SINGAPORE: Aamir Khan, the Bollywood superstar with a conscience, says his next movie about a small town teenage girl who uses the Internet to become a singing sensation will be much bigger than his last film, which was India’s highest grossing ever.
Khan, 52, plays a sleazy music producer in the film “Secret Superstar” and says he is second lead to teenager Zaira Wasim, playing a schoolgirl who defies her conservative Muslim family to pursue her dream of a singing career.
Khan’s last film “Dangal,” or wrestling pit, was based on the true story of a former wrestler who trains two of his daughters to become champions in the sport. It was the highest grossing movie for Bollywood, as India’s Hindi film industry is known, and was powered by huge collections in China.
“While both are about the empowerment of the girl child, I feel it (Secret Superstar) is a much bigger film,” Khan said in an interview in Singapore ahead of the movie’s release later this month. He and his wife have produced the film.
“While Dangal was about the dream of a father which a daughter fulfils, this is about the hopes and aspirations of a 14-year-old girl from a small town in India. I don’t know what the box office will be but it’s a bigger film than Dangal in what it’s trying to say.”
Three of Khan’s films are in Bollywood’s top four all-time hits. Besides Dangal, these include “PK,” in which he played an alien dealing with religious divisions in India, and “3 Idiots,” about the frailties in India’s education system.
All three have also done well in China, and Khan said he was “very happy with the type of relationship that’s building between me and my audience in this part of the world with each film.”
He also produced and acted in a popular television documentary series on social ills in India called “Satyameva Jayate,” or Truth Alone Triumphs.
That series led him to set up a non-profit to work on a project to ease the shortage of water in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, he said.
Despite the social messages in his movies, Khan said he has no desire to become politician, as some other Bollywood stars have.
“The desire in me to contribute back to society is something I can do very well in the field that I am in,” he said. “I don’t have to join politics. That’s an area I don’t ever want to go into.”
Khan was embroiled in controversy two years ago when he said his Hindu wife had asked him if they should move out of India over concerns about insecurity. Khan later said the family had no plans to leave.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been accused of intolerance toward liberal and dissenting views.
Khan said intolerance had not affected his ability to express himself as an actor.
“For me, when I’m making a film, my primary responsibility is to give my audience a good time. Then if it’s giving a message which is important and creative, if it’s changing the way we look at things, great.
“If it’s giving a message which is highly negative, then I would not be a part of it.”
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Bollywood icon Aamir Khan says next film will be biggest yet
Bollywood icon Aamir Khan says next film will be biggest yet
Texas stunner: Democrat flips Republican state Senate district Trump won by 17 points
- Trump immediately distanced himself from the loss, saying he was not involved in the "local Texas race”
Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a reliably Republican state Senate district in Texas in Saturday’s special election, continuing a string of surprise victories for Democrats across the US in the year since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
The Republican president immediately distanced himself from the loss in a district he’d won by 17 points in 2024.
“I’m not involved in that. That’s a local Texas race,” Trump told reporters Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Yet just a day before the race, Trump had heaped praise on Republican contender Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist and entrepreneur, on his social media platform, declaring that she would be “a GREAT Candidate and has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” A longer post came later, in which he urged Texans to get out and vote, describing Wambsganss as a successful entrepreneur and “an incredible supporter” of his Make America Great Again movement.
Despite the plugs, Wambsganss was easily trounced in the Fort Worth-area district by Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, for a partial term ending in early January. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet was leading by more than 14 percentage points.
“This win goes to everyday working people,” Rehmet told supporters.
Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called the outcome “a wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” where the GOP controls every statewide office.
“Our voters cannot take anything for granted,” Patrick wrote on X, while noting low-turnout special elections are always unpredictable. “I know the energy and strength the Republican grassroots in Texas possess. We will come out fighting with a new resolve, and we will take this seat back in November.”
Rehmet’s victory added to the Democrats’ record of overperforming in special elections so far this cycle, beginning in March — when they prevailed in a Pennsylvania legislative district made up of suburbanites and farmers that Democrats hadn’t held in a century — and continuing through to November, when they dominated candidate and ballot contests from Maine to California.
And Zohran Mamdani, an unapologetic Democratic Socialist, was elected mayor of New York City, a Democratic stronghold that saw the highest voter turnout in a mayor’s race in 50 years.
The showings come as Trump’s approval ratings with the public hold steady at around 40 percent. A January AP-NORC poll found that a majority of US adults disapprove of the way he’s handling foreign policy, trade negotiations and immigration, as well as the economy.
Democrats said Saturday’s results in Texas were further evidence that voters under the second Trump administration are motivated to reject GOP candidates and their policies.
Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said Rehmet won by standing with working people and talking to Texans about the future.
“This win shows what is possible in Texas with strong organizing, great candidates and strategic investments,” he said in a statement. “People are noticing that Democrats have the workers’ backs and are delivering results.”
Democrats’ other state victories since 2025 included wins for governor in Virginia and New Jersey and in special elections in Kentucky and Iowa. And, while Republican Matt Van Epps won a Tennessee special election for a US House seat, the relatively slim margin of victory gave Democrats hope for this fall’s midterms.
