India’s Essel Group turns 90

Celebrations include not-for-profit world news channel

Zee Entertainment parent, the Essel Group, has celebrated its 90th anniversary with, among other things, a Rs5,000 crore US$774 million donation to the new Dr Subhash Chandra (DSC) Foundation to support entrepreneurship and education. Essel Group chairman, Subhash Chandra, also looped five-month-old English language global news network, World in

One News (WION), into the celebrations. The anniversary extravaganza was held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in

New Delhi. A third anniversary initiative – Sarthi – is a network of government, private, community and volunteer institutions that aims to become “a guiding force that propels change in the lives of people through constructive interventions”. The idea is to build a “well-informed and empowered nation to bring about sustainable positive change”. Not-for-profit news network WION, which launched in December last year, provides news from around the world from a South Asian perspective. The network is operated by Zee Media and targets upscale viewers in India and the Indian diaspora. The Essel Group described the channel as “a medium for society and the nation to benefit”. The promise is “a sophisticated transition from the usual breaking news’ phenomenon” and “exclusive and insightful content that often escapes popular media”. “The goal of the channel is to engage and empower viewers through balanced and extraordinary storytelling on digital, mobile and television platforms,” Zee said.