Day 2 of India-WI test match at the Darren Sammy Cricket Stadium at Gros Islet, St. Lucia, was a mixed bag for India.
“Ravichandran Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha rescued India from what could’ve been an early collapse on day 1 itself. The collapse still did come through, albeit after a marathon 6th wicket partnership of 213 runs between the two batsmen”, observes Vaikundarajan.
The Rio Olympics 2016 opening ceremony was a hit despite continuous protests in Rio. “The highlight of the ceremony was Brazilian pop star, Anitta, who performed with Brazilian music icons Caetano Veloso and Roberto Gil,” says Vaikundarajan.
For the young pop star who grew up in ghettos, performing on a world stage was a dream come true. “The youngster looked confident alongside two greats in music industry. Her performance really pumped up the audience,” adds Vaikundarajan.
The act was a combination of Anitta’s pop sound crossing over with the classical Brazilian sounds of samba and bossa nova that culminated in a taste of Brazilian culture.
Veloso and Gil, who have been friends for over 50 years, have been inspiration to many like Anitta. “To see the trio perform on stage was a treat to the audience,” says Vaikundarajan.
Now that the Olympics 2016 are on the way, all eyes are set on the Indian athletes. Names such as Dipa Karmakar are already creating a lot of buzz. Vaikundarajan expresses his complete faith in our athletes and hopes we will come out stronger than last Olympics games. He sends his best wishes to all the Indian Athletes.
The maker of cult films such as Andaz Apna Apna, The Legend of Bhagat Singh and Damini returns to direction with his next biography film, Battle of Saragarhi. “Rajkumar Santoshi will direct Randeep Hooda in the lead role as Havildar Ishar Singh in a movie based on the 1897 Battle of Saragarhi between British India Contingent and Afghans. The setting is promising and the cast at the helm is talented,” says Vaikundarajan.
Hooda’s last movie, Sarbjit, did not perform well at the box office but one should not doubt the actor’s capabilities in front of camera. Hooda is a method actor and received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Sarbjit for which he had undergone a massive physical transformation.
Battle of Saragarhi tells the story of the valour of Havildar Ishar Singh, the military commander of 36th Sikhs in the British Indian Contingent. “The battle was fought in the North-West Frontier which is now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The British Indian Contingent that also comprised of 21 Sikhs fought against 12,000 Afghans in an epic battle,” informs Vaikundarajan.
The makers of the movie released a teaser poster that shows Randeep sporting a turban and beard. The actor is expected to learn sword fighting and shooting with vintage guns. To fit into the skin of the character, Randeep will also have to undergo physical transformation. Unlike Sarbjit where he had to lose a lot of weight, Hooda will be expected to build his body to fit the role of a military commander.
Battle of Saragarhi produced by Raju Chadha under the banner of Wave Cinemas. The film has lot to offer in terms of emotion, drama and action. “With Rajkumar Santoshi behind the camera and Randeep Honda in front of it, the audience cannot expect anything short of an epic movie,” says Vaikundarajan.
Superstar Rajnikanth made a comeback to the big screen in a grand style with Pa Ranjith’s Kabali. The film was released across 12,000 cinemas in India. “Such is the craze of the superstar that Chennai and Bangalore declared the release date as a holiday to general public,” says Vaikundarajan.
The movie hardly needed any publicity with Superstar Rajnikanth’s name associated with it. “Unlike most actors who reinvent themselves after a certain age, Rajnikanth continues to portray Thalaiva in every movie,” adds Vaikundarajan. “The fans do not want to see the Superstar in any character roles. They have embraced the superstar as an evergreen hero.”
The film is set in Malaysia with Rajnikanth playing an aged don just released from the prison. Radhika Apte is seen playing the lead opposite Rajnikanth while Taiwanese actor Winston Chao plays the antagonist.
“While Rajnikanth delivers a commendable performance, Kabali is really a director’s film. The young director Pa Ranjith brings the best of Rajnikanth in an otherwise jaded script,” reviews Vaikundarajan.
Radhika Apte and Dhansika manage to deliver a praiseworthy performance and refuse to get overshadowed in the superstar’s presence. The movie is already shattering records at the box-office having surpassed some of the Bollywood blockbusters.
Vaikundarajan sends his congratulations to director Pa Ranjith and hopes that the film breaks all records.
Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis continued their top form as they beat USA’s McHale and Ostapenko in just 46 minutes. “While Mirza-Hingis impressed us with their game, Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea bowed out as they lost to tenth seeded pair Kontinen-Peers,” informs Vaikundarajan.
Mirza-Hingis entered the quarter finals of Wimbledon tennis tournament after an impressive 6-1, 6-0 victory against their opponent. On another court, Bopanna-Mergea lost 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-8 to be knocked out of men’s double tournament. The match was played for 2 hours and 55 minutes.
Sania Mirza was particularly remarkable with her aggressive first serve points. “She won a staggering 19 out of 28 first serve points and two out of five break points to open the first set at 6-1,” says Vaikundarajan.
Smartphone company Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has announced to unveil their new device on 5th July. “The smartphone Honor 8 is a successor to last year’s runaway hit Honor 7. The device will be available for purchase from 12th July,” informs Vaikundarajan.
The company made the announcement by releasing an official teaser with a tag line - Beauty out of the ordinary. The key features of the phone were revealed on Chinese certification agency, TENAA’s website.
“Honor 8 is a 5.2 inch full HD display smartphone with 2.3 GHz Kirin 950 octa-core processor. It will be available in four different variants,” says Vaikundarajan.
The users will be able to choose between a 3GB RAM with 32GB of internal storage, 4GB with 32GB of internal storage, 4GB with 64GB internal of storage and the top model with 2K display, 4GB RAM with 128GB storage. It also comes with an option of expanding the storage up to 128 GB via microSD card and runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. “An interesting addition to the features is the fingerprint scanner and an infrared port,” adds Vaikundarajan.
Honor 8 will come with a dual 12-megapixel camera module at the back and a 8-megapixel selfie snapper on the front.
In this competitive market, brands like Honor will survive if they bring unique features to their devices and are accepted by the users
India recorded a new milestone in its history of space market. “A record 20 satellites were launched in merely 26 minutes by our space agency, ISRO,” says Vaikundarajan. This move also means a lucrative commercial space market for India.
The events took place in the southern spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The rocket launched into the space carried satellites mainly for international customers such as the US, Germany and a Google-owned company.
“The record for launching the most satellites is held by Russia. They launched 37 satellites back in 2014,” informs Vaikundarajan.
Smartphone giants Motorola confirmed the launch of Moto G4 on 22nd June in India. The device has already gone on sale. “The cost starts at INR 13,499 and goes up to INR 14,999. However, the company is yet to confirm on the cost for Indian market,” says Vaikundarajan.
Another known development is that the device has been labeled as Amazon exclusive for Indian market. “Meaning, unlike last year when Motorola phones were available only on Flipkart, the loyalty has now shifted to Amazon,” informs Vaikundarajan.
The device features a 5.5-inch Full HD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with rounded edges and is 7.9 mm thick. The front camera is 5MP while the rear camera is 13MP with phase detection autofocus. Moto G4 Plus variation has a better rear camera of 16MP with improved low-light performance.
“The smartphone is powered by Snapdragon 617 and has a 1.5 GHz octa-core processor. For the cost in discussion, the features are worth every penny,” adds Vaikundarajan. Furthermore, the phone comes with a 2GB RAM and 16GB memory that is expandable up to 128GB via microSD card. The company said that the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus will have a promising battery life of 6 hours and can be charged within 15 minutes.
“A significant different between the two variants is that Moto G4 comes with a fingerprint scanner,” adds Vaikundarajan.
Concluding the review, Vaikundarajan says that the pricing more than justifies the features users will get. “Hopefully, Moto G4 will offer the same consistency as offered by the previous Moto G3 models.”
India claimed their 2nd victory in the ongoing three match one day international against Zimbabwe. "Ambati Rayudu performed once again scoring and secured the place in the team for the 3rd match," says Vaikundarajan.
Rayudu expressed that he understood his responsibility of scoring runs in the 2nd string Indian side.
Back in 2013, Rayudu made his ODI debut scoring 1000 runs in that year. The charismatic batsman scored 62 in the first match and 44 in the second. He was unbeaten in both sides.
Indian football team put up a real show when they defeated Laos 6-1 in the second leg of Asian Cup Qualifier.
