Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (Russian: А́нна Степа́новна Политко́вская; Ukrainian: Га́нна Степа́нівна Політко́вська; 30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006) was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin.^[1] On 7 October 2006 she was shot and killed in the lift of her block of flats, an unsolved assassination that continues to attract international attention.^[2][3][4]

Politkovskaya made her reputation reporting from Chechnya.^[5] Her post-1999 articles about conditions in Chechnya were turned into several books;^[6] Russian readers' main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya gazeta, a Russian newspaper known for its often-critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published a personal account: Putin's Russia.^[7]

Early life[link]

Politkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York City in 1958. Her parents, diplomats at the United Nations, were Ukrainian. Politkovskaya grew up in Moscow; she graduated from Moscow State University's school of journalism in 1980. While there, she defended a thesis about the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva and married fellow student Alexander Politkovsky. They had two children, Vera and Ilya. At first Alexander was better known, joining TV journalist Vladislav Listyev as one of the hosts on the late-night TV programme Vzglyad. Apart from her childhood years, Politkovskaya spent no more than a few weeks outside of Russia at any one time, even when her life came under threat. She acquired a US passport, but never relinquished her Russian citizenship.^[8]

Journalistic work[link]

Politkovskaya worked for Izvestia from 1982 to 1993 as a reporter and editor of the emergencies and accidents section. From 1994 to 1999, she worked as the assistant chief editor of Obshchaya Gazeta, headed by Yegor Yakovlev, where she wrote frequently about social problems—particularly the plight of refugees. From June 1999 to 2006, she wrote columns for the biweekly Novaya gazeta, a newspaper with strong investigative reporting that was critical of the new post-1991 regime from the outset. She published several award-winning books about Chechnya, life in Russia, and President Putin's regime, including Putin's Russia.^[9][10]

Reports from Chechnya[link]

Politkovskaya won a number of awards for her work.^[10][11] She used each of these occasions to urge greater concern and responsibility by Western governments that, after the 11 September attacks on the United States, welcomed Putin's contribution to their "War on Terror". She talked to officials, the military and the police and also frequently visited hospitals and refugee camps, in Chechnya and in the neighbouring Ingushetia, to interview those injured and uprooted by the renewed fighting.^[12]

In numerous articles critical of the war in Chechnya and the pro-Russian regime there, Politkovskaya described alleged abuses committed by Russian military forces, Chechen rebels, and the Russian-backed administration led by Akhmad Kadyrov and his son Ramzan Kadyrov.^{[citation needed]} She also chronicled human rights abuses and policy failures elsewhere in the North Caucasus. In one characteristic instance in 1999, she not only wrote about the plight of an ethnically-mixed old peoples' home under bombardment in Grozny, but helped to secure the safe evacuation of its elderly inhabitants, with the aid of her newspaper and public support. Her articles, many of which form the basis of A Dirty War (2001) and A Small Corner of Hell (2003), depict a conflict that brutalised both Chechen fighters and conscript soldiers in the federal army, and created hell for the civilians caught between them. As Politkovskaya reported, the order supposedly restored under the Kadyrovs became a regime of endemic torture, abduction, and murder, by either the new Chechen authorities or the various federal forces based in Chechnya.^[9] One of her last investigations was into the alleged mass poisoning of Chechen school children by a strong and unknown chemical substance which incapacitated them for many months.^[13]

Criticism of Vladimir Putin and FSB[link]

After Politkovskaya became widely known in the West, she was commissioned to write Putin's Russia (later subtitled Life in a Failing Democracy), a broader account of her views and experiences after former KGB lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin became Boris Yeltsin's Prime Minister, and then succeeded him as President of Russia. This included Putin's pursuit of the Second Chechen War. In the book, she accused the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) of stifling all civil liberties in order to establish a Soviet-style dictatorship, but admitted

[It] is we who are responsible for Putin's policies ... [s]ociety has shown limitless apathy ... [a]s the Chekists have become entrenched in power, we have let them see our fear, and thereby have only intensified their urge to treat us like cattle. The KGB respects only the strong. The weak it devours. We of all people ought to know that.

