Applications
MSOs report healthy collection of CAFs as deadline nears
MUMBAI: 10 July and all the heads of India’s cable TV MSOs are going to be at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) office. Reason: that’s the deadline for them to give the TRAI an update about how far they have progressed with the consumer application forms (CAFs) in DAS areas.
The TRAI had over the past few months been egging on the national MSOs to ensure that they collect every bit of information about their subscribers so that they could move over to transparent subscription management systems and retail billing. But resistance from local cable TV operators and customers who had been lethargic on this front had made the regulator crack the whip. In early June this year, MSOs had been warned to collect CAFs from their customers by 25 June, but were given an extension till 10 July when they updated the regulator about the slow progress.
The biggest worry area was New Delhi where apparently the level of CAF collection was below 50 per cent.
When Indiantelevision.com contacted some MSOs to get an update about the status of CAF collections today, they said that they had made some more progress.
“70 per cent in Mumbai,” says Hathway Cable CEO Jagdish Kumar. “75 per cent in Delhi. We have reached higher levels on our own network subscribers at about 90 per cent but we expect things to speed up at our joint ventures by end of this week.”
DEN CEO SN Sharma says that the network has managed to get to about 80-85 per cent in terms of CAF collections in Delhi. “Our focus is on Delhi as it was a major worry,” he says. “This will then be followed up by Mumbai and Kolkata. We are clear we will start switching off those who are still not submitting.”
InCable managing director Ravi Mansukhani says that almost all of the MSOs have got CAF collections between 70 and 90 per cent in the two cities.
Kumar says the collections should surge in the last two or three days as the deadline nears.
But a source reveals that while the deadline has been set for 10 July, it is quite likely that TRAI will give a final extension till 15 July before ordering the MSOs to switch off signals to errant customers.
Applications
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.
