MAM
A tale of a storyteller…
MUMBAI: At 34, Hetal Adesara has seen it all… Rather, that’s what she would have us believe through her maiden book, ‘Matrimonial Mocktales.’
From a traditional Gujarati family in Jamshdepur, Hetal, left the small town in East India to get away from being hurled into another traditional Gujarati family through the instituition of arranged marriage. She saw many a “suitable boy” and was seen by many of them as and when her parents referred them to her even as she moved to Mumbai.
‘Matrimonial Mocktales’ is Hetal’s take on a few of these meetings. She does mention though that the instances are dramatized for a better reading experience.
After escaping from Tatanagar, Hetal cut her teeth in journalism in indiantelevision.com by starting and editing The Team Players section which profiled young executives in advertising, marketing, broadcast. She then moved on to report on media, marketing and advertising developments. Her commitment to work and sharp and clear analyses left an impression on whosoever she interviewed or wrote about in the television, advertising and marketing industries between 2003-2005.
She has explored every opportunity that has come her way over the past decade. Following her stint with indiantelevision.com, she helped co-found businessofcinema.com. From writing about films, she went onto to work as an assistant producer with Vidhu Vinod Chopra on 3 Idiots. She then tried her hand at direction, assisting director Rohan Sippy on Nautanki Saala apart from working as script supervisor on the same film. More recently, she worked on the IIFA Awards at Tampa Bay as executive producer for television and digital content.
But all along Hetal nursed in her heart a deep desire to pen her own novel. Which this diploma holder in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications finally fulfilled last year when she wrote ‘Matrimonial Mocktales’. It took her two years to get the book published. But she finally found a publisher in OM Books International.
‘Matrimonial Mocktales’ revolves around young Rhea, who always wanted a Mills & Boon romance but in the real world, that is probably too much to ask. She is raised in a conservative Sikh family in Jalandhar where it is unthinkable for a girl to remain unmarried at 25, let alone 33. But there she is, single and independent and STILL in search of her Mr Right. At just 15, her parents get her engaged to a 23-year-old boy but that story does not pan out as per plan. Having entered the arena of love on a wrong footing, it takes the better part of her young life to find the right man before a whole lot of wrong ones come and go, even as she tries to make sense of her chaotic world.
Hetal believes many a young girl who has escaped – or is struggling to escape – from the clutches of arranged marriage will identify with Rhea the character. “Rhea is educated but because of family pressure she goes through what they ask her to do. It could be any other girl from any other small town who has dreams to achieve and be happy with the man she loves, and not the man that’s chosen for her,” she says. “That should resonnate with today’s women.”
Quite a few eyebrows were raised, even among Hetal’s friends, at her move to quit working and take time off to write her novel. But, resolute young woman that she is, she did not let any of their reservations hold her back.
“As a kid, I loved scribbling poems and dreamt of becoming a writer. God has been kind to me and I am sure there is a lot more in store for me,” says she.
Indeed, Hetal is already working on the sequel to ‘Matrimonial Mocktales’. “I want to continue to write stories because I think it is an enriching experience,” she adds.
What would she advise young, budding writers out there? “There is a huge market out there which is unexplored in the publishing industry in India. Get the right inspiration and get to penning it down right,” she says.
We at indiantelevision.com wish our former employee and colleague good luck and recommend readers to and pick up a copy of her book for a good weekend read! It will be money well spent!
MAM
Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement
Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted
MUMBAI: Nielsen is taking a fresh stab at one of television’s oldest blind spots: how many people are actually watching the same screen. The audience-measurement giant on February 4 unveiled a co-viewing pilot that uses wearable devices to better capture shared viewing, starting with America’s biggest broadcast stage.
The trial begins with Super Bowl LX on NBC on February 8, 2026, before extending to other high-profile live sports and entertainment events in the first half of the year. The goal is simple but commercially potent: count viewers more accurately, especially during live spectacles that pull families and friends to one screen.
The new approach leans on Nielsen’s proprietary wearable meters, wrist-worn devices that resemble smartwatches. These passively capture audio signatures from TV content, logging exposure to shows, films and live events without requiring viewers to sign in or self-report. In theory, fewer clicks, fewer lapses, better data.
Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s ceo, cast the move as part of a broader measurement push. He said the company’s task is to keep pushing accuracy as clients invest heavily in live programming that draws mass audiences. The co-viewing pilot, he added, builds on upgrades such as Big Data + Panel measurement, out-of-home expansion, live-streaming metrics and wearable-based tracking.
Co-viewing is not new territory for Nielsen, which has long tried to estimate how many people sit before a single set. What is new is the heavier integration of wearables and passive detection to reduce reliance on active inputs from panel homes.
For now, the pilot comes with caveats. Co-viewing estimates from the trial will not be folded into Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings, which remain the industry’s trading currency. Instead, pilot findings will be shared with clients a few weeks after final Big Data + Panel ratings are delivered. Clients may disclose those findings publicly.
More impact data will follow later this year. Full integration into Nielsen’s marketing-intelligence suite is slated as a longer-term play, with a target of bringing co-viewing into currency measurement for the 2026–2027 season. This is only phase one, with further co-viewing enhancements planned beyond 2026 and additional timelines to be announced.
The push fits a wider pattern. Nielsen has in recent years expanded big-data integration, adopted first-party data for live-streaming measurement and broadened out-of-home tracking. It also positions itself as the reference point for streaming metrics through products such as The Gauge and the Nielsen Streaming Top 10.
In a market where billions of ad dollars hinge on decimal points, counting who is in the room matters. If Nielsen can pin down shared viewing, the humble sofa could become prime measurement real estate. The race to count every eyeball just found a new wrist to watch.
Brands
Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board
Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.
Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.
“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.
The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.
Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.
The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.
MAM
Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships
At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.
Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.
Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.
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