B-town loosens purse strings for education Holds fundraiser to help educate children in more than 500 villages in Punjab's Mewat district

B-town loosens purse strings for education

Holds fundraiser to help educate children in more than 500 villages in Punjab's Mewat district


Delhi-based social activist Shabnam Hashmi was pleasantly surprised when she recently got a call from film producer Firoz Nadiadwala. He was keen on raising funds for her organisation, ANHAD, which works for harmony and democracy.
Hashmi had met him two years ago for some other initiative and was surprised when Nadiadwala came up with the idea of a star-studded fundraiser in Mumbai.
The funds generated will be used towards educating children in more than 500 villages in the Mewat district of Punjab where women's literacy rates is the lowest in the country at 15%. Hashmi revealed that some girls there are married off at 12 or 13 years of age.
"It is heartening that the Hindi film industry has associated itself to a social cause," Hashmi, who is currently in the city, told DNA.
Called 'Celebrating Social Causes', the event was held at a Juhu hotel on Saturday evening. The organisers had roped in veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah and his wife Ratna Pathak, who put up the performance of their play Mughal Bachcha while singer Shubha Mudgal regaled the celebrity guests with her recitals.
Actors, directors and producers contributed generously to the cause through donor passes. "In our own small way, we are trying to change mindsets and bring about change in the lives of the poorer sections of society," Nadiadwala said.
ANHAD conducts workshops and livelihood generating programmes for women and artisans in rural areas of Kashmir, Orissa and Bihar.
Some of the handicrafts by Bihari women were put up on display at the venue on Saturday.
"The idea is to empower the weaker segments by providing them a platform to showcase their talent while generating revenue and livelihoods," Hashmi added.
Nadiadwala intends to support the NGO on a long-term basis.
"It is important to sustain efforts such as these on an ongoing basis. Henceforth, we will have paid premieres of films from our production house and the collections will be handed over to ANHAD for its various activities in different fields," the producer said.

BCom to get modern twist Univ to revise 'boring' syllabus with 'industry-friendly' lessons

BCom to get modern twist

Univ to revise 'boring' syllabus with 'industry-friendly' lessons


The University of Mumbai is all set to change the three year syllabi of the pure Commerce stream to make it more attractive, more extensive and industry-friendly.
The first year's syllabus will be changed from next academic year, then the second year and finally the third year in 2014-15. Over 1.2 lakh students are expected to benefit from the change. Madhu Nair, dean, faulty of commerce, told us, "I have written to all chairpersons of the Board of Studies to form a committee and start working immediately. The new syllabus will be ready by Jan 2012. After the approval of academic council, it will be implemented from the coming session."
On October 26, DNA had published the stories, 'Credit system fails to bring'em to classrooms' and 'Commerce Syllabus Outdated', which stated that even after implementation of credit-based system, half of the FYBCom students failed to attend the mandatory 75% classes in first semester. Students claimed that BCom course is outdated for CA exams hence they join coaching classes.
The university always maintained that it can't go hi-fi as it caters to rural students also. Nair, said, "The new syllabus will take care of urban and rural students. While all seven subjects of FYBCom will be revised, contemporary subjects like Retail Management, Animation, Soft skills, Technology will be offered in SYBCom. We would narrow the gap between Industry and classroom." He refused to elaborate further saying the concept was still in the planning stage.
BCom has 90,000 seats at the FY level and close to 9,000 seats are available as self-finance professional courses (Banking & Insurance, Accounts & Finance and Financial Markets). High rankers opt for these courses while pure BCom has been neglected due to lack of interest.
Sumit Pareek, a CA student who recently passed TYBCom, welcomed the move. "In FY, none of the seven subjects offer any challenge. Law is there only in SYBCom. It must be included in all three years extensively."
Head of Commerce at KC College Smaranjit Padhi said, "Overall change may not help as University caters to three categories; South-Mumbai, suburb and rural Colleges and we get students scoring 50-80% in HSC. Moreover, adding optional subjects in SY will also turn futile as colleges can't offer all."

