anybody can fall prey to this because we probably don't have the tools to combat this this weaponization this this weapon of uh misinformation that is coming our way so now this new digital India act that you're bringing about you know how is this going to equip Indians with this so we started with uh the new I.T rules and we started the public consultation the Prime Minister insists that whatever new law we bring in uh a must be global standard must be benchmarkable with the best practices around the world and most importantly every Indian stakeholder in the cyberspace or on the Internet domain must have an opportunity to read understand and contribute to the formation of these new laws and new policies so giving giving you an example in February or 2022 we started consultation on the new it rules and that took us three and a half months and we notified it about a few months a few weeks ago and that lays out the basic framework it says for the first time that if you are a platform and you are


time that if you are a platform and you are serving Indian users and you're operating in India you have an obligation to make sure certain types of content do not find place on your platform and we have laid that down in a letter and verse in chapter and verse and in in the Clause what is now become famous because everybody has read it I hope called 31b129 and there's those nine characteristics or nine types of content cannot find place on your platform and you cannot simply take the old Rico saying that I'm only a platform I have no control about what my users post or do that is not a framework that is acceptable anymore you are a platform you have an obligation under the Indian law and these new rules to ensure that certain types of content whether they are inciting insightful content that create religious disharmony whether they are csam child sexual abuse type of content whether they're other content which is religious hatred and National Security type of issues or indeed misinformation so there is


type of issues or indeed misinformation so there is now for the first time a casted obligation on every platform whether you're YouTube or Google or Facebook or Twitter or anybody big or small foreign or Indian that you cannot have this content and oh by the way if you somehow slip up and you are not able to in with your content moderation Technologies and tools not able to pick up one particular instance or two particular instances if that is reported to you you have an obligation in 72 hours to remove it so there is no uh Escape or there is no out from your obligation as being a responsible platform responsible to the safety and the trust of the internet and the safety of our digital Network after these rules were notified so is there a grievance mechanism one question yes second question what about is that punitive action if uh if they break some so let me explain and and I I want to lead this conversation into the your main question which is where is the DIA the digital India


question which is where is the DIA the digital India act the digital India act will be an evolution of these thinking into a brand new legislation hopefully by next year and early next year rather than later next year uh the reason for digital India act I will first explain to your listeners and viewers is that the I.T act which is the real legislation that governs the internet and the technology space is 22 years old it was it was framed and passed in 2000 social media yeah before social media and before indeed the internet in its current form and the IT act does not even mention the word internet uh just for the information of a lot of your listeners so that act was of a particular Legacy particular time in our history of Technology uh we are currently a country post covet that is increasingly demonstrating leadership to the whole technology space we deserve modern laws and a modern framework that to attract not just Indian Innovation but foreign Innovation to be practiced in India and therefore this framework will be defined


in India and therefore this framework will be defined by this new digital India Act but the basic moving parts of that the basic principles are already visible with the I.T rules that I just talked about and the digital personal data protection bill that is just being put out for consultation which is that we want the internet to be absolutely free from domination of any Monopoly duoply which is the openness pack part we want the internet to be a safe and trusted space we don't want this toxic chaotic anything goes Nobody is held accountable type of a domain which is what it is today people can say what they say people can do what they do but they fear no consequences because they believe that the cyberspace is very different from the real world where laws apply and there is a general feeling that in the cyberspace laws don't apply so we want to change that we want to reverse that perception in particular because huge amount of Indian population is going to be using on using the internet so I just


to be using on using the internet so I just want to say that the I.T rules the dpdp show a pathway to the eventual digital India act and this as a framework will create a space for 1.3 billion Indians and the Innovations and the economy and the services that they can all use and enjoy so I think that is our broad thinking and uh you know a lot of questions are asked about why was it done not done earlier and why was it done I think and this is the other things that governments all around the world have treated these platforms with kid gloves for about several years because it's a it's a it's big started taking on life form yes and the spin walls that we are innovators so governments must never regulate innovators so a large part of what Google is or what Twitter is or what Facebook has become uh has grown under the watch of several governments but have with government basically saying no no light touch we should not believe yeah


no no light touch we should not believe yeah globally globally all not it's nothing to do with India it is now that governments are beginning to respond all around the world by the way the debate of for example you ask me what are the punitive consequences that are in Visage on the it rules the DIA we will talk about when the DIA comes out there will certainly be criminal consequences there under the I.T rules for example let me tell you one clear consequence if the content moderation and the no go areas of content are violated by a platform we will withdraw what is called under rule 7 the section 79 protection for these platforms and I'll explain to you under Section 79 of the it act all these platforms are protected from prosecution for any malicious content on them unlike let us say a news media platform if you do something wrong or just you are completely accountable absolutely platforms around the world have escaped that kind of accountability in the U.S they have something called the section


in the U.S they have something called the section 230 in India we have a parallel called section 79 and platforms have always pretended that look we are just dumb platforms we have no way of controlling what people say or do on our platform and therefore we can never be prosecuted you can prosecute them now this is fine but then they allow them to be anonymous okay so there is a there is a the sum of this math is that a platform which is known has the content cannot be prosecuted the person who's posting it can post it without and with absolute anonymity the consequence of this is that you can do whatever you want on that platform and nobody will ever be the wiser nobody will ever pay the consequences so we we have said that is not on if you don't moderate these contents you have a casted obligation of moderating these type of contents and if you don't do it we will withdraw the Safe Harbor under Section 79 as Government will withdraw that and you will directly


79 as Government will withdraw that and you will directly face the Wrath of the person the citizen who has been damaged or who has been hurt by the content that has been posted on you but the onus then again comes on the citizen right you know it could be the government Department it could be a Ministry of Home Affairs it could be Ministry of Finance it could be a government state government that can prosecute on behalf of the citizens a citizen can go file an Fir and go to a state government body and say look I have been uh uh you know there's information on this particular platform that effectively sort of appreciates my right right to life or whatever okay let's do a hypothetical situation uh somebody puts out an information on YouTube or Twitter and says that uh vandals have gone and attacked a temple in this area it's been done by people who were dressed as Muslims we don't know whether they are Muslims or Hindus or whatever they have gone and broken a


Hindus or whatever they have gone and broken a temple right Riot breaks out all right now what is the next step so as what what has happened for so long has been the following which is that let us say that post was on a particular platform by a person who calls himself XYZ the platform says I am not responsible for the Post correct because under Section 79 I'm just a dumb platform this guy's done it the Cyber police of the jurisdiction or the police department who files a case for this violence under the normal crpc will come to the platform who has incited this who's this person no let me interrupt you can't even go to the platform because as you were mentioning before we began the podcast so before May of 2021 yeah most police grappled with who's this platform where are they how do we reach them yeah and the address will be Fresno California San Francisco California Timbuktu Timbuktu post box number so and so that got fixed because we said you


so and so that got fixed because we said you have to have a grievance officer who's accountable that is done in May 2021 as a big first step now you reach out to the grievance officer the police person reaches out or the citizen reaches out or a citizen somebody representing the citizen reaches out to the grievance officer so the grievance Officer says yeah we looked at it but that person is uh is we don't know who he is because he hasn't left his name it is Mr uh XYZ in the rules now we have put something called first originator that is even if you do allow anonymity on your platform to protect somebody's privacy that anonymity cannot be a way for them to escape illegality okay this is a very important thing because this is a position I've taken in Parliament when a question was posed by a congress MP of all people who said why are we not making sure all social media platforms do a kyc on all the users


media platforms do a kyc on all the users no goodness okay now which is which is one way of regulating it so I said at the current moment our government's views that anonymity does protect privacy and we see no reason to meddle with that however that can only work if the platform is able to deliver to us in the event of an illegality let us say an anonymous person has committed an illegal act like Pro like post child sexual abuse content or pornography content or a definitely context not definitely some content that is violating somebody's rights even if that person is anonymous to the rest of the world the platform must have a way of identifying that person but then that can be misused right but governments can pressurize the platform only if there is a proven illegality okay not if I just pick up a phone on a on a casual day and say yo Mr platform tell me who this person is yeah that they can't do see no I beg to differ here see for example in Iran


