 Chairman, Honourable Ministers, Secretary-General of the ITU, Deputy Ministers, Ambassadors, Members, Ladies and Gentlemen. On behalf of the people of India and the Government of India, I would like to thank the UAE for their warm hospitality in hosting the ITU PP 2018. I would also like to congratulate the ITU under the Secretary-General for providing strong and progressive leadership in promoting ICTs. As we all know, information and communication technologies are today deeply intertwined with almost every aspect of individual, societal and global activity, transforming societies and economies everywhere. Four years ago, our Government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, launched the Digital India Initiative, a flagship program to transform India into a digitally inclusive and empowered society where the benefits of digital connectivity and services would be available to all. Key initiatives under the Digital India Program include providing every Indian a digital identity, ensuring ubiquitous broadband and mobile connectivity, including in the remote rural heartlands of India, a digital literacy program for 60 million underprivileged households, and digital banking and direct benefit transfer whereby 300 million citizens could receive their entitlements directly. Today, I am happy to state that 1.2 billion Indians have a digital identity, thus enabling them to participate fully in the digital society. 1.18 billion mobile phones are available, almost half a billion people have smartphone access, and today India offers the lowest voice and data costs in the world, where we offer 1 GB of data per day at a cost of less than $2 per month. India also, in the last year, became the highest mobile data consumer in the world. But most important of all, for the first time, India was able to ensure that 300 million financially excluded people had access to digital banking, thus enabling their closer integration into the economic mainstream. In the last four years, India has also doubled its connectivity infrastructure, both in terms of optic fiber cable and towers, and we are now working with global partners to get India ready for 5G and the new technologies, artificial intelligence, big data and the cloud. India has since the inception of the ITU been a strong proponent of the ITU. In this era of building an information society for humankind, India believes that the ITU more than ever before has a central role to play in the growth and development of people and ideas and in bridging divides of various kinds. India would be more than a willing partner in working with the ITU and indeed with all fellow member states to realize the vision of a secure information society as envisaged in the World Summit on Information Society for ensuring a shared, interconnected and better future for all our peoples. As a committed and trusted partner in taking forward the global development agenda of the ITU, India solicits the support of all member states to serve as a member of the ITU Council for the period 2019 to 2022. I invite you all for the coffee break at 10.30am tomorrow and wish all of you a very meaningful and rewarding plenipotentiary conference 2018. Thank you.