Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (227520)	4/17/2007 5:15:16 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Indians angered by Gere's passionate embrace with Shilpa By Jonathan Brown Published: 17 April 2007 The evening was supposed to focus international attention on the sexual misadventures of India's famously promiscuous lorry drivers. Instead, it plunged Hollywood heartthrob Richard Gere into an unwelcome spotlight and reignited controversy surrounding the Bollywood actress and Celebrity Big Brother winner Shilpa Shetty. Television footage of the star of An Officer and a Gentleman plastering Shetty in kisses has sparked violent demonstrations in India over the couple's allegedly loose sexual morals. While the multiple embrace went down well with guests at an open air Aids awareness event in Delhi on Sunday night - the audience and Shetty roared in delight at the star's affectionate greeting - it has caused deep anxiety among some. Militants, fired up by repeated showings on India's many rolling news channels, burnt and kicked effigies of both actors in protests claiming the overt kissing was a full frontal assault on the country's tradition of modesty and extra-marital chastity. Trouble flared in the northern cities of Delhi, Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi as well as in the central city of Indore. Some called for the actors' deaths and others wanted public apologies. In Mumbai, members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena set fire to photographs of Shetty and beat burning effigies of Gere with sticks. Shetty defended the actor's behaviour - he swept her backwards in an embrace and repeatedly kissed her - insisting that Gere had done nothing "obscene". She described the protests as an "overreaction" that made India appear "regressive" in the eyes of the international community. "I admit it went a little overboard but that was not the intention," she said to a crowd of journalists and protesters laying siege to her film set in Mumbai. "He did not do anything obscene," she said "He apologised to me and told me to tell the media he apologised." For his part, Gere claimed he had merely been re-enacting a scene from the 2004 romantic comedy Shall We Dance, in which he starred opposite Jennifer Lopez. Shetty claimed Gere told her he had been trying to cut across the language barrier by attempting a "Bollywood-style" embrace. The 58-year-old star is a leading light among Hollywood's liberal elite. A committed Buddhist and campaigner for a free Tibet, he has been a vocal supporter of international human rights. Sunday night's gathering saw him hoping to help persuade Indian lorry drivers to start practising safe sex. Gere shouted out "No condom, no sex," in Hindi, eliciting a chorus of approval from thousands of truck drivers who had gathered to hear his message at a dusty fairground in Delhi. Indian authorities have been focusing on high-risk groups such as long distance lorry drivers, who have helped spread the virus across the country as many of them have sex with prostitutes during their journeys and infect their wives back home. Shetty, 31, prompted street demonstrations in her name last year, when she was the victim of an alleged bullying campaign while resident in the Celebrity Big Brother house. news.independent.co.uk