IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The Government of India aims to create a pool of 10 million skilled manpower for the IT world, said Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and information technology. The minister released the Draft National Policy on Information Technology, 2011 on Friday.

Speaking at the occasion, Sibal said, “Information Technology is a key driver of an increasingly knowledge-based global economy, and given its current global position in the IT and ITeS sector, India is well positioned to enhance and leverage its existing IT capabilities for a leadership role. The technology has transformational power, and it is a great leveler of opportunity within and across economies.” With the right policies and investment in infrastructure, he said, we have the opportunity to strengthen and enhance our position as a global IT powerhouse. On the domestic front, use of IT in all sectors can transform our economy, enhance equity and help the nation to rapidly improve its development indices.

Here is the list of Indian government apps every Indian should download on their mobile devices.

The Indian government with its associated department has developed several apps for the digital India initiative. There are various apps for every facility that citizens can use on their smartphones. In this pandemic situation, having these apps brings all the necessary services to individuals' fingertips. The apps are not only designed for specific sections of society but also for rural households like teachers, farmers, women, children, etc.

“Out of the target to allot unique identities to 600 million people by 2014, around 100 million will be covered in first (fiscal) year,” said an official of the project’s nodal agency Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), requesting anonymity.

The target for the programme, also known as Aadhaar, is possible as the authority is collaborating with national welfare schemes such as the rural job-guarantee programme and the public distribution system, as well as with state governments, to enroll existing beneficiaries in its database, the official said.

Our recent webinar had industry stalwarts pour in their thoughts about ‘Desh ki Digital Udaan’: a celebration of the completion of 25 years of mobile communications in India.

On July 31, 1995, India made history as the first mobile phone call was made by then West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and erstwhile Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram. Mobile phone services, then, were reserved only for the rich and elite and every call costed a whopping Rs 24.

The research — part of the ongoing I-Cube 2008 being jointly undertaken by IMRB International and IAMAI— also notes there are 5.5 million people who claim to have used internet at some point. The research also noted that due to various government and private sector initiatives to connect rural India, especially the government-led National e-Governance Programme, it was important to bring rural India under the survey.

From framing strict cyber laws to ensuring smooth rolling of Aadhaar enrolement, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is playing a pivotal role in the 'Digital India' mission. Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had last year said that internet users and smartphone users grew by leaps and bounds in the last couple of years. This backs the recent survey which shows that most of the data consumed in India is by smartphone users.

The Government committed to the goal of ‘Internet for All’, in close co-operation with other stakeholders has taken several steps in this direction. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) India Office, one of such steps, was formally launched on 6th May, 2010. A 2-day Conference on World-Wide-Web: Technology, Standards and Internationalization was held in New Delhi to mark the launching. On 15th September 2011 W3C India Office Workspace was inaugurated at Electronics Niketan, CGO Complex. The establishment of New W3C India Office space gives it a permanent entity and would play more active and crucial role in proliferation of W3C standards among ICT industry and users to make India truly knowledge based society.

In the six years since the Smart Cities Mission was launched to redevelop 100 cities across the country, just about 47% of projects have been completed, a new study by the think-tank Observer Research Foundation said.

“The progress of the Mission has been best in the states of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat,” the report said. “Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Indore, Bhopal and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, and Surat and Rajkot in Gujarat figure repeatedly among the best performers on different criteria.”

The Digital India programme has witnessed a consistent upward growth trajectory, achieving numerous milestones and dotted with major milestones and flagship initiatives.

Information technology and communication technologies have huge potential to provide new opportunities and challenges for developing economies. Since the wave of liberalisation in the 1990’s, India has harnessed technologies along with vast economic reforms to open up Indian markets to global businesses and investments. However, in the recent past, the Indian leadership’s focus on amplifying digitisation has deepened and they have begun to acknowledge the potential to transform India into a true technology leader.

5807 gram panchayaths, including block headquarters in Karnataka, would be getting rural broadband optical fiber connectivity under the 'Digital India'- BharatNet fiber project by Bharath Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), Bengaluru by this year end.

