Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is in India presently to spend his first Christmas with his family after taking the baton from Steve Ballmer in February earlier this year. While it was supposed to be a personal visit for Nadella, he took some time off earlier today to meet with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several other ministers at 7, Race Course Road (RCR) residence in New Delhi.
On the second courtesy call of the Nadella to PM Narendra Modi, the Microsoft chief said that the company looks forward to partner with the Digital India and Make in India programmes of the Indian government:
“I have an aspiration that in this mobile and cloud world, we can empower every individual citizen of India and every business organisation and institution in India to be able to try with new technology. So, I am looking forward to be a part of both the Digital India and Make in India”
Nadella also met communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today. “It’s always fantastic for me personally to be in India and the conversation I had with the minister was wide ranging,” Nadella said after meeting the minister.
On his last visit, Nadella had announced that the company will be making data centres in India to improve its services for Indian customers. “We are making huge investments in our data centres in particular, which we think can empower organisations in this country to be world class with the access to great technology,” Nadella said today.
“I have requested him to consider electronic manufacturing in India. I have also requested that Microsoft has a great profile in the field of social services, (and) digital literacy can be promoted. We had a very purposeful exchange. I am very happy and I warmly welcome him,” said Prasad after the meeting.
Nadella is the fourth major tech executive to meet Prime Minister Modi, after Google’s Android Chief Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
