Advertisers and publishers share the realities of today's Indian newsmedia environment in this year's INMA South Asia conference, which opens on Thursday.

As the impact of digital competition hits a market which has previously been the industry's shining light, the local board of US-headquartered INMA has a carefully-prepared programme to address issues. Venue is the Holiday Inn New Delhi International Airport.

The role of keynoter D. ShivaKumar - who is chairman and chief executive of Pepsico India - will not only to present an advertiser's perspective, but the tell delegates how organisations and industries can reinvent themselves in a rapidly-changing environment.

It's a theme soon taken up by chief executives, with ideas on reinvent their businesses in the face of challenges in print-based advertising. Ashish Pherwani, E&Y's media and entertainbment advisory partner, moderates a panel with includes ABP managing director D.D. Purkayastha - who is also INMA South Asia's chairman - HT Media chief executive Rajiv Verma, Dainik Bhaskar group deputy managing director Pawan Agarwal, Karthik Balakrishnan (The Printers Mysore), and Amar Ujala director Probal Ghosal.

As consumers become increasingly "connected", GroupM South Asia chief executive CVL Srinivas will help publishers understand how marketeers' needs are changing and what they need to do to be a relevant critical partner. There are also insights on video from Satya Raghavan, who is head of entertainment partnerships at YouTube, and a perspective on what the "magic of print" can achieve from Agnello Dias, chief operating officer and co-founder of Taproot Dentsu India Communication.

An afternoon panel looks at whether a model of "co-operative disruption" is possible with content aggregators. Shantanu Bhanja of HT Media Group moderates a panel including Damon Xi (UCWeb India & Indonesia, Alibaba Mobile Business Group), Radhika Shukla (News Republic, Cheetah Mobile), Prashant Chacko (Dailyhunt, Verse Innovation), Deepit Purkayastha (Inshorts), Jonna Venkata Karthik Raja (Paperboy) and Salil Kumar (India Today Group Digital).

The story of how "the disrupted became the disrupters" is always a welcome one, and here ABP sales director Chandan Majumdar presents the case study of how ABP moved the weddings classified advertisements business onto a digital platform, converting a declining business into a growing one.

The second day's programme looks first at "the end of competitive advantage as we knew it" - with contributions from former Micromax chief marketing officer Shubhajit Sen and McCann Worldgroup vice chairman and managing director Partha Sinha - and a publisher's perspective from The Hindu chief executive Rajiv Lochan on how the print newspaper group launched itself as a media organisation of the future.

A lively view of neutrality is promised with Republic TV managing director Arnab Goswami, and later Rajendra Khare, founder and chairman of SureWaves (Media Tech) Rajendra Khare will discuss the programmatic wave.

An editorial panel looks at newsroom transformation, moderated by Vipra founder Harini Calamur, will include Zakka Jacob (CNN News), Rajesh Mahapatra (Hindustan Times), Kalpesh Yagnik (Dainik Bhaskar) and Unni Rajen Shanker (Indian Express).

An innovative idea to take hope? A quick-fire series of best practice from South Asia has Jagran Prakashan's Basant Rathore on "crowdsourcing imagination", Hindustan Times' "No TV Day" (from HT Media's Rajan Bhalla, and The Times of India & Mirror Brand's No Honking Drive from Suneet Johar.

INMA executive director and chief executive Earl Wilkinson wraps up the event with a news media outlook session on the "indispensability of news brands", urging an investment in promoting the value of news brands which could be "the difference between life and death".

A dinner supported by The Indian Newspaper Society is Thursday evening's social highlight. More details from INMA.