Latest news with #Gabbar
NDTV
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NDTV
"After Watching Saiyaara...": Memes Fly As UK's F-35B Takes Off From Kerala
After five weeks of being grounded in Kerala, the British Royal Navy's F-35B jet finally took off from Thiruvananthapuram airport this morning. The fifth-generation stealth aircraft had been en route from the UK to Australia on June 14 when it developed a hydraulic fault mid-flight. Battling bad weather and critically low fuel, the pilot diverted to the nearest safe airstrip, Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram airport, where the Indian Air Force facilitated an emergency landing and extended full logistical support. Since then, the 100-million-pound warplane was grounded, waiting for a team of UK-based specialists to diagnose and fix the issue. The repairs were finally completed this week, and after receiving the all-clear on Monday, the jet took to the skies again early Tuesday. The departure lit up social media. The jet led to a flood of memes once it finally left. A user joked on X, sharing a clip of the takeoff with the caption, "F-35 after watching Saiyaara." F-35 after watching Saiyaara — Gabbar (@GabbbarSingh) July 22, 2025 Another wrote, "The F-35 Tourism in Kerala has ended." The F-35 Tourism in Kerala has ended! ???? — The Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues) July 22, 2025 Someone joked, "F-35 after seeing Political Instability (Resignation of Vice President of India - Jagdeep Dhankhar) in India." F-35 after seeing Political Instability (Resignation of Vice President of India- Jagdeep Dhankhar) in India — Sarcasm (@sarcastic_us) July 22, 2025 "After chilling in India for ages, the F-35 finally remembered it's supposed to fly," wrote a user. After chilling in India for ages, the F-35 finally remembered it's supposed to fly! ???? — Sir BoiesX (@BoiesX45) July 22, 2025 Someone quoted the song lyrics, "I believe I can fly." "I believe i can fly ????️" ???? UK Navy F-35 takes off from Trivandrum International Airport! — Beats in Brief (@beatsinbrief) July 22, 2025 A user said, "Finally remembered it's a jet, not a Tourist." UK's F-35 Finally remembered it's a jet, not a Tourist — Lt Colonel Vikas Gurjar ???????? (@Ltcolonelvikas) July 22, 2025 "F-35 logged out of Kerala," a comment read. F-35 logged out of Kerala. — Biswatosh Sinha (@biswatosh) July 22, 2025 The F-35B belongs to the HMS Prince of Wales Carrier Strike Group, which is currently deployed in the Indo-Pacific and recently conducted joint maritime drills with the Indian Navy.
News18
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
50 Years Of Sholay: Restored And Timeless
The restored Sholay will keep film scholars busy for a while; but I hope it claims a small place in the consciousness of an audience born many years after it set screens on fire On Friday, 27 June, the fully restored uncut version of Ramesh Sippy's Sholay had its world premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy. 'It was a magnificent evening in Bologna yesterday to watch the restored Sholay play out for the first time on a giant screen in the Piazza Maggiore in front of an audience that filled the seats, the steps around the square and even the floor as they watched one of India's most iconic films come back to life 50 years after it was released," Mumbai-based Film Heritage Foundation, which has painstakingly restored the classic, posted on Facebook. This version includes the film's original ending—changed due to objection from the censors—and deleted scenes. This work by the foundation could be the most important such project in India till date, given the near-mythical status that Sholay enjoys in our cinema. Sholay, billed as 'the greatest story ever told", was released on 15 August 1975. It went on to earn a still-standing record of 60 golden jubilees (50-week runs) across India, and was the first film to celebrate a silver jubilee at over 100 theatres. It was screened continuously at Bombay's 1,500-seat Minerva theatre for over five years. As a pre-teen schoolboy in Bombay, I watched it on Sunday, 18 August. Some 25 years later—I had watched Sholay many times more by then—quite by chance, the uncut version came to me, the one that Ramesh Sippy had originally submitted to the Censor Board. A colleague had bought a bootlegged CD of the film in Kuala Lumpur and watched it over the weekend. On Monday, a very puzzled man walked into my cabin. 'Sir," he asked, 'did Thakur Baldev Singh kill Gabbar Singh?" 'No," I said. 'He's about to, when the police arrive and stop him." 