One important thing: Join us as we try to decode the FTX fiasco and what it means for crypto investors in India, with a panel of experts comprising CoinSwitch co-founder Vimal Sagar Tiwari, CoinDCX COO Mridul Gupta, Giottus co-founder Vikram Subburaj, Crypto Kanoon co-founder Kashif Raza and Bitbns CEO Gaurav Dahake.

• Tune in to Twitter Spaces (Also, available on-demand after the show)

In today’s newsletter: 

• Meta India loses two more top execs
• Narayana Murthy says Gambia deaths shamed India
• Misuse of data will have consequences, says govt

Also, the FIFA World Cup 2022 is just around the corner. Thirty-two teams, 64 matches, and 29 days. 

Do check our special microsite that will bring you full coverage of all live matches in the tournament, including the latest news, analysis and a comprehensive fan guide.

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Changes are afoot at Meta India, as the Facebook parent company loses two more top executives.

WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose and Meta India's public policy director Rajiv Aggarwal are leaving the company. These exits come nearly a fortnight after Meta India head Ajit Mohan left the company to join rival Snap.

• While these departures come against the backdrop of Facebook's parent company laying off 11,000 people globally, they are not related to layoffs, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bose, who previously co-founded the offline payments startup Ezetap, was WhatsApp's first-ever country head across the world. He was hired to drive the adoption of WhatsApp’s business products among small businesses and enterprises, besides accelerating the app’s payment business.

While WhatsApp's business offerings have grown significantly in India, the same cannot be said for the company's UPI-based payments business. The service was expected to disrupt the country's payments industry, but it remains a minor player in comparison to rivals PhonePe and Google Pay.

• Manesh Mahatme, the head of WhatsApp's payment business in India, had also quit the company after a nearly 18-month stint, we reported in September.

Shivnath Thukral, WhatsApp India's director of public policy, has been promoted to Meta India's director of public policy. He will lead important policy development initiatives across all of the company's apps.

This appointment comes at a time when the government has given itself the power to appoint a quasi-judicial body that will hear user appeals against the content moderation decisions of digital intermediaries.

NR Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, issued a strong statement regarding the deaths of 66 children in Gambia, which have been linked to cough syrups manufactured by the Indian pharmaceutical company Maiden Pharmaceuticals.

Murthy said the incident has "brought unimaginable shame to our country and has dented the credibility of our pharmaceutical regulatory agency." He was speaking at the Infosys Science Foundation while announcing the winners of the Infosys Science Prize.

He also noted that there was not a single Indian institution among the top 250 universities in the world, emphasising the importance of reorienting school and college education. Rather than rote learning, students must be taught to question and relate what they learn in the classroom to the real world, he said.

"Even IITs have become victims of this [rote learning] syndrome, thanks to the tyranny of coaching classes," Murthy said.

• Research in the sciences is very important for a developing country like India that aspires to join the developed world
  
  
• Researchers should concentrate on solving immediate problems, and such a mindset will inevitably lead to solving bigger challenges

When will the draft of the fresh Data Protection Bill be available for consultation? While we do not have a definitive answer for you other than 'soon,' the government is providing brief but important details about this piece of legislation that should be taken into consideration.

In a tweet today, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), said that platforms and intermediaries that misuse customer data will face punitive and financial penalties under India's upcoming data protection bill.

• It is important to note that this provision will not be entirely new. 

The now-withdrawn Personal Data Protection Bill provided for fines of up to Rs 15 crore or 4 percent of global turnover for data violations, with lesser offences subject to a limit of Rs 5 crore or 2 percent of global turnover.

While the specifics of the financial and punitive penalties will be revealed when the draft bill is released, here is a summary of what we know so far about the upcoming Data Protection Bill:

• The drafting of the bill is nearly complete, and the government plans to introduce it in Parliament during next year's budget session.
  
  
• The proposed new version of the Data Protection Bill and the proposed amendment to the IT Act 2000 aim to make the online world more accountable for published items.

Go deeper.

A day after LTI and Mindtree's merger was approved and LTIMindtree began operating as a joint entity, CEO Debashis Chatterjee talks to us about merger timelines, winning deal strategy, client tone, and more.

Read the interview here.

Today marks the 51st anniversary of the release of the Intel 4004. First shown to the public on November 15, 1971, it holds the distinction of being the world's first commercial microprocessor.

Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation approached Intel in 1969 to create 12 specialised chips for its new Busicom 141-PF printing calculator. Engineers from Intel, however, recommended a family of only four chips.

• To accomplish this, Intel developed the MCS-4, a quartet of chips. 

In the issue of Electronic News released on November 15, 1971, Intel announced the Intel 4004 processor and its chipset with the title, "Announcing A New Era In Integrated Electronics," after acquiring the rights to do so from Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation.

The revolutionary microprocessor was no bigger than a fingernail, but it provided the same computing power as the first electronic computer, which took up an entire room when it was built in 1946.

• In the wake of FTX's collapse, there have been calls for a more stringent disclosure mechanism to be adopted by cryptocurrency exchanges. The most advocated measure has been the periodic publishing of the proof of reserves, providing an indication of the standalone asset value of a crypto exchange.
  
  
• In US bankruptcy filings, crypto exchange FTX said it could have more than 1 million creditors. FTX's filing to a US bankruptcy court said it was in contact with regulators and had appointed five new independent directors at each of its main companies, including Alameda Research.
  
  
• Recruitment specialists warn that the fall of crypto exchange FTX and potential contagion could accelerate crypto-company layoffs. As of Nov. 13, crypto data aggregator CoinGecko reported 4,695 layoffs in 2022. The report's authors warn that crypto layoffs could increase when the "full impact" of FTX's collapse hits.
  
  
• AltLayer, an Ethereum-based layer 2 scalability blockchain, announced the appointment of Amrit Kumar as chief operating officer. Kumar, 34, will be in charge of carrying out the company's global operations strategy and advancing its goal of developing custom roll-ups-as-a-service for Web3 applications and innovators.

No one can resist the thrill of a good true crime podcast. You can't help but get hooked on a good mystery once you start digging into the grisly details, eliminating possible suspects, and forming plausible hypotheses based on the evidence at hand.

It's possible that true crime enthusiasts have grown weary of hearing accounts of crimes that occurred across the globe. Longing for some desi masala?

The Desi Crime Podcast has you covered.

In an effort to dethrone American true crime shows from their perch atop the ratings, hosts Aishwarya Singh and Aryaan Misra present a podcast full of chilling cases, wonderfully described, that are likely to give listeners the willies.

If you're looking for a place to jump into the world of Desi Crime Podcast, we recommend the two-part series 'The Kolkata House of Horrors'. 

Check them out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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