Govt Increases Digital India Program Fund by 23% to Rs 3,958 Cr

The government has increased the outlay for digital India programme by 23 per cent to Rs 3,958 crore for 2020-21 compared to the actual allocation in the current fiscal.

The increase has been mainly on account of incentives to be given for electronic manufacturing, research and development, development of manpower for the segment, cyber security and promotion of IT and IT enabled services.

The finance ministry had allocated Rs 3,750.76 crore in the previous budget but the same was revised downward to Rs 3,212.52 crore, according to the budget document released on Saturday.

"The Government has been taking several initiatives on continuous basis for promotion of electronics manufacturing in the country to provide an enabling environment for the industry to compete globally. Electronics manufacturing is one of the important pillars of the Digital India Programme and the target to achieve net zero imports is a striking demonstration of intent," the document said.

Government has increased provision for promotion of Electronics and IT hardware manufacturing through modified special incentive package scheme, electronics development fund and electronics manufacturing cluster to Rs 980 crore from Rs 690 crore in the current fiscal.

The research and development programme under the Ministry of Electronics and IT will get 75 per cent higher fund in 2020-21 compared to Rs 435 crore in the current fiscal.

The fund is envisaged to be spent on R&D activity in Electronics, nano and microelectronics including semiconductor integrated circuit layout design registry, medical electronics and health informatics, innovation promotion and start-ups, high performance computing including National Supercomputing Mission, open source etc.

The fund allocation for cyber security projects and promotion of IT and ITeS industries have been increased to Rs 170 crore each from Rs 102 crore and Rs 90 crore respectively.

The government has increased allocation for National Knowledge Network to Rs 400 crore from Rs 274 crore in the current fiscal.

Government has slashed funds for promotion of digital payment by more than half to Rs 220 crore for 2020-21 from the Rs 480 crore it allocated for the current fiscal.

The fund for Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan will remain unchanged at Rs 400 crore in the upcoming fiscal year, according to the budget document. PTI PRS MSS

Digital Transformation To Add $154 Billion To India's GDP By 2021, Says Microsoft

Digital transformation in the country is expected to contribute about USD 154 billion to India's GDP by 2021, tech giant Microsoft today said.

The study by Microsoft and IDC, titled Unlocking the economic impact of digital transformation in Asia Pacific", said there has been a dramatic acceleration in the pace of digital transformation across India and Asia-Pacific economies.

"In 2017, about 4 per cent of India's GDP was derived from digital products and services created directly through the use of digital technologies like mobility, cloud, internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI)," Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari told reporters here.

Notably, a separate report by Accenture has showed that AI could add $957 billion to the Indian economy by changing the nature of work to create better outcomes for businesses and society. Additionally, a recent report by research and strategy consultancy Zinnov Zones has highlighted that the Indian subcontinent holds a whopping 43% the global Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Microsoft India President further added that within the next four years, it is estimated that nearly 60 per cent of India's GDP will have a strong connection to the digital transformation trends.

"India is clearly on the digital transformation fast track. Organisations are increasingly deploying emerging technologies such as AI, and that will accelerate digital transformation-led growth even further," he said.

Related Reading - How To Enrol Your Startup For ‘Digital India’ Campaign

The study conducted with 1,560 respondents from mid and large-sized organisations across 15 economies.

The report found that digital transformation efforts for organisations range between 11 per cent and 14 per cent.
"Business leaders expect to see more than 40 per cent improvements in key areas by 2020, with the biggest jump expected in productivity, customer advocacy as well as profit margin," Maheshwari said.

It is to be noted that in this year's finance budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that budget doubled the fund allocation on Digital India programme to Rs 3073 crore in 2018-19.

Last May, a US-based institute has published a report stating that some of biggest US companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Pfizer, Pepsi and Coke, McDonald's etc. are currently holding over a whopping $2.6 trillion in offshore accounts, and if looked closely, one would observe that the untaxed funds from these US companies is more than India's GDP.

Digital Transformation To Add $154 Billion To India's GDP By 2021, Says Microsoft

Digital transformation in the country is expected to contribute about USD 154 billion to India's GDP by 2021, tech giant Microsoft today said.

The study by Microsoft and IDC, titled Unlocking the economic impact of digital transformation in Asia Pacific", said there has been a dramatic acceleration in the pace of digital transformation across India and Asia-Pacific economies.

"In 2017, about 4 per cent of India's GDP was derived from digital products and services created directly through the use of digital technologies like mobility, cloud, internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI)," Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari told reporters here.

Notably, a separate report by Accenture has showed that AI could add $957 billion to the Indian economy by changing the nature of work to create better outcomes for businesses and society. Additionally, a recent report by research and strategy consultancy Zinnov Zones has highlighted that the Indian subcontinent holds a whopping 43% the global Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Microsoft India President further added that within the next four years, it is estimated that nearly 60 per cent of India's GDP will have a strong connection to the digital transformation trends.

"India is clearly on the digital transformation fast track. Organisations are increasingly deploying emerging technologies such as AI, and that will accelerate digital transformation-led growth even further," he said.

