MUMBAI: India stands at an exciting edge of new age internet usage with the dawn of 2006. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is set to host the “Digital Summit 2006” that will create an ideal platform for an open dialogue on critical areas in the online sector.

Minister of Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran will inaugurate the summit and also announce the “Esecure Seal”, an initiative that will help increase confidence of both retailers and customers on financial transactions conducted on e-commerce websites.

The speakers and panelists lined up for the two days include Yahoo! India country head and IAMAI chairman Neville Taraporewalla, Indiatimes.com CEO and IAMAI vice chairman Mahendra Swarup, Rediff.com chairman and CEO Ajit Balakrishnan and Air Deccan managing director Captain G R Gopinath.

Other speakers include Group M South Asia CEO Ashutosh Srivastava, Apnaloan founder and CEO Harsh Roongta, NDTV Media Ltd CEO Raj Nayak, Starcom Media Vest Group South Asia CEO Ravi Kiran, Tata AIG managing director Rohit Mull and Mediaturf CEO V Ramani amongst others.

The summit will focus on areas like the role of the internet in the Indian economy; issues and growth opportunities of the broadband access, analyzing the retail power of the web and the growth prospects of the online marketplace.

IAMAI president Preeti Desai said, "The Digital Summit revolves around focused sessions, presentations and discussions led by experts from the web world; it is an information sharing and business networking opportunity for internet users, businesses in the internet domain in a primary or allied capacity and internet service providers. The objective is to absorb and share insights on challenges and strategies for internet investment decisions, effective implementation of technology tools, solutions and maximising returns on the web."