I beg to differ here see for example in Iran there are all these hijab protests which are happening they're obviously breaking the law right those women are going and burning hijabs and things like that we saw this happening in Egypt and everywhere when those protests were happening they are breaking the law in some way but those are democratic movements the Baloch are doing it in Pakistan it's happening across the world wherever there are this is a dangerous so so I we I am not Iran we are not Iran we are not Baloch so let's not talk about it so I we can't use a scenario or a situation in a dictatorship or a theocracy and say we will use that justification to uh design or Justify something yes India said it's an open liberal democracy There are rules of law we have an obligation to those who follow the law the people who follow the law must have as much respect as people who want to violate the law and those who violate the


to violate the law and those who violate the law must be not people who say as long as I violate the law on cyberspace nobody can reach me because I have a the platform can't uh say anything because they will take protection under Section 79 and I will protect uh hide under anonymity and I can do whatever I can do I can sell drugs online I can do csam I can do religious hatred I can do all of that no that is not acceptable okay so that we have put a full stop to and that is what this uh like I said is there a parallel in like say in Europe any liberal democracies no I think everybody is waking up towards and that's the other things but I don't think we need to keep looking at behind our back and saying is anybody else doing it yeah and that that is something we must get out of because we are and I say this with great uh humility we are the largest connected democracy in the world and so we have


connected democracy in the world and so we have to be setting the basis and the tone and the tempo of how the internet will be safe and trusted and we should show to the rest of the world that this is how we keep our people safe rather than keep looking at Europe or keep looking at South America or USA or wherever you want and look if if people have an interest in looking at the U.S that is why the Twitter files are telling you what the misuse and abuse was correct so there's this whole uh I mean I am a big one for self-regulation I understand that in self-regulation it doesn't happen in most cases it doesn't happen but I guess freedom for media has been so uh so valuable for us and we try to protect as much as we can so whenever more regulation comes in it makes us fearful no and I don't think there is a fear and honestly I I you know I I was the one who petitioned on the right to privacy in Supreme


who petitioned on the right to privacy in Supreme Court as an MP yeah and you also remember to get this section 66a uh disallowed yeah so I don't think this is a this is a binary that the right to free speech must not necessarily also be used to justify right to disinformation right to free speech is something we value right that right to free speech is the basic fundamental foundational principle or around which our democracy is built but to in a sense extend that to implying the right to disinformation is also fundamental right is wrong correct right to do criminal acts online is in the name of free speeches is wrong so I think we have to start being comfortable with the notion that right to free speech is something right to disinformation is a very very separate thing it creates harm it creates uh you know real harmful yeah social harm individual harm and it is an issue that needs should be not conflated with the right to free speech right to free speech is absolutely fundamental to uh and


to free speech is absolutely fundamental to uh and there will be no dilution of that at all then what would be the guidelines for a grief person if somebody gets aggrieved by a post what he or she should make sure before the matter is taken up by the uh so this is exactly what I'm saying that uh three one B one to nine is not about a grieving it doesn't deal with what are you upset about this doesn't talk about things like you are defamed there was a particular for example in the rules there was a thing called defamation that content that was definitely should be removed we've removed that deformation is something that a legal process will determine that's a total civilians this is one to nine lays out content of the type that is like I said if you read that it's very clear there's nothing ambiguous religious hatred incitement again in the name of religion National Security very simple see Sam misinformation and it says patently false misinformation you are a Pakistani agent that


false misinformation you are a Pakistani agent that is misinformation Rajiv chandrashekar is XYZ patently misinformation there's not defamation there is no defamation yeah so there is nothing in the three one uh B one to nine that says if you are aggrieved by the content there's nothing it talks about certain categories of content that hundred percent consensus is there should not be on a neat platform and if you continue to put that on the on the platform then you will no longer have the save Harbor protection under Section 79 and then you deal with those who are aggrieved by that one to nine that is the that is the architecture what are the steps then like does a citizen who suppose I get called uh a Pakistani yeah who do I go to do I go to the government do I go to the platform you go to the platform okay and if the platform does not take it down in 72 hours and then sits on its backside and says thank you smithaji for your email yeah we have


says thank you smithaji for your email yeah we have gone on vacation while you stew in your problem uh then you go to what is called the Appellate committee grievance appellate committee where you will just forward your uh complaint and the grievance ability committee will be operationalized very soon you will just forward it to them it's a digital thing you don't have to show you don't have to hire a lawyer nothing as in really forward it and the grievance appellate committee will rule on your uh your your complaint and say whether they have to be section 79 has to be withdrawn on rule 7 has to be withdrawn okay cut the finish it will be a very smooth process but you you understand that the volume of complaints that are going to come in look there is no way around it okay no there is no I want uh your viewers and listeners also understand we are basically playing catch-up with an Internet that has billions of people on it and in India we have 80 crore


people on it and in India we have 80 crore Indians already on it and we'll have 120 crore Indians on it there is no shortcut to making sure that the internet is safe and trusted by accepting one platform at a time convince them that there is this is this casted obligation that they have I have met with them repeatedly I meet with them regularly we have reports on who's complying who's not complying and if somebody has a slower curve of compliance then we point it out to them the one of the things of the GSE will be that it will create these analytic reports of which platforms are complying and most consistent with the safe and trusted goal and objective of the government of India and India as a whole and who are not and it is very clear if people choose not to be not to follow the obligations of making the internet safe and trusted for Indian citizens then they will have to constantly fight all the cases that they have to fight in court and it is


that they have to fight in court and it is possible that in the digital India act we make this process a lot more short-circuited and collapse in the tail end of the process that we don't have to keep telling them go to GAC the GAC within rule that if you don't do this it may be an absolute thing that you are then blocked in India that is also one suggestion that people have given that you cannot do business in India and you cannot act in India you cannot serve customers or citizens of India if you do not meet your obligations currently we have given them a long rope the the jurisprudence and the framework and the thinking is that we've given them a long rope and that we will give them one chance and and then a second opportunity to take it down and maybe the digital India act during the public consultations people will say look there's no need for that long rope how they have been reacting to this initiative look by and large I think platforms and governments


look by and large I think platforms and governments at least I have said this we don't want a adversarial relationship because it is in their interest as it is in the government's duty to keep the internet safe and trusted how can anybody want an internet to be toxic and chaotic and who benefits from that certainly not the platforms who are going to get all kinds of hate mail and all of that so therefore unless your city does bring in more eyeballs doesn't it oh well I I think that was the that was I'm just saying no that's fine I think that was the that was the conventional thinking okay that the more outrageous you are the more eyeballs you will get that the more you create these completely far out types of stories and content the more people you will get on your platform and which may be maybe to a certain categories of content okay for example pornography and so on and so on but in in bulk of the content platforms are realizing that type of


of the content platforms are realizing that type of an eyeball that you get through this kind of notoriety comes with other downside baggage legal criminal all kinds of other things so I would go out on a limb today and say that platforms have in a sense come full circle they have gone Straight From the Path of platforms doing good and then believed in for some years saying that look we can get the eyeballs any which way we can get the eyeballs of any eyeball that we can and then realize that that comes yeah that comes with his own cache of challenges for them okay as platforms challenges for them to in their dealings with governments and citizens as the other customers and now beginning their beginning the thing is beginning to come full circle where people say look we are all in a sense stakeholders in wanting the internet to be much more predictable much more safe so much more trusted because eventually we want the Elder Citizen and the younger citizen the husband and


Citizen and the younger citizen the husband and the wife the single woman all of them to be using the internet without worrying about it they are worrying isn't it because big Tech really has a monopoly on information I'm going to come to yeah we'll be discussing it especially when I you know when we speak with senior citizens and all they're worried because there's so much is happening they have so much of information how do we control them I can assure you I mean I don't want to overstate this the males that I get the messages that I get are not uh in any way thing to be just dismissed there are you know the Indian internet is very different from the internet of around the world because of prime minister Narendra Modi ji delivering so much of governance on the internet the profile of the internet user in India is much diverse and much more inclusive than the US where still it is a younger generation who's using it and the more educated Elite that use


who's using it and the more educated Elite that use it so in our case safety and Trust takes on a certain much more urgent sort of a requirement the Americans or the Western Europeans I mean I think the Europeans are also beginning to wake up to this that and even the Australians are beginning to wake up to this that we uh that internet needs to be safe and trusted because that is the only way the internet can sustainably grow otherwise it's going to become this vicious Battlefield a constantly tearing and pulling and people in the middle of it bulk of the users of the internet who come onto the internet bereft of any ideology of any particular reason accepting that they want to use it for a particular service that they are now getting digitally or deliver some work that they do digitally they don't want to be caught in all this toxicity and volatility and uh you know this this sort of a feeling of mistrust so where are the firewalls where are these firewalls which can


are the firewalls where are these firewalls which can keep us safe for example you know you you've come out with this uh rule government rule that we can't make cash payments in hospitals you need to make it through uh Digi payments you make that above a certain amount but now this aims thing which got hacked so what happens information one of the things is clear that as we proliferate technology and the internet and we do it obviously to benefit in citizens and this is around the world and transform their lives and make it easier for them the issues of harm are also catching up the issues of criminality are also catching up now clearly aims we know it's a ransomware attack it is clear it is very unlikely to be some State actor type a state active type of an entity it is very very sophisticated and it's done from across somewhere now as we have 80 crore Indians and 120 crore Indians coming online yeah and more and more small Enterprises large Enterprises government departments