Related Reading - How To Enrol Your Startup For ‘Digital India’ Campaign

The study conducted with 1,560 respondents from mid and large-sized organisations across 15 economies.

The report found that digital transformation efforts for organisations range between 11 per cent and 14 per cent.
"Business leaders expect to see more than 40 per cent improvements in key areas by 2020, with the biggest jump expected in productivity, customer advocacy as well as profit margin," Maheshwari said.

It is to be noted that in this year's finance budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that budget doubled the fund allocation on Digital India programme to Rs 3073 crore in 2018-19.

Last May, a US-based institute has published a report stating that some of biggest US companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Pfizer, Pepsi and Coke, McDonald's etc. are currently holding over a whopping $2.6 trillion in offshore accounts, and if looked closely, one would observe that the untaxed funds from these US companies is more than India's GDP.

Google Aims To Bring India's 51 Million SMBs Online With Its New Digital Unlocked Program

Yesterday saw Google's Indian origin global chief executive officer Sundar Pichai unveiling Google's Digital Unlocked program, a program aimed at getting all of India's 51 million small and medium businesses (SMBs) online.

According to Pichai, the Indian subcontinent boosts of some 51 million SMBs today that are contributing a good 37% to India’s GDP. Unfortunately, out of these, only 32% have a presence online or are truly being able to take advantage of the power of the digital world for the betterment of their businesses. It is this balance 68% of the businesses that Google India aims to digitally empower by the end of year 2017.

While emphasising on the various benefits of going digital, Pichai also added that the World Wide Web holds as much as importance for an established local merchant, as it is does for a high-flying startup. Google's new initiatives for the SMBs include a training program, tools to build their websites, and a support service to help such businesses get online.

The Digital Unlocked program is a free training program that aims to teach SMBs the basic digital skills required to get online and how they can start using the Internet to grow their business. While the online training under the program consists of 90 self-paced training video tutorials, created by the Indian School of Business, FICCI and Google itself, the offline training comprises of an eight-hour classroom training programme created in partnership with FICCI. By 2020, Google plans to successfully conduct as much as 5,000 such workshops in 40 Indian cities.

The 90 training video tutorials have been curated keeping in mind India's business environment and will be available to SMBs absolutely free of charge. The tutorials cover topics right from how to build a web presence to how to drive online growth of their businesses to reach their customers over mobile and video.

"The internet and digital technology will be an engine of growth for the Indian economy. Today, anyone can become an entrepreneur, a developer, or a creator, but it is important that they have the right tools and skills to digitize. We believe it is important for us to invest in training and equipping these individuals and small businesses to accelerate their journey of growth," said Pichai at the Google event in New Delhi on Wednesday.

[caption id="attachment_112749" align="alignnone" width="700"] Sundar Pichai with Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union minister for law & justice, electronics & information technology at a Google event in New Delhi on Wednesday.[/caption]

The Wednesday Google event also saw the tech giant announcing a free tool called ‘My Business Website’, aimed at helping SMBs in creating a free, mobile optimised website. To be launched later this year, the new feature will provide the SMBs with simple, templated, editable and easily accessible websites from their data and photos on Google Maps. It will be made available in 9 Indic languages.

In addition to the Digital Unlocked training program and My Business Website tool, Google also launched a free mobile app called Primer, aimed at teaching digital marketing skills to SMBs. The app, which can also work in its offline mode, is currently only available in English and Hindi, but its Marathi, Tamil and Telugu versions are expected to be launched very soon.

A recent joint research study conducted by Google and KPMG titled Impact of internet and digitization on SMBs in India had revealed that as much as 52% of the digital businesses in India cater to customers outside their base city and employ five times more people than offline businesses, but at the same time the profits of digitally aware and engaged SMBs grow twice as fast compared to offline SMBs. The research also pointed that a greater uptake of the digital world by the Indian SMBs can help in increasing their contribution to India’s GDP by 10 percentage points, taking it up to 46-48% by the year 2020 from the current 37%.

Google's Wednesday announcements are in resonance with the tech giant's continuous efforts to support the Indian government's Digital India initiative. In 2016, Google had launched Google My Business, a program that aims at helping SMBs get an online presence on Google Search and Google Maps, without having to invest money in a website or domain.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who is currently in India on a work and personal visit, visited his alma mater IIT-Kharagpur today. The Indian-origin Google CEO discussed his life on campus in an event titled ‘A journey back to the past to inspire the future,' which was streamed live by Google on YouTube.

Despite PM Modi's 'Digital India' Campaign India Slips To #91 In Network Readiness Index Rank

India saw ranking drop in the World Economic Forum’s recent report. Drop in ranking has raised questions on all those claims that projects India as a fastest growing economy. Indeed, there are many things to think before reaching to any sort of conclusion.

The WEF's Networked Readiness Index (NRI), also referred to as Technology Readiness, measures the propensity for countries to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communications technology (ICT).

Notably, India's network readiness index in 2013 was 61.

In 2016, India ranks 91 out of 139 countries on "Network Readiness Index" rankings of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

At 91, India was ahead of Pakistan (110) and Bangladesh (112), but behind Sri Lanka (63), Malaysia (31), and China (59). Singapore topped the rankings for second year in a row. The US was placed at 5th position.

