IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

To be meaningful to our large population, a digital transformation in India has to be about addressing the unmet demand for basic goods and services. Such a revolution must deal with and indeed target, the high level of inefficiencies that abound in most segments of the economy. Sector-wise, healthcare, financial services, energy, education and skill-building, agriculture and food, and infrastructure are all examples of the vast opportunities that exist and are waiting to be tapped into. Doctors per capita in India are much lower than in say China or Brazil; approximately 120 million rural households do not have access to bank accounts; 300 million people do not have access to electricity; 500 million are without secondary education; millions of tonnes of foodgrains lost every year because of inadequate warehousing facilities and supply chain inefficiencies; not to mention the traffic snarls that choke most of our cities. These are big problems, even for a large democracy of our size and diversity, and unlikely to go away very soon. Yet, these are the very gaps that represent opportunities of incalculable magnitude for ICT (Information and Communications Technology) to focus on, and in the process help create the new India that the term “Digital India” has come to represent.

Governance is a societal function; technology can empower stakeholders, but its adoption will still be mediated by existing social structures. Technology should account for stakeholders and social structures by design.

It is time to examine the promise of ‘Digital India’. The focus on digital services seen in states like Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar and cities like Chennai suggest that governance of the future will be built on extensive use of technology and the internet. As these plans take off, and the basic digital infrastructure for urban governance is put in place, it is critical to evaluate the ways in which these initiatives encounter social structures, so that these are incorporated in design.

Smart Cities are the future of urban development, incorporating computational advancements and renewable energy sources. Bharat Exhibitions organized the 2ND Safe City and Intelligent Mobility India 2024 on 22nd of August, 2024 at Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi. The benchmark summit and exhibition on urban development, is a hub where executives, city representatives and academics from around the world meet to accelerate a better future for our cities. The summit showcased the integration of transformative technologies with the key pillars of urban development, i.e., Green Buildings, Rooftop Solar, Renewable & Clean energy, Clean Environment, Clean Water, Water Conservation, Urban Mobility, and the use of Smart ICT solutions for optimizing resources that make cities smart and sustainable.

If the person moves to another part of India, they can access these subsidies as the facility is portable across any bank in the country. Till date, 333 banks are live on this platform.

It will eliminate intermediaries and the tyranny and corruption of low level officials.

Our Prime Minister has given his vision of Digital India to connect all Indians and empower them. It is a truly transformative dream, which will remake India and create a digital society, removing disadvantages and distance. It will unify us, level the field and create a new generation that can compete in all respects globally. It has become more critical now that we have demonetisation of 86% of our currency and a renewed drive to bring in digital banking for the masses.

After sparring with the home ministry over biometric data collection and national security concerns, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has found itself in a new row, this time with the state-owned postal network. The authority says India Post is delaying the delivery of letters informing residents of the unique identity numbers allotted to them under the government’s Aadhaar project.

The upshot is that the authority, led by Infosys Ltd co-founder Nandan Nilekani, is considering handing the job of delivering the letters to private sector firms.

More than half of India's rural population still has little or limited access to banking services, even though the government has been pushing banks to expand beyond cities and towns since 2006. Part of the problem was that banks found it financially unsustainable to set up accounts for rural citizens because of the limited transactions and money in such accounts. But the direct transfer scheme now addresses some of those concerns.

Experts converging at the VCCircle Insights on The Aadhaar Project, held at the ITC Grand Central, Mumbai, discussed the implications in great details. The event did witness prominent investors, architects and builders behind the initiative meeting on a common platform to discuss its mission, as well as the investable opportunities created by the project.

For those of you who need an introduction to the Aadhaar project, it is a 12-digit individual identification number issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on behalf of the Government of India. This number will serve as a proof of identity and address, anywhere in India. Each Aadhaar number will be unique to an individual and will remain valid for life. By providing a clear proof of identity, Aadhaar is targeted at empowering the poor and underprivileged residents of the country in accessing services such as the formal banking system and will give them the opportunity to easily avail various other services provided by the Government and the private sector.

"The team is currently on a visit to India to study e-governance," Prof Vinod Sharma of the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) said after they were welcomed by Pipaliya Meera residents. The team's visit has been initiated by the IIPA.

Ethiopia was the first country to participate in the Indian taxpayer-funded project, called the Pan-African e-Network, and Nigeria is scheduled to go online in June.

The occasion: Inauguration of the second phase of the Pan-African e-Network Project.

The tentacles of the project have now been spread to 12 African countries, and Zambia is among the beneficiaries.

The African Union last year entered into an agreement that calls for the Indian government to supply funds for the project. The Indian government will finance the project over a period of five years through a grant to the African Union. Ethiopia for example, has been given a grant of US$2.13 million from India for the project.

Agartala, Tripura’s capital city, has ranked top among the 10 smart cities of the Northeast. Apart from this, its national ranking has jumped to 56 from the previous 74.

The Tripura government stated that the success of Agartala Smart City in speeding up the project tendering, sanctioning, and implementation has been appreciated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Secretary, and Government of India during the review of the North Eastern States recently.

Tripura government claimed that the success of Agartala Smart City in speeding up the project sanctioning, tendering and implementation has been appreciated by the Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India during the review of the North Eastern States recently.

As the development works under Smart City Mission are gaining pace in Agartala, its performance has been ranked at top amongst 10 Smart Cities in the North Eastern Region.

“Honeywell has rapidly innovated to extend the capabilities of our Smart and Safe City technology deployments to support customer needs. Our Command and Control Centers are being used as the nerve center for operations to help contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in specific cities. We have also developed and deployed city-specific dashboards, portals and citizen applications to engage with citizens. Authorities can communicate necessary information in a consistent manner, and citizens can get the official view of a city’s status, reducing their need to go to different sources to gather information which at times may also be conflicting”: asserts Akshay Bellare, President Honeywell in conversation with Poulami Chakraborty of BW Businessworld.

These facts were shared by Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology Sachin Pilot at a media briefing in Toronto on March 31.

Narendra Modi’s whirlwind tour of Silicon Valley won't make up for India’s inability to implement economic reforms at home.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an unabashed technophile. He has proved himself an effective user of social media and has no hesitation embracing snazzy tech toys, like the Tupac-at-Coachella-style holographic projections that he used during his 2014 election campaign. He has 30 million likes on his Facebook page, and he has more than 15 million Twitter followers, behind only U.S. President Barack Obama and Pope Francis among world leaders. He launched Digital India, a number of interrelated programs to make India more wired and his citizens more tech-savvy. And he has a deserved reputation as an early adopter — or at least as someone hip to the technology the kids are using these days. An official Chinese video explaining the importance of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Chinese-led multilateral grouping of which India is a member, depicted an animated Modi using a selfie stick.