MUMBAI: This piece of news should certainly interest Indian TV production houses looking to find a market for their programming beyond the traditional Indian Diaspora audience. Popular BBC comedy The Kumars at No 42, has been sold in the United States, where the Asian characters will be replaced by Mexicans.US television network NBC has paid ?6m to copy the formula and title of the Bafta-nominated spoof chat show devised by its host, the actor Sanjeev Bhaskar, The Independent has reported.

The Kumars At No 42 revolves around Sanjeev Kumar (Sanjeev Bhaskar), a TV chat show host. His shows are filmed in a studio that is part of the house he shares with his family. The guests who appear on Sanjeev‘s chat show have to endure a pre-programme grilling from Sanjeev‘s father Ashwin (Vincent Ebrahim), mother Madhuri (Indira Joshi) and his grandmother Sushila (Meera Syal of Goodness Gracious Me fame).

The Kumars At No 42

Kumar is the only son of a rich Indian family living in England. He wants to be a chat show host and become an international star. Towards that end his devoted parents bulldoze their back garden to build him a TV studio. The comedy revolves Kumar and the hilarious situations that arise out of his family‘s inquisitive nature and his efforts to keep the family from interfering while he is interviewing famous people.

Hat Trick, which makes the original BBC2 version of the show, hopes to sell the series to Hispanic stations. There are also plans to sell the series to Germany and replace the Kumars with a Turkish family because of the large number of Turkish immigrants to Germany, the report says.

The Israeli government is calling it a purely "business decision", but the timing is curious to say the least. Israel‘s cable operators have been given the go ahead to drop CNN International from their networks.

The move comes at a time when CNN has come under increasing fire in the Jewish state for allegedly leaning towards the Palestinians in its coverage of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its endless cycle of violence. The roots of this turnaround in Israel‘s perceptions of the AOL Time Warner news network: CNN founder Ted Turner outraged Israelis and American conservatives in June when he accused both the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders of committing acts of terrorism.

In the subcontinent, government controlled media has more often than not faced accusations of biased coverage. And in this regard, Pakistan‘s state media must certainly classify as among the worst villains.
Therefore it remains to be seen whether an order issued late on Thursday by chief election commissioner (CEC) Irshad Hasan, following complaints raised by the opposition Pakistan People Party led by Benazir Bhutto, will have more than lip service value.

CEC Hasan‘s order followed PPP complaints that state-run media was maligning the party and its leader Benazir Bhutto, French news agency AFP reported.

The PPP is spearheading a 15-party alliance of opposition parties campaigning against General Pervez Musharraf since he took power in a bloodless coup in October 1999. Parliamentary and senate elections on 10 October will be the first since Musharraf took over.