4) Modi woos Silicon Valley giants
Wooing Silicon Valley majors such as Google, Facebook and Tesla to invest in India’s digital infrastructure and tap into the vast market, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this digital age offered an opportunity to transform the lives of India’s poor in a way hard to imagine a couple of decades earlier.
Modi met the India-born chief executives of Google, Microsoft and Adobe Systems — Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella and Shantanu Narayen besides visiting Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple. The key visit by Modi was to Tesla, the electric car maker that is building the world’s largest factory for batteries to store power — he discussed bringing Tesla’s technology to help build India’s renewable energy sector.
The PM talked of India’s plan to provide broadband services to all villages and mentioned that Google was helping to set up Wi-Fi internet access shortly in 500 railway stations in India.
Microsoft said it planned to replicate a technology it was piloting in Varanasi to offer broadband using the white space in television spectrum to Indian villages.
Qualcomm, which builds chipsets to power mobile phones, will create a $150 million fund for Indian start-ups.
John Chambers, chairman of Cisco Systems and chairman of the US India Business council, said digital manufacturing was set to create millions of jobs every month in India.
Google’s Pichai announced the search giant would allow users from next month to type in 10 Indian languages on its Android platform.
5) India will be $20-trillion economy: PM at Facebook event
Current Affirs Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi set an ambitious target for India to become a $20-trillion economy with increased focus on agriculture, manufacturing and services. He said the government was focusing on deregulation, adding "the government has no business to run business".
Modi reiterated the ambitious plan of providing optic-fibre connectivity to 600,000 villages in five years that could help the country witness growth. "Future cities will be built along network of optical fibre, similar to how civilisation was built around rivers and highways."
He added that India is investing in physical and digital infrastructure with emphasis on technology to improve governance for the people.
Modi said the government could not achieve its economic goal. He said the government wants more women to join the workforce."In education and health, you actually need to make reservation for men. There are more women in health and education; we need more participation of women in other sectors."
6) Modi invites Apple CEO to set up manufacturing base in India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited Apple to set up a manufacturing base in India and its CEO Tim Cook responded positively. Foxconn, which is Apple`s largest manufactures, has decided to set up a manufacturing base in India, he noted.
During the meeting, Cook said India has a very special place in the heart of every Apple employee for the simple reason that its co-founder Steve Jobs went to India when he was a young man for inspiration. It was what he saw in India that inspired him to launch Apple.
Clash of the Titans
Around 350 programmers worked through the day trying to come out with the next big app for the `Digital India` initiative
The app competition was being linked through a web link to an all-night `Hackathon` at the Google Inc global headquarters at Santa Clara county, California
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai were going to join through an interactive session with the Hackathon participants in India and the US later at night, via live simulcast
75 teams were at it, hoping the app they developed would become part of the PM`s `Digital and Skill India` initiative
A little over 30 companies took part including Amazon, Adobe, Cisco, Edcast, GE, Google, Oracle and PayPal