Arfin Rana Mir becomes ‘divya awaz’ of Baba Ramdev’s ‘Om Shanti Om’

Kolkata-based Arfin Rana Mir on Sunday won the popular devotional singing reality show Om Shanti Om. He hopes it's the beginning of a bright future as a playback singer for him.

Arfin was given the winner's trophy along with a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh by actress Sonakshi Sinha and singers Kanika Kapoor and Shekhar Ravjiani. Priya Malik and Riya Bhattacharya were named first and second runners-up.

"I am on cloud nine. The feeling of winning the trophy of 'Om Shanti Om' has not sunk in yet. This is one of the best moments of my life. I am thankful to Star Bharat for giving me this platform," Arfin said in a statement.

"I am indebted to the viewers for their constant love. I pray that my journey of becoming India's best playback singer starts on a bright note," he added.

Talking about the winner, Sonakshi said: "Arfin Rana Mir is a well-deserved winner of Om Shanti Om. He does complete justice to the title. Every week, I would wait for his performance as he sang all the songs with so much of 'jashan'. I wish him all the very best for a melodious and bright future."

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who featured as Maha Guru on the show, said: "Like ‘Om Shanti Om', in the future we aim to create (more) such effective shows that will use bhajans (devotional songs) as a way to connect to the younger generation with Indian culture and traditions. My heartfelt congratulations to Arfin and best wishes for his bright future."

Any government ignoring human suffering will fall: Kamal Haasan

Hitting out at the Tamil Nadu government, Tamil actor Kamal Haasan on Sunday said any regime that focusses on power and fame even if results in loss of life would fall.

A person is an accessory to a murder if his action results in an accident which Tamil Nadu's rulers should realise, he said.

In a tweet, Haasan said a government that does not value the lives of pedestrians cannot travel in a palanquin for long, in an obliquely reference to the death of a software engineer in Coimbatore - around 500 km from here - on Friday after hitting the wooden structure on the road.

The wooden structure was erected for an decorative arch as a part of the centenary celebration of AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran.

PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss said the ruling party has not obtained any permission from the authorities for putting up such structures.

Shekhar Kapur questions censoring of Padmavati

Acclaimed director Shekhar Kapur on Sunday questioned the 'censoring' of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmavati, while arguing that while Bhansali was a good filmmaker, he had never made political films.

"I know the filmmaker, I know the film and you know the film. The intention of the filmmaker was not to create controversy. He is a great filmmaker, but he has never been a political filmmaker," he said at a Masterclass on the sidelines of the ongoing 48th International Film Festival of India.

"There are fractured lines in our society which are very obvious because India, as a society is in an absolute and desperate flux," Kapur said, while trying to lay out the context the controversy surrounding Padmavati.

"All the fractured lines, which were drawn once, are breaking. And in the breaking of those lines, there are fractures. And so the politics that has risen around the film, not in the film, why censor the poor filmmaker. It was not his intention," he said.

Kapur claimed that he was not against censorship and freedom of speech was not complete in every sense of the word, but also recalled that he himself had to fight a long-drawn legal battle to get his film Bandit Queen released.

with inputs from IANS