A welcome change in TV content, courtesy YRF

Bored of melodramatic soaps and spooky thrillers on the idiot box? Try watching 'Mahi Way', 'Rishta.com', 'Powder' or 'Seven' that, with their distinct style, content and weekly outings, have breathed freshness into Indian television.

All these are new offerings by YRF Television, the television arm of Yash Raj Films. Though the TRPs are not overwhelming, the makers are undeterred and say quality content and word of mouth publicity will propel them to the top.

'(We will boost TRPs) by continuing to maintain our quality and staying true to the concepts of our shows and our model of production,' Ravina Kohli, creative head of Yash Raj Television, told IANS in an e-mail interview.

'It is early days yet and we have achieved the response from our defined target group and there has been phenomenal word of mouth. That in itself is satisfying,' she said.

YRF's serials, aired on Sony, are perceived as breezy, down to earth and close to reality unlike the soaps that have ruled Indian television for over a decade.

'There is always going to be a demand for good content and there is enough space for everyone today, especially for those who can produce good and meaningful programming. We believe in our content and maintaining our quality, staying true to the concepts of our shows and our model of production is what will work,' she added.

YRF's bouquet is a mix of drama, thriller and chat shows. They bring fond memories of shows like 'Banegi Apni Baat', 'Dard' and 'Subah', which are still remembered for their strong storyline and interesting pace.

'Mahi Way' is the simple and sweet tale of a young, overweight girl Mahi and it takes a humorous look at how she struggles to find a right guy for herself. Set in Delhi, the story so far has been moving at an interesting pace and Mahi is slowly making her way into viewers' hearts.

'Rishta.com' is about young and ambitious Rohan and Isha who have joined hands to find people their perfect match and the show has slowly carved a niche.

Then there is a thriller in the form of 'Powder' that deals with men on two different sides of the law. Set against the narcotics trade with Mumbai as a backdrop, it explores varied human emotions and the story travels from murky by-lanes to glitzy highrises, from ordinary people to power players. It surely keeps the viewers on the edge.

'Seven', inspired by mythology, explores the journey of seven ordinary people with extraordinary powers and their quest to fulfil an ancient prophecy and save the world from evil forces - certainly a welcome change from spooky thrillers.

Kohli says YRF wanted to serve to the audience something different.

'Our main criterion is always the script and the concept. Each one of our fiction shows has a strong script, a clear basic concept and its own identity. We wanted a mix in terms of genres and target audiences; so each show is very different in its look, pace and treatment. At the same time they are all urban, contemporary and reflect modern India.'

And last but not the least is the reality show 'Lift Kara De' that boasts of a new concept and a superstar line-up. Hosted by none other than Karan Johar, each week features one superstar and his or her biggest fan.

'The reality show is also unique in its concept of helping a really unfortunate, needy person through the biggest fan of a superstar,' said Kohli.

What also sets these serials apart is that they are weekly shows. 'We wanted to treat and approach our serials just the way we do our films. We opted for weekly shows so as to be able to maintain a certain level of quality,' said Kohli.

Although audiences are addicted to daily soaps, Kohli feels the distinct storyline and presentation will force TV audience to change their taste.

'Our shows are very production heavy - requiring several different locations for each episode and several days to shoot each episode. While some shows have a lot of action or special effects that require a lot of time to shoot, others are complicated to shoot in other ways. So trying to do this in a daily format would just not have worked.'

'We are very clear that we would like to stay with weeklies for all the above reasons. We hope that our strong storylines, our production values and fresh casting will draw audiences to try out and stay with our shows.'

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'Avatar' loses box office crown to 'Dear John'

It had to happen sometime, but nobody expected the biggest film of all time to lose its North American box office crown this weekend to "Dear John," a low-budget "chick flick" with a pair of little-known stars.

The romantic drama opened at No. 1 with three-day sales of $32.4 million across the United States and Canada, crushing both industry forecasts and reigning champ "Avatar," according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.

