iWorld
NH7 Weekender Pune adds powerhouse comedy lineup
IconiQ White edition from March 13–15 features 10 plus stand-ups alongside music headliners
MUMBAI: Pune’s happiest music fest just doubled down on laughs because when the beats drop and the punchlines land, even the crowd’s too busy giggling to notice the bass. The Iconiq White NH7 Weekender returns to Mahalakshmi Lawns, Pune from March 13 to 15, 2026, and this time the festival isn’t just serving earworms, it’s delivering full-blown comedy chaos between sets. Organisers have stacked a formidable stand-up lineup to keep the energy roaring when artists like Talwiinder, Prateek Kuhad, Raftaar x KR$NA, KING, Nucleya & Friends and Indian Ocean take breaks.
Top billing goes to 10 comedians festivalgoers won’t want to miss:
- Aaditya Kulshreshth (Kullu) – relatable middle-class & college nostalgia king
- Rohan Joshi – sharp pop-culture wit from the AIB days
- Urooj Ashfaq – deadpan delivery and offbeat brilliance
- Madhur Virli – quirky personal storytelling that hits home
- Sonali Thakker – fresh takes on relationships and everyday awkwardness
- Varun Thakur – high-energy “Vicky Malhotra” persona
- Rahul Subramanian – clean observational humour with viral crowd work
- Shreeja Chaturvedi – clever, dry wit and smart punchlines
- Sahil Shah – geek-culture humour and electric stage presence
- Fatima Ayesha – confident, sharp observations on life and culture
Additional acts include Anish Goregaonkar, Daahab Chishti, Rajat Sood, Supriya Joshi, Sumaira Shaikh, Urjita Wani, Kaustubh Agarwal’s Akal Ke Ghode, and Kumar Varun’s interactive comedy-quiz format Kvizzing.
The comedy stage joins a music lineup that promises sing-along anthems and high-octane sets, turning the three-day festival into a full-spectrum entertainment escape where the laughs hit as hard as the drops.
In a country where festivals already feel like organised chaos, NH7 Pune is making sure the only thing louder than the speakers is the roar from the comedy tent.
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.
