NEW DELHI: India’s IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has confirmed that WhatsApp and its parent company Meta have not notified the government of any plans to exit the Indian market. This statement comes amid ongoing regulatory challenges facing major tech companies in the country.

In a written response to the Rajya Sabha, Vaishnaw clarified that neither WhatsApp nor Meta have communicated any intentions to shut down their operations in India. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has not received any such notifications from the companies.

Earlier this year, WhatsApp had made headlines when it informed the Delhi High Court of its willingness to cease operations in India if forced to compromise its message encryption. This statement was made during a legal challenge against a provision of the IT Rules, 2021. These rules require social media platforms to identify the original source of certain information to authorities.

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