APPSC GROUP - II MAINS EXAMINATION

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

National Policy On Information Technology, 2012

Vision :

To strengthen and enhance India’s position as the Global IT hub and to use IT and cyberspace as
engine for rapid, inclusive and substantial growth in the national economy.

Objectives of NPIT :

• Increase revenue of IT and ITES.

• Acquire global market share in emerging IT technologies and services

• Promote innovation and R&D in cutting edge technologies.

• Adopt strategies to improve competitiveness and productivity.

• Aid SMEs to adopt IT technologies

• To make at least one individual in every household e-literate.

• Provide all public services in electronic mode.

• Utilize ICT in social sectors like Education, health, rural development and nancial services.

• Capacity building by developing Human resource.

• To strengthen the regulatory and security framework for ensuring a secure and legally compliant
cyberspace ecosystem.

The key areas of the policy include:-

• To increase revenues of IT and ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) Industry and
gain signi cant global market-share in emerging technologies and Services.

• To promote innovation and R&D in cutting edge technologies and development of applications
and solutions in areas like localization, location based services, mobile value added services,
Cloud Computing, Social Media and Utility models.

• To encourage adoption of ICTs in key economic and strategic sectors to improve their
competitiveness and productivity.

• To create a pool of 10 million additional skilled manpower in ICT by 2020.

• To enhance transparency, accountability, ef ciency, reliability and decentralization in

Government and in particular, in delivery of public services.
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 • To make India the global hub for development of language technologies, to encourage and
facilitate development of content accessible in all Indian languages and thereby help bridge the
digital divide.

• To enable access of content and ICT applications by differently-abled people to foster inclusive
development.

• To strengthen the Regulatory and Security Framework for ensuring a Secure and legally
compliant Cyberspace ecosystem.

DIGITAL INDIA MISSION :

• Digital India is a agship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India
into a digitally empowered society and knowledge in the economy.

• It was launched in July 2015.

• Digital India is an umbrella programme that covers multiple Government Ministries and
Departments. It weaves together a large number of ideas and thoughts into a single,
comprehensive vision so that each of them can be implemented as part of a larger goal.

The present status of some of the key initiatives undertaken by MeitY under Digital India programme
across the country is as follows:

• Aadhaar – Aadhaar provides 12 digit biometric and demographic based identity that is unique,
lifelong, online and authenticable. Further to give statutory backing to Aadhaar ‘The Aadhaar
(Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Bene ts and Services) Act, 2016’ was
noti ed on 26th March 2016. Over 135.5 crore residents have been enrolled.
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 • Common Services Centres – CSCs are offering government and business services in digital
mode in rural areas through Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs). Over 400 digital services are
being offered by these CSCs. So far, 5.21 Lakh CSCs are functional (including urban & rural
areas) across the country, out of which, 4.14 Lakh CSCs are functional at Gram Panchayat
level.

• DigiLocker: Digital Locker provides an ecosystem with collection of repositories and gateways
for issuers to upload the documents in the digital repositories. Digital Locker has more than
13.7 crore users and more than 562 crore documents are made available through DigiLocker
from 2,311 issuer organisations.

• Uni ed Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) – for providing government
services to citizen through mobile. More than 1668 e-Services and over 20,197 bill payment
services are made available at UMANG.

• e-Sign: e-Sign service facilitates instant signing of forms/documents online by citizens in a

legally acceptable form. The services are being leveraged by various applications using OTP
based authentication services of UIDAI. More than 31.08 crore e-Sign issued by all agencies
wherein, 7.01 Crore e-Sign issued by CDAC.

• Digital Village: MeitY has also initiated the ’Digital Village Pilot Project” in October, 2018. 700
Gram Panchayats (GPs)/Village with atleast one Gram Panchayat/Village per District per State/
UT are being covered under the project. The digital services being offered are Digital Health
Services, Education Service, Financial Services, Skill Development, Solar panel powered street
lights including Government to Citizens Services (G2C), Business to Citizen (B2C) Services.

• Open Government Data Platform– To facilitate data sharing and promote innovation over non-
personal data, Open Government Data platform has been developed. More than 5.93 lakh
datasets across 12,940+ catalogues are published. The platform has facilitated 94.8 lakh
downloads.

