Hyderabad: Telugu film actor Tanish Alladi on Monday appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Telangana’s Excise Department, probing a Hyderabad drug racket, on Monday.The actor reached Abkari Bhavan, the office of the Prohibition and Excise Department, at 10 a.m.

Four officials of the SIT were questioning Tanish about the allegations that he takes drugs and also has links with the peddlers arrested in the case.

After a day’s break, SIT resumed questioning Tollywood personalities in connection with the case.

Tanish is the 10th artist to be grilled by the SIT, which has so far questioned top actors like Ravi Teja, Charmme Kaur and leading director Puri Jagannadh.

Actress Mumaith Khan, actors Tarun, Navdeep and Subbaraju were among others quizzed in the case over last two weeks.

Ravi Teja’s driver Srinivasa Rao was questioned on Saturday, a day after the actor was grilled for over nine hours.

The investigating team has summoned 12 Tollywood personalities for questioning. Their names cropped up during the investigations when SIT allegedly found their contact numbers in the call data of Calvin Mascrenhas, said to be the kingpin of the racket.

Some sections of Tollywood alleged that the industry is being unfairly targeted, but the Telangana government denied it. It pointed out that SIT questioned several people from other walks of life.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has also assured the film industry that those using drugs would be treated as victims and not as accused but sought their help in identifying the peddlers.

The SIT has so far arrested 20 persons, including US citizen Dundu Anish, a former aerospace engineer who has worked with the NASA, a Dutch national Mike Kamminga and seven B. Tech degree holders, most of them employed with multi-national companies.

Apparently, former heroine Namrata Shirodkar and Apollo heiress Upasna Kamineni became big celebrities in Telugu industry post marrying their respective spouses who are star heroes here. For that reason, Mahesh fans do follow Namarata for all updates while Mega fans always shower their love on Upasna for the same.

Other day both Namrata and Upasna, being good friends from a time, have attended a birthday party together and see kissing another lady on the cheeks. As the pictures of both of them kissing her at the same time got to emerge, social media wondered who that lady Dia Bhupal they are kissing is. Here goes the detail.

Did you remember, Akhil’s ex-girl friend Shriya Bhupal, who happens to be the daughter of Shalini and Som Bhupal? Now, here comes Krishna Bhupal, brother of Shriya. These two are grand kids of famous GV Krishna Reddy who owns the GVK empire as Shalini happens to be his daughter. And, Krishna Bhupal is the one who got engaged to Deccan Chronicle’s Gayatri Reddy before cancelling the wedding. Krishna married Mumbai based Jewellery designer’s daughter Dia Mehta who is now turned to Dia Bhupal.

Upasna family is having close relations with GVKs and also with the Bhupals who hail from Wanaparthy Samsthanam as well. We hear that Krishna Bhupal happens to be a cousin brother of Upasna and she has close bonding with Dia as well. Other day Dia and Krishna birthday of their kids, and there happened this click. That’s the story behind the unknown girl in the photo folks!!

Sai Pallavi, the latest sensation of Tollywood, may have played a Pawan Kalyan’s fan in ‘Fidaa’ but in real life, she seems to have the same ideology as that of superstar Mahesh Babu.

Following the super success of Fidaa, when the beautiful actress was asked if she would consider acting in the remakes of this film in other langues, Pallavi was quick to reject the idea. She feels that it is almost impossible to recreate the magic done by the originals so she would stay away from remakes.

‘I am not saying this just in the case of Fidaa but I will never act in remakes in future, be it my films or movies starring other actors. I believe I can’t recreate the same feel as in the original so remakes are strictly a no for me,’ Sai Pallavi reportedly said.

Doesn’t this answer sound familiar? Yes, Mahesh Babu gives the same answer whenever he was asked about acting in remakes. Sai Pallavi has somehow imbibed the same ideology as of Mahesh regarding their perception towards remakes.

Pawan Kalyan on the other hand never hesitates to do remakes. He adds his own style to the remakes without bothering about other factors.

After leaving the ‘Big Boss’ Telugu reality show midway, disappointing his fans as well as viewers, Sampoornesh Babu has extended a heartfelt apologies to all for not living up to their expectations.

Sampoo appeared on Sunday’s episode of Bigg Boss show to seek apology and also give an explanation on why he had to quit. ‘Coming from a village backdrop, I couldn’t comfortable staying in a closed house for days,’ reasoned Sampoo.

