ITV

Tag: Egypt

  • Amazon expands Anish’s empire across Middle East and Africa

    Amazon expands Anish’s empire across Middle East and Africa

    DUBAI: Amazon has promoted a veteran marketing executive to oversee both deal-making across the Middle East and North Africa and marketing operations in South Africa, as the American e-commerce giant doubles down on emerging markets.

    Anish  Rajan, who previously orchestrated Amazon India’s flagship sale events generating over $2 billion in revenue, has been handed the expanded role effective September 2025. His promotion adds south African marketing responsibilities to his existing mandate as head of deals and events across the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

    The appointment reflects Amazon’s growing ambitions in regions where it sees significant untapped potential. Rajan’s west Asian operation already contributes 23 per cent of the region’s annual revenue, whilst launching Amazon-first innovations that have since been rolled out globally.

    His track record spans 15 years across e-commerce, consumer electronics and logistics. Before joining Amazon in 2020, he held senior marketing roles at Samsung Electronics and led marketing communications for fashion platform Jabong during its high-growth phase.

    At Amazon India, Anish spearheaded the deals programme that accounted for 39 per cent of store revenue, building scalable systems and customer experience improvements that were subsequently adopted across Amazon’s global marketplaces.

    His earlier career included stints at Micromax, where he led brand strategy and product launches, and DHL Express, where he managed global partnerships including Formula 1 and Manchester United, overseeing a $30 million retail portfolio.

    The dual-region role positions Anish at the centre of Amazon’s emerging markets strategy, where the company is competing fiercely with local players and other global platforms for market share.

  • JSW Indian Open serves up a smash as India’s first PSA Copper event

    JSW Indian Open serves up a smash as India’s first PSA Copper event

    MUMBAI: Squash fever is set to grip Mumbai as JSW Sports announces the JSW Indian Open, India’s first PSA Squash Copper event, scheduled to take place from 24-28 March at Bombay Gymkhana. This landmark event will bring together India’s top squash players, including Ramit Tandon, Velavan Senthilkumar, Veer Chotrani, Anahat Singh, and Akanksha Salunkhe, alongside global talent from Egypt, Canada, Malaysia, and Japan.

    With squash making its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, JSW Sports is making a bold statement with this tournament. Parth Jindal, Founder, JSW Sports, highlighted the event’s significance:
    Speaking on the tournament JSW Sports founder Parth Jindal said, “With squash set to make its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, now is as good a time as any to give the sport the fillip it needs. The JSW Indian Open is a statement of intent from Indian squash, and we are excited to give some of the best Indian and global talent a platform through this tournament.”

    India No.1 Ramit Tandon, who is also represented by JSW Sports, said, “It’s always special to compete at home, and having a PSA event like the JSW Indian Open in India is a huge boost for the sport. The level of competition is right up there, and it’s a great opportunity for Indian players to test themselves against the best. With squash making its Olympic debut at LA28, events like these are crucial in building momentum and inspiring the next generation.”

    PSA CEO Alex Gough welcomed the return of a PSA tournament to India, calling it a significant step for the sport’s growth. “Hosting world-class events on home soil not only helps Indian players compete at the highest level but also strengthens the squash ecosystem,” he said. He also emphasized the role of such tournaments in expanding the sport’s reach. “By bringing elite competitions to India, we are creating a pathway for young players to develop, grow the fan base, and ensure the sport continues to thrive.”

    India’s women number 2, Anahat Singh also shared her excitement about the tournament, saying, “Bringing a top-tier PSA event to India is a game-changer for players and fans alike. Competing against top international players pushes us to be better, and it’s an amazing opportunity to grow. With squash making its Olympic debut at LA28, events like these are key to building excitement and inspiring young players to dream big.”

    With a prize purse of 40,000 dollars the JSW Indian Open marks the return of a major squash tournament to India after a six-year hiatus, the last being the CCI International in 2018. The competition will unfold across Bombay Gymkhana’s indoor courts, with the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final set to be played on a full-glass outdoor court, offering fans a thrilling spectacle. As the countdown begins, Mumbai is set to witness a squash showdown like never before, with India stepping up to the global stage in style.
     

  • 220 journalists in jail around the world: CPJ

    220 journalists in jail around the world: CPJ

    MUMBAI: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has identified that 220 journalists are in jail around the world in 2014. This is an increase of nine from last year’s tally.

    The committee mentioned that the tally marks the second-highest number of journalists in jail since CPJ began taking an annual census of imprisoned journalists in 1990, and highlights a resurgence of authoritarian governments in countries such as China, Ethiopia, Burma, and Egypt.

