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From 12th Fail to Tumbbad re-release, and now Saiyaara - here's looking at the cinema surprises the audience witnessed since 2023!
From 12th Fail to Tumbbad re-release, and now Saiyaara - here's looking at the cinema surprises the audience witnessed since 2023!

Pink Villa

time2 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Pink Villa

From 12th Fail to Tumbbad re-release, and now Saiyaara - here's looking at the cinema surprises the audience witnessed since 2023!

Cinema is indeed a world of magic where anything is possible. The trendline in theatrical successes of audiences has been directly tied to massive, large-scale, event spectacles. However, time and again, it has been proven that good, solid, content-driven cinema will also find as much love. This insight has been truly surprising as well as inspiring. This evolution takes us back to 2023, a year that saw a film like 12th Fail, and in 2024, the re-release of Tumbbad emerge as sleeper hits and create records, while the buzz for Saiyaara now continues to grow across the nation. So, let's take a look at the success these films have achieved. 12th Fail Based on the real-life story of IPS officer Manoj Kumar Sharma, 12th Fail is an inspirational tale of a man who rose from extreme poverty to become an Indian Police Service officer. The film struck a chord with audiences and featured an exceptional performance by Vikrant Massey. Garnering widespread critical acclaim, it emerged as a sleeper hit, grossing over ₹69 Cr. against a modest budget of ₹20 Cr. Directed, produced, and written by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the film became a benchmark for content-driven success. Tumbbad Re-release Originally released in 2018, Tumbbad was praised by critics but didn't receive the box office recognition it deserved at the time. However, its re-release in 2024 rewrote Indian cinematic history, making it the highest-grossing re-released Indian film. It broke onto the scene and captured the audience's imagination, and its performance at the box office exceeded all expectations, setting benchmarks for the rally of re-releases we saw after its successful and historic run. Theatres witnessed an unprecedented response for a re-release, with Tumbbad collecting approximately ₹30.50 Cr. in just four weeks. The film remains one of the most classic and timeless films in the genre India has ever produced. Saiyaara Saiyaara has opened to a thunderous response at the box office today. Driven by the youth, the Mohit Suri directorial starring Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda is on course to scalp around ₹20 crore net at the Indian box office on its very first day. This is unheard of number for a film starring debutants. The word of mouth is positive, and the movie is expected to be sitting at close to ₹75 crore net by the end of the weekend in India. It is anyone's guess as to where the film will head in its full run. The newcomers have surely made their presence aptly felt.

Social activist alleges negligence in Rahul Gandhi's security during U.P. court visit, seeks probe
Social activist alleges negligence in Rahul Gandhi's security during U.P. court visit, seeks probe

The Hindu

time4 days ago

  • Politics
  • The Hindu

Social activist alleges negligence in Rahul Gandhi's security during U.P. court visit, seeks probe

Alleging a complete breakdown of law and order and negligence in the security of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his recent court visit in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh-based social activist and former Indian Police Service officer Amitabh Thakur on Wednesday (July 16, 2025) demanded a high-level inquiry and fixing responsibility over the issue. In a letter addressed to the Union Home Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. Thakur said Mr. Gandhi was among the highest threat perception leaders in India and was given Z-plus security by the Home Ministry. On July 15, during his appearance in the MP/MLA Magistrate Court in Lucknow, there was not only a complete breakdown of law and order inside the courtroom but also massive bungling and compromise with his security when security personnel allowed hundreds of persons to enter the courtroom. People were present everywhere around Mr. Gandhi. Even the security failed to maintain the dignity of the court. Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Thakur, a former 1992 batch IPS officer, said, 'Two family members of Mr. Gandhi, including his father, have been assassinated due to security lapse. In Lucknow, Mr. Gandhi's security was compromised for more than three hours.' Multiple videos of huge crowd inside the courtroom with Mr. Gandhi and within court premises went viral, with people even taking selfies. The Congress said the authorities should look into the matter. 'I was not present there, but the security of Rahul ji, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, is the responsibility of the Home Ministry and the State government. Any breakdown in security is not acceptable,' said Imran Masood, Congress MP. On July 15, Mr. Gandhi appeared before the MP/MLA Special Court in Lucknow in connection with a case of allegedly making a defamatory statement against the Indian Armed Forces during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022. The Congress leader, who surrendered in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Alok Verma, was granted bail after the court allowed his application.

