With just a few days left for the 1995 blockbuster “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” (DDLJ) to complete 1000 weeks, a book titled “Aditya Chopra relives Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” as told to author Nasreen Munni Kabir has been launched.

The book is a personal story of the phenomenally popular film that turned the tide of Hindi cinema in the 1990s.

Chopra, who made his directorial debut with the Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol-starrer, traces the journey that led to the making of the film, read a statement.

He has discussed his influences, shared insights on cinema, and provided details about how he went about making the movie that changed his life and that has now become part of the lives of audiences across generations.

With pages full of unknown information and anecdotes about DDLJ in the words of its director, as told to Kabir, this book is illustrated with many rare and unseen images.

Kabir is known for writing books like "Guru Dutt: A Life in Cinema", "Talking Films and Talking Songs with Javed Akhtar", "A.R. Rahman: The Spirit of Music" and "Lata Mangeshkar: In Her Own Voice".

Actress Pooja Bedi and Ramanand Sagar's granddaughter Meenakshi have filed complaints against each other after their daughters fought in a pub.

"I have lodged an FIR against Meenakshi Sagar and her daughter Sakshi for harassing, intimidating, threatening, abusing and speaking derogatorily about my daughter Aalia, me, my late mother (Protima Bedi), my ex-husband (Farhan Ebrahim Furniturewala) on SMS, recorded telephonic conversations and across social media, which is a criminal offence," Pooja told IANS.

Pooja filed the FIR Tuesday. Meenakshi too has filed a complaint.

The complaint was filed after Pooja's 17-year-old daughter Aalia and Saakshi, also 17, fought at Tryst Pub Nov 28. While Aalia was celebrating her birthday with friends, Saakshi was at the pub with her mother and her friend.

Later Pooja and Meenakshi fought too.

When asked about the incident, Meenakshi told IANS: "I am not allowed to talk about this case as it is in the court."

Actor Barun Sobti, who enjoys a huge female fan base, was in for a surprise when one of his admirers asked him to marry her.

Barun shot to fame as Arnav Singh Raizada in “Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon”. He is now ready to sizzle on the big screen with his upcoming movie “Main Aur Mr Riight”, set to release this month.

If reports are to be believed, a young girl from a small town came all the way to meet Barun and proposed to him. And it was a romantic proposal with a bouquet of roses, a cute photograph of the duo and a handmade card.

“Barun was completely taken aback with the girl. He made sure he accepted her gifts and gave her a hug also returning her love with a small gift,” said an onlooker.

The fan was not happy with just a hug and insisted on marrying him. It was only when Barun, who got married to Pashmeen Manchanda in 2010, told her about his "happily married" life, that she retreated.

The first edition of Mirchi Music Awards Punjabi was announced here Wednesday. The awards aim to honour artistes from both the film and non-film categories of the Punjabi music industry.

Song of the year, album of the year, male vocalist of the year, female vocalist of the year, music composer of the year and lyricist of the year are some of the important awards that will be given Dec 14 at a mega event in Jalandhar.

To ensure that the entire judging process is fair and transparent, it is done through secret voting, managed by audit firm Ernst & Young.

Over 1,800 Punjabi songs were judged by jury members, including those of Charanjit Ahuja, Rajiee Shinde, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Malkit Singh, Shamsher Singh Sandhu, Jaspinder Narula and Sachin Ahuja.

Mirchi Music Awards are organised by Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM and recognise multiple languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

"For the encouragement of Punjabi music artistes, it is important to have such awards," Charanjit told reporters.

Babu Singh Maan said: "We have gone from 16 songs a year to 1,800 songs in a year, which is a great achievement."

A fashion summit, to be organised by CII-Young Indians in the city Saturday, will highlight the rich Oudh fashion culture and connect it with the global fashion industry.

Titled Pehnawa - The Oudh Fashion Culture, the summit aims at taking the legacy to the next level by promoting and unleashing the latent ability of the state designers and production houses to innovate, reach out and meet the international standards of skills and create a new benchmark.

"Uttar Pradesh has a long untold story behind the present day state-of-the-art innovations and success of the Indian and global fashion industry," says Gaurav Prakash, founder chair of CCI-YI.

Prakash said that the world famous chikankari, zardozi work and achkan, gharara, angarkha, and do palli topi are some of the finest and rarest examples of creativity and fashion from the land of Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb and that the idea of the summit was to "take ahead the legacy and brighten the aura of such rich heritage".

"It is very important to bring a paradigm change in positioning the state as a Fashion Hub to attract investments and partnerships for converting the outputs of regions existing creativity into economic benefits to states and taking it to the global market," said the official.

