In his first visit to the country, Google’s newly-appointed chief Sundar Pichai managed to secure support for the company’s ambitious Loon project in the government. Union minister for telecom and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the government was in principle agreeable to pilots of Google’s Project Loon.

After meeting Pichai in New Delhi, Prasad said he had also proposed a partnership with state run BSNL for Project Loon. Under the project Loon, Google has proposed to provide internet connectivity in hard to access areas of the country from balloons floating at a height of 20 km using LTE or 4G technology. Prasad also said that the telecom ministry would help Google in obtaining clearances from civil aviation and the defence ministries for approvals.

Did You Know???

• Google had announced a project to connect 400 Railway stations in the country through Wi-Fi along with Indian Railways technology arm RailTel.
• Pichai said that the project is on track and the first 100 stations will be connected by the end of 2016.
• A pilot project at the Mumbai Central Station is set to go live by January 2016.
• Google has tied up with the Tata Trusts for an initiative, “Internet Saathi”, which helps women get online by providing 1,000 bicycles equipped with internet devices.
• Pichai hopes to scale the programme which is in operation in 1,000 villages to 3 lakh villages.