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Tag: Vadodara

  • Reel luxe: Mukta A2 rolls out Opulence format in Vadodara

    Reel luxe: Mukta A2 rolls out Opulence format in Vadodara

    MUMBAI: Forget first-class, Vadodara’s movie buffs can now go full throttle with ‘Opulence’. Mukta A2 Cinemas has just unveiled its most premium offering yet with the launch of ‘Opulence’, a swanky four-screen multiplex housed inside The Emperor Mall, Vadodara. With 528 plush seats, Dolby Atmos sound, 2K laser projection, all-silver screens, and immersive 3D, it’s not just a trip to the movies, it’s a full-blown affair of the senses.

    From recliners and loungers to couple’s beds and leather sofas, comfort here doesn’t come in small measures. Add to that gourmet snacks, ambient lighting and a thoughtfully designed lobby, and you’ve got yourself a cinematic spa day.

    As a cherry on top, the launch syncs with the release of ‘Housefull 5’, giving audiences a blockbuster to match the opulence.

    “This isn’t just a format, it’s a reimagined moviegoing experience,” said Mukta A2 Cinemas managing director Rahul Puri. “We wanted to launch where the love for cinema runs deep, and Vadodara was the perfect fit.”

    Located beside VCA Ground on Vasna-Bhayli Road, the venue features a gourmet F&B counter with wraps, pizzas, desserts, and a range of beverages all served up in style.

    Satwik Lele, COO, added, “With Opulence, we’ve married comfort, technology, and hospitality into one seamless space. It’s cinema, but elevated.”

    With this launch, Mukta A2 Cinemas which operates nearly 100 screens across India and overseas including Bahrain reaffirms its ambition to lead with innovation. And if the seats at Opulence are anything to go by, they’re not just raising the bar they’re reclining in it.

  • Narendra Modi: India’s next Prime Minister

    Narendra Modi: India’s next Prime Minister

    MUMBAI: As the dusk sets on the historic day in Indian history, soon-to-be India’s fourteenth Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, thanked the people of Vadodara (Baroda) for giving him a record margin of 5.7 lakh votes.

     

    While the Congress accepted its humiliating defeat, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is busy giving out laddoos to people.

     

    Even though early leads suggested that BJP was way ahead of other parties, by afternoon all doubts were abolished. At the time of filing this report (7:18 pm) while NDA had secured 337 seats, BJP alone had 283 seats, way past the magical figure of 272. On the other hand, UPA managed only 58 seats, while Congress put up a disappointing figure of 45 seats.

     

    The Congress saw a resounding defeat as it barely managed to get a few seats while retaining its main seats of Amethi (Rahul Gandhi) and Rae Bareily (Sonia Gandhi).

     

    It is after 30 years that a party achieved the feat of having a thumping majority to lead the Lok Sabha.  BJP saw clean sweeps in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi and Goa while other states had clear majority. There were a few states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Tripura, Sikkim, Odisha and Manipur,where the party couldn’t cement a strong hold.

     

    The election which saw many firsts has already gone down in the history as the election of the century.

  • ET NOW and DuPont to begin ‘The Power of Shunya’ – Season 2

    ET NOW and DuPont to begin ‘The Power of Shunya’ – Season 2

    MUMBAI: ET NOW, India’s #1 Stocks and Business News channel, in association with DuPont, the world’s leading science company, is inviting entries for the second season of ‘The Power of Shunya™: Challenge for Zero’. The program willshowcase path breaking revolutionary innovations and marketing strategies by the brightest minds from science, technology and business schools. The first season witnessed some ground breaking innovations and the winners were rewarded with cash prize worth INR 1,000,000 and an all-expense paid experiential trip to the global DuPont headquarters in USA.

     

    ‘The Power of Shunya™: Challenge for Zero’ invites students from leading science, engineering and management institutes to develop a science-based innovation and its marketing plan to help India achieve the aspirational goal of Shunyaor zero – a country with zero hunger, zero malnutrition, zero accidents, zero lives lost, zero carbon footprint. The contestants are judged based on their product’s innovation quotient, its functionality, its potential impact and its ability to achieve the Power of Zero.

     

    The call for entries is open for a month,from March 10 to April 10, 2014across collegesin all metros and other cities like Hyderabad, Pune, Ranchi, Anand, Vadodara, Chandigarh and Kozhikode.

     

    The students can register at the kiosk at their colleges where a ‘The Power of Shunya™’ evangelist will guide them through the procedure and answer any queries related to the show. Entries to ‘The Power of Shunya™: Challenge for Zero’ can also be made online by logging on to www.powerofshunya.com.

