The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing at the inauguration of the India Telecom-2007 Conference

After the grand success of India Telecom 2006, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) jointly with Department of Telecommunications (DoT), 'India Telecom 2007- Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities' from December 12 - 15, 2007 at New Delhi. Here are the excerpts of Prime Ministers remarks.

At the outset, I would like to acknowledge the phenomenal contribution of the telecom sector to the rapid growth of the Indian economy. The sector has shown remarkable enterprise and dynamism in the last one decade.
Three years ago, a target of 250 million telephone subscribers by 2007 was considered too ambitious. Today, around eight million new telephone subscribers are being added in India every month. This is mostly in the mobile telephone segment. Mobile telephony has been growing at an annual rate of over 90% since 2003. We need to understand what has spurred the remarkable growth of this sector and take steps to ensure its sustained continued growth in future as well.

The key to the growth of telecom has been liberalisation, reforms and competition. This has been as true of telecom as it has been for civil aviation, insurance and asset management. All these sectors have benefited enormously from the removal of state monopolies, reduction in entry barriers to new firms, creation of a level playing field between incumbents and new entrants, and most importantly, forward looking and even-handed regulation which has promoted competition and also effective consumer interests. All these are important steps whose lessons need to be kept in mind if we have to maintain the current growth momentum into the distant future.

The growth rate of the Indian economy is at a historic peak. It has averaged close to 9% year after year and we are now targeting a growth rate of 10% in the 11th five year plan. Given our youthful population and a rising savings rate, I am confident that we will be able to sustain this growth in the medium term. The major constraints I foresee are the availability of skilled manpower and of high quality infrastructure. The infrastructure needs of the country are in excess of 450 billion US dollars in the next five years and we need to work towards facilitating investment on such a large, massive scale.

Growth in the telecom sector is a critical component of our infrastructure plans and it plays an important catalytic role in our development process. The opening up of the telecom sector has created an impressive forward momentum in India, resulting in massive investments and expansion in supply which are signs of a vigorous, competitive and fast growing sector. I am very happy that the telecom department has ambitious targets for the future - 500 million telephone connections, 40 million Internet connections and 20 million broadband connections. Raising the investments needed for this ambitious plan would be a tremendous challenge for the industry as well as for the country.

The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh releasing a report on India Telecom ‘Poised for the Next Wave’ at the inauguration,The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Shri A. Raja is also seen.

I would like to draw your attention to a few issues concerning this booming sector. First, there is the issue of access and the large rural-urban divide in connectivity. Although the growth in the last few years has been truly impressive and our tariffs are among the lowest in the world, vast stretches of our rural population have little or no telecom penetration. Rural tele-density is still in single digits. I had heard of plans for a Phone in Every Village some twenty years ago. We have not yet reached that goal. This is why we have emphasised telecom connectivity in our Bharat Nirman programme.

There will be multiple benefits from increased rural telecom connectivity. At a narrow level, there will be a new burst of growth for the sector as a whole. On a larger plane, however, there will be multiplier effects for the entire rural economy. As better telecom connectivity and consequently better IT connectivity - becomes a reality, our rural hinterland will become more integrated with the rapid growth processes now taking place in the rest of the economy. There will be increased economic opportunities for our rural people - through better education, through improved market access for their products, through improved employment prospects, and through greater purchasing power in their hands. The spin off benefits will be felt, not just in telecom, but right across the economy as a whole. Telecom connectivity has the potential to play a transformational role in our rural areas. I expect all key players in this vital sector to realise and fulfil this latent potential. You need to rise to the challenge by devising innovative mechanisms for achieving our collective ambitions. Second, while we can be satisfied with the growth in tele-density, I am concerned about our capabilities in telecom R&D and manufacturing.

Can we have a sector where we are world-class in telecom networks but do not have an adequate manufacturing presence. I am happy that an enabling R&D environment is now being created by setting up Telecom Centres of Excellence through a PPP mode in our premier institutions of higher learning. These will enhance talent pool for R&D, facilitate development of state-of-the-art technology and promote country specific innovation.

I wish this initiative all success as this is extremely relevant for maintaining our presence in cutting edge technologies. We, however, need to also create an ecosystem for the rapid growth of manufacturing for telecommunication products. We need to build on our well recognised capabilities in software and IT to establish a large scale presence in manufacturing as well. It is important both from an economic and a strategic point of view that we are present in the entire telecom value chain. I assure you that the Government will develop a forward looking policy regime that will encourage investment in manufacturing in this sector.

