Tag: trending

  • Farhan Saeed, Imran Abbas, others express disappointment on Pakistani economy’s plight

    Farhan Saeed, Imran Abbas, others express disappointment on Pakistani economy’s plight

    Pakistan recently faced a nationwide power breakout, several parts of the country also battled severe gas shortage, and now with the rupee losing its value further against the dollar, netizens and celebrities are struggling to feel patriotic. Prominent Pakistani actors weighed in on the deteriorating conditions of the country’s economy and whether we, as a nation, have lost all hopes for betterment.

    “How will we ever recover from this? Since I’ve been alive, I’ve never seen the Rupee strengthen against Dollar drastically,” Farhan Saeed wrote on Twitter on Saturday while reacting to the Pakistani rupee standing at an all-time low against the dollar.

    Concerned about how non-serious people are taking the economic distress we’re in, he added, “But still we are either this party or that party, but not Pakistan. No one’s serious about where we are, have we lost hope?”

    Actor Imran Abbas also made a cryptic post while sharing Finance Minsiter’s viral video.

    Ushna Shah shared her two cents on the subject. Claiming that she loves Pakistan and its people, she added how it gets harder to feel love when you can’t live a hassle-free life due to the unavailability of basic resources.

    “I love my country, I love my identity, and I love my fellow Pakistanis. But when there is no electricity and no gas at the same time, there is a shortage of petrol and UPS crashes due to overuse, and literally, no way to power the house when I need coffee, well, tarana gana thora mushkil hei. (it’s hard to sing the national anthem then)” she wrote.

    Actor Aijaz Aslam questioned how productive political press conferences are if all that happens is leaders blaming each other while the civilians struggle to live.

    “What’s the point of these press conferences? Leaders just blame each other and nothing else. No one ever discusses the strategies to bring stability to the country. The currency devaluation is unstoppable and basic commodities are unaffordable for a common man, Reham karo (Bless us)” read his tweet. 

  • ’10 saal me aik film hit’: Kangana Ranaut slams Shah Rukh Khan, shares hateful tweets

    ’10 saal me aik film hit’: Kangana Ranaut slams Shah Rukh Khan, shares hateful tweets

    Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut took a dig at Shah Rukh Khan and his filmography after a netizen wrote back to Kangana saying, “Kangana Ji’s film Dhakad earned 55 lakh rupees on the first day and lifetime collection 2.58 crores. While Pathaan film earned more than 100 crores on the first day.”

    Responding to the comment, the Manikarnika star said, “Yes, Dhakad was a historic flop, when did I deny this? This is SRK ji’s first successful film in ten years, we also take inspiration from him, I hope we will also get a similar chance that India gave him. After all this India is great, it is generous, Jai Shri Ram.”

    She also tweeted a series of hate tweets regarding Pathaan’s success and its slightly decent portrayal of Pakistani agencies.

    After noticing the same, former Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari took to Instagram and called out Indian actress Kangana Ranaut following her ‘hateful comments’ about Pakistan as the Bollywood actress took a jibe at Shahrukh Khan’s film ‘Pathaan’ for depicting “enemy nation Pakistan in a good light”. 

    This is what Noor wrote while giving Kangana’s face a silent but tight slap:

    It all started when Kangana, whose twitter account was just restored, praised the film Pathaan for doing exceptionally good business throughout the world cinemas. Later, Kangana realized her mistake and the ‘undisputed queen of feuds’ could not restrain her impulse and abruptly took a U-turn. In a thread of tweets, she lambasted the Pathaan for showing the enemy country Pakistan and ISI in a good light. Her scathing tweets hurt the sentiments of Pakistani people. 

  • Dar vs Khan: Ishaq challenges IK to live debate on economy

    Dar vs Khan: Ishaq challenges IK to live debate on economy

    Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, in a televised address on Friday, strongly criticised Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s economic policies and challenged him to hold a “live debate” with him on the economic crisis.

