India to be third largest M&E market in 5 years: Anurag Thakur

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Monday said India will become the third-largest media and entertainment market in the world in the next five years.

Speaking at the inauguration of the 54th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Panaji, Thakur said a first the event will see is the recognition of the OTT segment.

"India, on the one hand, has become the fifth largest economy in the world. It is also the fifth largest in the world in terms of the media and entertainment industry. In the next five years, India is going to be the third-largest economy in the world as well as the third-largest media and entertainment market," he said.

"Similar to last year's edition when we initiated some firsts, we continue that spirit with some more firsts in this edition. For the first time and from hereon, IFFI will bestow the best web series OTT award. It will acknowledge the transformative role of original content creators in India and celebrate their contribution to employment and innovation," he said.

This recognition is also given to OTT because it entertained people when "everything was closed" during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Union minister said.

"The OTT (segment) is currently growing at a rate of 28 per cent. That is why we decided to institute this award," Thakur added.

Another first in this year's edition was the augmenting of the scope of 'Film Bazaar' (an event held on the sidelines of the festival) by introducing a well-curated VFX and tech pavilion to showcase innovation from the cinema world, a documentary section support non-fiction storytelling, he added.

"For the time, we also present Cine Mela, an extravagant celebration of our diversity and culture. The IFFI has also introduced a section on restored classic feature films," he said.

"We are going to show you seven world premieres of meticulously restored masterpieces of NFDC (National Film Development Corporation) and NFAI (National Film Archive of India) under the National Film Heritage Mission. Under this mission, 5,000 films and documentaries would be restored and digitized," Thakur informed.

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