Asia Times: Indian communists plot IT revolution


	April 25, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Indian communists plot IT revolution

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India - Computers are no longer the "devil's agents" for the communist rulers of India's Kerala state, on the country's southern coast.

Realizing the state is lagging behind other provinces in India's great information technology race, the rulers of Kerala have shed off ideological opposition to high technology and the Communist Marxist Party, which for long fought against computerization of the workplace, believing it would reduce jobs, is now zealously promoting IT.

The reason is understandable. Internationally acclaimed for being India's first state to have achieved near full literacy, Kerala finds itself trailing in information technology as adjoining Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh states have made a name for themselves as the centers of India's emerging IT "superpower" status.

Kerala, which voted in the world's first elected communist government in 1957, ushered in a social revolution through land and educational reforms in the tiny state. However, subsequent communist rulers tended to see new technology as a threat to workers.

The present government finally appointed a high-level task force, which submitted a report that forms the basis of the IT revolution planned for the state. "The education system at all levels requires extensive changes in content and pedagogy. This, coupled with a change in mindset, is necessary to prepare future generations to benefit from and meet the demands of the information age," says the report.

In the next nine years, Kerala aims to make 60 million students at least computer-literate, if not experts. The state is being encouraged by India's famed nuclear scientist A P J Kalam, who believes that Kerala, being the country's most literate state, is best-suited to produce computer manpower.

The government has promised to set up about 6,000 computers in more than 2,000 schools across the state in the first phase of the IT education program. The mainly rural state has an estimated 12,310 primary and secondary schools. There are another 931 higher secondary institutions. It also has plans to train a cadre of IT teachers. State officials have approached world IT leaders such as Microsoft and Intel to organize training, says Kerala Education Minister P J Joseph.

As many as 60,000 teachers will be trained to impart computer education to students. Every school, from the villages to cities, will have a computer center that will be open to use by the students during school hours and the public after school hours.

By 2010, all students and teachers of high schools and higher secondary schools will have easy access to computers and the Internet, claims the government. The state government also hopes that IT training will open new job avenues for its large unemployed workforce, estimated at about 3.8 million men and women.

"Kerala should witness, during the first decade of this century, a total transformation of the classroom at all levels," says the report of the government task force on IT education. "Computers and the Internet should move to the center stage from the periphery and become an integral tool of the learning process" it adds.

Sunil Gupta, an IT expert who heads IVL India - one of the major IT companies in Kerala - says the state is well positioned to grab a major share of opportunities in the information technology field. The state has a telephone density - the number of connections per 1,000 people - twice the national average. Kochi, the state's commercial capital, is one of three landing points in India for international Internet submarine cables this year, which will make the city a major Internet hub.

Some 100 hectares of land have been earmarked for an IT park in the port city. Another IT park is coming up at Kozhikode in the northern part of Kerala. An existing technopark in the state capital offers some of India's lowest operational costs and is steadily attracting investors. The state has also taken positive steps for "e-governance" under the Information Kerala Mission, which has linked more than 1,200 village councils and local bodies with district and state level planning boards.

(Inter Press Service)