Latest news with #Choudhury
Elle
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
'People Bring That Comparison Up A Lot': Seema Patel Isn't Meant To Be A Samantha Jones Copy In 'And Just Like That'
There's a commonly-held belief among members of the Sex and the City fandom that Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker)'s new BFF Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury) is intended to fill the hole left by Carrie's former BFF Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall). Indeed, devoted fans of the show will admit that And Just Like That, the Sex and the City sequel, has a gaping Samantha-shaped hole in it that it would make sense for producers to want to fill. According to Google Trends, despite Samantha's absence — bar a now-infamous 60-second stint in the sophomore series — searches for the character have surged by 3,950% over the past year alone. It's a comparison that Choudhury, whose character has been a constant throughout all three seasons of And Just Like That, is all too aware of. 'People bring that comparison up a lot,' Choudhury tells ELLE UK. 'But look, when you get a script, you're not thinking "Oh, that reminds me of that person" because they're just lines. So it's more bending things the way that you want them to be.' Samantha garnered a loyal and devoted fanbase throughout her stint in the original series of Sex and the City, and Choudhury, who binge-watched the original series upon landing the part of Seema, does personally identify with the unapologetic nature of the sexually-liberated PR supremo. 'My friends would say that I'm a mixture of Samantha and Carrie,' Choudhury admits. 'But I feel like more of a Carrie because I think a lot about what I want to do, then I'll do it and it'll be entirely the wrong thing; and I feel like Carrie's like that. She's headstrong, she makes mistakes, but she owns up to them. She's unapologetic.' As for potential seasons of And Just Like That (that have yet to be greenlit by HBO), Choudhury admits to not yet knowing. 'We keep bugging the producers,' she says, adding, 'We're like "Is there or isn't there?" We're all coming up with cheeky ways to find out because we have no idea.' And Just Like That... season three streams weekly on HBO/NOW TV. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE. Naomi May is a freelance writer and editor with an emphasis on popular culture, lifestyle and politics. After graduating with a First Class Honours from City University's prestigious Journalism course, Naomi joined the Evening Standard as its Fashion and Beauty Writer, working across both the newspaper and website. She is now the Acting News Editor at ELLE UK and has written features for the likes of The Guardian, Vogue, Vice and Refinery29, among many others.
Time of India
6 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
667 families evicted from 600 bighas in Goalpara, 5 schools to be demolished
1 2 3 4 Guwahati: State govt on Monday conducted a drive to evict 667 families allegedly encroaching over 600 bighas of land in lower Assam's Goalpara district. The families mostly belong to the Bengali-speaking Muslim community, officials said. The operation began at 7 am in Hasilabeel village under Balijana revenue circle amid heavy security deployment in the district, they added. Goalpara DC Khanindra Choudhury said there was no resistance from the people occupying that land and no untoward incident was reported. The eviction was carried out in 45% of 1,555 bighas of land (around 699 bighas), while the remaining area is a water body. The DC added that the villagers were served eviction notices earlier in 2023 and 2024 but failed to vacate. "We again served them notices on Friday and asked them to clear their houses by Monday morning. Placards and posters were also put up at different places with the same message," he said. An official added that there are five lower primary schools in the village, which are slated for demolition. At least 20 bulldozers and excavators were deployed for the purpose on Monday. However, the eviction had to be stopped at around 3 pm and will resume on Tuesday. Choudhury, along with senior superintendent of police Navneet Mahanta, camped in the village since morning on Monday, while IGP (law and order) Akhilesh Kumar Singh arrived later to review the situation. According to officials, many residents left the village with their belongings after the notices were served, while the remaining families have requested the district administration to rehabilitate them. A resident claimed that he was born in the village, as was his father, and his family has lived in the village for the last couple of decades. "My grandfather settled here when the Jogighopa bridge over the Brahmaputra river was being constructed. We are cooperating with the authorities and have requested them to provide us with an alternative place to stay," the he said. The bridge, Naranarayan Setu, was inaugurated on Apr 15, 1998. CM Himanta Biswa Sarma recently said eviction drives to clear encroached land will continue. He added that many eviction drives were carried out over the last four years, and his govt ensured that the cleared land is not encroached again. He claimed that clearing encroached land is the biggest achievement of the present state govt.
Scroll.in
6 days ago
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Assam begins drive to bulldoze over 600 homes in Goalpara district
The Assam government on Monday began its drive to demolish the homes of 667 families, the majority of them belonging to Bengali-origin Muslims, in an anti-encroachment drive in the Goalpara district. Goalpara District Commissioner Khanindra Choudhury told Scroll that 45% of the homes on an allegedly encroached land in the Hasila Beel area were razed on Monday. The demolition drive will continue on Tuesday to clear the remaining structures, he added. 'There was no resistance from the encroachers and no untoward incident has been reported so far,' PTI quoted Choudhury as saying. The official claimed that the district administration had served eviction notices to the villagers in 2023 and 2024, instructing them to vacate the 'wetland area'. 'We again served them notices on Friday and asked them to clear their houses by Monday morning,' PTI quoted Choudhury as saying. Many residents left the village with their belongings, while the remaining families have requested that the district administration rehabilitate them. Since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Assam in 2016, more than 10,620 families – the majority of them Muslim – have been ousted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department in August. In September, the Goalpara district administration carried out a demolition drive in which 450 families, or about 2,000 persons, were evicted. The families were illegally occupying 55 hectares of the Bandarmatha Reserve Forest, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying. The evictions in Goalpara were carried out in line with a High Court order. This had come less than two weeks after two men were shot dead by the police amid violent protests during an eviction drive in Moregaon. On September 9, the district authorities bulldozed nearly 240 homes, the majority of them belonging to Bengali-origin Muslims from Morigaon district. The residents had built their homes in the low-lying area over several decades. Three days later, on September 12, the officials returned and gave them an ultimatum to vacate the land in two hours. This led to a violent clash between the residents and the officials, during which two men were shot dead by the police. Thirty-three persons, including 22 government and police officers, were also injured in the clash.
