Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today expressed his desire to support Indian broadband initiatives during his interactions with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Indian telecom minister discussed about the Government’s plan for Digital India, the success of MyGov platform and Government on Mobile.
“There is a great opportunity for Facebook to harness the potentials in the fields of e-Commerce, e-Health, e-Education, sanitation and cleanliness drive and such other emerging areas,” said Prasad.
CEO @Facebook explained http://t.co/RAL8VYCKFJ to me.It’s a great tool for providing free basic internet services pic.twitter.com/C0SrjrJrQr
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) October 10, 2014
Zuckerberg expressed his idea of providing free basic services to the people as a part of their plan to make internet more affordable to people.
Zambia has achieved success in providing free basic services to people. Facebook CEO wants India to follow the Zambia Internet model.
Zuckerberg expressed his interest in taking forward the already delayed National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) project.
When Zuckerberg interacted with PM Modi, he said the social media platform is ready to work with the Government of India in the fields of healthcare and education.
Zuckerberg added that Facebook will help in the creation of the Clean India Mobile App and that it would be launched soon. This would give a strong impetus to the Swachh Bharat Mission.
CEO of @facebook, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg calls on PM @narendramodi. pic.twitter.com/ewVEuuCPOl
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) October 10, 2014
PM Modi asked Zuckerberg to identify some domains of Digital India where Facebook can get involved and help.
During the meeting the Prime Minister pointed that a lot of terrorist elements are using social media platforms to recruit members to join them. This is unfortunate and that we need to think of the role social media can play to stop terror, he added.
Modi wants Facebook to promote India’s tourism potential through the social media platform. He also asked Facebook to look at how to enhance Internet literacy along with Internet connectivity.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
