MAM
Green Trends Salons expecting 60% footfall in first-month of reopening
NEW DELHI: As the country slowly starts taking positive steps towards lifting the Covid2019 lockdown, several states have allowed salon services to resume after two months of stalled operations. However, for an industry that definitely requires human contact to function, there are huge logistical and safety-related challenges to address.
Green Trends Salon COO S Deepak Praveen tells Indiantelevision.com that it is totally geared up to tailor its services fitting the new normal. He says, “We strongly believe that post-lockdown consumers might worry about hygiene and safety. Fortunately for us at Green trends, we have always maintained the highest safety standards and salon operations with stringent SOP processes, and hence easier for us to improve upon our processes.”
The brand has built more than 15 additional SOP processes to ensure a safe salon ambience for the client and employees. While every salon has been geared with additional safety gear and infrastructure the staff has been extensively trained to ensure compliance via nearly 6000 training sessions.
Sharing details about the technical developments, Praveen says, “At Green Trends we are closely working with our technical team from, apart from inputs from government guidelines and consultations with medical experts. The body scanners, PPEs, etc. are sourced from authorised vendors while the sanitizers which are used in salons have been launched by us as ‘green trends professional hand sanitizer’ which was developed by CavinKare R&D.”
Praveen is expecting about 60 per cent footfall compared to the regular footfall at the Green Trends salons in the first month of re-opening.
To ensure that the staff and clients both remain safe, every salon employee would undergo a temperature check every day and will be given a badge with temperature details to wear through the day, to assure the clients. Additionally, for contactless services, every employee will be wearing gloves and using single-use kits for most services. They have also introduced special digital rate-cards.
Praveen adds, “We are moving to a strict appointment-only system and have revamped our salon POS to help create a seamless shift to appointment-based process for customer comfort. We would also be moving to a ticketing system where a client without entry into the salon (i.e. from the door) can scan QR code from outside to know the queue and book appointment directly – thus not having to wait and can come exactly at a fixed time slot.”
The clients will be welcomed with a temperature check, hand and foot sanitizing, and face masks to ensure maximum safety.
The salons have also mandated its employees to download Arogya Setu app on their phones.
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.
