Hindi
Government keen on promoting children’s films: Prakash Javadekar
NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that the government is keen on promoting children’s’ films by facilitating expansion of their reach as this would help in the all-round development of the young.
The Minister was speaking at a review meeting with the Children’s Film Society India (CFSI), in Mumbai on 21 June. He also held review meetings of media units like the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), the Films Division and the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).
The Minister said the films produced by the CFSI needs to be promoted and marketed well. “If the films are made and we are not able to release them, then the end result will be nil,” he observed.
Agreeing with a suggestion, Javadekar said the budget for promotion and marketing should be a built-in component of CFSI films’ overall budget. The minister observed that though CFSI films win national and international awards, they fail to reach wider audience due to weak distribution “We need to explore all options, including outsourcing of distribution to make our films reach far and wide,” he added.
The Minister complimented CFSI for organising the biennial Golden Elephant International Children’s Film Festival in Hyderabad, but said that there was a need to take the children’s film festival culture to many other cities and states. He said his Ministry would lend support to organising such film festivals in all the states of the country.
Besides promoting films through conventional distribution channels, Javadekar also stressed on distributing them through informal rural communication channels with the help of Directorate of Field Publicity, supported by the Song and Drama Division. He said for this purpose, various religious and community fairs, jatras etc could be targeted to reach out to maximum audience.
The Minister also held a meeting with a group of film producers and television industry leaders. Those participating in the meeting briefed the minister about various challenges being faced by the film industry and drew his attention to action required from his Ministry. Additional secretary (Films) Raghavendra Singh was also present in the meeting coordinated by Shaina N C and attended by Dalip Tahil, Durga Jasraj, Manish Goswami, and Raveen Kohli among others.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
