MUMBAI: Mr. Sundeep Malhotra, CEO, HomeShop18 - India?s first and leading home shopping channel has been conferred the CEO of the Year Award 2011 at the 7th edition of the coveted Reid & Taylor Awards for Retail Excellence ? a part of Asia Retail Congress. HomeShop18 has also been presented with the Retail Leadership Award and Innovative Retail Concept of the Year for their outstanding contribution in the Retail sector.

The award recognizes Mr. Sundeep Malhotra?s pioneering vision in the virtual retail and for establishing a credible home shopping industry in India. The idea of Home Shopping was initially received with skepticism and mistrust, but Mr. Malhotra with his keen insight & relentless belief in the business model, worked hard towards creating and developing India?s most credible shopping channel. Keeping the customer?s needs at the core, he has successfully made HomeShop18 well known in over 3000 cities across India and created a solid customer base of over 3.5 million customers.

On being awarded with the ?CEO of the Year Award?, Sundeep Malhotra, CEO HomeShop18, said, ?We are elated on the achievement; the recognition bestowed upon us by Asia Retail Congress is very encouraging. We are enthused by the response from the market as well as the retail fraternity and this would only fuel our passion to deliver the best. HomeShop18 is certainly changing the way India shops. It is helping drive consumerism, creating demand for producers and suppliers. We attribute our success to the dedicated team at HomeShop18 and our customers who have shown unwavering faith and confidence in HomeShop18 to bring best of the brands at great value, since its inception."

Reid & Taylor Retailer is a business award presented to exclusive brands or multi-brand retailers from the world of fashion, food, beauty, leisure, entertainment and others; who have shown exceptional growth and expansion within the boundaries of its operation in the previous year. These awards aim at recognizing the growing impact of retail and aim to discus and influence the issues of change.

A pioneer of the home shopping space in India, HomeShop18 has set benchmarks for excellence in modern retailing. Today, HomeShop18 offers over 450 reputed brands such as Whirlpool, Samsung, Reebok, Lee, Spice, Sony, Sia and many more who have chosen HomeShop18 as an Alternative Distribution Platform. HomeShop18 has seen a growth of 124% (FY10 over FY09) and is confident of achieving bigger benchmarks in the current year.

Today, HomeShop18 has a team of over 650 members, selling more than 1, 00,000 SKUs which are distributed across 3000 towns and cities in India. Selling across different product categories like electronics, apparel, jewellery, appliances, books, etc., the channel gets a new customer every 6 seconds.

MUMBAI: It‘s that time of the year again when everything around sounds romantic, the weather is brighter and when all you can feel is love in the air. That‘s right, Valentines Day is here and UTV World Movies is all set to celebrate the most beautiful feeling in the world by showcasing seven romantic delights throughout the ‘San Valentino Amore Festa‘ on 14th Feb starting from 10AM to 11PM.

This Valentine we start the romantic day with ‘Wrap Up‘ at 10 AM which is all about steaming affair between Louis, a director and Alice his muse, in ‘Three Times‘ is a movie about three love stories over generation at 11:45 AM while ‘Unfair Competition‘ is an Italian drama followed by Love Letters, Stolen Kisses, Eugenio I Love You concluding with Bunjee Jumping on their own at 11:00 PM.

MUMBAI: Recreate romance by watching your favorite show from 7th ? 14th Feb only on Star World!

MUMBAI: Book your date with STAR World, India?s No. 1 English GEC as it celebrates Valentine?s Day through the week with your all time favorite show- How I met your Mother- Seasons 3, 4 and 5. The channel will showcase 14 of the most romantic episodes of the show from 7th-13th Feb, 8pm-9pm and a special non-stop marathon on 14th Feb, from 2pm-9pm! The celebration with your loved one begins right here with STAR World!

Don?t we all love that extra day of celebration? So, perk up your week with unlimited fun and romance and a show that you can never have enough of. Couple or single, attached or unattached- cancel all appointments and book a date with your favorite stars! Watch ?How I met your mother? all week on Star World!

What you will find out: Will Ted get over his break up with Robin? Is there a future for Barney and Robin? Why Ted is livid with Stella?s ex?

