MAM
Anupama Ramaswamy, Ashish Chakravarty, and Rajdeepak Das Named Abby Awards 2024 jury chairs
Mumbai: Anupama Ramaswamy, chief creative officer, Havas Worldwide India, Ashish Chakravarty, executive director, and India head of creative, for McCann Worldgroup and Rajdeepak Das, chief creative officer Publicis Groupe, South Asia and chairman, Leo Burnett, South Asia, join as jury chair for Still Digital category, Audio category, and Film (below 1 minute) category respectively, at The Abby Awards 2024 powered by One Show.
Havas Worldwide India chief creative officer Anupama Ramaswamy has been appointed jury chair of Abby Awards 2024 powered by One Show in the Still Digital category.
Anupama is touted as one of the most celebrated creative minds in the country. She has made an indelible mark through her clutter-breaking work, passion for art direction and pure play advertising.
Through her career, she has worked with some of the leading agencies in India and several marquee global and indigenous brands across sectors including Maruti Suzuki, Reckitt, Ikea, Vivo, Paytm, Subway, Tata Tea Digital, Samsung Mobiles, Airtel, Dabur, Lacoste, and many more.
Her recent campaigns, including the Paytm Divide and Chotu, made her win the One Show, a couple of Spikes, and New York Festivals, and she was featured as one of the Impact Creative Stars ’21. During her stint at JWT Delhi as senior creative director, Anupama led the Delhi office to its first Cannes Lions and Clio Gold.
She has also been a recipient of some of the most coveted awards including Cannes Lions, Clio, Adfest, New York Festivals, Abby, Effies, Spikes, Global Healthcare Awards, IAA Awards and The One Show and her work for Fuji Film has been featured in the prestigious Gunn Report as one of the top 20 most awarded print campaigns in the world.
Anupama has been on the jury of several prestigious awards like The One Show and Spikes Asia and the grand jury at AME awards, and New York Festivals.
Ashish Chakravarty executive director, and India head of creative, for McCann Worldgroup
has been appointed jury chair of Abby Awards 2024 powered by One Show in the Audio category.
Ashish has worked in most of the major agency networks and on some of the biggest global, and Indian brands.
He is the recipient of more than 400 national and international awards on top advertising shows like One Show, Cannes, D&AD, Clio, Ad-fest, Spikes, Kyoorius, and Goafest, among others.
Ashish has served as jury or jury chair, at many top international advertising awards, as well as all the top Indian award shows.
Ashish has been recognized as one of the top 10 Creative Directors in India by Economic Times, the leading business newspaper, and was also ranked among the top ECDs in the world in industry rankings
Rajdeepak Das chief creative officer of Publicis Groupe, South Asia and Chairman of Leo Burnett, South Asia has been appointed Jury Chair of the Abby Awards 2024 powered by the One Show in Film (below 1 minute)category.
Raj firmly believes that the true potential of creativity and technology is finding human-centric solutions for the biggest brands because what’s good for people is good for brands. And his body of work reflects his vision for creativity.
Raj was the force behind the iconic work for P&G Whisper ‘Touch the Pickle’ – one of the first social movements to break the taboo around periods in the Indian sub-continent. To his recent work for Whisper – the Missing Chapter which won him a Grand Prix in Sustainable Development Goals at Cannes Lions 2022 – an award which is very close to his heart as it made a real difference in the lives of young girls by breaking period taboos and getting the chapter on periods added in school books, helping 23 million girls stay in school.
He and his team gave every Indian a piece of national treasure, by building Bajaj motorbikes out of the legendary warship INS Vikrant. In collaboration with India’s biggest petroleum brand and the government of India, they innovated the world’s first anti-collision road management system to reduce road accidents on Himalayan Roads.
For one of India’s biggest financial brands, he created India’s 1st social media-based microfinancing system.
Raj was featured in the Netflix Docuseries – Creative Indians Season 4 – a series which showcased the most talented Indians from Oscar winners to Bollywood Stars and artists to Grammy Awards-winning musicians. He has led and been a part of several jury cohorts at some of the biggest platforms including Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia, Dubai Lynx, and One Show to name a few.
His HumanKind approach to creativity led Leo Burnett India to win multiple Grand Prix and metals at prestigious platforms like Cannes Lions, One Show, D&AD and Spikes Asia. But he believes his biggest creation to date is Apollo 11 a specialised division of Leo Burnett India, consisting of what he calls ‘the mutant creatives’. Team of young people in their 20s with backgrounds in aerospace engineering, product design, data analysis and environment scientists solving human and brand problems with him.
“I have always believed that an award is as good as its jury. This year too, the Abby Awards powered by One Show have a stellar lineup of both domestic and international luminaries as Jury Chairs, across 23 categories. Over the last two years the number of women jurors has been significant, and this year, with over one-third being women masters of their craft. To win recognition from such respected Jury Chairs is a matter of immense pride for the AdClub, the participating agencies and brands.” said Ajay Kakar, chairperson of Awards Governing Council, Abby Awards 2024 powered by One Show and managing committee member, The Advertising Club.
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.
