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The Internet Editorial Technology

Networking Technology At Work In Rural India 179

Posted by timothy from the balancing-tradeoffs dept.
abhikhurana writes "Whenever a news item about a plan to offer aid to a poor community in a developing country to set up an Internet backbone or any similar story is posted on Slashdot, there is always a debate among the readers if there is any point in spending so much money on such activities when people in such communities don't have basic amenities like clean drinking water. So when I came acorss this story, I decided to post it to slashdot. It's about new software developed by Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, which allows video conferencing on low-bandwidth connections, and the impact this technology is having on the small rural communities where it has been deployed."
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Networking Technology At Work In Rural India More

Networking Technology At Work In Rural India

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  • shouldn't be using ichat for surgery (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:30PM (#6597694)
    "Doc? Doc? Hey you there? I've got the kidney in my left hand and the crowbar in my right?"

    Doctor on other side of the world..."Hey, iChat a/v went down again, what the hell does 'beta' mean anyway??"

    • [ANGRY-RANT]
      that we are TOTALLY screwed... if they got ppl coming up with new technologies that WORK over in India... it means corpers and domestics need even LESS of us here in the US... obviously us americans didn't come up with it... which means what? That that's another set of IT jobs that leaves the US to go to those guys. (or at least contracts that we could've had) Face it, we're not falling behind but we're not exactly price competitive these days either.

      Granted we don't know how well they work a
      • Coincidentally, I just created a new journal entry [slashdot.org] on this very topic. Hopefully, a good discussion will develop. We'd all do well to learn more about the world economy.

      • To old timers among you, I ask this... have you made any breakthroughs lately? If not, I doubt tenure will keep you around these days. Unless you're a teacher. Tenure nowadays just means a higher pay job to eliminate and a bigger bonus to get for some CEO somewhere.

        Well, I can't speak for the original AC poster, and your's was certainly was an "angry rant", but what made you suppose that the AC was an "old timer"? First, tenure only applies to academic teaching positions, which is a tiny portion of IT-r

  • videoconferencing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lurgyman ( 587233 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:30PM (#6597697)
    Dude, if a community can't afford water, how is it going to afford e-anything?
    • Dude, if a community can't afford water, how is it going to afford e-anything?

      That would be e-water.

      Just hook up the device to a well, and you can pump it remotely. Needs its own IP address though, so it better be IPv6 so we don't run out....

    • Re:videoconferencing? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Dude, if a community can't afford water, how is it going to afford e-anything?

      If one bothers to read the entire article, it states that videoconferencing can save the people the expense of going to other towns to see a doctor.

      Speaking of "affording water"... it is often misquoted/misunderstood phenomenon. There is plenty of water available. The issue is about storage/harnessing the ground/surface water in a cost-effective manner.
      • If one bothers to read the entire article, it states that videoconferencing can save the people the expense of going to other towns to see a doctor. So... an internet bill is ever so much cheaper than a ride on the most popular mode of transportation? Speaking of "affording water"... it is often misquoted/misunderstood phenomenon. There is plenty of water available. The issue is about storage/harnessing the ground/surface water in a cost-effective manner. Obviously... anyone can go out and drink from a r
    • if a community can't afford water, how is it going to afford e-anything?

      If the network can help you dig a well, it's worth the value of the water already. What can be afforded at a constant price changes with the value of the good/service.

    • Sorry for one step diversion, but let me say this. Have you heard of the scientist, who ruled out possibility of life on any planet he found when he discovered that the conditions on the planet are not like earth? The problem is he forgot that a different kind of life can evolve in different conditions.
      What I mean is ,agreed that we should priotitize the needs, but the steps and structure western world followed to achieve this living standard are not the only steps that can be taken towards better life. Eac
    • Joy of joys. The Indians are now wasting millions of dollars in bringing a low-bandwidth Internet connection into the villages. How can this Internet connection possibly benefit a backward, barbaric village? Why don't the Indians spend their money on more important things like improving their culture? How does the Internet stop female infanticide or abortions targetting female fetuses? Attempts at destroying the female sex are rampant in India.

