"You really want your grandson to become a delivery boy?" Vinit Goenka, the former National Co-convener of the BJP's IT Cell, and a member of the Center for Raily Information Services (CRIS), said at MediaNama's discussion on India's Data Protection Law in New Delhi on 23rd of August. Goenka exhorted the audience to accept data localisation and digital sovereignty, saying that "Data sovereignty is a reality. Some data has come in front of you. Some will come in the months to come. If we get re-elected in 2019, it will be total sovereignty." Goenka defended the Srikrishna Committee's contentious provision in the draft Data Protection bill that at least one copy of all Indian citizens' personal data held by companies should be stored in India. "We cannot force Indian industries to close down, and force our people to just become delivery boys of Flipkart, and then Flipkart survives and becomes big, and say that whatever $17 billion will come, will come to another country, not to India, who is basically consumer. We’ll have to dissect this, and understand. Colonization does not mean that someone will come with a gun and actually colonize you. Colonization also means that someone will come with licenses and patents and sit on your head. As a country, we have to all grow up and say, 'Enough of this!'" Goenka said that sovereignty includes ICT sovereignty, not only territorial sovereignty. "As a politician, I'm not supposed to be talented", he said, "But when I see 800 years…
