Prime Minister Narendra Modi today turned emotional while talking about his mother during the question and answer session at the Facebook headquarters here and narrated how she had gone through trials and hardships to raise him.
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“We used to have elections every five years and now we can have them every five minutes, ” the tech-savvy prime minister added.
“Check if you want to keep this as your profile picture after October 31st”.
Q. Do you think it has become easier in the last 15 months to do business in India?
The PM then announced national carrier Air India’s New Delhi-San Francisco non-stop flight.
While explaining the benefits of social media, he said, “Government has a problem, there is usually a gulf between government and the people“.
Air India officials said the flight will make travel to the West Coast easy and convenient for students, NRIs and business travellers looking for direct options to connect with India.
Modi congratulated Zuckerberg’s parents, saying their son has changed the world, as he asked them to stand up for everyone to see. Social media helped me gain information about the world.
The Prime Minister asserted that during his 15-month tenure, the “scale and speed” of reforms has improved significantly and even the global bodies like World Bank and International Monetary Fund have forecast a high growth for India.
Modi appeared to get choked up when he remembered the hard work his mother, Hiraben, endured while he was a boy growing up in humble circumstances, the son of a man who ran a tea stall.
“We will promote [the] manufacture of quality and affordable products in India”, he said.
At a townhall-style meeting at Facebook headquarters, Modi and Zuckerberg are expected to discuss everything from cybersecurity to bringing Internet access to developing countries like India.
Earlier on Sunday, the Prime Minister spoke with Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook headquarters where he spoke on a range of subjects like Digital India, the importance of social media for India and other topics. Most countries do not know where to invest.
Changing the subject subtly, he said that those who have faith in the government would take Indians to greater heights; this I have said all along.
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More than 46,000 comments were made in reply, with some questions regarding criticism that Modi did not do enough to stop 2002 religious riots in Gujarat that killed about 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, when he was chief minister of the state.
