OHI interview with Latha Reddy: The former Deputy National Security Adviser of India

OHI project interviewed Latha Reddy on 4th September 2019 in Silicon Valley.

In last year’s Global Cooperation in Cyberspace Progress Roundtable held by the EastWest Institute, we intended to interview Reddy but failed to do so because of short of time, and we made an appointment to meet again next year for the interview.

Reddy is the key witness to the development of Indian Internet history. In fact, India has become the second-largest internet users market in the world, the number of Indian users has exceeded 500 million, approaching China, and is far more than that of the United States. However, the development of the Indian Internet is still being ignored by the world, so this time, we came to her hotel and prepared to excavate more interesting stories of the Indian Internet and get first-hand knowledge from her.

Latha Reddy is the former Deputy National Security Adviser of India and the co-chair at Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace (GCSC), another co-chair of GCSC is Michael B. Chertoff, the former US Homeland Security Secretary. Reddy has been engaged in Indian foreign affairs for nearly 40 years from 1975 till 2011. From 2011 to 2013, she was the deputy of the national security adviser of India and the assistant of the former Indian ambassador to China, Shivshankar Menon. At that time, Reddy was in charge of internet governance and cybersecurity matters in India.

Among the BRICS countries, Indian internet governance and cybersecurity policies are different from those of Europe and the United States, as well as China and Russia. Through Reddy's description, we got a clearer idea of Indian domestic internet governance and also what kind of the concepts and principles they hold in dealing with international internet governance. In addition, as Reddy has rich experiences in diplomacy, her views on the status quo and future of internet governance are more international and insightful have transcended India itself.

However, the time of our interview is too limited and we look forward to communicating with her again. In addition to the Oral History of the Internet project, we believe that we will have more connections and cooperation with her in the future.

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