The music and glamour world suffered a grave loss in the late afternoon hours of this Thursday on the 25th of June as it witnessed the death of 50 years old legendary star Michael Jackson. He breathed his last at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. His death probably took place due to an overdose of drugs followed by a cardiac arrest.

There was large scale mourning on the death of this superstar with people gathering at Harlem, Apollo Theatre and Times Square in New York, his home town of Gary, Indiana and everywhere else in the country. Jackson was preparing for an epic 50-concert program in London, the first of which was on July 13th, but now the star will never be seen performing again.

Michael Jackson was born on Aug. 29, 1958 in Gray, Indiana. He started his musical career with his brothers, at the age of 11. His greatest creation which tasted the highest success was his album ‘Thriller’ in 1982. By touching a record sale of 65 million copies it has been the highest selling album of all time and is still going.

This Monday, Mumbai saw the music release of Abbas Mastaan’s romantic thriller ‘Runaway’. The film which is being produced by 171 Entertainment Private Limited stars  Deepal Shaw, Tulip Joshi, Lucky Ali and debutant actor Amarjeet.

Tulip is playing the role of a bar dancer for the first time in the film and has shot a real sexy time number for the film. “In this film there is a lot of freshness and for me the character which I play which is that of a bar dancer I have never played in my life and have never been a part of a film like this. I did a lot of research and preparation for this role,” said Joshi.

Deepal Shaw revealed more about the film saying, “The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of this film is that it looks very sleek as these days the packaging rules and it’s a well packaged film. The songs are good and I hope that 70 percent of our population which comes from B and C grade towns they will like the songs which will be an attraction of this film.”

Yanni is the only artist who has had the honors of giving a concert performance in India’s pride Taj Mahal and our Bollywood sex kitten Mallika Sherawat had the pleasure of meeting this talented music group while she was at the Ivy restaurant in Los Angeles with producers of her first American-Indo film “Hisss”. The actress had been there after being invited as a VIP guest to the Kuala Lumpur film festival to present some of the awards.

There she met the legendary multiple Oscar and Grammy winning music producer Ric Wake and world famous New Age composer Yanni. The duo is on a world tour now and will be performing at LA’s Nokia Theatre on June 23 with their current musical tour de force, “Yanni’s Voices”. Mallika was in talks with them to perform in an upcoming special concert in India. The concert may see Mallika doing a snake goddess dance from “Hisss”.

Whistling Woods, Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagri (Film City), saw the music release of the Hindi film ‘Paying Guest’ by producer Subhash Ghai’s MUKTA ARTS & JUNGLEE MUSIC. The music and the launch of soundtrack was unveiled alongwith the starcast of the movie, viz. Shreyas Talpade, Celina Jaitley, Javed Jaffrey, Ashish Chowdhary, Chunky Pandey, among others.

The movie directed by Paritosh Painter talks about four young fun loving guys (Shreyas, Javed, Aashish and Vatsal), who march towards a crazy house hunt, which lands them in a series of ultra comical hurdles in a bid to find that one roof that can tolerate and shelter their combined problem. Shot in the breath-arresting locales of Bangkok, the whole cast had a blast during the shootings. The film has music by Sajid Wajid and lyrics by Jalees Sherwani.

Finally, Himesh Reshammiya has realized that his acting skills are not quite up to the mark. So, even if he hasn’t quit acting, he has decided to attend workshops beginning to shoot for his films. This composer-turned-singer-turned-actor has already finished a major portion of John Mathew Mathan’s film “A Love Issshtory”, and now has moved on to his next project titled ‘Radio’. As the title suggests, Himesh would be playing a radio jockey in the film which is basically a romantic comedy. Beginning 25th May, Radio would embark on a non-stop 60 days schedule.

Before starting the shoot for the film, Himesh attended an acting workshop to get a grip of the charater. “Yes, the character of Vivan that I play in Radio is such that I thought of doing some serious workshops with theatre actors. I’m feeling on top of the world to perform in front of the camera now. The workshop has helped me loosen up further,” said Reshammiya.

Himesh had also attended the workshop for Studio 18’s ‘Ishq Unplugged’, which is directed by Swapna Joshi.

“Henceforth, I will be doing workshops for every film, like I did for Ishq Unplugged and the one I’m doing for Radio. I have completed the shooting of Ishq Unplugged in a 65 day non-stop schedule and now realise how much the workshops have helped,” said Reshammiya.

So, the results of the most awaited event in the glamour world are out and we have the names of the hottest desi girls in town. The panel of judges Sushmita Sen, Asin, Deepika Padukone, Mickey Broadman, Anil Chopra, Ravi Krishnan, Madhur Bhandarkar, Nandita Mahtani and Ajay Devgan eventually decided the fate of the contestents and so Shriya Kishore was crowned as Miss India Earth,  Pooja Chopra as Miss India World and Ekta Chaudhury as Miss India Universe 2009.

The evening’s hosts Madhavan and Malaika Arora Khan sparked the evening with their superb chemistry and also a dazzling dance performance. Genelia D’ Souza was marvelous with her performance on old numbers. Equally ravishing was Kangana Ranaut as she did a jig on numbers like Mera Piya Ghar, Nimbuda and Barso Re while Priyanka Chopra (clearly the queen of stage) was worth the whole ride across town eventually dancing (with full enthu support of Shiamak Davar’s troupe) of course to Ma Ka Ladla and Desi Girl.

NDTV announced the final Seven Wonders of India in collaboration with the Union Tourism Ministry’s ‘Incredible India’ campaign. The Seven Wonders ceremony was held in New Delhi and Padma Shri Award recipient Aishwarya Rai performed at the stage in the ceremony supported by the rained dancers of Shiamak Davar’s dance troupe. Ash was seen performing on numbers like Dola Re Dola, Dhol Baje and Genda Phool.

