Good digital public infrastructure (DPI) integrates technology with societal needs, ensuring that it is secure, scalable, and inclusive.

India’s achievement of over 80% financial inclusion in just six years has drawn international praise, particularly as a model for the Global South. This accomplishment underscores India’s success in achieving both digital and financial inclusion for over a billion people. Consequently, the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023 highlighted the critical role of digital public infrastructure.

In response, India’s G20 task force has released a comprehensive report outlining a global strategy for DPI development. This positions India to support other nations in achieving digital sovereignty, financial inclusion, and self-reliance.

The evolving digital landscape is marked by a variety of stakeholders—including private enterprises, government bodies, non-profits, and think tanks—each working to advance their DPI solutions. This raises two key questions: How can we identify genuine and reliable DPIs from the plethora available? And what differentiates a “good DPI” from a “bad DPI”?

Identifying effective DPI involves assessing how well technology meets societal needs while ensuring security, scalability, and inclusivity. Authenticity and adherence to core principles are essential for evaluating DPIs.

The Citizen Stack Model

Citizen Stack, built upon the proven success of India Stack, emerges as a trusted ecosystem in digital infrastructure. India Stack, a robust digital platform, has demonstrated its effectiveness and security on a vast scale, serving over a billion citizens. This strong foundation enhances Citizen Stack’s credibility and reliability. Unlike DPI manufacturers, Citizen Stack functions as a regulatory body or auditor, certifying and authenticating DPIs to ensure they meet high standards of quality and security.

Citizen Stack’s approach is comprehensive, focusing on security, scalability, and inclusivity. The DPI platforms approved by Citizen Stack are designed to meet the diverse needs of large populations while maintaining stringent security measures to protect user data and privacy. As an auditor, Citizen Stack ensures that certified DPIs are dependable, secure, and beneficial to the public.

In an era of abundant digital solutions and promises, distinguishing genuinely reliable platforms is essential. Citizen Stack offers assurance as a gold standard for DPI solutions.

Guiding Principles of a “Good DPI”

Citizen Stack has established five core principles—referred to as sutras—that define a good DPI:

1. Maintain Citizen Relationships: Ensure that digital infrastructure supports a fair relationship between citizens, the market, and the state, free from undue influence.
2. Protect Empowerment and Privacy: Implement consent-based data sharing systems that prioritize individual empowerment and privacy.
3. Prevent Monopolistic Lock-In: Ensure interoperability to avoid citizens being restricted by monopolistic entities.
4. Combine Techno-Legal Regulation: Integrate technology with legal frameworks to govern ethical tech use, ensuring innovation while safeguarding security and societal rights.
5. Foster Public-Private Innovation: Encourage collaboration between public and private sectors, while avoiding corporate dominance. The focus should be on public good rather than corporate monopolies, and technology should prevent exploitation by state or corporate actors.

Why is it in the News

The Maharashtra government recently notified Mendha, a village deep inside the forests of the state’s Gadchiroli district, as a separate Gram Panchayat under The Maharashtra Gramdan Act, 1964.

What is Gramdan?

• Gramdan is an expansion of the Bhoodan Movement started in 1951 by Aacharya Vinoba Bhave.
  • ‘Bhoodan’ meant redistribution of land from bigger landowners to the landless.
  • Under Gramdan, the entire village will put its land under a common trust.
• This way, the land will not be sold outside the village or to one who has not joined Gramdan in the village.
  • But the landowners can continue to cultivate it and reap the benefits.
• The Movement paved the way for the protection of natural resources by giving equal rights and responsibilities to everyone in the community and empowering communities to move towards self-governance.
• Under the Act, at least 75 percent of landowners in the village should surrender land ownership to the village community for it to be declared as ‘gramdan’.
  • Such land should at least be 60 percent of the village land. Five per cent of the surrendered land is distributed to the landless in the village for cultivation.
  • Recipients of such land cannot transfer the same without the permission of the community.
  • The rest remains with the donors.
  • They and their descendants can work on it and reap the benefits.
  • But they cannot sell it outside the village or to a village resident who has not joined Gramdan.
• Today, seven states in India have 3,660 Gramdan villages, the highest being in Odisha (1,309).
  • The states are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
• In September 2022, the Assam government repealed the Assam Gramdan Act, 1961 and Assam Bhoodan Act, 1965, bypassing The Assam Land and Revenue Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2022.
• This, it said, was done to counter encroachment on donated lands in the state.
• Till that time, Assam had 312 Gramdan villages.

