india

Updated: Nov 08, 2019 16:15 IST

Within hours of global investor Raymond Dalio calling him ‘the best’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded in a series of tweets, ribbing the American billionaire over being trolled for praising him.

Dalio, had earlier tweeted that in his opinion Prime Minister Modi was ‘one of the best, if not the best,’ leaders in the world.

The Prime Minister in his response wrote: “My friend @RayDalio, the trolling after these words of praise would give you the best opportunity to test your meditation skills and being “like a Ninja.!” PM Modi added that the points Dalio had made called for a healthy discussion, ‘in the spirit of being radically open minded.’

Raymond Dalio is an American billionaire investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is the founder, co-chairman and co-chief investment officer of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Bloomberg ranked him as the world’s 58th wealthiest person in June 2019.

Ray Dalio had conducted an on-stage discussion in Saudi Arabia after Prime Minister Modi’s keynote address at the third iteration of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) event, which is also known as the “Davos in the Desert”

The American investor posted on Twitter a video of his sit-down discussion with PM Modi. “I had an opportunity to explore with him how he thinks as well as what he thinks,” Mr Dalio tweeted about his conversation with the prime minister on October 29.

“He is … providing both basics and cutting edge digital technologies as part of his mission for India’s direction. For example his government built more than 100 million toilets which reduced diseases potentially saving approximately 300,000 lives by some estimates,” Dalio tweeted referring to the government’s flagship Swachch Bharat campaign.

To this the PM responded, “To empower so many Indians, especially women has been one of the most satisfying efforts of our tenure. The credit for the same goes to the people of India who made these movements their own and drove the transformation.”

Referring to the huge 2019 poll win for Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party, Dalio tweeted: “In the last election he won a big mandate from voters for the next 5 years. I think he has a good chance of creating revolutionarily better outcomes with the broad support of the population. Those are big deals that are hard to find in other countries.”

To this, the PM responded by saying that a government coming back with majority after serving a five-year term was seen many, many years ago.