 Well, I appreciate everyone's coming out on a rainy afternoon for a topic that I think is completely fascinating. And we're lucky to have, as a speaker here, Sachin Pailat, the Minister of State for Technology and Communications, which is a ministry close to my heart. You all know the astounding story of India's progress in information technology, but one of the things that was startling to me in preparing for this event was to find out the extent of broadband deployment in India. And we usually moan about how low it is in the U.S. and how much we need to work on it. And I see that this is a shared concern with India where the deployment is also low. And so as a strategic challenge for both nations, the use of information technology to integrate, to spur economic growth, the use of broadband is just of vital importance. And of course, the close partnership we have now on information technology suggests that there might be some opportunities here. So with that, what I'm going to do is turn it over and ask for the minister to be introduced. And then I'm going to be in the audience and listen to the questions, because this is a vital topic. Thanks again for coming out. Who, I think you're going to do the introduction. Yeah, is that right? You're not. I don't know. We're so organized here. All right, then I'll do it. Great. I can give a spiel. Well, that might be fun. No, this I might. The event here is of great interest to us. It's the SIS, so we're very grateful. The minister pilot could take some time out of his day. He's kind of a remarkable fellow, youngest member of the Indian parliament when he was elected, now a minister, selected as one of the young global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. And he's gone to the Wharton School of Business, which is more or less a credential here in the US that everyone seems to admire. So it's a great opportunity to hear some real insights on how India is thinking about moving ahead. With that, let me turn it over to you, minister pilot. A very good afternoon to all of you, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to come here and share some of my thoughts with you. Now, the topic that I'm supposed to be talking on is about the cooperation in technology between India and the US. What I thought I'd do first is spend a few minutes to create some sort of a snapshot and just to give you a quick picture of what it is that we represent today in India as far as our technology goes, what we've achieved and where we headed. And then go on to areas that we think we can cooperate, some immediately and I think some in the medium to long term. Now, traditionally Indian culture, Indian ethos, our background, our lineage has always fostered scientific temperament, education. It's been there for decades, if not centuries. But I think the last 50 years have really focused Indian education, our academia, our research more on technology and information technology, particularly so in the last two decades. We made quantum jumps, I think, from where we started off. Traditionally, I think India at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1770 accounted for about 20% of the global output of the world. Two centuries later, around 1970s, our share of global output came out of 3%. Perhaps the largest fall ever. But I think that's an aberration if you look back post-independence where we have been and what we've been able to achieve. India is now very quickly transforming itself into a global economy which is integrated with everybody else, many economies around the world and going through a process of metamorphosis where we also become a knowledge economy. The UPA government, the government that I am a part of for the last nine months, was re-elected in last May. I think it shows continuity of polity and policies. But one of the main endeavours of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and of this government is to be able to harness the achievements of our technological innovations, our practices, our know-how, what we've learned, what we have and to really use it internally to be able to do more service delivery in the most optimal fashion. India's export of information technology and information technology enabled services last year was close to $60 billion. And about 80% of this export was to Western Europe and to the US. Despite the economic slowdown globally, I think the IT industry in India was able to maintain a robust growth rate. We grew at about 30% till two years ago, last year was 15%. This year, I think it's about 5.5%. But more importantly, the Indian IT sector, the Indian IT industry, has continued to hire people to create job opportunities, to carry on the growth momentum. And I think the IT sector is now contributing much more than ever before in our GDP. So as we focus outward and we do a lot of our exports and Indian companies have now actually become global benchmark companies, which is something that we're all very proud of. But what we've tried to do is somehow try and internalize some of our learnings and make sure that the government is able to use innovation and technology to deliver service to a lot of people. If I can just take you back in time, in 1995, there's a concept of tele-density. Tele-density basically means number of phone lines per 100 people. In 1995, our tele-density was about one and a half percent. That's because all of our phones were phone lines which were dug up, lines or cables that were hanging overhead. When mobile technology came into India and really took off in the mid-90s, it has made India leapfrog into a country that's tele-density. Today is about 51%. So what we've been able to do is leapfrog because the physical infrastructure was not required and mobile telephony, the call rates came down, the handset charges came down. I'm happy to report the call rates in India are now amongst the lowest in the world. They're between one or two cents a minute. So this is basically proliferated mobile usage in India. So there's a convergence of information technology, mobile technologies, all of it coming onto one platform. The endeavor for our government is to somehow partner with private enterprise, with industry, with NGOs, with entrepreneurs, and then evolve a platform which we've termed the National E-Governance Plan. And on this platform, use that network to be able to deliver service to the last mile. Exporting services is really good. It creates opportunity, it gives us foreign exchange reserves. But to my mind, real value of technology is, can it help make the life of a common Indian citizen living in a village, can it make it better? Can we translate his or her life in a positive fashion using technology? And I think the time has come where we are beginning to make very, very big steps in that direction. We've also started putting up what is known as the common service centers. The concept is to have one common service center on every six village. So India has roughly around 600,000 