City to host infotainment mega event

kolkata: billed as the biggest ice event of its kind in eastern india, the city will play host to a conference-cum-exposition on information communication and entertainment between november 18 and 20. if you wish to have a sneak preview into what the future will look like, here's the opportunity, say the organisers - the confederation of indian industry.while the meet will be inaugurated by union information technology and communications minister pramod mahajan, the ice will be broken by amitabh bachchan - the biggest name in indian entertainment industry. and a musical extravaganza starring alka yagnik, udit narayan, shankar mahadevan and sunidhi chauhan will be the grand finale. among heavyweights who will attend the summit are niit's rajendra pawar, bharti enterprises' sunil bharti mittal, tcs' s. ramadorai, infosys technologies' nandan nilekani, icici ltd's k.v. kamath, ge capital india's pramod bhasi and reliance telecom's subodh saxena. and then there are the entertainment czars - sony entertainment television's kunal dasgupta, zee telefilms' r.k. singh and balaji telefilms' ekta kapoor. "it's a new look cii spearheading a new initiative for the east. it's just incidental that we have a new government at the helm in west bengal," said cii president sanjiv goenka. goenka feels this is the perfect time to pitch for an ice summit in the city. "though the perception is that us slowdown and attacks have shaken e-business confidence and led to drastic pruning of technology budgets in the country, it also means more opportunities as more us companies will outsource it-related support needs in order to cut costs," he said.