Dr.

Himanshu Aggarwal
Professor
Department of Computer Engineering
Punjabi University
PATIALA

 It

is dangerously destabilizing to have half

the world on the cutting edge of technology
while the other half struggles on the bare
edge of survival Bill Clinton

Newer Technologies Created Growth and

opportunities but also heightened economic
inequalities and foment social unrest
Agricultural mechanization
Industrial Revolution
Information Revolution or the
Digital
Revolution

 World

divided between technology haves

and have nots
Measured via the Market Gap in access to
the various devices such as telephones and
mobile Internet connections.
No of fixed lines are 4, 3.3 & 1 (per 100
people)in Low income, SAARC Countries &
least developed Countries (2006).
No of mobiles 15.5, 14.3 & 9.3 respectively.
No of Internet users are 68 in developed
economies while 0.5 in LDCs, 11 in middle
income & 5 in Low income Economies.

 In

Entire African Continent there re 14

million telephone lines.
Wealthy nations comprise of 16% of world
population possess 90% of the Host Internet
Computers
60% of the internet based computers are in
North America (5% of World population)
One in two Americans are online , one in 250
Africans is Online.

 All

Countries are increasing access to ICT.

But information have countries are
increasing their access and use in an
exponential rate .
Within countries, all groups are increasing
access and use of ICT
But ,information haves are increasing
access and use in an exponential rate that
tells us that divisions within countries are
actually growing

 IT

induced growth is more pronounced in

developed countries and the developing
countries are yet to achieve such result.
New technologies reinforce disparities
between
developed
and
developing
societies.
Affluent states at a greater height of
technological advantage have taken the
lead in knowledge economy, but so far
have not trickled down to poor countries in
the Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America or
South East Asia.

 Productivity

gain from ICT might widen the

gap between the developed economies and
developing economies because of lack of
skills, resources and infrastructure to invest
in ICT.
429 million people are online globally (6% of
the world population.
Out of these 41% are in North America &
Canada, 27 % in Europe, the Middle East and
Africa and 20% in Asia Pacific.

 The

well-documented distance between the

information rich and the information poor
(http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/steve/terms.html).

The gap between the technology haves and

have-nots

(http://www.youngaustralians.org/Resources/BYTE%20Audit%
20Report/Glossary%20of%20Terms.htm)
The

gap that exists between those who have

and those who do not have access to
technology (telephones, computers, Internet
access) and related services
(http://www.contentbank.org/tools/glossary.asp).

 The

gap in opportunities
experienced by those with limited
accessibility to technology,
especially the Internet. This includes
accessibility limitations in social
issues, cultural issues, disability
issues, economic issues, learning
issues, etc.

 Cities

and rural areas,

Educated and Un-Educated
economically well off and deprived classes;
Amongst developed, developing and least
developed countries
Differences based on race, gender,
geography, economic status

 In

access to information, the Internet and

other information technologies.
in skills, knowledge and ability to use
information and other technologies

 Global

digital divide: Internet users account

for only 6% of world population and 85% of
them are in the developed countries where
90% of the Internet hosts are located
Regional digital divide: Within Asia, 60% of
South Korea is expected to be online by
2014, while Indonesia will be a mere 2%.
India will be in between these two;

 National

digital divide: Within India, states

such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu
and Andhra Pradesh are more digital than
Bihar and UttarPradesh and population
proportion wise also the disparity is much
wider. Also, within a state, there is an urban
rural digital divide; within urban, there is
educateduneducated digital divide; amongst
educated there is richpoor digital divide.

 Computer

literacy:
Use of electronic data interchange (EDI):
Singapore has announced that it will not
trade with any company that cannot transact
with it in paperless EDI mode over a
computer network.
Tech savvy operations: ATM saves time
Use of information: The Urban Vs Rural
Previliges.

 Working

knowledge of English: Internet hosts

more than 80% of the Web pages in English
though only 54% of the Internet users are
amongst English-speaking people. In India
and other developing countries, the disparity
is much wider, resulting in a language divide.

 India

has a population of over one billion,

70% living in villages.
The adult literacy rate is about 58.8% and
female literacy rate is about 47.3% as on
2002 (World Bank, 2003)
There are 18 languages officially recognized,
each having a different character set.
Around 50 million people speak English.

 Despite

a strong and fast growing IT industry,

access to Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) remains very low,
particularly in rural areas.
The digital revolution too requires
anenabling environment that India has not
put in place as yet.

 Electricity:

The per capita electricity

consumption in India remains around 363 kW,
far below 4959 kW in Hong Kong (one of the
regions technology powerhouses), 5421 kW in
Britain and 11,822 kW in the USA.
IT penetration: The present indicators of IT
penetration in Indian society are far from
satisfactory. The personal computer (PC)
penetration is 0.58% (Asia is at 3.24% and
world average is at 7.96%).

 The

installed base of computers is 7 million

and a new computer still cost more than
Indian Rupees (INR) 20,000 plus basic
additional software (MS Windows, MS Office
and anti-virus) costing an additional INR
20,000.
Teledensity: Despite ongoing deregulation of
Indias telecommunications sector, its
national tele-density is one of the lowest in
the world,

 The

development of telecoms in rural areas

to increase teledensity from the current
level of 1.49% (2003) to 5% by 2014.
Internet industry: The current Internet
subscriber base is only 0.4%, in sharp
contrast to Asian countries as Korea with 58,
Malaysia with 11 and China with 2%

 India

has around half a million software

developers and is second only to the US.
But 300,000 Indian villages do not have a
phone connection.
70 per cent of the Indian population have no
access to any form of technology.
26 per cent of the population lies below the
poverty line and 35 per cent illiterate.

