#SiliconValley’s #Indian-#Americans and #Modi’s digital delusions -
http://FT.com #India #BJP #ModiInUSA
Silicon Valley’s Indian-Americans and Modi’s digital delusions - FT.com
In public relations terms, Narendra Modi’s “Digital India” campaign is a world beater. Few national leaders can pull crowds of 20,000 or more at home, let alone overseas. On Monday India’s prime minister attracted 18,000 at San José’s SAP arena in Silicon Valley.
---------The executive suite gap was on full view last week at the White House state dinner for Mr Xi. No fewer than three Indian chief executives were on the guest list — Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, Mr Nadella and Ajay Banga, chief executive of MasterCard.
In contrast, there were no Chinese-born S&P 500 leaders. Mr Xi was feted last week in Seattle by US business leaders, such as Apple’s Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, en route to his summit with President Barack Obama. Yet it is hard to imagine him receiving the adulation that greeted Mr Modi at Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters this week. The Indian prime minister’s town hall conversation with Mark Zuckerberg began with chants of “Modi, Modi” from the company’s Indian-born employees.
Here, however, Mr Modi’s “Make in India” drive hits a ceiling. Impressive portions of the US economy are led by people who were made in India. But they show few signs of wanting to go home.
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According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, Asian-Americans will overtake Hispanics to make up the largest share of US immigrants by 2065. A growing number will be Indian.
Can Mr Modi leverage their US success in India? He may have it back-to-front. Companies led by Indian-born executives are no fonder of India’s bureaucratic minefields than any other.
At the US-India strategic and commercial dialogue last week — the counterpart to the US-China annual meetings — US investors read out a depressingly familiar list of complaints.
Foreign businesses must still navigate a Kafkaesque maze of permissions to receive project approvals. Even then, however, they are vulnerable to arbitrary and retrospective tax bills. Amazon, which is putting large sums into its growing India operation, is already mired in a dispute with New Delhi. Its travails are hardly an advertisement to do business in India.
The high point of Mr Modi’s US visit was Mr Zuckerberg’s unexpected confession of Indophilia. Facebook’s chief executive disclosed he had been planning to sell Facebook in its early days but had been advised by Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, to visit the Hindu temple where he had meditated decades earlier. Mr Zuckerberg returned from his month-long India trip with a sense of renewal.
“If Facebook was a country it would be the third largest in the world — and the most connected,” said a delighted Mr Modi.
True enough. But countries are a little more complex than social media groups. It is not enough for India to be liked, or even loved. To attract Chinese levels of investment, it must generate returns.
Silicon Valley’s Indian-Americans and Modi’s digital delusions - FT.com
Just one thing I always wonder about this clown, whenever he posts something about India,is he belongs to some European or US or even china to talk about Indian economy then I look at his flag and it answers my questions .That he belong to a country whose Foreign reserve is not more than 16billion dollar where Polio still causing havoc and they got estimated 411 diesel locomotives to pull the nation of 200million billionaires .well lets rest our case and accept defeat.
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