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NEW DELHI: Reacting to reports that Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan had demanded a change in her seat in Rajya Sabha after Bollywood actress Rekha’s nomination to the Upper House, Rashtriya Lokmanch Party president Amar Singh on Tuesday said it was her own ‘Silsila’.
“I don’t want to say anything on why Jaya Bachchan changed her seat. It’s her own ‘silsila’, her own business, her own affair. I don’t have any comment to make on it, Singh told media here.
“Rekha’s elder sister is my family doctor and I know her father Gemini Ganeshan very well. I have once spoken to her through her sister,” he said.
“Amitabh Bachchan is my friend and have seen Rekha in his films. I congratulated her when I met her today. I don’t have any personal equation with her though,” he added.
According to reports, Jaya Bachchan has got her seat in the Rajya Sabha shifted to seat no. 143. Reports say this came after Rekha was allotted seat number 99, which was right behind her previous seat 91.
She requested for a seat change apparently to avoid proximity to the actress, reports said.
Earlier in the day, Rekha took oath as a Rajya Sabha MP. President Pratibha Patil had approved her name and that of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar for the Upper House.
Rekha, 57, is acknowledged as one of the finest actresses of Hindi cinema.
Rekha has acted in over 180 films in a career spanning over 40 years. Throughout her career, she has often played strong female characters and, apart from mainstream cinema, acted in parallel cinema.
She has won three Filmfare Awards, two for best actress and one for best supporting actress, for her roles in Khubsoorat (1980), Khoon Bhari Maang (1988) and Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (1996), respectively. Her portrayal of a classical courtesan in Umrao Jaan (1981) won her the National Film Award for best actress.
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Paoli Dam courted controversy with her Bollywood debut. She got noticed for nudity and sex scenes and there were even protests over her bare-back poster.
However, Paoli maintains that she will continue to do intimate scenes as she has no hang-ups with them. “I have no inhibitions as an actor,” says Paoli who is now starring in Vikram Bhatt’s next venture – Love Games which is a story about wife swapping. The story itself points to high sexual content. So, has Bhatt cast her again in his film because she has no problems with intimate scenes? The filmmaker says, “She is a very good actor who has no qualms about her sexuality.”
Paoli, on her part, adds, “There is a thin line between vulgarity and sensuality which I am careful about. We needed bold scenes to portray the character of the wife in the film.” Earlier, Paoli had also termed her role of a journalist turned sex worker in her first film as “bold”. What defines bold for her? “Boldness is a genre of films that is high on erotic content. It doesn’t, in anyway imply, vivid sex scenes to back weak scripts,” Paoli justifies.
Before venturing into mainstream B-town, Paoli has worked in Bengali parallel cinema. Chatrak, a film on the socio-political life of a city, as she defines it, was a directorial endeavour by Sri Lanka-based filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara. It was termed as the boldest film ever made and sources reveal how viewers walked out of the theatres because of the explicit scenes between Paoli and Anubrata Basu. “I do not believe in parallel cinema. Every film is made for money and it is not different from the mainstream,” she explains. So why did she star in Chatrak – which falls in the category of parallel cinema? “Because it was an international film. Plus, I got to walk the red carpet at Cannes 2011 and that is a dream come true for any actor.”
Rumours are that once she became the blue-eyed girl in the Bhatt camp, she backed out of Choli ke Peeche, a film by an Italian director, in which she was supposed to go topless. “It did not work out as the schedule was postponed and the lead actor, Irrfan Khan, also backed out.” she says. Does this mean that the sexy Bong siren will only star in big banner films? “The character, script, banner and co-actors definitely matter to me,” she says.
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NEW DELHI: BJP’s efforts to persuade its Karnataka strongman B S Yedyurappa may have been helped by a fortuitous “misreporting” on Income-Tax raids on Chiranjeevi, the Telugu movie icon and Congress’s member of Rajya Sabha.
Attempts to talk Yedyurappa out of his rebellious mood were critically poised, when TV channels broke the news of I-T raids on Chiranjeevi. Actually, the raids had been conducted on the premises of distant relatives of the in-laws of his Chennai-based daughter. But by the time the details trickled in, BJP leaders from Karnataka had already pounced on the development to try to discourage Yedyurappa to explore options outside the saffron fold.
