Guwahati: The official blog of the Microsoft co-founder billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and spoke in-depth about the “creative work” being done in the fields of health, climate change and other important areas, according to Gates Notes.
Gates stated that it was a chance to emphasise how technologies created in India can benefit the entire globe and encourage other nations to adopt them on India’s G20 leadership.
Invoking the pandemic, Gates, in his official blog claimed he has been in touch with PM Modi for producing Covid-19 vaccinations and “investing in India’s health services”.
“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.
While saying that India excels at both creating and distributing new, life-saving technologies, Gates noted that the public health system in the country 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.
Lauding the work done by India under the leadership of PM Modi “while the world had been grappling with the pandemic’, Gates said 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.
In addition to praising the nation’s “Gati Shakti” programme, Gates Notes noted that it was an excellent illustration of how digital technology can improve government performance.
“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 PM Modi’s initiatives to combat “deadly and debilitating diseases” such lymphatic filariasis, visceral leishmaniasis, and tuberculosis.
It also praised the government’s effort to encourage basic literacy and numeracy skills nationwide.
The co-founder of Microsoft also spoke about “Mission Innovation,” a programme that was started in 2015 and aims to expedite the development of renewable 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”.