Ashwini Vaishnaw calls for global collaboration to promote local stories at WAVES 2025

Mumbai: Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday urged global stakeholders to unite in fostering local storytelling, cultural preservation, and a fair creative economy through structured international collaboration. 

Speaking at the Global Media Dialogue as part of the ongoing World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025, Vaishnaw outlined a three-pillared vision built around creativity, culture, and collaboration.

“Creativity transforms imagination into shared experience,” the minister said, as he called on governments to ensure a fair chance for creators to bring their stories to the world. “As a government, we must provide a fair chance for everyone to showcase their story to the world.”

Vaishnaw emphasised the importance of incentivising local content promotion and anchoring intellectual property (IP) rights within a proper legal framework. 

“We must incentivise local content promotion and enshrine IP rights in a proper framework of things that lead to thriving creativity,” he said.

This push, he argued, was vital to nurturing indigenous storytelling and ensuring that creators from all corners of the world receive equitable opportunities in the global content marketplace.

Highlighting culture as both inspiration and bridge, Vaishnaw said that cultural narratives are at the heart of creativity and play a pivotal role in building bonds between nations.

“Culture inspires creativity and it connects people across borders. We must support policies that preserve and promote all cultural forms,” he said, adding that the global media ecosystem is now witnessing a strong shift toward “local stories, in local culture” that encourage not just people-to-people but country-to-country exchange.

The minister stressed that collaboration is the cornerstone of meaningful creative exchange. “Nothing happens in an island. We all have to collaborate for common senses,” he noted, advocating for structured cooperation between governments, creators, and the media industry.

He proposed a series of practical steps to formalise this cooperation, ranging from co-production treaties and easing of talent movement, to joint innovation funds, and harmonised standards for emerging technologies.

“These collaborations have a huge value,” he asserted, calling for international frameworks that reduce friction for creative partnerships and allow ideas to travel freely.

WAVES Media Declaration in the works

Vaishnaw also confirmed that a draft WAVES Media Declaration had been circulated among participating countries, reflecting a collective intent to bridge divides, preserve cultural diversity, and foster fair, innovative markets.

“This draft iteration captures our shared goals, bridging traditional divides, preserving cultural diversity, and fostering fair, innovative markets,” he said, inviting delegates to refine the text so it represents every region’s voice and aspiration.

The declaration is expected to be one of the key outcomes of the WAVES 2025 summit, which has brought together over 90 countries, 10,000 delegates, and more than 1,000 creators in Mumbai. It aims to establish a global framework for collaboration in media, entertainment, and digital storytelling.

“Today’s roundtable is our chance to shape the text so that it reflects every region and every aspiration,” Vaishnaw concluded, thanking global delegations for their active participation in the drafting process.