more and more small Enterprises large Enterprises government departments all getting digitized issues of security also come to the fore yeah because like I said uh use your harm and criminality also will will expand it is precisely for that that these guard rails need to be built you you talked about what are the filters or what are the boundary conditions I call them boundary conditions and guard rails so the digital India act the digital personal data production Bill the I.T rules currently these are all is essentially talking about safety and trust and accountability and safety interest include cyber security because if you don't feel secure in the cyber space then how do you get safety and Trust so these are all things that have to be accompanied now for example dpd people and uh let me since you called me here let me pitch that a little bit the Digital Data protection personal data protection bill is going to create a significant behavioral change amongst all those entities who collect user data because For the First Time there is a legislation that makes it


the First Time there is a legislation that makes it very expensive for you to be negligent or misuse personal data now in a in a at a different time in a different age if this data breach of aims had not been let us say due to a ransomware attack and it had been purely due to negligence aims would have been on the hook to pay a significant amount of money as compensation under the dpdp so there is going to be in the coming months a significant behavioral change in terms of how you even manage the data regardless of whether you're government or your private sector you bring their accountability exactly so that is why I said the guard rails are safety trust and accountability so these bills and policies that we are bringing in today we have today so Google comes under that too everybody will come under that okay every intermediate because that's the that's the search platform that we everybody goes into absolutely and yeah and you since you're asking let me tell you very candidly a


you're asking let me tell you very candidly a search engine that has deci depended significantly on taking cookies with personal data of users will find that they will have to change their models on the dependence and Reliance on personal data to fine-tune their searches see how many of us will will say no I don't want to manage cookies everybody says okay fine because it's such a nuisance so we will create this I think no firstly not many people understand what it is so the look this uh Smith I think we will all as governments all around the world governments all around the world are grappling with this which is that the the knowledge and foresight and understanding of the underlying internet that the big tech companies have yeah there's a huge gap between that and how the governments understanding and users and the users especially in India where literacy is that is just a fact we have to address that we will run these campaigns after the dpdp bill is is put out there we will run these


bill is is put out there we will run these exhaustive campaigns to tell consumers what their rights are so who gets involved is it like a public private partnership is it rwas is it it'll be everyone's colleges we will do schools you will do college all of the above because it is essentially it is like writing the Constitution digital constitution for the digital for the digit new digital world that's an ambitious task really I mean it will not work only if the minister or the government or the minister or the ministry does a nice law it has to be the consumers that basically understand the rights that have been given and enforce that yeah absorb and use it exactly okay finally the governments around the world and in particular in India because of the way uh the philosophy of honorable prime minister which is we we want to create an enabling ecosystem and allow the citizens to ensure that they have their rights and the private company is all the entities that they deal with understand what


is all the entities that they deal with understand what the corresponding obligations are and finally if there is a dispute between that there are simple methods of making sure those are adjudicated in this particular case it will be the data protection board so if your data is given to him as a data intermediary as a platform and he makes a mess of it or misuses it all you have to do is go to a digitally send an email to a data data protection board and the data protection board sends a notice to the big Tech platform and will find them X100 human on the other side of the interface or is it an artificial intelligence in our case for the conceivable near term it'll be people people okay because accountability for the decision is also as important the reason I'm asking you is because in America for example these kind of problems when you when you call back and say that okay it can be just a hospital you can't get through to a human yes you get stuck you don't know


a human yes you get stuck you don't know where to go especially for people like I mean especially for Indians where we have an illiteracy element also you know whether it is digitally literacy we don't have so many educated Indians and it could be something like oh my pension has got wiped out from the back right right what do I do do I get up and go to the bank sometimes you can't get up and go to the bank and say that yeah what happens then and then like when you were asking the aadhar linking it with us yes because uh there's a cyber fraud which is happening nowadays we hear about it so will there be accountability regarding that as well because many of the cases are still pending and unresolved so let me talk about cyber fraud for a minute I mean whatever now cyber fraud like gaming is an issue with actually Law and Order is a State subject so if a citizen is let us say defrauded in the normal world what does he do


defrauded in the normal world what does he do he goes to the police station and files a case correct so even in cyber fraud as much as the internet is regulated by the government of India and the policies are made by the government of India illegalities and crimes in the cyberspace are still the domain of the state government the issue there is the capabilities within each state police department to deal with this because this is sophisticated stuff because it is like I said the victim may be in Bangalore the criminal may be in some other country and the intermediary the the data platform could be sitting in another state in India so these are sophisticated crimes for which capabilities have to be built up and I want to tell you very clearly that these are all capabilities that have been built up as we speak even in other countries it is not like any other any other country is like saying no no we have got all the facts and we know how to do it the US is a particularly easier


how to do it the US is a particularly easier time doing is because they have something called the FBI you know and they have the capabilities and they have the tools and so on and so forth so we don't have this Nationwide jurisdiction on Cyber Law and cyber fraud as uh Nia no Nia has but then they have to they come in when investigation yeah investigation when there is a multi-state conspiracy and so on and so forth okay I think there are some filters involved in that case yeah so but the original jurisdiction of the of such a cyber crime is the state government and the state police and we are working with state governments and state you know when the home Ministry is doing that as well which is to create more and more tools and more and more capabilities at the State Police level uh the cert for example in our ministry Works actively which is a computer Emergency Response Team Works actively with the state governments and State Police Department so where all these travel most of these troubles at


so where all these travel most of these troubles at least are coming is that when you know people again and again I'm saying senior citizens because they are so vulnerable and including children where you know information is asked that give your number yeah it comes via WhatsApp about text messages so most people are following victims via WhatsApp not many senior citizens are going into the internet to do it it's coming via text message or WhatsApp and they give the information so what happens then who do they go to no so let's let's look at example so let's say there's a e-commerce company okay and you go there to buy a book or something like that and you've given your details and they sell you the book and then somebody from that e-commerce leaks the data and a third person calls you and says give us your number now straight off the bat the person who has violated the personal privacy of the consumer is the actual original platform that took the data to deliver a service and all the citizen has to do


deliver a service and all the citizen has to do at that point is to send a one-page email saying my data given on so-and-so dead to this platform has now come back to me through another person to the data protection board if you just sends off email the notice goes to that particular platform it will be it is not it is still cumbersome it is it is cumbersome but it is it will get to a conclusion as opposed to today people having no solution at all number one number two and I say this uh I said this before also the entire idea of this framework is not that we have more and more citizens sending notices to the data protection board that an obligation is put on all the platform that is so the idea is to create a framework of deterrence of punitive action punitive action of costs of consequences and so that then behaviorally they will adapt to a new model where they respect the nagri respect his or her data and don't play around with it or


or her data and don't play around with it or don't misuse it or easily allow it to this Utopia where consumer is King we are really far from it no no when I'm the first one to admit that we are far from it but we will get there is my found home that's your yeah that's your path that's the mission that The Honorable prime minister has given us and we have to get there because data security because many of the vvips uh data is under threat and because it's a ransomware attack so how how to strengthen this security how to stand that's a no no so look like I said I think as the internet proliferates and grows and as more and more institutions individuals come onto the internet and obviously a lot of people are going onto the internet with the view that I just want to do this or I just want to do that the issues of corresponding issues of the reciprocal issues of security and securing yourself on the internet also become important objectives


yourself on the internet also become important objectives now aims I frankly don't know the exact detail of it except I know that they had outsourced it to a private company to manage their systems and uh and that private company uh systems what was the weaknesses vulnerabilities I have no idea uh accepting that we we have understood through cert that clearly there was a very concerted sophisticated ransomware attack on the system now could that ransomware attack have been uh stopped protected against that only time will tell us because you know you feel all the more uh because aims is where all our ministers Prime Ministers presidents all the VIPs go top leaders go there so you know any leakage of information from there is worrying just even from a national security point of view no so my view on this is obviously for me any security any cyber security is worrisome correct whether it is an individual or whether it is a large institution or whether it's a government institution or a private institution that's glad to hear


institution or a private institution that's glad to hear this from a minister 100 of course it is I mean uh we we are you know like they say oldest democracy the largest democracy and every Indian has the right to feel secure and safe whether he or she is on the cyberspace or he or she is on the in the physical world so uh but we have to wait for the whole overall investigation to get company to understand what were the vulnerabilities if there were any or was it just purely the nature of a sophisticated attack understand in the context of terrorism this phrase is used that we have to be right all the time and they have to be rightfully once correct so in cyberspace also it is is really is really about that because the the nature of hackers is so sophisticated today and I will say this because it just makes for interesting hearing I I would think for your listeners that I am on the dark internet in couple of groups obviously not as a minister with another


