title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth was born as Shivaji Rao Gaekwad on 12 December 1950 in a Maratha family in Bangalore, Mysore State (present day Karnataka). He was named after the Maratha Empire king Shivaji, and was brought up speaking Marathi at home and Kannada outside. His mother was a housewife, and his father Ramoji Rao Gaekwad was a police constable. His ancestors hailed from Mavadi Kadepathar, Pune, Maharashtra. He is the youngest of four siblings in a family consisting of two elder brothers (Satyanarayana Rao and Nageshwara Rao) and a sister (Aswath Balubhai). After his father's retirement from work in 1956, the family moved to the suburb of Hanumantha Nagar in Bangalore and built a house there. He lost his mother at the age of nine.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth had his primary education at the Gavipuram Government Kannada Model Primary School in Bangalore. As a child, he was "studious and mischievous" with a great interest in cricket, football and basketball. During this time, his brother enrolled him at the Ramakrishna Math, a Hindu monastery set up by the Ramakrishna Mission. In the "math", he was taught Vedas, tradition and history, which eventually instilled a sense of spirituality in him. In addition to spiritual lessons, he also began acting in plays at the "math". His aspiration towards theatre grew at the math and was once given an opportunity to enact the role of "Ekalavya"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s friend from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. His performance in the play received praise from the Kannada poet D. R. Bendre. After sixth grade, Rajinikanth was enrolled at the Acharya Pathasala Public School and studied there till completion of his pre-university course. During his schooling at the "Acharya Pathasala", he spent a lot of time acting in plays.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Upon completion of his school education, Rajinikanth performed several jobs including that of a coolie, before getting a job in the Bangalore Transport Service (BTS) as a bus conductor. He continued to take part in plays after the Kannada playwright Topi Muniappa offered him a chance to act in one of his mythological plays. He decided to take up an acting course in the newly formed Madras Film Institute after coming across an advertisement. Though his family was not fully supportive of his decision to join the institute, his friend and co-worker Raj Bahadur motivated him to join the institute and financially supported him during this phase. During his stay at the institute, he was noticed by the Tamil film director K. Balachander. Balachander provided Rajinikanth with his stage name to avoid confusion with fellow actor Sivaji Ganesan, having taken it from a character's name in his earlier film "Major Chandrakanth". The director advised him to learn to speak Tamil, a recommendation that Rajinikanth quickly followed. Though he can read the language, he cannot write in it.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth began his film career with the Tamil film "Apoorva Raagangal" (1975), directed by K. Balachander. He was cast in a small role as the ex-husband of the female lead played by Srividya. The film explored relationships between people with wide age differences and was deemed controversial upon release. However, it received critical acclaim and won three National Film Awards including the Award for the Best Tamil Feature at the 23rd National Film Awards in 1976. A review from "The Hindu" noted that: "Newcomer Rajinikanth is dignified and impressive". His next release was Puttanna Kanagal's Kannada anthology film "Katha Sangama" (1976). Rajinikanth appeared in the last segment of the film; he played the role as a village ruffian who rapes a blind woman in the absence of her husband. Balachander cast him in a pivotal role in "Anthuleni Katha" (1976), the Telugu remake of his own Tamil film "Aval Oru Thodar Kathai" (1974). In "Moondru Mudichu"the first Tamil film to feature him in a prominent rolehe played a character that "blithely row[s] away" when his friend drowns accidentally in the lake only to fulfill his desire to marry the former's girlfriend. His style of flipping the cigarette in the film made him popular among the audience. In his final release of the year, "Baalu Jenu", he was cast as the main antagonist who troubles the female lead. He played similar roles in Balachander's "Avargal" (1977), and Bharathiraja's "16 Vayadhinile" (1977). The same year, he made his first-ever appearance as a lead actor in the Telugu film "Chilakamma Cheppindi" (1977). S. P. Muthuraman experimented Rajinikanth in a positive role in "Bhuvana Oru Kelvi Kuri" (1977). The success of the film brought the duo together for 24 more films till the 1990s. Rajinikanth played supporting and "villainous" roles in most of the films released during the year. In "Gaayathri" he was cast as a pornographer who secretly films his relationship with his wife without her knowledge and in "Galate Samsara" he played the role of a married man who develops an affair with a cabaret dancer. He had 15 of his films released during the year.


title: Rajinikanth

text: In 1978, Rajinikanth had 20 releases across Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. His first film of the year was P. Madhavan's "Shankar Salim Simon", in which he was among the three leads. Following that, he co-starred alongside Vishnuvardhan in the Kannada film "Kiladi Kittu". He played the second lead in "Annadammula Savaal", which starred Krishna; Rajinikanth reprised his role from the Kannada original. He then played an important role in the supernatural thriller "Aayiram Jenmangal". In "Maathu Tappada Maga", he was the main antagonist. "Bairavi", directed by M.Bhaskar, was the first Tamil film to cast Rajinikanth as a solo hero. It was for this film that he earned the sobriquet "Superstar". S. Thanu, one of the film's distributors, set up a high cut-out of Rajinikanth. His next appearance "Ilamai Oonjal Aadukirathu", a quadrangular love story written and directed by C. V. Sridhar, saw him play the role of a man who sacrifices his love for his friend, played by Kamal Haasan. The film's success prompted Sridhar to remake the film in Telugu, "Vayasu Pilichindi", which retained the original cast of the Tamil film.


title: Rajinikanth

text: His next film, "Vanakkatukuriya Kathaliye", had an introductory song to mark his entry, a trend that would soon catch on in with his later films. "Mullum Malarum", released during the same period, received critical acclaim. The film marked the directional debut of Mahendran, with a screenplay adapted from a novel of the same name published in "Kalki". It won that year's Filmfare Award for Best Tamil Film and a Special Prize (Best Actor) for Rajinikanth at the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. Following this, he made a foray into Malayalam cinema with I. V. Sasi's fantasy film "Allauddinum Albhutha Vilakkum", which was based on a story from the Arabian Nights. The same year, he acted in "Dharma Yuddam", in which he played a mentally ill person avenging the death of his parents. He then co-starred with N. T. Rama Rao in "Tiger". Upon completion of "Tiger", Rajinikanth had acted in 50 films over a period of four years, and in four languages. Some other popular films released during this period are the youthful entertainer "Ninaithale Inikkum", the Tamil–Kannada bilingual "Priya", the Telugu film "Amma Evarikkaina Amma" and the melodrama "Aarilirunthu Arubathu Varai". "Priya", based on a detective novel by Sujatha, had the distinction of being the first film of Rajinikanth to be shot mostly outside India, mainly in Southeast Asia.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Raijinikanth, who credited Hindi film star Amitabh Bachchan as his inspiration, began playing Amitabh Bachchan's roles in Tamil remakes of his films. This began with "Shankar Salim Simon" (1978), a remake of "Amar Akbar Anthony" (1977), followed by "Naan Vazhavaippen" (1979), a remake of "Majboor" (1974). He was subsequently cast in a series of roles modelled after Amitabh Bachchan in Tamil remakes of his films. Rajinikanth starred in eleven Tamil remakes of Amitabh Bachchan films, as well as a Telugu remake of "Amar Akbar Anthony", "Ram Robert Rahim" (1980), alongside Sridevi. The most successful of these were remakes of Salim–Javed films,


title: Rajinikanth

text: During this phase of his career, Rajinikanth abruptly chose to quit acting, but was coaxed to return with the Tamil film "Billa" (1980), a remake of the Bollywood blockbuster "Don" (1978), written by Salim-Javed and starring Amitabh Bachchan. "Billa" had Rajinikanth playing dual roles and eventually became his first ever commercial success. His pairing with Sridevi continued in "Johnny", where he was once again cast in a double role. He also starred in "Murattu Kaalai" which was a commercial success. The success of "Billa" was a turning point in Rajinikanth's career, disproving detractors that claimed Rajnikanth was "finished" and which saw him accepted as a full-fledged hero. The success of "Billa" established Rajinikanth as the top star of Tamil cinema, overtaking Kamal Haasan.


title: Rajinikanth

text: In 1981, he appeared in "Garjanai" which was shot simultaneously in Kannada and Malayalam, making it his last film in those two languages to date. In K. Balachander's first home production, "Netrikan", he played dual roles as a womanising father and a responsible son. His first full-length comedy was "Thillu Mullu", directed by K. Balachander. He agreed to it solely due to the strong suggestion by his mentor that he should do non-commercial roles, to break the stereotyped action-hero mould by which he was getting famous at the time. 1981 also saw the release of "Thee", a remake of the 1975 Bollywood blockbuster "Deewaar", also originally written by Salim-Javed and starring Amitabh Bachchan; in "Thee", Rajinikanth reprised the role of Bachchan in the original. In 1982, he starred in "Pokkiri Raja", "Moondru Mugam", "Thanikattu Raja", "Puthukavithai" and "Enkeyo Ketta Kural". "Moondru Mugam" had Rajinikanth playing three roles for the first time.


title: Rajinikanth

text: By 1983, he was a popular actor across South Indian cinema, including Telugu and Kannada films. In 1983, he starred in his first Bollywood film, "Andha Kanoon", alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini. The film went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of that time. His 1984 film "Naan Mahaan Alla", was directed by Muturaman and produced by K. Balachander. He acted in his first cameo role in the film "Anbulla Rajinikanth". He played a triple role in "John Jani Janardhan". His performance in "Nallavanuku Nallavan" earned him a Filmfare Best Tamil Actor Award. In his 100th film "Sri Raghavendra" (1985), he played the Hindu saint Raghavendra Swami. His greatest success in Hindi films was his 101st film Bewafai. Released in 1985 with Rajesh Khanna as the lead hero and Rajinikanth as villain, it became a success and grossed at the box office that year.


