Speaking at FICCI’s Safer Internet Initiative Shri Singh said, “Only laws will not be enough. This will require joint efforts by the industry, civil society and together it can be achieved. Awareness creation is necessary amongst stakeholders.” Themed “Together for a Safer and Better Internet”, the event was organised by FICCI, supported by UN Women and TikTok.

Shri Abhishek Singh highlighted that the government is taking a series of steps to ensure that government digital systems are safe and secure. “This would require building secure systems, ensuring right audits are done, and public data handling systems are made as secure as possible,” he added.

Shri Singh also laid special emphasis on cyber training of the government officials and said that government has already launched ‘Cyber Surakshit Bharat Scheme’ to impart trainings to officials. “Under this program, almost 600 govt officials are already trained and there is plan of training another 600 officials to ensure all government departments wherever their services are being offered are handled in a much safer and better way. An online course for training 1000 police personnel in Cyber Law & Cyber Forensics is being launched in partnership with NLIU Bhopal.,” he added.

Dr. Subi Chaturvedi, Head - TikTok For Good India during the session stated "TikTok For Good is our long-term commitment to contribute to the larger social betterment. As internet penetration continues to grow at a rapid pace across India, there is a need to sensitize and educate “people about responsible online behaviour for their own safety. As part of this we look to work continuously with all stakeholders, be it the Government, Industry, Academia and civil-society, to a common goal of moving together for a better Internet”

Ms Nishtha Satyam, Deputy Country Representative, UN Women, said “Online safety involves a host of stakeholders to work together to build a safe and secure environment especially for women.”

“FICCI is committed and will be delighted to work with Government of India, Industry and other stakeholders for the development of safer internet ecosystem in India” said Chairman, FICCI ICT and Digital Economy Committee.

Electronics and IT secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney Monday said the government's MyGov and e-commerce platform GeM should provide an opportunity to start-ups so that country is able to develop homegrown solutions. "The combination of what MyGov and GeM (Government e-Marketplace) together can do is something extraordinary. Innovation is far more difficult than simply consuming ready-made products. Let's create opportunity for start-ups, to showcase their products, actually use their products on GEM and then GEM itself becomes an extraordinary opening market for start-ups," Sawhney said. He was speaking at an interactive session on 'Language Localisation & CRM Services on GeM', organised by FICCI and GeM. He said that GeM opens a window of sellers to reach out to government departments which will be big support for start-ups and gradually India will be able to develop home-grown solutions. Sawhney said that language localisation was the key to capitalise on the opportunities in open and transparent public procurement services of the GeM for vendors and buyers. "Although there are many challenges which include speech recognition in various languages, translating speech to text and text to speech, optical and handwriting recognition. But all efforts are being made to ensure that a Malayalam and Bangla speaking vendor or buyer is able to have a dialogue in real time. There are silos that exist in the market which we can address," Sawhney said. Radha Chauhan, CEO, GeM said that GeM was designed to make public procurement processes of the government transparent and it was imperative to have language localisation to make 'Digital India' a transformative movement. On Customer relationship management (CRM), Chauhan said that GeM was equipped to handle calls in 10 Indian languages which are transactional and the challenge to be overcome now is to create solutions in various languages for processing of services like public procurement bidding.

Admitting that India's imported computer hardware is a security threat, the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal on Monday said that the government has decided to set up manufacture of semi-conductors and computer chips.

Delivering the inaugural address at a two-day India Conference on Cyber Security and Cyber Governance, organised by Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and FICCI at New Delhi, Sibal said the government has already approved two projects to build semi-conductors and letters of intent have been issued already.

Sibal hoped that manufacture of chips in India in design with the Indian software companies will go a long way in improving cyber security, though it is easier said than done.

He said the government is also planning to train 5,00,000 people in the next five years in using and governing cyber space.

He confirmed that the government has started connecting 250 gram panchayats through optical cables with capacity of 3G-4G network and the work would be over in the coming one and half years.

Sibal said the time had come for the world to come to a conclusion on cyber security and governance issues as many of the issues are not neither ours alone nor any individual nation.

He also said the countries should reach a consensus on at least two issues - jurisdiction and identity. He also stressed on the need to remove asymmetry in the cyber laws in different countries if we need to have effective cyber governance.

Delivering the keynote address, the National Security Advisor, Shivshankar Menon, said the government is looking into setting up an Information Sharing and Analysis Centre and testing and certification labs in the private sector by industry associations.

Menon said the government is strongly committed to the democratic nature of the cyber space and protecting the privacy of the individuals while protecting and securing the cyber space.

He said the government has also decided to take steps to protect Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs) where it has seen phenomenal increase in attacks. He said the government is in the process of notifying CIIs under the IT Act and National Political Information Protection Centre is being set up.

The NSA said the National Crisis management Plan has already identified nine sectors for protection-defence, finance, space, ICT, I and B, public essential services and utilities, law enforcement and security.

