India Today Group rocks at WAVES 2025 with AI, awards, and anthem. Key details inside
The Creator Awards (Create in India Challenge) Season 1 concluded with a grand awards ceremony at the World Audio Visual Entertainment Summit 2025, held at the Jio World Centre, Mumbai, on 2nd of May 2025, Celebrating India's emergence as a global creative powerhouse. Spearheaded by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the initiative recognised exceptional talent across 32 categories spanning animation, gaming, filmmaking, AI, music, and digital art.
A day prior, in his inaugural address, during his keynote address at the inaugural World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025, held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised India's potential to become a global hub for content creation.
He urged creators worldwide to "Create in India, Create for the World," highlighting the nation's rich storytelling heritage and the convergence of content, creativity, and culture as pillars of the 'Orange Economy'. He lauded the Create in India Challenge as a step forward in cementing India's position as a global hub for media and entertainment.
The Creation in India Challenge awards drew more than 100,000 entries from 60 countries, with 750 finalists and over 150 winners honoured at the grand finale hosted by India Today Group. The ceremony was graced by iconic figures including Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis, State Minister of I&B - L Murugan, Secretary, MIB-Sh. Sanjay Jaju, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, India Today Group, Mr Aroon Purie, Aamir Khan, Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty, Akkineni Nagarjuna, and Prasoon Joshi. Creative award winners
At the ceremony, the Chief Guest, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, congratulated the winners while reaffirming his earlier announcement of the establishment of the Indian Institute of Creative Technology, envisioned as a premier institution akin to the IITs, dedicated to nurturing creative innovation.
Speaking at the Ceremony, Chief Minister of Maharashtra Sh. Devendra Fadnavis said, 'I congratulate Secretary Jaju ji, Minister Vaishnav ji, and I believe that the waves we are seeing today are fulfilling our honourable Prime Minister Modi's dream of positioning India at the forefront of the creators' economic ecosystem.'
Minister of State L. Muruganc congratulated the winners and youngster, 'You're applying your creativity with technology, and we are all able to succeed like your young minds. Thank you very much", while noting the remarkable participation of women creators.
Actor and Producer, Sh. Aamir Khan congratulated the Ministry of I&B, 'Congratulations again, Sanjay ji(Sanjay Jaju). It's an amazing opportunity for young people. "Our country is huge, with many talented people everywhere. "I always felt Waves would give them a chance to showcase their work, and I'm so happy it's coming out so well.'
India Today Group's Editor-in-Chief & Chairman, Aroon Purie, applauded the initiative by the govt. 'I'm quite sure this wave is going to become a tsunami of creativity, and I am delighted that we are honouring all these young people with awards.' INDIA TODAY GROUP LEADS THE CELEBRATIONS OF CREATIVITY
As the Official AI Partner to WAVES 2025, the India Today Group played a pivotal role in conceptualising and executing the WAVES Creator Awards – Create in India Challenge Ceremony and Red Carpet.
As a tribute to the WAVES2025, the India Today Group created a special All-AI Generated WAVES Anthem featuring the India Today Group's AI Pop Star - DRIP.
Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis launched the ground-breaking Waves, which is entirely AI-generated, from composition and lyrics to visual storytelling, graphics, and production—was conceptualised and executed by the India Today Group. India Today Group rocks at WAVES 2025 with AI, awards, and anthem. Key details inside
The Award ceremony was hosted by Karan Singh Chhabra and attended by leading creators from across the globe.
Besides the Creator Awards, at the WAVES 2025, India Today's AI anchor Sana emerged as a showstopper, delivering real-time agenda updates in 16 languages, including 11 Indian regional languages.
