Salman Khan asks Kolkata rock band to record their take of Dabangg soundtrack.

Salman Khan has gone and done it yet again. Giving breaks to unknown musicians, that is. On Saturday night, Khan asked a young band of rock musicians from Kolkata performing on TV show India's Got Talent to record a rock version album of five songs from his upcoming flick, Dabangg.

A source from Colors, the channel that airs IGT had this to say, "The five Kolkata boys call themselves Underground Authority. On Saturday, they performed their take on Humma Humma (the track appears in Mani Ratnam's Bombay and is picturised on Sonali Bendre among others).

While Sonali Bendre, Sajid Khan and Kirron Kher are the show's judges, Salman Khan was there as a guest judge promoting Dabangg. Sonali and Salman particularly loved their performance. Khan even said that he thought their version was much better than A R Rehman's original composition."

The actor said that he had seen their previous performance on TV and was so moved by them that he had immediately called up his brother Sohail and asked him to call the group and tell the boys that he wanted them to record five songs from Dabangg in a rock version.

The boys thought that the Khan bro was prank-caller and didn't answer the phone. They also deleted all his messages. Salman told the boys he was serious and that they should have taken Sohail's calls."

The boys then played their rock versions of Munni Badnaam Hui and Tere Mast Nain. That night, Salman called up Bhushan Kumar, owner, T-Series (the label that released Dabangg's music) and asked him to book a recording studio for the band to record their songs as he wanted to hear them.

A source from T-Series confirms, "Bhushan got a call from Bhai on Sunday night saying he wanted this rock band to make a rock version of the Dabangg songs. The normal trend is to have their instrumental or acoustic versions or remixes. But film songs in a rock version is a completely different concept.

Last night, the two heard the songs. If all goes as planned, the rock version of the soundtrack will be a first for the music company. Salman wants this to be released the same time as the film (this week)."

Neetu Chandra Says about Pakistan Cricketer Mohammad Asif

Bollywood actress Neetu Chandra today denied having any links with Pakistani bowler Mohammad Asif, who is at the centre of a 'spot-fixing' scandal that has rocked world cricket.

The controversy began with most Indian television channels discussing a “leaked” document, which they claimed, was prepared by the Interpol and Scotland Yard for the Pakistan Cricket Board. Apparently, this document contains various phone numbers of people who interacted with Mohammad Asif in 2009.

The TV reports stated that in this document, the only mobile number from Mumbai, belonged of actress Neetu Chandra, and insinuated that she could be involved in the infamous match-fixing scandal.

They further claimed that according to the document, the actress had made two phone calls and exchanged SMS's with the controversial cricketer, discussing sensitive cricket issues and deals.

But Neetu Chandra's publicist Dale Bhagwagar vehemently denied all the allegations. “Personally, Neetu does not know Mohammad Asif or any Pakistani cricketer for that matter. Her name is being unceremoniously dragged in the match- fixing debate with baseless allegations, ” said the celebrity publicist.

“Neetu didn't even know how Asif looked like. Within minutes of this controversy breaking out, I met her and showed her his picture from the internet on my BlackBerry.

Neetu glanced at it and almost jumped from her chair, joking, 'Oh, he's too dark'. She also doesn't know or understand how her cell number has featured on such a scandalous list. If it indeed has, it could well be a conspiracy, ” added the PR specialist.

Owing to her active association with sports, recently, Neetu also became one of the few privileged Bollywood celebrities to have the honour of running with the Commonwealth Games torch (popularly known as the Queen's Baton) in her hometown Patna.

Apart from being a regular basketball player, the actress is a Black Belt 2nd Dan in Taekwondo, having participated in various martial arts tournaments at a district, national, as well as international level. Though Bhagwagar revealed, she is not a cricket fan.

This year, Neetu has an impressive line-up of films like Anees Bazmee's 'No Problem' (with Sunil Shetty, Akshaye Khanna and Sushmita Sen), Gary Grewal's 'Khusar Prasad Ka Bhoot' (with Paresh Rawal and Randeep Hooda), Barnali Shukla's 'Kuch Love Jaisa' (with Rahul Bose) amongst two other mega-budget ventures opposite superstars of the South.

England's Paul Collingwood relieved to be playing again following Pakistan scandals

That may well prove to be a vain hope given the weight of allegations and the lingering prospect that another Pakistan player could be on the verge of being named as part of the betting investigation underway. But for Paul Collingwood, the England Twenty20 captain, the fact the two teams now play six matches over the course of little more than two weeks will allow the chance to provide a different form of headline.

“We just wanted to get out there and play,” he said. “The players have been great the past couple of days. We have focussed solely on cricketing matters and today they got their teeth into it. We just want to get on with the cricket now. There have been lots of allegations and speculation because the cricket has not been on but once we start playing again people start talking about good bowling, good catches. That kind of thing. Hopefully that will do all the talking now.


“We all know we will get to the bottom of this. We will do everything we can as players or management to eradicate this form the game. It is as simple as that, but whatever was in the papers this morning did not change our preparation – it was just to focus on the cricket.”

This was England’s first match in this format since winning the World Twenty20 in Barbados in May. The spot-fixing scandal hardly made it an occasion to celebrate returning heroes but England’s victory was the polished performance of champions.

“I’m delighted,” said Collingwood. “The strategy seems to be working in terms of the Twenty20 form of the game. The bowlers were fantastic. We had a hiccup with the bat but Morgan and Yardy saw us through.” There was no Kevin Pietersen yesterday, the player of the World Twenty20, who is still waiting to discover if he faces disciplinary action for a message on Twitter after he had been left out of the one-day squad. One player who will almost certainly be in trouble is Dimitri Mascarenhas, the Hampshire captain, after comments appeared on his Twitter page criticising Geoff Miller, the chairman of selectors.

The message read: “Geoff miller is a complete ----. He had no clue what he is doing. ---- -----,. Chairman of selectors came to Liverpool and didn’t even come and say hi... what a -----. Doesn’t take much to say hello, does it.”

Last month Azeem Rafiq, the Yorkshire spinner, was suspended for a month and fined £500 by the ECB for an obscene message on Twitter.