India's low-cost digital platforms project its technological dominance on global front

Once known as the 'India Stack', they have been rebranded 'Digital Public Infrastructure' (DPI) as the number and ambition of the platforms have grown..

Starting without legacy systems such as credit cards and desktop computers, developing countries can leapfrog the West, reported the Economist.. Further, the Economist reported that the digital prize, as India has shown, is a means to accelerate connectedness, social-service provision, growth prospects and, ultimately, the building of a state and civic identity..

Central to that vision is the notion of private innovators and firms accessing and adding to the infrastructure, as they do in India, it said.. "DPI is the infrastructure that can enable not just government transactions and welfare but also private innovation and competition", said CV Madhukar of Co-Develop, a fund recently launched to help countries interested in building DPI pool resources...

"We are not going to tell countries, 'Here is a health system, here is a payment system.' What we are trying to do is get them to build their own systems with building blocks that are interoperable", Rajagopalan said.. India is offering its technologies and platforms for free..

Some hope that influence might one day extend to an Indian alternative to the Western-run global financial plumbing, which includes clearing systems in New York and the swift messaging system upon which thousands of banks rely for cross-border transfers, the Economist report said...

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