Reiterating his government’s resolve to not allowing the ‘digital divide’ to become a barrier between people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Digital India Week here on Wednesday. He exhorted the youth to not only use technology for the country’s benefit, but also serve the world by building cyber-security solutions.

He urged industry captains, who were present in huge numbers, to boost production of electronics devices and goods in the country as part of the “Make in India” initiative, leading to corporates pledging ₹4.50 lakh crore for the Digital India initiative.

Drawing attention to global worries on cyber-security, Modi said digitisation will mean a lot of data usage stored in servers or cloud. For that the country has to meet the challenge posed by the threat of the ‘bloodless war’, he added.

“Clouds of a bloodless war are hovering over the world. The world is terrified by this....India has a big role to play in this,” he said, adding that India should accept the challenge to provide a shield to the world.

Modi, who launched the ‘Digital India’ logo and released policy documents related to the initiative, said his vision of e-governance and mobile governance was when all important government services will be available on a mobile phone.

“I dream of a Digital India where high-speed digital highways unite the nation; 1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation; technology ensures that the citizen-government interface is incorruptible,” he said, adding that “so many coal mines were auctioned but there is no allegation against the government because it was all done in a transparent manner (online).”

Similarly, the Digital India initiative was aimed at improving the lives of the common man. “India may have missed the Industrial Revolution, but will not miss the IT revolution,” he said.

‘Design in India’ Assuring full support to young entrepreneurs who wished to launch start-ups, Modi called upon the youth to innovate and said ‘Design in India’ is as important as ‘Make in India’.

Among the top business honchos who pledged investments worth ₹4.5 lakh crore and employment to around 18 lakh people are Mukesh Ambani, Cyrus Mistry, Sunil Mittal, Anil Ambani, Anil Agarwal Azim Premji and global CEOs such as Ping Cheng of Delta Electronics.

The honchos, who shared the dais with the Prime Minister, were given two-and-a-half minutes each to share their vision and commitment on the Digital India programme.

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