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108 Responses to “Fitoor, the rest of the box office”
Fitoor and Sanam Re have both opened below the mark. The occupancies of both films are around 15% with Fitoor better in the metros and Sanam Re better at the other centres. The screen count is 2000 apprx for Sanam Re and 1500 apprx for Fitoor. This should give Sanam Re the edge but Fitoor seems a film for premium multiplexes which have the best collections in the evening.
The opening for Sanam Re may not be good in terms of occupancy but due to the wide release it can be a decent number against its budget and with consolidation over the weekend it can come out with a fair weekend. The film has opened far better than Fitoor in places like Gujarat, Rajasthan and CI.
DiCaprio will be up against Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender, Bryan Cranston and Eddie Redmayne for an Academy Award this year.
Hollywood heavyweight producer Harvey Weinstein, who is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, broke the rules by endorsing Leonardo DiCaprio for an Oscar in the best actor category for his role in The Revenant.
While attending the amfAR gala in New York Gala, the 63-year-old film producer gave a shout-out to DiCaprio, 41, on stage at the star-studded occasion, reported Us magazine. DiCaprio was also in attendance and sat next to him.
“As an Academy member, you’re not supposed to endorse anyone up for an Academy Award, but I have to say Leo DiCaprio is so amazing in The Revenant,” Weinstein told the crowd. “His devotion and the way he rolls it all up into something beautiful is amazing. I’ve never worked with anyone who’s so wonderful and so classy.”
“Imagine a fly sitting on an elephant. The weight of fly is added to his body but the elephant will not feel it. What LIGO detected was much smaller than the perceived impact of the fly sitting on the elephant”.
How can a common man comprehend the nano-impact of gravitational waves detected in the landmark astrophysics discovery of the century?
Eminent astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar came out with an analogy for the benefit of the layman to explain the complexity involved in detecting the gravitational wave that emanated at a distance of 1.3 billion light years from the earth.
“Imagine a fly sitting on an elephant. The weight of fly is added to his body but the elephant will not feel it. What LIGO (the detector used in the discovery) detected was much smaller than the perceived impact of the fly sitting on the elephant,” Prof. Narlikar said while speaking to reporters at the Pune-based Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCCA), on Thursday night.
Prof. Narlikar, who was the first head of the IUCCA, recalled that he and one of his scientist colleague Sanjeev Dhurandhar had put up a proposal seeking funding for research on gravitational waves in India in 1988 soon after the Centre was set up but had failed to convince the authorities who doubted their “credibility” to undertake such a project for developing a detector.
Congratulating the Indian scientists who formed a part of the international team, Prof. Naralikar said detection of the gravitational waves is a “remarkable discovery which will be remembered for long”.
Review: ‘Fitoor’ Enlists Dickens to Tell a Hindi Love Story
Fitoor
By RACHEL SALTZFEB. 11, 2016
Based, sometimes loosely, sometimes carelessly, sometimes pointlessly, on “Great Expectations,” the Hindi movie “Fitoor” is at all times more Bollywood than Dickens. The Urdu word “fitoor” means “madness,” as in madly in love, so it’s no surprise that the movie, directed by Abhishek Kapoor (“Rock On!!”), focuses on the love story.
Noor falls instantly and, yes, madly for Firdaus when both are children in Kashmir. He’s a poor boy with artistic talent. She’s a horse-riding rich girl, the adopted daughter of Begum Hazrat (Tabu), the Miss Havisham character who languorously smokes her hookah in a beautifully crumbling mansion, her eyes full of pain.
Years later Noor (Aditya Roy Kapur) becomes a hotshot artist in Delhi, where again he meets Firdaus (Katrina Kaif). Boom. Too bad she’s about to be engaged to a Pakistani bigwig.
“Fitoor” doesn’t get much political resonance out of its Kashmiri setting, though the wintry sadness of the first scenes has power. Nor does it get much resonance out of class differences between Noor and Firdaus.
Handsome and self-possessed, Noor has his great career expectations met upon arrival in Delhi, where he instantly becomes the Next Big Thing on the art scene — a glittery, multicultural world of gents with man buns and women in miniskirts. He’s artist as gym god, hammering metal like a shirtless, muscle-bound Vulcan.
As for Firdaus, she may have secrets but she doesn’t have much mystery. Together, she and Noor are pretty people whose pain registers as broody pouting.
It’s left to Tabu to give the movie some emotional punch or any real connection to Dickens. She may not be at her finest here, as she is in “Maqbool” or “Haider.” But with her great tragedienne’s face she can express loss with just a gaze, a melancholy reminder of how the weight of the past warps the present.
Notice a certain suspicious ‘web’ that crops up these days in Bollywood. The classic ‘exoticized’ by way of the Kashmiri Muslim. I have pointed out this out before Urdu has a certain cache in multiplex Hindi-speaking India. Now this is true even in terms of a larger North Indian popular imagination where Hindi poetry has never quite been able to occupy the same space but there the readership if you will is a much more rooted one. The classes that constitute multiplex India are not really hooked into any native literary scene. But Urdu nonetheless constitutes a prestige marker. From the lyrics of those Mahesh Bhatt songs to titles like that of this film. A simple thought experiment. If you want that much Hindi on both counts you probably need Ajay Devgan in a militant masala effort of some sort! Otherwise it doesn’t sell anywhere! Now in one sense the Muslim has made a comeback in Bollywood over the last decade and a half. In the 90s we just saw gangsters and terrorists. Now you see a spectrum (in Wazir you get somewhat absurdly Muslims at both ends of the good-evil spectrum! and again with a Kashmir angle!) and this is to be welcomed. However I am skeptical of many aspects of this representation precisely for the Fitoor-like reason. Leaving aside the objections I’ve already raised this sort of choice prevents a certain rootedness because the Muslim then becomes the marker of a certain gauzy abstraction. Even if the films in question seem rooted at first glance they are so in a fairy-tale sort of way. The site might be authentic but the contexts are all marked by that exoticization-eroticization of Muslim identity. And of course the classic on the other hand is kept at a distance. It is precisely not made relevant in an immediate sense with some of these choices.
Finally, a journalist from Mexico broke through the bonhomie. Referring to the refugee crisis, which she called a “human catastrophe,” she asked what Clooney, as a public figure, intended to do. To everyone’s surprise, he looked at her and said, “What is it specifically that you have done for refugees?” The woman behind me muttered, “Brutal!” But the journalist was unfazed. She went on to explain that she worked with an organisation that made toys for children and helps refugees learn German. Clooney was in no mood to back down. “Those are the people you are working with. I asked what you specifically were doing?” He had a smile on, and yet, for a minute, we got a glimpse of a cracked facade. It was left to Joel Coen to cool things down. “It’s absurd to say that anyone in public life or the creative world should be telling this particular story.” A question about Trump brought the script back on track. “He’s a strange phenomenon,” Joel said. “It’s surreal.”Everyone laughed.
When I first met Jiah Khan I thought she was the most innocently sexy girl I had ever seen.
Later, when Amitji and I were discussing Nishabd, I told him I had the perfect girl for the heroine’s role. The moment he saw her pictures, he too agreed.
Throughout the making of Nishabd, the entire unit, myself included, thought that she would become a big star. Even after the film failed, because of the hype generated around her, she got roles in big films like Ghajiniin spite of their huge success, her career strangely never took off.
When I heard of her suicide, I cried uncontrollably though I was never really close to her.
She was one of the few people who couldn’t cope with the disappointments and frustrations the film industry is replete with.
I think the only redeeming feature of this ugly world full of disease, destruction, violence and death is that God has created beautiful women.
They are the only solace in this otherwise ugly world, and I think that it’s our duty towards nature and God to strive to keep a woman’s beauty away from ugliness so that it can be framed, protected and worshipped.
This excerpt from Guns and Thighs: The Story of My Life by Ram Gopal Varma is reprinted by permission of Rupa Publications India. Copyright Ram Gopal Varma Penumatsa 2016. All rights reserved.
Sometimes I feel, scientists come up with these things just to prove that they are doing great work and justifying spending billions.
And when we say pushpak viman was there, they laugh at us.
Energy released a billion years ago reached us in September – think of how far in space the collision took place.
Physicists said the gravitational wave detected in September originated in the last fraction of a second before the fusion of two black holes, though they can’t say precisely where.
And we have to go gaga over it. Just imagine it was fraction of a second and it sounded like a chirp. Haha!
Now there will be hollywood movies about this phenomena.
I amybe sounding like an ignoramus but this is how I feel about this greatest discovery.
This didn’t make sense to me. May be I am missing something. How did we figure when to run the experiment with these arriving gravitational waves which were assumed.
One has to be a scientist to understand the complexities of the theory and the methodology used to prove those theories. These simple news stories hardly scratch the surface of Einstein’s theory of relativity and its profundity. It undoubtedly is difficult to comprehend the theory of matter, and three-dimensional time-space dynamics.
Unfortunately, most common folk do not understand any of this and reject it as mumbo-jumbo or worse a conspiracy theory to spend billions! Then the even more scientifically-stunted lean on religion to make sense of any unexplained phenomenon, even despite utilizing the latest gizmos made possible by the same science which they deride. People cannot comprehend wave theory, yet utilize the fruits of the wave theory to despise every scientific thought that makes life so livable today.
Sanjana: “I amybe sounding like an ignoramus” You ARE an ignoramus. So are most of us. The intricacis of theoretical physics is not something that a layperson can follow. But it is such findings that makes the production of nuclear poer or travel to the moon possible or the constructio of a digital camera or laser surgery to correct eye defects possible. .
That kind of concrete results are appreciated. There is pure science and there is application of science for our well being. Difference between a physics graduate and an electrician.
Excerpts. A lucid explanation for the average person.
The detection of ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves, here on Earth marks a watershed moment for astronomy and for science as a whole. The detection at once improves our understanding of the workings of the universe and, more important, throws open a big opportunity to study it from completely new angles. It opens the way to get information about the evolution of galaxies and black holes. There is also a symmetry to the timing of the discovery: it comes a century after Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity held that acceleration of massive bodies should produce gravitational waves, which travel through the universe at the speed of light. The gravitational waves detected, and announced to the world on Thursday, were produced more than a billion years ago by a cataclysmic collision of two black holes, one of them with a mass 36 times that of the Sun and the other slightly smaller at 29 times, into one black hole. The gravitational waves give scientists insights into the final moments before the merger.
Fittingly, this giant step for science is the result of truly global cooperation. About 60 researchers from more than a dozen institutions in India were part of the over-1,000-strong army of scientists in the collaboration. Nearly 35 Indian scientists are co-authors of the landmark scientific paper that describes the results. The way to find the signal buried in the noise came from an Indian scientist. Similarly, the oscillation of cosmic bodies after a collision was predicted by an Indian scientist back in 1971. Several observatories widely separated from one another will help in determining the direction of any event with greater accuracy and also confirm the genuineness of the signal.
Salim you are not like that and you will be safe in India being Ismaili…some parts e.g. pakistan etc, you will be in grave danger. I think we need more assimilation. Maybe people should go to each other’s places of prayers and other such activities to promote bhaichara and oneness of all Indians. More patriotism and less hate for each other.
Salim, with all due respect this kind of apologetic attitude is completely unnecessary. Bigotry always pretends to be premised on ‘experience’. Let me offer a quick example. If whites commit crimes people talk about individuals, when blacks do the same very many people blame the community. So in one case one does things because of personal choices one makes, in the other instance one does so because of a group one belongs to. the ‘good’ black then is someone who doesn’t act ‘like-a-black’ and hence can be an exception to the rule. There is a certain formula to these things — I’m not a racist because I have black friends. But this confirms the racism. Again you’d define your friends as those blacks who are exceptions to the overall group of blacks who act in all the stereotypical ways. I might have lots of bad experiences with lots of people belonging to all kinds of racial groups or religions or whatever. If I start saying these each of those things are symptomatic of that community that’s where the problem begins. One should never give in to such bigotry. or fall for such arguments of experience or whatever. Let’s look at it another way. So many groups have bigoted opinions about so many other groups, sometimes there’s an exact symmetry. Muslims-Hindus in India for example. but everyone can’t be right at the same time! It’s like everyone believing their country is the best in the world, their culture the best in the world or whatever. Again how can everyone be right at the same time?!
I feel really bad, inhuman and guilty as you are saying so. I will be extremely happy to be wrong.
That is my experience, and my experience is not universal but no one should not believe anything but experience oneself.
I lived with them and found they are secretly isis sympathizers or having thoughts against the land they live on.
My experience was initially always to discover later it was for a cause and when i am not willing to agree to with their thoughts, i am in their bad book and betrayed.
Earlier this problem was addressed to lack of education or poverty, but they all are very well earning Indians and US settled muslims, many of them received jobs and quota to study in usa.
