The changing face of India. Part I: bridging the digital divide

Abstract

“India lives in villages” said the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. With 1,000 million people and 180 million households, India is one of the biggest growing economies in the world. With the advent of the Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) revolution, India and its villages are slowly but steadily getting connected to the cities of the nation and the world beyond. Owing to the late Rajiv Gandhi, India is now a powerful knowledge economy, and though India may have been slow to start, it certainly has caught up with the West and is ahead in important respects. The Government, the corporate sector, NGOs and educational institutions have supported rural development by encouraging digital libraries, e‐business, e‐learning and e‐governance. The aim of this paper is to touch upon and highlight some of the areas where, by using ICT, the masses have been reached in this way. A follow‐up paper will outline collections of significant cultural material which, once national IT strategies are fully achieved, could form part of a digitally preserved national heritage collection.

Rural Smallholder Farmers' Awareness and Use of ICT-Based Market Information Sources in South Africa

“…There is a general agreement that ICT-based information systems can contribute to livelihoods support and improvements through dissemination of information on alternate resource uses, markets, prices, income and support services (Nikam, et al 2004;Moloi, 2007).…”

Ethnographic Approach to User-Centred Evaluation of Telecentres

“…There is considerable doubt about the success of top down approach to implementing ICT enabled projects in developing counties (Kirlidog & Aydemir, 2005;Leaning, 2005;Nikam, Ganesh, & Tamizhchelevan, 2004). Local contexts need to be taken into consideration while developing contents and applications.…”

ICTs and poverty reduction: user perspective study of rural Madhya Pradesh, India

“…Since then vast amounts of resources have been invested (UNCTAD, 2003;1, Hanna, 2008) Duncombe, 2006;Galloway and Mochrie, 2005;Duncombe and Heeks, 2002;Rhodes, 2002), rural connectivity and rural-urban digital divide (Gamage et al, 2007;Ramirez, 2007;Bowonder et al, 2005;Narayanan et al, 2005;Nikam et al, 2004;Hartviksen et al, 2002;Huggins and Izushi, 2002) and rural education (Yu and Wang, 2006;Misra, 2006;Martin et al, 2001) to name a few. There is also growing literature on the use of ICTs in agriculture and health services in the rural sector.…”