Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday said his meeting with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was “very fruitful” as they discussed ways to use this platform for governance and better interaction between the people and governments.
“Had a very fruitful meeting with Sheryl Sandberg. She pointed out that India is a very important country for Facebook, considering the high number of active Facebook users in India,” the prime minister said in his Facebook post.
“Being an avid user of social media myself, I talked about ways through which a platform such as Facebook can be used for governance and better interaction between the people and governments. I also talked about how Facebook can be used to bring more tourists to India,” he said.
He also sought Facebook’s assistance in commemorating 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
“We intend to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary year with a special focus on cleanliness and I spoke to Ms Sandberg on how Facebook can assist us in this endeavour,” Modi posted.
Modi is the second most popular politician on Facebook, with over 18 million friends.
Both Modi and Sandberg posted pictures of their meeting on their respective Facebook pages.
Modi is an avid social networking and microblogging site user.
Communications and Information Technology (IT) Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Thursday said social networking website Facebook has an enormous potential to grow in India in areas like education, healthcare and other creative sectors.
“We discussed a lot. Facebook has a very powerful presence in India, next only to US. There is enormous scope for expansion of Facebook, which is already a very popular platform in India. There is a need to work together in the field of education, in the field of health and other creative exposures,” Prasad told media persons here after meeting Facebook’ chief operating officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg, who is currently visiting India.
“I am very happy to know that that Facebook is there in nine Indian languages and I have emphasized upon the need to take up few other Indian languages more, which they have readily agreed,” he said.
“We wish to work together. There is immense scope to work together. I have asked them to come with a structured request about the areas of cooperation on which we can work and surely the ministry of IT will be more than keen to help them to ensure more expansive reach in India,” the minister added.
According to the minister, Sandberg also had a fruitful meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the morning.
“We tend to work together along with the prime minister and our local leader to give common people access to services — egovernance services, education, basic services so that they can connect to each other and to the world economy,” Sandberg said.
She mentioned about the usage of Facebook and other social networking sites by the Bharatiya Janata Party during the elections. “The ability to talk to people directly and to listen to people is profound,” she added
(IANS)