National Informatics Centre showcased its ICT excellence at the GCCS held in New Delhi recently The Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS), an international event where global leaders, policy makers, industry experts, think tanks, cyber wizards etc. gather to deliberate on issues and challenges for optimally using cyber space. The 5th GCCS was inaugurated by Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi on 23rd November, 2017 in a grand function at Aerocity, New Delhi. The GCCS 2017 was with the themes; Cyber4Growth, Cyber4DigitalInclusion, Cyber4Security and Cyber4Diplomacy. NIC was a prominent participant in the event and its stall was one of the attractions in the pavilion. The various Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) that are developed by NIC were portrayed at the stall along with details and promos of path breaking initiatives and works that are undertaken by NIC. Hon’ble Union Minister of Electronics & Information Technology, Law & Justice, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, in his speech said: “we are at the cusp of a big change, some of the changes are coming due to our efforts and some of the changes are occurring because of the power of technology. We have to acknowledge the transformative power of digital technology and need to have an egalitarian global cyber space”. Shri Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, in his speech highlighted that cyber space has become the 5th domain of concern after land, sea, air and space from a point of view of national security and stated that India sees the future of cyber space as being one where emerging digital nations can transform the lives of their people through good governance and thus the people feel encouraged to embrace the internet through an ecosystem of trust. Shri Sawhney said that a free cyber space is one where not only the fundamental freedom rights but, more importantly protections enjoyed by the citizens in the physical world can also be made equally available online. Director General of NIC, Smt. Neeta Verma was one of the key speakers at the conference. She was also the moderator of a session on Policies and framework for protecting Critical Information Infrastructure, which was one of the themes of GCCS 2017. Smt. Verma aptly put forth that any infrastructure is said to be critical in nature if the disruption to that infrastructure could cause a socio-economic crisis which can cause an adverse impact on national security or safety of the citizens. Power, water, health, communication network, finance and banking are considered to be the critical infrastructure which are increasingly becoming technology dependant for their security.