The Information Technology (IT) sector in India is amongst the fastest growing in the country and the world. IT professionals work in all major markets around the world. Indian technology products and solutions are accepted globally. The software industry has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy with an annual growth rate exceeding 50 per cent over the last five years and with turnover of over US$ 15 billion and exports of about US$ 10 billion. Software exports have registered a CAGR of about 60 per cent. The IT software and services industry accounted for about 2.35% of India’s GDP during 2002-03 and over 20% of total exports. It is expected that by the year 2008, IT software and services industry will account for 7 per cent of India’s GDP and 35 per cent of total exports. The Indian IT services (ITS) and IT enabled services (ITES) industry is poised to meet its long-term exports potential of US$ 57 billion. India is emerging as a prominent location for ITes and has the potential of becoming one of the biggest global players in this field. According to market estimates, the global volume of ITes is likely to go up to US$ 611.4 billion by 2005. Currently, India has the potential to tap 38 per cent of the market. With increasing investment in the ITes sector, it is expected to employ around 1.1 million people by 2008. A large number of Indian software companies have acquired international quality certification. Out of top 400 companies, more than 250 have already acquired ISO 9000 certification.

Software Industry - The Indian software industry truly symbolizes India’s strength in the knowledge based economy. Highly skilled human resources coupled with low wage structure and world class quality have transformed India into a global powerhouse in the Information Technology (IT) software services and solutions sectors. Despite a slowing global economy, Indian Software exports grew by 23 percent in 2001-02. India currently exports software to around 100 countries around the globe and more than 250 Fortune 500 companies have outsourced some part of their software requirements from India. Many global software majors have set-up operations in India. They include Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe among others.

India has a large base of English speaking, skilled manpower resource with experience on state-of-the-art hardware and software platforms. This is supported by a flourishing IT education market, producing high quality software professionals across different areas in the field. For further details please look at the following web pages:
http://www.mit.gov.in
http://www.nasscom.org
www.indiansources.com
www.stpi.soft.net

Bioinformatics - IT is being increasingly realized and widely recognized that the 21st century will be the century of Information Technology and life sciences. Bio-Tech or DNA parks are being developed to encourage entrepreneurship, improve the competitiveness of the Bio Tech industry in India. Government has also set- up Bio-Informatics parks with Common wet labs for SMEs, Genome Data Center, Super Computing support in the country. Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) - The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has been set up to ensure that India’s information assets, such as strategic, commercial, financial and Government are provided the necessary protection, and India’s IT infrastructure is appropriately and adequately protected to counter threats to its resources and stable operation.

High Performance Computing - India has made considerable advance in the field of High Performance Computing (HPC) developments. She has developed a one Teraflop computing system PARAM TF which has been commissioned on 16 December, 2002.

E-Governance - E-governance is another area India is making considerable progress. The Economic Times recently reported that the government in India is emerging as the fourth largest vertical spender on information technology after the telecom, manufacturing and banking and finance industries. According to Gartner estimates, the Indian government has spent around 1 billion USD on information technology in 2002. In fact, the government accounted for 9 per cent of the total IT spend in India for the year 2002, and in five years that is estimated to go up to 15 per cent. Though e-government is still in its infancy, over 20 states/union territories already have an IT policy in place. In terms of basic computerization, police departments, treasury, land records, irrigation and justice are seen as having the maximum potential. NASSCOM estimates that in the next five years, state governments in India will spend close to Rs. 15,000 crores on computerising their operations.

Microsoft chief Bill Gates during his visit of India in 2000 said that India was emerging as a leader in e-governance and that his trip to the country had been very exciting. Recalling his first visit to India in 1997, he said N Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh was the only chief minister to meet him at that time. "He was the first politician whom I ever met who was carrying a computer. Since then, our relationship has come a long way," he added. He said during his visit in 2000, he had interacted with 14 chief ministers and they had briefed him about the e-governance projects taken up in their states. However, it was obvious that Naidu was leading the way in e-governance, Gates said. http://egov.mit.gov.in/