Mumbai, Sep 5 :  After playing a role inspired by the Mahabharata's Duryodhan in "Rajneeti", Manoj Bajpai has lent his voice to the character of Ram in 3D animation film "Ramayana - The Epic". He says doing the voice-over for an animation film is far more difficult than acting.

Mumbai, Sep 5 : Known for doing intense roles, actor Sonu Sood plays a young politician in upcoming film "Dabangg". But he reveals that he was actually supposed to play the lead role, now being essayed by Salman Khan.

"The film was brought to me before Salman came on board. Initially I was supposed to do Salman's role of a cop... but when he decided to be a part of the film, I was offered the role of the youth politician that I'm now playing," Sonu told IANS in an interview.

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex has ended up with a decline of 17 points. As per the market experts, the hike in food inflation has pulled the index down.

Food inflation will create more pressure on RBI to go for a further rate hike. Sensex ended its final session down by 16.88 points and closed at 18,221.43 points. There has been a decline of 0.09 after today’s trading. So far as the week is concerned, Sensex has recorded a gain of 1.23% after the Friday trading.

Mumbai, Sep 3 : Actress Juhi Chawla, who has given voiceover for Sita's character in 3D animation film "Ramayana - The Epic", said she hasn't quit the film industry and will soon make an appearance in director Onir's "I AM".

"There may be gaps in between, but I am not going anywhere. I have a film called 'I Am'. It has four short stories and in one of the short stories called 'Medha', Manisha and I are playing the lead. It's Onir's film," Juhi told IANS. This will be her third film with Onir after "My Brother... Nikhil" (2005) and "Bas Ek Pal"(2006).

Mumbai, Sep 3: Legendary filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak's "Meghe Dhaka Tara" completes 50 years this year. Sadly, despite critics globally considering it to be one of a handful of most important films from India, the excitement is not palpable.

"The only retrospective of the film happened in Lincoln Centre in New York and another screening in Nandan in Kolkata," Ritaban Ghatak, Ritwik's son who is a filmmaker himself, told IANS.

During the month of July, exports expanded the lowest at 13.2 per cent. This figure shows the total exports that have happened till this year. In real terms the figure stood at $16.24 billion and the result for decline is the fragile recovery in the major markets of US and Europe.

For the first quarter of this fiscal, the figure had increased by 10 per cent. For July 2009, the exports were at $14.34 billion, as per the official figures.

For the individual months of April, May and June the export rate was at 36.2 per cent, 35.1 per cent and 30.4 per cent, respectively.

Film: "Anjaana Anjaani"; Music Directors: Vishal Dadlani-Shekhar Ravjiani; Lyricists: Neelesh Misra, Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Anvita Dutt Guptan, Caralisa Monteiro, Kumaar, Irshad Kamil and Kausar Munir; Singers: Nikhil D'Souza, Monali, Lucky Ali, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Shekhar Ravjiani, Caralisa Monteiro, Mohit Chauhan, Shruti Pathak, Vishal Dadlani and Shilpa Rao; Rating: *** 1/2

Mumbai, Aug 30 : What is common between Anwar Jamal and Prashant Pethe? They have made features and documentaries on farmers and do not believe that "Peepli Live" has much to do with the acute problems faced by India's farming community.

"'Peepli Live' is a film about the insensitive middle class, the media, politicians, etc. Nowhere is it a film about farmers. Where are the causes that lead to his condition, his problems with seeds, monsoon, pesticides, etc.? The real issues of farmers are never touched upon," says Jamal, director of the moving documentary "Harvest of Grief" on farmer suicides in Punjab.

An industry forum has been suggested by the maker of Blackberry handsets, Research In Motion, which would enquire into the matter of the requisite of legitimate right to access by the Indian security agencies to the encoded email and messaging services that come along with these smartphones. This measure came as the newest mode to prevent the obstruction of the services, by the Indian authorities, provided by Blackberry smartphones which comprises the swiftest developing telecom business in the world.

Indian ace shuttler and World No.2 Saina Nehwal was conferred upon with Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award here on Sunday for her sterling performance in Badminton this year.
 
Saina, however, could not attend the function due to her sports engagements abroad, as President Patil gave away Sports and Adventure Awards during a special ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhawan here today.

