Hindi
Dirty Picture voted best film, Vidya Balan best actress
MUMBAI: The Eighteenth National Media Network Film and TV awards, instituted by National Media Network and Akhil Bharatiya Swatantra Patrakar Evom Lekhak Sangh (an association of freelance journalists and writers), has named the winners of this year’s awards.
As expected, Ekta Kapoor‘s The Dirty Picture has been adjudged the best film and Vidya Balan the best actress for the same film. In the absence of any good performance from the A listers, Ajay Devgn has been named the best actor for Singham.
Farhan Akhtar will be conferred with best director award for Don 2 – The King Is Back, at the awards ceremony scheduled for January 21, while Anil Kapoor will be conferred the hero of all-time hit award.
Filmmaker Ramesh Sippy, veteran lyricist Gulzar and Film Federation of India chairman T.P. Aggarwal will be given lifetime achievement awards.
Ekta Kapoor will be honoured for being a successful film and TV producer.
On the television front, NDTV has been named the best Hindi news channel while the Asian Academy of Film and TV has been named the best institute for film and TV.
Hindi
Jio Studios, Sanjay Dutt team up to revive Khal Nayak
Rights acquired for new version, format under wraps as remake plans take shape.
MUMBAI: The villain is back and this time, he’s rewriting his own script. Jio Studios has partnered with Three Dimension Motion Pictures and Aspect Entertainment to revive the 1993 cult classic Khal Nayak, marking a fresh chapter for one of Bollywood’s most iconic anti-hero stories. The original film, directed by Subhash Ghai under Mukta Arts, was a commercial and cultural milestone, with Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of Ballu becoming one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable performances.
Dutt, along with Aksha Kamboj, has now acquired the rights from the original creators, bringing on board Jio Studios and its President Jyoti Deshpande to steer the project creatively.
While the exact format whether remake, sequel, prequel, or a completely new narrative remains undisclosed, the collaboration aims to reinterpret the story for contemporary audiences while retaining the essence that made the original a defining film of the 1990s.
The move taps into a broader industry trend of reviving legacy intellectual property, particularly characters with strong recall value. “Khal Nayak” was notable for pushing mainstream Hindi cinema into morally grey territory at a time when heroes were largely one-dimensional, making Ballu’s character a standout.
The project also marks the film production debut of Aspect Entertainment, signalling a push towards more technology-led storytelling frameworks. Meanwhile, Jio Studios continues to expand its slate, having built a library of over 200 films and series, with more than 60 titles collectively winning 500-plus awards.
For Dutt, the revival is as much personal as it is strategic, a return to a role that reshaped his career. For the industry, it is another sign that nostalgia, when paired with scale, remains a powerful box-office proposition.
Because in Bollywood, some villains never fade, they just wait for the perfect comeback.