Indian media is overplaying with stats and data news in discussions of growing economy every day, every hour! Is all this is true, or fiction, just to build hype? Recently, the Global Digital Economy Forum discloses a ranking report that proves all these stats which projects India as a rising economy are unconvinced. According to the report, India has been fall down two notches in the Global Digital Economy rankings. It is hard proof that India is faking to be a fastest growing global digital economy. The ranking down fall also raises questions about campaigns like Digital India and Make India etc. launched to build India a growing digital economy.

Why India lagging behind?

Despite all claims and improvements in political and business environment, India has been slipped down two positions in the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranking this year. However this is a little change, but raised many questions on all those figures and facts provided by India claiming it as a growing digital economy. The report clarified, “Although India’s absolute score has changed only marginally in recent years, and the drop can be attributed in part to the fact that other countries are moving ahead at higher speeds.” Low level of education and lack of infrastructure also hinders all those initiatives taken to widespread Information and Communications Technology (ICT), especially in rural India. In addition, poor skills in terms of usage of this technology at individual level also contribute to fail the Indian ICT ecosystem. The report pointed, “The lack of infrastructure, low levels of skills among the population, and vast digital divide between well-connected urban and remote rural areas were cited as the key bottlenecks to widespread digital adoption.”

The Indian government has launched the Digital India campaign in 2015 to fill the gap between rural and urban India and promoting huge investments in digital infrastructure development for improving digital literacy and internet education. But the ranking slip questions the performance of this programme and indicated that this is not performing well. India is also struggling in terms of individual participation in e-services as out of 100 household only 15 have the internet access and it keep India far behind from many other developed nation.

Other Key Factors that Majorly Counted for India’s Digital Growth

Digital growth is not just to announce the programmes like "Digital India" but it is allied to implementation model of these programmes, state of mind of population, adaptability, followed business strategies, innovations and many other factors. It is also influenced by related initiatives taken to promote this IC technology at all level. Overall, India needs to do more magnificent development and upgradations in the ways of using digital technologies especially in rural India. A right approach and way of implementation will too lead to growth, competitiveness and social progress in the future. Apart from this, providing a right set of data in order to study the progress of executed efforts is very important as this will help to deliver best outcomes in the form of growing digital economy too.

Government Role

Government role is very important! Indeed, the Indian government needs to be very committed toward the “Digital India” and other similar programmes. India could start following the strategies of developed nations who are extremely good in implementing the ICTs as well providing its widespread access to their populations. In addition, a favourable innovative environment will also help the government to connect the population with a modern infrastructure and make India digitally successful.  India needs to implement the initiatives like Facebook’s  OpenCellular, a open source wireless access platform announced to bring connectivity to remote areas of the world. In contrast, In India, the telecoms regulatory stopped a Facebook Inc. Free Basics initiative earlier this year as it said that it violated net neutrality ideology. The government also needs to make an effective framework for fueling the internet penetration at rural level.

What’s More

Another considerable point, the WEF’s report makes it very clear that there is huge gap between developed nations and developing ones because of many factors. It says that the digital economy has divided developed countries and developing nations into two parts. The top-ranked developed nations like the U.S, and Singapore ranking is almost unchanged but many developing nations especially India saw a drop in ranking. Silja Baller, an author of the report and an economist with WEF says, “Standing still means they are, in relative terms, falling behind. Overall, the vast majority of countries are improving their scores.”

Top 10 countries names remain same in the list however the U. S. and Norway moved up and Switzerland and Netherlands falls down. The report judged all countries on the basis of their abilities to use information and communication technology to boost its competitiveness. It has analysed countries on the basis of 53 indicators of regulation, technology adoption, tech affordability, infrastructure etc. This report is announced to promote investments in the ICTs segment for socio and economic impact worldwide.

How To Enrol Your Startup For 'Digital India' Campaign

The Modi government, since taking over reigns from the UPA-II government in May 2014, has been quite upfront and vocal about its vision for the Indian Startup industry. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself spoken about the importance and the potential the sector holds for the youth of the nation and how it can play a major role in solving the long-present social evil of unemployment in the country. If you have been a keen follower of the Modi government's work since last two years, you would have most certainly come across his government's pet project of giving the country a digital makeover through the Digital India Campaign. 

Being coordinated jointly by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) and various Central Ministries/Departments and State Governments, the program, if implemented systemically, holds the potential of transforming India for good, and maybe even help it in making the long-awaited transition from a developing to a developed country. 

 The government's vision of the Digital India Programme is focused on looking after three main areas -

1. Giving each citizen the utility of advanced Digital Infrastructure 
2. Making Governance and Services available to the citizens on Demand
3. Advanced Digital Empowerment of each and every Citizen, irrespective of caste, class and location 

One of the main ways through which the government is trying to address the aforementioned three key areas and Digitise India is by encouraging digital entrepreneurship through its Startup Action Plan.

