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Mumbai: Jio Platforms (JPL), the telecom, digital and technology arm of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries, may launch its estimated $4-billion initial public offering (IPO)-India’s largest ever-by the end of October or early November, people familiar with the development told ET.

“Most likely, Jio plans to launch the IPO toward the end of October, particularly around the auspicious days during Navratri,” said a person aware of the likely timelines. “If the launch gets pushed toward the end of October, there could also be some spillover into the first week of November. If not the Navratri, the company could target Diwali for the IPO.”

Jio is likely to finalise the exact dates within a couple of weeks after which it would initiate roadshows overseas before holding them at home, said a source close to the development.

The company plans three weeks of international and two weeks of domestic roadshows, three people in the know said.

Details from the DRHP
If the IPO coincides with the Navratri, which starts on Oct 11 and ends on Dussehra (Oct 20), the roadshows could begin as early as next week. Diwali falls on Nov. 8, while Dhanteras is on Nov 6.
Emails sent to the company and lead bankers remained unanswered until the publication of this report.
The company that had filed draft IPO papers in June, received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on August 28 to launch its share sale.

Shattering Records

Bankers estimate the Jio IPO could raise around Rs 37,800 crore, potentially making it India’s largest public issue.

The Jio IPO is expected to surpass the proposed Rs31,000-crore-IPO by National Stock Exchange (NSE). Hyundai Motor India‘s Rs 27,000 crore IPO in 2024 remains the largest completed IPO in the country so far.

According to the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), Jio Platforms plans to issue up to 270 million fresh equity shares, representing around 2.9% of its post-IPO equity capital. The proposed IPO does not include an offer-for-sale (OFS) component.

The offering will be the first IPO from the Reliance Industries group in nearly two decades, since the listing of Reliance Petroleum in 2006.

A portion of the IPO proceeds will be used to prepay up to Rs 27,500 crore of loans at Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL), the operating subsidiary of Jio Platforms. The remaining proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

Jio Platforms may provide funds to RJIL by subscribing to its equity shares, convertible or non-convertible preference shares or debentures, or through loans, or a combination of these, according to the DRHP.

Large investors collectively hold nearly 30.9% of Jio Platforms. Jaadhu Holdings, an affiliate of Meta Platforms, owns 9.98%, while Google International holds 7.73%. Other investors include Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Vista Equity affiliates, General Atlantic, KKR-backed entities and investment vehicles of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Some fast-food chains offer a free birthday meal or snack – Burger King members can claim a free Whopper or Plant-Based Whopper, while Chopstix offers a free small noodle box.

However, most restaurant birthday offers are buy-one-get-one-free deals rather than completely free meals.

At Harvester and Zizzi’s it’s a free main when buying another full-price main. At Frankie & Benny’s you get a free main when purchasing two or more main meals.

Byron offers a free burger with a £5 minimum spend, while Wagamama offers free gyoza when you spend £12 and have earned at least one stamp on your loyalty card in the last six months.

Some chains give money off instead. Turtle Bay offers members a £20 birthday credit with no minimum spend, while Bella Italia gives you £15 off your total bill when you spend a minimum of £30. Las Iguanas offers a free main when two other meals are purchased or a 20% off voucher.

Pizza Express birthday rewards depend on your loyalty level. Bronze members may get a free dessert with a £10 spend, while higher tiers can get a free pizza or drinks with a £15 minimum spend.

At Prezzo, members receive drinks or desserts when they spend at least £25, while Bill’s offers a bottle of prosecco or pancakes when qualifying meals are ordered and the booking is made in advance.

The board of German car giant Volkswagen has approved a plan to cut another 50,000 jobs as part of a sweeping turnaround programme. It brings the total number of roles the company plans to shed by 2030 to 100,000.

The group – which includes Audi, Porsche, Skoda as well as the VW brand – said in March that it would cut 50,000 roles by the end of the decade.

The move is a “strong signal” for the future of the firm, which is “taking responsibility for our entire workforce”, VW’s chief executive Oliver Blume said in a statement on Thursday.

Blume told the BBC in July that the firm was looking to make the additional cuts.

The company has been hit by a drop in profits due to falling sales and fierce competition, especially from Chinese brands.

VW’s statement also said that a “fundamental adjustment of the global workforce capability is necessary” to safeguard the competitiveness of the company, which faces shifting demand and technological change.

It added “a Group-wide workforce adjustment of approximately 50,000 positions – including management roles – will be necessary.”

As of 2025, the Beetle-maker employed more than 660,000 people worldwide.

Pooja Bhatt, an associate professor at OP Jindal Global University, says that mismatch is increasingly difficult to ignore.

“Given its young demographics and ‘Digital India’ aspirations, it makes sense for the nation to build and maintain its own internet infrastructure for security and governance purposes,” she says.

India has already taken a step: the government now treats submarine cable systems as critical telecommunications infrastructure, recognising their importance to international connectivity.

Sundararajan says the designation should bring faster clearances, emergency repair mechanisms and an Indian cable-repair capability, along with legally protected cable zones around landing sites and routes, restricting anchoring and trawling.

Technology could help too.

A technology called Distributed Acoustic Sensing can turn optical fibres into sensors capable of detecting vibrations from ships, anchors or underwater vehicles – potentially identifying threats before a cable is severed.

