All posts by Neel Achary

Guwahati, Feb 26 : SBI General Insurance, one of India’s leading general insurance companies, has announced its participation in the ‘Meri Policy Mere Haath’ campaign under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana for the Rabi 2025–26 season. Scheduled to be held from 15th February to 15th March 2026, the initiative aims to deliver crop insurance policies directly to farmers’ doorsteps while strengthening awareness about crop insurance benefits, risk protection, and key aspects of the PMFBY scheme, including coverage, enrolment, and claim procedures.

The ‘Meri Policy Mere Haath’ campaign is designed to make crop insurance more transparent, accessible, and farmer-friendly, ensuring that beneficiaries not only receive their policy documents but also clearly understand their entitlements. As part of the campaign, SBI General Insurance will conduct extensive on-ground outreach programmes across villages and Gram Panchayats to engage farmers at the grassroots level.

The Company will organise a series of Fasal Bima Pathshalas, women-focused awareness workshops, and structured farmer education programmes across seven states — Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Assam, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. These sessions will focus on explaining policy features, crop coverage, claim intimation processes, and grievance redressal mechanisms. In addition to physical outreach, SBI General Insurance will also leverage digital and social media platforms to amplify the campaign’s reach, promote participation, and spread awareness about the importance of crop insurance among farming communities.

Speaking of the event, Mr. Naveen Chandra Jha, MD and CEO of SBI General Insurance, said

“At SBI General Insurance, we believe farmers are the backbone of our nation and economy, and it is our responsibility to stand by them. The ‘Meri Policy Mere Haath’ campaign, which we participate annually, reflects our continued commitment to empowering farmers through timely policy distribution, improved accessibility, and awareness of crop insurance benefits. By reaching farmers at their doorsteps and engaging directly at the Gram Panchayat level, we aim to work closely with stakeholders, build trust in the PMFBY scheme, and support the farming community in managing agricultural risks more effectively.”

Through initiatives like this, SBI General Insurance continues to strengthen its engagement with India’s farming community, ensuring that insurance reaches every farmer efficiently and effectively. By combining on-ground outreach, educational programmes, and digital initiatives, the company reinforces its commitment to supporting agricultural resilience, financial security, and sustainable growth across rural India.

Cotonou, Feb 26 — Benin Tourism announces its participation in ITB Berlin, the leading trade show for the global travel and tourism industry, taking place March 3–5, 2026, in Berlin, Germany. Through this strategic presence, Benin aims to further strengthen its position as a forward-looking destination on the international stage by combining institutional visibility, industry engagement, market development of its tourism offering, and the promotion of its cultural identity. This participation builds on Benin’s recent presence at major international tourism events, following its participation in IFTM in Paris and FITUR in Madrid in recent months. It extends the country’s broader international outreach strategy to enhance Benin’s attractiveness, deepen relationships with travel industry stakeholders, and accelerate the commercialization of the destination across priority markets.

 ITB Berlin: A key international platform for promoting Destination Benin

ITB Berlin is a must-attend event for any destination seeking to build a lasting position on the global tourism stage. Since 1966, the show has established itself as the world’s leading platform for the travel industry, and the 2026 edition will be especially significant as it marks the event’s 60th anniversary, taking place March 3–5 in Berlin under the theme, “Discover the stories behind 60 years of legacy.” With its structure organized both geographically (by destination) and by market segment (including adventure tourism, business travel, luxury travel, medical tourism, travel technology, and more), ITB offers a unique environment for visibility, strategic intelligence, and business development. The scale of the event underscores its importance: the previous edition brought together more than 170 countries and territories, 5,800 exhibitors, and nearly 100,000 trade visitors. Benin’s participation in 2026 is the result of long-term planning: after attending last year as an observer, Benin Tourism returns this year with a fully structured pavilion, building on preparatory work launched in 2025.

 A delegation structured around experience and commercialization

 For the 2026 edition of ITB Berlin, Benin Tourism has chosen to work alongside partners that reflect the growing strength of Benin’s tourism ecosystem, bringing together complementary stakeholders from across the value chain. The Benin pavilion will feature Benin Tours S.A., which is being mobilized to support the commercialization of Destination Benin and the structuring of its tourism offering, with the goal of expanding distribution opportunities and partnerships with international travel professionals. Alongside it, Ouidah Golf Club will highlight Benin’s potential across leisure, experiential tourism, and hospitality segments, while Sofitel Cotonou Marina Hotel & Spa, a flagship property, will showcase the rising quality of the country’s hospitality infrastructure and its ambition in the high-end travel segment. Together, these partners reflect a clear objective: to present in Berlin a destination that is not only inspiring, but also market-ready, programmable, and well-positioned for integration into international tour operators’ catalogs and travel offerings.