Menon also said that there was an imperative need for international cooperation on creating global standards and evaluation methodology for certification labs. He said any institution invested with authority to manage or regulate cyber space should be broad based and institutionalised so as to take on board the concern and views of all stakeholders.

ORF Director Sunjoy Joshi said never before in its history has the world ever been this connected before. Never before have ordinary individuals possessed such power to reach, out, touch, and influence the lives of others; and challenge institutions and governments with a single click of the keypad.

Yet as the medium of business and transactions, social, commercial, as well as institutional, shifts to cyber space, concerns about the security and stability of this medium are bound to be heard. The power it has placed in our hands has also triggered concerns within each and everyone becoming victims of the exercise of that power.

Joshi said Cyber piracy, data theft, system disruptions are all real and happening as we speak.

"What should the response to this be? How to respond to divisive social media messages that breed hatred and racism and crime? How do we respond to organised and non-state actors, and individuals who can use this medium to inflict harm on critical and economic infrastructure? And finally how does one define and then seek to defend the rather quaint old notions of sovereignty and 'national interest' in this borderless sphere?" he asked.

Securing this space is an aspiration most victims, governments and corporates would share, but how does one secure a medium whose very strength is its intrinsic chaotic, free and ungovernable structure. Is there a possible golden median path that can reconcile the need for security with the boundless freedom that cyberspace has given us? Joshi asked.

Moderating the event, FICCI's Virat Bhatia said the world has over 7 billion mobile connections while India has over 860 million connections. He said in the cyber security puzzle, with national security objective, balancing trade-offs is a challenge for all the stakeholders.

The two-day conference, being attended by participants from important countries, will have sessions on "Sovereignty, International Cooperation and Cyber Security: A Treaty Dialogue", "The First Line of Defence: The Private Sector", "Cyber Security: Strategies and Responses", "Freedom of Expression in the Internet Age", "Implementing National Cyber Security Policies", "International Public Private Partnership in Cyber Governance", "Privacy and National Security" and "Multistakeholderism: Avoiding the PRISM paradigm".

The government of India has put its cyber security initiative on fast track after years of neglect and looming threat of cyber-attacks. Going a step further from the announcement of the Cyber Security Policy a few days ago, on Friday, the ‘Guidelines for Protection of National Critical Information Infrastructure,’ were placed in the public domain.

The first version of the guidelines was released by National Security Adviser to Prime Minister, Shivshankar Menon. The detailed document was prepared by the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) which is to function as a specialised unit under the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

Across the world, critical information infrastructure is broadly defined as including those networks which are interrelated, interconnected and interdependent. In India, the guidelines would initially include information and communications, transportation, energy, finance, technology, law enforcement, security and law enforcement, government, space and sensitive organizations.

India’s new guidelines are an extension of a legislative recognition under the IT Act 2000, which defines critical information infrastructure as “those computer resource and incapacitation or description of which, shall have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety”.

The guidelines present 40 controls for protection of critical information infrastructure across sectors. These are generic and guiding controls, with each individual sector being left to evolve their own sector-specific controls.

Global standards

Stating that the guidelines were excellent, Mr. Menon emphasised it was the remarkable outcome of successful multi-stakeholder participation, which had been attempted for the first time. “Placing a comprehensive cyber security architecture with clear mandates and responsibilities is both topical and important. I am particularly happy that the guidelines are aligned with global standards since in an interconnected domain, we have no choice but to benchmark our defence and capabilities to the best in the world,” he added.

These guidelines go beyond the statement of intent expressed in the recently announced cyber security policy and have been formulated through a multi-stakeholder Joint Working Group (JWG) consisting of representatives from the government, academia and private sector.

The JWG was chaired by Associate Director of IISc, Bangalore, N. Balakrishnan and included Chairman, FICCI Communication and Digital Economy Committee, Virat Bhatia, former President, NASSCOM, and Chairman, CII National Telecom Committee, Kiran Karnik and Joint Commissioner, Delhi Police, Muktesh Chander, who till recently served as Centre Director, NTRO.

Opportunities thrown up by technology can be harnessed only if the children in the country are made computer literate, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said Wednesday.
Speaking at the discussion of roadmap for implementation of the advanced IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) in India, organised by industry body FICCI, he said a major part of problems that the country faced today can be resolved through technology.

"You can't talk of it in terms of moving from IPv4 to IPv6. The enormous opportunities that we have. 340 trillion IP addresses that we will have and we know that 3.4 billion IP addresses are not enough. So what if you provide the addresses if you do not bring digital literacy to the masses," he said.

The children have to be "tech savvy" and for that they have to be computer literate, he said, adding that if India does not have computer literate children then it will not be able to take advantage of this transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

Taking a dig at political parties, the Minister said: "not only that, the children will be computer literate only when the political establishment understands the importance of IPv6. Do political parties in this country understand the importance of IPv6?

"Has the industry actually gone to political parties to make them understand the importance of IPv6? Has industry done that? Have we explained as officials to our political leaders that this is necessary."