But the immediate fixes are possibly more mundane: more landing stations, greater geographical diversity, faster permissions, protected cable routes and an Indian repair capability.

“Connectivity has historically clustered around Mumbai because the ecosystem, infrastructure and demand were already concentrated there,” Gupta says. “But that concentration is exactly the risk the industry needs to design away from.”

That shift is already beginning.

Four new submarine cable systems are being commissioned, external, with three more planned. Lightstorm is leading a consortium building one of them, I-2SEA, linking India with Malaysia and Singapore. The system will have dual landings in India – at Machilipatnam, providing a shorter subsea route to Hyderabad, and at a new landing location in South Chennai, adding diversity to existing routes.

For a country consuming data at extraordinary speed, the infrastructure carrying it remains surprisingly fragile. India is adding data centres and preparing for an AI-heavy future. The question is whether its cables, landing stations and repair capacity can keep up.

Aurora Cannabis ACB -0.54%decrease; down pointing triangle urged its shareholders to reject an unsolicited $272 million hostile takeover bid from Curaleaf CURA 1.32%increase; up pointing triangle Holdings, saying the offer is inadequate and undervalues parts of its business.

Aurora’s Chief Executive Miguel Martin added that the cannabis company’s standalone strategy to expand its medical cannabis business internationally should start to bear fruit in the next six months and plans to outline the strategy in greater detail in the coming weeks.

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Cyber-security researcher Charlie Kelly from Have I Been Squatted carried out an analysis of how the attack worked and said the new wave of recruitment scams were hard to spot.

“This wasn’t a badly written email with a suspicious attachment – this person was walked through what looked like a real job interview, on real Google pages, behind a real Google login, and the software they were asked to install was digitally signed like any legitimate app.”

The case comes as others have reported similar attacks through the job listing platform Indeed, which put out advice in July about avoiding scams, external.

Criminals are using the pressure and excitement of job interviews to lure people into downloading booby-trapped mobile applications like a fake Indeed Interview app or one called MyInterview.

According to cyber-security company Malwarebytes, the fake recruiters use lures such as: “Complete your interview by installing the Indeed app” or “salary agreement available after app installation”.

Once downloaded the malicious apps allow hackers to access private data for extortion or to use in financial attacks.

“Interviewing through Indeed’s platform happens entirely in a browser and never requires downloading a special app,” the company recently posted online.

“Any message asking a job seeker to download an app to participate in an interview is not legitimate.”

A single accurate model can be rendered from any angle, in any colour, setting or format, so a new variant becomes a re-render rather than a new shoot.

By 2014, IKEA had disclosed that around 75% of its catalogue imagery was computer-generated rather than photographed. What was once a big-brand luxury is now a practical option for far smaller businesses.

Why is product photography so expensive?

For most product businesses, photography is a recurring cost, not a one-off. Every colourway, channel and seasonal refresh tends to mean another shoot. The website wants clean cut-out images, the social team wants lifestyle shots, the marketplace listing has its own spec, and the trade brochure wants something else again. For a narrow, stable range, that is manageable. For one with hundreds of lines, frequent launches or many variants, the cost compounds until imagery becomes one of the larger marketing lines – and one of the slowest to turn around. Waiting on a physical sample can hold a launch up by weeks.

What changes with a 3D model?

The 3D approach builds one accurate digital model of a product, once, then renders it as many times as needed, in a plain studio scene or a styled room that never existed. Change the fabric and you re-render rather than re-shoot. Consistency is the quieter benefit. When every image comes from the same model and the same standards, a product looks identical on the website, the marketplace and the trade stand. There is no drift between one shoot’s lighting and the next.

Does 3D visualisation increase online sales?

Interactive 3D moves conversion, not only production cost. Shopify reports that shoppers who view a product in augmented reality are 65% more likely to buy, and those who view it as a 3D model are 44% more likely to add it to their basket. One model built for the catalogue can be reused on the product page, in an AR viewer and in an online configurator, with no fresh shoot each time.

When is 3D visualisation worth the cost?

3D visualisation earns its upfront modelling cost through reuse, so it pays off fastest where an image is used many times or a product ships in many variants: furniture, configurable goods, wide catalogues, and ranges marketed before they physically exist. For a single image that will never be reused, a photographer is still the simpler answer. The first model costs more than a single shoot; the saving comes with reuse, so the crossover arrives once an image is needed across several variants or channels. A project usually starts from what you already have – product samples, technical drawings or existing photographs – from which the studio builds the model. You approve it, then commission renders as you need them: the launch set now, campaign or seasonal variations later, all from the same asset. Three practical checks before you commit: volume (how many images, variants and channels the model will feed), full commercial rights, and whether the studio’s renders hold up as genuinely photoreal.

Who provides 3D visualisation services?

Studios offering 3D visualisation services build one production-ready model from a brief and reuse it across every channel and format. Evermotion, a Polish studio with 20 years in 3D, says its library of more than 18,000 ready-made assets lets it produce a project in up to half the time, since much of a scene can start from existing assets rather than being built from scratch. The method suits businesses with wide or fast-changing product ranges more than one-off campaigns. The wider shift is simple: product imagery is moving from a service you buy over and over to an asset you build once and reuse.