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New Delhi:

Ram Kapoor received severe backlash after news of him passing inappropriate sexual comments during the promotional activities of his upcoming JioHotstar series Mistry was brought to light.

Ram Kapoor has now reacted to the allegations and confessed to being “guilty as charged”.

What’s Happening

• Ram Kapoor has finally opened up about the incident and requested everyone to give him a chance to justify himself.
• He told ETimes, “Let me begin by saying that everything I’ve been accused of saying – I have said it. So yes, I am guilty as charged. But this is what I want people to understand, when I’m in a space where I feel comfortable, I become my usual, bindass self. That’s just how I’ve always been. Everyone who’s worked with me knows that I never intend to offend.”
• Furthermore, he added that he was oblivious to how it might have made some people feel uncomfortable, as he stated, “I didn’t feel that even once throughout the day. We were laughing and joking. If I had gotten the whiff that they were offended, I would have dealt with it right away.”
• He elaborated, “If I felt it was inappropriate, why would I say it openly in a hall full of media people? My character has been questioned for the first time in 25 years, so do acknowledge my justification.”
• He concluded by saying that he is aware that he cannot be his “obnoxious normal self”

In an attempt to shut down divorce rumours, former US First Lady Michelle Obama has revealed why she and her husband, Barack Obama, don’t make public appearances together anymore. On Thursday, the 61-year-old appeared on NPR’s Wild Card podcast with Rachel Martin, where she said that she is not photographed alongside her husband, former US President Barack Obama, because of their age. During the podcast appearance, she joked that the couple doesn’t document their relationship on social media because they are “too old” for Instagram.

“The fact that people don’t see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumours of the end of our marriage. It’s like, ‘OK, so we don’t Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60. We’re 60, y’all,” Michelle Obama said, according to The Independent. “You just are not gonna know what we’re doing every minute of the day,” she added. 

The couple first sparked divorce rumours when the former first lady did not attend Jimmy Carter’s funeral and President Donald Trump’s inauguration back in January. Back then, she defended her decision to skip the events, saying, “One of the major decisions I made this year was to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I’m supposed to attend.”That was a part of me using my ambition to say, ‘Let me define what I want to do, apart from what I’m supposed to do, what the world expects of me.’ And I have to own that. Those are my choices,” she said, per The Independent. “Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it. But I didn’t regret it, you know? It’s my life now, and I can say that, now,”  

After serving looks in ombre sarees in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, actor Alia Bhatt turned heads with her fashion choice at the re-release screening of the Rekha-starrer Umrao Jaan on Thursday, June 26, 2025. The actor’s blush pink silk saree, in her own words, was an ode to Rekha’s look from Silsila, which also released in 1981, the same year as Umrao Jaan.

Alia, even in her makeup, recreated Rekha’s character, Chandni, from Yash Chopra’s Silsila, a take on modern relationships also featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan.In the iconic blush of Silsila, Alia Bhatt pays homage to the many shades of Rekha – muse, mystery, and moment. A tribute woven in silk, as Umrao Jaan returns to the big screen. Because legends never go out of style. In custom @taruntahiliani couture,” the stylist wrote.

Wrapped in six yards of the simple yet elegant, blush pink silk saree with a floor-sweeping palla on the red carpet of the Umrao Jaan event, Alia was grace personifiedAn ode to a living legend… there never, was, is or will ever be another like you, ReMaa,” she captioned her post on Instagram.

For the Umrao Jaan event, Alia’s look was put together by stylist Rhea Kapoor, who was also behind the actor’s debut Cannes Film Festival appearance this May.

Rhea shared details about the actor’s outfit for the night in an Instagram post

New Delhi:

Zohran Mamdani, son of award-winning Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair, recently declared victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. He took to X, to express his joy as he wrote, “In the words of Nelson Mandela; it always seems impossible until it’s done. My friends, it is done. And you are the ones who did it. I am honoured to be your Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City.”

Amid his glorious feat, what has resurfaced is an old quote by Mira Nair, where she spoke about how her son had convinced her to direct the fifth installment of the Harry Potter franchise instead of The Namesake.

