iWorld
Streaming queen climbs the ladder at Zee5
MUMBAI: In the dog-eat-dog world of Indian streaming, few have climbed the corporate ladder with quite the same gusto as Kaveri Das. The business head of Zee5 Hindi has turned customer retention into an art form, wielding micro-cohort strategies like a digital Michelangelo.
Das’s journey reads like a clever roster in strategic positioning. After cutting her teeth as a software engineer at Mahindra Satyam back in 2006, she pivoted to the telco trenches at Idea Cellular, where she spent four years mastering the dark arts of customer lifecycle management. A brief stint at Tata Sky as senior manager of subscriber marketing followed, before she landed at Zee5 in 2015 – just as India’s streaming wars were heating up.
Her ascent at the Zee Entertainment subsidiary has been nothing short of spectacular. From customer lifecycle management head in 2015, Das clawed her way to corporate strategy lead by 2019, before a curious 18-month detour to Onnivation as vice-president of growth and strategy. But like a boomerang with ambition, she returned to Zee5 in late 2022 with grander titles and weightier responsibilities.
The timing couldn’t be more crucial. India’s over-the-top video market is experiencing growing pains, with players from Netflix to JioHotstar locked in an expensive game of content chicken. Das’s expertise in building “robust processes” and converting casual viewers into loyal subscribers could prove the difference between streaming success and digital oblivion.
Her latest promotion to Zee5 Hindi business head in April suggests the company is doubling down on her proven formula of strategic thinking meets operational excellence. In an industry where customer acquisition costs are soaring and attention spans are shrinking, Das appears to have cracked the code on keeping viewers hooked.
Not bad for someone who started her career debugging code rather than decoding consumer behaviour.
iWorld
PM Modi hits 30M subscribers on Youtube
World’s most-followed leader adds to 100M Instagram milestone last month.
MUMBAI: PM Narendra Modi just clicked ‘subscribe’ on digital dominance because when your YouTube channel outpaces world leaders like a viral cat video, even politics gets binge-worthy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Youtube channel has surged past 30 million subscribers, solidifying his status as the most-followed world leader on the platform, officials announced on 24 February 2026. This milestone leaves former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro second with about one-fourth of Modi’s count in the dust, while US President Donald Trump trails with roughly one-seventh the subscribers.
The achievement builds on Modi’s Instagram triumph last month, where he became the first global leader to cross 100 million followers. On Instagram, Modi towers over peers, Trump at 43 million, Prabowo Subianto at 15 million, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at 14 million, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at 11 million, and Javier Milei at 6 million their combined totals still fall short of Modi’s solo mark.
Domestically, the gap is equally stark. Modi’s subscriber base is three times that of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and over four times the channels of the Aam Aadmi Party and Indian National Congress. On Instagram, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has 16 million followers, while Gandhi counts 12 million.
Modi joined YouTube and Instagram in 2014, evolving both into powerhouses of digital outreach with governance highlights, cultural moments, and direct citizen engagement. In a world where likes and shares shape narratives, Modi isn’t just leading polls, he’s leading the scroll, turning policy into playlist gold.
