WAVES 2025, the inaugural World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit, is taking place in Mumbai from May 1 to 4 at the Jio World Convention Centre. Organised by the Government of India, the summit is being pitched as a major moment for India’s creative industries—bringing together filmmakers, musicians, tech innovators, producers, and policymakers from around the world.

Here are some of the most anticipated sessions and experiences from the four-day summit.

An opening session that brings together legends on one stage

One of the most anticipated moments of the summit is the session titled Legends and Legacies: The Stories That Shaped India’s Soul. It brings together six of Indian cinema’s most enduring stars—Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth, Mohanlal, Mithun Chakraborty, Chiranjeevi, and Hema Malini. The conversation, moderated by Akshay Kumar, will reflect on their individual journeys, the evolution of cinema over the decades, and the stories that continue to resonate across generations.

A rare one-on-one with Shah Rukh Khan

In a more personal session, actor Shah Rukh Khan sits down with director and producer Karan Johar. The two will discuss Khan’s early years, his rise in the film industry, and what it has meant to forge a path without industry connections. Titled The Journey: From Outsider to Ruler, the session is expected to offer a candid look at the actor’s legacy, along with insights into the evolving nature of stardom in India.

A panel that explores Indian cinema’s global momentum

Director SS Rajamouli, known internationally for RRR, joins actors Anil Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Vicky Kaushal, and composer A.R. Rahman for a conversation about how Indian storytelling is expanding across borders. Moderated by Karan Johar, the session titled The New Mainstream will explore what it takes for Indian content to succeed globally, and how actors, musicians and filmmakers are building cross-cultural connections.

Technology and the future of OTT content

In a special panel discussion in association with Rolling Stone India, thought leaders from across the spheres of content, technology, and policy will come together for a session themed around OTT & Digital-Driven Democratization. Curated as a thematic exploration across three key sessions, the discussions aim to drive actionable collaborations and offer new perspectives on India’s evolving digital entertainment ecosystem.

The event will kick off with a session on Scaling Indian Media for Global Markets, moderated by Sajan Raj Kurup, Founder of Creativeland Asia and Creativeland Studios, alongside keynote speaker David Unger, CEO of Artists International Group (AIG). Panellists include author Amish Tripathi, actress Kriti Kharbanda, Mahima Kaul, Director of Public Policy at Netflix India, Soumya Mukherjee, COO of Hoichoi, and Aditi Shrivastava, CEO of Pocket Aces.

This will be followed by a session on Public–Private Collaboration for Developing Indian OTT and Hyperlocal Content, featuring Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO of Prasar Bharati, as keynote speaker, and a discussion moderated by Avinash Pandey, former CEO of ABP News Network. Panellists will include Richard Nicolas, COO and CFO of Ridley Scott Creative Group, actress Rituparna Sengupta, actor, producer and singer Sachin Pilgaonkar, and William Pfeiffer, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Globalgate Entertainment. The final session will focus on Emerging Technologies and AVGC in Optimising the OTT Landscape, with a keynote address by Nicolas Granatino, Chairman of Novaquark, and a discussion moderated by Rolling Stone India’s Executive Editor, Shamani Joshi. Panellists will include Roland Landers, CEO of AIGF; Syed Raza, GM of Content at Vodafone; Vaibhav Modi, Founder of Victor Tango Entertainment; actress Isha Talwar; and more.

The event will culminate in the release of a special report on the OTT ecosystem, jointly published by Rolling Stone India, Amazon Web Services, and Primus Partners.

Global voices join the conversation

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos will be among the international speakers at the summit, sharing his perspective on India’s role in the platform’s global growth. His session is expected to highlight what the international market is looking for in Indian content and how platforms are evolving their strategies to serve multilingual, multicultural audiences. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, will also shed light on the trends and virality shaping Gen Z content in a conversation with actress Shraddha Kapoor. 

A dedicated showcase of India’s creative diversity

The Bharat Pavilion at WAVES, themed “Kala to Code,” will spotlight the intersection of culture and technology across India’s states. From traditional storytelling and crafts to innovations in animation, gaming, and digital arts, the pavilion will present how different regions are adapting their cultural identity to contemporary formats.