villages. To have one center on every six village in a PPP mode, where the government gives the network and the backbone and the infrastructure, and an entrepreneur then services the local six villages with giving front end delivery to the people in the villages right at their doorstep. Now, there are about 27 mission mode projects that we've started off with. Some of them are state government controlled, some are federal government controlled, and some are for local bodies. But the kind of services that people had to run pillar and post for, things like land records, birth certificates, death certificates, ration cards, housing certifications. All of those things now once they become digitized and become online, I think it saves a lot of people a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort. Here is where I think we have convergence in terms of what the US government also wants to do is have real e-governance to all its people. We can't achieve that till we have connectivity. Towards that end, the government of India, nine months ago, made a commitment. The honorable president of India addressed the joint session of parliament, and there the government made a commitment that in the next three years, we will connect every panchayat with broadband. Panchayat basically is a cluster of four or five villages. So to get broadband to every village, every panchayat in India in the next three years, that is the commitment that the government of India has made. And we've tried to work very quickly towards that end. The other disparity that we've had is about telephoning. I talked about tele-density. Now, tele-density in cities like Delhi, Chennai, Mangaluru, Hyderabad is very good. It's more than 130, 140 percent, which is comparable to most cities in the Western world and in the US. But in rural India, the tele-density still is 20 percent, 18 percent, 17 percent. So there's a mismatch there, and that's what we need to fix. And that's where the government's role comes into play. I think the US companies have been investing in the Indian economy for a long time. But in mobile technologies, in broadband technologies, in information technology, I think the collaboration and the scope of which is still yet to be harnessed to its fullest potential. Why I'm saying that is because there are some areas of concern which are of mutual interest. Now, the Prime Minister and President Obama have talked about collaboration in aerospace and agriculture and earth sciences and nuclear energy in aerospace, biotech, clinical research. I mean, I can go on. Those are all medium to long-term. And I think we will be able to collaborate enough to have deliverables in the near future. But what's more important is for us to collaborate on issues that concern us immediately. And here I'm going to talk about cybersecurity. The kinds of damage that entities and groups and people can cause through the internet and through the cyber world is somehow disproportionate to their conventional capacities. Now, in order to mitigate those threats, I think we have to do a lot of learning from each other and see how we can best legislate, best execute. And therein somehow limit the damage that can potentially be caused. The number of internet users in India is almost, I think, the same as the number of internet users in the US. But still, our PC penetration is very, very low. And it's unacceptable for us to have the kind of vision that we've had for e-governance without us having a huge proliferation of devices and machines in the rural hinterland. But just to sum up on the last point about cybersecurity, I think we have to understand that it's in the best interest of our government, of our industry. I'm talking about India now. To secure the space as much as possible, last year in October, we notified a new legislation, a new law was put into place, which really gave teeth. And we really studied the legislations, I think, from Europe, from America, from other countries, to see how they have tackled some of their issues relating to cyber crime and data privacy, online fraud, things of that nature. A comprehensive legislation now is in place. And we've set up a tribunal, because I think the conventional law and the Indian Penal Code and the Indian judicial system was perhaps not equipped to handle these kind of challenges. So this law, basically, is very, very comprehensive. It talks about how we can curtail and we have severe punishment for things such as child pornography. There's a huge scope of the act, which talks about how we have to make sure that we have enough safeguards and firewalls within the net space so that it becomes safe not just for individuals to operate on the Indian net space, but also for companies. Indian companies have global clients. It's very important for us to ensure that there is a sense of confidence in such large global clients. Indian companies have the capacity, have the backing of the government, and the laws to make sure that data privacy is guaranteed as best as possible. And I think this law has gone a long way in being able to establish that. The revolution in the telecom sector is very closely tied in with the technological revolution we've had in the IT space. Just to give you a data point, we have in India now about 555 million mobile users. We add about 15 million to 18 million a month. I think in January, we clocked in about 20 million mobile subscribers in that just one month alone. Now, while this is happening, it's also a fact that only 40% of these mobile phone users have bank accounts. That means a large portion of these people who are using these mobile phones don't have access to credit. We've thought about mobile banking and using the handheld device as a tool for financial inclusion. Here again, I think there's a tremendous scope for American companies and investments coming to figure out a way how we can harness this hugely potential area, which will have two very positive endpoints, one, financial inclusion for people of India, and a good way for Indian and American companies to collaborate and invest and find out technologies, how we can get this sorted out as soon as possible. The Reserve Bank of India already has a committee which is looking into issues such as interoperability, which is looking at issues of how much float money to have. We have examples of Mpesa in Kenya. We have examples of Philippines, how they'd run mobile banking, so on and so forth. But because it's a very sensitive area, a lot of thought needs to be put into before we actually formulate a policy. I'm outlining just a few areas where there is potential of collaboration and for our two governments and countries to work together. I think all that is possible if we just take a step back and figure out why we're able to make these assumptions and put these facts on the table. I think the political relationship between India and the US have transformed phenomenally. I think 25 years ago, if someone was to say