    The finance czar started by saying that the incumbent government sacrificed politics for the sake of the country.

    Taking a jibe at Khan’s address in which he narrated his economic successes, Dar said that the speech was “full of lies” and that he quoted wrong figures.

    “You [Khan] can hold a live debate and bring the economic survey and State Bank documents,” he said, asking the PTI chief to not mislead the public by quoting ‘wrong figures’.

    Speaking about Imran’s claims of creating 55 million jobs, the finance minister argued that the economic survey from the PTI setup showed that only 33 million jobs were created.

    Accusing Khan of creating the ongoing economic crisis, he said that inflation rate was 8.6 per cent under the former Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, which spiked to double digits during the PTI era.

    Shedding light on International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dar said when Imran realised he was being ousted, he disowned all the agreements and left behind landmines, adding that Pakistan had only completed one IMF programme in its history which was under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif.

    Dar also claimed that during their previous tenure international rating agencies predicted Pakistan would join G20 by 2030.

  • Pakistani-American family arrested for abuse, forced labor of woman

    Pakistani-American family arrested for abuse, forced labor of woman

    A Pakistani-American family living in the United States of America (USA) has been sentenced on Monday to serve between five to twelve years in jail for physical violence and forced labor inflicted upon a Pakistani woman. Federal authorities have described this case as the ‘modern-day equivalence of slavery’.
    As reported by US newspaper Richmond Times, the three defendants, matriarch Zahida Aman along with her two sons, Mohammad Rehan Chaudhri (49) and Mohammad Nauman Chaudhri (55), had used physical labor, verbal abuse and coercion against the survivor, Maria Butt, to get her to serve thousands of hours of domestic labor ‘for 12 long years’, said federal authorities in a statement.
    “Indeed, during the course of their illegal agreement and in furtherance of their criminal conspiracy, each defendant assaulted, verbally attacked and abused [the victim’s] children to carefully construct a climate of fear that continuously compelled her labor,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Miller and Shea Gibbons revealed in a court statement.
    Butt was married to Salman Chaudhri, the eldest son of Aman in January 2002 when she was living in Pakistan. She claimed that she had not met her husband before their marriage. After moving to the United States, Butt recalled her husband telling her that if she wanted to keep him happy, then she must fulfil the obligations of his family.
    Shortly after moving to the US, Butt was called in a family meeting by Aman where the victim was asked to surrender her legal documents, including the jewlery gifted by her family, as well as a notebook listing the contact numbers of her family members back home.
    Prosecutors note that due to this act, the survivor “had no legal documentation, assets of value or contact information for her family and friends within months of arriving in the United States. She was becoming completely dependent on the defendants for basic necessities and emotional support.”
    After her arrival, the survivor was forced to perform an endless amount of housework which included cleaning bedrooms, wiping down the kitchen and, as prosecuters pointed out, had ‘become a robot of the house’ who basically had to respond to all of the requests of the family members.
    Soon, the survivor was made to perform incredibly difficult tasks like moving the lawn with a push mover, hand-washing and line-drying area rugs, including painting the inside and outside of the family’s two-storey house. When she would refuse, the survivor was slapped or subjected to cruel punishments like in one instance, she was tied with rope and pushed down the stairs infrount of her children for simply using a family member’s phone to call her husband.
    “As the type of work the defendants required [the victim] to perform intensified, so too did the coercive scheme they employed to compel her labor,” prosecutors said in the trial brief. “The defendants used a combination of coercive means, including physical assaults, verbal abuse, isolation, starvation and threats of deportation to create a climate of fear that compelled [the victim’s] labor,” prosecutors said.
    The survivor’s husband, Salman Chaudhri, was not dtsying regularly in the family’s home, and had moved to Pennsylvania for his medical education and then to California to set up his practice. He got engaged to another woman in 2013. The survivor revealed that the husband did not take her, or their four children with him to California.
    Prosecuters also revealed that the family also tried to separate the survivor from her children. They revealed that the children were encouraged to spit on their mother, and had been convinced that she was dangerous. The children were also belittled and punished if they would ever show any kindness to their mother.
    In May 2016, the survivor managed to escape with her brother from Pakistan and had filed a police case with Chesterfield County Police detective Laura Kay, after which the family members were placed under arrest.
    “After two months of rebuilding her relationships with her family and gaining emotional courage, [the victim] contacted [her brother], who helped her leave the home,” prosecutors wrote. The survivor “subsequently gained full custody of her children, despite a contested custody battle with the defendants.”