      Backward, possibly even barbaric, societies are character

      • Maybe having a better educational infrastructure will improve their culture?
      • > possibly benefit a backward, barbaric village?
        > more important things like improving their culture?
        > First, introduce modern culture and modern notions of morality;

        Aren't we the self-declared pundits on barbarism and modernism. If you mean not having an MTV culture, not wiping out the indegenous people but co-existing with them, not having hate groups like KKK (don't winch) mean India has a barbaric culture, then you must be right. Unlike some countries, civilization in India has been around

        • And the "informative" parent from "reporter" should go down.
        • ... not having hate groups like KKK ...

          WTF? Who needs the KKK when members of the 2 largest religious groups in the country are happy to alternately bar-b-q people on trains or butcher them in the villages in which they live.

          During a few weeks of (relatively recent) violence they racked up an impressive death toll. Not a hate group in sight though so this must be love.

          I do agree with some of the point you made but the first part is crap.

        • Statistics about female-to-male ratios are excellent hard facts because people who vociferously defend Indian culture while fighting with tooth and nail to stay in the United States of America (USA) cannot simply "talk away" the statistics. If one or two Indian families used infanticide or abortion to rid themselves of baby girls, then their atrocious behavior would not affect national statistics of female-to-male ratios. The only way that the ratio of females to males in India could be so shockingly out
          • It's interesting that you spend so much time discussing a statistic that you don't not even specifically detail in your post. The site indicates that the female-to-male ratio in India (as well as China, your other favorite target) is 94:100. Ok, but how do you infer that infanticide and targeted abortions are the only way to account for this? Latvia has a ratio of 119:100, so should we assume that in Latvia, they practice infanticide and targeted abortions against male babies?

            • Latvia has a ratio of 119:100, so should we assume that in Latvia, they practice infanticide and targeted abortions against male babies?

              Given its position and history, I think we can assume a good deal of the male population in Latvia was lost during *political discussions* with Russia. The fact that parents in some countries practice infanticide is hardly news.

      • The Indians spend hundreds of millions of dollars on atomic-weapons research. Witness the recent attempts at building missiles with the capability of delivering a nuclear warhead. Meanwhile, the population engages in massive female infanticide or abortions targetting female fetuses.

        Adam_Trask already handled most of your points in another reply, but he ignored this one and I would like to respond to it. Your research regarding the treatment of women in various Asian and Middle-Eastern nations is admirable

  • Stanislaw Lem... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:31PM (#6597700) Homepage Journal
    ...wrote in one of his books about a banana republic where a program was introduced to help every family in the country to purchase and learn to use a helicopter, because it would come out way cheaper than building the network of roads through the jungle between scattered settlements.

    So true... Often modern technology is simply cheaper than the "simple" stuff. Think cellular phones in areas without standard phone networks...

    • BR and Infra (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:44PM (#6597746) Homepage Journal
      Can we drop phrases like "Banana Republic"? It's pretty patronizing.

      I suspect Lem was being satrical. But it's not news that countries with no infrastructure often leapfrog more developed nations. I'm told that Indonesia never built an earth-based telephone infrastructure, because by the time they could afford to do it, it was cheaper to get their own comsats. And we've all seen the way the Third World has embraced cell phones and text messaging.

      • I was just reading about telecomm in Africa. Somalia and DRC are both doing GREAT in terms of telephone and internet access. The call prices are far cheaper there, there's more competition, and the business is healthier. Both countries are TOTAL DISASTER AREAS otherwise.

        So what's up with that? Turns out that the traditional telephone company model that worked so well for 50 years is now crap. A single state-owned telco simply can't keep up any more. Most African countries kept the state telcos as monopolie

        • Somalia and DRC are both doing GREAT in terms of telephone and internet access. The call prices are far cheaper there, there's more competition, and the business is healthier. Both countries are TOTAL DISASTER AREAS otherwise.

          "TOTAL DISASTER" is actually an understatement. Somalia doesn't even have a government, and Congo is World War III, only without the good parts.

          You often hear the economic and social libertarians saying, "Government is the problem, not the solution. If you want you want more goods a

      • At least in respect to that story I'm talking about.
        Lem was VERY satirical in it and calling that imaginary country he described "banana republic" is about the mildest thing that can be done :)
        Just to mention crocodiles being an important part of official divorce and government changes at least twice a month :)

    • Re:Stanislaw Lem... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:59PM (#6597792)

      So true... Often modern technology is simply cheaper than the "simple" stuff. Think cellular phones in areas without standard phone networks...

