Wednesday 1 October 2014
Entertainment
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- ‘I am not dating Terence Lewis’
- Director in love with Beintehaa actress?
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- Ranbir Kapoor discharged after minor surgery
- 'Akshay is married so I’ll go with Salman
Latest news
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to visit India in October, meet PM Narendra Modi
NEW DELHI: After Sheryl Sandberg, it's now the turn of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to visit India, the second biggest market for the social networking giant, later this month.
Zuckerberg, who will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will be in India to address the first Internet.org summit taking place on October 9-10 in the city.
The young billionaire is expected to meet members of other key ministries as well.
Zuckerberg is the third high profile CEO of a US-based corporation, after Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Microsoft's Satya Nadella, to visit India in last few days.
Internet.Org aims to make internet access affordable for people across the globe.
Focussed on enabling the next five billion people without internet access to come online, the founding members of the project include Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.
The partners are collaborating on developing lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and deploying Internet access in underserved communities.
READ ALSO: Here's what it's really like to work with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
The Internet.org summit will bring together experts, officials and industry leaders to focus on ways to deliver more internet services for people in languages other than English.
Zuckerberg will also meet Modi to talk about how Facebook and the Indian government can collaborate on Internet.org.
In July, Facebook's chief operating officer Sandberg visited India. She had met Modi, who has effectively used social networking during his election campaign and later even in governance.
When Modi met Sandberg, he had suggested the use of Facebook for improving governance, better interaction between people and the government, and to attract more tourists to India.
READ ALSO: Facebook a tool for governance, better interaction, PM Narendra Modi says
India is an important market for the social networking company. With over one billion users globally, the company gets over 100 million users from India. Many of these users log onto the website from their mobile devices.
According to research firm eMarketer, the number of users in India will touch 108.9 million by the end of the year as compared to 77.8 million in 2013.
Zuckerberg, who will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will be in India to address the first Internet.org summit taking place on October 9-10 in the city.
The young billionaire is expected to meet members of other key ministries as well.
Zuckerberg is the third high profile CEO of a US-based corporation, after Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Microsoft's Satya Nadella, to visit India in last few days.
Internet.Org aims to make internet access affordable for people across the globe.
Focussed on enabling the next five billion people without internet access to come online, the founding members of the project include Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.
The partners are collaborating on developing lower-cost, higher-quality smartphones and deploying Internet access in underserved communities.
READ ALSO: Here's what it's really like to work with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
The Internet.org summit will bring together experts, officials and industry leaders to focus on ways to deliver more internet services for people in languages other than English.
Zuckerberg will also meet Modi to talk about how Facebook and the Indian government can collaborate on Internet.org.
In July, Facebook's chief operating officer Sandberg visited India. She had met Modi, who has effectively used social networking during his election campaign and later even in governance.
When Modi met Sandberg, he had suggested the use of Facebook for improving governance, better interaction between people and the government, and to attract more tourists to India.
READ ALSO: Facebook a tool for governance, better interaction, PM Narendra Modi says
India is an important market for the social networking company. With over one billion users globally, the company gets over 100 million users from India. Many of these users log onto the website from their mobile devices.
According to research firm eMarketer, the number of users in India will touch 108.9 million by the end of the year as compared to 77.8 million in 2013.
swachh bharat
“Fall in, fall in”, the course director hollered at the end of a full day of training on a glacier. It was a brutally tiring day and I was wondering why I had enrolled for a course where all that the instructors did was torture you and took pleasure in it. But that wasn’t the worst. All had been given chocolates and toffees at the beginning of the day and were told NOT to litter.
“Please deposit your empty wrappers and chocolates not consumed here”, came another set of commands. Even now, it hadn’t dawned on many what was in store. Wrappers were counted and among the 70 trainees, there were two wrappers short. That was it, the October sun would’ve faded in an hour, the temperature was already freezing and all were asked to go back on the glacier to recover the two missing wrappers. We would never recover them, for the instructors had already picked them up, but we didn’t know that. We sauntered back to the camp well after dark, wondering what other punishment was in store. What was in store for us was hot soup and some pakoras and a business-like command from the director, “next time you drop a wrapper or litter these pristine mountains, you’d be made to clean all else around too”.
The result was that next time we were not just mindful of what we did, but to even tick off or pick up litter by someone else. Who knows whether it is part of our count or not!
I am reminded today of my basic course in mountaineering from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, in 1995. Why? Because the nation is embarking upon a Clean India drive from tomorrow. Cities are plastered with banners, made of plastic and polythene, announcing a ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ and babus are being made to work on a gazetted holiday to be able to hold a brand new broom in their hands and get photographed as they move awkwardly trying to do something that was always beneath them.
Symbolism is needed, sure, but honestly, we need to go a lot beyond that. We must be among the dirtiest nations on this planet. Pakistan, which I visited years ago, seemed cleaner. Polythene, plastic cups, plates, chips and other wrappers seem to outnumber humans, and by some margin. It is alright to have janitors and ‘safai karmcharis’ to clean up, but the real solution to the mess that we live in, the ugly mess that is an eyesore all over, anywhere in this country, cannot be handled by these hard working men and women alone.
Given our numbers and the senseless manner in which we treat trash and that it is our birth right to litter, but a ‘low-level’ job to clean up, even a million janitors wouldn’t do. We need to realise ourselves that we are harming everything by this habit of ours. The ability to respect our environment, to respect the open spaces and that they be clean and litter free cannot be achieved overnight. For this, there needs to be proper education. Values need to be inculcated among all from youth. It needs to be taken and taught as seriously as maths and science and other subjects. But even that may not work, I feel, for we are almost at the point of no redemption.
And to address that, there has to be fear, the kind that I narrated through the anecdote right at the start. Given the casual manner in which we treat these issues, I guess that would be the only method that would work. And to be honest, I am a votary for that.
Of course, there would then be the problem of implementing it. What I went through during my course was handled by the army and there was zero tolerance. It may not be possible here, but an honest effort can still be put in. We owe it to our otherwise beautiful nation.
It is time for all of us to rise and contribute towards making the nation clean. And when I say all, it means all those who think their job is only to lecture and not do anything themselves. I am referring to my post of January 30, 2013, where I pointed out how garbage from the house of a prominent judge in New Delhi was dumped on the footpath, right outside the huge bungalow in Lutyens’ Delhi.
All such people need to be aware too. And if we, the common people arise and are aware, these VVIPs would have no option but to arise too, get out of their photo-op moments. The time to act is now, or never!
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