Seeing the government's enthusiasm towards the initiative, the youth of the country is gearing up to chase their entrepreneurial dreams and make them a success both for themselves and their country. But, a major problem that they have to suffer from while starting up their dream projects is learning about the procedure to legally register their startups under the government's Digital India campaign. If you're also one of those entrepreneurial spirits who is suffering from this very conundrum, we have got you covered. 

To begin with, we need to first revise what qualifies as a ‘Start-up’ in the eyes of the Indian Government. 

According to the Indian government, any Legal entity will be identified as a startup till up to 5 years from the date of its incorporation. Further, its turnover shouldn't exceed the 25 crores figure in the last 5 financial years. Lastly, the entity should be focused towards development, innovation, deployment, and commercialisation of new products, processes, or services driven by intellectual property or technology. 

Now, coming to the procedure to register the startup under Digital India, it ain't that much of a task. The 3 steps procedure is as follows:

1. The official notification of the Government of India states that the startups need to register themselves as a Legal entity, Limited Liability Partnership or as a Private limited company.
2. Once that's done, the next step is to register the startup through the official portal of DIPP (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion) or through the Digital India portal/ MyGov Mobile App.
3. Finally, the last step involves submitting any one of the documents mentioned below in the list along with the application:
   • A letter of support funded incubator to promote innovation from any central/state government.
   • A letter of funding of not less than 20% in equity by any angel fund/PE fund/accelerator or incubation or a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) registered angel network that duly endorses its innovative nature of business.
   • A patent which is filed and duly published in the Journal by the Indian Patent Office in areas related to the nature of the promoted business.
   • A recommendation letter from an incubator established in an Indian post-graduate college in a DIPP prescribed format.
   • A recommendation letter from any Central government incubator stating the innovative nature of the promoted businesses in a DIPP specified format.
   • A letter of funding by the State or Central government as part of any scheme to encourage innovation.

Once the startup submits the application along with any of the above mentioned documents, a unique recognition number is generated and assigned to the startup. But, here's the catch, one needs to make sure that the application form is duly filled and all the required documents are submitted with it, because if any of the documents are found missing or forged, the startup will have to pay a fine. The fine constitutes 50% of the paid-up capital of the business and shall not be less than Rs. 25,000.

If a startup diligently follows the aforementioned 3 steps, they can easily get the whole process completed in a single day. The Narendra Modi government has really helped in smoothing out the whole procedure by doing away with tons of paperwork and making everything digital through the DIPP platform and the Digital India portal/MyGov Mobile App.

Meet 4 Brand Ambassadors for Modi’s Digital India

(L-R) Kruti Tiwari, Satwat Jagwani, Pranav Mistry and Ankit Fadia

 

While the PM was away in a foreign land, there was much speculation going around back home about who actually were the government's pick for the brand ambassadors for the Digital Media initiative. After much speculation, the government has finally cleared the air and announced its chosen four.

The buzz regarding the brand ambassadors for the initiative were actually a result of a Facebook post put by Fadia where he shared the news of him being selected as one of the Digital India’s brand ambassador. The post created quite a buzz and criticism, which resulted in the Indian government issuing a statement denying any such appointment, only to retract the statement stating a need for clarification.

The freshly issued press release now clarifies that Ankit Fadia is indeed one of the four appointed brand ambassadors for the initiative. The other three appointed ambassadors are IIT-JEE toppers Krati Tiwari and Satwat Jagwani, as well as Samsung’s Pranav Mistry. They have been appointed for a period of one year. Fadia however is being trolled on social media for his appointment as brand ambassodor.

The government's press release declaring the appointment of four Digital India Brand Ambassadors is as follows:
"As part of the Digital India week (July 1-7, 2015) following four Brand Ambassadors were nominated for a period of one year to propagate the product and applications being launched by the department under Digital India Program:

1. Shri Satwat Jagwani, All India IIT-JEE — Advanced Topper -2015 (Student)

2. Ms. Krati Tiwari, All India IIT-JEE — Advanced Girl Topper -2015 (Student)

3. Mr Ankit Fadia, Author & Ethical Hacker

4. Shri Pranav Mistry, Samsung USA (Computer Scientist/ Author of 6th Sense)

Thereafter, no other person has been appointed as Brand Ambassador for Digital India.

The services of these Brand Ambassadors will be used, as and when required for generating mass awareness for the program."

"The services of these Brand Ambassadors will be used, as and when required for generating mass awareness for the program," read the press release.

17-year-old Satvat Jagwani topped the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) Advanced tests this year. That achievement not only secured his spot to the B.Tech course in computer science in IIT Powai, but also took him from being a boy in a small town in Madhya Pradesh to brand ambassador for the Indian government's campaign.

Kruti Tiwari  is an outstanding performer, standing out as one of the top-scoring candidates from the 3,049 girls. She is a native of Indore, attained 47th rank in JEE Advanced 2015 and was personally picked up by the president.

34-year-old Pranav Mistry is a computer scientist and Inventor. At present, he is the Global Vice President of Research at Samsung and the head of Think Tank Team. He is best known for his work on SixthSense.

