PM Modi meets The Elephant Whisperers’ couple Bomman, Bellie

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, April 9, 2023, met the Bomman and Bellie couple, stars of the Oscar-winning documentary ‘The Elephant Whisperers’. In the pictures, PM Modi can be seen in two different looks. In the first picture, he can be seen dressed in a white kurta pyjama and black Nehru jacket while interacting with the couple.

And in the next pictures, he can be seen wearing a khaki-coloured shirt, pants and a hat for the jungle safari.

PM Modi posed with Bomman and Bellie couple. He also met the elephant.

With the aim to curb poaching and illegal wildlife trade, he launched the International Big Cats Alliance (IBCA) in Karnataka.

PM Modi also inaugurated the ‘Commemoration of 50 years of Project Tiger’.
During the programme, he released the publication ‘Amrit Kaal Ka Vision for Tiger Conservation’, a summary report of 5th cycle of Management Effective Evaluation of Tiger Reserves.

He also released a summary report of All India Tiger Estimation (5th cycle).
PM Modi also released a commemorative coin on the completion of 50 years of Project Tiger.

Earlier on Sunday, Prime Minister Modi visited Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka where he interacted with frontline field staff and self-help groups involved in conservation efforts, as part of programmes to mark 50 years of ‘Project Tiger’. PM Modi also visited the Theppakadu Elephant camp in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve on Sunday where he interacted with mahouts and kavadis.

Talking about the Bomman and Bellie featured in ‘The Elephant Whisperers’, which recently won the Best Documentary Short winner at the 95th Academy Awards.

Helmed by debutant Kartiki Gonsalves, the 41-minute short documentary movie explores the tentative yet precious bond between Raghu, an orphaned baby elephant, and his caretakers – a mahout couple named Bomman and Bellie – who devote their lives to protect him from poachers and raise him.

The project, which is backed by Guneet’s banner Sikhya Entertainment, beat four other contenders to clinch the statuette in the Best Documentary Short Category, making it the first Indian documentary and one of only two Indian productions to win an Oscar (the other one being ‘RRR’).

‘The Elephant Whisperers’ was nominated against ‘Haul Out,’ ‘How Do You Measure A Year?’, ‘The Martha Mitchell Effect,’ and ‘Stranger At The Gate’.

This is the second Oscar win for Guneet. She had previously served as an executive producer on ‘Period. End of Sentence’, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film.