Latest news with #RaviShankar
News18
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Vikrant Massey To Star In Biopic 'White' Based On Shri Shri Ravi Shankar; Narcos Crew On Board
Last Updated: Vikrant Massey stars in White, a biopic on Shri Shri Ravi Shankar's peace mission in Colombia. Filming starts August 2025 with the Narcos production crew. After months of speculation, fresh updates have emerged about White — the ambitious biopic based on the life and humanitarian work of spiritual leader Shri Shri Ravi Shankar. Fronted by Vikrant Massey, the film is now set to go on floors in August 2025, with an international crew that previously worked on the critically acclaimed series Narcos. Initially reported by Pinkvilla earlier this year, White is being produced by filmmaker Siddharth Anand and Mahaveer Jain, with direction by Montoo Bassi. The film, however, is not a conventional cradle-to-present biopic. Instead, it is set against the harrowing backdrop of Colombia's 52-year-long civil war — an arena where Shri Shri Ravi Shankar played a significant role in fostering peace through dialogue and spiritual outreach. A source close to the project reveals, 'Contrary to early reports suggesting a traditional biopic, White will delve into the spiritual leader's role in helping end one of the world's longest-running civil wars. To retain authenticity, the film will be shot extensively in Colombia using real locations." What's more, the production team is going all out by roping in the crew behind Netflix's Narcos, known for its immersive portrayal of the Colombian drug war. 'The producers wanted a seasoned crew familiar with the geography, politics, and logistical challenges of filming in Colombia. The Narcos team brings invaluable experience and cinematic depth to the project," the source added. White will largely be shot in a start-to-finish schedule in Colombia, with about 90% of the film taking place on international soil. The remaining portions are planned to be filmed at a Mumbai studio. Vikrant Massey, known for his layered and emotionally grounded performances, is already deep in prep mode. The actor has reportedly begun intensive reading sessions and workshops with the writing and direction team to embody the role of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar with nuance and authenticity. The film aims to strike a global chord — blending spirituality, socio-political history, and human resilience — and is expected to be one of the most significant international projects to come out of India in recent times. 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
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Vikrant Massey to lead biopic 'White' on Shri Shri Ravi Shankar with Narcos crew on board: Report
Vikrant Massey stars in 'White', a biopic on Shri Shri Ravi Shankar's peace efforts during Colombia's civil war. Directed by Montoo Bassi, the film shoots mainly in Colombia with the Narcos crew. Massey is preparing intensely to portray the spiritual leader authentically in this major international project. After much anticipation, new details have surfaced about 'White', a biographical film chronicling the life and humanitarian efforts of spiritual leader Shri Shri Ravi Shankar. Vikrant Massey will lead the cast, and filming is slated to begin in August 2025. The project will feature an international crew known for their work on the acclaimed series 'Narcos'. Focus on Colombia's Civil War and Spiritual Diplomacy Earlier this year, Pinkvilla reported that 'White' is being produced by Siddharth Anand and Mahaveer Jain , with Montoo Bassi directing. Unlike typical biopics that cover a person's entire life, this film focuses on a specific period—the brutal 52-year civil war in Colombia. It highlights Shri Shri Ravi Shankar 's crucial efforts to promote peace through dialogue and spiritual guidance amid the conflict. Authentic Storytelling Through Real Locations According to reports, contrary to early reports suggesting a traditional biopic, White will delve into the spiritual leader's role in helping end one of the world's longest-running civil wars. To retain authenticity, the film will be shot extensively in Colombia using real locations. Experienced 'Narcos' Crew Joins the Project The production is sparing no effort by bringing in the experienced team from Netflix's 'Narcos', a show praised for its deep and realistic depiction of the Colombian drug war. The source further said that the producers wanted a seasoned crew familiar with the geography, politics, and logistical challenges of filming in Colombia. The Narcos team brings invaluable experience and cinematic depth to the project. Filming Schedule and Vikrant Massey's Preparation 'White' will be mostly filmed in Colombia in one continuous schedule, with nearly 90% of the movie shot abroad. The rest of the scenes will be completed in a Mumbai studio. Vikrant Massey, praised for his deep and nuanced acting, has already started preparing through extensive reading and workshops with the film's creative team to portray Shri Shri Ravi Shankar with depth and authenticity. The film wants to reach people all over the world by mixing spirituality, history, and human strength. It is expected to be one of the most important international movies made in India recently.