A landmark concert by A.R. Rahman

As part of the summit’s cultural programming, composer and musician A.R. Rahman will present The Wonderment Tour at DY Patil Stadium on May 3. Presented as one of the headline cultural events of WAVES 2025, this marks Rahman’s first stadium concert in Mumbai in eight years. Touted as a show that merges tradition and innovation, this concert is designed as an immersive tribute to his 32-year journey in global music. The performance will feature Rahman’s most iconic songs across languages and eras, with appearances by artists such as Sukhwinder Singh, Jonita Gandhi, Neeti Mohan, The Yellow Diary, Anubha Bajaj, and Riday. The show is choreographed by Shiamak Davar and will blend music, movement and visual storytelling into a large-scale celebration of Rahman’s legacy. 

Get tickets here.

A spotlight on emerging electronic music

WAVES will also feature Resonate: The EDM Challenge, a platform created for upcoming electronic music producers and DJs to perform and gain visibility. With India’s electronic music scene growing steadily, the showcase aims to support emerging talent while expanding the summit’s musical scope beyond film and playback.

The recent demise of Ms. Misha Agarwal, a social media influencer, has sent shockwaves across the internet. The young entrepreneur, who tragically passed away by suicide on April 24, 2025, a mere two days prior to her 25th birthday, leaves behind a poignant narrative regarding the pervasive influence of social media on the lives of young individuals.
In a formal announcement posted on Ms. Agarwal’s Instagram account, her bereaved family confirmed the heartbreaking news of her passing. Subsequently, six days later, a deeply emotional disclosure on the same platform illuminated the underlying factors that contributed to this devastating event. The post revealed that Ms. Agarwal’s existence had become inextricably linked with her pursuit of a significant milestone on Instagram: amassing one million followers. The family further shared the distressing reality that a decline in her follower count precipitated feelings of profound worthlessness and despair in the young creator. Reinforcing this revelation, they included a screenshot of her mobile phone wallpaper, starkly displaying her aspiration to achieve this digital popularity, underscoring the extent to which this goal had consumed her thoughts and aspirations.

Ms. Misha Agarwal’s educational background

Despite her professional accomplishments as a law graduate and her preparations for the Provincial Civil Services Judicial Examination (PCSJ), Ms. Agarwal evidently struggled to reconcile the pressures of maintaining a prominent online presence with her personal well-being. While her content resonated with a wide audience, few were privy to the internal turmoil and emotional distress she endured behind the curated facade of her social media persona. An older video of Ms. Agarwal, now circulating online, poignantly reveals her struggles with self-hate and a deep-seated fear of abandonment, offering a glimpse into her underlying vulnerabilities.

More than an internet personality
Beyond her influencer status, Ms. Agarwal was the driving force behind Misha Cosmetics, a brand recognized for its focus on hair care products and beauty advice disseminated through its dedicated social media account. Following her passing, the brand’s page issued a confirmation of the news, assuring customers that pending orders would be fulfilled, a testament to Ms. Agarwal’s commitment to her entrepreneurial venture.
The tragic circumstances surrounding Ms. Agarwal’s death serve as a stark reminder of the profound impact social media experts on contemporary youth. The incident underscores the potential for these platforms to become sources of validation to an unhealthy degree, blurring the lines between online representation and lived reality. Her family’s heartfelt message explicitly addressed this concern, stating with solemnity, “Instagram is not a real world and followers are not real love, please try to understand this.” Their plea urges young individuals to adopt a more discerning perspective, viewing these platforms as a form of entertainment rather than allowing them to dictate their sense of self-worth and consume their lives entirely.
The untimely loss of Ms. Agarwal highlights the critical need for increased awareness regarding the psychological implications of social media engagement and the importance of fostering a balanced and realistic understanding of online interactions.

With Thunderbolts* (the asterisk denotes a little something that’s worth ceasing all phones at early screenings), Marvel Studios offers a strange something. Not a new beginning, not even an end, but a reluctant middle piece to its dwindling self-worth nearing the conclusion of Phase-5. After a decade-plus of spandex operatics, cosmic showdowns, and multiversal migraines, we’ve arrived at the era of mid-tier misfits and discards. The Avengers are either dead, de-aged, or trapped in development hell. The remaining bench is a set of weary characters staring down the abyss of their own irrelevance. 

