News Broadcasting
CNBC-TV18 & ING Vysya Mutual Fund host CFO Brainstorm
Mumbai, August 24, 2005: CNBC-TV18, the country’s premier business channel and ING Vysya Mutual Fund, the world’s fourth largest integrated Financial Services provider jointly presented the CFO Brainstorm on ‘Treasury Management in India: Scope for Aggression’ today in Mumbai.
The discussion brought together financial experts, top influencers and luminaries, as well as renowned experts from the banking and related fields like Deepak Sogani, CFO, Patni Computers, Ajay Mahajan, CFO, YES Bank, Seshagiri Rao, Director Finance- Jindal Iron & Steel Co, B Jaju, CFO of Crompton Greaves, Kaushik Chatterjee, VP – Finance, Tata Steel , R. Venkatachalam, Director of Finance & CFO, Leela Hotels, Mike Ferrer, Regional General Manager, ING Asia Pacific who discussed whether monetary reserves of banks and other financial institutions are being put to effective use.
Indian banks and companies have between them, a considerable amount of monetary reserves accumulated owing to the rising levels of personal wealth and increased profitability of corporate entities. A surplus of investment opportunities still exists in the market for investors. This is despite the fact that new mutual fund offerings like floaters, dividend yield funds or even real estate funds are flooding the market.
The CFO Brainstorm on ‘Treasury Management in India: Scope for Aggression’ attempted to understand whether CFOs and treasury heads have been truly successful in making the most of the funds accumulated by the financial institutions. This highly interactive discussion delved into whether corporate India and the nation’s 300+ banks are doing justice to their shareholders and the Indian economy by exploring newer investment alternatives, the opportunities that this environment presents and the challenges faced by treasury managers and CFOs at these times.
Speaking at the forum, Kaushik Chatterjee, VP – Finance, Tata Steel said “In the challenging global scenario, the timing for raising funds for a company is as important a challenge for a CFO as managing the surplus funds and protecting the capital.” Seshgiri Rao, Director Finance- Jindal Iron & Steel Co added that the role of a CFO has changed from just minimizing risk to maximizing opportunities.
Summing up the entire scenario, Ajay Mahajan, CFO – YES BANK said, “The accent has been increasingly on risk management and awareness on the same has improved over the years among several company boards. In an increasingly growing economy, with global influences Indian companies need to improve their understanding about risk management in addition to being aware of the international financial markets that they would be exposed to.”
About CNBC-TV18:
CNBC-TVI8 is India’s No.1 business medium. CNBC Asia Pacific holds a strategic equity stake in the Indian registered broadcaster; Television 18. CNBC-TV18 is the undisputed leader in the business. The channel’s benchmark coverage extends from corporate news, financial markets coverage, expert perspective on investing and management to industry verticals and beyond. CNBC-TV18 has been constantly innovating with new genres of programming that helps make business more relevant to different constituencies across India. CNBC-TV18 is currently available in over 26 million households in India.
For further information contact:
Glen D’Souza/Janice Goveas/ Lorraine Correa Hanmer & Partners
98214 14845/ 98193 16878/ 98198 900935
News Broadcasting
Newsrooms rethink AI, trust and revenue models
Editors and tech leaders debate tools, deepfakes and viability.
MUMBAI: If yesterday’s newsroom ran on caffeine and chaos, tomorrow’s may well run on code but with a human still holding the pen. At the 22nd edition of the Video Broadcast and Broadband Tech Summit hosted by IndianTelevision.com, some of the sharpest minds in Indian media gathered to examine how artificial intelligence, automation and shifting audience behaviour are reshaping journalism. The session, titled The Newsroom of Tomorrow Tools, Trust, and Business Viability In Focus, did not descend into techno-utopian hype. Instead, it wrestled with a more uncomfortable question: how do you stay relevant, credible and profitable when the audience is changing faster than the headline cycle?
The panel featured Govindraj Ethiraj, Editor of The Core, Dr Nilesh Khare, COO of Sakal Media Group; Prakaran Tiwari, Chief Executive Producer at NDTV Profit; Manoj Padmanabhan, Head of Business Media and Entertainment at AWS; Neeraj Mishra, Key Account Manager at Vizrt and session chair; and Mayuresh Konnur, Bilingual Correspondent at Collective Newsroom, publisher for BBC in India.
Govindraj Ethiraj set the tone with a frank assessment. “The reason people do not consume as much news through us is because they are consuming news through other sources they trust more,” he said. In a fragmented ecosystem flooded with content, trust has become the real differentiator.
