It’s a moment of truth for the Indian Film Industry

Today, we stand at a moment of reckoning with the rise of artificial intelligence. Unlike past shifts, AI is reshaping the very architecture of the internet and reconfiguring vast swathes of business and human endeavour.

Preceding this AI inflection point was the Covid-19 pandemic—a global event that didn’t just push us indoors but transformed the way we interact with the world around us. How we work, shop, consume content, and entertain ourselves has been irreversibly altered. This dramatic shift in consumer behaviour in India, accelerated by a rapid embrace of digital, lies at the heart of this issue’s cover story by Krishna Gopalan.

The Rs 18,700-crore Indian film industry is facing its moment of truth. The chaos traces back to the pandemic-era OTT gold rush, when platforms competed fiercely for releases, pushing up star fees and production costs. Now, with several high-stake releases floundering and OTT players pulling back, many films are left without buyers. The costs, however, continue to soar. For the model to survive, someone will have to blink.

In this situation, actor-producer Aamir Khan has opted to go against the grain. He has not sold the OTT rights of his latest film, Sitaare Zameen Par. The superstar tells BT that he wants the audience to watch his movies in the theatre since OTTs “cannibalise” the theatrical business, which is still the mainstay for the industry.

Elsewhere in the corporate landscape, another moment of reckoning is quietly unfolding around the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Once hailed as a milestone, the IBC finds itself under scrutiny. Delays, meagre recovery rates, and a recent judicial intervention have chipped away at its appeal. Most cases drag on well beyond the prescribed 180-day period, hindered by a slow-moving Committee of Creditors, promoter pushback, and overstretched National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) benches. As Surabhi reports, with recoveries languishing at around 30% of admitted claims, calls to revisit and strengthen the IBC are growing louder.

On a different front, Dalal Street is facing tremors from the alleged manipulation by Jane Street, a US-based trading firm. Rahul Oberoi and Riddhima Bhatnagar unpack how this case has exposed the post-Covid explosion in F&O trading, and the vulnerabilities that come with it. While domestic retail investors continue to grow in number and influence, global players like Jane Street must not be allowed to treat Indian markets casually, says Mayank Bansal, president of a UAE-based hedge fund. “Jane Street and US hedge funds take India lightly. That should not be tolerated. At the same time, reducing expiries is not the answer. It kills legitimate business,” he adds. His solution: a suitability test to better shield small investors from predatory strategies.

How Sebi concludes the Jane Street investigation and the legal battle that ensues could well become one of its most significant chapters yet, a test not just of regulation, but of the robustness of India’s maturing capital markets.