title: Rajinikanth

text: In the second half of the 1980s, Rajinikanth acted in commercially successful films such as "Naan Sigappu Manithan" (1985), "Padikkathavan" (1985), "Mr. Bharath" (1986), "Velaikaran" (1987), "Guru Sishyan" (1988) and "Dharmathin Thalaivan" (1988). In 1988, he made his only American film appearance in "Bloodstone", directed by Dwight Little, in which he played an English-speaking Indian taxi driver. Rajinikanth finished the decade with films including "Rajadhi Raja", "Siva", "Raja Chinna Roja" and "Mappillai" while also starring in a few Bollywood productions. "Raja Chinna Roja" was the first Indian film to feature live action and animation.


title: Rajinikanth

text: By the 1990s, Rajinikanth established himself as a commercial entertainer. Almost all the films released during this period were highly successful at the box office.


title: Rajinikanth

text: He began the decade with a blockbuster in "Panakkaran" (1990), which was a remake of Amitabh Bachchan's 1981 film "Laawaris". His next two Tamil films, the fantasy comedy "Athisaya Piravi", (a remake of Chiranjeevi's 1988 film "Yamudiki Mogudu") which also released in 1990 and the family drama "Dharmadorai" (1991), did above-average business at the box office. His stint with Bollywood continued since the past decade as he went on to star in more Hindi films. "Hum" released in 1991 saw him doing the second main lead with Amitabh Bachchan became an inspiration for "Baashha". In 1991, he worked with Mani Ratnam in "Thalapathi", which was heavily inspired by the "Mahabharata". in which he co-starred with actor Mammooty; the film dealt with the friendship between two unknown characters based on Karna and Duryodhana, respectively, and was set in a more contemporary milieu and was both critically acclaimed and successful upon release. He went on to appear in remakes of films from other languages, mostly from Hindi and Telugu. "Annamalai", which released in 1992, was yet another friendship-centric film and was loosely based on the 1987 Bollywood film "Khudgarz". That film was the first film to have a Super Star Title Graphic Card. "Mannan", directed by P. Vasu, a remake of Kannada actor Rajkumar's 1986 blockbuster "Anuraga Aralithu", also was released in 1992 and became a box office success. Rajinikanth wrote his first screenplay for the film "Valli" (1993), in which he also made a special appearance. He also starred in the film Yejaman, in which he played the role of Vaanavaraayan, a village chieftain. His romantic-comedy "Veera" (1994) was controversial for its climax but went on to become one of the highest-grossing films in 1994.


title: Rajinikanth

text: He joined hands with Suresh Krishna for "Baashha" (1995), which emerged as an industry record, and is routinely touted by fans and critics alike as a major-hit, as the film elevated him from being just another very popular actor to nearly demigod status among the masses. He made a cameo in "Peddarayudu" for his friend Mohan Babu and also helped him in obtaining the remake rights. The same year, he acted in yet another gangster film, "Aatank Hi Aatank" with Aamir Khan which was also his last Hindi film in a major role till date. His film "Muthu", a remake of Mohanlal's blockbuster Malayalam movie "Thenmavin Kombathu", was another commercial success, directed by K. S. Ravikumar and produced by K. Balachander, and became the first Tamil film to be dubbed into Japanese, as "Mutu: Odoru Maharaja". The film grossed a record US$1.6 million in Japan in 1998 and was responsible for creating a large Japanese fan-base for the actor. "Muthu"s success in Japan led American news magazine "Newsweek" to comment in a 1999 article that Rajinikanth had "supplanted Leonardo DiCaprio as Japan's trendiest heartthrob". During a visit to Japan in 2006, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged the success of "Muthu" in the country during a speech, justifying the positive relationship between the two nations. He also entered Bengali cinema through "Bhagya Debata", which was released at the end of 1995. 1997's "Arunachalam" was another commercial success. Rajinikanth released his last film of the millennium with "Padayappa" (1999), which went on to become a blockbuster success. It starred Ramya Krishnan and Soundarya, the former critically acclaimed for her performance. It was also the last prominent role for veteran Tamil actor Sivaji Ganesan.


title: Rajinikanth

text: After a brief pause, Rajinikanth starred in "Baba" in 2002, for which he had also written the screenplay. Released with much fanfare and hype at the time, the film featured a story revolving around the reforming of a gangster, later revealed to be the reincarnation of the Hindu saint Mahavatar Babaji, and fights against political corruption. It fell short of market expectations and the high bids reportedly translated to heavy losses for the distributors. Rajinikanth himself repaid the losses incurred by the distributors. The film was received with comments such as "the bloom was off the rose" and that "the gold does not glitter any more". Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) leader S. Ramadoss condemned him for smoking and posing with beedis in the film. He was criticised for spoiling the Tamil youth by glorifying smoking and drinking. PMK volunteers attacked the theatres which screened the film and usurped film rolls and burned them.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Two years later, Rajinikanth signed up for P. Vasu's "Chandramukhi" (2005), a remake of the Malayalam film "Manichitrathazhu". Upon release the film was highly successful at the box office, and in 2007 it set the record of being the longest running Tamil film. "Chandramukhi" was also dubbed in Turkish and in German as "Der Geisterjäger" and released in the respective nations. Following "Chandramukhi"s release, it was reported that AVM Productions was set to produce a film directed by Shankar starring Rajinikanth – the largest collaboration yet for a Tamil film. The film was titled "Sivaji" and was released in the summer of 2007, following two years of filming and production. It became the first Tamil film to be charted as one of the "top-ten best films" of the United Kingdom and South Africa box offices upon release. Rajinikanth received a salary of , for his role in the film highest in his film career at that time. During the production of "Sivaji", Soundarya Rajinikanth announced her intention of producing a computer-generated imagery film starring an animated version of her father titled "Sultan: The Warrior". The film was set for release in 2008, however, it entered development hell, and its development status would become unknown over the next few years.


title: Rajinikanth

text: He worked with P. Vasu again for "Kuselan", a remake of the Malayalam film "Kadha Parayumbol", which was made simultaneously in Telugu as "Kathanayakudu", in which Rajinikanth played an extended cameo role as himself, a film star in the Indian cinema, and as a best friend to the film's protagonist. According to Rajinikanth, the film somewhat narrated his early life. The film, however, performed poorly at box offices and led to many distributors incurring major losses. Rajinikanth also stated that he would work with Pyramid Saimira again to compensate for "Kuselan"."Is there anything left to be said about a man who, at 61, still manages to star in one of the most successful films of the year, not just in the south, but across India? Superstar Rajni once again proved that he is the actor with the Midas touch with the sci-fi flick "Enthiran", where he played an ambitious scientist, a naive robot and an evil android bent on destroying the world [...] He did it with such aplomb that he's been the talk of the town for months. He might do one film in two years, but when he does, he pulls out all the stops."


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth worked again with Shankar for the science fiction film "Enthiran". The film was released worldwide in 2010 as the most expensive Indian film ever made, ultimately becoming the second highest-grossing film in India of its time. Rajinikanth was paid a remuneration of for the film. The film's success lead to the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to use the film as a case study to analyse the business of cinema and its success story in a post-graduate elective management course called "Contemporary Film Industry: A Business Perspective". The course would also study "Muthu".


title: Rajinikanth

text: In January 2011, Rajinikanth was slated to appear in "Rana", a period film to be produced by Soundarya Rajinikanth and directed by K. S. Ravikumar, who would work with the actor for a third time. During the principal photography of the film on 29 April 2011, he suffered a mild foodborne illness on the sets, which led to vomiting, dehydration, and exhaustion. He was treated at St. Isabel's Hospital for a day before being discharged. Five days later, he was rushed to the same hospital again after suffering from breathlessness and fever. He was diagnosed with bronchitis and was kept at the hospital for a week, while also spending a few days in an intensive care unit. Several conflicting reports of discharge dates arose, as well as claims of Rajinikanth's health deteriorating. Two days after his last discharge, Rajinikanth was admitted to the Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute on 16 May 2011 for recurring respiratory and gastrointestinal problems. The hospital maintained that Rajinikanth was in stable condition and showed positive response to treatment. It was widely reported that he required a kidney transplantation, which was later denied by Dhanush.


title: Rajinikanth

text: On 21 May 2011, Aishwarya Rajinikanth released a photo of her and Rajinikanth in his hospital ward, both posing with a thumbs signal, responding to fans' negative reaction to news reports. The hospital restricted unauthorised visitors. Rajinikanth's brother, Sathyanarayana Rao Gaekwad, reported that the cause of the sudden illness was due to stress from rapid weight-loss and changes in diet, as well as withdrawal of alcohol consumption and smoking cessation. After addressing fans in a 4-minute digitally recorded voice message to the media, Rajinikanth, under the advice of Amitabh Bachchan, travelled from Chennai to Singapore with his family on 21 May 2011, where he was to undergo further treatment for nephropathy at Mount Elizabeth Hospital. After spending over two weeks at the hospital, he was finally discharged on 15 June 2011 and continued to recuperate in Singapore, before returning to Chennai on 13 July 2011.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Despite several failed attempts to restart "Rana" upon his return, Rajinikanth reprised his "Enthiran" character, Chitti, in the Bollywood science-fiction film "Ra.One" (2011) in a guest appearance alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor. In November 2011, it was decided that "Rana" would be shelved in favour of a new project, titled "Kochadaiiyaan". Unfortunately the film became a huge disaster at the box office. The motion capture film, which is the first of its kind in India, was released in 2014 to positive reviews. "Kochadaiiyaan", and the 3D release of "Sivaji" in 2012, made Rajinikanth the first Indian actor to have appeared in four different forms of world cinema: black-and-white, colour, 3D and motion capture. Following the completion of "Kochadaiiyaan", Rajinikanth began work in Ravikumar's next directorial venture, titled "Lingaa" alongside Anushka Shetty and Sonakshi Sinha. The film was released on 12 December 2014, coinciding with his birthday, and received mixed reviews from critics.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth's next film was director Pa. Ranjith's crime drama "Kabali", produced by S. Thanu. The film was released in July 2016. The film became the highest grossing Tamil film of the year grossing over and became the fifth highest-grossing Tamil film of all time before being surpassed by his another film "2.0". Also, at the Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, the film was nominated at five categories winning all of them, and also won five awards, at the Edison Awards, and two nominations at the 6th South Indian International Movie Awards.


