As an advancement, eight countries have signed an MoU with India, these countries will work with India, and take the technology of India: Minister Chandrashekhar

“We are living in extremely interesting times. The word interesting can be defined by different people in different ways. But at the heart of the word interesting means the pace of digitalization of our enterprises, citizens, government, and our lives accelerating at an unprecedented pace.” This was stated by Rajeev Chandrashekhar, the Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, and Electronic and IT today as his opening remarks at the inaugural session of the 4th G20’s Digital Economy Ministerial Meeting and Digital Innovation Alliance summit at Palace Ground in Bengaluru. He said, “The pace of digitalization means we are looking at every citizen or all consumers consuming digital products or services that connect them to the government directly. There are three trends happening in the interest of startups today. These are innovation economies, and the center of gravity of Tect which was centered around a few countries or economies moving to open-source systems, to younger start-ups. These two trends are capitalizing and increasing fast digitalization.”  He said, “Bengaluru is an epicenter of this 4th meeting of the Digital Innovation Alliance and Indian digital economy, and Indian Innovation system with startups in the city. The entire spectrum of what we consider an innovation and future of technology can be found in Bengaluru.”

Chandrashekhar said that innovation is a vital thing in the transformation of economies and global trade. The digital economy has gone up to 11% now from 4.5% in 2014 of the total GDP. Now in 2026, it is expected to grow by over 20%. Global economies including the Indian economy are reshaping. The future will be a digital economy. India is certainly a great case study for many economies for how the political leadership of PM Modi and his vision in terms of technological commitments way back in 2015 has caused a deep transformation in the economy, governance, and people’s life, he added. He said that the power of technology is transforming the lives of citizens of our country. Technology is indeed beginning to make a dramatic inclusion of people’s world who kept out of the reach of governance for decades. Today using technology architected by start-ups and the innovative ecosystem in general, money is the go from the government, meant for the citizens and reached directly to their accounts with absolute responsiveness of speed. That is the power of technology that India is demonstrating to the world.

Talking with the media the Minister informed that eight countries have signed an MoU with India, will work with India, and take the technology of India. Today in Bengaluru over 120 start-ups all over the world are assembled and it is a recognition that India is standing as a global champion of the global innovation ecosystem. Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), Cyber safety, and skills are the three major areas the government is focussing upon.

Answering the question asked about the Black economy, the Minister further said that India is certainly a pre-eminent nation in how we have adopted technology not just for innovation but to deliver real solutions to transform people’s lives, governance, and democracy. The digital economy represents the democratization of opportunities for youth. The advancement of digitalization is a fight against the black economy and it reduces the size of the black economy. PM Modi called the coming decade the Teche: A decade of coming technologies. PM Modi said, “This Indian Teche will be built by the determination and energy of young start-ups around the country and around the world.” Talking about the UPI platform as simple, quick, and safe, the Minister said that countries like Singapore, Japan, France etc. are adopting bilateral UPI platforms. On the occasion, Debajani Ghosh, President NESCOM, and Alkesh Kumar Sharma, G20 Chair and Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India were also present.