Bollywood talking BIG

Bollywood is the big adda
Bollywood is talking BIG in sheer numbers. The corporatization of the Hindi film industry is suddenly taking giant strides on the global frontier and testimony to this is UTV's Ronnie Screwvala, who's now on the cover of Newsweek. The media conglomerate is going places not just in terms of his Bollywood and television plans (8-10 TV channels), but also for his Hollywood projects. Hats off to this bawa gentlemen who's minting money in return for good, solid entertainment.

Welcome the titans
The Bollywood success story is seeing some biggies emerge in the entire scenario. Yashraj is huge, alright but new players emerging are Eros, Reliance and UTV. Eros recently received funding from Citibank group to the tune of $400 million, especially for its film production business and this I think, speaks volumes for the industry as a whole which is seeing investments from non-film players. Citibank is a banking company, after all.

SUB ka bheja fry
About me, things have reached a crucial juncture at work. I've discovered a firm footing on desk, and I'm learning it quick and enjoying it. I've discovered that reporting is not my forte, nor is pestering people to give me a story. I'm enjoying subbing and of late, rarely being pulled up by my managing editor for subbing goof-ups. It's a good sign and moreover he's acknowledged it, that I'm potential subbie in the making. An industry senior says that the print medium has a dearth of good sub-editors and I could offer my services to Print, in the coming days. Let's see. The desk is not a bad place to be. And I can do features alongside. Makes it more relaxed and focused.

Chak de Indiantelevision!
Team Indiantelevision.com will watch Chak De India today at Fun Republic. That's about 40 of us. It's a part of a corporate team-building exercise. We can draw inspiration from this film to function much better as a team, by pushing harder towards better quality work. It's a different story though, that most of us have already seen the film. It's also another different story that the film is 'tax-free' now that the office has arranged for a trip. :-)

There she goes
Our editorial team faced a blow this week when our 'centre-forward' Renelle put in her papers. She'll join Vir Sanghvi-headed INX News in October. She's been with us for over a year, rising from a trainee journalist to staff reporter to sub-editor to senior reporter. She's an asset to the team apart from being a friend and a wonderful colleague to me. I've learnt a lot from her and I wish her all the best, although it makes me nervous how we'll cope up without her.

The buzz, though is that we're poaching senior journos from DNA Money and HT Cafe. This is good news. The value of the brand will go higher if journalists from print publications turn to the web. It helps us garner much more respect not only as a brand, but also as a web-based B2B medium.