The Digital India

The afternoon session had Stalwarts like Ravi Shankar Prasad, Sanjiv Goenka, Pratap Singh Reddy. For his great contribution in the health care sector Pratap Singh Reddy, Founder & Chairman, Apollo Hospitals, was presented with the All India Management Association (AIMA) Life Time Achievement Award.

The felicitate of Mr. Reddy

Pratap Singh Reddy talked about his journey as to how he came to find Apollo Hospital, a giant in the Health Care sector. He said that once he met a woman who couldn’t raise $50,000 for his husband to go to Houston, to undergo surgery and because of that he died. The incident shattered him and that day he decided to take up this challenge and build a hospital which will create example for the world to follow and thus came Apollo Hospital. He thanked AIMA for the great honour and said that he would continue to serve the people with same vigor.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications & Information Technology, took the podium. Congratulating Pratap Singh Reddy he said that he is an example to follow. He then talked about ‘Bridging the Digital Divide: Building and Inclusive Digital Democracy & Economy’. He laid out a clear roadmap of digital penetration in the lesser sectors of India and said, “The government of India has a target of about 500 million people, in the next few years. Internet is a great leveler; it provides a platform where there is no difference between a Walmart and a small retailer.” He clearly states his vision when he said that he wants to see the next Google or the next Facebook come from India.

Prathap C Reddy

He emphasized on the need to tap the benefits the humungous mobile base India has. He said, “With nearly 1 billion mobile users in the country the government has a great platform to take Health, education, banking to the next level of e-health, e-education, e-banking. Indians are very careful when it comes to technology, any Indian consumer first observes, then uses and only after that that he adopts a particular technology.” He also stressed on the fact that this era is the era of information. So the government wants to empower every Indian digitally.

He cleared his stand on the issue of Net Neutrality. But fell short of stating BJP’s stand on the same, he said that the ministry is looking at the discussion from every possible angle. The Ministry of Telecom has already set up a panel to look into the matter and submit report at the earliest.

The minister played with some jargons when he said “IT+IT=IT i.e. India’s talent + Infomation Technology equals to India’s Tomorrow”. India has become an IT hub in recent past and his government wants to leverage on this growth and make more IT centre in other parts of the country.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, IT minister

His government is committed to bring three tier cities like Purnia, Darbhangha into mainstream by developing them as next IT hubs. Knowledge Process Outsourcing and Business Process Outsourcing will generate millions of jobs which is the current need of the young demographic across the country.