James Cameron's 3D sci-fi spectacular slipped to No. 2 with $23.6 million in its eighth weekend. But "Avatar" remained the top pick overseas, earning $76 million. Its worldwide tally rose to $2.21 billion, divided between $630.1 million from North America and $1.58 billion from foreign markets.

"Avatar" last Tuesday surpassed the $601 million haul of Cameron's 1997 release "Titanic" to become the biggest movie of all time in North America. It had already taken the international and worldwide titles from "Titanic" thanks to ticket-price inflation and the higher cost of 3D screenings.

Pundits had forecast the 20th Century Fox release would lose its North American crown next weekend to "Valentine's Day," which will take advantage of both the eponymous holiday and the U.S. Presidents Day weekend.

But few predicted that "Dear John" would cause a stampede to movie theaters by young women. Moreover, the hardy demographic appeared to ignore the blizzard that shut down a large swathe of the mid-Atlantic region.

"When they come out, young women come out in droves," said Geoffrey Ammer, president of worldwide marketing at the film's closely held financier Relativity Media.

He said the first wave of moviegoers texted and Tweeted their friends during the screenings to deliver their favourable verdicts, triggering further waves.

MEN "KICKING AND SCREAMING"

Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried star as lovers whose romance is curtailed by the Sept. 11 attacks. It was directed by Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom and based on the novel "Dear John" by Nicholas Sparks.

The film was distributed by Sony Corp's mid-budget label Screen Gems, after Time Warner Inc's New Line Cinema unit dumped the $25 million project. Screen Gems said audiences for the film were 84 percent female and almost two-thirds were under the age of 21.

Ammer said the handful of men "dragged kicking and screaming" to the movie appeared to enjoy it, and he hoped word-of-mouth would bring in more of them. Critics largely ripped the movie.

John Travolta's latest box office offering, "From Paris With Love," was the actor's worst start in almost a decade. The crime thriller opened at No. 3 with $8.1 million. Distributor Lionsgate had hoped for an opening in the mid-teen millions, and said the blizzard did not help business. Critics were also unkind.

Travolta's previous worst opening was the $4.5 million start for "Lucky Numbers" in October 2000. He was in theaters last November with "Old Dogs," which opened at ticket sales of $17 million.

"From Paris With Love" was made by French filmmaker Luc Besson's Europa Corp, which enjoyed a worldwide hit last year with the Liam Neeson kidnap thriller "Taken." Pierre Morel directed both films. Lionsgate is a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.

Also new to the top 10 was Fox Searchlight's "Crazy Heart," which expanded nationally after seven weekends in limited release on the heels of its three Oscar nominations on Tuesday.

The picture earned $3.65 million, jumping six places to No. 8. Its total stands at $11.2 million. Jeff Bridges, its star, is considered the favorite to take home the best actor Oscar on March 7 for his role as a washed-up country music singer and songwriter. Fox Searchlight and 20th Century Fox are units of News Corp.

"Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker," the latter now out on DVD, led the Oscar field with nine nominations each.

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Mumbai's health is fine: Amitabh Bachchan

Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan, who arrived on a visit here Sunday, said Mumbai, where he has lived for over four decades, is 'fine' and healthy.

'Mumbai's health is fine,' Bachchan replied at a function here when reporters asked him about the recent Shiv Sena activities that have triggered tensions in the city.

'Please, I have come here to your state for a good thing, to launch a health programme,' Bachchan said.

This led to the next question that the query was relevant because it concerned the health of Mumbai, prompting his response.

Bachchan was in the city to launch a health project of the Resul Pookutty Foundation and a private hospital which will treat the poor and needy.

He also donated Rs.11 lakh to the foundation.

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China Busts Nation's Biggest Hacking School ... for Google's Sake?

China can't seem to keep out of the news about hacking and cyberwar can it? The country's police have scored a positive news report, however: They've closed down the nation's biggest hacker training school. It does raise some questions though.

The action went down in Hubei province in Central China, and three people were arrested and a pile of money and other assets were seized. The three were responsible for running the Black Hawk Safety Net, allegedly, and they're facing charges of providing online hacking code to others--a new offense in China. It all stems back to a cyberattack in 2007, which revealed connections to Black Hawk when some of the suspects were caught.

