Entertainment
Newcomers who made an impact in Bollywood in 2017 (2017 In Retrospect)
By Subhash K Jha
Mumbai, Dec 26 (IANS) The year just-ending was not great for new talent. Unless we look at Mahira Khan as new talent. And that would be as calamitous as giving Diljit Dosanjh the best debutants award in 2016 for “Udta Punjab”.
So, who were the newcomers to really make an impact this year?
* Martin Rey Tangu: Salman Khan’s 10-year-old co-star in Kabir Khan’s “Tubelight” absolutely stole the show from the superstar. Natural and unspoilt, Martin would have been the perfect fit for Salman’s role.
* Sajal Ali in “Mom”: Three Pakistani actresses made an impressive Bollywood debut in 2017. While it would be unfair to describe the seasoned Mahira Khan and Saba Qamar as debutantes in “Raees” and “Hindi Medium” respectively, Sajal Ali playing the great Sridevi’s traumatized daughter was a relative newcomer on both sides of the border. This year, we needed new talent to come in from other parts of the world. That’s show short-staffed our cinema was in 2017.
* Ashish Bisht in “Shab”: Playing Raveena Tandon’s toyboy in Onir’s study of love, sex and heartbreak, Bisht brought in a sense of innocence and desperation to his role. There is hope here.
* Plabita Borthakur in “Lipstick Under My Burkha”: She threw off the burqa to indulge in a spot of shoplifting in this overrated film. God knows what the director was trying to probe. But young Plabita proved a point. One can make an impact in a film that wears the burqa just to throw it off as a fashion statement.
* Khushmeet Gill in “Sniff”: As the young Sardarji from Amole Gupte’s film whose sense of smell is gone, Khushmeet was a natural born scene-stealer. He made a good enough impact. Strangely, it was the kids who made all the impact during the year starved of new talent.
* Aadar Jain in “Qaidi Band”: Easily and hands-down the best male discovery of 2016, Aadar who belongs to the illustrious Raj Kapoor’s ‘khandaan’, played the wrongly convicted jailbird with tremendous empathy warmth and feeling. A pity this film sank without a trace. Aadar deserves a second chance.
* Anya Singh in “Qaidi Band”: She had one breakdown sequence in the courtroom where Anya proved she had the potential to be the new-age Jaya Bhaduri. Producers starved of leading ladies, please take note.
* Svar Kamble in “Chef”: The third debutant child actor of the year to make an impact. Playing Saif Ali Khan’s son, this young performer revealed rare intelligence in handling complex scenes.
* Barun Sobti in “Tu Hai Mera Sunday”: The TV actor made a telling impact in a role of a do-gooder who is unable to do good for himself. Strangely, this superb film and its capable performers made no impact at the box-office.
* Parvathy in “Qarib Qarib Singlle”: By far the most accomplished Bollywood debutante of the year. But then Parvathy was not new to excellence, having proved her mettle in Malayalam movies. Nonetheless, during a year when new talent was scarce and scarily scant, we welcomed this spontaneous performer with open arms.
Let’s hope 2018 would give us more Parvathis and less Mustafas.
We mention Mustafa because the son of director Abbas Burmwalla gave nepotism a bad name with his disastrous debut in a film aptly called “Machine”. Mustafa seemed as robotic as a time machine that had lost its timer.
–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.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
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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