THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Gender discrimination against women is not only practised by orthodox and chauvinistic communities in India, it is also being perpetuated by regional governments. In such a case, the crime branch of Kerala police chargesheeted Kannada actress Jayamala for violating a religious practice that barred women from entering a temple and touching its male idol.

The actress had claimed that she violated the religious propriety by entering the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala temple and touched the idol of Lord Ayyappa.

CHENNAI: Actor Arvind Swamy’s divorce with his wife of 16 years, Gayathri Ramamurthy, is now only a formality, with the couple agreeing to an exhaustive set of terms and conditions covering maintenance, custody of children and visiting rights.

When their petition for divorce by mutual consent came up before the principal judge for family courts, S Meenakshisundaram, on Wednesday, it was informed that the actor would make a one-time payment of Rs 75 lakh to his wife, in addition to a monthly payment of Rs 1 lakh towards maintenance from the date of dissolution of their marriage. “The monthly maintenance shall continue to be paid as long as Gayathri does not remarry,” the agreement states, adding that the monthly alimony is “not subject to enhancement, under any circumstances, whatsoever.”

Chennai: It is a different kind of Tamil movie altogether with US President Barack Obama as the hero of a fictional village in Tamil Nadu although he never makes a physical appearance in the film and is shown via cutouts and posters and even has two songs based on him. Journalist-turned-filmmaker Janaki Viswanathan`s medium budget movie Om Obama is the story of Kedarpalayam village and the relationship the hamlet believes it shares with Obama.

“The village believes that it has contributed to Obama becoming President and he in turn bailed them out of an economic crisis. There are lot of sub plots including romance and, grass roots politics,” Viswanathan told reporters.

There was a time when hardly any female artiste would dare to play a prostitute on screen! But it seems the current trend is just the opposite!

Ever since reigning Anushka played the said role as Amalapuram Saroja in Telugu super hit Vedam, being remade in Tamil as Vaanam with Anushka reprising the role, actresses’ fear of ruining their public images by their onscreen portrayal as prostitutes has seemingly vanished!

Prostitutes’ roles became so coveted that actresses in both Tamil and Telugu industries tend to believe these days that unless they play such a challenging character at least once, they can’t prove their acting talents. The proof is that even young actresses like Bindu Madhavi have no hesitation in signing such roles.

Genelia was in news for wrong reason as she was reportedly slapped a fan in a Vijayawada mall. But now she denies the incident. It is widely reported that She got mobbed and a guy is reported to have tried to touch her. Genelia in a natural reflex action was said to “have slapped the over enthusiastic fan”!

Her PR spokesperson said: “Genelia never slapped the fan. What actually happened was her fans were terribly excited to see her, and they began pushing each other, just to get a glimpse of her, and this particular fan came a little too close to her. Nothing more, as Genelia managed to move away quickly”.

Offers have been dried off for item bomb Mumait Khan. So the sexy lady from Mumbai has ventured into business. She has started Sugar Candy Entertainment, a company that will foray into event management, TV production and documentary films.   She met the reports today (Wednesday, November 03, 2010) in Hyderabad and revealed her business plans. “I have been thinking to do something creative and something that gives me satisfaction. So I came up with this idea of starting a media production house. My first programme from this production house will be hosting an event very shortly. Will reveal the details about the event in two weeks time,” she said.

TIRUPATI: Veteran Telugu actress Kanchana donated Rs 15 crore worth land to Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) here on Monday. Kanchana, who changed her name to Vasundhara Devi, handed over her registered land documents to executive officer I Y R Krishna Rao.

She came with her relative Girija Pandey and handed over the documents pertaining to her land at G N Chetty Street in Chennai. Sources said the former actress requested the TTD officials to construct a kalyana mandapam or community hall in the site.

Millionaires sign up for Facebook more often than do regular Americans, but have–surprise, surprise–less time to use it, according to a quick poll by SEI.

A new Quick Poll from SEI (NASDAQ: SEIC) today showed that 70 percent of high-net-worth individuals surveyed are users of Facebook and other social media sites. That’s considerably more than the number of daily social media users among the general populace. According to an August, 2010 report from the Pew Research Center, titled Older Adults and Social Media, 61 percent of Americans ages 18 and over have used a social networking site.

She’s tall, sexy and doesn’t believe in pulling any punches when it comes to getting her point across. We are talking about Namitha, the voluptuous siren of Kollywood!

Reportedly the actress is down with malaria now and the doctors have advised bed rest. On hearing the news, one of her diehard fan reacted, “If I had powers like Enthiran Rajni, I would have caught that mosquito responsible for her sickness by now!” Well, we all know about Namitha’s huge fan following in the South, she has attained a status where even an 8-year-old or an 80-year old can identify her by name.

Sindhura Gadde has only acted in a handful of films but according to sources, she is all set to tie the knot with Jonanthan Ward, a New Zealander. The Miss India World 2005, who studied in New Zealand, is quite popular in fashion circles there.

