India is the largest producer of films in the world and Bollywood alone is approximately a $ 2.5 billion industry. Further, the cine industries in south India, Kolkata, Punjab and now in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (UP) are also producing movies. Not to mention, pan-India television channels and ad films. These provide enormous employment opportunities to actors, directors, cinematographers, screenwriters and so on.

The extended lockdowns witnessed the emergence of over-the-top (OTT) platforms that disrupted the traditional entertainment sector and has changed the overall scenario in a significant manner. It made movie-watching convenient, accessible and affordable across a wider segment of the users. Anybody with a mobile phone and an internet connection can catch up with a movie sitting anywhere in the world. ALTBalaji, for instance, performed the best in 2020 as its direct subscription grew cent per cent amassing 8.5 million monthly active users and 35 million plus cumulative subscribers in this period, with most of its new audiences coming from Tier II and Tier III cities.

The OTT is a generic term used in telecom industry which means all services that are offered over and above what a cell phone already comes with. It usually refers subscriber-based web-streaming platforms in India whose growth curve looks steeply inclined. The OTT industry itself is only around four years old in India.

Netflix was the first mover, followed by Amazon Prime Video and then more than 40 other OTT platforms. Amazon was the first to commission Indian originals. Netflix entered the domain of local content right after.

Amazon Prime Video has approximately 17 million paying subscribers, second only to Disney+Hotstar at 18 million, while Netflix India has five million and Zee5 has 11 million plus subscribers. With internet reaching the semi-urban and rural areas coupled with affordable data plans, new players have entered the game, including Hoichoi, Ullu, Addatimes, Sun NXT and MX Player. The growth potential can be estimated when one considers that there are 625 million internet users and 836 million TV viewers in India alone.

Digital streaming companies are spending heavily to keep the growth going. Worldwide spend was around $21 billion in 2017, which is expected to more than double by 2022, according to ‘Asia on Demand’. Content spending by Asian operators is expected to reach $10.1 billion by 2022, from $2.7 billion in 2017. The Indian OTT market is projected to reach $5 billion by 2023. With their huge spends, a show on Amazon or Netflix brings legitimacy, not just within the industry, but also outside. Besides digital ads, they put up hoardings all over the city, just like cinema!

The OTT has also changed all previous casting practices and now even films want and need new, unique, different talents for the sake of freshness and spontaneity. This revolution in content creation and its consumption has led to a huge demand for careers in film acting as also in show-running.  

Actors work with directors, writers and technicians to create content for cinema, web, OTT, television, advertisement, stills, video and so on. Actors must be able to work for long hours to meet the deadlines. They must also be comfortable doing a wide range of scenes and playing various roles.

 With the popularity of OTT platforms growing manifold, the Indian entertainment industry is looking forward to hire talented actors who have skills as per the demands of the industry. Casting, however, is no longer about just checking portfolios and doing auditions. Today, it is also about checking the social media credentials of budding actors, checking auditions on YouTube and doing a whole bunch of things to get the right person for the right role.

Another career that OTT has thrown up is that of showrunners. A showrunner combines the responsibilities of a director and a producer, shouldering the creative and management responsibilities of a web show production. Unlike commercial cinema, creating OTT content irrespective of genre is a much more collaborative process, often employing multiple writers and directors to work on a series or film. This allows for more perspectives and talent to come together for a particular show or film and create a more engaging and enriching experience for the audience.

The showrunner acts as a bridge between the OTT platform and the team responsible for making the show and also makes sure that the show comes in on time and exactly as visualised by the producer. They are very highly paid and usually, a top showrunner is also the lead writer.

The glamour, money and razzmatazz of this emerging career are bringing people by the hordes to this profession and a lot many people are opting for the career which is steadily growing.

The writer is theVice-Chancellor, World University  of Design. The  views expressed are personal.

Are there any X-factors that could play an important role in the ongoing five State Assembly polls? The  X-factors are always unexpected and might play sometimes positive and at other times a negative role in elections. In a few weeks’ time, we will know which way it has played in the Assembly polls in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. In West Bengal, Chief Minister (CM) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee is fighting a fierce battle with the surging BJP. Earlier, the TMC used to fight the Congress or the Left parties but Mamata since 2011 systematically decimated them. Now she is regretting it because the space left by them has been occupied by the BJP. It is the Muslim votes that matter a lot for Mamata. This time, to counter the saffron party’s influence, she is also wooing the Hindu voters. She should be worried about the role of the influential cleric Abbas Siddiqui’s new party, the Indian Secular Front. The Congress-CPI(M) coalition can either damage the chances of Mamata by denting her Muslim vote bank or polarising the voters into Hindu-Muslim division which could benefit the BJP. Since the BJP is not expecting Muslim votes, it will be the Trinamool that will be the eventual sufferer.

