Hindi
PVR plans to invest Rs 750 mn in FY’12
MUMBAI: Multiplex chain PVR has a capital expenditure plan of Rs 750 million in the current fiscal even as it intends to add 50-60 screens across India, a senior company official said.
The multiplexes will come up in key markets like Surat, Nanded, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Jallandhar and Bangalore.
“The plexes will be spread out across the country this fiscal. We will have a more south focus in the next fiscal. The capex plan in FY‘12 is Rs 700 million-750 million,” PVR Ltd. chief financial officer Nitin Sood told Indiantelevision.com.
PVR is sitting on a cash pile of Rs 1 billion and has no fund-raising requirement, added Sood.
PVR currently operates 34 properties with 146 screens in 19 cities across the country.
PVR Ltd. reported a 14 per cent jump in consolidated revenue to Rs 1.17 billion for the three months ended June 2011, compared with Rs 1.03 billion in the prior year quarter.
“The content pipeline has been strong this quarter. We were not impacted by the IPL (Indian Premier League) as there were many movie releases this year. We expect the growth momentum to last in the subsequent quarters this year,” said Sood.
Operating profit grew 86 per cent in the fiscal first-quarter to Rs 343.4 million from Rs 184.3 million in the earlier year.
Net profit rose 159 per cent to Rs 144.2 million compared to Rs 55.6 million a year ago.
Revenue from the exhibition business grew 12 per cent to Rs 948.4 million. Operating profit stood at Rs 355.8 million compared to Rs 158.1 million a year ago. Core business EBITDA grew by 18 per cent to Rs 186.2 million. Net profit at Rs 220.8 million rose 389 per cent.
Continuing with its buyback proposal, PVR has purchased 1.08 million equity shares, or 4 per cent, according to the data provided by the company till 5 August.
Will PVR‘s expansion plans be upset by the market tumult hitting the globe due to the U.S. downgrade and the possibility of a double-dip recession? “The mall developers may slow down. But we are pretty locked up this fiscal and won‘t face any challenge as we intend to add 50-60 screens during this period,” said Sood.
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.
