India has recently announced the following flagship projects: Digital India and Startup India, both of them aiming to reshape the society and make it competitive in ever more hypercompetitive world.
Digital India
The aim of Digital India is to make India ready for a knowledge-based future and to focus of the US$17b initiative is on using technology to create a participative, transparent and responsive government. The Digital India programme envisages to provide: Digital Infrastructure as a core Utility to Every Citizen by ensuring high-speed internet, mobile phone and bank account enabling participation in digital & financial space; shareable private space on a public cloud, and creating a safe and secure cyber space, governance and services on demand with seamless integration across departments/jurisdictions; and ensuring availability of services in real time from online and mobile platforms for ease of doing business, leveraging geographical information systems (GIS) etc.
Also, the aim is to provide the digital empowerment of citizens by taking digital literacy to the next level and by providing digital resources in Indian languages, citizens not required to submit physical documents, etc. The main investments in support of Digital India are the following: Reliance Industries Ltd: US$ 39.3b, Bharti Airtel: US$ 15b, Aditya Birla Group: US$ 7b, Vedanta (Sterlite Tech): US$ 6b, Vodaphone: US$ 2b, ADA Ltd: US$ 1.4b.
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