MUMBAI: Reliance Home Video is pleased to announce the Home Video release of Govind Nihalani‘s epic tele-film Tamas.

Tamas is a decidedly acclaimed television film directed by Govind Nihalani, based on the classic Hindi novel of the same name written by Bhisham Sahni. The film was first shown on Doordarshan in 1987 as a series and later as a 4-hour-long feature film.

Tamas is being released as a four DVD (Rs. 799/-) and VCD (Rs.499/-) set. The DVD contains a collectible booklet and an audio-visual interview with Govind Nihalani on Tamas.

Sweta Agnihotri COO of Reliance Home Video said that "This August India will celebrate completion of 64 years of Independence. Tamas is a good reflection of how communal prejudice can scar generations of lives. We hope that an endevour like Tamas will make viewers introspect as to how as a nation we could protect ourselves from repeating such history."

Commenting on the launch of Tamas, Hirachand Dand COO of Madhu Entertainment & Media Ltd.had this to say " We have digitally restored and re-mastered Tamas for the home viewing audience and are happy to have Reliance Home Video as our business associate in this venture."

Bhisham Sahni, a key figure in Hindi literature won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1975 for Tamas. Sahni himself was a refugee in to India from west Punjab and he wrote Tamas thirty years after the partition. Govind Nihalani found Bhisam‘s approach to be very contemplative and non-judgemental. His style was exceptionally simple. The whole affair of India ? Pakistan partition was recorded as a terrible and heart ? rendering event in human history. The mainstay of Tamas was that every community has extremist elements who try to create problems. They do so only to achieve political goals.

Govind Nihalani bought the novel from a bookshop in New Delhi around the time he was the second unit director in Richard Attenborough‘s Gandhi. Once he read the book, he considered it to be the best novel ever written on those times and decided to make it into a film best novel ever written on those times.

Govind Nihalani‘s Tamas is a film about the mass migration of a Sikh and Hindu family to India, in the backdrop of riot-stricken Pakistan, at the time of partition in 1947. It shows a shocking and dreadful side of politics and the compassionate side of humanity that survives any carnage. Tamas drove the point home that ordinary people want to live in peace. The film won the Nargis Dutt Award for the Best Film on National Integration.

Tamas features Om Puri, Deepa Sahi, Amrish Puri, Bhisham Sahni, A.K. Hangal, Manohar Singh,Dina Pathak, Saeed Jaffrey and Surekha Sikri.

In 1988, Tamas won two national awards, Surekha Sikri won the National Film Award for Best supporting Actress and Vanraj Bhatia won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction Tamas DVDs and VCDs are now available at all leading stores across the country.
 

MUMBAI: MediaSys has been partnering broadcasters and advertisers in various areas, with focus on providing relevant and actionable data that would bring greater efficiency for the investment made in media - through auditing, planning & monitoring and looking beyond traditional approach to media. They have been in the business of television consultancy for more than 3 years backed by promoters having relevant & updated knowledge in this domain.

At present, the specific services offered by MediaSys are MediaSys Distribution, MediaSys Digital and MediaSys consulting. With growing demand we have reinforced each of this team at various levels, especially in Distribution & Planning with induction of Joydip Kapadia, Ex. TAM VP Operations, joining as Director, MediaSys Distribution & Planning.

MediaSys Distribution has been providing placement audits and consultancy to its partners in the domain of Television with Subrat Das heading this division. With Joydip joining our fold, we plan to move further by strengthening the current offerings and add some more in the bouquet of services offered.

In the last couple of years we have managed to garner substantial equity in the area of channel distribution audits by tracking channel connectivity at MSO level across India. We plan to move further by strengthening their current offerings and add some more in the bouquet of services offered.

With over 620 channels that can transmit content via satellite over India, this generates a rush to reach the drawing rooms of the viewer through an analogue or a digital feed. Ground infrastructure only allows 107 analogue channels to be distributed through each MSO and about 250 digital channels whereas the demand is for over 500 channels to be distributed. This leaves a big gap between the demand and supply.

