India needs to continuously encourage homegrown technologies and reduce its dependence on foreign companies to prevent being affected by incidents like the recent Windows outage, Raju Vegesna, chairman and managing director of Sify Technologies, told ET.
He pointed out that China was not affected by the global outage last Friday, causing millions of Windows systems across the world to display the ‘blue screen of death’ due to a botched software update from security vendor Crowdstrike.
“Why is China not affected? Because they have their own homegrown stuff,” Vegesna said. “I hope India will reach a point like that. If you’re not aiming for that target, don’t participate in the game.”
While the Indian government does encourage indigenous technologies, it should not take its foot off the pedal in pushing this vision forward, he said.
Regulations like the upcoming Digital India Act should lay down the roadmap for a self-sufficient Digital India, he said. This would be imperative for India to reach its goal of being a developed nation by 2047, he added.
Vegesna said developing physical infrastructure alone will not help a country like India – with a huge population and high density of population – achieve the growth it is looking for.
“My belief is only digital infrastructure is what is going to be required for India to catch up and exponentially grow,” he said.