  • Sajal Aly cast as main lead in ‘Umrao Jan’ drama adaptation

    Sajal Aly cast as main lead in ‘Umrao Jan’ drama adaptation

    Sajal Aly has been cast as the main lead for the upcoming drama adaptation of the popular novel ‘Umrao Jan’, as per reports from Variety.

    The drama is being produced by Dubai-based South Asian celebrity management agency Action Consultancy, while Hamid Hussain and Muhammad Yaqoub will also be serving as producers.

    The Urdu language novel was written in1899 by Mirza Hadi Ruswa, which depicts India in the 19th century, particularly the lives of courtesans. It follows the life of Amiran, a little girl living in Faizabad by a man who later sells her to a brothel.

    Speaking to Variety, Hussain promised that the adaptation will be unlike the previous films, because it relies “heavily on the original Urdu version of the novel, unlike the film adaptations that had taken creative liberties to fit the story into a film narrative,” further adding “there is a lot in the novel that has never been shown in an audiovisual project.”

    Previously, the novel was adapted in the 1972 Pakistani film “Umrao Jaan Ada” which was directed by Hasan Tariq and cast Rani as the main lead. In 1981, Bollywood’s “Umrao Jaan” (1981) cast Rekha as the seductive courtesan, while Aishwarya Rai Bachchan then later took on the role in J.P Dutta’s 2006 ‘Umrao Jaan”.

  • Are Tere Bin’s scenes copied from Barun Sobti-Sanaya Irani’s blockbuster ‘IPKKND’?

    Are Tere Bin’s scenes copied from Barun Sobti-Sanaya Irani’s blockbuster ‘IPKKND’?

    Geo Entertainment’s drama serial Tere Bin starring Yumna Zaidi and Wahaj Ali is currently leading the rating charts.

    Some transnational viewers of this drama have now discovered that many moments in Tere Bin are an exact replica of those in the popular Indian drama Iss Pyar Ko Kya Naam Doon starring the hit pair of Barun Sobti and Sanaya Irani.

    What the netizens has to say about the two shows’ striking resemblance is as follows:

  • SRK’s response to the haters? Never stop moving forward

    SRK’s response to the haters? Never stop moving forward

    Only two days after Shahrukh Khan’s Pathaan was released in cinemas across India, the film has broken all records to become one of the biggest box office hits by making INR 231 crore worldwide.
    Fans and movie critics are calling it the perfect comeback for the King of Bollywood. After facing months of scrutiny and backlash such as the arrest of his son Aryan Khan in October 2021, after which the charges were dropped due to no evidence. The film’s release became a target for BJP politicians and religious clerics, who used the song ‘Besharam Rang’ as their rallying cry to boycott the film. A seer from Ayodhya even went on to threaten to burn Shah Rukh Khan alive were the film to release in cinemas. BJP activists referred to the scene where actress Deepika Padukone is wearing a saffron-colored bikini, and claimed that the scene was anti-Hindu after which they called for a boycott over the film.
    However, these threats and bribes as an attempt to dismantle King Khan proved to be unsuccessful because three days later, theaters continue to be jam packed with thousands of devoted fans coming back for multiple screenings of ‘Pathaan’, and gushing about the brilliance of the film. Reports are arriving that unusual show timings like midnight or even 6 am in the morning have been added due to the popularity of the film.
    With all this praise, Shah Rukh Khan reached out to his fans on Twitter to give them an important lesson to remember that even surrounded with hurdles and endless criticism, we must never stop moving forward.

    https://twitter.com/dishaspovs/status/1618179623736729601?s=20&t=DCNhUBu-mrOUoGq2E-89qg

    With all this praise, Shah Rukh Khan reached out to his fans on Twitter to give them an important lesson to remember that even surrounded with hurdles and endless criticism, we must never stop moving forward.

