The Kashmiri Pandits are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, located within the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri Pandits are Hindu Kashmiris native to the Kashmir Valley, and the only remaining Hindu Kashmiris after the large-scale of conversion of the Valley's population to Islam during the medieval times. Prompted by the growth of Islamic militancy in the valley, large numbers left in the exodus of the 1990s. Even so, small numbers remain.
Soha Ali Khan Pataudi is an Indian actress who has worked in Hindi, Bengali and English films. She is the younger daughter of veteran actress Sharmila Tagore and former India cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan, of Bhopal, and the younger sister of actor Saif Ali Khan and Saba Ali Khan. She started her acting career with the romantic comedy film Dil Maange More (2004), and is best known for her role in the drama film Rang De Basanti (2006). In 2017, she authored a book The Perils of Being Moderately Famous that won the Crossword Book Award in 2018.
Charu Nivedita is a Tamil writer based in Chennai, India. His novel Zero Degree (1998) was translated into English in 2013 and longlisted that year for the annual Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. It was also selected or the prestigious 50 Writers, 50 Books - The Best of Indian Fiction, published in 2013 by HarperCollins.
CNN-News18 is an Indian English-language news television channel founded by Raghav Bahl based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is currently co-owned by TV18 and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN provides international coverage for the channel, while Indian Broadcasting Network concentrates on Indian and local reports.
Nikhil Siddhartha is an Indian actor of the Telugu film industry. He played minor roles in various films before being cast in Happy Days (2007) as one of the four male leads. The film was successful and became his breakthrough role. He later went onto play the lead in hit films such as Yuvatha (2008), Swamy Ra Ra (2013), Karthikeya (2014), Surya vs Surya (2015), Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada (2016), Kesava (2017), Arjun Suravaram (2019), and Karthikeya 2 (2022).
Onir is an Indian film and TV director, editor, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his film My Brother…Nikhil, based on the life of Dominic d'Souza, starring Sanjay Suri and Purab Kohli, which was one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships.
I Am is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language anthology film by Onir. It consists of four short films: "Omar", "Afia", "Abhimanyu", and "Megha". Each film shares the common theme of fear, and is based on real-life stories. The film was financed by donations from more than 400 different people worldwide, many of whom donated through social networking sites like Facebook. There are four stories but the characters are interwoven with each story. "Abhimanyu" is based on child abuse, "Omar" on gay rights, "Megha" is about Kashmiri Pandits and "Afia" deals with sperm donation. I Am was released with subtitles in all regions as six different languages are spoken in the film: Hindi, English, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and Kashmiri.
Ashvin Kumar is an Indian filmmaker. He wrote / directed and produced India's only Oscar-nominated short film, Little Terrorist (2004), with his debut film Road to Ladakh being released in the same year. He also made the feature-length documentary films Inshallah, Kashmir (2012) and Inshallah Football (2010); feature-length thriller The Forest (2012); and coming-of-age tale Dazed in Doon (2010).
Joy Mathew is an Indian film and theatre actor. He is also a film director, playwright and screenwriter. He predominantly works in Malayalam cinema.
Kanyaka Talkies is a 2013 Indian Malayalam-language film co-written and directed by K R Manoj in his feature directorial debut. It is based on a story by P. V. Shajikumar.
One Last Question is a short film completed in 2015, directed by Prathamesh Krisang. It is inspired from a true story in 1998 from a blog titled, "Agia to Oxford" by Manjit Nath. The film takes the viewer back to the Indian state of Assam in 1998. It is basically a memoir of a person who had been on the verge of abandoning education and taking up arms against the state, but who was then counseled by his father, which set him on the right and, hence, a better direction. The pivotal character of Tultul’s father in the film has been played by the eminent actor, Adil Hussain.
The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, or Pandits, is their early-1990 migration, or flight, from the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in Indian-administered Kashmir following rising violence in an insurgency. Of a total Pandit population of 120,000–140,000 some 90,000–100,000 left the valley or felt compelled to leave by the middle of 1990, by which time about 30–80 of them are said to have been killed by militants.
Safa Kadal, also spelled Safakadal is an old neighborhood in the city of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, India. The word kadal means bridge in Kashmiri. The Jhelum river flows under the eponymous Safa Kadal bridge which was constructed by Saif Khan during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. An important Hindu temple in the locale, the Ram Mandir, was set to be renovated in January of 2022. It was vandalised in 1990.
Kashmiri cinema is the Kashmiri language-based film industry in the Kashmir Valley of the India,- administered union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The first Kashmiri feature film, Mainz Raat, was released in 1964. In 2023, Welcome to Kashmir, directed by Tariq Bhat, became the first-ever Kashmiri-produced Bollywood film to release in Kashmiri cinemas.
Loev is a 2015 Indian romantic drama film written and directed by Sudhanshu Saria. It stars Dhruv Ganesh and Shiv Panditt as two friends who set off to the Western Ghats for a weekend trip and focuses on their complex emotional and sexual relationship. It was Ganesh's final film, as he died from tuberculosis before its release. Loev also features Siddharth Menon and Rishabh Chaddha in supporting roles. The film's title is a deliberate misspelling of the word "love".
Hotel Salvation is a 2016 Indian film written and directed by Shubhashish Bhutiani and produced by Sanjay Bhutiani. The film is a comedy-drama about a son who is forced to set his job aside to accompany his elderly father to the holy city of Varanasi. It stars Adil Hussain and Lalit Behl in the lead roles. The film received four nominations at the 63rd Filmfare Awards, including Best Film (Critics).
Half Widow is a 2017 Indian drama film directed by debutant Danish Renzu and written by Renzu and Gaya Bhola. The film tells the story of a woman from Srinagar in Kashmir, who tries to find her husband who is abducted by the Indian army. Jointly produced by Bhola and Renzu, the film stars Neelofar Hamid, Shahnawaz Bhat, Mir Sarwar and Haseena Sofi. Because there are no theaters in Kashmir, the film was screened at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre. The title of the film refers to the namesake term used for Kashmiri women whose husbands have disappeared mostly in custody of security forces in the Kashmir conflict. The film's official trailer was released in May 2017. The characters in the film talk in Urdu, with some Kashmiri. The film received a favourable review on Cineblitz. The film was released theatrically on 6 January 2020 in India.
Media in Jammu and Kashmir comprises a diverse landscape of print, electronic and digital media outlets. The region is served by a variety of newspapers, television channels, radio stations, and online news platforms, reflecting the cultural and linguistic diversity of the area.
SCUD is an Indian film production and distribution company established and owned by Satarupa Sanyal in 1998. In the same year, the independent film maker produced and directed her debut film ANU. The success and widespread recognition of the ANU, nationally and overseas, laid the foundation of the company.
