MUMBAI: Linc Pen, one of the leading players in the organized sector of the writing instrument industry has joined hands with the IIFA Awards 2010 as their official Literacy partner. Both Linc Pen and the IIFA Awards share a common vision- that of a Literate India. This association is a result of the merging of the vision and goal of both these entities.

The IIFA has always stood for integration and building of bridges between countries and is associated with a number of charitable causes every year. This year IIFA has tied up with Habitat of Humanity and Unicef to create a worthy initiative. This is the driving force behind Linc Pen?s decision to tie up with the IIFA Awards. Linc Pen?s primary reason for associating with the event is the novel cause of rehabilitation of the child soldiers in war stricken Lanka. Linc Pens pledges its support for spreading literacy and creating an environment of peace and harmony by providing free pens to the children of Jafna.

Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Deepak Jalan, Managing Director, Linc Pen said ?We are extremely privileged to be the Literacy Partners of such a prestigious awards ceremony such as the IIFA. It is indeed our honour to partner and support the IIFA Awards in such as noble cause which we hope will have definite positive impact on the lives of the former child soldiers who are currently being rehabilitated and educated in order to lead a better life?

MUMBAI: Preparations for the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games has shifted into high gear with the start of the team sports draws. Kicking off the series of draws is the Football team draw organised by the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (SYOGOC) and the F?d?ration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

The draw will be held on 18 May (Tuesday), 10.30am, at the PSA Building Auditorium. The team draw will be witnessed by officials from participating National Federations and Embassies in a ceremony presided over by FIFA and SYOGOC.

The Guest of Honour is Mr Kwek Leng Joo, Board Member and Chairman of the Marketing Advisory Committee of SYOGOC. Mr Kwek was Vice President of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) from 1997 to 2001. He had also led Singapore?s first professional football league, S.League, as the Chairman of its Board of Directors. FIFA will be represented by delegation leader, Mr Marios Lefkaritis, Deputy Chairman of FIFA Organising Committee for the Olympic Football Tournaments.

The Football competition in Singapore 2010 comprises Men and Women events. One representative per FIFA Confederation has been nominated by FIFA for the two events. The six teams per event will divide into two groups of three for the preliminaries. Each team will play every other team in the group once.
The team draw will determine the grouping and match fixtures for the preliminaries. The two teams ranked first and second in each group will move on to the semi-finals, while the teams ranked third in each group play for 5th/6th place.

Teams participating in Men?s Football event in Singapore 2010 are Bolivia, Montenegro, Singapore, Vanuatu, Zimbabwe, and a team from the Americas. Chile, Equatorial Guinea, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey will compete in the Women event.

?The team draws are an important milestone in getting ready for Singapore 2010. They herald the start of SYOGOC?s transition into Operations Phase for the Games. We are expecting keen competition among the teams and look forward to the exciting matches ahead,? said Mr Goh Kee Nguan, Chief Executive Officer of SYOGOC.

SYOGOC will be announcing the final team groupings and fixtures after the draw ceremony. Other upcoming draws include Basketball and Volleyball team draws on 31 May 2010, and Handball team draw on 4 June 2010. Members of the public can follow the progress of the team draws on the Singapore 2010

Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/singapore2010.

About Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games ? Blazing the Trail

Singapore will be hosting the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) from 14 to 26 August 2010. The Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games will receive some 5,000 athletes and officials from the 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), along with estimated 1,200 media representatives, 20,000 local and international volunteers, and 370,000 spectators. Young athletes - aged between 14 and 18 years - will compete in 26 sports and take part in a Culture and Education Programme.

The Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games aims to inspire youth around the world to embrace, embody and express the Olympic values of Excellence, Friendship and Respect. It will create a lasting sports, culture and education legacy for Singapore and youths from around the world, as well as enhance and elevate the sporting culture locally and regionally.

For more information, please visit www.singapore2010.sg

MUMBAI: Block your date for the most exciting awards night with the biggest cricket and movie stars at the Sahara IPL Awards 2010 to be showcased exclusively on COLORS. The award ceremony which was held just after the IPL season this year had luminaries from the Hindi film industry and cricket fraternity in their gorgeous best to acknowledge the super talented young and established players from the cricketing world. Watch the first ever Sahara IPL Award winners accepting laurels for their hard work, only on your favorite channel, COLORS on Sunday, 23 May at 8.00 pm.

The hosts of the glittering evening were the ever eloquent, Karan Johar along with the stunning, Shilpa Shetty and the Baadshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan. While, spectacular performances by the two reigning queens of Bollywood, Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif set the mercury soaring at the event. Priyanka rocked the evening with her ?Dhan-Te-Nan? act from her film, ?Kaminey? and Katrina set the stage on fire in a black sari as she performed on the ?Teri Ore? track from ?Singh is King?.