Yet AI is undeniably transforming workflows. Ethiraj admitted he now uses AI tools to proofread his own articles. “Sometimes it is scary how much it picks, but it helps,” he said. What once required layers of sub-editing can now be assisted by machines trained to flag errors, inconsistencies and structural weaknesses.
He pointed to how newsroom roles have evolved. The desk editor, widely advertised over the last 15 years, barely existed in its current form before the internet boom. As digital publishing accelerated, tasks such as curating listicles, ranking stories and optimising headlines became specialised functions. Now, many of those responsibilities can be performed or at least supported by AI systems. The disruption is not hypothetical; it is operational.
Dr Nilesh Khare approached the issue from both a business and technological standpoint. Sakal Media Group is developing its own large language model, built on 60 years of text and photo archives. The goal is independence. “We won’t need to depend on other platforms to develop ours,” he said, underscoring the strategic value of proprietary data.
For Khare, AI represents opportunity as much as anxiety. It can help expand content across geographies and languages, particularly in bridging North and South Indian markets. It can streamline production and reduce costs. He did not shy away from the implications. “As a journalist I feel bad but as a content producer I feel good that we will require less manpower,” he said, articulating a tension many in the room recognised but few openly admit.
He also highlighted how audience behaviour is evolving. Today, a retail investor can follow a stock using Gemini or GPT instead of toggling between multiple news channels. News is no longer consumed linearly; it is queried, personalised and synthesised. The newsroom must therefore produce content that survives not just on screens but within AI-generated summaries.
Prakaran Tiwari offered a more philosophical reflection. “AI has developed itself and adapted on the basis of how news is consumed. It’s all about giving a perspective,” he said. In his view, the competitive edge will not lie in speed alone but in interpretation. Facts are increasingly commoditised; context is not.
He also suggested that formats are fluid. While short-form video dominates social feeds, long-form audio is resurging. Govindraj Ethiraj noted that in the United States the 2024 election was described as the “podcast election”, reflecting how audiences are investing time in deeper, long-form discussions. The newsroom of tomorrow must cater to both scrolling and sustained listening.
Manoj Padmanabhan of AWS reframed the debate. Technology, he argued, is not an existential threat but an amplifier. “The power is given to the human journalist with all this technology in their hand, with it acting as a support or assistant to deliver the correct and relevant news to the people,” he said.
The traditional divide between a “normal” newsroom and a “digital” newsroom is fading. “It will not be two newsrooms,” he said. “It will be one newsroom.” In that integrated environment, the storyteller remains central. AI may assist with research, editing and distribution, but editorial judgement remains human.
Neeraj Mishra of Vizrt echoed the assistive narrative. India, he said, is a market of organised chaos, where news broadcasters are pushing ever-increasing volumes of content. AI will help manage scale. It is not here to replace people but to assist them.
Production barriers are already collapsing. “You don’t need a green screen to produce content now,” Mishra observed, hinting at virtual production tools and real-time rendering technologies. And this, he said, is only the beginning. In a cost-conscious market like India, AI adoption in both B to B and B to C segments is likely to rise sharply. The skills are available, he argued, the real question is whether organisations are willing to invest.
If opportunity was one half of the conversation, risk was the other. Mayuresh Konnur warned that fake news is now being peddled with alarming ease using AI tools. Deepfakes, synthetic audio and fabricated visuals can damage credibility overnight. Several journalists, he said, have already faced instances where manipulated content was circulated in their name.
“Eventually it becomes a question of how authentic you are in the market,” Konnur noted. In a crowded information economy, credibility is the ultimate moat. Regulations and clear guidelines, he argued, are necessary to curb misuse without stifling innovation.
Mishra added a note of caution against overuse. “AI should not be everywhere. It has to be used optimally,” he said. The value lies not in blanket automation but in strategic integration.
One of the most resonant metaphors came from Padmanabhan. AI, he suggested, is like a brush in a human hand. Powerful, versatile, transformative but inert without the artist. It cannot survive without the human touch.
Konnur distilled the session’s core takeaway, AI is inevitable, but the art of storytelling will never disappear.
In a media landscape defined by speed, shrinking attention spans and intense competition, the newsroom of tomorrow is not simply a technological upgrade. It is a recalibration. Between efficiency and ethics. Between automation and authenticity. Between reducing manpower and retaining meaning.
The algorithms may write cleaner copy and generate sharper graphics. They may even predict what audiences want before audiences know it themselves. But the enduring task remains unchanged to tell stories that inform, interrogate and inspire.
And for that, the human newsroom is still very much open for business.
