The Hindu : India leading digital revolution: Jaswant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 11, 2003

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India leading digital revolution: Jaswant

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI Jan. 10. India's success in the information technology sector was due to the "absence of Government'', the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, said on the second day of the `Pravasi Bharatiya Divas' celebrations. Mr. Singh, whose frank comments elicited loud applause, said today that India's success in the IT sector was not because of any Government initiative. The Government had only now discovered the IT sector and even created a new Ministry to deal with the issue.

He claimed that globalisation was not only about trade regulations but the free movement of human creativity from one part of the globe to another without hindrance. Here, Mr. Singh said there was a great future for India and for Pravasi Bharatiyas in particular. "We are now leading the revolution of the digital,'' after missing out on the industrial revolution.

India had managed a growth rate of under six per cent despite the poor monsoon season and a spate of terrorist attacks. Despite the global slowdown, India's exports had grown by 19 per cent.

Mr. Singh was confident that India would not be a mere "service centre'' for the global economy, but would become a major manufacturing base. He saw India as a major "health destination'' as the country produced top class doctors, surgeons and nurses. What was being done abroad could also be done at home.

In what came as music to the ears of overseas Indians (who never tire of complaining of poor conditions at Indian airports), Mr. Singh said the Government must arrange the "infrastructure of arrival and departure''.

Air-India should work more for India than for Air-India. Progress in the airports sector had not been satisfactory. However, in the next 12 to 18 months, there would be a transformation in not just the airport sector, but in highways, railways and ports. There was great potential for India to become a "global dynamo''.

Speaking next, Rahul Bajaj, industrialist, said India should take decisions keeping the national interests in mind. There was need to review the payment of high interest rates for NRI deposits at a time when India's foreign exchange reserves were comfortable. The double taxation avoidance treaty with Mauritius also required re-examination.

Mr. Bajaj said that 40 per cent of the Indian population survived on less than a dollar a day at a time when the Government seemed intent on stressing its successes alone. ``India is moving but other countries are moving faster,'' he said adding that India's potential was well understood, but it was "realisation'' that was required.

For this to happen, "leadership'' was required. Leadership was not just charisma but performance; there could be no tolerance of mediocrity and no compromise with integrity.

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