'But here he does!" my colleague said, producing his CD. I immediately knew that he had inadvertently bought a rare gem. It was fairly well-known among fans that Sippy and screenwriters Salim-Javed had originally killed off Gabbar, but the censors had insisted on getting the climax reworked. I borrowed the CD and watched it that night. The uncensored version is of course longer than the current one available to the public, but two scenes stand out. Young Ahmed, played by Sachin Pilgaonkar, is captured by Gabbar's men and brought to his den, where he is resting. Chunks of meat on a skewer are being roasted on a fire behind him. The bandits tell Gabbar: 'This boy is from Ramgarh. He was going to the station and we found him on the way." Gabbar thinks for a few seconds, watching a fly crawling down his forearm, then smiles and slaps it dead. The next sequence is Ahmed's horse, carrying his corpse, walking into Ramgarh. This is what see in the current censor-certified version. In the uncensored film, after he kills the fly, Gabbar shouts: 'Have you heard, all of you? The people of Ramgarh have started running away from the village now!" Ahmed asks Gabbar to let him go. The bandit replies: 'Tum jaante ho main kaun hoon? Hum Ramgarh ke baap hain, baap ('Do you know who I am? I am Ramgarh's father)." He then asks Ahmed to rub his nose on the ground at his feet. When Ahmed does not move, an enraged Gabbar yells at him to come forward. The young man tries to attack him and the bandit brings him down with one blow. His men are about to shoot Ahmed, but Gabbar stops them. 'You think a man feels any pain when a bullet kills him?" he says. 'Isko toh main tadpa tadpa ke maarunga, bahut tadpa tadpa ke maarunga (I'm going to give him a painful death, a very painful death)." He picks up a sharp iron rod from the fire, yanks Ahmed's head up by his hair and holds the rod next to his eye. We then see Ahmed's horse carrying his master's corpse home. In the current Sholay, in the climactic fight sequence between Thakur and Gabbar, a bloodied and exhausted Gabbar is lying on the ground and Thakur is about to kill him by stamping his face with his hob-nailed sandals when the police arrive and dissuade him. In the uncut version, the bloodied and exhausted Gabbar is still staggering around. Thakur is about to strike him again when he notices that right behind Gabbar is a sharp iron rod protruding from one of the two stone pillars which the bandit had used to string him up to hack off his arms. Thakur leaps, hammering Gabbar on his chest. Gabbar falls on the rod, gets skewered and dies. Veeru then drapes Thakur's shawl round his shoulders and holds him tight. Thakur rests his head on Veeru's shoulder and weeps uncontrollably. Over the years, Ramesh Sippy has said in several interviews that he did not agree with the cuts that the censors demanded, but had to comply because this was during the Emergency—a time of tough censorship. Even after the censored Sholay was released, there was a furore in the media about its 'extreme violence and cruelty"—that the film should have been certified Adults Only. By today's standards, the violence in Sholay is rather mild. And there is remarkably little blood that we see on the screen—only a few bullet wounds. Yet, in my opinion, Sholay is one of the few Indian films that the censors actually improved a bit, though absolutely accidentally. Film Heritage Foundation has recovered a priceless historic artefact of Indian cinema, but is the uncut version better than the one we are familiar with? My answer is no. The cruelty in Sholay lies in the acts that Gabbar commits, but the gory violence directly associated with them is off-screen. We do not see Thakur's arms being chopped off or his grandchild being shot by Gabbar. When Gabbar swats a fly dead, we know that the innocent Ahmed will be killed and the effect is far more chilling than a graphic description of how he is killed. The latter—with its iron skewer—is merely stomach-churning. The censors gave the scene a haunting—and aesthetic—subtlety by leaving the details of Ahmed's horrific end to the viewer's imagination. But the original ending with Gabbar dying exactly where he had chopped off Thakur's arms is much more emotionally satisfying than the current one. It is poetic justice, neatly closing the loop between the atrocities that Thakur suffered and the punishment that Gabbar deserved. I will certainly enjoy a Sholay with this sequence replacing the current one. But the dacoits chasing Basanti's horse-carriage for a full five minutes, which is a very long time in a movie? I can live without that. Or more of Soorma Bhopali and the jailor? We do not need that. Sippy himself pared Sholay down a few times. The film I watched in its 100-th week re-release was shorter, with a few sequences dropped or shortened from the 15 August 1975 one. The current DVD and streaming platform versions are even shorter. In 2007, I had the dire misfortune of watching Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, Varma's unauthorised remake of Sholay. The next day I wrote a column in the newspaper I was working for then that it was an act of barbarism—Varma had no clue what made