iWorld
Disney+ Hotstar announces the upcoming thriller drama series ‘The Night Manager’
Mumbai: It’s gripping, it’s layered, it’s complex… Hotstar Specials’ latest, The Night Manager, is wrapped in lavish drama and picturesque sights—it’s everything one can expect in a thrilling package. The series onboarded Anil Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapur in never-before-seen characters along with Sobhita Dhulipala, Tillotama Shome, Saswata Chatterjee, and Ravi Behl, among others.
Created and directed by Sandeep Modi and co-directed by Priyanka Ghosh, The Night Manager is produced by The Ink Factory and Banijay Asia and will be released soon on Disney+ Hotstar.
Disney Star head of content for Disney+Hotstar & HSM Entertainment Network Gaurav Banerjee said, “The Night Manager in our ambition is the best high stakes drama! Great actors, stunning locales, and a rich plot with juicy twists. We hope viewers have as much fun watching it as all of us have had while making it.”
“This is my second association with Disney+ Hotstar, and we’ve tried to raise the bar with this show, be it the storytelling, scale, or technical finesse. It’s always exhilarating and exasperating in equal measures to helm such a big show, and I am super excited to present this tale of espionage, revenge, and betrayal to the world,” Modi added.
“I have always loved working on differentiated content and characters. The first time I read the script, I just fell in love with the character of Shelly Rungta,” said Anil Kapoor. “Shelly is a powerful man, a philanthropist, and a perfect balance of wit and evil with imperceptible menace, just like the story of the show—a perfect blend of entertainment and great storytelling. I thoroughly enjoyed working with some of the finest in the industry and one of the leading OTT platforms – Disney+ Hotstar and eagerly waiting to see the audience’s reaction to the show,” he added.
Aditya Roy Kapur commented, “I have always wanted to perform a multi-layered character in a series with a complex narrative arc, and when the platform approached me to play the title role in The Night Manager, I knew this was just the one I’d been looking for! My character Shaan is the kind of person who can effortlessly make people believe whatever he wants them to, and that perfectly mirrors what we as actors strive to achieve with our craft. I’m glad that the Disney+ Hotstar team and Sandeep Modi gave me this opportunity to play such an exciting character, and I can’t wait to bring him to audiences in India and around the world!”
The Ink Factory’s Asia slate leader Tessa Inkelaar said, “We are thrilled to see Anil Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapur play the lead roles in this wonderful story, under the remarkable direction of Sandeep Modi. It’s a hugely fresh and exciting story, and we hope that Indian audiences will be as excited about it as we are. We are profoundly grateful to Disney+ Hotstar for giving us the chance to tell this story on a fresh canvas, working with our partners in Banijay Asia. We hope that this will be the first of many Ink Factory projects in India, and we cannot wait to see it launched.”
“It is always a pleasure partnering with Disney+ Hotstar, and we’re excited to be kicking off the new year with The Night Manager. The show carries with itself the grand legacy of the original British adaptation of the novel, with The Ink Factory, which has been widely loved and acclaimed. The show brings together some of the best names in the industry, from Anil Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sandeep Modi, to name a few. It amalgamates thrill, drama, and entertainment with an Indian heartbeat. Our aim is to continually introduce concepts and shows that have the potential to be reimagined with local sensibilities, and we are looking forward to sharing this with the audiences,” added Banijay Asia founder & CEO Deepak Dhar.
iWorld
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.
