The pre-wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Indian business tycoons Mukesh and Nita Ambani, and Radhika Merchant, daughter of Viren and Shaila Merchant, continued with grandeur in the picturesque locales of Italy and France.
Following their traditional ceremonies in India, the couple's second round of festivities blended the charm of European elegance with their rich cultural heritage. Their second pre-wedding ceremonies were held from May 29 to June 1 and saw the presence of several Bollywood celebrities and other famous personalities from across the world.
The Ambani family hosted the four-day gala aboard a luxury European cruise. The VIP Bollywood guests on the cruise included Shah Rukh Khan and family, Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Ananya Panday, Jhanvi Kapoor, and Sara Ali Khan.
The ship made pitstops in Rome and Cannes where the guests were treated to glamorous parties.
A video of the popular American boy band Backstreet Boys, featuring Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson, and Brian Littrell, performing at the second pre-wedding event has gone viral online. American singer Katy Perry also gave a live performance on the ship.
The celebrations also included an extravagant party in Portofino, Italy.
The celebration in Italy was marked by a special musical performance by renowned Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.
Videos of him singing Elvis Presley’s iconic song “Falling in Love with You” on stage, have emerged on social media.
Inside views of the pre-wedding festivities in Portofino revealed elegant decor with light-toned chairs decorated with red flowers. Guests enjoyed delicious cupcakes, as seen in one of the photos.
As Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant prepare for their grand wedding, their pre-wedding celebrations in Italy and France have set a high bar for the main event. The couple is set to tie the knot on July 12 in Mumbai.
The main ceremonies will commence on Friday, July 12, with the Shubh Vivah or wedding function. The dress code for guests is traditional Indian attire. This will be followed by a day for Shubh Aashirwad or divine blessings, on Saturday, July 13.
A grand wedding reception is scheduled to be held on Sunday, July 14.
NETFLIX has expanded its cast for Best of the Best, a coming-of-age film set around competitive Bollywood dancing, with comedian Lilly Singh joining in.
Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam have penned the story, about what happens when two childhood friends join the Bollywood dance team at their college. Minhaj will also act.
Never Have I Ever star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Priyanka Kedia, Ankur Rathee, who acted in Four More Shots Please and Chaneil Kular from the streamer’s original Sex Education are in the movie along with Shreya Navile, Becky Alex, Janina Gavankar, Nihar Duvvuri, Nico Greetham, Saara Chaudry, Amryn Khurana, Tanishq Joshi and Sasha Bhasin.
The film will be directed by Lena Khan, who has previously worked as a director on Never Have I Ever.
It will be produced by Minhaj and Venkataramanujam under 186k films.
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THE current debate about whether the imperial statue of Robert Clive should be removed from outside the Foreign Office in London once again reinforces the need to include British colonial history in the school syllabus.
The older generation were brought up to believe that the British empire was, on the whole, a civilising force for good, but younger people today take a much more jaundiced view of the way in large parts of the world – especially India, “the jewel in the crown” – were plundered and drained of their wealth.
After Winston Churchill, who is accused of aggravating the effects of the 1943 Bengal Famine in which two-three million Indians perished, the most controversial figure is probably Clive (1725- 1774), whose conquests were crucial in consolidating British rule in India. He is usually referred to as “Clive of India”.
His bronze statue outside the Foreign Office, by the sculptor John Tweed, was not erected until 1912. It shows him in formal dress with one hand resting on the pommel of his sword, the other clutching papers. The inscription on the statue’s pedestal declares him simply as “Clive”.
The latest debate has been provoked by the Labour peer Baroness Debbonaire, who would have been culture secretary had she not lost the newly created Bristol Central seat in last year’s general election to the Lib Dems. As the MP for Bristol West, she had supported the removal of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in 2018 – this was pulled down during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020.
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (née Singh) was born on August 3, 1966, in Peterborough to a father of Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil origin and an English mother.
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival earlier this month, she said that Clive’s statue “continues to promote him in a victorious mode and as a symbol of something that had universal good. I don’t think it’s helpful for any visitor to the Foreign Office, particularly those of us from Indian origins in the diaspora, but also visiting Indian people, Indian dignitaries, ambassadors, trade ministers, to walk into the Foreign Office past that statue. I don’t think that presents Britain in a particularly good light in the 21st century.
Baroness Debbonaire
“What it doesn’t do is contextualise or indeed give any honesty about what his presence in India actually did. He extracted a vast fortune. His former home, Powis Castle in Wales, contains hundreds if not thousands of objects that he took.”
