The baton passed on. India’s Information Technology industry is now poised to grow under the new guidance. From the able hands of J Satyanarayana, charge of the Secretary in the Department of Electronics And Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India has passed on to the hands of maverick Ram Sewak Sharma. The new IT Secretary has held the position of Director General and Mission Director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in the past. Previously, he has also played instrumental role in developing Aadhar concept and usage of ICT in delivering services. Not just that, he also helped bring about significant changes in the state of Jharkhand working in various capacities as the Chief Secretary, IT Secretary and as the Principal Secretary in the state of Jharkhand.
India’s IT sector is also looking up to Sharma: the industry is of the opinion that he will deliver and contribute significantly to the growth of the IT industry, apart from playing a crucial role in transforming lives of people utilising the tool of technology. This issue of eGov looks back at the journey of Ram Sewak Sharma.
The real job of the secretary will start once the new government takes the charge. Going by manifestos of the political parties, IT and eGovernance will hopefully be high on the new government’s agenda. Among other things, the Congress has said that it will ensure passage of the Electronic Delivery of Services Bill, 2011, which aims to deliver all public services such as passports, ration cards and driving licences electronically. On the other hand, the BJP manifesto promises reaching broadband to every village and engaging with people over social media channels, both for participation in governance and utilising its power for public grievances redressal. It also talks about digitization of study material for schools and making all educational institutions e-enabled.
The 2014 election is already witnessing large IT intervention and impact of web is also evident. As the politicians across the country are wooing voters through social media and video conferencing, social media platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter are looking for their slice of the Lok Sabha polls pie – a whopping `500 crore digital spend, according to media reports.
It is interesting to know that BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi now has nearly 14 million Facebook fans. Barack Obama, the President of United States of America is the only other politician to have more Facebook fans than Modi. Now, one needs to wait until May 16 to see whether the fan following also translate into vote counts.
The current issue of the eGov magazine is presented to you as the Annual Resource Guide – an issue that takes into account some of the major developments taking place in the e-Governance space. We have featured profiles of a range of organisations into ICT solutions development segment, and are playing a seminal role in the evolution of better systems of governance. We also take an in-depth look of the important role that the present-day IT policy-makers are playing.
Let’s also invite you to four upcoming events, scheduled for June 2014 – CloudGov, Higher Education Summit, Green Cities Forum and Healthcare Leadership Awards & Summit. Hope to see you at these events.
Ravi Gupta
Ravi.Gupta@elets.in
