Govt will send notice to WhatsApp over breach: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT, on Thursday said the Centre would soon launch a framework for Digital India 2.0. The minister, while speaking at a media roundtable, talked on a range of issues, including the concern about an alleged data breach at WhatsApp. Edited excerpts:

You recently tweeted the government might probe the alleged breach of privacy at WhatsApp. There have been increasing cases of international spam calls on the app. What is the ministry doing about it?

The ministry has taken note of it. It will send notice to WhatsApp on both concerns. Platforms are responsible for ensuring the safety and trust of those who use them. In the case of international spam calls, the main problem we are looking at is how these numbers get out (to the spammers) and how they are able to identify which numbers are on WhatsApp. If it is some database they have got, we will need to ask the platforms to look at the possible breach of privacy.

There are reports of disagreement among industry bodies initiating the formation of online gaming self-regulatory organisations (SROs). What will happen in this case?

It has been clarified during public consultations that no existing industry organisation can become an SRO. In any case, interested parties will apply, and we will scrutinise their applications. I have said during consultations they (SROs) cannot be controlled by the industry (bodies). The stakeholders of the gaming industry will decide the SRO that will represent them. An organisation cannot suo motu decide “I represent the gaming industry and submit an application for SRO”. It will be rejected.

Editorials have been written on issues on online gaming rules. This is new territory. Nobody knows what an exact prescriptive design is for this. We are starting in one direction. If some hiccups come in because we did not anticipate something, we will correct it.

What is the latest development with the government’s incentive schemes for semiconductor and electronics manufacturing?

In the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for semiconductors, the window for applying, which was 45 days, has been removed. This will allow more players to apply, including those who could not complete the submission in the first round. Also, from the first round, a 40-nanometre semiconductor packaging fab will be soon approved.

The PLI scheme for IT hardware should be approved by the end of this month. I think the financial outlay should be nearly Rs 17,000 crore. Under the design-linked incentive (DLI) scheme, we have taken on 23 start-ups. The government has allocated Rs 1,200 crore for them under the scheme. And these are good start-ups. They are also getting commercial capital apart from government support. In tomorrow’s programme, we expect four more start-ups to join us.

The ministry had called a consultation on the proposed Digital India Bill, but that was cancelled. What is the timeline for drafting the Bill?

We will have the second round of consultation on the Digital India Bill this month itself. An early draft will be ready by the end of May.

In today’s (Thursday’s) event, you said the government might soon announce Digital India 2.0. What is this programme about?

We are now creating the framework and architecture to digitise the government even further. So we are talking about India Stack, India Stack with AI, the re-launched Umang app, etc. Digital India 2.0 is this overall architecture. We will make an announcement in this regard in a few weeks. We are also going to organise a global conference on India Stack in June.