What’s Happening

• Filmmaker Mira Nair’s son Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City.
• Amid the ongoing celebrations, an old interview of Mira Nair with Vir Sanghvi at the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2018 has resurfaced. In the interview, she is heard saying how she was considered to direct Harry Potter’s fifth part titled Order of the Phoenix, but her son Zohran changed her mind.
• She said, “I turned down the offer as I was deep into directing Vanity Fair. I lost my mother-in-law who was like a mother due to medical malpractice in New York. I was deep in melancholy. But at that time, I read The Namesake, the beautiful novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. It was also about the death of a parent. I then decided to make a film on it. I then got an offer to direct Harry Potter.”
• This was the same time Mira Nair read Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, and fell in love with it. She further revealed how her son was a huge potterhead since childhood. The Harry Potter books were how he was introduced to the world of reading. Hence, she questioned the matter in hand, if she should go ahead with the film adaptation of a book that matters more to her son, or the one that holds more value to herself.
• Upon asking her 14-year-old son, the response she got was, “He told me there are many good directors who can make Harry Potter, but there is only one director who can make Namesake.”
• Not only that, but Zohran also convinced his mother to cast Kal Penn in the role of Gogol, because he was a huge fan of his work in the 2004 film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

Mumbai:

The Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) on Friday said it will support the protest march scheduled for July 5 here against the “imposition” of Hindi in the school curriculum in Maharashtra through the National Education Policy 2020.

The protest is being organised against the state government’s plan to implement a three-language formula under NEP 2020, which includes making Hindi compulsory from Class 1.

In a open latter shared on social media, NCP (SP) Maharashtra unit chief Jayant Patil, while announcing decision, said his party stands firmly with the people of Maharashtra on matters of regional interest.

“Whenever the interest of Maharashtra is at stake, we stand with Maharashtra. And when the interest of the nation is at stake, we stand with the nation, setting aside political lines. That is the core policy of the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar),” Patil said.

The move has been opposed by educationists, parents, linguists and activists who argue that early education should take place in a child’s mother tongue, Patil said.

The Marathi-speaking population is not opposed to learning multiple languages, including Hindi, Patil said, but insisted that imposing Hindi at the primary level is unacceptable.

“If the three-language policy is being used as a tool to sideline the mother tongue, then the Marathi-speaking community will unitedly resist such moves,” he warned.

Asserting that the issue concerns linguistic and regional identities, he asked party office-bearers, elected representatives, and workers to participate in large numbers in the July 5 march.

The march is aimed at safeguarding the role of Marathi in school education, Patil added.

The 12 hours that a couple from Madhya Pradesh’s Indore spent at Nongriat village in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills during their visit to the popular double-decker living root bridge have now been accounted for, according to investigators who spoke with the locals and took their statements.

Newly wed couple Raja Raghuvanshi and his wife Sonam visited some areas during their honeymoon in Meghalaya before they went missing on May 23. While Raja Raghuvanshi’s body was found in a gorge on June 2, a search is still on for his wife.

Teams from the police and even the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are searching for Sonam, whose family said they believe she must have been kidnapped and have not lost hope of finding her.

The couple checked into a guesthouse in Meghalaya’s capital Shillong on May 21. The next day they hired a scooty and rode to the popular tourist hotspot Sohra (Cherrapunji). After reaching Mawlakhiat village in East Khasi Hills, they kept the scooty at a parking spot run by the local community for tourists, and hired a local guide to trek to a homestay at Nongriat village in the same district.

Amid the ongoing Operation Sindoor against Pakistan, the Defence Ministry is going to take up Rs 10,000 crore proposal to buy three sophisticated spy planes to help Indian Air Force get a clear air-to-ground picture to carry out precision strikes against enemy ground targets like radar stations, air defence units and other mobile objects.

The Rs 10,000 crore project for the Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (I-STAR) is expected to be taken up for clearance at a high-level defence ministry meeting scheduled to be held in the fourth week of June, defence officials told ANI.

The ISTAR provides air-to-ground surveillance to the forces to help them in carrying out precision strikes.

