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Is Linux Improving Life Of Poor In India?
mood6 writes "Linux Journal has a nice article on Automating Government with e-Governance. It discusses Linux usage by the Indian government to improve the lives of the rural poor (interesting look at how the IT boom in India is benefiting the poor). The article covers some of the difficulties in deploying Linux in non-English languages for government usage. Good read for those looking at Linux in e-Governance projects and a good follow up to a previous article by Tom Adelstein. In support of full disclosure: I wrote the article and the platform was developed by Delixus, my current company."
On a recent trip to India, I could not help but notice that not a single computer I encountered was running Linux, despite all the hype (and I saw hundreds of computers). They were all running pirated copies of Windows 95 and 98. When you have the ability to pirate software (without any real fear of prosecution), there's one less incentive to switch to free (as in $0, not as in freedom) software. Usability isn't a real concern to those at the lowest socioeconomic levels; what matters is the mere existence of computer technology.
I'm sure India has better condition than other developing country in this world. For example, in my country, Linux (or OSS) grow is not really significant. People can have a copy of WindowsXP for just Rp. 5000,-- which is equal to 0,5 USD. btw, I'm in Indonesia :-)
-- V not F.
I know people who've worked to bring technology to villages in India, and its my opinion that its helped the country a lot.
Approximately 25% of the Indian population are below the poverty line
The water supply is so polluted that people must buy or boil their water.
The poor are discriminated against in education.
Health care in India? What health care?
If Linux claims to improve the life of the poor in India and proves it, even if it's "just" computers, then it's addressing the very real and continually growing division between the rich and the poor in regards to technology and computer use.
Hell, some people have never seen or heard of what a computer is.
One of the major scoring points for Linux in the e-gov scene in India in local language. Indic language support in GNOME/KDE/Mozilla/OpenOffice.org is improving rapidly - sometimes the Open Source developers are there even before M$. For an idea on the l10n scene in India - take a look at this newsletter.
However, one of the major bottlenecks of implementing Linux in rural areas is the power situation. People have tried a number of interesting stuff - solar power, manure power and whatnot - but these things can push up costs astronomically.
Moreover, there is a lack of trained professionals who can handle Linux systems - finding people to handle highly customised LTSP or kiosk based installations can be a real PITA. Support becomes a major headache - as people are not at all familar with troubleshooting through the command line. However, things are slowly improving - some states are introducing Linux courses in the school curriculum as apparent from this post.
Some idea about the Linux scene in India can be guaged from the interviews at this site.
He actually has a point. I don't remember which other south-east asian country it was (thailand?) that had an 8% GBP increase mostly due to tech investments... guess what happened on the next election? The residing party that worked hard for that increase was kicked out harshly because it completely neglected poor anywhere in the country (both rural and non-rural).
Makes you wonder how the Indian elections were so surprisingly won by Mrs. Ghandi (who in fact was born a catholic Italian)... surprise? not really, should have seen that one coming!
Ha, you forget that both NDA and Congress alliances are both Right Front parties ...
Though CPM did wipe out Cong in places like Kerala (which is ruled by Congress , but which failed to get even a single seat)...
Coming from Kerala, I think it's a BAD THING (TM) for a state gov to be not represented in the centre.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
The membership was primarily of countries like Ghana, Sudan, etc., which are very poor. Hence the term third-world came to mean as poor. Calling India as third-world(poor) country is like calling Germany a rascist country.
Maybe true.. maybe not.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Is Linux Improving Life Of Poor In India?
No. I'd say corporate america is. While making the life of local developers miserable.
Maybe that indian railways employee was just showing off the complexity to you.
I usually avoid such hassles and either book it on the web at www.irctc.co.in or ask a travel agent to do it for me for Rs.30/- extra. At rare times when i have enough time to waste, i go to the booking station, fill out a form and then pay money across the counter to get the ticket. It takes time (1-2 hours) in the queue but i spend that time reading a good novel -:))
In the north part of India (above Hyderabad, Bangalore) people generally are more lazier and just love the rules/bueracracy stuff. I had a similar experience in Calcutta when my father had to pay "speed money" to the booking clerk to get a confirmed ticket. Iam sure you wouldn;t have suffered any such issues in South India (Madras/Chennai, Trichy, etc).
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Indian Railways computerised its ticketing way back in the 1980's I think. I am not sure which train station in Bangalore you saw, but the main one (Bangalore City Junction) has a huge reservation complex with hundreds of computers. Couple of years back the train ticketing system went online, so now you can book your ticket from the privacy of your home as well. Soon IRCTC is launching a scheme by which you can book your ticket via SMS as well.
You should remember that trains are still the most economic way of getting around in India, and hence given a billion people, some rush is to be expected. Most Indians plan their travel well in advance to book confirmed tickets by train. A train journey from Bangalore to Bombay will take you 24 hours, and with US$ 50, you can buy a nice seat/berth in an air-conditioned coach.
Ten years ago, I taught at the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras, and met Prof. Kalyana Krishnan. At that time Krishnan was struggling with how to render characters on a web page so that he would produce Hindi, Tamil, etc web pages. Over the years, Krishnan's project has expanded, now has voice rendering of web pages and was recently recognized as a major innovation benefiting many in India. His project website will give you an idea of the tools he and his students are bringing to all of India. e-Governance is a small segment of the challenges facing India. Skilled practitioners, coming from the IITs in India are effectively penetrating the digital divide.
My emplorer is a large software firm based in Germany. There is an official policy from top management: 0 new hiring in the US or Germany as these are two of the more expensive (per developer) development centers (Tokyo is #1, but that is mostly localization). New hiring seems to be concentrated in Bangalore.
Experiments conducted ... have shown that semi-literate poor children can quickly teach themselves the rudiments of computers and Internet.
where did my sig go? where's my sig at?
MS has a commoditized product,
You seem to have no idea what "commoditize" means. By definition, MS's products are non-commodities, because only one entity supplies them to the market. With commodities, the large number of sellers means none of them has power to choose prices.
In a non-commodity market, raising the price you charge a small amount will cause a small reduction in sales, which could either increase or decrease net revenue. But if you're selling a commodity, then a small price increase will cause a large (or even total) drop in sales (think about what you'd do if one fuel station is $0.1 more than the others).
Linux distros are actual commodities, and that poses revenue problems for the companies that work on them. SUSE Linux, for example, is available not only from Novell, but also from any random guy who declares himself a "Linux Support Contractor". So the Linux distro itself can only ever have a low price- the corporations' sales depend on the perception that they bundle superior additional services.
Please note that your argument about the variety of possible distros does somewhat support the idea that Linux is not a commodity- but each particular Linux distro is a commodity of it's own kind.