About Mendha’s Village Struggle:

• The village, comprising around 500 Gond Adivasis, has fought for its forests for years.
  • It is popular as the first village in India to secure community forest rights (CFR), following the passing of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
  • Some 80 per cent of the area in the village is covered with dense forest.
• People here believe that land is not a private property but a collective resource that provides food and livelihood and should be saved and passed on to the next generation.
• All villagers in Mendha have surrendered their land, which is unique. In all other villages, only about 75-80 per cent of landowners had agreed to do so.
  • The village fulfilled these conditions of the Act in 2013 and notified the district collector about its decision to implement the Act.

Why is it in the News

Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Friday launched the National Cooperative Database and stressed that it would help in policy making.

About National Cooperative Database (NCD):

• The National Cooperative Database (NCD) is an initiative spearheaded by the Ministry of Cooperation, responding to the pressing need for a robust database to effectively capture essential information concerning India's extensive cooperative sector.
• Developed collaboratively with State Governments, National Federations, and stakeholders, the NCD is designed to promote a cooperative-centric economic model, offering a web-based digital dashboard for seamless data management.
• Acting as a centralized repository, the NCD aggregates data from cooperative societies, including National/State Federations, with information entered and authenticated by nodal officials at RCS/DRCS offices for cooperative societies and provided by various national/state federations for federations.
• The collected data encompasses diverse parameters, such as registered names, locations, membership numbers, sectoral details, operational areas, financial statements, audit statuses, and more, providing a comprehensive overview of the cooperative landscape.
• Serving as a vital communication tool, the NCD facilitates efficient interaction between the Central Ministry, States/UTs, and Cooperative Societies, fostering collaboration and synergy within the cooperative sector.
• Key features and benefits of the NCD include single-point access, comprehensive and updated data, user-friendly interface, vertical and horizontal linkages, query-based reports and graphs, Management Information System (MIS) reports, data analytics, and geographical mapping capabilities.

Why is it in the News?

The Union IT, Communications, and Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Thursday stressed on the need to further simplify economic laws in a modern and relevant way at the launch of NITI Aayog’s ‘NITI for States’ platform.

About “NITI For States” Platform:

• It serves as a cross-sectoral knowledge hub envisioned to be a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for Policy and Good Governance.

Key features include:

•  A comprehensive repository comprising Best Practices, Policy documents, datasets, data profiles, and NITI publications across various sectors.
•  Knowledge products spanning 10 sectors and two cross-cutting themes (Gender and Climate Change), such as Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health, Manufacturing, MSME, Tourism, Urban, and Water resources & WASH.
• An intuitive and user-friendly interface accessible via multiple devices, including mobile phones.
• The platform aims to catalyze digital governance transformation by providing government officials with contextualized, actionable knowledge and insights, thereby enhancing decision-making quality.
• It supports district collectors and block-level functionaries by granting access to innovative best practices from various States and Union Territories.

What is the Viksit Bharat Strategy Room?

• It serves as an interactive platform enabling users to visualize data, trends, best practices, and policies in an immersive manner, facilitating a comprehensive assessment of any problem statement.
• The platform features voice-enabled AI for user interaction and facilitates connectivity with multiple stakeholders through video conferencing.
• Designed as a plug-and-play model, it enables replication by states, districts, and blocks for widespread adoption.
• Collaboration with various government organizations by NITI Aayog includes:
  •  iGOT Karmayogi's "SAMARTH" online training modules accessible through the platform.
  • Integration of NITI Aayog’s National Data and Analytics Platform (NDAP) to provide access to government datasets.
  • Support from the National E-Governance Division (NeGD) in developing the innovative Viksit Bharat Strategy Room.
  • Multi-lingual support provided by Bhashini.
  • Integration of PM Gatishakti BISAG-N team, with DPIIT support, to offer geospatial tools for Area Based Planning.

Why in the News?

The Indian Chief Economic Adviser recently expressed worry about credit rating agencies using the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators to assess ratings, particularly for developing countries.

About Worldwide Governance Indicators:

• The Worldwide Governance Indicators is based on a long-standing research programme of The World Bank.
• It was first established in 1996 to measure the quality of governance in over 200 countries.
• These aggregate indicators are derived from over 30 individual data sources produced by a variety of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and private sector firms.
• The indicators capture six key dimensions of governance including:
• Voice and Accountability
• Political Stability and Absence of Violence
• Government Effectiveness
• Regulatory Quality
• Rule of Law
• Control of Corruption
• According to The World Bank, corruption is the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development.

About The World Bank:

• The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world.
• Its goals are to reduce poverty and support development.
• It helps by offering a growing range of free tools, research, and knowledge to help people address the world’s development challenges, for instance, comprehensive, downloadable indicators about development in countries around the globe.