iWorld
Hansal Mehta returns to food TV with AI-powered series ‘Khana Dil Se’
New show explores India’s culinary heritage through artificial intelligence.
MUMBAI: Hansal Mehta just added artificial intelligence to his kitchen because three decades after Khana Khazana made cooking a national obsession, he’s back to stir the pot with a smarter sous-chef. Collective Studios has partnered with True Story Films, founded by filmmaker Hansal Mehta and producer Sahil Saigal, to announce Khana Dil Se – An AI Journey Through India’s Kitchen. The upcoming episodic series uses artificial intelligence not merely as a visual tool but as a collaborator to trace the country’s vast culinary traditions, stories of migration, memory and identity embedded in recipes passed down through generations.
The project marks Mehta’s return to the food genre where he first made his name in the early 1990s with the groundbreaking cookery show Khana Khazana, which turned Chef Sanjeev Kapoor into a household name. Joining him is Indian MasterChef Shamsher Ahmed as subject matter expert and culinary consultant, bringing decades of expertise across regional Indian cuisines to ensure authenticity.
Collective Artists Network, founder and group CEO Vijay Subramaniam said, “India’s culinary traditions are among the richest cultural archives in the world, yet so many of these stories remain undocumented. Khana Dil Se brings together creators, filmmakers, and technologists to surface those stories in a way that hasn’t been attempted before.”
Hansal Mehta remarked, “Food is memory. When you cook something from another culture, you’re not just following a recipe, you’re stepping into a piece of someone else’s life. With Khana Dil Se, we want to use every tool available to us, including AI, to trace those stories before they disappear.”
Producer Sahil Saigal added, “Khana Dil Se gave us a chance to ask what food television could look like if AI were part of the process, not replacing the human story, but helping us reach deeper into it.”
The series is expected to blend immersive storytelling with AI-driven insights to uncover undocumented culinary traditions and follow the journeys of dishes as they have travelled and transformed across communities and centuries.
In a television landscape where recipes often stay surface-level, Hansal Mehta is serving up something far more substantial, a smart, soulful exploration of India through its kitchens, proving once again that the best stories aren’t just cooked, they’re remembered, shared, and now, intelligently rediscovered.
iWorld
Veto onboards B4U Network channels to boost its entertainment offering
Partnership adds films, music and regional fare as platform sharpens its large-screen pitch
NEW DELHI: Veto is stacking its content deck. The family-first CTV-focused OTT platform has onboarded B4U Network, plugging in a slate of Bollywood, music and regional programming to widen its appeal in India’s living rooms.
The tie-up brings B4U Movies, B4U Music, B4U Kadak and Bhojpuri+ onto Veto, offering a broader mix of films, songs and vernacular content aimed at diverse audience cohorts. The move is designed to deepen engagement and nudge growth as competition in connected TV heats up.
Ritu Dhawan, managing director, Veto, framed the partnership as a scale play. “At Veto, our vision is to redefine large-screen entertainment for Indian households by creating a trusted, free, and unified viewing experience. Partnering with B4U Network strengthens our ability to offer deeply engaging and regionally relevant content, helping us connect more with audiences across India,” Dhawan said. “As we grow, our focus remains on delivering relevant, high-quality entertainment that families can enjoy together.”
The integration is expected to expand Veto’s audience base while improving content discovery and depth. The platform positions itself as a no-login, large-screen-first service, bundling live TV, news, sports, movies, music, podcasts and on-demand programming into a single interface tailored for connected TVs.
As streaming fragments and screens multiply, Veto is betting on aggregation and simplicity. More content, fewer clicks, broader reach—the pitch is clear, and the living room is the battleground.
