Achievers
Books
Business
Calendar
Community
Controversy
Cuisine
Eateries
Education
Enterprise
Faith
Good Samaritans
Health
Infotech
Media
Memories
Movies
News Archives
Opinion
Specials
The Arts

Bollywood Awards in NY to be Webcast live

Nitish S Rele in Tampa

The stars will shine brightly on your computer screens tomorrow night as the second annual Zee Gold Bollywood Awards are Webcast live.

The event, starting 2000 EDT, will be broadcast live from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New York. Chaitime.com, a South Asian community Web site, is teaming up with Yahoo! for the venture.

"It is our first tie-up with Yahoo!," Neeta Parikh, president of chaitime's North American region, told rediff.com

"We are glad we chose Yahoo! because it is a global giant and has the capability to do a good job."

The programme will be available at movies.yahoo.com. Yahoo! will also deliver the live Internet broadcast to www.bollywoodawards.com and to the broadcast page on chaitime.com

The show will also be available through Yahoo's Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, and United Kingdom and Ireland portals.

"We are expecting a ton of traffic," said Parikh. "Last fall, when we Webcast Miss India live, we received 20,000 hits."

"For the last two months, we have been marketing the event all over the world," said Parikh. "It has truly been a worldwide campaign."

There is great enthusiasm among chaitime.com employees. "Right now, even as we speak, 15 of our technicians are at the Coliseum setting up equipment for the big event," said Parikh.

The Bollywood Awards honour the year's greatest achievements for movie arts in Indian cinema. Among the stars and personalities expected to attend are Aishwarya Rai, Anil Kapoor, Tabu, Subhash Ghai, Mira Nair, Ismail Merchant, Urmila Matondkar, Akshay Khanna, Rahul Khanna, Richard Gere and, probably, even Hillary Clinton, who is running for the Senate from New York. The surprise guest is likely to be Madonna or Ricky Martin.

Tickets for the function have been sold out. The Coliseum seats 15,000 people.

"Over the years, millions of Indians have made their homes outside India, yet each of them retains a special connection with their motherland through the movies," said Kamal Dandona, chairman of the Bollywood Awards. "Through this strategic partnership with chaitime.com, the Zee Gold Bollywood Awards will reach millions of South Asians all over the world."

"We at chaitime will continue to seek out new events," said Parikh. "We will try to bring our viewers unique content such as concerts, among other things."

Established in May 1999, chaitime.com offers South Asians culture-specific channels like arts, culture, astrology, Bollywood, careers, college life, cricket, music, news, relationships and weddings. Also featured are services like free e-mail, chat, discussion groups, community calendars and community homepages. The company is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Next: 'My attitude has always been that of seeing the glass half-full...'

Tell us what you think of this report