Modi arrives in New York on final leg of US visit

In his speech at the Digital India dinner here, Modi recounted the way technology was helping make connectivity easier, with the internet, mobile phone and Skype touching the lives not only of farmers, villagers and those living in cities but also connecting doctors in India with hospitals in other countries. They met last year during Modi’s U.S. visit and then in January earlier this year.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said it will announce cloud computing systems from data centers in India next week, calling it a “big milestone”.

The Indian prime minister also touched on several topics, pitching his “Digital India” agenda and vowing to improve education for girls and open up more opportunities for women.

I want to see the idea and the spirit of Startups light up the economies and the fortunes of people in rural India.

“As terrorism threats grow, we have resolved to deepen our cooperation”, Modi said at a joint briefing with Obama after an over-hour-long bilateral meeting that began with the two leaders sharing a hug.

“We would like to tell him that India was not born when he took over as the prime minister in May 2014″, Sharma said, adding that there had been many leaders and people who actually took the country to its present heights.

As a child, Narendra Modi sold tea with his father at a railway station in Vadnagar, the Indian city of his birth.

Indian social media erupted on Monday after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his display picture to include a tricolour tint. At a town hall meeting, they discussed the role of the Internet and social media in growing India’s economy.

“I wasn’t fortunate enough to get a lot of knowledge, but I was able to make up for that through social media”, he said through a translator.

He said that his government was laying thrust on three sectors particularly – agriculture, services and manufacturing along with building the physical and digital infrastructure simultaneously.

But there are about one billion people in India – or 80% of its population – without Internet access.

At a meeting with the startup community, Modi said the mega corporations of today were startups of yesterday, and compared his new government in New Delhi as a startup that had its own share on bumps on the road.

The course of human history and progress has been shaped by imagination, inspiration, invention and innovation. Countries have money but do not know where to invest. This in turn will help maximise the technology investments in India.