iWorld
India’s biggest photography reality show – ‘Kanan Devan Photography Escapade 3’
MUMBAI: India’s biggest photography reality show – ‘Kanan Devan Photography Escapade 3’ was launched today by Tata Tea Kanan Devan, a heritage tea brand from the house of Tata Global Beverages. After two immensely successful editions of this photography contest that is aimed at budding photographers, the brand had rolled out the third edition of Tata Tea Kanan Devan’s Photography Escapade contest in June 2017 which received overwhelming response from hundreds of photography enthusiasts across the country.
The contest provides aspiring photographers with the opportunity to capture nature in its entirety, the natural beauty of the hills, the people of Munnar and the intrepid journey of tea from leaf to cup. Based on the theme ‘Elements of Nature’, the finalists were instructed to weave in stories using the four elements at Kanan Devan Hills namely Earth, Fire, Wind and Water. These stories will be available to the audience in the form of webisodes that will be released every week on Tata Tea Kanan Devan’s Youtube channel, starting today.
In addition to a different theme, Photography Escapade 3 also took this contest to the next level with a refreshingly different game format called Truzzle, which means ‘Treasure+Puzzle’, and an enriching photography journey in the pristine Kanan Devan Hills. What began as a simple photography contest two years ago, is all set to sway the web with its video content in a reality show avatar. While keeping the scenic beauty and natural bounty of Munnar and tea at the heart of Escapade, the webisodes witness 10 participants engaging with each other, solving puzzles, working in a team before the top 3 winners are chosen for their vivid captures.
Tata Global Beverages, Head – Tea marketing, India, Mr. Puneet Das said, “Kanan Devan Photography Escapade provides aspiring photographers with the opportunity to capture nature in its entirety, the natural beauty of the hills, the people of Munnar and the intrepid journey of tea from leaf to cup. While the natural landscapes of tea plantation provide scenic shots, capturing this journey can be challenging for photographers. However, the breathtaking photos of this scenery, can evoke a sense of ‘being back to nature’ and ‘freshness’ which is also the hallmark of Tata Tea Kanan Devan.”
Tata Tea Kanan Devan will also be announcing the winner of Photography Escapade 3 in the last episode of the websiode series.
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
