Barun Sobti ...(Arnav )

 Barun Sobti – Profile

Barun Sobti is an Indian Television actor and model. He was born on 21st August, 1984 into a Punjabi family in Delhi. Barun Sobti debuted into the Television industry with a STAR PLUS  show called Shraddha. Barun Sobti was mainly recognised for his role as Shravan Jaiswal in Sony TV’s Baat Hamari Paaki Hai opposite Ankita Sharma. Right now Barun is the hearthrob of the Television industry portraying the role of Arnav Singh Raizada in the famous romantic drama Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon opposite the lovely Sanaya Irani.

Barun Sobti happens to be the only TV actor to have bagged 4 awards at Star Parivaar Awards for the flawless role portrayal of Arnav Singh Raizada in the serial Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon. Barun Sobti was awarded the Favorite Naya Sadasya, Most Stylish Sadasya, Popular Award Favorite Jodi with Sanaya Irani and Popular Award Favorite International Jodi with Sanaya Irani for the TV show, Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon. Further adding to the list of his achievements, Barun Sobti was awarded the Best Actor at The Global Indian Film and Television Honours.

Barun Sobti – Early Life

Barun Sobti was born into a Punjabi family in Delhi. He completed his schooling and college education in Delhi itself. Barun can speak in Hindi, English and Punjabi. Before Barun entered the Television industry he worked as an Operations Manger in Jindal Telecom for 7 years.

Barun Sobti – Foray into the Television Industry

Barun Sobti began his Television career opposite Neha Janpandit as the male lead Swayam Khurana, in the family and faith oriented daily soap, Shraddha on STAR Plus. The show was pulled off air abruptly. Barun was then approached to play the male lead in Balaji Telefilms show Keshav Pandit.

Barun portrayed the role of Dr. Yuvraaj Singh in the popular TV show Dill Mill Gayye. He soon left the show as he bagged the lead role of  Shravan Jaiswal in Sony TV’s Baat Hamari Pakki Hai. His portrayal of Shravan Jaiswal earned him a lot of recognition and made him very popular. To promote the show  Baat Hamari Pakki Hai, the lead pair Barun and Ankita Sharma appeared in Sony TV’s dance based reality show Boogie Woogie! on 29th May, 2010.

Currently Barun Sobti essays the role of the powerful business magnate Arnav Singh Raizada in the extremely popular romantic drama Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon which airs on STAR PLUS. Barun Sobti will be seen sharing a love-hate relationship opposite co-actor Sanaya Irani. Barun has gained immense popularity and appreciation for his role as Arnav.

Barun Sobti has garnered a huge fan base worldwide with Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon.

Barun Sobti – Personal Life

Barun is married to his childhood sweetheart Pashmeen Manchanda. He got married to Pashmeen in a very private ceremony by just getting a day off his busy schedule. The marriage took place in the presence of a few close friends and relatives and was a simple ritualistic ceremony held at a Gurudwara.

When Barun is not working, he likes spending time with family, enjoys partying with friends, watching shows on Discovery Channel, Sports, Reality shows (Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao, Roadies, Bigg Boss) and comedy shows (Khichdi, Instant Khichdi) with his favorite TV channel being Sony. Barun admits to wanting to take part in reality shows like Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao and Fear Factor. Barun’s favorite funny movies are Andaz Apna Apna and Don’t Mess With The Zohan.

Barun is not active on any social networking sites and as of October 2010, he requested fans to avoid fake profiles, while promising that there will be an official presence soon.

Barun Sobti – Awards and Nominations

Apsara Film and Television Producers Guild Awards

2011 – Nominated for Apsara Best TV Actor Award for  Baat Hamari Pakki Hai

STAR Parivaar Awards

Winner

2012 – Popular Award Favorite International Jodi with Sanaya Irani for Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?
2012 – Popular Award Favorite Jodi with Sanaya Irani for Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?
2012 – Favorite Naya Sadasya – Male Arnav Singh Raizada for Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?
2012 – Most Stylish Sadasya Arnav Singh Raizada for Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

The Global Indian Film and Television Honours

Winner
2012 – Public Award Best TV Actor in a Lead Role – Male for Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

Nominated
2012 – Public Award Best TV Jodi with Sanaya Irani for Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

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Jodi Brekers Movie Review

Cast: R Madhavan, Bipasha Basu, Omi Vaidya, Milind Soman, Dipanita Sharma,Mrinalini Sharma, Helen

Directed by Ashwini Chaudhary

Rating: **1/2

Hearts and buttocks may not serve the same purpose but when in love, both are subject to equitable amount of pain. This is one of the many pearls of wisdom you might pick up from this rom-com about breaking marriages and bandaging hearts. While similar films have managed well in exploring the intricate particulars of relationships, this one dares to not take itself as seriously and makes for a flaky yet pleasant watch.