Pink Villa
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
EXCLUSIVE: Vikrant Massey led Shri Shri Ravi Shankar Biopic goes global; Narcos team on board production crew
Earlier in 2024, Pinkvilla has exclusively revealed that Vikrant Massey is coming on board to play the lead role in the biopic of spiritual leader, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar. Soon after, it was reported that the film, titled White, will be produced by Siddharth Anand and Mahaveer Jain, with Montoo Bassi as the director. The pre-production for the film has been going on full swing over the last one year, and the makers are now all set to take White on floors from August 2025. Pinkvilla has exclusively learnt that Siddharth Anand, along with his producer partner, Mahaveer Jain have roped in the production team of Narcos for the Vikrant Massey starrer White. 'Contrary to the reports of being a life story of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, White is set against the backdrop of the 52-year-long lasting brutal civil war of Colombia. The team will be shooting at real locations of the country, and have hired the same crew that worked on the globally popular web-series, Narcos,' revealed a source close to the development. Interestingly, Narcos was also shot largely in Colombia, and the team of White is aiming to make optimum utilization of their experience through the shoot. 'Right from the production crew, to the other key technical members, White will boast of a huge international crew, who have previously worked on Narcos. This stands inline with the vision of making a global project on the efforts of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar in resolving the 52-year civil war of Colombia,' the source added. White goes on floors in August with a start-to-finish schedule. 'Around 90 percent of the film will be shot in Colombia, and the makers aim to complete this in one marathon schedule. The remaining portions will be shot at a studio in Mumbai,' the source concluded. Vikrant Massey has already started to train as an actor to step into the shoes of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar. He is doing reading sessions and acting workshops with the writing and direction team. Stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more updates!
Time of India
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Anoushka Shankar says father's demise gave her space to speak about abuse: 'I lost my greatest musical collaborator'
Renowned sitar player Anoushka Shankar is opening up about how the passing of her father and mentor, the legendary Pandit Ravi Shankar , in December 2012, deeply affected her. In an interview with Barkha Dutt, Anoushka stated, 'So I lost my greatest musical collaborator, I lost my teacher, and then of course we had this Grammy experience going on. There was also a whole other aspect happening for me, which I connected to major life events that, technically, weren't related." At a time the round the nation was reeling in shock over the Nirbhaya case . Speaking about the same, she recalled, "Five days after my father passed away, the Nirbhaya attack happened. I was already deep in the grief of losing my father when that news broke. And so, for me, I can never think about one without the other, because they both intensified something within me, this trauma bubble of grief, anger, and outrage. It was all one thing, really.' Shankar said that it was a time when her personal grief and the country's anger over the Nirbhaya case came together, creating a wave of intense emotions. Known for her bold music and strong voice on social issues, she admitted that the closeness of these two events left a deep and lasting impact on her mind. She further openly spoke about how people often thought her life was easy just because she was the daughter of the legendary Ravi Shankar. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Many assumed she had a privileged life and an easy start in music. But she said the truth was very different and much more complicated. 'I had a very fortunate upbringing. I had a lot of incredible things in my life. But one of the narratives that, as a human and as a young woman in the press, used to rankle me was this idea that I'd just had a charmed life, that I had a silver spoon, that nothing bad had ever happened to me, and that I'd just swanned into this industry. And you know, sexual abuse… as I say, everyone has a spectrum. It's not like that was the only thing. But when you carry a big wound like that, and it's a secret, it feels very disjointed from how you're seen, compared to how you actually feel as a human being.' Looking back, Anoushka said that the timing of her decision to speak publicly about her personal experiences may have been influenced by her father's death. She felt that after he passed away, she had more freedom to share her story openly. While her father was aware of what she had gone through, she felt that any pain he might have felt from her speaking about it publicly was no longer a concern. At that time, she was deeply grieving and wasn't thinking too much. She also reflected on how the Nirbhaya case became a major turning point, not just in her own life, but also in the global conversation about gender-based violence. She said it was the first time she could remember the entire world focusing on one story of sexual violence. According to her, it felt like a rare moment when people everywhere were united in outrage. She saw it as an important opportunity to raise awareness and believed that any effort, no matter how small, to keep the conversation going and make a difference, truly mattered. 'That narrative really showed me how much misapprehension there is around who this can happen to, and how universal it is. And so I knew that with my story, regardless of how much detail I chose to share or not share, if people thought of me as the person with the silver spoon, the person who had it all, then for me to say, 'Uh-uh, me too. This happens everywhere. This can happen to anyone,' that felt really important to me, she added to the conversation. "