He added that he felt extremely claustrophobic and suffocated by the confined space of the Bigg Boss house and that he had to come outside at any cost. Sampoo further said that he was not angry by the trolling of people on social media for his leaving the show as he knew that he had disappointed them all.

Talking about the show’s host NTR Jr, Sampoo said, ‘the real hero is someone who helps you when you are struggling and needs a shoulder for support. NTR did that for me, he is the Real Hero I have seen and he is the Real Bigg Boss for me.’

Sampoo also clarified that the organizers asking him for penalty of upto Rs 20 lakhs is just a RUMOR.

These are two different things- converting to a particular religion or following its path without fully converting. But often our media and people confuse everyone by confusing themselves. Here comes young cutie Akshara Haasan talking about the religious thing that is engulfing her now.

Like her father, legendary Kamal Haasan, Akshara is also an atheist and won’t believe in anything like God. Even now she says she won’t believe in God. But what is this Buddhism thing that surfaced now, about which Kamal himself tweeted that he’s happy though she changes religion?

“I’ve not changed my religion. I’ve not got converted to Buddhism, I’m still an atheist. But I’m embracing Buddhism and following its principles of Nirvana. Buddha himself told that he’s not God but only showing the path to attain nirvana. A friend of mine introduced me to this and since then my life got enriched” says Akshara, who will be next seen in Ajith’s Vivekam movie as a second heroine.

Calling that living life on her own terms and reaching the peak in her own way is her only ambition, Akshara says that she sometimes feels like she missed meeting Buddha.

The likes of heroines Tanushree Dutta and Shraddha Das are also embracing Buddhism in a similar way, not by converting but by embracing it. However some celebs like Yuvan Shankar Raja converted from Hinduism to Islam and Kushboo converted from Islam to Hinduism during their peaks, and that led to many discussion as well. India is secular and anyone can practice any religion. Dot.

For show organisers, it’s not all about bringing celebrities all the time but they should balance the investment being put on the show. With Jr NTR roped in as a host at an exorbitant price, how come Big Boss organisers could spend more and more on the celebs. Here goes an interesting story.

Actually, to spice up the Big Boss house that is lacking glamour, Big Boss organisers tried the likes of Anasuya, Rashmi and Tejaswi Madivada as well. While Anasuya rejected the show, Rashmi is said to have quoted an astronomical sum. At the same time, Tejaswi also demanded a stunning price per day to become part of the show, say, insiders. So finally they found a cheaper replacement for these hot ladies.

Small time heroine Deeksha Panth, who always loves to pour glamour on her social media pages well, is finally entering Big Boss through the wild-card. After acting in small roles in movies like Gopala Gopala, she has shot to fame by romancing Dhanraj in the movie Banti Poola Janaki. We hear that Dhanraj recommended her name to the show and provided that her pay packet is very easy, organisers gave a go immediately.

Though Telugu Big Boss has all types of controversies churned out inside the house, for now, there is no glamour there. Also after the elimination of celebs like Jyothi and Madhu Priya, Big Boss needs a new inmate to bring new colour.  And with the entry of Deeksha Panth, this glamour quota will be completely fulfilled, say followers of this TV show that is getting top notch TRPs at the moment.

Few days prior to the unearthening of drugs scandal and its connection to Tollywood, a shocking news of NTR stealing Puri Jagannadh’s script for Jai Lava Kusa has surfaced out of the blue. Given that both Puri and NTR are good friends and delivered a superhit Temper recently, the news has come as a shock for many fans of NTR and Puri. And subsequently, Puri got mired in much bigger issue like drugs where he had received notices – although Puri vehemently denied his involvement and claimed innocence.

So, many thought that Puri’s patch up with NTR would be difficult in near future. But dashing these hopes, Puri now seems to have made an attempt to cool down Tarak as he decided to advance the release of his next film Paisa Vasool to avoid clash with Jai Lava Kusa and also Mahesh Babu’s Spyder.

Even with Mahesh, Puri isn’t sharing good equation after Mahesh delayed to work with Puri on Jana Gana Mana considering Puri’s present track record. This hasn’t gone well with Puri. However, Puri has now decided to cool down both Mahesh, NTR at once by advancing the release of Paisa Vasool.

Looks like, Puri has made an attempt to call for truce by offering olive branch to both the stars. However, it needs to be seen how the stars would perceive this move of Puri. It’s learnt that both Mahesh, NTR are happy with it for now. But it needs to be seen how the stars would reciprocate it.