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Media Pro conducts raids against hotels in Orissa and WB for piracy
MUMBAI: Media Pro Enterprise India, the joint venture between Star Den and Zee Turner, has said it has organised raids against local hotels/commercial establishments in Orissa with the help of Police for allegedly pirating signals of their channels distributed without any agreement.
The company has filed an FIR against two Puri-based hotels and one Bhubaneswar-based hotel for illegally broadcasting Media Pro Channels. The raid was conducted after the hotels refused to pay heed to the notices by the company.
A senior official of Media Pro stated, “These hotels have violated the provisions of the Trai tariff order which prohibits the unauthorized broadcast of Media Pro channels without any mutual agreement with Media Pro. It is mandatory for all commercial subscribers to reach a mutual agreement with the relevant broadcaster and/or their authorized cable/DTH operator, including hotels with ratings of three-star and above, heritage hotels or any other hotel, motel, inn and such other commercial establishments providing boarding and lodging and having 50 or more rooms.”
“Such establishments have to take broadcast signals directly from the broadcaster unless the broadcaster has authorized any operator to provide such signals. In this case, these three hotels qualify as commercial subscribers of such a category and were taking unauthorised feeds from an unauthorised local cable network,” he added.
The company also said that in similar raid, the police had initiated an FIR against one commercial property in Kolkata, seized Set Top Boxes (STBs) and the manager was put inside bars for five days for illegally broadcasting the signals.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