Home Secy Govind Mohan joins IAS/IPS/IRS officers who have benefited from Modi govt's extension culture
Home Secy Govind Mohan joins IAS/IPS/IRS officers who have benefited from Modi govt's extension culture

The Print

time12-07-2025

  • Business
  • The Print

Home Secy Govind Mohan joins IAS/IPS/IRS officers who have benefited from Modi govt's extension culture

In May this year, in the wake of the evolving security situation following Operation Sindoor, the government extended the tenure of Tapan Kumar Deka, a 1988 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, as Director of the Intelligence Bureau for another year. The extension is no aberration since under the Modi government, it has been a longstanding trend to rely on a handpicked group of retired officers to helm and anchor key policy and administration areas. New Delhi: The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) Friday extended the tenure of Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan for another year. Mohan, a 1989 officer of the Sikkim cadre, who took charge as home secretary on 22 August 2024 was set to retire on 30 September. In March this year, former Enforcement Directorate (ED) chief Sanjay Kumar Mishra, a retired 1984-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, was inducted into the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) with the rank of secretary. The same month, former cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba was appointed full-time member of the NITI Aayog. Gauba, a 1982-batch IAS officer of the Jharkhand cadre, had previously served as the Cabinet Secretary for 5 years, from 2019 to August 2024. In February, the government had appointed former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das as principal secretary-2 to the PM, bringing back the 1980-batch IAS officer, who retired in 2017. Das served as the RBI governor for 6 years, from 2018 to 2024, making him the governor with the second-longest stint in RBI history. The trend has been evident in foreign and economic policy, national security and ideologically significant religious-cultural government projects, and even in deputation of trusted retired officers as the eyes and ears of the Centre in states as governors, advisers or even ministers. Evident since the first term of the Modi government, this trend has grown more prominent over the years. In May 2025, the government completed 11 years in power. In this time, some faces have changed—albeit several key officers continuing in different positions since the first term—but the trend has not. From comfort in working with a few officers who understand the prime minister's overarching governance style and ideological and administrative vision to an impression that there has been an overwhelming concentration of power in the hands of a tiny group of officers who gained the PM's trust over the years in both Gujarat and New Delhi, several opposing takes have come up on the reasons and consequences of this trend. Others include the argument that the trend is evidence of the PM's lack of trust or confidence in his ministers, and the view that an ideologically committed government such as that of the BJP requires a bureaucracy willing to push reform. Lastly, a concern is that the trend is an overt subversion of the spirit of administrative and bureaucratic rules, which stipulate a specified tenure for government servants and allow their re-employment under only the rarest of circumstances. However, eleven years into this government, it is amply clear that under the Modi regime, extensions and re-employment for select officers beyond retirement is hardly an aberration. The most trusted lieutenants P.K. Mishra: In 2014, when Modi moved from Gujarat to Delhi, over half a dozen officers from the state moved with him to the national capital. More than ten years later, one of them—arguably Modi's oldest lieutenant—P.K. Mishra, a 1972-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, remains the top officer in the Modi dispensation. In Gujarat, Mishra served briefly as principal secretary to the CM until 2004, whereas in Delhi, he has been the PM's right-hand man for an uninterrupted 11 years. While Modi was still the CM, Mishra visited Delhi on central deputation, retiring as Union agriculture secretary in 2008. After returning to Gujarat, he was appointed the chairman of the Electricity Regulatory Commission for five years. In 2014, he came to Delhi with Modi as the additional principal secretary to the PM. Unlike his boss, Mishra enjoyed familiarity and a network in the corridors of the North Block and that came in handy for the PM, who was still making sense of Delhi in his initial years. The additional principal secretary wielded enormous power as the officer-in-charge for all personnel appointments, transfers and administrative reforms. An instance of the measures he conceptualised is the controversial 360-degree evaluation for officers. However, in 2019, he was elevated to the post of principal secretary to the PM, effectively becoming the sole power center in the PMO. The PM's dependence on him is such that at the beginning of Modi's third term, Mishra's retirement was denied when he requested it on health grounds. Ajit Doval: He has been the National Security Adviser since 2014. In 2018, Doval, a retired officer of the Indian Police Service, became the de jure head of the national security architecture when the government amended the structure of the Strategic Policy Group—the first tier and nucleus of the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS)—to make him the NSA head, instead of cabinet secretary. Like the cabinet secretary, Doval was thus given the power to summon secretaries from any ministry to the SPG meeting, signalling a formal shift in India's national security decision-making, from the cabinet secretariat to the NSCS. Until 2019, more than to the home minister, it was to Doval that the agency heads of the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, and the National Technical Research Office (NTRO) reported regularly, a retired IPS officer said. Doval was even involved in the key affairs of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the National Investigation Agency. Even now, Doval's influence and power are far beyond the affairs of national security