Vol. II: Shaping Information and Communication ... - IMA,ZLW & IfU

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CHAPTER SEVEN
Informatics, Communication and Development:
21 Case Studies from India
Suchindran Chakravarthy and Ashok Jain
New Delhi, India
In this chapter, we describe some initiatives in India that are attempting to provide ICT based
solutions to problems confronting the majority of Indian’s population; the population that is
otherwise left out from consideration by the main stream export and urban oriented ICT
developments. The focus is, therefore, on initiatives with innovative content and possible
sustainability and on initiatives relatively less discussed in the literature. The term ‘ICTs’ in
our context covers not only telecommunications infrastructure, computers, and applications
that have combined to give products like the Internet, but also the vast spread of the
broadcasting media, namely, television and radio, both terrestrial as well as satellite, which
have much higher penetration rates in our country than telephones or computers or both put
together. With the convergence of all these technologies, there are a number of new
developments in this area that can increase manifold the potential impact of ICTs. Initiatives
using ICTs from this point of view have been examined in the form of case studies. As a
whole, we have compiled 16 extended Case Studies and another 5 short Case Reports in the
shape of Vignettes.