Attempt to Muzzle Pitroda’s voice, his computer hacked

The computer of technology guru Sam Pitroda was hacked today, to prevent him from addressing a conference organised by the Rajasthan government to mark the 77^th birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi.

The virtual conference entitled Rajasthan Innovation Vision (Rajiv 2021) was held this morning and Sam Pitroda, who was the innovation advisor to Rajiv Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh when they were Prime Ministers of India, was to deliver the keynote address from Chicago.

Just as Pitroda gave the salutations to the audience, his video hung and the Rajasthan Government officials informed him about it during the video conference, but the message did not reach him.

He joined the conference about 45 minutes later and while winding up his speech, he said that apparently somebody did not want him to address the conference, as his computer was hacked and it hung. He delivered his address over the cell phone.

He recalled Rajiv Gandhi’s passion for bring technology to India in various fields and mentioned the setting-up of C-DAC, for building super-computers, at a time when most people in the country had not even heard of computers. Gandhi introduce technology in edible oil and milk production, among other things, he said.

 He credited Gandhi for the eradication of polio in the country, stating that the polio vaccination drive was taken up due to Gandhi.

Due to Gandhi’s vision all district headquarters in the country were connected using a satellite link, Pitroda said. According to Pitroda, Gandhi was a man in hurry and was keen on improvement of efficiency of the government using technology.

The technology guru said that today the government does not encourage scientific temperament and Rajiv Gandhi would have been upset seeing what is happening.’

“We lost him too early and if he was around, we would have been different as a nation,” Pitroda concluded.