Bollywood: The Casting Couch Wednesday, 26 October, 2005 1900 BST on BBC Two

Bollywood is India's City of Dreams and the cornerstone of the largest film industry in the world.

Indian film stars have a status that outstrips even their Hollywood peers and are treated like living gods by their legions of fans.

But when on-screen villain Shakti Kapoor was exposed as a real-life bad boy - after being secretly filmed asking for sex in return for making an undercover reporter a star - a national scandal ensued.

His career had been seemingly undermined by one drunken night of hidden camera footage in a seedy hotel room.

Shakti Kapoor was banned from the film and TV guild organisation but other industry groups have come out in his support, saying he has been framed.

Sleazy "casting couch" allegations are not something Bollywood - with its clean-cut image - it used to.

Sex scandal

The BBC's Tanya Datta investigates a subject that India's celebrity elite would rather not mention and the country's entertainment media shy away from.

Is the world's most popular cinema industry - renowned for the moralising tone of its storylines - actually built on a foundation of sexual corruption?

For the first time ever, big names like movie mogul Mahesh Bhatt and author Shobha De, as well as young actresses themselves, speak out.

Shobha De thinks that the growing informality within Bollywood has led to things getting too personal.

She tells us: "An intelligent girl knows exactly what is meant when a producer says: 'Meet me in a suite at 11 at night.'"

We track the scandal and have exclusive behind-the-scenes access to film sets, celebrity parties and the actor who found himself very much in the spotlight: Shakti Kapoor.