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Netflix’s efforts to bolster already impressive content library
MUMBAI: Netflix is here to stay and is extensively working on expanding its portfolio for its viewers. It had recently added Stories By Rabindranath Tagore to its catalogue. The global OTT player has also attached Marco Polo season 2 which will be available from July 1. The show is an epic adventure and extraordinary relationship between Polo and Kublai Khan with the Song Empire in ruin and the Yuan dynasty on the rise.
The 10 episode second season includes new and returning cast – namely Lorenzo Richelmy (Marco Polo), Michelle Yeoh (the Handmaiden), Benedict Wong (Kublai Khan), Joan Chen (Empress Chabi), Zhu Zhu (Kokachin), Tom Wu (Hundred Eyes), Olivia Cheng (Mei Lin), Claudia Kim (Khutulun), Rick Yune (Kaidu), Remy Hii (Prince Jingim), Mahesh Jadu (Ahmad) and Uli Latukefu (Byamba), among others.
It has also acquired global rights to Charlie McDowell’s The Discovery, starring Rooney Mara, Robert Redford and Jason Segel. The film will premiere on Netflix and also get a theatrical domestic run in 2017. Directed by Charlie McDowell and written by McDowell and Justin Lader, The Discovery is a sci-fi story set two years after the discovery of an afterlife that has been scientifically proven where millions of people have taken their own lives in order to start over. Segel plays the son of the man (Redford) responsible for the discovery, and Mara plays a woman he falls in love with whose life is tinged by a tragic past.
Netflix will also air Narcos season 2 from 2 September at 12:01 PST. Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, who plays Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s highly acclaimed drama Narcos, dishes on what’s in store for his character in the next season.
Watch the full episode of Chelsea here:
The latest acquisition by the streaming video service adds to the ranks of its comedy offerings with a feature directed by and starring Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Goldbergs actor Jeff Garlin titled Handsome. The film is described as a mystery with comedy element.
Netflix has also announced acquiring select international rights to The Office spinoff movie David Brent: Life On The Road for premiere in 2017. The deal excludes the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, where it will receive a theatrical release by Entertainment One in August. The cast includes Ben Bailey Smith as Dom and writer-comedian Tom Basden as Dan and also stars Kevin Bishop, Roisin Conaty, Diane Morgan, Ashley McGuire, Alexander Arnold and Mandeep Dhillon. The feature-length film sees a documentary crew catching up with Brent 12 years on from the BBC2 documentary The Office. He is now a travelling salesman, chasing his dream of rock stardom by self-financing a UK tour with his band Foregone Conclusion.
Marvel fans can also catch Agents of SHIELD season 3 which is now available to stream on Netflix as of June 16. The show has just finished its season on ABC in May and has signed deal with Netflix to bring some new seasons of ABC shows to the streaming service 30 days after the season finale airs. With this, all three seasons of the series are available to stream on the platform.
Agents of SHIELD is based on the characters and stories from the Marvel comics and is created by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen. It stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Nick Blood, Adrianne Palicki, Henry Simmons, and Luke Mitchell.
The series follows SHIELD, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, and its agents as they try to save the world from enemies, like HYDRA and people with superpowers.
Here is the trailer for the third season of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD –
Netflix is looking to provide a broad range of movies and TV shows for its members and says that it will always look for differing types of content catering to the tastes of over 81 million members around the world.
For a one monthly subscription price, members have access to all titles on Netflix in the country. Netflix plans are offered in three tiers: basic, standard and premium and all packages offer access to every title available on Netflix in the territory with no limit to how much one can watch.
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Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
