PM Modi Meets Tim Cook, Latter Calls Meeting ‘Terrific’, Talks About Apple’s India Connect

That much awaited tour has started. Starting off his 30 hour engagement with the biggest names in Silicon Valley, PM Modi today met Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a brief 15 minute meeting before his Digital India Dinner.

So why meet Cook in a one-on-one meeting and not the way he met Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai at the Dinner ?

Well, for one, Apple is world’s most valued company (in excess of $700Bn) and can be the biggest FDI drawer to Modi’s #MakeInIndia campaign. We’ve already had reports of Foxconn, Apple’s biggest contract manufacturer, setting up plant in India to build iPads and iPhones — Modi is hence obviously looking to attract more of Apple into the subcontinent.

Secondly, while the likes of Microsoft and Google are more connected with the Digital India campaign, what they’ll bring in will be more in terms of technology rather than straight FDI. With Apple though, its a slightly different ball game.

While Apple will obviously contribute to #MakeInIndia initiative, it also is one of world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, and hence a source of FDI for India. And while the more finer details of the meeting are obviously not out, PM Modi must have obviously discussed about Apple setting up major manufacturing hubs in India.

As for what really happened in the meeting, not much has been released by the Ministry of External Affairs, except for a few good-looking statements by both — which, as we all know is more of a PR stunt.

If anything really substantial comes out of this meeting, we’ll get to know that later, but such meetings are important in every sense, considering India has always been taken as a giant, but a rather sleeping one — which failed to reach out to the biggies in tech and manufacturing sector.

Apart from the Tim Cook meet-up, PM Modi also visited Tesla’s factory and met CEO Elon Musk. The PM is expected to have talked less about those shiny, famed (and expensive) Tesla cars and more about Tesla’s Powerwall energy storage battery packs — a sure shot success addition to PM Modi’s massive energy transformation drive for India.

We’ll be providing you a comprehensive coverage of this entire Silicon Valley tour, followed by a live blog tonight on PM Modi and Mark Zuckerberg’s live townhall Q&A. Stay Tuned.