At the same time, we must realise that we need to make use of this precious and limited resource in an optimal manner. All technological options must be explored to maximise its utilisation. The policy regime for making spectrum available should be fair, transparent, equitable and forward looking. It should not create entry barriers to newcomers or barriers to the continued growth of the important sector. At the same time, the revenue potential to the government must not be lost sight of. After all, governments across the globe have harnessed substantial revenues while allocating spectrum.

In the final analysis, the key issues are correct pricing, fair allocation rules, and a pro-competitive stance. In the past, the department of telecommunication and the regulator have successfully enabled the rapid growth of this sector. I believe that working closely with the independent statutory regulator, we can balance multiple objectives in a fair and reasonably manner.

India has successfully made the journey from being a country with high telecom tariffs to one in which tariffs are today the lowest. Healthy competition has ensured that the benefits of skill and technological advancement have been passed on to consumers, allowing the regulator and the Government to let a tariff regime of forbearance prevail. I would appeal to the industry to continue its healthy track record in this regard. The telecom revolution is poised today to transform our economy and our polity. It has become a part of our day-to-day lives. It can be the vehicle for taking us into the knowledge economy of the future.

Against this backdrop, India Telecom 2007 offers an ideal platform to provide a glimpse of the opportunities in our country. It will also afford service providers and manufacturers an opportunity of exposure to new and emerging technologies and solutions. I am confident that this event will serve to provide a fresh fillip to the growth of this pivotal sector.

‘IT Women Leadership Summit 2007’ was held in Bangalore on December 12-13, 2007 at The Leela Palace. The summit, in addition to several focused tracks saw the first ever corporate awards for excellence in gender inclusivity. Other highlights at this years’ summit include presentation of broad level findings of a NASSCOM – IIMA research study on findings on women in IT in India.

The NASSCOM IT Women Leadership Summit, now in its second year examines the drivers for gender inclusivity at every level of enterprises. Factors such as the acute talent shortage the industry faces today, the different abilities and perspectives that women bring into their workplace, and the cultural factors impacting women aspiring for top leadership roles, were discussed .

This initiative is also being furthered by WIL-IT (Women in Leadership – IT), a networking platform for middle level IT women for networking, sharing best practices, mentoring and training. WIL-IT is active in Bangalore since September 2007, with regular networking and leadership training workshops. The Chennai network of WIL-IT was launched on 4 December, and WIL-IT Hyderabad is slated to be launched in January 2008.

This year the Summit highlighted the policies and best practices that would promote gender inclusivity in the IT-BPO workforce; what are the strategies for creating more women leaders; why successful enterprises create and support women’s networks; how aspiring women leaders can equip themselves to reach the corner suites.

India is emerging as a global centre for animators with some of the top international companies planning huge investment in the country. India-animated Freefonix, a 10 million pounds budget, is one of the BBC's biggest ever animation projects. The futuristic tale of mismatched musicians was two years in the making across three continents and involved more than 200 people. The Bollywood-BBC tie-up on Freefonix is the first of many, according to the BBC children's series to be aired this week, the series' UK-based producers Cinnamon Entertainment said. Managing director Anthony Bouchier said more readily available funding and skilled animation teams are drawing TV show-makers to India.

"We saw that there were opportunities not only to outsource but to actually get investment for animation out of India. In the UK there is a major problem with animation for children because the broadcasters do not have sufficient budgets to finance animation, so it all has to come from private sources," he said. Bouchier said Freefonix, a 40-episode series launching on Friday is the first of its kind for the 7-11 age group.

"The BBC is involved in some very exciting projects and the majority of those are financed out of India. India is coming to the rescue of BBC animation.

"Cinnamon is part of a new breed of media company specialising in making the most of tax breaks and subsidies available in various countries. Created by Magnus Fiennes, brother of Joseph and Ralph, Freefonix was financed with funding from sources including Indian private-equity investment, The Isle of Man Film Fund and the BBC. The scripts were written in the United States and UK, the voices were recorded in the UK, the music and general production work was done in the UK and the Isle of Man and then a team in Paris modelled the characters and backgrounds.

The whole-thing was then sent to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, where it was animated. The final post production was done in Ireland. According to a report in The Guardian today, Freefonix is testament to the way the production process for animation projects has been revolutionised by the internet, which allows teams in various countries to swap files instantly and to communicate on videolink services such as Skype.