One of them is from arabian country, but studied in hyderabad university, received sponsorship from India under some quota to study further in USA inspite of being ordinary student. He calls himself indian before usa citizens in office. But, thoughts are against usa when talking to non-us citizens and against india too when talking to his brotherhood group. And it is all because of india and usa are not muslim countries. Watch their youtube pages or facebook pages, i feel pity what is wrong with some people. This is the limit of treachery.
hatred is not good for health (mental and physical). I hope you let it go and pray for all those misguided people and let things be. Hopefully their world view will change with more travel. Mr Narayan Murthy was staunch communist until he was jailed without doing any crime by a Gestapo, without food/water, in a dark cell. That day uski sari communist (idealism) choot gaya. So maybe these folks will know what it is to be pro-isis when they join it.
I’m glad for this comment but this doesn’t justify the earlier one. And whatever your ‘experience’ might or might not be in this matter that doesn’t mean one can justify universalizing things this way.
justify ? who is justifying who? right thing never needs justification, but justification of savages is bigotry. As for my comments, you removed many others on the pretext of not being in correct thread. That is another bigotry.
If someone wants to be tolerant while savages sit right in the middle of capital of my country enjoying free facilities on tax payers money and say ‘India Go back, we will accomplish Afjal guru’s mission’, then the best thing i can say is strip them of citizenship. While if it was another country, everybody knows what would have happened.
Not allowing comments, allowing selective comments, reacting only on situation of displaying yourself as victim, coming out on protest in every other countries to justify own community’s criminal activities, keeping quiet on all the matters of national interest, asking for preferred share from nation and working against is not just bigotry, but moral-less too.
that is one good news. Can’t stand this waxy doll. Time to go back!! On the other hand, I like Sunny Leone a lot more than I would ever care for Katrina and her likes.
There is again huge disparity in the BO reporting this week as well. BOI have Sanam Re at 3.5cr opening day while BH are talking about a 5.04cr opening. BOI are using terms like ‘poor opening’ while BH are already hailing it as a success!
Fitoor and Sanam Re faltered on day two as both failed to show and good upturn in business. Fitoor is looking at growth of around 20% and should collect in the 4-4.25 crore nett region. The film had to be up 50% at a minimum just for a decent trend. This sort of growth means the film is going no where as metros are best on Saturday.
Sanam Re will have very limited growth and will do business in the 3.50-3.75 crore nett range. It the film managed to grow like Fitoor at around 20% it probably would have been enough for the film. The two day numbers are still not bad but with an almost flat trend on Saturday at these low levels it means it will be a one week runner only and that won’t be enough.
The two day business of Fitoor will be around 7.50-7.75 crore nett and Sanam Re will be 7-7.25 crore nett. Both films are looking at weekend in the 11.50-12.50 crore nett range.
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, who was at the centre of a controversy over his comments on intolerance, attended a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Saturday night.
Besides Aamir, actress Kangana Ranaut was also invited at the private dinner held in Turf Club where top politicians, diplomats from several countries and industry leaders were in attendance.
The high-profile event, which was a strict no-media affair, was organised after Mr. Modi launched the mega Make in India (MII) week here on Saturday.
Wading into the “intolerance” debate, the Ghajini star had kicked up a controversy last year by saying he has been “alarmed” by a number of incidents and his wife Kiran Rao even suggested that they should probably leave India.
His comments evoked sharp criticism from ruling BJP and also the NDA government. Later, the 50-year-old actor’s contract as brand ambassador for the government’s Incredible India campaign was not renewed by the Tourism Ministry.
Kangana, 28, had recently said freedom of speech in the country does not mean one can insult anybody and stated that actors should be more careful with what they say.
The ‘Make in India’ event is aimed at attracting investments into the manufacturing sector and showcasing success stories at a specially-created venue at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai.
Saw ‘Fitoor’. Quite disappointed. The first half was decent enough. But the storytelling post-interval doesn’t hold together. And it is a curiously cold and dull film. Why not include the beautiful dance sequence of the song Pashmina, when you have recorded such a lovely song and have filmed sucha lovely choreographed sequence? Realism, my foot! But the films still is watchable because of the magnificent Tabu. Whenever she is there on screen , there is tension, there is drama. And the film still would have amounted to something if there was another actress in place of Katrina. Okay, she has got a clipped accent which stands out from miles but for god sake, put some expressions on your face! I have often defended her, insisting that she CAN act. But this film conclusively proves that she CANNOT act, when she really has a chance, and when she badly needs to show, her acting prowess.
This is what happen when whiz kids start writing ….
Q. Which hero till today has delivered the highest number of hits starting way back from Dilip Kumar or even before?
A. Such questions need a more detailed analysis, something which we cannot do in live QnA’s. It should be Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar with 35 and Shah Rukh Khan with 32 successful films at the top of the list. SRK has the best success ratio as he has done fewer films than Salman. Akshay has done 100 plus films, compared to Salman’s 70 plus and SRK’s 55 plus. We need to analyse Amitabh Bachchan’s career for a more detailed answer.
Fire seems to break out after Bachchan’s recital of Prasoon Joshi’s poem. Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Uddhav Thackeray were some of the guests along with others. They are showing it now on TV. Its a very massive fire.
Sanam Re has got advantage of Valnetines Day on Sunday and showed huge growth. The collections will be around 5.75 crore nett which is 50% higher than Saturday. It remains to be seen how much of this growth is due to Valentines Day and how much is real value. Fitoor has not grown as much so there may be some real value growth there but on the other side Sanam Re is a love story which would have had a larger audience on Valentines Day.
Fitoor has modest growth on Sunday at around 20-25% and should be in the 5 crore nett region. The Hollywood film Deadpool which had a good start in the English format has not really trended that well over the weekend.
The Monday collections of Sanam Re are all important as the Sunday business gives the film a chance and Monday will also is it the Valentines Day factor or something more to it.,
The Revenant scores best picture, director and actor for Leonardo DiCaprio
Mad Max: Fury Road surprises with four wins
Carol – which led the nominations – goes home empty-handed
Re: “Campuses are there to study. It is no place to do politics.”
Leaving aside the immediate political issue (JNU etc.), this is an unrealistic hope: in just about every country one can think of where political activity is legal, student politics exist, and have done so for decades and even centuries. In India, most universities not only allow the existence of political groups, but allow the existence of political groups affiliated with “outside” political parties — when every party has “its” student wing (certainly true of the Left parties; BJP; and Congress, as well as of the major regional parties) it is simply untrue to say campuses are no place for politics. In fact, throughout modern Indian history, campuses have been among the most important sites of politics! [As an aside, I am not sure I find the idea desirable to begin with: the dream of a “politics-free” campus is an essentially “technocratic” dream, and I find that quite problematic even when applied to “adult” politics (e.g. when Kejriwal was its standard bearer), as embodying not something “apolitical” but a bourgeois politics… Of course I fervently wish we could banish violence and hooliganism from campuses, but the latter are simply a reflection of the wider social reality: when we are not able to banish violence and hooliganism from parliamentary politics and even state assemblies; from cultural spheres; from villages and cities; I doubt campuses can be magically insulated from it.]
Q – I understand that it is an idealistic want but have lived four years on campus; Mostly people who were not giving enough attention to studies were part of this groupings. The main aim to go to University is to study and not to get into politics. I understand it is used as leapfrog to get into politics by many.
Army is so big but there is no political politics over there. Don’t army men have views? They do, but it is mostly to self. IMO Even if you want to learn the art of politics, you can do it outside campus.
‘Deadpool’ Breaks Box Office Records for R-Rated Film
By BROOKS BARNESFEB. 14, 2016
LOS ANGELES — Welcome to the A-list, Deadpool.
In a triumph of audacious marketing, risky filmmaking and cost consciousness — at an old-line movie studio, no less — 20th Century Fox’s extremely R-rated “Deadpool,” starring Ryan Reynolds in a career-defining role (at last), broke box office records over the weekend, taking in about $135 million at North American theaters.
Going into the Valentine’s Day weekend, Hollywood expected ticket sales of roughly $70 million. But multiplex audiences, apparently hungering for the originality promised by Fox’s unusual advertising campaign, powered “Deadpool” to the biggest domestic opening on record for an R-rated movie. The previous record-holder was “The Matrix Reloaded,” which took in $118.3 million in May 2003, after adjusting for inflation.
“This tells me without any question that new and creative is what audiences want,” said Chris Aronson, Fox’s president of domestic distribution. Mr. Aronson said “Deadpool” could take in another $20 million on Monday, when many Americans are off work for Presidents’ Day. “My wrists are getting a little tired, but I will tape them up,” he added, joking that he had spent the weekend doing cartwheels.
Comedic, violent and sexually charged, “Deadpool” stars Mr. Reynolds as the title character, a Marvel Comics antihero with freakish self-healing powers. Directed by Tim Miller, a first-time feature filmmaker, the movie openly mocks Marvel films and finds Mr. Reynolds doing unconventional things for this genre, like talking directly into the camera.
The “mind-boggling” turnout could have ripple effects across Hollywood, said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at comScore. From a business perspective, other studios — namely the Disney-owned Marvel — could face pressure from investors to spend less. Fox made “Deadpool” for a relatively inexpensive $58 million. To compare, Marvel’s “Ant-Man,” starring Paul Rudd, arrived to $57.2 million in ticket sales in July but cost $130 million to make.
That’s the titanic battle that’s shaping up.. the thing with srinivas an though is he was approved 97-0 for the DC circuit. Let’s see if the Republicans can stick to their plan here.
Was listening to NPR and Republican senator on Judiciary committee said he is a fine candidate but said republicans wouldn’t allow any nominee from Obama. He said American public should have say in appointment as if Obama was elected for 3 years by public.
Yes, by saying that even the fiction that they will consider a proposed judge on the merits is being discarded — well said on the point about 3 years. And to be honest the two parties are not equally to blame here, because there has been no comparable record of Democratic obstructionism on this sort of issue in decades. Basically, and even the media errs in calling this evidence of how polarised the two sides are, the issue arises because, ever since Bill Clinton won in 1992, the American Right has adopted a strategy to the effect that the Democrat President is somehow illegitimate; with Obama this was ratcheted up a notch, and if Hillary ever won we could expect at least the same amount of de-legitimization as we got with Bill Clinton (ironically, during these decades, the only chap who clearly lost the popular vote and had an election handed to him was the Republican Dubya!). Only if we appreciate this premise — that “he has no right to be my President” — does the Republican approach and attitude make sense (i.e. they would say they aren’t obstructing anything, because the ordinary rules of politics do not apply when one is dealing with a “usurper”); the cleverer ones have a variation of this argument, such as when Rubio, rather than calling Obama a traitor or a usurper, says that he is “trying to change the country” and “make it like other countries”: his “crime”, in short, is against American exceptionalism! It’s incoherent in articulation, but it gets at that sense of illegitimacy without making Rubio sound crazy (in Rubio’s case, of course, it also makes him sound like the “real” Obama, i.e. the son of the immigrant who will genuinely redeem America’s promise, a promise wrongly entrusted to Obama! The implicit structure of Rubio’s claim is as Shiite Islam is to Sunni Islam, with history — the history that anointed the promised one (Ali as Muhammad’s successor for the Shiites; a different group of successors for Sunnis) — itself a cheat, and hence illegitimate)…
Munna: the Bork issue was not the same: they considered his nomination and were hostile (based on very controversial aspects to his record) and ultimately it didn’t go through (note that his replacement was considered by the same Democratic-majority Senate and confirmed). Here, the Republicans are saying that NO MATTER WHO Obama proposes they will not consider him or her! This is astounding and unprecedented (in the election year of 1988, Democrat-majority Senate confirmed Kennedy with NO vote against him). Obama will likely try and embarrass them by proposing a guy like Srinivasan, who was confirmed 97-0 for the appellate court — if the same people now say he isn’t qualified for SC they will be embarrassed (the Republicans know this full well, hence will try and prevent the nominee even coming up for hearings, as the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee openly stated)…
Bork was a different deal though. He had very controversial views on certain subjects (which even some Republicans got uncomfortable with) and he therefore ran into trouble during the nomination process. After this Kennedy was confirmed in an election year (’88). here the Republicans are saying they won’t even take it up which is unprecedented. Because of course if they did they couldn’t delay it enough. Obama would throw out a candidate impossible to delay on those grounds. But the idea that the Presidency ends after 3 years on this (or any other) subject is really a new low for them.
Q: There’s a reason that the Bork has become a verb. Kennedy’s speech hit a new low in handling SC nominations, only to be breached later by how the Democrats handled Clarence Thomas during his hearings. The Democrat hands are by no means clean.
That said, I agree that McConnell was silly to have closed off consideration of the nomination- much easier to have it fail on the floor or in committee. Speaking for myself though, It’s really painful to picture a staunch originalist like Scalia being replaced by another liberal reading the umbras and penumbras of the Constitution.
