Slashdot Mirror
India To Offer Free Broadband by 2009
codecracker007 writes "The Government of India is planning to introduce free 2 mbps broadband for all residents of the Indian subcontinent by 2009. The expected service shall be launched by the government owned telecom operators BSNL and MTNL. Quoting from the article: 'The government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL. While consumers would cheer, the move holds the potential to kill the telecom business as we know it.' The India Times has an extensive editorial on the decision. It must be mentioned that the Indian government and its autonomous regulatory bodies are very proactive in holding the consumer interests above the operators', managing to reduce the long distance and wireless tariffs by a up to factor of 20 in less than 7 years."
You can call it "free" if you'd like to, but I doubt that installers will work for free and manufacturers will make equipment for free. So, what you really mean instead of "free" is "paid for through taxation". It's no more free than having police, roads, or congress.
Uhh, maybe it's me and my misplaced sense of priorities, but you might want to help the starving people dying people in the street before you give them free prOn.
Of course, I could be wrong.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
So you get 2 mbps. I guess that means 1 bit every 500 seconds. 1 billion people in India, 2 million bits per second. That's not that tough, but I guess giving everyone somewhere to plug in would take some infrastructure.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
The article raises a few issues. The first of which is what level of connectivity are we talking about? Does "access" mean a line to every home, or just access to a line by every household. The former would be a boon to all citizens (especially those living in tenement slums). The latter isn't as impressive as one could establish this by having access to one computer in each village.
I think the greater issue, however, is the potential boon this might be to companies looking to outsource operations. One of the driving forces behind outsourcing is the penetration of cheap telecom into emerging markets. Here, you'd have a situation where companies wouldn't even need to pay for internet access to hire workers. They could just have them telecommute from home. If that's the case the amount of outsourcing could increase rapidly. It's a smart decision by the Indian government, as their investment would pay off ten fold if that were case. For the American engineer, though, this is perhaps not such a good development.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Free broadband will, of course, result in India becoming a richer country. I am happy about that.
1. FREE BROADBAND!!!!! ....
2. Feed our citizens
3. Nuke Pakistan
4. Restructure caste system
5. $1 taco Tuesday
6. AIDS prevention?
"Man, I am so unbelievably stupid."
...but shouldn't they worry about educating people on how to use the broadband? Please choose one of the following responses:a) Just plug a Windows computer into a broadband connection and the malware will take care of the rest.
b) If they need help I'm sure there's a local call center around.
c) They can look it up on the internet because Wikipedia & HowStuffWorks can answer any question posed by man, can't they?
If they go through with this, it'll be really cool. Maybe, before that, just one small change would make me really happy. I have a 'broadband' conncetion right now, and the speed is a blazing 256 kbps. That's because that's what our Department of Telecommunications has defined the minimum speed to be, for an ISP to call its service as a broadband connection. Disappointing, somewhat.
Btw 256 kbps is also the maximum they're offering in my area in my city, I can't even upgrade if I want to.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
The amount of Indian porn is going to increase exponentially.
How can a country that has infrastructure and famine problems in some areas (a recent study suggested 47% of Indian children suffered from malnutrition) manage to provide this?
This sig contains a manual self-destruct. Kindly please put your foot through your monitor in 8 seconds.
My former employer built an office in India. The prices we were quoted for internet bandwidth were roughly 8X what we paid in the US. In the end, we settled for a quarter of T1 speed for about double the US price. In exchange for all of this, the throughput sucked. Packet latency and loss were simply miserable. The parent article's quote about "...regulators are very proactive in holding the consumer interests above the operators" is total BS as far as I'm concerned.
Power is free in India, which leads to overconsumption and underinvestment in the power grid. Politically, free power is untouchable, yet there is no money available to make it reliable. Anyone who truly needs power learns to generate their own on-site. The same holds true for bandwidth -- bring your own.
Technology arrives to the masses in a curve, the first being early adopters,
the middle being somewhat savvy people, and inevitably the the laggards.
