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Nepal Voters allowed to vote in Indian Idol 4

INTERNATIONAL: Nepal begins voting for Indian Idol

In 2007, when Darjeeling boy Prashant Tamang won the popular contest Indian Idol 3, India’s northern neighbour Nepal played a decisive role in the victory with Nepalis raising money to send SMS votes for the Nepali-origin contestant.

This year, with another Nepali-origin contestant Kapil Thapa being in the fray, Nepal could once again prove to be the clinching factor with the Himalayan republic, for the first time in the history of the four-year contest, beginning to vote directly.

From Friday night, people from Nepal, who have been watching the show on Sony, began to vote directly, courtesy a deal struck between a media house and a private mobile telephone service provider.

“Experience a plethora of emotions, coupled with contestants’ tears and joys, heartbreak and jubilation,” said the International Media Network Private Ltd, that has become the “official voting partner for Nepal”.

“The people of Nepal had a big hand in Prashant’s win,” the announcement said.

“Neighbours or friends or cousins who were India-bound were plied with cash to vote for Prashant. Those living on the Nepal-India border crossed over to vote for their favourite contestant.”

With the fourth edition of the show having whittled down to 14 finalists, the media company says it has along with TV Max Pvt Ld, the distributors of Sony in Nepal, has jointly acquired “exclusive voting rights from Nepal”.

“This year Nepali fans of Indian Idol need not go to all this trouble to vote for the next Indian Idol,” the announcement said. “So from Dec 5 let your votes do the talking for you and you decide who gets to be the next Indian Idol.”

The company also says that multiple SMSes can be sent during the voting period, which lasts for 12 hours every week from Friday night to Saturday till the grand finale.

The announcement adds that the 14 contestants now in the fray include Kapil Thapa, an Indian of Nepali origin who is from Dehra Dun.

The announcement has given rise to mixed reactions.

“We ought to promote the talent at home,” says 16-year high school student Urvashi Joshi, who aspires to take part in the Nepali version of the contest. “We have our Nepali Tara but not 10 percent of the people who watch Indian Idol watch the Nepali show.”

“Art has no boundary,” says Nepali music director Alok Nembang who this year added yet another feather in his cap by directing a musical, Sano Sansar, that went on to become a smash hit.

“The contest is meant to provide a platform to artistes and anyone can vote from anywhere. Hindi songs and films are a part of my life and I have made two music videos with Prashant Tamang.”

Journalist Guna Raj Luitel, the former news editor of Nepal’s biggest daily Kantipur and current associate editor of the upcoming Republica daily, says in this age of globalisation, everything is interconnected.

“Nepal and India share not just the same border but sentiments too,” he says. “Besides, it is up to the organisers to decide who can vote and who can’t.”

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Indian Idol 4 – Wild Card Performances Intro

This snippet ( or should I say whole text)  is taken from curlio.com. You should visit that site for more such juicy and updated details.

Welcome one and all to the last stop before the galas – The Wild Card Round with the wild card performances. Boy, am I glad! This is one of the best, if not the best, singing sessions during Indian Idol 4. Hussein started off by mentioning that all three wild card selections will be chosen by judges, which was different from last year’s format where both the public and judges decided on the final contestants. More on wild cards later since we are now going to cut down the twelve finalists to ten.

All the finalists were called on stage and one-by-one the following contestants were announced to be moving on to the galas.

The first ten contestants are:

1) Priyanka Negi
2) Kapil Thapa
3) Ananya Mishra
4) Bhanu Pratap
5) Saurabhee
6) Remo Gosh – And here I said “Oh No”
7) Rajdeep Chatterjee 8) Torsha Sarkar
9) Kuldeep Singh
10) Tulika Ganguly

The announcements were accompanied by a very loud “Band Mela” and the contestants all danced a bit to it. None of them can shake a leg, maybe except for Remo.

Anyway, this meant that Mohit Lalwani and Nirali Fozdar were the contestants eliminated. Mohit’s elimination came as a bit of a shock since good looking guys have always made it to the top ten…and this guy can sing too.

Javed Akhthar said that only one boy/girl would become the Indian Idol and all the other nine selected would stand where the eliminated contestants stand right now.

With that, the attention was shifted back to the wild card contestants. After great debate, heated discussions, arguments. and loads and loads of time-wasting moments, Chang said that the judges has decided to call back seven of the eliminated contestants. He began to call them one at a time to the stage to perform.

