News Broadcasting
3rd Sahitya Aaj Tak India’s largest Hindi Literature Festival promises a grander & a bigger show
MUMBAI: Aaj Tak, India’s No. 1 Hindi news channel with over 25 crore viewers (Source: BARC, TG:2+,Mkt:HSM, Period: W29'18-W32'18,) kicks-off the third edition of its annual mega Hindi literature festival – Sahitya AajTak . The three-day extravaganza will be held in the capital at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts from November 16-18, 2018.
A confluence of poetry, prose, music and drama, the festival is an initiative to highlight the importance of art & literature in today’s era. The fest brings together a diverse mix of India’s renowned personalities from writers, scholars, authors, musicians, actors, columnists, business leaders, poets and theatre artists on one platform to express their views openly and engage in a meaningful dialogue.
The mega festival will be a grand affair with attendance from many celebrities like singers Javed Ali, Malini Awasthi, legendary Wadali brothers, actor Annu Kapoor, writer Chetan Bhagat, poet Rahat Indori and many others. Actor and poet Piyush Mishra, screenwriter Prasoon Joshi and the renowned poet & writer Javed Akhtar will enthral the audience with the magic of their words. Actors Deepti Naval and Shekhar Suman will talk about theatre while journalist Sagarika Ghose and Governor of Goa Mridula Sinha will share his wisdom on politics.
This year the festival will have 100 sessions and close to 200 guests & speakers with an audience. The festival is a platform for celebrating the rich Indian culture with theatre, poem, Sufi music at the helm, giving a platform to budding writers/artists to articulate their thoughts. The festival will have sessions in which India’s top TV anchors will interact with guests from various fields like art, cinema, music, theatre, and politics.
This year Sahitya Aaj Tak will see a fusion of great ideas and witness a joyful synergy of literary artists hailing from different parts of the country. The past two editions have seen the festival transforming into a global phenomenon. The grand celebration of art and all that it stands for will bear testament to music & cultural programmes with throngs of enthusiasts. The festival will see the presence of literary stalwarts renowned for their works in Hindi, Urdu, English, Awadhi, Bhojpuri and Punjabi.
News Broadcasting
CNN-News18 to air live counting day coverage for five state election results on May 4
The channel is rolling out its biggest election coverage machinery yet for results day on 4th May
NOIDA: The votes have been cast. Now comes the reckoning. CNN-News18 is pulling out all the stops for results day on 4th May, when counting begins across five battleground states — West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry — in what promises to be one of the most closely watched electoral verdicts in recent memory.
The channel’s coverage, titled Battle for the States: The Verdict, kicks off at 7am and runs through the day across linear TV, connected television and YouTube. It is the culmination of CNN-News18’s multi-format editorial initiative, Battle for the States, which has tracked the polls from the beginning under the theme Road to Power.
At the operational heart of the coverage will be the Live Results Hub, the channel’s central command centre built to collate, verify and process real-time data flowing in from reporters stationed at counting centres across constituencies. The hub combines newsroom intelligence, analytics and on-the-ground reporting to deliver what the channel promises will be the fastest and most accurate results coverage in English news.
Leading the on-air charge will be primetime anchors Rahul Shivshankar, Anand Narasimhan, Aman Sharma, Nabila Jamal and Shivani Gupta. They will be joined by a wide panel of commentators including author Chetan Bhagat; GVL Narasimha Rao, senior leader of the BJP; Smita Prakash, editor of ANI; activist Saira Shah Halim; political analyst Sumanth C Raman; Abhijit Iyer Mitra, senior fellow at IPCS; Amitabh Tiwari, founder of VoteVibe; columnist Abhijit Majumdar; Nalin Mehta, managing editor of MoneyControl; political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla; senior journalist Subir Bhaumik; and political analyst Manojit Mandal.
Shivshankar, who serves as editorial affairs director at CNN-News18, set out the stakes plainly. “Counting day is one of the most watched events in the electoral cycle, where speed and credibility are tested in real time,” he said. “Battle for the States: The Verdict is built on that promise, combining ground reporting, sharp analysis and cutting-edge election technology to give viewers the clearest and fastest route to the verdict. On May 4, CNN-News18 will once again be the nation’s most trusted channel to witness democracy in action.”
Smriti Mehra, chief executive of English and Business News at Network18, framed the coverage in broader terms. “Elections are defining national events, and audiences turn to brands they trust in moments that matter,” she said. “CNN-News18 has consistently led from the front in every election coverage, and this special programming reflects the scale of our ambition and editorial strength.”
The channel has form here. It claims to have been India’s most preferred English news destination for election results for the past 20 years, covering everything from the 2024 general elections to the Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar and BMC polls on the back of what it calls an “Always First, Always Right” record. Five states, one day, and a nation waiting for answers. The clock starts at 7am on 4th May.
