Good girls
Ajit Pal's sitcom Baat Ban Jaaye on Zee TV has constantly been in the news. It first created conversation when Rakhi Vijayan was replaced by Eva Grover. Then both Nikki Aneja and Eva were replaced by Bollywood actresses Kashmira Shah and Kanchan. Guess what the latest is now? The Bollywood babes are out and Nikki and Rakhi are back due to public demand. Now we aren't saying that that Kashmira and Kanchan were bad but Nikki and Rakhi were so popular that the channel was inundated with letters asking for them to be brought back. "I feel bad for Kashmira and Kanchan because they were good actresses but I guess Nikki and Rakhi are established in the viewer's minds and they were also quite keen to come -- so for the sake of the serial I made this decision. But I'll definitely work with Kashmira and Kanchan in my other shows," says Pal.

Nikki, incidentally, is on cloud nine. "I am on top of the world. I had gone to Vaishno Devi when a fan came up to me and complained about my leaving Baat Ban Jaaye. Without thinking, I had said I'll be back. And the day I came back from Vaishno Devi I got a call from the producers," she says.

Well-spoken
Shekhar Suman and Archana Puran Singh are beaming from ear to ear -- yes, their smiles are even wider than before. But with good reason. Both talk show hosts have been nominated for the Asian Television Awards in the Best Anchor category for their shows Movers & Shakers and Uncensored. The Asia Television Awards are a truly regional award as they cover over 23 countries throughout the region. The award's ceremony will be announced on December 10, in Singapore with Shekhar and Archana in attendance. We wish them well.

God! What a big mess
Doordarshan's programme schedule is rather confusing for the next month. Check out all the chopping and changing. As you all know Chandrakanta returns to Doordarshan, after two years, in place of Om Namah Shivay. And Om Namah Shivay moves to Tuesday, in place of Jai Hanuman which shifts to Saturday, replacing Raj Babbar's Main Dilli Hoon. Here is where the confusion is compounded. Mein Dilli Hoon used to be aired from 9.30 pm to 10.00 pm on Saturdays but since Jai Hanuman is an hour-long the slot has been extended from 9.30 pm to 10.30 pm, which means that the feature film slot on Saturdays had to be cancelled. Now we have just one question: why couldn't DD have given the Saturday slot of Main Dilli Hoon (which was anyway going off the air from December 12) directly to Chandrakanta instead of all this rescheduling? Since the two programmes are of the same length they wouldn't have had to go through so much trouble.