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138 Responses to “Ki & Ka, the rest of the box office”
It’s a bogus characterisation but Arjun Kapoor plays Kabir with a good amount of vulnerability and an unfazed, endearing charm, finishing off some of the most casual scenes with a crusty last word. To his credit, a thoughtful young man shines through that oafish surface.
I enjoyed his meet cute bits with Kareena, the PAN card quip, the shared birthdays. Their age difference pops up once in a while and quietly plays on Kia’s psyche.
Both are a product of single parenting with his indifferent millionaire daddy (suitably tetchy Rajit Kapoor) and her free-spirited social worker mom (Swaroop Sampat says her lines with a tinge of incredulity) chipping in as the voice of progress and preconception (not to mention crude, misplaced humour).
Still, things stay hunky dory for most part — Kia never has a bad day at work. Kabir is a housekeeping expert. Ki & Ka avoids treading on their dark areas — frail ego and bubbling insecurities — for as long as it can help. When it does, it’s at its most appealing. Balance tilts, roles advance and the husband and wife find themselves ill equipped to handle the inevitability of change.
Balki treats success like an evil in his story, triggering a feeling of neglect in one and jealousy in another. It’s at this juncture; Kareena Kapoor Khan proves what an asset she can be.
Her incandescent beauty exudes easy warmth and professional poise as per the occasion. The actress smoothly transitions between fragile and volatile to reveal a woman comfortable in her own skin, unapologetic about living life on her terms and never missing an occasion to mince words.
A special appearance by Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, as themselves, even if gimmicky in nature, works as an amusing slice of celebrity life providing a catalyst during a stalemate in Ki & Ka’s.
Ki & Ka continued the trend of dull initials with no good opening in site for a Hindi film. So far this year Airlift managed a good start at multiplexes of the big circuits while Kyaa Kool Hain Hum 3 started well at some single screens. The rest have been decent at few select centres (mainly low collecting ones) or poor.
Ki & Ka has opened to around 15-20% occupancy which is lower than the recently released Kapoor & Sons which has the same target audience. In Mumbai the first morning shows from twelve key multiplexes including PVR Juhu and Phoenix had an audience count of 634 against 3110 (20.38%).
The same theatres saw an audience count of 843 / 3235 (26.05%) for Kapoor & Sons. These theatres are basically the target audience for these type of films where the better collections come from.
Kapoor & Sons recorded 6.50 crore nett day one as it picked up in the big urban centres in the evening. it will have to be a repeat for Ki & Ka though the lower opening will make it tough to reach the level of Kapoor & Sons but if it can pick up post 5pm then it can give itself a platform to build on over the weekend.
Surprised to see a Bachchan movie opened below than movies like sanam ‘re and Jai Ganga Jal. This means even some C grade actors can open a film better than him. Now waiting for An Jo’s comment😃😃😃
Mohan you realize that you are talking to Charan Raj right? This was the same guy who commented that it’s a wise choice to have Farhan more in WAZIR movie trailers than Amitabh and that would get more foot-falls??
And now this fellow or woman or whatever it is comes here and says that now it is Amitabh’s fault that that nobody turned out for Wazir initially?? So whatever happened to Farhan’s stardom and initials? You see how the terms of debate change?
I use to pay attaention to all charanraj comments but now he has some kind of agenda and hoodoo over amitabh bachan hatred,maybe amitji has refused to give his autograph to charanraj…..lol….I just ignore his useless comments,they are laughable though,only guy here who watches cartoon-network all day…..lol
Yes, An Jo…You’r right. I was mislead by promos of wazir and after watching the film I found it a Bachchan movie as the story revolves around him. Plus when i said Farhan should be give more screen space, I was attacked by some fanatics including yourself as well for saying that. All of you we’re of the opinion that Bachchan was the lead actor of the movie. So, now it is you people who’r trying to change the terms of debate not me.
Rocky Handsome Flop – Batman V Superman Average
Friday 01 April 2016 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Rocky Handsome is a major flop as it grossed 21 crore nett in week one and there is not a lot to come. The 25 crore nett lifetime total is an uphill task making its lifetime business even lower than a Jai Gangaajal. The busienss was best in UP and CP Berar as they took a better initial but even there business went downhill from Friday evening itself.
The Hollywood release Batman v Superman – Dawn of Justice is an average fare thanks to the good opening it took. The film is the only film in the Hindi film market to take an initial this year as it collected 3.75 crore nett in paid previews on post 6pm shows and a limited release.
The film did not sustain too well after the first one but the good initial has still meant a 36 crore nett first week including the paid previews but due to the opening it has managed fair business.
With his initial association with the Bachchan family, director Balki managed to hide his shortcomings and got successes in the form of cheeni kum and pa. But his limitations as a filmmaker are getting evident with every passing film. None of his films despite having a great idea at the centre can even be called good.
He picks an idea but doesn’t know what to do with it, exhausts the story long before the interval and by the time the film ends, the audience are completely exhausted as well.
Great ideas don’t necessarily translate into great films, and Balki is a shining example.
Amitabh is a hoot here..Aside, when one of the most offensive ‘critics’ of Hindi films has managed to write a book & is dignified beyond requirement by the mere presence of Amitabh, what’s stopping a writer like Satyam??
Ki & Ka First Day Early Estimate
Friday 01 April 2016 20.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ki & Ka has followed a similar path to Kapoor & Sons on day one and has seen a pick up in the evening and will finish with similar collections. It could go a little higher due to the slightly wider release. The early estimate is around 6.75-7 crore nett. The trend is also ditto of that film as the pick up has enabled the film to get decent collections in the same places which is mainly Mumbai city, Delhi NCR, Pune and Bangalore.
Basically the evening crowd in urban centres has come for the film and the growth in business on Saturday and Sunday will tell whether this crowd has appreciated the film or not. Despite the pick up the film will still have to show that 30-40% growth on Saturday which would give the film a chance to succeed.
The best figures will come in the Delhi NCR area with Delhi city, Noida and Gurgaon putting up healthy numbers. As usual with these type of films collections outside the big metros are dull. Big A centres like Jaipur, Ludhiana and Lucknow are poor.
Twitter saw an outpouring of messages, including one from Abhishek Bachchan who wrote: “What have u done Pratyusha Banerjee, I wish it was an April Fool news, She was just 24! RIP Aanandi.”
Bollywood Shocked, mourns Pratyusha’s death
Arbaaz Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Karan Johar, Rishi Kapoor and many more Bollywood celebs mourn the sudden death of Television actress Pratyusha Banerjee.
Ki & Ka managed to pick up in the evening in the evening to record collections of 7.25 crore nett apprx. The business is mainly limited to the main metros but these will be enough to pull the film through if the maintain. The first day is higher than a similar film Kapoor & Sons and the cost is also a couple of crores less.
The opening day means the film does not have to show huge growth of 50% plus on Saturday but still will have to show a solid upward trend because otherwise it will mean limited appreciation among the target audience which comes out in force on Saturday.
The two main circuits of Mumbai and Delhi / UP were best with the former at 2.25 crore nett apprx and the latter at around 1.60 crore nett. The business was dull across Gujarat, Rajasthan, and CP Berar and though the evenings were better, the overall collections remained poor.
Ki & Ka has taken a good opening at the Box Office. As was predicted, the film was on track to register 40%-50% occupancy on Day One, and this is how the average footfalls turned out to be eventually. The film has collected 7.3 crore on Friday and this is a good start for the Eros and Balki production, considering the genre, release size and target audience that it was aiming for.
This is the biggest opener ever for Balki as Ki & Ka [7.3 crore] on its opening day has collected more than double of Shamitabh [3.5 crore] and is far ahead of Paa [2.15 crore] and Cheeni Kum [which had lifetime total of 17.3 crore]. The film has also taken a bigger opening than a much massy Ghayal Once Again [7.2 crore] and targeted-at-similar-audience Kapoor & Sons [6.85 crore]. The way word of mouth is spreading for the film, the film is set to have the second highest weekend of the year.
What is even more remarkable is the fact that Ki & Ka has opened better than Arjun Kapoor’s last release Tevar [7 crore] which had a much wider release. As for Kareena Kapoor Khan, this is her highest opening for a film where she is a senior actress. While she has seen some superb opening numbers with experienced actors like the four Khans [Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Talaash, Ra. One, Agent Vinod] and Ajay Devgn [Singham Returns, Satyagraha], these is her biggest opening with a relatively new leading man in the current decade.
Here are the numbers for Kareena Kapoor films that have released since 2010 where she is the senior actress:
2016 – Ki & Ka (Arjun Kapoor) – 7.3 crore
2012 – Heroine (Arjun Rampal) – 7.2 crore
2012 – Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (Imran Khan) – 5.25 crore
2013 – Gori Tere Pyaar Mein (Imran Khan) – 3 crore
2010 – We Are Family (Arjun Rampal) – 2.7 crore
2010 – Milenge Milenge (Shahid Kapoor) – 2.24 crore
While her friends from both the fraternities have conveyed their condolences and prayers, the latest news is that superstar Salman Khan, who hosted ‘Bigg Boss season 7’, which Pratyusha was a contestant of, is absolutely shocked and bereaved after hearing the tragic news of her untimely death, as reported by BollywoodLife.com.
The report also mentions that sources close to Salman say that since Pratyusha had just entered early 20s when she had participated in the controversial reality show, he was very fond of her and always felt that she was too young to participate in such a show. In fact, after her elimination from the show, she continued to remain one of Khan’s closest friends and would even attend his birthday parties at his famous farmhouse.
Needless to say, Salman is disturbed and distressed to hear such saddening news of one of his closest friends.
Aamir Khan is considered one of the most dedicated actors in the film industry because of the effort he puts in to do justice to his roles. For his next film, in which he plays the role of wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, the Bollywood star had reportedly put on around 25kg. Now, Aamir is in the process of losing weight to shoot for another part of the movie. Apparently, he has already lost around 13kg in three months.
A source close to the actor says that he started his workouts in January and lost around six kilos till mid-February. “He would exercise for at least three hours everyday. However, Aamir wanted to do more physical activities, such as cycling, and he even wanted to go on a strict diet. So, he decided to travel to Arizona, USA, and stay in a ranch for a month. He also had doctors and trainers who helped him focus on his workout,” says the source.
Apparently, Aamir would start exercising early in the morning when he was in the US. “He would kick-start his day at 6 am, and followed a strict weight-loss schedule. He would trek for hours in the hilly regions, which was followed by cycling, weight exercises in the gym, swimming and playing tennis. A special diet was devised for Aamir during the period, which he followed religiously. He lost around seven kilos in a month,” says the source, adding that when he returned to Mumbai on his birthday (March 14), everyone was surprised to see him so lean.
Ki & Ka is going to make more in its first weekend than Rocky Handsome in its entire week. And BoI still keeps cribbing.
“Ki & Ka will show growth on Saturday but it will be limited growth as collections come in at around 8 crore nett. These type of urban films which only hold appeal in 4-5 big cities have two targets in the box office scenario today, one is bring in that evening crowd on Friday and second is get that limited crowd to like the film to ensure at least good if not great growth on Saturday.”
Don’t take BOI commentry seriously as it’s always pathetic. However, their nos are almost correct as they have a very good team who collect data from important/ key centers. It was BOI who eradicated shameless IBOS otherwise every disaster of Bachchan would have been presented as blockbuster. Some people who became jobless after IBOS debacle are pouring frustration here nowadays.
Ki & Ka Day Two Business
Sunday 03 April 2016 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ki & Ka had a decent Saturday though growth was limited for an urban content film. The first two day business of Ki & Ka is as follows
Friday – 7,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Total – 15,50,00,000
The film should be able to grow on Sunday but unless its huge growth which will signal strong weekday holds it will be down to where the film lands on a Monday.
QSQT: MAKING MUSIC
Sunday, 03 April 2016 |
Gautam Chintamani | in Agenda
Mansoor Khan’s debut feature not only launched Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla but revived music in mainstream Hindi cinema
Every era of Hindi cinema has seen itself being identified by a definitive sound and perhaps this could also be the reason for a clear transition, a transfer of power kind of act when one stalwart passed the baton to the upcoming one. While there was a clear transition between a Khemchand Prakash and a Naushad Ali, and then a Shankar-Jaikishan and an SD Burman, followed by an RD Burman and a Laxmikant-Pyarelal (L-P),who along with Kalyanji-Anandji dominated the popular Hindi film music scene until the end of the 1970s. But unlike the past there was no pure evolution from this era to the next. While one could say that Kalyanji-Anandji and Biddu’s score for Qurbani and L-P’s Karz (1980) set the tone for the 1980s, and this followed by Bappi Lahiri’s scintillating Disco Dancer (1982), arguably one of best disco-funk albums ever, only strengthened the case. Yet in just the first half of the decade there was a resurgence of the RD sound with Sanam Teri Kasam (1982), Masoom (1983), the return of classical influence with Khayyam with Umrao Jaan(1981) and Ravi’s Nikaah (1982) but surprisingly enough, these couldn’t save Hindi film music from falling into an abyss whereby the mid-1980s synthesised cacophony in the name of melody and double entendres in the name of lyrics had become commonplace.
For a cinema where music had been such an integral part where many times it was only the songs that audiences could recall long after the films were forgotten, the loss of melody was almost a death knell. Even with films that featured someone like an RD, songs weren’t attached the importance they once enjoyed. It was in this scenario that a film like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) came along and changed everything. In many ways director Mansoor Khan’s debut feature, which also launched the careers of Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla, was a throwback to the Hindi cinema of the 1960s and taking all classic elements such as romance, family drama, most importantly music where melody was the mainstay, the film simply pressed a refresh button that revived music in mainstream Hindi cinema. Featuring the music of then relatively unknown composers Anand and Milind Shrivastav, the songs of the film set a new standard and created a platform that allowed not just young musicians and singers but also entrepreneurs such as Gulshan Kumar, whose music label T-Series became synonymous with film music by producing Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka (1989) and later Aashiqui (1990) that ushered in a new phase in Hindi film music.
The following is an exclusive excerpt from the author’s forthcoming book that explores the cultural significance and the impact of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak on popular Hindi cinema (Reproduced with permission from HarperCollins Publishers India):
For Mansoor Khan, the music of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was a far greater motivation to make the film than anything else. Having seen his father, Nasir Hussain, in numerous sitting sessions with RD Burman and Majrooh Sulantanpuri over the years fascinated him about the process of creating music. Moreover, as someone who could play an instrument, drums, Mansoor was musically attuned and in that sense more conversant with this aspect of filmmaking than most others. Being a Nasir Hussain production it was a foregone conclusion that RD would provide the score and both Nasir Hussain as well as RD were raring to go. But Mansoor had other ideas. He believed that he’d simply be overawed by the presence of a giant such as RD and might not be able to put his point across. Irrespective of the bad patch that RD had hit in the mid-1980s Nasir Hussain was confident of RD delivering a fresh, young sound that the film demanded. “Even though I had seen him (RD) work with my father and knew how brilliant and intuitive he was, I didn’t know how I’d be able to relate to him,” says Mansoor of RD. Mansoor conveyed to his father that he’d need his space and perhaps out of sheer reverence to ‘Pancham Uncle’ he might not be able to express himself. Nasir Hussain understood Mansoor’s predicament and RD ended up making way for yet another second generation of musicians, who unlike him were still to come out of the shadow of their more illustrious father.
Anand and Milind Shrivastav were the sons of music composer Chitragupt and although they had a release in Pankaj Parasher’s Ab Ayega Mazaa (1984) they were still relatively unknown. They had also composed the theme of the popular TV detective series Karamchand as well as the video magazine Lehren. Being assistants to their father, who in spite of being a popular music composer in the 1960s never made it to the A-list, both were well trained to understand the nuances of Hindi film music. With Chitragupt transitioning into composing music for Bhojpuri films, Anand and Milind were also exposed to a typical Indian flavour which along with background in playing the piano and guitars respectively gave their sound a unique blend of two worlds. Milind recalls how the three of them would end up going on long drives in Mansoor’s red Maruti Omni discussing tunes. The brothers remember how Mansoor wouldn’t like a break in the mood and would simply make an unscheduled turn if a traffic signal ever threatened to stop them. The brothers respected Mansoor’s opinion when it came to music and loved being challenged by someone who knew what he was talking about but they weren’t still sure about being the final choice as they still somewhere believed that being a Nasir Hussain production, RD Burman would be an automatic choice. But the die was cast the day a call from Nasir Hussain himself brought Anand-Milind on-board.
Rather than changing the manner in which music was traditionally composed in Hindi cinema, Anand-Milind decided to approach not just the score but also the musicians differently. Starting from Papa kehte hai, the song that would go on to become the anthem of the nation in a few years, Mansoor visually described the orchestra along with its sections that would appear on screen and the brothers wrote the score based on that. With the tune finalised and much of the arrangement done, it was time for the lyricist to join in and once again being a Nasir Hussain production Majrooh Sultanpuri was a spontaneous choice. This once Nasir Hussain ended up acting as a buffer of sorts between the legendary poet-lyricist and his son. Unlike his father Mansoor wasn’t too conversant with Urdu poetry and believed that he lacked the mechanism needed by a Hindi film director to convert what he wanted in the lyrics. Both Majrooh Sultanpuri and Nasir Hussain had immense respect for each other and Mansoor never doubted that the only reason the veteran wordsmith was working with him was because of his long association with his father. Majrooh, who had seen Mansoor grow up in front of his eyes, was quite accommodating when engaging with the young director. Mansoor would explain the situation in a broken manner, a mix of sentences and key words and Majrooh would patiently hear and come up with some verses.
Although Papa kehte hai was finalised first it was the duet Gazab ka hai din that was recorded first. Traditionally in Hindi cinema the tune more often than not got precedence over the words and both Mansoor as well as the music directors were throwbacks on this old school method. Anand-Milind had grown up with this belief while Mansoor didn’t know any other way of working as he had seen his father and RD Burman work this way.
The basic tune forGazab ka hai din was a mix of country and rock ballad and portions of it are almost evocative of Neil Diamond’s Play Me but the mood was new for Hindi music and so was the arrangement. One rarely heard trombones in a love duet and Majrooh’s words that were almost conversational in nature merged beautifully with the arrangement and even infused enthusiasm.
It was their father’s Bhojpuri innings that also gave Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak its playback singers in the form of Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik. Udit Narayan had come to Bombay in the late 1970s and was on the verge of giving up on his dream of becoming a playback singer when the faint possibility of Mansoor’s future project inspired him to hang on. Mansoor was also clear about using a new set of voices for both Aamir and Juhi as opposed to the established ones and even though Abhijeet was discussed as an option in the end Mansoor opted for Udit Narayan.
At the time when the music of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was being created the format of recording was also undergoing a transition from mono to stereo and this was one of the first few films with stereophonic sound. While recording on multi-tracks gave the music director the freedom to record the song and music separately, the singer still had to sing the full song as option of plugging in a part or cutting and pasting portions or even effects such as pitch-correction were a few years away. Most of the songs were recorded over a couple of days with the rhythm and strings on one and the vocals on the second day. In some cases such asGazab ka hai din the entire song was recorded in a single day. While Anand-Milind, Mansoor and Nasir Hussain were on the same page for most of the recording the only time the three differed was during the recording of the lullaby Kahe sataye. Milind often wonders that the tune wasn’t done justice to keeping the short duration of the song in mind. “It was such a sweet melody and I wanted to record a full song,” recalls the younger brother but Anand is quick to add that Nasir sahab wanted to keep it as is. Mansoor, on the other hand, remembers his father toying with the idea of a song but he wanted to go a step ahead and keep a threadbare version with just Alka Yagnik humming the song without any music. Interestingly this is one of his favourite things about the film, which ironically enough is also one of the few things he regrets not doing right and given half a chance this would perhaps be the only thing he’d like to change about the film.
