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But other aspect of citizenship is again you know learning, practicing citizenship.
And there, how do I behave with my fellow citizens? How do I come across as a
person, as a human being with the other fellow citizens? So there’s a kind of societal
aspect of citizenship. When we say learning citizenship, it’s not only we service State,
but also learning citizenship we service my own society. And how do I relate to that?
The last reflection is on the role of technology. I think India has a huge, huge
potential to foster liberal democracy. You know I’m coming from India which is
regarded as one of the IT giants. Lots of, lots of IT firms, exporting IT solutions into
Intel world. The internet penetration is 20%, which is regarded quite high, out of 1.3
billion people. 20% has access to internet is regarded as quite high. But the fact
remains that 80% does not have access to internet, right? We need to acknowledge
that there is a digital device, and we need to work towards that. There, the solution
perhaps is again bringing some information intermediary. The very fact is that,
20 years ago, many public information was not in the public domain. So, it was, we
still have an act called Official Secret Act. Although we have the IT Act, but we still
have an act called Official Secret Act. The Official Secret Act by nature of the act,
government officer would hold information and not allow information to be in the
public domain. But the nature of the fact that you know information technology has
come and therefore a lot of information now available. The point that you have made
is the quality of information. Is that information first of all accessible? Even if it is
accessible, is it understandable? Can I make sense out of that information? So, I
don’t see a rocket science here. I only see as you kindly pointed out a mindset of
the public institution so that I share information in such a manner. So that it makes
sense to the people. If I want to hide, I would kind of camouflage the dissemination
of information, but not necessarily from an honest understanding this information will
make sense or be useful for the citizens.
Last comment is, we use the phrase democratic governance, but I want to
make a distinction here. E-service IT, E-governance and E- democracy are not
necessarily the same thing, where it is making public administration more efficient
through the use of technology but not necessarily make democracy stronger only
through IT. So, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the social media, is a space where
we can share our opinion. This could be operating from the State point of view or
those who have access to garner and harvest those information and make sense for
their own benefit. But the challenge would be that how we use big data, process it,
and play it back to the community and citizens so that they become really
empowerment, which is our topic today.
So, let me rest here. Thank you so much.
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