The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released its recommendations on a Digital Radio Broadcast Policy for Private Broadcasters, detailing the framework, terms, and reserve prices for launching digital radio services in key Indian cities. The proposed rollout covers four A+ cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai — along with nine A-category cities, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Surat, and Nagpur. The move follows a reference from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) dated April 23, 2024, seeking TRAI’s inputs under Section 11(1)(a)(i) of the TRAI Act, 1997. TRAI had issued a consultation paper on September 30, 2024, receiving 43 comments and 13 counter-comments before holding an open house discussion on January 8, 2025. After analysing stakeholder inputs, TRAI finalised recommendations to guide the transition from analogue to digital radio. New broadcasters will begin operations in simulcast mode,

Moneycontrol has invited a multi-agency creative pitch for its upcoming app, with several agencies already presenting their proposals. The assignment is expected to play a key role in shaping the next phase of Moneycontrol’s brand and product evolution. The creative pitch is likely aimed at reimagining the app’s communication and design language as the platform intensifies efforts on user engagement and digital innovation, according to an e4m report. The mandate is estimated at Rs. 50 lakh. The move comes as Moneycontrol, part of the Network18 Group, continues to strengthen its position as one of India’s most trusted and widely consumed financial content platforms.

Image source: The Hindu, DH and Indian Express; Edited by Dinesh Raj M   Three more children died in MP’s Chhindwara on Sunday, Oct 5, after allegedly having cough syrup, taking the toll to 14 on a day a govt doctor was arrested, an SIT was formed, and the body of a two-year-old girl was exhumed for autopsy. All deaths were due to renal failure and most of the children were aged four and below. Hot off the Press The Madhya Pradesh police FIR charged the doctor and the cough syrup maker with negligence causing death and adulterating of drugs. They were also booked under Section 27(a) of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, which mentions that anyone manufacturing, selling, or distributing an adulterated or substandard drug that causes death or grievous harm is liable for imprisonment of up to 10 years, reported Amarjeet Singh for The Times of India. Between August and October, at least 11 children from Chhindwara district, MP died, allegedly after consuming contaminated cough syrup, acc

  Image courtesy: The Hindu Padma Bhushan awardee T.J.S. George—editor, columnist, biographer and founding editor of Asiaweek—died on Friday, October 3, 2025, of age-related complications. He was 97. After graduating in English literature from Madras Christian College, George began at The Free Press Journal (Mumbai) in 1950, The Hindu reported. He went on to work with the International Press Institute, The Searchlight, and Far Eastern Economic Review, before becoming the founding editor of Asiaweek (Hong Kong). He later served as Editorial Advisor at The New Indian Express and became one of India’s best-known English-language columnists. His widely read weekly column Point of View in The New Indian Express ran for 25 years and concluded in June 2022, taking aim at social injustice, corruption, religious intolerance, and, in later years, right-wing populist tendencies. A longtime China watcher, he returned to the country in 2008 after a decade to witness preparations for t

  Subhashini Ramasamy learned her first rule of interviewing early: dial down the fandom, dial up the curiosity. Since then, the Happiest Health writer has turned quiet, patient conversations into features that put people at the centre of the story. With that early lesson from her first high-profile interview with Harun Robert, Subhashini set the tone for how she reports: people first, then come the headlines. A magazine writer at Happiest Health, Subhashini covers health and wellness. During her internship, she also covered art and social issues. Her through-line is simple: observe, listen, and translate everyday lives into features that resonate. She moved from short-form corporate content into long-form journalism to spend more time with subjects and their worlds. Her reporting starts with preparation and curiosity. She said “didn’t know what journalism meant back then,” but the pull toward storytelling “felt natural.” She prepares by researching her subjects thorou

Anil Kumar Singh—independent journalist, journalism teacher, author—has spent four decades in mainstream English media, including years at The Times of India, Mumbai, where he headed Reporting. His new book, The Fault With Reality, gathers his long-running columns on farmers’ agitations, hospital fires, Mumbai’s annual flooding, Indian love poems on Valentine’s Day, and the decline of the city’s civic systems—showcasing a blend of wit, facts, and critique. In an exclusive conversation with Influencing India, Singh opened up about the idea behind the book: “The answer lies in the title,” Singh explains. “In Doordarshan’s infancy, when images went wavy, a message would flash: ‘There’s a fault with transmission, don’t adjust your TV set’. Today, when information is indistinguishable from disinformation, and fact from fiction, there’s no one to warn us: ‘There’s a fault with reality, don’t adjust your mind’.” Writing a 1,300-word column every w

Renowned technology journalist Chris Griffith has launched the Griffbot - an AI chatbot to answer questions about his writing or the topics he’s reporting on.   It’s something Griffith said he’d been wanting to create for a while, offering another method for his audience to consume his writing.  “The audience may not want to just read the story, but also ask questions about it,” Griffith told Influencing. “The questions can be on the article, but the chatbot can also give an understanding of my reasoning. In my opinion, chatbots are quite good at looking at those nuances and providing an explanation on particular points of a story.”  As AI has rapidly grown, Griffith has seen the upward trend of the new tech, even referencing Gartner's research that highlighted people would be using smaller, dedicated AI implementations come 2027.  “We’ll see not just companies having their own AI implementations. But people like us who have stories or small historical so