     

    Students can also attend ‘The Power of Shunya™’ workshop at their respective colleges to understand the features of the show and the participation process.

     

    Entries will be reviewed and anonymously judged by a grand jury panel of scientists, business leaders and scholars. The jurywill shortlist entries that demonstrate outstanding creativity, ingenuity and originality.

     

    Additional information such as entry guidelines, list of jury members, evaluation criteria and award details can be found at www.powerofshunya.com.

     

  • Winmagic, Comguard& ITCG Solutions hold Joint Customer Meet in Vadodara

    Winmagic, Comguard& ITCG Solutions hold Joint Customer Meet in Vadodara

    MUMBAI: Comguard Infosol, Winmagic Inc. and ITCG Solutions together conducted a customer meet in Gujarat on “Bringing the Next Generation in Data Encryption”.The meet aimed at creating awareness about security solutions and to galvanize partners to align with them to create new opportunities for mutual growth.

    The evening in Gujarat was sparkled by the presence ofMr. Nilesh Kuvadia- Director, ITCG; Mr. Harish Rai- Country Manager, and Mr. Nameet Dokare – Country Manager, Winmagic.

    On the eve of the event Mr. Nilesh Kuvadia, Managing Director, ITCG Solutions delightfully conveyed “With the current trend of mobility & BYOD, product like WinMagic is the need for this hour. It not only seamlessly integrates with all the current technologies but also ensures that encryption layer doesn’t degrade the performance of the device.”

    Speaking on the occasion, Harish Rai, Country Managerof ComguardInfosol also said, “Our prime agenda is to extend our channel reach and to spread the product knowledge. We have lined up a number of programs and training sessions to meet the same.”

    Winmagic enlightened the crowd with the significance of data encryption in the enterprise as well as consumer level.

    “In today’s world the main concern for any enterprise is its data protection from illegal and authenticated user and hackers. Winmagic provides the world’s most secure, manageable and easy-to-use data encryption solutions. Winmagic’s mission is protecting your data in a mobile world through innovation and strong ethics,” said Nameet Dokare, Country Manager, Winmagic.
    Mr. Nadir Khatib – Technical Consultant (Winmagic) presented the features of using Winmagic Platform solution’s with a technical demonostration  – an excellent opportunity to get the latest version of Winmagic experience atfirst hand!

  • CBFC gets CEO in Railways’ Rakesh Kumar

    CBFC gets CEO in Railways’ Rakesh Kumar

    MUMBAI: The Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has finally found its CEO.  Rakesh Kumar, who is currently a senior Divisional Personnel Officer in the Indian Railways Personnel Service (IRPS) in Vadodara has been chosen as the new CEO for three years. He steps into the shoes of former CEO Pankaja Thakur, who completed her three year term on 20 September 2013.

     

    Press Information Bureau (PIB) Mumbai director Manish Desai had been given additional responsibility as CEO following Thakur’s departure. The CBFC had been CEO-less for almost a decade and had been run by its chairpersons until Thakur joined in 2010.

     

    Kumar was selected after a long process for which the CBFC received many applications. About five to seven officials were shortlisted to be interviewed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and CBFC chairperson Leela Samson.

     

    Kumar is on a Central Stopping Deputation, which means he will be on deputation to the CBFC for three years, and after that he may resume his current job. According to official sources, the appointment order came in yesterday and Kumar is set to join within a fortnight.

  • Ghai to inaugurate multiplex in Kolkata in six months

    Ghai to inaugurate multiplex in Kolkata in six months

    In between helming his film institute Whistling Woods International and wielding the megaphone for his directorial comeback Kaanchi, Subhash Ghai will soon inaugurate a three-screen multiplex spread over 35,000 square feet under his brand Mukta A2 Cinemas in the City of Joy.

    Coming up in the next six months at Junction Mall, Barasat, in Kolkata, this will be Mukta A2 Cinemas’ debut in West Bengal after having similar such multiplexes in Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Gulbarga. The first plex was opened in Gujarat back in July 2011.

    When contacted, Nice Property director Prabhakar Kumar confirmed the news and said: “Mukta Arts has been in the distribution and exhibition business for a while now and with this chain of multiplexes, they only plan to strengthen their foothold in the industry.”

    Junction Mall, Barasat, in a total mall area of 150,000 square feet, is marketed by Nice Property and is a joint venture project with North 24Parganas Zilla Parishad.

    Sources said plans are afoot to invite actors the likes of Abishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Sonali Bendre to Kolkata for the first fifteen days to promote the plex.

    Also, tickets will be economically priced, keeping in mind consumer spending behaviour in Kolkata, sources informed. “Mukta Cinemas is looking at 1,200 seats. The pricing is slightly lower than other multiplexes,” a source revealed.