    “China’s use of anti-state charges and Iran’s revolving door policy in imprisoning reporters, bloggers, editors, and photographers earned the two countries the dubious distinction of being the world’s worst and second worst jailers of journalists, respectively,” says the report.

    The list of the top 10 worst jailers of journalists was rounded out by Eritrea, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Syria, Egypt, Burma, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.

    In recent years, journalist jailings in the Americas have become increasingly rare, with one documented in each 2012 and 2013. This year, the region has two: a Cuban blogger was sentenced to five years in prison in retaliation for his critical blog, and in Mexico, an independent journalist and activist for Mayan causes has been charged with sedition.

    The report goes on the point out that 20 per cent, or 45, of the journalists imprisoned globally are being held with no charge disclosed. Also, online journalists accounted for more than half, or 119, of the imprisoned journalists.

    CPJ believes that journalists should not be imprisoned for doing their jobs. The organisation has sent letters expressing its serious concerns to each country that has imprisoned a journalist. In the past year, CPJ advocacy led to the early release of at least 41 imprisoned journalists worldwide.

     

  • A two-sided story

    A two-sided story

    MUMBAI: The rupee going into a tailspin or prices shooting through the roof; be damned. The wheels of general entertainment channels (GECs) seem to be in continual motion, what with a new soap here or a new reality show there. Makes one wonder as to what exactly these television majors do to keep their employees happy and productive, despite taxing schedules and OTT deadlines.  

    Well, the answer lies in the kind of incentives and rewards these channels, rather – their human resources teams, are willing to heap on their staff just so as to make them want to come back every morning, ready for the grind.

    And we’re not simply talking boxes of chocolates or free tickets to movies here. Imagine an iPad being gifted for a clean and decorative desk or a five-star hotel stay in Australia or even a shopping spree in Bangkok…

    An example of the kind of moolah these companies are willing to splurge on their employees is Star India, which took its top management (nearly 35 people) on an extravagant tour down under a month or two back.

    While Viacom18 arranged separate tours to exotic destinations like Egypt or more popular ones like Bangkok early this year. In a similar vein, Sony took its employees to Dubai last year whereas Zee ferried its entire team to the beaches of Thailand. We hear Sony is currently planning an itinerary for its annual trip this year.

    While these junkets (even called off-sites) don’t come cheap for these companies, there’s a catch: they aren’t entirely about fun and booze. There are leadership and team-building exercises, presentations on progress reports, panel discussions about the future etc. built into these trips.

    But with employees not expected to shell out anything from their own pocket, they’re fun nevertheless.

    However, there’s another side to this ‘Television (GECs) shining’ story.
    Even as most of them are coughing up crores of rupees on such junkets, there are other channels like news channels that are finding it difficult to survive in the present economic situation.

    There have been widespread instances of companies handing out pink slips to their employees in the past few months.

    First, NDTV shut down its Mumbai operations, followed by Network18 relieving around 350 employees across the network in little over a month. Next in line was Bloomberg TV which terminated the services of nearly 30 employees and the latest to join the bully gang is Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP), which is learnt to have issued notices of non-renewal of service contracts to as many as 127 employees and speculations are ripe that even Business World magazine is closing shop soon.

    According to a study by the New Delhi-based Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM), the weak rupee hasn’t spared even Bollywood producers, who’re shying away from shooting overseas. In the past four months, foreign film shoots have dropped 30-35 per cent owing to the volatility in currency.
    Given this not-so-bright side of the television (and film) industry, one wonders if life is truly a soap opera for GECs… 

  • Travel service suppliers and traveleres benefiting at www.notseenworld.com

    Travel service suppliers and traveleres benefiting at www.notseenworld.com

    MUMBAI:Travel social network www.notseenworld.com is benefiting registered Travel Service Suppliers by connecting with Individual Travellers and Travel Suppliers from across the world!
    Travel Social networking site www.notseenworld.com in its first month of going live has attracted Travel Service Suppliers from across the globe. The site gives a free platform that works as an interface between Travel Service Suppliers and Individual Travellers. Anyone can scan the offers and attractions with pricing and booking options of every Travel Service Supplier to decide their travel plans with best travel deals.