Projected across multiple venue screens, Sana ensured seamless, inclusive communication throughout the summit, highlighting the power of AI in multilingual and accessible storytelling.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Gazette
3 hours ago
- India Gazette
Thrissur: Union MoS Suresh Gopi meets Malayalam actor Shine Tom Chacko in hospital
Thrissur (Kerala) [India], June 7 (ANI): Union Minister of State for Tourism & Petroleum and Natural Gas, Suresh Gopi, met actor Shine Tom Chacko at a private hospital in Thrissur. Malayalam actor Chacko was admitted to the hospital after he met with a road accident in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Chacko and his family were in a car accident, in which the actor lost his father. South India International Movies Awards (SIIMA) took to X and extended condolences to Chacko and his family. SIIMA wrote, 'Malayalam actor Shine Tom Chacko was injured in a tragic car accident near Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu. The accident claimed the life of his father, CP Chacko, who died on the spot. The family was en route to Bengaluru when their car collided with a stationary lorry. Shine, along with his mother, brother, and driver, sustained injuries and is currently undergoing treatment. SIIMA extends its heartfelt condolences to Shine Tom Chacko and his family during this time of grief.' Chacko was recently arrested in a narcotics case and was later released on bail. Malayalam actors Chacko and Sreenath Bhasi appeared before excise officials in Alappuzha in April, as part of an ongoing investigation into the seizure of hybrid ganja worth approximately Rs 2 crore earlier that month. The drugs were discovered in the possession of a woman, who allegedly told the excise authorities that she had consumed drugs alongside both Chacko and Bhasi. Based on her statement, the excise department issued notices to the actors, prompting their appearance for questioning. Chacko has previously also faced allegations of drug use and misconduct. On April 22, the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA) issued a final warning to the actor, urging him to refrain from any further drug use or disruptive behaviour on film sets. (ANI)
Mint
9 hours ago
- Mint
For Sai Srinivas of Mobile Premier League, the game is always on
It's easy for people to put a value to a loss they've had," says Garimella Sai Srinivas Kiran, the co-founder of gaming company M-League, which runs the Mobile Premier League (MPL). '(But) It's hard to put a value to these intangible gains, right? You only notice them in the long term. In the short term, you only see the pain." Startup founders tend to be philosophical, a by-product of betting big on a non-existent product and making it work, despite the obstacles and the body blows. The seven-year-old skill-gaming platform MPL. which has free and paid components and a portfolio of over 60 games, probably does not qualify as a startup anymore, but tends to fall into the bracket by virtue of being a tech company. M-League, which now has five companies including the Berlin-based GameDuell, has a portfolio that includes skill gaming, free-to-play games, game publishing and AAA game studio (high-budget, high-profile games). With over 220 million users across MPL and GameDuell in 32 countries, a unicorn valuation as of the last fund raise in 2021, presence in Asia, Europe, North America and Africa, and 600-odd employees, the company straddles the challenging business of skill gaming. Its revenue in FY24 was $130 million. Sai was in Mumbai in early May for the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (Waves), a government-sponsored event. In the business centre of the Sofitel Hotel in Bandra Kurla Complex, close to the venue for Waves where MPL had a booth, the 37-year-old, dressed casually in a collared T-shirt, slacks and a cap, orders an Americano. He has an easy-going manner, and a dimpled boyish smile that he uses liberally. Sai is temporarily stationed in Singapore these days, where M-League is headquartered, while his co-founder Shubh Malhotra and Galactus Funware Technology Pvt Ltd, the operating entity for MPL, are based in Bengaluru. Since losing his father last year, Sai says he has started valuing his time more and separating his professional and personal identities. 'One of my core philosophies in life is anonymity. I want to focus on my business," he explains. 'I really enjoy travelling; I can travel literally 60 days with one suitcase, keep moving from one place to the other." Born in Hyderabad—his father was a deputy manager in a bank, mother a teacher in a government school—Sai's academic journey fell into two innings. He was 'not very good" in the beginning, but an inexplicable switch turned after class VI. By the time he reached the board exam stage, he wanted to study aerospace engineering. Also read: What Siddharth Roy Kapur wants: Fresh stories told in unique voices He got into IIT Kanpur which had, among other things, a dedicated leased line for fast (for those times) internet speed. However, he soon became disenchanted with the education system there and his enthusiasm for making aircraft withered away. 'For people coming from a normal background like us, the first important level of freedom we need to attain is mastery of our time," says Sai, who graduated in 2010 as one of the few in his batch without a campus placement. One of his highlights at IIT turned out to be organising the cultural festival, Antaragni, which included the music festival Synchronicity. What this first, quasi-entrepreneurial voluntary role did was to get him access to his first job, which was a brief stint as product manager with a digital company in Delhi. He was soon recruited by Zynga in Bengaluru as a game designer, though he had no such experience. 'I played a lot of games while growing up," he admits. 