NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants Facebook's help to generate more likes for India. And, since social media is capable of anything these days, including helping with thumping election victories, perhaps it could also help persuade Indian citizens to clean up the country before all those friends land up here and are forced to hit the un-friend button.Public hygiene was among the subjects that Prime Minister Modi referred to in his first public address in Varanasi after winning the election earlier this year. That victory was marked by the intense use of social media - Facebook and Twitter - in BJP's successful electoral campaign.India has vast tourism potential but poor cleanliness standards hold it back, Modi told Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg at a meeting on Thursday morning, a person aware of the conversation told ET.Modi confirmed that the topic was discussed in a Facebook post in which he wrote that India intends "to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary year with a special focus on cleanliness and I spoke to Ms Sandberg on how Facebook can assist us in this endeavour".The post went on to say, “Being an avid user of social media myself, I talked about ways through which a platform such as Facebook can be used for governance and better interaction between the people and governments. I also talked about how Facebook can be used to bring more tourists to India.”Sandberg is believed to have assured Modi that Facebook would assist the government in all its endeavours, the person said.“The prime minister asked us to develop local content and reach out to more languages,” Sandberg wrote in a post on the social media site after the meeting. Facebook is currently available in nine Indian languages.Modi “believes that direct communication with people all over the world is critical to effective governance and he plans to continue using Facebook and other social media to communicate with the people of India and the world”, Sandberg wrote in her post. “He plans to champion the free and open Internet on the world stage.”Sandberg, 45, began her four-day visit to India on Monday, meeting a cross-section of people, including politicians and business leaders. Named one of Time magazine’s top 100 most influential people in 2012, Sandberg also addressed a gathering of businesswomen, where she spoke about the equality of women in the workplace, among other issues.She’s also the author of a best-selling book on the issue, ‘Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead’. On Thursday, she also met Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, gifting him a copy of her book.The minister asked Sandberg about the areas in which Facebook could assist the Indian government, said the person cited above.She is believed to have discussed cooperation in the fields of health and education, referring to her experience as a World Bank research assistant in Madhya Pradesh in 1991.It was pointed out to Sandberg that Facebook had high penetration of around 50% in a country like the UK compared with 8% in India, and how both the government as well as the technology giant could together work in delivering key services in the hinterland, the person said.Facebook currently has about 100 million users in India and 1.28 billion worldwide. That’s the reason the company sees immense growth potential in the Indian market, especially as smartphone sales surge and more and more people use the mobile Internet.Telemedicine could be one of the applications in which Facebook and the government collaborate, the person said. A day earlier, in a meeting with journalists, Sandberg had spoken of a pilot project in Africa that could be extended to India.“We are doing a partnership in an experiment with Airtel in Rwanda, working with the government to provide technology that is educationally based, to get school kids in Rwanda better education,” Sandberg said.“It’s a pilot, it could work. That’s something we would like to expand elsewhere. Airtel is an Indian company, so India is a natural extension.”In her post on Thursday, Sandberg reiterated that India was important to the global economy, as well as to Facebook. “We look forward to working together to bring the next billion people online. Access=opportunity—creating more economic, social and political opportunities for the people of India.”As the government plans to digitally connect all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats through its ambitious national optic fibre network (NOFN) plan by 2017, it is also believed to be urging companies such as Facebook with capabilities to develop local content.