Ankit Fadia, however,  as an ambassador is not going down with many as according to them, his past records don't essentially qualify him as an ambassador material. Fadia first acquired the news headlines when he proclaimed himself as an ethical hacker prodigy. Ever since then, he has written over 16 books and also has certification courses under his name. He's also infamous for having allegedly hacked CHIP magazine's website in the year 2013, though this claim was denied by former CHIP editor Charles Assisi via a post on the Forbes.

Intel Looking To Invest In Women Owned Startups In India

Women entrepreneurs in India seemed to have finally found the chance they were looking for. According to an interview given to the Economic Times by Intel President Renee James, the technology giant is planning to invest in women owned startups in India. This step by Intel is a part of its global program aimed at increasing diversity in technology business.

"We are also looking at investing in women owned startups, which is something we haven't done before. We will be doing this worldwide,” said James.

James, who was on an official visit to India last week, also met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed the Modi government’s much popular Digital India initiative and the role Intel as a company could play in it.

The technology giant has announced $300 million earlier this year to increase workforce diversity. James is leading the initiative within the company.

Intel has already been engaging with women entrepreneurs in India since last year. In 2014, the company organized its first Supplier Connect Conference for Women entrepreneurs at its Bangalore campus. According to Debjani Ghosh, MD, Intel, South Asia, the conference aimed at connecting women owned startups with Intel’s internal end buyers/users and explore opportunities to work directly with Intel or through Tier 1 suppliers.

2015 seems to be the year of Intel. The company flagged off the year with the news of record shipments of its PCs in the year 2014. It then declared to spend a whopping $300 million to increase workforce diversity in the tech world. The semiconductor giant has also launched Curie, which is a button sized module used to build wearables out of accessories like bracelets, glasses, rings, at the recently concluded CES 2014 tech fair.

Keeping an eye on the future, Intel is investing heavily in Internet of Things (IoT). According to James, “The growth opportunities around IoT are huge. IoT is a solutions capability. You don't just sell chips. You sell the operating environment, the security, the manageability software so you can program the devices.”

Personal Computers and server chips account for bulk of Intel’s business. However, the company still has some catching up to do when it comes to mobile devices. The tech giant earned revenues of just $200 million in mobile devices last year and suffered losses worth $4.2 billion.

Intel Looking To Invest In Women Owned Startups In India

Women entrepreneurs in India seemed to have finally found the chance they were looking for. According to an interview given to the Economic Times by Intel President Renee James, the technology giant is planning to invest in women owned startups in India. This step by Intel is a part of its global program aimed at increasing diversity in technology business.

"We are also looking at investing in women owned startups, which is something we haven't done before. We will be doing this worldwide,” said James.

James, who was on an official visit to India last week, also met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed the Modi government’s much popular Digital India initiative and the role Intel as a company could play in it.

The technology giant has announced $300 million earlier this year to increase workforce diversity. James is leading the initiative within the company.

Intel has already been engaging with women entrepreneurs in India since last year. In 2014, the company organized its first Supplier Connect Conference for Women entrepreneurs at its Bangalore campus. According to Debjani Ghosh, MD, Intel, South Asia, the conference aimed at connecting women owned startups with Intel’s internal end buyers/users and explore opportunities to work directly with Intel or through Tier 1 suppliers.

2015 seems to be the year of Intel. The company flagged off the year with the news of record shipments of its PCs in the year 2014. It then declared to spend a whopping $300 million to increase workforce diversity in the tech world. The semiconductor giant has also launched Curie, which is a button sized module used to build wearables out of accessories like bracelets, glasses, rings, at the recently concluded CES 2014 tech fair.

Keeping an eye on the future, Intel is investing heavily in Internet of Things (IoT). According to James, “The growth opportunities around IoT are huge. IoT is a solutions capability. You don't just sell chips. You sell the operating environment, the security, the manageability software so you can program the devices.”

Personal Computers and server chips account for bulk of Intel’s business. However, the company still has some catching up to do when it comes to mobile devices. The tech giant earned revenues of just $200 million in mobile devices last year and suffered losses worth $4.2 billion.

Google Launches Indian Teens Campaign For Safer Web

As part of the India Digital Literacy and Internet Safety Campaign, Google India announced the launch of Web Rangers, which is a program that empowers teens to promote the safe use of the Internet among their peers.

Web Rangers will provide training to help teens create their cyber safety campaign to enable themselves and their peers think about their online behaviour and how to keep each other safe online. The program will take young people aged between 14 -17, representing 50 schools in Hyderabad, Bangalore and New Delhi through training workshops that will equip them with knowledge in online safety. The New Delhi workshop is being held today, with the first workshop for students in Hyderabad already having been taken place on 27th November 2014 and in Bangalore on the 4th of February 2015.

In addition, the program will also introduce a contest where students across the country will be given twelve weeks to create and run their own online safety campaigns, encouraging young people in their schools and communities to consider issues such as the effects of cyber-bullying, managing one's own digital footprint and online tricks and scams.

These youth-created online or offline educational campaigns can take any form, including online videos and other social media content, sketches and in-school events. The creators of the most creative and impactful internet safety campaign as chosen from this contest, will head to Delhi to present their work to a panel of judges. The winners of the contest will be announced in May of 2015.

