JOIN USBollywood stars including Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan, led by filmmaker Karan Johar, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to discuss how the industry can contribute towards "nation-building".
The meeting comes weeks after the prime minister met Bollywood producers and discussed issues faced by the industry, which led to the reduction in GST on film tickets by the government.
The delegation also included directors Rohit Shetty and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, producers Ekta Kapoor and Mahaveer Jain, actors Rajkummar Rao, Vicky Kaushal, Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar and Sidharth Malhotra.
Johar later took to Instagram to share a group selfie with Modi. "Powerful and timely conversations can bring about change and this was one of what we hope will become a regular conversation. Meeting the Honourable Prime Minister @narendramodi today was an incredible opportunity," he wrote in the caption.
Johar said the meeting would ignite positive changes. "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 what ways we can do that. When the youngest country (in demography) 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," he added.
The director-producer also thanked the prime minister for the GST reduction in movie ticket prices.
The producers meeting with Modi in December had drawn flak on social media for lack of female representation on the panel. Thursday's panel had Bhumi, Alia, Ekta and Ashwini.