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People
By: A Mid Day Correspondent
December 21, 2005

Tumhari Disha celebrates 300 episodes Film Farm's drama Tumhari Disha celebrated the completion of 300 episodes yesterday at Quila in Andheri. The soap on Zee revolves around the life of Disha played by Chavvi Hussein. The entire cast, including Chavvi along with husband Mohit, Ashish Nayyar, Krittika Desai, Sachin Tyaagi and producers Rupali and Pintoo Guha were in attendance. Here's a look at the disha the party took...
	Shake it baby: Moroccan belly dancers mesmerise the telly world
	Black beauties: Krittika Desai and Chavvi Hussein
	Life after remix: Dimple Ghosh finally finds time to party
	Three's company: Gaurav Ghera with friends
	United we stand: Ashish Nayyar with Rupali Guha and Chavvi Hussein. Pics: Sujit Jaiswal

Zarina storms out of Tumhari Disha's set

Kunal M Shah

Zarina Wahab is known far and wide for professionalism. Considering that, the fact that she walked out of Tumhari Disha sets is a rather surprising one.

Wahab says, "I have never misbehaved ever on any sets. It's been 27 years since I have been working in the industry and never has anyone complained. Well, I had informed the production guys well in advance that I would shoot only till 3 pm from December 20 to December 26 as my mother was unwell. However, they kept on delaying the shoot. But on Friday, I had to admit my mother in the hospital. Despite that, they made me stay back for one hour extra. I shot till 4 pm but then I obviously had to leave. I don't think there is any issue and I don't even see any reason why you need to write about it. As far as I am concerned, there is no dispute or else they would have told me."

She adds, "The problem is that the new scheduler is good for nothing and calls everyone on the sets at 9 am in the morning and upon reaching there, we have to wait for our shots. There is chaos all the time. I have completed 300 episodes with them and I don't think there is any serious problem. I have been known for my discipline all these years and I have been professional every time." The producer was unavalible for comment.

Zarina Wahab with son

Zee Telefilms Ltd

The country's largest vertically integrated media company Zee Telefilms Ltd can term 2005 as a year when its hopes got dashed (as the Supreme Court ruled against its petition challenging the Indian cricket boss' diktats) and rekindled as towards the end of the year a new regime took over the Indian cricket board and promptly handed Zee the rights for the India-Sri Lanka Test series.

Considering that the group's promoter Subhash Chandra is bullish on cricket and his sports channel, late developments augur well for the group.

And, then the predictably unpredictable Chandra relinquished the position of managing director deciding to continue as the non-executive chairman and principal promoter of Zee Telefilms. Who'll fill the MD's vacant slot? A good question for which nobody has an immediate answer except guesses like CEO Pradeep Guha who might be elevated to the vacant position.

The high profile Guha joined as the CEO of Zee Tele from Bennett, Coleman & Co, publishers of The Times of India.

While Chandra re-entered the FM radio race through Essel Group company Pan India Network Infravest, he also hived off the news business into a separate company, Zee News Pvt Ltd with scaled down the foreign holding to comply with government norms.

In the restructured news entity, Zee Telefilms' equity stake is 35 per cent, which works out under a complex formula to about 20 per cent of foreign holding on a pro rata basis.

ZTL also restructured its top management. The most crucial was the change at the top for flagship channel Zee TV. Puneet Goenka, who had been overseeing the operations of Zee Sports, was made Zee TV business head, while outgoing Zee TV business head Abhijit Saxena returned to the arena where he first made a mark, the distribution business. Saxena also supervises special projects for Zee TV.

After almost 13 years of existence, the Zee Network decided to sport a new look, which also included renaming of the three English channels. Zee English, ZMZ and MX were re-named as Zee Caf, Zee Studios and Zee Select, respectively. Comedy channel Smile TV became Zee Smile and Trendz got re-christened as Zee Trendz. All channels under the Alpha brand were brought under the Zee brand. The company's lone south Indian presence, Zee Telugu, got relaunched in May 2005.

With game shows being the flavour of the year, Zee TV launched the Rs 30 million Kam ya Zyaada in the last leg of the calendar year with actor Manoj Bajpai as an anchor.

Programming-wise, the channel attempted a variety of genres this year. Sinndoor Tere Naam Ka and a consistent Tumhari Disha have helped the channel to strengthen the 7:30 pm - 8 pm time band. 2005 also saw Zee TV increasing its production and promotion budgets manifold.

On the international front, Zee Arabiya, a music and lifestyle channel for the youth, was launched. This was Zee's first localised channel offering in the Middle East. Zee has commited to invest around Rs 1.2 billion in the region within a year.

Source: Indiantelevision.com

'Prratima' producer is back in action

Sapana Patil

Leading lady: Dimple Inamdar

Raja Mukherji is ready to launch two new serials, after Prratima, his first production on Sahara One.

"After Prratima, I began working on the script of my Bengali film," says Mukherji. "So it took me some time to finalise on the TV serials. Now, I am producing a serial called Kahkashan for a new channel called Kitab Entertainment. It is about a Muslim girl called Kahkashan who is a lawyer. This serial is a family soap with law as its backdrop. The story is about Kahkashan's search for her father."

"No one so far has tried doing a serial with law as its backdrop," he adds. "Thus it will have a fresh perspective That was my main reason for using the subject." Dimple Inamdar (Mahika of Tumhari Disha) will play the title role.

Mukherji is also producing another serial for Doordarshan. "We are still working on it, but the shooting for both serials will begin next month," he says.

Raja's wife Jyoti Mukherji (who played the lead in Prratima) is not acting in either serial. "She will look into the production aspects this time," he explains.

source: mumbaimirror.com

'Positive roles are boring'
Wednesday, January 11, 2006 17:25 IST

Kruttika Desai: 'Not wearing tikkas'
By: Vickey Lalwani
January 17, 2006

Kruttika Desai

Kruttika Desai dabbles with tarot cards and voodoo in her new reel-life character. The actress will be playing the role of Mohini, a tarot card reader and a voodoo specialist. Starting today, Kruttika will be playing this character in SaharaOne's Hare Kaanch Ki Chudiyan.

Interesting look

Kruttika's scenes have been shot at a special set erected in Magnum Studios in Andheri (East). She tells hitList, "It's a very exciting role. I have this very interesting look. I am wearing sphaghettis, flared skirts and chunky jewelry."

Sounds too much like Sunita Menon? The clothes do but that's where it ends. "I sport short hair and unlike most such characters, I am not wearing any tikka on my forehead.

Rakesh Sarang (director) and Sahara One were very particular that they didn't want the usual long hair and tikkas that go with such characters."

Kruttika says he has been a big admirer of Sarang's work and wanted
to work with him and is happy that she got this opportunity, "Finally, it has happened. I am very happy and I am going to give it my best shot."

Currently seen in Zee's Tumhari Disha, Kruttika will be needed for about seven days in a month for Hare Kaanch Ki Chudiyan

Tumhari Disha takes new turn

Sapana Patil

Television's favourite vamp Sudha Chandran began by playing a positive role in Tumhari Disha which later turned negative. Tonight it will be revealed that Vasudha, the lady who has been creating havoc in Disha's (Chavi Mittal) life is none other than her biological mother.

Producer Rupali Guha lets the cat out of the bag when she says, "Vasudha is Disha's actual mother. She is an ambitious lady and didn't want the child. So, she abandoned Disha soon after she was born. Then Zarina Wahab adopted her."