India’s digital infrastructure offers secure solution to global challenges: PM

New Delhi, August 19 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that India’s digital public infrastructure provides scalable, secure, and inclusive solutions to meet global challenges. He said this in a video message sent to the G20 Digital Economy Ministers’ Meeting held in Bengaluru.
He welcomed the guests to the city of Bengaluru, home to the spirit of science, technology, and entrepreneurship, and said that there could be no better place to discuss the digital economy. The Prime Minister credited the launch of the Digital India initiative in 2015 for the unprecedented digital transformation that has taken place in India in the last nine years. We discussed the scale, speed, and scope of this change. The Prime Minister mentioned India’s 850 million internet users. They enjoy the cheapest data costs in the world.
Prime Minister Modi emphasised leveraging technology to transform governance and make it more efficient, inclusive, faster, and transparent, and cited the example of Aadhaar, India’s unique digital identity platform covering over 1.3 billion people. He mentioned the Gem Trinity—Jan Dhan bank account, Aadhaar, and mobile—which have revolutionised financial inclusion and the UPI payment system, where around 10 billion transactions happen every month and 45 percent of global real-time payments happen in India. The Prime Minister also highlighted direct benefit transfers that have prevented leakages in the system and saved over $33 billion.
The Prime Minister also mentioned the development of Bhashini, an AI-powered language translation platform that will support digital inclusion across all the diverse languages of India. He said that India’s digital public infrastructure provides scalable, secure, and inclusive solutions to global challenges. From ancient traditions to the latest technologies, India has something for everyone, the Prime Minister said.
He said that with such diversity, India is an ideal testing laboratory for solutions. He underlined that a solution that is successful in India can be easily implemented anywhere in the world. The Prime Minister made it clear that India is ready to share its experiences with the world and cited the example of the Covin platform being offered for global good during the COVID pandemic. He underlined that India has created an online Global Public Digital Goods Repository (India Stack) to ensure that no one is left behind, especially those in the Global South.
The Prime Minister noted with satisfaction that the Working Group is creating a G20 Virtual Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository and underlined that progress on the Common Framework for Digital Public Infrastructure will help create a transparent, accountable, and fair digital ecosystem for all. There will be help. They also welcomed efforts to develop a roadmap to facilitate cross-country comparisons of digital skills and to set up a Virtual Centre of Excellence on Digital Skills. Noting that the digital economy will face security threats and challenges due to its global spread, the Prime Minister pointed out that it is important to build a consensus on the G20 High Level Principles for a secure, reliable, and resilient digital economy.
The Prime Minister emphasised that the G20 countries have a unique opportunity to lay the foundation for an inclusive, prosperous, and secure global digital future. Financial inclusion and productivity can be furthered through digital public infrastructure, he said. He suggested promoting the use of digital technology by farmers and small businesses, setting a framework for building a global digital health ecosystem, and developing a framework for the safe and responsible use of artificial intelligence. Modi emphasised that an entire ecosystem of technology-based solutions can be created to deal with the challenges faced by humanity. The Prime Minister said that all we need are the four C’s: conviction, commitment, coordination, and cooperation.