I-next's IKTARA continues to make waves!

The battle lines have started appearing stark and vivid, with the upcoming onset of third week of super 16 phase 2 of IKTARA, a unique folk singing competition from I next, which has found a startling connect with the youth and folk music lovers, especially from the mini-metros of North India.

www.inextlive.com, the digital arm of i next, through a novel initiative, IKTARA, offers an opportunity to talented folk singers across the country to showcase their prowess on the big platform. The recorded videos of the performances selected by the jury are being regularly uploaded on inextlive.com. The audience vote for the best performance out of the week's entries and decide the finalists. (To vote for your favourite contestant, log on to www.inextlive.com and "like' his/her video, or you can SMS your vote by writing "icontest code no.' on you mobile and sending it to 57272.) For phase 2 second week voting, lines are open from 26th March to 31st March, till 5 pm.

IKTARA has attracted singers majorly from UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand, besides numerous other states like West Bengal, Delhi, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, MP, Punjab and Maharashtra. It had been designed to give a new dimension to contemporary music by fusion and cross-genre collaboration numbers.

Voting for phase 2 began on March 18, which is now in its second week. In the first week alone, nearly 10,000 votes have been polled, while in phase I, a total of more than 30000 votes were polled through online and SMS voting.

For the first time, contestants from Punjab and Jharkhand have made it to the Super 16 phase of IKTARA. In fact, the video of first week finalist of phase 2, Palwinder Prince from Amritsar, has gone viral on facebook and has garnered more than 6000 votes! It must be remembered that two contestants had also received wild card entries to this phase.

After the first phase, Mousmi Pandey from Lucknow, Satyendra Kumar from Patna, Rituj Srivastava from Kanpur and Aman Kumar Srivastava from Gorakhpur won in public voting and have moved on to the final round of IKTARA. The four finalists from phase 1 and one finalist from phase 2, along with their performance videos are already uploaded on www.inextlive.com.

Format of IKTARA is simple. One finalist is chosen every week, based on the number of votes his performance garners from the online and SMS voting. Over 8 weeks of voting, a total of 8 finalists would make it to the big stage where they would get a chance to sing along side some of the best known names in folk singing and who happen to be the contest's judges too, like Malini Awasthi, Kalpana Patowary, Sangeeta Dhoundiyal, Nandlal Nayak and Mukund Nayak, in a gala event.

With three more weeks to go till voting continues, people continue to throng www.inextlive.com, the hot bed of all the excitement. Keep visiting the portal for more updates and related stories.