UNICT Asian office to be set up in India.

Byline: Sudha Nagaraj

: The Asian Secretariat of the UNICT taskforce will be located in India. With much of the spadework for the Rs 5,000 crore Media Lab Asia project underway, India has once again stolen a march over other Asian countries.

The United Nations is convinced it would be able to carry forward its agenda of reducing the digital divide in developing countries in the region, functioning out of India.

The proposal for the UNICT Secretariat was framed by Media Lab Asia (MLA) and lobbied for by IT secretary, Rajeeva Ratna Shah at the UNICT Taskforce meeting in November. Since the UNICT aims to bridge digital divide by building upon existing initiatives, India with its MLA project, won hands down.

With this additional feather in its cap, MLA has retained Heidrick & Struggles to find a CEO who would fit the role. The consultancy's CEO, Uday Chawla told ET, "We were retained last month and have received a good response.

Most of them are enthused by the MLA objective, and we are in the process of meeting candidates and evaluating them. The exercise should be complete in a month."

Amidst criticism over a perceived delay in the project, ...