India’s Cyber Security Strategy Policy to Enable Government’s Vision of $5 Trillion Economy – Lt. Gen (Dr.) Rajesh Pant (National Cyber Security Coordinator on Cyber Policies) at 59th SKOCH Summit
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
29TH AUGUST 2019
New Delhi; 29.11.19: Topmost think-tank of the country SKOCH Group today organized SKOCH 59th Summit on Cyber Patriotism to deliberate on significant aspects such as National Cyber Security Strategy, Swadeshi IT, putting India First for the development of future technologies, Indian AI and Block Chain for India. Addressing SKOCH Summit, Lt. Gen (Dr.) Rajesh Pant (National Cyber Security Coordinator on Cyber Policies) today announced that India’s Cyber Security Strategy Policy will be released in January 2020 and will enable Government to cyber secure the nation. The government’s vision of $5 Trillion Economy will be helped to a great extent by this effort.
“The most important requirement for this is, increased effective coordination between Ministries which are overseeing various aspects of Cyber Security, proper Critical Infrastructure protection and Public – Private partnership. I congratulate Sameer Kochhar for this initiative to bring top brains from private and public sector on the same platform to mainstream Cyber Patriotism. Before this I have never come across this term. Since the critical information infrastructure does not only lie with the government, partnership with private sector becomes essential”, said Lt Gen Pant.
Eminent personalities such as Lt. Gen (Dr.) Rajesh Pant (National Cyber Security Coordinator on Cyber Policies), Dr. Ashwini Mahajan (National Co-convener, Swadeshi Jagran Manch), Maj. Gen. (Retd) Dr. Ajeet Bajpai (Director General, National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, GOI), Mr. Abhishek Pitti (Founder and CEO, Nucleus Vision), Mr. Ankush Chowdhary (Principal Security Advisor, Asia Pacific Japan, Amazon Web Services), Mr. Vinit Goenka (Secretary, Centre for Knowledge Sovereignty), Mr. Atul Gupta (Partner & Leader – IT, Mr. Vidur Gupta (Partner – Cyber Security, E&Y), Mr. Gautam Kapoor (Partner, Risk Advisory, Deloitte), among others participated in the summit.
Talking about the huge budget required to successfully implement Cyber Security at all levels, Maj. Gen. (Retd) Dr. Ajeet Bajpai (Director General, National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, GOI) said, “Even a small country like Israel has allocated $ 20 million as the annual budget for cyber security. Considering the size and scale of our nation, we need approximately Rs 25,000 Crore budget for the same. The biggest question is where this money will come from? Also, there is a need to emphasise on the need to make cyber security mandatory as a subject at University level for high decibel awareness.”
Addressing the possibility of $5 Trillion Economy transformation, Mr. Sameer Kochhar, Chairman, SKOCH Group (India’s topmost development think-tank) at the event said, “On this occasion we start by remembering the great personality Shri Arun Jaitley who supported and encouraged us. Hon’ble PM Shri Narendra Modi has shared his vision for India to become a $ 5 Trillion Economy by 2025 and I with full confidence can say that it is an achievable target. In one of our earlier editions, we had discussed the possibilities of India becoming a $10 Trillion Economy and how it can become a reality. For becoming a $5 Trillion economy we require 34% gross capital formation and the biggest question that people are asking is, where will the funds come from? There are ample avenues to generate funds, the important thing is to efficiently utilise resources to generate more capital. The Indian industries require capability building to replace MNCs and handle government development projects, especially in technology sector. The Indian MSME sector needs to be encouraged to strengthen the country’s capabilities. Inspite of the challenges that stand in front of us we need to believe in the capability, growth and future of the economy.
Power economies across the world are using Indian technology talent pool to develop AI and other future technology solutions. The Summit also highlighted the immediate need for the country to take a call on creating Indian AI or Blockchain for India and its future.
The event also hosted power discussion on Whose Data is it Anyway? addressing Data Mining in India which can be viewed as a lost opportunity in respect to revenues through tax for the government.
Talking about the data mining in India Mr. Kochhar said, “Data mining’s economic implications need to be realised. The huge data pool from our country is being analysed and utilised by corporate giants for developing corporate growth strategies. Using loopholes in the system they are not paying any taxes for using this huge resource. Data in the hands of corporates and governments is a huge tool and it is only fair that they pay taxes to the country from where they are mining data. The taxes collected in this respect can be used to support many development programmes and schemes of the Indian Government.”
Dr. Ashwini Mahajan, National Co-convener, Swadeshi Jagran Manch participated in the discussion, “Data is Oil. While other countries have Oil resources as a big opportunity to gain revenue, our country by taxing can use Data Mining as a revenue generating avenue. Many technology multi-nationals are using data mining from our country for their benefit but not paying any taxes for it. By taxing the data being mined from India we can open up a new pool for generating tax revenue.”
NOTES TO THE EDITOR
ABOUT SKOCH GROUP
SKOCH Group is India’s topmost think-tank for socio-economic issues with a focus on inclusive growth since 1997. Its research is accepted across political spectrum and is used for parliamentary replies as well as policy formulation. SKOCH Group specializes in action research that brings felt-need of the grassroots to the policy table. It has published seven books thus far that are valued as recommended reading. The repertoire of services includes field interventions, consultancy, research reports, impact assessments, policy briefs, books, journals, workshops and conferences. SKOCH Group has instituted India’s highest independent civilian honours in the field of governance, finance, technology, economics and social sector.
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