The audience included Aishwarya’s father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya, Abhishek, Shweta Nanda, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and actor Kamal Hassan.

The Seven Wonders (as decided by NDTV) are: the Red Fort, Jaisalmer Fort, Nalanda University, Sun Temple of Konark, Meenakshi Temple, Dholavira site and Khajuraho, Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh and the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Rajasthan Royals had been the winning IPL team for 2008 and its joint owners, Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra, are leaving no stones unturned in making them the champions for this year. To motivate their team, the duo have come up with the costliest theme and team anthem and have spent close to one crore to bring it out. The music video is named Halla Bol and was released after a nice bash at a 5 star hotel few days back.

‘Halla bol’ song video was shot in Jaipur and its surroundings. The music and text for the song is given by Anand Raj Anand, and it is Ken Ghosh who directed the video. Shilpa and party danced to the song choreographed by Ahmed Khan. The song features several young artists including jumbo, chariots and horses. Reports say that the filming of the song took about 3 days. During the shoot, there were thousands of fans, who had gathered to get a glimpse of the sexy star.

Shilpa says, “Since the time we conceptualized this video, we always knew that we would shoot it in Jaipur. The entire video has a feel of historical palaces and royalty attached to it. It felt so good to shoot on our home turf.”

Speaking about the song, Shilpa said, “It (the song) has a strong Bollywood feel to it. But the IPL is an association of cricket and Bollywood. That’s the way it is meant to be.”

The funny, witty and the chat show with a uniqueness, “Oye! Its Friday” has come to an end after 15 weeks of entertaining episodes and what better way to end the show than to have the gorgeous lady Shilpa Shetty as the celebrity guest for the last episode.

The episode had Shilpa sharing her experiences with Farhan on meeting Queen Elizabeth and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown after she shot to fame on winning the UK based reality show ‘Big Brother’. She also got candid about her relationship with beau Raj Kundra, the Richard Gere controversy, her team ‘Rajasthan Royals’ and her height being an issue in Bollywood. Farhan also learnt Shilpa’s famous U.P. ‘Thumkas’ at the show.

The episode also had Sukhwinder Singh perform of the Oscar winning number ‘Jai Ho’ and also ‘Haule-Haule’, and ‘Marjaani’. There was also the the breathtaking act of UK’s Delia Du Sol popularly known as Ms Flexible where she left everyone gaping as she squeezed herself into a 21″x 17″x 17″ cube.

It was very thoughtful of Jim Beanz to perform for underprivileged kids from our very hard-up section of the society. Motivated by the “Slumdog Millionaire”, Timbaland productions brought glitter in the eyes of these real life children by hosting a live show at Dharavi, Mumbai.

Timbaland Productions brought cheer among the children, although short lived, by Production crew along with the Accorn Foundation putting in joint efforts. And some of the most wanted performers ascended to show their support. The artists who performed live at the event were- Jim Beanz, Rebel of Timbaland Productions, Apache Indian and Amar. A local band named Sout Dandy Squad also volunteered to contribute their performance for the children.

We applaud Timbaland’s efforts to take some time out of their hectic schedule to do such an impressive act for those less fortunate. Here are some pictures from the live show that was especially for those special kids in Dharavi.

This time, the foruth series of popular TV show ‘Indian Idol’ was unique as the show finally got its first female winner in the form of Sourabhee Debbarma, who won title of ‘Indian Idol 4′ on Sunday ruling out her close contestants the Bengali girl Torsha Sarkar and army man Kapil Thapa. The 22 year old girl who surprisingly has had no professional training in music walked away with a Rs.10 million contract with Sony TV and a car. The result was based on public voting.

The celebrity guests of the finale included Bollywood stars John Abraham, Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh, who had come to promote their forthcoming film ‘New York’.

Others from the Indian film and music industry, including judges Javed Akhtar, Anu Malik, Kailash Kher and Sonali Bendre, too were present to cheer the finalists.

Ultimately, at Kodak theatre in Los Angles it turned out to be day for “SlumDog Millionaire” at 81st Oscar award ceremony, where the movie based on the plot of Mumbai, surrounded around a slum Boy’s tale of rising from rag to riches bagged eight Oscars out of 10 nominated categories.

“SlumDog Millionaire” won award as Anthony Dod Mantle for Best Cinematography, Simon Beaufoy for Best Writing & Screenplay, Resul Pookutty, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke for best sound, Chris Dickens for Best Editing, AR Rahman for Best Original Score and Best Original Song. Movie also bagged award for Best Director given to Danny Boyle and The Best Picture award also retained by the movie.

Following is the list of 2009 Oscar Award winners.

Best Actress – Kate Winslet – The Reader
Best Director – Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Cinematography - Anthony Dod Mantle - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Writing & Screenplay based on Material - Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Sound - Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Editing - Chris Dickens - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Score - AR Rahman - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Song - AR Rahman - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Makeup - Greg Cannom - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Art Direction - Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Visual Effects - Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Best Sound Editing - Richard King - The Dark Knight
Best Supporting Actress -Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Costume Design - Michael O’Connor - The Duchess
Best Animated Film - Andrew Stanton - WALL.E
Best Writing & Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen - Dustin Lance Black - Milk
Best Picture - Slumdog Millionaire

However, winning of Oscar by SlumDog Millionaire put forth the case of Bollywood Cinema in the International arena and is positive sign that in coming future there would be production of movies of International standard. Bollywood-stars.net congratulates   crew of SlumDog Millionaire on this great achievement. “Proud to be Indian”