Tag: India-US relations

Welcome to Brave New Digital India, right in the heart of Silicon Valley – home to nearly half a million Indians and the crucible of innovation, creativity and enterprise. On a balmy laid back evening in San Jose plunging into Saturday night frenzy, there was a joyous celebration of the transformative power of technology and the power of ideas as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi unfurled his radiant vision of Digital India in a wired world where Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are our “new neighbourhoods.”

“The status that now matters is not whether you are awake or asleep, but whether you are online or offline. The most fundamental debate for our youth is the choice between Android, iOS or Windows,” said Mr Modi, triggering applause from the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley. Closeted with tech titans and pioneers, which included India-born Microsoft boss Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs, and Cisco’s John Chambers, the Indian leader expounded eloquently on his vision of a digitally empowered India, which is adding millions to its burgeoning online population every passing day. From a man who rose from being a tea-seller to the leader of the world’s largest democracy, Mr Modi knows how to sell dreams with conviction and has scripted a new anthem of digital redemption, with its own vocabulary and semantics.