But originalism is just a huge myth. The originalists are themselves the most ‘creative’ interpreters of the constitution. they just pretend to be following tradition! Dem hands are certainly not clean but there’s nothing remotely comparable to this. I think it’s important to be precise in these matters. For instance when Hillary lost the healthcare battle the Dems themselves (who controlled the Senate) didn’t take it up even in committee. So here it wasn’t a Republican thing. They weren’t friends of healthcare even then but they weren’t the reason the thing was killed. Similarly delaying a nomination no matter how cynically is different from blocking it from even getting to that process. And again originalism is just a huge (and successfully peddled) myth. Scalia’s own opinions prove exactly this.
Both Grassley and Tillis have come out in favor of hearings. McConnell’s position is probably untenable. If there’s a halfway palatable nominee, they’ll probably get a committee hearing at least, but likely get stuck there. On originalism being a myth, not sure I agree. Scalia for sure was opportunistic on many occasions, but at least there was an attempt to justify the ruling within the text- the liberals of the pre Scalia era didn’t even bother.
this is a somewhat humorous piece but there have been many along these lines from eminent jurists. But leaving aside the context of American jurisprudence I just find any sort of ‘originalism’ idea about any text to be theoretically ‘impossible’. And certainly it reveals the structure of religious fundamentalism.
On the rest yes Grassley is the chairman of the Judiciary committee and presumably his statement carries great weight. I’ll once again raise the Srinivasan banner! C’mon Chipguy, a guy swearing on the Gita on the Sup Ct? I certainly love the idea!
Oh, I certainly have no issues with Srinivasan- it would definitely be a milestone and he’s a heck of a smart guy. That said, I was really hoping for a SC that would rein in all the executive actions- on immigration, power plant emissions and the like. Not because it’s specifically Obama, but because I think the executive has gradually been amassing more and more power. I’ve always liked divided government with one party in the WH and the other controlling Congress since it’s an effective curb on excessive government, but if the executive goes ahead and does what it wants anyway, that doesn’t really help. This holds whether it’s an R or a D at the WH.
Fair enough. And it’s ironic that congressional obstruction usually increases the power of the president in this sense. Now having said that there are those who would argue that the presidency has been ‘imperial’ at most crucial points in US history. Another way of looking at this is that the power of a president is usually greater when there’s a crisis of any sort not less. But the corollary here is that at the very same inflection points the congress has often been intransigent. All else being eQual the public prefers the president.
But if there is ever a hearing this year the trickiest questions will probably revolve around obama’s executive actions.
Antonin Scalia called his strict constructionism something else — originalism, I think — because, as a Supreme Court Justice at an advanced age, he was still the brightest kid in Catholic School and had to be “special.” But it’s the same recipe with only slightly different ingredients that means the cake the Founders baked is the one we’re stuck with. No “Living Constitution.” No changes except by Congressional amendment. Or by whim of Scalia (e.g., I’m still searching for the Founders’ views justifying “corporations as people” or anything else in the steaming pile of unconstitutional shit called Citizens United). Or when duty to employer calls.
The Republican party has become a true circus act. These guys and gals are all shams. And the people who elect these clowns are just as stupid. Trump is their answer…this is how superficial the right wing has become (and he might actually win this damn thing if he goes against Hillary). Look at the presidents they have produced in the past 35 years…Bush and Bush (baap numberi..toh beta dus numberi)…and of course their lord and savior Reagan.
It is indeed a circus, but on both sides. Sanders’ ideas are just as ludicrous as Trump’s but just couched more politely and in revolutionary language. What we’re seeing is the reaction to years of elites from both parties rushing headlong into a globalized, open border, technocratic future- without ever asking the vast majority of the working class voters if this was what they wanted, or making any effort to help adjust them to the future. The chickens are truly coming home to roost- not just here but in Europe as well, with the rise of the nationalistic, protectionist right-wing.
“Sanders’ ideas are just as ludicrous as Trump’s but just couched more politely and in revolutionary language.”
The problem with Trump is not ridiculousness but utter ugliness. If he were just the Sanders of the Right things wouldn’t be so problematic. But he has come up with the kind of toxic discourse that no major party in the West has in quite some time (outside of Hungary and Poland!). In other words you have extreme right wing parties in France or Britain or wherever saying this kind of stuff not mainstream conservatives. The Republican party in the US has in the post-Bush years been completely hijacked by this kind of extremism. Sanders has a one-note old left program that I’m not really sympathetic too (even if it’s a sign of our times that saying things about ‘big banks’ seems to people to be comparable to saying bigoted/racist/sexist stuff about hispanics and muslims and women and so on) but there’s nothing absurd about it otherwise (many economists favored the break up of the big banks in 2008, Medicare for all is more or less a reality in very many western countries as is free public college or something close to it). On the other hand Trump, and moving beyond his disgusting politics, isn’t saying anything that is or could be a model for governance, domestically or internationally, anywhere in the world. Many in the media also set up this kind of false analogy which is quite dangerous and obscures everything.
On the larger matter of globalization and so forth here I’d agree but for a different reason. I think the problem isn’t just the parties who keep selling these myths about jobs coming back and what but the voters (‘us’) who keep refusing to see reality here along with very many ‘experts’ on both sides. This is where the logic of ‘capitalism’ leads. Specially in a technological age. It is a fantasy to think one could live in this sort of world and simply close one’s borders and protect one’s workers. It’s just not possible economically. And it was never possible this way. The difference just is that once Manchester existed in the heart of the West. Today it’s moved to Bangladesh. If you continue with Manchester you no longer have the West as we know it (labor laws, welfare state, political emancipation for various groups, etc) but if we want that West someone else has to do the job. Countries where precisely these issues are not a problem. It is really our own hypocrisy that stares us in the face. For us to use those seductive iPhones people have to work in horrible Foxcon factories in China! For us to use these great devices (laptops etc) horrible civil wars have to be perpetuated in Africa for easy access to coltan to continue. For us to believe in the Amazon world people have to work in miserable conditions right here in the US in those warehouses. This is the model the smart entrepreneurs or business executives of the world believe in. In other words these are the ultimate free marketeers! We’re listening to them for a reason right?! The idea that all of this can happen at the very same time that all of the world can also look like Geneva is absurd. I am not arguing against capitalism necessarily but we should all accept the consequences of our choices and the kind of world we believe in. We are its beneficiaries but everyone isn’t. Simply being a religious fundamentalist about ‘capitalism’ and saying people are not doing those ‘other’ things that will balance out everything is hardly a solution!
Can’t disagree with your comment on Trump’s utter boorishness. Probably the difference here is that where in Hungary and elsewhere the ugly views have an outlet in the marginal parties, here they fester within a majority party till they explode into full view like they’re doing today.
I don’t disagree that this globalized world is where the logic of capitalism leads us. My “complaint” is that, where the Democrats should have ideally fought that battle on behalf of the working class and offered an antidote to the logic of unfettered capitalism and globalization, they instead got caught up in identity politics and abandoned the white working class. Liberals typically despise the white working class as racist, homophobic, uneducated and undeserving of attention. The Republican establishment takes them for granted after elections. The interests of this (rather large) pool of voters has been ignored for decades, and they are now making their voices heard- for better or worse.
On the second paragraph I agree that the Left (and not just in the US) long ago abandoned economic arguments in favor of cultural or identity claims. But I think that part of the problem here is that at a certain point they won. The West that we all like to live in as migrants is one that is largely made comfortable because of that brand of identity politics. Much as in the same sense the welfare state also became a huge safety net for very many (the US is not like Europe here or Canada but it’s also not the US of the 1930s) and alleviated many of those issues that in effect made the old economic arguments less pressing issues. Then there was more upward economic mobility, more of a vote to be garnered here. The Obama coalition represents one of those inflection points in US history. This is the default shape of the presidential electorate. Which is why the Dems will have an advantage in most average Presidential elections in the foreseeable future the way the Republicans had in the 80s and 90s (Clinton himself prevailed twice in three way elections). But essentially a coalition of important racial minorities combined with more educated white populations in most parts of the country. There is not much room here to address the blue collar white worker. These economic issues can of course be subsumed under the label of ethnic politics when it comes to blacks and hispanics and so on. Now if you stress economic populist too much you start losing a certain kind of suburban (and beyond) vote. So it’s a tricky balance. But my point is that some of these shifting demographics explain why the Dems stopped speaking to certain kinds of voters. Unfortunate but in a way part of this larger historic shift. Now when this kind of voter stops seeing any hope anywhere he or she becomes more susceptible to the xenophobic pitch of Trump or whoever much as the Republican party becomes in the same age one of ‘resentment’ or a platform for those who think there are too many Indians in the neighborhood and one black too many in the WH! An even larger point is that the relative improvement in economic conditions coupled with the guarantees of the welfare state and legislative progress in social relations and so forth brings us to this state. Of course the white working class impasse is part of the problem. The even greater one is that of America’s ‘black’ inner cities which everyone finds easy to ignore. One of the legacies of race in America is that this group’s needs could only be address under the banner of identity politics. And even this wasn’t acceptable to many. So it’s overall a complicated situation.
True, and unfortunately the 2 party system has foreclosed the possibility of a culturally conservative, economically populist party that appeals to that constituency. Perhaps these are the death throes of the existing system and the Republican party will evolve into that party. The Republican establishment can defect and make common cause with the upwardly mobile liberals…
yes that’s the 2 party blackmail in most democracies. At some point the Republican Party will of course evolve. It will become a minority party otherwise.
I don’t know whats the consensus of Ghayal Once Again on here but I think the movie is pretty good and in one word its Indian version of Die Hard. Its as good as Die Hard 4(come back movie of Willis) and definitely better than Die Hard 5. The problem is whenever Sunny directs, he doesn’t make a mass connecting movie as his personal choice/nature is different than the image he has which is of dumb massy action star. The movie is certainly good effort in you take in single person sharing credentials for story, screenplay, dialogues, producer, director and lead actor! Good job and respectable outing by Sunny and certainly better than any of his recent outings!
I did like it to an extent. There are certain things that worked well for me. A few things didn’t however.
The early build-up is absorbing. Then the real action starts after around half an hour. There comes the best part of the film. It’s an edge of the seat chase scene that goes right up the interval and then at least 15-20 minutes beyond that, Those chase scenes are well choreographed. I haven’t seen too many better chase scenes in Bollywood.
Then comes an unwelcome corny twist that slows down the movie for a good 15-20 minutes. They probably wanted something emotional but it doesn’t work here.
Then the movie picks up again with the climax.
Sunny hasn’t taken the easy route. No outbursts which the masses probably want from him. He doesn’t even land the trademark punch until practically the last frame.
The action scenes are of the hollywood kind, There are well executed chases and the fights are more of the 50-50 kind rather rather than the hero effortlessly kicking everyone’s asses and those people flying around. More for the multiplexes rather than for the masses.
The hero is vulnerable at times and he is fighting his inner demons while the villain does those evil things because he is compelled to. He has to protect his familly.
The chase scenes work. When the emotional twist comes, go to the loo to prepare for the grand climax. The twist remains the weakness of the movie.
In fact pre-release I thought it was going to be a total wash-out. But its 1st week is something between 30cr (BOI) and 34.5cr (Taran).
Mumbai: Actor Aamir Khan, who was recently replaced as the face of the “Incredible India” campaign, is likely to be the ambassador for a key project of the Maharashtra government.
He is likely to be the ambassador of “drought-free Maharashtra” and will promote a flagship irrigation scheme in villages, sources say.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is expected to make an announcement today.
The scheme, “Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan”, aims at making 25,000 villages in the state drought-free in five years. State government officials say with over 3200 farmer deaths in the past year, it is important to promote the project in a big way.
Maharashtra’s BJP-led government has opted for the actor as a spokesperson at a time the Centre preferred to not to continue with him as the face of its Incredible India campaign to market the country to tourists abroad.
Aamir Khan was also by the Chief Minister’s side during a cultural show on Sunday at the state’s “Make In India” event, which had to be cancelled when a massive fire broke out.
The 50-year-old star’s contract for the national tourism campaign was not renewed after a huge controversy in November when he commented on alleged “intolerance” in the country. He had said that his wife Kiran Rao was so concerned that she had wondered out loud about relocating from India.
Amid reports that the actor was being punished for those comments, Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma said that he featured in the Incredible India campaign through an ad agency, McCann Erickson, whose contract with the government had ended. The government has now recruited megastar Amitabh Bachchan as its spokesperson.
Reacting to the change, Aamir Khan said at the time: “It is the prerogative of the government to decide whether they need a brand ambassador for any campaign, and if so, who that ambassador should be. I respect the decision of the government to discontinue with my services.”
Katrina Kaif recently mentioned that the film which was supposed to release on June 3, 2016 has now been shifted to the end of July or August. Revealing the reason for the delay, the actress added that they are yet to wrap up the shoot of 60-70 days.
Girish Johar @girishjohar 14m14 minutes ago
Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif starrer, #JaggaJasoos postponed again ….
The Rock announced on Instagram: She’s one of the biggest stars in the world. Insanely talented, relentlessly smokin’ and extremely dangerous – perfect for #BAYWATCH. Welcome @PriyankaChopra to our bad ass and incredibly dysfunctional family. Cue RATED R slo-mo running on the beach.
