MAM
Uber India appoints Manisha Lath Gupta as head of marketing
MUMBAI: Uber India has announced the appointment of Manisha Lath Gupta as the head of marketing for India. She will take over from Sanjay Gupta, who will soon move to Uber US and Canada in a new role. This announcement follows the recent appointment of Pavan Vaish as the head of central operations.
Manisha Lath Gupta will oversee marketing initiatives for rides and eats business for India South Asia. A seasoned marketer, entrepreneur and leader, she comes with over 20 years of experience across consumer goods, banking, ecommerce, and fintech. Over the course of her career, she has conceptualised and executed brand campaigns, driven digital performance and has run a successful start-up.
Uber India and South Asia president Pradeep Parameswaran commented on the new appointment, “In line with Uber’s India growth strategy, we continue to build and strengthen a team of industry experts who appreciate the impact of ridesharing and drive innovation for a better tomorrow. We are delighted to have Manisha join us as Uber’s marketing head. We would also like to thank Sanjay for being a thought partner and for helping build a strong, diverse and engaged marketing team. His movement to the US & Canada team underlines India’s position as a talent exporter and we wish him the best for his new role.”
Manisha Lath Gupta, said, “I am extremely thrilled to be part of Uber’s India journey as it continues to transform mobility and make meaningful impact. I look forward to develop deeper brand engagement and add innovative solutions to the marketing mix.”
Gupta started her career with Unilever in India, where she spent close to eight years (1997-2004) and another six years (2004-2010) across two different roles at Colgate Palmolive. Later, she successfully transitioned to the banking industry as the EVP & chief marketing officer at Axis Bank.
She turned full-time entrepreneur in 2014, with her start-up venture IndianArtCollectors.com, an e-commerce portal for original Indian contemporary art, which she had founded in 2005 as a moonlighting venture and was acquired by NDTV in 2015.
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.
