The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has launched the pilot phase of the Gems of India Challenge, a national programme designed to discover and promote grassroots digital creators from across the country. Built on the MyWAVES citizen creator platform under WAVES OTT, the challenge invites creators to tell the unique stories of their districts through short digital videos. The ministry has partnered with YouTube and Meta to extend the reach of the initiative and mobilise creator communities at scale.
What Is the Gems of India Challenge?
The Gems of India Challenge is a structured, nationwide programme to identify digital creators at the grassroots level and provide them with a platform, mentorship, and recognition. It is part of the government’s broader push to strengthen India’s digital creator ecosystem and promote the Orange Economy, which treats culture and creativity as sources of economic value.
The challenge encourages creators to showcase the culture, heritage, tourism, traditions, history, and distinctive achievements of their districts through authentic digital storytelling. The goal is to build a vibrant nationwide network of creators who celebrate the unique identity of every district in India. MIB Secretary Chanchal Kumar said that every district of India has a story waiting to be told, and the challenge gives creators the platform to tell it.
The initiative was launched on 21 July 2026 by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The pilot phase will run from 1 August to 31 August 2026, during which creators can submit entries. Based on the experience from the pilot, the programme will eventually be expanded to cover all states and Union Territories.
MyWAVES and the WAVES OTT Ecosystem
The Gems of India Challenge is built upon MyWAVES, a citizen creator platform that functions as a feature within WAVES OTT. WAVES is the over-the-top streaming platform of Prasar Bharati, India’s public service broadcaster. It was launched on 20 November 2024 at the 55th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.
Prasar Bharati was established under the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990 and came into existence on 23 November 1997. It operates Doordarshan (television) and Akashvani (All India Radio). Its headquarters is in New Delhi. WAVES OTT was launched under its ambit to bridge traditional broadcasting with modern digital consumption.
MyWAVES was launched on 23 March 2026 by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw alongside a National AI Skilling Programme in partnership with Google and YouTube, and upgrades to DD Free Dish services. The platform is designed as a structured user-generated content (UGC) platform supporting short videos, vertical videos, and episodic content in multiple Indian languages. It marks a shift for WAVES OTT from a passive content-viewing service to a participatory platform where users can both consume and create content.
With MyWAVES, the government is building a state-backed creator stack that covers creation, discovery, distribution, and visibility. The platform complements Creator’s Corner, a separate initiative on DD News that provides mainstream broadcast exposure to digital creators. Some content on Creator’s Corner has already crossed 3 million views.
How the Challenge Works
The Gems of India Challenge is designed to be accessible to creators at the grassroots level. Participants are required to create and submit original videos ranging from 1 to 3 minutes in duration through the MyWAVES section on the WAVES OTT platform.
Pilot Phase Coverage
The pilot phase covers six selected regions that represent India’s diversity in geography and culture. They are:
| Region | Type | Key Feature |
|---|---|---|
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | Union Territory | Island territory in the Bay of Bengal |
| Arunachal Pradesh | State | Northeastern state, largest among the Northeast states |
| Chandigarh | Union Territory | Capital of Punjab and Haryana |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | Union Territory | Western coastal union territory |
| Goa | State | Western coastal state |
| Ladakh | Union Territory | High-altitude union territory in the Himalayas |
Submission and Evaluation
Creators can submit their videos between 1 August and 31 August 2026 through the MyWAVES platform. The content must showcase the culture, heritage, tourism, traditions, history, or distinctive achievements of the creator’s district.
Evaluation will be carried out by District and State Jury Committees constituted by the respective administrations. These panels will include eminent personalities from the fields of culture, heritage, tourism, media, and academia.
Awards and Recognition
The programme offers a tiered award structure to incentivise participation at every level:
| Level | Number of Awards | Prize Money |
|---|---|---|
| District Level | Up to 20 awards per district | ₹50,000 each |
| State Level | One creator from each district | ₹2 lakh each |
| National Level | Selected state entries | ₹5 lakh each |
After the pilot phase is evaluated, the programme will be expanded to cover all states and Union Territories, with the national-level awards becoming active during that wider rollout.
Partnerships with YouTube and Meta
A distinctive feature of the Gems of India Challenge is the collaboration between MIB and global digital platforms YouTube and Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram). Both platforms will help mobilise their creator communities and extend the challenge’s outreach across their networks.
This is not the first such partnership. In March 2026, the ministry partnered with Google and YouTube to launch a National AI Skilling Initiative under the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) to train 15,000 youths from the creative and media sectors at no cost. That programme was designed in two phases, with Phase I covering foundational AI learning and Phase II focusing on advanced, project-based specialisation using AI tools such as Gemini 3, Veo, and Vertex AI.
The involvement of Meta adds a social media dimension to the challenge, enabling wider discoverability of grassroots content. Alongside these platform partnerships, the challenge is being implemented in collaboration with Prasar Bharati, My Bharat (the youth development platform under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, launched on 31 October 2023 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi), and respective state and district administrations. Local cultural and educational institutions will also participate to facilitate creator mobilisation and content development.
The Orange Economy and the Bigger Picture
The Gems of India Challenge is part of a larger policy push by the government to develop India’s Orange Economy. The term, first popularised by former Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez and Felipe Buitrago in their 2013 book The Orange Economy: An Infinite Opportunity, refers to economic activities where ideas are transformed into cultural goods and services whose value is determined by intellectual property.
In the Union Budget 2026-27, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman explicitly referenced the Orange Economy and announced support for setting up AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics) content creator labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges across the country. The Economic Survey 2025-26 also argued that creativity-led sectors can become significant drivers of employment and urban growth.
The government has projected that India’s AVGC sector will require 2 million professionals by 2030. Globally, the creative economy generates an estimated annual revenue of more than $2 trillion and supports nearly 50 million jobs. India’s creative industry is currently valued at around $30 billion and employs approximately 8 per cent of the country’s working population.
The WAVES ecosystem serves as the digital backbone for this vision. Beyond the Gems of India Challenge and MyWAVES, the ecosystem includes WAVES Bazaar (a marketplace for scripts, music, comics, and audio-visual rights), WaveX (a startup innovation and incubation platform), and the Create in India Challenges that have already registered over 70,000 participants from across the world across 31 challenges.
Key Takeaways
- The Gems of India Challenge is a national initiative by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) to identify, nurture, and promote grassroots digital creators.
- The challenge is built on the MyWAVES citizen creator platform, which was launched on 23 March 2026 as a feature under WAVES OTT, the streaming platform of Prasar Bharati.
- Prasar Bharati was established under the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990 and became operational on 23 November 1997, with its headquarters in New Delhi.
- The pilot phase covers six regions: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Goa, and Ladakh.
- Creators can submit 1 to 3 minute videos between 1 August and 31 August 2026 via the MyWAVES platform. Awards range from ₹50,000 at the district level to ₹5 lakh at the national level.
- The initiative is part of the Orange Economy push, with the AVGC sector projected to require 2 million professionals by 2030 and the Union Budget 2026-27 announcing 15,000 content creator labs in schools.
