MUMBAI: Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals and Dainik Bhaskar newspaper have announced the launch of Cricket Star Rajasthan, a talent hunt programme.

Cricket Star seeks to uncover cricket talent in Rajasthan. And for Rajasthan Royals (RR), it is an opportunity to further build its brand in Rajasthan and so will travel through the state of Rajasthan to test young cricketers.

In this edition after a two-stage process, the winner of Cricket Star Rajasthan 2012 will to intern with the Rajasthan Royals. As part of the internship, the winner will get opportunities to train with the Rajasthan Royals team, be part of the practice sessions and get exclusive mentorship of Rajasthan Royals coaches. Dainik Bhaskar will also provide publicity for the winner through all their media publications.

Sanskar School Jaipur is the Associate Sponsor for Cricket Star Rajasthan.

This talent hunt is for the age group of 14 to 21 years as on 1st Sep 2012. Applicants can be from any part of Rajasthan and will have to come to one of the cities where the selection trials will take place such as Jodhpur, Udaipur and Jaipur. The application process for this programme takes place from 7- 22 October.

Applicants will be required to send an SMS to a designated number (to be announced shortly), giving their name, and preference of city of trial. After sending the SMS, the applicants will receive a registration code, and date and venue of trials.

The first stage is the selection trials to be held at Jodhpur, Udaipur and Jaipur. The winners at each city will be invited to the Cricket Star Academy to be run at Sanskar School Cricket Grounds. These cricketers will be tested through matches and cricket sessions by Rajasthan Royals experts and coaches. At the end of the academy, the coaches will announce the winner ? Cricket Star Rajasthan.

Emerging Media, one of the franchise owners, had introduced this talent hunt concept way back in 2006. Incidentally, it was the country?s first cricket based reality show.

MUMBAI: Continuing the trend from the preceding quarter, Dainik Jagran and The Times of India are the most read publications in the Hindi and English language dailies respectively, according to the IRS (Indian Readership Survey) first-quarter report released by the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) and Hansa Research.

Among the Hindi dailies, Dainik Jagran?s average issue readership (AIR) has surged marginally while second ranked Dainik Bhaskar has lost out on readers. Hindustan comes in on number three having increased its readership as has fourth place holder Amar Ujala.

There was no change in the pecking order of the Hindi dailies. Dainik Jagran?s AIR has grown marginally to 16.412 million in Q1 from 16.410 million in the previous quarter. Dainik Bhaskar (AIR of 14.55 million), Hindustan (12.16 million) and Amar Ujala (8.69 million) followed.

Among the English dailies, the Times of India continues to hold its numero uno position.

TOI has garnered a total AIR of 7.65 million, slightly lower than the trailing quarter report. It is followed by Hindustan Times (AIR of 3.81 million), which is maintaining its strong growth. The Hindu (AIR of 2.23 million) saw a marginal dip.

Economic Times and Mumbai Mirror swapped places from the previous quarter with AIR of 792000 and 777000 respectively.

In the regional dailies, Malayalam Manorama continues to top the chart, though it has experienced a slip in AIR from 99.37 million last quarter to 98.75 million in Q1 2012. The only change in the ranking from the previous quarter is the interchanging of ranks of Gujarat Samachar and Dinakaran with the latter slipping ground.