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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."
Gandhi was swept into office, until she declined it, by the poor who felt left out of the economic boom. One of these observations disagrees with the other.
If linux has been helping the poor, it wasn't very much in their eyes.
Although Ghandi has refused the position, I heard that one of the main reasons the previous prime minister of India was so unpredictably ousted was because the rural constituents felt marginalized by his focus on developing high-tech industry while regular industries and agriculture were suffering. I think there's a luddite streak running through the Indian poor that was previously unnoticed.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
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.
The outcomes of the latest election were interpreted by the political experts as an outright rejection of the notion that the country's newly-found strength in IT had benefitted the rural poor. In the light of this, it would seem unlikely that any one technology (not just Linux) would have had a noticeable improvement in their lives. Then again, perception and reality can sometimes be two completely opposite things, so one can never be sure of that either.
He holds an MBA in Information Technology and a BA in Economics and frequently speaks on the topics of Linux and offshore outsourcing.
;)"
:D
and here is the root of the problem... Economists always seek commoditization and Linux is a very difficult product to commoditize. The very breadth of Linux, and cornucopia of environments\applications that the term refers to makes it a very difficult thing to quantify.
Also, note that the trend of outsourcing is pretty much technology independent, and recognizes that the people are the expensive part of the equation.
In short, I guess the answer is "Well, maybe, but that's not Linux's fault...
and I can't wait to see how the slashbots reconcile an outsourcing expert talking up Linux
...but only because the only way things can go for the poor of India is up. When you're poor and live in a 3rd world country it basically doesn't take much to make your life a little better. (note: this does not mean good). Free software means reduced administration costs for any organisation/government trying to help these people.
All other things being equal:
Poor + something good for free = still poor but a little better off.
The Indian "IT boom" is at least partly the result of outsourcing and paying coders a hell of a lot less money than they should be earning given the effort they're putting in. Thing is if you're scratching in the dirt trying to find a feed, you just aren't in a position to turn work down no matter how bad. So yeah their life is improved from poverty to slavery. They won't starve but they sure as hell aren't free to prosper.
Just so I'm clear I'm in favour of the use of free (as in beer) software in a poor country, just not in favour of outsourcing (which is what I attribute India's IT boom to).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I'm not trolling.. I'm not a troll (look at my history to see that) but seriously..
:D
LINUX IS JUST SOFTWARE.
It will not:
1.) Feed the hungry.
2.) Bring world peace.
3.) Become a viable renewable power source.
It's just free software.. and that's a good thing..
Simon.
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.
That's the reason why Chandrababu Naidu, a sophisticated and technology-aggressive politician, got the boot.
Good basic governance comes before e-governance.
Visiting India is an eye-opening experience. I was there earlier this year. I've seen poor areas in Vietnam, China, Peru, etc. None of those compared to some of the sights in India where children play in beaches covered in rubbish (I don't mean a few scraps, I mean that the sand is literally under a two foot layer of garbage), frolic in water that is absolutely soup-full of rubbish.
In train stations, it's hard to even move because the number of people is just incredible. Overnight, thousands of people sleep on the floors of stations. It's hard to walk through, stepping amongst and even on bodies.
In Bangalore (known for its IT businesses) the main train station had *one* computer in the ticketing area where travellers could check their seat numbers. You can imagine the line...
Even booking a train ticket 5 days in advance, you come across trains with waiting lists 30-100s over-subscribed. On one occasion, we assumed we were booking with time to spare only to find this sort of situation, and we were forced to fly from Kochi to Mumbai so that we wouldn't miss our flight onwards.
Wages are obscenely low. One could go over there on a measly Western wage, live in luxury and have 10 full-time staff (chefs, drivers, cleaners, etc) and barely notice a dent in their income.
You will walk into a restaurant and be waited on by about 8 people. Service staff nearly always outnumber diners. It comes down to the fact that a billion people *have* to be employed somehow.
By all means, implement systems that speed up processes (because they are ridiculously slow in India) but don't remove any potential to employ more people. And I think that a wonder-system based on Linux could have limited appeal in a country that absolutely *lives* on taking forever to accomplish simple tasks. They're smart people, but FFS Indians have ludicrously difficult processes.
I'm not shitting you that I say that in a train station, you need to get a ticket booking request form, not to book a ticket (that'd be too obvious), but just to request a ticket booking form. Desks, queues, forms, meticulous, pains-taking handwriting -- that's just India!
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Improve the lives of indians by letting them have jobs!!
Yes, this means not discriminating against them because they aren't US citizens. An indian citizen is no less deserving than someone in the USA of a high standard of living. If we are really concerned about the livelihoods of our fellow humans (and not some bizarre ideology where american lives are worth more than indian lives) this means abandoning all these silly 'buy american' campaigns or protesting when IT companies outsource.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Although living standards have dramatically improved for all Indians, it is still widely considered to be a third world country.
-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?
So, when reading this, did anyone else think that with the exception of the water supply issue, these are all applicable to the U.S. as well? Obviously not to the same degree, but still.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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.