Indian TV channels, that have for long prided themselves for exposing wrong-doing, will soon come under public gaze, thanks to Nollywood film maker Ram Gopal Verma's next venture, due for release later in the year.

At a press conference in New Delhi, Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma announced the release this year of 'Rann' (Battle). With megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the lead, the movie is based on the media industry's insatiable appetite for advertisers and viewers, and is touted as a behind-the-scenes look at how news channels, greedy for ratings, are being manipulated into sensationalising stories.

"What will the media do if torn between commerce on one hand and conscience on the other -- that is the premise of this film," lead actor Amitabh Bachchan said at the press conference on Wednesday.

The premise is certainly valid, with news channels in India having exploded to 143 from 43 in 2004, according to a report in Outlook magazine.

Verma's treatment of the theme, however, seems to be as mundane as one has come to expect from this director. Bachchan plays the head of a prominent news channel in Rann. The other cast comprises tyhe usual suspects - other channel bigwigs, a conscientious journalist, an unscrupulous industrialist and a power-hungry politician. One can probably predict the rest, with some pallid female interest, action scenes, and song-and-dance sequences thrown in.

Perhaps more interesting than the movie was the press conference, as Verma announced that he had twisted around the national anthem 'Jana gana mane' while retaining its tune for the movie's theme song. The gimmick was easily seen through by those present as a blatant attempt to create the very artificial but headline-grabbing controversy that his film purports to lambaste!

The director said he has altered the lines of the national anthem to describe the "bad situation" of present-day India, and his attempt should not be termed as unpatriotic.

"I have not tinkered with the anthem or treated it in a disrespectful manner. The song is just a medium to express the angst against the current situation in the country. Please do not try to create a controversy where there is none," Verma said.

But his actions belied his words. According to a report in The Times of India , there were advance promises of a "revelation'' at the conference that would make it a "news story'' and not just another filmy do. Subsequently, there were frantic calls from the production house's PR agency asking whether the report on the press conference would be carried as a news item.

On being answered in the negative, there was a plaintive plea from the PR person, "But don't you think it deserves to be written about, given that the national anthem has been tampered with?'' The anxiety in the voice was palpable, The Times reported.

Big B's flip-flop
Not to be left behind, Bachchan (referred to as Big B in film journals) too did an amusing volte face. The man whose antipathy to the media is well known said he "would like to be a journalist".

"In fact in my interviews that I had given in the 1970s, I mentioned during most of them that I want to become a journalist in my next life," Bacchan said. "I feel that it is a very difficult task since sometimes your conscience doesn't match with reality and that's where you want to go home and tear yourself apart and take a decision," he added obscurely.

However, this has not stopped the 66-year-old megastar from castigating the media and journalists on his blog , which he has been doing ever since he started it in 2008.

The 47-year-old Verma, an acknowledged master at making gangster movies, is of course no stranger to controversy. He raised conservative eyebrows in 2007 with 'Nishabd', a film about love between a girl and a man old enough to be her grandfather. The same year, his remake of the landmark 1975 film 'Sholay' had critics denouncing the attempt at tinkering with classics, apart from bombing at the box office.