With that backdrop in mind, Trump and Vice President JD Vance have pushed states to redraw their political maps to Republicans’ advantage headed into those contests, which will determine partisan control in Washington. Some Democratic states — most notably California — have pushed back with their own redistricting efforts.
The Texas Senate seat was open because the four-term GOP incumbent, Kelly Hancock, resigned to take a statewide office. Hancock easily won election each time he ran for the office, and Republicans have held the seat for decades.
The district is redder than its home, Tarrant County. Trump won the county by 5 points in 2024, but Democratic President Joe Biden carried it in 2020 by about 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 cast.
But Rehmet had support from national organizations, including the DNC and VoteVets, a veterans group that said it spent $500,000 on ads. Rehmet, who served in the Air Force and works as a machinist, focused on lowering costs, supporting public education and protecting jobs.
Wambsganss called Saturday’s result “a wakeup call for Republicans in Tarrant County, Texas, and the nation” and warned her party not to be complacent.
“The Democrats were energized,” she said in a statement. “Too many Republicans stayed home.”
Rehmet’s victory allows him to serve only until early January. He will face Wambsganss again in the November general election to decide who occupies the seat for a full four-year term. The Texas Legislature is not set to reconvene until 2027, and the GOP still will have a comfortable majority.
The Republican president immediately distanced himself from the loss in a district he’d won by 17 points in 2024.
“I’m not involved in that. That’s a local Texas race,” Trump told reporters Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Yet just a day before the race, Trump had heaped praise on Republican contender Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist and entrepreneur, on his social media platform, declaring that she would be “a GREAT Candidate and has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” A longer post came later, in which he urged Texans to get out and vote, describing Wambsganss as a successful entrepreneur and “an incredible supporter” of his Make America Great Again movement.
Despite the plugs, Wambsganss was easily trounced in the Fort Worth-area district by Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, for a partial term ending in early January. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet was leading by more than 14 percentage points.
“This win goes to everyday working people,” Rehmet told supporters.
Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called the outcome “a wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” where the GOP controls every statewide office.
“Our voters cannot take anything for granted,” Patrick wrote on X, while noting low-turnout special elections are always unpredictable. “I know the energy and strength the Republican grassroots in Texas possess. We will come out fighting with a new resolve, and we will take this seat back in November.”
Rehmet’s victory added to the Democrats’ record of overperforming in special elections so far this cycle, beginning in March — when they prevailed in a Pennsylvania legislative district made up of suburbanites and farmers that Democrats hadn’t held in a century — and continuing through to November, when they dominated candidate and ballot contests from Maine to California.
And Zohran Mamdani, an unapologetic Democratic Socialist, was elected mayor of New York City, a Democratic stronghold that saw the highest voter turnout in a mayor’s race in 50 years.
The showings come as Trump’s approval ratings with the public hold steady at around 40 percent. A January AP-NORC poll found that a majority of US adults disapprove of the way he’s handling foreign policy, trade negotiations and immigration, as well as the economy.
Democrats said Saturday’s results in Texas were further evidence that voters under the second Trump administration are motivated to reject GOP candidates and their policies.
Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder said Rehmet won by standing with working people and talking to Texans about the future.
“This win shows what is possible in Texas with strong organizing, great candidates and strategic investments,” he said in a statement. “People are noticing that Democrats have the workers’ backs and are delivering results.”
Democrats’ other state victories since 2025 included wins for governor in Virginia and New Jersey and in special elections in Kentucky and Iowa. And, while Republican Matt Van Epps won a Tennessee special election for a US House seat, the relatively slim margin of victory gave Democrats hope for this fall’s midterms.
With that backdrop in mind, Trump and Vice President JD Vance have pushed states to redraw their political maps to Republicans’ advantage headed into those contests, which will determine partisan control in Washington. Some Democratic states — most notably California — have pushed back with their own redistricting efforts.
The Texas Senate seat was open because the four-term GOP incumbent, Kelly Hancock, resigned to take a statewide office. Hancock easily won election each time he ran for the office, and Republicans have held the seat for decades.
The district is redder than its home, Tarrant County. Trump won the county by 5 points in 2024, but Democratic President Joe Biden carried it in 2020 by about 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 cast.
But Rehmet had support from national organizations, including the DNC and VoteVets, a veterans group that said it spent $500,000 on ads. Rehmet, who served in the Air Force and works as a machinist, focused on lowering costs, supporting public education and protecting jobs.
Wambsganss called Saturday’s result “a wakeup call for Republicans in Tarrant County, Texas, and the nation” and warned her party not to be complacent.
“The Democrats were energized,” she said in a statement. “Too many Republicans stayed home.”
Rehmet’s victory allows him to serve only until early January. He will face Wambsganss again in the November general election to decide who occupies the seat for a full four-year term. The Texas Legislature is not set to reconvene until 2027, and the GOP still will have a comfortable majority.
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