Which brings one to Aye mere humsafar. The brothers vaguely knew the situation of the song but Mansoor had given them an idea of the images that would make the montage such as ticking clock, Rashmi (Juhi Chawla) striking the days on the calendar, the picnic, etc. In an inspired spurt the two worked out a basic melody of Aye mere humsafar and recorded it right away on their cassette player to present it to Nasir Hussain, who approved it as soon as he heard it. Mansoor had taken off in his sailboat on an impromptu break to Alibaugh and bad weather had delayed his return but like his father, he immediately approved the tune once he was back. Anand-Milind had wanted one song to have some Indian element and in that sense Aye mere humsafar ended up being the archetypal Hindi film song of the soundtrack. They worked out a rhythm pattern that would feature Indian percussion such as the dholak and the tabla but at the same time be a departure from the standard recognisable pattern. With a little help from Dubey, a much sort after dholak virtuoso who also happened to be a regular with RD Burman, the duo came up with a pattern where the bol or the mnemonic system of strokes is different for the intro and the verses.
Besides Mansoor’s clarity and his willingness to be open enough to ideas, it was also the manner in which Anand-Milind approached the musicians that made a huge difference to the songs of the film. The duo had their favourite set of musicians contributing to the score and this list included some of the best in the trade such as Kawas Lord, Homi Mullan (Percussion), Viju Shah (Keyboards), Shayam Raj (Sporano sax), Raju Singh and Sunil Kaushik (Electric Guitar) (Electric Guitar), Tony Vaz and Ramesh Iyer (Bass) and Dubey (Dholak). With the advent of synthesised sounds in the mid 1980s and the general decay in the quality of music most of these musicians rarely got a score that would push the envelope but here they knew that they were on to something. But the enduring impact that Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’s music would have on Hindi cinema was still some distance away.
The signs might have been there but most in the industry weren’t able to fathom the manner in which the music of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak would ultimately end up signaling a return to melody. As the film underwent a long period of endless trial shows with distributors expressing their doubts about the film’s potential at the box-office, the lukewarm response to the film’s music ended up being a common factor of doubt across the array of prospective buyers. They questioned the ending, debated over the title but simply couldn’t get over the music which most felt was poor when compared to typical Nasir Hussain productions. This was still a time when a distributor’s word could seal the fate of films and although Nasir Hussain was still a revered figure, a film from his banner with what they called thanda or lukewarm music was an anomaly too conspicuous to ignore. In spite of some air time on radio and an official launch by Rishi Kapoor, the music was still to hit the bull’s eye but it was one of the trials that a close friend of Nasir Hussain finally saw what the world was yet to witness. Shammi Kapoor and Nasir Husain were close friends and the star whose career was practically resurrected by the filmmaker told him that no one could stop the film or its music. But the biggest compliment that the music got was from the man who could have been the one composing it.
“Pancham da loved the music and complimented us on the sound we managed to get”, says Anand and recalls how RD kept asking them about the entire process. Milind says, “I was stunned and said, ‘What are you saying, Pancham da!’ and told him how we not only used most of his musicians but also the same recording studio at Film Center.” Yet the veteran trailblazer kept asking them about the placement of mics, etc. and assured them that it was a matter of time before the their music worked it’s magic.
The writer is is the author of the best-selling Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna. Tweet him @gchintamani
yes remarkable final over. Of course Eng blew it at the end after having played so well throughout but all credit to Carlos for converting all of those opportunities in such incredible fashion. They won on the women’s side as well. So great day for them.
Yeah congrats to WI
there’s never been dearth of raw talent in WI
The t20 format really suit them
Some real talent n firepower now
Ps: though a random spot dope check on the Windies male and female teams …maybe worthwhile
‘Batman v Superman’ Stumbles, but Stays at No. 1
By BROOKS BARNESAPRIL 3, 2016
LOS ANGELES — And then came the superplunge.
Second-weekend domestic ticket sales for “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” less a single movie than an audacious effort by Warner Bros. to prime filmgoers for an 11-film superhero series, totaled roughly $52.4 million, a 68 percent decline from its opening weekend. That drop, which came despite little competition, was among the largest on record for a superhero movie, according to the database Box Office Mojo.
“Dawn of Justice,” embraced by comic book fans but eviscerated by most critics, faced a similar collapse overseas, where second-weekend ticket sales totaled about $85.1 million. The decline was particularly steep in China, the world’s second-largest movie market behind the United States, as audiences turned back toward locally made films. China began festival celebrations for its annual tomb-sweeping holiday over the weekend.
Directed by Zack Snyder, “Dawn of Justice” has now collected $682.9 million worldwide after only two weeks of release — a smash hit by any account. Still the movie faces financial questions; Warner spent at least $400 million to make and market it, which means the studio will need to generate an estimated $800 million worldwide to break even, according to analysts.
Warner has described the effects-laden “Dawn of Justice” as a runaway victory. “We’re so excited by the fantastic global success of this film,” Sue Kroll, Warner’s president of worldwide marketing and distribution, said in a news release on March 27. “This tremendous result at the box office is a tribute to the cinematic world that Zack Snyder has created.”
In the past, very successful films have also experienced steep weekend-to-weekend drops: Warner’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” fell 72 percent after its opening in 2011, but still went on to collect $1.3 billion worldwide.
For the weekend in North America, “Zootopia” (Walt Disney Studios) was second, taking in about $20 million, for a five-week domestic total of $275.9 million, according to comScore, which compiles box office data. The only new wide-release film of note was the low-budget “God’s Not Dead 2” (Pure Flix), which collected about $8.1 million, or roughly 12 percent less than the first chapter generated over its first three days in 2014.
This will be incredibly damaging to Amitabh’s reputation IF TRUE. Don’t care much for Aishwarya: Never had any interest at all in ANY of his family members except him and his father.
It’s quite insensitive how the newspaper decided to release his name and his daughter-in-law’s name FIRST in order to jack up hits or sales. They say there are around 500 names? Why not release them all together? Why release the name of public figures first? Messi, Amitabh, Aishwarya? So the others are not important?
Unfortunately, that’s the state of Indian media. Just print THAT which jacks up revenue, which gets the max hits. To hell with ethics..
Please don’t mix Aamir Khan here. Aamir Khan was merely asked by folks to talk about ‘facts’ after seeing and hearing him LIVE in a program. It was his OWN words from his OWN mouth. And that is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED. What is not justified is trolling Aamir on social media and rampant rumor-mongering.
This, along with the ‘scandal’ where it was claimed by a 3rd party that Amitabh took money to endorse DD KISAN and sing the NATIONAL ANTHEM is an accusation made indirectly. Similary this one.
The onus is of course, on Amitabh to prove that this is wrong.
And once he does that, I would LOVE for him to SUE the living daylights out of such key-board warriors that any real jobless person henceforth thinks a million times and gets a heart-attack before he or she decides to ride on some name-shaming of famous people..
In front of those big political names, filmstars and sportsstars names will interest only Indians. At present, Australia has taken serious note of this scandal and started letting their taxmen go after the listed in their country.
AnJo- Libatards kee role model-(Has to link everything to Gujrat and National Anthem )
Rana Ayyub
@RanaAyyub
From promoting Guj tourism to singing the national anthem before T20 World cup, am convinced Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels
Umm no! Your primary grouse with Amitabh is that he is as relevant as a telegram today and that box-office wise he is not even as important as Raghubir Yadav. You might have already been shipped to Mars is proven by the fact that NOBODY ‘worthy’ on this blog considers Bachchan, at the age of 70+ a box-office force and they know that his ticket-pull existed till HUM and then he went into the mid-life actor’s crisis. What they are concerned is that PURELY as an actor, is he moulding himself successfully to aged and character roles. But for you, it is the ONLY comparison that you can make. And then your mathematically genius mind comes up with equations that would put John Nash to shame. Is Rajnikanth at 60 = Amitabh at 60? Of course this brilliant equation of yours doesn’t consider the fact that Rajnikanth’s movies are ‘designer’ vehicles rolled out every 3 years to get the maximum number of tickets. It also ignores the fact that south-style fanaticism is UNPARALLED anywhere in the world, be it for Dr. Rajkumar, the 2 Malayalam greats, or the Telugu ‘mass’ heroes.
Of course, you also come out with brilliant, kinder-garten conspiracy theories asking why only Amitabh didn’t have a mustache while Vinod and Rishi did in AAA [thank God you stopped at that and didn’t venture down into the pubes].
So you need to make up your mind as to what is it that you hate about Amitabh. His acting? His box-office? His roles? Or him as a human being basically?
So now we should ‘understand’ what of your brilliant thesis?
And to enlighten you, I am a fan of Amitabh the actor WAY MORE than Amitabh the person. As a person, EVERY great talent goes through insecurities and self-doubts in life. He might have gone through that too! I don’t have ANY right to judge anybody as a person since I have deficiencies galore I NEVER expect Amitabh to be a ‘role’ model holistically. [If Amitabh is guilty of evasion or whatever, he will be — and should be — investigated and convicted. I am not going to go on a 5-day fast if that happens. So is it with Tendulkar or Dravid or Modi.] I hate his constant obsession with the blog. I frankly find it meaningless UNLESS he talks of something related to the industry, those old memories, or how he was bowled over and analyzed a Peter O’Toole or Montgomery Clift’s or Gurudutt or Dilip’s performance. THOSE are all what I look for. What alphabets his grand-daughter learnt or what kabaddi team Abhishek team owns or what the family had for dinner yesterday is BS information for me.
Lastly, you might be sitting wherever you are laughing your bum off since this is what maybe you intended. Make a guy waste his time trying to drill some sense into thick brains. So this is the last time I will be writing and BREAKING OUT things alphabetically to you unless you decide to graduate and bring in some valid data-points or logic or quite simply, some very basic intelligence.
Enjoy and have a great time because you got off today making me waste my time on you..
Terrorism is the bogeyman ‘ Capitalists’ use to fuck people’s mind. Its the same diversion propaganda which made us hating the Russians / Communist during our growing years…..until the new so called ‘Islamic scoundrels’ made way to our living room……
The more fissures/ failings are noticed in the world of Capitalism, the more intense the terrorism bogey will be unleashed upon us.
“Panama Papers: German paper publishes ‘biggest leak in history’ on corruption”
“The data in the so-called Panama Papers, “provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, FIFA officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes,” the German newspaper wrote.”
An NRI can register any number of companies in any country which allows him/her to do so. If most of these people have NRI status, they have committed no crime. That is a legal fact! This is the reason why more than 4000 Indian millionaires migrated offshore just in 2014 alone. If I recall, Amitabh had obtained NRI status back in the 90s itself. All he has to do is stay out of India for 6 months every year, and that is easily achievable given their shooting schedules and travel.
Further, as long as money parked in offshore trusts is white, the Govt can do nothing about it. So if Amitabh makes millions from international assignments, he does not need to bring it back into India (ie as long as he is an NRI). Everyone wants to park their white money offshore, so that they can protect their hard earned fruits from corrupt IT officials, politicians and the like. This is not just the case for Indians, but for every country having any wealthy individuals.
Panama, BVI, Isle of Man, etc and a host of other countries create legal means to park such funds. There is nothing scandalous about it. The politicians who pass punitive tax laws themselves park their personal funds in offshore trusts.
Now Rahul Gandhi has to prove that he is an Indian citizen and Bachchan has to prove that he is an NRI and Aamir has to prove that he is not what the trolls are saying again and again.
Ki & Ka had a decent weekend though the trend was not great for a content urban film. A furher push on Saturday would have benefited the film tremendously. It is the third highest weekend of 2016. The weekend business of Ki & Ka is as follows
Friday – 7,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Sunday – 9,25,00,000 apprx
Total – 24,75,00,000
Still even though the trend could have better, the weekend ensures it will be a decent runner unless collections come down a lot on Monday.
Ki And Ka has turned out to be a winner at the Box Office. The film has collected 25.23 crore over its weekend, and with this, it is now set to be a comfortable success. Made at a budget of 30 crore (including P&A), the film had already recovered around 15 crore through satellite and other ancillary rights. With only 15 crore needed to be recovered through theatrical sales, the film would be in a green zone in a couple of days itself, and then begin to register profits.
Good costing and packaging by Balki and smart marketing and release has ensured that the film turns out to be a win-win situation for all. Of course this was a risky subject to be made and the film could have gone either ways. However, audience has given a nod of approval to the film and liked it much more than the critics, many of whom had settled for average reviews.
For a change, i agree with some words spoken by Srk.
“Electronic media creates a hero or villain every day. If there is nothing, they ensure that there is something enough to make someone a villain or a hero.”
Completely agree. Here’s one of the ‘journalists’ from the letter-writing news channel NDTV..Remember, Amitabh hasn’t even come out with an official clarification or reply..Modi has set up a team JUST today..this tweet was before that..
From promoting Guj tourism to singing the national anthem before T20 World cup, am convinced Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.
Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan, whose name figured in the Panama Paper leaks as allegedly having links with offshore entities in two tax havens, today denied any connection with those companies, saying his name may have been “misused”.
He also claimed that even the news report had not suggested any wrongdoing on his part. The Indian Express carried a report yesterday based on leaked documents of a Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca which is said to feature links of over 500 Indians to firms and accounts in offshore tax havens.
Referring to the report, Bachchan, 73, said, “I do not know any of the companies referred to by Indian Express – Sea Bulk Shipping Company Ltd, Lady Shipping Ltd, Treasure Shipping Ltd, and Tramp Shipping Ltd. I have never been a director of any of the above stated companies. It is possible that my name has been misused.
“I have paid all my taxes including on monies spent by me overseas. Monies that I have remitted overseas have been in compliance with law, including remittances through Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), after paying Indian taxes. In any event the news report in Indian Express does not even suggest any illegality on my part,” his statement read.
The names of his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai, her parents and brother also figured in the leaked documents as being directors in a firm in the British Virgin Islands.
The newspaper quoted her media adviser Archana Sadanand, who raised questions about the International Consortium of Investigating Journalists and said all the information the paper had was totally untrue and false.
He is innocent until proven guilty,if that was the case then he would never had begged yash chopra for a film, he did it in the past and so he can do it now,in those days it took 20 years but nowdays its so advanced that its matter of time,each and every individual wants to avoid paying tax and if he has done then its his choice,mind you for the last decade he has paid more taxes then any other stars anyway,just because he is a superstar does not mean that he should be penalized.He will come out good in this case aswell…
Karisma Kapur, who is still trying to finalize her divorce and child custody with estranged husband Sunjay Kapur, is going strong in her relationship with businessman beau, Sandeep Toshniwal.
The actress who was reported to have broken up with her boyfriend was spotted with him in Kareena Kapoor’s party on Friday and onlookers told a leading daily that the two seemed quite comfortable with each other and it looked like they were still going strong!
While her divorce is still impending and apparently shelved due to money issues, the actress has been reported to be seeing the businessman for a while now.
Kapoor & Sons Drops In Third Weekend
Monday 04 April 2016 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Kapoor and Sons dropped in the third weekend after two weeks of good business. The film is looking at a 75% apprx fall in the third week. The business of Kapoor & Sons till date is as follows
Week One – 44,77,00,000
Week Two – 17,46,00,000
Third Weekend – 3,50,00,000 apprx
Total – 65,73,00,000
The drop is always likely for these type of films with limited appreciation in just 4-5 cities unless competition is weak. A Neerja managed to hold out till week five due to tax free in most states and weaker competition but here the drop came in the the third week itself. The film is likley to finish blow 70 crore nett with outside chance of getting there if its gets lucky in week four.
Did Anil Kapoor quiz Sonam about her boyfriend?Check these cute pics..
Don’t believe us? Check out these cute pictures of Sonam Kapoor with her Papa Anil Kapoor…
Did Anil Kapoor quiz Sonam about her boyfriend?Check these cute pics..Don’t believe us? Check out these cute pictures of Sonam Kapoor with her Papa Anil Kapoor..
The Panama papers remind me of the discussion I had with Saket recently (here). This latest ‘scandal’ is also linked to stuff like Wikileaks and so on. We live in an age where this kind of news is now more or less to be expected. With a fair bit of regularity such ‘papers’ are ‘leaked’, scandal ensues in every country of the world and people eventually move on. I’ll make a few points here somewhat schematically:
1)Take the Panama papers. They seem to implicate everyone from Iceland to India. From heads of state to wealthy individuals in other works of life. There is a certain globalization of the scandal (much like Wikileaks). More or less every country is implicated as are political figures belonging to vastly different political systems. As are corporate figures and celebrities also all over the globe. What’s the real problem here? Precisely that which people don’t focus on. Basically in every country the media (and the citizenry) obsesses with local ‘bad apples’ (David Cameron’s dad for example!). People are so ‘shocked’ everywhere. But practices that are this widespread and this pervasive and this global are also ‘institutional’ ones by another name! They are very much part of the global capitalist arrangement we all like to celebrate. Enormous amounts of capital invested in a huge number of tax havens around the world. With the compliance, often connivance of political systems, again in the same global sense. This too is the Davos compact! A strong overlap between those who show up there and those who ‘park’ in Panama or wherever! This is the ‘truth’ that we avoid. We love to pretend a) that we never knew (is this really such a great surprise? the same holds for Snowden’s revelations and every such thing. America spying on everyone? Wow, would never have guessed! Merkel is even more incredulous than we are..) b) once we ‘discover’ this we neatly individualize it, sensationalize it, latch on to a few names that we recognize and again pretend that it’s about individual corruption or hypocrisy. The same is done in every country whose eminent citizens are ‘exposed’ this way. Either the world has an incredible number of corrupt people in every country and the most corrupt are its most pre-eminent folks or else this is an institutional arrangement tolerated or even encouraged by every political system. Not just this, it is also sanctioned by the even more powerful logic of global capital. Because a who’s who of corporations and those attached to them do the very same things. This is the system we have all signed up for. And we keep pretending to be shocked, we keep attacking one individual or the other because we don’t wish to really look into the mirror. We too are complicit in all of this.
