Entertainment
Now I’ve options of good stories to choose from: Rajkummar Rao
Mumbai, Sep 17 (IANS) National Award-winning actor Rajkummar Rao, who made his Bollywood debut with the 2010 film “Love Sex Aur Dhokha”, says that earlier it was just about looking for his next movie, and now it is about choosing the best story.
Apart from winning hearts of the masses and receiving honours from the Indian government, his movies have travelled to international film festivals as well. His latest film “Newton” had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year.
Asked if anything has changed in him after achieving so much at a young age, the 33-year-old Rajkummar told IANS: “No, nothing much has changed in me as an actor. Since the day I started out, I always wanted to be part of good stories. The only thing that has changed is, now I have options of good stories to choose from….”
“Earlier, it was just to get an opportunity to get there. Earlier, it was more of looking for my next film, now it is about choosing the best,” added the actor.
Thanks to films like “Shahid”, “Aligarh” and “Trapped”, he has earned the label of ‘poster boy of independent cinema’ in India.
But during the current year, it seems like he has managed to balance out between mainstream Hindi cinema (“Bareilly Ki Barfi”) and a festival delight – “Newton”.
“I have never compartmentalised all these. For me, they are about stories. A film like ‘Kai Po Che!’, ‘Queen’, ‘Behen Hogi Teri’ and ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’ are not really independent films. Can you call them one? Especially at the phase where the lines between the two (commercial and parallel cinema) are diminishing… this is an interesting time,” said Rajkummar.
The story of “Newton” revolves around a young government clerk who is sent on election duty to a Naxal-controlled town and how the ideological struggle puts him in a situation.
Asked about his experience of shooting the film in a real location, he said: “I loved the story at the first place. The character is idealistic and wants to bring a change, though he is part of a corrupt system.”
“Then I got to know that we were going to shoot the film in Chhattisgarh, in the jungle which is a Naxal-affected area… and yes, initially, I was a little scared. But when I went there, the villagers turned out to be very nice and welcoming.
“The place is quite unaffected and the beauty of nature is amazing there. So, the shooting went well and we had a good time.”
The actor has already worked with popular directors like Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap, Hansal Mehta and Vikramaditya Motwane. Who are the other filmmakers with whom he wants to work?
“That’s too tough to answer because the list is long. I want to work with Darren Aronofsky, Damien Chazelle, Alejandro González Iñárritu and, of course, Majid Majidi. I told you the list is long,” said the actor.
Directed by Amit Masurkar, “Newton” is releasing in India on September 22.
–IANS
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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
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Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
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Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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