A pavilion designed as a living showcase of Benin

 Beyond its institutional dimension and B2B engagement, the Benin pavilion will offer an immersive discovery experience designed to leave a lasting impression on visitors, spark the

interest of travel professionals, and embody the full richness of Beninese hospitality. A dedicated tasting area will be set up to introduce visitors to flavors and products from Benin as part of a sensory storytelling approach to the destination. This tasting experience will play a central role in telling Benin’s story, highlighting the quality of its products, the diversity of its culinary traditions, and the refinement of its culture of hospitality. The goal is to give visitors a tangible first encounter with Benin through an experience that engages the senses and creates lasting recall. Conceived as a space for exchange, discovery, and projection, the pavilion will bring together the cultural, tourism, and commercial dimensions of the destination within a scenographic concept aligned with Benin’s positioning.

 An artistic and cultural program at the heart of the pavilion’s identity

 Benin’s presence at ITB Berlin will be brought to life through an ambitious artistic and cultural program designed as a central driver of differentiation, visibility, and appeal. The program is intended to make the Benin pavilion a vibrant, recognizable space deeply rooted in the country’s cultural expressions.

 In this spirit, Pépit’Arts will play a major role in the pavilion’s artistic and musical programming through the presentation of FAADJI, a percussion-based creation presented in formats tailored to visitor flow and the trade show environment. This performance concept will establish a strong sonic and stage presence, creating an experience that is immediately distinctive and memorable.

The pavilion will also welcome Akonhoun Delidji, a cultural ensemble from Abomey renowned for its traditional dance performances, including Zinli and the Akonhoun dance. The sequences presented will highlight the expressive power, symbolic depth, and heritage significance of these dances, echoing the history of the Danxomè Kingdom and the imagery of strength, courage, and pride associated with the Amazons. Through this presence, Benin will deliver a powerful cultural performance that is identity-driven, visually striking, and fully aligned with the story it is bringing to the international stage.

 More broadly, these cultural performances will strengthen the identity of the Benin pavilion, showcase the country’s intangible cultural heritage, and affirm Beninese artistic creation as a core pillar of the national narrative presented in Berlin.

A clear objective: elevating and selling Destination Benin

 Through its participation in ITB Berlin, Benin Tourism is pursuing a clear ambition: to combine international visibility with the market development of the destination. The trade show will provide a strategic platform to engage with tour operators, travel agencies, key industry influencers, specialized media, and institutional partners, while presenting a tourism offer that is more clearly defined, more competitive, and more distinctive.

Benin’s participation in this major international event reflects a resolutely modern approach to destination promotion, one that goes beyond simply showcasing assets. It is an approach that builds connections, creates emotion, structures commercialization, and establishes a lasting brand image. By leveraging the complementarity between public and private stakeholders, and between hospitality, culture, and distribution, Benin is affirming its ambition to claim its full place in the global tourism conversation.

 Sindé CHEKETE, CEO of Benin Tourism, said: “Benin’s participation in ITB Berlin 2026 is part of a consistent strategy to strengthen our presence on the world’s leading tourism stages, following our participation in IFTM in Paris and FITUR in Madrid. It reflects our determination to steadily advance the visibility, credibility, and commercialization of Destination Benin. In

Berlin, we will present a structured tourism offering, supported by complementary stakeholders from across our ecosystem, and a pavilion designed as a space for engagement, experience, and forward-looking dialogue.”

Ahmedabad, Feb 26: Zydus Lifesciences Limited (including its subsidiaries/affiliates, hereafter referred to as “Zydus”), an innovation-led life-sciences company with an international presence, plans to launch Semaglutide Injection under the brand names – SEMAGLYN^TM, MASHEMA^TM and ALTERME^TM, upon Semaglutide patent expiry in India. The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) had earlier provided its approval for manufacturing and marketing Semaglutide injection for the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Obesity.¹ 

A critical differentiator of Zydus’ Semaglutide offering will be its novel, indigenously developed drug-delivery system. Unlike existing treatments that require patients to purchase multiple single-dose pens as they titrate their dosage, Zydus plans to introduce an innovative, adjustable single-pen device. This technology allows patients to seamlessly select and administer varying dose strengths from a single unit, significantly enhancing patient adherence, maximizing convenience and drastically reducing the overall cost of therapy. 

