Hindi
PVR to invest Rs 2.5 billion, add 200 screens
MUMBAI: Multiplex chain operator PVR Ltd. will invest Rs 2.5 billion to add 200 screens within five years.
The ramp up plan will include a foray into the eastern region. PVR currently has 101 screens across 25 locations, predominantly in north India.
“We plan to set up 200 new screens and invest Rs 2.5 billion over the next four to five years. We have already signed up space area across 35-40 locations. We are expanding our presence to the eastern region as well,” says PVR Cinemas chief executive officer Amitabh Vardhan.
PVR already runs multiplexes across 14 cities in India including Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Gaziabad, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Lucknow, Aurangabad, Indore, Baroda, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Bangalore and Latur.
The new screens will be developed under three different categories of PVR, depending upon the socio economic standards of the location. The segments include PVR Premiere, PVR Cinemas, and PVR Talkies.
“While we are looking at opening around 13 PVR Premiere screens (for which the tickets are priced beyond Rs 200), we will be constructing approximately 9-10 PVR Talkies (tickets priced below Rs 100) in B and C towns. The rest will be PVR Cinemas for which the tickets are priced between Rs 100 to Rs 200,” explains Vardhan.
Multiplex operators including Adlabs (with 181 screens across 70 properties) are rapidly expanding their presence across the country.
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.
