Technology in India - Past, Present and Future

Every person in India who lived through the last decade can experientially envision a more technologically-advanced future for him- or herself. The 2000s saw the highest growth in wireless connectivity in the world. TIME Magazine reports that in 2000, the number of cell phone subscribers was 2 million and that number has climbed to 545 million in early 2010. Currently, India is adding about 15 million mobile users on average per month. Not only has this rapid growth in the telecommunications market opened several doors for many of the nation’s rural poor, but it has benefitted the economy as a whole. With cell phones, individuals and businesses are managing their time better and have become more efficient in their day-to-day work. As per the June-August 2010 Performance Indicator Report released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), 213.81 million of the total 635.51 million wireless subscribers (approximately 34%) are subscribing to data services as well.

            During my interview with Mr. Deb Dutta, who is the Counselor of Science and Technology at the Embassy of India in Washington, DC, I asked him to explain some of the reasons for the tremendous expansion of this industry. He stated that “till the last decade, in India, telecommunications wasn’t considered infrastructure. So there wasn’t much investment in ‘hard infrastructure’ in the form of telephone lines.” A second issue was the digital divide between urban (30% of the population) and rural (70% of the population) India. The government realized the need to overcome this situation by liberalizing its policies and opening the wireless telephony market. The competition amongst the numerous service providers drove down prices and made cell phones more affordable to the public. As many rural dwellers still don’t have access, there are several operators still entering the market. Mr. Dutta pointed out that the government predicts 97% of India will be connected through wireless telephony by 2014. In his opinion, the governments’ steps have not only resulted in a more technologically-advanced nation, but have also contributed to a certain level of social-equality amongst the people.

            While wireless penetration has risen enormously in the last decade, Internet penetration stood at a meager 7% by the end of 2009. According to TRAI’s latest report, the total ‘Internet Subscriber Base’ stood at 16.72 million between June and August 2010. Other sources such as InternetWorldStats.com report the number of ‘Internet users’ in the country to have reached about 81 million by late 2009. This figure is also corroborated by the CIA World Fact Book. The wide discrepancy exists because most Internet users in India, unlike in developed nations, do not have their own connections and instead regularly access the net in cyber cafes. As a result, each subscribed connection has multiple users. All the same, the overall figure of users still remains low when compared to that of wireless telephony.

With regard to Internet penetration, Mr. Dutta stated that the requirements for infrastructure to support Internet connectivity are greater. Infrastructural bottlenecks with respect to fiber-optic cables, satellite connectivity, etc., along with limited rural electrification have restricted the use of Internet outside urban areas. However, the government is well aware of these shortcomings. The new IT and Telecom Policies have laid considerable emphasis on improving rural IT infrastructure with the overarching aim of sharply increasing Internet penetration. The plan is to use the Internet to bridge the communication gap that exists in areas that are poorly connected by hard infrastructure such as roads. It is felt that because of the relatively low cost of IT infrastructure, deficiencies could be easily addressed in a short span of time. It is also hoped that once the process gathered momentum, the growth in the number of users would mirror the explosion witnessed in wireless telephony.

            From the typical Indian student’s perspective, it is important to analyze whether advancements in technology as well as greater accessibility are transforming his or her experience in the classroom and, if so, how. Interestingly, in an article written by Jeffrey Young on October 3, 2010 in The Chronicle, it says that Indian companies are spending millions of dollars in corporate-training programs for their new employees and the classrooms they use are much more high-tech than those at several universities. When Young visited Infosys, the software giant that helped start India’s booming technology sector, he was stunned by the grand and futuristic architecture on campus. In one of the classrooms he entered, “each seat had its own PC, and most students had opened a copy of the instructor's PowerPoint presentation and followed along on their own screen, sometimes scrolling back to see what they had missed, sometimes looking ahead.” Not a single student went on Facebook or any other diversion. Of course, if they want to be paid, they are forced to concentrate. The trainees there said their professors in college delivered their lectures in the typical chalk-and-talk method, which they feel wasn’t too effective. Now as several urban universities are “smartening up their classrooms [by] adding Wi-Fi, projectors, and computers,” many professors feel they are losing the attention of their students. And the debate over technology continues…