Speaking on the development Managing Director, Zydus Lifesciences Limited, Dr. Sharvil Patel said, “Zydus’ innovative offering of Semaglutide injection is a testament to our enduring commitment to patient-centric innovation. We are not just planning to bring a critical therapy to market, we are aiming to elevate the standard of care. By introducing a first-of-its-kind drug delivery mechanism in India, we plan to simplify the treatment. This leap in convenience will drive better long-term adherence and, ultimately, significantly improved clinical outcomes for patients.” 

Zydus has exclusive rights to this novel device, which will be able to deliver all strengths approved for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Obesity. The pen will also be reusable bringing in greater affordability for the patients. 

Diabetes and Obesity are among the most significant health concerns in India, and GLP-1 based therapies have the potential to contribute effectively to managing this increasing public health burden. As per International Diabetes Federation, there are 8.9 crore adults with diabetes in India i.e. 10.5% of total adult population². India is witnessing a rapid rise in obesity across all age groups. In adults, the prevalence increased by 91 per cent among women (from 12.6 per cent to 24.0 per cent) and 146 per cent among men (from 9.3 per cent to 22.9 per cent), indicating a nationwide health crisis.³ 

Chandigarh, Feb 26: Indian Hotels Company Limited, India’s largest hospitality company, today announced the opening of Tree of Life AeroVillage, Panheli, further expanding its Tree of Life portfolio into immersive, nature-led destinations.

Ms. Deepika Rao, Executive Vice President – New Businesses & Hotel Openings, IHCL, said,

“Tree of Life is rooted in the idea of discovering soulful, lesser-explored destinations, where nature and local culture build the experience. Tree of Life AeroVillage, Panheli, brings this philosophy to the Sahyadris. With this opening, we continue to expand Tree of Life into locations that speak to the brand’s ethos.”

Nestled within the scenic Sahyadri ranges, the resort is conveniently located within driving distance from Mumbai and Pune, while also offering private charter accessibility for guests preferring to arrive by air. Surrounded by lush rainforests, waterfalls, rivers, and untouched wilderness, the 26-key resort features spacious rooms and cottages, many equipped with private plunge pools and open-air jacuzzies.

The Hangar, the resort’s all-day dining restaurant offering sweeping views, is complemented by a well-appointed bar. Guests can also enjoy café-style service by the pool. Unique recreational offerings include a private theatre for personalised screenings and a scenic 9-hole golf course with a putting zone at the heart of the property. Chef-curated private dining experiences cater to celebrations and special occasions, while versatile indoor and outdoor venues make the resort ideal for business meetings, intimate gatherings, and milestone events.

Rooted deeply in its natural surroundings, Tree of Life AeroVillage, Panheli offers a curated collection of signature experiences including night safaris, guided morning treks, stargazing at 1,200 feet under clear skies, ATV rides, and riverside breakfast or hi-tea experiences. These immersive activities allow guests to explore the varied terrain and wilderness that define the region.

With this opening, IHCL strengthens its presence in experiential leisure destinations, offering travellers refined comfort amid nature’s grandeur.

NEW YORK, Feb 26 — Lightrun, a leader in software reliability, announced the industry’s first and only real-time AI SRE built on live, in-line runtime context. This allows AI agents and engineering teams to create missing evidence dynamically without redeployments, prove root causes with live execution data (“ground truth”), and validate fixes directly in live environments.

 The mass adoption of AI agents and coding assistants has accelerated code generation, outpacing reliability. This has shifted developer time from writing code to verifying and fixing issues, and moved the development bottleneck to runtime, where behavior is complex and often non-deterministic. As enterprises accelerate investment in AI-driven reliability and autonomous operations, this has created a market for AI SREs valued at billions of dollars.

 Despite this growth, most available ‘AI SRE’ tools are optimized for post-incident workflows and limited to relying on traditional, static telemetry that was already captured. When logs are missing, traces are incomplete, or execution context is unclear, teams are left to guess. Engineers are forced into long reactive cycles of redeploys, rollbacks, and manual validation.

