Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorted the film people on 19th October to use their influence to popularise the philosophy and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. An industry delegation met him at his 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence on 19th when a short film on the Mahatma, made by Rajkumar Hirani, was released and screened. The short film — of 150 seconds — has top stars Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal propagating the ideals of Gandhi. Three other short films were also screened on the occasion in the presence of the PM, industry people, celebrities from the world of television, folk singers and others.
Modi told the gathering that Bollywood had the power to influence the way people thought and it should, therefore, use this power to spread the Mahatma’s principles. The Prime Minister also asked film people to help promote tourism. He said, the country is celebrating 150 years of Mahatma Gandhi this year. The Prime Minister added that he was available for the industry people whenever they needed him. An officer of the I & B ministry said that the government was speedily trying to make the one-window policy for getting permission to shoot at public places effective.
Aamir Khan thanked the PM for thinking of the film industry to spread the teachings of Gandhi. Shah Rukh, in his characteristic witty and humorous style, congratulated the PM for making it possible for so many stars (himself, Aamir, Jackie Shroff, Sonam Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Jacqueline Fernandez, Varun Sharma and others) to assemble at one place as otherwise, “it is not easy to bring so many stars together”. He also said tongue in cheek that it was because of the PM that Aamir and he had “hugged each other today”. The audience burst out laughing at Shah Rukh’s humour. Rajkumar Hirani and Aanand L. Rai also thanked the PM and promised to do their bit towards furthering the PM’s mission. The objective of the Prime Minister was to bring a change within, which is why the event was hashtagged ChangeWithin.
The PM met the industry people one-on-one on his lawns soon after the event. He merrily obliged each and every one by posing for photographs and selfies.
The event, of which your editor, Komal Nahta, was also a part, was organised by producer Mahaveer Jain. Besides Aamir, Shah Rukh, Rajkumar Hirani and Aanand L. Rai, others who were part of the delegation were Jackie Shroff, Sonam Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Jacqueline Fernandez, Varun Sharma, Imtiaz Ali, Ekta Kapoor, Boney Kapoor, Rajkumar Santoshi, Anurag Basu, Bhushan Kumar, Sajid Nadiadwala with wife Warda, Sonu Nigam, Luv Ranjan, Jayantilal Gada, Mrighdeep Singh Lamba, Nitesh Tiwari, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Sharat Kataria, Ashish Singh, Ajay Bijli, Siddharth Jain, and the team of popular TV serial Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah viz. Asit Modi with wife Neela Modi, Dilip Joshi, Sailesh Lodha, Shyam Pathak, Gurucharan Singh, Sonalika Joshi, Raj Anadkat, Palak Sindhwani, Kush Shah, Harshad Joshi and Malav Rajda.