A former child assassin, a disgraced Captain America knockoff, a super-assassin turned congressman, a haunted quantum blur, a Soviet relic, and a human emotional contagion named Bob. They’ve been shelved, sidelined, and mostly forgotten — by their government handlers, by the world they supposedly saved, and, most damningly, by their jaded audiences who’ve long since moved on. What throws Thunderbolts* a lifeline in the slow, defibrillator rhythm of a post-Endgame Marvel is that Kevin Feige has finally started to admit that the party might just be over. 

Once a promising successor to her late sister Natasha Romanoff’s Black Widow, Florence Pugh returns as Yelena Belova, still mourning her sister, still drolly Russian, and still the Phase-5’s most emotionally legible performer. She wears her disillusionment like a second skin and her job is no longer to avenge, but to merely trudge along begrudgingly, and that’s proving more difficult by the day. “Maybe I’m just bored,” she says early on, which feels like a discerning summation of the post-Endgame age.Thunderbolts* doesn’t solve that problem. But it does acknowledge it with unusual clarity, and that alone makes it one of Marvel’s more human efforts in years.

Director Jake Schreier (of Robot & Frank and the 2015 adapatation of John Green’s Paper Towns) brings a light indie touch to the proceedings. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in the convoluted lore or flashy pyrotechnica of modern superhero fare, and instead, lets his cast rattle around in desaturated corridors and puts them in vulnerable spots. No one could reinvent the MCU at this point, but he does subtly redirect it.

The plot, as is often the case, is the weakest link. CIA head honcho Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whose dry wit is underserved by the script) tricks our assorted antiheroes into a mission that’s really a death trap. One by one, they realise they’ve been sent to eliminate each other, and we soon get a slow-burn mutiny of sad-eyed soldiers who would rather hug it out than throw punches, at least most of the time.

A still from ‘Thunderbolts*’
| Photo Credit:
MARVEL STUDIOS

David Harbour’s Red Guardian continues his grumpy dad routine with winning goofiness. He gets some of the film’s funniest lines (Yelena’s pee-wee soccer team becomes an ongoing source of oddly affecting pride), but his real role is to tether the film’s sky-high gloom to something earthbound and foolishly tender. Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes also reappears, with a more grounded gravitas that reminds you he once had a more engaging storyline. Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, still festering from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, scowls his way through a majority of the film, and Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost remains half-formed, but that feels appropriate — her power is literally to phase in and out. And Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster… well.

These are characters stuck in a kind of cinematic purgatory. They’re not quite important enough for franchise salvation, but not disposable enough to be killed off. They’re the narrative flotsam of past installments, with enough courage to question what actually happens to a superhero deferred. The action is competent but rarely thrilling and the colour palette leans hard on shadows and grime. But amid the industrial drabness, a freshness takes form and the characters begin to breathe.

The new wildcard is Lewis Pullman’s Bob, a fragile, mumbling superbeing with the power to make people feel the worst thing about themselves. That his supposedly omnipotent abilities are practically weaponised depression is quite telling. When he loses control, he becomes a living fog of despair, swallowing blocks of Manhattan in shapeless, shadowy grief. It’s a heavy metaphor, but Pullman sells it with a twitchy, wounded sincerity. Bob is the first Marvel character in ages who seems genuinely surprised (and a little terrified) to be in a Marvel movie.

A still from ‘Thunderbolts*’
| Photo Credit:
MARVEL STUDIOS

It’s actually through Bob that Thunderbolts* achieves its most ambitious emotional swing. This rag-tag group of “disposable delinquents” isn’t trying to stop a bad guy so much as stop being the bad guys, and their arcs aren’t driven by fate or destiny, but by therapy-adjacent self-reflection. In the end, it all leads back to Yelena, whose sardonic emotional register makes her a compelling nucleus. Pugh’s performance builds momentum in silence and she’s the only one in the ensemble who seems to understand that the real villain is disconnection.

It’s messy, meandering, and emotionally lopsided, but Thunderbolts* feels like it was made by people who wanted to be there. That’s more than can be said for most Marvel projects in recent memory. That Thunderbolts* feels like a minor miracle in the post-Endgame MCU is less a credit to the film itself than a damning verdict on the films that came before it. It’s a modest movie, practically allergic to MCU chutzpah, and yet it succeeds where so many others have failed.

Thunderbolts* is currently running in theatres