Balaji awards to be held on Feb 1

[welcomewiki]

Balaji Telefilms has announced its partnership with the newly launched 9X general entertainment channel for the annual ‘Global Indian T V Honours’ which will be held here on February 1.


From next year onwards, the awards ceremony will be held in different cities across the globe.


Andheri sports complex will be the venue of the first awards this year. Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan will be among the host of television and film personalities to perform at the event.
Addressing a press conference here yesterday, Balaji Creative Director Ekta Kapoor said her company has changed the television viewing scenario in India and across the globe with its daily soaps.


”Balaji has created a niche in film production and distribution with movies like ‘Shoot out at Lokhandwala’ and ‘BhoolBhulaiya’. The progression for us is to move to non-fiction with reality shows and mega events. The awards function is our pioneering venture in the non-fiction arena. This is our first step in the genre of non-fiction, reality shows will follow,” she added.
The awards will have six main categories with 30 sub categories.

The six categories will comprise of popular, technical, programming,
achievement (for which there will be no nomination), special honour and voters choice. Each category will be judged by a panel of three judges. The awards have already received a whopping response with 370 nominations for 28 categories, she informed.


The panel of judges include Farida Jalal, Aroona Irani, Manish Malhotra, Vikram Phadnis, Anurag Basu, B P Singh, Anil Thakeraney, Ashwini Yardi, Sanjeev Sharma, Deepak Malvankar, Aly Morani and Neena Gupta.


Ms Indrani Mukherjea, founder and CEO INXMedia ltd promised to make the awards into Indian Oscars of television. Ms Harsha Chugh Khanna, Business Head of Balaji telefilms said the thought behind instituting the awards was to provide a platform for deserving talents to be recognised. ”We have made every effort to ensure that the judging process and nominations are transparent,” she added.


Ernest and Young have been roped in to ensure transparancy in the judging process, she added. The event has been managed, scripted, directed and executed by G S Entertainment.

[welcomewiki]

Ekta Kapoor’s television awards event, to be held in December in the United Arab Emirates, is getting bigger by the day. The latest buzz is that either Salman Khan or Shah Rukh Khan may perform at the function.


What’s more, either Gautami Gadgil of Tulsi fame or Sakshi Talwar, better known as Parvati, will also be on stage at the Balaji Global Indian TV Honours 2007.


“Right from the start Ekta was sure of one thing - that her television awards show should be as big as the film awards,” said Harsha Chugh Khanna, business head of Ekta’s Balaji Telefilms.


“For that she has been working towards getting the biggest of Bollywood stars to perform at the show. However, there’s only one pre-condition, each of these Bollywood icons has to be in some way associated with television.”


So is it going to be Shah Rukh or Salman for the main performance?
“We’re currently in negotiations with Shah Rukh and are hopeful that he’ll agree. He’s a source of inspiration not only in cinema but also on television. If you recall, he started his career on television with ‘Fauji’ and recently made a spectacular impact with ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’. So it would be wonderful to have him perform,” says Khanna.


Ekta added: “When I decided to have the awards I wanted television to get the recognition it deserves. Today I feel apart from a few filmmakers, television is able to deliver more glamour, grandeur and density than the average ‘multiplex’ film. The home medium has certainly come a long way. And that’s what we’ll be celebrating at our awards.”


Ekta’s buddy and filmmaker Karan Johar will be felicitated at the awards and he will also host a segment of the awards.