Mobiles preloaded with vernacular languages to drive 'Digital India'

NEW DELHI: Mobile handsets should come with certain vernacular languages and they should be pre-loaded in the phone to drive forward the Digital India agenda, said Pankaj Mohindroo, National President, Indian Cellular Association (ICA) at an event.

Yesterday, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) organized a seminar on "Integrated Digital Solutions for a Smarter India" here.

"Leveraging Information communications technology in building India’s digital future” highlighted that in order to make Digital India initiative a success, the Government must deeply focus on the bottom of the pyramid population, those who own low-end smartphone /feature phones and focus must be to build up robust solutions to handle the issues faced by the targeted population,” said Mohindroo, who is also the Chairman of Fast Track Task Force (FTTF) set up by DeitY to promote mobile manufacturing eco-system in India,

He further highlighted that, “Increase in local language content is another important issue, and solutions related to these needs to be implemented in handsets to increase mobile penetration and increase in its usage."

“There should be an integrated and common approach to be followed by all relevant stakeholders from the government and Industry to work together in addressing the common challenges which hinders the growth of the Digital India mandate. For example Issues like laying up of Optical fibres, which involve multiple Government agencies and Industry stakeholders need to be commonly planned and executed for getting better results, “ said Sanjay Bhasin, Trustee and Deputy Chairman of the Apex Council of the Action Centre for Smart and Broadband Bharat (ACSBB) and former VP – Samsung Network division.

The Indian Cellular Association (ICA) has recently entered into an agreement with the Institute for Information Industry (III), Taiwan to co-operate in various fields including the National Optical Fibre Network (NoFN), Smart cities, Internet of Things (IoT) and promote other technologies to take forward the Digital India vision of the government of India. Joining hands with Globally renowned institutions like III, Taiwan is considered to be an important milestone and in further boosting the charter of ACSBB.