PM Modi’s Vision for Digital India is to ensure the internet reaches and empowers all Indians: MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

ANI |
Update: 05 Dec. 2021 07:02 STI

New Delhi [India], Dec 5 (ANI): Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of digital India is to ensure that the Internet reaches and empowers all Indians.
“The vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of Digital India is to ensure that the Internet reaches and empowers all Indians. For this, the multilingual Internet is not a challenge but an urgent requirement.” Chandrasekhar said.
During a workshop organized by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on multilingual internet, Chandrasekhar outlined the government’s ambition to have a multilingual internet in order to connect all Indians.
He said that the biggest reforms in the education sector in the history of modern India, the new education policy, encourage the use of regional languages ​​as a medium of instruction. “Therefore, it is imperative that the internet, as well as technology platforms, support regional languages ​​to ensure digital inclusion. MeitY will partner with industry to finalize a roadmap to achieve the goal strategic to make the Internet multilingual, “he said.
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) organized a workshop titled “Multilingual Internet (Connection of All Indians: Open, Safe, Reliable and Responsible Internet)†to have a roadmap on the Multilingual Internet in India. The workshop invited public and private stakeholders including representatives from Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Zoho Corporation, Rediff, XgenPlus; academia, industry organizations and officials from MeitY, India’s National Computing and Internet Exchange Center.
Sharing the Prime Minister’s vision on the Digital India mission, Chandrasekhar said, “In 2015 Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Digital India mission with three major results: transforming the lives of Indians, expanding economic opportunities through digital entrepreneurship and improving strategic capacities in certain technologies, including the Internet, so that the future of the Internet is shaped by countries that are open societies and share the same set of democratic values ​​and respect the rights of citizens. “
He said that with the internet becoming more and more important and the next 400 million internet users will most likely come from semi-urban and rural areas, it becomes crucial to ensure internet access without any disadvantages or disadvantages. discrimination.
The Minister further said: “There is an urgent need as a country to advance the Internet. Lack of knowledge of the language should not be a reason for excluding a citizen. It becomes imperative that all stakeholders unite to make the Internet accessible to every citizen. “
The Internet Governance Division, MeitY and NIXI and the National Informatics Center, through a presentation, spoke about the progress made in the multilingual Internet which was initiated at the first World Summit on the Society of the Information (WSIS) under the auspices of the United Nations in 2003. The presentation also discussed in depth the issues facing India in its journey towards a truly multilingual Internet.
Closing the session, Chandrasekhar said that establishing the fundamental and structural block for internationalized domain names, search engines and email issues in Indian languages ​​is the need of the hour. “The element that the government needs to mitigate is a search engine and an email address and a roadmap needs to be initiated in agreement with the stakeholders to move this initiative forward,” he said.
“A stakeholder working group will be established to create a roadmap on fundamental issues of universal acceptance and the multilingual Internet. This would also touch on cybersecurity issues,” he added. (ANI)