Trinidad And Tobago Inks Pact For Sharing Indian Technology Stack
Recently India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to share India Stack with Trinidad and Tobago.
India Stack Open is a collection of ‘Application Programming Interface (API)’ and digital public goods, which aims to facilitate identity, data and payment services on a large scale.
An API is a set of defined rules that enable different applications to communicate with each other.
Earlier India has signed MoUs for sharing India Stack with countries like Armenia, Sierra Leone, Suriname and Antigua and Barbuda.
A similar MoU was also signed with Papua New Guinea in July 2023, which shows the growing interest and acceptance of the initiative globally.
UPI, which is also a part of the India stack, has been accepted in France, UAE, Singapore and Sri Lanka. Different agencies own and maintain the individual components of India Stack.
For example-
- “Aadhaar” related products are owned and managed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI);
- ‘DigiLocker’ is under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity);
- Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is controlled by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
- The regulation of the account aggregator framework rests with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Significance of India Stack:
- It enables governments, businesses, start-ups etc. to move towards presence-less, paperless and cashless service delivery.
- It helps in establishing synergy in all forms of digital economy. Also, it expands the access of digital services to all citizens.
- It promotes innovation and entrepreneurship by providing equal access to data, especially in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning.
Layers of India Stack:
- Identity based layer: Each resident is given a unique ID, and they are enabled to prove that “I am who I claim to be”.
- Payment based layer: It allows any person to make payment to any other person. It is inter-operable, fast and affordable. It is not just limited to smartphones.
- Data Empowerment: Helps in sharing data in a secure manner.
Source – PIB
