Most people start their week by moaning about Mondays. Mark Zuckerberg started his by flying down to India to meet the Prime Minister.

The 30-year old Facebook CEO was in town to talk about all things India and Internet. It would be easy to guess, even if you haven’t seen The Social Network, that he wasn’t here for charity.

Over the last year, Facebook has been on an acquisition spree and the underlying objective has been to either wipe out potentially competing social media platforms or to shore up its own active user base. So, after companies, Facebook is now wooing countries – India’s population and the potential to add another billion users must be a big draw. Many of us, including yours truly, have signed up and use Facebook regularly.

But, is Facebook an indispensable tool for an entire nation or is it only going to be a platform whose potential to connect a populace will be milked by a select few?

Talking business

There are more than a 100 million active Indian users on the platform as of now, but a lot of people seem increasingly disenchanted by the 10-year old social media platform. When Facebook crossed the 100 million-mark in India in April this year, it was big news. Their next goal is, however, reaching the 1 billion mark, which is admittedly a completely different ball-game. Most headlines didn’t seem to miss the fact that Zuckerberg shed his T-shirt clad image for a business suit while meeting the PM. Well, what else would you wear for a business meeting?

The most important agenda was to get the Indian government on board with Zuckerberg’s pet project, Internet.org. Through this platform, Zuckerberg promises to “bring internet to two-thirds of the world’s population that doesn’t have it”. Well, first, it's not the access to anything on the Internet but only a handful of basic services that will be delivered for free. Secondly, it seems like a case of messed up priorities, especially when the target demographics is yet to have proper access to food and health care. Needless to say, it will take an unprecedented amount of effort for any country or organisation for this scale of mass adoption of mobility and connectivity.

Facebook says, to counter this problem, they have also roped in the likes of Ericsson, Nokia, Opera, Samsung and Qualcomm, to form the founding team for the project.

Thirdly, more than bringing Internet to two-thirds of the world population, it seems like a push for bringing Facebook to whose who aren’t or can’t be on board yet. India is the second-largest market for Facebook, next only to the US, but not when it comes to revenue. The country, with more than 200 million internet users, and only half as many Facebook accounts is a veritable treasure trove for the social media giant.

Is it just coincidence that after India, Zuckerberg dropped by to meet the President-elect of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, to peddle Internet.org. Indonesia, not unlike India, is going through an Internet adoption boom. The country, which has fewer users but similar Internet penetration, is as potent a market for Facebook as India is. And, incidentally, both heads of state used social media extensively during their respective election campaigns.

Cleaning up its image

The India visit was also to enable Zuckerberg to scope out all the ways in which Facebook could play a part in the ruling government’s initiatives. One definite tie-up announced was to do with the Swachh Bharat campaign. Zuckerberg said that Facebook will be the one to help build a Clean India Mobile App. What the app constitutes and how exactly it will help keep clean India is anybody’s guess. Facebook was also asked to help counter terrorism and boost tourism in India. That’s already two ministries with a lot less work to do in the future.

As if he hadn’t done enough for the week, Zuckerberg ended up being the poster boy for the media by announcing that he, along with his wife, Priscilla Chan, would be donating about $25 million to help fight Ebola. While a lot of people hailed him for this decision, some others claimed he could afford to do so only because Facebook did not have to pay taxes in the year 2012-13.

To put things in perspective, a day later, Zuckerberg reportedly spent about $100 million to snag himself a beautiful, isolated 700-acred Hawaiian island.

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