Sunita Mohanty, Director of Product Quality Operations at Google India says “Young people use the web for everything from connecting with friends to doing their homework. This puts them in the best position to share with their peers what’s acceptable and what’s not—in language that other young people will respect and understand.”

"Web Rangers have the ability to reach out to hundreds, if not thousands, of their peers. We hope that teens talking to teens about this important topic will make a meaningful impact”.

Web Rangers is a part of a global program that Google has run in countries including New Zealand, Israel, Turkey and the Czech Republic.

Slideshare Co-Founder Amit Ranjan To Head Government's Open Source Project

Last month we reported that Indian government is planning to create GitHub like repository to collaboratively develop Software and apps. Now, as reports by Economics Times, Amit Ranjan, co-founder of SlideShare - a presentation sharing platform, who sold his start-up to LinkedIn for $118.75 million in a stock-cum-cash deal in 2012, is being approached by government to lead this open source collaborative project.

Github is a platform that provides code hosting services for collaborative software development, source code management services and allows its users to share codes with friends, co-workers and track & assign issue to other teammates.

Amit Ranjan has accepted the offer "in principle", according to one of the several people familiar with the plan. He may start as early as February next year, reporting to the joint secretary (IT) Rajinder Kumar. The role involves leading a soon-to-be-created open source organisation for government projects as its CEO.

Indian government software applications are all set to save millions of dollars by moving away from proprietary system and shifting to open source. This will also result in the boosting of pace at which such programmes are being developed.

As per sources, more technocrats and startup founders may join this open-source project of government in future. This move is expected to collaborate various government initiatives and app developers and can be deployed across the country.

Notably, Amit Ranjan played a pivatol role in startup & entrepreneurship ecosystem in India number of times. He leaded an important role in organizing the first Barcamp (www.barcamp.org) in India/Asia in March'06. BarCamps have since spread to all major Indian cities, and they are regarded as being instrumental in kick-starting grassroots level technology entrepreneurship in India. He was also an organizer of Proto.in (www.proto.in), the biannual event that showcases Indian tech startups.

Govt. Planning To Create A Github-Like Repository To Collaboratively Develop Software

Indian government software applications are all set to save millions of dollars by moving away from proprietary system and shifting to open source. This will also result in the boosting of pace at which such programmes are being developed.

The Indian government is in the midst of developing a policy that will call for the usage of open source software as part of the government’s Digital India initiative. Government's future plans also include developing a Github like repository of software that can be created collaboratively.

"We don't want to make it a question of ideology but wherever possible, we want to make use of open source", said RS Sharma, secretary, department of electronics and Information Technology in a statement to Economic Times.  He further added, "We are also preparing something like SourceForge, where we will open up the source code of all the existing software and crowd source development like on Github".

SourceForge and Github are among the most famous repositories for software codes on the internet that can be revised and shared by many people.

This step by the government will help in boosting e-governance. It will also help in increasing savings as these applications and codes can be used again and again. According to Gartner, the Indian government will spend around $6.4 billion on IT products and services in the year 2014. The advantage of this step taken by the government is that every consulting firm will not have to re-invent the software again and again.  The policy under construction has an aim of speeding up the development process by deploying e-governance projects across various sectors of the government.

"Open source has offered us the best way out of vendor lock-in and unpredictable financial commitments" said Jay Pullur, founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies in a statement to Economic Times.

The repository will work towards avoiding the duplication of solutions and applications to a large extent. For example, if a state wants to adopt a particular application, all it has to do now is go to the repository and customize it.

According to Venkatesh Hariharan, director of Alchemy Business Solutions LLP, "The open code policy will ensure faster deployment of IT projects, speeding up the pace of innovation and reducing failure rate of projects".

 

Govt. Planning To Create A Github-Like Repository To Collaboratively Develop Software

Indian government software applications are all set to save millions of dollars by moving away from proprietary system and shifting to open source. This will also result in the boosting of pace at which such programmes are being developed.

The Indian government is in the midst of developing a policy that will call for the usage of open source software as part of the government’s Digital India initiative. Government's future plans also include developing a Github like repository of software that can be created collaboratively.

"We don't want to make it a question of ideology but wherever possible, we want to make use of open source", said RS Sharma, secretary, department of electronics and Information Technology in a statement to Economic Times.  He further added, "We are also preparing something like SourceForge, where we will open up the source code of all the existing software and crowd source development like on Github".

SourceForge and Github are among the most famous repositories for software codes on the internet that can be revised and shared by many people.

This step by the government will help in boosting e-governance. It will also help in increasing savings as these applications and codes can be used again and again. According to Gartner, the Indian government will spend around $6.4 billion on IT products and services in the year 2014. The advantage of this step taken by the government is that every consulting firm will not have to re-invent the software again and again.  The policy under construction has an aim of speeding up the development process by deploying e-governance projects across various sectors of the government.

"Open source has offered us the best way out of vendor lock-in and unpredictable financial commitments" said Jay Pullur, founder and CEO, Pramati Technologies in a statement to Economic Times.

