Kamal Haasan, Rajkummar lend voice to film on sexual exploitation
New Delhi, May 6: Film celebrities Kamal Haasan, Vidya Balan, Puneeth Rajkumar, Jisshu Sengupta and Rajkummar Rao have lent their voice to "Amoli: Priceless", a digital documentary on commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Produced by Culture Machine, the documentary on the deep-seated and well-organised criminal industry will release on Monday in seven languages on YouTube and Facebook. It spotlights different forms of exploitation and the constant need that feeds the demand for this business.
The film is narrated in four chapters -- Mol (price), Maya (illusion), Manthan (internal conflict) and Mukti (liberation).
"Fundamentally, the objective is to dissuade men from buying sex from children," Sameer Pitalwalla, CEO and Co-Founder, Culture Machine Media Pvt Ltd, said in a statement.
"We believe that a combination of fear and stigma is what will deter men in the short-to-medium term. This can only materialise through unequivocal political commitment, proactive law enforcement and strict and swift justice.
"We want to magnify awareness about this issue through 'Amoli', and consequently, mobilise the general public to demand our police, judiciary and government to address the issue. This is about stoking public compassion and inspiring individual citizens to act in whatever manner they feel comfortable."
The 30-minute film is directed by acclaimed documentary filmmakers and National Award winners Jasmine Kaur Roy and Avinash Roy, with music by Tajdar Junaid.
Though shot in Hindi, dubbed-versions of "Amoli" are available in Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and English. It has been strung together through stories of survivors who have been through the horrors of commercial sexual exploitation.
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Shivaji Maharaj was 100% secular, the ultimate ideal king: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari
New Delhi, Apr 3 (PTI): Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has described Shivaji Maharaj as an exemplary king, a benevolent ruler, and a "100 per cent secular figure." He said if there is an ultimate ideal, it is undoubtedly Shivaji Maharaj.
Speaking at the launch of the book "The Wild Warfront - Shivaji Maharaj: Volume 2" by Vishwas Patil, Gadkari, who claimed that he has only one photograph in his office – that of Shivaji Maharaj -- said the Chhatrapati holds a special place in the hearts of Indians and is even more significant to him than his own parents.
"Nowadays, the word 'secular' is very popular, but the meaning of the word 'secular' in the English dictionary is not religious neutrality. The meaning of the word secular is 'equal respect for all religions,' treating all religions with equal justice. This is the meaning of secular. And Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was a public welfare king in our country’s history who was 100 per cent secular.
"Particularly throughout his history, he won many battles and never attacked a mosque... He always showed respect for women, was a king devoted to the people, and was strict in administration," Gadkari said to a packed audience at Maharashtra Sadan on Wednesday.
To emphasise his point about Shivaji being a secular and just king, Gadkari referenced the Battle of Pratapgarh, which took place on November 10, 1659, between the Maratha forces led by Shivaji Maharaj and the Bijapur troops under General Afzal Khan.
The 67-year-old lauded how, after killing Khan, Maharaj ordered his army — which he mentioned included many Muslim soldiers — to bury Khan with full respect at the battlefield -- Pratapgarh Fort.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who was also present at the launch, said he was happy that Gadkari discussed the secular aspect of Shivaji Maharaj, a quality that, he argued, is often underappreciated, even by the Maharaj's own admirers.
According to the Lok Sabha MP of Thiruvananthapuram, it was Shivaji, who after many of his conquests, gave strict instructions to his soldiers that "if they ever came across a Quran, they should pick it up, treat it with respect until they could find a Muslim to hand it over to."
He added, "Those were the kind of values that Shivaji had. We all know about Shivaji's chivalry towards women, the extraordinary grace with which he dealt with the people, and the fact that his army consisted of people from every caste. Literally, every caste, from Dalit to Brahmin, was with him — around him, amongst his courtiers, and amongst his soldiers. He had Muslim soldiers. There was absolutely no bigotry in Shivaji."
Commending the book, which is Nadeem Khan's English translation of Patil's historical Marathi novel "Rankhaindal", Gadkari expressed hope that people now in India — those outside Maharashtra — and in Western countries would see a just picture of the king, as the history written during the Mughal era and British rule was unfair to him.
"... There were many things that were unfair to him, some even called him a 'lootera' (a bandit). I can say with full confidence that Shivaji's personality was complete, it was exceptional. In our current governance system, how a king should be, how a king should act, he is an example of that," he said.
Tharoor, too, congratulated the author for bringing his skill of "novelisation of history" to best use and able to pull off two volumes on Shivaji in fictional form, who he admits is an extraordinarily interesting figure to read about in any Indian language.
He seconded Gadkari saying that Shivaji has indeed come through various renderings in the national imagination -- from demonisation during the Mughal era to being hailed as "original Hindu nationalist" by freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
"We have had demonisation of him (Shivaji), as Gadkari ji reminded us of 'lootera,' a bandit, which was propagated by the partisans of the Mughal side. Then, we had the veneration of him as the great anti-colonial resistance figure, and this notion of resistance.
"You had different interpretations even within Maharashtra. Jyotiba Phule's interpretation of Shivaji as the voice of the subaltern, as the voice of the underclass rising up, versus, say, the Bal Gangadhar Tilak version of the original Hindu nationalist, portraying Shivaji as the origin of Hindu nationalism," explained the 69-year-old Congress leader.
Touted by publishing house Westland Books as the dazzling second volume of Patil's "The Wild Warfront", the book reconstructs Shivaji Maharaj's life and battles through intensive research.
Patil, known for his novels like "Ranangan", "Chandramukhi", "Panipat", and "Sambhaji", has sold over 50,000 copies of the two volumes in Marathi -- "Jhanjhawat" (The Whirlwind) and "Rankhaindal" (The Wild Warfront).
