Prasad skips Facebook office during 4-day trip to Silicon Valley

Electronics and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, on a four-day trip to the US, met leaders of Silicon Valley tech firms, calling them to forge deeper partnership with India and invest in an “improved” climate.

Firms such as Apple, Amazon, Mastercard, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Walt Disney, and PayPal, among others, met the minister at a seminar organised by USIndia Strategic Partnership Forum and the Consulate General of India. Prasad also met chiefs of Google, Wipro, Oracle, and GE.

Inviting the US companies, Prasad said: “India offers improved investment climate, growing market, a large pool of talent and improved profitable destination for investment.”

Prasad asked the tech giants to invest in tier-II and - III towns. He said development of medical electronics was a priority for the government and incentives would be available at both the central and state levels. He also shared views with the heads of tech giants on the emerging data security issues in India and emphasised that the government was aware of the need to strike a balance between data availability, data anonymity, data innovation, data security and data privacy.

Visiting Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, Prasad discussed the role technology could play in empowering Indians.

After his visit to the Mountain View office of Google, Prasad tweeted: “I felt so pleased to see many Indian professionals working at the @Google campus in California including the CEO @sundarpichai and Ben Gomes, Vice President of Google Search.”