Sahara Samay, the bouquet of one national Hindi news channel and city-centric satellite news channels covering 31 cities in India, is ready for launch on March 28. With this Sahara India Pariwar, which has a strong presence in public deposit mobilisation, housing, media and entertainment, aviation, consumer products and the upcoming venture of 'Sahara Net', hopes to "redefine television news in India".

"The test-run of Sahara Samay news channels has been on for the last two weeks. We are tracking the feedback and will formally launch Sahara Samay on March 28," confirmed Sumit Roy, head of Sahara Media & Entertainment, the division that covers Sahara India Pariwar's media initiatives including television, print and the soon-to-be launched satellite radio channels.

"We will launch the city-centric regional news channels beginning with Sahara Samay Uttar Pradesh to cover six cities, namely, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Agra, Gorakhpur and Dehra Dun. Other city-centric channels will be launched in the next four months to cover 31 cities as planned," he elaborated.

All the Sahara Samay 24-hour news channels are free-to-air, digital, satellite channels boasting of Asia's largest and India's first fully automated electronic news production and transmission technology.

"Vinod Dua has been associated with Sahara TV since its inception and is an advisor to us," said Roy. Among the other people on board are Arup Ghosh, who would head the Sahara Samay national news channel; Prabhat Dabral, who would manage the city-centric regional news channels for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan; Shireen would lead the Delhi and NCR channels, while Rajiv Bajaj would steer the Mumbai channel covering Maharashtra and Gujarat.