What exactly were these guys up to? It seems that their main crime isn't so much hacking themselves, but running a subscription site which provided sophisticated tools like trojans and account-hijacking code. They also ran training sessions in which they'd show other coders how to write malicious code. Over the years of operation, Black Hawk attracted some 17,000 VIP members, 140,000 free-access members and had made a haul of the equivalent of just over a million dollars in membership fees. And that's actually pretty amazing--it implies that there's an active hacker base numbering in the hundreds of thousands just from this one site, and though the media is labeling Black Hawk as what's "believed to be" the biggest site, there must be others, and they may be of a similar scale.

The concept of a hacking school is, by itself, an intriguing one, particularly in the light of the ongoing Google-versus-Chinese-government spat. It implies that China really does have a large corps of young code-happy hackers, that might be capable of organizing group attacks on foreign interests. This news article implies that the subscribing Black Hawk hackers were in the game for personal gain, rather than any kind of national/geopolitical reasons. Conspiracy theorists will of course point out that this new report is curiously timely, and that might even reflect a certain amount of former blind-eye turning towards the hacking group by the authorities. And the only way to detect the significance of this police action is to measure if there's a markedly reduced incidence of cyber attacks both inside and outside China in the coming weeks--a statistic that's not necessarily the easiest

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Huge explosion rocks power plant in US

A huge explosion rocked a power plant in the northeastern US state of Connecticut Sunday, resulting in numerous casualties, media reports said.

Dozens of ambulances and fire trucks were rushing to the scene at the town of Middletown.

Further details were not immediately known about the cause of the explosion or whether there were any dead among the casualties.

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Keira Knightley felt threatened by fan

British actress Keira Knightley felt threatened by a fan, who would turn up regularly outside a theatre, and reported him to police.

The fan would regularly wait outside a stage door at the Comedy Theatre, where the actress is performing in 'The Misanthrope', reports The Sun.

The 41-year-old man was apprehended outside the venue and taken into custody Thursday.

'Keira felt threatened by this guy who turned up a number of times and tried to speak to her. He did not make any specific threats to her but she was concerned enough to call the police,' said a source.

Added a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police: 'A 41-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of harassment on Thursday. The arrest follows concern expressed by a woman.'

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James Cameron left wife for 'Titanic'

Acclaimed filmmaker James Cameron's ex-wife Linda Hamilton has revealed that the film maker left her because of his dedication towards his movie 'Titanic'.

Hamilton says Cameron marries every movie he makes, and insists his devotion to the 1997 epic hit played a damaging role in their relations, reports thesun.co.uk.

'Titanic was the mistress he left me for. He was the kind of man who really would rather be at work with the mistress than at home with the wife. That was hard to come to terms with,' she said.

Cameron's affair with 'Titanic' actress Suzy Amis, his fifth and current wife, is also widely cited as the final straw for the split that awarded Hamilton a $50-million divorce settlement in 1999 after a two-year marriage with the filmmaker.

Having scooped 11 Oscars with 'Titanic', Cameron's movie-making obsession spilled over into all areas of his life to the detriment of his family, reveals Hamilton.

The actress, 53, who has a child, 16-year-old Josephine, first met Cameron when he cast her as Sarah Connor in his 1984 classic 'The Terminator' alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But it wasn't until 1991 on the set of the sequel 'Terminator 2: Judgement Day' that the pair took their mutual attraction to the next level.

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Dead Man On Plane: Frostbitten Body Found On New York To Tokyo Delta Flight

TOKYO — Japanese authorities said Monday they are trying to identify a body found inside one of the landing gear compartments on a Delta Airlines plane flight that arrived in Tokyo from New York.

The body of the apparent stowaway, identified only as that of a male with dark skin, was clad only in a long-sleeved, plaid shirt and jeans, police at the Narita International Airport said Monday.

