In his career of more than 25 years, Akshay Kumar has been called an action star, comic actor and a patriotic hero but the superstar believes he has slowly come out of all kinds of tags and would never want to be associated with one ever again.
In the 90s, the actor was called “Khiladi Kumar” for featuring in action films, before he changed gears to comedy in the 2000s. Akshay then shifted to romantic-drama and currently he is known for starring in social dramas with patriotic undertones.
When asked which genre does he find himself most comfortable in, Akshay, in a group interview, said, “If I say I feel comfortable in one genre, you will put a tag on me. I don’t want any kind of tag. I’ve come out of that game of tags when I used to do only action, I was bored. I never wanted the tag of an action hero.
“Even now I don’t want any tags. I’m very comfortable playing all kinds of genres. If anything new comes in, if it’s risky and fun, then I’d just go for it.”
The actor will be next seen in “Good Newwz”. The Raj Mehta-directed comedy also features Kareena Kapoor Khan, Kiara Advani and Diljit Dosanjh.
Backed by Karan Johar, “Good Newwz” follows two couples with the same surnames whose decision to opt for in-vitro fertilisation goes awry.
“This is a serious subject but with comedy. We have taken a lot of care in presenting it. At the same time, no one can say this hasn’t happened because it has. It’s an important subject to talk about,” he added.
“Good Newwz” is scheduled to be released on December 27.
Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor, who was on a break from Bollywood due to health reasons, is now back to the industry with his forthcoming flick, titled ‘Sharmaji Namkeen’.
Bankrolled by Excel Entertainment (Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar) in collaboration with MacGuffin Pictures (Honey Trehan and Abhishek Chaubey), the film mark as Rishi Kapoor’s first project post his return from the USA.
Taking to Twitter, Indian film critic and trade analyst, Taran Adarsh shared a picture of the team with the caption, “IT’S OFFICIAL… #RishiKapoor returns to films with #SharmajiNamkeen… Costars #JuhiChawla… Directed by Hitesh Bhatia… Produced by Excel Entertainment [Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar] in collaboration with MacGuffin Pictures [Honey Trehan and Abhishek Chaubey]”.
IT’S OFFICIAL… #RishiKapoor returns to films with #SharmajiNamkeen… Costars #JuhiChawla… Directed by Hitesh Bhatia… Produced by Excel Entertainment [Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar] in collaboration with MacGuffin Pictures [Honey Trehan and Abhishek Chaubey]. pic.twitter.com/yecljh63tR
Helmed by Hitesh Bhatia, the 67-year-old actor would be sharing screens with evergreen actor Juhi Chawla, who was last seen in the 2014 film ‘Gulaab Gang’. The two have previously collaborated in films like Daraar, Bol Radha Bol, Eena Meena Deeka, Saajan Ka Ghar and many more.
Onion prices have doubled and even tripled in many cities over the past few weeks, going for anything from Rs 60 to Rs 100 a kilogram, much to the dismay of consumers. The price of onions has become symbolic. Onion is an important part of the common man’s food. The increased prices have eaten into the budget of consumers and many have forsworn the beloved bulb for now. With onion prices skyrocketing, the usual blame game among political parties has begun. The rise in the onion prices has once again led to mud-slinging among political parties. Onions in India have been witnessing an upswing in their prices on a regular basis for quite a long time. It is welcome decision by our PM Modi government to swing into action by banning the export of onions and imposing stock limits on onion traders to prevent hoarding to artificially drive prices up. This is for the first time in the last 50 years the prices have gone up because of the irregular rains, which have destroyed the onion crops. Prices of essential commodities have generally been on the rise, thanks to a combination of factors, including repeated hikes in fuel prices and flood damage to crops.
