New Delhi, Sep 6 (PTI) BJP MP Raghav Chadha on Sunday highlighted India’s experience of digital transformation and how technology was helping widen access without excluding.
Addressing the 12th IPU Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on ‘Digital Access & Rights in a Digital Era,’ he said the real test of the era is not how smart the machines become, but whether a person with the cheapest phone gets the same access and opportunity as everyone else.
“With over a billion people connected and UPI making instant payments part of daily life, India has shown that digital scale and inclusion can go hand in hand. I highlighted how technology is widening access and building a future that: connects without excluding, innovates without exploiting and protects without controlling,” Chadha said in a post on X.
He highlighted India’s digital transformation through the expansion of internet connectivity, affordable data, UPI, data protection and responsible regulation of emerging technologies.
In his opening remarks, Chadha highlighted the recent elevation of India-Uzbekistan relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and pointed to the agreement to connect India’s UPI with Uzbekistan’s UZQR system as a working model of international digital cooperation.
He said that once it is live, an Indian student or traveller in Uzbekistan would be able to use a UPI application to scan a UZQR code at any shop in the country and make a direct payment from an Indian bank account – no separate card, no cash, no forex markups, no complications.
Chadha noted the transformation brought about by the Digital India initiative, launched by the Government of India in 2015 that has grown India’s internet subscribers from 250 million in 2014 to more than one billion currently, while the cost of data per GB has also fallen from Rs 269 in 2014 to Rs 8 now, a reduction of 97 per cent.
He cited UPI as an example of a digital system that belongs to no single bank or technology company, noting that transactions grew from 90,000 in UPI’s first month in 2016 to more than 240 billion transactions worth Rs 314 trillion in FY 2025-26.
“The numbers are not the achievement. The achievement is that a street vendor receives Rs 5 or less using this technology, a village worker sends money home in seconds, and a woman running her own small business with her own income,” he noted.
On safety, Chadha referred to privacy as a fundamental right, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act and the emphasis on individual autonomy through the use of the term “data principal” rather than “data subject”.
He also highlighted India’s requirement for AI-generated content to be clearly labelled across platforms and stressed that against the backdrop of fraud, identity theft, misinformation and deepfakes regulation must be “lawful, proportionate, and transparent.” Rejecting the idea that freedom and safety are inherently opposed, he said, “we must reject the false choice between freedom and safety. Free expression is not a license for fraud and safety must never become a pretext for silencing legitimate speech.” On opportunity, he argued that the strongest opportunity is an informed and capable citizen.
Without skills, he said, young people remain consumers of technology; with skills, they become its creators, innovators and leaders.
“The real test of the digital era would not be how sophisticated machines become, but whether a young woman with the cheapest phone in the poorest district receives the same data protection, the same data access and the same digital rights as everybody else,” the BJP MP said while concluding his address. PTI SKC SKY SKY
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