Prime Minister Narendra Modi put creators directly inside India’s telecom growth story at the 10th India Mobile Congress, saying the mobile phone has become both a gaming console and a “creation studio” in India.
He pointed to more than 50 crore people connected to India’s gaming ecosystem and said young people in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities are moving beyond playing games to competing in esports, making gaming content and building businesses around the sector.
The speech did not announce a new creator scheme, fund or platform. The creator reference formed part of a broader argument that cheaper data, wider connectivity and mobile access have created new consumers and new kinds of digital work.
Gaming was the clearest creator-economy example
Modi used gaming to show how the role of the mobile user has changed. He said more than 500 million people are connected to the gaming ecosystem in some form, with a large share of young users coming from smaller cities.
His point was not limited to gaming consumption. The speech specifically referred to esports participation, gaming content and new gaming businesses, putting creators and digital entrepreneurs inside the same growth story.
5G has reached every district, according to the government
Modi said India’s 5G network now operates through more than 5.5 lakh base stations and has reached every district. He also said internet speeds have increased tenfold as telecom infrastructure has expanded.
The government linked that infrastructure build-out to the spread of video-sharing platforms, regional OTT services and digital audiences beyond the largest cities. For creators, the relevant change is distribution: more people can watch, upload and participate in digital media from places that previously had weaker connectivity.
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The same speech also raised the risk of deepfakes
Modi also called deepfakes a major challenge and argued for a global framework to address them. That matters to creators because the same tools and networks that make content easier to create and distribute also make identity, voice and likeness easier to copy or misuse.
The India Mobile Congress speech therefore offered two sides of India’s creator story: connectivity is expanding who can create and build digital businesses, while the government is also acknowledging the security and authenticity problems that come with that scale.