Onions have hogged the headlines as a vegetable without substitute in Indian cuisines but consumers have been hit just as hard by the steady rise in the prices of all food items. Every time onion price hikes revisit the country, economists and policymakers debate as to what triggers the periodic upswing. In this scenario, the government needs to come up with something more than quick-fix solutions. Although inflation is good sign for rising economy but certain items should be kept out of this like common food items which is part of the main recipe of any meals. It is observed that the Jains and some Brahmins apt to avoid it. Though onion consumption varies in different parts of the country, it is commonly used for cooking, indeed to enhance the taste of an item. Roti with onions is the fasten food of the poor in the absence of green vegetables. The rise in onion prices comes at a turbulent time for the economy, which has slowed down. The continuous price rise has eaten largely into every body’s income except that of the rich. Instead of letting food grains rot in godowns, it must expand and strengthen the public distribution system as a way of providing food security for the poorer sections. It is also seen that Onion production in India is carried out mostly by small and marginal farmers and hence fiscally incapable of manipulating market supplies.
Inflation fight needs not just anti-hoarding measures, but reducing middleman control. Onion is an important part of the common man’s food. The government needs to deal with the hoarders firmly. Farmers are frustrated over the unpredictability of prices. Last year, due to a glut in production, onion prices dropped to one rupee a kilogram in some places, prompting some farmers to burn their crops in protest. If government data on onion production from the past five years is analysed, it can be seen that onion production in 2019 nearly halved in comparison to 2018. The uncontrolled price of onions is frustrating. Though its consumption varies in different parts of the country, it is commonly used for cooking, indeed to enhance the taste of an item. It is the common man who is forced to bear the brunt of the price rise. Indeed, a day may come when onions become as costly as gold jewellery. The common man is wondering whether the onion shortage is the result of excessive rain or whether it is a conspiracy of corrupt politicians and unscrupulous traders. There needs to be a consumer resistance. The price of onions might drop if people don’t buy it for some time. The government needs to stabilise prices. They should make storage facilities and set a minimum price for farmers, Unless the government puts an end to the export of foodstuff such as rice, dal, sugar and vegetables, Indians will continue to pay a high price for their daily meal.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
It was appalling to see a Rajya Sabha MP demanding the public lynching of the rapists of the veterinarian in Hyderabad. Lawmakers cannot normalize a crime like mob lynching by endorsing it especially at a time when it is plaguing the nation at large. The commoners have faith in the judiciary to render justice to the rape victims. Our democracy should not be reduced to a mobocracy.
Adrian David
Massive review without substance
As in the past, the change in chair is just causing delay in administration as Uddhav Thackeray is trying to make mole out mountain and it appears rather childish. This is due to insistence of the coalition partners. If Shiv Sena is going to act as a fact finding committee for the rest of the year, the state will go backward only. Already, BMC is suffering at the hands of Sena with its dialysis unit shut down and already claimed one victim. The Corporation failed to prevent dog menace and mosquito menace is causing number of malaria and dengue cases in the state. Even the BMC hospitals are ill equipped to treat serious cases. Why then this Kolaveri di to stop payments for all the developmental work. Both BMC and the state should not suffer under the hands of Sena.
Calicut Krishnan Ramani
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
Need, joblessness, frustration, stress and greed opens the doors to cyber crime. Social media is playing an emergent role in cyber crime this year. Not only does cyber crime leave a mark financially, but it also has a significant impact on an organization’s services, reliability, and reputation in the eyes of the public, shareholders, and even your own employees. Phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The same has recently happened with a Thane resident Ayman Khan, he was sent a link by an agency claiming to give him job. He provided them all the personal and bank details, with in no time his account was emptied. He is running pins to polls but detection of cyber crime takes a lot of time. In such crime, hacker’s e-mail directs the user to visit a web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers that the legitimate organisation already has. The website, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information. By spamming large groups of people, the phisher counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers legitimately. Cyber crimes in India almost doubled in 2017, according to statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
The data comes in the backdrop of India aspiring to become a trillion dollar digital economy. Interestingly, cyber crimes accounted for less than a percentage (0.43%) or 21,796 cases of a total of 50, 07,044 cognizable crimes in 2017. In 2019 these crimes have gone up by 20 per cent. When a crime happens, we all want cops to act swiftly but there are limitations. Cyber crimes against children and women account for about 30 per cent and are growing at 100 per cent every year. Phishing is also on the rise, little negligence and you get looted. Of late people have started reporting such crimes; in most case, the accused is known to the victim. Cases of cyber crimes have increased in the last five years. Significantly, the Centre has been focusing, during this period, on improving internet penetration in the country. Offenders are now using technology to get close to targets. From job traps to rapes to child trafficking to selling contraband (drugs) near schools and colleges, these predators befriend their targets mostly on social media. Most cases go undetected as multinational internet giants and social media companies refuse to share information with the police. In most cases, it takes a lot of time just to get the information as the police and cyber cell officials need to trace the IP addresses and get hold of the devices (laptops, computers, mobile phones etc), involved in the crime. In most cases, the IPs are located in some other country. Technology evolution and innovation make it more challenging to detect cyber crimes. Information sharing between countries and within the country needs to be strengthened. The low detection of cyber crimes is also due to lack of technical knowledge among the police staff and that there should be more training centres and courses so that they can upgrade themselves.
