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First & Foremost Asian Weekly in Europe
Vol 46 | Issue 121
A R RAHMAN TM
UNDER FIRE
22nd July to 28th July 2017 SEE INSIDE
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Rami Ranger celebrates his 70th Birthday with style See P15 Karnataka wants to have a ‘state flag’ See P23
Chinese army conducts live-fire drills in Tibet See P26
BJP picks Venkaiah Naidu for Vice-President
Let noble thoughts come to us from every side
Unhappy fans march out of Arena, demand refund for ticket money Venkaiah Naidu (centre) with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah
The Narendra Modi government has picked Union Urban Development and I&B Minister M Venkaiah Naidu as India's next vice-presidential candidate. BJP president Amit Shah made the announcement at a press conference held after a meeting of the Parliamentary Board. Choosing the senior BJP leader as the VP candidate is a well-thought out and balanced decision considering Ram Nath Kovind as the NDA's presidential candidate, and Naidu's experience as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. It is no secret that the BJP holds plans to expand its influence in the South. Branding Naidu can be seen as a symbol of goodwill for the region. He was initially seen as among the couple of picks for President until Modi decided against relieving any of his cabinet colleagues for Rashtrapati Bhavan. “He is a disciplined party cadre and accepted the decision happily,” Shah said when asked if Naidu was happy with the position. Continued on page 26
Rupanjana Dutta Music composer A R Rahman has found himself in the middle of a language war a week after he performed at a concert at Wembley Arena on 8th July. Social media was abuzz with disappointment after a section of the audience at the concert reportedly walked out, alleging he played more Tamil numbers than Hindi ones. The show was initially meant to happen in November 2016, but got cancelled and postponed to July 2017. Sources reveal it even changed sponsors. Many Indians living in the UK, booked tickets, some reading about it on Rahman's
Facebook page, some looking at posters in their local corner shops and some read widely circulated messages on social media. Tickets were sold at various prices, and the Arena could hold upto 12,500 people. The show started and Rahman went on a musical journey of 25 years, but many offended audience walked out, as neither they could understand nor relate to the language of the songs being played. They tweeted, they wrote to the organisers and the media got involved. As a community newspaper, some people approached Asian Voice too. Twitter went into frenzy, people called non-Tamils intolerant towards any language other than Tamil, some justified Rahman’s
roots and a lot more followed. Some people even demanded a refund for their tickets. What people did not at all address is the actual problem here. It is not having to hear songs unfamiliar to one's taste, it is actually the feeling of not knowing what the evening could have in store, especially when it involved payments. Asian Voice spoke to many people who went to the show and here are our findings: First, the show was called 'yesterday, today and tomorrow. 25 years of musical journey.' Some people claim it was called 'netru, indru, nalai' which means yesterday, today and tomorrow in Tamil. Continued on page 16