News Broadcasting
Scriptwriters course ‘Qalam’ in full swing
MUMBAI: With positive response from channels as well as production houses, television and media services company Indiantelevision.com kicked off the third edition of its annual scriptwriter’s course, Qalam on 21 June 2003.
The four-month long comprehensive TV Scriptwriters course has been ideated, created, executed and guided by a governing board comprising of prominent television writers and media personalities including, Nimbus Communications CEO Akash Khurana, ace writer Vinod Ranganath, Indian Television Dot Com CEO, Anil Wanvari, film maker Aditya Seth and writer-director Vijay ‘Victor’ Acharya.
Qalam 2004 will be co-ordinated by Aditya Seth. The course gives participants a golden opportunity to present their concepts directly to the channel executives and representatives of production houses. New topics have been added to this year’s syllabus.
The selection process for the course included two rounds comprising a written test and personal Interviews. The selected candidates belong to a variety of fields ranging from amateur scriptwriting to content / technical writing.
The goal of Qalam is to convert the aspiring scriptwriters to real professionals and placing them in prominent production houses and television channels. Qalam’s earlier batch has produced students who are currently working with serials like Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi, Kitty Party and Yeh Meri Life Hain amongst others while some are involved in film scripts too.
Commenting on the launch of Qalam ’04 Nimbus Communications CEO Akash Khurana says, “We’re sharing our hard-earned knowledge with you and we expect you to respect and learn from what we’ve accumulated over the years – quite like in the gurukul system.”
With earlier batch students currently working with good projects, Dr Khurana feels that the ruling vision of Qalam is to get the creative talents their due.
The course is slated to run for 16-week with a minimum of three interactive sessions per week. The weekend sessions will be longer and the focus will be to illustrate the educational experience with the help of video sessions. Besides this, the participants will also be taking part in interactive sessions like discussions, ideation and analyses.
News Broadcasting
Book Cricket gets a digital century on News18 amid T20 fever
Nostalgic classroom game revamped in English, Hindi plus Telugu on web and app.
MUMBAI: When the T20 World Cup fever hits fever pitch, News18 decides to flip the script straight back to the classroom. The digital news platform has revived the timeless schoolyard favourite Book Cricket as an interactive online game, perfectly timed to ride the cricket wave gripping fans across the globe. The reimagined Book Cricket ditches textbooks for smartphones, blending old-school nostalgia with modern gameplay. Once a sneaky recess pastime played by flicking book pages to score runs, the digital version now offers seamless fun for anyone craving a quick cricket fix between overs.
Available in English, Hindi and Telugu (with more languages planned across News18’s network), the game sits within the platform’s fast-growing gaming portfolio of over 20 titles, all built in-house. It joins event-driven hits like ‘Kursi Catcher’ and ‘Result Rewind’ during the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections, plus festive specials such as ‘Durga’s Astras’ for Durga Puja and ‘Mouse Modak’ for Ganesh Chaturthi.
News18 Digital CEO Mitul Sangani said, “Gaming is a key pillar of our engagement strategy. At News18, we uniquely combine our newsroom agility with immersive gaming experiences. By blending credible content with interactive formats, we are creating meaningful engagement in an era defined by shrinking attention spans and evolving consumption habits.”
Select titles have expanded beyond News18.com to CNBC-TV18.com and Firstpost.com, reflecting the network’s push to deepen user interaction across platforms. The Book Cricket game is live now at https://www.news18.com/games/book-cricket/.
In a tournament where every boundary counts, News18’s digital Book Cricket proves the simplest games can still deliver the biggest smiles no syllabus required, just pure cricket joy one page-flip at a time.
