Why India’s biggest stars are feuding over a Netflix documentary
Indian actor Nayanthara and her director husband Vignesh Shivan are at the centre of a legal dispute with fellow celebrity Dhanush over the use of a three-second clip in a documentary about her life.
The controversy has sparked a wider discussion on intellectual property and creative rights, with Dhanush claiming the footage from the 2015 filmNaanum Rowdy Dhaan was used without permission.
Nayanthara argues that the dispute is more personal than legal, accusing Dhanush of using his power as a producer to settle old grievances. The actor says she and her husband faced difficulties obtaining rights to include footage from the film in their Netflix documentary.
On 16 November, Nayanthara, who mainly works in the Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam film industries based in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Kerala, shared an open letter on social media criticising the actor-filmmaker for filing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit demanded Rs 100m (£939,212) for what Dhanush claimed was the unauthorised use of footage from the 2015 Tamil film Naanum Rowdy Dhaan.
The romantic action-comedy was produced by Dhanush under his company Wunderbar Films. Nayanthara played the female lead in the film, which was written and directed by her now-husband Vignesh Shivan.
The couple met while working on the film, got engaged in 2021, and married the following year.
In her Instagram post, Nayanthara said she and her husband spent two years seeking permission to use footage, photographs, songs, and lyrics from Naanum Rowdy Dhaan in the documentary titled Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairytale, but were unable to obtain a No Objection Certificate.
The couple felt it was important to include video from the 2015 film as it marked their first meeting and is an integral part of Nayanthara’s life.
“After two years of battling it out with you for an NOC and waiting for your approval for our Netflix documentary release, we finally decided to give up, re-edit and settle for the current version since you declined to permit the usage of Naanum Rowdy Dhaan songs or visual cuts, even the photographs to say the least despite multiple requests.”
According to Nayanthara’s post, they decided to use a three-second clip that was “shot on our personal devices and that too BTS visuals that are already very much publicly present on social media”.
“This is an all time low from you and speaks so much about your character. I wish you were half the person you portray to be on stage in audio launches in front of your innocent fans but clearly you do not practice what you preach,” she wrote.
Shivan also shared a 10-second video on his Instagram stories, showing him talking to Nayanthara on the set of Naanum Rowdy Dhaan.
The caption read: “The 10 crores clip that wants to be taken down from our Netflix documentary. Please watch it here for free.”
Nayanthara’s letter claimed that they received the lawsuit from Dhanush after the trailer for the documentary was released last week.
According to local news reports, Dhanush’s legal representatives have emphasised that he is the sole owner of all media associated with the film Naanum Rowdy Dhaan.
“Advise your client to take down the content infringing my client’s copyright over the film Naanum Rowdy Dhaan by using the same in your client’s documentary named Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairytale within 24 hours, failing which my client will be forced to initiate appropriate legal action, including but not limited to seeking damages to a sum of Rs 100 m against your client and Netflix India,” their notice to the couple read read.
“My client is the producer of the film and they know where they have spent each penny for the production of the film. Your client has stated that my client has not commissioned any person to shoot the behind-the-scenes footage and the said statement is baseless. Your client is put to strict proof of the same.”
Nayanthara’s post claimed that Dhanush’s lawsuit stems not from concerns over copyright but from his personal relationship with the actress.
“It is understandable if it is business compulsions and monetary issues that mandate your denial; but it hurts that this decision of yours is only to vent out your personal grudge against us and that you have deliberately remained indecisive this long,” she stated.
“Does a Producer become an Emperor controlling the lives, freedom and liberty of all the persons in the set? Any deviation from the Emperor’s dictum attracts legal ramifications?”
She added: “It’s almost been 10 years since the release of the film, and it is a long time for someone to continue to be this vile while wearing a mask in front of the world. I have not forgotten all the horrible things that you said about the film that was one of your biggest hits as a producer and a film that is loved by all even today. The words you said pre-release have left some unhealable scars to us already.
“I learnt through film circles that your ego was supremely hurt after the film became a blockbuster…Leaving apart business competition, prominent persons in public life largely do not tamper with others’ private lives. Courtesy and decency mandates large hearted behaviour in such matters.”
Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale is available for streaming on Netflix.
Iran says latest British and European sanctions unjustified
Iran has said the latest British and EU sanctions against it are “unjustified” and based on false claims of missile transfers to Russia.
The EU sanctioned Iran’s national shipping company, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, and its director Mohammadreza Modarres Khiabani for allegedly providing military support to Russia.
The same day, the UK said the shipping company and the national airline, Iran Air, will be subject to asset freezes for the country’s alleged transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia.