2)The truth in fact is even more obscene than this. If it were just about money or tax evasion or whatever it would be rather easy. The greatest problem isn’t Messi stashing his earnings somewhere. It’s not even about corporations doing it. Or even politicians. All these things might constitute scandals, sometimes fatal ones or these might become serious image problems for people. But that’s the stuff of tabloid gossip. What is truly obscene, truly disturbing is the set of political and economic arrangements that generate that sort of capital in the first place and that form the bedrock of our global economic order. I love something that Zizek often says in this regard — what is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of one?! In other words the former is a minor crime, the latter might constitute a much greater institutional one. There is some humor in this of course but also a great deal of truth. I will return to my own favorite example here. For us to buy our cell phones and laptops at the prices we do, for us to keep getting seduced by this technological dream brutal civil wars have to be maintained or engineered in Africa where people’s limbs are cut off or they’re raped and murdered and submitted to all kinds of horrors. All so that we can buy the iPhone 6 plus! Or people have to work in slave-like conditions in Foxcon-like environments or collapsing buildings in Dhaka for us to consume more of the products we love from iPads to clothing at the most ‘competitive’ prices. Is this too easy? A crude generalization? Not really. If you had a democracy in the Congo, a truly stable one of the sort one sees in many other parts of the world, corporations (backed by their political masters.. hey it creates jobs, it helps the economy! this is the battle-cry everywhere..) would be unable to extract coltan or whatever else they need at the prices they do. Chaos and war are often great. You just get friendly with the right warlord, he gets bought off cheaply, he gets you the coltan, no one is the wiser. The next day we see ads about how Apple or Microsoft is connecting the world. Indeed. Congo is every bit part of the global economy as are those Foxcon factories in China as are those makeshift production facilities in illegally constructed buildings in Dhaka. And who are the great beneficiaries of this system? Not just those who make enormous amounts of money but also people like us typing away furiously online every day! ‘We’ sanction all of this. But we are lucky not to be public figures. No one can really drop a set of papers on all the consumers of the world! The public figures are just like us. They’re not greater than the logic of these global arrangements. This doesn’t mean everyone’s the same. There are questions of degree. But the logic remains the same. It’s akin to people blaming Obama for conducting drone strikes. He is still president of an empire or a superpower. He can be more benign than others, more progressive than others but he cannot go beyond this without taking apart the entire system which again includes a global order. No one is big enough to do that.
We might say we are ordinary, that we don’t have the power. That’s hogwash. That’s the story we tell ourselves everyday so as never to question our own ethics. We are powerless and we are naive. Yeah right. We’re willing to buy shirts at $200 a piece as opposed to $45. We’re also willing to buy iPhones at $1500 instead of $200-400. And we’re willing to buy gas at $10 rather than $2.50. Oh did I forget to mention how that oil supply is guaranteed from the Mideast to the coasts of Nigeria? The kinds of political and economic decisions that go into guaranteeing this energy resource? Never mind. This is already getting long..
3)But let’s come to India now and let’s return to the Panama papers. Even if people are doing these things in many countries it’s not illegal to do this in all of them. India is certainly one of those countries where things get tricky in this sense. But here’s my problem with all this. again I am probably repeating myself from the past. ‘Illegality’ in India is a much tolerated category. The whole system once again sanctions it and/or encourages it at every level of life. You don’t need to go to the Caymans to find Indian tax evaders. Everything is happening right in India. The same for all kinds of other economic arrangements. When we see in Western democracies with much more stable legal and judicial institutions how a certain marriage between powerful business interests and politics creates all kinds of compromise and corruption and even a ‘legality’ that is another name for ‘illegality’ (again I am never as enamored of some of these words.. there are many things that are ‘legal’ that are much worse than many things that are ‘illegal’), when we see the same operate at a much worse level by several orders of magnitude in countries like India and China (for different reasons) we are again looking at institutional problems. This doesn’t render any individual blameless. If a 100 people are evading tax I am guilty even if I am just the 101st. But the conversation cannot end here. What of a system that always allows this to happen? That is where the truest guilt lies. And we claim we are powerless but when we have some power we do the same things. Precisely because it’s institutional we can hardly claim we’d act differently if we enjoyed the same kinds of means and/or influence.
But as with my more global example this is still not the worst that happens in India. What happens at the level of pure political violence against various communities and/or economic groups in one name or the other, using one excuse or the other and all of which some or most of us always defend depending on which side of the political equation we occupy, is far more disgusting. We don’t just defend, we even celebrate a lot of this. We again pretend to be naive and blind. We resort to legalisms to do this. We attack others to deflect attention. We do everything to defend. We even counter-sign riots and pogroms using these tactics. It simply amounts to this.
4)All of this still does not mean that certain questions cannot be raised when such ‘revelations’ are made. Why then do I refuse to accept the media framing of the same? For all the reasons I have just provided. If the questioning is always going to remain within such narrow margins, if the questions are never expanded, if there isn’t a reflection on systemic problems, if there isn’t isn’t an ethical framework to examine the much deeper roots of all these practices, finally if there isn’t even on the part of the individual questioner (in the media or elsewhere) the guarantee of personal integrity in a variety of ways, I am then simply not willing to engage in this sort of silly witch-hunt. I have said as much many times in the past on all kinds of related issues.
Wikileaks and Headley depositions followed by Panama Papers. Either one has to believe every one of them or disbelieve every one of them. One cant be selective.
Satyam: some would argue that post-WWII (with regimes like Bretton-Woods), there wasn’t a lot of this sort of activity (relative to today), at least according to what experts say. It has exploded over the last 25-35 years with globalization/, as its handmaiden. In fact from my perspective this is simply the “twin” of global capital flows, the rewards of the sort of knowledge arbitrage that (e.g. in the financial markets) enables access to small time advantages or to small pieces of information, to generate massive profits. Here, those with access to these sorts of “knowledge”/pieces of information get to take advantage of the very thing that globalized capitalism promised: unfettered capital flow across borders! (The problem arises because various nation-states can’t “keep up”, actually none can. In a sense the nation-state wants it both ways: promise unfettered freedom to attract capital flows, but resort to the old-world rhetoric of national sovereignty when it comes to collecting taxes. The resort to overt or coded appeals to “morality” is a piece with the old-school rhetoric of the nation-state, but is not on point — in fact note how the state itself often deflects such questions when those who RESIST the effects of such capitalism raise them — e.g. think of those who raise questions about a mining project in Orissa or a logging project in the Amazon etc. — and resorts to language focused on investment/development, and so on (ie even when laws are sought to be enforced often the language from the government and business community seems to be that we should keep our eye on the bigger picture and the law and the regulations are often treated as minor inconveniences) but tries to reverse course where tax collection from those who “park” funds offshore is concerned! Of course the question of illegality is a different one, but a lot of the wikileaks-style shaming doesn’t actually depend upon a precise distinction between legality and illegality.)
excellent comment and I agree everywhere. of course one could argue that during the cold war politics (if not economics) was even worse. Because one could nakedly support any excess as long as one defined this larger struggle in metaphysical ways. Of course even here an economic apparatus underwrote all of this. For a long time now keeping the world free has always meant keeping it free for markets. But it’s true that since then all the political battle lines have become blurred and technologized globalization has rendered all questions of economic legality even more obtuse if not archaic.
the one other thing to add here is that it is not only a question of ethics as to whether people believe it’s a larger structural issue or only an individual one. I would say it’s equally a pragmatic problem. If you believe everything is fine in terms of the essential political or economic arrangements of your country and/or the world and it is then only some people who do these things and get away with it you think and act one way. On the other hand if you believe as I do that these examples are symptomatic of something much larger and deeper you come to some very different conclusions about a number of things and presumably act accordingly.
It’s hard to know where to start in tallying up the explosive revelations in the Panama Papers, an analysis of leaked documents from global law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Yes, we’ve known for a while now that the shadow financial system was growing. But it’s another thing to take in 11.5 million documents showing the way in which Mossack Fonseca was working with big name financial groups like UBS, HSBC, Société Générale, and many others to help elites from the Communist Party leadership of China, to soccer star Lionel Messi, to global financiers hide cash in offshore havens around the world.
It’s just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. “The size of the leak is unprecedented, but the tricks Mossack Fonseca has allegedly used for its clients are neither new nor surprising. Anonymous shell companies and the failure of governments to require lawyers, corporate service companies, or banks to collect beneficial ownership information on clients leave the door wide open for dirty money to flow around the globe virtually unhindered,” says Heather Lowe, the Director of Government Affairs for Global Financial Integrity, a Washington DC-based consultancy.
To me, this is one of the key issues at work in the U.S. presidential election. Voters know at a gut level that our system of global capitalism is working mainly for the 1 %, not the 99 %. That’s a large part of why both Sanders and Trump have done well, because they tap into that truth, albeit in different ways. The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn’t working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot. Globalization is supposed to be about the free movement of people, goods, and capital. But in fact, the system is set up to enable that mobility mainly for the rich (or for large corporations). The result is global tax evasion, the offshoring of labor, and an elite that flies 35,000 feet over the problems of nation states and the tax payers within them.
Where do we go from here? I think we’re heading towards a root to branch re-evaluation of how our market system works–and doesn’t work. The debate over free trade is part of that re-evaluation. The calls for a global campaign against tax evasion are, too. I think there will also be intense scrutiny about the ease with which financial capital can move around the world – we’ve already seen that with the hoopla over tax inversions, but we’ll see a lot more backlash, in new areas.
“I expect that the populist backlash will be intense and will impact everything from high-end real estate to PACs (effectively political shell companies),” says one of my favorite sources, Peter Atwater, a behavioral economist. “Voters are increasingly angry at the seeming transience of the financial/corporate/political elite. The 1% can move anywhere they want—and profit handsomely from the relocation, but the 99% can’t. Worse, the 99% are left with the aftermath—the empty buildings of a deserted Detroit, the toxic waste from chemical plants in West Virginia or the unsustainable tax liabilities of Puerto Rico.”
Fixing all this is a growth issue, and not just for the U.S. and other rich countries. As Global Financial Integrity recently found, developing economies lost $7.8 trillion in cash because of maneuvers like those allegedly done by Mossack Fonseca, between 2004 and 2013. What’s more, illicit outflows are increasing at a rate of 6.5 % a year—twice the rate of GDP growth. At a time when most emerging markets are slowing, and are the reason for the drag on global economic growth that smart people say could cause another recession by this year or next, it’s an issue that we all need to care about.
Bill Clinton has somewhat gone down in my eyes because his tenure characterized by economic prosperity and financial deregulation set the stage for the excesses of recent years….and then just before leaving office his commodity futures modernization act of 2000 brought exemption to all this credit-default swaps from regulation. The speculative nature of financial dealings with mix of ‘world event management’ is a recipe for disaster where top few are reaping the benefits.
On another note, its amazing to note in this age of terrorism when ‘follow the money’ is key mantra , how all this is taking place with so much ease! The fact of the matter is that “free world’ has somewhat bastardized ‘Terrorism’ to fit its discourse and the events play out to its liking to push the docket.
I was and am always a proponent of Capitalism but man with no checks and balances free world is creating a very uneven society. Thankfully they have this big ‘terrorism phantom’ to divert and deflect otherwise all ingredients of civil war are in place.
I think economic advisors are more responsible and accountable in this regard. If the CA says its ok, everyone is doing so, then a person without sound knowledge of these things falls into the trap. Behind every economic offence, there is a rogue economic advisor lurking. They are the ones who advise their clients how to prepare a balance sheet and get huge loans from the banks.
But who leaked the documents and what did they hope to gain from it? According to the ICIJ, the lead for the leak came in late 2014 when an unknown source reached out to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which had reported previously on a smaller leak of Mossack Fonseca files to German government regulators. The source reportedly contacted Suddeutsche Zeitung reporter Bastian Oberway via encrypted chat offering some sort of data intended “to make these crimes public”.
However, the source warned that his or her “life is in danger”, was only willing to communicate via encrypted channels and refused to meet in person. “How much data are we talking about,” Obermayer asked, according to an account in Wired. “More than you have ever seen,” the source responded. The eventual stash added up to 2.6 terabytes, a 100 times bigger than Wikileaks’ Cablegate, and enough to fill 600 DVDs. Obermayer says he communicated with his source over a series of encrypted channels that they frequently changed, each time deleting all history from their prior exchange.
In their Suddeutsche Zeitung report, Obermayer and his co-authors write that the source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return, apart from a few security measures. To this day, Obermayer says he does not know the name of the person or the identity of the person who leaked the documents, but feels he knows the person. “For certain periods I talked to (this person) more than to my wife,” he told Wired.
Sanjana reference your above comment and taking the Indian context, would SRK if his name were to be included in this list get the same generosity to offer explanations or he be straightway termed a traitor / deshdrohi or worse Dawood Ibrahim’s henchmen?
……. and this is where I sympathize with the likes of him on that article he wrote few years backs in the Outlook in 2013 –
“I sometimes become the inadvertent object of political leaders who choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India. There have been occasions when I have been accused of bearing allegiance to our neighboring nation rather than my own country – this even though I am an Indian whose father fought for the freedom of India. Rallies have been held where leaders have exhorted me to leave my home and return to what they refer to as my “original homeland”. Of course, I politely decline each time, citing such pressing reasons as sanitation words at my house preventing me from taking the good shower that’s needed before undertaking such an extensive journey. I don’t know how long this excuse will hold though.
Now to be fair to Bachchan, he has been a Shipping executive / Ship Broker prior embarking on his bollywood journey…..if he were to hold few shipping companies in his name now……offshore accounts are a very common phenomena in shipping industry …..an industry I relate to myself and most of them registered to Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Bermuda…. Aish too has a shipping link and her dad was a Chief Engineer on a ship and her brother a Fourth Engineer before she hit big when they all quit sailing.
Coming to the bigger point on these leaks they are more damning as it hurts the fundamentals of current economic system if left unchecked. My beef here is with the trickle down theory which the Capitalist World vehemently propagates. The fact of the matter is here the wealth doesn’t trickle down – it just floods offshore. A far-reaching study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put so many poor back on its feet…..
It is all politics in our country. No sympathy for the Khans if their names were there. Now they will understand how painful it is for some of the Khans’ admireres when they are crucified and pilloried. When Bofors was the raging issue, I empathised with the Bachchans with all my heart and during that time these religion based politics was quite negligible. It was done to bring down Rajiv Gandhi and his friends like the Bachchans.
An Jo Says:
February 16, 2013 at 1:30 AM
My essay on SRK’s essay:
What is it about SRK that irks people so much? I have often been wondering how and why is it that this guy ends up ruffling so many feathers at significant points in due course of the fag end of his ‘super-star’ career and the beginning—depending on his decisions of course—of what may or may not be a productive shift to a toned down career of less heroism and more of ‘character-centric’ roles. Is it because of the fact that he almost always wears his religion on his sleeve and keeps harping on things related to his religious identity on and off? Why is it that the same ‘identity’ controversies do not hover over the other two of the Khan triumvirate in the Hindi film industry (Hi Fi)? Why is it that they don’t find themselves at the dirty end of the ‘bigots’? Are the ‘bigots’ selective in their selection of targets?
Frankly, there is not much that is written in his article for the magazine that he has not said before. In fact, there is absolutely nothing new. It is just polemics—littered with his oft-praised ‘humor’— that is written in high-flown English with little substance to add to what he knows or for that matter, what anybody in India knows. If one notices the time-graph, he is getting more into these ‘identity’ controversies only post-2007/08; almost parallel to his past of once unbeatable streak commercially with regard to his films. Is it fair to say then, that he is unable to keep his ego in check and just longs for those days when he was the center of a newspaper though hundreds had died a fortnight previously in Latur due to an earthquake? The box-office space is now taken over by Salman Khan who is on a mad spree and the other Khan, Aamir has long time ago decided to carve a path of his own and not be a part of the Hi Fi circus consciously (at least commercially). I would like to believe what irks the Indian public most of the time regarding his controversies is the ‘timing’. Out of the blue, comes this article of the idiosyncrasies of being a ‘Khan’ in India. Where is the trigger point? If this isn’t ill-timed, what is? He is writing for an inaugural issue of an international magazine and the first thing that comes to his mind is identity? It only goes to show that obsession with his identity is more of a pre-occupation with him rather than the common populace or dare I say, even the ‘bigoted’ outfits. If he is so sub-consciously bothered about the ‘travails’ of being a Muslim in India, he would say that at every given point in his career, not at strategically placed moments of his career. The buildings fell on September 11, 2001. And we hardly heard his identity crises until he acted in CHAK DE INDIA. Frankly, one is confused regarding his complaints. Is his problem with Hindu-dominated India’s view or with the world-view of Muslims by non-Muslims? Because, if he is talking of world-view, his essay falls flat on its face since he primarily includes what the ‘bigoted’ parties of India think of him and the Muslim community. Now this supposedly Hindu-Indian view or suspicion always existed even before 9-11!! And that view was shaped by the politics of the Indo-Pakistan relation. It had nothing to do with the post 9-11 view of Muslims in the whole wide world. Even if 9/11 were not to have happened, there is an almost cent-percent possibility that Muslims of India being viewed through the prism of Indo-Pak relations would have continued unabated. So why is his essay trying to dove-tail his being attacked by ‘bigots’ in India to what the Americans or the rest of the non-Muslim world has to say about Islam in general and Muslims in particular? And if his essay was so ‘heart-felt’, then I wonder why he chose to hide under the carpet of ‘bigoted’ parties? The sun and every flea surviving under the sun knows that the ‘bigoted’ party that attacked him is Shiv-Sena. Why not name it? Which other party has attacked him? Has the BJP done it? Congress of course is always his friend. In a very muted way, Bajrang Dal or RSS might have done it during his Pakistan promotion for the Indian Greedy League cricket tournament. So why wither away from naming Shiv-Sena as the only culprit that has indulged in identity-bashing? (After the death of Bal Thackeray, SRK paid his ‘tributes’ and also gladly mentioned that he had pleasant ‘tea-parties’ with him.) The Shiv-Sena has always been at such mud-flinging parties. Even the great Dilip Kumar – whose talent and impact are of stratospheric proportions when compared to SRK’s acting skills and who had an unequivocal respect when it came to his conduct within and outside of the film industry—had to face the identity politics of Shiv-Sena. Would SRK, standing way behind in the line led by Dilip Kumar, expected something radical? It might be the business of Shiv Sena to rake up controversies and identity politics; it is their bread and butter that is splattered with a few drops of blood of innocents. But why does he have to be so gullible (sly?) to invest right into this business? Isn’t he supposed to be the one with intelligence and erudition conveyed in high-flown English? Such ‘heart-felt’ confusions only irritate the general populace because one is baffled at the idea of Shah Rukh Khan, the super-star, the star who is the face of the cover issue of Forbes magazine that tracks the richest people in the country, unable to shake himself of any degree of victimhood! Was A. K Hangal (a Hindu, by the way) spared because he was a Hindu? A veteran—and a freedom fighter— having been born and brought up and having shared joint memories of India and Pakistan has more reason than SRK to attend ‘Pakistan’ day; but was he spared? SRK can buy 5 Rolls-Royce within a week and gift one of them to his driver! The three Khans of the film-industry today are the most powerful and influential in the functioning of the industry—and this is very feebly arguable. And it is baffling to see SRK, whose identity was of no concern to the greater common public when he was a struggler and much so when he became a super-star, and is of no concern even now when he is seeing the twilight of his super-stardom days, resort to such antics so late in his career. But in all honesty, he has always had these issues of taking himself and his ‘intelligence’ very importantly and seriously; so much so that in many of his interviews to Doordarshan pre-satellite television days, he would make up lies that he would have to keep in mind so that he mustn’t utter another lie that wouldn’t match the previous lie! In an interview, he mentioned he studied in IIT while he never even set foot there; not even to dance in any one of the dean’s daughter’s wedding. He keeps saying his family was extremely poor; unfortunately he forgot to keep track of this one and displayed his middle-class affluence often during his talks and with his behavior. And then there was/there still is the misplaced arrogance and heroism of ‘North-Indianness’: ‘Mein Delhi ka hoon; baat hi nahin, haath pair bhi chalaana aata hain’. Maybe he thought the people of Bombay or elsewhere in the country sit with their hands folded and legs tied when somebody is messing around with the wife/girl friend and that only ‘North Indians’ generally and Delhiites specifically have the bollocks to not just think but also to act with their hands and walk the talk. There is also the constant harping on his ‘Pathan’hood and his lineage of ‘good’ looks in a very vulgar manner at any given moment – opportune or not is out of the window. Frankly, he is living much, much more than the perfect ‘Indian’ dream (if there was/still is something like that) . If he still feels to stick his neck out and proclaim his ‘Muslim’ identity while it is none of concern to anybody but some ‘bigots’ wonder why he wastes reams of paper on what ‘bigoted’ and unwanted people think of him. Why is it so important to him?
