NEW DELHI: The Union government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, doesn’t want to over-regulate the Internet and suppress innovation, and is ensuring information access to the last mile, Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry, and Electronics & IT, Thursday said.
“The government doesn’t want to over-regulate, and doesn’t want to stifle but we have to be very careful of the harm. It’s not only about access, it’s about implications,” the minister said, adding that the government would continue to “ensure focus on the last mile” by not only giving access but opportunities to the last person.
Prasada was addressing the fifth edition of the India Internet Governance Forum (IIGF) in New Delhi.
“As far as our GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is concerned, we have ensured that access to them is for less than a dollar, which is the cheapest around in the world. But still, a lot more needs to be done so that our young get access, they get more to innovate, to research, and to come up with bright ideas.”
In March this year, Union Minister for Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said that GPUs would be available on IndiaAI compute portal for as low as ₹67 per hour.
The IndiaAI compute portal managed and operated under theMinistry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) offers access to nearly 35000 GPUs that includes cloud storage and related AI services to students, researchers, academia and governmental agencies.
“India has made a considerable headway with nearly a billion internet connections and mobile connectivity, and 5G networks covering 99.7% of our districts. We have gone ahead with mobile production which has increased tremendously. Our electronic components are also focusing on domestic manufacturing.”
Prasada further said that the government is ensuring democratisation of technology. “We have done a lot with our digital stack. The numbers speak for themselves, and that includes digital identity, UPI transactions, digital lockers, transferring subsidies online, reducing leakages, ensuring better services, more informed citizens, and reliability and safety as far as AI is concerned.”
The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) chief executive Devesh Tyagi said that the collective efforts demonstrate that the forum is evolving from dialogue to delivery. “This year, we received over 450 workshop proposals which is an encouraging reflection of India’s growing internet and investment..”
“The internet will only become more complex, more interconnected and more integral to our daily lives. Our task is to ensure that it governs, keeps pace with resilience, openness, safety and above all, inclusion,” Tyagi added.
State-run NIXI was set up to route the domestic internet traffic within the country.
