Twitter closes offices in Delhi, Mumbai; staff asked to work from home
New Delhi, Feb 17: Amid layoffs and a severe cost-cutting, Twitter has closed offices in Delhi and Mumbai and asked staff to work from home, according to sources.
The micro-blogging platform's Bengaluru office that largely has engineering staff remains operational, the sources said.
The Delhi and Mumbai offices shuttered a few weeks ago, with remaining staff now working from home, sources privy to the matter said.
However, the number of employees affected by the move could not be immediately ascertained. A mail sent to Twitter on the issue, did not elicit a response.
The closure of the two offices in key locations in India comes as the platform has initiated massive cost cutting drive globally, after billionnaire Elon Musk's USD 44 billion takeover of Twitter, last year.
The firm downsized from more than 7,000 people to 2,300 active employees across the globe -- the mass-layoffs began with firing of CEO Parag Agrawal as well as the CFO and many other high ranking leaders last year.
In the retrenchments that followed, Twitter fired the majority of its over 200 employees in India as well. Only a handful were spared as layoffs culled roles across engineering, sales and marketing, and communications teams.
The US-based social media platform, in an internal e-mail to employees in early November said, "in an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce..."
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Online fraud: Hotel chef from Udupi cheated of over Rs 1 lakh by WhatsApp contact
Udupi: Udupi City Police have registered a case of online fraud after a 62-year-old hotel chef was allegedly cheated of Rs 1.13 lakh by a woman who befriended him on WhatsApp, claiming to be based in London.
The victim, identified as Pandu Kariappa Poojary, a resident of Kuthpadi in Udupi, was working at a hotel in Mangaluru.
He reportedly came into contact with a woman identifying herself as Emilda William on WhatsApp. During their interactions, she told Poojary that she planned to start a cosmetics and hotel business in India and would meet him during a visit to Mangaluru.
On April 7, Emilda sent Poojary a flight ticket from London to Delhi via WhatsApp. The following day, Poojary received a phone call from a woman who informed him that Emilda had arrived at Delhi airport carrying a demand draft worth Rs 5 crore along with other items. The caller allegedly asked him to pay Rs 70,000.
Subsequently, Poojary also received a call from Emilda, who was reportedly crying and spoke about the situation. Believing the claims, he transferred a total of Rs 1,13,300 in phases using a scanner. He later realised that he had been cheated.