She also wrote:

We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial—whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.^[14]

"People often tell me that I am a pessimist, that I don't believe in the strength of the Russian people, that I am obsessive in my opposition to Putin and see nothing beyond that", she opens an essay titled "Am I Afraid?", finishing it—and the book—with the words "If anybody thinks they can take comfort from the 'optimistic' forecast, let them do so. It is certainly the easier way, but it is the death sentence for our grandchildren."^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]}

[edit] A Russian Diary

In May 2007, Random House posthumously published Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary, containing extracts from her notebook and other writings. Subtitled A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia, the book gives her account of the period from December 2003 to August 2005, including what she described as "the death of Russian parliamentary democracy", the Beslan school hostage crisis, and the "winter and summer of discontent" from January to August 2005.^[21] Because she was murdered "while translation was being completed, final editing had to go ahead without her help", wrote translator Arch Tait in a note to the book.^[22]

"Who killed Anna and who lay beyond her killer remains unknown", wrote Jon Snow, the main news anchor for the United Kingdom's Channel 4 in his foreword to the book's UK edition. "Her murder robbed too many of us of absolutely vital sources of information and contact", he concluded, "Yet it may, ultimately, be seen to have at least helped prepare the way for the unmasking of the dark forces at the heart of Russia's current being. I must confess that I finished reading A Russian Diary feeling that it should be taken up and dropped from the air in vast quantities throughout the length and breadth of Mother Russia, for all her people to read."^[23]

Attempted hostage negotiations[link]

Politkovskaya was closely involved in attempts to negotiate the release of hostages in the Moscow theater hostage crisis of 2002. When the Beslan school hostage crisis erupted in the North Caucasus in early September 2004, Politkovskaya attempted to fly there to act as a mediator, but was taken off the plane, acutely ill, in Rostov-on-Don (see Poisoning).^[24][25]

Relationships with Russian authorities[link]

In Moscow, Politkovskaya was not invited to press conferences or gatherings that Kremlin officials might attend, in case the organisers were suspected of harbouring sympathies toward her. Despite this, many top officials allegedly talked to her when she was writing articles or conducting investigations. According to one of her articles, they did talk to her, "but only when they weren't likely to be observed: outside in crowds, or in houses that they approached by different routes, like spies".^[9] She also claimed that the Kremlin tried to block her access to information and discredit her:

I will not go into the other joys of the path I have chosen, the poisoning, the arrests, the threats in letters and over the Internet, the telephoned death threats, the weekly summons to the prosecutor general's office to sign statements about practically every article I write (the first question being, "How and where did you obtain this information?"). Of course I don't like the constant derisive articles about me that appear in other newspapers and on Internet sites presenting me as the madwoman of Moscow. I find it disgusting to live this way. I would like a bit more understanding.^[9]

Death threats[link]

After Politkovskaya's murder, Vyacheslav Izmailov, her colleague at Novaya gazeta—a military man who had helped negotiate the release of dozens of hostages in Chechnya before 1999—said that he knew of at least nine previous occasions when Politkovskaya had faced death, commenting "Frontline soldiers do not usually go into battle so often and survive".^[26]

Politkovskaya herself did not deny being afraid, but felt responsible and concerned for her informants. While attending a December 2005 conference on the freedom of the press in Vienna organised by Reporters Without Borders, she said "People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think. In fact, one can even get killed for giving me information. I am not the only one in danger. I have examples that prove it."^[27] She often received death threats as a result of her work, including being threatened with rape and experiencing a mock execution after being arrested by the military in Chechnya.^[28][29]

Detention in Chechnya[link]