of groups obviously not as a minister with another name uh with a different identity and I here 18 year olds and 19 year olds talking about um you know infiltration and hacking and cloning and Sim cloning and cloning identities with a Panache and with a with a confidence that is just mind-boggling okay so so we must not ever underestimate the sophistication of these people who are threatening these systems and are constantly challenging uh systems on on on the internet a very basic question they do this for the thrill of it they do it for money what is it there's there's part thrill uh part money um there are people who might have overheard in groups talking about how they've hacked the e-wallets and transferred the millions of dollars from e-wallets uh and you know this was a retirement crypto was booming and so look it is a very sophisticated world and at play are forces and Technologies and minds and brains and motivations that are very very complex so uh I


motivations that are very very complex so uh I don't think we'll ever be at a time and place where a hundred percent of our systems are completely secure like I said the whole terrorism analogy yeah but we can certainly make it very difficult for people to to test our systems as we are doing to a large part of the critical infrastructure today we are we are very sophisticated systems which you defend our infrastructure but like I said sometimes uh the one that gets through gets through and we have to go back and see how do they get through and make sure they don't get through again okay I'm going to move away from the danger part a little bit and talk about uh you know uh there are several research papers on a regional language consumers uh of internet in India and most Indians like to to consume it said that you know internet in their local language and that's more Hindi and Tamil and so you have this very ambitious project bhashini could you tell me a little bit about


bhashini could you tell me a little bit about oh absolutely thank you for asking this question because I think one of the uh things that we the world hasn't understood is about how diverse the users on the internet are Because the Internet originated in the U.S and Western Europe everybody just plays to this narrative that the English is fine for the internet but with 1.2 billion Indians who are going to come online people want to consume the internet people want to consume content which are in their language and not go via English or via Hindi uh and so bhashani is the one big project that The Honorable prime minister and Visage uh two two years ago three years ago which basically is aimed at creating a set of language translation tools that will allow better access in the language of your choice to users all across country so search engines browsers email at one level in terms of applications and of course consume content in a translation mode now this has tremendous apart from the inclusion argument this has


tremendous apart from the inclusion argument this has tremendous other opportunities you are also seeing the trend now on Otts of how South Indian movies have suddenly developed This Global audience correct because of dubbing and uh you know uh all of those language basically the same product being offered in multiple languages now imagine if that is an instantaneous process that you don't have to do the dubbing that you just pass a a product whether it's a video product or an audio product or a podcast or a video or film through a platform that comes out on the other end with the same video but with a different language and that is the direction that we are going in and so it is an artificial intelligence being applied to language translation the substantial progress has been made on that the Prime Minister last year long talked about it in the digital India the annual digital India day and it is a very very Central piece of making sure that the 1.2 billion Indians can consume the internet in the way


billion Indians can consume the internet in the way in the language that they are more natural or more um uh sort of they feel more happy doing so so in this uh my next question obviously is regarding your ministry itself will this will this give impetus to to entrepreneurship to new jobs yeah just imagine today for example and that is also part of what we'll do in the DIA which is apart from Innovation and Tech and all of that that we are seeing anyway with the unicorns and the startups and we think that is just the tip of the iceberg and will continue to proliferate and grow as we expand uh the opportunities content creation and I mean content as in content whether it's boys movies audio short form long form there is a total explosion waiting to happen uh you can see today the phenomenon of insta reels or short shorts and all of that is really people are sitting there and making livelihoods out of that despite the fact that the monetization of that content


despite the fact that the monetization of that content is a really imbalanced monetization it is all done by Google AdSense or you know or a particular big Tech platform and there is no negotiating leverage yeah I actually think that there is a huge ecosystem of content creators and content economy that is going to be part of the digital economy that is just waiting to take off and that has many adjacent applications like gaming and of course movies and all of that uh and uh and I I think language and translation and creating diversity on the Indian internet and therefore the appetite and demand for diverse content will feed this underlying ecosystem of content creators there's very interesting initiative of Digi yatra as well yeah although it's it links the aadhaar and then the boarding pass just to get the get through the queue so what is this initiative plus also because it will be very important as we see so much of crowd the airport the airport is such a mess right now it's like a


airport is such a mess right now it's like a go-to topic so can you just talk us about that and about the security also no look aadhar is a fundamental part of the India stack and the aadhar is an identity authentication piece when people use the phrase link the word is actually a bad word because it's not it's not in it's not a correct word it's incorrect word nobody linking anything to other it is basically authenticating that that identity which is in the other database is really Mr X it is an authentication process so the aadhaar database is a database of identities any other application that sits on it whether it is a fintech application UPI or it is Digi yatra or health or education this verification is basically saying this person with this Photograph and this biometric claims to be Smitha prakash is it it's like Social Security in America it just says yes that's it there's no there's no linkage in that sense so data is not getting transferred from other to say Airport Authority no no


getting transferred from other to say Airport Authority no no no it is just a yes no question okay is that answered and eventually it will be basically Biometrics it will not you know currently a lot of people use other cards eventually the idea is that no there will be no card because cards are you know reproducible and all that and authentication so it will just be if you want access control to an airport or go through security line or a PDA Center or whatever you just go there and do your fingerprint or your biometric and you can and that's it it'll just say uh Smitha prakash or whoever is it this this is uh you have taken so many quintals of rice from the PDS scheme this is your balance and this is what you're entitled to so that is where we are going so the fundamental layer the basic layer of the India stack is this identity authentication layer which is service by empowered by other right so there's no threat as such you know for example uh recently had gone to


such you know for example uh recently had gone to the US and it was the first time that even though they've had Biometrics it was the first time that I stood in front of the camera it got my eyes and they didn't stamp my passport they didn't even look at my Visa because it's already arrived out there they knew when was the last time that I've gone there there all that information is already there right right so it was just welcome to the US it felt so good yes there were lines believe me because getting to the points but that is it there is no and where is your boarding card where which was the last Port of Entry no questions asked because all that information has already arrived so if we can get to that point in our but that is the digi yatra and frankly it is not done by Armin she's done by the civilization Ministry but I have studied it a little bit is the first step to that towards that okay which is that it basically I just


that okay which is that it basically I just want to explain what the India stack is as the prime minister's envisaged it there is an identity layer identity authentication layer and there is this Finance fintech layer the payment layer which is UPI and then on top of it there will be different layers Digi yatra for travel air Passengers The Rail rail ministry will come up with something that sits in on the same platform Health skill education that is the India stack so typically how it will work is going forward is that you book a ticket and you can say I am now the ticket will know you're flying on so and so on today and then they'll say Digi yatra do you want to enable your ticket Digi yatra enabled it will authenticate your identity and then as you go to the airport all you do is you put down your Biometrics and it will read back from the digi yatra app in which you have enrolled that you are authorized to travel and so on so today this is your ticket this is


so on so today this is your ticket this is your identity as authenticated by uida so there is a narrative which is going on all across the world that artificial intelligence versus the jobs uh it will threaten the jobs the human jobs uh how do you look at it what is your take on it no look digitization in general and AI in particular is is changing the nature of the workforce it is it is altering how the workforce is set up uh so the narrative is not about job loss as much as the the new skills that are required for the new jobs the digital in particular and AI in in AI also is not reducing the number of opportunities it is creating newer and newer opportunity but they require different types of skills so if you are skilled for let us say uh working in a manufacturing operation digitization and Industry 4.0 means that you need a certain set of different skills to continue to be in manufacturing if you were just a foreman of a lathe and you


were just a foreman of a lathe and you continue to have only those qualifications you will find yourself challenged by the new opportunity so I say again that digitization and AI represent not a challenge in terms of job loss but it certainly represents a challenge in terms of reskilling and upskilling we were talking about skill development and Entrepreneurship now there's there's a lot of questions which are being asked that are our traditional classrooms equipped to produce because there are jobs which are coming up which you said but are either traditional classroom equipped and bringing out students who are equipped with that kind of information for those jobs which are being created these are going to be created so I want to just share my views on it and I'm you know just for 16 months into this uh and uh our uh the the workforce is in India is a very complex works for because we have what is called the formal Workforce which is a very small part of the overall Workforce and then we have the largest


the overall Workforce and then we have the largest pieces what are called we call the informal Workforce which covers Agriculture and all the other a large part of the informal Workforce is unskilled and if you look at it for example if you look at traditionally from 2011 onwards over about 1.6 crore 15 year olds joined the workforce unskilled every year 1.6 crores that is the nature the size of our challenge yeah so and then on top of it you have an opening a base of about 290 million that is 29 crore in the workforce who are unskilled this is I'm using census 2011 and nsso service okay in that in that in the region so imagine 30 crore in the informal Workforce are unskilled and every year 1.6 crore children joined the workforce unskilled okay nature of what 75 years or 70 years of Independence has created an educational system yeah now the Prime Minister did two things which are trying to urgently solve the problem what does he launch skill India


