MUMBAI: The Popular Nite of India's premier awards for excellence in television, The Sixth Indian Telly Awards 2006 brought to you by Sony Entertainment Television, were held in Mumbai's Chitrakut ground on 24th November with star-studded performances and attendance from the television and film fraternity.
The best actress award was bagged by Aamna Sharif for her performance as Kashish in Kahin To Hoga on Star Plus, while the best actor went to Ram Kapoor for his essaying of the role of Jai Walia in the Zee TV TRP topping drama Kasamh Se…
Ram and his co-star Prachi Desai (Bani) also won the couple of the year award for their on screen chemistry in the show. Prachi also shared the Fresh New Face of the Year (Female) Award with the Zee TV's Saat Phere lead Rajashree Thakur.
Sun Network chairman Kalanithi Maran was conferred with the Contribution to Television award at the hands of Sony Entertainment Television CEO Kunal Dasgupta for driving and growing the southern Indian cable and satellite
television market through his Sun Network, India's second largest television broadcasting group. Balaji Telefilms creative head Ekta Kapoor was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Ekta has been the creative brains behind the runaway success that Balaji Telefilms has achieved. Young professionals in television who have contributed a lot to the industry are inducted....
The evening was marked by energetic dance performances from Sangeeta Ghosh, Eijaz Khan and Akashdeep Saigal, Mona Singh, the Left Right Left cast (Arjun Bijlani(Alekh), Gazal Rai (Pooja), Vikas Manattala (Huda), Priyanka Bhassin (Naina), Harshad Chopra(Ali), Kunal Kapoor(Yudi), a stand up comic act from Great Indian Laughter Challenge runner up Naveen Prabhakar, a performance by debutantes of last year and this year - Barkha Bisht, Sanjeeda, Daljit Kaur - and by television couples - Surveen Chawla and Manish Goel (together on a Sony show), Mouni Roy and Pulkit Samrat (the hot new couple on Kyunkii's new generation) , Divyanka Trivedi and Sharad Malhotra (the couple from Dulhan on Zee TV).
The awards evening was anchored by the leading face of television - Kiran Karmakar, Juhi Parmar, Anuj Saxena, Mona Singh and Manav Gohil, Shweta Kawatra, Ayub Khan, Renuka Shahane, Karishma Tanna and Gaurav Chopra.
Billed as the Indian equivalent of the Emmys, the Indian Tellys are the brainchild of founder Anil Wanvari, who is also a board member of the International Emmy Academy in New York, one of the few Indians to make it there.
Says Wanvari, "Television is evolving and the awards will also evolve. Our sincere effort is to make The Indian Telly Awards the industry's benchmark because the awards have been created for the industry to recognise the excellence in the creative, business and technical spheres."
The Sixth Indian Telly Awards were brought to you by Sony Entertainment Television, with the show slated to be telecast on 3 December at 8 pm on the channel.
The ground sponsors for the event were CNN Ibn, Ibn7, Zee Cinema and Times Now; the Radio partner Radio City 91.Fm; Outdoor Partner Bright Advertising; Multiplex Partner Fun Cinema; Print Partner Rajasthan Patrika and Mid-Day; Party Venue Partner Some Place Else; and Pr Partner CMCG.
Coming in January will be the he Technical Nite of the Indian Telly Awards.