Early in 2001, Politkovskaya was detained by military officials in the southern mountain village of Khatuni.^[30] She was investigating complaints from 90 Chechen families about "punitive raids" by federal forces. She interviewed a Chechen grandmother from a village of Tovzeni, Rosita, who endured 12 days of beatings, electric shocks, and confinement in a pit. The men who arrested Rosita presented themselves as FSB employees. The torturers requested a ransom from Rosita's relatives, who negotiated a smaller amount that they were able to pay. Another interviewee described killings and rapes of Chechen men in a "concentration camp with a commercial streak" near the village of Khatuni.^[31][32][33]

Upon leaving the camp, Politkovskaya was detained, interrogated, beaten, and humiliated by Russian troops: "the young officers tortured me, skillfully hitting my sore spots. They looked through my children's pictures, making a point of saying what they would like to do to the kids. This went on for about three hours."^[34] She was subjected to a mock execution using a BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket system, then poisoned with a cup of tea that made her vomit. Her tape records were confiscated. She described her mock execution:

A lieutenant colonel with a swarthy face and dull dark bulging eyes said in a businesslike tone: "Let's go. I'm going to shoot you." He led me out of the tent into complete darkness. The nights here are impenetrable. After we walked for a while, he said, "Ready or not, here I come." Something burst with pulsating fire around me, screeching, roaring, and growling. The lieutenant colonel was very happy when I crouched in fright. It turned out that he had led me right under the "Grad" rocket launcher at the moment it was fired.^[34]

After the mock execution, the Russian lieutenant colonel said to her: "Here's the banya. Take off your clothes." Seeing that his words had no effect, he got very angry: "A real lieutenant colonel is courting you, and you say no, you militant bitch."^[34]

In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights found the Russian Federation responsible for the forced disappearance of a suspected Ingush militant, Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev. Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, the commander of the Russian Caucasus deployment mentioned by Politkovskaya's camp guide as the one who ordered captured militants to be kept in the pits, was filmed as he ordered Yandiyev to be executed.^[35]

Poisoning[link]

While flying south in September 2004 to help negotiate with those who had taken over a thousand hostages in a school in Beslan (North Ossetia), Politkovskaya fell violently ill and lost consciousness after drinking tea. She had reportedly been poisoned, with some accusing the former Soviet secret police poison facility.^[36][37]

Threats from OMON officer[link]

In 2001, Politkovskaya fled to Vienna, following e-mail threats that a police officer whom she had accused of atrocities against civilians in Chechnya was looking to take revenge. Corporal Sergei Lapin was arrested and charged in 2002, but the case against him was closed the following year. In 2005, Lapin was convicted and jailed for the torture and subsequent disappearance of a Chechen civilian detainee, the case exposed by Politkovskaya in her article "Disappearing People".^[12][38][39] A former fellow officer of Lapin's was among the suspects in Politkovskaya's murder, on the theory that the motive might have been revenge for her part in Lapin's conviction.^[39]

Conflict with Ramzan Kadyrov[link]

In 2004, Politkovskaya had a conversation with Ramzan Kadyrov, then Prime Minister of Chechnya. One of his assistants said to her, "Someone ought to have shot you back in Moscow, right on the street, like they do in your Moscow". Ramzan repeated after him: "You're an enemy. To be shot...."^[40] On the day of her murder, said Novaya Gazeta's chief editor Dmitry Muratov, Politkovskaya had planned to file a lengthy story on the torture practices believed to be used by the Chechen security detachments known as Kadyrovites. In her final interview, she described Kadyrov—now president of Chechnya—as the "Chechen Stalin of our days".^[41]

Murder, investigation and trial[link]

Grave of Anna Politkovskaya at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow

Politkovskaya was found dead in the lift of her block of flats in central Moscow on 7 October 2006. She had been shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, and once in the head at point-blank range.^[42]

The funeral was held on 10 October 2006 at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in the outskirts of Moscow. Before Politkovskaya was buried, more than one thousand mourners filed past her coffin to pay their last respects. Dozens of Politkovskaya's colleagues, public figures, and admirers of her work gathered at the cemetery. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony.^[43] Politkovskaya was buried near her father, who had died shortly before her. There was widespread international reaction to the assassination. Some of her colleagues and friends accused the Russian authorities of negligence in doing nothing to prevent her murder, or even of actual involvement in her assassination.^{[citation needed]}

In May 2007, a large posthumous collection of Anna's articles, entitled With Good Reason, was published by Novaya gazeta and launched at the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow^[44] The event came soon after the birth of Anna's namesake grandchild: Vera's daughter was named Anna in honour of her grandmother. A few months later, 10 men were detained on suspicion of various degrees of involvement Politkovskaya's murder.^[45] Four of them were brought before the Moscow District Military Court in October 2008.

