Fifteen months after big-time film financier and diamond trader Bharat Shah was incarcerated due to his alleged connections to the underworld, the Supreme Court garanted him bail yesterday.

Shah was arrested on 8 January 2001 for his alleged links with underworld mafia don Chhota Shakeel under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

The Supreme Court directed Shah to furnish a bail bond of Rs 100,000 and two sureties of like amount and directed him to surrender his mobile phone to investigating agencies. Shah‘s passport, which was surrendered to the trial court, will not be released without the court‘s permission.

The Supreme Court has ordered an expeditious trial in the case.

At that time of his arrest, the Mumbai police exposed his alleged connections with Pakistan-based gangster Chhota Shakeel in the making of the film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke.

Shah‘s links to B4U Multimedia, in which he had a 92 per cent stake, forced B4U to transfer all its assets and functions to another group company B4U Television Networks on 1 April 2001.

Hinduja TMT Ltd has announced that a meeting of its board of directors is scheduled to be held on 11 April, 2002 to take on record the unaudited (provisional) financial results for the year ended 31 March, 2002.

Will Jeena Isi Ka Naam hai be Sandeep Goyal‘s KBC?

He seems to have got his charge‘s act together this time. After a disastrous Roosevelt-type 100-hundred day relaunch of Zee TV, group broadcast CEO Sandeep Goyal went back to the drawing board as it were and completely reworked his strategy.

He hired a new creative team, which was headed by Tara wiz Vinta Nanda and left her to handle the process of getting Zee back on track while he chose to whiz around globally, making a pitch for the Indian television industry, and projecting himself as the face of Zee TV, marking his presence at many a fora.

Proof that the strategy is working is the show Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hain (JIKNH), which marks its third week on air this Friday. If the first two episodes are anything to go by, Zee TV has a winner on its hands. The tide seems to have turned at last.

Goyal and Nanda seem to have done the right thing by plumping for the show. Produced by NDTV for its channel NDTV World, which never got to see the light of day, JIKNH is just what the TV doctor would have prescribed for the ailing Zee.

Sandeep Goyal went back to the drawing board as it were and completely reworked his strategy

It has great ingredients: film star celebrities, who while they are adored and swooned over, are little known excepting what appears in film magazines which focus on their extramarital affairs and mistakes rather than their positive aspects. In noted film actor Farouque Shaikh they have a presenter who is pretty amiable. Viewers get to know more about their stars through lesser known people - like you and me - who momentarily, because of their associations with the stars, become stars themselves.

Additionally, the show has the slickness that was missing on other Zee TV shows. Finally, it appeals to advertisers and media planners and buyers in ad agencies, which greatly influences whether they buy or not.

Tara wiz Vinta Nanda was given the task of handling the process of getting Zee back on track

Zee TV also seems to be doing well on the marketing front with good creative and slickly produced
billboards and promos. The creative suggests that we are getting to see the real face behind the star‘s mask on JIKNH.

To Zee TV‘s advantage is the fact that Star has not been able to replicate the mind-boggling viewership numbers it used to generate (with its earlier shows) for its new shows. It has a window of opportunity to leap into. Now it‘s over to Team Goyal and Nanda.

Nickelodeon, the neglected child of the Viacom family in India, looks to be finally getting the attention it has craved for long.

Nick will see some major programming and marketing initiatives within the next three weeks, says MTV India managing director Alex Kuruvilla. Barely two months after being taken up by the Zee-Turner bouquet for distribution, the kids‘ channel‘s viewership has increased from 5.5 million to eight million, according to Kuruvilla.

An upbeat Kuruvilla, who says says the network undertook some qualitative research in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore recently to assess Nick‘s reach found that 80 to 90 per cent of children, exposed to just two weeks to Nickelodeon, shifted to it from other kids‘ channels. MTV India distribution head Sanjeev Hiremath says that Nick‘s channel positioning too will be rejigged in the coming two to three months.

"In the first phase, we focussed on distribution. In the next, we will take up channel positioning", Hiremath says.

In the US, Nick commands a powerful audience with its mix of toon and reality programming. In India, however, the channel has failed to generate mass interest thus far, even as rival Cartoon Network surged ahead in popularity. While Nickelodeon suffered from a lack of viewership when it was bundled with the Zee bouquet, the distribution tie up with Warner seems to have given Nick the much needed push. In the 14 months it has been around in India in its present avatar, Nick was unable to match the numero uno position it commands in the US and was labouring on with a viewership of barely two million, admits Kuruvilla.

With it getting noticed, however, Nick is sprucing up its programming. Nick Masala, the two-hour Hindi block is already drawing in viewers although Kuruvilla maintains there is no urgency for localisation on the channel. Its two-hour block on Zee is also drawing ratings of around 0.4, he says. Kuruvilla is also bullish about ad revenues for Nick, which he sees picking up after the increased viewership figures.

MTV meanwhile, is seriously pursuing its plan of going digital within the next three to six months, says Kuruvilla. Cross promotions for Nick have already picked up on MTV and will see a spurt in the coming days with prime properties like Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius becoming a highlight of Nick‘s programming. While MTV itself is undecided on whether it will continue to remain independent or will join a bouquet, Nick too "is keeping its options open," says Kuruvilla. The channel will also look at locally created animation programmes in the medium term, he adds.