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19th - 25th April 2025 www.garavigujarat.biz
INDIA wrapped up their campaign at the
Archery World Cup Stage 1 with a creditable
four medals, including a silver in the men’s
recurve team event and a bronze by rising
star Dhiraj Bommadevara in the individual
recurve category.
The 23-year-old Army archer Dhiraj
showed exceptional grit and composure to
clinch the bronze medal match, bouncing
back from a 2-4 deficit to beat Andres Temino
Mediel of Spain 6-4 in a tense five-setter in
Auburndale, Florida on Sunday (13).
Earlier in the day, he was also part of the
Indian trio alongside veterans Tarundeep Rai
and Atanu Das that settled for silver after a 1-5
loss to China in the team final.
India’s medal tally from the tournament
stood at four - gold in the compound mixed
team, bronze in compound men’s team, silver
in recurve men’s team and bronze in recurve
men’s individual (Dhiraj).
On Saturday, the Indian compound mixed
team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Rishabh
Yadav clinched the gold medal at the Archery
World Cup Stage 1, defeating their Chinese
Taipei opponents Huang I-Jou and Chen
Chieh-Lun 153-151 in a tough final.
India’s campaign also saw Abhishek Verma
narrowly miss out on a medal, finishing fourth
in the compound men’s individual section.
Rapper Hanumankind
makes Coachella debut
RAPPER-SINGER Hanumankind, known for
tracks like ‘Big Dawgs’ and ‘Run It Up’, per-
formed at Coachella 2025, marking his debut
at the American music festival.
Hanumankind is the latest Indian artist to
perform at Coachella after Punjabi stars Diljit
Dosanjh and AP Dhillon took the stage at the
global music festival last year.
The Bengaluru-based recording artiste,
whose real name is Sooraj Cherukat, shared
a series of videos of his performance at
Coachella 2025 on Saturday on his Instagram
Stories.
‘@coachella Thank you for having me,’
he wrote. In his next Instagram Story, Ha-
numankind posted a clip of him performing
with American rapper Maxo Kream.
The 33-year-old singer sang his hit songs
‘Big Dawgs’, ‘Run It Up’ and ‘Go To Sleep’ on
the stage.
Coachella 2025, which is being held in
Indio, California, will conclude on 20 April.
Archery World Cup: India bags four medals
LOSING four back-to-back matches was
weighing on opener Abhishek Sharma’s mind
and he wanted to ‘break that streak’ and help
Sunrisers Hyderabad emerge from the string
of defeats, which had pushed them to the
bottom of the points table.
Abhishek, who had been going through a
poor run of form, scored a breathtaking 141 of
55 balls as SRH scripted the second-highest
run chase in IPL history to return to winning
ways with a comprehensive eight-wicket win
over Punjab Kings on Saturday (12).
THE INDIAN Premier League season reaches
the halfway point this week as 10 teams battle
for supremacy in the high-octane Twenty20
cricket tournament. Here are four talking
points from the opening weeks of the 2025 IPL:
Chennai slump
Mahendra Singh Dhoni led Chennai Super
Kings to five IPL crowns in the past, but the
veteran wicketkeeper-batsman is struggling
to inspire the bottom-placed team.
The 43-year-old has been among the runs
batting down the order, but age seems to have
diminished his finishing powers and Chennai
have won only one of their six matches.
When captain Ruturaj Gaikwad was injured
before their last game, Dhoni found himself
leading Chennai again. But they collapsed to
103 all out against Kolkata, who romped to an
eight-wicket win with 59 balls to spare.
Lefties on top
Left-arm spinners have proved crucial in keep-
ing control of run rates in the middle overs,
with Chennai's Afghanistan wrist spinner
Noor Ahmad leading the bowling charts with
12 wickets. Orthodox leftie Sai Kishore has also
been able to choke the scoring rate for Gujarat
Titans, as has wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav of
Delhi Capitals.
Openers sparkle
Priyansh Arya and fellow left-hander Abhishek
Sharma have lit up the IPL with their swash-
buckling batting at the top of the order. Arya
hammered a 39-ball century for Punjab Kings,
the fourth fastest IPL century. Four days lat-
er, Punjab were on the receiving end when
Abhishek took 40 balls to reach his hundred.
Openers Sai Sudharsan (Gujarat), Mitchell
Marsh (Lucknow), Travis Head (Hyderabad),
Phil Salt (Bengaluru) and Virat Kohli (Benga-
luru) have also made rapid fifties to get their
side of to great starts.
Hot and cold stars
Kohli has carried his Champions Trophy form
into the IPL with 248 runs including three
half-centuries, but fellow big names Rohit
Sharma and Rishabh Pant have struggled.
PHULE, based on the lives of social reformers
Jyotirao Govindrao Phule and Savitribai Phule,
has been delayed due to objections raised by the
Brahmin community and not because of the
censor board-suggested amendments, film’s
director Ananth Mahadevan said on Friday (11).
The biopic, featuring the Scam 1992 star Pra-
tik Gandhi in the central role and Patralekhaa
as his onscreen wife, was set for release on 11
April but it will now arrive in theaters on 25
April.
The Central Board of Film Certification
had asked the makers to remove terms such
as ‘Mang’, ‘Mahar’ and ‘Peshwai’, replace the
visual of ‘a man carrying a broom’ with ‘boys
throwing cow dung balls at Savitribai’, and
the line ‘3,000 saal purani
gulami’ to be modified as
‘kai saal purani’, among a
few other tweaks.
‘They had suggest-
ed some amendments, I
wouldn’t call it cuts. I want
to clarify that there are no
cuts as such. We did so,’
Mahadevan said.
After the trailer was
unveiled online on 10 April
some members from the
Brahmin community raised
objections stating that
they’ve been portrayed in
poor light.
Mahadevan asserted
‘Brahmins got carried away
by a two-minute trailer’ but
there is nothing objection-
able in the movie.
‘I’m a Brahmin myself,
and I would not malign my
community. I want everyone
to calm down and under-
stand that we’ve made a film
that is supposed to inspire
and change,’ he said, adding
the release has been pushed
is to clear the controversy
surrounding the film.
PRODUCER Dinesh Vijan, whose last two
releases Chhaava and Stree 2 were major suc-
cesses at the box ofce, on Thursday (10) said
the audiences are connecting to stories that are
about the ‘new Bharat’.
The producer-director was asked about the
poor performance of Hindi movies in theaters
and what was it that he thought he was doing
diferent from others.
‘I can’t tell you what I’m doing and what
others are not doing because I’m doing the
same thing. We’re trying to understand that
right now, we are not aspirational; we’re Indian
in the way we think, and the common man
wants stories about us,’ Vijan said at the trailer
launch of his new movie Bhool Chuk Maaf.
‘So, the people we’re surrounded by are
important because they are going to influence
the decision that you’re going to make. I’m
fortunate that my writers and directors are
grounded, real people, and all are connected
with new Bharat.
‘There’s so much here; there’s a Khazana
of stories here,’ the producer said.
When asked if he deliberately weaves in
the theme of inclusivity in his movies, Vijan
said he feels blessed to have found the right
storytellers like Karan Sharma, Laxman Utekar,
and Amar Kaushik, who take pride in narrating
stories of India.
IPL halfway: Arya shines, Pant struggles
Phule delayed to avoid controversy: director
People want stories that reflect them: Vijan
Second-highest chase
in IPL history, courtesy
Abhishek
ENTERTAINMENT
Virat Kohli
Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Rishabh Yadav
Hanumankind at Coachella 2025