Who’s afraid of Priyanka Chopra? Dwayne Johnson, that’s who. The 33-year-old actress, currently winning the West as Quantico’s Alex Parrish, has been cast as the villain in next year’s Baywatch movie. The Rock, who co-stars, reveals just why in an Instagram video.
Check out the superlatives in the video – “the biggest star out of India, one of the biggest stars in the world,” “insanely talented, relentlessly smokin’ and extremely dangerous.”
Ghayal Once Again IMO is an intentionally funny film. Yes there are some moments but overall it runs out out of steam pretty quickly. It has a laughable plot n too many cheesy moments. Certainly not something I’d take seriously
Paani Foundation is a not-for-profit company whose main objective will be to bring about a change in outlook about water conservation.
Actor Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao have started Paani Foundation, a not-for-profit company whose main objective will be to communicate, impart knowledge and bring about a change in outlook at the grassroots level about water conservation and watershed management. Paani will work with the Maharashtra government towards solving the water crisis in the state.
Mr Khan and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis made the announcement at a press conference in Mumbai on Wednesday. Also present on stage were film-maker Raj Kumar Hirani and Paani’s advisory board members Kumarmangalam Birla, Amit Kalyani and Rajiv Bajaj.
The other advisory board members of the Foundation are Ratan Tata, Nita Ambani, Deepak Parekh, Baba Kalyani, Anu Aga, Dr Avinash Pol, Popatrao Pawar, Svati Chakravarty and Atul Kulkarni. Satyajit Bhatkal will lead operations as its CEO, and Khan’s ex-wife Reena Dutta is COO. Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), a not-for-profit NGO founded in 1993, is a knowledge partner.
Speaking about the actor, Mr Fadnavis said, “He is not being a brand ambassador but working on ground.” Maharashtra’s government already runs Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, a scheme that aims to make the state drought free by 2012. Mr Khan said, “We felt the need to scale it up and make the government scheme into a civil society movement at our end.”
Earlier, Mr Khan had told The Hindu that he had been working on the idea of the foundation for almost a year. It began to take shape on May 1, Maharashtra Day, in 2015, in a meeting he had with the CM. “We were involved with various social issues for five years through the three seasons of Satyamev Jayate. We then decided to focus on one problem in Maharashtra which is my janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi, [birthplace and workplace].”
There are lots of NGOs working in the field so how would Paani’s work differ? “Other NGOs are investing in structures, while we will invest in people,” Mr Khan said. The foundation’s first step, he said, was the Satyamev Jayate Water Cup, a water management competition between villages.
Mr Bhatkal, Paani’s CEO, said that the competition would “also help build community spirit” and hopefully bring some unknown ‘water heroes’ into the spotlight. In three talukas in three different districts — Koregaon in Satara, Warud in Amravati and Ambajogai in Beed — gram panchayats will be invited to participate in a contest. It will be publicised in local cable networks, newspaper and on digital and social media. Participating villages will nominate five members each for free training for the contest, for which the last date for applications is March 7. Youth and women contestants will be encouraged.
Selected candidates will be trained on-field in villages that have successfully carried out watershed management. After the training, there will be a 45-day contest, ending May 31.
The villages will be helped to preparie a water plan and budget, and to access funds and government and technical help.
Contesting villages will then be evaluated by experts on their watershed management and conservation efforts. The first prize will be Rs 50 lakh, second Rs 30 lakh and the third for Rs 20 lakh.
A digital platform will collate all the data and acept contributions from supporters.
Mr Khan wants to also encourage his friends and other celebrities to join him in the water movement, and become water mentors. “People want a positive change and there’s no problem that can’t be solved by coming together,” he said.
The CM concurred, pointing out that water is an “open mission.” The more who join in, the merrier.
While Khan was asked a question about whether he had put aside differences with the BJP government, Fadnavis stepped in to take this query to avoid another potential political controversy. “I think every issue need not be made controversial and sometimes we can have positive news.’’ The chief minister also clarified Khan was not the brand ambassador for the scheme, perhaps to avoid an unfavourable comparison with the actor being dropped as brand ambassador for the Incredible India campaign in January this year.
“When we were working on Satyamev Jayate, we could see the show had a tremendous impact on ground zero. Since then, we have been thinking about how we can contribute further in nation building or tackling certain issues. We thought why not focus on just one topic and take it forward completely. We chose water and Maharashtra, because both of us [Khan and Bhatkal] are from the state. It is our ‘janmabhumi’ and ‘karmabhumi’,’’ said Khan.
For starters, the foundation will organise a Satyamev Jayate water cup, a competition among 300-odd villages from three talukas of three districts — Koregaon in Satara, Ambejogai in Beed and Warud in Amravati — as a pilot to be launched from this March. The competing villages will be able to send five villagers from every village to get a month’s training from experts with the foundation in water shed management. They will then have to replicate the measures learnt in their village to conserve water before the onset of the monsoon. The three best efforts will be give prizes of Rs 50 lakh, Rs 30 lakh and Rs 20 lakh. This will eventually be scaled up across all drought-prone districts. The idea behind the competition, Bhatkal said is to spur youngsters to do positive and transformational work in their villages. The winners will also get presented as water heroes in the country, and their success stories will be broadcast on television and in documentaries.
Fadnavis’ Drought Free Village aims at making 25,000 villages drought free by 2019 but another year of water scarcity in 2016 could break the government’s back and this optimism.
Khan said he will dedicate as much time and focus on this project as he does for his films. In the offing are plans to have a celebrity mentor for every taluka, which participates in the water cup, a 360-degree communication campaign and a digital platform that will allow online donations to villages after allowing one to monitor the status and requirement of the ongoing work.
Vidyut Jamwal starrer Commando 2 goes on floor
Vidyut Jamwal, who was last seen ‘in action’ in the forgettable flick Bullet Raja, has been sorely missing from B-town for some time now. It now seems that this man is all set to storm the Bollywood scene with many films in his kitty.
For starters, Vidyut, who impressed everyone with his martial skills in the film Commando is now getting all geared up for the film’s sequel Commando 2, whose shooting will kick start in Mumbai from today. The sequel is directed by Deven Bhojani.
Speaking about the film, Vipul Shah (who is producing the sequel) said that they are extremely proud of it and that everyone is expecting them to make something better and bigger. On the other hand, Vidyut Jamwal said that while Vipul Shah is someone who understood action, Deven Bhojani is someone whose detailing has simply floored him ever since he has seen the action serial ‘Pukar’ of the filmmaker.
Madhu Mantena of Phantom Films (which has co-produced the film) said that he is extremely confident that the sequel will take things to a whole new level. On the other hand, Deven Bhojani said that he was glad that Vipul Shah and his partners chose him to direct Commando 2. He added that they have a super talented team of actors and technicians from India and abroad who will be a part of this film.
However, the makers haven’t divulged any details of the leading lady in the film whereas Pooja Chopra played the female lead in the prequel Commando.
Just as i had predicted one month back, Neerja is set to be clean hit. But, it is not just due to good film, sonam has got some credibility after giving a couple of good films since 2013.
2 Years back, i wouldnt have stepped in to watch sonam on Big screen. But, Last year’ Dolly ki doli(which was hilarious non-stop), 2014’s khoobsoorat(havent watched it, but did well) and 2013’s Raanjhnaa(one of the best films of 2013) have convinced audience to watch sonam kapoor.
And after Dolly ki doli and khubsoorat , i wont mind her solo movie on big screen.And that’s why it will easily do 50+ cr. 2 years back same movie with sonam wouldnt have crossed 30 cr.
Neerja is set for very good trending and could be Sonam’s Queen/Vidya balan’s Kahaani.
Though, sonam was equally bad in PRDP, a bad movie and salman was average too.
SATYAMSHOT 
February 12, 2016 at 3:35 AM
Fitoor and Sanam Re have both opened below the mark. The occupancies of both films are around 15% with Fitoor better in the metros and Sanam Re better at the other centres. The screen count is 2000 apprx for Sanam Re and 1500 apprx for Fitoor. This should give Sanam Re the edge but Fitoor seems a film for premium multiplexes which have the best collections in the evening.
The opening for Sanam Re may not be good in terms of occupancy but due to the wide release it can be a decent number against its budget and with consolidation over the weekend it can come out with a fair weekend. The film has opened far better than Fitoor in places like Gujarat, Rajasthan and CI.
Boxofficeindia
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February 12, 2016 at 6:21 AM
Fitoor: Tabu holds the viewer in her grasp
http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/cinema-reviews/hindi-film-fitoor-review-tabu-holds-the-viewer-in-her-grasp/article8226834.ece
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February 12, 2016 at 6:26 AM
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/academy-member-weinstein-breaks-rules-endorses-leo-for-oscar/article8228094.ece?homepage=true
DiCaprio will be up against Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender, Bryan Cranston and Eddie Redmayne for an Academy Award this year.
Hollywood heavyweight producer Harvey Weinstein, who is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, broke the rules by endorsing Leonardo DiCaprio for an Oscar in the best actor category for his role in The Revenant.
While attending the amfAR gala in New York Gala, the 63-year-old film producer gave a shout-out to DiCaprio, 41, on stage at the star-studded occasion, reported Us magazine. DiCaprio was also in attendance and sat next to him.
“As an Academy member, you’re not supposed to endorse anyone up for an Academy Award, but I have to say Leo DiCaprio is so amazing in The Revenant,” Weinstein told the crowd. “His devotion and the way he rolls it all up into something beautiful is amazing. I’ve never worked with anyone who’s so wonderful and so classy.”
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February 12, 2016 at 6:27 AM
“Imagine a fly sitting on an elephant. The weight of fly is added to his body but the elephant will not feel it. What LIGO detected was much smaller than the perceived impact of the fly sitting on the elephant”.
How can a common man comprehend the nano-impact of gravitational waves detected in the landmark astrophysics discovery of the century?
Eminent astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar came out with an analogy for the benefit of the layman to explain the complexity involved in detecting the gravitational wave that emanated at a distance of 1.3 billion light years from the earth.
“Imagine a fly sitting on an elephant. The weight of fly is added to his body but the elephant will not feel it. What LIGO (the detector used in the discovery) detected was much smaller than the perceived impact of the fly sitting on the elephant,” Prof. Narlikar said while speaking to reporters at the Pune-based Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCCA), on Thursday night.
Prof. Narlikar, who was the first head of the IUCCA, recalled that he and one of his scientist colleague Sanjeev Dhurandhar had put up a proposal seeking funding for research on gravitational waves in India in 1988 soon after the Centre was set up but had failed to convince the authorities who doubted their “credibility” to undertake such a project for developing a detector.
Congratulating the Indian scientists who formed a part of the international team, Prof. Naralikar said detection of the gravitational waves is a “remarkable discovery which will be remembered for long”.
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/gravitational-waves-jayant-narlikar-explains-in-laymans-terms/article8227698.ece?homepage=true
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February 12, 2016 at 6:35 AM
NY Times:
Review: ‘Fitoor’ Enlists Dickens to Tell a Hindi Love Story
Fitoor
By RACHEL SALTZFEB. 11, 2016
Based, sometimes loosely, sometimes carelessly, sometimes pointlessly, on “Great Expectations,” the Hindi movie “Fitoor” is at all times more Bollywood than Dickens. The Urdu word “fitoor” means “madness,” as in madly in love, so it’s no surprise that the movie, directed by Abhishek Kapoor (“Rock On!!”), focuses on the love story.
Noor falls instantly and, yes, madly for Firdaus when both are children in Kashmir. He’s a poor boy with artistic talent. She’s a horse-riding rich girl, the adopted daughter of Begum Hazrat (Tabu), the Miss Havisham character who languorously smokes her hookah in a beautifully crumbling mansion, her eyes full of pain.
Years later Noor (Aditya Roy Kapur) becomes a hotshot artist in Delhi, where again he meets Firdaus (Katrina Kaif). Boom. Too bad she’s about to be engaged to a Pakistani bigwig.
“Fitoor” doesn’t get much political resonance out of its Kashmiri setting, though the wintry sadness of the first scenes has power. Nor does it get much resonance out of class differences between Noor and Firdaus.
Handsome and self-possessed, Noor has his great career expectations met upon arrival in Delhi, where he instantly becomes the Next Big Thing on the art scene — a glittery, multicultural world of gents with man buns and women in miniskirts. He’s artist as gym god, hammering metal like a shirtless, muscle-bound Vulcan.
As for Firdaus, she may have secrets but she doesn’t have much mystery. Together, she and Noor are pretty people whose pain registers as broody pouting.
It’s left to Tabu to give the movie some emotional punch or any real connection to Dickens. She may not be at her finest here, as she is in “Maqbool” or “Haider.” But with her great tragedienne’s face she can express loss with just a gaze, a melancholy reminder of how the weight of the past warps the present.
