​Several senior officials remained mute spectators as Balakrishna conducted a review meeting.

Actor-politician Nandamuri Balakrishna triggered a row after he occupied Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's chair at the latter's office in the Velgapudi Secretraiat.

Balakrishna, who is also the TDP MLA from Hindpur in Anantapur district, was conducting a review meeting on the upcoming Lepakshi festival in his constituency.

 ​According to reports, Balakrishna took the seat even as Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and senior IAS officials remained mute spectators.

Naidu and his son and Andhra IT Minister Nara Lokesh, are in Davos from January 21 to 25 to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In their absence, many were upset that Balakrishna misused his relationship with the Chief Minister. Balakrishna's sister, Nara Bhuvaneshwari, is married to Naidu, while his daughter, Nara Brahmini is married to Lokesh.

“Personal relationships should not intrude into official places, especially in the high positions in the state. Moreover, there are conference halls in every block and Mr Balakrishna could have chosen any of them instead of the one in the CMO,” an official told DC. 

Balakrishna is constantly in the news for his short temper, as he is known to have slapped multiple people on camera, including his own fans.

Balayya, as he is popularly known, is former Chief Minister NT Rama Rao's son. In last year, during his electoral campaign tour in Nandyal of Kurnool, he slapped a party man who tried to take a selfie with him.

In the same month, he whacked an assistant director on the sets of Paisa Vasool, and forced him to pick his shoes up.

In March last year, much before this episode, Balakrishna had also invited solid criticism for making misogynistic remarks against women actors at an audio release functions.

“If I play eve-teasing roles, and just follow girls, my fans will not accept. Either they should be kissed or should be impregnated. That’s all. We have to commit ourselves,” he had said.

“I too act naughty with the actresses... I pinch them sometimes,” the actor added.

After the sad demise of Jayalalithaa, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, RK Nagar Constituency is in news headlines with many incidents.

The latest incident connecting with RK Nagar and its Bypoll is the rejection of nomination filed by Tamil Actor Vishal.

Now, Being one of the most talked about issues in town right now, the rejection of Vishal’s nomination is heating up.
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Vishal first took to Twitter to confirm that the fact that his nomination was dismissed is real and he expressed his disappointment.

After that,  Vishal takes the next step by escalating this issue to the Prime Minister and the President of India, through Twitter. He Tweeted, “To the people, I look upto, Hon @narendramodi & Hon @rashtrapatibhvn. I am Vishal,I hope u r aware of wats happening in the RK Nagar Election process in Chennai. My nomination was accepted & later rejected. Totally unfair. I bring this to your notice & I hope justice prevails.”

Will this help solve the issues that are currently taking place or not? Let us wait to find out.

HOWEVER, THE FORMER US PRESIDENT DECLINED TO REVEAL THE PM'S REPLY.

Former US President Barack Obama on Friday said he had "privately" told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that a country should not be divided on sectarian lines and emphasised how the Indian society needed to cherish that Muslims in the country identify themselves as Indians which is not common for minorities in many other countries.

"A country shouldn't be divided on sectarian lines and that is something I have told Prime Minister Modi in person as well as to people in America...People see the differences between each other much too vividly and miss the commonalities. Commonalities are always based on gender and we need to focus on that," Obama said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

Asked how Modi responded to his private message on religious tolerance, Obama dodged a straight reply, saying his goal was not to disclose his private conversations. 

But he said India's majority community and government needed to cherish the fact that minorities, particularly Muslims, in India identify themselves as part of the nation.

"For a country like India where there is a Muslim population that is successful, integrated and considers itself as Indian - which is not the case in some other countries, this should be nourished and cultivated," the former US President said. 

He said in a democracy the most important office was not the office of the President or a Prime Minister but the office of the citizen who needed to question themselves about which ideology they encourage with their support to particular politician.
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"When you see a politician doing something questionable, ask yourself 'Am I supporting this?'. Politicians are like mirrors which reflect the community's view. If communities across India are saying they won't fall prey to division, then it will strengthen the hand of politicians who feel that way."

