ShivnathThukral is the new director of public policy for Meta India.

Appointment follows the exits of WhatsApp India chief Abhijit Bose and Rajiv Aggarwal, Meta’s head of public policy

ShivnathThukral is the new director of public policy for Meta India.

ShivnathThukral has been hired as Meta India's new director of public policy, according to Manish Chopra. Chopra is Meta India's director of partnerships.

A few days after Meta fired 11,000 employees and a few weeks after its India president Ajit Mohan left for Snap, Abhijit Bose, WhatsApp's head of operations in India, and Rajiv Aggarwal, Meta's head of public policy, both left their positions. This appointment comes in the wake of their departures.

Since 2017, Shivnath has played a crucial role in our Public Policy team. Shivnath will establish and oversee significant policy development projects across our apps in India, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in his new job. We will continue to make substantial contributions to the regulatory process that will allow everyone to fully utilise the potential of India's digital economy because we are still committed to our Indian users, said Chopra in a statement.

Bose announced his leaving by writing on LinkedIn: "Because we had to say goodbye to so many wonderful coworkers last week, it has been a difficult week for the entire WhatsApp team. In the midst of all of this, I recently informed our WhatsApp and India teams of some news. It has long been in the works."

"After four incredible years at WhatsApp, I've decided to leave Meta... I want to get back into business after a brief sabbatical.

"I want to express my gratitude to Abhijit Bose for his outstanding work as our first Head of WhatsApp in India. His spirit of entrepreneurship aided our group in providing innovative services that have assisted millions of individuals and organisations. The head of WhatsApp, Will Cathcart, stated in a statement, "WhatsApp can do so much more for India, and we're delighted to keep advancing India's digital transformation.

2019 saw Bose join WhatsApp India. On the other side, Aggarwal joined Meta in September 2021 from Uber, where he served as the company's head of public policy for South Asia and India.

"Rajiv Aggarwal has made the decision to leave his position at Meta in order to explore a different opportunity. He has contributed significantly to our policy-led initiatives over the past year in areas like user safety, privacy, and scaling up programmes like GOAL to promote digital inclusion in the nation.