At the summit, renowned designers like Rina Dhaka, Sandeep Khosla, Naina Ahmad, Darshana Shah and Manju Hundekar would participate in a panel discussion.

Dimple Yadav, MP from Kannauj and wife of state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, will be the chief guest at the event.

Actress Taapsee Pannu's Urdu accent helped her in getting a role in the much-awaited action thriller “Baby”.

The 27-year-old, who made her Bollywood debut with “Chashme Baddoor”, got excited when director Neeraj Pandey approached her for a role in his film “Baby” because of her talent.

The “Special 26” director was searching for an actress whose dialect in Urdu was crisp and clear and finally his search ended at Taapsee.

“All Neeraj asked me to do was to read a few lines which had quite a few Urdu words and phrases. Being a Punjabi girl, people expect me to have a north Indian influence in my speech, but to his surprise I managed decently well I guess,” Taapsee said in a statement.

The espionage movie, which stars superstar Akshay Kumar in the lead role, Madhurima Tuli, Rana Daggubati, Danny Denzongpa and Anupam Kher, will hit the theatres Jan 23.

Film: "Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain"; Cast: Martin Sheen, Raajpal Yadav, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Mischa Barton and Kal Penn; Director: Ravi Kumar; Rating: ****

They say all you get from love is a love song. Disasters, man-made or otherwise, too can face a similar destiny. All we really get from disasters are disaster movies. Some that shake and stir. Others that move and change lives.

Ravi Kumar’s melodramatic recreation of the Bhopal gas tragedy, said to be the worst industrial disaster in the history of civilization, has an instant and lasting chemical reaction.

While familiarising new generations with the enormity of the calamity which claimed and maimed thousands of lives during one December night in 1984, the short and slick film also puts forward the theory of arrogant hegemony practised by US on poor countries.

There are portions of the narrative where we watch the proceedings with a feeling of dread and stupefying horror. The ironical logistics of making a quaint Indian city a dumping ground for the American Dream, is not lost on us. The narrative never slackens. Its vice-like grip on the moral dilemma of a town stricken by a desperate economic recession.

The director laces the dialogues between Union Carbide personnel (white and brown skinned) and the unsuspecting naive workers, with dollops barbed cynicism. The dialogues are strongly redolent of the stench that imperialistic forces spread in the Third World.

Yet ironically, this film depicts the small-city India that the Westerners who adored "Slumdog Millionaire" love to gaze at: a kindly Chaplinesque rickshaw-wallah (Raajpal Yadav) and his doting wife (Tannishtha Chatterjee),a wedding in their family juxtaposed with the disaster striking the town ....a slimy journalist (Kal Penn, in excellent form) who discovers unplumbed depths of integrity during the crisis, a pretty foreigner journalist (Mischa Barton, role unfinished), adorable little peasants running around doing errands for the privileged classes....It’s all there, packaged in a glorious display of wealth stealth and exploitation.

While the performances are uniformly convincing, with true actors like Raajpal, Tannishtha, Kal Penn, Fagun Thakrer, Joy Sengupta and Vinit Kumar blending fluently into the bleeding fabric, it’s Martin Sheen who towers above the entire cast. He brings to his role of the Carbide killer elements of motivational integrity that make the monster humane yet unpardonable.

The film is at times deeply engaging in its exposition on nature and human avarice. The characters form an integral part of the narrative. If anything, you wish they would get more space to grow in the plot. Director Ravi Kumar hurls forward in the quest of a closure to a story that defies all culmination.

"Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain" leaves us with feeling of a deep longing for the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy, and for the victims of imperialism anywhere at any time.

Come to think of it, while the victims of the tragedy in Bhopal await justice, the only good thing to come out of the tragedy is this haunting dramatic film. Not to be missed.

Independent filmmaker Prashant Nair's "Umrika" has been officially selected in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, which will take place Jan 22-Feb 1, 2015.

The festival unveiled list of movies in the US and World Cinema Competition slates Thursday.

"Umrika", which features "Life of Pi" fame Suraj Sharma, is about a young village boy who discovers that his brother, long believed to be in the US, has actually gone missing. He begins to invent letters on his behalf to save their mother from heartbreak, all the while searching for him.

"Umrika" is jointly produced by Manish Mundra ("Ankhon Dekhi") and Swati Shetty.

This is Nair's second feature film after the critically acclaimed "Delhi in a Day".

Filmmaker Kunal Kohli, who will make his acting debut with "Phir Se", says he is enjoying as well as learning on the sets of the upcoming film.

To be directed by Kohli himself, the movie also stars Jennifer Winget of “Saraswatichandra” fame.