Sholay… Sholay. Salim Khan, co-writer of Sholay, read the piece and took the trouble of finding my phone number, and called me. The conversation lasted more than an hour. I asked him about the various Hollywood films that he and Javed Akhtar had 'lifted" ideas and entire sequences from—after all, the basic Sholay storyline itself is redux The Magnificent Seven, a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Some of these sources are well-documented—Once Upon A Time In The West (the train robbery sequence and Gabbar killing Thakur's grandchild), The Professionals (the final chase as Veeru and Jai are escaping Gabbar's den with Basanti), Garden of Evil (the card draws inspired Jai's coin-flipping tricks that underpin the entire narrative)—and so on. I told him that I thought that every copied sequence was done far better in Sholay than the originals. Then I asked him the question that he must have faced a thousand times. 'Who was the real writer in Salim-Javed?" I asked. 'That's a wrong question," he replied. 'The man who sits outside a post office, a pen stuck behind his ear, waiting to fill up money order forms for poor illiterate people—he too writes (Woh bhi toh likhta hai). The correct question is 'Sochta kaun hai (Who is the thinker)?" I did not press that point. He revealed that Sippy was upset that some upstart had remade his epic, but he had told Sippy that Varma's misbegotten attempt would only add to Sholay's glory and make its status in the Indian film pantheon even firmer. Varma's film, I assume, would have been withdrawn by the theatres within a week. top videos View all I intend to watch the uncut Sholay when it is released in theatres in India. Of course Gen Z-ers may find it boring—it is almost three and a half hours long—and even insipid—computing power has made action sequences incredibly more awesome. Some may find it misogynistic. But like all great films, Sholay's fundamental themes remain universal and timeless—justice, loyalty and sacrifice. The restored Sholay will of course keep film scholars busy for a while; but I hope that it also claims a small place in the consciousness of an audience born many years after the film set screens all across India on fire. The reviewer is former managing editor of Outlook, former editor of The Financial Express, and founding editor of Outlook Money, Open, and Swarajya magazines. He has authored several books. He tweets @sandipanthedeb. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication. tags : Sholay view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 01, 2025, 14:00 IST News opinion Opinion | 50 Years Of Sholay: Restored And Timeless Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Time of India
12-07-2025
- Time of India
Man's death in police stn raises questions of procedural violations
Jaipur/Alwar: The death of a 22-year-old youth in police custody at Bharatpur's Udyog Nagar police station has highlighted multiple procedural violations and alleged abuse of power by law enforcement officials. Senior police officials admitted that Gabbar Singh, also known as Bunty, was held for three days at the police station without formal arrest or mandatory court presentation, violating fundamental detention protocols. Repeated appeals from the family to release him went unheard. On Friday morning, the family was suddenly informed of Gabbar's death. Police said the victim, a hairdresser by profession, hanged himself using a torn blanket in the lockup. Further irregularities have emerged in the handling of the minor girl involved in the case. According to family members, Gabbar and the 16-year-old girl—who is said to be his maternal cousin—married in Mathura and sent photos of their wedding to their families. Under pressure from police, the couple returned and turned themselves in to the police on Tuesday night. The girl was also kept at the police station with her mother, and her statement was recorded the next day. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Fastest Selling Plots of Mysore from 40L | 40+ Amenities PurpleBrick Learn More Undo Sources from the local Child Welfare Committee confirmed that despite being brought to the police station on Tuesday evening, the minor girl wasn't transferred to a shelter home until late Wednesday, another violation of standard operating procedures. Singh's family has accused the police of torture and alleged that officers accepted bribes to harass him and implicate him under the POCSO Act. While police claim suicide, Singh's brother Lokesh points to suspicious elements, including the improbability of the alleged method of hanging using a 'flimsy' blanket. Despite these serious allegations and clear procedural violations, the police administration's response has been notably inadequate. The only action taken so far has been the transfer of police station in-charge Ganga Sahay Meena and constable Pawan to police lines.
