PM Modi hosts Yash, Rishab Shetty, Ashwini Puneeth over, see photos

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday evening hosted some high-profile names from the Kannada film industry over dinner at Raj Bhavan. The PM is in Bengaluru to attend the five-day areal show, Aero India 2023. He took the opportunity to meet the members of the Kannada film fraternity whose popularity transcended the language and cultural barriers last year. 

Actor and popular video creator Shraddha, known as Aiyyo Shraddha, was one of the guests at the PM's dinner. "Namashkar, yes, I met the Honorable Prime Minister of our Country. His first word to me was ‘Aiyyo!’. I am not blinking, that’s my ‘O My Jod, he really said that, this is really happening!!!!’ look. Thank you @PMOIndia !," Shraddha shared the picture of herself with the PM. 

Kannada movie stars Yash, Rakhsit Shetty, and producers Vijay Kirgandur, and Ashwini Puneeth were also hosted by the PM. It's worth noting that Yash, Rishab and Vijay played a huge role in taking the Kannada film industry to another level. While Kannada cinema was always considered a poor cousin among the other film industries in the south, it was KGF: Chapter 2 and Kantara that changed the face of the industry. 

KGF 2, which was bankrolled by Vijay's Hombale Films, became the first film in the history of Kannada cinema to rake in more than Rs 100 crore on its opening day in India alone. The final gross of the film, which was written and directed by Prashanth Neel, is pegged at about Rs 1200. And Kantaram which was also produced by Hombale Films, exceeded all expectations and broke new records in terms of collections. Besides writing and directing, Rishab also played the lead role. Made on a budget of less than Rs 20 crore, the film's worldwide gross was more than Rs 400 crore.