| MUMBAI:
The opening of the annual Ficci Frames 2010 was glamorous with the presence of
Bollywood personalities like Yash Chopra, Karan Johar, Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina
Kaif, but the television industry was treated as a poor cousin on the first day.
With the 11th Ficci Frames concentrating like the previous years on the
business of entertainment, even the bigwigs of Bollywood along with those from
the United States concentrated on business.
Perhaps the only difference
was that the presence of these personalities perforce made everyone speak only
about cinema, despite the fact that the three-day meet is about all aspects of
entertainment.
And
Katrina along with Dutch actress Victoria appeared to be present to add the glamour
quotient, and participated in the Lamp Lighting ceremony.
But unlike other
events which do not have a political bent, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan
stayed on for the entire duration of the session, which started almost an hour
late and lasted around two hours.
And expectedly, Shah Rukh Khan who is
still smarting from the ‘My name is Khan’ controversy and Yash Chopra
apart from the Chief Minister used the podium to make political points, mostly
surrounding around the attempts to prevent the screening of the Karan Johar-directed
SRK starrer.
Interestingly,
Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO James N Gianopulos not only quoted SRK who had recently
said that in India, seeing films was like brushing teeth in the morning and ‘you
cannot escape it’, but also Mark Twain about the way Indian civilisation
had affected the world.
As the day rolled on, the debate on entertainment
moved to other areas. A big miss, however, was the absence of the Information
and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni who was caught up in Parliament following
the issuance of a whip in Rajya Sabha where the discussion on the Budget was coming
up for voting. She will now be available on the final day of the event. | 