By indulging in such unwanted sensitivities, I am beginning to lose him as my role-model. SRK’s success inspires me no less. Coming at least a million miles out of the nepotism radius, If he can succeed with his kind of talent, I bloody well should in my life in my own way. And I DO NOT mean this condescendingly at all.
That’s a fairly reasonable response to SRK’s piece. Actually ‘sympathize’ is a wrong word in that context. Reading that piece one gets the feeling he may be ‘ruing’ the fact he is follower of a religion at a time when the politics surrounding it is so problematic.
SRK gives the perception of being very money / business minded always trying to enter the bigger league, but in India to graduate to the next level one must have a certain appetite for white collar crime which a lot of these bigwigs and other famous personalities indulge in on regular basis. It’s a known fact unlike say their counterparts in US, to be an Ambani or Adani or Mallaya requires motivated nonviolent crime committed by business and government professionals. Now with the terrorism / underworld link hanging to his named religion, that goes beyond the pale even if one is unknowingly caught in that web.
On an aside, still not clear on the kickbacks and deal for Bofors but if one scratches the surface there is simply too much co-coincidence with Italian Sonia / Quottorachi to Ajitabh moving to Sweden / Switzerland and opening companies / accounts etc
(Courtesy Google now). It’s easy to be cynical and discard VP Singh for the mess he created with Mandal, but it’s the same Indian Express which was unearthing these things on a very regular basis. Even now with the present scandal and denials in place for all we know Ajitabh may be the one opening all these offshore accounts in Panama. All this association of Sahara Shri – Amar Singh – Anil Ambani and then public / publicized fallout is an alert one cannot forego easily.
Incidentally last two days Ravish Kumar @ NDTV has been in his element trying to simplify the tangled cobweb of head of the states / politicians / celebrities / terrorists / underworlds / drug lords……surprisingly all under one roof of Mossack Fonseca.
The singhs (VP and Arjun) have dragged India many more years back with Mandal. The unfortunate part of it is that it can not be taken away without blood bath.
Supreme court has given seal of approval without any binding timeline and accountability. Politicians are spineless to remove it.
The world’s super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy.
James Henry, a former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has conducted groundbreaking new research for the Tax Justice Network campaign group – sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts to construct an alarming picture that shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system.
Comedian Jimmy Carr became the public face of tax-dodging in the UK earlier this year when it emerged that he had made use of a Cayman Islands-based trust to slash his income tax bill.
But the kind of scheme Carr took part in is the tip of the iceberg, according to Henry’s report, entitled The Price of Offshore Revisited. Despite the professed determination of the G20 group of leading economies to tackle tax secrecy, investors in scores of countries – including the US and the UK – are still able to hide some or all of their assets from the taxman.
“This offshore economy is large enough to have a major impact on estimates of inequality of wealth and income; on estimates of national income and debt ratios; and – most importantly – to have very significant negative impacts on the domestic tax bases of ‘source’ countries,” Henry says.
Using the BIS’s measure of “offshore deposits” – cash held outside the depositor’s home country – and scaling it up according to the proportion of their portfolio large investors usually hold in cash, he estimates that between $21tn (£13tn) and $32tn (£20tn) in financial assets has been hidden from the world’s tax authorities.
“These estimates reveal a staggering failure,” says John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. “Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people.
“This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich.”……………..
Ki & Ka had the normal Monday drop of around 50%. A 3 crore nett plus Monday is reasonable for the film. The first four day business of Ki & Ka is as follows
Friday – 7,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Sunday – 9,25,00,000
Monday – 3,50,00,000 apprx
Total – 28,25,00,000
The flm should gross around 35 crore nett in its first week which is decent and then it will depend on what it can notch up before the release of Fan on 15th April. After the Monday it is important it remains steady for the next few days.
The Worldwide opening weekend business has been disappointing just like the Indian opening weekend. Airlift managed to breach the 75 crore mark but stands at a low position of 29 as far as all time rank for opening weekend is concerned. The top Opening weekends Worldwide this year as follows.
1. Airlift – 78.08 crore
2. Kapoor & Sons – 54.10 crore
3. Ki & Ka – 46.80 crore
4. Neerja – 41.18 crore
5. Wazir – 38.47 crore
Ki & Ka fell a little short of 50 crore as Overseas markets like US / Canada, UK and Australia should have done better. Gulf did pretty well. Kapoor & Sons managed to cross 50 crore but its 54 crore figure puts it outside the top fifty Worldwide opening weekends.
There are only three songs, I think. My pick is this one-
Liked the way this singers voice TEXTURE & DEPTH compliments the setting.
And liked the way the GUITAR & even the FLUTE is incorporated…
& Around 0:10, Laik tells Raghu that he’s losing his mind.. 🙂
Ki And Ka has emerged as a clean success. With 3.30 crore more coming in on Tuesday, the film has now collected 32.07 crores at the Box Office. For a film that was made on a budget of 30 crore (including P&A) and had already recovered 50% of its investment before the release, this Balki and Eros film is now in green. Whatever comes from here would add to the tally of profits as 100% of investment has been recovered now.
The film is also ultra-special for Kareena Kapoor since this is now her biggest success of the decade where she is the senior actress on board. Yes, she has delivered bigger successes when paired with the Khans or Ajay Devgn. However, Ki And Ka has her in an equal screen time as Arjun Kapoor and also features in an author backed role. In that aspect, she has pulled through the film quite well and has come across as a reliable actress.
‘In that aspect, she has pulled through the film quite well and has come across as a reliable actress.’
Absolutely, 16 yrs after her debut, this senior actress finally gets her ‘OWN’ success, which will still be lesser than the successes of Kangana, Deepika, Vidya et al. Saif can finally become the Ka.
With the US media black out on this issue…sadly it won’t matter much. However, in next week’s debate in Brooklyn, Bernie will probably bring up this issue and I hope he makes a very clear distinction between himself and Hillary…but then Hillary will just complain about Sanders’ ‘tone’ lol. She is such a hack and disingenuous…seems like people are supporting her mostly because of ‘Clinton’ brand.
if people were told that higher taxes would lead to better funding domestically…it would be more positively received…think that is one of the reasons why Bernie is gaining huge support.
Bernie is to the left of even Obama. Cruz is extreme right. Trump has charted an off the charts course (cant figure if he is extreme right or extreme ridiculous!?!). The General Election season is upon us, and candidates by now try to frantically move to the center. But its too late for the above three to claim the center now. Hillary being closest to the center, is the most probable nominee and future president. Bill cut taxes and balanced the budget. As long as he is standing behind the throne, America will have a chance to clean all the mess. The rest of these guys have no clue of how to run a country.
the amount of damage the clintons (especially hillary) have done outweigh the benefits. bernie has weaknesses but his policies are what we need at this moment in history…IMO.
How is she bad news for India? It was Bill who opened the door after it was shut due to the 1998 Pokhran tests.
In any case, with our money power and lobbying, neither party can be bad for India anymore. The days of the anti-India State Dept are long gone. We run the Valley and the Street. Enuff Said.
While Sethi is of course, the only real person in here, all the animals have a fantastic degree of photorealism. And Sethi’s interaction with the animals throughout the duration of the movie, given that they are CGI, is completely convincing. He combines innocence and warmth with the survival skills and resourcefulness of someone far older.
While Favreau is faithful to the old elements, (old songs like Bare Necessities included, of course) he also brings in a few new subtle touches as well in order to keep things interesting. While the King Louie scene is one of the many high points, Kaa’s screen time could have been lengthened a bit, though. Nonetheless, the performance of the voice cast is spot-on. But more than anything, the intricate landscaping, masterful camerawork and environment (actually filmed in Downtown Los Angeles) create a delightfully immersive experience. Heartwarming and enjoyable.
Shoojit Sircar’s upcoming social thriller recently received its title as Pink – a colour often associated with women. And resembling the same will be three strong female protagonists in the film, namely, the characters played by Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang.
While the story of the film has been kept under wraps, we had earlier received a glimpse of Amitabh Bachchan’s look as a lawyer. But there is more to the plot of this Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s directorial! Apparently, Big B, a lawyer by profession in the film, is also portrayed as the protective neighbor of three flat-mates (Taapsee, Kirti and Andrea). On the other hand, Taapsee’s character is in love with a man played by Angad Bedi, who along with his friends, molest her and flat-mates on one drunken night. Not ending at that, the film gets its twist when this act leads to an accident and there is just one man who stands by these girls during their times of need – their neighbor played by Amitabh Bachchan. The film showcases the struggle of a lawyer who fights for justice against the powerful and influential.
Ronnie Lahiri, co-producer of the film, recently mentioned that they have shot a major portion of the film in South Delhi. In fact, he also added that certain scenes like Big B and Angad’s court sequences will be shot in real locations and that they are waiting for the permissions to shoot at the Saket District Court.
I love his current choice of films. Most of them sound very interesting. Now everything isn’t going to turn out like Piku but I’d still rather have him do this kind of thing than the alternatives. Also didn’t mind Wazir.
Life is good for Mowgli, until the menacing Shere Khan (a terrifying Elba) decides he wants to eat the child. Mowgli is forced to run, but along the way he meets some amazing colourful characters Kaa (Johansson), Ballo (Murray) and a humongous orangutan King Louie (Christopher Walken).
The characters drawn for the 2016 live action film have an edge that was not present in the 1967 animated film.
Shere Khan in the new film is genuinely scary at times, especially how he leaps across the screen in 3D and his roar accentuated by the digitally enhance Dolby Atmos sound is frightening.
This is perhaps why the film has been given a PG certificate in the US (according to the MPAA the film has ‘some sequences of scary action and peril’) and an U/A certificate in India.
Indian Censor Board Chairman Pahlaj Nihalani was quoted as saying ‘The 3D effects are so scary that the animals seem to jump right at the audience.’
As has become a regular practice, Nihalani was mocked on Twitter, but I have to admit that for once he is right.
Kaa in Johansson’s voice becomes a female snake, although one could say that Holloway had a soft gentle voice — the cause of a lot of speculation that the voiceover actor may have been gay or bisexual.
Censor Board member Dr Chandraprakash Diwedi’s Mohalla Assi, which reportedly pokes fun at the commercialisation of the Holy city of Varanasi, has been banned.
Interestingly, the film’s trailer, wherein Sunny Deol and Sakshi Tanwar were seen mouthing Hindi expletives, got leaked on the internet much before the film was submitted for certification.
The feature film also got leaked on the internet before it was submitted to the Censor Board.
When it was recently screened to the Censor Board, it got banned as it apparently evoked extreme reactions.
In the film, Sunny Deol plays a righteous priest fighting against the ecological and moral pollution of Varanasi.
Never known to use even a single profanity in his entire career, Deol is heard calling himself a c****** in the trailer and commenting on the rampant ‘guru-shishya ke naam pe pela peli’ (sex in the grab of teacher-pupil) in Varanasi.
The film and its trailer are also filled with abusive references to tourists.
Finally saw Wazir…. It’s good in parts. Bachchan is good and has some great lines. But overall I found him better in Piku and in Shamitabh. Piku was off course a complete fillm, but even Shamitabh for me was more engaging than Wazir.
The biggest flaw ( from the too many to list ) for me- SPOILER ALERT
How can anyone guesstimate beforehand that Farhan will intercept him at a secluded spot so that he can blow himself with no additional loss of life,
SATYAMSHOT 
April 1, 2016 at 2:27 AM
It’s a bogus characterisation but Arjun Kapoor plays Kabir with a good amount of vulnerability and an unfazed, endearing charm, finishing off some of the most casual scenes with a crusty last word. To his credit, a thoughtful young man shines through that oafish surface.
I enjoyed his meet cute bits with Kareena, the PAN card quip, the shared birthdays. Their age difference pops up once in a while and quietly plays on Kia’s psyche.
Both are a product of single parenting with his indifferent millionaire daddy (suitably tetchy Rajit Kapoor) and her free-spirited social worker mom (Swaroop Sampat says her lines with a tinge of incredulity) chipping in as the voice of progress and preconception (not to mention crude, misplaced humour).
Still, things stay hunky dory for most part — Kia never has a bad day at work. Kabir is a housekeeping expert. Ki & Ka avoids treading on their dark areas — frail ego and bubbling insecurities — for as long as it can help. When it does, it’s at its most appealing. Balance tilts, roles advance and the husband and wife find themselves ill equipped to handle the inevitability of change.
Balki treats success like an evil in his story, triggering a feeling of neglect in one and jealousy in another. It’s at this juncture; Kareena Kapoor Khan proves what an asset she can be.
Her incandescent beauty exudes easy warmth and professional poise as per the occasion. The actress smoothly transitions between fragile and volatile to reveal a woman comfortable in her own skin, unapologetic about living life on her terms and never missing an occasion to mince words.
A special appearance by Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, as themselves, even if gimmicky in nature, works as an amusing slice of celebrity life providing a catalyst during a stalemate in Ki & Ka’s.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-ki–ka-is-good-but-averagely-executed/20160401.htm
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April 1, 2016 at 4:41 AM
Ki & Ka continued the trend of dull initials with no good opening in site for a Hindi film. So far this year Airlift managed a good start at multiplexes of the big circuits while Kyaa Kool Hain Hum 3 started well at some single screens. The rest have been decent at few select centres (mainly low collecting ones) or poor.
Ki & Ka has opened to around 15-20% occupancy which is lower than the recently released Kapoor & Sons which has the same target audience. In Mumbai the first morning shows from twelve key multiplexes including PVR Juhu and Phoenix had an audience count of 634 against 3110 (20.38%).
The same theatres saw an audience count of 843 / 3235 (26.05%) for Kapoor & Sons. These theatres are basically the target audience for these type of films where the better collections come from.
Kapoor & Sons recorded 6.50 crore nett day one as it picked up in the big urban centres in the evening. it will have to be a repeat for Ki & Ka though the lower opening will make it tough to reach the level of Kapoor & Sons but if it can pick up post 5pm then it can give itself a platform to build on over the weekend.
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1926#.Vv4z1jGn5LM
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April 1, 2016 at 9:01 AM
Initials 2016 – Ki & Ka Sixth
Friday 01 April 2016 15.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
The top initials for the year are as follows. Barring Airlift which got 30% plus. All the rest are in that 15-25% range.
1. Airlift
2. Kyaa Kool Hain Hum 3
3. Ghayal Once Again
4. Rocky Handsome
5. Kapoor & Sons
6. Ki & Ka
7, Jai Gangaajal
8. Sanam Re
9. Wazir
10. Neerja
The wait is still on for that initial film. This weeks release Ki & Ka is on 6th place.
Note – The order is as per first show occupancy and not how the first day eventually turned out as some films picked up, others did not.
http://boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1927#.Vv5rOFR96hc
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April 1, 2016 at 12:08 PM
Surprised to see a Bachchan movie opened below than movies like sanam ‘re and Jai Ganga Jal. This means even some C grade actors can open a film better than him. Now waiting for An Jo’s comment😃😃😃
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April 1, 2016 at 3:05 PM
Ya charan raj as if farhan is not an actor or not the yound lead of the movie 😛
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April 1, 2016 at 6:30 PM
@ charanraj, was it amitabh who won the best actor of 2015.
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April 1, 2016 at 10:03 PM
Yes mohan..he can get more national awards as long as Ramesh Sippy is heat of the jury.Anyway, we are discussing box office here not awards.
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April 1, 2016 at 10:28 PM
Mohan you realize that you are talking to Charan Raj right? This was the same guy who commented that it’s a wise choice to have Farhan more in WAZIR movie trailers than Amitabh and that would get more foot-falls??
And now this fellow or woman or whatever it is comes here and says that now it is Amitabh’s fault that that nobody turned out for Wazir initially?? So whatever happened to Farhan’s stardom and initials? You see how the terms of debate change?
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April 2, 2016 at 7:21 AM
I use to pay attaention to all charanraj comments but now he has some kind of agenda and hoodoo over amitabh bachan hatred,maybe amitji has refused to give his autograph to charanraj…..lol….I just ignore his useless comments,they are laughable though,only guy here who watches cartoon-network all day…..lol
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April 2, 2016 at 8:25 AM
Yes, An Jo…You’r right. I was mislead by promos of wazir and after watching the film I found it a Bachchan movie as the story revolves around him. Plus when i said Farhan should be give more screen space, I was attacked by some fanatics including yourself as well for saying that. All of you we’re of the opinion that Bachchan was the lead actor of the movie. So, now it is you people who’r trying to change the terms of debate not me.
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April 1, 2016 at 9:02 AM
Rocky Handsome Flop – Batman V Superman Average
Friday 01 April 2016 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Rocky Handsome is a major flop as it grossed 21 crore nett in week one and there is not a lot to come. The 25 crore nett lifetime total is an uphill task making its lifetime business even lower than a Jai Gangaajal. The busienss was best in UP and CP Berar as they took a better initial but even there business went downhill from Friday evening itself.
The Hollywood release Batman v Superman – Dawn of Justice is an average fare thanks to the good opening it took. The film is the only film in the Hindi film market to take an initial this year as it collected 3.75 crore nett in paid previews on post 6pm shows and a limited release.
The film did not sustain too well after the first one but the good initial has still meant a 36 crore nett first week including the paid previews but due to the opening it has managed fair business.
http://boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1925#.Vv5rP1R96hd
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April 1, 2016 at 9:58 AM
This my friends is the state of ‘left-liberal’ media in India..Way to go Amitabh!!
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April 1, 2016 at 10:40 AM
With his initial association with the Bachchan family, director Balki managed to hide his shortcomings and got successes in the form of cheeni kum and pa. But his limitations as a filmmaker are getting evident with every passing film. None of his films despite having a great idea at the centre can even be called good.
He picks an idea but doesn’t know what to do with it, exhausts the story long before the interval and by the time the film ends, the audience are completely exhausted as well.
Great ideas don’t necessarily translate into great films, and Balki is a shining example.
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April 1, 2016 at 10:56 AM
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April 1, 2016 at 11:23 AM
Amitabh is a hoot here..Aside, when one of the most offensive ‘critics’ of Hindi films has managed to write a book & is dignified beyond requirement by the mere presence of Amitabh, what’s stopping a writer like Satyam??
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April 1, 2016 at 1:18 PM
Trailor of Azhar
[post created]
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April 1, 2016 at 1:56 PM
Very good promo, they have done it well, lot of commercial elements already in the story. Should be okay!
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April 1, 2016 at 1:57 PM
For Sanjana: TV actor Pratyusha Banerjee of Balika Vadhu fame commits suicide
http://www.hindustantimes.com/tv/shocking-tv-actress-pratyusha-banerjee-commits-suicide/story-z4bAIXnKhgAinFX8Eowc7M.html
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April 1, 2016 at 2:20 PM
Yes, I am still in deep shock. I am a regular watcher of Balikavadhu from the beginning.