      Sometimes it has to do with cost. A friend of mine was in a rural part of Ecuador years ago when a US (I believe) phone company was contracted to lay a phone network. He told me that one day the workers would be there laying the cables, and they next day the cables were dug up and gone. Aparently the impoverished residents thought they could get some money for the copper in the wires, so they would "harvest" the cables. This supposedly prompted a more widespread deployment of cellular service.

      • Re:Stanislaw Lem... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Graff ( 532189 )

        A friend of mine was in a rural part of Ecuador years ago when a US (I believe) phone company was contracted to lay a phone network. He told me that one day the workers would be there laying the cables, and they next day the cables were dug up and gone.

        This happens in the United States also. Basically crackheads will do just about anything for their next hit. One of the things they have been known to do is to use tree pruners or climb telephone poles in order to cut down telephone lines for copper. I

        • *grin* And what about Poland where railway line power wires are stolen? People are less pissed off with the thieves than stunned how they manage to steal a kilometer of powered with 3000V wire.
          • Makes me wonder if anyone happened to die in taking it.
          • Heh, hadn't heard of that one. Simply amazing though. I mean, residential telephone is like 60 volts? No problems there. Now how someone can just come along and steal high voltage power lines is beyond me. All I can think of is they are either very desperate and inventive or one of them used to work for some sort of power company and know how to properly handle high voltage.

            It makes you wonder though, what kind of twisted mind goes straight for 3000 V power lines? There have got to be easier ways to
            • How I -imagine- it could be done (though no warranty) - take a piece of rather thic copper wire, ground it really well (I think the railway track is sufficient) and then toss the other end over the line. Should just burn the breakers.
        • Silly Rabbit, don't arrest the kid cutting the line... arrest the company buying the copper!
      • I've also heard about stolen phone wires from my parents who live in Shell, which is in central Ecuador. For calls out of town, they typically use the satellite link provided by one of mission organizations.

        The satellite link was originally only for use by the organization that operates it, but they now provide service to other mission organizations, since it's almost impossible to get new phone lines from the government telco. Of course, the government owned telephone company sees that as competition, eve
      • When you're living on a dollar a day, copper is a VERY valuable substance. It's pretty trivial to extract and melt down the copper, once that's done you can't tell if it's stolen or brand new. Easy to launder it back into the normal economy.

        South Africa is running a lot of fibre now because, unlike copper, it has no resale value.

        simon
      • ...phone company was contracted to
        lay a phone network...
        Can we drop phrases like "lay a phone network"? It's pretty patronizing.

        I suspect Lem was being satrical...

  • Better than food is... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:32PM (#6597704) Journal
    Education

    Really, how many teachers are motivated to help the unfortunate, but not so motivated as to live in a poor village?

  • Video conferencing? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by groove10 ( 266295 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:33PM (#6597710) Homepage
    I understand that utilizing the existing infrastructure is key in these sorts of projects, but I really have one question

    Why do the people of rural India need videoconferencing?

    It woul be much more suitable for scientific outposts in remote places in the world where the people can utilize the conferencing technology along with other data compression schemes to increase their "connectivity".
    • Why do the people of rural India need videoconferencing?

      Hell, I live in San Diego, California and I don't need video conferencing. And more to the point I don't want it either.

    • RTFA (Score:1)

      by useosx ( 693652 )
      I know (hope) you're being Funny, but the article gives surprisingly good reasons. And the two don't have to be mutually exclusive (again, perhaps I'm missing some sort of humor).

      Quote the article in case of Slashdotting/laziness:

      IIT, Oops bring the world to village kids

      Shobha Warrier in Chennai | August 01, 2003

      Half-a-dozen kids sit huddled in front of a personal computer concentrating hard to grasp everything that the face on the monitor is saying.

