New Delhi, April 16: “Poor country like India cannot afford corruption,” this is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said almost six months ago, a day before he announced demonetisation. But moments after reports suggested Snapchat CEO repeating the same words, the co-founder of image messaging app had to face the heat. Earlier, at an expansion meeting, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel had allegedly said, “This app (Snapchat) is only for rich people and I don’t want it to expand into poor countries like India and Spain”. Soon after the comment, Snapchat CEO faced outrage on social media. After the news broke out #BoycottSnapchat started trending on twitter and people across India went ahead to uninstall the app from their smartphones. A day after, Snapchat was surrounded by the controversy, the company denied the report and release an official statement saying that “Snapchat is for everyone! It’s available worldwide to download for free.” Also Read - Snapchat Testing TikTok-Like Feature, to Allow Users to Set Their Snaps With Music

But the real question arises after this controversy is that; Are we Indians really poor to afford to download and use the free Snapchat app? The unrealistic answer could be NO. But the fact is that India still remains a poor country when we compare ourselves with other countries in the Global Poverty trend. Social inequality, illiteracy, population explosion, gender inequality unequal distribution of wealth faulty economic reforms, corruption and many other factors have always acted as a stumbling block and India remains in the Global Poverty Index. Also Read – Snapchat India users delete the app, trend #BoycottSnapchat protesting CEO Evan Spiegel’s ‘poor country’ remark! Also Read - Snapchat Introduces In-app Meditation Feature With Headspace

Despite considered one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with a growth rate of 7.6% in 2015, and a sizable consumer economy, poverty in India is an important issue. Also Read - Do You Know How Much Shehnaaz Gill Charges For One Instagram Post? It's Way More Than What Asim Riaz Does

Last year, on November 7, a day before PM Modi called announced demonetisation, he said, “A poor country like us can’t afford the luxury of corruption. If few take all the money (that too illegally), then how will the common man be benefited,” news agency PTI reported.

As the controversy started growing on social media, twitterati started taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on what he said on November 7, 2016.

Downvoted the Snapchat app for the alleged ‘India is a poor country’ comment? Good. Now please also downvote… https://t.co/My1XaBVy1y — Abhijit Chakraborty (@AbhijitWrites) April 15, 2017

now what #boycottsnapchat or #boycottModi ?

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Poor country like India cannot afford corruption: PM Modi https://t.co/dVC1pDHxrW — Munnabai (@munnnabai) April 16, 2017

“Poor country like India cannot afford corruption: PM Modi”

Mr #snapchatceo at present “I Just took inspiration from your PM”

xD 🍟 — Ashlesh Ajgaonkar (@AshleshAjgaonka) April 16, 2017



On Sunday, at BJP’s National Executive Meeting in Odisha, PM Modi slightly changed his statement where he said, “India is a rich country with poor people”, and blamed corruption and “visionless governments” of the past for its current condition.

It was not only PM Modi who has spoken about poverty in India, several other leaders in the past had cited the same. “India happens to be a rich country inhabited by very poor people,” former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had said in a statement.

Watch: Poor country like India cannot afford corruption, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Indeed India is a poor country with a large number of consumers and some observers believe that India has a huge potential if it gets rid of social inequality, illiteracy and many other factors that are stopping us from competing with the global players.

Keeping the debate about poverty aside, the ignorance achieved new heights when people started deleting Snapdeal app instead of Snapchat.

(Video Courtesy: Door Darshan News)