 The X-factor in Assam could be the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). Assam is key to BJP’s rise in the northeast. An exit poll data indicates a tough contest in Assam. While the NDA is likely to corner 42.9 per cent vote share, the UPA can secure 40.7 per cent of the votes. That the AIUDF could polarise the voters on the Hindu-Muslim line would go to the advantage of the BJP, particularly in upper Assam. Also, the Congress-led coalition has no tall leader in the State while the BJP has the incumbent CM, Sarbananda Sonowal, and former Congress leader Himanta Biswa Sarma who has been the saffron party’s northeast strategist. So it is again the Muslim votes that matter in Assam.

However, Tamil Nadu is a classic case where the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led alliance and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) coalition have been alternating in power. But that was when two iconic leaders, J Jayalalithaa  (AIADMK) and M Karunanidhi  (DMK), were leading their parties. This will be the first election that non-charismatic leaders are on the poll scene. While incumbent CM E Palaniswami has not done badly, the DMK is led by MK Stalin who had been groomed carefully by his father Karunanidhi for years. The AIADMK suffers from many disadvantages, including anti-incumbency. Its alliance with the BJP is frowned upon by the Dravidian voters. Kerala too has followed the trend of alternating between the Left-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). Now it is the turn of the UDF but incumbent CM Pinarayi Vijayan too has reinforced his forces by luring the Kerala Congress (Mani) into the alliance. This will be to the disadvantage of the UDF. Besides, Vijayan has managed to do well in establishing himself as a tall leader. If the LDF loses this time, the comrades will not have any Government in the whole of India. The BJP could be the X-factor in Kerala.

  (The writer is a senior journalist. The views expressed are personal.)

Even as the Government is making all efforts to ensure that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — after witnessing 8 per cent contraction during 2020-21— returns to a high growth trajectory, it is concerned about the tepid recovery in credit availability which is considered to be the sine qua non of growth. According to the latest data by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the annual non-food bank credit growth in January this year was at 5.7 per cent compared to 8.5 per cent in the same period last year. Credit to industry, however, contracted by 1.3 per cent in January 2021 as compared to 2.5 per cent growth in January 2020.

  A major bottleneck is the reluctance on the part of bank officials to sanction loans, out of fear that they might come under the scanner of the investigating or prosecuting agencies for taking purely ‘commercial decisions’. During the last three years (2018-20), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered bank fraud cases involving amounts worth over Rs 1,00,000 crore (in 2020 alone, it registered 200 such cases involving total Rs 70,000 crore).  The Government wants to allay their fears by letting the CBI look only into some ‘extraordinary’ cases such as the IDBI Bank-Kingfisher Airlines while the specialised agencies such as the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) being asked to investigate most other cases. 

The above move is also justified in terms of what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an event in December 2019 — that bank employees should not be penalised for “genuine business decisions”— as also the exhortation by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the same month: “Honest bankers need not to fear the three Cs — CBI, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG)”. There can be no two opinions that officials should act fearlessly and free from any encumbrance, including the possibility of coming under the lens of agencies. This is a pre-requisite for building a robust credit culture and ensuring that credit availability increases in sync with the requirements. However, this gels only with situations, wherein the officials have conducted due diligence, carefully assessed the viability of the project or venture for which loan is considered and convinced themselves about the credibility of the borrower.

In such a situation, the chances of any fraud are almost negligible. Even in an unlikely event of things going wrong and the loan becoming a non-performing asset (NPA), the sheer fact that the official had conducted “due diligence” and taken all precautions while sanctioning it by itself should instil confidence. On the other hand, if the official has granted loan in a cavalier fashion without conducting due diligence or assessing project viability or has acted with mala fide  for personal gain under what is termed as “quid pro quo” arrangement then, there is every possibility of the loan becoming an NPA. In such a scenario of a fraud being perpetrated on the bank, the authorities must not allow the idea of “keeping the CBI at bay” even cross their minds.      

However, the fraud happens in a systematic manner and it is clear from the four major financial entities, viz; Yes Bank, Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FC) and Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) having been pushed towards bankruptcy during the last three years solely because their top brass acted with mala fide intent while sanctioning loans.