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February 12, 2016 at 5:03 PM
Notice a certain suspicious ‘web’ that crops up these days in Bollywood. The classic ‘exoticized’ by way of the Kashmiri Muslim. I have pointed out this out before Urdu has a certain cache in multiplex Hindi-speaking India. Now this is true even in terms of a larger North Indian popular imagination where Hindi poetry has never quite been able to occupy the same space but there the readership if you will is a much more rooted one. The classes that constitute multiplex India are not really hooked into any native literary scene. But Urdu nonetheless constitutes a prestige marker. From the lyrics of those Mahesh Bhatt songs to titles like that of this film. A simple thought experiment. If you want that much Hindi on both counts you probably need Ajay Devgan in a militant masala effort of some sort! Otherwise it doesn’t sell anywhere! Now in one sense the Muslim has made a comeback in Bollywood over the last decade and a half. In the 90s we just saw gangsters and terrorists. Now you see a spectrum (in Wazir you get somewhat absurdly Muslims at both ends of the good-evil spectrum! and again with a Kashmir angle!) and this is to be welcomed. However I am skeptical of many aspects of this representation precisely for the Fitoor-like reason. Leaving aside the objections I’ve already raised this sort of choice prevents a certain rootedness because the Muslim then becomes the marker of a certain gauzy abstraction. Even if the films in question seem rooted at first glance they are so in a fairy-tale sort of way. The site might be authentic but the contexts are all marked by that exoticization-eroticization of Muslim identity. And of course the classic on the other hand is kept at a distance. It is precisely not made relevant in an immediate sense with some of these choices.
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February 12, 2016 at 5:23 PM
good comment.
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February 12, 2016 at 8:03 AM
Finally, a journalist from Mexico broke through the bonhomie. Referring to the refugee crisis, which she called a “human catastrophe,” she asked what Clooney, as a public figure, intended to do. To everyone’s surprise, he looked at her and said, “What is it specifically that you have done for refugees?” The woman behind me muttered, “Brutal!” But the journalist was unfazed. She went on to explain that she worked with an organisation that made toys for children and helps refugees learn German. Clooney was in no mood to back down. “Those are the people you are working with. I asked what you specifically were doing?” He had a smile on, and yet, for a minute, we got a glimpse of a cracked facade. It was left to Joel Coen to cool things down. “It’s absurd to say that anyone in public life or the creative world should be telling this particular story.” A question about Trump brought the script back on track. “He’s a strange phenomenon,” Joel said. “It’s surreal.”Everyone laughed.
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February 12, 2016 at 10:07 AM
When I first met Jiah Khan I thought she was the most innocently sexy girl I had ever seen.
Later, when Amitji and I were discussing Nishabd, I told him I had the perfect girl for the heroine’s role. The moment he saw her pictures, he too agreed.
Throughout the making of Nishabd, the entire unit, myself included, thought that she would become a big star. Even after the film failed, because of the hype generated around her, she got roles in big films like Ghajiniin spite of their huge success, her career strangely never took off.
When I heard of her suicide, I cried uncontrollably though I was never really close to her.
She was one of the few people who couldn’t cope with the disappointments and frustrations the film industry is replete with.
I think the only redeeming feature of this ugly world full of disease, destruction, violence and death is that God has created beautiful women.
They are the only solace in this otherwise ugly world, and I think that it’s our duty towards nature and God to strive to keep a woman’s beauty away from ugliness so that it can be framed, protected and worshipped.
This excerpt from Guns and Thighs: The Story of My Life by Ram Gopal Varma is reprinted by permission of Rupa Publications India. Copyright Ram Gopal Varma Penumatsa 2016. All rights reserved.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/why-ram-gopal-varma-had-a-problem-with-urmila/20160208.htm
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February 12, 2016 at 12:37 PM
Sometimes I feel, scientists come up with these things just to prove that they are doing great work and justifying spending billions.
And when we say pushpak viman was there, they laugh at us.
Energy released a billion years ago reached us in September – think of how far in space the collision took place.
Physicists said the gravitational wave detected in September originated in the last fraction of a second before the fusion of two black holes, though they can’t say precisely where.
And we have to go gaga over it. Just imagine it was fraction of a second and it sounded like a chirp. Haha!
Now there will be hollywood movies about this phenomena.
I amybe sounding like an ignoramus but this is how I feel about this greatest discovery.
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February 12, 2016 at 12:59 PM
This didn’t make sense to me. May be I am missing something. How did we figure when to run the experiment with these arriving gravitational waves which were assumed.
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February 12, 2016 at 1:01 PM
This looks like cock and bull story. Wait until the next greatest discovery!
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February 12, 2016 at 1:10 PM
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/all-physics-is-local/462480/
http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361
experimentation has been ongoing for a long time to establish these waves.
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February 12, 2016 at 1:27 PM
So there is possibility of more waves detected in future.
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February 13, 2016 at 12:51 AM
A better explanation :
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1853
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February 12, 2016 at 1:00 PM
Such generalised terms like billions of years, billions of light years which cannot be verified.
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February 12, 2016 at 2:28 PM
One has to be a scientist to understand the complexities of the theory and the methodology used to prove those theories. These simple news stories hardly scratch the surface of Einstein’s theory of relativity and its profundity. It undoubtedly is difficult to comprehend the theory of matter, and three-dimensional time-space dynamics.
Unfortunately, most common folk do not understand any of this and reject it as mumbo-jumbo or worse a conspiracy theory to spend billions! Then the even more scientifically-stunted lean on religion to make sense of any unexplained phenomenon, even despite utilizing the latest gizmos made possible by the same science which they deride. People cannot comprehend wave theory, yet utilize the fruits of the wave theory to despise every scientific thought that makes life so livable today.
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February 13, 2016 at 12:14 AM
Sanjana: “I amybe sounding like an ignoramus” You ARE an ignoramus. So are most of us. The intricacis of theoretical physics is not something that a layperson can follow. But it is such findings that makes the production of nuclear poer or travel to the moon possible or the constructio of a digital camera or laser surgery to correct eye defects possible. .
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February 13, 2016 at 3:32 AM
That kind of concrete results are appreciated. There is pure science and there is application of science for our well being. Difference between a physics graduate and an electrician.
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February 13, 2016 at 3:55 AM
Excerpts. A lucid explanation for the average person.
The detection of ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves, here on Earth marks a watershed moment for astronomy and for science as a whole. The detection at once improves our understanding of the workings of the universe and, more important, throws open a big opportunity to study it from completely new angles. It opens the way to get information about the evolution of galaxies and black holes. There is also a symmetry to the timing of the discovery: it comes a century after Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity held that acceleration of massive bodies should produce gravitational waves, which travel through the universe at the speed of light. The gravitational waves detected, and announced to the world on Thursday, were produced more than a billion years ago by a cataclysmic collision of two black holes, one of them with a mass 36 times that of the Sun and the other slightly smaller at 29 times, into one black hole. The gravitational waves give scientists insights into the final moments before the merger.
Fittingly, this giant step for science is the result of truly global cooperation. About 60 researchers from more than a dozen institutions in India were part of the over-1,000-strong army of scientists in the collaboration. Nearly 35 Indian scientists are co-authors of the landmark scientific paper that describes the results. The way to find the signal buried in the noise came from an Indian scientist. Similarly, the oscillation of cosmic bodies after a collision was predicted by an Indian scientist back in 1971. Several observatories widely separated from one another will help in determining the direction of any event with greater accuracy and also confirm the genuineness of the signal.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/a-wave-of-awe-and-opportunity/article8229389.ece?homepage=true
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February 13, 2016 at 9:16 AM
[edited]
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February 13, 2016 at 10:33 AM
I’m sorry you have had such a negative experience of Muslims, but I’m not like that and neither are any of my close friends.
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February 13, 2016 at 12:22 PM
Salim you are not like that and you will be safe in India being Ismaili…some parts e.g. pakistan etc, you will be in grave danger. I think we need more assimilation. Maybe people should go to each other’s places of prayers and other such activities to promote bhaichara and oneness of all Indians. More patriotism and less hate for each other.
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February 13, 2016 at 1:00 PM
Salim, with all due respect this kind of apologetic attitude is completely unnecessary. Bigotry always pretends to be premised on ‘experience’. Let me offer a quick example. If whites commit crimes people talk about individuals, when blacks do the same very many people blame the community. So in one case one does things because of personal choices one makes, in the other instance one does so because of a group one belongs to. the ‘good’ black then is someone who doesn’t act ‘like-a-black’ and hence can be an exception to the rule. There is a certain formula to these things — I’m not a racist because I have black friends. But this confirms the racism. Again you’d define your friends as those blacks who are exceptions to the overall group of blacks who act in all the stereotypical ways. I might have lots of bad experiences with lots of people belonging to all kinds of racial groups or religions or whatever. If I start saying these each of those things are symptomatic of that community that’s where the problem begins. One should never give in to such bigotry. or fall for such arguments of experience or whatever. Let’s look at it another way. So many groups have bigoted opinions about so many other groups, sometimes there’s an exact symmetry. Muslims-Hindus in India for example. but everyone can’t be right at the same time! It’s like everyone believing their country is the best in the world, their culture the best in the world or whatever. Again how can everyone be right at the same time?!
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February 13, 2016 at 11:10 AM
I feel really bad, inhuman and guilty as you are saying so. I will be extremely happy to be wrong.
That is my experience, and my experience is not universal but no one should not believe anything but experience oneself.
I lived with them and found they are secretly isis sympathizers or having thoughts against the land they live on.
My experience was initially always to discover later it was for a cause and when i am not willing to agree to with their thoughts, i am in their bad book and betrayed.
Earlier this problem was addressed to lack of education or poverty, but they all are very well earning Indians and US settled muslims, many of them received jobs and quota to study in usa.
One of them is from arabian country, but studied in hyderabad university, received sponsorship from India under some quota to study further in USA inspite of being ordinary student. He calls himself indian before usa citizens in office. But, thoughts are against usa when talking to non-us citizens and against india too when talking to his brotherhood group. And it is all because of india and usa are not muslim countries. Watch their youtube pages or facebook pages, i feel pity what is wrong with some people. This is the limit of treachery.
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February 13, 2016 at 11:12 AM
sorry for poorly constructed sentence.
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February 13, 2016 at 12:26 PM
hatred is not good for health (mental and physical). I hope you let it go and pray for all those misguided people and let things be. Hopefully their world view will change with more travel. Mr Narayan Murthy was staunch communist until he was jailed without doing any crime by a Gestapo, without food/water, in a dark cell. That day uski sari communist (idealism) choot gaya. So maybe these folks will know what it is to be pro-isis when they join it.
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February 13, 2016 at 3:32 PM
i know it is not good for health, otherwise there is so much to say. But it is important to be aware.
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February 13, 2016 at 1:03 PM
I’m glad for this comment but this doesn’t justify the earlier one. And whatever your ‘experience’ might or might not be in this matter that doesn’t mean one can justify universalizing things this way.
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February 13, 2016 at 3:29 PM
justify ? who is justifying who? right thing never needs justification, but justification of savages is bigotry. As for my comments, you removed many others on the pretext of not being in correct thread. That is another bigotry.
If someone wants to be tolerant while savages sit right in the middle of capital of my country enjoying free facilities on tax payers money and say ‘India Go back, we will accomplish Afjal guru’s mission’, then the best thing i can say is strip them of citizenship. While if it was another country, everybody knows what would have happened.
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February 13, 2016 at 3:55 PM
There are few more boring things in the world these days than Indian right-wing hysteria.
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February 13, 2016 at 12:54 PM
Raghav I will not allow such displays of total bigotry here. I’ve removed your entire comment.
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February 13, 2016 at 3:47 PM
Not allowing comments, allowing selective comments, reacting only on situation of displaying yourself as victim, coming out on protest in every other countries to justify own community’s criminal activities, keeping quiet on all the matters of national interest, asking for preferred share from nation and working against is not just bigotry, but moral-less too.
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February 13, 2016 at 11:53 AM
Fitoor is another debacle for Katrina, it seems.
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February 13, 2016 at 12:28 PM
that is one good news. Can’t stand this waxy doll. Time to go back!! On the other hand, I like Sunny Leone a lot more than I would ever care for Katrina and her likes.
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February 13, 2016 at 12:46 PM
There is again huge disparity in the BO reporting this week as well. BOI have Sanam Re at 3.5cr opening day while BH are talking about a 5.04cr opening. BOI are using terms like ‘poor opening’ while BH are already hailing it as a success!
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February 13, 2016 at 6:08 PM
Fitoor and Sanam Re faltered on day two as both failed to show and good upturn in business. Fitoor is looking at growth of around 20% and should collect in the 4-4.25 crore nett region. The film had to be up 50% at a minimum just for a decent trend. This sort of growth means the film is going no where as metros are best on Saturday.
Sanam Re will have very limited growth and will do business in the 3.50-3.75 crore nett range. It the film managed to grow like Fitoor at around 20% it probably would have been enough for the film. The two day numbers are still not bad but with an almost flat trend on Saturday at these low levels it means it will be a one week runner only and that won’t be enough.
