iWorld
ZEE5 partners with sunburn
MUMBAI: ZEE5, India's fastest growing Contech brand partners with Sunburn, Asia’s biggest Electronic Dance Music Festival to share exclusive interviews, behind the scene moments and premiere performances of Sunburn Season 13 on the Zee5 platform.
Currently in its thirteenth edition, Sunburn kickstarted last weekend with a power packed performance by American rapper, singer and songwriter Wiz Khalifa in Mumbai and Delhi. Sunburn will continue to host Arena performances across cities viz. Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune to eventually culminate with its popular flagship annual property which will take place in Goa from 27 to 29 December 2019.
Sunburn, a Percept Intellectual Property, is Asia’s Premiere Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Festival, and is ranked amongst the world’s biggest music festivals. Started in 2007 as a 3 day music festival in Goa, Sunburn has grown to become an aspirational lifestyle brand boasting an eclectic mix of music, entertainment, experiences and celebration that has seeded music tourism in India. Over the past decade, Sunburn has brought together renowned International and Indian artists including Swedish House Mafia, Martin Garrix, Tiesto, Avicii, Hardwell, Deadmau5, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Afrojack, Above & Beyond, The Chainsmokers, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Marshmello, Paul Van Dyk, Skazi, Pete Tong, Dash Berlin, and Nicky Romero. ZEE5 subscribers can now watch all this action packed entertainment from the comfort of their home.
Manpreet Bumrah, Business Development & Commercial Head, ZEE5 India, said, “We got a fantastic response from our audiences last year, encouraging us to take forward our collaboration with Sunburn yet again. We believe we complement each other. We have each established ourselves as the go-to destination for entertainment in our respective genres. This association, we believe, will be a wonderful value-add for our subscribers in the age-group of 18 to 34 years of age, a key demographic of our base.”
Karan Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Percept Live commented, “We are thrilled to partner with ZEE5. Both Sunburn and ZEE5 have changed the dynamics of the Media & Entertainment domain and emerged as popular platforms for Millennials today. Sunburn has continually strived to scale up its innovation and entertainment quotient year on year inclusive of the best artist line-up, state-of-the-art technology and a wide range of experiential activities to provide fans with a larger than life wow experience, Our partnership with ZEE5 will definitively raise the bar and offer music aficionados an online entertaining musical experience like never before.”
With over 3500 films, 500+ TV shows, 4000+ music videos, 35+ theatre plays and 80+ LIVE TV Channels across 12 languages, ZEE5 truly presents a blend of unrivalled content offering for its viewers across the nation and worldwide. With ZEE5, the global content of Zindagi as a brand, which was widely appreciated across the country, has also been brought back for its loyal viewers.
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.