 Lightrun’s AI SRE closes this gap by bringing live, code-level runtime context directly into the reliability loop. Lightrun has been recognized in the 2026 Gartner® Market Guide for AI Site Reliability Engineering Tooling.

 Instead of passively observing telemetry, the Lightrun AI SRE can safely interact with live systems via Lightrun’s patented Sandbox to create new evidence, test hypotheses, and validate outcomes against real execution behavior. This capability transforms AI SRE from a reactive post-incident advisor into a trusted, runtime-verified autonomous engineer that ensures reliability by design.

 Built on Lightrun’s Runtime Context engine, the AI SRE supports reliability across the entire SDLC, from proactive issue detection during development and testing (“peace time”) to autonomous investigation and remediation during live incidents (“war time”). It enables teams to understand how code truly behaves in runtime, close visibility gaps without redeploying, and resolve issues with confidence. Lightrun is designed for every team responsible for the behavior, reliability, or outcomes of running software.

 “Lightrun addresses a structural visibility gap in the emerging AI site reliability engineering workflows (SRE) market,” said Jim Mercer, Program Vice President, Software Development, DevOps, and DevSecOps at IDC. “By integrating dynamic instrumentation into SRE workflows, the company enables validation of root cause and remediation against live execution, reducing reliance on static, pre-instrumented telemetry and strengthening reliability across the software development lifecycle.”

 With Lightrun’s AI SRE, engineering and reliability teams benefit from:

●        Root cause analysis based on new evidence from live environments, without requiring prior instrumentation.

●        Runtime-validated code changes to eliminate guesswork and reduce rollback-and-redeploy cycles.

●        Live issue debugging in safe remote sessions with execution-level behavior inspections.

●        Dynamic telemetry to running systems to fill visibility gaps that traditional observability tools cannot address.

●        Reduced reliance on expensive war rooms, due to autonomous remediation and the ability to receive a code fix of incidents before escalating to a human.

●        Resilience to “unknown unknowns” introduced by multiple AI agents across the SDLC.

Zahi Kapeluto, AVP Engineering, AT&T, stated, “Modern, AI-driven software reliability depends on connecting telemetry to real execution context. Without understanding how code behaves in live environments, alerts and metrics alone don’t tell the full story. Lightrun helps our teams close that gap by exposing runtime behavior directly, enabling faster investigation and more confident remediation.”

 “AI cannot resolve what it cannot see. Lightrun’s runtime context engine allows AI to see application behavior at a single line level of granularity, which positions us to streamline remediation for any software issues in real-time,” added Ilan Peleg, CEO of Lightrun. “Trusted by Fortune 100 companies and the largest enterprises in the world, Lightrun is proud to lead the way in making self-healing software a reality.”

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Feb 26 – Codio, the cloud-based teaching platform built to scale computer science and technical skills education, today announced it has been selected by GitHub as the exclusive commercial partner extending the options available to GitHub Education users to use cutting-edge CS-specific learning tech for course management and the hands-on student experience. Codio has supported major universities and tech companies globally at scale, delivering evidence-based tools designed to support and streamline instructor workflows, enhance the student learning experience, and integrate AI responsibly into teaching and learning.

Under this partnership, more than 3,000 instructors and 500,000 students who currently use GitHub Classroom will be eligible to transition their assignments and courses to Codio’s proven, enterprise-grade learning platform while retaining their GitHub-native workflows, including course materials, assignments, and grading scripts stored in Git repositories. Codio’s platform offers a robust environment for instruction and assessment, trusted for reliability at scale by hundreds of CS teaching institutions, with greater compute flexibility and modern AI tools, designed to help scale high-quality computing and tech skills programs.

“This partnership reflects our shared vision with GitHub to keep the computing and tech skills learning experience at the forefront of advances in edtech and learning experience design, while embracing the use of AI to enhance the learner experience,” said Doug Hughes, CEO of Codio. “We’re working closely with the GitHub Education team to give instructors an easy, disruption-free path to use Codio while retaining the workflows they rely on, and in doing so gain access to tooling, support, and learner experiences at the forefront of modern computing education.”

GitHub Classroom users will also gain access to Codio’s AI teaching assistant, Coach, which provides immediate feedback to help students with common challenges, such as programming error messages, without giving away answers. This approach has been shown to improve assignment completion rates, lower DWF rates, and raise median grade performance by 15%, while reducing the manual grading load. Codio’s platform also delivers advanced autograding, LLM rubric-based evaluation, and learner behavior insights across entire programs, features that make it possible to scale high-quality instruction to thousands of learners.