News18
05-07-2025
- Health
- News18
Medical Education Scam Busted: Godman, Ex-UGC Chief, Among 34 Officials Named
Last Updated: The alleged corruption spans multiple states, pointing to a nationwide racket involving approvals, inspections, and recognitions granted to several private medical colleges. In what it has called as one of the largest medical education scams in India, the Central Bureau of Education (CBI) has busted a nexus of top government officials, intermediaries and representatives of private medical colleges, who were allegedly involved in 'egregious" acts, including graft and manipulation of the regulatory framework governing medical colleges. The alleged corruption spans multiple states, pointing to a nationwide racket involving approvals, inspections, and recognitions granted to several private medical colleges. As per the agency, the corruption involves top officials from the union health ministry, the National Medical Commission (NMC), middlemen, private college representatives, prominent educationists, and even a self-styled godman, news agency PTI reported. High-Profile Names Under Scanner: The scam, unearthed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, has opened the lid on a number of deep links the officials had with each other. The agency named several high profile names in its FIR including, The central probe agency arrested eight people in the case recently. These include three doctors of the NMC team who were held for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 55 lakh for giving a favourable report to the Naya Raipur-based Rawatpura Institute of Medical Sciences and Research. The agency has alleged that Ravi Shankar of the Rawatpura Institute wanted advance information about the inspection. A director of the institute, Atul Kumar Tiwari, also named in the FIR, got in touch with Raval to get the information unlawfully. Ravi Shankar also got in touch with DP Singh to get a favourable inspection report in lieu of bribes, the CBI alleged and added that Singh delegated the task to one Suresh. There was no immediate reaction from Singh. Raval had allegedly demanded Rs 25-30 lakh for the information and gave the names of assessors and the date of inspection to the institute officials. The syndicate has its roots in the Union Health Ministry, where the eight accused officials ran the sophisticated scheme facilitating unauthorised access, illegal duplication and dissemination of highly confidential files and sensitive information to representatives of medical colleges through a network of intermediaries in exchange for huge bribes, the FIR alleged. These officials, along with the intermediaries, manipulated the statutory inspection process conducted by the NMC by disclosing inspection schedules and identities of the designated assessors to the medical institutions concerned well in advance of the official communication. The CBI has named the Union Health Ministry's Poonam Meena, Dharamvir, Piyush Malyan, Anup Jaiswal, Rahul Srivastava, Deepak, Manisha and Chandan Kumar as accused in the FIR. These people allegedly located files and clicked photographs of notings and comments made by senior officers and sent these to middlemen and representatives of medical colleges. The crucial information of internal processing of medical institutions in the ministry gave an alarming degree of leverage to colleges. The agency has alleged that several middlemen and representatives of medical colleges, including Bhadoria, Joshy Mathew, Udit Narain, Virendra Kumar, and Manisha Joshi, were tapping accused Health Ministry officials for information on NMC assessments. All of them have been named in the FIR. 'Such prior disclosures have enabled medical colleges to orchestrate fraudulent arrangements, including the bribing of assessors to secure favourable inspection reports, the deployment of non-existent or proxy faculty (ghost faculty), and the admission of fictitious patients to artificially project compliance during inspections, and tampering with the biometric attendance systems to falsify," the FIR said. The CBI has alleged that Bhadoria was cloning artificial fingers to create a fake biometric attendance of doctors in the hospital. The agency has mentioned bribes running into lakhs of rupees being exchanged between NMC teams, intermediaries and representatives of medical colleges, being routed through hawala and used for multiple purposes, including the one in the name of construction of a temple. It has also alleged that Jeetu Lal Meena, a wholetime member of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board in NMC, was in touch with Indra Bali Mishra 'Guruji', a resident of Varanasi, who in turn was a pointsman for Virender Kumar, an alleged middlemen for a number of colleges in southern India. It is alleged that in lieu of information, Kumar gave bribes in lakhs to Guruji, who got it collected through his brother-in-law Shivam Pandey and got it handed to Meena. Meena allegedly used a portion of the bribe money in the construction of a temple in Rajasthan's Dausa. One Hari Prasad in Ananthpur, Andhra Pradesh, also worked through Kumar. Prasad, who arranged dummy faculty and handled NMC affairs for some medical colleges for a fee, had two more partners working for him, Krishna Kishore and Ankam Rambabu who had taken bribes from Venkat, a director of Gayatri Medical College, Visakhapatnam and Father Joseph Kommareddy of Father Colombo Institute of Medical Sciences in Warangal. About the Author Shobhit Gupta Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from More Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from politics to crime and society. Stay informed with the latest India news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : cbi Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: July 05, 2025, 15:58 IST News india Medical Education Scam Busted: Godman, Ex-UGC Chief, Among 34 Officials Named
