1 week Ago
India’s electronics industry is in a relatively advantageous position compared with competing nations in terms of the impact from the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) secretary S Krishnan said on Monday.While Indian electronics makers have not yet flagged any concerns to the government, Krishnan said the government has to be prepared for any scenario including possible dumping of Chinese goods.The government is consulting with electronics manufacturers in the country on the possible impact, but the sector does not have any major concerns so far on the developing situation, he said, speaking to the press in the national capital.
“For us, electronics-related tariffs and what happens in that sector are important,” said Krishnan. “There is another detailed agreement which needs to be negotiated with the United States. We will provide our inputs to the commerce ministry,” he said, referring to discussions between the two nations on a bilateral trade agreement.
“There are multiple scenarios which can take place. We have to be prepared to handle all of this,” he said, on the possibility of dumping of goods by China given its higher tariffs, at 34% compared with India’s 26%.The digital personal data protection rules are likely to be finalised in another six to eight weeks after further internal discussions are concluded, he said.
On whether the government would place curbs on Chinese large language models, Krishnan said for private players, risks of data going out of the country are mitigated if the model is hosted locally and several factors will be considered before the government makes a decision on this.“The true problem lies when data gets shared on a portal or on a mobile app because then the data may go out of the country and may feed the way that a particular model is trained,” Krishnan said, adding that the government itself will tap into its own recently launched AI portal AIKosha, which hosts several AI models and datasets.The official said building domestic capabilities in cybersecurity is crucial as countries will not share their most advanced cyber defence capabilities with others.
More research in this area and promotion of local cybersecurity and deeptech startups are required, he said.Krishnan was speaking at the launch of a digital threat report for the BFSI sector released by Cert-In, the nodal agency for cybersecurity under MeitY, CSIRT-Fin and cybersecurity company SISA.The BFSI sector saw a 175% increase in phishing attacks in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period the previous year, the report said, noting that phishing accounts for 25% of initial infection vectors.
By 2025, we expect AI-driven cyberattacks to become one of the most scalable and adaptable threats, challenging traditional defences and requiring innovative countermeasures, it said.“Cybersecurity is not just about protecting individual entities — it’s about securing an entire ecosystem, Cert-In director-general Sanjay Bahl said. In today’s hyper-connected world, threats evolve faster than ever, making collaborative intelligence-sharing essential.
Digital payments are projected to generate $3.1 trillion by 2028, accounting for 35% of total banking revenues. The rapid shift to digital transactions has also expanded the attack surface for cybercriminals, the report said.
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