urgently solve the problem what does he launch skill India mission put a lot of money behind it which is to say this opening stock of 29 crore in the workforce 15 to 35 how can we 15 to 45 how can we give them skills and those who are already in the workforce how can we give them certificates at least so that they can get better salaries because they have a certificate because a lot of people have skills job oriented yes job oriented but they have no formal recognition skills so we ran a program and continue to run a program called RPL this is a recognition of Prior learning it is in a way of formalization of your informal skills example like for example let us say you are uh you are you work in the highway construction space and you have been a construction worker for several years but you have no formal certification and when somebody when you go to a job or somebody offers you a job you have nothing to say accepting to say in many cases so this is a way


to say in many cases so this is a way of formally recognizing those and giving them a sense of Pride and ownership that what I have slaved for or worked for for so many years I have a formal recognition of that skill okay and that is really given a lot of people we have we've done an impact assessment of that in the RPL salary progression and upward job Mobility has been triggered by that certification so that is one that we have take we have done but the numbers and what we are able to deliver the still is a big gap I can imagine yes so the Prime Minister has done two one one more initiative which is the National Education policy now people don't intuitively understand how does this head deal with skilled and unskilled but like I said 15 year olds are joining dropping out of school and joining the workforce every year to the extent of 1.6 crores so he has now integrated Skilling into the curriculum of schools okay in the National Education policy which means


of schools okay in the National Education policy which means from six standard onwards a child who otherwise only had a single trajectory for growth which is I do uh school I do 10th I do 12th and then if my parents can afford it I go to college or if my grades were good I go to college now from sixth standard on whether the child has an alternate career track skill 6 standard seven standard eight standard nine standard 10 standard you develop some skills in school assume worst case you drop out of school at the age of 15. you still have a skill okay okay so you no longer are unskilled and entering into the workforce as you jump out of school as well so that 1.6 crore number gets severely reduced significantly reduce in terms of incremental unskilled students entering the workforce because of the National Education policy so this is one we've addressed that problem by Skilling in the school the second was how do we create a larger Network to deliver more skills to more students so two things


to deliver more skills to more students so two things have been done one of the number of skill programs have soundly gone up from two thousand to five thousand four hundred all the way from AI programming coding carpentry Plumbing it has gone the entire spectrum of skills so modern age white collar skills Modern Age Blue Collar skills and instead of depending only on the skill India network of pmk jss ITI now we are allowing universities and colleges to also run certification programs okay so student now and you have enough trainers to do that no so therefore good question that is going to be the challenge like if you suddenly expand the network where you will deliver Skilling who are the people who are going to be giving the Skilling training but the nature of the new age Skilling programs means that a current teacher or current Professor with a slightly incremental program can also do that okay so it is also giving a teacher in a school or a teacher in a university or a college the opportunity to


in a university or a college the opportunity to do beyond what he or she was doing as only teaching physics you can now teach physics and coding or physics and computer repair or Hardware repair okay so it is also creating opportunities for teachers and teaching staff in schools and colleges to do more than what they are doing in school and colleges you know there was a you were talking about gaming platforms and at that time I wanted to ask you but then we deviated into other topics um you know recently uh again it's about compliance and punitive action recently uh this Shada murder case came into focus and uh her father spoke about dating apps and said that you know dating apps need to be moderated and then there are some state governments who are saying that this is causing disruption in our society because again that's another like the gaming thing like the others they they are not they don't come under any regulation and it's causing disruption in society what happens now


causing disruption in society what happens now is this the digital India act that we are going to we are talking about today and we will do consultation effectively we'll classify the internet into various types of intermediaries all intermediaries fall into that one type the internet is evolving there are e-commerce there are social media there are dating apps there are uh um you know fact checking apps there are digital media apps all of these will be classified as different categories of intermediaries and rules and regulations will be specified for each type okay again the basic principles around which these rules have been going to be built are safety and Trust so if a dating app allows without due diligence a criminal or a person with a known history of uh predating on the app and that person does predict and cause harm to a particular person or a woman or a girl the app is liable Apple reliable okay so if you see what is happening we are going from a world on internet where none of these platforms had any


world on internet where none of these platforms had any sense of accountability no responsibility they hid behind section 79 or section 230 in the U.S to one where very transparently we will create a framework of accountability it is not to make things difficult for them it is basically to make things safer for the users okay there will be a behavioral change there will be a transition it will not be business as usual and there will be a little bit of whining griping complaining moaning groaning all that will happen but we believe our Nazar as you if you want to call that is laser sharp focused on the well-being of our citizen the individual and if it's a cause if it's a if it's an if it's a choice between the that and creating some complexity in the way platforms do business in India we would choose this latter without a without any hesitation but we think we will evolve this without creating too much of Burden compliance burden too much of difficulty for the platform it is


burden too much of difficulty for the platform it is for them to just basically wake up to this reality that look we have an obligation to the users of India we have an obligation to the digital address and the government insists that those obligations be fulfilled will there be a foundation on these interviews to respond to the queries because even the police tried to approach the dating app so will there be any boundation or any timeline 100 yeah what we have done in the it rules is that only in May 2021 we said you should appoint a grievance officer so then all of them appointed grievance officers some did not then we prodded them they appointed it a lot of them appointed post box numbers and some ciphers and some and so their response was that grievances will give a response now we have said that is not what we want if you want us to spell out in letter and chapter and verse what the grievance officer has to do we will do that but better


officer has to do we will do that but better still we will create an appellate committee that will be a disincentive for you not to do your job can't fudge then yeah you can't fudge and you can't sleep on the job yeah the the whole idea of creating grievance officer is that you have an obligation to hear the grievance of an Indian Citizen and address it now if you say no I have appointed a grievance officer but I will then discuss just a poster they will just play the fiddle and then on Sundays uh play the piano and then that's the extent of my responsibility then I said no fine we will create a grievance committee they complain during a consultation I said look the government is not interested in sitting here and looking as you said at volumes of complaints that are going to come from hundreds and millions of consumers you are forcing us to do this and think of the GAC as an absolute message of disincentive for


GAC as an absolute message of disincentive for you to not walk away from your responsibility to the Indian citizen as a platform as a platform in this G20 as India has taken away and uh there's a very big digitization push and world has acknowledged it so how do you think India will have that image of of the digitalization and how it will impart it to them yeah we saw some of them saying that we made payment through uh Google pay handicrafts I know I'm a minister in the government and it it is my job to uh be sort of evangelizing what we've achieved but I want to tell you this the world is looking at India post covet very differently what we have achieved in covet through the power of our technology enablement that the Prime Minister his foresight from 14 to 19 the stuff that the government of India did and that has really helped us distinguish ourselves so differently from every other country in the covert time people really want to associate with India


the covert time people really want to associate with India that coven app that itself was an all that is just it stands on the India stack yeah the aadhar the UPI and then applications of coven um all of this so I can assure you that there is nothing that we have to do it is really an organic recognition by the world's Nation about the power of technology to transform people's lives during such a situation as covet all the countries the world had to deal with the same emergency look at how we are post covered and look at where China is in in covet look at where the Americans are post covet look at where the British and the Western Europeans are so I think everybody today vaccination certificates in purchase exactly right you know I mean and they don't even carry it because it's a purchase yeah and I will tell you that for example and I I don't want to double the name a young lady minister of an African country met me recently flew all the way to Bangalore


met me recently flew all the way to Bangalore to meet me give me quite a bit of a chuff that people it's to think of me as that important and said we want to adopt the Indian stack in our country we want to sign an mou with the government of India and the Prime Minister has been absolutely gracious we will share our Technologies our learnings our know-hows and our expertise with the world's countries so that countries that can't afford to do this the Americans can afford to do it the Europeans can afford to do it but there are the global South there are a whole bunch of countries who would love to learn from India imbibe embed the same type of Technology platforms for their governance to improve the lot of their people and G20 is going to clearly be an occasion for the world's Nations to engage with India and take this learning and implement it in their countries there's an electronic manufacturing also there is a push what do you have to say and what do you


