From Mohanlal to SRK, Big B to Rajnikanth: WAVES 2025 promises star-studded first day

South Indian film industry legends Rajnikanth, Mohanlal, and Chiranjeevi will join Bollywood veterans Hema Malini, Mithun Chakraborty, and Amitabh Bachchan in Mumbai later this week in a session moderated by none other than Akshay Kumar. So, what brings these major names together?

This is the illustrious lineup for the first plenary session ‘Legends & Legacies: The Stories That Shaped India’s Soul’ at the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025 in Mumbai that kicks off on May 1, 2025.

The first day would also feature Telugu movie director SS Rajamouli joining music maestro AR Rahman, Bollywood veteran Anil Kapoor and actors Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal in the following panel discussion ‘The New Mainstream: Breaking Borders, Building Legends’, moderated by filmmaker Karan Johar.

The Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has bet big on the first edition of the summit, with WAVES 2025 also featuring a fireside chat between the ‘King of Bollywood’ Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar.

Later, to talk about ‘Talent beyond Borders’, Telugu movie star and pan-Indian sensation Allu Arjun would join Barun Das, the MD & CEO of TV9 Network.

It is not just big names in movies that would be the highlight of the opening day of WAVES 2025. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan, Reliance Industries MD and Chairman Mukesh Ambani, and UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy are all set to take the stage on the first day.

With WAVES 2025, the Centre looks to increase both local and international investments into India’s growing audio-visual-entertainment industries, including gaming, AR-VR, and eSports.

India to unveil Bharat Pavilion at WAVES 2025

Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, or ‘the world is one family’, is the theme that would form the crux of the Bharat Pavilion, set to be unveiled at the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit 2025 in Mumbai this week. According to the Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, the Pavilion would be a “vibrant tribute to the country’s profound legacy of storytelling and its growing influence in the global media and entertainment landscape.”

The Pavilion would feature four ‘immersive zones’ that present India’s storytelling traditions to the public. The ‘Shruti’ zone would feature the country’s oral traditions—from Vedic chants to classical music, folk ballads to radio… the spoken word. The ‘Kriti’ zone would all be about writing—from the hieroglyphs in caves and manuscripts etched on palm leaves to modern literature, books, and the online writing world. The ‘Drishti’ zone would explore visual media—puppet shows, folk theatre, plays, television, cinema, and now, the latest in immersive media. The fourth and final zone, the ‘Creator’s Leap’ would look at the advent of new technology and the evolution and future of storytelling.

“With many OTT platforms, a tech-savvy mobile-first audience, world-class VFX, gaming and animation studios, as well as a thriving Startup ecosystem, India stands as one of the fastest-growing media and entertainment markets in the world,” the ministry said in a statement. The Bharat Pavilion looks to celebrate them all through storytelling.

The first edition of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit—WAVES 2025—is scheduled from May 1 to 4, 2025, at Jio World Centre in Mumbai.

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