Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as his NDA-led government, has been publically vocal about adopting emerging technologies. It has been showcased by their marked preference in taking proactive steps towards helping the private sector, as well as updating the public sector and government entities with new technologies.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data have been of keen interest to PM Modi. Through a series of events and speeches over his last term and his new term, he has been deliberately showcasing India as well as his government as technologically-forward. The results are friendlier relationships with countries like Japan and the US.
The recently-concluded Howdy Modi event was one of the highlights of the PM Modi’s seven-day tour in the US. At the event, he shared the stage with US President Donald Trump and addressed 50,000 Indian-Americans in Houston.
Over the last five-odd years, PM Modi has been highlighting the importance of data and the importance of leveraging it in numerous speeches and talks. Here are the top five picks:
At the Howdy Modi Event in Texas (Sep 2019)
“Today it is said that data is the new oil. I will also add that data is the new gold. Industry 4.0 is focused on data. Now, please listen carefully, if there is one country in the world where data is cheapest, then that is India… In fact, digital India is India’s new face to the world.”
International Yoga Day (June 2019)
“Just as the software of our mobile phones keeps getting updated, similarly, we need to update the world with new information on Yoga. Therefore, it is essential that we do not keep Yoga limited. Yoga must be linked with medical, physiotherapy, artificial intelligence. Moreover, we have to encourage the private enterprise spirit associated with yoga; only then, we will be able to expand yoga.”
PM Modi in BJP’s ‘Sankalp Patra’ (Apr 2019)
In the 2019 manifesto, BJP has promised to make India the 3rd largest economy in the world by 2030, with a GDP of $10 trillion by the year 2032. To achieve this, they have promised to promote artificial intelligence, data analytics and blockchain, among others, through:
- Boosting MSMEs
- Giving importance to future technologies
- Implementation in the manufacturing sector
- Industry 5.0
- Agriculture
Speaking at the World Government Summit in UAE (Feb 2018)
India had lost its chance at the industrial revolution. But we now we not only have excelled in sectors regarding new and cutting-edge technologies, but we have also become the leaders in them. Apart from manufacturing and information technology, we should pay attention to new and evolving sectors such as big data analytics, cyber-physics, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced energy storage, renewable energy, next-generation genomics, cloud technology and advanced GIS, among others. This will showcase that one-sixth of the human population is fully committed to contributing to new tech.
In his speech at the World Economic Forum (Jan 2018)
“Today, data is the real wealth and it is being said that whoever acquires and controls the data will have hegemony in the future. The global flow of data is creating big opportunities as well as challenges… Data is a huge asset but the flow of global data is creating the biggest opportunities and the greatest challenges.”