that this is the kind of interactions we would be having government to government or business to business, something that not many people would have agreed for. But today, I think the kind of confidence we have in each other's abilities to understand each other's sensitivities and underscore that. I think the ability to understand each other's sensitivity is what defines, and I go back to the topic of the discussion, is partners. Now, what are partners? Partners are people, entities, companies, countries which can have and fathom a relationship that is symbiotic in nature. You cannot have a relationship that is one-sided or is skewed towards one or the other. Therefore, two countries which so much to offer, so much to give, and so much to learn from each other, I think, are on equal footing as far as technology is concerned. I do want to make a quick point about what the deliverables can be. So in India, we have one of the largest young population. This population is a demographic dividend. It's a boon. We all keep talking about it. But I think what's really required and very, very important for us in India is to be able to impart skill sets, especially in the field of information technology. India's agrarian economy, 60% of Indians work on the field somehow and contribute 18% of our GDP. In the time to come, you will have to think about how people can get more involved in manufacturing. And the services sector, which is about 57% of our economy, is able to gain from this youthful population. I think even in the US where the unemployment rate now is beyond 10%, you need to retrain and rescale a lot of the people who have been out of work how they can somehow be given the capacity to be re-employed again on the shop floor, in the factories, in the manufacturing units. Just in the hardware sector, I think the numbers are mind-boggling. By 2014, I think, India will require about $400 billion worth of hardware in the IT space. Our domestic capacity will restrain us, and we will have to import almost $280 billion worth of IT hardware. Now, that import bill is going to be only second to our import bill of our energy. In India, we import about 76% of our energy needs. So it's a huge space where, again, I think investments can come in. We have the talent, we have the knowledge, we have the resources, we have the know-how. Many countries are participating in manufacturing in other fields, whether it's automobiles or white goods. But the IT space hardware manufacturing is something that we are very, very keenly looking at in seeing how we can formulate a policy framework where it just not is enough to be economically viable to produce those goods, but it's sustainable in the long run. There are things going on in the WTO, there are FTAs that each country has. There is the economics of how investments will give the returns on the investments. But I'm very keen on this happening, and it will not only give job opportunities for people in India, but also give investment opportunities for many countries like the US. Another area that I want to flag off this afternoon is something that's very important for us. It's about how we can become a country and a society that will be different from what we had 30, 40 years ago. Again, because of the technological advances that we have made, we in the government are going to connect 1,000 nodes, basically for the National Knowledge Network, to connect these 1,000 universities, research institutions, libraries, labs, hospitals, agricultural institutions, so on and so forth, and give them a capacity of 2.5 gigabits per second. That will really form a skeleton and a network wherein then we plug in other colleges and institutions, ultimately aim to target to connect about 20,000 such colleges through this network of high-speed exchange of data, have virtual classroom, telemedicine. There was a survey done in India which revealed that only 10% of the patients actually need to see the doctor physically. 90% of that data can be given through a video conference and we can have the diagnosis done very cheaply at very low incremental cost. I think that's a huge area where the Americans must look at. You have huge changes going on in the health reforms, the healthcare sector. Again, how we can synergize what we are looking to do and what can be done here. Great potential, great opportunity to work together on that front. We have the auctions for the 3G spectrum on April 9th. Two days later, we have the auction for spectrum of the wireless broadband. Again, getting broadband to every village. That's what we want to do. We have a three-year time frame we kept for ourselves. We're using copper wire, optical fire, microwave, private players, government, and I think all of us have to fire on all cylinders to be able to achieve that dream. And once you do that, I think that'll change the way India is as a society and most certainly India as it is a government. And the ideal position for a government to be in is to be able to target the people that need our help and support the most. Again, I'd like to mention the unique ID that is gonna come up. Nandan Nelikani is working very hard on it. I think the first batch of these numbers will be available in the early bit of 2011. Once you have the data, once you have specific numbers, we're using biometrics card to do payments for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which is the only scheme of its kind in the 200 countries around the world that guarantees you 100 days of employment. One able-bodied person in every family is guaranteed 100 days of job. That is being done in some pilot projects. Again, scaling of these pilot projects in the financial sector and the banking sector, using biometrics card, using technology, leveraging all of that, using the handle devices. These are all areas which combine the Indian research and advancements, opportunities for Americans to collaborate with us, invest, and then have mutually beneficial outcome of these investments. I think I've gone on for enough, and I think you've done the card and the mistake of putting a live mic in front of an Indian politician. I mean, I'll go on, but I think it's time for me to sum up just last couple of points. As of 2010, the IT industry in India directly employs about 2.4 million people. Indirectly employ about 8.3 million people. By 2012, we will employ about 13 million people both in hardware and software included. What is also important is what the Prime Minister has been advocating about skill-upgradation of training of people, of capacity building. My department, Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications has been given a mandate of training 10 million people by 2022. So in the next 11 or 12 years, we have to train 10 million people. And I think unless we are able to give them the right platform to display their capacities, their energies, their imagination, their creativity, we won't do justice to this young population. And here