Tech leaders’ thumbs up to Digital India

San Jose, Sept 27: Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not have secured a better endorsement for his ‘‘Digital India’’ initiative, as chief executives of some top global tech firms like Apple, Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm announced big plans for India.
This was during Modi’s meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, MicroSoft’s Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs, Cisco’s John Chambers, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen and TiE’s Venk Shukla. They  joined him later for ‘Digital India’ dinner.
‘‘I see technology as a means to empower and as a tool that bridges the distance between hope and opportunity,’’ Modi said at the dinner engagement to conclude what was a packed day here, having arrived in the morning from New York.
‘‘Social media is reducing social barriers. It connects people on the strength of human values, not identities,’’ said the prime minister, an avid user of the medium himself including his penchant for selfies with his hosts. ‘‘Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, they are the new neighbourhoods of our new world,’’ he said.
‘‘India under the prime minister’s leadership is moving in the right direction with ‘Digital India’,’’ Jacobs said, announcing an immediate investment of $1.5 million for innovation labs in the country.
‘‘Now it is time for us to collectively empower people from all over the world,’’ Nadella said, adding Micosoft intended to partner individual states, and tech companies.
Nadella gave the example of Surat where Microsoft was working with municipalities on data analytic systems.
Pichai, had a take on another of Modi’s initiatives – that to foster, nurse and promote entrepreneurship. ‘‘India is the fastest growing ‘start-up nation’ in the world,’’ he said.
After speaking to Silicon Valley’s top executives Modi joined Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at San Jose to take questions from 1.5 billion users at a town hall session Sunday.
Speaking at the event, Modi said his aim was to make India a $20 trillion economy. The government’s focus is on maufacturing, service and agriculture sectors, said Modi, who came to power riding on his promise of jobs and a robust economy.
Attending the ‘town-hall’ session with Zuckerberg, Modi also said a lot had to be done to bridge the digital divide in India. ‘‘We are an $8 trillion economy today. My dream for India is to be a $20 trillion dollar economy,” Modi said. Zuckerberg said India was personally very important to Facebook.     IANS