iWorld
Eros Now partners with EUROSTAR Group
MUMBAI: Eros Now, the cutting-edge digital over-the-top (OTT) South Asian entertainment platform owned by Eros International, a global Indian Entertainment Company, has announced its partnership with UAE-based digital retail giant, EUROSTAR Group. The association enables the large diaspora from the Indian sub-continent and locals across GCC countries to access Eros Now’s vast content library of more than 12,000 movies, music videos, original shows, short format content quickie and more.
The massive fan base of Indian entertainment content in the GCC markets can now take advantage of monthly and annual subscription packs of Eros Now from their nearest EUROSTAR-serviced retail outlet. The partnership promises to deliver entertainment and enhance customer convenience by offering seamless access to the premium OTT platform.
Expats from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Egypt living in UAE and other GCC markets are massive fans of Indian entertainment, especially Bollywood movies and stars. Eros Now, apart from offering a huge Bollywood film catalogue, is also known as the one-stop destination for regional films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Gujarati, among other Indian languages. The Company’s direct-to-digital offerings, ground-breaking original shows and short-format content category, quickie, further encourages GCC market consumers to avail subscription from EUROSTAR retail outlets.
Eros Now chief executive officer Ali Hussein said, “We at Eros Now believe in constantly enhancing consumer experience and expand reach by partnering with relevant leading brands globally. The partnership with EUROSTAR is a testament to our endeavor in offering easy accessibility and unparalleled entertainment to the massive consumer base across GCC countries. We are confident that with a plethora of choices as well as regional languages to choose from, audiences in GCC will find there is no better place to go.”
EUROSTAR spokesperson and executive director Shaan Jethwani said, “We are happy to partner with India’s leading OTT platform Eros Now to offer their bouquet of content to our audience. The increasing demand for Indian entertainment content in GCC markets is the driving force behind this decision. With EUROSTAR’s legacy on Pay TV distribution, we envisage to deliver its vast entertainment content to a massive consumer base across GCC countries.”
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.