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April 1, 2016 at 5:06 PM
Ki & Ka First Day Early Estimate
Friday 01 April 2016 20.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ki & Ka has followed a similar path to Kapoor & Sons on day one and has seen a pick up in the evening and will finish with similar collections. It could go a little higher due to the slightly wider release. The early estimate is around 6.75-7 crore nett. The trend is also ditto of that film as the pick up has enabled the film to get decent collections in the same places which is mainly Mumbai city, Delhi NCR, Pune and Bangalore.
Basically the evening crowd in urban centres has come for the film and the growth in business on Saturday and Sunday will tell whether this crowd has appreciated the film or not. Despite the pick up the film will still have to show that 30-40% growth on Saturday which would give the film a chance to succeed.
The best figures will come in the Delhi NCR area with Delhi city, Noida and Gurgaon putting up healthy numbers. As usual with these type of films collections outside the big metros are dull. Big A centres like Jaipur, Ludhiana and Lucknow are poor.
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April 2, 2016 at 2:12 AM
Twitter saw an outpouring of messages, including one from Abhishek Bachchan who wrote: “What have u done Pratyusha Banerjee, I wish it was an April Fool news, She was just 24! RIP Aanandi.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tv/news/hindi/Actress-Pratyusha-Banerjee-of-Balika-Vadhu-fame-commits-suicide/articleshow/51651798.cms
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April 2, 2016 at 2:28 AM
Bollywood Shocked, mourns Pratyusha’s death
Arbaaz Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Karan Johar, Rishi Kapoor and many more Bollywood celebs mourn the sudden death of Television actress Pratyusha Banerjee.
Some tweets
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/63102-bollywood-shocked-mourns-pratyusha-death.htm
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April 2, 2016 at 2:50 AM
Ki & Ka managed to pick up in the evening in the evening to record collections of 7.25 crore nett apprx. The business is mainly limited to the main metros but these will be enough to pull the film through if the maintain. The first day is higher than a similar film Kapoor & Sons and the cost is also a couple of crores less.
The opening day means the film does not have to show huge growth of 50% plus on Saturday but still will have to show a solid upward trend because otherwise it will mean limited appreciation among the target audience which comes out in force on Saturday.
The two main circuits of Mumbai and Delhi / UP were best with the former at 2.25 crore nett apprx and the latter at around 1.60 crore nett. The business was dull across Gujarat, Rajasthan, and CP Berar and though the evenings were better, the overall collections remained poor.
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1929#.Vv9rRDGn5LM
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April 2, 2016 at 3:56 AM
Ki & Ka has taken a good opening at the Box Office. As was predicted, the film was on track to register 40%-50% occupancy on Day One, and this is how the average footfalls turned out to be eventually. The film has collected 7.3 crore on Friday and this is a good start for the Eros and Balki production, considering the genre, release size and target audience that it was aiming for.
This is the biggest opener ever for Balki as Ki & Ka [7.3 crore] on its opening day has collected more than double of Shamitabh [3.5 crore] and is far ahead of Paa [2.15 crore] and Cheeni Kum [which had lifetime total of 17.3 crore]. The film has also taken a bigger opening than a much massy Ghayal Once Again [7.2 crore] and targeted-at-similar-audience Kapoor & Sons [6.85 crore]. The way word of mouth is spreading for the film, the film is set to have the second highest weekend of the year.
What is even more remarkable is the fact that Ki & Ka has opened better than Arjun Kapoor’s last release Tevar [7 crore] which had a much wider release. As for Kareena Kapoor Khan, this is her highest opening for a film where she is a senior actress. While she has seen some superb opening numbers with experienced actors like the four Khans [Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Talaash, Ra. One, Agent Vinod] and Ajay Devgn [Singham Returns, Satyagraha], these is her biggest opening with a relatively new leading man in the current decade.
Here are the numbers for Kareena Kapoor films that have released since 2010 where she is the senior actress:
2016 – Ki & Ka (Arjun Kapoor) – 7.3 crore
2012 – Heroine (Arjun Rampal) – 7.2 crore
2012 – Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (Imran Khan) – 5.25 crore
2013 – Gori Tere Pyaar Mein (Imran Khan) – 3 crore
2010 – We Are Family (Arjun Rampal) – 2.7 crore
2010 – Milenge Milenge (Shahid Kapoor) – 2.24 crore
http://www.koimoi.com/box-office/ki-ka-has-a-good-day-one/
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April 2, 2016 at 7:36 AM
While her friends from both the fraternities have conveyed their condolences and prayers, the latest news is that superstar Salman Khan, who hosted ‘Bigg Boss season 7’, which Pratyusha was a contestant of, is absolutely shocked and bereaved after hearing the tragic news of her untimely death, as reported by BollywoodLife.com.
The report also mentions that sources close to Salman say that since Pratyusha had just entered early 20s when she had participated in the controversial reality show, he was very fond of her and always felt that she was too young to participate in such a show. In fact, after her elimination from the show, she continued to remain one of Khan’s closest friends and would even attend his birthday parties at his famous farmhouse.
Needless to say, Salman is disturbed and distressed to hear such saddening news of one of his closest friends.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Salman-Khan-bereaved-at-Pratyusha-Banerjees-sudden-death/articleshow/51661209.cms
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April 2, 2016 at 1:40 PM
Rangan reviews Ki and Ka.
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April 2, 2016 at 1:50 PM
I think he enjoyed the movie. An elaborate, detailed review.
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April 2, 2016 at 2:04 PM
Dont miss the last para of the review.
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April 2, 2016 at 2:46 PM
Rangan is excellent here….
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April 2, 2016 at 5:31 PM
Aamir Khan’s road to weight loss in distant Arizona
Shalvi Mangaokar, Hindustan Times, Mumbai | Updated: Apr 02, 2016 19:48 IST
Aamir Khan is considered one of the most dedicated actors in the film industry because of the effort he puts in to do justice to his roles. For his next film, in which he plays the role of wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, the Bollywood star had reportedly put on around 25kg. Now, Aamir is in the process of losing weight to shoot for another part of the movie. Apparently, he has already lost around 13kg in three months.
A source close to the actor says that he started his workouts in January and lost around six kilos till mid-February. “He would exercise for at least three hours everyday. However, Aamir wanted to do more physical activities, such as cycling, and he even wanted to go on a strict diet. So, he decided to travel to Arizona, USA, and stay in a ranch for a month. He also had doctors and trainers who helped him focus on his workout,” says the source.
Apparently, Aamir would start exercising early in the morning when he was in the US. “He would kick-start his day at 6 am, and followed a strict weight-loss schedule. He would trek for hours in the hilly regions, which was followed by cycling, weight exercises in the gym, swimming and playing tennis. A special diet was devised for Aamir during the period, which he followed religiously. He lost around seven kilos in a month,” says the source, adding that when he returned to Mumbai on his birthday (March 14), everyone was surprised to see him so lean.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/bollywood/aamir-khan-s-road-to-weight-loss-in-distant-arizona/story-JxZyU5HowOSSttHQlXsRAI.html
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April 3, 2016 at 2:17 AM
Ki & Ka is going to make more in its first weekend than Rocky Handsome in its entire week. And BoI still keeps cribbing.
“Ki & Ka will show growth on Saturday but it will be limited growth as collections come in at around 8 crore nett. These type of urban films which only hold appeal in 4-5 big cities have two targets in the box office scenario today, one is bring in that evening crowd on Friday and second is get that limited crowd to like the film to ensure at least good if not great growth on Saturday.”
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1931#.VwC1Ovl97IW
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April 3, 2016 at 7:57 AM
Don’t take BOI commentry seriously as it’s always pathetic. However, their nos are almost correct as they have a very good team who collect data from important/ key centers. It was BOI who eradicated shameless IBOS otherwise every disaster of Bachchan would have been presented as blockbuster. Some people who became jobless after IBOS debacle are pouring frustration here nowadays.
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April 3, 2016 at 9:47 AM
Smashing.
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April 3, 2016 at 9:48 AM
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April 3, 2016 at 9:49 AM
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April 3, 2016 at 11:45 AM
Ki & Ka Day Two Business
Sunday 03 April 2016 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ki & Ka had a decent Saturday though growth was limited for an urban content film. The first two day business of Ki & Ka is as follows
Friday – 7,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Total – 15,50,00,000
The film should be able to grow on Sunday but unless its huge growth which will signal strong weekday holds it will be down to where the film lands on a Monday.
http://boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1932#.VwE5OVR96hc
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April 3, 2016 at 12:21 PM
QSQT: MAKING MUSIC
Sunday, 03 April 2016 |
Gautam Chintamani | in Agenda
Mansoor Khan’s debut feature not only launched Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla but revived music in mainstream Hindi cinema
Every era of Hindi cinema has seen itself being identified by a definitive sound and perhaps this could also be the reason for a clear transition, a transfer of power kind of act when one stalwart passed the baton to the upcoming one. While there was a clear transition between a Khemchand Prakash and a Naushad Ali, and then a Shankar-Jaikishan and an SD Burman, followed by an RD Burman and a Laxmikant-Pyarelal (L-P),who along with Kalyanji-Anandji dominated the popular Hindi film music scene until the end of the 1970s. But unlike the past there was no pure evolution from this era to the next. While one could say that Kalyanji-Anandji and Biddu’s score for Qurbani and L-P’s Karz (1980) set the tone for the 1980s, and this followed by Bappi Lahiri’s scintillating Disco Dancer (1982), arguably one of best disco-funk albums ever, only strengthened the case. Yet in just the first half of the decade there was a resurgence of the RD sound with Sanam Teri Kasam (1982), Masoom (1983), the return of classical influence with Khayyam with Umrao Jaan(1981) and Ravi’s Nikaah (1982) but surprisingly enough, these couldn’t save Hindi film music from falling into an abyss whereby the mid-1980s synthesised cacophony in the name of melody and double entendres in the name of lyrics had become commonplace.
For a cinema where music had been such an integral part where many times it was only the songs that audiences could recall long after the films were forgotten, the loss of melody was almost a death knell. Even with films that featured someone like an RD, songs weren’t attached the importance they once enjoyed. It was in this scenario that a film like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) came along and changed everything. In many ways director Mansoor Khan’s debut feature, which also launched the careers of Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla, was a throwback to the Hindi cinema of the 1960s and taking all classic elements such as romance, family drama, most importantly music where melody was the mainstay, the film simply pressed a refresh button that revived music in mainstream Hindi cinema. Featuring the music of then relatively unknown composers Anand and Milind Shrivastav, the songs of the film set a new standard and created a platform that allowed not just young musicians and singers but also entrepreneurs such as Gulshan Kumar, whose music label T-Series became synonymous with film music by producing Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka (1989) and later Aashiqui (1990) that ushered in a new phase in Hindi film music.
The following is an exclusive excerpt from the author’s forthcoming book that explores the cultural significance and the impact of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak on popular Hindi cinema (Reproduced with permission from HarperCollins Publishers India):
For Mansoor Khan, the music of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was a far greater motivation to make the film than anything else. Having seen his father, Nasir Hussain, in numerous sitting sessions with RD Burman and Majrooh Sulantanpuri over the years fascinated him about the process of creating music. Moreover, as someone who could play an instrument, drums, Mansoor was musically attuned and in that sense more conversant with this aspect of filmmaking than most others. Being a Nasir Hussain production it was a foregone conclusion that RD would provide the score and both Nasir Hussain as well as RD were raring to go. But Mansoor had other ideas. He believed that he’d simply be overawed by the presence of a giant such as RD and might not be able to put his point across. Irrespective of the bad patch that RD had hit in the mid-1980s Nasir Hussain was confident of RD delivering a fresh, young sound that the film demanded. “Even though I had seen him (RD) work with my father and knew how brilliant and intuitive he was, I didn’t know how I’d be able to relate to him,” says Mansoor of RD. Mansoor conveyed to his father that he’d need his space and perhaps out of sheer reverence to ‘Pancham Uncle’ he might not be able to express himself. Nasir Hussain understood Mansoor’s predicament and RD ended up making way for yet another second generation of musicians, who unlike him were still to come out of the shadow of their more illustrious father.
Anand and Milind Shrivastav were the sons of music composer Chitragupt and although they had a release in Pankaj Parasher’s Ab Ayega Mazaa (1984) they were still relatively unknown. They had also composed the theme of the popular TV detective series Karamchand as well as the video magazine Lehren. Being assistants to their father, who in spite of being a popular music composer in the 1960s never made it to the A-list, both were well trained to understand the nuances of Hindi film music. With Chitragupt transitioning into composing music for Bhojpuri films, Anand and Milind were also exposed to a typical Indian flavour which along with background in playing the piano and guitars respectively gave their sound a unique blend of two worlds. Milind recalls how the three of them would end up going on long drives in Mansoor’s red Maruti Omni discussing tunes. The brothers remember how Mansoor wouldn’t like a break in the mood and would simply make an unscheduled turn if a traffic signal ever threatened to stop them. The brothers respected Mansoor’s opinion when it came to music and loved being challenged by someone who knew what he was talking about but they weren’t still sure about being the final choice as they still somewhere believed that being a Nasir Hussain production, RD Burman would be an automatic choice. But the die was cast the day a call from Nasir Hussain himself brought Anand-Milind on-board.
Rather than changing the manner in which music was traditionally composed in Hindi cinema, Anand-Milind decided to approach not just the score but also the musicians differently. Starting from Papa kehte hai, the song that would go on to become the anthem of the nation in a few years, Mansoor visually described the orchestra along with its sections that would appear on screen and the brothers wrote the score based on that. With the tune finalised and much of the arrangement done, it was time for the lyricist to join in and once again being a Nasir Hussain production Majrooh Sultanpuri was a spontaneous choice. This once Nasir Hussain ended up acting as a buffer of sorts between the legendary poet-lyricist and his son. Unlike his father Mansoor wasn’t too conversant with Urdu poetry and believed that he lacked the mechanism needed by a Hindi film director to convert what he wanted in the lyrics. Both Majrooh Sultanpuri and Nasir Hussain had immense respect for each other and Mansoor never doubted that the only reason the veteran wordsmith was working with him was because of his long association with his father. Majrooh, who had seen Mansoor grow up in front of his eyes, was quite accommodating when engaging with the young director. Mansoor would explain the situation in a broken manner, a mix of sentences and key words and Majrooh would patiently hear and come up with some verses.
Although Papa kehte hai was finalised first it was the duet Gazab ka hai din that was recorded first. Traditionally in Hindi cinema the tune more often than not got precedence over the words and both Mansoor as well as the music directors were throwbacks on this old school method. Anand-Milind had grown up with this belief while Mansoor didn’t know any other way of working as he had seen his father and RD Burman work this way.
The basic tune forGazab ka hai din was a mix of country and rock ballad and portions of it are almost evocative of Neil Diamond’s Play Me but the mood was new for Hindi music and so was the arrangement. One rarely heard trombones in a love duet and Majrooh’s words that were almost conversational in nature merged beautifully with the arrangement and even infused enthusiasm.
It was their father’s Bhojpuri innings that also gave Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak its playback singers in the form of Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik. Udit Narayan had come to Bombay in the late 1970s and was on the verge of giving up on his dream of becoming a playback singer when the faint possibility of Mansoor’s future project inspired him to hang on. Mansoor was also clear about using a new set of voices for both Aamir and Juhi as opposed to the established ones and even though Abhijeet was discussed as an option in the end Mansoor opted for Udit Narayan.
At the time when the music of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was being created the format of recording was also undergoing a transition from mono to stereo and this was one of the first few films with stereophonic sound. While recording on multi-tracks gave the music director the freedom to record the song and music separately, the singer still had to sing the full song as option of plugging in a part or cutting and pasting portions or even effects such as pitch-correction were a few years away. Most of the songs were recorded over a couple of days with the rhythm and strings on one and the vocals on the second day. In some cases such asGazab ka hai din the entire song was recorded in a single day. While Anand-Milind, Mansoor and Nasir Hussain were on the same page for most of the recording the only time the three differed was during the recording of the lullaby Kahe sataye. Milind often wonders that the tune wasn’t done justice to keeping the short duration of the song in mind. “It was such a sweet melody and I wanted to record a full song,” recalls the younger brother but Anand is quick to add that Nasir sahab wanted to keep it as is. Mansoor, on the other hand, remembers his father toying with the idea of a song but he wanted to go a step ahead and keep a threadbare version with just Alka Yagnik humming the song without any music. Interestingly this is one of his favourite things about the film, which ironically enough is also one of the few things he regrets not doing right and given half a chance this would perhaps be the only thing he’d like to change about the film.
Which brings one to Aye mere humsafar. The brothers vaguely knew the situation of the song but Mansoor had given them an idea of the images that would make the montage such as ticking clock, Rashmi (Juhi Chawla) striking the days on the calendar, the picnic, etc. In an inspired spurt the two worked out a basic melody of Aye mere humsafar and recorded it right away on their cassette player to present it to Nasir Hussain, who approved it as soon as he heard it. Mansoor had taken off in his sailboat on an impromptu break to Alibaugh and bad weather had delayed his return but like his father, he immediately approved the tune once he was back. Anand-Milind had wanted one song to have some Indian element and in that sense Aye mere humsafar ended up being the archetypal Hindi film song of the soundtrack. They worked out a rhythm pattern that would feature Indian percussion such as the dholak and the tabla but at the same time be a departure from the standard recognisable pattern. With a little help from Dubey, a much sort after dholak virtuoso who also happened to be a regular with RD Burman, the duo came up with a pattern where the bol or the mnemonic system of strokes is different for the intro and the verses.
Besides Mansoor’s clarity and his willingness to be open enough to ideas, it was also the manner in which Anand-Milind approached the musicians that made a huge difference to the songs of the film. The duo had their favourite set of musicians contributing to the score and this list included some of the best in the trade such as Kawas Lord, Homi Mullan (Percussion), Viju Shah (Keyboards), Shayam Raj (Sporano sax), Raju Singh and Sunil Kaushik (Electric Guitar) (Electric Guitar), Tony Vaz and Ramesh Iyer (Bass) and Dubey (Dholak). With the advent of synthesised sounds in the mid 1980s and the general decay in the quality of music most of these musicians rarely got a score that would push the envelope but here they knew that they were on to something. But the enduring impact that Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’s music would have on Hindi cinema was still some distance away.
The signs might have been there but most in the industry weren’t able to fathom the manner in which the music of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak would ultimately end up signaling a return to melody. As the film underwent a long period of endless trial shows with distributors expressing their doubts about the film’s potential at the box-office, the lukewarm response to the film’s music ended up being a common factor of doubt across the array of prospective buyers. They questioned the ending, debated over the title but simply couldn’t get over the music which most felt was poor when compared to typical Nasir Hussain productions. This was still a time when a distributor’s word could seal the fate of films and although Nasir Hussain was still a revered figure, a film from his banner with what they called thanda or lukewarm music was an anomaly too conspicuous to ignore. In spite of some air time on radio and an official launch by Rishi Kapoor, the music was still to hit the bull’s eye but it was one of the trials that a close friend of Nasir Hussain finally saw what the world was yet to witness. Shammi Kapoor and Nasir Husain were close friends and the star whose career was practically resurrected by the filmmaker told him that no one could stop the film or its music. But the biggest compliment that the music got was from the man who could have been the one composing it.
“Pancham da loved the music and complimented us on the sound we managed to get”, says Anand and recalls how RD kept asking them about the entire process. Milind says, “I was stunned and said, ‘What are you saying, Pancham da!’ and told him how we not only used most of his musicians but also the same recording studio at Film Center.” Yet the veteran trailblazer kept asking them about the placement of mics, etc. and assured them that it was a matter of time before the their music worked it’s magic.