BharatNet fiber is a centre-state collaborative project of BBNL to facilitate the delivery of e-governance, e-health, e-education, e-governance, e-banking and internet services to the rural India under the Digital India programme.

S-based Mavenir, a telecom software provider, is eyeing OpenRAN or open radio-access network as a disrupter in telecom space as it brings a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and leveraging its inherent strengths for the fifth generation (5G) networks worldwide. The company serves nearly 50% of the world's telephony subscribers through more than 250 telecom carrier partners. In an interaction with ETTelecom's Muntazir Abbas, Mavenir's president and global chief executive Pardeep Kohli talks on India's telecom sector, Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India), upcoming 5G networks and plans to use recent $500 million investment. Edited excerpts:

5G will open new avenues for manufacturing, healthcare, education, R&D, gaming and smart city projects by integrating with new-age technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine learning, drones, AI and big data analytics, industry leaders said here on Saturday.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving 5G to the country at the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC), 2022, telecom operators have geared up to provide high-speed services from this Diwali that are poised to transform consumer experiences.

"The most critical thing for the new government will be to bring the industry back on firm financial footings. The industry is under a debt pressure after the recent spectrum auctioning in February, there are a lot of penalty charges on many companies; the financial picture is not so good," Rajan S Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI), told IANS.

"We have to cover 1.2 billion people. In the next 4 years, our target is to enroll 600 million people," he said after an event at the prestigious Doon School here.

Nilekani said only 3 million people have so far been covered since the launch of the project in September 2009.

Overview of e-Gov and Digisitation in India

There is a mood of high expectation created by the early actions and successes of the Narendra Modi government and private department and industries have acutely felt the need for digitisation in the information and technology era. The seeds of a digitally connected India were sown in the early 90s and 2000s with a number of diverse but disjoint e-governance programmes. However, these resulted in limited impact on citizens. But all that just might change, as the Indian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched one of the biggest digitization programs, on a scale that has not been heard of before. In 2014, the UN placed India at the 118th slot globally out of 182 countries in the e-government rankings.

To be meaningful to our large population, a digital transformation in India has to be about addressing the unmet demand for basic goods and services. Such a revolution must deal with and indeed target, the high level of inefficiencies that abound in most segments of the economy. Sector-wise, healthcare, financial services, energy, education and skill-building, agriculture and food, and infrastructure are all examples of the vast opportunities that exist and are waiting to be tapped into. Doctors per capita in India are much lower than in say China or Brazil; approximately 120 million rural households do not have access to bank accounts; 300 million people do not have access to electricity; 500 million are without secondary education; millions of tonnes of foodgrains lost every year because of inadequate warehousing facilities and supply chain inefficiencies; not to mention the traffic snarls that choke most of our cities. These are big problems, even for a large democracy of our size and diversity, and unlikely to go away very soon. Yet, these are the very gaps that represent opportunities of incalculable magnitude for ICT (Information and Communications Technology) to focus on, and in the process help create the new India that the term “Digital India” has come to represent.

Governance is a societal function; technology can empower stakeholders, but its adoption will still be mediated by existing social structures. Technology should account for stakeholders and social structures by design.

It is time to examine the promise of ‘Digital India’. The focus on digital services seen in states like Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and cities like Chennai suggest that governance of the future will be built on extensive use of technology and the internet. As these plans take off, and the basic digital infrastructure for urban governance is put in place, it is critical to evaluate the ways in which these initiatives encounter social structures, so that these are incorporated in design.

If the person moves to another part of India, they can access these subsidies as the facility is portable across any bank in the country. Till date, 333 banks are live on this platform.

It will eliminate intermediaries and the tyranny and corruption of low level officials.

Our Prime Minister has given his vision of Digital India to connect all Indians and empower them. It is a truly transformative dream, which will remake India and create a digital society, removing disadvantages and distance. It will unify us, level the field and create a new generation that can compete in all respects globally. It has become more critical now that we have demonetisation of 86% of our currency and a renewed drive to bring in digital banking for the masses.