Roundtable Discussion on “Digital Policy: Global context and India’s imperatives”

We held a closed-door discussion on the impact of new and emerging technologies on digital policy formulation. We discussed challenges and issues specific to India, strategic imperatives that flow from them, and the implications for the nation’s digital policies. We also discussed the global context and concerns, implications of the emergence of new digital technologies, changing geopolitical alignments, and the emerging points of friction between governments and the private sector.

The participants were Professor UB Desai (former Director of IIT Hyderabad), Mr. Ajay Kumar (former Defence Secretary), Ms. NS Nappinai (Supreme Court lawyer), Mr. Shyam Saran (former Foreign Secretary), Mr. Ajay Sawhney (former Secretary Ministry of Electronics and IT), Mr. RS Sharma (former Chairman of TRAI and chief of UIDAI), Ms. Rama Vedashree (former CEO of Data Security Council of India), Ms. Neeta Verma (former DG of National Informatics Centre), Mr. David Zapolsky (global head of public policy and general counsel for Amazon), Mr. Subho Ray (President of IAMAI) and Professor Shubhashis Gangopadhyay.

The discussion was moderated by Mr. R. Chandrashekhar