Balaji Telefilms Ltd, India?s leading television software producer, unleashes yet another serial on Monday on Channel Gold Nine‘s 9:30 pm slot on DD Metro.

Following on after its superhit serial "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi", "Kabhi Souten, Kabhi Saheli" (KSKS) marks yet another landmark for Balaji which seems to have made the making of successfull serials into an assemblyline habit. Shooting for the serial is simultaneously going on in English.

"We see a big market for our serials in countries like the West Indies, Fiji, South Africa, Mauritius, etc, which have third and fourth generation Indian communities residing there," Balaji CEO Sanjay Dosi said. " In Hindi, there was the language problem which we had to get around if we wanted to properly exploit our potential. We considered subtitling but felt that while this might work for full length features, it would fail in the serial format," Dosi said. "We are not trying for another "Mouthful of Sky" (the first Indian soap made in English), Dosi clarified. The actors will be mouthing normal dialogues with no attempts at Anglising," he added.

KSKS will air four times a week from Monday to Thursday at 9:30 pm. If the promos are anything to go by anyway, there appears to have been some "visual inspiration" from the critically acclaimed Tamil film "Kandukondein Kundukondein" which was itself loosely based on Jane Austen‘s "Sense and Sensibility".

CNBC India will not get into direct-to-home services on its own but would be looking at allying with other broadcasters in setting up a platform, CEO Harish Chawla said on Monday.

Chawla clarified that CNBC was still a long way away from concretising plans on how to go forward because they were yet to identify possible partners in the project.

"We hope to enter the DTH market at some point but I can‘t say when exactly because there are a number of issues which need looking into," Chawla said.

The principal issue that is exercising the industry is the 20 per cent sectoral and foreign equity cap on DTH operations that the government is demanding. Information and broadfcasting minister Sushma Swaraj has repeatedly said there will be no change in the guidelines issued in November 2000 despite strong lobbying from the industry for its increase.

Swaraj has said DTH guidelines will be issued sometime this week and it is only then that there will be a clear fix on who is likely to finally get into DTH operations.