WhatsApp's Chief Business Officer Neeraj Arora quits
New York, Nov 27 : Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp's chief business officer, said he is leaving the popular messaging service, joining a stream of top executives who have departed Facebook and its group companies in the past year.
Arora, an IIT- Delhi alumnus and the number four in the company, was being touted to take over as WhatsApp CEO earlier this year however the role of global head of the company was given to Chris Daniels.
Arora had been with WhatsApp since 2011 and through Facebook's USD 19 billion acquisition of the messaging company in 2014. His exit comes seven months after WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum left the company.
"It is hard to believe that it has been seven years since Jan (Koum) and Brian (Acton) got me onboard at WhatsApp, and it has been one hell of a ride! It is time to move on, but I cannot be more proud of how WhatsApp continues to touch people in so many different ways every day," Arora said in a Facebook post on Monday.
"I am confident that WhatsApp will continue to be the simple, secure and trusted communication product for years to come," he wrote.
Arora's departure comes at a challenging time for WhatsApp, which has been dealing with the growing international problem of users spreading misinformation to large groups of people on the. This year WhatsApp deployed campaigns in top markets like India and Brazil to educate users and help them avoid sending around false information, CNBC said.
In addition to the recent departure of top WhatsApp executives, Facebook has also lost Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe in recent months. Alex Stamos, who was Facebook's chief security officer, left in August.
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Cong says LoPs not invited to Putin banquet, takes swipe at Tharoor for accepting invite
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Friday said Leaders of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi have not been invited to the banquet for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and took a swipe at its own MP Shashi Tharoor for accepting the invite.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "There has been speculation whether the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha have been invited for tonight's official dinner in honour of President Putin. The two LoPs have not been invited."
Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera accused the government of breaking protocols daily and not believing in democratic principles.
"There is no invite to both the LoPs, Mr (Mallikarjun) Kharge and Mr (Rahul) Gandhi. This comes as a surprise but I don't think we should be surprised. This government is known to be breaching all protocols. What else to say, ask the government," he told PTI Videos on the sidelines of an event.
Asked about party MP Tharoor getting invited to the banquet and accepting the invitation, Khera said, "Ask Mr. Tharoor. All of us who are in the party, if our leaders don't get invited and we get invited, we need to question our own conscience and listen to our conscience. Politics has been played in inviting or not inviting people, which in itself is questionable and those who accept such an invite is also questionable," Khera said.
"We would have listened to our voice of conscience," he added.
Earlier, Tharoor said there was a time when the chairman of the external affairs committee was routinely invited but that practice seems to have stopped from some years.
"It has been resumed ...I have been invited, yes. I will definitely go," the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs said.
On the LoPs reportedly not getting an invite, Tharoor said, "I don't know on what basis invitations were sent. I think the custom that usually used to be followed was for a wide representation. Certainly, I remember in the olden days, they used to invite not only the LoPs, (but) various other cross section of representatives of different parties. It conveys a good impression."
"I dont know the basis (of invitation), this is all done by the government, by the protocol by the Rashtrapati Bhawan, what do I know. All I can say I have honoured to have been invited. Of course I will go," Tharoor told reporters in the Parliament House complex.
Gandhi on Thursday had alleged that the government tells visiting foreign dignitaries not to meet the Leader of the Opposition due to its "insecurity".
His remarks had come hours ahead of Putin's two-day visit to India.
Gandhi had said it is a tradition that visiting foreign dignitaries meet the LoP but Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ministry of External Affairs were not following this norm.
"Normally the tradition is that those who come from abroad have a meeting with the LoP. This used to happen during (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee ji's time, Manmohan Singh ji's time, it has been a tradition but what happens these days is that when foreign dignitaries come and when I go abroad, the government suggests to them to not meet the LoP," Gandhi had told reporters in Parliament House complex.
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