MUMBAI: Eliot Kennedy, the inventor of the 'Spice Girls', a British pop girl group formed in 1994 is now hunting for Indian talent for a new all-Asian girls band.

Called 'Project Lotus', the search aims to find five singers from China, Japan, Philippines, Korea and India. Shamir Tandon, a music director who excels in creating music for films with mature and sensitive subjects and Manish Porwal of the Alchemist Talent Solutions will be taking the onus of picking up the right one 

Far West Entertainment, a Hongkong-based company approached me and asked me to be the judge who will select and send Miss Vocal India... to UK to represent our country on this girl band. I am happy that it is neither a reality show nor does it have a voting system,... said Tandon 

The chosen ones will be trained and groomed to form and launch an international Pan-Asian girl band, aka the Asian Spice Girls. The English band members were Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Victoria Beckham.

We look at this as an opportunity for these girls to become ambassadors of their countries and showcase their talent to the rest of the world. Success is guaranteed,... said Kennedy to the media. Kennedy is a Grammy Award winning songwriter, who has worked with international artistes like Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin and Robbie Williams.

Auditions will be undertaken at four major cities. Mumbai hosted the auditions on 31 July and 1 August. Kolkata auditions will be held on 7- 8 August, in Delhi on 14 and 15 August and in Bangalore on 21- 22 August. The finals will be held in Mumbai on 1- 2 September.

Talking about the parameters of judgement, Tandon revealed, There are many things we are looking out for in the participants. Apart from voice and singing ability, the contestant should have a fairly decent personality and good interpersonal skills so that she can gel well with others. And more importantly, the girl should be happy to stay in Hong Kong and then UK for a longtime till the album is recorded and released and a worldwide promotional tour happens....

Firstly, five finalists will be shortlisted from each country and flown to Hong Kong to get trained with other finalists from the other countries. And later one girl will be chosen from among the five girls from each country to form the band 

A 14 part series, Project Lotus will be aired on Zee Cafe.

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