migrated to Mumbai with her family at an early age. 

After completing her education, she worked in the Times of India Group for more than three years. She went on to become the celebrity manager at Media Vantage.

Apart from Sushant, she had great links with many popular celebrities like Bharti Singh, Alisha Panwar, and others.

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News Network
April 8,2020

Mumbai, Apr 8: Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has started the process of transferring funds into the accounts of daily wage workers of the film industry, the Federation of Western Indian Cine Employees (FWICE) said on Wednesday.

The actor had recently pledged to financially support 25,000 daily wage workers who have been badly hit by the 21-day lockdown to contain the coronavirus spread in the country.

According to B N Tiwari, FWICE, President, Salman has made an initial payment of Rs 3,000 each to the daily wage workers of the film industry, starting Tuesday.

"We had given him the final list of 23,000 workers so far, who were in dire need of financial help. He is going to transfer money in installments as he doesn't want people to misuse it. He has transferred about Rs 3,000 to every worker yesterday and he will transfer money again after some time. We are thankful to him for helping our workers," Tiwari told PTI.

A source close to Salman said the superstar will continue to support the workers until the situation improves in the country.

"We have started the process from Tuesday. We will be giving sufficient money to workers monthly, we will also give money next month and if the situation is still the same, we will continue to financially help the workers till it doesn't return to normalcy," the source said.

FWICE said Yash Raj Films have also provided a financial help of Rs 5,000 to around 3,000 workers.

"Besides Salman, a lot of people from Bollywood have come forward to help the workers, including Ajay Devgn and Rohit Shetty, who have given Rs 51 lakh each. Boney Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor too have given money and there are few more who have offered financial assistance to the federation. We also received Rs 1.5 crore from the Producers Guild of India on Tuesday.

"The federation has received a total amount of Rs 3 crore from film industry people. We are yet to receive money from Netflix, which they had announced for daily wage earners and also from Amitabh Bachchan, who is going to provide ration to one lakh workers. He is going to provide coupons which we should receive in a day or two," Tiwari said.

He further said Bachchan's ration coupon for workers will also be given to other associations across the country, such as in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Karnataka.

Tiwari said FWICE is in the process of making another list of needy workers and then they will begin the process of transferring money.

"The Rs 3 crore that the federation has received will be distributed among our five lakh workers in Maharashtra. We will start sending money from April 14 in phases. Those who haven't received any financial aid will be helped first. We are in the process of making a list of such workers for the same," Tiwari said.

"FWICE has also begun distributing ration to workers in suburban Andheri and Jogeshwari. So far we have distributed 5,000 packets of ration and we will give more, he added.

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