WSIS+10 High –Level Policy Statement of India

Delivered by

H.E. Mr. Dilip Sinha, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations at  the WSIS+10 High –Level Event

[10 June, 2014; Geneva]

Mr. Chairman,

Dr. Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General, ITU

At the outset, I would like to thank the ITU and the other UN agencies with a WSIS mandate for organizing this WSIS+10 High-Level Event. We are happy to note that this event also coincided with the WSIS Forum 2014.

India supports the Statement delivered by Sri Lanka, on behalf of the G-15, and by Iran, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement countries.

Mr. Chairman,

The two phases of World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has provided a vision of utilizing ICTs for greater benefit of mankind, with focus on achieving the developmental objectives by bridging both the digital and the development divides.

We are encouraged by the presentations made by all the UN agencies responsible for the implementation of the WSIS outcomes. It provides us an opportunity to assess the achievements made so far in the realization of the internationally agreed development goals, including MDGs by 2015 and envision the vision for WSIS beyond 2015.

Mr. Chairman,

As a developing country seeking to promote inclusive growth, India provides utmost importance to ICTs and fully recognizes its role as an enabler of inclusive social and economic development particularly with regard to universalizing access to a wide range of services and applications in various social sectors.  

With over 900 million mobile phones in India and with significant convergence of ICT technologies, the impact of ICT on overall development is enormous. With over 130 million Internet users today, India has emerged as the third largest country in Internet usage.

We have formulated our National Policy on IT in 2012 for inclusive and sustainable development through ICTs. Our National Telecom Policy 2012 also has the vision of providing broadband on demand and envisages leveraging telecom infrastructure to enable all citizens and businesses, to participate in the Internet and the web economy. The National Telecom Policy (NTP) has set a target of achieving 175 million broadband connections by 2017 and 600 million by 2020.

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) seeks to make all government services accessible to all the people. A new Mobile Seva has also been launched to provide electronic public services through mobile devices.

Mr. Chairman,

While we recognize the progress been made since WSIS, significant challenges remain.

Quality and high price of ICT infrastructure, broadband access and digital content in many parts of the developing world are major areas of concern.  Governance of global Internet, which is multilateral, transparent and democratic, with increased participation of developing countries, remains a distant dream.

We support the full implementation and follow-up of the outcomes of both phases of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). We believe that a common platform under the aegis of United Nations could be developed to enable sharing of experiences and best practices across countries in the areas of various ICT applications for making the information available to the world.

As mandated by Paragraph 111 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, we support the call for a High Level WSIS +10 overall review conference in 2015. We look forward to the finalization of the process and modalities of the overall review of the implementation of WSIS outcomes by the UN General Assembly, currently being undertaken by the two Co-facilitators appointed by the President of the UNGA. 

Mr. Chairman,

We take this opportunity to thank all the Member States and other stakeholders for their efforts towards finalization of the Outcome Documents to be adopted by this High Level Event.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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