India TV

Suhaib Ilyasi's <em>India's Most Wanted</em> may have lost its sting on India TV, but the producer and verbose anchor himself is ready with another crime based show for another news channel. Ilyasi's <em>Crime and Punishment</em> will debut on Sahara Samay Rashtriya on 11 July.

Revealed! The reason behind Aman Yatan Verma's downfall! Sanjay Jumaani, the man who changed the destinies of many a telly star by numerologically altering their nomenclatures, says Aman's change of name last year is the cause of his current misfortunes. Incidentally, Aman went in for the name change on his own, without Jumaani's or anyone else's advice. But if the revamped Aman Yatan Verma sounded suitably dignified and helped him land the plum <em>Indian Idol</em> assignment, it definitely didn't augur well for him in the <em>India's Most Wanted</em> episode.

While the whole world goes out expressing their views, opinions, anger and surprise, we took a detour to find out what the <em>Indian Idol</em> contestants have to say about the Aman Verma - India TV episode. These are the youngsters, aspirants with stars in their eyes, who spent quality time with the beleaguered television personality for the last six months. We spoke to a few of them who had interacted with Aman on the sets of <em>Indian Idol</em>.

One day after India TV aired the sting operation snaring television personality Aman Verma, the <em>Indian Idol</em> host called a press conference where film personalities Salman Khan, Govinda, Arbaaz Khan, Ravi Chopra, Pahlaj Nihalani, Raj Kanwar, Suneel Darshan pledged their support to him. The assembled film dignitaries rattled off well rehearsed speeches backing Aman, who himself entered Mehboob Studios 45 minutes late, wearing dark glasses. Shah Rukh Khan, who Aman had said would be present at the meet, did not put in an appearance.

Some people never learn. Bollywood baddie Shakti Kapoor's brush with a sting operation on India TV, telecast yesterday, was not the only incident in his diary. Music channel MTV tried a similar gimmick on him in February, two months after his India TV tryst, and the screen villain fell for that trap too, hook, line and sinker.

After rocking the big screen with films like Page 3 and Chandni Bar, film director Madhur Bhandarkar may try his hand at the small screen too. As per industry information, Bhandarkar, who's a close friend of TV personality and India TV promoter Rajat Sharma, is said to have been sounded out by the latter for a show on his news channel that launched mid 2004. The sources indicate that since Bhandarkar is closely associated with the glamour and film world, Sharma may successfully seduce him to host a film-based show on India TV, which is depending heavily on anchor-based programmes.