The film ushers us into the curious life of Sid Khanna (R Madhavan), a marriage breaker by profession and a divorcee by marital status. Although he isn’t a divorce lawyer, he lies very well and helps people part with their insufferable partners without getting bankrupt due to alimony. His friends and supporting cast include sexual athlete and bartender Nano (Omi Vaidya) and a couple who devise their screen time between offering advice and passing snide comments. Without any drum rolls or slow-mo intros, Sonali (Bipasha Basu) strolls into Sid’s favourite bar and into his life. HerAmy Winehouse eyes and playful manner impresses Sid enough to hire her as his workmate and she instantly hops on the offer.

After a speedy and entertaining first-half, the inevitable and predictable disaster occurs. Love. Sigh. And like a morning after the misadventures of a drunken night, it all seems to be going down. But dodging Bollywood clichés, it doesn’t become the crux of the separation, which naturally needs to happen. And the melodrama and grumpiness associated with the same is kept to a bare minimum. In fact, what is novel here is that love isn’t chased or forced but is allowed to brew over the entire runtime of the movie. So when it does reach a sweet spot, it sinks in with ease and is more believable and beautiful.

 While many argue that R Madhavan is wearing an astronaut suit under his clothes, in actuality, it is just his bloated self. While for an actor of his caliber, a couple of gigagrams on the face and several gallons in the rest of him can’t take away from his performance and it doesn’t. Only bother, when he lip-syncs to songs, his lip movements look like streaks flickering on a humungous canvas. On the other spectrum of the lard horizon, Bipasha is glowing and skinnier than ever before. For skeptics, who feel Bipasha has little to offer apart from her appearance, I couldn’t agree more. But here, she’s almost tolerable, if that could account for a minor achievement. Omi Vaidya is a show stealer for his inimitable comic timing and the re-enactment of his legendary ‘3 Idiots’ horror speech is 24 carat. And while forcing an actor to recreate a successful scene is a horrible idea, here it just works. Vaidya’s character is trying to pull off a sex guru with just a bar menu in his hands. His opening verse, “Ek Old Monk ne kaha tha, apne andar ke Black Dog ko sambhal ke rakhna, warna mathay pe Black Label lag jayega.” Milind Soman and Dipanita Sharma are both stunning mannequins as their roles are mere props who talk only a little more than they express.

The story may not be entirely original yet the dialogues are refreshingly clever and crisp, keeping the pace of the film intact. The golden line being, “The best part of kissing is the unsure and unsettling feeling experienced just a moment before a kiss when you don’t know exactly how it’s going to turn out.” Greece is a country that doesn’t need a professional photographer to extract the plentiful shades of blue that the sea offers. But having one here only made it better. The music by Salim-Sulaiman is strictly average and even the high-pumping party numbers don’t induce any tapping of foot.

As Madhavan and Bips team up to snoop around, they remind you of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo. But when they get intimate, your fond association with the adorable bhalus is scarred forever.

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IPL 5 auction: Chennai Super Kings buy Ravindra Jadeja for whopping $2 million in tie-breaker

NEW DELHI: Dashing wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon McCullum was the first to be auctioned as he was bought for $900,000 by Kolkata Knight Riders followed by the Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who was clinched by Chennai Super Kings for whopping $2 million in the tie-breaker. 

Who got whom | Batsmen | Bowlers | All-rounders | Wicket-keepers 

Meanwhile, KKR co-owner Shah Rukh Khan tweeted: Feel shy sitting on auction table with all the bigwigs...so waiting outside and enjoying a cuppa coffee & brendon return to team... 

Royal Challengers Bangalore bought seamer R Vinay Kumar, who had a base price $100,000, for $1 million. 

Fast bowler RP Singh, who had a base price of $200,000, was bought by Mumbai Indians for $600,000. 

Jadeja, who had a base price of $100,000, was bagged in a tie-breaker between Super Kings and Deccan Chargers. 