      The tiny kiosk, where these kids are sitting, doe

    • Re:Video conferencing? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by g0qi ( 577105 )
      Perhaps you missed the part in the article where they mention how village farmers 'consult' with agricultural specialists in the city to get farming advise. Just because you don't use it does not mean nobody else in the world would not need it. Wake up.
      • But why wouldn't email suffice? That uses much less bandwidth... Also if they can connect at 20kbps, they can have analog telephony as well. Why wouldn't that work? I have never seen the need for videoconferencing, especially in a low bandwidth environment.

    • RTFA? (Score:5, Informative)

      by sbwoodside ( 134679 ) <sbwoodside@yahoo.com> on Saturday August 02, 2003 @11:12PM (#6598040) Homepage
      Why do the people of Slashdot ask dumb questions without reading the article?

      Since you're probably long gone I'll summarize for you:

      0. In rural India, it's often really hard to get to places due to very poor roads, that get washed out in the rain, and the population is very broadly distributed on farms.

      1. A teacher in the city can educate children in a rural area. (viz., telecommuting)

      2. Doctors can run virtual clinics for villagers to give them medical advice.

      3. Scientists can have meetings with local farmers to give them crop advice.

      All of these things are IN DEMAND by the people who had a chance to try them out.

      simon
      • All these things can be accomplished with RADIO.
        • From the description in the article, Radio sounds like it would be considerably more expensive and considerably less convenient. I know people into HAM. They spend tens of thousands on their hardware, and still can't match the flexibility, intuitiveness and impact of videoconferencing. Radio has it's ups, but in this case, low cost low bandwidth video conferencing has it beat hands down.

    • Why do the people of rural India need videoconferencing?

      So we can finally outsource management? Can the head of a indian village do any worse than the head of Enron.

      Sounds like the potential for a reality TV show... NAAA!!!

    • Video-conferencing for education, which is what's really mentioned in the article, has taken off in a big way in this part of the world. MIT offers webcast lectures [mit.edu] to graduate students in Singapore, just as Eidenhoven [nus.edu.sg], Georgia Tech [nus.edu.sg] and others do. Carnegie Mellon [msitprogram.net] also has a similar programme in India.

      The Indian President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, was a tenured lecturer at the Anna University before getting elected as a President; I remember reading somewhere that he still gives lectures to students in Madras th

  • Oops I See + Wifi (Score:4, Insightful)

    by niko9 ( 315647 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:34PM (#6597711)
    Maybe you can partner this up with cheap WiFi and some solar powered WiFi repeaters.

    You could also have one attending physician in charge of many physician assitants in many small towns, instead of just using it for teaching.

  • That's great and all (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dirkdidit ( 550955 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:34PM (#6597714) Homepage
    But still, these people still need basic infrastructure, like clean running water, hospitals, electricity, and a working sanitation system.

    However, I could see this useful for a doctor who may be visiting a rural community to see a patient. Say this patient has a disease he has never seen before, the doctor could talk to doctors in other cities to get their opinions and even said back pictures of the patient, allowing for a correct and accurate diagnosis of the patient.
    • It would be a bit like having a do-it-yourself interactive library available. So that when the water filtration hardware arrives, and comes with a set of IKEA like installation instructions, the locals can get on the video-PC and dial up tech support in town, and get useful assistance, quickly.

      This way the experts in town can be shared around the countryside without having to waste hours travelling.

      Being from a very spread out country myself, where it can take hours to get between two towns and days to g
    • Your example is a great 'example' of 'communication' which is part of the 'basic infrastructure' you speak of. Hmmmm so this technology somehow provides enhanced communication.... maybe it could be used for all kinds of 'communications'?

      Like say people wanting to communicate about water supply, hospitals, electricity and sanitation?

      Yeah makes you think, huh?

    • You simply must live in a very rich part of the world (I am guessing America would fit best) if you think of third world countries that way.

      Most of them do have drinking water etc. It is just that the living standard is sub-optimal. Medical care is lacking, and bad crops mean hunger.

      Hell, a lot of parts of the US of A are considered third world country by others, but that does not mean that they haven't got running water or anything...

      Warper
      • I can honestly say the only thing I know about third-world countries is what I learned in school from textbooks that were grossly outdated. I know that some parts of third-world countries probably aren't too far off when compared to some parts of America, but I also know that some parts are extremely impoverished and lack all the basic amenities that I have in America.

