ITV

Tag: Karan Mehra

  • Unique mobile UC Browser-Colors TV integration; Bigg Boss participants revealed

    Unique mobile UC Browser-Colors TV integration; Bigg Boss participants revealed

    MUMBAI: A leading mobile internet browser seems to have helped the hugely popular television show in India on Colors to pick up the trending common man. Bigg Boss’s official Trending Partner UC Browser, with a substantial number of monthly active users, yesterday unveiled the celebrities and the shortlisted participants’ names that are set to enter the Bigg Boss house on its flagship product.

    “We have 80 million monthly active users of mobile UC Browser in India,” a company official told indiantelevision.com. Apart from Bigg Boss, other UC Browser-Colors partnership worked wonders for programes such as Comedy Nights, 24, and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, the official added.

    A part of Alibaba Mobile Business Group UCWeb Inc. revealed Bigg Boss Season 10’s participants on UC Browser, a company press release stated.

    UC Browser, which has had a special section to choose and vote for probable common man who could possibly appear on Bigg Boss, competes with several other mobile browsers. The highly-anticipated Bigg Boss drama will include, for the first time ever, participants from the public shortlisted by the UC Browser popularity poll, the release stated.

    The celebrities who are set to be a part of Bigg Boss are — Karan Mehra, Rohan Mehra, Mona Lisa, Gaurav Chopra, Bani J, Lopamudra Raut and Rahul Dev Kaushal. The ‘Common Man’ contestants are Nitibha Kaul, Manoj Punjabi, Manveer Gurjar, Lokesh Kumari Sharma, Priyanka Jagga, Akansha Sharma and Om Swami.

    UCWeb has evolved from a mobile browser to a mobile media asset, offering mobile search and news feeds to over 420 million monthly active users (MAUs) globally. Today, UC Browser is the No. 1 independent browser in India and Indonesia, and is one of the world’s top three mobile browsers, according to StatCounter.

    Bigg Boss previews and behind-the-scenes footage is also available to users of UC Browser which, according to StatCounter, has a 55% market share in India.

    Bringing celebrities face to face with the ‘Aam Aadmi’ contestants, Bigg Boss assures to be bigger than ever with new drama and controversies. Keeping this in mind, UC Browser is ensuring its users to stay in touch with the full daily action by providing a special section on UC Browser as well as UC News. The section to include unseen footage, behind the scenes videos and promos of upcoming episodes. As a part of the We Media program, famous astrologist Bejan Daruwalla will be analyzing the drama happening in the show for the users and give his predictions in the form of exclusive blog post on UC Browser & UC News.

    Talking about the integration with Bigg Boss, UCWeb India general manager Robert Bu said, “Reality TV shows are massively popular in India and Indians not just love watching them but also discuss them at home and at work. We have always seen entertainment related content as the best way to interact and engage with our users. The integration with Bigg Boss gives us the opportunity to give the public what they want: Their daily dose of entertainment on their favourite mobile browser.”

    UCWeb Inc is a leading provider of mobile internet software and services. The international product portfolio of UCWeb includes UC Browser (mobile browsing service), UC News (content distributor), 9Apps (Android app store), UC Union (mobile traffic and monetization platform), etc.

    ‘Colors’, Viacom18’s flagship brand in the entertainment space in India, offers an entire spectrum of emotions to its viewers. From fiction shows to format shows to reality shows to blockbuster movies – the basket contains all ‘Jazbaat Ke Rang’.

  • Unique mobile UC Browser-Colors TV integration; Bigg Boss participants revealed

    Unique mobile UC Browser-Colors TV integration; Bigg Boss participants revealed

    MUMBAI: A leading mobile internet browser seems to have helped the hugely popular television show in India on Colors to pick up the trending common man. Bigg Boss’s official Trending Partner UC Browser, with a substantial number of monthly active users, yesterday unveiled the celebrities and the shortlisted participants’ names that are set to enter the Bigg Boss house on its flagship product.

    “We have 80 million monthly active users of mobile UC Browser in India,” a company official told indiantelevision.com. Apart from Bigg Boss, other UC Browser-Colors partnership worked wonders for programes such as Comedy Nights, 24, and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, the official added.

    A part of Alibaba Mobile Business Group UCWeb Inc. revealed Bigg Boss Season 10’s participants on UC Browser, a company press release stated.

    UC Browser, which has had a special section to choose and vote for probable common man who could possibly appear on Bigg Boss, competes with several other mobile browsers. The highly-anticipated Bigg Boss drama will include, for the first time ever, participants from the public shortlisted by the UC Browser popularity poll, the release stated.

    The celebrities who are set to be a part of Bigg Boss are — Karan Mehra, Rohan Mehra, Mona Lisa, Gaurav Chopra, Bani J, Lopamudra Raut and Rahul Dev Kaushal. The ‘Common Man’ contestants are Nitibha Kaul, Manoj Punjabi, Manveer Gurjar, Lokesh Kumari Sharma, Priyanka Jagga, Akansha Sharma and Om Swami.

