“The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Commission’) is a statutory body constituted under Section 3 of the Commission for Protection of Child Rights (CPCR) Act, 2005 to protect the child rights and other related matters in the Country. The Commission is further mandated to monitor the Proper and effective implementation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012; Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009,” the NCPCR letter said.

“The Commission has received a complaint from gems of Bollywood alleging that the ‘Ullu App’, accessible on both Play Store and iOS mobile platforms, contains extremely obscene and objectionable content secretively to its subscribers, including children. The App is easily accessible on Google and Apple and does not seem to have any KYC requirement for downloading or viewing any content it makes available to its private group,” it added.

Alleging that there are specific shows that target school kids with explicit sexual scenes and plotlines, NCPCR said, “It has further been alleged that there are specific shows that target school kids with explicit sexual scenes and plotlines. Screenshots of one of the shows have also been annexed by the complainant where sexual intercourse has been depicted between the school children. A copy of the complaint is enclosed which is self-explanatory.”

“It has been observed that these applications lack KYC or any other age verification system, making explicit content easily accessible to minors. Such accessibility is deemed to be a direct violation of Section 11 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012,” it added.

Taking cognizance of the complaint, the Commission said, “The Commission has taken cognizance of the complaint w/s. 13(1) G) of CPCR Act, 2005. Considering the gravity of the situation, the Commission wis. 13 of CPCR Act, 2005 recommends your good office to inquire into the present matter and take appropriate action against the Ullu App, Google Play Store and iOS as per the law. Additionally, you are also requested to provide information regarding the regulations and policy certification governing such apps.”

“Furthermore, it is also requested that stringent measures be implemented to ‘mandate Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures for all such applications streaming these types of videos available on Google Play Store and iOS as per the law to protect the children from accessing such Apps,” it added. (ANI)

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Seeing his father play his favourite dilruba in his spare time inspired Udhas to pursue music seriously. His elder brothers, Manhar and Nirmal Udhas, also went on to become Hindi and Gujarati playback singers, but none of them attained the critical success that Pankaj Udhas did in his lifetime. Born in Jetpur, Rajkot, on May 17, 1951, Pankaj Udhas moved away from his initial love for playing the tabla to training in Hindustani classical music first from Ghulam Qadir Khan and then, after the family moved to Mumbai, where the budding maestro got his Bachelor’s of Science from St Xavier’s College, under the tutelage of Navrang Nagpurkar from the formidable Gwalior gharana.

No one would have imagined then that Pankaj Udhas was going to become the country’s foremost exponent of ghazals. After a duet with Kishore Kumar (‘Munne ki amma yeh to bataa’) in the Dharmendra-Hema Malini film ‘Tum Haseen Main Jawan’ in 1970, Pankaj Udhas made his first solo foray into Hindi playback music, a number composed by Usha Khanna with Naqsh Lyallpuri lyrics for ‘Kaamna’ (1972), but it went unnoticed like the film.

Pankaj Udhas, however, was not destined to be on the fringes of the world of music like his brothers. He saw a career path in ghazals, for which he started learning Urdu, and by the closing years of the 1970s, he was good enough to be invited to perform at concerts in Canada and the US. His first overseas tour turned out to be his first big break. Then came ‘Aahat in 1980’, his first best-selling album (and the first of 50 or so such individual albums), which set him on the path of greatness.

In 1986, Udhas received another opportunity to sing for a film — It was Mahesh Bhatt’s crime thriller ‘Naam’, starring Nutan, Kumar Gaurav, Sanjay Dutt and Paresh Rawal, which went on to become a blockbuster. It was for ‘Naam’ that Pankaj Udhas sang himself into the history books with his soulful ‘Chitthi aayee hai’, the anthem of successive generations of the South Asian diaspora. BBC Radio named it one of the 100 songs of the millennium worldwide.