        Things like clean drinking water is something I take for granted here but I realize if I went to Mexico, I would have to worry about my hea
  • So when I came acorss [sic] this story, I decided to post it to slashdot.

    Funny how you just up and "decided to post it." Have you discovered some secret way to bypass the editors? If so, please share. :)

  • If you want to try it out... (Score:3, Informative)

    by loucura! ( 247834 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @09:43PM (#6597741)
    You can either go to what appears to be their main page at: http://isee.enmail.com, and register, and get spammed, or you can go here: http://tenet.res.in/isee/ and download it directly without any registration.

  • How sad is this? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pjack76 ( 682382 )
    How sad is it that when I see a story like this, I immediately assume that it's just a load of PR bullshit from some marketing department? "Our technology is saving the world!!! Invest."

    I wish I could be less of a cynic. This certainly seems like a good idea, but people used to think television would save the world too, by making it possible to educate the masses about critical political or social things.

    I can easily envision this technology getting used for entertainment. "No drinking water? No

    • Cynicism is so convenient (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @10:23PM (#6597870) Homepage Journal
      Your attitude towards technology is simplistic. Do you think people can have clean water without technology? That stuff that comes out of your kitchen tap doesn't appear by magic.

      The problem with introducing technology into the underdeveloped countries is not the technology itself, but the way it's applied. Typically, it comes from some industrial-world aid agency that simply doesn't understand local conditions. They'll invent complicated systems that attempt to duplicate features of Western infrastructre, without considering prerequisites that a less developed country doesn't have.

      Some years back, there was a big push to build factories in Africa to process Sunflower seeds into oil. This would have connected a resource (lots of African farmers grow sunflowers) with an unmet need (lots of Africans needs to consume more vegetable fat). All the money was essentially wasted: the factories couldn't sustain themselves without huge subsidies. It cost too much to transport the seeds to the factories and the oil to the consumers, especially in areas with bad roads, corrupt local officials, etc.

      A better solution came from an inventor in Vermont: a cheap sunflower seed press [africare.org]. Sell them to farmers so they can process the seeds themselves, and sell the oil to their neighbors. The whole process is economically self-sustaining: farmers pay for the presses with profits from their oil, and profits from the presses pay for more presses. The only problem they had starting up was getting a grant to develop the press. It seems that nobody was prepared to fund a development effort that only ran to $30,000...

      The bottom line is that technology can solve third-world problems. It just has to be the right technology.

      • ...The problem with introducing technology into the underdeveloped countries is not the technology itself, but the way it's applied...

        I think we're in violent agreement here. I never meant to imply that all technology is evil or whatever. I just wanted to say that technology, in and of itself, won't solve the world's problems. It needs support: Financial support, education support, legal support. I'm mostly cynical about humanity's ability to provide all that as well as the right technology, in a wa

    • If you read the article (and yes I know finding someone who reads the article on /. is rare) you'd find that the video conferencing was being used for education & medical consultations. The "more frivolous uses" as you refer to - voice & video mail were lower bandwidth and were asynchronous rather than synchronous communication.

    • Noble intentions perhaps, but many of the world's problems have nothing to do with technology, so it seems wierd to me to try to use technology to solve them.

      Drinking water? How about food from your crops. If you can't talk to an Agricultural expert who can advise you on what to do about the weather, the latest seeds you're getting, the changes in the environment, you might not be eating this winter.

      If your water was bad but you can't talk to a doctor about what your symtoms mean, you might treat it with

  • I had a good chat with my secondary school classmate about the idea of education voucher, who happens to be an economist, a few days ago. I argued that it is one of the ideas that makes good economic sense, but will fail in the real world. While the schools can introduce say, scholarship, to help the poorer students, the immense feeling of disparity in the society....

    The e-education for basic education is not that health. What will the village children think about the teacher? Are we so untouchable that

  • Census of India 2001 is an eye opener (Score:4, Informative)

    by civilengineer ( 669209 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @10:01PM (#6597799) Homepage Journal
    The census of India 2001 [censusindia.net] ( a site Site Optimised for Netscape! )came out recently and is covered in India Today [indiatoday.com] ( this article is not free however. Check your local library for a copy of the magazine. Its very interesting)
    The 2001 Census data has information on Houses, Household Amenities and Assets in India and has very interesting findings. It seems there are some 2.4 million places of worship in the country, as against 1.5 million schools and colleges and a mere 600,000 hospitals and dispensaries. No wonder there is so much unnecessary religious strife.

