Hindi
Reliance Ent integrates home video and Zapak Games
MUMBAI: In order to maximise its group synergies, Reliance Entertainment has integrated the toys and games business under Zapak Games with Reliance Home Video.
Reliance Entertainment has produced films like Bodyguard, Singham and Double Dhamaal.
The new entity, known as Reliance Home Video and Games, will ensure growth of both home video and games business with enhanced funding, improved infrastructure and larger product offerings, the company said.
Speaking on the merger Reliance Home Video and Games COO Sweta Agnihotri said, “The broad market dynamics for Home Video and Games are similar in terms of consumer demographics, marketing and distribution of products. The consumer demands a more gratifying experience. They want their entertainment to be participative, immersive and experiential. The addition of games and toys to our existing home video business adds one more dimension to this enhanced consumer fulfillment.
“With favourable sector dynamics, the Indian toy market is seeing a paradigm shift; there is a growing preference for international brands and the Indian market is being propelled by a larger kid‘s population, rising disposable incomes and aspirational lifestyles. Gaming is another rapidly growing segment which we are excited to be in. We will of course continue to dominate the home video business by bringing the finest films in home entertainment from across the world. We believe that Reliance Home Video and Games will be a long term player with incredible brand equity, experienced teams and investment capabilities which will be beneficial to all concerned.”
Reliance Home Video distributes both Indian and Hollywood products. It is an exclusive licensee to Warner Bros, Paramount Studios, Universal Studios and Dreamworks for all their new and catalogue films and has released blockbusters such as 3Idiots, Bodyguard, Dabangg, Harry Potter series, Transformers series, Fast and Furious franchise among others on home video.
Zapak Games, meanwhile, has grown in the toy and games segment over the past four years and distributes merchandise, games and toys from leading international toys and gaming companies like Moose, Spinmasters, Codemasters, Jakks Pacific and Crayola.
Reliance said that the new entity would benefit all stake holders with presence in toys, games and home video all under one roof and make their network the most versatile and influential network in the personal leisure and entertainment space in India.
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.
