MUMBAI: UK pubcaster The BBC has announced a series of programmes about what the world might be and a global competition inviting audiences to create their own vision of the future.

?What If?? peers into the future; 10, 20, even 50 years from now, how will we live, how will we look, how will we organise ourselves? What if we stayed young forever? What if everyone had a car? What if women ruled the world? What If? - a brand new, thought-provoking, season of BBC programming in early 2013.

BBC audiences around the world are invited to present their own vision of the future in a unique competition to coincide with the season of programmes and online content called What If? From 28 January to 31 March the BBC?s international news services on BBC World News TV, BBC World Service radio and online will broadcast a series of programmes focused on the future - from imagining how the world might look, to the new technology, innovations in health and science, and the people who will shape our new world.

Central to this special season audiences are invited to enter the BBC competition, and send their vision of the future, either a still or a moving image, using any visual medium - animation, photography, film, paint. The entries will be judged by leading artists and animators around the world.

Entrants can interpret "What if?" in any way they choose. They can imagine the future where they live, inside the home, outside, how we?ll look, what we?ll eat, how we?ll relate to each other, how we?ll move around, and what the planet will look like. But most of all the competition needs original creative work that the world should know about. Full competition and What If? season programme details will be available from 28 January 2013 at: bbc.co.uk/whatif.

The multimedia and multi-lingual programmes that shape "What If?" pose intriguing questions about our future, including:

What if humans and robots sat down together?: Recent developments in human/robot interaction are starting to open up a new debate. For instance, South Korea plans to install robotic teaching assistants in more than 8,000 kindergartens next year. So how will we learn from robots and how will robots learn from us? If robots are ever going to be truly useful in domestic or social settings then this question needs to be addressed. This hour long live radio discussion on the BBC?s technology programme Click from London on 29 January will feature a high profile panel including robotics experts - and a couple of robots. The programme will also include remote control audience participation with a robot interacting with the audience.

What if we were all cyborgs?: How far could we go and how strong could be become if we embrace human augmentation? When the senses become programmable, can we trust what they tell us about the world? Where can human augmentation take us in the future? And above all, are cyborgs still human? Stories from the new frontiers of humans and robots, and the ethics behind it.
BBC World Service - Monday 26 February.

What if we stayed young forever?: Peter Bowes in Los Angeles looks at how we are starving, injecting, modifying and increasingly allowing ourselves to be operated on to stave off the aging process. Just how far are we prepared to go? And why? This airs on BBC World Service - Mondays 4, 11, 18 March; and on BBC World News on 2, 3 March 2013.

What if we all had a car? : There are one billion cars in the world today. In 50 years? time that?s predicted to grow four-fold. Theo Leggett teams up with Kent Larson from MIT?s Media Lab in America to look at strategies to avoid global gridlock. This airs on BBC World Service, BBC World News, and BBC Online from 23 - 24 March.

What if we could decide our own form of government? Safaa Faisal from BBC Arabic takes new politicians from the scenes of Arab Spring to discuss their visions of the democratic process in their own countries. They travel from Cairo and Tunis to Washington to meet high-profile politicians, political theorists, and activists as they ask whether US-style democracy is the answer.

What if - the new tech billionaires?: The BBC?s Alastair Leithead enters the valley of invention. For the last decade Silicon Valley has had more patents pending than anywhere else on the planet, and is the home of many of the new industries that dominate the global economy. Smart money is in the start-ups that could shape our lives for decades to come. Leithead asks who the people who "invent" are, who is putting the money in and what the most exciting ideas about to come our way are. This airs on BBC World Service on 16, 17 March and BBC on World News on 16, 17 March.

What if women ruled the world?: Dee Dee Myers, author of ?Why Women Should Rule the World? is the former White House Press secretary to Bill Clinton. She was the first woman to hold that role (and acted as advisor on the West Wing TV series). Myers shares her personal take on women and power. She looks at the US State Department which has had three female heads in the last fifteen years and asks whether that has changed the culture of the organisation. She also takes a wide-ranging view on the status, responsibilities and realities of women in power around the world.

MUMBAI: BBC World News is launching a new three-part series titled ?Masters of Money? on 24 November.

It will be presented by BBC Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders.

?Masters of Money? will air on Saturday at 3.40 pm and at 8.40 pm and on Sunday at 3.40 pm and 10.40 pm.

Produced in partnership with the Open University, the series explores how the theories of three "extraordinary" thinkers - John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx and Friedrich Hayek - have helped shape the modern world as the West tackles the greatest economic downturn in 80 years, the channel said.