It has also led to creation of an Rs 2000+ Cr carriage fee industry. This fee is paid by broadcasters to the MSO‘s to show the channel on the respective network and frequencies for which a fee has been paid. This is where ‘MediaSysKonnect‘ comes into the picture. With a network of over 50 field representatives and more than 1500 reference homes MediaSys distribution team reach the ground levels to continuously monitor whether the channel is being shown by the MSO‘s in their networks on the agreed band and frequency. MediaSys distribution team covers more than 650 MSO‘s across India and provides MediaSysKonnect, the connectivity report every week to most broadcasters and other users of this data.

Joydip Kapadia says "The need to be available is there for any product hence role of distribution becomes critical. Similarly, in case of television you will only get new trial if you are available at the right band in the appropriate neighbourhood of channels. Best of content can be nullified without strategic placement, this makes distribution very critical. ‘MediaSysKonnect‘ is a strong tool to acquire ground intelligence. It goes a step ahead in helping partners to strategise placements efficiently for best reach. He further adds ‘ with 80-85% of TV still watched on analogue platform and the huge investments required for the MSO‘s to stream digital feed, digitisation will still take a while before it becomes a dominant platform for content delivery‘.

MediaSys also provides customised service called ‘MediaSys Stratedge‘ under which they provide specialized services for strategy on content and FPC apart from providing quantitative and qualitative research services for more strategic solutions.

‘MediaSys Premium‘ brings a very special service to track audio/video quality of the signal at viewer homes, tracking language feed and multiple channels tracking per week.
 

NEW DELHI : A 34 year old Finance Manager from Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh has become the first person to win the top prize of Rs 10 million in the Bhojpuri version of the game show ?Who wants to be a millionaire‘, ?Ke Bani Crorepati‘, hosted by the ebullient Shatrughan Sinha on Mahuaa TV.

With this, Rajesh Singh becomes the first person to win a huge sum of Rs. 10 million prize money on a regional channel.

A graduate from Gorakhpur University, UP, Singh works as a Finance Manager in Ahmedabad. He used to be a farmer in his village along with his studies till he was 20 years old. After completing his graduation, he moved to Ahmedabad to pursue his professional life. Singh is married and is a father of two kids. An avid reader, he has read 70,000 books. He also writes for 17 blogs. He loves singing, playing cricket and enjoys visiting his village.

During the show, Singh sung three Bhojpuri songs and even dedicated one of the songs to Ke Bani Crorepati. Sinha told him that he looks like Nana Patekar. He was accompanied by his mother and aunt at the show, and they broke into tears when he won the prize.

Delighted with his win, Singh said he will spend money on providing good education to his children and build his own house and his Aunt‘s house. He also plans to open a counseling institute to help the youth in deciding their right career with this money.

Bollywood actor and host Sinha was all praise for Singh and said that "This proves that if people from small towns are given opportunities, they can prove their merits, and Singh exemplifies the same that how a person from a village was given a chance to play this game, and whatever his aspirations, or his knowledge were, it tested them and won the game. I congratulate him for the win. He has become an example for all the people in Rural India".

Mr. Yubaraj Bhattacharya, CEO, Mahuaa TV said that "Rajesh was exceptionally confident and was so intelligent that he reached the one crore peak. I congratulate him for his brilliant recital and wish him all the success in his career endeavour ".

"Across the world, this show is about ordinary people changing their lives for real and it is no exception in its Bhjopuri avatars, and Rajesh is example of that" he added. 

MUMBAI: The weekend of 17th July for ‘Zindagi na Milegi Dobara‘ did an astounding business of over Rupees Four Crores through the website and ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2‘ did a record business of over Rupees Three Crores.

Elated Ashish Hemrajani, the Founder and CEO of Bookmyshow.com adds ‘We have witnessed yet another stupendous weekend sales. The last time we saw such success was when Avatar released along with 3 idiots which broke all records. In Mumbai, itself ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara‘ saw an opening of over Rupees One Crore and ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2‘ also opened to packed houses doing a business of over Rupees Fifty Lakhs. We attribute this to the films being urban movies that target the youth who are primarily users of the internet, mobile and online payments, which is really where our strengths are. Here we also witnessed great sales record for Delhi Belly which still continues to create buzz over Rupees Four Crores‘.

With such a glorious beginning and online bookings for the two movies still pouring in Bookmyshow.com hopes to create yet another milestone for itself.

