Bill Gates “More Optimistic About India’s Progress Than Ever” After Meeting PM Modi

GG News Bureau

New Delhi, 4th March. Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and discussed in depth the ‘innovative work’ in health, climate change, and other critical areas, according to Gates Notes, the official blog of the Microsoft co-founder.

Gates stated that India’s G20 presidency was an opportunity to highlight how innovations developed in India can benefit the world and assist other countries in adopting them.

Invoking the pandemic, Gates, in his official blog, said he has been in touch with PM Modi for developing Covid-19 vaccines and “investing in India’s health systems”.

“India has an amazing ability to manufacture lots of safe, effective, and affordable vaccines, some of them supported by the Gates Foundation. Vaccines produced in India have saved millions of lives during the pandemic and prevented other diseases around the world,” Gates posted in his blog.

Gates stated that India excels at both developing and disseminating new, life-saving technologies, and that the country’s public health system has distributed more than 2.2 billion doses of Covid vaccines.

“They developed Co-WIN, an open-source platform that provided digital certifications for those who have received vaccinations while enabling the scheduling of billions of vaccine appointments,” Gates noted further in his blog.

Gates praised India’s efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that “while the world was grappling with the pandemic,” the country was able to send emergency digital payments to 300 million people, including 200 million women.

“This was only feasible because India prioritised financial inclusion, spending money on a biometric ID system (named Aadhaar), and developing cutting-edge digital banking platforms,” he noted.

Gates Notes also mentioned the country’s ‘Gati Shakti’ program as a great example of how digital technology can help governments work better.

“It digitally connects 16 ministries, including rail and roads, so they can integrate their plans for infrastructure projects and accelerate the work of Indian scientists and engineers,” the blog post read.

Gates also praised Prime Minister Modi’s efforts to eradicate “deadly and debilitating diseases” such as tuberculosis, visceral leishmaniasis, and lymphatic filariasis.

It also praised the government’s initiative to promote universal foundational literacy and numeracy throughout the country.

The Microsoft co-founder also mentioned ‘Mission Innovation,’ which was launched in 2015 and works to accelerate work on clean energy technologies.

“I had visited the India Council of Agricultural Research in Pusa, where I learned about efforts to help farmers adapt to a warmer climate, including by planting new varieties of wheat and chickpeas that can tolerate droughts,” the Microsoft co-founded wrote further in his blog.

He added that the country was “making progress in health, development, climate and showing what’s possible when we invest in innovation”.