Talking about Mahatma Gandhi’s movement against colonization, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lead a fight against ‘data colonization’. Ambani said that Indian data must be “owned and controlled” by the Indians.
“I pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of our Nation, in the year of his 150th birth anniversary. Gandhiji led India’s movement against political colonization… Today, we have to collectively launch a new movement against data colonization,” he said, addressing “Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2019” inaugurated by Narendra Modi.
Depicting data as the “new oil and wealth” in the world, Ambani expressed his views on the need of India’s data being owned and controlled by the Indians and not by corporates, especially global corporations.
“Honourable Prime Minister, I am sure you will make this one of the principal goals of your Digital India mission,” Ambani said, addressing the Summit.
“For India to succeed in this data-driven revolution, we will have to migrate the control and ownership of Indian data back to India … in other words, Indian wealth back to every Indian. India’s data must be owned and controlled by Indians only, not the global corporates. There is a need to launch a movement to bring back the control of data in our hands,” he added.
The Reserve Bank of India had asked in October for all the digital payment firms like Google Pay and Whatsapp to store their data locally for their businesses in the country.
During the Summit, Ambani also mentioned that Reliance, which he claimed had invested Rs. 3,00,000 crores and helped create one million jobs in Gujarat, would double its investment and employee numbers over the next 10 years.
He said Reliance and Reliance Retail will be soon launching a new commerce platform for small retailers–a mega mission which will first be lain in Gujarat and then spread all over the country.
Ambani also said he has plans to create a “fully digital Gujarat” by connecting every home, office, school, college and market through Jio.
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