Terming connectivity as a human right, he said Facebook was committed to building an Internet that works for everyone and is not a "privilege of the rich and powerful".

Zuckerberg said technology enables progress and has to serve the whole of society.

"Connectivity can't be a privilege for some of the rich and powerful...About 243 million people in India are on the net but a huge area is unconnected. India has embraced the Internet, but has a long way to go," he added.

He lauded the country's successful Mars probe, adding that India has always been good at showing the ability to make technology "leaps".  " When the benefits of technology are shared across the whole society, that is when we can make the big leap. Because India has embraced science, the next generation has the opportunity to bring the world to India and India to the world. The whole world being robbed of creativity and ideas because so many people in India are not online," he said.

The young billionaire, who is on his maiden trip as Facebook chief, is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"One of the things I am really excited about is that the PM has this whole Digital India initiative. We can't create connectivity around the world just by ourselves, we are trying to work with operators, governments.""I am mostly interested in hearing and learning about how we can help. I believe there are certain things that Facebook can uniquely bring," he said.

Zuckerberg said through Internet.org, the industry aims to make Internet access affordable for people across the globe.

Focused on enabling the next 5 billion people without Internet access to come online, the founding members of the project include Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung.

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