News story input by Aarya Sinha
New Delhi, Aug 10: The Government of India will play host to the first Indian Internet Governance Forum (IIGF). This announcement was made by Anil Kumar Jain, CEO of National Internet Exchange of India, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology. IIGF is scheduled on 20th October this year, and the theme will be “Inclusive Internet for Digital India”. The forum will be for three days, and have over 25 workshops dealing with digital economy, digital governance, security, sustainability, stability, etc. IIGF is based on the model of Internet Governance Forum (IGF) under United Nations which is an Internet Governance policy discussion platform. A policy is the overall approach to a subject. IGF is a body that works to bring together everyone whose life is influenced by the internet, and who should have a voice in creating rules that govern the use of internet, to a single place. This allows everyone to give their opinion and also to listen to the opinions of everyone else. This way, policies related to the internet are made keeping in mind the voice of all concerned parties (stakeholders).India is the second largest broadband subscription country in the world, and has the highest data consumption per user per month in the world. This means that Indians are heavy users of the internet. Their voice should be heard while making international policies related to the internet.