“While the president of Ukraine has admitted that no Iranian ballistic missiles have been exported to Russia, the measures of the European Union and the United Kingdom in applying sanctions against Iran cannot be justified,” Iran foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Tuesday.
Tehran considers the sanctions “an unjustified act” that contradict the norms of international law, Mr Baghaei said. He added that the EU is violating international law, including the freedom of navigation and maritime trade, through these sanctions.
The latest EU sanctions cover vessels and ports allegedly used to transport Iranian drones, missiles and their components to Russia.
They prohibit any transaction with ports and locks owned, operated or controlled by the sanctioned individuals and entities.
The EU also sanctioned three Russian shipping firms—MG Flot, VTS Broker, and Arapax—for allegedly transporting weapons, including drone parts, across the Caspian Sea from Iran to resupply Russian troops in Ukraine.
The British asset freezes will restrict Iran Air’s ability to operate direct services to and from the UK and prevent British citizens or businesses from financial dealings with it, the foreign office said.
“Iran’s attempts to undermine global security are dangerous and unacceptable,” foreign secretary David Lammy said. “We reiterate our call on Iran to cease its support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine which continues to bring devastation to the Ukrainian people. We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
The sanctions came on the eve of the 1,000th day of the war in Ukraine and the day after US president Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to use missiles supplied by Washington to strike deeper inside Russia.
Additional reporting by agencies.
China unveils plan to collect Martian rock samples in space
China has unveiled a pioneering plan for a spacecraft to capture a can of rock samples from Mars in space and return it to Earth.
The spacecraft, developed by scientists at the Institute of Aerospace System Engineering in Shanghai, will intercept and catch a small container of rocks sent up from the Martian surface into the planet’s orbit.
The craft was unveiled a month after China announced it was pushing forward its Tianwen-3 Mars sample return programme to 2028.
As part of the mission, China plans to fly a pair of spacecraft to Mars in two separate launches. One will be an orbiter and return vehicle while the other will be a lander and ascent craft.
The lander will collect samples from the Martian surface over several months, sort and send them to the orbiter in an ascent craft launched from atop the lander.
The orbiter will capture the container, about the size of a coffee can, in space and return home.
The mission, initially slated for 2031, is expected to return a container with about 600 grams of Martian rocks, its chief designer said.
The newly unveiled craft can capture and align the container at various entry angles and positions, the scientists said in a paper published in the journal China <em>Space</em> Science and Technology.
They said conventional docking and transfer methods used on Earth can not be applied on Mars due to the red planet’s weaker gravity.
As Nasa’s Ingenuity helicopter showed, taking off from Mars can be challenging for spacecraft due to its thin atmosphere with a surface air pressure that can be as low as is found at an altitude of 30-40km on Earth.
“Due to the limited power available for taking off from the Martian surface, the platform carrying the samples into orbit has a restricted mass capacity,” the researchers said.
The new “capture-then-contact” mechanism seeks to overcome this hurdle by catching the sample container after it enters the orbit.
Once the spacecraft module locates the incoming container, its four parts will wrap around and secure the can like flexible arms”.
A cover will close over the container to ensure it doesn’t drift away into space, the researchers said.
Test results suggest the cover will wrap over the container quickly in about 1.5 seconds, the South China Morning Post reported.
South Korea opposition leader indicted for misuse of public funds
South Korea’s opposition leader Lee Jae-myung has been indicted on charges of embezzling millions from public funds when he was a governor.
Mr Lee, chair of the Democratic Party, was already facing four other trials for bribery and other charges mostly tied to a £790m property development scandal.
The allegations cast uncertainty over the prospect of Mr Lee running in the next presidential election. He is a firebrand liberal who lost the 2022 election to conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol by a thin margin.
He was indicted on breach of trust charges accusing him of misusing KRW106m (£60,100) in taxpayer money during his tenure as governor of the Gyeonggi province from 2018 to 2021, Yonhap reported, citing the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office which filed the charges on Tuesday.
Mr Lee has also been accused of allowing his wife, Kim Hye-kyung, to use a government vehicle for private reasons while labelling it as official usage.
Funds were also spent to pay for pricey meals, groceries or laundry for Mr Lee’s family, but documented as expenses for meetings with public employees or overtime pay, according to Yonhap.
The Democratic Party condemned the indictment as “far-fetched” and a “scheme to kill the president’s political foe”.
Mr Lee was last week handed a prison sentence of a year, suspended for two years, for violating election law by making a false claim about a land development project in 2021 during his presidential campaign.
“It’s a conclusion that I cannot accept,” Mr Lee told reporters, adding that he would appeal the ruling in the high court.