The two day business of Fitoor will be around 7.50-7.75 crore nett and Sanam Re will be 7-7.25 crore nett. Both films are looking at weekend in the 11.50-12.50 crore nett range.
Boxofficeindia.
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February 13, 2016 at 6:11 PM
http://www.ndtv.com/blog/what-its-like-to-be-in-a-room-with-david-headley-1276827?pfrom=home-opinion
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February 13, 2016 at 8:03 PM
I don’t get author’s point in this article.
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February 13, 2016 at 8:56 PM
Headley shows no repentance over what he did and he shows utter contempt and he is mocking and sniggering.
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February 13, 2016 at 8:58 PM
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/academic-interest/why-india-has-to-fight-the-worlds-most-absurd-war/
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February 13, 2016 at 9:03 PM
`Unknown journo’, not Tagore, gave Mahatma title to Gandhi!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Unknown-journo-not-Tagore-gave-Mahatma-title-to-Gandhi/articleshow/50979903.cms
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February 14, 2016 at 12:30 AM
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February 14, 2016 at 6:56 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/news/Stones-pelted-at-Shah-Rukh-Khans-car-in-Ahmedabad/videoshow/50983036.cms
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February 14, 2016 at 6:58 AM
Aamir Khan and Kangana Ranaut attend private dinner by Narendra Modi
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/entertainment/140216/aamir-khan-and-kangana-ranaut-attend-private-dinner-by-prime-minister-narendra-modi.html
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February 14, 2016 at 9:44 AM
Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, who was at the centre of a controversy over his comments on intolerance, attended a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Saturday night.
Besides Aamir, actress Kangana Ranaut was also invited at the private dinner held in Turf Club where top politicians, diplomats from several countries and industry leaders were in attendance.
The high-profile event, which was a strict no-media affair, was organised after Mr. Modi launched the mega Make in India (MII) week here on Saturday.
Wading into the “intolerance” debate, the Ghajini star had kicked up a controversy last year by saying he has been “alarmed” by a number of incidents and his wife Kiran Rao even suggested that they should probably leave India.
His comments evoked sharp criticism from ruling BJP and also the NDA government. Later, the 50-year-old actor’s contract as brand ambassador for the government’s Incredible India campaign was not renewed by the Tourism Ministry.
Kangana, 28, had recently said freedom of speech in the country does not mean one can insult anybody and stated that actors should be more careful with what they say.
The ‘Make in India’ event is aimed at attracting investments into the manufacturing sector and showcasing success stories at a specially-created venue at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai.
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/aamir-khan-kangana-meet-narendra-modi-over-dinner/article8237366.ece
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February 14, 2016 at 8:59 AM
Saw ‘Fitoor’. Quite disappointed. The first half was decent enough. But the storytelling post-interval doesn’t hold together. And it is a curiously cold and dull film. Why not include the beautiful dance sequence of the song Pashmina, when you have recorded such a lovely song and have filmed sucha lovely choreographed sequence? Realism, my foot! But the films still is watchable because of the magnificent Tabu. Whenever she is there on screen , there is tension, there is drama. And the film still would have amounted to something if there was another actress in place of Katrina. Okay, she has got a clipped accent which stands out from miles but for god sake, put some expressions on your face! I have often defended her, insisting that she CAN act. But this film conclusively proves that she CANNOT act, when she really has a chance, and when she badly needs to show, her acting prowess.
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February 14, 2016 at 9:31 AM
” And the film still would have amounted to something if there was another actress in place of Katrina.”
And you enjoyed PRDP by imagine Katrina on screen instead of Sonam 🙂
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February 14, 2016 at 10:42 AM
This is what happen when whiz kids start writing ….
Q. Which hero till today has delivered the highest number of hits starting way back from Dilip Kumar or even before?
A. Such questions need a more detailed analysis, something which we cannot do in live QnA’s. It should be Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar with 35 and Shah Rukh Khan with 32 successful films at the top of the list. SRK has the best success ratio as he has done fewer films than Salman. Akshay has done 100 plus films, compared to Salman’s 70 plus and SRK’s 55 plus. We need to analyse Amitabh Bachchan’s career for a more detailed answer.
http://www.indicine.com/movies/bollywood/qna-14022016/
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February 14, 2016 at 10:56 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Fire-breaks-out-during-cultural-programme-at-Make-in-India-event-in-Mumbai/articleshow/50985658.cms
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February 14, 2016 at 11:03 AM
Fire seems to break out after Bachchan’s recital of Prasoon Joshi’s poem. Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Uddhav Thackeray were some of the guests along with others. They are showing it now on TV. Its a very massive fire.
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February 14, 2016 at 8:15 PM
Sanam Re has got advantage of Valnetines Day on Sunday and showed huge growth. The collections will be around 5.75 crore nett which is 50% higher than Saturday. It remains to be seen how much of this growth is due to Valentines Day and how much is real value. Fitoor has not grown as much so there may be some real value growth there but on the other side Sanam Re is a love story which would have had a larger audience on Valentines Day.
Fitoor has modest growth on Sunday at around 20-25% and should be in the 5 crore nett region. The Hollywood film Deadpool which had a good start in the English format has not really trended that well over the weekend.
The Monday collections of Sanam Re are all important as the Sunday business gives the film a chance and Monday will also is it the Valentines Day factor or something more to it.,
Boxofficeindia
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February 14, 2016 at 9:50 PM
Baftas 2016: The Revenant and Mad Max maul competition as Carol snubbed
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/14/bafta-awards-2016-the-revenant-mad-max-carol-leonardo-dicaprio
The Revenant scores best picture, director and actor for Leonardo DiCaprio
Mad Max: Fury Road surprises with four wins
Carol – which led the nominations – goes home empty-handed
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February 15, 2016 at 5:46 AM
Mukul Kesavan hits the nail on the head
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160215/jsp/opinion/story_69258.jsp
Pratap Bhanu Mehta here
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/jnu-sedition-case-kanhaiya-kumar-arrest-afzal-guru-event/
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February 15, 2016 at 3:34 PM
Campuses are there to study. It is no place to do politics.
And Afzal was a terrorist. His sentence was confirmed by SC and in his own words:
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February 16, 2016 at 6:20 AM
Just to be clear Munna, am only liking the fact that you posted the link; not what the fellow is saying!
Never knew this fellow had so blatantly admitted to everything on TV…
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February 16, 2016 at 12:09 PM
well you can like anything here (including your own comment 😉 ) and no one would judge you 🙂
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February 16, 2016 at 10:05 AM
Re: “Campuses are there to study. It is no place to do politics.”
Leaving aside the immediate political issue (JNU etc.), this is an unrealistic hope: in just about every country one can think of where political activity is legal, student politics exist, and have done so for decades and even centuries. In India, most universities not only allow the existence of political groups, but allow the existence of political groups affiliated with “outside” political parties — when every party has “its” student wing (certainly true of the Left parties; BJP; and Congress, as well as of the major regional parties) it is simply untrue to say campuses are no place for politics. In fact, throughout modern Indian history, campuses have been among the most important sites of politics! [As an aside, I am not sure I find the idea desirable to begin with: the dream of a “politics-free” campus is an essentially “technocratic” dream, and I find that quite problematic even when applied to “adult” politics (e.g. when Kejriwal was its standard bearer), as embodying not something “apolitical” but a bourgeois politics… Of course I fervently wish we could banish violence and hooliganism from campuses, but the latter are simply a reflection of the wider social reality: when we are not able to banish violence and hooliganism from parliamentary politics and even state assemblies; from cultural spheres; from villages and cities; I doubt campuses can be magically insulated from it.]
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February 16, 2016 at 12:06 PM
Q – I understand that it is an idealistic want but have lived four years on campus; Mostly people who were not giving enough attention to studies were part of this groupings. The main aim to go to University is to study and not to get into politics. I understand it is used as leapfrog to get into politics by many.
Army is so big but there is no political politics over there. Don’t army men have views? They do, but it is mostly to self. IMO Even if you want to learn the art of politics, you can do it outside campus.
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February 15, 2016 at 8:39 AM
‘Deadpool’ Breaks Box Office Records for R-Rated Film
By BROOKS BARNESFEB. 14, 2016
LOS ANGELES — Welcome to the A-list, Deadpool.
In a triumph of audacious marketing, risky filmmaking and cost consciousness — at an old-line movie studio, no less — 20th Century Fox’s extremely R-rated “Deadpool,” starring Ryan Reynolds in a career-defining role (at last), broke box office records over the weekend, taking in about $135 million at North American theaters.
Going into the Valentine’s Day weekend, Hollywood expected ticket sales of roughly $70 million. But multiplex audiences, apparently hungering for the originality promised by Fox’s unusual advertising campaign, powered “Deadpool” to the biggest domestic opening on record for an R-rated movie. The previous record-holder was “The Matrix Reloaded,” which took in $118.3 million in May 2003, after adjusting for inflation.
“This tells me without any question that new and creative is what audiences want,” said Chris Aronson, Fox’s president of domestic distribution. Mr. Aronson said “Deadpool” could take in another $20 million on Monday, when many Americans are off work for Presidents’ Day. “My wrists are getting a little tired, but I will tape them up,” he added, joking that he had spent the weekend doing cartwheels.
Comedic, violent and sexually charged, “Deadpool” stars Mr. Reynolds as the title character, a Marvel Comics antihero with freakish self-healing powers. Directed by Tim Miller, a first-time feature filmmaker, the movie openly mocks Marvel films and finds Mr. Reynolds doing unconventional things for this genre, like talking directly into the camera.
The “mind-boggling” turnout could have ripple effects across Hollywood, said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at comScore. From a business perspective, other studios — namely the Disney-owned Marvel — could face pressure from investors to spend less. Fox made “Deadpool” for a relatively inexpensive $58 million. To compare, Marvel’s “Ant-Man,” starring Paul Rudd, arrived to $57.2 million in ticket sales in July but cost $130 million to make.
more here
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February 15, 2016 at 7:39 PM
Very much hope Srinivasan’s the one. Would be hugely exciting !
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/srinivasan-lynch-fit-obamas-formula-for-nominees-219296
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February 15, 2016 at 8:31 PM
What are his chances of confirmation? With no majority wouldn’t it be impossible for any one remotely liberal to get through?
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February 15, 2016 at 8:57 PM
That’s the titanic battle that’s shaping up.. the thing with srinivas an though is he was approved 97-0 for the DC circuit. Let’s see if the Republicans can stick to their plan here.
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February 16, 2016 at 12:16 AM
Politics aside, this would be a monumental achievement for the Indian community. It is something to be proud of and be inspired by.
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February 16, 2016 at 9:57 AM
Yes, plus it would be fun to see Republicans twist and turn after his 97-0 confirmation for the Circuit court just a few years ago!
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February 16, 2016 at 12:17 PM
Was listening to NPR and Republican senator on Judiciary committee said he is a fine candidate but said republicans wouldn’t allow any nominee from Obama. He said American public should have say in appointment as if Obama was elected for 3 years by public.
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February 16, 2016 at 12:27 PM
Yes, by saying that even the fiction that they will consider a proposed judge on the merits is being discarded — well said on the point about 3 years. And to be honest the two parties are not equally to blame here, because there has been no comparable record of Democratic obstructionism on this sort of issue in decades. Basically, and even the media errs in calling this evidence of how polarised the two sides are, the issue arises because, ever since Bill Clinton won in 1992, the American Right has adopted a strategy to the effect that the Democrat President is somehow illegitimate; with Obama this was ratcheted up a notch, and if Hillary ever won we could expect at least the same amount of de-legitimization as we got with Bill Clinton (ironically, during these decades, the only chap who clearly lost the popular vote and had an election handed to him was the Republican Dubya!). Only if we appreciate this premise — that “he has no right to be my President” — does the Republican approach and attitude make sense (i.e. they would say they aren’t obstructing anything, because the ordinary rules of politics do not apply when one is dealing with a “usurper”); the cleverer ones have a variation of this argument, such as when Rubio, rather than calling Obama a traitor or a usurper, says that he is “trying to change the country” and “make it like other countries”: his “crime”, in short, is against American exceptionalism! It’s incoherent in articulation, but it gets at that sense of illegitimacy without making Rubio sound crazy (in Rubio’s case, of course, it also makes him sound like the “real” Obama, i.e. the son of the immigrant who will genuinely redeem America’s promise, a promise wrongly entrusted to Obama! The implicit structure of Rubio’s claim is as Shiite Islam is to Sunni Islam, with history — the history that anointed the promised one (Ali as Muhammad’s successor for the Shiites; a different group of successors for Sunnis) — itself a cheat, and hence illegitimate)…
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February 16, 2016 at 12:48 PM
Democrats did to Robert Bork: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork_Supreme_Court_nomination
But SC here is very political. We know before decision how justices are going to take sides.
