Why has Amazon tied up with Indian govt ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha polls

Amazon.com Inc is partnering with India to stream movies and television shows from government-run studios.

The partnership also includes providing internships to students from government film institutes ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

The announcement was made by Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting and Amazon India.
Anurag Thakur said that India being an ancient civilisation offers millions of stories which are yet to be told.

The gamut of stories transcends time and covers a vast domain from spirituality to software, traditions to trends, folklore to festivals and from rural India to rising India. He added that recently Indian content has experienced success at the international fora, and Indian actors have achieved high popularity among foreign audience.

The development comes in the event of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a third term next year.

The partnership with a government ministry is a rare move for the Washington-headquartered company. The company had last year committed to spend Rs 102 crore over three years after it announced a collaboration with the United Kingdom's National Film and Television School to give students opportunities in company-commissioned productions, a Bloomberg report said.

The minister also said that the partnership with Amazon India is unique on a number of counts and the Letter of Engagement spans across various aspects of the creative industry. The partnership would help strengthen industry-academia linkages through provisions for scholarships, internships, masterclasses, and other opportunities for students at Film and Television Institute of India and Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India. The initiative would help to reduce the period of struggle for the talented artists coming out of prestigious film institutes of India, he added.

The Letter of Engagement (LoE) leads to a multidimensional partnership between the various organisations under the Ministry and various verticals of Amazon. These include National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), Prasar Bharati, Publications Division, and the media training institutions of Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) and Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) on the Government's side.

On Amazon's side, the LoE involves participation of Amazon Prime Video, Alexa, Amazon Music, Amazon e-marketplace, and IMDb, read a release by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.