title: Rajinikanth

text: In August 2016, it was announced that Rajinikanth and director Ranjith would work together again for a film with Dhanush as producer, titled "Kaala", in which Rajinikanth plays a Dharavi-dwelling gangster who fights against corporate takeover of the slum. The film was officially released on 7 June 2018 and received positive reviews from critics. In 2018 he also appeared in S. Shankar's "2.0" reprising the roles of Dr. Vaseegaran and Chitti, alongside Akshay Kumar and Amy Jackson. The film was released on 29 November 2018 and was commercially successful at the box office. The film earned over worldwide on its first day, which was the second-highest ever for an Indian film. The film crossed in its opening weekend to be the highest-grossing film worldwide for that week. The film also grossed over at the box office became the highest-grossing Tamil film of the year and second highest grossing Tamil film of all time. "2.0" is the fourth highest-grossing film in India and is the seventh highest-grossing Indian film worldwide. In 2019, Rajinikanth starred in Karthik Subbaraj's "Petta", in which his performance received praise for his return to his vintage stereotypical style of acting and grossed over , becoming the second highest-grossing Tamil film of 2019. The combined gross earnings of "Kaala", "2.0" and "Petta" by the end of January 2019 was determined to be over 1000 crore according to trade analysts. Rajinikanth worked with AR Murugadoss in the film "Darbar", which released in 2020. He played the role of a police officer after 27 years since his last film as a police officer was the Tamil film "Pandian". Despite the film receiving mixed reviews, the film grossed crore at the box office, making it one of Rajinikanth's highest-grossing films and the highest-grossing Tamil films of 2020. The next project of Rajinikanth was with director Siva, the film titled "Annaatthe" where he played role of a protective brother. The film was released on 4 November 2021. The film became a commercial success at the box office by grossing around beating the collections made by other Tamil films like "Master" and "Maanaadu". His next 169th film is with director Nelson which was tentatively titled "Thalaivar 169". On 17 June 2022, the titled was announced to be "Jailer" and Rajinikanth will be playing an experienced jailer in the film. The film will be released theatrically on 14 April 2023.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth said: "Even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if AIADMK returns to power." Rajinikanth wholeheartedly supported the DMK and Tamil Mannila Congress alliance and asked the people of Tamil Nadu and his fans to vote for that alliance. This alliance had a complete victory in 1996. Rajinikanth also supported the DMK-Tamil Mannila Congress alliance in the 1996 Indian general election and 1998 Indian general election.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Later in 2004, Rajinikanth said he would personally vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but would not extend his support to any front during the upcoming Indian general election. The party, however, failed to win any seats in Tamil Nadu in the Lok Sabha.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth canceled his visit to Sri Lanka on March 2017 at the urging of Tamil Nadu politicians. Leaders of the BJP criticized this choice. In June 2017, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy alleged that Rajinikanth was illiterate and unfit for politics. He also accused Rajinikanth of financial fraud, claiming that he has strong proof of financial irregularities by Rajinikanth that will bring down Rajinikanth's political aspirations.


title: Rajinikanth

text: However several political analysts state Rajinikanth has missed his chance and unlike 1996 when he was at his peak it will be very difficult for him to make a significant impact in 2019.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth announced entry into politics on 31 December 2017 and confirmed his intention to contest in the 2021 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections in all 234 constituencies. He stated that his party would resign if it was unable to fulfill its electoral promises within three years of coming into power. Rajinikant dissolved his party Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM) on 12 July 2021 and also said that he has no plans to enter politics in the future.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth is widely regarded as one of the most popular actors in the history of Indian cinema. His popularity has been attributed to "his uniquely styled and idiosyncrasies in films, as well as his political statements and philanthropy". Many also cite reasons for Rajinikanth's popularity as coming from his larger-than-life super-hero appearance in many films, supported by gravity-defying stunts and charismatic expressions, all while attempting to maintain modesty in real-life. Almost every film of Rajinikanth has punchlines delivered by him in an inimitable style, and these punchlines often have a message or even warn the film's antagonists. These lines are usually fabricated to create new ones or even be taken in a comical way, but do not fail to create a sense of entertainment among viewers.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth is one of the highest-grossing actors in Tamil cinema history. After opening his first official Twitter account in 2014, Rajinikanth received over 210,000 followers within 24 hours, which according to "The Economic Times" was deemed by social media research firms as the fastest rate of followers for any Indian celebrity, as well as among the top-10 in the world. In 2015, a film about his fandom, "For the Love of a Man", premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.


title: Rajinikanth

text: In 2002, Rajinikanth undertook a day-long fast to protest the Government of Karnataka's decision to not release Kaveri River water into Tamil Nadu, and announced that he would contribute toward a plan to interlink Indian rivers. He met with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and many experts to canvass support for the project. His hunger strike was independent of the Nadigar Sangam, who organised their own solidarity protest for the same cause. Film director Bharathi Raja lashed out against Rajinikanth, alleging that he is dividing the film industry and saying that he was a "traitor who had a tacit understanding with the Karnataka government".


title: Rajinikanth

text: In 2008, Rajinikanth took part in a hunger strike organised by the Nadigar Sangam against Karnataka's stance on the Hogenakkal Falls water dispute, during which he gave a speech against politicians in Karnataka. It led to the state announcing a ban on him and his film "Kuselan" (2008). The ban was lifted after Rajinikanth appeared on TV9 Kannada and issued an apology for his speech. He later thanked the Government of Karnataka for lifting the ban and allowing the film's release in the state. The apology and subsequent gratitude towards Karnataka led to strong reactions from Nadigar Sangam members R. Sarathkumar, Sathyaraj and Radha Ravi, who called the apology a disgrace to Tamils and opined that his speech never provoked the sentiments of the Kannada people. Rajinikanth's support toward fellow actor Ajith Kumar, who in 2010 condemned the forceful inclusion of Tamil cinema personae in political affairs, broke into a controversy.


title: Rajinikanth

text: In May 2018, Rajinikanth received negative criticism and reactions after justifying police action during the Thoothukudi massacre.


title: Rajinikanth

text: In 2020, Rajinikanth quoted a 2017 article from "Outlook", which reported that Dravidar Kazhagam founder Periyar E. V. Ramasamy garlanded the idols of Hindu deities Rama and Sita with footwear at an atheist rally in 1971. His remarks were criticized by supporters of Periyar. In response to the backlash, Rajinikanth stated, "I did not speak on something that didn't happen. I've only spoken on what was reported. It was reported in "Outlook" also. Sorry, I will not apologise".


title: Rajinikanth

text: While he was working as a bus conductor in Bangalore, Rajinikanth met a medical student named Nirmala and started a relationship. After seeing him perform in a stage play, she encouraged him to pursue an acting career and sent an application to the Adyar Film Institute on his behalf and unbeknownst to him. Although he took up the offer and proceeded with his acting career, Rajinikanth has since lost contact with her.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth married Latha Rangachari, a student of Ethiraj College for Women who interviewed him for her college magazine. The marriage took place on 26 February 1981, in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. The couple has two daughters named Aishwarya Rajinikanth and Soundarya Rajinikanth. Latha runs a school named ""The Ashram"."


title: Rajinikanth

text: Aishwarya married actor Dhanush on 18 November 2004 and they have two sons, Yathra and Linga. His younger daughter, Soundarya, works in the Tamil film industry as a director, producer and graphic designer. She married industrialist Ashwin Ramkumar on 3 September 2010 and have a son Ved Krishna. In September 2016, Soundarya revealed that she and her husband had filed for divorce by mutual consent due to irreconcilable differences. In July 2017, the couple officially divorced. She has married Vishagan Vanangamudi, an actor and businessman, on 11 February 2019 at Leela Palace in Chennai.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth is a Hindu, who practices spiritualism and is a strong believer of spirituality. He is also a practitioner of yoga and meditation. Rajinikanth has religiously visited major Hindu temples prior to the release of each of his films; for instance he visited the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple before the release of "Sivaji" in 2007 and visited Sathya Sai Baba at Prasanthi Nilayam in Andhra Pradesh before the release of "Kuselan" the following year. He also occasionally leaves for pilgrimage to the Himalayas.


title: Rajinikanth

text: He has often referred to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Satchidananda, Ragavendra Swami, Mahavatar Babaji, and Ramana Maharishi as his favourite spiritual leaders.


title: Rajinikanth

text: According to Naman Ramachandran, the author of "", most of Rajinikanth's philanthropic activities went unpublicised because he chose to keep them undisclosed. In the 1980s, when superstitious beliefs in Tamil Nadu created a stigma towards eye donation, Rajinikanth took the case of campaigning in support of corneal transplantation via television and public speeches. In 2011, Rajinikanth announced his support for the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare and offered his commercial wedding venue, the Raghavendra Kalyana Mandapam, in Chennai free of cost for the India Against Corruption members to hold their fast. He also provided lodging in the venue for sanitary workers hired to clean up after the 2015 South India floods. Rajinikanth's fan associations regularly organise blood donation and eye donation camps and distribute food during his birthday.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth declared , and as earnings for the years 2002–2003, 2003–2004 and 2004–2005, respectively. However, the Income Tax Department observed that he had claimed a considerable sum of professional expenses and thus carried out a survey in 2005 at his residence at Poes Garden. During the survey, the IT-Department found out that he had accounted for a lost of costs as his professional costs and it was also discovered that not even one-tenth of the residential property was allocated to professional purposes. Moreover, when Rajinikanth was questioned by the I-T department if he's in the money lending business, he initially denied it. Later, though, he admitted to the IT-Department that he was indeed a money lender, and that he had loaned money as a source of profit at an interest rate of 18 percent. Later, for all three years in dispute, Rajinikanth was forced to submit revised reports, confessing he had earned more than what was reported in the initial report on 14 February 2005. But the I-T department penalized him , since he filed revised returns only after they surveyed him.