    It is further learnt that the company has signed an 18 year lease contract and as per the agreement, the rent will be Rs 60 per sqft.

    “Even if Mukta Arts achieves 50 per cent occupancy rate, this venture would give good returns to the company,” observed a media analyst, adding that there are not many high-quality plexes in the vicinity, upping the possibility of the plex doing well in future.

    Ghai’s Mukta Arts is primarily engaged in motion picture production apart from production, distribution, and exhibition of television serials and entertainment software, equipment hiring, and generation and distribution of content for the entertainment industry.

  • DAS extension pleas quashed in Karnataka and Gujarat

    DAS extension pleas quashed in Karnataka and Gujarat

    NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: The information & broadcasting ministry can heave a sigh of relief as the the high courts in Karnataka and Gujarat today dismissed petitions filed by cable operators seeking extension of digitisation.

    The court orders mean that the government can go about systematically switching-off analogue signals in the cities that are covered in the Phase II of the rollout of cable TV digitisation in the two states.

    The Karnataka high court today dismissed a petition filed by Karnataka State Cable TV Operators Association (KSCOA) seeking extension of deadline for implementing digital addressable system (DAS). The KSCOA petition was trashed as the HC found no merits in the case.

    Similarly, the Gujarat high court also dismissed two petitions seeking postponement of digitisation in the four cities in the state. The court also vacated the stay ordered on 28 March in the cities of Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, and Vadodara.

    The decision by the high courts paves the way for switch-off analogue signals in the cities that are covered in Phase II of DAS.

    Expressing satisfaction, Information & Broadcasting ministry secretary Uday Kumar Varma told Indiantelevision.com that the judgements vindicated the government‘s stand that the advent of new technology could not be stopped. He also said that there was no truth in reports about the shortage of set top boxes (STBs).

    KSCOA president Patrick Raju said that he and his legal team would look at a copy of the court order before commenting about further action that his association would take in the matter.

    Among the contentions of the cable operators association in Karnataka was that a large number of cable homes in Bengaluru and Mysore would go dark if DAS is implemented since there isn’t enough supply of STBs.

    The KSCOA and MCOA (Mysore Cable TV Operators Association) had filed separate petitions, which were later clubbed together, seeking relief in the digitisation deadline due to shortage of STBs and lack of clarity on box ownership and many other issues.

    The Cable Operators Association of Gujarat (COAG) in its petition had contended that there was a shortage of STBs and no clarity on acquisition of these boxes. COAG president Pramod Pandya said STBs ordered from China had failed to arrive because of internal problems in that country and therefore the local cable operators could not be penalised for this.

    Also read:

    Gujarat HC dismisses petitions seeking DAS extension

    Karnataka HC dismisses KSCOA petition, paves way for analogue cable switch-off

  • DAS extension: Karnataka HC reserves order till 16 April

    DAS extension: Karnataka HC reserves order till 16 April

    BENGALURU/NEW DELHI: The Karnataka High Court is set to decide on 16 April whether the stay on Digital Addressable System (DAS) roll-out in Bengaluru and Mysore will continue after the hearing in the matter concluded today.

    The HC reserved its order after hearing arguments of Union of India represented through Information & Broadcasting (I&B) ministry and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), which had impleaded itself in the case on Monday.

    Earlier, the HC had heard arguments from petitioners Karnataka State Cable TV Operators (KSCOA) and Mysore Cable TV Operators Association (MCOA) and Multi System Operators (MSOs), the respondents in the case.

    The interim order restraining MSOs from disconnecting analog signals continues in both the cities.

    The KSCOA and MCOA had filed petitions, which were later clubbed together, seeking relief in digitisation deadline due to shortage of Set Top Boxes (STBs) and lack of clarity on STB ownership.

    The MSOs and IBF have sought the dismissal of petition on the ground that a large number of homes have already been seeded and there is no need for an extension to seed STBs in the remaining homes.

    Hearing in Gujarat adjourned till 16 April

    Meanwhile, the hearing of digitisation extension case in the Gujarat High Court could not take place as the court was pre-occupied with other matters. The HC has adjourned the case till 16 April which means that the stay in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara will continue.

    The Cable Operators Association of Gujarat (COAG) had filed a petition seeking postponement of digitisation due to shortage of STBs. The COAG through its president Pramod Pandya has filed a rejoinder to an affidavit filed by I&B ministry.

    Pandya said STBs ordered from China has failed to arrive because of internal problems in that country and therefore the local cable operators (LCOs) should be given more time to seed STBs in all the homes.

    The Government has already switched off analogue signals in the remaining 30 cities that were covered under phase II of digitisation beginning 1 April.