The repository will work towards avoiding the duplication of solutions and applications to a large extent. For example, if a state wants to adopt a particular application, all it has to do now is go to the repository and customize it.

According to Venkatesh Hariharan, director of Alchemy Business Solutions LLP, "The open code policy will ensure faster deployment of IT projects, speeding up the pace of innovation and reducing failure rate of projects".

 

Google Collaborate to Develop a Mobile App for the PM's Office

Technology giant Google is currently working with the Government of India in order to launch a nationwide contest for developing a mobile app for the Prime Minister’s Office. This contest is an initiative undertaken by the government to support its Digital India programme.

The search giant released a statement saying, "MyGov, the citizen engagement platform of the Government and Google are collaborating to launch a nationwide contest to develop a mobile application for the PM's office".

According to Google, the main aim of the application would be to bring the Prime Minister Office closer to each and every citizen of the country. The contest will showcase the country’s talent and how Indians are also capable of building a world class application.

Google has plans of launching a number of initiatives as a part of supporting the PM’s vision, these include programmes such as getting Indian SMEs online, helping more and more women get online, showcasing the country’s rich culture and heritage online which will result in the digital empowerment of the citizen’s of the country.

According to the tech giant, it will continue to help the government’s transition into an increasingly ‘mobile’ India by building a vibrant language ecosystem online.

Google is all set to introduce curriculum for officials, schools and elected representatives in order to encourage internet safety and digital literacy among the citizens.

The tech giant is also working closely with the country’s Department of Information and Technology and other state governments in order to develop such initiatives for them.

According to RS Sharma’s statement to PTI, “I’m happy Google is coming forward to roll out initiatives that will contribute to the Digital India vision. I’m sure others will come forward and join this moment”. RS Sharma is the Secretary at Department of Information and Technology.

According to Rajan Anandan, Google India Vice President and Managing Director, with over 245 million users as of June 2014, India has now become home to the third largest number of Internet users all over the globe. It can be expected to acquire the second position by next year and have a 500 million user market by 2016.

He further adds, “Yet, there are more than a million a billion people who will need to be brought online for India to realize the vision of connected, knowledge economy”. According to Anandan, Narendra Modi’s Prime Minister Digital India Programme can play a transformational role in getting more and more citizens online and changing the face of the country.

Google Collaborate to Develop a Mobile App for the PM's Office

Technology giant Google is currently working with the Government of India in order to launch a nationwide contest for developing a mobile app for the Prime Minister’s Office. This contest is an initiative undertaken by the government to support its Digital India programme.

The search giant released a statement saying, "MyGov, the citizen engagement platform of the Government and Google are collaborating to launch a nationwide contest to develop a mobile application for the PM's office".

According to Google, the main aim of the application would be to bring the Prime Minister Office closer to each and every citizen of the country. The contest will showcase the country’s talent and how Indians are also capable of building a world class application.

Google has plans of launching a number of initiatives as a part of supporting the PM’s vision, these include programmes such as getting Indian SMEs online, helping more and more women get online, showcasing the country’s rich culture and heritage online which will result in the digital empowerment of the citizen’s of the country.

According to the tech giant, it will continue to help the government’s transition into an increasingly ‘mobile’ India by building a vibrant language ecosystem online.

Google is all set to introduce curriculum for officials, schools and elected representatives in order to encourage internet safety and digital literacy among the citizens.

The tech giant is also working closely with the country’s Department of Information and Technology and other state governments in order to develop such initiatives for them.

According to RS Sharma’s statement to PTI, “I’m happy Google is coming forward to roll out initiatives that will contribute to the Digital India vision. I’m sure others will come forward and join this moment”. RS Sharma is the Secretary at Department of Information and Technology.

According to Rajan Anandan, Google India Vice President and Managing Director, with over 245 million users as of June 2014, India has now become home to the third largest number of Internet users all over the globe. It can be expected to acquire the second position by next year and have a 500 million user market by 2016.

He further adds, “Yet, there are more than a million a billion people who will need to be brought online for India to realize the vision of connected, knowledge economy”. According to Anandan, Narendra Modi’s Prime Minister Digital India Programme can play a transformational role in getting more and more citizens online and changing the face of the country.

Bizarre, Indian Govt. wants IT revolution by launching eGreetings portal

The government's IT wing is doing odd things in the name of digitization and IT revolution, yesterday Ravi Shankar Prasad, Communication and IT Minister of India, unveiled the egreetings.india.gov.in portal yesterday as a part of the new government's Digital India initiative. The eGreetings portal has an aim of propagating eco-friendly ways of sending greetings by government officials and ministers to friends and colleagues.

The portal which looked like a retarded portal of 90's era was unveiled on the eve of the country's 68^th Independence Day celebrations. Govt. claimed that it houses a grand collection of designs made by people from all over the country.

At the launch, the Communication and IT Minister lauded the efforts of the IT department and its officials for coming up with such a novel idea of having this kind of IT greeting card, as if they have invented ground-breaking internet technology by developing egreetings portal.

