News Broadcasting
Music composer Sudhir Phadke passes away
MUMBAI:Renowned composer-playback singer Sudhir Phadke passed away in Mumbai this morning.
Phadke, who was admitted to hospital last week after he suffered brain haemorrhage, died at 10:30 am.
Among the last major works that he was associated with though was not on the music front but the movie Veer Savarkar, on the life of
freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, which he produced. Of course, he composed the music as well.
Phadke, who was born in 1919, was 85 when he died and is survived by his wife and son Shridhar, a composer himself.
Phadke’s body will be kept at Veer Savarkar Memorial at Dadar in central Mumbai from 9 am till noon on Tuesday for his admirers to pay their last tributes.
He composed music for over 110 films in a career spanning over 50 years.
Phadke was among those felicitated during the Sahyadri Navratna
Phadke receiving the Sahyadri Navratna Puraskar 2002 for lifetime achievement in music from Pt Jasraj in April this year Puraskar 2002 awards presented by indiantelevision.com in association with DD Sahyadri. The awards were instituted to celebrate excellence achieved by Maharashtrians in various fields. The awards ceremony was held on 27 April at the Juhu Centaur Hotel in western Mumbai’s Juhu suburb and was telecast on DD Sahyadri on Maharashtra Day, 1 May.
Phadke was presented the Swar Ratna Puraskar for outstanding achievement in the field of music.
News Broadcasting
Senior media executive Madhu Soman exits Zee Media
Former Reuters and Bloomberg leader says he leaves with “no regrets” after brief stint at WION and Zee Business
NOIDA: Madhu Soman, a veteran of global newsrooms and media sales floors, has stepped away from Zee Media Corporation after a short stint steering business strategy for WION and Zee Business.
In a reflective LinkedIn note marking his departure, Soman said his time within the network’s corridors was always likely to be brief. “Some chapters close faster than expected,” he wrote, signalling the end of a nearly two-year spell in which he oversaw both editorial partnerships and commercial strategy.
Soman joined Zee Media in 2022 after more than a decade abroad with Reuters and Bloomberg, returning to India to take on the role of chief business officer for WION and Zee Business. His mandate was ambitious: bridge the newsroom and the revenue desk while expanding digital and broadcast reach.
During the stint, Zee Business reached break-even for the first time since its launch in 2005, while WION refreshed programming and strengthened its digital footprint across platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
But Soman suggested the cultural fit proved uneasy. Describing himself as a “cultural misfit”, he hinted at deeper tensions between editorial instincts shaped in global newsrooms and the realities of India’s television news ecosystem.
Before joining Zee, Soman spent more than seven years at Bloomberg in Hong Kong as head of broadcast sales for Asia-Pacific, expanding the company’s news syndication business across several markets. Earlier, he held senior editorial roles at Reuters, overseeing online strategy in India and managing Reuters Video Services from London.
His career began in television and wire reporting, including a stint with ANI during the 1999 Kargil conflict, before moving into digital publishing as India’s internet media landscape took shape.
Now, after nearly three decades in broadcast and digital media, Soman is leaving Delhi NCR and returning to his hometown, Trivandrum.
Exhausted, he admits. But unbowed. And with one quiet line that sums up the journey: he didn’t sell his soul — because some things, after all, are not for sale.
