Zuckerberg recently appeared at a Facebook Town Hall Q&A session with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Menlo Park, California campus.
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But his most memorable moment? In his teens, he helped his brother run a tea stall in a bus terminus, serving buns and steaming cups of chai.
“People can be successful”, said Modi, when asked if doing business in India had actually become easier. “So you can imagine what a mother had to do to raise her children”. There is also concern among Modi’s critics that his plans to connect more Indians to the internet is actually an excuse for government surveillance.
“[India] has moved on from scriptures to satellites”, Mr Modi said.
“I want our 1.25 billion citizens to be digitally connected”, he said, describing the steps taken by his government towards broadband connectivity.
“To leaders all over the world: you are not going to gain by running away from social media“, he said in Hindi during a question-and-answer session. We went to our neighbors’ houses nearby (to) clean dishes, fill water, do hard chores.
Modi’s visit to the United States included a trip down the West Coast. In the past six months nearly all rating agency have said in one voice that India is the fastest growing economy in large countries, he said.
Appreciating the US President’s “friendship, vision and commitment for the relationship”, Modi said the bilateral partnership addresses a broad range of strategic and security concerns – counter terrorism, cyber security, training.
Referring to his visit to California, Mr. Modi informed Obama about the conversations he had relating to startups, renewable energy and how the visit would probably lead to many new technology partnerships between India and US.
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The Indian prime minister continues his Silicon Valley tour on Sunday with visits to Facebook and Google Inc headquarters before an event at the San Jose Convention Center that 18,000 people are expected to attend. He also met with Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) CEO Marillyn Hewson and IBM (NYSE:IBM) Chairman and CEO Virginia Rometty last week in the USA, along with other top corporate chiefs.
