Scenario, Afterthoughts & Prompts

Scenario, Afterthoughts & Prompts: India: How It Is Placed In Digital Age : "In last two days, I have got to read two very interesting, somewhat related but yet very distant to each other news about digital landsca..."

In last two days, I have got to read two very interesting, somewhat related but yet very distant to each other news about digital landscape of India. Let me start with the softer and smaller one, which will play a role of catalyst in connecting entire India through internet. Information Technology department of Government of India is working out a plan to two hundred and fifty thousand telecentres (internet enabled service kiosks) in every panchayat (Local governing body at village level) by 2012 for providing railway reservation, weather and agriculture related information to the rural populace. At present, there 94000 such telecentre in the country. This will not only help a great way in providing transparent information at the ground level to the rural people, but also fuel the consumption of newer products and services and pave way for inclusive growth. Further, this will also change the thought process and personality of consumers out there, because they will be exposed to info...

What started as providing unique identification to every Indian is all slated to metamorphose into one of the biggest financial inclusion exercise taken up by any country. Successful completion of this exercise, widely known as UID project with the nick name of Aadhaar will change the face of India.   This year, Indian government is expected to spend close to Rs.1000 Billion on different welfare schemes, but at the same time, they are wary of massive leakage in distribution of this money to the section of people, who really intended to be reached and provided benefit out of it. The multi-layered distribution system set up to reach such a huge population has also resulted in massive pilferage of funds meant for poor section of the population. According to an estimate, around 250 million Indian population holds bank account. So far, unique identity number has been issued to 4.3 million Indian citizens and out of these people, 88% has opened an ...

More than a blogger, I am an avid blog reader. In fact, I not only read blogs, but scraps, updates and tweets of my contacts and my contact’s contacts. I have around 300 plus friends in my Facebook contact list, more than 750 plus in LinkedIn and more than 100 plus in Orkut, which is not an impressive friend list by any count, but it definitely makes my network very big. I always keep pondering that in this very big network, how can I make my point get noticed, how can I increase my fan base, how can I get more relevant contacts. I have read various how-to guides, but my all experiment has not yielded much of result. In fact, I requested one of my software developed friend to develop an application which will help me to assess what my network want, what they are talking about and what will interest them after all. But later I realised that I don’t need to have software for that. Reading all these blogs, scraps, updates and tweets have given me some insight of how to connect with the I...