Hindi
Amol Palekar to head CMS Vatavaran Environment Filmfest Jury
NEW DELHI: Eminent actor, director and producer Amol Palekar will head the jury for the coveted 7th CMS Vatavaran Awards in national and international categories.
The Award Jury is meeting from today for three days at the ITC Maurya, New Delhi.
The jury comprises 14 eminent personalities from widely divergent sectors and streams, that is filmmaking, conservation, research and media will be headed by Amol Palekar
The jury members include World Bank New Delhi senior environmental specialist, Dr Anupam Joshi; Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) member secretary (Chief Executive Officer) Dipali Khanna; author, columnist, birder Ranjit Lal; filmmaker, Vichitra Nirmiti, Pune Sumitra Bhave; film critic and senior columnist The Indian Express Shubhra Gupta; The Hindu, New Delhi features editor Ziya Us Salam.
CMS Vatavaran received a total of 541 entries out of which 86 Indian and International films have been nominated in 11 categories. The Awards will be conferred on 2 February 2014 during the 7th CMS VATAVARAN 2014 International Environment & Wildlife Film Festival and Forum which is scheduled from 30 January to 3 February 2014 at IGNCA Lawns, New Delhi.
Vatavaran is India’s only International Environment & Wildlife Film Festival and Forum organised as initiative of Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi. The festival is not just a film festival celebrating the cinematic art of films but focuses more on using the films as a tool and catalyst for creating impact. The festival has an International recognition and till date 39 festivals have been organised in 26 cities of India ever since its maiden run in 2002.
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.