A mechanic found the body lying inside the landing gear compartment of the Boeing 777-200 during maintenance after Delta Flight 59 from New York landed at Narita on Sunday night, police official Zenjiro Watanabe said.

"All we know is that he must have sneaked in just before departure, because it is impossible for him to enter the storage during flight," Watanabe said.

The body had no visible injuries except signs of frostbite, and the man might have died of hypothermia during the flight, Watanabe said.

The temperature in that part of the plane falls to about minus 58 degrees (minus 50 degrees Celsius) during flight.

Police are investigating the case both as an accident and a possible crime, Watanabe said.

"It's quite bizarre," he said. "I've never handled a case like this before."

Delta officials were not immediately available for comment.

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Fight Spam With A Direct Message To Twitter

There doesn’t appear to have been an official announcement, but Twitter has begun soliciting spam reports to a “spam” user account via direct messages.

Are you a victim of Twitter spam? Just begin following @spam and send it a direct message with the username of your spammer. As the following email autoresponse to spam reporters instructs, you can send these direct messages from your mobile phone or opt for a public tweet as well:

Howdy!

Thanks for reporting spam- we’re working really hard on getting rid of it! Did you know: you can now easily report spam directly from your Twitter account? Visit:

http://twitter.com/spam

and follow the account. You can then send:

* a direct message to @spam: @moneybagsnow is a spammer!
* a direct message from your phone using d+ username + message: d spam @carmoney, @cashnow is spam!
* a reply to @spam like so: @spam this is a spam account: @bigmoney5

and we’ll take care of it. You can send as many spam user names as will fit in one direct message or @reply as long as they are designated like this: @crystal.

Note: it’s better to send a direct message over an @reply. Direct messaging keeps @replies reporting spam out of your followers’ time lines. Sending direct messages also keeps the spam account’s user name out of all search results. Because the message is private, you prevent them from benefitting from publicity. Thanks again for helping us track down spammers!

Twitter Support Team

So far 213 members have begun following @spam, which oddly has decided to follow 179 members itself. It will have to gain a much larger following to make a dent in Twitter’s spam problem. The Twitter Blacklist a website that tracked all banned Twitter accounts before its owner lost faith in the service, lists 561 blacklisted users as of July 12th. Read more about Twitter’s spam efforts here

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Martin Crowe on board as batting advisor

Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain, will assist the new national coach Mark Greatbatch as a batting advisor to some leading players, with a particular focus on Test cricket. Crowe has already been working with batsmen such as Ross Taylor and Tim McIntosh as part of a programme in which players choose their own mentors.

"It's nice to be asked, finally," Crowe told Sunday Star-Times. "It's only for Test matches and getting players up for Test matches, including Ross Taylor and Tim McIntosh. Mark will guide me where he feels I can be of use. It's not an appointment as such, but in my spare time away from the Rugby Channel I will do the odd bit helping our guys prepare for Tests."

Greatbatch was pleased to have Crowe's services. "We've got an initial focus on the longer form of the game, which we need to do if we're going to get our Test ranking up. Martin will be doing some hard yakka, talking about the game, talking about game-plans and goal-setting."

Although it's an informal role, Crowe said he would focus on training the batsmen to stay in for longer periods of time. "You have to be technically aware of what you need to do to stay in - that's the key to batting in Test matches, staying in, which means eradicating ways of getting out, delaying your dismissal for as long as possible."

He was also in favour of a set-up that gave the captain more power, such as the one in New Zealand where Daniel Vettori plays a central role in the functioning of the team. "I'm a big believer that the captain has to be driving things," Crowe said. "We've lost half a generation of Test players, particularly in the batting area, because the coach [John Bracewell] was everything. That's not the way cricket is designed.

"What they are doing now is just an open, transparent way to do things. The captain has to be accountable and has to bring out the best in his players on the field and Dan has a good grasp of that. It's just that over the past few years we'd got used to the coach driving everything. Paddy [Greatbatch] is a big believer in working behind the scenes because that was how he was brought up, so this set-up's got a good feeling to me."