AICTE to offer new vocational courses

As the Ministry of Union Human Resource Development (HRD) is about to unveil the vocational education policy next month, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is working on integrating formal education with vocational education.
This will allow a student who has studied Food Science in school, to take up a Diploma in Food Technology and even a degree in the same field. An AICTE official, requesting anonymity, said that the aim is to allot qualifications in whatever vocational knowledge that a candidate wants to work in.
The official added, "While on one side there will be integration of formal and vocational education, new courses are being generated where there are opportunities. The courses will be designed after taking into consideration the geographical locations and socio-economic culture of the places. For Maharashtra, entertainment and construction are the big industries with dire need of professional workers and hence provides good opportunities."
"The courses will be of different levels — school level to post-graduate level," he said.

Holiday camps a boon for working parents Private tour operators design variety of camps for children to suit every budget

Holiday camps a boon for working parents

Private tour operators design variety of camps for children to suit every budget


Every year, after the Diwali festivities are over and the guests have left, Juhu resident Swati Pawar is left with two energetic children, aged six and eight, who don't know what to do with their time.
With more than a week left for the school vacation to get over, the children are usually packed off to their grandmother's house in Pune.
But this year, the Pawars were in for a surprise when their mother Rajashree announced that she was taking a vacation. "I am going to Kolhapur with three of my friends," she said.
The Pawars had no choice but to look around for a suitable Diwali camp for their children. "We are finally sending them to a camp in Khandala, which is designed for children who are first time travellers," said Swati, who works at a bank.
Private tour operators seemed to have identified the demand for overnight and longer duration camps for children with working parents.
"I spent my school holidays running about my hometown, plucking fruits and playing outdoor games with my siblings and cousins. Today, my son spends his vacation rock climbing, rappelling or canoeing at a different camp with a different set of friends each year," said Sandra Pinto.
It seems to be a win-win situation for all parties involved. While the working parents don't have to give up office hours to engage their children during vacation, the young ones are happy to have fun away from home and the tour operators rake in the moolah.
But, these camps don't come cheap and parents have to pay anything between Rs10,000 and Rs25,000 per child for holidays in places within India. Trips to Asian countries or Europe cost significantly more.
"We cater to every budget and ensure that there is variety of cultural and fun activities, sports, adventure and games at our camps," said Sheetal Pasad, founder of the Thane-based company Sweet Memories that organises overnight camps to Khandala, Kolhapur, Goa and even Dubai.
"Some of our camps organise mother-children events where we encourage parents to spend time with their children in a fun atmosphere outdoors."

Mumbai develops, but flora die and fauna fly

The number of migrant flamingos in Sewri has reduced, the population of birds and animals such as the white-throated kingfisher, serpent eagle, barn owls, squirrels, beetles and pigeons has dropped drastically and gulmohar, mango and guava trees have vanished from Marol, Andheri. It is also rare to spot butterflies in Mumbai.
For nearly five months, students from more than 45 schools visited every nook and corner of the city to document the dying and existing flora and fauna in Mumbai. Some college students acting as 'eco ambassadors' accompanied the schoolchildren, who branded themselves as ecosurveyors, to conduct the ecological census. The report will be submitted to the environment ministry.
The study — a programme called Green Ideas initiated by the state government's environment department with Bandra-based NGO Organisation of Aware Saviours in Society (OASIS) — painted a grim picture of the city's flora and fauna.

The findings were corroborated by senior citizens who told the students about the change in surroundings over the years. "The students found that redevelopment in the city and suburbs severely damaged the flora and fauna. The number of many native trees such as ashoka, mango, guava and gulmohar which existed till some years ago has reduced. This has had a direct impact on the bird population. Sparrows, owls, kingfishers and bulbuls have disappeared from some areas of the city," said Puja Sukhija, executive director, OASIS.
TYBMM student Neha Sukumar who supervised the survey at Marol was taken aback at the damage. "Residents said the region was sprawling with trees some years ago. The trees began to die because of the construction activity," she said.
The students decided to create awareness among the residents. "We recommended that they plant saplings at homeand build bird houses," said Aditya Madnani, a class 7 student of Khar's Beacon High School.

