Subramaniam Ramadorai might be a man of few words, but he makes his opinions known in a frank and straight forward manner. Take for instance his views on the ongoing BlackBerry controversy: ?The call for a ban seems to be unreasonable and draconian. We need a more balanced approach for lawful interception.?
Ramadorai is not only an industry veteran but also a global icon. He has been associated with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the past 38 years. He took over as CEO in 1996 when the company?s revenues were at $160 million and has since then led the company through some of its most exciting phases, including its going public in 2004. In October 2009, he stepped down as CEO, leaving a $6 billion global IT services company to his successor and is now the vice-chairman of the company. He is also the chairman of Tata Elxsi, Tata Technologies, CMC and CRL.
Nowadays, this Tata veteran has taken on the role of chairman, Business Action to Support the Information Society (BASIS), an initiative of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
In a wide-ranging interview, Ramadorai talks about internet governance issues, including data protection, privacy, security, communications infrastructure, and coordination and technical management of the internet. Excerpts:
Being a TCS veteran, what is the role you see for yourself at BASIS?
It is an exciting new challenge for me taking on the role of BASIS chair. BASIS has a strong reputation in the ICT sector and I am particularly looking forward to broadening and strengthening BASIS activities to support business objectives in developing regions around the world.
At BASIS, I see my role in a number of ways. One is mentoring a lot of young people. Because at the end of the day, we want to produce more leaders?technical and general management leaders?because the demand will always be phenomenal. Second is looking for strategic opportunities where the company should look at 3 to 5 years down the road etc, where you perform a lot more of strategic role and a mentoring role rather than any operational role from a day to day basis.
The BlackBerry security issue still remains unresolved. How important is the issue of internet privacy in this regard?
The internet security and privacy of any data or any conversation is of paramount importance. There is no question about it. But I think the solution to that is not by just banning the usage of anything, but more importantly by certain ways of doing it. We need to upgrade and modernise intelligence and investigating agencies so that they are equipped with the latest tools and technologies to intercept data. We need to provide organisations like the National Technical Research Organisation with requisite funding to enhance their capabilities so that they can assist law-enforcement and investigating agencies. And then prepare a lawful interception policy that can be implemented uniformly with full cooperation of industry in a way that supports the needs of investigating agencies and protects the data security needs of corporations. Bans and calls for bans aren?t a solution. They?ll disconnect India from the rest of the world.
So the challenge of misuse is rooted not just in one device or technology, but in society in general?
Everything starts with that because the greed is what makes people do wrong things. But ultimately the technology or the underlying infrastructure permits them to do it for good or bad. So the whole issue of data privacy, data security, and monitoring has to happen whether we like it or not. Having said that, what is the best way to ensure that the right protections are available and that?s what is being attempted. In any system, even in a bank if it is a conventional bank, frauds do happen. We had the security scam when we had the regulations in the stock exchange. We have had the Wall Street problems because of excessive greed. So I think that we have to keep pushing the way we learn and do things and collaborate. At the end of the day, some of this mishaps have to be minimised, but to say that it can be completely eliminated is a very impossible task.
E-governance programmes such as Aadhaar are being rolled out on a grand scale. How will internet governance benefit the common man in the country?
When you look at the UID project and any database that exists which can be monetised or used as a medium for serving the citizens in terms of government to citizen, or business to business, or citizen to citizen, I think it becomes extremely important because that is the source of the data and source of services around the data for the citizens. So I think that anybody who provides a service to the citizens is going to be governed by a set of rules regulations. The latest being if you saw the launch of the mobile trading based on Sebi?s approval. It is again a way to increase the accessibility to a small investor or a retail investor in any part of the country.
Mobile or Internet-based trading is going to be very fundamental beyond the screen-based trading or the broker-based trading which we currently do. I think that democratising the whole access of anything to the citizens is the fundamental premise on all of this and that?s what we need to ensure that the digital divide or the digital inclusion happens.
What are the learnings from the recently held Internet Governance Forum in Lithuania, which could benefit the global internet community?
The biggest learning was the collaborative call for action where multi stakeholders get together and then publish the proceedings at the end of the sessions. All the sessions were streamed also so that you could participate in an online mode from any location. And then there were issues that are of relevance today, whether it is commerce we talked about, whether it is the data security and the privacy, or the social networks and the impact of that on the society. So they go from very broad topics to very specific topics as it is applied on the ground.
Finance, micro financing was another topic that was discussed at length. The proceedings are published and people must go through those proceedings to see what is really happening in the world including in India. And also the commitments of countries when Lithuania was chosen; Lithuania is one of the earliest to adopt 4G and they have already deployed 4G on the ground.
Similarly when we had the meeting in Egypt, that was a committed country which wants to come into the set of developing nations where internet as a medium is going to be used extensively. Hyderabad was chosen before that because our country is definitely wanting to be in the policy making as well as a commitment by the Internet Governance Forum that India is important and they should participate in the policy making because of the size, scale, and the number of citizens we are going to be impacting.
What is the role that BASIS has played in establishing a positive environment in which policy makers could accelerate the development of information society?
I think the key role they have played is in terms of a number of policies where there is equal opportunity for anybody. They have published a number of standards and influenced the standards making with regard to transactions, whether they are payments through the internet and or data privacy or data interchange. They also have the capacity building related issues with regard to how do you ideate, how do you implement, and how do you carry it forward.
BASIS is enabling one at a very basic level and understanding of what the internet does, as well as engaging a lot of policy makers and lot of youth to deliberate on the happenings.
What kind of opportunities BASIS could bring to the corporates in India?
Corporates are going to be using more and more of this medium as a way to disseminate and or sell their products and services. Underlying that is the whole issue of data security, data integrity, protecting client?s information etc. I think that the corporates must participate to influence some of this decision making, otherwise it will be purely academic or a government or a country which will take the lead and then put the policies, which may be not the right way to do it or it may be detrimental to the commerce itself.
If you look at India, it is one of the most critical growth part of the world. And with the kind of broadband vision of the country with regard to touching every part of the country through broadband, the last mile could be a wireless broadband and then the optical fibre may reach as close to the village or as close to the distribution point.
I think it is only a question of time before every form of service is going to ride on top of this broadband infrastructure. And then the necessary policies and the learnings for commerce is going to be very critical. So to that extent, it is extremely important for us to understand what happens in these forums based on the learnings and on the needs. Any experience we build here can be taken to other parts of the world.
