Hindi
How Sultan and Naagin are being pirated in Russia
MUMBAI: Here’s some food for thought for Indian TV channel broadcasting executives zapping their channels via satellite, cable TV or VOD services into Russia and syndicating content to Vladmir Putin’s land. And this includes movies such as Sultan, and super popular shows such as Naagin.
A survey by content and data security specialist IRDETO in partnership with YouGov amongst 1,055 Russian adults online, revealed that 87 per cent of Russian consumers believed that producing or sharing pirated video content is not against the law while 66 per cent think that streaming or downloading pirated content is legal.
Russia, like India and many other nations, has strict regulations against unauthorized copying, broadcasting, distribution or reproduction of copyrighted material – including audiovisual content.
More than half of those (57 per cent) who participated in the survey said that they actively watch pirated content while 22 per cent said that they watch stolen shows and films at least once a week or more.
38 per cent of respondents said that they pirate current movies being shown in theatres, 21 per cent said theat they were interested in pirating a TV series. Pirated live sports, OTT content from Netflix and Hulu was preferred by just six per cent of those who answered the survey.
Almost 75 per cent use their laptops or desktop computers to watch the pirated content whereas tablets and smart phones accounted for just five percent each respectively.
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.
