iWorld
JSW Sports signs Kabaddi star Pawan Sehrawat
Mumbai: JSW Sports has announced the signing of a multi-year deal with kabaddi player Pawan Sehrawat. As part of the association, Sehrawat’s commercial and brand partnerships will be managed exclusively by JSW Sports.
With an already existing investment in the Pro Kabaddi League with the JSW Sports franchise Haryana Steelers, the company is looking to further expand its impact on the sport and contribute to the growth of the game throughout the year by bringing on board the flagbearer and one of the most iconic kabaddi players in the recent past.
Sehrawat, who holds the record for the most raid points in a single PKL match (39 points), finished with the most raid points for three consecutive PKL editions from Season 6 to 8. Sehrawat was also part of the gold medal-winning Indian team at the South Asian Games 2019 and led the Indian Railways to the team’s fourth consecutive title victory at the Senior National Kabaddi Championship earlier this year.
“We are delighted to welcome Sehrawat to the JSW Sports family. Pawan has a strong presence among a large fan community and kabaddi community. We are keen to build a brand around him just like we have done for Olympic Gold Medallist Neeraj Chopra and witnessed a tremendous increase in his brand value through the year beyond marquee events. We are looking forward to a long and fruitful association with Pawan,” said JSW Sports COO Divyanshu Singh.
Sehrawat expressed, “JSW Sports is one of the frontrunners in the sports marketing industry and I am thrilled to be associating with them. The organisation has helped several sports stars grow their brand value, and in the right manner, and it is something I am keen to do, besides contributing to the overall growth of kabaddi in the country. I am certain that this association with JSW Sports will be a fruitful one.”
JSW Sports also handles commercial partnerships for Neeraj Chopra, Jemimah Rodrigues, Sakshi Malik, Axar Patel and several other Indian athletes.
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.