By the time every laggard has access to the technology it will be an expected
commodity. A good example of this is the telephone.
If the broadband is "too hard to use", it wouldn't have ever taken off and made it past the early adopters.
Making technology a commodity is more important than trying to push out an education program.
How exactly does one increase competition by reducing the number of players? Please forgive me, but I am enormously skeptical of the ultimate purposes of this plan. At the highest level, this sounds very good. Many in India have benefited greatly as the benefits of telephony became available to them, especially the poor. However... This was not due to BSNL/MTNL. It was most recently due to a host of other players that dramatically lowered prices across the board for GSM phone and internet access. Mind you, there were many in India who decided to keep their original GSM phone service with these existing operators but who were simply thrilled at how Reliance and others forced prices to drop, and drop and drop. TRAI seems to swing back and forth between who's been more effective at getting their people/policies/desires in there (cough, cough, buying them off, cough, cough). The article seems to suggest the fight is now with the big, bad international carriers. But international calls have also dropped in price over the years due to competition. It's now actually cheaper for our relatives in India to call the US than the other way around. And the statement in the article about internet traffic routing outside India and back in seems hilarious. I'd really like to dig deeper into that claim. It's obvious traffic to well known websites outside India are going to cause that effect. In essence, this entire endeavor simply seems like a policy coup by the national operators to restore their position as the monopoly. Forgive me, but I'm very skeptical about their ability to perform here given their history. And I'm horribly concerned about the long-term effect of killing off competition.
Once the free broadband is in place, it can be used by impoverished people to go online and experience virtual food, virtual education, and virtual opportunity. It will be called, "Do-over Life".
Life needs more saving throws.
I believe the term you are looking for is "subsidized".
Government is empowered by people who don't know the difference between subsidized and free. Thanks for doing your part!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
These telcos seem to be just a tad over-ambitious.
exactly the point . . . thanks for putting it so cogently.
They got their priorities right.They think farther ahead.
The free internets are not for starving people.
Well, at least indian govt. is not sponsoring a war 'paid for through taxation".
I'll ask the programmers here in the US how that works.
Get up!
60% of households in India do not have electricity yet according to Reuters. I assume they are going to have to wait for a massive electrification program before that is possible.
4 .htm
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N0723776
In Houston.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
Be careful what you ask for. You might just get it.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I'd say the chances that they will actually get 2mbps by 2009, is 1 : 9.00, which means, for every 1$ you will bet that it will happen, you'll get 9$.
But now you shall ask, what are the chances that I can open my own Internet-Betting company huh? tough world.
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
The article wasn't very clear as to the infrastructure used to provide this, but it would really have to be wireless, because their physical infrastructure is horrible at best and there's absolutely no way they'd be able to reach dozens of thousands of remote villages with dedicated RJ45 to each mud hut.
e ts-pc-penetration-of-65-by-2008/), ...In 2005, 14 out of 1,000 residents had a PC. That's 0.14 of a percent! Even if they meet their 2008 goal of 65/1000, that's still less than 1% of the population.
Many (although I have no idea of the percentages) of these villages already have cell phone coverage, so really, it could just be an upgrade of the cell towers in such cases. (Other options are massive Wimax deployments - whether the fixed or roaming flavour)
I seriously doubt that beyond offering the wireless access, they are also going to offer OLPF (one laptop per family)... so this Broadband for all, is actually only broadband for those who can afford a computer with a wireless card. In hundreds, possibly thousands of those remote villages, not even 1 person would qualify. At the very least the government should also subsidise Cyber Cafes in those villages if they really want the poor to have access, otherwise, they are only offering 1/2 the package - free airwaves, but no free or affordable PCs to use those airwaves.
According to this... (http://mungee.org/archives/2005/05/19/india-targ
So really, this is just providing free internet for the richest 0.65% of the population who can afford computers, or 6.5 Million people (out of 1 billion).
