The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the issue of the digital divide and recast the world's view of digital access as a critical component to an equitable society, according to Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad, who underlined that technology is meant to be a great equaliser and not a source of division.
In 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world embraced digital transformation at a pace never witnessed before," Prasad said at the UN High-Level thematic debate on Digital Cooperation and Connectivity: Whole-of-Society Approaches to End the Digital Divide.'
"The pandemic has resulted in societies reimagining technology's critical role in how we work, learn and live, Prasad said.