“What India has, the world doesn’t, we have the 3 Ds – democracy, demography and demand, which is our unique strength”, Modi said during a town hall style interaction with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at its Menlo Park headquarters.
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Modi is spending two days on the West Coast to take a closer look at what America’s red-hot tech industry is made of.
While Modi is likely to be received like a rock star in an area that is home to numerous world’s biggest high-tech firms, some groups have protested his arrival and urged tech companies to boycott the visit.
As said earlier today, PM Modi who is on his second United States visit this year was present during the closing keynote, addressing the techies at the Code For India Hackathon. Facebook’s Internet.org initiative, which aims to provide free health, education, and economic information to people who have never had Internet access, has gone online to more than a billion people in 19 countries since its launch a year ago.
When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked the Prime Minister to tell some experiences from his life about his mother, the latter broke down while remembering how she used to do labour and hard chores to bring him up.
When we were young, she cleaned dishes to sustain us, did laborious work at the neighbour’s house. He also met Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook.
Name-checking Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp among others, Modi spoke of his government harnessing the power of social media to communicate more effectively with India’s people and its efficiency in rolling out new initiatives and projects.
“This is why next month we are going to take Android and make it possible for you to type in Android in 11 more languages, including the Prime Minister’s mother-tongue of Gujarati”, 43-year-old alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur said. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. However, Modi remains wildly popular and is expected to receive a rock-star welcome through most of his visit.
After the event, Modi addressed crowds at the SAP Center in San Jose.
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“(India) has moved on from scriptures to satellites”, Modi said. The plan is to have 100 of the busiest stations in India connected before the end of 2016, with the remaining stations following in quick succession.