In partnering with GitHub, Codio is launching a dedicated onboarding program that includes migration tools, live sessions, and two flavors of free access, giving users the option to continue to use GitHub Codespaces or migrate fully to the Codio platform. Beyond the free tiers, institutions can enjoy preferential pricing with enhanced support options for the largest-scale users.

Chandigarh, Feb 26:  IndusInd Bank, today, announced that its digital banking channels are now live on the Next-gen UPI processing platform, marking a transformative leap in India’s real-time payments ecosystem. This new platform sets a fresh benchmark in digital banking by combining advanced speed, scalability, and reliability to deliver uninterrupted, high-performance payment experiences for millions of customers of the Bank as well as merchants across the country. 

Christened UPI 6.0, the platform is a 6th generation upgrade built by Mindgate Solutions, on a hyper-scalable, cloud-ready and resilient architecture which offers a state-of-the-art real-time payments stack. 

IndusInd Bank is the first private bank to go live on this next-gen processing platform, for both Issuer and Acquirer services on the cloud. This upgrade delivers 30% faster recovery time (RTO) and provides up to 75% higher scalability headroom with the current infrastructure. 

“At IndusInd Bank, our digital-first approach is driven by the foremost goal of enhancing customer experience,” said Ravi Pangal, Chief Information Officer, IndusInd Bank. “The next-generation UPI processing platform is another step forward in our commitment to deliver speed, resilience, and trust in every transaction. This milestone aligns seamlessly with our Digital strategy to create future-ready, intelligent banking ecosystems that serve individuals, merchants, and enterprises in real time.” 

The next-gen UPI processing platform is designed to deliver sub-second response times, near-zero technical declines, and seamless disaster recovery within minutes. Together, these capabilities ensure superior transaction reliability and operational continuity, even during peak volumes. 

IndusInd Bank’s Digital 2.0 strategy focuses on creating a seamless, secure, and intuitive banking ecosystem. The launch of its next-generation UPI processing platform reinforces this vision, delivering faster, resilient, and real-time payment experiences for customers.

Feb 26: Bangla ZEE5, unveiled the giant poster of the much-anticipated second season of Abar Proloy at Jatra Shuru Sangha Ground, Garia, igniting excitement among fans and audiences alike. Building on the momentum of the grand poster reveal, the official trailer of Season 2 was unveiled the following evening, offering audiences a gripping first glimpse into the high-octane drama that awaits. The highly anticipated new season is set to premiere on 27th February, exclusively on Bangla ZEE5.

Directed by Raj C, the cultural phenomenon that redefined Bengali crime thrillers is all set to return, bigger, bolder and more explosive than ever. The grand poster unveiling marked the beginning of the celebrations, with the much-awaited trailer being launched the following evening, further amplifying anticipation among fans. The unveiling was marked by the presence of the cast including Saswata Chatterjee, Sauraseni Maitra, Rohan Bhattacharya, Debasish Mondal and Raj C, Director, who shared their enthusiasm for the upcoming season.

Rusa Banerjee, Business Head, Bangla ZEE5 stated, “The love and response that Abar Proloy Season 1 received was truly phenomenal. It grew beyond a series to become a cultural conversation, with audiences embracing its characters and storytelling wholeheartedly. The grand poster unveiling of Season 2 reflects the scale and ambition with which we are approaching this new chapter. This season is bigger in ambition, grander in scale and truly gigantic in every sense,”

At the core of the narrative stands Animesh Dutta, the resolute and sharp-witted cop whose unwavering moral compass and commanding presence once again place him at the forefront of a brewing storm. The newly revealed poster hints at heightened stakes, sharper tension and an even more intense chapter ahead. The storm is building once again and Bengal is ready.

Abar Proloy Season 2 premieres on 27th February 2026, exclusively on Bangla ZEE5 – the storm returns, and this time, it is unstoppable.

LONDON, UK – Feb 26: IR Power, a Scottish energy tech firm owned by MWNW Group, introduces its cutting-edge solution to the vast industrial energy waste experienced when factory machines slow down – helping manufacturers to achieve extensive energy savings using a rental model where manufacturers pay nothing upfront and only pay from proven savings.

In modern factories, many large machines constantly speed up and slow down as part of normal operation; automotive presses lifting and lowering, conveyor systems starting and stopping, industrial mixers ramping up and down. Every time these machines decelerate, they generate electricity that’s currently wasted.

