Archives for November 2008

A while ago, we had informed you of PepsiCo India Holdings having appointed Kareena Kapoor as their new brand ambassador for its snack food products. However, it was unclear as to which sub-brand she would be promoting. Now finally the cat's out of the bag!

Kareena has been brought onboard as the new face for PepsiCo Snack Foods, particularly for its famous product Kurkure. However, Juhi Chawla who has been associated with the brand Kurkure for nearly five years will continue to be the face of the brand. Juhi and Kareena would together look at endorsing the entire portfolio, though the details haven't been chalked out.

Kareena, being the face of the young, Gen-Next India has been roped in to promote 'Kurkure Desi Beats'. In fact the TVC has Kareena playing a character similar to popular story book character 'Cinderella'. She is shown as the maid of the house, while her stepsisters have all the fun. The 'desi' twist in the story is when singer Ila Arun comes to the rescue as her godmother.

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B-town bold and beautiful couple John Abraham and his arm candy Bipasha Basu seem to be facing the rough weather. While the recession hit bollywood has forced hot bod John to go cool on his film fee, Bips is fighting the blues as she has been issued a ‘take it or leave it’ ultimatum by the filmmakers of ‘Lamhaa’.

 It seems that Bips royal rage is going to cost her some big moolah this time. The actress who had quoted a bomb for the film might not be a part of it anymore. According to reports, Bipasha’s walk out act has not gone down to well with the filmmakers who are now looking at other options to replace the hot siren.

Ever since the actress walked out of the film’s shooting in Kashmir, producer Bunty Walia and director Rahul Dholakia have been skeptical about Bips. So much so that the producer director duo are actively considering other ladies to play the lead. And to our shock, it’s the heavyweight actress Vidya Balan who is more likely to replace the sexy Bips.

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Deepika Padukone is a fast learner indeed the actress seems to have perfected the twisty diplomatic ways of B-town quite fast. The long legged lass, who gained an easy access to Bollywood’s A-list directors and actors courtesy her dream debut flick OSO opposite SRK, has now switched sides and is swearing by loyalties to ‘Kinng’ Akshay Kumar.

 The actress who will be seen in an all-new avatar in her upcoming flick opposite Akshay appears to be hell bent upon impressing Akshay. Even if she needs to ditch her godfather SRK, Dips seems to have no second thoughts about it. In a desperate attempt to allure Akki, the dusky beauty said, " I want to be the female Akshay Kumar".

The yet to be established actress, who until now had been an active member of the SRK camp, is much too smitten by Akshay’s irresistible macho charms. Speaking or rather gloating about how the ‘khiladi’ inspires her, Dips said, " It’s a once in a life time opportunity to do an action sequences with Akshay and I am glad I got that chance".

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Priyanka Chopra is on cloud nine after the superb success of ‘Fashion’ and ‘Dostana’. The sexy actress has gone into a hiding by choice after churning out six back to back releases this year and exhausting herself to the hilt.

 In an interview given to a news daily the actress gushed “I’m exhausted and really tired. I think I’ll go into hiding for six months till my next film releases which is almost in mid 2009 and that will be ‘Kaminey’”.

Though the actress will be shooting on and off for ‘Kaminey’ and ‘What’s Your Rashee?’ she will be taking some time off to rejuvenate as none of her flicks are lined up for release as of now. When asked about her unwinding plans, the actress said “There are a lot of things that I have been wanting to do since long, hopefully I’ll be able to try out some of them during this breather”.

In the meanwhile, the actress will be seen making a special appearance in Aditya Chopra’s Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’. “Not that I am going away or something like that, I am going to be pretty much around; it is just that I want to take it a little easy” is what the actress had to say when asked about her plans to go off track. Well with so much of hard work gone in, that is the least Priyanka can ask for, can’t she?

Get set to watch a never-before-seen scene on the ramp. At an upcoming fashion event in January, 24 former Indian beauty queens will reportedly walk the ramp and some of them will even perform on the occasion.

Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Dia Mirza, Zeenat Aman, Juhi Chawla, Sangeeta Bijlani, Meenakshi Sesadri and Diana Hayden are some of the names who have been approached to participate in the event. Some of them have already agreed and the last few deals will be finalised by mid-December.

This three-day event has been initiated by Reel Life Entertainment of film producer Vinay Sinha and United Multimedia of Mehul Choksey from the Gitanjali group and Sanjay Sharma.