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Australia open series with 113-run thrashing

Another series, another opponent, same result. Two days after completing a tri-format clean-sweep against Pakistan, Australia continued their unbeaten summer with a 113-run victory over West Indies, set up by Shane Watson's half-century and Doug Bollinger's new-ball efforts. Chris Gayle's prediction of a 4-1 West Indies win can still come true but they have only one day to regroup before Tuesday's second match in Adelaide.

The result was understandable given the number of stars missing from West Indies' line-up through injury, but disappointing after Kieron Pollard's career-best bowling performance helped peg Australia back following a strong start from Watson and Ricky Ponting. Keeping Australia to 8 for 256 after they were 1 for 135 having been sent in was a good effort and a brisk start from Gayle would have caused some flutters in the Australian camp.

Sadly for the sake of a close contest, Gayle departed for 7 in the third over when his miscued pull off Bollinger was well caught by Mitchell Johnson, running back with the flight at mid-off. His opening partner Runako Morton looked awfully scratchy, having not played the warm-up game, and edged behind off Ryan Harris for 3.

By the time the fifth over was finished, Travis Dowlin had edged Bollinger to second slip, the score was 3 for 12, and the result was all but decided. There was a token recovery. Lendl Simmons looked like threatening the 23-ball ODI duck once made by his uncle Phil but eventually got off the mark from his 13th delivery and put together a 64-run stand with Pollard.

However, they departed within the space of an over, Pollard having skied Nathan Hauritz to long-on for 31 and Simmons well taken by Brad Haddin off Watson. The final four wickets fell for eight runs and Harris and Hauritz cleaned up the tail to finish with three wickets each as West Indies were dismissed for 143 in the 35th over.

The day before the match, Gayle said the absence of senior players like Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo due to injury gave the younger men the perfect chance to shine. That will have to wait for another day. That West Indies suffered their biggest ODI loss in terms of runs since Australia thrashed them by 169 in Basseterre in 2008 was disappointing after their bowling effort.

West Indies stopped Watson (59) and Ponting (49) from capitalising on their starts and it severely halted Australia's momentum as none of the batsmen who followed found their touch. Ponting and Watson put on 85 for the second wicket and were comfortably finding runs with the field back when Watson misjudged an attempted swipe off Gayle.

Watson had handled the fast men with ease and pulled a pair of well-timed boundaries but when he tried to hit across the line off the spinner, he skied a catch to long-on. It was Pollard who made use of that change in flow as his accurate line gave the batsmen little room to work in. An over after having Ponting dropped at cover by Gayle, Pollard had his man when he moved the ball back in to take Ponting's off stump.

After removing Australia's captain he followed with the vice-captain Michael Clarke, who had laboured to 18 from 30 balls without a boundary when he was judged to have edged behind. Pollard's third wicket came when Brad Haddin scooped a slower ball back towards the bowler, who stuck his right hand out and clasped the catch.

Pollard is in the side primarily as a batsman and in 15 previous ODIs he had never taken more than two wickets in an innings. His 3 for 45 was important and he had good support from Kemar Roach, whose speed peaked at around 152kph. He didn't have the benefit of the same pitch on which Shaun Tait hit 160kph on Friday - a different surface was used - but he will remain a handful throughout the series.

Although Australia pushed on through Michael Hussey (28) and Mitchell Johnson, who made 21, they could have got closer to 300 had Ponting and Watson been allowed to continue. The innings had started slowly and the openers crawled to 0 for 14 from five overs before Shaun Marsh departed for 20.

Ponting signalled his intentions early by driving Smith over long-off for six but it took 11 overs for Ponting to score another boundary. He wasn't alone in his struggles. Cameron White, usually a clean hitter, struck just one four in his scratchy 35-ball 22 before he miscued a hook off Roach and toed a catch to Denesh Ramdin, who reacted smartly diving to his right.

