Digital access changes lives in more than one manner—it brings confidence, decision-making ability, gender equality, spirit of entrepreneurship, access to public goods or services, and creates an informed and knowledge-rich society.
When I first visited Puducherry in 2004 on my travels to look at all the marquee projects in Internet and communication technologies for development and governance, I learnt about the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation’s work with the local fisherfolk. The initiative was supposed to get weather reports and broadcast them through a public announcement system…
We are gradually getting to a situation of connected world where, crowd, media, governance and economy are going to be on the crossroads of convergence Osama Manzar …
Even as the debate on Net neutrality rages, I see a possibility of many Internets and their customization, packaging and new colonization. Two tribal girls from the villages of Baran in Rajasthan have taught me that there is a possibility of community Internet—made, run and maintained by local communities by and for themselves. About five…
Most of us experts were above 40, not really the nation’s median age. None of us represented the villages that made up 70% of India’s society. Nearly all spoke English, used by a mere 5% of the country. And critically, none of the stakeholders could be called a digital native. Yet there we were, at…
I was recently in Geneva to attend a meeting that discussed the experience of growing e-commerce in developing countries. The meeting was organized by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Geneva, a non-profit organization that works in the areas of trade, development and human rights. There were representatives from countries such as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Panama,…
Dear Mark, I read your article in Mint (16 April, mintne.ws/1yudRTC ) and realized that you are in the dark about Net neutrality as much as I am but you have also violated it. The reason I’m responding to your article is because you mentioned your trip to Chandauli in Alwar district in Rajasthan last…
Is using a mobile phone a symbol of independence? Is it a simple tool of communication or a medium that provides rights? Why do women lag behind among those who use cellphones? Why do women have to take permission from men before buying a mobile phone that connects them to the world out there? The…
What is the cost of information, or the lack of it? For some, it is a life, for some other, a monthly pension, and for yet another, the monthly subsidized ration. In India, millions of people lose their rights, entitlements, assets, education, pension, wages, food and water, land and livestock, housing, medicine, health and access…
The people in Gop block in Odisha have something more powerful than anyone else in the country has—an FM community radio station (CRS) called Radio Namaskar with a licence to broadcast using a 50-watt transmitter, enough to cover a 20km radius. Sometime in 2011, the local community heard jingles about the government’s integrated child development…