Slashdot Mirror
Third World Research, Development & Innovation
tovarish writes "It is nice to see that countries like India are trying to research communication techniques in backward and rural areas. While tech savvy people like us enjoy the latest gadgets it is quite a challenge to develop gadgets which actually help the poor and illiterate. While India's satellite launches and outsourcing news are already covered in slashdot umpteen times, sometimes her sensible achievements should be covered too."
Her sensible acheivements should be covered too? Can we mark the article blurb as flamebait? Lets keep the bias out of the story. Please.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
India isn't 3rd world
The Sudan is 3rd world
There's a book that gives a good use of communication in developing nations. It's by CK Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. It gives the example of how installing an internet terminal in rural Indian villages has helped them set the market for their livestock. They can log on, check the prices for the day and then head to market as more knowledgeable sellers. This keeps them from being taken advantage of and does a lot to help both their confidence and economic prosperity.
"It is nice to see that countries like India are trying to research communication techniques in backward and rural areas." Who are we to call part of India "backward"? The Indian people are making enormous progress in a comparable short ammount of time. The Indian people have launched satalites for purley educational purposes and are determined to fight illiteracy in their country. In many ways the Indian attitude towards education is superior to our own.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
... to be a nuclear power, a spatial power, to be the biggest democracy in the world and still be considered a 'third world country'...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Shouldn't the topic be "India's, Development & Innovation" instead of "Third World Research, Development & Innovation" ???
Here is a short list of web definitions for the "Third World". You might be surprised - it wasn't originally meant to mean what we now think it means.
This sig is a test. If this had been an actual sig, you would be reading something quite a bit wittier than this now.
What qualifies a country to be in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd world? You always hear about 1st and 3rd world contries, but what is a 2nd world country? Are there any examples? China and India have bustling cities that have the comforts of a 1st world contry, but also areas of vast poverty. So where do they belong? My gut would say that should be the definition of the 2nd world countries that we never hear about.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
About a microloan program, where very small loans would be given to poor individuals in remote areas, who wanted to start their own businesses. One woman in a remote village used such a loan to buy a cell phone. Prior to this, there were no phone service at all. She would charge her neigbours to place calls using the phone, hence becaming the defacto phone company.
My rights don't need management.
infinityis writes "It is nice to see that countries like United States, etc. are trying to research communication techniques in nerdy and technical areas like http://www.slashdot.org/. While rural people like in India enjoy the simlple life it is quite a challenge to develop technology that gives Americans more time to relax. While the USA's lack of shuttle launches and outsourcing problems are already covered in news outlets umpteen times, sometimes her senseless technological advances should be covered too."
really just means Non-White.. I say this not to be abrasive but true.. Take a look at your nearest world map and start pointing at every place that "qualifies" as THIRD WORLD (what ever that means) - then to contrast point at all the places that qualify as "FIRST WORLD". BTW.. Where is the Second World?
Smile.
Last year I was travelling the length and breadth of this vast country.
In the last ten years, the biggest changes in India are the spread of ATM's and mobile phones. When the state run BSNL started cellular services in 2002 in rural Indian towns, there were stampedes to get the application form.
What you dont find is decent broadband and good roads. Broadband may happen soon with Reliance Infotech putting fiber. But no chance of roads getting better.
And the country proves the trickle down theory favored by World Bank and IMF will not work. I am yet to see anything trickling down. And the country is liberalising for the last 10 years.
Does that mean liberalisation is bad?
No.
Tat Tvam Asi
Yes, it is true. America does less science research per capita than do many of the European nations, especially the countries that Rightwingers love to call "socialist", i.e,. Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc. All these countries and some others in Europe publish more science papers (in peer reviewed journals) than does America (some of them publish TWICE as many papers per capita as does America). Gee, I guess that blows away that neoliberal/laisseiz faire argument about America capitalism being the "driving engine behind improving technology, quality of life" etc., and how all those welfare states in Europe are just parasites on America....yawn....
Also, America is even behind 3rd world countries like India & China in terms of science research papers when looked at on a per-capita-wealth basis (numbers of papers per unit of wealth per country). Note on the graph how much to the right America is when compared to, say, India. India publishes more peer-reviewed science papers more capita wealth than does America.
THis is all based on the study entitled "Scientific Impact of Nations" by King for 2004. You can get a link to the pdf version of the paper and see a graph of science papers per per-capita-wealth here.
