New Delhi, 08 October (H.S.):

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for the creation of a global mechanism to tackle the growing challenges of cyber fraud, deepfakes and digital crime, stressing that technology can achieve widespread adoption only when people have confidence in it. He said India was always ready to share its experiences and lessons with the world.

Addressing the 10th edition of the India Mobile Congress on Thursday, the Prime Minister said cybercrime had no borders. A person sitting in one country could defraud someone in another country using technology or a network based in a third country. He said deepfakes had also emerged as a major challenge and that countries, technology companies, telecom companies and financial institutions would have to work together to address it. The government has separately highlighted the need for global standards and common rules for emerging technologies, including mechanisms to help users identify the origin of AI-generated content.

Modi urged the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), the global organisation representing the mobile ecosystem, and telecom operators around the world to create a global mechanism capable of stopping fraudulent communications before they reach people.

“Let us create a global mechanism that can prevent such fraud from reaching people in the first place. India has learned a great deal from its own experience in this direction, and India is always ready to share its experiences with the world,” he said.

The Prime Minister said, “Technology achieves scale only when it earns trust.” He said ordinary citizens did not concern themselves with the complexities of technical protocols or networks; rather, they wanted to know who was calling them, whether a message was genuine or fraudulent, whether their payment was secure and whether their data was safe. Therefore, security and trust must remain the highest priorities in the telecommunications and digital sectors.

Modi said India had launched 5G services from the same platform in 2022. Since then, 5G services had reached every district of the country and more than 500,000 mobile base stations had been installed. He said mobile internet speeds in India had increased nearly tenfold compared with 2022. The transformation, he said, was not confined to telecommunications but had also brought about major changes in digital services and the way governance was delivered.

He said that a decade ago, access to modern technology was increasingly becoming a privilege and the digital divide was a major challenge. Under the Digital India initiative, the government had focused on taking technology to as many people as possible, with the mobile phone at the centre of this effort. This was supported by policy reforms, expansion of telecommunications infrastructure and efforts to promote the manufacturing of mobile phones and telecom equipment in the country.

Referring to the COVID-19 pandemic,PM Modi said offices, banks, education, healthcare services and government facilities continued to function to a large extent through digital platforms during that period. He said that through the DIKSHA platform, more than 5 billion learning sessions and around 60 billion learning minutes had been recorded by July 2022. The government had set a target of connecting around 250 million students through digital and online education.

PM Modi said hundreds of government services were now available on mobile phones and that large sums of money were being transferred directly into beneficiaries’ bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer. He said around Rs. 50 lakh crore had been transferred directly to beneficiaries’ accounts and approximately Rs. 5 lakh crore had been saved from falling into the wrong hands or being lost through leakages.

In this context, the Prime Minister said, “Now tell me, will those whose free earnings have been stopped love Modi?” He said he had resolved to put an end to wrongful practices. PM Modi said that had the old system continued, a huge amount of government money would have been lost through leakages and ended up filling the pockets of undeserving people. Now, he said, the same money was reaching the rightful beneficiaries, while the savings were being utilised for productive purposes.

The Prime Minister also referred to the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi and said that funds were transferred to farmers’ accounts every four months, with notifications sent to their mobile phones. He said this was helping even small farmers benefit from government schemes who, for various reasons, had previously been left out.

PM Modi said mobile and digital services had made citizens’ lives more convenient by reducing the need for travel, waiting and expenditure. He described this as one of the biggest benefits that technology had brought to citizens. He said affordable data and improved connectivity had created new opportunities in entertainment, education and content creation.

He said more than 500 million people had become part of the gaming ecosystem. Young people from smaller cities and towns were making their mark in e-sports, content creation and new digital businesses. The mobile phone, he said, was no longer merely a means of communication but had also evolved into a gaming console and a studio for creative work.

The Prime Minister said high-speed internet and affordable data had taken video-sharing platforms, social media and regional OTT services to villages and smaller cities. This had reduced language barriers and accelerated the growth of the content-creation industry. He said the sector had generated economic activity worth thousands of crores of rupees and created new earning opportunities for millions of people.

PM Modi said India no longer wanted to remain merely a consumer of technology but aspired to become a producer of products, technologies and intellectual property. He said the government was undertaking incentives and policy reforms to strengthen India’s role in the design, technology and intellectual-property aspects of products.

Referring to reforms in the telecommunications sector, the Prime Minister said the Telecommunications Act had provided a modern regulatory framework. The systems related to Adjusted Gross Revenue and bank guarantees had been rationalised. He said the Gati Shakti Sanchar portal had accelerated right-of-way approvals.

The Prime Minister said the semiconductor ecosystem in the country was also progressing rapidly and commercial production had commenced at five locations. The next phase, he said, would focus on developing the entire supply chain.

PM Modi said the completion of 10 years of the India Mobile Congress was also an important occasion. He said the platform had advanced discussions on several key issues, from 5G to global digital standards and investment, innovation and manufacturing in India. The theme of this year’s event is “Scale Without Boundaries”, and India has placed its experience of adopting technology at scale before the world. The 10th edition of IMC 2026 is being held from October 7 to 10 at Yashobhoomi in New Delhi.

The Prime Minister said discussions at the India Mobile Congress would play an important role in shaping the direction of the next decade. “We have to make IMC a platform that can become a junction for technology, research, industry, investment and ideas,” he said. He expressed hope that partnerships, research projects and new products emerging from the platform would reach the world and accelerate technological innovation for the benefit of humanity.

PM Modi also saluted and extended his greetings to the personnel of the Indian Air Force on the occasion of Air Force Day. He also paid tribute to actor Nana Patekar and recalled his contribution through cinema and the arts in highlighting social evils and shortcomings in the system.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar