PM Modi and Mark Zuckerberg change profile picture in support of Digital India

PM Modi and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed their profile pictures this Sunday prior to their meeting in an effort to support the cause of Digital India. Zuckerberg posted on Facebook, “I changed my profile picture to support Digital India, the Indian government’s effort to connect rural communities to the internet and give people access to more services online. Looking forward to discussing this with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Facebook today,” to which PM replied, “Thanks Mark Zuckerberg for the support. I changed my DP in support of the efforts towards a Digital India.” Following this, several users have shown support by changing their profile pictures as well. PM also interacted with Silicon Valley top executives – Apple’s Tim Cook, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai. Earlier this month, announcing the upcoming town hall interaction, Zuckerberg said he and Modi will be discussing on ways to address various economic and social changes.

Under the leadership of PM Modi, government of India has launched the initiative of Digital India. The initiative aims at integrating the departments of governance and Indian citizens, thus making government services available to each and every citizen electronically without the hassles of excessive paperwork. Another objective of the initiative is to provide connectivity to rural schools and colleges through broadband. The crux of Digital India revolves around 3 components – development of digital infrastructure, digital delivery of the services and increasing digital literacy. The deadline of the project has been set by 2019 with the accomplishment of a two – way platform through which both consumers and service providers will benefit.

The Ministry of Communications and IT will regulate the Digital India Advisory Group which in turn will monitor and control the activities undertaken in this scheme. It is being seen as an ‘inter-ministerial’ goal where all the ministries are expected to offer their services in various public sectors like education, healthcare and judicial services. It also focuses of selective adoption of Public – Private Partnership model. Further the government has also decided to restructure the NIC (National Informatics Centre). This is one of the top priority projects launched under Modi administration besides Swachch Bharat and Make in India. This is a giant leap towards transforming country into a knowledge economy that is digitally empowered. The initiative will help in improving the lives of 120 crore Indians.

Image Courtesy: IndiaTv News