I) Shini KalvintNi Main Samajh Gayee – Taal

Javed Akhthar – You sang very well. You had a wild energy about you.

It was one of the best performances of this season. All the time she was singing I went from “wow” to “great” to “brilliant” and finally to “extraordinary”. It was truly a mesmerizing performance.

My Rating – 10/10

II) Sandeep UbaleMitwa – Kabhi Alvida naa kehna

Anu Malik – I will reserve my comments for now.
Kailash Kher – Please never be frightened like this at any other point of your time. Because of your fear, you slipped at a couple of points.

I thought this was an average performance, especially for a person like Sandeep. I also thought his version was a bit slower than the original. Hussein had asked Sandeep how he was feeling and he was literally shaking.

My Score – 7/10

III) SunakshiMast Kalander

Her teddy bear was notably missing this time around and Hussein inquired on why this was so. I cant stop laughing on her reply. She said that some people said that she couldn’t sing and that she was there because of her teddy bear and the sentiments it brought. Seriously! Anyway…….

Anu Malik – I missed your teddy and that says it all.

I think Anu Malik was referring to her “Mast” performance and I agree with him. It was a downright dull performance. She sounded all rough and her notes were nowhere near hitting the mark. Another disappointing performance from a strong contender.

My Rating – 7/10

IV) MohitAlvida – Life in a Metro

Javed Akhthar – Alvida means goodbye. It reminded me of the famous song by Beatles – “You say goodbye, I say hello.”
Anu Malik – I will reserve my judgement but I will say that my judgement will shock many people

Strange, I wouldn’t take Javed saahb to be a Beatles’ fan. Anyway, Mohit is one of the contestants who has a deep voice and a high range at his disposal. Combining this with his looks, it is a bit of a shock that he got eliminated. I felt that he slipped in a couple of places but he was very, very good in general.

My Rating – 8.5/10

V) Prasanjit KosambiNaina

Javed Akhthar – Why did you select such a difficult song? To which Prasanjit replied that if this is indeed his last performance then he wanted to leave a mark.

For me, he was not such a good contender. In fact, for me he would have been in the bottom after Remo and Kapil. One performance was all it took to change my view point. With this performance, he reached straight to the top of the ladder. I was shocked to see him singing so well…he started off well and finished with a bang. He was brilliant. It was one of the best performances of all Indian Idol’s four seasons.

My Rating – 10/10

VI) Charit DixitRamta Jogi – Taal

After Charit’s performance, Priyanka was asked how much she would rate his performance and she said 9.5. Either she was being very generous or she is head-over-heels in love with Charit.

Sonali Bendre – You have a very good personality and sweet voice

He sang it okay though I thought he sung it in a lower pitch than the original song. The main problem was that after Prasanjit, it sounded mediocre.

My Rating – 7.5/10

VII) Bhavya PanditNigahein milane ko dil

Javed Akhthar – Your song selection was good
Anu Malik – You gave a very good try

She was the most awaited contestant in the wild card round. She did a pretty good job with this classic but it was a bit short of being called an awesome performance. She started off well, became a bit shaky in the middle, but ended well. Just before she was about to walk off, she was asked to sing again and this time she did an awesome job. I give her an extra half-rating just for that singing.

My rating – 9/10

Once the performances were concluded a bit more time was wasted while the judges were deciding on the contestants. Based on the performances my favorites were Prasanjit, Shini and Bhavya. I wish I could have included Mohit in this but I couldn’t since only three were to be selected.

Fortunately, the judges were not limited by my constraints. The show organizers decided that they had one more day to waste and decided to fill it up by adding a new twist.

Javed Akhthar came on stage and said that they had selected 5 out of the 7 contestants to perform again the next day. Out of the 5, the final 3 wildcards would be selected. At this point, Sonali said that the selected five would be asked to sing songs selected by judges and they would have only one hour to practice.

Javed Akhthar quickly announced that Bhavya, Prasanjit, Mohit, Shini and Charit were selected for the next round, which meant that Sunakshi and Sandeep were the first casualties of the wild card round.

As the show ended we were left with scenes of both Sandeep and Sunakshi thanking everyone for the lessons they learned and the encouragement they got.

Over to Deepa for finally revealing to us the final thirteen going to the Galas….

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