alone. As someone who founded the Vivekananda International Foundation, a Right-of-Centre leaning think tank, before his NSA appointment, Doval has a deep and vast network within the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates across the country. Many of the government and the RSS' formal and informal outreach programmes to Muslims, for instance, are known to be Doval's ideas. Even in the UPA government, retired IAS officers such as T.K. Nair, who was Manmohan Singh's principal secretary, and the then-PM's NSA Shivshankar Menon from the Indian Foreign Service, held the rank of ministers of state. However, in the case of the Modi government, Mishra and Doval hold the ranks of cabinet ministers, signalling an elevation in the role of retired bureaucrats. Shaktikanta Das: The latest to join the list of Modi's most trusted lieutenants is Shaktikanta Das, appointed principal secretary-2 to the PM on account of Mishra's advancing age. Before his appointment to the PMO, Das served as the RBI governor. An IAS officer of the 1980 batch, Das will likely serve in his current position until 2029. For perspective, the senior-most batch of IAS officers serving as secretaries to the Union government now is 1987. PMO, NITI Aayog, Parliament Secretariat Since Modi came to power in 2014, it has been amply clear that it is the PMO where key decisions become government policies. P.K. Mishra and his predecessor, Nripendra Mishra, have been the most prominent officers in the PMO. Other retired officers like former cabinet secretary P.K. Sinha, appointed principal adviser to the PM—a post created specifically for him—have spearheaded the office over the years. Bhaskar Khulbe and Amarjeet Sinha were also advisers to the PM, to name a few. Amit Khare and Tarun Kapoor: Even now, retired IAS officers Amit Khare and Tarun Kapoor of the 1985 and 1987 batches, respectively, are serving as advisers in the PMO. Khare retired from the government as education secretary but is known to have been instrumental in the National Education Policy and handles the social sector. Kapoor's domain is economic matters. B.V.R. Subrahmanyam: B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, an IAS officer of the 1988 batch, has been the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NITI Aayog since February 2023. He was initially appointed the CEO for two years, with a one-year extension given to him last month. Subrahmanyam, an officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre, was sent to Jammu Kashmir in 2018 on an inter-state deputation, serving as the state's chief secretary until 2021. In this period, the Centre bifurcated the erstwhile state into two Union territories and revoked Article 370, taking away the state's special status. P.C. Mody: A retired Indian Revenue Service officer of the 1982 batch, P.C. Mody scored a hattrick in 2021 when the Modi government gave him a third extension as the chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, making him one of the longest-serving chairpersons of the board. Criticism marked his tenure, with the Opposition saying that the department acted as an extended arm of the ruling party and put pressure on political opponents. Within a few months of his retirement, the same year in 2021, Mody was appointed secretary general of the Rajya Sabha—the first IRS officer to become a member of the Upper or Lower House. In December last year, Mody received an extension in this role. The eyes and ears in the states The trend is not limited to the Centre. Several retired officers who have worked with the PM at the Centre or Gujarat have been deputed to different states as advisers, governors or ministers, arguably as the PM's eyes and ears on the state administrations. A.K. Sharma: A second officer, besides Mishra, had come with Modi from Gujarat. The 1988 batch IAS officer, A.K. Sharma, served in Modi's CMO in Gujarat from 2001 to 2014. When Modi came to Delhi, Sharma joined him as a joint secretary in the PMO before he was elevated to the post of the additional secretary. In 2020, as the pandemic struck and the micro-, small- and medium-scale (MSME) industries sector came under strain, Sharma was deputed as the MSME secretary in a ministry then held by Nitin Gadkari. However, in 2021, Sharma surprised his peers in the civil services by taking voluntary retirement, but only to be sent to Uttar Pradesh, his home state. In UP, he subsequently became a legislative council member (MLC). Sharma holds key urban development and energy portfolios in the Yogi government. Hasmukh Adhia: A 1981-batch retired IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, Adhia served as principal secretary to CM Modi in Gujarat from 2004 to 2006. In 2014, he came to Delhi as finance secretary, where he helmed the government's pet micro-financing schemes and the Mudra Yojana, besides overseeing the implementation of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax regime. In 2022, Adhia was appointed adviser to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, and he emerged as a parallel power center in Swarnim Sankul-I, the CM's office. In 2023, Adhia was appointed chairman of GIFT City, Gandhinagar, and non-executive chairman of Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd and Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation Limited, besides holding the post of the non-executive chairman of the Bank of Baroda. Last year, he consolidated his power as he became the chief principal secretary to the Gujarat Chief Minister—inheriting the all-powerful legacy of 'Super CM' K. Kailashnathan. K. Kailashnathan: Since 2013, when he superannuated, K. Kailashnathan, an IAS officer of the 1979 Batch, served as the chief principal secretary to the Gujarat Chief Minister, a position created especially for him. As Modi moved to Delhi, power and media circles were rife with speculations that Kailashnathan would hold the same powerful position in New Delhi as in the chief minister's office in Gandhinagar. While Mishra was picked instead of Kailashnathan for the new role in Delhi, the latter emerged as the 'Super CM' of the state. According to most insiders, he served as Modi's 'eyes and ears' in his home state while he ruled from Delhi. From industry bigwigs to bureaucrats and even politicians, everyone in Gujarat knew that Kailashnathan's