Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches his push for a ‘digital India’ in New Delhi. Source: AP

Launching his Digital India campaign in New Delhi before a who’s who of industry moguls who pledged a collective $90 billion in future investment, the Prime Minister warned India had already largely missed the industrial revolution and could not ­afford to miss the digital one.

Mr Modi outlined his ambitions for an India in which gov­ernment services were readily available on mobile devices via a high-speed digital highway that “united the nation” and helped to bridge the yawning gap between rich and poor in the world’s largest democracy.

“I dream of a digital India where high-speed digital highways unite the nation; 1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation; technology ensures the ­citizen-government interface is incorruptible,” he said.

“I dream of a digital India where government proactively engages with people through soc­ial media … I dream of a digital India where cyber security ­becomes an integral part of ­national security.”

The scheme is a key plank in the government’s Made in India push, designed to boost the ­country’s flagging manufacturing sector and reduce its soaring trade deficit. Electronic devices are India’s third-largest import sector, behind gold and silver and petroleum.

Mr Modi is India’s most tech-savvy prime minister, communicating with the public through regular posts on his Facebook and Twitter account, which has more than 13 million followers.

Last week, he triggered a Twitter sensation when he launched a “selfie with daughter” campaign as part of a positive discrimination program aimed at reducing the country’s skewed sex ratio and ­encouraging Indians to see girl children as a blessing.

The paradox of India’s success in technology is that, while its booming high IT and software ­industry provides hi-tech services across the developed world, government and corporate industries are still largely bogged down in low-tech, 20th-century practices.

Yesterday, Mr Modi warned it was not enough for India to live off its strengths as one of the world’s oldest civilisations.

“Modern technology needs to be blended with these strengths. From making electronic goods to enhancing cyber security, India must show the way,” he said.

“Clouds of a bloodless war are hovering over the world. The world is terrified by this. India has a big role to play.

“Can India provide a shield to the world by providing innovative and credible solutions? We should accept this challenge to ensure that the entire humanity lives in peace.

“Someone with an education of 10th or 12th class, sitting thousands of miles away, can clean up your bank account with a click of the mouse. This situation needs to be addressed.”

Mr Modi appealed to the country’s army of young IT workers to help design such a digital shield, and pledged government support for start-ups.

At Wednesday’s launch, Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry pledged to hire 60,000 IT specialists, the Aditya Birla Group committed $9bn over five years in digital space and Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries said he planned to sink $50bn into digital initiatives over an unspecified ­period.

Mr Ambani, one of the world’s richest men, said his company was “committed to making the neces­sary investments and strongly partnering with central and state governments in e-governance, digital healthcare, smart cities and rural digital services”.

But even as India’s digital mog­uls clamoured to support the ­government’s latest initiative, ­analysts were pointing out major kinks in the country’s planned ­National Optical Fibre Network — a vital component of the Digital India Initiative — which will ­almost certainly overshoot its ­December 2016 deadline.

The scheme, which aims to plug the gaps in rural connectivity, has been hit by a cascade of ­bureaucratic delays as well as grassroots objections from farmers opposed to fibre-optic cable being laid through their fields.