WhatsApp to choose Hyderabad as its India HQ

The recent visit of Chris Daniels, CEO - WhatsApp to India happens to be the first ever visit by any WhatsApp chief executive to the country. He chose himself to visit the country on a five-day tour that has a huge pull of subscribers with over 250 million monthly active users.

Ever since WhatsApp payments started to pilot in India, the instant messenger has been facing a tough time in the country. Right from the issues of fake news to lynching and setting up local operations for its UPI-based payments, the company has left no stone unturned to settle the issues with the Indian government.

Daniel, who recently met Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is now looking to set up a local office in the IT city of Hyderabad by meeting Telangana IT minister K T Rama Rao to discuss all the possible aspects in this regard. Its parent company Facebook which also has a large presence in the country has its India office in Hyderabad since 2010.

Following the government’s direction, WhatsApp had agreed to meet all the norms except the message traceability. According to the company, building traceability would undermine end-to-end encryption and the private nature of WhatsApp, creating the potential for serious misuse.

In the Linkedin  page of Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister has confirmed that the CEO of Whatsapp Chris Daniels had met him. "I requested him to appoint a grievance officer in India, set up a corporate entity of Whatsapp in India to ensure compliance with Indian laws, work with Indian law enforcement agencies and undertake public awareness campaigns to prevent misuse of #Whatsapp. He assured me to comply with all these requests," the Minister tweeted.

WhatsApp had said that it is headhunting for two leadership positions, India Head and Head of Policy.

The WhatsApp management in India also needs to have a corporate social responsibility to ensure monitoring and control of unethical spreading of unwanted, anti-social and hateful messages through it.