Time of India
03-07-2025
- Time of India
Vizag cops bust interstate online betting racket, 13 held
Visakhapatnam: Vizag cybercrime police arrested 13 individuals in connection with an interstate online betting network after conducting a planned raid on a call centre in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The operation was launched following actionable intelligence and technical analysis, leading to the apprehension of those involved in illegal gambling. According to Vizag city police chief Shanka Brata Bagchi, the authorities recovered numerous items from the premises, including mobile phones, laptops, cheque books, bank passbooks, routers, cash-counting machines, ATM cards, SIM cards, and cameras, all of which were reportedly used to facilitate betting operations. Police officials assert that the gang was allegedly operating betting services associated with the Reddy Anna app and similar platforms. Items seized include 60 mobile phones, 13 laptops, 132 ATM cards, 137 bank passbooks, 33 cheque books, five webcams, three Wi-Fi routers, a money-counting machine, and two financial ledgers. During the course of investigation, it was revealed that a 31-year-old man from Vizag was introduced to online gambling by an acquaintance who convinced him to open multiple bank accounts. These accounts were used for dubious transactions, one of which reportedly involved Rs 14 lakh. Upon realising the fraudulent activities, he lodged a complaint with the police. One suspect, Konathala Jagadeesh from Anakapalli, was taken into custody in relation to the case. He was previously linked to the 'maharaja betting case' in Chhattisgarh. Under interrogation, Jagadeesh divulged the names of two other suspects: Gabbar, believed to be operating abroad, and Sagar Burman from Madhya Pradesh. A special team was constituted by the city police chief to probe the betting racket. This team conducted the raid at the Bengaluru call centre and subsequently tracked down additional suspects. Those arrested hail from Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. The primary accused, Gabbar, is yet to be located, and police are continuing their search to apprehend him. The case has been registered under Sections 111(2), 319(2), and 318(4) read with 61(2) of the BNS, Sections 66-C and 66-D of the Information Technology Act, and Sections 3 and 4 of the Andhra Pradesh Gaming Act.
India.com
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
Not Amjad Khan, Sanjeev Kumar, this actor was first choice for Gabbar and Thakur in Sholay, rejected the roles due to..., his name is...
Not Amjad Khan, Sanjeev Kumar, this actor was first choice for Gabbar and Thakur in Sholay, rejected the roles due to..., his name is... Ramesh Sippy's 1975 cult classic film Sholay is all set to hit the theatres once again. The film starring, Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra in the lead roles, will have its worldwide premiere on June 27, at the prestigious Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy. Well, what's interesting is that Sholay will have a re-release in a fully resorted and uncut version, showing some never-before scenes to the audiences. In association with the Film Heritage Foundation and Sippy Films, the screening will take place at 9:45 pm at Piazza Maggiore. Elated by the news of Sholay's restoration, Dharmendra called the movie '8th wonder of the world.' Moreover, he was sure that the screening would too have the same humongous success as it had 50 years ago. Dharmendra was initially offered Gabbar and Thakur roles Sharing an interesting anecdote about the film, Dharmendra revealed that he was initially offered the roles of Gabbar and Thakur, and said, 'but I was clear that I wanted to play the role of Veeru as he is so much like me.' Gabbar Singh was then played by Amjad Khan and Sanjeev Kumar portrayed the role of Thakur Baldev Singh, making the characters truly iconic till date. Sholay's terrific cast also included Hema Malini and Jaya Bachchan as 'Basanti' and 'Radha'. Dharmendra talks about his favourite scenes in Sholay Dharmendra also recalled some of his favourite scenes from Sholay, and said, 'the tanki scene, the scene in the temple, and so many others, but the most powerful scene I feel was the death of Jai, which is still etched in my mind.' To commemorate the film's 50 years, Sholay will have its special screening in Italy. The film will be re-released with its original ending and previously deleted scenes. Sholay will be released in 2.2:1 aspect ratio, with resorted sound and visuals.
