iWorld
Lauki meets cooker in Panchayat’s spicy Season 4 campaign blitz
MUMBAI: What do you get when lauki meets pressure cooker? A full-blown election dhamaka, of course. But this time, the cooker isn’t in the kitchen, it’s on billboards, in street installations, and it’s whistling louder than Phulera’s political tempers. Ahead of Panchayat Season 4’s release on June 24, Prime Video is turning up the heat with a brilliantly desi OOH campaign across cities. At Patna’s Marine Drive, Indore’s Chappan Dukan, and Lucknow’s buzzing 1090 Chauraha, unsuspecting passersby were met with massive laukis being squashed by equally massive pressure cookers or vice versa. The lauki isn’t going down without a fight.
The high-decibel marketing complete with hoardings that blow a real seeti every few hours plays up the season’s central conflict: Kranti Devi vs. the OG Pradhan. The quirky slogan game is also strong: Banrakas ka Vaar, Ya Pradhan ka Prahaar? and Kaun Hogi Phulera Ki Queen? echo across installations, channeling every bit of small-town poll drama with spicy flair.
It’s political theatre with a legume twist, reflecting the heartland chaos Panchayat fans love. If lauki symbolises old-school values and calm, the cooker is all pressure and power play and Phulera’s streets are the new battleground.
Returning with its signature warmth and satire, the series stars Jitendra Kumar, Neena Gupta, Raghubir Yadav, Faisal Malik and more. Created by Deepak Kumar Mishra and Chandan Kumar, the show is ready to serve a fourth helping of heartfelt hilarity. And if the campaign is any hint, this season’s narrative will be just as cooked, crisp, and chaotic.
So mark the date, because Panchayat isn’t just streaming, it’s steaming.
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.
