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Party
time for channels
Politics and media makes
for a heady cocktail. With the launch of Jai Hind TV, Kerala’s 13th
Malayalam channel, Kalaignar TV in Tamil Nadu and Kasturi in
Karnataka, the turf war for control of news and views is hotting up in
the South. The next General Election will be fought as much on the small
screen as in the constituencies. A. Saj Mathews from
Thiruvanathapuram, Jangveer Singh from Bangalore,
Ramesh
Kandula from Hyderabad and Arup
Chanda from Chennai look at the big business in the four southern
states
 Kerala
Plenty in God’s Own
Country
Kerala,
is perhaps the most happening state in terms of electronic media with
a host of vernacular private channels flooding the TV screens of the
state’s highly literate and politically enlightened populace. The tv
channels in Kerala are a curious mix of purely private ventures,
politically or religiously backed ones and those which are purely
ecclesiastical in nature vying with each other with an equally amusing
feast of news, entertainment and evangelism.
Tamil
nadu
All for the masses
IN
South India, particularly Tamil Nadu, politics has always been
dominated by film personalities who know best the power of the
audio-visual medium. The most acrimonious television channel war in
the history of Tamil Nadu started on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi with
the launch of Kalaignar TV by the Raj TV group.
Andhra
pradesh
Fight for news
A
war of the airwaves is on cards with a string of news channels being
launched in Andhra Pradesh. The existing players—Etv, TV9, Gemini
News, Zee Telugu and Maa TV—are set to face competition from the
more technology-savvy and ambitious newcomers NTv and TV5. The
electronic media industry has come a long way from the near-monopoly
status enjoyed by Etv, owned by media baron and publisher of the
largest circulated Telugu daily Eenadu, Ramoji Rao, in the
mid-1990s.
Karnataka
Kannada
pride
Anitha
Kumaraswamy, wife
of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and daughter-in-law of former Prime
Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, is coming out with an
"independent" Kannada channel. Vying for a multicrore
advertising pie, seven Kannada language television channels are
already functioning in the state. However Anitha Kumaraswamy —
Managing Director of the new channel, Kasturi Television — says her
channel will be different.
Sher Jung: Forgotten
hero
There is no memorial to
Sher Jung, a freedom fighter from Himachal Pradesh, even in his home
state, writes Shakti Singh Chandel
Mahatma
Gandhi’s withdrawal of the Non-cooperation Movement following the
Chauri Chaura incident created discontent. Many did not agree with him
that wrong means would not lead to right results. For them, it was the
goal that mattered. It was at this stage
that the ‘action’ of the Ahmedgarh (in Punjab) train robbery took
place in 1928.
INTERVIEW
Saawariya
is a fresh, simple love story
Vicky Lalwani
How did Saawariya originate?
After Black, I
was restless. I was wondering what should I do now. I had worked with
Amitji, Salman, SRK. I kept asking myself what could I do to challenge
myself. Then, I thought of doing a fresh, simple love story with
newcomers. I decided to do something that would suit the legacy of Raj
Kapoor and Nargis.
Feast for the senses
French filmmaker Jacques
Demy’s finest works have stood the test of time, retaining their
freshness and appeal even after several decades, writes
Vikramdeep Johal
Sensuous
is the word that best describes Jacques Demy’s cinema. With a
painter’s eye for beauty and a composer’s ear for music, he made
some fascinating films that celebrated life in its various hues.
Naseer’s terror act
Subhash K. Jha
Debutant
director Neeraj Pandey has almost completed his film Wednesday
on the July 11, 2006, commuter train bombings that rattled Mumbai. The
film puts Naseeruddin Shah in the role of the mastermind behind the
blasts. "I took on this role because I’ve never played anything
like this before," said Naseer.
SOCIETY
In touch
with the past
The Pandas of Hardwar
have been maintaining the records of the families of pilgrims
for generations, writes C.D. Verma
THERE
were times when the concept of family was different from today. The
family earlier was an institution, a joint system, characterised by a
homogenous togetherness of parents, grandparents, sons and daughters,
their spouses, even uncles and aunts. There was no identity crisis,
for each member of the family knew his roots. Down the years, between
then and now, things have taken a down turn.
Go
traditional this season
It’s time to take out your
sarees and ghagra-cholis as you usher in the festive season,
says Anjana Phatak
THE
festival season is here and the fashion industry normally changes its
tracks and goes for variations in churidar-achkans and ghagra-cholis.
It adapts the traditional saris to suit the religious undertones of
all our festivals. But this year, with the various fashion weeks,
fashion maestros seem to have decided to strike mid way between ethnic
wear and the so-called western wear.
Autos
for London
MADE
in India auto-rickshaws, better known in the west as ‘tuk tuks’,
could soon be plying on the streets of London if an application by a
company to run a fleet in the West End is successful. Tuk Tuk Ltd, the
brainchild of entrepreneur Dominic Ponniah, has been running a fleet
of auto-rickshaws in the seaside town of Brighton since July, 2006.
The fleet, imported from Pune, runs on compressed natural gas.
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