Digital Divide: Is India Really Connecting

Sonal Gupta. 

The world has begun to undergo a new technologically-driven revolution, allegedly leading toward what is commonly called "the Information Age". Accessing of information and communication through the ever growing technology comes up with the opportunity and challenges as it opened the new channels of self-expression. Although, India being the country having rich heritage and talented workforce, and is among the emerging country in terms of information super power of the world. Yet, over 39% of the population is below poverty line and illiterate. Indeed country is facing digital divide problem. Digital divide refers to the gap between those with regular, effective access to digital and information technology, and those without this access. India might have the world's second highest number of Facebook users, but according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Internet penetration across the entire population is still below 10 percent. The country needs to invest in ICT, skills and innovations to grab the business opportunities that the world comes up with. This ICT should not be only for urban people but also for rural people and the talented people with indefatigable spirit with aspirations come from the RUBANS i.e. rural-urbans. We everyday witnessing the increasingly access to mobile telephony, computers etc that is enabling the access of information at their finger tips thereby exploring the young minds and opens the gate for big dreams.

The grey area of our country sustains without the accessing of information even though they uses the mobile phones. Access to mobile phones in the hands of rural people does not fill the gap of digital divide. There are many barriers that government comes across while bridging the digital divide. The first divide which arises between those who are rich, educated and powerful and those who are not. This divide exists within every nation.

The question arises who are connected in India?

Obviously, as a group they are small. Rich, successful and English speaking minority are the one who are connected but what about the others? The dilemma in our country is despite the persistence of old elites and the new elites, India still remains one of the poorest societies.

The most importantly and the third divide, the linguistic and cultural people faces the problem because it divide them with those who speaks English or another. For Indians who speak no (or little) English, the barriers to the Information Age are almost insuperable.

All widely-used operating systems require some knowledge of English or one of the 'Northern' languages. Thus, in practice, unless Indians know English, which most Indians do not, no matter how wealthy, brilliant, educated, prosperous or motivated they may be, computer use and Internet access are effectively out of the question. The result is a self-confirming prophecy: since there is so little software in any language other than English, virtually everyone in South Asia who uses computers knows English. Therefore, software manufacturers can argue - not incorrectly - that 'there is no market' for Indian language software.

The third digital divide follows inevitably from the first two- it is the growing digital gap between the rich and the poor nations.

Question arises, how the ICT should help in bridging the gap of digital divide? The answer to this could only be the quality education in the most effective way to larger segments of children and child.

(Author is a Law student. Along with writing on some 'off-topics', she is also fond of reading.)