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 .
This will work brilliantly until someone decides to outsource it to California...
BHOOMI patents the process of "online updation".
Even most amenities are computerised, the time it takes for something to be done is so slow. take for instance the railway reservation which is computerised in india. still it takes 1-2 hours standing in the queue to get the ticket. i think digitalization is of no use if it is in no way improving your life.
The Indian Government is sponsoring a couple of projects which aim at improving the agricultural and living conditions of rural India through the use of Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs). I am currently working as a system developer for one such project, Web-based Information Dissemination System. Nice to see govt. of India taking an inititative, finally.
Also, the bulk of people are against technology and change, as seen in the last elections. They want the old government which promotes anarchy and curruption. So, they will get what they want. Oh come on! every other govt in the world is corrupt. True its a bit worse in India, but what makes you say that people are against technology? rampant anarchy? developments will be quenched pretty soon? pretty harsh there buddy. look at the technology growth in the past 10 years. Telecom, roadways, railways(for crying out loud India has the largest railroad network), computers... this is dispite the so called "anarchy" you mentioned.
You know, farmers in countries such as the U.S. make heavy use of computers and the Internet to monitor weather, plan crop cycles, check on the markets, etc. By giving these rural Indian farmers access to that kind of information, the intent is to help them do better business, become better off, and allow the rest to follow. It is much like planting a seed, isn't it?
THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
Internet users relative to population:
USA: approx 54%
Australia: approx 50%
India: approx 2%
Source: CIA Factbook
As an Indian-American immigrant I'm both pleased and a bit scared ;) my bros are taking my job -- just joking, but in all honestly, seeing how hard my parents worked as 1st gen immigrants to the US, if the poor people in India all of a sudden learn English (decent - not great i'll admit) and computers, you can watch the salaries of programmers in the US stagnate (due to more outsourcing... it's hard to compete with $1 a day for web design - joke :) don't take yourselves so seriuosly slashdotters - you can always get a job at BlockBuster like me).
on the other hand, it's good that possibly 100-200 million poor poor people (these people maybe have $5 to their name) have a chance to improve their lives - desperate poverty is hard to escape and anything that offers a meager chance of a better life will be studied and digested by them. I hope that they aren't exploited and put into white collar sweat-shops where their job pays them a couple dollars and then most of it goes into "paying" for the computer they are using to do their job (another enless cycle of 'white-collar' poverty) - it's believeable in India because when you have absolutely nothing (not even food) you are willing to do pretty much anything to eat or to have a job. And if you don't like it there are 10-15 people willing to fill your spot. But hopefully by that time, the country's legal system will get a bit better and it can be prevented.
This is absolutely not a troll, its a perfectly serious question.
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!
Pre-empting all the knee jerk posters who will claim that rural Indians need food and water first, let me inform you that India already overproduces food; the problem is that the rural folk don't have purchasing power. And the reason they don't is that they don't have tech, and are therefore totally dependent on the urban/industrial sector. So if they are to get food they need more technology, which is what the Indian gov't is trying to do.
Of course, we can always point to the negative and say stuff like "what about:
rooting out corruption?
solving the water scarcity problem?
controlling pollution?"
etc. etc. I am not saying that we should ignore these problems and think the Digital Village is the greatest thing to happen in India. All I am saying is that we should appreciate the efforts and keep on workin to do more good deeds, not belittle the efforts by pointing out existing problems.
After all, quoting the Batman: "There will always be problems, but every problem has a solution."
There have been many articles about India and computers which I had considered to be more of a fad than any real use. However, since I am from Bangalore, Karnataka, I confidently feel that this is one of the best computerization efforts.
Karnataka had a lot (and still continues to have) land disputes, that should never have happened. Many are simple cases of forgery that become complicated by corrupt/incompetent officials, non-transparent machinery. I see computerization as a good tool to increase transparency, thereby reducing corruption. With computerization, it is actually possible to query the database and ensure that one deed does not overlap another deed.
Corruption can never be solved by technology. But, if technology is implemented well, it can empower common people (which, in this case, includes me, since I plan to own land in the near future) to fight back against corruption.
What I am most afraid of, is that power is effectively transferred from corrupt officials to the companies who write/manage the software. So, even if the software companies may be free from corruption, it may not hold good for too long, since "power corrupts". A good criteria would be how transparent is the database.
However, from what I know, this particular project is a very good initiative, and one of the few projects that can be showcased as an example of computerization that can help the rural poor. True, software cannot feed hungry people, but it can empower them to grow the own food.
