Shantanu Rangnekar and Arman Zaffer From Mumbai Crowned The Winner Of Pogo Amazing Kid Entertainer and Sports Award 2011

Online, December 20, 2011 (Newswire.com) - India's most talented kids shone in Mumbai on Saturday at the eighth annual POGO Amazing Kids Awards 2011, India's first kids' television awards ceremony.

Kids' favourite superhero -Chhota Bheem made a surprise performance at the event and the winners were felicitated by Monica Tata, General Manager, Entertainment Networks, South Asia, Turner International India.

A POGO original production, POGO Amazing Kids Awards 2011 upheld the channel's tradition of discovering, recognizing and celebrating, the amazingly talented kids across India.

Making India proud are14 year old Shantanu Rangnekar and 13 year old Arman Zaffer from Mumbai who won the coveted POGO Amazing Kids Awards 2011in the Entertainer and Sports categories respectively.

Shantanu has been awarded the Best Child Actor at the 58th National Film Awards for his performance in the film Champions. He has also been cast as the lead actor in Appu Aswalya Kazi Gudgulia a Marathi Drama for kids and Warsa, a Marathi film. In addition, Shantanu has acted in several documentaries based on social awareness.

Rick Fernandes, Executive Director, Original Production & Development, Turner Broadcasting System, Asia Pacific, said, "We are extremely excited and proud to announce Shantanu Rangnekar as the winner of the coveted POGO Amazing Kids Entertainer Award 2011. Shantanu is an amazing young actor who understands the essence of his characters and delivers noteworthy and entertaining performances. We are delighted to offer him such a platform where he can inspire kids across India. I congratulate him and his family for winning this award, and hope to see him grow in stature and talent in all his future endeavours."

Arman Jaffer is the record holder for the highest individual score in Indian school cricket. Arman, nephew of one-time India Test opener and Mumbai captain Wasim Jaffer, smashed 498 for Rizvi Springfield School against IES Raja Shivaji School in the Giles Shield tournament at Cross Maidan in Mumbai. (December 2010). Armaan first broke the record for the highest score in the Giles Shield, an Under-14 tournament, going past the previous record of 357 set by Parikshit Valsangkar of IES VN Sule Guruji, Dadar against Christ Church last year. He then surpassed Sarfaraz Khan's 439 - scored in the Under-16 Harris Shield competition last year - to claim the record. His knock, brought to an end by a catch, came off 490 balls and included 77 fours. In 2011, he has made 2670 runs including 24 centuries for his school.

Ayaz Memon, well known sports journalist and judge for the POGO Amazing Sports category commented on why he chose Arman Zaffer as the winner, "At a very young age, Arman is already a well known name in the sports fraternity. He has proven his skills on countless occasions the most acclaimed of which is the record for the highest individual score in school cricket. I want to wish him the very best of luck for all his future endeavors and I am sure he will rise to great success."

Catch the success stories of Shantanu Rangnekar from December 31, 2011 to January 31, 2012 only on POGO!

About POGO:
POGO, a multi-genre channel created exclusively for kids in India, launched successfully by Turner on January 1, 2004 and is distributed by Media Pro Enterprise India Pvt. Ltd. POGO is available in over 24 million cable & satellite homes. Within a few months of its launch, POGO became the second most popular kids' entertainment channel in India, after Cartoon Network and continues to maintain this position today.

www.pogo.tv is a hugely popular and highly interactive kids' website with exciting features/content such as Online Games, Exclusive applications, video-on-demand, message boards and mini-sites of popular shows on POGO. The website attracts over 212,000* unique visitors per month and each of them spend an average of 24* minutes on the website. (*Source: Omniture SiteCatalyst, February, 2011).