    UCWeb has evolved from a mobile browser to a mobile media asset, offering mobile search and news feeds to over 420 million monthly active users (MAUs) globally. Today, UC Browser is the No. 1 independent browser in India and Indonesia, and is one of the world’s top three mobile browsers, according to StatCounter.

    Bigg Boss previews and behind-the-scenes footage is also available to users of UC Browser which, according to StatCounter, has a 55% market share in India.

    Bringing celebrities face to face with the ‘Aam Aadmi’ contestants, Bigg Boss assures to be bigger than ever with new drama and controversies. Keeping this in mind, UC Browser is ensuring its users to stay in touch with the full daily action by providing a special section on UC Browser as well as UC News. The section to include unseen footage, behind the scenes videos and promos of upcoming episodes. As a part of the We Media program, famous astrologist Bejan Daruwalla will be analyzing the drama happening in the show for the users and give his predictions in the form of exclusive blog post on UC Browser & UC News.

    Talking about the integration with Bigg Boss, UCWeb India general manager Robert Bu said, “Reality TV shows are massively popular in India and Indians not just love watching them but also discuss them at home and at work. We have always seen entertainment related content as the best way to interact and engage with our users. The integration with Bigg Boss gives us the opportunity to give the public what they want: Their daily dose of entertainment on their favourite mobile browser.”

    UCWeb Inc is a leading provider of mobile internet software and services. The international product portfolio of UCWeb includes UC Browser (mobile browsing service), UC News (content distributor), 9Apps (Android app store), UC Union (mobile traffic and monetization platform), etc.

    ‘Colors’, Viacom18’s flagship brand in the entertainment space in India, offers an entire spectrum of emotions to its viewers. From fiction shows to format shows to reality shows to blockbuster movies – the basket contains all ‘Jazbaat Ke Rang’.

  • ‘Badmashiyaan’: Nothing of that sort

    ‘Badmashiyaan’: Nothing of that sort

    When one watches a film like Badmashiyaan  one can’t help but wonder: where do such films come from? A banter over drinks? Or, simply, a desire to feel the glamour and glitz of the film industry and an overwhelming desire to belong? For as soon as the film starts to unwind, you know it is a disaster unreeling on the screen.

    There is this girl, Suzanna Mukherjee, who pretends to fall in love with vulnerable men for the sole purpose of conning them. Fall in love, promise marriage, and vanish via the loo after looting them. Her first victim is Sidhant Gupta, a café owner in Chandigarh. Totally besotted with her, he begs, borrows, steals and buys a two crore house to settle his future wife, Suzanna. On a date at a café, she takes time off to go to loo and never returns. 

    Gupta is heartbroken while Suzanna has found a new target, Sharib Hashmi, a Haryanvi don notwithstanding the fact that we have had too much of these UP, Bihar and Haryanvi dons, comic as well as caricatures. 

    Suzanna makes away with some five lakh of the don’s cash, her accomplice is picked up and stripped naked by the don’s man. In case you happen to watch the film and miss it, this is supposed to be the comic element in the film! On his part, the don does not want his money back (despite wasting an hour of running time beating up this poor sod and stripping him to find where the money is), he has fallen head over heels in love with Suzanna and he wants her instead. 

    Producer: Vijay Gutte

    Director: Amit Khanna

    Cast: Suzanna Mukherjee, Sharib Hashmi, Sidhant Gupta, Karan Mehra, Gunjan Malhotra

    If watching this film is an ordeal, writing about it is even bigger torture. 

    Nobody performs in this film and that includes the writer, director and actors. 

    In a year that has seen some of the worst films being released, Badmashiyaan takes the crown for the first quarter of 2015.

     

    ‘Dirty Politics’: What’s the other kind?

    Producer: Nihal farhat

    Director: K. C. Bokadia

    Cast: Suzanna Mallika Sherawat, Jackie Shroff, Ashutosh Rana, Anupam Kher, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah

    Eons back, celebrated and one of the most gifted filmmakers, Kundan Shah, was working on a script about a Maharashtrian Tamasha girl going on to become the Chief Minister of the state. I suppose the film was too regional in flavour besides the fact that political themes don’t go down well with our audience and, hence, never made.

    Here, a similar theme seems to have been used for titillation rather than to weave a story around the idea that in politics, anything is possible. 

    Mallika Sherawat, a dancer, has a powerful politician fan in Om Puri. Their proximity sows the seeds of political ambitions in her. But, alas, come elections and she is not on the list of nominees. So she decides to use her ticket to attain her goal: CDs of close encounters between her and Puri, which would defame Puri and ruin his political career. 

    How corny can a plot get when people nowadays don’t care who sleeps with whom as long as they deliver? (Reminds me of a prominent politician spokesperson cum lawyer whose explicit videos were on public domain and he still continues to be all that he used to be!) What follows is predictable. Sherawat goes missing and all sorts of corny plots and subplots follow. 