    The point is, there is a lot of opportunity for growth and innovative technology is greatly needed there to increase the level of education and quality of life there. The question of which technology is most needed first is very difficult to answer.
    • Since there are 2.4 million places of worship and 1.5 million schools. So there is a stronge demand of Cybertemples of course.

    • how many of the temples were community centres? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In Bali, Indonesia I recently visited a hindu flavoured temple dedicated to water for rice paddies (it was on a permanent spring). I was surprised to see in the outer less sacred areas of the temple, were facilities for community social events and possibly school. There was a badminton court set up under one hall (they have roofs to keep off the rain but no walls). Another area was the local bath house and laundry (well downstream of the holy water). The temple had all the facilities needed for weddings,
    • The bare numbers by themselves are not enough to make good comparisons and conclusions. Maybe most of the places of worship are tiny shrines and most of the schools, colleges, and hospitals serve hundreds or thousands of people. Often, places of worship double as schools. Did the census take that into account?

    • Re:Census of India 2001 is an eye opener (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 3x37 ( 316504 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @11:55PM (#6598171)
      Fewer medical facilities and schools than churches? So what?

      I would guess that this is true for any area of the United States or any other democratic country that tolerates multiple religions.

      A quick perusal of the Yellow Pages for Madison, Wisconsin, USA shows roughly half as many listings for schools as churches. And the combined number of hospitals, pharmacies, clinics and chiropractors is less than the number of schools.

      So hardly an indicator of unnecessary religious strife. India's a giant complex democracy that is still very young. Hell it took the US almost 200 years to figure out it should let all its people vote. Tolerance does not grow easily. You must work at it hard. The fact that India even holds it together is impressive.

    • Re:Census of India 2001 is an eye opener (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Cydonian ( 603441 ) on Sunday August 03, 2003 @12:56AM (#6598376) Homepage Journal
      The 2001 Census data has information on Houses, Household Amenities and Assets in India and has very interesting findings. It seems there are some 2.4 million places of worship in the country, as against 1.5 million schools and colleges and a mere 600,000 hospitals and dispensaries. No wonder there is so much unnecessary religious strife.
      My ancestral village has 121 (Hindu) temples, 3 (Muslim) mosques, one (Christian) church, and five ancient Buddhist sites, in addition to about 10 or so secondary schools, two junior colleges, and, I believe, a recently set-up engineering college. There's a government health center somewhere, in addition to a couple (may be 5 or 6) privately-run hospitals and dispensaries. And yeah, there's one police station with three constables and one Sub-Inspector.

      No, we never had riots as far as anyone can remember.

      Before you read the 2001 Census Report, or that shiny worthless rag, India Today, may I point out to a more useful site on logical fallacies [datanation.com]? In particular, you'll note the similarity between your implied reasoning ("India has more religious structures than schools or hospitals. It also has a lot of religious strife. Therefore, the large number of religious structures causes strife.") and a logical fallacy called coincidental correlation [datanation.com].

      By way of proof, I recommend Ashish Nandy's excellent tome, Exiled At Home [amazon.com], to really understand communal strife in India. Here's a short thesis:- 'Communal' riots are among the most secular phenomena in modern India. They have more to do with oppurtunistic politicians (of all religions, obviously), and a police force badly in need of reform, rather than heightened religiosity, or even, that Great Indian Distraction, Ayodhya.

  • Time for a big economics reality check (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @10:08PM (#6597816)
    Most people think that before you can produce anything economically you need clean drinking water, affordable housing, and modern hospitals. I mean most people who pontificate about all this say, "We have all that infrastructure and I can barely get a job making lattes at starbucks for just above minimum wage! How are they going to do anything productive without all of we have?". So what do I say to them:


    WRONG.


