World fascinated with digitisation of India: EAM Jaishankar

INTERNATIONAL DESK: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said the world is fascinated with the digitisation of India. “What is the world’s fascination with India? Today? It is in the digitisation of India,” the EAM said while interacting with intellectuals in Dharwad, Karnataka.

“In 2014, six crore people had access to broadband. Today, it is 80 crore. From six it has gone to 80. Internet was used by 25 crore people. It is today 85 crores. We have laid optical fiber cable of 25 lakh kilometres in this country,” Jaishankar said. “The number of mobile users has crossed 100 crores. We do 800 crore UPI transactions per month. We actually have seven crore authentications per day. So the world watches this and suddenly for them, this India, which they used to associate with poverty, with backwardness, with red tape, with bureaucrats, they now have a new vision of this country,” the EAM said while addressing the people of Dharwad.

He said that he has a friend who came back to India for the G20 meeting after five years. “He’s a foreigner. And he told me his biggest impression today is that any place he goes to in India, some infrastructure construction is going on. Road is being built, airport is being extended, railway line is taking place. Metro is coming up. Housing is taking place. So this sense, this energy, this activity in India, this is something today the world is very, very fascinated by,” the minister said. Talking about how India tackled COVID, Jaishankar said: “In three years, we actually virtually from scratch, became PPE manufacturers, ventilator manufacturers, mass manufacturers, hydroxychloroquine exporters, vaccine producers, vaccine exporters.”

Jaishankar is on a two-day visit to poll-bound Karnataka this weekend. During the two-day visit, Jaishankar will be in the capital city of Bengaluru and will be visiting Hubbali and Belagavi districts.

Jaishankar on Sunday while interacting with the public in Bengaluru, said that the motto of India hosting G20 is getting the world ready for India and India ready for the world. “The motto of us hosting the G20 is about getting the world ready for India and India ready for the world,” the EAM said while interacting with the public in Bengaluru.

The minister said: “We have taken up the G20 at an important time in the world. We consulted 125 countries who are not part of the G20 and came up with the issues being faced by them.” “Moreover, countries generally do this (G20 meetings) in their capital cities and 2-3 other cities. Our way of doing this – and it is democratisation of foreign policy – is to do it across 60 cities, across states and union territories,” Jaishankar said.

Jaishankar said that India wants every city and every state to be more aware of the world because, in a globalised world, that is where our opportunities are. “While a city like Bengaluru is used to foreigners coming and visiting, for other cities, it is a big deal and they are quite excited,” he said. (ANI)