Hindi
Sag members reject AMPTP offer in poll
MUMBAI: The stand off between the Screen Actors Guild (Sag) and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) cotinues in the US. 87.27 per cent of the 10,298 Sag members who responded to a mail-in poll said that the union should continue bargaining in an effort to achieve a fair contract.
12.73 per cent of those who responded said they would accept the terms presented in the AMPTP’s 30 June offer to SAG.
Postcards were mailed to 103,630 paid-up SAG members on 28 August 2008 with a return deadline of 15 September. There was only a 9.94 per cent return. Postcard return statistics matched almost exactly the geographic distribution of Sag members, with 56.07 per cent of the responses from Hollywood, 20.83 per cent from New Yotk and 23.10 per cent from regional branch members.
The results of the poll indicate that members agree with the actions passed by SAG’s national board in July and August.
Sag president Alan Rosenberg stated, “I am encouraged to see that members-at-large agree with the strategy of the national board and their national negotiating committee. This membership poll provides clear insight and direction concerning how actors feel about their futures. Clearly they expect Screen Actors Guild to protect them from exploitation in new media, and to preserve longstanding principles and contract provisions.”
Sag national executive director and chief negotiator Doug Allen commented, “Our objective was to take the pulse of our members and I am pleased that the response reflects the resolve we have seen from SAG members around the country throughout this negotiating process. The AMPTP suggested we send their June 30 offer to our members to ratify. These poll results indicate that was wishful thinking on their part. We will now urge the AMPTP to roll up their sleeves and to put in the hard work required to bargain a fair, equitable agreement as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile the AMPTP retorted in a statement saying that the mass postcard mailing by Sag negotiators was a farce. The AMPTP says that the questions were devised to give Sag negotiators only the answer they wanted to hear.
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.
