India to play key role in formulating future internet architecture: R.S. Prasad

Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that the new internet architecture, which is expected to come up by September next year, should be broad-based and global.

Speaking at a conference on "Digital Pivot to Asia" organised by Observer Research Foundation and the CNBC TV-18 here, the Minister said he expected India to play a key role in formulating the future internet architecture.

The Minister said the security aspect should also be a key part of the architecture as other aspects like equitability, openness and jurisdiction.

R.S. Prasad also said that India already has over 900 million mobile telephone connections and soon be becoming a one billion connection country. India has overtaken the US in terms of connections and is only second to China.

He further said that under the Digital India campaign, the government is working to connect all panchayats in the country through National Optical Network which will become one of the biggest campaigns in the world.

Meanwhile, the President and CEO of ICANN, Fadi Chehade, said that there cannot be Digital World without the inclusion of a Digital India.

He said India is not only a power but already a super power which should be guiding the direction of the medium.

Pointing out that the US is planning to move out of the control of internet by September next year, Fadi called for a polycentric and balanced model to govern the "the unstoppable" internet medium.

The Director of ORF, Sunjoy Joshi said, even as the digital pivot shifts to Asia, the Government in its vision of Digital India has seen in the digital medium the one mode that can by multiplying opportunities become the platform that unifies and equalizes all in this country.

He pointed out that the Digital India initiative is one that seeks to leverage the power of technology for governance on a scale unimagined and unimaginable at any time in history. It plans to do this by connecting a billion people, reach out to them in order to deliver tangible social services, health, education, and financial inclusion right down to the last mile.

Explaining ORF's Digital Initiative, Joshi said this April, ORF will be partnering The Hague Institute for Global Justice to host a day-long side event at the Kingdom of Netherland's Global Conference on Cyberspace. Later, in May, in New York, we will be hosting another event with the World Economic Forum, on the "The Future of the Internet."

"In October, ORF is set to host its Cyfy, India's largest annual internet policy forum, where it hopes to debate developments viz-a-vis the looming transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract with ICANN," Joshi said.