Digital
Digital Transformation: The evolving landscape of sustainability in the Oil & Gas Industry
Mumbai: Digital transformations are sweeping industries, reshaping businesses, and creating altogether new ecosystems that were never seen before. Like other sectors, the applications of digital technologies are helping the oil and gas industry to become more efficient, competitive, and eco-friendly in its operations. All these changes, in turn, are boosting the sustainability of the sector while allowing participating stakeholders to deliver enhanced benefits across the value chain.
Oil and Gas Sector: Digitalisation Challenges
While digitalisation brings multiple benefits to the table, the integration of digital technologies in the oil and gas sector faces some tough challenges. Legacy methods and physical infrastructure are challenging to do away with as they have been deeply integrated into the industry for a long time now. In addition, the digitalising strategies mandate the integration of large swaths of data into the business functions and operations which in itself is a hard nut to crack. Further, upgrading employees’ skills to achieve effective digital integration is a demanding task that mandates investment of both time and resources on behalf of the oil and gas firms. Moreover, the fast-evolving nature of technologies makes it difficult for firms to finalise which tools need to be selected to achieve the desired levels of digital transformation.
Building Sustainable Oil and Gas Sector: Recommended Digitalisation Strategies
a) Decentralised Access: Data silos are created when the data is collected, compiled, and analysed at functional levels without offering any centralised access to other departments. To achieve sustainability in the oil and gas sector, it is crucial to break these silos and to that end, the creation of a centralised database is a prerequisite. This central data repository will offer data access to all participating stakeholders, leading to agile operations, faster decision-making, and more transparency. All these benefits, in turn, will come together and help make the oil and gas sector more sustainable and resilient while delivering better value to stakeholders across the value chain.
b) Leverage Technology: Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and automation can play a crucial role in enhancing the sustainability of the Oil and Gas industry. These digital technologies can help firms in demand forecasting, inventory management, and supply chain optimisations. Further, the use of these tools can help in reducing wastage, lowering emissions, and cutting costs associated with the inbound and outbound logistics of oil and gas firms. All these benefits then accrue to elevate the sustainability quotient of the entire ecosystem of the oil and gas industry.
c) Digital Replicas: Creating digital twins of strategic activities can prove extremely beneficial for enhancing the sustainability of the oil and gas sector. The biggest advantage of digital replicas is the deep understanding these offer to stakeholders and partners to deliver better value to end customers. This profound knowledge helps firms know their strengths, identify weaknesses, and detect the potential issues that might hamper the sustainability of the sector in the long term. The comprehensive assessment also allows organisations to make changes with the desired speed and efficiency, thereby helping the oil and gas industry to become more sustainable and eco-friendly in its operations.
d) Collaborative Partnerships: By striking collaborative partnerships with researchers, entrepreneurs, and tech startups, the oil and gas industry can achieve higher levels of digitalisation and sustainability. Such partnerships can prove extremely beneficial in enhancing the reliability of assets, delivering operation insights, strengthening configuration management, and promoting technology innovations, thereby putting companies on the path of digitalisation and enhanced sustainability. The enabling role of policymakers also becomes crucial here as open and constructive policies can prove instrumental in catalysing such collaborative partnerships in the oil and gas sector.
Digitalisation can become instrumental in enhancing the sustainability of the oil and gas industry. Firms operating in the industry must integrate digital technologies as it will help them achieve superior functional effectiveness and operational efficiency. Digital tools also strengthen workflow improvements and increase net productivity by facilitating superior forecasting and data-driven decision-making. In addition, digitalisation also makes oil and gas firms more sustainable by helping them cut down their carbon footprints significantly.
The article is authored by UPES ON assistant professor Rahul Sharma.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
