National Digital Development Strategy and Its Practice in India

Globalization has produced a wide range of convergence effects. Digital strategies, popular in developed countries, have won a more durable favor among and followed by developing countries, and become the focus of their development, which is also determined by the fact that digital strategies serve as a tremendous impetus in promoting national economic growth and political governance. However, different from the digital development pattern adopted by developed countries, which is mainly based on the spontaneous growth of the market, the situation in developing countries often encounters more serious market malfunction, hence, government’s intervention and the role of transnational capital under open pattern are more needed. Therefore, the construction of a digital development strategy model for developing countries based on the supply side perspective is supposed to include at least the following elements: government, domestic private capital, and transnational capital as well as the interactions among them. Based on this framework, this paper also analyzes how the digital strategy was formulated and implemented in India. The development of India’s digital strategy suggests that a clear digital strategy can generate positive results, specifically, through establishing government-oriented public–private partnership, the construction of digital infrastructure can be strengthened, the leading industries in the digital field can get strong support, and the spillover effect of digital strategy can get enough attention from parties concerned. However, just as every coin has two sides, the other side of digital strategy shouldn’t be neglected. Digital strategy itself can only accelerate the development of a country, but it cannot fundamentally solve other internal problems existing in the economic and social development of a country, such as the limited role of the government rendered by national fiscal conditions, deep-rooted regional differentiation, improper policy-making orientation as well as conservatism, which will make it difficult for the government, private capital and transnational capital to achieve synergistic effect at a higher level, thus, restricting the realization of the national digital development strategy.