India using technology as weapon in war against poverty: PM Modi

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], November 16 (ANI): India has been contributing to make technology human-centric and democratic and it has turned out to be a weapon to eradicate poverty in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister, who addressed the silver jubilee edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS 22) through video conference, said India's Innovative youth have ensured tech and talent globalisation.
"In India, technology is a force of equality and empowerment...since past, India has been contributing to make technology human-centric and democratic. Technology has turned out to be a weapon to eradicate poverty in the country. Especially, Bengaluru is leading the path of being the capital of technology, innovation and potential leadership," he said.
"While India is investing 100 trillion dollars on infrastructure projects in coming years, there would be red carpet welcome for them in place of red-tapism which used to exist earlier," he added.
The Prime Minister expressed confidence that solution can be found to all problems if confidence of investors and creativity of innovators go together.
The Prime Minister said Indian technocrats were leading across technology fronts including healthtech, fintech and edutech, and added that the world was witnessing talent globalisation.
"India being home to about 81,000 startups is the third largest hub of unicorns. In the last eight years, India's has advanced 40 places in the Global Innovation Index," he said.
"Technology is being used in the country to bring about equitability and empowerment. This has also curtailed irregularities. India has become an information super highway," he added.
The Prime Minister described how technology was efficiently used to fight against corona pandemic, to provide quality education, in implementing direct benefit transfer, Jan-Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, e-marketplace and other social welfare programmes.
PM Modi said the country was transforming as a sustainable digital economy with a broadband revolution taking place even in rural parts.
According to a release, those who shared their thoughts on the occasion included Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy, UAE; Tim Watts, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, Australia; Petri Honkonen, Minister of Science and Culture, Finland and Martin Schroeter, Chairman & CEO, Kyndryl, US.
Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO, Inmobi, and Aravind Kumar, Director, STPI, were also present.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraja Bommai unveiled the commemoration plaque of the event and addressed the gathering. Karnataka Minister for IT and Biotechnology CN Ashwath Narayan gave the welcome address. (ANI)