As students filled India's streets to demand accountability from the government, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to have realized that he needed to connect more effectively with the country's youth.
Modi posted on Instagram a rare selfie video in which he said he was pained by their suffering and promised remedial steps. But it was not enough to satisfy the protesters' concerns, and five Gen Z-style reels later, that gap seems as wide as ever.
"We ain't friends," one comment under the first reel read. It echoed thousands of others reacting to a midnight video drop from the PM.
In one of Modi's lesser-produced videos, he addressed the youth as "friends" before finally speaking about the exam at the center of the protests.
It was the prime minister’s response to the biggest political crisis he has faced in his third term so far, over a cancelled high-stakes medical entrance exam which affected millions of aspirants.