what do you have to say and what do you think uh how how far we have reached and that's also your ministry right 300 billion dollars by 20 25 26 and 120 billion dollars in export during that period so you know uh when I I have been 16 years 16 months as a minister and I visited about 40 colleges for the universities one of the highlights of uh of being a minister that I get to travel and meet the students and a question is always posed how do you summarize the last seven years I mean you know it is my job obviously to say ah seven years are better than the last video and I use examples that are just real examples in 2014 when Narendra Modi became prime minister we had no electronics Industry in this country 10 years of UPA the last decade had completely finished off Electronics in this country and we were importing 92 percent of all mobile phones consumed in India in 2014 were imported bought okay and it was beginning to become almost


bought okay and it was beginning to become almost comparable import Bill to petroleum Electronics was in 2022 97 percent of the mobile phones consumed in India Are Made in India in 2014 we didn't export nothing and in 2022 we are exporting 75 000 crores of Apple phones and Samsung phones and other phones including the Chinese Brands four days ago there was a story in the times of India front page that they are exporting from India now yeah so and why that is important is before covid Electronics was dominated by China it is the second largest traded commodity in the world 1.5 trillion dollars is the size of the electronics Market Global Electronics market and 65 70 of the hundred was dominated for China yeah post covered the supply chain issues have come in yeah no postcode the world says we want to diversify that supply chain we cannot uh don't we cannot we don't want the concentration yeah and we want to look at other countries Janet Yellen talked about French Shoring recently India friend showing


talked about French Shoring recently India friend showing and also ethical production of these exactly trusted so The Honorable prime minister said in February of 2022 that India wants to be a trusted player in the global Supply chains for electronics and that is what we are doing today so we have a target of 300 billion dollars by 2526 we are already at 75 billion we were 0 in 14 just to give you a context between 2014 and 2025-26 we will do it 10 times growth in production so that is you know I'm going to move a little bit more towards you know some of the officials that we meet with uh Mr Chandra shekhar as uh as journalists when we meet them they say that like what you've been talking right now these are my goals it's like you have a spreadsheet in front of you so the officials say that ever since these technocrats have come in into into the cabinet we are functioning like an MNC government of India is functioning like an MNC where we have


India is functioning like an MNC where we have goals targets and things like that people like you Mr Jay Shankar all of you who have been brought in is somewhat like the Singapore model uh and everybody knows that Mr Modi did get impacted by you know reading up on Lee Kuan Yew and uh and his model of housing he brought in you know modernization of Singapore so tell me is this what happens no no I I I think they're very wrong in characterizing it that way because I I think the I mean I have I can't claim to have worked with the Prime Minister for decades or years but I certainly have been uh Observer of his work since 2012. and he has always talked about governance with an outcome I mean even I when I had a few occasions to meet him as Chief Minister Gujarat he never talked about policy in the absence of a clearly understood outcome so he was always looking at policy and laws as a means to an end and the


and laws as a means to an end and the end was that there will be some developmental impact a progress impact Prosperity impact at the other side of the policy so I think this has been going on for a long time this is really what distinguishes his governance style from the other hundreds of others Chief ministers who have come before him Prime Ministers who have come before him that he is very laser focused on what he wants to achieve out of that particular policy or that Ministry or that or that scheme uh digital India he did that in 2014 I recently said to him when I for the first time I was on a dice with him and I was happy to speak about digital India and I said I was in the audience when you announced digital India 2015 and I listen to that and I with great healthy skepticism and mujib I said it to him and I I was saying because I was an MP I was uh I'd already spent some six seven years in Parliament and


already spent some six seven years in Parliament and I was as cynical as any MP could get but that is his style that is his style that he means governance with some clear really clear outcome for I mean I have worked with many bright people in my life it is one of the good fortunes of having worked in the valley and it is a pleasure to work with him because he is very clear about what he wants to achieve there is no ambiguity so when he says technology he doesn't say technology must create billionaires he's a technology must change the lives of our citizens that is his primary objective of digital India that it must transform the lives of our citizens it was improved governance it was improved democracy and I say this everywhere that India's story pre-2014 was a story of dysfunctional government and the famous Rajiv Gandhi quote that 15 passe only of every 100 paise that leaves Delhi reaches the citizen was taken as a given for India and today to


was taken as a given for India and today to have the turn 180 degrees on its head where 100 peso reaches 100 all the hundred percent reaches is the power of technology and that is what his foresight was so I don't think it is Rajiv chandrashekhar or Jai Shankar and bureaucrat say I think he his expectation from government as a as an entity individual members and government whether they are minister or a bureaucrat remains same consistent unrelenting sharp demanding urgent Speedy corruption free all of that regardless of whether it is Mr Jai Shankar or X or Y or z i i this is my view and I don't I'm not embellishing it this is how I've experienced it you were talking about the skepticism when you were sitting in the audience and that is perhaps uh what categorizes most people your generation my channel shiny but either you know when we did our school in college like you you went to the US you worked on that Pentium processor right


the US you worked on that Pentium processor right tell me about that what was when you went abroad to Israel like I'm done with India I'm done with that what was that and then why did you come back no no look it's it's not done with India as much as I say this to students today that you live in such exciting time because you live in India full of opportunity if you are an engineering student or you're a ba physics or a BSC physics or a ba history you can look at your life post your college and think of you just have to choose which area you want to go on which direction you want to go in when we were in school in college what are the opportunities you got a good engineering degree then you look at uh getting some connection and getting a becoming a trainee in tatas training and brillas there were some half a dozen private sector companies that you would go and try and do it even for that you needed some Chacha Mama to recommend you otherwise you


needed some Chacha Mama to recommend you otherwise you go join government or in my case I would have looked at fauji as a career because you were because but I had glasses and I wanted to be a flyer and I could not be a flyer and I had no interest in being an infantry soldier with glasses so that was so going abroad wasn't so much of I don't like India it is it is really that was the only opportunity and I've I've worked in uh I worked for six months in a the original software startup called Soft Tech in uh over greater kailash Chinese restaurant I remember I worked there for six months and my father said no you I want you to go abroad I did I had no interest in going abroad and I sold pumps for run backs for uh for a pump company called best in Crompton I had a motorcycle and I used to go to dorala Sugar Mills for two months I used to go on a motorcycle and uh to dorala and


go on a motorcycle and uh to dorala and sell sugar give quotations for sugar pump so I've done all that okay but my parents wanted me to go abroad because they thought that real opportunity for coding because I I had become a big prolific computer programmer I I loved computer science and I remember my father after 30 years of service had a total Savings of eight lakh rupees in his account and he took out all that and gave me a check in dollars and said go to the US and I went with that and of course I never used it but that is uh that it was not really like a thing that people did because it was an opportunity they did it because there were limited opportunities in India and that is really the big difference between the young Indian today versus Our Generation so you went with you went with worked with vinodham and you know those were huge opportunities why did you come back look when you are I I was a success I did very well at


I I was a success I did very well at Intel I was recognized I had got some options I had made money I had in my life I had a small book that I used to maintain in terms of life goals and my goal was by the age of 35 that I should make 30 10 lakhs Rupees because my father's savings over eight lakhs and for me my life's a mission was to make two lakhs more than him in a slightly shorter time frame but fortunately but way ahead of that schedule by the age of uh 26 I had made much more money and I came back to India and Rajesh pilate who used to be a minister of Telecom those days was a student of my father's in the Air Force so my father very proudly wanted to show off his son to Rajesh pilot brought me to Delhi and I remember in the house that house of Rajesh pilot he sat me down in that big lawn and saluted my father and I was very impressed with


saluted my father and I was very impressed with him and I remained a big fan of his till he tragically passed away uh he said why are you in the U.S why don't you come you're opening up cellular and I didn't know anything about cellular he was minister of State for home right no no he that he became later he was minister of State for communication okay and uh he said why don't you uh we are opening up and this is the Great India and why didn't you try it and I was entitled to a sabbatical in Intel so I said okay let me take a two-year leave of absence and I will try it out and the actual Epiphany for me was when I was in guruvayur Kerala it is rainy season and I had just got married I actually come to India to do that bright searching thing you know which is what nris did those days right unbelievable yeah it is unbelievable when I say that story to my children today they think it's


say that story to my children today they think it's unbelievable but that's I did it anyway so and you know and okay no no regrets uh uh I don't want my wife to think that did she bring that tray of a chai and play the tanpura since we met in in the U.S it was I think a bottle of soda water so anyway but I remember the Epiphany was when I was in in guruvayur in a rainy season and those days you can only make long distance calls through trunk trunk yeah oh God and I had to set up an appointment for my green card in the U.S embassy here in Delhi and I called and they said trunk call will take three hours and I said okay and I could barely hear the embassy in the lightning call then I realized that what Rajesh pirate was talking about cellular yeah it was obviously something that this country required and that is how I stayed back okay yeah and I had no regrets no no no


okay yeah and I had no regrets no no no no of course not no no I I don't regret any of the interests and turns in my life in uh why politics that's one question because you had made such a success of your life in the private sector you you know media Baron and everything I don't even want to go into the list I'm sure our viewers I read uh listeners will Google you as soon as they area why politics no look I I do this I think it's one of those genetic defects in me that I when I see opportunities I just jump at it and grab it uh 2006 was an unusual situation in Karnataka where the government had been formed between BJP and Kumar Swami JDS for the first time ever and the fourth rajya Sabha seat was a seat that could only be one if the BJP and JDS together put up a candidate on a Sunday afternoon where I was sitting at home and I just finished Biryani and I had I


and I just finished Biryani and I had I was uh we had sold my company BPL mobile and I was just spending some time trying to ReDiscover myself or whatever it was and somebody came to my house a friend of mine and said I am going to meet Deva Goda whom I had never met by the way said why don't you come along and because the movie that I was watching uh and I was I used to watch Malayalam movies on Asianet uh on Sundays because that movie was not interesting I said okay fine let me come along he was recuperating in a hospital in the Jindal uh in the Jindal clinic and he looked at me I met him for first time and he said what do you do I said I do nothing he said have you ever I do nothing I had I just got out of Telecom and so he said why don't you join uh politics have you thought about politics so I said look I've I've thought of politicism during utilities time I had


