India has become the first major economy to say no to driverless cars, with transport minister Nitin Gadkari saying the government "won't allow any technology that takes away jobs".
While countries including the USA and UK are encouraging autonomous-vehicle testing and legalising its use, the government of India has announced it will take the opposite route and prohibit the technology from the roads.
"We won't allow driverless cars in India," the Hindustan Times reports Gadkari, the minister of road transport and highways, saying on Tuesday. "I am very clear on this."
"We won't allow any technology that takes away jobs. In a country where you have unemployment, you can't have a technology that ends up taking people's jobs." Gadkari went on to say the country needed 2.2 million more commercial drivers, and that the next five years would see 500,000 drivers trained in 100 newly created driver-training centres.

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