Politics makes rivals of Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan

March 13, 2014

chiru-pawan_stillsK Chiranjeevi and his brother K Pawan Kalyan, ‘Mega Star’ and ‘Power Star’ in the Telugu film industry, are no longer on talking terms,the politics of a divided state having caused a rift between them. Chiranjeevi, the original superstar who launched the Praja Rajyam Party in 2009 but merged it with the Congress in 2011, is angry with younger brother Kalyan, who is the current rage and who plans to launch a new party.

Pawan Kalyan is believed to be set to launch his Jana Sena Friday, a move that has upset Chiranjeevi, who has sworn his loyalty to the Congress. Chiranjeevi, the union tourism minister, was apparently unaware of his brother’s plans until someone in the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee told him about Pawan Kalyan’s feelers to some political leaders in the coastal districts.

The feud surfaced in public during the preview of the debut film of K Varun Tej, their nephew. He is the son of K Naga Babu, a veteran actor of more than 50 films, and a brother elder to both actors.

“Chiranjeevi wanted a word with Pawan in the presence of their elder brother, who commands the respect of the family. In fact, Chiranjeevi had arrived from New Delhi that morning for this. Pawan Kalyan arrived at the venue before Chiranjeevi, congratulated his nephew and left. On his arrival, Chiranjeevi asked about Pawan and was disappointed to learn he had already left,’’ a source said.

Pawan is known to be a recluse but is mobbed by fans whenever he makes a public appearance. The rush at his first-day first-shows is frequently likened to a stampede, and his films’ music release functions are sold out weeks in advance, even though he has acted in only 19 films since he became an actor 20 years ago.

It is believed that things started going wrong between the brothers three years ago when Chiranjeevi decided to merge his party with the Congress.

“Pawan opposed Chiranjeevi’s decision. He felt that the platform and the values on which the PRP was launched —anti-corruption and social justice — would be betrayed if it merged with Congress. Moreover, he felt that if the PRP could garner 16 to 18 per cent of the vote and 18 assembly seats even in 2009, despite the powerful presence of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, it was only a matter of time before PRP could emerge stronger,” the source said. Since the February 2011 merger, Pawan Kalyan, 42, is said to have rarely spoken to Chiranjeevi.

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June 30,2020

California, Jun 30: Online video-sharing platform YouTube on Monday banned several prominent channels, including those belonging to Stefan Molyneux and Richard Spencer.

The company banned six channels for repeatedly violating YouTube's policies.

According to The Verge, other channels banned include American Renaissance (with its associated channel AmRen Podcasts) and the channel for Spencer's National Policy Institute.

YouTube began taking stern measures on supremacist channels in June 2019.

"We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies," the Verge quoted a YouTube spokesperson as saying.

"After updating our guidelines to better address supremacist content, we saw a 5x spike in video removals and have terminated over 25,000 channels for violating our hate speech policies," the spokesperson added.

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June 2,2020

New Delhi, Jun 2: Actor Anushka Sharma on Tuesday exhorted people to maintain hygiene and advised to stop open defecation in a bid to avoid coronavirus spread.

As the country is grappling with the coronavirus crisis, the 'PK' actor has joined the initiative with the Swachh Bharat Mission, which aims to tell the people that the contagion can be curbed through strict sanitation process.

"When women all over the country had decided that they would educate everyone on the lesson of close the door, shun the disease, no one had thought that their initiative would turn into such a huge wave!," the actor was seen saying in a video posted in the official Twitter handle of Swachh Bharat I #IndiaFightsCorona.

"Today, in the time of coronavirus pandemic, we all have to again remember and remind others about the lesson of cleanliness," she added.

"If we take care of cleanliness around us, by not defecating in the open, we will keep ourselves healthy and India clean. We will become strong to fight against any kind of disease," the 32-year-old star said.

The 'Sultan' actor noted that by stopping defecating in open and closing the toilet door at all times can be a solid measure to drive the disease out of the country.

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February 12,2020

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.

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