India has more internet users than any other country, with over 800 million people utilising broadband, according to a statement made by Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, while Addressing the concluding ceremony of India Internet Governance Forum (IIGF) 2022.
The India Internet Governance Forum (IIGF) is a project affiliated with the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (UN-IGF). The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a multi-stakeholder platform that brings together representatives from various groups to discuss public policy issues concerning the Internet.
During his remarks at the function, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar mentioned that India has 800 million Internet users, which is more than any other country in the world currently has. India is projected to have the world’s largest online population of 1.2 billion people once 5G technology is fully implemented and BharatNet’s massive rural broadband connectivity network project is completed. In addition, he mentioned that we are looking forward to upcoming technological developments as well as revised regulatory policies. The participation of all of the relevant parties is essential to the success of this Global Standard Cyber Law Framework, which he claims will “catalyse” both the internet in India and the economy there.
He went on to say that India now possesses an extremely potent offering, identity authentication to a very diverse and rich suite of applications, and enhanced accessibility to the internet for countries in the Global South that have not been able to step up and create the same sort of pace of digitization of the economy, which is an internetization of their economies. He added that India’s Prime Minister had signalled his willingness to provide the same platform to other countries in the Global South during India’s G20 Presidency. These countries would be those interested in adopting India’s model for digital economic and political reform. It took a lot of work, but the Indian internet is now built on a multistakeholder model. To guarantee future internet growth and innovation while keeping both safe, trusted, and accountable for all the billion digital nagriks of India, he said, this multistakeholder engagement must move beyond the intellectual academic discussion in the next few years.
Secretary, MeitY, Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma, speaking at the IIGF’s second edition, said that the Digital India programme complements India’s mission with digital literacy initiative skills by providing an exemplary indigenous success story that has become a world story thanks to technical progress shaping new India. As India plans to launch a major initiative to provide the country’s rural areas with high-quality internet access, the conference’s theme, “Leveraging Techade for Empowering Bharat,” couldn’t be more timely. Furthermore, he stated that we are considering enacting laws to protect the personal information, safety, and security of our citizens. In addition, he said, we’re investigating ways to launch a digital economy worth $1 trillion within the next three years.