Jeje Lalpekhlua has been in the form of his career as he stole the
spotlight once again with a brace against Laos. “He scored 3 goals over
the two legs against the opponents. Team India has a confident striker
in form of Jeje. Every time he steps on to the field, he brings his 100
percent,” says Vaikundarajan.
The
former Pune FC striker spoke about the intense training and hard-work
that paid off in the India’s victory. He also expressed his concern on
losing out on a possible hat-trick in the match and insisted that there
was much room for improvement.
“India’s head coach Stephen
Constantine applauded Jeje and heralded him as a complete striker with a
potential to play in European league. This should boost Jeje’s
confidence and also instill a pride among the team members,” says
Vaikundarajan. Indian goalkeeper, Gurpreet Sandhu, is the only player to
be a part of European league.
Singh and Jeje are making a mark
in the Indian football and certainly turning heads in Europe. It would
not be surprising to see Jeje follow Singh into European football. Vaikundarajan hopes for more victories and trophies of Indian football team in the near future.
With the IPL behind us, all eyes seem set on India’s tennis stars Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna who have stormed into the quarter finals (with their respective partners) of French Open 2016. Unfortunately, the duo of Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis has been knocked out of women’s double tournament.
“Leander Paes and Matkowski beat fourth seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares with 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) on the board. On another turf, Bopanna and his partner Florin Mergea dominated the game with 6-2, 6-7 (4), 6-1 against Brian Baker and Marcus Daniell,” informs Vaikundarajan. “The 42-year-old Indian tennis maestro and his partner will face the former American world No 1 duo, Mike and Bob Bryan, in the last-eight stage of the men’s doubles.”
In a proud moment for the country, six Indian students were awarded at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the US. New Delhi’s Shreyas Kapur was declared the grand winner of “Google Thinking Big Award.”
“The event was organized by Intel Corporation and the Society for Science and the Public in Arizona. 16 students from India participated in the event winning a total of $9500 in three grand awards and 3 special awards in the fields of biotechnology, medicine and biomedical engineering and mathematics,” informs Vaikundarajan.
Shreyas Kapur’s project addresses a large and seemingly impossible problem by finding an elegant solution with broad impact. The project was titled “Cellphone-based Optometry using Hybrid Images.” Same project has also won Kapur a third position in both NASA and Biomedical Engineering Award.
The 16 Indian students were selected to attend the ISEF as finalists of the Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science (IRIS) 2016. The event featured more than 1700 young scientists selected from 419 affiliate fairs in 77 countries.
$1000 grant was also awarded to each winner’s school and affiliated fair by the Intel Foundation.
“This is a very proud moment for us and shows how bright the country future is,” says Vaikundarajan as he sends his best wishes to all the participants and winners.
Directed by Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu, Brahmotsavam is a Telugu family drama starring Mahesh Babu. "With a prolific writer-director at the helm of the movie, the expectations are high," says Vaikundarajan.
Seethamma is one of the most successful directors to master the art of family drama movies. "The movie has been released in more than 3000 theatres including overseas. Kajal Agarwal, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and Pranitha Subhash will play the lead opposite Mahesh Babu," informs Vaikundarajan.
Naga Babu’s daughter Niharika Konidela will be seen in her debut film Oka Manasu. “The film is to be directed by Rama Raju of Mallela Theeram fame,” informs Vaikundarajan. The makers of the movie released the first look teaser a few days ago followed by a song trailer that highlights Niharika’s acting prowess.
“The movie is a romantic Tollywood movie. Niharika comes from a well-known family and has proved her talent in the field of anchoring. She has also acted in a few short films,” says Vaikundarajan.
The shooting of the film has been wrapped up. As the team works on post-production, the makers released the song teaser on Youtube titled Oh Manasa.
The trailer opens with Naga Shaurya and Niharika in white coloured dress. The song brings a soothing and relaxing feel to it. The audio launch of the film is scheduled for 18th May, 2016. The teaser has generated curiosity and the expectations from the film are high. Whether the actress will be able to establish a strong foothold in Tollywood remains to be seen.
Vaikundarajan sends his best wishes to the actress and the film crew.
Anurag Kashyap and Nawazuddin Siddiqui will be seen working together in the upcoming thriller Raman Raghav 2.0. The official trailer was released yesterday. "Siddiqui looks striking as ever in the role of a psychotic killer, Ramanna," says Vaikundarajan.
