Rajiv Aggarwal is Facebook India's new public policy director, formerly IAS officer and Uber South Asia public policy head

 20th September 2021    PR News 
 Paarul Chand

New Delhi, Sept 20th-Rajiv Aggarwal, former head of public policy, Uber South Asia has joined Facebook India as head of public policy.

In an announcement today on LinkedIn, Ajit Mohan, VP and Managing Director, Facebook India, welcomed Rajiv Aggarwal to his new post, saying Aggarwal, "Will be a part of the India Leadership team and lead the policy team on the key public policy issues that are shaping the future of the tech ecosystem in India.:

A former IAS officer, Aggarwal has been SDM to the joint secretary to Government of Uttar Pradesh for 21 years and joint secretary, Government of India for 5 years.

He joins almost a year after Ankhi Das, policy chief of Facebook India, South and Central Asia had quit over a controversy about Facebook selectively curating political content.

The messages to do so purportedly originating from Das were leaked to the press, resulting in a national controversy first reported by the Wall Street Journal in August 2020. This was followed by Das and Facebook India officials being questioned by a joint Parliamentary committee.

As per media reports users in India, fuelled by the Jio's rock bottom prices for  data  and increased digital use during COVID, the number of users in India for Facebook are a whopping 420 million users