CHENNAI: India was moving into an "era of e-business, e-marketing, e-commerce and e-banking" and encryption technology to protect network communication was the only way to ensure the nation's security, said President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
The president was addressing scientists here Monday evening at the 5th International Conference on Cryptology in India via videoconferencing.
Reminding his audience that Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujam's work was being applied in communication networks today, Kalam said: "Cryptography is a wealth generator and wealth protector."
Noting that India was the only country in the world with a huge linguistic diversity and more than 3,000 languages, he asked: "Can we make use of this diversity to our advantage by using different languages as a cryptographic tool?"
Addressing several hundred delegates from all over the world, who had gathered here for the three day conference that began Monday, Kalam said: "Nations that are capable of generating and managing information in a secure way will become world leaders and economic superpowers"
He called for state-of-the-art technology at competitive costs in India, to secure Indian e-systems.
Inaugurating the conference, hosted by the Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Society for Electronic Transactions (SETS), principal scientific advisor to the central government R. Chidambaram said the science of encryption was the "only know-how" technologists had to protect e-systems.
Information flows over open networks. And to secure this information is "of social, political, commercial and strategic" importance, Chidambaram said.
He asked Indian scientists for research inputs into standardisation processes, called 'advanced encryption standard' it could develop quickly in India.
Experts from various countries, including France, South Korea, Australia, Belgium and Germany are attending the meet.
During the conference, 147 scientific papers on the art and science of encryption will be presented.
Cryptology is the science of hiding information through codes. Mathematical systems provide some of the best encryptions the world has so far generated. It is also the art of breaking down codes and getting at secrets.