Competing digitally

India’s efforts for coming at par with developed countries in terms of digital advancements have earned it not only the people’s praise for convenience to easy access to the internet, but the recognition has been a global one as India rises four places in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019 (WDCR ) and sits at rank 44. The most remarkable advancement in 2019 was in the technology sub-factor level, where India held the first position in telecommunications investment. This ranking measures the capacity and readiness of 63 nations to adopt and explore digital technologies as a key driver for economic transformation in business, government and society at large. In order to evaluate an economy, WDCR examines three factors: Knowledge, the capacity to understand and learn the new technologies; technology, the competence to develop new digital innovations; and future readiness, the preparedness for the coming developments. Many nations from Asia showed significant growth from last year in digital competitiveness. India’s significant improvement in jumping up four places comes with the knowledge factor as India fared best in graduates in sciences and R&D productivity by publication. India also fared best in the technology factor, particularly in the telecommunications investment and IT and media stock market. This reading points to the fact that the use and popularity of digital advancement is gaining greater grounds and that people are turning more savvy in this regard. The very purpose of digital advancement is not only to connect people but take to them the benefits of overall general growth and development. The launch of Digital India by Narendra Modi-led BJP government has been an effort of great significance in this direction. This flagship programme was introduced with the vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. With the phenomena of e-governance, India has come a long way since the mid-90’s in terms of wider sectoral applications focussed on citizen-centric services. With innovative steps taken to upgrade the nation as a whole and not make digital advancement a privilege available only to few, the ecosystem of public services in India has been transformed with information technology. There is only more to accomplish.