The writer is is the author of the best-selling Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna. Tweet him @gchintamani
http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/sunday-pioneer/special/qsqt-making-music.html
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April 3, 2016 at 2:11 PM
DDLJ moment for West Indies and taking that trophy.
Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar!
Trophylift!
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April 3, 2016 at 2:31 PM
yes remarkable final over. Of course Eng blew it at the end after having played so well throughout but all credit to Carlos for converting all of those opportunities in such incredible fashion. They won on the women’s side as well. So great day for them.
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April 3, 2016 at 3:05 PM
Yeah congrats to WI
there’s never been dearth of raw talent in WI
The t20 format really suit them
Some real talent n firepower now
Ps: though a random spot dope check on the Windies male and female teams …maybe worthwhile
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April 3, 2016 at 3:28 PM
Samuels mauled the WI board after the match!
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April 3, 2016 at 3:37 PM
England had it in their grasp,biggest bottlers.
19 runs required in one over,england thrown it away,its a shame.
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April 3, 2016 at 3:29 PM
‘Batman v Superman’ Stumbles, but Stays at No. 1
By BROOKS BARNESAPRIL 3, 2016
LOS ANGELES — And then came the superplunge.
Second-weekend domestic ticket sales for “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” less a single movie than an audacious effort by Warner Bros. to prime filmgoers for an 11-film superhero series, totaled roughly $52.4 million, a 68 percent decline from its opening weekend. That drop, which came despite little competition, was among the largest on record for a superhero movie, according to the database Box Office Mojo.
“Dawn of Justice,” embraced by comic book fans but eviscerated by most critics, faced a similar collapse overseas, where second-weekend ticket sales totaled about $85.1 million. The decline was particularly steep in China, the world’s second-largest movie market behind the United States, as audiences turned back toward locally made films. China began festival celebrations for its annual tomb-sweeping holiday over the weekend.
Directed by Zack Snyder, “Dawn of Justice” has now collected $682.9 million worldwide after only two weeks of release — a smash hit by any account. Still the movie faces financial questions; Warner spent at least $400 million to make and market it, which means the studio will need to generate an estimated $800 million worldwide to break even, according to analysts.
Warner has described the effects-laden “Dawn of Justice” as a runaway victory. “We’re so excited by the fantastic global success of this film,” Sue Kroll, Warner’s president of worldwide marketing and distribution, said in a news release on March 27. “This tremendous result at the box office is a tribute to the cinematic world that Zack Snyder has created.”
In the past, very successful films have also experienced steep weekend-to-weekend drops: Warner’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” fell 72 percent after its opening in 2011, but still went on to collect $1.3 billion worldwide.
For the weekend in North America, “Zootopia” (Walt Disney Studios) was second, taking in about $20 million, for a five-week domestic total of $275.9 million, according to comScore, which compiles box office data. The only new wide-release film of note was the low-budget “God’s Not Dead 2” (Pure Flix), which collected about $8.1 million, or roughly 12 percent less than the first chapter generated over its first three days in 2014.
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April 3, 2016 at 3:29 PM
hardly a surprise!
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April 3, 2016 at 6:53 PM
This is going to make some noise for some days:
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/panama-papers-list-amitabh-bachchan-kp-singh-aishwarya-rai-iqbal-mirchi-adani-brother/
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April 3, 2016 at 10:49 PM
This will be incredibly damaging to Amitabh’s reputation IF TRUE. Don’t care much for Aishwarya: Never had any interest at all in ANY of his family members except him and his father.
It’s quite insensitive how the newspaper decided to release his name and his daughter-in-law’s name FIRST in order to jack up hits or sales. They say there are around 500 names? Why not release them all together? Why release the name of public figures first? Messi, Amitabh, Aishwarya? So the others are not important?
Unfortunately, that’s the state of Indian media. Just print THAT which jacks up revenue, which gets the max hits. To hell with ethics..
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April 3, 2016 at 11:40 PM
And as I said before, the TRIAL by social-media has already begun..
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April 4, 2016 at 12:25 AM
Bachchan and Aamir Khan are the favourites in this respect.
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April 4, 2016 at 12:31 AM
Other interesting names.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/panama-papers-india-part-1-list-garware-shishir-k-bajoria-harish-salve/
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April 4, 2016 at 12:33 AM
https://panamapapers.icij.org/the_power_players/
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April 4, 2016 at 1:12 AM
Please don’t mix Aamir Khan here. Aamir Khan was merely asked by folks to talk about ‘facts’ after seeing and hearing him LIVE in a program. It was his OWN words from his OWN mouth. And that is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED. What is not justified is trolling Aamir on social media and rampant rumor-mongering.
This, along with the ‘scandal’ where it was claimed by a 3rd party that Amitabh took money to endorse DD KISAN and sing the NATIONAL ANTHEM is an accusation made indirectly. Similary this one.
The onus is of course, on Amitabh to prove that this is wrong.
And once he does that, I would LOVE for him to SUE the living daylights out of such key-board warriors that any real jobless person henceforth thinks a million times and gets a heart-attack before he or she decides to ride on some name-shaming of famous people..
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April 4, 2016 at 2:15 AM
The chances of this leak being wrong is very less. A lot of big names are involved
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April 4, 2016 at 3:04 AM
In front of those big political names, filmstars and sportsstars names will interest only Indians. At present, Australia has taken serious note of this scandal and started letting their taxmen go after the listed in their country.
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April 4, 2016 at 6:37 AM
” The chances of this leak being wrong is very less. A lot of big names are involved ”
just like the bofors he was accused of and in the end he won the case in London proved his innocent,its all crap here…
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April 4, 2016 at 7:42 AM
AnJo- Libatards kee role model-(Has to link everything to Gujrat and National Anthem )
Rana Ayyub
@RanaAyyub
From promoting Guj tourism to singing the national anthem before T20 World cup, am convinced Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels
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April 4, 2016 at 8:44 AM
So, at last people have understood what Charan raj has been saying since long.
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April 4, 2016 at 10:58 AM
Umm no! Your primary grouse with Amitabh is that he is as relevant as a telegram today and that box-office wise he is not even as important as Raghubir Yadav. You might have already been shipped to Mars is proven by the fact that NOBODY ‘worthy’ on this blog considers Bachchan, at the age of 70+ a box-office force and they know that his ticket-pull existed till HUM and then he went into the mid-life actor’s crisis. What they are concerned is that PURELY as an actor, is he moulding himself successfully to aged and character roles. But for you, it is the ONLY comparison that you can make. And then your mathematically genius mind comes up with equations that would put John Nash to shame. Is Rajnikanth at 60 = Amitabh at 60? Of course this brilliant equation of yours doesn’t consider the fact that Rajnikanth’s movies are ‘designer’ vehicles rolled out every 3 years to get the maximum number of tickets. It also ignores the fact that south-style fanaticism is UNPARALLED anywhere in the world, be it for Dr. Rajkumar, the 2 Malayalam greats, or the Telugu ‘mass’ heroes.
Of course, you also come out with brilliant, kinder-garten conspiracy theories asking why only Amitabh didn’t have a mustache while Vinod and Rishi did in AAA [thank God you stopped at that and didn’t venture down into the pubes].
So you need to make up your mind as to what is it that you hate about Amitabh. His acting? His box-office? His roles? Or him as a human being basically?
So now we should ‘understand’ what of your brilliant thesis?
And to enlighten you, I am a fan of Amitabh the actor WAY MORE than Amitabh the person. As a person, EVERY great talent goes through insecurities and self-doubts in life. He might have gone through that too! I don’t have ANY right to judge anybody as a person since I have deficiencies galore I NEVER expect Amitabh to be a ‘role’ model holistically. [If Amitabh is guilty of evasion or whatever, he will be — and should be — investigated and convicted. I am not going to go on a 5-day fast if that happens. So is it with Tendulkar or Dravid or Modi.] I hate his constant obsession with the blog. I frankly find it meaningless UNLESS he talks of something related to the industry, those old memories, or how he was bowled over and analyzed a Peter O’Toole or Montgomery Clift’s or Gurudutt or Dilip’s performance. THOSE are all what I look for. What alphabets his grand-daughter learnt or what kabaddi team Abhishek team owns or what the family had for dinner yesterday is BS information for me.
Lastly, you might be sitting wherever you are laughing your bum off since this is what maybe you intended. Make a guy waste his time trying to drill some sense into thick brains. So this is the last time I will be writing and BREAKING OUT things alphabetically to you unless you decide to graduate and bring in some valid data-points or logic or quite simply, some very basic intelligence.
Enjoy and have a great time because you got off today making me waste my time on you..
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April 3, 2016 at 8:09 PM
Edward Snowden @Snowden 6h6 hours ago
Biggest leak in the history of data journalism just went live, and it’s about corruption.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfIsEBAXEAA8I0A.jpg:large
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April 3, 2016 at 8:13 PM
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April 3, 2016 at 8:35 PM
Terrorism is the bogeyman ‘ Capitalists’ use to fuck people’s mind. Its the same diversion propaganda which made us hating the Russians / Communist during our growing years…..until the new so called ‘Islamic scoundrels’ made way to our living room……
The more fissures/ failings are noticed in the world of Capitalism, the more intense the terrorism bogey will be unleashed upon us.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/04/03/german-paper-massive-financial-leak-reveals-offshort-accounts/82586798/
“Panama Papers: German paper publishes ‘biggest leak in history’ on corruption”
“The data in the so-called Panama Papers, “provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, FIFA officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes,” the German newspaper wrote.”
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April 4, 2016 at 2:31 AM
An NRI can register any number of companies in any country which allows him/her to do so. If most of these people have NRI status, they have committed no crime. That is a legal fact! This is the reason why more than 4000 Indian millionaires migrated offshore just in 2014 alone. If I recall, Amitabh had obtained NRI status back in the 90s itself. All he has to do is stay out of India for 6 months every year, and that is easily achievable given their shooting schedules and travel.
Further, as long as money parked in offshore trusts is white, the Govt can do nothing about it. So if Amitabh makes millions from international assignments, he does not need to bring it back into India (ie as long as he is an NRI). Everyone wants to park their white money offshore, so that they can protect their hard earned fruits from corrupt IT officials, politicians and the like. This is not just the case for Indians, but for every country having any wealthy individuals.
Panama, BVI, Isle of Man, etc and a host of other countries create legal means to park such funds. There is nothing scandalous about it. The politicians who pass punitive tax laws themselves park their personal funds in offshore trusts.
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April 4, 2016 at 2:36 AM
Now Rahul Gandhi has to prove that he is an Indian citizen and Bachchan has to prove that he is an NRI and Aamir has to prove that he is not what the trolls are saying again and again.
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April 4, 2016 at 2:37 AM
Many are deeply disappointed that Sonia G and Rahul G are not listed.
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April 4, 2016 at 3:19 AM
Ki & Ka had a decent weekend though the trend was not great for a content urban film. A furher push on Saturday would have benefited the film tremendously. It is the third highest weekend of 2016. The weekend business of Ki & Ka is as follows
Friday – 7,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Sunday – 9,25,00,000 apprx
Total – 24,75,00,000
Still even though the trend could have better, the weekend ensures it will be a decent runner unless collections come down a lot on Monday.
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1935#.VwIU6DGn5LM
BOI is very kanjoos to give wholehearted support to a movie which trended well inspite of T20 final.
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April 4, 2016 at 3:21 AM
Ki And Ka has turned out to be a winner at the Box Office. The film has collected 25.23 crore over its weekend, and with this, it is now set to be a comfortable success. Made at a budget of 30 crore (including P&A), the film had already recovered around 15 crore through satellite and other ancillary rights. With only 15 crore needed to be recovered through theatrical sales, the film would be in a green zone in a couple of days itself, and then begin to register profits.
Good costing and packaging by Balki and smart marketing and release has ensured that the film turns out to be a win-win situation for all. Of course this was a risky subject to be made and the film could have gone either ways. However, audience has given a nod of approval to the film and liked it much more than the critics, many of whom had settled for average reviews.
http://www.koimoi.com/box-office/box-office-1st-weekend-ki-and-ka-crosses-25-crore-mark/
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April 4, 2016 at 4:35 AM
There were ad placements galore in the movie. May have recovered costs just through them alone.
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April 4, 2016 at 4:57 AM
For a change, i agree with some words spoken by Srk.
“Electronic media creates a hero or villain every day. If there is nothing, they ensure that there is something enough to make someone a villain or a hero.”
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/shah-rukh-khan-media-doesnt-even-let-us-grieve-for-40-seconds-1334939?pfrom=home-lateststories
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April 4, 2016 at 12:47 PM
Completely agree. Here’s one of the ‘journalists’ from the letter-writing news channel NDTV..Remember, Amitabh hasn’t even come out with an official clarification or reply..Modi has set up a team JUST today..this tweet was before that..
& here’s an apt reply to such retards..
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April 5, 2016 at 9:54 AM
Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan, whose name figured in the Panama Paper leaks as allegedly having links with offshore entities in two tax havens, today denied any connection with those companies, saying his name may have been “misused”.
He also claimed that even the news report had not suggested any wrongdoing on his part. The Indian Express carried a report yesterday based on leaked documents of a Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca which is said to feature links of over 500 Indians to firms and accounts in offshore tax havens.
Referring to the report, Bachchan, 73, said, “I do not know any of the companies referred to by Indian Express – Sea Bulk Shipping Company Ltd, Lady Shipping Ltd, Treasure Shipping Ltd, and Tramp Shipping Ltd. I have never been a director of any of the above stated companies. It is possible that my name has been misused.
“I have paid all my taxes including on monies spent by me overseas. Monies that I have remitted overseas have been in compliance with law, including remittances through Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), after paying Indian taxes. In any event the news report in Indian Express does not even suggest any illegality on my part,” his statement read.
The names of his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai, her parents and brother also figured in the leaked documents as being directors in a firm in the British Virgin Islands.
The newspaper quoted her media adviser Archana Sadanand, who raised questions about the International Consortium of Investigating Journalists and said all the information the paper had was totally untrue and false.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/538728/panama-paper-leaks-big-b.html
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April 5, 2016 at 1:41 PM
looks like amitabh has to do it again and fight for himself and clear his name like he did in bofors…
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April 6, 2016 at 2:32 AM
It will take around 20 years for him to clear how name if he is really innocent. Till then he will have to face brick bats for all this.
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April 6, 2016 at 5:40 AM
He is innocent until proven guilty,if that was the case then he would never had begged yash chopra for a film, he did it in the past and so he can do it now,in those days it took 20 years but nowdays its so advanced that its matter of time,each and every individual wants to avoid paying tax and if he has done then its his choice,mind you for the last decade he has paid more taxes then any other stars anyway,just because he is a superstar does not mean that he should be penalized.He will come out good in this case aswell…
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April 4, 2016 at 8:14 AM
Karisma Kapur, who is still trying to finalize her divorce and child custody with estranged husband Sunjay Kapur, is going strong in her relationship with businessman beau, Sandeep Toshniwal.
The actress who was reported to have broken up with her boyfriend was spotted with him in Kareena Kapoor’s party on Friday and onlookers told a leading daily that the two seemed quite comfortable with each other and it looked like they were still going strong!
While her divorce is still impending and apparently shelved due to money issues, the actress has been reported to be seeing the businessman for a while now.
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/63183-karisma-kapoor-affair-with-businessman-beau-still-going-strong.htm
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April 4, 2016 at 8:30 AM
The first promo of Bib Boss 10.
http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/tv-news/the-first-promo-of-bigg-boss-10-interesting-160404
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April 4, 2016 at 8:30 AM
Big Boss
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April 4, 2016 at 9:21 AM
Kapoor & Sons Drops In Third Weekend
Monday 04 April 2016 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Kapoor and Sons dropped in the third weekend after two weeks of good business. The film is looking at a 75% apprx fall in the third week. The business of Kapoor & Sons till date is as follows
Week One – 44,77,00,000
Week Two – 17,46,00,000
Third Weekend – 3,50,00,000 apprx
Total – 65,73,00,000
The drop is always likely for these type of films with limited appreciation in just 4-5 cities unless competition is weak. A Neerja managed to hold out till week five due to tax free in most states and weaker competition but here the drop came in the the third week itself. The film is likley to finish blow 70 crore nett with outside chance of getting there if its gets lucky in week four.
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April 4, 2016 at 10:04 AM
Did Anil Kapoor quiz Sonam about her boyfriend?Check these cute pics..
Don’t believe us? Check out these cute pictures of Sonam Kapoor with her Papa Anil Kapoor…
Did Anil Kapoor quiz Sonam about her boyfriend?Check these cute pics..Don’t believe us? Check out these cute pictures of Sonam Kapoor with her Papa Anil Kapoor..
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April 4, 2016 at 11:13 AM
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/63187-did-anil-kapoor-quiz-sonam-about-her-boyfriendcheck-these-cute-p.htm
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April 4, 2016 at 10:11 AM
The Panama papers remind me of the discussion I had with Saket recently (here). This latest ‘scandal’ is also linked to stuff like Wikileaks and so on. We live in an age where this kind of news is now more or less to be expected. With a fair bit of regularity such ‘papers’ are ‘leaked’, scandal ensues in every country of the world and people eventually move on. I’ll make a few points here somewhat schematically:
1)Take the Panama papers. They seem to implicate everyone from Iceland to India. From heads of state to wealthy individuals in other works of life. There is a certain globalization of the scandal (much like Wikileaks). More or less every country is implicated as are political figures belonging to vastly different political systems. As are corporate figures and celebrities also all over the globe. What’s the real problem here? Precisely that which people don’t focus on. Basically in every country the media (and the citizenry) obsesses with local ‘bad apples’ (David Cameron’s dad for example!). People are so ‘shocked’ everywhere. But practices that are this widespread and this pervasive and this global are also ‘institutional’ ones by another name! They are very much part of the global capitalist arrangement we all like to celebrate. Enormous amounts of capital invested in a huge number of tax havens around the world. With the compliance, often connivance of political systems, again in the same global sense. This too is the Davos compact! A strong overlap between those who show up there and those who ‘park’ in Panama or wherever! This is the ‘truth’ that we avoid. We love to pretend a) that we never knew (is this really such a great surprise? the same holds for Snowden’s revelations and every such thing. America spying on everyone? Wow, would never have guessed! Merkel is even more incredulous than we are..) b) once we ‘discover’ this we neatly individualize it, sensationalize it, latch on to a few names that we recognize and again pretend that it’s about individual corruption or hypocrisy. The same is done in every country whose eminent citizens are ‘exposed’ this way. Either the world has an incredible number of corrupt people in every country and the most corrupt are its most pre-eminent folks or else this is an institutional arrangement tolerated or even encouraged by every political system. Not just this, it is also sanctioned by the even more powerful logic of global capital. Because a who’s who of corporations and those attached to them do the very same things. This is the system we have all signed up for. And we keep pretending to be shocked, we keep attacking one individual or the other because we don’t wish to really look into the mirror. We too are complicit in all of this.
