Neha in clothes

Neha Dhupia has vowed not to take off her clothes on screen. Unlike some of her other contemporaries who still seem to enjoy it, Neha is through with doing skin flicks as she feels they have given her a very bad name. Her unsavoury experience from movies like Utthan has also prompted her to have a rethink on doing such films in the future. “I am really going to be very, very careful in the future,” she says.

Battle for people       

The battle lines are being drawn for the next big battle in the print medium. And this one is confined to the financial press. The Hindustan Times group is launching a business newspaper sometime early next year and has begun hiring staff. Since The Hindustan Times group has a no-poaching agreement with The Times of India group, it has to look for people principally in other financial newspapers — The Financial Express, Business Standard and Business Line. Interestingly, Business Standard is said to have responded to the threat of poaching by offering senior journalists Rs 2 lakh if they are on the newspaper’s rolls on April 1, 2007 and Rs 1 lakh to some reporters. When contacted, a senior Business Standard news executive did not comment on the matter. But the bait doesn’t seem to have worked. A senior journalist in the paper in Mumbai has already resigned to join the competition.

Diwali and diwala

Don and Jaan-E-Mann may not have raked in as much moolah as they thought they would. But then pirates have made over Rs 65 crore on these films. While it was being said that the underworld dons were not in favour of pirating these films following requests from the stars not to do so, the piracy took place through the Internet. The films were downloaded through private coded cyber sites after being uploaded from Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia.

Himesh biopic?

Himesh Reshammiya is on a roll. The singer who plans to become an actor is getting a film made on his life. You can’t get more narcissistic than that.

But Himesh says, “In some ways the film is based on my life. But it’s an interesting concept. I am not giving away everything yet. Two new faces are being launched in this film, is all I want to add.” Himesh took a contingent of journalists to London recently for a show to showcase his popularity.

No comeback, yet

Recently, media circles were rife with rumours that Jeetendra would be playing the role of either the Thakur or Gabbar Singh in his daughter Ekta Kapoor’s Bhojpuri remake of Sholay. But the veteran actor has flatly denied the rumours. “I do not know why and how this news has come about. I am certainly not in the mood for something like this,” says a peeved Jeetendra. According to Jeetendra, he will do a film only when the project really excites him.