Mr Lee faces the possibility of being stripped of his parliamentary seat and barred from running for office for a decade if the sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court.
“The prosecution’s intention is clear. It wants to tie the hands and feet of the leader of the largest opposition party who has overwhelming public support and confine him in court,” Jo Seoung-lae, a senior spokesperson for the party was quoted as saying by The Korea Times.
The ruling People Power Party said the case once again raised the question of whether Mr Lee was qualified to hold public office.
In a related case, a district court last week fined Kim Hye-kyung KRW1.5m (£8,500 ) for violating election law by offering a meal to several politicians’ spouses using Gyeonggi provincial funds after Mr Lee launched his presidential bid in 2021.
Considered one of the most polarising figures in South Korean politics, Mr Lee, a former child factory worker who endured an industrial accident after dropping out of school, has often highlighted his rags-to-riches journey to political stardom.
However, his career has been overshadowed by scandals and allegations of links to organised crime. In January, Mr Lee survived a knife attack, sustaining a neck injury that required surgery.
In 2022, prosecutors indicted Mr Lee on charges of making false claims about two contentious development projects in Seongnam, where he served as mayor from 2010 to 2018, during his campaign as the presidential candidate.
Mr Lee has denied any wrongdoing and accused the government of Mr Yoon, a prosecutor-turned-president, of pursuing a political vendetta.
Additional reporting by agencies
Bangladesh to seek Sheikh Hasina’s extradition from India
Bangladesh will seek the extradition of Sheikh Hasina, who fled to neighbouring India after her government was overthrown by student-led street protests in August.
The International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka on 17 October issued arrest warrants for the former prime minister as well as 45 of her cabinet ministers, advisors, and military and civil officials.
Ms Hasina,77, has been living in exile in India since 5 August when protesters stormed her residence in Dhaka, ending her 15-year rule in the South Asian country.
The deposed leader has continued her political activities from India, Muhammad Yunus, who heads the interim government as the chief adviser, told The Hindu newspaper. India’s refusal to send her back could sour relations between the South Asian neighbours, he said.
Mr Yunus previously said in an address to the nation his interim administration would “seek the extradition of the ousted autocrat from India”.
“We have already taken initiatives to try those responsible for enforced disappearances, murders and the mass killings during the July-to-August uprising,” he said.
Ms Hasina, leader of the Awami League party, has been living in a safe house in the capital New Delhi.
Calling India and Bangladesh twins “born to be together”, Mr Yunus said he wanted to meet Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
“Our dream is imagining a relationship like the European Union,” he added, wishing for freedom of movement and trade between the neighbours. “That’s the direction we want to go.”
Ms Hasina’s government faced mass protests in July against public sector job quotas which quickly escalated into the deadliest violence the nation had seen in over four decades. More than 1,000 people, including children, journalists and law enforcement agents and journalists, were killed in the capital Dhaka alone, authorities said.
Police were accused of using lethal force to contain the protests before stepping back in the wake of the prime minister’s ouster.
At least 13 former top government officials arrested after the fall of the government appeared in a court Monday to face charges of “enabling massacres”. Another six people were set to appear on Wednesday, officials said.
Ms Hasina faces charges of “massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity”.
Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam said that the former top officials were “complicit in enabling massacres by participating in planning, inciting violence, ordering law enforcement officers to shoot on sight, and obstructing efforts to prevent a genocide”.
The prosecution has contacted Interpol for help in arresting Ms Hasina “as she has committed crimes against humanity”, he added.
The court has asked the prosecution to submit their investigation report by 17 December.
Meanwhile, the US has urged Dhaka to end crackdowns on peaceful protesters after a demonstration sparked by a Facebook post led to a clash with law enforcement officials.
“We have made it clear to the government of Bangladesh, as we do to countries around the world, that we support the right to peaceful protest and that no government should engage in violent crackdowns on peaceful demonstrations,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.
Dead man’s body returned to family with eye missing in India
A hospital in India is conducting an investigation after the eye of a man went missing following his death.
The public hospital in the northern Bihar state blames rats for gnawing out the eye of Fantush Kumar, 24, but his family suspects foul play, alleging the eye was deliberately removed.
Kumar was admitted to Nalanda Medical College and Hospital in the state capital Patna on Thursday with a gunshot wound in his abdomen and died the next day.
The family say they were with Kumar’s body after his death but left late in the night and found the eye missing upon their return.
“A medical team has been constituted to probe the matter. It’s a serious issue and strict action must be taken against those found guilty,” the hospital’s medical superintendent Binod Kumar Singh said.
