MAM
Sportskeeda CTO Sankalp Sharma exits after 10 years at the helm
MUMBAI: You can’t spell Sportskeeda without code. And for the last decade, Sankalp Sharma has been the man behind the machine, the chief technology officer who took a broken codebase, a skeletal team, and a laundry list of experiments, and turned it into a battle-hardened platform serving millions of sports fans worldwide. Now, after 10 years and 7 months, Sharma is moving on, leaving behind a tech legacy etched into the site’s DNA.
Sharma’s tenure has been one of audacious scale. From six hot codebases and a dozen services, his lean team engineered a system that now handles a billion API calls a day with near-million concurrency. As CTO since December 2020 (after stints as VP of technology and tech lead), he not only scaled from “0 to 1, 1 to 10, and on to 100” but also reshaped how Sportskeeda approached experimentation, reliability, and growth.
Reflecting on his philosophy, Sharma describes his approach as “going wide, going deep, and going around” spotting unnoticed patterns, rolling up his sleeves to refine systems, and navigating future goals through the fog of war. Along the way, he fostered a culture of curiosity, killed fluff projects early, and championed open-source contributions. His earlier career saw roles at Essencemediacom, Mindshare, VML, Foxymoron, TCS, and even a freelance stint helping startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.
From one-click deployments to site reliability engineering, from streamlining legacy microservices to mentoring LGBTQIA+ professionals and startup founders, Sharma’s playbook has been as much about people as it was about platforms. As Sportskeeda now looks ahead to its next growth chapter, it does so with a tech foundation built on Sharma’s decade-long vision of harmony amid chaos.
Brands
Jubilant FoodWorks faces Rs 47.5 crore GST demand, plans appeal
Tax authorities flag alleged misclassification of restaurant services
MUMBAI: Jubilant FoodWorks Limited has landed in a tax tussle after receiving a GST demand of Rs 47.5 crore from the office of the additional commissioner of CGST and central excise in Thane, Maharashtra.
The order, issued under the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, relates to an alleged incorrect classification of certain services under the category of restaurant services. According to the tax authorities, this classification resulted in a short payment of goods and services tax for the period between the financial years 2019-20 and 2021-22.
The demand includes Rs 47.5 crore in GST along with an equal amount as penalty, in addition to applicable interest. The order was received by the company on March 13, 2026.
In a regulatory filing to the BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited, the company said it disagrees with the order and believes its arguments were not adequately considered.
The company is preparing to challenge the decision and plans to file an appeal. It added that once the redressal process is complete, the demand is likely to be dropped.
Despite the sizeable figure attached to the notice, the company said it does not expect any material impact on its financials, operations or other activities.
The disclosure was signed by Suman Hegde, EVP and chief financial officer, who confirmed that the company received the order at 19:06 IST on March 13 and has already initiated steps to contest it.
The development places the quick service restaurant major in the middle of a tax debate that could hinge on how certain restaurant-linked services are classified under GST rules. For now, the company appears ready to take the matter from the tax office to the appeals desk.
