Michelin-star chef Vikas Khanna named IAAC brand ambassador,
New York: Michelin-star chef Vikas Khanna has been named brand ambassador of a leading cultural organisation which will organise the annual New York Indian Film Festival next month that showcases the celebrity chef's film 'The Last Color' and Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer 'Photograph'.
Khanna, 47, was named as brand ambassador of Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) during a press conference at the Consulate General of India here.
The IAAC will present the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), North America's longest-running and most prestigious Indian film festival from May 7 to 12. Sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan has accepted to join the IAAC board.
The festival, supported by the Indian Consulate, will open with Rohena Gera directed 'Sir', starring Tillotama Shome, which was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
The festival's centerpiece is 'Photograph', directed by Ritesh Batra and starring Sanya Malhotra.
Khanna's 'The Last Color' is the closing night film of the festival and has won rave reviews at various international film festivals for its lead actress Neena Gupta, who plays a widow living a life of abstinence and isolation in the ancient Indian city of Banaras.
Khanna said it was a matter of immense pride for him to be named as the brand ambassador of IAAC and showcase his movie at the film festival based in his "adopted home" of New York City.
"The Last Color is the story of moving on, leaving traditions behind which have been followed for centuries. It's very close to my heart," he told PTI, adding that he has seen women who have been widowed and forced to live in total isolation.
Khanna said he felt it was time for a change as he saw the widows in Varanasi.
"When women get empowered, they can make the shift not just in societies but in our lives," he said, adding that he is very fortunate to have worked with Gupta.
Khanna was exuberant for getting the platform of NYIFF to showcase his film.
"Imagine doing the movie and not having a place to showcase your art. I am glad I could produce such organic art without any selfish motive," he said.
Khanna said his fil had gone to more than 20 film festivals around the world but the first confirmation for his movie came from NYIFF.
"The story is a piece of my heart, it may be technically weak, financially bankrupt but it is emotionally overwhelming," he said, adding that India's regional stories are "more powerful" and tell about the amazing resilience of its people.
The festival will showcase 30 feature-length films, including three documentaries, as well as bring to the New York audience 30 shorts, 19 regional films, including Bengali, Assamese, Marathi, Tamil, Malyalam cinema, Festival Director Aseem Chhabra said.
"There will be a strong representation of regional cinema from India, including a Ladakhi-Kashmiri children's film," Chhabra said.
Consul General of India in New York Sandeep Chakravorty said the strong regional content of the film festival was very important.
"This is what India is all about. Unfortunately, the image abroad is Bollywood all the time but Indian cinema is more than Bollywood. It is regional films, documentary films, film by very sensitive and intelligent people," Chakravorty said.
He stressed that India lived in its regions and is an amalgamation of cultures.
"We will be mistaken if we think Indian cinema is only Bollywood, it's not. Some of the finest work in Indian cinema is happening outside of Bollywood, it's important to bring that forward," Chakravorty said.
IAAC Vice Chairman Rakesh Kaul said the arts organisation wanted the festival to bring diversity of India to the New York audience, who will get to see the magnificence of India through the festival's line-up.
Kaul said they have ensured that the content of the films selected for the festival is "bold stories that courageous directors stake themselves on".
"You will see how bold these stories are, what courage the directors display because these stories will move you in a manner like nothing that you have experienced in the multiplexes you go to see Bollywood or Hollywood fare," Kaul said.
Through the festival, the audience will see that the profound strength of India is its imagination, he said.
The film festival, now in its 19th year, has been a popular annual fixture on the New York arts calendar, thanks to the pioneering work done by Aroon Shivdasani, who was the Executive and Artistic Director of Indo-American Arts Council and retired last year after leading the organisation for two decades.
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If Constitution amendment bill is passed, democracy will be finished in India: Priyanka
New Delhi (PTI): In a stinging attack, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday said the government began finishing off democracy by putting pressure on institutions, such as the Election Commission (EC) and the judiciary, but now, an "open attack" has been launched on democracy with the Constitution amendment bill.
Participating in a debate in the Lok Sabha on three bills introduced for amendments in the women's-quota law and setting up a delimitation commission, Priyanka Gandhi asked why can't the government give 33 per cent reservation to women on the current 543 seats of the Lok Sabha.
She said the bill talks of increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats to up to 850 -- to be done by a delimitation commission on the basis of the 2011 Census data.
"This seems fine on the surface but the real meaning comes to the fore when one carefully reads it. It smells of politics," the Congress leader said.
She said on reading the fine print, it shows that the three members of the delimitation commission will decide the fate of the states and their representation in Parliament.
"The government began finishing off democracy by putting pressure on institutions, such as the Election Commission, the judiciary, the media etc., but now, an open attack on democracy is being launched," Priyanka Gandhi said.
If this Constitution amendment bill is passed in Parliament, democracy will be finished in India, she added.
The Congress MP also narrated a background to the issue of women's reservation in legislative bodies.
"This issue is close to the heart of every woman. There is a background to this issue. The prime minister said this issue was blocked for 30 years. This was started by a person called Nehru. Not the Nehru they avoid so much but Motilal Nehru, who as the president of a committee prepared a list of 19 rights which were then passed as a resolution at the Karachi session of the Congress and formed the basis of giving women equal rights in Indian politics," she said.
She said it was Rajiv Gandhi who, as the prime minister, brought a bill for women's reservation in panchayats and nagarpalikas and finally, the bill for it was passed during the P V Narasimha Rao government of the Congress.
"Under the UPA, this was passed in the Rajya Sabha but a consensus could not be reached in the Lok Sabha. In 2018, Rahul Gandhi wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling for women's reservation," Priyanka Gandhi said.
Taking a swipe at Modi, she said it seems from the prime minister's address that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a champion of women's reservation.
"Any woman would tell you that women easily recognise those who try to mislead them," she said and urged the BJP to be careful.
"In 2023, when this law was passed, the Congress supported it and today also, the Congress is strongly in support of women's reservation. But the truth is that the debate is not on women's reservation. The bill that the government has brought has changed the direction of the debate," Priyanka Gandhi said and hit out at the BJP over the delimitation provisions in the bill.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to tweak the women's-quota law was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday after a division of votes.
Two ordinary bills -- the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill to implement the proposed amended women's-quota law in the Union territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir -- were also introduced in the House.