“Enjoying n learning every day on set in my new avatar as an actor, helps to have talent like @jenwinget as my co-star,” Kohli tweeted Thursday.

“Today the super talented choreographer Raju Khan joined us. Worked with him on ‘Hum Tum’, enriching working with him as an actor this time,” he added.

The cast and crew of the upcoming movie is currently filming in London.

Fashion designer Gaurav Gupta has come up with an exclusive collection for e-commerce site Jabong. The designs are an attempt to make couture accessible to the fashion forward women across India.

Gaurav Gupta Tribe for Jabong is curated keeping in mind the designer’s signature runway pieces, including the draped sari and 3D embellishment detailing. The draped saris have Greek pleating, brooches on the shoulder and are paired with stylised blouses.

With the designs, Gupta has not only tried to give a modern twist to the traditional silhouettes like the anarkali and the lehenga but will also expand his brand's reach with online space.

“The world is changing and for businesses to grow, online space cannot be ignored. Everyone is shopping online now, and it’s not just the youth that shops online," Gupta said in a statement.

“When they (the Jabong team) approached us for an exclusive line, it was an exciting opportunity for us to expand the reach of our brand and also to have a successful, meaningful and long-term relationship with Jabong itself,” he added.

The collection took the designer over three months to research, develop, and finish with minute details. The ensembles are priced between Rs.12,500 to Rs.19,000.

Southern film actor Rana Daggubati, who is working with director Neeraj Pandey for the first time in "Baby", is impressed with the way the latter visualises cinema and hails him as a "comfortable taskmaster".

Sharing his experience of working with the "Special 26" director, Rana said: "He is a very comfortable taskmaster. He is very clear about what he wants on the screen. We get him quite easily in terms of the way he explain things."

Rana, who made his Bollywood debut with 2011 release "Dum Maaro Dum", will be seen in a pivotal role in "Baby", which will hit the theatres Jan 23 next year. For the film, he has shot some daredevil stunts with actor Akshay Kumar.

"It was a lot of fun working with him and it was smooth," Rana said.

Besides Akshay, "Baby" also features Anupam Kher, Danny Denzongpa, Rana Daggubati, Kay Kay Menon, Taapsee Pannu and Madhurima Tuli.

At a time when actors are leaving no stone unturned to portray their onscreen character with conviction, actress Chitrangada Singh says she won't shave off her tresses for any role, but only for something meaningful.

"I have cut my hair for a role in a movie where I played a corporate person. But I won't go bald for fun. The role has to be that good and exciting. It has to be amazing and different," the actress told IANS over phone from Mumbai.

Chitrangada has maintained a likeable blend between serious and commercial cinema with movies like "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi", "Desi Boyz", "Inkaar" and "I, Me Aur Main". The actress said that oiling is behind the health of her long mane.

"For me, oiling has always been very important. I make it a point to do it twice a month. Other than that I emphasise on using good shampoo, conditioner and some times hair packs," she said.

The actress recently launched Livon's Moroccan Silk Serum along with actress Soha Ali Khan.

Praising the product, she said: "My personal experience is that it doesn't make your hair, even if you have styled them, go flat. It also keeps the hair texture very light."

However, Chitrangada, 38, also noted that celebrities are not spared from bad hair days.

She said, "You can't do much on a bad hair day. I usually make a ponytail on such days."

At present, Chitrangda is busy preparing for Kushan Nandy's "Babumoshai Bandookbaaz".

Photographer-turned-filmmaker Jayesh Seth, making his directorial debut with "Roll Sound Camera Action", is planning to make a film inspired by former actress Mamta Kulkarni's life but says that it is not a biopic.

He is considering Sunny Leone to essay the actress on the screen, but has not approached her yet.

"I want to clarify that my film is inspired by Mamta's life, but it is not a biopic at all," Seth told IANS.

Last month, Mamta, the lead actresses of films like "Karan Arjun" and "China Gate", hogged the limelight when it was reported that she was detained in Kenya with husband Vijay Goswami. The couple has reportedly been charged with drug trafficking.

"I have almost finished my script. In fact, I started writing the script even before Mamta's news came up. The first name that struck me who can play Mamta was Sunny Leone, but I haven't approached her so far.

"I have few other names as well, let's see how things shape up. I will start shooting for the film from early 2015."

Seth claims that he knew Mamta and her family and adds that she was very ambitious.

"I knew Mamta from day one. She was so new to the industry and she used to come with her mother and sister for shoots. She was from that typical Maharashtrian family. Her life has inspired me a lot as she was very innocent, ambitious, and wanted to take short cuts.