“A group of doctors suspect that rats might have gnawed the eye. All aspects pertaining to the incident are being probed. We are also waiting for the autopsy report. How the eye was gouged out can only be known after we get the autopsy report. The hospital administration has also lodged a formal complaint with the Alamganj police station in this regard.”
Police say they have registered a complaint.
They have also examined surveillance footage from the hospital, but haven’t found anything related to the matter yet, Rajiv Kumar, a local police officer, said.
NDTV reported a family member of Kumar alleging they believe the eye was taken by hospital staff who may either be involved in the trafficking of body parts or associated with the people who shot him.
Children injured as car crashes into crowd outside school in China
Several students were injured after an SUV crashed into a crowd outside a primary school in China’s Hunan province, the third violent incident on the streets in a week raising concerns about public safety.
The incident occurred during the morning rush hour on Tuesday as students were arriving for classes at the Yong’an Elementary school in the city of Changde, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Multiple students and adults were injured,” the agency said, adding that the exact number of people injured was still unknown.
The driver of the car, a white SUV, was subdued by parents and school security staff and handed over to police.
The reason for the crash was not immediately known.
Videos posted on social media of the aftermath showed children and adults lying on the ground receiving treatment and some students running away from the scene.
One video showed an angry crowd attacking the car and thrashing the driver.
It was the latest in a recent series of violent incidents that have shocked the country and ignited a discussion about the toll of economic slowdown and the phenomenon of “taking revenge on society”.
At least eight people were killed and 17 wounded on Saturday after a former student went on a stabbing rampage at a vocational college in eastern China. The accused was identified by the surname Xu, 21, who was due to graduate this year but failed his exam.
There have been at least 19 incidents of violence in China this year in which the attacker was not known to the victims, according to police records, claiming the lives of 63 people and injuring 166.
This marks a sharp rise from last year when 16 people were killed and 40 injured.
Delhi imposes most stringent set of restrictions as smog worsens
Delhi’s government imposed the most stringent set of restrictions on the movement of vehicles and people as the toxic smog enveloping the Indian capital worsened on Monday.
The city’s average air quality index was 457 in the morning, beyond the “severe plus” category, according to government data.
The latest restrictions include a complete halt to construction activity, ban on diesel trucks, closure of educational institutions, and advice for offices to shift to work from home.
Children, senior citizens and those with respiratory, cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and other chronic diseases have been advised to stay indoors under the eight-point action plan introduced by the Commission for Air Quality Management.
The annual pollution crisis plaguing the city worsened over the weekend as air quality deteriorated to the worst level this year and a thick blanket of smog hung over the national capital region, home to more than 30 million people.
Many residents complained of an acrid smell in the air and a stinging sensation in their eyes and throat, associated with high levels of fine particulate matter in the air.
Rajiv Gupta, 54, and his wife, Manisha Gupta, 50, out for a walk in the Lodhi Garden in central Delhi said they have considered moving out of Delhi due to the worsening pollution.
“We come in the morning for fresh air and we are unable to get fresh air,” Mr Gupta said as he complained of a scratchy throat and breathing problems. “What’s the charm of coming to such a beautiful park then?”
According to IQAir, a Swiss Air Quality Index monitoring group, PM2.5 concentration in the air increased to 737 on Monday, nearly 150 times the World Health Organization limit, making Delhi the world’s most polluted city.
PM2.5 refers to tiny particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometre or less that can penetrate deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream.
Stage 4 of Delhi’s Graded Response Action Plan comes into effect when the air quality reaches the “severe plus” category, which is when AQI rises above 45. The latest restrictions are part of this plan.
The city has already activated the first three stages of the plan, to little effect on the ongoing crisis.
Delhi chief minister Atishi, who goes by her first name, said with the imposition of the stage 4, “physical classes shall be discontinued for all students, apart from Class 10 and 12. All schools will hold online classes, until further orders”.
Nearly 38 per cent of the pollution in Delhi this year has been caused by stubble burning—a practice of burning crop residue after harvest—in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana, according to SAFAR, a weather forecasting agency under the ministry of earth sciences.
Government officials have blamed severe pollution combined with humidity, calm winds and dropping temperatures for the smog, with the Indian Meteorological Department forecasting these conditions and low wind speeds to persist until at least Saturday.
The smog has led to low visibility, affecting flight operations at the city’s main airport as well as train services.
“Fog is currently affecting visibility in Delhi, which may result in slow moving traffic and delays in flight schedules. We recommend allowing extra travel time and checking flight status before starting your journey,” Indian carrier Indigo said.
In the Palam area of the capital, visibility dropped to 150m at 5 am.