Further to the previous story on Bhajan Belt, it is our great pleasure to extend you the invitation to World fusion concert by vocalist Sheila Chandra and Yoga chanter Krishna Das later this week in Auburn, NY. The event is being organized by Auburn Public Theater that would send any fan of world music into a frenzy.  Das will perform an additional show on Saturday.

Here is an interview conducted by The Citizen introducing both the singers to Auburn. 

Please join us for a very special World Music segment tonight at 10:00PM EDT. We shall be covering the devotional chanting on new and modern beats, including western vocals. In upstate New York, a new region, called "Bhajan Belt" has sprung up. There are many other such pockets popping up within United States and rest of the world. It focuses on Hindu devotional chanting, Yoga and meditation. We shall be dedicating today's world music hours to such a phenomenon! Do join us.

You can read up more on this in New York Times Archives .

Please join us today at 10:00AM EDT, as we celebrate birthday of India’s nightingale – Lata Mangeshkar, who turns 78. Lataji was born on September 28 1929 in Indore. Her father, Deenanath Mangeshkar was a classical singer and an actor. Her mother, Shudhamati was the 2^nd wife of Deenanathji. The original surname of the family was Hardikar, which Deenanath changed to Mangeshkar, to identify with his native village. Boy! isn’t his village turned into a household name forever!  Actually, Lata too had a different original name. It was “Hema”, but later got changed to Lakita, a character in one of Deenanath’s famous plays called Bhaan Bandhan. I guess, Deenanathji was fond of mapping names!

Lataji was followed by other well known singers and musicians siblings, Hridyanath, Asha, Usha and Meena. Needless to say, Mangeshkars – indeed became an art and musical power house within no time.

In an astonishing and stunning revelation, the SaReGaMaPa team in Lucknow found out that Poonam Yadav, a contestant on the show has an adopted girl, named Simran, who is 4 years old now. Poonam, the 26 years old contestant was around 22 years old when she decided to shelter the 2 years old baby gal who was abandoned by her biological mother.

Poonam belongs to a lower middle class family. The story unfolded when the SaReGaMaPa production team reached out for an invitation to Poonam's mother to be present on the show. To their surprise, her mother requested if she can bring Simran, Poonam's adopted daughter to the show as well. 

Well, the 7.5 months of season 3 of Indian Idol came to end yesterday when John Abraham announced the new Indian idol, Prasant Tamang, a constable from Darjeeling and the first from Indian Police Force to go for the title. He is also the first contestant of Indian Nepalese origin to make it to the final rounds of Indian Idol and win the same.

With all credit to Prashant, it is almost a common belief that voting system of Indian Idol is not functioning properly as in all of the past three seasons of Indian Idol, not a single female participant has made it to the top 3. Call it whatever you want, but the show has not been able to produce a female idol since its inception. 

What do you think? Were all the female participants not worthy to enter the final three rounds? Have your say. 

Lesle Lewis, (no we haven’t misspelt his name, that’s the way he spells it now because he likes the look of his written name) one half of the band Colonial Cousins has stepped into Bollywood territory with composing music for a Hindi film. The composer, arranger, lyricist and music director is upbeat about his latest venture and tells BT that he’s finally.

Apna Aasmaan is your first project as a music composer for a Hindi film. Is that correct?

Yes, as a music composer for a full film. But it’s not a typical Bollywood project. As a music composer, I’ve achieved what I wanted to. I never wanted to do typical Bollywood stuff anyway. I’ve refused offers in the past for that.