Ironically, Pankaj Udhas had initially been reluctant to sing the song that defined the career, so much so that the film’s producer, Rajendra Kumar (who was also Kumar Gaurav’s father), accused him of being unprofessional and not having any etiquette. It required his brother’s intervention to make him sing the song, appearing on screen as himself, although Sanjay Dutt was initially supposed to do it with Pankaj Udhas being the playback singer.

In 1990, he sang the melodious duet ‘Mahiya Teri Kasam’ with Lata Mangeshkar for Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Sunny Deol-starrer ‘Ghayal’ produced by Dharmendra. This song turned out to be another chart-topper. Its success was followed in 1994 by the song ‘Na Kajre Ki Dhar’, from the Rajiv Rai action thriller ‘Mohra’ starring Naseeruddin Shah, Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty, which Pankaj Udhas sang along with Sadhana Sargam.

Despite Pankaj Udhas’s success as a playback singer (his last song for a film was ‘Raat bhar tanha raha’ in Anand Raj Anand’s forgettable ‘Dil Toh Deewana Hai’ starring Raj Babbar and Zeenat Aman in 2016), his heart was in ghazals, which transported him from one big success to another bigger milestone (‘Shagufta’ being an interesting one, for it was the first album to be released as a compact disc in India).

In the early days of television, he mentored a talent hunt programme for Sony Entertainment Television, and one of his finds was John Abraham, then a model, who got his first acting break in the music video for another Pankaj Udhas classic, ‘Chupke Chupke’. Some may now say Pankaj Udhas left us too early, but he had a crowded career and has left behind a legacy of memorable songs that will far outlive him and the generation that grew up with him. (IANS)

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गौरव शर्मा चंडीगढ़:

बयान में कहा गया, “दुख के इस समय में, हम गोपनीयता का अनुरोध करेंगे, जबकि हमने जो कुछ भी साझा किया है उसके लिए हम उन्हें प्यार से याद करते हैं।” संदेश में पूनम पांडे की मृत्यु, कब और कहां हुई, या उनके परिवार का कोई सदस्य मौजूद था या नहीं, इसका कोई विवरण नहीं दिया गया है।

उन्हें बिग बॉस (2011) में देखा गया था और फिर 2013 में फिल्म “नशा”, “जीएसटी – गलती सिर्फ तुम्हारी” (2017) और कुछ अन्य फिल्मों और टेलीविजन धारावाहिकों से बॉलीवुड में उन्‍होंने डेब्यू किया। 2011 में उन्होंने यह वादा करके सुर्खियां बटोरीं थी कि अगर भारतीय क्रिकेट टीम उस वर्ष क्रिकेट विश्व कप जीतेगी तो वह उसके लिए कपड़े उतार देंगी, और विभिन्न अवसरों पर अभिनेत्री ने इसी तरह का साहस दिखाया।

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अपने नए प्लेटफार्म के बारे में विस्तार से जानकारी देते हुए उन्होंने बताया कि आज का युवा मॉडलिंग व एक्टिंग के लिए काफी पैशनेट है टेलेंटेड है और जरूरत है कि नए से नए प्लेटफार्म की ताकि उन्हें कहीं संघर्ष के बोझ तले दब के वह कई बार तो सपने के साथ ही खुद में विश्वास भी खत्म होने की स्तिथि न आ जाये बल्कि इसलिए उन्होंने ऐसा प्लेटफार्म पैदा कर बनाने की कोशिश की है कि उनको थोड़े बहुत संघर्ष से ही एक मंजिल तक पहुंचा दिया जाए।

उनके नए प्लेटफार्म में उनकी साथी सुपर मॉडल व एक्ट्रेस जया ठाकुर व सुपरमॉडल फ़िज़ा कुंडू , अमेरिका की आर्टिस्ट डीसी प्रो स्टूडियो 79 भी शामिल रहेगा और यह टीम पंजाबी सिनेमा जगत में लिए यह काफी प्रोडूक्टिव काम आने वाले समय में करेगी व पंजाब के युवाओं के सपने साकार करेगी।

