Mark Zuckerberg and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi change their Facebook

“On all these issues, the prime minister has been an outstanding partner”, Obama said.

Speaking in Hindi to a packed SAP Centre Arena at the heart of the Valley, Mr. Modi announced that “Air India’s direct flight from Delhi to San Francisco will fly three times a week” from December 2, bringing India ever closer to the vibrant tech ecosystem here.

“We are encouraged by the aggressive nature of PM Modi’s commitment to clean energy and I indicated to the PM that India’s leadership in this upcoming conference will set the tone not just for today but for the decades to come”, President Obama told the media here after his round table with Prime Minister Modi.

India on Monday signed a $ 3 billion deal for purchase of 22 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift choppers with American aviation giant Boeing and the United States government. Aren’t you sick and exhausted of corruption? “Do I have any allegations of corruption against me?” “Is there any allegation against me?”

Prompted by Zuckerberg to talk about his experience of being an early adopter of internet in India, Modi said: “I did not have the privilege to become a very educated person growing up”.

What previous Governments failed to do in 40 years, his Government achieved within 100 days by opening 180 million bank accounts for the poor, Modi said and highlighted the fact that the Jan Dhan Yojana, despite allowing people to open accounts with zero balance, has brought in Rs 32,000 crore.

Without naming Pakistan, Mr. Modi also hit out at terror threats faced by India.

Mr. Pichai said, “I remember taking the Coromandel Express every six months to IIT Kharagpur, and back”. Modi is an avid user of social media and the second-most followed world leader after U.S. President Barack Obama.

Modi also laid emphasis on connecting with the Indian diaspora community in Silicon Valley.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi answered questions from the audience at a Townhall at the Facebook headquarters at Menlo Park, California. He was welcomed by Google co-founder Larry Page, Sundar Pichai, and Chairman Eric Schmidt. “The world has started to believe that the twenty-first century belongs to India”. “This will be an incubation and facilitation programme”, the Prime Minister said.

He pitched to take India to the next stage of development through policy campaigns like Digital India and Make in India. Amid scenes reminiscent of his memorable Madison Square Garden event in New York a year ago, Modi lauded Indian techies as a class for transforming the country’s image to a point that the world has finally begun to acknowledge that the 21st century indeed belongs to India.