7 industrial townships, 100m jobs ITIs, polytechnics, green technology part of national manufacturing policy

7 industrial townships, 100m jobs

ITIs, polytechnics, green technology part of national manufacturing policy



Information and Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni and commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma on Tuesday announced the cabinet's approval of the national manufacturing policy, and they drew attention to the fact that this was implementation of the electoral promise made in the 2009 Congress manifesto.
Clearly, the scandal-scarred Congress-led UPA government of prime minister Manmohan Singh wants to turn the tide with big ticket economic programmes at a time when the political fortunes of the UPA government and of the Congress have reached the nadir.
The policy envisages seven manufacturing and investment zones (MIZs), of which three are in the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor (DMIC), that will create 100 million jobs and raise the share of manufacturing in the GDP to 25 per cent by 2022 from the 15 per cent to 16 per cent share at present.
Sharma said of the seven zones, sector- and region-neutral, two are in Maharashtra, and one each in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Gujarat. Each of them would spread over a minimum area of 5,000 hectares. He said that land will be allocated by the state governments and he did not see any hurdle because some of the state governments already have land-banks.
The other important decision was to create the optical fibre network which will connect 2.5 lakh panchayats of the six lakh villages in the next two years with an outlay of Rs20,000 crore. The right of way for laying down the optical fibre network will have to be cleared by state governments, but the project will be funded by the central government, central public sector undertakings.

Telecom and information technology secreatry R Chandrasekhar, responding to a DNA query whether this was the phase of last-mile connectivity, replied that this was the middle-mile connectivity, which will bring into the network all public institutions at the village level, and which will help spread e-health and e-governance.

He admitted that the last mile connectivity will be achieved when private and public service providers provide the individual connections.
Both the MIZs and the laying of optical fibre network, which will provide panchayats with broadband network, will be executed through special purpose vehicles (SPVs).
The MIZs are to have private sector participation and to ensure this the policy has provisions to enable small and middle enterprises (SMEs) to set up units through venture capitalists, who will find financial backing from the nationalised banks and insurance companies. "This is to unleash the entrepreneurial energies of young India," Sharma assured.
The new zones, which are a variant of special export zones (SEZs) but with a broader domestic base, have enormous incentives through subsidies for use of green technologies and set up industrial training centres and polytechnics to create the skilled work force to make them hum. Subsidies will also be used to create patent pools for green technologies.
Sharma revealed that the share of manufacturing in India's GDP is low in comparison with economies at a similar stage of growth and development, and that it has declined over the last one-and-a-half decades.

CBSE to set up science hubs at award-winning schools

Your school could be the launch pad for future scientists. The Central Board of Secondary Education
(CBSE) has decided to create science hubs in schools that have been winning its national-level science exhibition since 2004.
Human resource development minister made this announcement at the eighth CBSE Science Exhibition on October 21.
The hubs at the top three schools at the competition will be supported by the board and pilot research projects by students will be carried out there.
A senior official from the CBSE said, "This move comes as an encouragement to schools to focus on science and technology. We are hoping that it will help students to be innovative and come up with good projects."
The schools will act as centres for science and will be able to provide guidance and infrastructure to students working on their science projects. They will have access to experts, state-of-the-art laboratories, libraries and other facilities.
The science hub project is one of the several initiatives taken by the government to promote development of science among school children. Take the case of the INSPIRE project, wherein two meritorious students from every affiliated school receive a scholarship and funding for scientific inventions and projects.

