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Dale Bhagwagar
Dale Bhagwagar is a film publicist-cum-spokesperson, and proprietor of the leading Indian independent Bollywood PR agency ‘Right Publicity’, a division of ‘Dale Bhagwagar Media Group’ based in Mumbai.

Career
Creating images and brands

Dale has been instrumental in shaping images of more than fifty film personalities. Some of the names include Priyanka Chopra, Shiney Ahuja, Esha Deol, Diana Hayden, Arbaaz Khan, Upen Patel, Nadeem-Shravan, Nandana Sen, Nikita Anand, Pooja Batra, Bhairavi Goswami, Manoj Bajpai, Shamita Shetty, Sameera Reddy, Chunky Panday, Vinta Nanda, Shekhar Suman, Anaida, Anup Jalota, Pankaj Udhas and Daler Mehndi.

For the last five years, Dale is handling Personal PR for actors Shilpa Shetty and Hrithik Roshan. He has recently been signed up by Hollywood filmmaker Ashok Amritraj and will also be instrumental in publicising Uru Patel’s international film ‘Hanuman’ (starring Shilpa Shetty in the role of goddess Sita).

Dale has handled the media works of corporates like Tips Industries Limited, Nimbus Creative Corporation Limited, Bollywood Group of Companies (USA), Indo American Society, Tracinema, Ultra Group, In House Productions and Tata Infomedia Limited.

He has handled image-building for path-breaking films, such as Kundan Shah’s ‘Kya Kehna’ (starring Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta), Kaizad Gustad’s ‘Bombay Boys’ (Naseeruddin Shah, Naveen Andrews, Rahul Bose, Alexander Gifford) and ‘Boom’ (Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Gulshan Grover, Padma Lakshmi, Madhu Sapre, Katrina Kaif, Jaaved Jaffery, Zeenat Aman, Seema Biswas, Boman Irani, Bo Derek), David Dhawan’s ‘Kunwara’ (Govinda, Urmila Matondkar), N.Chandra’s ‘Style’ (Sharman Joshi, Sahil Khan, Riya Sen, Shilpi Mudgal) and ‘Shikari’ (Govinda, Karisma Kapoor, Tabu), Manoj Agarwal’s ‘Hadh Kar Di Aapne’ (Govinda, Rani Mukerji), Vinta Nanda’s ‘White Noise’ (Rahul Bose, Koel Purie), Padam Kumar’s ‘Champion’ (Sunny Deol, Manisha Koirala), Vikram Bhatt’s ‘Aetbaar’ (Amitabh Bachchan, John Abraham, Bipasha Basu), Akbar Khan’s ‘Taj Mahal’ (Kabir Bedi, Manisha Koirala, Arbaaz Khan, Pooja Batra, Zulfi Syed, Sonya Jehan), Gyan Sahay’s ‘Sar Ankhon Par’ (Dilip Joshi, Shammi Kapoor, Asha Parekh), Mahesh Manjrekar’s ‘Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav’ (Sunil Shetty, Masumeh, Mahesh Manjrekar, Laloo Prasad Yadav), Sanjay Gupta’s ‘Plan’ (Sanjay Dutt, Priyanka Chopra, Sameera Reddy, Dino Morea, Riya Sen, Bikram Saluja, Mahesh Manjrekar, Sanjay Suri) and ‘Musafir’ (Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor, Sameera Reddy, Mahesh Manjrekar, Koena Mitra) and more recently, Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Don’ (Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal, Isha Koppikar, Kareena Kapoor) and Reema Kagti’s ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.’ (Shabana Azmi, Arjun Rampal, Dia Mirza, Abhay Deol, Minissha Lamba, Boman Irani, Kay Kay Menon, Raima Sen, Amisha Patel, Karan Khanna, Ranvir Shorey, Vikram Chatwal).

He has also created the media hype for some of the classiest shows in television history, such as ‘Movers and Shakers’ (starring Shekhar Suman on Sony TV), ‘Miilee’ (Mona Vasu on Star Plus), ‘Tejaswini’ (starring Shahane on Zee TV), ‘Super 7 Muqabla’ (Zee TV), ‘Deewar’ (on DD1), ‘Yug’ (DD1) and ‘Shapath’ (on Zee TV).

Amongst other films, he is currently handling the PR for the legendary Kamaal Amrohi’s grandson Mashhoor Amrohi’s debut film 'Humsey Hai Jahan' (Mashhoor Amrohi, Vishakha, Jackie Shroff, Prem Chopra), Zoya Akhtar’s directorial debut ‘Kismat Talkies’ (Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor), Vinta Nanda’s ‘Magic’ and ‘Tinsel Town’ (cast being finalized), Jatin Kumar’s next film, and Ashok Amritraj’s ‘The Other End of the Line’ (Jesse Metcalfe, Shriya Saran, Anupam Kher, Tara Deshpande, Sara Foster, Larry Miller, produced by Hyde Park Entertainment, directed by James ‘Jimmy’ Dodson of ‘Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil’ fame).

Personal life
Starting from scratch

Dale started out twenty-one years ago, at the tender age of fourteen, as a contributor to local newspapers and magazines in his hometown Nagpur in Central India. Six years later, he joined a local paper as a Trainee Sub-Editor and Reporter. Within a year, he was confirmed and made the Incharge of the City Desk, the Business Desk and later, the Magazine Desk.

