Alia Bhatt, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Ekta Kapoor join film delegation meeting PM Modi

Yet another delegation from the Hindi film industry met Indian prime minister Narendra Modi yesterday to discuss "issues" concerning the industry. This time, the team also had female members from the industry as actresses Alia Bhatt and Bhumi Pednekar, director Ashwini Iyer Tiwari and producer Ekta Kapoor joined in.

The previous two delegations meeting the PM last year had drawn flak for not having any women members from the film industry. After the second meet last month, actress Dia Mirza also openly questioned actor Akshay Kumar, who was a part the delegation, over the same on Twitter.

Yesterday’s delegation also included some prominent names from the industry like Karan Johar, Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Rohit Shetty, Varun Dhawan, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajummar Rao, Vicky Kaushal, Sidharth Malhotra and Mahaveer Jain.

An official press release shared after the meet stated: “[They] talked about how the industry has always played an important role building a better nation, a better society through entertainment. [They] spoke about various issues concerning the industry and thanked and acknowledged PM for GST change and giving space to the industry to connect.”

Johar also spoke about the meet while talking to the news agency PTI. He said, “As a community, there is a huge interest to contribute to nation building. There is so much that we want to do. And can do and this dialogue was towards how and [in] what ways we can do that. When the youngest country joins hands with the largest movie industry in the world, we hope to be a force to reckon with. Together we would love to inspire and ignite positive changes to a transformative India.”