Impact of Indian Union Budget 2014 on IT and Electronics sector

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India Internet Governance Conference

The purpose of Internet Governance Forum is to support the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) with regard to creating a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue.

C-DEP was invited to participate in, and partner with FICCI, the Internet Society and the Department of Electronics and IT, Government of India, at the India Internet Governance Session held on 4^th and 5^th October 2012 at New Delhi.

During IIGC, Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, C-DEP Chaired a session on the impact of internet on Indian society.

Shri Kapil Sibal at the India Internet Governance Conference

The Panel at India Internet Governance Conference (IIGC)

The Panel for this session included the following:

1.      Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha

2.      Shri Sitaram Yechury, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha

3.      Lt. Gen. S.P. Kochhar, Signal Officer in Chief, Indian Army

4.      Shri. Nitin Desai, Former Special Advisor to UN Secretary General on Internet Governance and
Former Chairman of Multistakeholder Advisory Group for Internet Governance Forum

5.      Prof. Krishnakant Mane, Accessibility Expert, IIT Bombay

6.      Mr. Sunil Jain, Asst Managing Editor, The Financial Express

7.      Smt. Lata Vaidyanathan, Principal, Modern School, New Delhi

8.      Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman & MD, Cyber Media

Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC)

C-DEP was invited by the Indian Ocean Region Association of Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) to present the details of the eHealth Centre (eHC). The purpose of this was to consider the eHC adoption in the member countries from South Africa, Iran, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, to Madagascar, Mozambique, East Africa, Australia, and Indonesia among others. The presentation was well received with keen interest on the roadmap ahead.

The 20 member states of IOR-RC, which include East and South-East Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, and Australia, have distinct healthcare challenges. Whereas, on one hand developing countries in Asia and Africa are facing numerous problems arising from poor health infrastructure, especially in rural areas, the more developed countries such as Australia are facing a shortage of skilled medical staff including doctor and nursing staff for which they have to often rely on other countries. These problems are different from the healthcare challenges being faced in the countries of the west, where the population is declining, and sufficient healthcare infrastructure is already in place.

The commonality between the developing and developed countries of the IOR-RC is that all of them are facing an increasing population pressure and existing or widening gaps in the delivery of healthcare. This is where the cloud-enabled infrastructure provided by the eHC can be instantaneously beneficial. Given these growing global challenges in healthcare, the eHC - a rapidly-deployable, fully-integrated, cloud-enabled, and affordable solution for healthcare - can effectively help these countries surmount their healthcare challenges by cutting down on the critical lead time needed for setting up of the required infrastructure.

           eHealth Centre presentation at the IOR-RC                                          

Attendees at the IOR-RC

DEFCOM 2012

C-DEP at DEFCOM’12, the largest and most prestigious pan Asia Defense conference organized by the Indian Army.

DEFCOM is a platform to showcase outstanding and innovative technology and concepts to key Defense Ministry representatives.

President, C-DEP, Jaijit Bhattacharya made a presentation on ‘Robust Networks for Tactical Communications’ at this forum. The objective of the seminar was to enable defense officers, academia, and the industry to understand requirements of, and propose befitting solutions for Tactical Battle Areas, thus enabling India to be better prepared for cyber challenges during wartime.

Above: Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, C-DEP, at DEFCOM’12

The Indian Army, the second largest standing army in the world, presented the first of its kind in the world, “NSOC-in-Box” solution at DEFCOM’12. NSOC-in-Box is an innovative solution conceptualized and developed for the tactical communication requirement of Army using secured network services. DEFCOM’12 is the largest and most prestigious pan-Asian defense conference organized by the Army to showcase outstanding and innovative work technology and concepts to key Defense Ministry representatives. NSOC is also unique because it demonstrates networking capability of uniquely integrating standards, security and network management services and the software ability to integrate IP and Non-IP networks on a single pane of glass.

Above: Lt. Gen Kochhar; Jaijit Bhattacharya and Gen Bikram Singh at the DEFCOM conference during the demo of NSOC solution

Enabling Digital inclusion for the visually challenged and creating opportunities for the illiterates

A training program driven by the C-DEP, was developed specifically for the visually challenged to reach a particularly under-served population. This training program, which uses affordable technology, was conducted at Lab-in-Box at NCERT by Krishnakant Mane, a scientist from IIT Mumbai. Visually challenged himself, Mane has been working on software solutions for the blind.

A visually challenged person at present is trained to use only one proprietary-accessibility software that is highly priced. This makes a legal copy out of reach for most visually challenged persons. This training program, organized under the C-DEP umbrella at the Lab-in-Box, enables access to open source solutions through cost effective hardware. The training was attended by the students from National Association for Blind, and the Kendriya Vidyalaya adjacent to the IIT, and the JNU Campus.

Similar techniques and open source technology, with affordable infrastructure, are being extended to train the illiterates, thus ensuring higher digital literacy.

This is an innovative and adequate model, wherein visually disabled provide training to the illiterates by employing technological aids, making IT a true enabler. It is estimated that by the year 2020 over 50% of the illiterate population will live in India. This model enables access to e-Governance services for the illiterates.



Above: Training being conducted for the visually challenged at Lab-in-Box located at Kendriya Vidyalaya, NCERT

In recognition of the efforts towards developing a model for digital inclusion of the visually challenged, C-DEP was invited as Guest of Honor, by the National Association for Blind (NAB) on the occasion of the 65th Independence Day  of India. The trainees from across 28 States of the country were formally recognized for their performance on the training led by C-DEP on assistive technologies for the visually impaired conducted at the Lab-in-Box using the HP affordable hardware and Open source software.

Above: Certificates awarded by CDEP to the trainees from National Association for Blind

CEO's Roundtable with Nitin Gadkari at New Delhi

C-DEP and AmCham jointly organized a second interactive roundtable of digital economy CEO's with Shri Nitin Gadkari, President of BJP at New Delhi on 5th June 2012.

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.