Ministry Of I&B Partners With Amazon India For Media, Entertainment and Public Awareness
The Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Shri Anurag Thakur, has announced a partnership between the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Amazon India. The partnership aims to promote media, entertainment and public awareness in India. Shri Thakur stated that India offers millions of stories that are yet to be told, covering a vast domain from spirituality to software, folklore to festivals, and from rural India to rising India. He added that Indian content has recently experienced success at international fora, and Indian actors have achieved high popularity among foreign audiences.
Shri Thakur also spoke about the steps taken by the Ministry to create a conducive atmosphere for the entertainment industry in India. The government recognizes the strengths and opportunities of the Indian entertainment industry, especially new platforms such as OTTs. The Ministry has recognized audiovisual services as a Champion Services Sector and recently brought out the self-regulatory framework of OTT content regulation.
The partnership with Amazon is unique on a number of counts and spans across various aspects of the creative industry. The initiative would help to reduce the period of struggle for the talented artists coming out of prestigious film institutes of India by providing scholarships, internships, masterclasses, and other opportunities for students at Film and Television Institute of India and Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India.
Shri Thakur voiced his concern for the quality of content on OTT platforms, stating that they have the responsibility of ensuring that their platforms do not propagate vulgarity and abuse camouflaged as creative expressions. OTT must reflect the collective conscience of the country.
The collaboration with Amazon includes the promotion of Indian heritage through a dedicated catalog of Publication Division’s books on India’s culture on the Amazon e-commerce website, and the promotion of Indian music on Amazon Music and Alexa. As part of the talent development component, Amazon Prime Video would sponsor scholarships, create internship programs, and offer job opportunities for students of FTII and SRFTI.
Amazon would work with NFDC to increase the ease of availability of information about Indian artists on IMDb, a global database for the creative industry. As part of the collaboration with the Ministry, the International Film Festival of India Award-winning films, and films produced as part of India’s international co-production treaties would be onboarded by Amazon Prime Video for being available to a global audience. APV and MiniTV would onboard the rich archival content owned by Prasar Bharati and NFDC for easy access to the youth of the country and across the world.
Guest of Honour for the event, Shri Varun Dhawan spoke about the depths being reached by streaming services and said Indian cinema by way of streaming is now reaching a world stage and streaming services have today given Indian content a reach hitherto unimaginable. Shri Dhawan highlighted that streaming services act as a leveler and said that “new actors and creators, talent that had so far remained on sidelines can now connect with audiences worldwide.”
The Secretary, the Ministry of I&B, Shri Apoorva Chandra, said that the partnership between MIB and Amazon would lead to opportunities for Indian talent at the national and international levels. The Vice President, Asia Pacific, Amazon Prime Video, Sh Gaurav Gandhi, said that the holistic collaboration with the Ministry of I&B looks at every life stage and every corner of integration to stimulate the growth of the industry, and they are very optimistic about the pathways it will create.
The partnership between the various organizations under the Ministry and various verticals of Amazon aims to promote media, entertainment, and public awareness in India. The collaboration would help to reduce the period of struggle for the talented artists coming out of prestigious film institutes of India. It includes the promotion of Indian heritage, talent development, and showcasing Indian content at a global stage.