The $2 million budget cap for the auction means Super Kings have spent all their money on a single player and cannot participate in the auction any more. 

Delhi Daredevils bought all-rounder Andre Russel, who had a base price of $50,000, for $450,000 while Mitchell Johnson was bought at his base price by the Mumbai Indians for $300,000. 

Deccan Chargers bought Parthiv Patel, who had a base price of $200,000, for $650,000 after quite a fight with the other franchises. 

Rajasthan Royal bought Bradley Hodge for $475,000. Sri Lankan master batsman Mahela Jayawardene has been bought by Delhi Daredevils for $1.4 million. 

Mumbai Indians bought Herschelle Gibbs for $50,000 while Dinesh Chandimal bought by Rajasthan Royals for $50,000. Both the players have been bought on their base prices. 

Muttiah Muralitharan was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for $200,000 while England's paceman James Anderson was the first to go unsold in the IPL 5 auction. 

Darren Bravo, Ian Bell, Upul Tharanga, Adrian Barath, Tamim Iqbal and VVS Laxman went unsold at the IPL 5 auction. 

A total of 146 players will be auctioned for the available 29 slots as the auction for the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League got underway in Bangalore. 

The auction got a big twist just hours before the players' auction after Sahara India pulled out from the ownership of IPL franchise Pune Warriors. 

Sahara India has been denied replacement for injured Yuvraj Singh for the upcoming fifth edition of Indian Premier League. 

"It was an emotional decision for us to start this sponsorship but our emotions were never appreciated and many genuine situations were not given due consideration at all," Sahara said. 

Sahara India also requested BCCI to pass on Pune Warriors team to some other interested party immediately. 

The franchises have a maximum of $2 million to spend at the auction as they bid to strengthen their line-ups ahead of the tournament which will be played between April 4 and May 27. 

The exceptions are Bangalore and Pune, which have already spent some money retaining their respective 'replacements', Chris Gayle and Sourav Ganguly. 

The auction will be conducted by Richard Madley, a professional auctioneer from England who has conducted each of the previous IPL player auctions. 

The 2012 auction happens to be the cheapest of the five so far. The purse has been tightened keeping the cricketers and vacancies in mind.

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Sahara withdraws Indian cricket team sponsorship and Pune Warriors ownership

NEW DELHI: In a surprise development, the Indian cricket team's longtime sponsor Sahara India on Saturday ended financial ties with theBCCI and also pulled out of the IPL by withdrawing from Pune Warriors' ownership just hours before the players' auction. 

Sahara, which has been the team sponsor for 11 years, signed a renewed agreement with the BCCI on July 1, 2010 till December 31, 2013. 

Sahara was paying Rs 3.34 crore per Test match, one-day international and Twenty20 international under the new terms. 

"...after an 11-year journey as sponsors, we can say with surety that cricket has become very rich. Many rich people are there to support cricket with a strong will to do so. So, with absolute peace of mind we can exit from cricket under BCCI and are exiting with a heavy heart," Sahara India said in a statement. 

"It was an emotional decision for us to start this sponsorship but our emotions were never appreciated and many genuine situations were not given due consideration at all," the statement read. 

Sahara, which entered the cash-rich IPL bandwagon last year along with the now-disbanded Kochi Tuskers Kerala, complained that several requests put forth by it with regards to players and the number of matches were not accepted by the BCCI. 

"Our first entry into IPL was thwarted in 2008 when we were disqualified, owing to a small technicality on the whims and fancies of BCCI. Yet our Bid was not opened," the statement said.

"Last year, Sahara entered the IPL on the basis of information in the media and everywhere else that 94 matches will be played among 10 teams. The bid price was accordingly calculated, but only 74 matches were played. We are still pursuing continuously with the BCCI to refund the extra bid money proportionately. It has been denied on the basis of strict rules. 

"In the interest of the tournament, we repeatedly tried our best to pursue the BCCI for open auction of all players so that we achieve level playing field and all teams are equally balanced from the quality players' point of view. Again, as per BCCI's strict rules it was denied and again, we were deprived of natural justice. 12 of the best players were retained by the existing teams then," it added. 

"The two new teams then requested for allowing us at least one extra foreign player but that too was denied, quoting rules." 

Sahara's marquee player in the IPL is skipper Yuvraj Singh, who is currently recovering from tumour in the lungs. 

