DTH
Rajshri launches broadband entertainment portal, to release ‘Vivah’ for viewers at $9.90
NEW DELHI: Rajshri Group, one of the oldest production and distribution houses in the country, has launched a broadband entertainment portal, www.rajshri.com, that will offer streaming and downloading of various forms of content including movies, music videos, concerts, and documentaries.
Rajshri’s latest movie, Vivah, will be premiered on the portal simultaneously along with its theatrical release on Friday. This is the first time in India that a film is being made available on the internet at the day of its release.
The downloading of Vivah will be at a payment of $9.9 through an international credit card, said Rajshri Media (P) Ltd managing director Rajjat Barjatya. The copies do not run the risk of being pirated because of a special software that has been used, he added.
Rajshri Media (P) Ltd will be the group’s digital media initiatives arm. This will cover streaming services which users don’t have to pay for. Among the broad gamut of content available is the historic midnight speech of late Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru on 15 August 1947. “We are also soon going to add humor, management-related content and spiritualism to our site,” said Barjatya.
Describing the new initiative as an “historic moment,” Barjatya said the company had been working on this project for the past two years. The aim seems to be converting the ‘non-consumers into consumers’ while attempting to break the stranglehold of piracy.
Barjatya is also targeting about 25 million Indians abroad, NRIs and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) put together, who are “extremely keen to stay in touch with their roots and will pay for rich and origial Indian content as against the pirated one.”
About 51 per cent Indians abroad spent time daily on the net, he revealed. Besides, Indian content was also becoming extremely popular among non-Indians across the world.
So how will the box office takings of Vivah, for instance, be a hit because of online viewing? “We are getting into a four screen scenario, instead of a two-screen one. Cinema theatres were always there, and then came TV, the big screen and the small screen. Now there is the internet and the mobile,” said Barjatya.
“Each of these screens are a different experience and one cannot replace any of the other. It is one thing to see a film on the Net alone, and quite another doing so with the family on a TV set, or watching it in a dark hall with a lot of people, so there is no cutting into turfs,” he added.
The delivery of movies through the internet could also cut down piracy. “If there is a viewer in say Finland, I can now get to him before the pirates can,” Barjatya said.
A key feature of the site is that the movies can’t be pirated. “We have used a software which ‘wraps around the programme’ and while it is being streamed, it cannot be copied, nor downloaded. Even while it is ‘sitting’ on the hard disk for 72 hours, it cannot be made into a CD or DVD,” he said.
The portal is also aimed at the tech-savvy younger audience. “The site has a lot of features. You can actually saute the film, slice and dice it, rate it, send a link to a friend and read what others have to comment about it,” Barjatya said.
DTH Operator
JC Flowers withdraws NCLT plea against Dish TV over EGM demand
Move eases pressure on DTH firm as long-running shareholder dispute cools
MUMBAI: In a breather for Dish TV India, JC Flowers Asset Reconstruction has withdrawn its petition before the National Company Law Tribunal seeking directions to convene an extraordinary general meeting.
The development was disclosed by Dish TV in a regulatory filing, confirming that the petitioner chose to withdraw the case during a hearing at the Mumbai bench of the tribunal. A detailed order from the bench is still awaited.
The petition, originally filed under Sections 98 to 100 of the Companies Act, 2013, sought to push for an extraordinary general meeting to address governance issues at the company. The case had its roots in a prolonged shareholder tussle dating back to 2021, when Yes Bank, then the largest shareholder, was at odds with the promoter group led by Subhash Chandra over board reconstitution.
JC Flowers had stepped into the picture as an assignee of Yes Bank’s stressed assets, effectively continuing the legal push initiated earlier. The withdrawal now signals a pause, if not a closure, to that chapter of dispute.
While the reasons behind the withdrawal have not been formally detailed, the move reduces immediate legal pressure on Dish TV, which has been navigating both operational and regulatory challenges in recent years.
For now, the focus shifts back to the company’s business fundamentals, even as the legal dust settles, at least temporarily, on one of its more closely watched shareholder battles.
