Page 6 - It Ministry

A tech-first approach for Viksit Bharat

From digitally issued vaccine certificates to the use of mass media to educate on vaccines, India, despite its socioeconomic disparities, a shining example to the world in countering vaccine hesitancy

MeitY issues advisory to curb deepfakes & misinformation on social media

Last month, PM Modi had also stressed the need for creating better awareness among people about the pitfalls of artificial intelligence, especially the potential of misuse of deepfakes

Foxconn submits application for setting up semiconductor unit: MoS IT

Taiwanese electronics manufacturing services company Foxconn has submitted an application for setting up a semiconductor fab in the country, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. Minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a written reply to Lok Sabha that the government has taken several measures to boost electronics manufacturing, including semiconductors, incentivising large investments in electronic goods and appliances, and promote exports. "Foxconn has submitted its application under the "modified scheme for setting up of semiconductor fabs in India" for the establishment of semiconductor fab in the country," Chandrasekhar said. The development comes after Foxconn exited a joint venture (JV) with Vedanta Group to set up a chip plant in India. The JV had plans to set up its chip plant in Gujarat with an investment of around Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Chandrasekhar said the first semiconductor unit by Micron was approved in June 2023 under the Semicon India .

Centre spends Rs 1,218 cr to commission 24 PF compute capacity: MoS IT

The government has spent Rs 1,218.14 crore in the last eight years to set up 24 PetaFlops compute capacity under the National Supercomputing Mission, Parliament was informed on Friday. Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha said that systems have been commissioned at 20 academic institutions, organisations and Research and Development (R&D) labs across the country. PetaFlop level computing speed can perform quadrillion calculations per second and is important for high-performance computing, especially in the field of climate monitoring, drug discovery, astrophysics etc, and now for developing and supporting artificial intelligence technologies. "NSM (National Supercomputing Mission) was initiated in April 2015, with a budget outlay of Rs 4,500 crore for seven years. An amount of Rs 1,218.14 crore has been spent till date for the mission activities. Till date, systems with a total of 24 PF compute capacity have been ...

Govt focus on boosting electronics production; new scheme in works: MeitY

The government's focus is now on boosting electronics component manufacturing in the country and new scheme for the same is in works, a senior government official said on Monday. Speaking at the CII Electronic Summit, S Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity), said that 99 per cent local mobile phone market is being met through domestic manufacturing, and for next phase of growth companies need to export by improving competitiveness and enhancing value addition. "If our competitiveness needs to keep getting better then the challenge really is to not just rely on about 10 to 15 per cent of the value addition to assembly units in the country but to look at what else we can do, how can we move up in the value chain?" Krishnan said. He said no one country is ever going to own the entire value chain and it's only going to be a portion of the value chain that India needs to target. "Probably in India's case, the best case will probably be China which has about 40 to 4

Apple threat notification probe: Company's technical experts to visit India

Centre earlier announced that it has sent a notice to Apple regarding the threat notification received by several members of Parliament

India to have draft regulation on deepfakes in 10 days: Ashwini Vaisnaw

Mulls penalties on creators, platforms; draft regulations likely in 10 days, says Vaishnaw

New regulation to tackle deepfakes soon: Vaishnaw meets social media cos

Terming deepfakes as a new threat to democracy, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday said that the government will come up with new regulations soon to tackle deepfakes. The minister, who met social media platforms on the deepfake issue on Thursday, said that companies have agreed on the need for clear actionable work in areas such as detection, prevention, strengthening of reporting mechanism, and raising user awareness. "We will start drafting regulation today itself, and within a short time we will have a new set of regulations for deepfakes ... this could be in the form of amending existing framework or bringing new rules, or new law," Vaishnaw told reporters. Deepfakes have emerged as a new threat to democracy, the minister said. "We will have our next meeting in the first week of December...that will be on follow-up action on today's decisions, and also on what should be included in the draft regulation," Vaishnaw said. Deepfakes refer to synthetic or doctored media that

China's 5G base stations increase to 3.22 mn by Oct end: IT ministry

China built nearly 3.22 million 5G base stations by the end of October, accounting for 28.1 per cent of all its mobile base stations as part of its efforts to speed up the digital transformation of the economy, the government said on Wednesday. China is making steady progress in the construction of its 5G network in an effort to propel the digital and intelligent transformation of its real economy, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said. China's state-run three telecom giants -- China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom -- collectively had a total of 754 million 5G mobile phone users by the end of October, the ministry said, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The ministry's data said that in the first ten months, the telecommunication industry had combined business revenue of firms in the sector totalled approximately 1.4 trillion yuan (about USD 197.9 billion) up 6.9 per cent year on year, the report said. The development of 5G was seen as key to China's .

IT rules ensure safeguards for children against online gaming harms: Meity

Meity's reply stated that an Inter-Ministerial Task Force for Online Gaming Regulation (IMTF) was constituted by the Respondent/MeitY in May 2022

Platforms with algo biases not protected under IT rule: Chandrasekhar

Those who are aggrieved by this can file FIRs against such platforms and safe harbour/immunity under Section 79 will not apply to these cases," said the minister

MeitY issues advisory to social media cos after Rashmika's controversy

This comes after a controversy regarding a deep fake video of Actress Rashmika Mandhani had surfaced

AI, online gaming can add up to $300 bn to GDP by 2026-27: IT minister

Artificial Intelligence and online gaming segments can add up to USD 300 billion dollars to India's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026-27, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said here on Thursday. The Minister of State for Information and Technology said the government will host a global summit titled 'India AI -2023' on December 10 this year in a major push to artificial intelligence. "We see emerging technologies like AI (artificial intelligence) as being kinetic enablers of the digital economy, considering that the AI segment and online gaming segments can add almost USD 200-300 billion to the digital economy component of the GDP," Chandrasekhar said. "Our target is USD 1 trillion in the digital economy, part of the USD 5 trillion dollar GDP by 2026-27, which would be 20 per cent of the GDP. We think that AI will be a very significant component of that, which is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the 'India AI' programme," he told reporters on the sidelines of a ...

We are taking strong measures to crackdown CSAM: Rajeev Chandrashekhar

The Minister of State called out global tech giants for 'distorting' fair competition and free consumer choice in the internet world and said that it is an area of concern for the government

WhatsApp bans 7.4 mn accounts in August, keeping in line with IT rules

Meta-owned WhatsApp banned 74 lakh accounts in August, keeping in line with IT rules, according to the latest India monthly report by the messaging platform. Of these, 35 lakh accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users. The 'user-safety report' contains details of user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp's own preventive actions to combat abuse on the platform. "Between August 1 and August 31, a total of 7,420,748 WhatsApp accounts were banned. 3,506,905 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users," it said. An Indian account is identified via a +91 phone number.

Digital India Bill: Aadhaar likely to be default e-ID of citizens

The government is also likely to have sweeping powers to track, monitor, intercept, moderate and take down online content under the new law

IT ministry puts plan to form self-regulatory body for gaming on hold

BS had reported that if the ministry finds that big players are backing SRBs and that the bodies lack independence, certification of games will be considered instead of self-regulation

DPDP Act: Firms in disarray, seek more time, clarity for implementation

Companies feel that the "timelines are too short," as the new DPDP Act will require a complete overhaul of their entire internal systems

Govt may shelve self-regulation plan if egames majors dominate SRBs

SRBs must have experts in education, psychology, and child rights, according to government

Govt forms committee for modernisation of Mohali semiconductor plant

The IT ministry aims to make SCL into a research and development-led Center of Excellence with semiconductor R&D capabilities