What is driving the digital-first approach of traditional, legacy brands? Apart from the growing adoption of the internet in the country, brands are drawn to the agility of the medium.
Love stories, superheroes, family dramas, kiddie flicks, whodunits, rom-coms, Sukanya Verma lists your OTT menu for the week.
Karan Johar hosted a party at his home on Sunday night, April 24, in honour of Bela Bajaria, Netflix's vice president, International Originals.
Manisha Sharma (name changed) was always among the high achievers in her company. She was recognised and rewarded for those efforts as well. Mid-December 2022, however, she received a jolt: an email informing her that she had been laid off - along with several of her colleagues. Sharma worked for a big tech firm, which had decided to downsize. And just like that, she was asked to go. "It did come as a shock," she says. "I did not take calls for the first two days, but then realised there is no point in beating oneself up for a situation that's not in your hand. "I thought let this be an opportunity to take a break. I'll now start looking for a job," she adds.
One needs to charge the device every four days, which can provide over 65,000 blood readings and counts.
Grim police procedurals, dark superheroes, ghostly encounters, things get pretty intense on OTT this week. Sukanya Verma offers some suggestions.
'Raj and DK have taken the effort to look at Moosa as a person.' 'Like, what happened to him?' 'What made him become a terrorist?' 'The emotional trauma that he might have had... that clicked for me.'
Netflix is reminiscent of Star TV in the 1990s: Very Western in its gaze, very expensive, and clueless, notes Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
Amid mass layoffs in the tech sector, the federal agency for immigration services has said it is wrong to assume that sacked workers holding the much-sought-after H-1B visas have to leave the country within 60 days, asserting they have multiple options to stay in the US. The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
The combined market-cap of all listed Adani group firms has plunged nearly Rs 7.11 trillion since January 24 when the Hindenburg report was made public.
I binged on various shows this year -- some for work, some for pleasure, few I couldn't spare time for, others I didn't have access to while some started out fabulously only to fizzle towards the end.
Deepa Gahlot lists 10 gangster thrillers on OTT for those who have the stomach for gaalis and gore.
Kate Winslet's turn as detective while Seema Pahwa turns director, all this and more on OTT this week.
Gautam Adani is now the fourth richest person on the planet. The chairman of the Adani group overtook Bill Gates -- once the richest man in the world -- this week.
Things may not always look bright, but the sun won't stay out forever is a running theme conveyed across its short films about people from various walks of life in all their varying moods and musings, applauds Sukanya Verma.
Justice in medieval times, whodunit in the woods, mafia boss in the making, Sukanya Verma takes a look at the sheer variety on OTT this week.
Joginder Tuteja lists the Web series and films coming up this month.
'Rani made it very clear when she signed the film that she would shoot only during her daughter's summer vacation so as not to disturb her role as a real life mother.'
After a rather dull April when there were hardly any theatrical or OTT releases, May would be a lot more crowded with a dozen odd movies and web series arriving.
The Tata group on Thursday launched its super app, Tata Neu, bringing all its brands in one platform as it seeks to play a major role in the Indian ecommerce space currently dominated by the likes of Amazon and Flipkart.
Guess who else features on the Variety500 list?
Mind The Malhotras is like a bus that skipped a few stops on its route, observes Deepa Gahlot.
With OTT gaining popularity, quite a few stars will make their debut on digital platforms.
There is nothing of the level of Yes Minister, House Of Cards, Madam Secretary or Veep but there are at least 10 Hindi series and an OTT-released film or two, to whet the viewer's appetite for power-mongering, corruption and intrigue.
Madhuri Dixit's brief seems to have been to look glamorous, which she does, while others struggle to hold the film together, observes Deepa Gahlot, Maja Ma Review.
'There are people who loved the show and people who have been shocked by it.'
The world's most popular source for movie content, IMDb unveiled its list of the 10 Most Popular Indian Web Series, based on their page views on the site.
Some exciting news shows, some gripping sequels coming up.
Joginder Tuteja looks at the 10 Best Action Thrillers.
PharmEasy has acquired Medlife for an undisclosed amount, the e-pharmacy unicorn said on Tuesday. The deal will make PharmEasy the largest player in the domestic online pharmacy sector, with the combined entity set to serve 2 million customers a month.
According to experts, the banning of the apps has created negative sentiments and reduced the confidence among the Chinese investors to invest in India.
'Never in the history of Indian cinema did we have a distribution system for 240 countries, but we have it now.' 'And if we still keep catering to the B and C-tiers of our country, and not the whole world, then we are really being losers.' 'The visionaries of the industry must pull up their socks and say that now we will create for the world.'
There's tons of revenge and retaliation themed movies and shows on the OTT scene this week. Sukanya Verma suggests everything you can catch on OTT this week.
'Research shows that customers want their loans instantly.' 'So the team asked can we reduce the time for approval from 5 days to 30 seconds?' 'It took the company two years of hard work to tear apart our operations and processes and rebuild them through fresh ideas and by leveraging technology.' 'We reduced the time of loan approval to 3 hours and another year to get it down to 30 seconds,' Sanjiv Bajaj tells Surajeet Das Gupta.
Union Minister of Commerce and Textiles Piyush Goyal has stirred up a hornet's nest by taking on India Inc, specifically the Tata group, which is among the companies that lobbied against the Modi government's pro-consumer draft e-commerce policies. While Goyal's comments, made at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) event, were streamed live on YouTube, the industry lobbying body later edited the video and subsequently withdrew the entire speech. Goyal had said the Tata group and other Indian companies often lobbied for their interest, while ignoring national interest.
So what's up? Why are so many promoters heading for the door? It cannot be that all of them lost their appetite for a good fight at the same time.And if Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways and Subhash Chandra of Zee Entertainment do bow out, will it be seen as chickening out when the going got tough or the entrepreneurial instinct of surviving to fight another battle waned, wonders Shailesh Dobhal.
Aseem Chhabra highlights 10 films that moved him, films that may show up in theatres near you.
