'India no longer the back office of the world'

Young India is no longer content with being called the back office of the world, said Telangana IT Minister K. Taraka Rama Rao on Thursday.

"Today, the situation is changing. Indian youngsters and young India is not content in being known as the back office of the world... there is a lot of entrepreneurial zeal, there is a lot of enthusiasm among young Indians to do better and to actually compete with the rest of the world," said Rao at the CeBIT India 2015 inaugural ceremony.

Calling his new state the "startup state", he said: "We take a lot of pride in calling ourselves the startup state. We are the youngest state in India. We operate with the mindset of a startup."

To make Hyderabad as the startup capital of India, he said the Telangana government launched two ambitious programmes - the THUB and Telangana Academy of Skill and Knowledge (TASK).

"THUB is essentially a collaboration of academic institutions and various business enterprises within Hyderabad to set up the largest incubator in the entire country for startups in India," he said.

"We setup TASK, a collaborative effort of industry and academia to ensure that the market requirements are in alignment with what is being taught in the academia," said Rao, adding industry frequently complains of graduates not being industry ready.

Another major Telangana infrastructure project highlighted by Rao is the ambitious 1.5 lakh kilometer water pipeline all over the state, and this has the piggybacking of a broadband fibreoptic across its length to connect 8.5 million household with internet connectivity.

"Telangana will emerge as the most connect state in India after the completion of this project," added Rao.