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The decision was taken by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, after his recent visit to six districts to hold the Janashirwad Yatra in Karnataka.

To improve internet connectivity in a few districts in Karnataka, the Union IT ministry constituted a task force Wednesday.

The decision was taken by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, after his recent visit to six districts to hold the Janashirwad Yatra in Karnataka.

“There were numerous requests to improve the speed and access of internet connectivity in some parts of each district. Minister had promised a task force would be sent to study the same in each district,” a release by the ministry said.

“In response to this commitment, a task force consisting of officers of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) has swiftly commenced their visit and work,” the release added.

The objective of this CoE is to create the holistic ecosystem for encouraging innovation, R&D and entrepreneurship in agritech domain and to address the problems of farmers in the region to increase their productivity and profitability in Akola-Vidarbha region

Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) has launched an open challenge program (OCP) 1.0 of FASAL (Fostering AgriTech Startups for Augmenting Livelihood), a Centre of Entrepreneurship (CoE) for IoT in Agriculture at Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV), Akola, Maharashtra in association with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The objective of this CoE is to create the holistic ecosystem for encouraging innovation, R&D and entrepreneurship in agritech domain and to address the problems of farmers in the region to increase their productivity and profitability.

While launching the OCP FASAL 1.0, Dr. Omkar Rai, Director General, said, "All those who are participating in the challenge program should understand the agricultural challenges of the Akola and Vidarbha region to convert their ideas into innovative agritech products. You can see how Israel has addressed the agricultural challenges of the country by leveraging the innovations in the agricultural technologies and empowering the farmers to adopt the modern technologies to enhance yield. We have the similar kind of innovation ecosystem at FASAL. Our 20 CoEs are well integrated in terms of facilities, mentoring and labs. So, any startup being incubated in a CoE can access all the facilities that we provide to startups on pan-India scale."

Anand Deshpande, founder-CMD, Persistent Systems and Chief Mentor, FASAL, said, "We have to look at the agriculture sector as an industry. There is a tremendous opportunity for startups focused on agriculture to build smart agritech products to significantly improve productivity of farmers by enabling them to leverage smart agricultural technologies apropos farmers’ needs. FASAL will address these challenges in a more streamlined manner."

Centre will focus on areas of high-tech, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity and hyper-scale computing, says Union minister of state for IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

The IT sector is betting big on recovery from the economic downturn following the second Covid-19 wave hitting hard the hopes of a revival. In line with the trend, Union minister of state for electronics and information technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar has set his eyes on an ambitious IT export target of $400 billion by March 2022.

“The IT industry is one of the important sectors for exports in India, and we have set a target of achieving $400 billion exports by March 2022. We are working closely with the IT industry leaders to ramp up exports,” Chandrasekhar told ETGovernment.

According to the industry body Nasscom report, the Indian IT-ITeS sector is expected to grow by 2.3% to $194 billion in the 2020-21 financial year. The trade body’s strategic review for the year showed that IT exports might swell to $150 billion, a 1.9% growth over the previous year.

The global research firm Gartner has estimated IT spending in India to grow at 8% to $92.7 billion in 2021. “The growth at 8% is a shade less than the world average of 8.6%,” Gartner said, adding that global spending on information technology is estimated to come at $4.2 trillion.

In India, the overall IT spending growth slowed down to 1.5% to $85.865 billion in 2020, probably hit by the pandemic.

This trend is also reflected in the IT companies’ performance attached to the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) — they have registered exports to the tune of ₹1.20 lakh crore in the first quarter ended June 30, 2021, marginally lower than ₹1.27 lakh crore recorded in the same quarter last year.

“Despite the unprecedented pandemic, the Indian IT industry has shown remarkable resilience,” said STPI DG Omkar Rai, adding that focus on next-generation technologies and the digitisation by MSMEs (micro, small and medium) will drive the growth for the industry.

India is the third-largest startup market globally. In order to promote entrepreneurship, Software Technology Park of India has initiated a plan to set up Center for Entrepreneurship to promote industry 4.0 technologies in AP

Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) on Tuesday said that self-reliance in technology adoption to industry is promoted through the initiatives of Make in India and Made in India.

He was speaking at a conference organised by CII on digital manufacturing with a focus on “Industry 4.0 Strategies”, in virtual mode.

He said that accelerating growth in manufacturing sector is vital to create a demand for service sector.

Referring to growth of startup ecosystem, he pointed out that India is the third-largest startup market globally. In order to promote entrepreneurship, Software Technology Park of India has initiated a plan to set up Center for Entrepreneurship to promote industry 4.0 technologies in the State. The proposed Center of Excellence would encourage young talent and will be a big push to startups, he added.