iWorld
Short takes, big applause as Kuku TV rolls out India’s first microdrama awards
MUMBAI: When stories come in snackable sizes, the celebrations can still be supersized. Kuku TV rolled out the red carpet for the country’s first awards ceremony dedicated entirely to microdramas, hosting the inaugural Kuku TV Awards 2025 on January 7 at The Nines, Juhu, Mumbai.
The evening marked a milestone moment for India’s fast-growing microdrama ecosystem, bringing together actors, creators and industry voices who are shaping this short-form storytelling boom. The event drew several familiar faces from television and digital entertainment, alongside Kuku TV’s founders and leadership team, underscoring the format’s growing cultural and commercial relevance.
Designed to celebrate a genre that thrives on brevity and binge-worthiness, the awards spanned 19 categories, with winners decided through a blend of audience engagement data and platform-led voting. The night balanced accolades with entertainment, featuring stand-up comedy by Anirban Dasgupta and live musical performances between award segments.
Among the top honours, My Homeless Billionaire Husband was named best microdrama, having clocked over 200 million views on the Kuku TV app. Abhyuday Pandey and Puja Bharati Sharma took home best actor and best actress respectively, while Nikhil Kulshrestha won best director, Ananya Patnayak best writer and Santosh Bajantre best cinematography.
Character-led storytelling took centre stage too. Awards were handed out for categories such as Best billionaire character, Best vamp character, most fashionable character, Best senior character and best child character, highlighting how even short-format narratives can build memorable screen personas.
In a nod to its community-driven ethos, several trophies were presented by Kuku TV users themselves, reinforcing the platform’s audience-first approach and the close creator–viewer loop that powers microdramas.
Commenting on the occasion, Kuku co-founder Vinod Kumar Meena said the awards were created to recognise the shows, performances and creators across Kuku TV’s ecosystem, reflecting how far both the platform and the microdrama format have come in India.
The debut edition of the Kuku TV Awards signals that while microdramas may be short on duration, they are no longer small on ambition or applause.
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.