Considering that probably a good 90% plus of those PC owners are in the major cities (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, etc - about 10-20 cities)... and those cities only make up around 5% or less of India's landscape. This basically represents the following:
1. Using tax payers dollars to upgrade 95% of the cell towers throughout rural India, where extremely few people have computers & won't be able to make use of it anyway and even when they do, many remote villages only have power for 3 to 6 hours per day. Heck even Mumbai & Bangalore still have regular massive power outages monthly, if not weekly sometimes.
2. The 5% of the infrastructure cost upgrades to the urban cities will benefit the top 1% rich people who live there.
This doesn't sound to me like the most brilliant way to spend vast sums of money. Or if they are going to spend the money with the intent of getting the poor on the Internet, then they need to pony up the rest of the funds to provide free PCs as well (OLPC anyone?).
That said, with 4G technology and/or WiMAX + upcoming hand held PCs with enough power to run Windows Mobile 6 (or whatever Linux flavour cell OS) & some basic apps & the convergence of MP3 + Cell phone + basic PC functionality + ongoing declining prices of these handheld units, possibly within 5-10 years the poor may actually start to make use of this upgraded network... assuming they don't starve to death first.
One thing the government has done right historically is that long distance charges in India are extremely cheap... for foreigners like me (Canada), for Indian people living there, nobody talks for hours on the phone, because they have per minute billing for local calls... even if it is fractions of a cent per minute.
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
All this talk about India being so hot and ready to break onto the world stage. This kind of talk has been going on for well over a decade, and nothing's happened.
India has it's fat head firmly up it's hubristic arse. There is no way anything like this can be pulled off - check back in 2009 and see what they actually end up with...more hot air and nothing to show for it. Just like less than 20% of their MBA holders being employable. India is a waste of time - steer clear and save yourself the headaches.
Luckily for them they already have the call centers in place, I wonder if they have a hard time understanding them as well.
Seriously, the government needs to get its priorities straightened out if it thinks that internet access is the most important thing for its people.
What if it thinks it's an important thing and wants to work on more than one problem at a time?
Or what if it thinks it'll be a major economic stimulus, bolstering the economy, raising many citizens' quality of life, and thereby increasing tax revenue to the point where it's feasible for it to attack its major poverty issues?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You have NO IDEA what the costs of running a broadband network are! You left out
...and a bunch of things I'm not allowed to talk about
-My $1.4 million salary
-$2 - $7 million/yr in campaign contributions
-Dozens of attorneys to sue Vonage out of existence
Mateo LeFou, CEO, Verizon/AT&T
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Having said that, it seems that this is a case of a relatively small minority of religious fundamentalists getting their panties in a bunch over nothing. Most Indians didn't seem to have a problem with it. Of course he should have been more sensitive, but kissing someone on the cheek? Come on...
Of course, here in the US we also have small but extremely vocal groups of religious fundamentalists that make similarly ridiculous statements -- but generally, we try our best to ignore them, and the courts certainly don't side with them.
I don't like the idea of the goverment provided telecom services. Too many privacy issues there. I like the idea of the "wall" that separates the private telecom industry from the goverment, specifically law enforcement. Enough abuses already exist with the wall in place, image what would happen if suddenly the goverment ran the show and didn't need to pass laws or go to court to get the information it was looking for, all in the name of "national security", of course.
The Indian Government is notorious for quashing dissention on the internet. This may be a really radical conspiracy theory, but, by offering free internet access, the government gains control over its populace. Therefore, appearance differs from reality. By controlling internet access, the Indian Government gains certain amounts of control over content through filtering, port blocking, monitoring, etc. It is a great way to track would-be dissidents and others speaking out against the government.
Pakistan is on the Indian Subcontinent. I am very surprised that India would offer free internet access to Pakistan.
Oh.
I am not very surprised that the story submitter made a statement that is not in the story, and the Slashdot "editors" did not edit it out.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
2009... lets see so India is a bigger country than the US, has less resources than the US and has more people than the US most of whom are much poorer than the US.
Of course a government can succeed where private enterprise failed. There will of course be no problem getting 2Mbps to 1 billion people, oh no, and of course the fact that most don't have a computer and that the level of literacy outside of the major cities isn't great won't be any sort of barrier.