    Before you get all of the above which are very very expensive, as in 100s of millions of dollars. You have to find some sort of way to be productive like sewing textiles or above subsitance farming or factory production, etc. Any successful development story starts with the fact that the country or region in question made something first that people wanted and then it developed. If you build all this infrastructure wherever, as soon as the money stops flowing in, and it would have to flow in permanently and forever, it would all fall apart. This has happened over and over again in Sub-Saharan African and else where.

    • Well anyway, as for this article, video conferencing and internet access is helpful for economic development can make it easier for local production to be competitive and market their products to other localities, etc.
    • I know of a place that proves your point. It's called "California."

      Most people think that before you can produce anything economically you need clean drinking water,
      Everyone buys bottled water anyway, so would it matter if the "drinking water" coming from the tap wasn't clean?

      affordable housing,
      Two words: Silicon Valley.

      and modern hospitals.
      Every so often the nurses strike over working conditions, not enough time with patients, etc.

      Bottom line: You can produce lots of stuff economically without

    • Re:Time for a big economics reality check (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jdhutchins ( 559010 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @10:58PM (#6597986)
      You hit it right on. These people have been 'needing' better water, health care, etc for years. It's not like they don't have any water or health care, but it's certaintly not up to par with the developed world.

      Education is the one thing that will help these villages succeed. If they know how to do more, and farm better, then the assumption is that they will make more money. If the people in the village have more money, then they will be able to modernize their village. Modern water and healthcare arent' cheap, and they don't appear on their own. The kiosks won't directly help this (you can't teleport the stuff over the kiosk), but it will help by education the people of the village so that they can make more money.
  • People are homeless.

    Gah! If it wasn't for technology like the Internet or TV you wouldn't know they were hungry (probably could by mail, but Americans are too lazy to become involved in mailed communication).

    If it were for airplanes, you couldn't drop food shipments.

    Priorities are fine. Food versus technology isa not prioritizing. It's basic neanderthal wanking pretending they're better because they're supposedly more concerned.

    Luddite morons.

  • You must see beyond videoconferencing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ktorn ( 586456 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @11:09PM (#6598025) Homepage
    It's not about the application, it's about the infrastructure.

    It's a poor country. What better way to improve the economy than to provide them with technology that allows them to be productive and earn a living even from such remote places?

    A bit of training and you have potentially thousands of Google Answers [google.com] researchers, or chat-room moderators, or whatever jobs suitable for large amounts of low-qualified, low-wage work force who can work remotely online.

    It's the logical step following the call-centres movement.

  • Computer-aided milk collection (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheSync ( 5291 ) on Saturday August 02, 2003 @11:29PM (#6598088) Journal
    One of the successes of "microcapital" in developing countries is AKASHGANGA [akashganga.co.in] which provides computer aided milk collectors in rural India. Automating milk tabulation and analysis in milk collectives has reduced queue times, thus decreasing milk spoilage, and provides more accurate assesments of milk contributions.

  • Did any of you RTFA? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No, I'm not new to Slashdot, and yes I know the answer already...but goddamnit people. One of the most important points in the article is that the villagers spoke with an agricultural scientist. They were so thrilled and learned so much that they requested MORE meetings with other scientists/doctors. This is knowledge that the villagers are receiving. I'll rehash the over-used but very wise phrase "Give a man food and you feed him for a day. Teach him to grow it, and you feed him for a lifetime." The

  • Now do you understand? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "It has two good aspects. The villagers can go to the kiosks to 'talk' to their dear ones, while the person who runs the kiosk can earn too. For the last two years, the villagers have been sending voice and video mails from the kiosks," Jalihal said.

    OK you (we) guys in the US who have been failing to deliver mass market videophones for decades... here is an Indian guy who does it over a crappy dial-up line. And they have a business model too. Now do you understand why your jobs are disappearing to India?
    • The reason there's a huge market for $29 PC video cameras is because there's semi-adequate support for conferencing with them. MS Netmeeting is happier over broadband connections, and it's probably the most widely distributed H.323 application out there.

      It's not the first or best low-end video conferencing software - CU-SeeMe from Cornell University is older, and does an adequate job even over 28.8kbps modem lines, though you get more frames per second at higher speeds. The early versions were free, a

  • low-bandwidth, eh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...new software...which allows video conferencing on low-bandwidth connections

    ...and the README for this software is a 700K PDF

    I weep.

