India is reportedly set to release its first-ever cybersecurity policy by January 2020. Speaking at an event, Rajesh Pant, the national cybersecurity coordinator on cyber policies, told a news wire, “India’s cybersecurity strategy policy will be released in January 2020 and will enable the government to cyber-secure the nation. The government’s vision of a $5-trillion economy will be helped to a great extent by this effort.”
Ajeet Bajpai, director-general of the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, added, “Considering the size and scale of our nation, we need approximately ₹25,000 crore budget for the same. The biggest question is where this money will come from? Also, there is a need to emphasise on the need to make cybersecurity mandatory as a subject at the university level for high-decibel awareness.”
This is not the first time that India has decided to launch a cybersecurity policy. Back in 2013, former IT minister Kapil Sibal had released the National Cyber Security Policy in Delhi. The policy was prepared in consultation with all relevant stakeholders, user entities and public. It was aimed at facilitating the creation of a secure computing environment and enabling adequate trust and confidence in electronic transactions and also guiding stakeholders actions for the protection of cyberspace.
In 2017, Piyush Goyal had created sectoral Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) to mitigate cybersecurity threats in power systems.