'My dad and I were always particular about getting new gadgets, like the Nokia 3310 and the (gaming console) Super Nintendo." Zynga, with its popular game Farmville, was going 'absolute gangbusters" at the time, which put Sai in the 'right place, right time". It also helped that he didn't like Delhi too much and moving to Bengaluru was not a challenge. The third benefit, unbeknownst to him at the time, was that the friend's place he temporarily stayed at had another roommate, Malhotra. A year-and-a-half later, Sai and Malhotra got ready with their first venture, CREO Tech. Their first product, Tewee, was a wireless HDMI dongle to stream videos over a Wi-Fi network, like the Amazon Firestick. The idea seemed to fit in at a time when streaming services were making their forays into the country. 'We were foolish enough to say let's make hardware," he says now. 'We used to download these documents in Chinese and spend days translating them and figuring out what they hacked our way to getting the product out." They sold over 50,000 units, but making hardware was challenging. Other similar products were getting into the market; the duo realised they needed to pivot. In the company of some 'smart engineers" they hired through their college network, their next venture was an Android-based operating system and smartphone, which also turned out to be an error in hindsight. 'I'll tell you the problem with making a phone and with hardware in general," he says. 'For example, let's assume I ship software and I left a bug in it. I'm just going to patch the software and I'll fix it. Life is okay, all good. With hardware, even if you make one mistake, the amount of time it's going to take to correct that mistake in the next iteration and then get it right—it's just massive." After several struggles, managing to make only a few thousand of the product Creo Mark 1, they sold the company to messenger service Hike in 2016-17. 'If a river is flowing downstream and you're standing on the bank and you see this guy on a boat going really fast, you tend to assume that it's the person rowing. But it's actually the underlying river. That's the market: If you're in the right place, right time, right market, even if you are really stupid, you'll be okay," says Sai. After going through a period of angst, when they felt like they would never work together again, Malhotra and Sai made a deal not to have friends as employees, and that 'the outcome is always more important than output". Having decided that their next turn would be in the field of online gaming, because of his experience in the field, the newly formed Galactus Funware went live with the MPL in September 2018. With about $5.5 million ( ₹36.5 crore at the time) at the get-go, a fairly large seed round, from Sequoia Capital, their ascent was rapid—a term sheet in April, an early team by May and the first prototype by July. A friends and family round by end of August leading up to the launch. By December, MPL had a million daily active users. But the challenges were continuous and constant. In May 2019, MPL was kicked out of the Play Store due to Google's developer policy (it relaxed its policy on real-money gaming last year), along with other gaming platforms like Dream11. 'We would be the only company in India's ecosystem that started, raised a lot of money, got to a million daily active users and shut its doors within the year," Sai says grinning. Then by the second half of 2019 they almost ran out of money, looking to raise a bridge round which came in the form of $90m led by Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital. '2019 for me was the most foundationally painful year. If Creo was tough from a different standpoint, this was toughness induced by my own stupidity," he says. Cricketer Virat Kohli came on board as their brand ambassador. The following year, MPL signed on with the Board of Control for Cricket in India to be the kit sponsor for the Indian team. With the pandemic, the founders had to navigate working remotely, and between 2020-21, the company went from 120 employees to 1,200, perhaps hiring too many people too fast. 'In my 10 years of doing start-ups, I believe, that is the most unpardonable mistake," he admits. As MPL went global, especially into the US in July 2021, and acquired European company GameDuell in early 2022, 'one of the smartest things to have done", it also laid off 10% of its force and shut down its Indonesia office. But the business, on the back of the pandemic-induced lockdown that catalysed the online gaming industry, grew by 50%. Just when 2023 seemed on the up, hitting 200 million users and a foray into Africa, the government in August announced a 28% GST on funds online gaming companies collect from customers. Mint had in November quoted a report by gaming-focused venture capital firm Lumikai, which had India's gaming market growing 23% year-on-year by revenue to $3.8 billion in 2023-24 despite 28% GST on online gaming. Propelled by the pandemic-induced lockdowns, online gaming is booming, despite some amount of social stigma, and some legal battles, most of which have been dismissed by the courts. 'We looked at this entire GST thing and said this is essentially the start line being redrawn," remembers Sai. MPL laid off 350 employees—half of its force—to survive the tax burden in 2023. Recovery was aided by GameDuell, which helped grow revenue more than three times. MPL started to take off in the US and Brazil, with 40% of its current revenues coming from abroad. 'It's a personal ambition that we want to build a product that stands globally," Sai explains. 'The professional ambition is that things are evolving in a developing country, so there is no certainty for a business to thrive." While MPL as a business competes with platforms like WinZO and Zupee among others, it is more comparable to Nazara Technologies, which is publicly listed. Sai, though, prefers to see his competition coming from Chinese gaming conglomerate Tencent. As he gets ready to head back to Waves, he talks about reading, spending a lot of time just being idle, really enjoying the mundane. 'One of the reasons why I enjoy living in Singapore," he says thoughtfully, 'or spending time with my partner in Dubai, is that in India, these amazing pleasures of doing your own domestic chores have been taken away thanks to the massive amount of help, which is great. But I really enjoy doing my breakfast, putting my clothes in these daily rituals." Also read: Vaibhav Kala of Aquaterra Adventures: The outdoors man
