Idea hunter

MEDIA: BBC's Narendhra Morar comes looking for some more innovative programming in India.

Narendhra Morar invariably feels the needs to visit India after every six months. If we take a closer look at our television screens that flash BBC World, we would know exactly why he does this.

As commissioning editor, Morar, who completes a decade in BBC World sometime next year, usually meets producers and directors to commission interesting feature-based stories and documentaries from the Indian sub-continent.

For someone who is responsible for commissioning of long-form programmes like the award-winning series such as Earth Report, Life: Kill or Cure? and Destination Music to name just a few, including one-off documentaries, Morar is holding meetings with Indian-based producers to come up with content that can be aired in 2007.

"We include interesting trends that can be of interest to the global audience," says Morar. He cites the example of programmes like Call Centre, Being Indian and Bollywood Bosses, that were "usual stories tackled from a brand new perspective".

Call Centre, produced by Miditech Productions, took a behind-the-scenes look at the booming BPO sector in a seven-part series through the eyes of two youngsters who were a part of the industry.

But what's on BBC World's cards for the coming few months as far as India is concerned? Morar hesitates to elaborate but mentions that the channel will tap business trends and look at the Indian entertainment industry once again.

Also showing now is BBC World Challenge, a programme that gives exposure to unique innovations. Though India had an important entry last year (it was on the Irula tribe in Tamil Nadu that catches snakes, extracts their venom "" 80 per cent of this is used for India's medical needs "" and leaves the snakes in the jungles to consume rodents), this year none of the Indian entries made it to the top. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh feature in the top 12 finalists' list though.

While Sri Lanka concentrates on a unique paper that includes even elephant dung, Bangladesh's entry focuses on NGO Dalit that is looking at ways of eliminating arsenic poison in water. There's also "Cards from Africa" an organisation that has roped in 300 orphans from Rwanda to make greeting cards.

"It's a very successful programme and as compared to 400 entries received last year, this time we received 800 entries," says Morar.

"I remember seeing an interesting programme that showed children on a merry-go-round. While they rotated, water was being pumped up through a pipe and into a tank high above the playground. That set me thinking about the concept of unique innovations and that's how World Challenge was conceived," he says.