MAM
Havas makes Sr level appointments in Mumbai & B’lore
MUMBAI: Havas’ creative vertical Havas Worldwide has brought on board Gaurav Soi and Tiraz Balaporia for its Mumbai and Bengaluru offices respectively.
While Soi has been roped in to handle duties as Havas Worldwide Mumbai vice president, Blaporia will be Havas Worldwide Bengaluru office head and vice president.
The duo will report in to Havas Worldwide west and south president Shavon Barua.
Confirming the news to indiantelevision.com, Barua said, “I am delighted to have them as a part of our team. At Havas WW we are focussing in bringing about a whole lot of new talent in our teams as our business continues to grow.”
Soi has spent 13 years in the advertising industry and has worked on a variety of brands and categories during this tenure like Saffola Oil and Salt, ITC Expressions Greeting Cards, VST, BPL Mobile, Frooti, Appy Fizz, Dainik Bhaskar Group, AUDI, Suzlon Energy Limited, Reliance Mutual Funds, Cox & Kings, and Fortis Healthcare. He also has experience with events and activations.
Balaporia’s previous stint was with Bates where he had been for a year and a half and worked on brands like Tata AIA, TVS, Fiat, Ashok Leyland, and Park Avenue. This is his second innings at Havas Worldwide (earlier Euro RSCG) where he spent six and a half years as a part of both, Mumbai and Bengaluru teams. While in Euro RSCG he handled brands like HDFC Payment Cards, Emirates, Sanofi-Aventis, Bhaskar Group, BPCL Allergan, and IBM.
“With close to 13 years of work experience across multiple bands and categories he has been appointed Office Head with a mandate to take the Bangalore Office to greater heights, picking up where he left off from,” informs Barua.
MAM
Fringe festival finally hits Mumbai stage in March
60 plus shows from 10–15 March 2026 at NCPA plus Bandra venues.
MUMBAI: The Fringe is no longer on the fringe, it’s centre stage in Mumbai, ready to turn the city into a creative playground. After nearly 80 years of shaking up global performance culture from Edinburgh to Prague and Adelaide, the world’s largest open-access arts movement makes its India debut with the Mumbai Fringe Festival from 10 to 15 March 2026.
Kicking off at the iconic Tata Theatre, NCPA, the six-day celebration will spill across Bandra’s buzzing creative circuit, Khar Comedy Club, 3 Art House and indifferent @ Gharonda delivering nearly 60 performances in comedy, theatre, poetry, storytelling and experimental work. This isn’t a sit-down spectacle; it’s a city on the move, with audiences hopping between venues to catch new voices and bold ideas in their rawest form.
The lineup mixes homegrown stars with international heavyweights. Rohan Joshi, Kanan Gill, Varun Grover, Aakash Gupta, Priya Malik, Amandeep Khayal, Urooj Ashfaq and Amit Tandon bring the Indian edge, while global gems include Nigel Miles Thomas’s award-winning solo Sherlock Holmes: The Last Act, The Shakespeare Edit’s striking Macbeth adaptation and David Hoskin’s genre-blending Haunted House (mime, comedy, storytelling mash-up). True to Fringe spirit, the programme thrives on intimacy, invention and fearless creative risks.
Tickets are already live on Bookmyshow, with several shows sold out, signalling strong early buzz. Co-founders Steve Gove (of the 25-year-old Prague Fringe) and Simar Singh (UnErase Poetry) are steering the ship, united by the belief that Mumbai and India is primed for the Fringe model.
Steve Gove said, “Bringing Fringe to Mumbai has been a long-held dream. Cities around the world have embraced this model and watched it reshape their creative landscapes. Mumbai has the energy, the appetite and the talent to make this extraordinary.”
Simar Singh added, “The Fringe model gives artists complete freedom. It creates space for new voices and unexpected ideas to meet audiences directly. Mumbai deserves a platform like this.”
Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society chief executive Tony Lankester chimed in, “Born in Scotland nearly 80 years ago, the Fringe has always stood for joy, openness and giving everyone a platform with minimal gatekeeping… We are delighted to see the Mumbai Fringe carry this same spirit forward.”
In a country bursting with artistic tradition, the Fringe’s arrival feels both overdue and electric, a chance for audiences to experience unfiltered, up-close performance that has quietly shaped modern theatre worldwide. Grab tickets on Bookmyshow before the best spots vanish. Mumbai’s creative margins just got a whole lot louder.