Nice political statement, but I'd say there is more chance of the Indian government admitting that project Tiger has issues than rolling out broadband.
Steve
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Interesting. It seems many posters projected problems of our government onto the Indian effort. Why does everyone assume it "can't be done"? I applaud their effort, their willingness to try... Americans seem sorely lacking in the willingness to try department anymore. We immediately argue why it could never, or should never, be accomplished. We immediately argue that a government should never actually provide to it's citizenry.
Our government has already paid the telco's here with our tax dollars, only we got nothing for it...
Because the poor are numerous they are seen everywhere. Heart wrenching scenes of squalor abounds everywhere overwhelming the other part of Indian population. Half of India is on susbsitence level and two-thirds of India does not have any disposable income to speak of. That still leaves some 330 million people with disposable income, who form the middle class. That is bigger than total population of USA 300 million.
So let us not go overboard and think all Indians are dirt poor living in slums.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The problem is that the COURT has sided with these idiots in this case. The whole issue is very disturbing indeed.
Ah yes, in our country this is election time too so polititian are making silly promises on financial resources that they don't have. As for India, according to what I have read, before broadband, road should be fixed as well as proper electrical network.
The last time I visited India (my Father's home country), many villages did not have running water or continuous electricity. This wasn't long ago... and the majority of my family in India doesn't even have a telephone of their own, not to mention a computer. I'm not saying it is the dark ages, by no means. They do have a television, water pump, and electricity for the majority of the day. Although the literacy rate is high, the technological level is quite low... wouldn't these resources be better spent if the Indian government focused on subsidizing basic utilities first? The United States doesn't (and probably won't) have free Internet for all, but I think other countries shouldn't try to surpass us tech-wise without taking care of their people's needs first.
Oh you wacky cityfolk with your strange grocery stores and megamarts. People in the country don't need money to buy food because they can (and do, and did) just grow it and hunt it. My great-grandparents (in rural Louisiana, not Tennessee, but same diff) knew about the Depression because they heard about it from the townspeople at church. It didn't affect them one way or the other because they had always grown all their food anyway. Rural electrification was a much bigger deal for them.
At one time it was a cultural norm to enslave, whip, rape, and occasionally hang black people in the South.
Whether I agree with that or not, I guess it's not right, wrong, or absurd?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes they went nuts on it, no questions asked but take a gander at the video footage of the 'kiss' was more gere forcing himself on the chic with her trying to back out... couple that with the largely existant scarred psyche from the colonial era it doesn't take much to ignite the hysteria
Agreed. There's an objective basis for this. If neither of the two people has a problem with it, the government (of which the judiciary is a part) should just keep its hands off and move on. The whole law relating to "obscenity" in India is disgusting.
They're going to have Richard Gere kiss a router ...
Bark less. Wag more.
Free broadband to everyone doesn't necessarily mean to their homes. They don't even have telephones to each home right now. This may just mean that it will be available at a nearby location. When I was in India, there were places you could use the Internet or make a phone call from all over the place. Going to the home would be pointless since they don't all have computers or 24-7 electricity either.
Before you all jump on the awesome! bandwagon, just keep in mind:
1. It ain't free. It's paid for via taxes. What is the per-person cost?
2. Is competition allowed? What if someone wants better service?
3. What if there's censorship -- without competition, it's harder to get around it.
4. They're buying equipment to do this from more capitalistic endeavours that built this machinery in the first place. Were everyone to rely on what the government (or a government-approved legal monopoly like AT&T used to be) around the whole world, the Indian subcontinent would decidedly not be doing this now, and would have no capacity to do so whatsoever.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This means the end of the telecom business in India and gives the government there total control of every e-mail sent, every web site visited.
