iWorld
After Khalasi, Coke Studio Bharat drops Meetha Khaara this festive season
MUMBAI: After the runaway success of Khalasi, Coke Studio Bharat is back with another soulful folk offering, Meetha Khaara. Released as part of Season 3, the track arrives in time for the Navratri festivities and celebrates the enduring spirit of Gujarat’s Agariya community.
Curated, composed and produced by Siddharth Amit Bhavsar, Meetha Khaara brings together a powerhouse of talent: the folk brilliance of Aditya Gadhvi, the tenderness of Madhubanti Bagchi, and the fresh notes of Thanu Khan.
Rooted in a 600-year-old legacy, the song draws from the Agariya community’s life around salt farming. In Gujarati, “meethu” means salt, a substance born from hardship yet vital and sweet in its inheritance. The track captures this paradox, portraying resilience, pride and identity through music that blends earthy folk rhythms with contemporary sounds.
Coca-Cola INSWA, imx lead, Shantanu Gangane said, “Festivals are occasions when music serves as a cultural connector. With Meetha Khaara, our intent is to create a bridge between tradition and the youth’s passion for music. Coke Studio Bharat unites legendary voices with fresh talent to create authentic stories that connect music, culture and people across India.”
The song’s foundation lies in Bhargav Purohit’s evocative lyrics, which were then transformed into a layered musical narrative by Bhavsar. Gadhvi’s powerful vocals anchor the track, Bagchi adds emotional depth, and Khan ties it all together with his distinct sound.
For Aditya Gadhvi, the song continues the journey begun with Khalasi. “With Meetha Khaara, we’re carrying forward Gujarat’s folk stories in a fresh way. Making this song was pure joy, as it carries the pride of our people,” he added.
Echoing him, lyricist Bhargav Purohit said, “Writing this song was an honour. I wanted the words to reflect resilience and tradition with simplicity and honesty.”
Singer Madhubanti Bagchi shared, “It allowed me to merge technique with emotion, tradition with individuality. The result felt deeply authentic.”
And for emerging artist Thanu Khan, the experience was nothing short of a dream. “Being part of Coke Studio Bharat and contributing to *Meetha Khaara* will always be an honour,” he shared.
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.