• eHospital/ Online Registration System (ORS): e-Hospital application is the Hospital

Management Information System for internal work ows and processes of hospitals. Currently,
753 Hospitals have been on-boarded on e-Hospital and ORS has been adopted by 557 hospitals
across the country with over 68 lakh appointments booked from ORS.

• Jeevan Pramaan: Jeevan Pramaan envisages to digitize the whole process of securing the life
certi cate for Pensioner. With this initiative, the pensioner is no more required to physically
present himself or herself in front of disbursing agency or the certi cation authority. Over
685.42lakh Digital Life certi cates have been processed since 2014.

• Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyaan (PMGDISHA): The Government has
approved this scheme to usher in digital literacy in rural India by covering 6 Crore rural
households (one person per household). It has 6.63 crore registered candidates and out of this,
5.69 crore candidates have been trained and 4.22 crore have been certi ed.
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 • Uni ed Payment Interface (UPI) : It is the leading digital payment platform. It has onboarded
376 banks and has facilitated 730 crore transactions (by volume) worth Rs 11.9 lakh crore.

• FutureSkills Prime: MeitY in collaboration with NASSCOM has initiated a programme titled
FutureSkills PRIME. The programme is aimed at re-skilling/ up-skilling of IT professionals in 10
new/emerging technologies which include Augmented/Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Big
Data Analytics, Arti cial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Additive Manufacturing/ 3D
Printing, Cloud Computing, Social & Mobile, Cyber Security and Blockchain.

Impact of Digital India Mission:

Digital India mission has had a profound impact on various sectors of the Indian economy and
society. Here are some of the notable impacts of the Digital India Mission

Agriculture and Rural Development -

• digital platform such as e-NAM have farmers by providing them within online marketplace to sell
their produce directly to buyers. Additionally, Bharat net has extended high speed Internet
activity to rural areas, enabling digital services and information access.

Enhancing Governance and Services -

• Digitizing government processes and services to streamline administrative procedures, reduce
paperwork, and promote transparency. Citizens can conveniently access various government
services online, leading to ef cient and accountable governance.

Empowering Citizens Digitally -

• Providing digital literacy programs and skill development initiatives, enabling citizens to
effectively utilize digital tools and technologies. This empowers individuals to participate in the
digital economy, access educational resources, and engage in socio-economic activities.

Access to Services -
• Digital India signi cantly improved access to government services, reducing bureaucratic order
and making services, more transparent and ef cient. Citizens can access a wide range of
services online, such as applying for passport, license and certi cates.

Promoting Digital Financial Inclusion -

• Encouraging digital payment systems and expanding access to nancial services to bring the
unbanked and underbanked population into the formal nancial sector. This empowers
individuals economically and contributes to the growth of a cashless economy.

Nurturing Innovation and Startups -

• Fostering a conducive environment for startups in the digital domain, tapping into the potential of
young entrepreneurs, and driving technological advancements and job creation. This is
supported by a focus on electronics manufacturing, promoting local production and reducing
import dependence.
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 Ensuring Cybersecurity -
• Bolstering the cybersecurity ecosystem to protect sensitive data and digital infrastructure as
digital systems become more prevalent. This ensures a secure digital environment for both
citizens and businesses.

Environmental impact -
• Digitisation has led to reduce paper usage, contributing to environmental conservation. Online
services have minimised the need for physical physical documents and paper, thus promoting
sustainability.

Infrastructure development -
• Initiatives like Bharath Net have strengthened digital infrastructure across the country, connecting
even the remotest regions.

E- Governance

Electronic Governance or e-Governance is now a popular concept worldwide. In a demanding

economy like India, which is also growing fast, e-governance is essential. It is de ned as the
government’s use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) so that various services are
provided to businesses and citizens, and information is exchanged, etc. Communication and
bringing together various individual service systems are also within the functionalities of e-
governance.

Objectives of e-Governance

• Improvement in service delivery to citizens

• Ease in providing information

• Increase ef ciency in working between states or between centre and state

• Improve interaction with businesses and different industries

• Bringing transparency and accountability in government matters

Some of the major initiatives related to public service delivery are as follows:

• Uni ed Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) - for providing government
services to citizen through mobile. More than 1,570 government services and over 22,000 bill
payment services are made available at UMANG.

