Hindi
HSBC ups stake in Indian Film Company to 9%
MUMBAI: HSBC Investments (Singapore) Ltd. has increased its stake to 9.10 per cent in The Indian Film Company (IFC), a specialist film investment firm where TV18 Group has substantial interest.
HSBC holds 5.01 million equity shares in IFC, following its recent purchase in the market. IFC is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange.
“HSBC has recently bought in the market and increased its stake in our company,” confirms IFC CEO Sandeep Bhargava to Indiantelevision.com.
HSBC made a purchase of 1.08 million equity shares of IFC in the market for a consideration of ? 817,000 (Rs 65.36 million) in mid-December.
Network18 Fincap Ltd has 18.18 per cent stake in IFC and BK Media Mauritius Pvt Ltd 3.45 per cent. Raghav Bahl is a director of IFC and substantial shareholder of both Network 18 Fincap and BK Media Mauritius.
Viacom Brand Solutions holds 4.55 per cent while Halbis Capital Management has 11.05 per cent, Elara Capital 10.90 per cent and Dundee Leeds Management 9.09 per cent (as of 31 July, 2007).
The Indian Film Company raised ?55 million (Rs 4.4 billion) through an initial public offering (IPO) this year. The company seeks to invest in films where it retains full ownership of all Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), although ownership may be shared with co-producers, directors and actors if necessary.
IFC has taken worldwide distribution of Welcome and Jab We Met. The co-productions include Bhootnath, Little Zizou, Halla Bol, Golmaal Returns and Loot.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