MUMBAI: Percept Media- the media planning, buying & evaluation arm of Percept Ltd - has rolled out a 360 degree campaign for the launch of News Express channel that went on air on 28th July.

News Express being launched by Sai Prasad Media is a free-to-air High Definition (HD) format channel. It‘s a Hindi news national channel targeted at the Hindi speaking markets (HSM) of India. The channel is positioned as a platform which showcases the everyday politics of life. It reinforces a point that politics does not merely exist in our legislative and electoral structures but also exists in our society and our day to day lives. The tag line of the channel is "Khabar Andar Ki".

Percept Media has conceptualized planned and executed a 360 degree campaign for the channel from the launch to its sustainment in all the key centres across the nation. It has executed a mix of conventional & traditional media in their communication platforms. The campaign rollout includes Print, Electronic, OOH, Radio and Social media. It also will be executing interactive activation activities in multiplexes, malls & other high footfall centric locations. Other than the channel, Percept Media also does media buying for other allied businesses of SaiPrasad Media Group.

Mukesh Kumar, Editor and CEO, News Express quoted: "We were extremely satisfied with the effective media plan Percept Media presented to us for the Channel. It was quite transparent and had a strategic flow to it with the right media vehicles being used at key intervals. We were extremely convinced that the media plan and the modules used for the communication will help us in reaching the target audience nationally and communicate the channel‘s message prominently."

PM Balakrishna, Vice President, Percept Media added: "It was an exciting and a challenging task for us to conceptualise & execute the media plan and the campaign for "News Express". It needed a different yet effective media mix to communicate and position the channel at the right platform. We had put together the entire rollout in a very short span of time. We are glad that the client trusted us with our judgement and expertise and is happy with the results. We will be introducing various path breaking campaigns for "News Express" in the forthcoming months".
 

Mumbai : As a famous saying goes, ?if you wish to judge a nation, judge it by the state of its women.? There are talks of India becoming a superpower. But is the Indian woman empowered? With a motive to create awareness about women empowerment, Lokmat Media Ltd. has announced its latest initiative, Lokmat Women Summit 2011 to honour the women who have made a difference and salute the relentless spirit of womanhood on 31st July 2011 in Pune.

Lokmat Women Summit aims to honour the greatest women achievers and provide them with a platform to showcase their achievements and encourage other women to attain equal success. The purpose of choosing to emphasize and call attention to the condition of women in the prevalent society at the LWS 2011 stems from the continual endeavor to address women related issues of wide sweeping domestic and global significance.

Announcing this unique initiative, Mr. Vijay Darda, Chairman, Lokmat Media Ltd. said, "Over the years, women have showcased their leadership across various sectors / domains but the reality of women?s lives remains invisible to men and women alike. This invisibility persists at all levels beginning with the family to the nation. We put a special focus on empowering women and girls, because we believe they hold the key to long-lasting social change in communities."

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Jwalant Swaroop, COO, Lokmat Media Ltd. said, "Empowering women must be a united approach, a cause that requires continued attention and stewardship by all. Sprawling inequalities persist in their access to education, health care, physical and financial resources and opportunities in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres."

Lokmat Women Summit will see participation from notable speakers like Dr. Kiran Bedi - First woman IPS Officer of India & Social Activist, Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar - Principal-Director, Symbiosis Society, Ms. Rashmi Bansal - Renowned Author & Entrepreneur, Advocate Jayshree Satpute - Noted Human Rights Activist and member of White Ribbon Alliance for safe motherhood, Ms. Abha M Banerjee - First Woman Motivational Speaker of India, Pramila Kalive - Global Head - Talent Management, Zensar Technologies, Ms. Anuradha Aggarwal - Vice President, Marketing - Vodafone, Ms. Sucheta Shah - Chairperson - FICCI FLO, Mumbai Chapter, Ms. Veena Patil - Managing Director - Kesari Tours & Travels, Mr. Shailesh Lodha - Famous actor, writer, poet & anchor, Mrs. Swati Lodha - Educationist, Author & Management Guru, Dr. Nishigandha Wad - Famous Actress.

The LWS 2011 endeavors to bridge the growing disparity between men and women in this modern era by showcasing the successful present and ever more promising future for women in India.