title: Rajinikanth

text: This was challenged by Rajinikanth and his lawyers, and in January 2020 the I-T department wrote off the fine, due to its recent decision to withdraw from appeals in cases below . The news that Rajinikanth told the Income Tax department that he was lending money at an 18 per cent interest rate has earned outrage and criticism for his high interest rate loans, which is a big problem in Tamil Nadu.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth has received numerous awards for many of his films, mostly in Tamil. He received his first and only Filmfare Award for Best Tamil Actor in 1984 for "Nallavanuku Nallavan". Later he received Filmfare Award nominations for his performances in "Sivaji" (2007) and "Enthiran" (2010). As of 2014, Rajinikanth has received six Tamil Nadu State Film Awards for his performances in various films. He also received numerous awards from Cinema Express and Filmfans' Association for his on-screen performances and off-screen contributions in writing and producing.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth received the Kalaimamani award in 1984 and the M. G. R. Award in 1989, both from the Government of Tamil Nadu. In 1995, the South Indian Film Artistes' Association presented him with the Kalaichelvam Award. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan (2000) and the Padma Vibhushan (2016) by the Government of India. He was selected as the Indian Entertainer of the Year for 2007 by NDTV, competing against the likes of Shahrukh Khan. The Government of Maharashtra honoured him with the Raj Kapoor Award the same year. He received the Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan Award for Excellence in Indian Cinema at the 4th Vijay Awards. Rajinikanth was also named one of the most influential persons in South Asia by "Asiaweek". He was also named by "Forbes India" as the most influential Indian of the year 2010. In 2011, he was awarded the Entertainer of the Decade Award by NDTV for the year 2010 by the then Indian Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram. In December 2013, he was honoured by NDTV as one among the "25 Greatest Global Living Legends". In 2014, he was presented with the "Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality of the Year" at the 45th International Film Festival of India held at Goa.


