MUMBAI: The original was the MTV Music Awards. Then came the MTV Europe Music Awards. The MTV Asia Music Awards had their second run in January. The natural next step would appear to be the MTV India Music Awards. And if the discussions going on at present bear fruition, that might just happen by this year-end.

Though no deal has been signed and delivered, discussions have reached a serious stage to hold an MTV India Music Awards around October-November, industry sources close to the matter say.

MTV India and the industry umbrella body - the Indian Music Industry (IMI) - are reportedly working out the logistics to hold what will be the "Indian chapter" of what has become an iconic event for youth across the globe.

Indian musicians and their fans would certainly welcome such a move considering the short shrift given to Indian artistes at the MTV Asia Awards, which has more of a Far Eastern cultural sensibility.

Whether any big international acts like Avril Lavigne, or Robbie Williams would deign to come down for something like this remains to be seen. But the success of the recent Rolling Stones tour to India may just sway the uppity types (and Mr Williams certainly falls in that category). A real coup though, would be if multiple-Grammy Award winner and the flavour of the season Norah Jones (Ravi Shankar's "estranged" daughter) could be persuaded to perform.

And how successful would the awards be? Previous music awards - The Channel [V] Music Awards - ran for a couple of years before they were discontinued. MTV will have to tread carefully to ensure that they don't go the way the earlier awards went. Also Zee has been running its Sangeet Awards - though they were of a different meter.

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