Nobody but Ponting and Watson passed 30. But perspective was gained when West Indies' top scorer made 31. In the end, Australia did enough with both bat and ball. The victory took Australia's winning streak against West Indies to nine one-dayers in a row, stretching back to the 2006 Champions Trophy. They have not lost any of their past ten ODIs against any opponents. They will need to lose their next four for Gayle's prediction to come true.

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HR should put PMP in proper perspective

The feedback I hear from project manager job seekers is that some HR organizations are weeding out any applicants who don’t have their Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. I think this is a lazy hiring practice. I understand that these organizations sometimes get 10,000 applicants for one position, but HR might be overlooking great project managers with years of successful experience leading projects simply because they don’t have this certification.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t think the PMP is a valuable certification; I believe that any certification is good because it shows dedication to your profession. However, not having a certification doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t a good candidate to manage a project.

So, to put the cert in more concrete terms, this is what it takes to achieve the PMP certification:

• 35 hours of verifiable project management-related training
• 5 years of verifiable hands-on project management experience
• Successful completion of the PMP certification exam (must correctly answer 61% of scored questions)

Stocking PMOs with PMPs

Many companies don’t understand and sometimes misuse the PMP. IT executives want to accumulate PMPs in their PMO because they think it will bring a common language and make collaboration easier and, therefore, make their PMO more successful. I agree with the common language; I partially agree with the collaboration aspect; and I wholeheartedly disagree with it making your PMO more successful.

Common language
There is no doubt that if a company stocks its PMO only with PMP-certified project managers, it will have a common language. Everyone will talk the PMBOK language and use fairly common methods to manage projects. And if the PMO is built on those methods, then having the project managers incorporate those processes into their daily activities should be relatively easy. The learning curve for an incoming PMP-certified project manager (with respect to PMI practices) should be less in this type of organization than the learning curve for a non-certified project manager (though don’t discount the effect that extensive experience has on the ability to quickly understand logical project management processes and good practices).

Collaboration
While common PMI practices documented in the PMBOK and used as organizational standards should help enable good collaboration practices throughout the organization and project teams, it is not a given. Remember that years of experience (not a certification and passing a test) go in to making a project manager a good project manager; the ability to lead a team and collaborate on projects with the team and customers requires experience, leadership, communication, and knowledge.

Making a PMO more successful
Stocking a PMO with PMP certified managers will never be the key to PMO or project success. There is no guaranteed formula for success when it comes to PMOs, but organizations can help increase a PMO’s likelihood for success by doing the following things:

• Stock it with good project managers. This requires experience, a good HR department, and well-laid-out hiring criteria. Once the organization has some experienced and successful project managers in its PMO, the chances for project successes and increased customer satisfaction increase.
• Get executives involved. Executive leadership must be on board with the PMO activities. I recommend periodically inviting the CEO to weekly internal PM meetings, routing project dashboards to executive leadership, and inviting them to lunches and kickoff meetings with important project clients. When executives are involved, it makes them interested in the project’s processes; it makes the PMO more visible; and it helps ensure that the CEO won’t send important projects to “his own people” elsewhere in the organization, thus circumventing the PMO processes already in place.
• Put a good leader in place. The PMO director must be well connected in the organization, as well as ready to manage resources and processes. If HR tries to fill the PMO director position with an acting project manager who also gets to lead the PMO, the organization will suffer in oversight, PMO visibility, project management training, and good project manager hiring. The PMO director can and will be involved in some projects but should not lead many (if any) projects. The PMO director needs to focus as much time as possible on running a good PMO. It’s fine to periodically be involved in highly visible or critical projects and even troubled projects — that’s the PMO director’s job — but the focus needs to be on making the PMO infrastructure successful.

Conclusion

My objective isn’t to settle the long-standing debate about whether the PMP is a meaningful cert or just a job hunting tool. I simply want HR to put the PMP certification in the proper perspective. The PMP helps to standardize language and understanding in a PMO, but it can never replace real-life successful project management experience.

So, to project managers who are dedicated to their profession, I still think it’s worth your time to get the certification. To HR managers, I say wake up and use better practices to hire the best candidates and not just candidates who might look good on paper. Our customers deserve it.

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