    Along with Karnataka and Gujarat, digitisation has also been stayed in two cities of Andhra Pradesh – Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam – where the hearing is expected to commence next week.

    Also read:

    Stay continues in Karnataka and Gujarat as courts adjourn hearing to 10 April

    IBF joins MSOs to oppose DAS extension in Bengaluru and Mysore

    Stay continues in Bengaluru and Mysore as HC pushes hearing to 8 April

    DAS Phase II: Karnataka HC extends hearing to 5 April, stay to continue in Bengaluru

  • Stay continues in Karnataka and Gujarat as courts adjourn hearing to 10 April

    Stay continues in Karnataka and Gujarat as courts adjourn hearing to 10 April

    NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: The stay on digitisation of cable television will continue in six cities of Gujarat and Karnataka as the High Courts in both the states decided to continue hearing tomorrow of the petitions filed against the digital addressable system (DAS) on the ground of shortage of set top boxes (STBs).

    The stay on switching off analogue signals has been put off till further orders in the cities of Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, and Vadodara as the counsel for the Union of India could not appear for the hearing due to personal reasons. The matter has been adjourned for tomorrow.

    Justice Rajesh Shukla of the Gujarat High Court directed the petitioner Cable Operators Association of Gujarat through its president Pramod Pandya to file by tomorrow his rejoinder to the affidavit filed by the Information & Broadcasting ministry.

    Justice S Abdul Nazeer of the Karnataka High Court also extended the stay in Bengaluru and Mysore after the hearing writ petition filed by the Karnataka State Cable TV Operators Association (KSCOA) remained inconclusive. The hearing will continue tomorrow.

    The petitioners, Karnataka State Cable TV Operators (KSCOA), and one set of respondents -the MSOs‘ legal representatives – finished their arguments in the matter that ran throughout the day.

    It is now the turn of the other respondents – the Union of India through I&B ministry and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) to present their arguments against the writ petition tomorrow.

    The IBF has impleaded itself as a party in both Gujarat and Karnataka, primarily to argue that there should be no delay in implementation of DAS.

    In its petition, the Cable Operators Association of Gujarat has said that there is shortage of set top boxes and no clarity on acquisition of these boxes.

    The Government has already switched off the analogue television signals in Phase II from the midnight of 31 March.
    Pandya said over phone from Ahmedabad that STBs ordered from China had failed to arrive because of internal problems in that country and therefore the local cable operators could not be penalized for this.

    As reported earlier, KSCOA filed a writ petition against the implementation of the second phase of the Digital Addressable System (DAS) that was to be implemented on 1 April onwards in Bengaluru. Other petitions filed against DAS in Mysore and some other LCOs were clubbed together.

    Meanwhile, digitisation has also been stayed in Hyderabad and Vishakhapatnam and the case is coming up for hearing before the Andhra Pradesh High Court next week.

  • I&B sec Varma: “DAS Phase II roll-out smooth”

    I&B sec Varma: “DAS Phase II roll-out smooth”

    NEW DELHI: India‘s historical march towards cable television digitisation has taken a giant leap forward with the government expressing satisfaction over the implementation of Digital Addressable System (DAS) that covered 38 cities and towns in phase II.

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Information & Broadcasting (I&B) ministry Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said that analogue signals had been switched off in 33 of the 38 towns at the stroke of midnight of 31 March.

    A confident Varma expressed that the success of the first and second phase of digitisation has strengthened his resolve that government‘s digitisation initiative was on track to be completed before the 31 December 2014 deadline.

    Five cities in Gujarat and Karnataka have been left out since there was a stay by Gujarat and Karnataka High Courts on DAS. Overall 75 per cent of the television homes in these 38 cities have been digitised, said Varma.

    In Gujarat, digitisation in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot has reached 50 per cent with Vadodara leading the pack with 70 per cent digitisation.

    Varma also asserted that seven cities including Hyderabad, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Allahabad out of the 38 had 100 per cent digitisation, while another nine had achieved over 75 per cent.

    However, he did confess that towns like Srinagar, Vishakhapatnam and Coimbatore were slow in seeding of STBs. Around 12 million of the 16 million TV households had been digitised, he said.

    He said the Ministry was keeping a watch on the situation with regard to STBs and said his information was that there were enough STBs at present for all the 38 cities in fourteen states and one union territory.

    “It was a mammoth task and I am happy that the switch-over had been smooth, without any law and order problems,” he said in a candid conversation.

    Asked about the 48-hour cable TV blackout in Delhi, Varma brushed it aside by saying that it has been an abject failure. He, however added that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will look into the grievances of the LCOs.