With the Centre scrambling to fortify India’s cyber operations amid growing warnings of malware attacks on personal and organisational devices, intelligence and cyber law experts have said much like crimes against women, India suffers from dismal under-reporting of cyber crimes. India recorded 9,622, 11,592 and 12,317 cases of cyber crime in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively. The data for 2017 comes after a two-year delay, with the Centre blaming states for the delay in providing statistics for compilation. With the Centre setting up the NIC-CERT–National Informatics Centre-Computer Emergency Response Team to combat cyber crimes and the Home Ministry proposing to set up the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), the government is hoping to beef up India’s cyber security network. The advancement of technology has made man dependent on Internet for all his needs. Internet has given man easy access to everything while sitting at one place. Social networking, online shopping, storing data, gaming, online studying, online jobs, every possible thing that man can think of can be done through the medium of internet. Internet is used in almost every sphere. With the development of the internet and its related benefits also developed the concept of cyber crimes. Cyber crimes are committed in different forms. A few years back, there was lack of awareness about the crimes that could be committed through internet. In the matters of cyber crimes, India is also not far behind from the other countries where the rate of incidence of cyber crimes is also increasing day by day. There are millions of websites; all hosted on servers abroad, that offer online gambling. In fact, it is believed that many of these websites are actually fronts for money laundering. Cases of hawala transactions and money laundering over the Internet have been reported. Whether these sites have any relationship with drug trafficking is yet to be explored.
The Recent Indian case about cyber lotto was very interesting. A man called Kola Mohan invented the story of winning the Euro Lottery. He himself created a website and an email address on the Internet with the address ‘eurolottery@usa.net.’ Whenever accessed, the site would name him as the beneficiary of the 12.5 million pounds. After confirmation, a Telugu newspaper published this as a news. He collected huge sums from the public as well as from some banks for mobilization of the deposits in foreign currency. However, the fraud came to light when a cheque discounted by him with the Andhra Bank for Rs 1.73 million bounced. Mohan had pledged with Andhra Bank the copy of a bond certificate purportedly issued by Midland Bank, Sheffields, London stating that a term deposit of 12.5 million was held in his name. This connotes the usage by an unauthorized person of the Internet hours paid for by another person. In May 2000, the Economic Offences Wing, IPR section crime branch of Delhi police registered its first case involving theft of Internet hours. In this case, the accused, Mukesh Gupta an engineer with Nicom System (P) Ltd. was sent to the residence of the complainant to activate his Internet connection. However, the accused used Col. Bajwa’s login name and password from various places causing wrongful loss of 100 hours to Col. Bajwa.