This is very bad news for freedom in the world.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
the day warrant is issued you have gere offering apology ;) :D
had he done it before when people protested its obscene it wont have come this far for him
It is so utterly weird that I was thinking of exactly the same thing this morning - of all things, free broadband access in India, although the wireless kind. Here's my take on it:
Internet is elementally another form of media, just like TV or radio or newspapers. In India, there are state sponsored TV and radio channels - have been around for much longer than cable TV arrived on the scene. In fact, government run TV (Doordarshan) and radio (Akashvani) in India were the primary information channels serving dual purposes of education and entertainment. They often featured very high quality productions that many people from older generations recall. The point is, these services were always free. You had the TV/radio signals floating about everywhere (save for some remote places) and all you had to do was stick an antenna out. no payment, no subscription - if you had the equipment, you could freely mooch off the airwaves. It was not restricted by class - the slums received the same signal as the bungalows. Nor was it only utilised by the higher class only - there were TVs/radios in slums as well, and the programs were enjoyed by literates and illiterates alike. TV/radio served a powerful way of connecting the humongous population together, to propagate common ideas and thoughts, and it was only logical that this be (a) provided by the government, and (b) provided for free so everyone can enjoy it. Democracy, of the people, by the people, for the people.
So why not Internet? after all, it is only another information channel, that happens to be quite popular nowadays. It naturally follows that if it is to be as far-reaching as its predecessors, in a country like India where the income spectrum is wide, a base (free) version should be available. The value-added services can continue to cater to the richer clientele, but the basic opportunity for lower-income groups to access the same information should not be denied.
Certainly there are (non-infrastructural) hurdles for deployment. Equipment (computers, routers etc) are not free but it was the same with TVs as well - still, people from a wide range of social levels have been able to procure the equipment, maybe not the best kind but still basic enough to provide them primary access. The bigger problem is literacy - Internet is predominantly an active media, unlike TV/radio which are more passive. In order to make any use of it, you need to know how. but here, the analogy of postal mail comes to our rescue - many illiterate people who are still unable to read/write make use of letters to communicate, with the help of an educated intermediary - the same model may work for Internet too. As a fringe benefit (but definitely no less important) this may actually help accelerate the literacy drive, apart from providing an easier and more effective way of education itself.
It appears that this is a proper decision for a country like India, which got it right on the two earlier forms of communication (in terms of primary provision).
My sig has been answered.
I don't presume to know the man's mind, but Gere would likely have offered that apology whether it was sincere or not so that he can hopefully go back to India to continue his charity work without being arrested.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It was accepted by the majority of members of the culture, therefore it was culturally accepted, therefore it has something to do with culture and your head is someplace warm and dark. And stinky.
It is wrong to tell people that they can't do things that aren't hurting you, because you would like to have the same freedom and anything else is hypocritical.
Unless, of course, you're a sheep that does what you are told, in which case the most benefit you could provide the people of the world would be to kill yourself and have a tree planted over your corpse.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The PROBLEM is this government you fool.
Without government there would be no corporations. The Laws are created to protect large and rich business and to let them avoid responsibility. This is not a "free market" at all. This is a government regulated and influenced market, where laws are created that help big business and hurt small business.
If government works so well why not let it take over every business there is? Its because government stinks.. Government business are run like the Post Office and the DMV with a bunch on non caring unmotivated bureaucrats who wont loose there job no matter what happens. Innovation will stop because there will be no profit in making a better system at all.. Government is bare bones, one size fits all crap. Its like Soviet government cars. How many people have ever told you Yugos are the best cars!
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Read about it on my blog.... http://convergence.in/blog/2007/04/26/free-broadba nd-gimmick-on-et/
Being an Indian and broadband user from last few yrs, i could say that its not a very great news for most of the middle class Indians.
BSNL/MTNL already provide 2 Mbps broadband for mere Rs250($6) per month.
The fine point is that BSNL provides broadband only if you have a telephone connection which will not be free. BSNL is facing tough competition from private carriers and most probably its an attempt of survival.
PS: sorry for broken english but i never enjoyed writing.
This is not a signature.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/29315.html
There is no such plan.
