MUMBAI: As ?Kerala? gears up to celebrate Vishu Day on 14 April, Amrita TV has prepared a line-up for the occasion which includes musical and devout programmes.

A special episode of ?Swarnachamaram? at 7.30 am that confers a devout ambience to the early Vishu morning, with a mix of ?Guruvayooorappa? and Ayyappa devotional songs will start this day.

After the devotional program, Amrita TV will air ?Vishu Kaineettam? at 8.30 am in which the jet setters of Mollywood playback like Rimi Tommy, Vijay Yesudas, Sithara and Najeeb will present film music, old melodies and new hits. There will also be performances by Sarayu and his troupe.
 
The channel will air an interview with actor Dileep at 11.30 am. Since Vishu is also a day of feasting and is recognised for its dishes, the channel will air its cookery show ?Taste of Kerala? at 12.30 pm which will bring flavours from North, South and Central Kerala for its viewers.

Amrita TV will premiere the film ?Nammukku Parkkan? featuring Anoop Menon, Meghna Raj and Jayasurya at 2.00 pm. It is a realistic entertainer centering around the ?quintessential? dream of ?owning a home of one?s own? that every middle class Keralite nurses in his heart.

MUMBAI: Malayalam general entertainment and news channel Amrita TV is back with the new season of music reality show ?Kasavu Thattom?.

The second season of Kasavu Thattom will air Thursday to Saturday at 11 pm, starting 11 April, with repeats at 12 noon from Monday to Wednesday.

Practitioners and adherents of this centuries old folk art form known as Mappila Paattu (Mappila Song) participated in the auditions held in various centres all over the Gulf, out of which 20 Mappilappattu artistes were chosen to contest in the latest season of Kasavu Thattom.

Mappila Paattu or Mappila Song is a folklore Muslim song genre rendered to lyrics in colloquial Mappila dialect of Malayalam laced with Arabic, by the Mappilas of Malabar.

Rounds such as traditional songs, films, drama songs, your choice, Kalyanappattu and others based on varied themes have been lined up to test their versatility and repertoire in this branch of Malabar Muslim music.

Folk literature expert V.M Kutty, Malabar music exponent V.T Murali and playback singer Liji Francis will constitute the 3 member Permanent Jury panel.

MUMBAI: Malayalam general entertainment and news channel Amrita TV will air season 5 of its flagship show Vanita Ratnam from 18 February.

The inaugural episode of the singing reality show will telecast at 8.30 pm. Thereafter, it will telecast every weekday Monday through Thursday from 8.30 to 9.30 pm.

The new season will be flagged off by Minister of State for Human Resource Development Sashi Tharoor who will take the dais as the celebrity judge for the inaugural episode.

Vanita Ratnam seeks out superlative women who don?t just possess artistic talents, culinary skills, homemaking proficiency or professional capabilities.

21 participants dispersed between the ages of 17 and 35 have jockeyed themselves into contestant slots, riding on the back of scores tallied in several auditions conducted before a panel comprising Shyamaprasad, Murali Menon and noted psychologist Parvathy.

The competitive field of 13 married and 8 bachelorettes consisting of students, housewives, agriculturists and IT professionals will all try to get off to a good running start when the new season kicks-off.

Renjini Haridas, the most recognisable face in the Kerala?s anchoring world who took compeering to another dimension with her singular style of presentation, will be hosting the show.

Murali Menon, eminent theatre and film personality who had groomed the competitors and been the judge in all the previous editions of the show and Sithara, yesteryear screen heroine, will be the two permanent judges on the panel while dignitaries from films, politics, art and cultural fields will join them in the celebrity judge seat every week.

MUMBAI: Malayalam general entertainment channel Amrita TV is launching a new cookery show titled ?Super Chefs? on 11 January.

The show will air every Friday at 11.30 pm.

?Super Chefs? will introduce to the viewers the world cuisine, served up by international chefs from the high rated star hotel chains across the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East.

The show will also tour the interiors of these hotels, offering peeks into its ambience, facilities and interiors.

"Super Chefs is an appetising food programme that taps into the experience of chefs of diverse nationalities, a culinary symphony that showcases the flavors of every cooking style in the world, stretching from elegant French to robust Mediterranean, tangy Arabic to the aromatic tastes of regional Chinese," the channel said in a statement.

MUMBAI: Amrita TV has announced its plans of bidding goodbye to 2012 and welcoming 2013.

The channel will air live a four-and-a-half hour long New Year eve Party from Sreemoolam Club from 8 pm on the 31 December. It will be an event which will witness music, dance and comedy performances by celebrities from playback, cinema and the pop scene. The artists performing would include Naresh Iyer, Manjari, Mayuri, Iti Acharya and Manjula.

Amrita TV will air a National Round-Up at 7.30 am on the 29 December. It will be a compilation of selected news features that had dominated the Nation in the political, social and cultural spheres.

It will also telecast Entertainment Round-Up at 8.30am on 30 December that will re-wind over the main releases of the past 365 days. Meanwhile, it will run Sports Round Up at 8.30 am on the 31 December. Sports Round Up will be a run- through of the heavyweights in the sporting arena from the Olympics to the Grand Slams.

On January 1, Amrita TV will treat the viewers with Super Hits 2012, at 7.00am. It will feature a sequence of the universal favourites which had been famous during the preceding year.

The celebration will go on in full swing in Glorious Malayalam Films 2012 at 7.30 am, as spools of the top grossers of 2012.

After that, it will air Cocktail starring Anoop Menon, Jayasurya and Samvratha Sunil at 9 am. The movie is a blend of extramarital thrill, passion and suspense. Following Cocktail would be telecast Kanihayodoppam at 12.30 pm.

The New Year evening winds down with a three hour musical event beginning from 2 pm. Lining up the playback stars, it highlights unforgettable songs of Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Manna Dey, Talat Mohammed, Soundarajan, Yesudas, Jayachandran,P Susheela and P Leela.

MUMBAI: Amrita TV has announced a special schedule of programmes on 25 December.

The Christmas Day celebration of the channel will start with ?Kavita Poloru Kavya? at 7.30 am. It will be followed by ?Marykkundoru Kunjadu? at 9.00 am. This is a Dileep starrer where he will be seen in the role of a village simpleton mouthing one-liners and indulging in slapstick, Bhavana the ?Mary? to his ?lamb? and Biju Menon as a toughie mistaken for his long lost brother.

The channel will then air ?Swantham Mammukka? at 12.30 pm featuring Mammootty. The film holds a mirror upto society and censures both parents and children equally for the problems facing youngsters today. It generalises on the difficulties of parenting, the rights of children who are entitled to all the privileges enjoyed by an adult and is shocked at the prison sentence handed out to an Indian couple in Norway, persecuted for scolding their son over his misbehaviour.

It will then air ?Arike? at 2 pm. This is a realistic love story that never once strays into the maudlin or sentimental, starring Dileep in a serious role alongside Mamta Mohandas, Samvrutha Sunil and Vineeth in cameo. Based on a story by Sunil Gangopadhyay, ?Arike? is a vintage Shyamaprasad film.

At 7 pm, Amrita TV will be hosting ?Dazzle Nite?, a three hour long Christmas special programme. The show will witness performance on music, dance and comedy.