IR Power’s plug-and-play systems work like regenerative braking in electric cars, but for industrial equipment. They capture this energy (that would otherwise be burned off as heat) and feed it back into factory power grids for immediate reuse. On large automotive press lines typically consisting of machine clusters cycling every six seconds, this recaptures 10-20% of total electricity consumption – representing up to £50,000-100,000 in annual savings per machine cluster at current UK energy prices.

The problem: Proven technology, broken business model

While energy recovery technology has existed for years, previous solutions required expensive custom engineering that typically demanded weeks or months of install and interrupted operations, high upfront costs, and longer integration cycles – particularly where drive systems had to be modified or replaced. At historical electricity prices of £50/MWh, the complexity wasn’t justified. At today’s prices of £100-150/MWh – combined with binding net-zero commitments – the economics have fundamentally changed.

The solution: Redesigned technology and commercial model

IR Power has eliminated the adoption barriers that prevented previous solutions from scaling:

Standardised sizing – Three standard product sizes work across different applications, replacing expensive custom engineering that previously cost £30-40k or more.

Plug-and-play installation – Systems connect to existing equipment in hours. No modifications to machines, no changes to operations, and no production downtime.

Rental model – Customers pay nothing upfront. Monthly fees are based only on measured energy savings. If the system doesn’t save energy, customers don’t pay.

Equipment agnostic – Unlike solutions locked to one manufacturer’s drives or motors, IR Power’s systems integrate with any supplier. Factories can connect multiple machines into a single energy recovery network, optimising across the entire site.

Fail-safe design – When braking energy exceeds system capacity, excess safely routes to existing waste resistors while the system continues operating. Competitor systems often shut down completely when overloaded, requiring manual restarts.

Why now: Energy prices and net-zero create perfect storm

With industrial electricity prices doubling and manufacturers facing binding net-zero commitments, energy efficiency has shifted from ‘nice-to-have’ to business-critical. IR Power’s technology addresses both imperatives simultaneously: cutting costs and carbon.

Industrial machines have 20–30-year lifespans and even upgrading drive systems can cost £1m or more, making retrofit the viable route for capturing immediate savings. The rental model, typically approved as operating expense rather than capital, removes approval barriers and aligns incentives perfectly – IR Power only succeeds when customers save money.

Richard Bradshaw, Founder and Managing Director of IR Power, said:

“For years, energy recovery systems existed but didn’t deploy at scale because they cost too much and put all the risk on customers. We’ve inverted that model completely. Our customers pay zero upfront – no capital expenditure, just operating expense. Installation takes hours with no production downtime. And here’s the key: if our system doesn’t save them money, we don’t get paid; we take all the performance risk. The equipment lasts 15-20 years, so customers get over a decade of pure savings. The technology works – it always has. Our job was removing every barrier that prevented adoption: the cost, the complexity, the risk, and the disruption.”

Commercial deployment

IR Power is beginning commercial deployments in 2026, prioritising press applications including tier-one automotive and construction materials manufacturing. The company deliberately chose diverse sectors to prove the technology across different operating conditions before accelerating deployment.

The addressable market includes thousands of suitable machines across automotive, construction materials, food processing, and other sectors in the UK alone, with global expansion planned once the model is proven. Target applications include motor-driven machinery with frequent start/stop or speed-change cycles where braking energy is highest and most consistent.

Prospective customers can currently request a complimentary, no-obligation site assessment by contacting the IR Power team at info@i-r-power.com.

Mumbai, 26 Feb: A decade ago, Indian television meant the living room, the cable box and a primetime soap opera. Today it means a smartphone, a connected TV or a computer, a password and a catalogue of original content spanning a dozen languages, fifty genres and several hundred million viewers. The transformation has been staggering in speed and scale – and it has produced, as all industries eventually do, its own awards night.

The fourth edition of indiantelevision.com’s Indian Telly Streaming Awards (ITSA 2026) takes place on 27 February in Mumbai, and it arrives at a moment when India’s OTT industry is no longer merely promising. It has delivered. The country now ranks among the world’s most hotly contested streaming markets, with global giants and scrappy domestic upstarts alike competing for the attention – and the subscription fees – of one of the planet’s most voracious audiences.