     

    The site works as a B2B and B2C platform, where Travel service suppliers can be friends with each other, like each other and sell packages as a unit. Travel service Suppliers from USA, Algeria, Mexico, Egypt, India, Madagascar, Kenya, Namibia, Thailand, Ecuador, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Ireland, Portugal, Jordan, Turkey, Bahrain, Canada, Kuwait, South Africa and many other countries have so far registered across more than 20 categories, got their own micro website, and been promoting their travel services. The categories are Airlines, Theme Parks/Safaris/Attractions, Bed & Breakfast Houses, Bus/Taxi/Limousine Operators, Camp/Outdoor Facility Operators, Currency Exchange, Vehicle Rental Companies/Airport Specialty, Travel Technology Provider, Convention & Visitors Bureaus, Cruise Lines, Ferries, Hotels/Resorts/Casinos, National Tourism Offices, Passenger Rails, Restaurants/Pubs, Tour Operators, Travel Agents, Travel Media, Travel Insurance, Travel Training Institutes, Supplier/Rental of Travel goods and services and Others.

     

    And the best part is, IT IS FREE to register at www.notseenworld.com!
    www.notseenworld.co has also got many Individual Travelers registered with it. These Individual travellers from many countries have got their own profile page and been sharing their travel stories, while scanning and interacting with various listed service suppliers to decide their holidays.

     

    So, how does an Individual traveller benefit here?
    www.notseenworld.com, being a social networking site, has the usual social networking tools. But the site facilitates you with much more than any quality social networking site’s offerings. Beyond the usual Wall, Pictures, Videos, Maps, Contacts, Friends, Groups and Events,
    Here you get ‘self customised’ features to access service providors’ promotions and services along with seasonal packages and facilities that no other social networking site provides you with. It also gives you an opportunity to directly connect and interact with the travel service providers for quality services from across the globe.

     

    And these features can be accessed as and when you want. You can directly seek the features and facilities from any travel service provider who is registered with Notseen World, through innovative search, private chat and messages features. And you choose and utilises their services, you will have an option of to write your sharable quality reviews.

    www.notseenworld.com is founded by Shreedatt Dash and Soumitra Dey, and they feel over time, the site is going to be a bible for ‘self planning tourists’.

     

    If you are a Travel Service Supplier, or just an individual Travel enthusiast, REGISTER NOW FREE, to either BUY or SELL Holiday Plans.

  • A Critic is not a Judge, but a person who loves cinema: Samir Farid

    A Critic is not a Judge, but a person who loves cinema: Samir Farid

    New Delhi: Renowned Egyptian film critic Samir Farid says “I don‘t like people who consider a critic as a judge. I hate to consider myself a judge. I consider myself a man of cinema.”

    Farid, who has been awarded the Aruna Vasudev Lifetime Achievement award at the 12th Osian‘s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, said “everyone has a right to like or dislike any work of art or film. A critic is a professional. It is his home profession to see a film or to read or to listen to music or any kind of art. Professional critic means he has a method.”

    In a lecture at the OCFF, he said he studied literature and theatre and not cinema. “Each art has its own language.”

    One of the challenges is for a critic to know how to define a success or a failure. The film critic has no choice. He must be a reader by profession, Farid said, stressing that a film critic should be a reader of other works of arts so that he can differentiate cinema from the other arts.

    He said “There are two big branches of art. The first one belongs to the popular heritage in music and literature or anything. The second being films or works of art that suppresses the individual or the work of an individual.” He added: “When I write an article, I‘m looking for my reader. There has to be a harmony between the content, style and substance of a piece of art.

    When asked how he was first exposed to foreign cinema as it is not widely available in Egypt, Farid said: “My first trip outside of Egypt was to the Cannes Film Festival in 1967. This was the 20th edition of the film festival. I was very fortunate to see films like Blow-Up by Antonioni at the Festival.”

    “Egypt produces around 40 films a year. It was about 120 in the 1990s. The industry is still alive and popular. Egyptian films have more than 70% of the market share and 30% is from American films. Hindi films are limited to 5 films a year as they are scared of the Indian film market. There is only Egyptian or American films, no third kind of culture existed for the last 20 years,” he said.

  • Warner Bros. acquires filming rights of Unholy Night

    Warner Bros. acquires filming rights of Unholy Night

    MUMBAI: Warner Bros. has acquired the rights of Seth Grahame-Smith‘s new book Unholy Night for approximately $2 million.

    Grahame-Smith will also produce the film with partner David Katzenberg through their KatzSmith Productions in association with David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford‘s Heyman Films.

