It’s been another action-packed week for India’s tech and startup scene. Here are the highlights:1. Google launched Areo, a hyper local app for food delivery and services. In a really strange move, Google has kind of entered the food delivery services market in India, which has seen quite a bloodbath over the past year with the likes of FoodPanda shutting down operations.
2. Snapchat responded to heckling; said it’s “grateful for Indian Snapchat community.” India’s social media scene was on fire this week, thanks to Snapchat. Variety quoted ex Snapchat employee Anthony Pompliano as saying that CEO Evan Spiegel told him (in September 2015) that “the app is only for rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain.”
3. Amazon launched fire stick. To push more consumers to stream content using less bandwidth, Amazon on Wednesday launched Fire TV stick with voice remote in India.
4. Prominent Indian VC accused of sexual misconduct. Allegations of inappropriate verbal and physical conduct against Mahesh Murthy, a prominent venture and angel investor in India, continued with two more women talking openly about instances of sexual advances he allegedly made 13-14 years ago that may be considered predatory behavior.
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5. Whatsapp admins will be held liable for rumors or fake news circulated on the app. India’s cops have issued a new order to tackle fake news and get a better grip on over 200 million WhatsApp users in the country.
And here’s this week’s bonus link: a profile story about a SaaS founder in India, Girish Mathrubootham, who applied lessons from his troubled childhood to build Freshdesk, which rivals Zendesk.
Pankaj Mishra is editor-in-chief and cofounder of Indian tech blog FactorDaily. He has been a covering technology since 2000 for several publications, including The Economic Times, Mint, and TechCrunch.
