Hindi
‘Murga’ gets ‘Swachh’ film prize; top producers to support campaign
NEW DELHI: Eminent filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar, Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi, Prasoon Pandey, Ramesh Sippy and Shoojit Sircar will produce films on Swachh Bharat providing support and creative ideas to the movement.
This was announced here on Sunday by the Information and Broadcasting minister M Venkaiah Naidu after presenting the awards at the first Swachh Bharat Short Film Festival here. Minister of State for I and B Rajyavardhan Rathore and secretary Ajay Mittal were present.
Naidu said the festival was aimed at generating awareness, and motivating participants and citizens towards the Swachh Bharat mission through the most interactive medium of cinema.
Complimenting the youngsters for the creativity and talent shown, Naidu said the future of India was safe in the hands of the young generation who understood the communication needs on issues such as Swachh Bharat which required mass mobilization.
Naidu along with Rathore released the book “In the Footsteps of Mahatma: Gandhi & Sanitation” published by Publications Division (I & B ministry) and written by the noted Gandhian Sudarshan Iyengar.
Mittal said the festival had provided a platform to pool ideas and talent of the creative youngsters.
The competitive short films festival was for films having duration of not more than three minutes each. A jury comprising eminent theatre and film actor–producer Vani Tripathi, award-winning filmmaker Gitanjali Rao, and celebrated advertising personality Prahlad Kakar selected 20 short films out of the 4346 entries.
The first prize was pocketed by Katyanan Shivpuri from Maharashtra for the film Murga. The second prize was bagged by Sudhanshu Sharma, KVK Kumar and Akshay Danavale for their films Nahna Doot, Chembuku Moodindi (The Dying Vessel) and Sarkarmi Rati Wadho! respectively. The third prize was awarded to six entries.
The directors of the top 10 films were rewarded with Rs 10 lakh (first film), Rs 500,000 (next three films) and Rs 200,000 respectively (last six films), while the next 10 were awarded certificates.
The highlight was a performance by the Advait band and the rendition of Swachh Bharat theme song by the eminent singer Kailash Kher.
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.