She is currently awaiting the release of her next Telugu film, Killer. Buzz is that she is now being readied for grand wedding ceremony in NZ.

In the legal battle between actor-choreographer Prabhu Deva and his wife Latha aka Ramalath, the Chennai Family Court summoned Prabhu Deva and actress Nayantara on Thursday to appear before the court on October 19. The court issued a notice after Latha filed a second petition before it on Wednesday.

In her second petition, Latha sought directions against her husband and Nayantara from attending functions together and receiving awards as husband and wife. Notably, Prabhu Deva and Nayantara recently bagged the best Close Up couple award at the South Scope Awards 2010 instituted by South Scope magazine.

In Bollywood, if an actress gets to star in a Yash Raj or a Rajshri film, that puts her straight into the top league. Well, in the ad world, some brands do the same trick. For Bollywood actresses through the ages, Lux has been a brand which they take pride in endorsing.

After top league actresses like Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif, the latest to join the Lux family is Ghajini girl Asin. Bollywood Hungama’s sources have confirmed that Asin is now all set to become the brand ambassador of Lux, which is popularly called as ‘filmi sitaaron ka saundarya saabun’.

“Kutty Srank” (The Sailor of Hearts), the poignant tale of a boatman told through the eyes of the three women he loved, swept the 57th National Film Awards on Wednesday, taking home five of India’s highest film honours.

The Malayalam-language film, directed by veteran director Shaji N. Karun, bagged trophies for best film, screenplay, cinematography, costume design and a special jury mention.

“I have got National Awards before but every award is exciting in itself because it gives you the courage to go ahead and make your kind of cinema without any doubt in your mind,” Karun told Reuters over phone.

Noted South Indian playback singer and National award winner Swarnalatha died at a private hospital in Chennai on Sunday following lung infection. She was 37. Born in Kerala’s Palakkad district, Swarnalatha had sung in various languages including Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and Malayalam since 1989. In Telugu, she sang several hit numbers including Ramma Chilakamma (Choodalani Undi), Chinni tandri (Sisindri), Intiki Vedadam Padavammo (Aavida Maa Aaavida), Naa Siggu Tambulalu (Time), etc. She sang mostly for Ilayaraja and A.R.Rahman.

After the marriage of southern superstar Rajinikanth’s daughter Soundarya, Chennai is all set for a grand reception this evening.

The who’s who of the film industry, the business world as well as politicians turned up for the starry event, which will be followed by a reception this evening.

Apparently, Soundarya Rajinikanth’s attire for the evening is something to look forward to.

Her attire has been made to order and the kind of grandeur, the colour and the gold that’s been used in it has apparently not been witnessed in any Tamil marriage till date.

Prakash Raj married his long-time girl friend and choreographer Pony Varma today (Tuesday, August 24, 2010) in Mumbai at a private place. The wedding ceremony was held as per Hindu tradition in Punjabi style. The reception party is to be held in the evening at Sahara Star Hotel in Mumbai.

Only close friends of Prakash Raj were attended. Prakash Raj will be hosting a big party for all the film industries personalities in Bangalore in October.

Fair and lovely Tamannaah, who is currently ruling the Tamil film industry with big budget superstar movies in hand, has denied reports that she has hiked her remuneration to one crore per film.

“My salary is decided by market forces and not by me or anyone else. Normally, a film’s budget is fixed based on the market value of the cast and crew working in it. So producers decide my salary considering these factors and never have I demanded high remuneration from them. I get what I deserve,” the actress was quoted as saying.

Violating the rules of the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce, actor couple Rajashekhar and Jeevitha held a political press conference on Tuesday in the Film Chamber’s auditorium to lash out at Praja Rajyam Chief and megastar Chiranjeevi for his corruption charge against Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.

Prior to the press conference, the couple informed the Film Chamber staff that they wanted to speak about their upcoming movie, but from the start, they kept attacking Chiranjeevi.

Once the chamber officials realized that the actors were making political allegations, they immediately sent them a message to stop the meeting as the auditorium was strictly meant for film-related activities. The couple indeed stopped and left, but by then, they had accomplished one hour of Chiru-bashing!

Actor Prakash Raj is finally legalizing his relationship with his long-time girlfriend Pony Varma. After taking divorce from his wife recently, Prakash Raj is getting married to Pony Varma on August 24th in Mumbai, at Pony’s place. Pony Varma is a top choreographer who regularly works with Praksh Raj’s Tamil productions, Puri Jagannadh’s movies in Telugu and Priyadarshan’s Hindi movies.

Prakash Raj recently took divorce from his wife Lalitha Kumari and has two daughters from her.

Ram Gopal Varma believes that A R Rehman, Keeravani, Manisharma and Devi Sri Prasad had together buried the music in South India. Responding to Rana’s comment about Ilayaraja’s soulful music in Chinarayudu , RGV commented that the above music directors killed the music in our films. Interestingly, RGV was to introduce Keeravani as music director with his maiden film, Shiva but didn’t do but he gave a break to him with Kshanakshanam .