• e-District Mission Mode Project (MMP) - e-District project has been implemented at district and
sub-district levels of all States/UTs, bene tting all citizens by delivering various e-Services
such as Certi cates (Birth, Caste, Death, Income and Local Resident), Pension (Old Age,
Disability and Widow), Electoral, Consumer Court, Revenue Court, Land Record and services of
various departments such as Commercial Tax, Agriculture, Labour, Employment Training &
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 Skill Development etc. Presently 4,671 e-services have been launched in 709 districts across
India.

• DigiLocker - It is facilitating paperless availability of public documents. Digital Locker has more
than 11.7 crore users and more than 532 crore documents are made available through
DigiLocker from 2,167 issuer organisations.

• UPI - Uni ed Payment Interface (UPI) is the leading digital payment platform. It is integrated
with 330 banks and facilitated over 586 crore monthly transactions worth over Rs 10 lakh crore
has been facilitated for the month of June, 2022.

• CO-WIN - It is an open platform for management of registration, appointment scheduling &

managing vaccination certi cates for Covid-19. More than 203 crore vaccination doses and 110
crore registrations have been facilitated by co-win.

• MyGov - It is a citizen engagement platform that is developed to facilitate participatory

governance. More than 2.48 crore users are actively using MyGov.

• MeriPehchaan - National Single Sign-on platform called MeriPehchaan has been launched in
July 2022 to facilitate / provide citizens ease of access to government portals.

• Direct Bene t Transfers - 315 Schemes across 53 Ministries are offering Aadhaar enabled direct
bene t transfer to citizens. So far, Rs 24.3 lakh crore has been disbursed through DBT platform.

• Diksha - Diksha is a national level educational platform that helps students and teachers to
participate, contribute and leverage a common platform to achieve learning goals at scale for
the country. As on 27th July 2022, 7,633 courses are available and more than 15 crore
enrolments have been done.

Some of the major digital initiatives taken by the Government for welfare of farmers are as
follows:

• National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) — Government of India has launched National Agriculture
Market (e-NAM) Scheme with the objective of creating online transparent competitive bidding
system to facilitate farmers with remunerative prices for their produce. More than 1.73 crore
farmers & 2.26 lakh traders have been registered on e-NAM platform. Also, 1000 mandis of 18
States and 3 UTs have been integrated with e-NAM platform.

• M-KISAN – mKisan Portal (www.mkisan.gov.in) for sending advisories on various crop related
matters to the registered farmers through SMSs. In mkisan more than 5.13 crore farmers are
registered for receiving crop advisories through SMS. More than 2,462 crore mobile based
advisories have been sent to farmers to assist them in their farming activities.

• One Stop Window-Farmers Portal (www.farmer.gov.in) for dissemination of information on

various agricultural related matter including, seeds variety, Storage Godown, Pests and plant
diseases, Best Agricultural Practices, Watershed, Mandi details etc.
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 • Soil Health Card – It provides soil related information to facilitate farmers in farming activities.
More than 22 crore soil health cards have been printed and dispatched to farmers.

• Mobile based advisory system for agriculture & Horticulture (M4AGRI) – It is mobile based
advisory system for agriculture and horticulture. It has been implemented in the North-East
States namely Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh.

Cyber Security

Cyber security is the activity of protecting computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems,
networks, and data against hostile assaults. It is the technique of guarding against digital assaults
on systems, networks, and programmes. With an expanding number of people, devices, and
programmes in the contemporary organization, as well as an increasing deluge of data,
cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important.

National Cyber Security Policy 2013

◦ The Government of India issued the National Cyber Security Policy (NCSP) in 2013, which
included many tactics for countering cyber security threats.
◦ The purpose of this Policy is to provide individuals, companies, and the Government with a
secure and dependable cyberspace. It also strives to monitor, protect, and enhance
cybersecurity defences.
◦ Through a mix of institutional structures, procedures, technology, and collaboration, this
Policy intends to secure the information infrastructure in cyberspace, decrease vulnerabilities,
create capacities to avoid and respond to cyber attacks, and limit damage from cyber events.