2)The truth in fact is even more obscene than this. If it were just about money or tax evasion or whatever it would be rather easy. The greatest problem isn’t Messi stashing his earnings somewhere. It’s not even about corporations doing it. Or even politicians. All these things might constitute scandals, sometimes fatal ones or these might become serious image problems for people. But that’s the stuff of tabloid gossip. What is truly obscene, truly disturbing is the set of political and economic arrangements that generate that sort of capital in the first place and that form the bedrock of our global economic order. I love something that Zizek often says in this regard — what is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of one?! In other words the former is a minor crime, the latter might constitute a much greater institutional one. There is some humor in this of course but also a great deal of truth. I will return to my own favorite example here. For us to buy our cell phones and laptops at the prices we do, for us to keep getting seduced by this technological dream brutal civil wars have to be maintained or engineered in Africa where people’s limbs are cut off or they’re raped and murdered and submitted to all kinds of horrors. All so that we can buy the iPhone 6 plus! Or people have to work in slave-like conditions in Foxcon-like environments or collapsing buildings in Dhaka for us to consume more of the products we love from iPads to clothing at the most ‘competitive’ prices. Is this too easy? A crude generalization? Not really. If you had a democracy in the Congo, a truly stable one of the sort one sees in many other parts of the world, corporations (backed by their political masters.. hey it creates jobs, it helps the economy! this is the battle-cry everywhere..) would be unable to extract coltan or whatever else they need at the prices they do. Chaos and war are often great. You just get friendly with the right warlord, he gets bought off cheaply, he gets you the coltan, no one is the wiser. The next day we see ads about how Apple or Microsoft is connecting the world. Indeed. Congo is every bit part of the global economy as are those Foxcon factories in China as are those makeshift production facilities in illegally constructed buildings in Dhaka. And who are the great beneficiaries of this system? Not just those who make enormous amounts of money but also people like us typing away furiously online every day! ‘We’ sanction all of this. But we are lucky not to be public figures. No one can really drop a set of papers on all the consumers of the world! The public figures are just like us. They’re not greater than the logic of these global arrangements. This doesn’t mean everyone’s the same. There are questions of degree. But the logic remains the same. It’s akin to people blaming Obama for conducting drone strikes. He is still president of an empire or a superpower. He can be more benign than others, more progressive than others but he cannot go beyond this without taking apart the entire system which again includes a global order. No one is big enough to do that.
We might say we are ordinary, that we don’t have the power. That’s hogwash. That’s the story we tell ourselves everyday so as never to question our own ethics. We are powerless and we are naive. Yeah right. We’re willing to buy shirts at $200 a piece as opposed to $45. We’re also willing to buy iPhones at $1500 instead of $200-400. And we’re willing to buy gas at $10 rather than $2.50. Oh did I forget to mention how that oil supply is guaranteed from the Mideast to the coasts of Nigeria? The kinds of political and economic decisions that go into guaranteeing this energy resource? Never mind. This is already getting long..
3)But let’s come to India now and let’s return to the Panama papers. Even if people are doing these things in many countries it’s not illegal to do this in all of them. India is certainly one of those countries where things get tricky in this sense. But here’s my problem with all this. again I am probably repeating myself from the past. ‘Illegality’ in India is a much tolerated category. The whole system once again sanctions it and/or encourages it at every level of life. You don’t need to go to the Caymans to find Indian tax evaders. Everything is happening right in India. The same for all kinds of other economic arrangements. When we see in Western democracies with much more stable legal and judicial institutions how a certain marriage between powerful business interests and politics creates all kinds of compromise and corruption and even a ‘legality’ that is another name for ‘illegality’ (again I am never as enamored of some of these words.. there are many things that are ‘legal’ that are much worse than many things that are ‘illegal’), when we see the same operate at a much worse level by several orders of magnitude in countries like India and China (for different reasons) we are again looking at institutional problems. This doesn’t render any individual blameless. If a 100 people are evading tax I am guilty even if I am just the 101st. But the conversation cannot end here. What of a system that always allows this to happen? That is where the truest guilt lies. And we claim we are powerless but when we have some power we do the same things. Precisely because it’s institutional we can hardly claim we’d act differently if we enjoyed the same kinds of means and/or influence.
But as with my more global example this is still not the worst that happens in India. What happens at the level of pure political violence against various communities and/or economic groups in one name or the other, using one excuse or the other and all of which some or most of us always defend depending on which side of the political equation we occupy, is far more disgusting. We don’t just defend, we even celebrate a lot of this. We again pretend to be naive and blind. We resort to legalisms to do this. We attack others to deflect attention. We do everything to defend. We even counter-sign riots and pogroms using these tactics. It simply amounts to this.
4)All of this still does not mean that certain questions cannot be raised when such ‘revelations’ are made. Why then do I refuse to accept the media framing of the same? For all the reasons I have just provided. If the questioning is always going to remain within such narrow margins, if the questions are never expanded, if there isn’t a reflection on systemic problems, if there isn’t isn’t an ethical framework to examine the much deeper roots of all these practices, finally if there isn’t even on the part of the individual questioner (in the media or elsewhere) the guarantee of personal integrity in a variety of ways, I am then simply not willing to engage in this sort of silly witch-hunt. I have said as much many times in the past on all kinds of related issues.
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April 4, 2016 at 11:21 AM
Wikileaks and Headley depositions followed by Panama Papers. Either one has to believe every one of them or disbelieve every one of them. One cant be selective.
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April 4, 2016 at 11:23 AM
Bofors, Watergate and some other older ones.
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April 4, 2016 at 11:39 AM
Satyam: some would argue that post-WWII (with regimes like Bretton-Woods), there wasn’t a lot of this sort of activity (relative to today), at least according to what experts say. It has exploded over the last 25-35 years with globalization/, as its handmaiden. In fact from my perspective this is simply the “twin” of global capital flows, the rewards of the sort of knowledge arbitrage that (e.g. in the financial markets) enables access to small time advantages or to small pieces of information, to generate massive profits. Here, those with access to these sorts of “knowledge”/pieces of information get to take advantage of the very thing that globalized capitalism promised: unfettered capital flow across borders! (The problem arises because various nation-states can’t “keep up”, actually none can. In a sense the nation-state wants it both ways: promise unfettered freedom to attract capital flows, but resort to the old-world rhetoric of national sovereignty when it comes to collecting taxes. The resort to overt or coded appeals to “morality” is a piece with the old-school rhetoric of the nation-state, but is not on point — in fact note how the state itself often deflects such questions when those who RESIST the effects of such capitalism raise them — e.g. think of those who raise questions about a mining project in Orissa or a logging project in the Amazon etc. — and resorts to language focused on investment/development, and so on (ie even when laws are sought to be enforced often the language from the government and business community seems to be that we should keep our eye on the bigger picture and the law and the regulations are often treated as minor inconveniences) but tries to reverse course where tax collection from those who “park” funds offshore is concerned! Of course the question of illegality is a different one, but a lot of the wikileaks-style shaming doesn’t actually depend upon a precise distinction between legality and illegality.)
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April 4, 2016 at 1:11 PM
excellent comment and I agree everywhere. of course one could argue that during the cold war politics (if not economics) was even worse. Because one could nakedly support any excess as long as one defined this larger struggle in metaphysical ways. Of course even here an economic apparatus underwrote all of this. For a long time now keeping the world free has always meant keeping it free for markets. But it’s true that since then all the political battle lines have become blurred and technologized globalization has rendered all questions of economic legality even more obtuse if not archaic.
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April 4, 2016 at 1:14 PM
the one other thing to add here is that it is not only a question of ethics as to whether people believe it’s a larger structural issue or only an individual one. I would say it’s equally a pragmatic problem. If you believe everything is fine in terms of the essential political or economic arrangements of your country and/or the world and it is then only some people who do these things and get away with it you think and act one way. On the other hand if you believe as I do that these examples are symptomatic of something much larger and deeper you come to some very different conclusions about a number of things and presumably act accordingly.
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April 4, 2016 at 2:22 PM
A very nice piece in Times !
TIME.comVerified account @TIME 3m3 minutes ago
“#PanamaPapers could lead to capitalism’s great crisis”
http://time.com/4280864/panama-papers-capitalism/?xid=tcoshare
It’s hard to know where to start in tallying up the explosive revelations in the Panama Papers, an analysis of leaked documents from global law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Yes, we’ve known for a while now that the shadow financial system was growing. But it’s another thing to take in 11.5 million documents showing the way in which Mossack Fonseca was working with big name financial groups like UBS, HSBC, Société Générale, and many others to help elites from the Communist Party leadership of China, to soccer star Lionel Messi, to global financiers hide cash in offshore havens around the world.
It’s just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. “The size of the leak is unprecedented, but the tricks Mossack Fonseca has allegedly used for its clients are neither new nor surprising. Anonymous shell companies and the failure of governments to require lawyers, corporate service companies, or banks to collect beneficial ownership information on clients leave the door wide open for dirty money to flow around the globe virtually unhindered,” says Heather Lowe, the Director of Government Affairs for Global Financial Integrity, a Washington DC-based consultancy.
To me, this is one of the key issues at work in the U.S. presidential election. Voters know at a gut level that our system of global capitalism is working mainly for the 1 %, not the 99 %. That’s a large part of why both Sanders and Trump have done well, because they tap into that truth, albeit in different ways. The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn’t working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot. Globalization is supposed to be about the free movement of people, goods, and capital. But in fact, the system is set up to enable that mobility mainly for the rich (or for large corporations). The result is global tax evasion, the offshoring of labor, and an elite that flies 35,000 feet over the problems of nation states and the tax payers within them.
Where do we go from here? I think we’re heading towards a root to branch re-evaluation of how our market system works–and doesn’t work. The debate over free trade is part of that re-evaluation. The calls for a global campaign against tax evasion are, too. I think there will also be intense scrutiny about the ease with which financial capital can move around the world – we’ve already seen that with the hoopla over tax inversions, but we’ll see a lot more backlash, in new areas.
“I expect that the populist backlash will be intense and will impact everything from high-end real estate to PACs (effectively political shell companies),” says one of my favorite sources, Peter Atwater, a behavioral economist. “Voters are increasingly angry at the seeming transience of the financial/corporate/political elite. The 1% can move anywhere they want—and profit handsomely from the relocation, but the 99% can’t. Worse, the 99% are left with the aftermath—the empty buildings of a deserted Detroit, the toxic waste from chemical plants in West Virginia or the unsustainable tax liabilities of Puerto Rico.”
Fixing all this is a growth issue, and not just for the U.S. and other rich countries. As Global Financial Integrity recently found, developing economies lost $7.8 trillion in cash because of maneuvers like those allegedly done by Mossack Fonseca, between 2004 and 2013. What’s more, illicit outflows are increasing at a rate of 6.5 % a year—twice the rate of GDP growth. At a time when most emerging markets are slowing, and are the reason for the drag on global economic growth that smart people say could cause another recession by this year or next, it’s an issue that we all need to care about.
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April 4, 2016 at 2:30 PM
Correction that is Time magazine not Times.
Bill Clinton has somewhat gone down in my eyes because his tenure characterized by economic prosperity and financial deregulation set the stage for the excesses of recent years….and then just before leaving office his commodity futures modernization act of 2000 brought exemption to all this credit-default swaps from regulation. The speculative nature of financial dealings with mix of ‘world event management’ is a recipe for disaster where top few are reaping the benefits.
On another note, its amazing to note in this age of terrorism when ‘follow the money’ is key mantra , how all this is taking place with so much ease! The fact of the matter is that “free world’ has somewhat bastardized ‘Terrorism’ to fit its discourse and the events play out to its liking to push the docket.
I was and am always a proponent of Capitalism but man with no checks and balances free world is creating a very uneven society. Thankfully they have this big ‘terrorism phantom’ to divert and deflect otherwise all ingredients of civil war are in place.
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April 4, 2016 at 2:55 PM
I think economic advisors are more responsible and accountable in this regard. If the CA says its ok, everyone is doing so, then a person without sound knowledge of these things falls into the trap. Behind every economic offence, there is a rogue economic advisor lurking. They are the ones who advise their clients how to prepare a balance sheet and get huge loans from the banks.
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April 4, 2016 at 8:09 PM
But who leaked the documents and what did they hope to gain from it? According to the ICIJ, the lead for the leak came in late 2014 when an unknown source reached out to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which had reported previously on a smaller leak of Mossack Fonseca files to German government regulators. The source reportedly contacted Suddeutsche Zeitung reporter Bastian Oberway via encrypted chat offering some sort of data intended “to make these crimes public”.
However, the source warned that his or her “life is in danger”, was only willing to communicate via encrypted channels and refused to meet in person. “How much data are we talking about,” Obermayer asked, according to an account in Wired. “More than you have ever seen,” the source responded. The eventual stash added up to 2.6 terabytes, a 100 times bigger than Wikileaks’ Cablegate, and enough to fill 600 DVDs. Obermayer says he communicated with his source over a series of encrypted channels that they frequently changed, each time deleting all history from their prior exchange.
In their Suddeutsche Zeitung report, Obermayer and his co-authors write that the source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return, apart from a few security measures. To this day, Obermayer says he does not know the name of the person or the identity of the person who leaked the documents, but feels he knows the person. “For certain periods I talked to (this person) more than to my wife,” he told Wired.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Who-Leaked-Panama-Papers-Why/articleshow/51691514.cms
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April 4, 2016 at 8:18 PM
Sanjana reference your above comment and taking the Indian context, would SRK if his name were to be included in this list get the same generosity to offer explanations or he be straightway termed a traitor / deshdrohi or worse Dawood Ibrahim’s henchmen?
……. and this is where I sympathize with the likes of him on that article he wrote few years backs in the Outlook in 2013 –
“I sometimes become the inadvertent object of political leaders who choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India. There have been occasions when I have been accused of bearing allegiance to our neighboring nation rather than my own country – this even though I am an Indian whose father fought for the freedom of India. Rallies have been held where leaders have exhorted me to leave my home and return to what they refer to as my “original homeland”. Of course, I politely decline each time, citing such pressing reasons as sanitation words at my house preventing me from taking the good shower that’s needed before undertaking such an extensive journey. I don’t know how long this excuse will hold though.
http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/read-shah-rukh-khans-article-which-appeared-in-outlook-turning-points-2013-511771
Now to be fair to Bachchan, he has been a Shipping executive / Ship Broker prior embarking on his bollywood journey…..if he were to hold few shipping companies in his name now……offshore accounts are a very common phenomena in shipping industry …..an industry I relate to myself and most of them registered to Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Bermuda…. Aish too has a shipping link and her dad was a Chief Engineer on a ship and her brother a Fourth Engineer before she hit big when they all quit sailing.
Coming to the bigger point on these leaks they are more damning as it hurts the fundamentals of current economic system if left unchecked. My beef here is with the trickle down theory which the Capitalist World vehemently propagates. The fact of the matter is here the wealth doesn’t trickle down – it just floods offshore. A far-reaching study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put so many poor back on its feet…..
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April 4, 2016 at 8:28 PM
It is all politics in our country. No sympathy for the Khans if their names were there. Now they will understand how painful it is for some of the Khans’ admireres when they are crucified and pilloried. When Bofors was the raging issue, I empathised with the Bachchans with all my heart and during that time these religion based politics was quite negligible. It was done to bring down Rajiv Gandhi and his friends like the Bachchans.
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April 4, 2016 at 9:30 PM
& here was my rep ones to his ‘essay’..
—————–
An Jo Says:
February 16, 2013 at 1:30 AM
My essay on SRK’s essay:
What is it about SRK that irks people so much? I have often been wondering how and why is it that this guy ends up ruffling so many feathers at significant points in due course of the fag end of his ‘super-star’ career and the beginning—depending on his decisions of course—of what may or may not be a productive shift to a toned down career of less heroism and more of ‘character-centric’ roles. Is it because of the fact that he almost always wears his religion on his sleeve and keeps harping on things related to his religious identity on and off? Why is it that the same ‘identity’ controversies do not hover over the other two of the Khan triumvirate in the Hindi film industry (Hi Fi)? Why is it that they don’t find themselves at the dirty end of the ‘bigots’? Are the ‘bigots’ selective in their selection of targets?
Frankly, there is not much that is written in his article for the magazine that he has not said before. In fact, there is absolutely nothing new. It is just polemics—littered with his oft-praised ‘humor’— that is written in high-flown English with little substance to add to what he knows or for that matter, what anybody in India knows. If one notices the time-graph, he is getting more into these ‘identity’ controversies only post-2007/08; almost parallel to his past of once unbeatable streak commercially with regard to his films. Is it fair to say then, that he is unable to keep his ego in check and just longs for those days when he was the center of a newspaper though hundreds had died a fortnight previously in Latur due to an earthquake? The box-office space is now taken over by Salman Khan who is on a mad spree and the other Khan, Aamir has long time ago decided to carve a path of his own and not be a part of the Hi Fi circus consciously (at least commercially). I would like to believe what irks the Indian public most of the time regarding his controversies is the ‘timing’. Out of the blue, comes this article of the idiosyncrasies of being a ‘Khan’ in India. Where is the trigger point? If this isn’t ill-timed, what is? He is writing for an inaugural issue of an international magazine and the first thing that comes to his mind is identity? It only goes to show that obsession with his identity is more of a pre-occupation with him rather than the common populace or dare I say, even the ‘bigoted’ outfits. If he is so sub-consciously bothered about the ‘travails’ of being a Muslim in India, he would say that at every given point in his career, not at strategically placed moments of his career. The buildings fell on September 11, 2001. And we hardly heard his identity crises until he acted in CHAK DE INDIA. Frankly, one is confused regarding his complaints. Is his problem with Hindu-dominated India’s view or with the world-view of Muslims by non-Muslims? Because, if he is talking of world-view, his essay falls flat on its face since he primarily includes what the ‘bigoted’ parties of India think of him and the Muslim community. Now this supposedly Hindu-Indian view or suspicion always existed even before 9-11!! And that view was shaped by the politics of the Indo-Pakistan relation. It had nothing to do with the post 9-11 view of Muslims in the whole wide world. Even if 9/11 were not to have happened, there is an almost cent-percent possibility that Muslims of India being viewed through the prism of Indo-Pak relations would have continued unabated. So why is his essay trying to dove-tail his being attacked by ‘bigots’ in India to what the Americans or the rest of the non-Muslim world has to say about Islam in general and Muslims in particular? And if his essay was so ‘heart-felt’, then I wonder why he chose to hide under the carpet of ‘bigoted’ parties? The sun and every flea surviving under the sun knows that the ‘bigoted’ party that attacked him is Shiv-Sena. Why not name it? Which other party has attacked him? Has the BJP done it? Congress of course is always his friend. In a very muted way, Bajrang Dal or RSS might have done it during his Pakistan promotion for the Indian Greedy League cricket tournament. So why wither away from naming Shiv-Sena as the only culprit that has indulged in identity-bashing? (After the death of Bal Thackeray, SRK paid his ‘tributes’ and also gladly mentioned that he had pleasant ‘tea-parties’ with him.) The Shiv-Sena has always been at such mud-flinging parties. Even the great Dilip Kumar – whose talent and impact are of stratospheric proportions when compared to SRK’s acting skills and who had an unequivocal respect when it came to his conduct within and outside of the film industry—had to face the identity politics of Shiv-Sena. Would SRK, standing way behind in the line led by Dilip Kumar, expected something radical? It might be the business of Shiv Sena to rake up controversies and identity politics; it is their bread and butter that is splattered with a few drops of blood of innocents. But why does he have to be so gullible (sly?) to invest right into this business? Isn’t he supposed to be the one with intelligence and erudition conveyed in high-flown English? Such ‘heart-felt’ confusions only irritate the general populace because one is baffled at the idea of Shah Rukh Khan, the super-star, the star who is the face of the cover issue of Forbes magazine that tracks the richest people in the country, unable to shake himself of any degree of victimhood! Was A. K Hangal (a Hindu, by the way) spared because he was a Hindu? A veteran—and a freedom fighter— having been born and brought up and having shared joint memories of India and Pakistan has more reason than SRK to attend ‘Pakistan’ day; but was he spared? SRK can buy 5 Rolls-Royce within a week and gift one of them to his driver! The three Khans of the film-industry today are the most powerful and influential in the functioning of the industry—and this is very feebly arguable. And it is baffling to see SRK, whose identity was of no concern to the greater common public when he was a struggler and much so when he became a super-star, and is of no concern even now when he is seeing the twilight of his super-stardom days, resort to such antics so late in his career. But in all honesty, he has always had these issues of taking himself and his ‘intelligence’ very importantly and seriously; so much so that in many of his interviews to Doordarshan pre-satellite television days, he would make up lies that he would have to keep in mind so that he mustn’t utter another lie that wouldn’t match the previous lie! In an interview, he mentioned he studied in IIT while he never even set foot there; not even to dance in any one of the dean’s daughter’s wedding. He keeps saying his family was extremely poor; unfortunately he forgot to keep track of this one and displayed his middle-class affluence often during his talks and with his behavior. And then there was/there still is the misplaced arrogance and heroism of ‘North-Indianness’: ‘Mein Delhi ka hoon; baat hi nahin, haath pair bhi chalaana aata hain’. Maybe he thought the people of Bombay or elsewhere in the country sit with their hands folded and legs tied when somebody is messing around with the wife/girl friend and that only ‘North Indians’ generally and Delhiites specifically have the bollocks to not just think but also to act with their hands and walk the talk. There is also the constant harping on his ‘Pathan’hood and his lineage of ‘good’ looks in a very vulgar manner at any given moment – opportune or not is out of the window. Frankly, he is living much, much more than the perfect ‘Indian’ dream (if there was/still is something like that) . If he still feels to stick his neck out and proclaim his ‘Muslim’ identity while it is none of concern to anybody but some ‘bigots’ wonder why he wastes reams of paper on what ‘bigoted’ and unwanted people think of him. Why is it so important to him?
