Kathmandu. \u00a0The political parties have pledged to implement the development of the information technology (IT) sector in practice rather than being limited to their election manifestos. Speaking at the second phase of ‘Digital Leadership Dialogue’ organized by ICT Foundation Nepal in Kathmandu on Friday, leaders of various political parties said that IT has become a common national agenda. <\/p>\n
They made it clear that the time has come to implement the commitments mentioned in the manifesto. At the beginning of the program, Chairman of Nepal Digital Lead and former Senior Director of Nepal Telecommunication Authority Ananda Raj Khanal said that although the manifesto of the parties has prioritized ICT, there is a lack of realistic depiction of the current challenges. <\/p>\n
“There is a lot of futuristic things in the manifesto, but it does not talk about the ground reality of the present,” he said, “If we do not address the current challenges by talking about futuristic, then they are all just dreams.” \u2019<\/p>\n
Gurung, who is the party’s candidate for the election from Kathmandu-5, was of the view that at least 1 percent of the national income should be invested in innovation, start-up and technology. He also mentioned that the green energy and water resources available in Nepal could be harnessed for AI infrastructure development. “Energy and water are critical to AI operations. AI infrastructure should be developed using the green energy and water that Nepal has,” he said. <\/p>\n
IT<\/strong> ab<\/strong> national<\/strong> agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n All the parties participating in the panel discussion on ‘Manifesto to Action’ agreed that IT is now a national agenda and not just an election agenda. They have also pledged to give priority to digital governance, infrastructure development, reducing the digital divide, skills development, digital literacy and STEM education. <\/p>\n Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) leader Gajendra Budhathoki pointed out the lack of long-term investment in the IT sector. “There was no investment in ICT in this country. The understanding has been wrong for 34 years,” he said, adding, “Whatever has happened now is due to the efforts of the private sector.” The state’s efforts are meagre. \u2019<\/p>\n Likewise, Progressive Democratic Party leader Keshav Aryal pointed out the need for skilled human resources to reach to the policy-making level, saying there is a dearth of people with knowledge of information technology at the policy-making level. <\/p>\n CPN-UML leader Dr. Stating that the IT sector was growing at a rapid pace, Timilsina underscored the need for the government to increase investment in digital infrastructure and bridge the digital divide. <\/p>\n National Assembly member and Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) leader Dr. Beduram Bhusal admitted that although IT was included in the past manifestos, the implementation was weak. “There is no coordination between thoughts and actions. From the political leadership to the bureaucracy and the university, everything is being run in the old way,” he said. <\/p>\n Rastriya Swatantra Party leader Rajan Koirala said time has come to translate the agenda included in the manifesto into practice. Nepali Congress central member Dr. Dr. Amita Pradhan said that the infrastructure and policy foundation should be strengthened for IT development. <\/p>\n Dynamic Loktantrik Party leader Bijay Babu Shiwakoti stressed the need of using the amount from the Rural Telecommunication Development Fund for the expansion of digital infrastructure. <\/p>\n The speakers pledged to take IT into practical implementation rather than just a matter of speeches and manifestos, although there are some problems in policy, understanding and infrastructure development. The panel discussion was facilitated by journalist Modnath Dhakal. <\/p>\n Digital<\/strong> Leadership<\/strong> R<\/strong> Ethics<\/strong> }Seven<\/strong> Region{<\/strong> Dialogue<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong> The Foundation has launched a series of ‘Digital Leadership Dialogue’ targeting the election of the House of Representatives scheduled for March 4. Prior to this, the first edition of Digital Leadership Dialogue was held at The Plaza, Lalitpur on February 5. In the first and second week of February, digital leadership dialogue was conducted virtually in all seven provinces. In the virtual dialogue, more than 50 candidates from seven provinces pledged to work on digital technology and infrastructure. <\/p>\n Event coordinator Rachana Kharel said that a month-long physical and virtual dialogue was held focusing on the election manifesto of the parties and the candidates and the implementation of the digital leadership dialogue. <\/p>\n It is believed that such programs would bridge the gap between digital transformation, policy-making and effective implementation thereby advancing meaningful dialogues towards practical results. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathmandu. \u00a0The political parties have pledged to implement the development of the information technology (IT) sector in practice rather than being limited to their election manifestos. Speaking at the second phase of ‘Digital Leadership Dialogue’ organized by ICT Foundation Nepal in Kathmandu on Friday, leaders of various political parties said that IT has become a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":289058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289061,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289060\/revisions\/289061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media\/289058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}