Anupam Kher, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap join Academy's Class of 2019

Actor Anupam Kher, filmmakers Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Ritesh Batra, visual effects artistes Sherry Bharda and Srinivas Mohan have all been invited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to become its members. It has been a significant decrease since last year when 21 Indian film personalities, including Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Anil Kapoor, Soumitra Chatterjee, Naseeruddin Shah, Tabu, were invited to join.

Mumbai-born, British-Asian actress Archie Panjabi is also invited in the actors branch of the AMPAS. 

This year's class of 2019 was announced by the Academy yesterday (1 July). They invited 842 new members, down from last year's record of 928 new members.

Out of the 842 new members, 50% are women. This brings the overall membership of women in the Academy from 25% in 2015 to 32% this year. Furthermore, 29% of the new membership consists of people of colour. That has almost doubled to 16% since 2015 when it was 8%. This year's Oscar winners, 21 of them, from Lady Gaga to music composer Ludwig Goransson have been invited too.