By indulging in such unwanted sensitivities, I am beginning to lose him as my role-model. SRK’s success inspires me no less. Coming at least a million miles out of the nepotism radius, If he can succeed with his kind of talent, I bloody well should in my life in my own way. And I DO NOT mean this condescendingly at all.
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April 6, 2016 at 1:37 PM
That’s a fairly reasonable response to SRK’s piece. Actually ‘sympathize’ is a wrong word in that context. Reading that piece one gets the feeling he may be ‘ruing’ the fact he is follower of a religion at a time when the politics surrounding it is so problematic.
SRK gives the perception of being very money / business minded always trying to enter the bigger league, but in India to graduate to the next level one must have a certain appetite for white collar crime which a lot of these bigwigs and other famous personalities indulge in on regular basis. It’s a known fact unlike say their counterparts in US, to be an Ambani or Adani or Mallaya requires motivated nonviolent crime committed by business and government professionals. Now with the terrorism / underworld link hanging to his named religion, that goes beyond the pale even if one is unknowingly caught in that web.
On an aside, still not clear on the kickbacks and deal for Bofors but if one scratches the surface there is simply too much co-coincidence with Italian Sonia / Quottorachi to Ajitabh moving to Sweden / Switzerland and opening companies / accounts etc
(Courtesy Google now). It’s easy to be cynical and discard VP Singh for the mess he created with Mandal, but it’s the same Indian Express which was unearthing these things on a very regular basis. Even now with the present scandal and denials in place for all we know Ajitabh may be the one opening all these offshore accounts in Panama. All this association of Sahara Shri – Amar Singh – Anil Ambani and then public / publicized fallout is an alert one cannot forego easily.
Incidentally last two days Ravish Kumar @ NDTV has been in his element trying to simplify the tangled cobweb of head of the states / politicians / celebrities / terrorists / underworlds / drug lords……surprisingly all under one roof of Mossack Fonseca.
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April 6, 2016 at 3:18 PM
The singhs (VP and Arjun) have dragged India many more years back with Mandal. The unfortunate part of it is that it can not be taken away without blood bath.
Supreme court has given seal of approval without any binding timeline and accountability. Politicians are spineless to remove it.
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April 6, 2016 at 3:22 PM
The creamy layer for OBC has been proposed to 15 lakh from existing 6 lakh!!
What percentile of people earn 15 lakh?
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April 4, 2016 at 8:21 PM
The world’s super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy.
James Henry, a former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has conducted groundbreaking new research for the Tax Justice Network campaign group – sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts to construct an alarming picture that shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system.
Comedian Jimmy Carr became the public face of tax-dodging in the UK earlier this year when it emerged that he had made use of a Cayman Islands-based trust to slash his income tax bill.
But the kind of scheme Carr took part in is the tip of the iceberg, according to Henry’s report, entitled The Price of Offshore Revisited. Despite the professed determination of the G20 group of leading economies to tackle tax secrecy, investors in scores of countries – including the US and the UK – are still able to hide some or all of their assets from the taxman.
“This offshore economy is large enough to have a major impact on estimates of inequality of wealth and income; on estimates of national income and debt ratios; and – most importantly – to have very significant negative impacts on the domestic tax bases of ‘source’ countries,” Henry says.
Using the BIS’s measure of “offshore deposits” – cash held outside the depositor’s home country – and scaling it up according to the proportion of their portfolio large investors usually hold in cash, he estimates that between $21tn (£13tn) and $32tn (£20tn) in financial assets has been hidden from the world’s tax authorities.
“These estimates reveal a staggering failure,” says John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. “Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people.
“This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich.”……………..
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens
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April 4, 2016 at 8:24 PM
Why Ustad must be in captivity
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/why-ustad-must-be-in-captivity/article8433555.ece?homepage=true
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April 4, 2016 at 8:33 PM
This news is ‘duh’ of all ‘duhs’…but yes surprised to be Amitabh’s name here. You never want to be on a list that includes Putin and Nawaz Sharif.
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April 5, 2016 at 4:49 AM
Ki & Ka had the normal Monday drop of around 50%. A 3 crore nett plus Monday is reasonable for the film. The first four day business of Ki & Ka is as follows
Friday – 7,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Sunday – 9,25,00,000
Monday – 3,50,00,000 apprx
Total – 28,25,00,000
The flm should gross around 35 crore nett in its first week which is decent and then it will depend on what it can notch up before the release of Fan on 15th April. After the Monday it is important it remains steady for the next few days.
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1936#.VwN71DGn5LM
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April 5, 2016 at 4:51 AM
The Worldwide opening weekend business has been disappointing just like the Indian opening weekend. Airlift managed to breach the 75 crore mark but stands at a low position of 29 as far as all time rank for opening weekend is concerned. The top Opening weekends Worldwide this year as follows.
1. Airlift – 78.08 crore
2. Kapoor & Sons – 54.10 crore
3. Ki & Ka – 46.80 crore
4. Neerja – 41.18 crore
5. Wazir – 38.47 crore
Ki & Ka fell a little short of 50 crore as Overseas markets like US / Canada, UK and Australia should have done better. Gulf did pretty well. Kapoor & Sons managed to cross 50 crore but its 54 crore figure puts it outside the top fifty Worldwide opening weekends.
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1937#.VwN8MTGn5LM
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April 5, 2016 at 4:56 AM
http://www.koimoi.com/box-office/kapoor-and-sons-overtakes-airlift-becomes-the-highest-overseas-grosser-of-2016/
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April 5, 2016 at 5:24 AM
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/63209-to-teach-a-lesson-hrithik-harasses-a-cameraman.htm
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April 5, 2016 at 2:16 PM
Looks good fun….The kid fights really well
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April 6, 2016 at 7:47 AM
Will do very well in single screens.
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April 6, 2016 at 2:18 PM
BAAGHI: Do Behenon Ki Kahani..
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April 7, 2016 at 8:05 AM
How can someone dare to post this trailer here? This is banned on this blog. Just chant srk’s name and dance on jhabra.
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April 5, 2016 at 6:51 PM
The sound of Badlapur
There are only three songs, I think. My pick is this one-
Liked the way this singers voice TEXTURE & DEPTH compliments the setting.
And liked the way the GUITAR & even the FLUTE is incorporated…
& Around 0:10, Laik tells Raghu that he’s losing his mind.. 🙂
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April 6, 2016 at 4:05 AM
Ki & Ka held very well on Tuesday with a very limited drop of around 6-7%. The first five day business of Ki & Ka is as follows
Friday – 7,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Sunday – 9,50,00,000
Monday – 3,50,00,000
Tuesday – 3,25,00,000
Total – 31,75,00,000
The film should do a week of around 37 crore nett and now has a shot at a 50 crore nett after the business on Tuesday.
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/art_detail.php?articalid=1938#.VwTDDTGn5LM
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April 6, 2016 at 4:28 AM
http://www.koimoi.com/box-office/1st-tuesday-box-office-ki-and-ka-set-to-go-past-kareenas-heroine/
Ki And Ka has emerged as a clean success. With 3.30 crore more coming in on Tuesday, the film has now collected 32.07 crores at the Box Office. For a film that was made on a budget of 30 crore (including P&A) and had already recovered 50% of its investment before the release, this Balki and Eros film is now in green. Whatever comes from here would add to the tally of profits as 100% of investment has been recovered now.
The film is also ultra-special for Kareena Kapoor since this is now her biggest success of the decade where she is the senior actress on board. Yes, she has delivered bigger successes when paired with the Khans or Ajay Devgn. However, Ki And Ka has her in an equal screen time as Arjun Kapoor and also features in an author backed role. In that aspect, she has pulled through the film quite well and has come across as a reliable actress.
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April 6, 2016 at 7:54 AM
‘In that aspect, she has pulled through the film quite well and has come across as a reliable actress.’
Absolutely, 16 yrs after her debut, this senior actress finally gets her ‘OWN’ success, which will still be lesser than the successes of Kangana, Deepika, Vidya et al. Saif can finally become the Ka.
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April 6, 2016 at 12:23 PM
Amitabh Bachchan To Sign Anees Bazmee’s Aankhen 2?
http://www.koimoi.com/bollywood-news/amitabh-bachchan-to-sign-anees-bazmees-aankhen-2/
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April 6, 2016 at 12:35 PM
Yes, after Panama scandal this is the right choice for him.
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April 6, 2016 at 1:12 PM
he,he,he..
surely charan he would not ask for your opinion…
” Yes, after Panama scandal this is the right choice for him. ”
no need to do any films since he is rich hey…
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April 6, 2016 at 1:15 PM
This time it can be based on true story…
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April 6, 2016 at 2:05 PM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Panama-Papers-could-hand-Bernie-Sanders-the-keys-to-the-White-House/articleshow/51714020.cms
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April 6, 2016 at 9:59 PM
With the US media black out on this issue…sadly it won’t matter much. However, in next week’s debate in Brooklyn, Bernie will probably bring up this issue and I hope he makes a very clear distinction between himself and Hillary…but then Hillary will just complain about Sanders’ ‘tone’ lol. She is such a hack and disingenuous…seems like people are supporting her mostly because of ‘Clinton’ brand.
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April 7, 2016 at 10:37 AM
People are willing to vote for trump if Bernie gets nomination. Nobody wants to pay taxes for Bernie’s proposals.
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April 7, 2016 at 3:32 PM
As bad as Trump is (and I can’t stand him), Bernie is just an idiot. No fees for school, no fees for this/that, who’s paying for it than???
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April 7, 2016 at 4:30 PM
“who’s paying for it than???”
…keep staying in the dark bro…or you can do some kind of research and not remain ignorant.
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April 7, 2016 at 5:01 PM
if people were told that higher taxes would lead to better funding domestically…it would be more positively received…think that is one of the reasons why Bernie is gaining huge support.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/30/nevada-tax-increase_n_7476592.html
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April 7, 2016 at 5:25 PM
Bernie is to the left of even Obama. Cruz is extreme right. Trump has charted an off the charts course (cant figure if he is extreme right or extreme ridiculous!?!). The General Election season is upon us, and candidates by now try to frantically move to the center. But its too late for the above three to claim the center now. Hillary being closest to the center, is the most probable nominee and future president. Bill cut taxes and balanced the budget. As long as he is standing behind the throne, America will have a chance to clean all the mess. The rest of these guys have no clue of how to run a country.
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April 7, 2016 at 7:02 PM
the amount of damage the clintons (especially hillary) have done outweigh the benefits. bernie has weaknesses but his policies are what we need at this moment in history…IMO.
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April 7, 2016 at 7:07 PM
Bernie is another Kejriwal , Hilary is bad news for India, Trump is a f##### joke and Cruz is Tea Party.
We need another term of Obama !!!!
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April 8, 2016 at 4:10 AM
How is she bad news for India? It was Bill who opened the door after it was shut due to the 1998 Pokhran tests.
In any case, with our money power and lobbying, neither party can be bad for India anymore. The days of the anti-India State Dept are long gone. We run the Valley and the Street. Enuff Said.
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April 7, 2016 at 11:09 AM
While Sethi is of course, the only real person in here, all the animals have a fantastic degree of photorealism. And Sethi’s interaction with the animals throughout the duration of the movie, given that they are CGI, is completely convincing. He combines innocence and warmth with the survival skills and resourcefulness of someone far older.
While Favreau is faithful to the old elements, (old songs like Bare Necessities included, of course) he also brings in a few new subtle touches as well in order to keep things interesting. While the King Louie scene is one of the many high points, Kaa’s screen time could have been lengthened a bit, though. Nonetheless, the performance of the voice cast is spot-on. But more than anything, the intricate landscaping, masterful camerawork and environment (actually filmed in Downtown Los Angeles) create a delightfully immersive experience. Heartwarming and enjoyable.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/english/movie-reviews/The-Jungle-Book/movie-review/51728198.cms
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April 7, 2016 at 11:10 AM
‘Baaghi’ makers in legal trouble over similarities to ‘The Raid: Redemption’
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Baaghi-makers-in-legal-trouble-over-similarities-to-The-Raid-Redemption/articleshow/51724061.cms
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April 7, 2016 at 11:36 AM
Kabir Khan @kabirkhankk 7h7 hours ago
YES… WE ARE COMING BACK… EID 2017 🙂
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April 7, 2016 at 6:00 PM
What a Great News …. ETT – 2 !!!
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April 7, 2016 at 2:29 PM
Just in: Kangana Ranaut wants Hrithik Roshan arrested
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Just-in-Kangana-Ranaut-wants-Hrithik-Roshan-arrested/articleshow/51728561.cms
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April 7, 2016 at 2:43 PM
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April 7, 2016 at 3:37 PM
Shoojit Sircar’s upcoming social thriller recently received its title as Pink – a colour often associated with women. And resembling the same will be three strong female protagonists in the film, namely, the characters played by Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang.
While the story of the film has been kept under wraps, we had earlier received a glimpse of Amitabh Bachchan’s look as a lawyer. But there is more to the plot of this Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s directorial! Apparently, Big B, a lawyer by profession in the film, is also portrayed as the protective neighbor of three flat-mates (Taapsee, Kirti and Andrea). On the other hand, Taapsee’s character is in love with a man played by Angad Bedi, who along with his friends, molest her and flat-mates on one drunken night. Not ending at that, the film gets its twist when this act leads to an accident and there is just one man who stands by these girls during their times of need – their neighbor played by Amitabh Bachchan. The film showcases the struggle of a lawyer who fights for justice against the powerful and influential.
Ronnie Lahiri, co-producer of the film, recently mentioned that they have shot a major portion of the film in South Delhi. In fact, he also added that certain scenes like Big B and Angad’s court sequences will be shot in real locations and that they are waiting for the permissions to shoot at the Saket District Court.
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/18025416/Amitabh-Bachchan-fights-for-Taapsee-Pannu-in-Pink
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April 7, 2016 at 4:14 PM
I love his current choice of films. Most of them sound very interesting. Now everything isn’t going to turn out like Piku but I’d still rather have him do this kind of thing than the alternatives. Also didn’t mind Wazir.
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April 7, 2016 at 4:27 PM
http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/hot-n-happening/63277-ua-for-the-jungle-book-leaves-indian-audience-amused.htm
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April 7, 2016 at 5:04 PM
Life is good for Mowgli, until the menacing Shere Khan (a terrifying Elba) decides he wants to eat the child. Mowgli is forced to run, but along the way he meets some amazing colourful characters Kaa (Johansson), Ballo (Murray) and a humongous orangutan King Louie (Christopher Walken).
The characters drawn for the 2016 live action film have an edge that was not present in the 1967 animated film.
Shere Khan in the new film is genuinely scary at times, especially how he leaps across the screen in 3D and his roar accentuated by the digitally enhance Dolby Atmos sound is frightening.
This is perhaps why the film has been given a PG certificate in the US (according to the MPAA the film has ‘some sequences of scary action and peril’) and an U/A certificate in India.
Indian Censor Board Chairman Pahlaj Nihalani was quoted as saying ‘The 3D effects are so scary that the animals seem to jump right at the audience.’
As has become a regular practice, Nihalani was mocked on Twitter, but I have to admit that for once he is right.
Kaa in Johansson’s voice becomes a female snake, although one could say that Holloway had a soft gentle voice — the cause of a lot of speculation that the voiceover actor may have been gay or bisexual.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/review-the-jungle-book-what-a-fun-movie/20160407.htm
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April 7, 2016 at 5:05 PM
Censor Board member Dr Chandraprakash Diwedi’s Mohalla Assi, which reportedly pokes fun at the commercialisation of the Holy city of Varanasi, has been banned.
Interestingly, the film’s trailer, wherein Sunny Deol and Sakshi Tanwar were seen mouthing Hindi expletives, got leaked on the internet much before the film was submitted for certification.
The feature film also got leaked on the internet before it was submitted to the Censor Board.
When it was recently screened to the Censor Board, it got banned as it apparently evoked extreme reactions.
In the film, Sunny Deol plays a righteous priest fighting against the ecological and moral pollution of Varanasi.
Never known to use even a single profanity in his entire career, Deol is heard calling himself a c****** in the trailer and commenting on the rampant ‘guru-shishya ke naam pe pela peli’ (sex in the grab of teacher-pupil) in Varanasi.
The film and its trailer are also filled with abusive references to tourists.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/censor-board-bans-sunny-deols-film-on-varanasis-dark-side/20160407.htm
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April 7, 2016 at 7:11 PM
Seems like the “Samachar Today” missed this very Important news to post !!
http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/bipasha-basu-karan-singh-grover-announce-their-marriage-to-get-hitched-on-april-30/
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April 7, 2016 at 7:29 PM
Finally saw Wazir…. It’s good in parts. Bachchan is good and has some great lines. But overall I found him better in Piku and in Shamitabh. Piku was off course a complete fillm, but even Shamitabh for me was more engaging than Wazir.
The biggest flaw ( from the too many to list ) for me- SPOILER ALERT
How can anyone guesstimate beforehand that Farhan will intercept him at a secluded spot so that he can blow himself with no additional loss of life,
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April 7, 2016 at 7:57 PM
There are many flaws, but your biggest flaw is not a flaw atall imo. Even i can make sure someone finds me at a spot if someone is really chasing me.
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April 7, 2016 at 8:09 PM
Hmmm,,,,point hai .
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