MAM
Emami Agrotech onboards Debabrata Mukherjee as chief marketing & strategy officer
Mumbai: Emami Agrotech has announced the appointment of Debabrata Mukherjee as its chief marketing and strategy officer. The new appointment is seen as a part of the company’s growth strategy.
Mukharjee is an industry veteran with over 28 years of experience in general management, marketing & sales operations, business strategy, & innovation.
In his new role, he will be heading the company’s marketing operations across verticals, i.e., edible oil, spices, soya chunks, and bakery fat. He will also head the innovation strategy for Emami Agrotech’s future roadmap as one of the leading branded food manufacturers in India.
Prior to this, he was serving as the chief marketing officer at the UB Group and was responsible for managing a diverse set of local and global brands like Kingfisher, Ultra, Heineken, and Amstel.
After starting his career with Unilever in Kolkata, Debabrata joined Coca-Cola in 1998 as its franchise manager in Mumbai, with increasing responsibilities over the years in the operations of the company in India, Korea, and South-West Asia. Following a brief stint with the Hindustan Times Group, Debabrata joined United Breweries, where he was in charge of developing a broad-based, winning portfolio and fostering strong consumer centricity.
EAL has recently forayed into the spice and soy nugget markets and sees immense potential for expansion in both the edible oil and food sectors with the right products.
Speaking on the appointment, Emami Agrotech CEO Sudhakar Desai said, “We are very happy to welcome Debabrata (Debu) at EAL. Debu’s rich industry experience, knowledge, and energy are expected to provide impetus to the company’s brand-building initiatives and growth strategy. His inclusion in the leadership team will help us to chart new avenues of organisational expansion and enable our company to reach its full potential in the relevant markets.”
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.