Time of India
06-06-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Indore Metro rolls out smoothly, thanks to IIT-Bombay's intervention
File Photo MUMBAI: Indore celebrated a new chapter in urban commute on May 31 with PM Narendra Modi inaugurating a 6-km Metro line from Gandhi Nagar station to Super Corridor Station-3, but behind the smooth run of its first ride lies a quiet intervention from IIT-Bombay. Rewind to 2022. The concrete was not set right. Initial pile foundation tests failed. Worry lines deepened. That's when Madhya Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation (MPMRCL) knocked on the doors of IIT-B, where steel met science. "They reached out in Jan 2022 when MPMRCL authorities faced a problem with the initial pile foundation design and construction," recalled Prof Deepankar Choudhury, chair professor and former head of civil engineering at IIT-B. Choudhury, who also shaped the foundation strategy for India's longest sea bridge Atal Setu , travelled to Indore with his then PhD students, Chaidul Chaudhuri and Vansittee Dilli Rao. What they found was sobering: In many piles, the concrete hadn't flowed fully to the bottom, with a shortfall in lengths. Gaps as large as two metres stared back, posing a serious risk to the entire metro superstructure. "Anything built over such uncertainty was a hazard," Choudhury said. "We proposed supplementary piles and redesigned the pile cap with detailed finite element analysis, considering customised location-specific ground conditions," Choudhury explained. The compromised piles were repurposed as auxiliary supports, their strength recalibrated by a new configuration. That is the mind beneath Indore's Metro. These findings were recently published in a leading journal of the American Society of Civil Engineers, International Journal of Geomechanics, by Choudhury and his former PhD scholars of IIT-B. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Eid wishes , messages , and quotes !
Time Business News
05-06-2025
- Business
- Time Business News
Advertize.io Built the Most Powerful Viral Distribution Engine on Instagram — Now Select Agencies Are Getting Access to the Keys
Used by global fashion brands, royal families, newsrooms, and world leaders, is now extending access to a select tier of operators – inviting them to gain access to the same narrative machine it has quietly run behind the curtain for years. For close to a decade, if a brand seemed to rise from obscurity to dominance seemingly overnight – a product launch that felt everywhere at once, a 'grassroots' wave that just happened to hit every Instagram feed, or a campaign that lit up on social media – chances are, had a hand in it. Co-founded by Omar Choudhury, the agency built its name not on splashy awards or public case studies, but on a rare ability to engineer cultural moments with surgical timing. It was the call tech founders made before funding rounds. The secret weapon used by teams navigating acquisitions. And now – for the first time – it's opening access to a highly curated group of external partners. The move marks a shift not only for the agency, but for how cultural narrative is scaled in today's internet economy. 'There's a layer of media that happens before anyone sees the headline,' Choudhury explains. 'If you can shape what the internet thinks it discovered, you've already won. That's how elections are won in todays day and age.' isn't a talent marketplace or influencer agency. It's a distribution intelligence company – built to choreograph attention across Instagram using a privately assembled ecosystem of meme pages, creator collectives, viral publishers, and anonymous cultural hubs. The core engine: a network spanning over 4.2 billion followers, curated and stress-tested through years of backchannel campaigns. Unlike ad platforms or PR, this network doesn't broadcast – it pulses, placing narrative cues where they feel native, not just paid. Clients don't come for just impressions. They come for perception shifts around their entire brand: funding round momentum, brand revivals, cultural legitimacy in new markets, or global dominance. For years, access to this system required a personal relationship and budgets often well into seven figures. That's now changing. Through its new agency program, is giving approved partners direct use of the same backend tools that previously powered launches from behind the scenes. That includes full access to its 4.2 billion – strong Instagram distribution network, expanding daily, as well as broader ecosystem placements across short-form platforms and viral content mediums. More critically, partners gain insight into the strategic scaffolding that makes distribution land: Narrative sequencing calibrated for pre- and post-launch positioning. Conversion-optimized content frameworks based on hundreds of live tests. Timing systems designed to plant and scale perception across cycles. These aren't plug-and-play templates. They're the internal systems used to influence what people see, when they see it, and how they react when it shows up again. 'We don't just give Clients more reach – we give them more precision and goal orientated achievement,' said Choudhury. 'If you already know what story to tell, we show you exactly where, when and how to place it.' As media grows noisier and consumer trust erodes, isn't offering another ad product – it's building a new lane altogether. One that sits between PR, paid media, and influencer marketing: cultural narrative deployment. It's not about virality for vanity. It's about orchestrating relevance at the highest-leverage moment—before announcements, during launches, and when perception truly matters. The firm's internal platform, already used to brief and deploy campaigns in stealth, will eventually roll out in a more structured form. But for now, access is strictly invite-only, tailored for agencies managing significant media budgets or high value client rosters. Those who make the cut won't just join a platform. They'll tap into an operating system already used to move markets. In a space flooded with noise, the power isn't just in being seen – it's in being seen by the right people, in the right way, before anyone realizes why. And for the first time, will allow others in. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
