Big Data: Road Ahead for India

Advancements in computing technologies make newplatforms and large volumes of data available tobusinesses and governments to discover hiddenunderlying patterns in the data and creating newknowledge. While businesses need to embrace thesetechnologies in order to stay ahead of competition,governments can reap great benefits in cost effectivelydelivering social services and bring about improvement in social development indices. However, before any new technology can become a powerful resource (for business or for government), there exists a fundamental need for extensive planning, such that one can chalk out a future trajectory, prepare for the changes to come, and invest prudently. Exploitation of Big Data platforms and technologies requires both corporate strategies and government policies to be in place much before the results would start pouring in. In this paper, we investigate the potential of available Big Data platforms and technologies, their current use by various governments, and their potential for use by the central and state Governments in India.