News Broadcasting
iTV Network launches ‘Aakhri Boond’, mega water conservation campaign
MUMBAI: While the entire urban India is in the grip of water scarcity; several cities in the country have been grappling to the extent of living the “Day Zero”, when all taps in the city go dry for a day. According to government reports, 12 per cent of India’s population is already living the 'Day Zero' scenario and by the year 2020, major cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and others will reach zero ground water levels and denying over 100 million people access to drinking water as a consequence.
The enormity of the water scarcity can be gauged by the fact that the Union government recently formed a new Jal Shakti (water) ministry, which aims at tackling water issues with a holistic and integrated perspective on the subject. The ministry has announced an ambitious plan to provide piped water connections to every household in India by 2024.
Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has also raised the concern over water crisis in India, iTV Network, India’s fastest growing news and infotainment network launches ‘Aakhri Boond’ ‘every drop counts’(http://www.aakhriboond.com/), an initiative to reach out to the last foothold of the country through all the platforms to sensitize and educate citizens about water conservation.
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, during his radio speech on ‘Mann Ki Baat’ has given a clarion call to the citizens of the country to join hands to save water this monsoon. In this endeavor, Shri Narendra Modi is also seeking contribution from media too, being a responsible news network, iTV Network launched ‘Aakhri Boond’ – the first of its kind and the biggest water conservation initiative in the country.
Speaking about the campaign, Mr Kartikeya Sharma, Founder & Promoter, iTV Network says, “Water conservation is the need of the hour, with the current situation, every drop needs to be treated as last, it becomes imperative for every one of us to take it with utmost seriousness. Aakhri Boond is a mission to educate people about water crisis conservation solutions and we are dedicated to fulfill it.” Further, he added about the campaign and says “The campaign would expand rapidly and will open up a whole new range of opportunities such as water conservation and recycling.”
For the campaign, Mrs Aishwarya Sharma, Chairperson, iTV Foundation, says “I pledge to provide all my support for Aakhri Boond campaign, which targets water conservation and recycling of water as Aakhri Boond aims to be the hope for the coming generation.”
In a report on the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) released by the Niti Aayog in 2018, by 2030, the country's water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual six per cent loss in the country's GDP. Also, as per a UN report, about 377 million Indians lived in urban areas in 2015 and by the year 2030, the urban population is expected to rise to 590 million. The rise in population coupled with unabated groundwater pumping rapid industrialisation, almost 54 per cent of India faced high to extremely high water crisis. According to government report, 70 percent of water in India is contaminated and every year at least 2 lakh people die due to water-related diseases.
During the 360-degree pan-India campaign of Aakhri Boond, iTV Network will sensitize and educate people across pan-India about conservation of water reservoirs, present situation of depleting state of water and adopting steps to save water. iTV network, will be doing a series of activities and programmes on water conservation on multiple platforms including print, electronic and digital media with its millions of viewers. The specialised content will be focused on the seriousness of the water crisis, methods of water conservation, rivers of India and the role models and success stories to establish that it is possible to bring change if all decisively act.
The campaign will focus upon creating awareness to showcase the ground reality and further focus upon sensitizing towards providing solutions and the partnerships between stakeholders to mitigate the situations. iTV Network will also reach out to the masses at a national level and create a community which is aware and is acting towards improvement of the situation.
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.
