Manoj Sinha calls for migrating from Information Societies’ to ‘knowledge societies’ to serve the mankind

NEW DELHI: Minister of Communications Manoj Sinha has called for migrating from ‘Information Societies’ to ‘knowledge societies’ so as to ensure that information is not only created and disseminated but also put to the service of mankind.

Speaking at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Forum-2017 at Geneva, he particularly drew attention of the Ministers across the world, towards the unfinished work of Tunis Agenda in this regard. In order to implement this ambitious agenda, he called for establishing ‘solidarity fund’ and ‘technology facilitation mechanism’.

Sinha urged developing countries, particularly Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Land Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to exploit the advantages of ICT in their governance and social programming’s as these are low hanging fruits with potential to provide exponentially higher returns over the traditional system.

In order to implement the WSIS+10 Agenda, Sinha referred to the commitments made in Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development, where international cooperation and flow of financial resources from developed countries towards developing countries were specifically agreed.

He also called for ensuring central role of governments in managing internet security and urgent need for developing ‘common minimum agreement’ for cyber security issues.

Sinha specially pitched for ensuring global nature of investment competencies, technology, open and secure internet so as to effectively use ICTs for implementation of SDGs. He called for free, fair and speedy movement of expertise for attaining the WSIS goals and assured full support of India, in this regard.

He termed building global consensus to address priorities and challenges, development of national plans and effective participation of stakeholders at all levels of governance as key to successful implementation of ICTs. Highlighting the exponential improvement in ease of doing business under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he invited the world leaders to invest in India and welcomed the developing countries particularly LDCs to come forward and learn from the technology, processes & procedures, and best practices followed by India in harnessing ICTs for fulfilling its developmental and social agenda.

Speaking at High level policy session, Secretary (Telecom), Aruna Sundararajan pitched for building an environment of confidence and security for ICT which has become the lifeline of the world.

She highlighted India’s holistic approach in addressing ICT security issues through comprehensive regulatory framework in financial sector, and through proper telecom infrastructure and enforcement mechanism.