THE ACTOR CALLED DEMONETISATION THE 'BIGGEST BLUNDER OF OUR TIME'.

A year since the implementation of demonetisation, actor-filmmaker Prakash Raj on Wednesday demanded an apology from the central government for committing the "biggest blunder".

In a post titled "To whomsoever it may concern", Prakash wrote on Twitter: "While the rich found ways to convert their black money into shiny new notes, this disruptive impact made millions suffer helplessly and the unorganised sector workers went for spin. Would you mind saying sorry for the biggest blunder of our time?"

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes which, he said, was aimed at "eradicating black money and terror funding".
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Last week, Prakash -- a popular name in the Kannada, Telugu and Tamil film industries -- supported actor Kamal Haasan's views on "Hindu extremists". A month ago, Prakash had also condemned the "silence" of Modi on certain sections "celebrating" the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on social media. He had said Modi's silence was "chilling".

A multi-lingual actor and producer with a fan base across south India, Prakash Raj was a close friend of journalist Gauri Lankesh for over three decades.

“Gauri’s father, Mr Lankesh, was our mentor, our teacher. We have been his students, and I knew Gauri for the last 35 years,” he told Republic TV soon after Gauri’s death.

Prakash had also said that though there were many vocal voices in the past such as Lankesh, DR Nagaraj and UR Ananthamurthy, intolerance for such voices had grown more recently. “I am really wondering where are we going towards?” Prakash had asked.

Prakash Raj has won 5 National Awards for films across industries in his long career. These are Best Supporting Actor for Iruvar (1997, Tamil), Special Jury Award for Anthapuram (1999,Telugu), Special Jury Award for various movies (2003, multiple languages), Best Actor for Kanchivaram (2007, Tamil), and Best Film for Puttakkana Highway (2010, Kannada).

Chennai: A petition was on Monday filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to revoke the censor certificate issued for Vijay-starrer Tamil movie, 'Mersal'.

The petitioner, advocate A Ashvathaman, alleged that the film was full of "wrong propaganda about India and fake dialogues and scenes which obviously leads to misconception about the new taxation system of India and the Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017 to the viewers."


"No picture shall be certified for public exhibition which will lower the moral standards of those who see it and the prevailing laws shall not be so ridiculed as to create sympathy for violation of such laws," he said.
The petitioner sought a direction from the court to revoke the censor certificate issued to the film besides an interim stay on the public exhibition of the movie.

The movie, released on October 18, has kicked up a row with the BJP's Tamil Nadu unit taking exception to references about GST in the movie.

The BJP had objected to what it termed were "untruths" regarding the GST in the film and wanted dialogues on the central taxation to be deleted.

However, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, senior party leader P Chidambaram, DMK working president M K Stalin, veteran star Kamal Haasan and a host of Tamil cinema industry representatives have come out in support of the film crew on the issue.

An actor who wants to return his awards shouldn't accept any, Union Minister and former Karnataka Chief Minister Sadanand Gowda said of veteran actor Prakash Raj, who has been chosen to receive a new accolade on Tuesday.

Earlier this week, Raj said he felt like returning his five National Awards to the government, while criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence on social media reactions to the murder of senior Kannada journalist Gauri Lankesh. But Raj later said he would not return his awards.

The killers of Gauri Lankesh, a close friend of Raj's, have still not been found.
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"He is very good actor...but nowadays his ideologies support the Left, and that is not in line with what people think today. An actor who says he wants to return his award should not also accept an award - this is my personal opinion," Gowda said.
The star of Iruvar, Anthapuram and Puttakkana Highway, Raj has been chosen to receive the Dr Kota Shivaram Karanth Huttara Prashanth, in recognition of his contribution to cinema.
BJP members on the selection board have now refused to attend the ceremony.
Here's the video message in which Prakash Raj denies that he wants to return his awards. "I am not such a fool to give back the National Awards, which have been given to me for my body of work, and which I'm very proud of," he said.