Modi logs on to empower masses

Tribune News Service & PTI

New Delhi, July 1

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said India should come up with solutions to meet the challenge posed to cyber security by a “bloodless war” as he launched the Digital India Week. This is Modi’s dream project and a larger initiative to digitally empower people and extend services better with the use of Information Technology and its tools.

As Modi unveiled various initiatives lined up by the Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology, India Inc led by the Ambani brothers — Mukesh (RIL) and Anil (ADAG) — Cyrus Mistry (Tata Group), Sunil Mittal (Bharti Enterprises), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group), Azim Premji (Wipro), Pawan Munjal (Hero) and a host of others announced massive investments in the IT sector over the coming years.

The Digital India campaign would see an investment of Rs 4.5 lakh crore and jobs for at least 18 lakh people as the country moved from “e-governance to m-governance”, the PM said. He clarified that m-governance was not “Modi but mobile-governance”.

The PM exhorted the industry to boost production of electronic devices and goods in the country, as part of the “Make in India” initiative, to reduce dependence on imports. He called upon the youth to innovate saying “Design in India” was as important as “Make in India”. He promised government support to “startups” and said India had the potential of becoming the second country after the US in this area.

Modi said IT could be used to curb corruption, help provide transparent and efficient governance and bridge the rich-poor divide.

The PM unveiled a logo for Digital India, an umbrella programme that seeks to transform India into a digitally-empowered, knowledge economy with a host of initiatives for a synchronised and coordinated engagement of the government and its agencies.

For this scheme, the Prime Minister will head a monitoring committee and all existing and ongoing e-governance initiatives will be revamped to align them with the larger principles of “Digital India”, an official statement said. Underscoring the dangers posed to cyber security, the PM said the world was staring at a “bloodless war” but the country had the capacity to protect the world from the same.

“By bloodless war, I refer to cyber security. Innovations by Indians can help the world counter this threat,” he said.

“Somebody, with education of class 10 or 12, sitting thousands of miles away, can clean up your bank account with a click of the mouse. This needs to be addressed,” he said. “Nowadays, even children don’t go for your spectacles or pen when you meet them. What attracts them the most is your mobile phone, even children understand the prowess of digital power,” said Modi underlining the need for an initiative like Digital India. “Merely bragging about the rich history and young population is not enough.” Rather, connecting and empowering them with digital power was the need of the hour, he said.

“We need to understand this change, otherwise we’ll remain here while the world will move forward,” said the Prime Minister.

"India may have missed the Industrial Revolution, but will not miss the IT revolution," he said. “Like bank lockers, there will be digital godowns where we will keep all our important documents,” he said, adding people would now prefer to settle down at places with optical fibre network.

“I dream of a digital India where the world looks to India for the next big idea... I dream of a digital India where high-speed digital highways unite the nation, where 1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation,” the PM said.