Trial[link]

Three men were charged with directly aiding Politkovskaya's killer, who was allegedly the brother of two of the suspects. There was insufficient evidence to charge the fourth man—an FSB colonel—with the murder, though he was suspected of a leading role in its organisation; he stood trial at the same time for another offence. The case was held before a jury (a rare occurrence in Russia)^[46] and, after the jurors insisted, was open to the press and public.^[47][48][49]

On 25 November 2008, it was reported that Politkovskaya's murder might have been ordered by a politician inside Russia. Murad Musayev, a lawyer for the men on trial, told journalists that the case notes—as one of the interpretations of the crime—mentioned that a politician, based in Russia (but not named in those notes), was behind her death.^[50][51]

On 5 December 2008, Sergei Sokolov, a senior editor of Novaya Gazeta, testified in court that he had received information (from sources he would not name) that defendant Dzhabrail Makhmudov was an agent of the FSB. He said Makhmudov's uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who was serving a 12-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a Ukrainian businessman, also worked for the FSB.^[52][53]

Russia's Investigative Committee—with help of the Belgian police—arrested Rustam Makhmudov, the man suspected of killing Anna Politkovskaya, after he was detained in the Chechen Republic and transported to Moscow for questioning.^[54]

Following the acquittal[link]

After all three men were acquitted of Politkovskaya's murder in February 2009, her children Vera and Ilya, their lawyers Karinna Moskalenko and Anna Stavitskaya, and senior Novaya gazeta editor Sergei Sokolov gave their reaction to the trial at a press conference in Moscow.^[55] In his comments on the end of the trial, Andrew McIntosh, Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's Sub-Committee on the Media and Rapporteur on media freedom, expressed frustration at what he perceived to be a lack of progress in investigating the murder, or the inability of the Russian authorities to find her killers:

Two years ago, in its Resolution 1535 (2007), the Assembly called on the Russian Parliament to closely monitor the progress in the criminal investigations regarding the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and hold the authorities accountable for any failures to investigate or prosecute. The closure of the trial yesterday can only be regarded as a blatant failure. I call on the Russian authorities and Parliament to relaunch a proper investigation and shed light on this murder, which undermines not only freedom of expression in Russia, but also its democratic foundation based on the rule of law. There are no excuses for these flawed investigations into murders of politically critical journalists writing against corruption and crime within government, such as the murders of Georgy Gongadze in Ukraine in 2000 and Paul Klebnikov in Moscow in 2004.^[56]

Before the trial ended, Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who had investigated many of the abuses documented by Politkovskaya, was assassinated in Moscow on 19 January 2009^[57] Journalist Anastasia Baburova, who was with Markelov at the time, died later of injuries sustained while trying to intervene.^[57] Baburova was a freelance contributor to Novaya gazeta, and Markelov represented the newspaper on many occasions. In November 2009, the first public results of the investigation into the double shooting suggested that the murders had no immediate connection to the Politkovskaya assassination.^[58]

More closely related to Politkovskaya's work as a journalist was the 15 July 2009 murder of Natalia Estemirova. A board member of the Memorial human rights society and one of Politkovskaya's key informants, guides, and colleagues in Chechnya, Estemirova was abducted in Grozny and found dead, several hours later, in the neighbouring Republic of Ingushetia.^[59]

