Agencies
Geneva
Dennis Francis, the President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has praised India for its smartphone revolution and lifting ‘800 million people out of poverty over the last 5-6 years simply by the use of smartphones’. Francis was speaking at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) during his lecture on ‘Accelerating progress towards Zero Hunger for the current and future generations.’
He praised high internet penetration in India and said this was a major factor why India has been able to achieve what it has. Not many other countries in the Global South can boast of such a feat, he said.
"Rural farmers in India who never had a relationship with the banking system, are now able to transact all their businesses on their smartphone. They pay their bills, they receive payments for orders. 800 million people lifted out of poverty. Because there is a high level of internet penetration in India, almost everyone has a cellphone,” he said.
"That is not the case in many parts of the Global South. So, there has to be equity demands, there has to be some effort, initiative to address this inequality as an initial step in negotiating the global framework for digitalisation,”he added.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed on digital presence of Indian ministries and has also given a push to mass digital solutions for a country with more than a billion people.