India tells the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference at Doha that 2.2 billion people are still offline

11 November 2026

India used the high-level discussion on emerging technologies at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, PP-26, in Doha to argue that technology must be affordable before it can be useful. Minister of State for Communications and Rural Development Dr Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani told the conference that about 2.2 billion people in the world are still offline. He said India has put in roughly 15 billion dollars through BharatNet to carry broadband into villages, and pointed to the Samriddh Gram Centres, a WSIS Prize winner, where villagers get health care, farm advice, banking and government certificates in one place. He also described India's work on cheap computing for artificial intelligence, AI models in Indian languages, quantum research and 100 laboratories for 5G use cases. India asked that developing countries be given a bigger say in writing global technology standards and spectrum rules. On the sidelines he met delegations from Malaysia, Iran and Uzbekistan on cross-border cyber fraud and digital infrastructure security. He said bank alerts in India had helped stop suspected losses of over Rs 5,000 crore.