All three murders highlighted the impunity with which such activists were being killed (see List of journalists killed in Russia). After the first killing, Novaya gazeta chief editor Muratov asked publicly for his journalists to be trained in self-defence, with firearms if necessary. When Estemirova's death was followed that August by the killing of two more human-rights activists in Grozny—Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband Umar Dzhabrailov—Novaya gazeta announced it could no longer take the risk of sending its journalists to Chechnya.^{[citation needed]}

The Chechen authorities expressed their offence at this "slur". In an interview with Radio Liberty, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov voiced statements about Estemirova that contradicted his earlier expressions of public concern and regret.^[60] She was a woman, he said, who had "never possessed any honour, dignity or conscience".^{[citation needed]}

On 5 August 2009, the prosecution service's objection to the acquittals in the Politkovskaya trial was upheld by the Supreme Court, and a new trial was ordered.^[61]

In August 2011, Russian prosecutors claimed they were close to solving the murder after detaining Dmitry Pavliuchenkov, a former policeman, who they alleged was the principal organiser.^[62] The following month Kommersant Daily reported that according to Pavlyuchenkov, he was acting on instructions from businessman and Putin critic Boris Berezovsky.^[63]

Documentary[link]

• 2008, documentary by Masha Novikova Anna, Seven Years on the Frontline; 78 min., the Netherlands.

• In 2008, Swiss director Eric Bergkraut made a documentary, Letter to Anna, about Politkovskaya's life and death. It includes interviews with her son Ilya, her daughter Vera, her ex-husband Alexander Politkovsky, and others—such as businessman Boris Berezovsky and film-maker Andrei Nekrasov.^[64][65][66]

• In 2011, Russian director Marina Goldovskaya made the documentary A bitter taste of Freedom, a Swedish Russian American co-production. The title relates to an earlier documentary film by the same director, A taste of freedom (1991) which is about Russian life in the new, post-Soviet reality and features the Politkovsky family.

A bitter taste of Freedom was shown at the 27. Warsaw International Film Festival where it won the Best Documentary Feature Award. From the festival's programme^[67]:

"She was brave, she was bold, and she was beautiful. In her fearless quest to uncover the wrongdoings of the Russian State, Anna Politkovskaya inspired awe in some and fear in countless others. An investigative journalist for Moscow's liberal 'Novaya Gazeta', she was the only spokesperson for victims of Putin's government. Hers was a lonely voice, yet loud enough for the entire country to hear. It was too loud. At age 48 she was assassinated for simply doing her job. A documentary about the bravery of the human spirit. As the director says, it 'is especially important now, when the world is so full of cynicism and corruption, when we so desperately need more people with Anna's level of courage and integrity and commitment'."

Anna Politkovskaya Award[link]

The human rights organization Reach All Women in War (RAW in WAR), which particularly focuses on protecting women's rights during war time, announced in 2007 that they would be awarding an annual "Anna Politkovskaya Award" in Politkovskaya's honor. The award recognizes "a woman human rights defender from a conflict zone in the world who, like Anna, stands up for the victims of this conflict, often at great personal risk".^[68]

The award was first given in October 2007 to Anna Politkovskaya's friend and colleague Natalia Estemirova,^[69] who was herself found shot dead in 2009.^[59]

Other winners of the Anna Politkovskaya Award:

• 2008: Malalai Joya, Afghanistan
• 2009: One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality, Iran
• 2010: Halima Bashir, Sudan
• 2011: Razan Zaitouneh, Syria^[68]

Awards[link]

• 2001: "Golden Pen Prize" of the Russian Union of Journalists^[70]
• 2001: Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism
• 2002: Norwegian Authors' Union Freedom of Expression Prize ("Ytringsfrihetsprisen")
• 2002: PEN American Center Freedom to Write Award
• 2002: International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award^[71]
• 2003: Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage^[72]
• 2003: Hermann Kesten Medal
• 2004: Olof Palme Prize (shared with Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Sergei Kovalev)
• 2004: Vázquez Montalbán Award of International Journalism
• 2005: Civil Courage Prize (with Min Ko Naing and Munir Said Thalib)^[73]
• 2005: Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media
• 2006: International Journalism Award named after Tiziano Terzani
• 2006: World Press Freedom Hero of the International Press Institute^[74]
• 2007: UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize (awarded posthumously for the first time)^[75]
• 2007: National Press Club/John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award (posthumous)
• 2007 Democracy Award to Spotlight Press Freedom by the National Endowment for Democracy,^[76]

