I am an INDIAN : Amitabh Bachchan

While the debate over caste census intensifies with most parties rooting for it, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan is clear where he stands on the controversial issue. If ever asked to mention his caste, he says categorically, he would be ready with the answer - Indian.

Census enumerators came calling on the Bachchan household, prompting Amitabh to express his views on the issue of caste census.

"Wary of the sensitivity that this has raised recently by politicians, they keep away from it. They reason that they would wait for some government decision on this. I tell them irrespective of what the system decides, my answer is ready - caste, Indian," he wrote on his blog bigb.bigadda.com.

Big B says that his father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, a noted Hindi poet and litterateur, never believed in caste system.

"My Father never believed in caste and neither do any of us. He married a Sikh (Teji Bachchan), I married a Bengali (Jaya Bhaduri), my brother a Sindhi (Ramola), my daughter (Shweta) a Punjabi (Nikhil Nanda), my son (Abhishek) a Mangalorean (Aishwarya Rai)... in his autobiography he (Harivansh Rai) had expressed that future generations of his family should marry into different parts of the country. So far that tradition has been kept alive!!"

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said the government will soon take a decision on caste-based census in the country.

"From the morning a consensus on the census. Officials from the BMC, the Bombay Municipal Corporation, troop into Prateeksha to detail in on information that shall for the first time in India develop for every citizen the UID - a Unique Identity Card.

Darsheel Safary in `Bumm Bumm Bole`

Child actor Darsheel Safary returns to the big screen with `Bumm Bumm Bole`, which releases Friday. A remake of Majid Majidi`s Iranian film `Children of Heaven`, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, "Bumm Bumm Bole" has been re-modelled as per Indian standards.

Produced by Percept Picture Company and directed by Priyadarshan, it also stars Atul Kulkarni, Rituparna Sengupta and newcomer Ziyah Vastani.

"The pivotal essence of `Bumm Bumm Bole` is a unique brother-sister relationship. It depicts an innocent and poignant story of two siblings and the dilemmas they face in life and how they fight their way to overcome it," Priyadarshan said.

The story revolves around Khogiram (Atul), his wife (Rituparna) and their children Pinu (Darsheel) and Rimzim (Zia) who live in a terror-affected region. The couple work on a tea plantation and it`s a hand-to-mouth existence for them.

With their meagre income, they can barely manage to arrange for their basic needs, but Khogiram sends his children to a respectable school because it is his ambition to educate them. But their financial crunch makes it difficult for them to match the standards of the school.

A time comes when they don`t have enough money to buy school uniform and shoes and things become worse when Pinu misplaces Rimzim`s only pair of shoes in a vegetable shop.

Rimzim can`t go to school without her shoes and the brother-sister work out a scheme where both of them can share the same shoes. Pinu, however, always gets into trouble at school while waiting for Rimzim to give him the shoes.

The title "Bumm Bumm Bole" is based on one of the songs from Darsheel`s debut movie "Taare Zameen Par".

Should RAAJNEETI goes for IIFA Awards

Ajay Devgn, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Arjun Rampal and Manoj Bajpai-starrer will have a seven-city global premiere and IIFA screening is the last-minute addition.

Raajneeti" will be screened at the IIFA awards, starting June 3 in Colombo and director Prakash Jha is panicky because he has to record a patriotic song before his political thriller goes on its global journey.

"Dhan dhan dharti" is the title of the patriotic song that Gulzar has written for "Raajneeti". The lyrics are being composed by the American composer Wayne Sharpe who has taken on the daunting task of incorporating the tune for "Vande Mataram" into Gulzar words.

"We`ve just taken the basic core notes of `Vande Mataram` and then built our own patriotic song almost from scratch," Jha said.

This is the first time that Gulzar has collaborated with an international composer. The idea was to find another global catch-phrase to equal the easy reach of Gulzar`s song "Jai Ho".

"We are not trying to be one-up on any other song. But the idea was to make the song reflective of the collective Indian psyche," said Jha.