office called the shots in the state. Last year, when his uninterrupted tenure of 11 years ended, Modi's long-time administrative and political trouble-shooter was appointed the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. A.K. Bhalla: After a four-year extension until 2024, A.K Bhalla, a 1984-Batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, became the second-longest serving home secretary in the history of independent India, with a tenure of nearly five years. He was appointed home secretary fifteen days after the Centre scrapped Jammu & Kashmir's special status and bifurcated it into two Union territories. Months into his tenure, protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act spread across large parts of North and Northeast Delhi, and riots also broke out. Through Bhalla's eventful tenure, he gained the unconditional confidence of the Home Minister, which became crystal clear with his December 2024 appointment as the Governor of Manipur, where violence has continued for nearly two years. Less than two months into his appointment, President's Rule was imposed in the state, thereby bringing it under the direct and official control of the Centre. Cultural and global projects For an ideologically motivated government such as the Modi regime, religious, cultural and soft-power-related projects and events such as the inauguration of the Ram Temple or the G-20 Summit, carry immense significance. The government has relied on trusted retired IAS officers for these key projects. Nripendra Misra: In 2014, the Modi government amended the 1997 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act overnight to ensure that Nripendra Misra, who served as its chairman, could be re-employed in the government. The Act explicitly prohibited a chairman from government employment after serving as chairman. Misra, an IAS officer of the 1967 Batch who retired from service in 2004, was appointed principal secretary to the PM, a post he retained until 2019. After he hung up his boots in 2020, the Centre gave Misra the mammoth task of effectively building the politically and ideologically crucial Ram Temple in Ayodhya as the chairperson of the construction committee under the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. Misra continues to hold the position of the chairman of the Prime Ministers Museum and Library, which has been overhauled and rechristened in the last few years. It was earlier known as the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library. Amitabh Kant: As the G20 Sherpa, Amitabh Kant, an IAS officer of the 1980 batch, was the face of all the deliberations and preparations that went into the G20 Leaders' Summit hosted by India in 2023. An officer of the Kerala cadre, Kant served as the CEO of the NITI Aayog for six years from 2016 to 2022, a period during which the government think-tank conceptualised or spearheaded a slew of government reforms, such as popularising digital payments among MSMEs, reforming medical education, introducing Ayushman Bharat, reforming the Medical Council of India, privatisation of railways, highlighting the need for the strategic sale of Air India, and lateral entry in civil services, among others. Bhaskar Khulbe: Khulbe, another retired IAS officer of the 1983 batch, served in the PMO as the PM's secretary from 2016 to 2020. After his retirement, he was brought in as an adviser in the PMO for two years until 2022. The same year, the Uttarakhand government appointed him officer on special duty to look after the reconstruction works at Badrinath and Kedarnath shrines, signalling the project's significance for the PM. Not unprecedented The trend of appointing trusted retired officers in key ex-officio positions or positions that do not fall within the formal governance framework, including secretaries or joint secretaries, is not new. Under the UPA government, for instance, retired officers such as Pulok Chatterji and T.K. Nair became advisers to PM Manmohan Singh. 'It is certainly the prerogative of the government of the day to appoint retired officers in ex-officio positions,' said former IAS officer and Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa. 'Even earlier, retired officers have held positions like the principal secretary to the PM. The government is well within its rights to do so, as long as it does not appoint them in cadre positions,' he said. While this trend often leads to a situation where most officers are outside the 'charmed circle' of power, the idea is perhaps to build a team and continue with it to govern uninterruptedly, Lavasa added. A former IAS officer who retired as secretary in the personnel and training department, Satyananda Mishra, agreed that the trend is not unprecedented. 'The only difference now is one of scale. But this trend has been there since the times of Indira Gandhi when retired officers like P.N. Haksar effectively ran the government,' Mishra said. 'What we see now is only an exaggerated version of the past.' Post-liberalisation, Mishra said, there was a proliferation of tribunals and commissions. For positions in them, the retirement age was 65—a deliberate choice, so officers whose retirement age is 60 can be re-employed for comfortable five-year tenures. However, it is not a trend without dangers, he added. 'One, retired officers who are re-employed are easily dispensable because they do not have the constitutional protections that serving civil servants have,' he said. 'Besides, they are bound to feel more obliged to those who have appointed them.' 'The trend is surely on the rise; we are becoming more and more like the US, where civil servants are picked and chosen by the administration, and civil servants' tenures are seen as coterminous with the government of the day,' he added. 'This is also because, for ordinary citizens, these are non-issues… For them, there is no difference between a serving and a retired officer.' It is also a trend widely found in states. From Awanish Awasthi, the chief adviser to Yogi, to Alapan Bandyopadhyay, chief adviser to Mamata Banerjee, CMs also are increasingly counting on trusted, retired officers in ex-officio positions, allowing them to run the show way beyond their retirement. (Edited by Viny Mishra) Also read: For Modi govt's ill-thought-out policies, civil servants haven't been blamed enough

