Anand Mahindra proposes to fund an Indian alternative to Facebook

By Mudit Dube

Mar 27, 2018

11:01 pm

What's the story

With the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal now spiralling into India as a BJP-Congress political row, billionaire businessman Anand Mahindra took to Twitter to weigh in on his idea of creating an Indian alternative to social networking giant, Facebook. Mahindra Group chief Anand also proposed to offer seed capital to any Indian social media start-up that can create and manage a homegrown version of Facebook.

Twitter Post

Anand Mahindra muses about an Indian version of Facebook

Beginning to wonder if it’s time to consider having our own social networking company that is very widely ownedprofessionally managedwillingly regulated.Any relevant Indian start-ups out there?If any young teams have such plans I’d like to see if I can assist with seed capital pic.twitter.com/nBSkQk0hCp

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) March 26, 2018

Twitter Post

India's IT minister praises Anand Mahindra's idea

Wonderful idea my good friend @anandmahindra. Fervently hope to see you taking the lead. https://t.co/6pXps0o9AE

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) March 27, 2018

Novel ideas

Anand Mahindra has weighed in on such projects before also

Flooded with idea and suggestions, Anand Mahindra has invited his colleague Jasprit Bindra, Senior Vice President- Digital Transformation at Mahindra Group of Companies, 'to work him on this exploration'. Notably, this isn't the first time Mr. Mahindra ventured into such projects. Just last month, he suggested to crowdfund an iconic building in Mumbai and turn it into a performance venue for budding artists.