title: Rajinikanth

text: Rajinikanth received Dadasaheb Phalke Award at the 67th National Film Awards presentation ceremony, at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, Monday, 25 October 2021.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Jair Messias Bolsonaro (; born 21 March 1955) is a Brazilian politician and retired military officer who has been the 38th president of Brazil since 1 January 2019. He was elected in 2018 as a member of the Social Liberal Party, which he turned into a conservative party, before cutting ties with it. In 2021, he joined the Liberal Party. From 1991 to 2018, Bolsonaro served in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, representing the state of Rio de Janeiro.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro was born in Glicério, in the state of São Paulo. He graduated from the Agulhas Negras Military Academy in 1977 and served in the Brazilian Army's field artillery and parachutist units. He became known to the public in 1986, when he wrote an article for "Veja" magazine criticizing low wages for military officers, after which he was arrested and detained for 15 days. A year later, the same magazine accused him of planning to plant bombs in military units, which he denied. A lower court convicted him, but the Brazilian Supreme Military Court acquitted him in 1988. He moved to the reserve in 1988 with the rank of captain and ran for the Rio de Janeiro City Council that year, elected as a member of the Christian Democratic Party. In 1990, Bolsonaro was elected to the lower chamber of Congress and he was reelected six times. During his 27-year tenure as a congressman, he became known for his national conservatism. He is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and homosexuality, abortion, affirmative action, drug liberalization, and secularism. In foreign policy, he has advocated closer relations to the United States and Israel. During the 2018 Brazilian general election campaign, he started to advocate economically liberal and pro-market policies. A polarizing and controversial politician, his views and comments, which have been described as far-right and populist, have drawn both praise and criticism in Brazil.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro announced his candidacy for president in March 2016 as a member of the Social Christian Party. He left the party in 2018 and joined the Social Liberal Party, and then launched his presidential campaign in August that year, with retired general Hamilton Mourão as his running mate. He portrayed himself as an outsider and a supporter of family values. He came in first place in the first round of the general election on 7October 2018, with Workers' Party candidate Fernando Haddad coming in second. The two candidates had a runoff on 28 October 2018, and Bolsonaro was elected with 55.1% of the popular vote.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro placed many army officers in key positions in his cabinet. Before his inauguration, he said he would fill positions in his government based only on technical qualifications and skills rather than ideological sympathy. During his presidency, many appointees have clashed ideologically with the government. His ministers of Justice, Education, the Secretary of Government, the head of the postal service and other government officials fell out of favor with Bolsonaro and resigned. He focused on domestic affairs in his first months in office, dealing primarily with the fallout of the 2014 Brazilian economic crisis. During his first year in office, the economy recovered slowly, while crime rates fell sharply. In 2019, Bolsonaro left the Social Liberal Party amid a confrontation with other members and attempted to form the Alliance for Brazil party, before joining the Liberal Party in order to run for the 2022 Brazilian general election. During his presidency, he rolled back protections for Indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest and facilitated its deforestation. Bolsonaro's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil was criticized across the political spectrum after he sought to downplay the pandemic and its effects, opposed quarantine measures, and dismissed two health ministers, while the death toll increased rapidly.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 30 October 2022, in the second turn of the 2022 Brazilian general election, Bolsonaro lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, becoming the first president in Brazil to lose his bid for re-election.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro was born on 21 March 1955 in Glicério, São Paulo, in southeast Brazil, to Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro and Olinda Bonturi. His family is mostly of Italian descent, with some German ancestry. On his father's side, he is the great-grandson of Italians from Veneto and Calabria. Bolsonaro's paternal grandfather's family comes from Veneto, more precisely Anguillara Veneta, in the province of Padua. His great-grandfather, Vittorio Bolzonaro (the surname was originally written with a "z"), was born on 12 April 1878. Vittorio's parents immigrated to Brazil when he was ten, together with his siblings, Giovanna and Tranquillo. His German ancestry came from his father's maternal grandfather, Carl "Carlos" Hintze, born in Hamburg around 1876, who immigrated to Brazil in 1883. His maternal grandparents were born in Lucca, in Tuscany, and went to live in Brazil in the 1890s. On 21 January 2022, his mother Olinda Bonturi Bolsonaro died at age 94. His father Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro died in 1995.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro spent most of his childhood moving around São Paulo with his family, living in Ribeira, Jundiaí, and Sete Barras, before settling in Eldorado, in the state's southern region, in 1966, where he grew up with his five brothers.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: His first name is a tribute to Jair da Rosa Pinto, football player for Palmeiras at the time of Bolsonaro's birth and who celebrated his 34th birthday on the same day.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In his final years in high school, Bolsonaro was admitted to the Escola Preparatória de Cadetes do Exército (the prep school of the Brazilian Army), which he entered in 1973. In 1974, he went to the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (Brazil's main military academy), graduating in 1977, as an Artillery officer. He served in the 9th Field Artillery Group, in Nioaque, Mato Grosso do Sul. Later he studied at the Army Physical Training School in Rio de Janeiro and served in the 21st Field Artillery Group and the 8th Paratrooper Field Artillery Group, from the Paratrooper Brigade, both in the same city. His superior officers said he was "aggressive" and had "excessive ambition to get financial and economical gain". The assessment referred to Bolsonaro's attempt to mine gold in Bahia state; according to him, the activity was only a "hobby and mental hygiene". In 1987, he studied in the , where he made the Artillery Advanced Course.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro's first rise to publicity came in 1986 when he gave an interview to the news magazine "Veja". He complained about low military salaries and claimed that the High Command was firing officers due to budgetary cuts and not because they were displaying 'deviations of conduct', as the command was telling the press. Despite being reprimanded by his superiors, Bolsonaro received praise from fellow officers and wives of military men, becoming a household name for hardliners and right-wingers who were growing disenchanted with Brazil's new civilian democratic government.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In October 1987, Bolsonaro faced a new accusation. "Veja" reported that, with an Army colleague, he had plans to plant bombs in military units in Rio de Janeiro. After Bolsonaro called the allegation "a fantasy", the magazine published, in its next issue, sketches in which the plan was detailed. The drawings had been allegedly made by Bolsonaro. Official records unearthed by the newspaper "O Estado de S. Paulo" in 2018 detailed the case. After an investigation by an administrative military bureau named Justification Board, Bolsonaro was unanimously considered guilty. According to this board, Bolsonaro had a "serious personality deviation and a professional deformation", "lack of moral courage to leave the Army" and "lied throughout the process" when denying frequent contacts with "Veja". The Supreme Military Court then analyzed the case. The general in charge of reporting the case voted to acquit Bolsonaro, arguing that he had already been penalized for the initial "Veja" article, that there was no testimonial evidence of his plans to plant bombs, and that there were "deep contradictions in the four graphological exams", two of which failed to conclude that Bolsonaro was the author of the sketches. Bolsonaro was acquitted by the majority of the court (9x 4votes). In December 1988, just after this ruling, he left the Army to begin his political career. He served in the military for 15 years, reaching the rank of captain.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro entered politics in 1988, elected city councilor in Rio de Janeiro, representing the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). According to the biography by his son Flávio, Bolsonaro "was a candidate for councilor because it happened to be the only option he had at the moment to avoid persecution by some superiors. His entry into politics happened by chance, for his desire was to continue in his military career".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: He spent only two years in the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro. He was described as a quiet, discreet and conservative councilor, and showed little participation. His term as councilor was used mainly to give visibility to military causes, such as retirement benefits for former officers.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In the 1990 elections, Bolsonaro was elected a federal deputy for the Christian Democratic Party. He served seven consecutive terms, from 1991 to 2018. He has been affiliated with several other Brazilian political parties over the years. In 2014, he was the congressman who gained the most votes in Rio de Janeiro, with 465,000.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: His name was listed on the "", a list detailing a money laundering scheme where money was funneled through the state-owned electricity company Eletrobras Furnas, to politicians’ campaigns.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In his 27 years of service in the Brazilian National Congress, he put forward one constitutional amendment and at least 171 bills, two of which became law. Bolsonaro, who claims to be persecuted by the left-wing parties, said most congressmen do not vote according to their agenda, but "by who the author of the bill is".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In January 2018, Bolsonaro abandoned the Social Christian Party and switched to the Social Liberal Party (PSL). After his arrival, the PSL adopted conservative and right-wing positions, and its social liberal group "Livres" announced its departure from the PSL.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 22 July 2018, the PSL nominated Bolsonaro for president in the 2018 election. The Brazilian Labour Renewal Party also endorsed him. His coalition name was "Brazil above everything, God above everyone" ("Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos"). Though contested by two lawsuits, the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil deferred them and his candidacy was made official on 6August. In August, Bolsonaro announced that Antônio Hamilton Mourão, a retired army general, would be his running mate.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: According to political pundits, Bolsonaro moderated his tone early in the campaign, taking a less aggressive and confrontational style. Economically, he started to support less government intervention in the economy (in contrast to the past, when he defended developmentalist policies). On the other hand, he maintained his tough stance on crime and his defense of "traditional family values". Bolsonaro also said he planned to cut taxes across the board, particularly on inheritances and businesses, to generate growth and tackle unemployment. He also promised more austerity measures and cuts in government spending, but had difficulty naming the areas where he would make cuts. He also said he would work to diminish the federal government's size and bureaucracy by enacting a wide variety of deregulation measures. Bolsonaro's promises to restore security amid record high crime and to stamp out Brazil's rampant political corruption won him huge popular support. In October, he announced he would name liberal economist Paulo Guedes as his finance minister.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 9 August 2018, Bolsonaro attended the first presidential debate of the year, organized by the TV network Rede Bandeirantes. A week later, there was another debate at RedeTV!. On 28 August, he gave an interview to Jornal Nacional, Brazil's highest-rated primetime news program, at Rede Globo.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro was the first presidential candidate to raise over R$1 million in donations from the public during the 2018 campaign. In the first 59 days, he amassed an average of R$17,000 per day.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: After the Workers' Party candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was arrested in April 2018, Bolsonaro became the front-runner in the election, according to all major opinion polls. A "Datafolha" poll from September showed Bolsonaro as the leading candidate in the first round with 28% of vote intentions, though runoff scenarios showed him losing to Geraldo Alckmin, Fernando Haddad and Ciro Gomes and tying with Marina Silva. Another "Datafolha" poll, conducted the week before election day, showed a considerable surge for Bolsonaro, who had 40% of vote intentions, or 36% when null or blank vote intentions were included. Haddad came in second with 25%, and Gomes third with 15%.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: The first round of the election occurred on 7October 2018. Bolsonaro finished in first place with 46% of the popular vote (49.2 million). Since he failed to win 50%, he faced the second-place finisher, Haddad, in a runoff held on 28 October 2018.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: After the first round, when his victory looked certain, Bolsonaro gave a speech by videolink to thousands of supporters who gathered at Paulista Avenue, in São Paulo. In the speech, he threatened to arrest, purge or kill "reds" and "petralhas" (a derogatory term for Worker's Party's members), and promised that members of the social movements MST and MTST would be treated as "terrorists". He said: "This time, the clean-up will be even greater. This group ["reds"], if they want to stay, will have to abide by our laws... These red outlaws will be banned from our homeland. Either they go overseas, or they go to jail... Petralhada, you all go to the edge of the beach. It will be a cleaning never seen in the history of Brazil". The "edge of the beach", a Bolsonaro aide later confirmed, was a reference to a Navy base at Restinga da Marambaia, in Rio de Janeiro State, where the Brazilian military dictatorship tortured and killed dissidents. The speech was widely condemned by rivals, journalists and politicians.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro won the runoff election with 55.13% of the votes, and was elected the 38th president of Brazil. He took office on 1January 2019.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: During the campaign, academics repeatedly raised concerns about the consequences of Bolsonaro's rise for the Brazilian democracy. In the news magazine "Foreign Policy", Federico Finchelstein, a historian at the New School for Social Research who specializes in fascism, wrote, "Bolsonaro's vocabulary recalls the rhetoric behind Nazi policies of persecution and victimization. But does sounding like a Nazi make him a Nazi? Insomuch as he believes in holding elections, he is not there yet. However, things could change quickly if he gains power." Jason Stanley, a Yale philosopher who has published widely on Nazism, said that Bolsonaro "uses more tactics associated to fascism than [the] American president Donald Trump". Harvard's Steven Levitsky said that Bolsonaro "is clearly authoritarian", but not a fascist. Similar concerns were raised by analysts in Portugal and Brazil. Others, such as Marxist historian Perry Anderson, dismissed the "fascist" and "populist" labels altogether.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Another highly controversial aspect of the campaign was the alleged use of illegal digital communication strategies by some of Bolsonaro's most important financial supporters. According to an investigation by "Folha de S.Paulo", one of Brazil's best-selling newspapers, "Bolsonaro has been getting an illegal helping hand from a group of Brazilian entrepreneurs who are bankrolling a campaign to bombard WhatsApp users with fake news about Haddad." The suspicions led to a formal investigation by electoral authorities and the Federal Police; Bolsonaro and allies denied any wrongdoing. Another controversial point was that Taíse Feijó, an adviser in Bolsonaro's government, was among those paid to feed fake news to his supporters.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro was stabbed in the abdomen on 6September 2018 while campaigning and interacting with supporters in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. At first, his son Flávio Bolsonaro stated that his father's wounds were only superficial and he was recovering in the hospital, but he later said the wounds seemed worse than initially thought and his father most likely would not be able to start campaigning personally before the end of the first round. He tweeted about his father's condition, explaining that the perforation had reached parts of the liver, lung, and intestine. He also said that Bolsonaro had lost a large amount of blood, arriving at the hospital with severe hypotension (his blood pressure was 10/3, equivalent to 100/30 mmHg), but that he had since stabilized. The attack was condemned by most of the other candidates in the presidential race, and by then president Michel Temer. The day after the attack, Bolsonaro was transferred to the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital in São Paulo, after a request from his family. According to the doctors, he was in an "extremely stable" condition.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Police arrested and identified the attacker as Adélio Bispo de Oliveira, who, according to security agents, claimed he was on "a mission from God". He had been a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party from 2007 to 2014. His social media posts included political criticisms of both Bolsonaro and Temer. But an initial Federal Police investigation concluded that Adélio had no help from political organizations and acted alone. A medical report produced for a second investigation concluded that Bispo is mentally disturbed, having a "permanent paranoid delusional disorder" which, according to Brazilian law, prevents him from being considered legally liable for his actions. In a May 2019 decision, the Federal Court found Bispo not liable. Bolsonaro did not appeal the decision.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 29 September, a month after the attack, Bolsonaro was released from the hospital and returned to his home in Rio de Janeiro. His condition prevented him from returning to the campaign trail for the remainder of the first round of the presidential election.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: The first federal police investigation into the attack concluded that the attacker acted alone, but the investigation "leaves out many issues". Bolsonaro said he did not observe "any effort by former minister Sergio Moro to resolve the matter." Joaquim de Carvalho has said that the police left out of their investigation the search for information by a mastermind of the attack or even a self-attack. For this, expert medical examination of Bolsonaro and review of the medical records would be needed.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro's personal motto, which he established in 2016, is John 8:32: "The truth will set you free".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In the same weekend he left the hospital, thousands of people took the streets in dozens of cities in Brazil to protest against Bolsonaro and his political stances, chanting """" ("Not him"). There were also rallies in support of the candidate in sixteen states.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro was sworn in as President of the Republic on 1January 2019, succeeding Michel Temer. Bolsonaro began to get his cabinet together before his inauguration, choosing economist Paulo Guedes as his Economy minister and astronaut Marcos Pontes as his Science and Technology minister. Bolsonaro initially said his cabinet would be composed of 15 members; this figure later rose to 22 when he announced his final minister, Ricardo Salles, in December. His predecessor, Michel Temer, had a cabinet of 29 members.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro's initial cabinet was composed of 16 ministers, two cabinet-level positions, and four presidential secretaries, including Chief of Staff Onyx Lorenzoni. Bolsonaro's ministers included Operation Car Wash judge Sérgio Moro as Justice minister and congresswoman Tereza Cristina as minister of Agriculture.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Early in his administration, Bolsonaro focused primarily on domestic and economic issues, ranging from tax reform to changes in social security, but he faced an uphill battle with Congress. Bolsonaro stripped the indigenous affairs agency FUNAI of the responsibility to identify and demarcate indigenous lands, arguing that those territories have tiny, isolated populations who would be controlled by NPOs, and proposed to integrate them into the larger Brazilian society. Critics feared that such integration would force Brazilian Amerindians to suffer cultural assimilation. Argentine President Mauricio Macri was the first foreign leader Bolsonaro received on a state visit to Brasília after he became president.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: The second inauguration of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela took place nine days after Bolsonaro's inauguration. The disputed results of the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election led to the Venezuelan presidential crisis, as the National Assembly rejected the results, considered Maduro an illegitimate ruler since his first term of office ended, and appointed Juan Guaidó as acting president. Bolsonaro did not attend Maduro's inauguration and recognized Guaidó as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela, alongside Mauricio Macri from Argentina and Donald Trump from the US, among others. He said that "We will continue doing everything possible to re-establish order, democracy and freedom there".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: After his first year in power, Bolsonaro's popularity steadily declined. A "Datafolha" survey, published on 21 May 2019, showed that 34% of respondents described Bolsonaro's administration as "great or good"; 26% as "regular", 36% as "bad or awful", while 4% did not respond. This was the first time more Brazilians rejected the politics of Bolsonaro than affirmed it. Meanwhile, after allegations of campaign-finance fraud, Bolsonaro fired Gustavo Bebianno, a top adviser and general secretary for the president. His party was accused of diverting public campaign funds to candidates who did not run for office.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In November 2019, Bolsonaro left the Social Liberal Party due to conflicts with its leadership. He attempted to form his own party, Alliance for Brazil (), but it failed to gather enough signatures to register at the Superior Electoral Court for the 2020 Brazilian municipal elections or the 2022 Brazilian general election, leaving Bolsonaro without a party until 2021.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, Bolsonaro and his administration were accused of downplaying the crisis while the number of Brazilians infected by the virus climbed exponentially by mid-2020. Bolsonaro claimed that COVID-19 is no deadlier than "the flu" and that his priority was the nation's economic recovery rather than the health crisis. In fact, as of early 2021, the Brazilian economy was bouncing back, albeit somewhat slowly and inconsistently, as the pandemic was still threatening to undo any economic recovery. Bolsonaro continually accused political opponents and the press of exaggerating the threat of the virus and called it a "fantasy" created by the media.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In August 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Bolsonaro's approval rating showed signs of recovery, reaching its highest level since his inauguration. In November 2020, he said he would not take a COVID vaccine if it became available, but he later said he would support any possible vaccine if the Brazilian Health Agency deemed it safe. In the same broadcast, he called face masks "the last taboo to fall".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In 2020, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international non-governmental organization that investigates crime and corruption, gave Bolsonaro its Person of the Year Award, which "recognizes the individual who has done the most in the world to advance organized criminal activity and corruption". Bolsonaro received the award for "surrounding himself with corrupt figures, using propaganda to promote his populist agenda, undermining the justice system, and waging a destructive war against the Amazon region that has enriched some of the country’s worst land owners."


