Vaishnaw’s comment at a press conference here came a day after the European Union warned Twitter owner Elon Musk of sanctions over the microblogging site banning some journalists.
In response to a question at the press conference on what he makes of the US platform banning one of the accounts of Koo, an Indian microblogging platform, the minister said, “We have robust IT regulations and rules. These rules are now getting further strengthened by the two Bills: Telecom Bill and Data Protection Bill. These two Bills should be done by the next five to six months.”
This will definitely provide the citizens strength in protection of their rights from all possible stakeholders, the minister said. He also explained that the IT rules in its current form were amended for the creation of the Grievance Appellate Committee.
“The current regulatory structure is giving us reasonably good interplay with the social media platforms,” he said.
Template for the world
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Separately, in response to ET’s query on whether the industry has raised any concerns regarding the Data Protection Bill as a part of the public consultation done so far, Vaishnaw said: “The feedback has been very good. So far, the template for the world was the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. Most of the industry is saying this Bill will now become the template for the world.”
This, according to him, is because the new draft Data Bill strikes a balance between innovation ecosystem and protection of an individual’s personal data and privacy. Nobody else has been able to achieve this kind of protection of privacy, he said.
“We extended the time for the public consultation because many of the ministries wanted more time for formal submissions although a lot of informal discussions have already happened,” he said.
Except for a couple of points on language used in the Bill, no major concerns have been raised, he said. As per him, most experts from the IT industry like Nandan Nilekani, Kris Gopalakrishnan and TV Mohandas Pai are very happy with the data Bill.
Digital India Bill
“The Digital India Bill is also progressing very well. The drafting is in a very good stage. We should very soon be able to publish a consultation document for everybody to give feedback on,” the minister said.
Vaishnaw explained that the digital economy today cannot be governed by old rules and laws. It needs a new generation of legal structure. Within this new structure, India is creating comprehensive legal frameworks in which three horizontals will be there: first being the Telecom Bill, the second being the Data Protection Bill, and the third being the Digital India Bill.
Over and above this, small, sectoral verticals will also be there like financial systems, healthcare, cybersecurity and social media, which will have its own rules.
“We will have a comprehensive legal system which should be good for many years,” Vaishnaw said.
On the impact on Koo due to the ban by Twitter, he said: “Recently, Koo became the number one app for microblogging in Brazil. In many of the geographies, it is increasing its presence very rapidly. So, I don’t think a small action by Twitter will be able to make any big difference. Koo has a very good growth story. It’s a very robust platform.”
Ashwini Vaishnaw, who also holds the railways portfolio, said the Indian Railways received 800 proposals from startups to solve 11 problems under the “Startups for Railways” initiative launched in June this year.
Out of these, 50 have been shortlisted who will be given orders by the railways for the next four years. These startups will be supported by the railways from idea to product stage, he said.
After the product is successful the railways will give them revenue for four years so that the startups stabilise and these products are used within the railways first and then adopted globally.
The 11 problem statements include broken rail detection system, headway improvement system for suburban section interoperable with the Indian Railways National ATP system, rail stress monitoring system, automation of track inspection activities, lightweight wagons for transporting commodities like salt and development of analytical tool by using digital data for improving passenger services.
