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aha wins the ‘Best Entertainment App’ at IAMAI’s India Digital Awards
Mumbai: aha, one of India’s regional OTT, has won the Internet & Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI) India Digital Awards 2023 ‘Best Entertainment App’ Award under the category Best Mobile & App Awards. The awards recognize the best in India’s digital ecosystem, including individuals, companies, and innovations.
aha, in three years since its inception in 2020, has scaled to 9 million monthly active users, 2 million plus active subscribers, overseas subscribers of over 100k and 32 million app downloads. It is the only app providing 100 per cent local content in Telugu and Tamil, respectively, which includes new content every Friday, first-of-its-kind originals, movies, talk shows, reality shows, games and live news.
aha, endorsed by celebrities Allu Arjun and Vijay Devarakonda, is seen as the most preferred Telugu OTT service, according to industry surveys. It’s also being talked about for its user-friendly features as an app and its unique distribution strategy, which ensures that everyone has access to its original local content through a wide range of channels – from local cable networks to grocery stores in public areas.
The endeavor to make the app the best source for regional entertainment continues. The brand recently announced its plans to invest Rs 1000 crore to expand it into new languages and genres. aha’s promoter, Ramu Rao Jupally, and CEO, Ajit Thakur, also reinforced their commitment to making the OTT service channel a super app in the next three years.
Happy with aha’s latest feat at the digital awards, Jupally said, “We are immensely proud of this recognition, which acknowledges our efforts to contribute to the Indian digital ecosystem through the entertainment sector. aha began with a need to provide new-age entertainment content in Telugu, and today it is synonymous with delivering 100 per cent local content in Telugu and Tamil. We look forward to strengthening this position by bridging the OTT regional content gap across all languages in the next three years.”
Thakur added, “We are thrilled to have received the ‘Best Entertainment App’ award at IAMAI’s India Digital Awards, and it’s an honor to be recognized for our efforts. It further validates the success of aha, given its recent trail of achievements as an OTT service provider of 100 per cent local entertainment. We are committed to further transforming this experience by making it a super app in the next three years with content beyond films and original series; it includes interactive content, gaming and tapping into the hybrid model, which is the future of the streaming platforms.”
aha has, in the past, been awarded the Regional Platform of the Year and Game Changer of the Year at Economic Times SPOTT Awards 2022. The OTT service provider has started working on its plans to launch in Malayalam and Kannada.
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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.
