Over the past decade most tech CEOs have done pit stops in India with elaborate public communications in meetings with the Prime Minister
By Apar Gupta
Why did Bill Gates do a long interview with the Prime Minister weeks before a general election? Was he not aware of its use as a form of political propaganda?
Let me flip this question and answer it from the perspective of our Prime Minister’s historical courtship of silicon valley and how best I understand the nature of this relationship. Here both draw benefits from each other as much as they often experience friction.
Months after inaugurating the “Digital India” programme in July 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, did a roadshow in Silicon Valley in September 2015, announcing that, “technology is advancing citizen empowerment and democracy that once drew their strength from Constitutions”. This public speech opened with a nod to the Chief Executive Officers of Adobe, CISCO, Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm whose attendance was marked by their first names. The next day he separately met Zuckerberg and memorably broke down and cried at Menlo Park recounting adolescent hardship and memories of his mother.
As centralised power and a chokehold over institutions has grown within the Prime Minister’s chair as much as the size and depth of our market, the visits have been more inbound. Over the past decade most tech CEOs have done pit stops in India with elaborate public communications in meetings with the Prime Minister. This is irrespective of litigation in courts, deep disagreements on regulation and the tremendous erosion of the historical neo-libertarian notions of silicon valley.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