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February 16, 2016 at 12:53 PM
Munna: the Bork issue was not the same: they considered his nomination and were hostile (based on very controversial aspects to his record) and ultimately it didn’t go through (note that his replacement was considered by the same Democratic-majority Senate and confirmed). Here, the Republicans are saying that NO MATTER WHO Obama proposes they will not consider him or her! This is astounding and unprecedented (in the election year of 1988, Democrat-majority Senate confirmed Kennedy with NO vote against him). Obama will likely try and embarrass them by proposing a guy like Srinivasan, who was confirmed 97-0 for the appellate court — if the same people now say he isn’t qualified for SC they will be embarrassed (the Republicans know this full well, hence will try and prevent the nominee even coming up for hearings, as the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee openly stated)…
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February 16, 2016 at 12:54 PM
Bork was a different deal though. He had very controversial views on certain subjects (which even some Republicans got uncomfortable with) and he therefore ran into trouble during the nomination process. After this Kennedy was confirmed in an election year (’88). here the Republicans are saying they won’t even take it up which is unprecedented. Because of course if they did they couldn’t delay it enough. Obama would throw out a candidate impossible to delay on those grounds. But the idea that the Presidency ends after 3 years on this (or any other) subject is really a new low for them.
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February 16, 2016 at 1:31 PM
Q: There’s a reason that the Bork has become a verb. Kennedy’s speech hit a new low in handling SC nominations, only to be breached later by how the Democrats handled Clarence Thomas during his hearings. The Democrat hands are by no means clean.
That said, I agree that McConnell was silly to have closed off consideration of the nomination- much easier to have it fail on the floor or in committee. Speaking for myself though, It’s really painful to picture a staunch originalist like Scalia being replaced by another liberal reading the umbras and penumbras of the Constitution.
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February 16, 2016 at 1:36 PM
By no means “clean”, but Thomas and Kennedy did end up confirmed, and by clear and convincing majorities…
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February 16, 2016 at 2:02 PM
But originalism is just a huge myth. The originalists are themselves the most ‘creative’ interpreters of the constitution. they just pretend to be following tradition! Dem hands are certainly not clean but there’s nothing remotely comparable to this. I think it’s important to be precise in these matters. For instance when Hillary lost the healthcare battle the Dems themselves (who controlled the Senate) didn’t take it up even in committee. So here it wasn’t a Republican thing. They weren’t friends of healthcare even then but they weren’t the reason the thing was killed. Similarly delaying a nomination no matter how cynically is different from blocking it from even getting to that process. And again originalism is just a huge (and successfully peddled) myth. Scalia’s own opinions prove exactly this.
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February 16, 2016 at 4:53 PM
Both Grassley and Tillis have come out in favor of hearings. McConnell’s position is probably untenable. If there’s a halfway palatable nominee, they’ll probably get a committee hearing at least, but likely get stuck there. On originalism being a myth, not sure I agree. Scalia for sure was opportunistic on many occasions, but at least there was an attempt to justify the ruling within the text- the liberals of the pre Scalia era didn’t even bother.
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February 16, 2016 at 6:09 PM
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/02/15/glen-newey/killing-unarmed-animals/
this is a somewhat humorous piece but there have been many along these lines from eminent jurists. But leaving aside the context of American jurisprudence I just find any sort of ‘originalism’ idea about any text to be theoretically ‘impossible’. And certainly it reveals the structure of religious fundamentalism.
On the rest yes Grassley is the chairman of the Judiciary committee and presumably his statement carries great weight. I’ll once again raise the Srinivasan banner! C’mon Chipguy, a guy swearing on the Gita on the Sup Ct? I certainly love the idea!
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February 17, 2016 at 10:12 AM
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/scalias-contradictory-originalism
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February 16, 2016 at 6:29 PM
Oh, I certainly have no issues with Srinivasan- it would definitely be a milestone and he’s a heck of a smart guy. That said, I was really hoping for a SC that would rein in all the executive actions- on immigration, power plant emissions and the like. Not because it’s specifically Obama, but because I think the executive has gradually been amassing more and more power. I’ve always liked divided government with one party in the WH and the other controlling Congress since it’s an effective curb on excessive government, but if the executive goes ahead and does what it wants anyway, that doesn’t really help. This holds whether it’s an R or a D at the WH.
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February 16, 2016 at 7:00 PM
Fair enough. And it’s ironic that congressional obstruction usually increases the power of the president in this sense. Now having said that there are those who would argue that the presidency has been ‘imperial’ at most crucial points in US history. Another way of looking at this is that the power of a president is usually greater when there’s a crisis of any sort not less. But the corollary here is that at the very same inflection points the congress has often been intransigent. All else being eQual the public prefers the president.
But if there is ever a hearing this year the trickiest questions will probably revolve around obama’s executive actions.
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February 17, 2016 at 1:21 AM
Antonin Scalia called his strict constructionism something else — originalism, I think — because, as a Supreme Court Justice at an advanced age, he was still the brightest kid in Catholic School and had to be “special.” But it’s the same recipe with only slightly different ingredients that means the cake the Founders baked is the one we’re stuck with. No “Living Constitution.” No changes except by Congressional amendment. Or by whim of Scalia (e.g., I’m still searching for the Founders’ views justifying “corporations as people” or anything else in the steaming pile of unconstitutional shit called Citizens United). Or when duty to employer calls.
http://randallsmoot.com/2016/02/14/on-the-death-of-someone-you-dont-respect/
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February 17, 2016 at 3:44 AM
The Republican party has become a true circus act. These guys and gals are all shams. And the people who elect these clowns are just as stupid. Trump is their answer…this is how superficial the right wing has become (and he might actually win this damn thing if he goes against Hillary). Look at the presidents they have produced in the past 35 years…Bush and Bush (baap numberi..toh beta dus numberi)…and of course their lord and savior Reagan.
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February 17, 2016 at 12:07 PM
It is indeed a circus, but on both sides. Sanders’ ideas are just as ludicrous as Trump’s but just couched more politely and in revolutionary language. What we’re seeing is the reaction to years of elites from both parties rushing headlong into a globalized, open border, technocratic future- without ever asking the vast majority of the working class voters if this was what they wanted, or making any effort to help adjust them to the future. The chickens are truly coming home to roost- not just here but in Europe as well, with the rise of the nationalistic, protectionist right-wing.
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February 17, 2016 at 12:41 PM
“Sanders’ ideas are just as ludicrous as Trump’s but just couched more politely and in revolutionary language.”
The problem with Trump is not ridiculousness but utter ugliness. If he were just the Sanders of the Right things wouldn’t be so problematic. But he has come up with the kind of toxic discourse that no major party in the West has in quite some time (outside of Hungary and Poland!). In other words you have extreme right wing parties in France or Britain or wherever saying this kind of stuff not mainstream conservatives. The Republican party in the US has in the post-Bush years been completely hijacked by this kind of extremism. Sanders has a one-note old left program that I’m not really sympathetic too (even if it’s a sign of our times that saying things about ‘big banks’ seems to people to be comparable to saying bigoted/racist/sexist stuff about hispanics and muslims and women and so on) but there’s nothing absurd about it otherwise (many economists favored the break up of the big banks in 2008, Medicare for all is more or less a reality in very many western countries as is free public college or something close to it). On the other hand Trump, and moving beyond his disgusting politics, isn’t saying anything that is or could be a model for governance, domestically or internationally, anywhere in the world. Many in the media also set up this kind of false analogy which is quite dangerous and obscures everything.
On the larger matter of globalization and so forth here I’d agree but for a different reason. I think the problem isn’t just the parties who keep selling these myths about jobs coming back and what but the voters (‘us’) who keep refusing to see reality here along with very many ‘experts’ on both sides. This is where the logic of ‘capitalism’ leads. Specially in a technological age. It is a fantasy to think one could live in this sort of world and simply close one’s borders and protect one’s workers. It’s just not possible economically. And it was never possible this way. The difference just is that once Manchester existed in the heart of the West. Today it’s moved to Bangladesh. If you continue with Manchester you no longer have the West as we know it (labor laws, welfare state, political emancipation for various groups, etc) but if we want that West someone else has to do the job. Countries where precisely these issues are not a problem. It is really our own hypocrisy that stares us in the face. For us to use those seductive iPhones people have to work in horrible Foxcon factories in China! For us to use these great devices (laptops etc) horrible civil wars have to be perpetuated in Africa for easy access to coltan to continue. For us to believe in the Amazon world people have to work in miserable conditions right here in the US in those warehouses. This is the model the smart entrepreneurs or business executives of the world believe in. In other words these are the ultimate free marketeers! We’re listening to them for a reason right?! The idea that all of this can happen at the very same time that all of the world can also look like Geneva is absurd. I am not arguing against capitalism necessarily but we should all accept the consequences of our choices and the kind of world we believe in. We are its beneficiaries but everyone isn’t. Simply being a religious fundamentalist about ‘capitalism’ and saying people are not doing those ‘other’ things that will balance out everything is hardly a solution!
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February 17, 2016 at 12:52 PM
Can’t disagree with your comment on Trump’s utter boorishness. Probably the difference here is that where in Hungary and elsewhere the ugly views have an outlet in the marginal parties, here they fester within a majority party till they explode into full view like they’re doing today.
I don’t disagree that this globalized world is where the logic of capitalism leads us. My “complaint” is that, where the Democrats should have ideally fought that battle on behalf of the working class and offered an antidote to the logic of unfettered capitalism and globalization, they instead got caught up in identity politics and abandoned the white working class. Liberals typically despise the white working class as racist, homophobic, uneducated and undeserving of attention. The Republican establishment takes them for granted after elections. The interests of this (rather large) pool of voters has been ignored for decades, and they are now making their voices heard- for better or worse.
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February 17, 2016 at 1:39 PM
On the second paragraph I agree that the Left (and not just in the US) long ago abandoned economic arguments in favor of cultural or identity claims. But I think that part of the problem here is that at a certain point they won. The West that we all like to live in as migrants is one that is largely made comfortable because of that brand of identity politics. Much as in the same sense the welfare state also became a huge safety net for very many (the US is not like Europe here or Canada but it’s also not the US of the 1930s) and alleviated many of those issues that in effect made the old economic arguments less pressing issues. Then there was more upward economic mobility, more of a vote to be garnered here. The Obama coalition represents one of those inflection points in US history. This is the default shape of the presidential electorate. Which is why the Dems will have an advantage in most average Presidential elections in the foreseeable future the way the Republicans had in the 80s and 90s (Clinton himself prevailed twice in three way elections). But essentially a coalition of important racial minorities combined with more educated white populations in most parts of the country. There is not much room here to address the blue collar white worker. These economic issues can of course be subsumed under the label of ethnic politics when it comes to blacks and hispanics and so on. Now if you stress economic populist too much you start losing a certain kind of suburban (and beyond) vote. So it’s a tricky balance. But my point is that some of these shifting demographics explain why the Dems stopped speaking to certain kinds of voters. Unfortunate but in a way part of this larger historic shift. Now when this kind of voter stops seeing any hope anywhere he or she becomes more susceptible to the xenophobic pitch of Trump or whoever much as the Republican party becomes in the same age one of ‘resentment’ or a platform for those who think there are too many Indians in the neighborhood and one black too many in the WH! An even larger point is that the relative improvement in economic conditions coupled with the guarantees of the welfare state and legislative progress in social relations and so forth brings us to this state. Of course the white working class impasse is part of the problem. The even greater one is that of America’s ‘black’ inner cities which everyone finds easy to ignore. One of the legacies of race in America is that this group’s needs could only be address under the banner of identity politics. And even this wasn’t acceptable to many. So it’s overall a complicated situation.
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February 17, 2016 at 1:46 PM
True, and unfortunately the 2 party system has foreclosed the possibility of a culturally conservative, economically populist party that appeals to that constituency. Perhaps these are the death throes of the existing system and the Republican party will evolve into that party. The Republican establishment can defect and make common cause with the upwardly mobile liberals…
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February 17, 2016 at 2:24 PM
yes that’s the 2 party blackmail in most democracies. At some point the Republican Party will of course evolve. It will become a minority party otherwise.
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February 15, 2016 at 9:56 PM
I don’t know whats the consensus of Ghayal Once Again on here but I think the movie is pretty good and in one word its Indian version of Die Hard. Its as good as Die Hard 4(come back movie of Willis) and definitely better than Die Hard 5. The problem is whenever Sunny directs, he doesn’t make a mass connecting movie as his personal choice/nature is different than the image he has which is of dumb massy action star. The movie is certainly good effort in you take in single person sharing credentials for story, screenplay, dialogues, producer, director and lead actor! Good job and respectable outing by Sunny and certainly better than any of his recent outings!
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February 18, 2016 at 10:01 AM
I did like it to an extent. There are certain things that worked well for me. A few things didn’t however.
The early build-up is absorbing. Then the real action starts after around half an hour. There comes the best part of the film. It’s an edge of the seat chase scene that goes right up the interval and then at least 15-20 minutes beyond that, Those chase scenes are well choreographed. I haven’t seen too many better chase scenes in Bollywood.
Then comes an unwelcome corny twist that slows down the movie for a good 15-20 minutes. They probably wanted something emotional but it doesn’t work here.
