![Rajeev Chandrasekhar](https://img.etimg.com/thumb/msid-107302019,width-650,height-488,imgsize-43572,resizemode-75/rajeev-chandrasekhar.jpg)
In an interview to ET, he said when was appointed as minister of state in July 2021, he had set up a timer in his office to keep track of the deliverables assigned to him by the government.
The timer comes to an end on February 3, he said, adding that he believes he has managed to achieve most of the goals, sans one – the overhaul of the 24-year-old IT Act through the Digital India Act, the draft of which could not be released for consultation. He hopes that the next government will take the process forward. Edited excerpts:
If you look back at the goals that you had set at the start of the 1,000-day clock counter, how many of those do you think you have been able to achieve?
My goals were broadly divided into six categories. The first was to ensure growth of the digital economy. Establishing global standard cyber laws and ensuring that the deep tech, research and development ecosystem and talent pool grew decisively were some of the other major goals that I had. In a lot of ways, those are the big goals of the government. What we have done over the last 1,000 days, fits into those five to six buckets.
Are there any goals that you would have liked to achieve but missed out on?
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I think there is only one thing from 1,000 days ago that we thought we would be able to do but have been unable to do. That is the Digital India Act (DIA). We ran out of time as far as the DIA is concerned and that too only because were running a very careful, open, transparent consultation process. We started about a year ago, doing an extraordinary amount of pre-consultation for the legislation. That is one process I would have certainly liked to complete.
It is also important because in a changed landscape of technology, where there are many growth opportunities, the threats and challenges emerging are also evolving. The DIA would have been a legislation that would have signalled to the world India’s thinking on the future of tech and how the guiding principles of openness, safety, trust and accountability can be achieved. I hope that the next government takes it up.
How do you view the pushback from social media intermediaries on the issue of regulation?
There has been a paradigm shift in how we are approaching these platforms. For decades, these platforms masqueraded as innovation and technology platforms to escape any kind of regulation. During that conversation, in which they wriggled out of the regulations from the government, they also said that we will allow anonymous use of the platform. Every time they were asked to help sort out the consequences of what was going on the platform, they would say we are not accountable. India is the first country that started evolving a framework where platforms are held accountable, by introducing the Information Technology Rules in May 2021.
First, safe harbour for the platforms was made conditional on them not allowing unlawful content. That conditional safe harbour is becoming tighter with time, to a point where it will not be applicable by default at all and will have to be earned. We have successfully created a totally unambiguous understanding within platforms that it is not the government or the user but the platform that is accountable.
What about anonymous accounts?
We have no problems with anonymous accounts. You may be anonymous to me as a user or even the government. That is fine with us. What we do not accept is that even the intermediary does not know who the user is. There should be some form of identification that they have to know and recognise who that user is. Because if I do something unlawful on the platform, violate the terms of use of the platform and that violation trespasses into something criminal, the platform should not be in a situation to say I don't know who the user is. What that process to identify users is they will have to determine themselves. The government will not dictate that.
For years, you raised several issues related to the internet, telecommunications, and technology, both as a member of Parliament, an entrepreneur and as an activist. You are now on the other side of the table. How difficult is it to get all stakeholders to agree?
For eight out of the 18 years, I was an opposition MP. I had a ringside view of changes in technology. All this time, I have raised the issue of the 2G scam, the monopolistic behaviour of telecom companies, the price gouging on SMS, among others. From 2014, the paradigm of tech has shifted. The government’s firm commitment was about really enabling the transformation, which is what led to the birth of UPI, DBT and all other forms of digital public infrastructure. The technology ecosystem has evolved in a much more orderly, equitable manner so that it benefits even the common man and it is not built around the ambitions and visions of just the big tech companies.
How do you respond to claims of the government being omnipresent and spying on citizens through calls, messages, emails, and financial transactions, among other means?
There is a huge debate around pretty much every digital issue and digital policymaking these days. That is a good thing because it is representative of a vibrant democracy. It is, however, disappointing that in some cases, so-called experts get into this debate with a view of creating noise rather than really leading this debate into something which is informed and will create a solution.
Every citizen, small or big business is generating and consuming data and leaving a digital footprint that is much more visible, is deeper and wider. For many years, these footprints had been misused and exploited. Many of these so-called experts and expert bodies would rather have long debates on an absolutist, utopian and impractical world where things are perfect. But we do not live in a perfect world.
For example, anybody and everybody knows today that any elected government has the right to lawful surveillance. This is the only way a democracy, an open society can protect itself against terrorism and illegal (activities). This lawfully permitted ability to intercept and surveillance has always been there.
Every citizen today has the right to challenge a government if he or she feels that the government is overstepping. To say that surveillance should never happen is really to not understand what tools a law enforcement agency requires and how a law-abiding, democratic society functions.
Electronics and mobile phone manufacturing is the poster child of this government’s manufacturing policy success. Can that be replicated in semiconductor fabrication?
In 2014, we were import-dependent and today we are an exporting nation as far as mobile phones are concerned. As Tim Cook said despite having zero manufacturing presence in India two-and-a-half years ago, they were able to ramp up so quickly and have up to 15% of the total global production from here because of all the government policies leading up to 2021.
These policies created an ecosystem which supported electronics manufacturing which included but was not limited to duty reforms. Electronics manufacturing is certainly going to be a $300 billion industry by 2026-27, and we are on track to achieve that.
The India semiconductor story is a story of missed opportunities. We had SCL but did not do anything with it and sort of let it fail. Following the announcement of the policy in late 2021 and early 2022, there were some early missteps and hiccups. But I am happy to say we are at a very positive place in terms of how the sector has progressed.