MAM
Invaluables Bengaluru urges citizens to recycle smarter this New Year
BENGALURU: Bengaluru is being asked to rethink its New Year resolutions, not with gym goals or digital detoxes, but with cleaner containers, kinder habits and a little red ink.
BBC Media Action has launched Recycle Resolutions, a fresh New Year campaign under its Invaluables initiative, inviting Bengalureans to renew three simple habits that already work. The idea is disarmingly simple. Instead of chasing new pledges that fade by February, why not stick with actions that quietly make the city cleaner and life safer for its waste pickers.
The campaign brings together three familiar behaviours under one cheerful reminder. Wash the Dabba encourages people to rinse takeaway boxes before throwing them away. Got Old Clothes asks households to wash and pass on unwanted garments to Dry Waste Collection Centres. Mark It Red urges safe disposal of sanitary and diaper waste by wrapping it and marking it with a red cross.
These are not just feel good ideas. Past campaigns show real impact. Sixty per cent of those who saw Wash the Dabba adopted the habit, while collection centres reported noticeably cleaner waste. Got Old Clothes helped gather 1.8 tonnes of clothing in a month, almost double the usual volume. Mark It Red led 41 per cent of exposed audiences to start wrapping and clearly marking hazardous waste.
Recycle Resolutions taps into the New Year mood, reframing these everyday actions as promises worth keeping. The campaign underlines how small decisions at home ripple through the waste system, improving safety, hygiene and dignity for informal waste pickers, known here as Invaluable Recyclers.
The initiative has drawn strong backing from Bengaluru’s cultural voices. Musician Vasu Dixit, actor Bhoomi Shetty, comedian Aiyyo Shraddha and plogging champion PlogRaja are among those amplifying the message, along with several local digital creators.
Vasu Dixit said responsible waste handling makes a real difference to the lives of waste pickers and that simple habits are often the most powerful. Aiyyo Shraddha added that unlike most resolutions, these are easy to keep and genuinely helpful.
BBC Media Action India executive creative director Soma Katiyar, said the New Year offered the perfect moment to refresh familiar behaviours and embed them into daily routines. Country director Varinder Kaur Gambhir, noted that this phase brings together everything the Invaluables initiative has learned, backed by evidence and impact.
Recycle Resolutions is already visible across bus shelters and Namma Metro stations, with digital rollouts planned across apartments and online platforms. For a city known for innovation, the message is clear. Sometimes, progress begins with washing a dabba.
MAM
Sameer Nair shares heartfelt note as he exits Applause Entertainment
After nine years building the streamer’s content engine, one of India’s best-known TV men is moving on
MUMBAI: Sameer Nair is out. The chief executive of Applause Entertainment, the content studio backed by Kumar Mangalam Birla’s media empire, has announced his departure after nearly nine years at the helm, closing the chapter on one of Indian entertainment’s more quietly consequential careers.
Nair, who built Applause from the ground up in its current avatar, oversaw a slate that spanned Indian originals and international adaptations, threading together a hub-and-spoke business model that partnered with streaming platforms, broadcasters and production houses alike. The results were uneven, as they always are in content, but the ambition was not.
In a post on LinkedIn, Nair was generous to his outgoing patron. He thanked Birla for being an “inspirational boss and a great patron of the arts,” and signed off with a cheerful “Au Revoir” and a promise to remain Applause’s biggest cheerleader. Whether that sentiment survives the next chapter remains to be seen.
No successor has been named. Applause Entertainment did not immediately comment.
Nair built the machine. Now someone else has to run it — and in a streaming market that is simultaneously consolidating and convulsing, that is no small ask.
