PM Modi addresses Indian Community in San Jose; says 21st century will belong to India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Indian community at a mammoth reception in San Jose's SAP Centre in the Silicon Valley. PM Modi began his address by paying tribute to Bhagat Singh since it was 28th September in India which marked the birth anniversary of the brave son of India.

After seeing a strong 18,500- audience that waited for PM Modi, the Prime Minister said that he is coming after almost 25 years and saw a lot of changes including new faces. The Prime Minister said it was time the diaspora started contributing to India.

"People used to talk a lot about brain drain, they omplained a lot about it," he said, as the audience, the very 'brain drain' the PM was talking about, cheered. "Did anybody ever think that this brain drain could become brain gain? No, but now it has," he said. Modi said he sees the brain drain essentially as a 'brain deposit' and it is time to use this deposit, "with interest", to benefit India.

PM Modi in his address, mentioned that today in the entire world, India has a new identity, a new image and the old image has been forced down with a reason. “The brain gain that we have made is looking for opportunities and the day it finds the opportunities. It will benefit Mother India. And now that season for opportunity has come”, he said.

PM  Modi lauded about the new government and said that today India is the fastest growing major economy in the world. “Be it 'World Bank', 'Moody's' or other research agencies, everyone says that India is the fastest growing economy”, he added. 

The Prime Minister's got a new acronym out. This one's JAM, where 'J' referred to Jan Dhan Bank Account, ‘A’ referred to Aadhaar card and ‘M’ referred to Mobile governance. He spoke about how nationalization of banks almost 50 years ago hadn't helped the poor.

If 50 percent of the population didn't have access to banks, how could the nation progress, he said. But now 18 crore new accounts have been opened by the poor, he said. He then gave his audience a primer on the scheme and said that he had seen the wealth of the poor. "We have heard of the poverty of the rich but I have seen the wealth of the poor," he said.

Talking about the penetration of science and technology in India, PM Modi said that the successful Mangalyaan project was one in a billion achievements where India succeeded on its first attempt  and from Upanishads, we have moved to upagraha. PM Modi also said that digital India, Jan Dhan Yojana, India's mobile phone revolution - widest arc of development finding.  “Technology has given a new strength and direction to entire world. Acknowledging that, we have initiated 'Digital India'”, he added.

PM Modi lauded the resilience of Indians and credited them for helping fulfill some of his main policy initiatives for the poor. "I requested my countrymen to give up their LPG (cooking gas) subsidy, and 30 lakh people actually surrendered it voluntarily," he said. He made sure, he said, that the poorest of the poor could open bank accounts even with zero Rs. "But these poor people in total deposited 32000 crores by saving 50 Rs here, 100 Rs there," over 18 lakh new accounts. "We know about the poverty of the rich. But seeing the wealth of the poor you feel immensely touched."

Referring to his discussions in New York last week, that focused on terrorism and climate change, Modi said the United Nations still hasn't been able to define terrorism. "If it takes so much time to define, how will we tackle it. There's talk about good terrorism and bad terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism and we in India are ready to tackle it," he said. India is also the land of the Buddha and of Gandhi so the country "will be a harbinger of peace", he added.

Also, in  major move, PM Modi mentioned that from December 2 onwards, Air India's direct flight from Delhi to San Fransico will fly three times a week.

Earlier, PM Modi attended a Townhall question and answer session at the Facebook headquarters, where, while answering a question from Mark Zuckerberg, he broke down as he talked about the hardships his mother had endured to raise her family.

Also, during PM Modi’s meeting with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Pichai talked about the transformation in technology as he grew up in India and said, "India was the first country where Chrome became the No. 1 browser." He announced 11 new languages on Android next month, including PM Modi's mother tongue Gujarati.

Also, the Prime Minister attended a roundtable on renewable energy and addressed the Startup-Konnect programme at San Jose, held to showcase India's start-up ecosystem to potential partners in Silicon Valley. He also launched the Bharat Fund, which, he said, "stands not just for India, but also for better health, agri, renewables & tech" and will provide seed funding to Indian entrepreneurs.