National Seminar on Technological Sovereignty in ICT

National Seminar on Technological Sovereignty in ICT

11^th October 2012, Ashoka Hall, Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi

LtR: Major General Dhruv C Katoch, Director, CLAWS, General Vikram Singh, Chief of Army Staff, Indian Army, Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, C-DEP, Lt. General S P Kochhar, Signals Officer in Chief, Indian Army.

Under the current procurement norms, India has a policy for 30% offset on defence procurement. This creates an immense opportunity for domestic manufacturers and service providers. More importantly, this also creates an opportunity for developing domestic IPR to take benefit of the 30% defence offset policy. However, in order to do so, it is critical to identify the roadblocks that prevent domestic manufacturers from tapping this enormous market. The first step in this process would be the identification of institutional mechanisms to facilitate domestic entrepreneurship.

In order to initiate the process, the Indian Army accepted a proposal by Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research (C-DEP) and Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), to organize a one day national level seminar on Technological Sovereignty in ICT on 11th October 2012 at Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi. The objective was to create a collaborative institution that will support and enable the private sector to deliver indigenously developed technology to the army.

Apart from the primary issue of identifying the challenges of technological sovereignty, the discussions covered various topics including the impact on modern warfare and on critical information infrastructure, the strategic implications on supply chain and trade and attempt to trace the road ahead.

During the inaugural session of the conference, Lt. General S P Kochhar, Signals-in-Chief of the Indian Army, mentioned that the Indian Army is upgrading various areas including ICTEC (ICT, Electronics and Cyberwarfare). It is critical at this stage to understand the concerns of stakeholders in delivering indigenously developed technology to the army. It is also necessary to keep in mind the strategic implications as we move towards net centric equipment. Thus it is imperative that India move towards an ICTEC ecosystem profile which provides greater control over the ICTEC layers to the military strategists.