Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw retains Electronics & IT portfolio
New Delhi: Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has retained electronics and IT portfolio where he has scripted success stories around electronics and semiconductor manufacturing and also spearheaded the enactment of crucial Digital Personal Data Protection Act.
Vaishnaw has also retained the railway ministry and got the additional charge of the Information and Broadcasting ministry.
An IIT Kanpur alumni, the bureaucrat-turned-politician has had an action-packed stint in the Modi 2.0 government and will need to build on the past momentum which are crucial to make India’s electronic and IT sector ‘Atmanirbhar’ (self-reliant) .
Mobile phone manufacturing during Vaishnaw’s tenure crossed Rs 4.1 lakh crore worth of production mark, which is a 21-fold jump in production level compared to that in 2014-15, when 98 per cent of local demand was met through imports. The country now meets 97 per cent of its total mobile phone demand locally.
Among the pending issues Vaishnaw would have to work out the enabling rules to implement Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act and also give shape to the proposed Digital India Act, which will supersede the over two decades old IT Act.
The DPDP Act was approved by Parliament in August last year after six years of the Supreme Court declaring ‘Right to Privacy’ as a fundamental right, and has provisions to curb the misuse of individuals’ data by online platforms.