The spy aircraft project being developed by the Defence Research and Development includes the acquisition of three aircraft through an open tender from foreign manufacturers, including Boeing and Bombardier.

The onboard systems on the aircraft would be completely indigenous, as the DRDO’s Centre for Airborne Systems has already successfully developed them, they said.

The systems have already been proven and developed by the CABS and they will just have to be integrated with the three aircraft which would be acquired and modified for the purpose, they said.

The development of an ISTAR system would also add India to a select club of nations with such a capability, including the US, UK, Israel and a few others.

ISTAR thus provides dynamic and time-sensitive targeting capability and contributes significantly to meeting the nation’s security goals.

It will aid in limiting the scale and complexity of undetected hostile threats. It has multi-spectral surveillance capability to detect, locate and monitor irregular forces.

The I-STAR system shall be for carrying out intelligence gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting by day and night from stand-off ranges.

The ISTAR systems are operated at high altitudes from large stand-off ranges and will be used for intelligence processing, exploitation, dissemination and generation of the common operating picture.

The ISTAR aircraft will be a system comprising airborne and ground segments.

The India Meteorological Department has issued red alerts for Idukki, Kannur, and Kasaragod districts and orange alerts for the remaining districts.

Heavy rain lashed many districts of Kerala on Friday, disrupting normal life and causing waterlogging.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued red alerts for Idukki, Kannur, and Kasaragod districts and orange alerts for the remaining districts today.

Authorities in several districts have declared holidays for educational institutions under their jurisdiction.

As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD), strong westerly winds are likely to persist at lower tropospheric levels over Kerala and the Lakshadweep region for the next two to three days, resulting in widespread rainfall.

The IMD stated, “Strong westerlies likely to continue at lower tropospheric levels over Kerala and the Lakshadweep region during the next 2-3 days. Under the influence of these, widespread rainfall activity with scattered Heavy rainfall to Very Heavy rainfall with isolated Extremely Heavy rainfall is very likely to occur over Kerala on 29th & 30th May 2025. Heavy rainfall is very likely to occur at isolated places over Kerala on 31st May, 1st and 2nd June 2025.”

District administrations across Kerala have declared a holiday for all educational institutions in several districts on May 30 (Friday).

The precautionary measure applies to professional colleges, anganwadis, tuition centers, madrassas, and special coaching classes.

The action was taken against the advisory committee of the Kottukkal Manjippuzha temple in Kollam, which is managed by the TDB.

The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), the top temple body in Kerala’s Travancore region, dissolved the advisory committee of a temple following the rendition of the RSS ‘gana geetham’ (prayer song) during a recent musical concert held there.

The action was taken against the advisory committee of the Kottukkal Manjippuzha temple in Kollam, which is managed by the TDB.

A TDB statement issued on Tuesday said the decision followed an inquiry into the rendition of the ‘gana geetham’ and the erection of flags belonging to political and communal outfits on the temple premises.

The Board found that the advisory committee had committed serious lapses in connection with both incidents.

It added that an existing order strictly prohibits the erection of flagpoles of political and communal organisations in temples and on temple premises under the TDB’s control.

Authorities said that some containers have been found along the coasts of southern Kollam and coastal Alappuzha districts.

Containers from a Liberian cargo ship that sank off the Kerala coast have started washing ashore, while the oil spill spreading from the vessel has prompted authorities to issue a high alert along the state’s coastline, officials said on Monday.

Authorities said that some containers have been found along the coasts of southern Kollam and coastal Alappuzha districts.

In the wake of the sinking of the ship off the Kerala coast, a high-level meeting was convened by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to assess the situation.

An advisory has been issued urging coastal residents and fishermen to remain vigilant.

So far, nine containers have washed ashore, and an advisory has been reiterated for coastal residents and fishermen to remain alert, according to a statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).

The cargo ship capsized and sank early on Sunday, leading to a significant oil spill. According to the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), the sunken vessel had 84.44 metric tonnes of diesel and 367.1 metric tonnes of furnace oil in its tanks.