Balaji Telefilms has announced its partnership with the newly launched 9X general entertainment channel for the annual 'Global Indian T V Honours' which will be held here on February 1.

From next year onwards, the awards ceremony will be held in different cities across the globe.

Andheri sports complex will be the venue of the first awards this year. Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan will be among the host of television and film personalities to perform at the event.

Addressing a press conference here yesterday, Balaji Creative Director Ekta Kapoor said her company has changed the television viewing scenario in India and across the globe with its daily soaps.

''Balaji has created a niche in film production and distribution with movies like 'Shoot out at Lokhandwala' and 'BhoolBhulaiya'. The progression for us is to move to non-fiction with reality shows and mega events.

The awards function is our pioneering venture in the non-fiction arena. This is our first step in the genre of non-fiction, reality shows will follow,'' she added.

The awards will have six main categories with 30 sub categories.

The six categories will comprise of popular, technical, programming, achievement (for which there will be no nomination), special honour and voters choice. Each category will be judged by a panel of three judges. The awards have already received a whopping response with 370 nominations for 28 categories, she informed.

The panel of judges include Farida Jalal, Aroona Irani, Manish Malhotra, Vikram Phadnis, Anurag Basu, B P Singh, Anil Thakeraney, Ashwini Yardi, Sanjeev Sharma, Deepak Malvankar, Aly Morani and Neena Gupta.

Ms Indrani Mukherjea, founder and CEO INXMedia ltd promised to make the awards into Indian Oscars of television.

Ms Harsha Chugh Khanna, Business Head of Balaji telefilms said the thought behind instituting the awards was to provide a platform for deserving talents to be recognised. ''We have made every effort to ensure that the judging process and nominations are transparent,'' she added.

Ernest and Young have been roped in to ensure transparancy in the judging process, she added. The event has been managed, scripted, directed and executed by G S Entertainment.