Jaijit Bhattacharya
Business Standard
As India moves to occupy the space of an IT superpower, the claim to digital sovereignty appears hollow given that it has a feeble presence at the high-stake tables of IT standards. IT standards have become one of the preferred tools of technology giants from developed economies to extract undue economic benefit from emerging economies.
Given that India does not appear to have the political resolve to enhance its presence at the global forums on international IT standards, we seem to be abdicating our responsibility to secure our IT industry as well as IT usage.
The issue becomes even more severe when we observe that globally, nations and firms, are trying to convert technologies on which they have an intellectual property rights (IPR) into standards, thus forcing their monopoly on economies and extracting an unfair and undue economic benefit from manipulation of the global IPR and standards regimes.
The declared aim of standardisation is to enhance productivity and facilitate international trade. The WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreement allows for simplification of trade and removes obstacle to trade; reduces need for changing design and manufacture to meet national requirements, reducing complexity and cost; and provides greater choice and understanding for customers.
Compare this to the case where the combination of IPR and standards can give undue economic benefit to large foreign players in developing countries such as India, without the monopoly players adding commensurate value to the economy.
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