All got jobs this summer at Jamnalal Highest domestic stipend ran to Rs2 lakh; unique profiles open gates to aspiring managers

All got jobs this summer at Jamnalal

Highest domestic stipend ran to Rs2 lakh; unique profiles open gates to aspiring managers



With 100% placements and with the highest domestic stipend of about Rs2 lakh, the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) summer placement report has surprised even the processing committee, what with fears of a recession.
On Monday, when it released its report after the successful recruitment season, which saw 79 companies arrive in droves on the campus.
This summer, it has seen some unique, niche profiles, like that of a carbon consulting manager, being offered to students. But it continues to show the regular trend of highest demand for finance and consulting sectors. Apart from the regular recruiters that head to the JBIMS for recruitment every year, this year witnessed the addition of coveted companies like Accenture Management Consulting, Standard Chartered Bank, Jones Lang LaSalle, JM Financial and Amul.
Banking financial services insurance and investment banking, fast moving consumer goods and pharma, and consulting and IT were the highest recruiting sectors with their respective shares of 33%, 28% and 17%. The report mentions average domestic stipend reaching Rs89,000.
Ankit Rampuria, placement committee member, said, "Despite the apprehensions regarding the conditions of the economy, we are surprised to successfully secure 100% placements with a significant increase in stipends and placed students in reputed organisations with desired profiles."
Rampuria further said, "Though finance and consulting continued to remain on the top of the recruitment chart, during this summer placement season, we saw some niche consulting profiles like carbon consulting and real estate consulting."
Carbon consulting is a field where a firm hires a person to keep the balance between profit levels and environment-friendly functioning. "Real estate consulting is where the manager helps companies find out strategic locations for construction and helps them crack a good deal by analysing future growth possibilities," explained Rampuria.
According to Swapnil Gupte from the corporate relations committee of JBIMS, this batch has a vibrant mix of students which includes 64% students with a work experience of one to four years. Besides, students come from varied educational backgrounds, including engineering, management, commerce, hospitality and medicine. Such a heterogeneous batch profile attracted companies from diverse industries."
Dr CR Chavan, placement co-ordinator, says, "Summer internship gives students a chance to experience first-hand the practical application of all the knowledge and skills they learn during the course of their first year at JBIMS."

You can make a career out of debt recovery

Dhiraj Kelkar, 26, believed that his streak of unemployment would probably continue for some time since he has not gone beyond the higher secondary level. That was until he stumbled upon a recruitment advertisement for a debt recovery agent on a local train last month.
He applied promptly. He was called for an interview which saw many other youngsters of his age group, or some even younger, fancying their chances. He was picked immediately and asked to go through a training module before being handed that appointment letter.
The crux of the matter is today, anyone can aspire to become a recovery agent and pursue it as a serious career. You need not have a strong physique or a history of winning fights to lay claim to this status. All you should have is a higher secondary school certificate. "Early 2008, there were a lot of complaints about brutal recovery agents, following which the RBI had put in a regulation that all recovery agents must be certified," a senior official with the Indian Banks Association said.
The Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF) has been training new and old recovery agents over the last three years on how deal with a defaulting customer. Launched in the mid 2008, the course is of 100-hour duration and imparts lessons on a host of topics ranging from the legal and regulatory framework of being a recovery agent to the functionality aspect and most importantly, the soft skills involved.
The training programme and examination is conducted for fee of Rs 1,200 per attempt. "We have noticed a lull in the number of applicants this year. It is because banks themselves are moving away from retail businesses," said R Bhaskaran, CEO, IIBF. The debt recovery agencies are rotating the existing lot of agents to meet banking requirements and thus complicating the picture.
Bankers look at a number of factors before employing a recovery agent, beginning from size, efficiency and the quality of workers they possess. "We see the track record of the recovery agents before employing… There we require persuasion skills," said Giridhara Kini, deputy general manager, State Bank of India.
Some lenders say they are focussed on making recovery an in-house process. "We cannot just depend on tele-callers for our recovery. We takes care of all legal recovery methods without going to an outside agency," said Paul Abraham, COO, IndusInd Bank.
Banks prefer to keep their association with these external agencies brief. "Our relationship with a recovery agency is based on an agreement," an official with a leading private sector bank said.
Bhaskaran thinks that if banks were to recognise recovery as a profession and treat agents as their employees, the sector may attract more youngsters looking at it as a career option.