His love for writing on actors and films saw him move to Mumbai after his graduation in English Literature three years later. He joined the Cine Blitz magazine as Chief Sub-Editor and Reporter and managed to bag an exclusive interview with megastar Amitabh Bachchan on his second day in office. Now, he often jokes to his friends that after the Big B interview right at the inception of his journalistic career in Mumbai, the rest of Bollywood actors looked like pygmies.

As his confidence grew with many more interviews, scoops and stories, breaking news and investigative journalism, Dale decided to expand horizons and quit his full-time job to freelance for publications, such as The Indian Express, Screen, Showtime, The Asian Age, Moviemag International and others.

Growth
The birth of a publicist

Around this time, a premier event management agency faced a last-minute crisis situation in promoting a huge event they were to organize for the Indian Navy on the decommissioned great historical ship INS Vikrant. They asked Dale, if his media experience could come of help in their promotions. The journalist signed his first contract as a publicist; simultaneously launching his agency ‘Right Publicity’, and later ‘Dale Bhagwagar Media Group’. This was way back in the winter of 1997. It’s been a decade since then and Dale has grown from strength to strength, emerging a market leader in his specialized profession of Entertainment PR.

Spreading the light

Dale believes in sharing his knowledge and experience and has given talks to college students of various faculties, such as BMM, BMS and Event Management. He has been a Guest Lecturer and held inter-collegiate Seminars at some of the best colleges teaching PR in India including H.R. College of Commerce and Economics (Churchgate), Rizvi College (Bandra), L.S. Raheja College of Arts & Commerce (Santacruz), C.H.M. College of Arts, Science, Commerce & Management, Mass Media and Information Technology (Ulhasnagar), S.I.E.S. College of Management Studies (Nerul), Vivekanand Education Society’s College of Arts, Science and Commerce (Chembur) and Event Management Development Institute at I.E.S. Management College (Bandra, Mumbai).

He has also been the Guest of Honour at various events of Mass Communications institutes, and a Judge at quite a few inter-collegiate Festivals and Competitions.

Appreciation follows hard work

He has received more than a dozen awards and felicitations from various institutions for excellence in the field of Entertainment PR.

Treading uncharted territory

Dale’s achievement streak has a lot of firsts to his credit. He’s been the first and only Indian film publicist who has also been appointed a ‘spokesperson’ to celebrities like Shilpa Shetty, Shiney Ahuja, Diana Hayden and Ashok Amritraj. At a time when the film industry worked on word-of-mouth, he was the first publicist to insist and introduce legal contracts and agreements in his profession, a practice which has now been accepted as a norm, with Bollywood going the corporate way. In an industry which is Mumbai-centric, Dale was the first film publicist to realize the impact of national and global reach and initiated branches of his agency, appointing media representatives in various cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Indore, Calcutta, Nagpur, Hyderabad, London and Colorado.

The media loves him too

Last but not the least, as a leading celebrity publicist, Dale has been interviewed by each and every national television channel including Star News, Zee News, Aaj Tak, NDTV, CNBC, CNN-IBN, Doordarshan, India TV, Live India, Sony, Set Max, Zoom, Times Now, Sahara Samay, Sahara Filmy, ETC, ETV and B4U, also by GEO from Pakistan, and Live on Sky News and BBC World from UK. Amongst other international channels, he has been quoted on CNN, Channel 4 and Voice of America. He has been featured Live on radio a couple of times by Radio Mirchi, Red FM and BBC Radio, London.

Dale has often been mentioned and quoted in topmost publications like The Times of India, DNA, Hindustan Times, Mail Today, The Indian Express, The Asian Age, Mid-Day, The Afternoon, Navbharat Times, Maharashtra Times, Moviemag International, Screen, The Hindu, Deccan Herald, Deccan Chronicle, The Telegraph, The Tribune, Financial Express, Outlook, India Today and a many others. He’s regularly quoted in reports of news agencies like UNI, PTI, IANS, ANI, Reuters and Associated Press.

In the international Press, Dale has been quoted in New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, The Times (UK), Guardian (UK), The Independent (UK), The Mail (UK), Daily Mail (UK), Mirror (UK), Daily Star (UK), The People (UK), Marie Claire (UK), Dawn (Pakistan), Jung (Pakistan), VN Express (Vietnam), The Sydney Morning Herald, Bangkok Post, International Herald Tribune (France), Pravda (Russia) and Gulf News amongst many others.

Global media presence

An internet search on his name reveals his presence in global media. As a publicist and spokesperson to his celebrity clients, Dale has been featured in Indian, American, British, Scottish, African, French, Australian, Pakistani, Spanish, Californian, Singaporean, Afghani, Bangladeshi, New Zealand, Arabic, Irish, Danish, Indonesian, Mexican, Malaysian, Dutch, Vietnamese, Mauritian, Iranian, Italian, Canadian, Russian and German media, spanning six continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America) of the world. If you happen to Google his name, you find almost a thousand entries, making him one of the most talked-about and extensively quoted film publicists in the world.