The Minister also referred to the hurdles the government is facing in getting bills passed in Parliament.

"Convergence means communication between devices like your mobile, TV, etc. Now in order to do that we need to get the Convergence Bill passed. But we have hurdles before us, like somebody has to understand what it means, what it will do, the legal framework it will have.

"Then somebody has to understand that we should stop coming to the Well of the House on a daily basis so that legislation is passed. The political future of this country will not be built by coming to the Well of the House. It will be built by debating these issues in the House," Sibal said.

On the measures required to get the issues resolved, he said it is important to reach out to the political class.

"We will meet the challenge by first convincing our political parties and leaders that it is important to give a big thrust to IT hardware in this country," he added.

Telecom Secretary M F Farooqui said IPv6 requires active support and involvement of the industry.

"We are undertaking steps to increase the broadband reach from the present 15 million to 175 million by 2017 and 600 million by 2020. This together with content and application development will play a critical role," he added.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the ministry of communications are organising a two-day conference on ‘Internet Governance’, beginning October 4, at the former’s Delhi headquarters. The conference comes in the backdrop of the government’s attempts to block ‘offensive content’ on certain social media websites in August as it was believed to have sparked hate campaigns against sections of the society.

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal, secretary department of telecommunications, R Chandrashekhar, secretary department of internet technology, J Satyanarayana, deputy national security advisor Vijay Latha Reddy and Nitin Desai, former advisor to UN secretary general, are scheduled to attend the conference.

The conference aims to evaluate merits of multi-stakeholder engagement in internet governance, discuss how to balance cyber-security data protection and privacy, the impact of internet on traditional media, issues of hate speech and the requisite regulation in that regard. The meet also hopes to bring focus on what would help foster entrepreneurship on internet-related business.

In a good news for mobile phone users, the government today announced that subscribers will not have to pay roaming charges from next year. This announcement is a part of the National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012, approved by the government in May.

“Our secretary has told you that it (roaming out of the circle) will be free from next year,” telecom minister Kapil Sibal said here in response to a query on the timing of removing roaming charges.

At present, using mobile phone services out of ones telecom circle attracts around 50 per cent higher tariff on outgoing calls and one also has to pay for incoming calls.

NTP 2012 aims to allow mobile phone users to use same number across country without paying extra charges.

The policy also introduces a national mobile permit that will enable operators to offer all communication services under one licence, allow operators to share and trade spectrum and facilitate consolidation in the sector that has over a dozen players now. It also eases norms for mergers and acquisitions.

Sibal said that there would be no restrictions whatsoever on the use of internet. The minister, who was addressing a curtain raiser ceremony of ‘India Internet Governance Conference (IIGC)’ to be held in October in New Delhi, appealed to stakeholders to help evolve a consensus so that a clear-cut roadmap could be developed for the sector.

Telecom secretary R Chandrashekhar said the Department of Telecom (DoT) is working on Notice Inviting Applications for spectrum auction after which it will work on unified licence (UL) guidelines — also a part of the NTP 2012.

“We are first going to attend to all issues linked to auction. The moment NIA is issued this week, we will focus on UL. After details of full UL is worked out, the modalities for free roaming will follow,” he said. According to the auction schedule, NIA will be issued on September 28.

In what could be music to the ears of mobile phone subscribers, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal today said they would not have to pay roaming charges from next year. The move, however, might not go down well with service providers, who will face a hit of up to Rs 13,500 crore in revenues.

At present, GSM operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular earn 10-12 per cent of their revenues from the national roaming services, which amount to Rs 10,000-Rs 13,500 crore.

No roaming charge means, from 2013, mobile phone subscribers can use their number seamlessly across the country, without having to pay extra charges while travelling. The policy has already been cleared by the Cabinet as part of the new telecom policy.

For subscribers

According to Romal Shetty, India telecom partner at KPMG, a global consultancy: “It’s a win-win for the subscribers. Earlier, they had to pay for normal call charges for outgoing calls made while roaming, plus the roaming charge of 75 paise to Rs 1 per minute as roaming charge. Moreover, while answering a call on roaming, they were paying up to Rs 1 per minute.”

This will increase the usage of national roaming services by subscribers as they will not have to worry about the high roaming charges, he added.

At present, the average roaming charge is 75 paise per minute to Rs 1 per minute. In any given telecom circle, only seven-eight per cent of all subscribers opt for roaming services.

However, some experts say the abolition of roaming charges could lead to higher call rates, as companies have to compensate for the loss of revenue.

“The balance sheets of the GSM-operators are already strained. If they have to take the additional hit, they will be left with only one lever of — increasing tariffs — to compensate for the losses,” said Ankita Somani, a research analyst with Angel Broking, a brokerage firm.

Already, some operators have increased rates, indicating the current level of rates is not sustainable. However, the industry has to wait for final government guidelines to see by how much rates increase.

For operators