The 75th annual Cannes Film Festival is currently underway, and many celebrities are representing India at the festival, including jury member Deepika Padukone, who spoke about the future of Indian cinema, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who made bold red carpet looks.

R Madhavan recently took the stage at Cannes to discuss his film ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’, which is based on the life of Nambi Narayanan, a former scientist and aerospace engineer with the Indian Space Research Organization who was falsely accused of espionage. Madhavan wrote, produced, and directed the film.

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During this time, he also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying – “When the Prime Minister of India, when he started his term, he introduced microeconomy and digital currency. There was a furore around the world, among the economic community which said, this is not going to work. This is a disaster’ because how are you going to get the farmers and the people who are uneducated in the small villages to handle a small phone or a smartphone and handle the accounting.”

“In a couple of years that whole story changed and India became one of the largest users of microeconomy in the world and you know why it happened. It’s because the farmers did not need to be educated to use a phone to know if they have got their money, who the money they have sent to… That is new India,” he continued. 

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The video was uploaded on social media with the following caption:

“When our PM @narendramodi introduced a micro-economy & digital currency there was a furore…it is going to be a disaster. In a couple of years, the whole story changed & India became one of the largest users of the micro economy in the world. This is #NewIndia – @ActorMadhavan.” 

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Anurag Thakur, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, who headed the the11-member India Pavilion posted the video of Madhavan discussing how economists predicted PM Modi’s digital economy agenda would fail.

The 75th Cannes Film Festival kicked off on May 17th and will run through May 28th, 2022.