Perhaps I haven't looked hard or sat up late enough, but I am yet to find the damning content that the information and broadcasting minister finds offensive enough to black out on our channels.

(Courtesy:www.blog.klue.com)

The most I saw was a bit of heaving cleavage on a fashion channel, but I didn't see any naughty videos and naughtier intent. AXN is anyway off air, and we will be left clueless about the results of the Amazing Race Asia that had just begun to get close to the finals. As for the unnamed others who are being eyed suspiciously by the minister, they all look bland to my untutored (or is critically slack?) eye.

What does annoy me and would be on my chopping block were I the minister of I and B of this country, would be shows like Star One's Mano Ya Na Mano and Sony's Man Mein Hain Vishwas. The former, this week ran a reconstructed report (complete with displays of newspaper clippings) of an 'icchadhari nagin' that was terrorising villagers in a UP hamlet. The fact that it could be just a disgruntled snake haunting villagers who had turned it out of its natural habitat, was buried under so much hyperbole. Man Mein... gets worse with each episode, preaching piety to assorted gods and detailing the horrors if we forget our prayers. All it's doing is giving employment to out-of-work actors, whose prayers I am sure, are going up regularly.

Also on my hate list would be soaps that have cringing heroines running tearfully to idols of their favourite deities for help in any domestic crisis, instead of standing up and fighting. Kasamh Se this week had some 'jantar mantar' (voodoo, Indian style) happening in Bani's room, and the whole family trying to figure out whodunnit.

Please! Is that as creative as our story writers can get? Also, I would take care to see that the new Aahat gets pushed up to a kids' programming time slot. Last weekend's story was so tame (a couple that had accidentally killed and then intentionally dumped another couple in a tank, gets its just desserts from the ghosts of the deceased a year later), it provoked bristles of annoyance on my skin rather than any frissons of fear. Should I sit up so late for this?

(Courtesy:www.london-england.com)

There might be a touch of adult humour and a bit of skin on some of the firang channels here, but they are more than offset by good bit of programming like Heroes and Two and a Half Men on Star World, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries on History and even the Planet Earth series on Discovery (it's still worth a watch, although you may have seen similar content elsewhere before this).

Sony's Jeete Hain Jiske Liye has started on a strong footing. Lead Renuka Shahane is understated, and doing a competent job. Whether producers Tony and Deeya Singh will be able to handle a high voltage drama after a Jab Love Hua and a Left, Right, Left, now remains to be seen.

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Comedian Jaspal Bhatti, who made himself a household name through shows on television, was all over the news channels this week, promoting his political party by taking on every issue from bogus voter cards to the foibles of Punjab politicians. Needless to say, Bhatti provided the entertainment quotient that every news channel is hungry for.