मॉडल कमल चीमा की दिली इच्छा है कि जैसे उन्होंने पढ़ते-पढ़ते ही अपना कैरियर मॉडलिंग की तरफ शुरू कर लिया था इसी तरह उनकी इच्छा है कि जो भी युवा मॉडलिंग एक्टिंग के क्षेत्र में मुकाम हासिल करना चाहता है।

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In an era when Hindi mainstream is rapidly drawing inspiration from the epics, names of gods and goddesses are cool again for our screen heroes. The trend of naming protagonists with a touch of divinity was popular among Bollywood filmmakers from Ram Aur Shyam via Seeta Aur Geeta to Ram Lakhan. It was not uncommon for top heroes and heroines till the nineties to favour such names.

The advent of globalisation in the nineties, and the urge to reach out to the NRI market changed that. Suddenly, romance in the Swiss Alps seemed cooler if the hero and the heroine were named Raj and Simran, Rahul and Anjali.

Indeed, if names of our stars on the screen reflect pervading mindsets, this is an era when Bollywood is exploring the “Ramayan” and “Mahabharat” for story ideas again. Names of characters, even in films that don’t directly reference the epics, had to reveal an influence.
As Hindi cinema digs out names from the pages of Indian mythology once again, we take a look at traditional names that are suddenly back in vogue.

SITA

By every yardstick, she is Bollywood’s chosen one at the moment when it comes to name and/or screen identity. Not one but four top heroines are playing Sita in upcoming projects, either in terms of name or role.

Over the next Alia Bhatt is Sita in “RRR”, Kriti Sanon essays the role in Adipurush. According to reports, Deepika Padukone and Kareena Kpaoor Khan are also gearing up for a tryst with Sita on screen.

RAM

Telugu superstar Prabhas plays Ram in Adipurush, an adaptation of the Indian epic Ramayana. It does not stop there, there is a character named Ramaraju in the upcoming magnum opus “RRR”, a period action drama based on freedom fighters, directed by S.S. Rajamouli.

OM

Adiya Roy Kapur will be seen playing a character named Om, another name of Lord Shiva. The actor is named thus in the film “Om: The Battle Within”. Shiva, is known as the destroyer, and the film is high-octane action fare.

ASHWATTHAMA

Vicky Kaushal’s upcoming “The Immortal Ashwatthama” is a superhero film with a traditional name at its core. In “Mahabharat”, Ashwatthama was the son of guru Dronacharya, the weapon instructor of the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and the final commander-in-chief of the Kauravas in the Kurukshetra War. According to the epic, he was cursed to becoming Chiranjivi, or immortal, by Krishna.

RADHE

Bollywood superstar Salman Khan will play the title role in “Radhe”, a name synonymous with goddess Radha, the consort of Lord Krishna. An out-and-out action film, Salman’s Radhe will be seen showcasing Krishna’s trait of protecting the good against evil the film. Incidentally, Salman has played a protagonist named Radhe once before — he was Radhe Mohan in the 2003 hit “Tere Naam”.

The post What’s in a name? Ask Bollywood’s ‘Gods’ appeared first on The Correspondent.

“Zone out and focus on you,” she wrote as the caption.
The socialite, who has filed for divorce from rapper husband Kanye West, currently has over 4.1 million likes in the picture.

On the professional front, Kim and her sisters, Kourtney and Khloe, along with their mother Kris Jenner, are getting into the greeting cards business. They have decided to name their brand Kardashian Kards.

The post Kim’s two-piece wisdom: Zone out, focus on you appeared first on The Correspondent.

“Both the teaser and the posters encourage cigarette smoking,” the notice stated and appealed Yash to take steps to remove this teaser from social media platforms. “Yash, you are a heart-throb and you have immense fan following. Your actions should not mislead the youngsters. We want you to join our campaign against cigarette smoking,” the notice said. 