Then the movie picks up again with the climax.
Sunny hasn’t taken the easy route. No outbursts which the masses probably want from him. He doesn’t even land the trademark punch until practically the last frame.
The action scenes are of the hollywood kind, There are well executed chases and the fights are more of the 50-50 kind rather rather than the hero effortlessly kicking everyone’s asses and those people flying around. More for the multiplexes rather than for the masses.
The hero is vulnerable at times and he is fighting his inner demons while the villain does those evil things because he is compelled to. He has to protect his familly.
The chase scenes work. When the emotional twist comes, go to the loo to prepare for the grand climax. The twist remains the weakness of the movie.
In fact pre-release I thought it was going to be a total wash-out. But its 1st week is something between 30cr (BOI) and 34.5cr (Taran).
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February 16, 2016 at 11:41 AM
check out Bachchan on Dharam around the 27 min mark. In general this is a fantastic response if one watches through to the end.
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February 16, 2016 at 3:22 PM
Hope they don’t announce shoalay sequel on the occassion.
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February 16, 2016 at 10:59 PM
Mumbai: Actor Aamir Khan, who was recently replaced as the face of the “Incredible India” campaign, is likely to be the ambassador for a key project of the Maharashtra government.
He is likely to be the ambassador of “drought-free Maharashtra” and will promote a flagship irrigation scheme in villages, sources say.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is expected to make an announcement today.
The scheme, “Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan”, aims at making 25,000 villages in the state drought-free in five years. State government officials say with over 3200 farmer deaths in the past year, it is important to promote the project in a big way.
Maharashtra’s BJP-led government has opted for the actor as a spokesperson at a time the Centre preferred to not to continue with him as the face of its Incredible India campaign to market the country to tourists abroad.
Aamir Khan was also by the Chief Minister’s side during a cultural show on Sunday at the state’s “Make In India” event, which had to be cancelled when a massive fire broke out.
The 50-year-old star’s contract for the national tourism campaign was not renewed after a huge controversy in November when he commented on alleged “intolerance” in the country. He had said that his wife Kiran Rao was so concerned that she had wondered out loud about relocating from India.
Amid reports that the actor was being punished for those comments, Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma said that he featured in the Incredible India campaign through an ad agency, McCann Erickson, whose contract with the government had ended. The government has now recruited megastar Amitabh Bachchan as its spokesperson.
Reacting to the change, Aamir Khan said at the time: “It is the prerogative of the government to decide whether they need a brand ambassador for any campaign, and if so, who that ambassador should be. I respect the decision of the government to discontinue with my services.”
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/actor-aamir-khan-likely-to-be-ambassador-for-drought-free-maharashtra-sources-1278253?pfrom=home-lateststories
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February 17, 2016 at 1:06 AM
https://twitter.com/aamir_khan/status/698941184245260288
https://twitter.com/aamir_khan/status/698940953139089408
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February 16, 2016 at 11:30 PM
a “try-out” for bond role…? the guy should be next bond IMO.
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February 17, 2016 at 1:01 AM
Respect.
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February 17, 2016 at 1:25 AM
Katrina Kaif recently mentioned that the film which was supposed to release on June 3, 2016 has now been shifted to the end of July or August. Revealing the reason for the delay, the actress added that they are yet to wrap up the shoot of 60-70 days.
Girish Johar @girishjohar 14m14 minutes ago
Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif starrer, #JaggaJasoos postponed again ….
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February 17, 2016 at 1:58 AM
http://movies.ndtv.com/hollywood/baywatch-casts-priyanka-chopra-as-villain-shes-extremely-dangerous-1278240?pfrom=home-lateststories
The Rock announced on Instagram: She’s one of the biggest stars in the world. Insanely talented, relentlessly smokin’ and extremely dangerous – perfect for #BAYWATCH. Welcome @PriyankaChopra to our bad ass and incredibly dysfunctional family. Cue RATED R slo-mo running on the beach.
Who’s afraid of Priyanka Chopra? Dwayne Johnson, that’s who. The 33-year-old actress, currently winning the West as Quantico’s Alex Parrish, has been cast as the villain in next year’s Baywatch movie. The Rock, who co-stars, reveals just why in an Instagram video.
Check out the superlatives in the video – “the biggest star out of India, one of the biggest stars in the world,” “insanely talented, relentlessly smokin’ and extremely dangerous.”
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February 17, 2016 at 2:05 AM
the next yasmin bleeth…
she is doing prominent roles in India…but stupid roles in Hollywood…is fame in the west that much important???
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February 17, 2016 at 5:02 AM
Ghayal Once Again IMO is an intentionally funny film. Yes there are some moments but overall it runs out out of steam pretty quickly. It has a laughable plot n too many cheesy moments. Certainly not something I’d take seriously
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February 17, 2016 at 4:28 PM
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February 17, 2016 at 7:45 PM
thanks! this is great!
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February 17, 2016 at 10:03 PM
Paani Foundation is a not-for-profit company whose main objective will be to bring about a change in outlook about water conservation.
Actor Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao have started Paani Foundation, a not-for-profit company whose main objective will be to communicate, impart knowledge and bring about a change in outlook at the grassroots level about water conservation and watershed management. Paani will work with the Maharashtra government towards solving the water crisis in the state.
Mr Khan and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis made the announcement at a press conference in Mumbai on Wednesday. Also present on stage were film-maker Raj Kumar Hirani and Paani’s advisory board members Kumarmangalam Birla, Amit Kalyani and Rajiv Bajaj.
The other advisory board members of the Foundation are Ratan Tata, Nita Ambani, Deepak Parekh, Baba Kalyani, Anu Aga, Dr Avinash Pol, Popatrao Pawar, Svati Chakravarty and Atul Kulkarni. Satyajit Bhatkal will lead operations as its CEO, and Khan’s ex-wife Reena Dutta is COO. Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), a not-for-profit NGO founded in 1993, is a knowledge partner.
Speaking about the actor, Mr Fadnavis said, “He is not being a brand ambassador but working on ground.” Maharashtra’s government already runs Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, a scheme that aims to make the state drought free by 2012. Mr Khan said, “We felt the need to scale it up and make the government scheme into a civil society movement at our end.”
Earlier, Mr Khan had told The Hindu that he had been working on the idea of the foundation for almost a year. It began to take shape on May 1, Maharashtra Day, in 2015, in a meeting he had with the CM. “We were involved with various social issues for five years through the three seasons of Satyamev Jayate. We then decided to focus on one problem in Maharashtra which is my janmabhoomi and karmabhoomi, [birthplace and workplace].”
There are lots of NGOs working in the field so how would Paani’s work differ? “Other NGOs are investing in structures, while we will invest in people,” Mr Khan said. The foundation’s first step, he said, was the Satyamev Jayate Water Cup, a water management competition between villages.
Mr Bhatkal, Paani’s CEO, said that the competition would “also help build community spirit” and hopefully bring some unknown ‘water heroes’ into the spotlight. In three talukas in three different districts — Koregaon in Satara, Warud in Amravati and Ambajogai in Beed — gram panchayats will be invited to participate in a contest. It will be publicised in local cable networks, newspaper and on digital and social media. Participating villages will nominate five members each for free training for the contest, for which the last date for applications is March 7. Youth and women contestants will be encouraged.
Selected candidates will be trained on-field in villages that have successfully carried out watershed management. After the training, there will be a 45-day contest, ending May 31.
The villages will be helped to preparie a water plan and budget, and to access funds and government and technical help.
Contesting villages will then be evaluated by experts on their watershed management and conservation efforts. The first prize will be Rs 50 lakh, second Rs 30 lakh and the third for Rs 20 lakh.
A digital platform will collate all the data and acept contributions from supporters.
Mr Khan wants to also encourage his friends and other celebrities to join him in the water movement, and become water mentors. “People want a positive change and there’s no problem that can’t be solved by coming together,” he said.
The CM concurred, pointing out that water is an “open mission.” The more who join in, the merrier.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/aamirs-initiative-to-educate-people-on-water-conservation/article8249492.ece?homepage=true
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February 18, 2016 at 12:49 AM
Aamir in damage control mode before Dangal.
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February 17, 2016 at 11:05 PM
While Khan was asked a question about whether he had put aside differences with the BJP government, Fadnavis stepped in to take this query to avoid another potential political controversy. “I think every issue need not be made controversial and sometimes we can have positive news.’’ The chief minister also clarified Khan was not the brand ambassador for the scheme, perhaps to avoid an unfavourable comparison with the actor being dropped as brand ambassador for the Incredible India campaign in January this year.
“When we were working on Satyamev Jayate, we could see the show had a tremendous impact on ground zero. Since then, we have been thinking about how we can contribute further in nation building or tackling certain issues. We thought why not focus on just one topic and take it forward completely. We chose water and Maharashtra, because both of us [Khan and Bhatkal] are from the state. It is our ‘janmabhumi’ and ‘karmabhumi’,’’ said Khan.
For starters, the foundation will organise a Satyamev Jayate water cup, a competition among 300-odd villages from three talukas of three districts — Koregaon in Satara, Ambejogai in Beed and Warud in Amravati — as a pilot to be launched from this March. The competing villages will be able to send five villagers from every village to get a month’s training from experts with the foundation in water shed management. They will then have to replicate the measures learnt in their village to conserve water before the onset of the monsoon. The three best efforts will be give prizes of Rs 50 lakh, Rs 30 lakh and Rs 20 lakh. This will eventually be scaled up across all drought-prone districts. The idea behind the competition, Bhatkal said is to spur youngsters to do positive and transformational work in their villages. The winners will also get presented as water heroes in the country, and their success stories will be broadcast on television and in documentaries.
Fadnavis’ Drought Free Village aims at making 25,000 villages drought free by 2019 but another year of water scarcity in 2016 could break the government’s back and this optimism.
Khan said he will dedicate as much time and focus on this project as he does for his films. In the offing are plans to have a celebrity mentor for every taluka, which participates in the water cup, a 360-degree communication campaign and a digital platform that will allow online donations to villages after allowing one to monitor the status and requirement of the ongoing work.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/it-s-official-aamir-s-the-face-of-maha-govt-s-project-to-save-water/story-ZQLfTConFo4zv5AwuJC8rI.html
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February 18, 2016 at 12:13 AM
Vidyut Jamwal starrer Commando 2 goes on floor
Vidyut Jamwal, who was last seen ‘in action’ in the forgettable flick Bullet Raja, has been sorely missing from B-town for some time now. It now seems that this man is all set to storm the Bollywood scene with many films in his kitty.
For starters, Vidyut, who impressed everyone with his martial skills in the film Commando is now getting all geared up for the film’s sequel Commando 2, whose shooting will kick start in Mumbai from today. The sequel is directed by Deven Bhojani.
Speaking about the film, Vipul Shah (who is producing the sequel) said that they are extremely proud of it and that everyone is expecting them to make something better and bigger. On the other hand, Vidyut Jamwal said that while Vipul Shah is someone who understood action, Deven Bhojani is someone whose detailing has simply floored him ever since he has seen the action serial ‘Pukar’ of the filmmaker.
Madhu Mantena of Phantom Films (which has co-produced the film) said that he is extremely confident that the sequel will take things to a whole new level. On the other hand, Deven Bhojani said that he was glad that Vipul Shah and his partners chose him to direct Commando 2. He added that they have a super talented team of actors and technicians from India and abroad who will be a part of this film.
However, the makers haven’t divulged any details of the leading lady in the film whereas Pooja Chopra played the female lead in the prequel Commando.
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/17401399/Vidyut-Jamwal-starrer-Commando-2-goes-on-floor
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February 18, 2016 at 5:01 AM
http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne201110Maariyamma.asp
The horrors of elderly people at the hands of their own children practised in some parts of tamil nadu.
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February 18, 2016 at 5:01 AM
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/the-morbid-practice-of-facilitated-deaths-in-tamil-nadu/article8249698.ece?homepage=true
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February 18, 2016 at 8:22 PM
Just as i had predicted one month back, Neerja is set to be clean hit. But, it is not just due to good film, sonam has got some credibility after giving a couple of good films since 2013.
2 Years back, i wouldnt have stepped in to watch sonam on Big screen. But, Last year’ Dolly ki doli(which was hilarious non-stop), 2014’s khoobsoorat(havent watched it, but did well) and 2013’s Raanjhnaa(one of the best films of 2013) have convinced audience to watch sonam kapoor.
And after Dolly ki doli and khubsoorat , i wont mind her solo movie on big screen.And that’s why it will easily do 50+ cr. 2 years back same movie with sonam wouldnt have crossed 30 cr.
Neerja is set for very good trending and could be Sonam’s Queen/Vidya balan’s Kahaani.
Though, sonam was equally bad in PRDP, a bad movie and salman was average too.
Rave reviews all over for Neerja –
http://gulfnews.com/leisure/movies/reviews/review-neerja-1.1675283
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February 18, 2016 at 8:28 PM
It will be my first Sonam Kapoor movie on big screen, booked for tomorrow night 🙂
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