Priti Shinoy of Reel Life Entertainment says, “This event will felicitate the Indian fashion industry.” She informs that their advisory panel comprising Kabir Bedi, Prahlad and Ashvini Kakkar, Ashok Salian, Ashok Pandit and others will formulate 26 different categories across all sectors in the fashion industry. And they will also shortlist four nominations from each category.

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Fans of  Sanjay Dutt can read about his eventful life in his autobiography, The Roar of a Lion, which he is now working on. “Sanjay Dutt’s autobiography is called The Roar of a Lion and it is almost half done,” a well-placed source in the film industry said here on Saturday, revealing the title that was the subject of much guesswork so far. The date for the book’s release has not been decided as Dutt is busy with his film schedules.

He had long been telling friends about his wish to pen an autobiography. When he told his wife Manyata about it, she backed him to the hilt. Meanwhile, Dutt’s filmmaker friend Sanjay Gupta too has commissioned a biography of the actor as a tribute to him.

To be penned by journalist, author and lyricist Neelesh Mishra, it will be in three volumes covering Dutt’s life in three phases.

The first volume will deal with the period when the star went into drug rehabilitation. The second volume will recount his marriage to Richa Sharma, their divorce and her tragic death, while the final volume will be about his legal battles, probation and life beyond all that.

In the month of September a 15 year boy named Nasir Sultan was arrested by the Border Security Force (BSF) of India.Nasir's crime was that he was from Pakistan and had crossed the Indian border illegally.

Subsequently he was put up in the juvenile jail at the Faridkot town in Punjab.The reason that propelled him to do the daring act was just a burning desire to see his favourite actor Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan and also participate in a TV reality singing contest.

Saying that he will come back in the evening, he had left his house on the morning of Auguest 14. Only after he landed up in the Jail, he called his parents to inform them of his condition.

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Among the south girls making their debut in Bollywood, the spotlight has been on Asin and her Ghajani. 
  The way the media has been going ga-ga over her has given the impression that she is going to be the next big star in Mumbai’s tinsel town.
 
But, before Asin makes a splash on Christmas day, the soft-spoken Sada, a one-time hot heroine of Kollywood who has acted in super hits like Jayam and Anniyan, will be seen making her debut in Bollywood. Actually, she was seen in the Hindi dubbing of Shankar’s film Aparachit, through which she got all the offers in Hindi. Sada’s first Hindi release has been titled Khallballi — Fun Unlimited, which will be releasing next Friday.
 
She is paired with Nikhil Dwivedi in this comedy caper. Says Sada, a Maharashtrian Muslim girl, “Khallballi is a laugh riot, and I’m really happy that I got to debut in a film which has 32 comedians including Chunkey Pandey, Johnny Lever and Rajpal Yadav. The music of the film by Sajid-Wajid is a chartbuster. Seeing the promos of the film, I have got so many offers coming my way.”

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Sushmita Sen, the diva of Bollywood celebrates her birthday on the 19th of November and Imagine Showbiz brings you a special treat, 'The Story So Far', where you get to see the mysteries of this true Scorpion unfold. She is popularly known as 'the woman of substance', stands 5 feet 8 inches tall, has revolutionized motherhood in India and made sarees the global attire. This week catch an exclusive episode that will take you through Sushmita's life.

This week 'The Story So Far', will embark on the journey of the multifaceted personality - Sushmita Sen. From winning the Miss Universe title at the young age of 18 to being a successful Bollywood actress, Sushmita has certainly come a long way.

 The talented actress is known for her powerful performances in films like Chingaari, Main Hoon Na, Filhaal and many more. The stunning actress juggles her professional and personal life with adopted daughter Reene with great panache. This Bengali babe surely knows how to re-invent herself as she turns director and producer with her upcoming movie 'Rani Laxmibai'.

Big bucks and stardom go hand in hand. If drawing huge salaries for movies and endorsements wasn’t enough, stars don’t mind that additional bit of income that comes from performing on stage shows. One of Bollywood’s hottest sensations, Bipasha Basu, too, appears to have joined this money-minting bandwagon.

The actress has been, reportedly, paid a stunning Rs 1.5 crore to perform for a mere 15 minutes on New Year’s eve at Mumbai’s Sahara Star Hotel.

How wild is that? Previously, fellow Bengali beauties Koena Mitra and Tanushree Dutt alongwith singer Mika lend in glamour with their characteristic jhatkas for a year-end special at Dancing on year-end events is nothing new for Bips.

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