After Facebook, Modi visits 'Google Guru'

After his townhall style question-answer session at Facebook, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday visited the Google headquarters for an interaction with CEO Sundar Pichai, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.

"It's a visit to Google Guru, as the PM likes to call it, after the Facebook Q&A," tweeted PMO India.

"A is for Alphabet. PM @narendramodi at @Google headquarters, with Larry Page @sundarpichai and @ericschmidt," tweeted external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

Received by Pichai with a handshake, Modi was given a tour of the Googleplex in Mountain View, Santa Clara, and their four critical projects and their value for Digital India.

"From ground level to global. @sundarpichai explains navigational, safety and other uses of Street View & Google Earth," Swarup said.

Modi asked if Khagaul could be pinpointed on Google Earth. Khagaul near Patna is where the great Indian astronomer Aryabhatta had an observatory.

Modi was also shown a zoom-in picture of the Ganga river in Varanasi via Google Earth.

"A clear view of health. PM @narendramodi gets a view of Project Iris, smart lens that measure glucose levels," Swarup tweeted.

At Googleplex, Modi also witnessed the start of a 15-hour hackathon or a marathon software coding session with some 150 Indian programmers looking to produce software and applications relevant to India for Modi's Digital India and Skill India missions.

Hosted by the Indian IT industry trade body, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), along with a clutch of start-ups in India and the US, the hackathon is having a simultaneous session at Tech Mahindra's Noida facility.

Later on Sunday night, Modi, who last year got a rockstar like reception at New York's Madison Square Garden, would be hoping to recreate that magic at a community reception in San Jose.

More than 45,000 people have registered for free passes for the event at the 19,000-seat SAP Centre organised by an Indian American group.