New Delhi, Oct 6 (PTI) The concept of digital democracy -- which includes freedom, justice, equality, inclusion and diversity -- is getting challenged across the world at the highest level in the governments and politics, technocrat Sam Pitroda said on Wednesday.

He also said that digital democracy has an impact on ecommerce which needs to be evolved to benefit people across several segments especially people at the bottom of the pyramid.

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"I worry about the idea of digital democracy world over. Democracy is all about freedom, justice, equality, inclusion, diversity. Lot of these concepts are being challenged today at the highest level in the government and politics," Pitroda said at the Internet Commerce Summit held online.

Pitroda has steered several government projects and chaired some of the key departments under the Congress-led UPA government.

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He said that for democracies to function there is need for the rule of law, vibrant civil society at the table making decisions that need to be made, scientific temper and institutional accord.

"If we can't provide these things in regular democracy then digital democracy is going to be very difficult to implement. Digital democracy is not about identifying everybody, tagging everybody, tapping everybody and then trying to control everybody, intimidate people. Digital democracy is about flexibility and you want all of that to be translated into e-commerce," Pitroda said.

In the coming days, he said, authenticity will be one of the biggest challenges in e-commerce which does not exist in social media at present.

"I have begun to realise that part of the problem in social media today is unauthenticated behaviour. People who get on it are not real. I know in my own case there are about eight different pages on Sam Pitroda. I don't even know who these people are. They tweet on my behalf, criticise them as I have said something. Unauthenticated behaviour is going to be a challenge on e-commerce in the long run," Pitroda said.

He said that these are early days for e-commerce in India but most companies have adopted western model.

"We have seen in India growth of local models. I personally believe the future belongs to decentralised e-commerce," he said.

He said that e-commerce also needs to target a smaller group of people in local languages in a cluster-based approach.

"The kind of diversity we have in India, I would like to encourage a decentralised model," Pitroda said.

He also called for changes in payment technologies that can lead to local value generation instead of paying commission to any vendor for every transaction.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)