India offers to lead digital infra for G20

Ajay Banerjee

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New Delhi, September 5

India has volunteered to host a global repository of digital public infrastructure (DPI) for the G20 nations. The DPI was one of the three focus areas of the digital working group of G20.

Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar today said the G20 had made significant strides in arriving at the same page on matters like DPI, cybersecurity and digital skilling. “India has volunteered to host a repository of DPI,” the Minister said.

Nigerian Prez first to arrive for summit

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu is the first major leader to arrive for the G20 summit. On a six-day official visit, Tinubu is one of the nine leaders especially invited by India in its capacity as Chair of the grouping. Tinubu is accompanied by top government officials.

He told reporters that eight countries have signed MoUs with India seeking digital public infrastructure like Aadhaar, UPI, Digilocker, etc. “The G20 nations also discussed about financing the development of DPIs in the global south,” he said.

India is planning to showcase five of its digital payment initiatives at the summit.

The Reserve Bank of India will have an exhibition pavilion at the summit. Visitors can get a Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI) wallets linked to UPI for making payments at merchant outlets. The government is also hoping to popularise RuPay as an alternative to Mastercard and Visa at a global level. “RuPay, with its lower charges, can break this monopoly,’ said an official.