iWorld
Ranchi’s Rahul Bhagat wins the inaugural season of Amazon miniTV’s Hip Hop India
Mumbai: Amazon miniTV’s dance reality show – Hip Hop India saw a spectacular Grand Finale and the long-awaited results are in. Rahul Bhagat won the inaugural season with a picture-finish win. The reality show was a dance marathon, with rappers Badshaah and Raftaar adding glitter to the stages with their Swag avatars for the gala grand finale. Judged by dance masters Remo D’Souza and Nora Fatehi, Hip Hop India has witnessed the greatest and toughest battles with incredible raw underground talent from all over India.
Following seven weeks of fierce competition and electrifying performances, India’s first Hip Hop based dance reality show has concluded with Rahul Bhagat, emerging as the Hip Hop Champion. The 21-year-old defeated two other finalists – dancing crew UGH, and the energetic duo Divyam & Darshan to clinch the trophy at the grand finale. Rahul, who hails from Ranchi, took home the brand new Nissan Magnite Geza Special Edition and the Hip-Hop India Championship belt for his victorious performance. Rahul, the maestro of Popping and Waving, began dancing when he was in the fourth grade and has been enthralling audiences across dance shows for a decade. Having won 10 titles to date, his goal is to foster the authentic hip-hop culture all over Jharkhand.
The Grand Finale witnessed enthralling dance performances by not just the contestants, but also by the judge Nora Fatehi. The stage also witnessed Remo D’Souza live in action after 3 long years. She set the stage on fire, taking away everyone’s heartbeats with her scintillating dance performance to songs Dilbar ko dil sadke and Divine’s Mirchi. Celebrity judges Badshaah and Raftaar raised the entertainment bar with their dynamic performance packed with energy.
Judge Remo D’souza said, “Rahul is India’s Hip Hop dancing prodigy. I am elated to see him lifting the Hip Hop Championship Belt. His talent, unwavering passion will be a source of inspiration to the nation, that has led him Gully se Glory Tak! Not just Rahul, but a big shout-out to all the contestants of Hip Hop India who gave it their all. I would like to thank all the audience for their unwavering support and for making the first edition of the show a huge success.”
Sharing her thoughts, Nora Fatehi said, “We all embarked on this exciting dance journey, to find India’s next hip hop sensation and I couldn’t be happier that Rahul has bagged top honors! His performance throughout the show was nothing short of legendary, and it really showed his commitment and love for hip hop. I would also like to take this opportunity to give a huge round of applause to all the contestants and Amazon miniTV and everyone involved in taking hip hop Gully se Glory Tak!”
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.