Tune in to find out more on ?How I met your mother?,7th-14th February only on STAR World!

MUMBAI: The beautiful and exotic Cavelossim Beach of Goa witnessed two days packed of energy, gusto and excitement as it got invaded by the enthusiastic youth of the country. This Channel [v]initiative swarmed the lively city of Goa with youngsters on 4th and 5th Feb, marking India‘s biggest college festival.

What made Nokia India Fest specifically unique was its scale and size, with 1032 colleges registered with over 50000 students who had enrolled to attend the college festival. The fest was spread over two days with participants from diverse cities and colleges like IIT Mumbai, Hindu College-Delhi, RVCE-Bangalore, Bhavanipur College-Kolkata, NM College-Mumbai to name a few.

Speaking of this pioneering initiative, Prem Kamath, GM, Channel [v] said, ‘‘A college festival of this scale and magnificence has never been executed before & we see this as an annual property which will only grow year after year".

The first day witnessed an enthusiastic participation from students from various colleges across India in events like Launchpad, Footloose, Beat It, Kahaani poori filmi hai, The clock‘s ticking, Fresh face, Director‘s cut, Blitzkrieg and many more. The day saw an amazing end with electrifying performances by famous national and international artists like Rescues, Shaa‘ir & Func, Indus Creed and Skazi. The audiences also experienced a slice of Indian Heritage with the Indian folk performances.

Besides various exciting activities, Goa truly lived up to its true spirit with the youngsters being provided an opportunity of lifetime.

Channel [v] also came up with an innovative way to take the on-ground event online on the virtual world of Facebook. Every attendee at the festival was given an IndiaFest wrist band which had an RFID Microchip containing their Facebook login details. RFID boxes were strategically placed at every attraction at the venue. The participants swiped their band at every box, which automatically updated their Facebook status.

The fest indeed saw India‘s first ever innovation that created intrigue and real time interaction on the most popular social networking platform.

The second day at the biggest college festival of India witnessed the finals of the previous day‘s events. The registered colleges actively participated in other events of the day like Rajasthan roots, Story mein twist, When Harry met Sally, Spotlight, Tamaasha, Jazz Junction and Ad festival. The winning participants were applauded and encouraged at the awards ceremony marking the end of the country‘s biggest college festival with live performances by Mohit Chauhan, Skazi, Jalebee Cartel and Shpongle.

Nokia has come on board as the title sponsor of this festival & has extensively activated registrations on ground through their priority stores & OVI store. Viral Oza, Head, Activation, Media and Online Marketing, Nokia India said, ‘‘Youth is an important audience for us and we are thrilled to present the biggest college festival of India for the young college students across the country! It will be wonderful to see thousands of students participating in this first-of-its-kind college fest and showcasing their talents."

Lenovo has come on board as the "Powered by" sponsor of this festival & has extensively activated registrations on ground through their priority stores. Karan Kapur, Deputy General Manager - Consumer Marketing, Lenovo India, said, "The Indian youth converse in the language of FUN. Recognizing this, Lenovo is the first PC player in India to specifically fine-tune its focus on the 18-24 age group. Lenovo is happy to be associated with this first-of-its-kind, truly pan India college fest, which is essentially a platform for the youth to showcase their talent on a national scale and have FUN at the same time. Our Lenovo exclusive stores have recorded a good number of registrations and enquiries for participation in this fest. By virtue of Lenovo‘s association with this event, we are providing yet another reason for the Indian youth community to enhance their FUN quotient, enabling them to become de-facto FUN ambassadors within their social circle."
 

MUMBAI: Within the second month of its launch, BIG CBS Prime, the first premium English Channel from Reliance Broadcast BIG CBS Networks Pvt. Ltd., an equal joint venture between Reliance Broadcast Network Limited and CBS Studios International, jumped to the third position in reach, in the English GEC category. According to the recent TAM data released for the Week 4 of 2011, BIG CBS Prime that brings freshest US shows to Indian TV, saw a stupendous gain of 146K viewers in 6 metros over the previous week.

