iWorld
ZEE5 announces new campaign ZEE5 World Hits to bring international titles in Indian languages at zero cost
Mumbai: ZEE5, India introduced ‘ZEE5 World Hits’ bringing a slew of successful and premium international titles dubbed in Indian languages at zero cost.
Launched in October 2022, so far, the platform has brought over 40 international movies, including some exclusives. The campaign has already witnessed an overwhelming response from the audiences, especially for titles like Rising Shaolinand The Python (exclusively available on ZEE5); Mulan and War of Thunder (war dramas), to name a few.
As part of the initiative, the platform will continue to add six to ten new titles each month, apart from a bumper release of 18 titles on 2nd December. In line with the brand’s vision to democratise access to quality content, ZEE5 aims to empower audiences to binge on new hits from its content library in their own language.
ZEE5 World Hits features global hits like Rising Shaolin, The Python, Marshal Mu Guiying, Uncaged, Dragon, and more; several of them are exclusively available for the audiences on the platform. Additionally, a number of intriguing war and costume drama portrayals, like Mulan, War of Thunder, and The Golden Horde, are also part of the library.
Audiences will also be able to enjoy movies like Partition, which features iconic Indian stars Irrfan Khan and Vinay Pathak.
Talking about the campaign, ZEE5 head of AVoD marketing Abhirup Datta said, “We designed the campaign, ZEE5 World Hits, to empower our audiences with choice and improve accessibility and availability of premium content in multiple languages. Our aim with this campaign is to bring exciting stories from across the globe to Indian viewers in their preferred languages, in a bid towards democratising quality content. While most of these titles are now available in Hindi, we have been adding Tamil, Telugu dubbed versions, as well as some movies in original languages in the coming months. With this, we expand our AVoD offerings and hope that our existing viewers enjoy the World Hits as well as attract new audiences to the platform.”
“In line with our vision of entertainment inclusion, we recently announced the ZEE5 Manoranjan Festival 2022, where we made some of the most popular and premium titles across languages available at zero cost. During the seven-day festival, 35+ premium titles were available for the AVoD audiences from across genres, including thrillers, fiction, romance, etc.,” he added.
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.
