The Hindu Business Line : India, Japan step up ICT engagement

THE India-Japan Task Force on Information and Communications Technology, slated to be in place by March, will identify specific areas of co-operation and work out the pairing of relevant institutions.

The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, and his Japanese counterpart, Mr Taro Aso, discussed in Tokyo earlier this week not only the coordinated move for the formation of the ICT Task Force, but also the Indian initiatives for participation in the Asia Broadband Programme and the steps that both countries could take to remove the "impediments" to their ICT engagement such as the "withholding tax."

While a joint statement was issued on the intensification of ICT contacts, Mr Maran later said in a telephonic conversation with Business Line that India's feat of testing Internet Protocol Version 6 and the possibilities of joint research and collaboration for specific e-governance applications were brought into focus.

An observer of the international ICT scene later emphasised the importance of IPv 6, an area "Japan has not so far migrated to," and of India's efforts to go in for new generations of know-how in this sector.

Mr Maran, who held talks with his Malaysian counterpart, Mr Lim Keng Yaik, in Kuala Lumpur, suggested that software contracts be given directly to the Indian firms, which in any case were being tapped by the multinationals as their choice-destinations for outsourcing as regards the very projects that countries were assigning to the MNCs. Mr Maran wanted Malaysia to extend business visas to the Indian IT professionals and address their special concerns.

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