New Delhi: Internet giant Yahoo today
offered to be part of India's plan to provide citizens with
unique identity numbers, a project headed by IT czar Nandan
Nilekani, but said it was not looking for commercial gains.
Yahoo's worldwide Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz
today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and expressed interest
to partner the government in the project.
"The UID project involves huge database. We at Yahoo have
expertise in handling such huge amount of data. We met the PM
today morning and discussed, among other things, how Yahoo can
help the government in the project," Bartz said.
However, the US-headquartered IT firm said it was not
looking at making commercial gains from the project.
"There is no commercial interest involved in offering
Yahoo's services for the UID project... We have been in India
for many years. It is time to pay back to the nation," Yahoo
India (R&D) VP and CEO Shovick Mukherjee said.
The project aims to provide a Unique Identification
Number to the citizens, numbering over one billion.
Yahoo India has a major presence in India. The company
claims that three out of four Indians access the Internet
through Yahoo, which offers search engine, email and social
networking services, among others. Yahoo processes about 500
billion emails every month, Bartz added.
Earlier, software giant Microsoft had offered to be a
part of this ambitious project.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 17:32