London Mayor Sadiq Khan, gunning for a third term, has a request for Bollywood: he wants them to redo the superhit ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’.

Mr Khan, born in London in 1970 to parents who had arrived from Pakistan, explains why he believes that this is the right moment for such a request from a city like London which isn’t unfamiliar to Bollywood.

“I have a Proposal to Bollywood. Please redo Amar Akbar Anthony in the UK because we have a Christian king (Ling Charles III), a Muslim mayor (he himself) and a Hindu Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak),” said Mr Khan, who grew up in public housing with his six brothers and sister in Tooting, an ethnically diverse residential area in the south of the city.

“I’d get to play Amitabh Bachchan’s part,” the Mayor said with a chuckle.

The movie featured Vinod Khanna (a Hindu police officer), Rishi Kapoor (a Muslim qawwali singer) and Amitabh Bachchan (Christian liquor seller). 

“London is the number one place for Bollywood films to be filmed and for people to come and invest in. I’m looking forward to Indians coming here as students, as tourists, as investors, and for locations for Bollywood movies,” said Mr Khan, who joined the Labour Party aged 15.

Mr Khan regularly recalls how his father drove London’s famous red buses, his mother was a seamstress and one of his brothers is a motor mechanic.

“One of the reasons why London is the greatest city in the world is because Indians have chosen to make it their home. These are Londoners who have gone on to become doctors, business people, politicians, chemists, pharmacists, scientists, journalists and so forth. Our diversity is a strength. London is a place where you can fulfil your potential. I call it the London Promise,” said Mr Khan, who made a name for himself as a vocal critic of Brexit. 

In 2005 he gave up his legal career on becoming the member of parliament for Tooting, where he still lives with his lawyer wife Saadiya and their two daughters.

Union Minister G Kishan Reddy on Sunday said that the BJP has decided that reservations of 4 per cent based on religion will be removed and asserted that reservations based on SC, ST, and OBC will be increased in Telangana.

“The party has decided that reservations of 4 per cent based on religion will be removed and reservations based on SC, ST, and OBC will increase… Under the EBC reservation, minorities such as Muslims, Christians and other social groups will also be included after the BJP comes into power,” he added.

Union Minister further asserted that with the blessings of the Telangana people, we will make Chief Minister from the backward caste in the state if the BJP is voted to power.

“The BJP has decided that after coming into power in Telangana with the blessings of the people, we will make Chief Minister from the backward class,” Kishan Reddy said.

Earlier on Friday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the next Chief Minister of the BJP  in the state will be from a backward caste if the party is voted to power.

“Today I want to tell the people of Telangana, give your blessings to BJP and form the BJP government. BJP will give Telangana a Chief Minister from the backward class,” Amit Shah said addressing Jana Garjana Sabha in Suryapet.

With Assembly elections in Telangana on sight, the BJP seems to be working strategically to unseat the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi led by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in the state.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on October 9 announced that the Telangana Assembly polls are scheduled to be held on November 30. The counting of votes will be done on December 3.

Telangana is set to witness a triangular contest between the BJP, the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and the Congress in the upcoming assembly election.

In the previous Assembly election held in 2018, BRS managed to win 88 seats out of 119 and had a dominant vote share of 47.4 per cent. Congress came in a distant second with 19 seats. Its vote share was 28.7 per cent.

At least one person was killed and eight others were left injured in a shooting incident at a party in Indianapolis, Indiana during the early hours of Sunday, CNN reported citing officials.

This is the second shooting incident in the US within a span of a week after the deadly Maine rampage which killed 16 people.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officer Samone Burris said that the officers had reached the scene after getting reports of a large party after midnight when they heard shots being fired and saw a large crowd fleeing the area.

She informed that one female, believed to be an adult, was declared dead at the scene, and several others were taken to area hospitals.

The dead has still not been identified, CNN reported.

The victims are in the range of 16 to 22 years old, Burris said, warning that the details are preliminary.

However, it still remains unclear what led up to the gunfire, or how many people opened fire.

“Several people have been detained and investigators are still working to determine their exact involvement in this incident,” Burris said, adding that multiple firearms have been located, CNN reported.

Further details are awaited in the case.

Earlier on October 26, a shooting rampage in Maine left at least 18 dead and 13 wounded.

Robert Card, the suspect in the incident, was found dead 48 hours later on Friday night.

Multiple sources informed CNN that Card died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, CNN reported.

The Lewiston, Maine, rampage stands as the deadliest mass shooting in the US this year and the deadliest since the Uvalde school massacre.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 566 mass shootings in the country this year, CNN reported.