Tech professionals form group to propagate NaMo.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: The wave of support for Narendra Modi is now sweeping into the influential desi hotbed of Silicon Valley, where over 60 leaders of the IT industry have opened the area’s first-ever tea stall dedicated entirely to the controversial BJP leader.
Over 60 professionals from IT titans like Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Apple, and eBay have opened a tea stall in Ortega Park – a location in Sunnyvale, California, not far from San Francisco – through the volunteer group “I Care for India,” which is hoping to create support for Modi in the lead up to the Lok Sabha elections.
Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, has been repeatedly criticized by the US government in the past for his alleged involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots, so opening tea stalls in his name could be seen as a way to create a positive buzz about him here in the US. Now that the US has opened the gates to reconcile with Modi, the timing for the ‘tea stall’ is perfect.
The IT professionals who came together to create the stall have also agreed to pool their resources and combat the several large-scale issues currently afflicting their home country. Nearly all come from an engineering background, and in a statement released in announcement of the stall being opened, the tech leaders have pledged their support to providing aid for rural areas and farmers, mitigating power losses that plague most of India, and helping to computerize the political process.
The tea stall will also double as a place where people of Indian origin can file their own comments and complain about India and offer suggestions as to what the BJP and Modi can do to fix these issues. According to the statement, any and all complaints and suggestions will get compiled and forwarded to the BJP.
The “I Care for India” organization has a Facebook following of 234 and a photo of Modi as its banner image. The organization’s information says that it stands for the common man, and sees Modi as India’s best chance to move forward from corruption and emerge as a legitimate global power.
“I am the common man who stands in queues everyday to get the smallest of my work done. I am the woman who feels unsafe on the streets of my own country. I am the youth who wants to change the way my country is being lead and help it grow to its full potential. I am the soldier who guards the nation’s borders, the worker who slogs from 8 to 8, the farmer who toils in sun and rain. I am the street vendor who pushes cart everyday for my living,” says the “About” tab on the organization’s Facebook page, concluding with the line “I am the quintessential common man but I know I am the change.”
According to Facebook, the group was created very recently, on November 15 of last year.
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