(Image source from: Narendra Modi gets emotional answering to Mark Zuckerberg’s question})

A special Q&A was held by Zuckerberg with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday. Many questions were fielded by PM Modi related to government investments, doing business in India and women empowerment during the Q&A event that went for 50 minutes long at the campus of Facebook at Menlo Park, California. But, a question asked by Zuckerberg himself about Modi’s mother made the PM unexpectedly emotional.

The chairman and chief executive of Facebook, Zuckerberg said, “I understand that your mother is very important in your life. So I’m hoping you’ll tell us a bit about her.”

PM replied back asking first for Zuckerberg's own parents sitting among the audience to stand up so that they could be congratulated by the crowd for raising Zuckerberg. He then dived into his own story as his voice broke with emotion.

After a pause Modi recollecting his childhood said, “I came from a very poor family. When we were young, what we did to get by … she went to our neighbors’ houses nearby [to] clean dishes, fill water, do hard chores. So you can imagine what a mother had to do to raise her children. What she must have gone through … and that’s not just the case with Narendra Modi. In India there are hundreds and thousands of women and mothers who sacrificed their entire lives for their children.”

Also read: Narendra Modi Invites Fortune 500 CEOs To Make In India

Four other questions from Facebook users were answered by Modi. When asked about his initial thought on impact of social media and internet on governance, foreign policy and citizen engagement, Modi replied saying that he initially signed on social media networks only out of curiosity and have not imagined its impact. He spoke on how the government found a way to directly interact with the citizens daily. Modi said, “We used to have elections every five years. Now we have them every five minutes.”

A question came asking Modi about the government’s investments to connect the next 800 million to 1 billion Indians. To which, he spoke about the ambitious five-year goals to link 600,000 Indian villages leveraging optical-fiber network and to prioritize digital infrastructure along with physical infrastructure.

Modi said, “All those who are familiar with India, if you look all over the world you’ll see civilization has generally developed and settled along rivers. But times have changed. … In the future I think we will find cities are going to be situated along networks and optical fibers, and that’s something we need to keep in mind for the future.”

PM was asked if it has become easier in the last 15 months to do business in India, adding that the perception is that the reform is slow. Answering this, Modi said, “When you have such a big country and you want to bring about change, there are many things that need to be changed. And when you have changes that are taking place, there’s a cumulative effect.”

Narendra Modi was also asked about his stand on women’s empowerment and his thoughts on role of women and female children in progressive India. He said, “If we want to achieve our economic goals, then we cannot do that if we imprison 50% of our population inside their homes. This 50% of our population, female power, we have have a 100% partnership with them.”

Speaking about the importance of education of young girls, Modi said that a very big change has already begun to happen.

-Sumana