The Hindu culture does include the notorious caste system, but it is not as bad as it is made out to be. For the most part, the caste system is dead in urban areas. It does exist in rural areas, but that is because rural areas have always been a haven for traditional values and culture, in every country.
According to the CIA World Factbook, only a quarter (2002 est.) is below the poverty line, and this is declining rapidly. Israel has 18% below the poverty line, so claims of India's poor social
and economic state are exaggerated.
ALL countries believe their way is the right/best way, be it EU, US, UK, Australia, China, India or even Iraq. It's not nationalist socialist; it's simply patroitism. It's just a different form of the "We're #1" tagline.
Having been to India (rather than just reading about it), I can tell you that Indians are generally respectful of all customs and peoples, as it is a multi-cultural and diverse place. There will obviously be extremists who are narrow-minded, but every country has those.
The "Rush to India" as it were is not about nationalism, or hype. It's about money. India offers similiar services for less.
The last elections were not a mandate against technology and change, but rather a mandate against the insensitive, block-headed policies of the previous government.. a government which couldn't see past its own rhetoric and coined the phrase "India Shining" which was an insult to the vast majority of Indians whose living standards had not improved but instead had worsened.
It is fine and dandy to talk about IT, fancy cars, fancy electronics but when your talk also indicates an attitude of utter disregard for people who were committing suicides due to poverty caused primarily because of governmental negligence, then we have the classic scenario where an old phrase fits - the case of an insult upon injury.
The people of India, for once, decided not to tolerate that.
well now, even if some of these projects invite some satire or sarcasm on /. or whether people make foolish observations of "rampant anarchy", etc, the fact remains such projects have been slowly adding up to the nation's wealth, and have been contributing towards improving the quality of life bit by bit:
1. For the uninitiated, India's general elections (which is the world's largest democracy) were carried out using Electronic Voting Machines, and there were no problems relating to counting or whatever. This has previously been covered here
2. India has posted a growth of 10.2% in the last fiscal year, and the new Finance Minister is expected to target even higher growth
3. Projects like Simputer might not attract customers from more developed countries, but then they are targeted and priced for the local masses.
4. eChoupal is an initiative to provide farmers of India all the information, products and services they need to enhance farm productivity, improve farm-gate price realisation and cut transaction costs.
These are just an example of the country-wide measures being adopted as the country is slowly geared towards economic well-being
http://efil.blogspot.com/
The parent post should be marked flamebait.
New technologies will not suit the currupt and they are the one's who usually have the power to decide what stays and what doesn't.
Although I do agree with the poster's statement, s/he also seems to say that India is at this level. And that's just plain wrong. There lots of parts of India, without access to basic resources, and will continue to be that way for the next 15-20 years if the staus quo prevails. However, that does not prevent the march of technology. As observed in many thrid-world countries, the Mobile Phone base in India is set to overtake Landlines some time this year - why? Because as the parent says, getting landline WAS (and is now only partially) involved dealign with corrupt officials. Whereas getting a mobile phone requires at the most 17 hours of your time in total. Why would these corrupt people want to encourage the use of a technology which has broken their monopoly on communication? Could it be because not all of India is full of these evil corrupt people, and that OVERALL, the Rule of Law is respected in that country, despite the occasional aberrations?Now a person maybe homeless or living in a slum, but the mobile is in the reach of these people. If I could post pictures, I'd prove it to you, but of course somebody would just say that I paid the homeless person to smile into the camera. I've noticed that for some particular reason there is a malicious campaign to discredit India, at every opportunity. Note how most posts about India go:
--Insert positive statement about India here -- followed by "But India is full of poor peeople, and everybody is hungry and starving and won't be able to afford anything anyway"
Finally, only a fool would claim to know what the People's verdict was the last Indian General Election. Even the current ruling political party doesn't claim it has the People's Mandate. the only thing we know for a fact is that BJP lost. But nobody won. And it's no rejection of economic reform, because everybody knows that Congress was the first party to start economic reform. Finally, technological progress in India is never rejected. It is simply rejected in its Western form, then over a large or small time period adapted to Indian standards, culture and society. When satelite Television started of India, it was considered a threat to Indian culture, because all ti showed were American programs, with American newscasters and americans sports. Then within a year or two of its launch, it was showing Indian music on MTV, Cricket on the Sports channels, and purely Indian content on the entertainment channels (alongside the American and British stuff).
Dunno why I bothered to respond to the flamebait, but I did....
