Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday advocated self-reliance in the technology-related sector and also pointed out how countries like the United States were following a similar policy of ‘aatmanirbharta’. The USA since the Trump era has embraced the goal of “self-reliance” with the current President Biden stressing on the policy multiple times.

PM Modi was speaking in a webinar on ‘Technology-enabled Development’, where he said science and technology was not an isolated sector as it was closely connected with the digital economy and based on advanced technology, which is now focusing on fast delivery and empowering citizens.

He said the animation, visual effects, gaming, and comic (AVGC) sector offers immense potential to employ youth. “We need to promote AVGC to build domestic capacity for serving our markets and the global demand,” he said.

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“As you know, over the past two years, we have started some new traditions – the first is bringing forward the union budget by an entire month. The budget is implemented from April 1st, so we get two months in between to prepare for this. We are trying to get all stakeholders in this in-between period – from central and state governments, public and private players, departments etc – so that we can all come together and look at how the budget can be implemented most efficiently. This is a collaborative effort to ensure how, in the light of budget, can we implement the provisions quickly, seamlessly and with optimum outcome,” said the Prime Minister.

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech announced the setting up a task force comprising of industry stakeholders to boost the AVGC sector. The announcement was received by the industry with optimism.

In an RTI response last June, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has indicated that the ‘Draft Guiding Principles for the Uniform National-level Regulation of Online Fantasy Sports Platforms in India’ released by the NITI Aayog in December 2020 as well as the need for a central regulatory framework for online gaming in India may be deliberated upon by the Council of Ministers.

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PUBG is one of the games listed in the medal category of Asian Games scheduled from September 10th to September 25th, 2022. The Games will be hosted in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. The list of titles announced in September includes the names of FIFA, Dota 2, and League of Legends.