Hindi
Government confers film director Tapan Sinha with Dada Saheb Phalke Award
MUMBAI: Film director Tapan Sinha has been selected for the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for the year 2006. The award is given by the Government of India for outstanding contribution in the field of Indian Cinema. The Award carries a cash price of Rs.Ten lakhs, a Swaran Kamal and a Shawl.
Tapan Sinha, who won 19 National Film Awards in various categories, will be given a Swarna Kamal and a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh along with a shawl by the President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil .
Sinha began his film career as a sound engineer in Kolkata’s New Theatre in 1946.. In 1950, he got the opportunity of working a Pinewood Studios in the UK where he spent two years. On returning to India, he turned his attention to film directing, making films in Bengali, Hindi and also Oriya. He made three films based on Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s works namely Kabuliwala, Khudito Pashan and Atithi.
Sinha’s cinema journey began with Ankush (1954). The other highlights of his career include Upahar (1955), Tonsil (1956), Louhakapat (1957), Kalomati (1957), Hansuli Banker Upakatha (1962), Sagina Mahato (1970), Banchharamer Bagan (1980), Adalat O Ekti Meye (1982), Ek Doctor Ki Maut (1991) and Shatabdir Kanya (2001).
The Government of India had recently conferred on him the “One Time Award for Life Time Achievement” to commemorate the 60th anniversary of India’s Independence.
The committee, consisting of film personalities like Shyam Benegal , Gautam Ghosh, Dr. A.Nageshwar Rao, Sharmila Tagore and flute player Hari Prasad Chaurasia made the recommendation to the government.
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.