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In early 2021, Bolsonaro's approval ratings fell again, mostly due to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination controversies, and the concurrent economic crisis that evolved under his watch. Days after Brazil surpassed Russia as the country worst hit by COVID, Bolsonaro held a political rally in Brasília; while surrounded by supporters and his own security guards, who were wearing masks, he did not. In June 2021, nationwide protests erupted against Bolsonaro's response to the pandemic; in São Paulo alone there were estimated to be 100,000 protesters on the streets. In July, YouTube removed videos posted by Bolsonaro for spreading false information about the virus. YouTube has reportedly removed 15 videos altogether; one that was removed had shown that Brazil's former health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, comparing the virus to HIV. In other videos, Bolsonaro criticised efforts to stop the spread of the virus, such as wearing masks or taking the vaccine.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: By the end of June 2021, more members of the opposition started to call for his impeachment over his handling of the pandemic and spreading misinformation. The opposition signed a document with multiple accusations, such as blaming Bolsonaro for the deaths of 500,000 Brazilians from COVID-19, stating that his government had blatantly turned down expert advice on tackling the virus, and at least 20 other grievances.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In July 2021, Bolsonaro claimed on Brazilian radio that his government's greatest achievement was "two and a half years without corruption". In the same month, a scandal dubbed "vaccine-gate" emerged. After months of denying offers of vaccines and bartering the costs, Bolsonaro's government made a deal to buy the unapproved Covaxin vaccine from the Indian company Bharat Biotech at a very high price. It was found that the government allegedly paid ten times the amount agreed by Bharat Biotech for the vaccine and that the irregularities were not found in the prices of the vaccines, but in a payment of $45 million to a company in Singapore. In response, the Brazilian Supreme Court authorised a criminal investigation of Bolsonaro.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In March 2021, Bolsonaro replaced Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva with Walter Souza Braga Netto; like Bolsonaro, Netto lionized the 1964–1985 military dictatorship in Brazil. A day later, the leaders of the army, air force, and navy all resigned. In April, Bolsonaro declared that the Brazilian armed forces would "go into the streets" if he ordered them. In mid-August, the military conducted a ten-minute tank parade in Brasília, with Bolsonaro in attendance. The parade had been held annually in the last 30 years, but tanks had never been sent to the capital before. The parade was announced only a day in advance, and passed by the national congressional building, where lawmakers were due to vote on Bolsonaro's proposed election-related changes hours later. The lawmakers ultimately rejected the changes.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On July 28 2021, Bolsonaro appointed Ciro Noguiera, a senator who was implicated in the Odebrecht corruption case, as his chief of staff.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In early August 2021, Bolsonaro threatened to respond with unconstitutional measures to an investigation of his baseless allegations of fraud vulnerabilities in Brazil's electronic voting system, because he deemed that investigation unconstitutional. Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had approved the investigation. In mid-August 2021, Bolsonaro warned of a potential "institutional rupture", while urging the Brazilian Senate to charge de Moraes and another Supreme Court Judge, Luis Roberto Barroso, the leader of the electoral court.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 26 October 2021, a senate committee approved a report calling for Bolsonaro to face criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Without a political party, Bolsonaro began to negotiate the entrance to one in preparation for the 2022 Brazilian general election (as the 1988 Brazilian Constitution does not allow independent politicians). He negotiated with the Progressistas (PP), of which he was a member from 1995 to 2003 and from 2005 to 2016, and the Social Christian Party (PSC), of which he was a member from 2016 to 2018, the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), Brazilian Woman's Party (PMB), Christian Democracy (DC), Party of National Mobilization (PMN), the Republicans and Patriot (PATRI).