India's Minister of Communications & Information Technology recently launched the Re.1 OneIndia scheme where all telephone calls originating and ending in India (local and long distance, mobile and landline) will cost only Re 1. (2 Cents) During the press conference he was asked if a similar scheme is possible for net connectivity and he said the vision is to:
1. Start web hosting with MTNL and BSNL (The govt owned telecom companies) so that most Indian pages are hosted within India.
2. Once most Indian internet traffic terminates within India, reduce cost of internet connectivity in a big way, possibly even make it free.
When asked how long it will take to implement this, he said he still has 2 years to make something happen which is to mean the 2 years left in his term as the minister till the next general election.
There is no formal plan as of now and the story as posted on Slashdot is vastly exaggerated. Even the long goal in his comments was to offer free Broadband connection to subscribers with a land-line connection from BSNL or MTNL. Essentially, a free upgrade in competition against other providers.
There is no plan to provide internet connectivity to every person in India. I do hope, however, that someday it is possible to provide free internet access to every village for the vast benefits it could and would bring.
Interesting point(s).
Sometimes people are not really comfortable with some activities given their upbringing. People and societies change at their own pace and it is never a good idea to force ones standards on others. I am an Indian living in US so I follow US norms and I would expect an American visiting India to follow Indian norms. Just for arguments sake if someone from West Africa comes to US and has many wives (its common in West Africa) and all the wives and the husband have no problem with the concept why does American society get its panties in a bunch. Or for that matter in most of the world where people have not been overanalyzed by psycho therapists people discipline their children using corporeal punishment but in the US if a parent hits their kid in public they would have the Child Services on their head and the crazy courts would side with the crazy Child Activists (dont even get me started on the Animal Rights crazies ). So you see their are crazies in each society. But dont worry with globalization societies are converging. India will hopefully loose some of its shyness about public affection , the Arabs will stop wearing Burkhas, Texas will make it obligatory for every obstetrician to offer abortion as an option whenever a couple comes for its first pre natal visit (this is prety much true in Europe When you go for a visit and find out you are pregnant the doctor simply asks good news or bad news) ,New York will allow us to play ice hockey with baby seal carcasses on Hudson and California will outlaw Child Support if the father wanted an abortion and the mother refused.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Its really a bad idea to try and get wired connections into every Indian home given the dual problems of over congested cities and far and spread out small villages. Its precisely why it was so tough to get phones in India till wireless came in. On the other hand if the govt just concentrates on providing free wifi and let it be implemented on city level say by allowing cities to hold on to some octroi to pay for it, it would work much better. For the rural areas free wifi could be provided by colocating wifi stations with Panchayats. Given the low amount of usage in rural india no Panchayat would be overloaded even if the entire village was using OLPCs to log in to the same wifi node.
**Life is too short to be serious**
First of all, disclaimer I am an Indian and hate times of india news service, owner of this bullshit economic times, from bottom of my heart.
Did anyone bother to notice how the news failed to mention one single source? Who told this press reporter of this big news? Who was that mysterious "Government official"? This is a big news guys, country of 1B people offering broadband to everyone in 7th biggest country in the world, area wise!
You may be shocked to know, but its fact, 30% of India is still without electricity and they will provide brodband everywhere. BS.
And that too, by 2009. Hah, I'll be happy if Google could provide workable wifi to Mountain view by 2009, forget getting free broadband all over India.
Dont get me wrong - I am proud of my Indian origin, India's doing great. But, watch out for BS news that dont cite any source esp when the news is ludicrously implausible.
And, dont read times of India and its siblings until you want spicy meaningless stories to read or want to watch semi-n*d* Indian babes. Note, first timers may suffer from constipation from excessive spices.
Now, as a disclaimer, I am not a libertarian and I think their ideas regarding economics are often over-simplified and stupid, but when it comes to civil rights, they have it right on: "The right you have to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." Which means, basically, that as long as you aren't infringing on the rights of others (in this case, the right to go through life without being assaulted), you can do whatever you want.