The Opposite Story: On The Tragic End Of Radhika Yadav's Dream Life
The Opposite Story: On The Tragic End Of Radhika Yadav's Dream Life

NDTV

time12-07-2025

  • General
  • NDTV

The Opposite Story: On The Tragic End Of Radhika Yadav's Dream Life

Year: 1964 | City: Amritsar I was 15. Hair cut like the boys. Skirts and shorts were my uniform. A tennis racquet in one hand, schoolbooks and tennis balls in the basket, and a bicycle under me - my world was wide and open. I rode across Amritsar with the sun in my eyes and wind in my face, often returning home near sunset. Back then, that kind of freedom for a girl was unusual, even alarming. Whispers in our neighbourhood and even elders in the family repeatedly reached my parents. "You are wasting money on daughters." But my parents weren't the confused type. They responded firmly, with clarity. "We are investing in self-reliant girls." What if they hadn't? What if they had bowed to the social chatter that ranked a girl's ambition below the honour of a family name? The story of Radhika Yadav is one of cultivation with potential to grow in abundance, but chopped as she got to bloom. Her life began beautifully. A father who believed in his daughter, introducing her to tennis, dreaming of an academy, of excellence, of independence. But when she began to fly - to shine, to create, to thrive - that same father faltered. The chains of inherited patriarchy, the need to conform to societal norms, the fear of gossip - they all tightened their grip. He forgot he had raised a champion. This contradiction is still deeply rooted across regions and families in our country. We send our daughters to schools and universities. We help them build careers, sometimes even dreams. But the moment they outshine, the tide turns. Clan ego, family pride, male insecurity - they all conspire in silence. Often, girls surrender. Not out of weakness, but to maintain peace. To survive. But this is also the era of a new kind of daughter. Today's Radhika - and many like her - refuse to give up. They don't want to just survive. They want to thrive. Because they believe in themselves. They know their worth, even when others forget it. But the truth is stark: daughters still remain tethered, not by their limitations, but by the mindsets of those around them. Until society sees daughters not as threats or burdens but as powerhouses of possibility, India will remain shackled to a past it claims to have outgrown. Let's not just raise daughters. Let's stand by them when they soar and outshine. Let girl power bloom. (Kiran Bedi is former Lieutenant Governor, Puducherry. She is the first woman to have joined officer ranks of Indian Police Service. Recipient of Magsaysay Award (1994) for police and prison reforms, she has also worked as a UN police advisor. A tennis champion, she earned a PhD from IIT Delhi and is a Nehru Fellow. She's founded many NGOs and is the author of several books.)