 There

are only 5 PCs per 1000 people, 9

mobile lines per 1000 and 37 fixed lines per
1000 people in India, which is extremely low
as compared to China.

 Connectivity:

The digital gap is most evident

at the phase of connectivity: the lack of
affordable access to PCs, Internet devices,
modems, telephone lines, and Internet
connections. Steps to reduce this gap include
devising cheaper access devices (such as
publicly accessible kiosks), lowering tariffs
on the import of computers and modems,
creating Internet community access centers

(with leased lines and shared devices), and

bringing down access prices by creating a
favorable climate of competition among
Internet service providers (ISPs).
Work has begun on initiatives to increase
Internet diffusion via kiosks (in Bangladesh),
community centers (in Peru), cybercafs (in
Ecuador), and wireless delivery and non-PC
devices (in India), but much innovation and
investment are still called for.

 Digital

gaps between nations arise not just in

number and density of ISPs, hosts connected
to the Net, proportion of individual users
online, Internet diffusion ratios, and number
of
organizations
with
leased-line
connections. The imbalance also extends to
content in terms of number of Web sites in
developing countries, amount of local
language content, and use of online content
by key sectors.

According
to
the
International
Telecommunications Union, there were more
hosts in New York than in all of Africa, and
more than 80 percent of Web pages were in
English.

There are at least seven measures of market maturity

for online content in a country (Rao et al., "Internet
Content in South Asia: Opportunities and Realities").
total number of Web sites about (and published in)
the country
local relevance and usefulness of this content
local language standardization and usage on the
Web

 amount

of subnational content (about states,

provinces, and cities)
presence of metacontent such as directories
and search engines
amount of ad revenues that target online
audiences via these sites
presence of third-party services from online
traffic auditors, ad revenue auditors, and
market research groups

 Online

and offline forums need to be actively

promoted in order to bring in larger and
more diverse sections of communities to
discuss
issues
of
common
interest,
particularly the issue of how to creatively
tackle the digital divide.
While much attention is focused on Web
publishing, e-mail forums for content
distribution and discussion still can play a
useful role-especially in areas where
bandwidth is low and the quality of phone
connections is poor.

 Advanced

Internet economies have moved

beyond basic Internet infrastructure to
dynamic e-commerce infrastructure in the
form of payment gateways, secure channels,
digital certification authorities, overnight
courier services, third-party audit services,
and online tracking capabilities.

 To

move beyond being mere destinations for

e-commerce sales from U.S. and European
sites, emerging economies need to close the
e-commerce gap by effectively building a
domestic Internet economy and promoting
online transactional capabilities for the
consumer, business, and government sectorsB2C, B2B, C2C, G2C, and G2B. This includes
the updating of existing business and

intellectual property rights laws to

accommodate electronic contracts, online
funds transfer, and stronger consumer fraud
protection laws. Malaysia's cyberbill and
India's information technology bill fall into
this category

 To

close the digital skills gap, emerging

economies need to improve the capacity of
their workforces to play roles in the Internet
age. This includes improving Internet access
and educational offerings in schools and
colleges, creating digital libraries for
universities, and promoting professional
training institutes.

 Challenges

also arise in closing the

technical/legal gap in crucial capacity areas
such as cyberlaw. Legal developments
concerning content classification, regulation,
and enforcement in countries around the
world
must
be
tracked.
Regional
representatives from industry, academia, and
government should try to be present in
forums of the UN, WTO, OECD, G-7, ASEAN,

APEC that deal with cyberspace content

issues such as intellectual property rights,
copyright protection, online privacy, online
crimes, and digital watermarks.

 Culture

represents probably the biggest

challenge in closing the digital gap. It
involves overcoming cultural inhibitions and
insecurities about developing competence
for surviving the breakneck speed of the
Internet age.
getting government telecom players to invest
in areas like R&D on Internet telephony

 It

also includes getting career-track

diplomats, bureaucrats, academics, and
public-sector employees to take up Internet
training and harness the opportunities as
well as the plentiful challenges that
accompany Internet diffusion.
Making government procedures transparent

 No

single sector can take on the Internet

economy by itself; much cooperation at the
national level is needed to overcome the
gaps between government, academia, the
private sector, civil society, and international
organizations.
This should happen at the state or provincial,
national, and regional levels

 Activities

such as forming Internet

advertising bureaus, national Internet
industry associations, and chapters of the
Internet Society fall into this category
A better characterization would perhaps be
the term co-opetition traditional competitors
teaming up to grow the entire Internet pie
instead of fighting over small slices

 Government

should focus on creating open

investment climates for the incubation,
launch, acceleration, and initial-publicoffering phases of an Internet start-up.
The Government need not spend excessive
funds on incubation projects of its own; it
should create conditions and safeguards
conducive to the movement of domestic and
international capital into the New Economy.

 As

for the capital for software investments,

use of freeware and shareware packages and
tools should be encouraged when possible
instead of reliance on costly proprietary
software solutions such as in the use of the
Linux operating system and Apache Web
server for digital publishing

 National

information policies, IT, knowledge

society, e-Govt, technology transfer, rural
transfer, etc. Moral and ethical framework,
Issues of information sovereignty versus
information media and cultural hegemony of
the powerful western industrialized nations,
use of economic power to force principals of
market capitalism on small economies.

 The

imperative comprehensive digital

inclusion strategies is not solely tried to
economic issues but also Government agency
their own e-Govt. initiative to improve
citizen services and optimized operational
efficiency. As a result a growing number of
services are being offered to the public
online these include-

 Financial

assistance
Food assistance
Training opportunities.
Recreational facilities and programme

 Many

Efforts can be seen to bridge the

Digital Divide in India.
Many efforts can be reflected From the
initiatives of the Govt., Private sector and
also the Digital Libraries.

Thank You