I've thought of politicism during utilities time I had running battles with promoji and Arun chori I was the cellular person and I I know politics I've dealt with politics I've never thought of a career in politics he said no there's this fourth seat and uh and if you are interested you should talk to the BJP so and my very close friend and colleague was anant kumarji who from kannada great brother and a great mentor and we went back a long way so I and a lock went to his house from there and I said uh Anand kumarji this idea has come what do you think and he was of course a great well Wisher of mine he said no you should and then I caught a flight the next day came and met came to Delhi and met advani and said look this idea has been put in my head what do you think and I knew advani from the atal G's time the government time and they say so you should try it and then it sort of


so you should try it and then it sort of became a reality and I got in and I thought it's going to be just one term but then I immediately very early on then let the 2G scam uh Revelation and because I understood Telecom and I was the one who let that and then the term got over and then I was offered a second term and then of course I decided that this is why I want to do this full-time and I I got out of all my businesses and exited all the CNA I've I've been on this full time for now I think from 2000 almost 14. yeah you know you've you uh are very vocal on uh National Security matters and also on the welfare of veterans yes you've talked a lot about that now the recent uh loss electoral loss in Himachal firstly congratulations on the victory in Gujarat that has been fabulous for your party absolutely now uh but of course being a journalist I'm going to talk about the


being a journalist I'm going to talk about the losses request so uh the Himachal laws many were saying that it's probably because uh people in Himachal Pradesh were not did not bind into the agneepath scheme that's why the problem occurred because Himachal sends you know I I think I don't have the exact figures but uh there are like some uh 2 lakhs or something of uh uh people 2.8 lakh people from Himachal Pradesh who are in the armed forces currently sure so you know they are not too happy with the agneepath scheme because they feel so many of them you even when you drive in Himachal Pradesh you'll notice people exercising all over them wanting to get in into the the forge and they feel up so there is there is still not that faith in the agneepath scheme and that anger translated into you know negative voting no so there are two separate questions you're asking one is the cause of the defeat and yes that is of course beyond my


defeat and yes that is of course beyond my pay scale and I I really don't no I haven't studied it but it's too close a contest to basically say that there was any mandate against the BJP many things could go wrong I have been involved in elections for several years and in several States never in Himachal so I think we will wait for the analysis before we come to a conclusion of what caused that defeat was it internally our weakness because every time we any time we lose to the Congress or if we ever lose it to the Congress I feel that it is to do with us doing something wrong rather than anybody in his right mind wanting to okay there's a lot of analysis on that also that the BJP defeats the BJP yeah so anyway so that's a separate uh podcast and we'll discuss that separately okay but on the issue of agneepath and I I say this with seriousness it is a very powerful and a very good thing for the


a very powerful and a very good thing for the future of our armed forces and the future of Indian youth uh unfortunately as with the farm bill we have allowed some of the fake narratives or the not so true narratives of this to get ahead of the actual Narrative of agneepath what does agneepath do agneepath basically says for a lot of youngsters who want to pursue a full-time career in the armed forces there is no change but there are a lot of youngsters whom I have met also by the way who say no we want a short-term association with the armed forces and then we want to come out and continue to do what we want to do startups agriculture whatever it creates an opportunity for them it does not change in any way the number of people who go to the Armed Forces it does not change in any way the size of the arm force and therefore the absorption of people into the permanent Corridor of the Armed Forces is not going to reduce by any stretch


Forces is not going to reduce by any stretch of imagination so uh but if you feel communication may be possible or inadequate but a big narrative fake narrative has gotten ahead of the true narrative uh sometimes we it is not unusual for us to believe that if you do good that the goodness of it will create a momentum but like I said to you that there is enough evidence that a fake narrative has the ability to gather steam faster and reach a larger Audience by which time the the true narrative takes it's an uphill task for them to dismantle that so and I think agneepath is 100 about that it is a powerful modern uh way for our Armed Forces to be modernized made younger over the next five years ten years time it does not change in any which way the composition or the abilities for people who want permanent careers in the armed forces does not restrict that in any way but it creates an additional element moment of short term people want to come


additional element moment of short term people want to come in and then want to not do the Armed Forces for the rest of their life and want to do something else it's also an extension of what you were talking about in skill development because they are equipped now with new skills absolutely which they can use in the privacy but I have met youngsters I have met so many students who say we don't want to do this full time we don't want to join the armed forces as a career we want to serve our nation for three years five years and then we want to go and do our thing right because there are so many other opportunities for example what could be some of the things that they could do after this I mean you can come in do a three-year shot so you know the old days of short Service Commission the same way if you are a fighting Soldier or an Airman you come and do a short-term get the skills and go out there and either become an entrepreneur become the Drone


and either become an entrepreneur become the Drone pilot drone pilot go to start a business go go uh Jobs go to pursue higher education uh my father came into the air force as an Airman as an Airman and he worked his way up and became officer became a flyer and and it was a struggle yeah this allows or somebody to get skills and become go out there make some money in those three years four years go get free education and absolutely qualitatively change his career trajectory uh instead of remaining an Airman all his life for him remaining a soldier all his life so I think that narrative didn't go out there powerfully enough or if it did it was in a sense preempted by the fake narrative which is not really not at all the idea of the agneepath and by the way all modern fighting combat forces the US every other Force has adapted to this and use this as a way of creating a core Army and having the volunteer Force the short term Force


Army and having the volunteer Force the short term Force come in and then pursues the same narrative also was that you're creating one a mercenary Army not totally committed uh and two uh an incompletely trained officer or an incomplete Soldier no look this is some some of these retired uh I know confused generals and the purists the actual you know hardcore and and they you know I have great respect for them but I think they fail to understand that you can be a committed Soldier without having to be for the rest of your life a soldier yeah okay and I think that is the basic thing that they they haven't picked up or they don't want to pick up or they don't want to acknowledge the Indian youth is a is a patriotic young person and given the tools given given the opportunity to serve the country he wants to do it she wants to do it and we must create opportunities for them to do it and by the way the quality of our society all of


by the way the quality of our society all of the other Downstream impact of having people who have gone through service to the nation and then coming into the civilian life as a tremendous other benefits to Society at large imagine if you have more and more uh people in the police more and more people in civil Administration who come after having seen up close and Center experiencing what national service is about and take those ethos and values into government in general in bureaucracy in administration which you brought I mean before I wrap up I'm going to ask you two questions one is about your life also because what you were talking about you've also lived in cantonments you bring about that in your in your commitment towards uh you know your nationalism or your when you talk about veterans I see that when you speak about it tell me a little bit about your life no I I don't want to make it sound like a fairy tale or any of that but you know I have grown up


any of that but you know I have grown up around men and women uh men in uniform and their families all my life life I mean all my young life Youth Life shaped the time the Life part of the life Which shapes your thinking and I have seen them only interested in in a sense Mission India they never talked about anything other than that and I have played badminton as a youngster on a badminton court with a fighter pilot to find two days later that he died in a crash so these are people you know real people and real lives that I've experienced and their entire Common Thread amongst all of them and their families was that they were there for a cause and they were putting all this effort putting their lives on the line because they believed in this cause and that cause was Mother India the the country that they served so that has you know as much as you think that it becomes intrinsic to you it becomes in your DNA it becomes in your people don't


