Close Up Antakshri, the successful game and entertainment show from Zee TV which completed its 400th episode this week, has just added another feather in its cap.

As part of the celebrations marking the occasion a series of special shows have been organised, the proceeds of which are going towards the rehabilitation efforts in earthquake-hit Gujarat.

That is not all. Children from Aasra, a home for underprivileged orphans in Mumbai, also benefited and took away Rs 100,000 in winnings from the show on Wednesday at Water Kingdom in Esselworld, Mumbai‘s premier amusement park.

Shooting for the forthcoming 14 special episodes of Close Up Antakshri are being shot at Water Kingdom to mark its seventh consecutive year on air. Though the children from Aasra won a total of Rs 200,000, half of the winnings went towards the earthquake relief fund and the remainder to Aasra, a CRY-funded (Child Relief and You) organisation. The winning amount was presented by model Aditi Gowatikar who recently lifted the Mrs World title, another one of India‘s rapidly increasing tribe of international beauty pageant winners. Half of the winnings of all the episodes are going towards earthquake relief.

Close Up Antakshri introduced the game format in October last year, and has given out Rs 12.8 million as winning amounts since joining the bandwagon of game shows dominated by the likes of Kaun Banega Crorepati.

Anchored by Anu Kapoor and actress Rajeshwari Sachdev, the show had its lows and highs. The audience went dead silent at times when the pace of music slowed and had to be rescued by Kapoor who is an old hand at this. Kapoor has been on the show since its inception. Nevertheless, with the serene ambience of Water Kingdom, the show received a good response from people.

The brainchild of director-producer Gajendra Singh, the stage was created amidst the waves. Also participating in the event were personalities from the film world like Asrani, Sashikala, Joy Mukherjee, Johra Sehgal, Vishwajeet, and Shobha Khote.

Zee is all geared up for the grand finale episode where Maharashtra deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal will be a participant. Various aerial camera angles of this show will be shot though the Deccan Aviation-sponsored (India‘s largest helicopter company) helicopters on Friday when the fund raising will rest on Bhujbal‘s shoulders. Fourteen earthquake-affected families will be benefited from the contributions collected.

Zee Telefilms, in continuance of its efforts to have a presence in south India, is launching on Friday a 24-hour Tamil television channel, Bharathi.

To be uplinked from Singapore on the Asiasat 3s satellite, the new channel hopes to capture the number two slot in the state. Sun TV is at present the numero uno channel in Tamil Nadu by a long ways with a host of others trailing far behind in terms of viewership and revenue.

Bharati is the second south Indian channel that Zee is launching after the Kannada language channel Kaveri, which was launched in June 2000. Zee Telefilms and Malayalam language channel Asianet each have a 50 per cent stake in Kaveri. Kaveri is still struggling to get recognition and efforts are on to try and revive it. So with another new channel to be nurtured it looks like the Zee team will have a plateful on its hands.

Dakshin Media Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zee Telefilms, is launching this channel in "strategic alliance" with Asianet, Arvind Kumar, senior vice-president and business head (southern channels), told reporters in Chennai on Wednesday night, the Press Trust of India reported.

A Telugu channel will be launched very soon, PTI quoted Kumar as saying. By middle of next month, one news bulletin would be introduced and gradually the number of news bulletins would be increased, he added.

Named after the Tamil poet, Bharathi, the channel will offer a mix of mega serials, weekly serials, films, film-based programmes, game shows, talk shows, health, and many more to cater to all segments of society.

Leading content developers like Tamizhmani and Citadel Video are producing various programmes to be aired on the channel, Financial Express quoted Kumar as saying. News and news-based programmes would be aired from next month on a phased manner, he added.