Well, you learned something today, huh? Now go watch the debate Wednesday and listen to Bush and Kerry tell us about how America is the greatest nation on earth.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Come on guys, why do you even bother posting this stuff on here ? Everything on 3rd world tech turns into a huge troll for all the knuckleheads who say they don't need technology or electricity, they need food, water, english and some form of the xtian religion noone finds too offensive.
It appears to me that atleast a section of the slashdot crowd seems to think that satellite launches in India are a recent phenomenon. At the risk of repeating the obvious, let me say that India launched her first satellite back in 1976. And has been launching satellites regularly since. The largest number of them are weather and communication satellites (the INSAT series). There are also remote sensing satellites (the IRS). The INSAT series satisfies all of India's communication transponder needs and some transponders have been leased to other entities, bringing in money. INSATs were largely responsible for the communication revolution India experiences in the mid-80s.
/.
India also launches satellites meant for polar orbits (the IRS series, for instance) from her own soil, has been for some years now.
The latest news in India's space program is the launch of a geo-synchronous satellite (Edusat) that seems to have gotten attention at
But that's just the latest news; as I said, India's been in space for nearly 30 years now.
Population: 1,065,070,607
Japan:
Population: 127,214,499
(from wikipedia).
Please keep these facts in mind before saying anything.
India faced three wars immediately after partition. Two with Pakistan and one with China. Japan didn't face any. Nuclear weapons were a necessity for India.
India has 21+ different official languages. Japan has one. The space program helped put educational and weather satellites in place. And India now sells satellite launches.
It's extremely convenient to compare India and Japan, but it's really a wrong comparison.
I had occassion to look beyond my nose this morning, and you won't believe what I saw! There's a whole world out there, not just America, and there's many things in it. Like , countries !?! and they have *gasp* different forms of government!! and telephones, and TV? And the youngsters go to places like school and college and all. I didn't know college existed outside the good ol' US of A. God knows what they teach there. Should we bomb them out of existence before they become a threat to world peace, you think?
When you're surrounded by China and Pakistan, in probably the most hostile region in the world (I'm discounting Israel because Iraq, Iran, etc DO NOT have WMDs), you have to innovate to survive. Just because some sections of the society don't hae adequate food, water and shelter doesn't mean that funding into scientific research is completely stopped before all come up to speed. Most of the time, science is what uplifts the poorer sections of the society.
It is my considered opinion that the editors of Slashdot deliberately post stories about India's achievements and their sole reason is to invite slashdotters to make fun of India.
Stories about China's achievements get applauded as "humankind's" achievements while the same about India are booed as someone trying to achieve high status. A projection's of the reader's thoughts is what it is.
You guys and girls don't even know the history of India and you don't know what a belief her people have in her "tryst with destiny" (Nehru's speech on midnight of India's independence). Why are these two things important? Because
(a) history teaches us something. For those whose concept of ancient-ness is 200 years, this concept would probbaly have no meaning. Consider this, for most of its history, India was a rich country which was a subject of invasions and immigrations. It was called a "bird of gold." But Indians became complacent and gave more attention to arts, poetry (and probably sex - an ancestor of mine wrote Kamasutra). It got invaded so much that it was under non-Indians' rule for 1000 years.
And now when we develop nuclear weapons to prevent repeat of history, you history-less people have the gall to tell us we are wrong!
(b) we achieved higher things before and by doing technological innovation we are only going back to the same level, we don't aspire for any high frikkin status. That will come with time and accomplishments.
Here is the bottomline, take it or take it.
We will continue to use technology.
We will continue to develop further technology.
We will continue to do whatever it takes us to protect the borders and peoples of India.
If you dislike it, close your eyes, stop reading about India, and keep licking China's a$$.
Some standard is being set in India which prioritizes how work is expended. Right now, that standard is NOT the well being of the people of India. Who cares if 100,000 people get to research all they want when 300,000,000 can't even read? Who is advocating ignorance here?
Which is like saying I shouldn't buy an ipod while there are people starving anywhere. Or wait, I should't buy a cell phone. Or a CD. Or even another pair of shoes if my first pair has any wear left - as long as someone somewhere is hungry.
If one of the 100,000 was going to do research in USA or India, let them choose to do it in India. Don't make them be a primary school teacher, they make hate it and put people off learning altogether.
Its a tempatation when dealing with figures to step too far and make decisions regarding peoples lives and freedoms - remove an arm here, make someone work in a coal mine there - as if its OK because the over-all picture is neater.
I think the other guy had it right.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com