Hopping jobs? Forget it, hiring is bleak this season

The overall sluggishness in economic growth has begun to reflect in the job outlook being given out by companies from various sectors.
If the Net Employment Outlook Index of the leading staffing firm TeamLease for the October-December is anything to go by then companies are looking to slash or maintain hiring in the current quarter due to bleak business sentiment in the local and overseas markets.
The index, which is the difference in the proportion of respondents suggesting rise in hiring and those pointing to decline, has slipped 3 points to 71 in current quarter compared to 74 in the last quarter. It was, however, 2 points above the March quarter's 69 points.
What this implies is companies are not confident of increasing their hiring in the October to December period.

It also means many of them would not change their hiring pattern. These sentiments among employers have pulled down the index.
Among cities, Delhi and Bangalore saw the biggest drop in the hiring outlook by 9 points. Delhi's index slipped from 70 points last quarter to 61 points this quarter while Bangalore's was down to 79 from 88 during the same period. Other cities that have reduced hiring outlook are Mumbai (-5), Chennai (-7), Pune (-8) and Ahmedabad (-5). Kolkata (+5) is the only major city, which has given a positive outlook while Hyderabad's has remained unchanged.
Among the industries, information technology (IT) and ITeS have shown the sharpest decline of 7 and 8 points respectively followed by telecom, which dipped 6 points.
In a disturbing trend, six out of eight sectors reported negative employment outlook with financial services (+2) and infrastructure (+2) remaining in the positive zone. Hiring projections for retail & FMCG and manufacturing and engineering sectors dropped by 2 points.
E Balaji, CEO and managing director of HR consultancy firm Ma Foi, said there has been a slowdown in hiring activities because of macroeconomic concerns, but it was not as dramatic as TeamLease survey had portrayed. He said the pronounced plunge in the IT-ITeS sector was not surprising as they were dependent on Western markets like the US and Europe.

Engineers graduate with jobless tag after spending Rs.5L


Despite doing all this, there is no guarantee that I might get a decent job. My college is busy with placements for the current batch and has no time to consider ex-students," said Kumar.
Many of his classmates have also doled out similar amounts in the quest to get a job. Many are doing courses pertaining to VLSI (very large-scale integration), embedded technology, mobile communications, programming, etc, paying anywhere between Rs35,000-Rs50,000 for a duration of two to six months.
Saicharan Shetty, another fresh engineering graduate who paid over Rs4.5 lakh for graduation, did a two-month networking course in August-September for Rs22,000. He plans to shell out another Rs12,000 for giving the course exam. Passing the exam will guarantee him a certificate certified by a Nasdaq-listed networking firm. "Neither the institute from where I did the course nor my college will help in my job hunt. In short, it means investing more and more effort and money for returns which are not guaranteed," said Shetty.
Experts said this trend is highly prevalent, especially with students hailing from lesser- known colleges. Estimates reveal that just 25% of engineering students get job offers by the time they graduate. "Three of four kids are jobless at the time of graduation. They need to then run from pillar to post to figure out ways to get jobs," said Amit Bhatia, CEO of Gurgaon-based employability education firm Aspire.
This happens as top recruiters visit only renowned campuses, while setting yardsticks of minimum cut-offs. "Students should score not less than 60% or 70% in their semester exams to be eligible for placements is what some firms as well as colleges stipulate. This excludes several students," said an HR official from an IT firm.
Shetty said as there was no structured guidance available on what to do post graduation, freshers end up emptying the pockets of their parents.

IBPS CWE (Bank Exam) Model Question Papers

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Campus hiring strong despite crisis talk Top IT firms are queuing up in colleges to pick up the brightest minds, but joining dates remain a bit of issue

