In his second visit to the US, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi not only wowed the audience, but also managed to connect on a whole new level with the technology leaders of the world. In a 45- minute session at the Facebook headquarters where he sat down with CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, he spoke in detail about the benefits of social media, particularly how it has enabled him to connect with people within the country and abroad. He said, “I do not believe that there is a dearth of money. Countries have money but do not know where to invest. I am giving them the address. Here is the place. We are bringing technology, transparency, efficiency, ease and effectiveness in governance.”
The Indian leader even broke down when Zuckerberg asked him about family values. He had the audience welling up when he spoke about his early life and how his mother helped bring the family up even though there was not much food or water to drink, and he had to help the family with all kinds of jobs. Zuckerberg shared Modi's dream of bringing internet services to the mass. He changed the profile picture on his Facebook account imposed with the colours of the Indian tricolour. The post also had a link encouraging other users to do the same. The Prime Minister also met with Silicon valley CEOs in San Jose, when he announced plans to create more public wi fi hotspots, including at 500 railway stations across India, an aggressive expansion of the National Optic Fibre Network to take broadband to 600,000 villages.
“As our economy and our lives get more wired, we are also giving the highest importance to data privacy and security, intellectual property rights and cyber security,” he said at a dinner interaction attended by Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Qualcomm executive chairman Paul Jacobs, and Google CEO Sunder Pichai, among others. “We will transform governance, making it more transparent, accountable, accessible and participative,” Modi said, adding that e-governance is the foundation of better governance that is efficient, economical and effective. “In a nation of one billion cell phones, m-governance or mobile governance has the potential to make development a truly inclusive and comprehensive mass movement. It puts governance within everyone’s reach.” He also added saying “Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the new neighbourhoods of the world. Facebook would be the world’s third most populous country, maybe the most connected of all.”