again, all the points that I've illustrated this afternoon are open for deliberations, for discussions, especially with our friends in the US. Like I mentioned earlier, we've had technological collaborations, since the 60s, I think NASA's collaboration with India on the Chandrayaan Project was the latest one of those. But in the long term, to have social sector reforms, to make technology remain and become meaningful to the average Indian citizen and the average US citizen, both governments have to work much more closely. And I hope all our efforts will bear fruit in the very near future. So thank you for having me here and I'm available for any question that you might have. Thank you, Mr. Minister. It was an excellent presentation. I'm David Pumphier. I'm with the CSIS Energy and National Security Program and I'm going to moderate the questions. We have also on the panel a representative from the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr. Korana. I don't know if you wanted to say a few words, either in support or rebuttal or an industry perspective, perhaps. So I'll start out by saying that I am not a politician, so I will not speak for long by any means. And right now I feel like I was kind of trying to take a flight to London and I've ended up in Singapore. So I said that. So I am the president of ACL Technologies in the US. ACL Technologies happens to be an IT services firm. It's one of the oldest firms out of India and we have a history of over 35 years. And I thought it was very interesting when I heard Mr. Pather speak about symbiotic relationships between the US and India. Having done a lot of work, having lived most of my life in the US myself, I can tell you that over the last one year, which was a very challenging time as we all know with the unprecedented global economic crisis, the fact is that because of the expertise that we bring to the US, we actually opened up two delivery centers in the US. One in North Carolina, another one in Parsepeni. We added about a thousand jobs in these difficult times. So I think that was good. But I think what is even more important is that we have worked with some of our US clients. We heard about the opportunities that exist in India. We have formed similar alliances and we have actually helped some of them to address some of the markets in India, such as a chip manufacturer and how that actually can be incorporated in desktops that we manufacture out in India. So we've done that. You'd be surprised to know. And I can't take names of any companies just because I wouldn't know offhand whether that's appropriate for me to do so or not, but there's one that you might easily be able to guess for a leading aircraft manufacturer, 80% of their subsystems, 80% of the subsystems have some contribution from us in term of his design and so on. And so certainly that's something where we see a lot of symbiotic relationship between India and the US. And this, especially when we see all these emerging markets, India, market growing, expanding at a very significant rate, I see this partnership that the minister just talked about, just having some absolutely incredible potential. And we look forward to actually being able to work together with many of our US technology partners as we go forward. Thank you. Okay, we can open the floor for questions. We have a couple of microphones so if you can wait when you ask your question. There's also a couple of other ground rules we'd like to have here at CSIS for questions. One is if you can state your name and affiliation, that's always good. And also if you can form your question into a question, if you have a statement to make, if you can kind of find a way to end it in a question. But if you do have a statement, that's fine as well. In listening to this, I was gonna take the prerogative of asking one of the first questions. It's gonna be a little bit from further field because of my own interest areas. But as we've been working on energy, security, and climate change concerns, one of the most interesting areas of interaction is with the IT sector. And what can the IT sector bring to dealing with the energy problems we see in the future? In the US, of course, it just takes the form of what are called smart grids. But I was just wondering if in your work in the ministry, you're beginning to look at this question of how to attack what are very difficult energy challenges you face in India, but building into it some of the technology that may actually help to put you ahead of where the rest of the Western countries at this point are trying to deal with problems in the future. I think the first thing the industry should do and is doing, I think, is reduce its own consumption and see how they can optimize energy consumption for the IT industry itself. It's a hot country, needs a lot of cooling to keep the routers and systems functional. But I think there has been some work done. I don't think it's been to the scale that it'll make a global impact of any sort yet. But there have been works going on how to optimally utilize the energy that we have. Again, the usage of that in terms of planning, I think every prime that we do now has to take into account the environment and the climate change aspects of it and the green technologies. Just to give you one example, what we are looking to do in my ministry is that we have this fund. It's called the Universal Service Obligation Fund. And this fund is, you know, this is a fund of about, I think, four and a half billion dollars. And we're using this fund to basically connect all the areas of our country that have so far not witnessed or enjoyed the fruits of communication evolution that we had 19 years ago. Those are the areas that we're gonna put up mobile towers. It's a huge capital expenditure, but the government is willing to take that because I think it's important for every single Indian citizen to feel a part of this IT revolution and not limited just to the large cities. When we put up these towers, we're attempting to make sure that at least majority of them are powered by solar panels. Once you do that, you not only have low emissions, of course, which is a big advantage, the long-term maintenance costs come down. We can even gain some current credits in the long run if we have one entity. And there are about a quarter of a million mobile towers in India. There is talk of some of the private operators being incentivized to turn to solar energy. So we have, as the government said, that we will produce 20,000 megawatts of power by 2022 from solar and power. So there are a few areas where technology will play a role, if not directly, then most certainly indirectly. Thank you. So, questions? Take one here. I'm Bob Hershey. I'm a consultant. To what extent are you able to hold meetings online and get things transparent? To a very large extent. Very large extent. Our own offices in Delhi. A lot of the meetings we do are on video conference and it's good quality. It's very