Vision

◦ To build secure and resilient cyberspace for citizens, businesses and the Government.
 Mission

◦ To protect information and information infrastructure in cyberspace, build capabilities to

prevent and respond to cyber threats, reduce vulnerabilities and minimize damage from cyber
incidents through a combination of institutional structures, people, processes, technology and
cooperation

Objectives of National Cyber Security Policy

• To build a safe cyber environment in the country, develop appropriate trust and con dence in I.T.
systems and cyberspace transactions, and so increase I.T. adoption in all sectors of the economy.

• To provide information protection when in process, processing, storage, and transport to preserve
citizen data privacy and reduce economic losses due to cybercrime or data theft.

• To improve law enforcement skills and allow successful cybercrime prevention, investigation, and
conviction by appropriate legislative action.

• To raise awareness of the integrity of I.C.T. goods and services by developing infrastructure for
testing and validating their security.

• To give rms nancial incentives for adopting standard security procedures and processes.

• Through a successful communication and promotion approach, a culture of cyber security and
privacy will be established, allowing responsible user behaviour and activities.

• To meet national security needs by developing appropriate indigenous security technologies

through frontier technology research, solution-oriented research, and commercialization.

• To provide an assurance framework for the establishment of security policies, as well as to

promote and enable activities for conformance to global security standards and best practices
through conformity assessment.

• To fortify the regulatory framework to ensure a secure cyberspace ecology.

Cyber security concerns :

• Increasing dependency on technology:

◦ As we grow faster, more and more systems are being shifted to virtual space to
promote access and ease of use. However, the downside to this trend is the increased
vulnerability of such systems to cyber-attacks.

• Asymmetric and covert warfare: Unlike, conventional warfare with loss of lives and eyeball-to-
eyeball situations, cyber warfare is covert warfare with the scope of plausible deniability, i.e.
the governments can deny their involvement even when they are caught.
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 ◦ Therefore, cyber warfare has increasingly become the chosen space for con ict
between nations.

• Lack of robust law enforcement mechanisms: India’s approach to cyber security has so far
been ad hoc and unsystematic.
◦ Despite a number of agencies, policies and initiatives, their implementation has been
far from satisfactory.

• Lack of International Coordination: International cooperation and consensus is missing in this

eld.

• Low digital literacy among the general public and digital gaps amongst nations create an
unsustainable environment in the cyber domain.

• It is often reported that people are duped easily by click-baiting them into clicking interesting
content, which often has malware attached to itself.

India’s Preparedness to Ensure Cybersecurity :

• Banning of unsafe apps: India had banned apps that posed a threat to security.
◦ India had banned many apps (mostly of Chinese origin), which were found to be unsafe
for usage by Indian citizens.

• Awaited National cybersecurity strategy: Comprehensive plan in preparing & dealing with
cyber-attacks (Pre, Post and During the attack).

• Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C): Launched in 2018, It is an apex coordination
centre to deal with cybercrimes.

• Evolving Technology: Cyber attackers are continuously working on novel ways to sabotage the
systems.

• CERT-In (Cyber Emergency Response Team, India): is an of ce within the Ministry of

Electronics and Information Technology of the Government of India.
◦ It is the nodal agency to deal with cyber security threats like hacking and phishing.
◦ It strengthens security-related defence of the Indian Internet domain.

• National Cyber Security Policy, 2013: The policy provides the vision and strategic direction to
protect the national cyberspace.

• Cyber Swachhta Kendra: Launched in 2017, these helps users to analyse and keep their
systems free of various viruses, bots/ malware, Trojans, etc.

• Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C): Launched in 2018, It is an apex coordination
centre to deal with cybercrimes.
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• Cyber Surakshit Bharat: It was launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information
Technology (MeitY) in 2018 with an aim to spread awareness about cybercrime and building
capacity for safety measures for Chief Information Security Of cers (CISOs) and frontline IT
staff across all government departments.

• The Cyber Warrior Police Force: It was organised on the lines of the Central Armed Police
Force in 2018.

• Personal Data Protection Bill: The bill mandates the strengthening of data infrastructure by
private companies to safeguard the data of individuals.

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