Towards bridging the digital divide for all‐round socio‐economic development in India of the 21st century

Abstract

The idea of connecting rural India to the world has captured the imagination of journalists, scholars, non‐governmental organizations, digital pioneers, and the corporate sectors. The revolution in information technology (IT) has transformed the world into a global society in a short time. To promote IT industry, the Indian Government established a Working Group on Information Technology for the Masses. If any technology can create new opportunities to bridge the gap between haves and have nots in society in the present times, it is IT says the background report of this Working Group on Information Technology for the Masses. In no country is the debate between the optimists and the pessimists more relevant than in India, where new centers of information technology are creating wealth and integrating some sectors into the global economy, while millions remain marginalized and deprived of the most basic human needs. On the other side of the digital divide are the 45 percent of the population who cannot read or write (57 percent of the female population), the 44 percent who survive on less than $1 per day, and those who live in the 370,000 villages that do not have telephone connections. Noting the irony of such sharp contrasts, the former President of India, Narayan lamented in a speech on the eve of the country's fiftieth anniversary as a republic that India has one of the world's largest reservoirs of trained technical personnel but also one of the world's largest number of illiterates, the largest number of people below the poverty line, and the largest number of children suffering from malnutrition. The fact remains that no developing country has benefited more from the digital revolution than India, and in no country is the digital divide wider or deeper. In the words of Bill Gates in which recently he pointed out, what good a computer is for someone who survives on 1$ per day, whose main concern is the next meal. It is a fact that in India the impact of information technology has not reached every sphere of activity or every individual yet India has made a good deal of contribution in this field and has risen to considerable eminence in the world. Information Technology has created a new and dynamic economic sector, generating significant employment and wealth. It is therefore necessary to see how we can bridge this divide that is shaping between the digitally rich and the digitally poor nations, institutions and individuals. The essential nature of the development process is the progressive development of social organizations and institutions that harness and direct the society's energies and material resources for higher levels of accomplishment.