little time lag. And one of the things we've done in India is we've tried to remain technology neutral. So we had GSM, we have CDMA. Just five months ago, we launched Weimax. We get open for 3G, 4G, LTE. I mean, idea is to be able to deliver and get the best service possible to our citizens at the lowest cost, in good quality. That's the mandate that any government has and certainly our government. Whoever does it the best, you compete, you cost cut, you fight with each other, it's even better for the consumers. That's why the call rates are what they are today. But that live video conferencing is something that now is getting demanded by a lot more than just the big corporations or the government departments. I think people are looking and wanting online gaming, video conferencing, live TV. That's the value added services that is going to be the next phase of revolution in the telecom sector. So the call rates are being so cheap. A lot of the telecom companies keep complaining how they're bleeding and how they're in the red. I think there's not far than perhaps one day call charges will be free. People have to make money on data transfer. It's just an assumption, but that's the way it's headed. But that's certainly the next phase of the demands that the Indian telecom consumers are making. And most certainly the way the telecom operators are looking at it in the future. I'm Fred Axelgard with General Dynamics. Two questions. You spoke about expanding the broadband to as many Indian villages as possible. The things that you spoke about achieving through that were services of administrative and regulatory nature being provided, but then healthcare as well. What vision do you have for actually transforming the productive economic activity at the end of that network? How would the economic activity change for the villages at the end of the broadband network? Second question, quite of a different nature. About 10 years ago, the Indian private sector began to be involved in the defense sector. But we found that across the board and even in the IT sector, where India has such a tremendous capability, it's been very slow to take hold. Do you have any prognosis for how to make companies like HCL and Wipro and others put them in a position to have a more significant role in the security? Did you put them up for that question? Yeah, I did, but I should have. Okay, the first part of the question. You know, in the early 80s, when government officers were given computers in the offices, what were they using it for? I remember seeing it. I was very young, you know, taking out printouts and playing Pac-Man. That's all they were using it for. So the whole generation just got the feel of it and started using it, but it was an investment worth it because today, the second generation is being able to leverage on that experience that we had in the early 80s. Once you have the kind of connectivity that we are envisioning, what we are saying is government to consumer services. That's the basic requirement. That's what we have to do. It's our mandate, but beyond that, I think the opportunities are limitless as to what it might happen. I know some of the common service centers that are functional now. We wanted to give land records and certificates and housing permissions, et cetera. People were using it for surfing the net for matrimonial alliances. They were using it for taking digital photographs. They were using it for coaching classes just to get acquainted with Excel and Word, et cetera. So how the economics of it will change, I really can't say, but I do know that how the internet and how the mobile has changed lives of so many people around the world, broadband connectivity in rural India will certainly have a paradigm shift in the way they operate and do business and do social networking or any of that. So it'll have a cascading effect to the point that it's difficult for us to foresee, but it'll be a significant one. About companies participating, I think there's been some discussion on that. I don't think I'm in a position to give you a confirmed answer for that, but I do believe that there has been some forward momentum in taking those discussions forward as to what extent and how can private IT companies play a more bigger role in the defense aspect of our country. Since I have this mic here. My name is Alyssa Arizona with McLarty Associates here in Washington. Mr. Minister, I wonder if you could speak a little bit in some detail about your vision to pull in the United States and India to collaborate more closely in the IT space. What you described in some of the most exciting initiatives that are underway right now in India seem to be grassroots level, e-governance kinds of initiatives. It is oftentimes very difficult for our governments relate to each other at the federal level, so from center to center, from Washington to New Delhi. But what's happening within the e-governance space is very much grassroots and going down to district level. So I wonder if you could describe what you would see as potential areas for cooperation that would involve the United States or find some way to pull in the U.S., going down to the district level. How to pull in the U.S. government now, that's tough one. I think it has to come on a mutual basis. There has to be need, there has to be an opportunity. There has to be a willing partner to cooperate and only then things will fruitify. It's not for anyone to say that, why don't you do this because it's a good CSR. No government does that because CSR. You do want to know of things. But like I said in my comments earlier on, I think to start off, and we've got to start doing, we already cooperate. We have joint discussion groups. We have an ICT working group already in place. There are other areas that we discuss this morning how we can cooperate. But issues of, I think, things like hacking and cyber security, these are just, I think to my mind, low-hanging foods where we need to collaborate today. We don't need a long-term agenda for that. I just, that's a no-brainer for us to partner with each other. But how the U.S. or any other company is going to participate in the national e-governance program, I think that's, it's still, there's a lot of thought that needs to be given to that. Because first it's the Indian government that must be there. We have our own state governments. Some of, sometimes, we don't work that cohesively as we should. But given that, a lot of the e-governance projects, a lot of the e-governance that has to happen, has to happen from the state government's domain. The central government does things like filing off corporate returns, income tax returns, getting a passport made. These are all central government domain functions. But vast majority of the functions still reside with the state government. So we've got to first sort that out. I think once that's in place, and like I was answering the earlier question, the gentleman here, then the opportunities open up, then there'll be more economic activity, there'll be more business to business, consumer to consumer. So it will all start happening once we have the infrastructure in place, once we have the first set of services, once people get acquainted and used to using the internet, and the digitized way of getting services from its government and municipalities. Once that happens, I think then we'll have many, many more ways where we can explore and exploit that potential. To the side, that way along the wall. Hi, thank you, thank you for your talk. My name is Kristy Larsen, I'm an editor at Form Policy Magazine. You've talked about efforts to increase the distribution and dissemination of certain kinds of technologies, e-banking, among others. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about efforts to foster, or build the conditions to foster, innovation within India. There's a lot of academic articles. Can you repeat that, innovations within? Innovation, domestic innovation within India. There's a lot of academic articles that label different corridors in Bangalore, the emerging Silicon Valley of India, or something to this effect. But I wonder just if you could talk about efforts to encourage more innovation within India. Certainly, and I've been giving this sort of advice to a lot of the Indian IT companies. We've been able to create a space for ourselves in the IT export domain. I think for the global outsourcing market, India accounts for 51% of that. It's not a small number. But I think the cost advantage, or India's economy known for its cost-competitiveness, I think that's not gonna be there forever. There are competing economies around the world which are vying for that space. So once the IT services become commoditized, we have to then start reinventing our own selves. So the companies must invest more money and do more R&D to be able to provide more niche services and to a global client base, as opposed to just targeting to West Europe and the US. I've been encouraging companies in India to start looking at Africa, to start looking at South Asia, Eastern Europe, even Russia and China, where we must be able to do more of these IT export of our services. Because as any good investor, you have to diversify the portfolio of your export destinations. So it's better for us as an IT hub to have a global presence, which we do to some extent, but it's not as equitable as it should be. Second point, we have to start creating a more robust domestic market. As of date, our domestic IT market is about $13 billion. It's not insignificant, but it's not what it could be. Therefore the SMEs, which really are the bulwark for any economy, whether it's German, American, Japanese, or even in India, the SMEs are the ones that will take and propel India forward. So we have to make sure that some of the IT companies who have some good ideas, the government supports them by the way, we have incubation centers, we have state technology parks, they're 51 state technology parks that the government of India has sponsored. We give them seed money, we give them connectivity. If they get the ideas, we give the capital and really make life easy as much as we can for the entrepreneurs who have some sort of innovative ideas to give fruit to their creative imaginations. It's happening at all fronts, but I think moving forward, we are going to focus on two or three things which are manufacturing, certainly IT manufacturing is something that we have to focus on. And we are in the process of concretizing the establishing of 14 world-class innovation universities. These are going to be universities that the government of India has been thinking about setting up. When I say innovation, it'll be all about the cutting-edge technologies and to be able to have the faculty and the resources in a university that is going to be thinking, hopefully, 20, 30, 40 years ahead. And that's when you transform India from an IT outsourcing economy, perhaps to a knowledge-based economy. And that's the value that we must try and incorporate into our government and certainly into our industry as soon as possible. If I can just add something there. From a business perspective, I just want to second what the minister just said. See, in our case, we absolutely believe that the so-called cost factor labor arbitrage, that's a very fleeting kind of a phenomena that's not going to last. And we have to be much more value-oriented with our clients and customers. To have a very global orientation, as we just stated, we have, over the last year or so, opened up facilities, centers, offices in Sao Paulo and other areas in Brazil. We have opened up in Poland. We have opened up in China and so on. So that global perspective is absolutely critical. And one of the key forays in the market today is that we work with our clients on what we call as cooperative innovation. So we actually collaborate with them to see how we can actually make a significant difference in their addressable of their markets. So our relationship with them is more dependent on not just the work that we are doing for them, per se, for their internal IT. But what is it that we are doing that collaboratively that can actually give them a competitive advantage in their markets? And that certainly is a thrust that we have adopted. And there's a lot of progress that we've made in this collaborative innovation. Chitra Nandrajgata from Times of India. Do you have a sense? What is the IT awareness, IT literacy of your ministerial colleagues who are over 50? Not counting Mr. Tharu, but over 50. Is he over 50? I think so. And secondly, have you ever looked at the various websites of various garment of India entities? And do you have a sense of how bad or good they are? I think let me answer the second one first. It's a judgmental view. I mean, you can think about what's good, what's bad, and depends on who's looking at it and how you rate it. If it's too much data, if it's informative and not fancy enough, it may be viewed as not so good. But I think what the government entities do is try and their best to keep themselves their presence online. I think that's your objective of the exercise. If you compare it to some other corporate client who probably pays a lot more money and more attention to their net presence. But I take your point that I think that the awareness level at the bureaucratic level and at the government level for IT and how important it is as a tool to be able to play the role of a catalyst in transforming our society, I think that awareness needs to be enhanced more certainly. I don't want to comment on how much each person knows in the cabinet or in the parliament. But you'll be surprised, actually. I don't have the exact number. That's why I'm not answering your question directly. But I can tell you, you will be surprised as with most people in this room as to how many politicians, whether they are members of parliament or members of the cabinet or members of the