Bridging India's digital
divide By Paranjoy Guha
Thakurta
NEW DELHI - When an Indian
computer science student explained to Bill Gates
last month how new navigation and processing
software that mimics the echo location system used
by bats could help blind people move about safely,
the Microsoft founder remarked: "I have never seen
something like this."
Deepak Jagdish and
his fellow students from the Dhirubhai Ambani
Institute of Information and Communication
Technology, in Gandhinagarm, western India, have
developed computer
software that could help
blind people "see" the environment around them.
The software controls ultrasonic impulses received
by proximity sensors that have a minimum range of
five meters. The signals are translated into
audible frequencies and conveyed to visually
impaired users through headphones.
The
students working on the software were
participating in an annual event organized by
Microsoft last month in Agra. Gates said the "most
inspiring" part of the event was interacting with
young people like Jagdish who could help India
bridge the digital divide and enable the country
to "realize its potential to become a creator of
intellectual capital".
At the other end
of the subcontinent, in southern India, hundreds
of thousands of young men and women have made
their city, Bangalore, a name to reckon with
in information technology. No longer are
they derogatorily described as "cyber-coolies" doing
low-end work for a pittance but are being called
"knowledge workers" who ensure that computer
software exports continue to grow at a rate of 30%
a year - such exports are expected to comprise
more than a third of the country's total exports
within two years.
India is often
characterized as a country of contradictions,
which is exemplified by the fact that it entered
the new millennium with nearly one-third of the
world's computer software engineers and a quarter
of the world's undernourished. While there are 12
phones and 10 TV sets for every 100 Indians, the
total number of people with personal computers in
the country is less than 2% in a population of
over a billion.
According to one estimate,
the size of the IT sector, which curently accounts
for 1% of India's gross domestic product, could
rise to 10% of GDP by 2008. At the same time, the
benefits of IT have reached only a minuscule
portion of the country's population, which has
resulted in a yawning digital divide. Although the
number of Internet users is growing by 40-50% a
year, the total number of Indians who have
accessed the Internet is less than 5% of the total
population.
The number of mobile
telephones in India has doubled over the last two
years, crossing the 100 million mark in July, and
the government believes 250 million mobiles will
be in use within two years. Although cellular and
long-distance calls in India were among the most
expensive in the world until as recently as 1994,
current rates are the lowest in the world.
But the digital divide is still evident.
Against more than four phones for every 10
citizens in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and
Chennai, there are entire provinces in eastern and
central India - Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh,
Orissa and Assam - where there are fewer than two
phones for every 100 residents.
"The most
important change taking place is that the computer
software industry in India has begun looking
inwards," said Kapil Dev Singh, country manager
for IDC (India), which is the local affiliate of
the international market research organization
International Data Group. He said that as more and
more Indian companies compete globally, "the
domestic markets for IT and IT-enabled services
are coming of age".
Singh emphasizes the
fact that India is slowly but surely becoming a
manufacturing base for not just computer software
but hardware as well. Among various multinational
corporations, Intel and Nokia have recently
announced major investments in India to
manufacture silicon chips and mobile communication
devices.
"What is noteworthy is that
international companies are making products that
are specifically suited to Indian conditions -
thus, there are mobile phones designed to be used
by a truck driver with grease on his hands,
computers that run on car batteries and rugged
laptops that can function well in a dusty and hot
environment," said Singh.
"The
interesting paradox
is that while Indian IT companies are still
focused on the world market, international companies
are looking at the Indian market," said Pradeep
Gupta, chairman and managing director of Cyber
Media (India), the country's largest publisher of
IT periodicals. "New technologies have ensured
that instead of people [migrating], work has
migrated from high-cost economies to low-cost
economies."
IT-enabled services or
business process outsourcing has employed many
young Indians not only in Bangalore, but in cities
such as Gurgaon (on the outskirts of the capital
city of New Delhi), Hyderabad (in the southern
state of Andhra Pradesh), Chennai (also in the
south) and Kolkata (in the east). "The IT industry
is rapidly spreading spatially and is now moving
to smaller towns," said Singh.
The spread
of IT across urban India is creating its own set
of concerns. Indians adopt American names and
learn to add a twang to their speech while working
at call centers. At least one novel has been
written about how lifestyles of young Indians who
work in such organizations have changed
dramatically, while a film has been released with
the apt title of American Daylight - a
reference to the fact that the roughly 12-hour
time difference between India and the US makes it
necessary for call center employees to stay up
through the night.
Roughly two-thirds of
the Indian population is below the age of 30, so
most IT companies agressively target young people.
"The real challenge is to blend the impatience and
the enthusiasm of [young people] with the
experience and wisdom of the graying," said Gupta.
Sanjay Behl, who heads branding and
marketing at Reliance Infocomm, a major provider
of mobile phone services, said: "I see technology
influencing the lives of millions of Indians
living in rural areas. This is the era of digital
marketing, an era that will witness dramatic
changes in the way computers change the lives of
people in this country and all over the world."
India remains a nation of amazing
contrasts and inequalities. One small section
lives in air-conditioned comfort and shop in
glitzy malls where products from all over the
world are available. Major Indian companies such
as the Tatas and Birlas now pay their top
employees salaries that average US$1 million per
annum.
However, at least one out
of four Indians live below the
internationally defined poverty line, spending less than $1 a day
and one out of three cannot read or write their
own names. Bridging the digital divide in such a
polarized society is going to be a daunting task.
