Hello and welcome to TOI Bharat Abroad.
This week’s edition follows three very different Indian-origin stories linked by one common thread: influence. From the boardroom of one of the world’s biggest technology companies to the shifting politics of New York and a classroom where an everyday kitchen ingredient became an award-winning climate innovation, these are stories about Indians abroad doing more than making a mark. They are changing the conversation.
Let’s go.
THE BIG STORY
WhatsApp gets an Indian admin
Kunal Shah is about to inherit one of the biggest jobs in global technology.
The CRED founder has been appointed global chief executive of WhatsApp, succeeding Will Cathcart at a platform used by more than three billion people. It is one of the biggest leadership appointments for an Indian entrepreneur in global technology. The move comes alongside Meta’s $900 million investment in CRED, valuing the Bengaluru fintech at $4.5 billion.
The symbolism is hard to miss.
WhatsApp is not just another social media app. It is one of the world’s most important pieces of digital infrastructure, used by more than three billion people every month.
Now, the person steering its next chapter will be an entrepreneur whose journey began not in California, but in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Why it matters
The appointment is not a conventional one. Global technology companies are gradually moving away from the conventional practice of appointing company insiders or executives selected primarily for their academic credentials, instead looking for entrepreneurs and leaders with proven execution capabilities and real-world business experience.
Shah fits neither the insider template nor the polished MBA archetype. He studied philosophy at Wilson College in Mumbai and enrolled in a part-time MBA programme at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies before leaving the course. What he did instead was build two of India’s most consequential fintech companies. He co-founded FreeCharge in 2010 and sold it to Snapdeal in 2015 for roughly $400 to $450 million. Then, in 2018, he started CRED using a million dollars of his own money and built it into a platform with 17 million monthly active users and a valuation of around $4.5 billion.
India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with more than 500 million users. It is also where Meta has invested heavily in payments, business messaging and digital commerce. Shah’s experience building CRED into one of India’s most influential fintech companies makes him a natural choice to lead WhatsApp’s next phase of growth, particularly as Meta looks beyond messaging towards commerce and financial services.
Driving the news
Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said Shah was approached because of his ability to think about products at global scale and his long-held ideas on WhatsApp’s future. Mark Zuckerberg described him as bringing “the builder mentality and global perspective” needed to lead the world’s largest messaging platform.
Shah will step down from the day-to-day leadership of CRED, though he will retain his shareholding, while Miten Sampat becomes interim CEO as the company prepares for a future public listing. Meta’s investment also makes it a minority shareholder in CRED without giving it access to customer data.
If Shah succeeds, he will not simply be running WhatsApp.
He could redefine what the world’s biggest messaging platform becomes.
NRI WATCH
Can desi spice give democrats their MAGA moment?
New York Mayor. Knicks fan. Arsenal fan. And now, perhaps, the Democrats’ answer to MAGA.
Just months after his stunning rise to City Hall, Zohran Mamdani has emerged as one of the most influential figures in Democratic politics, with a trio of candidates he backed scoring major victories in New York’s congressional primaries. The wins by Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez have fuelled speculation that the party is witnessing the birth of its own grassroots insurgency.
Mamdani’s allies defeated several establishment favourites, signalling that his brand of progressive, anti-establishment politics is resonating beyond New York’s mayoral race. Their platform combines economic populism, affordable housing measures, government-funded healthcare and higher taxes on the wealthy, while also taking a more critical stance on US support for Israel.
Comparisons with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement are already being drawn. Like MAGA, Mamdani’s coalition thrives on grassroots activism and voter frustration with political elites. Yet its appeal remains largely concentrated in urban strongholds.
For Democrats, the question is no longer whether Mamdani’s rise was a one-off. It is whether this desi-flavoured political movement can grow into a national force — and give the party its own MAGA moment.
OFFBEAT
Tamarind seeds, teenage curiosity and a global climate prize
The next breakthrough in the fight against plastic pollution did not come from a multinational company or a government laboratory.
It came from three Indian-origin students.
Vivaan Chhawchharia, Ariana Agarwal and Avyana Mehta became the first global winners of The Earth Prize after developing Plas-Stick, a biodegradable material made from tamarind seed waste that captures microplastics from polluted water.
The idea sounds almost improbable.
Take an ingredient more commonly associated with Indian kitchens than scientific laboratories, turn it into an eco-friendly absorbent, and use it to tackle one of the planet’s fastest-growing environmental challenges.
Their innovation impressed judges not only because it worked, but because it offered an affordable solution that could be scaled in communities around the world.
For years, the Indian diaspora’s younger generation has become synonymous with spelling bees and maths competitions.
Now, it is beginning to make headlines for solving global problems.
NRI SPOTLIGHT
DID YOU KNOW?
LEMON CHILLI NEWS
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