Satish Pillai (Athletics), Kuldeep Singh (Wrestling) and Anita Chanu (Weightlifting) were conferred Dhyan Chand Awards for the year 2010, for their contribution to sports by their performance and efforts to promote the sports.

The award carries a statuettes, citations and cash prize of Rs.500,000 each.

Ace Bollywood actor-director Aamir Khan has been roped in as the brand ambassador by the country top automobile company, Mahindra & Mahindra.

Mr. Perfectionist will be seen promoting the novel set of two-wheelers that are yet to be rolled out by the company.

Aamir's buffs have complete faith in him, and trust that he would not promote any fake thing.

It is already known that the star's promotion style is totally different, and his attachment with a brand raises its importance thousand times.

As the Monday morning kicked in and people started from their homes to their respective offices, heavy rains in the Capital arrived. While it bought a sigh of relief for many it also created a situation of chaos for many of the office goers.

And the result a majority of them decided to park their vehicles at the nearby metro station in order to ensure that they can reach their officer on time. In fact, similar has been the scenario for the rest of the week as well. For the uninitiated, with ridership crossing 13.5 lakh on Wednesday, the Delhi Metro is having a nice time due to the heavy rains in the Capital.

While there is a lot of speculation at the moment that the auto industry may not just be able to meet the high demand of the Indian consumer but the fact of the matter is, the auto majors in the country are gearing up to reach new skies.

On the one end, Maruti Suzuki is planning a new plant at its Manesar unit and on the other side; Toyota Kirloskar Motors has also showed some desire to add more capacity to the existing units.

New Delhi, Aug 26 : The Hindi box office will soon be laden with sequels like "Race 2", "Don 2" and the third instalments of "Dhoom", "Golmaal" and "Phoonk" as Bollywood walks in Hollywood's footsteps to make filmmakers feel secure and keep a captive audience in good cheer.

"It is a commercial decision. If something works and you can continue the same story, why not bring it back again with the same theme and energy?" Karan Johar told IANS.

On the one end, the large players in the Indian IT circuit are growing by leaps and bounds but for the first time in the past two years, second-tier IT vendors are not sharing the same optimism as their larger counterparts about a recovery in demand for IT services.

It is to be mentioned here that country's top technology firms including Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies and Wipro grew their revenues in double digits.

There is no denying the fact that the Delhi legislators have limited powers are compared to their counterparts in the other states but if the proposed hike in Delhi MLA salaries gets cleared by the Assembly, it will catapult them to the top 5, along with states like Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat and J&K.

As the Hoteliers are expecting a surge in demand as the Common Wealth Games are nearing in, many major players are planning to increase room tariffs by 10-15 % from September as they expect occupancies to improve with the onset of the key winter season.

While the comes with a hope that it will help them recover from the slowdown that hit Indian hotels two years ago, it may be noted here that Indian hotels traditionally increase rates before the crucial winter season every year.

Hero Honda Motors, which makes close to half the motorcycles sold in India has recently said that it believes that a further rate hike in pricing levels may take its own toll from the company.

In fact, Ravi Sud, Chief Financial Officer, Hero Honda Motors recently said that the demand will start to tumble in the second half of this year. It is to be mentioned here that company plans to boost production about
8.7% in the year ending March 2011 to more than five million motorcycles and scooters compared with a 23% increase last fiscal year.

Mumbai, Aug 24 : Kajol doesn't believe in rakhi as she feels "bonds are made from the heart". And the actress says filmmaker Karan Johar is more than a brother to her.

"The definition of a friend is somebody you choose and not somebody you are born with really. I think Karan is my friend for centuries and generation and lifetime I feel. I always felt that connection with him. He is more than a brother. It's a unique fantastic friendship that I am very grateful to have in my life," Kajol told IANS.

The distance between the Bollywood bad man Salman Khan and ace director Sooraj Barjatya has finally been bridged.

Sallu Miyan, who was named as 'Prem' in Barjatya's earlier 3 films made under Rajshri Productions banner, has been roped in for a lead character in the upcoming flick.

The sources said that the actor has already been picked by Sooraj for a small role in his film 'Love You Mr. Kalakaar'.