At a "Digital India Roundtable" event in Brussels on 15 April 2015, India and the EU have committed to work together in international ICT standardisation to define new standards e.g. on telecom security, energy efficient ICT or emerging technologies such as machine-to-machine communication.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), which brought into the world the GSM and other standards that have revolutionized the global market for mobile phones, will work with the Telecommunications Standards Development Society of India (TSDSI). The two standards institutes, Indian and European, will bring together the key Indian stakeholders, the Department of Telecommunications, the Telecommunications Centres of Excellence (a partnership of government, industry & academia), the Cellular Operators Association (representing telecom operators and network vendors active in India), and the Central Statistics Office as well as their European counterparts, the European Commission (DG CONNECT), DigitalEurope (representing the digital technology industry in Europe), and Eurostat, the EU's statistical arm, to build a partnership that will support investment and exports of European ICT companies in India's burgeoning market and help India to contribute to setting global standards.
Robert Madelin, Director General of the European Commission's department responsible for digital matters in his keynote speech at the Digital India Roundtable, pointed to the possibility of establishing links between the Indian and European flagship initiatives "Digital India" and the EU's "Digital Single Market". He suggested that the next EU-India Summit addresses the cooperation in the field of ICT.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, India's Minister for Communications and Information Technology stressed the need for seeing India as a country which wants to accelerate economic growth. He highlighted the main aspects of Digital India: to create a world class user demand driven digital infrastructure; to ensure that governmental services provides high level services; and to ensure empowerment of all citizens in India.
Ram Sewak Sharma, Secretary of the Indian Department of Electronics and IT, underlined that the new Indian government's vision of a truly Digital India will enable India's government to deliver better education, health care, justice and other services.
The participants of the roundable also suggested that EU and India collaborate on new business start-ups and entrepreneurial best practice sharing by establishing a business driven network.
EU and India maintain regular dialogues under the "India-EU Joint ICT Working Group" and "EU-India ICT Business Dialogue". Also, EU and India will meet for Cyber Security Consultations on 21 May in Brussels (co-chaired by the European External Action Service and India's Ministry of External Affairs).