Twenty two-year-old Vasudeva M K was on cloud nine when he got a job offer from a top IT firm commanding an annual pay packet of Rs.4 lakh.
The Bangalore boy who will be graduating from an engineering institute in the IT city next year, had approached the campus placement that started early last week with sweat-beads dotting his forehead.
He had been reading and hearing about the economic storm brewing in the West, which he thought may affect his prospects of entering the job market.
"There is already a talk of our joining dates getting delayed if the global markets don't improve. Anyway, for the moment at least I'm relaxed," said the lanky lad, adding that several of his classmates have also received good offers.
Like Vasudeva's institute, many others are witnessing a smooth placement season. Experts say top recruiters including Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and Accenture are lining up to pick up the brightest minds.
M N Chandrasekharaiah, director, training and placement at BNM Institute of Technology in Bangalore, said of the 450 students studying in the final year, about 150 have already been placed, despite the placement season starting in October.
"We have 4-5 top recruiters who come every year."
While at the SJB Institute of Technology, about 85% of the 300 final-year students from streams such as computer science, information science, electrical and electronics, etc have received placements till now. "We started in mid-August and are optimistic of placing all our students," said Gurucharan Singh, director, HR, training and corporate affairs.
Similar are the sentiments and stories from other colleges like RV College of Engineering and M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore.
An HR official from an IT major in Bangalore said though caution is in the air, companies are thronging campuses.
"The top IT firms usually come and take as many as 600-700 of our students. We started on Friday and about 165 have already been placed," said M Vijayadev, head, department of placement and training, Ramaiah Institute, which has 1,200 final-year students including those in MTech and MCA.
Firms are picking students for roles in development, testing, support services, software engineering, infrastructure management with annual salaries upwards of Rs.3 lakh.
" Rs.3.2 lakh per year is the average being offered. It can also go up to Rs.6 lakh in case of multinationals like Oracle, Yahoo or Microsoft. However, these global biggies usually take just two to three students, unlike Infy, Wipro which recruit in large numbers," said a placement official from another college in Bangalore.
According to a placement co-ordinator at RV College, about 60-65% students from computer science and a similar percentage from electronics & communications have received offers with annual pay slightly below Rs.5.5 lakh, while 35-40% have received offers with annual salaries above Rs.5.5 lakh.
Singh said starting salaries are good on account of the development programmes for students and the interactions with industry veterans.
"We give training on soft skills, personality and communication apart from regular interaction with corporates. This helps in honing our students and fetching them good pay packets."
Moreover, to facilitate better coordination and ensure that all the top firms can recruit adequate numbers, institutes have incorporated the slot sharing methodology, wherein all the regular top recruiters can simultaneously come in the first slot and interview all the students.
Vijayadev said earlier just one firm could come in the first slot, but now all the top recruiters come and get to interview all the students.
"Companies end up taking students in large numbers."
However, there is some amount of uncertainty about staggered joining due to the market situation.
"Considering the unfolding financial problems, joining of these students would happen in a phased manner. May be just 20% might end up joining next year, while a majority could actually join in 2013," said Kris Lakshmikanth, co-founder and CEO of Bangalore-based search firm HeadHunters India.

Drawing in the regional films

While the big studios have been riding the outsourcing wave, hundreds of small animation studios have cropped up across India, thriving on growing demand from the regional film and TV industries,