Here are some harsh facts. Between April and June 2018, Yes Bank invested Rs 3,700 crore in short-term debentures of DHFL. Almost at the same time, the chairman of the latter “paid a kickback of Rs 600 crore” to former’s promoter and his family members in the garb of builder loan given to DOIT Urban Ventures — a company owned by the promoters’ family. According to the CBI, despite being a short-term debenture investment, DHFL has not redeemed Yes Bank’s investment to date. The DHFL is alleged to have had siphoned off Rs 31,000 crore out of total bank loans of  Rs 97,000 crore using a web of multiple shell companies. A dubious loan of Rs 6,500 crore was given by PMC to Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) in connivance with the bank’s top brass. Likewise, tens of thousands of crores in questionable loans given by the IL&FS landed in dozens of shell companies owned by top brass of the former. Another brazen case involves defrauding the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) by the directors of DHFL. Under the PMAY, loans are granted to people from economically weaker sections and low-and middle-income groups to buy land and construct houses, or buy housing units, through ‘credit-linked interest subsidy’! The beneficiaries get interest subsidy of 3 per cent- 6.5 per cent payable upfront. The subsidy amount is to be claimed by the financial institutions (FIs), which grant these loans, from the National Housing Bank (NHB) who, in turn, gets reimbursement from the Centre.

The DHFL — an FI tasked with implementation of the scheme-created 260,000 “fake and fictitious” home loan accounts in a non-existent Bandra branch between 2007 and 2019 for a total loan of about  Rs 14,000 crore. Out of this, around Rs 11,750 crore were deposited or routed to several fictitious firms. Several of these accounts were opened under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and interest subsidy of about Rs 1,900 crore claimed from the NHB till December 2018, of which the latter has already reimbursed Rs 540 crore.  The DHFL top brass committed the fraud in connivance with officials of the NHB which happens to be a whollyowned subsidiary of the RBI. Being the top regulator of the banks and FIs, the responsibility of the RBI is to prevent any fraud in these institutions and yet, such a thing happening under its nose is unconscionable. By any stretch of imagination, it can’t be a case of sheer negligence or a legitimate commercial decision going wrong. That apart, there are innumerable cases of bank fraud — each running into several crores — tumbling out of the cupboard almost every other day.  These can’t be wished away as an one-off incident. The frauds are an outcome of a well orchestrated game plan in which bank/FI officials are actively involved. Indeed, this is more systemic in nature, having to do with a sense of fearlessness amongst officials that even if they do something horribly wrong, they will go scot-free.

This mindset can be dealt with only by wielding a stick. The involvement of the CBI and other agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has to be seen from this perspective. In this backdrop, a sweeping order that the CBI will look only at frauds involving amount above a threshold, say, Rs 500 crore, will send out a wrong signal. It is tantamount to glossing over the wrongdoings, in a way letting these continue unabated. This must be avoided.  However, the officials doing their job honestly and sincerely have nothing to fear— as rightly observed by Modi and Sitharaman—those who are out there to perpetrate fraud can be reined in only by instilling fear. In such cases, the CBI should be allowed to do its job without any fetters.

The writer is a New Delhi-based policy analyst. The views expressed are personal.

The Congress’ former president and the Gandhi family’s scion, Rahul, is suddenly making his presence felt in the nation’s political firmament. The reason may be any, whether the ongoing Assembly polls or the ensuing Congress’ organisational election slated for after this round of balloting in the States concerned, but it is indeed hearty news for democracy that one of the top leaders of the main Opposition party in Parliament has re-discovered his voice. Of course, Rahul has been known to speak on certain subjects on certain occasions but it’s largely been a matter of his choice and fancy and such utterances have been intermittent, all of which tends to take the gravitas away from his pressing concerns. Also, it appears a tad unprofessional when he comes across as underprepared to speak on a subject to an interviewer — however, when he simply tweets or makes a speech, basically a monologue, then he does quite alright. But put him in front of an interviewer, and the chances of his saying something controversial or goofy burgeon manifold. Several such instances jump to mind.

A case in point is his recent video interview to former US Under-Secretary of State and Harvard University professor Nicholas Burns. Talking to Burns, he openly exhorted the US to intervene in India’s domestic affairs by wondering out loud why it wasn’t pulling up his “rivals” for “wholesale capture of institutions”. The seasoned Burns smartly sidestepped it with a straight face, showing his adeptness at diplomacy. In the past, Rahul’s interviews to Indian media were airbrushed by his minders before being released, but that could not be done to the Harvard interaction. After being in the public eye for long, and with such recurring instances to his credit, his handlers within the Congress should realise that interviews are just not his forte, at least not for the time being, as he comes across as unfocused, fidgety and out of depth. However, all this is no reason to lose hope because sincerity, hard work and dedication are one’s best friends to be able to shake hands with success. No comparisons, but it would help him to remember that in the not-too-distant past, Narendra Modi, who is arguably the best political orator and crowd-puller in India today, was not too comfortable (though he might have been confident) fielding questions from the media before he entered Parliament for the first time.