MUMBAI: May does not seem to have brought with it good news. Early this morning, the CEO of the Film & Television Producers Guild Kulmeet Makkar passed on after suffering a massive heart attack. He was in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, where he had been since the lockdown due to the Covid2019 pandemic.

Makkar had spent more than three decades in the entertainment industry, with stints at Saregama, and Reliance Entertainment as  founder CEO of Big Music & Home Entertainment.  He was also president & CEO at Shreya Entertainment before taking up the position as Guild’s CEO in 2010.

Since then, he had been instrumental in working with several industry leaders who served as presidents of the association. And he spent years tirelessly pushing the agenda of the industry to the government and various international television and film bodies.

One of the prime partnerships he had managed get going  was with the Producers Alliance for Cinema & Television, the UK-body representing independent producers. This has helped facilitate ease of production in the UK and vice-versa.

Makkar was working on setting up a trust - to which Netflix has pledged to  contribute $1 million - to help the daily wage earners (who have been affected by Covid2019) in the film and television industry.

He is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son.