Bihar is a state in Eastern India. It is the third largest state by population, the 12th largest by area, and the 15th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Bengal to the east, and Jharkhand to the south. Bihar is split by the river Ganges, which flows from west to east. On 15 November 2000, southern Bihar was ceded to form the new state of Jharkhand. Only 11.27% of the population of Bihar lives in urban areas as per a 2020 report. Additionally, almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, giving Bihar the highest proportion of young people of any Indian state. The official language is Hindi, which shares official status alongside that of Urdu. The main native languages are Maithili, Magahi and Bhojpuri. But there are several other languages being spoken at smaller levels.
Alka Yagnik is an Indian playback singer who works predominantly in Hindi cinema. One of the most prominent singers of 90s era Bollywood, she has received several accolades, including two National Film Awards, two Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards and a record seven Filmfare Awards for Best Female Playback Singer from a record of thirty-seven nominations.
Udit Narayan Jha is an Indian playback singer whose songs have been featured mainly in Hindi films. He has also sung in various other languages including Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Bengali, Sindhi, Odia, Bhojpuri, Nepali, Malayalam, Assamese, Bagheli and Maithili. He has won four National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards with twenty nominations among many others. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 2009 and the Padma Bhushan in 2016 for his contribution towards arts and culture. As many as 21 of his tracks feature in BBC's "Top 40 Bollywood Soundtracks of all time".
Nagma Arvind Morarji, known mononyomusly as Nagma. is an Indian politician and former actress. She gained prominence as a leading actress in the 1990s and appeared in films across various Indian languages, primarily in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil and Bhojpuri.
Saadhika Randhawa, also known mononymously as Saadhika, is an Indian actress. She has mainly appeared in Hindi language Bollywood movies and has also worked in several regional language movies including in Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi & Bhojpuri movie industry.
Media in Bihar started with Bihar Bandhu, the first Hindi newspaper published in Bihar.
The cinema of Bihar, a state in eastern India, primarily consists of films in the Bhojpuri language. Bihar also has smaller Maithili- and Magahi-language film industries. Cinema in the state began during the early 20th century.
Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo is a Bhojpuri film released in 1963 directed by Kundan Kumar. It was the first-ever Bhojpuri film, and starred Kumkum, Ashim Kumar and Nazir Hussain. It had music by Chitragupta, lyrics by Shailendra and songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi. The film is based on author Acharya Shivpujan Sahay's short story Kahani Ka Plot.
The Bhojpuri Film Awards are an awards ceremony recognizing the best of Bhojpuri cinema. The awards have been presented annually since 2005.
Bihari culture refers to the culture of the Indian state of Bihar. Bihari culture includes Angika culture, Mithila culture, Bhojpuri Culture and the culture of Magadha.
Bhojpuri cinema, also known as Bhojiwood, is the segment of Indian cinema dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Bhojpuri language widely spoken in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Its major production centres are Patna. Bhojpuri cinema has grown in recent years. Bhojpuri cinema also caters to second and third generation emigrants who still speak the language in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Fiji, Mauritius and South Africa.
Sujit Kumar was an Indian actor and producer. He appeared in over 150 Hindi films in the 1960s through the 1990s, and in at least 20 Bhojpuri films. Sujit played the major lead actor in many films in Bhojpuri cinema whereas in Hindi films he played pivotal roles either as a villain or as a character actor. One of his most memorable screen appearances was of a friend playing the mouth organ while driving a jeep as Rajesh Khanna courted Sharmila Tagore in the 1969 film Aradhana. Beginning in the late 1980s through the 2000s, Sujit primarily worked as a film producer.
Sasura Bada Paisawala is a 2003 Indian Bhojpuri-language romance-drama film directed by Ajay Sinha, starring Manoj Tiwari and Rani Chatterjee. The film, released in 2003, cost about ₹30 lakhs to make, and was the highest grossing Bhojpuri film at that time.
Sabiha Shaikh, known professionally as Rani Chatterjee, is an Indian actress who primarily works in Bhojpuri films. Considered as one of the highest paid Bhojpuri actress, Chatterjee made her acting debut with Sasura Bada Paisawala (2004), which is still ranked as the highest-grossing Bhojpuri film. She has won several awards including five Bhojpuri Film Awards and three International Bhojpuri Film Awards.
Indu Sonali is an Indian film playback singer known for singing in item songs of Bhojpuri. She has sung for 300 Bhojpuri films and 50 music video albums and is considered as one of the top playback singers of the Bhojpuri film industry. Her music genre is primitive-acoustic folk with some traces of Indian classical music, ambient electronic and new age jazz fusion. Some of her most notable songs are "Lehriya Loot Re Raja" (Partigya), "Kahan Jaibe Raja Najariya", "Uthha Deb Lenga" (Damadji) and "Devar ho Daba Na Mor Karihaiya" (Rakhwala).
Bhojraj Bhatta, also known as Biraj Bhatt or Viraj Bhatt, is a Nepalese actor, director and film producer known for his works in Nepali cinema and Bhojpuri cinema. Widely known in media as Action Star or Action Tiger of Nepali Cinema, he is known for his socio-drama action movies and is considered one of the most successful actor in Nepali cinema history and one of the few actor to have successful career in foreign film industry, Bhojpuri. He has worked in some Tharu language films as well. He has starred in more than 200 movies through different languages like Nepali, Bhojpuri & Tharu. He received National Film award for Best actor for Nepali movie Khal Nayak (2008).
Udit Narayan Jha is a playback singer who works in Bollywood and whose songs have been featured mainly in Hindi language, Nepali and Bollywood movies. Besides Nepali and Hindi, he has sung in 36 languages. He has won three National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards. He is the only male singer in the history of the Filmfare Awards to have won over three decades. Udit Narayan was awarded the Padma Shri in 2009 and, in 2016, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, an honour that has so far been awarded to only a handful of singers, in recognition of his achievements in various film industries across India. He was also awarded the Prabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu by the late King of Nepal Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev in 2001 and Chitragupta Cineyatra Samman 2015 for Bhojpuri Cinema. He has sung over 25000 songs over 36 languages as many as 21 of his tracks feature in BBC's "Top 40 Bollywood Soundtracks of all time".
The Sabrang Film Awards is an awards ceremony recognising the best of Bhojpuri cinema. The awards have been presented annually since 2014.
Kunal Singh Yadav is an Indian actor associated with Bhojpuri cinema. Also referred to as Amitabh Bachchan of Bhojpuri Cinema because of his dominance on Bhojpuri cinema and also as Jitendra of Bhojpuri cinema because of his remarkable resemblance with the bollywood actor Jitendra, Kunal, in his four-decade long career, has acted in more than 250 movies. For his contributions to cinema, he was awarded the Rashtrakavi Dinkar Award in 2012 by Pranab Mukherjee.