    “Gattaca movie ‘I never saved anything for the swim back’ I think life is a bit like that….You aren’t meant to plan your return…U r meant to move forward. Don’t come back…try to finish what u started. Just a 57yr olds’ advice things.”

    Fans of Shah Rukh Khan were deeply moved by this advice.

    “Stars and celebs don’t need me rooting for them, but I totally love this gentleman, the kind of grace and courage he showed, as a father, when he and his family were bullied and judged and punished, I really want him to win! Go, Shah Rukh Khan!” one user wrote.

    “Timely advice for many of us who feel stuck, or are living our own versions groundhog day’esque monotony,” another user wrote.

  • India and Pakistan were close to nuclear war, claims former US Secretary of State

    India and Pakistan were close to nuclear war, claims former US Secretary of State

    Former United States (US) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed on Tuesday in his new memoir that arch rivals— India and Pakistan— were on the verge of nuclear war in February 2019.

    Pompeo, who served in President Donald Trump’s tenure, has written in ‘Never Give an Inch: Fighting for America I Love’ that he does “not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019.”

    He says at the time, he was informed by his Indian counter-partner that Pakistan had begun to prepare for a nuclear strike on India. However, he asked him to give it some time to sort out the matter. Later, he reached out to Pakistani former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa.

    The ex-army chief told Pompeo that Indian allegations were baseless. He believed the Indians were preparing their nuclear weapons for deployment.

    Moreover, the former US official said that it took them a few hours and remarkably good work by their teams on the ground in New Delhi and Islamabad to convince both countries to desist.

    In February 2019, Delhi launched strikes to attack Pakistan after a militant attack on Indian troops in Kashmir. However, Pakistan shot down two Indian military jets and captured a fighter pilot who later was released.

    In 1974, India became the first country in the region to become a nuclear power while Pakistan attained nuclear power in 1998.

    It is pertinent to mention that neither India nor Pakistan has commented so far on Pompeo’s claims.

  • ‘Distasteful and factually incorrect’: Adnan Siddiqui lashes out at Sidharth Malhotra’s ‘Mission Majnu’

    ‘Distasteful and factually incorrect’: Adnan Siddiqui lashes out at Sidharth Malhotra’s ‘Mission Majnu’

    Actor Adnan Siddiqui has commented about Bollywood’s misrepresentation of Pakistanis in their films. The recent Bollywood movie Mission Majnu became a trolling affair as the film stereotyped Pakistanis.

    While many rightly called out the makers of the propaganda film on Twitter, Siddiqui took to Instagram and shared his two cents on the matter. “How much misrepresentation is too much misrepresentation?” he asked his followers on Instagram.

    Adding on, the actor, who starred in Bollywood offering Mom, alongside late superstar Sridevi and Sajal Ali, commented, “I mean come on, with all the money you have, hire some good researchers to do homework on us. Or allow me to help. Make sure to take notes—no, we don’t wear skull caps, surma, tawiz; no, we don’t ask janab about their mijaz; no, we don’t go around throwing adaab.”

    Siddiqui went on to comment, “There’s so much in Mission Majnu that’s distasteful and factually incorrect. The hero’s saviour complex would’ve been accentuated more if the villain was shown at par. A weak antagonist embellishes an even weaker protagonist.”

    He concluded, “Poor story, poorer execution, poorest research. Next time, come and visit us. We are good hosts. Will show you how we look like, dress up and live.”

