Shahrukh Khan to be given honorary doctorate

Award winning Bollywood badshah Shahrukh Khan is to be given an honorary doctorate in arts and culture from the University of Bedfordshire in London next month.

Shahrukh, who has a huge fan base across the globe, is also a film producer and television host and will receive his award at the Hotel Courthouse, London on 10 July from Vice Chancellor Les bdon, CBE.

He was nominated by Routes 2 Roots, a non-governmental organisation which endeavours to bring together people, cultures and values from across southern Asia, in particular India and Pakistan.

University of Bedfordshire Deputy Vice Chancellor (External Relations) Ashraf Jawaid, said: "We are absolutely delighted to confer this honorary doctorate on Shahrukh Khan. He has made an outstanding contribution to the arts, culture and media which is recognised around the world."

Shahrukh started his career in the late 1980s appearing in several television serials. He made his film debut with the commercially successful Deewana in 1992 and since then has gone on to play a variety of critically acclaimed roles.

He has won seven Filmfare Best Actor Awards and appeared in films including Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Chak De India (2007), Om Shanti Om (2007) and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008) which remain some of Bollywood’s biggest hits.

Films including Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Veer Zaara (2004) and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006) have been hits overseas making Shah Rukh one of the most successful actors of Hindi cinema. Since 2000 Shah Rukh has branched out into film production and television presenting.

He is married with two children. In April 2007 a life-size wax statue of him was unveiled at Madame Tussauds in London. During the same year, he was accorded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Literature) award by the French government for his "exceptional career".

Religious leaders dismiss fatwa against Shahrukh Khan

Bareilly: An Islamic seminary has issued a fatwa against Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan for allegedly making comments against Islam even as Muslim religious leaders distanced themselves from the decree, calling it “unnecessary” as the actor had offered his clarification.

“A person making a remark like the one attributed to Shahrukh is a kafir (non-believer) and is struck out of Islam,” said the fatwa issued by Mufti Mohammed Shoeb Raza Qadri and Mufti Muti-ur-Rehman of the Darul-uloom-Mazhar-e- Islam. Such a person must offer an immediate apology to return to Islam, the fatwa said.

Shahrukh Khan has strongly denied the comments attributed to him in an interview published in a magazine, saying he had been misquoted.

Case registered
Last week, a criminal case was registered in Mumbai against Shahrukh Khan and the publisher of the magazine under section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious sentiments) and section 34 (acts done by several persons with common interest) of the Indian Penal Code.

Bareilly-based Markazi Darul Ifta, which is responsible for issuing fatwas for the Barelvi sect, dismissed the decree saying the move by the two clerics was “unnecessary.”

“If someone is saying that he has not made statements [against the Prophet], then what is the need to issue a fatwa,” a spokesperson of the Markazi Darul Ifta, Maulana Shahbuddin said.

Darul-Uloom Deoband spokesman Ashraf Usmani said, “We have no plans to issue such fatwa. The fatwa issued against Shahrukh is not significant.”

Another cleric Maulana Yaseen Misbahi said, “Such kind of fatwa should not be issued on the basis of media reports.”

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's office burgled, but MNIK is safe!

As is by now well know, earlier this month the recording studio of the composer trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy was broken into and computers and other items were burgled. In fact many of their unrecorded and also unused tunes (that were stored were on those computers) were also stolen/destroyed.

It may be termed as Karan Johar's good fortune that the tapes of the recorded but unreleased songs of his upcoming film, the Shahrukh Khan and Kajol starrer, MY NAME IS KHAN (lying in the room adjacent to the one burgled), were left untouched.

Here's hoping that Karan and SEL's good luck continues and MY NAME IS KHAN, presently being shot in San Francisco and other locales of US, continues the golden run of the previous SRK-Kajol ventures!