MAM
Kartik Aaryan episode raises questions on Indian cinema’s crisis management modus operandi
MUMBAI: One holiday photo, one Instagram trail and suddenly the industry was back in crisis mode. What began as a few sun-soaked images from Goa has now spiralled into a full-blown online storm complete with rumours, denials, timelines, talking points and a PR defence that many feel has only poured petrol on the fire.
Thespark came in late October, when vacation pictures of Kartik Aaryan began circulating online. Social media users quickly noticed that a young woman, identified online as Karina Kubiliute, had posted from similar beach locations around the same time. Screenshots travelled faster than clarifications, and speculation about whether the two were holidaying together took hold.
Within days, the conversation took a sharper turn. Users began sharing old birthday posts attributed to the woman’s family, suggesting she may be under 18. Based on those screenshots, many online inferred that she could be 17 at the time, though no official documents were made public and no legal confirmation followed. Still, the optics alone were enough to set social media alight.
As the noise grew, Karina Kubiliute stepped in. She publicly denied any romantic association, briefly adding “I don’t know Kartik” to her Instagram bio before removing it and switching off comments, a move widely read as an attempt to escape the sudden spotlight. Kartik Aaryan, meanwhile, made no public statement, leaving the discussion to play out online.
That silence created space and into it rushed a response seen often in the past from the Indian cinema community.
Within hours, a familiar chorus took over social media timelines. Trade voices, film journalists and influential fan accounts appeared to echo strikingly similar talking points framing the actor as an “outsider under attack”, warning of a “smear campaign”, and recasting criticism as yet another chapter in the film industry’s long history of bullying stars not having an Indian cinema pedigree. Whether coordinated or coincidental, the uniformity was impossible to miss and it quickly became the story.
The outsider narrative has, in the past, worked in Aaryan’s favour. His rise without filmi lineage is real, and his his non-conforming with the industry establishment is well-documented.. But critics argue that recycling the same victimhood script in this controversy felt deeply misplaced.
What unsettled many observers was not defence itself, but the choice of defence. This wasn’t a box-office rivalry or an industry feud. It was a rumour involving age sensitivity and optics. Reaching for the well-worn “outsider victim” narrative felt, to some, like a mismatch, a familiar script applied to an unfamiliar situation.
The reaction intensified when parts of the online discourse began invoking Sushant Singh Rajput, drawing parallels between past industry bullying and the current backlash. While no official statement made such a comparison, the association gained traction in fan-led spaces and that’s where the mood shifted. For many, bringing an unrelated tragedy into a dating rumour felt excessive, even uncomfortable.
Instead of cooling the conversation, the defence seemed to stretch it. Questions were reframed as attacks, scepticism as persecution. Critics pushed back, not just on the rumours, but on the response itself. The focus drifted from what happened in Goa to how loudly and uniformly the defence was being mounted.
Meanwhile, the controversy continued to grow without new facts. The actor’s professional life rolled on, with multiple films in the pipeline and releases lined up for 2026. Online, however, the story had already moved beyond holiday photos. It had become a talking point about Indian cinema’s increasingly visible PR machinery and whether it knows when to step back.
What this episode has shown is less about guilt or innocence and more about timing, tone and tactics. In the age of hyper-aware audiences and screenshot journalism, old-school damage control doesn’t always land the way it used to. Sometimes, the defence becomes louder than the allegation and that’s when curiosity turns into criticism.
For now, the controversy remains rooted in speculation, not verified findings. But as Indian cinema has learned repeatedly, in the social media era it’s not just what happens that shapes a story, it’s how quickly, and how noisily, it’s handled.
And in this case, the noise may have done more talking than the truth ever did.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
