Cyber attack bloodless war, internet safety priority: Ravi Shankar Prasad

He said that problems of virtual world affects real world, therefore, govt cooperation is essential

Union Minister of Electronics and IT and Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said building a safe Internet has to be the top priority towards which all the stake holders should work closely in coming days.

"Internet to be available to the people of the world has to be safe. Safe Internet is integral to effective use of Internet. It is a virtual world but the problems of the virtual world affects the real world. Some people abuse this technology. In India we are suffering from terrorism and terrorists also use ICT. Therefore conscious working together by governments, ICANN, companies and communities etc is necessary to ensure that cyber security issues are effectively responded to," the minister said at the 57th annual conference of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN) in Hyderabad.

Expressing concerns over the cyber attacks and other problem areas involving the Internet technology, Prasad stated that Government of India was very concerned and also keen that the whole democratic, free world, which believes in rule of law and freedom of press, need to work well by building a high safety wall against such threats.

"Cyber attacks are a bloodless war. Let us accept the challenge," he said.

India, which has the second largest intent user base in the world, is being transformed rapidly into digital India by using applications based on ICT and the Internet in diverse areas of public life and administration. The total number of internet users would be crossing 500 million by the middle of next year by which time all the 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country would be provided with broadband connectivity, according to the minister.

"We are promoting digital governance because Digital India means good governance. Digital India means transparent governance, digital delivery means direct delivery of subsidies to the deserved people and we are extending the use of its applications in education, health, agriculture among other things,"Prasad said.

Earlier in his inaugural address, the minister said India's support for the multistakeholder model for governance of Internet was inspired by the multistakeholder spirit that runs deep in Indian society and polity. He further mentioned that Critical Internet Resources (CIR) including Root-Servers, Mirror-Servers and Data Centers should be equitably distributed to reflect the global nature of the Internet.

To expand India's participation in the multistakeholder model, ICANN will work with India's stakeholders, including the Government of India, to develop a structured framework focusing on fostering the development off the DNS (domain name system) industry in India, ICANN leadership said.

"With the IANA stewardship transition behind us, our top priority now is to focus on our revised mission and new bylaws and working together with the empowered community. Expanding our outreach is key to our mission. In this context, we are keen to further deepen our ongoing engagement in India. As the second largest group of Internet users globally, we welcome India's voice and participation," Goran Marby, ICANN president an CEO said.

He also maintained that post transition of Internet stewardship, they will have to be vigilant and make sure that nobody, no special interest or a government hijack what the they were currently doing to keep Internet independent.

Coming to the use of Indian language script in domain names, Marby said they have already created technology environment for the adoption of 15  out of the 22 Indian official languages and it was for the Indian community to take the initiative forward. 

The ongoing  ICANN annual meeting, which began on Thursday, is the first  annual conference of the global internet body after the US Government has withdrawn its supervision over Internet management last year.