Rohit Shetty salutes acid attack survivor (TV Snippets)

Filmmaker Rohit Shetty has lauded acid attack survivor Lakshmi Agarwal for standing up for herself.

As part of "India's Next Superstars" show, its contestant Naina presented an act based on the story of Agarwal.

After her act, Agarwal narrated her journey from being a victim to a survivor and then a fighter.

Shetty lauded her and said: "Your name will be written in history for the brave deed you have done. Our country needs more women like you. You're not a victim, you're a fighter."

Agarwal is also the founder of the "Stop Acid Attack" campaign.

-*-

Saumya stresses on respecting women

Ahead of International Women's Day on March 8, actress Saumya Tandon has urged women to pledge to be that mother who would bring up a society that respects women.

"You must be thinking I have a speech for women's safety or domestic violence or rape or women's sanitation or equal pay cheque or sexual preferences," Saumya said in a video shared with IANS.

"But I'm not going to talk about any of these issues. I'm going to talk about 'respect for women' because I feel respect is the root cause of all problems. When we were kids, our parents taught us to be honest, to never give up, to work hard, to respect elders but nobody taught us to respect women."

"And when we grew up as women and moved in the society, we complained about men harassing women on the streets, complained about our boyfriends, husbands, our co-workers, our bosses who were not fair to us."

Society, she said, "wasn't fair to us. We don't have equal rights. But when we become mothers we never teach our sons to respect women. This Women's Day, let us first learn to respect ourselves, and if/when we become mothers let us make our sons to be the husbands that we want in our lives".

"Let's make our sons to be the man in the society, the man on the street that we want in our lives. Let's all pledge this Women's Day to be that mother to bring up a society that respects women," signed off the "Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain" actress.

-*-

Aakriti Sharma had to learn eight songs in a week

Child actress Aakriti Sharma had to learn eight full songs in just seven days for the upcoming musical daily "Kullfi Kumarr Bajewala".

The Star Plus show will see Kullfi (played by Aakriti) sing multiple songs on mountains, butterfly, food, rain and much more.

"In the show, I will be singing one song per episode so naturally I have to learn one song every day. When we started recording for the show, I had to learn eight songs including the title track in just seven days," Aakriti said in a statement.

Talking about how she learns these songs, she said: "My mother makes me listen to the recordings once before sleeping and while I'm on the set while getting ready."

--IANS

nn/bg