Northeast lands rare shot at HYBE's global girl group. Here's how to get in

The auditions are coming — and the Northeast has made the cut.

Korean entertainment giant HYBE, the company behind BTS, has opened applications for a girl group audition across India, with Guwahati among the ten cities selected for in-person rounds. Any woman born between 2005 and 2011 is eligible to apply, and the window is open until July 31.

The categories are broad — vocal, rap, dance, acting, and modelling — meaning the audition is not limited to singers or performers of a single kind. Online participation is available alongside the in-person rounds, and detailed city-wise schedules are expected to be announced on HYBE India's official audition website. The other cities on the list are Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, and Pune.

The goal, as HYBE India has stated, is to debut a "global girl group" — one built from Indian talent and intended to travel far beyond Indian shores.

For those new to the phenomenon, K-pop — short for Korean popular music — is a meticulously engineered entertainment system built around rigorous training, sharp choreography, and highly polished production. It has become a global cultural force over the past decade, with BTS alone amassing hundreds of millions of fans worldwide.

India has not been a passive observer of this wave. The country has one of the largest K-pop fanbases on the planet, and the Northeast in particular — with its long-standing cultural affinities with East Asia — has produced some of the most devoted fan communities in the country.

That enthusiasm has already begun translating into representation. Lara Raj, of Tamil-American heritage, performs with HYBE's own girl group KATSEYE. Sriya Lenka from Odisha is a member of BLACKSWAN. Aria, also of Indian origin, is part of K-pop group X:IN. Each of those breakthroughs has sharpened expectations for what this latest talent search might produce.

HYBE India, which opened its Mumbai headquarters in September last year — the company's fifth international base after Japan, the United States, Latin America, and China — says the auditions mark its formal entry into India's talent ecosystem. The company is applying the same training model responsible for launching BTS and KATSEYE, adapted for an Indian context.

The timing adds to the momentum. BTS recently returned with their album Arirang, putting the group back at the centre of global attention. Mumbai hosted Jungkook's GOLDEN: The Moments exhibition in December — the first official BTS-related experience on Indian soil.

Guwahati's inclusion was not accidental. Padmapani Bora, Managing Director of Assam Tourism, confirmed that he met with a HYBE representative in the city last year to explore possibilities in artist development and large-scale concert events — part of Assam's effort to position itself on the global entertainment map.

That conversation, it appears, has borne fruit.