Marking the first death of the year in filmdom, acclaimed director S Ramanathan who brought Amitabh Bachchan into the limelight with <em>Bombay to Goa</em>, passed away in Chennai yesterday. It is said that Ramanathan was listening to music when he just collapsed and passed away. It was a case of cardiac failure.

Preeti Ganguly, daughter of the late veteran actor Ashok Kumar expired yesterday. Born on 17 May, 1953, Preeti is best known for her comic role as Freni Sethna, the die-hard Amitabh Bachchan fan in Basu Chatterjee's <em>Khatta Meetha</em>. Following in the footsteps of her father and uncles Kishore Kumar and Anoop Kumar, she debuted in <em>Parinay</em> in 1974. She mostly played roles that provided a comical relief to viewers in particular those of an overly healthy woman. Her career spanned from 1974 through to 1988 in a total of about 30 movies.

Veteran theatre actor-director Dinesh Thakur, known for his character roles in Hindi films passed away early this morning (20 September 2012). His demise came after a prolonged illness. The actor-director was suffering from kidney ailments. His end came at a suburban Andheri hospital. Thakur acted in several acclaimed films like Mere Apne, Rajanigandha and Ghar amongst others to his credit. He appeared as one of the leads in the Basu Chatterjee directed film Rajnigandha which won both the Filmfare Best Movie Award and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Film.