Although there are plenty of e-greetings portal in the country, the objectives of launch of such portal and that's too by govt. is unclear, instead they could have made a portal where the reports of all inquiry comissions on incidence such as communal riots, corruption charges etc. are available for public view and this is kind of portal could have been example of good digital transparency initiative by new govt. However they chose making egreeting portal which gives impression of very childish thoughts of new govt. and doing formalities on the name of digitization.

According to Prasad, this initiative by the IT department is in agreement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to ensure a proper IT revolution in the country followed by connectivity. On a second thought a large area of Indian geography is still untouched with basic internet connection, dont' know how come govt. IT department bring out IT revolution by launching egreeting portal.

Advice to IT minister - An IT revolution comes in any nation by strengthening its internet connectivity in both rural and urban areas and building broadband infrastructure and cheap computer peripherals and not by launching egreetings portal, what would 60% of Indian population will do with egreetings portal when they dont even have basic internet connection nor the computer to operate from.

IT minister Prasad also said that, enhancing Internet connectivity by launching the eGreetings portal on 15^th August was a great idea and by cooperation of the citizens of the country through crowd sourcing, this could prove to be a huge success.

Prasad further hoped that the portal will not only be used by government officials and ministers but also by the people of the country although there are plenty of egreetings portals in the country already don't know why would common people will choose govt. egreetings portal which doesn't look good in comparison to existing egreetings portal.

According to R S Sharma, who is the Secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the department had received 3,572 entries in total for the greeting card designs and out of these entries, the best 14 were selected. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology has made six greeting cards in total.

All the selected 14 entries will be awarded by the department. They would be given a cash prize so as to encourage more and more people to make designs for the portal.

The eGreetings portal also provides the option of selecting a quote of Prime Minster Narendra Modi which would then be sent as a part of the greeting.

In order to use the portal, the user is required to be a registered user of MyGov platform or the government’s email service or the India Gov platform.

The NaMo government has a plan of spending around 5000 crore this fiscal under the Digital India initiative, bizarre isn't it ?, if 5000 crore of money will be spending on craps like egreetings portals only God can clarify that will this bring our IT revolution or utter waste of money.A question arises does a egreetings portal needed that badly by Indian public.

Bizarre, Indian Govt. wants IT revolution by launching eGreetings portal

The government's IT wing is doing odd things in the name of digitization and IT revolution, yesterday Ravi Shankar Prasad, Communication and IT Minister of India, unveiled the egreetings.india.gov.in portal yesterday as a part of the new government's Digital India initiative. The eGreetings portal has an aim of propagating eco-friendly ways of sending greetings by government officials and ministers to friends and colleagues.

The portal which looked like a retarded portal of 90's era was unveiled on the eve of the country's 68^th Independence Day celebrations. Govt. claimed that it houses a grand collection of designs made by people from all over the country.

At the launch, the Communication and IT Minister lauded the efforts of the IT department and its officials for coming up with such a novel idea of having this kind of IT greeting card, as if they have invented ground-breaking internet technology by developing egreetings portal.

Although there are plenty of e-greetings portal in the country, the objectives of launch of such portal and that's too by govt. is unclear, instead they could have made a portal where the reports of all inquiry comissions on incidence such as communal riots, corruption charges etc. are available for public view and this is kind of portal could have been example of good digital transparency initiative by new govt. However they chose making egreeting portal which gives impression of very childish thoughts of new govt. and doing formalities on the name of digitization.

According to Prasad, this initiative by the IT department is in agreement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to ensure a proper IT revolution in the country followed by connectivity. On a second thought a large area of Indian geography is still untouched with basic internet connection, dont' know how come govt. IT department bring out IT revolution by launching egreeting portal.

Advice to IT minister - An IT revolution comes in any nation by strengthening its internet connectivity in both rural and urban areas and building broadband infrastructure and cheap computer peripherals and not by launching egreetings portal, what would 60% of Indian population will do with egreetings portal when they dont even have basic internet connection nor the computer to operate from.

IT minister Prasad also said that, enhancing Internet connectivity by launching the eGreetings portal on 15^th August was a great idea and by cooperation of the citizens of the country through crowd sourcing, this could prove to be a huge success.

Prasad further hoped that the portal will not only be used by government officials and ministers but also by the people of the country although there are plenty of egreetings portals in the country already don't know why would common people will choose govt. egreetings portal which doesn't look good in comparison to existing egreetings portal.

According to R S Sharma, who is the Secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the department had received 3,572 entries in total for the greeting card designs and out of these entries, the best 14 were selected. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology has made six greeting cards in total.

All the selected 14 entries will be awarded by the department. They would be given a cash prize so as to encourage more and more people to make designs for the portal.

The eGreetings portal also provides the option of selecting a quote of Prime Minster Narendra Modi which would then be sent as a part of the greeting.

In order to use the portal, the user is required to be a registered user of MyGov platform or the government’s email service or the India Gov platform.

The NaMo government has a plan of spending around 5000 crore this fiscal under the Digital India initiative, bizarre isn't it ?, if 5000 crore of money will be spending on craps like egreetings portals only God can clarify that will this bring our IT revolution or utter waste of money.A question arises does a egreetings portal needed that badly by Indian public.