Vishal Krishna saves Rajinikanth's 'Kaala' from catastrophe
Mumbai, June 7: Vishal Krishna, who is cresting the box office with his Tamil/Telugu digital-crime thriller "Irumbhai Thirai"/"Abhimanyudu", has proved to be a real-life hero for superstar Rajinikanth by averting a major digital crime just in time by getting an overzealous Thalaiva fan arrested in Singapore while he was pirating "Kaala".
Vishal, who has lately become a prominent voice of the Tamil film industry and who heads Tamil Nadu Films Producers' Council (TFPC), said: "It could have been a major crisis," after the incident on Wednesday.
"'Kaala' is a big film for us. Rajini Sir is coming back after two years. To our horror we got to know through our sources in Singapore that a man in the Cathay multiplex was live-streaming 'Kaala' on Facebook."
Vishal and his team swung into action immediately
"We got the man arrested after he had streamed 40 minutes of 'Kaala' on Facebook. (This was prior to its release in India on Thursday). The important thing was to take action without delay. That we managed to do."
"It wasn't an easy job. We had to push really hard for his arrest as this was a crime committed outside India. But now that it's done, the arrest sends out the right signal to all potential piracy offenders who may not even be aware that they are guilty.
"Lots of people think recording scenes and songs on their phone is okay. But it is not okay. It is a serious crime. We want the potential offenders to know we have zero tolerance for piracy in any form. If we want to save the film industry we need to stop talking and start acting," he said.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
