Slashdot Mirror
India's Digital Village
sirdude writes "Business Week has a pretty comprehensive story on the impact of projects such as Bhoomi, which are slowly but surely bridging the digital divide in rural India. With entrepreneurial initiatives such as e-choupal, Simputer, and a multitude of other privately-funded projects also beginning to take root, the rural Indian (who comprises about 70% of India's population), is slowly inching his way into the information age. The rest of the third world is watching & waiting, and taking detailed notes :)" And the parts about computerized land records may remind anyone who's read it of Hernando De Soto's The Mystery of Capital .
I know that you were joking, but I am going to respond to the quote. The rest of the third world is not waiting and taking notes. Asia has many meetings between the coutnries' respective organizations similar to NECTEC to has out a unified Asian strategy on things like open source software.
Thailand (which I know more about than the other countries), has had government supported open source for many years, including creating SIS (a Linux distro for use as an internet gateway in schools) and the necessary free internet access for the schools using it. They are on version 4.X now, and the program is at least six years old.
The Thai gov't also supports low cost computing initiatives from the Ministry of ICT, with full computers running about 11,000 Baht (~US$270), easily financed through the government bank with little hassle.
To say that other nations are resting on their butts and watching India is a little insulting, don't you think?
Put identity in the browser.
It's not about ruggedized Linux-flavoured PDAs. The idea of these projects *is* to employ and educate them. I graduated with a Computer Science degree last year from BITS, Pilani, one of India's best engineering colleges. In my final year alone, we had at least 4-5 experts from various companies/NGOs (including e-Choupal, Hewlett-Packard) speak to us about how technology can help the rural population.
You're right if you think that the people would much rather have fair prices for crops and improved agricultural yields than broadband Internet connections. The point is that these initiatives provide exactly what they want. The most successful projects have typically been those that are implemented by NGOs working at the grassroots level, that arise from a genuine understanding of what farmers need. Ideas like providing high-speed internet access to schools which don't have textbooks and teachers are obviously doomed to failure.
In large parts of the country, poor farmers are exploited by middlemen who buy their produce at low prices and resell them with a huge mark-up. The farmers often had no option but to trust these middlemen, who lie to them about market rates. The e-Choupal system allows them to find out the going rates at markets nearby and can put them in touch with prospective buyers. Eliminating the middleman and his commission can sometimes double or triple the farmer's profit.
Again, a farmer with crop trouble (perhaps an unusual pest) had to go a government official for help. By the time the experts decided what could be done and communicated with the official (who would take his own time coming back to the farmer), weeks often elapsed. Now, the farmers fire off an email to the nearest agricultural university, and get a reply the same day with the e-Choupal system.
Considering that most of these poor farmers are illiterate (or the next thing to it), making these systems usable has taken remarkable ingenuity on the part of the engineers designing them. It takes intuitive user-interfaces to a whole new level!
Information technology has definitely simplified life for both the Rural and Urban Indian. Bhoomi is one of many projects that dot the landscape: The e-seva kendras in Hyderabad (electronic service centers where the power, water, telephone and other bills could be paid at one place), the spot billing of power consumption using hand held computers/palm tops, Simplified registration of sale of properties, registration of birth and death etc are some other noteworthy projects. Has the corruption reduced? Definitely, yes! Once the Government's system of maintenance of records is de-mystified and simplified, the avenues for corruption reduce. More importantly, the users can now invest the time and energy, which they were earlier investing on payment of bills etc, more productively. These initiatives may not be enough to make administration totally citizen-friendly but they are a good beginning. Though hardly 2% of Indians have Internet connections, a large percentage access cyber cafés. The cyber revolution is like the STD/ISD booths of yesterday. Fifteen years back, it was difficult to communicate on telephone from one mofussil town in India to the other but today, even the most interior villages have STD/ISD booths. Development is not restricted to only Information technology but also in other fields like Education, Health, Housing and Infrastructure. As India is vast, the extent of development is not the same everywhere. Parts of North India are at least five-six years behind the South and the West. But, considering that India got its independence (From 200 years of British rule) only in 1947, the advances that the Country made are praiseworthy and significant. No room for cynicism, here. The best is yet to be!