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UN Secretary-General Asks for Help
knownsense writes "News.com.com is carrying a feature by Kofi Annan talking of the digital divide. He says, "But bridging the digital divide is not going to be easy. Too often, state monopolies charge exorbitant prices for the use of bandwidth." and of bringing WiFi to the developing world. This at a time when places like Panama ban cheaper means of communication and places like India instead of combating absolute illiteracy and hunger, run out to make PDAs. Is the digital divide a purely western concept?"
"Compounding this their culture is not geared towards allowing all childern to spend their time learning. Many children in India and other cultures are breadwinners."
Its not the culture mind you. NO where is it decried that you shud have more children as they are bread winners. Its an adapatation according to the circumstances. Its no different from what we do just before the exam. We know that if we dont study now we will flunk. In the same way those people know that if their children dont earn, the whole family will starve. And when one's survival is at stake, ethics dont really matte anymore. And once u do something repeatedly, you stop feeling bad about it.
As far as spending money on PDAs is concerned, the whole aim of the project was to improve the circumstances which force these people to send their children to work, i.e poverty. Its the same logic, you give a man food and he will be hungry the next day, teach him how to grow food and you have given him food for life. And the next logical question will be how will it tackle poverty. Well, majority of Indians depend on agriculture for a living. And this PDA can help them to find out about new techniques, weather patterns (it rains only four months in a year in India hence correct information about the timing of rains is very important) et. Besides it can reach people where the educational infrastructure is not very good and hence help improve the overall quality of life.
What's under yellowstone?
This shifts the balance of power away from the superpowers (unless they have a lot of contries they can force to vote with them).
After the colapse of the east bloc the UN (at that time the west had a majority in the UN so it was a usefull weapon) has lost its usefullness for the US.
If you look around you will notice that the US is withdrawing from a lot of these multinational forums and are instead making deals with other contries one at a time. This way they are in a better position to force their will on other contries. It makes sence if you are the big boy.But the US should be aware though that this is not the way to make freinds in the long run. It has costs...
TCAP-Abort
How about :
"Don't invade countries, steal all their wealth, enslave their citizens, destroy their infrastructure and put in a puppet government otherwise it will become an economic basket case and in a hundred years time you will have to loan them millions of dollars to help them rebuild a basic infrastructure and not become a hotbed of hatred against your country"?
The current world is a result of previous generations empire-building. We should try our best to avoid these mistakes again. A lot of countries are in debt because they were forced into these situations by other countries, usually through military force.
As my friend in Cambodia said to me, it's hard to get excited about IT when you're trying to clear up the landmines that no one else cares about any more. It needs to be part of a bigger solution.
India has a 52% literacy. I would hardly call that 'high.'
But that means about 500 million people in India are literate. More than in the USA.
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