Hindi
Rs 125 million incurred on Film Heritage Mission this year
NEW DELHI: A total of about 1,32,000 film reels have been acquired and the work of assessment, preventive conservation and restoration started under a mission mode project under the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM).
The scheme is to be implemented between 2014-15 and 2020-21 with total outlay of Rs 5.9741 billion to restore, digitize and archive films and filmic material through the National Film Archives of India.
Of the outlay, Rs 126.6 million has been incurred till date during 2016-17. The expenditure incurred in 2015-16 was Rs 108 million and Rs 162 million in 2014-15.
The minister of state for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said the NFAI has temperature and humidity controlled vaults for storage and preservation of film reels.
The non-filmic ancillary material, such as photographs, song booklets, posters, films magazines, etc. are stored under temperature controlled environment.
Some of the objectives of the NFHM include:
i. To undertake film conservation assessment.
ii. Preventive conservation of film reels.
iii. Picture and sound restoration of landmark feature films and short films.
iv. Digitization of feature films and short films.
v. Construction of archival and preservation facilities for material restored under NFHM.
vi. Conducting training workshops and courses in field of conservation, preservation and archiving.
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.
