Cabinet Reshuffle: When Ravi Shankar Prasad faced Big Tech, beleaguered telecoms in his tenure

Prasad, one of the most vocal supporters of the Modi government, resigned as IT Minister on Wednesday

One of the most shocking casualties of the Cabinet Reshuffle by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday was former Electronics and Information Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The IT minister of India for seven years, Prasad has been one of the most vocal supporters of the Modi government, making his exit all the more shocking. While focussing on furthering the government’s digitisation agenda, Prasad focused on Digital India and performance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, among others, during his tenure.

At the helm of MeITY, Prasad took on Big Tech on issues of fake news and misinformation, which often tangled him in the hotly-debated topic of privacy of internet users.

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Twitter has been at loggerheads with the IT Ministry since the beginning of 2021 on issues of fake news and most recently, non-compliance of India’s controversial IT rules, that came into effect in May, highlighting Prasad’s insistence on “law of the land”.

Under Prasad, the ministry dealt a tough hand to Facebook, and its messaging platform WhatsApp, when the circulation of wrong information on its platforms led to mass lynchings in India. His ministry also faced the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the Pegasus WhatsApp breach, wherein 121 users from India were exposed to an attack by an Israel-based NSO Group.

The MyGov portal developed by MeitY under Prasad has been a resounding success. The platform enables ideation and conversations about government schemes. The DigiLocker app for storing official documents and eOffice have been other schemes under Prasad that gained praise.

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As Telecom Minister, Prasad had two big challenges ahead of him in 2019 — BSNL and MTNL. While the companies failed to kickstart India’s 5G internet revolution as promised by Prasad, he did manage to pass revival of the companies through the Cabinet, even as asset monetisation of the telecoms is yet to begin.

Prasad changed his Twitter bio to “Member of Parliament from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha, Bihar. BJP worker” after he resigned from his post on Wednesday.