Briefs

West Bengal to have an IT research lab

West Bengal will soon have an Information Technology Research Lab, which will be set up at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Kolkata. It will be the first of its kind in the region. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the State Chief Minister, disclosed this while interacting with the captains of the IT industry at an IT seminar held in the city recently. He said that the research lab would conduct high-end research in IT.

The Chief Minister assured the mandarins of global and domestic IT companies that he would soon take up the issue of enacting privacy legislation in the state for foolproof data protection. “I will take up the matter with Dayanidhi Maran, the Union IT Minister,” he said.

He admitted that there is a need for privacy legislation in the state to ensure foolproof data protection as European and American clients are worried over leakage of vital corporate information following the ‘Infinity E-Search’ episode. Several Western clients have been shying away from India fearing leakage of information while transmitting data. The Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh State Governments’ recent efforts to bring in draft privacy legislation have failed to yield any results.

“I would definitely try to process the introduction of the privacy legislation at the earliest,” he said. The Chief Minister is optimistic that bringing in privacy legislation in the state could generate more jobs from overseas clients.

“The State Government has tied up with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur for an interface between research and technology to boost the IT sector, especially in developing IT-enabled discoveries in bio-technology and pharmaceuticals,” Bhattacharjee said.

In order to widen the ambit of IT, the Government has started encouraging (small and medium enterprises) SMBs to set up units in Durgapur and Kharagpur and other upcoming IT towns in the state like Haldia and Siliguri.