My Favourite Meme
I started to spent some time reading about the Indish culture and econmoy, and figured out that they have a casts system there and that 2/3 of their people are suffering and starving and live in the poorest possible conditions while some of them are quite rich. They also have a strange sense of politics and a strange view of themselves being the only right humans on this globe (we could say national sozialism mentality) e.g. their religion is the best religion, their culture is the pure culture, their knowledge is the right knowledge, their busines is the best busines and so on. It's quite ignorant and disrespectful if it comes to other people, other mentality, respecting other humans on this globe - and yet the IT industry stuffs money up their butt.
It's quite possible that the information you've gathered from your cursory readings has helped you obtain a thorough understanding of Indian culture. As an Indian though, my viewpoint is very different.
The caste system that you addressed no longer exists. It is dead. I am not saying that its effects are no longer present in Indian society, but the caste system is *considered* to be a relic of the past.
I have no idea where the notion of Indians thinking they're "the only right humans on this globe" has come from. When you say we think our religion is the best religion, which one do you refer to: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, etc? When you say we think our culture is the best culture, which one do you refer to? I believe India recognizes 18 languages, and seeing as how a unique language is often indicative of a unique culture, it would suffice to say that India is very diverse culturally. When you say we think our knowledge is the right knowledge, which one do you refer to? I have cousins majoring in medicine, english, economics, etc.
What I'm trying to say is that India is very diverse culturally and academically. Just because we mostly have the same skin color, it doesn't mean that we're all the same. With so much diversity it is impossible for any group to think that they are the "best."
I was based near Dusseldorf for a 3 month internship in a univ research group back in 2000. The green card program had just started then. At that time, I was interviewed by a college newspaper, and I was astonished at find that the paper had twisted the facts and said that "the first green card aspirants have arrived at...". I was a college junior at that time who had absolutely no ambitions for a green card. Things like these and some others (like being called a brownie at the supermarket) created a bad taste in the mouth but I _do not_ blindly brand the Germans as racist xenophobes. I do hope that you get a chance to change your perception. Btw, my _entire_ code was accepted in an industrial strength compiler, so that is a testament to the programming abilities you were referring to.
Other than that, the bottomline is that its the patriot in you who is speaking out, who is wary of the total Indian stranger. I understand that and do hope that you do not let your judgement be misguided by that.
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!
Those prior posters who are complaining about India's lack of political and economic transparency (as well as the same problem in many other poor countries) should read De Soto's book.
De Soto's goal is to help the poor - and the countries they reside in (including India) unlock dormant intellectual and financial capital.
Like it or not, India is growing up in ways that will make its poor more enabled - and able to leave poverty behind. Some of this will result in domestic displacement here. That's capitalism, especially when its operating in a way that lets people really *own* something of capital worth, and *leverage* that worth for further wealth.
Right now, India is learning to leverage intellectual capital, and making flegling attempts to improve the property system - there's no stopping this trend.
De Soto should win a Nobel prize for his work. His findings are astounding, and so compelling that every page seems a new insight into wire-ranging economic solutions that lie just under the surface.
What he describes in places like India is an arcane and complex system of underground economies that exist because there is no political/economic structure to permit ownership and transfer of capital. This is a seminal insight.
In fact, De Soto (who has done his research, exhaustively) shows that America went through the travails of a very non-transparent system of property ownership, and found its way out of it.
Bottom line: it's the ability of a culture to create transparent infrastructure that enables the ownership and transfer of capital that leads to development, and freedom ("freedom is participation in power" - Cicero (the Roman sage and philosopher).
Frankly, De Soto's book is one of the most enlightening things I've read on development, ever. It will help the reader understand what prerequisites are necessary to defeat poverty, and enable the poor.
As I write this, many governments worldwide have brought in De Soto (he's Peruvian) and his teams to help figure out new ways to structure capital ownership and capital transfer (leveraging).
This will all take time, and will make a huge difference to everyone - inlcuding Americans (in fact, De Soto presents the American experience as a template for how to begin approaching this problem in other places).
Read the book, and be enlightened.
It's safe to say that with rare exceptions (Japan, theOldEU) the world's rail networks are in horrendous shape. "Rail Network" is a gross overstatement here in the States.
Btw, you really don't want to write off IR that easily. They are doing some cool stuff out there; an IR subsidiary has, for instance, developed a fascinating new mass transit solution for India's crowded urban landscapes. They also have a fairly active mailing list, and often respond to polite queries.
More than mere navel gazing.