When it comes to laws against polygamy in the US, I am in complete agreement with your assessment -- it's not the government's business and they shouldn't interfere. In fact, polygamy in the US was not illegal until people concerned about the growing popularity of Mormonism used legislation against polygamy to "get around" freedom of religion, which made banning the "cult" in a more straightforward manner impossible. It was stupid then and it's stupid now, and it ought to be repealed. What the hell do I care if my neighbor wants more than one wife or more than one husband? It doesn't concern me at all, unless I'm some busybody neighbor with nothing better to do than to foist my notion of morality onto people of another culture.
The whole anti-spanking BS is a bit harder to nail down, because someone in a position of power is smacking someone who cannot defend themselves and who most likely does not consent to being smacked. Of course, parents are legally responsible for their children until a certain age, and that presumably confers them certain rights. Whether or not spanking is one of those rights is a difficult gray area, because child abuse is clearly illegal -- where do we draw the line? But I agree with you, anti-spanking legislation is stupid. The only time we'd want to restrict that is when it's excessive, and there are already perfectly good laws banning child abuse that cover that. But my point is, it's not such a great example because someone's rights are being violated -- the question is whether or not we as a society care.
Regardless of whether it's in India or elsewhere, obscenity laws are frankly stupid. The government shouldn't have that sort of legislation on the books. Whether it's a peck on the cheek or a bare-chested girl in public, it's completely moronic. If you don't like what you see, then don't look. It's as simple as that. You do not have the right to go through life unoffended, because the right to offend is simply too precious. People are offended by criticism. People are offended by interracial relationships. People are offended by all sorts of behaviors, and we as a society should rightly tell them to go fuck themselves if they think the offense they feel warrants judicial protection.
Last I remember, I don't remember seeing any kissing at all in Bollywood movies. Not even pecks on the cheek. So it's probably a cultural thing rather than just noise from a handful of extremists.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
oh yeah?
Does this mean I can offshore my websurfing to someone else?
The thing is, if this is a wired connection we're talking about, it will benefit only the relatively wealthy. I.e., the relatively powerful. And if it's a wireless connection, then it's a lot cheaper than roads or electricity. And faster to build. (Consider cell phones vs. wired phones. Lots of countries appear to be just skipping the stage of wired phones, because it's so much cheaper and faster to put in cell phones.)
This may well be a reasonable use of resources. If you have a foot-powered generator, then charging the battery of a computer is reasonable, and if it has a wireless connection, then this will allow messages to get in and out, even when the roads are out. Could be important. IS relatively cheap.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
On positive side I appreciate that at least Politicians are making false but constructive promises. On other hand If someone hear about path hole-free roads instead of free-broadband in India just post it here.I want to move to that place tomorrow. Or they already started digging for it every where?? Other day I noticed some advertisement banners pasted on the big water supply pipes(Indian ad firms don't win those Lion/Tiger-somethings just like that every year.) that are waiting beside road- to be buried underground for last 3 months!
FFS people, it's Mbps. Mbps!!!!! The *is* no mbps.
*pops vein in head*
Yeah, even most of the so-called "religious fundamentalists" (extremist left wing propaganda) don't give a hoot about somebody slobbering over somebody on television They're not religious fundamentalists really, there has only been one movement in Hinduism that can be called "Fundamentalist" in the sense that it was used in Christianity and more recently, Islam, which is scriptural literalism, and that was the Arya Samaaj.That movement died a quick death coz all of them had nervous breakdowns trying to literally adhere to the 100 libraries or so worth of Hindu religious scripture.
I mean, come on, I admit that the Shiv Sena (the morons who allegedly pulled these shenanigans off) is grossly misrepresented and maligned by the far-left moonbat liberal media in India , but this is fucking ridiculous. They need to get lives.
And this to Richard Gere, a man who has been a valuable friend to India. Ridiculous!
