Jayalalithaa urges Kerala to abide by Supreme Court order

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Thursday requested her Kerala counterpart Oommen Chandy to ensure that his government abides by the apex court order allowing the water storage level at Mullaperiyar Dam to be raised to 142 feet.

Replying to Chandy’s letter dated Dec 1, 2011, the text of which was released here to the media, Jayalalithaa said: “May I take this opportunity to request you to kindly ensure that the Government of Kerala abides by the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, which has taken into consideration all the safety aspects of the dam and allow the water level to be raised to 142 feet?”

While agreeing with Chandy’s views that Tamil Nadu and Kerala have mutual interests and co-operation on various fronts and they should be fostered, she said: “I would like to take this opportunity to bring to your notice unwarranted provocations from across the border and also our anxieties on the fear psychosis generated in Kerala.”

She said the apex court after considering the report of the expert committee formed by the central government ordered “raising of level of storage in the Mullai Periyar Dam to 142 feet”.

Jayalalithaa said the Kerala government amended the Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservation Act 2003 in 2006 there by nullifying the apex court order.

She said the Empowered Committee under the chairmanship of the former chief justice of India A.S. Anand is looking into dam safety.

“The Government of Tamil Nadu had carried out a series of measures from 1980 to 1994 on the recommendations of the Chairman, Central Water Commission, to strengthen the dam and after all these measures have been carried out, the retrofitted Mullai Periyar Dam is as good as new. The Supreme Court of India had also factored this in while pronouncing its judgment in 2006, allowing Tamil Nadu initially to store water up to 142 feet,” the letter notes.

She said a series of studies/tests such a scanning the upstream face of the dam, testing of cable anchors, non-destructive tests have been conducted and some are in progress.

In response to Chandy’s reference in his letter to the 22 tremors in the last four months, Jayalalithaa said: “As per the Indian Meteorological Department data, there have been only four mild tremors in the last four months, that too far away from the vicinity of the Mullai Periyar Dam site, which did not have any effect on the seepage in the dam.”

“The seepage of the dam is well within the permissible limits as per the Indian Standards Code. The possibility of tremors of even medium magnitude does not exist in the Mullai Periyar Dam site. The possibility of the Mullai Periyar Dam breaching due to flood waters and collapsing is not logical since all eventualities have been factored in during the strengthening of the dam,” the letter notes.

Jayalalithaa stressed that informed decision making at the the government level should be based on reason rather than extraneous factors and one should guard against unfounded fears overtaking reason and ground realities.

Mullaperiyar dam facts by PWD

MullaiPeriyar Dam History & Technical Details by PWD Engineers

THE DIRTY PICTURE REVIEW

THE DIRTY PICTURE REVIEW

by J Hurtado, December 3, 2011 2:00 AM

DRAMA, MUSICAL, SOUTH ASIA

If there is any justice in this world, The Dirty Picture will do for Vidya Balan what Raging Bull did for Robert DeNiro. Balan owns this film so completely that it seems to collapse under it's own facade whenever she's off screen, which thankfully isn't much. The Dirty Picture is one of the best mainstream Hindi films of 2011, and Balan's performance supplants Priyanka Chopra's turn in 7 Khoon Maaf as the breakout dramatic performance of the year.  When The Dirty Picture is on its game, the film lights up an audience like few I've seen, however, it descends intermittently into soap opera melodramatics and that keeps it from being a truly great film, leaving it in the realm of the merely very good.

The story of a country girl breaking the chains that bind her to her rural upbringing and looking for success on the big screen is not a new one.  It's been told in Hollywood many times, however, this story played out for real in the south Indian film industries in the 1980's with the real life Silk Smitha. Silk's tragic tale is illustrated capably by director Milan Luthria, who struggles with an uneven script from Rajat Arora. The rise of this big screen siren is nearly as meteoric as her sudden fall from grace. The dichotomy could probably have been handled better, but the film chooses to address it in the most common of ways.

The first half of the film shows Silk's running away from home and beginning her career as the sexiest and raunchiest of item girls. The pre-intermission arc provides lots of laughs and generates lots of goodwill toward the commoner Silk as she crawls through the muck to land on top of the heap.  Helping, and sometimes hurting, her ascent is Naseeruddin Shah as Surya, an aging south Indian film hero from the one place left on Earth where the idea of an anti-hero hasn't yet caught on.  Yet, for all of his forthrightness on screen, he's kind of a creep in real life.  However, his relationship, on and off screen, with Silk provides for some of the finest on-screen moments for the both of them. Shah is a brilliant actor, and even though he's here to lampoon a certain style of acting and filmmaking in general, he never tips his hand.