Delhi police arrested the accused for the theft of Internet time. On further inquiry in the case, it was found that Krishan Kumar, son of an ex army officer, working as a senior executive in M/s Highpoint Tours & Travels had used Col Bajwa’s login and passwords as many as 207 times from his residence and twice from his office. He confessed that Shashi Nagpal, from whom he had purchased a computer, gave the login and password to him. The police could not believe that time could be stolen. They were not aware of the concept of time-theft at all. The Commissioner of Police, Delhi then took the case into his own hands and the police under his directions raided and arrested Krishan Kumar under sections 379, 411, 34 of IPC and section 25 of the Indian Telegraph Act. In another case, the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police arrested a computer engineer who got hold of the password of an Internet user, accessed the computer and stole 107 hours of Internet time from the other person’s account. He was booked for the crime by a Delhi court during May 2000. Cops are solving the cases which are local and have some clues but from unknown attacks, one needs patience and cops need a lot of time and leg work. Only thing that can prevent you is be smart while sharing your details online.
(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)
An unemployed youth Ayman Khan residing in Balkum area of Thane district was duped for Rs 90,000 by a fake company named ‘Tata Group Of Companies’ which had lured to provide him job overseas. According to the complainant, he received an email from the said company on December 2 stating that “he is selected for an interview in Tata Group Of Companies for overseas job”.
Since the man was unemployed from past few months, he thought about applying for the job hence he replied on the email and followed instructions written on the email. The victim said after clicking on the given link it took him to a Google sheet where it asked for him to provide personal details like name, address, phone number, passport size picture, aadhar card copy and passport copy. Khan followed the procedure and submitted the details.
After submitting all the details, a person named Sandeep Singh called the victim claiming to be HR Manager of Tata Company. Subsequently, Singh asked Khan to provide his bank account name, IFSC code, branch name etc and told him to download quick team review application which generated a 10 digit unique ID. When Khan clicked on that link Rs. 90,000 were debited from his account instantly.
After the incident Khan approached Kapurbawdi police station in Thane and narrated the ordeal. However, as per the victim’s statement the police have forwarded the case to the Cyber Crime cell of Thane.
The victim contacted Afternoon Voice and disclosed about the fraudster incident which happened with him. He said, “It was the only saving I had from the past one year. When I approached the police station to file a complaint police failed to register FIR. I am worried that the accused might do identity theft or any other kind of cyber crime and criminal activity against me. I also contacted ICICI bank but they failed to cooperate with me.”
“The bank must help me get my money. It’s the moral and humanitarian responsibility and accountability of the bank to get that money recovered from the fraudster’s bank. I’ll approach the RBI if ICICI doesn’t help me. Fraudster’s bank must be held accountable and responsible for this fraudulent deed,” he added.
When AV spoke to the Senior Police Inspector and Investigation Officer Anil Deshmukh of Kapurbawdi Police Station he said, “We have registered a Cyber Crime case against unknown persons, in which the victim was scammed for Rs 90 thousand in bid for offering a job. These kinds of online frauds are difficult to investigate and also takes time. Still we are locating the IP addresses and the account details where the money is transferred.”
Fake job rackets and cyber crime are taking place very frequently. Even though the government, banks and police are making efforts to educate and to make aware people about the cyber crime and the harm of disclosing their banking details, there are rising crimes in India, the judiciary should take strong steps to eliminate such kind of crimes.
Queen of Bollywood Kangana Ranaut on Thursday paid homage to late former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on her third death anniversary.
The news is shared by Indian film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh. In the picture the 32-year-old actor was seen standing with folded hands in front of a garlanded picture of the late political leader.
Kangana will be essaying the role of south India’s beloved late politician in a biopic titled ‘Thalaivi’. A very intriguing teaser and poster for the much talked about Jayalalithaa biopic was released in the last week of November.
‘Thalaivi’ is directed by AL Vijay and is written by ‘Baahubali’ and ‘Manikarnika’ writer KV Vijayendra Prasad and ‘The Dirty Picture’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Mumbai’ movie writer Rajat Arora. The movie is set to hit theatres on June 26, 2020, in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil languages.
A 19-year old girl a resident of Mumbai allegedly raped by an employee of a hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan police said on Thursday. According to police, the victim was undergoing training as a part of her hotel management course in Jaipur.
