Dhookudu audio releasing in August first week

Ravi Teja in Meher Ramesh’s next?

After the debacle of NTR, Ileana starrer Shakti, the director of the film, Meher Ramesh remained off theradar for quite sometime. The reviews were scathing and almost everyone wrote him off. However, he seems to have bounced back. Rumours are rife that Meher Ramesh has narrated a story to Ravi Teja and he has agreed to do the film. Although, if all goes well, this will be the first time that Ravi Teja and Meher Ramesh would be working together, they have known each other for quite a long, as Meher was an associate of Puri Jagannadh. Malla Vijayaprasad is expected to produce the film on Welfare Creations Group banner.More details will be revealed soon.

For now, Ravi Teja has Gunasekhar’s Nippu in his hand. The film will go on floors soon. Deeksha Seth is playing the lead role and YVS Chowdary is going to produce it.

Puri Jagannath's film in Ganesh Babu Production

Varun Sandesh, Preetika’s film titled as ‘Priyudu’

A new film starring Varun Sandesh, Preetika and Shweta Basu Prasad has finally got its official title. Sravan is making his debut as a director with this film and Uday Kiran is producing the film on UK Avenues Pvt. Ltd banner. The film has been titled as ‘Priyudu’.

In a press note issued to the media, the producer of the film said, “Priyudu has a good love story and it’s acomplete family entertainer.” Except for four songs and some talkie part, the rest of the film has been completed. Two of these songs would be shot inBangkok and Nainital in the next schedule from July 25 to August 7. The remaining two songs would be shot in Hyderabad.

Recently, Varun Sandesh got injured while performing a stunt on the sets of this film. Kota Srinivasa Rao, Nazar, Kasi Vishwanath, Ali , Ranadhir, Vennela Kishore are some of the actors who are playing important roles. Mohan Jonah is composing the music and Malhar Bhat is the cinematographer. The film is expected to hit the screens in September this year. This would also be Preetika’s debut film in Telugu.

Anurag Basu set to direct Arundhati remake in Hindi

One of the biggest blockbusters of all time, Arundhati is going to be remade in Hindi soon. The film catapulted Anushka and Sonu Sood’s fame to greater heights and was one of the two blockbusters in 2009. Shyam Prasad Reddy had produced the film and KodiRamakrishna had directed it. The film was later dubbed in Tamil and it was a huge success. The film’s Hindi remake rights were bought by Gemini FilmCircuit. After several rounds of discussions, they have got one of the top directors, Anurag Basu onboard. He has directed films like Gangster, Life..in a Metro andrecently, Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori starrer Kites.

A sources tells us that a leading Bollywood actress is showing interest in the film. Although, the casting has not been confirmed so far, the film is expected to go on floors later this year. Anurag Basu is currently directing Barfee which has Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz in lead roles. Stay tuned for more details on this film.

Jamia honours Ambassador of Saudi Arabia

New Delhi: The Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) on Wednesday conferred its first ever Nishan-e-Azad title on Faisal Hasan Trad, ambassador of Saudi Arabia to India, for his signal contribution to the growth of the 91-year-olduniversity, one of the country's oldest.

"We acknowledge the role played by him in fosteringcloser education ties between Jamia and institutions of higher learning in Saudi Arabia whereby severalMemorandum of Understanding were signed and many successful visits made including those by heads of state," said Jamia Vice-Chancellor Najeeb Jung.

"He (Trad) is a rockstar among the diplomatic corps," he added.

Jung said the varsity - which became a central university by an act of parliament in 1988 - had developed a deeper bond of friendship with Saudi Arabia in Trad's tenure and he intended to strengthen the association.

"Efforts have been made by (Najeeb) Jung to bring this university to an international level and I have tried to support him because education spreads peace and knowledge," said Trad to a packed house after receiving the honour at the M.A Ansari auditorium.

"We will witness more cooperation between Jamia and the universities in Saudi in times to come," he added.

Speaking on the issue of Jamia getting a minority status, Trad said it would definitely help Muslim students who aspire to get educated.

"The minority status is indeed a big support for our Muslim brethren," he said.

According to Jamia, the title of 'Nishan-e-Azad' has been instituted in the memory of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first education minister of independent India.

AICTE not to approve more part-time MBA courses due to misuse by Institutes

A senior AICTE official said, there are many B-schools around which are misusing the facility and running other programmes on the pretext of a part-time MBA programme.

They are not working within the regulated framework, which prompted us to take this step.The experts said this change could affect around 400 colleges and 20,000 students. These figures could not be verified with AICTE. Several calls to AICTE Chairman S S Mantha went unanswered. There are around 2,500 AICTE-approved management schools.

The B-schools concerned are unhappy. “Experienced people learn management much better than freshers. We have around 240 students for masters’ courses in management, finance, human resource and information management. We have already requested the vice-chancellor of the University of Mumbai to take up the matter with AICTE,” said Suresh Ghai, director, K J Somaiya Institute of Management and Research.

The three B-school’s directors said by this the higher education would be more costly than before and prevent growth and development of many working professionals.

According to a human resource director of a textile company, part-time management programmes allow employees to add knowledge.