The highlight of the evening was SRK?s dance performance on a medley of his super-hit songs including ?Haule Haule?, ?Marjani? and ?Love Mera Hit Hit? where he also made Yusuf Pathan dance on these tunes. He brought down the house with his witty one-liners, pranks and humorous exchanges with Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh and Australian cricketer, Adam Gilchrist. Bollywood beauties, Neha Dhupia and Mugdha Godse also kept the entertainment quotient high with their performances. A.R. Rahman?s stirring rendition of ?Vande Mataram? was also part of an exciting line up of performances and felicitations.

Master blaster, Sachin Tendulkar was honored with the Lifetime Achievement recognition and a host of other cricketers were presented with trophies for like best fielder, best bowler, best batsmen, best ground, etc.

This ultimate cricketainment extravaganza was also attended by Vijay Mallya, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal, Raj Kundra, Samera Reddy, amongst other personalities.

Watch out for all this action and more when the spectacular Sahara IPL AWARDS to be aired on Sunday 23 May 2010 at 8.00 pm only on COLORS.
 

MUMBAI: Neo Sports Broadcast has appointed Ashish Bahl as VP marketing and communications for the two channels, Neo Sports and Neo Cricket, with immediate effect Prior to this, Bahl was with Contract Advertising as VP, business head on key clients of Contract.

A strategic marketing and communications professional with an experience of over 10 years in advertising and marketing on brands across FMCG, Realty, Automobiles, Paints and Broadcasting sector, Bahl will oversee the marketing of all the business verticals for the two channels ? Neo Cricket and Neo Sports. A post graduate from IMI, New Delhi, he has previously worked with Contract, J Walter Thomson, Sab Miller India, E and Leo Burnett.

Neo Sports Broadcast COO Prasana Krishnan says, ?Ashish comes with a wealth of experience of working with well recognized brands and clients. He is an avid sports fan and we look forward for him to provide fresh and innovative ideas to carry forward the brand marketing.?

Bahl says, ?I am excited to be a part of a highly innovative company that is redefining sports entertainment. With a great team in place, I am confident that we will be able to attain our marketing objectives and establish the channels as leaders in it their category.?
 

MUMBAI: Akshaya Trithiya means one that never diminishes and so any new purchase made on this day is believed to bring good luck and success. The day is especially considered auspicious to buy gold, silver and diamonds. Vijay Jain, CEO, ORRA Diamonds says, ?While earlier there was a greater demand for jewellery in south India, it is no longer restricted to the south, people in the north too are buying on Akshaya Trithiya?.

Even as gold bars and coins continue to sell the most, there has been a shift towards diamond jewellery. ORRA anticipates a 40% increase in sales compared to last year. Advance booking for Akshaya Trithiya are already underway. In keeping with the rising demand for jewellery, ORRA has some fabulous offers. Get up to 25% off on making charges of diamond jewellery. For the gold jewellery lovers we are offering up to 50% off on making charges of gold jewellery.

ORRA?s gold bars and coins are also competitively priced in comparison to banks. Banks are priced about 5-7% higher than jewellery brands. The advantage of buying from ORRA v/s a bank is that banks do not buy back, but we offer an attractive buy back policy. Gold seems to have come to the forefront as the safest investment bet in the past couple of years. ORRA offers Flat 50% off on making charges of gold bars and coins.

Vijay Jain concludes, ?The most important change we have witnessed in the past year is the interest in platinum. With a correction in the prices of platinum it is the much preferred metal today. While last year recycling of old gold was a major cause of sales, this year it will be fresh sales being made?

MUMBAI: Tata Communications has announced that Cricketnirvana.com, a prominent cricket portal from the house of Nimbus Communications has chosen its CDN platform to stream live, on-demand and rich media cricket content.

Tata Communications? CDN service delivers among the highest performance and reliability in the industry while providing immediate access to content, including High-Definition Video, without delay or jitter. The CDN platform leverages Tata Communications? Tier-1 Global IP network for world-class resiliency and performance. The LiveBroadcastTM service, part of the Tata Communications? suite of Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, is a Flash-based streaming service for broadcasting TV quality live content on the Internet. The LiveBroadcast service eliminates the need for expensive hardware and proprietary software and can support hundreds of thousands of concurrent streams worldwide.

Nimbus Communications has streamed the live cricket series of India ? Srilanka, India ? Srilanka- Bangladesh and more recently the India- South Africa series using Tata Communications CDN platform receiving more than eight million page views per match-day.

Tata Communications senior VP, global network services Genius Wong says, ?We are extremely happy to serve Cricketnirvana.com to deliver our flash-based live video service. This will allow millions of cricket enthusiasts across the world to watch live cricket matches on their computers. The win showcases the superiority of our CDN solution on quality, scalability and cost effectiveness?.

Nimbus Communications, new media head Jose Felix says, ?We were moving to the ad based revenue model which requires a cost effective solution without compromising on the features and quality of the live broadcast and this is where Tata Communications? CDN services proved to be a better fit. Its distributed origin architecture along with clean pricing model makes it an ideal CDN services for portal like ours which receives millions of hits per match day.?