The Film and Television Producers' Guild of India announced the nominations for the Second Apsara Film & Television Producers Guild Awards on 3 January. The nominees were announced amongst the leading producers from the film and television fraternity.

Apsara awards Jury members

The awards are divided into four award categories - Film, Film Technical, Television and Special awards. The Film and Television have 14 awards each, while the Technical and Special Award groups have seven and 10 awards each
In the television category.

Star One emerges the clear winner among nominees in 16 categories including the Best Ensemble, Best Drama series and Best Comedy Serial. Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai (Star One) has emerged as the TV show with the maximum nominations while NDTV leads amongst the news channels with five nominations.

Sarrkkar.. Rishton Ki Ankahi Khani (Zee TV)), Siddhanth (Star One), Woh Rehne Wali Mahlon Ki (Sahara One), Astitva… Ek Prem Kahani(Zee TV) and Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahi (Sony TV) will compete for the honours in the Best Drama series category, while Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai(Star One), The Great Indian Laughter Challenge(Star One), The Great Indian Comedy Show(Star One), Kareena Kareena (Zee TV)and Instant Khichdi (Star One) compete in the Best Comedy Series Category.

Film Director Karan Johar and David Dhawan in conversation

Parineeta leads the race with 14 Nominations including the Best Film, Best Actor and Best Actress Categories followed closely by Black with 11 nominations.
Black, Iqbal, Parineeta, Page 3 and Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi are the Nominations for the Best Film while Shahrukh Khan (Swades), Amitabh Bachchan (Black), Saif Ali Khan (Parineeta), Akshay Kumar (Waqt) and Anil Kapoor (No Entry) are the nominees for the best Actor Category. Newcomers Vidya Balan (Parineeta) and Chitrangda Singh (Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi) will compete with veterans Urmila Matondkar and Rani Mukherjee (Black, Hum Tum) with a double whammy in the best actress category.

Each of the Award Groups has a jury selection committee chaired by an eminent member of the industry. This year Ramesh Sippy is the Chairman of the Film Awards Jury while Harish Thawani and Manmohan Shetty chair the Television and the Film Technical Award Juries respectively. The 220 members of the Film & Television Producers will cast their vote in a secret ballot conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers.
The second Apsara awards will be held at the Jamshed Bhabha Hall, NCPA on 21 January 2006.