News Broadcasting
Strong Indian presence at Mipcom
CANNES: Things are looking up at Mipcom for Indian broadcasters, production and animation companies this year. At least if one goes by the strong presence of from Indian participants with companies such as Sony Entertainment, Star, WEG India, Land Marvel Animation choosing to take up stands.
While the Star stand is a standout in terms of size and design, the Sony stand is more compact. Sony is looking for buyers for its library of programmes right from Aayushman to its movies like Devdas while, Star has also put up its entire programme portfolio on offer.
Star’s men (or rather women and men) in the Palais are creative head Shailaja Kejriwal (who we hear is looking for the next blockbuster for Star) and Rajesh Kamath who is negotiating pricing with wannabe buyers for the Star movie and programme library.
Sony is represented in the Palais by Sunil Lulla and Tarun Katial (both are buying aggressively we are told), while UK-based international sales head Neeraj Arora is leading the sales initiative. WEG India, a veteran at the markets, is hawking its movie library while Land Marvel a provider of special effects to the south Indian film industry is looking at getting animation projects. Land Marvel is represented by chairman and CEO M Veerashekar, V Vetrivell, and Samir Bose.
Zee TV has come out in strength with Gagan Goel, Ajay Trigunayat and Sunil Khanna beating the Palais’ floors. NDTV is also putting in a lot of muscle behind MipCom and is represented by Niraj Dutt, Avinash Kaul, and journalist I M Bajpai.
This apart, one came across Biren Ghose, Moi from UTV (Ronnie Screwavala is landing here on Friday), Delhi-based igrafix’s CEO Gagan Gandhi, Toonz Animation India CEO P Jayakumar, GreenGold Animation’s Rajiv Chilakalapudi, Escootoonz’s Prafull Gade, Discovery India’s programming head Pankaj Saxsena. (Is Discovery India finally going to get a healthy budget for programming?)
Clearly, the mood at the market is buoyant. As Star India’s Kamath says, “We believe there is a lot of potential and we are exploring it at this market.” Adds Lulla, “It’s a good market and we have been very busy.”
News Broadcasting
Uma Sudhir signs off from NDTV after 27 years
The executive editor shaped NDTV’s southern reportage for nearly three decades
NEW DELHI: Senior journalist Uma Sudhir has retired from NDTV, bringing to a close a 27-year association with the network.
Sudhir served as executive editor, heading NDTV’s south India editorial operations. Over nearly three decades, she emerged as one of the most recognisable faces of on-ground reporting from the region, with sustained coverage of politics, governance and social issues across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
At NDTV, Sudhir played a central role in strengthening regional journalism within national television news. Her reporting consistently connected local developments to the national conversation, ensuring stories from the field shaped policy debates beyond studio discussions. Known for her boots-on-the-ground approach, she came to represent a generation of reporters whose authority rested on fieldwork rather than prime-time punditry.
An award-winning journalist, Sudhir is a recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award and the Chameli Devi Jain Award. Her body of work has been widely recognised for its public-interest focus, spanning elections, governance, gender issues, rural distress, environmental reporting and social justice.
