Brand babe: Priyanka Chopra

It was Rahul Dravid in 2004. It was Shah Rukh Khan in 2005. Who will it be in 2006? The hunt for India?s Youth Icon has never looked more enticing with Pepsi?s brand ambassadors Priyanka Chopra and Rahul Dravid inviting the country?s youth to vote for their choice of the year. The two stars will kick-off the hunt by announcing the final six nominees of the Pepsi & MTV Youth Icon 2006.

The competition is as tough as it gets with the finalists including Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Sports), Navjyot Singh Sidhu (Television), Vijay Mallya (Business), President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (Science), John Abraham (Films) and Abhijeet Sawant (Music). The final nominations have been arrived at after a 10-city study conducted by the research agency IMRB.

Before the eventual winner is announced in June, specially branded Pepsi 600 ml PET bottles, with Youth Icon labels carrying the SMS voting codes will be up for grabs. Five lucky contest winners will get a chance to meet his or her Icon on MTV.

On air, Priyanka Chopra will call for votes and Rahul Dravid, in his capacity as former Youth Icon, will introduce the six nominee specials.

?The Youth Icon is a property that honours men and women of substance, who have positively influenced youth,? said Punita Lal, executive director (marketing), Pepsi Foods Pvt. Ltd.

Vikram Raizada, vice president, MTV Networks India, added: ?The Youth Icon is a unique, one-of-a-kind platform created expressly for the youth to identify their new-age role models.?

You can vote online at www.mtvindia.com or SMS ?ICON? to 6882 or 8243.

On the road: A moment from Continuous Journey

Travel with films

Fifteen outstanding documentaries from the subcontinent will be screened at the Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre, May 2 onwards. The five-day spread, titled Travelling Film South Asia 2006, is being presented by Himal Association in collaboration with the Seagull Foundation for the Arts. The screenings will be held at 3 pm and 6 pm.

An interesting pick is Bangladeshi director Yasmine Kabir?s award-winning film A Certain Liberation, which chronicles the life of Gurudasi Mondol, who witnessed her family being massacred in the Liberation War of 1971. The other entry from Bangladesh is Tanvir Mokammel?s Teardrops of Karnaphuli.

Rakesh Sharma?s anti-violence Final Solution is a graphic documentation of the rise of the right-wing politics in Gujarat through the Godhra carnage of 2002. Ali Kazmi?s Continuous Journey revolves around Komagata Maru, the vessel carrying 376 immigrants from British India to Canada in 1914.

Sanjeev Chatterjee?s Dirty Laundry explores how South Africans of Indian origin are still in the process of finding a cultural identity for themselves, more than a hundred years after Gandhi left South Africa. Iffat Fatima?s Lanka: The Other Side of War and Peace looks at the northern and southern landscapes of Sri Lanka, now linked by a highway and bruised by three decades of violence. Rafeeq Ellias?s The Legend of Fat Mama is a short story on the Chinese community in Calcutta ? the thriving eateries of Chinatown to the first all-woman dragon dance group preparing for the Chinese .

That apart, there?s Nistha Jain?s City of Photos, Vasudha Joshi?s Girl Song, Altaf Mazid?s Good News, Avinash Deshpande?s The Great Indian School Show, Shireen Pasha?s The Life and Times of a Lady from Avadh: Hima, Komal Tolani?s Sunset Bollywood, Rahul Roy?s The City Beautiful and Girish Giri?s Team Nepal.