Siddiqui can be seen narrating the details about his brutal killings and attacking his victims in front of a cop in police station. "Nawazuddin Siddiqui looks dangerous and surpasses all expectations to pull off a complicated role," says Vaikundarajan.
Smartphone company Lenovo announced the launch of Z1 smartphone in India on 10th May. "The phone is funded by Lenovo and is called ZUK Z1. However, the smartphone is being branded as Lenovo Z1," says Vaikundarajan.
Speaking of its features, Lenovo Z1 provides premium build quality device that runs on Cyanogen OS, an android based software. The smartphone has a 5.5 inch Full HD screen powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor. It comes with a 3GB RAM and 64GB storage. The device packs in a 13 megapixel Sony IMX214 main camera and 8 megapixel front camera. "Some of the key features include 4G radios, support for Bluetooth, GPS, USB Type-C port,a fingerprint reader and Wi-Fi," informs Vaikundarajan. The phone is powered by s 4100mAh battery.
Lenovo is the 2nd smartphone brand to use Cyanogen OS after Micromax. In a competitive market where several smartphone brands are battling for consumer space, Lenovo Z1 certainly brings something unique. “Whether it climbs the popularity chart or joins the long list of failed smartphones, only time will tell,” concludes Vaikundarajan.
Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor will soon be seen in Sabbir Khan's next film Baaghi. " Baaghi is an action thriller where we will see the protagonists showcase their martial arts skills," says Vaikundarajan.
This will be a special film for Shraddha Kapoor fans as we rarely see actresses fighting bad guys in Hindi cinema.
The two actors who will be working together for the first time consider themselves Baaghi in real life too.
Taiwanese company Asus launched a new smartphone in India priced at INR 5299 only. “Asus ZenFone Go 4.5 Gen 2 comes with two different camera options for both front and rear cameras,” says Vaikundarajan. “Front camera comes with 0.3MP+5MP while the rear camera comes with 2MP+8MP.”
The phone will be available for purchase on top e-commerce sites such as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, PayTM and Shopclues. Consumers can also approach Asus exclusive stores and other retail stores to buy the phone.
Speaking on its other features, Vaikundarajana noted, “It has a 4.5-inch FWVGA display with 854x480 pixels resolution. Powered with a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the smartphone runs on 1GB RAM and has 8GB internal memory with an expandable option of up to 64GB micro SD card.”
The phone runs on the latest Android 5.1 Lollipop-based Zen UI and has dual SIM feature with replaceable 2070mAh battery. The company stated that the phone represents luxury at an affordable price and will be appreciated by the users.
“The phone will be available in 6 colours: Pearl White, Glamour Red, Lemon Yellow, Silver Blue, Silver and Sheer Gold,” concludes Vaikundarajan.
On March 22, we celebrate the World Water Day. “Initiated in 1993 by United Nations General Assembly, this day is celebrated to highlight different issues concerning water,” says Vaikundarajan.
The World Water Day focuses on issues such as Water an Sustainable Development, Water and Energy and Water Cooperation.
To spread awareness on water conservation, ‘Ek Boondh Pani’ has conducted a Water Personality Test. “The test aims at finding out how water sensitive and how aware you are of water conservation practices,” explains Vaikundarajan.
Participants can also win prizes upon taking the test. The test is available the official Facebook and Twitter page of Ek Boondh Pani.
World Water Day also aims to motivate the general public to provide support in water conservation by avoiding the use of their taps for whole day.
During this event celebration, all the water issues will be highlighted to the public such as how people are inaccessible to the safe water.
Vaikundarajan believes that water issues need to be taken seriously and addressed to the public. “The initiative by Ek Boondh Paani is commendable,” he adds. On World Water Day, Vaikundarajan requests his fellow countrymen to be responsible citizens and save water.
Last week, the makers of Sardaar Gabbar Singh announced the audio launch of the film to be held on 20th March. “The movie stars power star Pawan Kalyan,” informs Vaikundarajan.
A teaser for the movie’s title song as well as the complete song was released and shared on social media. The teaser was launched on the official YouTube channel of Northstar Entertainment Pvt Ltd.
Simultaneously, the complete audio title song of the film was also featured on its official website by Eros Now South.
