Punjab govt against 'comical' Punjabis in movies

CHANDIGARH: It's official. Punjab government does not like Bollywood depicting punjabi characters as comical and "non serious". The state education and language minister S S Sekhwan made this clear in Mumbai on Sunday evening while felicitating Punjabi producers, actors for their role in promoting Punjabi language and culture.
Prominent amongst those honoured on the occasion included Yash Chopra, Prem Chopra, Om Puri, Poonam Dhillon, Gul Panag, Manmohan Singh, Jaspinder Narula, Sonu Sood, Neeru Bajwa, Divya Dutta, Bhupinder-Mitali and Navneet Nishan.
The language minister seized the occasion to take on Bollywood for its "wrong and non-serious depiction of punjabi characters". Sekhwan appealed the representatives of media entertainment Industry to be "very careful on this front as even inadvertent action attracts the public anger thereby posing a serious threat to the social fabric of any region".
Sekhwan also announced the setting up of a Punjabi Academy to promote Punjabis in films, television, radio and animation programmes with active participation of stalwarts of media entertainment industry. He said that Punjab government was requesting Maharashtra government to allot suitable piece of land at Mumbai or Navi Mumbai for this purpose.
On this occasion, 85 eminent personalities included Prikshit Sahni, Raza Murad, Viru Devgan, Uttam Singh, Ajit Singh Deol, Gurdas Mann, Rakesh Bedi. Besides, late Mohinder Kapoor, Manohar Deepak, Anand Bakshi, Vivek Shauq were awarded posthumously.