As per the victim’s statement she went for a party which was hosted by her friends at that time the incident took place. Following which on Wednesday the survivor lodged a complaint at Kho Nagoriyan police station in Jaipur, claiming that the accused raped her in the vicinity of the hotel last week.
Police said, “She attended a party hosted by some friends in a club where the accused was also present. After the party, he took the girl to a place near the hotel, where he works, and allegedly raped her.”
Reportedly, police is investigating the matter, no arrest has been made so far. Further information is underway.
Alia Bhatt’s sister Shaheen Bhatt has confessed that she has been suffering from depression since her childhood days.
Opening up about her in an exclusive interview to a news agency, she said, I was diagnosed with clinical depression when she was just 12 years old.
In her book — ‘I’ve Never Been(un) Happier’ she has opened up about her struggle of battling with this mental disease.
“I have been living with depression since I was 12 years old and now it’s been 20 years with depression. The book is about my journey with depression and my experiences, how I have lived with it, gone through it and how I dealt with it and what I learnt from it.”
In reply to a question about depression, she said: “Just like you go to a doctor to treat diabetes, similarly you must go to a doctor to treat mental illness. There is a cure for it. It does not mean that you are crazy.”
Hollywood actor Emma Stone exchanged rings with longtime boyfriend, writer, and director Dave McCary in a low-key engagement ceremony, reported the Fox News.
McCary broke the news through his Instagram account with a picture of him and his beloved, where Stone was seen flaunting the ‘stone’ on her ring.
The Oscar-winning actor is yet to comment on or share the news through her personal social media handles.
Being the minimalist that he is, McCary kept it simple and used just a heart emoji to caption the happy picture of the couple which was soon flooded by wishes from fans and Hollywood celebrities.
Stone and McCary, who is a segment director cum writer on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ first sparked romance rumours in 2017 when they were seen together in New York City, where the show was shot.
In August 2018, Stone got candid about her relationship with McCary in an interview given to Elle magazine where she talked about her willingness to get married and have kids.
In his career of more than 25 years, Akshay Kumar has been called an action star, comic actor and a patriotic hero but the superstar believes he has slowly come out of all kinds of tags and would never want to be associated with one ever again.
Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor, who was on a break from Bollywood due to health reasons, is now back to the industry with his forthcoming flick, titled ‘Sharmaji Namkeen’.
Onion prices have doubled and even tripled in many cities over the past few weeks, going for anything from Rs 60 to Rs 100 a kilogram, much to the dismay of consumers. The price of onions has become symbolic. Onion is an important part of the common man’s food. The increased prices have eaten into the budget of consumers and many have forsworn the beloved bulb for now. With onion prices skyrocketing, the usual blame game among political parties has begun. The rise in the onion prices has once again led to mud-slinging among political parties. Onions in India have been witnessing an upswing in their prices on a regular basis for quite a long time. It is welcome decision by our PM Modi government to swing into action by banning the export of onions and imposing stock limits on onion traders to prevent hoarding to artificially drive prices up. This is for the first time in the last 50 years the prices have gone up because of the irregular rains, which have destroyed the onion crops. Prices of essential commodities have generally been on the rise, thanks to a combination of factors, including repeated hikes in fuel prices and flood damage to crops.
Lawmakers must not endorse mob lynching
An unemployed youth Ayman Khan residing in Balkum area of Thane district was duped for Rs 90,000 by a fake company named ‘Tata Group Of Companies’ which had lured to provide him job overseas. According to the complainant, he received an email from the said company on December 2 stating that “he is selected for an interview in Tata Group Of Companies for overseas job”.
Queen of Bollywood Kangana Ranaut on Thursday paid homage to late former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on her third death anniversary.
A 19-year old girl a resident of Mumbai allegedly raped by an employee of a hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan police said on Thursday. According to police, the victim was undergoing training as a part of her hotel management course in Jaipur.
Alia Bhatt’s sister Shaheen Bhatt has confessed that she has been suffering from depression since her childhood days.
Hollywood actor Emma Stone exchanged rings with longtime boyfriend, writer, and director Dave McCary in a low-key engagement ceremony, reported the Fox News.