  • Pictures and Scientific American (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This topic is covered in an article in the August edition of Scientific American, Demistifying the Digital Divide [sciam.com].

    I found a site on the "hole in the wall" [niitholeinthewall.com] computers. Enjoy the site while it lasts, it doesn't look too promising.

    • Re:Pictures and Scientific American (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'll snip the text jic.

      The Kalkaji Experiment

      The first experiment of teaching computing skills to underprivileged children was done at Kalkaji, New Delhi. In January 1999, a hole was made in the boundary wall of NIIT office at Kalkaji and a computer kiosk was installed. As the computer was accessible from the outside through the opening in the boundary wall, the experiment was named as "Hole-In-The-Wall.

      The objective of this experiment was to check if people would be interested in using an unmanned Inter

  • The computers used are Pentium PCs with... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The computers used for the kiosks are all Pentium PCs with color monitors and multimedia support. The operating system is Windows(TM) (9x/NT) and the Internet browser is MS Internet Explorer(TM).

    As you might imagine, deploying Internet kiosks in economically backward parts of India is not quite simple. Besides the lack of infrastructure, the other challenges include providing a low-cost solution that can withstand harsh conditions like dust and extreme temperatures, and a kiosk that can be remotely admini

  • Dot com disease. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ratfynk ( 456467 ) on Sunday August 03, 2003 @04:23AM (#6598877) Journal
    For some reason or other I think the Indians would look at some of these posts and shake their heads. Appropriate cost effective tech is all important to Indians, haggling the cost of things is a way of life in India and most are quite proud of the fact. To do something cheaper and more efficiently is an Indian strong point. Just look where some of the most brilliant math scientists and technicians are coming from today.

    No India will find a way of employing tech that will be radically different than the West. You can bet that they will learn from our mistakes caused by dot com stupidity and greed. No dot com debacle for them. The gold rush is over, we are about to lose out because we do not know how to be realistic in our commerce. We do not see the importance of the changes in the world economy.
    The concept of a GNP is not a concept of economic growth, and to say that growth in GNP is a measure of developement is a falacious assumption, especially in countries like India of China.

    To assume that this tech is expensive is rediculous, the cost of sending messangers, sending teachers to remote areas, Doctors, technicians,
    administraters, health nurses, more than offsets the cost of the tech and equipment. Our problem in the west is that everything computer has to have bells, whistles, video candy, and super fast expensive communication tech. Funny but simple video communication that we have been able to do since the early 1990s will catch on and be a great boom for India. We ignored it because we didn't care to use it for anything other than goofy web garbage cam and it did not entertain us sufficiantly. We are becoming a shallow silly
    over endulged bunch of brain dead consumers and it shows. Most of the rest of the world doesn't envy us, they fear, and some pity our greed.

    • Then leave. If people are so wonderful elsewhere, why don't you join them? I'll never understand you spoiled self-hating American kids.
      • I do not have to leave, and I do not hate Americans. My family has been in North America since 1740 and contributed much by helping to feed the starving hobos during the dirty 30s. You could always get a meal and a flop on our farms. As to being spoiled I think you got it a little backwards. Thats OK you are just another consumer, who does not know when your belly hurts consumer goods mean squat. Do you know where the meaning of a mark came from? Look it up and learn what is really important in life. I jus
  • Don't bother posting such stories - they don't warm people's hearts on slashdot because most of these geeks have never been to India or have a clue what it's like there. Most have some preconceived notion of "backward culture" and a lot of poverty, corruption....blah blah etc. Obviously imparting education to folks in underdeveloped countries is a problem to the western countries - it takes their jobs away. Anyway, it's good to see India slowly (but surely) progress after 3 centuries of being sucked dry by

  • Jhunjhunwala (Score:2, Interesting)

    by harlemjoe ( 304815 )
    Prof. Jhunjhunwala and his team at IIT Chennai are also the people who invented WLL (Wireless in Local Loop) cellphone technology.

    Their high bandwidth cellphone technology has been sold and deployed in both China and Brazil, but here in India our largest WLL cellphone network uses Qualcomm's CDMA2000 protocol..

    funny the way the world works ...
  • ... and we can outsource even more customer support jobs to them.

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