Vidya Balan's transformation from the country girl Reshma to Silk the sex bomb is definitely worthy of note.  In the first half of the film, she proves that she's willing to do anything to become a star, much to the chagrin of a director with international ambitions played by Emraan Hashmi. As Silk rises, Hashmi's Abraham plots her downfall, and in the second half of the film, we see his plans begin to gel. The film takes a very dark turn as Silk turns to the drink and allows her ego to get the best of her. While her out of control pride leads to one of the best songs in the film in the form of a dance off with the new flavor of the week at a party, it's all downhill from there.

I could spend more time talking about Shah, Hashmi, and Tusshar Kapoor, the third man in Silk's life, but that's all just a smoke screen for this film's real raison d'etre. Vidya Balan is astounding in this film, and Milan Luthria, even though he can't quite seem to get a handle of his own film's dialogue at times, knows exactly what he's doing when Balan's on screen. She oozes sex in a way that Indian actresses don't.  Indian films are all about the tease and implication, but Vidya Balan, and the real life Silk Smitha, were all about seduction and raw, raunchy sexuality in a way that audiences of both sexes lapped up.

Silk Smitha didn't look like a typical Indian film star, either, she had some meat on her bones, and Vidya Balan gained about 25 lbs for the role, all of which are on display throughout the course of the film. One thing that I didn't notice at the time, but became more obvious as the film wore on was that the weight was always there, but for the first half of the film, Vidya was shot in such a way that it was extremely sensual and she looked bountiful and gorgeous.  However, as she began to crash, her posture took a nose dive, and what was sensual and curvy became lumpy. I've never seen any actress in an Indian film willfully look the way that Balan looks in The Dirty Picture, and it was all 100% intentional.  She uses her attitude, her dress, her affect, and even her posture to convey this complicated and conflicted character that required a lot more than most actresses would be willing to deliver.

Where the film stumbles is when it veers away from Vidya.  When the camera isn't on her, Luthria doesn't seem to quite know what to do.  Characters deliver long soliloquies to no one in particular, the scenarios move from homage to farce, and the actors seem to lose focus.  On several occasions, actors deliver lines of philosophical mumbo jumbo to the camera for no reason at all.  In fact, Vidya's only questionable moment in the film comes in the scene immediately before intermission when she accepts an award and goes on a rant to the audience that is not necessarily out of character, but very out of step with her performance as a whole.

The Dirty Picture succeeds because of Vidya Balan in the finest acting performance of the year out of India. She is able to overcome the clumsy writing to make her character sympathetic and the film incredibly engaging. The melodrama drags down the second half, but Balan's charisma keeps the audience from drifting in a way that requires a true and powerful talent.  This film offers big laughs, fantastic spectacle, big emotions, and a powerhouse performance from a brave and exciting actress. The Dirty Picture is a winner, and with the help of a good editor, could probably even make the art house rounds if it wanted to. However, I'll take Bollywood with all of its faults and excesses any day, and this is quality Bollywood. 

Aishwarya Rai blessed with a baby girl

Aishwarya Rai arrives at the Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai

After the big announcement made by Amitabh Bachchan about Ash’s pregnancy on Twitter, a moment of bigger announcement has finally arrived! The sparkling beauty Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan today became proud parents of a baby girl. The baby was born at the private Seven Hills Hospital in the western Mumbai suburb of Andheri on Wednesday morning.

Proud grandfather, Bollywood legend Amitabh, tweeted his joy at the new arrival: “A dada ji (a grandfather)…Ecstatic!”, calling his new granddaughter “the cutest baby girl”. Post the big news Twitter has been flooded with wishes for the Bachchan family and Amitabh was quick to that all his friends and well-wishers for their wishes.

Hospital sources said the delivery was normal and the mother and the baby were doing fine. Aishwarya Bachchan checked into the Seven Hills Hospital in Marol, a north-western suburb of Mumbai, on Monday night. The Bachchans chose a suburban hospital for the delivery, side stepping the more popular celebrity choices such as the Breach Candy Hospital, presumably to avoid media glare. Aishwarya, developed labour pains around 4 a.m. and was taken to the labour room where the delivery took place after nearly six hours.

Often called the “queen of Bollywood”, Aishwarya, 38, married Abhishek, 35, in 2007, forging the ultimate Bollywood dynasty and rumours about her pregnancy had been doing the rounds ever since.