Meanwhile, the scene in question has gone viral on social media and fans of Yash are sharing the screenshots of the scene. Soon after the teaser was out on various online platforms, the Karnataka State Anti-Tobacco Cell had taken exception to the visuals showing Yash lighting a cigarette. In its letter to the health department, the cell had contended that the visuals depicting the actor smoking a cigarette violated Section 5 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) 2003, also referred to as COTPA 2003, and sought deletion of the teaser from online platforms. 
“The actor has a large number of fans, particularly among the youth.

If he smokes (on screen), people will emulate him. So, we are asking them to remove the teaser from the online platforms and also the posters of the movie,” the letter had stated. A letter objecting the visuals in the teaser has been despatched to director Prashant Neel, Yash, producer Vijay Kiragandur, and the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce. The cell, however, is not going to ask the filmmakers to take away the scene from the film. 

The film will release in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. “K.G.F. Chapter 1”, which was released in 2018, had won two National Awards in 2019 for Best Action and Best Special Effects. 

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Taapsee will next be seen in “Rashmi Rocket”, where she plays a runner from the Rann of Kutch who fights for her identity and becomes an athlete. Priyanshu Painyuli plays Taapsee’s husband in the Akarsh Khurana directorial. She will also be seen in “Looop Lapeta” and ” Haseen Dillruba”. 

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Contestant Jasmin Bhasin tries to intervene, but Rakhi does not stop. Rahul Vaidya steps in and says this has to end now. An angry Aly Goni finally loses his cool and says that the ongoing Captaincy Task will not continue until Bigg Boss took action over Rakhi’s behaviour with Rahul Mahajan.

The incident shocked many who saw the promo because they feel that had it been a male contestant tearing a woman’s clothes in the house, there would rightly have been a big debate over vulgarity and sexism on television by now.

The incident happened after Rakhi went into ghost mode. She had previously said that she was possessed by a 200-year-old spirit named Julie. From scaring Eijaz Khan to shouting at Rahul Mahajan, the “possessed” Rakhi had the house confused.

Now, she has taken the gimmick to a new unprecedented low, going by the promos aired.

It all occurred when the makers conducted a task, where Rahul Mahajan plays the zamindar while Rakhi Sawant poses near the fountain as Julie, the spirit of his wife whom he has killed. Jasmin is the wife.

The deal of the task is, as a spirit Rakhi needs to be ignored by the contestants. Whichever contestant acknowledges her will be out of the race for Captain.

Rakhi starts the task by posing as if she has been possessed by the spirit of Julie. She enters the house and takes her ‘badla’ on Rahul Mahajan and the housemates.

As Julie, Rakhi promises to take revenge on the housemates. She also swears that she will not let Jasmin become captain this time, and is seen walking around in the garden area only to enter the house whenever the buzzer rings.

Rakhi then spooks Rahul Vaidya, Aly Goni, Nikki Tamboli, before she targets Rahul Mahajan. She is heard saying things such as she would tear Rahul’s “dhoti” and turn it into a “rumaal” (handkerchief) .

But she takes the joke a tad too low and actually starts pulling at and tearing Rahul’s clothes.

It is not known if season 14 has more of such low-brow antics in store, in order to boost ratings. Rakhi however seems unfazed as ever by the reaction to the promo, living up to the tag of controversy’s favourite child with her latest antics.

The post ‘Possessed’ Rakhi Sawant tears off Rahul Mahajan’s clothes appeared first on The Correspondent.

“It feels great to be able to bring a track which has stayed close to all music lovers. I am super excited for the song, ‘Jugni 2.0’. This is my first song release for the year and it’s a fun foot-tapping song which will make you all let loose on the dance floor. It’s a new twist to the original ‘Jugni’ track and we all have worked really hard to make it more contemporary, holding onto its essence yet be an enchanting, groovy track for everyone,” said Kanika.

“I’m really looking forward to its release on December 23 and can’t wait for everyone to listen to our new offering,” she added. The new peppy song with some bhangra tunes also features rapper Mumzy Stranger.

The post Kanika Kapoor super excited for ‘Jugni 2.0’ appeared first on The Correspondent.