A crowd of adoring supporters welcomed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he landed at Mineta San Jose global Airport just after noon on Saturday, opening a historic weekend visit meant to spark business and technology ties between Silicon Valley and the world’s most populous democracy.
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Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai and Shantanu Narayen, the Indian-born CEOs of Microsoft Corp, Google and Adobe Systems Inc, respectively, were among those due to moderate a panel discussion before Modi delivers a speech at the dinner.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Silicon Valley tonight where he will learn firsthand the success story of iconic companies and their leaders with the objective of building a similar ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in India.
He said in the United Nations worldwide cooperation should be at the centre of sustainable development and to fight climate change. “Technology is forcing governments to deal with massive volume of data and generate responses, not in 24 hours but in 24 minutes”, he said.
With all the pomp and excitement over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Seattle visit with technology firms, it’s easy to miss that India’s prime minister is meeting the USA tech sector this week.
“All of us got to meet with the honorable prime minister and exchange a few words, and he was gracious to meet and get photographed with each everybody”, said Dr. Sudhir Parikh, publisher of News India Times, and Padma Shri award victor.
“It is expected to be the event of the year, and we feel we have the luck of a superstar that Prime Minister Modi is visiting the Bay Area”.
“Bringing world class infrastructure to India and respecting India’s digital securities is a key milestone for us”, he said.
The diaspora has found a nationalist leader in Modi, who seem to be a force that is connecting Indians worldwide with an aim to make India a progressed nation. Tomorrow morning, Modi will visit the headquarters of social network giant Facebook, where he will hold a town-hall meeting with Zuckerberg.
With India among the countries providing the highest number of peacekeeping troops, the Prime Minister said nations sending their soldiers must have a say in peacekeeping missions. “The Indian premier is relying on investment and technological know-how to realize ambitious development programes like “Digital India” and “Make In India”.
“I briefly explained to him during a brief chat as to how publications like News India Times and Desi Talk were trying to promote better Indo-U.S. relationship under his leadership”.
Chambers said one has to compete against one’s ability to innovate, and not against other companies or countries.
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Secondly, while the likes of Microsoft and Google are more connected with the Digital India campaign, what they’ll bring in will be more in terms of technology rather than straight FDI.