The group, which is sympathetic to the former CM but have counseled him against quitting the BJP, cited the feverish coverage of the tax raids to drive home the point that while the Lingayat strongman’s sulks against BJP were justified, he could not hope to get a better deal outside the party.
As luck would have it, the raids happened just a day after Yedyurappa surprised many by heaping praise on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for not dumping her party colleagues when they were in trouble.
“Chiranjeevi was heralded by Congress as their great hope in Andhra Pradesh, and crucial counterweight against party rebel Jaganmohan Reddy. How can others expect to get a different treatment?” an important Lingayat leader from Karnataka is learnt to have reasoned with a die-hard supporter of Yedyurappa.
The pitch was a success, with the Yedyurappa partisan agreeing to meet Arun Jaitley, and setting the stage for a tension-thawing conversation between the former Karnataka CM and the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha. Soon, the former CM had agreed to heed Jaitley’s advice to take a decision “that is based on reason, rather than one that was dictated by emotion”.
Chiranjeevi certainly found it difficult to control his emotion, while discussing the reportage of I-T raids. “The raid is on a distant relative of my daughter’s in-laws. We are not connected with it. Only one media house, Jaganmohan Reddy’s Sakshi, has fabricated the news”, he told TOI.
Although there is no possibility of Yedyurappa crossing over to Congress, BJP leaders suspect that some leaders of the latter are goading the Lingayat chieftain to destabilize the Sadanand Gowda government. Yedyurappa’s praise for Sonia Gandhi only whetted the fears.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari deflected questions on Yedyurappa’s compliment for Sonia Gandhi. “Congress party or its president require no certification from anybody.” Saying that Yedyurappa’s troubles with his colleagues and the leadership were BJP’s internal matter, Tiwari said that Congress would “rather leave them to stew in their own juices”.
The spokesperson also said that people of Karnataka would punish BJP for “lack of governance”. “What is happening in Karnataka from 2008 until today is something which we hope the people would take cognizance of when the state goes in for polls eight months down the line,” he said.
Congress general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Madhusudan Mishtry also rejected the possibility of any truck with Yedyurappa.
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NEW DELHI: Soaring vegetable prices pushed inflation higher in April, while fuel and manufactured product prices sustained their pressure posing a fresh policy challenge and announcing the return of price pressures in Asia’s third-largest economy.
Data released by the commerce industry ministry on Monday showed the annual rate of inflation, based on monthly wholesale price index, stood at 7.23% for April, 2012, compared to 6.89% for the previous month and 9.74% during the corresponding month of the previous year.
Food inflation remained stubborn during the month. It stood at 10.49% compared to the previous month’s 9.94% increase. This was the first time in six months that food inflation has breached the double-digit mark.
Vegetable prices, which had shown some signs of easing in the previous months, shot up an annual 60.97% in April compared to a 30.57% rise in March, while potato prices rose 53.44% year-on-year in April from the previous month’s 11.60%. Price of pulses also shot up an annual 11.29% in April from the previous month’s 10.05%. Egg, meat, fish and milk prices also remained stubborn in April.
Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee once again reiterated the government’s concern but had nothing concrete to offer to tackle the problem of high food inflation which has been plaguing the economy for a significant period now. Experts have called for increasing productivity and reducing supply side bottlenecks to ease inflationary pressures but the response to the problem has been tardy.
“Food inflation is a matter of concern, particularly it has reached double digit…Food inflation can be tackled by creating storage facilities and cold chains and also through institutional reforms in agricultural marketing,” Mukherjee said.
“In both these areas state governments have to take appropriate steps, I will also discuss with them,” he said.
The acceleration in inflation hurt sentiment in the stock market, and was one of the factors which drove stock prices down on Monday. Growing uncertainty about the state of the economy, the global economic situation and the future of reforms have added to worries in domestic financial markets.
The index for food articles group rose by 4.9% to 206.4 from 196.8 for the previous month due to higher prices of fruits and vegetables (19%), barley (5%), tea (4%), masur, maize and bajra (3% each) and ragi and wheat (2% each) and fish-marine, gram, rice and milk (1% each).
The government also revised upwards the inflation number for February to 7.36% from the previously reported 6.95%, which analysts said showed that inflationary pressures remained strong.
The latest inflation data could also force the government to postpone any increase in fuel prices. The easing global crude oil prices could help, but any move to resist raising prices could upset its plans to repair government finances.