    Malhotra previously addressed stereotyping of Pakistanis and India’s knack for making films on this side of the border. When asked if his character in the film helps perpetuate stereotypes of Pakistanis in Hindi films, the actor told Film Companion, “We have consciously made an effort in the writing that it is never to take on a particular community. I recently did a film called Shershaah, which is based on India and Pakistan, and the battle that we had, which was documented.”

    He added, “Once you see the film, consciously we never really concentrated, barring maybe four scenes on the other side (Pakistan), it was purely about this side (India) and this man’s journey, (Army captain) captain Vikram Batra sacrificing his life… So there is the same conscious effort (with Mission Majnu), and there is no personal animosity with anyone, these are just documented historical points, which we will never get complete facts of, so for that, you need to establish possibly certain characters in an x amount of time.”

    The actor further responded about certain scenes in the trailer and added, “And the shots they are referring to (from the trailer) are meant to be tongue-in-cheek in the film. So, I think it will be a fair dialogue once everyone sees the film… it is never about a community or taking a dig, which digresses from the film… a religion or a community is never an issue in the film.”

    Sidharth Malhotra's Mission Majnu slammed by pakistani actor

    There has been a steady rise in Bollywood film productions which often overtly or covertly portray an anti-Pakistan sentiment. Malhotra’s Mission Majnu isn’t Bollywood’s first attempt at wrongly depicting Pakistan and history. His Student of the Year co-star, Alia Bhatt, too, essayed a spy in the 2018 film, Raazi. One such film released in 2021, Bhuj: The Pride of India, which stars Ajay Devgan in the lead role, ironically features a rendition of Madam Noor Jehan’s iconic song Zaalima CocaCola.

    Films portraying an anti-Pakistan narrative gained traction after the Uri attacks in 2016. Uri: The Surgical Strike, starring Vicky Kaushal was one of the first military-inspired films showing Pakistan in a negative light. While Akshay Kumar’s spy thriller Bell Bottom, inspired by the hijackings of Indian Airline flights in the 80s, was banned from screening in KSA, Kuwait and Qatar. The countries in question deemed the film to be unfit for exhibition.

  • Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni to star in film adaptation of controversial book ‘It Ends With Us’

    Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are set to star as main leads in a film adaptation of the controversial Colleen Hoover book ‘It Ends With Us’, with Baldoni also directing, Deadline has reported.

    Hoover’s novel has been slammed by bloggers and social media users for romanticizing abuse and championing aggressive and toxic male characters. Users have pointed out that even though the book was marketed as a ‘romance novel’ it depicts an abusive relationship where the female lead, Lilly Bloom, is consistently abused and sexually assaulted by her husband, Ryle, and even highlighted how regardless of this, there are no consequences for the abuser by the end of the novel.
    Recently, Hoover had to cancel the release of the adult coloring book based on ‘It’s End With Us’, after social media users called her ‘insensitive’ and ‘tone deaf’.

    When news of the film adaptation broke out on Twitter, users criticized Baldoni’s involvement in the project, citing his description of himself as a ‘male feminist’. Baldoni had also held a TED talk on encouraging better representation of masculinity on social media.
    “Isn’t Justin Baldoni Mr ‘we have to address the negative ways masculinity is taught/enforced’??? Sir, in what world does that line up with Colleen Hoover/her work? lmao what,” one user wrote.

    “Justin Baldoni is such a promising actor & his opinions are always very interesting to listen to, so why… as a man who spoke up about toxic masculinity and abuse, you’re taking this role…”

    https://twitter.com/venuseIy/status/1618882700869500928?s=20&t=uE1nNRWsBo-ShR4JwO94qg

    “Justin Baldoni crafted his entire image to be a role model to create emotionally open and sensitive young men. And now he’s not just starring in this awful adaptation, but DIRECTING it?? With BLAKE LIVELY??? Insanity”