Starry presence: Amitabh Bachchan in The Great Gatsby with Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio

Big B takes centre stage at Cannes

We can assume Amitabh Bachchan will be there, in person, striding in for the press conference after Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby has opened the Cannes Film Festival on May 15 this year.

In terms of global publicity, will this be Big B’s finest hour?

I am guessing but I expect him to be flanked by Luhrmann as well as two of the film’s stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, who play lovers Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan respectively in the adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby.

Bachchan looks absolutely splendid in the trailer of the film that has been released in cinemas in Britain. His may not be a major role but it is not one of those “blink and you will miss it” appearances either.

Bachchan is not a Cannes virgin, having walked the red carpet before with Aishwarya and Abhishek. But however small his part, this year he will be there by right.

In The Great Gatsby, which is being shown out of competition, Bachchan has been cast as Meyer Wolfshiem, a Jewish man Gatsby describes as a gangster/gambler who has engaged in a spot of match fixing. Wolfshiem is said to be an allusion to Arnold Rothstein, a New York criminal who apparently ensured one side conspired with gamblers and threw games in the 1919 World Baseball Series.

Luhrmann, who brought Moulin Rouge to Cannes in 2001, has spoken many times before of how he has been influenced by Bollywood, so it remains to be seen if there are any Indian touches in a film set in 1920s America.

This year, when the president of the jury is to be Steven Spielberg, Cannes will be paying tribute to 100 years of Indian cinema. I fear the likes of Mallika Sherawat will try to cash in by turning up on the Croisette and preening for the paps.

I also hope the Indian government is represented by someone other than the additional joint secretary from the ministry of information & broadcasting, however worthy the bureaucrat might be (usually they bring their wives who misuse the official car provided to go sightseeing).

It is inevitable that the show will be dominated by Hindi cinema. This is why it is important for Bengal to send a strong delegation to demonstrate that Indian cinema extends beyond “Bollywood”. I would suggest Raima Sen and Nandana Sen be included in the delegation.

Blessings: Pope Francisunplugged: Rajeev Chandrasekharin trouble: Lord Nazir Ahmed

Jesuit joy

Hearing that the new Pope had once been head of the Jesuit order in Argentina — from 1973-79 — makes Pope Francis a reassuringly familiar figure to those of us who were lucky enough to have studied at St Xavier’s School in Patna. Since the place was run by Jesuit fathers, one can imagine the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio from Buenos Aires taking lessons along with Fr Murphy or Fr Cleary — or showing affection in the traditional manner by giving us “six cracks” each with the ruler.

Almost coinciding with the election of the Cardinal from Buenos Aires was the referendum in the Falklands Islands, where to no one’s surprise 99.8 per cent of the 1,517 people who voted in a referendum reaffirmed their desire to remain British. The islands are claimed by Argentina which calls them Las Malvinas.

The British government may be distressed to hear the new Pope side with his own people on the question of the island’s sovereignty.

An Anglo-Argentine, the Rt Rev David Leake — he was born of British stock in Argentina, served as a bishop there from 1990-2002 but is now retired in Britain — said both he and the new Pope regarded the Falkland Islands as Las Malvinas.

“It is not something we talked about often but we were both Argentina-born and throughout our education it was ingrained in us that the islands are Argentinian,” he said. “That belief will persist for both of us to this day, although we may believe there are better diplomatic means which could be pursued.”

Unplugged: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Free speech

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, independent member of the Rajya Sabha, and cartoonist Aseem Trivedi have been nominated for awards by Index, a London-based organisation which “campaigns for freedom of expression”.

Index says that “these awards take place annually in recognition of journalists, bloggers, digital activists, campaigners and others around the world who fight vigorously against censorship to protect the freedom of speech”.

Chandrasekhar, who has been nominated in the “digital freedom category”, is up against Bassel Khartabil, champion of open Internet who has been detained in Syria, and Moez Chakchouk, the Tunisian Internet agency chief.

In the arts category, Aseem Trivedi, who “has emerged as one of India’s most controversial satirical artists”, is nominated along with Pussy Riot, the Russian Punk group; Zanele Muholi, a South African photographer; and Haifaa al Mansour, a Saudi Arabian filmmaker.

The winners will be announced in London on Thursday. Perhaps I should be free to say tickets to the events are over-priced at £75 each.

Legal beagle

Up and coming human rights lawyer Shamik Dutta is a man to watch after an important victory.

It involves an 88-year-old political campaigner, John Catt, from Brighton, a man of “good character”, who challenged the right of police to store information on him in the National Domestic Extremism Database.

At first two judges, Lord Justice Goss and Mr Justice Irwin, ruled that his right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights was not infringed.

But after a hearing in the Court of Appeal, Master of the Rolls Lord Dyson, Lord Justice Moore-Bick and Lord Justice McCombe, announced that the inclusion of personal information relating to Catt on the database “does involve an interference with his right to respect for his private life which requires justification... that the appeal must therefore be allowed”.

Shamik Dutta, of Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, said the judgment “acts as a safeguard against the creeping criminalisation of peaceful protest”.

In trouble: Lord Nazir Ahmed

Kashmir kid

The Pakistani peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed, is in trouble again. He has been suspended by the Labour Party for alleged anti-Jewish remarks made to an Urdu television channel in Britain.

Ahmed has made it his life’s work to berate Indians over Kashmir. He was sent to prison for 12 weeks for texting while he was driving, leading to a crash in which one man was killed.

In the Urdu interview he allegedly blames Jews for his downfall, which has led Labour party leader Ed Miliband, a non-practising Jew, to suspend him.

Ahmed claimed there was pressure on the courts by “Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels”, because of his support for Palestinians in Gaza.

Ahmed was suspended from the Labour party for three months last year over reports that he offered a $10m “bounty” for the capture of US President Barack Obama and his White House predecessor, George Bush.

Tittle tattle

Every week a new surprise. The latest arrival at my branch of Sainsbury’s is Lychee Lassi. It’s very nice.

But there is a point to all this. The supermarkets are trying to put Asian cornershops out of business — a warning to all who want to champion the entry of foreign multibrand retail into India.