Priorities on digital economy are unanimously accepted by G20 nations: Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

Many ministers went out and found out how easy it is to make payments using India’s digital payment platform Unified Payments Interface (UPI), they found how prevalent Aadhar is and how people are widely using India’s digital architecture, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.

Bengaluru (Karnataka): India's three priorities on Digital Economy, Digital Public Infrastructure, Information Security in Digital Economy, and Digital Skilling were unanimously accepted by the G20 nations and other invited countries, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday.

Addressing a press conference on the outcome of the G20's Digital Economy Working Group, Vaishnaw, the Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, said there is absolute consensus on the concept and application of the Digital Public Infrastructure and this is a big achievement for India.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of democratizing technology so that it is available for every section of society was widely appreciated by the G20 Digital Economy Minister’s Meeting," he added.

Many ministers went out and found out how easy it is to make payments using India’s digital payment platform Unified Payments Interface (UPI), they found how prevalent Aadhar is and how people are widely using India’s digital architecture, the Minister said.

"India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) concept is getting wide acceptance and any country that wants to adopt DPI can do it. Our soft power is getting accepted globally," Vaishnaw, a former IAS officer, said.

Vaishnaw further said that a slew of measures is taken up to make the digital economy safe and trustworthy. "To curb cyber frauds in the last few months, more than 5.5 million SIM cards have been deactivated and a major reform is introduced recently under which over 40,000 Point of Sale (POS) SIM card dealers will be verified. Over 300 FIRs were registered against SIM card dealers, who have issued SIM cards without completing Know Your Customer (KYC)," he added.

"Cyber security is a global problem and it has to be faced together. This cannot be seen in isolation. To handle the security risks, collaboration is a must. We held discussions on developing tools to handle the risk that is affordable by small businesses and citizens. In this regard, nearly 50,000 WhatsApp accounts used for fraudulent activities have been deactivated," the Union Minister informed.