Time of India
13 hours ago
- Time of India
Shaniwarwada light and sound show falls to operators' whims and fancies
1 2 3 Pune: Union minister of culture and tourism Gajendra Shekhawat, who visited Shaniwarwada on Thursday, announced the use of modern technology, such as the audio-visual guide system, to enhance the visitors' experiences. However, the light and sound show at this historical monument, which started around two decades ago, is operating in fits and starts. Visitors said they are often denied entry to the show due to technical glitches. The operators of the show impose conditions like "no refund of ticket fees in case of rain" as weather protection or roof covers are not available in the spectators' section. Civic officials said the show started in 2000 and is held daily from 7pm to 9pm. It features a water screen created using pressure pumps and jet nozzles, on which a 45-minute short film about the history of Shaniwarwada is projected. Visitor Manisha Kolhapure said that the operators put conditions while giving tickets. "The operators claimed that if a particular number of tickets are not sold, they will not conduct the show. We came to visit the place and see the show. If they are scheduled, they should be held without any prerequisites like the number of attendees," she added. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Shivajinagar Madhuri Datar said that they planned a group trip to the monument but had to postpone it. "We learned that the shows get cancelled due to rain and other issues. There are no arrangements to protect citizens from showers. So we preferred to plan the tour at a more suitable time," she said. Civic officials said the shows stopped months ago due to technical glitches. Some lights used for the show were damaged, so the visitors were not allowed to attend it. The system was damaged in 2009 and 2022. "The problem pertained to equipment used for lights which has now been repaired. The show has been getting a good response. The issues raised by the visitors will be addressed," Manisha Shekatkar, head of PMC's electrical department, said. The administration is preparing a plan to upgrade the system. Shaniwarwada, a 13-storey fort palace of the Peshwas, was built by Bajirao Peshwa I in 1736. The residential fort complex saw many chapters of the Peshwas' history, where the stories were not only about the brave and influential administrators but also about gruesome deaths and their fall. It is among the most popular tourist attractions in Pune, from the ruins to the fort's five doorways – Delhi Darwaza, Khidki Darwaza, Ganesh Darwaza, Narayan Darwaza, and Mastani Darwaza. Pune: Union minister of culture and tourism Gajendra Shekhawat, who visited Shaniwarwada on Thursday, announced the use of modern technology, such as the audio-visual guide system, to enhance the visitors' experiences. However, the light and sound show at this historical monument, which started around two decades ago, is operating in fits and starts. Visitors said they are often denied entry to the show due to technical glitches. The operators of the show impose conditions like "no refund of ticket fees in case of rain" as weather protection or roof covers are not available in the spectators' section. Civic officials said the show started in 2000 and is held daily from 7pm to 9pm. It features a water screen created using pressure pumps and jet nozzles, on which a 45-minute short film about the history of Shaniwarwada is projected. Visitor Manisha Kolhapure said that the operators put conditions while giving tickets. "The operators claimed that if a particular number of tickets are not sold, they will not conduct the show. We came to visit the place and see the show. If they are scheduled, they should be held without any prerequisites like the number of attendees," she added. Shivajinagar Madhuri Datar said that they planned a group trip to the monument but had to postpone it. "We learned that the shows get cancelled due to rain and other issues. There are no arrangements to protect citizens from showers. So we preferred to plan the tour at a more suitable time," she said. Civic officials said the shows stopped months ago due to technical glitches. Some lights used for the show were damaged, so the visitors were not allowed to attend it. The system was damaged in 2009 and 2022. "The problem pertained to equipment used for lights which has now been repaired. The show has been getting a good response. The issues raised by the visitors will be addressed," Manisha Shekatkar, head of PMC's electrical department, said. The administration is preparing a plan to upgrade the system. Shaniwarwada, a 13-storey fort palace of the Peshwas, was built by Bajirao Peshwa I in 1736. The residential fort complex saw many chapters of the Peshwas' history, where the stories were not only about the brave and influential administrators but also about gruesome deaths and their fall. It is among the most popular tourist attractions in Pune, from the ruins to the fort's five doorways – Delhi Darwaza, Khidki Darwaza, Ganesh Darwaza, Narayan Darwaza, and Mastani Darwaza. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Eid wishes , messages , and quotes !
