Rajeev Chandrasekhar bats for Made in India cyber security tech

Union minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The Union government is committed to promoting domestic, Made in India technology for cybersecurity, said Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on November 7.

Speaking virtually at the Nasscom Future Forge 2023 event in Bengaluru, Chandrasekhar said: "I had a meeting today where we formulated the concepts for rolling out and driving innovation in cybersecurity in India."

Chandrasekhar said the landscape of cybersecurity will undergo significant changes in the next three to six months, benefiting those involved in developing homegrown technology.

He said, "The Government of India also aims to secure its own digital workspace and digital footprint, leading to a significant expansion of the market for these technologies, products, and platforms in the coming months."

The minister acknowledged that there is a lack of awareness about cybersecurity, even among Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), which poses a challenge.

He highlighted the government's efforts to address this issue, saying, "CISOs in large enterprises, government, or small enterprises are not well-versed in cybersecurity. We are addressing this by revamping the Information Security Awareness programme to enhance the competency and capability of CISOs. We are creating a reskilling and upskilling ladder for them, with the requirement for recurrent training each year."

India AI programme soon to get cabinet approval

Chandrasekhar said 'India AI programme' will soon be approved by the cabinet. "We have a draft India AI programme document that will be converted into a cabinet note and we expect it to receive cabinet approval very soon," he said.

He said a large Indian dataset programme is being developed to provide curated access to datasets for the Indian research ecosystem, government, and startup ecosystem. "This platform will be exclusively available to Indian entities and not multinational corporations," he said.

The Union minister said the plan to mandate that any private platform anonymizing personal data, with the consent of the data subject, for their models must be mirrored in the government's anonymised data repository. "The goal is to create one of the largest and most diverse collections of datasets in the world within the next 24 months," he said.

Chandrasekhar encouraged a techno-optimistic outlook but also emphasised the need for guardrails to ensure the safety, trust, and accountability of tech platforms and the underlying technology.

He said, "As the largest connected democracy in the world, we don't view this as a zero-sum game. We believe that AI can be harnessed and grown successfully, allowing startups to thrive and innovate in the AI space while maintaining safety and personal accountability measures, without hindering the momentum and growth of the AI innovation ecosystem."