A silent revolution has been sweeping across the Indian animation industry over the past decade. While media attention has been firmly focussed on a handful of big studios like Crest, Prime Focus, DQ Entertainment and Rhythm & Hues, more than a thousand small, artist-driven 'boutique' studios have established themselves across the country, both in metros like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore as well as smaller towns like Coimbatore, Bhubaneshwar and Jabalpur.
With teams of 5 to 50 artists, they are buoyed by the burgeoning demand for animation and visual effects in domestic advertising, television and regional film industries. While the big studios were preoccupied with riding the outsourcing wave, the small studios took on projects that were too small to interest the big guys.
Mumbai-based Animagic India is typical of this lot. Started in 1997 by three artists, Sumant Rao, Gayatri Rao and Chetan Sharma, their first animated film Raju & I for NGO Aseema took two and a half years to develop but won several awards. Since then they have taken on all kinds of projects — preproduction, film titles, music videos, short films, and ad films. Their most recent work, Tripura — The Three Cities of Maya, is a 78-minute animated film, created by just five artists.
NID alumnus Suresh Eriyat has been through the exercise of setting up a small studio not once but twice. He first set up Famous House of Animation in partnership with Famous Studios Ltd. in 1998, creating animated ads and channel promos on Indian television. Then in 2009, when a project called for a service model kind of set-up, Suresh branched out to start Studio Eeksaurus with around 40 artists, creating 2D, 3D and stop motion animation, besides live action.
Recession-proof
While the global recession shook up big studios, most of the small studios sailed merrily along, buoyed by increasing domestic demand for animation in not just films and advertising but also other fields like gaming, medicine, education and simulation. A few small studios that catered to overseas clients were affected but found it easier to buckle down and battle recession than their bigger counterparts.
The animation industry is also no longer restricted to the metros. Regional films, television and music videos provide ample opportunities for the little studios in smaller towns. Clients prefer them too because they don't have to go far to get their projects animated. The Jharkhand government, for instance, has had some of its best promotional animated films created right in its backyard. Patna is now a major hub for rotoscoping and film conversion. And studios in Chandigarh churn out video after video for Punjabi music companies.
It is no secret that many Tamil and Telugu films have budgets that often dwarf those of Bollywood's biggest films. The Rajinikant starrer Endhiran (Robot) rivalled Hollywood in terms of both budget and visual effects. While international studios were roped in for the animatronics and stunt choreography, the film-makers turned to Hyderabad-based Firefly Creative Studio led by the trio of Sanath, Phani and Nagesh, for the entire pre-visualisation of the film. This award-winning studio has made its name by focussing solely on VFX for regional cinema and recently completed Disney's first Indian fantasy film Anaganaga O Dheerudu.

United they stand
A rapidly growing trend is that of active collaboration across projects by small studios. Much of the post-production and visual effects in Bollywood and regional films involve the efforts of two or more small studios. The animation-live action combo film Toonpur Ka Superrhero that released in 2010 had more than 200 animators, artists and compositors working in six different locations, from four different studios, all micromanaged from director Kireet Khurana's own little studio 2NZ Animation in Mumbai that did the entire pre-production for the movie.
It is also common practice for a big studio to share a big project with smaller studios specialising in certain aspects of the production process, thus eliminating the need to hire specialists required only for a specific project. It won't come as a surprise if the first big success story in Indian animation comes from not one, not two, but a group of small studios putting their heads and hands together.

Bollywood produced many illegitimate remakes

'Don't fix what isn't broke'



Top: A still from Soundtrack
Above: A still from It's All Gone Pete Tong

In an era when we could get away with not buying the rights before remaking a film, Bollywood produced many illegitimate remakes, some where filmmakers took plot points from the original and inculcated them in their films, or others where they copied shots, frame-by-frame. If you would have asked me five years ago if I would debut with the remake of a film, I would have vehemently denied it. As a creative person, you fancy making a film with your own original idea.
But when I saw It's All Gone Pete Tong three years ago, I found that it had a story I already wanted to tell. It just happened that another filmmaker had already made a film about it. I used to perform with a rockband in the '90s, when I would wake up with a buzz every now and then. Many musicians I have spoken to over the years told me that their hearing was somewhat affected from performing on stage. The ear is quite simply the most sensitive part of your body, and if abused it can lose its functions. That was the basic idea I was working on, and reading up on the lives of Beethoven, Beach Boys singer Bryan Wilson and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, when I came across this Canadian indie film, It's All Gone Pete Tong, about a DJ who lost his hearing.
Then it became a process of writing from what I remembered of the film; I had seen the film three years ago, twice back-to-back, and never went back to it afterwards. While making an official remake, the rule you generally follow is that you don't fix what isn't broke. So, I left many things about the film intact. But certain things, like the cultural space of the film, had to be altered. While writing the first draft itself, I introduced the protagonist's relationship with his deceased father, and the character of his mother, because I needed those emotional bonds to connect with our audience. As I started making the film, the confidence grew; and I tried to do things differently.
The only other film I'll ever want to remake is Pushpak. Now, there's nothing about the film you can change much really; there's no element of dialogue involved, and I can write the film from memory. But I'd like to adapt the film, which is more than 25 years old now, and make it more contemporary. I'd set it in a social networking space, may be, and do away with some of the gimmicks,