Digital India Bill- a legislation that catalyse India’s ambition of being in the leading technology nation & trillion-dollar digital economy

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology holds consultations with stakeholders on the proposed Digital India Bill. It will catalyse India’s ambition of being in the leading pack of nations that would shape future of technologies; for the first time, Design, Architecture and Goals of a Bill are being discussed with stakeholders at its pre-introduction stage; the proposed Bill aims to help India achieve the goal of becoming a trillion-dollar digital economy and be a significant trusted player in the Global Value Chains for digital products, devices, platforms and solutions. The proposed Digital India Act aims to help develop India as a globally competitive innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem while at the same time protecting the rights of its citizens.

“Internet that began as a force of good has today become vulnerable to various types of complex user harms like catfishing, cyber stalking, cyber trolling, gaslighting, phishing, revenge porn, cyber-flashing, dark web, women and children, defamation, cyber-bullying, doxing, salami slicing, etc and there is an urgent need for a specialised and dedicated adjudicatory mechanism for online civil and criminal offences,” is one of the primary requirement to update the IT laws. The proposed law, in addition to many aspects of the digital ecosystem, will deal in detail with the question of user harm on the internet. The internet can be a responsible space and illegal content certainly does not find any place on the Indian internet. We want to ensure the Internet is Open, Safe, Trusted & Accountable and accelerate the growth of innovation and technology and create a framework for accelerating digitalisation of Government and to strengthen democracy and governance.

A full-fledged draft of the Digital India Bill, the law that will be the biggest revamp of laws governing the Internet since the Information Technology Act, 2000 and its subsequent amendments, will be expected to released in June.