Visit of Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications,
Information and Technology, and Human Resource
Development to Finland
on 20-21 September 2011

Hon’ble Minister of Communications, Information and Technology, Shri Kapil Sibal is on visit to Helsinki from 19-20 September, 2011 to participate in the Summit on Information and Network Security for Emerging Markets. He delivered a Key Note address during the Opening Session of Summit. Shri Kapil Sibal mentioned that challenges before ‘Emerging Markets’ are far more complex as these economies strive to provide basic amenities to their citizens, despite of severe handicap in physical infrastructure. This situation is more acute in fields of education, health & finance. As a result, these developing economies need to ‘leapfrog’ by absorbing new technologies like data networks in their zeal to deliver services to citizens without waiting for physical infrastructure to come up to desired levels. However, this is posing different set of challenges in terms of information security.

Over years, remarkable growth has been seen in India in telecom services from 3 million mobile in 2000 to 870 million mobiles in 2011. India is laying National Optical Fibre connecting 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats in next three years. India is also implementing NeGP (National eGovernance Plan) to empower citizens. All these developments have given rise to over-dependency on Network platform, which itself is coming under attacks of different nature which are far more dangerous than even terrorist attacks. While dealing with these challenges, adequate balance needs to be maintained between needs of ‘privacy of individual’ and ‘genuine security concerns of state’. These attacks come not only from individuals but also rival corporate and rouge states. One may like to remember that single malicious malware can bring to halt not only big nuclear plants but also vital activities of financial institutions, which are globally interconnected. This is because National Network are themselves interconnected. Global community needs to collaborate and evolve global protocols in security of information & network. In this direction, ITU’s Global Security Agenda as well as Budapest Convention are major international initiatives taken by global community. Shri Sibal assured that India stands committed to contribute and cooperate with international community on this issue. However, global community also needs to go beyond above steps and take more concrete steps, given the nature of seriousness of the issue. Individual companies also need to be far more open while sharing their designs/architecture with Government agencies, who themselves need to address genuine security concerns of developing nations. Shri Sibal also mentioned that India needs technologies for testing labs for Network Security.

Later, Shri Sibal had bilateral meeting with H.E. Ms. Krista Kiuru, Minister of Housing and Communications of Finland. During discussions, Shri Sibal mentioned that he welcomes international companies to invest in manufacturing in India as it will not only help in creating more employment for vast young population but also give cost advantage to investing companies. He also stressed on need for bilateral cooperation in field of Information & Network Security. Shri Sibal also invited Ms. Krista Kiuru to participate in “India Telecom 2011”, which is greatest Telecom event in South Asia.