Shivnath Thukral, WhatsApp public policy director to replace Ankhi Das as interim policy head, says report

Ankhi Das stepped down as Facebook public policy director for India, South and Central Asia on Tuesday. Facebook said Das stepped down to pursue interests in public service. Shivnath Thukral, WhatsApp's current public policy director, has been asked to take over Das's duties on an interim basis until a replacement can be found, TIME reported. However, there has been no official word from the company yet.

Thukral worked for two years as the Facebook's public policy director for India and South Asia until March 2020.

The publication in August had reported that Thukral, one of Das's key lieutenants at the time, had walked out of a meeting in 2019 when an activist had raised concerns about a post by the ruling party's lawmaker. The post remained online for more than a year after the meeting. Facebook in response had said it had flagged the post internally for hate speech.

"Ankhi has decided to step down from her role in Facebook to pursue her interest in public service. Ankhi was one of our earliest employees in India and played an instrumental role in the growth of the company and its services over the last 9 years," Ajit Mohan, Managing Director India of Facebook, said in an e-mailed statement. Das was called by a Parliamentary panel about political content on the social media platform as well as Facebook's stand on data protection bill.