    Unholy Night retells the birth of Jesus as an adventure story centered on the three kings in the nativity story who travel to Bethlehem to witness his birth. In Grahame-Smith‘s version, the three kings are thieves on the run who are forced to help Mary and Jesus escape to Egypt. Along the way they battle magical biblical creatures and encounter figures like Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist. Grand Central will publish the book on April 10, 2012.

    Grahame-Smith pioneered the current trend of literary mash-ups with the surprise 2009 bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. He followed that up with this year‘s hit Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He also wrote the screenplay of the movie adaptation named Abraham Lincoln that is set to release in June 2012.

  • CBS News reporter sexually assaulted in Egypt

    CBS News reporter sexually assaulted in Egypt

    MUMBAI: CBS News correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten by a mob in Egypt‘s Tahrir Square late on Friday.

    Logan was flown back to the United States next morning. She is now recuperating in a hospital.

    The assault took place whilst she was surveying the anti-Mubarak mood amidst a celebrating crowd after the president had stepped down for a “60 Minutes” story.

    CBS said, “In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.”  
         
      Logan had been outspoken about the Mubarak regime‘s efforts to intimidate foreign journalists. She was sent back after she was accused of being an Israeli spy, but came back to Cairo not long before Mubarak fled his office.

    She has a long history of working in disturbed areas.

    Logan made her name as a war correspondent for Britain‘s GMTV at the beginning of the Afghanistan war in 2001 and later reported on the war in Iraq. She joined CBS News in 2002.

    According to the Committee to Protect Foreign Journalists, a watchdog group in which Logan serves as a board member, nearly 140 reporters have been wounded or killed while covering the revolution of Egypt since 30 January.
      

  • BBC sees audience boost for its news

    BBC sees audience boost for its news

    MUMBAI: The British Broadcasting Corporation has announced that its Global News division attracts a record weekly global audience of 238 million people to its international news services including BBC World Service and the BBC World News television channel.

    Last year BBC’s audience totalled 233 million. BBC World Service attracted a record weekly audience of 188 million. This figure was boosted by its new BBC Arabic television channel but masked an overall decline in radio listening which was down five million to 177 million in 2008/9. However, despite this loss, BBC World Service remains the world’s most popular international radio broadcaster.

    The largest overseas audiences for BBC news across all platforms come from Nigeria (26 million), the USA (24.1 million) and India (22.2 million). The biggest increases in the BBC’s global audience estimate came from Arab-speaking countries like Saudi Arabia (+1.9 million), Egypt (+1.3 million), and Syria (+1 million), and newly-surveyed markets like Niger (+2.4 million), Liberia (+1.1 million) and Guinea (+1.4 million). However, radio audiences in Iran dropped by 1.6 million due to a decline in shortwave listening there and the cutting of medium wave transmissions.

    Major development and enhancement of the BBC’s international facing news sites and mobile phone offer was rewarded with a record 16 million unique online users, a 27 per cent increase on last year.

    BBC Global News director Richard Sambrook said, “In a year when international radio listening to the BBC actually went down marginally, record overall global audiences demonstrate the success of our multimedia strategy and investments.

    “People come to the BBC’s international news services for journalism and ask difficult questions, yet they respect different points of view and actively encourages debate. Increasingly, audiences want access at a time and place that suits them.”

  • BBC Arabic launches interactive media workshops

    MUMBAI: BBC Arabic has announced that it will host a series of interactive workshops called The World As You See It for aspiring broadcasters across the Arab world.

    The workshops are announced as the BBC prepares to launch its integrated Arabic-language multimedia offering, a first for the region incorporating radio, TV and online.

    Aimed at developing talented future broadcasters in the Arab world, The World As You See It workshops will be held at universities in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Egypt and Morocco.

    Experienced BBC journalists will share their knowledge and experience with media students, encouraging them to complete short video packages of stories they believe will be of wide interest. The best work will be featured on the BBC.

    BBC Arabic head Hosam El Sokkari said, “The BBC wants to support and develop talent in the region and these workshops will be a first step in building relationships with the multimedia broadcasters of the future.

    “I have no doubt that audiences to BBC Arabic in the years ahead will be enjoying some of the talent that emerges from The World As You See It. The initiative will also give us the opportunity to see a different young perspective on today’s world.”

    The tutorials with BBC journalists will encourage individuals or teams to create video footage using on-campus facilities and guidance from their tutors. The BBC will provide additional support via online Q&As and downloadable tutorials.

    All submissions will be evaluated by BBC journalists. All The World As You See It submissions will be in Arabic and a maximum of three minutes long. Full credit will be given to students and their university.