As Prime Minister Modi concludes his historic visit of the US west Coast aggressively selling the concept of Digital India to the US tech industry, back in India, it is recognized that the Digital India initiatives need to be supported by other support initiatives.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) should be the natural leader in developing this support system. Other ministries including the Education Ministry, Commerce Ministry, the Law Ministry and the Finance Ministry also have their roles to play. When it comes to security of Digital India, even the Home Ministry needs to provide its support.
At present, Mr Modi is running ahead of others with his ideas and marketing efforts. But others don’t seem to be able to catch up with him. In particular, the bureaucracy appear to be completely confused.
The scenario as it is building up is very much like a management problem that a CEO of a company faces when a major new project is being taken up for implementation and the organization as a whole is not ready for the change.
Some of the recent decisions of the MCIT which are initiated by the DeitY have created a concern among Information Security professionals that DeitY has no clue on the problems that Digital India implementation and Security requirements.
But, instead of remaining arm chair critics, a responsible group of Information Security professionals have decided that they would support the Digital India initiative of the Government with a “Secure Digital India” initiative.
The group has formed a “Special Interest Group” and will collaborate through the Face Book page and try to develop specific documents commenting on the information security aspects of Digital India. It will be a non Government voluntary initiative aimed at working like a “Shadow Cyber Security Expert Group” advising the Government (though unsolicited at this point of time) through the social media on issues relevant to Secure Digital India.
I look forward to your support in this initiative.
Naavi