legislative assembly in the states, are using in their homes and offices with their own age, perhaps not directly, but accessing and doing research and getting information and being as efficient as possible using the internet. I mean, are they all 24-7 social networking presence? I think they're that, but they're certainly using these tools. And what's more important, I think, is that the direction which the government takes. It's a collective responsibility. So here we have a prime minister, I think, who may not have time for his own use on the computer, but he certainly has been encouraging us and advocating for us that you must use the latest tools available in technology to be able to say what the government is doing and to be able to bring about that change. I think his leadership is providing us with the encouragement that is needed to take out and champion this cause. It's not a small endeavor. I think it's a huge undertaking for the government to earmark the kind of money that we have done. And only to see that we are able to, again, leapfrog. That's the only way we are able to be able to become the country that we want to become a 21st century India is possible only through technology. And I think that is very well established in minds of all people, including politicians. Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. Sorry, can I just add? I think the reason why a lot of the journalists became internet users is because, you know, they were forced to. And there was no other way you could report without besides emailing. Why don't you force them out of foreign ideas? It is, it is. But I think at least the younger set of politicians across India and perhaps across parties, I'll be surprised if there are even one or two who don't use technology as a tool for their personal or their professional work. It's not possible to really be efficient today and not use technology. Mr. Minister, I'm David Gross with Wiley Ryan now. Perhaps in partial defense of your answer, as someone who has looked at the websites across the world, I can at least speak to the Indian, the TRI website and your ministry website is actually being quite good and very helpful and very... Sorry, see that again? I didn't hear you. I can't speak for the rest of the Indian government on that. I can speak at least to the ICT ministry and try. If I may, Mr. Minister, you spoke with great passion about the importance of connecting all of India, particularly with broadband. You noted the upcoming three G auctions in just a couple of weeks. Those have long been coming. Recently here in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission staff issued its national broadband plan, which identified the need for another 500 megahertz, 500 megahertz of spectrum to be allocated for broadband purposes. Can you share with us your vision for India's future, a wireless future for broadband? Where will India get that additional spectrum after these three G auctions? And are there opportunities for working with governments around the world, including the U.S. government, to help do that transition? If you go back in time, spectrum is a commodity which no one really cared about very much. People just sat on it. And over the years, there has been more and more usage of it and certainly more optimal usage of it. I think the kind of traffic that the two G spectrum has been carrying demonstrates to anybody the capacity and the volume that it can take. I think we have sufficient spectrum allocation done already for the auction that are happening. It's five megahertz spectrum band for each slot. And we're doing about four slots on average in the 22 circles in India for these auctions to go up. I don't think that's a constraint. What is more important is that the rollouts of these happen. If you take the examples of what happened in England and France, is that the auctions went off to a point where most of the operators were pretty much bankrupt by the time it came down to rollouts. So they had paid so much money for the spectrum that they couldn't roll out. I hope that we, once the auctions go underway, will make a lot of money for the government because it's actually the people's asset. We must get the maximum value that we can for that. But post that, the real key lies in deployment and rolling out of these services. But I think once the broadband auctions also take place two days after the 3G auctions, that will set the stage. And like I said, we're using all of those platforms, whether it's the old legacy copper wire or the fiber optics or the wireless. All of that has to go from both the PSUs, which is the public sector undertakings of the government of India, plus the private sector. And I think as demand goes, efficiency and optimal usage also adds its own advantage in the future. So I'm not overly concerned about how there will be a constraint, at least in the spectrum front. What is the other question I'm forgetting? No, that was the question. Oh, what I related was, if you thought there was a need for further spectrum, as I know, I'm impressed that you don't think that there will be. But for now, again, there's a defense which uses a spectrum and between the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Information Broadcasting, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Telecom. I think it's enough to go around. Again, depends on who uses it, how optimally. But for the time being, I think that's not a constraint. Certainly not. We'll see what happens in the future. Thank you. Go ahead, India. Mr. Minister, Indian ITs have shaped the future and present of the United States. In every field, you see ITs, every agency, everywhere, in every business. How are they doing in India? And now, are you going to have some kind of interaction here, because President Obama's admissions is talking about the future of ITs and this. Are you going to have some kind of new agreements or more ITs are coming to the US? I think IT companies from both countries have been participating in each other's economies for a long time. Idea is, what are the new avenues for us to explore that potential? And I think both governments are very, very conscious and working very actively towards that. The main point about IT in India and why it's been talked about so much is that it has created the kind of jobs that no other sector was able to create in such a short time. When the economic slowdown happened two years ago, most of the economies did poorly. India did still post quite a robust growth of 6% and 7%. And hopefully, we'll clock it up 9% next financial year. But in spite of all that downturn, the Indian IT sector was still hiding people. I think that's an important part to understand, that people were getting laid off in most industries in most countries around the world. But the IT industry in India was still very, very dynamic, because I think it also realized that it has to adapt itself to the changes that are happening globally. So when a