BIG CBS Prime gained the reach across Mumbai, Delhi and Pune and now stands at 719K in its genre. The channel has put up an impactful performance as award winning shows like NCIS, The David Letterman Show, Survivor, CSI Series got a tremendous response from the audiences.

Enthralled by the incredible response, Ms. Aparnaa Pande, Business Head, BIG CBS Networks Pvt. Ltd. said, ?We are extremely elated to hear that audiences are appreciating our endeavor to bring the freshest content to their television sets. BIG CBS Prime brings the sensational line up of shows with the right mix of action, adventure, drama and reality, to the Indian viewers. We are aggressive to reach more viewers in the coming weeks and we will continue to deliver our promise of bringing the freshest, hottest and latest shows exclusively on the channel.?

BIG CBS PRIME is a paid channel distributed on a network of digital and analog platforms.

MUMBAI: It was a starry eyed event! The sun, moon, planets, stars... all sprang to life, as Nickelodeon set up a magnificent mobile planetarium (Discovery Domes) at The Courtyard, High Street Phoenix in Mumbai today, to announce its annual Career Series, this year being, the Young Astronauts Programme.

To bring the space experience to life, Mumbai saw Discovery Domes, the one-of-a-kind mobile planetariums, which is part of the outreach program of the NASA Magnetospheric Multi-scale Mission (MMS)! Bambai kids got an awesome 3D experience of the greatest astronomical films along with their favourite Nicktoon SpongeBob SquarePants! The exclusive shows covered exciting & educational content like asteroids, the black hole and mysteries of the universe to name a few. All in all, the kid?s had a blast, took home a whole lot of learning along with goodies!

Ms. Asha Sundararajan of Discovery Dome India and specially flown down from Houston Dr. Patricia H. Reiff - Two esteemed academic personalities from the field of Space Sciences, certified by NASA, were present for the Young Astronauts Program with a view of spreading knowledge about Space Science as a career choice. As kids showed up in large numbers, Asha and Patricia counseled all those gathered. What?s more, the kids demonstrated keen interest to know more and their parents too were overwhelmed with the kind of response shown by their children!

Said Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Nickelodeon India, ?Nickelodeon is all about breaking rules and making new ones! We at Nickelodeon are proud to pioneer the Career Series that will inspire kids to follow their passion and live their dreams. With this launch, our endeavour is to give kids what?s good for them and introduce them to new and exciting career options - so if Space studies are on their minds then NASA is where we will take them.?

Added an excited Dr. Patricia H. Reiff, ?This evening has been an eye opener for me? Little did I know that kids from India were so keen on taking up Space Sciences as a subject. The response we received tonight was tremendous and I hope that I?ve given some direction to all those interested. I truly wish that this endeavour taken up by Nickelodeon will reach its maximum potential and I?m sure the Young Astronauts Programme will inspire kids of India to chase their dreams. I wish them the best of luck for their star-lit futures and guarantee that their trip to NASA will surely be one of their best memories. ?

Adds Ms. Asha Sundararajan, ?Nickelodeon?s Young Astronauts Programme is truly living up to the goal of inspiring India?s future. With space sciences as a budding career path for kid?s world over, this is the ideal way of giving a boost to India?s aspiring astronauts of tomorrow. Giving kids the chance to go to NASA is a phenomenal opportunity ? It?s my pleasure to contribute to this project and direct my expertise & knowledge to brightening up the dreams of children all over India. Seeing the wonderful response that we received today, I?m sure that we?ll be seeing a lot of astronauts from India in the near future.?

The Young Astronauts Program is an ideal platform for kids to pursue their true passions for Space Science, as it gives them the strength to reach for the stars. This out-of-the-world initiative aims to get the smartest kids in India to compete with each other where the best kids get their ultimate ticket to their dreams: a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit NASA! To participate, kids have to log on to www.nickindia.com and write their statement of purpose of 150 words on ?I want to be an astronaut because ?? Based on their entries, Nickelodeon will have an expert panel of judges who will go through every entry to pick the best set of kids to go for a space programme at NASA. With this fantastic initiative, Nickelodeon India is truly giving wings to the dreams of kids all across the country, and gifting them the opportunity to become a happier, livelier generation of future leaders.