Bibliography[link]

• Politkovskaia, Anna (2000) Voyage en enfer: Journal de Tchetchenie, Robert Laffont: Paris.
• Politkovskaya, Anna (2001) A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya, Harvill: London.
• Политковская, Анна (2002) Вторая чеченская (The Second Chechen [War]), Zakharov: Moscow.
  • Politkovskaya, Anna (2003) A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya, translation of Vtoraya chechenskaya, The University of Chicago Press.
• Politkovskaya, Anna (2004) Putin's Russia, Harvill: London.
• Politkovskaya, Anna (2007) A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia, Harvill Secker: London.
• Политковская, Анна (2007) За что^{[dead link]} (With Good Reason), Novaya gazeta: Moscow.^[77] The Russian title makes grim play of the frequent disbelieving question^[78] of victims of the late 1930s Great Terror in the Soviet Union: "But whatever for?!" («За что?!»)
• Politkovskaya, Anna (2010) Nothing But the Truth: Selected Dispatches, Harvill Secker: London. A 480-page selection from the 2007 volume За что (With Good Reason).
• Politkovskaya, Anna (2011) Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches, Melville House Publishing: Brooklyn, New York.
• Politkovs'ka, Anna. "Druha chechens'ka." Trans. I. Andrusiak. Kyiv: Diokor, 2004.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The One-Year Anniversary of the Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anna Politkovskaya

• “Anna Politkovskaya Award” Presented each year by RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) to women human rights defenders from war and conflict. The first Anna Politkovskaya Award recipient, in 2007, was Natalia Estemirova
• Book Festival readings, Anna Politkovskaya at the Edinburgh International Book Festival's audio recordings and transcriptions 2004–05 (translated to English, streaming audio)
• Photo report from August 2008 Moscow rally dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya's birth (Russian)
• The Writer’s Conscience: Remembering Anna Politkovskaya & Russia’s Forgotten War, 6 December 2006, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City – audio
• Three Years Later Russia Looks the Same at Estonian Free Press
• Reach all Women in War (RAW in WAR)
• Politkovskaya writing about her Ukrainian descent in the Ukrainian edition of her book by Diokor Press

Mallika Sherawat
Mallika at ShaadiSePehle audio release function
Born	Reema Lamba October 24 Rohtak, Haryana, India
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2002–present
Website
mallikasherawatwow.com

Mallika Sherawat (Hindi: मल्लिका शेरावत, born Reema Lamba) is an Indian actress who appears mainly in Bollywood films. Known for her bold onscreen attitude,^[1] Sherawat has been frequently featured in the media as a sex symbol.^[2] She is one of the few Bollywood stars trying to crossover to Hollywood,^[3][4] with films like Hisss and Politics of Love.^[5]

Early life[link]

Sherawat was born Reema Lamba in Rohtak, Haryana to a Jat family.^[6] Mallika was born in the family of Seth Chhaju Ram, a leading Jat philanthropist.^[7] She was born on October 24, though the year is unknown.^[8] She adopted the screen name of "Mallika", meaning "empress", to avoid confusion with other actresses named Reema.^[9] "Sherawat" is her mother's maiden name^[8] She has stated that she uses her mother's maiden name because of the support that her mother has provided her.^[9] Although relations with her family were strained when she entered the film industry,^[10] now Sherawat's family have accepted her career choice and reconciled their relations.^[7]

