Address
1. Speaker’s Name: Mr. Ram Narain
2. Speaker’s Title: Deputy Director General (International Relations)
3. Member’s State: India
4. Contact person: Kishore Babu
Director (International Relations)
Department of Telecom, India
Email: dirir2-dot@nic.in
Mobile: +91 9868130220
5. Session: 27 May 2015 FN
6. Original Language: English
Address
WSIS Forum 2015
Date: 27-05-2015
Your Excellencies, Secretary General ITU, Mr. Houlin Zhao, Deputy
Secretary General ITU, Mr Malcolm Johnson, and Ladies & Gentlemen,
I am privileged to express our views on the issue of creating a global
Information society in this WSIS forum.
1.
One of the best thing that could have been done by ITU in
collaboration with other UN agencies is initiating the WSIS process by
calling a World Summit of all stakeholders for creating a truly Information
Society. Holding a Summit meeting in 2003 at Geneva followed by
another meeting in 2005 in Tunis, culminated in issuing a high vision
statement by World leaders for not only setting targets of connectivity but
covering all facets of life, which contribute in creating an information
society. The eleven action lines along with lead agency and supporting
agencies to work on action lines was the hallmark of this document,
which makes it unique to quite some extent as normally high level vision
statements lack the punch for implementing the statement. This vision
statement contains that punch too. Holding of this WSIS Forum and
earlier review of WSIS by various agencies including ITU are as a result
of this feature, which makes all of us to have a look at: as to what we
have achieved, what more can be achieved, where we have missed and
how we can correct ourselves for creating a modern information society.
2.
India is a land of about 1.28 billion people and has immense
potential. Although numbers of mobile phones in India are about 970
million, which will reach to about 1200 million phones in the next 3-4
years, yet in terms of Broadband reach and connectivity lot of work is
required to be done. We have merely about 16 million fixed Broadband
connections and about 84 million wireless Broadband connections.
Internet subscribers’ base, however, in India is large; it is about 267
million. Our target is to have 600 million Broadband connections by
2020. Hopefully we will achieve this target as the cost of smart phones is
coming down fast; cost of smart phone being one of the major
impediments in spread of wireless Broadband. The Government is taking
concrete measure to address the other issues, which have bearing on
Internet connectivity.
3. India is a country with large number of villages; more than 600,000
villages. About 72% of population lives in rural areas. Therefore, for
making India digitally enabled it is necessary to connect the villages. The
government already has launched an ambitious project of laying of
optical fiber cable to connect 250,000 village panchayats with
Government funding of about $ 4 billion. One village panchayat,
sometimes, can cover more than one village and, hence, actual number
of villages connected through scheme would be more than 250,000.
Further, the plan is to connect all 600,000 villages in coming years.
Whereas broadband connectivity through optical fiber is desirable for
information highways, for wider coverage and quick roll out of broadband
services and Internet connectivity wireless is imperative. We have
recently concluded a highly successful auction of Spectrum for mobile
and wireless broadband connectivity. The money collected through
Spectrum auction, on one hand, can be utilized for various social
schemes run by Government for the poor people of the country, on the
other hand, auction have helped in making more Spectrum available to
telecom service providers in a transparent and fair manner, the scarce
natural resource, which is essential for mobile connectivity. Laying of
optical fiber for connecting villages and auction of Spectrum is one part
of the popular programme ‘Digital India’ launched by the Government led
by our Hon’ble Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. The ‘Digital India’
programme is a well thought out end to end programme, with objective
of electronically delivering social, commercial, governmental and
economic services to the citizens of the country. It is overarching
programme
covering
connectivity,
content
development,
skill
development, unique identity for all, education, availability of information,
access of Internet to all, electronic manufacturing and cyber security.
The programme envisages Government investment of about $18 billion,
including for optical fiber, over a period of about three years. The
programme also envisages leveraging the resources from private sector,
particularly Telecom service providers. As the ‘Digital India’ programme
will dramatically bring down the cost of transactions and would connect
the unconnected, it will be the single most powerful tool for inclusive
growth and social equality. The ‘Digital India’ Programme, led by Hon’ble
Minister Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad, will also unleash the hidden strength
of India by providing people centric innovative applications and services
taking India to growth trajectory.
4. If we closely observe than we will find that ‘Digital India’ programme
impinges on all the eleven action lines of WSIS. Therefore, we can say
that India is committed to take concrete steps for implementation of
these action lines through our ‘Digital India’ programme. It is our
endeavour to involve with all entities and stakeholders in implementing
the ‘Digital India’ programme and WSIS action lines.
5. Instilling trust and confidence in use of ICTs and affordable
accessibility are the two major factors which are going to play crucial role
in creating a truly information society. Achieving political neutrality in
management and control of common critical communication network
resources and, use of network resources in innovative manner will go a
long way in dealing with these two issues. We can protect the privacy,
human rights and freedom of expression only by making communication
network politically neutral. The spirit of WSIS demonstrates that we
jointly can do it.
6. Development, spread and use of ICTs not only impinges on all the
SDGs as the matrix prepared by ITU vividly shows, it also help in
removing human intervention and arresting exercise of discretionary
power resulting in fast, fair and corruption free delivery of services. ITU
as lead agency in development of ICTs along with other UN agencies,
private organizations and other stakeholders can play a vital role in this
direction.
7. ITU has played a sterling role in not only bringing all stakeholders on
a single platform for creating a truly information society, it is continuously
steering this endeavour with the review processes. The role of Coorganizing UN agencies UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP and other UN
agencies WIPO, UNDESA, FAO, UNEP, WHO, ILO, WMO, ITC, UPU,
UN Women, WFP, UNDOC and UN Regional Commission in whose
close collaboration the event is being held is equally praiseworthy and
commendable. We the citizens of this World are greatly benefiting from
their activities as their actions are making this World definitely a better
place to live. We are thankful to all of them. Our special thanks to all
those men and women who have made this event to happen, which of
course would not have been possible without the able guidance of
Secretary Genreral ITU Mr. Houlin Zhao and chiefs of other UN agencies
involved in this event.
In the end, I would like to thank all of you for patiently listening to me. .
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