downturn happens, people spend less money, but want to spend more money on how to save their costs. It all comes back to the IT aspect of their functionalities. Therefore, the IT space in India is bound to only grow. But it's best that we grow in such a way that we are able to benefit a much larger population. The objective of the exercise is not really to collect foreign exchange dollars in our bank accounts for the government, but it's also to create the structure that we need, the networks that we need, the delivery mechanism that we need, the backlog and loopholes we've had in the past. All of that will only go away once we start to embrace this new paradigm of delivery of services, more importantly. And that's where I think there's lots of cross-learning to be done. The US government, as I've been told, is very, very keen on finding out new ways, how innovation and technology can bring about a change to lives of people who really haven't benefited so far. It's exactly the identical objective that we have back in India. But I think our demands on us are much more because the population that has really been cut off from the technological world is a whole lot more. So there's great opportunities on that front also. I'm just looking at, sorry, I'm just looking at one data point that I think it's good for you to hear this. By 2030, nine of the 10 mobile phones will be owned by people in the developing world. Good follow. This new healthcare bill, how is it going to affect as far as people in India are concerned? And also, most Americans feel here that outsourcing to India is taking their jobs from here. And H-1B visa also going to affect as far as administration is concerned. What are you going to tell Indian Americans here? Is outsourcing right sourcing? Outsourcing, it's from here. And what message do you have, Mr. Minister, for Indian Americans here who are losing jobs or maybe heading home back because of those problems facing here? Well, you see, economics, the cycles of economy in different countries are a phenomena that I really don't want to comment on. It just happens what it is. But I'm hopeful that in the time to come, what will happen is that there is mutual benefit from the cost savings. I think the 21st century is a world that we realize is one that has to be open to a free flow of capital, of goods, of services. And I think to that end, there is unanimity of view. There may be a few impediments on how and why small issues come up all the time. I think you mentioned about the H-1 visa issue. About the stock of, in some quarters, about protectionism, et cetera. But if we take a macro view of how the two countries have seen each other and how we want to progress, I think all of these impediments will be overcome very, very easily. But it's important to understand that the Indian IT companies working and operating in America are American companies now. They hire Americans. They give American jobs. I wish I had the consolidated number with me. I'd love to share that with you. The number of jobs that are being offered, the number of the IT companies here, which are employing American people, or even if they're Indian origin people, are paying corporate tax. These employees are paying income tax. They're contributing to the social healthcare schemes, which perhaps they'll never see any light of that day. But all of that goes into the economy. So I think there was some data again which I was going through some papers. The cost savings just for the American companies in the last two years by right sourcing is about $25 billion. That's an estimate from one study. So as the economies grow, opportunities grow, we have to adapt ourselves to the changing global economic realities. It is a fact that the nucleus of growth globally is shifting eastward. And I won't exaggerate if I say that to some extent, India and China, as two very large economies, have been able to soften the blows of the economic downturn that had hit most of the developed world. And by, I think by 2020, you'll have another 1 billion people which will enter the middle classes. And a large part of that 1 billion middle class is going to be from developing countries, especially from Asia. So this is the economic reality. We still need every country, every region, every continent to partner with each other, to really benefit from each other and grow as a human race. There is no question about it that two strong democratic countries like India and the US can be the front runners for being one of the best mutually appreciable, friendly countries. Okay, we've got time for one more question, so. Actually, I hate to do this. Claudio Lilienfeldt from the Office of the US Trade Representative, this is actually helping to answer this last question is to make the point, this is something that we actually just talked about in our bilateral discussions two weeks ago when Commerce Minister Sharma was here, that the reality in services trade is that we are effectively 50-50 balanced. And I think that's part of the answer to the question that it also goes to the point, I believe, where India's economic growth is of course of interest to us as well. So there may be jobs created in India, but the idea that we are working on exports from the United States to service that growth and vice versa to invite investment here, I mean, are things that we're working on actively. And as you're aware now, we're of course always interested in finding new ways in which the governments can work together to enhance the trade in the ICT sector, services and goods. So I just throw that out. Incidentally, the rate of decline of the exports of U.S. out has been the lowest for India. The rate of decline has been there because I think there's been a marginal dip, but the rate of decline towards exports to India has been far less than any other country. I think you all read the Pew poll, the kind of sentiments people have about this country in India is a whole lot better than a lot of regions across the globe. So I think the sentiments are there, the political will is certainly there, there is an economic need, there is a social collaboration that's gone on for decades. So I think the time is ripe, time is ripe and right for us to really put it together and make sure that we have very time-bound, tangible, deliverable that will come out of this cooperation and sooner the better. You know, that thing as a proof point, as I said earlier, we are just one Indian company, I should literally say global company. We added a thousand jobs in the US when there was a big downturn. So that kind of the proof point that things work both ways. You know, it's not just a one way kind of an outflow here. Mr. Minister, I want to thank you very much for this excellent presentation. I think your level of energy and enthusiasm speaks well for the future for India and especially in this area. So thank you very much for joining us and please join me in thanking the minister. Thank you very much.