in your DNA it becomes in your people don't get it sometimes people think that it's an it is an act people think it's you're putting on is ultra patriotism all of that you say but you know this is part of the DNA of most 4G kids even today my dad at the age of 84 goes off to the National war memorial he had to hold him down and he goes and sits you know his high point in his years calendar is when he goes off and snaps a salute at the memorial so those things do leave an indelible sort of a mark in your let's say the who you are and I'm glad that it has in my case I'm very glad that it has could that be a reason why you move towards national service and again I say I have said this publicly for me the fact that I couldn't serve my nation in uniform uh in a sense I I think I'm compensating by serving in public life now and I I seriously consider this


in public life now and I I seriously consider this as a mission to serve uh I don't see this as uh I don't see Politics as power or influence and all of that and I that is why I really believe in the the way honorable prime minister talks about public life about sevak about this is public service rather than I am the more powerful minister or you are the less powerful or all of that so I think that comes from my own background of being around people who sought Duty as a calling and I think this is a calling for me I'm going to wrap up with Karnataka my home state and you are from you're an MP from Karnataka tell me where are we in politics in Karnataka because it seems that both the Congress and the BJP both of them are on a weak Wicket and it serves either party's purpose I don't know that it's so fragmented the leadership yeah no I think look there is it's it's close to election time and there will


it's it's close to election time and there will be noise and chatter and all of that that's par for the course but uh under the CM he's a new CM he is just his uh he's in a sense been put into the deep end of the pool uh a year or so ago we have established that administratively from a point of view of governance we are leaving a mark We are following the prime minister's footsteps and the large-scale delivery of government of India schemes without discrimination without fear or favor across the landscape of citizens of Karnataka is really what we are going to go back to the people and seek another mandate which you did in Gujarat you did in uh voters those who have benefited from government beneficiaries of good governance I call it that finally the relationship between a citizen and a government is that of how I benefited from that but in Karnataka is it there because there's a lot that people say that the corruption is so phenomenal in Karnataka


that the corruption is so phenomenal in Karnataka that it doesn't the LA bhartis aren't so many no no no no that's not correct at all and I mean in every scheme whether it's PM I use PM hours all of those schemes Karnataka is way ahead in terms of getting those schemes delivered to the citizens look this story of corruption is a legacy story in Karnataka because there are too many years and Decades of politicians turn entrepreneurs turn real estate that is that dot the landscape of Karnataka politics but that is not something that was created in the last four years that was created over several decades of certain type of politics that was practiced by the Congress and their other acolytes that has to change that will change it is changing and under prime minister Narendra Modi ji is BJP that will that will change and this is we are in the process of changing nobody is claiming today that the Karnataka is totally cleaned of all these sins of KJ George


cleaned of all these sins of KJ George and sidramaya and DK shiv Kumar but we are making clearly an effort people understand that that change is underway and that is the Mandate that we are going to seek again from them for the next five years right thank you so much I think I've taken a lot of your time thank you most grateful that you could come here and speak to us about a whole range of issues so we hope to have you soon as soon as the Karnataka elections are done thank you thank you for having me thanks thank you thank you for watching or listening in to this edition of ani podcast with Smitha prakash to like or subscribe on whichever Channel you have seen this or heard this namaste thank you [Music]


so the Prime Minister said we want to take diplomacy to the people International conferences were something remote that happened at certain rarified quotas and mainly in Delhi but for the first time you have an opportunity to take G20 meetings down to you know District levels down to um cities that have not been exposed internationally exposed so far foreign policy has never been fully insulated from from domestic politics because you know when you deal with your neighbors it always impacts on on our states uh you know around for example if you deal with Nepal Bihar and up are always impacted countries can weaponize those aspects of trade that they feel gives them an advantage our Point always has been that weaponization of essential um you know parts of Supply chains is is not conducive to overall international trade and so we've been working with many of our partners to ensure a sustainable uh resilient supply chain system what you're saying is that in imports from Russia is also important for our own Imports Russian oil oil


is also important for our own Imports Russian oil oil we're an energy dependent country we import 75 to 80 percent of our energy needs we need to ensure that we provide for our people uh you know the best possible options the neighborhood first policy has been one of our Stellar successes investments in our neighborhoods were lines of credit grants in Aid focus on connectivity on building infrastructure has yielded tremendous results So for anybody who's uh you know an aspirant for the upsc exam thinking of what he should do I think the Foreign Service is a great career it's absolutely one of the best most satisfying careers that anyone can have Namaste Jai Hind welcome to another edition of a i podcast with Smitha prakash India formally assumed the presidency of the G20 or the group of 20 developed and developing nations in November 2022. it will last for a period of one year and this one year is packed with events and several heads of states and governments visiting India is this just


of states and governments visiting India is this just a talking Forum can the powerful group find solutions to Global issues so today our guest is harshvardhan shringla the chief coordinator for India's G20 presidency in 2023 he's previously served as foreign Secretary of India ambassador to USA High Commissioner to Bangladesh and ambassador to Thailand Mr shingler thank you so much for coming on the Ani podcast we are very keen to know about G20 or the man in the hot seat and I have with me my brahmastra Naveen Kapoor who who covers the mea Ministry of external Affairs so he has a couple of questions too for our viewers and our listeners you know those who don't understand the term Beach journalism many times I've been asked what is this that you talk about what is beat journalism so beat is basically what editors assigned report voters to certain sections for example somebody is assigned to do a BJP or somebody's assigned Congress so you become a BJP


somebody's assigned Congress so you become a BJP Beach reporter or a congress beat reporter sometimes you're assign National Security so National Security at times is overlapping so you can do National Security and you can do the foreign Ministry you can do if you're doing Air Force Army Navy you can even do the paramilitary forces now who are the people who are assigned to this so sometimes what used to happen is that if you had a background in say international relations or you came from a family of 4GS editors generally position those reporters uh on the defense Ministry beat why because those reporters knew at least they wouldn't call a major general as a major something very basic so uh when it comes to foreign policy beat when you know when I got into journalism there wasn't even a subject called international relations in our bachelor's degree so we started off like that and Naveen also has done a little bit of Ministry of General Affairs so we both have done a little bit of beach journalism Naveen


done a little bit of beach journalism Naveen continues to do the ministry of external Affairs so his questions will be more sharper as compared to my questions so that was just a brief explainer sir uh so our questions uh will be basically on G20 if you could just explain to us what is this grouping why is there so much of excitement about India taking over the presidency of the G20 first of all thank you for having me on your show and it's great to see our friend Naveen also join you on this program thank you um well the G20 as your main question is what is the G20 all about it is uh today uh perhaps the most important and most influential International grouping that exists and why is it important is because of its membership it includes countries that are some of the largest economies of the world all the G7 countries are members all brics countries are members you have all the five permanent members the U.N security Council as part of the G20 membership you


security Council as part of the G20 membership you also have all the international organizations that actually you know provide the international governance of today's International order the UN the IMF World Bank oecd Financial stability board all of these organizations and some Regional organizations like the African Union asean are part of the normal G20 meetings now the G20 also consists of 85 percent of the world's GDP 75 of international trade and two-thirds of the world's population so that when the G20 takes decisions those are representative decisions that are cut across the board when we say the U.N security Council is not represented representative of today's realities uh we must look to the G20 to see what sort of representation today actually can matter uh countries that today bring weightage to the international uh you know high table countries that can contribute and bring value to to International Affairs are those countries whose voices need to be heard and I think the G20 membership provides for that so today if the G20 takes decisions towards those decisions are implemented


G20 takes decisions towards those decisions are implemented across the board the G20 of course is a somewhat disparate grouping ideologically and in terms in geographical terms uh its coverage is wide but it also means that it's not a cohesive grouping but when it takes decisions those decisions are very very uh I would say um easily implemented those become the global norm and I think we've seen some recent decisions for example during covid where the debt service suspension initiatives that allowed developing countries because of covet who could not repay their debts to reschedule uh without any interest there was also the decision of the G20 to tax multinationals so these are decisions that have an impact across the board and decisions that only countries that provide a wide representation in the international body can make so just to put it in context the G20 so India assuming presidency of this it's it's a matter of prestige which we've been all hearing about it so uh what does it entail because what we've heard


uh what does it entail because what we've heard is that there'll be meetings 200 meetings across the country in 50 cities and it began on December 1st and it will conclude on November 30th 2023. so my question would be that one of course it's a busy schedule ahead for you but besides that uh how were these cities Chosen and what are these meetings about so you know uh every presidency of the g20s for the for for a period of one year so ours is from first December 2022 till as you mentioned 30th November 2023. now um every presidency conducts a certain number of meetings um and normally there are around 200 meetings that we need to conduct and these are across 45 sectors the G20 is very sectoral so we have meetings in the areas of Public Health digital Transformations energy transitions uh trade and investment so different sectors have different meetings and not one but two or three meetings until it reaches a ministerial level and then the summit level um all