Sherawat went to school at Delhi Public School, Mathura Road.^[11] She has obtained a degree in philosophy from Miranda House, Delhi University.^[12] During the initial days of her career, she claimed to have come from a very conservative small town family, and that she faced many hurdles from her family in pursuing her career.^[13] However, Mallika's family has refuted this as a story created by her to give her an aura of a small town rustic girl who made it big in Bollywood.^[10] It has been reported that she was married for a short while to a Jet Airways pilot Captain Karan Singh Gill.^[10]

Career[link]

Before entering films, Sherawat appeared in television commercials with Amitabh Bachchan for BPL and Shahrukh Khan for Santro.^[14] She also appeared in Nirmal Pandey's Maar Dala and Surjit Bindrakhia's Lak Tunoo music video.^[15] She debuted in films with a small role in Jeena Sirf Merre Liye where she was credited as Reema Lamba.^[16]

Sherawat attracted notice with her appearance in the 2003 film, Khwahish. In 2004, she starred in Murder, a film inspired by Hollywood's Unfaithful. She received a nomination for Best Actress at the Zee Cine Awards for her performance in Murder. The film went on to become one of the biggest hits of the year.^[17]

Since then, Sherawat has been known for expressing her opinions in public, as well for the reaction to some of her statements.^[18]

In 2005, Sherawat acted in The Myth, a Chinese film, co-starring with Jackie Chan. She played the role of an Indian girl who saves Chan's character from a river. The Myth was her first International film. Her appearance at the Cannes Film Festival^[19] to promote the film grabbed a lot of attention with Time Magazine's Richard Corliss calling her "the next big thing".^[20]

Her performance in the 2006 film Pyaar Ke Side Effects, co-starring Rahul Bose, won her praise from around the industry,^[21] and the film also did moderately well at the box office.^[22]

Her first release in 2007 was Mani Ratnam's Guru, in which she appeared in a special song, "Mayya Mayya". She also played a guest role in Himesh Reshammiya's Aap Ka Suroor - The Real Love Story and reportedly charged Rs. 15 million for a 10-minute appearance.^[23] Her last release of 2007 was Welcome, which also did well at the box office receiving blockbuster status.^[24]

Her 2008 releases were Ugly Aur Pagli and Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam. Both films were unsuccessful at the box office. Sherawat's next Bollywood release was Double Dhamaal, which went on to becoming a moderate success at the box office, reciving above average status at the box office, by Box Office India. She also appeared in item numbers in films such as Thank You (Razia Gundon Mein Phas Gayi), Bin Bulaye Baraati (Shalu Ke Thumkey} and in Osthe (Kalasala), which is a Tamil film. In 2012, she also featured in an item number in Tezz (Laila). As of May 2012, Sherawat is expected to appear in two films which will feature her in full fledged roles, which are Kismat Love Paisa Dilli, in which she will be essaying the role of a Haryanvi,^[25] and Lucky Unlucky.^[26]

Hollywood[link]

In 2009, Sherawat starred in a Hollywood film named Hisss, co-starring Irrfan Khan and directed by Jennifer Lynch. The film, based on the legend of Nāga, is an independent co-production between the United States and India.^[3] Endeavour Independent has bought the distribution rights of Hisss.^[27] Sherawat promoted the film with live snakes at the Cannes Film Festival 2010.^[28] Hisss was released in all major Indian languages on 22 October 2010.^[29]

Sherawat starred in another Hollywood film, Politics of Love, aka Love, Barack, directed by William Dear.^[30] She plays Aretha Gupta, a devoted local Obama volunteer coordinator. The film is a romantic comedy set during Barack Obama's campaign for the US Presidency. First look of Love, Barack was unveiled by Sherawat at Cannes 2010.^[31] It was released in 2011.

Sherawat won the 2008 Renaissance Artist Award at the 16th Annual Diversity Awards held in California.^[32] On 14 August 2009, Sherawat received a career recognition Honorary Citizenship of Los Angeles for her career achievements and charitable efforts.^[33]

Filmography[link]

See also[link]

• List of Indian film actresses

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mallika Sherawat

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mallika Sherawat

• Official website
• Mallika Sherawat at the Internet Movie Database
• Mallika Sherawat on Twitter