According to the channel, in ?Masters of Money?, Flanders explains that these men were not mere theorists and shows how their ideas were adopted and adapted by prime ministers, presidents and dictators - shaping world events and the societies we live in.

MUMBAI: BBC World News will be airing a documentary on 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai?s life. She recently made the news when members of the Taliban shot her while on her way to school. She is currently in Britain where she?ll receive specialist medical treatment.

In 2009, Yousafzai wrote an anonymous blog for the BBC about life under the Taliban in her home city of Mingora in Pakistan?s Swat Valley. The same year New York Times journalist and film-maker Adam Ellick began to make a film about Yousafzai and her family. The documentary followed her struggle to keep up her education amid Taliban attempts to close all girls? schools in the area and when it was broadcast three years ago on The New York Times? website, it brought Yousafzai to the world?s attention.

MUMBAI: BBC World Service has launched Africa Beats - a series of multimedia programmes showcasing Africa?s new musical talent.

Each edition of the eight-part weekly series, available on radio, TV and online, will introduce to the BBC?s global audiences an up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Africa.

The four-minute editions of Africa Beats will show the artistes performing a favourite song, and include an interview with them. The series will be broadcast as part of the BBC Africa morning radio output on BBC World Service, on BBC World News TV, and will be available for viewing via bbcafrica.com and the BBC?s entertainment and arts pages.

The inaugural edition of Africa Beats features Uganda?s Sarah Tshila who chose to give up a promising career in computer science in the US to dedicate herself to music. While she was not encouraged to learn music as a child, she later became determined to pursue her passion and to reconnect with her culture. She believes music is powerful and can be a force for change in her native country.

Tshila sings in English, Kiswahili and her mother tongue, Lugisu. She describes her music as Afro-fusion: it combines traditional instruments, rhythms and melodies with modern hip-hop and spoken-word poetry.

Commenting on her appearance on Africa Beats, Tshila said, ?I can‘t wait for the world to find out about how I have strived to blend my influences of African traditional music with western music."

In 2007, Tshila was named one of the 20 best unsigned artistes in BBC World Service?s global young talent search, The Next Big Thing.

MUMBAI: New figures published reveal that the reach of BBC Persian TV has nearly doubled in Iran - rising by 94 per cent from 3.1 million in 2009 to 6.0 million - despite an intensifying campaign of censorship and intimidation by the Iranian authorities.

Overall, global weekly audience estimates for the BBC?s international news services in Iran (including TV and radio) have risen by 85 per cent from 3.9 million in 2009 to 7.2 million, according to an independent research.

The figures reveal that more than one in 10 Iranians now watch BBC Persian TV each week. This rises to more than one in four amongst those with satellite at home (28 per cent).

These figures could be significantly higher if it wasn?t for the persistent and repeated blocking of BBC Persian TV, which returned to the Hotbird satellite of Eutelsat Communications last week, following persistent jamming.

The research also excludes those who come to the BBC Persian website from inside Iran - the Internet is heavily censored and figures are difficult to measure.

In addition, the first ever significant audience survey in Somaliland and Puntland has found that the BBC has its highest reach in any international market ? reaching more than 60 per cent of adults for its radio services.

The BBC also announced a new target to reach 250 million people each week across all its international news services - current reach is at 225 million ? and the ambition to remain the world?s most trusted broadcaster.

The BBC?s director of global news Peter Horrocks said, "These figures are a tremendous tribute to the courage and dedication of BBC Persian journalists in the face of appalling bullying and intimidation by the Iranian authorities. Working for the BBC World Service can be a very hard calling. But our journalists do so in the knowledge that their reporting is trusted, respected and valued by audiences in Iran and by millions around the world. The figures underline how services like BBC Somali are a lifeline for those hungry for impartial news and information. As the BBC World Service turns 80, it reminds us of the strength of our journalism and the importance of our mission to provide balanced frontline reporting."

The new data follows recent research that showed that BBC Arabic TV?s audience has also risen to 24.5 million from 13.5 million - up by more than 80 per cent - as audiences across the Middle East turned to the BBC for accurate and unvarnished news during the Arab Uprising.

Commenting on the BBC World Service turning 80 years old, Horrocks added, ?The BBC will continue to represent the voice of free media where there is no other access to fair and authoritative news - be it because of suppression and persecution of journalists, a growth in state-sponsored media or new technologies disrupting investment in international journalism. Despite the dramatic growth in media, access to independent and high-quality news remains scarce. In many parts of the world, impartial and trusted news is almost becoming an endangered species. A tight financial climate does not mean we need to shrink our ambition - we want to reach more people, deliver greater impact and remain the most trusted broadcaster in world."