She added: “Before colonial rule, India was a very developed country. It understood free trade, it was trading with its neighbours – something the East India Company and the other colonising forces successfully crushed. Since independence, India has grown economically, scientifically, in engineering terms, in computing terms, artistic, and so on.”
There were some predictably hostile responses.
Andrew Rosindell, Conservative MP for Romford, said: “I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the calls from Baroness Debbonaire to remove the historic Clive of India statue – an essential part of the architectural landscape outside the Foreign Office. Not least, it would smear the name of a war hero who not only secured British influence in India against French ambitions, but expanded it, laying the foundations for the unification of an Indian state. I stand, alongside patriotic societies like the Royal Society of St. George, in opposing this needless selfflagellating whitewashing of history, and defending our proud British heritage.”
GB News interviewed James WindsorClive, who is said to be Clive’s “greatgreat-great-great-great-great-grandson” who suggested “a debate on giving the statue context with a plaque rather than removing it.” He made the point that it was “unfair to judge an 18th-century soldier-statesman by 21st-century morals”.
Clive is blamed for the 10 million death toll during the Bengal Famine of 1770, when, as governor of the region, he i mp o s e d punishing taxation and land reforms.
But Windsor-Clive, 35, argued: “I don’t think we can airbrush our history as simply as that. We’ve got a proud tradition and history and heritage, and we shouldn’t be looking to hide it. I personally think that Robert Clive helped make Britain a global power. We shouldn’t apologise for our history, but we should learn from it and be proud of what we achieved during that period.”
GB News did not interview another of Clive’s descendants, John Herbert, the eighth Earl of Powis, who takes a rather more critical view of his ancestor.
He was interviewed in 2021 by the writer Sathnam Sanghera for a Channel 4 programme, Empire State of Mind, and expressed reservations about the statue of Clive that was erected in his hometown of Shrewsbury. The local council in Shropshire decided to keep the statue following a debate triggered by the Black Lives Matter protests.
Standing by the statue, Herbert said: “There was very much a request to bring it down and there were quite strong feelings. The council resolved in the end to keep it, but put a plaque on it that will tell us more. I have often wondered if it ought to come down. It’s very imperial and I’ve never been very comfortable with it. I have always wished it wasn’t here, put it that way.”
In 2020, Haberdashers’ Adams school in Newport, Shropshire, dropped “Clive” as the name of one of its houses because he had “played such a leading role in the ill-treatment of Indians and in the expropriation of Indian assets in his time as a British military leader and governor of Bengal”.
The historian William Dalrymple, author of The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East IndiaCompany, is among those who support the “Clive must fall” movement: “Bengal’s wealth rapidly drained into Britain, while its prosperous weavers and artisans were coerced ‘like so many slaves’ by their new masters, and its markets flooded with British products. A proportion of the loot of Bengal went directly into Clive’s pocket.”
The eminent author Nirad C Chaudhuri published a biography, Clive of India, in 1975, which was even handed in assessing the man projected as “the greatest figure in the history of British India”.
The statue of Clive of India outside the Foreign Office entrance
He concluded that “the only legitimate interpretation (of history) is the historical one. In respect of Clive and the rise of the British Empire in India, I have tried to give that. With that I shall leave the account given in the book to take care of itself.”
It does say that “corruption and looting saw Clive amass a huge amount of wealth and he returned to Britain in 1760, aged 34” and that he later “defended himself in Parliament, saying, ‘By God, at this moment, do I stand astonished at my own moderation!’, and in 1773 Parliament declared that he did ‘render great and meritorious services to his country’.
” His “moderation” is reflected in the 1,000 artefacts dating from 1,600 to the 1830s displayed in the Billiard Room turned into the Clive Museum cum South Asian gallery at Powis Castle. The National Trust intends displaying the contents in a “culturally sensitive way”.
The old British view of colonial rule is reflected in a large portrait of Clive dominating a mantelpiece lined with the statutes of such Hindu deities as Vishnu, Krishna, Ganesh and Hanuman – “minor Gods,” according to a helpful volunteer.
Money did not buy Clive peace of mind. He allegedly cut his own throat with a penknife at his London house in Berkeley Square on November 22, 1774 and was hastily buried in St Margaret’s Church, Moreton Say, in Shropshire.
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Inaugurated last year by prime minister Narendra Modi, the sanctuary reportedly houses over 10,000 animals from 330 species, including tigers, elephants, Komodo dragons, and giant anteaters.
INDIA’s Supreme Court has ordered an investigation into allegations of illegal animal imports and financial irregularities at Vantara, a private zoo run by Anant Ambani, son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani.
Vantara describes itself as the “world’s biggest wild animal rescue centre” and is located in Gujarat. According to India’s Central Zoo Authority, it houses more than 200 elephants, 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, along with other species.
