Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for a global mechanism to prevent cyber fraud before it happens, saying cybercrime has already crossed national boundaries and requires governments, telecom companies and financial institutions to work together.
They have already crossed the boundary.
Inaugurating the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) in New Delhi, the Prime Minister said, “Cyber fraud and cyber crime don’t abide by limits. He said a person sitting in one country could use someone in another country to commit a crime in a third country, making international cooperation necessary. “I request GSMA and telecom operators to build a global mechanism which stops fraud before it happens,” Modi said, adding that India was ready to share its experience with other countries.
At IMC, Modi linked the need for digital security to the rapid expansion of mobile connectivity in India. But Modi has stopped it. In India , losses to cybercrime overall tripled between 2023 and 2024, rising from ₹ 7,465 crore to ₹ 22,845 crore across roughly 2.2 million incidents, 85% of it is financial fraud, the ministry of home affairs told Parliament in July last year. “If old ways were adopted, government would have lost ₹ 5 lakh crore in leakage and would have filled their pockets. Under India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, he said, the government was focusing on the entire semiconductor supply chain.
He said telecom was no longer only about networks, spectrum, towers and internet speeds, but had become an important tool for governance and delivery of public services. Referring to India’s digital transformation, Modi said mobile phones had helped reduce the digital divide and made services such as education, healthcare, banking and government schemes more accessible. The PM cited the government’s direct benefit transfer (DBT) system, saying ₹ 50 lakh crore had been transferred directly to beneficiaries through bank accounts linked to the digital ecosystem, while ₹ 5 lakh crore had been saved from going into “wrong hands”. He then took a political swipe at those who, he said, had benefited from leakages in the earlier system. “Now tell me – whose free earnings have ended – will they love Modi?” he asked. Modi said India’s semiconductor manufacturing was also gathering pace, with commercial production having started at five locations.
