Hot News Mix: NYC Celebrates India’s Independence Day, Hannah Simone’s Latest Project, Aziz Ansari News, & More

A float at the 2013 India Day Parade in New York City. Photo credit: M.R. Gandhi
A float at the 2013 India Day Parade in New York City. (Photo/M.R. Gandhi)

India comes to Madison Avenue: Actress Vidya Balan served as grand marshal at New York City’s 33rd annual India Day Parade Sunday. Revelers included mayoral candidates Christine Quinn and John Catsimatidis, but there was no sign of candidate Anthony Weiner and his half-Indian/half Pakistani wife Huma Abedin. Check out this slideshow for scenes from the festivities (Gothamist).

From Sidekick to Beauty Queen: Hannah Simone (New Girl) is set to star in Miss India America, an upcoming film about a young woman determined to win both a beauty pageant and the man of her dreams. The movie will start filming this fall and is currently crowdsourcing funds. (Kickstarter)

Aziz Ansari Shows Us his Favorite City: The Parks and Recreation funnyman visits a fortune teller and samples snake soup in “Aziz Ansari in Hong Kong.” The mini-documentary is part of The Getaway, a new series on the Esquire Network that features celebs touring their favorite cities with a camera crew in tow. Other episodes include Joel McHale in Belfast and Ansari’s co-star Rashida Jones in London. The Hong Kong episode is scheduled to air on October 2. (E! Online)

SRK Helps Set a Pakistani Record: Chennai Express, the action/comedy film starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, is the “biggest box office hit from India since the government allowed screening of Indian movies” in Karachi, a spokesperson tells NDTV. (NDTV)

Get Caught Up on the Kal Penn Stop and Frisk Controversy: Angry Asian Man conveniently compiled all of last week’s Kal Penn news in this post. (Angry Asian Man)

Lakshmi Gandhi is a co-founder and editor of The Aerogram. Follow her on Twitter at @LakshmiGandhi or email her at editors@theaerogram.com.

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