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 30 November 2021, Bolsonaro and his son Senator Flávio Bolsonaro joined the Liberal Party (PL). According to political analysts, the choice represents the consolidation of the alliance of Bolsonaro with the "Centrão", a large bloc of parties without consistent ideological orientation that supports different sides of the political spectrum in order to gain political privileges—PL being one of them. Bolsonaro previously made deals with the "Centrão" for support in Congress.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On June 23 2022, Bolsonaro defended his former Minister of Education, Milton Ribeiro, after the latter was arrested on corruption charges.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In a runoff presidential election on October 30, Bolsonaro was defeated by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took 50.9% of the votes cast. Lula had won the most votes in the first round of the election on 2 October, receiving 48.43% of the votes cast: Bolsonaro, received 43.20%.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In a press conference at the Palácio da Alvorada on 1 November, Bolsonaro did not acknowledge his defeat but stated that he would "comply with the Constitution". Regarding the protests by his supporters, he referred to them as "the fruit of indignation and a sense of injustice of how the electoral process unfolded", while calling on them to remain peaceful and not block roads. Shortly after his speech, the Supreme Court stated that by authorizing the transition of power he had recognized the results, paving the way for the transition two days after Lula was recognized as the winner.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro's political views have been described as nationalist and populist in nature, and he himself as an advocate of far-right policies. His supporters, however, claim that his views are more aligned with traditional right-wing conservatism. His electorate is mainly formed by adults above the age of 34, the working middle to upper class (mainly in the southeast region of the country), conservatives in general, college graduates, some centrists and the Christian right. According to some polls, Bolsonaro's main support comes from the southeast, central-west and south regions of Brazil. His voters are usually male and white, with a noticeable gender gap, with Bolsonaro polling poorly among female voters (mustering only 18% support with this demographic). Just before the 2018 election, however, it was reported that female support for him had risen to 27%.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro is viewed as a pro-life, anti-establishment and pro-gun politician, voicing opposition to most forms of gun control legislation, arguing that law-abiding citizens have the right to self-defense, especially those living in rural areas. According to "The Washington Post", "Homicides hit a record high of 63,880 last year [...] Bolsonaro's solution is zero tolerance. He has called for police to use more lethal force and wants to relax gun laws so that average citizens can defend themselves." Bolsonaro often rejects accusations made against him of misogyny and homophobia, and says he is not "far-right", but simply right-wing.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Jair Bolsonaro is known for his strong opposition to left-wing policies. Most notably, he has been a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, environmental regulations, abortion, affirmative action (particularly racial quotas), immigration (particularly from Haiti, Africa and the Middle East, which he once called "the scum of humanity"), drug liberalization, land reforms, and secularism at the federal level, among other things. He has also made statements in defense of the Brazilian military regime (a dictatorship known for constant human rights violations). He argues that torture is a "legitimate practice" and says that he would try to pass new legislation regarding the introduction of life imprisonment to the Brazilian penal code. Bolsonaro supports the privatization of state-owned companies and advocates free market policies, although critics have stated that his policy-making record does not in fact show him to be a supporter of economic liberalism.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In a 2017 interview with journalist Claudio Dantas Sequeira from "O Antagonista", Bolsonaro said that his views are directly aligned with the centrist to right-wing United States citizens' views on gun ownership, abortion, gender politics, and trade, despite the "left-leaning media frenzy" against him. He reiterated that he intends to reverse some disarmament laws, improve public security, and also improve trade ties with the United States, which he said were broken during Lula da Silva's and Dilma Rousseff's administrations.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro has, during his long political career, expressed views regarded as being far-right. He has made statements that some people considered insulting, homophobic, violence-inciting, misogynistic, sexist, racist or anti-refugee. Other controversial political stances expressed by Bolsonaro have been the defense of the death penalty (which is currently banned under the Constitution of Brazil of 1988) and of radical interventionism in Brazil by the military, along with an imposition of a Brazilian military government.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Journalist Glenn Greenwald called Bolsonaro "the most misogynistic, hateful elected official in the democratic world". News.com.au wondered whether Bolsonaro was "the world's most repulsive politician". British news magazine "The Economist" referred to him as a "radical", "religious nationalist", a "right-wing demagogue", and "apologist of dictators". Federico Finchelstein, scholar on fascism and populism, has considered Bolsonaro, as he would link violence to austerity and neoliberal economic ideas, to be the most similar leader to Augusto Pinochet to come out from the young South American democracies.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro is an open admirer of former U.S. President Donald Trump. During Bolsonaro's campaign, some observers saw similarities between the two's ideals, hardline attacks and a reputation for incendiary rhetoric, as well as social media presence. Because of this, Bolsonaro has been called the Brazilian equivalent of Trump or the "Trump of the Tropics".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 1 May 2019, Bolsonaro awarded the Brazilian conservative writer and far-right conspiracy theorist Olavo de Carvalho the Order of Rio Branco honorific order. Carvalho, who wrote books about leftist politics in Brazil and modern issues in general, was openly admired by Bolsonaro and sarcastically called by journalists his guru.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Throughout his political career, Bolsonaro has made several admiring comments about the U.S.–supported Brazilian military dictatorship which ruled the country from 1964 to 1985. He said in 1993, eight years after the return of democracy, that the military regime had "led to a more sustainable and prosperous Brazil". Bolsonaro has publicly referred to the military dictatorship as a "glorious" period in Brazil's history, and that under the military dictatorship, Brazil enjoyed "20 years of order and progress". In December 2008, Bolsonaro said that "the error of the dictatorship was that it tortured, but did not kill".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro has also repeatedly made admiring comments about a number of other Latin American dictatorships. He praised Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori as a role model for his use of military intervention via self-coup against the judiciary and legislature. In a 1998 interview with "Veja" magazine, Bolsonaro praised the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and said the Pinochet regime, which killed over 3,000 Chilean citizens, "should have killed more people". In 1999, Bolsonaro said that Hugo Chávez represented "hope for Latin America", comments that became a matter of controversy during the 2018 campaign, when Bolsonaro presented himself as a harsh critic of "Chavismo". In 2019, already in power, Bolsonaro commended Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner as a "visionary" and "statesman", drawing immediate criticism, particularly due to multiple allegations of pedophilia against Stroessner.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Speaking before his vote in favor of President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment amid the massive corruption scandal, Bolsonaro paid homage to Colonel Brilhante Ustra, an agent of Brazil's military dictatorship, and announced on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies that he was dedicating his pro-impeachment vote to Ustra's memory. Ustra had headed the DOI-CODI torture unit where Rousseff was allegedly tortured during the military dictatorship. Left-wing deputy Jean Wyllys spat at him after his statement during the same session. The congressman claimed to have suffered homophobic offenses from Jair Bolsonaro and his allies.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In a TV interview with "Câmera Aberta" in the 1990s, Bolsonaro said that if he ever became president, he would use this as an opportunity to shut down the National Congress and instigate a military coup himself. , he appeared to have changed his mind, and said that if someone becomes the head of the country, it would be through voting.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In March 2019, Bolsonaro stated that the 1964 coup d'état that overthrew President João Goulart was not a coup, and that 31 March, the day the coup was installed, should be "properly commemorated".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: During the 2018 presidential campaign, Bolsonaro said he would make considerable changes to Brazil's foreign relations, saying that the ""Itamaraty" needs to be in service of the values that were always associated with the Brazilian people". He also said that the country should stop "praising dictators" and attacking democracies, such as the United States, Israel and Italy. In early 2018, he affirmed that his "trip to the five democratic countries the United States, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan showed who we will be and we would like to join good people". Bolsonaro has shown distrust towards China throughout the presidential campaign claiming they "[want to] buy Brazil", although Brazil recorded a US$20 billion trade surplus with China in 2018, and China is only the 13th largest source of foreign direct investment into Brazil. Bolsonaro said he wishes to continue to have business with the Chinese but he also said that Brazil should "make better [economic] deals" with other countries, with no "ideological agenda" behind it. His stance towards China has also been interpreted by some as an attempt to curry favor from the Trump administration to garner concessions from the US. However, Bolsonaro has mostly changed his position on China after he took office, saying that the two countries were "born to walk together" during his visit to Beijing in October 2019. He has also said that Brazil will stay out of the ongoing China-U.S. trade war. According to Oliver Stuenkel, Bolsonaro's stance on global politics has evolved from anti-China to anti-Western during his presidency.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro said that his first international trip as president would be to Israel. Bolsonaro also said that the State of Palestine "is not a country, so there should be no embassy here", adding that "you don't negotiate with terrorists." The announcement was warmly received by the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who welcomed Bolsonaro to Israel in March 2019 during the final weeks of a re-election campaign, but was met with condemnation from the Arab League, which warned Bolsonaro it could damage diplomatic ties. "I love Israel," Bolsonaro said in Hebrew at a welcoming ceremony, with Netanyahu at his side, at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro also praised U.S. President Donald Trump and his foreign policy, and has been called "the tropical Trump". His son Eduardo has indicated that Brazil should distance itself from Iran, sever ties with Nicolás Maduro's government in Venezuela and relocate Brazil's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Bolsonaro is widely considered the most pro-American candidate in Brazil since the 1980s. PSL members said that if elected, he would dramatically improve relations between the United States and Brazil. During an October 2017 campaign rally in Miami, he saluted the American flag and led chants of "USA! USA!" to a large crowd. U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton praised Bolsonaro as a "like-minded" partner and said his victory was a "positive sign" for Latin America.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: At the regional level, Bolsonaro praised Argentine President Mauricio Macri for ending the 12-year rule of Néstor and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, which he saw as similar to Lula and Rousseff. Although he does not have plans to leave the Mercosur, he criticized it for prioritizing ideological issues over economic ones. A staunch anti-communist, Bolsonaro has condemned Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro and the current regime in that island.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro praised British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying that he had learned from Churchill: "Patriotism, love for your fatherland, respect for your flag – something that has been lost over the last few years here in Brazil... and governing through example, especially at that difficult moment of the Second World War." Bolsonaro said he's open to the possibility of hosting a U.S. military base in Brazil to counter Russian influence in the region. With the intention to persuade Trump to make Brazil a NATO member in March 2019, Bolsonaro said: "the discussions with the United States will begin in the coming months".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: With formal U.S. support for Brazil's entry to OECD in May 2019, Bolsonaro said, "currently, all 36 members of the organization support the entry of the country, fruit of confidence in the new Brazil being built, more free, open and fair". In October 2019, on a state visit to China, he announced the end of the need for visas for Chinese and Indian entry into Brazil. Brazil had already removed the need for visas for people from the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Australia.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Brazil has the world's largest tropical rainforest in the Amazon basin. According to "The Washington Post", "Bolsonaro is a powerful supporter of agribusiness [...] and is likely to favor profits over preservation. [...] Bolsonaro has chafed at foreign pressure to safeguard the Amazon rainforest, and he served notice to international nonprofit groups such as the World Wildlife Fund that he will not tolerate their agendas in Brazil. He has also come out strongly against lands reserved for indigenous tribes. Bolsonaro advisers additionally say that he plans to expand nuclear and hydroelectric power into the Amazon."


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. He repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the Paris Agreement during his campaign. Even before taking office, he backed out of Brazil's offer to host the . Ernesto Araújo, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs appointed by Bolsonaro, has called global warming a plot by "cultural Marxists" and eliminated the Climate Change Division of the ministry. Two departments of the Ministry of the Environment dealing with climate change in Brazil and mitigation and one dealing with deforestation were also eliminated.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In April 2019, the American Museum of Natural History canceled an event honoring Bolsonaro after facing heavy public criticism, including from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. The museum's directorate justified its decision in a statement, "With mutual respect for the work and goals of our organizations, we jointly agreed that the Museum is not the optimal location for the Brazilian-Am. Chamber of Commerce gala dinner. This traditional event will go forward at another location on the original date and time." Bolsonaro supported plans to open the Reserva Nacional do Cobre e Associados (Renca) Amazonian reserve in Brazil's northern states of Pará and Amapá to commercial mining.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Destruction of the Amazon rainforest increased by 88% for the month of June 2019, during Bolsonaro's first year as president, as compared with the previous year, according to National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Bolsonaro rejected the agency's data as false. The INPE director was fired after he rebutted Bolsonaro's criticism of the institute. The Bolsonaro administration decreased government efforts to combat illegal logging, ranching and mining in the Amazon. Government enforcement actions such as fines, warnings and the confiscation or destruction of illegal equipment in protected areas decreased by 20% in the first half of 2018 compared to the first half of 2017.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro is a member of the Catholic Church (while his wife and one of his sons are Evangelical Christians). However, according to "The New Yorker" reporter Jon Lee Anderson "he had himself baptized as an evangelical [Protestant] early in his campaign, by being ceremonially dunked in the Jordan River." He is reported to have attended a Baptist church for 10 years. In a 2017 speech, Bolsonaro stated, "God above everything. There is no such thing as a secular state. The state is Christian, and any minority that is against this has to change, if they can." He later evolved his position to maintaining the country a secular state during the first round of the Brazilian presidential elections: "We are going to make a government for everyone, regardless of religion. Even for atheists. We have almost 5% of atheists in Brazil, and they have the same needs that others have."