    The film stars some of the great actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Anupam Kher besides Jackie Shroff and Ashutosh Rana but the script, the direction and Sherawat make sure they are rendered ineffective totally; they are neutralised by everything in this film of which they had no reason to be a part.

     

  • Star ropes in stars to raise funds for Uttarakhand rehabilitation

    Star ropes in stars to raise funds for Uttarakhand rehabilitation

    MUMBAI: When Star India CEO Uday Shankar watched hundreds of innocent tourists and locals being swept away and buildings being flattened by the rising waters of the Mandakani river in June this year, he was at first horrified by the magnitude of the tragedy and then moved to action. He vowed to himself, that he would put in his best to help in the rebuilding efforts in the affected areas. He made a call to the two Bhatts of Bollywood- Mahesh and Mukesh and sought their support in putting together a fund-raising initiative which would involve the film and television fraternity.
    This is an opportunity for the entire Hindi film industry to stand by people who have showered them with unconditional love, says Star’s Uday Shankar
    He also connected with Wizcraft’s Sabbas Joseph, asking him to pitch in this with his mite. And he deputed Star India senior VP marketing Yogesh Manwani to go down to Uttarakhand to study and assess the situation and gauge the funds required to rehabilitate the afflicted areas with major NGOs working there.
    Come 15 August 2013, and Uday’s initiative will see the light of day at the National Sports Club of India (NSCI)’s spanking new stadium in Central Mumbai. On stage will be the biggest names from Bollywood, the Bachchan family – it’s quite likely that the Bachchan bahu Aishwarya will get on stage after a long hiatus, Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit, AR Rahman, Lata Mangeshkar, Ayushmann Khurana, Akshay Kumar, Pritam, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Ajay Devgn, Kajol and Prasoon Joshi, among many others.
    The event titled Saath Hain Hum Uttarakhand will be telecast live on a clutch of channels of the Star India network – Life OK, Star Plus, Star Jalsa, Star World, Star Utsav, Star Movies, Star Gold, Star Pravah, Movies OK, Channel V and Star Plus.
    So what’s so great about doing another multi-starrer event with film and TV performers? Have we not seen many of them and felt like going ho-hum? The difference this time is that this one has very noble intentions. Every paisa that Star India earns courtesy ad revenues and sponsorship during the telecast will be donated to NGOs working in the Uttarakhand. The telecast is slated to run for seven hours from 12 noon to 7pm. Estimates are that Star is likely to give away Rs 20-30 crore which it will rake in courtesy the telecast.
    The biggest names from Bollywood have been roped in for the event titled Saath Hain Hum Uttarakhand
    Amitabh will lend his mesmerising voice to recite couplets from Prasoon’s magical poetry that’ll be set to Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music. The enthralling musical act will weave Prasoon’s event anthem – Mera Desh- into an enchanting song performance by acclaimed classical singer Shankar Mahadevan and a spellbinding poetic rendition by Amitabh. At the time of writing, several other stars like Rani Mukerji and Karan Johar were also approached.
    Says Star India CEO Uday Shankar, “Mera Desh is an invocation by India’s most revered artists with a simple and clear message to fellow citizens — to look at tragedy squarely in the eye and overcome it by joining hands. Star India is humbled to receive support from Hindi cinema’s biggest icons.”
    “The noble initiative is an opportunity for the entire Hindi film industry to stand by the very people who have showered us with unconditional love and have made us who we are,” says Bachchan. “We have come together to ease the pain of fellow men who suffered the agonising pain that this unprecedented calamity brought with itself.”
    All the anchors and stars will be urging audiences at home to open their wallets and donate funds for Uttarakhand
    This apart, anchors will be rotated every hour. Among some of the names from the TV industry which are being talked about include: Deepika Singh (Sandhya), Anas Rashid (Sooraj), Karan Mehra (Naitik), Mahadev fame Mohit Raina and Pooja Bose. “The show will be loaded with entertainment,” says a source close to the production. Wizcraft has had the experience of raising funds through greenathons and long-format events. But they have left the fund-raising to Star which is setting up payment gateways online. All the anchors and stars will be urging audiences at home to open their wallets and donate funds for Uttarakhand.”
    The main choreographer for the event is Sanjay Shetty who has become the darling of most live event organisers in recent times. The creative inputs will come courtesy Star India senior vice president programming Anil Jha. Wizcraft TV head Namit Sharma is the creative head and Asim Sen has been roped in as the TV director, Anurag Dingra will be the director of photography, while sets are being done by designer Varshai Desai. Wizcraft sound firm Performance Audio has been signed on for the sound while Atul Sonpal is responsible for the lights design with the help of lights from SFX and Ulhas will look after lights. Tech gear, cameras are being supplied by Real Impact.
    Technical and production crew disclosed that they were either working free of cost or at concessional rates for the event. “We are doing it for a cause,” says one of them. “Star has been reaching out to all who have been working with it on shows in the past to come in at really discounted rates.”
    Star India has emerged as one of the front runners on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) front amongst media firms ever since Shankar took over as CEO four years ago. This initiative should take the network even further still.