The index for manufactured products group rose by 1% to 143.6 from 142.2% for the previous month.
Economists said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to be cautious in easing interest rates against the backdrop of inflationary pressures. Last month, the RBI had announced a surprise half-a-percentage point cut in interest rates to boost faltering growth, although it had warned that inflation remained a risk. Industrial output in March had declined 3.5% fuelling expectations that the central bank may aggressively cut interest rates to support growth.
“The April inflation outcome is a timely reminder for not being excessively optimistic about India’s inflation outlook. In particular, the heightened expectation about RBI easing after the disappointing March industrial production should have evaporated after the inflation print. Admittedly, headline inflation is off its peak but still remains elevated,” Rajeev Malik, senior economist at CLSA in Singapore.
“We maintain that inflation will continue to be a challenge for some time despite weaker growth. In fact, India is likely to continue with the combination of weak growth and still-high inflation, and it is best not to expect much in terms of easing from RBI,” Malik.
Crisil Research said that over the past seven years, the Wholesale Price Index-based primary food index has risen to 206.4 in April, 2012, from 100.4 in April, 2005, which implied that over this period money needed to buy the same basket of food items has more than doubled.
“Food inflation is set to rise further with the steep hike proposed in minimum support prices (MSP). MSPs of food articles have witnessed a surge over the past three years. For instance, MSP in wheat has risen to Rs 1,120 per quintal in 2011-12, compared to Rs 630 per quintal in 2004-05. Since MSPs tend to set a floor for prices, wholesale price of wheat has also during this period moved higher in tandem,” the ratings agency said in a report.
“With food inflation already crossing double-digit, any further increase in MSPs and hence market prices could push food inflation higher. With fuel inflation expected to remain high and manufacturing inflation set to rise, at least temporarily, to reflect the pass through of indirect taxes, higher food inflation will add to inflationary pressures. It would especially pose a threat if higher food inflation leads to the wage-price spiral, thereby raising overall inflation further,” it added.
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DHARAMSHALA: The Tibetan government-in-exile on Monday pointed its finger towards a splinter community among Tibetans – the around 5000-strong Dorje Shugden community – after the Dalai Lama had raised an alarm on Sunday over threat to his life.
The Dalai Lama has not recognized this community – members of which live underground – and had put a ban on them in 1996, saying they do not conform to the principles of Buddhism, sources said. Members of the community are also not allowed to vote in the elections of the Tibetan government.
The Dalai Lama told the New Delhi correspondent of UK’s Sunday Telegraph that he had received reports from inside Tibet warning that Chinese agents had trained Tibetan women for a mission to poison him while posing as devotees.
“There is a threat perception from this community as the Chinese may use their anger against the Dalai Lama to cause harm to the spiritual leader,” said religion and culture minister of the government-in-exile Pema Chinjor.
What has made doubts stronger is an anonymous letter, of which TOI has a copy, allegedly written by Dorje Shugden administration to the Tibetan administration, saying that the Dalai Lama should be unbiased towards all Tibetans and should not exclude them from his fold.
GUARDING THE DALAI LAMA Tibetan spiritual leader has been given special category security cover, above Z plus There is a 2-tier security cordon in place – outer one is manned by Himachal Pradesh police and the inner cordon by specially-trained personnel from the Tibetan government-in-exile
IB and state CID personnel have been deployed at Tekchen Choling, the Dalai Lama’s residence, in McLeodganj; at least 17 CCTV cameras have been installed in and around his residence which are monitored by a control room inside the residence
There are three entrances to the Dalai Lama’s residence. Apart from frisking by securitymen, five metal detectors have been installed at all the entrances
Prior permission from the private office of the Dalai Lama is required for a meeting with the Tibetan leader
Private audiences with the Dalai Lama are usually scheduled thrice a week. Applications for private audience with the Dalai Lama have to be made well in advance
Media requests for an interaction with the dalai Lama have to be given at least 6 months in advance
The practice of the Dalai Lama accepting Khatas (white scarf) from his followers has now been stopped. Now his secretary receives the Khatas on his behalf on the instruction of his security wing
During his public teachings, people are not allowed to carry mobile phones, cameras or any other electronic device; only cushions, FM radios, drinking cups and hats are allowed
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