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In an interview with "Zero Hora" in 2015, Bolsonaro argued that men and women should not receive the same salaries, because women get pregnant, adding that he believes federal law mandating paid maternity leave harms work productivity. Bolsonaro has denied saying that women should receive less than men; he claims it was statistical data by IBGE.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In a public speech in April 2017, Bolsonaro said he had five children, that the first four were male and that for the fifth he produced a daughter out of "a moment of weakness".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro provoked controversy for a series of remarks made to and about Federal Deputy and former Human Rights Minister Maria do Rosário. During a Congressional debate, Bolsonaro said that minors should be treated as adults if they commit heinous crimes such as murder or rape, to which Maria do Rosário responded by calling him a "rapist". Bolsonaro then stated that Congresswoman Rosário was "not worth raping; she is very ugly". The remarks drew considerable condemnation throughout Brazil. In the aftermath of these remarks, Bolsonaro was tried and convicted in a Federal court in September 2015 on counts of hedonic damages against Rosário. In June 2016, the Federal Supreme Court responded to a complaint filed by the Attorney General and decided to open two criminal actions against Bolsonaro. The Supreme Court ruled that he had potentially incited rape and defamed the honor of his fellow Deputy. He faced a penalty of up to six months of jail and a fine. Ultimately in August 2017, an appellate court upheld a lower court's verdict which found Bolsonaro guilty and sentenced him to pay a fine to Rosário of R$10,000 (roughly equivalent to US$2,500). This lawsuit was dismissed by the Supreme Federal Court as Bolsonaro was inaugurated as president in 2019 and acquired immunity from prosecution.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In May 2002, after then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso attended a pro-gay-marriage gathering, Bolsonaro said, "If I see two men kissing in the street, I will beat them." He later publicly defended beating gay children, saying, "If your child starts to become like that, a little bit gay, you take a whip and you change their behavior." He also said, "If a kid hangs out with someone who uses marijuana, he'll end up snorting, and if he hangs out with gay person, he definitely is going to turn into a faggot."


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In a June 2011 interview with "Playboy", Bolsonaro said, "I would be incapable of loving a gay son", and added that he would prefer any gay son of his "to die in an accident". In the same interview, he said that if a gay couple moved in next door to him, it would lower the market value of his house.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In an interview that same month with "Jornal de Notícias", Bolsonaro linked homosexuality to pedophilia, saying, "many of the children who are adopted by gay couples will be abused by these couples". He further argued that Brazil does not need legislation specifically targeting homophobia, because "most homosexuals are murdered by their respective pimps at hours when good citizens are already asleep".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In British actor Stephen Fry's 2013 documentary "Out There", Bolsonaro said, "no father is ever proud of having a gay son" and "we Brazilians do not like homosexuals".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In a March 2016 video interview for "Vice" with Elliot Page, an openly lesbian actress at the time, Page asked Bolsonaro whether he should have been beaten as a child (alluding to Bolsonaro's public statements that gay children should be beaten). Bolsonaro replied, "You are very nice. If I were a cadet in the military academy and saw you on the street, I would whistle at you. All right? You are very pretty." Bolsonaro added, "Over time, due to liberal habits, drugs, with women also working, the number of homosexuals has really increased."


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On 9 November 2017, the Court of Justice for the State of Rio de Janeiro sentenced Bolsonaro to pay a fine of R$150,000 for hate speech because of televised comments he made in 2011 to the "CQC" TV program, when Bolsonaro stated that "there is no risk" of his family producing a homosexual child because his children had a "good education". Judge Luciana Teixeira said that the deputy had abused his right of free expression to commit a wrongful act. "You cannot deliberately attack and humiliate, ignoring the principles of equality, just because you invoke freedom of expression," said the judge.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: However, on 11 January 2016, when he began to present himself as a pre-candidate to the Presidency of Brazil, Bolsonaro began to moderate his discourse on gay people by publishing a video on his official YouTube channel:


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: I have nothing to do with anyone's behavior. If the man and the woman later decide to live with their partner, to form a couple, to live with a same-sex person, go and be happy. But we cannot admit that, by our omission in the Parliament, children become homosexuals in the future, or have such homosexual behavior in the future, by the influence of school. That is inadmissible.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Since then, Bolsonaro states he has nothing against gays and that he fights only the "gay kit" in schools. On 4October 2018, for example, Bolsonaro said:


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Each person, after a certain age, owner of their acts, will take care of their life. For six-year-old children, it cannot be. A father does not want to come home and see his son playing with a doll by the influence of school. Homosexuals will be happy if I become president.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: That same month, shortly before the first round of the Brazilian presidential elections, he said: "We are going to make a government for everybody. For gays, and some gays are fathers, who are mothers. It is a work for everyone". After being elected president, when asked by William Bonner in the "Jornal Nacional" about what he would say to those who are more prejudiced and aggressive against gays, Bolsonaro replied: "The aggression against a fellow man has to be punished in the way of law. And if [such aggression is committed] for a reason like this, you have to have your sentence increased."


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: On multiple occasions, Bolsonaro has publicly endorsed physical violence as a legitimate and necessary form of political action. In 1999, when he was 44 years old and a representative in the Brazilian Congress, Bolsonaro said during a TV interview that the only way of "changing" Brazil was by "killing thirty thousand people, beginning with Fernando Henrique Cardoso" (then President of Brazil). During the 2018 campaign, he stated during a rally in Acre that the local "petralhas" (a derogatory term for members of the Workers' Party) would be "shot"; according to his aides, the statement was a "joke". One week before the second round, Bolsonaro said during a speech that in his administration "petralhas" and "reds" (i.e. leftists) would be arrested, purged or taken to the "corner of the beach", a term that was later revealed to mean a Navy base where dissidents of the Brazilian military dictatorship were murdered.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: In 1999, talking about Chico Lopes, a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank who invoked his right to remain silent during a Congress hearing, Bolsonaro declared himself in favour of torture in this sort of situation. Asked about this phrase years later, Bolsonaro said: "Ask the father of a kidnapped child what he would like him to do to discover [where the kid is]. You have to take brutal measures, which some consider torture".


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro provoked considerable controversy for public remarks made in July 2008, where he proposed to provide poor people with birth control methods, who he suggested might be too uneducated to understand family planning education. Bolsonaro said:


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: I wish Brazil had a family planning program. It's not even worthy to talk about education when most of these [poor] people are not prepared to receive education, therefore they won't educate themselves. Only rigid birth control can save us from chaos. An educated man and woman will hardly desire an extra child with the sole purpose of engaging in a social welfare assistance program [as it is nowadays]. We need to adopt a rigid birth control policy. We can't make demagogic speeches any longer, proposing bills and means of government to support these poor people [who] are increasingly proliferating throughout the country. [...] People who aren't prepared to have children, shouldn't have them. This is what I stand for and I'm not worried about getting votes in the future. It's past time to discuss a policy to contain this demographic explosion, otherwise, we'll keep voting in this Chamber only matters such as Bolsa Família, loans for the poor, gas vouchers, etc. Methods [of birth control] have to be provided for those who, unfortunately, are ignorant and have no means to control their offspring. Because we [as upper-middle class] can control ours. Poor people don't control [theirs].


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: As a Congressman, Bolsonaro put forward three bills trying to remove "virtually all" legal restrictions to surgical sterilisation via the public health system, including the reduction of "the minimum age of sterilization to 21 years". None of the bills were voted through.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro has endorsed conspiracy theories of voter fraud in past elections, including claims that attempts were made to rig the 2018 presidential election against him; he has also questioned the outcome of the 2020 United States presidential election. During his presidency, he has repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of electronic voting and advocated the use of paper ballots in the 2022 election.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro has said that he will not accept the results of the 2022 election if electoral reforms are not implemented. Most experts on Brazilian politics, including Defense Minister Celso Amorim, have questioned the likelihood of a coup attempt, and polls have found that few Bolsonaro supporters would likely endorse a coup. In May 2022, Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns warned Bolsonaro against any further attacks on Brazil's electoral system. The 2022 election occurred days after the success of far-right politician Giorgia Meloni in the 2022 Italian general election, with analysts noting that Bolsonaro performed better than expected during the first round of elections and that his party's success has the potential to moderate Lula's government if Lula wins the election.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro has been married three times and has five children. His first wife was Rogéria Nantes Braga (with whom he has three sons: Flávio, Carlos and Eduardo). His second marriage was with Ana Cristina Valle (with whom he has a son, Renan). In 2007, he married his third and current wife Michelle de Paula Firmo Reinaldo (with whom he has a daughter, Laura).


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: While working in Congress, Bolsonaro hired Michelle as a secretary and over the next two years she received unusual promotions and her salary more than tripled. He was forced to fire her after the Supreme Federal Court ruled that nepotism is illegal in the public administration. , Bolsonaro and his wife lived in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro.


title: Jair Bolsonaro

text: Bolsonaro has three granddaughters, two by his son Flávio and one by his son Eduardo. Eduardo and Flávio Bolsonaro are Evangelical Protestant Christians and members of the Baptist Church in Brazil.


title: Gabapentin

text: Gabapentin, sold under the brand name Neurontin among others, is an anticonvulsant medication primarily used to treat partial seizures and neuropathic pain. It is a first-line medication for the treatment of neuropathic pain caused by diabetic neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia, and central pain. It is moderately effective: about 30–40% of those given gabapentin for diabetic neuropathy or postherpetic neuralgia have a meaningful benefit.


title: Gabapentin

text: Sleepiness and dizziness are the most common side effects. Serious side effects include an increased risk of suicide, respiratory depression, and allergic reactions. Lower doses are recommended in those with kidney disease. Gabapentin acts by decreasing activity of a subset of calcium channels.


title: Gabapentin

text: Gabapentin was first approved for use in 1993. It has been available as a generic medication in the United States since 2004. In 2020, it was the tenth most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 49million prescriptions. During the 1990s, Parke-Davis, a subsidiary of Pfizer, used a number of illegal techniques to encourage physicians in the United States to prescribe gabapentin for unapproved uses. They have paid out millions of dollars to settle lawsuits regarding these activities.


title: Gabapentin

text: Gabapentin is recommended for use in focal seizures and neuropathic pain. Gabapentin is widely prescribed off-label in the US and UK, for example, for the treatment of non-neuropathic pain, anxiety disorders and bipolar disorder. There is concern regarding gabapentin's off-label use due to the lack of strong scientific evidence for its efficacy in multiple conditions and its proven side effects.


title: Gabapentin

text: Gabapentin is approved for the treatment of focal seizures; however, it is not effective for generalized epilepsy.


title: Gabapentin

text: Gabapentin is recommended as a first-line treatment for chronic neuropathic pain by various medical authorities. This is a general recommendation applicable to all neuropathic pain syndromes except for trigeminal neuralgia.