Internet governance touches just 20 per cent people
Internet Governance and Inclusive Growth, a workshop held in New Delhi by FICCI, brought into focus the challenges faced by stakeholders in popularising the Internet. The theme of the workshop was Internet Governance: Creating Opportunities for All.
A WORKSHOP on ‘Internet Governance and Inclusive Growth’ organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi on Friday brought into sharp focus the challenges being faced by the stakeholders in popularising the use of the Internet in the face of issues of access and diversity, security and data protection, transition from IPv4 to Ipv6 and the legal and commercial framework.
The workshop is built around the main theme 'Internet Governance: Creating Opportunities for All', of the fourth Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be held from November 15 to 18, 2009 at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.
Addressing the workshop, R Chandrashekhar, secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, said: "The feedback from the stakeholders on Internet governance and inclusive growth was important as India needed to firm up its views in the run up to the IGF meeting in Egypt.
Responding to the concerns expressed by Rajan Bharti Mittal, senior vice president, FICCI and vice chairman and managing director, Bharti Enterprises Ltd, Chandrashekhar said, while the Internet is 'almost ubiquitous’ , its access and use has to be seen in the light of the fact that it touches less than 20 per cent of the people in India.
While economic entities such as banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and government were using the Internet, there was a much greater need for more inclusiveness in regard to Internet access. This, he said, had to addressed in a meaningful way since 90 per cent of the people did not know English. Additionally, there was the problem of lack of availability of computers in villages.
“The ‘India Development Gateway’ launched by the government was designed to bring access to local information and computing in local languages to the people in the villages and remote areas of the country”, Chandrashekhar said.
“The ‘India Development Gateway’ launched by the government was designed to bring access to local information and computing in local languages to the people in the villages and remote areas of the country”, Chandrashekhar said.
The gateway provides products and services such as news, information on and analysis of development sectors in India, jobs, a tender database, an online document database, online training, web hosting, e-commerce platform, consulting and the customisation and implementation of information solutions developed using open source software.
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