His unavailability in the IPL this season prompted Sahara to ask the BCCI that the price of the batsman be added to their overall purse for the players auction but the request was turned down.

"Yuvraj Singh, who is truly like one of our family members, is, quite unfortunately, passing through a bad phase health wise, undergoing treatment for critical illness, overseas. 

"Our duty is to take care of him, so Sahara has decided to pay him his full fee this year with condition as a Guardian that his priority should be health care and he should not play till he has fully recovered," the company stated. 

"We requested the BCCI on the basis of the fact that we have only one Indian marquee player, that we be allowed to add price of Yuvraj Singh in our auction purse, during the February 4 auction because we had later taken Sourav Ganguly at 0.4 million. 

"Again, we have been denied on the basis of the rule book. Yet again, a case of being denied natural justice. We think this peculiar situation of Shri Yuvraj Singh is silent in the rule book because it probably talks only about players who are temporarily injured." 

Sahara is apparently also unhappy with the fact that Royal Challengers Bangalore were allowed to buy replacement player Chris Gayle this season. 

"The manner in which Gayle was bought was not liked by many franchises including Sahara," a Sahara official said on condition of anonymity. 

Sahara said even during the Champions League Twenty20, an injury-plagued Mumbai Indians were allowed to field an extra foreign player due to the crisis in the team but such gestures were never extended to Pune Warriors. 

"Incidentally, once during the Champions League, one of the Indian IPL teams had a lot of injured players so they were rightly, out of natural justice, allowed to break the rules and take one extra foreign player. We appreciated this natural justice," it said. 

"We really feel such one-sided emotional relationship cannot be dragged any further. We are withdrawing from all cricket under BCCI," it added. 

But the company said that it would pay its sponsorship free for the next few months giving time to the BCCI to find a new sponsor. It also promised to pay the dues of its IPL players and staff. 

"We don't want to give any problem to the BCCI and we also feel that the players should not suffer. BCCI will definitely take 2-4 months to get a new sponsor and we will continue paying the sponsorship money till then," it said. 

"All other IPL team players, coaches and other such associates will definitely get their due this year, in case they do not get a chance to play," it said. 

Detailing what it felt were the BCCI's attempts at slighting the company, Sahara was also unhappy about the fact that its logo was removed from the team shirt during the 2003 World Cup and a couple of other tournaments on directives of the ICC. 

"Once during a World Cup tournament, Sahara's name was not allowed because there was a clash of our Airline with a South African airline. In two major tournaments, the team had to play without the Sahara logo," Sahara said. 

"It was ICC's decision so we could realise that it was for no fault of BCCI and we also did not want the players to suffer. As per the rules, we were not supposed to pay sponsorship money for those matches but we still paid the players share of the amount in entirety. Sadly, we never found BCCI believing in genuine give and take," the company stated. 

Having withdrawn from cricket under BCCI, Sahara said it would put in Rs. 1000 crore in a welfare foundation. 

"We are very happy to take a decision that the cricket money will be diverted to social work. We are declaring to put immediately Rs. 500 crore in Sahara Welfare Foundation, which will be run with the association of eminent persons of our country. For the programme as mentioned below, Sahara declares to put around Rs. 500 crore more in the next 1-2 years as per the need of all the programmes," the company said. 

"We are working on various programmes including financial implications etc since we have taken this decision after continuous persuasion with the BCCI failed, meaning on the February 2, 2012. But we waited upto the auction day that our request to BCCI would be accepted. But again, there was no natural justice." 

Sahara said it would develop "20 Rural/Semi Urban Sports Promotional Centres including Rural/Semi Urban Cricket promotional Centres." 

"Centres will have diversified sports disciplines viz. cricket, hockey, soccer, formula1, tennis, golf, wrestling, boxing etc. One international standard sports academy shall immediately be developed at one point in India. All best selected students shall ultimately come to this International Class Sports Academy." 

Sahara also announced that a support fund for old (retired) and present players who, at times, face "miserable days regarding medical bills, girls marriage, shelter etc." 

"Every year minimum 10 crore will be distributed - Rs 3 crore for cricketers. Rs 7 Crore for all other disciplines." 

"We shall discuss with other federations where we are sponsoring different disciplines of sports and as per the genuine need for better promotion, we shall enhance the sponsorship amount."

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