UK minister invites Indian Govt., private sector to build technical hub

Britain's Minister for the Cabinet Office, Mr. Francis Maude, has expressed his country's willingness to work with both the Indian Government and private organisations to build technical hubs for innovation and creativity.

Delivering a talk on UK-India digital partnership at Observer Research Foundation, Mr Maude said the UK is well placed to work with government and organisations that are keen to build such hubs.

He noted that places like Cambridge and London's Tech City have already become incubators for innovative and creative start-up companies.

Maude said UK has established an Efficiency and Reform Group to focus government departments on achieving significant savings without impacting frontline services - delivering more for less. This approach resulted in 10 billion pounds in efficiency savings, through re-negotiating contracts, cutting projects, and procurement reform.

Now the government is aspiring to save 20 billion pounds a year by 2015, the Minister said.

He also announced the new Chevening TCS Cyber Policy Scholarship, which is being sponsored by the Tata Consultancy Services.

The talk and the question and answer session was moderated by Virat Bhatia, Chair, FICCI Committee on Communication and Digital Economy.