"She worked with top stars and suddenly there was a drastic change in her life. Since 1995 we lost touch," said Seth.

Evelyn Sharma who is currently shooting in Malaysia for her new film with Sunny Leone and Ram Kapoor "Kuch Kuch Locha Hai" seems to have found a new fan!

The whole KKLH team is very active on social media and Ram (@RamKapoor) recently tweeted "Big shout out to @evelyn_sharma for being soooooo much fun to work with...what a crazy sense of humor...and she's a HOTTI too...you go girl!"

Muting the rumours of cat-fights between actresses, even her sexy co-star Sunny seems to be in awe of the newbie as she gave Ram's praise an impromptu retweet!

While Ram is supposed to be playing a rich Gujarati businessman and Sunny a famous film star, the role of Evelyn in the movie has been kept tightly under wraps. Saving the best for last?

The makers of Tamil fantasy drama starring superstar Vijay, which is tentatively titled "Vijay 58", are reportedly planning to release the film in Hindi as well because it features Bollywood diva Sridevi in a prominent role.

"The team is planning to release the film in Hindi as well. Everybody felt that since Sridevi madam is part of the project, it would make sense to release the film in Hindi as well. Nothing has been confirmed yet but talks are definitely on," a source from the film's unit told IANS.

Sridevi is playing the mother of actress Hansika Motwani in the film, which also features Kannada superstar Sudeep.

Being directed by Chimdudevan, the film is currently on floors here. The lead actors recently trained in sword-fighting to shoot some action sequences.

As “Paa” completed five years, megastar Amitabh Bachchan thanked director R. Balakrishnan for coming up with an “innovative creativity”.

The movie, which released Dec 4, 2009, shows the relationship of a politician (played by Abhishek Bachchan) with his son (essayed by Amitabh), who suffers from a disease that causes him to age rapidly.

“'PAA' released today (Thursday) 5 years ago!!! Thank you Balki for this 'innovative' creativity.. NOW... 'SHAMITABH'... booommbaa!!” Amitabh tweeted.

The duo’s next offering is "Shamitabh", which also features Dhanush and marks the Bollywood debut of southern superstar actor Kamal Haasan's daughter Akshara. The film is expected to hit the screens Feb 6, 2015.

Actress-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt is off to Kolkata for her next venture “Cabaret”.

“Off to Kolkata with Anshuman Mahaley & Kaustav Niyogi to finalise locations for @CabaretTheFilm A trip for the senses in more ways than one!” she tweeted Friday.

The film stars Richa Chadha and former cricketer Sreesanth.

Telugu filmmaker Dharma Teja is keen to rope in Shweta Basu Prasad, who was recently caught in an alleged' prostitution scandal, for his next film.

He already has a role for her, but is yet to approach the "Makadee" actress.

"Shweta is a very talented actress. I have a role for her in my next film. I would like her to play it but I'm yet to approach her," Teja told IANS.

Teja plans to approach her once he's done with the script.

Shweta, who was last seen in the 2012 Telugu film "Nuvvekaddunte Nenakkadunta", has also worked in films such as "Kotha Bangaru Lokam" and "Kalavar King".

Reportedly, she has currently taken up a job at Phantom Films, which belongs to filmmaker Anurag Kashyap.

Impressed by Aftab Shivdasani's comic skills, Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures has signed him for their upcoming films.

He will be seen in the third instalment of “Kyaa Kool Hain Hum” franchise along with Tusshar Kapoor and Krushna Abhishek.

"Aftab did impeccably in ‘Masti’ and ‘Grand Masti’. He has brilliant comic timing, required for a blockbuster comedy franchise like ‘Kyaa Kool...’," Balaji Motion Pictures' CEO Tanuj Garg said in a statement.

"In fact, we plan on casting him in some of our other films too,” he added.

Aftab, who entered Bollywood with “Mr. India” (1987) as a child artiste, was last seen in the hit adult comedy “Grand Masti” (2013).

Designer Nidhi Munim launched her exclusive swimwear collection titled - Streaky Stripes - on e-commerce site Jabong. The highpoint of the range is that it will suit all body types.

"From statement one piece to sexy high waist bottoms, I have designed it all to suite every beach body," the designer said in a statement.

"Beach beauties will love the cute and classy play suits when soaking up the sun. Talk about two pieces, must-have monokonis and trikinis, here’s everything a fashionista will wish for,” she added.

The USP of the range is that all products have unique detailing such as sheer paneling, draping or embellishments. Also, each product has been handcrafted with exquisite finish.

The price of the collection starts at Rs. 2,000.