Ash’s pregnancy grabbed the headlines since June when Amitabh Bachchan announced the pregnancy of his daughter-in-law. The bookies had been betting on the possible day of the arrival of Aishwarya’s baby. First, it was speculated that the Bachchans would go for C-section delivery for the baby to be born on the unique date of 11.11.11. But that was strongly denied by the Bachchan family. According to reports, bookies had bet 1.5 billion rupees (around $30m) on whether Aishwarya would deliver on 11 November or not. Then it was hoped that the child would come on November 14, the Children’s Day.

sneha prasanna love

Prasanna explains how he fell for Sneha’s charms

Close on the heels of revealing that he andSneha are likely to get engaged in the near future, actor Prasanna has explained about the how he fell for Sneha. “Sneha is a nice person to move with. She is very simple, practical and outspoken in her approach. These qualities in her impressed me a lot and I wanted to have her as my life partner. That’s what I fell for.

During the making of Achamundu Achamundu which had us starring together, we only shared professional relationship at the beginning. As the film’s shooting drew to a close, I found myself getting attracted by her various traits. Though she is a good actress, she never had any starry airs around her and behaved in a very simple manner with all the co-actors, crew and technicians.

“I wanted Sneha to remain by my side throughout my life time. We were in love with each other for the past three-and-a-half years. We didn’t rush it up and instead took time out to know each other completely. We discussed a lot, debated, thought about the pros and cons of our marital life and then only decided to get married.

“As a token of my love of her, I gave her a saree which she said she liked very much. As a ‘return gift’, she also presented to me a costly wrist-watch. I then presented an i-pod to her on her birthday. Now that the parents of both our families have given their consent for the marriage, it would soon be held and would be preceded by the engagement,”says Prasanna.

Interestingly enough, Sneha hasn’t yet said anything about the affair. Prasanna said that he would soon be addressing the press jointly with her.

7aum Arivu Movie Review

7aum Arivu Movie Review :Fails to Live upto Hype

7AUM ARIVU MOVIE REVIEW

Cast: Suriya, Shruthi Haasan, Johnny Tri Nguyen, Ramanathan
Production:Udhayanidhi Stalin
Direction: A.R. Murugadoos
Music: Harris Jayaraj
Cinematography: Ravi K. Chandran
Stunt: Peter Hein

Amidst mass commercial Tamil cinema where the hero behind villain and the heroines run around trees romancing the hero, comes 7aum Arivu. The Ghajini team comprising Suriya, director Murugadoss, Harris Jayaraj, and Peter Heincome together for a movie with a different theme. A sci-fi thriller which is a rarity in Tamil cinema.

However the biggest question now is whether the movie lives up to all hype and hoopla? Only in parts would be the answer. The movie begins with loads of promise and slowly become predictable and ends like any other mindless masala movie.

STORY LINE

The movie speaks about Pallava prince Bodhi Dharman (Suriya), who ventured to China in sixth century AD. He won a name for himself in China for his healing touch and propagating Tamil martial arts, which was later developed as Kung Fu. After his demise, he is worshipped as Tao by all in China.

Now the story comes to 2011. Aravindh (Suriya), a circus artiste falls for Suba Sreenivas (Shruthi Haasan), a research student. Aravindh and Suba become thick pals and the former falls for Suba’s charm. Meanwhile, he comes to know that Suba has some motive behind her acts.

Also a sequence of events reveal that Chinese government is planning to unleash harm to India by planning Operation red and sends Dong Lee (Johnny Tri Nguyen), a martial arts expert to Chennai. He is instructed to kill Suba for Chinese government fears that her research on Bodhi Dharman would hinder all their plans.

Suba comes to know that Bodhi Dharman was forefather of Aravindh and finds out that both their DNAs match. Now her task is bringing to life the heroics of Bodhi Dharman through Aravindh to thwart the plans of Chinese government. How they accomplish the task is what the movie is all about.

SCRIPT ANALYSIS

Murugadoss has undoubtedly come up with a new theme. He has also worked hard to present it on screen. But the way he unfolds the story leaves much to be desired. The first half an hour showing Bodhi Dharman’s life look like a documentary and the sequences in the present day are quite predictable and routine. His efforts to make the film gripping through the genetic engineering angle are not good enough to excite us. The Operation Red and the hypnotism tactics look like comical portions.

The ‘message’ on Tamil’s and India’s past glory sound as a rhetoric than a genuine voice. They don’t fit gel into the script is another problem.

The pre climax portions are quite predictable but the climax fight is awesome thanks to the stunt choreography by Peter Hein and acting by Surya and Johnny Tri.

CAST REVIEW

Suriya is the savior of the film. He has done his homework well. As Bodhi Dharman and as Aravindh he brings right variations in his performance. His serious looks as Bodhi Dharman compliment the role. His hard work is visible in every frame.