Actor who made his debut with television, now features in this Rs 1600 crore epic
Actor who made his debut with television, now features in this Rs 1600 crore epic

India Today

time09-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • India Today

Actor who made his debut with television, now features in this Rs 1600 crore epic

The quintessential rags-to-riches journey of celebrities, particularly film actors, stands as a universal testament to unyielding persistence and singular focus. From Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Bajpayee to Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise, both Hollywood and Bollywood have witnessed major underdog success is the story of an actor from a humble middle-class background, who made his career breakthrough with a biopic on the life of an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. From working in popular Hindi television shows to acting alongside Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone, he has carved a niche for himself in Bollywood. He is not Shah Rukh Khan, Ranveer Singh or Shahid actor is now going to play a career-defining role in one of the most ambitious movie franchises of Indian cinema. He is going to be a part of none other than the cinematic adaptation of sage Valmiki's ancient text 'Ramayan'. Director Nitesh Tiwari's upcoming two-part series - 'Ramayana: Part 1' and 'Ramayana: Part 2' will see actor Vikrant Massey playing Meghnad, according to reports. The collective budget of both films is estimated to be around Rs 1600 crore. The reported budget of Massey's upcoming films exceeds all his previous backgorund and educationThe actor, who made his acting debut with the musical television show 'Dhoom Machao Dhoom' (2007), was born and brought up in Mumbai, has often discussed his multi-faith background linked to his Christian father and Sikh mother. He considers himself non-religious, stating religion is man-made. His family originally hails from Shimla, Himachal 'Ramayana' actor attended St Anthony's High School in Versova, Mumbai. He pursued his further studies at R. D. National College of Arts & Science in Bandra, Mumbai. Massey is a well-trained dancer and made his stage debut at the age of seven, with small-time dancing and theatre performances. With guidance from his mentors at school, he opted for performing arts as a career choice at a young and film careerMassey, who initially worked in television with brief appearances in shows like 'Dharam Veer' (2008) and 'Balika Vadhu' (2009-2010), got recognition with 'Qubool Hai' and 'Yeh Hai Aashiqui' (2013).The actor later played key roles in movies like 'Dil Dhadakne Do' (2015), 'Chhapaak' (2020), '12th Fail' (2023) and 'The Sabarmati Report' (2024). He has also been associated with OTT shows like 'Mirzapur Season 1' (2018) and 'Criminal Justice Season 1' (2019). Massey will next be seen in actor Shanaya Kapoor's Bollywood debut 'Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyan' (2025), releasing on July Massey's personal lifeMassey got married to actor Sheetal Thakur on Feburuary 18, 2022 after their engagement in 2019. The duo started dating in 2015 and later worked on the show 'Broken But Beautiful' (2018). They also have a son born on February 7, RamayanaMassey will be seen sharing screen space with Ranbir Kapoor and Yash in 'Ramayana'. His character, Meghnad, is the son of the demon king under-production epic-drama featuring Massey, made on a grand scale, has surpassed the production cost of 'Kalki 2898 AD' (Rs 600 crore), 'RRR' and 'Adipurush' (both Rs 550 crore), as reported by Hindustan Times. The movie's budget was earlier estimated to be approximately Rs 835 a recent report by Sacnilk has stated that the total budget of both films is Rs 1600 crore. While the first part is around Rs 900 crore and the second installment stands at Rs 700 crore. The difference in budgets is due to the reason that the prequel will focus on sets, costumes and digital assets for Ayodhya, Lanka, and beyond. The second part has reduced the production costs.'Ramayana' is backed by Namit Malhotra, who owns Prime Focus, the world's largest independent integrated media services company. Malhotra is also the CEO of its British-Indian subsidiary DNEG, which specialises in visual effects. DNEG, which has won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects eight times, is also creating the VFX for 'Ramayana: Part 1'.advertisement 'Mad Max' stunt director Guy Norris has designed the action scenes for 'Ramayana'. Recently, actor Yash was seen shooting for an intense sequence with Norris.'Ramayana also features actors Sai Pallavi, Ravi Dubey, Sunny Deol as Goddess Sita, Laxman, and Lord Hanuman, respectively. Vivek Oberoi, Rakul Preet Singh, Lara Dutta, Kajal Aggarwal, Ravi Dubey, Kunal Kapoor, Arun Govil, Sheeba Chadha, and Indira Krishnan also play crucial film's first glimpse was released on July 3. The first instalment, 'Ramayana: Part 1' will release during Diwali 2026.- EndsTrending Reel

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