India should develop own internet search engine for digital sovereignty: Congress MP Neeraj Dangi

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Congress MP Neeraj Dangi on Wednesday made a strong case for India to develop an indigenous internet search engine to reduce dependence on foreign companies, like Google, and strengthen digital sovereignty.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in the House, the Congress MP said the situation in India is concerning, as the data of 1.4 billion people is mostly collected and analysed through foreign search engines.

This poses risks to privacy and cybersecurity, he said.

Dangi said countries like China, Russia, France, South Korea, the Czech Republic, and even Vietnam have their own indigenous search engines.

These nations, he said have developed indigenous search engines that are more popular in respective counties than Google. The indigenous search engines have bolstered their digital sovereignty.

He cautioned that in future, if tensions escalate between India and the US, services like Google, YouTube, Gmail, and android updates could be shut down.

"The way Strait of Hormuz is a choke point, in same way Google and Microsoft have become our digital choke points. The Hormuz choke point is a warning signal. If we will not develop our own search engine, cloud and software, then any future geopolitical pressure, US-India trade war or sanctions can put us in digital problems," he said.

Dangi recalled that following EU sanctions, Microsoft had stopped cloud services of an Indian refinery in 2025.

He urged the government to take initiative in this regard.

He also asked the government to issue a white paper on the issue and unveil roadmap for development of search engine.