Is India replacing China as tech’s next frontier? Major tech firms “are looking at India, and they are thinking, ‘Five years ago, it was China, and I probably missed the boat there. Now I have a chance to actually do this,’” former Google executive and chief product officer of Flipkart told the New York Times. India’s growing appeal was underscored when China’s president, Xi Jinping, refused to waver on his government’s tough Internet policies during a meeting with tech executives in Seattle last month. On the flipside, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Silicon Valley involved meetings with the same executives sent a clear message: “Help India become an Internet powerhouse.” Immediate results included Google pledging to provide free public Wi-Fi in hundreds of Indian railroad stations Microsoft agreed to help India bring wireless Internet to its 500,000 villages, and chipmaker Qualcomm promised USD 150 mn to finance Indian start-ups, the NYT reports.