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
Regarding Child Abuse I believe a lot of the problem lies in the fact that in the US the state has intruded too much into the family beginning with social security. In traditional society when you got old your children took care of you. So even the most venal, self centered person had a vested interest in taking care of their children and trying to make them successfull. So people simply didnt abuse their kids as they knew when the kids grow up they will decide whether you have a comfortable old age or end up as a beggar on the temple steps. With the coming of social security parents really have no vested interest in the success of their children. Sure the good parents still take care of their kids but these parents are not going to depend on social security or welfare in any case. And as a side effect as the bad parents only look upon their children as burdens with no payoff they abuse and then the state has to introduce all kinds of intrusive laws. I say let the family play its role. The family as an institiution has lasted 10s of thousands of years because it plays a very important role and it does it much more efficiently than any combination of Child Services, Welfare and Social Security ever could.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I live in a Third World country called Australia where they build new housing estates in capital cities that only have access to either dial up or the slower versions of ADSL. No cable, no ADSL2+. Though there is the insanely expensive Bigpond Wireless Broadband that has 100MB plans for $70/month, maybe I should seek a government grant and build myself a satellite antenna.
Good luck to India for trying to reach a worthy goal, here in Oz you can't always get decent internet connectivity as the Telcos and governments play that time honoured game of "pass the buck".
Oh well, the federal election is coming and one side has promised "Internet Nirvana (tm)" for us all or did I just see pork with wings fly pass my window as I write this comment!
And if anyone thinks Social Security is any different than children paying for parents let me remind you Social Security is not based on money you pay into it rather it is based on money paid by the current generation used to pay out to people of a previous generation. Its basically forcing all the children to pay into a common fund and then paying out from that fund to all the parents and a few freeloaders who didnt have children. Why this is especially bad is that even the girl who got raped by her asshole father ends up paying social security and that money goes to the asshole who raped her. So basically no consequences for bad parenting or being selfish and not having kids.
**Life is too short to be serious**
That phrase actually means It went too far. I guess what happened was that Gere was entertaining a bunch of truck drivers. Now truck drivers in India fairly or unfairly have a reputation somewhat like what frat boys have in the US so Gere tried acting like a frat boy. He kinda forgot that Aishwarya is a former Miss World and Indians kind of love international titles (comes from the colonial hangover where the white mans approval meant the world) and are protective of Aishwarya. I am sure if it was some of the other Slutty actresses ( in public image I have no idea how they are in person) like say Bipasha no one would have cared
**Life is too short to be serious**
India's current teledensity is about 20%. This includes the mobile connections. There are about 10 Million Internet connections start of 2007. We need to increase landline teledensity to 100% by 2009 and increase Internet connections by 2009 to approximately 250 million+ (one per household). Looks very unlikely. Nice try coming from a politician, though.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
Good point. Should I also be cancelling my upcoming trip to the USA because you've still got Fred Phelps running around? No? Thought so - after all, you can't judge an entire country on the actions of a handful of idiots. Oh, wait...
butter the donkey
Wow, and you can't even get broadband in most of the third world places like Vermont... I wonder how providers feel about this infringement on their markets? In the good news, access will help the nation leap forward. Those of us out in the sticks get tremendous benefit from having the world at our finger tips without the disadvantages of having to live in an urban jungle.
As per rules, private telecom players should not limit their services only to Urban areas. As they fail to extend service to rural areas, they are paying a penalty to BSNL/MTNL, which is called USOF.
Now govt is planning to cut down USOF charges, which is 5% now. As BSNL is not funded by govt now, this decision will put BSNL in serious trouble, fighting an uneven competition with private players.
I think BSNL will try to utilize accumulated USOF for providing this 'free' internet, which might give it a slight edge.
~~~BSNL is the once which introduced affordable 256kbps connectivity, later upto 2mbps. It's like how gmail offered 1 GB storage and forced the competition to improve their services.
Still, unlimited packages from bsnl carry only 256 kbps. I'd be glad to see higher speeds in unlimited packages before expecting any free broadband.
Uh...there are lots of telcos in Australia that will give you ADSL2+. I'm living in little ol' Adelaide and I can get ADSL2+ http://www.internode.on.net/.
kill all the fucking niggers