Wildlife groups have raised concerns that endangered animals are being kept on flatlands near a large oil refinery without plans to return them to the wild.
On Monday, the Supreme Court said it had set up a panel headed by retired judges to examine allegations of unlawful animal acquisition, especially elephants, violations of wildlife rules, and possible money laundering.
“We consider it appropriate... to call for an independent factual appraisal,” the court said.
The judges said the panel would also look into whether Gujarat’s climate is unsuitable for the animals and examine “complaints regarding creation of a vanity or private collection”. The order followed petitions based on media reports and wildlife organisations’ complaints.
In March, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Vantara imported about 39,000 animals in 2024, including from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
The zoo has also transported dozens of elephants in special trucks from different parts of India.
In a statement on Tuesday, Vantara said it would give “full cooperation” to the inquiry team and “remains committed to transparency, compassion and full compliance with the law”.
“Our mission and focus continues to be the rescue, rehabilitation and care of animals,” it said.
Vantara was also one of the venues for Anant Ambani’s wedding celebrations in 2024, which included private performances by Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Ofgem said the expansion added 1.42 pounds a month on average to all bills.
MILLIONS of households in Britain will see higher energy bills from October after regulator Ofgem raised its price cap by 2 per cent.
The new cap for average annual use of electricity and gas will be 1,755 pounds, an increase of about 35 pounds from the July-September level.
Ofgem said the rise was mainly due to higher network and policy costs.
The increase comes as inflation reached an 18-month high in July and the government faces pressure over the affordability of its net zero plan.
Domestic energy prices are lower than their 2023 peak but remain about 50 per cent above levels in summer 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a surge in gas prices across Europe.
In June, the government said an additional 2.7 million households would be eligible for the warm home discount this winter, extending the scheme to support 6 million vulnerable households with 150 pounds off their bills.
Ofgem said the expansion added 1.42 pounds a month on average to all bills.
Consumer groups said energy costs were still difficult for many households and called for more support.
The government said the long-term solution was reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
"The only answer for Britain is this government’s mission to get us off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel prices and onto clean, homegrown power we control," Energy Minister Michael Shanks said.
Ofgem sets the quarterly price cap using a formula based on wholesale energy prices, suppliers’ network costs and environmental and social levies. Wholesale energy prices fell around 2 per cent over the latest assessment period.
Analysts at Cornwall Insight said the cap could fall in January if wholesale prices drop, but policy costs such as a fee on bills to fund the Sizewell C nuclear plant could keep charges higher.
"These policy-driven costs are part of a broader shift in how we fund the energy transition... yet some of the funding will ultimately need to come from billpayers," said Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight.
John Alford, 53, is accused of sexually abusing two girls aged 14 and 15 at a Hertfordshire party in 2022.
Charges include sexual activity with a child, sexual assault and assault by penetration.
Prosecutors allege both girls were drunk when the incidents occurred.
Alford, whose real name is John Shannon, denies all allegations.
The trial is taking place at St Albans Crown Court.
Former London’s Burning actor John Alford is on trial accused of sexually abusing two teenage girls at a house party in Hertfordshire on 9 April 2022.
The 53-year-old, from Holloway, north London, faces four counts of sexual activity with a 14-year-old and two charges involving a 15-year-old girl, including sexual assault and assault by penetration. He has denied all the charges.
Opening the case at St Albans Crown Court, prosecutor Julie Whitby told jurors that Alford, charged under his real name John Shannon, was “in no doubt” both girls were under 16.
Jurors heard that Alford and another man, the father of a third girl, arrived at the house in the early hours of the morning. Alford later returned from a petrol station with a bottle of vodka.
The prosecution said he asked the 14-year-old to sit on his lap, behaviour she described as “a bit strange”, before the alleged assaults took place in the garden and later in a toilet.
In a police interview played to the court, the girl said: “He raped me”, claiming she asked him to stop several times. She also told officers it was the first time she had had sex.
A 15-year-old girl also accused Alford of sexual assault. The court heard that both alleged victims had consumed “a fair amount of vodka” on the night in question and did not immediately disclose the incidents.
The matter came to light after the 15-year-old’s mother made a report to police two days later.
In a statement given to police, Alford denied the allegations, claiming one of the girls had told him she was 17 and had tried to kiss him. He insisted: “At no point did I touch her in any sexual way whatsoever.”
He also alleged that the two girls were attempting to extort money from him, but prosecutors said no evidence to support this claim was found on phones seized from either the complainants or the defendant.
The case continues at St Albans Crown Court, where jurors will hear further evidence in the coming days.