Dilip Hoang is not impressed by this argument. In particular he questions what a person is and where he or she comes from and wonders why a young person who is looking to become an MP, who was a minister of state for information technology from 2004-2007, who is an architect of the Telecom Act, what impact on that act and where it is applicable does making him a minister have?

“There are more and more people coming across as uneducated. In this, I am with you. And they are not just Indians. We have no identity apart from being a member of the government,” he says.

He says this is the time of the government’s digital agenda as a whole and is also looking at building a new digital infrastructure that will give people more empowerment to participate in the system without compromising on their right to privacy. “We had made it easy for people to switch on WiFi by announcing a service. The service will be a free service, but we will offer several perks for paying subscribers.”

Hooang says to enable this new kind of service, the government will not be interested in collecting data about its people in the name of a public good, but in bringing in innovation to solve problems.

“People are concerned about the fact that even if we manage to bring in this digital, we may not be able to use it. I do believe that having a public good and public purpose is critical for this technology that we will deliver and I will be the minister for this,” he says.

He said there were many challenges on the new digital infrastructure and even though he was being considered for the portfolio of minister for industry, the main challenge that was keeping him in the team was security, in terms of the digital infrastructure.

“If you look at the problem from the point of view of security, I have put a lot of security into this issue. So we should have a digital infrastructure that will keep citizens safe, secure and efficient,” he said.

According to Hoang, the Indian IT industry has been doing a lot of work with the Indian government to give an idea of what it was about to achieve as far as a digital infrastructure comes to be in use. Hoang says that there was a meeting between the Cabinet Secretary, Minister of State for IT Vivek Ranadive and Chief Policy Adviser and Chief Digital Officer Kishore Bhatia of the industry at the headquarters of the government at