The ceremony, hosted by actors Nakuul Mehta and Mukti Mohan, will draw together the people who built that story and the platforms that bankrolled it. The confirmed guest list reads like a directory of India’s streaming establishment. Manoj Bajpayee, who has spent the better part of a decade reminding audiences what serious acting looks like, is expected. So are Huma Qureshi, Ali Fazal, Rasika Dugal, Ishaan Khatter, Abhishek Banerjee, Vineet Kumar Singh, Boman Irani, Soha Ali Khan, among others. Cultural phenomenon Munawar Faruqui, screenwriter Kanika Dhillon and a clutch of directors, producers and platform executives round out an attendance list that reflects just how wide India’s streaming tent has become.

Crucially, the senior leadership of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, SonyLIV, JioHotstar and ZEE5 are expected to be in the room. In an industry still sorting out the economics of original content – where subscriber acquisition costs are high, churn is stubborn and profitability remains elusive for many – the presence of platform chiefs at an awards night is not merely ceremonial. It is a statement about where the industry believes it is going.

The awards span a comprehensive range of categories, and the breadth is deliberate. Performance honours cover Best Actor in OTT Original Films and Series. Programming categories recognise Best Director and Best Writer. Business and marketing excellence gets its own moment. Fan Favourite and Editorial Choice awards acknowledge the gap between critical consensus and popular appetite – a gap that, in streaming, is often considerable.

Then there are the regional categories, and these may matter most of all. Dedicated honours for storytelling in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, Odia and Gujarati languages serve as a pointed reminder that India’s content revolution is not a Hindi-language affair conducted out of Mumbai. It is a genuinely multilingual explosion, one in which a Malayalam thriller or a Bengali crime drama can outperform a big-budget Hindi original on any given weekend. The platforms have learned this lesson, sometimes painfully. ITSA is codifying it.

The event draws support from a formidable roster of production houses and platforms. Abundantia Entertainment, Applause Entertainment, Balaji Telefilms, Hoichoi, Pocket Aces, Pritish Nandy Communications, Shemaroo Entertainment and Z5 are among the names associated with ITSA 2026 – a coalition that spans legacy Hindi cinema production, digital-native studios and regional content specialists. The diversity of that list is itself a measure of how the industry has evolved.

Waman Hari Pethe Jewellers comes aboard as Presenting Partner, lending the evening a touch of old Mumbai grandeur. DS Spice joins as Spice Partner. Neither association is incidental; awards nights in India have always been as much about the business relationships they cement as the trophies they distribute.

Behind ITSA sits the Indiantelevision.com Group, and behind the group sits a family that has spent the better part of four decades chronicling and shaping India’s television, content, cable TV, advertising and media and more recently the streaming industries.

Anil Wanvari, Founder and CEO, is a veteran who understood early that Indian television would need to find its place in a global conversation. He served as India’s representative at MIPCOM and MIPJunior in Cannes – the largest content markets where international content deals are made – and played an active role with the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He has hosted International Emmy semi-final judging rounds in India, helping place Indian talent on the world stage long before that became fashionable.

His daughter Prerna Wanvari, Executive Director of the group, brings an unusual dual perspective to the organisation. A working actor known for roles in 24 Season 2, Bandini, Parichay and Hum Rahe Na Rahe Hum, she represented India as a presenter at the 40th International Emmy Awards in New York in 2012. Today she co-leads the ITV Group, steering it through a period of profound transition while preserving the institutional credibility it has spent decades accumulating.

His Son Mishaal Wanvari is building out the group’s newer frontiers. As co-founder of Anime India, he is cultivating a fast-growing platform dedicated to India’s anime and AVGC – Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics – ecosystem. As Treasurer of MIDCCA, the Maharashtra Immersive and Digital Content Creators Association, he is working to position Maharashtra as a serious global player in AVGC-XR innovation, a sector that the Indian government has identified as a strategic priority.

India’s streaming wars are far from settled. The battle for subscribers is intensifying, the cost of premium content continues to climb, and the question of which platforms will still be standing – in their current form – five years hence remains genuinely open. Against that backdrop, an awards night might seem like a luxury.

It is not. In a market defined by noise, fragmentation and relentless competition, shared moments of recognition matter. They establish standards, celebrate craft and remind an industry that can sometimes seem obsessed with metrics and monetisation that the thing it is actually selling is stories. Good ones, told well, in the languages that people dream in.

ITSA 2026, on 27th February 2026, intends to honour exactly that.