Shruti Haasan makes a good debut. She gets a meaty role to perform. Sadly the onscreen chemistry between her and Surya is missing.

Johnny Tri Nguyen, the Vietnamese star does the job ntrusted to him well. However he has been shown a man with abnormal powers in today’s contemporary world cannot be believed.

Ravi K Chandran‘s cinematography and Harris Jayaraj’s music manage to add some pep to the proceedings.Rajeevan’s art direction is good and interestingly the sets he enacted to replicate the DNA lab and the hamlets in China are amazing.

VERDICT

7aum Arivu is a different story but lack of thrilling moments, predictable sequence mars the flow. 7aum Arivu is no Ghajini, but stands out for a different attempt.

Nanban Vijay-Ileana Stills

Shankar’s Nanban is scheduled for a pongal release. It’s going to be a treat watching Vijay, Jiiva, Sathyaraj, Srikanth, Sathyan, Ileana all together.

Here are the exclusive stills of Vijay and Ileana in Nanban.

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Rajinikanths latest photo released

Rajinikanth and Lakshmi Manchu at his Poes Garden residence, Chennai

For all those Superstar Rajinikanth’s fans, who were concerned about his health, here is a good piece of news, which could definitely bring smiles on your face. Well, the superstar is recovering well and looks fabulous says, actress-producer Lakshmi Manchu,the daughter of his best buddy and Tollywood actor-producer Mohan Babu, who met Rajini at his residence last week.

Lakshmi was in Chennai to meet the Superstar and spent a quality of time with him before she flew back to Hyderabad. Now she has tweeted an image of the Superstar at his Poes Garden house in Chennai and wrote, “Dassera gift for u guys. The superstar’s picture that I promised u..”.

In this photograph, Superstar is seen posing with Lakshmi Manchu. This is the first picture of the superstar after his return to Chennai from Singapore.

Lakshmi on her meeting with her ‘Uncle’ Rajini, says, “I’m producing a bilingual with my brother Manoj Manchu(Telugu actor) in the lead. While we have already started working on the Telugu version, I wanted to get Rajini uncle’s blessings before we roll the Tamil version, titled Varuvaan Thalaivan. So, I met him at his house in Poes Garden last week and spent some time with him.”

Stating that Rajinikanth looks ‘even better than before’, she says, “He’s doing great and is feeling extremely fit. He has regained his strength and is looking even better than before. It felt wonderful to meet him and listen to his animated talk. I even read out a few jokes to him, just like old times.”

Lakshmi will start work on Varuvaan Thalaivan by the end of this month. “The film has Deeksha Seth in the lead, along with Sonu Sood, Manobala K Bhagyaraj and other top actors,”she informs.

Rajinikanths Rana is not dropped

Rajnikanth's Rana is not yet dropped...its still under discussion -K.S.Ravikumar

Rajinikanths Rana dropped

Today Rajinikanth’s Endhiran completes a complete a rocking 1 year ( being released last October 1^st) but the celebrations ought to be put on hold, as this piece of news will come as a wrecking shock to dear Rajiniacs. Sources report that Rajinikanth’s upcoming big flick Rana has been completely shelved for the future. The movie did have some major initial setbacks for Thalaivar and his devotees as the Superstar fell ill soon after kicking off the first shooting schedule (on 29th April 2011, the very same evening Rajini fell ill and spent two spells of hospital stay in Chennai before being flown to Singapore for further treatment on 28th May) with Bollywood hot-scorcher Deepika Padukone joining in for her golden Kollywood offering.

t was believed that Rajini would soon kick start his Ranaschedule on October 3rd, as he has been making a strong recovery after going through his kidney treatment back inSingapore. The shooting was planned over 200 days, withRavikumar and Rajini deciding to complete the movie in three full action packed schedules.

The two did meet to discuss on the project regularly and it was during the final meet lasting for about 2 hours and 15 minutes that the two decided to drop the project completely. The reason cited was the movie would take almost one and a half years to be shot and made ready, that is a lot of time and money, which cannot be invested presently considering Rajini’s present health conditions.

Now that his Rana is out of the awaited list fans can look out for Rajini’s other biggie –Sultan The Warrior, freshly titledDheera. According to daughterSoundarya  95% of Dheera has been completed with the graphics work lying in the pending zone. She has promised theDheera release for a January 2012 to the delight of the zillions awaiting the release. Interestingly after dropping Rana, director Ravikumar and Rajini have plans to commence another freshly scripted project this January for which the talks have already begun.

The official confirmation is awaited and a press meet is expected to announce the same.